Would you mind expanding on what “morality” means to you?
Is it objective?
Trivia question for everyone: Which state is farther ahead in granting gay rights:
A) California
B) Nepal
this year I’m thankful for all the clamoring for freedom and equality I’m seeing, and the feeling of groundswell, let the tide be turned.
That is a great question. Are you married, Magellan? Same question to Aji de Gallina and Heffalump and Roo.
I am, FTR. Three and a half years and never been happier, first child due in March.
I’m as close as you can get without being able to actually get married. 7 1/2 years.
Congrats on the baby! Good timing for it too in this part of the country.
First, my focus is on interracial marriage and the problems it encountered, and its comparison to same-sex marriage (i.e., not on other aspects of the civil rights movement). This is what led me to bring up the “separate but equal” concept, and I think this particular comparison is helpful in identifying the flaws in arguments against SSM.
Second, if we applied your above idea to interracial marriage, do you think you encounter some opposition? If so, do you think that opposition would be in error?
I am not implying that all perceptions from the past are failings. I am showing the similarities between the perceptions of interracial marriage in the past, with the perceptions of SSM in the present.
Do you think marriage became less special in the aftermath of Loving v. Virginia?
I’m not following what you mean in these statements. Could you clarify?
Let’s review.
I said:
You responded:
You responded to my post as if I said that “all traditions are discriminatory.” I did not say that. Such an argument would be ludicrous, and anyone arguing against it would win easily. That is the definition of a straw man, right?
Keen. I’m not the one arguing that marriage should keep its current definition because of “tradition”, so I’m fine with removing that element from the discussion.
Yes. Because of their similarities (i.e., their merits); not because they were both “traditions”.
Yes, boys 8 and 5, girl 6.
I still see this whole interracial marriage idea as not really relevant. It encompasses only parts of the US for a relatively short time, it has been far from the norm in Western society to deny interracial marriage.
Ah OK, I now see where the disconnect is. I had stated earlier in this thread that I was only talking about Prop. 8. Obviously, you’re not.
Here’s why I’m talking only about California and not the Federal level. I put this post from Musicat:
together with this post from Bricker:
where he noted that some cases would have to be overturned to change the laws in this regards which could jeopardize all of our rights which could be overturned by judicial fiat.
Taken together, I took them to mean that the chances of anything happening on the Federal level in regards to pro-SSM to be very unlikely. Given the unlikelihood of anything happening, I wasn’t pursuing the conversation as to the Federal level of discussion. It seemed to be too far off to have any real meaning at the moment.
And that was my point. If it worked to get equal rights to have domestic partnerships to be equal to marriage in CA, it seemed to be the most expedient thing to do.
Why don’t you think it would work? Miller seems to think it would and in California, from what he says, there are only 9 issues.
What would you have magellan01 or anyone for that matter do about equal rights on a Federal level? If someone brings a petition for an amendment, as **Musicat **points out, it could do more damage than good if the entire nation supercedes the states’ rights and doesn’t allow gay marriage for anyone.
Why do you say that?
According to this website:
There’s no reason to think that things would change in this regard.
That’s exactly the scheme that Miller was objecting to in the quote I quoted in my last exchange with you. He didn’t want everyone to change the word to civil union.
I realize that. That’s why I quoted your post to Rubystreak who feels that changing the system to civil unions for all would be a good scheme. I was pointing out that you objected to this in another thread where this was proposed.
Sorry, that was unfortunate formatting. I was telling Rubystreak that you weren’t talking about rights in your post. In the post I quoted, you were saying that you didn’t want the word changed to civil unions even if everyone else did it.
The same problem occurs if it’s called civil union for everyone.
Perhaps. But none of what you say is certain here except for your preference.
Yes, but as Rubystreak pointed out, there’s not much anyone in California can do about the fact that at the Federal level, gay marriage is not in place. Even if CA had not passed the amendment and gay marriage was allowed, there’s still the portability issue since many other states don’t allow gay marriage.
Wow, that’s some serious taking my words out of context. If not, I’m unsure what your point is here.
Yes, in the context in which it was stated. If you have an issue with my point in context, please reiterate it. Your point is not clear.
I didn’t misconstrue or take anything out of context. I realize you were responding to Lil Shieste’s post about the inherent suggested inferiority of other relationships when someone is proclaiming one-man/one marriage the ideal. I just cut to the chase and refused to deal line-by-line with your presumptions and rhetorical gymnastics.
You said the “ideal” that some opponents to SSM here believe in discriminates against certain people.
