Something I don’t understand is how people can think that “same-sex marriage” would undermine marriage. I think I can understand it, but it’s very difficult!

Prominent conservative Liberal backbencher Danna Vale — who has strongly opposed any move to allow gay marriage — said she believed government MPs would find it “very hard not to support this bill”.

“This is not a push to undermine marriage, he has made that very clear, and I think most members will be supporting this,” Mrs Vale said.

This is very good news.

Equal rights bid for gay couples
“NEW laws to grant gay couples equal rights in areas including tax, health, welfare and superannuation are likely be in place by the end of the year.

Key Howard Government conservatives are backing the push for equal rights for gay couples being led by Queensland Liberal MP Warren Entsch.

Mr Entsch has told The Sunday Age he would be introducing a private member’s bill later this year to recognise same-sex interdependent relationships under all federal legislation.”

And if anyone’s interested in polyandry, this here is an excellent personal account.

If more than two people want to have the state recognise their relationship, I’m in all favour of that too, but I think that this isn’t very likely at the moment. What’s wrong with having a 3-way (or more) relationship recognised?

Here is what keeping up (some) gay “tradition’s” will help to increase or maintain:

1. – Suicide
Yep, i think it might have something to do with all that secret keeping and fear
2. – Electric Shock Therapy
3. – Running away, leaving family etc.
4. – Denial

and so on and so forth …

LET US GET MARRIED.

Thank you!

Isn’t there one gay “marriage� advocate honest enough to take their advocacy to its very logical conclusion?

But we have. We argue that the logical conclusion of granting legal recognition to same-sex marriages is a situation that is fair and just to straights and nonstraights alike.

There is no logical connection between homosexuality and polyamory, bestiality, incest, paedophilia or any other evil sexual practices you might be able to come up with. There is, as I have pointed out in an earlier post, an unspoken assumption underlying the anti-same-sex-marriage side of the debate that such a connection exists: but this assumption is born of personal prejudice, not logic. (Just like the assumption that a connection exists between “having dark skin” and “intellectual inferiority” is one born of personal prejudice, not logic.)

Now, let us examine your own logic, thordaddy. You are obviously of the opinion that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage will inevitably lead to legal recognition for incestuous marriage. The unspoken assumption here is precisely that which I was talking about in the earlier post: “There is a parity between homosexuality, bestiality, incest and polyamory, such that if you grant legal recognition to same-sex couples, you must (i.e. there is no good reason not to) likewise recognise these other relationships.â€? But–and I know I’m repeating myself here–this is just an updated version of the kind of argument that has been levelled against the decriminalisation of homosexuality: “There is a parity between homosexuality, bestiality, incest and polyamory, such that if you decriminalise homosexuality, you must (i.e. there is no good reason not to) also decriminalise the other items on the list.”

Given this reasoning, thordaddy, can you please explain the following: homosexuality has been decriminalised in Australia for quite a few years now. Why are there still legal proscriptions against incest? Or bestiality? Or paedophilia? Shouldn’t these practices be legal by now, also? Was it a mistake to decriminalise homosexuality in the first place?

If you don’t think it was, then your position is logically inconsistent, given the assumption underlying your argument against same-sex marriage.

You haven’t been able to mount an even remotely convincing case for why gay marriage should be opposed. I’m not sure why I or anyone else should bother responding to you.

(Having stunk up Mark’s box(!) enough already, however, I should probably debate elsewhere).

You might be with Wittgenstein on this one, but is Wittgenstein with you?

I doubt it, as his philosophical concerns in Philosophical Investigations (sitting in the stack of books to the right of my keyboard) aren’t at all political – it’s entirely about the use of language. The political application of “language-games” comes later – and you have, incidentally, misconstrued old Ludwig’s notion of a language-game to suit your own argument, just as you’re attempting, once again, to redefine discrimination (this time with the help of a dictionary – I have one too, it’s the old OED schools edition in the bookshelf a few rooms away) to suit your own position.

No one here is “slave” to a particular sense of discrimination. In the political context the third sense is the precise sense to use. Recruiting the other two to confuse the issue is vapid.

What do you mean ’still’? It is not a document that gets regularly updated. In fact, it has never been updated.

