LDS and Prop 8

[Orontes]

And up until a handful of decades ago, the Britannica Encyclopedia listed Noah's Ark as a scientific fact. So what's your point?

Certainly our understanding of human sexuality has increased as the Scientific Method is applied and homophobia, whether religiously motivated or "ick" motivated, is removed.

My point was that the Modern rhetoric on homosexuality is anachronistic. The claims find no corollaries in the past. This is a problem if one wants to argue homosexuality is inherent over and above the failure to find a gay gene.

This doesn't change the basic fact that homosexuals are indeed being discriminated against when they are denied an Equal Right enjoyed by every other adult US taxpaying citizen.

Do you feel the same about all other claimants for marriage status/recognition?

The APA, the scientific peer review organization responsible for the diagnostic and treatment codex used by the vast majority of the world's mental health professionals, states quite clearly that homosexuality shares the same mechanics and basis as heterosexuality, and that all three of the major classifications seek the same exact things from a relationship. Those relationships only differ in the target gender.

http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/sorientation.pdf

The APA's change on homosexuality was political not scientific.

By what can only be loosly termed as your "logic", gingers, being uncommon, should be discriminated against too. After all, a ginger can tan their skin and colour their hair, can't they.

There is nothing in my post that concludes an uncommon thing therefore should be discriminated against.

Note: if you want to engage me, you need to move beyond all the invective. It simply demonstrates a lack of maturity. You a pro-gay marriage. I am not. If you want to discuss the difference of ideas control the venom and simply discuss.

 

[Orontes]

Googling this led me to this Relativism and the Homosexual Agenda

Which states that gays can be "cured" So can you help me here, does the LDS really advocate "curing" homosexuals? Because this is the dangerous undertone I am reading in all these posts.

It always circles back around that if you give even a little to treating homosexuals like people (gay marriage, don't ask don't tell, etc) you will indeed have to treat them like people in all areas.

I don't think anyone gay should be forced to be something other. I do think those who want help to embrace another way should be able to get that help. I think there should be a large open space for sexual conduct that is free from the state. I do not believe the state should endorse gay marriage.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I don't think the state is the arbiter of what is right. I do think the state is the arbiter of what is legal.

I didn't say "right"; I said "a right".

And if the state is the arbiter, then why did you bring up societal tradition in the first place?

 

[Orontes]

The APA is not the best source one should go to for science supporting a position. In 1963 the New York Academy of Medicine charged its Committee on public Heath to report on homosexuality. The report noted:

"(H)omosexuality is indeed an illness. The homosexual is an emotionally disturbed individual who has not acquired the normal capacity to develop satisfying heterosexual relations.

It further noted:

(S)ome homosexuals have gone beyond the plane of defensiveness and now argue that deviancy is a desirable, noble, and preferable way of life"

These findings were in sync with the APA that held homosexuality as a pathology. Ten years later the APA struck down homosexuality from the officially approved list of psychiatric illnesses. There was no significant new data or evidence behind this change. The change occurred because of the political maneuvering of gay lobbyists within the APA. The APA coup makes for interesting history. APA gay advocates argued they were justified in their move because the APA represented "psychiatry as a social institution" rather than as a scientific body.

In 1973, the APA switched from a questionnaire style of gathering information on mental "illness", a questionnaire that merely asked the professional what their patients saw them about, and began using clinical research utilizing the Scientific Method.

This is why homosexuality was removed, along with dozens of other "illnesses", in 1973.

There was indeed "significant new data or evidence" proving the old assumption, based purely on the fact that gays have always faced active oppression and persecution in this country thank to "Christian Love", and sought out mental health professional often as a result.

The removal of homosexuality as a psychiatric illness was based on a vote. No new scientific data was presented. It was a vote of a small group: less than a third of APA membership. Even four years later the journal Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality reported that 69% of psychiatrists disagreed with the vote and considered homosexuality a disorder.

BTW, to reply to the post above this one I replied to, there is nothing to indicate that the State has any "vested interest" in promoting family and children.

