I guess I'm for renaming legal marriage to civil union for everyone. If you get married in a church, you'll have to go to the courthouse to get a civil union. Unless you don't want a civil union for some reason, and then you can just get married and enjoy none of the benefits (except where common law marriages unions apply).

Is bringing everyone down to the same level such a problem, or must we elevate everyone to the same level and ostracize a significant portion of the population?

remember: "the best we can do is not elevate everyone to the same level because that would mean inconveniencing ME (somehow)"

EDIT: Btw who is getting ostracized here? Cuz if it's anyone but the people who benefit from legalized same-sex unions then I think those people should get over themselves.

If changing a word doesn't change what it represents there's no need to change the word.

This. I understand the desire of the minority to be recognized but there's no need it has to be pompous. The change will take its time either way, until it's fully adopted by society.

Interestingly, most people here in Germany are in favor of same-sex marriage but it's still not fully recognized under law. Since 2001 they may form a civil union which has all the obligations of marriage, but not all of the rights. So the state maintains two different kinds of marriage, while large portions of the population have long accepted lbgt as part of the culture.
The reason for this is entirely politics. The party CDU/CSU (Union) that (co-)rules Germany since 2005 has deep catholic roots and as such is strictly opposed to same-sex marriage. All other parties want to get rid of that separation but they have not enough influence against the 33% - 40% of the Union. The problem here is, that CDU/CSU may be the most popular party overall, but people would vote differently if there was a sole vote on marriage agenda. The single issue is thrown under the bus in favor of the larger picture.
This is a good example to show the advantage of using direct democracy as practiced in Switzerland (but only sparsely in Germany).

Yeah, so lets just say "colored" or "negro" again and stop saying "african-american", because they represent the same thing, right?

Most of the complaints should be irrelevant as marriage shouldn't exist anyways. Not as a legal, government-involved institution, anyways. I don't understand why we don't just have people figure shit out on a personal level and say 'I'm only with you' or 'I'm not only with you' based on what they want. That's 100% within their rights as a human being, and should be a decision they make without anyone but the affected individuals involved. Tax returns are a bad excuse, too.

Otherwise, I don't see why the other issues are coming into play, either, since religion should have been outmoded by education years ago. We're just behind the times, guys. We know what needs to happen but nobody's willing to part ways with their imaginary friends and personal biases when they should just go learn what's an actual fact and what's fantasy.

Saying "The vote of an African American is worth 3/5ths of a person" would not have fixed anything. Calling a black person "African American" would not have changed the Jim Crow laws.

You're talking about laws that are wrong inherently, and any wording they use would still make them wrong; what laws do we need that specify a person's race to begin with? And what laws do we need that specify sexual orientation? Treat people as people: we're all equal under the eyes of the law.

(If you want to bring up affirmative action, which is actually counter-productive to the point you're trying to make, I'd be happy to discuss it, but that could use its own discussion thread.)

On a side note, "African American" has fallen out of use, for the reason Nude mentioned. If it is used in law as you say (I can't really find a source for that), then are you saying those laws also need to be updated posthaste?

"Colored" has about the same political correctness as "negro"; you should only find its usage in older texts, and not in modern writing. "Black" is the present-day correctness (despite the push back from the "African American" PC days).

The reason behind marriage benefits from a legal perspective is because couples invest in long-term economic indicators more than single people do. It's an incentive, much like the ones you'd find for alternative energy companies. Whether or not these incentives should exist is separate from the discussion on same-sex rights. In context, these benefits do exist, and until recently they hadn't applied to same-sex couples.

We're at the point where everyone agrees that these benefits, if they should apply to any couples, should apply equally to all couples. I feel like the argument behind changing the wording of historical documents is heading off-topic.

Right, so why do we no longer use "colored" in legislation, if the term that is used is irrelevant to the actual implementation of the law? Or is it your argument that there is no reason not to use "colored", and that all existing legislation would be identical if it used "colored" instead of whatever other language it currently uses?

