So, no, then.

Well, they did say it was funny how they had been together longer than most married couples yet there was no way they could do anything to acknowledge that.

If you lived with a guy, were best mates, and as you entered your twilight years he went “hey, we should get married,” would you think,

a) you’ve got me all wrong there, Bill,

b) looks like dementia’s finally set in,

c) hell, that’s a brilliant idea!

Now, yes, but if 30 years ago one gay man had turned to another and said “hey, we should get married,”

What would the other have thought?

But no one stated that they wanted to be married, perhaps due to societal norms.
Brilliant.

yeah, think back a few years and how many gay people wanted to get married 30 years ago.

It’s called the Theory of Reasoned Action

in the interests of inheritance would 2 straight people get married or just, ooooh I dunno, get a will drawn up?

but you also gave me list of other reasons that people get married, most of these existed for these parings. Also i guess you didn’t read that bit about not making wills

They would have wanted some formal and societal recognition of their partnership so that the other was taken care of when one died. Sometimes this was explicitly stated, in comparison to married couples. But no one stated that they wanted to be married, perhaps due to societal norms.

see above

Ok, down the road from me, two women who used to teach together, share a house. One of them was previously married, her husband died many years ago. They each have little other family. they share their lives, socially and domestically. They are straight, as far as anyone knows. when one dies, the other does not automatically get the property, just because they live together.

My Aunt, lived and died in Ireland 20 years ago, spent the last 40 years of her live sharing the house with the woman who used to be her maid. There was no automatic right of inheritance for the ex-maid when my aunt died.

A neighbour when i was kid, took in a lodger, and he stayed for many years, became part of the family. when the wife died the two men carried on living together. They were very close, but nothing formal existed between then such when the older man died, his children inherited everything, because he was of a generation which didn’t think about wills and so on. Not such unusual situations i think, and I’m sure if you looked around or thought back you would see or remeber such situations

Well, the analogy was useful until you said that my reasoning was flawed because of your views outside of the situation

What you’re referring to above all of a sudden, I don’t have a scooby.

What? you mean you know of no cultures or environments where two people of the same sex end up spending their lives together despite being straight?

this would only be true if you chose it to be for your hypothetical situation. You could equally choose any other hypothetical causal mechanism
Now you’re just being deliberately obtuse.

Not at all, you chose a hypothetical situation. No inter-marriage. Then said yeah, but i bet it’s because of racism against black people. There is no basis for that at all! It’s hypothetical!

Yes. Thanks to you we’ve established that in a case which you’re yet to substantiate as anything other than massively unusual

Why so unusual, men and women cohabit and form long term relationships in many cultures, we’ve legislated and built taboos around it here that it seems so completely alien to you, but really, there’s nothing wrong with it.

Well, of course it’s hypothetical, that’s analogies for you. However, if that’s problematic then we can pretend we’re in the southern US in the 1950s if you like. I’m not sure what that gains though, I still don’t seem to be explaining myself very well

Well, if it’s hypothetical, we can’t say what the real underlying causes are!

No, basing it in the states in the 50s doesn’t help.

The underlying reason for this might not be, but probably is, racism against black people

this would only be true if you chose it to be for your hypothetical situation. You could equally choose any other hypothetical causal mechanism

Re trying to reason logically with singletracked:

you mean that after enough recursions you eventually learn something?

Why thank you, most gracious of you

tell me why you took such objection to the point? It seemed important to you. That might help with the ‘so what’.

We’re passed that bit now, if you remember – I said I understood what you were getting at.

perhaps so, but i’d still like an answer

reprint: Ultimately, I asked a question some people expressed views, which appear not to have been thought through too well, we discussed those views and some of the assumptions being made, we corrected some misconceptions and as a result those views changed. I think it’s called a discussion, they don’t always have a point but the help us to think about our beliefs and assumptions. I guess, for me, at the end of the day, you answered my question and helped me clarify my thinking and probably yours, on the issue. At least in the future you will disagree if some thinks the ruling is discriminatory on the grounds of sexuality.

The point, not sure really, just here to help you get your thoughts in order, i guess. No need to thank me. The insight you have gained is thanks enough.

tell me why you took such objection to the point? It seemed important to you. That might help with the ‘so what’.

Ultimately, I asked a question some people expressed views, which appear not to have been thought through too well, we discussed those views and some of the assumptions being made, we corrected some misconceptions and as a result those views changed. I think it’s called a discussion, they don’t always have a point but the help us to think about our beliefs and assumptions. I guess, for me, at the end of the day, you answered my question and helped me clarify my thinking and probably yours, on the issue. At least in the future you will disagree if some thinks the ruling is discriminatory on the grounds of sexuality.

