California's top court overturns gay marriage ban

[Rudey]

Originally Posted by Kevin

This is actually pretty easily answered -- two adults have the capacity to consent and others are not hurt by their decision to marry. An animal/child doesn't have the capacity to consent.

As for incest, the likelihood of birth defects means that your decision to procreate hurts others.

Gays being married really hurts no one.

Kevin, you should learn to read better.

An animal does not consent to being shocked, having a bullet put into its head, being cut up, and served to you on your dinner plate. But you do it anyway. So now you're worried about its right to consent?

And you don't have to have babies with incest. Now what? It hurts no one right?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Rudey

Kevin, you should learn to read better.

An animal does not consent to being shocked, having a bullet put into its head, being cut up, and served to you on your dinner plate. But you do it anyway. So now you're worried about its right to consent?

And you don't have to have babies with incest. Now what? It hurts no one right?

Some would argue, marriage is a different (and often worse) fate than becoming someone's dinner.

[Rudey]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Some would argue, marriage is a different (and often worse) fate than becoming someone's dinner.

HAHA I see what you did there by avoiding the question I asked.

Look folks, I didn't say what is or isn't right. I just am saying that you can't subjectively remove "morals" from certain legislation and keep it for others. It doesn't matter what the source of those "morals" are...bible, your mother, etc.

[nittanyalum]

Originally Posted by Rudey

Look folks, I didn't say what is or isn't right. I just am saying that you can't subjectively remove "morals" from certain legislation and keep it for others. It doesn't matter what the source of those "morals" are...bible, your mother, etc.

But morals themselves are completely subjective. It doesn't matter what the source of the morals are??? So people like Warren Jeffs? Fred Phelps? David Duke? They all have their own defined sets of "morals".

[Rudey]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

But morals themselves are completely subjective. It doesn't matter what the source of the morals are??? So people like Warren Jeffs? Fred Phelps? David Duke? They all have their own defined sets of "morals".

So lets use your morals (ie no morals) and marry cows.

[nittanyalum]

Originally Posted by Rudey

So lets use your morals (ie no morals) and marry cows.

Those aren't my morals. Next argument.

[Rudey]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

Those aren't my morals. Next argument.

You want morals taken out of the argument so we did. You have no argument.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Rudey

HAHA I see what you did there by avoiding the question I asked.

Look folks, I didn't say what is or isn't right. I just am saying that you can't subjectively remove "morals" from certain legislation and keep it for others. It doesn't matter what the source of those "morals" are...bible, your mother, etc.

How about this:

The government has several non-moral objections to animal marriage. The first that occurs to me is that if we were all allowed to marry our animals, the IRS Code could basically forget about having a "single" status for taxpayers. We'd ALL be "married, filing jointly" with Toonces. Being married to someone who doesn't produce income greatly reduces your own tax liability.

-- so there's a non-moral reason for you.

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by Kevin

How about this:

The government has several non-moral objections to animal marriage. The first that occurs to me is that if we were all allowed to marry our animals, the IRS Code could basically forget about having a "single" status for taxpayers. We'd ALL be "married, filing jointly" with Toonces. Being married to someone who doesn't produce income greatly reduces your own tax liability.

-- so there's a non-moral reason for you.

[PeppyGPhiB]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

DAMN you beat me to it!

[Rudey]

Originally Posted by Kevin

How about this:

The government has several non-moral objections to animal marriage. The first that occurs to me is that if we were all allowed to marry our animals, the IRS Code could basically forget about having a "single" status for taxpayers. We'd ALL be "married, filing jointly" with Toonces. Being married to someone who doesn't produce income greatly reduces your own tax liability.

-- so there's a non-moral reason for you.

How about you respond to the whole remark (on morality, mind you) then? You should be able to marry your sister...polygamy should be ok...etc.

And your IRS argument is ridiculous but that's neither here nor there.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Rudey

How about you respond to the whole remark (on morality, mind you) then? You should be able to marry your sister...polygamy should be ok...etc.

