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Post by Jeffrey Olver on Nov 8, 2006 18:59:26 GMT -5
Why or why not?
I'm not asking this out of sarcasm...I think it would be interesting to see the results.
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Post by mahatma on Nov 8, 2006 19:44:21 GMT -5
If you are serious, and mean this as a question about marriage between a person and an animal, then I would say the obvious reason to vote against it would be that it's an animal. That's sort of by definition not a consenting adult, and consenting adults are what marriages are made of.
I certainly hope you aren't trying to draw a parallel between gay marriage and sex with animals. That would be mighty tacky, even for some of the stuff on this board. I think you're better than that though, so I'm interested to see where you are going with it.
(and as a side note while gay marriage is the topic, I never heard back from you in our discussion regarding gay marriage...last I heard you said that I had made some really good points and that you needed to clarify some things. Did you decide to concede the discussion or are you still putting your argument together?)
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abb
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Post by abb on Nov 8, 2006 20:03:03 GMT -5
Let's have hawt secks with animales!
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avea
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Post by avea on Nov 8, 2006 20:14:12 GMT -5
Since animals cannot give educated consent, I'd definitely have to go with no on that one. Especially given that most common pets would have died of old age before reaching the age of consent. I don't see the relevance to homosexual marriage, however, unless you think one partner tends to eat on the floor, defecate on the newspapers, and can only speak via soulful looks, barks, and body language? If so, I think you need to meet more gay people.
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Post by valentine on Nov 8, 2006 20:36:03 GMT -5
Jeffrey, you are seriously losing respect points for this one. Not that you had many to begin with, but really. This (ridiculous) argument has been addressed by multiple people on this board, in many places, over and over and OVER.
I'm not going to be diplomatic like the above users because I'm just plain not going to pretend that I don't know what you're trying to pull here, and just so you're aware: You're not cute. You're not funny. You're not clever. You're hackneyed and asinine. "Teehee what if I want to marry my dog!" has been spewed all across this forum, and outside of this forum. And we've all explained why it's a moronic argument.
Cut the crap. It stopped being funny about ten years ago. Unless you are truly too stupid to realize how many times people have shot down said crap. In which case, I offer my sympathies.
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Post by dale on Nov 8, 2006 20:56:09 GMT -5
Im with The Dixie Chick above on this one. I am not voting or commenting seriously because right away I see the setup. When the nonbelievers all say they are in favor of gay marriage , the followup will be "Well, what are you going to approve next, having a guy marry his dog, have him be legally wed to an inflatable love doll, etc..." I can see the set up a mile away. Get real.
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Post by victorialewis on Nov 8, 2006 21:27:25 GMT -5
Wake up, heathens! This is going to be a serious consideration some day. I've already heard of this discussion on a TV talk show. People who practice beastiality call themselves "Zoos". Disgusting. Cruel. But all quite true. After all, if any standard will do, who's to say they're wrong??!!?? *
* God, that's who. Check out:
Exodus 22:19 Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.
Leviticus 18:23 Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
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avea
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Post by avea on Nov 8, 2006 21:53:15 GMT -5
I don't think any of us argued in favor of bestiality. We, or at least I, argued that bestiality and homosexuality are entirely, entirely different.
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Post by tbxi on Nov 8, 2006 22:23:49 GMT -5
Valentine, when this was discussed earlier, as you say, I was not around. So I don't know if what I'm going to say has been said before. Forgive me if it was.
I think what victorialewis is getting at is, on what basis do you justify homosexual relationships as opposed to beastiality because it's between two consenting adults? Is not your condition of consent, well... arbitrary? And as society's views change over time, couldn't a new moral be justified just by how many people think it's right, at that time? I know there are people out there like NAMBLA who wish to use the culture wars on this to their advantage, to eventually gain more acceptance for pederasty. Over time, what's to say that it wouldn't become acceptable for a boy to have a legally brokered and government-acknowledged relationship (i.e. marriage) with an adult? Would it then be okay just because enough people thought it was, as societal views changed over time?
Am I making sense here? I am honestly asking this, I am not trying to be "clever" or "witty" or something like that. Anybody else can respond too.
As to what I think... My opinion here is tempered a bit by the fact that I used to be a registered Libertarian, and a year ago, I would not have objected to gay marriage at all, based on the sort of ideals that party generally holds. I do think that the poll question is a little absurd. I am not sure what Jeff is getting at. The homosexual marriage issue, for me, is not as simple as "Homosexuality is a sin, therefore I'm voting against homosexual marriage" (It was already banned in my state before I could even vote, anyway), because how do we decide what sins are and are not going to be punished by a secular government? Do we go around punishing people for being homosexual in the first place? No. Do we have legal punishments for idolatry or blasphemy? No.
