Heffalump: Did you read the cite about the October 6th change back to the traditional forms? Did you read my post?
I read both. Why do you ask?
You know, magellan, it’s interesting that such a large percentage of people who read your reasoning here are coming away with the perception that you are in some measure prejudiced against gays. It is, of course, entirely possible that it’s purely because of the nature of this message board, which does lean rather sharply to the left, most particularly when it comes to gay rights. Still, it does strike me as odd that so many posters who, in other circumstances are very bright and perceptive, are so totally unable to see through their preconceptions on this issue and recognize that at its heart there is no malice or discrimination there. I wonder if there’s a way to tell if the reaction you’re getting here is telling us more about the nature of the SDMB, or the nature of your arguments? Here’s an idea: get some of those gay friends you have - the ones who know you, and know how totally cool you are with gay rights, and have them read this thread. Only, don’t tell them which poster you are. Just tell them that you found this interesting thread about gay marriage, and you want to know what they think. It’d be interesting to see how they reacted to your arguments if they didn’t know who was making them, don’t you think?
How the hell do you get “hand waving” out of what I said?
Probably, yes.
They would not, because gay marriage is illegal in California.
And you haven’t shown that any community felt that this change was a significant harm to them.
Then why do you keep misrepresenting what it says?
They would be sued.
Can you point to any political movement, anywhere in the world, at any point in time, in which all of its members were in perfect agreement about their precise goals, the methods by which they should achieve them, and the extents to which they were justified in going to achieve them?
I can only do so much with the material you’re giving me.
Yes, actually, I can. Just because someone claims harm does not, in fact, mean that they were harmed.
No, because there is no such person: the people who wanted to have bride/groom on their forms got forms that said bride/groom.
No, they did not take that away. The people who wanted the old form, got the old form. Why are you lying about what happened here?
I’m afraid I don’t know the answers to either of these.
Private agencies could, but they’re private agencies, so there’s not really any grounds to demand it of them, nor would I think that reasonable. As far as laws go, it would depend on the wording of whatever law made it so.
Well, you’ve quoted one of my arguments on this already; the law is the law, but the results of the law are the results of interpretation. A law along the lines of the one magellan suggests, granting all rights and privileges of marriage, says nothing about the history of precedence and judicial interpretation that affects that legal language. I think everyone will agree that there are going to be people and organisations that would fight this in the courts; in essence, my concern is that gay marriage would over time encrue a catalogue of legal opinion and judgement that is quite different than that of OSM. Equal in name and in what’s actually written down in City Hall, but in practice quite different. Note that this might actually mean that gay marriage is accorded improved recognition in some cases; this, too, would be bad. Moreover, by keeping the two systems seperate, it becomes considerably easier for an opponent to attack one without attacking the other. Tack on a statement saying that SSM is accorded all the rights of OSM and that statement can be untacked just as easily. True incorporation, as I believe would be fair, would make this a more difficult process.
Just as a side note; I, personally, don’t really mind whether it is called “marriage” in law. The government’s calling of it that, for its own sake, is of pretty much no interest to me - I don’t care what the government calls it. What I care about is fairness; my preferred system would be simply to have the government use civil unions (or whatever name) across the board, and allow people then to call it whatever they want. But while OSM is on the books as marriage, it considerably hurts matters if OSM isn’t.
What* I *find interesting is that a person who (I feel rightly) is aggrieved by people looking into his motives, crying “Ah ha!” and pulling bigotry and homophobia out of them, finds it perfectly reasonable to pull dishonesty from the hats of his opponents. I suspect were we all mind-readers this would become a somewhat more interesting debate, but insulting the motivations of either side does nobody any favours. If it helps at all, I don’t consider your own motivations to be dishonest or motivated by hatred or prejudice in the slightest; I simply think you’re wrong. 
