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Gay marriage should be a constitutional right in America

Gay marriage should be legal in America

  • Yes

    Votes: 43 69.4%

  • No

    Votes: 19 30.6%
  • Total voters
    62
I'm 100% in favor for marriage for everybody. My objection to removing the word marriage is that you can't just take a word out of the international lexicon. People get married and they have a marriage. What would it be otherwise? We have a civil union, we're unionized? Naw, man. It doesn't make any sense.
 
The Mark said:
But it seems to me that creating a legal institution that compliments and supports marriage while not actually being such would not cause much issue.
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My primary objection is to creating an alternative to marriage that does not carry the same weight of tradition behind it. Extending the legal benefits of marriage to an institution that does not have the same cultural and societal authority undermines the value of marriage and actually discourages people from getting married.
 
Ockham said:
What's wrong with it? It's simple:

Marriage = man + woman + legal recognition

<fill in the space> = man + man / woman + woman + legal recognition
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When you can show how a homosexual union can not be considered a marriage, let me know. Oh, and the gender or sexual orientation of the participants is irrelevant if we are trying to see if a homosexual union fits, here.
 
digsbe said:
Forgive me if the wording seemed too strong or provocative. It is my belief that marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman. As I said in my post, I can support civil unions with identical marriage benefits. I cannot support calling something a marriage that is not a marriage (in my opinion).
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I can accept that is your opinion. It doesn't fit how marriage works, in a universal sense, though.
 
Your Star said:
Thats a separate but equal institution. You can't do that. The only way that would fly is if you took marriage out of the government all together, and only offer civil unions to everybody.
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Generally, this is my position. Probably the best solution, too. It leaves marriage to religion, and civil unions... contracts, to the government.
 
digsbe said:
But the homosexual union itself cannot be marriage because marriage is a union between a man and woman. You can't define apples as oranges because the apples want to be oranges.
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When you define all of the things that go into a marriage, a homosexual union fits just as well as a heterosexual union.
 
digsbe said:
The fact that marriage is a family institution and has been traditionally only offered to men and women is logical enough to not warp and redefine something to include another sexuality. And why just homosexuality, what about other sexualities? If someone has the right to redefine a legal contract, why can't a pansexual?
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Appeal to tradition logical fallacy.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Generally, this is my position. Probably the best solution, too. It leaves marriage to religion, and civil unions... contracts, to the government.
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Leaving marriage to religion makes no sense when you consider how little marriage has to do with religion. Atheists and the non-religious get married all the time, and the marriage is no different in inherent structure than any other marriage. Marriage is not religious, it is societal, cultural, and traditional. Religions can recognize marriage, just like the government recognizes marriage... but that doesn't make marriage itself a religious institution.

It would be silly, pointless, and probably detrimental to have a completely separate, government-issued "civil union" that serves the same function as marriage, instead of just recognizing marriage itself as it does now.
 
Dav said:
Leaving marriage to religion makes no sense when you consider how little marriage has to do with religion. Atheists and the non-religious get married all the time, and the marriage is no different in inherent structure than any other marriage. Marriage is not religious, it is societal, cultural, and traditional. Religions can recognize marriage, just like the government recognizes marriage... but that doesn't make marriage itself a religious institution.

It would be silly, pointless, and probably detrimental to have a completely separate, government-issued "civil union" that serves the same function as marriage, instead of just recognizing marriage itself as it does now.
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I disagree. A large segment of anti-GM folks, take this position for religious reasons. Marriage has been seen as a religious union for a long time... and though there is debate on whether it was formed via religion or not, it's ties to religion are pretty clear. Oh... and I would imagine that atheists do NOT get married in a church... so this would not affect them at all. I see nothing that is silly, pointless or detrimental... please explain how you would perceive it that way.
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
Traditions have value and should only be changed for good reasons.
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That doesn't mean that referring to them is a proof, logically... just because something has always been done a certain way, does not necessarily justify that this should continue... at least on it's own merits.
 
Btw, so people are aware, as of this moment, there are 61 non-member "no" votes in the poll, and 3 non-member "yes" votes.
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
Traditions have value and should only be changed for good reasons.
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i'd say this is a good reason to change tradition.

and anyway, it changes nothing for people who enjoy the tradition around marriage, gay marriage is not detrimental to anyone.
 
