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:
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!
Jenn:
First, I do appreciate that you are proposing a decent compromise that would have the government no longer discriminating in this area.
But, an analogy: Just as you think only certain relationships qualify for proper marriage, I have my own definition of what passes for proper logic and reason.
While I don’t think that what others call logic others passes muster, I don’t feel that civilization will collapse if others are allowed to claim that their arguments consist of “logic”.
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.
The rejection of tolerance and scientific rationalism is why Islam went from being intellectual leaders in the middle ages to now lagging behind the west in every kind of development. The US is on the verge of making the same transition.
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.
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.)
I disagree, Jenn.
I am 100% atheist, and I consider myself 100% married.
Marriage is a social institution that is found in every culture around the world, and it takes many different forms.
Marriage is a social institution that is legally recognized. It is also a social institution about which many religions have many different things to say. The state has to have a definition of marriage and this definition should be a secular one.
Your proposal is an interesting one but it is not going to happen anytime soon and so it is not a realistic way of giving everyone equal treatment under the law. Your proposal also would not protect traditional marriage because, with the law out of the picture, SOME churches would start performing same-sex marriages.
Conservative christianity does not have the patent on “marriage”. Do you think Muslim states would be correct in prohibiting marriage between muslims and non-muslims? Government should be secular.
Your proposal could be achieved much more easily by simply saying to yourself that true marriage is in the eyes of God. The state can call marriage whatever it wants, but this is not “true marriage”. God and his institution of marriage are safe because no one can rewrite God’s laws. God (and Christians) are not harmed by the inaccurate use of terminology by others. State-sponsored marriage would just be seen by you as the civil union you are proposing, and true marriage in your eyes would be the one performed in a church in front of God. The state just uses the term “marriage” because it is shorter and correlates to a universal human institution that does however take many different forms.
Think of another social institution: education and graduation. You could take the view that one is only “educated” when one has learned something of the “truth”. There may be all kinds of people “graduating” from university who have not learned anything good and maybe even a lot of wrong ideas. Should we say that only certain kinds of learning should be included in the term “education”, and that those with a degree in Creation Science or in Climate Change (depending on what you think is wrong) should not be allowed to call themselves “educated”?
It’s just a word. A word for which you have a very important personal religious meaning, but a word that is used differently by different people. Misuse of a word can’t harm you or your God.
By the way, the situation in Canada is this:
The government recognizes same-sex marriage, and justices of the peace as public servants have to perform them if asked.
However, churches are protected from having to perform same-sex marriages. So, if you want to get a same-sex marriage in a church, you have to find a church that will accept this.
To me this seems a pretty good approach. Conservative christians and muslims don’t have to go along with it in their churches and mosques, so their religious customs are not threatened, they are not forced to do anything against their beliefs. All they have to do is accept that the state does not use their definition of marriage.
This is just like the Amish not insisting that everyone live without electricity, the Jewish not insisting that everyone get circumcised, and the muslims not insisting that no one drink alcohol etc.
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.
What’s ridiculous is for the adherents of bronze-age mythologies to enforce their moral code on everyone else.
One of my best friends is lesbian and she is one of the most moral people I know. Of course, as an atheist, I realize you probably think I’m not entitled to make any moral judgments whatever.
Freedom has to be freedom for all or it is a very shallow freedom. Gays and lesbians want to recognize and celebrate their committed relationships to their life partners as “marriage” and not have to call it something else because some people are disgusted by their lifestyle. So let them. That, or just get it over with and declare the US a theocracy just like the Taliban. You have many of the same religious beliefs about sex and marriage, and apparently also a similar belief about the role of religious morals in the law of the state (unlike your founding fathers). Not quite as extreme, you are not advocating stoning, but it still causes stigmatization and 2nd class status based on a part of people’s identity that they can’t change.
You have an ideological commitment that I don’t think I will ever be able to reason you away from, so I give up.
I’ll be posting news about AACalc soon.
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.
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
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)
:-)
Other love interests. I’d like to comment that it is unrealistic to expect a mle in a relationship to not be attracted to other women. Being in a relationship doesn’t automatically make all other women ugly.
Other love interests. I’d like to comment that it is unrealistic to expect a mle in a relationship to not be attracted to other women. Being in a relationship doesn’t automatically make all other women ugly.
:-) Of course, there is a difference between entering a personal (emotional) relationship, and just checking out the goods…. But you’re talking to a man - we understand each other…
Unrealistic?? :lol:
Woman = unrealistic :-D
No, seriously, men and women in relationships need to keep open minds, and study the differences between men and women. At least try to understand the differences intellectually… Since you can’t understand many of their feelings/perspectives from personal experience…
Okay, this might be a good time to let this thread go back on topic.
Okay, this might be a good time to let this thread go back on topic.
:-) Agreed, although a few days ago would have been an even better time. :-)
