Just to summarize the last four pages' main points:

1. We all(?) agree that gays deserve the same legal rights as straight couples.
2. We are split on whether to consider/call the union of a gay couple as "marriage."
3. We have discerned that marriage as considered by the church is separate than marriage as considered by the state (for better or worse).
4. We have decided that while marriage is considered a religious tradition, people tend to do it for love, as a sign of commitment, and/or for governmental benefits.

I personally feel that the name should officially be the same (although many people will likely still call it "gay marriage" instead of just "marriage"), as per the "Separate But Equal" concern. If people can identify that marriage by the state has no religious connotation, this would not be an issue. Also, legalizing same-sex marriage does not mean that a church has to marry gay couples, so those who do not wish to partake in the event do not need to.

One of the biggest things that annoys me with black people is that I know nothing about their social norms. I can't talk with someone when their conversation involves cooking a burger that's cooked in avacado paste and sixteen different spices from malaysia that I've never heard of. When I eat a burger, its got meat, cheese, ketchup, maybe lettuce and tomato? I don't know how to make these people laugh, I don't know whats offensive to them, ect. I have a black roomate that I get along great with because he's like a normal guy, and when I make fun of him for being black he'll make fun of me for being white, no big deal. But I have a black friend on the other side of the spectrum, if I slip up and say "nigga please!" instead of "yeah right!" or something, he freaks out. And I hate how they're always eating watermelons and speaking ebonics to each other. Yeah we get it, even straight people like fried chicken sometimes, but get with the program and learn proper english. My point is, black people want help with their rights and shit, so help us white people help you. Maybe pull your pants up and dress properly while we're around so that the last couple centuries of anti-blackness built into society doesn't freak us out before we can even say two words to you. If we could get past this sort of problem I don't think black civil rights would be such a big issue.

http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#true
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#sensitive

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jul 5 2011, 7:26 am by Lanthanide.

Except black people already won their battles with civil rights. Fifty years ago that paragraph you just wrote would've been -extremely- relevant, joking parts aside.

If gay people want me to consider them the next time I'm voting, for example, all I want is for them to be nice and not run around half naked with rainbow flags.

Thirdly, I'd like to point out that this is a real world issue. By which I mean that all the fancy "derailingfordummies" logic in the world won't help, because in the real world we make some assumptions based on experience, not logic. Logical fallacies don't apply when you don't make an argument from logic. If you want to break it down in more logical terms, (tikels' first statement) there is a subset of the set of gay people who are weird and different. There are gay people that I consider normal, and gay people that I consider weird and different. That's not to say that there aren't straight people who are weird and different too, but its the gay ones jumping around making a big scene that annoy me. I understand that you need to make waves to affect political change, but that kind of shit alienates people like me who would otherwise be trying to help you. I'm not gonna help a bunch of freaks, but I'll definitely make an effort to help a group of good people that are being treated unfairly.

My reply was entirely directed at Tikels, not you. You've already acknowledged that you're homophobic and that was my only goal. Re-reading his post now, he didn't quote the part where I called you homophobic, he did quote the rest though. My initial reading of his post is that he was saying your attitude and tone was not homophobic.

So I replied with my racist allegory. I think everyone can agree that the paragraph - as edited - is racist, so they should similarly agree that the paragraph as originally written was homophobic.

He then seemed to be saying that it wasn't homophobic because gay people are flamboyant, hence the DFD #true link.

And then implied that I was simply taking it personally or somehow trying to gain sympathy (yeah, I need sympathy from an online starcraft forum because I'm so insecure...), hence the DFD #sensitive link.

It is possible that I've mis-read Tikels reply, but I think this should make clearer my intentions and where I was coming from.

PS.
The DFD site doesn't have anything at all to do with "logical fallacies" as you seem to be saying it does. It's simply highlighting common arguing tactics when it comes to these sorts of issues and highlighting them for what they are - diversions.

>homophobic

Homo = man/human being. Phobia = fear. Homophobia = fear of man.
Even if you say that the colloquial use is homosexual-fear, I know that most people accused of homophobia are not in any way afraid of homosexuals. Vrael is not homophobic, nor does he appear to be anti-homosexual. He's anti-flamboyant-homosexual. And me, I'm not anti-homosexual, I'm anti-homosexuality. Now, Westboro Baptist could be considered anti-homosexual, AND anti-homosexuality, AND homosexual-phobic.

