But the buses and civil transport units are identical vehicles. They run the same routes, follow the same schedule. If you were placed on one with no other passengers whose race you could check on, you’d never guess which vehicle you were riding. So Montgomery will have a perfectly equal system*, just with two names. Sorta like your civil unions vs. marriage plans.
*Except for all those minor technicalities already pointed out by other posters; but you don’t seem to mind them existing for marriage, so I don’t know why you’d get upset over them existing for buses.
Do keep explaining how your separate but equal plan is in no ways a separate but equal plan. The contortions as you try to justify it are getting quite amusing.
I ***have ***read the entire thread, all (so far) 555 posts of it, including each and every one of your contributions. You have repeatedly referred to majority opinion, culminating in the specific lines I quoted, wherein you declaim that majority rule actually controls. Go back and read your own words. I corrected you in that regard.
ETA-- now 562 posts
Your separate but (not) equal plan continues to fail for the reason that all separate plans fail-- they are not equal. Disregarding for the moment all the hypotheticals about potential changes after initial implementation, your plan still fails because no matter how you style it, non-hetero couples are still denied the right to call themselves married.
Under our Constitution’s equal protection, unless there is an overwhelming societal harm from so doing, this right cannot be denied. I (and others of us) repeat the request to you for an offer of proof of anything that rises to the level of an overwhelming societal harm to be caused by homo couples calling themselves married, and sharing all of the rights and responsibilities of hetero married couples.
You cannot. Neither can anybody else. Except by reference, however artfully hidden, to some religious dogma.
That, by the way, is the reason all those “activist judges” you keep complaining about continue finding fault (incrementally, I admit-- but more every year) with prohibitions against SSM.
Surely that last sentence should be, “If there is, i’ve yet to hear one I agree with” - I would be very surprised if you have heard no-one give any reasons to treat gay people differently whatsoever. I’ve heard lots, most of which i’d disagree with.
The problem is, here we’re talking about doing the will of the masses, and one of the reasons given for treating homosexuals differently is that a lot of people feel that they should be. I don’t agree, but I think it bears a relevancy to the criminal minority here in that it is apparently acceptable for the majority to be able to take away certain important rights from a minority, and for this to be considered a good idea. I can disagree with the reasons in this particular case, and so with this usage in terms of gay people, but there’s certainly a relevance there, because it’s the argument opponents are making.
Because that is what the word means. That is what is was plainly understood to mean for ages. (Polygamy was the exception, but the fact that we have a distinct word for it points to the fact that people understood it to be a special case. One that has continuously lost favor in western civilization for the hierarchy it built in regarding men and women.)
A union of a man and woman are capable of a special relationship. They can bring children into the world. Over the eons, people recognized that that a man and woman in love didn’t just fuck, but that they had a strong bond to each other. They also had a strong sense of protection over their offspring. You hear all the time people say that they could not fully appreciate the love they have for their children until after they have them. That they see it as overwhelming. While males of all species don’t stick around and care for their mate and offspring, many do. For whatever reason, our species does better when the mating pair forms a “family”. This was recognized in very early societies, and those societies gave that special relationship special recognition. Marriage-type ceremonies exist it almost all ancient cultures. True, the institution (and the rights and privileges it afforded) was then seized upon by people in order to take advantage of those rights, sparking arranged marriages for some type of gain. This can be viewed as a bastardization of marriage, but it doesn’t erase the reasons it sprouted up in the first place. Or erase the fact the the vast number marriages performed in the United States have been due to desire of the heart, not the pocketbook.
Marriage has been viewed as a societal good and has shown itself to be a great way to raise future generations. Look where marriage has suffered the most, in the inner cities. While many single women due an amazing job in a poor situation, the incidence of single-family households and rampant premarital sex among adolescents dooms not only millions of young women and their babies, but those mini-societies themselves suffer greatly by having an abundance of adolescent males who do not have fathers to keep them in line and act as role models. This is something nature counts on. Look at adolescent lions or bull elephants and the havoc they can cause if there is not a strong dominant male present to keep order. Marriage is the societal recognition of that which nature causes on her own. True, economics plays a large role in the inner city communities. But previous generations who lived in Harlem and similar areas shared the same poverty, but not the chaos caused by young males fucking their way through adolescence without consequence for themselves.
