- This topic has 98 replies, 31 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 4 months ago by .
-
Posts
-
What is, or is there, a non religious argument against same sex marriage? In other threads many seem disgusted by the SCOTUS ruling. I understand their feelings, but I am conflicted as to how one would explain this disgust to someone who doesn’t believe in the Torah, which is most of the population. Is there any way to defend the opposition to same sex marriage without bringing in the Torah or religion?
I could make a good argument that without religion, stealing would be okay. It’s irrelevant; the Torah forbids it, so it’s not okay.
The Torah also says this is wrong, and belief in, and following the Torah, is not optional.
Also, as Sam pointed out in this thread, without Torah, society goes downhill:
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/what-happens-when-god-is-removed
dy,
how would you argue that stealing is ok?
i was think regarding the op’s question that people view the “t” part of lgbt is thought of as crazy, why is it any different than the “g”
Matan- I agree with you 100%. I value very much how in this country, the Christian majority was never able to force their religion on us and allowed us to grow. I find it a little hypocritical that we now turn around and try and impose our religious beliefs on others. The fact is, most of the people on this site, if they didn’t have the Torah and religion to guide them, would probably be influenced by the morality of the times and support it.
That being said, I completely disagree with the Supreme Court decision on a legal basis. The point of the Supreme Court is to interpret the Constitution which is clearly a historical document. That should not be influenced by politics, as the constitution has not changed since it was written (other than with the addition of amendments). If the people who wrote the constitution wouldn’t have allowed gay marriage (as I’m sure they wouldn’t have), then it’s not a constitutional right. If you believe the constitution is outdated (as it probably is), then it is congress’ responsibility to add amendments and change the constitution. But the Supreme Court should be objectively interpreting a document that was written over 200 years ago, not first making a decision based on their political leanings and only then trying to fit it in to the constitution.
1. If you are willing to allow normal marriages where the couple doesn’t intend to have children, or is incapable of having children, you lose one of the principal secular arguments against gay marriage. While there have been cultures where child-free marriages were banned (which would probably mean the woman has to get pregnant before the wedding), no modern western culture treats it that way (halacha certainly doesn’t). Once you have redefined marriage as an expression of “couplehood” rather than an economic framework for raising children, the secular objection to “gay marriage” disappears.
2. Same-sex couples do sometimes raise children, and indeed, some children are raised by other than their natural parents for a variety of reasons. One probably should allow parental rights to such couples (whether or not the couple is “involved” with each other). At present, only marriage does that.
3. Based on halacha, the objection to “gay marriage” is really an objection to male homosexuality, which is a religious based objection. Marriage is just a legal and economic framework. There really isn’t a secular reason to prefer one form of perversion (e.g. non-marital sexual intimacy) over another.
ZD, I’m not trying to convince them.
If they call this marriage then in the future some might also want to marry animals. And maybe even plants, why not?
Where would they draw the line?
Simcha613, we’re not trying to “impose” our beliefs on them, although we’d like to, but regardless, it’s not hypocritical when you’re correct.
The writers of the consitution probably did not agree with interacial marriage either (except maybe Jefferson). Interacial marriage has only been legal everywhere since 1967 in the Loving v. Virginia case (The man’s name was actually Richard Loving and his wife was Mildred Loving)
simcha613: When the constitution was written, the government didn’t allow anyone to marry – it was still governed by religious law (Jews by halacha, Christians by the Canon law of the established church – meaning Jews could divorce easily and Christians were married for life). They were just then taking the canon law of the Church of England and requiring everyone to marry according to that one law. At that time, it was a crime to have “relations” outside of marriage (thus the phrase “making it legal” as a way of saying one is getting married), and when they changed that law, they seriously undermined marriage law. Subsequent to the constitution being adopted, they also made it possible to divorce easily and gave the children of unmarried parents rights (in 1789, such a child was considered an orphan with neither a mother nor a father).
