# Anti-SSM argument goes from stupid to... what the heck is this? **URL:** \ **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:** 37
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/721 "2014-04-14T20:42:13Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > You say “women who take the vows” as though they are the same vows that the men take in the ritual that makes them priests. > > Is this actually the case? > [@jsgoddess](#): > > No. Priests are ordained through the sacrament of Holy Orders. > > Diocesan priests (the type of priest most people think of) take vows of chastity and obedience, but they don’t take a vow of poverty. They can own things. > > Nuns, monks (even the ones that are ordained and therefore “religious priests” rather than diocesan), friars (who I think are always ordained and are therefore “religious priests”), and religious brothers (who are usually not ordained) I think all take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. These are the standard ones, though I think there are some additions depending on the order. I don’t want to be rude, but shush, you. I’m trying to find out just how ignorant **Melchior** can be persuaded to reveal himself to be. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/722 "2014-04-14T20:46:32Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I don’t want to be rude, but shush, you. I’m trying to find out just how ignorant **Melchior** can be persuaded to reveal himself to be. 😉 Oh, honey. Don’t you have enough evidence of that by now? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/723 "2014-04-14T21:24:45Z")
Just trying to see how far the envelope can be pushed… ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/724 "2014-04-14T21:34:22Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Yeah, it’s pretty scary how opinions have changed in the few years since California passed that amendment. It must be especially scary for you as you see [polls showing support has crossed 50%](http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/ohio/release-detail?ReleaseID=2011) in your own state. Tick, tick, tick… The clock is ticking for the dinosaurs… > > But as you are fond of noting, “popular opinion” and “votes” and all that are just _argumentum ad populum_, so we don’t have to bother explaining anything about old, out-of-date votes in California. Claiming inevitability is not an argument, just a ploy. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/725 "2014-04-14T21:34:53Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > Claiming inevitability is not an argument, just a ploy. No it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/726 "2014-04-14T21:37:34Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > Claiming inevitability is not an argument, just a ploy. Do you have an argument that legally recognized same sex marriage is a bad thing? ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/727 "2014-04-14T21:37:42Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > No it isn’t. I told you once. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/728 "2014-04-14T21:38:02Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > I told you once. Not an argument. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/729 "2014-04-14T21:46:14Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > Claiming inevitability is not an argument, just a ploy. It is neither. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/730 "2014-04-14T21:48:58Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > There is a very clear sense of what a marriage is, and the word represents the custom. My wife is a medieval musicologist. Last year she published a monograph on new techniques she’s developed for establishing the provenance and performance practice of musical works that exist only as isolated manuscript scores. She devoted an entire chapter to how modern assumptions about “what marriage is” can lead the careless historian astray. Specifically she looks at how merely labeling a particular Du Fay piece a “wedding song” has led music historians to make a number of ahistorical assumptions about its context and significance. We all think we know “what a wedding is”, but once you move into a culture that is displaced in either time or place you may find that your unexamined normative assumptions lead you into error. As a translator do you make a distinction between “what does this word mean to me” and “what did this word mean to the person who wrote it”? Has it even occurred to you that that might be an important distinction to make? For example, it was quite interesting to me that you felt the need to correct the original author. Perhaps YOU think honor is a binary quality that can’t be reduced, but does your correction do a good job of capturing the author’s intent? Are you accurately rendering the author’s words into English, or is your translation what you think the author SHOULD have written? ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/731 "2014-04-14T21:54:37Z")
Threads like this actually make me grateful for people like Melchior. It shows just how weak the argument against my being able to marry my partner is. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/732 "2014-04-14T21:55:35Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > As a translator do you make a distinction between “what does this word mean to me” and “what did this word mean to the person who wrote it”? Has it even occurred to you that that might be an important distinction to make? Especially with a custom like “marriage.” It’s hugely dishonest to say that marriage is just between a man and a woman and ignore marriages that didn’t conform to that plus all of the incredible baggage that was historically attached to the custom, then argue that marriage without all that baggage is still marriage, but SSM is a bridge too far. Our marriage laws bear incredibly little resemblance to any historical idea of marriage. We aren’t the same people. We don’t have the same customs. What a medieval scholar meant by marriage and what I mean by marriage are not the same thing. They aren’t even close. It’s like comparing their idea of luxury to mine, or their idea of good food to mine, or their idea of justice to mine. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/733 "2014-04-14T22:03:40Z")
> [@Antinor01](#): > > Threads like this actually make me grateful for people like Melchior. It shows just how weak the argument against my being able to marry my partner is. Not an argument. Please contribute an argument. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/734 "2014-04-14T22:05:08Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > Not an argument. Please contribute an argument. This isn’t GD. Arguments are not necessary in IMHO. If you want a debate, go start a debate thread. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/735 "2014-04-14T22:06:19Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > Not an argument. Please contribute an argument. I already used that joke a few posts earlier. Try a new schtick. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/736 "2014-04-14T22:08:11Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > Not an argument. Please contribute an argument. There’s no point. You already have decided that same sex marriage doesn’t and can’t exist. You aren’t debating, you’re making statements that you believe are facts which I find greatly amusing. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/737 "2014-04-14T22:10:16Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > What a crazy assertion. Photography is influenced by human intervention to create a unique aesthetic that a fossil doesn’t have. If I polish a fossil…is that art? (I think this entire thread has devolved into “polishing the fossil.”) ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/738 "2014-04-14T22:12:33Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > If I polish a fossil…is that art? > > (I think this entire thread has devolved into “polishing the fossil.”) It is reminiscent of all the threads back in the day that devolved into the Diogenes show. Good times. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/739 "2014-04-14T22:17:05Z")
**Melchior** , I think someone like you who cares so much about language might enjoy [Language Log](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/). It’s a long-running blog run by a group of linguistics professors. It’s a very fun read. For example, here’s a lovely post from 2004 about the [Etymological Fallacy](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001256.html). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819/740 "2014-04-14T22:18:40Z")
> [@Melchior](#): > > Not an argument. Please contribute an argument. The argument is simplicity itself: I look at the custom banning marriage between same-sex couples, and can offer no good reason for retaining that custom. You look at the custom banning marriage between same-sex couples, and – can also offer no good reason for retaining that custom. We could both find something praiseworthy to say about the anti-murder custom beyond _well, it’s a custom, innit?_ We could both find something to say about banning marriages between ten-year-olds; neither of us would just say of the ban _it’s a custom, but I can’t think of a good reason for it._ (Nor would either of us say _well, shucks, if they want to enter a contractual relationship identical to marriage, that’s fine by me._) But when it comes to THIS change, all either of us can say is, _well, it would be a change._ And I simply cannot bring myself to oppose a change on such irrelevant grounds; they want liberty, and I can help, and the only reason I could possibly have for saying ‘no’ is that – they don’t have it yet? That’s not a reason! That’s, like, cargo-cult reasoning! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819.md?page=36) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-ssm-argument-goes-from-stupid-to-what-the-heck-is-this/685819.md?page=38)