Originally posted by Pvt. Prinny

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So when you change it, it's fine, but if we want to change it, it isn't fine? That's really what I'm getting from you.

Marriage has always existed in a secular sense, always, this isn't a change to a religion, this is a change of the state. Get over yourself?

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Originally posted by Pvt. Prinny

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If you just want to play "Devil's Advocate" and you dont' care about the issue, you should have no problem just stopping or saying your position was wrong.

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Originally posted by Pvt. Prinny

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Same-sex marriage isn't even a new thing. There is pleanty of history about homosexual unions. Asia, early Europe, hell even the Native Americans did it. Why did we take a step back for? The spread of Christianity. A religion. Something that shouldn't matter to our country. A nice little wikipedia article that took me all of three seconds to bring up has some nice answers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions

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Originally posted by Pvt. Prinny

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The point of devil's advocate? Most people who've done it to me just use questions and don't try to prove a point.

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Originally posted by Pvt. Prinny

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It's funny what happens when you click on links.

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Originally posted by Silvershield

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Originally posted by Young Guru

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No matter how similar these two contracts might be legally they still have seperate names which leads to the whole seperate but not equall that we saw back in the days of segregation of blacks and whites. By allowing same-sex couples to have a marriage license this would get rid of the discrimination inherent in the current system of civil unions. The ceremony involved for a same-sex marriage would be no different than that for two heterosexual atheists being married.

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Just to play Devil's advocate, why is it necessary that a homosexual union be called a "marriage?" You talk about the idea of "separate but equal" being disproven during segregation, but was that not an entirely different idea? The fact of the matter is, black schools were hardly equal to white schools; on the other hand, a civil union would be exactly equivalent to a marriage, except for in name.

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Originally posted by Silvershield

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Originally posted by Young Guru

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I would love to see the Catholic church allowing same-sex marraiges because I am a member of that church and believe that it would be the right thing to do, but that is for me and my fellow Catholics to decide in regards for the Catholic church and not the government.

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How many gay Catholics do you know? And I mean real Catholics, not the homosexual equivalent to those people who just go to church on Christmas and Easter, if at all. It's not like they'll be beating down the doors of the church to get their turn to be married, because there aren't exactly a great many of them.

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Originally posted by Young Guru

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The reason why it matters, and I think many people don't understand this because they've never been in the situation, is that by giving homosexual marriages a seperate label there is a message being sent by the state that there is something fundamentaly wrong with homosexuality. It says that as a government we'll give you similar rights but there's no way we're gonna let you have the same contract that the heterosexuals get. That's the point. Going back to segregation, if you instead look at buses instead of schools, there's nothing different about riding in the front or the back of the bus, the seats are exactly the same, but by forcing blacks to sit in the back of the bus there was a message being sent that they were different in a negative way that made them unworthy of the seats that white people were allowed to sit in. That's my point there.

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Originally posted by Young Guru

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I don't think it will happen and I don't think there's really much of a push to have it happen. I was just using that as a way to clarify that I am not against same-sex marriage in a religious context but to show that I think it needs to be handled by each religion on its own terms. That's merely what I was getting at there.

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Originally posted by Silvershield

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Does it really make a remark about the relative value of a homosexual "civil union" as compared to a heterosexual "marriage?" I feel like the analogy of a differently-named union to sitting in the back of the bus is a bit of a stretch.

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Originally posted by Young Guru

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As a person who is a strong supporter of this issue and knowing a lot of people who are homosexual and hearing their opinions on the issue I do believe that the distinction between a civil union and marriage assigns a relative lesser worth to civil unions.

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Originally posted by Young Guru

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Imagine if we switched this to some other characterisation, such as, if you are a babtist you cannot get married, you have to have a civil union. I don't think many people would find any way to support the government disallowing baptists from getting married. It's very similar, except in the example case you could switch from babtist to an allowed religion if you wanted to get married that bad. If you are homosexual you cannot just switch to heterosexualism to get married to the person that you love.

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Originally posted by Young Guru

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And I don't think that the bus relation is too much of a stretch, homosexuals face severe discrimination and they have to deal with hate crimes of extremely violent natures similar to what blacks dealt with in the past.

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Originally posted by Silvershield

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]Regardless of whether it existed in the past, why should a precedent decide whether a similar law exists in the modern world? Any number of things that were "ok" ten or a hundred or a thousand years ago are disputed in 2006. Something existing in ancient times simply means that it existed alongside practices such as ritual sacrifice (in some cultures), pedophilia (in some cultures), extreme racism (in some cultures), gender inequality (in most cultures), etc - you're making it sound like the ancients really knew what they were doing, and that they "had it all right" with homosexual relationships even though their cultures and values were clearly flawed. That is to say, none of those aforementioned tenets are at all defensible, and they demonstrate that those cultures which practiced them were imperfect; however you argue as if the precedent of homosexuality in years past somehow "proves" that it's alright.

