When you go to a court room, and get married by the state, or when you sign your marriage certificate, there is no "holy matrimony". As was said before, the State took a religious concept, and turned it into a governmental idea, for the sake of convenience. They should have just started with civil unions to begin with. (like the whole concept of common law marriage, is that just by living together for X amount of years, you become legally married, even if you never declared yourselves as such)

Lets say, Susan Smith wants to marry Jon Smith, but they are brother and sister. Just because they both share some genetics within thier cell, means they can't get married!? What a travesty!!! That discrimination!!!


Yes, I did miss any such news show. I find it hard to believe that the situation you are describing ever happened. (I find it more likely, that some poltician derided another for using the word timetable, and some talking heads on some non news show like O'Reily factor, took that to say inflamitory things as they often do)

If there was ever a push to actually put the use of the word "timetable" into law, as a reason to charge a person for treason, you can be sure that nobody would allow for that sort of thing to happen. In the case of "marriage" we arn't talking about the fact that the word "gay marriage" or "same sex marriage" is used ALL THE TIME by people. Nobody is "fighting" over the usage of the term like that in everyday language. What is being fought, is that one group of people, wants to shove thier "religion" down everybody's throat, and declare a new Official , government sponsored, meaning of the word.

For some reason, you are ok with one minority group, forcing the governement to change the meaning of the term Marriage, but you would not be ok, with one minority group forcing the government to change the meaning of the word "timetable".

To all those who think I'm "forcing my religion" on you somehow.... Why don't you take a look in the mirror, and recognize who is forcing what on who.

I am sure that in a couple years time, the words "Husband" and "Wife" will be removed from the definition of Marriage entirely. (Not just the words, but the concepts behind them as well) It will become politically incorrect to ask a married man how his wife is doing, or to ask a married woman how her husband is doing. If you ask such a question, you will be called a homophobe or a bigot. I wouldn't be surprised if the word (and the concepts behind them) "husband" or "wife" even becomes a derogatory term entirely.

How is that not an example of shoving your way down other people's throats?

As has already been said, that's due to an increased chance of genetic problems between close relatives.

Stop and think for a moment.

You are looking at this whole thing backwards.

Why does a hospital restrict who can make life decisions based on marriage? ( Your illegitimate son, might not have your best interests at heart.)

Why does the government have inheritance laws at all? (The gift you got from the king of owning the land and becoming a noble, must be passed on to your children so that one day he might marry into the royal family)

These are old antiquated ideas, based on eras where the concept of heredity, and biological children made a difference in areas of land and law.

The rational behind these sorts of laws date back to Feudal society, and royal families.

You're really getting all over the place.

This one is illegal because of genetic mutations that can and do occur. Disallowing this saves parents, and the children that do develop the health and mental problems, from lifetimes of grief, pain and humiliation that the general human populace tends to like placing on people for being "different".

My family comes from a very small island that's part of Portugal, it gets inbred very easily, not from being with siblings but even by marrying second, third, removed cousins because there just isn't enough selection. Our family alone has quite a slew of genetic abnormalities, allowing first blood relations is a Bad Thing because they -can- reproduce.

Same sex marriages don't reproduce, sure, it cuts down on the human population but hello, news flash. There are over six billion people on a planet that is being overconsumed. I think less reproducing should be encouraged frankly!

What they can't adopt? They don't know how to use birth control? They can't have an abortion?

What an ignorant and bigoted thing to say!

So now we are in the practice of Eugenics??? Use a Condom! Adopt a child! Don't let the love of two people be hindered just because they are from the same family! Its outright descrimination! Why can't they be with the person they love??!?!?

Also, forget that...

Lets say that Susan Smith wants to get married to Susy Smith, but they are both sisters... Why can't they be married?

My argument is that they can't get married, because thats not a Marriage. Let them have a civil union. There is no reason why two sisters can't have a civil union, and there is no reason why two siblings, or a man and his goat, can't have a civil union. (I imagine his goat would have hospital visiting rights, if the man so wanted the goat to be there)

Two points!

One, your slippery slope argument doesn't even make sense. We have gender words for all sorts of things. The woman's lib movement sure didn't kill the term "actress."

Two, freedoms are never "shoving your way down other people's throats," barring instances where said freedoms interfere with another person's freedoms. Forcing beliefs would be forcing you to get married to a man. No one* wants that.

The fact that one is the status quo and the other is not really has little bearing on it. Do you think that marrying for love is a horrible, oppressive thing? Your "traditionalist" view on marriage is not that old. There's a very real possibility that your great grandparents had little say in their marriage. It probably wasn't an arranged marriage, strictly speaking, but odds are very good that your great grandmother was told who she was going to marry by her father. Is it offensive to you that marriage was already redefined once in living memory? Do you find the idea of marrying for love oppressive?

*: I use "no one" very loosely.

