A word on Terminology
You may have noticed that I do not use the term “same sex marriage” very often. In fact, I am making a conscious decision not to use the term at all any more. I think the term gives away too much ground to our opponents. Continually using the term makes it possible to believe that such a thing as a marriage between people of the same sex is possible.
I don’t use the term “square circle” because such an entity is not possible. Likewise, I think it is not possible for two people of the same sex to be married to each other. So, I use another term that I believe is more accurate.
I use the phrase “redefinition of marriage” or “so-called same sex marriage,” or in a pinch, “genderless marriage,” depending on the context.
Even “genderless marriage” is questionable because it is naming something that is an impossibility. Gender is essential to marriage. The move to make same sex unions the legal equivalent of opposite sex unions requires that gender be removed from the understanding of marriage. If this legal movement to redefine marriage succeeds, it will be creating something entirely new. Nothing will be left of marriage but the name, as I have said in articles and lectures called, “The Institution Formerly Known as Marriage.” But at least the term “genderless marriage” calls attention to what is at stake in the debate.
What do you think?
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Read more about genderless marriage at Marriage-Ecosystem.org:
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I like the idea because there really is no such thing as a same sex or gay marriage. I have some other ideas like phony marriage, counterfelt marriage, and imitation or second hand marriage. It would be just like the real world or free market. How about fake marriages?
How about “sex-segregated public unions.” Imagine introducing sex segregation into a public institution, which has always required equal representation of both genders. Kind of a step backwards, no?
I agree with your concerns. A committed, romantic union of two men or of two women is something, but it is not marriage. For that reason, I also generally don’t refer to such unions as marriages.
I heard the term “garriage” somewhere as a way of referring to same-sex so-called marriages. (I guess maybe it is a shortening of “gay marriage.”) I’m not sure if this term is meant to be derogatory or not. I hope not, and I get the impression that it is not meant in a derogatory way. While the word sounds a bit too much like “Gary” or “garage,” it is still probably the best attempt I have heard to come up with a word for such unions.
I like using the term “same-sex faux marriage” or “same-sex ‘marriage’.”
Neutered marriage is a pretty good term. I have thought about the term gayrriage, but I haven’t used the term. Pairriage might be more neutral.
Just an aside, there’s a great series of opinion pieces about same-sex marriage at scotusblog.com, specifically relating to how the US Supreme Court might handle the subject. Here’s a teaser:
“…the proponents of Proposition 8 spent millions of dollars simply to deny lesbian and gay couples the symbolic equality associated with full (civil) marriage recognition. Certainly, no one would doubt the insult of allowing marriages only between same-race partners while affording different-race partners a parallel institution called “domestic partnerships.” The deliberate insult is just as obvious here. Carving out a class of citizens from a core civil or political status is unprecedented in our constitutional system; it is highly suspect, and perhaps a per se constitutional violation…”
I think it’s childish (even if the moderator deletes my comment!) to quibble over commonly accepted terms. Attempting to short-circuit the debate because of a difference of opinion over terms, when everyone knows full well what is referred to, undermines credibility.
Pretty soon, it will just be “marriage,” much as “male nurse” has become just “nurse.”
Whatever the term is, I think it would be helpful if those of us who object to redefining or neutering marriage could all agree on a term for same-sex “marriage,” and use that term consistently. Of course, we would run the risk that a few bad apples would use the term in a derogatory and insulting way, thus ruining it for everyone. But I think that at least the attempt should be made. Whether the term is “garriage” or something else, it would be helpful to have a short word that describes these unions in a neutral manner, without having to say “so-called marriage” or “genderless marriage” or whatever.
If gayrriage becomes commonly accepted, would Sean object to it? Everyone would know full well what is being talked about, so there would be no need to quibble. It would be a very precise term, immediately understood.
Religiophobic might be another term that could be popularized. Everyone would know exactly what is meant.
I prefer “roommates”
This may be the dumbest thing I have read on here. Marriage is marriage is marriage. In those states where marriage equality exists for LGBT people, those individuals in same-sex unions are legally deemed as married. Putting aside for a moment the question of whether the Constitution (or any particular state constitution) requires equal treatment for LGBT persons with respect to marriage, the fact remains that your personal belief that same-sex couples cannot form a marriage has no impact on the legal recognition of married same-sex couples in those states where they may marry. You may argue until you are blue in the face that “real” marriage cannot include same-sex couples, but your personal and/or religious opinion about the meaning of marriage does not negate the legality of those same-sex couples who are married in their respective states.
Moreover, the assertion that some ideal pairing of gendered individuals is essential to marriage rests on gender stereotypes. It also conflates sex with gender and assumes that there is some magical combination of certain gendered characteristics belonging to each sex that can never belong to the other sex. This is patently false. Finally, even if we ignore the stereotypical belief about gender vis a vis marriage that is displayed here, there is not one shred of supporting evidence listed as proof of the supposedly essential gendered aspects of marriage.
@Sean No it isn’t childish. Controlling the language is how one controls the debate. That’s why homophiles chose to use “homosexual” as a noun when it previously was an adjective. That’s why homophiles chose to use “gay” as their identity instead of “sodomite.” That’s why homosexualists invented the term “homophobia” and that’s also why you want to change the definition of marriage. So we need a term to define your idea of non-marriage. In fact, that might be a great term – “same-sex non-marriage.”
Of course the analogy does not work: No one questions that a male nurse is a nurse. But it is a mainstream view to deny or to doubt that a union of two men or a union of two women is a marriage.
Dr. Morse focuses on how “same sex marriage” is a contradiction in terms. There is also another way in which the term is misleading. It congers up a vision of same sex marriage as an institution lying along side and separate from opposite sex marriage. But that will not be the legal case at all. There will only be one definition of marriage, a neutered one. Legally, there won’t be wives and husbands, only partners. Legally, there won’t be mothers and fathers, only parents. De-gendering the occupation of nurse doesn’t fly in the face of biology. De-gendering the generation of the species does. So legally marriage will then have to be divorced from procreation. Sean already embraces that separation. The legal tie between parents and children embodied in marriage will be radically redefined, a right that the state once had to recognize in the view of natural law. It will legally be purely a matter of the state as natural law is discarded. All families will be redefined into mere associations. That way all associations and all families will be “equal.” This will mark a huge increase in the power of the state at the expense of the natural rights of the people, their natural families, and their faiths, rights which the founders expected, nay insisted, the state respect.
I don’t believe in God or the human soul, but I just say God and soul, not “God” and “soul.” The reason is because a) I have enough respect for other people who do take those concepts seriously, and 2) I realize that while I have my beliefs, other people have theirs, and no one belief is necessarily correct. Imagine if an atheist ever used the term “God” with quotation marks in a pejorative way, as though you should feel ashamed for incorrectly believing that’s ridiculous and untrue. That’s what quotation marks convey.
Perhaps even a better example; I believe gay marriage is a subset of marriage, and thus, that the National Organization for Marriage is not really for marriage, but only opposite-sex marriage (which I view to be only another subset of marriage). They don’t support marriage, only the type they approve of. However, I don’t go around calling them the National Organization “for” Marriage (even though some people do) because again, I have enough respect for the other side to not dismiss them with quotation marks, as though their beliefs are somehow factually incorrect or non-existent.
If you’re talking amongst each other, obviously you can say/write whatever you want without consequence. But if you’re talking to SSM advocates (or at least me), I would appreciate you drop the quotation marks out of respect.
I really hope you print this because I think it’s best if people drop the quotation marks when discussing marriage.
(Note to the moderator: not a single one of my (never ever confrontational) comments has ever made it to either the NOM or Ruth blog. Am I doing something wrong? Please email me and then delete this paragraph if I am. Thanks.)
How about: “committed, loving relationship between two adults building a life together whose emotional dynamic mirrors the dynamic(s) associated with opposite-sex married couples”?
Or is that a smidge too long?
@Leo
Leo, Sean doesn’t embrace the separation of marriage and procreation, he says same-sex couples should also be allowed to procreate together, just like a man and a woman, using stem cell derived gametes, artificial wombs, surrogates, whatever they feel like. Yes, it will be a huge increase in the power of the state, because the state will have to regulate everyone’s procreation and make sure same-sex procreation is safe.
It’s actually Glenn who keeps saying that marriage and procreation should be treated as separate issues. It shows that we need to codify in federal law that marriage protects the right of the couple to have sex and procreate offspring together.
That should be the definition of marriage: procreation rights. It’s not an oxymoron to give procreation rights to a same-sex couple, but it is a terrible public policy and we shouldn’t allow it.
@Rob
It mirrors some of the dynamics, but not others, and strikes me as special pleading, unconstitutionally vague, and the product of a focus group at Hallmark Cards at the start and a politicized sociologist at the end. That is the proposed new stereotype.
@Glenn
You are absolutely right that he who controls the language controls the debate. Sodomite marriage would never be allowed these days. That falls under the heading of Denkverbot, which is even worse than a stereotype.
@Heidi
Your view is generally called the positive theory of law, that laws and associated rights are defined by exactly what the sovereign government says. Therefore marriage is marriage, and the definition is set by the state, whatever that definition is. In some languages there is no difference between laws and rights. Natural law is a contrasting view that there is a natural state of things that underlies the law as articulated in the Declaration of Independence that overrules the sovereign. In this view rights are superior to the law, and certain laws can and should be overthrown. The advocates of redefining marriage generally uphold the theory of positive law as does Heidi and reject natural law, but rely on the terminology of natural law with its emphasis on rights.
@Paul H Not only do we deny it, but it is impossible just as it is impossible for a circle to be a square.
@Rob Tisinai The problem with your definition is that it DOESN’T mirror real marriage. That’s like saying a circle mirrors a square.
If we accept the redefinition of the word marriage to mean a sex-blind institution, that can consist of any pairing of two men and/or women, then yes, you’re right.
But this discussion is for the benefit of those of us who say the word “marriage,” and by that word we mean more or less “a life-long union of a man and a woman oriented to the mutual love and support of the spouses and to the procreation and raising of children” (i.e., what the word “marriage” has meant for centuries, up until recent attempts to redefine it). For us, it would be helpful to have a separate word to describe the type of same-sex unions that you and others would like to include into the definition of marriage (and which indeed have been included in the legal definition of marriage in some countries and in a few U.S. states).
If you could roll that whole phrase into a single word, you would be on to something!
@Glenn: “The problem with your definition is that it DOESN’T mirror real marriage.”
Glenn, how many times have you sat down to dinner with a same-sex couple in their own home?
@Leo: “It mirrors some of the dynamics, but not others, and strikes me as special pleading, unconstitutionally vague, and the product of a focus group at Hallmark Cards at the start and a politicized sociologist at the end. That is the proposed new stereotype.”
