Monday, November 21, 2011

Do Paterno's critics want to legislate morality?

I notice that there is now a movement to write into Pennsylvania law that anyone, not just those in highest positions of authority, as is now the case, is required to report suspected child abuse to law enforcement authorities.

Critics of Paterno argue, not implausibly, that, although he was not required by law to report what he heard from McQuery to the police, he was morally obligated to anyway.

The law is being changed to put this moral obligation into law. In other words, they are legislating morality.

But I thought we couldn't do that?

54 comments:

Lee said...

It has never been a question of legislating morality, the phrase itself is a red herring.

Of course we legislate morality.

That's what the law is: legislated morality.

The only question is, whose take on morality gets legislated?

KyCobb said...

Martin,

When you say "legislating morality", we know that you want to lump in behavior which violates noone's rights, such as homosexual activity, because it violates your theological beliefs. That is a completely separate category from legislation designed to protect children from having their rights violated. That's why I don't like the catch-all phrase "morality" because you are comparing apples to oranges. The state has no theological beliefs, and in a free country, the state has no business imposing the theological beliefs of some of its citizens upon others. While the state is not in the business of promoting theology, it is in the business of protecting the rights of its citizens, especially children; we all want our own rights protected, regardless of what particular theological beliefs we may have.

Lee said...

Define 'rights'.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

Very broadly, you have the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, due process of law and equal protection of the law.

Lee said...

When defining a word, are you supposed to use that same word as part of its own definition?

KyCobb said...

Lee,

Just delete the first clause. Happy?

Martin Cothran said...

KyCobb:

When you say "legislating morality", we know that you want to lump in behavior which violates noone's rights, such as homosexual activity, because it violates your theological beliefs. That is a completely separate category from legislation designed to protect children from having their rights violated.

Are you saying that one is moral and the other is not?

Lee said...

> Just delete the first clause. Happy?

I think maybe as happy as I'm likely to be in this or any discussion where we argue past each other, because we each employ the same word to mean entirely different things.

When I say "rights", I mean something God-given and absolute.

When you say "rights", you mean something that is not God-given or absolute, but which should be for no obvious or compelling reason be treated as such anyway.

It's difficult to argue over absolutes when your opponent is allowed to invoke one even as he denies their very existence.

KyCobb said...

Martin,

"Are you saying that one is moral and the other is not?"

I'm saying one involves an issue of protecting near universally recognized rights, and one is a theological issue. They both tend to be lumped into a general "morality" category, even though they are very different issues.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"When you say "rights", you mean something that is not God-given or absolute, but which should be for no obvious or compelling reason be treated as such anyway."

I understand that you don't think the solemn legal compact made by the people to each other in the Constitution of the United States is an obvious or compelling reason to recognize the rights recognized therein. I hope our system of justice never has to compel you to change your mind.

Lee said...

> I understand that you don't think the solemn legal compact made by the people to each other in the Constitution of the United States is an obvious or compelling reason to recognize the rights recognized therein.

Well, if I did, would it be the right thing to do?

Why should a legal compact, solemn or otherwise, command my respect and allegiance? Legal compacts come and go. What makes this one special?

Art said...

Why should a legal compact, solemn or otherwise, command my respect and allegiance? Legal compacts come and go.

As do allegedly "God-given" morals, compacts, or rights.

Lee, what makes your own claims about "universal" or "absolute" standards special? Why should the voices in your head* command anyone's respect or allegiance?

* - this is, ultimately, the source of all ecclesiatical authority.

Martin Cothran said...

KyCobb,

Why claims concerning moral obligations related to individual acts theological and moral claims concerning universal human rights non-theological?

And where do moral claims concerning universal human rights gain their authority?

Lee said...

> Lee, what makes your own claims about "universal" or "absolute" standards special? Why should the voices in your head* command anyone's respect or allegiance?

Art, if it comes down to voices in one's head, it doesn't just stop with religious folks. Everybody has voices in their head. In the absence of an absolute moral code, what makes the ones in yours better than the ones in mine?

If there is no standard, how can mine be wrong?

KyCobb said...

Martin,

I'm sorry, I can't make any sense out of your question; can you rephrase it?

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"Why should a legal compact, solemn or otherwise, command my respect and allegiance? Legal compacts come and go. What makes this one special?"

