Some years ago as a tourist in Ireland my wife and I climbed the tower of a ruined abbey. At the top there were no safety railings and the parapet wall was not much above knee height. While cursing the responsible authorities, I couldn't help feeling invigorated by the sense of danger. On the same trip we abandoned a climb of Croagh Patrick (Ireland's holy mountain) after I was literally blown off my feet. As we descended we were passed by a group of students and their teachers who were apparently oblivious to the dangers of the ferocious weather. I admired their perseverence and suspect an Australian school party would have retreated, partly because of the potential legal action in the event of an accident.

I believe people should be able to risk their lives if they want to. Someone else driving too fast- hey, that's putting MY life at risk.

Isn't this interesting. Johnj, I can only assume you are an incompetent driver, or you would not think any speed above our current speed limits was dangerous. Perhaps its an age thing, you may never have been allowed to drive faster than 100 Km, in which case you would probably be dangerous, at higher speeds.
Back in the 60s, I regularly drove my high powerd cars at 100 MPH, for hours, legally, & safely, on roads which would be considered goat tracks today.
Even more interesting is the fact that todays shopping trolleys have better suspension, steering, breaks, tires, & safty, than any of my "high powered" cars of the 60s. In fact, a very high percentage of them will have more power than my "high powered" 60s car did.
As there is no reason to believe that you young blokes should not be able to learn to drive at least as well as I did in my youth, there must be some reason, other than safty, for our currant very low speed limits.
Could it be our government's addiction to money?
As its easier to raise lots of money in fines, with very low speed limits, I think I may just have stumbled on the answer.

Brougham
I'm sorry but your assertions are simply wrong.

1) The homosexual lifestyle [whatever that is] is no more unhealthy than a heterosexual lifestyle.

2) Many children have been raised very well in loving homosexual families & raised badly in disfunctional heterosexual ones. The idea that simply having a mother & father on the scene equals a happy, healthy child is simplistic rubbish at best.

The theme of this forum seems to be that we should only restrict choices that measurably harm others.

Broughom has proposed that she/he can determine how safely she/he can drive, PK has said that recreational drug use does not directly harm others and nowvoyager has an aversion to paying for another's choice to smoke with her/his taxes.

I personally don't think the concept of “moral luck” poses much of a threat to measuring harm (or any other consequnces...). We can have relatively objective measures of how harmful different choices are.

Eg-I assume speed limits are somewhat determined by the damage a speeding car can inflict and by measures of safe driving at different speeds. Probably our tolerance of a certain number of road fatalities to maintain our desire to go very fast, politics, tradition, and a whole heap of other factors come into play and it is likely that broughom can drive at much higher speeds more safely than I can. However, a mostly objective measure of speed limits that are the safest policy for most drivers is surely possible.

To me, arguments against choices due to unfair resource use are more problematic; everyone with access to the internet is using resources that some in the world don't get access to. Cigarettes are heavily taxed already, ostensibly to deter smokers and to "pay for" health costs, though the taxes don't really do either job, but I agree that the measurable resource drain from smoking seems so overwhelming, even when understated, that smokers are taking an unfair share of resources compared to non smokers.

Taken to an extreme, this sort of argument can be scary; should we have resource balancing(taxes?) on choices to drive? drink? eat junk/meat? play contact sport? swim at the beach?

Nevertheless, I believe statistical measures of "unfair" choices could be made, and I'm open to ideas to address the balance. But if this is a basis for our legal punishments for choices to take recreational drugs, then I agree that compared to "legal" drug abuse, our "balancing" of resources from unfair choices is not consistent.
(continued below)

(from above)
None of which seems to me to address the issue of choosing same sex marriages (or the manner of one's own death).

If we accept measuring harm is difficult, but an ethical basis of any decision is based on egalitarian principles (that is, that the basis must apply equally for everyone), then I struggle to think of any arguments against choosing homosexuality (or same sex marriages, or suicide/assisted death).

I‘m open to counterarguments, but the sort of arguments posted by broughom confound me. Broughom says that “homosexuality is not… healthy”, and causes real harm (by any measure…).

I would appreciate guidance as to any sort of measure that could show harm caused by choosing a same sex marriage (is that harm exclusive to same sex marriage? what about any other form of same sex relationship? what about other relationships?).

Broughom has attempted such an argument with her/his second point that marriage other than between a man and woman, exclusively, harms children.
What about children that existed before the institution of marriage existed?
What evidence is there that children are harmed when not raised in an environment with this particular social institution having been enacted by a man and a woman guardian/parent?
Is this harm from the choice of same-sex marriage?
How does this harm impact on same sex marriages (or multiple partner marriages) between childless partners? Surely some other harm would need to be described to prohibit choosing same sex marriage, as this theoretical harm should only limit the choice to have children, when already in a same sex marriage (and should be fairly compared to other choices that create harmful environments for children)

I try to be generous in my interpretation of other arguments, but I can't help but feel that arguments against same sex marriages are not founded on egalitarian ethical principles, and even in an era of right wing religious zeal, I'm amazed and dismayed at how popular such arguments are (even if I disagree with the argument, I'd prefer to see a fair argument against the right to same-sex marriage).

How often have we heard this tired old, self-serving and unworkable rhetoric?
Choice in the absense of knowledge, commitment to the absolute truth and morals, wisdom, self-discipline and responsibility is disastrous. Have a look around, the evidence is everywhere.
But how do we establish the prerequisites for responsible choice making. We've been efficient for far too long at promoting individualism without balancing it with commitment to community, accountability, self-discipline and responsibility.
Emily is well meaning but "Oh-so-typical" of the anti-society-thought-robots produced by our education system. Emily, please use your obvious intelligence and develop some original thoughts.
I say let's Spring Clean ... get rid of the egocentric "intellectuals" who peddle illusions of relative-truth and the other flawed ideas so full of hope but empty. Flawed ideas will always be flawed ideas, regardless of who and how many people believe them. We need to develop citizens of character; people who can think out-side the box and beyond themselves. Too much potential seems forever, tragically locked into an anti-society mindset. Brought about, I speculate, by an inability of students to grow and mature beyond their university experience. For the job of developing intellect we need people of character, people with intelligence and real-life-experience and wisdom hard-won.
The “harm-no-one” edict is nonsense. We are all connected and one’s actions always impact others. Please think a little deeper on this dear people ... it is another mindless argument use to justify selfishness over the hard stuff: relationship with and caring for others.
If you're finding this difficult to follow than it's probably because you are brainwashed into the standard contemporary beliefs ... I encourage you to pray for a revelation. Try it, you have nothing to lose but your blindness.
You are well off the mark Emily; limitless choice would produce a worse nightmare than we have presently created for ourselves.
Aren't we lucky you Emily aren't making decisions for us and that there are some left who take responsibility for making the hard decisions that protect us from ourselves and each other?