You could educate yourself on the subject before deciding on it.
Civil unions aren’t the same as marriage. They are not recognized universally. Even if they magically were, they are a separate-but-equal institution. Like white’s only water fountains. Why have a separate division for two identical things?
Marriage used to be an arraignment between a man and the woman’s father. It used to involve harems of women. It used to be limited to same-race pairings. It used to not have divorce as an option. It used to be utter subservience on the part of the woman. It used to be a lot of shit that I don’t hear you bitching about now.
Marriage changes. Everyone deserves equal rights. Your squeamishness is not a reason to deny someone else the right to wed.
Lots of things have stood since the beginnings of human history, only to be swept away by modernity.
As much as I disagree with **matt_mcl ** on the “bigotry” issue, I think he is right on the money in his post where he says that once full equality is granted in some places, it isn’t really possible to hold back the tide in others.
I think you’re missing a verb somewhere in here… If you (or anyone) want to take the religion out of people (I have no problem if this becomes one of your life’s goals, as long as you act through the existing legal framework), then what problem do you have when people use the church mainly for selfish reasons? Wouldn’t those reasons further diminish the role of church in their life? I believe so.
You would be surprised how many people actually want to obey the law. When something is officially declared something and is stated so on an official register of sorts, people will continue to use the legal term. I know I would.
Slavery is a concept that has been around for thousands of years. It is still practiced today in a wide variety of countries. It is mentioned many, many times in the Bible. There are even verses in the Bible that instruct the faithful on how to treat their slaves. Slavery is an intergral part of the human race, and has only been banned here in our “sophisticated” western societies relatively recently (I mean, 140 years compared to thousands). I guess we should not write off slavery just yet.
My problem is mainly with evangelical religion. I don’t have a real problem with religion itself, just with people putting it in my face or insisting that it drive public policy or whatever. As long as your religion (or your body odor, or your crazy driving skills, or whatever) doesn’t affect me, then we’re cool.
No, it’s just an awkward run-on. People who are only attached to the church superficially do more to dilute the strength of a religion than the possibility of gays living out there somewhere.
I don’t want to take religion out of people. I think it can perform a very valuable service, offering comfort to those who need it. I would just like more people to treat religion as a personal thing. People don’t need to know I prayed last night any more than they need to know I had sex last night.
People might insist on it for others: “You two aren’t married, you’re civilly unioned! Get it straight, heathens!” but I guarantee you nobody would make the distinction for themselves.
I’m acknowledging reality. Why else do you think gays want the word and aren’t content to leave it to the straights?
The notion that only religious people get married is fucking stupid. I’m an atheist. I’m also married. My Mom got married in a courthouse by a judge, and she’s married.
Marriage is not an exclusively religious term. If you want to distinguish between civil marriage and religious marriage, knock yourself out. But our society has long recognized that not all marriages take place in a church and are sanctified by some deity. Common law recognized that two people who lived together and acted as if they were married were legally married. Where’s the religious tradition there?
This is what bugs me the most about people who argue that the solution to the debate is to have the government get out of marriage altogether. I’m a queer atheist, who wants to someday get married. How does making religion a solely religious institution help me at all? I still can’t get married, except now it’s because of my membership in an entirely different minority. You’ve just shuffled me from one ghetto to another. Thanks, but no thanks.
Show me someone who sometimes makes logical errors that lead him to assert that other people’s rights should be curtailed, and who is equally prone to making logical errors that lead him to assert that his own rights should be similarly curtailed, and I’ll concede that you’ve found someone who is acting out of honest error rather than malicious bigotry.
I was forced to rule that language out of bounds because a number of posters–you primarily, but hardly exclusively–were making the argument that the discussion was resolved by the simple act of calling other people names.
It may, (or it may not), be true that everyone who opposes SSM is a bigot, but that does not address the issue of whether SSM should or should not be recognized in law and it absolutely does not answer the question “what is the argument against SSM?”
Well, out of the millions and millions of people who oppose gay marriage, it seems highly likely that there are at least a couple dozen who aren’t bigots. It only stands to reason, doesn’t it?
As for the contention that everyone’s heard all the arguments against same-sex marriage get destroyed, and therefore anyone who still is against same-sex marriage must be arguing in bad faith, well, I’d agree with that for people on this message board.
