Skip to main content
Topic: Same Sex Marriage (Read 56503 times)

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #51
mjm, your post's last sentence says it all — about your unfortunate situation.
I suppose a man can marry a goat, but can a goat marry a man?  ;)
Despite your smilie (and Jaybro's and Jame's comments…), your point highlights the absurdity of the licence contemplated here:
Morality reduced to what one can get away with…

Note who applaud the trend. Note the contortions they make, trying to defend it. Note their lack of shame…
(And consider well the constitution of a man who is shameless! ™)
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)



Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #54
Camel?! We have got cars here that do the job already.


Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #56
Heavens jimbro maybe the man has a hiccup and why he may repeat his plea or is it an Iberian trait? Hhhmmm.
"Quit you like men:be strong"

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #57
Folks: I've heard Belfrager's voice… It is deep, rich and resonant.

I'd expect a squeak from Howie and a whine from James - or a bellow, as he seems to have no middle range.

But I myself have often had to hear my recorded voice played back: We seldom sound as we think we should.
There's something between our ears that interferes… …º
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #58
Something between our ears interferes with
hearing ourselves… It's partly our ego
and partly our physiognomy; though
it is mostly the bold premise of myth!

When we hear our own voice, we are often
listening to whatever sounds abound:
For good or ill, we'd like to hear the sound
— before such overtakes us. Only when

calm, we pay attention to the timbre
of our own vocalizations. If then.
We don't hear our own voices — and when
we do, we don't recognize them. Limber

is the libido, the ego and the
so-called Id. Silence might have hid our "Huh?"
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #59
So: What is "the bold premise of myth"? That's the only line that is pregnant…

Have at it, you-all! :)
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #60

So: What is "the bold premise of myth"? That's the only line that is pregnant…

Have at it, you-all! :)

Your poems are quite Spartan. I don't know what "pregnant" could mean in this context.

To the advocates of same-sex marriage: What does marriage mean? Is it a piece of paper issued by the government? Is it time spent by a couple (or a triple or to whichever numbers and configurations of cohabitation your imagination can stretch) after celebrating a certain kind of party with a cake?

If the latter, what's the supposed discrimination? Can't you have a party with a cake right now? If it's the former, then

  • What do you think the reason is, from the society's point of view, to have instituted such a piece of paper?

  • What does the paper entail that same-sex people are missing out of but should be entitled to? Why should they be entitled to it?


Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #61
Your questions are good ones, ersi. I can't tell you what answers those who make a big deal of same-sex marriage would give: Neither can they, as far as I can tell. When one merely imagines a state or status analogous to something natural, that -nowadays- creates an entirely new realm of reality! And woe to those who don't cross over… :)
I don't know what "pregnant" could mean in this context.
Quite simple: Likely to birth new meaning… (I'll probably midwife it myself. :) )
进行 ...
"Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility." - James Thurber
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts!" - Richard Feynman
 (iBook G4 - Panther | Mac mini i5 - El Capitan)

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #62

Your questions are good ones, ersi. I can't tell you what answers those who make a big deal of same-sex marriage would give: Neither can they, as far as I can tell. When one merely imagines a state or status analogous to something natural, that -nowadays- creates an entirely new realm of reality!

But they have a different definition of natural. An incoherent definition, and hence not really a definition, but anyway, "natural" means something different for them.

One of the supposed arguments for same-sex marriage is that there's nothing uniquely natural about hetero partnership. Along the lines that "animals have gay sex too" and such. The problem with such attitude is of course that it takes what is and makes it out to be a should.

Let's suppose that "scientists say" that to suppress psychological tendencies is to suppress one's own true nature (psychological, therefore natural, and including homosexuality in "nature" defined this way) and thus the person is committed to a life-long misery. It so happens that this could be said of each and every piece of tendency we have, be it stealing or lying or whatever. Natural born thieves are very miserable when they don't have opportunities to steal for a for a while, and they are very angry when caught. Does this make stealing rightful? No. To have a right is a whole different thing than to have a psychological tendency.

