Gay marriage

[Niall_Quinn]

Heard a good quote today, political correctness is tyranny with manners. So very true (except the manners vanish quickly enough should you stoop to independent thinking) . But there's one important element missing - the hypocrisy. With the politically correct crowd, if you agree with them you are acceptable, if you don't agree with them they have a label for you. You see how that works? Accept everything or else you won't be acceptable. LOL.

Of course the MPs are horse trading on this issue, that's the sad thing. There are no principles in play here, just political swapsies.

[Xhaka Can’t]

I agree with that, particularly the point about the hypocracy of labelling those who don't toe the line. That said, I agree with the legislation allowing gay marriage.

[Injury Time]

Heard a good quote today, political correctness is tyranny with manners. So very true (except the manners vanish quickly enough should you stoop to independent thinking) . But there's one important element missing - the hypocrisy. With the politically correct crowd, if you agree with them you are acceptable, if you don't agree with them they have a label for you. You see how that works? Accept everything or else you won't be acceptable. LOL.

Of course the MPs are horse trading on this issue, that's the sad thing. There are no principles in play here, just political reach arounds.

Yes, and Efa.

[Letters]

Bigots

"a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion."

Yeah, that pretty much sums up your attitude towards religious people...

This campaign is nothing to do with equal rights. It's just about semantics. But we've had this debate.

[WMUG]

"a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion."

Yeah, that pretty much sums up your attitude towards religious people...

This campaign is nothing to do with equal rights. It's just about semantics. But we've had this debate.

That's how I used to behave on here towards religious people. I freely admit I was a massive moron several years ago in that regard.

And yes, this legislation is not as significant as similar legislation would be in the States, for example, but look at it this way. Who do you want to reward? People who want their own private marriage to be called something else for their own private feelings of equality and love, or people who want to impose their own private definition of marriage on others because of their own religious beliefs that said others may not even hold?

That second argument is born of bigotry. It has nothing to do with what I think of religious people or their beliefs. If you don't think gay people should be able to call their unions 'marriage' because they're gay, and you think gay people are icky, that's a bigoted position. If you think gay people should be able to call their unions 'marriage' because their unions are the same as yours, Letters, then that's a position based on equality.

Which position is more worthy of legislation in its favour, in your opinion?

[WMUG]

Heard a good quote today, political correctness is tyranny with manners. So very true (except the manners vanish quickly enough should you stoop to independent thinking) . But there's one important element missing - the hypocrisy. With the politically correct crowd, if you agree with them you are acceptable, if you don't agree with them they have a label for you. You see how that works? Accept everything or else you won't be acceptable. LOL.

Of course the MPs are horse trading on this issue, that's the sad thing. There are no principles in play here, just political swapsies.

Do let me know when this legislation forces you to marry a man

[GP]

[Letters]

That's how I used to behave on here towards religious people. I freely admit I was a massive moron several years ago in that regard.

Fair enough. You were a kid and as Cripps so rightly pointed out:
Kids

And yes, this legislation is not as significant as similar legislation would be in the States, for example, but look at it this way. Who do you want to reward? People who want their own private marriage to be called something else for their own private feelings of equality and love, or people who want to impose their own private definition of marriage on others because of their own religious beliefs that said others may not even hold?

I'm not sure I want to 'reward' anyone.

What annoys me about this is it’s dressed up as a fight for equal rights. It isn’t. That battle has already been fought and won. Rightly so. It might be called something different but civil partnerships, far as I understand it, confer all the same rights as marriages do. This is an issue about semantics, not rights.

The definition of marriage is not a private, minority one. It's been defined like that for millenia.

If you don't think gay people should be able to call their unions 'marriage' because they're gay, and you think gay people are icky, that's a bigoted position.

I don't think gay people should be able to call their unions 'marriage' because that word has a very well defined and understood meaning. For religious people it has an extra significance. I see no reason to change that definition. I have no problem with equal rights and those equal rights already exist.

If you think gay people should be able to call their unions 'marriage' because their unions are the same as yours, Letters, then that's a position based on equality.

Do you think men and women should compete together in the Olympics in the name of equality? Men and women are NOT equal. They are of equal worth but that doesn't mean that they're the same. A civil partnership is in some ways the same as my marrige but in some ways it's different. It can't produce children naturally, for example. I'm quite happy to recognise it as of as equal worth - it already is recognised as such in law - but that doesn't mean I think it should be called the same thing. I don't see that affects anyone's rights. There's nothing wrong with recognising there are differences. I wouldn't recognise a man marrying 2 women as a marriage either. I don't care if they want to carry on like that, that's their business, but it's not what I'd understand as marriage.

[WMUG]

The definition of marriage is not a private, minority one. It's been defined like that for millenia.

I don't think gay people should be able to call their unions 'marriage' because that word has a very well defined and understood meaning. For religious people it has an extra significance. I see no reason to change that definition. I have no problem with equal rights and those equal rights already exist.

Common misconception.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQw0eLzfGNI (I'm aware that later in this video, he goes on to say that benefits are denied to gay couples that are extended to straight ones, which is true of the US but not here, but that's not the part of the video I'm making relevant to this discussion).

But why should your religious perspective on what marriage should be affect what two people in a private relationship think their union should be? Many religious people my gay cousins' devout Catholic mum included, think the word 'marriage' should be extended to her son and daughter's respective unions with their partners. Why should people with her view have their opinion count for any less than people of yours? As we said before, it doesn't really make much of a different either way.

Which brings me to the point which I was trying to articulate earlier. Fair enough, it's not a massive deal, fighting for equal benefits. But to call somebody's marriage as defined in the video above something other than marriage leads to an acceptance that those relationships are not the same as any other relationship – words are powerful things. Why should that be the case? Because it's less common? Because religious institutions to which many of those people aren't members don't approve? Because it's 'unnatural'?

To me, it's like calling the God that Muslims worship 'Allah' and the God that Christians worship 'God'. It's the same being, it's just that one is used to make Islam seem different, and therefore, ultimately, to be feared. Same goes for Civil Partnerships vs Marriage. Calling what one person has one name while calling the same thing that another person has a different name strives only to make them seem other, and weird.

Which they're not.

[Letters]

But to call somebody's marriage as defined in the video above something other than marriage leads to an acceptance that those relationships are not the same as any other relationship.

They're not the same.
One is between a man and a woman, the other is between two people of the same gender.
What's the problem with different words or terms? If they meant different rights then there's an argument, but they don't.
There are plenty of examples in language where people of different genders or ages are called different things when they're in the same role. I don't see how this is much different.