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> So, you think marriage shouldn't be available for straight people who are both infertile? The rest of your argument around mutual care is reasonable. There a
by pacala 11y ago
> So, you think marriage shouldn't be available for straight people who are both infertile?
The rest of your argument around mutual care is reasonable. There are more nuanced views than a blunt "if state support for marriage depends on procreation, let's ban marriage for infertile people as well.", which sounds like spite: if I can't get it, then those guys over there should not get it either because they are similar to me on dimension X.
From the perspective of the state, there is a man, there is a woman, statistically they have a high probability of having and rearing children. Splitting hairs whether they are fertile / infertile is something the state shouldn't get into, partly because it's administrative hell and partly because it's an invasion of privacy.
With gay marriage, there is a man, there is a man, statistically they have close to zero probability of having children, so from the perspective of perpetuating the state, there is no statistically significant benefit in offering them special treatment.
We can now argue whether the state has the right to determine the gender of an individual, or whether that's an invasion of privacy as well. It's pretty easy to tell a man from a woman at birth. Biology and cultural norms make this distinction pretty obvious to anyone who's paying attention. It's both cheap and reasonable to tell apart men from women.
- ScottBurson 11y agoAs any parent will tell you, pregnancy and childbirth are only the beginning of all that is involved in raising a child. And those can be contracted out: adoption has always been possible, and modern technology gives us the option of surrogacy. Plenty of gay couples are raising kids, and have been doing so for years. You're just trying to rationalize your prejudice by pretending it's about fertility.
- pacala 11y agoYou're overreacting. "> So, you think marriage shouldn't be available for straight people who are both infertile?" is, sadly, quite close to spite. Pointing out that gay couples raise children in significant numbers is a constructive argument, though this implicitly recognizes that marriage benefits are, at least partly, about procreation and child rearing. PS. I'm a parent, thank you very much.
- tommorris 11y ago> It's pretty easy to tell a man from a woman at birth. Biology and cultural norms make this distinction pretty obvious to anyone who's paying attention. It's both cheap and reasonable to tell apart men from women. The decades and decades of non-consensual infant "corrective" surgery of people with intersex conditions, leading to physical and mental damage (and in some cases involuntary sterilisation), suggests otherwise... http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/should-we-fix-intersex-children/373536/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/should-we-... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/special-report-intersex-women-speak-out-to-protect-the-next-generation-8974892.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/special-repor...
- __z 11y agoAll the gay parents out there (including April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse two of the plaintiffs in this case) beg to differ.