MgS continues to show the true face of liberalism

Here are two comments that I submitted to MgS’s blog but which she has censored:

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“There can be no question but that GLBT relationships enter the 'social sphere' …”

But the source specified a particular way of entry into the ‘social sphere’—“ In this sense ...” The husband-wife society is a society within civil society. Same-sex couples are not husband-wife societies. They do not participate in civil society in the same way. You need to work on your basic comprehension.

“if you are GLBT it is really just a delusion on your part.”

Not a delusion, a disorder. Given that sexuality is ordered towards reproduction, it’s entirely reasonable to speak of a permanent and exclusive same-sex attraction as disordered.

“I [MgS] think it is folly to claim that there is "one true" family, and that all others should be subject to legal inequalities and systemic discrimination.”

Since you have brought this up I think it is only fair to ask: what limits do you think the State might reasonably impose on family configurations? Are consent of the parties and the absence of any adverse impact on others your only criteria? In which case polyamory and incest are to be permitted?

“Yes, but acknowledging that GLBT people do form long lasting, stable families; and by a dozen different paths, there are children being raised in GLBT families all the time. If we are going to talk about insecure and unstable relationships, would someone care to explain to me why it is so many marriages break down, or one of the partners starts philandering about behind their spouse's back?”

A classic comparison of apples and oranges. You need either to compare successful conventional familes with successful (so you would say) unconventional families, or unsuccessful conventional and unconventional families. Alternatively you can argue which family form is the more likely to be successful. That might be difficult for you, though, given that even figures from pro-G.L.B.T. sources indicate that same-sex couples are more likely to experience domestic violence; see, for instance, ACON’s 2006-07 Annual Report, the section on same-sex domestic violence. Plus there are the far higher rates of serious infections, mental illnesses and drug problems.

“That's because …”

Interesting that you did not challenge how

“The cardinal simply underlined that homosexuality does not contribute favorably to the organization of individuals and of society.”

The fact is that, if one wants to look at it from the State’s perspective of the optimal organisation of individuals and societies, the conventional family is the way to go. Married (conventional) couples have within themselves the means of producing new citizens. Same-sex couples do not have this benefit, and in fact involve significant costs—things I have already mentioned, like the wildly disproportionate rates of serious, sometimes life-threatening, diseases and conditions, as well as the disturbingly high domestic violence rate.

As for your point about friendship, it’s pretty hard to see how sodomy and the other unspeakable things they do to each other can ever be anything other than grotesque parodies of conjugal relations; sexual intercourse tends to new life, while sodomy only ever tends to death—at a minimum, anal fissures and various faecal infections such as urinary tract disease and shigella. Read all about it with our friends at ACON.

“To assume that homosexual relationships are simply a "twisted friendship" is deeply insulting to the GLBT community as a whole …”

Poor babies.

“people who are surprisingly self-aware, …”

Self-absorbed. Same-sex attractedness tends inevitably to narcissism.

“articulate, …”

Vociferous. Celebrate our diversity or it’s off to court with you! It’s certainly happened here in Australia.

“and that form real, loving relationships …"

Loving relationships based on behaviour that is mutually destructive?
[Comment rejected from http://crystalgaze2.blogspot.com/2009/01/theyre-just-obsessed.html]

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“Before you wander down that little legislative path …”

I don’t think anyone’s fully thought out the implications of so-called gay marriage, but that hasn’t stopped you or those of your ilk pushing ahead with it.

“(1) … Does this mean that a woman who has a fertilized egg is guilty of either involuntary manslaughter, or 'failing to provide the necessities of life' should this happen?”

No. Consent of the will, whether directly or through gross negligence, is necessary for culpability.

“(2) Should a woman who has sex find herself suddenly obliged to stay away from alcohol, tobacco and other substances until her next period, or risk being charged with child endangerment?”

How could that come to the police’s attention?

