Gay Marriage Response

[SkepticalScience]

Hello all. . .

I was wondering how to respond to the following question, "Why shouldn't you let a brother and sister be married who really love each other? Or a man and his dog? Or a 21 year old and a 6 year old?"

I'm trying to see all sides of this debate, and was wondering what a logical response to that question would be.

Thanks!

[Crossbow]

Oh man!

Is this another of GP's sock-puppets?

[fishbob]

The 6 year old is a child, the dog can not consent, etc.

How about, why can't I marry my boat? I really really love it. And so does my wife. Yeah why can't the 3 of us be united in matrimony?

[Checkmite]

Originally posted by fishbob
The 6 year old is a child, the dog can not consent, etc.

How about, why can't I marry my boat? I really really love it. And so does my wife. Yeah why can't the 3 of us be united in matrimony?

That boat doesn't love you. We've been having an affair for months.

[c0rbin]

I will give benefit of doubt...

Two concenting adults is so obviously different than an adult marrying a 6 year old or a dog that I question your mental faculties.

Understand? Concenting adults?

Denying a segment of the population any benefits that the general population enjoys--whatever those benefits are--barring felons--is called discrimination.

You can agree with that or not.

[SkepticalScience]

The 6 year old is a child, the dog can not consent, etc.


So what about the brother and sister though??

I can almost argue both ways regarding this issue. . . at one level, it does seem akin to supression of interracial marriages. But i can't seem to validate that for brother and sister marraiges.

PLEASE HELP!

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by Crossbow
Oh man!

Is this another of GP's sock-puppets?

Doesn't look like it, to go off his previous posts.

[SkepticalScience]

Yea, thanks for the benefit of the doubt. . .

I really don't know which way to go on this. . .

Intuitivley, I am for it. . . but I just can't seem to wrap my head around the brother sister argument.

[c0rbin]

Simple. Don't marry your sister.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by SkepticalScience
[B]Hello all. . .

I was wondering how to respond to the following question, "Why shouldn't you let a brother and sister be married who really love each other? Or a man and his dog? Or a 21 year old and a 6 year old?"

Have you every tried, "Because they are wrong." ???

[Zero]

Originally posted by SkepticalScience
Yea, thanks for the benefit of the doubt. . .

I really don't know which way to go on this. . .

Intuitivley, I am for it. . . but I just can't seem to wrap my head around the brother sister argument. That's because the brother/sister argument, and incest in general, points to inappropriate boundaries from an early age. Incest is a sign of some sort of abusive upbringing.
There have been some cultures that allowed for childhood experimentation amongst siblings, but there also existed other societal controls to deal with it later on.

[SkepticalScience]

Simply saying "they are wrong" isn't the kind of response I am looking for Luke. (Who am I to say what is right and wrong?)

Corbin. . .what I am asking is, would you approve a brother and sister pair who wanted to be married? What if they were your children?

[Zero]

Originally posted by Luke T.


Have you every tried, "Because they are wrong." ??? That's a non-answer. You have to explain WHY it is wrong.

[SkepticalScience]

"That's because the brother/sister argument, and incest in general, points to inappropriate boundaries from an early age."

But whose to say that it is inappropriate? Why is being gay any more appropriate than being attracted to your sister?

So, my question for you . . .is if both of your kids wated to get married, at say age 28, would you be against it? If so, why?

[Zero]

Originally posted by SkepticalScience
"That's because the brother/sister argument, and incest in general, points to inappropriate boundaries from an early age."

But whose to say that it is inappropriate? Why is being gay any more appropriate than being attracted to your sister?

So, my question for you . . .is if both of your kids wated to get married, at say age 28, would you be against it? If so, why? Depends...the point that I make about the brother/sister issue is that it points to a sexualized upbringing, which is psychologically damaging, according to people smarter than me.

[c0rbin]

Corbin. . .what I am asking is, would you approve a brother and sister pair who wanted to be married?

I would not give my conscent because I think it's a bit icky, as Zero suggests. But why ask me? You need to form your own opinions. Would you approve?

[Chanileslie]

Originally posted by SkepticalScience
Hello all. . .

I was wondering how to respond to the following question, "Why shouldn't you let a brother and sister be married who really love each other? Or a man and his dog? Or a 21 year old and a 6 year old?"

I'm trying to see all sides of this debate, and was wondering what a logical response to that question would be.

Thanks!

Well your second two examples are simply because neither party can really be consenting as one is a child and one is an adult, and both involve abuse of roles of power and authority.

