Why Get Hung Up On A Word?

[isanbirder]

Gay people against gay marriage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22758434

Arguments against gay marriage, used by some gay people

• Rights are more important than a name
• It's a heteronormative institution that has historically marginalised homosexuality
• Marriage is "between man and woman" and that's the best environment for children
• It's a patriarchal, flawed institution
• In countries that have civil partnerships, some gay people say that's enough

Edited June 11, 2013 by isanbirder

[sustento]

Rights and names are equally important. What you call something affects people's opinions of it.

If it has historically marginalised homosexuality then it's about time it changed its ways and became a bit more inclusive.

Marriage is between whoever the state says it's between. It's a civil contract not some eternal institution that can never be changed.

By definition it's not true to say it's 'between man and woman' as it's already legal in a number of countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage#Modern

If marriage is such a flawed institution perhaps it ought to be abolished altogether rather than denied to a specific minority.

If some gay people want to carry on sitting at the back of the bus that's up to them. I suspect that most gay people would like to be treated as equals with their straight counterparts.

[sustento]

"Why Get Hung Up On A Word?"

Indeed. If it's only a word why do some heterosexuals get so het up about it? It's only a word after all!

[isanbirder]

I don't think you need worry, Sustento. People in general are lazy about language, and are going to call every kind of partnership, civil union, civil partnership, or gay marriage by the same name, MARRIAGE. This will take a little time, but not very long.

What is really important is to ensure that we get the rights that go with the word.

[LeCharivari]

I don't think you need worry, Sustento. People in general are lazy about language, and are going to call every kind of partnership, civil union, civil partnership, or gay marriage by the same name, MARRIAGE. This will take a little time, but not very long.

What is really important is to ensure that we get the rights that go with the word.

Gay people against gay marriage

http://www.bbc.co.uk...gazine-22758434

Arguments against gay marriage, used by some gay people

• Rights are more important than a name
• It's a heteronormative institution that has historically marginalised homosexuality
• Marriage is "between man and woman" and that's the best environment for children
• It's a patriarchal, flawed institution
• In countries that have civil partnerships, some gay people say that's enough

All arguments that I support 100%, and the vast majority of farang gays I know support at least 3 out of the 5, but that doesn’t mean that I am “against” gay marriage – just that I don’t see it as nearly as important as some of the “gay lobby” and their supporters do, who seem to see it as some sort of “marker” that symbolises gays being “equal” and finally “accepted”.

Oddly enough some of these arguments are exactly those used by some of the most extreme gay activists such as the Gay Liberation Front and, rather more recently, by a prominent Australian Lesbian in a very well argued and well moderated debate on Australian television where she was a self-proclaimed “odd bed-fellow” with an equally extreme member of the Christian right.

To me it’s simply a distraction which is taking attention away from far more important and more pressing gay issues and is dividing and polarizing opinion unnecessarily. I’ve ALREADY got a Civil Partnership that IS equal to a marriage in every respect and gives me identical rights to a marriage, and which to me is ALREADY a gay marriage and the only advantage of a “Marriage” would be privacy – I’ve never hidden my sexual preference but I’ve never boasted about it either and I don’t see why I should be obliged to tell anyone every time I have to fill in a form that has boxes for both a Partnership and a Marriage. On the other hand respecting my privacy doesn’t need a “gay” marriage – it simply needs either forms that have a single box marked “Marriage/Civil Partnership” (easily legislated) or Civil Partnerships open to mixed gender partnerships (as many heterosexuals who see marriage as a “flawed institution” have requested).

I don’t see the “equal option” argument as a valid one – if a gay Civil Partnership and a straight Marriage ARE equal in every respect, why does having one for same sex couples and one for opposite sex couples make one “inferior” to the other? We’ve ALREADY got an “equal option”!

