I would expect them to know from the word that there wasn’t much point in the Jews trying to compromise or reason with the Nazis.
Might be aliens. Or the fluoride the Illuminati is putting in the water kicked in.
Wow. Go off the rails much?
There are many reasons people don’t want SSM to be acknowledged as marriage. Maybe it’s a religious objection. Maybe it’s a word that already has a definition. Maybe there are a thousand other reasons. Not all of them make a person a bigot because they don’t agree with you.
Words are massaged all the time, but they mean the same thing, don’t they? Colored = Negro = black = Afro-American = African American = what’s next?
marriage means “man + woman” for a vast majority.
maybe choose your own word that means “man + man”, or “woman + woman”, and move on already.
Your irrationality has me thinking you have completely missed the big picture, which mswas pointed out to you already… the SSM folks have pretty much won the debate. Where was this movement 10 years ago?
Yes, some folks are bigots. no question. But nazis? seriously? if you can’t make your point without dragging in the nazis, take a break.
Aww, I only got a “somewhat” rational. I hope the Russian judge comes through for me!
Can you write up a list? I’d love to debate some substantial objections to SSM, if they exist.
OK, let’s start with the definition of marriage. What does it mean to you? When you heard it when you were a kid, did it mean something? I understand that if you now have discovered your sexuality, are interested in making a commitment with someone of the same sex, well I wish you all the best. But even in the GD thread that started this pit thread, someone (I scanned the thread, but couldn’t find the posters name) admits that the word has meant the same thing for a number of centuries to the vast majority of people of this country.
When I hear the word polygamy, I think of an arrangement of one male with more than one female spouse.
When I hear homosexual, I think of someone who is attracted to members of the same sex. The word has a definition to me. Just like marriage. So just pick another word. It doesn’t make a SSC evil for not being “married”. The word they choose would carry the same weight as marriage without being called marriage.
The problem with this debate is that there really isn’t a “debate” to be had. We are talking about semantics, not whether or not SSM is good or bad. I understand that some people have real objections to it, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I know it’s late (or early), but do you see my point?
Isn’t there maybe a better group to use? Yes the Nazis were bigots, bigots that killed 11 million people. While the antiSSM crowd has a lot of bigots, if it’s not completely composed of them, what could they possibly do that’d compare to that?
I mean someone with a bad muffler is like a serial drive by shooter in so much that they both have traffic related crimes, but I wouldn’t normally compare the two.
What, that commie bastard?
Yes it meant a commitment between two people who love each other in a way only they share with each other. Learning of gay marriage didn’t, and doesn’t, seem incompatible at all. Why should it? Do you feel the feelings and closeness are different because of a shared type of genitalia?
I have a bicentennial quarter minted in 1976 so I’d really like to see your time frame, unless your “number of centuries” is two.
You know when this country started out those two centuries ago “voting” was only intended for white males over 21 who owned property. Do you think women, nonwhites, and people without property should have been given an identical process with a different name?
When I hear polygamy I think any number in a marriage.
Do you feel same sex kissing should be given it’s own word? Same sex romantic love? Same sex sexual acts? How about same sex couples? Should they be called sshouples?
Why? Getting access to this word means the world to many many many gay couples. It’d be proof society is finally accepting them for who they are, and recognizes their love as just the same as any hetro couple’s love. Why can’t you share this word? You seem to speak modern English. Your posts don’t read like Beowulf style old English so you obviously don’t have any problems with languages evolving. Why is the evolution of this single word to signify society’s acceptance of of a shunned class of people so troubling to you?
Not to doubt you, but at an early age, if both parents were around, I find it hard to believe your basic definition of the word wasn’t man + woman. What you’ve learned since is not something I have a problem with. I don’t think the feelings and closeness are different.
I have no idea what this means.
I see what you are trying to do, but I’m not sure it applies. Maybe I’m tired. But I’d like to stick to the concept of marriage, since that’s what’s on the table.
So, polygamy is a free-for-all marriage in your mind (i.e. it can mean any number)? That’s fine, I just want to make sure I understand. And if you were granted the word marriage, would you be ok with you that polygamists being given the term marriage to define their behavior? To use it in common speech is one thing, but do we recognize it?
I think there are words to describe what you are referring to. Homosexual sex, SS couples, homosexual love. It’s not to differentiate the feelings of the people involved, but it seems to differentiate the two people involved vs. the default, which leaves out the heterosexual adjective because it’s assumed.
I think that’s what mswas was trying to say when he (or she) tried to explain that there is a lot of emotion in the word (if it wasn’t mswas, my apologies). FTR, I don’t have a problem with the idea of SS unions. And I do see how choosing a word that isn’t marriage would bother those on the other side. However, as long as the people involved are as committed to each other as they say, it shouldn’t matter to them. And as long as the legal system recognizes them in the same class, I don’t see a problem. If it would require the word “marriage” to receive equal treatment under the law, then I’d have to be in favor of redefining the word.
My biggest concern with the redefinition of the word is, once it’s redefined once, it’s open season. Why should polygamy be outlawed? It’s a perfectly legitimate way to live your life if you so choose. So why is it illegal? Because someone deemed it to not be a proper living arrangement to be considered a legal “marriage”.
I think I understand SSC’s desire to be accepted by the mainstream. But for the large part, I think you have been. I am speaking as a hetero man, so I understand that from an emotional POV, I can’t engage in an honest debate.
Of course not; for that particular argument, the more extreme and the more reviled the better. I wanted to to use a group that is reviled as bigoted for it’s behavior and beliefs; one that no one will be willing to make excuses for them the way mswas has been making excuses for the anti-SSM bigots. For that, there’s no one better than the Nazis.
It was a thing couples did. When I learned about gay couples every other couple thing seemed to transfer. Why wouldn’t this?
