Posted over as a response from the
religion thread - the discussion was getting a bit OT. This is the part that directly relates to the ethics of gay marriage.
James wrote:All sounds agreeable. I have a feeling that, in the case of many wealthy families, it is just parents expressing their own version of parental interests in the partner their children may end up with. For example, in wanting their child to end up with someone likely to receive a good education, go to college, have a career. While such positions can certainly be misguided they don't seem terribly uncommon. Another form of bias not unlike what I'd be inlined toward if my [fictional] daughter showed up with someone wearing smelly clothes, ear gages, and smelling of marijuana.
All of which is fair enough. When it comes time for my daughter to start having relationships of her own, though, my wife has told me in no uncertain terms that the biggest consideration ought to be her happiness and respect for her partner. Ultimately my wishes and choices for her are secondary. Which, when she becomes an adult, is a fairly good policy to adopt in any event.
James wrote:Funny Monty Python skits aside, it seems you're characterizing it as a 'bogus' argument simply on grounds that you don't agree with it.
No, there actually is a valid philosophical distinction to be made between a couple which is physically and genetically complementary and able to naturally produce a child between them, but who are prevented from doing so by accidents beyond their own control, and a couple which does
not have all of the necessary hardware and genetic equipment to do so without the aid of technological intervention, surrogacy or both.
It's very similar to Amartya Sen's
capabilities approach to development economics. Even if a homosexual couple and an infertile heterosexual couple have limits on their sexual
functionings which on the surface seem similar (that is, neither couple is, for whatever reason, able to produce a baby), the infertile heterosexual couple nevertheless has a different
capability set than the homosexual couple does. A union of two people - man and woman, in their complementary modes of being - is the only form of sexual union whose
capability set includes the ability to produce a child.
James wrote:The position is also dismissive of single parents. And the only difference between why a person/couple may be unable to have a child biologically is conceptual, in the eye of the beholder, and need carry no weight on the perspectives of the actual parents raising the child.
Sorry, but it isn't. Even a single mom has to get sperm from somewhere. And even a single dad has to have gotten some woman pregnant to begin with. The biological capacity isn't deterred by the social circumstances of the people doing it.
James wrote:Arguing a vague/remote perspective—such as your 'conceptually possible' argument above, as being highly material to the subject—one which involves so many far more important factors (such as spending time with the child, educating the child, researching and taking care in the child's health and ensuring the child has good healthcare, making good life choices to provide the child with opportunity)—is not such an argument (unless supported with evidence).
Not sure where the exact point is in this sentence, grammatically, so I'll address both in turn.
a.) I think I have shown above that the point I was making earlier is neither vague nor remote.
b.) I agree that these are important factors, and I would agree largely that the family unit is primarily involved in them. The question is, why? After all, child-care centres
can spend time with children. Schools
can be tasked with educating them and providing them with opportunities in life. Pediatric clinics
can provide them with healthcare. Social workers
can make sure that they get it.
Why is it important for the family to do these things, in your view?
James wrote:I would not be surprised if, ultimately, a cake maker must make a cake for or sell a dress to a gay couple. The likely gray area here is that which pertains to cases of a stronger religious objection, such as a religious organization performing a marriage for a same-sex couple, or a doctor being able to decline performing an abortion. Some of this will need to be decided in the courts, but the fact that some decisions may offend religious sensibilities takes a back seat to the constitution.
And this is troubling to me. I've talked about the reasons for this
elsewhere, though.
The cake maker in question didn't flatly refuse to serve gay people - he was specifically
not offering a particular service to the public. (He would not bake a cake
for a gay wedding. I believe he said he would gladly offer gay customers any other service he provided but that one. I don't think this qualifies as discrimination - Shikanosuke would have to help out on that one, though.)
James wrote:If you want to use 'love', give your own clear definition first—because it should be your definition that qualifies your answer. That would be best, or use 'love' as a proxy for '[have a] healthy, affectionate, enriching, and mutually beneficial relationship'.
But I do want to see what it means to you. And that includes stipulations you've interjected into the subject. It's fine if we disagree. For example, a religious qualification may we be specific to belief in that religion (and thus not applicable to another couple unless they share the belief), nor would I likely see eye-to-eye on faith-based subject, but the main point is that I will in the least understand where you're coming from.
And I'll go first in answering.
I don't think there's any material distinction which makes a same-sex couple less able (or unable) to love one another. It doesn't mean there isn't one, but I have yet to see compelling argument for one, and I have yet to see any such difference demonstrated in the lives of same-sex couples I know.
Actually I do make distinctions about the definition of 'love'.
The love that attains between two siblings is
not the same love as that which attains between a parent and a child. The love that attains between a husband and a wife is
not the same love that attains between two friends. This is actually a view which I've borrowed directly from
Confucianism, even though it has a strong parallel
in Christianity, a tradition which has quite a varied vocabulary when it came to describing love.
Lewis, classicist that he was, speaks of four different types of love:
storge,
philia,
eros and
agape. He was very insistent on distinguishing the four, and he thought it incredibly dangerous to conflate them, or to expect a different kind of love from a relationship characterised by different needs and capacities. (Again, good classicist that he was, he emphasised moderation in each of these categories.) All of these different kinds of love are ultimately
gifts, but like anything that falls into human hands these gifts can be used in good ways or bad ways.
Eros in particular, should be confused neither with
philia, nor with
agape.
Eros is an incredibly powerful mode of being, which arises
out of the biological drive to procreate. (I don't think this is scientifically contested at all, but a basic observable fact.) There are good and bad ways to act upon it, good and bad ways to maintain it, and good and bad ways to direct it towards its correct ends. It's my belief (both from experience and from reflection) that the 'correct ends' of
eros are marriage:
sacramental,
kenotic,
exclusive,
permanent and
procreative. Marriage, so my
tradition teaches, is a holy bond between a man and a woman, a bond which brings together two
distinct-but-complementary gendered modes of being, and
opens both up to the possibility of a third. Erotic love is ultimately a creative urge, and that needs to be expressed in how it's acted on.
Eros in which another person is taken advantage of is a kind of love-gone-wrong.
Eros which leads someone to cheat on, abuse or leave their spouse, is also being used wrongly. And
eros which confuses itself with
philia or
agape is being wrongly used. The rightly-oriented love of a friendship between two men, or between two women, becomes perverted when the sex drive enters the picture. Homosexual
eros which tries to approximate marriage falls short of the mark on two counts. First, it eschews biological and psychological complementarity - it directs a love of and desire
for the other wrongly toward a love of the similar and familiar. Second, it closes off all possibility of admitting the third being.
But that is emphatically
not to say that homosexuals
are of lesser value as human beings.
I agree that it is wrong, even horrifically wrong and Satanic, to try to shape people who struggle with homosexual passions into heterosexuals. As Lewis said, each type of love has its right order. But homosexual passion does need to be fought with; Lewis did not say so in so many words, but
he thought that it could be sublimated into the higher form even than
eros - into
agape.