No, it shows that your analogy is meaningless... You see, people have a sexual orientation. It doesn't matter what we call it. We are dealing with something much more fundamental.
My analogy is worthwhile, this is not about labeling sexual orientations and/or banning them. This is about a name on a legal contract because the name currently used has a historic traditional definition. That is the same as labeling a food product as Kosher.
That is exactly what we're talking about: There is a fundamental urge to pair-bond in humans. Whether we call it "marriage" or something else, we are referring to something basic.
Last I checked marriage has nothing to do about pair bonding... looks again at laws... nope. You may pair-bond at will without one, and you may pair-bond with others beyond your spouse with one. The only thing marriage does is set up legal constraints on a relationship, if you so choose to, with some consequent rights given due to that legal status.
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.
Oh was that offensive? Maybe you should drop your offensive tactics as well... It's a cheap shot at me, and a cheap ploy to switch subjects. 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.
Devoid of emotional baggage, we are talking about the legal contract that currently has a definition which will prevent same-sex couples from using it. It currently uses a name with vast historical connotations of being mixed sex couplings. This is because these laws were created in a culture where that was the only necessary legal entity needed.
Now same sex couples are finding it necessary, and desirable to get the same rights that come with said legal contract.
There are many different options. For practical purposes I'd say just remove the mixed sex definition. However there are other options which are valid, including coming up with a new contract that uses a different definitional requirement for the participants.
Incorrect. I've mentioned Boswell's book before. Same-sex marriage is quite old. The Catholic Church even has a rite for it.
I have read your posts and the info from B's book. You are being highly disingenuous.
The union B discusses is held separate from mixed sex marriage rites, yes or no???? It is not given the same name, yes or no???? By all indications it was infrequently used over a short span of history, yes or no??? It was not necessarily legally binding, yes or no???? It ended up disappearing into obscurity many centuries ago and so has not in any way shape or form impacted current concepts of what "marriage" is, yes or no???
Right. Have you read the work? Have you read the text of the rite? To call it something other than "marriage" is to fall into the same semantic argument.
See, now you are the one getting all semantic. You are arguing because it was marriage-like it was marriage. Even if I agree that it actually was supposed to be about same sex lovers uniting (for sake of argument), it is clear that it was held separate from mixed sex marriage, with different rights... yes or no???
If you are going to use that as precedent, then your current hatred towards civil unions seems confused.
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. I was stating the facts. There have been no set gay marriages, as we are talking about here, throughout history and cultures, that is in any way that would have had any connection to our marriage laws.
When and where did B say those marriage-like rituals took place? Explain how it had an influence on traditional understandings of marriage in this nation?
Therefore, this example of a Catholic ritual recognizing same-sex couples that originated in pre-modern times and lasted for hundreds of years refutes your claim... I am simply saying that since you find it to be a justification, then you have no claim to say that same-sex marriage is "modern."
It existed... and not necessarily as law... for a short duration in history and then disappeared essentially completely, until B rediscovered it. Yeah, that means that the concept of recognizing marriage as a same sex union is a modern one.
I will repeat the other fact, unless you have some evidence to present, that even when homosexuality existed without stigma (even without definition) marriages were relegated to legal unions between mixed sex couples. The major purpose for legal marriage was protecting property and children.
Increased legalization of other rights and benefits, as well as the growing ability of same sex couples to have children, create a need today like there had not been in the past.
Is there something about it being modern that makes it less
to you?
Burden of proof, holmes. You know better than that.
Yes, yes I do.
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?
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. 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. For much of these the differences are entirely semantic. Business law pertains to all of them.
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. Thus legally, they are identified and treated the same, only requiring a different makeup in the participants.
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. I brought up the fact that in some states polygamists were issuing marriage licenses which did not require one on one partnerships. You dismissed this as people flouting the laws of the state, and not a movement trying to get rights (or likely to get them).
And I laughed my ass off when not much later SF started doing the exact same thing. I then posted to ask you about why you were not ripping into them in the same manner you had criticized the polygamists... silence was the answer.
