A proposal to solve the whole thing.

Debating issues regarding sexuality

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dianaiad
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A proposal to solve the whole thing.

Post #1

Post by dianaiad »

Here is an article I'm thinking of sending to....someone.

I'm sure it's useless; everybody is so intent on holding his or her own opinion regarding this and in pounding the other side into the pavement that it will be ignored or argued with. However.....

What do y'all think?

Who'd read it?

[center]A Proposal to solve the marriage problem in the USA.
[/center]

[center]Get government out of the marriage business, period. [/center]

mar•riage/ˈmarij/

Noun: 1. The formal union of a man and a woman, typically recognized by law, by which they become husband and wife.
2. A relationship between married people or the period for which it lasts.


Almost every definition of the word ‘marriage’ includes two very important ideas: ‘formal union,� and ‘recognized by law.� The purpose behind getting married seems to be…to form a family. The idea of a formal recognition of a familial (sexual) relationship has been around since before written history began.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this, though I have heard precious few people comment on this, is the wording “recognized by law.� Please notice; marriages are not MADE by law, but only recognized by law. Marriage, as an idea and an institution, predates the USA, is practiced and defined very differently by many different cultures outside of the USA (and within it, state by state, as well). Marriages have included polygamy, polyandry, monogamy, groups with both men and women in the relationships and homosexual relationships.

Even in today’s American culture, when a couple decides to ‘go get married,’ they are thinking about the wedding ceremony that is performed by their clergyman (or the Elvis impersonator or the friend on the beach) and about the vows they take there…vows that are not, and cannot be, enforced by civil law. They are not thinking about the license they paid for three days previous, or the signing of the certificate—which doesn’t apply government rights to that marriage until it is properly filed by the officiator.

No, the government doesn’t define, or make, the marriage. The government recognizes a marriage that the participants have made.

Today there is a huge controversy about whether or not gays may marry one another. In California, where gays had every single one of the civil rights that the government could grant a recognized marriage, it was not enough; gays wanted to be recognized and approved of culturally as MARRIED.

This is understandable; why not, if they have made a formal commitment to one another, and they have all the civil rights, why can’t they call themselves ‘married?� It doesn’t seem to be unreasonable, on the surface.

However, it is unreasonable. Since “marriage’ as an idea does predate any law or right attached to it, and since the whole idea is about families and what cultures and belief systems think marriage ‘really’ is, then having the government dictate to everybody who they can consider ‘married’ is going to cause problems. It is, in fact, establishing a religion…or at least a religious stance. That is fundamentally against the First Amendment. There are many cultures and belief systems that do not think that gays can marry one another. Not ‘they should not,’ but rather ‘they cannot.� To make these people, by force of law, change their doctrines and beliefs in order to comply with something so completely against their own ideas is indeed ‘establishing a religion.� However, that is, as far as I can see, exactly what gays want here. It’s not that they want the equal rights; in California they HAD those. They want the forced cultural and religious approval to which they have no right.

However, they DO have the right to those legal rights; whether or not gays may marry is a religious, moral and ethical problem, not a legal one. The government has the right to assign civil rights to whomever it wishes, and not only should, but MUST, ignore religious and cultural opinions in doing so. If it takes one religious group’s opinion into account, it is then establishing a religion, again. Certainly if a homosexual couple belongs to a culture/belief system/church that accepts their marriage, then they have a right to BE married…and certainly nobody can tell them that they are not, within those beliefs.

It’s a quandary and a problem…and a problem that government is not well equipped to solve. I know this, because my own belief system has seen, to its huge cost, what happens when the government decides to enforce its definition of ‘marriage’ upon a group that believes differently. We have been ejected from our nation, made legal prey by the governor of a state, had close to HALF the armed services of the USA sent against us in order to remove and arrest the governor of the territory we were finally able to settle.

