12
votes
Homosexual marriage legal or illegal?
Tell me all your opinions on homosexual marriage, do you want this law implemented or forgotten?
Tell me all your opinions on homosexual marriage, do you want this law implemented or forgotten?
To be honest, and with all due respect, I'm not a big fan of this type of questions and I'd even say it falls into the fluffy type. I think this is similar to the MAGA thread, in that it's asking "which side are you on?". Most tilders are surely on one camp, which will just create an echo chamber and discourage opposing views.
I think it would be best to format this type of threads more in a r/changemyview format. As in: "I believe this is true for this and that reason", so that arguments are discussed instead of general ideas and feelings. At least it'd be better if OP lied out the terms being discussed and the main concepts and ideas, so that OP is actually involved in the conversation and it's not just a question in the air. (This is similar to the uniform thread.)
Of course, I'm just another user. But I thought I'd leave my opinion here for whatever it's worth. I hope it doesn't come out as too confrontational. It intends to be more of a side comment about what I think a better way of framing could be and its advantages.
Completely agree, and this was my first thought on seeing this thread. At the risk of coming off as even more confrontational and getting banned for personal attacks, my second thought was, “ugh, another @Hypnotoad thread; should I just ignore it?” So far, all of their posts seem pretty low effort, but not quite what I would call fluff. And I have to admit they seem to generate some actual discussion, but I have a suspicion this is mostly due to a dearth of activity to engage with elsewhere. If you’re listening, Hypnotoad: I love your prolificness, and you have interesting ideas for threads—but could you please put a bit more effort into them? Maybe don’t just keep throwing questions into the air, as ajar puts it, have some real discussions.
While this doesn't seem like a bannable offense, you sound like a huge jerk. Yes, you used polite wording, but you were not being polite. Have you met anyone who would respond well to "Ugh, another [issue with you as a person?]" It's even worse that you spend a few lines complaining to the public about them, then say "I love your...."
If you don't like the content that is here, post content of your own! Don't publicly complain about a person who is actively working to start discussions. Maybe they're not doing it the way you would, but they are doing more than you are at this moment.
If the topic in question bothers you then why don't you? There are a couple I don't care for that is posted here and I just don't comment nor read them. What do you define as a "real" discussion? Who is the arbiter who decides what is and isn't a real discussion? This topic probably would have had a bit more opposing view points but as ~ is right now the majority are for it. I'm sure there are probably a small handful of people who disagree with homosexual marriage but aren't saying anything due to being a minority. Heck I'm part of the majority in this case where I believe the government should have no business on what goes on between two consenting adults.
I think once the site grows a bit more Toad's discussion will have more viewpoints. Though that will still depend on "how" the first opposing viewpoints will be treated. I've personally been run out of a forum for disagreeing with the majority (unrelated topic).
Completely agree, CMV just needed a bit more moderation and it would have been fantastic, it can still be a good place for discussion as you actually get to tease out more of the reasons why people feel the way they do rather than just simply state the feeling.
What exactly do you mean by fluff? I've been posting what I would consider inoffensive open-ended questions to try to encourage discussion. Is "have you read any good books lately?" fluff? Not trying to be confrontational; I just don't know.
No problem. I think open ended questions can be perfectly fine. And I should probably have called it a low-effort or low-involvement post, instead of fluffy. A bit "throw the stone and hide your hand" type of thing, since it is a polemical topic and OP didn't share their ideas at all nor replied to anything in this thread as someone pointed out (I hadn't even realized it before I read that comment).
I'd argue that "Have you read any good books lately?" is not as low involvement, since it seems you are looking for suggestions (there's a goal) and probably sharing your own titles, replying to people (there's involvement), maybe you even talked about the type of books you like (there's framing), etc. It's not as polarizing as this topic and although not conducive to a lot of discussion, it's, in my view, a bit better. It wouldn't be my favorite thread either (because it will probably become a list of random individual preference, but it depends on how you frame it, like "what is your favorite hard sci-fi novel?", which is understood as a shared interest and discussion/recommendations make more sense), but it is not as problematic as this one, I think.
PS: It seems I love parentheses.
