I can, I did, and I will. And it will be understood.
But who cares if it’s homosexual marriage or heterosexual marriage?
Jack and Diane got married.
Jack and Bill got married.
Diane and Lisa got married.
Pat and Chris got married.
X and Y got married.
The concept of marriage changes not a single bit, nor does it become incomprehensible, no matter whose names are in front of it. The genders, quite frankly, are irrelevant.
Of course, this is usually when the “offspring production” argument comes into play…
Marriage has ALWAYS been a matter of government, (or of society in groups that have less formalized governmental structures). The notion that marriage was an invention of religion might have arisen among historically ignorant Free Thinkers of the nineteenth century at a time when secularism was challenging the church’s roles in government, but marriage has long been a civil issue, (witness ancient Rome), even when the ceremony was carried out in a religious venue.
The best approach that I have found to the question of the OP is to note that advances in biology and medicine have broken the need to link marriage to procreation on several levels and that changes in social patterns of family have encouraged the use of the word marriage to describe arrangements that would not have occurred in the past. It is a change, but it is the corrct change.
Both Jack and Diane deserve each other, they are confused! I hear X got freaky with Jack too.
I fail to see why it is important to know whether the marital union is heterosexual or homosexual.
If I hear that Terry and Pat are married without hearing more information, I have no idea which is the husband or wife, regardless whether either of them are male or female. And since either (or both) Pat and Terry could be parents–even biological parents–I am going to have to ask further questions to fully understand the situation, so allowing homosexual marriages adds only a single question to an existing list.
Every post in which you’ve used the term “civil union” as a valid alternative to the word “marriage”.
No, the *same *rights, due process and equal protection. They’re in both Constitutions. Now, would you care to explain how they got it wrong?
And blacks had schools, too. Are you defending racial segregation as well as marital segregation?
Of course not. What is “separate” about them?
Why should it have mattered that blacks didn’t get to go to the same schools as whites? Theirs were “equal”, weren’t they?
That wasn’t the situation. You really, really need to go learn that bit of history.
Because, chief, I am saying I am in favor of completely ***REPLACING ***the term “marriage” with the word “civil union”. Do you not get this?
I would explain to you that the Massachusetts supreme court did not render its opinion based on an interpretation of the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment to the United States constitution, but apparently you’re the constitutional scholar around here :rolleyes:.
Why? “Marriage” and “to marry” are perfectly good words that go back to at least the 12th century, and derive from the Latin maritare that dates back a good bit further than that. “To wed” and its derivatives, the Anglo-Saxon counterparts to “marriage” and “marry”, go back to at least the year 1000. What’s the point of changing these words? And don’t tell me these are uniquely “religious” concepts; no one has ever said that Julius Caesar contracted a civil union with Cornelia or Pompeia, or that Socrates was “shacking up” with Xanthippe. “Marriage” is the word used in English to describe the pretty-much universal social institution* found among human societies regardless of their predominant religions: Jewish, Christian, and Islamic; “pagan”; Hindu; Taoist & Buddhist; Shinto; officially atheist revolutionary states; etc., etc., etc.
*Sometimes monogamous, sometimes polygynous, occasionally polyandrous, and now also encompassing same-sex relationships.
Changing this name, with centuries if not millennia of tradition behind it, will just make the millions and millions of married heterosexuals get all jumpy and nervous (“Wait, what–me and the missus aren’t married anymore?”), and for no good purpose.
If it’s the only thing that matters, why does it matter to you? As far as I’m concerned, the fact that some people insist on using a different term to describe the legal unions of homosexuals than they do to describe the legal union of heterosexuals is, in itself, is reason to prohibit the government from doing so.
By granting gays all the legal benefits of marriage except the actual word “marriage”, the government effectively creates a special perk open only to heterosexuals. It’s a pretty much completely useless perk, IMHO, but the mere fact that it does so is discriminatory.
I’m referring here to the idea of keeping marriage for straights, and giving gays all the rights, but not calling it marriage. The idea of using two separate terms for “what the government recognizes” and “what people want to call it” I consider unlikely to happen. Are there really people who would vote for a Proposition 8 style referendum, as well as for this idea? That is to say, people who who think that the law must use one term for all legal unions, but that if same-sex unions are included, then that term cannot be marriage?
I rather suspect that it’s a solution that will be supported necessarily by fewer people than support passing Prop. 8, as well by fewer people than support repealing Prop. 8. But, I don’t really know. Do you, Rumor Watkins, who supports this idea of everything being a “civil union”, also support Prop. 8?
