Queer logic
Young conservabot Alan Anderson has finally toed the party line on those bloody poofters that are plotting the downfall of civilisation. I usually disagree with Alan, but then again at least his arguments are usually internally consistent. This time he’s chucked that out in favour of earning some cheap conservative cred.
First, he says that the term “marriage” should be ruled out for same-sex couples because “a marriage is and always has been a union between a man and a woman.” He goes on, “Should bigamists be allowed to register their multiple marriages?” Well, no, I don’t think they should, but thanks for offering that example, Alan. There certainly was a time, and there are still some places where “marriage” extended to a man and his several wives. We can conclude therefrom that the definition of “marriage” is flexible and has been altered over time to meet our social needs.
That’s really academic, though. Alan doesn’t even believe that homosexual couples deserve the equal rights that could be called a marriage, let alone a civil union. Why? Because gay people can’t reproduce. This has always struck me as an odd proposition. We know that Australia’s (and most Western nations’, for that matter) birthrate is falling, because people don’t want to have children any more. Are childless relationships worthy of the “marriage” moniker?
What about infertile couples — or do they get points for trying? Alan argues that “Rights to IVF treatment… flow from the child-raising function”, which is funny because if your “child-raising function” was operating properly you presumably wouldn’t need IVF in the first place.
I’d like someone to explain how offering equal rights to gay couples would cause heterosexual marriages to be any less secure. If Fred and Bob get married, does that mean George and Mary down the road have to file for divorce? It’s not a zero-sum problem. If we can increase Fred and Bob’s happiness and security without hurting George and Mary, we should do so.
If you check your OED, I think you’ll find that a marriage requires a husband and a wife. If in doubt you could then look up husband and wife.
What about people who made the choice to be childfree? I resent the idea that my only valuable role in the world is to pop a sprog or three.
One question. Is Alan Anderson married?
No, Niall, he is not.
Raena, I mentioned that. Third para.
“We know that Australia’s (and most Western nations’, for that matter) birthrate is falling, because people don’t want to have children any more. ” Wrong. The birthrate is falling because people are having FEWER children.
I know that postmodernism can mean whatever you want it to mean so a brace of bum-bandits are free to regard themselves as married.
But the dictionary doesn’t define it as such and neither does the law.
And my understanding — and that of 80 per cent of the population — is that the relationship of sodomists is not marriage.
For once I agree with Paul Keating who said: Two jokers and a cocker spaniel don’t make a family. (Don’t tell me, Rob, you’re out of step with his snarkiness on this one?).
But if you want to change the law, Rob, you’re well placed to attempt it as a member of a major political party.
Get the ALP to adopt it as policy. Better still, get Latham to run with it at the next election. As a major issue, along with an apology for things living Australians didn’t do or have done to them.
The gay marriage campaign is just another exercise by the wreckers who, if they ever got power, would make sure the poofs were in the front ranks in the long march to the salt mines.
UK libertarian Sean Gabb sums it up best:
“We may doubt if the present generation of socialists are sincere when they talk about justice, peace and good will between all people. But we can have no doubt of their immediate end. This is the destruction of the old social and political order - the overturning of its traditions and norms, its standards and laws, its history and heroes. Every autonomous institution, every set of historical associations, every pattern of loyalty that they cannot control - these they want to destroy or neutralise.”
And my understanding — and that of 80 per cent of the population — is that the relationship of sodomists is not marriage.
So if a man and a woman get married and their primary sexual activity is anal intercourse rather than vaginal intercourse, they’re not really married? Or do you seriously believe anal sex is something heterosexual people just don’t engage in at any point?
As a “poof,” I’d like you to explain why my having my 7-year relationship recognized by a town clerk will cause Western civilization to collapse. Are you suggesting that “society” (whatever that is, ask Margaret Thatcher) would be better off if we fudge-packers and muff-divers were to remain single and promiscuous forever?
Incidentally, the first few paragraphs of your post could have been written by Osama bin-Laden himself. Which places you squarely on the same side as the Islamo-fascists.
Wee, a semantic argument. How dull.
Hang on, what was that I just read?
“The gay marriage campaign is just another exercise by the wreckers who, if they ever got power, would make sure the poofs were in the front ranks in the long march to the salt mines.”
Slatts here, along with an earlier reference to “bum-bandits”.
“You and some of your correspondents are fond of colourfully bagging Andrew Bolt and that is your right. But how about holding back on the abusive rhetoric and attempting some critical analysis of his work. Then we will be able to see clearly why he is so wrong, out of touch, hysterically rightwing.”
Slatts in the letters to Crikey.