If one agrees the state has an interested in its survival, then citizens producing new citizens would appear an essential element. This is why in Japan the state now pays women to become mothers.

 

[Orontes]

I'm sorry, I simply intended the colloquial meaning. Your comments "raise" these questions.... the very questions, I think, most of the people on this thread are concerned about.

I see.

Well, I see what you're saying, but OTOH you entwined "things LDS" with "a legal discussion" in your first post:
Note that by "these[LDS Church] positions" you were referring to positions which are explicitly legal.

I did. This is because the thread itself referenced Prop. 8 which is political.

Furthermore, they are positions which, by shocking coincidence, converge with your anti-gay arguments based on a secular state. Furthermore, they are positions which happen to "demonize" (to use your term) those who "don't agree" (again using your terminology).

I'm not sure I follow your point. The LDS Church sees homosexuality as a sin. I stated this. Mormons also worked in the Prop. 8 Campaign to preserve democratic principle contra judicial activism. The two points are not mutually exclusive.

Again I think you are talking about how laws are effected in practice, not how they are justified in principle.

That is right. Natural Law rights claims can be perfectly coherent, but can be problematic when applied to a secular society.

Fair enough, but I would say two things: (1) Probably everyone would oppose the democratic process under certain conditions. Martin Luther King, Jr. thought it was legitimate to violate unjust laws in order to establish justice, for example. I guess it comes down to the subjective judgment of how unjust is too unjust? (2) Your claim that judges were "inventing rights" is highly questionable. I don't agree judges were inventing rights in this case. Your claim raises the question (I won't say begs) of whether newly-recognized, and even unpopular, rights have to be "invented" or whether they can be discovered as the implications of existing law. The latter is precisely what happened in the case of Brown v Board of Education, a case you agree with.

Civil disobedience is the action(s) of an individual contra the state. When the state or agents of the state attempt to circumvent democratic process it is called tyranny.

I don't think judges inventing rights is highly questionable at all. It was the very opinion of one of the dissenting judges on the Court in the overturn Prop. 22. There is no right to gay marriage in the law. The action taken in overturning Prop. 22 was simple judicial activism.

"Inventing rights" and "discovering rights" is a distinction without a difference. It is not the role of judges to do either. Brown did not discover a right, but found the rhetoric of Plessy's separate but equal position wasn't able to maintain a viable equality in racial separation.

Any plausible arguments in support of these positions? This is, after all, a debate forum.

Per 1) As far as making homosexual marriage a right via positive law: I think homosexuality is bad stuff. This would also apply to homosexual marriage. Therefore, I would vote against it.

Per 2) There is no right to marriage in the Constitution. Declaring there is a right to marriage is therefore problematic from a democratic perspective. Judicial declarations there is a right to marriage does not entail gay marriage. Gay marriage is an altering of the meaning of marriage, one cannot take pronouncements on marriage in the past and automatically apply them to a new proposed expanded meaning.

My fault, I was scrambling two different points in response to two different things you said. My points were (and please forgive me for using numbered lists so repetitiously):

(1) "The state serving as licenser and gaurantor of wedding contracts", including the wedding contracts of other religions which "the LDS Church considers ... a sin" is not unconstitutional. And....

(2) You said: "I don't think the state need endorse or sanction sexual fetishes. I think the government should be neutral on such." I pointed out you don't want the government to be neutral, you want to favor heterosexual "fetishes". You replied: "However, the state has shown an interest. In rulings like Loving and other cases... [the state showed it has an interest in marriage]." But, the state could also show an interest in same-sex marriage, since the arbitrary legal discrimination against gays has very harmful effects on our society, especially families.

I see. I'll respond to the points as you have them now.

Per 1) The LDS Church does not have the power to determine what contracts the state will recognize, nor should it. Members of the Church who are citizens do have the power to vote on what the state is to recognize and license. This is the same as other groups in the U.S.

Per 2) The state could show an interest in same sex marriage. The interest should be expressed through use of the ballot box.

