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> I assume you're married to a woman (or a man, if you're a woman) because you responded negatively to a comment that said voting for prop 8 wasn't an action th

> I assume you're married to a woman (or a man, if you're a woman) because you responded negatively to a comment that said voting for prop 8 wasn't an action that was harmful to gay people. I didn't respond negatively to that comment. I provided an explanation, that those people who object to the idea of gay marriage do the same thing as almost everyone else, even many who are in favor of gay marriage: They have a certain image or ideal in their head, of how a marriage has to look like, and everything that doesn't fit that image feels wrong to them and shouldn't be legal. Hence almost everyone wants to exclude certain types of relationships from getting married. I explicitly focused on that argument: > They very explicitly wanted to take a right away from other people, even though they suffered no plausible harm from those people exercising that right. from the comment, which IMHO is a misleading argument, since I don't believe that many gay marriage supporters take it seriously. So you should finally answer my question, so I know where you stand: Do you believe that that argument is valid, i.e. are you also fine with a mother (50) marrying her son (30) or 12 people getting married? According to that argument it should be legal as well, since they don't harm anyone, but I have a strong feeling that even most gay marriage proponents wouldn't support such a type of marriage. So they're line would just be somewhere else.

foldr 6y ago
Oh man, it's 2020, a gay marriage thread...do we still have to talk about incest, polygamous marriage, owners marrying their dogs, and what ever other red herrings your imagination can supply? We can, if you really want to, but that line of argument has been debunked so many times that I'd have to question the sincerity of anyone who brings it up nowadays. If you are genuinely interested, see p. 208 of the following paper: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1178&context=faculty_articles https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...
- wander_homer 6y ago
  The paper already starts of with multiple premises that don't apply to any of my arguments. 1. I never put forward an argument against gay marriage, yet the paper is all about debunking arguments against gay marriage. 2. I don't consider it a bad effect if other types relationships were allowed to get married, it's the opposite, I'd consider it a huge improvement to what we have right now. Yet the paper assumes someone said: "If we allow gay marriage, we will also have to allow [policy X], which would unquestionably be bad." Hence I must assume, that you either didn't read or understand anything I wrote, or you didn't read the paper.
  - foldr 6y ago
    Your argument was that everyone believes that marriage should be restricted in some ways, so that believing it should be restricted to opposite sex couples is no worse than believing it should be restricted in any other way. If you read it, the paper addresses that kind of slippery slope argument. It explains that it is not at all difficult to find good reasons for expanding marriage to include same sex couples without expanding it in every other conceivable way. Hence, there is no prima facie case to be made that every other still-existing restriction is a violation of anyone's rights.
    - wander_homer 6y ago
      > Your argument was that everyone believes that marriage should be restricted in some ways, so that believing it should be restricted to opposite sex couples is no worse than believing it should be restricted in any other way. No, my point is that if someone brings forward the argument that same-sex marriage is fine because it doesn't harm anyone, but they then oppose other types of marriages that don't harm anyone, they obviously don't take their own argument seriously. Hence they shouldn't be surprised if others don't take it seriously as well, but they actually criticize them for doing so. > It explains that it is not at all difficult to find good reasons for expanding marriage to include same sex couples without expanding it in every other conceivable way. Which is completely irrelevant to this discussion, because the reason that was brought forward for expanding marriage was "it's fine if it does no harm to anyone", not some other reasons which prevent a slippery slope. You're basically saying, that if the other user had brought up a better argument, my critique wouldn't apply. Edit: But just out of curiosity, what argument would logically allow a same-sex marriage of men or women, who aren't closely related to each other, but exclude two brothers or sisters from marrying each other?
      - foldr 6y ago
        What the OP actually said is the following: "They [prop 8 supporters] very explicitly wanted to take a right away from other people, even though they suffered no plausible harm from those people exercising that right." This isn't presented as an argument for the legality of gay marriage; rather, it already presupposes that gay couples have the legal right to get married (as indeed they did in California before proposition 8 passed). It's uncharitable and implausible to assume that the OP would be able to present no argument for the legalisation of gay marriage other than "it wouldn't harm anyone". It certainly doesn't advance the discussion to attribute to them a weak argument that they didn't even make. >But just out of curiosity, what argument would logically allow a same-sex marriage of men or women, who aren't closely related to each other, but exclude two brothers or sisters from marrying each other? What argument would logically allow an opposite sex marriage of a man and a woman who aren't clearly related to each other but exclude brothers or sisters from marrying each other? Unless you think that there's some kind of analogy between same sex relationships and incest, then same sex marriage is totally irrelevant here. Can't think of a reason to ban incestuous marriages? Then the slippery slope starts from opposite sex marriage, not from same sex marriage.

