Santorum blames gay marriage for bad economy

[Wisconsin+17]

I'll give you another chance here Torie.

Answer the question please.

What's the first thing you do when someone you see has fallen down and hurt themselves and appears to need emergency first aid?

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You haven't offended me Torie, it's just you've made erroneous assumptions.

Wrong.

The first thing you do, is check and see if the situation is safe. If you get taken out by the same thing that took them out, there's two people who need rescuing.

This is the problem with gay marriage. In order to fix divorce as one of the bigger problems, we've got this log sitting on divorce. That log has to be removed first in order to fix divorce.

This is why I made the point, quite some time ago, is divorce more or less likely to be fixed with gay marriage in place?

All of you to a man ignored the question.

So I rest my case.

[Wisconsin+17]

Thanks Torie for the stimulating discussion that was well worth my time.

Appreciate it. We should do it again sometime.

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It's been falling for longer than this actually. It's mostly due to no-fault divorce and some to demographic factors (fewer people of marriagable age), waiting longer for marriage, education factors, etc.

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MA has very low marriage rates. Fewer people get married, even fewer get divorced. MA was a leader in the decline, so it's not surprising that they would be a leader in other ways.

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It's not just the average age of marriage - fewer people are choosing to get married. If you look at the percentages, it's rather drastic.

Again, this gets back to some of the basics which we should be arguing about. One of Santorum's arguments, and a big part of it is that marriage is generally a huge benefit to people. Sure for some it's not, but in general, it's the single most reliable indicator of poverty, is whether someone is or is not married. 

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Not really, no. It's better off to get married and stay married, when the alternative is not to get married at all.

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Not when the absolute numbers of those getting married has dropped so dramatically.

Again, this isn't a recent phenomenon, it's been going on for a long time.

[Wisconsin+17]

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There's two questions going on here -

One, do I believe that what I believe ought to be state policy;

Two, do I believe that marriage is something that ought to be regulated by the state.

We haven't really touched either one of them.

No - I wouldn't change my mind on gay marriage based on this evidence. Which is kind of why I specified what the question we were examining beforehand was not about whether I supported gay marriage or not.

That's really not the question on the table, nor really a productive use of your time. I'm sorry if you feel I've mislead you, but I thought I was pretty clear. I see now that I obviously was not.

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Are you saying that you believe that homosexuality is a choice?

[Wisconsin+17]

Do you see homosexuality as a choice or what, alcon?

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Well I'm unfamiliar with the norms here.

What is the usual fashion?

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Do you see homosexuality as a choice or what, alcon?

Does that help you to answer my questions, or explain why you seemed to be arguing what you're now claiming you never did?

Key words here - "I seemed". This is why I clarified myself. You had the wrong perception.

Now as for this point here, thank you for clarifying yourself. So you think we have strong predispositions that can be controlled. Ok.

Race is different, far different from this. This is why what applies to race cannot be applied to homosexuality. You can't suddenly stop being black, white, whatever. But you can change your habits and your desires.

This is a part of marriage - giving up things that you may have once enjoyed for other benefits inside a family. We restrict choices in marriage. Curtail behaviours that can be destructive out of concern for our partners and our family.

See where I'm going with this?

It comes back to the basic question - you are not what you do. What you do does not change who you are as a person.

I'm going to stop here. Get your reaction to all this.

[Wisconsin+17]

Apologies Joe. I'm not used to such swanky forums, I'm used to the HTML....

[Wisconsin+17]

Responding to Pbrower2A here.

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Actually, no, not the case here. I'm arguing that gay marriage does nothing to improve the already deteriorating situation. So the fallacy does not apply.

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Again, I am not arguing this. I am arguing that granting benefits to marriage alternatives encourages more people to choose these alternatives. We see this with common law. Elevating common law to the same legal status and recognition of marriage, encourages more people to go that route. Why?

Basic common sense. Water flows through the easiest path.

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How do you know this to be true?

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So it is in the interest of the state to promote relationships that provide procreation?

As for exploitative relationships, that applies to all types of relationships, and can be used to ban any of them.

[Wisconsin+17]

Again...race may not be selected, but participating in a relationship with someone of another race is.  It's probably easier to condition yourself out of love with someone of a different race than condition a sexual orientation change.

Ok, now lets go back a bit. That's an important point here.

Is the purpose of marriage to recognize all relationships? Or only some? If the purpose of marriage is to recognize all relationships, then you are correct here - that there's no rationale.

