Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I'd flip your switch anytime, huhuhuhuh -- oh, wait.

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Meanwhile as The Faceless Evil closes in on the hapless, sleeping, populace...
Across town in a shanty one-bedroom, an old woman feeds her parakeet.

ohhh

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beep beep I'm a Jeep

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Meanwhile as The Faceless Evil closes in on the hapless, sleeping, populace...
Across town in a shanty one-bedroom, an old woman feeds her parakeet.

honestly, I am against Gay Marriage and in support of Civil Unions, but I'm not going to go protest or anything, that's just how I feel.

regardless, This movie that wasn't intended to be meant satire made me giggle so much: http://youtube.com/watch?v=5BYaKAjh_Mk

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Why not take it a step further and be against all marriage and for civil unions? As far as I can see, there is no reason that marriage needs to be in the law. None. Zip. Zero. No hay por qué. Riyuu wa nai. (You get the point.)

I'm not saying that marriage should be illegal, of course. I'm just saying that there is no reason for it to be legally recognized.

- Kef

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The other day I heard a radio ad for a jeweler in San Francisco.
There was a lady that said "I needed to find the perfect ring for my fiance, so I went to [name of jeweler]. She's very satisfied with it, and we can't wait for the wedding!"
Pretty neat.

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I don't quite understand where people get the idea that marriage is a Christian ceremony.

Pagan Greece and Rome, as well as other non-Christian societies of the time practiced elaborate culture-specific matrimonial ceremonies with the same basic intent of any Christian marriage. If anything, Pagans and Animists should be demanding the exclusivity of marriage.

Marriage is as much a human thing as it is any sort of religious thing. We are among the very few species to mate for life, and whether that mating be heterosexual or homosexual it should be honored in the same way, for is it not still the joining of 2 humans?

Why can't all love be honored equally?

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Sister, now that we're grieving
Our fingers will falter
Our lungs will be leaking
All over each other and without even speaking
We'll know that it's over and smile and go greeting
Whatever comes next

It can be (it's a sacrament), but it's not always.

Well, they were far from the first ones, too... The Jews were certainly before the Greeks, and who knows what other cultures there were.


Hey, if you allow gay marriage, you may as well allow polygamy for 3+ people, too...

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Sure.

Why not?

It's their own business, and if it's consensual, it's not hurting anyone or affecting anyone else, so it shouldn't be disallowed.

Such is the way of any free society.

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...what?
Gay marriage is a bond between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. Not a man and a man and a man and a man/a woman and a woman and a woman and a woman.
Marriage should be a bond between two people, regardless of orientation.

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My point was that every argument for gay marriage can also be applied to polygamy. If I can't force on anyone the idea that marriage should be between a man and a woman, you can't say it must be between only two people, either... If marriage was removed from the law completely, it'd fix this problem, but it's still in there for some tax purposes and probably other various laws (eg, you can't make a person testify against his/her spouse in court).

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I'd say that the argument for polygamist marriage is a wholly different set of issues compared to the argument for genderless marriage. On top of all that, the slippery slope argument is all moot because in California at least, this redefinition of marriage, in effect, still requires monogamist relationships. Marriage licenses just no longer have gendered name boxes. The essential set-up is still there--two partners. This really isn't much of a radical change when you consider how normal non-hetereosexual sexuality actually is. What is happening is that society is beginning to accept something that never really had to be demonized in the first place.

How can you say that two partners is the essential set-up, but you can't say a man and a woman is the essential set-up? How is polygamy more or less normal than homosexuality, and how would it be a less radical change? It just seems odd to me that anyone would argue polygamy shouldn't be legalized while they're in support of same-sex marriage.

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A couple in a monogamous homosexual relationship is mostly deemed acceptable by Western society. Allowing the law to recognize marriage as a sacrament for a permanent relationship for said monogamous couple is just the next step. It brings equality under the law to homosexual couples. Polygamy isn't as accepted by a long shot.

Polygamy and homosexuality are not intrinsically related anyway.

No, but the point is valid. If you say the emotional connection between two people is more important than some factor keeping them from being married, you're gonna elicit the question of what factors it's NOT more important than. So now people are saying that the connection is more important than the genders of those involved, so there should be gay marriage. OK, but that means the old ideas about what is more important than what are now all in question. Now that connection is more important than gender, is it also more important than the number of people connected? The question follows, but doesn't imply at all that gays are all polygamous.

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ATTN: LOWER BOARD USERS HAVE MOVED TO ANOTHER FORUM. COME JOIN THE FUN!

Well, of course the question follows. It is important to question and reassess everything. I'm just saying that any dialogue on polygamy is a significantly different one in the mechanics. Taking homosexuality and putting it into the framework of traditional marriage is not a radical change, but merely a progression on a theme; that's all. Tackling polygamy deals with even more complex issues of gender roles and familial structure. I'm not saying it shouldn't be addressed. I'm saying it's not necessarily relevant to this issue.

