Take California

[featherynscale]

Judge rules against gay marriage ban.

Now the interesting part of this article, to me, anyway, is the bit down at the very, very end... it could be my first sighting of an argument against gay marriage that is not based in the Christian religion. Let's take a look, shall we?

Two groups opposed to gay marriage rights, The Campaign for California Families and the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund, argued that the state has a legitimate interest in restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples as a way of encouraging procreation.

OK. Let's forget for a moment that forbidding same-sex couples to marry does not necessarily in any way encourage the individuals involved to procreate. That's not important right now. This is the question I'm interested in: Is it in the state's interest to encourage procreation in the first place?

Discuss.

Comments

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

Of course, the article states that these groups claim that the state has a legitimate interest, as opposed to just an interest. For our purposes, we mean practically the same thing, but it isn't quite. The questions then becomes what criteria there are that would legitimize the state's interest and who determines them.

Given that our nation is not under any threat of losing a critical mass of citizens to maintain our current society, I can't think of any. Most of the ones usually cited--moral decay, public health, etc.--are impossible to attribute to any monocausality that would warrant such interest and are pretty much straw men anyway.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I have a serious problem accepting "moral decay" as a legitimate threat to the government. Ethical decay, certainly. But to distinguish between the two is not done in this country.

And with regards to public health, California already can't support its public health system -- it's trying to serve too many clients as it is.

[fionnabhar.livejournal.com]

I'm in total agreement with you on both points. I was just citing the usual threats to society mentioned by usual politicos to justify their usual decisions. A major fallacy with the public health straw man is, of course, that withholding marriage changes the statistics for the number of people having sex. And as we agree, defining "moral" decay is squiffy at best. I wouldn't trust the moral decay folks with the ethical decay either, if it came to that.