riella,
No. Not trying to imply that labelling is the problem. Label away if doing so adds some meaning to your day. I just don't think a label is relevant as I am more interested in the ideas than the label. But for you labels are relevant. That's ok as there's room on here for diversity in opinions.
Language
is “labels”; that’s what words
are - labels. If you want to argue for non-parity of some types of marriage then you do it using labels, thus: “gay (label) marriage (label) is not on a par (label) with heterosexual (label) marriage (label) because…” etc. Sometimes too these collections of labels represent a consistent position such that we can use other labels like “sexist” or “racist” or, yes, “homophobic” to describe what those positions are.
Can I suggest that if you really want to patronise someone with phrases like “Label away if doing so adds some meaning to your day” you take the time to establish first how out of your depth you are?
Regarding your point that it's only same sex marriages that are seen as not on par. That may be true for some/many of the people you refer to, but not all. There are still a sizeable chunk of people/ communities who think that based on the criteria that procreation is a biological imperative for the survival of the species and for passing on of culture and values (which is something humans seem to have evolved to prioritise) that any relationship that does not have this as a goal is not on par with relationships that do. Therefore they think same-sex marriage is wasting time on an unproductive tangent, based on that criteria.
Irrelevant. That’s like trying to defend racism on the grounds that, yes some people are horrible to people of different ethnicities to their own, but not all of them – after all, a “sizeable chunk” are horrible to everyone. The point though that you keep ducking and diving to avoid is that there
is a set of people who will use non-procreation as their justification for non-parity, but will only apply that criterion only to gay people. That’s what homophobia entails. So far as I can tell for example, Spud is one such – certainly he’s made no reference to thinking other types of non-procreational marriages are not on a par with procreational ones. Why do you suppose that is if not for his deep-seated homophobia?
I already addressed the point about marriage for people who might not be able to procreate - on a practical level it would not work to test everyone for fertility and child-bearing plans before society accepts the marriage so it can be done on the basis that statistically same-sex couples can never procreate with each other, whereas opposite sex couples are statistically much more likely to procreate with each other.
You do know that gay people can adopt don’t you? That sometimes they have children from previous relationships they wish to bring up with their new partners? That sometimes people who thought they were infertile turn out not to be? That…etc. All of these folks are every bit as capable of good parenting as anyone else, so why would their relationships still be "not on a par" with those who by some means know pre-marriage that they can conceive even if you were stupid enough to use conceiving or bringing up people as your criterion for marital equality?
Yes an arbitrary criterion - but marriage is full of arbitrary criteria - some countries allow legal polygamy and others don't, some countries while not allowing legal polygamy, tolerate societies which allow polygamy even if the spouses do not have the legal rights that a civil marriage would give them. Some countries tolerate people marrying non-humans, though again there are no legal regulations around this and no offspring https://metro.co.uk/2019/07/31/legal-marry-animals-inanimate-objects-10493582/
Which all goes to show that marriage is a societal construct rather than a universal property, and one therefore that can adapt as societies adapt. Hooray! Whence then those who would claim that marriage is "meant to be …X” as if it were the former?
If you are looking at civil marriage, for the government's purpose it is a legal contract that sets out the rights of the parties to certain benefits - immigration status, tax especially relating to spousal inheritance, property rights, next of kin decisions. So it makes sense on that basis to extend civil marriage to include same-sex couples. It also makes sense to extend it to polygamous marriages.
Yes I know, and traditional religious marriage confers various advantages to those who find them meaningful too. Why grant some people equal treatments with civil partnerships and deny other equal treatments from traditional marriages? Either you believe in equality or you don’t – suggesting it in some some areas but not in others is arbitrary and inconsistent.
Not sure I understand the question. Same-sex civil marriage and traditional marriage just seem to be abstract social constructs that attract diverse moral opinions so I think they are interesting topics for discussion to explore the different moral views, and to explore how arbitrary the prioritisation of different values can be.
You seemed to be taking a “civil weddings are nothing to do with me so I don’t care about them, but traditional marriages are so I do care about them” approach. I was just asking why either would matter to you more or less than the other.
I think I have seen it so we will have to agree to disagree. It shouldn't surprise you that what you perceive to be hysterical behaviour might differ from what I perceive as hysterical behaviour, given that we don't share a brain.
But we do share dictionaries – “hysterical” is described in them and no-one here that I know of has behaved in a way that matches the description. What “wildly uncontrolled emotion” have you seen though?
No not shifted ground. I kept my point brief, you didn't understand it, so I have elaborated to help you understand the point I was making. Happy to continue making my posts longer to try to minimise such misunderstandings. See above for the reasoning for only applying it to same-sex marriages as well as for the reasoning for allowing same-sex marriage.
