I think I was; I had a more expansive definition of what a civil union than what it apparently actually is. That's why I started the thread... SORRY Batman! :grin:
Yeah, it was very similar. It seemed like a natural thing to do, as my father was a member of the faculty (department chair) and it felt like I had spent a large part of my life on campus. We've never regretted the venue.
I don't know everything and of course I don't claim to know everything. Straw man, thy name is giddyup. What I do know is that the right is constantly bringing this up as a counter-argument to gay marriage equality, this idea that the churches ought not be "forced" to perform gay marriages if they don't want to. Find me a link from any serious person, any person of influence, that suggests they ought to be forced. The right has invented this.
You can't just dismiss the slippery slope argument As I said, it's in the ether. You lose. You're calling names again.
So my marriage by a Justice of the Peace was not a religious marriage in the eyes of god, and therefore not a marriage in the eyes of giddy? The horror.
OH, the drama. It's a pretty simple idea: a civic official performs a civil union while a cleric of some sort performs a religious ceremony. I suppose it's up to YOU whether or not God endorses YOUR marriage. I didn't even know you were married. The question here is what kind of marriage does/should the government recognize.... I voted for BOTH: religious and civil, so what's your beef?
So you didn't know that a judge can perform a marriage? Seriously? If it weren't you I would say I was surprised.
I don't understand this comment. Why does it matter if some churches decide to marry gay couples? Or stated differently, why should the government disallow a church from performing the ceremony?
Actually I win. I was losing because I got sucked into another of your threads and that was foolish of me. But I win because I'm getting out on page 3, a personal best for me I think. On my way out, some kudos for taking a reasonable stance on equality for GLBT though. Maybe this will go somewhere else as the thread goes on and you refuse to let it die, but as of now I admire your stance especially since it's so at odds with your party's. You're a bit of alright after all.
So help me understand your point? If gays say they are not satisfied with a civil union, why is it relevant to make the distinction?
Just quit with the insults. You should be above that by now. You're at least five years older than when we first met. So can ship captains perform marriages as can all the quickie wedding chapels in Vegas. Some gays in states where there are no gay marriages even refer to their relationship as a marriage. There is a lot of sloppiness in the language of marriage but we are talking legalisms here. Overwhelmingly, marriages are performed by religious figures so it is natural to associate that with an institution of religion and, likewise, marriages performed by civil servants don't seem to have the same kind of religious flavor. Even non-religious people often have religious tones to their wedding ceremony (deckard and rimbaud both IIRC). I majored in Religious Studies and both my major professors were ordained ministers as well as faculty members. Ironically, my first marriage was in a Quaker ceremony where no one officiated....
I didn't say it was. As I said earlier, I have misunderstood what a civil union was... if indeed I understand it now. It seems to be an institution instituted and recognized only by individual states and is not recognized by other states or the federal government. No one else has really chipped in with a better or more complete definition.
A marriage is both a legal and social contract. You need a license to get legally married. That license is issued by the state, not the church. A lot of people choose to get married by a judge because they are not religious. That you somehow thought that was any less of a marriage than one performed in a church is so ridiculous that it would not be believable if not for the fact that you are renowned for engaging in this kind of obtuseness.
I won the argument when I pointed out the very obvious straw man in your premise -- the non-existent threat that churches will be forced to perform gay marriages though that threat is imaginary and was invented by the right specifically for the purpose of talking points in debates about marriage equality -- and you ignored that point and just whined "you called me a name, you lose" instead. The difference between civil unions and marriage is semantic but it also represents a distinction between how we talk about unions between straights and gays and that is the very essence of "separate but equal." Even those that have turned moderate enough on marriage equality to offer up and support civil unions just still can't quite bring themselves to say "marriage." It's a word. Why can't you guys just let them have it? Why do heterosexuals have the only claim to the word and why do we need to invent a new one for homosexuals? This is the premise of your thread. It might have been more appropriately titled What is "marriage?" Nobody is threatening to make churches do weddings they don't want to any more than anyone is trying to force straight people to get gay married. That is a made-up thing. I've seen this movie before. I spend 20 pages trying to get you to acknowledge that there is no such thing as the threat of which you speak, finally you acquiesce to that without admitting you were wrong, and then you shift the conversation to "yes, there isn't one now, but what if there were one one day? As in your debunked chain emails where you finally let go of the idea that they were true and said instead, well, what about if they were though? This whole mountain is covered in mudslides. And as I grow older I am trying to avoid the mistakes I made in the past. So bye. If I didn't get out on pg. 3, at least it was pg. 4. Still a personal best. Here's hoping I can actually do it. All it took was a generic 'nanny nanny boo boo' to pull me back in when I'd said I was out so I clearly a very weak man.
Interesting. I don't think I knew that either. So what is your position? Should we legalize gay marriage? Or are you content with letting states decide and institute civil unions or nothing at all?