This one has endured for over two centuries, and has provided the legal foundation of the greatest nation on earth. It protects your rights by protecting everyone's rights. In a previous thread, you stated that the southern whites didn't suffer for their oppression of african-americans in the Jim Crow era, but in fact they were poorer and worse off because they were denying african-americans the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Oppressing people who are different from you is like heroin; it might feel good when you are shooting up, but the truth is you are creating misery for yourself as well as others. You may calculate that oppressing homosexuals will never backfire on you or your loved ones, but its possible you may change your view if one of your children or grandchildren comes out.

KyCobb said...

Martin,

I think I figured out your question, assuming you accidently left out an "are". In the US, claims concerning human rights are legal, and they gain their authority from the consent of the people as expressed by the Constitution of the United States. Your claim that, for example, the rights of people who engage in homosexual acts should be disfavored is based solely in your belief that God disapproves of them. Other people, both christians and non-christians, don't agree with your theology. The Constitution is a remarkably secular document; I can't imagine, if we were writing a Constitution from scratch now, that the Right would allow ratification of it without insisting it incorporate some reference to God. The Constitution we do have makes no reference to enforcing traditional christian morality or providing any sort of privileged status to Christianity, but it does provide that all people are entitled to equal protection of the law. Since our government does not have a religion, there must be some rational secular basis for treating some people differently than others. The government has no business imposing the theological beliefs of some people on everyone else when the sole reason for the proposed policy is theological and there is no rational basis for the policy.

Lee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lee said...

> This one has endured for over two centuries, and has provided the legal foundation of the greatest nation on earth.

Are greatness and endurance a moral standard of some permanent and unchanging sort? Or is it merely your preference?

The marriage relationship of man and woman has endured for a while too; arguably it's a great institution too, but it certainly is an enduring one. But as I recall endurance doesn't seem to matter much when we're talking about other preferences of yours.

Without an absolute moral standard, I'm afraid your position is reduced to the arbitrary whims of preference.

> and they gain their authority from the consent of the people as expressed by the Constitution of the United States.

And if the people don't consent, well, we'll just keep interpreting that old Constitution until it says something we like. Today.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"Are greatness and endurance a moral standard of some permanent and unchanging sort? Or is it merely your preference?"

If it was merely my preference, it wouldn't mean squat. I suspect that if polled, the vast majority of Americans would prefer a great and enduring nation to a mediocre and temporary one. If you disagree, you could always start a new party advocating for a mediocre and temporary nation, and see how appealing that is to Americans.

"The marriage relationship of man and woman has endured for a while too; arguably it's a great institution too, but it certainly is an enduring one."

And yet the reality is that the institution of marriage has changed significantly since the republic was founded. And allowing same-sex marriage doesn't change heterosexual marriages in any way.

"And if the people don't consent, well, we'll just keep interpreting that old Constitution until it says something we like. Today."

The great strength of our Constitution is that it sets forth enduring legal principles, and it can also be interpreted to remain relevant to an advanced 21st century continental nation though written for a tiny, 18th century agrarian nation. And if the people don't like how the Supreme Court interprets it, the Constitution can be amended. The permanence and absolutism you crave is illusory; it has never existed and it never will because the world is constantly changing.

Lee said...

> If it was merely my preference, it wouldn't mean squat. I suspect that if polled, the vast majority of Americans would prefer a great and enduring nation to a mediocre and temporary one.

What is 300 million times squat?

> If you disagree, you could always start a new party advocating for a mediocre and temporary nation, and see how appealing that is to Americans.

You're playing a shell game. Under what shell is the basis, the authority, of your moral claims for human rights?

Previously, we've looked under greatness and endurance. As I showed, your reverence for endurance arbitrarily applies to some institutions (constitutional rights) but not others (man and woman only in marriages).

And I suspect "greatness" is somehow circular. I.e., why are we great? Because we observe rights. What gives rights their authority? Our greatness.

Now, you're having me look under "plebiscitary". But the whole deal about rights in the first place is that it means something we're entitled to even when the majority is opposed to it. You seem to understand that perfectly well when talking about gay marriage, but now all of a sudden it's a valid criterion.

Lee said...

