Marriage has lost nothing, except in your mind, and the minds of others who will never accept any form of change, even change for the better. Change = BAD is really not a logical way to go through life.
Did marriage “lose” when couples were allowed to chose who to marry, rather than follow the orders of their father or clan lord? No.
Did marriage “lose” when married women were allowed to retain property rights after marriage? No.
Did marriage “lose” when women chose to retain their own last names? No.
Did marriage “lose” when couples of different races were allowed to marry? No.
Again, any loss here has been only in your own mind, not in reality.
Also, I didn’t say “the nation didn’t end”. I said there has been** no negative effect whatsoever**. Big difference.
So, you appear to be conceding that the existence of same-sex marriage does NOT, in fact, cause the institution of man-woman marriage to be redefined. It follows, therefore, that opposition to same-sex marriage does not actually constitute an opposition to redefining opposite-sex marriage.
I would appreciate it if you would try again to answer the question I posed above.
Here it is again:
Please note that the phrasing of my question does not say “preserving opposite-sex marriage;” it says “preserving marriage.”
Try responding to what I post, instead of to what you would (apparently) have preferred me to have posted.
Let’s say I buy this 100%. At what point does a decent human believe the definition of “hot dog” (or any other word) is more important than civil rights?
“Yes, I totally respect you, and feel your rights are important, but I’d rather you be unable to visit your dying partner in hospital because that would mean pizzas could be called hot dogs, and that’s just wrong.”
Well, if “hot dog” and “pizza” mean the same, thing, then iif you go to a stand on the street, and order a hot dog, but get a slice of pizza, that could be confusing.
So you see, if you go to get married, and your female bride you were expecting is actually a male, then that is unsatisfactory.
No wait, that makes no sense…
If little Timmy sees a married couple who are men, he may think his parents are not married, and he’ll be so confused that he will… no wait, that’s only if he’s a total moron…
I’ve got it, if same-sex marriage is allowed, we’ll only be able to have pizza and hot dogs at the reception. And that’s just WRONG.
At the point where it affects someone other than (in this case) Ají de Gallina. It’s always the civil rights of other people that are expendable. Just look at how the all-consuming importance of being able to breed that is the basis of the anti-SSM argument that homosexuals can’t marry because they can’t have their own children together suddenly gets handwaved away when the subject of someone who isn’t gay but can’t have children comes along.
That’s why I brought up the subject or interracial marriages and the way women were subjugated in old style marriages, and why I was ignored. The “definition of marriage” is only of all-consuming importance when it can be used to persecuted the targeted group (homosexuals in this case) and leave those outside it alone. The actual traditional definition of marriage, which harms other groups, is of no importance because they are not the target and because bringing it up produces allies for the selected victims.
Well I’m done. I think all the relevant points have been covered (again) and no progress made (again). Not that I had any hope it would.
Apparently we have learned that the only thing that matters is that by allowing same sex marriage the “brand” of marriage is devalued…sort of…in some way…sort of thing…
So no material damage, nothing tangible, no physical changes but enough “harm” to warrant denying same sex couples full equality in status and terminology. Luckily neither the Catholic church specifically or religions generally get to create a binding definition on what the rest of us mean by “marriage”. I confess I don’t actually know why they are being consulted on this in the first place.
So the church continues to discriminate against a small, but deserving proportion of our community. Bad enough, but let me draw your attention to the current spat in the Church of England over whether to ordain Women Bishops. Guess what? they decided against full equality for women. They are only 50% of the population after all. Care to guess which group within the C of E was most vehemently opposed to this? Why yes…it was those most closely aligned with Catholicism, how on earth did you guess.
Oh, they have a long, long, long way to go. Medieval palaces and medieval views.
Looking at who actually gave, the presentation on the Huffington Post site is misleading. It shows a big picture of the Pope and headlines “Roman Catholic Leadership”. In fact, clicking through to the actual donors,
most donations came from this National Organization for Marriage, and the Knights of Columbus. Yes, some dioceses spent tens of thousands (and on the local level we do get told what is being supported). But it’s not like the Pope handed down this command and gave $2 million for it.
