rec.arts.movies.past-films

On Sep 13, 8:52 am, Martin Koolhoven
wrote:
> I find it very strange and old fashioned and limited to see marriage
> only in the light of children, since you can have children without and
> be a bad parent with.

What can be said to a dodgeball comment like that? First of all, I
didn't say that marriage was only for children. Secondly what your
objection amounts to is "marriage doesn't guarantee good parenting."
We know that, but we also know that kids in two-parent families are
more like to prosper than kids without them.

> The point I was making was that straights are more
>
> > fortunate than gays because they can have kids together, and that this
> > is one indication that herero desire is more healthy than gay desire.
>
> More healthy doesn't mean it is Unhealthy the other way round.

More healthy is better than less healthy. Whole is better than
unwhole.

> > > > > I don't want to punish people who wouldn't be
> > > > > able to have children without help. Not gays, but neither women of 50
> > > > > years old. Are they allowed to marry?
>
> > Marriage arose as a heterosexual institution reflecting and supporting
> > the (entirely healthy) love of men and women for each other. I see no
> > reason to change the tradition to punish women who can't conceive. I
> > can hear your objections: see below.
>
> > > > is not a right. Every declared right is a demand,
>
> > > Meaning?
>
> > Just because you want something, that doesn't mean it's owed you.
>
> But there must be a reason to forbid it.

There must be a good enough reason to change something that has worked
well. I've gone into more detail eslewhere.

> > > I don't see how community can be negatively effected by gay marriage.
>
> > If homosexuality is less than ideal, we don't want to encourage it.
>
> I don't think it is so bad we should. Anyway, I don't think it is an
> option to deny it, wehn you want it. That is really unhealthy. We
> should embrace it as a valid option.

I read that as an assertion, not an argument. Can you be more
specific? You want to change society because it wouldn't be "so bad"
if we did??

> > Support it where it takes the form of committed love yes. Call it
> > something it isn't, no. One function of law is to teach us that this
> > is good and that is not, or at least not so good.
>
> But it *is* as good.
> Ok, thechnicaly there are some disadvantages, but you can't all it not
> good, or even not as good. If you're gay, you're gay. If you have bad
> eyes, you need glasses.

If there are disadvantages to it, then by definition it isn't as good.
Why should we call two unlike things by the same name?

> I am willing to say that there are disadventages to being gay.
> There
> is your spade. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to
> marry. That has nothing to do with calling it what it is. That is
> discrimination.

To discriminate just means to make distinctions, and we've noted that
a qualitative distinction exists. As I've said, I think that if gays
want to commit themselves to each other, the state should support
them. I have great sympathy for gays who feel hurt because they feel
as if they're being treated prejudicially, unequally. But I don't
think the things they're equating are in fact equal. Again, language
and law ought to reflect reality. I wish the reality were otherwise.

> >Symbolism is meaning. We can learn from it.
>
> It is dangerous to look for symolism in everyday life. That suggests
> that someone is trying to give us messages.

Are you calling the nature of the human body "every day life"? For
religious believers it's otherwise. If God created the universe,
wouldn't it have meaning? What would the history of the arts be
without symbolism?