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The Happy Warrior
Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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 Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| The Happy Warrior wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| I don't like the word marriage being used with gays. I am indifferent to them and fully support them having exactly identical benefits for their relationships as I have for mine, but using the word marriage puts me off. |
I think a lot of people feel this way, which is why the legal rights involved in marriage should just be packaged as civil unions and opened to any consenting adults who care to engage in them, while concepts like marriage should be non-legal arrangements with cultural or religious implication. It's fairest to everyone involved, and doesn't step on any tradition's toes. |
Nah. In the end, civil rights should not be subject to popular opinion. But I accept that often they are. |
I agree civil rights shouldn't be subject to popular opinion, which is why all the actual rights involved should be available to all adult citizens, regardless of the gender of their partner. The term marriage itself, however, is not a civil right, and I see no reason why we can't ensure people have access to these actual rights while simultaneously being respectful to those traditions with regards to terminology. |
Equality under the law also means equality of terminology. If someone calls heteros married and homos civilly united, there's (at least!) an implicit inequality. Or is your position that these terms are separate but equal? 
No, it seems its not that, either.
Now, if you're arguing that the first step is civil unions, and the end result is marriage, I can agree. But it seems like your position is, let's take marriage out of the whole legal terminology.
Marriage's origin is ultimately as Christian as the Christmas tree. This is made obvious once we read the New Testament and see the Apostles trying to grapple with the necessity of accepting marriage, while arguing that true servants of God would eschew a relationship that risks taking precedence over the rest of the community. And we see marriage in non-Christian society possessing the same cultural, non-religious roots as it does in the West.
Still, that may fail to touch your approach. Its unclear whether you want marriage to be a religious matter or only just a private matter. But if its a private matter, why should the state recognize the institution at all?
Ultimately, stripping the word marriage from the whole terminology will be more controversial (and unnecessary) than simply giving homosexuals the right that barren, childless heterosexuals enjoy.
Currently, US Constitutional theory recognizes marriage to be a fundamental right. The question is, does this apply to homosexuals? And the recent court decision also found that the State should recognize homosexual marriage on equal protection grounds. |
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NovaKart
Joined: 18 Nov 2009
Location: Iraq
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| Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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"Will you union me?"
"Here, have a slice of union cake"
"Just unioned"
"He's been unioned 3 times."
In the end it doesn't really matter what we call it but I can't help but feel a bit offended that hetero couples want to say, "OK you people can get married but don't use our word because our marriages are real and yours is just an imitation." |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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| The Happy Warrior wrote: |
Equality under the law also means equality of terminology.
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Agreed, which is why, as I said, everyone's relationship from a legal perspective would be a civil union, and all would have the same rights under the law. Marriage will be a term left to cultural or religious ceremonies (quote Fox: "...while concepts like marriage should be non-legal arrangements with cultural or religious implication."). Perhaps you slightly misread what I said? |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:12 pm Post subject: |
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| NovaKart wrote: |
In the end it doesn't really matter what we call it but I can't help but feel a bit offended that hetero couples want to say, "OK you people can get married but don't use our word because our marriages are real and yours is just an imitation." |
I don't want to say that. I want all the legal rights to come in a civil union package for everyone, gay or straight. As far as I'm concerned, you can then get married if you can find someone both willing to perform your marriage ceremony, and who you feel can perform it in a way that is meaningful to you. That might not end the debate, but it does shift the debate from a legal framework to a purely cultural and religious framework, which is where I feel it belongs. |
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The Happy Warrior
Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| The Happy Warrior wrote: |
Equality under the law also means equality of terminology.
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Agreed, which is why, as I said, everyone's relationship from a legal perspective would be a civil union, and all would have the same rights under the law. Marriage will be a term left to cultural or religious ceremonies (quote Fox: "...while concepts like marriage should be non-legal arrangements with cultural or religious implication."). Perhaps you slightly misread what I said? |
Okay, I honestly wasn't sure. But look above, and you'll see I entertained that this was what you might be suggesting.
So you're for equality. But its the same kind of equality as that of equal religious treatment that you see in France, where secularism forbids equally any expression (this is just an analogy, I'm definitely not saying marriage is solely a religious institution). |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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| The Happy Warrior wrote: |
So you're for equality. But its the same kind of equality as that of equal religious treatment that you see in France, where secularism forbids equally any expression (this is just an analogy, I'm definitely not saying marriage is solely a religious institution). |
I think we can forbid religious expression in the law without going as far as France (which forbids religious expression on an individual level in certain circumstances). I also think our society will be the better for it; any law that needs to invoke religion isn't a sound one, and any law that needs not invoke religion shouldn't. The state-sanctioned legal union of two people is an example of the latter, I feel. |
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The Happy Warrior
Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| any law that needs to invoke religion isn't a sound one, and any law that needs not invoke religion shouldn't. The state-sanctioned legal union of two people is an example of the latter, I feel. |
When I was living in Beijing, many Chinese were married. None thought the union had any religious conceptions. Marriage is such a dominant institution that of course religion has gotten involved, just as the government has. That doesn't mean marriage is essentially religious, anymore than charity is. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:25 pm Post subject: |
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| The Happy Warrior wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| any law that needs to invoke religion isn't a sound one, and any law that needs not invoke religion shouldn't. The state-sanctioned legal union of two people is an example of the latter, I feel. |
When I was living in Beijing, many Chinese were married. None thought the union had any religious conceptions. Marriage is such a dominant institution that of course religion has gotten involved, just as the government has. That doesn't mean marriage is essentially religious, anymore than charity is. |
The union of two individuals isn't essentially religious. The term marriage is in American society (which is the society we're discussing). That's why you have to reference China to make the point, because most Americans don't feel similarly. I don't think that's going to change in a reasonable time frame.
Regardless of what happens in other societies, our society mingling religious unions and legal unions has resulted in a social issue. The solution is clearly demarcating between those types of unions. |
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The Happy Warrior
Joined: 10 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
The union of two individuals isn't essentially religious. The term marriage is in American society (which is the society we're discussing). |
I strongly disagree. Religious institutions conduct most marriage ceremonies in the United States, but that is different from saying marriage is religious in the United States. |
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Kepler
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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10 reasons gay marriage is WRONG!
1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning. Also apparently those homosexual animals have picked up some unnatural behavior.
2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
3) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.
4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
8 ) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.
9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
http://www.democrats.com/node/6277 |
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