In response to another thread: "Gay Marriage"

[Outis]

So who IS?

There's a cake shop, or a flower shop, or whatever, in Washington that got bit. But then again, they violated the law.

Just trying to get you to make some consistent sense, bro.

You are not my "bro," Mr. Poke.

[Juvenal]

Like CP said, college has ruined me. In any case, I appreciate the fact that you took the time to read my post carefully.

The metal analogy does and doesn't work, because those in favor of redefining marriage aren't so much in favor as calling copper steel as saying that they're all metals anyway. Love makes a marriage, just like certain chemical qualities make an element a metal. The point I want to make is that marriage, among other types of loving relationships, has particular qualities and is uniquely suited to certain necessary societal functions.

Dear Spartacus,

I'm all the way open to hear about those particular qualities and necessary societal functions, but I want to see a rationale that doesn't wipe out more heterosexual marriages than the homosexual marriages the arguments are intended to exclude. For instance:

In their book What is Marriage, Girgis, George, and Anderson use a sports analogy that fits a bit better, at least with respect to the infertility point, which I will partly borrow and partly extend: a baseball team is still a baseball team even if they don't score any runs, just as a marriage is still a marriage even if they don't produce children. As long as they follow the rules of baseball and fill the necessary roles in the team, they're still a baseball team.

I'd imagine the book is an expansion of their freely available paper, What is Marriage? (PDF) that contains the same analogy:

Therefore, people who can unite bodily can be spouses without children, just as people who can practice baseball can be teammates without victories on the field. Although marriage is a social practice that has its basic structure by nature whereas baseball is wholly conventional, the analogy highlights a crucial point: Infertile couples and winless baseball teams both meet the basic requirements for participating in the practice (conjugal union; practicing and playing the game) and retain their basic orientation to the fulfillment of that practice (bearing and rearing children; winning games), even if that fulfillment is never reached.

If the "conjugal union" requirement wasn't explicit enough, look at their next paragraph:

On the other hand, same‐sex partnerships, whatever their moral status, cannot be marriages because they lack any essential orientation to children: They cannot be sealed by the generative act. Indeed, in the common law tradition, only coitus (not anal or oral sex even between legally wed spouses) has been recognized as consummating a marriage.

I'm likely to cast a high eyebrow at any suggestion that "generative act" is anything but a religious reference taken directly from the Catholic Church. And again, look what they've done. They've excluded sexless marriages, and even gone so far as to "unseal" marriages between seniors incapable of these "generative acts" with an "essential orientation to children." These folks are not thinking things through. Marriage is more than sex, and doesn't and shouldn't require sex, let alone sex in a particular position bringing particular organs into union.

It's this attitude that's going to make me feel guilty if it turns out I didn't address your points properly.

[Spartacus]

Dear Spartacus,

I'm all the way open to hear about those particular qualities and necessary societal functions, but I want to see a rationale that doesn't wipe out more heterosexual marriages than the homosexual marriages the arguments are intended to exclude. For instance:



I'd imagine the book is an expansion of their freely available paper, What is Marriage? (PDF) that contains the same analogy:

Therefore, people who can unite bodily can be spouses without children, just as people who can practice baseball can be teammates without victories on the field. Although marriage is a social practice that has its basic structure by nature whereas baseball is wholly conventional, the analogy highlights a crucial point: Infertile couples and winless baseball teams both meet the basic requirements for participating in the practice (conjugal union; practicing and playing the game) and retain their basic orientation to the fulfillment of that practice (bearing and rearing children; winning games), even if that fulfillment is never reached.

If the "conjugal union" requirement wasn't explicit enough, look at their next paragraph:

On the other hand, same‐sex partnerships, whatever their moral status, cannot be marriages because they lack any essential orientation to children: They cannot be sealed by the generative act. Indeed, in the common law tradition, only coitus (not anal or oral sex even between legally wed spouses) has been recognized as consummating a marriage.

I'm likely to cast a high eyebrow at any suggestion that "generative act" is anything but a religious reference taken directly from the Catholic Church. And again, look what they've done. They've excluded sexless marriages, and even gone so far as to "unseal" marriages between seniors incapable of these "generative acts" with an "essential orientation to children." These folks are not thinking things through. Marriage is more than sex, and doesn't and shouldn't require sex, let alone sex in a particular position bringing particular organs into union.

The fact that babies come from sex is hardly a religious observation.

I'm not sure if you entirely grasp the point I'm trying to make, so I'm going to pose the same question to you that I did to outis: what is marriage?

[Juvenal]

The fact that babies come from sex is hardly a religious observation.