That was a while ago, true. However, less than ten years ago one of our offshoot sects had their towns invaded by men with full body armor, automatic weapons, tanks and guns—and the authority of the state—and the women and children taken away in Baptist buses, interned in a facility where the sanitary facilities were ‘Andy Gumps� in the back parking lots, and the children removed from their mothers because the state wanted to enforce ITS definition of marriage upon a group that disagreed.

I can’t tell you how often I have been told that, if gay marriage were made legal that nobody would force religions to accept them. Please pardon me if I am skeptical; given the above examples, I have a right to be.

But…do I have the right to keep those who do not share my faith from being happy and getting married because I don’t want the government interfering with MY freedom of religion?

It’s a problem.

Here’s the solution.

Get government out of the marriage business altogether. Let’s get back to the idea that the government only RECOGNIZES marriages, and does not make them. In fact, let’s not even do that. Let ALL aspects of marriage that the government can enforce be given a name that reflects the government’s ability and power; make ‘em all ‘civil unions.’ Remove all legal power from clergymen who perform marriages, so that ‘marriage,’ that institution that predates law and is recognized so differently by so many different nations and states, means only the part that is managed by the church, the culture and the couple.

Make this a two tiered event…if a couple wants both the marriage and the legal rights that the government says can go with it, they have to sign the civil contracts with the government..and that’s what they would be called; civil contracts, or civil unions. THEN, if they want to, they go get married according to their own beliefs or in whatever fashion appeals to them. They can do both, or one, or the other. The ‘wedding’ will have no legal power…just religious or personal, and the civil union has no religious meaning; strictly legal contractual stuff.

That way anybody can marry…and I do mean really get married...as they wish, AND they all get the rights; gay, straight, whoever. At the same time, though, religions cannot be sued, fined, or legislated against if they say to someone who hasn’t been married according to their beliefs “sorry, you ain’t married.�

A gay photographer who specializes only in gay weddings…and advertises this…cannot be sued for discrimination by a straight couple who wants him to shoot their wedding, and vice versa. (as far as I am aware, though there ARE such gay photographers who specialize in gay only weddings, none have been sued. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the ‘vice versa’)

It’s not even as if this is so unusual and outrageous an idea. “Two tiered� weddings have been around, in many other nations, for quite a while.

So that’s it. That’s my idea. Get government entirely out of marriage. Everybody wins; gays get the rights, gays may marry, and those who disagree with gay marriage can’t be forced to change their religious behavior and beliefs, even as they will have to, in non-religious public arenas, obey the law regarding civil rights. Everybody wins.

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Post #41

Post by DanieltheDragon »

[Replying to post 35 by dianaiad]

It seems your most pressing issue is that gays get to call their union a marriage and you insist that only christians can have a marriage with the name of a marriage. Well I ask you where in the Hebrew or Greek Manuscripts can you find the word marriage?

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Post #42

Post by JoeyKnothead »

From Post 40:
Youkilledkenny wrote: Why do anti-gay people find it necessary to get involved with another person's marriage anyway?
'Cause every danged on of 'em's incapable of love. Incapable of speaking truth.

'Cause it is, I get to declare what they all believe!
Youkilledkenny wrote: Can't two people get married without any other people who may not even know these two being involved, cryin' about it, stomping their feet or even being happy?
No, 'cause they dare challenge my religious superiority!

'Cause it is, I have me this supernatural ability to know what it is every religious person on this planet thinks!

And every dad-gummed one of 'em wants to see you dead!
Youkilledkenny wrote: Can't I marry a woman without a person complaining and challenging it?
The only logical conclusion here is that you wish to rape and maim and kill and destroy.

'Cause I get to declare I know your thoughts.
Youkilledkenny wrote: Likewise, why shouldn't I be allowed to marry a man with the same end result?
'Cause I said I know your thoughts, and that ya didn't really wanna, 'cept to upset me.
Youkilledkenny wrote: ...
Why people make a mountain our of such a molehill is sad and telling of a bored lifestyle to me.
Religious lies are immune to sanction. See how I get to declare I know every gol' danged thing it is you think, whether it was, you did it or not.

I get to declare I know your thoughts, 'cause it is, you disagree.

