Poll shows Utah evenly split on gay marriage rights-

The laws in effect are not "anti-gay marriage" (which sounds very negative; perhaps intentionally so?), but something far more positive: They are, in fact, an affirmation of what marriage traditionally has been in Western society.

As for my observation that the law contains several different purposes, one of which is didactic, this was in response to your assertion that, since no third party is harmed by the freshly minted institution of "gay marriage," it ought to be made legal. Presumably, everywhere. (After all, some states have already placed their imprimatur upon it.) I was merely pointing out that this libertarian perspective is very much at odds with the thinking that underlies our legal system.

 

No evidence provided

It's hilarious you think a dictionary helps you here.

You seem to have confused yourself with all the lying you've been doing. Nobody is talking about penises here, lol

 

You realize marriage is a contract right? Don't you get tired of looking moronic?

Except they can't. One is marriage between consenting adults, the other is not.

But they aren't using the same argument. Italy doesn't recognize same sex marriage, so it's irrelevant to the case there. You know all this of course, because I've been schooling you on it for 3 days.

- - - Updated - - -

But of course you already know the issue is not that orientation is not a protected class, but at the issue is gender discrimination.

 

So you have decided that tradition rules in these cases? OK, that's not an unreasonable position. Of course, I'm also fully in favor of the tradition of marriage, which I think is part of human nature. My notion of marriage, however, is somewhat broader. I see it as a sincere, durable emotional commitment on the part of consenting adults.

Not really. A great many laws have been struck down on the grounds that they do more harm than good, or do harm without doing any good at all. I will note here that marriage is not freshly minted, as currently being contested. It is exactly the same institution it has historically been. As I've been pointing out to another person here, permitting same sex marriage does not change one single law, regulation, or precedent. THere are thousands of these defining legal marriage, and NONE of them wouild need to change at all. So the institution remains identical to what it always has.

(And along those lines, if we should decide to create any sort of "plural marriage" of 3 or more people, that WOULD be a new institution, in the sense that a great many laws, regulations and precedents would need to change or be created to accommodate them.)

Anyway, your "didactic" purpose is at best perverse and wrong-headed from where I sit. It "teaches" discrimination, selfishness, and inequality. Not a good lesson. And if teaching such things is the strongest argument you can marshal for keeping second-class citizens second-class, I should think you might stop and reflect for a while.

 

The fancy, $25 term, "cognitive dissonance," leaps to mind here. For, although some Court cases have yielded results that I find desirable, that cannot vitiate the fact that the process of judicial overreach is very undesirable, in my view. Nor does the end justify the means, as far as I am concerned.

Well, no.

If an institution that has traditionally been the union of one man and one woman is transmuted into an institution that may, instead, include two men or two women, it is not just "the same" as it has historically been.

Let me try one more time.

I am not--repeat, AM NOT--suggesting that there is anything that the law should attempt to teach as regarding marriage.

My only reference to the didactic purpose of some laws was to respond to your implication that the only legitimate purpose of the law is to prohibit any harm from being done to an innocent third party. This appears to be the gist of your assertion in post #122 in this thread.

Is that clear enough?

 

The limits of judicial scope is a matter of long debate, to be sure. And one of the complicating factors is that there is no agreed-on definition of terms like "activist" or "overreach". And lacking any baseline definition, unfortunately we are left with an orientation toward results - generally, overreach means ruling against our preferences. I don't have any cure for this, no magic bullets. In law, the debate concerns what is called a "justiciable issue" - that is, is this an issue properly addressed by courts and the legal system. I strongly suspect that judges are too frequently inclined to find an issue justiciable when they have a desired result in mind.

I guess we have to agree to disagree here. To me, marriage is entirely implicit - it is what all of those laws, regulations and precedents amount to as a matter of practice. So what you seem to be doing is saying that if the same set of conditions is applied to two people of the same sex, they are somehow different conditions. To use my bridge analogy, I'm saying that the rules of bridge are constant, and therefore every hand dealt is a bridge hand if it's played according to the rules. You are saying that every different hand is a different game altogether, none of them are actually "bridge". I disagree.

And so with marriage. The rules are constant, and do not change for ANY two participants who follow those rules. And this is important, because same-sex marriage is now a common daily matter in 18 states, none of which (nor the federal government) needed to change a single law or regulation. And when same-sex couples go to court to dispute property, child custody, etc. the existing legal precedents are fully sufficient to handle every case.

OK. Wow. I certainly never intended to say that, and after re-reading several times, I still don't see where you get that. I was expressing confusion (which I still suffer) as to why anyone would vote in favor of any policy that harmed some while benefiting none. And you continue to repeat that the reason for such a policy position is that we have always done it that way. As though if we do it wrong long enough, the sheer repetition of our error somehow means it's not an error. I struggle with this idea.