The substantive emptiness of that comment make a substantive reply impossible.
I’d only change “mirrors” to “resembles”.
But it’s becoming more fringe and less mainstream with every passing year.
@Glenn: One can prove using mathematics (and a couple of basic assumptions) that a circle is not a square. Circles and squares are rigorously defined to be two different things with completely different properties. This is a fact as long as you believe in mathematics (and if you don’t, I don’t know what to say).
But your idea of marriage is not a fact–it is simply based on beliefs that are perfectly reasonable to believe or disbelieve. No one person or ideology owns the definition of marriage, and there is nothing saying that a definition of marriage can never change (as with Loving vs. Virginia and coverture laws). If you believe that marriage cannot involve opposite-sex couples, then fine, but it is simply not a provable fact, because it is completely legitimate for me to not believe in the Bible at all. But it is not legitimate for you to not believe in mathematics. So I don’t feel the square-circle analogy works.
P.S.: Please don’t cite Robert George’s paper. He writes an argument, not a proof.
He did. It’s called “marriage.”
@Jennifer, You can call them counterbalanced sandwiches for all I care. What you’ll get – the same as you’ll get if you try “redefinition of marriage” or any of your other tongue-breakers – is a weird look.
If, on the other hand, you’re trying to communicate with other people, you might want to use “same-sex marriages”.
Also, I look forward to Glenn E. Chatfield declaring to everyone that he is opposed to same-sex non-marriage.
The definition of marriage that you are using has not existed for centuries. But only for half a century. Until 1967 – it meant not marrying someone of a different race.
Marriage has evolved as society has evolved. Its just taking the next logical step.
Tim: Marriage has evolved as society has evolved. Its just taking the next logical step.
The next logical step is to restore what has been lost, not make it impossible to restore, which is what ssm would do.
Can you back up your assertion? Can you show me a widely accepted, mainstream definition of marriage from prior to 1967 — perhaps from a dictionary, perhaps from a major religious catechism — that mentions race restrictions as integral to what marriage is?
@Sean
Absolutely correct!
Oh, and bonus points if you can find one that doesn’t mention that marriage is a union of members of opposite sexes.
Using quotation marks only serves to demean the other position by implying it is not factually true. If I were to always put quotation marks around concepts they believed to be false, then I would refer to NOM as the National Organization “for” Marriage, since they want to break up married couples and prevent others from marrying. But I don’t add quotation marks, because I want to show respect to the other side.
Imagine if the use of quotation marks were taken outside the gay marriage debate and used when discussing religion. Atheists would put quotation marks around the words God and soul. Monotheists would use quotation marks when describing deities of polytheistic religions. We don’t say Ares was the Greek “god” of war, we say he was the Greek god of war. This is out of respect for the ancient Greek religion, even though none of us believe that any of the gods ever existed.
Dr. J., if anyone is remotely familiar with your writing, they already know you literally don’t believe gay marriage exists. You don’t need to add insult through the use of quotation marks. If you want to show respect for the other side, I think it’s best if you drop the quotation marks when discussing marriage.
Spunky, this is the first I can recall seeing you (other than another comment you left today.) I checked the trash and spam bins also to be sure, but you’re not there. I can’t tell you why other things you’ve posted here haven’t appeared on the blog, as I haven’t seen them, and I can’t speak for the NOM blog. At any rate, welcome!
Betsy
Moderator
Actually, I do think the analogy works. In both cases, we are talking about concepts that have broadly accepted definitions, but that someone either is pushing to redefine, or logically could push to redefine. For example, a renegade mathemetician could say:
“But your idea of CIRCLES is not a fact–it is simply based on beliefs that are perfectly reasonable to believe or disbelieve. No one MATHEMATICIAN or SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICS owns the definition of A CIRCLE, and there is nothing saying that a definition of A CIRCLE can never change. If you believe that CIRCLES cannot involve STRAIGHT LINES OR CORNERS, then fine, but it is simply not a provable fact, because it is completely legitimate for me to not believe in the YOUR DEFINITION OF A CIRCLE at all.”
In other words, what we call a circle will always be a circle, and a square will never be a circle, by that definition. But if mathemeticians around the world agreed to change the definition of circle so that from now on, when they say “circle,” they actually mean any closed two-dimensional geometric figure (which would include what we now call triangles, squares, rectangles, pentagons, etc.), they could do that. It would be an extremely confusing thing to do, and there would seem to be no good reason for such a change, and many good reasons NOT to make such a change. And it would be entirely reasonable for individual mathemeticians to resist such a proposed change. But still, they could do it.
The important distinction here is between what a thing truly is and is not, and what we call that thing.
“The next logical step is to restore what has been lost, not make it impossible to restore, which is what ssm would do.”
Restore marriage to men owning women? To women legally subordinated to their husbands? To the impossibility of marital rape?
Please be specific about what point in time you would like to freeze the characteristics of marriage, and why that time, and not some other time.
You need to include having sex and reproducing offspring together. Unless that’s what you mean by “building a life together”? “Building a life” does aptly describes the Frankenstein manufacturing process that same-sex couples would employ, but you probably meant something more like “living together” right? Well, marriage definitely needs to include the right to reproduce offspring together in the definition, your definition is not good enough, a married man and woman should never be denied the right to reproduce offspring together. But that right should not be given to same-sex couples, it’d be bad public policy to allow it, and there is no right to do it.
@Betsy Betsy, my apologies: I had written under the name “blasty” before with a different email address. Changing the name and email address seemed to do the trick (although I don’t know why). Sorry again for taking up your time.
@Rob
Far from being empty my criticism of your definition was precise:
special pleading: a really long definition designed just by you
unconstitutionally vague: the courts are now supposed to define “loving?”
the product of a focus group at Hallmark Cards at the start: hitting the emotion buttons
and a politicized sociologist at the end: shifting to an undefined mirroring of some emotional dynamics, whatever that means–politically correct, but again unconstitutionally vague.
Not a very good legal definition.
Not likely to catch on outside of politically correct academic circles.
At least Sean’s “men owning women” has precision, but he can’t point to it as a universal norm like the heterosexual nature of marriage. It is just a straw man he sets up to ignore the universal definition of marriage in English common law and American law until very recently and as still embodied in the federal DOMA and in the DOMA’s of the heavy majority of states. One wonders how many of Sean’s ancestors and how recently viewed or defined marriage as “men owning women?”
The Supreme Court has already defined marriage as a “union for life of one
man and one woman” in Murphy v. Ramsey. At the SCOTUS level, SS”M” is a contradiction in terms. The Supreme Court didn’t accept Sean’s definition of “men owning women” or Rob’s vague definition about “mirroring emotional dynamics.”
@Paul H Mathematics does own a monopoly on the rigorous definition of a circle though. There is a clearly accepted definition of a circle (and a square) in mathematics that every mathematician follows. No one deviates from this. You could call something else a circle if you wanted, but it would not be correct by any mathematical standard. No mathematician in the world would accept it. Mathematics is not a controversial field–to my knowledge no one disbelieves mathematics. So much so that mathematical rigor constitutes a fact.
But religion is not the same way. I am perfectly free to go against religious definition of marriage. No religion is an authority on the definition of marriage. In fact, as far as I am aware, nothing is the authority on the definition of the concept of marriage (not even God, as I don’t believe in God). There is no single definition of marriage–people don’t agree on what constitutes a marriage. Even encyclopedias and dictionaries tend to have multiple definitions. This is not the case with squares and circles.
Dr. J was using the term “square circle” to refer to impossibility given the current definitions of squares and circles, as you say. If marriage were rigorously defined to exclude gay couples, then gay marriage would be a non-existent concept. But this is not the case, and so we must not treat any one definition of marriage as the only correct one.
And more to the point, using quotation marks is still dismissive and disrespectful to the people who disagree with your definition of marriage.
Funny, I found blasty comments in the spam filter. I don’t know how they ended up there, but I’m glad you came up with a working solution!
Im’ not referring to a point in time per se but to the restoration of social norms surrounding marriage that are good for society, but which ssm would obstruct.
Yes. And sixty years ago or more, I could have said the following, and it would have been every bit as true as the paragraph that you wrote:
“There is a clearly accepted definition of marriage in society that everyone follows. . . . You could call something else a marriage if you wanted (e.g., the union of two men), but it would not be correct by any societal standard. No person in the world would accept it.”
In other words, I agree that it sounds ludicrous that mathematicians the world over would decide to change their terminology so that the the definition of the word “circle” could be broadened to include squares. But it would have seemed equally ridiculous not long ago that the definition of “marriage” could be broadened to include same-sex couples. And the fact is that if the vast majority of mathematicians agreed that the word “circle” shall henceforth be used to refer to any closed two-dimensional geometrical figure, then that’s what it would refer to within the realm of mathematics (as confusing as that would be to all of us).
What is your reason for bringing religion into this discussion? Marriage has historically been defined by many authorities — religions, governments, tribes, societies, etc. And universally, it was always (until very recently) defined as an opposite-sex union, without exception. The definition of marriage is not just a religious definition.
Exactly. And if thousands of years of having the word “marriage” (or equivalent words in other languages) refer exclusively to opposite-sex unions is not a sufficiently rigorous definition for you, then I’m not sure what more I can say.
Why not? You seem perfectly willing to treat one particular definition of the word “circle” as the only correct one.
I respectfully disagree. When you (not necessarily you personally) try to change the definition of a word, it is not reasonable to expect that everyone else will just roll over and acquiesce, and agree to use the old word in your new way.
To go back to the circle analogy, suppose that a small (but vocal and influential) group of mathematics professors starts campaigning to have the word “circle” mean something different from its current meaning. They write papers, have conferences, and maybe even get their new definition published in a few textbooks. Does that mean that a more traditionally-oriented mathematician would be disrespectful if he wrote about “these so-called ‘circles’ that are not really circles”?
I do understand that the concept of marriage hits closer to home than an abstract concept like a circle, at least for most people. But that sentiment goes both ways, which is why this is such a touchy subject on both sides of the issue.
@Paul H
I realize that I should expand on that just a bit:
A circle (using currently accepted mathematical terminology) can be more precisely defined as the union of all points on a plane that are equidistant from a given point on the plane. That’s what we now call a circle. But even if we expanded the definition of the word “circle” to include squares, it would NOT mean that a square is the union of all points on a plane that are equidistant from a given point on the plane. Instead, it would simply mean that we have changed the language, but not the underlying reality. In other words, a square is now CALLED a circle, but a square does not BECOME what we had previously called a circle.
The same is true with marriage. Even if we change the meaning of the word “marriage” to include same-sex unions, that does not magically transform those same-sex unions into something identical to what had previously been called “marriage.”
