# Anti-SSM argument goes from stupid to... what the heck is this?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [April 10, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819 "2014-04-10T19:53:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 14
### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/261 "2014-04-11T18:28:17Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#):
>
> I think Melchior’s real problem is a complete ignorance of linguistics and semiotics.
>
> The meaning of a word is determined by usage. If everyone starts calling cats “dogs”, well then … cats are “dogs”. There’s no point in grumbling “But a cat _isn_’t a ‘dog’!” A single individual doesn’t get to decide what a word means.
Like a judge? RIGHT!!!
---
### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/262 "2014-04-11T18:30:07Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> Or else what?
>
> You know, this is precisely what Utah is struggling with. Because if we aren’t “aware” some unidentified terrible thing happens. Your unidentified terrible thing seems to be “Because if you change it, 40,000 year old people will be really really confused.”
>
> But I will stand up straight and tall and say fuck the 40,000 year old people! Nyah!
I have no idea what your post is even attempting to say, it is that incoherent.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/263 "2014-04-11T18:30:46Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Like a judge? RIGHT!!!
Or like _the majority of Americans_?
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### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/264 "2014-04-11T18:31:05Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> They marry for other reasons. There are multiple grounds for marriage, but marriage is between opposite sexes. My point was why marriage developed to begin with, and those reasons principally have to do with parenthood and parentage.
Well, I married for other reasons, too. I married because my husband is my best friend and the love of my life and I want to make sure that he and I can support each other legally and financially as well as in other ways. I also married him to make a statement to my family and friends, whom I love, and to other members of my family, who are intolerant assholes, and to society at large, which contains the whole range of people, that my husband and I are a family. A household and a social unit of which neither member is superior, but which functions together as a little mini-team against the vagaries of an uncaring universe.
When we met, our only option was to be a household of two unrelated adults with sexual privileges that polite society wouldn’t refer to. Not to mention what it was like growing up in the 70s and 80s, or what it was like in the decades and centuries before that. Good thing I live in a civilized country where the likes of you don’t make policy anymore.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/265 "2014-04-11T18:31:39Z")
So, just recently I said this:
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> If you read **Melchior** ’s arguments about marriage - if for some reason you choose to subject yourself to this stuff - he often seems to be arguing that our concept of marriage is so utterly arbitrary and illogical that if you change a single element of our society’s concept of marriage even a tiny bit, the whole thing will fall apart because it will become obvious to everyone that marriage is useless and a complete sham that survives only because it’s customary. The remarkable thing is that this is supposed to be a defense of traditional marriage.
And **Melchior** said:
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> I don’t understand your post.
And now he turns around and says
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> You cannot pick and choose what you want to support by tradition. If you want marriage, be aware that it is something ancient. If you offer as support for something that "it has been done throughout history and across cultures’ you cannot use that same argument against something. You have to be consistent. \*\*\*\*The ancients had marriage, duh! \*\*\*\*How can we moderns have something so ancient? You cannot have it both ways!
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### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/266 "2014-04-11T18:31:44Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#):
>
> I think Melchior’s real problem is a complete ignorance of linguistics and semiotics.
>
> The meaning of a word is determined by usage. If everyone starts calling cats “dogs”, well then … cats are “dogs”.
But not because some thugs come around and demand it! To equate natural linguistic change with what is going on wrt SSM is quite disingenuous.
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### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/267 "2014-04-11T18:33:00Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> Or like _the majority of Americans_?
Nope.
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### Author:  [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/268 "2014-04-11T18:33:28Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> They are asking to participate in something that is old.
And a large, and daily growing, majority of people wish to let them.
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### Author:  [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/269 "2014-04-11T18:34:16Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#):
>
> Well, I married for other reasons, too. I married because my husband is my best friend and the love of my life and I want to make sure that he and I can support each other legally and financially as well as in other ways. I also married him to make a statement to my family and friends, whom I love, and to other members of my family, who are intolerant assholes, and to society at large, which contains the whole range of people, that my husband and I are a family. A household and a social unit of which neither member is superior, but which functions together as a little mini-team against the vagaries of an uncaring universe.