“(3) Consider miscarriage (also known as a natural abortion) - has the woman then committed a criminal act?”

No. Consent of the will is necessary for culpability. Which goes for exercise as well (in your next point). Next thing you’ll be asking whether a baby whose mother dies in labour should be charged with homicide. Oh, wait, you already have. Come on MgS, surely you know that there is no culpability without consent?

“Suddenly the doctor is potentially facing lawsuits not just on behalf of the woman, but a second set of damages with respect to the fetus.”

That already happens. Doctors can be sued for culpable negligence resulting in the death of a foetus. But of course, with new laws allowing abortion all the way up to full term, the rationale for this disappears. Am I to infer that you regard a second set of damages for such cases to be unjust?

“What are the doctor's options when saving the mother damages the fetus? Or vice versa?”

The options come under the usual norms of lesser evil and double effect.

“The list is practically endless”

Throw a few more at me then.

“a pregnant woman is not considered to be able to make her own moral and ethical decisions about a matter that affects her as much as it affects the fetus.”

Says who? For the umpteenth time: prohibiting any given object of a choice does not imply the prior incapacitation of that faculty of choice.

“Labels: Abortion, Bad Policy, Stupidity”

So everyone who disagrees with you is, by the very fact of the disagreement, stupid. That’s a bit childish, don’t you think?

“The implications (in particular legal - which is clearly distinct from biological) of granting legal rights to a fetus opens a moral and ethical can of worms that I do not believe has been adequately thought through”

But you’ve got the sequence around the wrong way. In most Western countries abortion was on the statute books as a very serious crime up to the mid-twentieth-century; see the pro-abortion movie Vera Drake, for instance. In fact it is the process of the liberalisation of those laws that was not fully thought through, so we have apologists like you concocting all manner of wild justifications for it ex post.

“The so-called "pro life" crowd is not logically consistent - they are absolutist.”

Tu quoque. “Humanity creates morality, twit” is pretty absolute. We all have to start from an absolute.

“You cannot argue that the relationship that a pregnant woman has with the fetus she carries is substantively different than it with the toddler that fetus will be in a few short years.”

O the irony. For pro-lifers, the relationship is essentially the same during pregnancy as in infancy: the relationship of mother and child. But here you are implying that a pregnant woman is a pregnancy machine during the pregnancy and becomes a mother only afterwards!

“a fetus is in no position to exercise legal rights of any sort”

The possession of a right and the use of it are two distinct and separable things; the latter comes under liberty of action, the former under moral liberty. Being unable to exercise a right does not mean that one does not have that right.

“Foster care can be brought into the picture, which dramatically changes the context.”

What if the mother doesn’t want anyone else to take her baby? You uphold a woman’s right to let her newborn baby die, don’t you?

“That scraping sound is the goalposts moving.”

No, I’m pretty sure it’s you at the bottom of the barrel.

“Second, I can imagine that there will be a variety of circumstances which could arise where an abortion after 25 or 26 weeks is still an ethically valid choice.”

Now here we have the unquestionable inconsistency in your own premises. You assert as axiomatic that a pregnant mother is entitled to end her unborn baby’s biological dependency on her at any point during the pregnancy. But ending the biological dependency does not necessarily imply ending the child’s life, yet you appear to uphold not merely a right to end the pregnancy but a right to kill the child. The question of the fate of the child is distinct and separable from the question of the biological dependency; you will need to invoke an additional axiom in order consistently to uphold your principle of the mother having a power of life and death over her unborn children, even if that axiom is simply ‘That the mother can not only end the biological dependency, but also end, specifically, the child’s life.’ Is this indeed your missing axiom, MgS? A simple yes or no will do; I am not asking you to ‘dismiss’ anyone’s ‘narratives’ or explore the ‘complexities’ and ‘subtleties’.
[Comment rejected from http://crystalgaze2.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-wonder-how-long.html]

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Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Agnes, Virgin, Martyr, A.D. 2009