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The other side of this coin is that marriage has religious significance to many people, and by forcing the definition to change, pro-gay rights groups are also

The other side of this coin is that marriage has religious significance to many people, and by forcing the definition to change, pro-gay rights groups are also codifying personal belief into law. Both sides fucked it up. The only proper response should have been to remove all legal rights associated with marriage, and force all couples to get a civil union. Tax that instead. Churches are welcome to marry people all they desire (on both sides, gay or straight as they please according to their beliefs)

Karunamon 12y ago
>religious significance to many people, and by forcing the definition to change, pro-gay rights groups are also codifying personal belief into law. The establishment clause to the constitution says that religious beliefs do not get to be encoded in law. And considering I have not seen one single anti-equality argument that wasn't either religiously motivated or a gigantic mass of "appeal to tradition" fallacies, I suggest the "anti" side move to a different country where theocracy is an accepted form or government. Because this isn't one. > The only proper response should have been to remove all legal rights associated with marriage, and force all couples to get a civil union. Tax that instead. I'd be okay with this, but it's not a change that happens overnight. There are too many things.. insurance benefits, tax benefits, inheritances, visitation rights, etc. associated with the spousal relationship. Those will take some time to work through. In the mean time, this is a suitable band-aid.
- bluntly_said 12y ago
  There already was a suitable band-aid, it was called domestic partnerships, and had the full legal rights of marriage in California. Co-opting the word marriage in law, rather than asking for it to be removed was actively choosing to force religions to accept your personal beliefs. That's bullying. -- That said, I generally fall much closer on the scale to you than to the supporters of prop 8, but you have to be able to recognize and draw a line as to where your rights end. Attacking a personal donation made as part of a democratic process is not something I can condone. Particularly when the end result cost a man his job.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    Ah yes, "separate but equal". Where have I heard this before... >actively choosing to force religions to accept your personal beliefs. Nonsense. Churches do not have a monopoly on the word or the concept of matrimony. If there was any consistency in religious beliefs whatsoever, there would be infinitely more backlash at the Vegas drive through chapels than two people wanting to live their lives together in peace.
    - bluntly_said 12y ago
      And my response to the separate but equal argument is literally sitting in my comment above, and part of my argument, remove rights from the word marriage. There is ONLY civil unions. There is no separation. You yourself claimed that appropriating the word marriage was a band-aid, and yet you ignore that a band-aid was in place, and a much more rational argument would have been to remove rights associated with marriage. Instead you continue to argue that codifying your beliefs into law was correct, even while you denounce the other side for trying to do that. Come back when you can intelligently make an argument that is internally consistent. I have to agree with the others commenting on your posts, you have some serious cognitive dissonance.
      - Karunamon 12y ago
        >and part of my argument, remove rights from the word marriage. And as I said before, I'm fine with this, but it's a process that takes longer than fixing the inequality now. You could write a law that says all marriages are now civil unions, but in doing so you've broken the dependency chain to any out-of-state agency that uses "marriage" as anything in particular underpinning any kind of contract. The simplest, easiest thing to do is to amend the legal (not religious) definition of marriage to fix this problem. The religious definition of marriage is irrelevant to the legal one. >Instead you continue to argue that codifying your beliefs into law was correct Yeah, fuck me for wanting equality like blacks and women. We're done here.
        bluntly_said 12y ago
AlexMax 12y ago
Sorry, but I find it incredulous that the only reason that some folks are unwilling to give LGBT folks the right to marry is because of what the state happens to call the practice.
- bluntly_said 12y ago
  I think the issue is that as long as the state endows rights to religious practice (marriage) there is a problem. If the state only gave rights and taxed civil unions, the churches cannot, by definition, control if other people get married. All they'd need to do is find a church willing to marry them, or start their own. To quote from another of my posts: --- I think once the legal implications are removed, churches would lose their control over the word by default. It doesn't have meaning outside of the church at that point, and the government "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" So if gay people wanted to get married, no one could stop them.
  - AlexMax 12y ago
    > I think the issue is that as long as the state endows rights to religious practice (marriage) there is a problem. Legal marriage and religious marriage are already not the same thing. That was the entire point of my statement - that legally, it didn't matter what the state called it because it is a separate institution. You can get legally married without a religious ceremony.
- baddox 12y ago
  Why is that hard to believe? A lot of people demonstrably oppose calling it marriage, even when homosexual couples already have the same legal rights and benefits as heterosexual couples.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
ufmace 12y ago
I agree with this point of view, and have always been a bit skeptical of the gay marriage movement because of it. But on the other side, it sounds like Prop 8 is the exact opposite of what we're talking about - a measure to codify the definition of marriage and define it as exclusively heterosexual into the constitution. I can't think of any decent reason to support it.
- bluntly_said 12y ago
  And personally, I agree with you. I wouldn't support it. It made me think less of Eich. It didn't make we want him to lose a job he was qualified for. I can also still respect the work he does for Mozilla. I think my point here is that both sides have it wrong. And when we as a society are trying to tackle the issue, hatred and demonizing isn't the right course of action.

