RE: Anti gay-marriage atheist??
August 30, 2015 at 9:33 pm
(This post was last modified: August 30, 2015 at 9:44 pm by Simon Moon.)
(August 30, 2015 at 7:28 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: My husband left for a trip and I'm bored. Meaning It's one of those evenings where I look for any excuse to post lol.
I was browsing my facebook news feed today and came across this article called The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage, posted by an acquaintance on my friend's list. I thought it was very out of character and was curious to hear you guys' opinions/comments/counter arguments on the points being made. Fire away!!
Quote:I am an atheist, and have no religious reasons for denying gays the right to be married; but, I have very secular reasons.
1. The primary evolutionary purpose of a man and a woman is to propagate the species and raising children.
2. Homosexual men are more than twice as likely to spread HIV and other STDs than straight men, which applies to lesbian woman too.
3. Homosexual men and lesbians are much more likely to have serious substance abuse problems.
4. Gays are not the proper role models to raise children. Children need a real female mom and a real male dad, one of each. All recent studies prove that children are best raised by a man and a woman. New Research on Children of Same-Sex Parents Suggests Differences Matter.
Some argue that the link between marriage and procreation is not as strong as it once was, and they are correct. Until recently, the primary purpose of marriage, in every society around the world, has been procreation. In the 20th century, Western societies have downplayed the procreative aspect of marriage, much to our detriment.
As a result, the happiness of the parties to the marriage, rather than the good of the children or the social order, has become its primary end, with disastrous consequences. When married persons care more about themselves than their responsibilities to their children and society, they become more willing to abandon these responsibilities, leading to broken homes, a plummeting birthrate, and countless other social pathologies that have become rampant over the last 40 years.
Homosexual marriage is not the cause for any of these pathologies, but it will exacerbate them, as the granting of marital benefits to a category of sexual relationships that are necessarily sterile can only widen the separation between marriage and procreation. The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage.
If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis can it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction than love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos.
http://www.debate.org/opinions/are-there...024CEDB973
This atheist's case is nonexistent.
If point 1 is a reason against gay marriage, it is also a case against heterosexual people past their child bearing years getting married, people that are infertile getting married, or people who just don't want to have children getting married.
Not to mention that gay people can still have children by natural means.
Point 2 is idiotic. So, if gay men aren't allowed to marry, they will stop having sex and spreading STD's?
Point 3 is a case for advocating better mental health care, not a case against gay marriage.
Professional athletes are also more prone to substance abuse problems. Is this guy also advocating to end heterosexual marriage when a professional athlete is one member of the couple?
Point 4, even if true (which I doubt) is far from telling the whole story. Would an abusive, alcoholic heterosexual father or mother be better role models for their children than a psychologically healthy same sex couple?
There's a lot more to say on why this guys is wrong, but my above points are enough to demonstrate he has not case.
Quote:If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis can it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction than love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos
Oh, the 'slippery slope' idiocy.
This makes about as much sense as saying, "if we raise the speed limit to 70, then upon what basis can we deny the speed limit being raised to 105 mph?"
"We allow 16 year old people to drive, then on what basis do we deny 12 year olds or 10 year olds?".
Just because we make some allowances, does not mean all hell will break lose
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