> If it was merely my preference, it wouldn't mean squat. I suspect that if polled, the vast majority of Americans would prefer a great and enduring nation to a mediocre and temporary one.

What is 300 million times squat?

> If you disagree, you could always start a new party advocating for a mediocre and temporary nation, and see how appealing that is to Americans.

You're playing a shell game. Under which shell is the basis, the authority, of your moral claims for human rights?

Previously, we've looked under greatness and endurance. As I showed, your reverence for endurance arbitrarily applies to some institutions (constitutional rights) but not others (man and woman only in marriages).

And I suspect "greatness" is somehow circular. I.e., what gives rights their authority? Our greatness. Why are we great? Because we respect rights.

Now, you're having me look under "plebiscitary". But the whole deal about rights in the first place is that it means something we're entitled to even when the majority is opposed to it. You seem to understand that perfectly well when talking about gay marriage, but now all of a sudden it's a valid criterion.

Lee said...

> The great strength of our Constitution is that it sets forth enduring legal principles...

Great. Enduring. Universally recognized. Solemn. Rational.

I think I'm starting to get it. The authority behind human rights is adjectives.

> And if the people don't like how the Supreme Court interprets it, the Constitution can be amended.

But you don't have to amend it to claim it requires recognition of gay marriage even though you have admitted it was not the intention of the Founding Fathers to sanction such an interpretation.

If you can mine new rights, why can't I mine new restrictions on rights?

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"What is 300 million times squat?"

That's everyone in the country, so its everything.

"You're playing a shell game. Under which shell is the basis, the authority, of your moral claims for human rights?"

The people. That's all there is, and all there will ever be.

"Now, you're having me look under "plebiscitary". But the whole deal about rights in the first place is that it means something we're entitled to even when the majority is opposed to it. You seem to understand that perfectly well when talking about gay marriage, but now all of a sudden it's a valid criterion."

The Constitution was ratified with a Bill of Rights, by which the people agreed they possessed rights which could not be denied to anyone by the majority, because, as I've told you time and again, that ensures everyone's rights are protected. Additional rights were added by the Civil War amendments.

"But you don't have to amend it to claim it requires recognition of gay marriage even though you have admitted it was not the intention of the Founding Fathers to sanction such an interpretation."

As I have explained to you before, the Constitution does not specifically exempt homosexuals from equal protection of the law; its simply due to the cultural prejudices of the 19th century that the issue was never even thought about at the time. That hardly provides a basis for writing an exemption from equal protection of the law for homosexuals into the Constitution.

"If you can mine new rights, why can't I mine new restrictions on rights?"

All you have to do is show there is a rational basis for the restriction. Easiest legal test to meet. I have successfully gotten laws affirmed just making up hypothetical reasons why they might have been enacted. You have yet to present any rational reason for why same sex marriages should be illegal, despite me giving you an opportunity to do so.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

You have said you would prefer to rely on inalienable absolute rights granted by God rather than the Constitution. But our history shows that those rights are very alienable without recognition by the people and the legal foundation to enforce them.
The man who wrote that it was self-evident that men are created equal and are endowed with the inalienable right to liberty was not deterred by his own words from owning slaves, some of whom were his own children. More than eighty years after those words were written, a solid majority of god-fearing, christian white Americans still didn't believe it was self-evident that blacks had a right to be free. When the South seceded, the North fought, not for the self-evident, god-given liberty of the slaves, but to preserve the Constitution you disdain, in order to protect their own rights under the Constitution. Lincoln wasn't an abolitionist at the beginning of the War. If he had called in 1861 on the North to fight for the god-given liberty of the slaves, rather than to preserve the Union , the probable result would've been a successful southern rebellion. Lincoln waited until 1863 to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, and even then it only applied to slaves in rebel held territory, and he only did it to help preserve the Union. Hundreds of thousands of christian southerners had to be killed or wounded to end the rebellion they started to preserve and expand slavery, because they believed that under the Constitution, they had the right to own slaves, and blacks had no rights, God-given or otherwise, which white men were obligated to respect. Even in the last extremity, when they literally had no other source of manpower left with which to fight, the South refused to offer slaves their freedom if they would fight for the Confederacy. So please explain to me, Lee, if god-given rights are everything, and the Constitution is nothing, why is it that millions of men were willing to risk life and limb for what they perceived to be their Constitutional rights, and very few of them were willing to fight for the god-given inalienable right to liberty of the blacks, other than the blacks themselves?

