California gay marriage ban gaining steam

[Covenant]

Can we also kill this myth for good? Many if not all cultures have a history of homosexuality and bisexuality, and many of them have them woven right into the relics of mythology and tradition. The "passive sodomite" of Africa was clearly a gay man, and repulsed the Christian missionaries by wearing women's clothing and acting like a woman. Indian Hijra are understood as a third gender entirely, and most (but not all) are men dressing and behaving as women. Some Native American cultures had something similar, with the "Two Spirit" tradition, a complex cultural artifact of the idea of gay or effeminite men. They were often considered quite special individuals, posessing great wisdom and authority as being able to see with "two spirits" as man and woman. China and it's Emperors have a famous history of homosexuality as already noted--go look up "the passion of the cut sleeve" for more information if you wish, but it was certainly not taboo enough to cause concern.

As for Japan... I'd go on record saying they have everything but an outright glorification of gay relationships up and running at the moment, and it's not hard to see. Melanesia had a tradition that involved gay sex for everyone. That hurts my head, but whatever. It's certainly not much different than the Greek traditions. As for the Middle East... it's somewhat hidden by Islam's influence. However, we know that in a more modern context the Islamic nations of med were havens for gay men seeking excursions, as the lack of available women made gay liasons common and easy. The rise of the more radical Islamic groups has made that difficult, but again, what does the rise of a brutal religion say about tradition, morality, or decency? Nothing.

Nearly every culture had a concept and a societal role for homosexuality, usually one at least equal to that of women and occasionally even higher than your average male. The real traditions of these cultures have been greatly abused by contact with gun-toting angry Christians so long that you can really only find evidence of this in their art, ancient texts, and occasionally the disgusted journals of the missionaries that contact them. Not that Renaissance Italy wasn't above erecting a few leaning towers of their own. Hell, even Pope Julius III kept a boy, much to the frustration of others.

It may be true that few modern religions recognize marriage between men and men as equal to men and women, I'd say this is a tragic meme spread by the gunbarrel diplomacy of one homophobic culture and it's desert dogma. It's a blatant, unsubstantiated myth that heterosexuality has always been the cultural or religious norm. Maybe it's time we took one little step forwards and get ourselves to the same level of tolerance we had during the bronze age.

[Terralthra]

For not the first time, I am not saying that it does need a monk or a priest or any particular religious trappings to be recognized or valid in any particular culture. I am saying that the majority of people attach religious connotation to weddings, based on the source linked above. Please stop strawmanning me.

My mother and father were wed in a purely civic ceremony, presided over by a Justice of the Peace. I see no religious connotation in such a secular occurence.[/quote]

[Edi]

Terralthra, go fuck yourself. It has been made fucking clear in the thread already that marriage is a contractual issue and religious aspects are secondary. The state is secular, contract law (including the specific subset known as marriage law) is secular, so why the fuck should that be changed just so that everyone is forced to bend over backward for religious assholes?

You don't have a fucking point even within the Judeo-Christian context, nevermind when we bring in other cultures.

[Terralthra]

Terralthra, go fuck yourself. It has been made fucking clear in the thread already that marriage is a contractual issue and religious aspects are secondary. The state is secular, contract law (including the specific subset known as marriage law) is secular, so why the fuck should that be changed just so that everyone is forced to bend over backward for religious assholes?

You don't have a fucking point even within the Judeo-Christian context, nevermind when we bring in other cultures.

Do you actually have a rebuttal to the whole "majority of people think marriage has a religious dimension to it" thing? Fuck, you even say in your post that there are religious aspects to marriage, you just say they're secondary to contractual ones, which in no way invalidates my point.

As to why it should be changed, I've already stated this as clearly as I can without using monosyllables and a whiteboard: so that instead of regulating secuularly an act which has religious aspects to the majority of people in this nation and the planet as a whole, the state can regulate a purely secular act and remove any leg religious protesters have to stand on.

[Plekhanov]

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what the government is doing handing out marriage licenses anyway. No matter which way you slice it, Kodiak is right about one thing: the word 'marriage' is fraught with religious connotations. I'd be in favor of getting the state government out of the marriage business completely. Any two people can get a civil union, and that's the only such license the government hands out. If two people want to get married, that's between them and their church.

Marriage is 'fraught' with all manner of connotations, social, legal, historical, emotional... and religious on what grounds do you claim that religious types should have a monopoly on a term and institution which so many people in society value and which has by no means an exclusively religious history?

Ghetto edit: Perhaps more importantly, my point was not to exclude anyone at all, nor to say that anyone's marital status should not be recognized by the state. Quite the opposite, I explicitly said I proposed to excise religion from the state's terminology and licensing. Any two people who want a civil union license should be given one, regardless of any particular religion's strictures.

