NJ justices poised to rule on Gay marriage

[TheBigDog]

and how that gives meaning to the laws written using that word. You can rant about religious conspiracy until pigs fly, and I am sure that you will, but I fail to see how anything you listed has anything to do with the arguments I have made.

I love your ad hominems. As I stated, what makes you think my post was targetted specifically at you? There is nothing in my earlier post that would indicate it other than using a VERY SMALL SNIP of your comment to luanch from. No other reference or personal attacks. I guess I'll continue to leave that up to you.

Freethinker,

 

First, nothing that I said was intended or should be construed as an attack upon you. Take this personally: grow thinker skin.

 

Second, your post was exactly as I described it; a rant against religion that did not properly address any content or context of this thread.

 

You can pick at my post to your hearts content, and I hope that it brings you some sense of relief. But it does not change the fact that you gave no indication of reading any of the previous posts, or that you were responding to any of the previous posts. Your second post was not much of an improvement, aside from indicating that you had read superficially one post. Your displayed written mastery of the languagge still does not indicate comprehension of anything written in this thread. I would challenge you to set your pre-conceived emotionally charged rhetoric aside and enjoy the fine conversation that this thread is supplying.

 

Bill

[Freethinker]

Freethinker,

 

Bill

Ah yes, that is why I enjoy coming here, an entire post about nothing but me! Thanks for going so far off topic and ignoring the points I made ABOUT the topic and just talking about ME!

 

I RULE!

 

And your obviously a fan!

[Edella]

If you thought the ruling was divided along partisan lines (I assumed it was)you may be wrong: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/nyregion/26justices.html

 

From the nytimes article:"Three justices appointed by a Republican governor would recognize the full status of marriage for same-sex couples. And of the three justices appointed by a Democrat — a gay Democrat, at that — none would go that far, and they joined in the majority opinion.

 

To obscure any partisan alliances even more, each contingent included Republican and Democratic justices."

[C1ay]

Actually my biggest question is why do so many people still hate others?

And what is the motivation?

[TheFaithfulStone]

Let's play tit for tat!

I find a lot of what you said wrong for a few simple reasons.

 

Your post contains errors of fact, and at least one misunderstanding.

 

1) The point is "colored" used to the polite term, and now it isn't. The meaning of the word has changed.

 

2) Untrue.

3) Gender is not tied to biological sex. What about a man who lives as a woman? Is he a woman or a man? That is why I brought up the bedarche (or "two-spirit" is the term I guess now.) Gender is more complicated than whether you've got a tab or a slot.

 

 

4) ancient Greek influence

Interesting that you should bring that up, since marriage between couples of the opposite sex did not imply sexual exclusivity, or even that the male wasn't hitting it with young men on the side.

 

5) Marriage is socially defined, and always has been, but that doesn't mean the definition is always the same. The Catholic Church didn't take an official position until the 12th Century.

 

6) Illegal and "not-done" are two different things. It's only in the last 200 years or so that marriage in the west has become primarily about sexual exclusivity and romance, and only in the last 50-100 that we regard it as a partnership and not a property arrangement.

 

7) Etymology and linguistics are not equivalent.

 

If we all decided to stop calling each other humans and started calling each other something else, it could happen. In fact, it DID happen, relatively recently - as the word "mankind" has fallen out of usage in favor of "humanity"

 

For a quick introduction about it, try the wiki article on marriage.

 

TFS

[Cedars]

The Declaration of Independance is not US Law, and so the words do not need to be held to the close scrutiny of law.

 

The politics of the time that counted slaves as 3/5ths of a person needs to be taken into account. It was used to prevent the slave states from being too powerful in the House and Senate, giving the free states an edge in the eventual elimination of slavery. Was this the ideal solution? No. But it was the solution that was used, and the framers should not be condemned for doing it as it was key in freeing the slaves. Point the condemnation at the states who chose to allow slavery, and temper it with the understanding that it ended 144 years ago.

 

Bill

I should have been clearer on my point.

 

The point was words written, common definitions, and other things related to rights and individual application of these rights are all subject to change with time. Slavery and womens sufferage are two examples of things that were accepted under the common laws and practices of the time, yet when changed with time, they still needed their own ammendments to ensure that the rights of these people were protected. One only needs to look at the 14th Amendment and the specific references to males to argue that there was never an intent for women to be allowed to vote. Was that good enough for males? No, they needed the 15th Ammendment to clarify that race wasnt a reason to deny some people, some rights. We can look back now and say, obviously slavery was bad, or obviously women should have the right to vote, but at the time these were issues, it was culture, religion, race, sexism, tradition, etc., that impeaded their implementation and gave justification to the side which felt that change was not appropriate.

