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 whembly wrote:
But, to those groups, "marriage" is more than a secular concept.

What's your point? Separation of church and state means that their opinion doesn't matter. Marriage is a secular concept, and the government should not pay any attention to their demands for ownership of it.

They have every right to say it.

Just like you and I have every right to tell them to STFU.

Then why aren't you applying the same standard to religious opposition to gay marriage? Why don't you argue that they have every right to say they own "marriage", but nobody has to listen to them? What makes their demands more reasonable than the hypothetical KKK demand?

 Peregrine wrote:

 whembly wrote:
But, to those groups, "marriage" is more than a secular concept.

What's your point? Separation of church and state means that their opinion doesn't matter. Marriage is a secular concept, and the government should not pay any attention to their demands for ownership of it.

You see... it isn't codified into law.

They have every right to say it.

Just like you and I have every right to tell them to STFU.

Then why aren't you applying the same standard to religious opposition to gay marriage? Why don't you argue that they have every right to say they own "marriage", but nobody has to listen to them? What makes their demands more reasonable than the hypothetical KKK demand?

Simple.

How many voters are there?

Tyranny of the majority time?

 Frazzled wrote:
Eliminate marriage as a governmental contract. Then everyone can do whatever the heck they want.

This is very bad unless you're a lawyer who needs some extra work. Right now marriage as a legal contract does a very good job of standardizing the various benefits and responsibilities involved in joining two people into a single unit. If you remove that government standardization you force every couple to create their own contracts, every insurance company to have to figure out which private contracts (if any) should be recognized, every court involved in a child custody dispute to have to figure out how to handle whatever private contract the people involved came up with, etc. And all of the lawyers involved cost money, money that currently doesn't have to be spent.

And what do we gain in return for this massive increase in legal bills? The ability to protect a few bigots from having their precious feelings hurt by letting someone else do something they don't approve of.


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 whembly wrote:
You see... it isn't codified into law.

It isn't, but there is overwhelming legal precedent that it exists.

Simple.

How many voters are there?

What does that have to do with anything? Your argument was that we need to show tolerance for all positions, and find the middle ground between all of the extremists.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Eliminate marriage as a governmental contract. Then everyone can do whatever the heck they want.

This is very bad unless you're a lawyer who needs some extra work. Right now marriage as a legal contract does a very good job of standardizing the various benefits and responsibilities involved in joining two people into a single unit. If you remove that government standardization you force every couple to create their own contracts, every insurance company to have to figure out which private contracts (if any) should be recognized, every court involved in a child custody dispute to have to figure out how to handle whatever private contract the people involved came up with, etc. And all of the lawyers involved cost money, money that currently doesn't have to be spent.

And what do we gain in return for this massive increase in legal bills? The ability to protect a few bigots from having their precious feelings hurt by letting someone else do something they don't approve of.

Not at all. Its happening all the time with unmarried couples.
Alternatively the state can create a "civil compact" that anyone can sign onto who is of legal age and consenting. All those rights and duties are granted (once you pay the tax .
Anyone can call themselves married. Thats up to them.

 Peregrine wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
You see... it isn't codified into law.

It isn't, but there is overwhelming legal precedent that it exists.

Exactly.

That's why we're seeing all these court cases left and right.

If it were codified in to law (either the separation of church and state or Civil Union), we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Simple.

How many voters are there?

What does that have to do with anything?

Take a step back and look at this politically.

Your argument was that we need to show tolerance for all positions, and find the middle ground between all of the extremists.

*sigh*

And I thought we can have a reasonable debate.

Answer me this in simplistic terms, why should same-sex marriage be allowed?

The rhetoric in here is getting way too shrill and flamebaity. Please keep it light folks or head to some other forum where political bickering is the point.

 Manchu wrote:
The rhetoric in here is getting way too shrill and flamebaity. Please keep it light folks or head to some other forum where political bickering is the point.

Yea jive turkeys. Don't be hatin yo.
this thread needs to get back on topic - wedding cakes!

But wedding cakes are awful.

Chocolate fudge cakes with those caramel curls... mmmm

 MrDwhitey wrote:
But wedding cakes are awful.

Chocolate fudge cakes with those caramel curls... mmmm

I see that and raise you by an Ameretto Cake!

Like I said, ours was delicious.

@Peregrine - I think the argument can be made that in the United States marriage has never been perceived as a secular institution, regardless of it's history.