Yeah, you're quite right. Realistically the reasons forbidding brothers and sisters to marry are very poor and people like Xavius and I would have no problem letting it happen. Whether they are allowed to have kids or not is quite another matter and one that I'm not sure where I stand with.

So...you'd better find a new example.

EDIT: And stopping flipping out on people like Esano and Dylara would be a nice side-benefit!

(closest I could get to facepalm. And directed at Daganev, too.)

Wait, are you talking about the "minority groups" that are trying to get the Constitution amended to say "Marriage is the union of a man and a woman"?

I fully agree that the Government should have gone with civil unions to begin with, and firmly believe that they should still switch it now (as I said in my first post in this thread). Let marriage be something decided by religion, and get the state out of it. However, in my post you responded to, I was talking about the more religious definition of marriage (you know, the whole "traditional" bit), and you decided to sidetrack it into law for some reason.

Unfortunately, your attempt to switch around the "changing of words" thing doesn't work very well, because... well... you're still doing the same thing. You're supporting the ability of politicians to redefine one word to suit their purposes, while disagreeing with their ability to redefine another (whereas I'm simply pointing that out). If you want to be outraged by this, you really should be outraged by the others as well. If not... I want to know why it's okay for some politicians to redefine words at their whim except when it comes to this one in particular. As much as you don't want to see it, they are still fundamentally the same principle. It comes down to public perception.

Now, to your last... I'm not even sure what to call it. Desperate plea? I don't see how my desired outcome would reach that state at all. I believe government should be out of marriage, and that it should be a fully religious institution. As such-- why would husband and wife disappear as terms? Marriage would still exist, and it would still have all the religious meaning it currently has. It just would not come with the state benefits, which you would instead get in a completely different manner (if you wanted to).

I dont even know why I bothered arguing the point, it's not fun being in a family with "inbred" qualities and the very high potential for me to develop something bad in the future or pass on to my future children (providing I have any).

I've never had a blood sibling, but I did have step siblings. I personally just found out from living with them, there was too much of a bond the three of us had with each other that could never allow for it. There was no risk of problems if I did find out I liked my step-brother in that type of love relationship.

Now, if I can feel that way about someone who's only related to me through an idea rather than blood, how do actual blood siblings feel?

Oh shove it, vote to allow Same Sex Marriages and all that junk Myndaen's advocating in the beginning of the thread. Ontario did it and we have no real problems (that I hear of, I may be wrong and someone would be welcome to enlighten me on them). Heck, we don't really even hear much on the issue now.

I was using the word "traditionalist" as a purely secular term. I assumed you were continuing to use that word in a secular way as well, and were arguing separately from your religious position on marriages.

The constitutional amendment says no such thing. BTW.

The Constitution amendment simply says "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

You keep conflating the issue. Using rhetoric in a speech, or having tv shows where you have two people of the same sex being referred to at married by other characters, is NOT THE SAME, as having the laws and government changing the meanings of words.

There is a difference between a statement made on TV, in the show "will and grace", and the statement made by a supreme court. I don't feel worried by statements made on "will and grace", but when the supremecourt says that having any law which mentions, or is dependant on gender at all is unconstitutional, I get a bit worried.


@Shiri: If Stangmar wasn't compared to a slave owner, or a nazi for saying he doesn' think two men should be married, then I woudln't have gotten on Esano's case. Equal treatment and all that jazz.

Studies show an increase in children born and raised out of wedlock. (which is why I said that the only valid reason for the government being involved in marriages, is because of accidental births)

Daganev, at this point, I don't know where your view is on the matter, it just sounds like you're arguing with everyone.

Can someone quote his POV so that I can ACTUALLY respond to him?

Even though you're being facetious, that's pretty disappointing. Esano and Myndaen aren't the same people just because they adopt different stances to you. You know full well that's not what "equal treatment" means.

@Myrkr: get used to it, heh. Luckily Xenthos is exactly the kind of guy with the patience to track down these irrelevant side-points for days!

That has nothing to do with what I said..

There really is no reason to get personal here.

My personal traditionalist view on marriage, is in-fact VERY old. (at-least 1500 years old according to the most skeptical accounts) But what my personal views on marriage are, aren't really relevant to what the governments views on marriage should be. (Nor have I expressed what my personal traditional views on marriage are at all)

Hey Dylara, here in the US, we have a righteously huge document put together every year that covers vital statistics on everything imaginable. I'm sure Canada has one too, but I can't find it. Do you know what yours is called?

Except ... isn't that the point of this thread? Voting about same-sex marriages? Your definition (as far as I've been able to gather - are you going back on all those posts?) means that same-sex marriages aren't marriages, and therefore it is relevant to the government's decision.

EDIT: Dylara/Xavius, try looking for Canadian census results.

You said there were no problems with same sex marriages in Ontario, and that nobody had a problem with it. However studies have been done, and they saw problems with it. (I don't know for sure if Ontario specifcally has a problem, I should actually try to find the study myself instead of just relying on the court briefings that refer to the study)