Why Is Marriage Licensed?

[Teallaura]

And should it be?

The debate surrounding homosexual 'marriage' often asks the question of why not - but rarely addresses the societal benefits to marriage or the reasons that marriage is regulated in the first place.

In my view, it's a false assertion that private relationships have no public consequences - my entire career makes an absolute mockery of that premise. Infertility, increased health care costs, increased drug resistance (necessitating increased research costs) and death are all consequences of sexual relationships in which an STD is involved. HIV alone strains health care in every nation on earth - ours included (provision of expensive AIDS drugs for the poor wipes out county jail medical budgets all the time - and is becoming increasingly difficult to provide for those who cannot afford them. M'caid does not generally cover them - they don't have the money without additional funds being allocated). Personal relationships can and do have far reaching public consequences.

Marriage does have an impact on STD (I do see some married couples, but the vast majority of my patients are single) - cohabitation doesn't appear to have much, if any, impact. But here the issue appears to be commitment - were cohabiting couples as committed as their married counterparts we should see similar effects - but we don't.

Sounds like a good reason to allow homosexual marriage, right? Problem is, we don't see even the little impact that heterosexual cohabitation produces in homosexual couples - in many areas, the reverse is true. Cohabitation seems to have little impact on homosexual behavior (which is where the risk originates) - there just isn't a logical reason to assume that marriage will do what cohabitation will not in this instance.

But marriage has much more far reaching impacts than that. It is the basis of our whole society. Big claim, but consider: children of intact, nuclear families do better in virtually every demographic category you can name. They have the lowest substance abuse rate, lowest drop out rate, highest college attendance rate - et al. Instead of becoming a burden on society, they become its backbone.

Coming in a close second are single parent widowed families. Children deal far better with the death of a parent than with abandonment of a parent through divorce. Sure, there are exceptions to every rule - but the stats for kids of divorced families are abysmal, unlike the stats for widowed families.

Thirty years ago, divorce was touted as a better solution than having kids see Mom and Dad fight all the time. Turns out, that isn't true (and why Mom and Dad can't reconcile is usually left out of the equation - often, 'won't' not 'can't' is part of the problem). Kids in even troubled families do better when those families remain intact (excluding abuse and neglect).

Now, the argument is that homosexual couples are better than no parents at all - but it's a false dichotomy. The increased adoption effect hoped for can be better accomplished with revisions to existing adoption laws, strengthening the rights of adoptive families (the risk of having a child taken away is more than many parents can face - and sans abuse or neglect, more than they should have to).

Marital rights go a lot farther than tax breaks and medical decision capacity (which can be done by a DMPA for anyone). They include adoption rights, inheritance rights, property rights, et al. We already have plenty of evidence of the societal costs of divorce in terms of economics (both parents actually do worse economically in the long run than their non-divorced counterparts) just in terms of litigation alone (the criminal courts aren't the only ones swamped - and we have to pay for all those judges!). Adding a new category, from a strictly secular view, is simply going to increase costs without any apparent benefit to the public good.

So, how does this pertain to Christian ethics? The other most common objection to any objection on moral grounds it that we shouldn't impose our morality on others. It's a valid point - to impose all our moral values would surely become nothing more than extreme legalism. But what about those values that happen to coincide with the public good? Should Christians, in the interest of not 'forcing' their beliefs on anyone, stay silent on the issue of prison reform, prisons in general, murder, rape, incest, theft? All of those have Biblical prohibitions or indirect implications - so we aren't to voice our concerns?

Obviously, I think that's nonsense. Where there is no obvious societal cost, the argument may well be valid (female leadership in the church would not be a public good issue, for example) but not where the impacts are societal - otherwise, Christians are effectively banned from public life - and that is not a biblical principle, and most assuredly not a democratic one.

To my mind, before you can discuss who should or should not have marital rights, we should look at why we place such high value on marriage that we go so far as to institute it in both secular and sectarian circles. Then we can discuss the costs associated with yet another experiment in social engineering - a field with an abysmal failure rate going back more than a hundred years, and which began to fail so horribly when it divorced itself from its origins - in the Great Awakening and the church herself.

[FreezBee]

....
So, how does this pertain to Christian ethics? The other most common objection to any objection on moral grounds it that we shouldn't impose our morality on others. It's a valid point - to impose all our moral values would surely become nothing more than extreme legalism. But what about those values that happen to coincide with the public good?

While I think I to some extent agree with much of what you have written, I would beg to disagree a bit here :smile:

You mentin "the public good" as if it an objective factor, but is it? What one finds good, another one might find not good. Much Christian apologetics appear very selfrighteous to many, even to me, though I am Christian myself. It's quite common to read Christian books or articles that claim that only Christians are moral people, and that all non-Christians are like mad animals. This attitude is not going to win many friends outside our own circles, I would think.


Should Christians, in the interest of not 'forcing' their beliefs on anyone, stay silent on the issue of prison reform, prisons in general, murder, rape, incest, theft? All of those have Biblical prohibitions or indirect implications - so we aren't to voice our concerns?

Christians of course have the same rights as non-Christians - in societies that do not grant different rights based on religion, that is! Of course as a Christian you are entitled to have a stance in public issues, just make sure you have a stance, and that you are not just mindlessly quoting the Bible. Why should people listen more to a Christian than to say, a Hindu?


Obviously, I think that's nonsense. Where there is no obvious societal cost, the argument may well be valid (female leadership in the church would not be a public good issue, for example) but not where the impacts are societal - otherwise, Christians are effectively banned from public life - and that is not a biblical principle, and most assuredly not a democratic one.

Christians are not banned from public life - Bible-throwing is considered BMered, though :smile:

Some years ago I heard in the TV a Christian claim that marital happiness is not an emotion, it's God will that we should be happy, therefore it is our duty to marry and then we are by definition happy - simply by the will of God. If we don't feel happy, we are bad children!

Of course that kind of argumentation will not work outside the inner circle.


To my mind, before you can discuss who should or should not have marital rights, we should look at why we place such high value on marriage that we go so far as to institute it in both secular and sectarian circles. Then we can discuss the costs associated with yet another experiment in social engineering - a field with an abysmal failure rate going back more than a hundred years, and which began to fail so horribly when it divorced itself from its origins - in the Great Awakening and the church herself.

Well, I'm not married and have no plans of marrying - I have tried it once, and that was once too many for me, so I'm against marriage in general :eek:


- FreezBee

[Amazing Rando]

The question I ask is why do we keep insisting on the government's regulation of an institution that was ordained by God and entrusted to the church?

I would personally like it if the government were to get out of marriage business all together. That way, rather than wasting our energies debating who should, and should not be allowed to marry, the church's efforts would be better spent on actually living out God's ideal of marriage, of witnessing and modeling the wonderful possibilities that happen when two people make a covenant before God to love one another exclusively for the rest of their lives. My take is that if you take God out of the marriage, you no longer have a marriage, but roommates. Marriage, as I see it, is for the church and the people of God, and by allowing the government rather than the church to be the ones who hold ultimate authority over the sacred marriage covenant, marriage has completely lost its original intent.

[Rubia Warren]

How would legal things be if marriage were not sanctioned by the state?

Wouldn't it be a hassle after you get married to try and figure out who has rights to what, and wouldn't that gum up the courts trying to sort it out? Wouldn't there be a paper to fill out for almost everything to fill out regarding married couples, making a big hassle? I mean, for insurance, property stuff, etc.

[Amazing Rando]

How would legal things be if marriage were not sanctioned by the state?

Wouldn't it be a hassle after you get married to try and figure out who has rights to what, and wouldn't that gum up the courts trying to sort it out? Wouldn't there be a paper to fill out for almost everything to fill out regarding married couples, making a big hassle? I mean, for insurance, property stuff, etc.

The state, for its purposes, could still sanction "civil unions" or something along those lines if need be to regulate its daily business. But it's not a marriage, as the Bible understands marriage, unless God is an essential part of the picture.

[rmwilliamsjr]

The question I ask is why do we keep insisting on the government's regulation of an institution that was ordained by God and entrusted to the church?

I would personally like it if the government were to get out of marriage business all together. That way, rather than wasting our energies debating who should, and should not be allowed to marry, the church's efforts would be better spent on actually living out God's ideal of marriage, of witnessing and modeling the wonderful possibilities that happen when two people make a covenant before God to love one another exclusively for the rest of their lives. My take is that if you take God out of the marriage, you no longer have a marriage, but roommates. Marriage, as I see it, is for the church and the people of God, and by allowing the government rather than the church to be the ones who hold ultimate authority over the sacred marriage covenant, marriage has completely lost its original intent.

or get the church out of licensing relationships business on behalf of the government.

there are two distinct threads of historical thought that have built what we call marriage. the first is the nature of sex and family building, and the second is a bundle of property rights that had their origin in feudal Europe and the desire for legitimate offspring on the males part, paternity being an impossible task to prove back then, and succession to property rights.

separate the sanctification purposes of marriage from all the rest of the stuff.
give this stuff to the state to call civil union rights and leave the holy purposes of marriage alone to the Church.

