Marriage, Back door laws and policies, and tolerance issues

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I don't think anything you said was an insult at all & i hope you didn't take anything i wrote as mockery. I included the rather sarcastic example as a counter-point to what happens when the government tries to satisfy every small group.
The best that the government can ever hope for is to have everybody unhappy, that way all of the groups feel equally put upon.
You bring in yet another voice(or POV) as you are neither an athiest or a member of one of the abrahamic(sp?) religions.
Sometimes i think most left-handers are more even-minded than just about anyone.

Not sure how i feel about marriages that can't produce offspring(as i am one of those).
I personally, sometimes felt like i was letting my family down by not being able to continue the line.(my younger brother took up the slack, he & his better-half have 5 !)

I am rather ambivalent about gay couples adopting. I think all children need a stable household to grow in yet i'm not sure if the extra stress, anxiety, confusion & societal problems that can come from having 2 same-sex parents is balanced by that stable home.

 

Please refine this statement. Billions of Christians, Jews & Islamics do NOY use the word 'marriage"

French use the word "marriage" which were we English speaking people got the word. Itallians use "unione", Germans use "Verbindung"..I think that is spelled correctly. The Dutch use 'huwelijk' . Just to mention a few. The Spanish translation is "union". Is union a sacred word only to be used by those who worship the god of Abraham and Isaac?

Come on, guys, you are arguing semantics here.

(A side personal note here: I was 'married' to the Church for 13 years.)

 

Marriage being defined by christians, jews & muslims(don't know why the heck i had islamics there?!) as the bonding of a man & a woman.
If it was all just semantics than let the gay minority pick a word that isn't garaunteed to get the religious riled up. This is what has happened by trying to attach the word marriage to something that so many find offensive( i say so many because, as i posted earlier, 43 of the 50 states AND the federal government have ALL stipulated that the definition of marriage is ONE MAN & ONE WOMAN PERIOD.)
Thats 86% of the states, not a 1/2 majority, not a 2/3rd's majority but over a 4/5th's super-majority.


You was a penguin?!? Never would have guessed.

 

Yes, martaug, here in the United States of America the word 'marriage' is being defined as a contract between 1 man and 1 woman. I am not going to waste my precious vision searching out the various laws to see exactly how they are written so I ask this:

Does that mean that use of the word 'marriage' in any other context is illegal? Also, I do believe it is a matter of semantics which is why I have supported in other threads the use of a civil union term but which grants the same civil rights as 'marriage'.

The laws of the USA under our constitution are secular not religious. They do not define 'marriage' as a religious sacrement or at least they shouldn't.

My point is simply that if your native language is not English the chances are that you are using a different word not the precise word 'marriage'. Unless your native language is French.

 

I'm pretty sure that the 3 abrahamic religions see that definition as the same whatever the local language equivalent of "marriage" is.

I honestly do not know.

I agree with you on this 100%.

The laws were put into place to provide a common(notice i didn't say happy) middle ground between the various religions(& their varying rules & prohibitions) when the country was founded. They may be secular but they are very much influenced by religion. Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

 

martaug, I think you're confusing the religious concept of a union (one man, one women, and a sacred bond with god) with the word used by English-speaking religious groups to name that concept, i.e. "marriage".

I have no problem with someone believing that such a sacred union can only be between a man and a woman; everyone is entitled to their beliefs. What I do have a problem with is the attempt by religious groups to claim sole ownership of the word "marriage". The fact is that they don't own it; otherwise it would be illegal for my wife and I to call ourselves married, and to my knowledge, there is no warrant out for our arrest.

Now Gnarff will try to convince you of at least 2 things:

1. The church does own the word “marriage”, although he has failed miserably in his attempt to prove it. (More accurately, he hasn’t even tried to prove it, but pretends he has. I’m waiting for him to answer T2’s last post.)
2. Because my wife and I apply the word "married" to our civil union, we have accepted god’s covenant without actually having done so.

