That’s not necessarily a given.
This is an interesting idea. And I think you’re right. In America, it’s understood that just because you or your religion are opposed to something is not a good enough reason to make it illegal. The laws are supposed to be based on reason instead of religion. Gay marriage is not allowed for religious reasons, so its opponents use strange or mistaken arguments that they hope will work on a non-religious audience.
The dogma of your religion is irrelevant, and you are simply wrong about it being against human nature.
Because admitting that they have no other reason than bigotry for their opposition is politically unpopular and isn’t a valid legal argument. They need to pretend they have a logical reason for their malice.
Okay, granted, you say logic has nothing to do with your view–then why tell us about it? Do you hope to persuade us you’re correct through superior rhetorical skills? Are you just sharing therapeutically your illogical views?
If there’s anything related to logic, though, you might at least have an intended meaning for your words. Such as “human nature”: I can’t think of a reasonable definition of “human nature” that would make the above quote true. I mean, isn’t anything that any human does, no matter how saintly or foul, by definition part of human nature, just as anything a cat does is part of cat nature by definition?
No. People can and do behave in ways that go against their instincts. It’s just harder and tends to be unpleasant.
I may like orange juice but not mango juice. There is no logic behind me not liking mango. So, I don’t have the right to prevent people from drinking mango juice. And no one has the right to force me to like it. Some people, I might add, eat dogs. I don’t find dog meat appealing to humans. Yet, those people find it completely natural to eat dog meat.
The point is that I don’t pretend to oppose same-sex marriages for logical reasons.
So, you’re using the term “natural” to mean your own personal preferences.
Huh. Can you give an example? Because I’m honestly having trouble imagining what you’re talking about in a way that makes sense. Seems to me that, inasmuch as we’re the product of instincts and environment, and that we respond to our environment according to who we are, we cannot but act according to who we are, which is human.
Again, an example would be helpful.
Of course you don’t have the right to prevent people from drinking mango juice. If you tried, you’d be a dick, right?
So why try to prevent people from SSM? If you don’t like some gay lovin, that’s fine; personally, neither do I. But it’s no skin off my back if others do. I let other people eat eggplant, and I let other people listen to speedcore metal, and I let other people have pet ferrets, even though I find all these things mildly repulsive. Why on earth would I try to stop gay marriage? (Note that I don’t find SSM mildly repulsive–I’m talking about someone who does).
Pretty much anything dictated by law/ideology/theology that goes against people’s natural instincts. For an extreme version, consider the various dictatorships that have forced people to act in ways dictated by ideology, instead of their natures or desires. Such dictatorships ultimately are unstable because they are constantly fighting against human nature. On a smaller scale relevant to this thread, forcing or browbeating someone into pretending to be straight when they are not is forcing them to act against their nature. Which is why it makes them miserable.
Ah. Sometimes instincts are in conflict. If someone forces me to eat only a vegetarian diet, that probably means they’re threatening me with violence if I defy them. Then I have two instincts in conflict:
If I act according to the second instinct, then I’m not acting in conflict with human nature; I’m acting entirely within human nature. It’s just that I’m choosing survival over another human drive.
This kind of conflict happens all the time. If I get up early in the morning to go to work, it’s a similar sort of conflict–but I wuoldn’t say it’s against human nature to go to work.
I don’t. Seems you’re too pissed off to read.
Huh. I just reread your posts, and I’m pretty sure this is the first time you’ve said that you don’t believe in trying to prevent SSM. Perhaps you were too pissed off to type. But I’m glad you clarified that, and I hope you have an absolute blast being against SSM :).
Quoth Left Hand of Dorkness:
The problem there is that you’re not changing the definition of marriage. If, when you say that your toaster and blender are married, you mean that they’re in love with each other, have chosen to romantically bond for life, and want to raise a family together, then you’re using the word “marriage” to mean exactly what it normally means; you’re just factually incorrect (unless you’re in some kid’s show where kitchen appliances are anthropomorphized). If, however, your blender has a removable cord, but that cord always remains attached to the blender and never gets used for any other appliance, you could describe that arrangement as the cord being married to the blender and be factually correct, though using a different definition of marriage.
Or another example: Stuffed animals have no more capacity for marriage than kitchen appliances do. But nobody ever batted an eye when I was a kid and said that two particular stuffed animals I owned were married. If anything, the same folks who say that gay marriage is a perversion of the meaning of the word would have commended me for my sense of family values, and for approving of marriage as an institution.
I disagree. I think the proponents generally argue that the law prohibiting SSM is unconstitutional. That implies that a change is needed. Equal protection means SSM should be legal on equal basis with OSM.
For the sake of fairness, I’m not sure how else to interpret The Sheikh’s comments as anything other than “I don’t like gay marriage, but I don’t see how I can argue that my view should be law.”
(Emphasis mine.)
Yeah, when you added “They love one another”, you kind of killed your own point. Your toaster and blender are obvious not a normal toaster and blender; they are clearly in fact sentient entities with fully-realized minds and emotions, who emotionally engaged with one another, and (according to your statement about them), are entered into a socially recognized lasting coupling.
So you’re clearly not misusing the word “marriage” - you just merely have some very unusual kitchen appliances. Or you’re hallucinating the whole thing - I can’t rule out the possibility that you’re insane. (It’s a possibility I always leave open.)
That’s how I read it. I wish more Christians in America were like him.
Oh, as to the argument that the legal definition of marriage specifies that it be between a man and a woman, is that stipulation in any marriage law as originally written? It seems to me that an awful lot of states have added such a stipulation in the past decade or two, and it would hardly be necessary if it were already there. If changing a legal definition is undesirable for some reason, isn’t that an argument against all of those folks who amended their states’ legal definitions to exclude same-sex marriage?
Captain Midnight, this is way off topic and it’s threadshitting. Don’t be a jerk: if you are tired of hearing about gay issues, don’t open a thread that is expressly about those issues. And if you must post it a thread on the topic, you’d do well to leave out the grumbling and the stereotypes. You’re not doing yourself any favors by posting that stuff.
What it comes down to is that a word’s meaning may be different in different places or cultures, may be different at different times, and may have more than one meaning at one time. the word “marriage” is no exception. In isolation, positing that “marriage” has a specific meaning is meaningless. Putting a word in context lends meaning. Unfortunately, some folks give the word meaning by putting it in context, but then assert that that particular context and that particular meaning is the only meaning, which of course is not true. An example is to say that in the context of most American marraiges, the meaning of marraige is a marriage between opposite sexes, which is true, but to then assert that all marriages must be between opposite sexes, which is demonstrably not true if one looks outside of the mainstream American context (e.g. Canada).