Prop 8 - Fuelled by Tradition and Religion?

[Incog Neato]

Hopefully, this thread won't stir up rage. We've been doing fine so far on sensitive issues so let's keep that up!

I actually don't know very much about this Proposition 8 other than it is now law in California that same-sex couples cannot marry.

I don't really understand the absolute need for marriage to be between a man and a woman. To me, this mentality exists because it's something we're used to and, for the most part, brought up to believe. And if you're a devout Christian or any of the other major organized religions, you'd probably think that homosexual people marrying is a damn icky thing.

But the reality is that gays and lesbians and other sexual orientation exists. These people are real and are probably all around you. They're humans too and there's nothing wrong with them. If your freakin' religion asks you to treat others the way you want to be treated, to love others as your brothers and sisters, and all that goodwill shit, then why are you treating them differently?

I don't believe they should denied the same experience of walking down the aisle or exchange of vows that heterosexual couples have.

[psybuster]

The problem generally does stem from religion, yes. Christian priests/revends/whatever else (and the normal followers) generally don't want to marry gays/lesbians/etc because to them marriage is literally only between a man and a woman.

While I would've liked to see Prop 8 fail (and I live in CA too >_>), the way I see it right now is that both sides are blowing this way out of proportion because their problems really stem over this word "marriage" than anything else. Christians don't want to allow it for the reasons above, gays do because they want equal rights, obviously.

You can argue that it'd be fine to just give gays civil unions (or domestic partnerships, as it's currently called in CA), but there's still two problems with that. A domestic partnership does not necessarily give all the same rights/benefits as marriage currently does, and secondly, you don't require a member of a church to marry you - a judge of the state of California has the power to do so as well.

Some people believe that power should be removed from the state entirely, and if that were the case, why wasn't Prop 8 written to remove that power instead? As such the state would only hand out civil unions which should be equal to everyone at that point, while "marriage" would then simply be an extra ceremony by the churches that doesn't provide anything official, but just for their own sakes/enjoyment.

I don't know if I really want to say that people who voted yes are bigots, but it's pretty close as it stands IMO ;/ This seems to me like another case of "separate but equal," and we all know how that turned out last time.

[Skeletore has a boner]

If the zealots want to re-define marriage then I say let them. In the process this re-definition violates the 14th amendment, and is unconstitutional and clearly violates a separation of church and state. As such the state should recognize no marriages and stop issuing marriage licenses.

I think this is the only logical end-game for this debate. It's funny that in an effort to "save marriage from the gayz" they're really just going to kill it off entirely as a state recognized institution.

Which I'm all for, as I've long been of the opinion that all marriage is wrong, whoever it's between.

[Incog Neato]

Well, I suppose marriage is dated nowadays since it seems like a rather accepted practice that everyone can sleep with whoever they want as long as they do it responsibly. 9_9 I guess no one wants to be bound to one individual for the rest of their lives or something?

But hirm, there seems to be quite a bit of rights and benefits to being married though. :O Certainly, people won't be able to take advantage of this stuff if they were only in a commonlaw marriage.

[Ascended Mermaid]

I used to believe in a world of "marry who you want, and that will be the only one for the rest of your life".

Apparently, this is compromised by the dickweeds that seem to think its okay to fuck around all they want, regardless of whether or not they're in a marriage.

Just thinking about it makes me want to break something... *looks for a nearby individual's neck*...

// I've been effed around on a total of... 4, maybe 5 times; by different women who clearly cannot grasp or understand what a commitment is. I have a *LOT* of forgiving to do, and I'm not about to do it overnight! Forgiveness probably comes best from bullets or skin melting toilet cleaner; apply directly to the genitals! *nods*

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

I have no doubt that when history looks back upon our era, in 30-50 years, we're going to be seen as being at least as backwards and prejudiced as our forebearers were when they allowed segregation and Jim Crowe laws.

Marriage is a problem. It is a religious rite, and I can acknowledge, reluctantly, that religions can choose not to include people. The trouble is that marriage is also a status within government as well, and as Psybuster very wisely pointed out, it is a different status from a civil union. The binding between marriage and government are very old, tracing back millenia, and untangling them would be like pulling teeth.

