Same sex marriage legal in Iowa

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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[QUOTE=Bricker]
I’m an employer, seeking to choose between several reasonably similarly qualified candidates. You are one of the candidates seeking the position. Your degree being from SU, I have no way of knowing if it represents actual work and study, and is a reasonable indicia of certain core skills and abilities, or whether you simply wrote a check to get it. So I may well choose to pass you up in favor of someone whose degree is more likely to be the result of legitimate effort.
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Yeah, I thought you might be going there, but that’s a shortcoming in your efforts as an employer. Your contention that you “have no way of knowing if it represents actual work and study, and is a reasonable indicia of certain core skills and abilities, or whether you simply wrote a check to get it.” is not true. You could do the research and find out. If you choose not to, that’s evidence of your shortcoming, not the prospective employee’s…but I take your point. Also, if we are applying that illustration to marriage, then presumably God would be the employer and thus not confined by your limitations anyway. That’s why I think your illustration doesn’t work (although I believe I get it). Other than that, denquixote has pretty much stated what I would have done…and it IS “indicium”.

Diomedes: I may have you wrong, but probably not as much as you think. I’m currently in the process of hitting my latest DOMAI.com download over dialup, so I’ll have to get back to you in a bit, but I realized that it was possible that you and Bricker were playing the Advocatus Diaboli with me (which is perfectly fine), so gimme some time, here. I gots nekkid chicks to archive…

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[QUOTE=Diomedes]
Because it’s viewed as a symbolic representation of a spiritual commitment, and specifically a religiously spiritual commitment. And in the same sense that someone else claiming they have a degree from SU (when you feel that degree isn’t valid) somehow impugns your degree, someone else claiming they have a marriage (when you feel that marriage isn’t valid) lessens your marriage. The real problem yo uhave here is that you’re not approaching this from the idea that a marriage isn’t just between two people, but between two people and God (and in the case of the anti-gay-marriage crowd, an anti-gay God).
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And herein lies a problem. There is a difference between marriage licenses passed out by state governements thus creating a union between people recognized by a government, and a marriage officiated and recognized by a church/mosque/religious organization/etc..

I am all for respectives religions retaining the right to deny or approve same-sex couples the ability to have a service performed for them to have their marriage sanctified and recognized by whatever religion/deity that pleases them. I do not see how or why any government should be held to this standard. If the best reason we can come up with is “it makes some heterosexual couples feel their marriage is invalidated or lessened” then I’m going to have to say to said couples “Suck it up, pansies”. I see little difference between this scenario and former slave owner’s trying to muster some lame counter-argument to freeing their slaves by stating “If they get their freedom, then it will lessen my freedom”.

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Brickers analogy only seems to hold if we assume that a marriage license for a gay couple is intrinsically worthless compared to a marriage license for a straight couple. Why should it be?

There are two parts to marriage at issue here. The first is the religious tradition associated with marriage and the requirements put on a couple by their church. The government has no say in what the church requires of it’s members in order to marry. If a particular sect doesn’t permit marriage outside the religion then a member who wants to do so has to leave the sect or not marry. That’s a choice but since it’s religious in origin not illegal (AFAIK, since IANAL).

The second is the civil aspect of marriage, which is demonstrated by the requirement of a license issued by the government. In this case, religious belief can’t be considered. If it is, then which religions requirements is the gov. to follow? Who will be excluded? If not, then why is the gov. creating a class of people who don’t have the same right as everybody else; and no, saying “gay people have just as much right to marry as straight people, so long as they marry somebody of the opposite sex” doesn’t cut it. What’s being said there is basically “you are not allowed to marry the consenting adult of your choice.” Why should anybody have to stand for that?

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[QUOTE=photopat]
Brickers analogy only seems to hold if we assume that a marriage license for a gay couple is intrinsically worthless compared to a marriage license for a straight couple. Why should it be?
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If I’m getting Bricker right (and it’s entirely possible that I am not), he may be trying to do a bit of Devil’s Advocacy here, and present this as the mindset of the Anti-Gay-Marriage crowd; not as a legitimate point of view (or even his own, necessarily). To the AGMs, a marriage license for a gay couple IS intrinsically worthless, which is why they are against allowing them. It’s not a valid point of view (because, of course, the licenses are very worthwhile for the gay people in question), but it’s how the AGMs see it…which is why they are wrong IMHO. I think his analogy would be more accurate if the people from SU who got electrical engineering degrees by studying and passing their finals started complaining that people who got chemical engineering degrees by studying and passing their finals were “devaluing” the EE degrees. I’m guessing that gay marriages take just as much work as straight marriages to work, so that’s a better analogy. It would thus show why the complaint is totally BS.

A few things I’d like to clear up here, since I kind of got sideswiped by this whole “how do you defend being in favor of legalizing gay marriage” response (which I did not expect, I’ll admit; especially on this board…although I should have, because challenging ANY position is worthwhile to push the defenders in to defending themselves successfully…and this board is very good for that):

In case it helps–I’m not gay, I’m not married, I’m not planning on marriage.

Thus, from a personal standpoint, this issue doesn’t impact me.

Nevertheless, when I see rights being held dear by one group being prohibited to others due to prejudice (as seems to be in this case), it bothers me. I don’t even have a problem with people who are against gay marriage (shoot, as a straight person, I’M against gay marriage for myself, but I wouldn’t dream of trying to deprive people who are for it…unless they want to “gay marry” me, in which I’d expect to have veto power). My problem is when they try to shove their personal agenda down everyone else’s throat whilst taking the position that the opinions of everyone else can go to hell. They wouldn’t tolerate that from anyone else, yet they expect everyone to tolerate it from them. That’s why they’re wrong.