It is in society’s best interest to encourage that which benefits it. It is it’s obligation. Marriage is a societal good, so it is right for it to be encouraged by the state. When two people are in love, they want to demonstrate their love by proclaiming it publicly and formalizing their relationship. Both herteros and gays want to do this. And they should and can. BUt society’s interest (beyond the equal rights and privileges all participants should enjoy) is in encouraging men and women to get married. Now, getting married makes the participants happy, and that’s great. But society’s interest goes beyond that. It benefits us to have men and women want to get married (and stay married), and have as many children as possible be raised by their natural parents, assuming they are fit and willing to do so, of course. The laws we currently have, and the gut feeling many of us have show a strong bias for a child to stay with their biological offspring. We “see” that there is a bond their that can be approximated, but not duplicated. Not easily or often, anyway.
So, if a young hertero couple twenty years from now fall madly in love, we want them to view marriage as a bond that is both special and relevant. They’re looking to demonstrate their love, AND, the vast majority of time, start a family. The more “marriage” stands for that, and exclusively that, the more attractive a decision it will be to them. By having marriage include gay relationships, the idea isn’t AS special, AS unique, not AS appropriate for them. The concept is diluted.
Apologies for making a point i’m sure you’ve heard before, magellan, but by that logic shouldn’t we call marriage between an infertile couple something different, so as to further strengthen “true” marriage? By including infertile couples, the term isn’t AS special, and so on, so doesn’t it behoove us to seperate them out to stop them diluting this special meaning? The same logic would hold also for those couples who do not want to have children, or who do not want biological children but plan to adopt, or who already have children they plan to raise from prior relationships.
Perhaps we could have a something like a “proto-marriage” when a couple of any type get married, which is then upgraded to true marriage upon the birth of their first biological child.
The separate but equal argument, as it applies to schools, mean that (let’s take a small community) you can’t have two different schools—School A on the east side of the tracks and School B on the west side of the tracks and expect them to ever be equal.
Correct?
I’ll assume you agree. Now if you do, were talking about two populations, blacks and whites, and two different schools. The solution, for example, is to have one big school where all kids can go. One where all kids can take advantage of all the classes, teachers, classrooms, equipment, everything, equally.
I draw a perfectly aligned analogy, with two groups accessing ONE “school”, ONE set of legal protections, rights, and privileges. Yet you continue to say there are two “schools”, two sets of laws. This is not representative of my idea. This has been pointed out numerous times.
Now, I cannot prevent you from sticking your fingers in your ears and obstinately lalalalalalalala your way to “two buses—two sets of laws”, but I can leave you to do it on your own.
Ok, I disagree with magellan on this, but your particular point here is utter bullshit. Dilution of a concept does not mean the diluting party are “filthy, unclean and degenerate”, nor have I seen magellan claim that anywhere. And to insinuate what you have based on such a bullshit point is yet further nonsense.
Here is the heart of the matter. Finally. The words “be raised by their natural parents” are key.
Read your entire missive, but remove those few words, and it becomes a ***support ***for SSM.
Only by ignoring the fact that SSM couples often desire and certainly can create children, just not necessarily biologically with each other, and making this an absolute requirement of marriage, can your argument be sustained against SSM.
You’ve made this offer before. And you were contradicted on it before, because it necessarily ignores all the children presently being raised inside and outside today’s “marriage”, by people who are not the biological parents of those children, whether by adoption, infidelity, plan, or accident. And all those married couples who remain childless as well. (Like my wife and I.)
