Removal of the term 'Marriage' to be replace with 'Domestic Partnership'

[Textra1]

This is a topic I have been debating with a guy over at YouTube, but the confines of the YT comments section is too prohibitive. So I've brought the debate over here. This is his video from YT.

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Okay, I'm going to jump right into a response to this video, but of course everyone else is free to jump on in too.


Response to FlowCell

I'm going to lay out what I think your argument is so you can correct any errors I make in representing it.

1.   Marriage is a religious sacrament
2.   Gay people mostly only want marriage to piss off the religious
3.   Both sides are trying to impose their will on the other
4.   If we don't get rid of marriage we get stuck with Jim Crow style laws
5.   Therefore, we should abolish the term 'Marriage' from law and replace it with 'Domestic Partnership' for all people.


1.
As I have said before marriage is everyone's term, not just the religious. It DOES NOT belong to them alone. Proof of this is the fact that non-theist couples get married all the time. I think that you contend that marriage comes originally from religion and is their sacrament, and you know that I don't agree with that, but neither of those positions really matters. What matters is that fact that marriage is currently a cultural practice irrespective of whether you are religious or not.

The solution is to simply acknowledge that marriage is a cultural thing that both theists and non-theists practice and we should allow everyone to participate in it, gay or straight. That fact the non-religious couples get married all the time is enough to show that marriage is not longer a religious sacrament only.

2.
Your contention that many gay people only want legal marriage to get back at religious people is asinine. How is a gay person taking the matter to court to be recognised as equals under the current marriage law perpetuating divisiveness? They're perpetuating divisiveness by wanting equal rights? How does marriage for all perpetuate divisiveness? It only does so IF you assume that the religious have a right to claim marriage solely as their own.

When people have a dispute they sometimes use the court system to resolve the dispute. It is naturally an adversarial process. Fighting to have everyone recognized under the law as equal is not divisive. They want marriage because they want the same rights everyone currently has, not because of some juvenile attempt to annoy the religious.

3.
You're trying to equivocate here. You're trying to set up the religious and the gays as two equal and opposite sides, both trying to impose their will on the other and that we need a third solution.  The truth is gays are not trying to impose their will on anyone, they are simply asking for the same rights that everyone else currently has.

"We should not divide ourselves up into little factions; rival factions where we try to impose our will, our culture and our values on other people."

I agree. The religious are trying to impose their values on society by claiming that homosexuality is wrong and they shouldn't be allowed to marry. Gays however are not trying to impose their will on society. They just want the same rights as everyone else. They want what theistic and non-theistic couples alike have.


4.
We can have marriage without being stuck with Jim Crow style laws. Simply allow everyone the right to marry. Problem solved. Yes, the religious will not like this, but honestly that's just tough luck. Religion has been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era on several occasions over the last few hundred years. Slavery, civil rights, science; in all of these areas religion has fought to keep the status quo and have everyone to adhere to their views. It is religion that is preventing society from having true equality in this issue, not the gays.

5.
I see no reason to conclude that the term marriage needs to be abolished from law. We simply need to do what we have always done. That is, we need to progress and recognise that groups we had not previously seen as legitimate but do now, should have the same rights as everyone else. If marriage is a religious sacrament, why can non-theists marry? If non-theists can marry why can't homosexuals? Why do we need to go to all the effort of writing a new act called 'Domestic Partnerships' when all we need to do is change a small part of the existing one? Just so we don't annoy religious people? That's absurd. Why kowtow to them? Clearly, as I have argued, marriage does not belong solely to them. It belongs to us all. If tomorrow the religious said, 'Funerals belong to us. We are offended that non-religious people use our sacrament.' Would be then go on to remove the term funeral from law so as not to piss them off, and then replace it with 'civil burial'?



Final questions

Do you think that religious people would agree and want to have the term marriage taken out of law?  Also do you think non-religious heterosexual couples would want to have the term marriage taken out of law?

[Textra1]

These guys on YouTube sure talk a big game, but when asked to back themselves up they decline. Funny that. Maybe FlowCell realised that his 'solution' would actually change nothing and the religious bigots would still oppose anything that makes their unions equal to gay unions.

Seems like this boards dead at the moment. I'll check back from time to time to see if it's livened up at all. Bye all. *waves*

[Tom S. Fox]

*waves back*

[Travis Retriever]

Ironically FlowCell IS registered here as Ex_Nihil0.

[Gumba Masta]

Greetings, fellow necromancer.

[Travis Retriever]

1.  Very good post Textra1.
2.  From what I've heard from Shane, 'marriage' isn't a religious sacrament, it's a wedding that has that status, technically (to add to your posts).

[VectorM]

You have a strange fetish, dude.

[Gumba Masta]

Hey... it's not rape when they're dead.

[VectorM]

What if you are raping the undead?

[Gumba Masta]

Hmm, now that depends on the type...Vampires, Liches, Zombie and Skeleton Kings are definatly sentient while the lower caste usualy dont have enough of a mind to be called much more than kill and eating machines. Of course it's usualy not advised to attempt to rape either form, unless you yourself are a more powerful undead.

[Travis Retriever]

You have a strange fetish, dude.

Oh, you're one to talk, Mr. Replies to the dead threads too.

[VectorM]

Oh, you're one to talk, Mr. Replies to the dead threads too.

Actually, I replied to your post, rather than the thread. At least that still had a spark left.

[Gumba Masta]

Speaking of sparks

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/

[Travis Retriever]

Actually, I replied to your post, rather than the thread.

Same thing!

[VectorM]

Same thing!

Your post was from the same day, not from 2 years ago