Next time I'll make sure to tap the Encyclopaedia Britannica. But on the upside, at least I'm not basing my position on a piece of creative writing from another culture about two to three millennia ago (seriously, are we going to play that game?). Yeah, that's why people in the UK totally cannot get married in a registry office. Oh wait, they can, no involvement by church or clergy required. It's called a 'civil marriage'. Interestingly until 1753, although marriage was governed by canon law, the ceremony did not have to be performed by clergy. After that weddings had to take place in a religious forum, but this was reversed in 1836 after which weddings could take place in a secular setting and again be performed by secular officials.
Prejudice? I'm not pre-judging anyone. Yes they do, words and definitions do matter, that's how language works, that's how we're able to communicate, we don't think and communicate in pictures, we think and communicate with words. I am not a fan of this social engineering from the progressive left, I'm not into coming up with words that make no sense, not interested in twisting words and definitions around either, et cetera et cetera. You may be ok with it because you believe it to be for the greater good, changing the definition of marriage changes the way people think about marriage given enough time, sure. I find this approach disingenuous and dishonest. It doesn't jive with objective truths but more with imposed ideology. What ever happened to calling things for what they are? In what way would homosexuals be harmed from having the same legal rights as heterosexual couples who are married? I have advocated for a compromise, you don't like it and disagree, that's ok. We don't see eye to eye on this. Marriage is a union between a man and woman. For the continuity of the human race, men and women are made for one another, spiritually, psychologically, and physically. They are complementing each other. They create life together. They constitute the core of the family structure. This institution, interaction, and family structure may seem old fashioned to you, outdated even, and out of place in the year 2014. I disagree.
So you're saying that a logical fallacy makes more sense than the fact that same-sex marriage has been completely natural in many cultures for thousands of years?
You can even take marriage out of the equation and the structure would still make sense. I don't see the logical fallacy in the interaction.
How is a human concept an objective truth? Do they have the same right as heterosexual couples to call, and have their union recognised as marriage? No, I find that concept not based in observable fact. In human history "family" can mean anything from parents and kids to including grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, distant relatives, even close family friends or fellow tribal members. In many cultures there is no 'nuclear family' or even marriage (e.g. the Mosuo or Na in the Yunnan province of China), and children are seen as belonging to, and being the parental responsibility of the whole tribe (e.g. the Dinka in Africa). There is no evidence that these children grow up any less well-adjusted. I can also think of the Polynesian Sambia tribe where boys are raised mainly by the men, and girls by the women. Samoans recognise a "third gender" (Fa'afafine), while some native American tribes recognise transgender roles (and before you argue he point by pointing at a person's genitals-- no, that alone does not make them male or female. Let me remind you of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or the neurological basis for gender dysphoria, to name a few complications). Contemporary psychological research in the Western world finds that children raised in a same-sex family are just as well-adjusted as those raised in a heterosexual family. So your concepts of men and women, family, gender and reproductive roles are very ethnocentrically Western, I'm afraid, and culturally based in Judeo-Christian religious dogma going back at least as far as the ancient Roman and Greek cultures that you dismiss as irrelevant to the present day. Your concepts are not the objective natural absolutes that you take them to be.
Subtle, but you're changing the argument here. On the one hand you argue about the traditional etymology of word 'marriage,' then you try to give the word a spiritual, psychological, and finally biological application. To end your argument, you changed the subject from the biological procreation of the human race, to a more nebulous argument about the core of a 'family structure.' Shall we begin linking studies regarding families with same-sex parents? I'll start with a study from the University of Mssachusetts at Amherst which found that in families with adopted children, how the parents interact has more of an effect than their genders. This raises another question. Since you're at least partly basing your definition of 'married' on the reproductive function of humans, in the case of families in which either the man or woman is biologically sterile, are they still considered 'married.' Since they can't reproduce, does that mean they qualify for your compromise legal document stating intent to join in cohabitation with all legal rights thereto?
Your argument basically boils down to this: It's like this in nature, biologically, therefore it is right. This is a logical fallacy. With the same logic I could, for example, just as easily justify rape ("animals do it too!").
Moreover, it isn't like that in nature: same-sex coupling has been observed in many animal species and has been proven to convey a survival advantage to the adopted/donated offspring (e.g. the flamingo).
I do, I find that concept based in observable truth. I see it every day so I'd say it's observable enough. That could be, still, it doesn't change the natural interaction between the sexes and the progression of that interaction. No it isn't. But if you find the interaction between the sexes and the result of that interaction as a logical fallacy because rape occurs in nature....then I think you should go easy with the logical fallacy. I'll be back later, need some sleep, I'm off early tomorrow.
Sorry, but that is not sufficient to conclude that this is a universal truth. Look up the principle of falsifiability. "It's true because I see it to be true" is the weakest argument ever. See above. You cannot prove a hypothesis just by instances that confirm it. However the very fact that I can mention several instances that contradict it, disproves your hypothesis. So not only is your argument logically unsound, its proof is also scientifically unsound. I suspect that you know this yourself, which is why, as Supermonkey points out, your argument keeps changing and becomes increasingly nebulous. It is also why you simply ignore certain questions and skip to another branch of the debate --you know that you have no reasonable answers. It is also any you keep harping on the straw man argument that it is your rights that are being infringed --but when we ask how, you again fail to answer that. So shall we conclude that yes, you are prejudiced, and move on?
