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"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
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Matt Barrow wrote:

And the Greeks, Romans, Eastern Indians (all atheist or non-religious)
that
had such laws long before Christianity, they...hmmm

These people all had religious beliefs.

Not in the sense that CJ was using the term.

You presume a lot if you are trying to tell me what I think. Yes, these
people had religious beliefs in the sense that I was using the term.

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
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Matt Barrow wrote:

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
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These people all had religious beliefs.

Not in the sense that CJ was using the term.

I disagree. C.J. has consistently argued that freedom of religion is right
and
proper. That implies a recognition that worship of gods other than the
Judaen/Christian tradition are religions. Perhaps he draws the line at the
Hindu
pantheon, but he has not implied that he feels that way, AFAIK.

I do not draw the line there.

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
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"C J Campbell" wrote in message
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If you get right down to it, the only arguments against murder or theft
are
basically religious.

Hardly. A peaceful society requires that members of that society be safe
and that their property remains safe. If murder and theft are allowed,
the
outcome is assured: rampant violence, and an enormous waste as everyone
invests most of their resources trying to take what the other members of
society have, including their lives.

You don't need religion to justify rules against murder or theft.

No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
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C J Campbell wrote:

If you get right down to it, the only arguments against murder or theft
are
basically religious.

Well, if you kill a man, he won't be paying income taxes anymore. There
may even be
some drain on the state funds to support his dependents in some fashion.
And if
thieves take much of his property, he may be unable to pay his taxes. It
also
encourages theft, and the government hates competition.

Either has adverse effects on the health of society, and, like any good
parasite
(symbiotic or not), government has a vested interest in keeping its host
healthy.

So? There is no cost, either societally or economically, if gay marriages
are legalized?

Besides, why should the government care whether it collects taxes?

"Bob Fry" wrote


Look at a usual electoral map for 2004, say:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:U...lCollege.p ng

And then this map of slave/free states and territories c1860:
http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog10/maps/

Damn near identical areas.

What moral values again? The USA would have been better off to let
the slavers seceed. They've been dragging the country down for
centuries: slavery, bigotry, and financially. And now they're
sticking us with idiots like Bush.

Boy, is that comparison a stretch. I don't see it at all, as a matter of
fact.

Plus you jump all the way to say that the Bush states are better than the
other states. WoW.
--
Jim in NC


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"C J Campbell" wrote in message
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How do you explain why the military voted overwhelmingly for Bush?

The military that makes a living going to war for the US? The military that
would be cut back if there weren't any apparent need for it?

Is this a trick question? You might as well ask why a Detroit auto worker
votes for a presidential candidate who promises to increase import tariffs
on cars.

"AES/newspost" wrote in message
...
[...]
So, I'd really like to know what the non-religious arguments are that
are so strong and so important that many people are pushing us to go all
the way to the extreme measure of a Constitutional amendment, just to
deny people like this the same benefits and rewards (and costs) of
marriage as heterosexual couples enjoy. What are the NONreligious
reasons that justify this very major step?

There aren't any. Allowing gays to marry would harm no one.

That said, from Jay you'll probably "find out" that you can't trust gay
people around children of the same sex. He has a very distorted view of the
consequences of homosexuality, and may very well believe that allowing gays
to marry might hurt someone.

Like you, I'd love to hear any proposed "non-religious argument against gay
marriage". Mainly because all the ones I've heard so far are so stupid,
they make me laugh. And I love a good joke.

Pete

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
So? There is no cost, either societally or economically, if gay marriages
are legalized?

Other than the usual cost of marriage, no. There's nothing special about
gay marriages that make them any worse than any other marriage.

Besides, why should the government care whether it collects taxes?

All depends on the taxpayer, I'd guess.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
No? Why is it important that society be peaceful or safe?

If you don't believe in trying to maximize human happiness, then there's
nothing important about making society peaceful and safe. Maybe you don't
hold that belief.

Fortunately for me, and lots of other people, as humans we agree that being
happy is a good goal, and thus being peaceful and safe is also a good goal.
Very few people are happy when they are not safely at peace with other
humans.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, humanity can progress intellectually,
technologically, and economically fastest if we aren't wasting time trying
to kill each other.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
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"AES/newspost" wrote in message
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[...]
So, I'd really like to know what the non-religious arguments are that
are so strong and so important that many people are pushing us to go all
the way to the extreme measure of a Constitutional amendment, just to
deny people like this the same benefits and rewards (and costs) of
marriage as heterosexual couples enjoy. What are the NONreligious
reasons that justify this very major step?

What are the non-religious reasons to justify allowing homosexual marriage?
Most of those reasons have to do with allowing marital economic benefits. I
suggest that those are a major cost that a lot of people might not be
willing to pay. I also suggest that before we start getting any more
creative with the definition of marriage we might want to consider what
additional demands might be made by other groups. There are fringe groups in
Utah, for example, that want legal recognition of their polygamous
relationships, even though these relationships are typically extremely
abusive and incestuous. Other groups could easily demand the right to marry
children, or to allow children to marry each other.

The Constitutional amendment would never have been needed if a small number
of judges had not decided, on their own and against the wishes of the
general public, to create a right where none had existed before. Now, these
judges are often elected by no one; they are political appointees. They
answer to no one. They simply have decided that no matter what the laws or
the Constitution say, they can simply order anything they want. I happen to
think that this is very dangerous to the rule of law.

You only need to look at how divisive the abortion issue has become in order
to see how allowing judges to decree new law in such major ways can be
harmful. If the abortion issue had been resolved through the political
process, some compromise and consensus might have been reached. Creating a
new right via judicial decree instead polarized the nation, left no room for
compromise, and has resulted in widespread violence, civil disorder, and
disrespect and politicization of the judicial system.

I strongly believe that legalization of homosexual marriage through judicial
fiat could have far-reaching consequences that would make Dredd Scott look
like a minor skirmish. It is not inconceivable that it could lead to civil
war and dissolution of the nation.