Debate Same Sex Marriage

He does a good job of that, ignoring everything you say except for one thing, and then saying we are wrong. Everything that Ferretness has pulled out of my posts have been things that have been in his favor, completely ignoring the rest of my comment.

 

I'm gonna try and be restrained and fair, but some people have expressed some opinions here that really anger me. I believe in everyone's right to their own opinion and I don't presume to think that mine is somehow more valid, but I am gonna try and explain it in a reasoned way.

First off, when people talk about what is "natural" for humans it really means nothing. Unless you are talking in terms of a religious belief, then natural is a pretty meaningless term. We as humans are animals, we a part of nature, therefore anything we do is, technically natural. People say that cities are unnatural, but they are merely the way we live, is a beaver dam unnatural? Why do things done by humans automatically become 'unnatural'? I don't mean to go off topic but this serves to illustrate a point:
- People say that gay marriage is not natural, and being gay in the first place is not natural as the point of sex is to procreate and gay sex does not do this. On this basis, sex for pleasure, heterosexual or homosexual, is not natural. Also, seeing as we are animals and sex is only meant to procreate, then love is not natural, neither is marriage itself. They serve no purpose, but do you object to them?

People construct ideas of what is natural based on their own moral standpoints and then claim that it is some universal standard. Unless you are, as said, religious, then there is no inherint universal basis for what is right, wrong, natural or unnatural. There are only personal veiwpoints and it seems a little pompous to try and claim that "nature" is on your side in your moral convictions.
If you do base your moral objections upon religious beliefs then these statements do not apply as you have a solid basis for your arguments, even if I disagree with that basis. I do not personally agree with the religious objections to gay marriage I have heard to date, but this is not the point here so I won't digress into arguments about religion (I am thinking of a religion based thread for this forum though)

I take marriage to mean the union of two people in love (in an ideal situation, people get married for other reasons but that's another issue) and wholly believe that the basis of homosexual love is the same as that of heterosexual love. It is a strange bi-product of our developed emotional consciousness, it helped us to develop as a species by giving us an amazing social ability. It is not defined by the relationship between man and woman, but is the extreme of people growing close to one another. It is a wonderful thing in all its forms, enjoy it!

Everyone should have the right to marry the person they love, regardless of gender. Even without the very real reasons that marriage does off very important legal changes and status to a relationship, its an important expression of love and I would feel cheated if I was denied this expression based on someone else's perception of what is 'natural'.

So to all those who oppose gay marriage, and especially those who have criticised it on this thread and say that homosexuality is a "mental disease"- What basis do you have for denying gay people this right other than your own perception of what is "natural".
In short, who is gay marriage hurting?

 

randle turn off the sig oh and no response yet lol

 

Those have no effect on my argument.

Please this is not a competition, act responsibly.

I do not need to argue with everything you say, I merely point out the illogical statement, in other words i pick my battles.

 

and in picking these battles you leave out important parts of our posts it also means you don't have any arguments that could defeat our points and as such it means you have only chosen that which is weakest so yeah...

also suicide has no benefits while marriage does that is why it has to do with your argument

 

I always forget the damn sig!

I cannot wait for his post to come out because it will either be him picking out things from the previous guys, or old one's to make him see higher up. Who would be considered higher up to deny someone there equal right? Oh and I bet he's going to use that for his 'suicide' thing. He's obsessed with that.

 

This is a discussion about Gay Marriage, not homosexuality in general. make another thread for that one if you wish.
Any further posts arguing gay marriage is bad because "being gay isn't right" will be treated as spam.

 

This thread is a perfect example why the debate forum is unhealthy for the community. The debate forum has become a place for arguments that rarely get anything accomplished, and has a tendency to separate relations between members. Although Nitrous stated not to hold a grudge here, most of us are. I can honestly tell you that nothing will ever be resolved in this thread, because people are always going to believe their own opinions. The same thing is going in the evolution thread, which is fueled by Religion vs. Science. The bitching will never end.

 

thank you klinky (I saw that image!!) this will insure a much better debate im sure.