I personally don't care who marries whom. It isn't my business who you want to live with or feth or love (and quite frankly, I don't think the government should have any say in ANY of those things). I think removing the "marriage" language from the vernacular, due to its perceived history in the United States would hasten the legalization unilaterally.

The only place I draw the line is putting the same sex couple on the birth certificate, being that it's physically impossible.

Beyond that, feth who you want, marry who you want, smoke what you want (in your own home), and think what you want. Not my business.

I think when it comes to the birth certificate that's just a matter of factual record keeping isn't it?

 cincydooley wrote:

The only place I draw the line is putting the same sex couple on the birth certificate, being that it's physically impossible.

Actually... I think you can.

I need to check my boy's certificate, but I thought there was a checkbox that annotates "biological" parent... or something.

 cincydooley wrote:
Like I said, ours was delicious.

@Peregrine - I think the argument can be made that in the United States marriage has never been perceived as a secular institution, regardless of it's history.

I personally don't care who marries whom. It isn't my business who you want to live with or feth or love (and quite frankly, I don't think the government should have any say in ANY of those things). I think removing the "marriage" language from the vernacular, due to its perceived history in the United States would hasten the legalization unilaterally.

The only place I draw the line is putting the same sex couple on the birth certificate, being that it's physically impossible.

Beyond that, feth who you want, marry who you want, smoke what you want (in your own home), and think what you want. Not my business.

Agreed. A note on the birth certificate. Thats important as its genetic. If a person adopts a child their name doesn't go on the birth certificate (I know...I explored it).

 whembly wrote:
That's why we're seeing all these court cases left and right.

If it were codified in to law (either the separation of church and state or Civil Union), we wouldn't be having this discussion.

No, we're having this discussion because of two reasons:

1) Bigots who won't let go of the idea that "someone is doing something I don't approve of in their bedroom" is a legitimate reason for the government to step in and prevent it.

and

2) Republicans who have figured out that if you make a lot of noise about how you hate the same people that Jesus hates all the religious conservatives will vote for you, even though what you really care about is looting the country to make yourself and all of your rich friends even richer. And hey, all of these court cases are funded by the taxpayers, so it's not like it costs them anything to keep fighting.

If this issue was decided purely on its legal merits then gay marriage would have been universal a long time ago. The courts have been near-unanimous in ruling in favor of gay marriage, and anyone who has been paying attention can see that the only reason it hasn't been decided everywhere else is that the cases are still working their way through the court system. All current gay marriage bans are going to fall as soon as the legal challenges to them reach the appropriate court, and legalizing gay marriage won't be far behind. The only reason to keep fighting to oppose the inevitable is to make a political point about how much you hate (or at least pretend to hate) gay people.

Answer me this in simplistic terms, why should same-sex marriage be allowed?

Because if it isn't you're discriminating against gay people. Why should this be any more controversial than allowing interracial marriage?

 MrDwhitey wrote:
I think when it comes to the birth certificate that's just a matter of factual record keeping isn't it?

In Ohio (and I think many other states) they actually only require the biological mother to be on it (which I disagree with; I think both should be required).

It became an issue earlier this year in Cincinnati, though .

In my opinion, which I admit means very little, the birth certificate should be use solely for biological parents.

 cincydooley wrote:
@Peregrine - I think the argument can be made that in the United States marriage has never been perceived as a secular institution, regardless of it's history.

And I would disagree with that argument. There has always been separation of church and state (which is why you have courthouse weddings at all, you file paperwork after your priest does their thing, etc), and now it's becoming even more common to get married outside of traditional religious ceremonies.

I think removing the "marriage" language from the vernacular, due to its perceived history in the United States would hasten the legalization unilaterally.

But it's already inevitable, and happening pretty quickly. Why appease a few bigots when you can just tell them to STFU and get the same end result?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
Alternatively the state can create a "civil compact" that anyone can sign onto who is of legal age and consenting. All those rights and duties are granted (once you pay the tax .

But how is that any different than having government-recognized marriage? You have the exact same thing, just with a different name. All you've done is concede control over the term "marriage" to the obnoxious religious groups who demand exclusive ownership of it, something the government shouldn't have any interest in doing.

 Peregrine wrote:

Answer me this in simplistic terms, why should same-sex marriage be allowed?

Because if it isn't you're discriminating against gay people.

K... then, you'd have no problem with States calling it a Civil Union then.

I mean, after all, everyone is treated equally.

 whembly wrote:
K... then, you'd have no problem with States calling it a Civil Union then.