 

There is no doubt gay couples are denied equal protection under the law at this time in most states. While your dictionary defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, it appears there are variables within the interpretation of that between dictionarys and historic meanings, and even cultures and traditions, as has been pointed out by several posters to this thread. And as the Declaration of Independence is not US Law, I would point out that Websters dictionary is not the final word on the laws meaning either. However, words in the Declaration are often used to justify a point being made, such as the term 'creator' means the Christian God when some groups are trying to make a point. Others can look to the fact there is not one womans signature on the Declaration, or that all MEN are created equal, etc, to try to justify one or anothers point of view. My use was not to justify the denial of a right when I used that in my example. My use was to point out the interpretation of the meaning meant are often changed with time.

 

I do have a question for you though. How exactly would equality for gay couples in the legal definition of marriage affect you personally? I mean how exactly would it change your marriage and the rights you (and your spouse) have now?

 

reference link: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

[Freddy]

I should have been clearer on my point.

 

The point was words written, common definitions, and other things related to rights and individual application of these rights are all subject to change with time. Slavery and womens sufferage are two examples of things that were accepted under the common laws and practices of the time, yet when changed with time, they still needed their own ammendments to ensure that the rights of these people were protected. One only needs to look at the 14th Amendment and the specific references to males to argue that there was never an intent for women to be allowed to vote. Was that good enough for males? No, they needed the 15th Ammendment to clarify that race wasnt a reason to deny some people, some rights. We can look back now and say, obviously slavery was bad, or obviously women should have the right to vote, but at the time these were issues, it was culture, religion, race, sexism, tradition, etc., that impeaded their implementation and gave justification to the side which felt that change was not appropriate.

 

There is no doubt gay couples are denied equal protection under the law at this time in most states. While your dictionary defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, it appears there are variables within the interpretation of that between dictionarys and historic meanings, and even cultures and traditions, as has been pointed out by several posters to this thread. And as the Declaration of Independence is not US Law, I would point out that Websters dictionary is not the final word on the laws meaning either. However, words in the Declaration are often used to justify a point being made, such as the term 'creator' means the Christian God when some groups are trying to make a point. Others can look to the fact there is not one womans signature on the Declaration, or that all MEN are created equal, etc, to try to justify one or anothers point of view. My use was not to justify the denial of a right when I used that in my example. My use was to point out the interpretation of the meaning meant are often changed with time.

 

I do have a question for you though. How exactly would equality for gay couples in the legal definition of marriage affect you personally? I mean how exactly would it change your marriage and the rights you (and your spouse) have now?

 

reference link: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

 

At that time there were also many who felt slavery was wrong and began anti-slavery societies and others who felt women deserved better and began the woman's movement. It was a slow change for both groups to gain rights, just as it will be a slow change for gay couples to gain their rights. What we can do is help it along or stand in the way of progress.

[infamous]

Ah yes, that is why I enjoy coming here,

I was just wondering about the motivation that prompted your return....

 

Fact #1....It is unjust for the religious to attack the homosexual.

Fact #2....It is just as unjust for the homosexual to attack the religious..........................Infy

[cwes99_03]

Yes let's play, however, to play, it is always good to post the point you are refuting (at least when the post you are replying to was many many posts ago. I'll fill in my posts below.

Let's play tit for tat!

I find a lot of what you said wrong (see post 57) for a few simple reasons.

1) The stigma that is associated with the word may change, but it's meaning does not. Thus the term colored used to be an acceptable term for any person not of caucasian decent, and particularly of a negroid decent. That term still means the exact same thing, only a new stigma is attached to it, so that the user is viewed in a different light.

Your post contains errors of fact, and at least one misunderstanding.

 

1) The point is "colored" used to the polite term, and now it isn't. The meaning of the word has changed.

Actually, you are right, if by meaning you mean connotation, assoc. with stigma, and not definition. Definition of "colored" - a person with skin color noticeably darker than caucasian, is still the same 50 years after it's connotation changed from something acceptable to something not acceptable.

 

2) would you mind having a second crack at the following quote as I don't think it is clearly saying what you are trying to say, because 99% of the time marriage has been a contract between one straight man and one straight woman, and not all societies had it before christian missionaries traveled abroad and instituted it.

