# Gay marriage opponents grasping at straws. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 16, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660 "2009-05-16T17:32:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![JimOfAllTrades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@JimOfAllTrades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimOfAllTrades)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/141 "2009-05-18T22:00:41Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I wouldn’t ask them. I certainly wouldn’t ask them if they were “married”. I might as well ask them if they were part Chubacca or if they had dinosaur for breakfast. It’s an impossibility. As far as I’m concerned, marriage must contain one man and one woman. And if they told me they were married. I’d accept that with the same internal roll of the eyes that I have when my good friend’s 14-year-old kid tells me he is a Minister, having received a certificate to prove it. > [@TheFaerie](#): > > And this is precicely why you are a being called a bigot, whether the words are actually typed or implied. You do not think that homosexuals are equal to straights. Period. You may as well be writing ‘blacks’ or ‘Mexicans’ or ‘women’ in place of ‘gays’ and your logic would fit in perfectly with other generations of bigots in history. > And I can’t believe I am even admonishing you, but it is a logical fallicy I don’t tolerate in my own family much less on an anonymous message board and I feel very strongly about bigotry in any of it’s forms. **Halleluiah and amen!** I was going to say the exact same thing and you beat me to it. I’ve never had much respect for **magellan** ’s opinions, and now it’s zero. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/142 "2009-05-18T22:39:10Z")
Well, all I know is that my husband and I have been married for 27 years, and I’m still waiting for teh gays to threaten my marriage. The waiting and worrying and wondering how it’s going to happen is really stressful. If we get a divorce due to the stress of waiting to see how the gay marriage already in place in several countries and states will destroy our marriage, I’m definitely going to blame it on the homosexuals. Oh no no no no, hold on. We’re childless by choice\*, so I guess our marriage isn’t much of a marriage anyway. Whew! What a relief! Carry on homosexuals. > [@Miller](#): > > How can you not see that your first three examples are entirely unlike your fourth? When men and women go to buy land, we call it the same things. When blacks and whites go to get driver’s licenses, we call it the same thing. When tall and short people want to open a restaurant, we call it the same thing. When gays and straights want to have the government recognize their marriage… we call it two different things. > > We don’t have property deeds for men and land ownership certificates for women. We don’t have driver’s licenses for whites, and vehicle operator licenses for blacks. We don’t have restaurants for tall people and food-getting-places for short people. And we should not have marriages for straights, and civil unions for gays. Perfect perfect perfect answer. I notice there’s no response from Mr. Uppity Gays Should Stay In Their Place. - I have a son from an earlier marriage, one that only lasted a few years. Maybe that counts for this marriage too? I’m so confused about all these rules. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/143 "2009-05-18T22:53:22Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > I notice there’s no response from Mr. Uppity Gays Should Stay In Their Place. In fairness to **magellan** , I only posted that about four hours ago, and it’s the middle of the day on a Monday. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got something a bit more important to do right now than go round 1,254 of this debate with me. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/144 "2009-05-18T23:00:49Z")
If the word ‘marriage’ is so inconsequential, why do so many people on the anti-SSM side get themselves into a fit over it? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/145 "2009-05-18T23:42:39Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Jeeze, let’s see. Maybe because it’s the one that’s the most relevant. And comports with nature? > > Did I get it right? What do I win? One man one woman is more natural than one powerful man, many women? Do tell. We won’t even go into the gay penguins now. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/146 "2009-05-18T23:49:56Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Yes, the emotional aspect of the term “marriage” has been brought up, and I think that’s an important aspect, as well. But it is far from the only, or even most important, reason no gay person on this planet will ever agree to your “compromise.” My daughter got married last summer. Though she had been living with her boyfriend, and they had a registered civil union in Oregon, she has found being able to say she is married is important to her. (And she’s the one who resisted getting married.) Why anyone would want to prevent any population from having this emotional rush is beyond me. Especially when it seems to be a matter of semantics for him. If the main body of anti-SSM people thought the way **magellan01** does, there would be a rush by the right to enable civil unions with equal rights for all, since that would take a lot of the wind out of the movement. That there hasn’t been such an effort is telling. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/147 "2009-05-19T11:30:50Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Some are. Though I prefer to say they’re “mischaracterizing” my position. They’re also guilty of a logical fallacy. They’re begging the question. The ONLY way that their statement that my way doesn’t give them ALL the rights is to presuppose that their already exists a right that gives a man the right to marry a man. No such right exists. It certainly is not one of Jefferson’s inalienable rights, which means that it must be one that has been specifically added. If so, where is it? it doesn’t exist. I disagree. I’m pretty sure in fact that i’ve suggested to you ways in which your methods don’t grant all the rights and privileges to you before; I tend to recall others doing so too. There’s considerably more than that single presupposition. > [@](#): > > They, and perhaps, you, jump the gun on “all”, as I’ve just described. I’ve shown how ALL the rights that exist for a married couple can, in fact, be extended to SS couples. I’ve shown how that be can done without "marriage?. Therefore, “marriage” is not a necessary condition for SS coupes to tap into all those rights and privileges. I’ll give it another go, then. The law is not just what’s written down on paper. Read the text of your Constitution; could you, if you had no knowledge of current Constitutional law, correctly guess from the text every result of a legal case brought up? You’d probably get a fair idea, but you’d not get it quite correct, and wildly wrong in many cases, i’d think. Because the law isn’t just the text, it’s the interpretation. It’s the findings of juries, the interpretations of juries all the way up to the highest levels. It’s precedent as much as it is textual. Add “and all the rights and privileges accorded to marriage will be accorded also to civil unions” to the texts, and you’ve still got no guarantee whatsoever that the storm of legal cases that will ensue (and I think we can at least agree that there will be such a storm) won’t result in a judge interpreting the text differently. And this hurts your ideals, too, because just as it’s possible a judge may consider civil unions less worthy of rights than marriage, it’s also possible they may consider them _more_ worthy. Keeping the two seperate means potential problems in that regard either way - your method may well mean the opposite of what you intend, by leaving the door open for civil unions to be considered by the law to be \*superior \*to marriage. Think of it like this. In this thread, we have many people disagreeing, as we tend to do. We all have our own ideas about what we mean, what this issue means, and what our opponents on this mean. Which is pretty inevitable, coming as we are from our own different viewpoints. But here’s the thing; judges are just as human. The text provides a framework for them to work with, but there’s no guarantee that one judge’s view will agree with the next. Keeping marriage and civil unions seperate means those judges have greater wiggle room still. So really, your method is a risk - the landmark decisions might be made by judges who think like you. Or they might be made by judges who think like me. Or they might be made by judges that think like **Miller** , or **Der Trihs** , or **kanicbird**. Or it might be made by judges with wildly different opinions and cause a huge mess of it all. Because the text doesn’t dictate. Judges dictate from the text. And your method means they’ll have quite a lot of room to maneuvre in deciding precisely what rights and responsibilities mean, what comes under that “all”, what precedent applies between the two systems, what new changes to one also affect the other. > [@](#): > > I only ask that they accept logic. And I very, very rarely hurl accusations of lying in any direction. And I disagree with your method. It’s considerably flawed - I don’t simply disagree with the principle behind it, I think it will fail to do what you want it to do, too. You’ve failed to show what you believe you’ve showed. Should I accuse you of mischaracterising my position, when you say that you have showed that? ---
**Author:** ![Jdeforrest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@Jdeforrest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jdeforrest)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/148 "2009-05-19T14:29:13Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Since nature has seen fit to have children by the product of a man and a woman, and that the raising of that child is best done by those two people—one male, one female—as they each give to the child different things during its upbringing, it behooves society to be able to discriminate between the ideal situation and other ones. This does not meant that single family or SS couple households cannot do a stellar job of raising a child, often better than the original situation he or she might have been born into. This is one of the reasons that I think gays should be able to adopt. But the first preference is the ideal and deserves it’s own label. Two things with this. First is your false premise that a man and a woman are the “ideal.” I call cite on that one. I think your just showing prejudice rather than actually having any data to back that up. Not to mention the fact that you yourself say that two gender parents are better, except when they’re not. Second, what happens when comes the day that two women can have a biological child? Or with some further technological gains, two men? Are you going to tell the child that it’s not a “natural” child. Should we call them something else? Maybe civil sapiens? Something to know that they were produced by hte gays. [http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=4725121&page=1](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=4725121&page=1) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/149 "2009-05-19T15:01:29Z")
Civil Sapiens? Not most of us. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/150 "2009-05-19T15:02:25Z")
