iwpoe wrote:

Well, I take it that Etz means 'pleasure improperly taken as an end in itself: an entire ethic and lifestyle founded on pleasure for pleasure's own sake.'

That was the idea that I took disagreement with: is that homosexual, provided that they genuinely do wish to "marry", are necessarily aiming at mere pleasure.

Would it be controversial to say that human beings discern the good in a confused and disordered way in general, so that it would make perfect sense that some homosexuals to discern the good of marriage and think that this good can be realized in a same-sex union? 

I think something parallel took place among the Greeks.  They placed a much higher value on friendship than we moderns do.  And it isn't because friendship is less good for us than them, but they did a much better job in being AWARE of this goodness, and thus you see them praising friendship everywhere.  Plato has a dialogue aboun friendship, but he doesn't have one about marriage.  Aristotle devotes two of ten books in the Nicomachean Ethics to friendship, but treats marriage as lesser kind of friendship for direct flourishing, but one which is necessary in other respects.  

I have two points.  The first is, since the Greeks thought so highly of friendship, why would we be surprised that some of the Greeks wanted to say "friendship is a great good, and sexual pleasure is a great good, so wouldn't the best thing be Friendship + Sex? " ?   We may want to say, "No, no, if you sexualize your friendship, you  won't make it better, but will destroy it in essence."  And we would be right.  But it isn't necessarily easy to see that that is true.  Fortunately, Plato pointed it out clearly enough.   Once you accept the proposition "sexual pleasure is a great good", there doesn't seem to be any in principle reason not to attempt to COMBINE this great good with some other great good to make something even better.

Oddly enough, the same-sex marriage argument is "sexual pleasure is a great good" and "marriage is a great good" and so it wants to combine the two.  This is ironic, because marriage is where the good of sexual pleasure legitimately lives, so to speak.  

A same sex couple is not wrong in discerning that sexual union lies at the heart of marriage, and they think that what they do constitutes a sexual union.  WHY WOULDN'T IT BE ABLE TO FORM THE BASIS FOR MARRIAGE?

You'd have to say "That is not a sexual union."  

It isn't? Why not?  "What you are doing is not the marital act.  In cannot do what you want it do, really unite you."

Yes, it is, and yes it can.  It is sex.  We are having sex.  "No, the marital act is not a species of the genus 'sex'.  The word 'sex' means male or female, and THEN came to mean 'the characteristic act that a male and a female do' and THEN came to mean 'any kind of genital activity whatever,' so what you are doing is something ontologically different from the marital act.

The very fact that all genital (I want to say 'sexual') acts are subsumed under the pseudo-genus "sex," is a disaster.  One you admit that the marital act is just one kind of sex among many, many others, you cannot talk sensibly about it.  It seems at least prima facie plausible to maintain that "sex" does not exist; that is to say, it is an artifical or nominal genus, rather than a natural one.  

Let me ask the group: Are all pleasurable genital acts, and especially the marital act, species of the genus sex? Does sex (the activity, not male and female) name a natural kind of activites which are all properly called sex, perhaps in the way the that the genus animal includes man.  Should we be arguing that there is a "right kind of sex" or should we be arguing that there is no natural genus "sex" and try to learn to speak differently about the marital act vis a vis all other 'sexual' acts?

Last edited by Jason Grey (7/24/2015 11:23 pm)

joewaked wrote:

I need some help on this.   I'm hearing the question, "Why does this ruling bother you so much; How does SSM even affect you?"   Seems to me to be a mind-your-own-business statement posed as a question.   But I really would like to provide a response on how the ruling and the matter of SSM actually does affect us.  But I'm struggling to articulate a logical coherent response.

 
As members of society we have a moral duty to try and perfect our surroundings to the best of our abilities (see Leviticus 19:17).

joewaked wrote:

I need some help on this. I'm hearing the question, "Why does this ruling bother you so much; How does SSM even affect you?" Seems to me to be a mind-your-own-business statement posed as a question. But I really would like to provide a response on how the ruling and the matter of SSM actually does affect us. But I'm struggling to articulate a logical coherent response.

The whole idea they're operating on: that I'm entitled to a sphere of moral privacy that you have nothing to say about is backwards from the start. If consistent, it would amount to something like the claim that 'moral judgment is *only* personal' or else it would end up being some kind of ad hoc principal about where we can express a moral judgement. In essence it's merely a matter of polite manners, not a serious bit of moral thought.

At any rate it's simple enough to point out that no one alive is the proper victim of a murder or that petty theft rarely affects more than the thief, the victim, and the victim's immediate associates to illustrate that moral judgement isn't properly limited to just those things that "affect you". Moral judgments are for all people, are universal. They are not private judgments about personal taste or practical convenience.

These people know this because they aren't moral skeptics: they think that people *who aren't them* should have the positive right to a state recognized marriage. It's simple enough to ask, if they aren't homosexual wanting to get married, 'How does it affect *you*? If they don't have some kind of personal connection to the idea, then they'll generally immediately turn to talk about how 'It's right that they be able to do X, Y, or Z.' and you are back to properly moral reasoning. If they to have a personal story (a gay brother, for instance), then you ask them why their personal connection actually merits a legal change or whatever they want, to which they must, eventually, turn again to proper moral reasoning.

Last edited by iwpoe (7/26/2015 5:16 am)

Well, we need such laws against gay marriage because eventually my brother or sister might be tempted into it, even though it is a manifest wrong. The point would be that it is bad for people in some respect. If you don't actually believe that gay marriage is improper in some respects, then there's no point in you debating against these people.

Last edited by iwpoe (7/26/2015 8:43 pm)

iwpoe wrote:

Well, we need such laws against gay marriage because eventually my brother or sister might be tempted into it, even though it is a manifest wrong.

This is where people get choleric and start posting in all caps "BEING GAY ISN'T A CHOICE DUMMY!"