Hang On Voltaire: Yes and marriage has changed too. There were restrictions on what class of person or religion or race of person you could marry but at it's core it was a man and a woman

Missed the point of my paranthetical side-note. At its core, marriage was a man and a woman...to which society? Some societies, "marriage" (and marriage as you're using it in the historical sense now is such a broad term that its almost impossible to consider its "core") was generally between a man and a woman. In OTHER societies, not the case. Men married women, or other men. Men could marry several women, and women sometimes married several men. Because marriage in almost every society was not some fulfillment of some inherent agreement that a man should find a woman to live with their whole lives. It was just a property agreement. A trade arrangement. THAT is basically marriage's core. It is moot to even attempt discussing some fantasized notion of what you think mariage is SUPPOSED to be, because (thankfully) we no longer practice what marriage was really supposed to be. The way that marriage exists now in our society, in a purely government-sanctioned event, there is no reason to disallow gay marriages.

sweetmelissa31: This is very dangerous. Trust me, I am from Massachusetts and after they legalized gay marriage I was forced to marry a woman.

Go on...

Just a matter of time before the entire county will allow same-sex marriages.

/hopefully sooner rather than later

Karma Curmudgeon: Thanks a lot Iowa. I can't fark my wife anymore and will have start blowing dudes. That sucks!!111!one

That's OK, you didn't really want my sloppy seconds from her anyway.

/Or subby's mom.

Crocodilly_Pontifex: jpbreon: I'm sorry that you've become completely lethargic and unable to muster a sense of real outrage, but maybe your ime of youthfulness and energy has passed you by.

considering both the revolutions you mentioned were intense, bloody conflicts, i am going to assume that your time of wisdom has not yet arrived.

As far as my sense of outrage, i exercise it the same way every citizen should; I vote, volunteer, and donate.

it also helps if you don't take your ideas on government from musicians.

I mention Thomas Paine, which you conveniently ignored, then use a Bob Dylan quote to reinforce it, and you jump all over it. Go back to sleep. Be careful which side you fall on when the people rise up. We won't make any distinctions based on your internet etiquette.

Suck it long and hard, wingers. Even if this somehow gets overturned by Iowan voters, in the long term the cat is out of the bag. Young people overwhelmingly accept gay marriage and will eventually make it the law of the land. Your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will live in a United States that allows gay men and women to marry and they will read about troglodytes like you in their history books and wonder how anybody could ever be so petty, mean-spirited, superstitious, ignorant, and hateful. As with most reactionary causes, the only thing you can even slightly control is the speed at which you lose. Because you are losing and are going to lose on this issue.

/P.S. You're also losing and will continue to lose in the evolution/creation debate.

ExJerseyGirl: nosferatublue: ExJerseyGirl: Hang On Voltaire: Sorry I only used two words in my argument instead of eight like you. You assuming my reasons for opposing gay marriage are because I am bigoted or don't think that gays should be out doesn't make me want to change my mind

So why do you oppose gay marriage? I have never heard an argument against it that seemed valid.

What's your definition of marriage?

A legal partnership between two people.

Smart girl. Are you in favor of extending this legal partnership to any two people who want it?
And also, why just two? Why are you forcing your convictions on polygamists who just want to live in peace?

Verdelak:
Ancient Greece is the for runner of most of western society and they would disagree with you.

No they wouldn't

Social conservatism is dying. What we're seeing now is a backlash. This is probably going to be a pattern for the next hundred years: gradual progress, arrested occasionally by temporary backslides.
I mean, the trajectory of history is on our side. Imagine:

What would a 16th century settler think of an 18th century revolutionary? He'd call him a traitor.
What would an 18th century landowner think of a 19th century sharecropper? He'd be shocked that the man was allowed any freedom at all.
What would a 19th century gentleman think of a 20th century union organizer or civil rights marcher? He'd probably question why the government didn't come down on him like a ton of bricks.
What would an early 20th century politician think of us? Harlots, decadents, Romanovs probably. Societies change, people make progress. Gay marriage is inevitable, and it'll come faster and faster. The delicious thing is that the bitters can't do anything about it. I see no need to engage in bipartisan discourse people who are too stupid, closed-minded and hateful to want our country to make progress. I don't hate them. I pity them.

nosferatublue:
All I'm trying to get across is that "marriage" as you defined it isn't off-limits to anyone. The debate, and legal battle, is over recognition of marriage. And frankly, no, I don't think that I have a "right" to make you, the government, or anyone else recognize my particular arrangement as marriage.

fine. but take the gubmint out of it altogether, i.e. no tax breaks/benefits etc. for married folk. otherwise it's institutional discrimination whether you tack the religious connotations upon it or not.