The other problem with this is, as I kinda alluded before, akin to the problem of segregation. No matter what solution one arrives at, there is very much a separate but equal aspect to it. That is, until full marriage is allowed for gays, what they are going to get is going to intrinsically not be equal to marriage. It may well have all the rights of marriage, but it will not be the same, because people are not going to view it as being the same. It is just like the iconic image of the whites only and colored only water fountains. They use the same municipal water, but the existence of such things creates the idea that the two are intrinsically different on some level, and when there are two different things, it is human nature to focus on why they are different, and try to place them upon a mental hierarchy.

It's a difficult problem to unravel, and I can only hope that the younger generations are, on the whole, more tolerant about it than the preceding ones and that trend continues on.

[Incog Neato]

Nov 9, 2008 15:09:15 GMT -5 Falcom Director of Fanservice said:

Marriage is a problem. It is a religious rite, and I can acknowledge, reluctantly, that religions can choose not to include people. The trouble is that marriage is also a status within government as well, and as Psybuster very wisely pointed out, it is a different status from a civil union. The binding between marriage and government are very old, tracing back millenia, and untangling them would be like pulling teeth.

Well, maybe it's time for surgery! Dumbass government! Separate yourself from religion!

It kind of annoys me that we still observe so much goddamn Christian stuff (especially them holidays) when the meaning of those things mean nothing to a good chunk of people living in North America. It even annoys me to hear/read the phrase, "God bless America."

[Cyhirae]

Marriage has been a loaded subject in more places than just the US for awhile now. The US is largely running into the problem, however, of realizing that 'marriage' also means different things to different people.

The mass American concept of marriage is modeled after the Christian idea, obviously; but people sometimes forget there are Federal Marriages (see what most non-religious types do if they wanna get hitched) and also Commonlaw Marriages still exist in some parts of the country.

At this point, so far as the government's supposedly concerned, marriage is pretty well just a notation to make on the tax record to say if people are entitled to certain benefits. Some are trying to use that to block gay marriage as they cite that such things are intended to aid in the raising of the family.

All I have to say is this: I know plenty of hetero couples who do not have and never intend to have children who enjoy the same non-child related tax breaks a pair intending to have kids do. How is a gay marriage any different? And 'can't raise a family'? Only if you deny them adoption rights.

America's "separation of church and state" has been something of a sad joke since its founding; it's just starting to become obvious how true that hasn't been these days since there's so many conflicts rising up in regards to religious observances and references the government shouldn't be making under that. They need to just bite the bullet and finally make it a reality- that includes supporting non-religious inspired marriage. Marriage is meant to be between two people who love and want to support one another for the rest of their lives- why should gender matter in that if religious beliefs are not involved?

[Red Hairdo]

Marry or stay with whoever you want. That's all. There's no secret to it. xD

Religion won't allow? Make your own religion or seek one that does. (That if one isn't okay with staying with the person one wants.)


There was some Ys thread that went offtopic as far as to get at this subject a long time ago. I remember Deuce and Nightwolve posted in it a lot. NightWolve even pointed out that gays and lesbians and the like aren't the only ones who have to deal with such social problems, but also people who i.e. were from the same family (a brother-sister relationship and so on).
I agree with him on that, by the way. Actually there's nothing wrong about it. Let people do what they want.
Like Deuce had pointed out, one can't say it's unnatural either, since all of these occurances I have stated in this post happen among every (or almost every) animal. Uncommon may be, but not unnatural.

[Skeletore has a boner]

Nov 9, 2008 14:37:00 GMT -5 Incog Neato said:

Well, I suppose marriage is dated nowadays since it seems like a rather accepted practice that everyone can sleep with whoever they want as long as they do it responsibly. 9_9 I guess no one wants to be bound to one individual for the rest of their lives or something?

But hirm, there seems to be quite a bit of rights and benefits to being married though. :O Certainly, people won't be able to take advantage of this stuff if they were only in a commonlaw marriage.

Being monogimous and being married have nothing to do with each other.

Marriage is a *fiscal* contract and nothing else, it deals solely with material possessions and money.