I get to declare that your only argument is that you wanna "stick a gay argument down my throat", as I open my throat to it.
is, we get to all declare what it is every gol' danded one of ya think!
I might be Teddy Roosevelt, but I ain't.
-Punkinhead Martin

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Post #43

Post by JoeyKnothead »

Heck, if we're proposing solutions on which we must all agree, or be given down the road...

This'n done fingered it out!

'Cause that's what every Christian thinks.

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Post #44

Post by Youkilledkenny »

[Replying to post 41 by DanieltheDragon]

Christians are allowed to find a word and change it's meaning when they see fit (poor translations of concepts are good for this type of thing). They are also allowed to created words with their own unique meaning. They are also allowed to claim sole rights on a word or term no matter what the origins of the word is.
Unfortunately, so many people in society are dumbed down or uneducated they don't know when or how to challenge these apparent bullys.

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Post #45

Post by Youkilledkenny »

JoeyKnothead wrote: Heck, if we're proposing solutions on which we must all agree, or be given down the road...

This'n done fingered it out!

'Cause that's what every Christian thinks.
Your last line is intriguing. I believe most, if not all, Christians that are against gay people (gay-ness if you will) would agree that a dead gay is a good gay like the OP states if they're truly honest with themselves.
After all, the biblical God isn't the kindness, most gentle being in written mythology.

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A proposal

Post #46

Post by Youkilledkenny »

There have been some 'interesting' proposals to this whole thing.
But this is the absolute BEST proposal:
Don't like gay marriage, IGNORE IT.
Don't like gay marriage, DON'T MARRY SOMEONE OF YOUR OWN SEX
Gay marriage is legal in something like 37/50 states now and not one state has collapsed on itself, no one is eating babies because of gay marriage, no churches have been forced to close, the sun hasn't 'become dark', the dead aren't walking the streets, governments haven't announced martian law, demons aren't parading down the street with visible impunity and society is still moving forward.
Weird eh?

So gay marriage isn't the end of everything.
It doesn't impact any one's religious 'sensibilities' in as much as it prohibits them from their OWN, PERSONAL relationship with their god.

So how about those against it don't participate in it, mind their own business and let those who WANT to get married (a civil contract between these individuals and NO ONE ELSE including YOU) get married?

But it's not fun to mind our own business is it?
Some of us have such perfect lives that we must take it upon ourselves and bother others' lives while sitting on our nice, fluffy sofas while OUR rights are protected, hiding behind our OWN, PERSONAL god that no one can prove to exists or not - a belief that, in the USA, is protected and we are allowed to have without fear of torture or death or physical/financial harm.
That's not fun
But running the lives of others - 99% that we don't know - AT ALL...? Now THAT'S fun.

And from what I've seen, that's all that matters to these people.
Making gay marriage illegal (or keeping it from being legal) won't get their souls into heaven. But that's not REALLY what matters - it's all about fun and playing with the lives of those who don't matter to you in the first place, eh?

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Post #47

Post by JoeyKnothead »

From Post 45:
Youkilledkenny wrote: Your last line is intriguing. I believe most, if not all, Christians that are against gay people (gay-ness if you will) would agree that a dead gay is a good gay like the OP states if they're truly honest with themselves.
I find your notion has merit, where the OPer has suddenly found her own topic disinteresting.

And how it is, we get to declare the motives of all who disagree.
Youkilledkenny wrote: After all, the biblical God isn't the kindness, most gentle being in written mythology.
It does seems to me the Christian is fully able to imply nefarity on the part of anyone who disagrees, for it is, the Christian ain't capable of sufferin' her none of it.

But then again, we must consider how it is, the Christian knows the mind of God, and how it is, the Christian gets to tell us all what motivates those of us who disagree.

I gotta tell it, that how special it must be, to know the minds of them don't agree.

And how convenient it is, that I get to imply nefarity on their part, as as I sit in my moderator's chair of immunity.
I might be Teddy Roosevelt, but I ain't.
-Punkinhead Martin

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