 

marriage is kind of a fundamental human institution in that all societies have it. Rarely is it between one straight man and one straight women, and for the purposes of love and companionship - but it crops up most of the time.

2) Untrue.

 

What part is untrue? 99% or not all societies had it before christian missionaries brought the idea to the people.

 

3) I've never heard of the term man or woman which is used to describe the gender of a human being as being in question. Even hermaphrodites have the ability to be termed as a man or woman due to functionality of their genitalia. But hermaphrodites make up a seriously small portion of the population anyway, so in the largest portion of the population then man and woman are well defined terms.

3) Gender is not tied to biological sex. What about a man who lives as a woman? Is he a woman or a man? That is why I brought up the bedarche (or "two-spirit" is the term I guess now.) Gender is more complicated than whether you've got a tab or a slot.

Afraid to say, but clinically a person is a male or female based on their physical bodies. Just thinking you are a woman does not make you a woman. Otherwise some people who are locked up for thinking they are wombats or birds or whatever else you want to come up with, really are what they believe they are. Thus the "why don't we all just start calling people crustaceans" joke.

BTW, still don't understand the bedarche comment, so either post a link, or I'll have to go look it up and frankly, the burden is on you for bringing it up.

 

4) when you ask about bedarche and hijira, I get a bit confused. Since neither term is marriage, and we are talking about a western word, and the term "western" has been used for 2 millenia as a term to basically mean "derived from of judeo-christian and ancient Greek influence", and the term translated as marriage in english, has been used for more than those two millenia to mean between a man and a woman (note i used the word A, not many)

4) ancient Greek influence

Interesting that you should bring that up, since marriage between couples of the opposite sex did not imply sexual exclusivity, or even that the male wasn't hitting it with young men on the side.

I thought I might need to correct you here. Note the mention of Greek influence was solely in reference to the term "western" which you made in post 57. I did not say the ancient greeks originated marriage. However, I would like to say that the western idea of marriage, and other cultural ideas of the joining of a man and woman for social and sexual reasons are sometimes very different. But let me ask you to find a couple of large social groups who politically defined the joining of a man and a man together historically?

I can't think of any, so as far as I know this is new ground legally/politically.

 

5) Marriage is socially defined, and has been for, well, let's say 4000 years. Thus it has not been changed for a very long time and does not need to be changed simply because a small portion of the population <10% wants to be called something they aren't.

5) Marriage is socially defined, and always has been, but that doesn't mean the definition is always the same. The Catholic Church didn't take an official position until the 12th Century.

So are you agreeing with me there? The definition has been the same among the people whom have carried "marriage" among their society for the past 4000 years (until very recently). The Catholic Church also took severl "official" stances that were obvoiusly wrong. There are plenty of other threads to discuss the Catholic church. The Bible took the stance when it was first written, very roughly about 4000 years ago, which so far is the earliest reference according to posts on this thread. But the whole point of the ruling wasn't whether it was a religious term or not. The point was that the court recognized the long-standing definition of marriage as between a man and woman.

 

6) marriage in the western world has not traditionally been an economic arrangement, as treating a married man and a single man differently financially has never been traditional. Only in recent times has the economic arrangement for married and single people been differentiated. It has been a social arrangement, for a long time, and once again those social arrangements came from a society that was predominantly (90% or more) judeo-christian. Up until the last 50 years, marriage was a romantic and sexual arrangement, as sex outside of marriage was not permissable and even illegal for most of the last 3000 years in western culture.

6) Illegal and "not-done" are two different things. It's only in the last 200 years or so that marriage in the west has become primarily about sexual exclusivity and romance, and only in the last 50-100 that we regard it as a partnership and not a property arrangement.

I believe the original point of 6 was that marriage was not historically an economic arrangement, but a religious/social one. Do you know of any historical economic laws that treated a man and woman living together differently than a married man and woman living together? Probably not, because those arrangements weren't tolerated in public.

I do mean illegal. A man and woman caught having sex outside of the bonds of marriage in some ancient societies could be impaled on the spot for fornication, in other societies they could be taken to court for defamation of the family name.

 

7) Tradition isn't the reason for doing this per se. The reason for doing anything linguisticly is because of linguistics. Trace back the roots, and marriage means between a man and a woman. Are you going to say that the root of the word, the origin of it needs to change?

7) Etymology and linguistics are not equivalent.

Linguistics - The science of language; The study of the structure and development of a particular language and its relationship to other languages; The scientific study of language, which may be undertaken from many different aspects, for example, sounds (phonetics) or structures of words (morphology) or meanings (semantics).

