Gay marriage in Australia

[Tom Sawyer]

You'd have to define "aberrant" for this statemtn to even begin to make sense. If you want to link it to reproduction: You're way too tolerant. If you want to maintain that the purpose of sex is reproduction, it logically follows that anything other than unprotected penis-in-vagina sex involving a fertile male and a fertile and currently ovulating female of the same species is aberrant. Just because you like to fuck your girlfriend or wife more than once or twice a month until she gets pregnant and then never again for several years but you don't like to fuck another man doesn't make one of them objectively aberrant and the other normal.

I think the percentage of the month that a woman can get pregnant is above 50%.

I think you are bending a simple fact of life (men are evolved to be sexually attracted to women) out of shape and trying to split hairs about fertility windows in a PC attempt to justify social recognition for what is really a fundamentally different and fundamentally more odd behaviour (i.e. men being sexually attracted to men). I don't expect you to agree with that summary but that is the way I see these tortuous justifications.

Can you not accept that men being sexually attracted to men is at least a bit odd?

But what is more odd about it than being attracted to a woman who is in her 50s? You can't use the evolutionary argument as the basis of your position if you split out homosexual attraction from all the other instances where the exact same rationale applies.

 

[Jokodo]

Every bit as "odd" as men being attracted to women during the wrong time of the month, or to pregnant women, or to post-menopausal women, or men who have undergone vasectomy being attracted to anybody at all, or expressing a preference for oral or anal sex. Neither of those lead to reproduction. If that's a good enough reason to consider them morally inferior and argue for legal defences against such behaviour in one case, the same logic by necessity also applies to all othe cases.

Hint: It's not a good reason, which is exactly why bringing it up in this discussion is futile.

'Every bit as odd' is a wild over-statement. It is interesting but not within a mile as odd as being sexually attracted to another man. Over-stating your claim reduces its impact.

We don't seem to have the olfactory senses to detect ovulation. Maybe we developed other senses at the expense of smell and one of the costs is not knowing what time of the month is best for copulation for pregnancy.

There is such an obvious link between heterosexual sex and reproduction that to deny it just seems obtuse.

Yes, there is a link between a subset of heterosexual sex and reproduction. No, we don't demand heterosexual couples swear an oath that they are going to engage in only, or predominantly, or at least sometimes, that kind before we let them marry, and because we don't, the absence of such a link in homosexual sex is 100% irrelevant to the question of same-sex marriages.

 

[mojorising]

I think the percentage of the month that a woman can get pregnant is above 50%.

I think you are bending a simple fact of life (men are evolved to be sexually attracted to women) out of shape and trying to split hairs about fertility windows in a PC attempt to justify social recognition for what is really a fundamentally different and fundamentally more odd behaviour (i.e. men being sexually attracted to men). I don't expect you to agree with that summary but that is the way I see these tortuous justifications.

Can you not accept that men being sexually attracted to men is at least a bit odd?

But what is more odd about it than being attracted to a woman who is in her 50s? You can't use the evolutionary argument as the basis of your position if you split out homosexual attraction from all the other instances where the exact same rationale applies.

Humans did not live long past their fertility window during our evolutionary development since life expectancy was much shorter. We may have simply evolved desire for sex with available females since most of them were fertile. Now females live long past their fertility window. The evolved behaviour now encompasses redundancy but the rationale for the evolved behaviour is still sound.

Also old girls are not actually that sexually attractive.

 

[Keith&Co.]

There is such an obvious link between heterosexual sex and reproduction that to deny it just seems obtuse.

But you have not yet shown that there's a substantial link between reproduction and the right to marry, to the exclusion of non-reproductive partnerships, much less to the exclusion of SOME NRPs and not ALL NRPs.

Try to remember what you're trying to support, here.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

But what is more odd about it than being attracted to a woman who is in her 50s? You can't use the evolutionary argument as the basis of your position if you split out homosexual attraction from all the other instances where the exact same rationale applies.

Humans did not live long past their fertility window during our evolutionary development since life expectancy was much shorter. We may have simply evolved desire for sex with available females since most of them were fertile. Now females live long past their fertility window. The evolved behaviour now encompasses redundancy but the rationale for the evolved behaviour is still sound.

