mojorising, could you clarify your arguments please?
It seems to be all over the place. As before, I would suggest you start a thread in the forum for moral discussions (not politics), and you focus on one of your objections to same-sex marriage and/or same-sex relations at a time, so that one can discuss the matter in a manageable manner.
mojorising said:
I assert that heterosexuality is the right expression of sexuality since sex is evolved for a purpose. To reproduce.
Therefore homosexuality is one possible wrong expression of human sexuality.
On that basis I don't think society is obliged to redefine marriage to accept relationships based on an erroneous expression of sexual attraction.
It is very substantially for this reason and that is its evolved purpose. It may have been co-opted for other uses but that is it original evolved purpose.
As I see it, there is no good reason to think there is a purpose, since "purpose" indicates a designer. There are functions, but those are varied.
In any case, let me make a few points and ask a few questions (I hope you'll address them; if you prefer not to debate the matter with me and debate other posters instead, please just let me know):
1. How some organs, groups of organs, etc., evolved at first does not imply that a different usage is "a wrong expression".
Consider, for example, bonobos. Sex may have evolved as a reproductive adaptation originally - long before they were any primates -, but that does not mean that same-sex sex is a wrong expression of bonobo sexuality. Rather, sex - whether same-sex or opposite-sex - plays important roles in bonobos and their social lives, other than reproduction.
That may well be so in humans.
2. One of your claims also entails that masturbation is one possible wrong expression of human sexuality. That would seem to imply that masturbation is a form of illness, or an symptom of an illness (if not, in what other way are you using "wrong" in this context?).
Do you actually believe that masturbation is an illness or a symptom of an illness?
3. You say "On that basis I don't think society is obliged to redefine marriage to accept relationships based on an erroneous expression of sexual attraction."
However, if we're talking about the common usage of the word "marriage", it seems it has
already been redefined, at least if the word did not apply to same-sex marriages before. At least, the majority of native English speakers do use the word "marriage" to denote some same-sex relationships. If you claim that this is not so, please provide the evidence (my evidence would be the fact that in countries in which nearly all people speak English, the majority according to latest polls do use the word in that sense).
4. There is a difference between not having an obligation to do X, and having an obligation not to do X. If your only claim is that society is not obliged to redefine a word, that does not entail that it's immoral of society (who's society?) to redefine a word.
mojorising said:
I base my belief on these assertions (which cannot be proved at this stage but I think one they will be provable). I think it is fairly evident that sex has an original and correct purpose, that being reproduction.
It's not a purpose, but there was an original function, well before there were any primates (by the way, you do sound kind of like Edward Feser, even if you're not a theist). But from that, it does not follow that, say, masturbation or the motivation to masturbate is an illness or a symptom of an illness in humans, or that same-sex is an illness or a symptom of an illness in humans (or, for that matter, in bonobos).
In fact, it's pretty common that something has several functions, regardless of what the original adaptation is.
For example, female lions and female crocodiles use their mouths to carry their offspring. But clearly, the mouth evolved originally as a feeding adaptation, not as a youngster-rearing adaptation, or as a cargo adaptation. Nevertheless, if, say, a female lion carries a cub in her mouth, she's not ill. On the contrary, it would be a symptom of an illness if she failed to do so (under certain circumstances, at least).
The same applies to primates. For example, chimps and bonobos make a number of rudimentary tools. In order to make them, they use both their hands and their mouths, teeth, etc. But surely their mouths were not originally a tool-making adaptation, or even an object-manipulation general-purpose adaptation.
In fact, there are examples in the case of humans too. While modern technology may have made it superfluous, the use of one's mouth - and specifically, teeth - as an aid to either make simple tools or carry stuff for short distances is not a wrong expression of human mastication, if by that you mean it's some illness or a symptom of an illness - nor is it in general immoral, of course.
The point is that the Thomist-like (minus the claim about God's existence) moral assumptions you're making - and on which you base this part of your argument - are neither justified nor true.
mojorising said:
They are harmful because they cause social unrest since sex is an emotive subject and society does not want to see incorrect manifestations of the human sex drive celebrated publicly and especially not using a redefinition of one of the human species' oldest traditions.
Actually, the traditions were widely variable. Do you have any good evidence of a single concept "marriage" accross societies, rather than very different ones?
In any case, whether homosexuality causes social unrest depends on the social context. In some contexts, it does in the sense that some people mistakenly believe it's immoral and make false accusations of immoral behavior, attack people who have gay sex, etc. In some contexts, it does not. But for that matter, there are contexts in which atheism causes social unrest, because some people mistakenly believe it's immoral and make false accusations of immoral behavior, attack people who are atheists and say so, etc. Similarly. there are contexts in which the true theory of common descent causes social unrest. There are contexts in which rejection of geocentrism causes social unrest, etc.
But another thing that causes social unrest is the claim that same sex relations are immoral, that same-sex relations are an incorrect manifestation of the human sex drive, etc.
mojorising said:
We do have the right if we are in the majority and want to keep our tradition undistorted.
Do you think that if you're not in the majority, you do not have said right?
mojorising said:
Nothing to do with the bible. Christianity just took over the marriage ceremony when it became popular but the cultural institution came first.
It seems many different ceremonies and state-recognize relationships existed before and after, with different names.
Do you have any good evidence of a single concept used in all societies?
