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11/2/2009 3:24:49 PM
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AspE
Posts 1231
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One state-level election in to-morrow's U. S. Election
Day of above-average national interest is a " gay marriage referendum " in Maine .
I gave the details about it in my other post on the subject here - which , admittedly , I may have shot down the reading of with my penchant for , perhaps , overly " cute "/wordplay-ish headers !!!!!!!!!
Can we give our opinions - in a nice manner , of course .:-):-)
Based upon the previous success of all state-wide US " gay marriage referendums " it is certainly likely that the anti-civil Same Sex Marriage ( SSM ) side will be triumphant .
edited by AspE on 11/2/2009
edited by AspE on 11/2/2009
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11/2/2009 5:35:44 PM
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Byron Bailey
Posts 3582
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Heard on a courthouse steps deep inside Stephen King Country:
If same sex people can get married, nothing is stopping werewolves and vampires from marrying each other, either. Consequently, without a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage, soon every family is going to look just like The Adams Family or The Munsters. Won't that be awful? Wonderful? Well, at least different? Well, maybe not all that different after taking the Bush and Kennedy families into consideration. Still, is it wrong to just hate someone for who they are, hate them for having bigger fangs or more hair on their backs than yourself? Vote no for gay marriage. Call me old fashioned but I believe we have to take a stand against vampires and werewolves. If a few same sex couples have their dreams stripped from them in the process, they have my condolances and sympathies but the feral howl of necessity calls. The same sex couple unable to get married can rest assured in knowing that the werewolf and vampire duo who sucked their blood and then ate their flesh did so as an illigitimate couple. No one should have to be sucked and eaten except by politicians.
edited by Byron Bailey on 11/2/2009
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Yeah, I weigh 800 pounds. All muscle. Really. Well, mostly muscle. Well, the doctor said that I had muscles -- hundreds of them.
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11/2/2009 9:54:23 PM
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AspE
Posts 1231
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Byron Bailey wrote:
Heard on a courthouse steps deep inside Stephen King Country:
If same sex people can get married, nothing is stopping werewolves and vampires from marrying each other, either. Consequently, without a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage, soon every family is going to look just like The Adams Family or The Munsters. Won't that be awful? Wonderful? Well, at least different? Well, maybe not all that different after taking the Bush and Kennedy families into consideration. Still, is it wrong to just hate someone for who they are, hate them for having bigger fangs or more hair on their backs than yourself? Vote no for gay marriage. Call me old fashioned but I believe we have to take a stand against vampires and werewolves. If a few same sex couples have their dreams stripped from them in the process, they have my condolances and sympathies but the feral howl of necessity calls. The same sex couple unable to get married can rest assured in knowing that the werewolf and vampire duo who sucked their blood and then ate their flesh did so as an illigitimate couple. No one should have to be sucked and eaten except by politicians.
edited by Byron Bailey on 11/2/2009
...That is rather the image - King-land - of the state where the grandfather whom I'm named after grew up and went to college now , isn't it ???????????
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11/4/2009 1:40:41 PM
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davep
Posts 2
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PART 1
Allowing gays to use the religious rite of marriage to santify their union is just plain wrong.
However, gays should have a right to form a civil partnership with all the legal benefits of the state just like the sanctioned heterosexual marriage. They just shouldn't be allowed to change the definition of the term "marriage" nor demand to use the church to perform the ceremony of their union.
Basically, there are two separate issues that get confused, and this is why all the problems arise.
[1] the historical definition, meaning, practice, and religious rituals of "marriage" and it's religious sanction.
[2] the civil legal framework that promotes, celebrates, and sanctions unions between two people.
The problem is that the governments got involved in mixing up religious and civil rights very early in the formation of the state. Because most people were christians, when they entered the halls of government, they implemented laws that favored their religious ideals, and promoted their religious principles. So, in effect, religion became the law, despite the fact that the US constitution required the separation of the state from religion.
