Is this going to be another 1200 page thread in which magellan01 insists allowing gay marriage will be damaging to our society with no evidence what so ever to back up the claim?
If we’re just going to do that again I’d really rather see him start the thread and lay out a detailed, specific thesis, rather than another round of ask magellan01 X questions and watch him respond to 1/5X questions, mostly with thinly-veiled insults, vague references to what’s best for society, and repetitions of “ONE SET OF LAWS!”
I’ve finally figured it out. He’s actually Dr. Bronner’s reincarnation, and we’re all participating in what will become the label for One Law castile soap.
It wouldn’t be necessary. This new law would make the historical aspects moot. They would have been taken into account in its crafting.
The problem with intent is when judges attempt to divine it. If, for instance, the founders had been more explicit in what they intended as far as the right to bear arms or the relationship between the state and religion, we wouldn’t need judges to try to determine what they meant today. With the benefit of hindsight and the ambiguity that has been debated for generations, we can craft language that would be quite clear and eliminate interpretation down the road.
This is exactly my point. We can foresee possible problems and make sure the language addresses it in clear terms. Problems in law arise when there is ambiguity. I really don’t see it as being so difficult. We’d have one set of laws outlining benefits and privileges afforded to joined couples. We then simply state that there are two ways to access those benefits: marriage (heterosexuals) and civil unions (gays). Again, add or subtract anything to that list and it affects both groups equally. So, I really don’t see the problem you do. The types of problems you allude to above go more to what defines the two groups, rather than the laws they’d tap into. Again, use any qualifications you’d like as far as age, etc., but both groups would have to adhere to them. Both groups would be comprised of two-person unions. If those persons are one from each sex, the qualify by virtue of their marriage; if those persons are of the same sex, they qualify by virtue of their civil union.
All the language has to do is clearly and unambiguously enshrine the notion that there is, and shall be, only one set of laws and privileges; that if one desires to make a change to the laws and privileges enumerated, they can, but it will, by design, apply to both groups. So, let whatever group bring whatever they’d like. The important language is the umbrella language. And I think that can be short, plain, and unambiguous.
I see absolutely no need to preserve the traditional meaning of “marriage”. I think traditions that include bigotry are ones we can dump.
So, wanting people to have equal rights and privileges is bigotry? Good one.
Can you not think? Let’s use a different example. We have a strong, extremely handsome, athletic guy with an IQ of 170 who stands a strapping 6’8" tall. Only problem is he wants to be a fighter pilot. How’s that? Make sure you save some of your tears for him. After all, he too has shortcomings, the poor lug.
You asked this, using ridiculous language. I pointed that out and answered it anyway. Now you take my answer and put it through your bias filter and spew out this highly skewed, intentionally inflammatory characterization. I thought you were a more honest debater than that. Oh, well. ::shrug::
If, in fact, you’ve read my posts here and in other thread on the subject and understand my position, and believe that I fall into that category, you are right to be afraid. Because either you don’t understand what you think you do or you are highly emotionally invested in characterizing my position—which is FOR equal rights—as bigoted. But don’t fret too much. You’re no the only one so tainted. So much so it’s hard to notice the affliction around these parts. The Twilight Zone with the pig-faced surgeons comes to mind.
Why would you want to make the historical aspects moot? It seems to me that Loving vs. Virginia, to give the most obvious example, is a rather important precedent, and not just in terms of marriage law. Plus the very fact that it does not take into account precedence might be construed as a failing by judges, who might seek to utilise it anyway.
But it’s not simply inclarity of language that makes interpretation widespread, otherwise there’d be a similar amount of judicial back-and-forth around all the amendments. There’s also the fact that there are large amounts of people who have a particular interest one way or the other on gun ownership or state and religion. When you have dedicated groups with such an interest in such things, it’s naive to expect that interpretation can be eliminated. Whatever laws are passed are going to be under constant assault. There is no language perfect enough that interpretation is impossible. What we have to do is reduce it to the extent that is possible, and I don’t believe your language fulfils that purpose.
Well, you pointed out one of the problems yourself, in that civil unions can be defined differently than marriages (I mean, I presume you’d want one particular defined trait to be different, but other than that). I could indeed use whatever qualifications i’d like. Moreover, if i’m a judge, and I would like to rule in some inequality, I can simply point to the law and say “Look, the two groups are clearly seperate. If the intent was to treat them both the same way, then there would be only one group, not two. Therefore, I rule…”.
Also I forsee (should your method come to pass) an upsurge in carefully designed benefits so as to help only one group, but in all honesty I don’t see a way of stopping that particular gambit whatever the language.
This is the law. One man’s clear and unambiguous is another’s muddled and uncertain. People don’t interpret things the same way; the very fact we’re having this debate at all shows that. Your language really isn’t as unambiguous as you think it is, nor does it constrain radical interpretations of intent. The language can be more unambiguous - but your method leaves gaps which an interest group can and most certainly will develop.
Surely the very fact that I disagree that your language is unambiguous proves that some people can take it that way? And if you and I can disagree, why not judges?
Oh, I realize you were trying to craft an analogy, but came up with a crap one. Being an NFL running back has some very specific requirements, without which most people in the world are physically incapable of being one. Marriage should have only one: two people who want to enter into this contract. You (and many others) insist on an additional one: one partner be a man, one a woman. You’ve given no real justification for this, because reproduction isn’t really the reason-- you wouldn’t deny marital rights to couples who are unable to reproduce. Amorphous claims of societal harm without evidence don’t stand up to scrutiny.
Thus, your analogy is bullshit, because gays do not HAVE any shortcomings that prevent them from fulfilling the marital contract except in your arbitrary construction of the word “marriage.” It would be like saying all NFL running backs have to be white. I know, I know, you don’t think it’s arbitrary. But then, you don’t think being gay is normal or ideal, either.
