Nah, that’d exclude gay men. And some of them would certain build a machine that would hack into online marriage records and delete all marriages containing women in them unless the hackers’ demands are met by a certain date. As long as they told everyone about it in advance, Dr. Strangelove would have no criticism.
Thanks for taking my clever pun and adding a wheelbarrow of what-the-fuck.
A couple points:
Marriage is in origin a bio-cultural institution – a recognition that human beings become romantically and sexually attracted to each other and in consequence form pair bonds with long-term intent. This is not at base a religious or social institution, it’s a cultural one. It benefitted society by ensuring that there was provision for the woman (who prior to about 1940 was not expected, indeed expected not, to do remunerative work outside the home, and also for any children the couple might have.
From a religious perspective, God may well have instituted marriage, but it is mankind who decides how God’s law applies to the cultural institution. Although in the British Commonwealth and America, religious people may have a single ceremony in which a civil marriage is contracted within the religious service, in many other countries (France comes quickly to mind) the contracting of a civil marriage and the religious ceremony are two distinct events.
Let me bring that back to your attention. There is already a term in the English language for a marriage-like union contracted outside the bounds of religion, and that term is civil marriage. When Artie and Annie Agnostic decide to tie the knot, they go to the Justice of the Peace or the Mayor and have a civil wedding.
I understand Magellan’s point that he proposes two parallel institutions, one called marriage and one not, governed by what is originally a single set of laws. But as others have pointed out, laws can be changed and the application of those laws can be made just as easy or difficult as an official chooses. In short, if you have two distinct institutions, even if the intent is to give them equal rights and privileges, it is very easy to modify that to draw a distinction between them, especially if done de facto.
I would also note that the idea that it requires a state license to marry dates from the turn of the 20th century, and was put in place in an effort to help prevent venereal diseases. Marriage is an age-old institution, but marriage licenses are not. My own grandparents were the last people legally married in my home county without a marriage license, on New Years Eve of 1907.
In short, there are some assumptions being made in the arguments here that don’t hold water.
Good points but I have little confidence they’ll stick, and in the next ssm-debate thread I’m sure someone will trot out the “thousands of years of tradition” trope again.
Y’know, a groomsday device.
(Okay, yours was funnier).
With background music of Bride of the Valkyries?
Again, I’m sorry, but I’m just stating the truth as I perceive it. The system you are describing is a system in which their are two sets of laws. I don’t know how to prove this to you. I’ve tried repeatedly, here and in other threads, and you just don’t seem to grasp what appears patently obvious to me. If you have civil unions for gays, and marriage for straights, then you have two systems of laws. The contents of those two systems may be identical. They may be written down in the same place in the lawbooks to save space. But if you have identified two different institutions, for two different groups, then you have two different systems of laws.
It’s like, if you have an Easter basket with two caramel eggs, a bag of jelly beans, and a chocolate bunny, and I have an Easter basket with two caramel eggs, a bag of jelly beans, and a chocolate bunny, then between us, we have two Easter baskets. Even though the contents are identical, we don’t say there’s only one basket. That’s what your system is. You have two baskets - civil unions, and marriage, and you’re putting all the same stuff in both baskets. But there are still two different baskets.
Well, you’re simply wrong. I’m genuinely sorry that me saying that seems to be causing you distress. That’s not my intention. But I’m not going to pretend the situation is something else just to make you feel better. The system you’re describing is a system of two laws, not one. Your inability to perceive that is, frankly, bizarre.
Additionally, magellan apparently wants a rule in place where the little girl is free to choose either basket (though their contents are identical) while the little boy is limited to the basket on the left. Assuming I’ve understood correctly (never a sure thing, of course), there’s a restriction in place that serves no obvious purpose.
Yet, someone who agrees with you on SSM is able to digest what I’ve been saying: (bolding mine)
[QUOTE=Polycarp]
I understand Magellan’s point that he proposes two parallel institutions, one called marriage and one not, governed by what is originally a single set of laws.
[/QUOTE]
You are simply intent to not allow me to define what my own idea is. :rolleyes: I think it’s one of those cases where, either consciously or subconsciously, you refuse to give an inch for fear of losing more. Or even just that little bit.
Unless you can set aside your personal bias as to where the debate MUST lead and grant something so simple as me—not you—defining what my idea is, there is zero point to further discussion.
People are going to do whatever they’d like. some people on these boards think themselves smart, that doesn’t make it true. I’m talking about what it is called by the government. That the government should acknowledge that there is a distinction—that hetero marriage is a special institution. That it comports with both procreation and the history of Western civilization.
Why can’t the answer be that both **magellan and Miller **honestly believe what each are saying about how they see it?
I mean, it seems to me we’re going straight to “I see it that way; ergo, everyone else must see it that way, and are lying or being unconsciously decieving about this point.”
It seems unfair that the automatic assumption be that a person who does not see things as you see things is doing so out of bias and not a genuine belief. I agree with** Miller **that it seems like two sets of laws to me - but I don’t assume that magellan is therefore being dishonest about his take on it. If everyone saw the world in the same way, we’d all be in agreement on this issue anyway.
Because this has been explained more than 27 times. And we’re not talking about a conclusion, we’re talking about a defining condition of my idea. My idea is to have one set of laws. If there isn’e one set of laws, that’s not what I advocate. Polycarp, who is pro SSM is able to grant me that teensy-weensy favor: that I be able to say what my idea is or isn’t. I’m not talking about anyone accepting that it is a good idea, just that I think I know what my own ideas are better than anyone else. maybe I’m funny that way.
I’m sure that plenty of people on these boards would say they’ve explained how gay marriage is the best way to go more times than that. If simply explaining something was a guarantee that people would agree with you, these threads would be pretty short.