This is not, again, a necessarily bad thing. Certainly not on the face of it. We discriminate against child-child couples in the matter of marriage and we discriminate against man-child couples in the matter of marriage. Such things are obviously worthwhile.

I hate to be pedantic, but you’re enslaved by only the third most common usage for the noun:

“dis·crim·i·na·tion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-skrm-nshn)
n.
1. The act of discriminating. 2. The ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment. 3. Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice: racial discrimination; discrimination against foreigners.”

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Equality is not a good in itself. It cannot be: because ‘discrimination’ is probably necessary for injustice, but it is not sufficient. You need something else, the withholding of a true good (bodily liberty, love, life, etc.). Only then does discrimination become ‘unjust’ and always wrong.

I might add, discrimination (this time in a sense often considered ‘fair’ or ‘just’) is the basis for affirmative action.

I’m with Wittgenstein on this one, often the language games we get caught up in reveal the secular idols we’ve elevated. Like most superstition, conclusions based on such ideas (or absence of ideas) are often at the expense of rational thought/debate.

The fact that some think that ‘unfair discrimination’ is a tautology demonstrates how far this nonsense (not to mention this impoverished use of the English language) has penetrated.

If discrimination is not always wrong (and it’s clearly not) then we have to come up with better arguments for why ‘gay marriage’ should be introduced.

If all you’ve got left are personal experiences, emotive examples and appeals to ‘fundamental human rights’ that apparently exist purely because you believe in them (sexual inclinations are still not mentioned in the UN Declaration of Human Rights): why is such an argument more satisfying or any more ‘rational’ than the Catholic view?

It’s not. Saying as much reveals an ‘acceptable’ form of bigotry, not an unassailable rational case.

Let’s have the argument on solid ground, with all our biases in full view. Let’s demolish the simple supersititions first and then take on the deeper issues. I think we’d all agree that marriage is important enough a topic to warrant such careful consideration (“,)

Steve, I think that is an extremely important and valid point. Thank you for articulating it so well.

Isn’t there one gay “marriage” advocate honest enough to take their advocacy to its very logical conclusion?

Will no gay “marriage” advocate answer the following questions?

If 3 gay males petition to get a state-sanction marriage, what will the gay “marriage” advocates say for this gay “marriage?”

Will you say, “No, we can’t give you a state-sanctioned marriage because you violate the ‘couple’ criteria?”

Likewise, if 2 gay brothers petition to get a state-sanction marriage, what will the gay “marriage” advocates say for this gay “marriage?”

Will you say, “No, we can’t give you a state-sanctioned marriage because you violate the ‘non-related’ criteria?”

Remember, by any definition these are gay “marriages…?”

Or, they ARE NOT?

When you avoid these very simple and straightforward questions, how is one supposed to think that your motivation for advocating for gay “marriage” is not rooted in deception?

You’re right. We don’t know what legalised polygamy or polyandry would look like in a modern Western society, but in order to fulfil Peter’s third “implied principle” it would have to at least take the form of three parties married to each other, rather than–as is more common where such practices are legal–two parties married to a third.

But I think all these slippery slope arguments are basically red herrings.

Here’s a little thought experiment for the anti-SSM side. Let’s imagine that the law recognised no relationships, hetero or otherwise, and that you are in the fortuitious position of being able to decide which relationships deserve legal recognition and which don’t. There are, however, a couple of constraints on the decision-making process: (i) it must be a process of elimination, and (ii) your rationale for eliminating any particular relationship must not make reference to any other kind of relationship (e.g. you couldn’t eliminate relationship x on the basis that it is not relationship y). This forces you to weigh each case on its merits and demerits, not on its difference from a norm. Which would you eliminate, and why?

But I think all these slippery slope arguments are basically red herrings. Two consenting adults with at least formal equality in bargaining power should be able to do what they like.

Hence I believe that it is justifiable to invoke the harm principle in these arrangements.

With regard to same-sex relationships, you could make an argument that power imbalance is minimised because the gender/sex/sexuality codes are inflected differently. That might be somewhat idealised when measured against many actually existing relationships, but then most opposite sex ones I’ve observed too carry the potential for abuse, and heartbreak.