"The Definition of Marriage"--why does it mean so much?

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Words change definitions constantly. Ten years ago, if you tried to use "text" as a verb, you would have gotten stared at like you were crazy. "Pirate" still refers to seafairing marauders, but nowadays also calls to mind people who copy software. And of course there's the infamous Batman comic from the 1940s where Joker keeps talking about his "boner", meaning his mistake--certainly we all know why that's infamous.

So why do people seem so set on keeping the word "marriage" meaning what it does today? And why do they ignore that what we use today isn't the original definition either? What makes that word so special that people refuse to change it even a tiny bit?

 

[Falconwing]

I think it may have something to do with how old the word is and that its meaning has persevered through so many centuries and the weight the word holds, as well as what it currently means. I think it should be changed to be a joining of two people (instead of a joining of a man and woman) till death do them part and all that stuff. But there are those who treat marriage as sacred or something, even though half of them have probably had a divorce or two...

It's really a complicated issue that I'm not sure we'll ever agree on. Words like Pirate make sense since, well, you do "SURF" the net (bad pun but it works). Boner... well, not that big an issue, and text is still writing... sort of.

But marriage is a more important word than those, no matter who you ask. So of course the controversy over it will be much greater.

I'm not quite certain where I'm going with this, but I think it answers the question.

EDIT: Also, people traditionally do not react well to change.

 

[the gadfly]

Umm, religion? Not saying it's right, but that's basis of most arguments. So, all you have to do is demolish religion's view of marriage. Good luck.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Religion doesn't mind using other words like "ascend" (meaning both "to become divine" and "to go to a high place, usually a mountain peak") or "mission" (if memory serves, the religious definition was the first one, but think about all the other ones).

 

[the gadfly]

Somehow, I don't think the Pope thinks marriage can occur between two people of the same sex. To think every Catholic disagrees with him is too much to expect.

Although, I would hope so.

 

[Satoshi-chan]

Religion has no part in this in the United States though. It's a legally binding contract, nothing more, nothing less. Even with this contract, there are many churches in the United States who do perform ceremonies for gays (even though in many states they are not legally binding, but are just the binding of two people together through God and their church).

Honestly, using religion as an excuse is actually taking away from the rights of the churches who do have no problem with gay marriage. Why is one marriage ceremony that they perform more important in the eyes of the law than the other? I didn't think that we were supposed to practice discrimination of churches through our legal system (heck, there are churches out there who are legally able to ingest hallucinogenic cacti because it is a part of their religious ceremonies, so why are we making special cases for churches who want to perform ceremonies for two people of the same sex).

 

[the gadfly]

Really? Are you really saying religion doesn't play a role in the enactment of laws in this country?

 

[Satoshi-chan]

I know that it does, but I also understand that we try to have a separation of church of state (which making a law based on religion goes against), and we also value freedom of religion (which making a law that goes against what some religions and even some denominations of the Christian religion goes against).

Also, atheists have the ability to marry, so marriage is not just a religion-only thing, and people are able to marry without even having a church involved, which makes many marriages a legally binding contract that has nothing to do with religion.

 

[the gadfly]

Separation of church and state is a fallacy perpetuated since the founding of the nation. That's why "In God We Trust" appears on our coins, why "one nation under God" is in our pledge of allegiance, and why each daily session of every legislature and the Supreme Court of the United States begins with a prayer.

The first amendment says Congress shall not establish a national religion. It doesn't say religion can't be reflected in its laws. And that is why laws regarding abortion, stem cells, marriage and many more laws reflect the majority church view.

It is what it is.

 

[Fig]

The argument that it has been around a long time runs headlong into the notion that its meaning has changed several times along the way.

"Union between a man and a woman", you say? For the longest time, the actual man and woman (and especially the actual woman) were more accessories to the real union and its real goal: the alliance between two families, or clans. The production of babies by the newlywed was a way of cementing the deal, and creating a permanent and lasting tie (kids) between the families.

