- comment
Cory Chandler - body
- All right, this is simply too much. I've borne all I'm about to bear on this issue, excruciatingly explaining to radical activists that marriage is a religious institute properly defined only by religious authorities, and that whether or not a same-sex relationship is recognized by the civil authorities is a distinct question that the body politic is wholly competent to resolve for itself by majority rule.
But while religion may have some truck in deciding what marriage is, and society may have some truck in deciding which relationships will be recognized and receive civil benefits, no one may intrude upon the constituents of a family and tell them that their entity is "not a family."
Families exist between single parents and their respective children. Families exist between siblings. Families exist between people and their pets, how ever absurd I may think it is when I hear a colleague say that his wife's cat is their "baby." By God, the etymology of "family" takes us to Latin for "household," and the first definition of family in the OED includes servants, as indeed "famulus" is the masculine singular nominative of "servant" in Latin.
So while the church may presume to tell same-sex couples that they may not marry, and the state may presume to tell same-sex couples that they are not conferred civil benefits, no one--no one--gets to say that two same-sex partners do not form a family, if both of them believe they do. If pets and servants count as family, then he who dares presume to tell me whom I may and may not include in mine so offends against my dignity that I shall not endure it.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- Define family then.
- comment Cory Chandler
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- I don't have to do! The word is not unknown to the English language. It's not some novel concept recently innovated in the vernacular or law, how ever much it may be appropriated by one side or the other in a political debate.
In its purest historical and etymological sense, family means nothing more than a household; the body of persons who live in one house or under one head, including parents, children, servants, &c. Family in its adjectival, attributive sense only means domestic.
This concept of family as representing father, mother, and children is very historically and linguistically truncated. It may go over well with the Christian right, but that doesn't make it correct no matter how badly Victoria Cobb wants it to be. The history and etymology in this case belie the political buzzword. And this isn't a case of a word abandoning its historical meaning. It's not like family used to mean tree bark and now has subtlely shifted to mean leaves. This is a case of selective narrowing. And I reject it.
This political definition is also repudiated in law. Va. Code Ann. Sec. 16.1-228 defines a person's family to include "any individual who cohabits or who, within the previous 12 months, cohabited with the person, and any children of either of them then residing in the same home with the person."
To tell me with whom I may or may not form a family, whether or not the relationship be recognized by God or church or state, is to tell me whom I may or may not love in that comprehensive sense that we both know I mean. I will begrudge you your legal and your religious concerns about civil union and marriage, and I will not call you a bigot or a homophobe because I believe the positions religious and secular to be soundly grounded, but I will not suffer you to trespass beyond your due, especially not where as here, by law and language and learning, I am in the right.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- No -- I think it's only fair for a hypothesis to be offered in place of the current definition.
In which case, I'd like to see a definition of family. I see groups of teenagers walking in the mall, or throngs of people protesting, or small children playing games. But those are not families.
So what is a family? I want to hear (read) the alternative definition.
- comment Cory Chandler
- body
- I'm sorry, I'm not usually so opaque when I write. I've already supplied the "alternative" definition of family, substantiated in etymology and in the current law of the Commonwealth: it is "household."
Children playing, teenagers at the mall, and protestors demonstrating do not become families under either the historical or legal definition of family.
If you want to offer a hypothesis in place of the etymological and legal definition of family, you certainly have the ability to present that to the body politic for their consideration. However, you can't, honestly, tell them that in presenting a hypothesis to replace the real definition of family you're really preserving a definition of family dissonant with the historical and existing legal definition. "Preserving" family and substituting a novel notion of family for the status quo are different, and suggesting that the latter is really the former is disingenuous.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- You still haven't answered the question. All you've done is add semantic value, changing family to household and expecting the terms to be synonymous.
I would like to see a precise definition of family. Clearly we've demonstrated that it isn't a group of androgynous people collected together. Neither is it even a group of people who enjoy one another's company. Nor is it innocent bonding between children or friends.
If someone is going to challenge the definition of family, then I would at least expect to know what the alternative is, yes? That's only proper -- otherwise we're not discussing an alternative at all.
What is your definition of family, in contrast with the commonly accepted definition of the basic building blocks -- a mother, a father, and a child?
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- Let's start with the initial premise that is being challenged:
Marriage is the union between one man and one woman.
A family consists of a mother, a father, and a child.
***
Now naturally, there are differences. Divorces occur and fathers/mothers leave. Is the single father/mother and their children any less of a family? Of course not -- they are still a family unit.
Now add to the mix a set of two fathers, or two mothers, or two mothers and two fathers and a set of children. Is this a family unit?
Extrapolate further. A man, three women, and a dog. Is this a family?
Seven men, three women, a cattle farm, and thirty workers. Is this a family?
The question is: how much farther can we extrapolate a unit of people before it (a) ceases to be a family and (b) what is the basic building block of society that allows for the fullest range of experience for a young child?
The answer to (b) seems easy enough -- we will encounter males, we will encounter females. One of each will do. This is basic, not essential.
The answer to (a) is a bit more tricky. I would answer that a boundary is crossed when additions are made to the family unit that are extraordinary. Ask any family that has had to merge stepchildren to understand that there is still and always a them vs. us attitude to the newcomers.
Deletions from the family unit are not where the line is crossed. Children can lose a parent, parents can lose children, but the bond remains. Even children that lose both parents still consider each other family, be it from a young age even into elderly ages (and hence where cousins still share that bond).
In short, the basic elements are a mother, father, and child. Extraordinary additions to the unit are simply that -- extra, and properly not considered family. Families can be merged (stepparents and stepchildren for example), but only with parallel structures. Extracirricular members -- invited guests, housekeepers, friends -- we may feel close attachment to, and consider them part of our home.
Household perhaps, but the bonds of family are much more base.
Now as to why this is, I don't have an answer. Human beings have a remarkable talent for taking what they want to believe and turning that into what is. Unfortunately for us, imagining reality and reality itself are two entirely different things.