If you procreate with your sister, you're going to likely have kids which will burden the system due to their birth defects.

And your IRS argument is ridiculous but that's neither here nor there.

Not really. If my wife and I were to divorce and then marry our cats, we'd pay about half the taxes we do right now. When one spouse produces income and the other, Toonces, does not, there's a significant marriage bonus.

As for polygamy, assuming we can work out the tax stuff and not allow for some polygamy "superbonus," then I'm really okay with polygamy so long as we're still talking about consenting, non-related adults.

You asked for a rational, non-moralistic reason, so there it is.

In your furry-love world, if my cat decides it lives at another house, does that mean my cat gets half my stuff?

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by Kevin

In your furry-love world, if my cat decides it lives at another house, does that mean my cat gets half my stuff?

Well dang, if you're dumb enough to marry a cat, you better at least be smart enough to get a pre-nup! And, if you promise to stay married for life, are you promising for all 9 of the cat's lives? Or just the current one?

[Rudey]

I guess you're having trouble reading so I will write it again for you just as I have before. I said marry. I didn't say have kids. We're not talking about children here. You can marry and not have kids as many do. Additionally, we don't play a game of eugenics in America where we prevent people from getting married based on certain genetic markers so not sure what you're getting at there.

I am talking about moral reasons that people are asking to remove from the equation. I could shoot a whole in your tax argument but then again I'd like to stick to morality.

So please read the words this time and then respond. It's an awesome tactic...I promise.

Originally Posted by Kevin

If you procreate with your sister, you're going to likely have kids which will burden the system due to their birth defects.

Not really. If my wife and I were to divorce and then marry our cats, we'd pay about half the taxes we do right now. When one spouse produces income and the other, Toonces, does not, there's a significant marriage bonus.

As for polygamy, assuming we can work out the tax stuff and not allow for some polygamy "superbonus," then I'm really okay with polygamy so long as we're still talking about consenting, non-related adults.

You asked for a rational, non-moralistic reason, so there it is.

In your furry-love world, if my cat decides it lives at another house, does that mean my cat gets half my stuff?

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by Rudey

Look folks, I didn't say what is or isn't right. I just am saying that you can't subjectively remove "morals" from certain legislation and keep it for others. It doesn't matter what the source of those "morals" are...bible, your mother, etc.

I'm totally grunching this total trainwreck of a thread (seriously, can a mod just rename it "lessons in logical fallacies"?), but it seems like we're getting into a cum hoc ergo propter hoc deal here.

That is to say, I agree completely with your first assertion ("you can't subjectively remove "morals" from certain legislation and keep it for others") while completely disagreeing with the second ("it doesn't matter what the source of those morals (is)"). In fact, it very much does matter - not only because there are (relatively) universal moral and ethical standards and there are standards from dubious or non-universal sources, but also because there is a stated dissociation from one source of moral relativism in the United States that precludes that from being the sole source of moral authority.

Let's look at it like this, since you keep bringing up the example: universally, barring exceptionally niche elements such as Satanists or whatever, people know that it is unacceptable and immoral (and unethical, whichever term you'd prefer) to kill another person. The reason is because that person has its own rights (which cattle do not share; cattle as we know them would likely be extinct without human intervention, and it is also a universal moral standard to separate people from animals in at least some regard).

This is not a strictly "Christian" moral. However, the overwhelming majority of anti-gay marriage advocates openly (and honestly, which I find very respectable) declare that they are relying on a strictly Christian definition of marriage. There is no universal sympathy on this issue, and the relative moral outcry comes from churches (and some synagogues and mosques).

The two are not akin, nor should they be in the eyes of the law - a strict separation of Church and State requires that the state enact laws that utilize a moral authority more universal than any one church (or even any majority set of churches).

It does, indeed, matter which source is used for "moral" lawmaking.