Hang On Voltaire: Verdelak:
Ancient Greece is the for runner of most of western society and they would disagree with you.

No they wouldn't

And another concise and thought out response from HOV. Tell us, HOV, why wouldn't they?

Meh....
http://tinyurl.com/dmuoog (cut and paste)

spickus: sweetmelissa31: This is very dangerous. Trust me, I am from Massachusetts and after they legalized gay marriage I was forced to marry a woman.

Go on...

dude. at that point it's sort of implied there will be no sex in remainder of the story.

Hang On Voltaire: Verdelak:
Ancient Greece is the for runner of most of western society and they would disagree with you.

No they wouldn't

You've never picked up a history book have you?

adamgreeney: Hang On Voltaire: Verdelak:
Ancient Greece is the for runner of most of western society and they would disagree with you.

No they wouldn't

You've never picked up a history book have you?

they were TOO for runners.
ever heard of a marathon?

Jsc810: Just a matter of time before the entire county will allow same-sex marriages.

/hopefully sooner rather than later

We might end up like the Netherlands or Canada or Sweden or Spain. I mean look at them. They have been destroyed by daring to allow more equality and gay rights.

...What's that? Those countries haven't crumbled into dust yet? In fact, they are still thriving and it's almost as if their legalization of gay marriages had no effect on anyone at all except for the gay people living there? Wtf, it's almost as if the whole argument against gay marriage is a bunch of crap. How odd.

Theaetetus, that pic is full of win.

wyltoknow:

Missed the point of my paranthetical side-note. At its core, marriage was a man and a woman...to which society?

I already answered that. Western. The Western World. Do you want me to define that too?

Some societies, "marriage" (and marriage as you're using it in the historical sense now is such a broad term that its almost impossible to consider its "core") was generally between a man and a woman. In OTHER societies, not the case. Men married women, or other men. Men could marry several women, and women sometimes married several men. Because marriage in almost every society was not some fulfillment of some inherent agreement that a man should find a woman to live with their whole lives. It was just a property agreement. A trade arrangement. THAT is basically marriage's core. It is moot to even attempt discussing some fantasized notion of what you think mariage is SUPPOSED to be, because (thankfully) we no longer practice what marriage was really supposed to be. The way that marriage exists now in our society, in a purely government-sanctioned event, there is no reason to disallow gay marriages.

You are redefining as well. Because polygamists practiced polygamy does not mean that they redefined marriage anymore than a guy playing Madden on PS3 redefines an athlete.

FloydA: JoeJitsu: FloydA: JoeJitsu:

Then, as he saw a stream of grim-faced activists from the Supreme Court passing through security at the Iowa Capitol, he said: "The God squad's coming in the door now."

...

Bigots are rightly mocked for being bigots; deciding to be a hateful jackass really IS a "lifestyle choice."

...

So... you're of the opinion that calling people "God squad" is hateful? Why? What makes that label "hateful," in your mind?

Is it, in your opinion, more, less or equally as hateful as claiming that some people should have more rights than others?

Considering the context, I would not think any reasonable person could say that "God squad" was complimentary, neutral or a term of endearment, so there would have to be a negative connotation. If you claim not to see that then you may be somewhat unobservant or disingenuous. However, that doesn't bear on the fact that this clown is just as hateful towards those who disagree with him on this matter as you claim his opponents are. Your attempt at coming up with some degree of hate being more or less acceptable than another has no bearing. You accomplish anything in a society by saying "I hate him, but at least I don't hate him as much as he hates me, so I'm a better person".

MonkeyAngst: I do believe that opposition to gay marriage is a symptom of bigotry.

Ok I'll bite......

The first objection is "why now?". We have thousands of years of human history without gay marriage being sanctioned. Why has changed to make it necessary now?

The second objection is the radical in-your-face faction that will use legalized gay marriage to foist the agenda everywhere.


1. First will be in education, especially at younger levels. They will insist on equal representation in the curriculum and attempt to put it on equal footing with traditional marriage. That teacher from Southpark, he's coming to a grade school near you.

2. Marriages of convenience for health benefits - what will happen when your gay colleague marries an HIV patient in order to get him insurance? Don't think it won't happen.

Those are 2 quick and easy examples of what are going to be big problems with this.

It's not bigotry to reject a value system that we find morally wrong, any more than it's bigotry when the atheists jump up and down at every hint of Christianity.

jpbreon: I mention Thomas Paine, which you conveniently ignored, then use a Bob Dylan quote to reinforce it, and you jump all over it

ok fine.

jpbreon: here is nothing wrong with rebellion and/or succession. In fact, if you ever bothered to read Thomas Paine's American Crisis Papers or Rights of Man you'd know that many of the so-called Founding Fathers felt that the government should be reset roughly every generation or so. It was like a healthy forest; it needed to burn down so that a new forest could grow.