If you are a Christian then you get married in the Church and later that week you go to the justice of the peace to sign a paper that gives you a complex set of property rights. we don't let the Church sign off on drivers licences so why ask preachers to sign off marriage licenses?

the state is the fundamental property right determiner and peace keeper, it would be both unwise and dangerous to yield up those functions.

[Ryokan]

And should it be?

The debate surrounding homosexual 'marriage' often asks the question of why not - but rarely addresses the societal benefits to marriage or the reasons that marriage is regulated in the first place.
In my view, it's a false assertion that private relationships have no public consequences - my entire career makes an absolute mockery of that premise. Infertility, increased health care costs, increased drug resistance (necessitating increased research costs) and death are all consequences of sexual relationships in which an STD is involved. HIV alone strains health care in every nation on earth - ours included (provision of expensive AIDS drugs for the poor wipes out county jail medical budgets all the time - and is becoming increasingly difficult to provide for those who cannot afford them. M'caid does not generally cover them - they don't have the money without additional funds being allocated). Personal relationships can and do have far reaching public consequences. Of course. However, Christians marrying young because they just can't wait, getting knocked up, dropping out of college, and becoming dependant on the system also have a variety of social costs. And yet society still allows them to enter the contractual agreement. Obesity has a variety of social costs. Should we close Mc Donald's? Make video games illegal become some people through their lives away in them? Should we make all extra maritial sex, the ACTUAL causal event described above, illegal or prohibitted?

Marriage does have an impact on STD (I do see some married couples, but the vast majority of my patients are single) - cohabitation doesn't appear to have much, if any, impact. But here the issue appears to be commitment - were cohabiting couples as committed as their married counterparts we should see similar effects - but we don't.

Sounds like a good reason to allow homosexual marriage, right? Problem is, we don't see even the little impact that heterosexual cohabitation produces in homosexual couples - in many areas, the reverse is true. Cohabitation seems to have little impact on homosexual behavior (which is where the risk originates) - there just isn't a logical reason to assume that marriage will do what cohabitation will not in this instance. Now, is this gay men, or homosexuals in general? I doubt their is any policy that could make the sexual practices of a relationship with to men similiar to normal relationships.

But marriage has much more far reaching impacts than that. It is the basis of our whole society. Big claim, but consider: children of intact, nuclear families do better in virtually every demographic category you can name. They have the lowest substance abuse rate, lowest drop out rate, highest college attendance rate - et al. Instead of becoming a burden on society, they become its backbone.

Coming in a close second are single parent widowed families. Children deal far better with the death of a parent than with abandonment of a parent through divorce. Sure, there are exceptions to every rule - but the stats for kids of divorced families are abysmal, unlike the stats for widowed families.

Thirty years ago, divorce was touted as a better solution than having kids see Mom and Dad fight all the time. Turns out, that isn't true (and why Mom and Dad can't reconcile is usually left out of the equation - often, 'won't' not 'can't' is part of the problem). Kids in even troubled families do better when those families remain intact (excluding abuse and neglect).

Now, the argument is that homosexual couples are better than no parents at all - but it's a false dichotomy. The increased adoption effect hoped for can be better accomplished with revisions to existing adoption laws, strengthening the rights of adoptive families (the risk of having a child taken away is more than many parents can face - and sans abuse or neglect, more than they should have to). How are the benefits of marriage undermined by allowing gays to marry? Or are you advocating singles and gays should not be allowed to adopt?

Marital rights go a lot farther than tax breaks and medical decision capacity (which can be done by a DMPA for anyone). They include adoption rights, inheritance rights, property rights, et al. We already have plenty of evidence of the societal costs of divorce in terms of economics (both parents actually do worse economically in the long run than their non-divorced counterparts) just in terms of litigation alone (the criminal courts aren't the only ones swamped - and we have to pay for all those judges!). Adding a new category, from a strictly secular view, is simply going to increase costs without any apparent benefit to the public good. So is their a higher divorce rate among gays? How much higher? How much more would the courts be swamped by legalizing gay marriage? Are those costs so great to society that we should deny a certain class of people the rights associated with a secular contractual agreement? And why deny gays marriage, when clearly a much better solution, following these lines, would be to simply make divorce illegal, or dramatically limited?

So, how does this pertain to Christian ethics? The other most common objection to any objection on moral grounds it that we shouldn't impose our morality on others. It's a valid point - to impose all our moral values would surely become nothing more than extreme legalism. But what about those values that happen to coincide with the public good? Should Christians, in the interest of not 'forcing' their beliefs on anyone, stay silent on the issue of prison reform, prisons in general, murder, rape, incest, theft? All of those have Biblical prohibitions or indirect implications - so we aren't to voice our concerns?

Obviously, I think that's nonsense. Where there is no obvious societal cost, the argument may well be valid (female leadership in the church would not be a public good issue, for example) but not where the impacts are societal - otherwise, Christians are effectively banned from public life - and that is not a biblical principle, and most assuredly not a democratic one.

To my mind, before you can discuss who should or should not have marital rights, we should look at why we place such high value on marriage that we go so far as to institute it in both secular and sectarian circles. Then we can discuss the costs associated with yet another experiment in social engineering - a field with an abysmal failure rate going back more than a hundred years, and which began to fail so horribly when it divorced itself from its origins - in the Great Awakening and the church herself.We place a high value on marriage because people pair off natural, raise children and share resources. Both religion and government recognize it because its part of living in any agricultural based and most hunting/gathering based human societies. Now, what social experiment are we talking about?


My arguement is thus, Teal. You haven't shown me any compelling reason why gay marriage shouldn't be legal. Their are a host of legal behaviors that cause damage to society. In fact, nearly every human behavior does that to a greater or lesser extent. You have, however, made some mighty fine arguements as to why divorce and premarital sex can damage a society, and perhaps should be made illegal. But against those costs we have to measure the damage to an individuals rights. While we benefit when society benefits, we also suffer everytime society restricts a freedom. Nowhere in there did you have a compelling arguement for why interested homosexual couples should not be able to make contracts that bind them together in the way married individuals do.

Asf ar as homosexuality goes personally, I don't know where I stand on it morally. Fortunately, I am not gay, and so can live out my faith personally without any crisis.

[Teallaura]

While I think I to some extent agree with much of what you have written, I would beg to disagree a bit here :smile:

You mentin "the public good" as if it an objective factor, but is it? What one finds good, another one might find not good. Much Christian apologetics appear very selfrighteous to many, even to me, though I am Christian myself. It's quite common to read Christian books or articles that claim that only Christians are moral people, and that all non-Christians are like mad animals. This attitude is not going to win many friends outside our own circles, I would think. Here perhaps 'public weal' would have been a less confusing term - it means that which has benefit to the public. It is not a moral judgment call.


Christians of course have the same rights as non-Christians - in societies that do not grant different rights based on religion, that is! Of course as a Christian you are entitled to have a stance in public issues, just make sure you have a stance, and that you are not just mindlessly quoting the Bible. Why should people listen more to a Christian than to say, a Hindu? You've misunderstood me - here I was discussing the matter in terms of what we should do - what is the right course - rather than what actual rights we have. Those are not in question (as yet....). If it is morally wrong to express our values in the public square - which is the logical conclusion to "don't force your beliefs on others" (given the impossibility of the literal statement) - then we as Christians would be constrained from participation in the public square by our own values - not by the withdrawal of Constitutional rights.

Christians are not banned from public life - Bible-throwing is considered BMered, though :smile: See above - the 'banning', following the logic, would be our own doing (and indeed some groups/sects have come to this conclusion). I obviously consider this to be an incorrect conclusion.

Some years ago I heard in the TV a Christian claim that marital happiness is not an emotion, it's God will that we should be happy, therefore it is our duty to marry and then we are by definition happy - simply by the will of God. If we don't feel happy, we are bad children!

Of course that kind of argumentation will not work outside the inner circle.:shrug: Nor did I make any such argument - not sure why you are mentioning this here.

Well, I'm not married and have no plans of marrying - I have tried it once, and that was once too many for me, so I'm against marriage in general :eek:


- FreezBee

Um, that's hardly a good argument froma public policy standpoint. Perfectly valid from a personal viewpoint, but I never discussed the matter in those terms.

[Teallaura]

The question I ask is why do we keep insisting on the government's regulation of an institution that was ordained by God and entrusted to the church?