Let's suppose that homosexuality is genetically preconditioned and therefore natural in this sense, i.e. occurs in nature and is a hardwired tendency very hard to fight in oneself. The problem here is that this directly makes homosexuality a most animalistic behaviour, on a par with absolutely every other thinkable form of self-gratification for self-gratification's sake, and on a par also with every deviation and insanity that may or may not have a reason. Psychopathic murder, cannibalism, pedophilia, they all occur in nature, are genetically preconditioned and very hard to fight in oneself. Moreover, there clearly are genetic flaws and diseases that are to be treated to mitigate their effects, instead of letting them be or letting them spread wider. So, this kind of supposed argument for homosexuality is at the same time a very strong argument against it.

Really, I am yet to see an argument for homosexuality that would not be an argument against it at the same time. There's nothing to support the concept of same-sex marriage, nothing coherent. What's going on in the so-called civilised world is nothing rational or legally sensible.

Which is quite different compared to the case of normal marriage. The institution of marriage (by the true definition) not only sanctifies a partnership that is natural, it's also biologically fruitful (or at least naturally intended as such), meaningful so that even children see the point, and it's right and good because provides incentive to overcome and suppress adverse tendencies both individually and socially. None of this can be said of homosexuality.

Since there are no rational and socially constructive arguments for same-sex marriage, it can only have irrational and destructive arguments. Anybody care to prove me wrong?

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #63
The only people I have seen to make "a big deal" out of this I've seen anywhere are the few people who are dead set against it. It also matters to those who in some places can't marry, though in my opinion it counts less than being able to live and love. I think Norway is a good case.

Norway, in 1902, got a law that made it illegal for homosexual men (not women) to have sex. In 1925 a proposal to replace it with a minimum age for homosexual men failed, as did a 1954 proposal to scrap it all together, and the law wasn't repealed until 1972. It roughly followed the "concubinage" paragraph that made it illegal for an unmarried man and woman to live together. Repealing these laws might have been radical in 1925, but hardly in 1972. What took so long? Somebody "made a big deal" of it for the longest time.

So change, when it happened, happened fast. Norway "inherited" a new cohabitation law from Sweden which meant that cohabitation was almost the same as getting married. In a way that was a much smoother approach than the concubinage law. The punishment for living together unmarriedly for long enough wasn't a fine or prison, it was near-marriage. You stay long enough with me, I take half yours when you leave.

Then, while rear-guard action had delayed decriminalisation with half a century, it only took nine years for Norway to get a same-sex partnership law in 1981, somewhere in between cohabitation and marriage. From being behind the times, Norway was ahead of all countries but the Netherlands and Denmark. Then it took 28 years (2009) to remove all the remaining gay special treatments and turn near-marriage into marriage, giving gays the same range of options as non-gay.

The law change in 1972 was clearly overdue. The more radical change in 1981 got more attention, while few took much notice of the changes in 2009, just a couple Christians who made "a big(gish) deal" of it. Nothing compared to the month and years of agonising in the US.

Of course they don't kill gays for being gay in the US, often, so this is not where the battle is happening, but in Africa, and to a much lesser extent Asia.

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #64
Let's suppose that homosexuality is genetically preconditioned and therefore natural in this sense, i.e. occurs in nature and is a hardwired tendency very hard to fight in oneself. The problem here is that this directly makes homosexuality a most animalistic behaviour, on a par with absolutely every other thinkable form of self-gratification for self-gratification's sake, and on a par also with every deviation and insanity that may or may not have a reason. Psychopathic murder, cannibalism, pedophilia, they all occur in nature, are genetically preconditioned and very hard to fight in oneself. Moreover, there clearly are genetic flaws and diseases that are to be treated to mitigate their effects, instead of letting them be or letting them spread wider. So, this kind of supposed argument for homosexuality is at the same time a very strong argument against it.


That's a strange argument, but I guess one a Buddhist monk could make, as it doesn't just apply to "Psychopathic murder, cannibalism, pedophilia" but heterosexual partnership as well. Those too are based on our animal urges, urges passed on to the next generation. Stay away from any marriage. That means less suffering, and you are one step closer to nibbana.


Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #66

That's a strange argument, but I guess one a Buddhist monk could make, as it doesn't just apply to "Psychopathic murder, cannibalism, pedophilia" but heterosexual partnership as well. Those too are based on our animal urges, urges passed on to the next generation. Stay away from any marriage. That means less suffering, and you are one step closer to nibbana.