Curiously, you didn't feel compelled to raise the same objection when you brought up the court decisions which determined "if the state has a viable interest in establishing" contracts for the heterosexual fetish. You said "In rulings like Loving and other cases like the more recent Hernandez v. Robles the court indicated the state's interest was that marriage is the model for producing and evidently fostering new citizens: continuing society." Can I presume that you disagree with these rulings, since it was not within the court's purview to determine if the state has a viable interest in establishing mixed-sex contracts? You aren't saying it is the purview of the court to determine if the state has an interest in mixed-sex contracts, but it is not the purview of the court to determine if the state has an interest in same-sex contracts, are you? That would seem to be a case of special pleading.

I don't think it is the purview of the court to determine what is the state's interest. When courts do so, I think they err.

Sorry I just realized I've been going way too heavy with the quotation marks, I don't intend it in an obnoxious way.

I see. I wondered why the heavy usage.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If one agrees the state has an interested in its survival, then citizens producing new citizens would appear an essential element. This is why in Japan the state now pays women to become mothers.

Is it also why in China, the number of children each couple can have is restricted by law?

I think your argument just doesn't work. People will keep breeding whether or not marriage is legal. The question here is the rate at which they'll breed in either case.

Without state-sanctioned marriage and its accompanying rights and benefits, you'll have some birth rate (call it X). With state-sanctioned marriage, you'll have some other birth rate (call it Y). The net effect of marriage is the difference in births (i.e. Y minus X); that's the thing you need to show that the state has a vested interest in.

 

[Orontes]

I wasn't thinking of a tribe, I was thinking of a member of this forum who is native American herself who related this to me. So fair enough. Yet Google Scholar brought me the following in about four seconds:
~ William N. Eskridge, Jr. Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center; Visiting Professor of Law, New York University School of Law. A History of Same-Sex Marriage. Virginia Law Review, 1993.

Even assuming accurate scholarship of the two examples, I don't think single examples constitute traditions or laws.

In the legal arena, yes I agree with you. Unless, however, the definition violates some other more basic principle of law, and the definition must be changed to bring it into conformity with the rest of the law. This is the case with "marriage" in our law today. The idea that the government will only award certain contracts, between certain citizens, based on the LDS Church's beliefs about what is sinful but not the Episcopelian or Unitarian Church's beliefs, violates separation of church and state. It also violates privacy, since it puts the government in the embarrassing and absurd position of having to determine a person's gender. (What if a gay woman says she is really a man? What are you going to do, have some bureaucrat look under her skirt? And what about people who are mixed gender or mixed chromosome?) It also violates the federal Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex.

The U.S. government's position on what contracts are recognized is not determined by or based on the LDS Church.

The definition of marriage itself does not violate any more basic principle of law. Marriage understood as cross gender has been the standard meaning for thousands of years across cultures. That a state would adopt that standard meaning is neither remarkable or surprising. If one wishes to change, amend or add to that meaning, it should be done via the democratic process.

Marriage isn't about privacy. Marriage is a public declaration guaranteed by the state.

 

[Orontes]

So why is it that you and/or the LDS Church do not oppose preaching against the LDS Church, since you would not want to "demonize those who disagree", and yet you oppose a same-sex Episcopelian, atheist, Wiccan, Unitarian, etc. couple getting married? If you do not see it as a sin, what is your reason for opposing it?

I, and I think Mormons in general, do not oppose "preaching against the LDS Church" because the U.S. is a free country. Those who dislike or hate Mormons should be able to say their piece. The free exchange of ideas is a good thing.

I am not interested in the religious beliefs (or the lack thereof) of people seeking same sex marriage. I do not think the state should endorse or sanction sexual fetishes or addictions.

 

[Orontes]

It's quite easy to show subjects photos of the same sex or the opposite sex and monitor involuntary responses such as the dilation of the eyes, blood pressure, and other signs of arousal. No one "chooses" to dilate their pupil slightly when they see a sexually pleasing image. This is old news as far as experimental biological psychology is concerned, I took a course in college we learned all about it.

It is quite easy to show the same of a person with a shoe fetish. Motor responses can and are impacted by behavior.