I'm a bit surprised that you opted to take this fairly explicit inclusion of everyone as me wanting to exclude people.

You're excluding everyone who isn't religious from an institution millions of non-religious people value you dumb fuck.

If you had your way my wife and I wouldn't be married nor would a clear majority of married couples in my country.

[Lusankya]

Can you please specify the difference between a religion and superstition?

Religion usually involves organisation and dogma. Superstitions are more things like lucky coins and feng shui and so on - these things aren't institutionalised at any real level. With the exception of Confucianism (which is more along the lines of a social theory like Marxism than a religion anyway), religion in China tends run more along the lines of a superstition. . As far as I can tell, religious beliefs over here tend to be "I follow whichever religion has the next public holiday".

I'll cede on the temple (since I'm obviously wrong), but you still reinforce my overall point by pointing out that monks would bless the marriage. A requirement to be official is not the same as a connotation of religion.

Tell me, if it were common in China for monks to bless a house after you bought it, would you then consider buying a house to have a "connotation of religion"? Or since in Christian countries, the naming of a baby was often performed at a baptism, maybe naming children has a connotation of religion! Even in non-Christian countries, priests or monks often came to bless a birth. Clearly childbirth has religious connotations as well.

... i.e. Having a priest or monk bless a particular act does not give that act religious connotations. All it means is that the people who pay the priests want it to go well.

I don't recall ever saying anything to the contrary. Perhaps you are fundamentally misunderstanding my point? I am not saying anything about gay marriage or cultural acceptance of homosexuality or lack thereof; I am simply saying that marriage has a religious connotation to it in most cultures, and I think that it might simplify matters if the government stopped handing out marriage licenses at all, simply giving out the same civil union license to every pair of people who requests it, and lets it go at that.

Aside from the fact that marriage does NOT have a religious connotation in most cultures, wouldn't you say that since pretty much EVERYONE would then turn around and call this civil union "marriage", the government should just call it marriage?

[Plekhanov]

Do you actually have a rebuttal to the whole "majority of people think marriage has a religious dimension to it" thing?

We don't have to rebut it because not only have you not provided any evidence to back up your claim but also because appeal to popularity is a fallacy.

Fuck, you even say in your post that there are religious aspects to marriage, you just say they're secondary to contractual ones, which in no way invalidates my point.

Yes it does, you're arguing that marriage should be exclusively religious, pointing out that marriage is not and never has been exclusively religious completely destroys your whole argument.

As to why it should be changed, I've already stated this as clearly as I can without using monosyllables and a whiteboard: so that instead of regulating secuularly an act which has religious aspects to the majority of people in this nation and the planet as a whole, the state can regulate a purely secular act and remove any leg religious protesters have to stand on.

Only by conceding to them the total dominion over an institution which has never been exclusively religious and which huge numbers of non-religious people have every bit as much of a right to partake in a theists.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Terralthra, go fuck yourself. It has been made fucking clear in the thread already that marriage is a contractual issue and religious aspects are secondary. The state is secular, contract law (including the specific subset known as marriage law) is secular, so why the fuck should that be changed just so that everyone is forced to bend over backward for religious assholes?

You don't have a fucking point even within the Judeo-Christian context, nevermind when we bring in other cultures.

Do you actually have a rebuttal to the whole "majority of people think marriage has a religious dimension to it" thing? Fuck, you even say in your post that there are religious aspects to marriage, you just say they're secondary to contractual ones, which in no way invalidates my point.

As to why it should be changed, I've already stated this as clearly as I can without using monosyllables and a whiteboard: so that instead of regulating secuularly an act which has religious aspects to the majority of people in this nation and the planet as a whole, the state can regulate a purely secular act and remove any leg religious protesters have to stand on.

You'd have a point if marriage hadn't been the original term for civil union before there were civil unions. Marriage is now, and has been for a long time part of the state. After all it's the only way they could provide benefits to married couples. It's just the whole separation of church and state thing...no big deal.

Basically, I'm saying it can't be changed. The time to do that is long gone. They reap what they sow, and you know what? They fucking deserve it.

[Terralthra]

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what the government is doing handing out marriage licenses anyway. No matter which way you slice it, Kodiak is right about one thing: the word 'marriage' is fraught with religious connotations. I'd be in favor of getting the state government out of the marriage business completely. Any two people can get a civil union, and that's the only such license the government hands out. If two people want to get married, that's between them and their church.

Marriage is 'fraught' with all manner of connotations, social, legal, historical, emotional... and religious on what grounds do you claim that religious types should have a monopoly on a term and institution which so many people in society value and which has by no means an exclusively religious history?