I strongly disapprove of legalizing gay marriage, but you run into a lot of problems by asking what was intended in 1789.
CA, why are you any more entitled to that $100 in your pocket than I am? In fact, I’ll use it more wisely than you will, so I should have it, not you.
The latest supreme court ruling just proves that this world cannot exist without Torah.
What can or cannot be proven outside the confines of the Torah is not relevant to our lives on this earth.
And if you wish to present me with the beauty and relevance of the proof behind a mathematical equation or a law of physics- these are also part of the Torah, though some of us, due to our lack of proficiency, may not know exactly where to find them.
DY- Morality can change over time when there is no Torah as an objective source. And maybe one day society will give that argument. But nowadays, it seems that society understands that if stealing, or murdering, or hurting other people directly is allowed it will lead to anarchy and the breakdown of society. Bekitzur, the secular morality of today is, anything is moral unless you are directly hurting someone else. Stealing hurts the victim and is immoral. Murder hurts the victim and is immoral. Gay marriage involves two consenting adults and is moral. Without Torah you lack bein adam lemakom. You can still understand bein adam lachaveiro without Torah.
DY, federal government already does that, its called taxes
dy
thats called taxation
lol @ oot
(i didnt see your post before i posted)
What is, or is there, a non religious argument against same sex marriage?
Libertarian – The government has no business telling people who they can or can not marry, and should not be in the business of deciding who is and who is not married in the first place.
From the Obergefell opinion:
See Maynard v. Hill, 125 U. S. 190, 211. States have contributed to the fundamental character of marriage by placing it at the center of many facets of the legal and social order.
If states were to remove the centrality of marriage in social order, then possibly even after Obergefell there would be no protected right for SSM.
The four justices who disagreed with the ruling did not do it on moral grounds. It was based on the fact that they thought the supreme court had no business pushing through something that should be decided by the people and the states. To quote Roberts: the dissent is about “whether, in our democratic republic, that decision should rest with the people acting through their elected representatives, or with five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes according to law.”
Or as Scalia wrote: “States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices’ ‘reasoned judgment'”.
They view this as a gross overreach of power by the supreme court and fear that once you limit the constitution’s power you can slip very quickly into what this country was founded to protect against – abuse of power by the leaders.
zahavasdad: The constitution didn’t address racial intermarriage and up to that point in American law, it was governed by the religious law of the parties, and under canon law, there was no problem with interracial marriage. Some states passed statutes banning interracial marriage, but its hard to say what the people in the constitutional convention felt. Many felt it was not appropriate for the government to dabble in marriage law. It does seem many felt that slavery should be abolished, and indeed, most Americans at the time, based on the language of the Declaration of Independence or “Sommerset’s case” (in 1772 holding slavery incompatible with the English common law) believed that slavery was already illegal or that the states were required to unwind slavery in an orderly way.
Why aren’t the toeiva “marriage” supporting hypocrites demanding legalization of polygamous marriage?
akuperma (and others):
As I wrote in the other thread, permitting childless couples to marry does NOT therefore logically permit same-gender “couples” to marry.
The key difference is that children do best in a household with one father and one mother. So if a childless couple were to adopt, the child would still have one father and one mother. Whereas, with this legislation, the same-gender “couple” would be given the same preference as the normal couple, and the child would be told that his/her legal parents are both male or both female.
This is sick, and a shame.
Not sure what SCOTUS actually ruled. Did they rule that all States must ALLOW same-sex marriage or did they rule that all states must RECOGNIZE same-sex marriage. The former seems to me to be extreme judicial overreach. Marriage issues have always been controlled by the States. The latter, however, is more in line with established practice.
While this particular issue is probably of little concern to the readers of this blog, the issue of recognition and reciprocity is of serious concern to observant Jews in a very similar matter. First cousin marriages are not unusual in unsere veldt, particularly in Rebbishe families. Such marriages are illegal in 21 states but recognized universally for instance, First cousin marriages are illegal in Nevada but legal in California. Nevertheless, first cousins who were married in California are still recognized as married in Nevada.
