The largest group of opposition is to the actual term "marriage". This is a religious institution that is held sacred. Why adopt it (marriage), when there are so many alternative options?
In your view, is citizenship a religious institution? Parentage? Next-of-kin, emergency contact, power-of-attorney? Must those all be approved at the upper echelons of your particular flavor of your particular religion? Must your church’s leadership be consulted to know whether each constitutional amendment holds, or only certain of them?
I believe you're welcome to your notion of a marriage as a religious institution. At the same time, in a pluralistic civil society, marriage beyond your private religious interpretation is part of people’s everyday lives. Interracial marriage came and went, and somehow today we hear less and less about what a given sect of whatever faith has to say about that.
Help me out here. How does people you never met getting married and growing old together infringe on your religious liberty? And when one of them is, as perhaps most us will be one day, dying in a hospital bed when only immediate family are permitted to see them, how does a spouse getting to go into the room to say goodbye diminish your rights?
It's this weird, new tenet that cropped up recently. If you can't shift the goalposts, you can't always be right.
That's the biggest reason why I rarely listen to what people say anymore, this constant need to always be correct means that shifting definitions or arguing semantics, asking leading or gotcha question, that's all discussions on really important or divisive topics boil down to anymore.
Nope." Saying that it is some holy sacrament unique to a single religious group is extremely uninformed." Just another unfounded attribution. The concept of marriage is totally religious, adopted by governments, just recently "redefined".
"From what I can find, marriage originated as just a community-based concept such that the community would recognize a union between two people with no sort of religious connotations"...........Your cite?, LOL
Here ya go buddy -"With the increasing power of the Catholic Church, religion was able to influence marriage. For a marriage to be considered as legal, a priest’s blessing was required. Around the 8th century, marriage was treated as a sacrament by the church, and that the ceremony is required for the couple to receive God’s grace. By the year 1563, a canon law was written to show marriage’s sacramental nature.". .One can find most anything to bolster their POV..........Only since 1563 has cannon law prevailed. LOL, and adopted in every protestant church, and recognized by every government, even King James....You have the last word(s), as I am done now, thank you.
That is just not true. There has never been one definition of marriage throughout the history of the world. Marriage has been a constantly changing thing. In the ancient world, many different types of marriages were preformed. Polygamy, both polygyny and polyandry, secular marriages, monogamous marriages, and yes, homosexual marriages have all been common throughout human history. One group having claim to what marriage is in a secular society like the USA defeats the purpose of having the secularism.
Besides, I don't know what the whole problem of "redefining" is. Words change meaning throughout time. That is language.
Actually, marriage as a religious doctrine is a very modern concept. Many cultures throughout history had marriages that had nothing to do with religion, or even love. The ancient Celtic definition is probably one of the most well known non-religious marriage contracts. Most of these were political events to band together tribes or families. Also polygamy was completely legal. But, this was still marriage.
No "notion"! Marriage is/was a religious concept/ institution, of that there is no doubt/argument.........."Help me out here. How does people you never met getting married and growing old together infringe on your religious liberty?" Speaking to your own attributions is a habit with you. I spoke nothing of, nor to "religious liberty", as with the rest of your verbage/rant that has nothing to do with my proffer.
So no, you can't conceive of marriage as a social institution without the express permission of your particular religious tradition. There's your problem. Unless I've profoundly misunderstood you, in which case do let me know.
I swear, it's as if before you make a comment you have to grease up and apply camouflage makeup. Here's your initial comment:
The largest group of opposition is to the actual term "marriage". This is a religious institution that is held sacred.
If you'd tried to use a more passive voice, you might've hurt yourself. But that's your statement. You can deny having said it, but there it is. It has meaning, which you can claim wasn't what you meant, but it's right there for all to see.
Here's your question:
Why adopt it (marriage), when there are so many alternative options?
Maybe I'm taking crazy pills. You tell me. You're saying marriage equality is mostly opposed because marriage is a sacred institution, so gay folks should've settled for not-marriage. Is it me going off the rails to deduce from this fairly clear statement that marriage equality becoming the law of the land in some way fails to respect what you've described asd a sacred institution? Am I wrong in thinking that there is a conflict being described here?
