In message <[log in to unmask]>, Jay Maynard
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 04:25:50PM -0500, Cornelius, Rosanne wrote:
>> The divorce rate in the US is already at about 50% so let's run the
>> numbers even higher.
>
>This is the only argument for prohibiting marriage between two adults of
>whatever gender that has any sort of logical consistency, instead of being
>an immediate appeal to religion. As such, it deserves a rebuttal.
>
>Basically, the argument goes "if gay men and lesbians were allowed to marry,
>then some number of them who are currently in heterosexual marriages will
>divorce and go marry someone of their own gender." Let's ignore for the
>moment the fact that many in such situations are already divorcing and
>going to live with their partner, without the benefit of marriage. Even if
>this weren't already happening, that argument says that it's better for
>society to keep people in marriages that are miserable, rather than allow
>those people to become happier in a long-term committed relationship with
>someone they love, and grant that relationship the same recognition as those
>between people of different genders.
>
>In short, it's an argument for continued human unhappiness, just because
>someone is a sexual minority. This is fully as repugnant morally as not
>allowing racial minorities to marry whom they wish, and for the identical
>reason.

Jay, try examining the hypothesis that what Rosanne Cornelius meant was
that the more people there are who can get married, then the more
divorces there will be. i.e. there are no Gay/Lesbian divorces at the
moment, because the marriages are not allowed in the first place.

But I guess the logical follow-through is that to cut the divorce rate
from 50%, we might want to start thinking about banning even
heterosexual marriages.... :-)

--
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  William Morris

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