Instead it takes marriage and same-sex unions, and lumps them together into a new institution, which (rather confusingly) takes on the name “marriage.”
What is particularly disturbing is when the redefinition of a word is applied in interpreting the law. Suppose you are trying to understand a court ruling or any written document for that matter. The rational approach is to use a legal or other dictionary contemporary with the document to understand the intended meaning. The irrational and etymologically dangerous approach is to use a dictionary that is not contemporary with the document. Meanings can change, but they shouldn’t be changed arbitrarily or irrationally to advance a political agenda. Anyone can win any argument if he can change the definition of a word at his will and whim. The adjective that captures this approach is “Orwellian.”
Paul H, when women were granted the right to vote, should we have come up with a new term for “voter”? It would seem we could rewrite your statement as, “It takes voters and women who wish to vote, and lumps them together into a new institution, which (rather confusingly) takes on the name “voter.”
@Rob
The legal definition of voting did not change. Now if we allowed one dictator to determine everyone’s ballot or the outcome of the election, that would effectively change the definition and understanding of voting.
Gays are free to enter into a marriage consisting of one man and one woman, the definition used by the Supreme Court. No state denies them that right. There is no test for sexual orientation when you apply for a marriage license. Your license is not voided if you discover your orientation is different from what you thought. There is no test for the gay gene.
What is being denied is not the right of gays to marry, it is the supposed right of gays to redefine marriage without the consent of the governed that is being challenged.
I disagree. The two situations are not analogous.
Voting is not intrinsically different, whether a man votes or whether a woman votes. The process of a man voting is in no way fundamentally different from the process of a woman voting. Now maybe certain candidates or political positions would tend to appeal more to men or more to women, but the actual voting process is essentially identical for the two sexes.
But the same is not true of marriage vs. same-sex unions. In this case, there are intrinsic, fundamental differences. Namely, same-sex couples cannot engage in marital intercourse, and thus they cannot conceive children. And this is not just because of some mere physical defect in one of the partners — like a low sperm count or a blocked fallopian tube. Instead it is because of the very same-sex nature of the union.
By saying this, I’m not attempting to say “my marriage is better than your committed same-sex relationship (if you have one).” Not at all. I am only saying that they are fundamentally different.
And furthermore, the opposite-sex nature of marriage has always been a fundamental feature of what marriage is, according to any definition of marriage prior to the recent push for same-sex so-called marriage. In fact, without complementarity of the sexes giving rise to new human life, there would be no historical reason for an institution like marriage.
Hi Rob,
You didn’t ask me, but for the record, the answer is that I’m actually not sure. What I can tell you is that for five years, my wife and I lived next door to a homosexual male couple (on one side) and a homosexual lesbian couple (on the other side). We attended at least one cocktail party type of event at each couple’s house, but I don’t recall if dinner was served, or if it was just drinks and appetizers. Certainly we were on friendly terms with both couples during the entire time we lived there. And especially in the case of the lesbian couple, we talked with them regularly as we would see them when mowing the yard, planting flowers, raking leaves, etc. We did things like loaning mowers to each other when one of us had a broken mower, helped with each other’s dogs, etc. — the types of things that good neighbors do. I had a high opinion of both couples, even though I think that the lifestyle they have chosen is objectively immoral.
“Namely, same-sex couples cannot engage in marital intercourse”
That’s a logical fallacy: that there is a special place for male/female sex. You can say the same thing about voting: that it is inherently a male thing, and I’m sure 100 years ago, some men and women thought the idea of women voting was ridiculous. No couple is required to have sex in order to get, or stay, married anyway.
No, I think Rob is onto something here Leo. You are switching from a definition of voting, to a requirement for marriage. The definition of voting is that the vote counts equally toward the outcome of the election. The requirement for voting changed from being a man (a white property owning man) to being an adult, adding women did not change the definition. The definition of voting was not “only a man’s opinion is a vote.”
Likewise, the definition of marriage is a couple that has sex and might create offspring. The requirement for marriage is that the couple be a man and a woman. That’s not the definition, it’s the requirement. The definition has to stay “this couple has procreation rights” just like the definition of voting has to stay “this is an equally counted opinion.”
Legal marriage is a procreative couple that meets the requirements and has married officially with a license and witnesses, but there can also be illegal incestuous marriages and unofficial marriages, just like there can be illegal votes or unofficial votes. A legal vote is a vote that has met the requirements and has voted officially.
Changing the requirement of marriage to “any two adults” does not change the definition, which would remain a couple that is allowed to have sex and conceive offspring. (It does change what it means to conceive offspring together though, in that it negates the right to use the couple’s own unmodified genes, but that might not happen for a while, at first it will protect the right of same-sex couples to attempt to conceive offspring.)
@Rob Tisinai “Glenn, how many times have you sat down to dinner with a same-sex couple in their own home?”
And just what bearing does this have on the subject as to whether or not marriage has a definition of being between opposite-sex couples?
@tim “The definition of marriage that you are using has not existed for centuries. But only for half a century. Until 1967 – it meant not marrying someone of a different race. Marriage has evolved as society has evolved. Its just taking the next logical step”
More revisionist history. Marriage was NOT defined as being of same race. Laws were made for eugenics reasons brought about by Darwinists and their claim of “germ plasm” ruining society if the “races” (as if there is more than one race – the human race) and these Darwinist eugenic laws forbid the marriage of different “races.” It didn’t say such unions weren’t marriages, it just said they were dangerous eugenically and therefore should not be allowed. And these laws did not come about until the late 19th century. Historically, in every society the definition has been the union of opposite-sex individuals. Your idea of society “evolving” to eliminate real marriage so that any union of any sex or number of people (why not animals?) can be “marriage” is totally Darwinian and destructive to society.
@Sean “‘The next logical step is to restore what has been lost, not make it impossible to restore, which is what ssm would do.’ Restore marriage to men owning women? To women legally subordinated to their husbands? To the impossibility of marital rape?
Please be specific about what point in time you would like to freeze the characteristics of marriage, and why that time, and not some other time.”
Sean, there you go again trying to define what marriage is by abuses that have taken place within marriage. Those abuses were NEVER part of the definition of marriage.
@Glenn: “And just what bearing does this have on the subject as to whether or not marriage has a definition of being between opposite-sex couples?”
It bears on your personal ability to evaluate whether a same-sex couple’s relationship is comparable to that of an opposite-sex couple.
@Glenn: “Laws were made for eugenics reasons brought about by Darwinists…It didn’t say such unions weren’t marriages, it just said they were dangerous eugenically and therefore should not be allowed.”
Actually, that ignores a good bit of the historical record. This is from original trial judge in Loving v. Virginia who convicted the Lovings for interracial marriage:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
This is not a Darwinist-eugenics ruling. The judge says interracial marriage goes against God’s intent, just as many opponents of same-sex marriage argue that a gay marriage cannot be a real marriage because it violates God’s intent.
@John
Changing the definition of marriage from the union of a man and a woman into something else (whatever else) does change the definition of marriage.
@Glenn
You are correct. Legal and general dictionary definitions of marriage did not change in 1967.
Marriage is now race blind. It is also still orientation blind, as it always has been. There is no place on the license application where you are asked your orientation. You do not have to volunteer or disclose that information. There is no test for the gay gene. If you discover your orientation is not what you thought it was when you took out the license, your marriage is not dissolved by the state.
@Leo
How does it change the definition, Leo? What was the old definition before same-sex couples could legally marry, and what is it now?
I really can’t believe that my last comment wasn’t convincing. Do you get the point about how voting isn’t defined by who is allowed to vote, but by what voting IS?
I think the definition was “a couple legally approved to create offspring and the obligations that follow” and it remains the definition when same-sex couples marry. But it changes what it means to create offspring, and negates the right to use the couple’s own unmodified genes by equating artificial lab-created or donor gametes to the couple’s own unmodified gametes.
And of course, if we were somehow to prohibit same-sex procreation with an egg and sperm law, then same-sex marriage wouldn’t mean the couple was legally approved to create offspring anymore and could be prohibited, which would certainly change the definition.
Why do you have a problem with saying that the definition is procreation rights?
The Supreme Court used the definition of the union of one man and one woman for life in the state of matrimony. The new proposed definition is the union of two persons in something that resembles traditional matrimony. These are clearly two different definitions.
Procreation rights are a big part of the original definition. The court used the terms of the family consisting of and “springing from” this union.
But marriage has another purpose as well. It is to protect women. When a woman agrees to marry a man, she traditionally had the right to expect that her husband would continue to support her whether she became pregnant or not and to continue to support her if she lived past the age of fertility, whether they had children or not. The marriage license was a license not just to procreate, it was a license to have sex that the state considered licit, and it showed that approval be granting certain benefits. Since only the woman can get pregnant and since pregnancy was and still is a considerable risk (historically including a serious risk of death) and burden as well as a blessing and something absolutely essential for the perpetuation of mankind, it is rational for the state to grant special protections to women, protections that marriage is best able to provide.
I agree with you on procreation rights, but I go considerably further than just procreation rights.
@Paul H I think you’re misinterpreting what Dr. J. meant when she used the term “square circle.” Neither she nor I were ever referring to mathematicians changing any definition of anything. Rather, she meant that if someone were to talk about a “square circle,” such a thing wouldn’t exist. Your analogy which does involve mathematicians changing definitions actually works much better than hers (and I wish she used that instead), but my point was that one still shouldn’t compare definitions in science to definitions in society. You keep emphasizing the notion of mathematicians changing definitions, but it is not part of my point at all.
You say “Exactly. And if thousands of years of having the word ‘marriage’ (or equivalent words in other languages) refer exclusively to opposite-sex unions is not a sufficiently rigorous definition for you, then I’m not sure what more I can say. ”
Societal/religious/tribal views and definitions are not facts. They simply are not. They are not logically rigorous definitions all stemming from the same few axioms the way every single mathematical definition is. So no, no societal definition will ever reach the level of logical rigor that mathematics achieves (which is why math is amazing and flawless).
Furthermore, you have to preface your argument with “sixty years ago,” which points to another fundamental difference between logical and societal definitions. A logical definition never changes unless someone rigorously redefines the term, but societal definitions constantly evolve. In fact, they are expected to. At any one moment we can set a societal definition of marriage, but inevitably it will change over time. That’s just the way society works. Sixty years ago, a square and a circle were still the same as they are today, but marriage certainly wasn’t.
The thing I don’t understand is that you’re trying to be both opinionated and factually correct. When gay marriage become recognized by society as marriage, I imagine you will still use quotation marks to denote the fact that you don’t believe it is marriage. But by your previous statement, society’s acceptance of gay marriage must imply it is marriage, and you will be factually incorrect. I reject this approach altogether and say instead that your definition of marriage will simply be outdated (or conservative, if you like).