I would personally like it if the government were to get out of marriage business all together. That way, rather than wasting our energies debating who should, and should not be allowed to marry, the church's efforts would be better spent on actually living out God's ideal of marriage, of witnessing and modeling the wonderful possibilities that happen when two people make a covenant before God to love one another exclusively for the rest of their lives. My take is that if you take God out of the marriage, you no longer have a marriage, but roommates. Marriage, as I see it, is for the church and the people of God, and by allowing the government rather than the church to be the ones who hold ultimate authority over the sacred marriage covenant, marriage has completely lost its original intent.

The short answer - because while we are not of this world, we do in fact live in it. It would therefore not be much of a witness to fail to use our Constitutional rights (voting, et al) for something we believed did in fact have not only moral but civil implications in order to create the greatest good within public policy.

I concur with a great deal of what you've written here - but I don't see it as a valid basis for public policies likely to erode or destroy families even further. Marriage, whether or not it should, has implications far outside its sectarian boundaries.

[Teallaura]

The state, for its purposes, could still sanction "civil unions" or something along those lines if need be to regulate its daily business. But it's not a marriage, as the Bible understands marriage, unless God is an essential part of the picture.


But civil unions have none of the legal status of marriage - nor should they. You've just created a new name for an existing 'bureaucracy' - and allowed the very extensions of rights that I argued against. Public policy-wise, civil unions replacing marriage would be disaterous - and for my aforementioned reasons, I think such would not be a Scripturally tenable position either.

[Teallaura]

or get the church out of licensing relationships business on behalf of the government.

there are two distinct threads of historical thought that have built what we call marriage. the first is the nature of sex and family building, and the second is a bundle of property rights that had their origin in feudal Europe and the desire for legitimate offspring on the males part, paternity being an impossible task to prove back then, and succession to property rights.

separate the sanctification purposes of marriage from all the rest of the stuff.
give this stuff to the state to call civil union rights and leave the holy purposes of marriage alone to the Church.

If you are a Christian then you get married in the Church and later that week you go to the justice of the peace to sign a paper that gives you a complex set of property rights. we don't let the Church sign off on drivers licences so why ask preachers to sign off marriage licenses?

the state is the fundamental property right determiner and peace keeper, it would be both unwise and dangerous to yield up those functions.

I disagree. Here we have the unique position of secular public policy and sectarian duty overlapping, I would argue inextricably so. Renaming marriage 'civil union' in the public arena does nothing but confuse the issues further - a lot further. Both government and the church have vested interests in marriage - and those interests will not cease with a renaming ceremony. In fact, you create an additional burden on marriage - now needing to in effect, marry twice; once before God (marriage in it's truest state to my mind) and once before man (all the proprietary rights now tied to a seperate document). The licensure existing now does create that appearence, but to seperate them further will result in huge amounts of confusion (when are you really married and in whose sight? Et al) and much more paperwork to sort them all out. The couple and any children being left to bear the brunt of the burden.

[themuzicman]

The state, for its purposes, could still sanction "civil unions" or something along those lines if need be to regulate its daily business. But it's not a marriage, as the Bible understands marriage, unless God is an essential part of the picture.

That's essentially what it is today.

The primary purpose of licensing is to handle the legal rammifications of procreation. Yes, there as aspects related to medical decisionmaking for each other, but that ties in with medical decisionmaking for and by the kids. There's inheritance, but once again, the kids are tied in.

There's also the legal aspects of incest: parent-child, sibling, and first cousins, once again, a concern of procration.

There is also adoption, which, once again, are the parents becoming a substitute for the parents who procreated.

Tax benefits of marriage are, once again, justified based upon the potential of procreation.


Are we detecting a pattern, here?

Michael

[rmwilliamsjr]

That's essentially what it is today.

The primary purpose of licensing is to handle the legal rammifications of procreation. Yes, there as aspects related to medical decisionmaking for each other, but that ties in with medical decisionmaking for and by the kids. There's inheritance, but once again, the kids are tied in.

There's also the legal aspects of incest: parent-child, sibling, and first cousins, once again, a concern of procration.

There is also adoption, which, once again, are the parents becoming a substitute for the parents who procreated.

Tax benefits of marriage are, once again, justified based upon the potential of procreation.


Are we detecting a pattern, here?

Michael

The primary purpose of licensing is to handle the legal rammifications of property. Yes, there as aspects related to medical decisionmaking for each other, but that ties in with medical decisionmaking for and by the legal property successors. There's inheritance, but once again, the legal successors are tied in.

There's also the legal aspects of property holding: parent-child, sibling, and first cousins, once again, a concern of property holding. the fact that only married couples can hold property as joint tenants with rights of survivor ship indicates that property is the primary issue.

There is also adoption, which, once again, are the adoptees are becoming a substitute for the possible heirs via procreation.

Tax benefits of marriage are, once again, justified based upon the potential of hold property in common.

a significant amount of the discussion is how property is held by default by married couples, especially is this important in the few US states with a Mexican law background like Calif and AZ which are common property states.


Are we detecting a pattern, here?

[themuzicman]

Kids are property?

[rmwilliamsjr]

Kids are property?

the historical evolution of family law in the Western began with the extension of property laws into family law.... see paterfamilias in Roman law. so yes, originally children as well as wife(s) and slaves were property. the laws reflect this in both their orientation and their form.

http://bama.ua.edu/~morin002/ (http://bama.ua.edu/%7Emorin002/)

Paterfamilia's Rights Over the Family The formal head of the legally recognized family, the paterfamilias, was the oldest surviving male ascendant, and his authority over his descendants lasted until his death, unless formally resolved by a legal act. He was the anchor of the family, the decision maker, and the financial manager. Women, children, and slaves had a very inferior status. They had a constant awareness of his power and position. Every member of the familia was in the potestas of the paterfamilias. The virtually absolute power of the paterfamilias over the rest of his household may have been necessary or desirable in early days when the state had no regular courts or police force and did not involve itself in private morality. The father of the Roman family had the power over everyone and everything in the home. This power was legally recognized. If any member of the family behaved in any way that he considered exceeding the boundaries of proper behavior he had the power to punish the offender with harsh sentences, such as, banishment, slavery, and death. This power extended to the man's slaves and tenant farmers as well. Only the paterfamilias had the right before law to buy, sell, or hold property. He owned, as agent and trustee, all the property of the extended family and held absolute power over persons within his household. As long as the paterfamilias was alive, the sons could not own property or have legal authority over their own children. Though the paterfamilias had the authority to do all of these things, if he inflicted terrible punishment or wasted family property, his reputation would be ruined. Sometimes a father would let his son go on to rule his own family. Upon the paterfamilia's death, each of the sons became rulers of their own households.


interestingly, since law requires precedence, the original child abuse laws were effectively SPCA rules applied to children's living conditions. western society requires antecedents to create new laws to cover changing circumstances, modify them a -=little=- bit to retain authority and legitimacy and gradually move in the direction that the powers desire.

(marriage laws are about procreation in the same way that rape is about sex. both are obvious and just as obviously a smokescreen for the real answer, marriage laws are about property and rape is about power)

[Teallaura]

Of course. However, Christians marrying young because they just can't wait, getting knocked up, dropping out of college, and becoming dependant on the system also have a variety of social costs. And yet society still allows them to enter the contractual agreement. Obesity has a variety of social costs. Should we close Mc Donald's? Make video games illegal become some people through their lives away in them? Should we make all extra maritial sex, the ACTUAL causal event described above, illegal or prohibitted? Ry, I didn't argue any of that. I used an example to support my assertion that private relationships have public consequences. I never argued that all such consequences should be treated the same.

Some people lie in order to steal - it does not logically follow that to outlaw theft we must also outlaw lying in order to be 'fair'. This strikes me as an argument from outrage - regardless, it is not valid to assert that because one public policy is instituted we must institute every conceivable variation that can be drawn from the same line of reasoning, without considering the merits of each individually.



Now, is this gay men, or homosexuals in general? I doubt their is any policy that could make the sexual practices of a relationship with to men similiar to normal relationships. Define your terms here please. I would argue gay men = male homosexuals. Unless your broadening to include lesbians (which have similar implications but less data to work from), I do not see the pertinence of the differentiation.

Nor do I see where sexual practice comes into play here. If there is a serious tendency in the pop that would explain the need for marriage, then you should already see an increased rate of cohabitation and whatever benefit that bestows. We don't see that - what we actually see are mercurial partner relationships that are usually non-monogamous. Strict monogamy with uninfected partners will offer the same protection in homosexual/MSM pops that it does in Heterosexual ones - we simply do not see it borne out in the stats. Practice makes it more apparent (since AI is a natural and efficient vector) that monogamy isn't the norm, but that merely because were monogamy the norm, practice would have little opportunity for transmission.


