A Challenge

[acdntlpoet]

In light of recent discussion on other forums of which I am a member, (as well as: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/print/20060603.html) I would like to pose a challenge:


The Challenge: Adequately explain how constitutionally allowing gay marriages threatens heterosexual marriages.
Sub-Challenge1: Conversely, explain how constitutionally -banning- gay marriages works to strengthen heterosexual marriages.
Sub-Challenge2: Break your response into separate political and theological arguments.

Any response must be coherent, logical, and not based solely on Biblical law taken from Leviticus.
The best, rock-solid explanation gets the prize.

The Reward: The New Kids on the Block "Hangin' Tough" CD, slightly used… a “Superior Coaches” keychain... plus whatever pocket change I may have on me, which I will be adding to daily until a winner is found. (Current coffers are at a whopping total of 56 cents).

What I hope to accomplish here is to simply get you thinking… and keep me thinking as well. Hopefully sometime within my lifetime I will see the masses realize that there is no threat and marriage will be legal regardless of gender.


…And don’t even get me started on this “pre-pregnant” crap which the CDC is putting forth as guidelines for all women AND health care organizations (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/15/AR2006051500875_pf.html). Being treated as “pre-pregnant” is offensive to any Child Free (by choice) couple.

Comments

[tdhartist.livejournal.com]

I can't wait to see them try and explain it within your guidelines. :)

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

What? My guidelines are simple and easy to follow if your arguments are based on something more than one line in the bible and some vague "moral understanding". :)

[lijss.livejournal.com]

Especially when that one line comes from the book of Leviticus which also says that menstruating women aren't allowed to leave their houses. Come to think of it, maybe I should start following Leviticus, I'd probably get more time off...

[lijss.livejournal.com]

I can't participate in your challenges, because I fully disagree with them and would hate to waste precious brain cells on doing it merely for the sake of the prize, but i think you should know that the New Kids on the Block self-titled CD is the only one I don't have, and I really want it. Call me crazy, but it's like memorabilia. They were such a huge part of my childhood and sometimes when I'm feeling sick, or having to clean my room, it helps to take my mind off of what I'm feeling to listen to those stupid-ass CDs.

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

Wow... I don't know whether to laugh or cry at your NKOTB fetish ;)
Now I'll actually have to go home and check to make sure it really IS the self titled album. And it is in pretty bad shape. As a white-elephant gift from one of my high-school friends, it saw some pretty heinous torture.

[lijss.livejournal.com]

If you know what the cover looks like I can tell you right now which one it is :)

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

My bad... it is Hangin Tough, not the self titled CD. Sorry to get you hopes up.

[kdmorin.livejournal.com]

The "pre-pregnant" article urges women in their reproductive years to "avoid contact with lead-based paints and cat feces".

Since I don't have a uterus, can I play in my cats' litter box??

Ridiculous!

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

Have at it! :) The CDC "guidelines" are just plain ludicrous.

To quote Joshua......

[browncolleen.livejournal.com]

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

Re: To quote Joshua......

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

Now THAT is the funniest thing I have heard all day! Love it!

[gatodama.livejournal.com]

I can't really play fair either.. I am kinda biased. Plus all the Leviticus crap make my ears bleed....I just wish the Rapture would hurry up so we can all get on with our lives. Until then I am Hangin' Tough!

As for the pre-pregnant...that is the MOST rediculas thing I have EVER read! I might just go have a cigarette to spite them!

[gatodama.livejournal.com]

please keep us posted on the responses..PLEASE!! or just send a link

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

I am guessing that few, if any, on my friends list will be able to posit a semi coherent argument. Most of my friends have more of a socially liberal sway :)

[siobhan-genie.livejournal.com]

Don't forget about St. Paul. That asshole didn't want women to speak in public either!

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

Oh hush you! ;)

[tdhartist.livejournal.com]

BHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[liadan-giolla-b.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's not true. Paul was speaking to one particular group of women in one particular place at one particular time. He was actually quite supportive of women theologians, such as Priscilla and Julia. That's in the Bible. See the Christians for Biblical Equality site.

[siobhan-genie.livejournal.com]

I was just trying to be funny. Sorry you didn't get the joke.

[lynxgirl.livejournal.com]

Alas, since I do not believe that allowing gay marriage would threaten hetero marriages and banning them would not strengthen hetero marriages, I will be unable to participate in your challenge. I cannot think of any plausible explanation for these arguments.


As far as avoiding contact with lead-based paints and cat feces, DAMN! That takes all the fun out of being pre-pregnant.

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

Oh so sad... no NKOTB for you! :)

By the CDC's assumption, I must be pre-prostate cancer too! Better start taking those supplements!

[little-poppet.livejournal.com]

Wow...hadn't heard about the "pre-pregnant" thing...that's just a load of bollocks!

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

now that's just punny. "Load of bollocks...." sheesh. :P

[little-poppet.livejournal.com]

Wa Wa Wa Wanker ;)

Let me give it a try:

[vinnie-tesla.livejournal.com]

Marriage is a social institution that serves to protect and maintain civilization. In a natural state, people will tend to be selfish. Self-sacrifice and mutual aid must be nurtured and encouraged by a culture if that culture is to survive and prosper.