The problem with making gay marriage such a priority is that other gay rights issues which are of far more practical and direct importance to far more people, such as discrimination, are put on the back burner and if they haven’t been addressed before gay marriage its very unlikely that they will be in the foreseeable future afterwards; by then people may simply be “gayed out” and tired of any gay issue. To me this prioritizing of Gay Marriage is like concentrating on legislating that you can sit anywhere on the bus (to use a popular analogy) but ignoring that you can’t afford the fare because its quite legal to discriminate against you because you’re gay and so you haven’t got a job.

It’s starting to look a bit like going shopping with a spoilt child who insists “I don’t want a new toy and I don’t care if it’s the same, I want HIS toy”.

[LeCharivari]

Gay people against gay marriage

http://www.bbc.co.uk...gazine-22758434

in the UK, Daily Mail columnist Andrew Pierce says that for speaking out against gay marriage in the past, he has been attacked as a homophobe and Uncle Tom, despite a long history of championing gay rights.

Unfortunately character assassination and name calling has always been used in “identity groups” by the extremists, from white supremacists to black power groups, via every ethnic, religious and other grouping imaginable, to try to polarize opinion and to silence anyone who dares to question “their” version of what being black/white/Muslim/Christian/Gay etc means when rational debate fails.

If someone is accused of being an ”Uncle Tom” (in our case a “homophobe” or “anti-gay”) enough times then there are always some people who believe the name-calling, ignoring the evidence of what they have actually said or written.

Andrew Pierce’s views may be controversial, particularly siding with the Pope against Harriet Harman and her Equality Bill and openly opposing gay marriage, but his arguments are always rational and maligning him as a homophobe is not only laughably ill-informed but shows how little respect some of these self-proclaimed gay-activists have for the qualities of tolerance and acceptance they are supposed to be championing and for their fellow gays.

[LeCharivari]

.(edit) ....

By definition it's not true to say it's 'between man and woman' as it's already legal in a number of countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage#Modern

Polygamy is legal in around four times as many countries as gay marriage, but that doesn’t change anyone else's view of what “marriage” means.

Article 16 (1) of the Universal declaration of Human Rights is as clear as it can be without ruling out polygamous marriages by referring to “a man and a woman”, instead referring to “men and women” :

Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.

[LeCharivari]

(edit) ....

If some gay people want to carry on sitting at the back of the bus that's up to them. I suspect that most gay people would like to be treated as equals with their straight counterparts.

I don’t follow this fixation with where I’m sitting in the bus any more than I do why you and others see the Civil Partnership I ALREADY have as being any less than a marriage.

I can ALREADY sit anywhere on the bus - I just don't annoy anyone else by doing so.

Two questions for you (or anyone else, as long as they don’t make it personal), which I have never seen answered rationally anywhere by anyone:

Exactly WHO is going to treat me any differently or as any more “as equals” if I have a marriage instead of a Civil Partnership?

Exactly WHY do you think my Civil Partnership is not “equal” to a marriage in every way ?

[sustento]

.(edit) ....

By definition it's not true to say it's 'between man and woman' as it's already legal in a number of countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage#Modern

Polygamy is legal in around four times as many countries as gay marriage, but that doesn’t change anyone else's view of what “marriage” means.

Article 16 (1) of the Universal declaration of Human Rights is as clear as it can be without ruling out polygamous marriages by referring to “a man and a woman”, instead referring to “men and women” :

Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.

The UDHR was adopted in 1948. I suspect that those who wrote it weren't thinking about the possibility of gay marriages at the time.

[sustento]

(edit) ....

If some gay people want to carry on sitting at the back of the bus that's up to them. I suspect that most gay people would like to be treated as equals with their straight counterparts.

I don’t follow this fixation with where I’m sitting in the bus any more than I do why you and others see the Civil Partnership I ALREADY have as being any less than a marriage.

I can ALREADY sit anywhere on the bus - I just don't annoy anyone else by doing so.

Two questions for you (or anyone else, as long as they don’t make it personal), which I have never seen answered rationally anywhere by anyone:

Exactly WHO is going to treat me any differently or as any more “as equals” if I have a marriage instead of a Civil Partnership?

Exactly WHY do you think my Civil Partnership is not “equal” to a marriage in every way ?