Also old girls are not actually that sexually attractive.

So, what do you think about people who disagree with you and find old women sexually attractive? Is their evolutionarily aberrent behaviour sufficient reason to not allow marriage to women in their 50s?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Humans did not live long past their fertility window during our evolutionary development since life expectancy was much shorter.

Which would kind of indicate that our evolutionary development has fuck-all to do with figuring out our modern society, what?

Whatever the source of our attractions to the objects of our affection, we've grown distant from the conditions that obtained and can pretty much ignore the science behind our prehistoric behavior.

Also old girls are not actually that sexually attractive.

Well, Mojo has spoken. A purely objective rationale for establishing legislation for the whole of society.

 

[mojorising]

There is such an obvious link between heterosexual sex and reproduction that to deny it just seems obtuse.

But you have not yet shown that there's a substantial link between reproduction and the right to marry, to the exclusion of non-reproductive partnerships, much less to the exclusion of SOME NRPs and not ALL NRPs.

Try to remember what you're trying to support, here.

I think it is not that hard to see that we are evolved as a heterosexual pair-bonding species (the denials of this are so tortuous and obtuse it would make me blush to be on the other side of this argument). Marriage is the ceremonial recognition of the evolved heterosexual pair-bonding.

Its not really rocket science is it.

As a socially advanced species we could extend tolerance to sexual aberrants who do no harm such as homosexuals but tolerance is as far as I see us needing to go on this.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I think it is not that hard to see that we are evolved as a heterosexual pair-bonding species (the denials of this are so tortuous and obtuse it would make me blush to be on the other side of this argument).

Your inability to actually provide evidence for your position, except in derision of your opponents', is noted.

Marriage is the ceremonial recognition of the evolved heterosexual pair-bonding.

No, it's not. You've been flogging this idea for the whole thread and never actually evidenced it.

Its not really rocket science is it.

Any science would be nice, not just 'it seems obvious to me.'

As a socially advanced species we could extend tolerance to sexual aberrants who do no harm such as homosexuals but tolerance is as far as I see us needing to go on this.

And no one has yet accepted what 'you see' as compelling testimony or evidence.
You haven't proven it's an aberration, either. Just assumed it and then asserted it over and over again.

 

[mojorising]

Its not really rocket science is it.

Any science would be nice, not just 'it seems obvious to me.'

As a socially advanced species we could extend tolerance to sexual aberrants who do no harm such as homosexuals but tolerance is as far as I see us needing to go on this.

And no one has yet accepted what 'you see' as compelling testimony or evidence.
You haven't proven it's an aberration, either. Just assumed it and then asserted it over and over again.

OK Keith, do you at least accept that there is such a thing as sexually aberrant behaviour (precise definition TBD)?

Do you at least accept that recurrent aberration is a feature of nature (such as Downs syndrome) ?

 

[Keith&Co.]

OK Keith, do you at least accept that there is such a thing as sexually aberrant behaviour (precise definition TBD)?

How can I possibly answer a question with a word you haven't or won't define?

 

[DrZoidberg]

A quick flick through youtube has videos of monkeys having sex with cats and ducks and dogs having sex with cats and chickens.

(I won't post them all here!)

The sex drive is an elemental force for most sexual animals and it is not always able to find a normal outlet but the normal outlet is usually a member of the opposite sex and the same species.

Clearly aberration falls over a wide spectrum of possibilities but I think it is reasonable to say that an adult member of the opposite sex and the same species is the normal outlet and anything else is aberrant to some degree.

It is NOT an aberration. All it means is that sexuality is about more than just procreation. In fact, there is no species that is capable of a sexuality that isn´t natural for it´s species. The same applies to humans. Instead of thinking that homosexuality is unnatural (it isn´t) it´s a lot more helpful to start your inquiry asking yourself "why is it natural (because it is)". As long as you start from the angle of homosexual unnaturallity you will always get rubbish results and make stupid nonsensicle conclusions.

 

[mojorising]

A quick flick through youtube has videos of monkeys having sex with cats and ducks and dogs having sex with cats and chickens.

(I won't post them all here!)

The sex drive is an elemental force for most sexual animals and it is not always able to find a normal outlet but the normal outlet is usually a member of the opposite sex and the same species.

