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Author Topic:   Gay Marriage
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 406 of 519 (473567)
06-30-2008 6:03 PM
Reply to: Message 399 by New Cat's Eye
06-30-2008 2:51 PM


Re: Economic Effects
Not really that it leads to immorality, but that I have a general distrust of liberalizing our society and its laws. I prefer order.
Surey if people do something that harms no-one else, direcly or indirectly, then more order is achieved by letting them get on with it in peace rather than imposing seemingly prejudiced opinions upon them? Why not let consenting adults marry as they see fit?
Or do you think gay marriage would harm people indirectly (or even directly) in a way that heterosexual marriage somehow does not?
Normally I would be at the Glastonbury festival this weekend. Alas not this year. However I reccommend it to all good free thinking liberterian conservatives.
Wow, that looks freakin' sweet. I would totally go if I could.
Dude it is awesome. Gutted I am not ther this year. If ever you get the chance it is one of those things to do before you die.......

This message is a reply to:
 Message 399 by New Cat's Eye, posted 06-30-2008 2:51 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 409 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 10:07 AM Straggler has not replied

deerbreh
Member (Idle past 2892 days)
Posts: 882
Joined: 06-22-2005


Message 407 of 519 (473575)
06-30-2008 7:55 PM
Reply to: Message 404 by New Cat's Eye
06-30-2008 5:46 PM


Re: Economic Effects
quote:
You're conflating natural rights and legal rights.
As well I should. Guilty. Natural rights SHOULD be legal rights. What moral reason is there for the law to deny natural rights?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 404 by New Cat's Eye, posted 06-30-2008 5:46 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

deerbreh
Member (Idle past 2892 days)
Posts: 882
Joined: 06-22-2005


Message 408 of 519 (473576)
06-30-2008 8:05 PM
Reply to: Message 405 by New Cat's Eye
06-30-2008 5:47 PM


Re: Economic Effects
quote:
Really? Then how do people get legal rights?
The "pursuit of happiness" is an inalienable or natural right. It is clear to many people if not a majority that marriage falls within the scope of the "pursuit of happiness" so we need to be careful about arbitrarily denying its benefits to consenting adults. The Constitution guarentees natural rights so that they cannot be abridged by a tyrannical majority who might "prefer" not to grant some natural rights to a minority. We should tread very carefully when trying to deny rights which may be natural rights. It is better to err on the side of protecting or expanding rights when there is doubt and in this case there is substantial doubt.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 405 by New Cat's Eye, posted 06-30-2008 5:47 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 410 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 10:27 AM deerbreh has replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 409 of 519 (473614)
07-01-2008 10:07 AM
Reply to: Message 406 by Straggler
06-30-2008 6:03 PM


Re: Economic Effects
Surey if people do something that harms no-one else, direcly or indirectly, then more order is achieved by letting them get on with it in peace rather than imposing seemingly prejudiced opinions upon them? Why not let consenting adults marry as they see fit?
Or do you think gay marriage would harm people indirectly (or even directly) in a way that heterosexual marriage somehow does not?
Yeah. The 1000+ laws were written with the understanding that marriage was between one man and one woman. California has interpreted their constitution and the word marriage to be between any consenting adults. I guess they are free to do that. So now, Utah can legalize polygamy and Mississippi can legalize incestual marriages (sorry Mississippians , oh wait...they don't have computers down there anyways j/k).
So we have a bunch of laws that use a word that had a specific meaning, and the definition of that word has changed significantly. ZOMG! Chaos! Who knows what kind of shenanigans the exploiters of the law are going to be able to come up with now. CEO's having poly-marriages and unifying multiple companies, dirk bike buddy's spreading the healthcare system out too thin, etc.
Anything like that, that can affect the entire country, has an effect on me personally. I'm glad that DOMA protects me from that (on the federal level).
Now, if individual states want to change things for themselves, well I'm under the impression that they have the right to do so, as long as they don't go against the Constitution.
Why not let consenting adults marry as they see fit?
I don't really care if gay people have marriage, per say. But that's not what the word marriage has meant. So its going to take some changes to allow gay marriage. If the people want to make the changes, then more power to them.
But I don't think that gays have some natural right to marriage, nor that our Constitution grants them a legal right to marriage. If someone is going to make a legal argument for the rigts of gays that I find fallacious, then I'm going to point it out and argue for what I think is correct. This gets me labeled as a fucking bigot (not by you), but whatever, I think I'm arguing with hateful morons, so it can be expected.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 406 by Straggler, posted 06-30-2008 6:03 PM Straggler has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 438 by Rrhain, posted 07-04-2008 6:42 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 410 of 519 (473615)
07-01-2008 10:27 AM
Reply to: Message 408 by deerbreh
06-30-2008 8:05 PM