Now, which part are you calling “attributions?”
Mind you, I'm not going to put in more than a couple weeks work here, holding you to what you've said and what it actually meant.
Do you feel like you can speak on behalf of someone that might've asked that question, or is it like you're a medium at a seance who's really just a channel through which disembodied spirits deliver Christian Dominionist messages?
You often make statements that you phrase as questions, then you hide behind the question mark as if we can't see you. If you have something to say, say it, and own it. If you have something to say on behalf of others but not yourself, say that. The question mark is only so big.
There you go again! Trying to frame an argument in your own light, get over it. Your interpretations/attributions are sideways to every comment you attempt to dissect. Try just reading what's offered, and not construct some interpolation to which you can take to who knows where. All my comments are precise, concise and or terse, there are no hidden agenda....... Stop the bullshit!....This mostly the same response you'll get every/any time you construct your own sense/version of , whatever. ...........and oh, your psychoanalysis skills still really suck;-)
I've read what was offered. Recapped it fairly, too. The question to you was if you thought there was a conflict between the ‘sacred institution’ you described and people being married. This was, however, a fallback question as you'd sidestepped every other question leading up to that point. Now this one, too. Can't nail jelly to a tree, they say.
Let's forget it. I'm more interested in how this all went wrong. The only progress we've made so far is establishing that your initial comment is some kind of perfect 4-dimensional tesseract that can't be understood in any subset of dimensions that anyone else can perceive. Nobody besides yourself, and whichever divinity speaks through you, can draw any inferences from it or reason about its implications because it's just that sanctimonious.
Okay, let's start there. Can you grapple with the ideas in your comment?
Like, is marriage a sacred institution to you? I have to ask because you put it in such a passive voice, and deny even the simplest implications of the statement, that I have to wonder if you were simply the typist for observations that came from a sunbeam out of glory and heavens above.
When you ask why gay people would adopt the practice of marriage instead of some nebulous alternative option, assuming for a moment that the question isn't more truthfully scripture for which you are merely the vessel of its delivery, are you concerned people are defiling marriage itself, or just tempting judgement by an Old Testament Jehova?
Looking at this discussion from an outside perspective, all @MAGISTERLUDI said was [marriage is a] "religious institution that is held sacred". Nowhere did he state anything else, only that he believes marriage to be a religious sacrament, and that the government could have used alternative options.
I don't see this discussion going anywhere from either of you, as @MAGISTERLUDI is simply claiming he has directly stated his feelings (which he definitely has), and @AdelleChattre, you keep bringing more ideas into the discussion than he has spoken about.
@MAGISTERLUDI has not "hidden behind question marks", he is simply not going along with the extra arguments you are making.
Hey. Nice to meet you, and thanks for the caution. I would agree the discussion was going nowhere, had there been one. This series of one-sided comments and evasions can't pass for that. I'd like to apologize if you didn't like my tone, and for you to step in this way, I assume you didn't. The magister may've stated his belief, and I assume he has, but if you look closely you'll find that's not the way it's put. Anyone could state their feelings, no skin off my nose. Look again, though, and you'll find something more insidious than that.
Yes, that commenter hides behind question marks, the way a chess player may open with a pawn. In this game. accusations move side to side. retrenchments move diagonally; diversions and evasions move wherever he'd like. As often, I think, the magister hides behind his “questions” to avoid seeing any immediate consequences of his position. You've said that I'm bringing ideas into the discussion. Yeah, the direct implications of his statements.
In case you got the wrong impression, this is not a first encounter. All in good fun, though. He doesn't throw firecrackers like that into the room without expecting a result.
Thank you Spar, ......now ,@AdelleChattre-"Your interpretations/attributions are sideways to every comment you attempt to dissect. Try just reading what's offered, and not construct some interpolation to which you can take to who knows where. All my comments are precise, concise and or terse, there are no hidden agenda....... Stop the bullshit!..."
You've said that I'm bringing ideas into the discussion. Yeah, the direct implications of his statements.
Yeah, that's definitely a fair point (and one I do not disagree with). If you are commenting on a discussion forum, you need to be ready to discuss your views. The fact that this discussion is, as you said, "not a first encounter" removes the concern I had initially.