Simcha613, so you agree that stealing isn’t immoral without the Torah, it’s just not in society’s best interest to allow it. That’s not morality, that’s pragmatism.
Oot and CA, precisely. What makes that more moral than my pickpocketing CA? Socially necessary, yes. Acceptable by Torah law? Yes. Moral? What’s that?
Akuperma,
1. While all states accepted common-law marriage until about 150 years ago there were laws against illicit relationships whether or not the couple was considered married. In VA the penalty was death. Thus, the right to marry was indirectly limited.
2. At the time of the writing of the Constitution America was almost completely Protestant – and they do allow divorce. Even Catholics may receive an annulment for certain reasons.
“When the constitution was written, the government didn’t allow anyone to marry – it was still governed by religious law (Jews by halacha, Christians by the Canon law of the established church – meaning Jews could divorce easily and Christians were married for life).”
That isn’t really true; most states had disestablished their official churches by then. (The exceptions were Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Georgia, and South Carolina — but other than the first two the churches would be disestablished within a year or two.) And Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Rhode Island never did have established churches.
“Did they rule that all States must ALLOW same-sex marriage or did they rule that all states must RECOGNIZE same-sex marriage.”
Both, in separate cases. The recognition issue should have been a slam-dunk 9-0 decision. My father’s first cousin got married without her parents knowledge or permission at the age of 17 when that was illegal in most states (although not where she got married). No state, however, ever would question the validity of her marriage. (She and her husband were married for 66 years, until her husband finally died in his late 80s.)
The allow issue should have been decided purely on equal protection grounds; there are many, many legal and financial benefits to marriage that were unavailable to same sex couples that were available to opposite sex couples. This could have been fixed by enacting civil union laws in every state, but the anti-gay crowd was every bit as opposed to that as to marriage. That strategy has proven disastrous.
Some are discussing Polygamy, it definatly has been brought up since the decision. Its possible it might be legal sometime in the future . I wouldnt be suprised of some polygamus family sues for legal recognition and will get to the supreme court
Avi K:
1. Under the law at the time of the Revolution, the Canon law of the Church of England applied to all Christians (even if they were Catholics). Under the law of the time, divorce was an option only by act of parliament, and for all purposes, only if you happened to be the king. The common law definition of marriage was that marriage lasted until death. That was also the Protestant definition. Divorce came later.
2. Remember that “Common law marriage” meant you had a formal ceremony announcing you were married, with witnesses – it was allowed to address a shortage of priests since under Canon law a marriage had to be officiated by a priest (in England it was banned primarily to punish the Catholics by making their children into bastards who couldn’t inherit from the parents).
The legalization of divorce, and the decriminalization of non-marital intimacy was really the radical change that largely guaranteed the future problems we now observe. Allowing men and women to do whatever they feel like, without legal consequences,brings up the question of why have any such rules.
Three Answers:
The word ‘marriage’ is semantics they already had all the benefits and ‘rights’
It was used for exclusively for traditional relationship for eons.
What did they need to have that word for?
If they so despise that word let them push to completely abolish the concept of marriage altogether for all!
It presupposes a sinister nefarious agenda that they spent billions of $ ,focused careers took over the western world all in order to ‘hijack’ and subvert a word!
Second,All societies from the beginning of human existence had a varied of personal styles
The Greeks, for example, were quite deviant. Many of them disliked marriage and disliked women.
YET, all of them ,every single society from the aztecs to the kalahari bushmen. From the Siberian tartars to polynesians
In every era every century , every clime -GREEKS Included-Have remarkably always understood till now that marraige could only mean between opposite genders
Third,If consensual is supposedly the end all and be all
How come polygamy is illegal?
Somehow suddenly we “care about the greater society” whatever that means?!
The real answer is because ,whatever they might propagandize, the it will undermine them and their real evil goals by restoring a patriachal society
About time- Those aren’t really good ta’anos.
