Well, the vast majority of humans are right handed. You could very easily say that we are a right-dominant species. Similarly, the vast majority of humans are heterosexual. If that makes being homosexual abnormal, why is left-handedness not similarly abnormal?
We are a heterosexual species. Except for the homosexual ones. Again, your opinion on what is normal carries little weight. And if you break down crying over the injustice of SS couples being able to marry and destroying your perceived integrity of the word… well, that’s just a price I’m willing to pay.
If you don’t like homosexuals marrying, if I may suggest, don’t marry one. You don’t like it isn’t an argument.
I once commented to a slippery slope arguer that any time a dog can explain to me in clear English the meaning of the marriage vows and why he should be permitted to undertake them, I will support someone’s right to marry that dog. Until then, it’s a fraudulent argument.
A child (including younger adolescent) is presumed unable to make an adult decision due to lack of maturity and to impetuousness. An animal or an inanimate object is incable of giving consent. Contrariwise, a gay person can and does make a commitment in marriage, whether or not that marriage is recognized at law.
A polygamous marriage (other than an abusive Mormon-splinter-sect patriarchal polygamy) might fit the criterion – but it changes the definition of marriage in ways that same-sex marriage does not. For example, under present law with or without same-sex marriage, a divorce terminates the marriage. But what would be the case if one person leaves a four-person marriage. Do the other three remain married? What happens if one spouse dies? Etc. While I have no ethical objections to a polyamorous marriage, I do see a real difference in its legal status that is not an issue with same-sex monogamous marriages.
So what I see is people standing on sandpaper on level ground, pointing down, and saying, “Look, a slippery slope!”
I’m not proposing changing it. I’m proposing allowing more people into the institution. Allowing Jews into a country club doesn’t change the club.
Again, you are the one with the problem. You are the one with the irrational fear of word change. You are the one who doesn’t understand that the definition of marriage has been in flux since the concept existed.
It’s your problem. You’re choosing to be upset. And you’re choosing to deny other people happiness so you can be spared your self inflicted pain. It’s selfish and just plain weird.
Actually, it is. Language is just about the most egalitarian thing out there. If people use a word in a certain way, then that’s what that word means. If I tell you that Adam and Steve have gotten married, do you understand the concept that I’ve expressed? Then you’ve already lost the fight, because the word marriage now contains the concept of gay couples. We can (and, apparently, will) continue to squabble over what should and should not be legally recognized. But on the linguistic side, the battle was over before you folks even knew it had started.
Well, why don’t you explain why he’s wrong? What argument do you have for homosexuality being abnormal that would not apply equally to left-handedness?
Well, boo-hoo for them. If there’s to be a legal status and subsequent advantage bestowed on two-person marriages, I don’t see why gender has to be an issue when it is legally irrelevant in virtually all other fields. Extending this legal status to three people, trees and tofu is another matter, of course, and I find the argument entirely unmoving.
And since I happen to be left-handed, I’m curious how you decide that I’m “normal” while a homosexual is not. What if he’s right-handed, and in that sense is more “normal” than me?
I’ve proposed adapting existing partnership law, rather than marriage law, to polygamous groupings. As with a legal partnership such as a law firm, there are well-established rules for situations where a new partner joins or leaves (or dies) and the partnership itself can own property. Medical decisions regarding one member of the partnership can be made in the same manner that legal partnerships routinely make decisions. Find some adaptation so any children born to members of the partnership are legally parented by all members of the partnership (who retain parental responsibilities and privileges even after leaving, up until the child is 18), and I can see how it might work. Extending two-person marriage would be far more difficult.
No it isn’t. Otherwise, they’d be protesting all sorts of changes in the language. Driving around with bumper stickers that say, “text = a noun!” perhaps. What they’re protesting is a practice that in some dim recess of their mind they feel is wrong, because their pastor told them it was so.
No, you are. You are the one claiming that there is something so very special about homosexuality that it should disqualify people from marriage. I’m the one claiming that there is no such difference. That homosexuality is no more special than left handedness. And substantially LESS “abnormal” than all sorts of qualities that STILL don’t disqualify people from marriage. Serial killers can get married - yet homosexuals can’t.
What, exactly, is it that makes homosexuals unworthy of something that serial killers are allowed?
As in, “‘She texted me’ is a solecism.” Tje verb “to text” meaning ‘to send a text message by cellular phone’ is a 21st century neologism; even ‘gay marriage’ predates it as an expression.