Lee said...

> The Constitution was ratified with a Bill of Rights, by which the people agreed they possessed rights which could not be denied to anyone by the majority, because, as I've told you time and again, that ensures everyone's rights are protected.

Problem is, the story doesn't get better and better with the re-telling.

First of all, "the people" did nothing of the sort. Some people who lived two hundred years ago did. But I had no say in it. Did you?

But let's take your remarks at face value for a second: the majority agreed that the majority had to limit its power. So the majority gets to rule on that one thing... but on nothing else? The majority can't change its mind? They are sovereign until they have to not be sovereign?

All very arbitrary. We like what the majority did here. That's good and that's the bedrock principle of our country. But we don't like what the majority did there, so we have rights bestowed upon us by the majority to protect us from... the majority.

And you think Christianity sounds wacko.

> As I have explained to you before, the Constitution does not specifically exempt homosexuals from equal protection of the law

They have equal protection under the law. The Constitution does not say anything about protecting sexual preferences, and the Framers would be amazed to hear you say it. But what they think doesn't matter. What they had to say is authoritative except when it isn't.

Art said...

Art, if it comes down to voices in one's head, it doesn't just stop with religious folks. Everybody has voices in their head. In the absence of an absolute moral code, what makes the ones in yours better than the ones in mine?

If there is no standard, how can mine be wrong?


The starting point must be to assume that the voices in our heads are wrong. And thus to stop listening to them.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

I noticed that you didn't have any comment on why millions of men would risk their lives to fight for their rights under that meaningless, whacko Constitution, but virtually noone, including Thomas Jefferson, gave a flip for the self-evident, god-given inalienable right of african-americans to be free. Also, why did that whacko, meaningless Constitution have to be amended to free the slaves? Why wasn't the self-evident absolute god-given right to liberty simply recognized? If the absolute god-given right to freedom was self-evident, and no Constitution was needed to enforce it, why did slavery ever exist at all, much less continue for thousands of years?

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"First of all, "the people" did nothing of the sort. Some people who lived two hundred years ago did. But I had no say in it. Did you?"

Sure I do. If I wanted to, I could begin a campaign to have the Bill of Rights repealed, and you can to. You just have to convince enough people to agree with you.

"What they had to say is authoritative except when it isn't."

I'm sorry, I missed the part of the Constitution where it says that the people's sexual preferences are not part of their liberty rights; can you tell me where in the text of the Constitution it says that?

Lee said...

> The starting point must be to assume that the voices in our heads are wrong. And thus to stop listening to them.

At least one of those voices in your head is you.

Art said...

At least one of those voices in your head is you.

So? I think it wise to admit that, when it comes to universals (real or imagined), no one really knows much of anything.

That's a pretty good starting point for any discussion about morality.

Lee said...

>> At least one of those voices in your head is you.

> So?

So how do you know which voice, or whether any voice, is really yours?

Lee said...

KyCobb, just so we're being precise: I never said the Constitution is wacko. What I'm doing is suggesting that if rights are not God-given, they don't really exist. That would imply that the Constitution is based on a wacko notion. But I'm not the one who thinks they aren't God-given. You are.

I've been pressing you to tell me why anyone should support the kind of "rights" you believe must exist in a world without absolutes.

And you're not disappointing me at all. You have been meandering from one possible justification to the next, all in an effort to make something sound impressively absolute and permanent that, in your view, simply cannot be.

Because that's pretty much the entire schtick, isn't it? How to get what you prefer out of these so-called "rights" and make it sound somehow sacred, in a world where sacred means fictional, so the rubes like me will buy into it.

The People are sovereign, except when they're not. The Framers of the Constitution were wise, except when they're narrow and bigoted. Moral values change with the times, except when we're criticizing those who preached morality in the past for not having the same values we do today.

(Don't know exactly why, in a world without moral absolutes, hypocrisy is the one absolute sin, but there it is.)

As a general rule, I think conservatives aid and abet this sort of undermining attack because, when liberals argue from *our* premises, we tend to accept it.

