If one group is called “married” and the other is not, no matter how similar their other rights are, they do not have the same benefits. One of the benefits of being married is to say that you are.
And if you are proposing two groups differing in name only, why call them something different unless you are trying to artificially create a distinction that doesn’t exist?
On the one hand, you’re saying marriage and civil unions are the same, and on the other, that they aren’t. That’s the “separate but equal” argument in a nutshell. It worked in 1898 (Plessy) but the absurdity caught up with it in 1954 (Brown).
You said, why don’t gays in CA just get domestic partnerships and tell everyone they’re married? My response was that they are not married, in some very meaningful ways, and then enumerated some of those ways. The most important way being that this union is not recognized on a federal level, and is not transferable across state lines. This isn’t something that CA can remedy. It calls for change on a national level, which as I said earlier, will probably require action by the judicial branch.
This isn’t the Prop 8 thread. This is the thread about gay marriage, so it doesn’t only pertain to CA. Litigating individual rights for gays to make civil unions, one right at a time, like marriage, seems quixotic to me considering the passage of Prop 8, inefficient, and catering to homophobes and bigots. It would be better than nothing if it worked, but I don’t think it would.
But what is he actually doing about it? Blathering away on a message board about his theoretical support for equal rights, while actually voting for the elimination of rights. Doesn’t that seem a bit ridiculous to you? And his suggestions are not remotely in the offing, as I’m sure you know, and probably won’t be. This state-level haggling is one step forward two steps back, and doesn’t address the larger problem on the national level.
It’s sort of close but no cigar, and if they’re voting yes on Prop 8, then I think you’re kidding yourself if you think they’re just going to give gays marital rights one by one.
That would indeed be better. And then take the word marriage out of the law altogether and have all unions called civil unions. Leave marriage to the religious institutions. I highly doubt that’s in the offing though.
That is, in fact, precisely what I’ve been talking about for some years now.
The problem with that is that many of the rights associated with marriage were determined via court ruling, and not litigation. I am not assured that a law saying, “X and Y have to be completely equal,” can necessarily be binding on judicial precedent. Particularly if the subject comes up in front of a judge who is prejudicial to gay rights. And, of course, there’s the fact that these cases, already settled under marriage law, are going to come up again if we create a new law and call it “civil union.” Even if we are perfectly lucky, and every judge who reviews a case falling under civil union law is at least neutral on the subject of gay rights, it will take years and years, and millions of dollars, to build up the catalog of case law to support civil unions to the extent that marriage is already supported.
So, basically, my point is that pursuing civil unions in place of marriage will take longer to reach a position of equality, cost more, be less certain of a successful outcome, be less secure in terms of protecting our rights in the future, and are still unacceptable, because regardless of the associated rights, I don’t want a fucking civil union, I want a goddamned marriage.
It may already have been mentioned somewhere over the last 15 pages but if not:
Some of you speak of some intangible, theoretical “damage” SSM may cause. You simply fear it though, and can’t seem to come up with any evidence.
I can come up with very real, tangible actually does happen-type damage that denying gays the word “marriage” does to straight marriages.
It’s the institutionalized homophobia that children learn growing up. Kids learn at a very young age that gay is bad and sinful. Many of them feel they have no choice but to hide who they are, and many of them go out and enter in “straight” marriages. And let’s talk about gay teen suicide.
Those of you who vote to marginalize gays still feel good about yourselves?
Back to marriage. A lot of those gay teens that manage to not kill themselves will go on to seek this “ideal” of marriage you speak of. They will get married to an opposite sex partner, they will have kids, and those marriages will eventually be damaged.
You just gave a couple of generations of gay youth a reason to kill themselves or remain closeted and enter into an opposite sex marriage for all the wrong reasons.
I hope you sleep soundly at night knowing what you are doing, protecting this nebulous “ideal” of marriage, that doesn’t actually do any real damage but leads to very real actual damage not only to marriage, but to society.
If the divinity defines right and wrong they it wouldn’t be (in the case such divinity existed). The divinity makes the rules.
What other chance do I have? If the divinity is a monster-torturer it may still damn me, but I might (maybe not) be improving my chances of eternal bliss. 1:1000000 is better than 0.
Wrong as defined by you or me or other humans or society, but if that divinity is really in charge of the arfterlife, whatever it says is good or bad is what counts, should I want, at least the chance of, eternal life.
Man, I specifically said I wasn’t mentioning any specific religion because I know that you will snap if I did. It’s a general question it is NOT about if the Christian God is or isn’t like that (that could be for another thread).
I have tried to withdraw from this discussion as much as possible, because it was causing my blood pressure to shoot through the roof. But I’ve been reading, and I’m delurking for a moment to say that, independent of all other considerations, this:
Is the fucking stupidest argument I have heard in this arena in my life. I think it’s even stupider than the “God hates fags” argument.
Where are these mythical straight people who would choose not to get married because gay people get married, too? And are they brain damaged? Who the fuck is ever going to say some variation on, “Well, I say, Emma, I love you with the hot burning passion of a thousand suns, and I want to spend my life with you, and raise children together, and ordinarily I’d propose that we enter into the state of marriage, but ever since Arthur and Wayne tied the knot I just don’t think that marriage is special enough for us to bother with it?”