Let me get this straight. You say that heterosexual partnership is based on animal urges (and assumedly only that). And this makes gay marriages (which even in principle cannot be for anything else than self-gratification for self-gratification's sake) okay, right?

If so, then this repeats in quite pure form the view of marriage that I attribute to gay advocates. You could have said something different, anything new to improve the impression, but you didn't.

The only people I have seen to make "a big deal" out of this I've seen anywhere are the few people who are dead set against it. ......

Repealing these laws might have been radical in 1925, but hardly in 1972. What took so long? Somebody "made a big deal" of it for the longest time.

Or, you could say it took so long because nobody gave a damn about those laws, until somebody made a big deal and demanded them be repealed.

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #67
Let me get this straight. You say that heterosexual partnership is based on animal urges (and assumedly only that). And this makes gay marriages (which even in principle cannot be for anything else than self-gratification for self-gratification's sake) okay, right?

If so, then this repeats in quite pure form the view of marriage that I attribute to gay advocates. You could have said something different, anything new to improve the impression, but you didn't.

It's your line of argument. I assume it makes sense to you somehow. To me "animal urges" is not in itself something to be deplored (as beneath humans) nor celebrated (as natural, and thus intrinsically commendable).

We are animals, we are talking monkeys, which can explain some of our idiosyncrasies. (Nearly all of them if we were to believe some evolutionary psychologists, who sometimes seem to make it their task to make stories of why we are as we believe we are, scientific theologians in other words, rather than making testable hypotheses.) Some of these idiosyncrasies we do tend to celebrate, like our innate sociability and sense of fairness, other we tend to deplore, like our tendency to gang up on people when afraid.

That we like to partner up in monogamous partnerships (or as more cynical and sharper observers say, serially monogamous partnerships with episodes of cheating) is usually put on the "celebrate" rather than the "deplore" list, but again Buddhist monks would disagree. Some evolutionary psychologists claim that this tendency to pair up has helped our survival, in encouraging division of labour. We wouldn't need to pair up purely for procreational purposes, as living in lifelong pairs is more the exception than the rule.


Or, you could say it took so long because nobody gave a damn about those laws, until somebody made a big deal and demanded them be repealed.

That was almost certainly not the case neither in 1925 nor 1954, and probably not the case in 1972. The law was seen as wrong and unfair (and eventually obsolete) by the legal community, though kept for political opportunism. Bad laws are a burden also for those they do not directly affect.

Now, the partnership law of 1981 and the marriage law of 2009 did come after campaigning by gay rights activists, but was also propelled by a sense of fairness and common sense. From a practical point of view the law of 2009 added little not already in the 1981 law, except the word "marriage" instead of the word "partnership", and that homosexual partnership was no longer exceptional as the same law applied to homosexuals as heterosexuals, there was no longer any specific gay law.

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #68
We are animals, we are talking monkeys, which can explain some of our idiosyncrasies.

Some evolutionary psychologists claim that this tendency to pair up has helped our survival, in encouraging division of labour.

Those "evolutionary psychologists" are also talking monkeys, right?
A matter of attitude.

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #69

Some evolutionary psychologists claim that this tendency to pair up has helped our survival, in encouraging division of labour. We wouldn't need to pair up purely for procreational purposes, as living in lifelong pairs is more the exception than the rule.

Here you came closest to the true meaning of marriage, but not quite close enough to prove me wrong about the impression that gay-rightists leave.

Marriage is not meant to pair up purely for procreational purposes. If it were, arrangements would have been made for it to commonly last only a night or so. But no, arrangements have been made to commonly assure the partners that it's meant for entire life. So, in addition to procreational purposes, marriage is also supposed to ensure the continuity in upbringing the next generation. Fail to acknowledge any of these factors, and you fail to understand what the proponents of traditional marriage mean by marriage.

The rest of what you say either confirms that the advocates of same-sex marriage hold the animal urges closest and dearest (a la talking monkeys) or is totally off topic (a la Buddhist monks). In normal rational discourse, neither of your points could enter the topic - namely, monkeys and monks don't get married. However, as I already noted, this topic is not rational at all. In a rational world, it would be self-evident that "same-sex marriage" is a logically impossible concept.


