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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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Especially in the US there are probably a lot of people who would rather blame lizard people than face the reality that their own ideology is at fault. You can't have complete separation between church and state while the state enforces Christian morality. Much of the American right clings to the constitution and libertarian ideas while wanting society to enforce their morality.

If the state is supposed to be not involved in religion, who says gays can't marry?

If the state is supposed to be not involved in religion, who says gays can't marry?

The state because there is no state interest in a homosexual couple. State marriage only exists to manage procreative couplings. That it is not narrowly tailored doesn't matter. Also the state has other strong interests in deterring homosexuality.

State marriage only exists to manage procreative couplings.

But infertile opposite-sex couples could always get married...?

Also the state has other strong interests in deterring homosexuality.

Such as...?

Determining whether a couple is infertile in general is much harder than determining whether a couple is gay. It is entirely reasonable for the state to not want any marriages which do not produce children, but to allow the ones that it can't trivially detect.

Well, they could always be made to adopt orphans, and at least some gay or lesbian couples go through the trouble of surrogacy.

The orphans aren't already in enough trouble?

I find most of the assisted reproduction creepy.

I'd rather have a 50% of being sexually abused as a child than counterfactually not exist, frankly. I think most people, if they were honest, would agree. This makes banning gays from having assisted-reproduction children ... extremely stupid, imo, and the morality that leads you to believe it must be prevented extremely suspect. (Its' still fine to think gays are evil or whatever, that can coexist)

This makes banning gays from having assisted-reproduction children

He said "most of the assisted reproduction", it doesn't specify that it should be banned for gay people. Personally I think it should be banned for everyone.

and the morality that leads you to believe it must be prevented extremely suspect.

Once in a while, when we talk, you end up saying something like "how do you not realize I'n far-right". This is how. I don't see how there's anything morally suspect about wanting to stop the fertility industry.

I literally said "it's still fine to think gays are evil" in the next sentence, man, I'm not being subtle here. The point is even then, the right response isn't "prevent harm".

He said "most of the assisted reproduction", it doesn't specify that it should be banned for gay people. Personally I think it should be banned for everyone.

Right, and I think whatever the harm is, it's better to have more people who can experience things (and more rolls of the dice for higher-quality people, etc)

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