That it is a defining condition of your idea no more means that people are more likely to accept it - nor does it mean that to disagree with the idea or the particular form you’ve put it into means that someone can’t look past their personal biases.
Pointing out that Polycarp agrees with you does not mean that he does so because he is able to look past his biases in doing so, nor that Miller isn’t. All it means is that he’s someone not on your side who accepts that particular point of your argument. That’s reading* way* too much into something.
That you (or anyone) knows their own ideas better than anyone else is silliness. You can’t measure a tool using a tool (I should point out I don’t mean that as an insult). You’re using your own ideas to measure how accurate and effective your own ideas are; it’s circular reasoning. Put another way, and again by no means an insult; how many idiots do you know that know they’re idiots? I don’t consider myself to be an idiot, but how can I trust my own judgement on that matter when that doesn’t seem to work for so many other people?
Because Miller’s claim is accurate and consistent, while magellan01’s is not. And because magellan01 has a history of supporting attempts at harassment while insisting that they are perfectly fair, such as the Swiss minaret ban.
Eh. Such a history doesn’t really mean i’m inclined to not take magellan at his word when he says he believes what he says. Disagreement, even fundamental disagreement, doesn’t mean that someone else cannot possibly believe what they say they do. I mean, I disagree with you to a considerable extent, but I don’t consider you to be acting dishonestly, either.
Thing is, Polycarp didn’t stop at the end of the section you quoted. His entire paragraph was:
I’m not sure what the distinction is between “two laws” and “two institutions (each of which is defined by law)”, but in any case you have not addressed the potential for “definition creep” in which “marriage” and/or “civil union” gets gradually tweaked with exceptions until they are indeed quite distinctive, nor official malfeasance in which civil unions can disingenuously be made more cumbersome or expensive or simply unavailable in passive-aggressive work-to-rule actions.
Nor have you, for that matter, explained why two institutions are required in the first place. Nor have you, for that matter, explained how traditional, procreative, heterosexual marriage will be in the least affected by the existence of gay marriage. Nor have you, for that matter, offered up any evidence that it has been affected in countries that have had gay marriage for several years, now.
You’re free to define your idea any way you want, I figure. You’re not free, however, from criticisms that your idea is unworkable, self-contradictory, useless and harmful.
Personally, for me the issue is settled. Canada’s had gay marriage for about six years now, to no ill-effect I’m aware of. Arguing whether or not the Americans can also handle gay marriage is just an intellectual exercise to me, although I guess I could feel a bit smug from knowing that in this aspect at least, my country is more advanced and less uptight than yours.
It’s not hetero marriage that underlies the history of Western civilization. It’s marriages between two people from the same village of the same race that occur before the age of 20 that underlie the history of Western civilization. Give a term to this institution if you must, but pretending that the heterosexuality of them was their only distinguishing characteristic is silly.
And don’t even bring up procreation. Westerners didn’t invent the idea of procreation, and there’s nothing in the institution of heterosexual marriage to separate us from penguins.
Magellan, as I suggested before, if there were no important distinction between these two sets of laws, you’d have no problem with granting “marriage” to gay couples only, limiting straight couples to civil unions.
However, there IS a difference between the two institutions in your proposal. You think that difference is so self-evident that you bring the weight of your crushing disappointment down on me for not noticing it–not noticing yourself that this difference is precisely what I’m pointing at.
There IS a difference in your proposal. You think it belongs there, because you think straight people built America or something, whatever. But you think it belongs there. It may be that you’re just suggesting two different doors into the same theater, one marked “Straights Only” and the other marked “Gays use side door”*, and that you think since they go into the same theater they’re functionally equivalent. But the fact that you want two different doors indicates that there’s some difference there that’s important to you, that there’s some privilege to going through the front door–and if that’s the case, then you need to recognize that other folks want that privilege too, and that denying it to them without sound reason is a bad thing.
- No way am I feeding anyone the obvious straight line there.
Look at the rest of my post, would you, instead of using it as a rhetorichal gotcha on Miller! Even if the hypothetical new law gathered together every right and privilege accorded married couples – and it won’t; anyone with experience in codification knows there are always items missed, there are two obstacles to overcome: (1) Many such rights and privileges are in Federal law, and (DOMA being disregarded for the nonce) depend on the Federal government accepting the state’s definition of ‘marriage’. How do you propose, as a state government, to compel the Feds. to grant your civil unions the same perquisites as your marriages? This is not a nitpick but a serious flaw in the two-institutions concept. (2) Even if you grant the two institutions identical rights and privileges in one set of laws, there is absolutely nothing protecting couples from a later legislature amending your laws to provide that only ‘real’ marriages qualify for some things (e.g., child care benefits, surviving spouse provisions) – because you have set them up as two distinct institutions sharing what is initially a single set of laws. That’s the problem with your concept that you need to address. We’re not pissing in your cornflakes because we don’t like you or something; we see a flaw in your basic idea (over and above the ‘second-class citizen’ attitude implicit in civil unions).
In fact, let’s try a thought experriment. It’s 1965, the civil rights movement is in full swing. Several Southern states have anti-miscegenation statutes in place. Interracial couples nonetheless want to marry. You, a Southerner with an understanding of what constitutes traditional marriage to them and a desire to craft a compromise that will satisfy both sides, propose that a man and a woman of the same race may be joined in marriage, as always, while a man and a woman of differing races may enter into an “interracial union” that is not called a marriage but is specifically defined in statute as having all the rights and privileges of marriage except the name. Is this an acceptqable solution? Why or why not? What’s likely to happen?
Civil unions are the law in several states, including California, so some states tried to make things as equal as possible in incremental steps.
I don’t think you recall correctly. If they used that strategy, they would not have called any witnesses. They did call someone - who it turned out was totally unqualified, and whose arguments were pretty laughable.