How are the benefits of marriage undermined by allowing gays to marry? Or are you advocating singles and gays should not be allowed to adopt?Ry, that's not my argument. My argument is from public weal - show a benefit that indicates that homosexual marriage should be allowed.

Singles are restricted in adoption, Ry - and I think they should be. Second best is not acceptable when the means to provide better is at hand. Adoption should center on the needs of the child, not the rights of the parents. Those should be secondary and exist primarily to give the parent the legal power to protect and raise said child.

Further, I can't adopt - I'm 41 years of age - the cut off is below forty. There are valid reasons not to allow just anyone to adopt as if adoption were an adult right. It's not an adult right; it should never be an adult right; it is a privilege with an enormous duty tied to it.


So is their a higher divorce rate among gays? How much higher? How much more would the courts be swamped by legalizing gay marriage? Are those costs so great to society that we should deny a certain class of people the rights associated with a secular contractual agreement? And why deny gays marriage, when clearly a much better solution, following these lines, would be to simply make divorce illegal, or dramatically limited?
1) Why would the divorce rate be lower? Even if it were, does it not still add to the burden of the courts? You know full well there are no stats on something that doesn't exist except for a single state.

2) If MSM sexual patterns are any indication, then the divorce rate should be astronomical. However, I merely argued that adding a category increases the burden. Kindly show me how that is not the case?

3) What is the benefit to society if we extend a secular privilege? Marriage is not itself a right - it is a secular privilege with rights associated with it once that privilege is granted - in policy terms, it's the same thing as a driver's license. Further, marriage is already a highly restricted privilege. We don't let kids, dogs, insane, or incompetent people marry. There are detriments to society if we do and no benefit to balance them out. It is not in the public interest to let me marry my hypothetical brother.

4) False dichotomy. Homosexual marriage would increase those societal costs to children in my opinion, just as no fault divorce did. The objection is to unnecessarily increasing costs when we have made a big enough mess as it is. You don't drop the last egg because you dropped the rest of carton on the floor. I never argued that the continued prohibition of homosexual marriage would improve divorce stats - that's silly.


We place a high value on marriage because people pair off natural, raise children and share resources. Both religion and government recognize it because its part of living in any agricultural based and most hunting/gathering based human societies. Okay (I don't find it comprehensive or terribly compelling, but we can work with this).

Now, what social experiment are we talking about?Homosexual marriage - please don't play dumb. You are a lot better than that.


My arguement is thus, Teal. You haven't shown me any compelling reason why gay marriage shouldn't be legal.Um, so what? That wasn't the gist of my argument at all - you're now attempting to switch the burden onto me when my argument is from a public weal standpoint. Show a benefit to homosexual marriage - I've already demonstrated that it will have costs - so what benefit is there to society that balances those costs? That's the argument, Ry.

Their are a host of legal behaviors that cause damage to society. In fact, nearly every human behavior does that to a greater or lesser extent. You have, however, made some mighty fine arguements as to why divorce and premarital sex can damage a society, and perhaps should be made illegal. But against those costs we have to measure the damage to an individuals rights. While we benefit when society benefits, we also suffer everytime society restricts a freedom. Nowhere in there did you have a compelling arguement for why interested homosexual couples should not be able to make contracts that bind them together in the way married individuals do.Marriage brings adoption rights - and we have demonstrated that non-nuclear families are generally detrimental to children. There ya go in terms of marriage per se.

Most of the contractual pro arguments are fairly silly - virtually all of those things can be accomplished through other legal means. With no benefit to society as yet apparent (you've not even begun making that case), there is simply no compelling reason to change 200+ years of jurisprudence and to set off yet another set of additional costs to society.



Asf ar as homosexuality goes personally, I don't know where I stand on it morally. Fortunately, I am not gay, and so can live out my faith personally without any crisis.
Sigh, never made a morality argument. Being technical, kleptomania isn't immoral - but stealing sure is. Check the relevant passages, Ry - it's the act, not the proclivity, that is the sin.

[FreezBee]

Here perhaps 'public weal' would have been a less confusing term - it means that which has benefit to the public. It is not a moral judgment call.

Ok, I looked 'weal' up at Webster's (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=weal):

Weal (1):

Prosperity; happiness: in weal and woe.
The welfare of the community; the general good: the public weal.


But that still leaves the question: what has benefit to the public? Is there any agreement on that? To me you appear to argue from the (Platonistic) assumption that there (in an ideal world somewhere over the rainbow) exists such a thing as "the public weal", but does it?

You've misunderstood me - here I was discussing the matter in terms of what we should do - what is the right course - rather than what actual rights we have. Those are not in question (as yet....). If it is morally wrong to express our values in the public square - which is the logical conclusion to "don't force your beliefs on others" (given the impossibility of the literal statement) - then we as Christians would be constrained from participation in the public square by our own values - not by the withdrawal of Constitutional rights.

You can express your values in the public square, but remember they are your values, they anly apply to you.

When you address people, it is occasionally better to do so in their language, even if that is unfamiliar to you, wouldn't you agree? If you say that something is against Christian values, people will hear that you are evangelizing and focus on that rather than whatever message you might be trying to get through.

See above - the 'banning', following the logic, would be our own doing (and indeed some groups/sects have come to this conclusion). I obviously consider this to be an incorrect conclusion.

And so, where is the problem? A society can still survive, even with subcultures following each their own rules. Christians can set up standards that only apply to them, Hindus can set up standards that only apply to them, and so on.

:shrug: Nor did I make any such argument - not sure why you are mentioning this here.

Because some Christians make marital happiness a duty - if that's not your position, then obviously not even Christians agree on, what constitutes Christian values, you see!

Um, that's hardly a good argument froma public policy standpoint. Perfectly valid from a personal viewpoint, but I never discussed the matter in those terms.

To me an argument from personal experience weighs heavier than an argument from some abstract rules of "the public weal". From a public policy standpoint it is of importance, whether laws should reflect what people do, or if people should reflect what the law says. And you did bring in your personal experience as a physician, if memory serves me well :wink:


- FreezBee

[Teallaura]

Ok, I looked 'weal' up at Webster's (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=weal):

Weal (1):

Prosperity; happiness: in weal and woe.
The welfare of the community; the general good: the public weal.


But that still leaves the question: what has benefit to the public? Is there any agreement on that? To me you appear to argue from the (Platonistic) assumption that there (in an ideal world somewhere over the rainbow) exists such a thing as "the public weal", but does it?

My poli sci profs all seemed to think so. And it's hardly a Platonic argument - public weal tends to be highly pragmatic when taken from the hypothetical realm. I did not speak in hypotheticals of that sort.

However, you've totally lost me - what does any of this have to do with the thesis?

Public good/public weal are fairly common and interchangable terms in political science. If Christians are not morally excluded from the public square, I cannot see any logical reason why Christians would be prohibited from considering an issue from the public weal standpoint.


You can express your values in the public square, but remember they are your values, they anly apply to you.
This strikes me as relativist nonsense. Any value system is the value system of its adherents - what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Value neutrality in public policy is a ridiculous and fool hardy goal. To achieve it you'd need a population of robots with no values whatsoever.


When you address people, it is occasionally better to do so in their language, even if that is unfamiliar to you, wouldn't you agree? If you say that something is against Christian values, people will hear that you are evangelizing and focus on that rather than whatever message you might be trying to get through. You seem to me to be projecting here - and that would be your own issue. I spoke in public policy terms and in terms of Christian ethics - perhaps you did not notice that this is a Christian only forum? If anything, the public policy terminology, not the Christian, would be unfamiliar to others here. How any of what I said was against Christian values (save perhaps yours) I haven't the faintest.


And so, where is the problem? A society can still survive, even with subcultures following each their own rules. Christians can set up standards that only apply to them, Hindus can set up standards that only apply to them, and so on. You're arguing with yourself now. I argued a completely different line of reasoning.


Because some Christians make marital happiness a duty - if that's not your position, then obviously not even Christians agree on, what constitutes Christian values, you see!Oh yeah, you are definitely arguing with yourself - so what? This isn't pertinent to what I said!

On the 'not all Christians agree' thing - so what? It's not definitional as you seem to be implying (orthodox Christianity is defined by the Nicene Creed - those core tenets must agree but tons of other stuff can be in question without the Christianity of a given adherent being questioned - except by stupid people). Lowest common denominator arguments are usually silly, by the way. In point of fact, you can't get universal agreement from secular forces within public policy - it's therefore a nonsensical standard to apply before entering a discussion of the public weal.


