The assembly of letters will still exist, yes. But it’s primary meeting will be weakened. The word will become more ambiguous.
Please. Those other definitions appropriate only a sense of the word, as in “I’m not married to that idea”. There is no confusion. Look again at the word “hero”. When someone hits a homerun in the bottom of the ninth to win the game and we call him the “hero of the game”, there is no confusion. We’re taking liberty with the word, which is fine. But when someone does a solemn piece on firemen, or policemen, or even soldiers, and tries to build the case that they’re all heroes, that degrades the word immensely. I think it is exactly the same with “marriage”. When referring to the joining of two people, we should have a word that describes that institution which has been so important in our history and culture: the joining of a man and a woman.
But there is nothing intrinsically “male” about voting. It was simply restricted. If you compared the vote of a woman to the vote of a man they would be identical. That is not true with marriage. The coming together of two men and the coming together of a woman and a male is, by definition, different. One can, and usually does, produce children. The other does not. Both are celebrations of love and commitment, but only one is also a celebration of nature that leads to birth. We valued that enough to have a word for it. I think we should still.
I’m sorry to sound pedantic about this, but I really don’t see how this happens. Could you please explain, step-by-step, explicitlly how this would happen? I really do not see the logic of what you’re getting at.
While I disagree with magellan, I can see how this would happen.
Right now, when you talk about marriage, the other person gets the idea of a man and a woman couple (not so of all people, of course). If gay marriage were enacted, when I say “Oh, my son David is getting married”, listeners will no longer be sure what I mean - is he marrying a woman, or a man? It becomes more ambiguous.
Just look at the word “hero”. I remember of you heard the term “war hero”, it meant that someone was in battle and did something truly extraordinary, putting his life at grave risk above and beyond what might be expected of him. Now, I’ve seen it used to describe soldier who merely was in a war zone. I don’t mean to belittle that service in any way, but you get the idea. So now we no longer have a word that is reserved to described man acting at his most noble. That is not a good thing.
On preview, thanks to Revenant for his assistance.
Can you point to any other situation, in the history of this country or any other, where the concept of “separate but equal” has been successfully employed to give a minority a set of rights that really is equal to the majority? As far as I’m aware, this has ever happened. Such situations have always been specifically employed to discriminate against the minority. Can you explain why gay marriage would be any different?
Had you asked any of the people who opposed women’s suffrage at the turn of the last century, they would have disagreed with you very strongly on this point. Sure, it sounds ludicrous today, because we’ve evolved past that sort of attitude. Just as, someday, we may evolve to the point where this:
…will be regarded as equally ludicrous by most people.
I arleady posted to this effect - didn’t you read it?
The idea of inventing a term and ‘declaring it to be equal’ is pretty much guaranteed not to work properly; it will start out corrupted and the bigots will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way - if not make it worse. In fact that’s what ‘civil unions’ are for. I’m solidly convinced that there is no other reason to push for the idea except to be able to allow people to say “see, it’s not actually marriage, so it’s not actually equal, so we’re not going to treat them equally”. The only reason to do it as a separate institution is to make it a second-class institution.
Certianly there is no semantic argument for not using the word marriage to refer to gay marriages. Oh, look at that. The word already is commonly used to refer to same-sex couplings, as demonstrated by the use of an adjective to distinguish it from *non-*same-sex couplings. Sure, the term ‘marriage’ when used alone is generally understood to refer to hetero mariages - just like the term ‘sheep’ alone is generally understood to refer to sheep with white wool. But a black sheep is still a sheep, without lessening the default understanding of the term. Just like legalizing gay marriages won’t change the fact that by default, when people think of marriage, they’ll think of Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.
So there’s no semantic argument for using a separate term. The only reason to push for it as opposed to just expanding the inclusivitiy of the legal defintion of regular marriage is to keep gay marriage unequal.
So, are you saying that “comings together” that can not possibly result in children (either member of the pair is sterile due to age, surgery, disease, etc.) should not be called marriage? Quite a few people would disagree with you.
How about we cross out the word “marriage” everywhere it appears in the statute books and substitute “civil union.” That way, “marriage” can stay as the specific term for a civil union between a man and a woman, with the added connotation that this is a civil union performed by a religious authority instead of a secular one.
And so, with one Replace command on the word processor, we can get the government out of the marriage business and let them just be concerned with committed and legally bound households.
I don’t think I can. But I’m not proposing a separate and equal set of rules. What I’m saying is that right now our society says that married people are entitled to x, y, and z. I’m simply saying all we have to do is come up with something and then have the law read all married people and __________ are entitled to x, y, and z.
A In =essence, what you’re saying is:
A + B = C
A + A = C
That means, A = B.
No, man does not equal woman. That is ludicrous, if you ask me. You’re attempting to ignore the primary factors that brought marriage about in the first place. The begetting of children is not separable from our concept of marriage.
You mean laws. Lots and lots and lots of them. Not to mention lots and lots and lots of company policies that are not part of any legal system.
Sounds very time consuming and costly to implement and police the implementation of to me. What do you think?
I think he’s actually saying that most people are going to call a spade a spade, regardless of the legal term - just like we call a person drunk without first checking their blood-alcohol level.