Homophobia is fear of gays/lesbians bro.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/homophobia

Also Vrael sounds like the person who wants to just be tolerant of it but is edgy because of the ballistic flamboyant homosexuals. He just needs to know denying an entire part of society rights isn't acceptable for just feeling uncomfortable from some wierdos who happen to be in the same minority. Jack is idk, religious conservative.

Vrael just needs some pathos heartfelt material about gays to put him in the right direction . Anyone would fear something they don't understand anyway.

I'm not saying whether it is or it isn't homophobic. It doesn't matter what you call it. It doesn't change its meaning. My point is that it is not unjustified. The difference between your allegory and vrael's statement is the idea that wearing (straight up I don't even know what you'd call it) blatantly sexually extreme clothing can be a bit offensive and to react in a way that considers the action negatively is not a bad thing. I think any sort of extreme sexuality would be looked upon poorly no matter the sexual preference. People "putting their pants down low"... well that would take some pretty heavy ideas of propriety to begin to consider it poor class. The difference is disliking the the entire people or the individual case. I have nothing really against gay people. I mean, I might be dis-inclined to them because of perceived societal norms, but I am not against the idea of equal rights.

I think that the part that I quoted had a good point. I think other parts of it may have been homophobic.

I don't personally believe that religion should be required to be considered religious. I could agree that SOME people think of it as a religious tradition, but I do not think that ALL people have to consider it a religious tradition.

This is interesting and all, but gay people do have he exact same rights as straight people. There's no law that says gay people can't vote, own property, etc. The issue is gay marriage, which is somehting that straight people also can't do. All the men in the USA can get married to a woman, but in most states they can't get married to another man.
It's not as similar to black rights as it is to legalizing marijuana. The people who smoke marijuana want to legalize. The majority of people either don't care, or don't want people smoking it around them, and/or think it's bad, but think others deserve the right to do whatever they want. Then there are those who don't think it should be legal because they believe it will have negative effects on society.
I'm not saying gay marriage has negative effects on society, but there are people that think that, and I personally don't think it's good for people. I don't know if there is such thing as "secondhand gay", but all joking aside, I don't think anyone, gay or straight, should be allowed to have an organized march through the streets wearing inappropriate clothing. The people that are calling this homophobic are just trying to justify stupidity, when in reality, I just don't think children should be exposed to hundreds of half naked men and women marching through downtown manhattan. Is that so much of a problem? If you want to gain the approval of the masses, that's not really the way to do it.
I would prefer that they call it something other than marriage, because it's not the same. That doesn't mean they can't do whatever it is that they are doing together, but marriage is a religious ceremony IMHO. I think marriage should be rum exclusively by the church, and civil unions should be run exclusively by the government.

To be fair, where I'm from I've seen many many straight people in outfits that are just as sexually overt. Then again, seeing gay people is extremely common here, and I don't even think about it ever. The "society" I'm a part of accepts homosexuals and doesn't need them to jump through hoops to make everyone else understand them.

Homosexuals should have all the same rights granted to heterosexuals through marriage.

The union of homosexuals through the government should be termed "civil union."

The same union through a voluntarily compliant church should be termed "marriage."

Both of these options should be equally accessible to both heterosexuals and homosexuals.

The same public indecency laws that apply to heterosexuals should apply to homosexuals.

If you don't like flamboyant homosexuals walking en masse, don't attend their parade.

Is that about it?

I disagree. The same thing could be said of black rights. There were those that didn't care or didn't want them around them, and/or think it's bad, then those who don't think it should be legal because they believe it will have negative effects on society. Really, through this argument, you just connected similarities between all three subjects.

I'm not saying that the prejudice against gays is anywhere near the prejudice of blacks before civil rights, but you have to acknowledge that a similar mentality is taking place here. I'd hazard a guess that in the future, most people will look back and ask, "Why didn't they recognize gays as equals? There's something wrong with that," like how we look back to the 50's and ask, "Why didn't they recognize blacks as equals? There's something wrong with that."

Why just homosexuals? If you wanted it to truly be equal, you'd say "The union of two people through the government should be termed 'civil union.' "

Also, there are other countries (such as Canada) that recognize the union of a gay couple just as "marriage." This terminology problem we have feels more like an issue created from our government's two-party system that enjoys their talking points and needless drama.

