(Im)mutability of Same Gender Attraction

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

They didn't, and Athenian democracy also had a lot to be desired. The also Greeks owned slaves. My point is that contrary to your theological argument, "traditional" marriage has taken different forms in differnt epochs and places. It's an evolving institution. No fault divorce has as much historical precedent as gay marriage. Your reasoning could be employed to support slavery.

You misread my post because you wished to distort it.

In the annals of history, marriage has been between persons of the opposite sex, sometimes monogamously and sometimes polygamously.

Now, gays have grown up with the cultural expectations of straights, so some may wish for that stamp of emotional legitimacy that society somehow foolishly places upon marriage.

But my belief is that it is mostly a tax and benefits movement because they can have everything else. So why, if one is non-traditional, desire something that comes from orthodoxy?

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Your reasoning could be employed to support slavery.

But it isn't being so used, as you know. As you point out, this is a vlaue question. How one lives one's life is not involved, apart from whether or not one's union is called a marriage. (I relaize that advocates on both sides of the issue believe the issue relates to more but, in point of fact, the prop 8 question realtes only to what the union is called; the rest will get worked out later or is not even at issue, as no one has asked for roll backs of domestic partner beneifts, etc.) In my mind, a same gender relationship simply cannot be a marriage as it is not sanctioned by God. THat distinction is meaningless to you. This problem is why I personally feel all marriages should be religious and all unions should be civil, as I have said elsewhwere, but that is not the structure we now have.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

See my most recent post above.

I did; it still walks and talks like a concession, don't you agree?

[UtahDan]

I have already said that I don't really oppose gay marriage (I'm not a big advocate either) but I think that the mutability/immutability question is a red herring. I want to test the premise that it matters.

The question is whether or not a government wants to sanction and promote a certain kind of relationship because either it is (1) a public good or (2) because it is viewed as an individual right regardless of whether it produces a good. Why does the question of whether one has any choice about desiring that relationship matter?

Human beings come with a variety of desires and there is huge variation in who gets what. We cultivate some of them and repress others. No one argues that is a public good that all desires be acted upon free from consequence, nor that an individual right that society should recognize attaches to every desire. A desire to give to charity is is one society promotes, whether or not everyone has that desire or can chose to have it or not have it. A desire to light things on fire is a desire that we discourage stongly, regardless of whether one's pyromania is mutable or immutable. One is a public good and one is a public bad.

Similarly, we recognize the right to be secure in our personal effects and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, notwithstanding the fact that society as a whole may, at times, suffer in the name of protecting the right of an individual. Of course it makes no difference at all whether I can be trained to not desire this personal liberty or whether it is innate in me or anyone to want it in the first place. We recognize this as a liberty people should get whether they want it or not.

So to me the question is twofold with respect to gay marriage: (1) does it produce a public good that government should promote and/or (2) is it an individual liberty that government ought to protect regardless of whether or not it produces a good (though it may). I don't see where mutability or immutability fits into the analysis of either of those two points either for or against. Maybe that is not the point that is being made by AA, he may just be asking the question in the academic sense. I'm just suggesting that knowing the answer doesn't advance that analysis of whether it should be permitted or not in either direction.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

ISo to me the question is twofold with respect to gay marriage: (2) is it an individual liberty that government ought to protect regardless of whether or not it produces a good (though it may). I don't see where mutability or immutability fits into the analysis of either of those two points either for or against.

You need to read some Supreme Court cases on civil rights.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

You need to read some Supreme Court cases on civil rights.

By the way, it makes sense to me why Mormons want to take the immutability factor out of the equation. This both trivializes marriage and removes the moral dimension out of the gay marriage debate.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

Why does the question of whether one has any choice about desiring that relationship matter?

Human beings come with a variety of desires and there is huge variation in who gets what. We cultivate some of them and repress others.

This is the same argument I was going to make, but vis-a-vis the LDS faith rather than society and the civil issue of gay marriage.

Mutability is an interesting discussion, but in the end is quite irrelevant to the religious issue of chastity. Myriad are the scriptures that charge us to "deny [our]selves of ungodliness" and to "put off the natural man." This suggests that man does possess desires, passions, and inclinations toward ungodly behavior. If an individual is burdened with this particular temptation, mutable or no, it is incumbent upon him to abstain from acting out on it, much as it is incumbent on us to resist any temptation to wickedness.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

You need to read some Supreme Court cases on civil rights.

Speaking of which, have you ever read the pertinenbt CA S Ct. opinion? The paucity of factual support in the record is rather surprising, to me, as was the very weak advocacy of those supposedly arguing on behalf of the sate's then current law.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

I have already said that I don't really oppose gay marriage (I'm not a big advocate either) but I think that the mutability/immutability question is a red herring. I want to test the premise that it matters.

The question is whether or not a government wants to sanction and promote a certain kind of relationship because either it is (1) a public good or (2) because it is viewed as an individual right regardless of whether it produces a good. Why does the question of whether one has any choice about desiring that relationship matter?

Human beings come with a variety of desires and there is huge variation in who gets what. We cultivate some of them and repress others. No one argues that is a public good that all desires be acted upon free from consequence, nor that an individual right that society should recognize attaches to every desire. A desire to give to charity is is one society promotes, whether or not everyone has that desire or can chose to have it or not have it. A desire to light things on fire is a desire that we discourage stongly, regardless of whether one's pyromania is mutable or immutable. One is a public good and one is a public bad.

Similarly, we recognize the right to be secure in our personal effects and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, notwithstanding the fact that society as a whole may, at times, suffer in the name of protecting the right of an individual. Of course it makes no difference at all whether I can be trained to not desire this personal liberty or whether it is innate in me or anyone to want it in the first place. We recognize this as a liberty people should get whether they want it or not.

So to me the question is twofold with respect to gay marriage: (1) does it produce a public good that government should promote and/or (2) is it an individual liberty that government ought to protect regardless of whether or not it produces a good (though it may). I don't see where mutability or immutability fits into the analysis of either of those two points either for or against. Maybe that is not the point that is being made by AA, he may just be asking the question in the academic sense. I'm just suggesting that knowing the answer doesn't advance that analysis of whether it should be permitted or not in either direction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspect_classification

See factor no. 1.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by creekster

Speaking of which, have you ever read the pertinenbt CA S Ct. opinion? The paucity of factual support in the record is rather surprising, to me, as was the very weak advocacy of those supposedly arguing on behalf of the sate's then current law.

Really, the only relevant fact is immutablility. I'll concede the whole debate the day they prove being gay is a choice.