You dont think that the provision to, you know...vote... is a way to "reset" the government? I mean i realize that all voting does is give the people the power to replace leaders with which they are dissatisfied and install new leaders who more accurately reflect their desires for the governance of the country, but dont you think that might have been what they were going for with the whole "voting" thing?


Now, about ignoring stuff, perhaps you'd like to revisit MY response, and address how you think the Bolshevik and French revolutions were anything but bloody, and how the alternatives i provide to a bloody uprising (which you now advocate, where you claimed not to 3 posts ago) are innefective?

jpbreon: Why only two? If 3, 4, 400 adults what to be married, why not?

Our current laws would not allow for it. What happens if a man has two wives and he ends up on life support, and one wife wants to pull the plug and the other doesn't? There would be lots of legal problems that would need to be dealt with before polygamy could work.

adamgreeney:

You've never picked up a history book have you?

The ancient Greeks did not have gay marriage.

toonz: spickus: sweetmelissa31: This is very dangerous. Trust me, I am from Massachusetts and after they legalized gay marriage I was forced to marry a woman.

Go on...

dude. at that point it's sort of implied there will be no sex in remainder of the story.

I'm not listening lalalalalalalala.

Don't ruin a good fantasy.

TommyDeuce: Karma Curmudgeon: Thanks a lot Iowa. I can't fark my wife anymore and will have start blowing dudes. That sucks!!111!one

That's OK, you didn't really want my sloppy seconds from her anyway.

/Or subby's mom.

See this is what I mean. Yesterday, that would have pissed me off and I would have gone all ITG on your sorry ass.

Today, I want to know if that ass lieks buttsects. farkin Iowa! grrrrrrrrrr.

Ah...finally once again proud to be from Iowa. Can't say the same for my new home of California.

Morton_toes: That might be a bit broad.

Yeah, but I've been on the phone and unable to really answer. And in Iowa soon to could be two broads.

FloydA: Morton_toes: ExJerseyGirl: nosferatublue:

What's your definition of marriage?

A legal partnership between two people.

That might be a bit broad.


From an anthropological perspective, it's not broad enough. In fact, it is too narrow to accommodate many marriages that already exist.

A marriage really is some form of union between two or more people that is arranged predominantly as a contract that creates some degree of legally and socially sanctioned joint property rights.

Notions about who and how many can be involved vary from one society to the next and change through time within each society.

I meant in the respect that a law firm or a finance corporation can be a legal partnership. Shouldn't there be some familial aspects to a marriage?

Hang On Voltaire: You are redefining as well. Because polygamists practiced polygamy does not mean that they redefined marriage anymore than a guy playing Madden on PS3 redefines an athlete.

Your only response to all of those points is a disagreement on the technicalities of polygamy? Man, your forced self-ignorance must be heavenly bliss.

Renart: Suck it long and hard, wingers. Even if this somehow gets overturned by Iowan voters, in the long term the cat is out of the bag. Young people overwhelmingly accept gay marriage and will eventually make it the law of the land. Your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will live in a United States that allows gay men and women to marry and they will read about troglodytes like you in their history books and wonder how anybody could ever be so petty, mean-spirited, superstitious, ignorant, and hateful. As with most reactionary causes, the only thing you can even slightly control is the speed at which you lose. Because you are losing and are going to lose on this issue.

/P.S. You're also losing and will continue to lose in the evolution/creation debate.

Young children accept the issue until they have jobs, pay taxes and start raising children. (and start thinking independently)

/put the tractor back in the barn and get out of my cornfield.

adamgreeney: Hang On Voltaire: Verdelak:
Ancient Greece is the for runner of most of western society and they would disagree with you.

No they wouldn't

You've never picked up a history book have you?

One can argue that the Spartans practiced chaste pederasty, with the older male being a legal guardian and not having sex with the younger male, but the debate is pretty clouded and seems like their may have been a lot of 'look the other way to our sodomy while we laugh at Athens."

Other than that, the Sacred Band and other groups show a fair bit of recognition and social status afforded to gay couple in the rest of Greece.

nosferatublue: All I'm trying to get across is that "marriage" as you defined it isn't off-limits to anyone. The debate, and legal battle, is over recognition of marriage. And frankly, no, I don't think that I have a "right" to make you, the government, or anyone else recognize my particular arrangement as marriage.

Woah, there, chummer. You're right, I don't have a right to make you recognize my marriage. But I damn sure have a right to make the government recognize it, and I will continue to have this right as long as the government makes special rights available for married people that are not available to the general population (right to file taxes jointly, legal protections, etc.)

