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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Johannes Pilch who wrote (543067)	2/20/2004 1:03:43 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Well, you have learned well from Coulter, haven't you?Let's examine the one part of your argument that is not filled with Coulterisms (if you don't know what that means, you're really not paying attention): It is also clear that wherever marriage is in decline, homosexual marriage and/or public recognition of homosexual “unions” exist. Where the institution of marriage is strong, attitudes against homosexual marriage are also strong. This does not support causality. It simply acknowledges that these relationships exist. The ratio between marriage strength and homosexual acceptance is very likely influenced by such things as religion. Finally, a hint of intellectual honesty. There is no causality between gay marriage and the 'breakdown' of marriage. In other words, gay marriage does not directly change the trend of marriage as an institution - period. What you call 'marriage strength', I choose to call 'marriage longevity'. A marriage that is long is not necessarilty strong. I've seen many marriages that were long but incredibly weak, being held together by threads as weak as 'staying together for the kids', financial realities, and just plain habit. In societies that frown upon divorce, I would assert that marriage is actually weaker because there is a higher incidence of long but weak marriages. But where such forces as religion are unable to mitigate the destructive assaults against marriage, homosexual marriage becomes imaginable. We then see by logic that homosexual marriage is a result of decay and not necessarily a cause of it. The grave problem here is that it is unreasonable to accept that a change such as homosexual marriage, that becomes imaginable only after marriage has been separated from parenthood, will fail to reinforce that very separation. That is how homosexual marriage becomes not merely a result of general marital decline, but also a cause of it. Here is your, and the authors, most convoluted and self serving argument. If you argued that secularism made homosexual unions possible, well, you might have some thin thread of reasonable ledge to stand on (because religion strongly represses homosexuality - except when practiced by their pedophilic priests, of course). But to declare that in an environment that does not repress homosexual unions, the addition of gay marriage (a stated monogamous commitment of two partners) "reinforces" a general marital decline is, how should I say this, one of the most asinine leaps of logic since the 'diskless node workstation'. So, the logic is that if the state recognizes gay marriages, people will be less inclined to get married? Just where is the 'data' to support that? Just where is the LOGIC to support that? If you argued that allowing homosexual relationships hurt marriage, you might have something, because people who engage in homosexual marriages are less likely to enter into heterosexual marriages (although in repressive non-secular societies, it was quite common). But to state that simply allowing existing gay couples to marry will somehow have a destructive effect on marriage simply shows your underlying prejudice against and repulsion for homosexuals (which you have stated, in quite graphic terms, previously in this forum). Previously, I wrote how you are using the same 'logic' that rightists are using more frequently - isolating variables and ignoring context. You state that gay marriage will cause (whether primarily or through some 'logical feedback loop') the deteriorization of the institute of marriage. And the 'data', as cited by the author', is the relationship of nonmarital births to acceptance of gay marriage. Conveniently, the author cites some of the cause/effects of the rate of nonmarital births in these countries, then somehow leaps to gay marriage as a "major" cause. This sort of intellectual dishonesty is indicative of many so called 'studies' being cited by the radical right. Nowhere in this 'study' is there any data that shows a relationship between gay marriage and higher rates of nonmarital births, other than their coexistance in the stated countries. Don't you even see how intellectually dishonest that statement is? Are you so weak in science, or so blinded by your homophobia, to see that you cannot link two variables simply by their existence in the same system? Take an example. It rains a lot in a rain forest. The rain causes erosion. Also, there is a high incidence of malaria. Using your logic, one can draw a cause/effect between erosion and malaria. Get it? You talk a lot about honesty and lying in your posts. I wonder if you will ever come to grips with how your homophobia is distorting your perspective. I doubt it, but there is always hope for you...