Last edited:
Wow!! Now I get what Navy was saying about polls being a joke. I didn't know - ah well. I phrased it wrong anyway. If I had it to do over again, I'd make it legal vs constitutional to avoid confusion, and so that only members can vote (if that's an option).
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
I disagree. A large segment of anti-GM folks, take this position for religious reasons. Marriage has been seen as a religious union for a long time... and though there is debate on whether it was formed via religion or not, it's ties to religion are pretty clear. Oh... and I would imagine that atheists do NOT get married in a church... so this would not affect them at all. I see nothing that is silly, pointless or detrimental... please explain how you would perceive it that way.
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Does it matter where they get married? A marriage is a marriage, whether it is made so in a church or in a barnyard. Marriage is only considered a "religious union" because religions, like the government, have over time come to recognize something that already exists in a different plane - that of tradition/culture. I repeat, the non-religious have the same marital union that everyone else has. And as a non-religious person, I definitely don't want to be left out of having the same type of marriage most other people have, just as I don't want gay people to be left out of this.

There's lots of reasons why it would be silly, pointless, and probably detrimental. First of all, if marriage exists without government recognition, then technically gays can already get married... they just don't get the same recognition for it. The reason they don't just get married without it being recognized is that this would be absolutely pointless - the whole reason they're fighting is to get the same rights as everyone else, those rights only existing because of the recognition of marriage. The point is that if the government had a "separate" "civil union" that wasn't marriage, it would be all that would actually matter - and not actually calling it marriage would probably have some ill effects as people become uncertain of what exactly marriage is. It reeks of opportunities to sort of cheat the system and get a "union" purely for the benefits it reaps, for one thing. You'd also have a lot of confusion about which type of "union" really mattered, family-wise... which would not bode well for those with one, but not the other.

Granted, that's assuming that it would be any different from what exists now, which I don't see how it would be. Again, it's already possible to have a "religious" marriage without government recognition... it would just be completely pointless to do so, so nobody does it.
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
My primary objection is to creating an alternative to marriage that does not carry the same weight of tradition behind it. Extending the legal benefits of marriage to an institution that does not have the same cultural and societal authority undermines the value of marriage and actually discourages people from getting married.
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I'm not saying create an alternative, I'm saying create a... "companion", if you will.

A legal entity that compliments and supports marriage (both hetero and homosexual) between two persons.

While at the same time, being separate from it.
 
Dav said:
Does it matter where they get married? A marriage is a marriage, whether it is made so in a church or in a barnyard. Marriage is only considered a "religious union" because religions, like the government, have over time come to recognize something that already exists in a different plane - that of tradition/culture. I repeat, the non-religious have the same marital union that everyone else has. And as a non-religious person, I definitely don't want to be left out of having the same type of marriage most other people have, just as I don't want gay people to be left out of this.
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Explain what would be the difference? If you had a civil union, everything that someone who was married received, you would receive. The only difference would be that you would not get "joined" in a place of worship, and you would not use the word "marriage". So, again, as a non-religious person, what would you be left out of?

There's lots of reasons why it would be silly, pointless, and probably detrimental. First of all, if marriage exists without government recognition, then technically gays can already get married... they just don't get the same recognition for it. The reason they don't just get married without it being recognized is that this would be absolutely pointless - the whole reason they're fighting is to get the same rights as everyone else, those rights only existing because of the recognition of marriage. The point is that if the government had a "separate" "civil union" that wasn't marriage, it would be all that would actually matter - and not actually calling it marriage would probably have some ill effects as people become uncertain of what exactly marriage is. It reeks of opportunities to sort of cheat the system and get a "union" purely for the benefits it reaps, for one thing. You'd also have a lot of confusion about which type of "union" really mattered, family-wise... which would not bode well for those with one, but not the other.
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You are completely missing my position. In MY world, all "marriages" that are currently called "marriage" are now called "civil unions" in the respect of government sanction. All benefits that those who are married receive, would continue to receive them with a civil union. Gays would also receive these identical benefits. Getting married in a place of worship means NOTHING to the government. It only means something to that religion. So, if Catholics do NOT want to sanction GM, they do not have to allow gays to marry their church. Gays can still get married, though; Catholics just wouldn't have to recognize it. Separation of church and state.

Granted, that's assuming that it would be any different from what exists now, which I don't see how it would be. Again, it's already possible to have a "religious" marriage without government recognition... it would just be completely pointless to do so, so nobody does it.
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It is meaningful to those who are religious. That's why a large amount of marriages occur in places of worship.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Explain what would be the difference? If you had a civil union, everything that someone who was married received, you would receive. The only difference would be that you would not get "joined" in a place of worship
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Okay, that already happens.

and you would not use the word "marriage".
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And here's where we get to the "silly" and "pointless" part of the equation. If I had a fish, and called it a yorglblarg, that wouldn't change what it actually is.

The only possible difference this could make is in some disintegration in marriage bond by making marriage (i.e. civil unions) seem more like something one does for government benefits than something one does to make a personal commitment. But even that might not happen. Basically all you seem to want to do is change a word.

So, again, as a non-religious person, what would you be left out of?
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Well, it seemed to me that you wanted marriage to be a religious thing; from your description, however, it appears that what you want is exactly what we have now.