Requiring marriage to be “all about making and then raising only your own children” is an idea whose applicability was lost in the dust of history long before you ever raised it here. Your apparent desire for an unlamented and well departed past should not influence our present, let alone our future.
One set of laws for all unions certainly is one option. It ensures that all participants enjoy the same legal protections, rights, and privileges. But it is not the only way. My plan does that as well.
I think my plan is superior because it allows that to happen while not changing/diluting the definition of the word “marriage”. Which I described I view as a benefit to society. Also, it allows the legal protections to be expanded to one group without pissing off the other. I view it as win-win.
Nope. You are incorrect. I venture that you and I have different understandings of the word “repeatedly”. Did I mention it more than once? Likely. Did I do it as a thrust of my argument, which is how most people would take you characterization, no.
It fails not. They also can’t legally call themselves giraffes, or bicycles, or saucers. And neither male in a gay union can call himself a woman. Legally, anyway. So what?
Incorrect. I have. You might not find it convincing, but I have supplied it. That’s not the same thing.
Yeah, maybe. And maybe it’ll be reined in. Welfare was a darling at one time, too.
You were doing so well, and then you had to reverse your astoundingly good argument for same sex marriage with the following non sequitur.
With adoption, IVF pregnancies, and surrogates, there is no reason in the world why a gay couple who want to raise a family cannot do so and the best way that we can provide cultural and societal support for their union is to recognize it as a marriage. Conversely, with the prevalence of multiple forms of birth control, large numbers of heterosexual couples have chosen to eschew children and we do not penalize them by giving them a separate name for their union, so those gay couples who do not choose to have children have diluted nothing.
Although this has already been pointed to for what it is, let me help.
Let’s say I have a club, called the Cool University Alumni Club. But there are some people who attended the school for two or three years and either transferred out or quit, who have lots of friends from their days on campus. So this group petitions the Alumini Club to allow these non-alumni to join. The Alumni Club, for whatever reason, agrees. The club membership of alumni will be diluted, right? This is just a fact, it doesn’t say that the non-alumni are “unclean” or “degenerate”. But the fact is that the club is no longer as “pure”, as “homogeneous” (:)) as before. (For what it’s worth, this is a real life example. I am a member of an online college alumni group of a college I transferred from after two t=years. I requested it to the board and it was approved.)
Another example, simpler: A Men’s social club suddenly is forced, or decides, to accept a few women. Is not that membership diluted in regard to it being a men’s club? Of course it is, But that doesn’t mean that the women are “unclean” or “degenerate”, rights?
Because it makes it a more inclusive definition, a definition that many more types of couples would be able to be included in. magellan’s “concentrated awesome” appears to be the ability for the couple to have biological children; that’s just one of I imagine many possible reasons why the definition of marriage might be “diluted” without saying the party in question is filthy, unclean, or degenerate, as differing from your idiotic point that those things are a certainty in such matters.
OK, I’ll let you slide on how much emphasis you now wish to place on your own argument.
Well, yes, actually they can. These are not legally protected classes of things, and as long as the purpose isn’t fraud, people can call themselves pretty much anything they want.
Except, we must recall, if they are a same sex couple, they can’t call themselves married (except in certain enlightened places).
I still see nothing other than backhanded references to the ecckk factor, appeal to religious authority, and a supposed “definition” that has been shown to be somewhat less (or somewhat more) than you wish it to be.
Criminals are not relevant as a minority in this thread because they have to commit a criminal act to join that minority. The restrictions of their rights is due to an action they take rather than an innocent unavoidable part of their being. Clear?
When come back, bring those compelling arguments demonstrating societal harm from SSM. Or don’t, since there aren’t any. I’m getting bored with the present landscape of handwaving.
Oh and here I thought you wanted to know what I thought. As you are content to bail straw there is no point. You ask me my opinion I state it straight out then you call me a liar then make up an argument to put in my mouth. You seem like you are doing a fine job with both sides of the argument and neither need my participation nor will you listen if I offer it.