This is why I struggle with the issue... On one hand, I do not really believe that gay marriage falls within the boundary of "civil rights" (and I'm not going to justify that, I have no intention of arguing about that), nor do I speak peace to the whole concept of homosexual marriage. But oh the other hand, it's difficult to know where to draw the line as to our government's right to punish or prohibit in some way the biblical definition of sin. The U.S. is not, after all, a God-established theocracy like Israel was. Does anybody see where I'm coming from on this?
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Post by valentine on Nov 8, 2006 22:54:02 GMT -5
I think what victorialewis is getting at is, on what basis do you justify homosexual relationships as opposed to beastiality because it's between two consenting adults? Is not your condition of consent, well... arbitrary? And as society's views change over time, couldn't a new moral be justified just by how many people think it's right, at that time? I know there are people out there like NAMBLA who wish to use the culture wars on this to their advantage, to eventually gain more acceptance for pederasty. Over time, what's to say that it wouldn't become acceptable for a boy to have a legally brokered and government-acknowledged relationship (i.e. marriage) with an adult? Would it then be okay just because enough people thought it was, as societal views changed over time? You essentially just said what Victoria said. No, this would not be okay, because there is no informed consent in those situations. This means that sexual activity between a man and a boy is not okay because a child cannot consent. The child's rights are being violated in this situation, and it becomes the government's job to protect those rights and not allow such a relationship. There is nothing arbitrary about that. What is arbitrary, I will grant you, is the age at which one can give consent. I believe it to be mostly a case-by-case thing, but you have to draw a line for legal purposes, and the place that line is drawn will inevitably not be agreed on by all. But. Nevertheless. Consent is necessary for sexual relationships, just as anything else that occurs between people. If rights are being violated, that is a problem in which the government ought to become involved. Theft, assault, etc all involve similar violations of rights. I will address this in more detail later, but: am I the only one who is wondering WHY I have to explain this to you, especially as an evil, filthy, immoral heathen, who the angry god in the sky is going to send to the big lake of fire? You're the one who believes himself to be heaven-bound; why do I get this inherently when you had to look it up? Am I making sense here? I am honestly asking this, I am not trying to be "clever" or "witty" or something like that. Anybody else can respond too. As much as the fundies usually make sense. The U.S. is not, after all, a God-established theocracy like Israel was. Does anybody see where I'm coming from on this? And here is the part that disturbs me: the fact that you seem to need an instruction manual to explain to you why violating another's rights is not an okay thing to do. If the Bible did not exist and it was known beyond all doubt that there were no gods of any sort--yes, I realize that you guys are very bad at hypotheticals, but IF--would you be at all unsure of the fact that you should not violate other people's rights? Do you think you would do so, in this hypothetical situation, since there was no Bible/god around to tell you that you shouldn't? No, I can't explain to you why you shouldn't hurt other people, but honestly, if you don't inherently understand that, we have bigger problems here than a debate on an online forum. PS: Tbxi gets one free pass because he was not here to see this pelted into the ground by those more eloquent than myself (hmm...I wish WanderingTrekker would come back to play). He will not get another, however, and if he brings up reparative therapy, he waives the free pass. Jeffrey is still not cute.
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Post by tbxi on Nov 8, 2006 23:20:48 GMT -5
You essentially just said what Victoria said. No, this would not be okay, because there is no informed consent in those situations. This means that sexual activity between a man and a boy is not okay because a child cannot consent. The child's rights are being violated in this situation, and it becomes the government's job to protect those rights and not allow such a relationship. There is nothing arbitrary about that. What is arbitrary, I will grant you, is the age at which one can give consent. I believe it to be mostly a case-by-case thing, but you have to draw a line for legal purposes, and the place that line is drawn will inevitably not be agreed on by all. But. Nevertheless. Consent is necessary for sexual relationships, just as anything else that occurs between people. If rights are being violated, that is a problem in which the government ought to become involved. Theft, assault, etc all involve similar violations of rights. What if the child did consent in some given situation? I know that rights have to be defended by the government, but under the libertarian scheme of things, between two consenting persons there would be no reason to prevent them from joining into that kind of relationship if consent existed. And I do not see why it is impossible for that kind of consent to exist, however rare, between a man and a boy. I assume the "it" means the general idea of morality and more specifically, consent. More on that after the next quote... I don't need an instruction manual to know that. I believe mankind is made in the image of God and therefore inherently knows the good. What I think is under consideration here is the justification for the morality we all inherently have, not that I would have to go and read a book in order to learn that hurting people or bad or something like that (if that were true, then illiterates would have a justified excuse within the Christian worldview, but they do not). I'm just fine at thinking hypothetically, and there's no need to be condescending. But your envisioned hypothetical situation is so unrealistic and impossible (for example, the fact that we all have positive proof that there are no gods of any kind) that it escapes any kind of meaningful comparison to our own. So I'd say, there is no way to know.
