Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

There's the same trouble with Oakdale and SF. They think the law only provides rights.

In reality, the law provides both benefits and sanctions and, in a rechtsstaat, everybody is equal before the law, whatever the law may provide for the occasion.

He doesn't care. He just wants to do what he wants to do.

State and local law are subsumed, but only to an extent -- there is (or was!) the 10th amendment... But most folks don't like that one any more.

BTW: When you say that the "data" support the proposition that people are born "gay"...

Did you miss this part of the article:

You're still attempting to lump LGBT with criminal types and it doesn't work.

I don't say that. I merely don't care to dispute it. The reason is that whoever says that gays are born gay - and are therefore "natural" and must have all the rights - must provide the data that pedophiles are not born pedophile and provide the reasoning how pedophiles should not have all the rights.

Concepts like consent and harm to others have been mentioned many times.

In fact I thought your argument hinged on harm to others?

In any case, pedophiles have all the rights to be pedophiles. They just don't have the right to sexually abuse children. Is there any particular reason to suppose this is any different than any other person not being allowed to rape the people they're attracted to?

They belong to gay clubs - into gay clubs, not outside.

Just that criminals belong behind bars.

Quote from: ersi on 2016-06-23, 02:27:09

They belong to gay clubs - into gay clubs, not outside.

Spoken like an Alabama State Representative.

Law and justice are separate concepts. And there's no justice in denying what the law provides. Not really saying anything tho, right? 

What marriage matters to you only matters so far as your right to impose your beliefs on me.

It has no evident connection to anything.

(I'm sure you know the real-life case. It was private and consensual, but still went to the courts for some reason that you might want to consider.)

Not my argument for the definition of marriage. My argument for the definition of marriage has many corollaries, but it hinges on none of the corollaries. It hinges on the purpose of marriage, not on anything secondary or extraneous like avoiding harm. If the purpose were to avoid harm, then staying without marriage fulfils the purpose just fine, doesn't it?

[…]

We are in agreement again. In my view, homosexuals have all the rights to be homosexuals. They just have no business with marriage, adoption, and things like that. They belong to gay clubs - into gay clubs, not outside.

Quote from: ersi on 2016-06-23, 09:27:09

(I'm sure you know the real-life case. It was private and consensual, but still went to the courts for some reason that you might want to consider.)

Not really.

Are there reasons other than manslaughter?

The basic case for gay marriage is that it significantly improves the quality of some lives without harming anyone.

In contrast, by keeping homosexuals from adopting you aren't improving the lives of some homosexuals while simultaneously making the lives of some children much, much worse by being left without adoptive parents. There's no upside to it.

Can you expand on "quality of life"? Homosexual lust is a rightful quality of life? Not even heterosexual lust is a right, mind you.

So, if this was the case for gay marriage, there was no case.

This can be true only when you disregard the moral implications, such as putting children in the midst of sexual themes long before the appropriate age.

Any other "family model" raises the question of the child's origin for the child. This is not harmless.

What's there to expand? You're married, aren't you? Our quality of life improves through the strength of our relationships, both mentally and physically.

Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with lust, mind you. It just won't make for a lasting marriage and won't be anywhere close to being as beneficial to those involved because marriage is a life-long commitment.

What the hell are you talking about? Heterosexual couples have sex. Or are you silly enough to suggest that now the child is somehow damaged by knowing gay people exist? WTF? Seriously.

by keeping homosexuals from adopting you aren't improving the lives of some homosexuals

Obviously. An animal cannot give consent to enter a legal contract and incest is child abuse. 

You're using the wrong term here. Polyamory doesn't necessarily involve marriage. I think you mean polygamy.

And it most likely is unconstitutional since in the US it's usually practiced by cults and cultish subsets of the Mormonism where it isn't consensual.

Why is that you think I have answers for these ridiculous strawman situations?

If those situations do come up, the courts will look at the facts of the cases and rule. In the meantime, they have nothing to do with two people of the same sex being in love.

Thus far, I'm noting a lack of an incestious couple  or a polygamous relationship suing to get married.

Happy now that the discussion has been reduced to dictionary definitions that we all know already?

And yet the definition of marriage has shifted numerous times from...

I already spelled out the summarized moral argument in favor of gay marriage: it significantly improves quality of life for some people without harming anyone. That (and any other argument in favor) is almost completely unrelated to the argument against your "natural" objection, which is what I was talking about here.