To me an argument from personal experience weighs heavier than an argument from some abstract rules of "the public weal". From a public policy standpoint it is of importance, whether laws should reflect what people do, or if people should reflect what the law says. And you did bring in your personal experience as a physician, if memory serves me well :wink:


- FreezBee

Actually, I didn't argue from personal eperience - I provided supporting evidence on my intial assertion from same. I'm not a doctor, by the way - I'm an STD rep. Using personal experience alone for public policy matters is equally fool hardy - what happens when no one has ever experienced a particular situation before? That's fine if it's the sort of evidence you prefer, it's just not compelling or useful alone (although it may well be perfectly valid) in a discussion of public policy.

[Ryokan]

Ry, I didn't argue any of that. I used an example to support my assertion that private relationships have public consequences. I never argued that all such consequences should be treated the same. Then how do you divide behaviors, Teal?

Some people lie in order to steal - it does not logically follow that to outlaw theft we must also outlaw lying in order to be 'fair'. This strikes me as an argument from outrage - regardless, it is not valid to assert that because one public policy is instituted we must institute every conceivable variation that can be drawn from the same line of reasoning, without considering the merits of each individually. I agree. However, I do think it undermines the arguement that simply because something may not be of benefit to the public it ought not be permitted eiter. It breaks the public benefit to merely one factor.



Define your terms here please. I would argue gay men = male homosexuals. Unless your broadening to include lesbians (which have similar implications but less data to work from), I do not see the pertinence of the differentiation.
They, at least in my personal experience, have marketedly differing sexual practices.
Nor do I see where sexual practice comes into play here. If there is a serious tendency in the pop that would explain the need for marriage, then you should already see an increased rate of cohabitation and whatever benefit that bestows. We don't see that - what we actually see are mercurial partner relationships that are usually non-monogamous. Strict monogamy with uninfected partners will offer the same protection in homosexual/MSM pops that it does in Heterosexual ones - we simply do not see it borne out in the stats. Practice makes it more apparent (since AI is a natural and efficient vector) that monogamy isn't the norm, but that merely because were monogamy the norm, practice would have little opportunity for transmission.
However, we have to ask why, Teal. Why do gays and lesbians have such relationships? It mayt be public policy in fact effects it.

Ry, that's not my argument. My argument is from public weal - show a benefit that indicates that homosexual marriage should be allowed. [/QUOTE} My position, as a limited government conservative, is that you need to show a compelling reason why it should NOT be allowed teal.
[QUOTE]
Singles are restricted in adoption, Ry - and I think they should be. Second best is not acceptable when the means to provide better is at hand. Adoption should center on the needs of the child, not the rights of the parents. Those should be secondary and exist primarily to give the parent the legal power to protect and raise said child. Then why not restrict gay and lesbian married couples ability to adopt?

Further, I can't adopt - I'm 41 years of age - the cut off is below forty. There are valid reasons not to allow just anyone to adopt as if adoption were an adult right. It's not an adult right; it should never be an adult right; it is a privilege with an enormous duty tied to it. Sure. but again, particular question abvoe gets posed.



1) Why would the divorce rate be lower? Even if it were, does it not still add to the burden of the courts? You know full well there are no stats on something that doesn't exist except for a single state. Gays and lesbians represent somewhere between 2-4% of the population, so I don't see where we can get off saying the courts we be buried in gay and lesbian divorces. And without a compelling reason to deny it, its still the courts duty, busy or not, to handle the marriages and divorces. And without data, how can we think divorce rates will be higher? We will have to see.

2) If MSM sexual patterns are any indication, then the divorce rate should be astronomical. However, I merely argued that adding a category increases the burden. Kindly show me how that is not the case? I didn't say it wouldn't. I asked how much? Would it be an undo burden, or not?

3) What is the benefit to society if we extend a secular privilege? Marriage is not itself a right - it is a secular privilege with rights associated with it once that privilege is granted - in policy terms, it's the same thing as a driver's license. Further, marriage is already a highly restricted privilege. We don't let kids, dogs, insane, or incompetent people marry. There are detriments to society if we do and no benefit to balance them out. It is not in the public interest to let me marry my hypothetical brother. We don't let ou marryu your brother because of the great possibility for seriously disable offspring, as well as the fact such relationships tend to be extremely coercive. Dogs, children, and the insane can't consent. But I fail to see how marriage is not a right. In man's natural state, it is one of the most basic things he does. Pairing off into small family groups has been basic for our species, in general, for a very long time. Also, from a governmental stand point, its just a contract. Ought we not have a compelling reason to deny those rights?

4) False dichotomy. Homosexual marriage would increase those societal costs to children in my opinion, just as no fault divorce did. The objection is to unnecessarily increasing costs when we have made a big enough mess as it is. You don't drop the last egg because you dropped the rest of carton on the floor. I never argued that the continued prohibition of homosexual marriage would improve divorce stats - that's silly. It does, though, Teal. Because homosexual marriages is not the act itself, but the behavior of the majority, but by far not all


Okay (I don't find it comprehensive or terribly compelling, but we can work with this). Just to get it straight, are you OEC or YEC? or MEC?

Homosexual marriage - please don't play dumb. You are a lot better than that.
I was seriously confused. The paragraph whacked me with a 2x4 and left me dazed.

Um, so what? That wasn't the gist of my argument at all - you're now attempting to switch the burden onto me when my argument is from a public weal standpoint. Show a benefit to homosexual marriage - I've already demonstrated that it will have costs - so what benefit is there to society that balances those costs? That's the argument, Ry. Okay. The entire publics rights would be better protected because it would be deemed less acceptable for frivilous laws to be drawn up "to protect the public weal" at the expense of our rights. But it makes you come off sounding like a lib, Teal. My arguement was that when restricting a behavior, in a society with limited gov. as a founding principle, the burden should rightly be on those to show that it benefits the public more to prohibit the activity than the harm caused by restricting the rights of those individuals.

Marriage brings adoption rights - and we have demonstrated that non-nuclear families are generally detrimental to children. There ya go in terms of marriage per se. But it doesn't have to be that way. That's not fair and you know it Teal.

Most of the contractual pro arguments are fairly silly - virtually all of those things can be accomplished through other legal means. With no benefit to society as yet apparent (you've not even begun making that case), there is simply no compelling reason to change 200+ years of jurisprudence and to set off yet another set of additional costs to society. Alot of rights have been restricted in the past, like women's rights, for instance, are not now. And I think alot of the problems mentioned above we be far less significant in a patriarchial society. They had significant jurisprudence behind them, too. By the way, I never argued we are constitutionally compelled to allow gay marriage, that's dumb. I just think we ought to.




Sigh, never made a morality argument. Being technical, kleptomania isn't immoral - but stealing sure is. Check the relevant passages, Ry - it's the act, not the proclivity, that is the sin.I recognize that. I was just stating my position incase the bar jonah fairy visits. :teeth:


I need coffee. :sigh: Its too early teal. Too early! Never have children if you like to sleep in ever.

[Teallaura]

Then how do you divide behaviors, Teal?Behavior is differentiated from practice. Practice refers to the sexual acts themselves where behavior can refer to the sexual acts but also includes a host of related and supporting behaviors.


I agree. However, I do think it undermines the arguement that simply because something may not be of benefit to the public it ought not be permitted eiter. It breaks the public benefit to merely one factor. You have failed to address the costs issue here, Ry. It isn't merely not of benefit, but is actually detrimental in terms of cost. How do you justify the additional cost, sans any apparent benefit?

Your choices, as far as I can see, are to support the argument that marriage is in fact a right (and a denied right - which is not a given) or to provide some kind of evidence of an actual benefit. Otherwise, you haven't justified the public costs.


They, at least in my personal experience, have marketedly differing sexual practices. However, we have to ask why, Teal. Why do gays and lesbians have such relationships? It mayt be public policy in fact effects it.
Actually, I see no reason from a public weal standpoint to ask that question at all, at least not to date in this argument. We aren't arguing psychology (yet :sigh:) - we're arguing whether or not in a cost/benefit analysis, instituting homosexual marriage serves the public good. Why homosexuals form relationships has no more to do with the argument per se than asking why people have dogs does to whether or not we should require rabies vaccinations.



Ry, that's not my argument. My argument is from public weal - show a benefit that indicates that homosexual marriage should be allowed.
My position, as a limited government conservative, is that you need to show a compelling reason why it should NOT be allowed teal.
Fine - start your own thread then. That horse gets beaten enough and isn't the thrust of what's being argued here.

Further, it shifts the burden - it's you (general) who wish to change the existing system; it is therefore your burden to explain why we should do so.

Then why not restrict gay and lesbian married couples ability to adopt?We do that now, and it isn't as effective as it once was - adding the sanction of marriage would make such restrictions near to, if not completely, politically impossible.