But is Granny following the debate on the blogosphere? No, she’s just seen one article in the newspaper about it, and didn’t read the article because it didn’t make sense to her. If you sat Granny in front of a computer and forced her to argue her case on this message board for a couple of months, and she still wasn’t convinced, then sure. But most people don’t think about the issues. It’s a known fact. They think the preacher is pretty smart, and he’s thought about things, and so he must be right, so they agree with him. Or some other not very rational method of politico-socio-tribal allegiance.
You’d be surprised how many people would say, “You know I never really thought about it that way, thank you for explaining it,” if you sat down and discussed issues with them. Not many on this message board, but in real life. And it may not be the majority, it may not be a large minority, but it’s certainly not a trivial number.
Well said, and I assume you meant “making marriage a solely religious institution”.
Case in point that this is a complex issue, take my partner and I.
We had a “Commitment Ceremony” 2 years ago yesterday. I refer to it when speaking to anyone but my partner or when my partner is not within earshot, as our wedding.
She abhors and refuses to use any (patriarchal, misogynistic) terminology that is shared with heterosexual marriage.
I want to reclaim and redefine the traditional terminology such that it no longer has patriarchal or misogynistic subtexts, and I wholeheartedly support those who make their partnerships and marriages their own, and to hell with what is average or expected or traditional.
I was all excited to participate in the legal paperwork last summer when we had our window of opportunity. I wanted to change our names both to something new and posted questions in this forum about what we might expect. As the summer progressed our relationship hit some rough spots, somewhat exacerbated by the realization that we have two totally different perspectives on this part of our lives.
We didn’t end up applying for the marriage license, and then Prop 8 passed while we began couples therapy. We’re still together, going strong, and very much in love.
But we’re very mindful that we have different approaches to the language we use in this debate, while we both have the same goals: social/spiritual/cultural/familial recognition, legal protections, visitation rights, tax considerations, having our partnership legally recognized wherever we travel in US, etc.
I take more of the approach of expanding the horizons of “marriage”, she wants to deconstruct it and construct something more expansive.
I oppose government-sanctioned marriage of anyone, using the term “marriage” to mean “religous marriage,” which is how I originally used it. Government has no business in spiritual unions. I am 100% in favor of government-sanctioned unions (or marriages, if you like, the terms apparently matter a lot more to others than they do to me) for everyone. I don’t actually have to “dress up that position nicely” – it’s right there, for everyone to read. And just so we’re crystal-clear, as long as the government is in the business of marrying, it can and should extend that right equally regardless of sexual orientation. The reason for that, is that no one has ever presented me with a reasoned and persuasive justification for discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation in the area of civil unions (non-religious marriages). I am opposed to government-sanctioned gay marriage because I oppose government-sanctioned marriage, period. I simultaneously support government-sanctioned civil unions for all. Guess that makes me a big ol’ bigot. And I certainly cop to overstating my position initially, but considering the repetition with which I have clarified it since, your insistence on giving it a grossly incorrect interpretation, is frankly indefensible.
They’re not my “ilk,” but if you think they’re going extinct in our lifetime, you’re far more of an optimist than I am.
No, I’m prettty sure I’ll still stand by my opinion. You might well be embarrassed by your construction of it, though.
I completely agree with the OP. There is no valid argument for “separate but equal”. There is only hate and/or ignorance behind it. I don’t give them any benefit of the doubt. I also think Anti-All-Marriage is a different argument entirely. Anyone offering that as their reason to actually vote for discrimination is full of shit and a bigot.
PLUS. Let me be honest here…
From one who calls himself rolandgunslinger made me lol. At you roland, not with you.
What degree of social conflict? Riots? War? Since it’s already been mentioned, mass murder and genocide? Gee, it all sounds so scary.
Racial integration caused social conflict - riots, killing, more riots, lynching, etc.
Famine causes social conflict - X gets invaded by Y because X has food and Y wants it.
Ethnic differences cause social conflict - Slobodan Milosavich (probably spelled wrong) had a field day with that.
Political differences cause social conflict.
Greed, ambition and dreams of empire cause social conflict.
Land in and of itself causes social conflict - X has land, Y wants it.
Religion causes social conflict - religious purges and wars, jihads, crusades, blah blah blah
Industrialization caused social conflict (Luddites vs everyone else?).
What DOESN’T cause social conflict? Everything causes it at one time or another. It’s a matter of degree.
But consider this: With NO conflict of any kind at all, at any level, you get stagnation and eventually, extinction.
Well, maybe. And Heaven knows, the prospect of stagnation is a dire one. But what some of us are saying is that we’d kinda like to take a run at that, just to see, you know, give peace a chance. Is what we’re saying.