This is why the gay community sees an injustice today. Their civil rights are being held hostage to religious doctrine, enforced and sanctioned by the state, in violation of the constitution.
The core of the problem is that "marriage" is sanctioned by the state, when it should not be.
The term "marriage" should be removed from all state documents, and replaced by "civil unions."
Leave the "marriage" to the religious orders that santify the special union between man and woman, and conduct that ceremony in the context of one of the religious orders, thus keeping the "meaning" of the term the same. And use the "civil unions" as the sole state sponsered partnership, that bring "legal" rights and obligations to the various types of unions.
Also, expand the partnership concept to include any union between adult human beings.
The religious "marriage" requires sex between man and woman to "consumate" the union, otherwise the marriage is null and void.
But, what if two people, say a man and woman, want to live together in a platonic relationship, lead celibate lives, but are just there to love and support each other emotionally, financially, and assist each other in times of ill health? Why can't they form a union, get the blessings of the state, and obtain inheritance rights, the right to visit the other in hospital, etc..
With "marriage," they are required to have sex. But, it's really nobody's business what they do in private. Yet, religion "intrudes" into their lives, and tells them what they must do if they want the sanction and blessings of a "marriage" etc..also "gay sex" is not acceptable in religion to satisfy the "consumate" part of the marriage rite..since this also includes the implication of conception, which is impossible for the gay couple...etc...
So, while a "marriage" can be accepted as a "civil union", the converse is not possible, a "civil union" cannot become a "marriage." To use the term "marriage" and it's ceremonies, is just to introduce "confusion" into the language.
However, there's no reason why "civil unions" of all types should not be sanctioned by the state. The "voters" determine what they want their state laws to be. The "voters" can't change the religions. Since, by definition, religion is doctrine "given to us" to believe in, by beings or intelligences who know more than we do, we don't get the chance to create our own religion, when we create oue own "doctrine" to follow, it's not called "religion" it's called "philosophy."
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11/4/2009 1:41:05 PM
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davep
Posts 2
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PART 2
So, either we accept religion, or we reject religion. Either is fine, from the point of view of the state, since the state isn't supposed to promote any particular religion. But, you can't have "freedom of religion" if you destroy the language the religious use to define their principles, and communicate their ideas, by deliberately
confusing the elements of their religion in broadening the terms and/or reversing the historically accepted meanings of words used in the religious texts that need to be read again and again by those new entrants to the world of men.
So, the best solution. To make everybody happy. Is to remove all reference to "marriage" from the civil laws enacted by the state; thus correcting an error introduced by the first lawmakers when they mixed in their own personal religious preferences in state matters. Replace "marriage" with the terms "civil unions" or "living partnerhips", so that the state can sanction "celibate partners", "homosexual partners", "heterosexual partners", "swinging partners", or whatever type of "partnerships" the "voters" decide they want to form.
The "living partners union" should also be allowed to have any number of individuals in the union, there's no reason to limit it to "two" people. For example, 2 men and 3 women, can form a "living partner union", where they pledge to support each other, be there in times of need, look after each other, financially, emotionally, and in times of ill health, and these 5 people would all have the right to visit the others in hospital, inherit from them, etc...as usual, just like the state "marriage."
It just wouldn't be "called a marriage", nor have the special requirements of a marriage, i.e. to have to have sex, to "consumate". The "living partners union" would not need to be "consumated", the initiating civil ceremony and signing of legal documents would be enough. What they do in the privacy of their own home, would be their own business. Neither the state, nor the religious orders would intrude into their sex or non-sex lives. The state would only uphold the "union" on financial issues, and rights of visitation etc..
This is the solution.
Anything else, requires sombody to lose for another to gain what they want.
With the separation of "living partners unions" from "marriage" everybody wins.
Every marriage would then just be a special type of "living partners union", but under state laws there would be no benefit nor loss of benefit to be "married", verses any of the other "special" types of "living partners union" that become accepted under this plan.