I’m holding out for good old cellular mitosis. I will be able to create exact duplicates of myself. I shall call him Mini Me ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/151 "2009-05-19T17:03:23Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > You know, that’s a good point. I also find it unbelievable sleezy that they’re openly, admitedly, “recasting” their argument to appeal to people’s pocketbooks, because all their prior arguments, frankly, fuckin’ suck. Good god, you miscreants-- you’re talking about people’s basic human dignity here. It’s doubly sick that a black man would do this after the institutionalized injustices blacks suffered in this country \*in his lifetime. \* IME, there’s nothing a repressed group will get behind more quickly than repressing another group farther down the totem pole. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/152 "2009-05-19T17:33:11Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > If the word ‘marriage’ is so inconsequential, why do so many people on the anti-SSM side get themselves into a fit over it? I’m not anti-SSM, but for me, if true civil unions were enacted, there’d be equal rights for gays, the economy would not be distorted, and, most importantly, I wouldn’t have to listen to all the disingenuous, distasteful arguments about purity and tradition. It would cross over into more easily ignored whimperings and rantings about how teh gays want to poison our precious bodily fluids and the like. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/153 "2009-05-20T01:52:18Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I’m not anti-SSM, but for me, if true civil unions were enacted, **there’d be equal rights for gays** , the economy would not be distorted, and, most importantly, I wouldn’t have to listen to all the disingenuous, distasteful arguments about purity and tradition. It would cross over into more easily ignored whimperings and rantings about how teh gays want to poison our precious bodily fluids and the like. Well there wouldn’t be **equal** rights for gays. They wouldn`t have the freedom to marry, like straights have. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/154 "2009-05-20T03:31:35Z")
No, they wouldn’t have the freedom to _call themselves married_. If they’re not happy about that (and apparently they’re not), then I fully support their choice to press for what does make them happy- including participating in sign waving campaigns and the like against Florida Prop 2 (fat lot of good that did). Personally, though, if I were told tomorrow that I couldn’t get married in the US because I’m not a citizen, I wouldn’t consider my rights to have been abridged (assuming I was offered the alternative of a Permanent Residentcy Union with all rights and privileges appertaining to married people) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/155 "2009-05-20T03:44:36Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > No, they wouldn’t have the freedom to _call themselves married_. If they’re not happy about that (and apparently they’re not), then I fully support their choice to press for what does make them happy- including participating in sign waving campaigns and the like against Florida Prop 2 (fat lot of good that did). > > Personally, though, if I were told tomorrow that I couldn’t get married in the US because I’m not a citizen, I wouldn’t consider my rights to have been abridged (assuming I was offered the alternative of a Permanent Residentcy Union with all rights and privileges appertaining to married people) Which would never, ever happen. “Seperate but equal” is never equal; that’s the whole point. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/156 "2009-05-20T04:01:01Z")
Hence my support for SSMs to be called SSMs instead of civil unions. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/157 "2009-05-20T19:14:25Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Hence my support for SSMs to be called SSMs instead of civil unions. And round we go. It shouldn’t be called same sex marriage. It should simply be marriage. No prefixes, no discriminatory qualifications, no equivocations. Simply marriage, for every consenting adult couple who desires it. Period. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/158 "2009-05-20T20:01:39Z")
That’s what I meant. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/159 "2009-05-20T20:20:26Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > That’s what I meant. Sorry. No problem. Please pardon my hypersensitivity. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660/160 "2009-05-20T21:08:17Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Which would never, ever happen. “Seperate but equal” is never equal; that’s the whole point. Now, now. I’ve been in some schools in the Mississippi delta, and I can assure you that I’ve seen plenty of plaques that disagree. -Joe [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-opponents-grasping-at-straws/496660.md?page=9)