When it comes to familial arrangements, every child has the right to a mother and a father. Even in the sense when one of the parents is absent, there is still an absence. Adding to the arrangement only duplicates what nature preordains.
That is the best, rambling, nonsensical, stream-of-consciousnes (and non-religious) defense of the nuclear family I can think of at the moment. :)
Offered for the spirit of conversation!
- comment David Weintraub
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- Shaun,
JJD is correct. You have overstepped your bounds.
You are free to decide for yourself what sort of family you will participate in creating. You may not claim ownership of the word. That we will not tolerate, not from you, not from the Pope, not from anyone. Enough is enough.
You do not have the authority to demand an explanation. This is a matter of personal liberty for free people. If you wish to live in a theocracy where such things are dictated, please go somewhere else.
- comment Cory Chandler
- body
- This is a fundamental disagreement, and until you can recognize its foundation, you won't understand why, as rational and emotionless as I am, you've genuinely annoyed me.
I'm not challenging the definition of family. You are. The definition of family is, was, and unless you prevail in changing it, "household." It is so in the dictionary. It is so in the etymological descent of the word. It is so in the law of the Commonwealth. Yes, this is a semantic point--because the debate we're having is a semantic one. I'm not confusing the issue with semantics; the issue a semantic issue.
I'm not "changing" family to household. Household is what family is, etymologically, historically, and legally. If you're trying to define it in any another way, you're the one trying to change the definition--and you have the burden of persuading the body politic that your definition should be adopted to replace the current one.
Therefore, I cannot accept your premise that we are challenging two concepts: (1) that marriage is a state between one man and one woman, and (2) that family is a father-husband, mother-wife, and their children. I cannot accept this premise because the second prong of this premise is legally, historically, and etymologically untrue. You will observe that I have consistently given "your side" the argument on religion, because there you have etymology, history, and law on your side. When it comes to family, you have none of that.
In fact, your position on family is exactly contradictory to your position on family. You argue that extending marriage to comprise same-sex relationships fundamentally alters the very definition--legally, historically, and etymologically--of marriage. Your definition of family as father-husband, mother-wife, and children fundamentally alters the legal, historical, and etymological defintion of family. The two things you want are in foundational conflict. They cannot be reconciled.
I know you are not a moron. I can appreciate that you may have inaccurately been reared to accept the idea that family means, and means only, father-husband + mother-wife + children. I can appreciate also that, having lived life so long with this inaccurate information, you are reluctant to part with it, despite references to etymological resources and the current code section defining family. But whether you're prepared to accept it or not, your definition is objectively and demonstrably wrong.
The family unit did not, and does not, exist for the benefit of a child. Children were not even part of the underlying concept from which the word family is derived--unless you're relegating children to the status of servants. Family originated as a concept regarding a patriarch and all the people beholden to him, in a manner very much analogous to feudal dominion. This included wives and children, yes, but also servants.
What you are describing in your last comment, this unique bond between parents and children, is a relationship, but that relationship cannot be described as family in the word's legal, historical, and etymological meaning: family encompasses this relationship, certainly, but family is not limited to it.
Law, history, and etymology, which all work for you on marriage--and why I begrudgingly concede the marriage issue to your side--all work against you on family. And, no matter how much you want to pretend otherwise or ignore the facts in deference to your personal beliefs inculcated in youth and reinforced over long years, the fact is that I am not challenging the status quo definition of family, you are.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- JadedJD -- I can only state the case as obviously as I can. Confusing family with household is entirely the point, and if I've agitated you, then I sincerely apologize. This having been said, I refuse to allow definitions of what is and what is not a household refine family into something it is not, though families certainly qualify as households.
David -- who mentioned theocracy? The only imposition of beliefs I see is the other way around, that being a re-definition of family into something far from it.
Regards, gentlemen...
- comment Mark Gardner
- body
- Here are some other families..
You can be a member of the Cosa Nostra family, until the let you swim with the fishes (which aren't your pets)
You can be a member of the string family, but you'd have to be Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass, or Harp.
Sorry to interrupt with this dribble. Please return to your regularly scheduled intellectal program.
Shaun has it right.
As a side note, the VA law states that "family or household member" is defined as ....
As Shaun correctly states earlier there is a difference, the person cohabitating can be a household member and not be a family member. This is also where your dog, cat could fit in as a "household memeber" not a family member
- comment James E. Martin
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- As always members of the Catholic Church preaches Hate on this issue...
- comment Politicl.Animal
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- But a member of the family is also not necessarily a member of the household. For example, I am my parents' son, but by moving out I am no longer part of their household. Yet we are still "family" in the blood sense, in the sense of heredity, which seems to be the vein Kenney is operating out of. JD is working from the legal definition.
So what we have here is a genetic definition of family that is seeking to replace the already existing legal definition of family, under the guise of protecting "traditional" marriage.
Very good, Kenney-san. I cannot hope to approach such cunning, but let me make an attempt at shedding light on the main issue.
Man meets woman. Man and woman do what men and women have been doing for centuries. Baby is born. Man and woman do not get married. Baby lives with woman, man lives somewhere else. Are they a family? Is simply the woman and baby a family?
Man meets another woman, they get married. Does he have one family, or two? Are all four people members of the same family? Is the son a part of his family, but not the first woman, due to heredity? Would any children born to the second woman still be part of the first woman's family? If the first woman meets another man and has another child while living with him, are there two families, or three?
Your definition, while elegant in its simplicity, is woefully unable to handle the real world. The legal definition, that JD provided, rests on cohabitation. This is operable. This is tangible. This is rational.
This is why I am no longer a conservative. Life is not black and white. Simple answers don't work, except in political campaigns. Life is complex, and requires complex solutions. Can Christianity provide such solutions? Absolutely. Is the sentence "A family consists of a mother, a father, and a child" such a solution?
No.
- comment PyreDruid
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- Sorry this might be days late, and may have been said, but I had to leave my stance,
Isn't what the Pope says applicable to Catholics only, isnt he in essence saying that Catholic families can't be gay/lesbian? Since I'm assuming, Baptists, Hindus, Druid's etc. shouldn't be too concerned with what the Pope is saying. And he's supposed to say whats right or wrong for Catholics (or at least interpret what's right or wrong, not 100% clear on that) so what's the big problem about this.
