[Karunamon]

>religious significance to many people, and by forcing the definition to change, pro-gay rights groups are also codifying personal belief into law.

The establishment clause to the constitution says that religious beliefs do not get to be encoded in law. And considering I have not seen one single anti-equality argument that wasn't either religiously motivated or a gigantic mass of "appeal to tradition" fallacies, I suggest the "anti" side move to a different country where theocracy is an accepted form or government. Because this isn't one.

> The only proper response should have been to remove all legal rights associated with marriage, and force all couples to get a civil union. Tax that instead.

I'd be okay with this, but it's not a change that happens overnight. There are too many things.. insurance benefits, tax benefits, inheritances, visitation rights, etc. associated with the spousal relationship. Those will take some time to work through. In the mean time, this is a suitable band-aid.

[bluntly_said]

There already was a suitable band-aid, it was called domestic partnerships, and had the full legal rights of marriage in California.

Co-opting the word marriage in law, rather than asking for it to be removed was actively choosing to force religions to accept your personal beliefs.

That's bullying.

--

That said, I generally fall much closer on the scale to you than to the supporters of prop 8, but you have to be able to recognize and draw a line as to where your rights end. Attacking a personal donation made as part of a democratic process is not something I can condone. Particularly when the end result cost a man his job.

[Karunamon]

Ah yes, "separate but equal". Where have I heard this before...

>actively choosing to force religions to accept your personal beliefs.

Nonsense. Churches do not have a monopoly on the word or the concept of matrimony. If there was any consistency in religious beliefs whatsoever, there would be infinitely more backlash at the Vegas drive through chapels than two people wanting to live their lives together in peace.

[bluntly_said]

And my response to the separate but equal argument is literally sitting in my comment above, and part of my argument, remove rights from the word marriage. There is ONLY civil unions. There is no separation.

You yourself claimed that appropriating the word marriage was a band-aid, and yet you ignore that a band-aid was in place, and a much more rational argument would have been to remove rights associated with marriage.

Instead you continue to argue that codifying your beliefs into law was correct, even while you denounce the other side for trying to do that.

Come back when you can intelligently make an argument that is internally consistent. I have to agree with the others commenting on your posts, you have some serious cognitive dissonance.

[AlexMax]

> Come back when you can intelligently make an argument that is internally consistent. I have to agree with the others commenting on your posts, you have some serious cognitive dissonance.

Could it be that you've managed to ferret out hypocrisy in their mental model in just a few short minutes?

Or are you (and others) just straw-manning their position to be "Discrimination is bad no matter what!" so you can tear it down easily? I hope you yourself don't subscribe to that mental model, because it's not only overly-reductive, but like you said, it actually just plain doesn't work - neither in favor of the status quo or for changing it.

[Karunamon]

>and part of my argument, remove rights from the word marriage.

And as I said before, I'm fine with this, but it's a process that takes longer than fixing the inequality now. You could write a law that says all marriages are now civil unions, but in doing so you've broken the dependency chain to any out-of-state agency that uses "marriage" as anything in particular underpinning any kind of contract.

The simplest, easiest thing to do is to amend the legal (not religious) definition of marriage to fix this problem. The religious definition of marriage is irrelevant to the legal one.

>Instead you continue to argue that codifying your beliefs into law was correct

Yeah, fuck me for wanting equality like blacks and women.

We're done here.

[bluntly_said]

Let me stoop to your level for a moment:

Yo, FUCKHEAD: You claimed appropriating marriage was a band-aid. BUT... you ALREADY HAD THE FUCKING RIGHTS. You JUST WANT TO ARGUE ABOUT WHAT MARRIAGE IS.

FUCK YOU. You don't give a SHIT about the rights, because you don't even know that you already have them. You JUST WANT TO FORCE RELIGION to let you call it marriage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_Califor...

---

And we've already had the separate but equal argument, don't even fucking bother with it. You can't stand that you can't make a coherent argument here, because you're a bully. A fucking FUCKHEAD bully.

[dang]

I have banned bluntly_said because of this comment. Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

We're happy to unban anyone who gives us reason to believe they will behave better in the future. Please send any questions to [e-mail].

[Karunamon]

I at no point in this entire discussion insulted you.

And this is in case you delete/edit your comment:

http://gyazo.com/780f9733394829fce3b5577edf4091b5

Like I said. We're done here.

[mkr-hn]

Prop 8 was part of a long-running--to this day--national campaign to create and maintain this separation across many jurisdictions with different takes on marriage and civil union. The campaign has employed every negative tactic imaginable. You have to look at it in that context to understand why it's still an issue, even if it seems okay on the level of one state.

The trouble is, it's easy to give one class new things that the other doesn't get, making them unequal again. Making marriage equal ensures everyone acts fairly when modifying the legal institution of marriage.

edit: Since HN won't let me reply to bluntly_said --

Trouble is, the fight to move those rights to civil unions and properly separate church and state is a decades-longer fight. I would like to be able to get those essential legal protections within my lifetime. We can finish the job in a few years when marriage equality is universal.

[bluntly_said]

But I think this is still wrong. Giving marriage any rights at all is respecting a religious practice in the government.

I think we solve the problem not by forcing those who are religious to accept gays, or by forcing gay people to accept a different word for the same rights. I think we solve it by acknowledging that marriage should never have had rights, and forcing anyone who wants the rights currently afforded to marriage, gay or straight, to get a civil union. Or hell, if you don't like civil union, call it a taxed co-habitation rights application.

Once the government has no interest in marriage, no one can stop a gay person for getting married if they'd like to. Just like no one can force a very religious community or church to recognize that marriage.

[Karunamon]

A practice that religion happens to do - not a religious practice. Marriage did not originate as a religious ceremony, but as a legal contract to deal with things like childen and property.

The fact that various churches horned in on this should carry no meaning, or else you're setting a really bad precedent, namely that anything enough churches do cannot be legislated on in any way.