There’s an interesting post on this subject from a linguist here
1. The condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between married persons; spousehood, wedlock.
So the OED is not actually clear. These clauses are not additive but linked meanings for different contexts and do not indicate that husband and wife is a necessary condition..
Further on, I found this quaint addition -
“Communal marriage: the system prevailing amongst some uncivilised peoples by which within a small community all the men are regarded as married to all the women and vice versa..”
See, we move on. Who would used “uncivilised” in that context now? Dictionaries are not immutable commandments confining moral relations between people at all. Personally I think the attack on gays is “uncivilised” …
The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica entry is wonderful. Emphasising the man/woman bit, it also charts the changing meaning of marriage and says, as of 1911, it is “a physical, legal and moral union between man and woman in complete community of life for the establishment of a family..”
Back to that family bit. Annul the childless marriages I reckon. Make the barren wear a badge. Insist that centrelink ignores their relationships and pays them single people’s benefits… hang on, something funny there..
And by the way, the issue is not an Australian one. Bush, not the activists, raised it as a constitutional issue in the US by announcing he wants an amendment to restrict the rights of gay people..
What’s all this shit about the dictionary defining what’s right and wrong? If you hadn’t notice language evolves - what we speak now probably bares no resemblence to ye olde 17th century English but it’s still the same language. Just because some guy in a white sheet decided that at the time it was between a man and a woman doesn’t mean that’s how it should be for the rest of time.
What rubbish. But it’s nice to see the homophobes exposing themselves to the world for comedy value.
Wrong. The birthrate is falling because people are having FEWER children.
Well, yes. But “none” is fewer than “some”, so I’m still right:
fighting over marriage
Bush’s attack on gay marriage is swinging across the internet like a pterodactyl with leprosy, swooping and staggering and crashing into unlikely habitats far up in the mountains. Australia for instance. Kick and Scream has had fun with this, while…
So any concerns or hesitations your a homophobe. If marriage is so meaningless then get rid of all government recognition and leave it up to the individuals. I wasn’t marred in a church and some Catholic fundys say it wasn’t sanctified by, God do So any concerns or hesitations your a homophobe. If marriage is so meaningless then get rid of all government recognition and leave it up to the individuals. I wasn’t marred in a church and some Catholic fundys say it wasn’t sanctified by, God do I care,NO. Robert, you answered Niall question like it had relevance, are you marred?. Are you going to fight agents the Tax discrimination towards single people? Why should Raena with no kids get less benefits?. Adoption in some states have changed so the mother can choose the family (something I don’t agree with) what if she says no to a Gay couple? are you going to fine/charge her for decimation?. Its a lot more complicated then people think, and the political vultures just makes things worse.
Good one, slatts. Now, I don’t remember the last time we agreed and I bet you don’t either (if, in fact, it’s ever actually happened), but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen you utter such a pathetic excuse for an argument before. Even when you flip out to the far-right, you always retain some semblance of coherence and rationality.
“Oh, oh, these awful godless lefties are trying to make it so faggots will no longer be living in sin! Soon we shall all be raped in our beds! Oh, save me from the awful bum-bandits! Waaah!”
Way to go, slattsy, old son. You’ve just made Gary look good!
“You’ve just made Gary look good!”
Arr for fuck sake mark go to hell you little prick.
I may be wrong, what with society seeming to become more conservative these days, but I wonder if history will judge us harshly on this one.
I find it amazing that we can’t grant some human beings basic civil rights because of their sexual orientation.
Gary obviously was throwing rocks at birds the day they taught English at school.
Some of you out there completely revolt me. I am so utterly distgusted and angered by your bigotted, homophobic, slanderous rubbish I can barely concentrate.
I honestly fail to see how people can think in the way that people like you Slatts, or Gary, manage to think.
For starters, using a dictionary to try and argue your point about the sanctity of marriage seems to me to completely undermine the spiritual and emotional aspect to a marriage, indeed to undermine those very heterosexual unions you are attempting to defend.
Secondly, slatts, your inference that the fight for gay marriage rights (apparently a socialist plot) is going to end the social and political order as we know it, destroying the very fabric of our society, is complete and utter drivel. But what the hell, I’ll run with that argument if it means that the ridiculous bigotry of dickheads like you no longer underpins our identity as a civilised society.
Political vultures? Ithink they’re actually yourselves, you sad bastards. You make me sick.
P.S. Gary, that point about women getting to choose the family in adoption situations…can you kindly point me to that law, I’d be interested to take a look?
Nothing I said was “bigotted, homophobic” so up your Manas. And put the toilet seat down next time.
My 1973 OED describes a mouse as a smally furry rodent. Eek.
Without wanting to embroil myself in a debate which, as I have said on my blog, excites very little passion in my, I’d like to correct David Tiley on a point.
