SSM Debate starts in Oz

[california boy]

And I clearly get that some Mormons cannot understand how changing a definition changes everything. And so they "avoid" the idea that something can be wrong by making it "not wrong". And when you believe any definition can be changed, then you also have to take into account that anything can be justified by definition, even May December romances that, if you change the definition, no longer means pedophilia. Those Mormons who believe that will eventually be led to justify anything and everything. They won't know what they stand for. Because the definition of what they stand for will be changed to something unrecognizable.

I clearly get that some Mormons don't know this. They choose not to know this and they will eventually acquiese to almost any change California Boy. So while you harp on consenting adults, that does not mean consenting adults is synonymous with marriage it merely means that you have accepted a definition God does not accept. You of course will change more definitions when the need arises, and I am sure as the definitions change you will be in full support of those changes. Some of us though, indeed many of us choose not to go whichever way society deigns we should. You indeed are a stalwart, but for what we don't know.

It is not the definition of pedophilia that makes it wrong. It is preying on underaged children that are not emotionally developed enough to deal with sex.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Actually, they are. In most states, only men are allowed to take a bride. I am sure you would complain bitterly if you were told that you could only marry someone that had a penis. The more relevant question is whether such discrimination is constitutional. Many courts have ruled that such disparate treatment violates the principle of "equal protection."

Thus, your assertion that gays in asking for marital equality are using loaded language is simply false. That is exactly what they are asking for.

But, speaking of loaded language, it must really drive you crazy to hear your side talk about "protecting the institution of marriage."

BTW, calling Darin a queen is not cool.

I guess technically a woman could take a bride too?

Nothing prevents that. What the argument is is that a marriage is between 2 members of the opposite sex. A marriage is not 2 people of the same sex. That is not how marriage is definded as.

For the record I am all for civil unions having the same rights as 2 married people.

It does not matter how many people call a leg a tail it is still a tail.

[california boy]

Race and gender have nothing to do with homosexuality. Indeed if you ask most African Americans they would be offended by the comparison. No one states that civil unions which engender all the same rights would be acceptable. Just don't try to change marriage. The fact you cannot see that reflects a certain willful blindness on your part and makes your position somewhat disengenuous.

Yes and I have a problem sitting at the back of the bus even though the bus still gets you to the same place. I guess I am just a rebel filled with willful blindness and disengenuous.

[Vance]

Inappropriate.

But true.

[Walden]

Which is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. "Gays" are not "denied 'equality' by the government." They have exactly the same right to enter into marriage as anyone else. However, "gays" don't want to get married, because marriage is a mixed-sex institution; instead, they want to form relationships that are in no sense marriages, and then demand that the government legislatively pretend that those relationships are marriages.

Regards,

Pahoran

Yes, just like "colored" people have always had the right to use a public restroom, except a few decades ago they were only allowed to use the restrooms designated for "colored" people. I imagine a person similar to yourself who was squabbling over the definition of equality at that time would have argued that those "colored's" certainly have the right to use a public restroom....see, we've even built special ones just for them!

Yes, and just like women have always had the right to follow their chosen career paths, except a few decades ago it was only if those career paths were either teacher or nurse. A person squabbling over the definition of "equality" at that time would have been fine with this notion of the career-oriented women, as they have all the rights to follow their career bliss....see, we allow them to any type of teacher or nurse that they want to be!

Yes, gays can get married, as long as they are married to people that they do not love, a person of the opposite sex. The only places that gay marriages are "in no sense marriages" are in the halls of conservative religious institutions and in the minds of a generation that will some day be regarded with the same disdain as those people who fought against desegeration in the 1950 and 60s.

Meanwhile, more and more states are granting gays the right to marry one another. Eventually, this trickle will be a swell.

[Jason]

Yes, just like "colored" people have always had the right to use a public restroom, except a few decades ago they were only allowed to use the restrooms designated for "colored" people. I imagine a person similar to yourself who was squabbling over the definition of equality at that time would have argued that those "colored's" certainly have the right to use a public restroom....see, we've even built special ones just for them!