 

Etymology - the study of the origin and history of words; The history and derivation of words, and their study; The origin and development of a word, traced back as far as possible in time, usually by the methods of comparative linguistics.

 

From those two definitions, the words do mean slightly different things, but by and large, both refer to the study of words and languages and their history. Etymology is a subscience of linguistics. Is it your intent to nit pic now?

 

 

Hey you know what let's stop calling people humans because some portion of the world wants to be called crustaceans.

If we all decided to stop calling each other humans and started calling each other something else, it could happen. In fact, it DID happen, relatively recently - as the word "mankind" has fallen out of usage in favor of "humanity"

TFS

 

Well then by all means stop calling it humanity and call it crustaceankind. Nope, don't think that works. You make an inaccurate analogy. Let's see if I can set it straight. Mankind is to humanity as ..... linguistics is to etymology (well almost). Mankind and humanity are two different words describing the very same thing.

We are talking about one word being used to describe two similar, but very different things. Thus marriage is to maronking as blue is to aqua.

There now, do you see the difference? This is what the court ruled.

[cwes99_03]

At that time there were also many who felt slavery was wrong and began anti-slavery societies and others who felt women deserved better and began the woman's movement. It was a slow change for both groups to gain rights, just as it will be a slow change for gay couples to gain their rights. What we can do is help it along or stand in the way of progress.

 

Fine and dandy from a constitutional standpoint (according to the NJ supreme court. )

 

However, did people stop referring to blacks and whites as different. Are all people of different ethnicity all white now?

 

What about women? Did people stop refering to them as women once they gained the right to vote? If so, then there isn't even a point to the NJ supreme court ruling because any union is between a man and a man (or did we adopt the term woman to refer to every human?).

[TheFaithfulStone]

What part is untrue? 99% or not all societies had it before christian missionaries brought the idea to the people.

 

Both.

 

Bedarche link

 

Your definition of marriage is a truism. If you define marriage as "One straight man, and one straight women." Then you have a point, there have been thousands of people throughout history who have not been married to each other, although they may beg to differ. You are insisting that a concept of marriage that doesn't conform to your definition is not a marriage at all, but something else entirely.

 

Furthermore, it raises the question of people who are re-married, either through divorce or death. Are THEY married? I always thought the bible was pretty clear on the subject of divorce.

 

From those two definitions, the words do mean slightly different things, but by and large, both refer to the study of words and languages and their history. Etymology is a subscience of linguistics. Is it your intent to nit pic now?

 

Fair enough, I spoke inexactly, although you spoke MORE inexactly. The meaning of a word is not necessarily tied only to it's etymology. Consider "nova" which means "new" in Latin, and "supernova" which means "really big" and "new"

 

But of course, a supernova is the death of a massive star, and a nova is "a cataclysmic nuclear explosion caused by the accretion of hydrogen onto the surface of a white dwarf star."

 

On a tangent, it's possible to argue that the main purpose of marriage isn't kids, or sex, or love or anything like that, but affinial ties. (From an anthropological standpoint, this is true.) In this case, a marriage without in-laws could be considered more of a failure than any gay marriage.

 

There's something to keep you up at night - you got married for the in-laws.

 

TFS

[cwes99_03]

Since your post so closely follows from my last two. I see no need to quote you.

 

TFS, if, in all of history, you could find 100,000 examples of homosexual couples who were "married" in the eyes of the law of a large society, then I would say you may have reached 1% of all the marriages in the past 100 years worldwide, but you would not be close to the number of marriages that have existed in the past 2000 years.

I in fact challenge you to find 1,000 homosexual couples who have been married in the US alone in its 200+ year history pre anum 2000. As I don't believe you can, I stick by the 99% of all marriages in human history have been between a straight man and a straight womAn (just in case no one else noticed you said between a man and women in the last post).

 

As for the second part, which society do you know of that recognized the legal joining of a man and woman together in "marriage" (a grouping denoting to have and to hold for richer or poorer in sickness and in health...... til death do us part where they would be sexually exclusive to one another as the term marriage has meant in western worlds for more than 2000 years) before the first christian missionaries met those people. Oh and in doing so don't forget to site the first time an exchange of ideas between this society and a western society occured.

 

Furthermore, it raises the question of people who are re-married, either through divorce or death. Are THEY married? I always thought the bible was pretty clear on the subject of divorce.

