Labor’s Senator Pratt says that she is a lesbian who is in a relationship with a transgender partner, Aram Hosie. Hosie was born female and is now male.
Really? Is Pratt (probably unwittingly) insulting her partner by saying he is not really a man? Or is she leaving herself open to engage with other females (in which case she should probably identify as bi-sexual)?
Ah, the complexity of modern relationships.
Bernardi was wrong to bring bestiality into the slippery slope argument against gay marriage. A fundamental aspect of a marriage is consent, something that cannot be received from non-humans.
But all other forms of human relationships (provided it involves consent by those intellectually capable of giving consent) could potentially be included as a marriage. If it is unfair to homosexuals not to be allowed to marry, it is also unfair for trios etc. But I’m against gay marriage for other reasons.
It is an unfortunate side-effect of our ‘representative democracy’ that we get MPs who are ‘less’ than what we really need. It seems they, as individuals’ are often choosing less for themselves. too.
But I object. It is an affront to me that we get Governments populated by people whose views, opinions and activities, policies and practices, ideologies and obsessions, are diametrically opposite of what is needed to represent me. It is disrespectful.
Maybe I should riot in the streets and demand ‘respect’ like the Islamists do. These MPs disrespect me far more than a cartoonist disrespects Mohammed [slight edit. Sinc]
Gay marriage is not the start of the slippery slope, it’s probably somewhere half-way down.
But maybe it doesn’t matter as much as we think…
Sounds like Julia and Stedman.
So…hang on… she’s a woman in a relationship with a man. Sounds very hetero to me.
What is your point in raising Senator Pratt’s personal life? She has not hidden her personal life, I do remember a newspaper article a number of years ago in which Senator Pratt actively participated. This is Australia and generally it is agreed that personal lives are not raked over in the media. Senator Pratt deserves some privacy.
Does Pratt’s partner wear a strap-on like Pickering’s Julia? Sorry, I’m just not getting the science here. Last time I checked, you could turn a male into a pretend female with a scalpel and hormones, but the reverse of that project is not available to females. Is there a doctor in the house who could it explain it to me?
So if a man has a sex change to become a woman and is in a relationship with a woman who had a sex change to be a man, would this still be a hetro sexual marriage?……..hold on my brain is hurting.
What if the man donated his wedding tackle to the female having the sex change? This might bring new meaning to the term “go fuck yourself”……ohh brain still hurting.
I think it is Tom, the proceedure is called an Addadicktoome.
Labor’s senator Pratt is just that-a pratt!
Some things:
1) Gab is right.
2) Tom: so, you’re saying that if you lose your penis to cancer or an industrial accident that you will be less of a man, or not one at all?
3) Tom: also read up on intersex conditions. I’m really very familiar with them, having had surgery for some anomalies.
4) Yep, she’s insulting her partner, IMO.
5) The intersex stuff notwithstanding, as a consequence of my transition, SRS etc., I was granted the right to change my birth certificate by a magistrate under the laws of Sth Aust. Consequently, I can legally marry a man. Please note that I’ve never seen myself as anything other than female.
and …
6) I believe the Marriage Act should be repealed. At the moment, marriages under it are three-ways between the state and a couple of whom it approves. People will make their own arrangements, and it is not for the government to concern itself with them.
E.
Tell us, e-girl, what were the “anomalies” you had corrected?
I know nothing about this stuff but I think Pratt’s partner could be a guy who had his tallywacker lopped off, so a pretend girl. If still a guy on the paperwork presumably they could marry.
BTW I really didn’t need to know about this Pratt.
JamesK. He’s the in-house Cat general practitioner and surgeon. He answers all questions of a medical nature.
Senator Pratt’s partner. Hmmm.
Mmmm Senator Bernardi wasn’t too far off the mark.
CC’s second link should be sent to Bolt and Abbot .
Some of the comments above demean this site and the economic discussions and presentations. I would ask the moderator to remove those containing personal invective towards public and private persons. Prurient interest is not public interest. An apology us also owed to SenatorPratt and her partner.
Bernardi was wrong to bring bestiality into the slippery slope argument against gay marriage. A fundamental aspect of a marriage is consent, something that cannot be received from non-humans.
Not at all, Samuel J. The point of the slippery slope argument here was to ask what in fact isfundamental to marriage if not, in part, that it is a relationship between a man and a woman? It seems to me that this element is as important as consent. Now, if the former can be ignored why not the latter, at some future time?
But all other forms of human relationships (provided it involves consent by those intellectually capable of giving consent) could potentially be included as a marriage.
Well, yes, this is a problem because marriage is being reduced to any type of human relationship rather than a particular type of human relationship, but on what grounds, given the above reduction, should marriage be limited to human relationships? If marriage is not a particular type of human relationship, namely, an exclusive relationship between the sexes entered into for life, than it is whatever it is we say it is, and thus could be a relationship ‘between the species’ if we so choose.
I suggest the embarrassment this caused was proportional to the absence of a reasonable reply.
Exactly, DB. Thanks for making the point much better than I could.
Cory Bernardi deserves a profound apology. All he was saying was: if we lose sight of one essential aspect of marriage here, what’s to say we won’t lose sight of others down the track? A perfectly reasonable, logical and historically-informed and pertinent question. For that he was dumped, by a mob that, in all probability, heartily agrees with him behind closed doors (weirdos like “Catholic” Turnbull excepted).
My God, where are we headed?
Good point Samuel J. Is Pratt hetero or homosexual (irrespective of how she describes herself)?
The audiences of Elizabethan drama greatly enjoyed complex disguise plots where female characters (who were male actors) disguised themselves as males in order, say, to meet their male lovers and then due to some complication as males had to disguise themselves as females.
It all gets very metaphysical.
Tom, although the subject (particularly the pictures) is one of the few things that makes me queasy I can clarify a little.
There are multiple operations to produce some kind of penis. These days very thin skin is grafted from elsewhere, the crucial bit being connection of the nerves in the donor area to the pelvic nerves. This means the graft has some kind of erotic sensation.
My understanding is that not everyone would pursue this (“phallopasty”). The cosmetic results are a problem, and some donor sites can look quite unsightly (eg forearms).
DB is right Samuel – your ‘fundamental’ may seem just as optional as gender to someone else. And does any kind of sexual union need to be part of the new marriage definition?
” … if you leave the key under the mat, more people than just you can use it. … If a man is lusting for something, by what principle can we deny him a marital imprimatur for it? By what standard? …..
So logic eventually catches up with us, and we have the first state that allows bisexuals to marry. Our long national nightmare is over. So Bob marries both Suzy and George, and everybody’s happy, right? But are Suzy and George married too? It seems that we should allow it, but the fact that Bob is deeply in love with Suzy, and also in love with George, and vice versa, does not mean at all that George and Suzy need to have the hots for one another. But . . . they too are bisexual. Oh, no! This means that Suzy has Bob, but gets to pick Kimberly for her three-way marriage. Kimberly is also bisexual, and she is married to Henry. In the meantime, George has met Megan, the love of his life, girl-wise. Megan is bi also, and she has Gloria waiting in the wings. Still with me?
Now there are certain legal questions, like whether this is going to be a great big globule marriage, with Kimberly being married, kinda, to Bob and to George, making it a marital orgy, or whether this is actually going to be a chain of discrete marriages. Some may look at this arrangement and see the world’s largest daisy chain, but I see a cash cow for marriage and family attorneys.”
(The whole blog post is here.)
the Defence budget needs further adjustment for …; … the falling price of steel is of concern to Australia because …; … garbage collection in Lower Beechmont will be a day late this week due to …
Why do we pay a quarter of a million a year to self absorbed kiddies whose most pressing concern in parliamentary life is to bore us with details of their strange coupling habits?
Now I find this girl-thing jags the bloody trifecta – she has a Yarts Degree (it says she “studied” Yarts, which is usually code for “not up to daunting task of actually finishing it”) and she has not worked a day in her life. All she’s done in 20 adult years is imitate Your Julia in student unions and hung around politicians’ offices licking envelopes.
And old post from an Australian Anglican vicar.
Another one from my favourite Marxist. Imagine the whole weight of the state behind that bile.
An inconvenient truth – especially to über-wet Libs like Turnbull: most gay marriage advocates who are GLBT have no intention of getting married. (Many advocates are not GLBT, and many GLBT are hostile or indifferent to marriage).
Question for every feminist, Green, queer theorist and leftist advocating for gay marriage: you’ve just spent sixty years denigrating marriage as an oppressive patriarchal insititution and now you want in? Pardon me if I doubt your sincerity.
Paul Kelly of The Australian has been correct both times he’s written on the subject in recent months: gay marriage is an ideology.
gay marriage is an ideology.
I would venture to say it’s simply the cause du jour.
yeah but some do. Sure, maybe not many, but some.
No, she’s still female and always will be.
Note that the left-wing Sydney Morning Herald commits a casual, preposterous howler of anti-scientific creationism – all in the interests of ideology (or, better, secular religiosity).
DrBeauGan – Bolt and Abbott have no interest in truth on this matter. They are both playing politics. The speed with which both denounced Bernardi for something he didn’t say and a link he didn’t make was instructive and in my opinion, quite disgusting.
Abbott may have been victim, in part, to some vicious internal party politics but there’s no denying he’s also a populist. Bolt has no excuse.
Either way the losers are us.
confused over Pratt? i was more confused, actually horrified, when i clicked the link and Michelle Grattons mug shot was on the right. Bunyip was right to query what gender/species that thing is.
it does appear to be a slap in the face to Pratts partner. she’s obviously tried desperately to become a bloke only for Pratt to label herself a lesbian?!?
That’s good. Marriage is a good thing. Let them know that they are free to marry an opposite gendered person under the same restrictions as everyone else – no children, siblings, other people’s spouses, same sex spouse, dogs etc. Remind them that we do indeed have “marriage equality”.
A few definitions:
The Old French word gai as in ‘happy’.
Homosexual is somebody attracted to a person of the same sex.
So why all these euphemisms?
Marriage is between a man and a woman.
If people want to change their bodies for non-medical reasons, what is left that is natural?
All this confusion is reminiscent of the USSR peace campaign to disarm the West. The media went along with the USSR like the media now goes along with the warmists. Now the media and other confused people want to change the language again to accommodate a civil union of homosexuals.
Some time back, and I wish I could find it again, The Australian ran a bizarre opinion piece by some leftist who said, the left had no reason to exist anymore so let’s just take up gay rights. So you may not be wrong there either Gab.
Very well said, Dover. Sums it up succinctly.
In a female to male sex change the “tallywhacker” can be made using flesh from the inside of the forearm.
The internet is an amazing thing.
Ms. Pratt may not be confused about it all, but I am confused by her terminologies, which only serve to complicate unnecessarily. This is a sad field where ideologies abound regarding how to treat aberrations in the genetic sex code. A very considered medical competence is required to produce reasonable outcomes regarding these aberrations. They are not normal, but in general neither are they ‘intersex’ although they may present unusual genital and secondary sex characteristics.
Genetic sex is sometimes a can of worms, thus ‘intersex’ individuals and conclusions are best left to medical determination and correction where possible. The chromosomal picture is essentially one of either male or female, just one gone awry, just as in other genetic syndromes.
From some of the material I have read on this, intruding politicised ‘gender’ concepts into the intersex debate helps not at all, and intruding these concepts into a situation where a child is genetically normal (i.e. either male or female) is quite unwarranted intervention.
I know though that there are many who would disagree with such strong views and would wish to argue otherwise, and this is not a field where hurtful views help, so I am also a willing listener to alternative feelings – except in the case of realignment of children to a non-genetic gender, especially if they are genetically completely normal to their ‘non-preferred’ gender.
e-Girl, it does concern the government as many benefits are paid on your marital status.