Clearly aberration falls over a wide spectrum of possibilities but I think it is reasonable to say that an adult member of the opposite sex and the same species is the normal outlet and anything else is aberrant to some degree.

It is NOT an aberration. All it means is that sexuality is about more than just procreation. In fact, there is no species that is capable of a sexuality that isn´t natural for it´s species. The same applies to humans. Instead of thinking that homosexuality is unnatural (it isn´t) it´s a lot more helpful to start your inquiry asking yourself "why is it natural (because it is)". As long as you start from the angle of homosexual unnaturallity you will always get rubbish results and make stupid nonsensicle conclusions.

Well do you agree that it is a possibility that it could be natural in the same way that Downs syndrome is natural?

i.e. a recurrent defect

 

[Keith&Co.]

Well do you agree that it is a possibility that it could be natural in the same way that Downs syndrome is natural?

Would YOU agree, mojo, that' there's a possibility that homosexuality could be something that was selected for by several species? Something that benefits the gene pool, whether we have identified the benefit yet or not?

 

[mojorising]

I will agree to accept your proposition if you agree to accept mine.

So do you accept mine?

 

[Keith&Co.]

I will agree to accept your proposition if you agree to accept mine.

Why would that be conditional?
Either it's a scientific possibility or it isn't.

But, fine, it's possible. We do not, at this point, have a reason to describe homosexuality as a good thing, a bad thing or a neutral thing, with respect to why it appears to have evolved in humanity.

It would then follow that you cannot begin to try to treat homosexuality as something that needs to be treated, cured, or fixed. If you treat it as a bad thing, you're going to look pretty mean and petty if it turns out to be a good thing at some future date.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

I think, in order to get a little bit closer to actual reality in this conversation, there are a couple of things which need to be considered if they have not already been addressed.

First, many attempts have been made in the past to "cure" homosexuality and they haven't met with much success to date. That in itself would not be problematic if the treatments themselves were harmless, but they often aren't. Measures have ranged from things like invasive surgery, lobotomies, shock treatment and other aversion techniques, epigenetic therapy to corrective rape to psychological therapy, counselling, religious intervention and prayer, conversion camps, forced marriages and other methods of basically willing oneself to be straight. That's not an exhaustive list.

The fact that these treatments have failed does not mean in is impossible to find some treatment which would alter a person's sexual orientation, but the problem is most of these treatments have come at a price for the people undergoing them. Many of these treatments have led to severe physical and/ or psychological harm. This isn't a game. A lot of damage has been done already. Lives have been ruined and even ended as the result of misguided cure" attempts so no person should EVER take this shit lightly if they are suggesting treating homosexuality.

Medical and psychological opinion has been consistently shifting to the position that research indicates homosexuality is part of expected and healthy variation in human sexual expression. It's not only that it doesn't need to be changed; it is often harmful to change. Conversely, in societies where homosexuality is widely accepted and equality is protected, what happens? Well, gay people live their lives much like all other people with no real evidence of harm to society to date. If anything, it's easier for gay people to productively contribute to society and have healthy lives.

Just to recap, thus far treating homosexuality has largely led to harm and at times outright barbarity and cruelty. Accepting it and protecting the rights of gay people has led to a neutral or possibly even slightly beneficial result. Now, if someone can provide more (actual) evidence which changes that story, that evidence should be heard. If, however, we're trumping our existing, actual track record with unsubstantiated speculation, that's just plain stupid. With what we know so far, we need to show measured caution with treating homosexuality and not with accepting it.

Second, when it comes to conditions in need of treatment, homosexuality just doesn't rank. It doesn't even register on the scale. It doesn't inherently cause suffering that we know of and there are just far too many serious ailments in need of treatment that diverting resources to make homosexuals heterosexual seems negligent. Commercial enterprises tend to have different priorities on what needs treatment, but curing the gay likely has almost no commercial value, at least not compared to curing erectile dysfunction or making weight loss easier. Even if it wasn't seriously dodgy business to try to cure homosexuality, it would still remain too uncompelling and insignificant to the interests of modern public interest or commercial interest to be given serious attention. Even the study of what affects and determines sexual orientation seems to be largely only of academic interest for the sake of knowledge.

