I support protecting the institution of marriage.....

[GumboYaYa]

outlaw divorce now!

I mean seriously, what is a greater threat to the institution of marriage, a committed same sex couple vowing to spend their lives together or a fifty percent divorce rate among heterosexual couples.

I pick the latter. All this talk about protecting marriage is just blather to appeal to the homophobic bigots that make up the Republican party (about 50% of whom have been divorced).

[Richardo]

1. Many more than once! Ask Limbaugh, Gingrich, etc...

(about 50% of whom have been divorced).

Sanctity, my :kick: Sanctimonious, maybe.

[Honesthumanbeing]

2. here's the mathematics of your reasoning:

Let A represent the damage that divorce has on the institution of marriage.
Let B represent the damage that gay marriage has on the institution of marriage.
B<A
Therefore, B=0.

???

[GumboYaYa]

3. No, therefor A>B....

[Honesthumanbeing]

16. um

A>B and B<A are equivalent.

[GumboYaYa]

18. Exactly,

Let's go a little farther than you went.

A>B = B<A
If B>X then Y
B>X
A>B
A>X
Therefor Y

Where A = damage to the institution of marriage from divorce
B = damage to the institution of marriage from same sex marriage
X = the threshold for damage to the institution for marriage and
Y = damage to the institution of marriage

Does that answer it for you?

[DU9598]

5. Honesthumanbeing

Your reasoning is flawed Honesthumanbeing. What he is saying is that he believes (and I think quite reasonably) that A>B, therefore, if you change the constitution to outlaw B, then you darned well better do the same to change A. If you buy the premise that he is arguing, Bu*h is a homophobic non-leader ... but we already knew that.

I concur, a constitutional amendment to outlaw divorce, or at least remarriage after a first divorce.

[Honesthumanbeing]

17. My reasoning is flawed?

What reasoning would that be? As far as I can tell, I've only indicated his reasoning. You've extrapolated on what he said and then blamed me for not doing the same.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. you are the one who extrapolated

in your terms, the original post just said "A>B".

You're the one who inferred "B=0" from that.

[iverglas]

19. strange name ...

You say that what was said was:

Let A represent the damage that divorce has on the institution of marriage.
Let B represent the damage that gay marriage has on the institution of marriage.
B<A
Therefore, B=0.

>>> What I'd like for you to do is copy, paste and put quotation marks around the part of the post you were responding to that is represented by your "Therefore, B=0".<<<

I'm just not seeing it myself.

What I'm seeing goes like this:

Let A represent the damage that divorce has on the institution of marriage.
(A is a known quantity)

Let B represent the damage that gay marriage <would have> on the institution of marriage.
(B is an unknown quantity)

B<A
(this is an assumption, and constitutes one of the premises)

It is sensible to eliminate the factor that causes more damage than the factor that causes less damage, particularly if each is equally easily done.
(implied premise)

Therefore, we should eliminate A.

Or, in the real world, we should eliminate divorce.


Unfortunately, there are some other premises omitted. Things like:

People do not always want to do the sensible thing,
particularly if it is contrary to their self-interest to do it.

People sometimes want to do the non-sensible thing,
particularly if it is in their self-interest to do it.

People sometimes want to do the non-sensible thing,
particularly if by doing it they can harm someone they hate.

Toss them in, and the conclusion might look very different. As it in fact does in real life.


Anyhow, I'm still very curious. Why did you represent the post you were responding to as asserting that if gay marriage causes less harm to the institution of marriage, then gay marriage causes no harm to the institution of marriage?

How could you have so misread that post ... or why would you have so misrepresented it?

.

[DevilsAdvocate2]

4. The thing is...

Nobody plans on getting a divorce when they get married. Not heteros, & i doubt homos either should gay marriage be allowed. In fact, probably the only ones who do plan on getting divorced are the gold diggers and green card seekers.

[Homer12]

6. So then he can outlaw golddiggers and green card seekers...

...from getting married. Problem solved.

[liberalhistorian]

10. LOL!

n/t

[Stuckinthebush]

9. You are correct

No one plans on it. But it is still a threat to marriage, correct? Once you get married, you better well be prepared to stay married. Divorce should not be an option if one is insisting on protecting the institution of marriage.