Perhaps I should rephrase, since I appear to be misunderstood. I don't mean to say that only a church/temple/whatever should have a monopoly on the term marriage, I simply mean that one of several terms with religious connotations, the state shouldn't be using it. If you and your partner want to be married and live as husband and wife, go for it; all the state has to say about it is that you have a civil union, like any other pair of people so contracted.

Ghetto edit: Perhaps more importantly, my point was not to exclude anyone at all, nor to say that anyone's marital status should not be recognized by the state. Quite the opposite, I explicitly said I proposed to excise religion from the state's terminology and licensing. Any two people who want a civil union license should be given one, regardless of any particular religion's strictures.

I'm a bit surprised that you opted to take this fairly explicit inclusion of everyone as me wanting to exclude people.

You're excluding everyone who isn't religious from an institution millions of non-religious people value you dumb fuck.

If you had your way my wife and I wouldn't be married nor would a clear majority of married couples in my country.

No, if I had my way, you'd be married if you wanted to call yourself married. Do you define everything about your life by what the state-issued license says at the top?

We don't have to rebut it because not only have you not provided any evidence to back up your claim but also because appeal to popularity is a fallacy.

1) Yes, I did. Scroll up.
2) Whether or not any particular thing has a connotation to it is implicitly a matter of whether or not people think it does, since that's what a connotation is.

Tell me, if it were common in China for monks to bless a house after you bought it, would you then consider buying a house to have a "connotation of religion"? Or since in Christian countries, the naming of a baby was often performed at a baptism, maybe naming children has a connotation of religion! Even in non-Christian countries, priests or monks often came to bless a birth. Clearly childbirth has religious connotations as well.

Er, since baptism is the induction of the child into the church, yeah, I'd say that particular act has religious connotations.

Aside from the fact that marriage does NOT have a religious connotation in most cultures, wouldn't you say that since pretty much EVERYONE would then turn around and call this civil union "marriage", the government should just call it marriage?

I have provided a logical basis for my claim that marriage has a religious connotation for the majority of people. Please rebut that logic or evidence before claiming the opposite as a 'fact.'

As for the latter, you do have a point. More on this in response to the next poster.

You'd have a point if marriage hadn't been the original term for civil union before there were civil unions. Marriage is now, and has been for a long time part of the state. After all it's the only way they could provide benefits to married couples. It's just the whole separation of church and state thing...no big deal.

Basically, I'm saying it can't be changed. The time to do that is long gone. They reap what they sow, and you know what? They fucking deserve it.

I do understand the force of inertia here, and I'm not exactly going out and fighting for this idea or trying to get it on the ballet. It was an idle idea, based on the idea that since having separate institutions (civil union v. marriage) obviously violates the fourteenth amendment, and calling it marriage is going to have a bunch of assholes do their best to drag the state/country back into the stone age of bigotry, maybe one way around the whole mess is for the government to just use the term civil union exclusively.

If you disagree with that on the basis of inertia and the cost of change, then I completely agree that it's a waste of time and energy to make such a change; then again, I also think it's a massive waste of time and energy to have Proposition 8 on the ballot at all. We're in for a dime, we might as well be in for a dollar if it will bypass this shit repeating for the next few decades.

[ray245]

I don't recall ever saying anything to the contrary. Perhaps you are fundamentally misunderstanding my point? I am not saying anything about gay marriage or cultural acceptance of homosexuality or lack thereof; I am simply saying that marriage has a religious connotation to it in most cultures, and I think that it might simplify matters if the government stopped handing out marriage licenses at all, simply giving out the same civil union license to every pair of people who requests it, and lets it go at that.

Aside from the fact that marriage does NOT have a religious connotation in most cultures, wouldn't you say that since pretty much EVERYONE would then turn around and call this civil union "marriage", the government should just call it marriage?

Hey, I did NOT said that!

[Lusankya]

Tell me, if it were common in China for monks to bless a house after you bought it, would you then consider buying a house to have a "connotation of religion"? Or since in Christian countries, the naming of a baby was often performed at a baptism, maybe naming children has a connotation of religion! Even in non-Christian countries, priests or monks often came to bless a birth. Clearly childbirth has religious connotations as well.

Er, since baptism is the induction of the child into the church, yeah, I'd say that particular act has religious connotations.

Are you going to address my points about a) purchasing property, b) NAMING a child (which was traditionally done during the baptism) or c) giving birth? Or shall I take your failure to address any of my points as your concession that the presence of religious leaders at an occasion means that an act has "religious connotations", and should thus not be addressed by the government?

I have provided a logical basis for my claim that marriage has a religious connotation for the majority of people. Please rebut that logic or evidence before claiming the opposite as a 'fact.'