It means it’s a young country. Also in Canada, England, New Zealand, and Australia marriage can be gay as well as hetro.
In otherwords the word has already evolved. America isn’t the only country that speaks English.
No this needs explored. Women gained the vote in the early 20th century. The vote represented a potential substantial shift in power and equalization of the sexes. Many were against it, feeling disenfranchised by their relative loss of power, but it happened anyway. To spare the detractor’s feelings should women have been given something just like a vote but called something else?
Can you name one civil rights expansion where a formerly denied class was given something “just like” what they were seeking but called something else? The closest historic parallel I can think of is “separate but equal”.
Different issue, but it’d come down to can you or some make a compelling nonreligious argument why it should be banned?
Really? If I was talking about two dudes making out you’d think it’s heterosexual unless I specified “gay tongue kiss”? It’s like shoes. Which is your default shoe, your left or your right one?
At anyrate as long as we specify same sex, gay, homosexual, etc. it’s okay to use old words so long as gayness is specified? (examples: gay kiss, same sex couple, etc). So as long all these other terms are okay then why can’t we just call it gay marriage, or same sex marriage?
I counter if you can’t think of a reason it should be outlawed then why ban it? Seems kind of random to ban it just cause someone said so. If there’s no reason to ban it then it isn’t causing any harm. If it causes harm then there’s your potential reason to ban it.
See how that works? Polygamy and SSM are different issues.
Protip:not everyone who argues for gay rights is gay.
You sure are a Nazi about using Nazi comparisons I guess.
Oskar Schindler was a Nazi.
Would you please give examples or cite for the Church denying its role in the Crusades and in the Inquisition? Certainly many Protestants too accept this as a stain on our history – and use it as an example of how judgment of others can be a dangerous weapon. Is that lesson lost on you? Anyone can be seduced by power, greed, arrogance, the trend in thought of the day.
And you speak about being open to something better than slaughter as if that is barely an improvement. I think you would keep us in a kind of debtors’ prison forever.
You share that frustration with the wisest and most delusional of human beings. If you could only see that you are not very different from the rest of us.
Well, first of all, my cite shows that Marx didn’t coin the term, so you were clearly wrong there. Idiot.
Second of all, my cite shows that Marx believed that religion was something the oppressed invented *themselves *to give them comfort. Not a method of control, but a symptom of being controlled. That you got anything else out of that cite is a testament to your stupendous lack of reading comprehension. Big surprise.
Ah yes, your so-called “typo”. Not that I was referring to that, but hey, “nitpicking” to you, “evidence that 'wassie doesn’t know his ass from his elbow when it comes to religion” to me. No, I meant where you make shit up out of whole cloth, like the Druid’s “Source”. You’re still a lying asshole as well as a bigot. Sorry, “Christian culture warrior”
Read for context, moron. He’s not saying throwing off religion is throwing off control, he’s saying throwing off religion goes hand-in-hand with the people realising they don’t need it as a comfort.
Where in that quote does he say anything about the state using religion to control the proles, as you allege? Quote it, simp. Or get to the back of the short bus you love so much.
My parents have “lived in sin” together for over 40 years. They’ve had their ups and downs, but I can’t see how being “officially married” would have improved their relationship, and I can see how the societal pressures that go with “marriage” might have even been detrimental to it. As such, marriage has no value to me; if other people feel the need to commit to a ritual to strengthen their relationship, fair do’s, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s just a piece of paper you get that gives you some entitlement by law if the shit hits the fan.
Saying that, if my youngest brother, who is a homosexual, wants to commit himself to one person and get those same entitlements that “normal people” get, I’d gladly get in the face of any bigot who would try to deny him.
We forced civil rights back in the 50s when a huge segment of society was against them. We did it again in the 60s. In fact, demonstration is what led to most of the great strides we’ve made in human rights. I don’t believe sitting on one’s hands has ever moved public opinion or the law.
The thing about human rights legislation is that even if people don’t subscribe to it, the still need to behave within the boundaries of that legislation. I’m sure most SS couples don’t really give a shit whether you LIKE the notion of SSM, as long as they can be married and go about their lives. Once that happens, people will see it was much ado about nothing (as far as impact on their lives goes).
Well if my ideals are different from yours, you’d have to admit that we are two Americans with different ideals. The documents, however, represent American Ideals as the collective has agreed to in writing. Huge difference.
Well, I offered up this definition a few weeks ago:
“A voluntary unification of property and mutual designation by two people that each grants the other the exclusive right to make certain decisions under certain circumstances.”
And it seems perfectly adequate to me. When I was a kid, I’m sure my attitudes were different about marriage and about lots of things. Even then, though, the concept of a gay marriage wasn’t completely foreign - I remember it being used as a punchline in an episode of Taxi sometime around 1978-80.
The word represents a very specific legal status, though, and I have my doubts (borne out by history) that an exactly equal but separate status can be made to exist in the United States.
Do you have any arguments aside from semantics?
My own parents, much as I love them and admire their effort, taught me a lot of things that I later learned (or if you like, came to strongly believe) were wrong. Rather than cling to those acquired beliefs simply because It Is Written, I have tried to accept that they were wrong and move on. Sometimes it’s not been easy.
When those like **mswas **suggest that (paraphrasing) I lack the ability to relate to my opponents because I neither understand nor value what they are “losing” as a result of such an ideological shift, it simply isn’t true. In the case of SSM (or attitudes toward homosexuality/homsexuals in general), they won’t be losing anything I haven’t already “lost” myself.
Which is ultimately irrelevant, as whatever butthurt feelings you, or I, or millions of people may incur as a result of losing our “traditional values” are inconsequential compared to the harm suffered by those whom tradition has deprived of their equal rights—and compared to the virtue inherent in acknowledging and upholding those rights, at long last.