It doesn't touch the legality of it though. Just my opinion.
- comment teacherken
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- so when the ambassador an Islamic country arrives with 3 wives and the 10 children he has by then, under Virginia law his household will still not qualify as a family?
Definitions of family are far from universal.
We can be biblical and look at whom Jesus defined as his family. That's New Testament. Or we can reincarnate Jacob with his two wives and two concubines, and you tell me they are not his family.
Methinks you are being silly Shaun. Oh, and what the law says does not mean it is correct. After it was this state whose anit-miscegination lawas were the subject of hte Lving v Virginia which said that a white and a black could not construct a family even through marriage - which would certainly make my nephew, his wife and their two duaghters at least a bit puzzled.
- comment James Atticus Bowden
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- Jaded JD and fellow travelers: "marriage is a religious institute properly defined only by religious authorities". No.
Actually, marriage is a cultural institution. The civilization and country, nation, tribe, etc. that grows from it defines marriage in many variations.
The anti-Christian (rabidly anti-Catholic) French Revolution defined marriage by civil authorities. Likewise, their intellectual descendants - the Communists - did and do the same.
Because we are a federal Republic marriage is written into our civil law by the legislatures.
No civilization ever confused homosexual behavior with marriage and the family. Ever. Not one. Zip. Zero. Nada. None. Null set.
Only modern Pagans and sissy Christians - Liberals are so confused and clueless.
Makes you wonder what Law Schools teach.
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- James -- Catholics are obligated to defend the structure of family. If your beliefs do not coincide with the Magisterium, then I'm sure the Episcopalian Church would be more than happy to accomodate heterodox views.
All that having been said...
Why is it that opponents of family are interjecting religious sentiment into the conversation?
This is not an argument from religion.
This is an argument from nature.
Nature as prearranged the basic building blocs of the family -- a mother, a father, and a child.
Kenneth brings up the idea of an Islamic marriage (though I don't think he understand the conditions that allow for them, but nonetheless the example is relevant). Here still, you have the basic elements in play -- a mother, a father, and a child. Are there multiplicities? Yes.
Is monogamy preferential to polygamy? Whenever the charge is brought to family revisionists, the polygamy-as-acceptable issue is brushed aside as ridiculous, so certainly Kenneth is not arguing that point...
Pyredruid brings up an interesting point -- what is good for Catholics is good for Catholics, Baptists for Baptists, Muslims for Muslims, Wiccans for Wiccans, etc.
This goes back to the imposition of religious beliefs on what nature itself imposes, IMO. If nature preordains that the essential elements of family are a mother, father, and child, then no amount of religious sentiment is going to change that; no more than a religion demanding the sky to be orange at high noon.
I do agree with the sentiment -- marriage laws were originally proscribed by the state to prevent "mixed" marriages (whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants). I certainly don't feel the need for the state to grant it's imprimatur in order to be married.
This goes to a larger question: WHY should the state favor family?
Society's building block is within family. It is how children first become accustomed to how to operate in the world.
** I want to stress at this point that I am not making an argument against individualism. Society involving social interaction, I only want to answer where the first and prime instance of societal interaction exists, that being within the family. **
Healthy families that allow for first formation for it's future citizens are a concern of the state. How families choose to form their children is entirely the business of that family, but that the essential points exist are a concern if the state wishes to continue.
We have already established there are things that are not family: groups of teenagers, children playing in the backyard, nursing homes, etc. Groups do not translate into families.
If groups are not families, and individuals are not families, then what is a family it its most basic sense?
I argue/hypothesize/posit that it must be the most basic component defined by nature: a father, a mother, and a child. Adding to this while deleting the most critical parts (two fathers and a child, two mothers and a child) destroys the familial element. Adding extraordinary components (two fathers and three mothers, a father four mothers and seventeen children) also destroys the familial aspect. Deleting key components without replacing them does not break the familial bond (losing a mother, a father, or a child) because the basic components still exist in abstentsia. We recognize the absense of a parent or child in a way we would not recognize the additional presence of another father or mother.
Stepfamilies of course merge like components, but again in the constraint of one mother, one father replacing what is absent.
This is all very basic and free-flowing, and only intended to stimulate discussion. I still maintain that the basic element of family is the mother, father, and child.
All other attempts to redefine family have failed -- to create a different version of family would be a feat to rival that of Plato's Republic. Best of luck!
If someone disagrees, then we have still yet to see an acceptable alternative to what nature itself has preordained. Plato will be impressed!!!
- comment David Weintraub
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- Plato must be impressed with all the families headed by same-sex couples, then.
Evidently, nature has pre-ordained that over 450 vertebrate species, including human beings, will engage in sex for reasons other than reproduction, including between individuals of the same sex. Of course this is about religious doctrine. When you use the term "nature," what you really mean is the interpretation of the natural world generated by your doctrine, not the natural world itself.
Real world, this is Shaun. Shaun, meet the real world. Please play nicely.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- David, just because you read an article telling you something you want to believe, doesn't make it true.
Did you read the professional criticism of that study?
What, if anything, do you suppose separates us from animals?
- comment James Atticus Bowden
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- How many mammals eat their young? Is that a good argument for cannabalism?
- comment Walter Hensley
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- How many religions created instruments of torture James Atticus Bowden? Is that a good argument for torture? Oh, oops! My patriotism is slipping. We are at war, with terrorists and homsexuals and activist judges and liberals and environmentalists and feminists and...
- comment David Weintraub
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- Shaun, the Roughgarden book (I assume this is what you refer to) isn't the only study to come to this conclusion, only the most recent one. This is not really a controversial issue, as anyone who has spent time around livestock can tell you.
What separates us from other animals? Self-awareness and the ability to have this conversation, I suppose. This is not a moral argument, it's a factual one. There is a natural world out there, even if you don't like what it has to say.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- David, are you seriously arguing that homosexual acts are animalistic instinct? Or that human beings are no different than animals? I've heard some pretty hateful people argue as such, but never from one defending homosexuality!
