Define Marriage

[robvalue]

Thank you

Yes, what the fuck is it meant to mean "I don't believe in gay marriage"? Do they mean they don't believe it can happen? Who asked their opinion anyway? Do I have to go around the world asking every religious person if I'm offending them before I sign a contract?

Too bad. Like you say, they don't get to make the rules for everyone else just because their religion happens to have been around a long time. If we were trying to force them to marry gays or something, they would have a reason to complain. Or maybe they think we're going to force them to watch gay wedding night sex tapes. I even wonder if they feel that they have to "stand up" to homosexuality or else people will think they are gay. Or else they think it "devalues" marriage to allow "lesser" people to do it. It makes no fucking difference to them does it? It's not a competition. If they are so insecure about their marriages and their religion and can't defend themselves rationally, clearly they are the ones with the problem.

It makes no sense at all, and when objections make no sense it's a good sign it's just covering bigotry and fear. Your religion requires you to be a dick weed? Get another religion. It's not our problem and you don't get to dictate the law.

[Cato]

For example, I had a friend that was raised in a commune. None of the children were certain about who their real parents were. When the adults gave favor to some children over others for no apparent reason, the children got very confused. While not inevitable, these kids grew up with lots of issues. Few people would deny that today’s high divorce rates and serial monogamy negatively affect the children. Why would Western democracies want to create even more problems for themselves?

You act as if what you describe doesn't frequently happen in 'traditional' family environments. My mother was one of ten children; proper Catholics (well, my grandmother anyway). I wont go into details, but nobody survives that environment emotionally unscathed. Additionally, it is not uncommon for any child to perceive situations unjustly when it comes to disparate treatment of siblings even where there are only two children with loving parents.

You, like other vocal opponents of gay marriage, keep hammering away at this idea that anything but a strict Christian style marriage and family unit will result in the downfall of Western civilization. It's baseless hyperbole. The problems invoked as demonstration are just as prevalent in traditional marriages; the causes of which can in no way be attributed to a simple count of the total number of appendages possessed by the parents in a given union.
[/quote]

[Hatshepsut]

The ... promiscuity ...  and over-sexualization of Western culture have already done their damage... For example, I had a friend that was raised in a commune. None of the children were certain about who their real parents were. When the adults gave favor to some children over others for no apparent reason, the children got very confused...

Other posts have averred that reflects upon the adults more than upon the system they were using. Some Native American societies did raise their children communally, acting a village, presumably so that the mothers of small kids wouldn't have as great a burden of care. But modern communes in western countries aren't really like tribal villages. For the Natives it was family life as usual. For us the communes represent some form of rebellion against the wider society, often coupled with isolation under the tutelage of a charismatic leader. So these communes tend to come with problems waiting to happen. And they tend to fold quickly where Native villages lasted centuries. The Amish are a partial exception yet even there half of their kids leave upon reaching majority despite the fact that each Amish family remains a separate unit within the township.

My guess is that same-sex and group marriage and family arrangements can work quite fine, provided they are regulated in an appropriate way. I'd rather be a kid with two quality dads than have an alcoholic traditional home.

What to do about the over-hyping of sex in our commercial culture, I have no idea...  

Biological sex, which is objective, has been replaced with gender, a self-selected identity.

I like that someone realizes sex and gender are distinct concepts in anthropology and sociology.  

[Pyrrho]

...

It aggravates me when people say that they 'don't believe in same sex marriage'. ...

That reminds me of the nonsense one often hears about gay marriage destroying traditional marriage. That is a good deal of excrement. Whether my neighbor marries a man, woman, or does not marry, has nothing whatever to do with my marriage. What do these morons think, that everyone in a heterosexual marriage is saying to themselves, "damn, if only I waited, I could have married someone of my sex instead!" and then gets a divorce to do that? Really, it is just too moronic for words.

My marriage to my wife is what it is, regardless of who anyone else marries, or does not marry. It does nothing at all to my marriage for other people to have gay marriages, opposite sex marriages, or no marriages.

[robvalue]

"Honey, two gays across the street just got married. We've lost 20 marriage points! I hate you now!"

[Silver]

Chad's actual point in not supporting same sex marriage actually has nothing to do with it erroneously affecting his marriage to his wife.

Rather, he took it a step further, to the slippery slope fallacy to be precise, in stating that legalizing gay marriage means a whole bunch of other stupid crap is going to happen as a result.

Just as retarded theists ignorantly predicted a bunch of stuff would happen if black people received their rights, the stuff that surprisingly did not happen.

We have to take pity upon these sad theists who cannot reason properly. Poor Chad.

[robvalue]

The BBFC predicted the release of manhunt 2 would be dangerous and would cause "harm". They refused to specify what harm that would be. They took it all the way to the high court. They had no argument, because everyone knew they were only doing it because of the name of the game.

It got released. Nothing happened.

Slippery slope is not a good argument when it isn't backed by something solid.

"If you do this fair and sensible thing, suddenly a load of crazy stuff will happen and no one will be able to stop it!"

[Hatshepsut]

Just as retarded theists ignorantly predicted a bunch of stuff would happen if black people received their rights...

I'm just curious what was predicted before 1964 and by whom. It seems that quite a few theists were taking up their cause: the Negro division of the Southern Baptist Convention (1925), Martin Luther King (1955, 1963 etc.), and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (ongoing as Southern Poverty Law Center). All in the deprived and benighted South.

In other words, fallacies of construction can strike as easily as those of slippery slopes.  

[ajarnfalang]

Now that the word marriage has been changed from the legal and sacred union of one man and one woman what DOES it mean? What are the boundaries that distinguish it from other contractual arrangements, social obligations, and familial relationships?

Marriage is when you do everything your wife tells you.

[Pyrrho]