I mean, after all, everyone is treated equally.

That would technically be equality, but there's no reason to do it that way other than appeasing a few obnoxious bigots who don't deserve any appeasement. You know, kind of like how it would be equal if we listened to a hypothetical KKK demand to replace "marriage" with "race-mixing union" for everyone so that they wouldn't be offended by having "marriage" applied to interracial couples.

 Peregrine wrote:

 whembly wrote:
K... then, you'd have no problem with States calling it a Civil Union then.

I mean, after all, everyone is treated equally.

That would technically be equality, but there's no reason to do it that way other than appeasing a few obnoxious bigots who don't deserve any appeasement. You know, kind of like how it would be equal if we listened to a hypothetical KKK demand to replace "marriage" with "race-mixing union" for everyone so that they wouldn't be offended by having "marriage" applied to interracial couples.

Your example is the KKK trying to change the definition of marriage from a man and a women. So yes its pretty much the same. Marriage doesnt say anything about race, simply man and women.

People want to keep it man and women, some groups like your hypothetical KKK want to change that to something else to fit their views instead of the normal marriage.

So a gay couple wanting to get married is changing the definition of marriage in the traditional sense, just like the KKK in your example is trying to change marriage into something else.

A civil union is the bond between 2 people, marriage is between man and women.

The kkk changing that is no different to the gay couple changing that.

I think thats pretty easy to understand.

 whembly wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Answer me this in simplistic terms, why should same-sex marriage be allowed?

Because if it isn't you're discriminating against gay people.

K... then, you'd have no problem with States calling it a Civil Union then.

I mean, after all, everyone is treated equally.

Wasn't this the basis of "Separate but equal".

Making them different only allows for one to make laws against the other. Sure it's "Civil Unions", but it doesn't give them the benefits of "Marriage".

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Answer me this in simplistic terms, why should same-sex marriage be allowed?

Because if it isn't you're discriminating against gay people.

K... then, you'd have no problem with States calling it a Civil Union then.

I mean, after all, everyone is treated equally.

Wasn't this the basis of "Separate but equal".

Making them different only allows for one to make laws against the other. Sure it's "Civil Unions", but it doesn't give them the benefits of "Marriage".

Its only different if the govenment still recognizes marriage. If everything is default Civil Union then its the same. If the couple want to call themselve married thats their business.

 Frazzled wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Answer me this in simplistic terms, why should same-sex marriage be allowed?

Because if it isn't you're discriminating against gay people.

K... then, you'd have no problem with States calling it a Civil Union then.

I mean, after all, everyone is treated equally.

Wasn't this the basis of "Separate but equal".

Making them different only allows for one to make laws against the other. Sure it's "Civil Unions", but it doesn't give them the benefits of "Marriage".

Its only different if the govenment still recognizes marriage. If everything is default Civil Union then its the same. If the couple want to call themselve married thats their business.

That makes more sense then, thank you. I thought it was a thought that both would have their own group.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Wasn't this the basis of "Separate but equal".

Nope. Not even close.

Edit: ninja'ed by the Great Weinie worshipper.

The Great Wienie is wise. I am merely His trumpet.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Marriage doesnt say anything about race, simply man and women.

Clearly you missed the debate over interracial marriage, where people DID argue that race matters and it took a supreme court ruling for that to end (and decades of social change before it was widely accepted). The comparison is valid.

Hey Frazz - I read a study this week that said weiner doggs are actually the most aggressive dog breed! You familiar with this?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Marriage doesnt say anything about race, simply man and women.

Clearly you missed the debate over interracial marriage, where people DID argue that race matters and it took a supreme court ruling for that to end (and decades of social change before it was widely accepted). The comparison is valid.

I did miss that debate, because marriage/racial issues are hardly a thing in my country. Didnt even know it was an issue.

Im just saying, that changing marriage regardless if you agree or not, is still changing marriage which people have an issue with. Hence why the issues are around.

Wither you change to include gays, or change to exclude other nationalities. Both are/where trying to change marriage.

 cincydooley wrote:
Hey Frazz - I read a study this week that said weiner doggs are actually the most aggressive dog breed! You familiar with this?

Wrong, its actually Chihuahuas..
Their brave and aggresive, just stupid though.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
Hey Frazz - I read a study this week that said weiner doggs are actually the most aggressive dog breed! You familiar with this?

Wrong, its actually Chihuahuas..
Their brave and aggresive, just stupid though.

There is a fine line between braveness and stupidity.