So far your only argument for not replacing marriage with civil union is that it "doesn't achieve anything", but as I've already presented, that's not a compelling argument. Marriage does have a long history stained with discrimination and ultimately it came from religion; civil union does not. The term "colored" is now dis-used and in fact actively avoided, it is my argument that marriage falls into the same camp as "colored" does; being an out-dated term with so much historical baggage that it should be replaced.

I think the real argument, that you've been afraid to voice, is that the bigoted majority are quite happy with their term 'marriage', and they want to (irrationally) cling to that baggage of discrimination and religious origin, because they don't want to "give ground" to minority groups that are seeking equality. Of course they've already lost the the war for all intents and purposes, but they want to cling to the last little shred of the power that they wield and insist that the government recognise in statute their sacred institution, and not update the name to reflect modern times and sensibilities.

I never said "African American" is used in law. Please pay closer attention to the arguments being presented. I'll note that you didn't reply to post #242, hopefully that was just an oversight on your part.

I agree, changing the wording of historical documents is heading off-topic. I have been following this thread closely, and no one has suggested that historical documents be changed. There are lots of suggestions that the laws of the land that currently stand and are enforced should be changed to better reflect modern society, just as such changes have been made many times in the past in other areas of law that deal with minority groups.

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Aug 15 2015, 8:08 pm by Lanthanide.

My argument is distinguishing race in law is wrong to begin with. And yes, there would be no reason to update the wording of old laws, and plenty of our older laws use archaic language. Give me an example of a law where we went back and changed the wording for the sake of political correctness. I doubt you'll find one, because laws that explicitly mention race are definitively racist.

It does achieve something: it declares that gays have no right to be recognized as married on a societal level.

"Marriage" is not a word that's falling out of use. Unlike your examples of "colored" and "negro", it is and will continue to be the accepted term for married couples.

If anything, you're arguing against "civil union": it is historically a derogatory term for an "immoral" (as described by those of the times) union of two people that is recognized by the state, often with the connotation that they do not have equal rights to those that are righteously married. That is serious, discriminatory historical baggage. And it is actively treated as such in other countries to this very day.

If you want a term without depravities of either "marriage" or "civil union", why not "life partner" as suggested earlier in the thread?

If they wanted to cling to the purity of the word "marriage", they'd insist the government call state-recognized marriage by another name. "Don't change the definition of marriage" has been one of their platforming arguments. Your statement is contradictory to reality.

Thank you for the clarification. I'll reply to your post now.

You pick one term you claim to be tarnished that is still widely used and accepted by societies abroad, and suggest replacing it with one that is commonly used to denote inferiority and segregation, and holds less value and meaning in society.

I hope you do realize that "marriage" is not an outmoded term (not even close to it), and is incomparable to "queer" and "colored", because it has an contrary standing of acceptance in society. It is used with reverence, even among non-religious couples and same-sex couples.

Finally, I do not believe it's a waste of time, and have not even suggested that. As I said in an earlier post, I believe it is damaging from a societal standpoint.

Well put. If there ever comes a time where modern society shuns the word "marriage" to anywhere near the same degree as the other words you've cherry-picked, it should definitely be replaced. Hopefully we'll have something without the baggage of "civil union", though.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 15 2015, 10:55 pm by Roy.

Right, I have to say up-front that this is a far better arguing of your case than you have made up until now, Roy, so I think we've made progress.

"Old laws" that mentioned race and were racist would be repealed, so there's be no reason to 'go back update them' - they'd be consigned to the dustbin of history. That is quite different from marriage, which is a current law actively enforced today. Homosexuality used to be classed a mental illness, and similarly there has been legislation around mental illness that has changed over time with new language to reflect the modern understanding of mental health. Terms such as imbecile, cretin, spastic, lunatic, idiot, moron, dolt and mentally retarded used to have specific definitions, some of them just used in the medical community but others were written into law. Such terms are no longer used - not because the conditions they reference no longer exist, but simply because society has moved on and realised that language, and language used in an official capacity, is important.

In fact, in 2010, Obama signed into law Rosa's Law which replaced usage of the term "mental retardation" with "intellectual disability" in many existing pieces of federal legislation.

