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If opposite-sex marriage is ok, what logically consistent reason is there to ban marriages between:
same-sex couples
close relatives
multiple individuals
etc?
Traditional marriage is based on nature's design.
All other arrangements, to include homosexual, polygamous and incestuous ones, ignore nature's obvious design for families.
The word "support" is a bit vague. I would not want to encourage it, or go out and campaign for it, or donate money for it, but so long as two people are of legal age to get married, and they agree to take all reasonable precautions to avoid pregnancy, I see no reason why the law should prevent it. I think this is one of those areas where the true meaning of individual liberty is put to the test. It's easy for a society to claim that it supports individual liberty in easy situations were the majority agree that it's okay (e.g., you are free to eat meat, if you want), but the real test of a society's resolve comes in the tough situations in which the majority find the activity to be extremely immoral or distasteful. The burden of proof should be on the supporters of a legal restriction to show that some tangible harm is being done to actual people. You should have to clearly identify who the actual victims are, and exactly what sort of harm is being done. Perhaps this can be done in the case of incest, but at the moment I am skeptical about that.
I think it can only be said that the situation is likely to be harmful to the younger person. But the same thing can be said in many different situations where we accept that it is none of our business to interfere. I mean, those women who are drawn to marry convicted murders in prison? Someone who knowingly gets involved with an alcoholic or drug addict? Marrying when you're both teenagers? There are plenty of situations that are likely to result in bad outcomes but it's not our place to forbid them. If a mother wants to marry her daughter or a father his son after the chld is a legal adult and both consent to it? I would never encourage that course of action, but I just don't see a way to ethically outlaw it.
If opposite-sex marriage is ok, what logically consistent reason is there to ban marriages between:
same-sex couples
close relatives
multiple individuals
etc?
Because committed opposite sex marriages between people of different genetic codes have been demonstrated to be the likeliest environment from which to produce children who grow up to be healthy, happy, productive citizens.
I don't agree with that from a philosophical standpoint. But it is a logically consistent reason to promote traditional marriage while banning other forms of marriage. Encouraging what has been statistically shown to be the optimum environment for producing new generations and discouraging non-optimum environments is a logical thing for society to do. Not ethical, but logical.
Because committed opposite sex marriages between people of different genetic codes have been demonstrated to be the likeliest environment from which to produce children who grow up to be healthy, happy, productive citizens.
Last edited by stargazzer; 02-24-2013 at 07:54 PM..
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