Karunamon 12y ago

>religious significance to many people, and by forcing the definition to change, pro-gay rights groups are also codifying personal belief into law. The establishment clause to the constitution says that religious beliefs do not get to be encoded in law. And considering I have not seen one single anti-equality argument that wasn't either religiously motivated or a gigantic mass of "appeal to tradition" fallacies, I suggest the "anti" side move to a different country where theocracy is an accepted form or government. Because this isn't one. > The only proper response should have been to remove all legal rights associated with marriage, and force all couples to get a civil union. Tax that instead. I'd be okay with this, but it's not a change that happens overnight. There are too many things.. insurance benefits, tax benefits, inheritances, visitation rights, etc. associated with the spousal relationship. Those will take some time to work through. In the mean time, this is a suitable band-aid.

bluntly_said 12y ago
There already was a suitable band-aid, it was called domestic partnerships, and had the full legal rights of marriage in California. Co-opting the word marriage in law, rather than asking for it to be removed was actively choosing to force religions to accept your personal beliefs. That's bullying. -- That said, I generally fall much closer on the scale to you than to the supporters of prop 8, but you have to be able to recognize and draw a line as to where your rights end. Attacking a personal donation made as part of a democratic process is not something I can condone. Particularly when the end result cost a man his job.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  Ah yes, "separate but equal". Where have I heard this before... >actively choosing to force religions to accept your personal beliefs. Nonsense. Churches do not have a monopoly on the word or the concept of matrimony. If there was any consistency in religious beliefs whatsoever, there would be infinitely more backlash at the Vegas drive through chapels than two people wanting to live their lives together in peace.
  - bluntly_said 12y ago
    And my response to the separate but equal argument is literally sitting in my comment above, and part of my argument, remove rights from the word marriage. There is ONLY civil unions. There is no separation. You yourself claimed that appropriating the word marriage was a band-aid, and yet you ignore that a band-aid was in place, and a much more rational argument would have been to remove rights associated with marriage. Instead you continue to argue that codifying your beliefs into law was correct, even while you denounce the other side for trying to do that. Come back when you can intelligently make an argument that is internally consistent. I have to agree with the others commenting on your posts, you have some serious cognitive dissonance.
    - Karunamon 12y ago
      >and part of my argument, remove rights from the word marriage. And as I said before, I'm fine with this, but it's a process that takes longer than fixing the inequality now. You could write a law that says all marriages are now civil unions, but in doing so you've broken the dependency chain to any out-of-state agency that uses "marriage" as anything in particular underpinning any kind of contract. The simplest, easiest thing to do is to amend the legal (not religious) definition of marriage to fix this problem. The religious definition of marriage is irrelevant to the legal one. >Instead you continue to argue that codifying your beliefs into law was correct Yeah, fuck me for wanting equality like blacks and women. We're done here.
      - bluntly_said 12y ago

AlexMax 12y ago

Sorry, but I find it incredulous that the only reason that some folks are unwilling to give LGBT folks the right to marry is because of what the state happens to call the practice.

bluntly_said 12y ago
I think the issue is that as long as the state endows rights to religious practice (marriage) there is a problem. If the state only gave rights and taxed civil unions, the churches cannot, by definition, control if other people get married. All they'd need to do is find a church willing to marry them, or start their own. To quote from another of my posts: --- I think once the legal implications are removed, churches would lose their control over the word by default. It doesn't have meaning outside of the church at that point, and the government "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" So if gay people wanted to get married, no one could stop them.
- AlexMax 12y ago
  > I think the issue is that as long as the state endows rights to religious practice (marriage) there is a problem. Legal marriage and religious marriage are already not the same thing. That was the entire point of my statement - that legally, it didn't matter what the state called it because it is a separate institution. You can get legally married without a religious ceremony.
baddox 12y ago
Why is that hard to believe? A lot of people demonstrably oppose calling it marriage, even when homosexual couples already have the same legal rights and benefits as heterosexual couples.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

ufmace 12y ago

I agree with this point of view, and have always been a bit skeptical of the gay marriage movement because of it. But on the other side, it sounds like Prop 8 is the exact opposite of what we're talking about - a measure to codify the definition of marriage and define it as exclusively heterosexual into the constitution. I can't think of any decent reason to support it.

bluntly_said 12y ago
And personally, I agree with you. I wouldn't support it. It made me think less of Eich. It didn't make we want him to lose a job he was qualified for. I can also still respect the work he does for Mozilla. I think my point here is that both sides have it wrong. And when we as a society are trying to tackle the issue, hatred and demonizing isn't the right course of action.