LGBTQ+ Rights and America

You mean that hasn't already happened?

I mean, okay! xD

edited 2nd Feb '13 9:49:27 AM by kay4today

There are religions that claim gods exist, but not an afterlife. That makes things a little ambiguous.

Granted, at that point you're just being kind of nitpicky. And dead.

Sigh ... time to see who's left firecrackers in the mailbox.

All righty: Vericrat, it's interesting you should allude to things like the Three-Fifths Compromise. That's a sterling example of heedless, high-handed monkeying with the English language for nakedly political ends—in other words, precisely the sort of thing I'm objecting to in the first place. And as for interracial marriage: even though some bigots have objected to it as immoral or undesirable, no one I know of has ever denied that it's ontologically possible. If I thought for a second that gay marriage was, it'd be fine with me, whatever my moral beliefs.

Apparently I've been unclear, and I apologize. Believing as you do, and for anyone who shares your base assumptions, there's nothing dishonest or base about your support for "gay marriage," disagree with your assumptions though I do. I'm saying that for me—or for someone who shares my beliefs about the nature of language, semantics, and the law—it would be highly dishonest and show a marked lack of integrity to phlegmatically accept its imposition, or to stay quiet because it's the political flavor of the month.

But there's good news for anyone who'd like to see me suffer in some way for my benightedness or callousness: thanks to a mid-winter heat wave, the lawn needs mowing. I'm heading out for a while to do some yard work, and you have my word I'll hate every nanosecond of it. A present from me to y'all.

You know that gay marriage exists right? That you can get married in certain states and people allow it? How is it not "ontologically possible" then? You have constantly failed to explain yourself with this argument.

Yes people have really believed the definition of "person" did not include people of other races.

edited 2nd Feb '13 11:59:56 AM by Wildcard

But, it happens. Here is a map, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_marriage-equality_laws.svg are you saying that the marriages performed in all those places are not ontologically possible?

Ok, new concept. It's exactly like marriage, except it applies to any two sapient consenting adult beings (gotta be compatible with the inevitable rise of AI/ First Contact).

We'll call it "marriage".

It's a homonym.

Happy now?

He desn't call it marriage, he calls it "convenient lies".

Elfive: I already suggested that. Somebody said it wouldn't work though I don't remember why.

Probably for the same reason that Civil Unions won't; it's not "normal marriage", and separate-yet-equal never actually works.

@Lascoden: Good point. Since I made the separate can never be equal comparison to discuss civil unions before I'm a little embarrassed I didn't think of it.

Oh, i wasn't suggesting using it as well as "normal" marriage. It would replace it completely.

Basically Jhimmi's like "Well, marriage is defined so that two men just can't do it. It's just what it means"

And we're like "ok. *boot* *dump* now it's not."

The thing is Jhimmi, whether or not you are semantically correct isn't all that important.

The fact is, none of us particularly give a shit.

The reason we don't particularly care is because we can almost be certain it won't have any negative effects. Many words have changed their legal meaning without any supposed floodgates opening.

Changing the definition to let people escape oppression is not the same as changing the legal definition to oppress someone further. Intent is important here.

If what your afraid of is changing a word's legal definition will cause this to happen again in the future I say so what? The law should change with the times.

edited 2nd Feb '13 1:19:29 PM by Wildcard

If someone is going to make me on the same level as someone who commits incest, they better have good evidence to back it up.

That's what people don't seem to realize, you can't just talk like that about actual living breathing people who's very lives and how they are lived are active refutations of such hateful and incompetent psychobabble.

Not to spark a debate, but I don't see a problem with incest unless there's breeding involved or it's parental incest, which is just plain squicky.

... Well, incest in general squicks me out anyway, but that's my problem.

~flies away~

It's theoretically possible to have harmless incest, yes (the common example used is a pair of twenty-five-year-old twin sisters hooking up and having a happy, stable relationship). The problem is that the vast, vast majority of incest isn't like that. Even discounting the obvious problems if a closely-related couple have kids (cf: the Habsburgs), abuse is endemic to incest. Now, if you've looked at the statistics, this may seem slightly odd. Parental incest is ripe for abuse, sure, because of the obvious, glaring power imbalance, but recent studies have shown that sibling incest appears to be far more common (NSPCC, 2000, O'Brien, 1991, Laviola, 1992, Cyr, 2002). The thing is, those same studies have shown that sibling incest tends to be even more damaging. Sibling abusers pick younger victims, abuse for longer, and are more likely to be violent. Weirdly, also, biological father incest tends to be more abusive than stepfather incest despite them sharing the same role in the family (with elder biological brother incest outstripping both).

So yes, in theory, incest can be harmless, but in practice, it's so often destructive that it's just not worth the effort for the great blunt instrument that is the law to relax the strictures on it. And let's be honest here, incest isn't a sexuality. If incest is banned, you are not barred from having any kind of romantic happiness in your life. There will still be roughly three and a half billion people of your preferred gender in the world, and most of them won't have the disadvantage of being immediate family members.

Please can we not have this debate in this thread?

Since the movement is getting some foothold in the boy scouts and elsewhere does anyone think the debate will end sooner rather than later? Or is everyone still betting at least ten years?

I can't help but feel like we are in the same position with homosexual acceptance as we are with African American acceptance at the time of the 70's. People still had issues, but we were on the beginning of it not mattering.

People don't seem to think about homosexuality as a problem. But the ones who do are going to be especially vocal and hang on to their version of reality tooth and nail.

Maybe so...I just hope that as few more years pass and we get into the the next decade discrimination against gay people will be as unacceptable as racial discrimination is today.

And they were wrong, weren't they? What's more, if someone had passed a law to the explicit effect that individuals of other races weren't persons, they'd wouldn't have magically ceased being persons. They'd still be persons, whatever they wanted the law to say. You're making my argument for me.

But, it happens. Here is a map, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_marriage-equality_laws.svg are you saying that the marriages performed in all those places are not ontologically possible?

Precisely. You recall the Indiana legislature's notorious "Pi Bill"? Some amateur crank nearly persuaded them to pass a law that officially redefined pi as 3.2. Do you imagine that passing it would have magically altered the nature of mathematics? Had the bill passed, do you know what the value of pi would be in Indiana? 3.14159[etc.], same as it always was. Now that several "marriage equality" laws have been passed in various states and across the world, do you know how many married gay couples there are in the U.S. and the rest of the world? Zero, same as always.

Zero? What are you taking about? I know a legally married gay couple. Also under the law yes they would not be persons so the definition of person would be different. Slaves were not considered people under the law.

Now can you please say why it would be bad?

edited 2nd Feb '13 4:39:54 PM by Wildcard

I think we are on that track. I hope that we can meet that point sooner instead of later, but that's just my take of our social progress.

edited 2nd Feb '13 4:38:26 PM by Gabrael

He's trying to say that gay couples can't get married, because marriage is between a man and a woman.

Then maybe we need to make a distinction between the legal union commonly called marriage, and the religious union commonly called marriage. Just because your religion says that two men can't get married doesn't mean that there should be a legal bar to two men joining into a union (which is also called marriage) that get certain legal benefits as codified by the law of the land.

edited 2nd Feb '13 4:39:49 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

@DG: Yeah he is willing to hold back rights because he doesn't want to see the definition changed? It is a little disturbing to me.