... I would call all of the cultures outside of Judeo-Christian cultures and maybe Hindu "most cultures". Please provide your definition of "most".

Also, in Australia at least, most weddings are NOT performed at a church:

According to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2006 less than one third of the 25,000 marriages in Queensland were performed by a religious minister.

I'll admit that they're not US statistics, but it suggests that there is a growing number of people who do not have a religious connotation. How do you like them apples?

I do understand the force of inertia here, and I'm not exactly going out and fighting for this idea or trying to get it on the ballet. It was an idle idea, based on the idea that since having separate institutions (civil union v. marriage) obviously violates the fourteenth amendment, and calling it marriage is going to have a bunch of assholes do their best to drag the state/country back into the stone age of bigotry, maybe one way around the whole mess is for the government to just use the term civil union exclusively.

You seem to think that the best way to deal with bigotry is to humour the bigots. Explain how this works.

Hey, I did NOT said that!

Sorry. I messed up the quote tags. My bad.

[Terralthra]

Tell me, if it were common in China for monks to bless a house after you bought it, would you then consider buying a house to have a "connotation of religion"? Or since in Christian countries, the naming of a baby was often performed at a baptism, maybe naming children has a connotation of religion! Even in non-Christian countries, priests or monks often came to bless a birth. Clearly childbirth has religious connotations as well.

Er, since baptism is the induction of the child into the church, yeah, I'd say that particular act has religious connotations.

Are you going to address my points about a) purchasing property, b) NAMING a child (which was traditionally done during the baptism) or c) giving birth? Or shall I take your failure to address any of my points as your concession that the presence of religious leaders at an occasion means that an act has "religious connotations", and should thus not be addressed by the government?

Well, naming a child, when done at a baptism, is called christening, so yes, in that particular culture, it has religious connotations. If nearly every other major religion also had naming the child as part of the ceremony inducting that child into their church, I'd say the act has religious connotations to the majority of people as well. I'm not familiar enough with naming rituals, if any, to actually say whether the conditional is true in that case. Similarly, if it was traditional in nearly every major religion for a priest of some stripe to bless a new house, yes, I'd say that act has religious connotations to the majority of people as well. Likewise, I would say that if the majority of people belonged to religions that blessed a child at birth, then they probably believe that birth has a spiritual significance, but that's hardly really a surprise, is it? You would really be shocked if most people think bringing a new life with what they presumably think is a new soul into the world has a religious dimension?

The majority of people on this planet are religious. That they assign religious meanings to momentous occasions shouldn't really be surprising, and all a connotation is, at its heart, is the meaning that most people assign to something implicitly.

I have provided a logical basis for my claim that marriage has a religious connotation for the majority of people. Please rebut that logic or evidence before claiming the opposite as a 'fact.'

... I would call all of the cultures outside of Judeo-Christian cultures and maybe Hindu "most cultures". Please provide your definition of "most".

As provided on a post in page six, the majority of the Earth's population professes a religion which attaches spiritual or religious weight to marriage. Judeo-Christian/Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Shinto, etc.

Also, in Australia at least, most weddings are NOT performed at a church:

According to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2006 less than one third of the 25,000 marriages in Queensland were performed by a religious minister.

I'll admit that they're not US statistics, but it suggests that there is a growing number of people who do not have a religious connotation. How do you like them apples?

So, your response to a survey of the entire world's population's religious beliefs is 25,000 marriages in Queensland? Really?

I do understand the force of inertia here, and I'm not exactly going out and fighting for this idea or trying to get it on the ballet. It was an idle idea, based on the idea that since having separate institutions (civil union v. marriage) obviously violates the fourteenth amendment, and calling it marriage is going to have a bunch of assholes do their best to drag the state/country back into the stone age of bigotry, maybe one way around the whole mess is for the government to just use the term civil union exclusively.

You seem to think that the best way to deal with bigotry is to humour the bigots. Explain how this works.

No, I see the current "civil unions for homosexuals, marriages for everyone else" as humoring the bigots. This is more along the lines of parents taking a toy away from kids who refuse to stop fighting over it and saying "See, now no one gets it. This is why you can't have nice things."

[Terralthra]

Ghetto edit: That's a really shitty analogy. Fuck. Ignore that please.

Anyway, I don't see this idea as humoring bigots, just removing their prerequisite for their protest in the first place.

[Plekhanov]

Marriage is 'fraught' with all manner of connotations, social, legal, historical, emotional... and religious on what grounds do you claim that religious types should have a monopoly on a term and institution which so many people in society value and which has by no means an exclusively religious history?