(Side note: I wrote “religion” because I assumed your views and marriage definition were religiously based. But if this is wrong, please replace “religion” with “religion/government/tribe/society.”)
Mathematical logic is different from any sort of view, no matter how prevalent it is.
@Leo The state of matrimony refers to the state of having exclusive sex together and having the right to conceive offspring. Yes, sure there are obligations and commitments that come with that right. But if anyone is merely committed to support a woman for her whole life without having the right to conceive offspring with her, then that is not a marriage, that’s just some kind of indentured servitude. And a license to have sex means a license to procreate, the state can’t force contraception on a marriage or sterilize them.
Thanks for agreeing that marriage should include procreation rights as part of the definition, and I agree there should be many other aspects and obligations and expectations and rights that go with it. But the sine qua non essential right is the right to conceive offspring together and we should not let anyone suggest that a marriage can be prohibited from conceiving offspring.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think that it does, at least not in terms of determining if the members of the same-sex couple can marry. As I mentioned above, I have known two same-sex couples, as friendly neighbors, if not quite on the level of friends. And I agree with you that in some ways, their relationship mirrors that of an opposite-sex married couple or an opposite-sex cohabiting couple. But I didn’t need to do more than meet them once to know that they are not comparable to an opposite-sex couple in one thing that is essential to forming a marriage — i.e., they are not of the opposite sex. And knowing them casually for five years couldn’t and didn’t do anything to change that assessment.
@Rob Tisinai @Glenn: “And just what bearing does this have on the subject as to whether or not marriage has a definition of being between opposite-sex couples?”
“It bears on your personal ability to evaluate whether a same-sex couple’s relationship is comparable to that of an opposite-sex couple.”
No it doesn’t. Common sense and biology says same-sex unions are NOT comparable to normal opposite-sex unions.
@Rob Tisinai The judge’s reasoning was based on the Darwinist/eugenics movement of the time, but it was also based on his twisted understanding of what the Bible said. He was flat wrong. But the point is, he did not say they weren’t real marriages, he just said they were improper marriages! He didn’t define marriage as being between members of the same “race.”
But Paul, that’s a circular argument — you’re saying same-sex couples cannot marry because only opposite-sex couples can marry. But that’s a tautology, not an argument: you reasoning is just a different way of stating your argument.
The question is this: on what basis do you say that only opposite sex couples can be married? I’ve yet to see an argument that holds up, but if you’ve got one, I’d love to hear it.
(And yes, I’ve read Robert George’s “What is Marriage?” And if you like I can direct you to where I’ve explained why his reasoning fails)
Er, sorry, Paul — I meant to say it’s circular because the reasoning is just another way of stating the conclusion.
“Sean, there you go again trying to define what marriage is by abuses that have taken place within marriage. Those abuses were NEVER part of the definition of marriage.”
Abuses? What abuses, they were a part of what it meant to be married: you could have forced sex with a wife, but not with a woman you weren’t married to. That was a part of marriage. I think limiting marriage to different-sex couples is an abuse of marriage: it abuses the legal rights of same-sex couples.
Note that the issue with those interracial marriages was, well, the “issue” – children, biological offspring. The word miscegenation has “gene” at the root of it, it shows the absolute correlation between procreation and marriage. When they spoke of allowing or prohibiting interracial marriage, there was absolutely no confusion about the fact that they were talking about having children, creating interracial children. That’s still what the issue with same-sex marriage, and it would redefine marriage to say that is a separate issue, just as it would have in 1967 to say that procreation was a separate issue then.
@Rob Tisinai
Come on Rob, you know my argument holds up, you just think that we should give procreation rights to same-sex couples, and that marriages shouldn’t protect procreation rights. But you agree with my argument that those things are true if we allow same-sex marriage.
Now the debate should shift to whether doing those things would be good public policy. Should we allow same-sex couples to use technology to try to conceive offspring together or not? What are the pros and cons, what are benefits and dangers, what are the costs and benefits, who are the victims and who benefits? And should married couples have a right to have conjugal sex and use their own genes to procreate natural offspring or should the state be allowed to prohibit them for some reason, or force them to use modified genes or donor genes? What are the pros and cons there?
That’s where the debate should be now Rob, you should agree to move the debate to those specific questions, and meanwhile move to a new status quo, where same-sex couples can have Civil Unions and same-sex procreation is prohibited, while we figure out if we should become Transhuman.
@John Howard: “Come on Rob, you know my argument holds up, you just think that we should give procreation rights to same-sex couples, and that marriages shouldn’t protect procreation rights. But you agree with my argument that those things are true if we allow same-sex marriage.”
I don’t understand what you’re saying here at all, beginning with the first nine words and going through to end of the paragraph.
Glenn: “The judge’s reasoning was based on the Darwinist/eugenics movement of the time…”
Evidence?
Whose common sense are you talking about? I was raised by a single mother whose closest family friends were lesbians in a long-term committed relationship (well over 30 years by now). Their relationship is comparable to most opposite-sex marriage I have seen in just about every way. Like opposite-sex couples, they
love each other
have a home together
raised a child (who’s now 26, hence the past tense)
argue with each other
laugh with each other
go on trips together
go on dates
spend much of their time at home with each other
…I could go on, but it’s kind of silly to list all of the overlapping qualities of same-sex and opposite-sex relationships (it would take forever)
When you use the term “common sense,” that’s code for “I’ve never observed a gay couple in a long-term, committed relationship.” You’re relying on your intuition (based on no personal experience). My experience has led me to believe that gay couples are in many ways completely analogous to straight couples. So that’s my common sense. Whose should people trust?
@Rob Tisinai
My argument is “oh no, same-sex marriage will mean either allowing same-sex procreation, or denying that married couples have a right to procreate!”
And your rebuttal is “yeah, so what?”
So my argument holds up, in that you don’t dispute the conclusion of my argument at all. You just don’t think it is a bad conclusion. Which is the expected position of a transhumanist but not a person that supposedly cares about actual gay people.
No, John, my rebuttal is not, “yeah, so what?” My answer is that I genuinely don’t understand you. I absolutely have no idea how you get to the point of “denying that married couples have a right to procreate.”
Please quote (not paraphrase, but quote) what I wrote that made you think my rebuttal was “yeah, so what?” so that I can correct it.
@Sean “Abuses? What abuses, they were a part of what it meant to be married: you could have forced sex with a wife, but not with a woman you weren’t married to. That was a part of marriage. I think limiting marriage to different-sex couples is an abuse of marriage: it abuses the legal rights of same-sex couples.”
NO, Sean, Being able to force your wife to have sex was never part of the definition of marriage – it was/is abuse of the marital relationship. No rights of same-sex couples are abused by not allowing them to redefine the word and institution of marriage. Do so abuses the rights of every REAL marriage.
@Rob Tisinai “Evidence?” Try reading a bit of history besides the revisionist trash liberals produce.
@Spunky Your logic is flawed. Common sense there is no way same-sex unions can be comparable to opposite-sex unions. Common sense looks at biology, history, psychology, science, etc, etc, etc. The two are not comparable; same-sex unions abuse the design for human sexuality, abuse the image of God, abuse the human body, corrupts society, indoctrinates children into perversion, etc, etc, etc.
Glenn: “Try reading a bit of history besides the revisionist trash liberals produce.”
Ah, yes, that’s helpful.
And by the way, “etc” does not constitute an argument, either. Even if you say it lots.
Glenn: “NO, Sean, Being able to force your wife to have sex was never part of the definition of marriage – it was/is abuse of the marital relationship.”
Certainly it was/is an abuse of the marital relationship. But it was ALSO part of a man’s marital rights. Google “marital rape exemption” or “spousal rape exemption.” You’ll find that for quite a while in Western history “marital rape” was considered a contradiction in terms. A man could not be prosecuted for it. Rape laws specifically exempted husbands from being prosecuted from raping their wives.
According to Fox News, Nebraska was the first state to eliminate this exemption, and that was in 1976. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,147725,00.html)
1976.
For the first 200 years of our country’s history, a man could not be prosecuted for raping his wife. I hope you find that as horrifying as I do, Glenn, and if you come across any evidence to the contrary, please share it.
How was my logic flawed? You didn’t refute a single point I made. Was there anything I said in the previous post that was incorrect or not salient to the discussion?
@Rob Tisinai
Rob, if I’m wrong that you think same-sex couples should be allowed to procreate, or that you think marriages do not have a right to procreate, just correct the record right here.
I for one will state emphatically that same-sex couples should NOT be allowed to procreate, and also that all marriages should be allowed to procreate. You disagree with both of those, correct? Just correct the record right here, I’m sorry if I got the wrong impression from your comments previously. Please just correct the record right now.
I don’t know enough about the procedures, safety, and science of genetic engineering to say whether it should be legal to combine the genetic material of two members of the same sex to form an embryo. I suspect the proper answer at this point is “No.”
As for the other item, your belief that I think marriages don’t have a right to procreate — I’ve never understood what you’re getting at there. The question makes no sense to me so I can’t give an answer.
@Rob Tisinai Your unfounded assertions also aren’t an argument no matter how often you make them.
@Rob Tisinai Legal rights are not necessarily moral (abortion or slavery ring a bell?), nor do they define the institution. Just because some places gave a husband the legal right to abuse his marriage vows, that doesn’t make said abuse a part of the definition of marriage.
@Spunky Your logic is flawed by its premise that same-sex unions are comparable to opposite-sex unions. That is like saying a monkey is comparable to a cat.
@Glenn: “Your unfounded assertions also aren’t an argument no matter how often you make them.”
This would be more convincing if you pointed them out.
And as for the marital rape exemption, I have to tell you Glenn, the laws surrounding the rights of husbands and wives and the roles legally assigned to them are in fact part of the legal definition of marriage
Seriously Rob, this is tired. My grandparents were married long before 1976. My grandfathers respected, loved, needed, and protected their wives. My parents were married prior to 1976 and my father loves, respects, defends, protects, and needs my mother. In all these cases the husband and wife were/are equals, helping each other through life.
Did you not have good examples of holy, loving marriage that you can jump on the “marriage has meant legal rape” bandwagon of Sean’s? Are you that ignorant of recent history or that detached from your own family tree? Or can you not imagine a man and woman always coming together in a loving embrace? Or can you not imagine a man controlling his urges when his wife doesn’t “feel like it”? If your opinion of men is this low, it’s a wonder you would allow two of them to marry each other.
@John Howard
“I suspect the proper answer at this point is “No.””