Regardless of the fact that no one has proven one man-one woman marriage (with children and a certain level of financial sustenance) is the ideal, there’s nothing about the institution of marriage itself, in whatever form, that discriminates against those individuals you mention. So why should a law be allowed to do so in taking away rights when it’s simply a same-sex couple who falls outside that construct?
Those individuals you mentioned who may choose not to marry or may not be able to get someone to marry them because they may not be able to overcome the individual barriers you describe (as set by themselves or those they might pursue) are not being discriminated against because they don’t meet your self-described ideal by the law. These barriers are not discriminatory on an institutional level and have nothing to do with how the law is applied once those individuasl do marry.
The difference between laws (and rights) as applied to civil unions and marriage are different for the reasons others have stated, including non-transferability, and therefore discriminatory. Individual barriers to marriage as you described them aren’t.
Whether you choose to see my point is up to you. It’s been a long thread (of which I’ve read every post) and I’m not as willing to engage in the gymnastics that you put forth.
I believe this will be resolved on a federal level, by the courts, because that’s what happened with civil rights for African Americans in America. If we had to wait for it to come through the legislative, it won’t happen. And I don’t share Bricker’s fears about how judges would rule, nor do I feel like having the courts decide this takes governing out of the hands of the people. What it does is applies our Constitution fairly and protects minorities from the tyranny of the bigoted majority. There is lots of precedent for it and, with a new administration, probably a Supreme Court that would give a pro-SSM ruling, if it came to that.
I don’t live in CA, but in general, I really don’t think the majority of voters are “ready” to give up their hold on marital rights. Witness Prop 8 and laws passed in other states. There are groups, like the Mormons, who are deeply invested in legislating against gay rights and would work to block such efforts if they are voted on. Hence, my belief that the judicial branch will have to intercede.
I don’t think that’s how it would go on a federal level. Perhaps I’m naively hopeful, but I do think this is an issue wherein there is only one correct answer, and that will shine through in the end. However, when you have a chance to vote against a bigoted and evil measure like Prop 8, but you vote FOR it, you cannot be said to be on the side of the angels in this one.
Domestic partnership is not marriage, nor is it a civil union. It’s a half-assed consolation prize and it’s not good enough IMO.
That’s where he and I differ, then. I don’t care what it’s called as long as everyone’s equal. Either we can all be married in the eyes of the law, or we can all be civilly unioned, but it has to be the same. I’ll still call it a marriage and no one can stop me. It’s when straights get to be married legally and gays are only allowed to be civilly unioned that I object. There should be no distinction made.
This is why the decision has to be made that all laws discriminating against gays are unconstitutional and end the bullshit forever, ala civil rights for blacks. Otherwise, we’ll have to endure this Prop 8-type nonsense over and over.
Doesn’t sound very ideal, then, does it? 
I see no reason why “with enough resources…” should even enter into it. That affects unmarried people just as much as married people, so it’s not something that’s tied to marriage. Love, however, is something that I would agree is considered part of the ideal.
In the conceptual world, an ideal is something that can be thought of as a goal. That is, attaining the ideal is possible, but perhaps not probable.
In the physical world, however, it is impossible to attain the ideal. For example: we can never create a situation in which we have attained Absolute Zero. No matter how hard we try, there will always be some miniscule amount of heat that we will not be able to eliminate (e.g., 1 quadrillionth of a Kelvin).
Marriage is something that obviously exists in both worlds (physical and conceptual). It exists in the physical world solely because there needs to be some kind of definition with which it can be identified. It exists in the conceptual world for a variety of reasons (religion, personal happiness, etc.).
All we are seeking to do is modify the definition of marriage in the physical sense, to stop discriminating against certain couples. We’re not looking to drastically change marriage law (e.g., accommodate more or less than 2 people; accommodate animals; etc.), so we’re genuinely confused as to why it’s such a hard pill to swallow.
Changing marriage law to encompass single people would require some pretty drastic modifications. Modifying marriage law to encompass same-sex couples would require modifications no more drastic than what was required to encompass interracial couples.
Not specifically, no. With that particular statement, I was speaking more in terms of general rights than legal ones. I can see how that could be confusing, though, since the discussion has also included legal rights.
Opponents of SSM would at least have a leg to stand on, if that were the case.
Is that the unification you’re talking about? Because I was talking about the unification of people within a marriage. The latter is an example of “positive and unifying”, while the former is simply an example of “unifying”.