This is a bizarre scenario that will never, never, never happen. You’d be better off worrying that aliens from the planet Zoort will arrive and steal all our polyester if we allow gay marriage, because that’s actually more likely than what you propose.
Jesus, this subject brings out the fucking stupid in people.
Then your god is a sadist who doesn’t deserve either worship or obedience. I have no habit of bowing to tyrants. That includes possibly nonexistent supernatural ones. He can obliterate me, but he can’t turn me into some kind of sadist-bully minion who does horrible things to other people just because he says so.
And this is actually my standard response to the argument that things that are obviously harmful to other human beings are just fine because God said they’re good. No, sorry. I’m not beholden to your god. If I’m mistaken and your god actually DOES run everything, I’d rather fry for eternity than stain my own soul by knuckling under to the spiritual equivalent of bad, bad Leroy Brown.
Since my point was purely theoretical and was in no way trying to prove or show that there is an afterlife, I don’t see the point of your post. I am not saying there is an afterlife or a god(ess), only trying to imagine “what if…?”.
You, however make a bold assertion about it, care for a cite?
I am , definitely, not quite as good as you, I would not risk the (theoretical) fires of hell.
Of course your point is a bit like “I make morality, not god”, but it shows that you will follow your beliefs wherever they might take you.
Of course that’s my point. We’re the only ones who do make morality. Even people who claim God makes morality are only parroting the morality that someone several thousand years ago invented and passed off as God’s word. And they’re not even actually following that, mostly…even the morality of the strictest of mainstream Christian sects doesn’t really look a whole lot like that of the early church. Jewish morality has changed substantially since the Exile (a lot of the things that the general population “knows” about Jewish religious practice is Exilic and Talmudic in nature and isn’t actually found explicitly set out in the Bible). If anyone were to actually follow the morality of the Hebrews in the Old Testament era Western society would probably view them as barbarians: slavery, sexism, polygamy, genocide, etc. Very few live as Jesus did. Very few live as the early church did. Morality is not carved in stone.
I know I’m late to the thread but could one of the two or three anti-SSM people here please explain to me the social harm gay marriage will cause? Harm to people, that is. In other words, who will be harmed by gay marriage and how will they be harmed?
I’m not very bright so please explain in detail, with examples.
I would point you to this post, which not only claims a harm, but is throroughly refuted at the same time. All wrapped up in a nice little package, perfect for the holidays.
Aji de Gallina – Much as I may regret this, let me engage you. What if your hypothetical divinity is on record as regarding actions towards other humans as done towards Itself? What if its moral code mandates treating another in the same manner as one would oneself want to be treated in the reversed situation?
Now, to move from the theoretical to the actual… What if 70% of the population, and a much higher percentage of theists in the population, belong to a faith tradition that claims to believe in that particular divinity?
Heffalump & Roo, the purpose of my post which you claim moves from the theoretical (concept of marriage) to the particular (benefits and distinctions) was in reference to this:
The reason that “marriage” and “something equivalent to marriage” would be different is that they are not identical – and in the particular case that provoked this thread, Proposition 8 in California, it would be impossible for the State of California to construct “another relationship having the exact rights and privileges of marriage but distinct from it”, simply because California, much though it sometimes seems to regret it, does not exist in a vacuum, but as part of an indissoluble union of 50 states with a Federal government of specific but sweeping powers over it. California can mandate how its own courts and instrumentalities will act to treat DP as exactly equivalent to marriage, but it cannot mandate how the Feds. will regard DPs, nor can it mandate how 49 other states will regard DPs. If it licenses a marriage, though, FF&C or comity requires other states to regard it as a marriage – save for that emanative, penumbrous “public policy exception.”
And ditto again. Who the hell bases their decision to get married on who else is permitted to get married? I want to marry my boyfriend, but it sure as hell isn’t because I want to spite all the gay people who can’t get married.
Whether or not anyone, gay or straight, has what it takes to get someone to marry them has nothing to do with the discriminatory nature of any laws that apply to them once they do.
Hey Magellon01, it appears that nobody can support your optimum male/female parenting model.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081126/ap_on_re_us/gay_adoptions
‘A judge on Tuesday ruled that a strict Florida law that blocks gay people from adopting children is unconstitutional, declaring there was no legal or scientific reason for sexual orientation alone to prohibit anyone from adopting.’
‘Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union, who represent Gill, said the case was the first in the nation in which numerous experts in child psychology, social work and other fields testified that there is no science to justify a gay adoption ban.’
'Lederman rejected all the state’s arguments soundly.
“It is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person’s ability to parent,” the judge wrote. “A child in need of love, safety and stability does not first consider the sexual orientation of his parent. The exclusion causes some children to be deprived of a permanent placement with a family that is best suited to their needs.” ’
Garbage. Power doesn’t make what you say automatically right. Assuming there is a God, he has no better right to define right and wrong than I do. And if he sends people to Hell for any reason, FAR less of a right than I do.
Good advice, and I’m trying to follow it, but someone in another thread linked to this article about trolling by none other than our own
I don’t want to argue with Magellan. I really don’t. But I find it hard to let him get the last word in, lest some innocent wander by and think “that makes sense.”
