However it is 1000% reasonable for gays to believe your a bigot. You keep trying to argue your right in your beliefs and we are wrong for ours. No matter how many gay friends you claim to have or how equal you claim we should be with civil unions we will still believe you to be a bigot.
We can accept you believe only straight marriages are good for society. You seem to be unable to accept we believe you to be a bigot. Our beliefs aren’t stripping you of any rights.
I have no idea why, but I’m taking a deep breath and diving back in.
Am I correct is surmising that these paragraphs are the essence of your opposition to SSM? And that a convenient way to sum it up is that marriage is an institution that, for the good of society, should stay the same?
ETA: In other words, that marriage is an institution that HAS remained essentially unchanged for a long period of time and, in this immutable form, is the basis of all stable societies.
Actually, in the last election, you’re the one who voted to change the marriage laws. So, really, the onus was on you to justify your fears of catastrophe if we legalize gay marriage. So far, all you’ve been able to come up with is that straights will feel less special if gay can marry, and won’t get married themselves. You haven’t explained why this would happen, or provided any evidence that anyone on the planet actually feels this way. You’ve just pulled it, wholesale, out of your ass and used it as an excuse to deny people their civil rights.
A hundred years ago, you could have said exactly the same thing about women’s sufferage. Two hundred years ago, you could have said the same thing about democratic government. Thank God, voices like your own proved to be in the minority back then, else where would we be today?
Okay, the idea that homosexual marriage represents a risk to our culture? That’s inherently homophobic. So when you ask people why they keep calling you a homophobe for opposing gay marriage, you can look at that sentence and have your answer.
Except that every reputable scientific study on the effects of same-sex parenting on children has shown absolutely no discernable difference in the child’s development as compared to straight couples.
Other than that, it’s a totally reasonable belief.
I can agree that a child is best off when raised by two (or more) people, simply because the more people loving, educating, and supporting a child the better. I cannot and will not agree that the gender of those people has to be different. I also think the burden of proof is on magellan01 to back up his belief that gay marriage presents a risk to our culture or a disadvantage in raising children. I would contend that oppressing gay people and denying/stripping them of rights presents a risk to our culture, and indeed to what American means.
I certainly hope that at this point magellan01 can understand why we think he is a bigoted homophobe. If he continues to pretend that we have this impression of him due to our preconceptions, or our failures to comprehend his nuanced stance, I will have to assume he’s being disingenuous from here on out.
Why should marriage between a man and a woman be considered the “ideal”, though? If it’s described as such, then it’s implied that marriage between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, are “not ideal”. Marriages that are “not ideal” are, by definition, inferior to marriages that are “ideal”. How can this view be held by someone who thinks gay people should have equal rights?
Agreed, but we shouldn’t be stripping rights away from people just for things we find “undesirable”. I find saurkraut undesirable, but I’m not going to try to outlaw it. Why should my desires trump everyone else’s?
It wouldn’t. My only problem with it, in theory, is that it would be a real PITA to deal with from a legal standpoint. I may have moral objections to it, but those objections should only keep me from engaging in such a marriage - not others.
I’m sure there are people who thought it looked ridiculous back then, as well. (Otherwise, where else could the catalyst for change have come from?)
That part should be pretty straightforward, actually. The positive and unifying ones are ones that… well… unify (bring people together); and the divisive ones are ones that fragment our society (force people apart).
Actually, that is an observed problem with communities that are heavily polygamous, such as the Mormon splinter cults that still practice polygamy. The elders in the society use their position to accumulate so many wives that there’s literally no one left for younger men to marry. Left with no prospects for marriage, and thus, for social advancement, these men are more likely to question the fairness of their society, or otherwise cause trouble for the establishment. This generally leads to the community elders inventing reasons to expel unmarried young men from the community. Having been raised in almost total isolation from mainstream society, these men have no idea how to function in it, and usually come to a bad end.
Of course, these are small, closed community, where polygamy is not simply tolerated, but actively encouraged. It’s unlikely that, if it were legalized, polygamy would ever unseat monogamy as the standard familial model in the United States. It’s even more unlikely that it would be taken to the destructive extreme seen in these extremist, isolationist religious societies.
But how is this any different from the following argument:
Whites and blacks should be afforded the same benefits under the law. In that regard they should be equal in every way. A marriage, between a white person and a white person, is entitled to X. A “civil union”, between a black person and a black person, is entitled to the exact same X.
It’s the same separate-but-equal argument from the civil rights era.
Guess who’s coming to dinner?
Why would they stop viewing marriage as a special institution?
Absolutely not. It solely seeks to abolish unnecessary and hurtful tradition.