Spar, I'm not too familiar with magister, but Adelle has been here for a while now. she rarely comments, but civil rights, specifically gay rights appears to be something of her 'pet issue' and when there is an article regarding gay rights, you can count on her commenting on it. Everyone has pet issues that they are more passionate about.
Also, I don't really know the history between them on this issue. That said, I don't like the tone from either of them in this discussion/argument. If I were their parent, I would physically separate them to insure that this doesn't continue.
So, separate-but-equal hasn't really worked out in America each time we've tried it. And, like it or not, marriage is a religious institution that's worked its way into the secular world - tax codes, family insurance coverage, hospital visitation, inheritance laws, etc, all have language specifically about marriage. It's very easy to imagine a situation in which civil unions and marriages have different rules applied, from both the government and private companies... and in fact that's the case according to GLAD.
One of the big differences is that civil unions often aren't respected state-to-state, so a couple's New Hampshire civil union wouldn't be recognized if they moved to Arkansas, and the couple would lose the benefits (notably the tax and insurance benefits) of that civil union.
And, like it or not, marriage is a religious institution that's worked its way into the secular world
I have to challenge this. Official recognition of family bonding has been around since the beginning of recorded human history. Making note of who is married to whom and producing which children has been a legal concern the whole time. Marriage was co-opted by religion as it claimed jurisdiction over sexuality and reproduction but that's still no excuse to cede it to religious interests. Marriage is a secular institution that religion has as much right to participate in but no right to make any demands over.
As has been often observed, anyone who doesn't approve of gay marriage doesn't have to get one.
I'm not opposed, but I take those two as separate things, the Roman Catholic marriage and a secular marriage, or even one performed in a church that doesn't recognize marriage as a sacrement are not really the same thing. So I think that's where I personally sit, I'll call it a marriage, but it's a secular marriage that's different from a religious one. For other people who cannot or will not separate them, it's not the same way, they see you saying something about the institution that Christ started, you see a tax code and visitation. It's not so much about denying you anything, it's about what the sacrement is to them, and if marriages everywhere are sacremental, then it's not possible to have an extrabiblical marriage because Jesus defines marriage.
Like I said, I draw a line around those in my denomination, and anything that they do would affect the definition of marriage, but because we aren't living under canon law, there's a bit of separation there. those marriages are different, as they're secular and governed by secular law (and the laws of your church/temple/mosque/asram/amileavinganythingout) I don't get a vote on what a Muslim marriage is, or a buddhist one, or a hindu one, or a jedi one. That's what a secular government does. We don't live under ISIL or in Vatican City, we aren't under religious law, and thus what matters is lack of harm, consent, and legal consistency. Once you show all of that, it's a free choice in a free country.
But how does changing a single word change what's going on here? I think you mean that you'd be fine with gay marriage if they replaced marriage with another term, correct? But I don't see where using a different term changes anything else. If the new institution (let's call it a hulbaba) gave every right that the state grants to marriage, a marriage and a hulbaba are the same thing. We're arguing semantics, where two literally identical contracts are given different names even though they're the same thing. If hulbabas and marriages are identical in every way, then really, changing the word is a best a fig leaf to hide the reality that by granting gays hulbabas but denying them marriages, you've given them marriages but created a fictional name to deny that they are in fact married.
If the supreme court used any other nomenclature than marriage, it would have merely continued the debate. There is already the argument that gays shouldn't get married because they can get civil unions, except civil unions are NOT the same thing as a marriage. They are not universally recognized state to state. They also do not bring any of the federal protections granted by a legal marriage. The legal system in this country uses the term "Marriage" to define a union between two people that brings a certain social status, tax benefits and other civil and social benefits with it. If the Supreme Court were to allow gays to get any other term but married, an entire new framework of laws would need to be written, defining say "Federal Civil Unions" if that were to be the term used, and in order to make them equal to federally recognized marriages, each and every one of the benefits granted to a married couple would need to be granted to a couple engaging in a civil union. And even then, our history shows that separate is never truly equal. So, rather than create another legal quagmire, the Supreme Court stated that denying homosexuals the right to federally recognized marriages is discriminating against an entire social class of people, which doesn't fly with our constitution. Constantly calling for the government to use a different term would mean the government would have to change that term for every other married couple in the United States in order to make it fair and equal - which there is a push for in this country. Your argument is a strawman designed to try and convince people to deny rights to an entire class of people.