Laws are funny things. Or maybe I should say laws are weird animals, like talking monkeys. Last year, the parliaments of Finland and Estonia voted in laws that were popularly termed "gay law" among the ordinary people. The votes were narrow and the whole process aroused controversy in both countries.

In Finland, the initiative was started by a group of gay activists who managed to gather the sufficient amount of signatures. The initiative entailed a bunch of substantial changes to the current marriage law, such as removal of reference to gender of the partners when registering marriage and, in line with this, removal of any special considerations regarding adoption rights. The law started as an ostensible grassroots project and was passed in the parliament, sharply dividing all political parties internally - except greens (unanimously pro) and christian democrats (unanimously against) - making it appear like a breakthrough for direct democracy initiative, which is rather rare anywhere in the world.

Now, the Finnish law makes sense insofar as it merely modifies an existing law. However, it redefines marriage so that it's not marriage any more. Marriage is a partnership to found a family, but the redefinition disregards the family function (it doesn't exclude it, but it makes it merely an incidental and therefore not a defining characteristic). The law initiative was promoted with slogans like "my sister also has a right to happiness" (what is "right to happiness" and how does a marriage law, framed whichever way, guarantee it? or was it a thinly veiled reference to "right to incest"?).

In Estonia, a whole new law, called "cohabitation law" was pushed by the government onto the parliament. It passed, while the general population with no say over the matter near-unanimously opposed it, with some sporadic grassroots campaigns to stop the law. The law provides for a "cohabitation contract" and heavily references marriage and family laws to make the "contract" partnership as close to marriage as possible. (The adoption rights concern only the child of the partner, if I have understood correctly.)

The Estonian law does not make any sense at all. It merely duplicates the provisions of separate marriage and family laws, while avoiding any reference to the gender of the "cohabitation partners". It also abstains from stating any point or purpose to the "cohabitation contract". If it's the same as marriage, then why a different law? If it's not the same, then where is the difference? One of the supporters of the Estonian law argued that the popularity of marriage was appallingly low (true, more than half of the children are born outside marriages, and the rate of registered marriages is 35% among couples living together) and this must be due to clumsy and inconvenient bureaucracy of the marriage law. The unmarried forms of cohabitation would all naturally become subject to the new cohabitation law, it was said. The truth is now that the new law only applies between partners who sign with a notary a "cohabitation contract" (isn't this an inconvenient bureaucracy made a precondition of the applicability of the law?) while all content of the contract is derived from the marriage and family laws. The time is not ripe yet to pronounce verdict on the effectiveness of the law, but since it merely re-states what was already effective for marriages, it must have equally little chance of success.

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #70
I'd expect a squeak from Howie and a whine from James - or a bellow, as he seems to have no middle range.

I have lost all respect for you Mister Oakdale and not because of this cheap juvenile shot. 
James J

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #71
But they have a different definition of natural. An incoherent definition, and hence not really a definition, but anyway, "natural" means something different for them.

I am going to patiently please ask you to retract this idiotic statement quickly, ok?  If you, Eric Whatsyourname, were gay, wtf would be natural to your lousy dumb ass?  I am caustic because that's the way I am. get over it. 
James J

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #72
Let's suppose that "scientists say"

You don't know what science is, you hate science and u pretty much live in an alternative universe, why should anyone here listen to your ramblings?  And to have Oak back you up...is not a good thing.
James J

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #73
Let's suppose that homosexuality is genetically preconditioned and therefore natural in this sense, i.e. occurs in nature and is a hardwired tendency very hard to fight in oneself. The problem here is that this directly makes homosexuality a most animalistic behaviour, on a par with absolutely every other thinkable form of self-gratification for self-gratification's sake, and on a par also with every deviation and insanity that may or may not have a reason.

Are you shitting me?  Let's quote some sources here asshole, because u are speaking off the top of your head like a fool.  Your deep rooted prejudices come screaming through here.  
James J

Re: Same Sex Marriage

Reply #74
Let's suppose that homosexuality is genetically prec.onditioned and therefore natural in this sense, i.e. occurs in nature and is a hardwired tendency very hard to fight in oneself.

Let's suppose that you are from the planet 'Idiot'
James J