But if the purpose of marriage is to recognize only some relationships, then the question is - which relationships are relevant to recognition in marriage? Why have marriage at all?

[Wisconsin+17]

I'll keep this broad and short, but feel free to ask me to expand as-needed!

I think that the best argument for civil marriage is incentivizing monogamy and stability and other conditions that have positive societal benefits (...nice windows? )

How this lines up with your response re: interracial marriage or explaining why your original comment sounded like it was arguing gay marriage did bad things, I do not know!  I look forward to being led down the (garden? ) path on this one...

I'm getting to there.

I believe that race, for the purposes of marriage to the state is irrelevant. It makes no difference to the state to recognise marriage between say black people and white people or whatever.

Personally, this is something that's really important to me. My own preferences are for someone who isn't white. Statewise, the state derives the exact same benefit either way.

However, I don't see this as true with gay marriage. I think the state has a legitimate concern to promote marriage between one man and one woman for two purposes:

1, marital stability. Marriage is the best outcome for a man and a woman because the alternatives (as we are seeing right now with common law), are less stable. They are more likely to break up.

2, procreation. Marriage, between a man and a woman is the best situation for children. I am not saying that alternatives are unworkable, just that on the overall scale - it's in the best interest of the state to promote what has and does work. Even though many children are born outside of wedlock marriage is more likely to produce families with sufficient children to not only sustain, but to induce population growth.

Where does gay marriage fit into this? If we start saying that marriage isn't about the union between a man and a woman, then it starts to lose it's purpose. The question starts being asked - what benefit does the state derive from marriage recognition? Would the state be better off providing no recognition whatsoever?

[Wisconsin+17]

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Again, going back to the point in question - is marriage about recognizing all relationships or just some. No one is saying that you have to leave the person that you love, far from it.

But I am asking - should we recognize this particular relationship as marriage?

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Given the lack of participation of the gay community into marriage - I don't see how one can argue that gay marriage increases monogamy among them.

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Well, then gay marriage is a failure due to lack of participation.

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Again, as you've so beautifully argued early - gay marriage has no effect on the overall divorce rate because there isn't enough of them.

Which has the larger effect - 10 percent of the population choosing not to get married at all, or 1 percent of the population choosing to adopt?

You've said that we should not expect overall marriage rates to go up because there's not enough gay people, and at the same time, you're arguing now that they are going to have a net, positive effect.

Which is it? If they are going to have a net positive effect here, shouldn't we also be seeing a net positive effect on the marriage rate too?

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And we get another argument pulled out of the bin.

Equal protection doesn't apply here. Equal protection only applies to things like race, and disability, things which are not choices. We don't apply equal protection to things that can change over time.

[Wisconsin+17]

Being gay is not a "choice."  One cannot "choose" to be gay, any more than one can "choose" to be straight.  You could argue that gays can choose not to act upon their homosexuality, to which I would say, straights can also choose not to act upon their heterosexuality.

One, alcon already conceded this point quite awhile back. He can't use this argument anymore.

Two, that's a terrible argument. Are you arguing that celibacy is impossible?

Yes, straight people make the choice to engage in relationships with men or women according to their desires. They can choose not to engage in these relationships, same with gay people.

Once again, who you are has no bearing on what you choose to do.

[Wisconsin+17]

I would argue that celibacy is undesirable, for straights and gays alike. 

According to whom? You? This is entirely a matter of choice.

Everyone wants to have sex

Evidence for this?

But when you start to argue that homosexuality itself is something that is chosen

It is something that is chosen. People choose to engage in sexual activity.

gays are not entitled to equal protection under the law because of that

Nonsense. Everyone is entitled to the equal protection of the law.

Everyone's choices are not entitled to equal protection. There's a difference. Again. Who you are as a person is not what you do.

[Wisconsin+17]

What Fritz said. Sure, celibacy's possible, but it's (to use a slightly ironic word given the context) unnatural.

And it's always a good thing to indulge in our natural impulses? What is natural is not always good.

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Why does the state have to "benefit" from gay marriage?

This gets back to the earlier part of the discussion. What is the purpose of state recognition of marriage? If there is no public benefit, then there is no rationale for state involvement.

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And different from disability.

Equal protection doesn't apply to individual choices and decisions.

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Already have. I said, very specifically that I support interracial marriage.  

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Ok, and? You've made this argument many times now. Race is not relevant to marriage. Sex is. Marriage is about sex, no?

