# Ooooh, You Mean Ol' Pope, You! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 28, 2003, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440 "2003-07-28T14:53:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/101 "2003-07-29T17:55:12Z")
I think this statement has been issued by the Vatican to take away the heat they’ve had with Priests and Altar Boys. ---
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/102 "2003-07-29T20:08:13Z")
You may well be right **Shirley Ujest** _posted by archite_ > [@](#): > > I’m more inclined to think it’s just a fad. It’s not, you know. Gay marriages are normal here. For years. Just because a gnome at the vatican tells us it’s a no-no, there’s no need to listen to him, right? Do you have sex without a condom because popie jopie says so? It’s bad enough people are dying of AIDS in under-developed countries. Let’s not do so in our ‘modern’ world. > [@](#): > > Any attempt to completely deny human nature itself is doomed to break down sooner or later. I can’t believe you said that. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/103 "2003-07-29T20:21:11Z")
**Gum** , after I shake my finger in his face, you promse to yell “_popie jopie!_” at him? ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/104 "2003-07-29T20:32:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arcite \* > \*\* Any attempt to completely deny human nature itself is doomed to break down sooner or later. \*\* You’re an idiot. Please get a vasectomy immediately, so we don’t have to suffer your idiot offspring. ---
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/105 "2003-07-29T21:43:46Z")
hehehehe. I will **Eve** \*him and his silly car. Time to hit him with the silver hammer on his onion \* ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/106 "2003-07-30T00:29:44Z")
_BANG BANG Maxwell’s Silver Hammer came down on his head…_ You know, you’d think the Pope would learn that the US doesn’t make it’s laws by religion… ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/107 "2003-07-30T01:36:58Z")
Why should he, when half the people in the US haven’t learned it either? ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/108 "2003-07-30T03:17:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arcite \* > \*\* Any attempt to completely deny human nature itself is doomed to break down sooner or later. \*\* Thank you, Arcite, you’re absolutely right, and have bostlered my belief that legal gay marriage is inevitable. Thanks for boosting my spirits :). ---
**Author:** ![Priam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Priam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Priam)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/109 "2003-07-30T03:49:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arcite \* > \*\*Well, it’s not really about what the state considers acceptable or not acceptable \*\*but whether the state is going to attempt to redefine marriage as something other than what it has always been. \*\*\*\* Most everyone else here has lept on the issue far better than I, but this part always amused me. Honey, darling, dearie… I hate to burst your bubble, but we’ve redefined marriage several times already. If you want to return to true “traditional values” lets get back to marriages as political tools, demoting the wife to mere chattel, and some arranged marriages! Because, after all, if it was good enough to last for millenia, it should be A-Okay for us! Hell, some areas of the world today still practice it, so hope is not lost for the world! What you define as “traditional marriage” has only really been a common-place conception for a couple hundred years at best, and even then with very little emphasis being placed on the nuclear aspect of it. Our complete picture of it really only came into focus within the middle-to-semi rich classes of Victorian England. Marriage has never been a completely static concept, so to point at one specific form and pretend that it ever was would be preposterous. Also, while we’re at it, there’s fairly decent archeological evidence of traditional Roman, christian, same-sex unions. If you’re interested (probably not, but hey!) check out John Boswell’s “Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe”. Available in the Gay & Lesbian section of most every Barnes & Noble bookstore! I’ll keep my eye out for you 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/110 "2003-07-30T12:31:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Priam \* > \*\*Most everyone else here has lept on the issue far better than I, but this part always amused me. Honey, darling, dearie… I hate to burst your bubble, but we’ve redefined marriage several times already. If you want to return to true “traditional values” lets get back to marriages as political tools, demoting the wife to mere chattel, and some arranged marriages! Because, after all, if it was good enough to last for millenia, it should be A-Okay for us! Hell, some areas of the world today still practice it, so hope is not lost for the world! > > What you define as “traditional marriage” has only really been a common-place conception for a couple hundred years at best, and even then with very little emphasis being placed on the nuclear aspect of it. Our complete picture of it really only came into focus within the middle-to-semi rich classes of Victorian England. Marriage has never been a completely static concept, so to point at one specific form and pretend that it ever was would be preposterous.\*\* I was unaware that I had used the phrases “traditional values” or “traditional marriage,” nor that I had insisted that the word “marriage” not refer to something that is arranged, a mere tool of convenience, or even monogamous. Please don’t put words in my mouth. The concept of marriage is based on the natural male/female dichotomy and its tendency to produce children. Nothing other than a male/female union is ever going to be a marriage, despite some people’s best efforts to redefine the term. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/111 "2003-07-30T12:40:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arcite \* > \*\*The concept of marriage is based on the natural male/female dichotomy and its tendency to produce children. Nothing other than a male/female union is ever going to be a marriage, despite some people’s best efforts to redefine the term. \*\* A blatantly simplistic and reductionist definition, that also really suggests you’ve never been married. That’s probably a good thing. Still, it’s easier to demolish this one by example. My wife and I have no children. In your eyes, is our marriage valid? ---
**Author:** ![Priam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Priam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Priam)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/112 "2003-07-30T13:59:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Arcite \* > \*\*I was unaware that I had used the phrases “traditional values” or “traditional marriage,” nor that I had insisted that the word “marriage” not refer to something that is arranged, a mere tool of convenience, or even monogamous. Please don’t put words in my mouth. \*\* > [@](#): > > redefine marriage as something other than what it has always been. To me, thats not a huge leap. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/113 "2003-07-30T14:17:51Z")
> [@](#): > > My wife and I have no children. In your eyes, is our marriage valid? Don’t hold your breath waiting. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2003, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440/114 "2003-07-30T14:43:14Z")
**Arcite** prefers to ignore examples that fall outside of his argument. Or dismiss them with a “But it’s abstractly possible for you and your wife to have children, so it’s the same as if you did.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ooooh-you-mean-ol-pope-you/191440.md?page=5)