No religion would be disturbed. There would be freedom of religion again.
And every voter would obtain his civil rights, whether he's religious or not.
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11/4/2009 6:15:30 PM
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Byron Bailey
Posts 3582
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Allowing gays to use the religious rite of marriage to santify their union is just plain wrong.
However, gays should have a right to form a civil partnership with all the legal benefits of the state just like the sanctioned heterosexual marriage. They just shouldn't be allowed to change the definition of the term "marriage" nor demand to use the church to perform the ceremony of their union.
I agree that forcing someone like the Mormons to hold same sex temple marriages would be wrong. Forcing any religion no matter how homophobic to preside at same sex marriages is wrong. However, preventing all religions from recognizing or engaging in same sex marriage is at least as wrong.`
Basically, there are two separate issues that get confused, and this is why all the problems arise.
[1] the historical definition, meaning, practice, and religious rituals of "marriage" and it's religious sanction.
[2] the civil legal framework that promotes, celebrates, and sanctions unions between two people.
The problem is that the governments got involved in mixing up religious and civil rights very early in the formation of the state. Because most people were christians, when they entered the halls of government, they implemented laws that favored their religious ideals, and promoted their religious principles. So, in effect, religion became the law, despite the fact that the US constitution required the separation of the state from religion.
I flatout reject the premise that marriage is a religious institution rather than a human institution. Marriage is much like death with both of them generaly having religious officials as part of the rite. Yet we don't need religion to die. Neither should we need religion to get married. Marriage and death are both tremendously important rites of passage signifying an end to the life that came before and a new beginning, at least in theory. That we've allowed religion in our culture to completely dictate the terms of these rites of passage, to say that some are better than others, is much to our descredit. Marriage belongs to humanity and not to someone's misconceptions about what God is.
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Yeah, I weigh 800 pounds. All muscle. Really. Well, mostly muscle. Well, the doctor said that I had muscles -- hundreds of them.
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11/4/2009 6:16:01 PM
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Byron Bailey
Posts 3582
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This is why the gay community sees an injustice today. Their civil rights are being held hostage to religious doctrine, enforced and sanctioned by the state, in violation of the constitution.
The core of the problem is that "marriage" is sanctioned by the state, when it should not be.
In part gays see an injustice because from a very early age they've been taught like us that to be married, not civil unionized, is the cultural dream. We need to be married, so our culture says, to be a fully successful individual in our society. In a supposedly egalitarian society like our own, we all know separate but equal is garbage. The cultural dream is denied them. Furthermore, if religion is exclusively the domain of religion, where are the cries to keep atheists from marrying? I'm not hearing them.
So, either we accept religion, or we reject religion. Either is fine, from the point of view of the state, since the state isn't supposed to promote any particular religion. But, you can't have "freedom of religion" if you destroy the language the religious use to define their principles, and communicate their ideas, by deliberately
confusing the elements of their religion in broadening the terms and/or reversing the historically accepted meanings of words used in the religious texts that need to be read again and again by those new entrants to the world of men.
Umm...how can I be polite here? What you're saying here is utter utter nonsense. Garbage. Consider how many religions have differing ways of baptism and yet Mormons who I grew up with aren't having the slightest problem in maintaining that their baptisms includes full submersion underwater while other Christian based faiths are quite okay with a little sprinkle on the head. Religions are going to continue to define their peculiar institutions in their own peculiar way irrespective of what society at large does.
edited by Byron Bailey on 11/4/2009
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Yeah, I weigh 800 pounds. All muscle. Really. Well, mostly muscle. Well, the doctor said that I had muscles -- hundreds of them.
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11/4/2009 6:26:31 PM
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Byron Bailey
Posts 3582
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This is the solution.
Anything else, requires sombody to lose for another to gain what they want.
With the separation of "living partners unions" from "marriage" everybody wins.