Here’s a question. Rather than marriage across the board, would you be interested (or perhaps just more so/less) in civil unions across the board? In terms of diluting the language, then it would only be dilution by the people, which pretty much seems to be already happening and anyway is not really something we should look at controlling. Anyway, civil unions for all would appear to ensure that the government does not support a dilution of the word marriage; would that be more acceptable to you?
Actually, I’ve already previously requested earlier in this thread, for you to create a new thread about this topic perhaps in great debates or IMHO, someplace a bit more civil, as I find it a very interesting idea and I would like to hear more.
So yes, please don’t feel free to de-rail this one, but PLEASE DO make another Thread about this topic.
(Also, I think that that Triangle web TOTALLY seems to fit the requirements that was quite good stuff, but I look forwards to hearing your ideas on why it doesn’t in a new thread).
Hmm. OK, let’s try this again. Perhaps I misinterpreted the article. This is what I saw. From article you linked:
I understood this to mean that couples married between June 17 and October 6, 2008 in California had their marriage certificates say, Party A and Party B. It also says that they cannot go back and change them since changes to official forms are prohibited. That means to me, that for any people who didn’t like the forms who were married between those dates don’t have recourse to have them changed.
The lawsuit means to me that at least one couple felt that they were harmed by this change. It also means to me that people cared about this. . the traditional use of the words groom and bride on the form.
I do understand that the forms were changed back, potentially in anticipation of the Prop. 8 vote, but that these forms were not interchangeable with and retroactive as to the earlier forms.
Is that how the article read to you?
As to the hand-waving, that was in response to this one sentence:
taken by itself.
Because to me, the fact that at least one heterosexual couple had a preference for what appears on their marriage license is the point. They’re saying that if gay couples are allowed to be married, then something about their marriage changes. . . the form, for starters. We don’t know what else might have to be changed, but we at least know that much did.
The argument has been made repeatedly that gay marriage would not affect heterosexuals in any way, so why should they care. But this is an example of how heterosexual marriage has changed. . .the form on which it is declared. That may be a minor harm or point to you, but it is one nonetheless.
To wave that away by saying that it’s “beside the point” is what I was calling hand waving.
As to the rest of your post, I’ve now read it 5 times, as carefully as I could. I don’t see the significance, but I’ve decided to do a line by line.
If you’re not ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies, don’t read any further. The rest is tedious, even to me, which is why I didn’t post it before.
But did it cause any opposite sex couple to cancel theirs?
So if it said bride and groom only, would that work for you?
Yes, it’s 53% who wish to deny and 47% who don’t.
I don’t know what this has to do with SSM. Yes, some people already don’t like the forms. That’s another issue. The issue in regards to Prop. 8 as I understand it is that people wanted the form to say bride and groom.
There are other people that don’t see it as inclusive change or that the inclusive change is good, in their view.
I don’t understand your last sentence. But I have noticed this about many of the arguments here on this issue. There’s a sense that something is OK because it’s not as bad as it could be. The fact that something could be worse doesn’t make the initial thing acceptable. The fact that you may not be taking away any significance from any other concepts of marriage doesn’t make the fact that you took this concept away from marriage (the form) any better.
You just called me an idiot for the second time, and you’re complaining about the quality of my insults?
You want answers? You haven’t provided any actual questions, so here are some answers that I wasn’t using:
- 27
- The train will overtake the truck in three minutes, forty-four seconds
- I’ll have the chana dal and a large mango lassi
I think you’ve had quite enough substances for now. Time to come down.
I want to be very clear in my explanation of my opinion here. First, I don’t think the debate about the form language has anything to do with being in “anticipation of” the Nov 4th outcome, and I don’t really know what you’re getting at with that statement anyway. It sounds almost like you’re referring to some sort of buyer’s remorse that causes people to return what they purchased.
Also, the decision to go to “Party A” and “Party B” in the first place was made, I believe, by employees of the state of CA as they did the best they could to adjust to the Supreme Court ruling in such a way that tried to make everyone happy.
The rest of my post talks about why “making everyone happy” is a challenge when it comes to things like state’s use of traditional terms on these forms.