I would like polygamy legalised. I would go to Thailand weekly and marry a local and bring her here, as a citizen of this country, along with all her relatives. Hey, they let the boats in!
I always thought opponents of gay marriage are a good example of Olsonian special-interest distributional coalitions. Filthy statists the lot of them. Same could be said of the advocates though. Abolish the marriage act.
Trannies are nice people but…
I always thought opponents of gay marriage are a good example of Olsonian special-interest distributional coalitions.
No, there is a clear public interest in marriage.
It seems to me that this element is as important as consent. Now, if the former can be ignored why not the latter [consent], at some future time?
Why not, indeed? We already have a subset of the migrant population which has a proclivity to arrange marriages for its mid-teenage daughters to partners they’ve never met. But it’ll all be in the name of “cultural sensitivity”, of course. The navel-gazing professional ethicists will frame consent as a Western-centric social construct and shout down the sensible objections in the name of “tolerance”.
And NAMBLA will punch the air in triumph.
Marriage is already whatever we say it is. You refuse to countenance the reality, db, that you have already lost that argument. Marriage is a social construct. The Marriage Act was not inscribed on tablets brought down from Mt Sinai.
Same sex marriage is inevitable in Western countries. The politicians just haven’t caught up with popular opinion yet. A large and growing majority of people agree that marriage is a solid enough social institution to include gay couples without destroying it.
A more interesting question for you lot is this: if your debating points are so watertight as you keep claiming, why have you so comprehensively lost the argument? Normal people do not care at all for your slippery slope bleatings. They don’t see your arguments about beagle love as being legitimate in any way. Those who advance such arguments, like Bernardi, are seen as creepy weirdoes. Why has it come to the point where strong defenders of traditional marriage are now shunned and shamed? Please confine your answers to the right’s position on this issue, without reference to vast left wing conspiracies or other such weak excuses.
A woman who prefers sex with other women is a lesbian.
A woman who prefers sex with men is a hetero.
Louise Pratt is not a lesbian.
She’s just another lying slapper of a Labor c**t looking for an angle.
The proceedure is called an “addadicktoome”.
You’re a fuckwit leftist with Orwellian dystopian echoes, m0nty.
For leftists anything is what leftists lately say it is.
As somebody with an ounce of grey matter (unlike m0nty) once said: ‘If you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything’?
Fat boy, it was only the other day that you suggested heterosexual sex wasn’t needed anymore, which I suppose highlights examples like SteveC using a plastic sex doll called Kimberly and you – still a virgin at young age of 38.
Actually Monster, Fat Boy has a point about the right’s concerns with marriage.
The state intervening on behalf of feminists to attack marriage have basically made the entire thing a sham. Young hetro males should not marry. Period.
Confused? She’s insane.
Gay ‘marriage’ is dead.
We won.
And so one of the left’s most devoted fuckwits reinforces the mission: anything not designed by the left must be destroyed.
To dismiss a valid use of the slippery slope argument is foolish. What folk are trying to point out is that your presuppositions, if followed consistently, will logically lead to certain outcomes.
The point that you do not follow through consistently with your argument, does not mean that someone else won’t. CC’s link at 7.28pm is a consistent use of the ‘marriage is what we say it is’ argument.
Remember, it wasn’t long ago that the ‘ick’ or ‘creepy-weirdo’ factor was alive and well in our community at the thought of homosexual relationships. With enough exposure and bombardment, ‘ick’ factors can be neutralised, or at least forced underground. The ancient Romans seemed very ‘un-icky’ about their entertainments – one seems to be able to become inured to a lot. Of course, whether that’s a good thing is another question.
Q. If informed consent is the only barrier to normalising and legalising deviant behaviours such as pedophilia and beastiality – then what is to stop other deviants advocating the normalisation/legalisation of sexual relations/marriage between immediate family members (brother/brother, sister/sister, brother/sister, dad/daughter, mum/son etc)?
After all, aren’t they all consenting adults, don’t they claim to love each other, and why shouldn’t they agitate for equality as well, especially given that pills and procedures can be undertaken to ensure that no genetically compromised offspring result from such matings.
A question for the gay marriage advocates to ponder.
Marriage is already whatever we say it is.
And so monty’s response to Bernardi’s question is that the only thing stopping the marriage of man and beagle is bigotry and beastophobia.
Yep, and can indicate consent far more clearly than say, a goat.
Sorry, you accidentally brought up an important point AM Fortas.
The way the senate works today is not the way the framers of the constitution of Australia intended. It is no longer a house of review for the original juristictions that governed the continent – the “states”.
Due to the fact the processes of appointing senators and the byzantine nature of voting I contend that only Nick Xenephon was elected via representitive democracy.
As a result this Senator Pratt is merely a machine politician who will never have to face the electorate in a real contest. Therefore, she can have a lifestyle that may be out of sync of ordinary voters in NSW and she never be questioned for it.
Seriously, could a nasty master of thuggery & crony capitalism like Conroy survive an open election?
Andrew Brown:
Rule 2 “No argument or point of view, no matter how controversial, will be censored subject to the conditions listed above.”
Please check them out under the heading “Pages” on the right.
That’s quite an encapsulation of the utter, barking obsessive insanity of the modern day left.
Same Sex Marriage.
Who cares?
At least it keeps the Left busy and occupied.
According to Singer the animal gives implied consent, I guess by not resisting too much.
What regular folk – you know, normal people – would do in response to such an argument is stare at you in horror as if you just suggested a nice steaming bowl of feces for lunch… and henceforth ignore you. They wouldn’t even engage your argument, because it doesn’t make any sense to them.
I’ve been thinking about the answer to my question about why you lot are so comprehensively losing the public debate on this issue, since none of you have the gumption to even start answering it. I think the underlying answer is that to normal folk, there are only two sets of people in society suggesting that it is at all logical to accept bestiality or polygamy: those who want to engage in such deviant practices, and those who are trying to defend traditional marriage. The two groups are becoming equally shameful in the eyes of the general public. The more that conservative marriage advocates say that bestiality is a direct consequence of the majority view on marriage, the more the majority shun those making that argument and put those making that argument in the same category as actual bestiality advocates.
In short: conservative marriage advocates have lain down with dogs, and now they have fleas.
That may once have been true, but I don’t believe there are any benefits now which you can receive based on being married that you can’t receive (or alternatively be ineligible for) based on being in a de-facto or long term relationship.
My prediction is polygamy/polyamory will eventually come up, though it may be a few decades away. People essentially live in these sorts of relationships anyway, and not just those with religious (Islamic/Mormon spin off/etc) backgrounds that support it.
For example, those who have long term extra-marital affairs are basically in polyamorous relationships (especially when their married partner “knows” about it) even if they don’t recognise them as such. And the courts in Australia recently gave some legal recognition to the effect awarding a long term mistress financial award on separation akin to what a de-facto would receive.
Some very odd arguments are here.
Civil unions are no substitute because it can lead to inadvertent outing. WTF?
Dude…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jIRXcfNdow
It is worse when your drunk mate at karaoke outs the trannie in the redneck biker pub!
Don’t ask.
I’m pretty sure Senator Pratt can suck it up if that poor bastard/woman had to cop that.
Who is the “we” in the assertion? You and your ilk want to supplant the wisdom hundreds and even thousands of years of lived experience with the latest invented “right”.
Today some people are prepared manipulate science and the laws just to get what they want regardless of the wider consequences. There is no boundary some people will not cross or tradition they will not trample on to get what they want – all in the name of a phony interpretation of “equality”.
Some people – but thankfully far from all people.
UPDATE:
The gay ‘marriage’ debate is over.
We won.
Why am I not surprised that Tom would ask that question!
Perhaps for this term of government federally. It will come up again in future ones, and it looks now like multiple state governments (even Liberal lead ones) have legislation in the works….
Marriage is all about being de jure not de facto. That matters, it matters a lot, so much so that gay people want to appropriate marriage. They, and the Courts, can sort out those things that are not marriage and create new forms of unions. That is all that is necessary, in my book. Or this book below, wherein my parents made their hopeful vows and their parents and all before them, back into time. That powerful statement is good enough heritage for me, a non-believer who believes in marriage and the foundational power of the Western tradition to set our institutional pathways along ways proven to be valuable if followed well. Other ways of loving bonds can exist and grow, but this one is extant and inviolable:
“DEARLY beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought, in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of Saint Paul to be honourable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.
First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name.
Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body.
Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace. “
What is confusing about any of this?
The problem with all that Lizzie is that it is based on the belief that God invented marriage. Does that preclude atheists from that kind of “marriage”?
What regular folk – you know, normal people – would do in response to such an argument is stare at you in horror as if you just suggested a nice steaming bowl of feces for lunch… and henceforth ignore you. They wouldn’t even engage your argument, because it doesn’t make any sense to them.
This would have been the reaction to the argument for SSM fifty years ago.
I’ve been thinking about the answer to my question about why you lot are so comprehensively losing the public debate on this issue
We just won that argument, monty, sorry to say.
I think the underlying answer is that to normal folk, there are only two sets of people in society suggesting that it is at all logical to accept bestiality or polygamy: those who want to engage in such deviant practices,…
So polygamy is ‘deviant’ but SSM is A-OK, according to monty, the social constructionist, for no particular reason. But, no, the traditional marriage crowd is not arguing that it is logical to accept polygamy/ bestiality, for obvious reasons; we are saying that given the position of those such as yourself, you and they have no grounds at all to deny marriage to either of these groups.
No, it doesn’t. Richard Dawkins describes himself as a ‘cultural Christian‘ and he’s not the only athiest who enjoys living in a society shaped by Christian values.
The problem with all that Lizzie is that it is based on the belief that God invented marriage. Does that preclude atheists from that kind of “marriage”?
Why would it preclude marriage to atheists? Does the biblical claim that Man is made in imago dei mean that reason and will are precluded to atheists? No.
Two thirds of Australians and growing fast, up two points in the last six months.
This is the problem you lot have, isn’t it? You are arguing on behalf of people who have sex with animals. Normal people hear that line of reasoning and can’t get past the instant reaction that you’re being creepy, like Creepy Cory. This is why you lose the argument, and the majority in favour of SSM is ever growing.
It’s like you’re some hidebound old fart who won’t even go to a Thai restaurant because you’re afraid that they will make you eat fried dog. Loony stuff.
It has been self evident that marriage is a union between opposite sexes in every culture and religion throughout history.
Why are we even arguing with people who now try to tell us that white is really black (or fifty shades of grey lol).
You are arguing on behalf of people who have sex with animals.
No, no. We are simply asking you to provide reasons, given the change to an essential aspect of marriage you, etc. want to bring about, that would exclude polygamy and bestiality from being included within the ambit of marriage at some future time. At the moment, given your repeated failure to provide any reasons, I can only conclude that you have no reasons to exclude them from the ambit of marriage now or in the future.
Marriage is a hetro institution, simple. Homosexuals have other legal avenues that recognise their status as a couple, they need to accept that.
Looks like Creepy Cory has some eminent company:
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/senate-approves-bill-legalizes-sodomy-and-bestiality-us-military
straight people need to resist this gay jihad to expropriate what is fundamentally not theirs.
Why am I not surprised that a sycophant for the most extreme and unpopular government in Australian history would pretend that manufactured sexual freaks are “normal”?
Nice one Tom, you are calling e-girl, who presumably you have no knowledge of at all, a “manufactured sexual freak”. What a turd you truly are.
I would have thought that a more important issue is why the Liberal Coalition would not allow a Conscious vote?
Surely the deabte is over as far as the general public is concerned, every opinion poll I have read puts it somewhere in the 70% odd in favour of same sex marriage.
straight people need to resist this gay jihad to expropriate what is fundamentally not theirs.