I guess it was seen that "mental retardation" was "damaging to society", hence the need to update the language to reflect the modern, enlightened times that we're in now.

Wow. If the law were to say: "Everyone who holds a legal marriage certificate on 16th August 2015 will have that certificate converted to a civil union certificate on 17th August 2015. Hence forth the legal recognition of marriage is abolished and legally all such arrangements are now considered civil unions" then the term "civil union" doesn't make any specific claim about gays being 'married' or not.

"colored" wasn't a word that was falling out of use; right up until the moment it did fall out of use.

I think the government should lead the way on equality (as, in fact, the supreme court did), not sit back and wait.

Yes, it's unfortunate the government screwed up when they brought "civil union" into play, because of the religious bigots that refused to create a legal arrangement that was on par with their much-vaunted "marriage".

Civil union only has a very short history, whereas marriage goes back for millennia, intertwined with religious wars, schisms, violence, racism and homophobia. Better we cut ties with that tarnished past and recognise the enlightened culture we have now become.

Sure, anything other than "marriage" or "civil union" is fine by me; it could be "kumquat tennis racquet" for all that it matters. That's actually one of the reasons why "civil union" is better than "marriage", because it is actually descriptive of the arrangement, whereas "marriage" isn't really understandable except as a noun in its own right. Kumquat tennis racquet is a pretty terrible name, and "life partner" isn't really as good as "civil union" - a person can be a life partner, but the arrangement itself is a civil union. Calling the arrangement "life partner" doesn't make a lot of sense.

So "marriage" is a crap term as I've established, "civil union" is the best and most accurate replacement for it; I'm open to other suggestions of course.

No, because their arguments were illogical and entirely self-serving. They didn't want to suggest the government call state-recognised marriage by another name, because that would be giving up some of their ground - they wanted to deny the legal rights of marriage to same-sex couples and would use any flimsy excuse as to why they should be disallowed those rights. Saying "ok fine, same-sex people can have the same rights as us, but legally it can't be called marriage and btw you need to change the legal name of our union as well" is not an argument they would make, because they wanted to *deny same-sex couples the rights that they themselves enjoyed*.

Yes, the United States should lead the world in social policy (for a change) and set a standard that they aren't tied to a history of religion and bigotry, and will use a new term to recognise all private unions in their country. Other countries will catch on once they've seen the example and the simple logic of this.

Colored and queer were perfectly acceptable words too. Up until they weren't, or in the case of 'queer' and 'black' they were reclaimed by their respective minority communities as a source of pride.

Don't see how it's damaging to cut ties with a word that has a sordid history over millenia and instead recognise that we're in a new age of enlightenment.

I agree, although I suggest that the government should take a leading roll on this (as the supreme court already has).



For the record, in New Zealand we passed a law allowing Civil Unions in 2005. They are almost identical to marriage (the adoption act of 1950 in particular being unaffected), and open to everyone, same-sex or not. The prime minister at the time said that had she had the option, she would have had a civil union with her partner, instead of being married, because she didn't like the religious connotations of marriage. Despite being open to everyone, the majority of CUs were between same-sex couples (not surprising of course, since they had no other option). In 2013 we legalised same-sex marriage, and now the numbers of civil unions being performed has dropped significantly, because there's no reason to have two types of union legally recognised by the state and so people are just going with 'what they know'.

Colloquially, pretty much everyone who has a civil union just refers to themselves as "married" and as their partner as "husband or wife". Which is the root of my argument - the law should say "civil union", the language used by society can remain as "marriage". Actually in law if you've got a civil union, you are only allowed to use the term "civil union partner" - you can't say husband or wife, or even spouse - those are reserved for legal 'marriage' only - that is a stupid restriction that should instead give all 4 terms equal legal prominence.

Btw I think this topic would actually be pretty good for a high-school debate.

Post has been edited 7 time(s), last time on Aug 16 2015, 12:24 am by Lanthanide.

Thanks!

This is actually fascinating. I was unaware of such precedent, and it certainly makes the argument of updating the term for marriage, if determined to be offensive, more compelling.