You do, but not for the reasons you state here.
I agree. If I have a gay couple as neighbors, how does that hurt my marriage? How does it affect my marriage at all, whether my neighbors are married, cohabitating, room mates or whatever?
The same way that hetero married couples decide - on a case by case basis, for each activity and each couple.
I’ve been married for nearly 26 years. My wife has a paying job outside the home. For almost all of our marriage she earned more money that I did. I do the laundry, grocery shopping, and dishes. She pays the bills and balances the accounts. She does the majority of the child-rearing, but I make significant contributions in that area as well. We are not Ward and June Cleaver, but we are married.
I don’t think there are records for the breakup of gay couples, any more than there are for unmarried hetero couples. I have heard of gay married couples, and civil union couples, getting divorced. It happens. It may happen more at first, since fighting the system for their civil rights may keep some gay couples together until they get married and realize they are not so compatible. I personally know straight couples who had short marriages like that. And the public record has Larry King, Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, and Brittany Spears, among others. If gay couples can get married, they can get divorced - just like straight couples. I think that’s fine. I’m not a fan of divorce, but it has its place in society.
OTOH, I find it moving that there are elderly gay couples who, despite all the social and legal pressures, have been together for decades. I find it disgusting that these couples get legally separated at the deathbed by the prejudices encoded in our legal system.
This is the bit I don’t understand either. What is this mysterious “benefit” I stand to lose?
To be honest, the fact that same-sex couples want the status so badly actually reaffirms the value of marriage. It’s the Britney Spearses of the world that devalue it by treating it so cavalierly. Perhaps we should let gays marry and force celebrities to settle for civil unions?
You could remove everything from the word I underlined, actually. A very important mechanism in “opposition situations” is to ensure that “our guys” do not, ever, think of “them” as equals, as people. They’re “monsters,” “goks,” “reds,” “ragheads,” or the much older “barbarians.”
My mother stopped ragging against homosexuals the day I got her to notice that, same as she didn’t choose to like accountants with a likeness to Jimmy Stewart, Rock Hudson didn’t choose to like guys. Once “the other” stops being “other” and becomes “like me,” it’s not possible to hate them any more (not unless you’re in seeeeerious need of a shrink). So long as they’re “other,” it’s OK to burn them at the stake.
That was one of the most astounding displays of ignorance this board has ever been subjected to. What you describe is separate-but-equal, which was abolished in 1954. You can support it if you want, but you’re still in the wrong legally as well as morally.
You want so badly both to be bigoted and to feel that your bigotry is actually proper that you simply cannot see your own factual errors, logical fallacies, and simple fantasies, no matter who points them out or how often. All you have left, when cornered on those things, is childish insults.
Hah. We already had ~700 years’ worth of English common law to work with when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written. What makes you think we’d be any better at writing foundation documents now than we were back then?
I can only speak for myself. I have no concept of husband and wife roles in my marriage. What specifically are husband roles? We both work, we both cook, we both clean. By natural affinity we gravitated towards certain tasks. I enjoy cleaning laundry, so I tend to do that more. He likes pasta sauce so he makes that. I take care of finances because I’m more meticulous. He does the driving because he likes to drive. We do what fits best, which I would guess is the case for most couples regardless of gender.
My guess is that there is little to no difference between straights and gays in terms of longevity of relationships. The Goodridge couple has divorced. The other couples celebrated five years on Monday.
I said it once before, but the only argument I see here is an anti-marriage person with a pathological need to feel “special.” I find it pathetic to seek specialness from the denigration of others.
IME, it works pretty much the same as it does in heterosexual relationships. That is, it doesn’t go much beyond who’s got the penis vs. who’s got the vagina, or in practical terms, who pops out the sprog(s) vs. who leaves the seat up.
And I’m sure the people who said things like “I’m all for equal rights for blacks as long as they don’t move in next door and marry my sister*” would have been shocked to be called bigots, too.
*You know, as long as they don’t go places where they don’t belong, as you complained about the gays doing.
I think the bolded part is what he is (innocently?) trying to ask about (correct me if I’m wrong, RedFury).
Speaking from the male-male side here: there are some gay couples who do the penetrator/penetrated thing, similar to straight couples. And there some who don’t.
But, just as those roles are decided by preferences, etc. (and sometimes switched), other preferences come into play too and are mutually figured out/decided on too.
Who likes backrubs and who likes to give them. Who likes to get head and who likes to receive. Who likes frottage or foot play and who likes to give their partner pleasure by indulging them. Who likes cuddling and who may like it less but wants to please their partner.
In other words, there’s a range of roles that don’t necessarily involve penetration/penetrated or putatively gender-based roles and acts, and it’s up to each couple to figure it out for themselves. Just like like straight couples.
As is traditional. 
Count me among the straight married folk who doesn’t understand what benefits I get from keeping “marriage” for man+woman.
If you wanna play that terminology game, frankly, I’d rather see the french-style (iirc) system whereby every couple must get civil unioned by the government, and then “marriage” is the sole province of the religious. That way, there really IS one set of laws, as opposed to this “gays have every right of marriage (except calling it marriage)” that you propose.
But of course that wouldn’t work for magellan, since those evil Unitarians would for the most part happily sanctify as marriage homosexual and heterosexual unions alike.
Frankly, the silly part about the whole thing is that, even if gays get “civil unions” and everyone else gets “marriages”, only the bigots are going to bother calling a gay couple anything but married anyway.
The French call their civil unions marriages, too, like us Spaniards. But yeah, the civil and religious aspects really need to be separated, whatever you call it. If the civil aspect is a “civil union” it should be one for everybody; if it’s a “civil marriage” it should be one for everybody.