Dear Spartacus,

"Generative act" ... did you miss that bit? Ya know, the bit that I called religious? The bit that's straight from the cant of the Catholic Church?

You're not ducking the hard questions, now, are you?

I'm not sure if you entirely grasp the point I'm trying to make, so I'm going to pose the same question to you that I did to outis: what is marriage?

I think you're deliberately trying to obscure the point, since you ask. I quoted straight from your source, and you ducked like it was some Spartacus from an alternative time line, or maybe your evil twin, who brought it into the conversation. The baseball analogy, from your own source, goes straight back to a religious definition of marriage.

*sigh*

But if you want to play it that way, fine.

Thumbing through my Bible, I'd say it's the union between one man, two women, and their two maidservants that gave birth to the twelve tribes of Israel. Or maybe it's the union between a man and the girl he raped outside the city. Or maybe it's whatever you want to call it that made up the relationship between Solomon and his female horde.

Outside the Bible, looking back through history, marriage is and always has been whatever we decide it to be.

That can be the strictly heterosexual union between a man and a woman making a lifelong commitment, or a similar commitment between homosexuals that adds to but doesn't exclude the former. But if it's going to be the former, and excluding the latter, and it's to be an arrangement that does not exclude folks who don't share your religious beliefs, then you have to make a civil argument that's not based on your religious beliefs, or at the very least one that shows harm to you as an adherent without the mitigation of serving a more general and compelling civil purpose.

I'm all the way okay with accepting such an argument if only one of y'all could find it.

To date it's one strike-out after another.

As ever, Jesse

[Spartacus]

Dear Spartacus,

"Generative act" ... did you miss that bit? Ya know, the bit that I called religious? The bit that's straight from the cant of the Catholic Church?

You're not ducking the hard questions, now, are you?

We Catholics tend to use the term "procreative" rather than generative . The passages you quote don't reference religion, they only, as far as you can tell, stink of it. Are all the authors of the essay and book Catholic? Yes. Am I? Yes. Is this a coincidence? No: Catholics tend to be pretty smart people, after all. But is the argument an essentially religious one? By no means. The Catholic tradition, like other religious traditions, uses religious content to solemnize or sacramentalize marriages, but the nature of marriage as they have embraced it is not essentially religious.

I think you're deliberately trying to obscure the point, since you ask. I quoted straight from your source, and you ducked like it was some Spartacus from an alternative time line, or maybe your evil twin, who brought it into the conversation. The baseball analogy, from your own source, goes straight back to a religious definition of marriage.

*sigh*

But if you want to play it that way, fine.

Thumbing through my Bible, I'd say it's the union between one man, two women, and their two maidservants that gave birth to the twelve tribes of Israel. Or maybe it's the union between a man and the girl he raped outside the city. Or maybe it's whatever you want to call it that made up the relationship between Solomon and his female horde.

Outside the Bible, looking back through history, marriage is and always has been whatever we decide it to be.

That can be the strictly heterosexual union between a man and a woman making a lifelong commitment, or a similar commitment between homosexuals that adds to but doesn't exclude the former. But if it's going to be the former, and excluding the latter, and it's to be an arrangement that does not exclude folks who don't share your religious beliefs, then you have to make a civil argument that's not based on your religious beliefs, or at the very least one that shows harm to you as an adherent without the mitigation of serving a more general and compelling civil purpose.

I'm all the way okay with accepting such an argument if only one of y'all could find it.

To date it's one strike-out after another.

As ever, Jesse

Cynicism isn't exactly an answer to my question. How would you have our society define marriage? The definition may change over time, but that doesn't mean we can't have one.

[Juvenal]

We Catholics tend to use the term "procreative" rather than generative . The passages you quote don't reference religion, they only, as far as you can tell, stink of it. Are all the authors of the essay and book Catholic? Yes. Am I? Yes. Is this a coincidence? No: Catholics tend to be pretty smart people, after all. But is the argument an essentially religious one? By no means. The Catholic tradition, like other religious traditions, uses religious content to solemnize or sacramentalize marriages, but the nature of marriage as they have embraced it is not essentially religious.

Dear Spartacus,

You might want to try that on somebody who, say, doesn't post as "lao tzu" with a characteristic sig line on Catholic Answers. I spotted the cant because I've seen it again and again in posts by Catholics there.

Here's one:

From the Catechism

2362 "The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude."145 Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure:

The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation.