 

I've noticed that some people, me included, have talked about the validity of homosexuality itself which is off topic. For this I apologise. But most of the arguments against gay marriage are rooted in a disagreement with homosexuality itself. It seems odd to be okay with people being gay but denying them marriage. I think its good to stop people digressing into other arguments, but I think it should me ok to discuss the nature of homosexuality as long as these arguments are related back directly to the topic of marriage, as long as its perfectly relevant.

Also, can I point out the separation between sex and love. Sex for love is a beautiful thing but you can't deny that they are separate things in today's society. As I have said, gay sex is no less "natural" than heterosexual sex for pleasure.

I think its quite possible that the current trend of accepting sex for pleasure continues within society. If this change (I do not use the word progression because giving positive or negative connotations would devalue the argument) does continue then its possible that society will get to a point where "gay" and "straight" are no longer considerations. People have heterosexual and homosexual sex for pleasure (after all, are these two things so different?), one or both depending on personal preference and sex drive, and will marry who they choose, same gender or different, based on love. I do not say that this would be "right" or "wrong" as these ideas are irrelevant, I do not believe in any universal justice, a universal right or wrong. But I would be quite happy if society became like this.

Marriage should be about love and, if people are in love, why shouldn't they be allowed to marry?

These may be matters of principle and opinion, but discussion can be healthy. It can make people think about the views they hold and consider the inconsistencies and contradictions within their own arguments. Its true that some people will hold grudges from this forum, but the same is going to happen everywhere. People are going to hold grudges based on what people said about their maps, its just a fact. All that can be done is to discourage it where possible and not let people get away with flaming people who disagree with them. I enjoy philosophical debate, same as I enjoy forging. I'm always ready to be convinced of a point of view through reasoned debate and do not resent people who don't agree with me, as long as they respect my opinions as I respect theirs.


If people can respect others opinions whilst listening to them, and offer their own reasoned and calm responses then this forum will be really interesting. Debate like this helps society to progress, I'm not saying FH will ever change world opinion. But I think it helps us as people to try and resolve our different opinions, explore why we hold them, and learn to live with the fact that people are always going to hold different opinions than our own. Diversity of opinion and thought is one of the things that makes human society so interesting, and exploring this opinion can be a great thing if people stay calm and are happy to argue their opinions with others whilst respecting other points of view.

If you are one of those people that cannot stand people disagreeing with your moral standpoint and just get aggressive then there is no point in posting. Debating cannot happen with a mind closed to other points of view. But for the open minded I think that the debate forum is a great idea, thank you Nitrous. (or whoever it was that created this, I'm assuming it was Nitrous)

 

PegasiDelta, I honestly have to thank you for taking this topic so seriously and throughly writing out your opinion in such a way that gets your point across and offends no one. I've already given you +rep, please continue what you've been doing.

To everyone else, heed what Klink had been saying; stay on topic. This is about your feelings towards Same Sex Marriage based upon what information the OP (Projectt2501) has given you, not an off topic conversation based off other users posting.

 

the gay marriage argument is intricately linked with whether "gay" is right.

Thats would be like trying to argue abortion without bringing up murder.

Please, you act as if I am trying to put you down. I am not. I am simply stating that your argument is illogical. Also I use the "suicide" comparison, becuase it is an accurate an easy to understand way of showing your arguments fallaciousness. Do not take it personally, much of the reason that the debate thread is worried about is becuase they believe people will get too personal, don't prove them right.

 

the 'suicide' comparison doesn't make sense is our point its not the same thing at all......Here with gay marriage there are benefits and with suicide there are only bad things that come of it and as such its a completely different argument so please drop it. That is all i will say -java either way gay marriage should be allowed it takes kids out of orphanages. so for them support gay marriage.

 

I agree with you here, the suicide comparison is flawed as there is no life after suicide, whereas its proven that homosexual love can provide so much happiness, just ask a gay person who's been in love. (I'm not gay but know alot of people who are, possibly the person that I consider to know me best is gay. I believe them when they say that their relationships have given them alot of happiness). The term "bad things" can be tricky though. I'm not saying that suicide is good, but I think that good and bad are the wrong terms to use when discussing this, they have the wrong connotations.