So, you think same-sex couples, at this point, should not be allowed to procreate? You agree with me that there should be a federal law against it, to stop them? Or are you just expressing your personal suspicions that it would be unwise for a lab to attempt it, and actually oppose a law against it or actually stopping them from trying it? This answer is important for the next part.
If you agree that there should be a law against creating offspring with someone of the same sex, and yet you think that they should be allowed to marry each other anyway, then you don’t think that marriage should protect the couple’s right to procreate offspring. You think that it is OK for the government to prohibit married couples from even attempting to conceive offspring together. Not just same-sex marriages could be prohibited, but all marriages, because they would all be marriages with equal rights to all other marriages, so if same-sex marriages can be publicly prohibited from attempting to create offspring, then any marriage could. That means that states could start mandating contraception or sterilization to marriages or individuals that it felt weren’t fit enough to produce offspring, perhaps because they have a high risk of passing on a certain gene, or aren’t educated properly, or hold unacceptable religious views, or are too poor or have committed crimes. If you want a primer on the stuff I’m talking about, google “eugenics”. Or better yet get the book. Here is what Dr. Saleeby said about marriage and procreation back in 1914:
Eugenicists weren’t successful that first time around in stripping procreation from marriage, but there is a new push to do it again, through the strategy of so-called “liberal eugenics” using market forces at first so as to not let the law get ahead of public sentiment.
Deb, of course I can imagine a man and woman always coming together in a loving embrace. Or a man controlling his urges when his wife doesn’t “feel like it.” What on earth makes you think otherwise?
Conversely, I’m sure you can imagine a husband abusing his wife. If not, I can certainly send a link to the FBI statistics on spousal abuse.
See, Deb, it’s wonderful that your grandfathers loved and respected their wives. But not all wives were so lucky. And if those wives were raped by their husbands, they couldn’t press charges because it wasn’t illegal prior to 1976.
That’s simply a fact. Calling it “tired” makes it no less factual.
But John, YOU want to prohibit some legally-married opposite sex couples from procreating. Some infertile opposite-sex couples could benefit from this technology you want to outlaw (lots of 40+ women out there with imperfect eggs).
But you want to deny them that technology. This means (according to your reasoning) that “you don’t think that marriage should protect the couple’s right to procreate offspring.”
John, this is where I get confused. You have this notion that prohibiting ONE SPECIFIC METHOD OF PROCREATION is equivalent to having “the government to prohibit married couples from even attempting to conceive offspring together.”
You need to realize that prohibiting ONE SINGLE APPROACH to achieving a goal is not the same as prohibiting ALL approaches.
“NO, Sean, Being able to force your wife to have sex was never part of the definition of marriage”
No, it WAS a part of the definition of marriage. Hence, when a man raped his wife, his wife has no legal recuse, because her husband had done nothing wrong. She was expected to have sex with him, at his whim. Contrast that with the different outcome had he forced himself on a woman he wasn’t married to. Clearer now?
I’ll ask again, which version of traditional marriage are you rooting for, and why not a different version of traditional marriage?
@Rob Tisinai
We should prohibit all methods of creating a person that do not join a man and a woman’s natural gametes. Joining modified or artificial or stem cell derived gametes should be prohibited, all methods except joining a man’s unmodified sperm and a woman’s unmodified egg should be prohibited. That is the only ethical way to reproduce, and the only way there is a right to reproduce.
@Rob Tisinai
“But John, YOU want to prohibit some legally-married opposite sex couples from procreating.”
No, all such couples should be allowed to procreate. I don’t want to prohibit any marriages from procreating.
“Some infertile opposite-sex couples could benefit from this technology you want to outlaw (lots of 40+ women out there with imperfect eggs).”
That’s true, but even if they were banned from making replacement gametes, they would still be allowed to try to procreate, but might not be able to. That’s different from being publicly prohibited from even trying. And making replacement gametes is different from making opposite sex gametes, in that one could be considered medicine and remain private, and the other could nto remain private and is not medicine, it doesn’t restore health.
“But you want to deny them that technology. This means (according to your reasoning) that “you don’t think that marriage should protect the couple’s right to procreate offspring.””
They should have the right to try with their own natural gametes. If they are infertile is not my business, maybe they do maybe they don’t. The public let’s them try. The public shouldn’t let people try to conceive with someone of the same sex.
I must confess to a fondness for author Anthony Esolen’s term, pseudogamy — but I don’t think it will ever catch on.
Why not same-sex “marriage” instead of “same-sex marriage”?
@Rob Tisinai
What I’m calling tired, is the use of the marital rape argument as ammunition against traditional marriage. No one wants marital rape as part of the definition o0f traditional marriage, so just drop it.
But you and Sean talk about it as if 1. those on the side of traditional marriage agree that marital rape as a part of the definition and 2. That marital rape is common.
As to why marital rape was a contradiction on terms prior to 1976. It was/is rare and by nature marriage is legally protected sexual relationship. Sex is a part of marriage. So, prosecuting such cases is really difficult. What is the wife is mentally ill or just extremely vindictive? Or was the wife truly raped by an abusive husband? You paint the picture that it is always the latter. With that said, OF COURSE women should be allowed to prosecute against a husband that raped her and he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, if found guilty.
That is why I ask you, again, do you have such a low opinion of men that you always assume rape and lack of control in men?
Also, in a two man relationship, how are we to know that one man isn’t raping the other? By your logic, if you think it is so common in heterosexual relationships, then it should be even more common when all you have is two men in a sexual relationship.
With a 40+ year old woman, conception is statistically less probable but not impossible. But no one is taking away her RIGHT to procreate, just the ability to make children in a laboratory setting. She has every right to have sex with her husband and have his sperm join with her egg in her fallopian tube and make a baby. The right is is the sex to make the baby, NOT THE BABY ITSELF. No one has a right to baby, they are a gift that springs from the right to have sexual intercourse.
@Rob Tisinai What may have become a “legal definition” of marriage is irrelevant – SSM is becoming a “legal definition” of marriage. WE are discussing what the actual definition of marriage is rather than abuses which have sometimes unfortunately become associated as rights within marriage. There is a big difference between the definition and the rights within that definition.
@Sean No Sean, being able to force your wife to have sex was NEVER part of the definition of marriage. You and Rob seem to have difficulty understanding the definition of a word versus rights associate with the institution defined by that word. Give abusive rights within marriage does not redefine the word or institution – it just says what behaviors are allowed, etc.
Deb, you should direct your comment to John. I agree with you when you say, “But no one is taking away her RIGHT to procreate, just the ability to make children in a laboratory setting.”
It’s John who disagrees with you, not me.
Deb I don’t understand your reply to me. It’s as if you’re responding to someone else entirely. For instance:
“What is the wife is mentally ill or just extremely vindictive? Or was the wife truly raped by an abusive husband? You paint the picture that it is always the latter.”
Really? Where do get the idea that I “paint the picture that it is always the latter.” Quote me.
“That is why I ask you, again, do you have such a low opinion of men that you always assume rape and lack of control in men?”
Really? Where do you get the idea that I “always assume rape and lack of control in men?”Quote me.
“Also, in a two man relationship, how are we to know that one man isn’t raping the other?” What on earth does this have to do with establishing that prior 1976 a man could not be prosecuted for raping his wife? You’re veering off into a whole new topic and I don’t know why.
As for this:
“What I’m calling tired, is the use of the marital rape argument as ammunition against traditional marriage. No one wants marital rape as part of the definition o0f traditional marriage, so just drop it.”
How can I drop it, when state legislatures actively carved out “marital rape exemptions” in the days of traditional marriage?
The fact is clear: “traditional” marriage has changed over time, and some of those changes are for the better. People who advocate whole-heartedly for “traditional marriage” really don’t want ALL the features of traditional marriage — they really want their own version, a “return” to something that never existed.
John, you’ve laid out the principle that if a married couple needs technology to procreate, and you ban that technology, then you’re stripping married couples of the right to procreate.
I don’t agree with you, but that’s your position. Some opposite sex couples need that technology to procreate, and you want it to be unavailable to them — which by your interesting logic, says that you want to strip married couples of their right to procreate.
@Glenn E. Chatfield
“No Sean, being able to force your wife to have sex was NEVER part of the definition of marriage.”
The confusion is that marriage is indeed consent to have sexual intercourse, and rape is non-consensual sexual intercourse, so indeed marital rape was is an oxymoron, legally impossible. But that doesn’t mean spouses are or were ever allowed to force or demand their their spouses to have sex on any particular night, and they can have their way with each other. That is abuse, deserves jail, and is grounds for immediate divorce. And because people can be in the process of divorce or considering divorce or worried about divorce, people have a right to withhold sex from their spouse and put their marriage in jeopardy, rather than continue to have sex with their spouse. I think there is a legal term for withdrawing affections and refusing to have sex with your spouse that has traditionally been grounds for divorce, which proves that the law allowed women to refuse sex, on an ongoing basis and certainly on particular instances when they didn’t want to.
A spouse has a right to their own bodily integrity even within marriage, even though they have also legally consented to share their bodily integrity with each other.
I also important not to use the expression redefinition of marriage for the state that have abolished civil marriage. It is better to make it clear that in those states civil marriage has been abolished. People in the future generations will not be able to find clearly their true ancestry from marriage licenses since the gender, biological parenting are gone. We will not know clearly what do the parties involved in this “marriage represent: Husband ? Wife? bridegroom? bride ? Who knows ?
I absolutely do not disagree with Deb. No one is taking away anyone’s right to procreate even if we were to ban any use of technology to procreate. Would that mean that fewer people are able to have children? Of course, but it doesn’t affect anyone’s right to have children. The right to have children is completely independent from the ability to have children. It is the right to have children that should come with marriage, society’s approval and affirmation that having children would be fitting and proper and right and good. And that right should not be given to same-sex couples, because it is not fitting and proper or right or good.
John Howard, your posts just contradict one another again and again and again.
You claim that allowing gays to marry while banning the technology that would allow them to reproduce = stripping all married couples of procreation rights.
But you claim that allowing straights to marry while banning the technology that would allow them to reproduce does NOT = stripping all married couples of procreation rights.
I have no idea what your principles are. They show no signs of consistency.
Interestingly, I agree with Deb, and you claim you agree with Deb, which would seem to indicate that you agree with me.
John Howard: “But that doesn’t mean spouses are or were ever allowed to force or demand their their spouses to have sex on any particular night, and they can have their way with each other.”
False, false, false, false, false. Sadly, until 1976, it meant exactly that. Not opinion. Fact. Again, google “marital rape exemption,” or read the Fox News article I posted to above.
You can deny the truth, John, but that doesn’t make it untrue.
