Thread: If It's All The Same To You, Why Deny Others?

Warning, monsterpost!

Originally Posted by Bruno

I am right.
Why am I right?
Because I say I am right.

No, that's NOT what I said. You asked who, I answered the question.

Humankind has a lot of things in its history that we thankfully abandoned.

Yes, just as human history has many things that we still maintain. Families are thankfully one of those. That is no argument what so ever either. So how about we both give up on that one?

Because then you have to maintain 2 complex legal concepts that affect a lot of things, instead of just one.

Even civil unions don't confer the same rights and duties as marriage atm, despite the fact that that is already existing for a long time. Creating yet another concept and updating all relevant legal and administrative texts is a metric ton of paperwork and overhead that is unnecessary because it doesn't change anything.

And if you allow for the concept of equal rights for civil unions, then the only difference would be to the people who are not affected by it, yet object to using the term 'marriage' on emotional grounds.

Actually you don't. Over here you can get a "registered partnership" which will legally grant you EXACTLY the same rights. It's not that big a problem, add a paragraph to the lawbooks which says something along the lines of "a registered partnership legally grants a person all the rights, obligations and priviledges (spelling?) which are granted unto a person that is lawfully married" and you're done.
As for emotional grounds, yes, we are human beings and are therefore EXTREMELY motivated by emotions. Do not underestimate the power of emotions. You seem to imply that emotions are a bad thing to be motivated by. Or am I misunderstanding this? Reacting to emotions is what makes us human instead of robots. I don't mind that.

Originally Posted by icedog

I thought someone would blurt out how if same sex marriage was legal (as it is in many countries) next people would want to marry their dog. I really thought that was going to be the far edge of ridiculousness. But Alex, here you topped that by a long shot! You are comparing same sex marriage to human sacrifice! Awesome, just awesome. We are talking about the joining of two consenting adults. The word marriage means any close joining or relationship. The flavors in a pot of soup marry. The pieces of a lawnmower are married to each other.

The funniest thing about your opposition to same sex marriage in the USA is that you live in the first country to legally recognize same sex marriage.

I don't really care for being called rediculous. I wasn't comparing gay ,ariage to human sacrifice. I was actually responding to your original question. Your question was: "if it doesn't harm you why should you care?" and I gave an example of why people care even if it doesn't affect them now. Because it could affect them in the future, or simply because they feel it is immoral.

As for marriage meaning nothing but a close joining, maybe it's like that in the english language but it's not the same in the other languages that I speak. In both Dutch and German a mariage can only happen to people. So how about we wipe that argument off the table as well since we're working with a very international group?

As for it being funny that I'm opposed to gay mariage since I'm living in the netherlands? I don't find that very funny at all. I happen to think that the whole of my government is made up out of a group of people that do not care what their population thinks one way or another, I have nothing but disrespect for those in parliament right now and most of those in parliament in past years. I don't agree with my government and probably won't on most things. I'm doubtfull that the gay mariage laws would have passed if those in power would actually have held a referendum or talked to the people that they're supposed to represent.

Originally Posted by jockeys

that's not what marriage IS, it's what you have arbitrarily defined it as. you're a cool guy and all, but just because you think something is, don't make it so. marriage is different for every instance of it. marriage means something totally different to me and my wife than it did to either set of our parents, and we're just garden-variety breeders!

Good for you, I respect you for having an opinion and having formed your own ideas, but so does everyone. So you're not quite unique in that. A lot of people during the forming of their opinion however find out that they agree with what their parent taught them.

the point is that arbitrarily outlawing it, even if it seems silly to YOU, is nothing short of tyranny and is an assault upon personal liberty.

So be it. Sometimes people do need to be told on what's allowed and what not. I know you don't agree on that but I personally think it's a good thing that there are laws for things such as these.

1. if my son is of consenting age, and is that dumb, he can go right ahead and kill himself, he's making the world a better place.
2. if you legally define marriage as 1 man and 1 woman, you are setting a precedent to make legal decisions about marriage in general. your point seems the opposite of valid here. writing it down in the law books opens the door for the whims of majority to control it in the future. deciding that the gov't shouldn't be involved AT ALL is the only way to preserve freedom for future generations regardless of their preference.

I don't believe you have any children do you? I know you're going to say that that doesn't matter but it does. Logically you might still say the same things about it if a situation had happened like that. However I seriously doubt that your feelings would agree, or those of the wife that you have to share a house with. To most parents their children are the world. And I don't think there are many parents out there in a situation such as that who'd be able to say "thank goodness he apparently was an idiot anyway, good riddance".



Gentlemen I thank you for your thoughts and hope you can hear mine out with the patience that I try to give to you.