Are you even thinking about the consequences of what you are saying? I'm certain you're not -- otherwise you wouldn't be repeating such a ridiculous and thoughtless comparison.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- How many mammals eat their young? Is that a good argument for cannibalism?
Among animals lacking the use of reason, I'm sure it might be...
Aquinas would argue that animals simply do not have the capacity for love as humans do, but that might be a step to far in a conversation where the opposition refuses to admit human beings are superior to (and not just different than) animals.
- comment PyreDruid
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- Now to go after the other side, wouldn't saying that humans are superior than animals because they can love in ways that animals can't possibly be evidence for allowing gay/lesbian families (I'm thinking that since humans can love people for reasons that are not just propogation of the species that would make us superior), after all isn't a loving homosexual "family" be better than an unloving heterosexual family? I know theres a big thing about what makes a family, but I'm more concerned about whats best for the children involved.
Just wondering what you think about that?
- comment Walter Hensley
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- How many religions created instruments of torture James Atticus Bowden? Is that a good argument for torture? Oh, oops! My patriotism is slipping. We are at war, with terrorists and homsexuals and activist judges and liberals and environmentalists and feminists and...
- comment Walter Hensley
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- Sorry about the double post. Loss of state. You have fun.
- comment James Atticus Bowden
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- Walter: Thanks for the link to the Inquisition torture tools to help understand your post - kinda.
Do you think those tools were invented by the Catholic Church or by others and used by the Church?
I believe most instruments of torture which are used in the name of religion were first invented for other purposes.
The North American Indians tortured prisoners before they burned them at the stake for their spirits.
The Aztecs had ritual murder as did the Incas and Mayans.
The Nazi Human Secularists and Communist Human Secularists didn't get their torture devices from some church gift shop.
Gee, you can go on and on about every culture (producing a country or tribe etc) doing terrible things to people, so I don't follow why there should be an argument for torture. In fact, I don't understand your point or why it was directed at my comments. Little help?
- comment David Weintraub
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- Shaun,
I'm having a hard time understanding what you think I'm saying. "Animalistic urges"? What does that even mean? If you mean that human sexuality is a biological drive, well of course it is. Like everything else about being human, it's also shaped by culture. How would you explain it?
You do realize that homo sapiens is a mammalian vertebrate species, right? We're not from outer space. Yes, we are different from other animals, obviously - as I said above, we have culture.
I assume you just read my previous comment and reacted, without really thinking it through.
- comment Jason Kenney
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- David, I think he took your comment and went one step further. Sure, we're animals, but what seperates us from the beasts is a mental process that allows us to overpower "animalistic urges". There may be an animalistic urge to use the bathroom wherever we please when the urge arises or fear the crash of thunder because we think of it as a predator approaching, but we know better. So to say it's "natural" isn't a viable argument because we humans don't just do things naturally.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- I thought I had been pretty clear about what separates us from aninmals (reasoning faculties being among them).
David, for the sake of conversation, maybe you could explain what you feel separates human beings from animals? I think Jason put the question forward correctly.
- comment David Weintraub
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- I answered that already. What I said was culture (which arises from our reasoning faculties, so we agree on that).
I don't think we're facing an either/choice between the two extremes of defecating wherever we happen to be standing, and trying to divorce ourselves from the natural world of which we are a part.
You and I seem to disagree on what that means. I think that, as part of that natural world, human beings were created in a great diversity, including diversity in sexuality. There is enormous empirical evidence that this is normal and natural, including that it seems to be the case across many, many other species. Recognizing that this is our biological reality is not "animalistic," nor does it deny the role of culture, rather it's just part of being human.
Put another way, I don't think that the role of culture should be to stamp out our biological reality, it should be to understand it better.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- David, you've sidestepped three critical points in order to emphasize culture over reality:
(1) Reason allows us to restrain instictive urges.
(2) Reasoning faculties are the prime separator between animals and humans.
(3) Culture is not a product of reason.
Now I will most certainly agree with you that we should not try to impose beliefs on scientific inquiry. But to argue that animals of the same sex copulating equates some legitimacy to homosexuality is false to the extreme. The statement simply does not follow, given (a) human beings do not have sex for procreation alone, or pleasure alone -- the act is joint, (b) human beings can exercise reason and restrain impulses to have sex, (c) animals do not have the capacity to form meaningful relationships, unless you are willing to draw the direct comparison to homosexual acts being raw, instinctive, and "animalistic" -- essentially the surrender of one's reasoning faculties.
Again, I've heard some rather hateful people draw that comparison, but never as a defense for homosexuality...
Glad the conversation is remaining civil. Perhaps you would like to take a stab at the first three points above?
I disagree that reason leads to culture (ants and bees have culture in a primal sense, but certainly not reasoning faculties).
- comment David Weintraub
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- I'm sorry, Shaun. I haven't sidestepped anything, we simply disagree on the nature of reality - although I don't disagree with your first two points. Perhaps we mean something different by "culture."
I have no need to gain your approval, I've only tried to clarify my points per your requests, and I don't know how I can make them any clearer.
It is unhelpful for you to repeat the exact same charge of my supposed use of an "animalistic impulses" argument after I have already addressed that as a misunderstanding on your part. I don't see that addressing it again using different words will make any difference.
I will leave you with a correction and a question. First, human beings do indeed have sex solely for pleasure and bonding. That is why so many of them use contraceptives when they have heterosexual intercourse. Secondly, where do you think culture comes from?
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- I certainly wasn't asking you to prove much of anything to me -- only the basis of your argument. I'm sorry that offends you, but I think it's only proper to support claims.
To your first point, the sexual act is both procreative and unitative -- it produces children by design (and I use that term loosely, not in the ID sense) and it produces pleasure.
Remove one of these objects from the equation, and something is lost from the sexual act. I would entirely agree with you that the sexual act is for bonding and pleasure, but when it is only for the purposes of bonding and pleasure and artificially removes the procreative aspect, then it is no longer bonding -- it is abusing the other individual for the sake of pleasure.