Woohoo! Now if only my state would follow suit so I wouldn't have to move to the middle of God's Butt Crack to get married.

FloydA: jst3p: susansto-helit: Hang On Voltaire: susansto-helit:

Which society would that be, pray tell?

Western

Which one? There are many of those. How do you define western?

Canada is western....

As are Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, and they also offer equal marriage rights to all citizens, regardless of sexual preference.


By contrast, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Libya and Kuwait are not, and those nations have laws that discriminate against homosexuals.

Are the anti-gay activists suggesting that the US should be more like the Islamic republics and less like the European democracies?

I think that is exactly what they are suggesting. In fact, GOP Rep: We Might Need A Taliban-Like "Insurgency" (new window)

cchris_39: 1. First will be in education, especially at younger levels. They will insist on equal representation in the curriculum and attempt to put it on equal footing with traditional marriage. That teacher from Southpark, he's coming to a grade school near you.

2. Marriages of convenience for health benefits - what will happen when your gay colleague marries an HIV patient in order to get him insurance? Don't think it won't happen.

Those are 2 quick and easy examples of what are going to be big problems with this.

Um.. I don't understand how those don't already happen.

ExJerseyGirl: Morton_toes: That might be a bit broad.

Yeah, but I've been on the phone and unable to really answer. And in Iowa soon to could be two broads.

I figured someone would get some play off that one. See other post for clarification.

ExJerseyGirl: jpbreon: Why only two? If 3, 4, 400 adults what to be married, why not?

Our current laws would not allow for it. What happens if a man has two wives and he ends up on life support, and one wife wants to pull the plug and the other doesn't? There would be lots of legal problems that would need to be dealt with before polygamy could work.

None without easy legal solutions. Do I detect a cop-out? Or are you just as cool with polygamy as you are monogamy, legal issues aside?

Verdelak:

One can argue that the Spartans practiced chaste pederasty, with the older male being a legal guardian and not having sex with the younger male, but the debate is pretty clouded and seems like their may have been a lot of 'look the other way to our sodomy while we laugh at Athens."

Other than that, the Sacred Band and other groups show a fair bit of recognition and social status afforded to gay couple in the rest of Greece.

and, as I said earlier, I support civil unions for gay couples.

Hang On Voltaire: adamgreeney:

You've never picked up a history book have you?

The ancient Greeks did not have gay marriage.

You know, I keep seeing a lot of Appeal to Tradition (new window) from you, but you are still utterly failing to answer the question I keep posing to you. I realize you may have missed it the first two times I asked, so I will make it stand out more this time:

Why is this change bad?

HeartBurnKid: Why is this change bad?

Why do we give tax breaks to married couples?

Why cant we just have "civil unions" for everyone? Give it the same rights marriage has now, and any two people of legal age can do it. Then marriage is totally within the realm of the church, and everyone can quit biatching?

WTF is with the church anyway? I thought they preached love?

Hang On Voltaire
Because marriage is an institution between a man and a woman at it's core. I have no problem with civil unions I just have a problem with society deciding to redefine marriage

At it's core? What does that mean? I'm not seeing an actual argument here. Someone asked you why marriage should only be between a man and a woman and to paraphrase, you basically said "because it should".

Even if we allow your claim that society is trying to "redefine marriage", you haven't said why that's a bad thing. You just say it's bad. Why? How does it negatively effect you personally? How does it negatively effect our society? As others have pointed out, it's not the first time those who can legally marry one another has changed.

Also, to say that every past society has defined marriage as between one man and one woman is demonstrably incorrect, but even if it were true, it still doesn't answer the question of why it's wrong to change it. To say that Western society has always defined it that way certainly doesn't make it right. We end up once again responding to "why is marriage only permitted between one man and one woman" with "because that's the way it is". That's a terrible defense of anything.

It seems more likely that you're speaking from a particular religious point of view and think that religious view should be imposed on everyone. Our Constitution has a problem with that.

Phlem Pickens: Young children accept the issue until they have jobs, pay taxes and start raising children. (and start thinking independently)

/put the tractor back in the barn and get out of my cornfield.

Haha, good one! Thinking independently = mindlessly following an ancient religious taboo. Anyway, if you want to think young people will change their minds about this once they get married, go right ahead. It will only end in tears (yours).

/Have a job, am married, pay taxes, raising children, support gay marriage.

Hang On Voltaire: Because marriage is an institution between a man and a woman at it's core. I have no problem with civil unions I just have a problem with society deciding to redefine marriage

The way I look at it, at its core marriage is two people who decide to publicly (and legally) proclaim their commitment to each other. I see no reason to discriminate against homosexuals.