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Post by Morluna on Nov 8, 2006 23:37:11 GMT -5
Amazing. Simply amazing. I really have nothing else to say except...
I LOL'D.
You guys never get tired of the same silly arguments, do you?
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Post by mahatma on Nov 9, 2006 2:10:07 GMT -5
Victoria,
No, it will not ever happen. Show me the member of Congress, the federal judge, or the state legislator who approves of legalizing marriage to animals. Reactionaries seem to always fall back to these arguments of child molestation, animal abuse, etc when discussing gay marriage, as if these issues have any bearing whatsoever on what two consenting adults do. And the argument that something's appearing on a talkshow legitimizes it seems pretty backward...have you ever seen the kind of people who go on talk shows? Who takes that as anything more than publicity whoring?
Tbxi, if you used to be a Libertarian then you should know perfectly well the difference between a child, an adult, and an animal. You should know perfectly well that an age of consent governs an individual's ability to fully make decisions for themselves. A child, by definition, cannot give consent. As example, note that a child cannot sign a legally binding contract. Arguing that a child might in some occasion consent is absurd, since by definition the child cannot consent.
As for the issue of how much law we should base on scripture you are right...we should not be basing any laws on purley scripture. The first amendment guarantees us freedom from such theocratic nonsense. So far as I am aware, there are no serious and respectable arguments against gay marriage which are not scriptural in nature, and as such the laws have no place anywhere in the US. If a person is being denied the right of marriage and the only basis for the denial of that right is a religious argument, then that is a clear violation of the person's first amendment right to freedom of religion. That seems pretty clearly to be a civil rights issue. Whether you like gay marriage or not, you have no right to criminalize it based on religion, any more than Mormons have the right to criminalize coffee or Muslims have the right to criminalize women not wearing head coverings.
Tbxi, Victoria, Jeffrey, I'm disappointed in all of you. I know you're all good, warm hearted people and I know you all want to do the right thing. But these kinds of arguments are beneath you. This kind of prejudice, of intolerance, of hatred is beneath you. You are reasonable, good people and you are better than the kind of trite balderdash that would attempt to tie gays to child molesters and animal abusers.
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abb
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Post by abb on Nov 9, 2006 7:52:39 GMT -5
Beautiful.
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Post by valentine on Nov 9, 2006 8:26:00 GMT -5
Also: I'm just fine at thinking hypothetically, and there's no need to be condescending. But your envisioned hypothetical situation is so unrealistic and impossible (for example, the fact that we all have positive proof that there are no gods of any kind) that it escapes any kind of meaningful comparison to our own. So I'd say, there is no way to know. "I'm just fine at thinking hypothetically, and there's no need to be condescending. I'm just utterly unable to think hypothethically." Dude, you seriously just said the exact same thing you told me you WEREN'T GOING TO SAY. And that is the exact same answer I get from every other fundie on this board when I ask them that question: it is just too unrealistic to assume such, and they have no way of answering the question. I've never received a straight answer to this question. When the answer I was expecting was an immediate, "Yes, of course I would know I shouldn't kill people!" Personally, I think it's because I'm right, and you do need a divine being to tell you "naughty-naughty," if you hurt people. And if I'm wrong, answer the g-o-d-d-a-m-n question. EDIT: But like Morluna, I really have little more to say to this entire thread. It's so ridiculous, even by the standard of ridiculousness that I've come to expect from OAO, that it's really not worth a serious response. I'm also ashamed to see such nonsense coming from a (supposedly...I personally find it hard to believe) former Libertarian. If any of you are seriously interested in discussing gay marriage, there are MANY threads at OAO for the purpose, or you can AIM me. If you talk about this thread, though, consider me LOL'ing, not debating.