—gigi, Catholic who doesn’t care what folks do with marriage in the secular world
But isn’t it reasonable that if you think action A is detrimental to society (in your own mindset, it may be crazy/evil/stupid for others) that you’ll try to stop A from happening?
I don’t see the debate ragarding the Church’s actions, especially since defending/promoting the faith (cazy/evil/fool as it may be) is her number one job.
Well yes but if action A causes demonstrable harm to people for no good reason* they should be vilified for trying to stop A from happening. People believe in dumb and harmful things it is our job as a rational caring society to stop them from actually harming people. If we can.
*unless you can provide us with a good reason that gay couples should be denied the same rights as heterosexual couples. Still waiting on that.
Not if your “mindset” is unreasonable, or the things you think will happen are unreasonable. It isn’t reasonable for me to shoot my neighbors because I think they are Satan worshiping serial killers who plan to eat me, because it would be completely ridiculous of me to believe that in the first place.
Vilify? Sure, do so, it’s a democracy.
Stop them using legal actions? Go ahead, knock yourself out.
However I don’t have to demosntrate to you, in the public square, why I have my beliefs. I could but I don’t have to. If it is reasonable for me and I’m acting legally I don’t need any other justification in a democracy. It’s the public who will judge if my ideas are right or wrong and vote/act accordingly.
I, again, am not interested in another SSM thread. I’ve been in enough and my beliefs are clearly shown there. I can completely see that you don’t find them convincing/rational; I’m OK with that.
At some point trying to convince anonymous people with deeply entrenched beliefs interacting in a MB just stops being a good use of my time. This debate, on the other hand, as proposed by the OP isn’t about SSM per se but about the allocation of the Church’s resources.
If you want to avoid debate on the issue do not post opinions like ‘SSM will change the very structure of man woman marriage’ (I paraphrase) or you will, quite rightly, be called on it. Fighting Ignorance is what we are here for after all.
I was aked for the reason why the Church opposed it. I should have, in retrospective, not gone there. Can we go on now? My opinions are there for everyone to see so it’s not like I’m keeping them a secret.
Fighting ignorance is not what we are here for in the SDMB, it is the SD’s job.
As the poster who asked you, I feel a need to apologize for not making myself clear. I never intended to ask for the reason why the Church opposes it. My intention was to try to learn the reasoning. I’ll have to get used to disappointment again, I suppose.
Happy Thanksgiving. Or whatever it is you people celebrate the day before Black Friday.
your right to swing your fist ends where the other mans nose begins. Your action preventing others from getting A that profoundly affects their lives. Once you start affecting others, you need to justify your action, not just fall back on your unsupported belief.
Your little logic experiment works quite well for supporters of Jim Crow, those who thought women and blacks shouldn’t vote, slave owners, the gamut of ideas we’ve thrown in the dustbin of history.
“My little experiment”, as you call it, is a basic rule of democracy.
If you don’t like something use legal means to change it. All actions have consequences and if I think that preventing action A causes more good than bad (or even if I don’t) I have the right to lawfully try to prevent it from happening.
It can be immoral/bad/evil but in a democracy there is no pre-selection of ideas that people can have. There is no need to justify my option to others if they are carried within the law. If A is obljetively wrong TO ME, that’s all the justification I need to oppose it and try to prevent it; should I fail to convince others of why I think A is wrong then my proposal will not be successful.
We agree you have the right to try to deny other people their rights, indeed no one has said otherwise. What we would like is a cogent explanation as to *why *you are denying other people their rights.
But as you have stated you have no interest in trying to convince us so we might as well end this here. I will point out though that if you do intend to stop gay marriage you might want to come up with some convincing reasons otherwise democracy will prevail and gay marriage will become law.
Or whatever it is you people celebrate the day before Black Friday. 