My name isn’t Dorothy, and I’m not going to Oz, so Strawman can go home.
No one is saying that all traditions are bad. What we are saying is: some traditions are good, and some traditions are bad. This falls into the latter category.
No, it’s not. But because this keeps popping up, I’m glad you asked the question. “Separate but equal” in the context you mention, is almost impossible to achieve. The reason is that you are dealing with two separate items—two schools in a particular town, say—and are trying to make them equal. Even if you replaced them with two identical buildings, you’d need to also make them equal in regards to:
location, are they both in equally safe neighborhoods, equally far from the unpleasantness of the town dump and other potentially harmful places or businesses
financing, which even if you give them the same amount, one might have the benefit of a wealthier community to “pick up the slack”, thus changing the experience
teachers, given that these schools will likely already exist before you endeavor to make them equal, you will have to reallocate them so each school has the same proportion of good teachers and not so good teachers
parental involvement, this is one of the strongest indicators of how a school will do, so you will have to apportion involved parents to each school. But if the involved parents are not equally dispersed between the two schools geographically, then some may not want to have their kids sent to the less convenient school, and pull them out and send them to private school
diversity, neighborhoods tend to not models of diversity. Some lack it almost completely. You need to decide how important diversity—racial, performance, income—is to an equal experience and then send some kids to a less convenient school. And those kids who may have to commute an half-an-hour or an hour then don’t have the same “equal” school day as the kids who are a few minutes from their school
So, “separate but equal” as far as a solution to racial disparity in society is near an impossibility. Especially on a large scale. so, it was rightly abandoned as an option.
Now, let’s look at my idea. With my idea we have only one set of rules, laws, and benefits. We work to pass a law, as I’ve stated a few times now, that ALL the benefits and privileges that one group gets by their being married is extended—each and every one of them—to the group that is joined in a civil union. So while we have two differetn groups, we have them both accessing the same benefit pool in regards to rights and privileges. That pool is equal to itself, so the problems associated with separate but equal in the civil rights struggle do not apply here. Here both groups, gays and straights tap into the same laws. With your example, the two groups, blacks and whites, we’re tapping into two separate and distinct school systems
This is your same argument that suffers from the fallacy of association. Just because a perception from yesterday was shown to be unnecessary and unhelpful does not mean that all perceptions and beliefs from that time suffer those same failings. I really thought I explained this pretty well.
Because it no longer IS as special. Right or wrong, you’re seeking to expand the definition. And by definition, that makes it less special. It makes what it is defining less distinct. I really don’t see how one can argus otherwise—unless you believe that the sexes of the individuals play and have played NO ROLE in our understanding of marriage. You want to look at the love component and only the love component. I acknowledge the love component, but see that there is another component, as well.
No. You are wrong. Your argument works equally well and equally poorly for all tradition. But now you want to separate one type of tradition from another. That’s good. But you’re soon left evaluating those things on their merits and ignoring the accident of them all being “traditions”. And THAT is my point. That is a good thing.
Huh? Strawman? How in the world is what I wrote a strawman fallacy? Do you know what a strawman is?
Very good. So the fact that they both are traditions can be ignored. You have to look at the merits of each, whether they be rooted in tradition or not. You’re argument sought to dispense with one because we dispensed with the other.
[hijack]
Why not?
If God exists (existed) and he is a bigot, and he promises eternal rewards for being a bigot, why shouldn’t I be bigot? Why should I care for the temporal satisfaction of others in exchange for eternal damnation?
So, in return for letting Anne and Suzie get married I get everlasting torture by a dozen 15-headed demi-liches? Sorry, girls.
I am NOT saying that God exists or not, it is a he or a she, that Christianity/the Christian God/ The Bible is/is not bigoted. That’s for another debate.
It’s just a philosophical question, why should I care more for them than for me?
[/hijack]
What’s so ridiculous about this “separate but equal” bullshit is that, if it actually happened, it would be an illusion. If you’re trying to protect the sanctity of marriage, calling gay marriages “civil unions” ain’t gonna do it. People are still going to say, “Adam and Steve got married last weekend,” not “Adam and Steve got civilly unioned.” The children are still going to see the gays being all married-like, and will probably not make the fine distinction that NO, boys and girls, they are NOT married! They are civilly unioned! Your hetero marriages are SAFE from the taint of gayness and deviant sexuality!
So, all the contorting magellan01 is advocating on behalf of protecting hetero marriage from the dilution and less-than-idealness of being associated with gays-- it wouldn’t work. It would be a technicality that no one would realize or feel, except the gay people who would have to get a different license, and worry that on the next ballot, their rights would be taken away again. So what’s the point? Really? You wouldn’t be protecting jack shit with this nonsense. You’d just be forcing gays to jump through hoops of bullshit and keeping them separate so that they’d always be at risk. All this nonsense to cater to people’s irrational fear and bigotry. Ridiculous.