There is no compelling reason why homosexuals should be allowed to marry. It isn't a deprived right; other legal means exist to pursue similar contractual goals; there doesn't seem to be a need or a strong desire for it beyond upsetting the political status quo (not a valid reason) nor is it in any way beneficial to society.

There are compelling reasons not to - the potential of adoption topping the list.

Sure. but again, particular question abvoe gets posed.I'm sorry, but I don't follow. That question doesn't appear to me to have relevance to what I had said. Clarify, please.

Gays and lesbians represent somewhere between 2-4% of the population, so I don't see where we can get off saying the courts we be buried in gay and lesbian divorces. The issue is not one of scope, but of occurrence. You know full well that it would add additional burden to an already strained court system. Were the system not so severely strained, you might could make this argument, but as it stands, any addition will increase dockets, time waiting for a court date and overall costs (courts don't exactly make a lot of money on these things; lawyers, maybe but not the courts) - this is detrimental, not beneficial. Where's the benefit that justifies the cost?

And without a compelling reason to deny it, its still the courts duty, busy or not, to handle the marriages and divorces. Granted - which strengthens my argument, not your own. Think economics, Ry. What happens when you increase demand, but not supply?

And without data, how can we think divorce rates will be higher? We will have to see.No, we don't 'have to see' since we don't have to allow the thing in the first place. Divorce rates are still irrelevant to the argument.

I didn't say it wouldn't. I asked how much? Would it be an undo burden, or not?How much isn't the relevant issue (might be supportable, as I said, were the courts not strained, but that's not the reality). As to an undue burden, yep - that's the argument I've been supporting. I've shown increased costs repeatedly - and you've conceded some of the same. Without a benefit to counter them, the burden is indeed undue. Generally speaking, we try not to charge people when they receive no recompense - same principle applies to public weal.

We don't let ou marryu your brother because of the great possibility for seriously disable offspring, as well as the fact such relationships tend to be extremely coercive.Homosexual relationships, like their divorced single parent kin (the actual comparison in supporting studies) aren't conducive to the overall well being of children raised in them. Single parent divorced may occasionally be unavoidable and no fault divorce (which leads to so many such families) has sadly been institutionalized but that hardly justifies allowing yet another poor performer to take the stage, especially not using kids once again as guinea pigs!

Dogs, children, and the insane can't consent. But I fail to see how marriage is not a right. In man's natural state, it is one of the most basic things he does. Pairing off into small family groups has been basic for our species, in general, for a very long time. Also, from a governmental stand point, its just a contract. Ought we not have a compelling reason to deny those rights? You're evidently arguing natural rights - but natural rights are neither legal nor Constitutional rights. You have no Constitutional right to spit on a city street - although spitting is quite natural, it isn't a right.

We use laws to institute rights. In the US we do recognize a few as inalienable (life, liberty and pursuit of happiness), but that doesn't mean every 'natural' act is a right under the law.

The right to 'pair off' has little to do with the reasons that marriage is codified into law. We naturally tend to do a lot of things no one has ever bothered to codify (outside of some extreme and bizarre examples). Breathing is not codified anywhere that I can think of - you can pretty much breathe any available air you like. We do codify where you may relieve yourself within habitation/urban confines - but you can do it pretty much any time you like. You can scratch virtually any body part of your own that you care to in virtually any locale (so long as you don't disrobe) - quite natural, but no where in the Constitution does it say 'Congress shall make no law concerning the scratching of one's own body parts'.

Ry, contracts aren't open to everyone. Both parties must be able to consent, able to hold up their end of the bargain and the bargain must not itself violate the law or require someone to do so. Marriage as a governmental concern isn't a two party, but a three party contract. Married couples have certain responsibilities recognized by law along with their rights.

Be that as it may, marriage isn't like a purchase agreement in which no public weal issue is involved (beyond regulations requiring safe vehicles). It is an institution with the option to have children, upon which is charged with the duty to raise, protect, educate and prepare those children to enter public life as adults. Fancy language for these are the people raising the people who will work in, if not choose, your nursing home! :grin: In that it has more in common with a social contract than a natural right.

It does, though, Teal. Because homosexual marriages is not the act itself, but the behavior of the majority, but by far not all
Er, what? :huh: Get some sleep and try this again in English, okay?

Just to get it straight, are you OEC or YEC? or MEC? Irrelevant and borderline insulting. We've been through this before. Unless you can show direct bearing, the personal viewpoint is irrelevant to the argument.

I was seriously confused. The paragraph whacked me with a 2x4 and left me dazed. :huh:

Okay. The entire publics rights would be better protected because it would be deemed less acceptable for frivilous laws to be drawn up "to protect the public weal" at the expense of our rights. But it makes you come off sounding like a lib, Teal. My arguement was that when restricting a behavior, in a society with limited gov. as a founding principle, the burden should rightly be on those to show that it benefits the public more to prohibit the activity than the harm caused by restricting the rights of those individuals. But your argument makes no sense in this context, Ry. Restricting what rights? Marriage, like driver's licensing, is a privilege - and is already restricted. Marriage is codified because it is of public benefit - therefore, it is necessary to show compelling cause or benefit before making serious alteration to it. You've done neither.

Ry, you're actually arguing for the increased governmental intervention side - adding additional classifications to marriage will simply add to the existing bureaucracy - more marriages/divorces = more judges/probate workers et al to deal with them. Increasing workload is not a great way to decrease the size of government, Ry.

There's nothing per se in my argument that conflicts with conservative thought (although that would hardly invalidate it - liberals are right once in a while, too, and besides, your position is the recognized social liberal one. You'd be shooting holes in your own boat, were it valid). Social conservatives recognize the merits of the public weal (you do realize that government itself in a democratic society rests on this basis) - outside of a few extremists, I've never heard a conservative call to abandon all regulation of everything. The basis for regulation - public weal.

But it doesn't have to be that way. That's not fair and you know it Teal.Neither is life, Ry. And this is possibly the worst argument I've ever seen on this point (man, get coffee before you do these things!) - 'fairness' to homosexuals (or any other group and I do mean any) outweighs the well being of children?! Seriously, that's where your logic here leads. Adoption is not a adult right! Competency and best interest of the child should be paramount in the consideration of who we do and do not allow to adopt (and yeah, the law needs serious work here!) - not how 'fair' it is to the adults!

Here your youth is showing. During the no fault divorce debate, study after study was touted as saying the kids would either do okay or even better if no fault divorce was allowed. Oppsie! Turns out, they were all wrong (many badly done, some misconstrued - sound familiar?) - dead wrong! Kids of divorce do horribly compared to their nuclear counterparts in every social ill or vice imaginable. Turns out kids don't deal with parental abandonment (which is how the vast majority perceive the leaving parent) nearly as well as they deal with internal familial strife.

Now we have a few (badly flawed from what I've seen - hint, compare to nuclear families, not single parent divorced ones and see what results you get! Nope, not done that I've seen) studies telling us kids do just as well in homes with homosexual parents ('just as well' as bad is a good thing why?). Now, we can use history as an indication that maybe, just maybe, experiments in social engineering should be taken with huge grains of salt, or we can experiment on yet another generation of kids. I vote for the former, if you couldn't guess. Turning children into guinea pigs isn't fair to them.

Alot of rights have been restricted in the past, like women's rights, for instance, are not now. Yup, and there were big public dividends to allowing women's rights. Did you know that women were one of the leading reasons that the mercantile age in the 1500's took off? Women tend to be savers and therefore had money to invest in merchants going off in ships. Women tend to be more publicly conscientious (will vote more often). Women do a host of other things that benefit society which were enhanced by their gaining of those rights, therefore outweighing the public cost of same. You were saying?

And I think alot of the problems mentioned above we be far less significant in a patriarchial society. They had significant jurisprudence behind them, too. Er? Okay, if this means what I think it does, sure, they had the jurisprudence, but there were benefits outweighing the costs. Further, there were issues of rights involved - ironically, the inalienable ones. In the issue of marriage per se there isn't much of a case for rights proper beyond the emotional one. (Now we get into psychology if this line of reasoning is pursued.)

By the way, I never argued we are constitutionally compelled to allow gay marriage, that's dumb. I just think we ought to.Er, Ry, then why did you bring rights into the issue? Are you referring only to natural rights in order to make a moral argument?

I recognize that. I was just stating my position incase the bar jonah fairy visits. :teeth:


I need coffee. :sigh: Its too early teal. Too early! Never have children if you like to sleep in ever.

Gotcha.

Given a choice between having children and sleeping in, I'd take the kids in a heartbeat. Now, if I could just find a husband....:noid:

I will remember to answer posts after the kids are in school and I've had some sleep! :teeth:

[Ryokan]

Behavior is differentiated from practice. Practice refers to the sexual acts themselves where behavior can refer to the sexual acts but also includes a host of related and supporting behaviors.


