Huh? The whole societal purpose of marriage is to produce new members, i.e. children. In that regard, allowing gay couples to “marry” provides no benefit to society. Sure, we could allow gay couples to adopt, just as we could allow single people to adopt, but that is not in society’s best interest to encourage those activities.

So, if you aren’t arguing that for gay marriage on the basis of raising children, then what is your argument? Does marriage provide any other benefits to society? Quite possibly, but those are side benefits. They would not in and of themselves give society a compelling reason to endorse marriage of any kind. If those other benefits were compelling, then we should endorse all kinds of “marriages”.

In any case, all of those benefits, except for social security survivorship benefits, are available to gay couples (or any two or more people) without marriage.

So can we be honest here? What you and many gays are trying to accomplish through trying to redefine marriage is getting society to endorse homosexual behavior. What I don’t get is why. Gays have already gained acceptance and society tolerates their choice. But that is not enough for you and gay activists, we must also endorse that choice. Well, that is where people like myself and r108 stop. I don’t care what gays choose to do in their bedroom or whether they choose to cohabitate and share in each other’s lives. What I do care about is the destruction that will be wrought by saying that heterosexual parenting is no different or better than homosexual parenting or any other family arrangements. We already have a big enough problem with the liberal divorce laws that we have and the mess of family law that each state inflicts upon children. We don’t need to completely bust the meaning of parents and marriage.

I won’t say homosexual adoption can’t work, it likely does fairly often. It’s just that it’s more risky than a normal couple adopting.

It’s hardly that qualified married couples aren’t able and desperately willing to adopt in this country.

Of course there are issues when the child is ill and that. I won’t blame adoptive couples for being afraid of what they may get into. But that would likely apply to a homosexual couple also.

…Robert’s assertion that gay marriage serves no societal purpose.

What I actually wrote:

So-called “gay marriage” doesn’t, in and of itself, fulfill any of the societal purposes of real marriage.

robert108 on November 27, 2007 at 01:28 pm

As you can see, what you said isn’t true. You are replying to something I didn’t say. Keep dancing, though, you just look increasingly silly, trying to sell your leftie agenda.

Normal couple?

I made a mistake; equating interracial marriage with so-called “gay marriage” isn’t a false dichotomy; it’s a false equivalence.

I would rather pay for a child to be in states hands in hopes that a caring mother and father adopts, then in the home of a homosexual couple.

That’s just my opinion.

I had, Robert’s statement that gay marriage serves NO societal purpose.

I didn’t make that statement, so everything you have built on that premise is also untrue.
You brought up the subject of morality, so that bad taste in your mouth is all your own doing.

Fair enough, at least I know where you really stand.

I have been clear about that from the very beginning; it is you who have been spouting untruth about what I said. Glad it finally sunk in.
I’m sure there are a few gays who really care about children beyond their political agenda, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are putting children at risk by including them in their lifestyle. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
You still don’t know my real position on the matter, so I’ll tell you. I think this propaganda push to change the fundamental definition of marriage is a calculated attempt to destroy our civilization and our culture. Your side can’t win in a head-to-head contest, so you have to undermine at every possible turn. You will fail.

You and I (and Robert) don’t live in the same moral ballpark

Correction: [Your brand of] morality is one of those somethings.

Who’s talking about morality? What “brand” of morality is it that r108 and myself are endorsing? What evidence do you have that r108 and I subscribe to the same set of morals? Who’s being the bigot here?

You’re wasting your time, Bukher (why do I hear horses whinny when I type your name?). The human race hasn’t yet evolved to the point where neanderthals are extinct.

Does providing an orphan with parents serve a societal purpose?

If the couple is a real married couple, the answer is “yes”; if anyone else does it, the answer is “no”. Try reading the information first. Even so, your “question” does not bear on the subject of so-called “gay marriage”. So-called “gay marriage”, in an of itself, does not fulfill any of the societal purposes of real marriage.

And Tim, I clearly said “none of the societal benefits of real marriage”; no matter how you try to spin that, it means what it means. So-called “gay marriage” only fulfills the selfish desires of the couple in question. Even if they adopt a child, that child is in danger, and I would maintain their desire to adopt is also selfish and self-aggrandizing, rather than anything intended to benefit society.
They are seeking to spread their lifestyle choice and to get benefits, rather than anything that will benefit the rest of us.
If you want to call that questionable morality, I won’t disagree with you, but for me, it’s about not changing something that a vast majority has wanted for a very long time, simply to placate a very vocal but very small minority special interest group at the expense of the rest of us.

I don’t mind repeating myself over and ever again if it proves someone a self-righteous bigot or a coward.

Ah, so someone who does not agree with you is a bigot? Which statement of his makes him a bigot? Am I a bigot? I’ve noticed that you completely ignored my previous response to your comment. Is that because you don’t have a defense to the fact that children are better off with a male and female parental model instead of a male and male or female and female? You also ignored r108′s link to his post with evidence supporting his claim that heterosexual marriage should enjoy a special distinction for the good of our society. Are you a bigot against children that you refuse to address the obvious?