No, that’s not my position. They aren’t prohibited from procreating, because they have every right to procreate without technology or with some other kind of technology, or to just not have kids at all. Just because they are unable to have kids doesn’t take away from their right to have kids. That right is still something to value and respect and honor. The right means they are allowed to do it, there is nothing wrong with them procreating, offspring. They still have the right to try legal methods to procreate, because society still approves and affirms their right to procreate. They aren’t prohibited from procreating, like siblings are, and like same-sex couples should be. They are just another childless married couple, who deserve respect for their right to make offspring together.
Do you get the difference between being prohibited from conceiving offspring, by any method, and from merely being unable to conceive offspring?
And it sure sounds like you are saying that same-sex couples should be allowed to use technology to procreate offspring together, just a day after saying that you thought they shouldn’t be allowed to.
@Rob Tisinai
And Rob, I have to note that absolutely no form of technology IS prohibited in this country, we allow every kind of IVF that a lab decides it is willing to offer clients. And that is because IVF was justified and introduced as a right of marriages to procreate, it was implied that we couldn’t ban IVF because married couples had a right to try to procreate, it had to be allowed because of marital privacy. It wasn’t until 10 or 20 years ago that clinics even started offering fertility treatment to unmarried women, remember Murphy Brown from 1990 or so? It was snuck in under marital privacy but then once it was established as something married couples had a right to do, they applied it to unmarried women too, and then to surrogates, etc.
And they might have a point regarding marital privacy that we cannot ban any kind of IVF for married couples, as long as they are attempting to make biological offspring of the couple then it is between them and their doctors how it is done. I think we ought to ban IVF for sustainability and cost control reasons, as well as social and medical reasons, and that marital privacy doesn’t mean they can do unethical bad things to create offspring. But I’m in the minority I am afraid.
@Rob Tisinai
Rob, it has to do with privacy. A same-sex couple is publicly the same sex, they publicly cannot provide necessary materials to procreate that would be required by the egg and sperm law. The Egg and Sperm law, both in letter of the law and in the spirit of the law, would prohibit same-sex couples from procreating offspring. That would be a public fact.
Now a hypothetical ban on IVF or stem-cell derived gametes or whatever (which isn’t even proposed by anyone and is unlikely to be due to the deference to privacy and reproductive rights, though I’d support it), would not publicly prohibit any male-female couple from procreating. There might be some couples who go public and sue to be allowed to use it to fulfill their right to procreate together (which same-sex couples don’t have), but, assuming the ban holds up (and I think it should), the ban wouldn’t prohibit them from any and all methods of conceiving offspring, they would still retain their public right to procreate together.
The right to procreate does not guarantee a baby. The right to procreate does not mean unethical methods can be used to make a baby. It just means the couple can’t be prohibited from joining their gametes to make a baby. A ban on technology doesn’t prohibit anyone, there was never any guaranteed right to do whatever they want.
“Do you get the difference between being prohibited from conceiving offspring, by any method, and from merely being unable to conceive offspring?” Yes, I do. Same-sex couples and many opposite-sex couple both fall into the second category.
“And it sure sounds like you are saying that same-sex couples should be allowed to use technology to procreate offspring together, just a day after saying that you thought they shouldn’t be allowed to.”
What the heck? Quote me. Because I have no idea where you’re getting this notion.
” It wasn’t until 10 or 20 years ago that clinics even started offering fertility treatment to unmarried women, remember Murphy Brown from 1990 or so?”
Um, Murphy Brown had nothing to do with fertility treatments. It’s stuff like this that makes it so hard to engage you in a rational exchange. You come up with these things out of nowhere that have no basis in fact.
At Opine-Editorials we’ve noticed that problem … and more.
But so has Evan Wolfson. He says the term “same-sex marriage” indicates something separate and solely homosexual like Civil Unions has been in practice. I think that is the proper use of same-sex marriage — to denote two people of the same sex who are living with many of the behaviors we expect in marriage.
But then there needs to be a term to denote what happened in Massachusetts. What term can describe the change that happened there, especially to a group of people who claim no change happened at all?
We use the term “neutered marriage”, because that describes, as best we can find, the change in marriage between having the gendered reference to both “man and woman” to having it removed.
Additionally, when removed, neutered marriage no longer looks after the rights and responsibilities of how children are procreated. Its recognition of that is neutered.
I’m glad to see Dr J speaking on the understanding of what is conceded by saying same-sex marriage, even in quotes. Nothing short of saying the specific change to marriage will convey the message to the people who want to understand this issue.
I’ve often said I’m for same-sex marriages being recognized with civil unions. But I’m 100% against neutered marriage.
And just like opposite-sex couples cohabitating, same-sex couples ARE legally just roommates… until they become legally married. Then they are, of course, married. It’s actually quite straightforward.
@Ken They are no more “married” than the tail of a dog is a leg.
“But you and Sean talk about it as if 1. those on the side of traditional marriage agree that marital rape as a part of the definition and 2. That marital rape is common.”
I’m just pointing out that since we’re so caught up in appropriate definitions (as if Daniel Webster will come back and haunt us if we don’t “define” something properly!), a part of the definition of marriage was that a man could have sex with his wife under any circumstance he chose. We know that’s true because he was not permitted to have sex with a woman he was not married to under any circumstance that he chose. Marriage, therefore, defined permissible sexual opportunities not available to unmarried persons. That means it’s a part of the “definition” or characteristics of marriage. Society had to specially changed or enact laws to change this definition of marriage.
I suspect this part of the definition of marriage might have been a substantial driver in the feminist/women’s rights movement. It’s not whether marital rape is common or not, but rather, that we were a society that said, “it’s ok for a man to demand sex from his wife at any time, under any circumstance, as he wishes.” It ain’t pretty but it is the truth.
Deb, it’s troubling to read that a woman is on the side rationalizing marital rape. It’s hard to read that in this day and age, a woman, let alone a man, would be willing to offer extenuating circumstances for men to forcibly have sex with their wives.
“That is why I ask you, again, do you have such a low opinion of men that you always assume rape and lack of control in men?”
I don’t think the key point is “how often does it happen?” but rather, “why does society permit it at all?”
“No Sean, being able to force your wife to have sex was NEVER part of the definition of marriage. You and Rob seem to have difficulty understanding the definition of a word versus rights associate with the institution defined by that word. Give abusive rights within marriage does not redefine the word or institution – it just says what behaviors are allowed, etc.”
Yes, Glenn, it was a part of the definition of marriage. We know this because a married man who forcibly had sex with his wife was guilty of no crime. The same man who forcibly had sex with a woman not his wife was guilty of a crime called rape. That means that forced sex is a part of marriage. It is not a part of any other relationship status: friends, neighbors, strangers. It is unique to, and a part of, marriage. That’s defining. And obviously we had to change marriage laws to specifically exclude forced sex as a part of marriage.
I’m not saying society encouraged marital rape, but in a way it did: if you have laws that criminalize forced sex, and exclude wives from those laws, you’re basically inviting marital rape, for the husband so inclined. You’ve told husbands that it’s ok to rape your wives, because those persons are excluded from our laws prohibiting forced sex. It’s shocking, really, to think that society understood the harm of forced sex, and prohibited it, but excluded wives from being protected from it.
It’s not a part of the definition of marriage you want to acknowledge, that I understand. But it’s there anyway, like it or not.
This discussion about terminology is illogical. Same-sex marriage is not an oxymoron, a misnomer, or a term driven by an agenda as the article claims. There many places in the world where two people of the same-sex can legally marry and/or have their marriage recognized. Whether they should may still be open to debate, but whether same-sex marriage exists is not. It is not a matter of opinion, it is a factual reality and calling a marriage between two people of the same gender “pseudo-marriage” when it is in fact just as legally valid as any man-woman marriage is simply an attempt to insult committed gay and lesbian couples and trivialize their relationships. Now the term “genderless marriage”, well that doesn’t even make sense. “Same-gender marriage”, sure. But since the two people involved in an SSM have a gender (since they are human afterall), “genderless” is simply more insulting rhetoric.
We should call them “cohabative unions” or a variation of the term. I think the word “cohabitation” gets the point across that these relationships are not marriage, and consequently, as the National Marriage Project indicates, cohabitation is harmful for the development of children.
@Glenn E. Chatfield
Glen, again… if they are legally married, they are just as married as any other couple. It may be your opinion that a dog’s tail should be counted as a leg, but it doesn’t make it so. Married is married. Period.
I may remember it wrong, sorry. I thought Murphy Brown had her baby using donor sperm. If she didn’t, and got pregnant through unmarried sex, then that furthers my point, which is that clinics didn’t even offer unmarried women fertility treatments until just 10 years ago or so.
Ken:
Your comments remind me of this old dialogue:
X: Do you believe in infant baptism?
Y: OF course I do. I’ve seen it happen.
You’re confusing legal instances of marriage with the reality of marriage. If, for example, the state allowed postmortem marriage, that one can “marry” a deceased person, it would be “legal,” but it would seem sensible to question whether it is really marriage. For many people who see marriage as essentially male-female, SSM is like postmortem marriage: you can apply the term, but it does not make it so. To use an old Lincoln line, calling a dog’s tale a leg doesn’t mean he now has five legs.
No, they don’t! If there is a law that prohibits making a human being except by joining a man and a woman’s genes, then all same-sex couples fall into the first category. No male-female couples are prohibited from joining their genes, but all same-sex couples are. They’d be prohibited from making offspring. And they SHOULD be prohibited from making offspring because no matter how they do it it would be unethical and expensive and harm human dignity and equality and open the door to all other forms of genetic tampering.
Comment 37 on this thread, you said, when I asked you to correct the record on whether you thought same-sex procreation should be legal, you replied: “I don’t know enough about the procedures, safety, and science of genetic engineering to say whether it should be legal to combine the genetic material of two members of the same sex to form an embryo. I suspect the proper answer at this point is “No.””
Is that still your position? You implied that if we are going to allow infertile marriages to attempt to procreate with stem cell derived gametes then we should also allow same-sex couples to procreate, which betrays a feeling that we should let same-sex couples procreate someday. It seems you are trying to hide in the “at this point”, so that you can deny that you demand same-sex procreation, while also denying that it prohibits same-sex couples from procreating and so does not strip procreation rights from marriage.
You can’t pretend to give same-sex couples the right to procreate but then prohibit them from procreating. That’s called a substantial obstacle and is unconstitutional. Either there is a right or there isn’t, and if there is, then there can’t be substantial obstacles that get in the way of exercising the right.
The fact is, there is no right to procreate with someone of the same sex, there is only a right to procreate with someone of the other sex.