@Dan what the hell are you talking about? Surely you cant mean marriage, dont we all have the right to love and to choose, you know like in religion. Sorry Dan but I thought that freedom was fundamentally everyones.
Not according to the marriage act, hence civil unions.
Dover, I think you are correct that you cannot logically approve SSM and reject polyandry or polygamy. But it is puerile to suggest that the same would apply to marrying your beagle.
The constitution gives the commonwealth power to legislate for marriage, but does not otherwise define marriage. Section 116 establishes that Australia is a secular state and so clearly any faith-based notion of marriage is irrelevant to the legislative power of the commonwealth.
It has been established in past threads that marriage is no different from other social institutions in that it can evolve, so the conservative argument against SSM disappears and you are left with the faith-based argument of: “God hates that” (Lev 18-22) and that brings us back to the secular State along with the general unreason of basing any policy on the imaginary strictures of a fantasy creature proferred by a small group of dusty semitic goat-herders.
A man having his body mutilated is saddening somehow – getting perfectly healthy functioning bits of the body cut off, it feels all kinds of wrong, when there’s no illness or cancer to treat.
but guess they feel very deeply they were the wrong sex when born, to undergo life changing surgery.
dont we all have the right to love and to choose
Yes, we do, and nothing is stopping this now.
You can declare victory in your little word game if you like, db, but me and two thirds of the population look at your entire argument with distaste and revulsion, and refuse to participate. You can’t convince us to give your fantasy of legalised bestiality any credibility whatsoever.
Peter Singer has tried more than a few times, Fat Boy.
candy
http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Memoir-Deirdre-N-McCloskey/dp/0226556697/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348464964&sr=1-2&keywords=diedre+mccloskey
Well the US Senate just legalised it.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/senate-approves-bill-legalizes-sodomy-and-bestiality-us-military
Dover, I think you are correct that you cannot logically approve SSM and reject polyandry or polygamy. But it is puerile to suggest that the same would apply to marrying your beagle.
It isn’t puerile at all; if anyone had asserted the possibility of SSM in 1912 they would have similarly been accused of being puerile, and yet.
It has been established in past threads that marriage is no different from other social institutions in that it can evolve, so the conservative argument against SSM disappears
No. Marriage is generally and legally defined as an exclusive, life-long, relationship between the sexes in all cultures and societies, and it is all of these things because of the functions it serves in society. If you are going to say it has ‘evolved’, well, in what sense has it ‘evolved’ in respect of exclusivity, life-long, and between the sexes? Certainly, other aspects of marriage have changed, but not these aspects, since they’re intimately related to the social functions of the institution.
and you are left with the faith-based argument of: “God hates that” (Lev 18-22)
No, the arguments I’ve presented are not at all “faith-based”. But it’s curious and instructive that the only argument you could possibly have against a man marrying his beagle or a polyamorous arrangement is “Society hates that”.
You can declare victory
I didn’t; the Federal Parliament just did.
You can’t convince us to give your fantasy of legalised bestiality any credibility whatsoever.
monty is still unable to provide any reasons given his own position. The poverty of SSM.
Dover, beagles can’t reach agreements. Marriage is an agreement.
“Marriage is generally and legally defined as an exclusive, life-long, relationship between the sexes in all cultures and societies, and it is all of these things because of the functions it serves in society. If you are going to say it has ‘evolved’, well, in what sense has it ‘evolved’ in respect of exclusivity, life-long, and between the sexes?”
And during most of that time people have widely, and wrongly, regarded homosexuality as an abomination. Now that we know better we don’t have to have those constraints. You can’t divorce this debate from the traditional religious views and we are now at the point where those views are not relevant to the State.
You’ll notice if you look again that wasn’t the argument I made about beagles and polygamy. Lev 18-12 is about male homosexuality and it sure looks to me that idea still underpins much of the argument against SSM.
The State currently dicriminates and the challenge for conservatives is to justify the continuation of that discrimination. I couldn’t think of a reason to discriminate so I changed my views on SSM.
The only person less relevant than you lot on the Cat.
Oh why would he be less relevant, Fat Boy?
It’s not enough to show disdain at the cat, Minnesota. You also need to explain why.
I’m not offering any real opinion on SSM, it’s just that I find your stance and outsized sneering to be pretty objectionable.
outsized… pun intended, Minnesota.
Has anyone taken Peter Singer seriously in the last two decades? He’s got about as much credibility as Steve K. He’s the Screaming Lord Sutch of Australia.
Honeymoon gone wrong?
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/world/new-zealand-hospital-removes-asparagus-sized-eel-from-mans-bottom/story-fnd12peo-1226479886293
Fat Boy,
He’s has a professorship at what is arguably no.1 university in the world.
Someone must think he’ssignificant, Minnesota. Perhaps the board of selectors at Princeton stands to be corrected by you. Could happen I guess. At some stage the earth is also likely to get hit by a gamma ray burst.
Gillard awarded him a companion of the Order of Australia.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/queens-birthday-honours-2012/award-for-singer-madness/story-fne95kwp-1226391654246
Dover, beagles can’t reach agreements. Marriage is an agreement.
Why must it be an “agreement” but not a relationship “between the sexes”? You seem to be picking what is and isn’t essential without any accompanying reasons. I certainly can point to it involving an agreement but I don’t see how you can without also affirming that it involves a relationship between the sexes.
And during most of that time people have widely, and wrongly, regarded homosexuality as an abomination. Now that we know better we don’t have to have those constraints. You can’t divorce this debate from the traditional religious views and we are now at the point where those views are not relevant to the State.
This doesn’t address my point. Even if homosexuality was not considered an abomination it cannot, in and of itself, serve the social function of marriage in society. So, in fact, it can be divorced from a consideration of the morality of homosexuality.
The State currently dicriminates
Yes it does, but it is justified. SSM cannot serve the social functions that marriage provides in and of itself. As it stands, the only discrimination involves a refusal to recognize long-term SSR as marriages. Apart from this there is no discrimination.
Lol IT. Good find.
Question to the general readership.
Has there ever been a time when fat boy hasn’t walked off with his large tail in between his legs?
Ever?
Honest question by the way.
Has there ever been a time when you, JC, have had an unshaven face? You’re permanently swarthy. Are you sure you’re not an Ashkenazi Jew? Your resemblance to Eugene Levy is uncanny.
Gays and their supporters should really rethink their aims. Homosexuality has gone from being a criminal act, then a mental health diagnosis to becoming as one commenter put it, a “sacred untouchable minority group” which it is verboten to offend. Why not quit while you are ahead?
My feeling is that gays demanding ss marriage are not acting in good faith as they seem totally unconcerned that radical change to marriage would deeply distress a large proportion of the population – not just the religious folk. Not only do they not give a toss, they rub in their lack of concern by labelling them all homophobes. They show no understanding of the huge concession they are demanding. They think it is not a concession but an inalienable right (that they have just discovered apparently). They show no decency. They show no respect.
Minnesota, Monst.
You make it sound as though having a likeness to Ashkenazi is somehow a bad thing. This is the second time you’ve reached here, Minn.
I’m quite contented with the color of my skin, light or “swarthy” and unable to do a thing about it. I’m also untropubled if I looked Jewish. However you could do something about your weight judging by the pics DavidJ has nicely put up which were in the public domain.
Stop behaving like a super-sized bogan, Fat Boy.
Monster talking about marriage, ffs. His opinion on most things is irrelevant at best, but this is just taking the piss.
Also why is monster pretending to be offended by Bernardi’s slippery slope to bestiality argument? Lets be honest his only hope of love and marriage is a non consenting dog, pig or rat.
Yeah righto, Eugene. Have you thought about getting your massive unsightly eyebrows clipped, Little Johnny style? They’re Groucho sized. It’s like you’ve got matching hamsters taped to your forehead.
So raising children is the only social function of marriage? Nothing else matters? That’s crap. Clearly, many people marry with no intention or prospects of having children. What’s more, it’s biblical crap and therefore no business of the State.
“Even if homosexuality was not considered an abomination it cannot, in and of itself, serve the social function of marriage in society. So, in fact, it can be divorced from a consideration of the morality of homosexuality.”
I don’t think you even know what you are trying to say there!
Minn
The last thing you ought to be doing is focusing on the small shit like eyebrows. If I were you I’d be concentrating on how to reduce 60 kilos. You’ll feel better and end up thanking me in the end.
Focus on the big stuff.
Viva, how is it distressing to you if gays get married? How does it affect you at all? AFAICT my marriage won’t be affected in the slighest. It won’t mean a tinker’s cuss to me if two gays get married unless they happen to be my friends and then I’ll be glad to see them happy.
That sort of claim is really difficult to understand. It sure smacks of bigotry.
“the social function of marriage in society”
Which has changed enormously over the years. Women’s lib, the welfare state, compulsory education, technological advances… these and other factors have all impacted on the traditional social function of marriage.
JC, you should be more worried about being mistaken for a Middle Eastern Muslim. There must be an ASIO file on you already as long as your swarthy arm. There’s a spot in a cell in Guantanamo waiting for you and a hose with your name on it.
Monty, stop being so racist.
mUttley, what is this creepy obsession about?
Last week you were literally begging JC for lifestyle tips.
I don’t get it…
Fat Boy…
Lol so now I’m a mere Muslim rather than looking like a mere Ashkenazi Jew. Feeling a little guilty for plastering the site with some of the most racist crap we’ve seen here, Fat boy?
(Lefttwing turds really can’t help themselves).
What a super sized bogan you are.
And Monst, you shouldn’t be critical of anyone’s looks. Ever!
Either way, you’re so swarthy that you’re almost a dead ringer for Alec Guinness as Prince Feisal, except with Groucho’s massive painted on eyebrows. Is it natural or do you use bronzing cream? Or maybe a solarium?
It’s not either way, Minn. I don’t really care for myself, but you’ve made perhaps some of the most racist comments (showing your true state of mind) that we’ve ever seen here at the Cat.
All I did was try and help you about your obesity issues and possibly prolong your life.
Thankless douchebag.
You’re the one who always starts this stuff, JC, then you get butthurt on the rare occasions when I escalate it in return. You’re a bully, plain and simple. And as with all bullies, you don’t like it when you get called on your bullshit. You give it with gay abandon, but you can’t take it without bleating and crying. You are intellectually and emotionally weak.
Pedro, if you know that the push for SSM does upset a good percentage of the population, why then don’t homosexuals choose another word to apply to their relationship situation.
Tolerance, compassion and understanding of people’s needs are supposedly the hallmark of the progressive Left. Yet I see from yourself and other activists little in the way of tolerance, understanding or compassion of the needs of traditionalists, and our desire to keep marriage as is (as it has been for hundreds, if not thousands of years).
Instead it seems to be a bloody-minded your way or the highway mentality – with no degree of compassion, understanding or tolerance for people who value and want to preserve traditional institutions.
As a traditionalist, I am absolutely appalled at the idea of SSM, yet my concerns, my despair seems not to matter one iota. These are my traditions that are being attacked here, and it is not right that you should simply label those of us who disagree as bigots. If you desire this so much, then surely the word means less than the actual state of being together as a couple – something that I’d never prohibit. Over the years our traditions have taken a hammering left, right, and centre, yet still you want more, and when your pillaging and burning through our traditions is finally over – just what will be left that we can still recognise, and will what is left still work?
Fat boy
So it’s my fault you’ve made the most racist comments we’ve ever seen here at the Cat?
You said :
That’s clearly not true.
As I said:
Singer is arguably one of the most well known ethics philosophy professors in the world. Several other people have suggested to you that your point is stupid.
In other words you’re a fat idiot.
