Gay marriage opponents' strategy uncertain in 2015

[SteveRogers]

For the bolded: Basically, any opposite sex couple, poor or rich, short or tall, is more beneficial to the state interest in procreation than the same sex couple, because the opposite sex couple can typically self-procreate and the same sex couple typically cannot. No one decides to not have a child based on how tall they or their spouse is, and lack of wealth isn't great at stopping people either. This means that all opposite sex couples are roughly equally beneficial to the state interest in procreation, and therefore no reduction of recognition for disadvantaged opposite sex couples can be justified.

I'm arguing #3 from your list.

So you're arguing that the state's only interest in marriage is in incentivizing procreation, and even if marital recognition would be a net-positive for other reasons, that's insufficient to justify granting marital rights to those who can't procreate?1 

You're also arguing that the incentive should exist to encourage procreation, even if procreation results in sub-optimal results for the child?  (That is, you want to increase the quantity of procreation, irrespective of the quality?)2

Finally, if it were administratively possible, would you support excluding infertile couples, and those who elect to not have children, from marrying?  For instance, if two 70-year-old widowerer grandparents wanted to get married, you'd be against issuing them a license?3

1. Yes

2. Reducing benefits for short couples, poor couples, etc. is not just completely throwing quantity out the door for the purpose of quality, it also ignores the possibility that the child will end up doing well in life despite a disadvantaging environment. Furthermore, this gets into endless, unresolvable debates about "how short is short?", "how poor is poor?". The best and simplest policy here is to respect tradition and not reduce benefits for disadvantaged opposite sex couples.

3. In a fictional world where we could know whether someone is infertile or unwilling to have children through records that the government has prior to one requesting a marriage license, then I would be O.K. with denying them a license. But, that's not the world we live in. Unless they are infertile due to age, it is impossible to tell whether they are infertile or unwilling to have children without forcing them to release those private decisions and medical conditions to state government, which I believe would violate privacy rights if made a requirement for marriage. So, we cannot avoid giving marriage licenses to most infertile opposite sex couples. In the special case of a couple being infertile due to age, it is acceptable to deny them a license. But it's not something I really care about, and I would be fine with either option - allowing or denying marriage licenses to old, infertile couples. It's not unconstitutional to give infertile people licenses but not gay couples, as rational basis review, which is what SSM prohibition should be judged under, allows for an imperfect fit as long as the policy still has a rational reason for existing, which in this case is to promote the government's interest in procreation.

Why should discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation be subject to rational basis review?

[SteveRogers]

The only difference is there are more people who choose to enter into a gay relationship than in a polygamist relationship.

There are several differences, but for starters, no one is biologically predisposed towards a polygamous relationship while you yourself admit that being gay isn't a choice. You're supposed to be gay, remember?

[SteveRogers]

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1. Look, at the end of the day, the state doesn't have any control over how much people actually love their spouses or how well they raise their children. Yes, the latter may be somewhat determined by environmental factors, but there's also tons of personal choice on the part of the parent as well. At the end of the day, the only thing the state can really do is incentivize people to enter into the unity of marriage. And again, the clear dominating benefit to the state - and the one that it is most likely to get - is procreation. Gay marriage shouldn't be fully incentivized even if it increases procreation, because gay unions have an inferior outcome (less procreation than an opposite sex couple essentially all of the time).

2. I'm not applying a threshold here. I'm simply advocating for what governments often do - give (full) support what most advances its interest, and not give (full) support to what doesn't advance its interest anywhere near as much.  And opposite sex couples are obviously far more beneficial to the government's interest in procreation than same sex couples are.
 

But wait. I'll grant you that gay couples procreate less than straight couples. But they can procreate and will likely procreate more if incentivized to enter marriages, and so if procreation is the only state interest at play, then granting marriage benefits to gay couples doesn't harm the state interest (and at least marginally furthers that interest). But gay couples are harmed by the stigma of discrimination when marriage benefits are withheld. So if extending marriage benefits to gay couples isn't detrimental to the state's interest in procreation, then why shouldn't the state have to provide marriage benefits in a non-discriminatory manner? The state gets what it wants, increased procreation, without the societal detriment of a subset of the population being marked as inferior.

You will of course answer that rational basis review doesn't require the state to undertake the type of analysis I just did, but that brings me to the real point of my question, which you didn't answer last time I asked it: why do you believe rational basis review is the appropriate level of scrutiny for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation?

[SteveRogers]

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Well, in order to get to the next level, heightened scrutiny, you have to make the case that sexual orientation is close to a suspect class (strict scrutiny applies if it is a suspect class). Let's look at the criteria to be a suspect class.

1. Does the group have a history of discrimination? - The knee-jerk answer is yes, but...

How much history is there? A liberal group might say it's almost all of time, given that gay marriage wasn't officially allowed from the beginning of human history until Massachusetts began allowing same sex marriages in 2003. But others may shorten the definition to ~1960's to present, saying that it can't really be considered discrimination until the discriminated group actively dislikes it. You could also say that the discrimination didn't really begin until the 1980/90s (not sure which), when states actually began to officially endorse the man-woman definition by officially prohibiting same sex marriages - before, such prohibitions had only been implied and were followed out of mere tradition, not law. So, is 30 years enough history? is 50 years? It really becomes up to the whims of the judge, as no official standard is set.