 

[Orontes]

By the way, I forgot to mention:



But if the state is going to be involved in marriage at all, you don't want it to be neutral. You oppose gay marriage and you were active in the Prop 8 campaign. Hardly neutral. The state of California was neutral before Prop 8 passed, when it left decisions about whom to marry to grown adults. Again, I'm seeing the curious logic that if other people are free to choose something you don't like, then they are imposing something on you.

California was not neutral before the passing of Prop. 8. Previously, the people had passed Prop. 22 that clarified the meaning of recognized marriage which itself was connected to even earlier language the state has adopted in qualifying what constituted recognized marriage.


There is no curious logic. If I don't think the state should endorse of promote sexual fetishes, then it is hardly surprising or illogical I would work against the Courts attempts to impose such on the body politic. State endorsement of same sex marriage is a direct imposition as the state from that point becomes a proponent.

 

[Smoke]

If I don't think the state should endorse of promote sexual fetishes, then it is hardly surprising or illogical I would work against the Courts attempts to impose such on the body politic. State endorsement of same sex marriage is a direct imposition as the state from that point becomes a proponent.

Then you no doubt oppose state recognition of any marriage. After all, the state should not endorse the heterosexual fetish, either.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

California was not neutral before the passing of Prop. 8. Previously, the people had passed Prop. 22 that clarified the meaning of recognized marriage which itself was connected to even earlier language the state has adopted in qualifying what constituted recognized marriage.

The people had also passed the California State Constitution, qualifying what constituted a valid amendment, something that Prop. 22 failed to meet. I thought you believed in majortiarianism.

There is no curious logic. If I don't think the state should endorse of promote sexual fetishes, then it is hardly surprising or illogical I would work against the Courts attempts to impose such on the body politic. State endorsement of same sex marriage is a direct imposition as the state from that point becomes a proponent.

Homosexuality is no more a "sexual fetish" than heterosexuality is, but regardless, why do you apparently assume that with same-sex marriage, it's what you deem a "fetish" that the state is endorsing and not, say, the right of children in same-sex-parented families to have normal legal protections?

 

[Mr Cheese]

The APA's change on homosexuality was political not scientific.



.

Let me guess...you'd like to see homosexuality classed as a disease, syndrome or disorder.....

:sarcastic big surprise there

 

[Mr Cheese]

I don't think anyone gay should be forced to be something other. I do think those who want help to embrace another way should be able to get that help. I think there should be a large open space for sexual conduct that is free from the state. I do not believe the state should endorse gay marriage.

So you agree that the state should be allowed to discriminate based upon genital types?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think there should be a large open space for sexual conduct that is free from the state.

As an aside, this reminds me of a sci-fi short story I read years ago, but I can't remember its title or author.

In the future, the car was obsolete, so they turned all the freeways into "free parks": long, linear parks where everything was permitted except violence (if you tried to commit a violent act, a sentry hover-bot would stun you, and you'd be free to go again once you woke up).

You didn't necessarily have to engage in sexual conduct in these free parks, but IIRC a lot of people did.

 

[Mr Cheese]

As an aside, this reminds me of a sci-fi short story I read years ago, but I can't remember its title or author.

.

Ever read Theodore Sturgeon's Venus Plus X?

http://www.amazon.com/Venus-Plus-X-...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266007817&sr=8-1

In Venus Plus X, Charlie Johns, a 20th-century man, awakes in a future in which hunger, overpopulation, bigotry, and war have been eliminated--and gender has vanished. Everything humanity knows about its divided nature is no longer true--and perhaps never was.


Theodore Sturgeon and Philip Jose Farmer were among the first SF writers to deal with sexuality in an open, adult manner. Sturgeon's approach was further distinguished by his uncommon awareness of sexual diversity and his passionate belief in the healing power of love. His story, "The World Well Lost" (1953), was the first SF work to present homosexuality sympathetically, and Venus Plus X (1960) was among the earliest SF works to explore and challenge gender-role stereotypes, and surely the first to do so with a vision of a single-sex, androgynous human race. --Cynthia Ward

 

[AxisMundi]

My point was that the Modern rhetoric on homosexuality is anachronistic. The claims find no corollaries in the past. This is a problem if one wants to argue homosexuality is inherent over and above the failure to find a gay gene.