Fat boy, you’ve made some of the worst racist comments we’ve seen here.
So raising children is the only social function of marriage? Nothing else matters? That’s crap. Clearly, many people marry with no intention or prospects of having children. What’s more, it’s biblical crap and therefore no business of the State.
Where do I say it is the only function, Pedro? Further, we are talking about the institution, not about the intentions of particular instances. And it isn’t biblical at all; it is found universally. But, I think it is arguably the only function that is of interest to the state and society.
I don’t think you even know what you are trying to say there!
Really? Maybe the “it” confused you: Even if homosexuality was not considered an abomination,it cannot, in and of itself, serve the social function of marriage in society. So, in fact, [SSM] can be divorced from a consideration of the morality of homosexuality. Better?
Which has changed enormously over the years. Women’s lib, the welfare state, compulsory education, technological advances… these and other factors have all impacted on the traditional social function of marriage.
Well, yes, marriage has changed but most of those examples have supplemented rather than undermined the social functions of marriage.
So what are the social functions of marriage that you believe a heterosexual couple can participate in or promote that a homosexual couple are incapable of doing?
Do you want the picture-book version, Chris?
Just underlining the sad fact that Keating was correct in calling the Senate “unrepresentative swill”.
They are out of proportion to their respective state’s populations, and are “elected” based on a party ticket. Casual vacancies are filled by appointment, not after a by-election as is done in Reps.
Senate reform is the subject most deserving of a referendum, but given the states’ rights aspect, little chance of that.
Homosexuals are like Muslims in that both are insignificant minorities that throw their weight around far too much in the political sphere.
Dover – words will be fine….
The generation, care, custody and education of one’s own children. These are public reasons that allow us to recognize marriage as a matter of law, and to exclude SSR. And Rawls agrees with me even.
“Yet I see from yourself and other activists little in the way of tolerance, understanding or compassion of the needs of traditionalists, and our desire to keep marriage as is”
This is a restatement of the general conundrum – in seeking to be tolerant of others, should we tolerate intolerance? It’s an interesting question.
Returning to the specific, the riposte to your complaint is that heterosexual marriages will not suffer any detriment whatsoever by allowing SSM.
“These are my traditions that are being attacked here”
I don’t see any attack. I see people wanting to participate in the tradition.
Yes, mine too, and I am prepared to stand up for them. Go and find your own Union if you are not a male and female making one called marriage.
Chris. I can make babies. You can’t. Two blokes can’t. Nor can two women without a father for their child. That is what marriage means: one parent of each sex to bring up little children. An ideal.
Dover, give him the pictures for goodness sake.
“The generation, care, custody and education of one’s own children.”
These are precisely the functions that have been supplemented by various social and technological changes. The case for legal recognition and promotion is much less compelling as a result.
Marriage today is less common and less enduring, because the incentives have changed. The reasons people cite for entering into marriage have changed. The law is lagging the facts on the ground, as usual.
I agree – and we don’t know yet what the long-term emotional and psychological conseqences will be on little children brought up in single sex family units. They might turn out perfectly well adjusted, yet on the other hand they might not – and end up having severe psychological disorders, and be subject to ridicule and bullying at school simply because of their parent’s choices. Do same sex couples ever look beyond their own need and desires, to envisage just what sort of consequences might befall any children they raise as their own?
Yes, children do get impacted by broken marriages, death of parents, poor parenting etc, but these things are generally unforseen and in the future when Bob and Mary stand before the altar (or at the registry office) and say ‘I Do’. Most young couples do have an earnest desire for their marriages to work, and to bring up decent, well-adjusted children. However children brought into same sex relationships are already behind the black-ball, without the added complexities of everything else that life will throw against them.
“And Rawls agrees with me even.”
I’m reading that essay, and while I haven’t finished, it looks like it’s not Rawls who agrees with you, but that O’Brien claims to be using a Rawlsian concept to argue that SSM should be prohibited. Not quite the same thing.
And I’m finding it hard to take seriously someone who says:
The assumption seems to be that families need the state, that society needs the state.
Nevertheless I will continue to read, because at least it isn’t some religious or tradition-because-tradition argument. I’ll get back to you.
And why should that not be so? My overall argument is not tradition-because-tradition alone, but includes strongly the requirement, demonstrated as valuable over the aeons, that chldren have both a mother and a father in their upbringing for their psychological health and welfare (please don’t feed back biased ‘research’ showing otherwise). If the State has to act as a protector of marriage between a man and a woman in order to facilitate this effectively for its children, then as with defence, the State does have a role. Any society that does not protect its own reproducability is a lost society, an outlier in history. The Communistic Societies of the United States (a book on communes, including sexless ones) demonstrates this latter absurdity – communes that died out because they had no children or because their communal childrearing and often polymorphous sexual ‘sharing’ was a disaster.
These are precisely the functions that have been supplemented by various social and technological changes. The case for legal recognition and promotion is much less compelling as a result.
To supplement is not to replace, Jarrah. The provision of schools, welfare, etc. did not replace any of the functions undertaken by the family. Families still educate their own children even though they also send them now to school.
Marriage today is less common and less enduring, because the incentives have changed. The reasons people cite for entering into marriage have changed. The law is lagging the facts on the ground, as usual.
Well, maybe, but if marriage is less common and less enduring, then what we are witnessing is not a change in marriage but the dissolution of marriage. The reasons people cite for entering into marriage are neither here nor there; if people increasingly cited child-minding as the reason they sent their children to primary this would not change the social function of school education.
I’m reading that essay, and while I haven’t finished, it looks like it’s not Rawls who agrees with you, but that O’Brien claims to be using a Rawlsian concept to argue that SSM should be prohibited. Not quite the same thing.
That article argues both that Rawls recognized a public interest in marriage as well as elaborating this argument more fully, and that these public interests are absent from SSM.
The assumption seems to be that families need the state, that society needs the state.
There is no such assumption in that quotation. The assumption is that the state can promote and assist in ensuring those two public responsibilities.
“(please don’t feed back biased ‘research’ showing otherwise)”
Why not? Are you afraid of what the data would show?
But I don’t understand why people bring up children in this context. Gay couples can already raise children without marriage.
“If the State has to act as a protector of marriage between a man and a woman in order to facilitate this effectively for its children, then as with defence, the State does have a role.”
IF. IF it has to act. But it self-evidently doesn’t – society and marriage and child-rearing precedes the state.
“Any society that does not protect its own reproducability is a lost society”
It doesn’t need protection. In general, people want to have sex, nothing will change that; people want to have children, nothing will change that; people want the best for their children, nothing will change that.
How typical is this perspective. You assume I’m objecting because it’s all about me me me. I take the longer view. If we assume we can redefine foundational institutions like marriage to suit the current fashion (or what happens to suit me me me at the time) eventually we will redefine them out of all meaningful existence.
And yes, if this change is railroaded through, I will view the concept of marriage less seriously than I do now. I won’t be alone – and that will be a sad day.
“The provision of schools, welfare, etc. did not replace any of the functions undertaken by the family.”
No, but as I said, the social function of marriage has changed because of those developments. Economic security for mothers doesn’t have to be through marriage any more, for example. So while marriage can still provide that function, it isn’t the only option and so isn’t as important any more.
You have to admit the case for legal recognition and promotion is unavoidably diminished by this fact. You might dispute how much, but the vector direction is clear.
“The reasons people cite for entering into marriage are neither here nor there”
I disagree strongly. Marriage is a social institution, and so society’s conception of the institution is all that counts. People get married for a set of reasons. The set of reasons is the purpose of marriage, by definition. If the reasons change, the purpose has changed.
“The assumption is that the state can promote and assist in ensuring those two public responsibilities.”
No, it’s that the state should promote and assist.
Biased and poorly constructed ‘convenience’ sample research shows nothing valuable. It is fraudulent, worse than useless, becasue some believe it.
You can raise children well, or not so well. That is the issue. Heterosexual marriage as an ideal offers role models for stability. (So by the way does being middle class, no matter what else. As someone who was once not so, believe me, I know this).
Indeed, and became thoroughly institutionalised with the emergence of the state. States emerge when societies become complex in their technology and division of labour and useful social arrangements become what Max Weber termed ‘routinised’.
Biased and poorly constructed ‘convenience’ sample research shows nothing valuable. It is fraudulent, worse than useless, becasue some believe it.
You can raise children well, or not so well. That is the issue. Heterosexual marriage as an ideal offers role models for stability. (So by the way does being middle class, no matter what else. As someone who was once not so, believe me, I know this).
Indeed, and became thoroughly institutionalised with the emergence of the state. States emerge when societies become complex in their technology and division of labour and useful social arrangements become what Max Weber termed ‘routinised’.
Didn’t finish before something happened to make ‘submit’ go twice!
Wanting, and making that happen with a stable environment free from wishful thinking, are two different things. Legitimating via marriage, in Weberian terms ‘routinising’ non-biological reproduction (i.e. not seeing it as some sort of secondary issue, but declaring it mainstream) is denying children a mother or a father, which is fundamentally abusive if socially ‘routinised’, and is definitely not wanting the ‘best’ for a child.
We’ll never agree on this Jarrah, but I hold firm to my views on it, not from religion or bigotry but from various reading and life experience myself.
Australia sez:
Poofs okay, you can’t marry yet.
Adopting kids and IVF? Wait for a lot more oldies to pop their clogs.
THE END
No, but as I said, the social function of marriage has changed because of those developments. Economic security for mothers doesn’t have to be through marriage any more, for example. So while marriage can still provide that function, it isn’t the only option and so isn’t as important any more.
But it wasn’t the only option previously. Still, if we grant that children are best raised by their biological parents, then we inevitably have to recognize marriage as the institution that at once, generates them, has the custody of them, and is obliged to provide the appropriate care and education to them.
You have to admit the case for legal recognition and promotion is unavoidably diminished by this fact. You might dispute how much, but the vector direction is clear.
No, since you have to consider each of the elements (generation, custody, care and education) collectively, not separately.
I disagree strongly. Marriage is a social institution, and so society’s conception of the institution is all that counts. People get married for a set of reasons. The set of reasons is the purpose of marriage, by definition. If the reasons change, the purpose has changed.
Yes, they do, but did you notice how you slipped from public (society’s conception) to private (people or individuals); this is an instance of equivocation. The set of reasons they provide are not exhaustive nor necessarily the social function/s of marriage per se. If some people get married in order to get a visa the social function of marriage is not also the getting of visas, among other things. We provide visas to married couples because of the social function/s marriage serves, not to supply them with visas.
No, it’s that the state should promote and assist.
No, that is the conclusion, not the assumption. It can is assumed; the question is whether it should promote and assist given the assumption; the argument concludes it should.
Elizabeth – marriage is now fairly orthogonal to the raising of children. Heterosexual couples raise children without getting married (the social imperative to do so is no longer very strong). Heterosexual couples also coomonly get married with no intent or capability (too old is very common) of having children. Homosexual couples raise children without getting married.
I don’t have a reference to it handy, but heard someone on a radio program the other day talking about how marriage used to be about joining together for common production – men specialised in making money, women in raising children. But society has changed – women are better educated and can do pretty much the same jobs as men. Men are doing more of the child raising. Marriage has more become about common consumption – couples are more likely to do the same sort of work, have similar interests and share the child raising when they do have them. Thus marriage of today is more appealing for homosexual couples as the roles are not as specialised.
Of course there are some people who simply don’t accept these wider societal changes – like Senator Boswell who seemed genuinely puzzled how a woman could possibly take and teach her son fishing as only a father could do that.
Elizabeth – marriage is now fairly orthogonal to the raising of children. Heterosexual couples raise children without getting married (the social imperative to do so is no longer very strong). Heterosexual couples also coomonly get married with no intent or capability (too old is very common) of having children. Homosexual couples raise children without getting married.