>
> When we met, our only option was to be a household of two unrelated adults with sexual privileges that polite society wouldn’t refer to. Not to mention what it was like growing up in the 70s and 80s, or what it was like in the decades and centuries before that. Good thing I live in a civilized country where the likes of you don’t make policy anymore.
Are you a man? If so, this is not a ‘marriage’, only a ‘cargo-cult’ marriage.
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/270 "2014-04-11T18:34:22Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> I have no idea what your post is even attempting to say, it is that incoherent.
Baffling you is an ancient custom.
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### Author:  [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/271 "2014-04-11T18:38:51Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> I have no idea what your post is even attempting to say, it is that incoherent.
Why am I not surprised that you don’t understand?
I thought it was brilliant, **jsgoddess**. I finally get his point about the importance of basing laws on traditions. Forget about “won’t someone think of the children,” the real question is, “won’t someone think of the deceased/mummies/zombies??”
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/272 "2014-04-11T18:39:33Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> Baffling you is an ancient custom.
You win an internet.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/273 "2014-04-11T18:43:50Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Are you a man? If so, this is not a ‘marriage’, only a ‘cargo-cult’ marriage.
I am. I take it that by “cargo-cult” you mean that it has the appearance of a marriage, but is not a marriage.
**support**
We two who are in it think it is a marriage.
Our government, at every level all the way to the mother-fucking\* Queen, think it is a marriage.
The majority of our fellow citizens think it is a marriage.
It has been the law of the land here for 10 years, six percent of our country’s history, and is now an established part of the traditional institution of marriage.
**opposition**
**Melchior** does not think it is a marriage.
My side wins.
* * *
\*not literally—even we draw the line at incestuous necrophilia, even if it is gay
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### Author:  [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/274 "2014-04-11T18:44:19Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> But not because some thugs come around and demand it! To equate natural linguistic change with what is going on wrt SSM is quite disingenuous.
\ Change is change, however it comes about. Everyone (even you) now knows what “same sex marriage” refers to. Quibbling over an extreme prescriptivist definition is pointless.
Do you get similarly worked up over other linguistic shifts? _“Nooooo! You can’t call that a ‘cell phone’! ‘Telephone’ comes from the Greek roots for ‘far’ and ‘sound’. But you’re texting on that device! You’re not sending sound far away at all! So it CAN’T be a ‘cell phone’! RAR!”_
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/275 "2014-04-11T18:50:11Z")
> [@Melchior](#):
>
> Nope.
Yep. You are factually incorrect.
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### Author:  [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/276 "2014-04-11T18:57:33Z")
Just curious, how old are you Melchior?
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/277 "2014-04-11T19:02:51Z")
> [@living well is best revenge](#):
>
> just curious, how old are you melchior?
40,000? 😃
Weird, one upper case letter after a number was rendered lowercase instead of a smiley.
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### Author:  [@oft\_wears\_hats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oft_wears_hats)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/278 "2014-04-11T19:05:08Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#):
>
> 40,000? 😃
>
> Weird, one upper case letter after a number was rendered lowercase instead of a smiley.
I think that’s called an “appeal to formatting” fallacy. Everyone should disregard your post.
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### Author:  [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/279 "2014-04-11T19:10:50Z")
> [@PeskiPiksi](#):
>
> Besides, who cares who thought what about marriage a thousand years ago or even fifty years ago? All that matters is what society decides now. And right now, our society as a whole is deciding that same-sex marriage is perfectly fine and dandy. You can argue against it, that’s your right, but it doesn’t change the fact.
I find this quote from Thomas Jefferson to be appropriate. Not to say that he would have agreed with SSM, but it’s still a great one.
> [@](#):
>
> On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct.
The living generation is saying that SSM is equal to OSM.
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/280 "2014-04-11T19:13:45Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> Fallacy of desperately trying to change the subject.
I do not (cannot, really) believe in the sincerity of \*\*Melchior’s \*\*posting on this subject.
The original subject of the OP has gotten rather lost. Of course, there really is no answer, the anti-SSM arguments have devolved into “whatever might have even a tiny chance of persuading somebody somewhere” without any regard to either logic or common sense.
In that sense, **Melchior** is a perfect representative of that side of the aisle.
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