Yep, agreed on that one, Madrigal.

Actually, if gay marriages are wrong because they don't do anything to increase the number of babies being born, then straight marriages aren't exactly an ideal institution either. Men should be able to run around impregnating willy nilly, as 'twere -- either polygamous marriages or else just random shaggage. Surely. If it's all about maximising the birthrate.

Just to chime in, while I disagree with the argument, it isn't actually about increasing the birthrate (for all that our PM has a rather melodramatic view of things). It's about considering the concept of marriage to be tied up in an essential manner with having and raising children. (Nor does this mean that marriage is only about having kids, rather that it's an integral part of the concept.) It doesn't mean that only couples who can/will have kids can get married, and it doesn't mean that married couples should be popping out as many sprogs as they find themselves capable of.

I don't think the argument makes much sense outside a religious framework, insofar as it assumes there's something essential and inviolate in the very concept of marriage, which would not be the case if it's treated as a purely social construction. But within said religious framework, then you have it instituted by divine fiat and designed for a particular conception of families as the basis of society. I strongly suspect that they regard the idea that marriage's primary justification concerns kids as being roughly equivalent to saying that marriage is a sacred union - because this is the stated Biblical logic for its existence in the first place.

Because it's definitionally not feasible for a same-sex couple to procreate (as opposed to particular couples who choose not to, or specific instances of heterosexual couples that are unable to), it's deemed that they erode the definition of marriage in a way that the other examples don't. Which means that people may well stop thinking about marriage in these terms, stop regarding it as a sacred union and start regarding it as a purely societal construct or such like. Then where would we be? We'd get all sorts of problems like adultery, divorce, single-parent families etc thanks to this devaluing of marriage.

Thankfully, of course, we live in the sort of utopian society where that isn't an issue. Best not let gays marry, it could bring it all crashing down.

some people seem almost too eager to make it about something other than homosexuality.

Actually, I was complaining that the conservatives were doing that. They're saying "It's about babies" or "It's about promiscuity", when in fact it's about homosexuality.

It's about considering the concept of marriage to be tied up in an essential manner with having and raising children.

But we already don't consider this essential. We aren't horrified when a 65-year-old woman marries. We ARE horrified when a 65-year-old married woman has in-vitro fertilization. If you're going to claim something is essential to our concept of marriage, you have to explain why we tolerate (and indeed applaud) marriages that cannot or will not produce children.

In 1600, English marriage was about property rights and children, no question. In 2003? Not so much.

This actually raises a question for me: Are Australia and Canada still mostly bound by English common law, or did you sit down and do a rewrite when you gained independence?

But we already don't consider this essential.

Pretty much the point of my last paragraph. The horse has long bolted; for all the lip service that may be paid to marriage as a sacred institution, it's ultimately treated as subordinate to societal norms (and for that matter, I think most people who deem it sacred also make such allowances).

If you're going to claim something is essential to our concept of marriage, you have to explain why we tolerate (and indeed applaud) marriages that cannot or will not produce children.

No, you don't, unless it actually attacks the link at a definitional level.The simple existence of instances of marriages that don't lead to kids doesn't do that. Person X being infertile is a contingent happenstance, it doesn't define their marital role. Basically, one may say 'they could have kids if X weren't infertile', and as that happenstance isn't constitutive of the concept of marriage, it doesn't erode said concept. Person X being male is another matter. Saying 'they could have kids if they were different sexes' is a different kind of statement.

There's a certain arbitrariness here, of course, as to what elements are deemed essential to the definition of marriage. But then definitions generally have a certain arbitrariness to them anyway. Which is why I think it doesn't work outside a religious framework, because then you have an ultimate arbiter to say "this is constitutive of the def'n of marriage, but this is not".

I'm not accusing anyone here of this, just trying to explain why I may come across as a bit tetchy on this issue.

Angus, I've revised and deleted too many messages on this subject to criticize you on this point.

Couple other logical fallacies in the "procreation" argument:

Adultery doesn't automatically nullify heterosexual marriages.

Heterosexual couples engage in certain sexual practices that are no more likely to result in pregnancy than anything same-sex couples do.

Plus, see the arguments I mentioned yesterday (heterosexual couples allowed to marry before having children, allowed to remain married after the children are grown).

Are Australia and Canada still mostly bound by English common law, or did you sit down and do a rewrite when you gained independence?

Canada has its own Criminal Code, and Quebec follows the Civil Law tradition of France (though uses the Canadian Criminal Code). Canada has its own written constitution, while the British constitution is unwritten.

while the British constitution is unwritten

This has me thinking it's a part of the oral tradition, that there are bards who travel all over the nation, and are always present for meetings in the parliament to recite the constitution, using all those ancient memory keys like interior rhymes and refrains and couplets. It'd be like Homer performing the Illiad and the Odyssey, but with less plot, and extremely repetitous.

That would be fun. Sort of like singing the Preamble to the Constitution.