Moreover, at many times in history, the term "union" would simply be laughable in its gross misuse of the term: the woman became little more than property to the man. I don't mean "stay-at-home" ism or voting rights; I mean several places throughout history where women were not entitled to owning property or engaging into legal acts of their own: in fact she had no rights, all her rights being absorbed into the rights of the couple, and the husband having sole authority to exercise those.

In other ways, the term "Union" is simply too weak to describe the legal effects at time granted to marriage: you cannot speak of a union when it reaches the point where the law of many country of the western world, well into the twentieth century, recognized the two partners in a marriage as a single person in judicial terms...and thus, not even *able to sue itself*. That is to say, a wife whose husband attempted to kill her with a knife and severly injured her may be denied the right to sue for damage!

And of course, outside the Western World (and even within it sometimes), many societies have long traditions of allowing forms of marriage besides one man and one woman. One man and many women, Many men and one woman, several women and a God, or any other spiritual entity (eg, a sacred lake, etc).
___________________

Gadfly - well, "In God We Trust" was only added on the monies a century into the history of the US (Civil War, 1864). And of course the "Under God" part of the pledge is well known for having been inserted even later (during the hunt for the Godless Commies)

 

[Satoshi-chan]

Alas, you're right.

So, I guess it is acceptable to discriminate against an entire group of human beings because of the beliefs of some denominations of some religions.

That still leaves the question... peyote is not legal for recreational use, so why is there an exception for certain religious ceremonies, but there are not exceptions for religions who wish to marry gay couples? Do we just get to pick and choose what religions we make exceptions for in the United States?

 

[the gadfly]

So, I guess it is acceptable to discriminate against an entire group of human beings because of the beliefs of some denominations of some religions.

It's called the tyranny of majority. Under our form of government, it has no moral value. It just reflects the majority opinion of the options they're given. The majority opinion can be changed and in time it will be.

Gadfly - well, "In God We Trust" was only added on the monies a century into the history of the US (Civil War, 1864). And of course the "Under God" part of the pledge is well known for having been inserted even later (during the hunt for the Godless Commies)

And is there a clamor to remove them? Seems to me there's a bigger uproar whenever somebody proposes to take them out.

 

[Fig]

Oh, I did not say there wasn't wide support for keepign them. There is. I was simply illustrating that neither of these date back to the founding of the nation.

Certainly the treaty of Tripoli of 1796, while many of the Founding Fathers were alive, and approved unanimously by the Senate, openly state that "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion".

 

[Misty]

Answer to the topic - I believe it reflects the "slippery slope" argument that, once we legalize gay marriage, we're on the way to legalizing pedophilia and bestiality. I consider that 100% bullshit since there's a huge difference between recognizing two consenting adults and the other things >.>

 

[Eredar Warlock]

Religion has no part in this in the United States though.

You really need to read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Second, Seperation of church and state was meant to protect churches from the Government, not the Government from the churches. It's the anti-Christian (Since church-state seperatists have no qualms with other religions, it seems) people who get all hot and bothered by kids praying in schools or a nativity scene in a public park.

The "slippery slope" argument is this: Marriage becomes completely meaningless should gay marriage become legal. It isn't completely meaningless now - though high rates of divorce have dwindled its meaning considerably - and those of us who might want to get married in the future don't want to see Marriage lose all meaning. The "slippery slope" isn't so much about pedophilia and bestiality as it is about plural marriage and possibly incest.

Gay people can do each other all they want - just don't call your union marriage.

 

[evkl]

It's a proxy for lots of other things; I don't think very many people can seriously argue, intellectually, that marriage has "meant" the same thing from the beginning of time to today, and suddenly we're gonna shift that definition. Loving v. Virginia re-defined marriage in America within my parents' lifetime.

And so people say "changing the definition" as a way of not saying another set of arguments against gay marriage. It might be a bigger change than Loving. Or it might not be. I'm not really sure if one can measure that.