Not only did I understand your point, I rebutted it. And what you did above was just to list some of the areas in which civil partnerships grant equal treatment to gay couples. There’s nothing there though that even tries to justify the denial of other equal treatments to gay couples.
Firstly, given you argued on this forum that law-abiding theists provide intellectual cover for/ enable religious extremists it's unlikely that you and I are going to agree on this issue.
Actually I argued (and still argue) that privileging faith over just guessing in the public square legitimises the same defence for those who use their faith beliefs for nefarious ends, but ok…
Secondly, that would be an interesting question to ask Parliament and the law enforcement agencies - how many gay men being beaten up because of societal homophobia is ok?
No it wouldn’t. The answer is none, zero, zilch obviously. Don’t you think so? Why not?
There are lots of measures that could be taken to monitor the movements of people who express homophobic views to try to prevent actual criminal violence, but society chooses not to allow or fund the surveillance, so society seems to have some tolerance for gay men being beaten up. It could be because society arbitrarily chooses where to place the cursor to balance the interests of different parties. I note too that the discussion of certain unpalatable ideas are often tolerated and even encouraged in the hope of achieving compromise and agreement on some arbitrary values. For example doctors urging us to have discussions on whether as a society we want to prioritise funding of neo-natal care for very premature babies over for example care of the elderly or cancer treatments or fertility treatments - because there is not sufficient funding to ensure everyone who needs it has access to important medical procedures.
No, “society” – or rather this society – privileges religions in various ways, and when those religions are inherently homophobic (as many are) then their views are thereby legitimised and encouraged. That’s nothing to do with freedom of speech – they can say whatever they like – but I happen to think that doing it with the sanction of the state is a bad thing. Don’t you?
I agree - I'm all for allowing challenging discussions in the interest of free speech - whether it's on the morality of same-sex marriages or whether it's calling people homophobic, or whether it's stating perceptions that some people's reactions to the discussion seem a little hysterical.
Only the charge of homophobia is legitimate and the charge of hysteria isn’t according the meanings of those words, but ok…
For a person to tolerate something they need to perceive that there is something to be tolerated.
Yes, and when that perception is shown to be misplaced using reason employing words with commonly understood meanings but they persist in it anyway that’s called prejudice or bigotry.
I think we've established that everyone does not share one brain so individual's perceptions vary.
Not really. Either you think there’s commonality of language and reason or you don’t (in which case anything goes). Despite not “sharing one brain” we agree what we mean we either of us says “table”, we agree that the reasoning available to each of us implies that germs cause disease etc. You also (presumably) agree that there are such things as prejudice and bigotry – you can’t therefore just sweep away the versions of it you quite like on the basis we don’t share one brain, but recognise its existence in respect of matters of which you disapprove. Either homophobia and racism both exist, or neither of them do. Take your pick.
Morality serves many purposes and presumably that's how humans evolved into morally pluralistic societies. So while I agree with your argument that there isn't anything to tolerate based on my perceptions,…
Good. So are we now agreed that you no longer “tolerate” gay marriage as you said you did earlier but rather that you’re just indifferent to it?
…it's not a convincing argument for someone who perceives that the traditional meaning of marriage being eroded has an adverse effect on the arbitrary concept of marriage that developed in the last few hundred years and a knock-on effect on the values and morals in society that they perceive as important to them and that they want to preserve and pass on to their offspring in their circle of friends or communities because that serves a particular moral purpose for them that they prioritise over individuality.
Yes it is when the argument and reasoning they attempt to justify their beliefs are shown to be false. If they still assert them nonetheless, then (depending on the topic at hand) that makes them homophobic, racist, sexist, ageist, whatever-ist etc. You know this already though – imagine if I were to say that I perceive black or brown people to be Untermensch, fit only for slavery and in no circumstances should they be allowed to marry into the pure Aryan “race”. That would be my “perception” about the “traditional meaning” of racial purity etc and maybe too I’d want that perception to be “passed on” to my offspring in my “circle of friends or communities” etc. And lets’s say too that you’d dismantled every attempt I’d made to justify these views using your superior command or reason and argument.
At what stage would you say would you be entitled to call my views racist, and at what point too would you think your eventual “well fuck you then” to be anything but “hysterical”?
For those people, they certainly perceive same-sex marriage as something they need to tolerate.
And if I was a disgusting racist the fact of black and brown people would be something I’d perceive I’d need to tolerate too. That wouldn’t mean that I wasn’t a racist though would it?
