Comments on: The Conservative Case For Marriage Equality

By: D

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:46:54 +0000

interesting blog post – the comments are quite thought-provoking as well. thanks for posting.

By: MCQ

MCQ — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:28:05 +0000

I didn’t say anything about marriage. Plato argued for a military unit composed entirely of homosexuals. Greece did actually form such a unit and it was highly successful.

By: mondo cool

mondo cool — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:15:49 +0000

Plato? Really? The same Plato who said in “The Laws (Book VIII): “Will not all men censure as womanly him who imitates the woman? And who would ever think of establishing such a practice by law? certainly no one who had in his mind the image of true law.”
I agree that the Greeks spoke for & against homosexuality, but where do they speak in favor of same sex marriage?

By: MCQ

MCQ — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:28:09 +0000

If one’s interpretation of scripture has been a poor guide in the past for some laws, does that mean, therefore, that scripture is a poor guide for all law?

That’s not the reason, but scripture is a poor guide for laws now, just because that’s not the purpose of scripture. It’s not intended to be a guide for modern lawmaking, but a guide for religious faith and worship. Let scripture guide you spiritually and keep it out of the secular governmental arena where it’s not intended to be and is not really welcome.

(Do Latter-day Saints just have to keep there mouths shut about SSM in the public arena because we rely on more than just the Bible?)

No. Why would they?

No one said old things are automatically foolish, but neither are they automatically ethical or virtuaous. Slavery is a good example, as is the example of women as chattel. A long-standing tradition may be either good or evil. the fact that it is old is evidence of nothing. You and others keep wanting to make long-standing tradition count for some automatic virtue: e.g.; you say:

longstanding precedent is an indicator of moral & ethical validity – not a foolproof guarantee – but an indicator.

But it’s not. It’s an indicator of nothing except that it’s been around a long time.

For thinkers who advocated same-sex relationships, you might want to look at Plato and Plutarch, among others.

By: mondo cool

mondo cool — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 06:42:52 +0000

their mouths

By: mondo cool

mondo cool — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 06:40:09 +0000

If one’s interpretation of scripture has been a poor guide in the past for some laws, does that mean, therefore, that scripture is a poor guide for all law?
(Do Latter-day Saints just have to keep there mouths shut about SSM in the public arena because we rely on more than just the Bible?)
Justice should trump history. But, history doesn’t become a foolish tradition simply because it’s been around for a long time. Calling something “old” does not make it foolish. Wisdom comes from experience. Where in the history of moral & ethical thought do you find thinkers, teachers, leaders who have advocated SSM? I believe longstanding precedent is an indicator of moral & ethical validity – not a foolproof guarantee – but an indicator.

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:38:44 +0000

And the liberal case against gay marriage would be: It’ll make conservatives outta them! Forget it!

By: L-dG

L-dG — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:32:47 +0000

The ancient holy books define marriage in the same way as most stable societies have through thousands of years of history.
The religious argument also includes the weight of the world’s history.

This kind of argument could have been (and was) used in the defense of slavery, which both the Old and New Testaments presuppose as acceptable. Longstanding precedent is no indicator of moral or ethical validity––it wasn’t before 1 January 1863 (in the US), and it isn’t today.

By: MCQ

MCQ — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:57:46 +0000

The reason that the religious argument is a poor one is not because of the weight of history, but because scripture is a poor guide for law and because there are serious inconsistencies in relying on the Bible to make your argument, as pointed out in the article and by CJ Douglas, above.

You are now trying to tie the religious argument to a historical one, which is pretty much the same thing Tom Owens was saying. That argument has some merit, and it’s true that conservatives are generally reluctant to discard long traditions in favor of new approaches, but as I said before, history by itself is not a very good reason for doing anything.

Justice trumps history. If we are being unfair to one part of society and our reason for doing so is only “that’s the way we’ve always done it” then history loses every time.

By: el oso

el oso — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:15:46 +0000

MCQ, #13, The article states that the religious argument is the worst of all, but this is not a narrow point of doctrine accepted by a bare majority only in the US and a few other nations. The ancient holy books define marriage in the same way as most stable societies have through thousands of years of history.
The religious argument also includes the weight of the world’s history. For some this is of little value. For conservatives, this is a large and substantial matter.