Sex is the Same as it was

[bradm]

As far as tradition goes, the best reason to uphold it is because it is tradition. It's what my parents did, what my grandparents did, and I'd like to think that there is some wisdom in things that are passed down through generations. Having never known my Grandparents, the best way I can feel close to them is to try and live with the beliefs they lived with.

All of their beliefs, or just some of them? If it's just some of them, how do you decide which to continue and which not to continue? (For example, did your Grandmother work outside the home? If not, was it because they believed a woman shouldn't work outside the home [or didn't even consider that a woman could work outside the home]? If so, do you continue that belief? If you don't, then you've made a distinction between certain beliefs you continue and certain ones you don't, which comes down to what you believe, not what they traditionally believed.)

I don't think I continue my parents' (and grandparents') beliefs, but I do continue their meta-beliefs: I decide what to believe based on reason, logic, a desire to hurt people as little as I can and help people when/where I'm able. I also want to be happy, and to have everybody around me be happy, as long as the happiness can be achieved without hurting others unnecessarily.

This is why I don't have a problem with same-sex marriages: nobody gets hurt by expanding (not "eroding") the definition of marriage; if someone can show me how people (not an "institution", specific people) are hurt by the expansion, then I'll reconsider my position, but nobody (not even Mr. Harper) has done that yet.

Aloha,

Brad

Edited June 29, 2005 by Guest
Italicized "people".

[Davey Boy 2.0]

you can say that again

[secondtube]

As far as tradition goes, the best reason to uphold it is because it is tradition. It's what my parents did, what my grandparents did, and I'd like to think that there is some wisdom in things that are passed down through generations. Having never known my Grandparents, the best way I can feel close to them is to try and live with the beliefs they lived with.

So, lets keep up with your logic:

- No women in the workforce. Keep them at home.

- Lets keep polluting without consideration for the environment, as our planet will never actually get polluted.

- Certain people deserve less, due to their colour (my great grandma had basically a slave...although they called her a 'homemaker', who didn't get paid.)

- If you speak a certain language, you should be shipped down south ...... French -> creation of Acadians.

Sigh...

Edited June 29, 2005 by Guest

[TomFoolery]

I gotta go with the infinite wisdom of BradM here. I think he summed up my philisophical stance on it quite well.

My grandmother was a bigot. My mother told her I'd not be allowed to visit anymore if she continued to refer to black baseball players as "darkies". I forever respect my mother for that decision.

I still love my grandmother but I don't find any reason to follow her "tradition" of bigotry. Its based on misguided philosophy - a need to create a community with whom you can fight the outsiders for your collective needs (white people vs. blacks who may eat their food / steal their jobs etc.)

Discrimination hurts people on both sides. There just isn't any point.

Same goes with marriages.

[d_rawk]

The idea that there is an inherent wisdom in tradition or custom that can't easily be discerned through rational scrutiny (tradition and custom being formed, as they are, through a slow process of "cumulative growth") isn't necessarily a flawed one. Nor is the idea that well-intentioned policy might have unintended - and unanticipatible - consequences. There's a rich body of work that makes the case pretty convincingly (Edmund Burke, for example).

So I'm not sure that Low_Roller is just copping-out. He could have a strong argument if he really got behind it (no pun intended ) But I wonder when the veneration of tradition, solely for the sake of the comfort of the familiar, becomes simply a misguided attempt to legitimize the political and social status quo and begins to impede, rather than foster, that process of positive "cumulative growth". All traditions are the products of past change, and all traditions are forever changing. It just happens on a longer timeline, so it's more difficult to see. This (equality of rights for gays and lesbians) has been a long time coming - it isn't a sudden jolt except to those who have had their heads in the sand.

[Guest Low Roller]

Sorry folks. I can't keep up with everyone's replies. As the only one that is willing to speak up against the decision, you can imagine that I have a lot of posts to sift through in order to defend my position.

It doesn't help that Bradm posts twice.

I'm glad that everyone is staying level-headed in this thread and not threatening to beat me to death with an 18-inch black rubber cock.

