Before I begin, I'd like to take the time to thank Tech for their considered response... It presents a thoughtful contest and bears the signs of a measured effort; and frankly I appreciate that.
PI,
Concerning your first contention as reflected in this statement:
it states the grievance and the basis for the grievance… the normalization of sexual deviancy and the advocacy for Homosexuals to redefine Marriage and strip it of its cultural essence is based upon lies, myths and empty platitudes
I would advance, contrary to your bald contention that this is harmful of society, that in fact, its restriction is as Blackstone says of such regulations:
...{A} wanton and causeless restraint of the will of the subject, ... , {and thus a} degree of tyranny: nay, that even laws themselves, whether made with or without our consent, if they regulate and constrain our conduct in matters of more indifference, without any good end in view, are regulations destructive of liberty...
Contrary to your assertion that the issue is about marriage and and societal values, the question presented is more basic than that and by skipping forward to marriage and values, you miss your stumbling stone.
Your position, you claim, redounds from natural law. Fine, let's look at it.
In the state of nature, man could do what he wished so long as he violated no law of nature. So, if members of the same sex wanted to engage in a relationship, there was nothing to prevent this. If further, they wished to engage in a lengthy and permanent relationship, this too would have been within his right.
But check me if I'm wrong here... Engaging in homosexual sex, is a violation of the laws of nature... Clearly this conclusion presently flies in the face of modern conventional wisdom; and this generally on the misnomer that 'it exists in nature…,' but the mere existence of a behavior, in no way demonstrates the natural lawfulness of such... Sexuality is a function of biology... the biological imperative which sustains the species; without regard to the species at issue.
So where you assume from Blackstone that in the 'state of nature,' that it's a free for all... that one is entitled to engage in whatever flitters through their minds is simply wrong.
We know from thousands of years of human history, that deviant sexual promiscuity results in the transference of disease... and for MOST of human history, such disease was often not only lethal, but exquisite in it's cruelty through the lingering agony which it produced... Producing fair evidence that such behavior is not sustainable in nature and that it sure as hell should be avoided…
This circumstance produces what? I mean are we not looking at what tends towards the establishment of a natural law? Engage in deviant, promiscuous sex and face the very real likelihood of dying a slow and agonizing death? The Moral of which is: DON’T DO IT!
And as justice requires, this is a law which is applied equitably to all classes, races, genders, ages and sexual orientations...
So what this should demonstrate is that the social mores, which preclude debauchery, promiscuity…; the standard of marriage which requires monogamy... and a joining of No more or less than TWO individuals, each representing the two DISTINCT genders... serve a long standing LAW of nature, does it not?
Now you may not feel that this natural law is fair... but nature clearly disagrees... and what's more she has MANY such unwritten rules... most of which are covered in Western jurisprudence and many of which are presently being challenged on the same specious grounds over which you're trotting this argument.
What you're arguing is that there is good cause for society, where such finds a rationalization; where that rationalization finds an advocacy; that it is incumbent upon the society to reject the law of nature and authorize that which nature has forbidden, by design... on little more than the erroneous judgment that ‘to do otherwise is simply not fair…’
Reason is served that where a society fails to discipline itself to adhere to the laws of nature, that society will succumb to the same fate which the natural individual would succumb... with natural penalty being no less certain and no less final.
Tech said:
Your point then is that man must have lost this right when he sign the social contract.
No Sir... this is decidedly NOT a point of mine and such a conclusion is wholly unfounded.
My contention is that there is no right to violate nature's law... and that society, as is the individual, is bound to respect those laws and rejects or ignores them at the certainty of it's own peril.
Tech said:
We know from Blackstone however,
Blackstone said:
{That} every man, when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty, as the price of so valuable a purchase; and, in consideration of receiving the advantages of mutual commerce, obligos himself to conform to those laws, which the community has thought proper to establish.
This would seem to let you off the hook.
It seems that way... except that it's not so much 'letting me off the hook' as it is that this reasoning stands as one of the many facets of my argument... Every individual gives up certain elements of unbridled freedom through being subjected to the laws of nature. I’d like to flap my arms and fly… natural law prohibits such.
Where I want to fly, I board a device created for such, where I subject myself to the certain natural risks inherent in doing so. The penalty for such is not suspended where that device fails to observe to the letter, the natural laws which govern its viability; and where the pilot of such a device fails to maintain sufficient vigilance, nature provides no pass… the consequences for this violation are no less certain then they were 10,000 years ago. Meaning that the enlightenment born of technological advances have not modified natural law, or the consequences of violating that law… such enlightenment has merely provided a means to operate at a higher technologically level, requiring a higher threshold of understanding by which we navigate our behavior to meet compliance of those laws…
But the basis for the societal rule remains constant; to discourage behavior which is prohibited by natural law...
Society does not allow same-sex marriage. However, society also did not allow women to vote, before it did.
