They dont have a right to marry. It is a privilege that is earned. The SCOTUS needs to stop making up rights that dont exist. Such as this one and the right to kill your unborn child. At the very least Congress should be ones making such laws, SCOTUS does violates the Constitution when it starts legislating such things.
Marriage is a privilege that is earned? Really? Can you tell me when and how exactly I earned the privilege to marry? I don't remember doing it. And if straight people can earn it, why can't gay people?
I didnt say that goodness is what God says it is. He is goodness itself. And we have the ability to recognize it.
How do you know? How can you trust your own recognising? How do you know it is reliable?
and saying that God is goodness itself is a circular argument, as has bee pointed out to you many times before.
No, God does not change and we learn He is good thru experience and the truthfulness of His word has been confirmed by science and history.
Yeah? Prove it.
God has created us with a moral conscience that is how we recognize good from evil, though it is distorted, but generally accurate.
That doesn't address the issue in the slightest. Until you have a logical argument that proves that saying "God is goodness" means anything, the moral instinct you say He instilled in us carries no weight.
But good is meaningless to atheists, because you dont have an objective standard for what is good. And you dont have objective propositional statements that explain what good is that reflect that objective standard which is God's objectively existing moral character.
That's another discussion. I'll be happy to explain my standards of morality as soon as you can explain yours. So far, all you've managed it to say that we know what goodness is because God is goodness.
No, personal beings dont go against their character, even you generally do not go against your character. Since His character is the good, He would not do or command something bad.
Well, you've said it yourself. No, I don't
generally go against my character, but I do sometimes.
No, just as you would not go against your character so also God would not.
How can you know? You just said that God is goodness. Therefore, if God did decide to change his character, how could you say that was a bad thing? Or, if God turned out to be lying all along, by what right would you say His lying was a bad thing?
Their personhood is reinforced irrespective if they can have babies, that is why gays cannot do it.
I think now might be a good idea to ask you what personhood means. As far as I know, it means "the quality of being an individual person." I fail to see how sexual congress changes it in any way, whether or not a baby is the result.
Because biology and science matters, humanity cannot survive at its highest level of unity if it condones a gay "marriage" and behavior. It damages society, studies have confirmed this.
Let's accept that this is true, for now. Do these studies show that the stable marriage of a devoted gay couple in love with each other damages society more than, say, the marriage of two mentally unstable people who never have children and end their marriage by committing suicide?
Because right now there are very few restrictions on marriage for straight people. You can get married if you're in prison. You can get married if you're a convicted felon. You can get married if you are mentally unstable, physically disabled, etc. etc. - and quite right too.
So if you say you're concerned about gay marriage damaging society, I have to say that your concern seems selective in the extreme.
Because there is no such thing as gay marriage, it cannot perform the functions that I have laid out in multiple other posts. I never said they cannot have their own ceremonies in their own churches. The government should just not recognize it for the many reasons I have stated.
You haven't proved anything that you've said so far, just asserted it.
No, see my post above why heterosexual marriage even without children is superior because is reinforces personal union. Gay sex depersonalizes people engaging in it.
Having children certainly does reinforce personal union. Or at least, it can. For some couples, having achild can be a disaster.
But the thing is - so what? That's the problem, Ed. you keep saying these things, and I think: so what? Why is it that having a child, or engaging in penis-to-vaginal sex, is necessary for a couple of marry? Don't you see how weird that is? And what if the couple are incapable, say because they're disabled? Would you forbid them from marrying?
And saying that gay sex is depersonalising. First of all, what on Earth does that mean? Second, granting for a moment that gay sex is depersonalising - just for the sake of this argument, mind - again, so what? Why should having depersonalising sex be grounds for forbidding marriage? You do realise that people do not have to prove they love each other in order to get married, don't you?
No, as long as the government is not involved they can do what they want. They can have commitment ceremonies and wear wedding gowns and etc, just not involve the government.
Why?
Because it doesnt unite persons biologically as I demonstrated earlier.
So what?
So did blacks and jews in the 30s thru the 60's and they did not have these rates and this magnitude of problems.
Okay. I don't have the facts at my fingertips here. But let's say you're right for the moment. Let's say that having gay sex can increase the risk of mental disease. Well, so what? Why should that stop them from getting married?
You didnt answer my question about judging someone just because evolution gave them different chemicals in their brain from you. But who says there is any thing special about humans? According to atheistic evolution there is nothing objectively special or intrinsically valuable about humans. So your morality is just based on irrational sentimental feelings for humans. Not based on anything rationally objective. There is no objective reason to treat humans any different from cockroaches.
Sorry, I'd like to stay on topic. The question is, how can you justify your own moral stance?
Go back to the arguments above. You say that you can know what goodness is because God tells you, and God is always right because God is goodness itself. Alright, then. So the question then becomes, what does it mean to say that God is goodness? Anything God does is good, right?
In that case, God could do evil, and it would be good. By your own definition.
You can say God would not do evil. But He wouldn't, would He? If He did it, it would not be evil. God could do, or tell others to do, absolutely anything - and under what grounds could you object to it? You already said, if God does it, that's good.
You've tried to get around this by saying God would not change his character, but that's not a logical argument. That's just your opinion. You'll need to do better than that if you're to resolve Euthyphro's Dilemma.
Some sins are worse than crimes because they can have eternal consequences for multitudes of individuals. Something like speeding usually does not.
How do you know any of this? Again, it sounds very much like you're just making it up.