Sex for the procreative purposes alone also cheapens the sexual act, because there is indeed a unitative quality to the sexual act.
In this sense, one cannot remove the procreative and the unitative qualities of the sexual act, for reasons explained. Some might artificially remove them, but that leads down two roads that are not mutually exclusive: (a) reducing the other person to an object for sexual pleasure, or (b) reducing humanity to a mechanistic existence.
To your second point, culture comes from interaction. Two-year olds create culture at a day-care, but they certainly haven't developed their reasoning faculties. Bees have a culture. Monkeys have culture. Lions have culture. Ants have culture. Humans have culture, but it is certainly not prerequisited by reason, yes? This is why I continue to dismiss this as non-sequitur reasoning (and why I continue to press for explanations you don't seem comfortable explaining).
My thoughts anyhow, on a horse we seem to have beaten pretty thouroughly.
- comment David Weintraub
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- Ok, fair enough. I was using culture to denote something uniquely human.
Like I said, we just disagree. I think that sexual pleasure and bonding with a loved partner is a good in and of itself.
I don't find that animalistic in the least, notwithstanding that, to the extent that they have "culture" (which I would be more likely to call a social order), the Bonobos might agree.
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- Heh heh -- fair enough.
- comment Not Not Jay Hughes
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- Shaun:
When you invoke the concepts of reason and instinctive urges could you clarify?
Personally, I'm a fan of the Aristotelian division of the human: reason/passion/appetite.
But I would take the division between reason and what you call instinctive urges a bit further. You assert in an earlier post that reason can restrain instinctive urges. I disagree.
I would argue that each human can choose between the two polar opposites (reason/passion) as he/she navigates through life.
More later...I have to be up at 0400 and when that's your wake up call 2139 is pretty late.
All the best,
Jay
- comment Shaun Kenney
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- Well, my intent was threefold:
(1) Animals react on instinct not reason. Human beings use their reason to quell their instinct. Therefore, to suggest that animals exhibit homosexual tendencies is to imply that the homosexual act is based in the same base root -- instinct. I disagree and found it strange (absurd even) for a member of Equality Loundon to even suggest a line of reasoning that frankly, I'm used to hearing from people who just outright hate gays.
(2) I agree with the Aristotlean mean, and that virtue lies in the mean. Reason IMO does indeed guide towards virtue, and leads away from vices on either extreme.
(3) My emphasis on the sexual act being both unitative and procreative is straight from Humanae Vitae. So a Catholic perspective yes, but a philosophical one based on nature and not one on theology -- at least I would like to think as such.
Taking it one step furtherwith the example of the Aristotlean mean -- on either end you have the procreative act and the unitative (pleasurable) act, and in the middle you have the virtuous mean that is intended by design.
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But while religion may have some truck in deciding what marriage is, and society may have some truck in deciding which relationships will be recognized and receive civil benefits, no one may intrude upon the constituents of a family and tell them that their entity is "not a family."
Families exist between single parents and their respective children. Families exist between siblings. Families exist between people and their pets, how ever absurd I may think it is when I hear a colleague say that his wife's cat is their "baby." By God, the etymology of "family" takes us to Latin for "household," and the first definition of family in the OED includes servants, as indeed "famulus" is the masculine singular nominative of "servant" in Latin.
So while the church may presume to tell same-sex couples that they may not marry, and the state may presume to tell same-sex couples that they are not conferred civil benefits, no one--no one--gets to say that two same-sex partners do not form a family, if both of them believe they do. If pets and servants count as family, then he who dares presume to tell me whom I may and may not include in mine so offends against my dignity that I shall not endure it.
In its purest historical and etymological sense, family means nothing more than a household; the body of persons who live in one house or under one head, including parents, children, servants, &c. Family in its adjectival, attributive sense only means domestic.
This concept of family as representing father, mother, and children is very historically and linguistically truncated. It may go over well with the Christian right, but that doesn't make it correct no matter how badly Victoria Cobb wants it to be. The history and etymology in this case belie the political buzzword. And this isn't a case of a word abandoning its historical meaning. It's not like family used to mean tree bark and now has subtlely shifted to mean leaves. This is a case of selective narrowing. And I reject it.
This political definition is also repudiated in law. Va. Code Ann. Sec. 16.1-228 defines a person's family to include "any individual who cohabits or who, within the previous 12 months, cohabited with the person, and any children of either of them then residing in the same home with the person."
To tell me with whom I may or may not form a family, whether or not the relationship be recognized by God or church or state, is to tell me whom I may or may not love in that comprehensive sense that we both know I mean. I will begrudge you your legal and your religious concerns about civil union and marriage, and I will not call you a bigot or a homophobe because I believe the positions religious and secular to be soundly grounded, but I will not suffer you to trespass beyond your due, especially not where as here, by law and language and learning, I am in the right.
In which case, I'd like to see a definition of family. I see groups of teenagers walking in the mall, or throngs of people protesting, or small children playing games. But those are not families.
So what is a family? I want to hear (read) the alternative definition.
Children playing, teenagers at the mall, and protestors demonstrating do not become families under either the historical or legal definition of family.
If you want to offer a hypothesis in place of the etymological and legal definition of family, you certainly have the ability to present that to the body politic for their consideration. However, you can't, honestly, tell them that in presenting a hypothesis to replace the real definition of family you're really preserving a definition of family dissonant with the historical and existing legal definition. "Preserving" family and substituting a novel notion of family for the status quo are different, and suggesting that the latter is really the former is disingenuous.
I would like to see a precise definition of family. Clearly we've demonstrated that it isn't a group of androgynous people collected together. Neither is it even a group of people who enjoy one another's company. Nor is it innocent bonding between children or friends.
If someone is going to challenge the definition of family, then I would at least expect to know what the alternative is, yes? That's only proper -- otherwise we're not discussing an alternative at all.
What is your definition of family, in contrast with the commonly accepted definition of the basic building blocks -- a mother, a father, and a child?
