Sex, marriage, family and childrearing are not distinctly separate issues.

I do not think that non-marital sex (which, of course, includes premarital sex) is, in and of itself, harmful; just as I don’t think that marital sex is, in and of itself, by definition, not harmful

Agreed, not in and of itself harmful. Not by definition either. But monogamous, marital sex prevents the most harm and encourages the most good. That is how I define morality, and you were bugging Robert about morality quite a bit. The choice (not always easily made) that permits the least harm and the most good is always the moral choice. If there were a system that prevented even MORE harm and encouraged even MORE good, then that would be the moral choice, and traditional marriage would become immoral by comparison.

DIANNE: Sex is used to strengthen partnerships so that any children born will be cared for [...] doesn’t that mean that you’d be pro-gay marriage?

If sex is necessary for marriage, is a lack of sexual interest a valid reason for separating? This point immensely weakens gay marriage for me. When a gay man posits he does not have to raise a child with the child’s natural mother on the grounds that he is not sexually interested in her, or a lesbian the natural father, you’re saying that hetero parents can also end the marriage also, as soon as they lose sexual interest.

For me, in my capacity as a member of society, to allow a child to lose the benefits of family; the physical protection, the role models, financial support and before obliging the rest of society to make up the loss, the reason has to be objectively indisputable, such as their being in jail, medically insane, or dead.

KATE L: it makes me absolutely crazy when people randomly make up % out of their head

Me too. I didn’t claim it, I supposed it, it’s only my opinion based on what I’ve read and I think 80% is fair. I don’t see many people supporting traditional marriage here on Alas. I wouldn’t expect to, but it seems they differ with it in different ways. One wants only to include gay marriage, the next wants high school girls to get government allowances for having children, the next believes in single parenting, the next wants monogamy, the next wants polygamy, the next wants marriage of any sort written off as a bad idea. As far as I can see, except insofar as traditional marriage stands in everyone’s way equally, their individual views can be as offensive to each other as traditional marriage is to each of them. I may have underestimated how many could agree: it could easily be more than 10%, but I doubt there’s any clear majority view. If there were a majority view it might be: Let anyone do it any way they like.

KATE L: I don’t know what you mean by anti-traditionalist. Can you define that please?

In this context, I mean those who would change institutions that have lasted for centuries without a thorough appreciation of all of the consequences. I don’t agree with every old tradition, but in the western world, we have lost the solidarity of the family around which all of those traditions revolve, and I think that does too much harm.

KATE L: Allowing 2 gay men to be married does absolutely NOTHING to harm my own marriage. NOTHING at all.

Fourteen year olds getting pregnant doesn’t hurt your marriage either. Your neighbor cheating on his wife doesn’t. The girl across the street getting an abortion doesn’t. A co-worker dropping acid during pregnancy doesn’t. Struggling single parents don’t. Orphans don’t.

It your parents had acted that way it you might have been impoverished, retarded or dead. If YOU act that way it might impoverish, damage or kill your children, but your marriage doesn’t have to be affected.

Family tradition, the recognition of responsibility of one family member to another, is supposed to prevent all of this, but also prevents some other things, like easily changing your sex partners.

KATE L: And to the question of non-procreational marriage, well what about all those heterosexual couples who get married with A) no intention of producing biological offspring and B) an inability to do so? Are they sinning against God too?

Morality and sin are about harm, Kate. It may hurt no one directly, but it does this much: it separates marriage from childrearing in society’s eyes. You are led from there to the idea that marriage is not required for having children, neither then is commitement. When you go there, you allow that children will be born to people who didn’t want them, who can’t care for them, or will not care for them. If it comes to a choice, I would say that denying children to such a category of people is less harmful than allowing children to be born to them.

I would nevertheless allow marriage to those who do not want children, but I would hold them to the same standards of fidelity and commitment to one another that are required for stable family. Without children, I doubt most couples would find that agreeable, and without children, I doubt society would bother to enforce it, so ’slipshod’ family values creep in by the backdoor.

KATE L: Also, people DO raise children in same sex and polyamourous families. And I will ALWAYS argue that GOOD parents are far more important than the number and gender of said parents.

I understand what you’re saying but I disagree on the method of ensuring good parents. There aren’t enough naturally good parents to go around, because naturally good parents aren’t the only ones having children. To ensure good parents you must enforce good family standards on everyone who has a child.

To do that you cannot allow family fidelity (parent to parent, parent to child, child to parent alike) to be contingent upon personal perceptions of ideal conduct or attractiveness.

KATE L: Again, one GOOD parent is better than 2 bad or miserable ones and although I will acknowledge it is more difficult to be a good single parent (because it’s just harder in general to be a single parent), I don’t think it’s impossible and I don’t think it’s harming the ability to raise good productive citizens.