It’s the second one that I find particularly baffling, as I don’t know how someone can accept something without actually accepting it; to accept something, by definition that acceptance must be done willingly and knowingly. Now had Gnarff instead said that, if we want to call ourselves married, we are obligated to accept god’s covenant (and if we don’t, we’ll have to answer to god when we die), or alternatively, god’s covenant is imposed on us whether or not we want it (similar to a prison sentence being imposed on someone who claims innocence **) or even acknowledge it, then fine. I can accept either one of those scenarios as being a legitimate position from a religious perspective; I can disagree with that position (in part because it requires ownership of the word "marriage"), but at least I understand it. But to say that we have accepted the covenant by default is nonsense.

I know – I said I wasn’t going to debate this with Gnarff anymore. But technically, I’m responding to martaug, so no problem-o.

** and no, I'm not equating religion with a prison sentence. It's just that the analogy works fairly well.

 

martaug, my apologies, I find sarcasm difficult enough to pick out at the best of times

As to point two in your post, Splunge, I believe Gnarff tends to view it in a similar way to breaking the law. You may not even realise the law exists, but if you break it you're still accountable.

I have a few friends raised by gay couples (either from adoption, or parents splitting up and going separate ways) and the worst you scan say about them is a couple are quirky Most are open about the fact their parents are gay and it doesn't bother them. One girl I know got bullied and called names for a while, but it died off after a year after their ignorance was dispersed (They somehow believed her mothers girlfriend was actually her father somehow.)

Same sex relationships can be as balanced and stable as any other relationship, in my personal opinion, personality and mentality is more of a major factor than gender will be when it comes to relationships. To deny rights to a group of people simply over a word seems harsh and, to be frank, rather unreasonable. I am not for a second going to compare this to other situations where groups have been denied rights, as most of them stem from societal reactions rather than religious.

There are also considerations on *other* religious views, however, I know for certain that in America and the UK it's a Christian ceremony or a civil one - no other options. It is difficult to find a registrar for different religions who can perform a ceremony accurately and truly. So even if a couple wants to marry under the terms of their religion, they may not be able to from the rules of a larger set of religions.

My argument lies more in the fact that marriage is an english term used for a Christian ritual, as well as a set of similar rituals with near identical intentions. However, 'A rose by any other name...' is apparently not a rose. Civil Unions do not automatically grant the same rights as a Christian Union, and the word marriage is so jealously guarded - even though it's simply an english term. In the UK, people who have a civil union are still referred to as being Married, both in social and legal terms, and supposed to carry the same rights and terms of a religious marriage, though as I understand it there are still a few key rights/options not automatically conferred. I have not looked into this in depth yet, however, though certainly will when the time grows closer.

 

I'm not so sure about that, peeps. Here are a few quotes from Gnarff:

Particularly with the last quote, it sure sounds to me like he's saying we are automatically accepting the covenant. And since the word "accept" implies "willingly and knowingly", then somehow we are willingly and knowingly accepting it without actually willingly and knowingly doing so.

 

Actually thought of this same point right before I read your post
As I tried to explain in my previous post, the word "marriage" is not only reserved to meaning the union of a man and a woman, but can also be used to describe other things. What people who are so adamantly protesting against the use of the word marriage outside of religious rituals here, are really referring to is the concept of marriage. In fact, martaug appears to completely agree on this point, despite the fact that he also seems to think that the word 'marriage' shouldn't be used when describing the union of two people of the same sex.

Hence the concept of marriage, or, to be more precise, the concept of religious marriage, as normal marriage and religious marriage are two entirely separate things to me.