You have failed to address the costs issue here, Ry. It isn't merely not of benefit, but is actually detrimental in terms of cost. How do you justify the additional cost, sans any apparent benefit?

Your choices, as far as I can see, are to support the argument that marriage is in fact a right (and a denied right - which is not a given) or to provide some kind of evidence of an actual benefit. Otherwise, you haven't justified the public costs.



Actually, I see no reason from a public weal standpoint to ask that question at all, at least not to date in this argument. We aren't arguing psychology (yet :sigh:) - we're arguing whether or not in a cost/benefit analysis, instituting homosexual marriage serves the public good. Why homosexuals form relationships has no more to do with the argument per se than asking why people have dogs does to whether or not we should require rabies vaccinations.




Fine - start your own thread then. That horse gets beaten enough and isn't the thrust of what's being argued here.

Further, it shifts the burden - it's you (general) who wish to change the existing system; it is therefore your burden to explain why we should do so.

We do that now, and it isn't as effective as it once was - adding the sanction of marriage would make such restrictions near to, if not completely, politically impossible.

There is no compelling reason why homosexuals should be allowed to marry. It isn't a deprived right; other legal means exist to pursue similar contractual goals; there doesn't seem to be a need or a strong desire for it beyond upsetting the political status quo (not a valid reason) nor is it in any way beneficial to society.

There are compelling reasons not to - the potential of adoption topping the list.

I'm sorry, but I don't follow. That question doesn't appear to me to have relevance to what I had said. Clarify, please.

The issue is not one of scope, but of occurrence. You know full well that it would add additional burden to an already strained court system. Were the system not so severely strained, you might could make this argument, but as it stands, any addition will increase dockets, time waiting for a court date and overall costs (courts don't exactly make a lot of money on these things; lawyers, maybe but not the courts) - this is detrimental, not beneficial. Where's the benefit that justifies the cost?

Granted - which strengthens my argument, not your own. Think economics, Ry. What happens when you increase demand, but not supply?

No, we don't 'have to see' since we don't have to allow the thing in the first place. Divorce rates are still irrelevant to the argument.

How much isn't the relevant issue (might be supportable, as I said, were the courts not strained, but that's not the reality). As to an undue burden, yep - that's the argument I've been supporting. I've shown increased costs repeatedly - and you've conceded some of the same. Without a benefit to counter them, the burden is indeed undue. Generally speaking, we try not to charge people when they receive no recompense - same principle applies to public weal.

Homosexual relationships, like their divorced single parent kin (the actual comparison in supporting studies) aren't conducive to the overall well being of children raised in them. Single parent divorced may occasionally be unavoidable and no fault divorce (which leads to so many such families) has sadly been institutionalized but that hardly justifies allowing yet another poor performer to take the stage, especially not using kids once again as guinea pigs!

You're evidently arguing natural rights - but natural rights are neither legal nor Constitutional rights. You have no Constitutional right to spit on a city street - although spitting is quite natural, it isn't a right.

We use laws to institute rights. In the US we do recognize a few as inalienable (life, liberty and pursuit of happiness), but that doesn't mean every 'natural' act is a right under the law.

The right to 'pair off' has little to do with the reasons that marriage is codified into law. We naturally tend to do a lot of things no one has ever bothered to codify (outside of some extreme and bizarre examples). Breathing is not codified anywhere that I can think of - you can pretty much breathe any available air you like. We do codify where you may relieve yourself within habitation/urban confines - but you can do it pretty much any time you like. You can scratch virtually any body part of your own that you care to in virtually any locale (so long as you don't disrobe) - quite natural, but no where in the Constitution does it say 'Congress shall make no law concerning the scratching of one's own body parts'.

Ry, contracts aren't open to everyone. Both parties must be able to consent, able to hold up their end of the bargain and the bargain must not itself violate the law or require someone to do so. Marriage as a governmental concern isn't a two party, but a three party contract. Married couples have certain responsibilities recognized by law along with their rights.

Be that as it may, marriage isn't like a purchase agreement in which no public weal issue is involved (beyond regulations requiring safe vehicles). It is an institution with the option to have children, upon which is charged with the duty to raise, protect, educate and prepare those children to enter public life as adults. Fancy language for these are the people raising the people who will work in, if not choose, your nursing home! :grin: In that it has more in common with a social contract than a natural right.


Er, what? :huh: Get some sleep and try this again in English, okay?

Irrelevant and borderline insulting. We've been through this before. Unless you can show direct bearing, the personal viewpoint is irrelevant to the argument.

:huh:

But your argument makes no sense in this context, Ry. Restricting what rights? Marriage, like driver's licensing, is a privilege - and is already restricted. Marriage is codified because it is of public benefit - therefore, it is necessary to show compelling cause or benefit before making serious alteration to it. You've done neither.

Ry, you're actually arguing for the increased governmental intervention side - adding additional classifications to marriage will simply add to the existing bureaucracy - more marriages/divorces = more judges/probate workers et al to deal with them. Increasing workload is not a great way to decrease the size of government, Ry.

There's nothing per se in my argument that conflicts with conservative thought (although that would hardly invalidate it - liberals are right once in a while, too, and besides, your position is the recognized social liberal one. You'd be shooting holes in your own boat, were it valid). Social conservatives recognize the merits of the public weal (you do realize that government itself in a democratic society rests on this basis) - outside of a few extremists, I've never heard a conservative call to abandon all regulation of everything. The basis for regulation - public weal.

Neither is life, Ry. And this is possibly the worst argument I've ever seen on this point (man, get coffee before you do these things!) - 'fairness' to homosexuals (or any other group and I do mean any) outweighs the well being of children?! Seriously, that's where your logic here leads. Adoption is not a adult right! Competency and best interest of the child should be paramount in the consideration of who we do and do not allow to adopt (and yeah, the law needs serious work here!) - not how 'fair' it is to the adults!

Here your youth is showing. During the no fault divorce debate, study after study was touted as saying the kids would either do okay or even better if no fault divorce was allowed. Oppsie! Turns out, they were all wrong (many badly done, some misconstrued - sound familiar?) - dead wrong! Kids of divorce do horribly compared to their nuclear counterparts in every social ill or vice imaginable. Turns out kids don't deal with parental abandonment (which is how the vast majority perceive the leaving parent) nearly as well as they deal with internal familial strife.

Now we have a few (badly flawed from what I've seen - hint, compare to nuclear families, not single parent divorced ones and see what results you get! Nope, not done that I've seen) studies telling us kids do just as well in homes with homosexual parents ('just as well' as bad is a good thing why?). Now, we can use history as an indication that maybe, just maybe, experiments in social engineering should be taken with huge grains of salt, or we can experiment on yet another generation of kids. I vote for the former, if you couldn't guess. Turning children into guinea pigs isn't fair to them.

Yup, and there were big public dividends to allowing women's rights. Did you know that women were one of the leading reasons that the mercantile age in the 1500's took off? Women tend to be savers and therefore had money to invest in merchants going off in ships. Women tend to be more publicly conscientious (will vote more often). Women do a host of other things that benefit society which were enhanced by their gaining of those rights, therefore outweighing the public cost of same. You were saying?

Er? Okay, if this means what I think it does, sure, they had the jurisprudence, but there were benefits outweighing the costs. Further, there were issues of rights involved - ironically, the inalienable ones. In the issue of marriage per se there isn't much of a case for rights proper beyond the emotional one. (Now we get into psychology if this line of reasoning is pursued.)

Er, Ry, then why did you bring rights into the issue? Are you referring only to natural rights in order to make a moral argument?



Gotcha.

Given a choice between having children and sleeping in, I'd take the kids in a heartbeat. Now, if I could just find a husband....:noid:

I will remember to answer posts after the kids are in school and I've had some sleep! :teeth:This post is huge. I can't respond right now. Sorry teal. :blush: in the next day or two, I shall return parry.

[Thomas2003]

And should it be?

In the United States the "licensing" of marriages is a rather new thing that only exists from 1878 on.

It is important to understand what a license is. A license permits what otherwise would be a crime, a tort, or a trespass at common law. At common law marriage is a right which cannot be annuled, however, that right can be impaired through licensure - a contract with the State.

In the common law miscegenation is a crime. However, the United States Supreme Court decided that 5000 years of biblical law was wrong and found that the several states in Loving v VA could not continue to criminalize miscegenation.

However, this alone does not alleviate the problem because the common law also criminalized the solemnization of miscegenation by ministers of the Gospel.

The "licensing" scheme was dreamt up to permit this unlawful act at common law - hence the "licensed marriage." The license instructs a minister to conduct this otherwise unlawful act. The argument of sodomites is that if the marriage license can permit one unlawful act, then the marriage license can permit another unlawful act and that it is wrong to discriminate on the basis of criminal activity at which the license is going to permit.