I don’t have a reference to it handy, but heard someone on a radio program the other day talking about how marriage used to be about joining together for common production – men specialised in making money, women in raising children. But society has changed – women are better educated and can do pretty much the same jobs as men. Men are doing more of the child raising. Marriage has more become about common consumption – couples are more likely to do the same sort of work, have similar interests and share the child raising when they do have them. Thus marriage of today is more appealing for homosexual couples as the roles are not as specialised.
Of course there are some people who simply don’t accept these wider societal changes – like Senator Boswell who seemed genuinely puzzled how a woman could possibly take and teach her son fishing as only a father could do that.
Too late. Both already occur in Australia. Gay couples can’t get married, but they can adopt children (though not in all states)
Whatever the changes in the economics Chris, it does not change the fact that families founded on the life-long monogamous union of a biological mother and father are best for the socialisation of children.
marriage is now fairly orthogonal to the raising of children. Heterosexual couples raise children without getting married (the social imperative to do so is no longer very strong). Heterosexual couples also coomonly get married with no intent or capability (too old is very common) of having children. Homosexual couples raise children without getting married.
Firstly, the same could be said about marriage at anytime in history. So far as your mention of social imperative is concerned, there is a still a strong social imperative that the biological parents of the child raise that child. This is what is meant by the pre-political institution of marriage. Secondly, so what? Some people attend a school with no intent to learn. Thirdly, but they can never be the biological parents of those same children.
By this, you mean ‘not overlapping’. But you see, it actually does overlap. Marriage defines the raising of children by its historical presence and its current existence. It is, in Weberian terms, something of an ‘ideal type’. Without it, children and families exist in a definitional limbo, a web and warp of differing relationships and interactions. We know how very much the breakdown in familial relationships is causing social havoc already, as children become no-one’s responsibility and parents with multiple relationships effectively eschew their responsibilities. Now I agree that many homosexual couples will effectively raise children with care and responsibility, but that is not the issue. The issue is that those children will be as disenfranchised from their biological origins as the children who flail around in non-families these days trying to make some sense out of the parental instability (or incompleteness) that surrounds them.
Biological parents, a mum and a dad, are just so fundamental to any child’s view of themselves (and it’s got nothing to do with fishing!). Ask any adoptee or IVF child, who are lucky if they have landed into an intact marital family as a proxy, and rather less lucky if they have landed into anything else. Regardless, those children feel less whole until they know more of their origins.
So, Dot and Chris, I understand very well the wider societal changes that are happening, in a sense I am and have been part of them, and yes, ‘younger’ people are eager for change (as no doubt many ‘older’ people on the Cat were equally as eager in their youth for change in various things; and how well did those druggie communards at Nimbin do with their kids now either screwed up rejecting all that, or addicted too?).
Somehow, I think that marriage will survive, and eventually thrive, and that what people regard as ‘real’ marriage will always be heterosexual.
Donor sperm, donor eggs, even donor embryos now. That ship sailed years ago. Now it’s more a social imperative that the legal parents raise the child rather than the biological ones.
Even if that is true (and there’s plenty of studies which show that unhappy or violence within marriages can be worse for children than those raised in separated but with happy parents), it doesn’t have much relevance to who should be able to get married. Otherwise we’d stop heterosexual couples who were unable or had no desire to have children to get married. We don’t stop divorcees (even after 5 or 6 marriages) from having another go. We don’t make heterosexual couples with children stay married.
Homosexuals getting married won’t have any effect at all on the married monogamous union of a mother and father raising their biological children.
Make that Parent 1 and Parent 2 as gender assignations will no longer be used in this new world of same sex “marriage”. It’s just not inclusive and the poor dears will scream “but what about equality?!”.
Also, “biological” will no longer be PC either as that, too, is exclusionary, heteronormative and a relic of the patriarchal arcane system formerly known as marriage.
“Biased and poorly constructed ‘convenience’ sample research shows nothing valuable. ”
That is absolutely true. However, when you brought up the research, you clearly judged its quality based on its results, not its methods.
“You can raise children well, or not so well. That is the issue.”
Again, I agree completely. But then I would say it’s obvious that the gender of the parents is secondary to the quality of the parenting.
So if all gays became muslims would that double both demographics and take them from being minor minorities to a slightly major minorities?
“Indeed, and became thoroughly institutionalised with the emergence of the state.”
That’s not so. They were thoroughly institutionalised long before the emergence of the state. In fact, marriage wasn’t considered a candidate for intensive state oversight in Europe until the 17th century.
No Jarrah, I put ‘research’ into quotes, to signify I was NOT referring to genuine forms of research, in which I am quite heavily academically trained and attained, btw. I just didn’t want to hear bullshit so-called ‘research’ being quoted. The major piece of genuine research on outcomes for the children of same-sex relationships, having statistical power, sampling validity, time depth and randomisation, shows poorer outcomes in general.
This is very contested territory. Depends on the level of generalisation being applied (what is ‘intensive’ for instance), and which concept of the state is being used.
St. Peter (as I quote above) approved marriage and its routinisation within the Christian panoply, and so did Roman jurisprudence.
But Lizzie, if the married couple has no interest whatsoever in having children (as opposed to no ability) , is that still a marrage? If only one condition is required, hwo do you choose which one?
Kimberly gave you early release SteveC? She’s done for the day, yea?
While I appear to be the only person around here at the moment, A musical interlude for your edification.
Essential Polling
Q. Do you personally experience one or more of the following forms of intolerance?
Racism 12%
Ageism 12%
Sexism 11%
Religious intolerance 6%
Homophobia 4%
None of the above 67%
If I had to choose which minority to be intolerant to I would choose sodomites as they appear to be the group statistically I would offend the least.
Chris:
A much cited quote in journalistic circles:
It may suit journalists and even public figures, academics, activists and others, to paint every male a wife beater and every woman a negligent mother, but the facts are otherwise. The overwhelming majority of families function well, and without violence. “I’m unhappy in my marriage” is also the most pathetic excuse a couple can give for abandoning a marriage. As it is, the majority of those couples regret their divorces within five years. Love is a choice.
Whereas journalists and others may only be concerned with the minority, it is extremely bad lawmaking to legislate for exceptions, and especially destructive to make exceptions the law.
Steve C – I am referring to an ‘ideal type’ (a specific sociological concept) within a whole society, and it is fairly plain from all of the above that this is what I am referring to here. Your silly interjection concerning a specific instance has no relevance to this context.
This thread is old and I am leaving it now. Said all I want or need to say. Troll away.
Lizzie – well if you can accept exceptions such as heterosexual people getting married who are unable or unwilling to have children without this causing significant damage (at least not so much that there is any attempt to prevent it legally) to the institution of marriage, then why can homosexual marriage not also co-exist with heterosexual marriage and still preserve the concept of your “ideal type”. After all a couple of 80 year olds getting married are no more likely than a homosexual couple of having and raising any children which are genetically theirs (probably less so of having at least some direct genetic linkage).
Donor sperm, donor eggs, even donor embryos now. That ship sailed years ago. Now it’s more a social imperative that the legal parents raise the child rather than the biological ones.
No, no, the social imperative remains that the biological parents ought be the legal parents. That is why we are appalled by things like child removal unless in the most extreme circumstances, forced adoption, etc. None of those things you’ve just mentioned has diminished this imperative in the least.
Even if that is true …., it doesn’t have much relevance to who should be able to get married. Otherwise we’d stop heterosexual couples who were unable or had no desire to have children to get married.
No, we wouldn’t and never have. The point isn’t that hetero couples must have children if they marry, it is that they generally can have children and that they usually do, doing what naturally occurs, in such relationships. Children are not a hurdle requirement here; they are viewed as a natural product of a union between the sexes. That some couples are by nature or circumstance infertile or choose not to have children does not alter this simple fact.
then why can homosexual marriage not also co-exist with heterosexual marriage and still preserve the concept of your “ideal type”.
Because the ideal type involves a union between the sexes. Infertile couples do not contravene this ideal type; children are simply the natural product of an ideal type which involves a union between the sexes.
Unless they are men saying yes, I’m calling bullshit.
I’m not being specific at all Lizzie. You seem to have tied marriage to raising children. Every one of your posts refers to children. So you in fact seem to object to same sex couples having children, not to same sex couples getting married. If a same sex couple (or hetero for that matter) choose to get married but not have children, what is your objection?
This plaintive question will keep being asked until they get the answer they want. But they will eventually have to accept they will never get the answer they want no matter what law might be passed.
SteveC, sorry to say, but no same-sex relationship can produce a child. Lizzie is quite correct. By the way, she’s not objecting, she’s stating a simple fact.
I agree, but how is that an argument against same sex marriage?
Same sex marriage would probably lead to legally depriving kids of their rights to knowing their biological mother and/or father, so the “rights” of homosexuals becomes more important than the rights and welfare of children, which is a poor outcome.
I agree, but how is that an argument against same sex marriage?
It’s not an argument against SSM so much as an argument that SSRs do not constitute marriage. But let me put it as simply as I can:
1. A union between the sexes often leads to children (apart from being the only union that can lead to children).
2. Children are dependents for a considerable portion of their life.
3. The custody, care and education appropriate for the child falls upon those who created that child, their biological parents, and not merely one or the other, but both biological parents.
4. It also follows that such a relationship is best if exclusive and permanent, given 1, 2 and 3, and that exclusivity and permanence is bound by contract. Thus, we arrive at marriage.
The above provides the broad outlines of marriage, as a social institution. SSRs fall outside marriage’s ambit, given 1 and 3.
candy, that’s an argument in favour of making sure kids know their parents, it’s not an argument against gay marriage as your fear is not a necessary (or even likely) outcome of SSM.
Dover, your points 1 – 4 don’t provide a broad outline of marriage.
Here’s the definition of marriage from the Act.
“”marriage” means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.”
Notice what they haven’t mentioned?
Notice what they haven’t mentioned?
Children? So as “they” haven’t mentioned children therefore we must marry and not have children? or something.
Are the conservatives on this blog agitating that people unable to conceive ought not to marry?
Her Lizzie, pass this on to the dill.
Sex Ed 101
Prolly NSFW.
No Gab, dover said that marriage is all about children, end of story. That seems to have escaped parliament when they passed the marriage act.
The SSM case is that marriage is a state recognised life committment and there is no good reason to deny that to gays. The conservative case seems to range from: god hates gay sex; to: things I don’t like will happen if we allow SSM; to: somebody will want to marry their beagle; to: gays can’t marry cause they can’t have kids.
It’s kind of embarrassing that you conservatives can’t come up with any good reasons.
That seems to be the case Mark. No more weddings in retirement villages!
No.
Notice what they have? (I’ll spell it out for the slow – a man and a woman – the essential precondition to producing children).
Two mums don’t make a dad.
Two dads don’t make a mum.
Two gays don’t make a child.
Kids can be brought up any which way: look at Sparta, Hitler’s Lebensborn, child slaves. The argument is about what is humanly good, not just what is possible.
Conservative or Libertarian? The first liberty is that of the person, the freedom of knowing one’s origins, knowing who you are and where you come from. Such liberty is hard won and, it appears, easily lost in the romance of ‘equal’ love producing Parent 1 and Parent 2 … how fucking Orwellian is that?
I now depart as my language is getting the better of me.
“The major piece of genuine research on outcomes for the children of same-sex relationships, having statistical power, sampling validity, time depth and randomisation, shows poorer outcomes in general.”
I know of just one piece of research that shows poorer outcomes, and it has been comprehensively critiqued for sampling invalidity and statistical impotence. Unless you’re thinking of a different one, in which case I would appreciate a link.