Yes, and just like women have always had the right to follow their chosen career paths, except a few decades ago it was only if those career paths were either teacher or nurse. A person squabbling over the definition of "equality" at that time would have been fine with this notion of the career-oriented women, as they have all the rights to follow their career bliss....see, we allow them to any type of teacher or nurse that they want to be!

Yes, gays can get married, as long as they are married to people that they do not love, a person of the opposite sex. The only places that gay marriages are "in no sense marriages" are in the halls of conservative religious institutions and in the minds of a generation that will some day be regarded with the same disdain as those people who fought against desegeration in the 1950 and 60s.

Meanwhile, more and more states are granting gays the right to marry one another. Eventually, this trickle will be a swell.

Gays are not being refused a right to marry because they are gay. They instead refuse to meet the requirements of forming a marriage relationship. There is an important distinction there.

Blacks were refused entrance to certain restaurants because they were black, not because they refused to wear shoes and a hat, or refused to use the utensils.

Women were refused certain careers because they were women, not because they refused to learn what would be required to perform in other careers.

Gays refuse to bring what is required to form a marriage. That means they can't have a marriage. It's not because they are gay, but because a marriage requires something they don't want. Rather than trying to change what a marriage is for all of us, they should find other ways to get what they do want.

[california boy]

So while you harp on consenting adults, that does not mean consenting adults is synonymous with marriage it merely means that you have accepted a definition God does not accept. You of course will change more definitions when the need arises, and I am sure as the definitions change you will be in full support of those changes. Some of us though, indeed many of us choose not to go whichever way society deigns we should. You indeed are a stalwart, but for what we don't know.

We hear many of the exact same argument points against SSM as were given against inter racial marriage. Not much has changed. Since you are using the argument that you seem to KNOW what God does or does not accept, you might be interested in what God said about inter racial marriages as well as the same argument often presented on this board.

Interracial marriage runs counter to God's plan:

[keithb]

Well, first of all, I don't think the Church has refused to "stick to their guns". Again, where is the text of the letter mentioned in the OP so we can see what it actually said? Who wrote it and why?

My point was that the Church's priority is not to "stand up for what is right", it's to save souls, and sometimes that requires not standing up for what is right in all circumstances. Again, Mormon was prohibited from "standing for what is right" and preaching to the Nephites.

I'm going to remind God of that during the judgment: his own church doesn't have to stand up for what is right at all times, so why should I?

[Pahoran]

Yes, just like "colored" people have always had the right to use a public restroom, except a few decades ago they were only allowed to use the restrooms designated for "colored" people. I imagine a person similar to yourself who was squabbling over the definition of equality at that time would have argued that those "colored's" certainly have the right to use a public restroom....see, we've even built special ones just for them!

False analogy. Nobody is denying a "gay" person the right to enter into an actual marriage. What is at issue is whether governments should legislate that same-sex relationships should be included within the definition of marriage, when they are actually nothing of the sort.

But I realise that it's an important element of "gay" propaganda to try to pretend that same-sex "marriage" meaningfully resembles actual civil rights issues of the past.

Yes, and just like women have always had the right to follow their chosen career paths, except a few decades ago it was only if those career paths were either teacher or nurse. A person squabbling over the definition of "equality" at that time would have been fine with this notion of the career-oriented women, as they have all the rights to follow their career bliss....see, we allow them to any type of teacher or nurse that they want to be!

False analogy. Nobody is denying a "gay" person the right to enter into an actual marriage. What is at issue is whether governments should legislate that same-sex relationships should be included within the definition of marriage, when they are actually nothing of the sort.

But I realise that it's an important element of "gay" propaganda to try to pretend that same-sex "marriage" meaningfully resembles actual civil rights issues of the past.

Yes, gays can get married, as long as they are married to people that they do not love, a person of the opposite sex.

Because that's what a marriage is. You can't take the roof and doors off your car and then demand that it should be legally treated as a motorcycle. You can't enter an elephant in a horse race, or a pig in a sheepdog trial.