1) The term marriage is important. If it’s just semantics, why does it bother us so much? Obviously, just like it’s meaningful for us, it’s meaningful to them as well.
2) Other societies had slaves. Other societies tortured prisoners. Just because marriage wasn’t understood a certain way in the past, doesn’t mean it can’t evolve into something more inclusive and moral (as they would argue)?
3) Maybe polygamy is illegal because a woman will inevitably become a victim in a marriage where she is not the only spouse. Or maybe, according to their logic it should be legal, but we haven’t reached that point yet. Maybe one day they will. Maybe there just isn’t enough demand for it yet. Tafasta merubah lo tafasta. Blacks and women didn’t receive the right to vote on the same day, even though the same logic should apply to both.
The most obvious reason is ,IT is about being human, Basic biology!
[How come when you walk into a hardware store and ask for a male or female part ,they will give it to you ?!?]
You also should read the written dissents of Justices Roberts ,Scalia ,Thomas and Alito
In Brief:
“A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.”
“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
For those who dont realize when you are married you do have certain rights
You have the right to make medical decisions on your spouse
You have the right to be on such things like health insurance from your spouse
You have the right to inherit your spouses assets
There are others as well
Even this secular rationalization is inherently weak
The Declaration Of Indepedence was a document in that it appealed to Heaven for the right to rebel under the moral principles of the Creator
Otherwise
1.what gives them the right to rebel ,but you lack such a right?
2. what gave them the right to force the southern states to stay?
They referred constantly to the moral law based on the bible for their raison d’etre
Since it is all now about power, let cut through the pretenses and
abolish so called Law
25 June 2014:UK Right to die appeal rejected
Lord Neuberger announces Court’s decision
Judges ruled – by a majority of seven to two – against the appeal by Paul Lamb and Jane Nicklinson over the right to die.
A majority of the justices said that the question they were being asked involved moral judgements rather than points of law – and the matter had to be addressed by a democratically-elected Parliament.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force – that thoughts rule
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There a drift in values , things that would be unthinkable become the norm. In a recent article in Canadian Medical Association Journal, Tom Koch discussed the Polio epidemic in the 1950s. He noted how everyone scrambled to save every life. Gymnasiums were turned into wards and cots were lined up from wall to wall. Steel lung machines were made and people were kept alive in these big negative pressure boxes. It was an imperative to save as many lives as possible. Nobody considered the costs or the quality of life of the people that were saved. He laments that in todays society the polio victims would be counseled against seeking treatment and most would die.
” it appealed to Heaven for the right to rebel under the moral principles of the Creator”
Note that it was written by someone whom Christians would justly consider an infidel.
“Under the law at the time of the Revolution, the Canon law of the Church of England applied to all Christians (even if they were Catholics). “
Only in Maryland and Virginia. The other states where the Church of England was the official established Church (The Carolinas, Georgia, and New York) weren’t theocracies. The New England colonies other than Rhode Island were Puritan, not Anglican, and as I have mentioned neither Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, or New Jersey ever had any official Church.
“The legalization of divorce, and the decriminalization of non-marital intimacy”
HaShem legalized divorce over 3,000 years ago.
And most of us don’t really want the government to be snooping into our bedrooms.
DY- What I mean is that it’s not the government’s job to enforce morality (at least in a government that’s not a theocracy). The point of government is, as you said, pragmatic. To make sure that society functions and there is no anarchy. Morality belongs to the rabbis, imams, pastors, etc…
We know from the Torah that gay marriage is destructive to society on a physical level. Chazal talk about gay marriage in reference to the mabul. But from those who don’t accept our Divrei Chazal as authoritative, then gay marriage is purely a moral issue. It should be legal as the government should not be legislating morality.
Goyim are inherently natural .In their insides ,they sense when when something is unnatural and wrong(although often get swept along with the need to be PC)
It is invariably those of jewish extraction who invent rationalizations.