“If a same sex couple (or hetero for that matter) choose to get married but not have children, what is your objection?”
Excellent point. Why can’t gay couples be treated the same as other childless couples?
Dot, in the Catholic (and possibly Hebraic)/natural law tradition, people physically (or psychologically) unable to perform together the act which naturally – though not by any means always – leads to conception, are not able to marry.
But merely infertile – not impotent – couples are free to marry. Their sexual intercourse may be always infertile. But it is still the “marriage act”, since, of itself, it leads to or is causally connected to, conception in the natural order, even if circumstances outside of it prevent conception resulting. Even as a couple, they are a already “family” in the barest sense, since they are at least able to engage in this characteristic “family making act” together.
So, to answer your question: to argue against impotent couples (same sex couples, etc) being able to marry does not – at least from the standpoint of traditional Catholic/(& Jewish?) ethics – entail arguing that infertile couples are unable to enter into marriage.
WTF?
Your reductionism is laughable. Dover has said much more than that.
Lordy but you are very simple.
Tell me, why do people in retirement villages still get married when they know full well they will not produce children?
“Tell me, why do people in retirement villages still get married when they know full well they will not produce children?”
Because marriage nowadays is predominantly about love and commitment. Not debt payment or compensation, forging familial alliances, capital preservation, ensuring legitimacy of offspring, and all the other various functions marriage has served in the past.
Dover, your points 1 – 4 don’t provide a broad outline of marriage.
Ahem, not only do they do that, I also intended points 1-4 to show how the institution emerged.
”marriage” means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.
Yes, what do you imagine the union between the sexes normally leads to Pedro? Butterflys?
Notice what they haven’t mentioned?
Why would they explicitly mention a product of the relationship? Did they mention love? No. Does that mean that love has nothing to do with marriage? No. The great likelihood of children is clearly implicit in that definition. Why must this relationship be a “union of a man and a woman”, “to the exclusion of all others”, “voluntarily entered into”, and “for life” if not because this relationship normally involves children.
No Gab, dover said that marriage is all about children, end of story.
No, I didn’t say that it was all about children (and I’ve corrected this already before on this thread but for some reason you’ve missed this again), but it’s clear that as a social institution, if the union between man and woman did not lead to children, there would be no institution called marriage.
The SSM case is that marriage is a state recognised life committment
But, again, why is it state-recognized? Why is it a life commitment? And why is it an exclusive relationship? Is your answer: it just is? Or, I don’t know.
It’s kind of embarrassing that you conservatives can’t come up with any good reasons.
We provide good reasons and you ignore them. That’s obvious because you avoid the ones given and generally engage in puerile retorts.
Excellent point. Why can’t gay couples be treated the same as other childless couples?
Why can’t two sisters or two friends be treated the same as childless couples, or same sex couples? See, we can all play the role of smartarse but it gets us nowhere.
Because marriage nowadays is predominantly about love and commitment. Not debt payment or compensation, forging familial alliances, capital preservation, ensuring legitimacy of offspring, and all the other various functions marriage has served in the past.
It would be nice if SSM advocates would argue this case as a part of a campaign to dissolve civil marriage. Because, if this was the argument it would settle the matter in favour of traditional marriage, so far as the public was concerned.
BTW, Jarrah, many of those functions you refer to were best achieved, and still are, through marriage because of children, love and commitment.
Of course it has, and by the usual suspects, who would do and say anything to eschew the results.
Most attempts to produce randomised epidemiological or social surveys have some minor level of sampling invalidity if you look hard enough and this in only the purest theoretical sense produces some only theoretical statistical problems associated with the Standard Error which would have a minimal effect on Confidence Levels, if at all. These sorts of nit-picking critiques are mostly not worth worrying about or there would be very few pieces of such research purity to pass muster – certainly these sorts of ‘critiques’ do not imply an overall statistical ‘impotence’. But of course, it is any hook on which to cruel the only properly designed attempt to survey the situation. The convenience samples of the usual suspects are the impotent samples, as they make absolutely no attempt at sampling validity and any statistics they produce are complete rubbish.
Dover, how is your view of the past relevant to the future. Leaving aside that many marraiges are entered into without expectations of children, and lots of children have been born outside of marriages, I don’t see where your argument takes us.
The SSM claim is that marriage should be different in the future. If I grant that marriage has largely been about children in the past, that is not a reason to in the future deny the other aspects of marriage to gays. Gays can’t have children together is not a reason for gays to be denied marriage.
The lack of children in SSM is hardly any sort of threat to my child-full marriage is it. No harm is done to the State or to society if the category of people who marry without expectation of children is expanded to include gays.
I see from 3:37 that you seem to have something against civil marriage. Do you in fact think marriage ought only to be a religious institution?
Some of you seem to arguing for a law that is all encompassing, and such a law, now or in the future, will never be written.
Dover, how is your view of the past relevant to the future. Leaving aside that many marraiges are entered into without expectations of children, and lots of children have been born outside of marriages, I don’t see where your argument takes us.
Oh, for FFS. No one is saying that children can only be created in marriages. Nor that every marriage must lead to children. What is being argued is that marriage as a social institution was instituted principally for the care, custody and education of children because children are normally the product of a union between the sexes.
The SSM claim is that marriage should be different in the future.
But why should marriage now be different only so that it in future includes SSR? Unless SSM can provide the same set of public benefits that are normally derived from marriage, as we have and continue to know it, then we have no reason to recognize SSR as marriage.
The lack of children in SSM is hardly any sort of threat to my child-full marriage is it. No harm is done to the State or to society if the category of people who marry without expectation of children is expanded to include gays.
I’m not arguing it is a threat to particular marriages, and this is is stupid argument anyway. Are open ‘marriages’ a threat to your marriage? If not, does that mean it is also not a threat to the institution of marriage? Not at all. More importantly, as above, the question isn’t what harm is done because no one is proscribing SSR. The question is what public benefits are derived from the recognition of SSM?
I see from 3:37 that you seem to have something against civil marriage.
I’m now convinced that you are not reading my remarks with any care.
Lizzie, have you any arguments against SSM that do not involve chidren?
“Are open ‘marriages’ a threat to your marriage? If not, does that mean it is also not a threat to the institution of marriage? Not at all. ”
Well, there we are. There is no good reason to ban SSM – case closed.
“The question is what public benefits are derived from the recognition of SSM?”
I can think of several, but why must they be ‘public’ benefits? Why can’t they be private?
“Of course it has, and by the usual suspects, who would do and say anything to eschew the results.”
Ha! You claim to only judge on quality, but here is dismissal based on who was making the argument, not the argument itself. You are leaping from logical fallacy to logical fallacy without even seeming to realise what you’re doing.
“certainly these sorts of ‘critiques’ do not imply an overall statistical ‘impotence’. ”
If you say so, but those sorts weren’t levelled at the research I’m thinking of. Again, we might be talking about different things. This might be clarified – heck, we could even debate the specifics – if you put up a link.
Well, there we are. There is no good reason to ban SSM – case closed.
Read it again, Jarrah. I think you missed the second ‘not’. Ah, reading carefully seems to be a lost art.
I can think of several, but why must they be ‘public’ benefits? Why can’t they be private?
Because privileges as a matter of law are involved. Because private benefits are of no interest to the public.
That’s probably true, but just because something was, does not mean that it should always be.
There are plenty of marriages that produce no children. There are plenty of SSRs that produce children (through adoption or a multitude of surrogacy or donor sperm methods). There are plenty of open marriages that are not exclusive. There are plenty of marriages that are not permanent. There are plenty of children with only one parent. There are plenty of children that have NO biological parent and are brought up by relatives such as grandparents or non-related foster carers. None of those fit your “ideal” marriage. But they all exist and are all legal. For some reason, you argue that one type that does not fit your “ideal” – SSM – should not be legalised. Do you propose that all all those other “non-ideal” marriages and child rearing arangements shoule be illegal? If not, why single out SSM?
“Ah, reading carefully seems to be a lost art.”
Apparently so is clear writing.
You seem to have a concept of marriage that doesn’t involve people’s actual marriages. There’s this institution of marriage that is functionally separate from the practice of marriage, according to you. That’s quite bizarre.
Why singel out SSM:
SSM deliberately denies the child the right to know his/her father and/or mother. The other cases don’t – divorce, foster etc – tragedies there for sure but the child knows who mum and dad are and have some relationship with them. At least they know. At least they have some idea of their origins, where they fit in.
Homosexual couples appear to my mind to seek to exclude a biological parent emotionally and physically from the child’s life as they want to be the “parents”.
Jarrah, it is hardly a ‘logical fallacy’ to point out who has a political interest in disqualifying particular research. I carefully separated this from the actual critique I understood was being made. This critique I read in links from Dover’s original link to this (admittedly lone; telling in itself) piece of genuine survey research in a previous thread on this topic. Thus I am going from memory, as you appear to be also (Dover may wish to relink), however I do not think this matters. The issue is a general one about the nature of the critique made, i.e. one that concerned the sampling techniques, which I recalled from my reading at the time to be less than highly problematic (from memory the researcher himself also responded in like manner). You should agree that you actually indicated that these techniques were the crucial critique points up for discussion. No-one is going to be absolutely right in this, btw.
This is because in any piece of research there are always many avenues of critique. As we say in another context – the science is rarely settled. I have no doubt that much more research of this population-based type needs to be funded, utilising improved scientific techniques developed from previous groundwork and critiques of it, so let’s both support that eh? We can move away from picking samples from middle class educated gay people and saying these represent all cases (these are certainly not the only gays who will want to ‘marry’ and have children ‘of their own’ so a wider sampling is necessary). I look forward to your encouragement of researchers skilled in major social surveys, or perhaps you would like to justify in theoretical and methodological detail the ‘convenience’ research that is all that there is so far, and which is used to support your views?
So – the research is still in its infancy, if that is not too telling a metaphor – yes, the issue IS fundamentally about children, about maintaining a common baseline of biological meaning for family generation within a social system.
All the other stuff – who does what to whom, when and how, and with what kids in tow in whatever circumstances – is pretty extraneous to having as a referent that basic social building block called marriage between a man and a woman who do together what most people have always done, and presto! Magic.
“Some of you seem to arguing for a law that is all encompassing, and such a law, now or in the future, will never be written.”
Ummm, do you know what you are trying to say Dan, it’s not abundantly clear.
Dover, you can be sure I am reading your remarks with care. So far you’ve identified no social harm from SSM other than the silly fear that people might want to marry their sibling, for which there are good public health objections, or their beagle, which is a nonsense.
“Unless SSM can provide the same set of public benefits that are normally derived from marriage, as we have and continue to know it, then we have no reason to recognize SSR as marriage.”
First of all, I don’t think people asking to be treated equally have to make the public benefit case. But in any event:
1 children are not the only social benefit of marriage and that should be sufficiently obvious to not require elaboration;
2 removing hurtful discrimination is a social benefit.
“Because privileges as a matter of law are involved. Because private benefits are of no interest to the public.”
This is more nonsense. Many laws are directed to private benefits and there is a public benefit in removing hurtful and pointless discrimination.
Your argument seems to boil down to the rank conservatism of “just because we didn’t do that in my day”.
“SSM deliberately denies the child the right to know his/her father and/or mother.”
That is obliviously not true. for a start SSM does not yet exist so it is not doing anything. Non-disclosure with AI or adoption is an existing issue that is unaffected by SSM. Non-disclosure either is or is not good public policy and will remain so even if married gays are allowed to adopt.
Having been brought up by a single mum, I’m agnostic on the issue.
“All the other stuff – who does what to whom, when and how, and with what kids in tow in whatever circumstances – is pretty extraneous to having as a referent that basic social building block called marriage between a man and a woman who do together what most people have always done, and presto! Magic.”