No kbiel. I ignored you and Robert on those two counts because neither of them addressed Robert’s assertion that gay marriage serves no societal purpose. I really could care less about your views on what kind of family is better for kids. I just don’t like the baseless “no societal purpose” justification. Take that out of the equation and I quit arguing since I obviously have nothing to say regarding your moral justifications.

You and I (and Robert) don’t live in the same moral ballpark — I admit when I am not qualified to discuss something. Morality is one of those somethings.

Tim,

It has become clear that you aren’t even reading these comments before responding to them. Your argumentation relies on ignoring the other side and continually shifting from one strawman to another to baseless ad hominem attacks. You are no longer worth my time or effort.

kbiel,

As my favorite movie quote would put it, “I do not think this word means what you think it means.” (“The Princess Bride”)

ad hominem – attacking an opponent’s character rather than answering his argument

I keep bringing the argument back to the only issue I had, Robert’s statement that gay marriage serves NO societal purpose. My attacks on character only pepper the poking to get him to finally respond to this central issue of our argument. And I would encourage you to compare the frequency of my attacks to Robert’s.

Oh, and you’re right, I have been shifting between two strawmen. Perhaps now that you’ve decided to leave, I can focus just on Robert.

Why do we need the government to continue granting its official blessing to marriages? It seems entirely unnecessary in modern times.

Whether modern times sufficiently treat it as such, marriage is, by its nature, a civil institution, the health of which is an important component of a healthy society. As such, the government has an interest in marriage on a number of levels.

Marriage is not, as Anh posits, a mere contract.

Here, incidentally, is a good response to the Coontz column: http://www.mirrorofjustice.com/mirrorofjustice/2007/11/coontz-and-marr.html

Robert,

It’s irrelevant to the subject of this thread. It’s not my job to answer your irrelevant questions.

I am getting a lecture on relevancy by someone who avoids answering a question by bringing up irrelevant side issues to that question!

You said that gay marriage “fulfills none of the societal purposes of marriage.” This was your first, the first, response to Rob’s post. So I would say that calling you on it is pretty relevant.

The point I’m trying to make, is that you should stick to your personal, moral qualms with gay marriage, don’t use bad sociology to justify your addled values.

So here we go again:

Does providing an orphan with parents serve a societal purpose?

I don’t mind repeating myself over and ever again if it proves someone a self-righteous bigot or a coward. So which one are you? You can say “no, adopters don’t serve a societal purpose,” and then I’ll let it go, and you won’t be a bigot… just kind of stupid.

Wow, I can’t believe I’m actually agreeing with a post here. This isn’t in the GOP playbook! Get government out of the marriage business.

Real marriage is probably as old as humanity itself; its function is to join male and female in a productive relationship.

Nope. It’s original purpose was to transfer ownership of a woman from her father to her husband. The whole idea of companionate marriage is just a few hundred years old.

It’s so interesting to see people who say that they don’t want government interfering in their lives take up that standard when it suits their own selfish purposes.

TW: gay adoption may work for the gays, but not for the children involved. It puts them at risk.

It’s a yes or no question man. Am I wrong to assume that those simple words reside somewhere in your lexicon?

It’s irrelevant to the subject of this thread. It’s not my job to answer your irrelevant questions.
So-called “gay marriage” doesn’t, in and of itself, fulfill any of the societal purposes of real marriage. Repetition is the mother of learning, I guess.
If you followed the link I gave you, you can see that anything other than the normal two-parent family has bad consequences for children. If that’s what you really want for our society, you will get no support from me.

Robert,

You didn’t answer my question. You said it “fulfills none of the societal purposes of marriage.” I didn’t ask you whether gay marriage furthers your idea of a traditional family (assuming that the continuation of a traditional family is important to society). I asked you whether or not providing a kid with parents fills a societal purpose (just one purpose would refute your contention of none). So you either tell me that providing a kid with parents is a societal purpose or not. If it’s not, then I’ll agree with you.

It’s a very easy either/or, so stop talking like a politician and bringing unrelated issues into the discussion. Answer the question please: Does providing an orphan with parents serve a societal purpose?

And yes, I’m glad that it makes you uncomfortable to answer this one.

Would anyone think that it would be preferable if marriage should have not legal standing at all? Wouldn’t it make for sense to abolish legal standing of marriage then to stretch marriage beyond recognition legally? My proposal is consider single individual as the only natural legal person. Any other relationship would have no legal standing except where such relationship is enter into by commercial contract layout duration and nature of each party obligations. I don’t see why the government need to provide for “family.” Each adults party to a contract to raise a child should be legally require to provide for that child. I don’t see why any two individual for any reason deciding to have a relationship should have any legal privileges not enjoy by the only legal voting entities in our society, the individual.