I'm not going to keep responding along these lines. You're chasing your own tail, but because you are convinced of your rightness of the conclusion FIRST, and that conviction is drawing you to build arguments that are truly anti-intellectual. Basically, I'm saying that you're making up crap as you go, and it's not working with me. Your position is now goes like this:

You think it's wrong. Got it. That doesn't mean you've got anything remotely close to a reasonable argument to support your position. You will help your cause much more if you're able to work through an actual argument that says more than "everything I believe is right."

We both already agree that the harmful discrimination is wrong. We both agree it is a problem. We have both proposed solutions to this problem. Both of those solutions end discrimination and have an egalitarian solution. There is little need to go back and justify any of the agreed on subjects in the same way there is no point in getting into a discussion of why I think slavery is wrong since we both agree it is.

What we disagree on is this little word trick you want to tack on to the legal expansion to include gays. Okay sure, I have given my arguements for this is stupid but what really gets me is your unwillingness to end the discrimination you agree is wrong NOW, if the opportunity comes up, by my solution which is the same as yours minus the word trick.


Of course let us be honest here and acknowledge that you have yet to offer in this thread a single justification for your views outside of a very flippant tactical argument that is almost immediately defeated when one considers the history of successes of marriage equality arround the world and in the US. You have hinted and insinuated that there are some unknown long term consequences, some speculation of future problems, perhaps even some religious freedoms being violated....but that just became some people thinking that who are not you. But have you actually given a single justification for your view that holds even a modicum of water?

As for this bit about history, let me ask you directly since (amazingly) you have to confirm or deny this. Do you think that my contention - that love and commitment are widely considered an integral component of marriage accross a diverse range of people both religious and not - is true? Perhaps they add the man and woman bit, but surely this contention is indeed true?

I went back and read some of your response specifically addressing history and my best guess based on your responses (none of which make an arguement themselves, just assert things about me) is that you are massively misconstruing my intentions. What, exactly, is your point?

Civil unions for all and civil marriages for none is "basically" there but for a word change. But civil unions for one group and civil marriages for another group is hugely different. Even if the two status have identical legal status (which, frankly, is usually not the case there are usually a range of legal differences), then you are calling one group of people one thing and another group of people a different thing. At this point the only point in the difference of names is the symbolic discrimination between these two groups. Imagine if black marriages got a different name than white marriages, sanctioned by the government. Your solution is vastly better than this because at least it is egalitarian.

What amuses me most is the flippant comments about "it only about the title marriage". Yet YOU are the one who is taking this title to such extremes that you want to entirely remove the title from any form of government before you could possible consent to making the legal status the same! It is YOU who is overvaluing this title enormously. And then you act diminutive of those who think gays getting the full title is important. Please.

Reread the Texas statute. The statute specifically refers to civil unions as well as marriages... So it's not just about not wanting to apply the term marriage to legally recognized same sex relationships, it is about making sure that no legal recognition is given to same sex relationships. There might be some small percentage of the population that really just does view this issue as one of definitions, but the vast majority of people who oppose marriage, and especially the most vocal opponents of it, are also going to oppose civil unions because they are fundamentally opposed to governmental recognition of same sex relationships. And if you don't agree with that, I don't think that you've been following the debates on these topics very closely.

And as far as taking the road of least confrontation, sometimes confrontation is necessary. When the Supreme Court struck down laws prohibiting interracial marriages, the majority of the population supported those laws and well over 50% of the states had laws on the books that prohibited interracial marriages. That was about 50 years ago, and now hardly anyone would support a return of those laws. Individual people might still think that members of a race should only marry other members of that race, but there is no significant organized movement that opposes governmental recognition of interracial marriage.

That acceptance didn't happen because interracial couples sat back and politely asked opponents to give them something that was kinda like marriage... They went to the courts, the courts ruled that they had a fundamental right to marry, they exercised that right, and society realized that was no big deal. And that's exactly what would happen with same sex marriage if we can just go ahead and get it recognized.

And, I am sure, exactly what will happen in the not so long term.

"marriage" is a generic trademark of a sort. No one calls what they have "a civil union" or "we've been civil unionized", everyone calls it marriage, civil or not, gay or not. Trying to separate them, post hoc, is likely to fail.