And another:

generativegenerative

And there's this quote from Pope Paul VI in this one:

This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act. (paragraph 12)

We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative

Or this post quoting from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The term conception does not mean the active or generative conception by our parents. Our body is formed in the womb of our mother, and our father had the usual share in its formation. The question does not concern the generative activity of our parents or the passive conception absolutely and simply (conceptio seminis carnis, inchoata), which, according to the order of nature, precedes the infusion of the rational soul. The person is truly conceived when the soul is created and infused into the body.

I could keep linking posts like these all day. Hundreds of them. And you can keep on saying it's not religious. But I'm not going to keep on calling you on it, because, at this point, it's way past obvious you and your source have been caught off base in a run down.

Cynicism isn't exactly an answer to my question. How would you have our society define marriage? The definition may change over time, but that doesn't mean we can't have one.

What cynicism? Those are real examples of Biblical marriage, including one without which it'd be necessary to eliminate most of the tribes of Israel. And real alternatives, too. If you can't provide secular reasons why gay folks should be excluded, and can't or won't rebut the reasons I've put on the table as to why they shouldn't be, you need to, at the very least, give me some reason to continue this conversation.

Cause from here, you look like just another fan out on the field looking for attention and delaying the game.

As ever, Jesse

[Darth Executor]

Let's hear it folks!

What was the date you chose to become heterosexual?

This is a stupid argument. Just because you cannot choose to be heterosexual does not mean you can't choose to be homosexual. You simply assume blank state on behalf of the person you are ridiculing without even asking them what they believe and then proceed with the strawman.

If you can't provide secular reasons why gay folks should be excluded, and can't or won't rebut the reasons I've put on the table as to why they shouldn't be,

I browsed through this thread and actually only found one such reason:

Marriage does more things than just provide for children: biological, adopted, or more irregularly or informally acquired. It allows adults to take care of each other at the most local level possible, one-on-one, with the clear secular advantage of removing that responsibility from the less localized institutions of city, state, and national governments, with the associated advantages to their taxpayers.

This seems pretty flimsy to me. Nothing prevents gays from taking care of each other at the most local level possible. I don't see what marriage has to do with that. Unless by "take care of each other" you are referring to popular mobster slang rather than the more liberal interpretation.

Thumbing through my Bible, I'd say it's the union between one man, two women, and their two maidservants that gave birth to the twelve tribes of Israel.

So heterosexual?

Or maybe it's the union between a man and the girl he raped outside the city.

Well, the popular belief that the husband is a slave still persists, but this looks like just run of the mill heterosexual marriage to me.

Or maybe it's whatever you want to call it that made up the relationship between Solomon and his female horde.

Paradise?

[Cow Poke]

You are not my "bro," Mr. Poke.

Whatever you say, Bro!

[Spartacus]

Dear Spartacus,

You might want to try that on somebody who, say, doesn't post as "lao tzu" with a characteristic sig line on Catholic Answers. I spotted the cant because I've seen it again and again in posts by Catholics there.

I could keep linking posts like these all day. Hundreds of them. And you can keep on saying it's not religious. But I'm not going to keep on calling you on it, because, at this point, it's way past obvious you and your source have been caught off base in a run down.

I would appreciate it if you would give me a moment to wipe the egg from my face and pull my foot from out my mouth.

...

...

Alright. I accept my humiliation with respect to the word "generative". However, it is clear to me that you think your argument is a lot stronger than it actually is. Your argument seems to be that, because this sort of reasoning is found in church documents, it is essentially religious. You're working from a bad premise: Catholicism is not a purely revelatory religion: natural reason plays a role as well. In order for the Church's view of marriage to be essentially and not only incidentally religious, the Church's understanding of marriage would have to be founded in revelation, not in reason. If the reasoning can stand on its own without an appeal to revelation, it's not essentially religious, and you ought not treat it as such.

What cynicism? Those are real examples of Biblical marriage, including one without which it'd be necessary to eliminate most of the tribes of Israel. And real alternatives, too. If you can't provide secular reasons why gay folks should be excluded, and can't or won't rebut the reasons I've put on the table as to why they shouldn't be, you need to, at the very least, give me some reason to continue this conversation.

It seems as though our conversation deteriorated extremely quickly. The fact that I posted in the middle of the day when I don't have the time or patience to write out a careful response probably didn't help. I think we'd both benefit from taking a step back and a deep breath or two.

Cause from here, you look like just another fan out on the field looking for attention and delaying the game.

As ever, Jesse

I'm not sure if we're playing the same game to begin with. I laid out what I think the goals are in one of my posts to Outis; do you think it's a fair explanation of what our respective goals in this debate need to be?