foldr 6y ago

Oh man, it's 2020, a gay marriage thread...do we still have to talk about incest, polygamous marriage, owners marrying their dogs, and what ever other red herrings your imagination can supply? We can, if you really want to, but that line of argument has been debunked so many times that I'd have to question the sincerity of anyone who brings it up nowadays. If you are genuinely interested, see p. 208 of the following paper: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1178&context=faculty_articles https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...

wander_homer 6y ago
The paper already starts of with multiple premises that don't apply to any of my arguments. 1. I never put forward an argument against gay marriage, yet the paper is all about debunking arguments against gay marriage. 2. I don't consider it a bad effect if other types relationships were allowed to get married, it's the opposite, I'd consider it a huge improvement to what we have right now. Yet the paper assumes someone said: "If we allow gay marriage, we will also have to allow [policy X], which would unquestionably be bad." Hence I must assume, that you either didn't read or understand anything I wrote, or you didn't read the paper.
- foldr 6y ago
  Your argument was that everyone believes that marriage should be restricted in some ways, so that believing it should be restricted to opposite sex couples is no worse than believing it should be restricted in any other way. If you read it, the paper addresses that kind of slippery slope argument. It explains that it is not at all difficult to find good reasons for expanding marriage to include same sex couples without expanding it in every other conceivable way. Hence, there is no prima facie case to be made that every other still-existing restriction is a violation of anyone's rights.
  - wander_homer 6y ago
    > Your argument was that everyone believes that marriage should be restricted in some ways, so that believing it should be restricted to opposite sex couples is no worse than believing it should be restricted in any other way. No, my point is that if someone brings forward the argument that same-sex marriage is fine because it doesn't harm anyone, but they then oppose other types of marriages that don't harm anyone, they obviously don't take their own argument seriously. Hence they shouldn't be surprised if others don't take it seriously as well, but they actually criticize them for doing so. > It explains that it is not at all difficult to find good reasons for expanding marriage to include same sex couples without expanding it in every other conceivable way. Which is completely irrelevant to this discussion, because the reason that was brought forward for expanding marriage was "it's fine if it does no harm to anyone", not some other reasons which prevent a slippery slope. You're basically saying, that if the other user had brought up a better argument, my critique wouldn't apply. Edit: But just out of curiosity, what argument would logically allow a same-sex marriage of men or women, who aren't closely related to each other, but exclude two brothers or sisters from marrying each other?
    - foldr 6y ago
      What the OP actually said is the following: "They [prop 8 supporters] very explicitly wanted to take a right away from other people, even though they suffered no plausible harm from those people exercising that right." This isn't presented as an argument for the legality of gay marriage; rather, it already presupposes that gay couples have the legal right to get married (as indeed they did in California before proposition 8 passed). It's uncharitable and implausible to assume that the OP would be able to present no argument for the legalisation of gay marriage other than "it wouldn't harm anyone". It certainly doesn't advance the discussion to attribute to them a weak argument that they didn't even make. >But just out of curiosity, what argument would logically allow a same-sex marriage of men or women, who aren't closely related to each other, but exclude two brothers or sisters from marrying each other? What argument would logically allow an opposite sex marriage of a man and a woman who aren't clearly related to each other but exclude brothers or sisters from marrying each other? Unless you think that there's some kind of analogy between same sex relationships and incest, then same sex marriage is totally irrelevant here. Can't think of a reason to ban incestuous marriages? Then the slippery slope starts from opposite sex marriage, not from same sex marriage.