EDIT: I just saw your thread. I thinks it's fine, but when I reply to something like that, I prefer that OP gives some feedback to the people that took the time to answer it (unless there's hundreds of comments or something). Otherwise it might seem a bit unappreciative or uninterested. But as I said before, that might be just me.
Well, thanks for the feedback. I think I just took @deimors a little too literally about starting discussions to try to help the site get going. I don't think I have any obligation to keep participating in a discussion thread I've started, but I can see why others would disagree. I'll stop.
Hey, no, I wasn't trying to discourage you from posting at all. I was just talking about the types of the I enjoy the most. YMMV and all that.
I'm sure there's a place for more casual conversation in ~. I do enjoy some casual conversations myself, I just don't like when people are just putting their opinions in display without aim, it's just not interesting to me. Like, imagine a thread that "What's your favorite color?" and people say: "I love yellow, it makes me think of summer", "Orangered", "Olive green", "I love grey!", "[explanation about why colors are an illusion and people's perception is biased with mandatory link to The Dress"], "I wear white during summer and black during winter", etc.
So, yeah, some of those responses might be interesting to me, but most just aren't, because most aren't adding anything new to my understanding of things, which is what I enjoy, and most are just a kind of competition between who likes the same thing I do and how many of us are there (though voting). But I'm sure there's people that enjoy knowing "red" is more popular than "brown". "What's your favorite book?", imo, is another flavor of this kind of topic. Of course, good discussions can appear in those threads, but it's less common and you have to dig more than I am probably willing to.
Regarding the obligation to keep participating. Surely there isn't any in most topics, (although if you're controversial, as with this thread, it might be interpreted you're doing it in bad faith). But don't you feel fuzzier when you reply to someone with your ideas/insight and they get back to you? Don't you like getting someone else's perspective more?
I don't know, I might like discussing stuff too much. So for me, if there's no interaction, it seems kind of a dead end.
Sorry, I was having a bad day, I shouldn't have been moping that much. I took your (indirect) advice and went back and replied to people more, and I'll do more of that in the future.
It's funny, whenever I see OPs on AskReddit replying to every top-level comment, it always seems like a transparent attempt to get the discussion going, but maybe that's the recovering karma-whore in me speaking.
I do agree with you about taste threads though in some regards. With books, people can describe them and explain why they liked them. With something like "what's a really great and lesser known album you love?" you're going to get people posting their favorites, but it's hard to justify great music. It either speaks to you or it doesn't.
Anyway, I do appreciate the response and I'm sorry I was more of a pain than I needed to be.
No problem. And just think that if you felt that way, probably more people do as well, so it's fine to debate these things.
Churches shouldn't be forced to marry homosexuals if it's against their religion, but the government should have no say in it.
If two consenting adults have decided that they are family, and the government has decided to give tax breaks and other benefits to any two people who have decided they are family, then the government shouldn't be allowed to exclude certain people just based off their genders
The church should, and historically did, have nothing to do with marriage. This is another medieval innovation of the Catholic Church, as it slowly latched onto, replaced, or controlled more and more aspects of civic life, many of which used to be more or less governmental. Marriage in particular was either a local custom or based on the authority of a ruling lord.
From a US perspective, the fact that it is still legally tied into religion and the church in the US today, when it is basically a tax issue as far as legality is concerned, is a gross violation of the spirit of “separation of church and state.” Unfortunately, the establishment clause doesn’t quite equate to separation of church and state, and separation of church and state isn’t quite as strong as fully secular government, which is what we should really want.
Yeah, basically this. Don't let us get married in a church if the church doesn't want it, I don't really care. Just let us throw our own celebration if we want to and let us get legally married, there's no harm in it whatsoever.
Edit since I wrote this at 2AM like an idiot and didn't actually build the response I wanted:
I don't like that marriage is a religious thing at all. I would much rather it just be a legal thing (like most other people here are saying), but I want to be able to be legally joined with someone that I'd like to spend the rest of my life with and not have anyone try to stop me just because we don't happen to be your "normal couple" or whatever. I don't really like that religions are against homosexual marriage in the first place, but that's an entire other can of worms.
