02-20-2004, 07:01 AM
GonzoStyle Wrote:Having two distinctions does not mean that one is superior and the other in inferior. How many times must I say that? If they both have the same rights, the same privileges, the same benefits, then the only difference is that one is only heterosexual, and the other is all inclusive. You are the one who is placing the label on inferiority on the civil union. How exactly can they be viewed as inferior if they have been given the same rights as the other? The marriage and the civil union just simply state that there is one distinction, that one can only be between man and woman, while the other can be between anyone.Quote:I'm not following you when say that the fags don't have the same right as everyone else in the Constitution. If you mean in terms of civil unions, then yes, that is true. All civil unions should receive the same rights and privileges. If that's the only thing, then we have agreed on every point, and I've basicaly been forced to quote Howard Dean for shits and giggles.
Thats exactly my point, having marriage and then civil union for gays is ridiculous. It's the same thing as having an ammendmant in the constitution defining blacks as chattle or the fountains example. It's keeping them seperate because they are viewed as inferior. Marriage by law is stated as between a man and a woman but as I said the law also defined blacks as property at one point. It's the same thing in my eyes, marriage is strictly a bond between two people who love eachother and thats what it should be. But theres too many people who wanna keep it segregated, like they didnt wanna send their kids to schools with blacks, or let women vote. It's americans once again seperating a class of people because they view them as inferior to what they percieve as "proper" and "pure".
And you keep bringing up this word segregated. There is no physical seperation happening here. We are not telling gay people to go live in their own town, to go to their own schools, and to not mix with heteros. By having marriage and civil union, it is saying "yes, we understand that there is a difference, but the two are both unions of people which have the same rights and priveleges."
And civil unions aren't just for gays. They are for everyone. ANY two people could get a civil union.
The arguement is going to boil down to this. You want marriage to include both, and I don't see the need to change a definition when there is a difference that is going to be recognized in another way anyway. You're still gonna have people saying "thats a straight marriage, thats a gay marriage." We aint changing each other's minds on that obviously, but we do agree that hetero marriage and gay marriage/civil unions ought to receive the same rights and benefits.
Drawing a distinction does not mean that one is better than the other, it just means the two are different.
Quote:It's americans once again seperating a class of people because they view them as inferior to what they percieve as "proper" and "pure".
Yet again, drawing distinctions does not mean that one is better than the other; it is observing than one is different than the other. Is homosexuality the same as heterosexuality? No. Is one better than the other? No. (no jokes, please.) They are just different. If they have both been afforded the same rights, and everything about the two unions are equal, then the only problem is your own view that one must be better than the other is because there is a distinction.
We draw the distinction that a man is different than a woman. Why?? Why don't we just call them both men? Does that distinction mean that men are pure, and women are inferior? Well, I guess so!
He's black, he's white. Obviously, the white man is better than the black man!
Distinctions do not cause prejudice to occur. Prejudice comes from failing to have a full understanding of all the facts, and forming a judgement regardless.
How bout this?
A civil union is the union of two people. They receive all the right, benefits, privileges, etc.
A marriage is simply a type of civil union. It is how we define a man and a woman uniting.
I mean, we have homosexuals, and then we have lesbians. There is no word specifically for a gay male. A lesbian is a type of homosexual.
It's coming down to a matter of words, and you are simply thinking that marriage is somehow better, but if a marriage simply means a civil union between a male and a female, then the only difference is the fact that two members of the opposite sex are uniting.
Marriage, if it is a type of civil union that occurs between members of the opposite sex, is the only type of civil union that the Catholic Church recognizes.
Marriage just distinguishes itself from other civil unions by the fact that it would be two people from the opposite sex.