<OCF>

A 30 year old unmarried man like Jesus is always suspect. I seem to recall that in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus spent a night with Luke cuddled in a cave.

A 30 year old unmarried man like Jesus is always suspect. I seem to recall that in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus spent a night with Luke cuddled in a cave.>

If you guys really want to show how risque you can be, how outre, how irreverent, how naughty, how profane...if you really want to test the limits of your blasphemous capabilities, let's hear you go now about Mohammed the Prophet in the same vein.

Yeah, you're basically c.s. aren't you?

OCF: I disagree>

You missed the point entirely. It's not about YOU agreeing or disagreeing. It's about consistency--the fact that IF someone were to follow the principle I stated, they are not being inconsistent at all in favoring some forms of marriage and not others.

Why is supporting <gay marriage and NOT incest>, for example, any less consistent than supporting <heterosexual marriage and NOT incest>??

<The fact that the state is involved, for better or worse, surely implies "It should be encouraged".>

Sorry, that does not follow. That the state sanctions certain individual choices and confers appropriate rights and responsibilities to those choices and the institution they represent in no way implies that it <necessarily> encourages such choices. The state legally sanctions divorce, but does not encourage divorce!

In any case, what would be wrong with the state (which represents the people in an ideal democracy) looking positively on the decision of a loving couple to commit to wholesome monagamy, either heterosexual or homosexual?

<<Softpaw: ...homosexuality per se <does not harm anyone>, >

OCF: Of course it does. The average homosexual man lives about 20 years less than the average homosexual man.>

1) Please cite your evidence for that. (I hope you are not foolish enough to cite Hogg or Cameron).

2) Please show proof that homosexuality <per se> causes a shortening of life span. (Hint: correlation does not prove causation).

3) Are you sure that AIDS and other preventable diseases have been taken out of the equation when making your assertion about homosexuality <per se>?

4) Are you sure that specific dangerous behaviors and social hardships have been taken out of the equation when making your assertion about homosexuality <per se>?

5) If statistical studies showed that black people (or atheists, or chess players etc.) had a shorter lifespan than non-blacks (non-atheists etc.) would you then conclude that being black (etc.) <per se> is harmful and that blackness (etc.) should be discouraged and inter-black (etc.) marriage be illegal?

<OCF: [smoking] tends to reduce life spans and increse health problems. I think we should discourage homosexual behavior for the same reason.>

In what way is homosexuality <per se> as dangerous as smoking? Please cite your evidence! Of course, if certain specific behaviors are dangerous--in heterosexual as well as homosexual relationships--those behaviors should be discouraged. "Safe sex" applies to everyone, not just too homosexuals.

<Softpaw: and that fact that <genuine love between individuals>, <freedom of association>, <equality before the law> etc., provide positive individual and social goods, then this lays an objective basis for the legalization of gay marriage.

OCF: And it also lays an objective basis for polygamy, incest, and beastiality.>

How so? You a free to <assert> that, but you provide NO supportive evidence whatsoever. Heterosexuality, it could just as easily (and fallaciously) be asserted, provides an objective basis for polygamy, incest and bestiality. It's a slippery slope! -:)

<OCF: I literally have <never> seen someone make the case that there is a societal benefit to homosexual marriage. >

Given the types of materials you likely read, no one should surprised by that response!

<Softpaw: <Genuine love between individuals>, <freedom of association>, <equality before the law> etc., provide positive individual and social goods.>

This is a new thing, a Catholic whose beliefs are put out front by his political foes to discredit his capability to govern. But I will go with this statement from the candidate:

<But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith--nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election.>

Quite right. Stand by your beliefs....

http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Polit...

....Senator Kennedy.

The dude with balls! Nice serve. My backhand can't handle that curvy type on the line. I'll let that ball go right by.

<Shams:>

Who was the effeminate disciple next to Jesus in Da Vinci's "Last Supper"??

< Softpaw:...if we base our judgments on experience and reason and recognize the fact that homosexuality per se <does not harm anyone>, and that fact that <genuine love between individuals>, <freedom of association>, <equality before the law> etc., provide positive individual and social goods, then this lays an objective basis for the legalization of gay marriage..>

In a nutshell: lack of demonstrable harm plus clear individual and social benefits--these are the objective bases for supporting gay marriage.

OCF has provided four spurious arguments against gay marriage:

1)ARGUMENT FROM SCRIPTURAL INTERPRETATION
OCF'S personal interpretation of a version of the Bible tells him that homosexuality <per se> is immoral, and therefore gay marriage should be illegal. This argument carries no weight. Personal interpretations of the Bible (many others interpret it differently) cannot lay an objective foundation for the immorality of homosexuality, let alone a justification for discriminating against gays in regards to marriage.

2) ARGUMENT FROM TRADITION
Again, this carries no weight as it provides no answer to the question: should the tradition of denying gays the right to marry be continued? Asserting the tradition to support the tradition is basically tautological.

3)ARGUMENT BY ASSOCIATION
OCF associates homosexual marriage with polygamy, incest and bestiality, but he provides NO objective basis for linking them, either empirically or logically. The related argument about consistency is equally fallacious--it's really pure sophistry via "guilt by association".

4) ARGUMENT FROM HARM
OCF asserts that homosexuality <per se> is harmful. This assertion, if true, might or might not provide some objective basis for a denial of the right of gays to marry. But the argument is moot, since OCF has provided no evidence to back the assertion. (Studies such has Hogg's--widely cited in anti-homosexuality cites--have dealt with small subsets of homosexuals and, if anything, show a connection between AIDS etc., not homosexuality per se, and mortality rates).

<galdur: >

I can't help it. OCF does not believe in evolution either of organisms or ideas. Both Christian morality and Christian codes of behavior have evolved.

There is no universal morality, just a 17th century opinion.

None of this stuff would really matter to society, except for the fact that the federal government stuck its nose into the sacrament of marriage and started attaching benefits to marriage that were denied to single people.

That was the mistake. The courts should have remedied an inequality of benefits by saying that you can't give benefits to married people that you don't give to unmarried people. The solution amounts to taking away a privileged class, not adding a new one.

<RookFile:>

The marriage penalty is severe enough that half of all children born to women under 30 are born to single mothers.

:0)

Good point. Of course, Americans don't live (yet) in a Bible-based theocracy, but even if they did, there are multiple possible interpretations of its dictates.

Romans 1:24-27 (KJV):

< 24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.>

1) It seems pretty clear that according to the story "God" "gave up" <certain people> to "uncleanliness" and "vile affections".

At most, one might be able to argue that moral condemnation should be extended to all persons engaged in homosexual relationships characterized by "uncleanliness" and "vile affections", "lust in the heart" etc. --but not to ALL homosexual relationships.

<27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another>

The passage refers only to a specific group of men who were first naturally inclined to heterosexuality but then switched to lustful homosexuality.

Clearly, that passage does not relate at all to people who are <naturally> homosexual, who never had a natural sexual attraction to women.

In any case, "naturalness" is hardly an ultimate Biblical value--celibacy involves "leaving the natural use of women" yet is a time-honored, traditional, scripture-supported Christian practice.