Just to clarify for other readers, at least in the U.S., churches are not obligated to marry homosexuals.
Why do you not support Gay Marriage? Are you homophobic or do you think there are flaws behind allowing gay marriage?
I fully support Gay Marriage all the way. In fact, my mum is a lesbian and is married to another woman and I couldn't be happier for them. I personally think I would be a completely different man if this wasn't the case. My Dad was still in my life so I still had a father figure but I had an extra parent who still loved me.
Why should two people be denied marriage purely because of their gender? It's discrimination at its very core.
I am in the UK by the way, I know the laws are different in other countries and different states.
I believe gay marriage should be legalized everywhere.
Edit: @OP edited their post to remove their standpoint after I replied.
There's nothing in Hypnotoad's post to imply that. I've noticed that Hypnotoad generally acts as an agent provocateur on this site - they ask questions, but don't respond to anyone and don't share anything about themself.
Exactly the kind of people and questions that no one should ever be responding to.
From time immemorial, I was told "Don't feed the trolls", and to me, stuff like that falls squarely under trolling.
They're not asking so as to have a debate, to learn and to grow - which pretty much requires follow-up questions. They posted it because they want to cause dissent and attacks, that they can then watch.
Now that I have raised this point, this will be my only comment on this thread.
Edit: typo correction
Here's another possible motive: they're trying to assist this website by posting questions to promote discussion. Me, I'm posting a couple of links per day and commenting a little too often. Questions like this might be Hypnotoad's attempt to contribute here.
How are you helping this website you've been specially invited to?
If you say so. I can see the post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted, but I didn't see it before it was edited.
That might be a good site improvement - to be able to see the edit history.
I have made a suggestion on ~tildes. We'll see what other people think but I think it's a good idea.
The post is here if you're interested.
Cool. I think people sometimes needing to remove sensitive info kills the idea unfortunately.
I can back @bkhl up on this, I got here as it was posted and there was originally "I personally am against homosexual marriage" at the bottom (or something close to it).
Careful in your assumptions, OP at no point (as of writing) has stated their stance on the subject. They could very well be in support of it, but simply want to discuss differing opinions.
Edit: apologies to @Shadeslayer, I didn't see the pre-edit post and since the user has been banned for this sort of posting.
Thank you for apologizing, nobody else has. I posted my reply in the same minute as the post was made in which OP stated he was strong against homosexual marriage, which was the main reason that triggered me to comment.
No problem. I didn't see the whole banning topic until later and realise that it was this thread.
I've had to deal with hasty assumptions in my life so I tend to be quick on the draw if I think someone is doing so. It was an honest attempt to try and keep discussion on point and not start slinging mud, when really it was the OP being dishonest from the beginning.
Plus I'm doing my part to keep Tildes respectful and kind :)
Where did you get that from? Toad just asked a question.
Anyone I'm of the opinion that what goes on between two consenting adults is none of the governments business.
I mean, I can't see a single reason that two consenting adults who want to share their lives together should be not allowed to be legally recognized as such just because they have the same gender. Marriage is bullshit anyways. Shit used to be about basically selling your kids to secure land deals and treaties between royals and the only reason to get officially "marriage" nowadays aside from personal preference is for tax and insurance purposes.
Religions that are against homosexuality, as much as I disagree with them, don't have to allow it in their churches, but that's their business. The government should not disallow it and the legal rights that come with it.
Not only do I think same sex marriage should be allowed, but we should get rid of laws against being married to more than one person at a time. The government shouldn't be in the business of promoting monogamy over polyamory.
Agree on principle but in actuality this creates situations ripe for abuse - so I'd say yes, but with some deal of CPS monitoring/awareness for specific situations that warrant it.
While I think marriage itself should be abolished, polyamorous marriage would be a very a useful expansion of marriage for people who do not conform to traditional societal conceptions of relationships.
I think the government should have nothing to do with marriage, and any legal benefits should either be eliminated or separated from the concept of marriage.
If marriage must continue as is, and the question is only whether homosexual couples be allowed in the way heterosexual couples are, then yes. I can see some arguments as to why in some ways, generally, heterosexual couples are more valuable to society and so warrant some benefits more, but I don't think any of that warrants blanket discrimination.