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Post by tbxi on Nov 9, 2006 8:43:25 GMT -5
\ Tbxi, if you used to be a Libertarian then you should know perfectly well the difference between a child, an adult, and an animal. You should know perfectly well that an age of consent governs an individual's ability to fully make decisions for themselves. A child, by definition, cannot give consent. As example, note that a child cannot sign a legally binding contract. Arguing that a child might in some occasion consent is absurd, since by definition the child cannot consent. \ Yeah, I was thinking about what she meant by "child". That's basically what it came down to. So I can see where you are coming from there - argument retracted on that point... And I understand what you mean about basing laws on the bible. That was basically what I was saying anyway, it was just worded differently - and even if we were going to do that, I don't really see how it would further the cause of Christianity. Sheesh. Funny that I'm being accused of "hatred" here (speaking of which, I have none towards homosexuals) when you're the one throwing acid around. Whatever hypothetical answer I would have given would have been useless anyway, because it would have only counted for a universe in which we were basically omniscient (which would be the logical conclusion if we really knew there were no gods with positive proof). So sure, hypothetically, in that universe, I could know the right if we had positive proof there were no gods, but what does it prove? Nothing. Edit: Just saw your augmented post, Valentine... I will just look in the forum backlogs for the other threads about this, because not only do I mostly agree with you guys, although maybe for slightly different reasons, but... I really don't want to debate this.
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Post by Jeffrey Olver on Nov 9, 2006 9:26:00 GMT -5
Truth be told, I only ever saw the allusions to beastiality within the conversations of homosexuality a few times ... while marriage to an animal may come to the logical conclusion of having sex with said animal, I'm not talking about beastiality...I'm talking about legal marriage. Couldn't an interspecies relationship be free from the practice of beastiality? Wouldn't it be great for the tax breaks? (Yes, i know, an animal does not pay taxes - but maybe they SHOULD!) - yes, of course I'm kidding.
...by the way... who's to say if it's wrong or right to marry an animal against their consent?
Valentine: I'm not attempting to be cutesy or asinine. I made this post with the full expectation that someone might make the comment you did. I tried to clarify that I'm not trying to be sarcastic, as absurd as the topic of "interspecies marriage" is.
Mahatma: Truth be told I had honestly forgotten about that discussion we were having. I have to go back and review it! Sorry about that. As you can tell, it gets hectic on the boards some times. My apologies.
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Post by victorialewis on Nov 9, 2006 10:46:14 GMT -5
So, is "consent" the only criteria that would make relationships/deeds done outside of God's design okay?
Because I never knew a baby in the womb to consent to being aborted. I hesitate to put this here, because I know that there are some who will react with vitriol.... My basic point is this. When one holds to moral relativism, the natural outcome is going to be one which goes farther and farther away from God, is inherently selfish (I want what gives me the most pleasure, convenience, fill in the blank), and evil. There must be a standard for what is good and what is evil.
This is pretty elementary, and has been hashed over time and time again on this board.
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Post by mahatma on Nov 9, 2006 10:59:17 GMT -5
Tbxi, Thank you for the retraction and I'm glad we agree on the other, legal point (which I think at least the two of us agree is seperate from the moral issue anyway). Jeffrey, -I- am the one to say that it is wrong to marry an animal against their consent. Believe you me, any man who shows up at my house telling me he is going to take my beautiful dog as his wife is taking a long sojourn at the hospital before going home to look for another bride. No shotgun pet weddings in MY household! All kidding aside though, all responsible relationships are based on informed and mutual consent...even your relationship with Jesus is based on informed and mutual consent as you hold that he willingly died for your sins and then offered a relationship under certain terms, which you researched and agreed to. An animal just isn't in a position to understand, let alone agree to, a marriage. The relationship level of Loyalty In Return For Food, Shelter, and Attention is about as much as a dog can handle, and sometimes they still piss on the floor. I'm sorry if I came off strong before, but I have heard the gay marriage = polygamy/NAMBLA/bestiality argument in the past, and those arguments seem to me to be the worst kind of straw man. Looking forward to your response in our old conversation
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Post by mahatma on Nov 9, 2006 13:59:55 GMT -5
Victoria,
On the legal front: Yes, informed consent between competent adults is (or should be) the only criteria for relationships or acts which do not materially harm the person or property of another.
On the moral front: As for abortion, if I were to agree with you that a fetus is a person then I would also agree with you that abortion is morally wrong. However, I do not agree with that view, and niether do most of the people in the United States or the majority of our courts or medical professionals.
I'm not making a point of moral relativism, and as I have discussed in another thread I believe in objective morality. However I don't believe objective morality is by necessity explained through divinity. Moral objectivity is the standard by which right and wrong are judged. The problem arises when an attempt is made to inject religion into the legal process, or when slippery slope and straw man arguments are applied to issues such as these. I don't view the Bible in its entirety as a definitive moral compass, and by law niether does our country.
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