Gay marriage? Let's have a referendum

[-Heinz-]

My opinion is one thing, but I have the feeling the general populace, members of the clerge included, have insurmountable reservations regarding accepting the holly matrimony, or maybe it should be called patrimony in the case of male same sex partners.

One solution would be to dissociate the word Marriage from Holly Matrimony or Allah or Zarathoustra and accept that you can be married without having taken a sacred oath before the Gods of men. Howzabout that?

[Huguenot]

There isn't any current requirement for weddings to be religious, so the solution you seek is already in place.

[-Heinz-]

Well, that's settled then.

[Ridgley]

If same sex couples wish to marry in church mosque synagogue that is entirely their choice and should be free to do so, as long as the Pastor Inman Rabbi are not forced to conduct the ceremony if they have strong religious convictions as some of them do. There should be some sort of compromise.

[silverfox]

Interesting article in The Guardian yesterday.

Why shouldn't three people get married?

As three Brazilians are legally joined as a 'thruple' it starts to look illiberal to insist that marriage must be between two people...

...If three, or four, or 17 people want to marry each other simultaneously and equally, why should they not be granted the same status as two people who want to become a legal family?

Good question. Once you start messing with the concept of marriage where will it lead?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/30/three-people-get-married-thruple

[El Pibe]

well quite, why not?

[silverfox]

It would certainly keep the lawyers in work. Imagine the complications over divorce, inheritance etc

Where parental consent would be required, Would all 17 people in the marriage be required to consent, including the non biological parents?

Great fun

[DJKillaQueen]

Hear we go again....giving any kind of equal treatment to gay couples will lead to the destruction of all common sense?....change the record silverfox.......there is NO excuse either religious or otherwise for protecting the prejudice of some religious leaders and those that follow their warped ideology...end of.

[silverfox]

The Guardian article was interesting in this sense:

Marriage can currently be described as the union of a man and a woman under the law

We can change this definition to the union of two people under the law, which allows for hetro and gay unions

At what stage will it be seen to be illiberal not to further change this definition to two or more people, thus allowing multiple-union which could include hetro, gay and bi within the same group union?

[Loz]

No. Next question?

[silverfox]

No what? Are you discriminating against the idea of Thruples, Quadruples etc?

[Loz]

I think you'll find it has the all-encompassing term of 'polygamy'.

[silverfox]

The term polygamy is too ill-defined for our purposes here as there is no marriage bond between the wives of the husband (Polygyny) or between the husbands of a wife (Polyandry).

What we are talking about here is where the group are all joined to each other equally in a matrimonial bond.

[Huguenot]

What you're trying to do is move the argument from one you will lose against homosexual marriage, to one you think you have a better chance of winning.

As with alternative voting, you believe you stand a greater chance of winning if you can create confusion amongst the public - make them think that allowing homosexual marriage is also allowing more arcane marriage arrangements.

It is not, and to attempt to deliberately bamboozle the public is sly and underhand.

I look forward to debating other marriage arrangements when they are an issue. At the moment they are not.

[DJKillaQueen]

Well said H.

We've seen this before, whereby those who feel threatened by homosexuality seek to demonise it further by, for example, talking about rapists and peadophiles in the same sentence, as though homosexuality has anything to do with either of those things. It's simply a tactic designed to deliberatly create fear in people by linking the idea of equality with something universally accepted as immoral, criminal, bad etc.

So H is spot on SF with regards to your previous point. It is simply an illustration of your own thinking, that homosexuality is immoral and therefore akin to other things you consider to be immoral, like polygamy. I find your view quite insulting personally.

[silverfox]

Tut tut, you do like jumping to conclusions don't you.

I'm simply making the point that once you meddle with established concepts and institutions unforeseen consequences follow.

I'm sure the well-intentioned drafters of The European Convention on Human Rights didn't foresee the amount of scoundrels trying to avoid deportation after their crimes claiming protection under Article 8 that provides a right to respect for one's "private and family life"

[DJKillaQueen]

Well then why meddle with anything? Why did we even bother on the road to equal rights in the first place? By your agrument, South Africa should have retained an aparthied, or the USA segregation......changing anything has consequences.

There is absolutely no argument for suggesting the church or any institution should value homosexual couples differently. You know that as well as I do. Your continuos notion that somehow extending an equality by the church to gay couples will lead to negative consequences that will destroy anything but the prejudice of the church is ludicrous. It's a view purley based on homophobic prejudice (and an idea that homosexuality is immoral) and has no place in any institution in this country. Now if you have a valid argument for retaining that prejudice then let's hear it, but so far you have offerend none.