But “separate but equal” MEANS SOMETHING. It’s not just a magic chant you utter and anything you slap with the label automatically suffers as did it’s application to the race issue. You brought this up and I’ve explained in detail why it does NOT apply. If you’d like to argue with the reasoning I’ve provided for that point (Post 708), go ahead. But it really should be clear by now.
I’m not positive what, specifically, you’re asking, but: we tried “separate but equal” and saw that is was a badly flawed idea—mainly because it was unattainable, as I’ve explained. We then moved to have the two groups (blacks and whites) tap into ONE system. And that is precisely what I’ve argued as far as SSM.
But your just grabbing one and assuming it applies. It doesn’t, as I’ve explained. The idea I’ve proposed does NOT present a separate but equal problem. Can’t you see that very plain fact? There are similarities with struggle for civil rights for blacks, yes. But you strive to draw more of an equivalence than just “a similarity”. For instance, your desire to ascribe “separate but equal” as a fundamental problem for BOTH issues.
No, as it was still a union of a man and a woman. That comports perfectly with our understanding of marriage, including the procreative aspect, not to mention the moral underpinnings of the country as laid out in the D of I.
Look, this is getting difficult. Can you please go back and review our exchange the centers around Post #708. It’s really quite clear. Also, you might find this link helpful as far as the straw man fallacy. It doesn’t mean what you say it means. More important, as it goes to the heart of our discussion, this link might be helpful.
I’ll try to get back, but my schedule is making difficult.
I’m calling you out on this one, since you keep saying you have settled the issue in post #708. You have not. Pre-Brown, the courts made little or no effort to enforce such an exact, one-to-one equality for facilities, neighborhoods, etc. as you propose, and of course there’s too much subjectivity involved for that to be possible or at least, practical. The courts said “separate but equal is fair,” and left it up to society or governments to implemement that policy.
Then, ca. 1954, they realized not only the absurdity of legalized racial divides, but the fact that implementation was haphazard and ridiculous – what defines black and white and why should it matter? – so they discarded the entire concept and it was about time.
Later, in Loving, they removed one more divide between personal choice when bans on interracial marriage were thrown out. You say it was still a man and woman-type marriage, right? Not to those who were horrified by it and wrote it into law. They didn’t care what sex the couples were, they didn’t want this kind of marriage.
Sounds familiar, eh? Now we have people who don’t care what sex the couples are, they don’t want this kind of marriage? Analogous? Damn right it is!
Now, you are saying that one kind of marriage is different from another kind of marriage in name, but they are equal in rights. The very fact that you claim a difference, which to you is important, means they are not equal in rights. This parallels very well with the racial miscegenation and separate but equal argument.
A second-class citizen is still a citizen, right? Then the only reason to prefix “citizen” with “second-class” is to make a distinction.
So marriage has traditionally been one man, one woman? Blacks and whites had to drink out of separate fountains and use separate bathrooms, but they were equal, right? Nonsense to both. If that’s what tradition means, it’s time to make some new ones and do what’s right. It was time in Brown. It was time in Loving. Tradition sucks.
It’s not ONE system if you have TWO names for it and a couple doesn’t have a choice.
The underlying concept of “separate but equal” is applicable to things other than water fountains. We’re talking about splitting a single institution into two separate institutions (marriage and civil unions), but treating those two institutions in exactly the same way. If you can’t see how “separate but equal” can apply to this situation, then I’ll just use the phrase “different but the same”; it’s just as ridiculous.
The ONE system we’re talking about here is marriage, and you most certainly have not been arguing for same-sex-inclusion into that system.
It was the union of a man and a woman of the same race.
Our “understanding of marriage” (especially during the time in which the Declaration of Independence was written) certainly did not include interracial marriages. We had to modify our understanding of marriage, just as we have to do right now.
You fabricated a ridiculous argument and presented it as mine (“This line of argument seeks to abolish all tradition.”), and then argued against it (“So, anything that we’d like to hold on to can consequently by shown to by ridiculous because it comes from the past.”). Since I was not making this argument, the only conclusions I could come to were:
[list=“1”]
[li] You constructed a strawman, OR[/li][li] … ? (Fill in the blank)[/li][/list]
And if we were talking about eliminating racial divides, we’d be in agreement. But we’re not talking about that, are we?
Nope. Similar? Yes. Just because laws were corrected to comport with the founding principles of the country and a distinction that was drawn in people’s minds was erased in the law, does NOT mean that ALL distinctions are deserving of being erased. Surely you realize this. Not even all distinctions having to do with marriage.
