You are wrong in every sentence. Let’s start with the title: you don’t present two “theories” of marriage. Do you know what a theory is?
[quote=“Il Ðoge”]Disclaimer: Not all of these ideas are mine of course, many of them are restatements that come from the book What is Marriage which was originally published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. [/quote] That book was not published by the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
[quote]There’s two views of marriage out there for quite awhile now,[/quote] There’s quite a few more than 2 views of marriage. I’m not sure how “quite a while now” is relevant and “out there” is a rather big place.
Even if one were to accept this, it’s a silly distinction. How much any individual marriage is about emotion probably varies more from couple to couple than a comparison between the sexes. If you are going to create a false dichotomy, it should at least be an actual dichotomy.
Well into the sphere of… is this a third category? Because before you said it’s either partially about emotion or all about it.
[quote]which coincides with policies like easy access to divorce and the slippery slope towards things like plural marriage and temporary marriage licenses. [/quote] Ah, yes, the slippery slope. Are you aware that slippery slopes are fallacies?
[quote]This is because homosexual people cannot have children with each other (bringing in children from other people is not the same)which means that their relationship is purely emotional in nature. [/quote] So their marriages are emotional because they can’t have sex with each other which results in children? Then are infertile people also in emotional marriages? What about women who marry after menopause? What about men who have had vasectomies? Are you not embarrassed to say that you think whether or not 2 people can have sex resulting in children makes their relationship more an “emotional marriage” than the alternative, which is partly emotional, ie, traditional because it’s not wholly emotional, but neither is same sex marriage because it’s just well into the sphere of emotional? You see what I’m getting at? It’s that you don’t make sense.
[quote]This coincides with things like easy access to divorce or maybe even temporary marriage because if the marriage is only about emotion, when the emotion ends (or far more likely, merely becomes less than other emotions) so ends the marriage.[/quote] Easy access to divorce coincides with how emotional a marriage is? So… please give us an example of a state that has made divorce easier after legalizing gay marriage. I’m curious, if marriage is partly or wholly (or in the sphere of emotions), what is your exact cut-off for how emotional the marriage is and then how easy it becomes to get a divorce. Again, this makes no sense.
[quote]In contrast to that you have traditional marriage which can be extra-emotional in nature. [/quote] “It can be” is not a very strong statement. So if people are traditional, they MIGHT be less emotional which is good because then divorce is harder because their marriage isn’t based on emotion as much.
[quote]Traditional marriage certainly does not reject the idea of emotional love but it includes other things as well. [/quote] It sounds like your distinction is rather meaningless, then.
[quote]These other things mostly relate to the goal of raising happy and effective children, people who indisputably contribute more to their community than children raised in other arrangements.[/quote] And this is why your side has already lost the debate. Attacking people’s families usually won’t get you very far. There are no studies showing what you claimed and it’s nothing but bigotry to claim this is true.
[quote]This conception of marriage relates to things like traditional marriage and difficult requirements for divorce.[/quote] So the concept of marriage as less emotional because there are children involved is what you claim to be traditional? And divorce more difficult? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but children don’t seem to stop divorce.
[quote]It is also possible to go to the “dark side” of traditional marriage and treat the institution like a factory but it is not necessary.[/quote] I’ve tried, but I can’t make any sense of this.
[quote]I believe that if we don’t use traditional marriage as a reference point, the only standard for if a relationship gets state recognition is whether enough people can be convinced that the emotional love felt by the parties is real.[/quote] As has been pointed out, the only definition you have given is that traditional marriage is based less on emotion. This is a very stupid idea and I don’t see how it can be a starting point for anything.
[quote]This does (in theory) open the door to things like plural marriages, temporary marriages and anything else that people can be convinced is “real love” when we define real love as being nothing but an emotion.[/quote] I wonder if Josh Duggers “real loves” his wife and kids. He was so traditional. Seems like this traditional stuff opens the doors to things like affairs and lying.
[quote]There are two problems with that kind of policy.[/quote] Because all good things come in twos.
[quote]The first problem is that children from traditional marriages contribute more to society and perform better in every measurable area.[/quote] Bullshit. Even if you ended gay marriage, you wouldn’t end gay parenthood. Marriage is not required for parenthood and both gay and straight people can now, and will continue, to be parents even if marriage laws change.
[quote]The second problem is that if we ever reach a point where everyone can obtain the “marriage” subsidy,[/quote] Wait, what is that? I never got my subsidy! WTF are you talking about?
[quote]it means that no one is obtaining it and it would probably be abolished entirely.[/quote] Huh? If everyone can get it then it will be abolished? First, no law has been passed that everyone could get it. Second, give me an example of something everyone can get that has then been abolished. Seems to be the opposite of how things actually work.
[quote]This would probably mean we would have gone full circle back to the social values and methodologies that existed in unhappier ancient times.[/quote] You mean traditional times?
[quote] To summarize, it’s crude to say that traditional marriage isn’t about love but accurate to say that it is about more than just emotional love.[/quote] Right, but that same thing can be said about every relationship, not just people who are bumping uglies. Your core argument is how emotional a marriage is has an effect on marriage as a whole. I say, bullshit. Every idea you presented is elementary, weak, nonsense.