However, I would point out that licensed marriages are ungodly marriages - adulterous tri-partite unions that restore the Parens Patrie doctrine, which Christ explicitly denounced in Scripture.

There are presently two problems and misconceptions. One, is that sodomites are prohibited from getting married, they aren't - they are prohibited from getting a license. Two, that this is a valid prohibition at law.


The debate surrounding homosexual 'marriage' often asks the question of why not - but rarely addresses the societal benefits to marriage or the reasons that marriage is regulated in the first place.

In my view, it's a false assertion that private relationships have no public consequences - my entire career makes an absolute mockery of that premise. Infertility, increased health care costs, increased drug resistance (necessitating increased research costs) and death are all consequences of sexual relationships in which an STD is involved. HIV alone strains health care in every nation on earth - ours included (provision of expensive AIDS drugs for the poor wipes out county jail medical budgets all the time - and is becoming increasingly difficult to provide for those who cannot afford them. M'caid does not generally cover them - they don't have the money without additional funds being allocated). Personal relationships can and do have far reaching public consequences.

Marriage is a private contract with public standing - but prior to the marriage license it was divorce that was regulated, not marriage. Regulating divorce protects the public and their interest, regulating lawful marriage does not.

<snip>

So, how does this pertain to Christian ethics? The other most common objection to any objection on moral grounds it that we shouldn't impose our morality on others. It's a valid point - to impose all our moral values would surely become nothing more than extreme legalism. But what about those values that happen to coincide with the public good? Should Christians, in the interest of not 'forcing' their beliefs on anyone, stay silent on the issue of prison reform, prisons in general, murder, rape, incest, theft? All of those have Biblical prohibitions or indirect implications - so we aren't to voice our concerns?

All law imposes morals, it is the obligation of Christians to "impose our morality." That is the calling of the Great Commission.

Obviously, I think that's nonsense. Where there is no obvious societal cost, the argument may well be valid (female leadership in the church would not be a public good issue, for example) but not where the impacts are societal - otherwise, Christians are effectively banned from public life - and that is not a biblical principle, and most assuredly not a democratic one.

To my mind, before you can discuss who should or should not have marital rights, we should look at why we place such high value on marriage that we go so far as to institute it in both secular and sectarian circles. Then we can discuss the costs associated with yet another experiment in social engineering - a field with an abysmal failure rate going back more than a hundred years, and which began to fail so horribly when it divorced itself from its origins - in the Great Awakening and the church herself.

What is needed is a no fault divorce proceeding to negate the license of an otherwise valid marriage. That is to say, "divorce the State." Christians need to restore Justice and it needs to begin in the home by restoring the solemnity to the marriage and terminating the spiritual adultery of the "limited partnership" of the licensed marriage.

[Thomas2003]

I disagree. Here we have the unique position of secular public policy and sectarian duty overlapping, I would argue inextricably so. Renaming marriage 'civil union' in the public arena does nothing but confuse the issues further - a lot further. Both government and the church have vested interests in marriage - and those interests will not cease with a renaming ceremony. In fact, you create an additional burden on marriage - now needing to in effect, marry twice; once before God (marriage in it's truest state to my mind) and once before man (all the proprietary rights now tied to a seperate document). The licensure existing now does create that appearence, but to seperate them further will result in huge amounts of confusion (when are you really married and in whose sight? Et al) and much more paperwork to sort them all out. The couple and any children being left to bear the brunt of the burden.


You have a fundamental misunderstanding. The proprietary rights of marriage flow from the common law and cannot be annulled - they can only be impaired. Hence, the license is an impairment of these rights. The license permits, for example, the untenable proposition that the religious covenant is of none effect in its civil standing, thus, "no fault divorce" is created.

Today, we have a universal mockery of marriage - the sodomite has just enjoined a century old practice of Christians and has recently chimed in "if they can spit in God's face and have legal standing, I should get to as well!"

Hence, our licensed marriages do not have the propietary standing in conjunction with their intent and the vows of the contract - it negates the contract on its face and is simply lip service. We have made marriage of no effect by tradition.

Unfortunately, we are beyond settling these matters in the civil arena - what is necessary is Christians who are willing to live under the terms of the covenants. What we need to do is create a new system of government to manage such things for us - so that divorces are consistent with the contract terms, say something like arbitration restrictions and add these to said contracts. Hence, the civil magistrate needs to be eliviated of his jurisdiction over the Christian marriage - which can be voluntarily done.

This is really where the rubber meets the road. I mean it is self evident that our governments are really not qualitifed to govern us anymore. I think it is time to let them self destruct and start building alternate institutions to replace them.

[Teallaura]

This post is huge. I can't respond right now. Sorry teal. :blush: in the next day or two, I shall return parry.

You started it! :brood: Well, the size thing...:uneasy: Oh wait...:doh:

:smile: Is no a prob. See ya when ya have the time. :bye:






(You're really looking up 'natural rights', aren't you? :grin:


j/k :teeth:)

[Teallaura]

You have a fundamental misunderstanding. The proprietary rights of marriage flow from the common law and cannot be annulled - they can only be impaired. Hence, the license is an impairment of these rights. The license permits, for example, the untenable proposition that the religious covenant is of none effect in its civil standing, thus, "no fault divorce" is created.

...

Er, no, I understood just fine - you failed to read it correctly, however. The 'now' did not refer to the current state of existing affairs, but to the hypothetical state of affairs created by the segmentation of legal and sacred marriage.

[Thomas2003]

Er, no, I understood just fine - you failed to read it correctly, however. The 'now' did not refer to the current state of existing affairs, but to the hypothetical state of affairs created by the segmentation of legal and sacred marriage.


Er, no, I understood just fine - you failed to read it correctly, however. The 'now' did not refer to the current state of existing affairs, but to the hypothetical state of affairs created by the segmentation of legal and sacred marriage.

I think I was referring to the sentence before that. Nevertheless, its not hypothetical, marriage is now segregated at law between, what you call, "legal and sacred". A persons religious covenant and responsibility has no legal standing, that is the whole problem. That is the purpose of the license - to segregate a man from the requirements of common law and create a dichotomy within his being. We have, in the words of Scripture, made the law of none effect by our tradition. Rampant divorce is a natural proceeding of hearts so wrenched and set against themselves. You can't live in terms of your covenants because the law requires you to be two faced.

Christians are, in the main, unwilling to live under the law, however. We enter our Churches and enter a covenant before God and in His terms and before the festivities are over the young couple adulterates their marriage by contracting with the State to make their vows of none effect. A few minutes ealier they stood before men and God and hypothetically looked into heaven at God's throne and made these oaths in His name - later, they licensed their marriage by contract and all they can see is the State over them. The State is now the "father of every family."

We pride ourselves in the fact that we don't enact it, we think our oaths are valid because we don't get "no fault divorces", but it is the oath and the intent of the heart before God where our "yeah" is no longer "yeah and amen", but "yeah and nay" that is the problem. It is still a spiritual violation. It is this lip service to God that Christ condemns over and over in Scripture. We are "lukewarm."

The marriage license is legalized perjury.

[Sheepdog]

The question I ask is why do we keep insisting on the government's regulation of an institution that was ordained by God and entrusted to the church?

I would personally like it if the government were to get out of marriage business all together. That way, rather than wasting our energies debating who should, and should not be allowed to marry, the church's efforts would be better spent on actually living out God's ideal of marriage, of witnessing and modeling the wonderful possibilities that happen when two people make a covenant before God to love one another exclusively for the rest of their lives.

are you suggesting that, since we are arguing so much over marriage in the public sector that therefore the church is not "living out God's ideal of marriage, of witnessing and modeling the wonderful possibilities that happen when two people make a covenant before God to love one another exclusively for the rest of their lives"?

My take is that if you take God out of the marriage, you no longer have a marriage, but roommates. Marriage, as I see it, is for the church and the people of God, and by allowing the government rather than the church to be the ones who hold ultimate authority over the sacred marriage covenant, marriage has completely lost its original intent.

i'm actually not far from agreeing with you, believe it or not. for instance, the institution of no-fault divorce, which is an entirely secular progressive notion AFAICS, has done nothing but destroyed families since it's inception.

i do see why government has a vested interest in the institution of marriage, though.

[Sheepdog]

off topic, don't forget that ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, was a Department of Defense project. And much of the Internet's backbone is owned and maintained by the telcos, a series of telecommunications corporations which are still fairly regulated. (They were heavily regulated until the Telecom Act of 1996)

The protocols that make up the World Wide Web are regulated in a manner. It's not by the government, but by such organizations as the W3 Consortium. The top level domains and public IPs are managed by IANA, which the DoD has veto power over.