I’m saying that they’d be equal because they would be. That would (as per my plan) simply be a matter of fact: All legal privileges and benefits afforded one group would be afforded the other. If one was taken away from one, it would be taken away from the other. Perhaps you’re using a definition of “equal” I’m unfamiliar with.
Yes. And if you were trying to make a point about “second-class citizens” you’d need to use that phrase. Simply using citizen would communicate something different. Thus a book entitled “Does Poverty Mean Second-Class Citizenship” could not be shortened to “Does Poverty Mean Citizenship?”. As far as qualifiers, yes, words matter. They are helpful. There’s a difference between a “baseball player” and a “Major League baseball player”; between “worker” and “undocumented worker”; between “college graduate” and “Harvard graduate”.
Additionally, if you feel that the sex of individuals involved in a marriage is so meaningless, please answer this: why doesn’t one of the male partners in a SSM call himself a “wife”? Could it be because they DO find their gender to, in fact, be important?
Sorry, but what you write here is just ridiculous. Really. If you’re really trying to argue that “marriage” has NOT traditionally been one man and one woman, I don’t know what planet you’re talking about. And the reason that separate equal didn’t work was because people realized that they could NOT be both separate and equal. This prong of your argument suffers from the same association fallacy as LilShieste’s.
Sorry. That might qualify as an opinion, but not an argument. And that IS your argument.
But I’ve shown you, more than once, that it IS one system—one set of laws, privileges and benefits. The same system afforded to two groups. Y
Questions:
- What are you doing to make this plan happen, besides voting against SSM when you have the chance and talking about your theoretical plan on the SDMB?
- Do you really think your plan will ever be offered as a ballot proposition?
- Do you think it has an ice cube’s chance in hell of passing?
- What makes you think that the rights of same sex partnerships will ever be linked to the fate of OSM as you suggest? There is no basis for that except in this plan you’ve invented.
If, as Magellan suggests, there is an ideal to which the legal concept of marriage aspires, however much any particular example may fall short of that ideal (the couple who fell in love at age 13, married straight out of high school, and have never seriously looked at anyone else in the 50+ years since coming pretty darn close; the Hollywood couple whose marriage lasted 2 1/2 months, not so much), and which would in some way be injured by attaching the name “marriage” to the legally equivalent contracted monogamous union of a gay couple, well then…
It should be pretty easy to articulate, in a simple definition, what that ideal actually is, and equally easy to explain why it is in some way injured by the application of the term to gay couples’ unions.
Though Magellan and his colleagues in that view have understandably been diverted from their course by defending themselves against charges of bigotry by holding to this premise, I have seen from none of them any clearly articulated definition and explanation that meets the standards of the previous paragraph in this post.
Granting him (and the others) the right to hold his position unharassed by seemingly unjust accusations, I’d then expect him to come across with that definition and that explanation – or consider his position to be on unsound ground, for lack of any clarity as to what he claims to be defending so avidly.
Consider that a challenge, sirs: If you have a clear and sound position that can ethically be defended against allegations of bigotry, explain it in clear, simple terms.
Like school systems, as I mentioned.:rolleyes:
Thanks for noticing. I hope you’ve also noticed that I’d like gays to have all the privileges and benefits as those in marriage do.
My mention of the D of I had to do with the phrase “…all men are created equal.” And why “must” we modify it. We don’t have to. It’s on the table. It is an option. Nothing more, nothing less. You confuse feeling strongly about an issue translating to a moral imperative for all mankind. I respect your passion, but sorry.
You still don’t know what a straw man is. Fine. Try reviewing our exchanges and searching Google for “straw man fallacy”. Maybe one of the other links will make it clearer for you. And you’ll no doubt take this as a mean comment, but I sincerely do not intend it as such. But a course in logic would be very helpful.
But the answer to #2 is: I was showing that your “argument” suffered from the Fallacy of Association and took it to it’s logical conclusion.
Gotta run.
I do have to run but, a few quick answers:
- Nothing. Except trying to temper the anti-gay sentiments of those I encounter in life.
- If not, it will be because of the position of the more militant on the gay side. Some who, like Miller, insist on the word “Marriage”.
- Absolutely. Just look how close Prop 8 came to failing. I’d bet that if the word “marriage” had been taken off the table it would have failed.
- A sense of fairness. And once the threat is removed, people will be able to, or forced to, focus on that aspect more.
Despite the Velvet Glove of Fairness and Understanding, I have no reason to believe that any explanation will suffice. I say this because I have explained it more than a few times, both in this thread and the two others. (one in GD). And I really don’t have the time or desire to push through that gauntlet again. So you, and others, may believe whatever you’d like.