Bush is not responsible for raising the gay marriage issue, although Democrats like us to think so. The gay marriage issue has been raised by a state court decision in Massachusetts mandating that gay marriage is allowed under the equal protection provisions of the state and federal constitutions.
As most state constitutions (and arguably the Federal constitution) require states to recognise marriages which are recognised in other states, it is likely that law suits by gay activists over the next few years will make gay marriage recognised nationwide, even in states which have overwhelmingly voted to modify their state constitutions to exclude the possibility.
So regardless of your position on whether it’s a good thing, it is a simple statement of fact that Bush’s proposal is necessary to maintain the status quo (as it stood before the recent court decision).
If the dictionary is the defining document, aren’t you leaving it all up to a bunch of those oh-so-dangerous leftist university professors in Oxford? Probably bloody pooftahs, the lot of them.
On the other hand, addressing the god-botherers argument…If the bible is the defining document, have you actually read much of it? How much do you actually know about the religion? It seems to me that people who haven’t “accepted jesus as their personal saviour” are going to hell no matter what, right? So isn’t it kind of irrelevant bitching and moaning about polyreligious words like “marriage” being associated with “non-Christian” relationships? Your god’s going to send them to burn forever, anyway! …Along with all the happily and legally married heterosexual Buddhists who are equally wrong in the eyes of the lord. Do buddhist marriages diminish the sancitity of W.A.S.P. marraiges, in reality?
Just ask yourselves…if gay marriage was legal tomorrow, how would it affect your privellaged little white heterosexual life, exactly? I know it wouldn’t affect mine in the slightest - apart from the curious potential for my fiancee’s uncle to both have and be a husband at the same time.
Alan, Bush has greatly boosted the profile of the issue. And it looks like he planned to do so even prior to the court decision. The congresswoman who is sponsoring the marriage amendment has said she had a pledge from Bush to openly support it more than three months ago, well before the court decision and San Francisco giving out marriage licences.
Graham: Gary has dyslexia. I’ll forward your comments to the HREOC if you like.
Yobbo, presumably Gary knows he has dyslexia. Gary also has a spell checker. He might find using the spell checker a useful strategy when he enters the blogosphere. Then he won’t have to rely on people like you broadcasting his disability.
Settle down, Zoot. If you can’t handle a few spelling errors, then you shouldn’t be on the internet.
Oh gosh, am I supposed to be ashamed of something I have no control over. Dyslexia comes in different forms, for most there is something missing between the motor and visual and the brain that a spell checker can not compensate for. Evan without dyslexia there are a lot of external reasons beyond the persons control. And the people that champion “understanding” and “compassion” almost always fall on there ars when confronted. Since its not so easy when they have to practice it them selves. I do not rely on Yobbo and others, zoot. But it is good to see that there are some that can see past the superficial.
Thank you Gary. No, you’re not supposed to be ashamed of anything.
I worked for quite a while as a rehabilitation assistant and the bane of my life was the “caretakers”; people who would not let my friends/clients stand on their own two feet (always “for their own good”). It was this perceived attitude in Yobbo’s comment that I was responding to. As you have shown, you are more than capable of speaking for yourself.
If you felt offended I unreservedly apologise.
And, for the record Robert, I don’t give a toss about spelling as long as the meaning is clear.
I only get offended by people that should know better,zoot.
“Bush is not responsible for raising the gay marriage issue, although Democrats like us to think so. The gay marriage issue has been raised by a state court decision in Massachusetts mandating that gay marriage is allowed under the equal protection provisions of the state and federal constitutions.’
Agree entirely. In fact for months he’s infuriated the American far right by tip–toeing round the issue. So why now is he putting his Presidential weight behind a FMA that’s probably unlikely to get up and will - in any case - take years to progress to the point when it does eventually lapse? Americans polled seem to be as equally opposed to a constitutional amendment as they are to the notion of gay marriage.
The answer is that the President wants to exploit anti-gay sentiment in order to strengthen his electoral pull amongst those of a socially conservative persuasion who might otherwise be perceived as swing voters - blue-collar democrats etc. In essence Kerry’s position on gay marriage is similar to Bush’s. He too believes that marriage should be confined to the traditional understanding of same but opposes a FMA as an unnecessary and cynical manipulation of the Constitution. Kerry also supports civil unions about which Bush - interestingly - has not uttered a single word. Bush has never publicly uttered the words “gay” or “lesbian” either. Kerry however will be handily fitted up as a weak on Family Values liberal who isn’t even Born Again!
In other words it’s a shoddy, cynical political ploy - the word wedge springs to mind - and if it whips up anti-gay sentiment well hey! President Bush believes that Americans should respect each others beliefs etc.