Subject:
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Re: Marriage (was: Re: Yet another push for thoughtful legislation from Tennessee)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 19 Mar 2004 19:57:25 GMT
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Viewed:
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422 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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I don’t think it’s so obvious, honestly. If the fundamental criterion for
legal marriage is the possibility of childbirth, then non-fertile couples
must not be allowed to wed. Similarly, if a wife and husband try
unsuccessfully to conceive, must their marriage be dissolved?
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Don’t ask, don’t tell;-) But seriously, privacy issues put that tack in
irons.
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What is obvious is the fact that the possibility of childbirth is not the
fundamental criterion of marriage. Equally obvious is the fact that the
differences between men and women are not fundamental criteria, either.
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If you want to argue that men and women are basically the same, bring it
on;-D
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Well, the last time I looked, they’re pretty different in most cases. But my
point is that the difference between men and women is not central to marriage.
Therefore the difference between men and women cannot be used as a gatekeeper
criterion for denying marriage.
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Which, in your view, would be more destructive to the development and
well-being of a child: a loving, stable marriage between two men in which
the child is raised by both parents, or a bitter, abusive marriage between a
man and a woman, in which one or both parents fail to provide emotional
stability for the child?
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Specious. You are comparing apples and oranges. Of course I’d never
advocate abuse by anyone. By your analogy, 2 loving wolves would be better
than 1 abusive heterosexual couple. Rephrase your question with the premise
of “all things being equal”. That is a more valid analogy.
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I think we can omit the wolves because they are manifestly not equipped
(mentally or physically) to raise human children, whereas two men or two women
are equipped mentally and physically to do so.
And your rephrasing of the analogy is special pleading, unless you can
demonstrate why an approved gender-pairing must be among the set of “all things
being equal.”
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If you are indeed thinking primarily of the child’s well being, and if
you’re willing to have the Constitution altered to protect children’s
well-being, wouldn’t it follow that dysfunctional heterosexual marriage must
be banned along with homosexual marriage?
If not, why not?
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Define “dysfunctional”.
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A dysfunctional family is one that is prevented from maintaining a non-damaging
emotional and physical environment for the members of that family, due to
problems in dealing with normal stressors such as economic hardship, employment
difficulties, illness, or interpersonal conflict.
If you’re uncomfortable with the term dysfunctional or my definition of it in
this context, then substitute “unhealthy heterosexual marriage,” “adulterous
heterosexual marriage,” or “abusive heterosexual marriage” instead, and my
question remains.
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And BTW, the proposed Amendment doesn’t “ban” gay
marriage; it merely defines marriage as the union of 1 man and 1 women. I
could just as easily call it the “Amendment that bans polygamy”, but that
isn’t really an accurate title.
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Of course the proposed amendment bans gay marriage and, worse, it doesn’t
guarantee any rights, which is what amendments are supposed to do in the first
place! The fact that the ban is spun in “pro-marriage” language only makes the
ban all the more insidious.
Dave!
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