holmes responds to me:
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This is about a name on a legal contract because the name currently used has a historic traditional definition.
"Separate but equal." It doesn't work.
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Last I checked marriage has nothing to do about pair bonding... looks again at laws
Laws reflect society. While there is a long history of marriage being a monetary contract, that isn't why most people get married in this country.
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What, pray tell, is different about the relationship between people that is dependent upon the sex of the participants? You're saying that gay people don't love each other the way straight people do.
Well, given the level of incredulity I am seeing, I'm beginning to wonder if many have the intellectual capacity to fully consent.
Non sequitur. Shall we try again? Do gay people love each other the way straight people do? What is different about the relationship between people that is dependent upon the sex of the participants.
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We both know I don't think there is a difference in how anyone loves each other, or that this is what I am discussing.
But that's the argument you're supporting. By calling it something else, you necessarily define it as distinct and different. Separate can never be equal.
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Nice try, but I was not the one saying that finding a religious rite was justification. That was you. You were the one saying that there was no religious recognition of same-sex couples until recently and that that was justification to say that recognizing same-sex couples today is some sort of change to the "traditional" idea.
You just can't get your facts straight. I was not asking for justification.
(*sigh*)
Do I need to construct a quote file for you, too? And how very nice of you not to link to the post to which you were responding which makes it difficult to trace the thread back in order to find your original words.
Message 199
Fifth, if you wish to use this as a reason that rights should be given, then why are you not fully behind polygamy, incestuous, and pedophilic marriages.
Message 119
It hurts because pretty much worldwide, in just about every religious tradition, there is no such thing as gay marriage.
So that's twice you invoked religious history in order to justify a denial of same-sex marriage. I wasn't the one who brought it up, holmes. That was you.
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Um, please explain to me how your arguing for "a different name on a legal contract giving the exact same rights" as something that is "possible" is not arguing for "separate but equal."
It's simply using a different name and definitional requirements for participants on a legal contract?
Which is the very definition of "separate but equal."
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Since we know that there is no way to ever have "a different name on a legal contract giving the exact same rights," how is that ever "possible"?
You don't know this because it is not true.
Right. Then you can give me an example where it happened. Show me where a legal contract was called two different things and were always treated identically.
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I suppose I could have been more clear using business licenses rather than motor vehicle ones. States have different contracts with different names (and forms) depending on the structural organization.
But that's because they're different contracts! A limited liability corporation is not the same as an incorporated entity and neither are the same as a partnership nor a sole proprietorship. They have different rules and responsibilities. That's why they have different names. They're not the same thing. If they were the same thing, they'd have the same name. This is basic law, holmes.
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For much of these the differences are entirely semantic. Business law pertains to all of them.
Right...so when you sue a sole proprietorship, can you go after the assets of the proprietor or are you limited only to the assets of the business?
Only in the most naive sense does "business law pertain to all of them." They are all business structures, they are all regulated by law, therefore "business law" as an entire field applies to all of them. However, business law treats them differently because they are different entities.
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The only way to do that is to treat them identically...which requires calling them the same thing. Whether that term is "marriage" or "civil union" is immaterial. However, the term needs to be identical or there will be legal discrepancies between the two.
All that is needed is a law, which could even be a part of the law creating the new legal contract, that they are both covered by laws and legal precedents regulating or giving rights to either.
But that isn't the way the law works. By definition, if you call it something different, then you are explicitly declaring that they are different. Why else would you have a separate term for something that is identical?
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No, I don't recall saying that at all. Are you sure it was me? I have never said anything about polygamy and breaking the law.
Yes, yes you did.
Prove it. I want to see the message where I said it. We had no such discussion. Oh, we talked about polygamy, yes, and we discussed how some polygamists engage in a hub-and-spoke type of relationship in comparison to a maximally interconnected relationship. You may recall that I pointed out that this is a question that shows how polygamy is fundamentally distinct from same-sex marriage when comparing it to mixed-sex marriage: Polygamy changes the administrative design of marriage while same-sex marriage does not. The fact that you have to ask the question of "What do you mean by 'polygamy'" shows that it is logically distinct from same-sex marriage. But we never, ever discussed anything about marriage contracts actually being issued.
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Wait a minute...you just said that opposite sex was not mentioned in the law books. Now you're saying that it was. Which is it?
Yes, pay attention to what I am saying will you? There were no laws originally against same sex unions.
Incorrect.
As I pointed out to you, and you so glibly ignored, the reason why the various legal challenges to the marriage laws were carried out in the states that they were was specifically because those states did not explicitly state that marriage was between a man and a woman. For example, Maryland had marriage legally defined as between a man and a woman since 1973. New Hampshire's the same way: The law was on the books long before Baehr v. Miike and DOMA.
Previous legal challenges to anti-marriage laws were carried out in states that explicitly stated that marriage was between a man and a woman and were always rejected. Then, in Hawaii, a case was brought specifically because the Hawaii marriage laws do not mention the sex of the participants and specifically because the Hawaii constitution has an equal rights clause on the basis of sex.
