Incest and polygamy (which, again, are not sexual orientations anymore than being attracted to violent people or enjoying threesomes are) have clear reasons for oppositions outside of "well I don't like it and God doesn't like it," whether it be genetic risks or exploitation of women (although I wouldn't be surprised to see a push for legal polygamy sometime in the future).
Is the gene pool that much at risk if whatever extreme minority of people decide to mate with their siblings? Genes only come into it when it's a small community remarrying only within the small population for many many years. Polygamy is no more exploitation of women than regular marriage is, it's just that the same man is marrying more than one woman, instead of two men. Polyandry is a woman with more than one husband, would you oppose that for "exploitation" of men?
These are sexual choices with almost no repercussions. Homosexuality is far riskier than either of these: The rate of new HIV diagnoses among gay men (technically "men who have sex with men") is more than 4400% that of other men, and men who have sex with men are the only risk group in which new HIV infections are increasing. Citation:
[PDF]And, again, this extends to illegal acts. Same-sex marriage doesn't threaten national security, risk the lives of people on the road, or support an illegal drug trade.
Doing drugs wouldn't support an illegal drug trade if the drugs were legal. I'm assuming we wouldn't legalize the drug without legalizing the means to access the drug.
But anyway my point was that there are reasons these things are illegal, good or not. There are REASONS gay marriage is illegal, it's just a matter of whether or not you think they're good ones. Saying it won't hurt anybody is a good start, but there are other things that are illegal that are similarly victimless crimes, so there has to be some reason you think gay marriage should be legalized, and not polyandry or jaywalking or whatever.
The spectrum thing is true (though from what I understand it's more common with women), but you're still discriminating against people on the "wrong" end of the spectrum. If it's so ambiguous if someone is gay or straight, then there's no justification for an unambiguous law that claims that straight marriages are valid and gay marriages are invalid.
One could say that marriage is strictly defined as one man, one woman. You can marry regardless of your sexual preferences, it just has to be one man, and one woman. A man and another man could live together, love each other, have sex with each other, even raise a family together, and that would be wonderful...it just wouldn't be marriage, because "marriage" is one man, one woman. It's nothing against gay people, they can get married too, they just have to marry a woman if they're a man.
You can get united legally (in a lot of states), it's just not a marriage, because it's not one man, one woman.
Political (and religious) views are a completely different story. Someone's views could change because of a persuasive speaker or because of a life-changing event. There isn't a counterpart to this with human sexuality. There's no argument to be made for or against attraction to a certain gender.
There certainly is an argument to be made. Women are nicer, they're better communicators, they're less aggressive. Men are more masculine, stronger, and better problem-solvers.
Or more likely, a person who is completely bisexual is approached by a handsome, funny, and intelligent man. The next night, the same person is approached by a gorgeous, interesting, smart girl.
One night that person is interested in a man, the next a woman.
Perhaps some time later this person is brutally raped by a man. Months afterwards, the handsome man and the gorgeous girl approach the person at the same time. Might the person have been swayed away from men? I think so.
Persuasion is persuasion.
Also, keeping same-sex marriage illegal somewhat promotes heterosexual marriages. I have no idea how effectively.
The enormous divorce rate seems to suggest that it's incredibly ineffective.
Are the people getting divorced turning to gay marriages? The divorce rate has nothing to do with that. Keeping same-sex marriage illegal promotes heterosexual marriages because people who could marry either gender by sexual preference can't do so by law, and so they are incentivized to marry heterosexually, if they marry at all. Also, social norms push people towards heterosexual behavior, which is probably an even greater force for heterosexual marriage than the law.
I keep pointing out that a tyranny of the majority is only possible in a pure democracy, my constant use of the term tyranny of the majority is to argue against people who think it's not the judges place to overturn a law brought in by popular vote.
Was anyone opposing you on that?
Yes and in their arguments of "will of the people" and their bizarre thought process implying that america is a direct democracy means that they tried to impose mob rule.
They may have done their civic duty, the idea of mob rule doesn't decry the mob, it decries the system that would allow it to happen.
The system they seem to believe exists, but doesn't.
So you're arguing against a system that you're also arguing doesn't exist.
In my first post in this topic, when I mentioned that a majority of people don't want to let people get married, I didn't mean that because if this, it can't happen. I'm saying maybe it shouldn't, because a majority of people don't want it to happen.
I'm not saying that direct democracy is a good idea. I wasn't talking about that at all. I was saying that it's not some overrepresented minority or a group of crazies who want to keep the gays down. It's a majority of Californians, and it's a majority of Americans. Everyone would get along a lot better if we got through the personal biases that make everyone think they're in the majority on every issue. You can be in the minority and still be right.
Oh very much off the mark, there is plenty of evidence that homosexual behaviour is not simply an act but a hardwired sexuality, polygamy is not a sexuality and is almost entirely a cultural or religious practice, they're completely different.
I agree that homosexuality is not just an act, but neither is polygamy. The preference for multiple partners can be hardwired or socially adapted, just as homosexuality can be.