When you argue for certain kinds of rights, we tend to nod our heads because we agree that rights are important, without for a minute considering that liberals mean something completely different when they use that word.

And when that doesn't work, as we have seen in this thread, liberals use all the flowery adjectives at their disposal, aimed at getting the conservative to stand at attention and salute the wonderful Bill of Rights... without considering for a moment that the Bill of Rights, from the liberal's perspective, has nothing to do with God-given rights and everything to do with just getting what they want now.

Liberals are willing to sound like moral absolutists when it gives them what they want now.

Of course, tomorrow that will change, when what they want cannot be cloaked in the mantle of a bunch of bigoted, narrow-minded, slave-owning, dead white... er, Founding Fathers of our Great Nation.

Most conservatives will let you argue from their premises. Not me. If you're going to argue that moral values are not absolute, but then base your arguments on the authority of a Great Document and a Great Nation and a Great Institution, or from some nebulous concept called "rights" whose origins are anything but eternal but we are somehow all duty-bound to respect anyway, I'm always going to ask you how you arrived at those conclusions without borrowing from the conservative premises that make it work.

What do you mean by Great? Because we cannot possibly agree on what Great means.

How do you arrive at a concept such as duty, when there is no such thing as a higher truth that duty can possibly serve?

There are really only two views. Morality is absolute but both our understanding and our willingness to follow its dictates change over time; or morality is not absolute and changes with the whims of the people.

When you believe the latter but speak as if the former still commands our respect, it leads to absurdity.

Art said...

Lee, all I know is that there are no voices in my head telling me to own slaves, burn witches, bomb Muslims, gas Jews, execute homosexuals, or follow any of the other moral precepts that the voices in Christians' heads give them. And if there were, my default position would be to ignore them, much as I ignore the false morality that Christians like you hold to.

Christians, OTOH, refuse to acknowledge the obvious failing of their position, which leads them to commit atrocities such as I list, and many, many more.

Lee said...

> much as I ignore the false morality that Christians like you hold to.

Art, tell me about your idea of a true morality. Do you think it is wrong to behave in the manner you have ascribed to Christians? If so, why?

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"There are really only two views. Morality is absolute but both our understanding and our willingness to follow its dictates change over time; or morality is not absolute and changes with the whims of the people."

Its like your God goggles are blinding you to what I've written. Rights aren't absolute; blacks had no rights at all in this country until the citizens decided they did, and Southerners had to be forced at the point of a bayonet to accept it. The reason you have to accept the rights granted by the Constitution isn't because they are God ordained; its because the government of the people has the guns to compel you to do so. God didn't prevent Americans from enslaving blacks, and he didn't liberate them, Americans did. If a sufficient number of Americans voted to repeal the 13th amendment, they, or anyone else in this country, could be enslaved again, and God still wouldn't do anything about it. God does nothing.

Lee said...

> Its like your God goggles are blinding you to what I've written.

Well, c''mon, it's not like you're writing Holy Scripture, Ky. I understand what you're writing, I just don't agree with it.

But one of us truly is blinded.

> The reason you have to accept the rights granted by the Constitution isn't because they are God ordained; its because the government of the people has the guns to compel you to do so.

But that's been my point. To a moral absolutist such as myself, morals are something we have a duty to obey that's higher than we are. To a moral relativist such as yourself, there is no such duty, but only practical considerations. The ol' "Because I said so." Argumentum ad baculum.

Makes the Bill of Rights sound downright tawdry, when viewed in that light. To use your own shimmering rhetoric, "the legal foundation of the greatest nation on earth" is nothing more than "Do what we say or we'll shoot you."

Hard to see how that distinguishes us in the roll call of nations. In fact, we would seem to fit right in.

So something is out of place. Either it's your view of morality, or your glowing prose about the "greatest nation on earth."

> God does nothing.

I'm sure you believe that, but I'm not quite sure how you would know that. Does the white pawn imagine he pushed himself to King 4?

KyCobb said...

Lee,

You can think of yourself as a pawn pushed around a board by God if you want to; I fail to see how being unthinking playing pieces makes us great. The guns are necessary for the few, apparently including you, who would happily enslave their neighbors if they didn't think God was forcing them not to do so. The guns are only possible because most of us recognize that protecting everyone's rights ensures our own freedom; we choose to be free. But tell me, seriously, if, hypothetically, there was no God, would you really want slaves?