Re: Economic Effects
From Message 407
quote:
You're conflating natural rights and legal rights.
As well I should. Guilty. Natural rights SHOULD be legal rights. What moral reason is there for the law to deny natural rights?
To get the pyramids built...
But moral arguments for natural rights are off topic in a thread on the legal arguments for gay rights. Besides that I'm not at all interested in having moral or philosophical arguments.

From Message 408
quote:
Really? Then how do people get legal rights?
The "pursuit of happiness" is an inalienable or natural right.
By what evidence do you know that natural rights even exist? In 10,000 BC, was the saber-tooth tiger aware of your "natural rights"? At what point did we get natural rights? Where did they come from? I'm not convinced that natural rights even exist. Well, unless you believe in God and want to envoke him as the grand arbiter of what is and what is not a natural right.
It is clear to many people if not a majority that marriage falls within the scope of the "pursuit of happiness" so we need to be careful about arbitrarily denying its benefits to consenting adults. The Constitution guarentees natural rights so that they cannot be abridged by a tyrannical majority who might "prefer" not to grant some natural rights to a minority.
You really think the Constitution has that power, huh? What about the Japanese American interment in 1942? American citizens, with all the rights that the Constitution guarantees them, where placed into camps with no if, ands, or buts. If your "rights" can be taken away that easily, then they aren't really Rights, they're priviledges, now aren't they? [thanks George Carlin]
We should tread very carefully when trying to deny rights which may be natural rights. It is better to err on the side of protecting or expanding rights when there is doubt and in this case there is substantial doubt.
You are welcome to that opinion, sir.
But again, this needs to be tied back to the topic of gay marriage for us to continue much further with this discussion. Why did you bring it up in this thread? How does it relate to the topic?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 408 by deerbreh, posted 06-30-2008 8:05 PM deerbreh has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 411 by rueh, posted 07-01-2008 12:38 PM New Cat's Eye has replied
 Message 412 by deerbreh, posted 07-01-2008 1:01 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

rueh
Member (Idle past 3661 days)
Posts: 382
From: universal city tx
Joined: 03-03-2008


Message 411 of 519 (473624)
07-01-2008 12:38 PM
Reply to: Message 410 by New Cat's Eye
07-01-2008 10:27 AM


Re: Economic Effects
CS, can you provide an example of one of the aforementioned 1000+ laws that would be violated, if the context of marriage were to include same sex couples as well. I actually was partialy swayed by this reason however I can not think of an example that would be detrimental if it included both types of marriages. Thank you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 410 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 10:27 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 413 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 1:56 PM rueh has replied

deerbreh
Member (Idle past 2892 days)
Posts: 882
Joined: 06-22-2005


Message 412 of 519 (473629)
07-01-2008 1:01 PM
Reply to: Message 410 by New Cat's Eye
07-01-2008 10:27 AM


Re: Economic Effects
Natural or inalienable rights were cited by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence but they go back a lot further than that. Yes it is off topic so I will give the Wiki link and you can read up on it or not.
Natural rights and legal rights - Wikipedia
But based on some of the tone of your remarks here - particulary your nasty crack about people in Mississippi - I don't think you are really taking this topic all that seriously so we are done. I won't engage with someone who treats what should be a serious subject like a locker room conversation among sophomoric frat boys - the coffee house venue notwithstanding. A biblical quote about pearls and swine comes to mind.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 410 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 10:27 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 414 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 2:06 PM deerbreh has not replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 413 of 519 (473637)
07-01-2008 1:56 PM
Reply to: Message 411 by rueh
07-01-2008 12:38 PM