Marriage is the union between one man and one woman.
A family consists of a mother, a father, and a child.
***
Now naturally, there are differences. Divorces occur and fathers/mothers leave. Is the single father/mother and their children any less of a family? Of course not -- they are still a family unit.
Now add to the mix a set of two fathers, or two mothers, or two mothers and two fathers and a set of children. Is this a family unit?
Extrapolate further. A man, three women, and a dog. Is this a family?
Seven men, three women, a cattle farm, and thirty workers. Is this a family?
The question is: how much farther can we extrapolate a unit of people before it (a) ceases to be a family and (b) what is the basic building block of society that allows for the fullest range of experience for a young child?
The answer to (b) seems easy enough -- we will encounter males, we will encounter females. One of each will do. This is basic, not essential.
The answer to (a) is a bit more tricky. I would answer that a boundary is crossed when additions are made to the family unit that are extraordinary. Ask any family that has had to merge stepchildren to understand that there is still and always a them vs. us attitude to the newcomers.
Deletions from the family unit are not where the line is crossed. Children can lose a parent, parents can lose children, but the bond remains. Even children that lose both parents still consider each other family, be it from a young age even into elderly ages (and hence where cousins still share that bond).
In short, the basic elements are a mother, father, and child. Extraordinary additions to the unit are simply that -- extra, and properly not considered family. Families can be merged (stepparents and stepchildren for example), but only with parallel structures. Extracirricular members -- invited guests, housekeepers, friends -- we may feel close attachment to, and consider them part of our home.
Household perhaps, but the bonds of family are much more base.
Now as to why this is, I don't have an answer. Human beings have a remarkable talent for taking what they want to believe and turning that into what is. Unfortunately for us, imagining reality and reality itself are two entirely different things.
When it comes to familial arrangements, every child has the right to a mother and a father. Even in the sense when one of the parents is absent, there is still an absence. Adding to the arrangement only duplicates what nature preordains.
That is the best, rambling, nonsensical, stream-of-consciousnes (and non-religious) defense of the nuclear family I can think of at the moment. :)
Offered for the spirit of conversation!
JJD is correct. You have overstepped your bounds.
You are free to decide for yourself what sort of family you will participate in creating. You may not claim ownership of the word. That we will not tolerate, not from you, not from the Pope, not from anyone. Enough is enough.
You do not have the authority to demand an explanation. This is a matter of personal liberty for free people. If you wish to live in a theocracy where such things are dictated, please go somewhere else.
I'm not challenging the definition of family. You are. The definition of family is, was, and unless you prevail in changing it, "household." It is so in the dictionary. It is so in the etymological descent of the word. It is so in the law of the Commonwealth. Yes, this is a semantic point--because the debate we're having is a semantic one. I'm not confusing the issue with semantics; the issue a semantic issue.
I'm not "changing" family to household. Household is what family is, etymologically, historically, and legally. If you're trying to define it in any another way, you're the one trying to change the definition--and you have the burden of persuading the body politic that your definition should be adopted to replace the current one.
Therefore, I cannot accept your premise that we are challenging two concepts: (1) that marriage is a state between one man and one woman, and (2) that family is a father-husband, mother-wife, and their children. I cannot accept this premise because the second prong of this premise is legally, historically, and etymologically untrue. You will observe that I have consistently given "your side" the argument on religion, because there you have etymology, history, and law on your side. When it comes to family, you have none of that.
In fact, your position on family is exactly contradictory to your position on family. You argue that extending marriage to comprise same-sex relationships fundamentally alters the very definition--legally, historically, and etymologically--of marriage. Your definition of family as father-husband, mother-wife, and children fundamentally alters the legal, historical, and etymological defintion of family. The two things you want are in foundational conflict. They cannot be reconciled.
I know you are not a moron. I can appreciate that you may have inaccurately been reared to accept the idea that family means, and means only, father-husband + mother-wife + children. I can appreciate also that, having lived life so long with this inaccurate information, you are reluctant to part with it, despite references to etymological resources and the current code section defining family. But whether you're prepared to accept it or not, your definition is objectively and demonstrably wrong.
The family unit did not, and does not, exist for the benefit of a child. Children were not even part of the underlying concept from which the word family is derived--unless you're relegating children to the status of servants. Family originated as a concept regarding a patriarch and all the people beholden to him, in a manner very much analogous to feudal dominion. This included wives and children, yes, but also servants.
What you are describing in your last comment, this unique bond between parents and children, is a relationship, but that relationship cannot be described as family in the word's legal, historical, and etymological meaning: family encompasses this relationship, certainly, but family is not limited to it.
Law, history, and etymology, which all work for you on marriage--and why I begrudgingly concede the marriage issue to your side--all work against you on family. And, no matter how much you want to pretend otherwise or ignore the facts in deference to your personal beliefs inculcated in youth and reinforced over long years, the fact is that I am not challenging the status quo definition of family, you are.
David -- who mentioned theocracy? The only imposition of beliefs I see is the other way around, that being a re-definition of family into something far from it.
Regards, gentlemen...
You can be a member of the Cosa Nostra family, until the let you swim with the fishes (which aren't your pets)
You can be a member of the string family, but you'd have to be Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass, or Harp.
Sorry to interrupt with this dribble. Please return to your regularly scheduled intellectal program.
Shaun has it right.
As a side note, the VA law states that "family or household member" is defined as ....
As Shaun correctly states earlier there is a difference, the person cohabitating can be a household member and not be a family member. This is also where your dog, cat could fit in as a "household memeber" not a family member
So what we have here is a genetic definition of family that is seeking to replace the already existing legal definition of family, under the guise of protecting "traditional" marriage.
Very good, Kenney-san. I cannot hope to approach such cunning, but let me make an attempt at shedding light on the main issue.
Man meets woman. Man and woman do what men and women have been doing for centuries. Baby is born. Man and woman do not get married. Baby lives with woman, man lives somewhere else. Are they a family? Is simply the woman and baby a family?