It's here where your reasoning really begins to fragment...
Society doesn't allow same-gender marriage, because such does not, cannot and will otherwise NEVER be able to meet the reasonable, well founded, natural law; which provides that Marriage serves a biological imperative, which can never be served through the extra-natural state of homosexuality.
Society did not provide for a woman to vote, because of reasoning which erroneously concluded that women were property; or a sub-class of species... inferior and so on.
When in truth, women were, as they are... human beings who enjoy the same rights as their male counter-parts. Thus where males were prohibiting women from voting, they were infringing upon the equal right of another... a violation of the immutable responsibility to NOT do so, which is present in every right of every individual.
The two issues are not analogous... Homosexuals are free to engage in the violation of natures law, at their OWN peril... If they chose to leap from the obligatory, fabled precipice... such would be their 'right'... but a viable culture; society, if you prefer, does not normalize, legitimize, or otherwise promote as acceptable, of LEAPING FROM THE CLIFF, as a viable 'alternative lifestyle'... On the grounds that such is possible, that it exist in nature and that some choose to do so. Same with lighting one’s self on fire, or engaging in other self destructive, culturally corrosive behaviors…
Which is to say that a society may not FORBID through LAW the individual engaging in such behavior; but the absence of such a law does NOT, contrary to modern conventional wisdom, stand as a tacit authorization or authoritative encouragement that such is a wise move…
And such is the case with Homosexuality and other forms of sexual deviancy; society may very well not FORBID such; and no one has explained why not, better than Blackstone; but that does not mean that, as noted above, the absence of legislation prohibiting that behavior that society must endorse, or otherwise promote such as natural and acceptable; because such is un-natural behavior; forbidden by nature as a function of her inherent DESIGN.
As noted above, reason requires that the same calamity which befalls the individual for ignoring or rejecting natural law, will befall the society which fails to avoid the same.
SO ...
It's obvious that the arguments have sufficiently split that further response to your references and reasoning are not warranted.
Suffice it to say, that the Western Culture, in particularly the US Culture have, to our own peril, promoted sexual deviancy as something on the order of acceptable... that this failing to sustain sound cultural standards, to heed nature's law and it's natural admonishment, has resulted in this logical extension of that failure; whereupon we're now being asked to double down on that failure; to cement such as 'culturally legitimate' and establishing in finality, that abnormal, deviant behavior, prohibited by natural law is suitable and otherwise appropriate for MARRIAGE; the very nucleus of the culture.
My argument, provides that the cultural decadence which long ago established the acceptance of sexual deviancy, has now matured into the endorsement of sexual deviancy… that in doing so we committed a cultural violation of the aforementioned natural admonishment, that sexual deviancy and promiscuity are to be avoided and that the RESULT OF WHICH is the present demand for the normalization of sexual deviancy to finally rest itself upon the pinnacle of cultural legitimacy, through it's ascension to Marriage.
That where our culture comes to accept this final step, we will have abandoned entirely, any means to defend natural law; as natural law will be relegated to irrelevant, where popular consensus; “the will of the People” will have become a superior authority in the minds of that misguided ‘people.’
The attempt by the homosexual lobby to seek acceptance for Marriage is NOT an attempt to 'tweak' what is argued to be a minor inconsistency in the equitable application of the law,
but to abolish as a CONCEPT, the very notion that society even NEEDS standards which regulate public behavior.
Again Sir...
This very discussion is rooted in the rhetorical acceptance of Homosexual marriage,
for the sake of this argument; wherein the scenario provides that homosexuals have been provided the protections they requested; the standards of Marriage have been 'tweaked' to provide for such and sufficient time has passed that this NEW STANDARD has come to realize the next logical contest... In and by that of the Polygamist.
I simply challenged those present; those who have come to demand that Marriage be redefined to provide for Homosexual participation, to assume the above scenario and defend THE STANDARD WHICH THEY DEMANDED and SECURED... from the next contestant; who would have us change THAT NEW STANDARD to accommodate
their 'special circumstance'...
Look back over this thread Sir and you'll find that not a SINGLE INDIVIDUAL of that rank has attempted to defend such on ANY LEVEL... What's more, those who come to demand that we change this critical cultural standard; a standard which defends the natural law regulating human sexuality; a standard which promotes the biological imperative; a standard which serves as the foundation of the culture itself... ; TO THE INDIVIDUAL, each one of those who presently contest the current standard, oppose maintaining their proposed NEW standard against ANY group which seeks to challenge it's newly modified threshold.
Thus the conclusion can only come to recognize that those who represent themselves as merely seeking to modify this one little item, are, in point of fact, asking the culture to abolish this one, enormous cultural crux.
And Sir…In closing… Nature provides that such is unacceptable; that the normalization of sexual deviancy comes at a very high price indeed and that there is no pass provided by nature wherein that which is prohibited to the individual, is otherwise acceptable for the culture.