Although if you really wanted it that way, you might try kicking and screaming and holding your breath until you turn blue.

The only places that gay marriages are "in no sense marriages" are in the halls of conservative religious institutions and in the minds of a generation that will some day be regarded with the same disdain as those people who fought against desegeration in the 1950 and 60s.

At that time, those who embraced Marxist-Leninism believed that the triumph of communism was inevitable. They also believed that it was the duty of all good Marxists to work to bring that inevitable triumph about. Your triumphalism reminds me a lot of theirs.

Meanwhile, more and more states are granting gays the right to marry one another. Eventually, this trickle will be a swell.

Eventually, it may even be an avalanche; or a complete collapse.

The lowest common denominator of public opinion has no standards; as such, the general moral decay of society is the best hope for "gay marriage" and other such immoralist programs.

Regards,

Pahoran

[keithb]

Quoted for truth.

If the state legislated that I could only marry a man (a somewhat less vulgar version of Jaybear's counter argument), and if human civilization had always dictated that only men could marry men, and if the very word "marriage" meant a union between a man and a man or a woman and a woman, then instead of trying to change what marriage meant, I would simply settle for calling my relationship with my wife something else. I might perhaps ask for the legal benefits that marriages have be granted to my wife and I, but that wouldn't require re-defining marriage.

Huh. Ya know, this sounds remarkably similar to what the gays have been doing for the past decade or so. However, I think that there would come a time when you got tired of people referring to your penis-less wife, that you love dearly, as "your partner" or 'that slut that lives in your house with you". After all, you love your wife more than anything, right? Maybe you would get so sick of it, that you would start responding, "Well, she's not a 'partner' or a 'whore' -- she's my wife." You might even get so sick of it that you one day decided, with some of your other "pervert" friends that also loved women to fight for the right to call your union a marriage. Would you be justified in that fight?

I think that this is the point where the gays are now. They're not asking you personally to approve or disapprove of their lifestyle. They're asking for equal protection and civil rights under the universal laws of the land.

[keithb]

I guess technically a woman could take a bride too?

Nothing prevents that. What the argument is is that a marriage is between 2 members of the opposite sex. A marriage is not 2 people of the same sex. That is not how marriage is definded as.

For the record I am all for civil unions having the same rights as 2 married people.

It does not matter how many people call a leg a tail it is still a tail.

What if I defined Pluto as not being a planet. Is it still a planet?

[Jeff K.]

Jeff K., on 01 February 2011 - 02:30 PM, said:

Race and gender have nothing to do with homosexuality. Indeed if you ask most African Americans they would be offended by the comparison. No one states that civil unions which engender all the same rights would be acceptable. Just don't try to change marriage. The fact you cannot see that reflects a certain willful blindness on your part and makes your position somewhat disengenuous.

Yes and I have a problem sitting at the back of the bus even though the bus still gets you to the same place. I guess I am just a rebel filled with willful blindness and disengenuous.

Yes and I have a problem sitting at the back of the bus even though the bus still gets you to the same place. I guess I am just a rebel filled with willful blindness and disengenuous.

No, you would just put Mormons back there, and then blame them for being there. I understand, society and changing the definition is more important to you than assuring the rights are met without changing the definition of marriage. You seem a bit slow on that up take. But one day, when they state that the age of consent is lowered and that pedophilia which we consider wrong now, will be accepted or more likely pederastry, you will of course state once again that the definition of romance for such groups is acceptable as the definition changes you will change and you will of course endorse those changes, just as you do now. Society dictates what you will believe in, not God. And you will do it under the auspices of ensuring the rights of all to do as society defines them.

Good for you, but I cannot agree with you because I do know what I stand for, unfortunately all society has to do is change the definition and you will change with it. I have never understood people who accept such relativity so easily. I suppose you get alng with just about anyone, evil and sin are just a words after all. Change the definition and you can make it not mean anything.

[Jaybear]

Gays are not being refused a right to marry because they are gay. They instead refuse to meet the requirements of forming a marriage relationship. There is an important distinction there.