Man meets another woman, they get married. Does he have one family, or two? Are all four people members of the same family? Is the son a part of his family, but not the first woman, due to heredity? Would any children born to the second woman still be part of the first woman's family? If the first woman meets another man and has another child while living with him, are there two families, or three?
Your definition, while elegant in its simplicity, is woefully unable to handle the real world. The legal definition, that JD provided, rests on cohabitation. This is operable. This is tangible. This is rational.
This is why I am no longer a conservative. Life is not black and white. Simple answers don't work, except in political campaigns. Life is complex, and requires complex solutions. Can Christianity provide such solutions? Absolutely. Is the sentence "A family consists of a mother, a father, and a child" such a solution?
No.
Isn't what the Pope says applicable to Catholics only, isnt he in essence saying that Catholic families can't be gay/lesbian? Since I'm assuming, Baptists, Hindus, Druid's etc. shouldn't be too concerned with what the Pope is saying. And he's supposed to say whats right or wrong for Catholics (or at least interpret what's right or wrong, not 100% clear on that) so what's the big problem about this.
It doesn't touch the legality of it though. Just my opinion.
Definitions of family are far from universal.
We can be biblical and look at whom Jesus defined as his family. That's New Testament. Or we can reincarnate Jacob with his two wives and two concubines, and you tell me they are not his family.
Methinks you are being silly Shaun. Oh, and what the law says does not mean it is correct. After it was this state whose anit-miscegination lawas were the subject of hte Lving v Virginia which said that a white and a black could not construct a family even through marriage - which would certainly make my nephew, his wife and their two duaghters at least a bit puzzled.
Actually, marriage is a cultural institution. The civilization and country, nation, tribe, etc. that grows from it defines marriage in many variations.
The anti-Christian (rabidly anti-Catholic) French Revolution defined marriage by civil authorities. Likewise, their intellectual descendants - the Communists - did and do the same.
Because we are a federal Republic marriage is written into our civil law by the legislatures.
No civilization ever confused homosexual behavior with marriage and the family. Ever. Not one. Zip. Zero. Nada. None. Null set.
Only modern Pagans and sissy Christians - Liberals are so confused and clueless.
Makes you wonder what Law Schools teach.
All that having been said...
Why is it that opponents of family are interjecting religious sentiment into the conversation?
This is not an argument from religion.
This is an argument from nature.
Nature as prearranged the basic building blocs of the family -- a mother, a father, and a child.
Kenneth brings up the idea of an Islamic marriage (though I don't think he understand the conditions that allow for them, but nonetheless the example is relevant). Here still, you have the basic elements in play -- a mother, a father, and a child. Are there multiplicities? Yes.
Is monogamy preferential to polygamy? Whenever the charge is brought to family revisionists, the polygamy-as-acceptable issue is brushed aside as ridiculous, so certainly Kenneth is not arguing that point...
Pyredruid brings up an interesting point -- what is good for Catholics is good for Catholics, Baptists for Baptists, Muslims for Muslims, Wiccans for Wiccans, etc.
This goes back to the imposition of religious beliefs on what nature itself imposes, IMO. If nature preordains that the essential elements of family are a mother, father, and child, then no amount of religious sentiment is going to change that; no more than a religion demanding the sky to be orange at high noon.
I do agree with the sentiment -- marriage laws were originally proscribed by the state to prevent "mixed" marriages (whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants). I certainly don't feel the need for the state to grant it's imprimatur in order to be married.
This goes to a larger question: WHY should the state favor family?
Society's building block is within family. It is how children first become accustomed to how to operate in the world.
** I want to stress at this point that I am not making an argument against individualism. Society involving social interaction, I only want to answer where the first and prime instance of societal interaction exists, that being within the family. **
Healthy families that allow for first formation for it's future citizens are a concern of the state. How families choose to form their children is entirely the business of that family, but that the essential points exist are a concern if the state wishes to continue.
We have already established there are things that are not family: groups of teenagers, children playing in the backyard, nursing homes, etc. Groups do not translate into families.
If groups are not families, and individuals are not families, then what is a family it its most basic sense?
I argue/hypothesize/posit that it must be the most basic component defined by nature: a father, a mother, and a child. Adding to this while deleting the most critical parts (two fathers and a child, two mothers and a child) destroys the familial element. Adding extraordinary components (two fathers and three mothers, a father four mothers and seventeen children) also destroys the familial aspect. Deleting key components without replacing them does not break the familial bond (losing a mother, a father, or a child) because the basic components still exist in abstentsia. We recognize the absense of a parent or child in a way we would not recognize the additional presence of another father or mother.
Stepfamilies of course merge like components, but again in the constraint of one mother, one father replacing what is absent.
This is all very basic and free-flowing, and only intended to stimulate discussion. I still maintain that the basic element of family is the mother, father, and child.
All other attempts to redefine family have failed -- to create a different version of family would be a feat to rival that of Plato's Republic. Best of luck!
If someone disagrees, then we have still yet to see an acceptable alternative to what nature itself has preordained. Plato will be impressed!!!
Evidently, nature has pre-ordained that over 450 vertebrate species, including human beings, will engage in sex for reasons other than reproduction, including between individuals of the same sex. Of course this is about religious doctrine. When you use the term "nature," what you really mean is the interpretation of the natural world generated by your doctrine, not the natural world itself.
Real world, this is Shaun. Shaun, meet the real world. Please play nicely.
Did you read the professional criticism of that study?
What, if anything, do you suppose separates us from animals?
What separates us from other animals? Self-awareness and the ability to have this conversation, I suppose. This is not a moral argument, it's a factual one. There is a natural world out there, even if you don't like what it has to say.
Are you even thinking about the consequences of what you are saying? I'm certain you're not -- otherwise you wouldn't be repeating such a ridiculous and thoughtless comparison.
Among animals lacking the use of reason, I'm sure it might be...
Aquinas would argue that animals simply do not have the capacity for love as humans do, but that might be a step to far in a conversation where the opposition refuses to admit human beings are superior to (and not just different than) animals.
Just wondering what you think about that?