[Huguenot]

That's a ridiculous argument silverfox, on those grounds why end slavery, why give women the vote, why close the workhouses.

1/10 will need to try much harder.

Thus gay marriage 'open the floodgates' argument of yours is vacuous and holds no basis in reality.

[uncleglen]

If people are religious and gay and feel the need to be joined in holy matrimony in the presence of their maker then it is against their human rights to deny them that. A Jehovah's Witness told me that there was a transsexual in their congregation. I asked whether this person could be baptised and he said no because the transsexual was neither one sex nor the other- even after the operation there will be discrimination. Whatever happened to humanity?

[DJKillaQueen]

Here's some things for Silverfox to chew over.....

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28)

So the bible says gender is irrelevant then?

But then we have this.....

"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly." (Leviticus 25:44-46)

And slavery is ok........

See, the institution Silverfox is trying to protect from the 'abomination' of gay marriage stands on some pretty dodgy ground in what it chooses to believe from it's own Bible. But then we already know that. Christians with any kind of common sense, including clergy, already do ignore those writings which are clearly nonsense (and of their time). No Christian would condone slavery. And indeed, many Chrisitans also see the anti gay stance of the Church (also of it's time) as nonsense too.

[silverfox]

The criticism above is justified. I have obviously been a bit too general and over simplistic in referring to concepts and institutions. I apologise for any confusion.

It is of course necessary that we question institutions and concepts, especially ephemeral ideas and institutions that arise from time to time, such as Apartheid, or segregation. I am not trying to justify or defend such injustices or practices.

I also accept that Gay Marriage will become law in this country and that there is a sizeable degree of support for this in this country.

'Marriage' however, in its current form, is not some ephemeral, fleeting concept. Nor is it a universal concept. It has however stood the test of time for thousands of years across all cultures and societies. I cannot see how it will not lead to further changes and qualifications (the floodgates argument) once its meaning is redefined.

In centuries to come it may be not uncommon for humans to 'marry' intelligent, sentient, robots. Unfortunately I won't be around to give my tuppence worth.

[DJKillaQueen]

But your argument is still the same, that changing any definition of 'marriage' within a religious institution will open the floodgates to other changes. There is no evidence whatsoever to support that. The prpoposed change is simply an effort to recognise that gender should not be the sole requisite when recognising committed relationships between two people.

And incidently, as for marriage standing the test of time, have you looked at the divorce rate lately? Or have you researched the misery many women endured trapped by unhappy marriages because at those times there were no other options for women? Marriage evolved as a way to treat women as property and remained so until within the last century. In some cultures it still is a tool for gender inequality and subjegation of women. So no, I don't think there can be any romantic view held regarding the meaning or history of marriage.

[Huguenot]

All good points DJKQ, but I do take umbrage with you unwittingly letting silverfox get away with the idea that marriage is a religious institution.

It's not. It predates it, and will outlast it.

Marriage is a social contract that makes public a mutual commitment to co-dependency and a pooling of economic resources.

There is no reason that gay people should be excluded from such arrangements based on their sexual preference.

The vigorous homophobia that characterises the church's current attitude is fairly recent. Organised religion has an issue with gay marriage because it weakens the 'moral' and emotional flagellation that allows it to control the lives and efforts of vast numbers of people to its own nefarious ends.

It's clear that some people, like battered wives, will continue to defend the outrageous offences of religion out of some misguided sense of loyalty - or failing that, use it as a pivot for their own identity.

The more closely that people create a sense of identity from religion, the more preposterous will be their defence.

[silverfox]

But isn't this whole debate about the right of Gay couples to tie the knot in a religious ceremony?

"...Marriage is a social contract that makes public a mutual commitment to co-dependency and a pooling of economic resources.

There is no reason that gay people should be excluded from such arrangements based on their sexual preference..."

Gay people are not excluded from such arrangements, hence Civil Ceremonies

[El Pibe]

"But isn't this whole debate about the right of Gay couples to tie the knot in a religious ceremony? "

I don't think so, isn't it about whether that partnership is defined under the law as a marriage rather than as a civil partnership.

Heterosexuals can get married at a registry office, homosexuals can declare that they're under a civil partnership with similar rights to marriage.

Admittedly the substance isn't so very different, but the nuances are important to those who certainly feel married but are told they aren't really.

the guardian did a quick precis, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/17/gay-marriage-civil-partnerships