Anyone care to take over AACalc?

Since marriage is a religious institution, that obviously means that atheists shouldn’t be allowed to marry and get governmental benefits, right?

Also, do you really think that men never suffer emotional damage when they have sex?

Also, heterosexual couples can also engage in “deviant sexual behavior.” Furthermore, many of them will never have sex at all. Should they be prevented from marrying?

@calvinhobbesliker:

Since marriage is a religious institution, that obviously means that atheists shouldn’t be allowed to marry and get governmental benefits, right?

Also, do you really think that men never suffer emotional damage when they have sex?

In regards to the former:

Atheists should not be allowed to MARRY.

Atheists, Wiccans, Homosexuals, Heterosexuals, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Polytheists, whatever should all have equal opportunity to receive a government issued Union Certificate by the local magistrate.  Further, only this certificate should be valid for government benefits and only the dissolution of this certificate should be mediated by the government or their proxy.

In regards to the latter:

If the man is on the receiving side, yes.  If the man is on the pitching side, no.

There is a psychological event that happens when someone physically enters your body that most men cannot grasp (because they have never experienced it.) It is to this event I refer.  The event can be horribly disfiguring as in the case of most rapes, or it can be an enormous blessing as you engage in sexual behavior with your significant other.  In either event, it is an event one just cannot understand unless one has had the sexual organs of another physically enter your body.

Sorry, I misunderstood. Your position is that anyone can get a civil union, which gives governmental benefits, while marriage has no legal meaning and does not confer any governmental benefits?

@calvinhobbesliker:

Sorry, I misunderstood. Your position is that anyone can get a civil union, which gives governmental benefits, while marriage has no legal meaning and does not confer any governmental benefits?

Correct.

The government offers a civil union (or call it something else if you prefer) to any group it deems fit to receive said union whether it be:

• Man and Beast
• Man and Man
• Woman and Woman
• A bunch of five male roommates
• A bunch of five female roommates
• A gaggle of geese and a Woman
• A Man and a rock
• A Mother and her Son
• A Father and his Daughter
• A rock and the ground it sits upon
• A brother and a sister

Whatever the government decides should be permitted to attain civil unionship, can get civil unionship if they so desire.

Meanwhile, marriage ceases to have any legal definition in the eyes of the government and is akin to getting your child christened by a church - a beautiful ceremony but one that has no legal bearing what-so-ever.

Whoa.  Jenn, you are way out there.  And your logic defies logic, IMO anyway (as it did many times in our A&A games  :lol:).

At this point I will “exit stage left”.  I guess I’m just speechless.  :-o

Let’s see if I can make an A&A move without my trusty calculator, now…  :|

Lol, sorry.  The idea is, if the government wants to sanction civil unions between non-traditional couples, then they should stop calling it marraige.  Then they can sanction whatever union they want without opening the door to lawsuits against those who do not want to perform marriages to non-traditional couples and not put a (in the minds of the religious) negative spin on the institution of marriage.

In this way, if they wanted to legalize the union of a dog and a cat, they could without sullying the institution of marriage.  I don’t particularly think my German Shepard should marry a Siamese Cat, but hey, what you do in your bedroom is between you and God, right?

Anyway, a second wife around here really would rock!  No more back breaking labor, I can divvy it up!  Kids?  Live in babysitter babe!

I am not conservative and I am not liberal.  I am a veteran and an American citizen.  In my mind, that means I should fight for the individual liberty of all persons unless there is so much evidence that even the most stubborn of us see that we need governmental interference.  For example, murder needs governmental interferance.  Speed limits do not.  Germany has done just fine with no speed limit on the Autobahn that it disproves the need for governmental interference by counter-example.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.  I just did not want to be called a social conservative.

I fail to see how if (not yelling, just emphasizing) EVERYONE has to get a Civil Union in order to have government recognition of their relationship this can be seen as making gays and lesbians second class citizens.  Marriage is a RELIGIOUS term, not a SOCIAL term.

Anyway, I need more clarification on why you think gays and lesbians will think their unions have a second class status socially and legally.  I fear you may not understand what I am trying to say.

What I envision is this:
Governments no longer have the term marriage found anywhere in their legal or social codes.  The term is replaced with Microsoft Word’s wonderful feature: “Replace” in all documents and immediately replaced with the phrase “Conjunction of Personalities” or “Civil Union between…” or “Melding of …” or whatever term is finally agreed upon.

The term marriage is forever relegated to the chruches.  You can have a marriage ceremony in your church with your pastor and friends in attendance to make a committment to God of your love.  This committment, however, has absolutely no legal bearing at all.  The wife would even be prohibitted from changing her surname to her husbands because nothing, in the eyes of the government, has changed.

Instead, these couples would now have to have the religious ceremony in a church AND get a union before a magistrate or just skip the religious ceremony altogether and only have the magistrate’s unionization of their lives.

If anything, this punishes the religious.  They now have to rent a church, hire a pastor, get the crew together for the ceremony AND make an appointment with the magistrate and pay for that as well.  Gay’s and lesbians are not getting a second rate deal here, Christians and Catholics are (and Jews, and Muslims, etc, etc, etc.)

FYI, adults can legally change their name whenever they want.

It seems you are a libertarian.

@calvinhobbesliker:

FYI, adults can legally change their name whenever they want.

It seems you are a libertarian.

I do not want to be pigeon holed into any specific political party.  I think they are all thieves and bastards regardless of party. Anyway, I doubly hate the thought of being lumped into the same party as a certain evil that should not be named, but most of you remember anyway.