[Outis]

Your argument seems to be that, because this sort of reasoning is found in church documents, it is essentially religious. You're working from a bad premise: Catholicism is not a purely revelatory religion: natural reason plays a role as well.

But in Catholicism, reason is (and must be) subservient to religion. Always.

Mr. Spartacus, if you were raised in the Catholic church, I would be wiling to wager that you would be incapable of "not thinking Catholic" under any circumstances. If you were a convert, you might be able to do so, but doing so would make you uncomfortable. Oh, you may have times when you think of straying from the path of _behavior_ for a moment, but you do not stray from the patterns of _thought_.

Before you defend it, I am not suggesting that this is a bad thing at all. Indeed, it means you are a faithful Catholic. It does, however, mean that you would have grave difficulty coming up with an argument that was, actually, secular, on this or any other topic.

ETA: I should note that I am not using "religion" in the normal non-Christian sense of "The particular church you go to," but in the Christian sense of "pure religion and undefiled."

[Spartacus]

But in Catholicism, reason is (and must be) subservient to religion. Always.

Even if it were true, it would be irrelevant to the point at hand.

Mr. Spartacus, if you were raised in the Catholic church, I would be wiling to wager that you would be incapable of "not thinking Catholic" under any circumstances. If you were a convert, you might be able to do so, but doing so would make you uncomfortable. Oh, you may have times when you think of straying from the path of _behavior_ for a moment, but you do not stray from the patterns of _thought_.

Before you defend it, I am not suggesting that this is a bad thing at all. Indeed, it means you are a faithful Catholic. It does, however, mean that you would have grave difficulty coming up with an argument that was, actually, secular, on this or any other topic.

ETA: I should note that I am not using "religion" in the normal non-Christian sense of "The particular church you go to," but in the Christian sense of "pure religion and undefiled."

I'm gonna go ahead and call this an ad hominem fallacy. Because I'm Catholic, I'm incapable of independent rational thought? You have not once-- not ONCE in this thread-- engaged the actual substance of my argument. You dismissed it as religious, then as derogatory toward same-sex relationships, then as irrelevant to a discussion of civics. On each count, you were clearly wrong, and now you've come back to calling it a religious argument? It seems to me that you have approached this conversation with the assumption that I cannot possibly be advancing a rational argument, and instead of actually addressing the arguments I put forward, you look for whatever excuse you can to dismiss it. You can call me "Mr. Spartacus" all you like, but unless you actually start showing respect to my arguments by answering them, I'm not going to feel respected as a person.

Just out of curiosity, how exactly would I go about proving that I am capable of constructing a secular argument?

[Outis]

I'm gonna go ahead and call this an ad hominem fallacy. Because I'm Catholic, I'm incapable of independent rational thought?

Not what I said. You are incapable of _solely secular_ thought. By the same token, I am incapable of Catholic thought.

And I will note that while Mr. Lao and I did so in different manners, we called you on the same issue.

Just out of curiosity, how exactly would I go about proving that I am capable of constructing a secular argument?

Create one that does not depend on a Catholic worldview.

It's not a challenge I could match. I _might_ be able to create an initial opening argument that is compatible with a Catholic worldview. I do not think I would have the skills or understanding to defend it in a discussion.

[Paprika]

I can't see why the genesis of an argument need be necessarily "secular". Whatever the source of an argument, if it based on generally accepted premises, then deal with it. Otherwise, show how it is based on premises that non-Catholics would not accept.

[Darth Executor]

Create one that does not depend on a Catholic worldview.

Be careful what you wish for.

Gays spread STDs at far higher rates than the general population. This is a result of gay hyper-promiscuity coupled with the higher vulnerability of the receiving party during anal sex. The costs of this are significant, both in disease research/treatment and needless decrease in long term effectiveness of antibiotics.
In contrast, gayness has no benefit to society to balance this out.
Gays are thus a net drag on society and should be eliminated.
Marrying corpses is a waste of time and resources.
Other net drags on society: the disabled, the elderly.

The fun thing about secularism in general and utilitarianism in particular is that you can plausibly argue for just about anything. Including mass slaughter. Good job, bro. Or should I call you "Bruder" instead?

[Outis]

I can't see why the genesis of an argument need be necessarily "secular". Whatever the source of an argument, if it based on generally accepted premises, then deal with it. Otherwise, show how it is based on premises that non-Catholics would not accept.

Mr. Lao has done that, by demonstrating that the argument invalidates all non-procreative marriages. My objection to Mr. Spartacus' argument is that it calls upon standards not recognized nor used to deliberate cases in US law.

I am not asking for a philosophical or religious argument here. I am asking for an argument that could be presented in a US court.