Gay marriages... dictated by religious authorities

[FlFishOn]

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If the legal protections were only related to the couple, then I'd be OK with it. Trouble is, marriage involves more than just two adults. It is the buliding block for a family which involves children.

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And it's even bigger than that, it is the engine that provides future generations. This, of course, is impossible to grasp as a 22 YO, college indoctrinated automaton.

[FlFishOn]

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Wrong. Marriage involves 2 adults.

As I've mentioned before, my wife and I do not have children nor do we plan to. Are we married? Yes. Are we a family? Yes, regardless of your opinion. Do we get all the legal rights heterosexual couples who have children get? Yes.

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Your relationship has no significance to society. No kids, no count.

[Darryl_P]

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This is backwards thinking. It assumes that treating homosexuals as equal members of society would somehow stop heterosexuals from having children.


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It would certainly have an effect on some people on the fence, yes. Just as there are steadfast gays and hardcore heteros, there are others who could go either way (or go both ways). It could also cause heteros to have fewer children since they may see less of a point if society is rewarding the opposite. One's desire to have children is strongly dependent on how one sees the kids' future prospects, and if the future looks more and more like a dead end street, then that could have a negative impact on fertility.

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In what way would you expect legitimizing gay unions to lead to a decline in heterosexual birth rates? I am curious.


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It would create a culture whereby having a biological mother and father is no better than having non-biological same sex parents.

One by-product of this could be an increased demand for adoptions by gay couples which would incentivize irresponsible sexual behavior by straights. Don't want the baby, no problem, we don't have to take responsibility, we can get $X by giving it up for adoption and laugh all the way to the bank. It's only a human life after all. What the heck does that little bugger need his real parents for, heh.

The responsible ones would feel less reason to be responsible since society is incentivizing them otherwise and that might get them to just say it's not worth it ... all the time and trouble to raise kids and then society, rather than acknowledging and rewarding them for contributing to the society's future, takes the fruits of their labor and gives it to homosexuals who have little stake in the more distant future.

That type of thing.


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Changes in the education and status of women, as well as increased overall wealth of the people, have far more effect on birth rates than whether gay couples get to call themselves married or not.

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Agreed. I'm not singling out the gay issue, nor do I consider it the most important. In fact, on this one I think there is plenty of room for compromise such as removing state involvement from all marriages for example.

[TheScientist]

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If the legal protections were only related to the couple, then I'd be OK with it. Trouble is, marriage involves more than just two adults. It is the buliding block for a family which involves children.

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And it's even bigger than that, it is the engine that provides future generations. This, of course, is impossible to grasp as a 22 YO, college indoctrinated automaton.

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I can't believe I couldn't see it. With everyone turning gay, there won't be enough people to reproduce and humanity will die out. Damn, if only someone had pointed this out to begin with, I think we would have all been able to reach a consensus by now.

Honestly.. do we really think 'allowing' gays to be gay is even going to put a dent in the population? (Isn't that a good thing?) Is it better to encourage them into relationships which are unnatural to them?

What I see is a bunch of people saying 'no' because they just don't like the sound of it. I never thought of myself as champion of this cause, but honestly I can't come up with anything grounded in actual logic to make me think otherwise.

[revots33]

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It would certainly have an effect on some people on the fence, yes. Just as there are steadfast gays and hardcore heteros, there are others who could go either way (or go both ways). It could also cause heteros to have fewer children since they may see less of a point if society is rewarding the opposite. One's desire to have children is strongly dependent on how one sees the kids' future prospects, and if the future looks more and more like a dead end street, then that could have a negative impact on fertility.


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I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you are in the "hardcore hetero" camp.

No offense intended but I think your posts show a fundamental misunderstanding of homosexuality. As if there's an army of "on the fence" bisexuals just waiting for laws to change so they can finally declare their allegiance to the gay team.

And how does gay marriage lead to heteros' kids' futures being a "dead end street"? These leaps of logic are escaping me. You are implying that hetero couples will say, "What's the point of even having kids, now that those damn gays can get married? Guess we'll just scrap the whole damn thing."

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I said it's ONE of the reasons, among many others. It's the ole' theory of not putting all of one's eggs in one basket. I don't see what's so funny about that, but if you want to have a laugh, have a good one.


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Wow, I actually thought vhawk had misread your meaning. Guess not. The fact that one of the actual reasons you are having 8 kids is so you can rest easy knowing that most of them will likely be heterosexual... is fascinating to me.

[vhawk01]

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Wow, no offense, but thats hilarious. Are you seriously having 8 kids for the purpose of 'covering all your bases,' just in case a few of them turn out gay?

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I said it's ONE of the reasons, among many others. It's the ole' theory of not putting all of one's eggs in one basket. I don't see what's so funny about that, but if you want to have a laugh, have a good one.

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You dont see whats funny about having a whole bunch of kids in order to make sure you have a 'good one?' Ok, maybe funny is the wrong word, although its still funny to me. I hope you don't let your kids know that they were an insurance policy against their older brothers phallic proclivities. Make sure you make one who's good at climbing, one who's good at digging, and one who can parachute too, because life is a lot like Lemmings.

[Darryl_P]

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No offense intended but I think your posts show a fundamental misunderstanding of homosexuality. As if there's an army of "on the fence" bisexuals just waiting for laws to change so they can finally declare their allegiance to the gay team.


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You are looking for something too extreme and naturally not finding it. The effects I'm talking about are slow and subtle and take a long time to creep into peoples' subconscious.

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And how does gay marriage lead to heteros' kids' futures being a "dead end street"?

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If that's what society is telling them they should be doing, given that society doesn't care about the succession of its members, rewarding opposing behaviors instead, then that could be interpreted as a dead end street, or at least a long uphill battle against a lot of opposition -- something that doesn't faze me personally, but might have such an effect on some.

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The fact that one of the actual reasons you are having 8 kids is so you can rest easy knowing that most of them will likely be heterosexual... is fascinating to me.

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I want my genes to continue on for as long as possible, preferably for as long as humanity exists, and I also want to maximize their representation. Is that so unusual? If one of my kids is homosexual, well, there's a dead end branch for my genes. So I want to make sure there are other branches that are not dead end.

I really fail to see what's so unusual about this.

[madnak]

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And it's even bigger than that, it is the engine that provides future generations. This, of course, is impossible to grasp as a 22 YO, college indoctrinated automaton.

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You're always saying this, but you never mention yourself. Are you completely free of indoctrination? Infallible? You don't agree that everyone is exposed to some level of indoctrination, that it's unavoidable?

[madnak]

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Your relationship has no significance to society. No kids, no count.

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So if he and his wife find the cure for cancer, they're historically insignificant?

[FlFishOn]

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Your relationship has no significance to society. No kids, no count.

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So if he and his wife find the cure for cancer, they're historically insignificant?

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They can cure cancer unmarried, no? Same difference.