Biden thanked the jews for causing this toppling of mores less than two years ago
zahavasdad,
civil unions were all the same rights .
But these shrewd animals insisted on pushing for the word marriage,
No wonder ,the chofetz chaim said these jews [and their supportes are scions of amalek.
“A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.”
Thomas Jefferson
simcha613,
Then the Supreme Court should stay out of it
Second,Law
in it’s essence all morality.
The Left, who are alot smarter than you,says it all the time
How else could the the government sin tax alchohol ,tobbaco, firearms,illegalize drugs,force you to wear a seatbelt in your car,etc.etc.
But we digress..
Akuperma., you are wrong on both counts.
1. One of the earliest instances of a divorce law was in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, which created a judicial tribunal that dealt with divorce matters in 1629. Northern and Middle states followed suit very quickly. Southern states at least provided for divorce in the case of adultery. All were secular proceedings. As for Canon law, that does not exist in the Congregational or Unitarian denominations, which were dominant in New England.Some other denominations have Canon law but only for regulation of churches and ministers. Among the Protestant churches only the Episcopal church applies it to lay members.
2. Common law marriage means that there was never a ceremony. The couple lived together as man and wife and registered themselves as married. Sometimes even registration was not required. It was sufficient for them to tell people that they were married.
@simcha613 – That is not entirely true. It is not purely a moral issue. It can be argued that it is no different than the government commanding people to wear a seatbelt or not do drugs. Why should they be concerned with what I do? The answer that is given is that it will be a drag on the rest of society if you crash have higher hospital bills, etc. The same argument can be made for these couples. The rates of many diseases are significantly higher than in other people. LGBT have way higher rates of depression and suicide. Much higher likelihood of being homeless. These can be a major drag on society. (higher medical costs and the like).
Basically, its a much easier argument than forcing you to put on a seat belt.
There was a pretty big study of transgender people done with actually staggering results. Some interesting numbers:
41% attempted suicide (yes 41%)
15% made <10,000 a year (national average is 4%)
>4 times the national average for HIV infection rate
double the likelihood of being homeless
Higher rates of incarceration
This is also seen in studies of the LGB community.
Significantly higher depression rates, less likely to have health insurance, much more likely to be below poverty line.
To be honest, I actually feel bad for these people. Now with everyone promoting this type of marriage more people will be encouraged to live this life. It is not a life of happiness.
“What is, or is there, a non religious argument against same sex marriage? “
1) Marriage is most needed when there are children. Children need the stability of married parents. The parents need the commitment of each other, as raising children is hard. Most Toeva couples do not have children. Hence they do not need to be married.
2) Toeva couples (at least the men from what I read) do not believe in physical exclusivity. Lemashal, you may have heard of Jews who believe in keeping kosher only in the home, but eat anything outside. Same here. Their definition of marriage is not the same as everyone else’s.
I should rephrase that – I feel bad for the children growing up now who are fed the lines about being yourself, expressing yourself, etc… and really thinking that it will make them happy. They don’t know any better and are being led to a life devoid of happiness.
The older people pushing this have noone to blame but themselves for their troubles.
cent_cent- while those numbers are pretty staggering, correlation does not equal causation. One can argue that those numbers are a result of having to hide, to “be in the closet”, feeling ashamed, etc… One can argue that recent legislation will reduce those numbers by promoting acceptance and equality.
MDG- Who says anything about need to be married? They want to be married because it’s important to them. Should older people who can’t have children anymore not marry (or remarry) because they “don’t need to be married”?
Also, many non-Jews aren’t faithful to their spouse. From what I’ve heard, adultery isn’t uncommon among non-Jews. Maybe there shouldn’t be marriage for them either? Yes, they have a different definition of marriage than we do. They aren’t having halachic marriages. They are having secular marriages or Christian marriages or whatever it is that they are having. Our definition of marriage has no relevance to them.
- The topic ‘Non religious argument against same sex marriage’ is closed to new replies.