It is “beside the point” because the verbage used on the form is negotiable, while same sex couples being discriminated against is not.
Did the return of the traditional language on the form cause any opposite sex couple to cancel their wedding? I have no idea. The point I was making is that there are a lot of people fighting with everything they have to be able to use a form that likely does not have their preferred wording on it.
For me personally, as I said in my post, I don’t give a fuck what the from says. The form language does not define my marriage, nor does the language on it somehow enhance or damage my marriage.
There are people (and not just heterosexual couples who want “bride” and “groom”) who put much more significance on the language of the form, and who have deeply rooted preferences as to what they want their form to say. If preferences are to be indulged by the state, I think they should be indulged for everyone.
That is the breakdown of registered voters who voted on Nov 4th. The population I was referring to was an as-yet-undefined number of people who prefer to have the option of “bride” and “groom” on their marriage license. I personally know people who have that preference but who voted against Prop 8.
I’ve already addressed this above, but I’ll do so again. The employees of the state of California tried to remove the traditional language from the form as a direct result of the Supreme Court decision. It is arguably an indirect (and negotiable) effect of the same sex marriage movement, not a direct one.
Since we’re involved in semantic games, let me throw you my take:
“Marriage” is a contract between two people to live together as spouses, creating a family thereby. It may or may not have the legal recognition or approbation of the state, the blessings of a putative deity conveyed by Its priests, shamans, or other clergy, a foundation in romance, an arrangement for the linking of two influential families, or a host of other reasons and causes. But the bottom line for it is that two people contract to live together spousally, according each other such benefits as may be relevant to their circumstances.
“Union” is a word that has historically had a host of meanings, from the Union of Scotland and England in 1707 through the non-secessionist North in 1860s America to the International Women’s Garment Makers Union.
In my mind, a legally recognized institution by which a couple’s contract to live together spousally is accorded state recognition and relevant benefits is a civil marriage. The use of the retronym allows it to be distinguished from religious marriage, where it is incumbent on devotees of a faith to draw that distinction. (Good non-SSM example: Tony and Renee, good Catholic kids, marry. Eventually Tony catches Renee cheating on him, and divorces her. Later he meets and falls in love with Heather, goes before a judge and marries her. Being peeved about how Fr. O’Flaherty treated him when he separated from Renee, he never seeks an annulment from the Catholic hierarchy. In the eyes of the state, Tony and Heather are married, a civil marriage. In the eyes of the church, Tony and Renee are still married.)
The rights and benefits of the term “marriage” in law, including portability when the couple moves, go with the civil marriage. The church and others with issues about the “real” meaning of marriage may in their own minds deem only some civil marriages to be “real” ones – but that doesn’t affect their legal standing.
You invent a new term only when it’s needed. If an old, commonly understood term can be adapted to fit a new situation, that’s the proper course to take, as it preserves the social significance, the ‘sanctity’ if you will, of the traditional term.
Bob and Ted have a marriage, by their own contract with each other. If the church doesn’t like it, too bad – they need not recognize it. The state should accord them the ability to have that contract accorded equal status with other like contracts; that’s civil marriage. If Bob and Ted wish to plight their troth in a church that is willing to bless their union, they can have a religious marriage.
This alone accords equal protection under the law, ensures that all civil marriages get equal treatment, and salves the consciences of those with religious objections to some marriages. Problems?
I don’t think Mag is interested in having his marriage altered in any way, particularly in name.
The thing we need to keep in mind is we’re not really dealing with Magellan. If we take him on his word, he’d give us equal, but separate, rights. But he’s not getting these laws passed. The religious right is, and wittingly or unwittingly, Magellan and a whole lot of other Americans are contributing to the RR’s agenda. They, have no intention of doing anything but resisting gay rights everywhere they can.
By forcing gays to fight for their rights, line item by line item, the RR can keep discriminating for years and years and that’s precisely what they intend to do. We can’t keep compromising, because when we compromise we can lose.