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It does follow. If only 10 percent of all gay couples are getting married, then the policy is an outright failure at promoting monogamy.

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You said that 'we should not expect to see gay marriage have any effect on the overall divorce rate', because it's overshadowed by simple numbers.

You said it so yourself. Now you claim that it is going to have an effect, even though the same principle applies.

Answer the question please, if 10 percent of couples choose not to get married, isn't that going to overshadow a 1 percent increase in adoption rates?

Simple yes or no.

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The same effect applies equally to both. You can't have it both ways, alcon. You've used it as a rationale as to why we shouldn't expect to see gay marriage have positive effects on the overall rate. Now you say that we should.

So either your former explanation is wrong, or your new explanation is wrong. I'm going to go with your new explanation being wrong.

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No, sorry. The same overweighting effect applies to both of them. This is your own argument that you used to dismiss the argument that we should see improvements in the overall marriage rates.

I agreed with you that the overweighting effect was going on, now you're getting defensive when confronted with the consequences of this conclusion. Same train rolling down both.

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I just said that equal protection applies to race, because race is something that you do not choose.

[Wisconsin+17]

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I'm not saying you did. FFS.

Read the post.

I said just the opposite, that you said that it IS a choice. Therefore you don't have access to the arguments that Fitzy was bringing forth (which assume just the opposite).

I'm arguing with you and Fitzy, both of whom make different arguments, come from different assumptions at the same time. Arguments I address to Fitzy are not addressed to you and vice-versa.

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90 percent of whom reject the option when offered. If equality were the issue here, would you not expect to see different numbers?

The fact of the matter is that equality, isn't the issue here. Gay people do not feel significantly discriminated against by society in this matter. They simply have no interest in marriage at all.

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Nathan - what to you is the purpose of marriage?

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Love as in? Love doesn't tell me much here.

I have a good connection with my friends. Is this the type of relationship that you believe marriage is about?

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Which happens to be my opinion also. I believe that people have predispositions, but that they can overcome said predispositions. This is the important part. Everyone chooses whether they wish to be engaged in sex or not. This is different from race, substantially different. You can't 'opt out' of race, but you can opt out of sex.

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Legally, there is nothing barring them from seeking and enjoying these relationships. That is the proper role of the state which argues through freedom of association that they are free to associate as they wish.

What I desire, I don't believe I've stated here in the thread. What the Church teaches, and what I believe - is that those engaged in these relationships should refrain from doing so. There's a difference between what the Church teaches on this issue, and the proper role of the state - and I recognize this.

However, that's not the issue wrt gay marriage. Gay marriage is a completely different argument. You are now arguing that it is in the benefit of the state to recognize these relationships (and exclude other ones) as marriage.

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Evidence for said assertion would be nice.

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Are you saying you would die without sex? This is not true. Your analogy fails.

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What do you believe Christ teaches on this matter?

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So your assertion is that I've had no contact with gay people? Are you really willing to make this argument? This is a terrible argument.

Just because someone is exposed to an opinion doesn't say anything about what they will come to believe as a result of said exposure.

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Do you believe that someone who refrains from engaging in sex is 'inauthentic'? Do you believe that said person is indecent? I'm curious here.

[Wisconsin+17]

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I'm not quite sure how that's relevant. Either the argument is true or false. Attacking me will not change this.

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Is that what marriage is about? Increasing your options?

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Again the argument is this.

1, people who want things, when given the opportunity to do so, do them.
2, 90 percent of gay people choose not to marry.

3, ergo, I conclude that for most gay people, they do not want to marry.
  

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As they did in British Columbia. However, those same people who clamored to change the law, 90 percent have chosen not to participate.

How would you explain this? I'm curious.

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If there is pent up demand, we would expect to see a spike and then a slow decline over time. This isn't what has happened. From what I can see, marriage is relevant to a very tiny minority of gay people, and that's all.

Do you believe that in 20 years that this is going to change substantially from 10 percent? Is that really your argument? I don't see it.

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Then you need to explain why 90 percent of gay people are choosing against equality if the issue is really equality. We've done as you asked, and the numbers are not what you predicted would be the case. Ergo, I can only conclude that your premises are in fact flawed.

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Then why are so few gay people choosing to get married, if the change in marriage laws 'protects them'? Why are so few gay people choosing to get married if they are 'screwed' without it? I surmise, that they are happy enough without marriage which is why they choose not to get married.

Feel free to submit evidence contrary.