I am sure that you want to forget that you said anything like that as it undercut your desire to watch your own side do the same thing. But amnesia, convenient or not, is no excuse.
So do you want to change your position? Do you now believe that polygamists issuing licenses in areas of the US are best demonstrating against the legal discrimination they are facing?
You literally do not know what you're talking about, holmes.
Hahaha... nice use of the pet peeve I mentioned in your thread on linguistic pet peeves. That makes the statement as annoying as it is incorrect.
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. However there was a contract for unions between same sex couples.
People began to get worried in recent years and tried, some successful, in getting laws on the books preventing gays from creating legal marriages.
This effort just got another bump this year.
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.
To which your reply was...
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, and given those stats it certainly was not wholesale.
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? There is no logical necessity for this, beyond your semantic needs.
There is also a thing called "Uncle Tom."
To quote your own words back at you more appropriately than you used the term... Non sequitur.
If the laws were the same for all the vehicles, then the license would be the same. In California, for example, there is a difference between the M1 and M2. M2 only lets you drive a moped or a motorized bicycle. M1 allows you to drive any two-wheeled motorcycle as well as any M2-class vehicle.
Sorry about your brain capacity. I was getting at the idea that drivers licenses, no matter the different category, give you the same right to drive.
Your own examples here only support what I have said. The licenses restrict you to a type of vehicle, though you achieve the same results with any. The fact that CA also grants special rights to different classes of
vehicle, not the license, is something else altogether.
If it makes things easier, switch to business licenses. While some do indeed endow different entities with different rights, some do not. Some use different names (and forms) to represent the fact that they have a different structural makeup. The laws remain the same with same rights and responsibilities.
That's because we live in the real world, not this fantasy hypothetical of yours... If you could guarantee that every legal proceeding everywhere across the entire country into perpetuity would always and forever say "marriage or civil union," then you might have a case.
If you cannot address a hypothetical, because of the answer you might have to give, then you have an issue.
In the end your idea that civil unions cannot be legally tied to rights and responsibilities of marriage is only a theoretical possibility. It is not a necessity, and if you can see the problems, you can fix them in the laws that are being made.
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.
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.
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. However there is absolutely no logical obstacle to creating a civil union law which avoids the problem you just outlined.
You do understand that pedophilia is distinct from homosexuality and one cannot claim that a pedophile is homosexual simply by looking at the sex of the children who are molested, yes?
That is true. I have not implied otherwise, though I realize that is a very big issue for you.
You obviously did not read the study under discussion. It included, and we were discussing findings that homosexual orientation was highly correlated to
being the victim of nonconsensual sex acts, as an adult just as much as if not more so than in childhood, and exhibiting psychological problems.
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.
The ultimate question was connection of harm to homosexuality. The irony lay in the fact that the study was presented as an example of harm from pedophilic acts. It did not show this and instead showed a strong correlation between homosexuality and mental/physical harm.
Given the stigma attached to homosexuality and the feelings of having brought it upon oneself (both internally and externally claimed), I am not surprised that the victim of same-sex molestation may have some issues.
Unlike the stigma attached to having sex at all at a young age of course! Ahem, the fact is that this does not take away from a suggestion that same sex contact is more damaging for a person.
Whether it is socially derived is wholly besides the point in this thread, or at least that seems to be the case.
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. Pedophiles certainly can see children as male and female and have preferences. Their are definitely pedophiles who have sex with boys but feel they are not gay (or bisexual), but that is definitely not all of them, and I would argue is rather counterfactual.
There are plenty of men who assault other men and say they are not gay, that does not make it so. The fact is power trip is power trip. Some may rape anyone based on needing power indiscriminate of general orientation. Sex is sex. If one is actually attracted to young boys one is at the very least bisexually oriented, whether or not they want to think of themselves as such.
Perhaps this intellectual schism is brought on by repressed negative views of homosexuality and so they want to see themselves as different from them. 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.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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