It's all such a head-ache, really. If we all had it my way we'd all just be irresponsibly free-loving bandit queens who thought the idea of marriage was boring in the first place.

A sacrament? I think we're only talking in terms of the governments here, not religion.
Why not? It is by a few religions (e.g., fundamentalist Mormons), but are you saying because it's not accepted by most people, we shouldn't make it legal? Well, then you might as well make gay marriage illegal again, because I believe it's wrong, and so do probably a majority of Americans. The reason they still support gay marriage is because, even though we believe it's wrong, we're trying not forcing it on others.

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I think you might have missed this:
Go ahead, and think it's wrong for gay people to get married. I don't care that much about other people's private business. I never said that polygamy was bad in the first place, anyway, so you can't try to trap me with that one.

Well, you seemed to think we shouldn't legalize polygamy even though you said we should legalize gay marriage. I really did think you didn't have a problem with polygamy all along, but you kept saying it was such a different issue, but I really don't think the issue was different from the gay marriage one.

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I wasn't making any stand on polygamy other than the fact that you cannot make a fair comparison. I don't know how many times I have to repeat it. Of course, in my mind I'm not totally comfortable most real-world practices of polygamy. As far as I'm aware, they usually seem to represent more patriarchal control and female objectification than traditional marriage already did. BUT, it has nothing to do with what is "right" or "wrong," or "natural" or "unnatural" of course.* And it's all besides the point. And it's all besides the point. And it's all besides the point. And it's all besides the point. And it's all besides the point. And it's all besides the point. It's wholly irrelevant to the discussion, nothing more than a slippery sloped strawman'd distraction to bait people into saying dumb things. I don't know how many times I have to repeat it.

Polygamy (any sort of marriage involving more than two people, really) does not fit into any given legal/fiscal framework for recognizing partnership in western society. I see its legalization and recognition coming much more unlikely than gay marriage because the whole nature of the system would need to be overhauled in order to accommodate.

Is that a hard concept to grasp? I feel like I'm talking in circles here. Am I crazy?


*To clarify an earlier statement so as to not get called out on my crap, I nearly meant that homosexual behavior is normal in the sense that is common.

I would like to state that I think homosexual behavior is normal in the sense that it is normal. I don't do it, because I'm not into it. I also don't like cheesecake. But I still consider those who do like cheesecake to be normal. It just happens that fewer people enjoy homosexual activities than enjoy cheesecake. But they're still normal, in the sense that they are normal.

As for the polygamy thing, we as a nation will cross that bridge when we get to it. But as far as I'm concerned, as long as the relationship(s) are functional, and nobody is being abused or taken advantage of, I don't care if a dude wants to marry two ladies. He should just beware that it's twice as much nagging when he's trying to watch the game.

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Listen to the Black Crowes.

^ That really depends on your definition of normal. It's certainly not traditional, or extremely common, so what do you mean by "normal"?

I agree with ed 100% here.
I also agree with Mikes, though. Recognising polygamy as legal is very unlikely because, yes, it would require a complete overhaul of the marriage system, as marriage would no longer be between two people but a few.

But it wasn't too long ago that marriage wasn't between "two people", it was always "a man and a woman". The system has undergone a complete overhaul, completely changing the traditional idea of marriage.

Most people with a secular world view would say these two changes are very different, but as a Christian I see them as very similar:
The idea of marriage has now completely moved away from it's original religious significance and is now simply a legal bonding of two people which has to be politically correct like everything else in our ridiculous modern world. I think that the way you would see polygamy is actually very similar to the way we see homosexuality, so the hypothetical question of polygamous marriages is an excellent metaphor for how Christians see homosexual marriages.

Incidentally, I find the idea of polygamous marriage more acceptable than that of gay marriage. As long as it's a man with several wives (or possibly a woman with several husbands), not just a bunch of people married together. This marriage type is really closer to the intended model for marriage than gay marriage is.
I actually wouldn't have a problem if they started allowing polygamy tomorrow. Might make a lot of guys happier...

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SIBHoD.

Common as normal in that it's not something totally out of the blue; chimpanzees and dogs and dolphins and antelope have been scientifically observed doing homosexual stuff analogous to human homosexuality.

At Buiscuithead: Marriage wasn't originally a Christian invention; in fact, the modern Western version ceremony's roots really come only from Calvinists during the 16th century.

It doesn't matter when the 'modern version ceremony' came about. That's hardly any different from the original marriage laws, which you could date back to the 14th century B.C. (Moses), but it was certainly already some sort of Jewish tradition before that. I'm not saying they (or anyone) 'invented' it, but all John Calvin did was get the state involved at the time.

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But see, that's the problem about gay marriage. Those marriage laws only rightfully apply to the adherents of the faiths which follow them. The state shouldn't recognize marriage in a fashion which only favors a particular religion. That's unjust.

Yeah, but remember, John Calvin wasn't living in a free country like the U.S., and they didn't have goals towards 'separation of church and state'.

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So we're in agreement, then? I'm not following.