"Jesus would rather kill, not marry, gay people" - Franklin Graham

[Amarok]

In which case I say we let them create their own word.  Like Christian-Union.  They can have Christian unions, and everyone else can have marriage.  That way, we're not associated with them.

Lol sure, fair enough! Nothing stopping them doing that.

I'd love to know in what way a same-sex marriage is actually different. "Marriage is all about differing genitalia" doesn't exactly hold much water. Seriously, that's the focal point? Not, like... the relationship between the people, or anything?

Swap out gentiles for 100 other features and see how well their argument works .Ultimately that line of reasoning is a smoke screen for their real reason

[robvalue]

Lol sure, fair enough! Nothing stopping them doing that.

I'd love to know in what way a same-sex marriage is actually different. "Marriage is all about differing genitalia" doesn't exactly hold much water. Seriously, that's the focal point? Not, like... the relationship between the people, or anything?

Swap out gentiles for 100 other features and see how well their argument works .Ultimately that line of reasoning is a smoke screen for their real reason

I think it's a case of them finally being honest with themselves. They can't separate out their religious ideas about marriage from the secular contract it has become, and they can't shift the bigotry they have been taught about homosexuals.

[Pat Mustard]

That's a bullshit quote from a bullshitter philosophies have to be judged that way otherwise your divorcing them from their impact on the real world .

A poor execution doesn’t mean that the plan was flawed. It’s not saying that you cannot judge those who are abusing the philosophy, but that the abuse doesn’t reflect on the philosophy itself.

Just like Steve is repurposing the most typical nazi defence to the holocaust "god said the jews were evil so it's ok to kill them" to hate on LGBT people, we now see RR repurposing the defence of Stalin to do the same thing.

[polymath257]

You're right, RR. Gay couples and straight couples are different. What you and your neanderthal buddies don't seem to get (and I'm seriously beginning to believe it's intentional obtuseness), is that those different couples are supposed to be treated equally under the law.


Bullshit. Just because something is different, doesn't mean it's not equal.

8+8 = 4*4 = 128/8 <----- They're all different yet they're all equal.

For fuck's sake, the logic your using could just as easily be used by segregation era racial bigots (a mixed race couple is different, and therefore not equal), and probably was.

Bigotry is bigotry no matter how you dress it up and try to defend it. You claim it's a sin? Well, the Seventh Day Adventists claim to this day that mixing the races is a sin and can provide "scriptural evidence" to back it up. Are you going to defend the retrograde position of your SDA brothers in christ with the same fervor with which you defend your own?


Under the law? Bet your ass they're certainly supposed to be.

Simmer down now.... that was just a statement (not a logical claim).  And if you disagree, we can make all three instances equal again, and go back to that.  I'm not saying that they don't deserve equal rights (and dignity) as a person.  I simply don't agree with changing the definition of marriage to make up for that difference, anymore than you don't agree with it for the other differences.  There is not any rights being denied in one any more than the other. If so what are they, and why don't you think that a single person or other deserve these rights.  The law is about equal rights, not that everything is treated the same, and that we have to re-define terms, to make them the same, if they are not.

The definition of marriage was already changed when the government got involved as opposed to the church controlling everything.

Just call everything done by the government 'secular marriage' and don't worry about it further. Because that is *all* it is: a secular agreement between a couple and the government.

I think that the change you object to is *really* the one that makes marriage a secular as opposed to a religious institution. Once that is done, simple decency requires that gays be allowed to marry also.

[robvalue]

That would be an interesting question, whether religious people on this site would prefer it if marriage never went secular.

Since many of them seem to think secularist, atheist and nazi all mean the same thing, I'm guessing yes.

[Mister Agenda]

It's been explained to you repeatedly why denying the right to get married to gays is a bigoted view. That you, Steve, GC and anyone else I forgot to mention continue to ignore the facts is not our fault.

Why is that bigotry, when the same arguments where made against a married bachelor, and a human/ non human marriage where just made, and I would say there was nearly universal disagreement.  It seems they went back to the definition of marriage, the same as myself and Steve. So I would ask again, how are you defining bigotry?