Lee said...

> The guns are necessary for the few, apparently including you, who would happily enslave their neighbors if they didn't think God was forcing them not to do so.

A sure sign you're losing the argument is that you're getting personal.

What have I said that makes you think I would be happy to enslave my neighbors?

I'm only pointing out that it follows from what you said that there would be nothing wrong with doing so. Your world view, not mine.

And I'm not saying you would do that either. Just that you would have no good reason not to do so, aside from practical considerations.

It doesn't mean that you would do so. People do very little out of pure reason. Maybe you have too much empathy to do so. But empathy is an emotion.

Or maybe it's like you've said before, that the reason you wouldn't is you wouldn't want that done to you. The Golden Rule, made secular. Again, I say, this is not a reasonable view because there is no reason to assume that abrogating someone else's rights means necessarily that at some point in the future your own will be... or that your rights will be less likely to be abrogated if you refrain from abrogating another's.

It actually sounds more like faith than reason.

Have a great Thanksgiving, Ky.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"People do very little out of pure reason. Maybe you have too much empathy to do so. But empathy is an emotion."

We aren't Vulcans, Lee. Empathy plays a significant role in human interaction, and it shouldn't be discounted because its an emotion.

"Or maybe it's like you've said before, that the reason you wouldn't is you wouldn't want that done to you. The Golden Rule, made secular. Again, I say, this is not a reasonable view because there is no reason to assume that abrogating someone else's rights means necessarily that at some point in the future your own will be... or that your rights will be less likely to be abrogated if you refrain from abrogating another's."

I think that over 220 years of Constitutional government would be considered a reason by most people. I know you don't consider that a good reason; people can disagree.

Lee said...

> We aren't Vulcans, Lee. Empathy plays a significant role in human interaction, and it shouldn't be discounted because its an emotion.

What did I say that led you to believe I was discounting it?

> I think that over 220 years of Constitutional government would be considered a reason by most people.

A good conservative argument. But your usage of it is arbitrary. The number of years an institution has been in vogue is an argument in its favor, except when it isn't.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"A good conservative argument. But your usage of it is arbitrary. The number of years an institution has been in vogue is an argument in its favor, except when it isn't."

As I pointed out, there is no provision of the Constitution which exempts homosexuals from equal protection of the law.

Lee said...

And as I have pointed out, they have equal protection as marriage is defined and has always been defined.

Six millenia of recorded history would be considered a good reason to keep things the way they are, to most people.

But longevity only counts if it is a trait of something liberals like.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"Six millenia of recorded history would be considered a good reason to keep things the way they are, to most people."

That might make sense if marriage hadn't changed significantly over the course of six millenia. Significant changes include the legality of polygamy, the legal status and rights of married women, and the grounds for divorce. I doubt a typical 21st century American woman would want to enter into a marriage with a stranger selected by her parents, in which her husband was free to marry other women, all her property became his, he had the legal right to rape and "discipline" her, she couldn't divorce him unless he committed adultery, and he would get custody of the kids.

Lee said...

But when was marriage ever not between men and women? Even in cultures that were notoriously hospitable toward homosexuality?

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"But when was marriage ever not between men and women? Even in cultures that were notoriously hospitable toward homosexuality?"

So what? Use to be that people of different races couldn't get married. If every other aspect of marriage can change, there is no reason you have articulated that it can't change to include homosexual unions.

Lee said...

> If every other aspect of marriage can change, there is no reason you have articulated that it can't change to include homosexual unions.

Marriage as an institution is important because families are important. Because families are the best chance for raising decent, productive, law-abiding children.

Therefore, the institution of marriage was not established arbitrarily with regard to sex, which is what you're suggesting.

It follows that you're also suggesting it's purely an accident that throughout the ages marriage has always been defined as some form of union between man and woman.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"Marriage as an institution is important because families are important. Because families are the best chance for raising decent, productive, law-abiding children."

Then the children of gay couples should also have the advantages of married parents.

I also did not suggest that the institution of marriage was established arbitrarily or by accident with regard to sex. The decision to ban interracial marriage was neither arbitrary or accidental, but we changed that anyway.

Lee said...