Perhaps I should rephrase, since I appear to be misunderstood. I don't mean to say that only a church/temple/whatever should have a monopoly on the term marriage, I simply mean that one of several terms with religious connotations, the state shouldn't be using it. If you and your partner want to be married and live as husband and wife, go for it; all the state has to say about it is that you have a civil union, like any other pair of people so contracted.

Liar you’ve been arguing exactly that since the top of page 6. “If two people want to get married, that's between them and their church.” You are clearly arguing that marriage should be an exclusively a religious institution.

You're excluding everyone who isn't religious from an institution millions of non-religious people value you dumb fuck.

If you had your way my wife and I wouldn't be married nor would a clear majority of married couples in my country.

No, if I had my way, you'd be married if you wanted to call yourself married. Do you define everything about your life by what the state-issued license says at the top?

My wife and I got married by a registrar in front of our friends and family, if you had your way there would have been no mention of marriage in our ceremony, we wouldn’t have said ‘marriage vows’, we wouldn’t have exchange ‘wedding rings’ we wouldn’t have got married but ‘civil partnershipped’ do you really not understand why that just wouldn’t have been acceptable to my wife and I & our family and friends?

Your whole argument if founded upon the importance of ‘connotations, as such it’s rather odd that you fail to understand that ‘marriage’ has lots of positive connotations sadly lacking from ‘civil partnership’ and how your attempt to arbitrarily exclude people from marriage will piss them off.

We don't have to rebut it because not only have you not provided any evidence to back up your claim but also because appeal to popularity is a fallacy.

1) Yes, I did. Scroll up.

You did no such thing linking to a page estimating the religious makeup of the world’s population in no way demonstrates that a majority of people think marriage is religious.

2) Whether or not any particular thing has a connotation to it is implicitly a matter of whether or not people think it does, since that's what a connotation is.

But it’s not an argument as to why millions of people should be arbitrarily excluded from marriage. Just because lots of people might think marriage has some religious connotations that doesn’t mean they think it is exclusively religious.

A clear majority of marriages in my country are secular, a very large proportion in the US are (more that 40% in 2001 according to this link) as such your claims that marriage is religious just don’t stand up to scrutiny even by your own idiotic criteria.

Also I note you’ve conventionally ignored the rest of my post in which I eviscerated your ‘reasoning’ for excluding non-religious people form marriage and given total ownership of the term to theists, perhaps you’ll rectify this ‘oversight’ in your next post?

[Plekhanov]

Ghetto edit: That's a really shitty analogy. Fuck. Ignore that please.

Anyway, I don't see this idea as humoring bigots, just removing their prerequisite for their protest in the first place.

What you propose goes well beyond 'humoring bigots' you're abjectly surrendering to them and giving them more than they even dare ask for by ceding total control over a much valued institution to them.

[Terralthra]

Liar you’ve been arguing exactly that since the top of page 6. “If two people want to get married, that's between them and their church.” You are clearly arguing that marriage should be an exclusively a religious institution.

I have already attempted to restate my opinion once. If you require it to be more explicit, I can say it again: When I said "between you and your church," I should have said "between you and your partner, and if you want to involve your temple/church/synagogue/whatever, that's up to you and your partner as well." I will concede that my initial phrasing does make it seem as if only religious people can call themselves married, which was not my intent.

My wife and I got married by a registrar in front of our friends and family, if you had your way there would have been no mention of marriage in our ceremony, we wouldn’t have said ‘marriage vows’, we wouldn’t have exchange ‘wedding rings’ we wouldn’t have got married but ‘civil partnershipped’ do you really not understand why that just wouldn’t have been acceptable to my wife and I & our family and friends?

Once again, no. If I had my way, the MARRIAGE LICENSE would have said CIVIL UNION LICENSE. That's it. That's the only change. Everything else you've said is just making shit up and claiming I said it.

Your whole argument if founded upon the importance of ‘connotations, as such it’s rather odd that you fail to understand that ‘marriage’ has lots of positive connotations sadly lacking from ‘civil partnership’ and how your attempt to arbitrarily exclude people from marriage will piss them off.

See above.

We don't have to rebut it because not only have you not provided any evidence to back up your claim but also because appeal to popularity is a fallacy.

1) Yes, I did. Scroll up.

You did no such thing linking to a page estimating the religious makeup of the world’s population in no way demonstrates that a majority of people think marriage is religious.

a) the vast majority of religions have ceremonies for marriage
b) the majority of the world's population, according to that survey, espouses one of the religions which have ceremonies for marriage
c) absent extraordinary evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that the members of those religions believe in the doctrines of their professed religion
ergo
d) most people assign religious meaning to marriage.

Which part of this is false?

2) Whether or not any particular thing has a connotation to it is implicitly a matter of whether or not people think it does, since that's what a connotation is.