Tangentially, a bill asking to change "mentally retarded" to "intellectually disabled" would never fail to pass, because voting against it would just be fodder against the representative's reelection campaign, and voting for it has absolutely no repercussions. Changing "marriage", on the other hand, would likely meet resistance by traditionalists.

But nothing is actually abolished; it's a change in terminology. Declaring that marriage recognition is abolished is inaccurately claiming that the State recognizes holy matrimony, whereas you aren't legally married unless you file the necessary paperwork (irrespective of having or not having a religious ceremony).

Sure, it'd get the job done, though it accomplishes naught. It does complicate the social construct of asking about or telling one's marital status, though, especially since there is no verb form of "civil union".

"Colored" fell out of use when it was designated as a derogatory racial slur. "Marriage" has not been associated with negative connotations in virtually any society. You could make a similar argument for "Civil Union", except that at present it is used to distinguish an inferior union to marriage in many places. I understand your reasoning, but disagree that it even comes close to applying to the word "marriage" in these times.

I agree that the government should lead the way on equality. As first-world countries such as the US lead others by example, allowing same-sex couples to be legally recognized as married could set a precedent for other countries to abolish their inferior form that they call "civil unions", as they would no longer serve a purpose.

One poison for another. I'm not convinced on the use of "civil union", even if you believe we should call legalized marriage by another name. But I see you address this below.

"Union" isn't understandable except as a noun in its own right, you know.

But again, if we're choosing the word, why not just "marriage"? (Spelled the same, pronounced the same, but an entirely different word with a new definition. Sure, it might be confusing at first, but it ought to blend into society without a ripple. Alright, alright, I'm being sardonic; apologies.) Assuming we haven't burned the "offensive to the group it applies to" bridge, and it holds general positive connotations in society, I think it's perfectly acceptable to use it as a secular word in law.

I agree with you that their arguments were both illogical and entirely self-serving. Many of them fought so hard because of their religious beliefs that homosexuality is wrong, so they had two battles to fight:

1) They don't want to live in a society that accepts homosexuals, because it is sinful.
2) They don't want their religious text's word for holy matrimony to be warped into accepting homosexuality, because it is a desecration of their beliefs.

I think you'll find that a lot of religious people actually fought for only the second point; in fact, the term "civil union" came into being and prospered because many religious people did recognize the discrimination and inequality against gays is, well, wrong. (Eventually, I'm sure the bigots will insist that this was the case for them all along as well.) Had the State not borrowed the Church's word for marriage, I honestly believe the battle for same-sex rights would have been much tamer. As a side effect, however, they either have to recognize that State-recognized marriage is distinct from theirs, adapt their beliefs to fit new cultural standards, or fall into extremist obscurity. Having same-sex marriage recognized may actually move forward religious tolerance of homosexuality because of this; had we called marriage by another name and given gays the right to it, we wouldn't have created the societal pressure on churches (and perhaps other discriminatory organizations) to accept the gay community. It certainly became a much larger cultural turning point when individual states recognized same-sex marriage vs when they allowed civil unions.

In brief, it was a great mistake to reuse the word "marriage" for law, but it would now be a mistake to forcibly revoke it at a point where it will fuel cultural acceptance, especially by substituting it with a term that does the opposite.

I obviously don't have an argument against this ideologically. I'd love it if the US would be a leader in Church/State segregation, considering our influence on many parts of the world. That's for the countries that value such segregation, of course, and most of them are already much further ahead than we are.

There is one caveat with using a new term that I keep mentioning, and unfortunately even if we avoid using "civil union" the issue still persists: it's far too easy for a country to use the new terminology to be all-inclusive while keeping traditional marriage, and then applying different benefits to the two. For the countries that don't value the separation of Church and State as heavily, they would see nothing wrong or contradictory in comparison to the States to do this.

Predictive unacceptability is not how those words became unacceptable. The argument that "marriage" could one day be deemed unacceptable so we should get rid of it now holds about as much weight as the use of any other descriptive noun.