 

[ShinyFlareon]

It's called the tyranny of majority.

This. Exactly this.

I'm going to try and leave as many personal biases out of this as I can. Marriage is a word with a meaning, and what that meaning is, IMO, is entirely up to an individual.

But basically...pure democracy, the kind that the US is striving for (and at times claims to possess), is quite possibly one of the most inefficient ways to run a government. It assumes that every last member of it's population who is eligible to vote has a thorough, unbiased knowledge of events, and will vote, not in accordance with their personal opinions on the matter, but according to what is best for the state. In the US, of course, we're lucky if we can get 30% of registered voters to come out and vote for presidents, and those figures are much smaller for more regional officials, like governors or mayors (who actually have a much bigger impact on the daily lives of the voters).

What does this have to do with the definition of marriage? Well, America tries to give the people what they want, right? The problem is that what the people want isn't always what's the most beneficial for or in the best interests of the state, or for the population as a whole.

The phrase tyranny of the majority, used in discussing systems of democracy and majority rule, is a criticism of the scenario in which decisions made by a majority under that system would place that majority's interests so far above a dissenting individual's interest that the individual would be actively oppressed. The phrase also refers to tyrants and despots whose behavior causes similar oppression.

With so few people coming out to vote and provide a true picture of the will of the people, we are instead left one group of people who completely dominate the political views. It's important to remember that "tyrant" did not originally have the negative connotation we give it today; in Ancient Greece, when the word was invented, it simply meant "ruler" or "leader."

Let's say we have a hypothetical country governed by a true democracy made up of three sorts of people categorized by their class: the Blues, the Greens, and the Greys. There are more Blues than Greens or Greys. Thus, because the Blues have certain ways of thinking and interests specific to them, they utterly dominate the political scene according to their own interests, whereas the views of the Greens and Greys are repressed.

This is a rough representation of the issue of the definition of marriage. There are many straight people who, while fully supporting gay rights, also believe marriage to be special or sacred thing. Combine their numbers with the people who do not support gay rights at all and those who simply do not care about the issue, and gays and straight people who support gay rights become a rather vast minority. Thus, the definition of marriage and what it constitutes is directly affected by the tyranny of the majority.

 

[Koji-Kun]

Here, I'm going to go to the Yes on 8 website and copy-paste what they've said, then voice my opinion on the matter, seeing as they're the big people who don't want the definition changed.

The Issue

California voters passed Proposition 22 in 2000 by more than 61%, saying that a marriage in California is between a man and a woman. Earlier this year, four activist judges based in San Francisco wrongly overturned the people's vote, legalizing same-sex marriage.

The Consequences

The Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage did not just overturn the will of California voters; it also redefined marriage for the rest of society, without ever asking the people themselves to accept this decision. This decision has far-reaching consequences. For example, because public schools are already required to teach the role of marriage in society as part of the curriculum, schools will now be required to teach students that gay marriage is the same as traditional marriage, starting with kindergarteners. By saying that a marriage is between “any two persons” rather than between a man and a woman, the Court decision has opened the door to any kind of “marriage.” This undermines the value of marriage altogether at a time when we should be restoring marriage, not undermining it.

The Solution

Vote YES on Proposition 8 to overturn the outrageous Supreme Court decision and restore the definition of marriage that was approved by over 61% of voters. Proposition 8 is NOT an attack on gay couples and does not take away the rights that same-sex couples already have under California’s domestic partner law. California law already grants domestic partners all the rights that a state can grant to a married couple. Gays have a right to their private lives, but not to change the definition of marriage for everyone else.

Passing Proposition 8 protects our children and places into the Constitution the simple definition that a marriage is between a man and a woman.

Source: http://www.protectmarriage.com/about/why

I must requote on portion which is a flat-out lie... ugh, sorry. it's just annoying how much of a blatant lie this is.

