Please, explicitly give us this definition of marriage such that it compasses every variation that heterosexuals use but also excludes homosexuals.
You’re the one who brought up the “original meaning” of a word which dates back to at least the 12th century.
At any rate, your argument really is now:
[ol]
[li]Same-sex marriages have never existed in the United States. Therefore…[/li][li]We should not have same-sex marriages in the United States. Because…[/li][li]GOTO 1[/li][/ol]
I was asking for clarification but you have a nice day.
Not to hijack - but how dare you presume to speak for me and others who are against illegal immigration? People legally immigrate all the time. I welcome them with open arms. I am the product of legal immigrants. But I want no part of anyone who wants to break the law to get here. So please shut up with your presumptions of my beliefs and motives.
Now back to the marriage thing. Others have said it best. Stop with the all-or-nothing attitude - it never wins. Take civil unions without the “m” word. Replace the “m” word with union on all legal documentation. Let the religiously inclined keep the word that means so much to them.
You’re right, perhaps the gays should stoop to the level of immaturity the opposite side has in this debate. They should create a whole new word for their “unions”. May I suggest:
-Doublemarriage
-Marriagebutcooler
-Icantbelieveitsnotmarriage
-Iwantedmarriagebutalligotwasthissillyunion
-Realmarriage
-Goodmarriage
-Marriage2.0
I’m not sure if that was aimed at me.
Look, heroes == hoagies == grinders. No one gets in snit if a deli only offers only one of those by name. No one who’s reasonable anyway.
What’s the big deal if gay marriages have a different name if they are equally recognized by law and considered equivalent. If the law considered them equivalent then employers could not legally descriminate (re: benefits).
If we have all the same rights and responsibilities, then you can call my relationship a G corp if you want to as far as I’m personally concerned.
The simple fact is that the only relationship completely recognized by the states and by the federal government is marriage. It has a codified list of legal attachments throughout myriad sections of law. If we are given a different legal relationship then there will always be the opportunity to deny same-sex couples some right that opposite sex married couples take for granted.
Yeah, but imagine if you went into a deli, and said, “Give me a hoagie,” and the guy behind the counter said, “No, you’re a Jew. You have to have a grinder.” Even if their technically the same thing, wouldn’t you kind of wonder if the guy is actually giving you something different? Otherwise, why would he insist that you use a different name for the sandwich? At the very least, you’d probably think the guy’s being a dick for making a big deal about your Jewishness, when it doesn’t have any impact on what sort of sandwich you’re ordering.
That’s more or less the way I see the whole “civil unions” idea. If it’s exactly the same as marriage, why not call it a marriage? What are the people who insist on this distinction really trying to sell me?
Why don’t we just call all government-recognized joinings of two (or maybe more) people “civil unions” and be done with it? Leave the concept of “marriage” to the unsanctioned private ceremonies. Is anyone seriously opposed to this?
A number of people here, including myself, have advocated this option.
Your still missing the point. Yup, if you have no intention of having children and are acting to prevent it, you should not be married. Or screwing, for that matter.
Edit: What’s so funny about this si that pretend your argument is somehow rational. No, you are simply using different assumptions. Call them wild-ass guesses, assumptions, opinions, a priosi assertions, or fundamental basis-es, they are and remain your basis for the world. They have and can have no raional rpemise behind them. Leftists love to think of themselves as rational, when are merely hiding their premises from themselves.
So now we’re modifying ‘Marriage is between a man and a woman’ to ‘Marriage is between a man and a woman that desire to have children and never use any form of birth control’?
Can you give a non-ecclesiastic reason why we shouldn’t? If you don’t believe gays should get married for the above reason, do you also believe that, say, vasectomies should be outlawed? AFAIK, the only reason for a vasectomy is to have sex without the risk of pregnancy. If you feel that the government should reflect your private religious beliefs, it seems that you’ve got much bigger fish to fry than the rather small number of gays who want to get married.
