Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
Well, now we're going back down a very unproductive road, aren't we? You're repeating a thoroughly debunked argument, and I almost feel like I am repeating the process of exploding it. So I'll be brief:
1. Not all heterosexual marriages produce children.
2. Homosexuals can also have children. Some of those children are raised by homosexual couples.
3. Not all children are born to heterosexual couples that are married.
4. Not all people (heterosexual or homosexual) should have children, but some of those do, irrespective of whether they are married.
In short, marriage--and this is not mere rhetoric, this is a historical fact--has nothing whatsoever to do with children. Nor does it have anything to do with religion, though religious institutions have long acted as state functionaries by performing marriages.
If you think it does, you're not paying attention. Marriage is a civic rite by which property is shared and long-term pair bonds are codified before the state. In short: it's about two things: stuff and sex. It involves children only inasmuch as they count as stuff (and in my world, children are people, so that pretty much ends that argument right there).
To claim that marriage is about children is not only ahistorical nonsense, it is utterly without any logical basis. But more to the point, if you consider the actual historical function of marriage, there is no reason whatsoever to deny that rite to same sex couples, which have been part of society since our species moved from the grasslands to the bread basket.
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Yes this has become a very unproductive road. Your arguement basically boils down to the following:
1. Hetrosexual marriage doesn't aways produce children
2. Non married couples and same sex couples do raise children and can be good parents
3. Concern about couples producing children was not the historical reason for the government involving themselves in marriage. It was about stuff and sex.
My response:
1. Sometimes you plant a garden and the seeds don't all take. You still plant because enough will work out to produce the crop. Married couples more often then not have children.
2. Yes non married couples do have children. Homosexual couples also can raise children from past relationships or adopted. My contention is that the ideal way for a child to be raised(all other things being equal) is with a Mom and Dad committed to them and each other.
3. Historically same sex couples and eunuchs couldn't marry. Also, historically stuff wasn't a big issue because women couldn't own property. Historically married couples had sex and before the invention of the pill that produce lots of children.
What the government did by extablishing State marriage contracts is make the man liable for the welfare of his wife and their children.