You don't need to be married to "bind yourself" in the relationship sense, only in a monetary fashion.

[macroidtoe]

My attitude is fairly neutral and indifferent (as it is on pretty much everything). I see marriage not necessarily as religious, but rather as cultural (which admittedly was often indistinguishable from religion when you go back far enough, but that's a whole different subject).

In fact, this is the shocking statement I sometimes make, but I genuinely believe it's true: the purpose of marriage is discrimination. Discrimination between the forms of relationship which meet a culture's values and ideals, and those which do not. It makes the former "legit" and puts in place social mechanisms (formal or informal) to encourage them, while ignoring or discouraging the latter.

The issue then to me is not "Separation of Church and State" (which I also have some odd views on, due to my very broad definition of what I consider "religion") but rather "Separation of Culture and State," which gets a little awkward because I do think that promotion of cultural values and ideals is a legitimate function of government.

So my attitude is basically "A society should offer legal benefits to whichever form of marriage meets its cultural paradigm." That might include same-sex marriage, it might not. It might include polygamy, it might not. It depends on the society and its culture, and there are about a bazillion variations out there in marriage customs in different countries and throughout history.

What <i>doesn't </i> make sense to me is to expect a society to encourage a form of marriage which is not in line with its ideals. It's like a fat bald guy clambering onto the stage at a Miss America pageant and demanding that he too be given a crown. It's possible that he might meet the beauty standards in some other far off land, and it's possible that the standards of the Miss America pageant may one day change to accept him, but well, he's not in that far off land and that day has not yet come. "When in Rome," as they say.

But then that runs into a common problem in the modern world: we're not dealing with a culturally homogenous society, and increasingly we're not even dealing with a society which at least has an obvious and clearly defined "dominant" culture. There is no "Rome" anymore, or alternatively, the entire globe has turned into a single massive "Rome" that we're all stuck in together.

And so maybe there does become a need for a "Separation of Culture and State," although my main discomfort there is that the government becomes something cold and mechanical rather than something "of the people" and imbued with their values and beliefs.

My response then is that these sorts of cultural issues should be decided at the state level, but even at the state level you really run into the same problem you do at the national level: there's just too much cultural variation even within a single state. You could keep knocking it down to the county level, to the city level, but then it just starts to get silly and you run into the new problem of your society drifting apart when various subsections become so culturally different from each other that they see no reason to maintain an association (although that very may well be an inevitable process).

I guess I'm just saying that it's a bigger issue than people sometimes make it out to be, bigger than just the "religion and state" issue it seems like on the surface. It really ties into the much broader issue of a globalized world and how the heck you figure out how to hold a multicultural society together and balance all the demands of all the various groups.

My solution is that I just totally mellow out and don't make any demands.

[FM-77AV]

Legalize gay marriage

Illegalize religion

Problem solved

[Justin]

I support Gay marriage, and any other choice a person makes about who they are. I always find it funny that in the "land of the free" the Christian bumpkins always whine and bitch when someone doesn't abide by their book.

Religion has NO BUSINESS being associated with political/governing law. There would be far less war, prejudice, racism, and hate if people kept their spirituality and faith to themselves.

[Kimimi]

As a happily married woman can I just speak up a bit in defense of it please?

I did not marry for convenience, for tax breaks, tradition or religion; I married because I wanted to make one of the biggest promises of my life in front of everyone I give a damn about to the most important man in my life.

Being married or wanting to get married is not necessarily a symptom of a religious upbringing or a fear of breaking tradition.

[Justin]

Nov 9, 2008 18:06:39 GMT -5 Kimimi said:

As a happily married woman can I just speak up a bit in defense of it please?

I did not marry for convenience, for tax breaks, tradition or religion; I married because I wanted to make one of the biggest promises of my life in front of everyone I give a damn about to the most important man in my life.

Being married or wanting to get married is not necessarily a symptom of a religious upbringing or a fear of breaking tradition.

I completely agree with you, and those are my exact reasons for wanting to get married. In fact I just finished paying off the engagement ring, so these thoughts have been running through my head.

The problem is there is a huge amount of people that don't agree with us, and that's where the issue lies. Its too bad, but I am extremely happy to see your post Kimimi.

