Gay Marriage - are you for or against it and why?

[Violet]

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I would oppose it because I like language to mean something--calling homosexual relationships "marriage" doesn't make them the same as heterosexual relationships--they remain radically different.

Because person+person agreeing not to have sex with anyone else is so radically different if those two people are within platforms that are even more similar?

Homosexual relationships do not of themselves result in an organic union disposed toward the procreation of life, and speaking a natural language of exclusivity and permanence.

Relationships aren't there simply to have children. My relationship with the humans is *strictly* as trade partners. I am aware that they might declare war on me at some point, but I do not expect them to do so today. Especially not while the Klackon and Darlok alliance are at war with them (And the Sakra at war with me).

Being able to have children/having children is irrelevant to exclusivity and permanence.

Those elements can be added on extrinsically by the intention of the partners, but only from outside. The act itself is not fundamentally oriented toward a permanent, natural, life-giving relationship, bespeaking permanence.

Natural would suggest they have sex whenever and wherever they want. Permanence is not possible in a universe where there is change. Life-giving relationships are not necessarily loving, worthwhile, or even exclusive, as my Silicoid breeding program suggests. Can't wait till we get cloning technology.

My people are wonderful: they don't care about... anything. Inferno Planet? Hot rocks. Tundra? Cold rocks. Toxic? Rocks with a kick. Radiated? Psychedelic Rocks. Barren? How does this affect rocks? Sex? I don't feel like it. I swear, if I didn't force them to have a birth quota we would have gone extinct.

That is a real distinction, and a real difference between the intrinsic nature of heterosexual and homosexual relationships. I'm not saying that homosexual people can't stay together, or build stable homes. I am not saying they shouldn't be free to pursue their real happiness however they best can--what I'm saying is--don't pretend that that search justifies hijacking language to make it mean whatever sounds nicest. Homosexual relations are not heterosexual relations, by any stretch of the imagination--and nobody should be forced to say they are equivalent.

Language is "hijacked" all the time. Oh look, i can't use the word 'gay' in respect to myself without people thinking I am "homosexual". Tut, and I so enjoy saying that I am gay as a lark, as merry as a schoolboy.

I agree that homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships are different. But they are both relationships. Orange and apple are different, but they are both fruit. As it turns out, marriage is a type of relationship (one that I think shouldn't exist, of course) that forms sexual exclusivity within reason. Then I see people "cheating" on each other all the time, and have an even harder time respecting marriage as a relationship beyond words

Where does that leave me? If it does become common practice to call it 'marriage' then we have solved the hurtful divide between committed homosexual couples and committed heterosexual couples being distinguished from each other in the fundamental nature of their relationship. But we overcome that only by ignoring, by covering our eyes to, the real difference between them. Either that, or we have to recognize it in a way that was never necessary before. It was never necessary before because those relationships were not put in the same category.

It wasn't necessary until people changed the definition of marriage so that it could only be between (one) man and (one) woman. I mean, seriously... one? And I can't even have a lesbian marriage now? This is not going to work for me, fellows. I really can't tell you how much I despise those notions of exclusive marriage which incessantly get in my way. Is it so much of a special thing for you that I'll only have sex with you? Really? Seriously? Selfish prick. That's a major turn off by the way. I simply can't make it work, as it goes against everything I understand in a relationship (that it is with a person, not their body). I digress though

If it is really thought necessary for people's feelings to make a simple verbal recognition that they are both 'marriage', then we are watering down the original definition of marriage to be more general and less specific...meaning we would need newer, more specific terms to distinguish between heterosexual marriage and homosexual marriage.

Would you like to know the original definition of 'no'? It was a vague 'over there', or sometimes simple used as an expression of pain. Seriously: language changes with time. Hopefully it also becomes more simplified where it needs to be (ie: marriage) and more complex where it needs to be with time.

Because the differences are valuable to recognize not only for the individuals involved, but also for the state--the only reason the state recognizes marriage as a legal relationship is because of its role of forming new citizens (young children).

FULL STOP.

The state needs to not give a rats left ankle about the sexual and familial relationships of *ANY* of its individuals. It is irrelevant to the function of the state, and makes for being a major fucking organizational hassle.

New citizens honestly need a better schooling system (not this industrial model that ensures that almost every member of the citizenry is as barely useful as the next, with either few or no specializations to make them useful. Parents should have at most 5 years to get some of the more annoying kinks with children worked out (potty training. Do it), and the state then take them and give them a competitive state in society. They should have visitation rights i suppose... but if you actually want to have a competent and highly specialized citizenry: leaving them in the often incapable hands of parents is a poor plan indeed. Forcing them to be under the legal control of their parents until the moment they enter your citizenry is also a poor plan for this.

And standardized testing is ridiculous and needs to go. Now. Already. Fifty years ago. Get it gone. /enddigressing

The fact that one of these romantic committed relationships is organically and naturally disposed towards the conceiving and rearing of children, and the other at best has only the potential to add a similar dimension to their relationship through adoption or surrogate motherhood, indicates to me that we would still be facing a situation of logical discrimination. The state need not indiscriminately endorse every relationship that makes us feel good--but they should endorse the ones fundamental to the build-up of society. Only traditional heterosexual marriage (I'm talking in its natural observance, not its abuse) naturally does this. In relation to the state, homosexual marriage it seems to me would be no more intrinsically useful than two bachelor brothers who decide to share living expenses.

No sexual/love-based relationship is necessary for society. And none of these should make a difference to the state.

What it forces us to do is to make up a new word for that difference. I say the exclusive and permanent heterosexual relationships have been called marriage for time out of mind here--everyone knows what it means both connotatively, and denotatively until the last few decades called into question. If people want to recognize and explain homosexual relationships as legitimate--to argue and point out the intrinsic beneficial effects (if there are some I haven't heard, beyond "making people feel nice and fair") for individuals and society at large--and to allocate state benefits accordingly, I have no objection--I only want the reasoning to be there. But why hijack a word that has always indicated another type of relationship? What is being made war on there is not bigotry, but the meaningfulness of language and the freedom to make real distinctions.

I think my comment on this follows from everything else I have said in this thread /yawn.

Finally: I think that people will probably be thinking about heterosexual infertile couples--kudos to them--and that is an anomaly of a general rule. The general rule is, that when heterosexual partners are healthy, fertility happens. When homosexual couples are healthy and all is proceeding according to the natural norm--new life isn't. So for the government--unless you want to take it on a case-by-case basis for heterosexual couples, it makes much more sense to endorse the whole of the heterosexual couples as marriages.

Anomalies break rules. Instead of trying to mess with a broken rule and figuring out what is and is not an exception to it: make a new rule that fits the data. /enter holmes quotes.

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