I suppose JC lent him the sword he brought… 
I know this thread isn’t directly about SSM, but I can’t let this idiocy slide when I see it. The definition of marriage does not have an external reality beyond what we say it is. If we redefine marriage, we are not contorting reality, we are simply altering one of the arbitrary rules of our invented culture. This is entirely different from a sunbathing albino, or a short person want to dunk a basketball, whose abilities to do so are bounded not by social convention, but by the immutable laws of physics.
Is there not a natural physical and emotional coming together of man and woman—since time immemorial? Has society not recognized that fact and given it the distinction of marriage?
There answers are “yes” and “yes”. So the idiocy does not lie with me. And yes, we can call anything anything we damn well please. Starting tomorrow, why don’t you star referring to a car as a noodle and a piece of paper as a propeller. You want to hijack a word that we all know what it means and then not have a word to describe that very special union that we all have benefited from. Your pal Darwin would laugh at you. Good luck. Now I will not participate in this hijack any further. If you’re so interested in discussing this yet again, open yet another SSM thread.
Or would you feel hurt if you couldn’t spread your opinions wherever you please? I’m all sad and pouty-lipped. Grow up.
Well, since there is no such thing as a “homosexual”, why are we having this discussion? :rolleyes::rolleyes:
There has been a natural physical and emotional coming together of man and man, and woman and woman, since time immemorial also. Some cultures have recognized those unions as marriages. And society could do just that thing right now if it wanted. Unlike a midget dunking, it’s physically possible. That’s why your analogy is a failure.
I think many people would beg to differ.
Are you really, really still saying this? Hijack a word? How ridiculous.
Huh?
I find magellan01’s argument to be awful, pompous, and artificial (in the modern sense of the words).
Yes, but that has nothing to do with marriage. That’s just fucking.
Yes, but that has nothing to do with fucking. That’s all about property rights.
Oh, sorry, we changed that meaning in the last century and a half, didn’t we? Tell me again why we can’t change it again? That’s right - you don’t have a reason.
Your analogies are becoming steadily more incoherent. The reason we don’t call a car a noodle is because these words describe two very different things. The reason we call long term gay relationships and long term straight relationships the same word is because they are describing the same thing.
If I describe myself as married to my husband, do you not know what I mean? If I define my relationship as marraige, are you suddenly confused when someone else describes their heterosexual relationship in the same way? No? Then your argument does not hold water.
I’ve seen a lot of non-sequitors in my time, but this one is even less sequitor than most.
No, I’m fine in this thread. If you don’t want your ridiculous notions about marriage challenged, stop talking about them. As long as I see such arrant nonsense being spouted, I’m going to speak out against it.
You’re the one whining like a three year old about having to talk about something you don’t want to talk about. You don’t want to have this conversation? Then shut up about it, already.
But, you see, the changing of the meanings of those words isn’t important.
:rolleyes:Look, I know you like dick, but that doesn’t mean you should try to be a dick. I’ve talked about this plenty before and will again, Whenever I feel like it, in fact. And you’ll be free to throw in your two cents worth. I’m simply trying to do the polite thing and NOT hijack a thread. Especially since it’s interesting on its own. That said, do what you will.
I’m perfectly willing to be polite if you are. If you’d rather throw insults, I can do that to. The tone we take is entirely up to you, I’m just following suite.
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I’m responding to things that you said. You don’t get to introduce a topic, and then avoid having people respond because it’s a “hijack.”
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We’re on page seven of this thread, so some topic drift is expected.
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Discussing gay marriage in this particular thread is not much of a topic drift in the first place.
Agreed, although you could have also translated magellan01’s post to mean that the reality of the situation in the US is that gay marriage is not accepted in the majority of states. That’s reality at this point. It is how marriage is defined.* Changing the definition from how it is at this point without a change in the law is distorting reality.
*at least in the majority of the US
As for the sunbathing albino, I guess I’ll agree with you, although I guess we can change the word sunbathing substantially.
