It’s very relevant. Just unclear as to what it exactly means.
I don’t think that it is. I’m not rebutting his arguments against gay marriage by calling him a homophobe, I’m disputing his assertion that he hasn’t said anything homophobic.
It’s a valid distinction to make. By claiming a distance exists between himself and homophobe, yorick suggests that his stance was reached by following a line of reasoning that a homophobe wouldn’t use. I’m still waiting for him to present such. I’m prepared to admit that such reasoning might exist, if there was empirical evidence that countries and states that approve gay marriage suffer a resultant rise in something tangibly bad (be it gay riots, gay crime, floods, skyrocketing food prices, etc.) that could not be explained in any other way.
If no such distinction can be established, then he may as well just be a big ol’ homophobe, for all it matters.
It’s funny how Liberals are blamed for every damn thing under the sun. You’re completely wrong. You can thank Washington Liberals for being able to buy liquor at all on Sunday. It’s the *Conservatives *that were to blame for the Blue Laws.
The Supreme Court begs to differ.
So let’s recap. These are the reasons to ban gay marriage:
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Because if it’s allowed something bad will happen. We don’t know what it will be, but it will be bad. Trust us.
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Because marriage is all about making babies. We know this to be the case because heterosexual couples who are incabable of bearing children are not currently allowed to marry, and never, ever have been.
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Because it’s nothing at all similar to banning cross-racial marriage.
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Because marriage is not a right. We know this to be a fact because we can redefine the word “right” any way we like, changing it at a moment’s notice if necessary.
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Because I’m okay with legalizing polygamous marriages, and don’t see why the goverment wouldn’t want to, despite explanations and evidence. And because I’ve just proven that it’s okay to ban things without reasons, that makes it okay to ban gay marriage without reason too.
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Because the word “marriage”, which has only ever been used to refer to one-man-one-woman marriages, will immidately and permanently be ‘diluted’ if gay people are ever allowed to marry for a few months in California. This will kill us all, because diluted words carry germs.
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The government doesn’t have a reason to want to allow it. Similarly, we should never have given blacks the vote - I mean, why should we have? It hasn’t helped the government any.
and of course:
8) Because I fear gay people, and I need to strike back at what I fear. Of course, I don’t want to be called a homophobic bigot, so In pursuit of this goal, I will claim to believe any other dumbass “reason” I can think of, no matter how stupid it is or how obvious it is that I can’t possibly actually believe something that obviously stupid.
Did I miss any?
Gays are icky.
I think that’s covered under #8.
And that’s a violation of civil rights that should be overridden. Just like segregation was.
No, we know that they are married and we know what it means if the law allows them to be married.
But tomndebb has prohibited mention of the actual answer, which makes discussing it awkward. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pops in and forbids use of the word “homophobe” too. After all, that’s an insult too; any honest answer to the OP is going to be an insult, because the other side is just that bad.
Hate to disagree with you, but you didn’t read your own cite that well. The Blue Laws were considered to be progressive in 1909, when they were passed. And the repeal in 1966 was a bipartisan effort, with both the local Young Democrats and the local Young Republicans participating, along with the Seventh-Day Adventists (NOT a denomination particularly synonymous with “liberal”). The Blue Law situation was about as complicated on both ends as anything else in politics before about 1994.
This is such a tired mantra.
While some objections to homosexuals may be a product of “homophobia”, this is far from universally true, and to state it in the terms you have is either severely misguided or disingenuous.
Oh, really. And what would some of those perfectly reasonable, non-homophobic reasons to “object” to homosexuals be?
Most of us here aren’t going to accept “God said so”, so his quiver’s pretty empty.
You’ve been around a long while.