But it says quite a bit more than that, doesn’t it? The ideal discriminates against single people, socially inept people, children, mentally incapable people and pretty much everyone else that doesn’t fit the one man/one woman standard. And I’ll go a step farther and say that the ideal is to have a loving family with enough resources to provide for the nuclear family unit. So that discriminates against a whole bunch more people. . .the poor, the hateful, etc.
Why does it do that? Because it’s an ideal. It’s something to move toward but not attain. It’s like the ideal physical body. Really, no one has one. . .it’s just a standard that give us an idea of what people consider the goal. That doesn’t mean that people that don’t hit the standard are inferior. . . almost all people don’t match the ideal.
We don’t consider that single people should get a marriage certificate because they feel discriminated against and want one. Until they’re with a person of the opposite sex, they don’t qualify. But that’s not because they’re inferior; they just don’t qualify. And btw, single people don’t get the financial benefits of marriage either, whereas in California, gay couples can file for domestic partnership and obtain most of them.
Are you referring to the 4 months of time in California where gay couples could marry? Is that the rights that are being stripped away?
(about polygamy)
If it was found that it would be a real PITA from a legal standpoint to have gay marriages, would that be reason enough to not have them?
This was about women’s voting rights, I think. Yes, I’m sure it did look ridiculous to an increasing number of people right before the law was passed. But go back a bit further and it might have seemed less ridiculous.
Well, people are quite unified at the moment in this country that they’re not interested in SSM. In most states across the country, they’re pretty unified in that. Does that mean that the states that have allowed it should give it up so that they can unify with the opinion of the rest of the country? It would make things less fragmentary.
Then why don’t they do it now? In California, they can file a certificate of domestic partnership, have a ceremony (or not) and tell everyone they’re married. Why don’t they do this? If all it is, is:
Indeed. That’s my question, what’s the point? Really.
While I realize that Miller is not the poster boy for gay people, here’s his answer:
If he can get domestic partnership-ed and then tell everyone he’s married and no one would realize or feel the difference including him, why doesn’t that happen now?
First, that’s not anything that Miller is talking about. Then, magellan01 has stipulated numerous times that the benefits could be tied to each other, so the only way that they’d be at risk would be if they weren’t able to secure this right.
If there’s another way that they would be different, please point it out more explicitly.
Also, at the risk of stating the obvious, H&R, you do realize that domestic partnerships/civil unions are not the same as marriage? They are not recognized in other states, do not allow you to file as married on your federal income tax, state tax, do not afford community property rights, etc. Also, unlike the word “marriage,” domestic partnerships vary from state to state and have no one comprehensive list of rights that they afford. But you knew this, right?
As long as there’s a functional difference between the unions allowed to gays and straights, it’s going to be a problem of inequity. But, if everyone has the same rights, and you’re just calling it a different name, then you’re not protecting what you claim to be protecting because no one will make the distinction but you, and possibly the people who will try to take your rights away. So really, it’s a mug’s game, as jayjay said, to stand in the way of this. Not that I expect it will stop you trying.
Why magellan01 thinks that people are going to go for his plan, contorted as it is, when they will not go that extra milimeter and just use the word married, I don’t know. People who don’t want gays to be married generally don’t want them to have any spousal rights and recognitions. This is why I think the issue will be decided in the judicial branch and not via voting on propositions.
Because California is not an independent nation, it is a state of the Union. There is a corpus of law dealing with marriage, both in terms of Federal benefits/privileges/rights and in what other states are required to extend by way of FF&C. (And yes, I am aware of DOMA and of the present policy of the Federal government in not recognizing legal gay marriages. I am also aware that President-Elect Obama is pledged to rescind such measures, to the extent he is able.)
A domestic partnership in California is/is not equal to a civil union in New Jersey is/is not equal to a marriage in Connecticut. Which is the right answer? Your guess is as good as mine – there is no precedent. After the reforms, may a civil union or domestic partnership couple file as “married filing jointly”? Do we have to invent new categories for couples in pseudomarital relationships filing jointly? Are they entitled to family leave on the same terms as a member of a married couple? May a citizen contract a civil union or domestic partnership with an alien and then obtain a green card and have preference in naturalization as is true for citizen-alien marriages? These are or will be real issues affecting real people. We have a concrete example of the last-named on this board: two relatives of The Flying Dutchman in a gay marriage, now living in Canada thanks to Immigration having issues with recognizing their marriage.
