There were certainly people who complained before. They didn’t like the act of getting “married” before a justice of the peace in a civil ceremony, for example, because that’s not a marriage as far as they understand it, and in fact it isn’t. It’s a civil union. That kind of dispute is where this issue really began. That is where the word marriage began to take on two different meanings. It shouldn’t matter where it started, however. If some group wanted to appropriate and redefine the words Ramadan or Hanukah would the same people think that was ok? My bet is that most of them wouldn’t. It’s a simple question of respecting the terms and traditions that belong to certain faiths. There is no need to call the legal entity a marriage, so why do it? The push should be to call all such legal unions civil unions. Furthermore, trying to appropriate the word marriage will lead to political failure, because most people see that as unjust. Why do you think California voted it down? It wasn’t because they didn’t want to grant equal rights. The polls showed that. It’s because they didn’t like the attempt to redefine the word marriage. Most of the Hispanic Catholics I suspect would have been fine with equal rights. They understand that concept very well, but they could not support the attempt to redefine their centuries old tradition of marriage. This is a classic example of the more extreme "left" elements getting hold of an issue and botching it so badly that they ultimately undermine the real cause.
Grizzled, what evidence or reasoning do you have for your belief that the word or concept of marriage belongs to a specific religion?
Ah, yes it is. It is one of the central, extremely important, traditions of the faith. It is one of the Seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church, for example.
^marriage existed outside of and before the existence of the catholic church. if anybody did the cultural appropriation, it was the church.
The point is that marriage is not exclusively Christian. Nor is it exclusively religious. Words can have more than one meaning without devaluing any particular one.
Where would I start? I suggest that you start by looking at the history of the Sacrament of Marriage from the Catholic perspective, which I believe exists in written from going back at least 1000 years, although the tradition obviously goes back much further than that.
I do believe the issue of gay marriage to many on both sides is about the legitimation and acceptance of a lifestyle / belief system. Just look at the comments here. And I'm against the state giving permission for and banning any marriage. It doesn't' give licenses for cohabitation or dating etc.
That seems like almost the opposite of the argument I'm talking about now. Not wanting a civil servant to perform the marriage because it wasn't religious enough is different. I'm not talking about prop 8 or not prop 8 in this argument. I'm only addressing the argument that govt. shouldn't define marriage at all. They weren't making that argument before. Marriage doesn't belong to the Christian church. The different churches have different ideas on recognizing gay marriage. The definition of marriage itself has changed over time as well. It won't hurt anyone for it to change again.
It's been mentioned several times since my post, but perhaps you can clarify. Do you believe that the term marriage only belongs to the Catholic church? Because I won't argue that the term is used by the Catholic church, but it has also been used by many other religions and people, even before the Catholic church existed. That is why I'm asking why you think it belongs to a particular religion. The "belongs" part implies that it only belongs to the one religion. Ok, so you'd prefer the state not issue marriage licenses at all, correct? I think that's an entirely fair position. Is it safe to assume, then, that as long as the state was issuing marriage licenses, you'd be in favor of them not discriminating based on the moral agendas of some? I mean, there's no chance of removing state licensed marriage any time soon. The current question is whether it should be artificially restricted as long as it's around.
This is a great post. Truly one of the best I have read since I have been here. You are exactly correct.
In virtually all religions it’s defined in a similar way, and I don’t think there’s much history of it existing outside of a religion, but of course for centuries almost everyone was assumed to be part of one religion of another. Whether or not there are some exceptions is really beside the point, however. I think most people today favour equal rights, but I also think that most people either come from religions that that have specific traditions associated with marriage, or that see marriage as associated with these traditions and who see the attempt to redefine the term as unjust. The completely unnecessary inclusion of the word marriage in this issue, therefore, is the reason it’s failing, imo. And if it stays included I think it guarantees future failure. You’re not going to get Catholics, or Muslims, or Jews or any of the other major religious groups to redefine their tradition of marriage. Equality should be achieved in the eyes of the law and the government and society by calling all such unions, whether they are same sex or different sex, civil unions. That way everyone’s rights are respected (or the vast majority anyway) and I’m sure that such a change would be approved. It’s this bizarre attachment to the term marriage by certain more extreme elements on the “left”, who tend to have no real personal attachment to the word in the first place, that has undermined the cause of equal rights. Just like those who are now starting to turn on Obama, after less than a year in office if you can believe it, the biggest enemy of the progressive movement is the group of people who call themselves progressives but who in fact work to undermine progress with this kind of self serving grandstanding and probably some vengeance related motives as well. Why they do it is a whole other issue, but trying to redefine the word marriage is essentially guaranteed to fail, and it has nothing to do with justice, so the next question should be, who does this position really serve?
No offence MojoMan, but let me be clear for all here. I don’t trust MojoMan’s motives on this issue and I strongly disagree with him on pretty well everything else I’ve seen him write on this board.
What eloquence. Really impressive stuff. Very persuasive, and right on the money with regards to the facts. Seriously, you should post more often. You raise the standards for the whole board when you post stuff like this.
