Wakboth wrote: A chair is not necessarily a chair.

Should've said a pipe instead of chair

Alucroas wrote:Biologically speaking, being a homosexual is morally wrong, because it defeats the purpose of life to begin with, which is to procreate.

"Biologically speaking, being a homosexual is morally wrong" Whats morally right or wrong and biology arent tied.

"Because it defeats the purpose of life to begin with, which is to procreate" So whats your opinion on sterile heterosexuals? Is their biological inability to procreate morally wrong? Should they be denied the right to marriage? Would that mean that women who hit the menopause should also be refused the right to marriage? Afterall, they have as much chance of having children as a gay married couple...

Gekidami wrote:Would that mean that women who hit the menopause should also be refused the right to marriage? Afterall, they have as much chance of having children as a gay married couple...

If you're looking at it technically, this could be termed that a gay couple could actually have a better right to marriage than a lady going through the menopause (or even sterilised hetereosexual persons).

In many cases gay men and women are still biologically capable of HAVING children (for gay couples, artificial conception is a popular option using donor sperm or a surrogate mother), whereas the folks you mentioned are no longer physically able. ;D

I say if you love a person, you should get married (but not if it's like puppy kid love...I mean come on! Married at 14?!)
It shouldn't matter if the person is of the same sex as you, and what if in a "rightful" (HENCE THE QUOTES I put them there for sarcasm) marriage, a woman is not able to have offspring? Or if a man in that marriage cannot produce enough sperm? Just because you cannot have children doesn't mean you can't get married. Besides, homosexual people are AWESOME! They are SUPER nice!

Gekidami wrote:

Alucroas wrote:Biologically speaking, being a homosexual is morally wrong, because it defeats the purpose of life to begin with, which is to procreate.

"Biologically speaking, being a homosexual is morally wrong" Whats morally right or wrong and biology arent tied.

"Because it defeats the purpose of life to begin with, which is to procreate" So whats your opinion on sterile heterosexuals? Is their biological inability to procreate morally wrong? Should they be denied the right to marriage? Would that mean that women who hit the menopause should also be refused the right to marriage? Afterall, they have as much chance of having children as a gay married couple...

Exactly, the sort of thinking that ties what is naturally and morally good more or less falls under the "naturalistic fallacy", which was/is going to be the focus of my second response once Alucroas affirms or denies his statement as I interpreted it.

I do not think that gays should be able to be married. I am no religious, i do not remember the last time i was IN a church. (i known shamefull) I just think that same-sex marriage causes other problems, leagally. If you allow same sex marriage then a guy could argue saying that he can marry his chimp (this did happen, and animal sex is so beyond gross) because a chimp is LIKE a human and if two human regaurdless of sex can marry then there is not much of a jump to human like animals. And then there is an immigration issue if same sex marriage is allowed. Now it is a problem with people marrying each other for green card but now, lets say there is girl A that is an american citizen. her friend, girl B, wants citizenship. So now they can marry each other, move in with each other, Girl B gets a green card and no one is fussing cause the girls are just friends.

I am all for free love but legal love is not the same. I say nay.

stubborn911 wrote:I do not think that gays should be able to be married. I am no religious, i do not remember the last time i was IN a church. (i known shamefull) I just think that same-sex marriage causes other problems, leagally. If you allow same sex marriage then a guy could argue saying that he can marry his chimp (this did happen, and animal sex is so beyond gross) because a chimp is LIKE a human and if two human regaurdless of sex can marry then there is not much of a jump to human like animals. And then there is an immigration issue if same sex marriage is allowed. Now it is a problem with people marrying each other for green card but now, lets say there is girl A that is an american citizen. her friend, girl B, wants citizenship. So now they can marry each other, move in with each other, Girl B gets a green card and no one is fussing cause the girls are just friends.

Your jump from "All humans can marry regardless of sex" to "All humans can marry animals if it seems like a human" is logical leap, it doesn't really follow and if you think it follows I'd like to see how you formulated that opinion. That is identical to the argument: If you allow all humans to have sex with each other regardless of X trait, then all humans can have sex with animals. Therefore, we should restrict sexual relations based on X trait. It's a huge leap and I don't think it follows necessarily.

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Example: If you allow all humans to have sex with each other regardless of race, then humans will have an excuse to have sex with animals.
Different races are kind of like different kinds of animals, so it follows that we will progress from all races to all animals.