I think that's actually a huge part of it. Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox consider marriage a sacrement, and most other denominations consider marriage sacred. I could see how they would balk at the idea of something considered a command by God to be desecrated by people claiming it's not what it is to them. It would be like claiming to have Eucharist when you eat corn flakes. It's not cool, because Eucharist is a sacrement, you don't mess with that.
Personally, I figure I have a say over people who practice MY religion, and I can say that's against my denomination's understanding. But outside of that, it's you and your priest, I don't get a vote.
Marriage is a socially recognized union and legal contract that may or may not run parallel to any number of religions. "why adopt it (marriage)" BECAUSE THIS IS AMERICA.
The largest group of opposition is to the actual term "marriage". This is a religious institution that is held sacred. Why adopt it (marriage), when there are so many alternative options?
In your view, is citizenship a religious institution? Parentage? Next-of-kin, emergency contact, power-of-attorney? Must those all be approved at the upper echelons of your particular flavor of your particular religion? Must your church’s leadership be consulted to know whether each constitutional amendment holds, or only certain of them?
I believe you're welcome to your notion of a marriage as a religious institution. At the same time, in a pluralistic civil society, marriage beyond your private religious interpretation is part of people’s everyday lives. Interracial marriage came and went, and somehow today we hear less and less about what a given sect of whatever faith has to say about that.
Help me out here. How does people you never met getting married and growing old together infringe on your religious liberty? And when one of them is, as perhaps most us will be one day, dying in a hospital bed when only immediate family are permitted to see them, how does a spouse getting to go into the room to say goodbye diminish your rights?
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No "notion"! Marriage is/was a religious concept/ institution, of that there is no doubt/argument.........."Help me out here. How does people you never met getting married and growing old together infringe on your religious liberty?" Speaking to your own attributions is a habit with you. I spoke nothing of, nor to "religious liberty", as with the rest of your verbage/rant that has nothing to do with my proffer.
So no, you can't conceive of marriage as a social institution without the express permission of your particular religious tradition. There's your problem. Unless I've profoundly misunderstood you, in which case do let me know.
Again, more attributions, "there's your problem", and yes you have.
I swear, it's as if before you make a comment you have to grease up and apply camouflage makeup. Here's your initial comment:
If you'd tried to use a more passive voice, you might've hurt yourself. But that's your statement. You can deny having said it, but there it is. It has meaning, which you can claim wasn't what you meant, but it's right there for all to see.
Here's your question:
Maybe I'm taking crazy pills. You tell me. You're saying marriage equality is mostly opposed because marriage is a sacred institution, so gay folks should've settled for not-marriage. Is it me going off the rails to deduce from this fairly clear statement that marriage equality becoming the law of the land in some way fails to respect what you've described asd a sacred institution? Am I wrong in thinking that there is a conflict being described here?
Now, which part are you calling “attributions?”
Mind you, I'm not going to put in more than a couple weeks work here, holding you to what you've said and what it actually meant.
I asked a simple, straight-forward question, it's you who attributes to that some sort of belief(s).
Do you feel like you can speak on behalf of someone that might've asked that question, or is it like you're a medium at a seance who's really just a channel through which disembodied spirits deliver Christian Dominionist messages?
Please stop these/your processes of attributions, It goes nowhere with me, it's pure inanity!
You often make statements that you phrase as questions, then you hide behind the question mark as if we can't see you. If you have something to say, say it, and own it. If you have something to say on behalf of others but not yourself, say that. The question mark is only so big.
There you go again! Trying to frame an argument in your own light, get over it. Your interpretations/attributions are sideways to every comment you attempt to dissect. Try just reading what's offered, and not construct some interpolation to which you can take to who knows where. All my comments are precise, concise and or terse, there are no hidden agenda....... Stop the bullshit!....This mostly the same response you'll get every/any time you construct your own sense/version of , whatever. ...........and oh, your psychoanalysis skills still really suck;-)
I've read what was offered. Recapped it fairly, too. The question to you was if you thought there was a conflict between the ‘sacred institution’ you described and people being married. This was, however, a fallback question as you'd sidestepped every other question leading up to that point. Now this one, too. Can't nail jelly to a tree, they say.
