I don’t think there is any confusion when the use of the word so removed from where confusion can occur. So, no significant dilution occurs. For example, take the word “hero”. In it’s purest sense it refers to the Audie Murphy type, or the guy who runs into a burning building after the rest of the firemen were told to stay back, etc. There is zero confusion when we use the term to refer to a guy who hits a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth to give his team a 4-3 victory. There IS confusion (and I think it very unfortunate) when the word is used to refer to any fireman, or any soldier, as the word used to be reserved for those who put themselves in harm’s way far and above what might be normally required of them in their job. So, one can accept that a word will be used in tangential ways and still attempt to protect it’s most basic meaning.
And sodomy was illegal until 2003. Luckily we have changed our attitudes on sodomy laws and incest laws won’t be far behind.
So are the children of parents with diabetes, cancer, lupus, congenital heart defects, etc. Would you propose genetic tests to marry? Would you suggest that these people should not be allowed to marry and pollute the gene pool?
Of course marriage is a social construct. No one is saying otherwise. The point is that it is one created to acknowledge, celebrate the natural order of things: the natural coming together of man and woman.
God I am bored of saying this…
Incest and polygamy have a strong tendency to be associated with abuse and lack of consent. The government has an interest in preventing such abuse. This isnterest is certain rational, and almost certainly compelling. Given the strength of that interest, laws discriminating against those polygamous marriages or incestuous relationships that are fully consensual pass muster.
Homesexual relationships, on the other hand, have no such strong tendency to be associated with abuse. There certainly is nothing about them in which the government has a compelling interest in prevention. I’d argue there is nothing about them in which the government has a rational interest in preventing. And I’d use Romer as my precedent for that. But I don’t think courts are ready to take it that far yet.
However, to claim there is no difference between incest/polygamy and SSM is just foolish. (As would claiming there is no difference between incest and polygamy, which there clearly is, though there is a similar governmental interest at stake there).
No. People are saying that male-female pairing is the natural order of things.
Do you think there is something inherently wrong with polygamy? The Biblical Patriarchs practiced polygamy, didn’t they? Your own Bible condones polygamy. So why are you so hopped up on equating polygamy and homosexuality? If you’re arguing as a Christian, that is.
So? Men and women will naturally come together (with the right technique, of course) regardless of who we extend the social construct of marriage to.
There are people, like me, who believe that a necessary condition for marriage is that it involve one man and one woman. For us, the color of someone’s skin is irrelevant, so when you keep bringing it up it has zero effect. ZERO. The fact that some other people at some other time had placed an additional condition on the institution is nice as far as history goes. But it has no bearing on what I (we) believe. Let’s see if this helps: the necessary conditions that most people who oppose SSM would place on the word are:
- Two people
- One man, one woman
The analogy you wish to draw with miscegenation fails. I know you bring it up to show how some people were wrong in the past. But that’s not news to anyone. Really. It’s only relevant to you because you come at this with the belief that the two groups are equally wrong. But for those of us coming to this discussion without that preconception, it’s a nice bit of history. You might as well bring up the fact that at one point people were afraid of locomotives.
Seems that such sweeping laws discriminate against polygamists and related people who are in a loving, non-abusive relationship. I would think the burden would be on the state to prove that a relationship is abusive or non-consentual rather than just banning everyone in these groups from having the same rights to form a loving pair-bond as others.
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A completely worthless argument. Homosexuality is natural.
People have plenty of marriages that hardly glorify the natural coming together of man and woman. Shit, even typing the phrase is stupid. Just because you have a bizarre and simplistic notion of marriage lends no weight to excluding a segment of the population just because it doesn’t pass your biased and irrational smell test.
Never mind that your argument is exactly the same one that stood against mixed race marriages. If you’re parroting racist shitbags verbatim, doesn’t that give you pause that your opinion might be wrong?
That’s a nice distinction.