> Then the children of gay couples should also have the advantages of married parents.

So the solution is to adjust the institution of marriage to fit a situation that until very recently would have been considered a joke even by its modern proponents?

Did you ever think that by changing the institution in this manner, it just might destroy it?

Actually, I think that the destruction of marriage as an institution is part of what makes gay marriage so attractive to liberals. The family is one of the remaining bulwarks against the overweening power of the liberal state. If something impedes the liberal agenda, it needs to die.

> The decision to ban interracial marriage was neither arbitrary or accidental, but we changed that anyway.

Yes, banning interracial marriage is indeed arbitrary with regard to the purpose of marriage: producing and raising children.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"Did you ever think that by changing the institution in this manner, it just might destroy it?"

And now we get the "libruls are evil" conspiracy theory. I'm all ears, Lee. Please be the very first conservative to provide an explanation for how allowing gay couples to marry will cause heterosexual couples to quit getting married.

"Yes, banning interracial marriage is indeed arbitrary with regard to the purpose of marriage: producing and raising children."

Then banning same sex marriage is also arbitrary because gay couples can produce and raise children the very same way many heterosexual couples, including me and my wife, do: by adoption (the route we took) artificial insemination (a very popular option among many heterosexual couples) and raising stepchildren (my brother raised his stepson with his second wife, and his biological children were raised by his first wife and her second husband). Adoption, surrogate mothers and stepchildren are as old as the Bible.

Lee said...

> And now we get the "libruls are evil" conspiracy theory.

I'm not necessarily suggesting a conspiracy. But I have noticed that suggesting a conspiracy is nuts when conservatives do it, but taken seriously when liberals do it. Nobody called Hillary a nut, for example, when she spoke of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" out to falsely portray her womanizing, perjuring husband as, well, a womanizer and perjurer.

> Please be the very first conservative to provide an explanation for how allowing gay couples to marry will cause heterosexual couples to quit getting married.

By trivializing it. It's already been trivialized quite enough.

> Then banning same sex marriage is also arbitrary because gay couples can produce and raise children the very same way many heterosexual couples, including me and my wife, do...

Producing and raising kids is the deal. It is understood that some hetero couples can't, and that's an accident, an unfortunate one perhaps in many cases.

You're suggesting we make something always viewed as an accident in the past as part of the design.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

"By trivializing it. It's already been trivialized quite enough."

You say that because you have nothing but contempt for homosexual relationships. They don't think their relationships are trivial, and most of the younger generation don't either. The very notion that twentysomethings are going to say, "what, Gays can marry now? No reason for us to then!" is so silly I'm amazed you think Obama would have approved it as the secret evil librul plan to destroy marriage at the last evil librul conspiracy meeting. If that's the only reason you can come up with to oppose gay marriage, its a done deal; that theory is sillier than Dr. Evil's plans in the Austin Powers movies.

"You're suggesting we make something always viewed as an accident in the past as part of the design."

People have been adopting children for thousands of years. Its part of the design.

KyCobb said...

Lee,

I'm going to let you in on the secret. The liberal plan to trivialize marriage isn't gay marriage; its celebrity marriages. Just look at the headlines of any tabloid or celebrity magazine if you don't believe me.

Lee said...

> You say that because you have nothing but contempt for homosexual relationships.

Sorry, but I think it's bad practice to allow one's opponent to characterize my positions for me, particularly when they are all about getting personal. I'm sure that often works in the courtroom, but fortunately I'm not in one yet.

I would characterize my position as saying that I don't believe that such relationships rise to the level of societal approval.

Tolerance? Yes. Approval? No. Is this the same as "having nothing but contempt" for such relationships?

Let's draw a parallel. There are a handful of folks whom I consider to be my best friends. To say that I value our relationships would be to understate reality by a whole bunch. I would walk through fire for them.

But you don't see me lobbying Congress to raise the "best friends" to a societally-approved, official relationship.

The "best friend" relationship is important, but it does not rise to the level of requiring that the government stamp it with a seal of approval.

I'm simply grateful that the friendships can survive just fine in the face of governmental indifference.

It's a position I would cheerfully urge proponents of SSM to consider.

> People have been adopting children for thousands of years. Its part of the design.

For the record, I'm in favor of adoption.