The most important element of a child's upbringing is a two-parent household, wherein the child can receive the nurturing influence of its full-time mother and the diciplining influence of a father. This provides the child both with psychological balance and with gender-role instruction. Men are not naturally inclined toward the raising or supporting of children; to maximize the number of two-parent households, a combination of financial, social, legal, and sexual pressures must be brought to bear to coerce men into that arrangement.

Any crack in the wall of enforcement of two-parent households, and the pent-up pressure of male desire to be ramblin' hoboes might cause the entire structure to crumble.

Further, the cognitive and sexual differences between the sexes are such that it takes will, self-discipline, and social pressure for anyone to form a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. Left to their own devices, everyone would be gay. Only by clearly and consistently indicating the wrongness of homosexual relationships can men and women be induced to have sex with each other at all; in the absence of these pressures, the human race will die out within a couple of generations.

Re: Let me give it a try:

[kij66.livejournal.com]

"Only by clearly and consistently indicating the wrongness of homosexual relationships can men and women be induced to have sex with each other at all"

ROFLOL I'll admit it, up until that point, you were starting to scare me!

Re: Let me give it a try:

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

Yup, I'm with Karen on this.... I trust Vinnie is indeed being as sarcastic as I think he is ... (not sure if this disqualifies him for the NKOTB though, as it IS the best response so far! :) )

Re: Let me give it a try:

[vinnie-tesla.livejournal.com]

Laugh away.

Men and women, from childhood on, have very different biological and social imperatives. They are naturally disposed to different reproductive strategies; men are (on average) larger and stronger; the relative levels of various hormones, the difference in the rate of maturity, and many other factors make it far, far easier for women to get along with other women and men to get along with men.

Men, after all, know what men like far better than women do; women know how women think and feel far better than men do. But a man and a woman come together as strangers and their natural impulses remain at odds throughout their lives, requiring constant compromise, suppression of natural desires, and an unending effort to learn how to get through the intersexual swamp.

--Orson Scott Card (http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html)

Re: Let me give it a try:

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

But on the same hand, Orson has also stated:
"Regardless of their opinion of homosexual "marriage," every American who believes in democracy should be outraged that any court should take it upon itself to dictate such a social innovation without recourse to democratic process."

While in his writings it is obvious he disagrees with homosexual marriages, he also doesn't seem to agree with constitutionally banning or allowing them either.

He goes on to write:
"Civilizations that enforce rules of marriage that give most males and most females a chance to have children that live to reproduce in their turn are the civilizations that last the longest. It's such an obvious principle that few civilizations have even attempted to flout it.

Even if the political system changes, as long as the marriage rules remain intact, the civilization can go on."

So if we take Orson's ideologies at face value, my wife and I would fall into the same category as homosexual marriages since we have decided to not pro-create, which is seemingly the entire argument FOR only heterosexual marriages. Since marriage is only, according to Mr. Card, about providing the ability to mate and create children to ensure the survival of the society, any marriage which does not produce children would be as much of an aberration as he seems to believe homosexual marriages are.

While the genetic survival theory is fairly solid at its base ideas, the fact that marriage is ONLY about pushing the civilization's survival forward by another generation is preposterous. The times have changed in the past 400 years. People now often marry out of a new concept called "Love" and many do this without any intent on pro-creating.

So, to outlaw homosexual marriages based on the concept that they harm the possibility of civilization's survival because they do not produce children would also require banning heterosexual couples from marrying if they have chosen a Child-Free lifestyle.

Re: Let me give it a try:

[kij66.livejournal.com]

"would also require banning heterosexual couples from marrying if they have chosen a Child-Free lifestyle."

Shhhhhhh!!! Good gods man, DON'T GIVE THEM ANY IDEAS!!!!

Re: Let me give it a try:

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

If "they" are having this much trouble with a homosexual marriage ban, there is no way a hetero-child-free marriage ban would become a reality.

Re: Let me give it a try:

[liadan-giolla-b.livejournal.com]

If "they" are having this much trouble with a homosexual marriage ban, there is no way a hetero-child-free marriage ban would become a reality.
*********

"They" don't need to ban childfree marriages. "They" just need to ban birth control and abortion. No more childfree marriages, unless one or both are infertile. But then they can get a Handmaid to bear a child for them...

[elmunadi.livejournal.com]

Being a member of a minority that has in the past been restricted from "marrying outside my own kind" and otherwise persecuted for being of an inconvenient faith, and being in a deliberately childless couple (we could have adopted, ovaries or not), I'd be amused to discover that anyone who reads your LJ would be willing to muster the negative energy necessary to come up with a solid set of arguments *for* what you've stated in the challenge, except as an exercise in demonstrating that one is in the advertising business and therefore capable of *any* depraved act.

btw - hey! nice wheels.
- Husam

[acdntlpoet.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, see it was a nearly rhetorical challenge since most of my friends are in agreement. You are also correct in that it would require a level of negativity not often seen within groups of friends.

And thanks for the compliments on our ride... she's a fun toy that garners more attention than I am used too!