# Is The Gay Marriage Debate Over? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 2, 2014, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472 "2014-05-02T00:00:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 30
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/581 "2014-05-07T16:07:27Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Your not understanding what separate but equal means is your problem, not mine. Actually part of the problem is your failure to understand what separate but equal means. You keep insisting it’s about sets of laws (a term you won’t define) when it’s actually about unequal treatment under the law. The number of laws required to maintain that treatment is not relevant. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/582 "2014-05-07T16:08:07Z")
[QUOTE=Czarcasm] Of course there’s something wrong with water. In the sense of “watering down”, water is nothing, empty. It is valueless liquid serving only to reduce the intensity of the base liquid, it has no particular potential to improve the base liquid. It is an inherently negative choice. You could have chosen Vodka and made a Screwdriver instead of glass of ruined OJ. You could have chosen Tangerine Juice or Grenadine or any other liquid that works well with OJ, but you didn’t. You chose a liquid that would be perceived negatively when added to OJ. So, it is shown that you devalue SSM, probably without even thinking that the choice of water is inherently bigoted. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with water, you have lots of friends that drink water, I’m sure. [/QUOTE] > [@Marley23](#): > > What’s wrong with it is that it weakens the orange juice. That’s the entire point of the metaphor you’re employing. Watered-down is a pejorative. Oh, brother. I chose water in attempt to choose something benign, something that would not add another characteristic to the orange juice. Alas, your “problem” with my analogy assume that orange juice is someone better than water. That’s an assumption that needn’t be made. The example was given to simply show that adding something else, makes the original thing not as much of that thing as it was until the second item got added. Let’s do this, lets flip the example. Let’s start with water and add orange juice. All points still hold. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/583 "2014-05-07T16:10:12Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Already found. Shared. Ignored. You honestly believe that this… > [@](#): > > The fear about SSM is that it will make the term less meaningful for future generations. It will not point to that special relationship between a man and woman that has been a cornerstone of our civilization. …is not bigoted? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/584 "2014-05-07T16:12:31Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Oh, brother. I chose water in attempt to choose something benign, something that would not add another characteristic to the orange juice. Alas, your “problem” with my analogy assume that orange juice is someone better than water. That’s an assumption that needn’t be made. The example was given to simply show that adding something else, makes the original thing not as much of that thing as it was until the second item got added. The problem is that you’re using terms and then trying to reject the bias associated with those terms even though you picked them yourself. To water something down is to make it less potent, less effective, not as good. Nobody ever says “I love the way this bar waters down their booze!” So here, you are asserting that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage will somehow make heterosexual marriages less good, but you’re trying to reject the idea that this says something negative about SSM and your views on it. Unfortunately it does say something negative about SSM, and that’s the entire point of the comparison. So maybe we should get down to brass tacks: how does the legalization of same-sex marriage make marriage not as … marriage-y as it was? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/585 "2014-05-07T16:13:09Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Actually part of the problem is your failure to understand what separate but equal means. You keep insisting it’s about sets of laws (a term you won’t define) when it’s actually about unequal treatment under the law. The number of laws required to maintain that treatment is not relevant. You are 100% incorrect. I understand what it means perfectly. Just because others think it an appropriate bumper sticker to slap onto their posts, thinking it makes some devastating point, doesn’t mean it does. It simply shows either their rank ignorance of what separate but equal refers to and/or an insistence on grossly mischaracterizing my position. Perhaps both. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/586 "2014-05-07T16:15:03Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > The problem is that you’re using terms and then trying to reject the bias associated with those terms even though you picked them yourself. To water something down is to make it less potent, less effective, not as good. Nobody ever says “I love the way this bar waters down their booze!” So here, you are asserting that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage will somehow make heterosexual marriages less good, but you’re trying to reject the idea that this says something negative about SSM and your views on it. Unfortunately it does say something negative about SSM, and that’s the entire point of the comparison. So maybe we should get down to brass tacks: how does the legalization of same-sex marriage make marriage not as … marriage-y as it was? I just told you to flip the example. Start with water. Add orange juice. No reevaluate the response you offered based on that. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/587 "2014-05-07T16:15:32Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Oh, brother. I chose water in attempt to choose something benign, something that would not add another characteristic to the orange juice. Alas, your “problem” with my analogy assume that orange juice is someone better than water. That’s an assumption that needn’t be made. The example was given to simply show that adding something else, makes the original thing not as much of that thing as it was until the second item got added. > > Let’s do this, lets flip the example. Let’s start with water and add orange juice. All points still hold. 1. I wish I had made that quote, but I didn’t. 2. Don’t even _try_ to tell us that watering something down doesn’t mean to make it weaker-that is the _only_ thing it means. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/588 "2014-05-07T16:17:01Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I just told you to flip the example. Start with water. Add orange juice. No reevaluate the response you offered based on that. “watering down” means something. “Orange juicing”-not so much. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/589 "2014-05-07T16:19:28Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > You honestly believe that this… Yes. Feel free to do a search. Don’t mean to be curt, but I’m not going to rehash pages-long arguments from multiple threads. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > …is not bigoted? No. Part of the problem is that any analysis that employs discernment, gets morphed into discrimination (benign meaning), then to discrimination (bad meaning) and then into bigotry and finally homophobia. Pretty nice trick, until one sees what is happening. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/590 "2014-05-07T16:21:30Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > “watering down” means something. “Orange juicing”-not so much. Fine. As I said, I was trying to have the added thing be benign. But now that we have the analogy flipped, problem solved. Another though. If you prefer, change the analogy to be orange juice and pineapple juice. And you can start with whichever one you’d like. The result is the same: the juice you start with becomes less orange-y or less pineapple-y. This really isn’t that hard. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/591 "2014-05-07T16:23:49Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > You are 100% incorrect. I understand what it means perfectly. Your posts strongly suggest otherwise. Perhaps you could explain what it means and how this is different, but from what I’ve seen, you’re saying that your proposal is not a separate but equal situation because it doesn’t rely on different “sets of laws” for different groups. That’s not what separate what equal means. > [@magellan01](#): > > I just told you to flip the example. Start with water. Add orange juice. No reevaluate the response you offered based on that. What does the order have to do with it? You still wind up with diluted orange juice. You said yourself that recognizing SSM “weakens” marriage. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/592 "2014-05-07T16:23:59Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Fine. As I said, I was trying to have the added thing be benign. But now that we have the analogy flipped, problem solved. So you think that by doing so you have “unsaid” that SSM would water down the institute of marriage? It doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/593 "2014-05-07T16:30:21Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > I’d say it water’s down the meaning of the word. It weakens it. The same way that adding water to a glass of orange juice weakens it. Not “adding water” “adding orange juice” or “masing it different”. The terms you used were “watering _down_” and “weakening it”. Spin away, **magellan01** , but your own statements are there for all to see. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/594 "2014-05-07T16:32:36Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Yes. Feel free to do a search. Don’t mean to be curt, but I’m not going to rehash pages-long arguments from multiple threads. > > No. > > Part of the problem is that any analysis that employs discernment, gets morphed into discrimination (benign meaning), then to discrimination (bad meaning) and then into bigotry and finally homophobia. > > Pretty nice trick, until one sees what is happening. I’ve read some threads on the subject that you’ve participated in before, and thus read variations on your argument from the quoted post. I’m sure my modest rhetorical skills won’t change your mind at this point, but I did want to verify that you believe your position here isn’t justifiable bigotry, but rather not bigotry at all. So, that’s accomplished, anyway. I submit that your position _is_ an example of bigotry, as you are elevating one type of romantic relationship as being “special”, which can only mean that other relationships are inferior to it. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/595 "2014-05-07T16:34:39Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Your posts strongly suggest otherwise. Perhaps you could explain what it means and how this is different, but from what I’ve seen, you’re saying that your proposal is not a separate but equal situation because it doesn’t rely on different “sets of laws” for different groups. That’s not what separate what equal means. Let’s do it this way, which I think will save a lot of back and forth. Why don’t you tell me what the phrase, issued in the ruling in the Brown v. The Board of Education, means. And I’ll show you whether we disagree and where. It should be fairly easy to do succinctly. > [@Marley23](#): > > What does the order have to do with it? You still wind up with diluted orange juice. You said yourself that recognizing SSM “weakens” marriage. Let’s start with pineapple juice and add orange juice. Has the Pineappleness been lessened?:eek: Diminished?:eek: Weakened?:eek: Diluted?:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/596 "2014-05-07T16:35:18Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Not “adding water” “adding orange juice” or “masing it different”. > The terms you used were “watering _down_” and “weakening it”. > > Spin away, **magellan01** , but your own statements are there for all to see. Too late to edit: “making it different”, not “masing it different”. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/597 "2014-05-07T16:39:17Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > I’ve read some threads on the subject that you’ve participated in before, and thus read variations on your argument from the quoted post. I’m sure my modest rhetorical skills won’t change your mind at this point, but I did want to verify that you believe your position here isn’t justifiable bigotry, but rather not bigotry at all. So, that’s accomplished, anyway. I submit that your position _is_ an example of bigotry, as you are elevating one type of romantic relationship as being “special”, which can only mean that other relationships are inferior to it. You are of course free to conclude what you’d like. Personally, I take issue with your word “inferior”. In and of themselves, I don’t think the relationships are _inferior_. But they are _different_. Look at the juice analogy. Is pineapple juice inferior to orange juice? Is orange juice inferior to pineapple juice? Which is the superior one, and why? For me, that’s a useless question. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/598 "2014-05-07T16:39:19Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Let’s do it this way, which I think will save a lot of back and forth. Why don’t you tell me what the phrase, issued in the ruling in the Brown v. The Board of Education, means. I’m not doing your homework for you. You keep saying you know what it means, so say what it means. Laziness is not a debate tactic. > [@](#): > > Let’s start with pineapple juice and add orange juice. Has the Pineappleness been lessened?:eek: Diminished?:eek: Weakened?:eek: Diluted?:eek: I no longer have any idea what this has to do with your argument or your view that the two types of marriage should be somehow differentiated lest opposite-sex marriage be “weakened.” If opposite-sex marriage is pineapple and same-sex marriage is OJ, what’s the harm in combining them? Pineapple-OJ is delicious. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/599 "2014-05-07T16:39:31Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Let’s start with pineapple juice and add orange juice. Has the Pineappleness been lessened?:eek: Diminished?:eek: Weakened?:eek: Diluted?:eek: I think pineapple-orange juice is an improvement over either separately. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472/600 "2014-05-07T16:39:54Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Let’s start with pineapple juice and add orange juice. Has the Pineappleness been lessened?:eek: Diminished?:eek: Weakened?:eek: Diluted?:eek: That sounds really good. How about “improved.” Like we did when we expanded marriage to include SSM. ETA: Double Ninja’ed [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-gay-marriage-debate-over/687472.md?page=31)