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Originally posted by Pvt. Prinny

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This is almost exactly what the other side uses. They say man and woman marriage is the precedent and we shouldn't change tradition. Obviously it isn't a strict tradition though as there is a historic precedent. If you use this argument, you can't say marriage is traditionally a man and a woman.

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Originally posted by Pvt. Prinny

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Now a good question is, since Native Americans believed in a tradition that is essientially marriage, couldn't they bring out the race card and say that the government is refusing to allow them to follow their culture?

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Originally posted by Silvershield

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Originally posted by windwaker

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NOTHING about US law should be sacred.

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Marriage existed as a sacred institution long before the laws of America were a twinkle in the Founding Fathers' eyes, or before Columbus even stepped onto his ship to seek the Indies; we as Americans did not invent marriage, and we cannot alter its character by declaring it an entirely secular insitution. In any case, though, I made it quite clear that I don't have a set opinion on the matter, so don't jump all over me as if I'm your enemy.

Wow, you see, I just installed this thing called lololol 2.0 RC, it just came out, and it has spell checking. I forgot to turn it off, but wow, look what I found. I thought "their" was the only spelling mistake in your 300+ posts? Wrong. "Their" isn't a spelling mistake, you used the wrong word. However, you did spell "institution" incorrectly. How embarrassing, considering your, you know, next sentence:

Originally posted by windwaker

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First of all, it's not "their", it's "there".

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Congratulations on discovering probably the single spelling mistake that you will find in my 300+ posts. I'm glad you used it to your advantage.

tool.

Originally posted by windwaker

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If you can't use/spell even the simplest homophones correctly, who are you to say that a fetus is a "distinct life"?

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Because the ability to spell correctly is a prerequisite for being able to make decisions regarding morality.

Well, spelling, not being totally arrogant/ironic, the list goes on.

Originally posted by windwaker

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But, at least you aren't a hipocrit like a lot of "pro-life"-ers: [emphasis mine]

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As stated, how "eyronic."

Originally posted by windwaker

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Good. Everyone can have an opinion about what's wrong or not, and lying, for instance, isn't illegal. But alot more people should think about the consequences of what a law would do (that's you bass), rather than just saying "ABORTION IS WRONG AND IF IT IS ILLEGAL PEOPLE WON'T GET ABORTIONS". This is why the War on Drugs is failing, and prohibition failed before it.

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First of all, don't patronize me. Secondly, lying isn't illegal because it does not directly murder an unborn child. Apples and oranges here.

Perhaps I overestimated you. Lying isn't illegal because YOU CAN'T MODERATE LYING. No one's going to be able to arrest people for lying.

I'll patronize you until you prove that you can handle these concepts without my help. You see, if abortions become illegal, people are just going to get abortions by paying off doctors. Very similar to how people get medical marijuana licenses today. See how I made a correlation between the two?

I only support the idea of instituting programs to offer alternatives to abortion, rather than simply outlawing it, because I'm not out to hurt pregnant women but to protect their unborn children. Outlawing abortion leaves a pregnant woman with no real alternative that does not injure the child, while improving the situation with birth control, adoption programs, etc can prevent or safely solve the problem.

Is semen an unborn child? Is it wrong to use condoms? The catholic church thinks so. Some people think a fetus isn't a living thing. Some people think contraceptives are sinful. Who are YOU, Mr. "I spell great except this one time", to draw this line?

Originally posted by blackhole89

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Have the distinct lives in mind before washing your hands with that anti-bacterial soap next time.

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I didn't know that millions of tiny humans lived on my hands. I'll never bathe again, because I might risk compromising those microscopic human beings whose lives are of value.

I for one, am highly offended by you saying this. How can you compare a sacred living thing to bacteria?

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Originally posted by windwaker

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[Assorted super-intelligent remarks.]

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Originally posted by Silvershield

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Originally posted by windwaker

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With that said, I'll respect the moderator's wishes and sit this thread out for a bit until I feel like I can speak civilly without being insulted.

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Originally posted by ||bass

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Here's the line:
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Below the line, we are now in the no bullshit zone.

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Originally posted by windwaker

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1) There is no such thing as a tag.

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Originally posted by windwaker

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2) ||bass is not the moderator of this forum. If I recall correctly... oh yes, he's the server admin. This thread has evolved into a discussion (one that shows how intelligent some of the people posting in it are), and the OP has no right to dictate rules of a thread.

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Originally posted by windwaker

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Run away from this thread if you'd like. Anyone with a real point wouldn't be dissuaded by what they claim to be sarcastic nothingness. But please, if there is any defense for "I've only ever misspelled one word!" in the same post as another misspelling, please PM it to me.

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Originally posted by windwaker

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Originally posted by ||bass

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Here's the line:
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Below the line, we are now in the no bullshit zone.

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Thanks O'Reilly. :rolleyes: I'll create another thread, but drawing a line in text is really, really lame.

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