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See, it doesn't make any sense, it's a bad argument.

Second, if we ban gay marriage because of concerns of immigration, then shouldn't it follow that we do the same for the much larger threat of immigration via heterosexual marriage? What is special about homosexual marriage and concerns for immigration that it should be banned when the much more probable problem of this same phenomena occurring via heterosexual marriage is dealt with through normal channels?

I can't speak for Stubborn, but this is how I interpreted the argument: gay marriage would presumably be allowed on the love-is-love card. The idea is that true love, no matter the shape or form, is enough to allow marriage: to forbid it would be to deny that human pair their happiness, a morally unconscionable act. By the same stroke, it follows that homosexual couples take reproduction and general marriage practices out of the equation, and the similarities between that and inter-species unions would be reduced. So, as the public mind becomes desensitized to other unconventional notions (having had become more open and accepting), more people would be pressing for other marriage-based practices to become lawful. Thus, when the next big topic comes up-- here, it would be inter-species unions-- there'd be a greater faction of the public who would press to make it legal, arguing that love, if real and honest between two members of other species, should be allowed to culminate in marriage. Eventually, their arguments would follow the same path as the gay marriage argument, and it may become legal for humans and other animals to wed.

That, however, is my translation. For the record, while I can see how there might be a minor movement along those lines, I doubt it'd ever gain any momentum, and if t did happen, it's the sort of thing that'd fizzle out of the media's eye quite soon.

Alacer Phasmatis wrote:I can't speak for Stubborn, but this is how I interpreted the argument: gay marriage would presumably be allowed on the love-is-love card. The idea is that true love, no matter the shape or form, is enough to allow marriage: to forbid it would be to deny that human pair their happiness, a morally unconscionable act. By the same stroke, it follows that homosexual couples take reproduction and general marriage practices out of the equation, and the similarities between that and inter-species unions would be reduced. So, as the public mind becomes desensitized to other unconventional notions (having had become more open and accepting), more people would be pressing for other marriage-based practices to become lawful. Thus, when the next big topic comes up-- here, it would be inter-species unions-- there'd be a greater faction of the public who would press to make it legal, arguing that love, if real and honest between two members of other species, should be allowed to culminate in marriage. Eventually, their arguments would follow the same path as the gay marriage argument, and it may become legal for humans and other animals to wed.

That, however, is my translation. For the record, while I can see how there might be a minor movement along those lines, I doubt it'd ever gain any momentum, and if t did happen, it's the sort of thing that'd fizzle out of the media's eye quite soon.

Love and sexual intercourse require consent and rational agency in order to be ethically correct, animals are not capable of either. This is why sexual acts toward children are considered so heinous, they are not truly capable of consent or fully formed rational agency until about their teen years. This is why his argument doesn't follow, the actual logical argument itself is flawed in that it possesses zero transitivity and he is comparing two dramatically different things.

This is why if we encountered an alien species capable of consent and possessing rational agency to be in love with them (if they are capable of that) and to have sexual relations with them would not be ethically wrong, even though they are technically non-human animals.

More than that, a child is biologically underdeveloped and could easily suffer severe injury from intercourse. The same goes for smaller animals.

However, different arguments would be needed in some cases. Has anyone here read about Washoe and the other sign-language chimps under the care of anthropologist R. Fouts? When Washoe was in estrus, she made sexual advances on his interns and college staff, rather than on her fellow chimpanzees. There can be no denying that she was a willing person (the interns, however, were not). If one of the interns was willing to reciprocate Washoe's feelings for him, would marriage between chimpanzee and human still be acceptable? Just an open question.

I am kinda torn. I mean from a religious stand point I am agiants it. But then again me as a person has no problem with i. Whatever makes you happy I guess. =)

Love is beautiful, and no matter what, people deserve to be able to do what they feel is right, in this case, marry someone of the same sex. I don't see what is so different homosexual marriages are from heterosexual marriages, apart from the ability to procreate without paperwork. Love knows no boundaries and if it makes them happy, they should do it. End of story.

Most homosexual marriages are happier than straight ones anyway, and have a smaller percentage of divorce. So, in all respect to everyone, maybe it should be the heterosexual marriages that could end in divorce that we should be questioning.

Anyway, this is coming from me, who dislikes marriage to begin with and is very much straight. But anyway, a big "YAY!" for gay marriages.