Why shouldn't a brother and sister be allowed to marry. That is a harder one. People, especially children, should feel comfortable and safe in their homes. If the boundry between siblings is crossed from a platonic to a more sexual nature then that safety issue is compromised because now one can pressure the other for sex. Also, once again, it comes down to a power and authority issue - younger siblings often look up to older siblings; older siblings are sometimes put in charge of younger siblings - you now have a situation where one can abuse one's power and authority and force sexual relations on another by coersion. As adults should siblings be allowed to wed? Well that is an issue: after years of pounding into children's heads that their brother or sister is not a suitable sexual partner, to say, but when you get to this age, it is okay, would be a confusing point.

[Tmy]

Whats "love" got to do with legal marriage? Love isnt even mentioned in the marriage laws.


If I love my mistress then I during my divorce case I shouldnt be punished for having an affair. After all, who is the govt to tell me who to love!:p

[SkepticalScience]

Ok Chani (and others). . . .

Say a brother and sister were seperated at birth, and later on (say when they are 28) find each other, and fall in love.

Should they be allowed to get married? They are normal people, and they were raised seperatly.

What then???

See Corbin, Chani, Zero. . . all i am saying s that people opposed to gay marriage might see it as "icky" too. . . just as you see the brother sister marriage icky.

[Zero]

Originally posted by SkepticalScience
Ok Chani (and others). . . .

Say a brother and sister were seperated at birth, and later on (say when they are 28) find each other, and fall in love.

Should they be allowed to get married? They are normal people, and they were raised seperatly.

What then???

See Corbin, Chani, Zero. . . all i am saying s that people opposed to gay marriage might see it as "icky" too. . . just as you see the brother sister marriage icky. Icky isn't the issue...I'm not sure that there is grounds to prevent 'seperated at birth' siblings from getting married.

[Andonyx]

This has been brought up before in some..well....unsavory circumstances to say the least.

I believe several people brought up the biological issues, and I don't really remember what conclusions were reached, AS I understand it, the risk to potential offspring through first cousin inter-breeding was less than supposed, however I still think immediate family represents a significant risk of making recessive genes that figure in congenital disease expressed.

Of course you could always make the argument, "well, what if they don't have children?"

Still there's questions of why societal norms are involved in the first place. If human beings are social animals, one of the additional functions of mating habits is to intermingle the society into a larger cohesive unit that can establish goals, ideals and behavioral standards. When the impetus to seek outside the nuclear family for sexual partners is removed, there are less bonds between a those individuals and the society in which they exist, and less self-correcting mechanisms in the society for passing on its social mores, which wether they ultimately prove to be right or wrong from an abstract moral standard usually have some basis in helping the society grow and survive.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Zero
That's because the brother/sister argument, and incest in general, points to inappropriate boundaries from an early age. Incest is a sign of some sort of abusive upbringing.

Well, just to play with the devil's avocado, if someone has had an abusive upringing, what is the compelling interest in denying them the pursuit of happiness in a way that their damaged little brains can appreciate? It's not as if anybody has any remote intention or ability to correct their damage otherwise.

There are many sexual practices adults engage in that are attempts to recover from eary damage. Perhaps even most of them. Why add insult to injury?

For that matter, why is government involvement with marriage so fixated on whether the participants plook each other? The primary reasons for governmental involvement in marriage are inheritance, taxing a household instead of an individual, access to medical decisions, and disposition of bodies upon death. (Issues with children were--ahem--divorced from the concept of marriage long ago, from a legal standpoint.) Why does or should any of this depend on inserting tab A into slot B?

[rikzilla]

Incest?? Vic and I did that moral question about to death in this thread:

<iframe width="100%" height="400" src="http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&action=showpost&postid=1870010679"></iframe>

I ended up bringing Dr. Shermer's latest book which spoke of "provisional morality"....folks should read it. That Shremer's a sharp cookie.

-z

Here's the LINK (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23782&perpage=40&highlight=incest%20moral&pagenumber=10) if you want to see how the poll ended up.

[rikzilla]

<iframe width="100%" height="400" src="http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&action=showpost&postid=1870022781"></iframe>

[hammegk]

Originally posted by Zero
That's a non-answer. You have to explain WHY it is wrong.
Lot's of people think YOU are wrong, in that they have no need whatsoever to explain anything to you. If they control the power to torture and/or kill you and yours, and decide to, that's all the answer that will be required.

Quite a few of you doofuses here seem to "have faith" human nature has been repealed, and only logic will endure.