I’ve no doubt there are some California voters who, after the vote, thought “oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was voting for that, I thought I was voting to protect children or something.” The RR wants everyone to feel good about these compromises here and there, but their real agenda is take away a right here, take away a right there.
Does anyone believe the RR is right now, at this very moment, fighting to get Magellan’s supposed separate but equal policies in place? Of course not. One civil right down, lots more to go.
They’ll lose eventually of course, but they’re going to drag this out, state by state, for years. We give them an inch, they take two. Then people are surprised?
Oh no! Then you agree with magellan01 too. How disappointing.
If you don’t care what people call it, as long as everyone has the same legal benefits, then you also fit under category 2 and also agree with magellan01.
In order to remedy your “concern” regarding the two institutions being treated exactly alike, this is one comment that magellan01 made in another thread. This one is not exactly on point as some other comment he made that I couldn’t find off-hand. But here’s one:
I don’t suspect he meant that it would be simple to accomplish in actuality but that the concept is simple to imagine.
He’s also made other comments to suggest that there could be a law that ties the institution of marriage and civil union together so that the benefits are exactly equal and one cannot be changed without the other changing. I don’t want to speak for him, but he can correct me if I’m misinterpreting him.
So obviously, it won’t be you who will be telling me the counterarguments against him since you agree with him.
Personally, I think the government should recognize *only *civil unions – for everyone, hetero- and homo- alike. Then the churches can perform whatever rites their little hearts desire and call it “Super-Duper-Ultra-Mega-God-Likes-Us-Best-Marriage” for all I give a shit.
This would be ideal, IMO.
Has magellan indicated that he’d prefer that the government not recognize any marriages, and issue only civil unions, regardless of the gender of the couple? Because if he hasn’t, then Revenant Threshold isn’t agreeing with him at all.
I’m sorry, I must have missed this bit; which categories are these?
I was under the impression that magellan very much cares what gay marriage is called; he strongly feels that it should not be called marriage. Likewise he may feel it important that straight marriage retains the name legally, hence my asking. And certainly, he and I are in agreement that what is valuable as far as the government goes is having the same legal benefits, but we each have different ideas as to how that situation might be best achieved. I also have concerns of equality, which magellan may well share but values differently.
Why is “concern” in quotes?
I agree that magellan’s solution is extremely simple and clear. The problem as I see it that the law is not, generally, renowned for its simplicity and clarity. To say that it is simply a matter of creating laws recognising gay civil unions and then another extending the rights of marriage to it doesn’t really get to any actual grips with the situation. It’s like saying we’ll win a war by shooting all the enemy; technically it’s certainly a plan, but reality is rather more complex than that. For example; would this law afford over rights on a continued basis - if the rights of marriage change in the future, will civil unions be automatically affected likewise - will they be retroactive, will they simply grant the rights currently granted to straight couples? Will the link be two-way - will the later effects of the law on civil unions also travel back and affect marriage? How will it be ensured that judges interpret civil unions and marriage equally, to ensure they remain on an equal keel, and how will we carry over precedent in occasions when it considerably affects marriage? What laws are there currently on the books that specifically refer to an opposite-sex couple, and how will they be changed, if at all? **magellan’s **solution is simple, but this it is not a simple question.
On that point, certainly, I think such a law would be a good plan. But it still leaves quite a lot of wiggle room to maneuvre in; for one thing, the very fact that the names are different could be used to make a case that they are meant to be seperate. On a more tricky note, since SS and OS marriages are still different in their makeup, it may well be that certain benefits aren’t applicable to one form of it. To go with the current threads on gay people in the military currently, for example, a gay civil union’d person wouldn’t be able to enlist and would be discharged if their union details are made known to the forces to which they belong; a law that declared all marriage/civil union information must be provided to armed forces of which one party is a member would be equal technically but not so in practice, for example.
I looked foolish, but lots of people joined in.
The triangular-shaped thread is here.