LGBTQ+ Rights and America

Do you support gay marriage?

As much as I support the proverbial "green thoughts that sleep furiously." For what it's worth, I certainly don't consider "gay marriage" a sin or an immorality—it’s just a definitional incoherency. It’s not that two persons of the same sex may not get married, it’s that they cannot–any more than I can enter into a legal contract with the color blue ... and legislating its existence is no different from passing a law that defines how much an inch weighs. All three propositions are linguistically possible, but semantically empty.

Any judge that seriously entertains or helps enshrine any of the above notions has assigned himself reality-moulding powers that belong to no human being; he hasn’t made a statement about reality, he’s constructed a binding non sequitur out of less than nothing. That’s not merely lawless, it’s corrosive of the very rule of law itself. And that’s a precedent that damned well can come back to directly hurt me, and you, and every other citizen.

edited 1st Feb '13 8:24:30 AM by Jhimmibhob

Thanks for an actually intelligent response!

I don't follow. How would it in any way set a bad precedent?

Also yeah uh..

edited 1st Feb '13 8:28:44 AM by Wildcard

Why not?

How?

Marriage is a legal contract recognized by the state. Its definition is precisely what the law says it is.

edited 1st Feb '13 8:31:28 AM by Lawyerdude

So..

Gay people can't be married because definitions are some sort of immutable law of nature.

I can never follow his logic.

edited 1st Feb '13 8:28:51 AM by Matues

Eh "change the definition" is not dangerous. It has happen before with no ill effects.

I think Jhimm is arguing a slippery slope with bigger words and more complex sentence structure.

Definitions aren't an immutable law of nature, but neither are they subject to tendentious construals only recently become popular among a subclass of contemporary bien pensants. And though I don't know whether it amounts to a "slippery slope" argument, not every slippery-slope argument is inherently fallacious at any rate.

On the contrary, LD: the law is neither the Académie Française, nor Humpty Dumpty: an English word does not automatically mean whatever some congressional quorum or judge says it means, "no more and no less."

edited 1st Feb '13 8:37:39 AM by Jhimmibhob

Yes they are. Gay at a certain time only meant to be happy. It changed because the people recognized it as such.

Please elaborate.

Appeal to Fear? Really?

edited 1st Feb '13 8:35:39 AM by Snipehamster

Social Constructs have been changed so many times.

Why is now different?

edited 1st Feb '13 8:35:58 AM by Matues

They change organically all the time. But we're talking about a top-downward change, largely imposed. To use Wildcard's example, the older meaning of "gay" did not change because some high U.S. courts and a few minority claques of bright young things decided it ought to, and systematically enforced an alien new definition upon recalcitrant native speakers.

Sure. Are you saying that legally, there can be no such thing as an invidious precedent? Really?

edited 1st Feb '13 8:42:58 AM by Jhimmibhob

We aren't changing what a word means.

Marriage is Marriage is Marriage.

Extending it to a new group of people won't change what it means.

Not necessarily so. You don't think that extending "mammalian" to a new group of creatures would likely change the meaning of the word?

That link:

If extended to creatures without mammaries, yes it would change its meaning.

edited 1st Feb '13 8:45:30 AM by Medinoc

So "marriage" is a biological category now? And same-sex couples are not human?

edited 1st Feb '13 8:45:38 AM by Lawyerdude

And? This would be a big deal because?

edited 1st Feb '13 8:45:46 AM by Wildcard

"Analogy" isn't just a river in Egypt, Lawyerdude.

It might not be a big deal if you aren't a biologist, and if there aren't laws based upon the distinctions that you'd like to see retain their integrity.

edited 1st Feb '13 8:48:41 AM by Jhimmibhob

Analogies need to make sense, to show a parallel between the things you're comparing. So far, I've only heard unsupported assertions and nonsensical arguments about how the law "cannot" change the definition of legal marriage.

Marriage is the union of two consenting people, occasionally with the added clause "with the purpose of raising a family". I don't think it was ever written in any secular law that it was specifically "for the purpose of biological, his-bits-in-her-bits reproduction".

edited 1st Feb '13 8:54:42 AM by Medinoc

I think the integrity of such a word would not change if it happened and...

It should have then. Nothing would bad would happen if that was the reason the legal definition was changed. This would not set a dangerous course at all that I can see.

edited 1st Feb '13 8:58:30 AM by Wildcard

and : I think I've actually found the "unsupported assertions" you were looking for, LD.

Care to elaborate on that?

Clearly, we should restrict marriage to one man, and one pre-pubescent woman, just as god intended. Jhimi, you're smart enough, or at least educated enough to know the definition of marriage has been mutated, used, and re-used in many different ways, in many different cultures. If you can give a single reason why the judeo-christian concept of marriage (which is a fairly recent invention, and certainly no older than many, more open definitions) is somehow original, superior, or true, or a single reason why that's anything but religious posturing, I'll listen. Otherwise, you're as shaky as a child-bride right before the honeymoon.