Despite my repeated provocations asking you WHY you won't prevent government sanctioned discriminationed against gay people who love each other, you didn't give me one. Pretty sad.

It is not just a matter of definition. It makes real differences to people's lives. The fact that marriage is illegal causes genuine harm to people who want to be married and cannot with numerous legal and social consequences that come from that. I don't have much of a problem if you personally want to exclusively define marriage as between a man and a woman. I think it is a stupid definition, but go right ahead. Where I have a problem is when one legislates that THEIR definition is the only one and everyone else has to live with it. Now that is great that you want government out of marriage, but in the interim until that happens you seem quite content to allow the discrimination - and harm that comes from that discrimination - to continue. To chalk it up as just a difference of definition is ridiculous.

What you have to do, what you have utterly failed to even begin to do, is give an argument or justification for why the harm caused by this discrimination is acceptable so much so that you would not vote to change it.


What is the purpose? It is just switching out the word "marriage" for the word "civil union" and this word play is just to appease those who GASP cannot accept the idea of the word "marriage" to apply to gay people. And I totally reject this is a tactically advantageous position. Many countries and jurisdictions have gone to full marriage equality quite fine and none that I know of have done this weird linguistic trick step.



You are the one who will not vote to end the government defining marriage in a way that discriminates against gays.



So explain it then! Why on earth would gender be relevant! GIVE YOUR JUSTIFICATION FOR THE DISCRIMINATION!
It depends on what you require for a "purpose." It also depends on whether that purpose needs to be explained in legal terms, or social terms, or religious terms (or if religious terms are even allowed).



Not at all. Just like this last thread, I have no idea why you seem to interpret everything I say as me binding you or holding you to something. It is truly a bizarre interpretation.

The reason I suggest all these things is that I think it is common that most people generically agree that discrimination is bad. THey agree that banning interracial marriages, for instance, is bad. But they don't apply the standard they hold in the rest of their lives to this issue. So if you actually don't have any standard like this and think that discrimination IS okay then great.



What, exactly, are these consequences or complexities? You keep stating they are there but I don't see them. The legal situation after accepting marriage is just the same as for any other marriage what is complicated by this?

What is the historical refutation? That because people were discriminatory in the past they can be today? Should I have looked to the history of slavery for clues on the morality of discriminating against blacks? What is this actual argument?

The problem is that the consequences of your voting would be to continue the status quo of discrimination. It is great that you have this pie in the sky work around...but as long as a bill comes before you on whether to continue the discrimination or not and you are choosing to continue the discrimination, you have to actually give a justification for that. And unlike your solution, bills like mine actually do come out as ballot initiatives.


Now you have this silly word play solution but let me ask: do you think that someone who thinks civil unions should not be allowed for gays is wrong and immoral and discriminatory and harmful and should be strongly reject?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...gotry-1057806/

Interestingly, the OP's name there is EasilyFound.

The real question, imo, is-- is it fair of aol (huff post) and numerous other news outlets to have headlines referring to chick-fila's "anti-gay" position.

"Anti-gay," imo, carries with it derogatory and possibly criminal connotations.

What's sad is that it's right in front of you, but you're too stubborn to see anything that's not your own view.

Nobody said definition makes no real difference in people's lives.

The fact that marriage remains a government-owned word perpetuates this. Hence, get government out of marriage.

Who says I'm attempting to legislate my definition? I'm trying to tell you that a better way out is to DE-legislate it.

You seem to be stuck on the short term. Granting short term relief creates long term issues. By giving MORE people legal marriage rights, it only perpetuates the problem. It doesn't actually solve anything. Furthermore, it will become even MORE difficult to get the necessary correction in place if we placate those who are focused on the short term fix.

Definitions drive lots of things, including governments. Your issue currently resides with a government. It's not nearly as ridiculous as you seem to think it is.

You're making the WRONG ARGUMENT.

The purpose is to reach a point in the political system in which equality actually exists. If changing the wording will do this, then why not change the wording?

Other countries that have made the switch do not have the same strong religious groups to deal with. This seems to me to be a battle over words, so why not take the problematic words out of the system?

I would vote to do it. Just not by making the problem worse. You're playing a game where your way is the only way. Too bad that's not connected to reality. Your way is NOT the only way.

Two different things is not the same thing as two same things. That's why it's relevant.

Let's see:

Why are these the relevant factors? Because you say so?

Why is this so? Because you say so?

You are asking me to answer challenges that I deem to be randomly held and irrelevant. I'm arguing that the best way forward is to get government out of marriages. Your counter to that is asking me why I'm for discrimination, and repeatedly challenging me on that question.

The real issue is that you disagree with the solution I'm presenting. But rather than construct an actual argument, you'll simply spout out your talking points about your solution, and argue as if those points have meaning relative to what I'm saying.

I think that discrimination takes many forms which are perfectly normal. I've noted that ethnic groups discriminate with regards to marriage on the basis of ethnicity, and I don't see any issues with this. There are values that the group wishes to express, and that's how they choose to express it.

Religious groups hold a value of marriage being of a certain form. This is a value they want to express. This form of discrimination is not different than Mormons declaring that your marriage isn't complete unless you're been married in a Mormon temple.

That's because you're blind.

The historical argument is a direct refutation of the characterization of marriage that you've given. It's also a recognition that the disagreement *actually* exists, and that your characterization of it is faulty.

Sometimes, to reach the end goal, you've got to turn down short term gains.

That depends on what a civil union (ie, legal definition) is and what it actually entails.

Can you see with this last question how you're really trying to demagogue the conversation? Can you at least be *THAT* honest with yourself?

It does (usually) carry derogatory connotations towards homosexuals and it is a position which infers criminalizing marriage between two parties of the same sex.

So, you got that right at least.