And actually you’re attempting to ignore the primary factors that brought marriage about in the first place. The ownership of women is not separable from our concept of marriage.
Perhaps so, but I don’t see how this would be any more problematic than what has already happened to the word “dating”. If I said “Oh, my son David has a date tonight” this would generally be understood to mean that he has a date with a girl. Gay couples are also said to be dating, and “has a date” could even mean a non-romantic social engagement, but unless they have reason to believe otherwise people usually assume that “has a date” means “has a heterosexual, romantic date”.
And they’re usually right. The thing is, gay dating and gay marriage are never going to be all that common because there aren’t all that many gay people. If listeners just assumed that “my son David” was marrying a woman, they’d be right about 90% of the time. And if they couldn’t be 100% sure, well, who cares? If my imaginary son’s sexual orientation were any of their business then they wouldn’t have to guess. They’d have heard about it long before he was making wedding plans. It’s not as if someone is going to be invited to the wedding and realize only when they see two men at the altar that it’s a gay wedding.
I’m reminded of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine winds up talking to an older woman on the subway and mentions she’s on her way to a friend’s wedding. The woman starts asking questions like “Oh, what does he [the groom] do?” and is shocked when Elaine explains that she’s going to a lesbian wedding. But the other woman was only surprised because she was prying into the business of total strangers. Elaine wasn’t confused about the sort of event she was attending, even though her lesbian friends were using the term “wedding”.
And we’re back to this. So I guess my wife and I ought not be married. We plan on no children. We’ve taken steps to make sure we never have them. The begetting of children might be inseparable to you but it sure isn’t for me.
To be clear, while I think the ambiguity exists, I believe that it is not so troubling a thing as to be all that much of a concern. I can certainly and indeed happily live with not being immediately sure the gender of the person so-and-so is getting married to if it means they can get married. I’m simply in agreement with magellan that the ambiguity would exist.
That wouldn’t be “one law”, though. But i’m not as familiar with American law as i’d like to be, so it’s quite possible i’m mistaken.
Let’s make it simple. At the moment, American law includes some law which pertains to marriage. Could you cite for me all the laws, rules and regs. which pertain to it currently? All of these would clearly be required, if only to reference, in your suggested amending law/laws, so it seems like it would be a good idea to see how big the job is. What is x, y, and z?
I would also add that law is not simply that which is written down; it is that which is interpreted by judges. Simply creating a law (or indeed many laws) which would mimic the laws currently of marriage would not likewise take on the many years of legal precedent set. Likewise, a judge may quite easily rule with different interpretations when marriage and gay marriage are two seperate terms and institutions; the written word does not mean the same meaning being taken from it.
Well, it depends. I can see people having to explain a bit more if questioned in court. But I can’t think of any reason why that ambiguity would cause any legal troubles, no.
It’s possible in the sense that the laws of physics don’t prevent such a thing from occurring. But do such things occur? If it were so easy, then the history of civil rights in this and other countries should be full of cases where disenfranchised minorities won equal rights in a similar way.
The closest historic equivalent to what you’re proposing that I can think of is this, something not generally considered to be an example of true equal rights.
*If you’re unwilling to learn from history, perhaps you can learn from current events. As I mentioned before, the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in my state also bans legal recognition of any marriage-like union. The same is true in the state where I used to live, and of several others as well. Apparently there are plenty of voters and lawmakers who don’t feel that “same-sex civil unions” are any easier to tolerate than “same-sex marriage”.
Since the same amendments would have to be overturned in order to legalize either same-sex marriage or same-sex civil unions or domestic partnerships, I don’t see how the former is so much more disruptive than the latter. If I may be forgiven the metaphor, while I’d consider the “colored” drinking fountain of same-sex civil unions a big improvement over the ZERO legal recognition currently granted to same-sex couples in this state, I wouldn’t be fooled into thinking it was real equality. Not even if the “civil union” fountain were just as fine and nice as the “marriage” one. If straight and gay couples were really considered equal, one of them wouldn’t have made such a big deal about not letting the other use their fountain.
Yes, it is. It’s pretty easy, and people do it all the time. The begetting of children predates the social construct of marriage by quite a good margin, and throughout history continuing up to the present day people frequently have children without getting married.
The primary factor that brought marriage about in the first place was the sharing of property, and that’s something a lot more difficult to separate from the concept of “marriage” in any modern or historic culture. Funnily enough, the sharing of property doesn’t require that one party be able to produce sperm while the other produces eggs.
Okay, I can see the logic you’re using, but I still disagree with the conclusions. Additionally, I want you to define the ‘difference’ between heterosexual and homosexual couples. You see them as different. What exactly, precisely is this difference and what makes it so important that it necessitates the creation of a whole new term to denote their pairing?
Okay, I’ll concede that begetting children is ONE of the points of marriage. Big, deal, yes heterosexuals can create babies. You’re forgetting the other side of the equation, tho. Can those same heterosexuals raise a child as well as a homosexual couple? Is Brittany Spears and her infamous 24 hour marriage as well suited for being a mother as some randomly picked gay male (or lesbian) couple? I challenge you to provide evidence that heterosexual couples can raise a child better than homosexual couples.