I agree with where you’re coming from, but I think you want the inverse conclusion.
As I mentioned elsewhere, religion having anything to do with marriage is a relatively recent innovation of the Catholic Church, but it has always been a societal concern. Society has an interest in how families are organized, and in figuring out how to encourage, support, or prevent reproduction and child rearing. In the West, religion took over one aspect of this (marriage), but to the extent that we might want to do stuff like, I don’t know, offer tax benefits to parents to encourage them to remain together to raise a child—well, marriage being legally regulated in some way might be an important component of how we collectively want to manage that behavior.
While people are free to additionally abide by their religious convictions, tying marriage in any way to clergy cedes, at least in name, some of that collective decision making power to religious institutions and ancient texts.
When I say government should have nothing to do with marriage, I don't mean that it should be a religious institution. Well, it should be if that's what the people involved want, but I just mean I don't think government should be necessarily involved, religious or not. I'm also not suggesting appeasing traditionalists by changing the term 'marriage' to 'union' for legal purposes or something. More that it might be better to rework the idea altogether.
I also think there could be a place to incentivize certain behaviors (and that's what I was getting at initially, ie can see some arguments about how homosexual relationships could generally be less deserving of some benefits), but I'd prefer it done differently, if done at all. I'd rather these benefits be tied to the roots of why marriage could be good, rather than being tied to the overarching concept of marriage.
Do you disagree that a marriage doesn't universally include anything we might consider desirable? If not, why not reward the behaviors that might warrant reward themselves instead of some ceremonially granted status that may or may not include those behaviors?
For example, if we want to offer tax benefits to encourage parents to remain together to raise a child, why should the policy be anything more than 'parents who remain together to raise a child will get this tax benefit'? I understand marriage correlates, but it's not a a causal prerequisite, neither to staying together nor becoming parents in the first place.
I know this is how it works in some aspects (in the US at least), and making it like that for everything would make things more complicated, but it seems to me it'd be more fair and sensible.
Coming back to homosexuality, I think it would be better as it nullifies all the (usually) religious and dogmatic arguments, and leaves us with the questions I think are actually relevant.
Basically, if a homosexual couple is engaging in the same particular behavior as a heterosexual couple, some behavior we're considering rewarding in some way, like tax benefits, does their sexuality inherently change the results in a meaningful way? This is another can of worms, but in most aspects, I'd generally say no, it doesn't.
And if it turns out that they're actually different, than why should two demonstrably unequal situations be treated equally?
But assuming it doesn't, why should there be any difference in what benefits or whatever that _sexual people receive?
Not the person who replied to you initially. This sounds a bit like you're saying folks who want to get married but don't want to raise kids, shouldn't be able to get married.
Marriage has a lot of benefits such as tax breaks, inheritance rights, right to see your spouse in medical settings, etc.
This argument will never hold weight until heterosexual couples who can't reproduce are treated equally as homosexual couples that can't reproduce. And when heterosexual couples who show no sign of willingness to produce babies for society have their marriage licenses provoked.
Also homosexual couples can be very valuable to raising new generations, they can adopt.
I agree, which is why I find most of those arguments unconvincing, and why my following post is about how each particular issue, each behavior should be treated on a case-by-case rather than some umbrella of married v not married and hetero v homo.
And I'd also take the adoption bit a bit further too and say raising an adopted child could be argued to be more warranting of reward, if we're still going with that whole benefit people for life choices that benefit society thing.
I see marriage as a civil legal union which has nothing to do with either organised religion or the government. If gay people want to get married they should have that right the same as straight people, absolutely no question. Any consenting person over the age of 16 and of sound mind should be able to marry whomever they wish because quite frankly it's none of my business anyway. It's legal in my country and even has some religious approval, our society has changed a great deal in the last 20 years.
Marriage itself should be abolished. It is a patriarchal historical relic which wormed its way into society for the sake of ensuring valid patrilineal succession of property through inheritance.