(fyi, I haven’t uttered anything about religion in any of my posts)
in my opinion, going without equal treatment of the laws is unacceptable
however, it is also my opinion that it is difficult to get society at large to immediately accept a change in the “pretty much universal” definition of marriage.
you hand wave this away and act like people should just “deal with it”. I would readily agree that people should be forced to “deal with” the equal application of a set of laws to differing groups of people. I would not be so haste to use the law as a tool to force wholesale social acceptance of the re-writing of a term of art which has had a well-defined non-meaning for essentially the entirety of human civilization (i.e. marriage, whatever it means, has never (edit: historically!) had a connotation of homosexual pair-bonding).
I’m suggesting that there’s a more pragmatic way to make everyone happy - get the term “marriage” out of the law. Bigoted heterosexuals can still choose to not “recognize” a homosexual marriage (whatever that would mean) and expose themselves and their prejudices. Everyone else can take the term for what it means to themselves, their own “civil union”, and their society.
You are defending a position largely driven by religious dogma.
In other words, give the homophobes exactly what they want: “proof” that “homosexuals are out to destroy marriage”. Your “solution” wouldn’t make people happy; it would enrage most of the population to have their marriages declared to not really be marriages. That, after all is part of the point in not letting homosexuals get legally married; to publicly humiliate them, to underline that as a society we hate them so much that we deny them a right we give to murderers.
Re-naming all marriages will create way more opposition to equality for gay relationships than currently exists. You’ll wind up with millions of people saying “So, me and Marge aren’t ‘officially married’ anymore, just so them gays can be equal?!?”
When I was born, homosexual acts were illegal in 49 states (and only a decade before that, they were crimes in every single state in the Union). Now, sodomy laws have been struck down everywhere in the U.S.A. (except for the armed forces), and same-sex marriage–not just civil unions–exists or will soon exist in five states and the District of Columbia–including in several jurisdictions where same-sex marriage laws were enacted by legislative vote, not by court decision. Every poll I’ve ever seen shows support for SSM to be stronger among younger voters; and there is every reason to think that is a true generational shift, where those same 18-year-olds today will still feel that way when they’re 64, not just a chronological one where people feel one way when they’re young and idealistic/foolish and another way when they’re older and wiser/more cynical.
There is no call to engage in silly semantic radicalism, and doing so would be not only unneccessary but tremendously counterproductive.
I meant to add to the above: It’s not just the United States where this process is taking place; acceptance of same-sex marriage is (gradually) winning out across the “Western world”, from the Netherlands and Canada to (just the other day) Mexico City.
What? The word “marriage” is special beyond just the civil benefits? Heterosexuals wouldn’t sit still for being in just a “civil union”?
I think the response from most married heterosexuals would be frothing rage. The word DOES matter to people; that’s why it is being withheld from homosexuals in the first place. As a deliberate insult, as harassment.
I would disagree with this. Basically, my thought is this:
conduct a poll that asks “do you support the rights of gays to get married” and you’ll get the typical responses that have spurred the creation of same-sex marriage bans in state constitutions.
conduct a poll that asks “would you support a law that re-names all spousal relationships (or some other word) into “civil unions” regardless of the sex of the people involved in order to grant equal rights to heteros and homos” and I think that suddenly a lot of popular support for gay marriage bans disappears - the reasons for people’s opposition no longer exists (ok, sure, you will always have the cleetuses in the world, but it’s not all cleetuses supporting these bans)
there is a distaste in this country for treating groups of people unfairly - at least directly as a law is applied. however, there’s an offsetting upset over the use of a word which has had an extraordinarily long use to mean one thing for something that is different where that difference lies at the very core of the word’s meaning. frankly, it is all semantic games for the purposes of having this become socially acceptable. (at least in this society, in response to your add-on)
(edit: apparently not supposed to say this!)
You’re really suggesting that no one would be bothered if we announced that henceforward, we won’t be recognizing any more “marriages”–oh, sure, you peons can call it that if you want–but officially all the “marriages” are gone?
“Oh, Mommy, Roger asked me to enter into a contract of civil union with him! Oh, I want to have a big public recognition of our change in status, and invite everybody, and wear a white dress and everything, just like a princess!”
(And of course her poor sister is silently thinking to herself Always one of the principal female witnesses to a public ceremony recognizing a change in status to that of being a participant in a civil union; never the principal female participant in a public ceremony recognizing a change in status to that of being a participant in a civil union.)
I don’t believe that for a moment. The vast majority of people would be enraged at such a proposal. And it wouldn’t lower opposition to SSM at all, since that has nothing to do with the word; opposition to SSM is solely motivated by homophobia. There is no other reason, whatever lies people say to paper over the fundamental evil of their position.
This is a formal warning: don’t tell other posters they are on your ignore list.