Well, this is my position. You can point out which parts are irrational, wild assed guesses, or fundamental biases (I presume that’s what you meant by basis-es):
People should be free to do what they want to do, unless their actions can be demonstrated to harm other people. A free society is one in which the government treats all segments of society equally, unless they can demonstrate a pressing need to treat them differently. (Thus, the need to punish crime allows for the restricted rights of criminals, the need to defend the country allows for the restricted rights of active duty military, and so forth.)
Allowing gays to marry doesn’t harm anyone else, so under my first principle, they should be allowed to marry. And the government doesn’t have any pressing need to treat gays differently from straights, so there’s no reason to forbid them from entering into a legal relationship that is open to heterosexuals.
I think that’s a rational opinion. I’m not making any wild-assed guesses that I can see. The concept of freedom and equality are funadmental biases in my worldview, so I’ll give you that one, although I’m open to arguments that demonstrate that the scenario I’ve outlined above does not work to serve those biases. (Abandoning those biases altogether is going to be a tougher sale.) What about my worldview am I hiding from myself, here?
I prefer the term “civil marriage” - because that’s what it actually is, and then you don’t have to do anything annoying like modify all the tons of related legislation. (Just some of it.)
Everyone who currently goes and gets married in a church is actually getting married twice - once as a religious marriage under their church and recognized by their god(s), and once as a civil marriage under and recognized by the state. One is a religious marriage and the other is a civil marriage. That’s what’s currently happening. As nobody is trying to tell churches that they have to offer religious marriages to gay people, gays could (likely) only get civil marriages - which I don’t think would bother them much.
I’m even fine with religious types always saying and emphasizing that they’re getting “civil marriages”, never leaving off the civil. That way they can be assholes like they want to be while remaining completely correct and not actually oppressing anybody.
Who’s with me?
That has been my arguement all along. The government should have a legal union system (1:1 until we figure out what to do with tax and social security benefits, then open it up to the polygamists). Let a marriage be a private system.
My minister won’t say, “By the power vested in me by the State of California.” He does not like acting as an agent for the state, though he loves performing weddings (and civil unions for Gays as well).
The anti-gay marriage people do it because they are anti-gay (IMHO). They consider being gay to be wrong / a mental defect / a conscious sin / a birth defect or whatever. They know that if gay marriage is OK, then you are saying that being gay is OK. They don’t think being gay is OK, so they are anti-gay marriage.
There might be a few outliers, but that fits the profile of the anti-gay marriage people that I know - they are all anti-gay. This included me until I actually got to know some gay people and discovered that they were NOT all the San Francisco Street Festival Pedophiles as portrayed by the anti-gay people.
Because the world has 6.6 billion people on it, and I am not planning to contribute to that population, I am not allowed, in your thought process, to share my life with someone I love and care for, not allowed to build a future that includes a person in my life to which I am bound under the law? And not allowed to enjoy physical intimacy with that person?
Again, I ask - why? You (and others) have stated this over and over again, but without answering my original question.
WHY?
That seems like a pretty unusual position. I would have thought it would be more important that a man and woman were in love than if they wanted to fuck and have kids.
Why resort to sandwiches? Water fountains for ‘whites’ and ‘coloreds’ both gave water, right? So what’s the big deal?
This has been pointed out plenty, but anyone worried that someone else’s marriage will destroy their own, or that allowing gay people to marry will somehow ruin the institution, needs a major reality check care of, I don’t know, Britney Spears.
“Why is the statement “marriage is between a man and a woman” considered to be a statement of fact, without any support whatsoever?”
Because people think that things which have been made into laws have reached that stage because they are fact. That they are laws carries a certain cachet of truth.
People are generally disinclined to want to debate laws which support their points of view, or that make illegal things they’re never going to do. Most people are going to be okay with stamping “because the government says so” onto things that don’t affect them.
Oh, the irony. Projecting much?
Let’s hear your “raional rpemises”, shall we? Just so we can be sure they aren’t “wild-ass guesses, assumptions, opinions, a priosi assertions, or fundamental basis-es”.