Gay Marriage

Now, onto the issue at hand. I gave a rough reductio ad absurdam argument against Pythasis position (which as far as I can tell is that "Humans ought to approve of gay marriage"). This argument I think shows that if gay marriage is approved by reason, three things happen logically: we cannot rationally say 1. what a human is, 2. what marriage is, and 3. what is moral and immoral (right and wrong, what we ought and ought not do). This would undercut Pythasis" position, because if we cannot say what a human is, what marriage is, and what morality is, then we cannot rationally say "humans ought to approve of gay marriage. " Thus, Pythasis" position is self-contradictory. Against my expectations, Pythasis actually agreed(! ) with me. He said that "morality"is"something I believe to ultimately be subjective. " He also said that "love" (one of the criteria for marriage he gives) has no real meaning, which would give marriage no real meaning. Finally, he actually says that human nature is subjective in his first post. I don"t think that Pro realizes this, but given these positions of his, he cannot logically disagree with anyone about literally anything. If someone were to say "gay people do not have human rights since they are not people," then to disagree with them rationally Pythasis would have to say "that"s not true"gay people meet this objective standard of humanity, so they are human. " If he said simply, "gay people meet my subjective standard of humanity," then the other person could just say, "well, gay people don"t meet my subjective standard of humanity," and Pythasis would have no objective standard by which to prove his opponent wrong. Similarly, if Pythasis told someone "we ought to have gay marriage according to my subjective standard of morality," then someone (such as me) could just respond "we ought not have gay marriage according to my subjective standard of morality," and again Pro would have nothing to rationally say. Thus, if we get rid of objective standards of morality and humanity, then we are left with nothing but private opinions to bicker over pointlessly. This is clearest when Pythasis gives an (apparently subjective) opinion of what marriage is. He says, "I think that if two people are in love (whatever "love" is to you or to me), have sexual feelings for each other (at least in the case of those who are not asexual, which is a debate for another time) and devote themselves to each other over all others (perhaps save for relatives), it would be hard to tell them they aren't married if they went through a marriage ceremony, regardless of genders. " What is love? Pythasis has no objective definition of it. Why should sexual feeling be required for marriage? Pythasis can"t give a reason (since morality is subjective). Why do you have to be devoted to someone, whatever that means? (And how would we measure any of this in court"do we just take their word for it? ) Obviously, in Pro"s opinion, marriage is just subjective. There can be no objective reason, then, why I couldn"t have a different definition of marriage. This would end up making marriage one of those "if you say so" type of things, which would do away with all the worth we associate with marriage. (And this, by the way, would harm all "traditional marriages. ") I argued that if gay marriage is accepted, we would logically give up the only possible objective ground for marriage, morality, and humanity"what humans are objectively "supposed to be," which implies a moral standard they are objectively supposed to live up to. Pythasis" argumentation has done just that in fact. The only argumentation he really gives is about homosexuality, which was not the topic of this debate (gay marriage is), and even this argumentation is all subjective. Moreover, he uses the very same naturalistic fallacy he says he opposes (since men have homosexual desire, this makes acting on homosexual desire right). I see no reason to support gay marriage from Pythasis" arguments, and many dire consequences for going along with his opinions. Here is a critique of hypothetical bases of marriage I created for my first post which I could not fit in. I feel that it is still relevant now, though. (The quotes are of hypothetical positions, not of Pythasis. ) Now, what makes marriage objectively possible? Pro might say it is "love. " What does that mean? If pro says that love is "whatever you want it to be," or "no one has any right to say what love is," then he removes any possible objective nature love might have had. If love is not an objective criterion, but is the criterion on which marriage is based, then the criterion of what marriage is would be subjective only, which would be going against postulate 6. Thus, pro either has to (a) do away with love as the criterion that marriage is possible (he must say "just because two people are in love doesn"t mean they can get married"), or he must (b) define the love upon which marriage is based somehow (in which case he would have to say "some kinds of love can make marriage possible, but not others"). In the case of (b), love wouldn"t end up being the defining feature anyway: whatever defined what type of love was the basis for marriage would be another defining feature that would make marriage objectively (thus love wouldn"t be the criterion makes marriage objectively possible). Both these options end up with the fact that love is not the basis of marriage, so saying "these two men are in love with each other" is not sufficient to prove objectively that they can get "married. " If we were to add romance to "love" and get romantic love as the objective basis of marriage (romantic love is all that is necessary for marriage to be possible), I think that would be insufficient also. "Romantic" in the sense of emotion is unabashedly subjective, in that no two people feel "romantic" in the same way. If we were to say that romance is all that is necessary for marriage, we would have no truly objective criterion for marriage. This would contradict postulate 6. There would be no way for me to tell if two people were "really" romantic toward each other, and hence no way to tell if two people are "really" capable of marrying. If we say that "they just look in love" we might be deceived (they could just want the pride associated with marriage or something); if we say "Everyone who acts in love should be able to get married" then we would have to exclude people from marriage who don"t "look in love" enough. Something else is needed to make marriage objectively possible and hence romantic love does not make marriage possible objectively. Pro might also say that "consent" is the basis for marriage. However, even if I grant him that consent is necessary for marriage, this does not show that it is sufficient for marriage. All sorts of things are consensual (like business relationships) yet we would not say that all these are marriages, obviously. Thus, consent alone cannot be the objective basis for marriage, but something must be consented to which would be the basis of marriage. Could living together be the criterion of marriage? "If we consent to live together, then we are married. " This seems ridiculous. Roommates are not married, and they consent to live together. Also, a couple who do not live together at the same time most of the time can still be married. Thus, living together cannot define a marriage either. How about "mutual support? " This doesn"t seem plausible either. You can support someone (in the sense of giving them encouragement and such) without being married to them (and don"t come in here with hospital visitation rights stuff; marriage existed long before hospital visitation rights did). (This is where I would have tied in my support for the standard I give. )