The important thing to remember is that the true definition of marriage is the union of one man and one woman. There is no real such thing as a same sex marriage . It is like having a square-circle or dehydrated water. Because it is a public institution we could not use the copyright, trademark, and piracy laws that are available in the private sector. If the term marriage had belonged to a private company then there is no debate. The private company can use the existing trademark, copyright, and piracy laws to protect the insitution.
A number of years ago the homosexuals tried to attack the “Olympics” in the same way they are attacking marriage today. Of course we all know what the true definition of the Olympics is. However homosexual activists tried to redefine it into the “Gay Olympics” But their decision to ignore the laws did not spare them. When they tried to host this phony event the “International Olympic Committee used the exisiting trademark, copyright, and piracy laws to prevent this. Even the homosexuals left leaning activist judge friends could not stop this. Thus the homosexuals had the ” Gay Games ” instead. They could not redefine this.
Sadly we cannot use the piracy, copyright, and trademark laws available in the private marketplace to protect marriage. Thus the homosexuals know they can attack this fine insititution and destroy it by redefining it. So it is possible they can use the loopholes in the law to promote this phony lie of a same sex marriage and the false claim that this counterfelt marriage is a marriage when in fact we know that it is not.
In short same sex marriage is really FOOLS GOLD. Now I ask you is fools gold equal to the real thing? Of course not. But some activists uses the court to say the law says it is so. But those of us who know the truth know the difference between fools gold and real gold know real marriage when we see it.
Exactly, such a thing as a square circle would not exist, in fact could not exist, unless you expanded the definition of the word “circle” to include what is currently meant by a square.
But someone years ago made a decision that the word “circle” would mean what it means today. They could have picked a different word. Or it could have happened that the more general term “ellipse” became the more common, everyday word, with the word “circle” remaining a more specialized mathematical word. But the reality of what is represented by the word “circle” exists no matter how we define particular words. Likewise, the reality of what is represented by the term “marriage” exists no matter how we define particular words.
And considering that the definition of the word “marriage” has always in all times, places, and cultures referred to an opposite-sex union (excluding only the last 20 years, or maybe even less), it is hard for me to see how this definition is any less rigorous than the definition of the word “circle.”
I disagree. As I pointed out, it is possible that the words “circle” and “square” could change their meanings over time, though such an outcome seems highly unlikely. And the reason it seems highly unlikely is that “circle” has meant the same thing over hundreds if not thousands of years (if we extend our analysis into equivalent words in other languages preceding modern English), and thus it would be extremely confusing to have the word suddenly mean something different — even if the new definition was merely a broadening, so that the old definition was a subset of the new definition.
The same is true with the word “marriage,” which has meant the same thing for hundreds if not thousands of years. Even the Webster’s dictionary on my bookshelf which was published just 23 years ago (in 1988) defines “marriage” and “marry” in terms of husband and wife, and man and woman, with no wiggle room left for same-sex unions. So I contend that it makes as little sense to change the definition of the word “marriage” away from the man/woman or husband/wife combination that has always been at the core of marriage, as it makes to expand the definition of the word “circle” so that it includes squares.
Both changes could be made, but neither change makes any sense at all to me. And neither change in terminology would change the underlying reality.
And if there were a significant movement among mathematicians to redefine the word “circle,” I would resist that too, and I would most likely refuse to use the word “circle” according to the new definition that some liberal mathematicians were trying to impose. I’m not sure what else to say; this makes sense to me.
In fact, my views on marriage are based on religion, though not only on religion. But my views on the terminology surrounding marriage and same-sex unions (which is the topic at hand here) are based being familiar with topics like literature, history, and vocabulary. In other words, the history of the word “marriage” and what it has meant over time is not really a religious question.
I’m not sure if I know what you mean, but I will point out that I haven’t been talking at all about mathematical logic here. Instead I have been talking about mathematical terminology, which is not really the same thing.
Excellent point. I am reminded of the article I read recently about Zsa Zsa Gabor possibly becoming a mother at the age of 94. According to the information in the article, the child would not be biologically hers (as an egg donor would be used), and she would not carry the child in her womb (a surrogate mother would be used), and presumably — considering her poor health and advanced age — she would not really be involved in raising the child either. In other words, it is hard to see how she would in any way truly be the child’s mother, and yet legally, she would be. But legally proclaiming her the mother of this hypothetical child would not make her truly the child’s mother, at least as I see it (and I assume that many others would agree). Likewise, legally proclaiming a union to be a marriage does not necessarily make it a marriage.
Hi Rob,
As far as I know, we are talking primarily about terminology in this thread. So the answer here is very simple. Regardless of what you think that marriage should be, it is really quite clear that if we exclude the recent confusion on this topic (say the past 15 to 20 years), marriage has always and everywhere meant the union of a man and a woman. And that is true whether you look at legal definitions or religious definitions, or whether you simply look up the word in the dictionary. As I mentioned in my comment above to Spunky, my Webster’s dictionary from 1988 defines “marriage” in terms of husband and wife (and it also refers to the definition of “marry”), and that same dictionary defines “marry” in terms of man and woman.
In other words, only opposite-sex couples can marry because that’s what the word marry means.
It’s like saying that only a woman can be a mother. Perhaps some day a group of men will come along and petition for their “right” to be legally recognized as mothers to their children — meaning that they would be listed as the mother on the child’s birth certificate, they would expect to be referred to as the child’s mother by the child’s school, etc. Well, I don’t think that it would be circular argument or a tautology to tell these men, “No, you can’t be mothers, because the word ‘mother’ means the child’s female parent, and you aren’t female — it’s as simple as that.”
As I see it, when we talk only about terminology, and not about things like who ought or ought not to cohabitate and raise children and receive legal recognition for doing so, then the issue becomes quite simple.
Pseudogamy. I like it. It sounds a little too technical for everyday use, but it seems pretty accurate to me.
Regarding your second point, I do refer to SSM as same-sex “marriage” — not “same-sex marriage.” It makes more sense that way, because no one disputes that these unions are same-sex; we only dispute whether or not they are (or even can be) marriages.
@Sean Are you being intentionally obtuse? Legal rights within marriage are not the definition of the word marriage. You can assert over and over that just because legally a man was allowed to do things to his wife it therefore defined what marriage is. The problem is that you won’t find that in a dictionary, and not all cultures permitted said abuse, nor was it always permitted in the US in every state, every city. So quit trying to muddy the waters when you know perfectly well what real marriage is and that is why you want to destroy it, neuter it, so you can force people to accept same-sex unions on par with real marriage.
@Ken Your problem is that you want to say that just because people around the world call a tail a leg, it therefore becomes a leg. I don’t care how many people in the world, or what legal entities, call same-sex unions “marriage,” that doesn’t make it so. Marriage has a definition, just like a tail has a definition. People calling marriage something else is just like calling a tail something else. You can call a dandelion a rose but it remains a dandelion nevertheless.
@Jason I think that isn’t a bad idea, but I think we should add the adjective “same-sex” to “cohabitive unions” so as to differentiate between them and biologically normal cohabitive unions.
@Thomas Aquinas
How about this dialogue:
X: Do you like the color blue?
Y: Blue is not a color.
X: Why is blue not a color?
Y: Because I do not like the color blue.
I’m not the confused one, “Thomas Aquinas”, you are. You’re confusing your religious-based definition of marriage with the legal one. You may not *believe* that a union between two people of the same gender is a *real* marriage but your beliefs do not alter the fact that a *legal* marriage between two men or two women is, by legal definition, a marriage. Again (and repeating this is really becoming tiresome), civil marriage and religious marriage are not the same thing.
Oh, Glenn, please keep talking. Comparing married couples to dogs’ legs and tails might just help you end up with a Santorum problem, and wouldn’t that just be hilarious?
@Glenn E. Chatfield
From Merriam-Webster:
Definition of MARRIAGE
1
a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage b : the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock c : the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage
2
: an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities
3
: an intimate or close union
@Ken
“X: Do you like the color blue?
Y: Blue is not a color.
X: Why is blue not a color?
Y: Because I do not like the color blue.”
Blue is actually a color, not an opinion.
“You may not *believe* that a union between two people of the same gender is a *real* marriage but your beliefs do not alter the fact that a *legal* marriage between two men or two women is, by legal definition, a marriage.”
Union between two people of the same gender is only *legal* in some places. Places where SOME people *believe* it is. It is a matter of opinion.
Blue is ALWAYS a color. Believe it or not.
@Ken
In that definition, everyone should note the key phrase “as husband or wife” which distinguishes the kind of union from other unions like business partners or other consensual and contractual unions. The meaning packed into “husband” and “wife” is that they have sex together, they conceive offspring together, but I guess the dictionary is too prudish to explicitly say so that. Webster’s like the “nudge-nudge-say-no-more” Monty Python character. Even their definition of “husband” just refers to the “male partner in a marriage” – this time packing the sexual meaning into the understanding of the word “marriage.”
I thinck blue is an opinion .What does it mean to a person who is colourblind or to those people who have no colour sence at all or indeed are blind or simply have another word for blue.What about other organismsms? do they perceve blue the same as you and I?Do you and i perceve blue the same way?
Blue is blue is blue? Maybe maybe not.
@Ken Try finding that in a dictionary more than 15 years old.
“The act of uniting a man and woman for life; wedlock; the legal union of a man and woman for life. Marriage is a contract both civil and religious, by which the parties engage to live together in mutual affection and fidelity, till death shall separate them. Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, for promoting domestic felicity, and for securing the maintenance and education of children.” Noah Webster 1828
You will not use the term square circle. So would you use pi squared? Just a different way of how we treat people of equal value.
@John Howard
All of your twisting of words and blah blah blah does not change the fact that civil same-sex marriage exists.
@Paul H You say
And the reason it seems highly unlikely is that “circle” has meant the same thing over hundreds if not thousands of years (if we extend our analysis into equivalent words in other languages preceding modern English),
This is absolutely wrong, as a quick look at the Wikipedia page for circles will show you that circles have been rigorously defined (in a logical sense) since at least 300 BC (Euclid’s “Elements”) and probably since 1700 BC (on the Rhind papyrus). They all had the exact same definitions of circles as we do today. Exactly logically equivalent. A circle then was the same thing as a circle is today.
I realize there are more salient examples in math, where different mathematicians have different definitions for the word “ring” (although most properties of rings overlap throughout the definitions). However, two mathematicians wouldn’t go to war over the definition, they would just say “in my work I refer to a ring as…”
A better example would be with the word “planet,” which isn’t really mathematical, but scientific. Pluto used to be considered a planet, but that’s because the word wasn’t rigorously defined (even though it had the same meaning in society for thousands of years, as you say for marriage) in a logical sense. Thus, they changed (really established) a definition for “planet” and Pluto did not fit that definition.
