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Will said:
There is a problem with the murder argument, though. I've heard it before, sometimes with "murder", sometimes "rape", sometimes "kiddie porn", and on and on, pretty much always something everyone who is considered sane believes is a very Bad Thing(tm). Then they say, replace this Bad Thing(tm) with gay marriage, and there is your argument for it!
Wrong.
When you do such substitutions, you're assuming that either A) the things being substituted have all the same properties as far as the argument is concerned, or B) the argument is a tautology. The "murder" argument easily disproves B. Then what of A? What are the properties of all these Bad Things(tm)?
Murder - one person depriving another person of life
Rape - one person depriving another person control over the body sexually
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Both assume some particular definition of person, which is very religion-like, if not necessarily precisely religious. Should the government be able to dictate what is and is not considered a person? If no, then you can't charge a solipsist with murder or rape; if yes, then it can easily become quite reasonable to put an abortionist on trial for murder.
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Will said:
Kiddie Porn - one person depriving a previously innocent youth of innocence, in addition to depriving control over the body sexually
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That applies to the extreme of kiddie porn - some jerk sticking it in a five year old - it does not necessarily apply to a twelve-year-old doing a strip-tease in front of a camera for cash (which is basically what the various task-forces trying to take down the kiddie-porn recruiters fish for).
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Will said:
And gay marriage? Can anyone seriously make an argument that two people who love each other cannot make such a bond between themselves? All I have heard simply is an "I don't like it" argument.
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So you've never heard the long-term social stability question? What's the longest a society that was founded with exclusively (or nearly so) "traditional" marriage has survived after "non-traditional" marriges have become widespread? According to one source I've heard (granted, he was a televangalist, and is biased - but then again, everybody's biased to some degree - doesn't necessarily mean that their data is false) was three generations. Now consider the Jews. Theirs is pretty much the only culture that has survived relatively intact through multiple millenia of subugation and persecution (of varying severity, granted). They have a lot of rules - religious rules that they live by - which include such things as sanitation, a ban on incest, and a ban on eating pork, to name three. Now, in modern times, we find that many of these are actually extremely practical health concerns. Thanks to an understanding of germs, we know that people who don't wash regularly are considerably more likely to contract diseases. Thanks to an understanding of genetics, we know that the childeren of incest are considerably more likely to have defects from negative-recessive gene pairs. Thanks to an understanding of biology, we now know that pigs contain a parasite which pigs are immune to, but is devastating to humans if the parasite gets into their systems (sure, it's not certain that you will catch it if you eat pork that still has some surviving parasites, but essentially all pigs carry that parasite, and barring some rather unusual circumstances, eating pork is the only way to pick it up). Many of their practices are present and required (in some form) in most modern societies - theft, murder, rape, a weekly day of rest, and incest laws, to name a few. Whether you assume their laws were handed down to them by God, or that they evolved over a given length of time as survival factors for a society, it's a bad idea to start dropping portions that are integrated into your society without first running long-term field tests.
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Will said:
Well I don't like racists, Nazis, lawyers, marketing executives, insurance salesmen, circus clowns, or albinos. But they have never done anything to me personally, I just decide I don't like them. Therefore, if I can convince enough people that they don't like those things either, it may be decreed through government that those people shall not have rights under this government. This will undoubtably make me and many other people happy; that doesn't make it right or good.
A lot of people don't like homosexuality. It makes them uncomfortable. Gay people have never done anything to them, it's just they aren't liked. Therefore, if it turns out there are enough people who don't like homosexuality, it may be decreed through government that those people shall not have rights under this government. This will undoubtably make homophobics happy; that doesn't make it right or good.
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Their's no attempt (that I'm aware of, anyway) to prohibit them the vote; they aren't being prohibited free speech; they aren't being systemically executed; killing them is still murder; they aren't being prohibited to engage in commerce; they aren't being prohibited to hold jobs (for the most part - there is the military exception to that - but the military is, of necessity, extremely pragmatic when dealing with problems - it's much more efficent to remove the 2% that cause 50% of those around them to lose efficency than it is to train the 50% to not be bothered by it). It's not the blanket denial of rights that your statement above could easily be read to imply. In some ways it's more of a preservation of the language - an object designed to be sat upon with four legs and a back is not a chalkboard; a large, flat chunk of slate mounted on a wall and designed to be repeatedly written on and erased is not a chair; two men in love is not a marriage. In some ways it's trying to prevent a slippery slope - if two men in love can be a marriage, why not three men in love? Or one man and three women? Or a forty-year old man and a thirteen-year old girl? Or ...?
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Will said:
Another mistake is saying that all things which are dealt with in religion cannot be dealt with in government. With many religions, a form of government is already built in. Exhibit A, the Catholic Church. When you look at the clause "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", there is nothing in there saying there is no overlap in domain. Religion or lack thereof is a central part of every person. So is living, and living in society kind of implies that one is living under at least one government. If one is living under more than one, then it is expected that the person will be restrained a little more in what they can do, while getting the benefits provided from both. There is no conflict in the Constitution as long as the "government" of religion does not interfere with the functioning of the State, and the functioning of the State does not interfere with the functioning of the Church. In other words, the Bible can say "murder is wrong", the US Government can say "murder is a felony punishable by X years in prison"... and there's no conflict! Or, religions can say "marriage is a sacred union between only a man and a woman", and the US Government can say "marriage is the union of two persons for purposes of taxation, inheritance, visitation, etc"... and there's still no conflict! There's no forcing of people to marry someone of the same sex. There's no forcing of people to marry someone of the opposite sex. There's no forcing to marry, period.
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By the exact same token, there is no conflict if religion says "marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman" while the state says "marriage is the union of a man and a woman for purposes of taxation, inheritance, visitation, et cetera". Yet your initial argument was that the state defining marriage as being a union between a man and a woman was wrong.