Your position is an understandable one. And I think it would be fair if starting from scratch. But I think it unnecessarily punitive for where we are now. Not to mention completely counter-productive to gays being embraced as equals by a large swath of the populace.
As far as your last sentence, as I’ve proposed many times before, I could see that be addressed by a law stating something to the effect: “From this point forward, all legal rights and privileges granted, or to be granted, to married couples (which shall consist of one man and one woman) and individuals shall also extend to same-sex married couples who have entered into a formal domestic partnership. Both unions shall be deemed equal under the law, with no right added or diminished to one group without being similarly added or diminished from the other.”
But wouldn’t it be far simpler to either make all existing marriages into civil unions (most of which happen to be “blessed” by the church), or allow same-sex-marriages? Doing two systems which are exactly alike except in name seems redundant.
What’s the point of “protecting marriage” in this manner, anyway? If marriage is a religious institution, then government shouldn’t be involved. If marriage is a secular institution, then churches should have no say in how or why they are granted.
I didn’t really need to put words in your mouth; you said exactly the same thing yourself:
You think gays are great, you have nothing against them, but they shouldn’t be allowed to get married because that’s how you feel. They can do whatever else they like though because you’re a reasonable person.
That’s very kind of you, but what you think is reasonable is not at issue. From what I’ve seen the only people who object to gay people calling themselves “married” do so based on religious reasons on a silly belief that it somehow “lessens” their own marriages. How that can happen has yet to be satisfactorily explained.
Nobody likes being called a bigot but everyone is a bigot. It’s just a matter of the subject. Please tell me why your bigotry deserves a respectful response.
Even using Bearflag’s theory, I still don’t see the lack of prejudice (definition #3.)
You are assuming that an ideal marriage needs to have two genders. That if we allow SSM then the term marriage will somehow get degraded and people won’t aspire toward an ideal marriage.
What about love, mutual respect, companionship and other things of that nature? Are they not part of the ideal marriage? Not something that people should aspire to?
Saying that same sex couples are not ideal is just like saying a marriage with four kids isn’t ideal. A marriage without a suburban car and white picket fence is not ideal. Should we make more restrictions on the definition of marriage? Is a marriage where a couple makes over $100,000 not better than another marriage where the couple makes less? Should couples making less than 100k only be allowed to have civil unions?
If you want to save the definition of marriage only for the most ideal form of marriage, then fine, be my guest. Just don’t pretend there is a bright line between same sex couples and heterosexual couples.
You want to let marriage define the most ideal couples, go ahead. Have the churches interview couples and determine the likelihood they will create a warm and loving home for themselves and their children. Let the churches define the ideal unions between two people as “marriages.” But let their “marriages” include same sex unions along with heterosexual unions, because some SSMs are a lot more ideal than some heterosexual marriages.
People have been forming less than ideal unions for centuries. Now all the sudden we need to preserve the most ideal form of unions. Right when gay people want to get married, and guess what? Gay marriage isn’t the most ideal form. How is this not prejudice?
big·ot (bĭg’ət)
n. One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
By what definition of bigotry doesn’t the opposition of SSM equate to being just that? How does one oppose SSM while being fully tolerant of gay people’s right to marry?
It’s a difficult issue because what defines a proper marriage is of course a matter of opinion. For me and other opponents of Prop. 8, it’s love and commitment between two consenting adults. Supporters feel that “one man, one woman” is the key criterion. Others might take a broader view about the “two”, “consenting”, and “adults” parts. I don’t agree with them either.
It’s weird for me that some people support the concept of same sex marriage, with all the legal rights, but without the word. I can’t imagine supporting polygamous civil unions, for example, without supporting polygamous marriage. Still, I appreciate there is a sort of tolerance. That’s progress in a way. In any case, it’s clear to me that same-sex marriage is coming. Prop. 8 may stand for now, but it was close. My feeling was that the support skewed younger. More supporters will come of voting age every year, and more opponents will … move on.