Lizzie, if SSM is allowed how much less of your magic will there be?
“SSM deliberately denies the child the right to know his/her father and/or mother.”
No, it doesn’t. Adoption does that.
As I and others have pointed out before, gay couples can already be parents without getting married.
If only Nature had established one gender instead of two we wouldn’t have this same sex “marriage” dilemma.
Just as an example, I understand a female prominent in Australia is a “parent” as her partner had a baby. Now I read and interview in which she said the child may “meet” the biological father at some stage. But his name was not to be known and he will not be seen with his child, I had the impression from the article.
Now, how does a child, going into teen years especially, reconcile the fact that he/she is not allowed to recognise their biological father, that his identity must be hidden if indeed that is the case? how does the future unwind in those situations.
“Jarrah, it is hardly a ‘logical fallacy’ to point out who has a political interest in disqualifying particular research.”
Sure. But that’s not what you did. First you warned me about introducing evidence from poor research that showed other than your preferred finding. It was quite clear that you think any research that contradicts your gut instinct must be poorly done. You denied this later, but it’s quite transparent. Later you dismissed unspecified criticisms as being from “the usual suspects” without even knowing who they were, or what they said. It was enough that they were criticising something that you agree with. That’s a straightforward logical fallacy.
“which I recalled from my reading at the time to be less than highly problematic”
I hope you are recalling incorrectly, because the sampling was laughable. I dare you to defend the specifics, since you’re so “heavily academically trained and attained” in research.
“I have no doubt that much more research of this population-based type needs to be funded, utilising improved scientific techniques developed from previous groundwork and critiques of it, so let’s both support that eh?”
I’m willing, and have said so several times before, but I have to admit to surprise at your turnaround. In this thread you have been very certain about the superiority of opposite-sex parents, but now you’re willing to admit that the differences could be so small that all the research to date has found none that are statistically significant and more research is needed?
Pedro, two issues:
Firstly, with SSM non-disclosure an alternate reality becomes quasi-legitimated by ideologies of Parent 1 and Parent 2 on Birth Certificates. No child needs this. Non-disclosure is part of an ‘ownership’ thesis regarding some gay parenting (as Candy has pointed out above a couple of times), and will no doubt still happen even if policy dictates full disclosure (which is the current, although contested, policy direction in IVF, AI and Surrogacy).
Secondly, it is no-one’s ‘right’ to have the care and control of someone else’s child. Of necessity, there is always a third (unspoken?) parent in a ‘gay family’. This parent is removed by legal fiat should there be gay ‘marriage’ because the marital pair are defined as the reproductive unit (even if they can’t possibly ever really be so).
I think Candy puts the case so well in its simplest terms. Keep speaking up for the kids, Candy, what you are saying is the sort of common sense most people have if they stop to thinkk about this issue beyond the silliness of ‘equal’ love.
France set to ban the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from official documents.
And so it begins.
h/t JamesK
“the sampling was laughable”
Much less laughable than the ‘sampling’ of your sort of convenience samples, Jarrah. Now – you show me WHY the survey sampling was so laughable. I am not going to trawl a link back months just to prove something to you; I thought the critique when I read it was less than robust and I’ve said why. End of story as far as I am concerned. I don’t have to complete your requirements as to my competence. Show me your skills now – go on, justify convenience sampling (hint – it can be done, in certain circumstances and with particular sorts of study designs, if you try and know anything about this).
“that’s not what you did”
Yes, it is what I did. Both times. What a word-twister you are. I have since invited you to defend the sort of sampling that I said I did not particularly respect and therefore did not feel was worth discussing. Please defend that sampling style now to prove its value, or I am right. And I reiterate, I clearly separated my view of the attackers of the survey research in question from the substantive critique the attackers had made of its sampling, which I judged to be an ineffective critique.
As to more research – well, it is always useful to get a handle on what we might be dealing with – as you know, I don’t agree that there is no statistical validity in the indicative research we have had so far showing problems exist. Word twisting again, Jarrah. Slippery you.
Lizzie’s insistence on the centrality of procreation in marriage was echoed in slightly more poetic fashion by the Archbishop of Canterbury at William and Kate’s wedding when he said.
The union of man and woman is seen as the wellspring of new life and a reaffirmation of our stake in the future. This is no little thing and helps to explain the great solemnity of the wedding service.
Without the central players in this drama of human continuance, the ceremony would verge on imitation at best and at worst parody.
Lizzie, I asked before, and you did not answer. Do you have an argument against SSM that does not involve the raising of chidren? All the issues you raised at 6.42 already exist without SSM. Gay couples can already adopt and have children by surrogacy and/or donor sperm. So your arguments are against gay parenting, not gay marriage. You are substituting “parenting” for “marriage”, which is not a logical replacement.
And exactly where is “the marital pair are defined as the reproductive unit”
SSM absolutely denies on an institutional level, a priori, the right of a child to be raised by his or her parents in a natural family and enables (or forces) the parents to waive their corresponding parental obligations in respect of their offspring. Moreover, it denies on an institutional level the right of children who have tragically lost their parents to be raised by a mother and father married to each other.
As I say, this denial is on an institutional public level. Even if no “married” ss couple were ever to place a child in this situation, it is still wrong for the law of the land to allow it as a possibility.
Pedro is right on this one point: AI (by donor) has the same effect. This was the precise point argued by many at the time the legislation was being debated both here and overseas.
So too, in a partial way does surrogacy, even when the child is the genetic offspring of the married couple concerned. This point, too, was debated.
So these are both wrong for that very reason (one of many) that ssm is wrong in relation to children, and they should be made illegal as they once were.
Adoption covers a multitude of situations. Obviously, adopting an orphan in no way denies in principle the right of that child to live with its parents, since they are no longer alive themselves. Similarly, adopting abandoned children is a second plank: it in no way implies that natural parenting of that is not a superior situation – rather circumstances have forced the adoption. Adopting children of desperately impoverished or otherwise incapacitated parents can be done in ways which recognise and honour their status as the child’s parents, with openness to the possibility of reestablishing an active family relationship. Ideally this latter is more akin to fostering.
Of course gay couples can already be parents without getting “married”. How does that gainsay the argument that parents ought to be married to each other and look after the natural offspring of their union, and that it’s in the interest of society that the state privilege this kind of union? Is the fact that twelve year old girls have babies out of wedlock seen as another argument against the recognition of traditional marriage?
The French are opening a Pandors’s box : in 50 years there will be folk who want a list of nurturers ie “parents” a mile long added to their certificate !! The birth cert should only list ova donor and sperm donor and No Other. The incubator is incidental.
Until of course we start repairing sperm with “other” sperm and eggs with “other” bits of eggs ……….. I’ve been infected by that futurist on last nights Q&A !
Jarrah you say that like it’s a good thing.
Thanks Hugh. There’s your answer Steve C. It is what I and others have been saying all through this thread. I am sick of saying it and of the pernicketly level of argumentation that is just going round in circles. Some people just can’t listen or comprehend. Yes, marriage is institutional and children are involved, as are the rights of biological parents and the rights of children to know their biological heritage. People are concerned about this, and rightly so. Skiving the argument off to one piece of research etc. is fairly tangential to the main debate.
My argument is about institutionalising gay parenting. I disagree with doing that, not with some gay people parenting. I know quite well two gay men who are raising the child of one of them; the mother is also involved. No problem there.
Ultimately, this argument is metaphysical before it is moral. Is there a “thing” which is marriage? What is its essence? What is its end?
Let’s just bracket moral considerations and the word “marriage”.
Let’s just take on the one hand a ss couple who want to live an exclusive, committed lifelong relationship together, including (exclusive) sexual activity, as friends, without any thought of children.
On the other, let’s consider a man and woman who come together in an exclusive, lifelong committed relationship involving natural sexual intercourse with the openness and hopeful expectation that they will beget and raise a family together.
Aren’t these two completely different PROJECTS? I mean, sure there are elements common to both. But in the latter, these common elements – exclusivity, lifelong commitment, sexual activity (but they’re fundamentally different kinds), are all ordered to the one end: a flourishing family. In the former, they’re not ordered to THAT end, whatever they’re ordered to.
[Of course there are heterosexual couples, especially in these times, who get "married" yet have no intention of ever having children. Well, "The exception proves the rule". But more accurately, such "marriages" in the good old days would have been declared null on that very score. The only reason they are "married" in the eyes of the state is arguably because of extrinsic considerations: forensics, the fact they may well (often do) change their minds - for example, after accidentally conceiving - and so on.]
When things are ordered to different ends, we usually take that as a rational basis for distinctions between them. Eye v. ear, playing war games in an amusement park vs. battling as a soldier, hearing confession vs. acting the part of a priest hearing confession in a movie, and so on.
As I say: bracketing morality and nomenclature, in discussing ssm vs marriage traditionally understood, we are talking about two completely different things on the metaphysical level.
Anyone for metaphysics?
As if I haven’t already got brain frazzle from what you say Hugh, but my neighbours kid who started out as a female till 18 and is now in progress of changing via hormones and surgery to a male, can marry his/her boyfriend tomorrow.
Mum of this 21 yr old is devastated. I am sincerely hoping that the current trend to metro-sexual (from both sides of the sexual continuum) is not just a fashion trend, and that she doesn’t want to change back once she hits 30 !!
Apparently so is clear writing.
Jarrah, a simple “sorry” would have sufficed.
You seem to have a concept of marriage that doesn’t involve people’s actual marriages. There’s this institution of marriage that is functionally separate from the practice of marriage, according to you. That’s quite bizarre.
No, I have a concept of marriage which properly recognizes the essential aspects and ignores the accidental aspects that may be found in marriage. You seem to believe that since some marriages are in practice, ‘open’, that any concept of marriage must include this aspect in the concept. But, no, it need not.
So far you’ve identified no social harm
Pedro, since I’m not arguing that SSR should be banned I don’t need to point to any social harm; all I’m arguing is that it is not marriage.
First of all, I don’t think people asking to be treated equally have to make the public benefit case.
Of course they do. It is perfectly just to treat unlike cases differently. We have a relationship, SSR, that is unlike marriage wanting to enjoy the privileges accorded to marriage. They have to make the case that SSR as an institution is identical to marriage as an institution and that the public benefits that arise from marriage also arise within SSR as they are, in and of itself.
But in any event:
1 children are not the only social benefit of marriage and that should be sufficiently obvious to not require elaboration;
2 removing hurtful discrimination is a social benefit.
Re 1, what public benefits? I have little confidence that any you have in mind are not, strictly speaking, private. Still, if you do have some genuine public benefits they will not identical in toto be those that naturally arise from marriage. This would mean that though SSR is not marriage, SSR may deserve public recognition.
Re 2, no. Removing unjust discrimination is a simple matter of justice; it doesn’t need to be socially beneficial.
Many laws are directed to private benefits
Many laws are to our private benefit, such as the criminal law or laws relating to contract and property, but they are not only to our private benefit; there is also a social benefit to them because they order relations between private persons and make social life both possible and secure.
Your argument seems to boil down to the rank conservatism of “just because we didn’t do that in my day”.
My argument is not that you can’t do it “just because we didn’t do that in my day”, but only that X is not Y.
Anyone for metaphysics?
I’m all ears, Hugh. As I’ve said at other times, this debate is a microcosm of the larger debate between realists and nominalists.
Well since Monty insists that “Marriage is already whatever we say it is” why not extend that philosophy to one’s gender while we’re at it?
DB, thanks:
for my response, choose between,
1.) Absolutely, and your observation, which, apologies, I’ve not seen because I only occasionally frequent this blog, is entirely correct.
or
2.) No, no, no!! You know, you’re sooo wrong, and therefore homophobic! The ssm advocates are no nominalists! In fact, they’re just one brand of modern day Thomists. They are really concerned at getting the essence of marriage exactly right. It’s just that they think marriage is merely a special kind of friendship.