You contradict your own argument. It’s harder to be a good single parent. That means it is harmful to society to encourage single parenting.

KATE L: By allowing more people to create stable unions you simply create more places for happy, healthy child rearing.

Stable unions, yes. Reliable unions, yes. But it’s not simple. Unwedded unions are not reliable. Teenage fumblings are not reliable. Revolving door husbands and wives are not reliable. Single parenting is not even a union. All opposed as immoral by every coherent culture that’s ever existed, all demanded by their various new age today. There’s no way to separate them.

If I believed that these unions, once made, could be relied upon to last, I would be fine with them but every suggestion that marriage should be permanent (as family is permanent, right?) inspires the hottest opposition. They want it, but as a formality, a social convenience or a status symbol. Revokable upon request.

Well I think that point of view is not as enlightened as some would like to think. It could never have carried the Jews and the Muslims through so much hardship as a lasting people, and I would not care to see it supercede the traditions that have.

I’m sorry but seeing as how we are experiencing a serious environmental threat from OVER population I can’t see non-procreational marriage as a bad thing. Given the human propensity for sex and the fact that it’s not like gay people are trying to CONVERT straight people to be gay, there will always be gay people and straight people and thus there will always be the opportunity for procreation. Allowing 2 men or 2 women to marry does absolutely nothing to suggest that the human species is in danger of dying out unless you are suggesting that as soon as 2 men and 2 women CAN legally marry and are free from social harms for doing so that EVERYONE will want to “join that team” and suddenly there would be no heterosexual people left. That’s just silly.

Also, people DO raise children in same sex and polyamourous families. And I will ALWAYS argue that GOOD parents are far more important than the number and gender of said parents.

As to your question of single parenthood, well I must say, single parenthood is not ideal and certainly not easy, however it is to some degree inevitable and seeing as how single parenthood has been around as long as marriage has, I don’t suppose one can make the argument that it has thus far crushed a practice that has helped humanity survive all these generations. Fun fact I’m sure you all know by now: there are FEWER single parent households in the US today than there were 100 years ago in the US. The reasons for single parent households is certainly different (before it was largely due to widowhood because people died earlier because of accident, injury, illness, or childbirth), now it is due more to people having children outside of marriage and people getting divorced, but still the fact remains (I can’t cite the original source off the top of my head, but it’s basically in every intro to sociology textbook around, specifically, “Exploring the architecture of everyday life” by David Newman. And I believe the author of “The way we never were” and “The way we really are,” can’t remember her name off the top of my head (Susan someone?), uses original data to support that claim. Given the fact that single parenthood is actually slightly more doable these days (assuming many single parents are women) since they can now legally work for money I just can’t get too fired up about children born out of wedlock and or people getting divorced. Again, one GOOD parent is better than 2 bad or miserable ones and although I will acknowledge it is more difficult to be a good single parent (because it’s just harder in general to be a single parent), I don’t think it’s impossible and I don’t think it’s harming the ability to raise good productive citizens.

Are there people who probably shouldn’t procreate? Sure. Are there people who are bad parents (such as the man CJ described, fathering several children and not taking care of them etc)? Absolutely. Have bad parents always existed? Absolutely. If anything, there is more recourse now for being a bad parent than there used to be. In the 30s when people were poor and starving, and abandoned their families in order to survive where not hunted down and force to pay support to the children they fathered. Our systems are by no means perfect, they need a lot of work, but at least now there ARE systems in place to protect children from bad parenting and provide consquences for people who attempt to abandon their families. It’s not a new concept. By allowing more people to create stable unions you simply create more places for happy, healthy child rearing.

I’m not so sure you are right about the above statement and FWIW it makes me absolutely crazy when people randomly make up % out of their head. Say MOST readers if that is what you think - 80% gives your claim far less validity.

And again, I don’t think that people who are “anti-traditionalist” whatever that means are necessarily anti tradition for EVERYONE. I would probably call myself a relatively non-traditional person. I participate in many traditional practices and institutions (for instance, I am a woman legally married to a man and I had a wedding in order to gain that status). However, I did not do many “traditional” things. For instance, I was 8 months pregnant when I got married. I did not wear white, we wrote our own vows, said them in 2 languages, did not get married in a church, though we were married by a minister (a female minister of a VERY liberal church). I was not “given away” by my father… etc etc. I am not a particularly religious person, though I do consider myself a spiritual person and I do not equate religiosity with morality.

I absolutely 100% support the idea that 2 same sex people can form a family unit and wish that they were legally able to do so (I’d feel much less guilty for partaking in the instution of marriage if it were available to all, but that is my own cross to bear). In fact, I think that giving people who wish to form family units the opportunity to do so does nothing BUT strengthen the moral fabric as well as provide greater stability and support for individuals. This is the piece I don’t understand about the argument against gay marriage. Allowing two people who are committed to each other and wish to live a happy, healthy life together as productive citizens does no harm, rather, I’d argue it does good. But I digress.