Other arguments I've seen are that same-sex marriage is the same as pedophilia, the same as adults marrying small children, the same as people marrying sheep, the same as fathers marrying their own daughters, the same as all forms of plural marriages, etc. I'm glad you aren't heading down that rabbit hole.

So I guess I just think exclusion and discrimination SOLELY for the sake of exclusion and discrimation, is a lousy tradition. Since changing that tradition helps many while harming none, I'm glad to see the tradition undergoing this really very minor upgrade. To me, there's no question that it makes the world a better place for everyone - EVEN for those who refuse to accept it.

 

The American Culture has changed, gay people are cool, people who oppose same sex marriage are trolls.
That's the way it is now, and it's getting more so, soon people who oppose same sex marriage will be the equivalent of child sodomizers.
You know who you are, and you can change, and most of you will.
But one or two of you will be that crotchety old guy who still rants about "god not wanting the whites and the coloreds to mix", good luck with that, and the scorn of your grandchildren....

 

And of course you already know that the U.S. Constitution is all about the protected rights of the individual, which includes that one person's gender. Not which gender that that one person wants to marry and have sex with.

 

No.

What I am saying is that one of the fundamental conditions of marriage is that it must be between one man and one woman; and that any deviation therefrom is a change in conditions.

Well, as regarding that last point--the one about plural marriages--the underlying principle is the same for both; which is to say, if the gender may be changed (i.e. if it no longer must require both genders), then the number may also be changed (thereby allowing for polygamy and/or polyandry).

If not, then why not?

 

This again? Gorn Captain didn't draw a comparison between homosexuality and race. Nor did the poster compare the discrimination experienced by homosexuals to that experienced by black people.

As to who has suffered more, it's frankly irrelevant. It's not a contest. "Equal suffering" is not the standard by which we determine whose rights are acknowledged.

The comparison was between the statements made by racists and those made by people who are anti-gay. Point being: the same kinds of arguments are often used, whether it's to justify racism, anti-gay sentiments, or whatever group one is choosing to be disrespectful and hateful toward.

So you can stop pretending that race and homosexuality were compared, because anyone with basic reading comprehension ought to be able to see that they weren't. The claim that a such a comparison was made is nothing more than a common tactic of deflection, to avoid having to address the actual point the poster made. It's a false accusation. A strawman.

You can also stop pretending that there has only ever been one civil rights movement. It's a constant battle for those who find themselves being marginalized or denied, whether it's the right of women to vote, the fight to be acknowledged as a full member of the human race, or the battle same-sex couples are waging for the right to recognition of their marriages.

 

Those rights of the individual belong to the individual; they are not doled out by the government. That being the case, government needs to have a good reason when it seeks to restrict rights. It has none in the case of persons marrying someone of their same sex.

 

Pull the other one. We heard the rhetoric surrounding the adoption of the bans, and it's clear the purpose was very much to stop same-sex couples from attaining legal recognition of their unions. Same-sex couples sued in Hawaii for that recognition, and we ended up with the laughably titled "Defense of Marriage Act" as a result.

Not fooling anyone but yourself with the pretense that the bans aren't anti-gay. There is nothing affirming about them. No amount of flowery language can disguise what they actually do.

 

Seriously, you're going to make an appeal to tradition? Meanwhile, the fact remains that government provides CIVIL recognition to marital UNIONS. That's what legal marriage is - a "civil union". So pretending that same-sex couples need to use a different term is ridiculous. Moreover, something allegedly being "an affront to the traditional usage of a term" is not even remotely a sound argument for denying the use of a word to people whose union the law supposedly provides identical rights (but of course the separate 'civil unions' provided to same-sex couples have never actually done so.)

Bottom line: This is nothing more than pretending to be accommodating toward same-sex couples while the real purpose is to preserve one's own feelings of superiority by keeping them marginalized.

 

Now, as to the actual topic of this thread:
[h=1]
Poll shows Utah evenly split on gay marriage rights-[/h]
I agree that a near even split on the matter does not indicate what the outcome would be if it were put to an actual vote. The anti-gay are for more motivated to vote on such an issue than are the many who say they're in favor of same-sex marriage recognition. It's more like, "sure, whatever" than "this has an urgency to it that compels me to go vote".

That said, the poll is significant in that it shows in what direction the momentum lies - for now.

 

Nope. It covers both. Just ask the federal courts.

 

OK, I see. What I'm referring to is the entire collection of laws, regulations and precedents that together DEFINE the condition of marriage. None of which need to change for same-sex marriage. You are adding an additional condition for which I see no need.