And I mean that in the original sense of the word ‘nice,’ which … er… nicely illustrates the problem with your supposed fidelity to language.
For those readers lost, nice originally meant silly, or foolish. It derived from the lation nescius, ignorant. It took on the meaning of “timid,” and evolved into fastidious, or fussy. From there, it came to mean precise, or careful. It ultimately ended up with its present definition of “thoughtful,” or “agreeable.”
Now, you may inveigh against the dilution of the meaning of ‘nice,’ and insist it return to its thirteenth century meaning. But in my view, you’d be foolish (nice, eh?) to do that, because the natural conclusion is that you want us to be speaking Old English. And, indeed, why stop there? All European languages derive from a single root tongue we’ve called “Proto-Indo European–” is this what we should all be speaking?
The absurdity of that question highlights in sharp relief the inescapable fact that language evolves. It’s a natural consequence of language.
On the other hand, we should correctly resist any language change that robs us of an ability to make a useful or material distinction. I certainly don’t suggest that we remove all perjoratives and replace them them “ungood,” “plus ungood,” and “double-plus ungood.”
So it seem to me that if we insist that “marriage” should be retained to identify a male-female pairng, we must identify why, specifically, this identification is of value to us.
So… why?
I have no problem with polygamy. But, if you allow SSM, then why not polygamy?
If traditional marriage is defined as the union of A)two people of B)opposite gender, then why are you allowed to arbitrarily change B without being able to change A?
It would help if you understood legal analysis here. Governments can pass laws that hurt people. See how far shooting up heroin in the middle of a park gets you if you try to explain that you don’t have a problem, and the law should only ban abuse of heroin, not occasional recreational use.
The government has determined that the given the extremely high correlation between incest and abuse, incest should be criminalized. Even many “consensual” incestuous relationships come from a situation where the power imbalance is such that true consent is arguably impossible. The government does draw a line, by the way - it does it by deciding which relationships will be permitted.
With polygamy, not only is there the abuse problem, but also the problem of extension of the benefits of marriage to larger groups. There is a rational government interest in not allowing 6 people to file as a single tax entity; that rational interest does not apply to not allowing 2 men the same possibility as a man and a woman.
My own personal choice would be to permit polygamy, but to get the government the hell out of recognizing marriage whatsoever. You want to incentivize breeding? Give tax breaks for breeding. You want to belong to a church that says only a man and a woman can be married, fine. Don’t use the coercive power of the state to enforce your prejudice on my family and friends, though.
I still fail to understand why your marriage is so weak that my cousin’s marriage undermines it.
Oh it has an effect. Just not to you. But the peanut gallery can see how bereft of rational thought and morally bankrupt your stance is.
I’d also point out that to a fan of miscegenation laws that forbid a Dutchman and an Kenyan to marry, a union between a Dutchman and an Italian would be fine. Just because a person finds one specific category objectionable and another similar one acceptable doesn’t mean the beliefs are rational.
Again, your beliefs are based on fantasy. Your requirements of two people are hardly traditional. You are pointing at couplings you find acceptable and pretending they are normal. How is that any different than miscegenation? Pretending there isn’t a clear and solid analogy doesn’t make it not so.
I beg to differ – not with the point you make; I don’t believe that the “one man and one woman” definition is enshrined in some unchangeable metaphysical consruct. But there is a drive towards wanting to share one’s life with another for whom one feels not merely lust but ongoing love, to participate in the ongoing care and upbringing of one’s progeny, or of young persons one has bonded to in lieu of biological progeny. So ‘marriage’ is a sort of biological or social imperative. Not exclusive heterosexual monogamy as an exclusive definition of marriage, but ‘marrige’ in the broad sense. It, not just ease of access to a sex partner, is why couples live together, with or without marital vows; it is why adoptions and foster parent programs succeed. It is a real construct. Note that it does not (other than the ‘going steady’ aspect) ordinarily exhibit itself during adolescence and usually during the earliest stages of adulthood, any more than the desire for sexual relations shows up prior to puberty in most people. But it does exist, it is a motivating factor for most of those 25 and older and for some at younger ages.