Blacks were refused entrance to certain restaurants because they were black, not because they refused to wear shoes and a hat, or refused to use the utensils.

Women were refused certain careers because they were women, not because they refused to learn what would be required to perform in other careers.

Pure semantics.

Marriage to a woman is right/privilege in most states that only men can enjoy, and women are refused, not because they refuses to wear a tux, because they are women.

Not all women want to be teachers and nurses, and not all women want to marry a man.

BTW, find me a black person that doesn't see this as a civil rights issue, and supports gay marriage. Of course, blacks that oppose gay marriage wont admit to the analogy. Most of you here won't even admit that Prop 8 took away gay's right to marry. You pretend that the court ruling recognizing such rights, and which allowing some 30,000 gays to marry was expunged from history.

[Jaybear]

I guess technically a woman could take a bride too?

What do you mean?

What the argument is is that a marriage is between 2 members of the opposite sex. A marriage is not 2 people of the same sex. That is not how marriage is definded as.

That is not an argument. If gays are permitted to marry, then marriage in that state will be "defined" more broadly than you suggest.

You Church is free to define the conditions of who gets to marry in your temples. I don't see why you care to define the conditions of who can marry in other churches.

[Jason]

I'm going to remind God of that during the judgment: his own church doesn't have to stand up for what is right at all times, so why should I?

You missed an important part of my citing Mormon as the example for when the Church doesn't have to stand up for what is right at all times: namely that Mormon was commanded not to preach. By God.

[Jason]

Pure semantics.

No it's not a semantic issue. Obviously you failed to understand my point.

BTW, find me a black person that doesn't see this as a civil rights issue, and supports gay marriage. Of course, blacks that oppose gay marriage wont admit to the analogy.

Well, according to the Prop 8 poll results that's about 80% of the blacks living in California.

Most of you here won't even admit that Prop 8 took away gay's right to marry. You pretend that the court ruling recognizing such rights, and which allowing some 30,000 gays to marry was expunged from history.

It didn't take away a right, because there was no right there in the first place. There was a court ruling saying there was a right, but the court was wrong.

[Jason]

Huh. Ya know, this sounds remarkably similar to what the gays have been doing for the past decade or so. However, I think that there would come a time when you got tired of people referring to your [redacted]wife, that you love dearly, as "your partner" or 'that slut that lives in your house with you". After all, you love your wife more than anything, right? Maybe you would get so sick of it, that you would start responding, "Well, she's not a 'partner' or a 'whore' -- she's my wife." You might even get so sick of it that you one day decided, with some of your other "pervert" friends that also loved women to fight for the right to call your union a marriage. Would you be justified in that fight?

I think that this is the point where the gays are now. They're not asking you personally to approve or disapprove of their lifestyle. They're asking for equal protection and civil rights under the universal laws of the land.

You're wrong - what you describe would in fact be an attempt to force societal approval of my lifestyle, not an attempt to ask for equal protection or civil rights. There is no right to not be insulted or to have one's sexual partners approved by society, nor should there be. No, I would not be justified in attempting to force soceity to stop insulting me.

And that's what the actual crusade for same sex marriage is as well - an attempt at forcing societal approval of a deviant lifestyle. It's not really about equal rights.

[frankenstein]

It didn't take away a right, because there was no right there in the first place. There was a court ruling saying there was a right, but the court was wrong.

that shows complete dishonesty for the subject, and shows a complete lack of understanding of US Gov. If I disagree with desegregation does the mean there is no right to for white and blacks to attend the same public institutions?

There WAS a right.

18,000 same sex couple are legally married and given the "term" marriage in california.

A right existed for a time, that can not be denied.

that same right was revoked by the popular, that can not be denied.

there are 18k ssm in california, that can not be denied.

[Pahoran]

What if I defined Pluto as not being a planet. Is it still a planet?

Evidently not; although I'm not certain you can take credit for that.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Jeff K.]

that shows complete dishonesty for the subject, and shows a complete lack of understanding of US Gov. If I disagree with desegregation does the mean there is no right to for white and blacks to attend the same public institutions?