 

[mojorising]

Nobody is proposing trying to 'cure' homosexuals once they have already grown up and grown into their sexual identity.

What I am saying is that if the genetic cause could be identified early enough (even in utero) then it would be a humane treatment if you accept that avoiding homosexuality is desirable (which I know you don't).

Alternatively if behavioural environmental factors during early development could be statistically verified then those factors could be mitigated to avoid homosexual development.

You are taking historical examples of cruelty to mature adults who have developed homosexuality and using that to scare people away from even considering the possibilities of early intervention.

You say that science now believes that homosexuality is normal and healthy part of sexual development. I think a lot of the 'science' behind this viewpoint is driven by a political agenda where the desired outcome (equal recognition of homosexuality) is already identified as the only politically acceptable result before the study begins. It is simply too awful to contemplate that homosexuality may be simply a recurring aberration which the human race could avoid.

Studies showing that homosexuality exists in the animal kingdom do not make a distinction between occasional homosexual behaviour (which can be engaged in for various tactical reasons) and lifelong homosexual pair-bonding which is non-existent except in 2 species: 1 being humans of course, and the other being domesticated sheep (a species that has been artificially bred by humans).

 

[Jokodo]

Nobody is proposing trying to 'cure' homosexuals once they have already grown up and grown into their sexual identity.

What I am saying is that if the genetic cause could be identified early enough (even in utero) then it would be a humane treatment if you accept that avoiding homosexuality is desirable (which I know you don't).

Alternatively if behavioural environmental factors during early development could be statistically verified then those factors could be mitigated to avoid homosexual development.

You are taking historical examples of cruelty to mature adults who have developed homosexuality and using that to scare people away from even considering the possibilities of early intervention.<snip>

Since we're in a discussion about marriage rights, something that in principle only applies to mature adults, any hypothetical preventive treatments are off topic.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It is NOT an aberration. All it means is that sexuality is about more than just procreation. In fact, there is no species that is capable of a sexuality that isn´t natural for it´s species. The same applies to humans. Instead of thinking that homosexuality is unnatural (it isn´t) it´s a lot more helpful to start your inquiry asking yourself "why is it natural (because it is)". As long as you start from the angle of homosexual unnaturallity you will always get rubbish results and make stupid nonsensicle conclusions.

Well do you agree that it is a possibility that it could be natural in the same way that Downs syndrome is natural?

i.e. a recurrent defect

Downs syndrome actually proves my point. Downs Syndrome is also natural. Evolution doesn´t have a goal or a purpose. It´s just a mechanic. Sometimes less helpful varieties of humans are produced. That´s just a fact of life. If nature has seen to it to produce people with Downs Syndrome we should of course adapt the laws to include them, and not create laws to make their lives more difficult unnecessarily. They couldn´t help having Downs Syndrome. So they shouldn´t get punished for it. Same goes for for gays. Whether or not it is a defect is a matter of definition. The main problem with being gay is homophobia. It´s not homosexuality as such that is the problem. I doubt you´d be able to find any homosexual who thinks that their homosexuality as such is a defect. I think calling it a defect is to widen the scope of the word "defect" to the point where it stops making sense.

Yes, it is a nuisance for gays who want children that they have to come up with creative solutions and seek some help from without their pair-bond. But it´s a pretty minor nuisance. It is in fact an extremely easy problem to solve. As made evident by all the gay parents out in the world. And that nuisance is by far overshadowed by the hassle of actually raising kids, which is as much a problem for straights as for gays.

 

[bilby]

A devout Christian lobbyist living in Canberra has declared that if homosexuals are permitted to marry, he will get a divorce from his wife of ten years. They plan to continue to live together, but not to be legally married.

Quite apart from the sheer narcissistic stupidity of imagining that anyone would give a shit if he got divorced, he is up against a legal problem - under Australian law, you can only get a divorce if you and your spouse have been separated for 12 months, and sign a Statutory Declaration that you have no intention of cohabiting in the future.

So he would need the legal definition of marriage to be changed in order to support his lifestyle choice.

Full story here.

I just felt a disturbance in the force, as if a million irony meters cried out in agony, and then were suddenly silenced.