And thanks Dom, I was really happy to see this forum as I love a good debate and believe that healthy, explained and calm discussion is a really positive influence on people.

 

Ask someone who's depressed they'd says lots of good would come from it. Really defeating this argument is ganna be a lot harder than that, even Nitrous can't do it...yet... =]

 

This is true and, in a sense, very astute. I'm not a massively happy person in my life and have had some pretty bad times, though I've never actually even started down the suicide route of thinking. But I think I can at least try and empathise with people who want to do it. Its not the promise of happiness but the promise of escape, escape from a life in which you feel caged in at all times, caged in within your own mind, they just want their minds to stop, to not have to undergo the pain they feel in life every second. I don't think this is a worthy comparison to homosexuality. I think people look to suicide because they believe that they have no chance to live a happy life and don't want to endure an unhappy one any longer. Its not that "good would come of it" but that the bad things would stop.

Gay people can be just as happy as straight people, living a gay life (this is not to imply choice of sexuality, I don't believe you can choose who are attracted to or who you love) is no different than living a straight one aside from choice of partner. Whereas the result of suicide is no life at all. I do not believe that you can equate a happy, homosexual life with no life at all.

People who want to commit suicide can be helped through it and shown that life can be happy for them. Often people who come out as gay feel so much happier for it, I am told it can be very empowering, they do not need counseling to show them how good life they can be. It seems illogical to compare the counseling that someone receives when they are depressed with convincing someone that being gay is wrong, just because they are both labelled "therapy". These people are living their lives the way they feel they should, this is not the same as wanting to escape an unhappy life.

I do not think this argument holds much weight at all if you consider it in logical terms, appreciating that gay people are happy being gay and not just saying "this equates to that".

 

So you agree that the argument is illogical and shouldn't be used?

So stopping bad things isn't good?

So we should help gay people to be straight too, right? cuz if you use the argument backwards that what your advocating.

Go look up logic.

but..."this equates to that" (in the case of my argument) is logical....

 

ask the kids in orphanages if they would like to be adopted by homosexuals or lesbians come back and give me THEIR answer besides suicide is murder its murdering YOURSELF with a different spelling okay and Ive seen nitrous looking at this thread he will take his mighty thor like hammer and crush your argument with it while i tear it bit by bit besides suicide brings bad outside of the one who does its mind so this is in a way not valid while marriage hurts nobody no immediate family friends or anything like that suicide hurts friends family and others emotionally please its not the same thing at all...

 

1) I agree that the suicide/homosexuality comparison is invalid and shouldn't be used.

2) No, stopping bad things isn't good. These people are trying to escape the bad and negate it, this, if anything, equals neutral and not good. They believe that they cannot have happiness or "good" and so merely seek to cancel out the bad by taking away life altogether. If they commit suicide there can be no good or bad, only nothing.

3) Please don't paraphrase this argument like that, this statement was one half of a comparison which actually showed the differences between being gay and depressed, don't pick bits out of my argument and ignore the context. Do not pass judgment on how people are living their lives as long as they are hurting no one and they are happy. Suicidal people are unhappy and want to end their lives, all you can do is hope to show them that life can be worth living and help them achieve happiness. Gay people are living full, happy lives that are just as valid as a straight life. What is it about being gay that you seem to equate to committing suicide? In what way is being gay the same as being dead?

The other 2 points just seem senseless, I know what logic means. It is a very debatable term, an argument can seem to run well from one conclusion to the next whilst actually missing important steps in logic. Consider every step in your argument from every possible angle (within reason of course) before proclaiming that you have constructed a infallibly logical argument. Very few arguments have perfect logic, most things can be considered from another perspective. I'm just saying that you failed to take into account some steps along the way in your argument and have still not explained your basic premise of equating committing suicide and being gay.


EDIT: There is a basic point here that I think is relevant for this whole debate forum. Language is always subject to interpretations and connotations. Terms like bad and good can become awkward as people often interpret them in ways other than that meant by the person posting. This highlights the imperfection of language in articulating complex theoretical views. Its a big flaw, but please try to work around it and deal with the core argument of a post instead of debating the semantics of word choice and reasoning whole arguments around the use of a word.