Obfuscation on the gay marriage issue is nice, but does not overcome the 'feelings' of a lot of people that they may not be able to explain 'why' homosex (and other forms of abberant sex) are WRONG and not suitable for public display, but they "have faith" it's so.


Check that out for "why is it wrong".


Try two scenarios: you have 2 sons, 1 straight marries and his wife provides an heir, the other gay & by adoption raises an heir with his significant other. Will everyone involved in this story receive equality in your will, and for that matter while you are still alive? BTW, your particular answer may not be exactly relevant to societal thinking in this matter.

Another matter generating even more ill-will is the question of abortion. The god/pledge/evolution brouhaha is another.

[DialecticMaterialist]

One thing I don't understand about these slippery slopes concerning gay marriage, is how easily they could apply just as well to mixed race marriages, or even regular marriage.

One could have said, in the 1960s or 70s I imagine "What if we do accept black-white marriages? What's next, child marriages? Beastiality? Pedophilia?"


Same with marriage in general, if you can accept one kind of marriage in principle...why not every kind?


The reason should be obvious when it's that way, namely that each kind of marriage has different characeristics which effect our standards in different ways. The only trait marriage has over gay marriage is tradition. And inter-racial marriages don't even have that.

Incest however is universally taboo, can lead to molestation and birth defects. Beastiality can lead to diseases/is not consenting/can lead to molestation easy. Pedophilia can lead to child abuse and children can not consent.


Another interesting point is how similiar arguments concerning gay marriages were raised when Texas sodomy laws were overturned how people were like "What's next...pedophilia?".

[Tmy]

Heres your answer. Incest is not popular! Just like poligamy and the others. Thats it. If it was popular then id be sure to be legal. I mean the excuese against bigamy and incest marriages are really weak. Just as gay marriage. Its becoming more n more accepted, so the laws are changing accordingly.


As for the comparisons to interracial marriage. I dont think its analogous. The tradition of marriage and legal marriage has always been man n women. I dont even think the laws ever did mention race. And if they did it was probably a resoponce from racists.

Many people have a problem with gay marriage not becaus they are anti gay, but because it alters the very core definition of marriage. Just like bigamy alters the one + one core of marriage.

[Silicon]

1+1 isn't the core of marriage until very recently.

Even the bible advocates a man having many wives.




Plus the old argument "Cause it's always been like that" is in my mind, never a good argument.

[Chanileslie]

Originally posted by SkepticalScience
Ok Chani (and others). . . .

Say a brother and sister were seperated at birth, and later on (say when they are 28) find each other, and fall in love.

Should they be allowed to get married? They are normal people, and they were raised seperatly.

I don't really have a problem with that providing that is the true scenario. Of course, since they both may possess some of the same deleterious gene combinations, they may have a slightly higher problem with having children.

Originally posted by SkepticalScience
What then???

See Corbin, Chani, Zero. . . all i am saying s that people opposed to gay marriage might see it as "icky" too. . . just as you see the brother sister marriage icky.

No, I see siblings marrying as wrong and something truely sad. Basically, if siblings do marry that have been raised together, there is something wrong and somebody is probably getting hurt in the deal. Nobody is hurt when gay people get married. And what full grown consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedroom is none of my or your business.

[Scorpy]

Originally posted by SkepticalScience
Hello all. . .

I was wondering how to respond to the following question, "Why shouldn't you let a brother and sister be married who really love each other? Or a man and his dog? Or a 21 year old and a 6 year old?"

I'm trying to see all sides of this debate, and was wondering what a logical response to that question would be.

Thanks!

The logical reponse would be to dismiss the incest, pedophilia, beastiality side of the argument as fallacious since it has nothing to do with the debate but was only introduced into it because those who oppose gay marriage can't come up with a logical reason to oppose it on its own merits.

BTW, when did slippery slope reasoning become acceptable? :(

[Earthborn]

a 21 year old and a 6 year old?Children are legally considered incapable of consenting to such a relationship.

In Western countries, legal marriage is defined as a (more or less) equal relationship between two people, where both have responsibilities towards the other and equal rights to make certain decisions concerning the other, for example medical decisions where one is incapable of deciding themselves. Children are considered incapable of bearing such responsibilities and are considered incapable of making such far reaching decisions. Therefore marriage between adults and children is incompatible with the modern Western concept of marriage.

This is of course just one concept of marriage, and many societies have or had very different ones. If marriage is not considered an equal relationship, but a regulation of who owns which wife, marriages between children and adults are possible. I don't think Western culture is going to change so radically soon to make this possible.Or a man and his dog?Again: in this case the dog cannot consent and it would not have an equal relationship with that man.