I've never claimed that a UK civil partnership gives you any less rights that a marriage nor have I claimed that anyone will treat you differently. If your civil partnership is equivalent to a marriage then why do we need to differentiate by calling it something other than marriage?

[LeCharivari]

(edit) ....

If some gay people want to carry on sitting at the back of the bus that's up to them. I suspect that most gay people would like to be treated as equals with their straight counterparts.

I don’t follow this fixation with where I’m sitting in the bus any more than I do why you and others see the Civil Partnership I ALREADY have as being any less than a marriage.

I can ALREADY sit anywhere on the bus - I just don't annoy anyone else by doing so.

Two questions for you (or anyone else, as long as they don’t make it personal), which I have never seen answered rationally anywhere by anyone:

Exactly WHO is going to treat me any differently or as any more “as equals” if I have a marriage instead of a Civil Partnership?

Exactly WHY do you think my Civil Partnership is not “equal” to a marriage in every way ?

I've never claimed that a UK civil partnership gives you any less rights that a marriage nor have I claimed that anyone will treat you differently. If your civil partnership is equivalent to a marriage then why do we need to differentiate by calling it something other than marriage?

Why NOT call it "something other than marriage"???

The differentiation would make it far more widely acceptable NOW so, again, why NOT?

[sustento]

(edit) ....

If some gay people want to carry on sitting at the back of the bus that's up to them. I suspect that most gay people would like to be treated as equals with their straight counterparts.

I don’t follow this fixation with where I’m sitting in the bus any more than I do why you and others see the Civil Partnership I ALREADY have as being any less than a marriage.

I can ALREADY sit anywhere on the bus - I just don't annoy anyone else by doing so.

Two questions for you (or anyone else, as long as they don’t make it personal), which I have never seen answered rationally anywhere by anyone:

Exactly WHO is going to treat me any differently or as any more “as equals” if I have a marriage instead of a Civil Partnership?

Exactly WHY do you think my Civil Partnership is not “equal” to a marriage in every way ?

I've never claimed that a UK civil partnership gives you any less rights that a marriage nor have I claimed that anyone will treat you differently. If your civil partnership is equivalent to a marriage then why do we need to differentiate by calling it something other than marriage?

Why NOT call it "something other than marriage"???

The differentiation would make it far more widely acceptable NOW so, again, why NOT?

There's no reason why not just as there's no reason why. It's just an opinion and my opinion is that if it has all the constituents of marriage then it ought to be called marriage. The fact that doing so might upset a few folks is not something I'm really bothered about. Let them be upset. They've spent their lives trying to upset me. Sauce-goose-gander.

[onthemoon]

From the linked BBC article:

"I'm not saying that people who want that shouldn't have it but for me, all that matters is the legal stuff."

I agree with that. If people want the legal term "married", I won't oppose. For myself, even though I may be "civil partnered" in the near future, we will still call ourselves "married".

I don't know any gay people actually being against gay marriage. All people I know are for equal rights and don't care whether it's called marriage or civil partnership by law.

Adoption rights are another issue where opinions matter, but that discussion is off-topic in this thread.

Edited July 4, 2013 by onthemoon

[LeCharivari]

Why NOT call it "something other than marriage"???

The differentiation would make it far more widely acceptable NOW so, again, why NOT?

There's no reason why not just as there's no reason why. It's just an opinion and my opinion is that if it has all the constituents of marriage then it ought to be called marriage. The fact that doing so might upset a few folks is not something I'm really bothered about. Let them be upset. They've spent their lives trying to upset me. Sauce-goose-gander.

At last ..... an honest man!

[isanbirder]

I am actually against the word marriage for a gay partnership (for religious reasons).... but I'm realistic enough, as I said above, to understand that that's the word that's going to be used, so one might as well get used to it. It's no big deal either way.

[maanoi]

When did marriage become a religious value?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Ace of Pop]

The Gay Community are no different to most others i find .My Personal Circle of Gay Friends ,all {50 Years +} get quite heated over Gay Pride Marches,when i being just a Womanizer dont find them strange at all. They all are happy with My Partner.