Do you think those tools were invented by the Catholic Church or by others and used by the Church?
I believe most instruments of torture which are used in the name of religion were first invented for other purposes.
The North American Indians tortured prisoners before they burned them at the stake for their spirits.
The Aztecs had ritual murder as did the Incas and Mayans.
The Nazi Human Secularists and Communist Human Secularists didn't get their torture devices from some church gift shop.
Gee, you can go on and on about every culture (producing a country or tribe etc) doing terrible things to people, so I don't follow why there should be an argument for torture. In fact, I don't understand your point or why it was directed at my comments. Little help?
I'm having a hard time understanding what you think I'm saying. "Animalistic urges"? What does that even mean? If you mean that human sexuality is a biological drive, well of course it is. Like everything else about being human, it's also shaped by culture. How would you explain it?
You do realize that homo sapiens is a mammalian vertebrate species, right? We're not from outer space. Yes, we are different from other animals, obviously - as I said above, we have culture.
I assume you just read my previous comment and reacted, without really thinking it through.
David, for the sake of conversation, maybe you could explain what you feel separates human beings from animals? I think Jason put the question forward correctly.
I don't think we're facing an either/choice between the two extremes of defecating wherever we happen to be standing, and trying to divorce ourselves from the natural world of which we are a part.
You and I seem to disagree on what that means. I think that, as part of that natural world, human beings were created in a great diversity, including diversity in sexuality. There is enormous empirical evidence that this is normal and natural, including that it seems to be the case across many, many other species. Recognizing that this is our biological reality is not "animalistic," nor does it deny the role of culture, rather it's just part of being human.
Put another way, I don't think that the role of culture should be to stamp out our biological reality, it should be to understand it better.
(1) Reason allows us to restrain instictive urges.
(2) Reasoning faculties are the prime separator between animals and humans.
(3) Culture is not a product of reason.
Now I will most certainly agree with you that we should not try to impose beliefs on scientific inquiry. But to argue that animals of the same sex copulating equates some legitimacy to homosexuality is false to the extreme. The statement simply does not follow, given (a) human beings do not have sex for procreation alone, or pleasure alone -- the act is joint, (b) human beings can exercise reason and restrain impulses to have sex, (c) animals do not have the capacity to form meaningful relationships, unless you are willing to draw the direct comparison to homosexual acts being raw, instinctive, and "animalistic" -- essentially the surrender of one's reasoning faculties.
Again, I've heard some rather hateful people draw that comparison, but never as a defense for homosexuality...
Glad the conversation is remaining civil. Perhaps you would like to take a stab at the first three points above?
I disagree that reason leads to culture (ants and bees have culture in a primal sense, but certainly not reasoning faculties).
I have no need to gain your approval, I've only tried to clarify my points per your requests, and I don't know how I can make them any clearer.
It is unhelpful for you to repeat the exact same charge of my supposed use of an "animalistic impulses" argument after I have already addressed that as a misunderstanding on your part. I don't see that addressing it again using different words will make any difference.
I will leave you with a correction and a question. First, human beings do indeed have sex solely for pleasure and bonding. That is why so many of them use contraceptives when they have heterosexual intercourse. Secondly, where do you think culture comes from?
To your first point, the sexual act is both procreative and unitative -- it produces children by design (and I use that term loosely, not in the ID sense) and it produces pleasure.
Remove one of these objects from the equation, and something is lost from the sexual act. I would entirely agree with you that the sexual act is for bonding and pleasure, but when it is only for the purposes of bonding and pleasure and artificially removes the procreative aspect, then it is no longer bonding -- it is abusing the other individual for the sake of pleasure.
Sex for the procreative purposes alone also cheapens the sexual act, because there is indeed a unitative quality to the sexual act.
In this sense, one cannot remove the procreative and the unitative qualities of the sexual act, for reasons explained. Some might artificially remove them, but that leads down two roads that are not mutually exclusive: (a) reducing the other person to an object for sexual pleasure, or (b) reducing humanity to a mechanistic existence.
To your second point, culture comes from interaction. Two-year olds create culture at a day-care, but they certainly haven't developed their reasoning faculties. Bees have a culture. Monkeys have culture. Lions have culture. Ants have culture. Humans have culture, but it is certainly not prerequisited by reason, yes? This is why I continue to dismiss this as non-sequitur reasoning (and why I continue to press for explanations you don't seem comfortable explaining).
My thoughts anyhow, on a horse we seem to have beaten pretty thouroughly.
Like I said, we just disagree. I think that sexual pleasure and bonding with a loved partner is a good in and of itself.
I don't find that animalistic in the least, notwithstanding that, to the extent that they have "culture" (which I would be more likely to call a social order), the Bonobos might agree.
When you invoke the concepts of reason and instinctive urges could you clarify?
Personally, I'm a fan of the Aristotelian division of the human: reason/passion/appetite.
But I would take the division between reason and what you call instinctive urges a bit further. You assert in an earlier post that reason can restrain instinctive urges. I disagree.
I would argue that each human can choose between the two polar opposites (reason/passion) as he/she navigates through life.
More later...I have to be up at 0400 and when that's your wake up call 2139 is pretty late.
All the best,
Jay
(1) Animals react on instinct not reason. Human beings use their reason to quell their instinct. Therefore, to suggest that animals exhibit homosexual tendencies is to imply that the homosexual act is based in the same base root -- instinct. I disagree and found it strange (absurd even) for a member of Equality Loundon to even suggest a line of reasoning that frankly, I'm used to hearing from people who just outright hate gays.
(2) I agree with the Aristotlean mean, and that virtue lies in the mean. Reason IMO does indeed guide towards virtue, and leads away from vices on either extreme.
(3) My emphasis on the sexual act being both unitative and procreative is straight from Humanae Vitae. So a Catholic perspective yes, but a philosophical one based on nature and not one on theology -- at least I would like to think as such.
Taking it one step furtherwith the example of the Aristotlean mean -- on either end you have the procreative act and the unitative (pleasurable) act, and in the middle you have the virtuous mean that is intended by design.
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