Fair enough, you’ve made it clear that you consider monogamous heterosexual relationships superior to all others, and I don’t think I can change your mind about that. I disagree, and I think your attitude is one reason that it is important to call gay marriage “marriage” –to make it clear that homosexual relationships are equal to heterosexual ones.
Out of curiosity, though, what term would you use as an alternative to “to marry” in reference to homosexual marriages/civil unions?
And if the point is to strictly define “marriage” as one man + one woman, would you also require nonmonogamous heterosexual couples to get civil unioned instead of married?
The point is, I’m not “lying” about anything. I believe what I say. I know you beleive what you say, as well. Even when you have repeatedly and stubbornly mischaracterized my position, whether through genuine misunderstanding on your part or to intentionally, childishly, and uncharacteristically just throw sand in my face, I didn’t attribute what your were doing to “lying”.
I assure you, I am equally baffled that you insist that your math is correct. Two groups, men and women can tap into ONE set of real estate laws; two groups blacks and whites can tap into ONE set of driving rules and regulations; two groups, little people and those of normal stature tap into ONE set of laws having to do with the running of a restaurant. And, here it comes…two groups, couples that are married and couples that are joined in civil unions, tap into ONE set of laws defining the special rights and privileges the state extends to said couples.
I’m truly baffled that you don’t get that.
This is a valid point, but I hardly think your claim is “undeniable”. I think its easly addressed with how things are worded. I’ve proposed something like:
“From this date forward, all persons joined through marriage or through civil union, will be governed by the following ONE set of laws and privileges. If, at some later date it should be contemplated that a law, right, or privilege be added or subtracted from this ONE set of laws, know that any change will and must pertain equally to both groups: those joined through marriage and those joined through civil unions.”
Notice that this doesn’t even get into SSM. Naturally, in my idea they would be included under the civil union group. So, if we go with wording like that which I just supplied, and still don’t allow gays to marry, we have gay couples enjoying the exact same rights and privileges that are granted through “marriage”.
What’s this “comports with nature” stuff? Is it like observing that God put the different races on different continents because *that *comported with nature?
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.
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.
“…except for the right to X, which shall accrue solely to married couples.”
As long as the government recognizes a difference between gay and straight marriage, even if only in nomenclature, it will be possible to legislate selectively against one or the other. Only by making the nature of the relationship invisible to the government can this be prevented.
Including the one permitting the use of all relevant terminology? They both can? No? How is that “one set of laws” for everyone, then?
I’m considerably less baffled why you refuse to address that point except to dismiss it as “emotionalism” - as if your own position were based on anything *other *than emotionalism, invocations of Nature’s Way of some kind, and simple homophobia.
Bolding added. Two groups. Separate by your own damn definition. Equal, you insist (even though they’re not), but separate-but-equal nonetheless.
When will you call for resegregating the schools and buses, too?
:rolleyes: First of all, it’s already been pointed out to you in this thread, as well as another thread very recently, that it’s the pursuit of happiness. How can you even pretend you haven’t read that twice in the last couple days? Secondly, what fucking planet are you from? Really? Are you really making the claim, in earnest, that every right not specifically defined in the constitution (I assume you’re talking about the constitution, even though TJ spoke of unalienable rights in the DoI) is non-existant? You really think that, or you’re being spurious? Which?
How can you even pretend not to be a queer-hater at this point? You practically wear the bumper sticker on your ass in every thread I run across you in.
It “comports with nature” for a female to devour the male consorts head, crunch, munch, crunch. This might result in considerable hesitation on our parts. Well, some, maybe. Depends on how hot she is.
in response about my query about doing away with the word “marriage” altogether …
Then your argument about it just being about rights is full of shit. You just don’t want the gays to be able to use “your” word. Tough titties.
Whether it’s called “Marriage”, “Civil Unions” or “Seymore Lipstshitz” children will still be born to men and women. As to what the ideal situation for their rearing is, if you think just because a couple consists of a man and a woman that that’s the ideal, then you’re lost in some pie in the sky Leave It To Beaver world. Children are best brought by caring adults … genders don’t enter into it. There are millions of children of men/women couples who have been raised up into total assholes.
Then I don’t see how that doesn’t invalidate your “ideal situation” concept.
The alternative, I suppose, would be the claim that marriage is a divine right, as is often done. Say what you will about freedom of speech, women’s suffrage and calculus homework, but I don’t think anybody claims that all of that makes God happy.
As I replied to magellan01 … people will commit to each other and the opposite sex ones will generally have children, whether or not we ever decided to codify it into something called “marriage.” But by the same turn, people wouldn’t just naturally allow for freedom of speech, *until *it was codified. The ‘natural’ alternative to that being, “I don’t like what you said, I’m going to hit you with a rock now.”
Which is why society doesn’t allow the use of the word marriage for opposite sex couples where the woman is post-menopsausal, or the man is impotent, or where he had a vasectomey and she had her tubes tied.
Oh wait, we do use ‘marriage’ to describe all these ‘non-ideal’ situations. Yet, somehow, if we expand the term to cover one more non-ideal case, we’ll have human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