And it underscores why a constitutional right to marry is considered a fundamental human right.
Because they are separate issues.
Why are you allowed to get your ears pierced without cutting off your feet?
Why are you allowed to get lasik surgery without getting a vasectomy?
Oh, wait, I know this one. Because they are unrelated. Marriage between races changed marriage. Is it your contention that at that moment bestiality, incest, child-rape and woman-washingmachine unions because legal?
You are making the decision that SSM and polygamy have to be part of a package. You are doing that. And you don’t have to. It’s not logical and it’s simply a queer idea that’s fixed in your head for no reason at all.
This is patently, astoundingly, mind-blowingly false. Regardless of what one’s position on SSM is, I would think they’d be able to accept certain facts. Accept history.
Because they are representative of the norm? And they align with the natural order of things, namely procreation?
I’ve not pretended. I’ve explained. Here’s more: Marriage requires one man and one woman. The negro John Doe wants to mary the white girl Jane Smith. Let’s see if that’s okay: Is John a man? Is Jane a woman? Are they both of age? Is it just the two of them who wish to enter into this arrangement? If all those answers are “yes”, then the wedding is good to go. See, no requirement as to race. None.
Your attempts to saddle your opponents with beliefs that might have been held by other people in another time is desperate. No one is attempting to defend those beliefs. Yes, we are both are “guilty” of wanting to restrict marriage. But for completely different reasons.
You’d be the one ignoring history here. You simply refuse to face that you are in the same shoes as the legislators who passed anti-miscegenation laws. I’m sure it helps you sleep at night, but it isn’t honest.
So when are refusing marriage licenses to the elderly, the barren and those who have no intention of procreating? If you’re graciously grandfathering in a couple of professionals who aren’t looking for kids, what is the distinction that disallows a SS couple? Other than what you find personally distasteful?
You find homosexuality unnatural. They found miscegenation unnatural. You are the same.
You are denying a basic human right because of your ignorant and irrational notions of what is acceptable by “the natural order”. Never mind that homosexuality is perfectly natural.
Cute. And if I thought otherwise, you would have made a good point. I am not arguing that the word need go back to it’s original inception. I’m talking about the fork in the road we are at now. However “marriage” came to mean what it has is immaterial. The concept of marriage is the important thing. But you know that, you you, uncharacteristically, chose to play games. ::shrug::
Please answer this for me, going back to “hero”. There has been a tendency in the past 25 years or so for the meaning of the word to be broadened. It used to be the guy running into the burning building. Now I often see it used to describe anyone who wears a fireman’s hat, or a badge, or a uniform. Hell, this jumped out at me back when the hostages were returned from Iran under reagan. They were described as “heroes”. I found that disgusting, putting people who had not consciously risked their safety in the same category as the guy who takes out a machine gun nest, jumping on a grenade, running into a burning building. Are you okay with this dilution of the word? Or do you think that the people who act in truly heroic ways might deserve to be placed in their own category?
Magellan, have you ever read the Bible?
Can you please stop pretending that the “traditional” view of marriage has always mean one man and one woman? It’s simply false. Polygamous marriages have been recognized since the dawn of time. It’s true that most marriages since the dawn of time haven’t been polygamous marriages, but Polygamy is as traditional as the Bible.
As for “if we allow gay marriage, we’ll have to allow polygamy” argument, well, it just doesn’t make any sense. If you want to legalize polygamy, you can advocate for legalization of polygamy. If you’re against polygamy, you can advocate against the legalization of polygamy. But gay marriage doesn’t have as a logical consequence the inevitable legalization of polygamy. You could have polygamy without gay marriage, or gay marriage without polygamy, or you could have both or neither.
So what’s the point of you guys always dragging polygamy into the argument?