Re: Economic Effects
CS, can you provide an example of one of the aforementioned 1000+ laws that would be violated, if the context of marriage were to include same sex couples as well.
How about all of them
I actually was partialy swayed by this reason however I can not think of an example that would be detrimental if it included both types of marriages. Thank you.
I had a friend a few years back who was from England but living in the U.S. His visa was running out and he was going to have to go back. One of the ways he could have avoided going back was to get married. So he was proposing to all the girls around town, telling them they didn't even have to have a ceremony or have sex with him... just go down to the courthouse and sign the paper so he can stay in the States. lol, he even asked one guy's mom. It didn't work out because none of the girls were willing.
If gay marriage was allowed, it would have been a lot easier for him to find a "spouse". We even joked about it. Most of the guys said that they wouldn't have had a problem getting married to him to keep him in the states.
Now, this isn't meant to be an example of a reason for disallowing gay marriage. It just exposes some of the types of concerns I have with simply flipping a swtch and allowing gay marriage with no consideration for the consequences.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 411 by rueh, posted 07-01-2008 12:38 PM rueh has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 415 by rueh, posted 07-01-2008 2:06 PM New Cat's Eye has replied
 Message 417 by kjsimons, posted 07-01-2008 2:17 PM New Cat's Eye has replied
 Message 439 by Rrhain, posted 07-04-2008 7:11 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 414 of 519 (473639)
07-01-2008 2:06 PM
Reply to: Message 412 by deerbreh
07-01-2008 1:01 PM


Natural or inalienable rights were cited by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence but they go back a lot further than that. Yes it is off topic so I will give the Wiki link and you can read up on it or not.
Natural rights and legal rights - Wikipedia
From your own source:
quote:
The concept of inalienable rights was criticized by Jeremy Bentham and Edmund Burke as groundless. Bentham and Burke, writing in the eighteenth century, claimed that rights arise from the actions of government, or evolve from tradition, and that neither of these can provide anything inalienable. (See Bentham's "Critique of the Doctrine of Inalienable, Natural Rights", and Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France"). Keeping with shift in thinking in the 19th century, Bentham famously dismissed the idea of natural rights as "nonsense on stilts".
The signers of the Declaration of Independence deemed it a "self evident truth" that all men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". Critics, however, could argue that use of the word "Creator" signifies that these rights are based on theological principles, and might question which theological principles those are, or why those theological principles should be accepted by people who do not adhere to the religion from which they are derived.
Derivation of inalienable rights from Natural Law can also be criticized on solely philosophical grounds. The is-ought problem of David Hume is the fallacy of deriving normative propositions (how the world ought to be) from naturalistic ones (how the world is) without providing the necessary justification for such a logical jump. Jonathan Wallace claims in his paper "Natural Rights Don't Exist,"[17] that the phrase "We hold these truths to be self-evident" is simply a "more elegant version of 'Because we said so.'"
In "The Social Contract," Jean-Jacques Rousseau claims that the existence of inalienable rights is unnecessary for the existence of a constitution or a set of laws and rights. This idea of a social contract - that rights and responsibilities are derived from a consensual contract between the government and the people - is the most widely recognized alternative.
Samuel P. Huntington, an American political scientist, wrote that the "inalienable rights" argument from the Declaration of Independence was necessary because "The British were white, Anglo, and Protestant, just as we were. They had to have some other basis on which to justify independence".
You cannot prove that natural rights even exist. I don't think that they do. Perhaps you could start a new thread on whether or not we have natural rights.
But based on some of the tone of your remarks here - particulary your nasty crack about people in Mississippi - I don't think you are really taking this topic all that seriously so we are done.
Pussy.
I won't engage with someone who treats what should be a serious subject like a locker room conversation among sophomoric frat boys
These Internets are one huge locker room filled with sophmoric frat boys. You shouldn't take anything seriously in here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 412 by deerbreh, posted 07-01-2008 1:01 PM deerbreh has not replied

rueh
Member (Idle past 3661 days)
Posts: 382
From: universal city tx
Joined: 03-03-2008


Message 415 of 519 (473640)
07-01-2008 2:06 PM
Reply to: Message 413 by New Cat's Eye
07-01-2008 1:56 PM