But it’s not an argument as to why millions of people should be arbitrarily excluded from marriage. Just because lots of people might think marriage has some religious connotations that doesn’t mean they think it is exclusively religious.

A clear majority of marriages in my country are secular, a very large proportion in the US are (more that 40% in 2001 according to this link) as such your claims that marriage is religious just don’t stand up to scrutiny even by your own idiotic criteria.

See above. I did not intend to exclude anyone from marriage. Anyone who wants to call themselves married or call their ceremony a marriage is welcome to do so. The only change here is what the state calls the piece of paper and associated civil contract.

Also I note you’ve conventionally ignored the rest of my post in which I eviscerated your ‘reasoning’ for excluding non-religious people form marriage and given total ownership of the term to theists, perhaps you’ll rectify this ‘oversight’ in your next post?

Your misunderstanding of my idea is not an 'evisceration' of anything, save perhaps the two minutes I would have to spend to explain, again, that what I intended was not to make marriage the sole domain of religion, as I do at the top of this post, and as I refer to twice more after such.

[Plekhanov]

The majority of people on this planet are religious. That they assign religious meanings to momentous occasions shouldn't really be surprising, and all a connotation is, at its heart, is the meaning that most people assign to something implicitly.

So fucking what? Just because lots of people or even most people assign some religious connotations to marriage that they regard it as exclusively religious which is what you are perversely arguing it should be.

I have provided a logical basis for my claim that marriage has a religious connotation for the majority of people. Please rebut that logic or evidence before claiming the opposite as a 'fact.'

So fucking what? Lots of things have religious connotations, religions obviously make it their business to inveigle themselves into as many aspects of people’s lives as possible, that doesn’t magically mean that those religions should have exclusive ownership and control over everything that a substantial number of people regard as having some religious connotations.

As provided on a post in page six, the majority of the Earth's population professes a religion which attaches spiritual or religious weight to marriage. Judeo-Christian/Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Shinto, etc.

And this means that they regard marriage as exclusively religious does it? Why is it then that my highly religious father was absolutely delighted to not only attend but help pay for my civil wedding?

No, I see the current "civil unions for homosexuals, marriages for everyone else" as humoring the bigots. This is more along the lines of parents taking a toy away from kids who refuse to stop fighting over it and saying "See, now no one gets it. This is why you can't have nice things."

Are you really so fucking stupid that you don’t see how going beyond theistic bigot’s demands that homosexuals be excluded from marriage to excluding all non-religious people from it would go far beyond ‘humouring them’ and would be handing them a huge victory they never even dared ask for?

[Terralthra]

<snip>

I'm done explaining how I misphrased my original intent, and restating it to cover your reasonable objections to the original phrasing. If you can't be bothered to read the post above yours where I explain it, again, then I can only assume you're more interested in burning a straw man than actually engaging, in which case, have fun with that, but take it outside. The smoke is getting in my eyes.

[Plekhanov]

Liar you’ve been arguing exactly that since the top of page 6. “If two people want to get married, that's between them and their church.” You are clearly arguing that marriage should be an exclusively a religious institution.

I have already attempted to restate my opinion once. If you require it to be more explicit, I can say it again: When I said "between you and your church," I should have said "between you and your partner, and if you want to involve your temple/church/synagogue/whatever, that's up to you and your partner as well." I will concede that my initial phrasing does make it seem as if only religious people can call themselves married, which was not my intent.

Your initial phrasing and most of your subsequent posts, that you now feel the need to backtrack doesn’t change that.

My wife and I got married by a registrar in front of our friends and family, if you had your way there would have been no mention of marriage in our ceremony, we wouldn’t have said ‘marriage vows’, we wouldn’t have exchange ‘wedding rings’ we wouldn’t have got married but ‘civil partnershipped’ do you really not understand why that just wouldn’t have been acceptable to my wife and I & our family and friends?

Once again, no. If I had my way, the MARRIAGE LICENSE would have said CIVIL UNION LICENSE. That's it. That's the only change. Everything else you've said is just making shit up and claiming I said it.

No it isn’t you said that the state should have no part of marriage, we were married by a state registrar as such if you had your way there could have been no mention of marriage in our ceremony. Under your idiotic proposal people who can married by a priest however could have used the terminology of married as much as they liked.

You did no such thing linking to a page estimating the religious makeup of the world’s population in no way demonstrates that a majority of people think marriage is religious.

a) the vast majority of religions have ceremonies for marriage
b) the majority of the world's population, according to that survey, espouses one of the religions which have ceremonies for marriage
c) absent extraordinary evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that the members of those religions believe in the doctrines of their professed religion
ergo
d) most people assign religious meaning to marriage.

Which part of this is false?