The entire logical argument that homosexual marriage somehow threatens the institution is laughable. I have yet to get a conservative who parrots this position to explain to me how a committed couple who have been together for years could possibly be a threat to marriage simply because they are of the same sex. The reality is that this is a smoke screen. The religious right is pushing this silliness because they have a freaky notion that God hates gay people. In their self righteous posturing, they forget the other pesky laws in the old testament that seem so silly as well. No, they pull out this law and some words from Paul as proof that God hates homosexuality. Truly absurd. But then again, fundamentalism is absurd at its roots anyway.

There is absolutely no defensible reason to deny gay and lesbian matrimony. None.

[never cry wolf]

13. You know, the thing about it too is...

I was always taught that you would receive your reward or punishment from God in the afterlife, that it was not up to man to judge others in this life.

All of these fundy proposals seem to ignore that by trying to impose their interpretation of God's rules and turn them into manmade laws rather than letting the "system" of allowing God the final judgement work the way the Bible says.

[Serenity-NOW]

7. What makes no sense about the whole thing

is that marriage wasn't even popular with the People until the industrial revolution. Originally is was for the ruling class exclusively and if you go all the way back to the Egyptians they were marrying siblings and that practice didn't end with them. Sanctity you say?

Marriage came to the working people during the industrial revolution becuase humans are somewhat nomadic by nature and factory owners needed to find a way to encourage people to be more stable and reliable or the widgets didn't roll out. Has absolutely nothing to do with 'a man and a woman' or love or anything human. It's always been about money; first to concentrate and control wealth, then to combine it and then to generate it. Simple stuff and homophobia is for simpletons.

[liberalhistorian]

11. You've nailed it!

That's exactly correct. I remember back in college when I was doing in-depth historical research, I was absolutely floored to discover that most couples not of the elite classes lived together and were not married. In fact, both parties often had multiple relationships WHILE they were living together!

Marriage was not at all common in these classes before the Industrial Revolution. I still remember how surprised I was to learn that, because the way it's been drilled into us, marriage has been a holy, sanctified, revered institution from the beginnings of time!

[Touchdown]

8. I'll go you one better...

Since the word "marriage" is supposed to have all kinds of religious connotations, like enabling you to see Mary in jock strap stains, then with the separation of church and state...let's get government out of marriage, it's benefits, tax breaks, inheritance rights, spousal support, hospital visitation, power of attorney...all of it, period!

Let all those fundys pay $35,000 in lawyer's fees to get only a smidgen of the protections they all now enjoy with a $35 marriage license.

[liberalhistorian]

12. Good point!

As a never-married single parent, I've often wondered why it is that so many benefits needed by EVERYONE are granted automatically only through marriage.
You can marry someone you've only known for a day, and automatically be covered on their health insurance, get their social security and pension benefits if they die or disability if they're disabled, and enjoy all kinds of other economic, legal, financial, and social perks denied to those who are not married. I'm sorry, no offense to the married, but that's just plain bullshit. Especially considering the number of singles in this country is now higher than it's ever been.

[Scout]

22. what if they made it harder to get married?

You can marry someone you've only known for a day,

I've often wondered what would happen if instead of making it harder to get divorced they made it harder to get married! You know, avoid those Britney situations. Make people take basic parenting and child care classes, budgeting and finance, communication skills classes, contraception and sex ed ... talk with each other about things like are you having children? what are your child rearing philosphies, are they compatible with each others?

I wouldn't want there to be any kind of "government efforcement" once the marriage license was obtained (other than what we have now for say, physical safety), but at least require people to pass something as basic as a driver's test is before they get their marriage license.

This isn't really well thought out at this point but I have wondered about why it's so easy to get married?

[liberalhistorian]

25. That's a very good point, and

I've often wondered myself why that couldn't be done in some way. It's totally ridiculous to claim that gays would somehow "denigrate" or "destroy" the "sanctity of marriage" when the law allows a couple who just meet to get married at the drop of a hat and gays who've been in a committed relationship for a long time, maybe even years, are not permitted to marry.

[GumboYaYa]

14. You are absolutely correct.

Marriage is a religious sacrament (I think that's what they call it). Thet state should not be promoting religion.

[liberalhistorian]

15. Actually, that's not quite true.

There's church-sanctioned, religious marriage, and there's civil marriage (you know, the kind a judge can perform at city hall). They are two different things, although you're legally just as married with either ceremony. Some churches do not accept civil marriages not performed in a church with an officiating clergy as a marriage for purposes of sanctioning a couple's marriage.

[Selwynn]

20. nice one! A new talking point! :)

[gate of the sun]

21. Watch what you say

of course you are right but what if they took it into their heads to do that......

[shanti]

23. i disagree

i think it should be HARD to get married, and EASY to get out of it.