Let's forget it. I'm more interested in how this all went wrong. The only progress we've made so far is establishing that your initial comment is some kind of perfect 4-dimensional tesseract that can't be understood in any subset of dimensions that anyone else can perceive. Nobody besides yourself, and whichever divinity speaks through you, can draw any inferences from it or reason about its implications because it's just that sanctimonious.
Okay, let's start there. Can you grapple with the ideas in your comment?
Like, is marriage a sacred institution to you? I have to ask because you put it in such a passive voice, and deny even the simplest implications of the statement, that I have to wonder if you were simply the typist for observations that came from a sunbeam out of glory and heavens above.
When you ask why gay people would adopt the practice of marriage instead of some nebulous alternative option, assuming for a moment that the question isn't more truthfully scripture for which you are merely the vessel of its delivery, are you concerned people are defiling marriage itself, or just tempting judgement by an Old Testament Jehova?
Looking at this discussion from an outside perspective, all @MAGISTERLUDI said was [marriage is a] "religious institution that is held sacred". Nowhere did he state anything else, only that he believes marriage to be a religious sacrament, and that the government could have used alternative options.
I don't see this discussion going anywhere from either of you, as @MAGISTERLUDI is simply claiming he has directly stated his feelings (which he definitely has), and @AdelleChattre, you keep bringing more ideas into the discussion than he has spoken about.
@MAGISTERLUDI has not "hidden behind question marks", he is simply not going along with the extra arguments you are making.
Hey. Nice to meet you, and thanks for the caution. I would agree the discussion was going nowhere, had there been one. This series of one-sided comments and evasions can't pass for that. I'd like to apologize if you didn't like my tone, and for you to step in this way, I assume you didn't. The magister may've stated his belief, and I assume he has, but if you look closely you'll find that's not the way it's put. Anyone could state their feelings, no skin off my nose. Look again, though, and you'll find something more insidious than that.
Yes, that commenter hides behind question marks, the way a chess player may open with a pawn. In this game. accusations move side to side. retrenchments move diagonally; diversions and evasions move wherever he'd like. As often, I think, the magister hides behind his “questions” to avoid seeing any immediate consequences of his position. You've said that I'm bringing ideas into the discussion. Yeah, the direct implications of his statements.
In case you got the wrong impression, this is not a first encounter. All in good fun, though. He doesn't throw firecrackers like that into the room without expecting a result.
Thank you Spar, ......now ,@AdelleChattre-"Your interpretations/attributions are sideways to every comment you attempt to dissect. Try just reading what's offered, and not construct some interpolation to which you can take to who knows where. All my comments are precise, concise and or terse, there are no hidden agenda....... Stop the bullshit!..."
Thanks for the response and understanding.
Yeah, that's definitely a fair point (and one I do not disagree with). If you are commenting on a discussion forum, you need to be ready to discuss your views. The fact that this discussion is, as you said, "not a first encounter" removes the concern I had initially.
Spar, I'm not too familiar with magister, but Adelle has been here for a while now. she rarely comments, but civil rights, specifically gay rights appears to be something of her 'pet issue' and when there is an article regarding gay rights, you can count on her commenting on it. Everyone has pet issues that they are more passionate about.
Also, I don't really know the history between them on this issue. That said, I don't like the tone from either of them in this discussion/argument. If I were their parent, I would physically separate them to insure that this doesn't continue.
So, separate-but-equal hasn't really worked out in America each time we've tried it. And, like it or not, marriage is a religious institution that's worked its way into the secular world - tax codes, family insurance coverage, hospital visitation, inheritance laws, etc, all have language specifically about marriage. It's very easy to imagine a situation in which civil unions and marriages have different rules applied, from both the government and private companies... and in fact that's the case according to GLAD.