Actually, if someone on the street were to step up to me and say that 'huwelijk' was a word which could only be used to describe the divine covenant between a man and a woman, I would laugh at him to his face. Partially because the notion of a dutchman saying something like that is too strange, and partially because the absurdness of claiming a word that has no link to religion to me for religious purposes only is prepostorous. The only reason I can think of why this whole discussion doesn't seem completely outlandish to me, is because the word in question is from a different language than my native language.
It probably doesn't help that in my country same-sex marriages are, in fact, legal, and, as I didn't notice a lot of hubbub about it, the majority of the people seem to either not care, or agree that marriage should be available for same-sex couples as well.
[/rant]?

Another thing that seems to be misunderstood by some in this discussion is that language, unlike the word of their respective gods, is not absolute. Make it hard enough for people to use a word, and they will invent a different word for the same thing, temporarily satisfying the people who banned the use of that word, until the new word becomes the new mainstream word for it. Then they restrict usage of that word as well, as it describes their sacred-something now too, which can only be called deliciously ironical.
[ok /rant again]

Excellent point I'd been meaning to make as well.
If the word 'marriage' is objectionable, would it be objectionable to use a word from a different language with the same meaning to describe a same-sex marriage? If you have the pretention to be consistent, you should protest against it, and should protest against uses of the word matrimony and wedlock to describe same-sex marriages too.

Note, though, that the correct word in German is Ehe, Ehebund oder Verheiratung. Verbindung is the same as bond. In Dutch other valid options are echtverbintenis of trouwerij.

/edit
Btw BTA, I was looking at one of your posts, and I just started wondering: Just how many BoM games are you champion of?

 

Mmm, when I bought a few acres of field from the field adjacent to the house it became legally defined as being "married" to the property, and is deemed more valuable due to the "marriage" value. Does this mean it is an abomination in the sight of the Lord your God as it isn't between a man and a woman?
This of course goes back to the original meaning of the word, derived from the Latin as previously described in this thread, and having no connotations to anything remotely resembling religion.


On the other hand, I'm really not hung up about a word. Why can't "Civil Union" be legally defined as "Having all rights, without exception, to those currently enjoyed by people being "married" and otherwise to be equal in all respects to the status of marriage as currently defined in the law. Where the word "marriage" is currently used in legal or all other documentation is shall be deemed to be read as "marriage" or "civil union"

Or some such sentence put into lawyer gobble-de-gook (I've used too much punctuation for starters)

Of course this will wipe out all of the "back-door" legal wranglings as... they'll have exactly the same rights. Oh wait, for some it's not just a word, they just don't believe in equality.

 

The problem I would have with that and many others is of a purely principal kind. Why shouldn't we use the same word? Will not the use of a different word for same sex marriage then indicate that it is a lesser thing than the "real" marriage?

 

Definietly, but isn't that the whole point of this pointless arguement? From the religious point of view it is not only lesser, it is evil, sinful, etc, etc.

I'd better stop now before I get in real trouble.
bye

Pointless in the fact that no one is going to persuade the die hard religious group that they are wrong. And they certainly won't persuade me that I am wrong.

 

Ahh but theres the rub Splunge & Henkie, the religious HAVE used that term for so long that it is part of their culture now, so asking them to change it feels like an assault on their religion to them.

No problem 8people
The only kid i know that is (sorta)being raised by a gay couple is in a weird situation. His mom & dad(they used to go to the same gym i do) got divorced about 2 years ago when he was like 7 & his dad subsequently came out of the closet. He is in a (fairly)long-term relatioinship with a guy & his mom just remarried to a true bigot. Now he has his mom(who is bitter like only a woman can be. you know what i'm talking about) & stepfather telling him his birth-father is a p**** & a wimp & not worthy of his love while his dad refuses to bad mouth his mom. So his real dad is taking the high-road but by not fighting back i wonder if his son is starting to think less of him? I wonder what happens when he becomes a teen (with the onset of puberty & all) after several more years of this.

Splurge, remember part of the christian belief is that you are guilty until you get(accept?) forgiveness from christ. So to Gnarff & other devout christians you don't have to accept the covenants they automatically(to them) apply.


Carcaroth, many here have said that is the way to go since the beginning. I agree completely.