My larger point I think is that I don’t know what you mean by anti-traditionalist. Can you define that please? As I said, I consider myself a person for whom many traditions are not useful to me and in fact harm me in many ways, thus I don’t practice them. However, I don’t in general wish to STOP people from practicing traditional beliefs or actions for themselves (provided it is not doing harm to others which is I think a reasonable enough thing to ask). Allowing 2 gay men to be married does absolutely NOTHING to harm my own marriage. NOTHING at all.

True for many species but not for humans. Sex in humans has social implications as well as reproductive implications. Why do you think that humans don’t have an obvious estrus? Because they are supposed to be having sex all the time, including times that pregnancy is unlikely. Sex is used to strengthen partnerships so that any children born will be cared for. Exploratory sexual activity is important because, really, in humans, sex is not all that instinctual and if a strong sexual partnership is to be built each partner must have practiced and learned about their responses and desires prior to attempting the definitive partnership.

That it needs to be this way in order to have the strength to endure the stresses of procreation that other kinds of relationships don’t have to face.

I’m sorry that procreation seems like such an ordeal to you. It doesn’t have to be that way, although stress is certainly involved.

Nonetheless, doesn’t that mean that you’d be pro-gay marriage? After all, many gay and lesbian couples raise children and if it is better to have couples raise children than single parents then gay sex in a committed relationship with children has a procreative purpose: increasing the odds that the child will thrive.

You keep changing the target in this conversation, but okay, I will tell you: I do not think that non-marital sex (which, of course, includes premarital sex) is, in and of itself, harmful; just as I don’t think that marital sex is, in and of itself, by definition, not harmful.

Is it said that God wants us to kill gays, Robert?

Dianne my understanding is that marriage is not for non-procreational purposes. That it needs to be this way in order to have the strength to endure the stresses of procreation that other kinds of relationships don’t have to face.

You can interpret it as a slam against gays, but if the entire population of the world were gay, and therefore could not possibly be motivated by homophobia, wouldn’t you think that creating new life is an act perilous enough and rewarding enough that it merits a specific institution, and clear, enforceable protection?

Glad you have a healthy skepticism about you. But how do you know that the “God” who said “kill the gays” isn’t really an apparition of Satan as well?

The Bible? To the best of my knowledge (and that’s not very good so this argument may be simply wrong) there is all of ONE ambiguous reference to gay male sex and none at all to lesbian sex anywhere in the Bible. And I’m not at all sure that “thou shalt not lie with men as with women” isn’t a proscription on telling fibs to men. Patriarchal religion and all. Either way, the sin, whatever it is, seems to be no worse than wearing clothes made of mixed fabrics. Indeed, isn’t the mixed fabric proscription in the same list?

Revealed knowledge? What if God told me that sex was fine as long as it was responsible and consentual, no matter what the genders of the people involved? Whose revealed knowledge wins?

Your spiritual leader says? He or she is just a person and could be wrong.

Well, yes and no.

The thing is, if that were to happen, it would itself be a contradiction of what God has told us he is going to do - and our next scheduled divine appearance is also the last one. If the 900-foot Jesus appears and isn’t here to roll up the carpets and so on, then He’s got some splainin’ to do.

So, ironically enough, good Christians would be extremely suspicious of a God who appeared and started handing out new, “kill your babies” commandments. We would probably assume it was an apparition of Satan, instead.

Richard, what else could you do?

Follower: ‘I think God means…’

God: WRONG!!!!!

Follower: ‘Okay, then!’

Islam–and remember it was Jewish and Muslim groups that were the subject of the orginal post–not only embrace, but actively encourage and protect the (moral) value of non-procreational heterosexual sex, including acts other than intercourse.

Do they encourage it pre-maritally? Richard, I’m fine with non-procreational sex within marriage, since a structure capable of dealing with the natural consequences exists, but that security is only an illusion if those who marry don’t understand or don’t accept that that is it’s purpose.

but we also believe that these teachings require interpretation, which requires historical context and individual human analytics.

I understand this. Jews have a similar belief–and a similar “big division.” My point, though, is that if God were suddenly and verifiably to appear and give commands that contradicted those interpretations, that, in fact–as in the case with the Binding of Isaac–went against everything we think of as moral, if you are a believing Jew/Christian/(and I assume) Muslim, you would need to throw out your old understandings of morality and fall in line with God’s new teachings/commandments. In other words, it is not the interpretations that are the bottom line; it is God’s word.