There WAS a right.

18,000 same sex couple are legally married and given the "term" marriage in california.

A right existed for a time, that can not be denied.

that same right was revoked by the popular, that can not be denied.

there are 18k ssm in california, that can not be denied.

I think your point is more than a bit disengenuous. One court ruled the right existed, certainly not the Supreme Court. And that court also found that it was the right of the people to define that right exclusively or inclusively, in other words the people of the most liberal state in the nation had the ultimate opportunity to decide if such a right existed under the given definition. The people chose and stated clearly that such a right only existed within certain parameters. That being marriage between a man and a woman.

One supposes any old judge can say there are various rights that do exist, the right to kill, or murder, the right to rob, the right to commit rape, a right to suicide. A single judge finding such does not make it a right that is then taken away. More accurately the people have the right to define the parameters of such.

[Jeff K.]

there are 18k ssm in california, that can not be denied.

Because a judge would not wait for the appeals process (which is the normal course of events). The judge wanted a fait acompli, nothing more.

[Zeta-Flux]

Pure semantics.

Marriage to a woman is right/privilege in most states that only men can enjoy, and women are refused, not because they refuses to wear a tux, because they are women.

Not all women want to be teachers and nurses, and not all women want to marry a man.

BTW, find me a black person that doesn't see this as a civil rights issue, and supports gay marriage. Of course, blacks that oppose gay marriage wont admit to the analogy. Most of you here won't even admit that Prop 8 took away gay's right to marry. You pretend that the court ruling recognizing such rights, and which allowing some 30,000 gays to marry was expunged from history.

Jaybear, what you say is incorrect. There is no such institution as "marriage to a woman". Two people, of opposite genders, enter into a marriage, together.

[california boy]

No, you would just put Mormons back there, and then blame them for being there.

If you think that I somehow implied that I wanted to take away the rights of Mormons to believe what they want about marriage and to marry who they want, you are sadly mistaken. I certainly defend the right of every Mormon to marry who and how they may. It is their American right. I hope that my position on this is clear.

I understand, society and changing the definition is more important to you than assuring the rights are met without changing the definition of marriage. You seem a bit slow on that up take. But one day, when they state that the age of consent is lowered and that pedophilia which we consider wrong now, will be accepted or more likely pederastry, you will of course state once again that the definition of romance for such groups is acceptable as the definition changes you will change and you will of course endorse those changes, just as you do now. Society dictates what you will believe in, not God. And you will do it under the auspices of ensuring the rights of all to do as society defines them.

Look Jeff, if you think gay marriage is a stepping stone to pedophilia, then go right ahead. I personally find this totally irrational. Gay marriage does not lead to acceptance of pedophilia any more than straight marriage does. Nor did changing the definition of marriage to include inter racial marriage lead to an acceptance of pedophilia. If this is your best argument against gay marriage, then is all I can say is good luck with that.

Good for you, but I cannot agree with you because I do know what I stand for, unfortunately all society has to do is change the definition and you will change with it. I have never understood people who accept such relativity so easily.

Fortunately, over time, equality for Americans becomes more important than a definition. Are you still dealing with the fact that the Supreme Court changed the definition of marriage to include inter racial couples as well? Are you standing for that original definition of marriage that had been in the United States for almost 200 years? AFter all, for you a definition is more important than equality.

I suppose you get alng with just about anyone, evil and sin are just a words after all. Change the definition and you can make it not mean anything.

I have been know to eat with publicans and prostitutes.

And one more thing. Did you notice I can make my case without resorting to personal insults like "You seem a bit slow on that up take." You might try that in the future. It is a bit more civil.

[california boy]

There is a lot of discussion about what a gay marriage is. Perhaps this testimony given in the Iowa legislature will help bring some understanding.

[Eitan]

This question is for Paddy.

It is my understanding that there is majority support among Australians for marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. Is this accurate? My information is that the support is particularly high among younger voting age Australians, similar to what you find in the populations of other western nations.

Thx

Eitan