Right. But when you have 60% who favor civil unions or more, you have to wonder how strongly people really felt about no legal recognition at all. It's not like people voted line-by-line.

I think if you agree with that, you're paying too much attention to the vocal minority. Because the gay community is seen as trying to force the issue, they give more strength to the vocal group.

Sometimes you do need to be forceful. But I don't think this is one of those times. As I've noted, there's broad support for civil unions and even a (slight) majority that support gay marriage (though I think that number does not reflect various geographic regions nearly as well -- I think support is heavily biased by the larger population centers on the coasts). So with all of this in your favor, why do you still feel like it's appropriate to "force" this through?

The "right to marry" was supported by essentially unanimous decisions in the cases of race. Gay marriage does not have the same legal strength behind it right now. I think it was a 4-3 split in when it struck down in Massachusetts. You don't have the same legal force behind it because it's not as clear that you can declare marriage as "merely" a two-person agreement, and that there are a lot of reasons to think gender plays a role in the construction of the agreement. You also have statements on the level of constitutional amendments defining marriage in certain ways. You NEVER had that with interracial marriages.

PEOPLE will still call it marriage. But that's fine. It's about GOVERNMENT changing its language.

Your rhetoric makes me yawn and your continued inability to understand a view that is not your own amuses me.

I thought you wanted the government out of marriage or civil unions or whatever. Let the people define through contract their relationships with others and call it as they will. Generally I think the word marriage has been secularized and to separate 'civil unions' from the 'marriages' is a distinction without a difference, but I can see the benefit from removing perceived religious language from the secular government even if the people doing the perceiving are the religious.

Better translation: opinion polls are useless. Perhaps people say what they think is the "nice" answer, but vote differently. Who knows? Look at these numbers from N Carolina (Mar 2012):

Oppose any legal recognition for same sex couples 29.2%
Support civil unions or partnerships for same sex couples, but not full rights 29.1%
Full marriage rights for same sex couples 37.5%

% "at civil union or more" 66.6%


Another poll (Sep 2011):

State legislators are trying to pass a Constitutional amendment that would prohibit the recognition of marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships for LGBT couples. If the election was held today, how would you vote for this amendment? Their Opinion
Would vote for it 30%
Would vote against it 55%


I don't understand what these numbers really mean. Because...

On May 8, 2012, North Carolina voters approved the amendment, 61.05% to 38.95%


Anyway, what if religious marriage was officially renamed "Holy Matrimony"?
(I'm not joking, it's a serious question)

@Aaron:

Why do non-religious institutions have to forfeit the word "marriage"?

I understand that you want each religion to have the right to define which types of unions they sanctions and which they don't. I think I might agree with this although it irks me that they get a license to discriminate(*). Do religious institutions have more of a right to use the term? If yes, why?

Edit: OTOH if you don't like it, choose a different religion/denomination.

There's a difference between "would vote against it" and "will actually get off my ass to vote". Those opposing gay marriage are usually more motivated to go to the polls.

I can't speak for all gay people. No want wants to pay more. I'm sure they could be charged more if it was shown they were more expensive to cover. What does this have to do with whether or not they are allowed to marry?

I think I may used the wrong term? I mean if they have a relationship with someone and their partner dies, then do they inherit their partner's share of everything. Married couple don't have to worry about these things as its automatic and prevents things like being taxed on things you already own.

Of course its applicable. And has already been an issue with gay couples.

I don't know what you mean by this. But married people have a say in the medical care of their spouses... unmarried people may not even be able to see their partners who are sick and/or dying because they're not family.

In this part you just come across as ignorant. Is it safe to assume you're an unmarried kid since you seem completely ignorant of any of the legal benefits of being married. For you to claim they just want social acceptance while being completely ignorant of the legal ramifications of being able to marry just makes you look like an uneducated bigot.

