Here's a non-religious John Derbyshire's non-religious case against same-sex marriage. Excerpt:
(2)The social recognition of committed heterosexual bonding has been a constant for thousands of years. No-one of a conservative inclination wants to mess lightly with that. Counter-arguments like "so was slavery" are unconvincing, as the occasional slights suffered by homosexual couples are microscopic by comparison with the injustice of human beings buying and selling other human beings. Gay marriage proponents make much of the cruelty and injustices of the past. I must say, though, being old enough to remember some of that past, I am unimpressed. I was in college in the early 1960s. There were homosexual students, and nobody minded them. They seemed perfectly happy. Certainly they were not "beaten and brutalized"; and if they had been, I assume the ordinary laws of assault and battery would have come into play. I can recall even further back, known homosexual couples keeping house together in my provincial English home town in the 1950s. People made jokes about it, but nobody bothered them -- though sodomy was illegal in England at the time! I don't think private consensual acts should be illegal; but that aside, I don't see much wrong with the mid-20th-century dispensation, based as it was on the great and splendid Anglo-Saxon principle of minding your own business.(3) There really is a slippery slope here. Once marriage has been redefined to include homosexual pairings, what grounds will there be to oppose futher redefinition -- to encompass people who want to marry their ponies, their sisters, or their soccer team? Are all private contractual relations for cohabitation to be rendered equal, or are some to be privileged over others, as has been customary in all times and places? If the latter, what is wrong with heterosexual pairing as the privileged status, sanctified as it is by custom and popular feeling?
Derb goes on to make the Burkean point that the evidence from history that homosexuality has rarely been normative in society, and the inconvenient truth that human nature is not infinitely malleable, should make all prudent people very reluctant to overturn a concept of marriage that has undergirded our civilization for ages.
You may disagree with Derb, but please don't insist that the only reason to oppose same-sex marriage is theological.
(Via Andrew Sullivan, who highlights dissenting responses)
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“I think there are plenty of secular arguments for same-sex marriage. As I said before, I don't think you would be poking holes in the basic premises underlying these arguments.”
If I thought this way, I’d also believe calling homosexual love unions marriage is a good idea. I don’t.
“If Derbyshire's argument were a good one, there wouldn't be all these questions about his underlying premises.”
People questioned Galileo. They were wrong.
“I mean, come on, concern for the "lower orders" isn't even conservative.”
What does being “conservative” have to do with it? Who said I was “conservative”?
“I thought I was the liberal in this argument, but here you're talking about knowing what's good for people better than they do.”
Of course. That’s what ideals are for. They teach people what is good for them. So what?
“My whole point was the paternalism is inherently anti-conservative.”
Who cares about being “conservative”?
“And what of this concept of person freedom?”
Depends on what you mean by freedom.
Merle,
Actually, the Church questioned Galileo's conclusions. And not to smear him, but he courted controversy. He was a highly paid lecturer at the University of Padua (outside Church control) when he decided to return to Florence (within Church control). The Church didn't question Galileo's observations, just the conclusions he drew from them.
With Derbyshire, his actual premises (since they're not really observations) are being questioned.
So, yes, they questioned Galileo. They also questioned Pons and Fleishman. Cold fusion turned out to be wrong. Those who questioned Pons and Fleishman were right.
It's irrelevant that Galileo was questioned, unless you want to demonstrate that Derbyshire is like a Galileo. No one's persecuting him. He hasn't been placed under house arrest and forbidden from communicating. You agree with his conclusion, but I suspect his reasoning had nothing to do with it.
“You agree with his conclusion, but I suspect his reasoning had nothing to do with it.”
Naw, His reasons are just fine. Although as I said, there are even better reasons than his for opposing homosexual “marriage”.
I do understand the distinction you made with Galileo, though. Your right, my bad.
In any case, this thread is dead.
Merle,
No. Derbyshire's premises were shoddy.
His first point was "the majority has rights too." Yeah? So? How do we apply that?
I like liver and onions, a dish that the majority of people (my husband included) think disgusting. Since most people find it disgusting, should it be legal to forbid me from eating it? Don't people have a right to not see me eating liver and onions? (And I do eat it in public, since I only get it when I go to a diner that serves liver and onions.)
Well, of course, the majority has no right to influence what's on my dinner plate. Likewise, even if my relationship may offend some people, their indignation does not mean they have been deprived of any rights. Certainly, my rights to individual freedom override their indignation.
I could do this with every one of Derbyshire's points.
Derbyshire did not make a secular case against same-sex marriage. To do so would require him to start with premises that weren't already faulty.
If I said that you could not do something because "the great god Thor forbids it," you would look at me and (rightly) say, "that's just nonsense." While Derbyshire did not cite any Norse gods, his premises are equally nonsensical.
snoozer: "You're saying that the institution was corrupt and immoral because it didn't include you"
i've rad a lot of anti-ssm comments, but this belongs in the "anti-ssm museum place of the interblogs".
among all the elaborate pros, cons, ups, down, sly, and snide tangents on this discussion, i still think the principle of occam's razor will guide marriage to be inclusive and under one name.
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