Thw part where you jump from that to declaring that because marriage has some religious connotations it should be exclusively religious and that the state should have no part in it even though most marriages in my country and over a 3rd in the US are civil and not religious.

See above. I did not intend to exclude anyone from marriage. Anyone who wants to call themselves married or call their ceremony a marriage is welcome to do so. The only change here is what the state calls the piece of paper and associated civil contract.

This simply isn’t true you want to exclude all those who have civil ceremonies, which you somehow seem not to have noticed are performed by the state, from marriage.

[Darth Wong]

Strange how my relatives come from Taiwan and reported that there was no such requirement.

An explicit religious requirement is not necessary for a concept to have religious connotations.

But it is required to support your bullshit claim that marriage is exclusively tied to religion. If all you need is "connotations", then what doesn't have religious connotations? Birth, death, passage into adulthood, and even holidays and agricultural harvests all have religious "connotations" in history, you fucking moron. What you need in order to support your bullshit argument is proof that marriage was exclusively religious in nature, not just "connotations".

Well, two responses here. 1) Bullshit. By the end of the middle ages, the Christian marriage ceremony accompanied even peasant weddings

I was unaware that human history began at the end of the middle ages, twat.

The lack of officiating by religious officials, if there actually was such a lack, still doesn't demonstrate a lack of religious connotation to the concept of marriage.

There you go again with your "connotation" low-bar requirement. By this logic, government should get out of the business of issuing birth and death certificates too, since birth and death also have religious "connotation". Fucktard.

I'll cede on the temple (since I'm obviously wrong), but you still reinforce my overall point by pointing out that monks would bless the marriage.

Listen, you goddamned idiot: you just made up your claim that marriages in every culture are always performed in a temple or church. You didn't look it up, you just guessed and assumed it must be true, then you stated it as a fact in an argument. Do you have any idea what a flagrant violation of our rules that is? Hell, I'd be within the rules of this forum to temp-ban you for that kind of shit. And then, even when conceding that point, you fell back to "well, anything that a monk might bless is religious", which is fucking horseshit since monks could bless all manner of things.

A requirement to be official is not the same as a connotation of religion.

Precisely. Unfortunately, you don't realize that this works AGAINST your bullshit argument, which falls apart unless there is a religious REQUIREMENT.

[Lusankya]

Well, naming a child, when done at a baptism, is called christening, so yes, in that particular culture, it has religious connotations. If nearly every other major religion also had naming the child as part of the ceremony inducting that child into their church, I'd say the act has religious connotations to the majority of people as well. I'm not familiar enough with naming rituals, if any, to actually say whether the conditional is true in that case. Similarly, if it was traditional in nearly every major religion for a priest of some stripe to bless a new house, yes, I'd say that act has religious connotations to the majority of people as well. Likewise, I would say that if the majority of people belonged to religions that blessed a child at birth, then they probably believe that birth has a spiritual significance, but that's hardly really a surprise, is it? You would really be shocked if most people think bringing a new life with what they presumably think is a new soul into the world has a religious dimension?

.... so all of these things may carry religious implications, but only marriage needs to have it's name changed? Why? So Homophobic pricks can be happy?

The majority of people on this planet are religious. That they assign religious meanings to momentous occasions shouldn't really be surprising, and all a connotation is, at its heart, is the meaning that most people assign to something implicitly.

So why make an exception for marriage?

As provided on a post in page six, the majority of the Earth's population professes a religion which attaches spiritual or religious weight to marriage. Judeo-Christian/Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Shinto, etc.

How come civil marriage ceremonies outnumber religious marriage ceremonies even in countries where Christians outnumber atheists? Could it be that there is not a perfect correlation between "those who are religious" and "those who think that marriage is purely religious"? To illustrate my point, here's a Venn diagram for you:

So, your response to a survey of the entire world's population's religious beliefs is 25,000 marriages in Queensland? Really?

No. Britain as well. (Also, Queensland is Australia's most religious state - if it's true in Queensland, then it's true elsewhere in Australia.) The Independent loads slowly over here, so I couldn't open the page until after I posted. I can't be arsed looking for statistics in Europe. Or China. But most Chinese people don't have much by way of religion, so I doubt they'd consider marriage to be religious in nature.

No, I see the current "civil unions for homosexuals, marriages for everyone else" as humoring the bigots. This is more along the lines of parents taking a toy away from kids who refuse to stop fighting over it and saying "See, now no one gets it. This is why you can't have nice things."

Marriage is not a "toy".

[The Yosemite Bear]

besides we can simply point out that the Defense of Marriage act, is illegal because the supreme court ruled long ago that "Treaties are the Law of the Land" since we have recognition of marriages taking place in other countries, including EU countries. Since Gay marriages are legal under EU law, and we recognize EU nations in trade and treaty the cat's been out of the bag for a long, long time.