But if we're going to keep doing this hokey marriage thing, we should not even be entertaining the question of whether or not we should allow people full and equal rights. It is an incredibly simple question to answer, there is only one right answer, and the people who get it wrong are repugnant, backwards, and reactionary.
Opponents of the right of non-heterosexuals to enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals (or as we can call them in a single word, homophobes) hold no valid ethical or philosophical ground, their positions ranging only from the "moderates" who cling to their religiosity as an incredibly intellectually dishonest excuse to hold the position, to extremists whose outright vile hatred and bigotry deserves the utmost contempt and rejection. Neither flavor of homophobe deserves sympathy, and we enable violence against the entire spectrum of sexual minorities by allowing the continuance of a discourse over whether those sexual minorities are really people.
It's already implemented here in Australia. We had a great big song & dance about it over the past few years, culminating in a stupid postal survey, which just told the politicians what they already knew: the majority of Australians are in favour of same-sex marriage. After that, the government realised they'd run out of delaying tactics, and passed the bloody law fixing our Marriage Act.
Why shouldn't homosexuals be allowed to marry? Civil marriage is just a legal contract between two people. It gives them property rights and power of attorney and tax benefits and inheritance rights and all sorts of other legal rights and obligations. You could achieve the same thing by signing a whole pile of contracts and forms, but it's easier to just have one form to sign that says these two people are sharing their lives.
Religious marriage is a whole different kettle of fish. Religious ceremonies hold no weight at law. They're just private ceremonies performed to basically give the religion's "blessing" to these two people. It doesn't change their property rights or their powers of attorney or tax benefits or inheritance rights or anything like that. Religions should therefore be perfectly within their rights to marry people or not marry people as they see fit. It's just like a bar mitzvah or a confirmation - a nice ceremony that doesn't mean anything outside of the religion. If a religious person finds that their religion won't marry them... then maybe they're in the wrong religion.
But civil marriage should be open to all people equally.
Well I'm gay, so yeah... as an atheist too, I don't care that it's called marriage, but I mostly certainly want to be able to spend my life with someone :/ and the way I see it, if we're ceding control over who gets to decide what "marriage" is to churches, that means that marriage becomes a religious concept. And according to our law, none of the US's governments are to make any laws showing support or favoritism to any religion over another. In other words, in that case, I think all of the US's governments would have to eliminate any mention of "marriage" from the legal system and find a replacement, probably "domestic partnership" or something like that. And while I don't care at all about what my relationship is called, I'd imagine most conservatives wouldn't be too happy to see that "marriage" now would hold no place in the legal system as a result of trying to exert their control over it. But the again, this is a repeating pattern throughout European history, and not just the US...
Silly thread, but i have my idea, so here it is. Remove the legal status of marriage. Religious morality playing into marriage, which is a legal and financial arrangement, is a historical not logical thing.
So. There is a new status, lets call it 'Union'. All marriages or other comparable arrangements prior to the change automatically receive the status of Union. Moving forward 'Union' is a purely civil arrangement open to any two people (maybe more, who knows).
Churches can perform marriages, which still have their religiosu status, just no legal status whatsoever.
Your idea isn't new. The idea of renaming legal marriage as a "civil union", and reserving the term "marriage" for religious ceremonies, has been suggested before. It's one of the reasons that the UK (for one) created the institution of "civil union" for same-sex couples.
Yes, its not exactly unique, though I've seen less suggestion that you remove the religious part from having any legal force. If you just create civil unions, like indeed here in Blighty, then you get the oddity of different statuses depending on your sexual orientation.
I wasn't aware that the religious aspects of marriage do have any legal force. Here in Australia, if a priest or rabbi or imam pronounces you married, that makes no difference to the government. They won't give you any tax benefits, you won't get any property rights or power of attorney. The only way a religious marriage has any legal force is if the priest/rabbi/imam takes the wedded couple out to a back room and gets them to sign a legal marriage certificate. It's only that government form which has any legal force. The religious ceremony is effectively just for show.
You still go out the back to do that part, but it ties them to the idea of marriage, and I'd stop that happening entirely. I'd only allow the civil thing outside the context of a church. Breaking the influence of the church(es) on marriage is the only way to make it actually open to everyone equally. The reason we ask the church what they think in this debate is because of the coupling of the religious ceremonies and the legal parts.