This decision has far-reaching consequences. For example, because public schools are already required to teach the role of marriage in society as part of the curriculum, schools will now be required to teach students that gay marriage is the same as traditional marriage, starting with kindergarteners.

Excuse me, what? I know where they're getting this from, but they're SO misinformed. First of all, the curriculum in my own school district teaches about marriage in 7th grade sex-ed, in which your PARENTS sign a FORM saying THEY ALLOW YOU to go to said class.

They're trying to use scare tactics here. I know what they're talking about. A book titled "King and King", and you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_&_King

In that book, a prince marries a prince and they become kings together. It was used in SEX ED classes in Massachusetts. SEX. ED. As in, sign the form to allow your children to go to class. And in California law, Sex Ed isn't taught in Kindergarten. So that Prop 8 thing is a flat-out lie, trying to scare you into thinking they'll turn your kindergarteners gay or something. Ugh.

Next up, is another lie they said.

California law already grants domestic partners all the rights that a state can grant to a married couple.

And, why it is wrong:

While domestic partners receive most of the benefits of marriage, several differences remain. These differences include, in part:

* Couples seeking domestic partnership must have a common residence; this is not a a requirement for marriage license applicants.[3]
* Couples seeking domestic partnership must be 18 or older; minors can be married before the age of 18 with the consent of their parents.[3]
* California permits married couples the option of confidential marriage; there is no equivalent institution for domestic partnerships. In confidential marriages, no witnesses are required and the marriage license is not a matter of public record.[3]
* Married partners of state employees are eligible for the CalPERS long-term care insurance plan; domestic partners are not.[3][4][5]
* There is, at least according to one appellate ruling, no equivalent of the Putative Spouse Doctrine for domestic partnerships. [3]

In addition to these differences specific to state law, should the Defense of Marriage Act be found unconstitutional or repealed, married persons in California might enjoy all the federal benefits of marriage, including Constitutionally-required recognition of their relationships as marriages in the rest of the United States under the Full Faith and Credit Clause. [4][dubious – discuss]

In addition to these differences specific to the United States, some countries that recognize same-sex marriages performed in California as valid in their own country, (e.g., Israel [5]), do not recognize same-sex domestic partnerships performed in California.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_California#Differences_from_marriage

O hey, another lie. How about that.

So why are they going through this, if none of this is actually true that they're arguing?

Here's a few, though these do not apply to everyone (just the people I've met personally).

1. Gay people are gross and will hit on me, so i don't like them.
2. Marriage is special and religious so gay people ruin it
3. Gay people deserve to stay second-class citizens and make me feel superior

Granted, this isn't everyone, and I'm not saying the majority. Just people I've known personally. In which i can say to the first one, "I don't want to date someone as intolerant as you anyway", to the second, "Look at Britney Spears, the divorce rate, and how many atheists are getting married", and to the third "Grow up". And sorry if that last one offends anyone, but seriously. The superiority complex by some people is really getting old.

And that is my rant, done. Which i spent the last hour gaining evidence to support, instead of doing my homework. >_> There you go.

EDIT:

But the Parkers and Wirthlins said in their suit that teachers were indoctrinating children to believe that homosexuality is acceptable and were doing so in a compulsory school setting.

Source: Some website about the King and King lawsuit

My only response:

Spoiler

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I've never gotten the "it'll mean that children will learn about homosexuality" thing. One, so what? and two, we don't really learn about heterosexuality, at least not directly. Even sex ed, at least when I had it, was more "here's what you do" and not a word about whatever partner we would have.

 

[Koji-Kun]

I've never gotten the "it'll mean that children will learn about homosexuality" thing. One, so what? and two, we don't really learn about heterosexuality, at least not directly. Even sex ed, at least when I had it, was more "here's what you do" and not a word about whatever partner we would have.

Plus parents have to consent to their kids going to sex ed anyways, so they have no one to blame but themselves if the kids learn about homosexuality. THEY gave them permission.