So I contend that it makes as little sense to change the definition of the word “marriage” away from the man/woman or husband/wife combination that has always been at the core of marriage, as it makes to expand the definition of the word “circle” so that it includes squares.
I am not going to state the differences between logic and language again. If you don’t accept the evolution of generally accepted views in society, then we’ll never be able to understand each other.
I’m not sure if I know what you mean, but I will point out that I haven’t been talking at all about mathematical logic here. Instead I have been talking about mathematical terminology, which is not really the same thing.
Mathematical terminology and logic go hand in hand, since mathematical terms are defined based on mathematical logic. The English language does not work this way and shouldn’t be treated as such. If you don’t agree with this, then I think we should stop and just agree to disagree. But always know that I will not appreciate seeing quotation marks around the word marriage when debating gay marriage. I won’t act offended, I won’t judge, I won’t whine and throw a fit the way Dr. Morse seems to think I will, but I will not like it.
@Glenn E. Chatfield
That was then, this is now. Your religious beliefs cannot change the fact that when we use the word marriage in a civil and legal manner, same-sex marriage exists. Again, this is fact, not opinion. This silly debate about words is a distraction. Committed, married gay and lesbian couples have earned the right and respect to be referred to
as married. Refusing to acknowledge that is merely a mean spirited attempt to trivialize their relationships. There are those who still believe that the races shouldn’t mix. But just because some people have religious based opposition to interracial marriage does not mean that it is inaccurate to refer to legally married mixed-race couples as married.
@Ken
That’s right, Ken, and what that means, based on the procreative-union meaning packed into marriage, is that we have given the official civil approval to same-sex couples to conceive offspring together. That is bad, we should have considered the ramifications of approving of same-sex conception before giving that approval, and its not too late to remove that approval now that we realize that it is premature to give it. We will soon realize that we should never give it, because we should instead preserve natural procreation and equality and prioritize health care for existing people rather than creating perfect people that we don’t have to care for.
We are in 100% agreement here. The facts that you stated in this quote are exactly the point I was making, in my text which you quoted. Maybe my wording could have been clearer, and I’m sorry if I was at fault for the misunderstanding. But before I even read any further in your comment, I wanted to get this particular misunderstanding cleared up. To be sure I am clear: Yes, I do agree that the word “circle” (or equivalent words in other languages) has meant the same thing that it means today for a very, very long time.
Hi Spunky,
But mathematical terminology is part of the English language, just like the word marriage is!
It really seems like we aren’t understanding each other very well here, and I suspect it is because we have some very different unstated assumptions that we are bringing to this conversation. Nevertheless, let me try to re-state my position briefly, and perhaps more clearly than before:
(1) As you correctly pointed out, the word “circle” (or words that we would translate into English as circle) goes back thousands of years. And it has always meant the union of all points on a plane that are at a given distance from a given point on that plane. Definitions of a circle may have been worded in different ways, but the underlying reality has always been the same.
(2) It is possible, though seemingly improbable, that LANGUAGE (not mathematics) could change in such a way that the word “circle” would come to mean something different than what it means now. But even if that happened, the mathematical reality would not change. In other words there would still be a mathematical concept that we now call a circle, even if the word “circle” came to have a different meaning. And a square could not become what we today mean by a “circle,” even if the definition of the word “circle” changed.
(3) Similarly to point #1, the word “marriage” (or words that we would translate into English as marriage) goes back thousands of years. And while its meaning has varied in some details, still it had ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE meant the union of a man and a woman, until the very recent push to redefine marriage.
(4) Similarly to point #2, it is possible that language could change in such a way that the word “marriage” would come to mean something different than what it has always meant. (In fact, this is not a hypothetical scenario; this is what is happening currently.) But again, the reality does not change. Just as a square does not become a circle, even if the word “circle” gets defined in a different way; likewise a same-sex union does not become what we have always meant by “marriage,” even if the word “marriage” gets defined in a different way.
I don’t expect you to agree with me here, because I am aware of those unstated, opposing assumptions that you and I are likely bringing to this conversation. But I hope that at least I have presented my argument clearly, in a way that makes sense.
@Nigel Desmonds
“I thinck blue is an opinion .What does it mean to a person who is colourblind or to those people who have no colour sence at all or indeed are blind or simply have another word for blue.What about other organismsms? do they perceve blue the same as you and I?Do you and i perceve blue the same way?
Blue is blue is blue? Maybe maybe not.”
Blue is blue whether or not colorblind people can see it.
Do you really want to live in a world where NOTHING is true? Is that the extreme you are willing to go to in order to justify what you want to do?
@Deb
The point isn’t that spousal rape happens (or dosen’t or is hard to define); the point is that in the fairly recent past the definition of marriage was of two people in an unequal relationship. The wife was the property of the husband. The last vestiges of THAT definition of marriage is reflected in the slow adoption of prohibitions against spousal rape. The overarching point being: You view same-sex marriage as a radical redefinition of marriage. We view same-sex marriage as a tiny tweak to the definition of marriage. You view marriage as an institution which has remained unchanged over the years: we view marriage as something that has slowly evolved with societal mores (for example, thinking of women as more than property; or as equal participants in the process). SO enjoy the forest! Don’t worry about the trees.
@Ken Let’s deconstruct your silliness a piece at a time. My religious beliefs have no bearing on whether marriage is defined as the union of opposite-sex individuals; Marriage has been defined that way for thousands of years and only recently, in an attempt to destroy the institution, have homophiles clamored for that title for their perverse unions. Again, calling a leg a tail even by a judge or a court, still doesn’t make it a tail. You can call perverse unions of same-sex “marriage” all you want, but it will never be real marriage.
A debate about words isn’t a distraction. Words are power, and he who controls the language has the power.
I do indeed intend to trivialize same-sex unions because they have no value to society. They are a mockery of marriage, they are a perversion to society.
Those who believe “races” shouldn’t “mix” have no moral, scientific, biological or any other standing. There is only one race – the human race. And marriage between people of different skin color does not alter what marriage is.
I understood your argument much better this time around, but we’re still going to have to disagree on this. It’s my turn to now try to clarify my point. I see the stability of the man+woman concept of marriage throughout history (every civilization did embrace this concept), but it still does not compare to logical rigor. This is because society does not define its concepts and viewpoints based on rigorous logic all stemming from independent axioms the way mathematics is. If mathematicians defined their concepts the way society did, it would be logically meaningless. So I feel your points 4) and 2) are not analogous because points 3) and 1) aren’t.
When Dr. Morse referred to a “square circle,” she was citing the logical impossibility of such a concept, regardless of semantics. Similarly, she views gay marriage as a logical impossibility–it can’t ever exist. If she wants to cite axioms and prove this, she is more than welcome to do so. The point I was trying to make is that I am not factually incorrect for not assuming said axioms. It doesn’t matter what the dictionary says, it doesn’t matter what society says, it doesn’t even matter what the encyclopedia says, my views on marriage are what they are, and yet I am not incorrect for having different beliefs. A general concept of marriage can exist (and I must recognize this) but I don’t need to agree with every aspect of it. This is not a right-or-wrong issue the way mathematics is, and I don’t understand why people think that it is. That’s why I don’t like the “square circle” analogy.
You’ve respected my position throughout this entire debate, and I appreciate that. That is more than I can say for Dr. Morse, who seems to be trying to find new ways to offend supporters of gay marriage. If you want to not be like her, I’d ask that you don’t use quotation marks when debating with me on the subject out of respect.
Anyway, it’s been fun debating you on this. This will be my last post on the subject.
Later…
@Blake Those were NOT the definitions of marriage, and those abuses were not legal in every nation. The definition of marriage has remained the same for thousands of years, but abuses within it have changed. As long as you keep playing at having the abuses define the institution, that allows you to abuse it more. Try some better logic next time.
Spunky,
I could reply on why I think that my analogy between points (1) and (3) is valid, but it does seem that we are at an impasse, and so that’s fine, we can let that go.
Regarding your request that I not use quotation marks around “marriage” when applying that term to same-sex unions, I do respect you, but that’s one request I can’t and won’t honor. (Though I could and would honor it if there were a generally accepted non-derogatory word that refers to committed same-sex unions, because then I would just use that word instead.)
Basically, you are asking me to refer to same-sex unions as marriages, without quotation marks to qualify that I don’t believe that they really are marriages.
But if I did that, it would mean one of two things:
(1) It could mean that I accept the attempted redefinition of the word marriage, so that I accept it to mean something fundamentally different than what it has ever meant throughout history. But I don’t accept that redefiniton.
(2) Or it could mean that I don’t think that there is a fundamental difference between marriages (i.e., opposite sex) and committed same-sex unions, and so I don’t have a problem with referring to the latter as marriages. But that isn’t true either.
So that’s why any time that I do refer to same-sex unions, I will not call them marriages unless I qualify the term in some way, such as with quotation marks. I honestly mean no offense by it, and I will feel bad if it does offend you, because that’s not my intent.
But I could not do otherwise without pretending to believe something that I don’t believe, or pretending to accept the attempted redefinition of a word whose redefinition I don’t accept.
Since you asked, here’s what I think. I think it’s clear you want secular, unsaved people to pay lip service to your vision of Christian social order even though they have never had a personal, transformative relationship with Christ.
Dear Ms.Anne
I’m realy not interested in justifying anything.
It simply seems to me that a lot of the discussions above are about the contrast between objective reality and social constructs and ideas.
Now the only objective reality to “blue” is the wavelength of the light in question (though in these days of modern physics I suppose even that is questionable !).
The sensation of blue is ofcourse completly subjective.
When you and I look at the sky there is no way of knowing if we experience the same thing.We use the same word because we have been taught the same word, but our experiance could be completly different.
If you imagine a world in which we evolved (or were created) unable to perceve colour then would blue exist? Does a subjective sensory experience exist if nobody can experience it?
@Nigel Desmonds
“Now the only objective reality to “blue” is the wavelength of the light in question (though in these days of modern physics I suppose even that is questionable !).
The sensation of blue is ofcourse completly subjective.”
For the sake of a functioning society, we agree to term concepts. Blue describes the sky. The sky does not define blue. No individual person’s subjective opinion or perspective dictates to the society, what that society has previously determined to identify as blue.
Perception is not reality. A person may never know the word or perceive the concept of gravity. But if they jump off a cliff, they will surely hit the ground.
Again, in order to function in a society, we must consider other peoples perspectives. For example, if your boss’s ‘sensation’ of work is sweeping the floor, and your ‘sensation’ of work is sleeping, you have to consider his perspective, even if you’re not “feeling it”.
@Nigel Desmonds Blue will always be blue despite people’s perception. One’s belief or understanding of truth doesn’t change that truth.