The moral code being debated was not conceived as a weapon against gays, it argues sex not for the purpose of procreation is immoral, which means because of biology, gay sex never qualifies as moral, but no more immoral than any hetero sex that is not for the purpose of childrearing.

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to say as much as I would like about this, but I will say this. The moral code you are talking about is a Christian, and perhaps even strictly Catholic, one; and I am not even sure that the Catholic Church holds to it in quite the strict way that it once did. Both Judaism and (as far as I know) Islam–and remember it was Jewish and Muslim groups that were the subject of the orginal post–not only embrace, but actively encourage and protect the (moral) value of non-procreational heterosexual sex, including acts other than intercourse.

I also think, CJ, that arguing sexual morality, as opposed to sexual practice, from the fact of STD’s is a diversionary tactic.

The danger though, Richard, is a tendency to see what we want to see. The moral code being debated was not conceived as a weapon against gays, it argues sex not for the purpose of procreation is immoral, which means because of biology, gay sex never qualifies as moral, but no more immoral than any hetero sex that is not for the purpose of childrearing.

If you posit that sex for non-procreational purposes is moral, then gay sex is as moral as any other kind. But a fundamental condition of morality is that it prevents harm.

You can point to many people engaging in casual sex every day, gay and straight alike, who are not complaining about being harmed, and you might therefor declare it harmless, therefore moral.

If only one in ten teenagers were interested in sex, and only one in ten of them chose to defy social conventions against doing it, and only one in ten of those forgot to wear protection, and only one in ten of those resulted in an STD or unintended pregnancy, it might mean thousands of cases every year, and every single occurence is traumatic to families and expensive for society. It requires very difficult, very personal questions be asked and answered, and they leave scars.

Now imagine TEN out of ten teenagers were interested in sex, and NO social convention against pre-marital sex exists.

Regardless that an individual might have sex a thousand times and never suffer a single consequence, is it nevertheless harmless?

2) You expect that God’s moral standards for how people should behave can make sense, as a consistent and reasonable moral system, to people.

The problem here is that the kind of god Catholics worship (and Jews and Muslims) can, for his own purposes, which he need never reveal, go against his own moral standard–as, for example, in the story of the binding of Isaac. God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Instead of saying no, which one would assume would have been the moral thing to do, Abraham says okay–an act of faith for which he is glorified in all three of the monotheistic traditions (except the Muslims, I believe, say it was Ishmael whom Abraham was commanded to sacrifice). My point is not that it is impossible to make a kind of (moral) sense out of the story–i.e., that it is a cautionary tale against child sacrirfice–but rather that Abraham is celebrated in part because he does not try to make moral sense. In other words, he is celebrated because he assumes that whatever his god tells him to do is good in and of itself.

That reading of Abraham’s actions, however, only makes sense if we assume that he indeed passed the test that God set for him in asking him to sacrifice Isaac. I have seen readings of the text that take into account things that occur (or do not occur) after the binding of Isaac–for example, the fact that God sent an angel to tell Abraham not to kill his son, and that he, God, never speaks directly to Abraham again–which, according to these readings, suggest God’s displeasure with what Abraham did and the possibility that Abraham did not pass the test God set for him.

My point here is not to turn this thread into one focused on biblical exegesis, so let me say here that I am very aware that there are other readings which account for the examples I gave above–and if they are Christian readings, they obviously take the crucifixion into account–and that still have Abraham passing God’s test. My point is that if you posit an omnipotent and omniscient monotheistic god who is an absolute good in and of himself and who does not have to justify himself to human beings, you posit at least implicitly the first of the choices Amp gave as the bedrock of the relationship between human beings and that god:

1) You’re willing to accept that whatever God says is immoral, is immoral. God’s standards are God’s standards, and it’s wrong for us to ask if they make sense or form a consistent and reasonable moral system.

Which returns us to the question of monotheistic religious positions regarding homosexuality and whether they form a consistent and reasonable moral system. And that question, it seems to me, comes down to what the purpose of the body is understood to be.

Ah shit–I need to go. I think this is a decent ending point, but I have more to say, so I will try to come back and finish this later.

Yes. Let’s summon him. [No, let’s not! Link redacted by Amp!]

Spoilsport!

I never entered into any religion Robert, but the more I concerned myself with truth, ethics and morality the more my views seem to match just such sentiments.

Shh! Don’t summon John Howard (not the minister. The sperm and eggs guy).

Yes. Let’s summon him. [No, let's not! Link redacted by Amp!]

Yeah, I was the kid who always stepped on the cracks too.

Or, should I say, Penis-In-Vagina (PIV) heterosexual sex.

You know, the sex that makes God happy. As long as it’s within the marriage and both are giving themselves fully to each other (not using contraception).

You mean that nasty disgusting act which you should reserve for your husband.