It has to be lifelong. It has to be exclusive. It has to be between exactly two people, of whatever sex. Two is important, and I/they can’t elaborate as to why here, but mind you, it has NOTHING to do with the fact that two people of different sex coming together can generate more people…
…Which brings me to their next point. In essence marriage has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with begetting and raising children. That’s a cute occasional spinoff. But, frankly, it’s just an accident. Like, my car could be painted red, or blue. It’s still, you know, a car.
Sure, history put marriage in terms of the kids. But history’s history! The future lies ahead!
Now, being thoroughgoing Thomists, they naturally are forthcoming as to WHY “marriage” has to be exactly what they say it is. IE. Lifelong, exclusive, two and STRICTLY only two humans,… and that’s all: no correspondence entered into (you know, those weirdo polygamists…who’dathunk?).
And, of course, their thoroughly convincing explanation is ………..
Hugh – delightful! DB is such a stalwart, I’m glad he has company.
So SSM institutionalises gay parenting, and thus should not be allowed. Which completely ignores the fact that same sex couples can and do have and raise children, and many children have unmarried, or one or no biological parents. The denial of marriage to SS couples then is purely symbolic.
Unless you want to propose making illegal – gay adoption, surrogacy and all the other impediments to the “ideal” marriage.
Further to the question raised by Jarrah about the sampling used in the first major population-based study of adult children’s experience of a gay milieu, and in the interests of clarity and good faith, here is the link to the original study by Regeris published in the Journal of Social Science Research.
The sampling has been critiqued within the statistical universe being identified due to possible category forcing (as I say above, this is not a real problem; the researcher discusses it). More importantly, the study has mostly been critiqued about the statistical universe identified. To clarify what is and what is not being done: the universe of the study population is not membership of a particular gay family structure but exposure to a highly generalised same sex cultural milieu, in a cross-sectional study of young adults who self-report a parental proxy for their childhood experience of a same-sex milieu.
In epidemiological terms, the study uses a proxy (same sex activity by a parent) for ‘exposure’ to a particular cultural milieu. This exposure is then shown to have a correlation with deleterious effects not found in the control group. Appropriate multivariate techniques are used in a technically correct manner as in all such well-founded studies. If the ‘exposure’ had been about a given chemical or even a given educational technique, the study sampling, as a serious attempt to achieve a random sample matched to population statistics, would have been unremarkable. As the researcher notes though, any finding is necessarily only indicative, requiring further research. Axiomatically, correlation is never causation (see the SIDS research, which demonstrates how such epidemiological findings are slowly refined from indicative results into causal pathways via a range of other studies).
Because the ‘exposure’ was then seen as an attack on gay parenting rather than a sampling exposure to a general parental gay milieu the sampling was heavily castigated by gay groups, to the extent that the JSSR was forced to print a review. (Such panic reaction reminds me a little of studies of brain differences in males and females, which are valid in showing different central tendencies by sex on some indices (plenty of overlap though), but which when referred to by a leader of a key US university led to his dismissal. Hmmmm.)
Google around this study and you will see the various political elements in play, in both for and against versions. However, it is important to accept that it is extremely difficult to randomise same sex families in a population context due to their very small numbers. Proxy markers can be useful and in this sense the study is a landmark from which other and more refined (less blunt instrument) population studies may emerge. The findings suggest a polymorphous sexual parental situation in childhood may have an association (note, only an association) with a significantly greater incidence of childhood sexual abuse (hardly surprising given clinical data) and may be associated with adults with more ‘flexibility’ in their own sexual orientation than is found in a control group (again, hardly surprising if we consider the cultural phenomenon of LUGS – lesbians until graduation due to exposure to a given polymorphous sexual milieu).
I really do consider this thread closed for me now. Draw your own conclusions from the data and various viewpoints about it.
“Now – you show me WHY the survey sampling was so laughable.”
OK, as long as you show why the research showing no poorer outcomes was bad research (in specific terms, not generalisations). Deal? I’ll put it in my next comment.
“Yes, it is what I did. Both times. What a word-twister you are.”
Identifying fallacious reasoning is not twisting your words. They are your words, after all:
The irony is amusing.
“No, I have a concept of marriage which properly recognizes the essential aspects”
Dover, you have an opinion about the essential aspects, one which is out of kilter with the majority opinion in the society you live in. Since societies define social institutions, through their lived experience, your personal private opinion about metaphysical rationales is almost irrelevant.
“the universe of the study population is not membership of a particular gay family structure but exposure to a highly generalised same sex cultural milieu … the study uses a proxy (same sex activity by a parent) for ‘exposure’ to a particular cultural milieu.”
That was the claim, but the proxy was poorly chosen. In essence, Regnerus made the same mistake, just reversed in direction, that you point out in earlier studies.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2012/06/don_t_let_criticism_of_the_new_gay_parents_study_become_a_war_on_science.2.html
Put more simply:
That’s not all that was wrong with the sampling. From the study itself:
Remember that if a married couple stayed together, they were counted as an “IBF,” no matter whether one or both partners pursued same-sex liaisons. So the study captured the poverty effect of separated parents, and ascribed it to sexuality.
Then there is the racial disproportion, and the association between risk-taking behaviour and the survey classification methodology:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/walter-olson/regnerus-gay-parenting-study_b_1681253.html
And lastly, from Saletan again:
Dover, you have an opinion about the essential aspects, one which is out of kilter with the majority opinion in the society you live in. Since societies define social institutions, through their lived experience, your personal private opinion about metaphysical rationales is almost irrelevant.
Jarrah descends into relativism. You’re all over the place on this, Jarrah. My opinions are supposedly only “personal private opinions” and yet the ‘majority opinion’ you’ve collected together are themselves only “personal private opinions” as well and thus no closer to the truth than my single “personal private opinion” given what is implied in your statement. And this nonsense about “lived experience”; are you now saying that open ‘marriages’ are consistent with the concept marriage simply because it is a part of the “lived experience” of some of those that are married? If so, you no longer recognize a distinction at all between the essential and accidental aspects of marriage or anything else, so your claim that I “have an opinion about the essential aspects, one which is out of kilter with the majority opinion in the society you live in” was just nonsense.
I agree. The proxy is quite loose, but not irrelevant. My general objection is to the sample universe of this study and its encompassing ‘exposure’ variable (in my words, ‘a milieu of homosexual legitimation’) being misrepresented, for essentially political purposes, as being about more than a milieu. The research is, as I said, indicative only (and valuable for that). The study is also valuable for drawing attention to the over-reliance on the acute selection bias inherent in uncriticised ‘convenience’ samples that form the entire research basis of current policy. Let us turn our attention to these, because they are actually being used right now to suggest that all is well, when clinicians and others cast doubts.
“yet the ‘majority opinion’ you’ve collected together are themselves only “personal private opinions” as well and thus no closer to the truth than my single “personal private opinion””
On their own, absolutely, just like yours.
Collectively – as a society – we define our institutions through the aggregated actions of individuals. If most people change their idea about what marriage is, then bleating about obsolete quiddities is pointless.
“are you now saying that open ‘marriages’ are consistent with the concept marriage simply because it is a part of the “lived experience” of some of those that are married?”
If a majority of people thought that was right, then yes. Since they currently don’t, no. Don’t you get it yet? Social institutions change.
“The research is, as I said, indicative only (and valuable for that).”
As the critics have pointed out, it only indicates that broken homes aren’t good for children. This isn’t a valuable insight.
“The study is also valuable for drawing attention to the over-reliance on the acute selection bias inherent in uncriticised ‘convenience’ samples that form the entire research basis of current policy.”
So it’s essentially worthless research, as that particular criticism of previous findings has been made repeatedly without needing to manufacture negative correlations.
I hope you recognise we have come a long way from your original claim:
“I think Candy puts the case so well in its simplest terms.” Thank you so much, Lizzie, for your kind comments.
From what I read above the sample size is nowhere near big enough to make a conclusion, well how could it be, homosexuals procuring children to raise is a brand new phenomenon.
My guess is that in 20 years time there will be a whole batch of young people who firstly find a piece of their life missing as they’ve been denied a biological parent to know and understand their roots,
and also some dysfunction due to being brought up in a homosexual family environment and don’t know whether they should be an Arthur or a Martha but wnat to please their parents and think they should be homosexual as that’s the example set.
Thanks, Lizzie, Candy and DB for superb contributions in defense of the radical proposition: a spade is a spade.
No, not really very far from them at all, Jarrah. In good faith too I have replied with my own analysis in my own words, providing a link to the original publication. I have not taken the easy route of offering chunks of distinctly partisan opinion, although from my side of things, plenty of religious opinion sites do precisely that too and I could easily have utilised them. I am not a ‘religious’ person, and I chose not to.
In its support, this is the FIRST major study to attempt randomisation, contra to all the others which don’t (very important). It has a level of validity for its statistical universe and intentions (some statisticians agree, others disagree; par for the course). Exposure to a homosexual lifestyle within the parental generation appears to have been one consistent factor associated with the ‘exposure’ group’s poorer outcomes; there are obviously other factors as well (the study is confirmatory concerning the deleterious effects of familial instability in general, which contra to your statement, is still a valuable insight although not a new one). While there is some selection bias for heterosexual marital stability in the control group the differences found are still indicative as they do include the relevant ‘exposure’ factor . Personally, I’d create a very different study design around an expanded concept of cultural ‘exposure’ via parental homosexual behaviour (which I think could become an interesting one) and control more variables right across the exposure and control groups, but these researchers have made a start. Convenience research doesn’t even get to first base on this. Thank you Jarrah for your commenting, but I believe further discussion regarding this study is now redundant, and would only cover ground already covered. I accept your right to thoroughly dislike and disagree with the study and my defense of it. As Candy notes, much more research is yet to come.
Candy, Dover, Hugh and others, many thanks too. It has been a long and interesting thread although my spare time for it has been very limited, as I rarely mention them but I do have children who still need me. Perhaps they are why I think a spade is a spade.
I’ll end it with a relevant poem, rather than dull statistics, one of my favorites that speaks to the very heart of our humanity, Woman to Man, by Judith Wright:
On their own, absolutely, just like yours.
Collectively – as a society – we define our institutions through the aggregated actions of individuals. If most people change their idea about what marriage is, then bleating about obsolete quiddities is pointless.
No, no, if the truth-value of their claim, individually, is private and subjective, their truth-value aggregated together is also private and subjective; so, no, aggregating private and subjective beliefs together does not make those claims any less private and subjective and certainly does not make them appropriate definitions of X.
If a majority of people thought that was right, then yes. Since they currently don’t, no.
This is simply stupid. This is no different to saying that though we now think killing the innocent is murder (only because a majority now think this, so you say), if a majority of persons imagined that killing the innocent was not murder but constitutive of goodness at sometime in the future, according to you, we could only agree.
Don’t you get it yet? Social institutions change.
Who ever said they didn’t? My point is that if there are no essential qualities or functions how could you identify X as X given change over time or across cultures? You couldn’t. Now, I’ve noticed how you’ve equivocated on this and other points. You have previously confused accidental functions (familial alliances, capital formation, etc.) with essential functions (generation, care, custody, and education of children) in regard to marriage. And you’ve referred to marriage as “predominately” about love and commitment leaving the reader to wonder if this means love and commitment are essentially or only accidentally related to marriage. And you’ve equivocated between relationships and marriage. It seems to me your argument only has legs to the extent that you sustain these equivocations and the confusions it entails and engenders over the course of an argument. Once they are noticed, it falls apart.