Moreover, a dog isn't even legally a person. For the law it is an object without rights, and the man is its owner. The man doesn't need to marry the dog to be able to make medical decisions on the dog's behalf. The dog would not be able to make them when the man gets ill. There is also nothing to gain for the dog: it wouldn't know what to do when it inherited anything from its deceased spouse, it doesn't have an income and can't apply for taxbreaks, etc...

There is also no problem with children: the man will not be able to care for his children better with or without being married to the dog, the dog can't cope with being the guardian of the children anyway if the man might die...

Since an animal has no real rights, it cannot enter into an equal relationship with a human being. This may become an issue when animal rights activists get their way and when someone figures out a way to test whether an animal consents and understands such an arrangement, but it isn't an issue now.Why shouldn't you let a brother and sister be married who really love each other?This is actually a much more complex issue. Siblings might indeed enter into an equal consential relationship. So this cannot be an argument against sibling marriages.

However, this does not mean that there will be many siblings who are demanding for it. People who marry do so to get rights over eachother as if they are family members (such as inheritence, medical decisions etc), but this is a non-issue for siblings: they are already family members and don't need to marry to get many of the benefits.

There is of course also how politically urgent an issue is. I don't see many sibling couples demonstrating in the streets to have their relationships recognized by law. Perhaps this will change in the future, but until then I think it is a non-issue.

It should be noted that in the Netherlands we have civil unions (created during the time that the idea of opening marriage law to homosexuals was not an option politically) and marriage law (opened for same-sex couples only recently). Civil unions, but not marriage, is open to siblings. As Tmy said, love has nothing to do with it. People do not have to prove they have an amorous or sexual relationship to get a civil union. For the law, only relevant is the fact that people run a household together and need to negotiate certain issues together - such as inheritence, medical decisions, taxes, etc...Say a brother and sister were seperated at birth, and later on (say when they are 28) find each other, and fall in love.Such a situation seems very hypothetical, but years ago I have indeed read about such a case. IIRC correctly, it happened in Sweden: a man and woman fell in love and wanted to marry, but when they trying to get the papers in order they found out that they were brother and sister, seperated from early childhood. A judge later decided that this was an exceptional case and that these too should be allowed to marry. (If someone knows anything of the case, I hope you can tell me whether I remember correctly).

No legal system can ever regulate everything that might happen. For that we rely on judges to make a decision. The law doesn't need to be changed for that, but it might be when a whole group of people is excluded from a legal regulation with no other justification than that the law doesn't allow it.

[FFed]

Originally posted by SkepticalScience

So what about the brother and sister though??

I can almost argue both ways regarding this issue. . . at one level, it does seem akin to supression of interracial marriages. But i can't seem to validate that for brother and sister marraiges.


You have obviously not seen Jerry Springer.

[c0rbin]

See Corbin, Chani, Zero. . . all i am saying s that people opposed to gay marriage might see it as "icky" too. . . just as you see the brother sister marriage icky.

BORING!

Form your own opinion or be labelled: "The Noodler"

[schplurg]

Try this...

What if the brother and sister want to get married purely for the tax or other legal benefits...they have no sexual relationship at all (a lot of married people don't hehe). We can't assume that they will have children simply because they are married...in fact, marriage is not a prerequisite to having children.

My 2 cents

[Bentspoon]

Thanks Scorpy

"The logical reponse would be to dismiss the incest, pedophilia, beastiality side of the argument as fallacious since it has nothing to do with the debate but was only introduced into it because those who oppose gay marriage can't come up with a logical reason to oppose it on its own merits.

BTW, when did slippery slope reasoning become acceptable?"

Slippery slope of reasoning

This is a phrase worth framing.

I am surprised that marrying one's father or mother didn't get into it, none of which is the issue at hand.

Who is it that is trying to preserve the sanctity of marriage - what sanctity of marriage. I don't think you are going to find a lot of divorced people heralding the sanctity of marriage.

After my experience with marriage, I have the following advice for my son:

DON'T!! and for god's sake use a condom lest you be trapped.

Sanctity my a$$. It has been exploited, used for personal benefit, blackmail and all sorts of crap.

Bentspoon

PS Of course my dog is consenting. The Pet Psychic told me so.

[epepke]

Originally posted by FFed


You have obviously not seen Jerry Springer.