[Terralthra]

An explicit religious requirement is not necessary for a concept to have religious connotations.

But it is required to support your bullshit claim that marriage is exclusively tied to religion. If all you need is "connotations", then what doesn't have religious connotations? Birth, death, passage into adulthood, and even holidays and agricultural harvests all have religious "connotations" in history, you fucking moron. What you need in order to support your bullshit argument is proof that marriage was exclusively religious in nature, not just "connotations".

Quite frankly, I disagree. To harken back to a much earlier discussion, if two thirds of the people in a particular culture thought wearing a hoodie carried a connotation of being a gangster, and the other third did not, it would still be inappropriate to wear one to work, and the government having a 'Wear a hoodie to work day' would not change that. I'm not saying the state shouldn't regulate and license marriage/civil unions, only that it if the primary facet the state has an interest in is the contractual side, then using a term that refers specifically to the contractual side wouldn't be a terrible idea.

Well, two responses here. 1) Bullshit. By the end of the middle ages, the Christian marriage ceremony accompanied even peasant weddings

I was unaware that human history began at the end of the middle ages, twat.

The lack of officiating by religious officials, if there actually was such a lack, still doesn't demonstrate a lack of religious connotation to the concept of marriage.

There you go again with your "connotation" low-bar requirement. By this logic, government should get out of the business of issuing birth and death certificates too, since birth and death also have religious "connotation". Fucktard.

No, they shouldn't get out of it entirely, but they should certainly, by my logic, avoid using religious terminology like 'christening' regarding naming a new infant.

I'll cede on the temple (since I'm obviously wrong), but you still reinforce my overall point by pointing out that monks would bless the marriage.

Listen, you goddamned idiot: you just made up your claim that marriages in every culture are always performed in a temple or church. You didn't look it up, you just guessed and assumed it must be true, then you stated it as a fact in an argument. Do you have any idea what a flagrant violation of our rules that is? Hell, I'd be within the rules of this forum to temp-ban you for that kind of shit. And then, even when conceding that point, you fell back to "well, anything that a monk might bless is religious", which is fucking horseshit since monks could bless all manner of things.

I was misinformed and when corrected, I conceded the point immediately. My apologies for generalizing about a culture I did not have evidence about. If you feel that warrants a tempban, that is your prerogative and there's nothing I can really do to convince you otherwise.

And then, even when conceding that point, you fell back to "well, anything that a monk might bless is religious", which is fucking horseshit since monks could bless all manner of things.

They certainly could, and if monks/priests/whatever typically blessed a certain act, and a majority of people did such acts in a religious setting (which every link shown here, even the ones arguing against me, has shown to be true of marriage in the United States), then yes, I'd say that act has a religious connotation.

A requirement to be official is not the same as a connotation of religion.

Precisely. Unfortunately, you don't realize that this works AGAINST your bullshit argument, which falls apart unless there is a religious REQUIREMENT.

Again, I respectfully disagree with this. To me, this is analogous than the government mandating the use of gender neutral terminology on forms. Only a few people have to care about it for it to be a valid concern.

.... so all of these things may carry religious implications, but only marriage needs to have it's name changed? Why? So Homophobic pricks can be happy?

Respectfully, the state doesn't call naming christening (despite that some people would claim the terms are synonymous). The other statements of religious connotation are wrapped up in conditionals regarding majority opinions, which I do not have evidence about.

So why make an exception for marriage?

Yes, that's my question. The state does not use terminology which a significant portion of the population feels has religious connotation for other things, why should it with marriage?

How come civil marriage ceremonies outnumber religious marriage ceremonies even in countries where Christians outnumber atheists? Could it be that there is not a perfect correlation between "those who are religious" and "those who think that marriage is purely religious"?

Again, I am not saying that marriage is purely religious, only that to a lot of people, it has religious aspects.

[General Zod]

Fun fact: Historically, until the Council of Trent in 1545, marriage could be performed by anyone and required no Priest to officiate the ceremony. But the Catholic church didn't like the thought of people marrying without parental consent and wanted that little hole plugged up. So the concept of marriage being religious in nature is a relatively "modern" idea, in large part thanks to this.

[SirNitram]

I'm just wondering how the homophobe will react when someone brings up the fact that, under English Common Law(Applicable in several parts of the US and other countries), common law marriage is basically a 'Oh, yea, they're probably married, I mean, devoted, lived together, aren't married to others.' check and then a nod. Not even bloody paperwork is required for a Common Law Marriage.

Explain how 'Living together and acting like married partners' carries any religious connotations. It is accepted as legal marriage in several countries, eleven US states, and the D.C.