Marriage is open to everyone equally here in Australia, and over there in the United Kingdom despite the influence of religions on marriage. We passed our equal marriage law about 6 months ago, and you lot passed yours about 5 years ago.
This kind of questions about discrimination funnily remind me of the South Park episode, Chef goes Nanners, about racism, and just as importantly but less apparently, capital punishment.
I just tag along with the explanations dynarr and others already provided. Basically, there is no rationale behind the current state of affairs. Homophobia is a form of discrimination that persists as long as societies do not go through their own self-reflective enlightenment period.
A matter that hasn't been covered is the raising of children. There are many claims from opponents on that front. But the only part where we indeed lack in understanding, that is the psychological and sociological issue of gender-identity. We need a lot more large-scale studies and other scientific progress in that respect.
Once again, however, there is no hint of reason, any discriminating, preventive measures have ever been justified.
P.S. I think, this kind of question is good example why there should be a way to comment pseudo-anonymously. Few of the kind of people who disagree would be willing to mark their account with a homophobic slant. So we all are just preaching to the choir (pun unintended).
It's fundamentally impossible by definition. Marriage is a relationship formed for the purpose of procreation. Two people of the same sex aren't even capable of attempting it.
Which dictionary are you pulling this definition from? If one or both in heterosexual relationship are known to be sterile is marriage for them also impossible?
Civil union (legal marriage) is possible in several nations. For clarification, are you referring to the Catholic (religious) definition of marriage? Can heterosexual pairs where one or both parties are asexual/sterile have a marriage as well?
Impotent men/women cannot marry, but so long as a properly-ordered attempt can be made, marriage is possible.
Okay. Let's break this down.
There is a religious institution supported by the Abrahamic religions, which provides a man and a woman with God's blessing on their relationship.
There is a legal institution supported by governments. which provides a pair of people with legal and financial benefits: they get shared property rights, they get mutual power of attorney, they get tax benefits, and so on. Two people are capable of achieving these mutual property rights and legal privileges by signing a series of private contracts, but a single government form is a way of simplifying this process.
Getting a religious blessing provides no legal recognition, and getting legal recognition provides no religious recognition. The two institutions are separate.
What if we called the first one "marriage" and the second one "flibbet"? Could same-sex couples sign flibbet contracts and get the property rights and legal privileges and tax benefits that come with signing the flibbet form? Two men or two women can already get these property rights and legal privileges by signing private contracts and, here in Australia, two people living together in a de facto relationship are treated the same for tax benefits, regardless of their genders. These are just legal matters. Can they apply to two people of the same gender? Can they get flibbeted?
Why are siblings forbidden from a "flibbet"? Why is it limited to 2 people?
In my perfect world, siblings would not be excluded from a "flibbet", nor would it be limited to 2 people.
I really do see civil marriage ("flibbet") as nothing more than a contractual arrangement between 2 or more people. If two siblings want to sign a "flibbet" form and share ownership of a house, and be each other's power of medical attorney, and get tax benefits from the government, I see no reason why they can't.
I understand that a lot of people assume that people in a flibbet arrangement must have some sort of sexual relationship, but I don't see that as a prerequisite for this. What if I and my housemate, who is a close friend, want to set ourselves up as a "flibbet" pair? We get security over our home, we know that each other will be our next of kin if we have an accident (our families are interstate). We just sign a "flibbet" form, and we're set up. It's a legal and financial arrangement, and nothing more.
Meanwhile, people who want to use the "flibbet" form as a basis for starting a family can also do so.
And people who want to get a religious blessing on their relationship can go to a temple or church or mosque and get "married".
In Alberta we have the concept of an Adult Interdependent Relationship in that any romantic or platonic couple agreeing to share an emotional and economic relationship can be in one. Unfortunately still limited to just two people, but in theory siblings, even parent & adult child could theoretically be in a AIR (though never tested in the courts afaik.) The rights and privileges of a marriage are similar, I can't exactly remember but I think they may even supersede an estranged spouse's rights.