Beyond which, parallel institutions should be referred to by the same terms, IMO. An Arizona marriage is legally equal and identical to a North Carolina marriage, howsoever the state laws may differ. If a 16-year-old may drive in Montana with a full operator’s license (and I’m picking a state at random), that license is valid in, say Rhode Island (again randomly chosen) if he is passing through or on vacation with his family there and running an errand for them, even if Rhode Island does not license 16 year olds with full operators licenses. If the two members of a domestic partnership adopt a child, is that child their son or daugher? Are they his/her fathers or mothers? Are you going to designate them as “quasifamilial parental units” or something?
It’s not a semantic game or pursuit of someone’s ideal of marriage we’re speaking of here, but real injustices committed against real people.
And you trust a torturer ? What makes you think a god like that doesn’t toss everyone into Hell for the fun of it ? What makes you think he won’t send you to Hell for following him out of calculation and not belief ? What makes you think he doesn’t send the unbelievers to Heaven and the believers to Hell just because the betrayal makes it that much more fun ? In other words, why trust a monster ?
And it’s STILL wrong to do what such a monster demands.
All you are doing is demonstrating the fundamentally evil nature of Christianity. You should care because it’s the right thing to do; Christianity is carefully designed to make sure you DON’T do the right thing.
I don’t have the slightest idea of how your thoughts are in any way linked to mine or answering something that I’ve written, but I’ll answer your questions.
Yes and no. I don’t know what knowledge you’re imputing to me, but here’s what Miller wrote earlier in the thread and I read it and I didn’t doubt him.
I subsequently asked whether these 9 benefits could be successfully litigated to become identical and he said, probably yes.
Right, and in every debate, magellan01 has said that he is arguing that there should be more attention paid to reducing or eliminating these functional inequities. I agree.
I can’t speak for him, but the reason I think that they might vote more easily to give equal rights to gay couples under domestic partnership than to change the definition of marriage is because of how closely domestic partnership rights are to rights of marriage in California.
I also don’t have any idea how this is tied to anything I’ve written. I do however, note that we’ve moved from a very theoretical discussion of the concept of marriage to one of execution and implementation of the legal benefits.
So now we’re not discussing the tradition and the institution of marriage and we’re now discussing the tactical considerations in gay couples obtaining the same benefits as married people.
But let me try to understand what you’re saying. Are you saying that if California had same sex marriages, then if DOMA was rescinded, then gay couples who got married in California would have their marriages recognized in states that don’t recognize gay marriage?
How about if we had a Federal law recognizing civil unions as applying equally across the states? Wouldn’t that be better? More states now recognize civil unions than recognize gay marriages.
While I don’t know the answers to these questions, wouldn’t they be like any other questions of law? I’m not understanding your point here.
Then you’re suggesting that all civil unions be called civil unions across the country? I’d agree.
How can they be legally equal and identical if the state laws differ? If one state had community property laws and the other did not, wouldn’t the rights of the people in respect to their property in those marriages differ when they moved?
I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, is that because there’s a federal law overriding the state one or state reciprocity laws? Is this true in every state?
I don’t know, but surely two people in a domestic partnership have adopted a child before. I suspect they become legal guardians of the child and they can then call the child whatever they’d like to call it. I’m guessing they have the legal rights of legal guardians.
You’re asking some very technical legal questions about things that happen between states in certain situations. I don’t know the answer to them, so I can’t even assess your point or if you even have one.
If these injustices occur, they can be corrected through the legal system in the same way that other injustices are corrected.
There’s a combination of the fallacies of excluded middle and argument by assertion at work here, I think, along with a dash of special pleading.
It can just as easily be asserted that being more inclusive makes marriage more special, as anything more of the Human Family can share in is made more special -say, arbitrarily, the more countries enact Arbor Day, the more special that day becomes because of everyone who shares it. In other words, rather than equating “special” with “exclusive”, I’m equating “special” with “admirable”.
And the excluded middle comes in when you say SSM means the sexes of the individuals play “NO ROLE” in our understanding. It may play a small role, but that role is entirely subservient to the love component. It will always be there - if Cow-orker Bob comes in and simply says “I’m getting married next month”, and we don’t know that Bob is gay, it will still be our natural first assumption that he’s marrying a Bobette. That’s always going to be the case, unless we have reasons to think different.
Not disagreeing with the excellent point you’ve made (especially the 1st para. above), but I think in this thread “special” is being equated to “exclusionary.”
How, in the absence of any concrete proof to the contrary that SSM will make marriage less special and rend the very fabric of society as we know it, that is not discriminatory has not been explained in these 15 pages.