Yeah, I hear what you say but I don't see why everyone should move at the pace of the bigots who aren't dying quick enough. If there were a legitimate argument against gay marriage then I'd have more sympathy, but your position basically amounts to "as long as there enough people who don't want the status quo to change, then status quo should be preserved irrespective of the rights or wrongs of the status quo". I don't and won't accept that position no matter how true it might be; it isn't right and it isn't fair.
Actually, that's exactly right as an analogy. And yes, I'd be absolutely fine with him renaming his car a Cutlass. It doesn't change a single thing about my car.
Oh well, reasonable blocker was fun to discuss things with...you wanna go back to being difficult, so be it. Man I miss the TT forum. We are speaking on the laws as they pertain to marriage...NOT as they pertain to having children. I have shown that they are mutually exclusive, legally speaking. Why you continue to lump them together to make your point is beyond me. Most is not all. A pair of 75 year olds, who will NEVER have children receive the same benefits as a potential parental pair at the age of 20. THAT is equality. There is no reason those 75 year olds should receive more benefits from their union in the eyes of the government than a same sex couple. Period. End of story. "Equal Rights...and justice..." -Bob Marley
Yes, that's a pretty fair characterization of my position. Which isn't to say that I wouldn't vote for gay marriage if it were on the ballot in my state. My state allows gay marriage, and I would have much preferred it if the issue were passed through a democratic process, but the decision of the Massachusetts court was actually pretty sound. In this debate, though, "bigot" is a forced term. It doesn't fit. If it did, millions of people over 5000 years of history could fairly be called "bigots" for not stopping to consider how someday a woman might want to marry another woman. Courts have rejected the concept of bigotry in this debate, and that's really what's important. It flips the debate on its head.
Seems the car analogy has had too much play. I brought it up because that was one of the big arguments among experts in the California gay marriage case. Not about cars, but about the essence of marriage.
Because if he and others like it go on the market and resell their Pacers to people who think they are Cutlasses, then they devalue the name in the marketplace.
The question is not how MY marriage is affected. It is how society would be affected. Your question is not relevant. The proper concern is whether it is good social policy to change the millenia long definition of marriage. To answer that one looks at society as a whole, not some small part of it. Having said that, changes to society as a whole certainly can and will affect people and situations within society. Let's focus on how your question is stupid - I pay X dollars in taxes. You decide you are not going to pay anything, and come up with some fraudulent scheme to avoid doing so. I still owe the same amount of money. Why should I care you pay nothing? Because obviously if IN SOCIETY AS A WHOLE people get away with tax avoidance, those who pay taxes do in fact suffer. Your question is irrelevant and immature.
OK, change the word Pacer in the (now exceptionally tortured!) analogy to Impala, or Town Car, or 911, or whatever the hell you like. Now it's not devaluing it, now they're actually making your Cutlass more valuable. The success of your statement all depends on whether you view same sex relationships as being more or less valuable than heterosexual relationships.
No, it isn't. You've just made several true statements that carefully say absolutely nothing in response to the question. No-one's arguing that changes to social constructs can and do have an impact upon society. Now tell us how allowing same sex marriage has a negative impact.
But that wasn't the question. The question was: "How two people of the same sex getting married affects their (gay marriage opponents) marriage in any way?" That question has nothing to do with nothing. There are other reasons to oppose gay marriage that have nothing to do with how it would affect an individual's own marriage.
There was nothing about my quoted post that called for your opening response. You certainly did not identify why it did. You did not show the laws that apply to marriage and raising children are mutually exclusive. To be mutually exclusive the law would have to say that one cannot benefit from both circumstances. You effectively conceded, since it is obviously the case you had no choice, that straight couples who have children benefit on both counts. More to the point it is ridiculous to talk about social policy regarding marriage if you insist that child raising cannot be considered. Why should that follow? Again, most straight couples who as of the time they get married are childless have the potential to bear children, and most of them actually at some point do. this being the general case, why should society limit some of the supports available to couples who in the end do not have children? I think the answer is obvious, that any such test would too involve the government in private situations and the assessment thereof. Some sort of bureaucracy would be necessary to draw the disctinctions you imply would have to be made. No such approach is necessary regarding the simple requirement that marriage be only between a man and a woman.
No, now your just confusing the marketplace as to what a cutlass or pacer or marriage is. That is one of my main points don't change the definition of marriage. A marriage is man and women any other union should have it's own word. It is not lessoning it, just defining it so society can know what it is.
Make no mistake about it, I do think straight relationships DO have more value, and we went over that yesterday. I think children benefit from having role models of both sexes in their homes, since when they enter the world they will be dealing with people of both sexes. That's enough. That's all I need, to conclude such relationships are better. Anyway the car analogy has been overdrawn, but I will say if someone calls an Impala a Cutlass it devalues the Cutlass even if the Impala is better since it adds confusion, but you see here how the analogy is losing utility.
Definitions of marriage on the Web: the state of being a married couple voluntarily joined for life (or until divorce); "a long and happy marriage"; "God bless this union" two people who are married to each other; "his second marriage was happier than the first"; "a married couple without love" the act of marrying; the nuptial ceremony; "their marriage was conducted in the chapel" a close and intimate union; "the marriage of music and dance"; "a marriage of ideas" I don't care either way to be honest but these definitions say nothing of a union between man and woman. These do but doesn't count them out. Main Entry: mar·riage Pronunciation: \ˈmer-ij, ˈma-rij\ Function: noun Etymology: Middle English mariage, from Anglo-French, from marier to marry Date: 14th century 1 a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage> b : the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock c : the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage 2 : an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities 3 : an intimate or close union <the marriage of painting and poetry — J. T. Shawcross>
You haven't answered either, despite both of them having been asked several times for several days. Enough of my life has now been spent on this thread.
We had this discussion about the definition before in another thread. The dictionarys changed a while ago to not specifing who has to be in the union. For this discussion however we have been using the traditional definition of between a man and a women and that is what I was refering to.
Both questions have been answered. You just don't like the answers. devil's question was answered insofar as he was shown his question is not relevant. You unwittingly agreed with this answer by restating his to be something very different, since you concede his question was not the right one. Your question also has been answered. Society benefits from encouraging the birth and raising of children in families headed by a man and a woman, because children born into such settings usually are born to their natural parents and will have a role model from both sexes, facilitating their later entry into society as a whole. You may not like this answer, or may disagree with it, but it is a lie that the question has not been answered.