Sigh. Once again, if we regard marriage as what is defined by the entire set of applicable laws, regulations and precedents, then the plural marriage is clearly NOT the same condition, since a good many of those things would have to change, many of them drastically. The resulting implicity definition would be entirely different.

This is ambiguous. If you're asking "if not the same condtion", it's because the rules would have to change a lot. If you're asking "why not change the rules", then I see no particular reason why we shouldn't.

 

What's funny is that your argument here completely destroys the OP's argument. Because I doubt your gravitas to understand why, I'll spell it out for you. You're saying that polls are unreliable.

Votes are what matters.

 

Since your post says this same thing over and over in different words, let's address it directly.

What we're talking about here is a group of people who, together constitute a minority. This is the only relevant similarity. It really doesn't matter what characteristic we're looking at which we're using to separate people into majority and minority, so long as we do the selection AND we have different legal policies toward the two groups. It could be blacks, homosexuals, left-handed people, blondes, orientals, short people, or anything. So long as we select some characteristic to divide people into two groups and have policies discriminating against the smaller group, we have a problem that may need to be corrected.

Movements to correct discrimination against a minority are pretty similar, and the reasons for them are also similar. Stated briefly, the argument is that such discrimination is not based on any intrinsic merits. The members of the relevant minorities are not voluntary members, the characteristic used to set them apart is not harmful to anyone, and is offensive to the notion that all people are supposed to be guaranteed equal rights and privileges unless they do something (like commit crimes) to voluntary give up their legal equality. So according to US legal and philosophical principles, the default is that everyone has the same rights unless good cause can be shown to deprive them of equal rights. The default is NOT that they are deprived of their rights until such time as they can successfully wage a battle to win what they should have been guaranteed in the first place.

Notice that I am not specifying any particular characteristic here. I'm presenting legal, constitutional, and philosophical principles.

- - - Updated - - -

No. Laws and constitutions are what matters. In the US system, at any rate, a majority of voters cannot vote away the legal rights of a minority. We do NOT have two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.

 

Can't wait.

By that childlike simplicity of an argument any group of people are a minority. Murderers, rapists, child molesters are all minorities. What is your point?

As I pointed out there are thousands of minorities and we discriminate against them each and every day by law. Simply being a minority that is being discriminated against is not a reason to change law.

Unless you advocate ridding all minorities of being discriminated against by any law this simplistic argument means nothing.

Yes. Your simplistic argument with gaping holes just like the holes in gay marriage arguments by gay marriage advocate websites is noted. Its this kind of child like simplistic arguments that allowed an Italian court to use a gay marriage argument to override consent law and protect a pedophile from jail.

 

I do not understand why this is even deemed an issue. If the government is supposed to treat every man the same before the law then it doesn't matter if you're gay, you get to be married too. That fact that there's a debate shows how many ignorant, stupid, backwards people there are still.

 

And when probably the most conservative state in the union is evenly split, kinda makes you wonder about the rest of the country

 

Unless you are advocating the legal discrimination of minorities just for the joy of discrimination, what do you suggest? I agree there are relevant reasons for legal discrimination against some groups. So are you arguing that sexual orientation is a relevant reason for discrimination? If so, what is the relevance?

- - - Updated - - -

Well, you see, if you are NOT ignorant, stupid, and backwards you must be "childish". See how that works?

 

The poster said "may need to be corrected", not "must be corrected in every instance without regard for the context of that distinction". It is the nature of law to create classifications that separate those to whom the law applies from those to whom it does not. The point of disagreement is that we think people shouldn't be discriminated against in the law over something irrelevant; we think gay people are being excluded when they ought to be included. You, very obviously, do not. You are latching onto one word or phrase, like "minority", and going off on a tangent while completely missing (or ignoring) the points that the poster was making.

 

There is no law that states only adults are to be treated the same before the law. Fabricating laws isn't helping you.

The stupidity of that statement is truly amazing. By that simplistic argument any sexual preference could demand marriage without reservation. Its unbelievable how many times liberals make the same childlike simplistic arguments for gay marriage over and over again even when a court uses them for pedophiles they still continue to make them.

 

The choice we as a society have made for hundreds of years. The inability to find anything natural or genetic in homosexuality to warrant it to be equated to heterosexuality which is proven to be genetic.

And pedophilia is a sexual orientation. Are you saying we shouldn't discriminate against that?

And please spare me your denials it is a sexual orientation when the dictionary states it to be so.

sexual orientation n.
The direction of one's sexual interest toward members of the same, opposite, or both sexes, especially a direction seen to be dictated by physiologic rather than sociologic forces. Replaces sexual preference in most contemporary uses.

EDITED OUT TAUNTING REMARK