Back to civility then…

I suppose they could change their name whenver they want.  But why would they?  And are there not some safe guards that you have to have a reason to change your name, or is it like divorce in my uber-aweful state where all you need is someone who wants to do it, in order for it to be done?

(That’s another thing, I think if you are married or have a civil union or whatever the legal name of your relationship happens to be that is mathematically equivalent to marriage today, you should be required to stay with that person except if they cheat on you, if they beat you or if they stop having sex wtih you.)

@frood:

Similarly, I think social conservatives should get a grip and realize that not everyone is going to share their definition of “marriage”, and maybe that’s not the end of the world either. If two gay guys (or gals) want to consider themselves married rather than unionized, what’s that to you? Marriage is about SOCIAL validation of your cherished love. Gays and lesbians do not want to feel that their unions have a 2nd class status socially and legally.

What blows my mind is the inability of social conservatives to see the parallels between their views and those of the Taliban - to impose your moral code on everyone else. That is tyranny, no matter who wrote the moral code.

You think you’re so smart, but you are missing it by a mile.  You think by labeling people like me a “social conservative” you can label and shelve me as “intolerant” because I have standards that I will not compromise on.

Marriage is about a lot more then social validation of your cherished love.  Marriage and family are the most basic units of government.  If you want anarchy, just break down the family unit and devalue marriage so that a rock and a dog can get married.  I’m not going to go to the trouble of defining all that marriage is, because it would take a lot of time and thought, but it is so much more than what you are making it out to be.

I have never “imposed my moral code” on anyone else.  All I’ve ever done is communicate in congruence with my core beliefs and experiences, and vote according to my beliefs.  The vast majority of “social conservatives” do the same.  So we’re like the Taliban?

It’s pretty simple, really.  People like you resent people who have standards that are higher or more restrictive than your own, and you will say whatever to voice your frustration.  Next thing you know, you’re calling good people “Taliban” “Nazis” “Bigots” whatever.  Be careful with those labels you’re throwing around.  They’re offensive, they’re inaccurate……  just stop.

Frood,

I don’t think we are trying to force our morals on everyone else, I think you are trying to devalue something we cherish because it either feels unfair, you do not like it, you want to hurt those of us with religous beliefs or whatever the reason is.

That is why, generally, when you say the government should do a full pull-out of the institution of marriage and just make it’s own institution with absolutely no religous connotation what-so-ever, those trying to get same-sex “marriage” (with the term) scream bloody murder.

I honestly do not feel that most proponents of same sex marriage really want same sex marriage, they want the word “Married” so they can either sue the church for non-compliance and bigotry or just sully the institution to the point no one bothers to get married anymore.

On a related subject:

I do not feel I would ever get married again.  Honestly, if you have ever had a husband and had to yell at him over and over and over again about getting his underwear off the fraggin floor and into the gosh-darn laundry basket already…you would not want to get married either!

And I know it is not just me!  This is a plight of women everywhere!  And why in the 9 levels of hell would anyone want to get “married” anyway!  Monogendered or dualgendered it does not matter!  It’s a nightmare and a half to open a bank account, it’s that squared if you want to buy a house!  Booking a flight for your spouse is akin to pulling teeth without anesthesia now.  Frack that.  With the marriage penalty coming back in January, I honestly think about getting a divorce and just co-habitating with my husband.  God knows the score, why does the government need to know?

Please stop telling us our motives. I do not care if a church denies a marriage, since (if same-sex marriage is legalized), they can get married wherever they want, including a more liberal church. I am not for forcing churches to marry any couple.

Also, men also have many problems with women, such as nagging over small things.

@calvinhobbesliker:

Also, men also have many problems with women, such as nagging over small things.

:-) This keeps getting better and better.  You and Jenn both have good points….  :-)

Jenn, I NEVER leave underwear on the floor - it always goes straight into the laundry basket.  I also don’t “shoot baskets” with my underwear, leaving it on the floor when I miss.

My wife is irked by the amount of time I spend playing games.  She thinks games are nearly worthless - a way to pass an hour or two per month with the children, perhaps.  One of our biggest battlegrounds is the # of hours I spend playing games.  My position is that I am who I am - I have always loved games and always will, and I wouldn’t be nearly as happy or fulfilled if I banned game-playing in my life.

But Jenn and Calvin, you’ve nailed 2 of the top 10 things that irk husbands and wives, I’m sure.
Husbands - irked by nagging (we are not your project - accept us as we are and we’ll all be much happier)
Wives - irked by crudeness/rudeness (one of my cousins used to say, “do you know what the difference between rude and crude is”?  Rude is throwing your underwear against the wall.  Crude is when it sticks there)

Let me take guesses at some of the other 8:
Sex/Lack Therof
Time spent with children
Time spent on computer/games/other things that are “unimportant”
Forgetting/Not doing enough on anniversaries/birthdays/other important holidays
Time spend on working late/overtime

@calvinhobbesliker:

Let me take guesses at some of the other 8:
Sex/Lack Therof
Time spent with children
Time spent on computer/games/other things that are “unimportant”
Forgetting/Not doing enough on anniversaries/birthdays/other important holidays
Time spend on working late/overtime

You’re doing good.  Other things “unimportant” - ballgames, golf, time with the “boys”….

You left off a big one - MONEY
Another one - other love interests (not dissimilar to time spent with computer/games/other things, and time spent working late)

:-)