[Skeletore has a boner]

Nov 9, 2008 18:06:39 GMT -5 Kimimi said:

As a happily married woman can I just speak up a bit in defense of it please?

I did not marry for convenience, for tax breaks, tradition or religion; I married because I wanted to make one of the biggest promises of my life in front of everyone I give a damn about to the most important man in my life.

Being married or wanting to get married is not necessarily a symptom of a religious upbringing or a fear of breaking tradition.

If you didn't get married for any of those reasons, then why did you feel the need for the state to recognize your union as opposed to simply making that promise with your significant other on a personal level?

(the answer is of course either fiscal reasoning or tradition).

[Incog Neato]

Nov 9, 2008 16:36:07 GMT -5 Skeletore has a boner said:

Being monogimous and being married have nothing to do with each other.

Marriage is a *fiscal* contract and nothing else, it deals solely with material possessions and money.

You don't need to be married to "bind yourself" in the relationship sense, only in a monetary fashion.

That's a rather shallow and pessimistic way of looking at marriage. I've never seen it described like that. Guess my boyfriend wants to marry me cuz of money and material reasons too, huh?

I always thought that marriage was as kimimi put it. And I'm pretty sure that this is what most of the homosexual population is looking for too.

Nov 9, 2008 16:40:05 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

There also exist such things as "open marriages," though they're rather uncommon. So yeah, monogamy and marriage don't necessarily go hand-in-hand.

But I'm talking about the dictionary definition~! Ufufufu~! One man and one woman!! Or two people! Not one man and thousands of women and farm animals or one woman and thousands of cars.

XD!

[Skeletore has a boner]

Nov 9, 2008 18:56:02 GMT -5 Incog Neato said:

Nov 9, 2008 16:36:07 GMT -5 Skeletore has a boner said:

Being monogimous and being married have nothing to do with each other.

Marriage is a *fiscal* contract and nothing else, it deals solely with material possessions and money.

You don't need to be married to "bind yourself" in the relationship sense, only in a monetary fashion.

That's a rather shallow and pessimistic way of looking at marriage. I've never seen it described like that. Guess my boyfriend wants to marry me cuz of money and material reasons too, huh?

I always thought that marriage was as kimimi put it. And I'm pretty sure that this is what most of the homosexual population is looking for too.

No, that's a real view of the actual practice of marriage.

From a legal view-point, marriage as defined in the USA(and let's be honest, most cultures through-out history) is solely a fiscal contract.

As a contract, marriage doesn't cover or guarantee "love" "commitment" or any other emotional states. None of them are a prequisite for marriage(regardless of whether you feel they should be). Marriage covers benefits based on entity(considering you and spouse a single unit), matters of taxation, and the appointment of future assets.

It has nothing to do with "marrying someone for money" as you implied. But the logical counter-point is you don't need to be married to experience a long commited relationship.

So why get married if you don't want nor care about the fiscal benefits of it? There's no downside if you don't.

[Incog Neato]

Found an interesting read about the reasons for marriage:

www.teleologic.com/archives/2006/10/the_reasons_for.html

Oh wait. The whole point of that blog post is to harp on why gay marriages shouldn't happen. However, I was looking at the points in the post in general in relation to "marriage". ^^;

[macroidtoe]

Nov 9, 2008 18:09:17 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

What <i>doesn't </i> make sense to me is to expect a society to encourage a form of marriage which is not in line with its ideals.

That makes sense to me, inasmuch as I think allowing said form of marriage might help make it a more "mainstream" occurrence, which might ultimately help integrate it into the society's accepted norms. Essentially, it's a matter of looking to the future, and realizing that homosexuality is GOING to be accepted, and homosexual marriage is GOING to happen. Society is headed in a more open, accepting direction, and it's pretty much inevitable that these things will come to pass... so legalizing homosexual marriage would simply be a means of hurrying along a change that's pretty much destined to happen sooner or later anyway.

I guess my view is "it'll get legalized when it's accepted" rather than "let's make it more accepted by legalizing it." Because it has to be accepted before you can legalize it to make it more accepted. I think.