One of the big differences is that civil unions often aren't respected state-to-state, so a couple's New Hampshire civil union wouldn't be recognized if they moved to Arkansas, and the couple would lose the benefits (notably the tax and insurance benefits) of that civil union.
I have to challenge this. Official recognition of family bonding has been around since the beginning of recorded human history. Making note of who is married to whom and producing which children has been a legal concern the whole time. Marriage was co-opted by religion as it claimed jurisdiction over sexuality and reproduction but that's still no excuse to cede it to religious interests. Marriage is a secular institution that religion has as much right to participate in but no right to make any demands over.
As has been often observed, anyone who doesn't approve of gay marriage doesn't have to get one.
I'm not opposed, but I take those two as separate things, the Roman Catholic marriage and a secular marriage, or even one performed in a church that doesn't recognize marriage as a sacrement are not really the same thing. So I think that's where I personally sit, I'll call it a marriage, but it's a secular marriage that's different from a religious one. For other people who cannot or will not separate them, it's not the same way, they see you saying something about the institution that Christ started, you see a tax code and visitation. It's not so much about denying you anything, it's about what the sacrement is to them, and if marriages everywhere are sacremental, then it's not possible to have an extrabiblical marriage because Jesus defines marriage.
Like I said, I draw a line around those in my denomination, and anything that they do would affect the definition of marriage, but because we aren't living under canon law, there's a bit of separation there. those marriages are different, as they're secular and governed by secular law (and the laws of your church/temple/mosque/asram/amileavinganythingout) I don't get a vote on what a Muslim marriage is, or a buddhist one, or a hindu one, or a jedi one. That's what a secular government does. We don't live under ISIL or in Vatican City, we aren't under religious law, and thus what matters is lack of harm, consent, and legal consistency. Once you show all of that, it's a free choice in a free country.
Nonsense, The Supreme Court could/would have included any other nomenclature.
But how does changing a single word change what's going on here? I think you mean that you'd be fine with gay marriage if they replaced marriage with another term, correct? But I don't see where using a different term changes anything else. If the new institution (let's call it a hulbaba) gave every right that the state grants to marriage, a marriage and a hulbaba are the same thing. We're arguing semantics, where two literally identical contracts are given different names even though they're the same thing. If hulbabas and marriages are identical in every way, then really, changing the word is a best a fig leaf to hide the reality that by granting gays hulbabas but denying them marriages, you've given them marriages but created a fictional name to deny that they are in fact married.
If the supreme court used any other nomenclature than marriage, it would have merely continued the debate. There is already the argument that gays shouldn't get married because they can get civil unions, except civil unions are NOT the same thing as a marriage. They are not universally recognized state to state. They also do not bring any of the federal protections granted by a legal marriage. The legal system in this country uses the term "Marriage" to define a union between two people that brings a certain social status, tax benefits and other civil and social benefits with it. If the Supreme Court were to allow gays to get any other term but married, an entire new framework of laws would need to be written, defining say "Federal Civil Unions" if that were to be the term used, and in order to make them equal to federally recognized marriages, each and every one of the benefits granted to a married couple would need to be granted to a couple engaging in a civil union. And even then, our history shows that separate is never truly equal. So, rather than create another legal quagmire, the Supreme Court stated that denying homosexuals the right to federally recognized marriages is discriminating against an entire social class of people, which doesn't fly with our constitution. Constantly calling for the government to use a different term would mean the government would have to change that term for every other married couple in the United States in order to make it fair and equal - which there is a push for in this country. Your argument is a strawman designed to try and convince people to deny rights to an entire class of people.
I think that's actually a huge part of it. Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox consider marriage a sacrement, and most other denominations consider marriage sacred. I could see how they would balk at the idea of something considered a command by God to be desecrated by people claiming it's not what it is to them. It would be like claiming to have Eucharist when you eat corn flakes. It's not cool, because Eucharist is a sacrement, you don't mess with that.
Personally, I figure I have a say over people who practice MY religion, and I can say that's against my denomination's understanding. But outside of that, it's you and your priest, I don't get a vote.
Marriage is a socially recognized union and legal contract that may or may not run parallel to any number of religions. "why adopt it (marriage)" BECAUSE THIS IS AMERICA.