Look at all this nothing:
another source Here's another from a general Family Law site (familylaw.com)-
Here's a general rights listing from wikipedia-
Saying its just about social acceptance demonstrates complete and total ignorance. Did you ever research it before you decided gays just wanted it for acceptance? I do enjoy though seeing good people like yourself demonstrating how judgemental they are apparently without doing a lick of research... demonstrating how you can judge the motivations of an entire group of people while simultanteously being completely ignorant on the subject you're judging them on. BRAVO!

But you're essentially proposing what pro-gay marriage people have been proposing.

I did some quick googling to see if there was ever polling done on Aaron's proposal but I couldn't find anything. Anybody else have anything?

Personally, I have enormous trouble believing that all those who right now refuse to accept the idea of a civil union for gays in conjunction with full legal marriage for themselves are going to be at all accepting of removing their long held cherished title and giving identical rights to both. If they can't even accept the separate but equal status, how are they going to accept the entirely equal status with them stripped of their title to boot? Given the strength of the latent homophobia that is preventing even civil unions from occurring, this idea just seems tactically to be incredibly naive.

Btw, the fact that my brief google didn't really turn up anything demonstrates just how far this idea is from being on the table, unlike expanding the legal definition which is very prevalent and one can find tonnes of information on and will be on various ballots in the next election.

Ya it is literally identical except it has the word switch. Ironically, when asked if he would vote for the proposition without the word switch it suddenly became impossible for him to accept.

He's not denying it's essentially a trick. (I think)

Though he would if he were a professional politician, maybe...

The underlying premise that has been presented to me (and the one that I work with) is that this is primarily about equal legal rights. If this is primarily about equal legal rights, then getting hung up on a factor that's irrelevant (what you call it) seems to be the wrong approach.

It's not that religious institutions have "more" of a right to use the term, it's just that fighting for/over that word is not helpful for advancing the legal rights issue (which is the actual issue).

I don't have the same anti-discrimination-at-all-levels position as most other people have. Private groups should have a lot of freedom to make decisions regarding whatever internal ceremonies they want. This move takes the marriage ceremony (and title) and makes it a private matter, just like baptisms and Bar Mitzvahs. Religious groups have a little ceremony, and it's meaningful and significant to the in-group, and the out-group can smile at it (either in mutual celebration or in condescension). And those religious groups can make whatever religious position they want around who can and can't participate in their ceremony. And it makes no difference because there is a clear distinction that this is a legally irrelevant ceremony.

I will grant that for some people, this is more than a legal rights issue. Some people (like Uke) wants to make this about a blanket social acceptance, that somehow forcing others to accept "gay marriage" sends a signal or whatever. That is, legal rights are "not enough." I respect that position, but I would also say that it's not my position, and it's not one that I would care to fight for.

In structure, yes. I am moving towards equal legal rights.

In strategy, no. I'm taking steps to avoid hangups over religious matters.

I've said it multiple times, but given that your fingers are in your ears, I'm not surprised that you haven't picked up on it.

By removing the religious aspects from the conversation, you remove the curtain of religion to expose the actual homophobia. You will force people to say outright "I am against gays having the right to <whatever>" and they need to ground their belief in something other than religion.

This is not a race. The route that appears to be the shortest may not be the best route, and may end up creating long term problems. (See "Shock and Awe.")

"Trick" may be a little bit strong. I'd call it a tactic (avoid unnecessary confrontations).

My argument is that this approach avoids the religious aspects completely because the primary bloc that is causing problems are those who have religious issues with the idea.

Also, 8 months is a very, very long time in terms of politics, and there are many conflating factors (what else is on the ballot?).

I think you're giving the people against gay marriage too much credit. Many of them have outright passed or attempted to pass legislation making even civil unions illegal.

I believe they don't want to give gays anything because of their hatred and fear of them. I always marvel at their focus on gays. Within their own ranks they can find 50% of the them getting divorced.... more people have affairs in their marriages then there are gay people wanting to get married. Gays are singled out for a special kind of attention.

And keep in mind, Aaron, many of the people don't think its about legal rights. As payandspray posted earlier, a common sentiment is that the gays aren't really interested in rights, they're looking for legitimization. Something they actively oppose. They aren't interested in them treated equally because they don't believe they are equal nor should they be.

We already know the solution your proposing won't be accepted by these people as they're actively trying to pass legislation making your compromise illegal.