Aaron, you may have mentioned this, and I missed it, but...if the government gets out of the marriage business, and only issues civil union certificates, what would stop homosexuals from getting 'married' in a strictly religious ceremony? It seems you would only be adding another step.

They *could* get married in a religious ceremony, but only for a religion that accepts their marriage. So they can be religiously married, but that marriage only bears significance for that particular religion.

I don't have to accept Mormon marriages, and they don't have to accept church-of-Aaron marriages. But we all have to abide by the laws pertaining to civil unions.

And if a couple Baptist churches decided to allow gay marriage, would that bear significance to your religion?

What do you mean by 'accept' Mormon marriages? It's starting to sound like No True Scotsman.

"No, Mormons can't really get married."

...Did not realize that saying "I support traditional marriage" means "I believe in criminalizing gay marriage, sending them off to jail, and locking them up!"

If you say so, brah.

Errr, it's already criminalized. Guess what happens when the law gets broken.

Not particularly. Since my religious concept of marriage is primarily a social institution (a God-ordained one -- ie, a religious one -- but it's still just a social institution), there's no particular significance for me if some Baptist church decides to marry people.

The theology of marriage is a bit different than the Mormons. The Mormons hold to eternal marriages, and populating planets with spirit babies and such, so their marriages bear a different type of theological significance.

I mean that the fact that they've been married in at a temple carries no significance in any way to me in terms of how I treat them. I don't really care about their ceremony, in the same sense that I view an adult Jew as an adult even if he never had a Bar Mitzvah.

Fair enough. It just seems like a strange workaround for relatively little (if any) benefit.

Let me back up for a second. The problem we are trying to solve is that the status quo is discriminatory and harmful (tell me if you disagree) and, as such, ought to be changed. It is a problem formed, for the most part, because a large number of primarily religious people do not want gay people involved in the institution of marriage they think ought to be only for them. Since you are proposing a solution, it seems safe to say you agree there is a problem.

We have two different solutions to this problem. Mine is the solution done around the world which is to simply make the tiny change of including the LEGAL definition of marriage to be irrespective of gender (you, personally, can have whatever definition you like). This solution has been, for the most part, successful and does not have any negative ramification that I can see and is quite pragmatic at actually being implemented. The numerous economic, legal, and social consequences the problem put on LGBT members is solved - and I have seen first hand the joy given to my mothers in law from this policy in Canada.

Your solution is to likewise expand the legal definition of this framework to be irrespective of gender but to ALSO change the legal word used. Presumably the legal situations would be identical in our two scenarios we would just call it civil union in your case and marriage in mine. Eitherway, the main issue of the lack of legal and social benefits is resolved. Pragmatically, there are no jurisdictions that have taken your solution and it seems incredibly unlikely to occur.

So since you are proposing something further (the change of name, not just the expanding legal aperatus that we both seemingly agree should be expanded) you have to justify WHY you want to change that. The only argument I have seen thus far is a tactical argument that it is more likely to occur in the religious US and that it fixes some unidentified long term problems you have not elaborated on. But I don't think you want this just because of a the tactical arguments that I think are silly. It is this issue, the justification of why you want to additionally change the name, that you have fallen short on.I know the (spurious, in my mind) justifications that others give for this, but not yours. Not only have you not demonstrated why your solution is a good one, you have not demonstrated why my solution is a bad one. Can you argue for either side?

Now I think your solution is bad, despite it coming the majority of the way to the end goal: equal status for both. I think there is a tactical problem with your solution as I have laid out. But more importantly, what you have added is at best a word trick. And it is a word trick that is being used, presumably, to appease people who don't want their notion of that word to be allowed to apply to gays. There is a symbolism here that marriage ought to ONLY apply to straight people and your plan does not resolve that symbolism. Instead, we should resolve the discriminatory symbolism in the word as well as the legal situation.

And now, select few replies from the microquote mess.


If you give gays the right to marry, how does that perpetuate the problem? In fact it solves ALL the problems I can think of in one swoop. Now the widespread harm from discrimination is eliminated and any two people that love each other CAN indeed be married. What further step or longer term issue is there?

Imagine if someone back in the day had said this same argument about interracial marriage. Oh no I couldn't possible vote to end that because my goodness that would just create more problems and not solve the long term ones. Please.


Because there is a vastly simpler solution, the one already achieved in many jurisdictions around the world: simply accept gay marriage legally. Problem solved. But let us turn the question around, if simply expanding the definition will do this, then why not change the definition?




Sorry what? If a bill in your state comes up to legalize gay marriage do you legalize it or not? I thought you answered "no" to that to which I submit you ought to present your justification. Did I read that wrong?



That doesn't answer anything. I know there is a difference. I am asking why it is a RELEVANT difference. For example, skin colour is NOT a relevant difference. Height is not a relevant difference. IQ is not a relevant difference. Why is sexual orientation a relevant difference? That is what you have utterly failed to justify in any way.


So state them. If I have no idea what these major consequences are, and you do, just tell me.


Who cares about the nit picky details? A civil union much as it is in many states either identical or close to that in legal ramifications. You seem to accept civil unions for everyone. So do you think that NOT allowing civil unions for gays would be discriminatory and harmful and the like?

There are also various libertarian and also some lefty types that propose the same solution.

But they are usually more that government shouldn't have any legal structure in place at all (ie not the one we typically call marriage) and government has no place in this institution. Aaron seems to support the continuing legal structure - expanded to include gays - but just demands that we call it a different name for some unknown reason.

The benefit is providing a much clearer distinction between the legal and the religious, which I think is generally beneficial.

For this specific instance, it has the benefit of getting certain religious groups over their hurdles to accepting legal rights for gay couples. I don't think that many people REALLY have issues with inheritance laws and hospital visitations.