As for the basketball example, this might be a little more applicable. If we changed the definition (or the rules) of what we consider basketball, there might be a game where short people can play. And really, there are kids’ basketball hoops that are adjustable in height. We might call that basketball, but when we think of the word basketball, we normally mean the game with the regulation hoop, the standard-sized ball and the players that are suited to the game. If we defined any of those differently, different players might qualify. Any other game, we might colloquially call basketball, but it wouldn’t be what most people are thinking it means.
People who can’t play professional basketball have one or more shortcomings preventing that from happening. What shortcomings do gay people have?
False premise. I don’t think that. Some people don’t fit the definition of a basketball player. It’s not a shortcoming. . . it just is.
It just is? What does that even mean?
It’s a shortcoming. Most people lack the necessary skills, stamina, physical presence, etc. to play in the NBA. Do I really need to pull out the definition of shortcoming?
It means that definitions of words are what we deem them to be.
The definition of marriage is what it is. . . what society deems it to be. The same with the definition of a basketball player.
That’s your statement and your value judgment, not mine. I didn’t use the word shortcoming; you did. And you can use it to mean whatever you’d like. It doesn’t have anything to do with my point. You’ve pushed the analogy past the point where it has any intersection to the original point.
Well, that’s ridiculous. What is this definition? Could a guy who was five-foot-three play in the NBA?
As I understand it, there are actually fairly few mandatory requirements for playing in the NBA (I’m not sure if being male is one of them), and anyone who meets these could, in theory, make it. In practice, of course, of course, only one in ten thousand does because of the intense competition for the limited number of spots.
You’re right. What I meant was that some players wouldn’t be suited to the game we call basketball by the commonly accepted definition of basketball.
But that definition would get tossed in a heartbeat if an individual that didn’t fit the stereotype had sufficient skill. It’s conceivable to me that a sufficiently skilled woman might make it one day, though she would have to be ultra-elite to overcome the natural advantages in muscle mass that men have, especially men who have already undergone the rigorous NBA selection system. The point is that no-one would care about her gender if she could play the game.
Similarly, if two adults want to live together and share a certain legal status, playing by the all the various “rules” of marriage, what difference do their individual genders make? By accepting “common definitions” as “just is”, you’re advocating a pointlessly static social fabric for no reason I can discern.
Yes, with the key word being “we” in that sentence. We (me and a shitload of dictionaries) are fine with calling it a shortcoming.
That’s not what we were discussing at all. Since the reason most of us aren’t in the NBA is a shortcoming, is being gay a shortcoming? If not, then magellan01’s analogy falls apart.
The analogy never had any intersection, unless you consider homosexuality to be a shortcoming. Again, magellan01 listed a bunch of activities that certain people can’t take part in, because of their shortcomings, as an analogy for why gays can’t marry. Here, I’ll help you out:
People not tall enough to ride a roller coaster? Their shortcoming is a lack of height.
Albinos not able to sunbathe? Shortcoming: lack of melanin pigment.
Can’t play in the NBA? Shortcoming: lack of age, physical stature, endurance, and skill.
Gays? Help me out here.
Well, if it makes you feel better, the social fabric in CA regarding gay marriage hasn’t been static. Gay marriage was allowed from August until the passage of Prop. 8 in November.
At that time, the social fabric was changed so that the definition of marriage is between one man and one woman at this moment in CA.
Your argument that people are using the status quo is often used simultaneously with people having stripped away civil rights. I don’t see how it could be both at the same time for the same set of facts. Either there was a civil right that was taken away, in which case there was an established legal and/or social right that was removed or the status quo was maintained, in which case the civil right hadn’t been established enough to be considered a right. How could there be both?
Could someone help him out here? I don’t get his point.
To me, it reads like, for example, I’m analogizing the definition of a bird with a human institution and DMC is saying that humans don’t fly or have wings so the analogy doesn’t work. It’s an analogy, dude. You work with the parts that are analogous. If that’s not what he’s saying, I think someone else will have to interpret.