Then they try to use being Christians as an excuse.

It’s nothing more than a kindler, gentler version of “God Hates Fags,” and it’s repugnant. The fact that they believe it doesn’t make it valid (because if it did, EVERYTHING that someone believes would be valid, including the belief that they’re invalid, which would invalidate them. Q.E.D.)

Oh, also:

I wasn’t directing that comment at you, but rather at the AGM people that I had mentioned.

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[QUOTE=Dijon Warlock]
If I’m getting Bricker right (and it’s entirely possible that I am not), he may be trying to do a bit of Devil’s Advocacy here, and present this as the mindset of the Anti-Gay-Marriage crowd; not as a legitimate point of view (or even his own, necessarily).
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I believe that all 49 states with this problem should follow the lead of Massachusetts, where the sky has not fallen, the seas have not boiled, and the fruit has not withered from the vine as a result of legalizing same-sex marriage. So my personal view is: I favor legal same-sex marriage.

But this is not the view i’m arguign against. It was this view that prompted my rebuttal:

There are arguments to be made against same-sex marriage. Some, perhaps most, are religiously-based. Others might be strictly secularly-based, arguing that the goverment should stay out of the marriage business entirely, for straight and gay couples. Still others may feel that the limitation to a couple - two people - is wrong, as it excludes legitimate polyamorous groupings from legal recognition.

To address and rebut these arguments’ flaws is one thing – and, I might add, a good thing.

To claim that you simply don’t comprehend the existence or nature of the opposing arguments is something quite different. That’s what your quote, above, seemed to suggest. To assist you, I offered some lines of thinking that might be adopted by those that might disfavor same-sex marriage.

Once upon a time, I was not in favor of same-sex marriage. What changed my mind? Oddly enough, it was NOT a declaration by my opponents that my argument didn’t exist or was incomprehensible to them.

No – what did it was my opponent calmly and rationally examining my arguments, rebutting each in turn, listening to my counterarguments, demolishing THEM in turn, until I was forced to acknowledge the error of my view.

So when I see a sentiment like yours, which appears to express utter bafflement at the opposing view, I feel there’s some value in reminding you that, wrong though they are, people holding the opposing view here won’t likely be coverted until you can understand and address their points.

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[QUOTE=Bricker]
No – what did it was my opponent calmly and rationally examining my arguments, rebutting each in turn, listening to my counterarguments, demolishing THEM in turn, until I was forced to acknowledge the error of my view.

So when I see a sentiment like yours, which appears to express utter bafflement at the opposing view, I feel there’s some value in reminding you that, wrong though they are, people holding the opposing view here won’t likely be coverted until you can understand and address their points.
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This is one of the reasons I respect you. You are willing to listen to rational arguments and change your position when you see that the other side has a sound rational argument and you do not.

Sadly, this does not seem to be the case for a large portion of the population.

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Understood, and thanks for the clarification.

I don’t want this to sound like a back-pedal, but I think I might have been a bit unclear as to my protest of the opposing position:

It’s not that I don’t get their mentality, or am incapable of groking their groove, or whatever. What I meant by my expressed bafflement was that I didn’t get why they were right.

When I find myself in disagreement with someone, my initial hypothesis is that I am the one that is wrong, and they are the one who is right. It’s perhaps hypergenerous, but I still try to start from that premise.

However, sometimes I am not wrong, and thus the search for the reason why I AM wrong proves to be fruitless (as in this case, IMHO).

At some point, I have to reconsider my initial hypothesis, and look at the problem from the standpoint that I might be right; and if that more effectively explains the facts, I have to believe that either I’m WAY wrong (and not getting something), or the other side is. My conclusions (always open-ended) tend to follow suit.

I have no problem comprehending that prejudice and bigotry can be a mindset/source for a perspective. But adopting it as valid doesn’t seem to be in my repertoire.

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[QUOTE=Dijon Warlock]
It’s not that I don’t get their mentality, or am incapable of groking their groove, or whatever. What I meant by my expressed bafflement was that I didn’t get why they were right.

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Ah!!

Well, that’s perfectly understandable, then. :slight_smile:

I get why they THINK they’re right (I think) but I also get why they’re actually wrong… to the extent the issue can be said to have an objective, definitive answer, anyway.

And why do they persist in error? Because they are unwilling to listen to reason to modify their error, or because no one has offered rational argument to them. And I mention the latter possibility because it’s what happened to me. I had many discussions about same-sex marriage before I changed my mind; most of them ended with my opponent saying that I was a bigoted homophobe. Strangely, that tactic was not effective in changing my mind.

69

A Meeting of Minds has occurred!

::clinks beers::

Yep…me, too.

I also will not change my mind in the absence of a rational argument; but some people refuse to reconsider their position even in the face of same. As someone on this board once observed (I don’t remember who, or I’d give credit…I just remember it in someone else’s sig…who I also don’t remember): You can’t reason someone out of a position that they didn’t reach by reason in the first place.

I can be reasoned with (as can you). Unfortunately, some people can’t, and they seem to be the ones who want everyone to agree with them the most.

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[QUOTE=Antinor01]
Breakdown of moral fabric, decline of western civilization, turning our backs on God and nazis riding dinosaurs. At least I think that’s the gist of the argument.
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I thought that was supposed to happen when rock 'n roll music became popular.