Re: Economic Effects
But this loophole exists regardless if you have same sex marriage or not. Just because you "think" it "might" be easier to manipulate it doesn't mean that it will be. Had your friend asked women with lesser concern for the law than he would have gained citizen status. In effect what I am saying is that being a man or a women had no bearing on whether they said yes or no. The male friends you refer to may have only said that in jest, seeing how a yes answer really wouldn't have mattered.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 413 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 1:56 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 416 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 2:14 PM rueh has not replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 416 of 519 (473641)
07-01-2008 2:14 PM
Reply to: Message 415 by rueh
07-01-2008 2:06 PM


Re: Economic Effects
But this loophole exists regardless if you have same sex marriage or not. Just because you "think" it "might" be easier to manipulate it doesn't mean that it will be.
In this case, it would have been easier simply because he had double the amount of people to ask.
Had your friend asked women with lesser concern for the law than he would have gained citizen status. In effect what I am saying is that being a man or a women had no bearing on whether they said yes or no.
I don't believe that. I mean, there we were with all the girls saying no and all the guys saying yeah...
The male friends you refer to may have only said that in jest, seeing how a yes answer really wouldn't have mattered.
Sure, it was a hypothetical situation, which is easier to say yes to.
But this particular case doesn't really matter that much. It was just an example of one possibility. There's over 1000 laws that menetion marriage, so...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 415 by rueh, posted 07-01-2008 2:06 PM rueh has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 440 by Rrhain, posted 07-04-2008 7:34 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

kjsimons
Member
Posts: 821
From: Orlando,FL
Joined: 06-17-2003
Member Rating: 6.7


Message 417 of 519 (473644)
07-01-2008 2:17 PM
Reply to: Message 413 by New Cat's Eye
07-01-2008 1:56 PM


Re: Economic Effects
It just exposes some of the types of concerns I have with simply flipping a swtch and allowing gay marriage with no consideration for the consequences.
Of which you (and all the others in hundreds of posts in multiple Fora) have failed to mention any sort of substantial consequences. Perhaps there are none. Why don't you start enumerating some or shutup about it already.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 413 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 1:56 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 418 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 2:27 PM kjsimons has replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 418 of 519 (473645)
07-01-2008 2:27 PM
Reply to: Message 417 by kjsimons
07-01-2008 2:17 PM


Re: Economic Effects
Ahhh, the old "everything is going to be okay... don't worry about it" defense.
I can't believe that changing the definition of a word in over 1000 laws isn't going to have substantial consequences. It simply follows.
IANAL so I'm not easily capable of the enumeration you request. It would take a lot of time and effort.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 417 by kjsimons, posted 07-01-2008 2:17 PM kjsimons has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 419 by kjsimons, posted 07-01-2008 4:24 PM New Cat's Eye has replied
 Message 441 by Rrhain, posted 07-04-2008 7:59 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

kjsimons
Member
Posts: 821
From: Orlando,FL
Joined: 06-17-2003
Member Rating: 6.7


Message 419 of 519 (473655)
07-01-2008 4:24 PM
Reply to: Message 418 by New Cat's Eye
07-01-2008 2:27 PM


Re: Economic Effects
Ahhh, the old "everything is going to be okay... don't worry about it" defense.
I didn't say that, I said come up with some, even just one substantial bad consequence of allowing gays to marry. Don't expect us to take your paranoid rantings seriously unless you can back them up.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 418 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 2:27 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 420 by New Cat's Eye, posted 07-01-2008 4:37 PM kjsimons has not replied

New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 420 of 519 (473659)
07-01-2008 4:37 PM
Reply to: Message 419 by kjsimons
07-01-2008 4:24 PM


Re: Economic Effects
I didn't say that, I said come up with some, even just one substantial bad consequence of allowing gays to marry. Don't expect us to take your paranoid rantings seriously unless you can back them up.
Fine. Don't take them seriously.
Anything I came up with would probably just be argued against with either "that's not bad" or "that's not substantial". Its too subjective.
I think that healthcare costs would go up from the influx of new covered spouses if gay marriage were legalized across the counry one day. But its not like I can prove that or anything.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 419 by kjsimons, posted 07-01-2008 4:24 PM kjsimons has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 421 by NosyNed, posted 07-01-2008 4:43 PM New Cat's Eye has replied
 Message 442 by Rrhain, posted 07-04-2008 8:07 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

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