No question is raised. The government saw fit to adjust reasons for divorce a long long time ago. Not just the US government, but nations which were at least somewhat controlled by what I would term false religion. I'm particularly thinking of the creation of the Church of England which was created (AFAIK) by the king so he could divorce his first wife without cause.

 

The Bible is very clear on divorce. However, re-marriage does not require divorce, as a woman who is widowed could and often did remarry, as you have noted, and there was no problem with that (note the whole til death do us part notion of the vow.)

 

I don't care if people beg to differ, if their "marriage" wasn't acknowledged by society, then the weren't married in the eyes of that society.

In one nation in the carribean, men and women aren't allowed to divorce (I remember reading an article not too long ago involving a Jehovah's Witness woman who was petitioning to marry her new husband or something to that effect). The woman cited that in the eyes of her religion her husband had committed adultery and that allowed her to be divorced from him and remarry without sinning. But since the law of the land said she could not get divorced, she could also not legally marry the new man.

 

In this case we are talking about the law of the land here, which is based on historical definitions so long as they do not discriminate. The justices in this case decided that the term marriage need not be applied to the union of a gay couple because the term is a definition that has stood the test of time as indiscriminatory.

 

Discrimination is an act by a person or body, not by the use of a term.

 

Has the term NOVA every had a meaning of old? OK, everybody, from now on I want everybody who speaks Latin to use the word NOVA to mean old instead of new.

And BTW pot means a vessel for holding a plant, and POT means weed, man!

Oh and hemp, yah it's a plant that can be used for making ropes, but it's also some super righteous get high weed right! I don't think you realize the futility of your attempts to find one term that describe similar but different things. In fact, in attempting to you actually supported me.

 

Note: Supernova and nova refer to two different things, and they are two different words.

 

And we aren't necessarily discussing the reason for getting married when we discuss the term and whether or not it applies to gay couples. There have been many different reasons for getting married, but once married, the social idea of marriage was that they were husband and wife and were exclusive to each other (sometimes under penalty of law.)

 

Some have gotten married for the wrong reason throughout history. But they were men and women, so thanks again for supporting me. Now I shall go try to find a rockefeller to marry so I can have loads of money, jk.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Here.

 

I don't have a count, but the Fujian, the Greeks, and the Egyptians are pretty interesting.

 

As for the second part, which society do you know of that recognized the legal joining of a man and woman together in "marriage"

 

You're swapping definitions. If you limit me to saying do I know of primitive society that had western style marriages before western contact, then YES. The Assyrians, the Egyptians (although they were not strictly monogamous), Native Americans, a whole lot of others.

 

If I can answer as to which societies had marriage before missionaries, then I can say, pretty much all of them.

 

TFS

[Freddy]

Fine and dandy from a constitutional standpoint (according to the NJ supreme court. )

 

However, did people stop referring to blacks and whites as different. Are all people of different ethnicity all white now?

 

What about women? Did people stop refering to them as women once they gained the right to vote? If so, then there isn't even a point to the NJ supreme court ruling because any union is between a man and a man (or did we adopt the term woman to refer to every human?).

 

My point was discrimination is wrong whether it is blacks, women, or gays who are the victims of it. I have no idea what you are talking about. By the way the only thing that matters in the US is the US Constitution! Injecting religious views into political rights issues because it goes against religious beliefs is nonsense and has no legal weight in a Constitutional Republic.

[InfiniteNow]

Yeah... this is all somewhat silly. People are people. I'll tell you right now, those of you arguing against gay marriage will turn out to be wrong when enough of America takes their head's out of their asses and votes. Just like women's suffrage, just like blacks being 2/3 of a person, just like a lot of things that have changed for the better...

 

This is just another attempt to legislate bigotry, and like all the others, it will fail soon enough.

[TheBigDog]

My point was discrimination is wrong whether it is blacks, women, or gays who are the victims of it. I have no idea what you are talking about. By the way the only thing that matters in the US is the US Constitution! Injecting religious views into political rights issues because it goes against religious beliefs is nonsense and has no legal weight in a Constitutional Republic.

I think what he is saying is that while we eliminated the restictions that some lived with, we did not eliminate the distinctions of people.

 

Bill

[Zythryn]

I think what he is saying is that while we eliminated the restictions that some lived with, we did not eliminate the distinctions of people.

 

Bill

 

That is what I got out of it as well.

However, it is non-sensical. Would allowing gay marriage mean that we would no longer identify gays as ... well... gay? Or, homosexuals as... homosexual?

 

Or, to use the same type of comparisons originally used. When we first made inter-racial marriages legal, did we stop identifying blacks as black?