As far as expanding the definition of marriage goes, then why should I be happy that the definition is expanded? Is anyone happy when beer is watered down? Nope. I believe that marriage is an extremely noble goal that a man and a woman attain together to join their lives. I'm working towards that goal right now. Me and my girlfriend have outlined several goals that we need to strive for in order to be ready for marriage in about three years time. I'm working my ass off right now. I'm going to Saudi Arabia on Saturday, against my better judgement, to make some serious money that will be able to go towards a downpayment for a house (not to mention the life experience)

Why should I be happy that marriage has become anything other than what it has always meant and represented? What's next, people marrying their pets?

[MarcO]

What's next, people marrying their pets?

you've done great so far LR, but that doesn't help you any. Don't be silly.

[Guest Low Roller]

So, lets keep up with your logic:

- No women in the workforce. Keep them at home.

- Lets keep polluting without consideration for the environment, as our planet will never actually get polluted.

- Certain people deserve less, due to their colour (my great grandma had basically a slave...although they called her a 'homemaker', who didn't get paid.)

- If you speak a certain language, you should be shipped down south ...... French -> creation of Acadians.

Sigh...

How you managed to infer all those things clearly indicates your clear lack of understanding of anything I just said, so you simply choose to attack me.

[secondtube]

so you compared two men or two women getting married as to people marrying their pets,...

strange person.

Edited June 29, 2005 by Guest

[TomFoolery]

Dude,

I'm with the other person that gives you props for defending your position level-headedly btw.

However, if I married my pet budgie how would that affect your commitment to your fiance and/or affect the noble goal you're pursuing?

Unless you're relying on a conceptual definition to give you strength of commitment - it doesn't.

I'm sorry if it comes as an attack, but anyone who does rely on a conceptual definition to find the strength of their commitment should ask themselves a few questions about what they're doing rather than giving another loving couple a hard time because it doesn't fit with what they'd choose.

[Guest Low Roller]

What's next' date=' people marrying their pets? [/quote']

you've done great so far LR, but that doesn't help you any. Don't be silly.

Sigh... True. I'm just started to get a little flustered here. It doesn't help that Secondtube is accusing me of being the biggest biggot to walk to earth, and that Hux, the defender of the Liberal party on this board, chooses to counter my points with simulated vomit sounds.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

I would say that your argument doesn't explain why gay people can't work as hard and take marriage as seriously as straight people

what exactly precludes them from the values that you uphold for straight people, LR?

[Jaimoe]

I'm waiting for someone to make a TV program called Gay Divorce Court.

[secondtube]

i really dont understand what you said...

you claimed it was right to follow your parents, and grand parents beliefs...

i simply gave some examples that our parents and grandparents openly believed in....and following your logic, those things should have been continued as well...

and with the position your taking, if that is 'attacking' you, i'd say you should thicken up your skin a bit...

[Guest Low Roller]

"All rise. Judge Richard Simmons presiding."

[Davey Boy 2.0]

I'm waiting for someone to make a TV program called Gay Divorce Court.

I vote LowRoller to be the judge with Jaimoe doing the Master Control (so to speak)

[Jaimoe]

Judge Mathis would make it fun.

[bradm]

It doesn't help that Bradm posts twice.

My apologies. I was having trouble going from "Preview Post" to "Add Post", and screwed it up. The duplicate has been deleted.

Your analogy to beer is wrong, I think: with (a) beer, you (the consumer of it) are paying for a certain amount of "something". If you get less than what you've paid for, you've been wronged. With marriage (and, in particular, somone else's marriage), you, in particular, aren't involved with what's going on. You aren't wronged, or deprived of anything (except maybe to be part of a legally defined select group).

You say you and your girlfriend are working towards (and planning for) your marriage in a few years. I applaud this. I wish more couples (same-sex and different-sex) did this. Allowing same-sex couples to get married doesn't detract from what you're doing, or what you'll achieve.

Consider this analogy: did the expansion of the definition of "voter" to include women erode democracy? It did erode the voting power of men (the legally defined select group of voters), as suddenly the number of (potentional) voters doubled, effectively halving the deciding power of each person who could vote before the "erosion", but society decided (logically, and rightly) that our democracy would be better for it.