This is what’s retarded about the whole issue. What is it exactly that Prop 8 folks won? The definition of marriage is now one man and one woman. They got to define a fucking word. They won a dictionary battle.
Gay people are still around. They are still having gay sex. They are still engaging in loving relationships with the same legal rights as married couples.
All that Prop 8 supporters got accomplished was enshrining in law, a statement of the inferiority of homosexuals. It’s bigotry, plain and simple.
It’s like one day I decide to redefine “music” to exclude Nickleback. From now on the noise that comes out of Nickleback can only be called “constructive noise.” It doesn’t really change anything except that now we can legally say that Nickleback is no longer music. This is actually a good idea, but you get the point. It’s a slap in the face to Nickleback.
But they don’t get the same rights; that’s the point. Or at least, no more can get the same rights, and I expect that the anti-SSM people will try to get all the marriages made while it was legal declared void.
I don’t get why people, when they don’t get their way, are all prone to being mean to people, as if getting mean will accomplish anything. You want to have a conversation involving different viewpoints? Fine. But if you start that argument by insulting the other person, you’ve already lost. Because the only way you can win is to convince the other person.
I mean, you did watch the Presidential debates, right? The guy who made all the ad hominem attacks lost.
Or by outliving them, or pulling them out of power. And that’s nearly the only way you win against bigots. Getting them out of power, or outliving them; you don’t convince them.
According to the ‘non-bigoted argument’ that I made, you should, therefore, not be married. And yes, I was aware of this when I made it. On the other hand, there’s the technical loophole that, if you were not aware of this before marriage, it’s not a reasonable thing to do, to insist on fertility tests for everyone.
And I’d still consider it bigoted anyway; just against a different subset of people, those unable to have children. Including all women over menopause; I’d like to see the AARP’s reaction to politicians trying to pass a law forbidding marriage for 60 year olds, with it’s proponents claiming that’s not bigoted.
Magellan, you’ve agreed that this is essentially your position, so I’m going to discuss from Bearflag’s post.
This argument presupposes that same sex unions are in some way inferior to mixed sex unions. How is it that you can tell a class of people that their relationships are inferior to another group’s relationships, while maintaining that you think of them as equals?
No doubt the idea of babies is going to factor in, do you also feel that mixed sex couples where one or both parties are sterile, are not “ideal”? Would you support civil unions instead of marriage for them as well?
A bigot is a person who is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles, or identities differing from his or her own. (from j. random dictionary)
So… if the purpose of marriage is to have children, why is it intolerant to refuse it to people who can not have children? Is it bigoted to consider the purpose of marriage to be the production of children, rather than, say, painting birdhouses?
(Once again, these are not my views, but it’s a decent challenge to try to argue this.)
First we would have to agree that the purpose of marriage is the production of children, and that it is its sole purpose. I don’t believe it is possible to define it in that sense as
Plenty of young couples marry with the intent to commit to each other and do not have children. Is their commitment to each other less than the marriage that produces children?
Many gay couples choose to adopt children, hire a surrogate or become pregnant from a donor; how does this not include them?
There are plenty of single parents who do not marry the biological parent or adopt from the biological parent. Should they be allowed children if they don’t marry?
I have heard a non-bigotted reason for voting “yes” on prop 8, but not against the idea of SSM specifically.
There is some perception of the Judiciary trying to legislate from the bench. That means, in effect, the a single Judge’s opinion on Societal Morals (and not based on law) is trumping “the will of the voters”.
Not just in the area of SSM, but also in areas concerning immigration, environmental issues, education, sentencing guidlines, and so on.
Its possible that some few of those voters (who voted “yes” on prop 8) voted because they thought they felt that they were reversing the “legislating from the bench” actions that the California Supreme Court took earlier this calendar year.
For the record, I voted “No”. I am trying to play devil’s advocate. (Poorly?)
One of the more widely used arguments that got used here in San Diego was that Churches would lose their tax exempt status. There’s a lot of charity work done by the churches in this community that I would not like to see get hurt by unintended fallout on this issue. I don’t think they will, but that card was played here.