Society isn't cutting ties with it, even if it's not written in law. People will propose with "Will you marry me?" and people will tell others "We're married"/"We're getting married". This isn't a declaration of Christian faith: it's a declaration of commitment and love, and there isn't a term that can suitably replace it in our society. For those who would be unfortunate enough to face the Church's discrimination, they couldn't make these same claims. And yes, I think it would be damaging to say "We're joined in a civil union together" as opposed to "We're married", because at present it doesn't carry the same weight in our culture; it sounds like something you'd read on a technical writing paper versus a statement of loving commitment. The kicker is that it would only apply to same-sex couples, because the Church would recognize opposite-sex couples as married (even if the couple is non-religious), so they could use the latter statement.

You could argue that gays could call it "marriage" anyway, but it would be a lie on a technicality, and that seems demoralizing and disheartening. You could then argue that everyone would know that when a same-sex couple says "married" they actually mean "civil union'd", but this naturally implants the idea that their partnership is different from a straight couple. It seems like a psychologically losing battle.

Almost identical? I hope you threw that in for good measure and there isn't actually a tangible difference; I'd find it troublesome otherwise, especially since I view New Zealand to be a fairly progressive country.

I am curious, though, since we've gotten the discussion around marriage vs civil unions rolling: was there a significant push to deprecate marriage instead of legalizing same-sex marriage? Did they have the same concerns and discussions that we're having right now?

Well, there's always "significant other", right?

You must have some solid anecdotal information pertaining to my arguments above regarding the societal effects of calling marriage by another name, then. You've concluded that same-sex couples opted for marriage because it's what they know, which is certainly one possible explanation, but I would like you to also consider the points I've made prior. In my mind, that semantic restriction certainly plays a large factor, and I think it additionally has an impact on social situations, even if on a subconscious scale. On the reverse, making "civil union" effectively synonymous with "marriage" wouldn't have any such problem (other than the legal redundancy you mention), and that is something that I've said a handful of posts ago is a good thing.

Of course, I don't mean to play armchair psychologist (even though I've been listening to a lot of psychology books as of late and that makes me totally an expert), but my point is that words carry meaning, and right now, cultures value "marriage" as a loving commitment to another.

True, I could very well argue for either side, because I am an advocate for the separation of Church and State. It's also interesting I think (though wildly off-topic) to consider the parallelisms of civil unions vs same-sex marriage to decriminalization vs legalization of recreational drugs.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 16 2015, 3:36 am by Roy.

Oh, didn't realize that. Here, the race separation of the 50s wasn't an issue, so it doesn't leave a bad taste in one's mouth. But good to know that black Americans might be somewhat offended by it.

So let me get this right, coloured is bad, but "person of colour" is good??
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_color

Technically they refer to different groups. Political correctness is weird. Like I mentioned in the Shoutbox, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) officially says "colored" is antiquated but not offensive, but the term is actively avoided in US media.

No. Because the term marriage doesn't have a derogatory connotation and isn't used to describe people.

Right, so your original statement "If changing a word doesn't change what it represents there's no need to change the word" was incomplete, because you have now added the additional consideration: "if the original word is derogatory and is used to describe people, then even if the underlying thing the word represents stays the same, the name should still be changed".

I'll reply to Roy's comments at some point, although I'm reaching the end of my argument. Roy has said some convincing things, but has not convinced me completely, and I feel like he's mis-interpreting what my actual suggestion is.

Atheists and people who don't believe in religious marriage or don't want to get married, but want the legal benefits of a traditional marriage.

Are you implying that atheists and people who don't believe in religious marriage can't be in a civil union?

Or that because of religious nuts who want to deny the benefits of a traditional marriage to people who are not also religious nuts, that atheists and people who don't believe in religious marriage will be ostracized by legalized same-sex civil unions?

Even though any benefits of a "traditional marriage" are being withheld by politically active people who are not those who push for civil unions to have equal rights and privileges afforded to them typically through traditional marriage?

I am actually so lost at this point.

He's saying they should be able to get the full legal rights of (marriage/civil unions/what have you) without having to associate themselves with a term/institution (marriage) they dislike due to its religious association.

ok, thanks for the clarification.