Every marriage would then just be a special type of "living partners union", but under state laws there would be no benefit nor loss of benefit to be "married", verses any of the other "special" types of "living partners union" that become accepted under this plan.
No religion would be disturbed. There would be freedom of religion again.
And every voter would obtain his civil rights, whether he's religious or not.
So your solution is to take away marriage, an institution that is recognized cross culturaly near universaly if not universally, an institution that is a part of the common human experience culturally, and then bestow it upon only the religious. Your solution is to take away marriage from everyone but the religious in order to keep out the gays and dehumanize the rest by denying them what humanity since time immemorial has had? Your solution seems a bit excessive like getting rid of a zit by taking an axe to your face.
edited by Byron Bailey on 11/4/2009
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Yeah, I weigh 800 pounds. All muscle. Really. Well, mostly muscle. Well, the doctor said that I had muscles -- hundreds of them.
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11/4/2009 10:20:15 PM
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Thomas R
Posts 3572
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Maine says no to letting Maine men marry their main man. And lesbian marriage too, but it doesn't work the same as a phrase.
Anyway you really can't compare marriage to death. Death occurs in all living things. (with one possible exception, there's some jellyfish or other that ages backward at a certain point and starts over) Marriage is a solemnization that relates to pair-bonding. Other animals pair-bond, but gays can also pair-bond now without marriage. What's missing is official recognition that their relationships or equal or the same.
I'm not entirely convinced their relationships are equal and I don't think they're the same. Washington voted in "anything but marriage" for gays and that's probably closer to where I'd go, provided the state populace or legislature agrees. Maybe gays are in a culture that sites the "dream" as marriage, but I rejected that dream for myself and I'm not sure why gays need to be sold on a dream-image that half the time turns into a failed reality. (I'm not opposed to marriage, but I think it rarely ends up like a romantic fairytale and the belief that it can might be part of why we have so much divorce. This is more my beef with the opponents of same-sex marriage, they sell marriage as way too great when to me it'd be better to be honest.)
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"Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies." Federico Garcia Lorca
"I was going down a long hallway, and at the end of it there was a bright light a kind man with a beard reaching his hand out to me, beckoning me, and he looked at me as I got closer.. and said: 'Hey buddy, can you spare some change? I want a cup of coffee!'" Tom Servo
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11/4/2009 11:19:32 PM
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Byron Bailey
Posts 3582
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Anyway you really can't compare marriage to death. Death occurs in all living things. (with one possible exception, there's some jellyfish or other that ages backward at a certain point and starts over) Marriage is a solemnization that relates to pair-bonding.
Funerals are a solemnization of death. Death and marriage or if you prefer, funerals and marriage to be more specific are similiar in that they are recognized cross culturaly as among the major rites of passage. The point in making the comparison is to point out that marriage and death rites are near universal across cultures which makes them the proper domain of humanity itself rather than religion. I think my comparison in the context that's given is perfectly valid.
Other animals pair-bond, but gays can also pair-bond now without marriage. What's missing is official recognition that their relationships or equal or the same.
That's a lot. Furthewrmore, in this modern age, I really don't think anyone should be insisting legally or societaly that their relationship is holier than someone's elses. Same goes with skin color, gender, and religion.
Maybe gays are in a culture that sites the "dream" as marriage, but I rejected that dream for myself and I'm not sure why gays need to be sold on a dream-image that half the time turns into a failed reality. (I'm not opposed to marriage, but I think it rarely ends up like a romantic fairytale and the belief that it can might be part of why we have so much divorce. This is more my beef with the opponents of same-sex marriage, they sell marriage as way too great when to me it'd be better to be honest.)
You rejected that dream for yourself. How would you feel, though, if society rejected that dream out of hand for you?
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Yeah, I weigh 800 pounds. All muscle. Really. Well, mostly muscle. Well, the doctor said that I had muscles -- hundreds of them.
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