From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Mar 14 2003 - 06:24:42 GMT
Hi Platt,
> > What I don't understand is why you believe that allowing gay marriages
> > would weaken this pattern.
>
> Because gay couples can't make babies.
RICK
I'm still not sure why your point of view leads to being 'opposed' to
homosexual marriage rather than merely being indifferent' to it. The fact
that homosexuals do not make babies only explains why you believe letting
homosexual couples marry wouldn't strengthen the pattern. It doesn't
explain why you think it would weaken the pattern (do you see the
difference?).
Moreover, sterile heterosexuals also can't make babies. Would you deny
marriage to sterile heterosexuals? Or couples including a sterile
heterosexual?
What about overpopulated societies? Should they reverse the law so as
to discourage procreation?
> > Especially given that you don't see anything
> > intrinsically immoral about homosexuality and you agree that when the
> > natural parents aren't available to raise the baby, an adoptive
homosexual
> > couple is a viable option.
>
> Why is marriage necessary for adoption?
RICK
Marriage is a socially enforceable static-latch on the relationship between
two individuals. It makes the members of the couple less dynamic as
individuals and more stable as a couple and family. I'm guessing that any
given couple (heterosexual or homosexual) is more likely to create a stable
home environment in which to rear children (natural or adopted) if the
couple is socially latched in the institution of marriage than if they
aren't. What do you think?
> > Do you believe that less heterosexuals would choose to get married and
> > raise children if homosexuals were also allowed to marry?
>
> No
RICK
If letting homosexuals marry won't change the behavior of heterosexual
couples, than what harm to the pattern you seek to preserve could come from
letting homosexual couples marry if they so choose? Even if you really
believe that marriage has absolutely no other value other than to encourage
procreation, would anyone be hurt by letting homosexuals marry?
> > It seems to me that the only way your thoughts about encouraging the
> > patterns of heterosexual coupling are related to the topic of gay
marriage
> > is if you think that reserving the legal status of marriage to
> > heterosexuals is some kind of "incentive" to making them marry and raise
> > children.
>
> Yes. The benefits of marriage are conferred by society on heterosexuals
> because society needs them to make and raise babies.
RICK
But society also needs couples to adopt and raise babies. Why shouldn't
marriage be an incentive to them as well?
> >That is, you think that if gay marriage were not illegal, some
> > people who otherwise would have been heterosexual would instead choose
to
> > marry members of the same sex.
>
> No. I don't think that.
RICK
So again, if you don't think that gay marriages would have an effect on the
patterns of heterosexual mating, why do you think they pose a danger to
those same patterns?
> > This leads me to inquire whether you believe that homosexuality is the
> > product of nature or nurture. Or in MoQ terms, do you believe
> > homosexuality a biological pattern or a social pattern?
>
> I think it's a biological pattern.
RICK
I'm not sure how this is logically consistent with the rest of your
view. If you believe that sexuality is a biological pattern, then why would
you believe that a social incentive program (like marriage) would have any
effect on it at all? If sexuality is biological, then saying that society
needs to encourage heterosexuals to mate together is like saying society
needs to encourage caucasians to be born with white skin. Of course, a
caucasian can't help but to be born with white skin, because his skin color
is a biological pattern and he couldn't change it if he wanted to.
Similarly, if sexuality is a biological pattern, then the heterosexual can't
resist mating with a member of the opposite sex anymore than the caucasian
can resist being born white. In other words: Biological patterns are
immutable. They can't be changed by choice and it doesn't make any sense
for society to either encourage or discourage biological patterns that
aren't optional anyway. Does it?
Now let me ask you: Why are you so hip
> on legalizing gay marriages?
RICK
As a lawyer, it has often seemed to me that the only kind of bigotry
that our laws, our courts, and our legislators still openly tolerate is
discrimination against homosexuals. Most states prevent homosexuals from
marrying, many have laws banning sodomy. Homosexuality is conspicuously
absent from most federal civil rights statutes (and the civil rights laws of
many states) and the U.S. Supreme Court has said in the past the
homosexuality is not a characteristic protected by the 14th amendment Equal
Protection clause (although it has recently decided to reconsider that
decision).
Now, in the last post you (quite rightly) pointed out that equal
protection must have it's logical limits. How should we decide if that
should include homosexuals, senior citizens, aliens, intellectuals,
red-headed-lefties, albinos with green-eyes, etc...? I have no perfect
answer for this question. But if you doubt that homosexuals are more in
need of this sort of equal protection than any other currently unprotected
segment of the population, I suggest you do a Google-search on the name
"Matthew Sheppard" and see if you can stomach the fate of this particular
individual. Then remind yourself that his story is only unusual in its
extremity, not its theme.
I believe that laws banning homosexual marriage and elements of the
homosexual lifestyle (like sodomy laws) are the legal manifestations of an
antiquated, puritanical religious morality that has outlived any usefulness
it may have once had and lives on only as state-enforced discrimination. I
think these sort of laws are used to keep homosexuals 'in the closet'. A
legal way of saying "you're not welcome here". In short: I am not hip on
legalizing gay marriages so much as I am hip on living under laws of the
highest Quality.
As a philosopher who has spent nearly 10 years studying the works of
Robert Pirsig, I have often wondered why Pirsig didn't address the issue of
homosexuality in LILA (I mean, he did take the time to address such
'controversial' moral issues as vegetarianism and curing patients of germs).
Homosexuality is an issue that seems to have Pirsig's name all over it. It's
a controversial subject often mixed-up with things like morality, religion,
biology, psychology, insanity, sociology, anthropology, human rights and
social equality. Debates over whether homosexuality is 'biological' or
'social' (or both, or neither, or either) have raged on for years amongst
scientists, psychologists and inside the homosexual community itself. If any
modern social issue cries out for the moral clarity the MoQ is alleged to
provide, surely this one does.
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> > Personally, I think Pirsig's 'principle of human equality', like
> > Justice or Quality itself, is difficult to precisely define. However,
if I
> > had to take my best shot at it, I think it's something like: The rights
of
> > all law abiding people should be as similar as the notion of ordered
> > liberty allows.
>
> That's a good shot. But legitimate differences can occur over the
> meanings of human equality, rights, law abiding people and ordered
> liberty. Wouldn't you agree?
RICK
Yes. I would.
thanks,
rick
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