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And let's be honest here, race was mentioned in the law books as a pre-req. That's the entire point behind Loving v. Virginia.
I am a victim of brevity, both my writing and your attention span. You will note that I did reference the existence of such laws in the following...
Same race was not set law, and while discrimination like this was "common", it was not wholesale.
Not just brevity but plain not saying what you mean. In direct contradiction to your stated claim, same race
WAS set law. It wasn't just "discrimination" in the sense that a mixed-race couple would walk in to city hall and the clerk would refuse to give them a license because they didn't want to. It was because it was
illegal to get married to someone not of your race. That was entire point behind Loving v. Virginia: They were married in DC and were threatened with arrest when they returned to Virginia. The choice was to go to jail or leave the state.
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Incorrect. At the time of Loving v. Virginia, 16 states, nearly one-third of the nation, had miscegenation laws on the books.
I do not in any way see a discrepancy between my statement and yours regarding the facts. 1/3 of the nation does not mean same race marriage was the set law of the land
Yes, it does. At the time that Loving v. Virginia was decided, 70% of the country thought that it should be illegal for mixed-race couples to marry. Even when Kentucky finally took its miscegenation law off the books in 2000,
40% of the population voted to keep it.
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The important thing is that the term used for a mixed-sex couple must necessarily be the same term used for a same-sex couple.
Why?
Because "separate but equal" is unconstitutional and legally impossible.
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I was getting at the idea that drivers licenses, no matter the different category, give you the same right to drive.
But they don't. Try making your argument when the cop pulls you over in your car and you show him your driver's license that is only rated M2. It's a driver's license, but it does not give you the right to drive a car. It only gives you the right to drive a moped. That's why they call it "M2" rather than "C."
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The licenses restrict you to a type of vehicle, though you achieve the same results with any.
No, you can't. You can't drive a car in the carpool lane with only one occupant. You can't drive a truck outside of the designated truck lanes. You can't take a moped onto the freeway.
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If it makes things easier, switch to business licenses.
No, those are different, too. That's why they're called different things. An LLC is not an Inc.
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If you cannot address a hypothetical, because of the answer you might have to give, then you have an issue.
(*chuckle*)
And if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. We can speculate all we want about what the world might be like if the moon were really made of green cheese and the earth were the center of the universe, but that doesn't really help us when trying to determine what happens in reality.
Oh, but I forget...us "reality-based" folk are out of favor these days. Wishing makes it so.
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In the end your idea that civil unions cannot be legally tied to rights and responsibilities of marriage is only a theoretical possibility.
Incorrect. It's a constitutionally mandated statement and a direct outcome of the method of jurisprudence we have. The law is dependent upon words. If you are using a different word, then you are directly stating that there is a difference between them. If there is no difference, then you would use the same word.
"Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate."
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That isn't the way the law works. By using different terms, you are legally saying that there is a distinction and thus there necessarily exists something that applies only to one and not the other.
Yes, the definitional requirement for the nature of the participants.
But there is no definitional distinction between the two, so why are you using a different term?
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Otherwise, you would use the same term for both. There's a reason why it's "do not fold, spindle, or mutilate." Those terms do not mean the same thing.
Yes, they'd have definitional requirements for the nature of the participants.
But there is no definitional distinction between the nature of the participants, so why are you using a different term?
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In other words, instead of fighting this battle and resolving it once, we have to fight it every single time a law is written in every single municipality, county, state, and national forum.
If any particular law creating a civil union would create this situation, then that law should be fought as not good enough.
But that means it is dependent upon the good will of those in the majority to make sure that it gets repealed rather than upon the strict requirement of equality laid out in the constitution.
In other words, it necessarily creates separate and unequal states.
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However there is absolutely no logical obstacle to creating a civil union law which avoids the problem you just outlined.
If they're the same thing, why are you calling them different things? There is no definitional distinction between the two. By calling them different things, you are necessarily declaring that there is a difference.
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As an offshoot of this there is the logical suggestion that even in adults toward adults, there is an increased preying by homosexuals on others.
Incorrect. It's the other way around.
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It did not show this and instead showed a strong correlation between homosexuality and mental/physical harm.
However, you have the arrow backwards.
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And since pedophiles don't really see children as male or female, they don't view themselves as gay even when they are molesting children of the same sex.
This is a generalization that cannot be made.
Then why do the psychologists and psychiatrists who examine and treat pedophiles make it? Why do the pedophiles, themselves, make this claim?
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Pedophiles certainly can see children as male and female and have preferences.
Some do. The vast majority do not. The fixation is upon children, not gender. Children are chosen precisely because they are androgynous.
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There are plenty of men who assault other men and say they are not gay, that does not make it so.
"Assault"? When did we go from a loving, mutually supportive relationship to assault? You're trying to turn the arrow backwards.
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Just as some homosexuals want to pretend that pedophiles cannot be gay at all and go into hyper fits of denouncing anyone that brings up the subject when in fact it is being done for logical reasons.
No, I'm not going to have sex with you, holmes.
Now that we have the ad hominem commentary out of the way, can we get back to the issue at hand?
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!
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