Similarly, society has recently recognized that it's possible for two people of the same gender to have the same strength of feelings for and commitment to each other that previously was only thought to be possible between two people of opposite genders, and the law needs to be expanded to accommodate this recognition.

Aloha,

Brad

[Guest Low Roller]

i really dont understand what you said...

you claimed it was right to follow your parents, and grand parents beliefs...

i simply gave some examples that our parents and grandparents openly believed in....and following your logic, those things should have been continued as well...

and with the position your taking, if that is 'attacking' you, i'd say you should thicken up your skin a bit...

I think you're thick enough for the two of us.

My grandparents never had those beliefs. Both my Grandfathers fought for the underground Polish army during the Nazi occupation in Poland. My Grandmothers were both working 18 hour days at some factory to be able to afford bread to feed my parents. When my materal Grandfather was imprisoned in a Russian Gulag in Lithuania, my Grandmother walked for miles to bring him food, none of which ever made it to him because the guards ate it all, in front of him most likely.

How is this relevant? Well my Grandparents fought for what they believed in. They saw their friends die. They saw them dragged off to concentration camps. They lost everything they ever had.

Just because your Grandparents had biggot views, doesn't mean mine did.

Now enough of this tangent. Back to the core of the argument.

[d_rawk]

if I married my pet budgie how would that affect your commitment to your fiance and/or affect the noble goal you're pursuing?

It would adversely affect the institution of marriage in a way that the marrying of two same sex people does not. (which is why the scare tactic of extending the idea of same-sex marriage to people marrying their pets fails):

As with children, we consider that animals are incapable of consenting to sex (consent being a legal requirement that must be met before we can engage in sexual activity). This is the only justifiable defense for making sex with animals illegal (the fact that we may find the idea terribly troubling and gross is persuasive, but not sufficient - if it was, it would also be sufficient reason to justify laws against homosexual activity on the grounds that it seems "unnatural" and "icky" to a lot of straight people). Neither can they consent to marriage. If they could, it might be possible to say that it is an acceptable practice. And here's where the question of whether same-sex civil marriage might lead to the necessity of extending marriage rights to *any* two (or more?) consenting people, though often misused, actually has some currency.

[Deeps]

Hello,

My forefathers are biggots and BIG surprise they are also Catholics. God bless the society of the guilty and paranoid.

If my father didn't realize his flawed upbringing, cast in the shadow of the most stringent interpretation of the Good book and move to fix the warped view of the world he was handed, I'd likely be a disgruntled work-a-holic with an NRA membership, rueing the day slavery was abolished.

Think for yourself. The line of sight of your forefathers was undeniably blurred by archaic values they inherited from the cave people from which they came. It's your job to de-program yourself.

Maybe if they didn't believe the world was flat and got out more they may have realized that all kinds of people can be happy in all kinds of ways and it has little to nothing to do with their, and by virtue of your forefathering logic-your, INDIVIDUAL pursuits.

I haven't the patience for you viewpoint today, but good for you for being brave. Now change.

Deeps

[bradm]

Just because your Grandparents had biggot views, doesn't mean mine did.

No, but it does mean that, by your "following Grandparents' tradition is a good idea" meta-belief, he should also be a bigot. Should he? If not, why not?

Aloha,

Brad

[Guest Low Roller]

Enough of this debate. I need to go smoke a fag...

(That means a cigarette in the UK)

[Hux]

and that Hux, the defender of the Liberal party on this board, chooses to counter my points with simulated vomit sounds.

Well, I responded to your take on the political angle of this debate, and you didn't respond. That was my natural response to those statements by the way.

In light of your recent "shock" that a western oil worker might not be welcomed in Saudi Arabia, combined with the views you are forwarding here, I wholeheartedly and honestly (as a friend) feel you need to broaden your outlook, educate yourself a little more on issues you are taking such a hard stance on or that affect your life, and perhaps look to sources IN ADDITION to tradition, to form your views.

[Guest Low Roller]

I haven't the patience for you viewpoint today, but good for you for being brave. Now change.

No thanks. I'd rather think for myself and not cave into the pressures put on me by people like you.

If there is anything good I can say about homosexuality, is that it's a surefire way of curbing the overpopulation problem.