Great ideas, no implementation. If we said we would do everything we talk about, we'd be very similar to politicians today.

I wish people would stop equating religious institution to church. Muslims don't go to church but still can get married... >.<

We're talking specifically about homosexual rights, thus I specifically addressed rights pertaining to homosexuals. I don't believe my wording suggested anything should be different for heterosexuals, in fact the overarching theme of my statements was that sexual orientation shouldn't privilege or preclude you from any rights whatsoever. Furthermore, that specific point led into the following one where I stated that homosexuals should have the right to marry and be legally described as such, from which you should have taken that the two statements apply to heterosexuals as well (considering that they already do).

The usage of the word is clear from the context, focus less on semantics and more on the meaning of what is being said.

Alright alright, I'll drop it. But frankly I see it more than just semantics.
simmer.

Except for the fact that homosexuals aren't being oppressed, and aren't being treated any differently than heterosexuals. They can get married, just not to the same gender, which is the same for every heterosexual. Blacks in the 50's literally could not do some of the things that whites could do. The same laws apply to gays as to straights. African American rights only gave rights to African Americans that didn't already have them.

You would be more accurate if you were comparing people who owned slaves to people who didn't own slaves the law being passed being the banning of slavery. Not comparing the slaves who would be set free to the slaveowners who are losing their slaves.

Replace "owned slaves" with "are gay". Replace "didn't own slaves" with "are straight". Replace "banning of slavery" with Banning of gay marriage.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 7 2011, 12:40 am by K_A.

And these people are notoriously quiet when asked to describe the reasoning behind those beliefs, both for marijuana and for gay marriage.

"Except for the fact that homosexuals aren't being oppressed, and aren't being treated any differently than heterosexuals."

Right, the "technical" argument that doesn't actually address reality.

A straight person has a strong commitment and love to someone who is the opposite gender, and is allowed to have that relationship acknowledged by the state (and receive various benefits) if they choose to do so.

A gay person has a strong commitment and love (EXACTLY the same feelings and emotions) to someone who is the same gender, and is not allowed to have that relationship acknowledged by the state.

So yes, homosexuals are being treated differently. If you actually think your "gay people can get married" argument is clever, or indeed relevant, then you obviously lack critical thinking skills. I doubt I'll be able to convince you of course and I can't stop you from acting like an ignorant oik if you want to.

Maybe if you had read my previous posts you would know I have nothing against gay people being together. My point was that gay marriage should not be equated to racial discrimination.

Note that the government must legally give a civil union to any couple. Any church should mantain the right to deny marrying any couple be it gay, straight, or lesbian. Any law forcing the church to conduct marriages against their will would be unconstitutional. (According to US laws). Denying gays marriage as a service should not be seen as discrimination like it would be if you denied someone service based on their race. That is why the two should not be equated.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jul 7 2011, 4:32 am by CecilSunkure. Reason: Removed off-topic discussion.

Denying anyone a service because they are X is discrimination. You're right, gays today are not being oppressed exactly like blacks before civil rights, because those civil rights protect them today. However, this debate is irrefutably similar to one particular thing blacks had to go through: interracial marriage. Many people fought against this marriage, and sure enough, religious entities were on the side to make interracial marriage illegal. Here's an example:

Is the judge right? Of course not, and we see that he clearly drew the wrong conclusion because we have recognized this discrimination as wrong. However, it would sound completely rational and truthful to many of us if we lived in a time where this was still a serious issue in our society. Do we have a special term used for interracial marriage today? No. It's called marriage, as it should be.

The Bible (I believe) does not directly speak out against gay marriage, or say that marriage is strictly between a man and a woman. If someone knows a specific passage, please correct me.

I read this as saying marriage is intended for companionship and intimacy, so why should homosexual Christians be denied this? (Don't use the Adam-And-Steve argument unless you also want to explain why interracial marriage is wrong, because it is heavily implied that these two are the same race, and not an interracial couple. Alternatively, find a passage that states that interracial marriage is acceptable.)

It seems like a collective opinion from the church manifesting the disapproval of same-sex marriage is the problem, much like how a collective opinion against interracial couples led some churches to believe it was going against the Bible.

Could you cite your source? As far as I've read, even civil unions for same-sex couples are only allowed in 8 of the fifty states.