Unfair example. All those pink feathers? Legs to die for? All that preening? You couldn't have picked a camper animal!
I live in a Surrey village which is 99.9% white, 100% well fed, and (probably) over 98% extremely affluent. What does this 'observable truth' tell me about the human condition? I'm sorry Walle, but I dislike your point of view in the strongest possible way. I fail to understand how any person can support restricting the rights of others when there is no victim. It's cruel, mean, vicious and extremely selfish. Stop abusers. Stop murderers. Stop killers. Stop thieves. Stop enslavers... Stop such acts to preserve the rights of the victim. It's fair, decent and the only possible thing to do. But stopping different races from integrating? Stopping girls from being educated? Stop two guys from calling themselves married? Stopping people from have a free and fair life because of who their parents were? Stopping two people being together because it doesn't fit in with how you see it should be? Stopping people following their chosen faith? Stopping something just because 'I don't think you should be allowed to do that' is an ethos that quite literally makes me shudder to even type. I couldn't bring myself to support any curtailing of such basic rights and would feel extremely ashamed of myself if I thought for one moment I could. I would like religions to stop indoctrinating children into their ranks, but I don't have the right. I wouldn't force stopping such behaviour even if I could. Educate? Yes. Debate? Yes. Stop? No way! There's something rotten in the state of Denmark. I believe it's your point of view. You believe it's mine. I know I will never adjust my position, I suspect you feel the same about your own. As someone (a gay parent) who is very much in your line of sight as someone who should have their rights curtailed 'just because', it feels very odd writing this to you. Here on this little ol' tech forum. It's strange. I feel extremely uncomfortable and it's actually a LOT more upsetting than I thought it would be. But I'm not angry (just upset) and I care greatly about the freedoms of others. You have a right to your viewpoint but nobody has the right to oppress another. I'm glad I live where and when I do so that my right to be me and your right to be you exists. I support your right to be you. You don't support my right to be me. I hope one day, even if your feelings remain the same, that you realise that it is wrong to support oppressing others just because of your personal viewpoint. We may not like all of our neighbours but it's cruel to subjugate them. I would never support doing it to you. This will be my last post in this thread.
I said observable truth, I don't see how that would be a contradiction despite there being exceptions. It's a fact that men and women come together to create children, thus: natural interaction between the sexes and the progression of that interaction. Ok. You are free to conclude what you want, as well as free to move on.
If we take it as fact that the act of procreation of Homo sapiens requires a sperm (provided by the male) and an egg (provided by the female), I don't see how this has any bearing on the institution of marriage. People get married and for any number of reasons don't have children. Likewise, people have children out of wedlock. Again, you are trying to change the subject from (Western) sociological precedent to biological function.
If you create a family I don't see marriage as an illogical progression of that relationship either, that is not to say that all heterosexual couples would marry. I've never claimed that. I have said that marriage is a union between a man and a woman though. I haven't changed the subject at all. --EDIT-- Speaking of changing the subject, I didn't bring up adoption.
You mentioned procreation as an argument for why marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Yet not all heterosexual married couples have children and plenty of homosexual couples do, through adoption or sperm donors/surrogacy. And head very healthy, functional families. So again, your argument is not borne out by fact. But that's not the crux of the matter. The question is whether you have the right to deny same-sex couples the right to marry based on your ideology. You try to avoid that question by trying to turn the argument around, that they are imposing their ideology on you, but when we ask you how your life changes by gay people being able to marry, you studiously avoid answering that question. You then change tack and argue that you are not denying them anything because they can still have a civil partnership with exactly the same legal rights and protections of marriage --they just can't call it marriage. I ask if it is, as you say, for all practical purposes the same thing, why then not just call it marriage? Again you avoid answering that question. But occasionally you let slip that if they can call it marriage, they are in effect changing --and thus undermining-- what you regard as a fundamental cultural and societal core value about family and stuff. I ask how they would do that: where is actually the harm? Again you avoid answering that. Son, I is disappoint. Not by your opinion, nor by how poorly it is thought through, but by the conceit of your belief that you can impose it on other people's lives. To deny people a civil right just because it doesn't fit with your idea of how things should be is just not a very mature, grown-up attitude (just look at e.g. the Taliban). We're all supposed to be adults, and part of that is having your **** together as a compassionate, tolerant, open-minded human being.
Wrong. You don't need to be married to continue the human race. Some married couples can't have children. Some married couples decide not to have children. Wrong again. The fact that gay couples exist directly contradicts that. Further more, not just any man is compatible with just any woman. Compatibility between people for an effective relationship has so many more elements than just gender. Again wrong, plenty of straight couples have - lets call it - non traditional sex. Sex in a straight relationship doesn't require genitals to interlock. Besides just because a couples genitals don't interlock doesn't make them physically incompatible. Another wild assumption. Being married and straight is no guarantee of complementing each other. (or gay for that matter) Whether a couple works well together is something that could only be determined on a per couple basis. See above about no kids. Also there's adoption. More real scenarios that contradict your statement. The only thing that's out dated is your stance. Your whole premise is fallaciously based on a view of the world captured through the narrowest set of blinkers imaginable.