Rights are a legal concept. In morality there is no such thing as rights, merely behavior we have reason to promote and behavior we have reason to condemn. Rights follow from that. For example, the right to freedom of religion follows from the strong reasons we have to promote an aversion to violence against those with a different outlook on the world.

- It's not a moral argument. "Moral" implies that you judge things right or wrong (and in natural philosophy, you have to have a basis on which to determine such judgements, but we will never get that far in this discussion), but here you are not positively saying why gay marriage is right or wrong. You are saying it doesn't harm anyone (else). Many things don't harm anyone (else), such as picking your own nose, but this makes it neither right or a right.

Or, forgetting marriage, does it seem like a good argument for picking your own nose when you say "It improves my quality of life and does not harm you!"?

- It's not an argument. An argument contains defined terms. You have failed to define quality of life.

Interesting theory. And can you spell out the reasons to promote aversion to violence against those with a different outlook on the world? Is it a moral reason (i.e. such violence is wrong)? I haven't seen such moral judgements from you yet, much less the basis for such moral judgements. Thus far it seems like you avoid any concept of right and wrong in your concept of morality, which means that your morality cannot provide the basis for legal rights. So, what are those reasons you are talking about?

Sorry, but how do you know a grown-up animal cannot give consent? Aren't you just being judgmental towards animals based on that they don't speak your language? Jimbro here thinks men should have a right to marry goats...

And incest is not necessarily child abuse. Children grow up to be of legal age in no-time. So, what's the basis of stopping them marrying their parents then?

Anybody with a clear mind saw immediately that the dilution of the definition of marriage inherent to the ruling of SCOTUS allowed polygamy and polyamory. The first cases are already in the news

This is bad enough. Answer these points and I may consider the rest of your post worth reading.

I, Sam, take you, Alex, to be my [wife/husband],
I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.
I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.
Alex, take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

And to me, your so-called "moral" arguments have no epistemological basis in reality.

All that's real is our desires. But it makes no pragmatic difference whether you think morality is some kind of cosmic rule or not. The process of validly figuring out what is moral (i.e., what is behavior we generally have reason to promote) and what is immoral (i.e., what is behavior we generally have reason to shun) is pretty much the same regardless. It needs a solid epistemological basis lest you're mistaken about how morality applies. For instance, if you want something to eat and you see a sandwich you might think you want that sandwich. But when you find out the sandwich is poisoned, it turns out you never actually wanted that sandwich. You were therefore mistaken about wanting the sandwich.

Provided the actor is not mistaken about either of those statements, of course it's a good argument in favor of picking your nose. Paraphrasing your argument, you say that even though nose picking improves quality of life without harming anyone, we must prohibit it. Which is patently ridiculous.

Any valid counter-argument must show how it doesn't improve quality of life...

Quote from: ersi on 2016-06-30, 07:50:03

- It's not an argument. An argument contains defined terms. You have failed to define quality of life.

Quality of life is defined as the state of feeling dissatisfied while being in constant misery and pain. 

Living in a society where violence might occur more or less at random (e.g., in a non-rechtsstaat) objectively reduces well-being.

This charge is utterly ludicrous because it applies to you, not to me. My definition of marriage is solidly connected to the biological fact that humans procreate heterosexually only. Is this not epistemological/empirical enough for you? Or else, what do you mean by "epistemological basis in reality"? I hesitate to ask this, because you have been dismal with definitions, yet you keep adding new undefined terms.

Okay. And how does this sandwich argument get you same-sex marriage? And I mean specifically same-sex marriage, not a sandwich, picking your nose, or Nazi propaganda.

The kind of valid counter-argument you ask for would be a applicable to a valid argument. For now, you have not presented a valid argument. I don't consider it an argument as long as "quality of life" is undefined. You did not deny that it's undefined, so...

Look at your own "argument" again: "Same-sex marriage significantly improves quality of life for some people without harming anyone." How is this an argument for same-sex marriage specifically, and not for e.g. Nazi propaganda?

With personal satisfaction anyone can justify anything. An important aspect of moral theories is precisely to prevent people from going down the exclusively selfish path.

The point with rechtsstaat is not that there's no violence, but that there's retribution for unjust violence. Agree?

My definition of marriage is solidly connected to the biological fact that humans procreate heterosexually only.