Wow.

I'm really trying to understand where you're coming from, but to be able to write the above paragraph in 2015, you must either be horrendously misinformed about history or just fundamentally incapable of empathy towards your fellow man. Regardless of one's position on gay marriage, to argue that gay people have not faced a history of discrimination in this country is patently absurd. The question isn't how long the gay marriage question has been an issue in American politics; the question is whether for much of the country's history a man who came out as openly gay risked being beaten in the street by his neighbors. So tell us, when do you think gay people began to "actively dislike" discrimination against them? The reason that gay people didn't get politically active in mobilizing in large numbers against discrimination prior to the 60s wasn't because they were just loving all the discrimination; it was because it. was. not. safe. to be openly gay prior to that time period.   

Also, one could argue that the discrimination isn't widespread enough, because the only state-sanctioned means of it in modern times is in the area of marriage - laws officially sanctioning discrimination based on sexual orientation in other areas were unheard of in the modern history of the country until Indiana's recent short-lived bill. Before then, states simply often failed to say whether it was okay or not - and refusal to express an opinion is not an official endorsement by the state.

What on Earth are you even talking about? Right up until the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws in 2003, fourteen different states said that it was literally illegal to be gay.

[SteveRogers]

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Actually, you've made me legitimately curious here. If you have an argument beyond "church and state separation is good" on why my approach to public policy is a problem, go ahead and explain it. Not saying it will change my mind, but I'm curious enough to hear you out.

I'm happy to do that, but first, can you tell me whether or not you still endorse your secular argument here?  You just called it "closer to infallible" (?!) than other arguments...it certainly sounds less ridiculous than those arguments, but do you actually still believe it's logically sound?  If so, dude, how?

I do not feel it is logically sound, I just feel that there isn't a better secular argument to use instead.

So will you at least concede that your earlier statement that gays haven not faced a history of discrimination in this country is absurd?

[SteveRogers]

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I impose it on public policy because not doing so would make me an accomplice to sin, which also isn't tolerated by god. The only way I'd change this is if one could prove to me through scripture that god has given up on imposing man-woman marriage. I know there are christians who personally support gay marriage (not just endorse it to separate church and state, but endorse it because they truly support it), but their argument, as I understand it, is simply "Well, that was a long time ago, and surely god doesn't endorse 'unreasonable political positions'". That's not an argument that's (to my knowledge, correct if wrong) supported by the bible, it's just a rationalization.

At the end of the day, I know that this issue admittedly doesn't have much impact on the overall welfare of the country, so I typically don't vote based on it. That's how I can support politicians such as Ann Kirkpatrick (D, AZ-01) and Mark Kirk (R, IL) in good conscience - because I look beyond their liberal positions on gay marriage and abortion and see that, on the whole, they are good politicians. But I don't see myself ever supporting the gay marriage/abortion aspects of their platform.

Wulfric, how do you make the jump from holding sincere, unshakable religious beliefs to believing that the government must impose those beliefs on everyone? How does allowing others to make the free choice of whether or not to sin make you an "accomplice to sin"? I cannot see the logic in that, and I'm skeptical that there's much in the way of scriptural basis. Does your belief system really require a 1:1 correspondence between morality and legality without any role for free choice? Would you support legislation to outlaw sloth and gluttony? To outlaw lying? Criminal penalties for dishonoring your father? More to the point, do you support sodomy laws? Isn't the point of defining in the Bible what isn't and isn't sin to allow each person to make an informed choice about whether or not to sin and then reap their punishment or reward in the afterlife? Under your belief system, does God really need help from the laws of man to enforce his rules?

[SteveRogers]

I'm not saying that all of god's commandments are things I would be willing to publicly campaign on/advocate for if one asked me to do so. I don't feel god expects me to do so. But if they were to come up at the ballot box as refrendums, then I believe god expects me to vote for them out of faith. Sure, god is the eventual final arbiter on whether someone has been truly repentant and deserves forgiveness. But that doesn't mean he expects man to show a nonchalant attitude towards others' sin.

Ok, well let's cut right to the chase here. Would you vote in favor of the following referendums if they were on the ballot in your state?
1. A ban on all non-Christian marriages (i.e. no state recognition of marriages between Jewish or Muslim couples, etc.)?
2. The establishment of Christianity as the official state religion?
3.A ban on the construction of mosques within the state?
4. A flat-out ban on the practice of Islam?

[SteveRogers]

Got a real Moderate Hero on our hands.

Well technically he did still manage to carve out a moderate hero compromise position: He would never introduce legislation to impose a totalitarian theocracy on the country, but if it was on the ballot he'd vote for it.

[SteveRogers]

[meme]

^^^^^^^^
Do gays have a higher divorce rate? The hetero one is already super high. I don't understand what he is trying to say.

He's saying gays are going to...break out of their pens and eat us? Who knows.