I'd feel bad for not being "married", since I grew up thinking of "marriage" as the word one used for the bond you describe civil unions to be. But since civil unions are apparently exactly the same as marriage, it wouldn't be much of an issue.

You are completely missing my position. In MY world, all "marriages" that are currently called "marriage" are now called "civil unions" in the respect of government sanction. All benefits that those who are married receive, would continue to receive them with a civil union. Gays would also receive these identical benefits. Getting married in a place of worship means NOTHING to the government. It only means something to that religion. So, if Catholics do NOT want to sanction GM, they do not have to allow gays to marry their church. Gays can still get married, though; Catholics just wouldn't have to recognize it. Separation of church and state.
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So basically, you want to give marriage another name, and then allow gays to marry.
Can't we just cut out the middleman?

It is meaningful to those who are religious. That's why a large amount of marriages occur in places of worship.
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And yet none of them get married without the government recognizing it. That was my point. It would be meaningless to do so.
Just because someone's church recognizes marriage, and the marriage happens in a church, does not make marriage itself a religious bond. Again, if it did, atheist marriages would be different from other people's marriages (I said marriages not weddings), and they aren't.
 
Dav said:
It reeks of opportunities to sort of cheat the system and get a "union" purely for the benefits it reaps, for one thing. You'd also have a lot of confusion about which type of "union" really mattered, family-wise... which would not bode well for those with one, but not the other.
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I was thinking about this today. Say gays do get "civil unions." Could others capitalize on this? Hypothetical: Two guys are roommates, both straight. Living together to cut down on bills. Decide to play the system and get a civil union for the benefits it brings. After they no longer need to live together they get a divorce with no cost to either party. It's not like the Justice of the Peace actually checks to make sure they're actually a homosexual couple right?
 
RightOfCenter said:
I was thinking about this today. Say gays do get "civil unions." Could others capitalize on this? Hypothetical: Two guys are roommates, both straight. Living together to cut down on bills. Decide to play the system and get a civil union for the benefits it brings. After they no longer need to live together they get a divorce with no cost to either party. It's not like the Justice of the Peace actually checks to make sure they're actually a homosexual couple right?
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what stops straight people from doing that now?
 
RightOfCenter said:
I was thinking about this today. Say gays do get "civil unions." Could others capitalize on this? Hypothetical: Two guys are roommates, both straight. Living together to cut down on bills. Decide to play the system and get a civil union for the benefits it brings. After they no longer need to live together they get a divorce with no cost to either party. It's not like the Justice of the Peace actually checks to make sure they're actually a homosexual couple right?
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Did you recently watch this?

chuckandlarry.jpg
 
Dav said:
Okay, that already happens.
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As I said.

And here's where we get to the "silly" and "pointless" part of the equation. If I had a fish, and called it a yorglblarg, that wouldn't change what it actually is.
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Your analogy doesn't fit. This one does. You own a shark. I own a barracuda. We each have pools where our pets live. My barracuda can't come to the community pool, though, because it has a sign that says, "all SHARKS welcome". Suddenly, we realize that both sharks and barracuda's are fish. So, the community pool gets renamed "all FISH welcome". Now, your pool remains, sharks only. But the community pool is now for FISH.

That's more accurate.

The only possible difference this could make is in some disintegration in marriage bond by making marriage (i.e. civil unions) seem more like something one does for government benefits than something one does to make a personal commitment. But even that might not happen. Basically all you seem to want to do is change a word.
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If folks want something that represents more spiritual bonding, they are free to go to the place of worship of their choice. I want to separate the concepts.

Well, it seemed to me that you wanted marriage to be a religious thing; from your description, however, it appears that what you want is exactly what we have now.
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Correct.

I'd feel bad for not being "married", since I grew up thinking of "marriage" as the word one used for the bond you describe civil unions to be. But since civil unions are apparently exactly the same as marriage, it wouldn't be much of an issue.
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Correct.



So basically, you want to give marriage another name, and then allow gays to marry.
Can't we just cut out the middleman?
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Politically, no. It is similar to pro-life folks. They are willing to keep legal abortions that are the result of pregnancies caused by rape or incest, in order to prevent all other types of abortions. It's a political compromise that is more palatable to some pro-choicers. This is the same concept that I am applying here.



And yet none of them get married without the government recognizing it. That was my point. It would be meaningless to do so.
Just because someone's church recognizes marriage, and the marriage happens in a church, does not make marriage itself a religious bond. Again, if it did, atheist marriages would be different from other people's marriages (I said marriages not weddings), and they aren't.
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Dav, I'm not saying that there would be any structural difference. There wouldn't be. But for those who are religious, there IS a difference in the bond... at least in their perception, spiritually.
 
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