What makes you think that people read their own links? :dubious:
I’m not certain what you mean by “one half” and “the other half” in this context. The only thing that makes any sense is that you’re implying that one half of the definition of marriage is that it’s between opposite genders, and the other half is that it’s between only two people, not multiple. In fact, I think that the most important part of the definition of “marriage” (bearing in mind of course that definitions of words are not hard and fast things cast in stone somewhere) is neither of the above, but in fact has to do with the closeness and importance of the bond that is formed. I’ve discussed this at length with magellan01, most recently in post 340 in this thread, but it’s an important issue, so I’ll happily discuss it again.
Suppose you meet two people, and realize they’re involved with each other, and at some point you ask one of them “hey, are you two married”?. What information is it that you’re trying to glean? Is it what gender they are? (I mean, you might have met them on the SDMB, know only their screen names, and read a post in which someone else mentioned that X and Y are dating, so that you are aware they are in a romantic relationship of some sort without ever learning either’s gender.) Or is what you’d be asking about when asking if they’re married how committed and serious they are?
On a similar note, it’s frequently brought up in conversations like this that the word “marriage” is frequently used when making an analogy, as in “this company has successfully married its internet technology with its marketing savvy” or what have you. In that case, clearly “married” means something about the closeness and tight-intermingledness of the relationship, and has nothing to do with gender at all. Can you think of situations in which “marriage” is used in a similar not-actually-literally-referring-to-two-people-being-married sense but where the important part of the definition of “marriage” is not the closeness of the bond but rather the fact that it involves both a male and a female?
I claim that all of this shows us that the real essence, the real importance, the real MEANING of the word “marriage”, the thing that causes us to pick that word as opposed to other words, is the closeness of the bond, the commitment, the lifelong nature of the compact that the people have entered into. Sure it’s traditionally been between a man and a woman recently in Western culture, but that’s not the MEANING of the word. If gay marriage passes, and 5 years from now people are used to it, and you introduce someone as your wife (assuming you’re male), the existence of gay marriage won’t cause people to be confused as to what you mean. The message that “this is the woman I love, the woman I’ve made a lifelong commitment to, the woman with whom I’m part of a family unit” will still be clear, and unchanged from what it is today.
I realize that at this point I’ve only responded to a part of your post, but I feel like there’s already enough meat in what I’ve said that I’ll stop here, since I think this is a really key important issue, and I’m interested in your response. If there are other parts of your post you’d like me to respond to, I will happily do so as well.
And yet, the Supreme Court of the United States of America disagrees with you, to wit:
That’s a direct quote from the last time the SCOTUS ruled on the nature of marriage in this country. Which would be, for those playing the home game, Loving v. Virginia.
Now, Yorick73, you want to continue to say that marriage isn’t a right? And why your insistence of such trumps the highest court of the land?
Which is probably why he hasn’t responded. I see that a lot on this issue; the claim that there are perfectly good, non-homophobic reasons for the anti-SSM position - which somehow never actually get mentioned. No doubt because when someone actually tries to trot out some they turn out to be ridiculous.
let me join in on this
Then please by all means, tell us the reasonable non homophobic reasons. I’d sincerely like to hear even one because to date I never have.
I suppose you could argue that an objection based on religious belief based on some persons interpretation of a few passages in the Bible is not the same as being homophobic. It could also be easily argued that cloaking homophobic feelings in religious doctrinal garb doesn’t really change them.
Let me do that then.
‘There is not a government interest in encouraging procreation.’
It’s none of their goddamn business.
Well, looking at the preamble to the American Constitution, it makes reference to “our posterity”, which I take to mean future generations.
It strangely lacks any mention of keeping the buggery-chasers in their place, though, so I don’t see the problem of letting them marry, since I don’t see how this leads to a reduction in posterity-production. In the old days, I guess, gay men would live in shame and denial and would marry women and father children while under the belief that this was their normal social duty. Similarly women who liked other women would probably also marry and have children in an effort at normalcy. These unions don’t sound so perfect or domestically tranquil to me, I must say.
Anyway, yorick and raindog and those who agree are still invited to present their evidence, if they have any.