Do you feel the same about all other claimants for marriage status/recognition?

The APA's change on homosexuality was political not scientific.

There is nothing in my post that concludes an uncommon thing therefore should be discriminated against.

Note: if you want to engage me, you need to move beyond all the invective. It simply demonstrates a lack of maturity. You a pro-gay marriage. I am not. If you want to discuss the difference of ideas control the venom and simply discuss.

1. Again, past definitions don't matter one whit. At one time in this nation, within my memory, a black man could not marry a white women. THAT definition was changed because it discriminated and there was simply no valid, secular reason for that discrimination.

Humanity has evolved. As we have evolved, we ahve developed no investigation tools and techniques to explain ourselves and our universe. Societies evolve too, embracing new concepts as facts arise to displace the old, outmoded mentalities.

2. Why do you feel it necessary to cloud the issue? We speak of two consenting adults who Love one another and wish to partake in the same legal institution as the rest of us. Apparently even you realize, if only subconsciously, that your argument died at the starting gate. Now it's just a matter of getting out the tractor and dragging the carcass off the race track.

3. No, the APA changed it's stance due to the inclusion of clinical research. The claim that it was political in nature is purely fraudulent. BTW, the APA was founded in 1892. Homosexuality wasn't added until 1953 and was removed in 1973.

Do the math.

4. As soon as you man up and use actual science and logic, as opposed to out-of-date propaganda, non sequiturs, ad homonyms, and just about every other logical fallacy there is, then perhaps we can discuss the terms.

Until then, your bigotry is simply unsubstituted, and your arguments failed before you hit the enter key.

Serious questions.

1. How does "gay" marriage effect you, personally, in the least?
2. How does "gay" marriage effect the definition of YOUR marriage, if you are or plan to be.

 

[no-body]

I don't think anyone gay should be forced to be something other. I do think those who want help to embrace another way should be able to get that help.

I have no qualms with a fully consenting adult that joins the LDS that wishes to "change" however misguided they are.

The main problem I see with "curing" homosexuals is with children. When your choice is to take one of these courses or be kicked out on the street because your family and church don't accept you that's wrong. It's religious sanctioned child abuse.

I think there should be a large open space for sexual conduct that is free from the state. I do not believe the state should endorse gay marriage.

What does one have to do with the other? You make the assumption like in the link that gay sex is damaging in some way. That is beyond scary, if I used unfeeling reason and biased logic I could make all heterosexual sex seem wrong too.

 

[Smoke]

That is beyond scary, if I used unfeeling reason and biased logic I could make all heterosexual sex seem wrong too.

He doesn't use biased logic; he uses no logic.

If the desire of a man for a man is a fetish, then the desire of a woman for a man is a fetish.
If the desire of a woman for a woman is a fetish, the desire of a man for a woman is a fetish.
There is no reason for the state to sanction one "fetish" and not another.

The only way we need marriage to reproduce is if there's something about a marriage license that causes non-functioning reproductive organs to start functioning.

If, on the other hand, marriage is partly for the protection -- as opposed to the mere production -- of children, the children being brought up by gay couples should have the same protections as the children being brought up by straight couples.

Nobody in his right mind believes that it is always possible for children to be brought up by their biological parents. Nobody in his right mind believes that it is always best for children to be brought up by their biological parents even when it is possible. Nobody in his right mind believes that penalizing children who are not being brought up by two biological parents benefits those who are.

If marriage is not solely about children -- that is, if we allow people to marry regardless of whether they are able and willing to reproduce -- then whatever reasons an opposite-sex couple may have for marrying are equally valid for a same-sex couple.

There is simply no logical, secular reason whatsoever for prohibiting same-sex marriage. Bigots like to see their bigotry validated by the law; that's all this about, and that's all it ever has been about.