Heh. Well, apart from trailer trash who concoct stories to have their fifteen minutes of heavy rotation on teevee, brother/sister marriage is quite rare. The last I remember that made the national press was about ten years ago. A brother and sister had been living together for long enough that had it been an unrelated man and woman, it would have been considered common-law marriage. They wanted to tie the not. She had had a hysterectomy, so there was little chance of the kid from Deliverance popping out. Which is probably a good thing, as neither looked to be entirely free of vestigial webbed fingers. I though, just what is the compelling state interest in denying these two sad sacks a moment of happiness?

[Pyrrho]

Personally, I wonder if the backlash against "gay marriage" stems not so much from a desire to protect the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, but more from a desire to keep homosexuals -- and, possibly, any two given straight guys or gals who want to take advantage of the system -- from receiving the social and economic benefits of legally-recognized marriage. In the past, same-sex couples have had to resort to legal adoptions, etc. in order to assure the property rights of the partners. Maybe the U.S. isn't quite ready for this particular reality check, but our Constitution supposedly guarantees a set of basic human rights, including the free practice of religion. To my mind, marriage falls under that guarantee.

I'm very disturbed by President Bush's talk of Constitutional amendments to ban "gay marriage". Of all the things this country needs attending to, this is certainly not an issue that will break the nation...unless it's made into one.

Let's deal with our real problems instead of fretting over someone's nuptial arrangements.

Oops, wait, it's an election year...time to beat up on gays...man, this country's priorities are screwed up.

[Pyrrho]

Originally posted by SkepticalScience
Hello all. . .

I was wondering how to respond to the following question, "Why shouldn't you let a brother and sister be married who really love each other?

If they're of legal age, I don't have any objection. Don't expect me to send any wedding presents.

Or a man and his dog?

Marriage is as much a legal institution as it is a religious one. Since dogs have no legal standing that I know of, the legal aspect of marriage is out of the question. For example, would the man declare the dog as a dependent for tax purposes? There's no good legal reason why such idiocy should be permitted. Outside of that, if some yahoo wants to formally marry his dog, he can go ahead and marry the dog, but the marriage shouldn't be legally recognized.

Or a 21 year old and a 6 year old?"

Sure...right...a 21-year old man or woman is going to find marital satisfaction with a 6-year old...I'm sure that somewhere in the world, arranged marriages have resulted in unions such as that, but again, these are legal arrangements that have primarily to do with the transfer and ownership of wealth, and nothing to do with human relationships as experienced by people who are not married to children. Y'know, it's only been in the last century that children even began to enjoy some protection from adults who would otherwise abuse them, put them to work in sweatshops, sell them to other people, and so on. There's no good reason to turn back the clock, especially since the advancements for the rights of children have been significant only in prosperous, developed countries. In much of the world children, like women, still get the short end of the stick.

I'm trying to see all sides of this debate, and was wondering what a logical response to that question would be.

Thanks!

[ssibal]

A brother and sister marrying is pretty much the same as two gays marrying. Both are considered taboo by society (though incest is more of a taboo). Personally, I have no problem with either but then again I think the institution of marriage is stupid since it is mostly grounded in religion.

[nightwind]

The question about marriage among brother/sister, person/dog, child/adult, is a very interesting one.

At first I was a little set back, by thinking "are you kidding". But now that I think of it, I can think of no real argument as to why you shouldn't be able to marry your sister, dog, etc. Since I guess it is all about property dispersment anyway.

While some so called "valid" reasons are given why this should not be done, they just seem to be opinions that are not really backed up by fact or research.

I know that some time ago, marriages to kin was discouraged because the "evil genes" would then surface. But that notion has pretty much been dispelled.

So, I guess these unions are not done, because someone somewhere, probably without any kind of reason, decided it was wrong. If we had been brought up to think it was OK to marry our dog, then it would be probably OK. And there would probably be far less divorces. I can think of very few who would ever consider divorcing their dog, so the divorce rate might actually go down. And since a brother and sister would have already had a practice run at living together, there is a chance, that that union would be less likely to disappear.

I'm not really sure if the unions betwee 6 year olds and 30 year olds, etc would work or not. It probably would in some cases, and wouldn't in other cases, just like any marriage. I know in some cultures children get married at around 10 or so to much older individuals, I guess without much consequence.

And I also cannot think of any reason against multiple wives, but I know I wouldn't want a wife with multiple husbands. But if it was acceptable to all members, I can't really see many negatives.

So good questions. And yes, there are probably no good reasons why any would not work.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Originally posted by c0rbin
Simple. Don't marry your sister.

Yeah. And besides, she's not any good in the sack.