Because to many Joacqin, seeing 2 people of the same sex denigrate(to their eyes) a sacred ceremony is too much to stand. Especially when you see pictures of 2 men or 2 women getting married & 1 of them is dressed as a bride & the other is dressed as a groom. Nothing worse than seeing a man in a wedding dress or a woman in a tux next to a woman in a bridal dress.

Definitely Nakia, there are diehards on each side that will never be happy, no matter what the outcome.

Thats the problem with all laws BTA.

 

That's not the way that THIS Christian sees it, nor many other Christians. Gnarff is a conservative fundamentalist. He does not OWN Christianity and the concept of "marriage" (altough he would have us all believe that he does). There are all types of Christians and I wish that the stereotypes about what "Christians" believe would stop. It has no test in reality. Splunge is the one who is correct in this instance, and this Christian agrees with him.

I'd be curious to know if Gnarff's wife agrees with him on this issue....

 

Yes, I know that. We all do. That's why we're having this whole debate. But "usage" does not equate to "ownership". Which is also why we're having this debate.

Fine. That would be the "imposing" that I said I would be able to accept as an arguement. Except that's not what Gnarff is saying. Go back and re-read my last two posts. He isn't saying I "don't have to accept the covenants they automatically (to them) apply". He is saying that I (willingly) accept them by using the word "marriage" without actually (willingly) doing so. There is a world of difference between the two statements. Your statement, while debatable, at least makes sense. Gnarff's doesn't.

 

No, it feels like an assault on their religion because they have a persecution complex.

In the case of the LDS, well, it's an understandable persecution complex, but even so.

 

That's not what I see. I see Women in society holding just as much esteem as men. Women are being taught that they are not property. This holds man accountable for his treatment of women. Jeff Foxworthy put if best: "When she ain't happy, you ain't happy. And if she ain't happy long enough, you ain't happy with half your stuff!" If Women seem better than men in domestic roles it's only because men don't put the effort in to learn. Of course, if I didn't learn to cook, I might not have the weight problem I do now...

But the first 10 Commandments spring from the two that Christ gave--Love God with all your heart, and love thy neighbour as thyself. From there, every commandment originates.

I'm just pointing it out. Marriage is explicitly between a man and a woman. It has been from the beginning. It is God's way. There is no place for Homosexuality in the divine plan.

His covenant, His rules. If you want God out, differentiate with language.

When I have people who disagree with my religious views telling me that what we consider sacred is nothing more than a piece of paper, what is it then?

They voted that way because they believe that it was the right thing to do. The don't look at the results for some rear-view verification.

And what of their right not to have a minority dictate new moral terms upon them that are against their beliefs? They defended their beliefs against some group that tried to fircibly overrule them. Are their rights suddenly worth less than those of another group?

You are not one to comment. You took the views of those that oppose the Church at a higher value than those that try to live according to the faith. You ultimately denied that which cannot be logically proven. You of all people should have known better...

Celestial Marriage occurs in the Temple. If I were to marry outside the faith or to a recent convert who was not ready to enter the temple, then I'd just be married.

Marriage and Prayer are not exclusively Christian, but other faiths do hold Homosexuality as a great sin and marriage to be sacred. They too would be offended at the notion of same sex marriage.

But with that freedom to choose comes the charge to live, uphold and defend that which is right and sacred.

Of course you should marry. Infertility in this life will not carry forth into worlds beyond this one...

 

T2 is psychic.

 

Not exactly on topic, but is that really part of Mormon doctrine? That infertile people become fertile upon dying and entering heaven? From which it would logicially follow that married couples can have children in heaven, after they are dead (while else would you need to become fertile)? How do babies of dead people act? Do you still have to change poopy diapers and wake up at 2AM to feed a hungry baby?

This would be really weird if that were true. Sorry that I'm not just taking your word for this, because you have proved yourself to be wrong about this stuff before, so I'm kind of waiting for confirmation here...