Went back to the definition of marriage as a union between adult humans, yes. You're using the old definition, which over 60% of American adult humans disagree with.

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I would continue, but I feel like you guys will just offer the same arguments that you just turned down a moment ago. I can’t keep up with eqivocating terms, Andy shifting arguments.

We're using the current definition of marriage. You're the one equivocating by using the old definition when you know that's not the definition we're using. You're basically trying to get us to agree that the old definition is currently valid, but by any reasonable analysis, it is not. Common usage defines words. The majority of native English speakers define marriage as the union of two people in a state of matrimony.

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Consider married bachelor is contradiction and yes comparing gay marriage to marrying non humans is also an absurd comparison

Once again.... I wasn't making a comparison.

You don't know how comparisons work? I can believe that.

I do think they are different, and different from two people of the opposite sex being joined in marriage.  They are different, and therefore not equal.  I would argue that these things do not all need to be treated the same, because they are different, and only one meets the definition of marriage.

Only one meets the definition of marriage that you're using. The rest of us are using the current definition.  

And you keep using the word "absurd".   I agree,  and would point out, that is the intention of an argument from absurdity.  That following the same reasoning, leads to an absurd conclusion  in another instance.  When I use the same arguments, and you call it absurd.... I agree.  That was the point.    I would also point out, that similar rebuttals where used (arguing that those things don't fit the definition of marriage).  Same arguments, same rebuttals... only the subjects changed (and who was arguing what).

For an argument from absurdity to work, you must show that the premise (allowing people in love to marry, even if they are not of the opposite sex) leads to an absurd conclusion (bachelors being considered married or people marrying toasters). Your conclusion is a non sequitur, the absurd outcome you imagine is not relatable to the premise. It's not just the conclusion that's absurd, but the comparison itself.

We're consistently using the same definition of marriage to be found in the most current dictionaries. You're insisting on whining about it having changed, but there's nothing you can do about it, English will move on without you if you're unable to adapt.

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Only a problem for knuckle dragging regressive types.   In post modernism, we don't acknowledge such things, and everyone is equal.  We don't distinguish between man, woman, or toaster (or discriminate against such things).  You just re-define the terms to fit what you want.

Speaking of re-defining terms to fit what you want and massive projection....

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Again pure derp 


And straw man

I think Roads finally lost it

Ok, the. We do acknowledge differences, and can discriminate between them. I agree

As long as by 'discriminate' you mean 'are able to discern differences' and not

2. make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, sex, or age.

[robvalue]

You can't be against the definition changing when it's already changed. You can be against the fact that it changed, and wanting to have it changed back. Religion = living in the past.

How can you be against the dictionary reflecting the correct legal terminology of a secular marriage (amongst any other possible definitions)? What else should it say?

[robvalue]

I'm trying to get my head around what these definionists are actually proposing. My nearest guess is that same sex couples are allowed all the same rights as married people, but it's not allowed to be called a marriage. It's labeled as a sub-par, not-real marriage (civil union or whatever) so that all the insecure people with "real marriages" don't feel threatened.

How absolutely pathetic. This is my most charitable interpretation as well.

I figured out what is also really going on, and it's obvious: the word "marriage" is considered sacred to some people. That's a religious position, since words are just words, and aren't magic. Religion doesn't get to own words, sorry.

But what we're talking about here is the legal definition. That's all that has changed. People are free to use whatever words they want informally to describe anything they like. Let's look at another term which has been redefined in the not-too-distant past: rape. There used to be no such thing as marital rape. It's only very recently that rape has been redefined to include this, from a legal perspective. Should we also be against this? Should we come up with a different word for marital rape, so as to make sure it's not the same as "real rape"?

[Astreja]

I say we retroactively bill all the marriage traditionalists for costs that people with non-marriage partnerships have had to incur in order to level the playing field: Lawyers' fees to protect their estates from predatory relatives who would steal the inheritance away from a bereaved same-sex partner, and all the tax breaks that were denied because they were not legally married.

[vorlon13]

If that's Frank Graham's way of saying he wants your vorlon to administer Derby's Dose to him, I'm definitely up for it.