The point, not sure really, just here to help you get your thoughts in order, i guess. No need to thank me. The insight you have gained is thanks enough.

(the interesting point you were refering to contains a quote you edited and which I can’t attribute to anyone)

I think it was the line directly above
ah, it was from Grimy

So, your point was purely the semantics/technicalities, which we have established, aren’t the important bits.

No

Congratulations.

You were the one who took objection to it

Really don’t know how you came to that conclusion except for wanting it to be that way.

No, it was this line from Cougar

I don’t think anyone (other than you, just then) has actually said it’s anti-gay

Can you answer the ‘So what?’ bit yet?

erm, you would have to go back to where I first said it and when you first disagreed with it and found it important to prove wrong

Going back to my interracial analogy, the prejudice isn’t against a black person or a white person singularly, but against a mixed-race couple. The underlying reason for this might not be, but probably is, racism against black people, even though the net effect affects black and white people equally. You could argue here that it’s not racism because white people are also affected, and whilst you might be correct superficially, you’re choosing to ignore the real, actual underlying cause because you can get out of it on a technicality.

Well, i assumed this was a hypothetical situation and the restriction was context independent.

edit- and of course, in a hypothetical situation, there is no real, actual underlying cause.

It’s not a semantic trap, I was just somewhat surprised when you said that no one had said it was ‘anti-gay’.

I think singletracked did understand the main point of my argument but was being obtuse/pedantic about it

sorry, which one?

So, no one really things gays are being hard done by with the current system?

Because there’s nothing wrong with discrimination itself, that’s about identifying differences and acting accordingly, we do it all the time from buying beer to creating different toilets for people. It’s only a bad thing if some one is treated unfairly because of it. In which case it becomes ‘anti- ‘

I don’t think anyone (other than you, just then) has actually said it’s anti-gay

Sorry, I may have misunderstood. Do you then think that the legislation does not work against gay people?

you do keep bringing love into marriage, it’s not an essential or necessary condition

Is it? Why? Both groups can get married, so what’s the problem?

I’ve never said that banning same sex marriage is not a problem, in fact I’ve said, to specifically to you I think, that i think same-sex marriage should be legal. My point was that it was not discrimination on the basis of sexuality. Initially i was isolated in this but as you can see, a few have eventually seen the logic of this

No Singletracked it means that if two things are not the same then why use the same term

Then i apologise, i thought you were implying that in gay sex that the bum was used as a proxy vagina. If nothing else this is an unimaginative view

Fight fire with fire. We can both be ludicrous if you think it’ll help

Nevertheless, i did engage with your argument. I don’t think my argument was based semantics.

dnftt – Member
If the term Marriage is wanted for Homosexual partnersips, should gay men’s bum holes be renamed as Vaginas?

fixeder?

and i know it’s just a joke, but it just reveals a reductionist view of homsexuality

Ive given it all some more thought and i Think I’m starting to fall off the fence towards you. We can call all union a marriage if you like I guess it doesn’t hurt me or change the special thing I share with my wife so fill your boots and may you be happy.
If you want to try and engage others who think differently as we’ll, may I suggest you respect their current views and tackle them with lesser words than bigot.

Gayer!

Here’s an analogy. Let’s say interracial marriage was illegal. White men can marry white women and black men can marry black women, but a black man cannot marry a white woman. By your argument, this is absolutely fine as there’s no racial discrimination here. Black people and white people can both get married.

I’m trying to draw parallels with the analogy, it demonstrates when you change the ruling, you change it for both groups. Banning inter-racial marriage is a bad thing for both groups. But i think saying that banning same-sex marriage is anti-gay, would be like saying that banning interracial marriage is anti-black. I think, I’m not entirely sure the analogy holds

If you’re arguing that neither a gay man nor a straight man can marry another man therefore it’s not discrimination based on sexual preference, then it’s discrimination based on gender. Women can marry men but men cannot.

But women can marry people of the other gender and so can men, then the discrimination based on gender disappears. Now who’s getting all semantic?

OK, the law is not technically discrimination based on sexuality,

I wish you had all said this in the first place instead of spending 3 pages arguing about it

OK, the law is not discrimination based on sexuality, because it also prevents straight men marrying straight men.
Thanks for clarifying that.

…so what?

It was other folks that got upset with the idea. But some folks did and still do think that we are wrong

you just have to allow them the same rights straight people have.

yes, and straight people should have those rights too

OK singletracked if you’re gonna act* stupid I’m not gonna bother, lawyers get paid a shedload of money for arguing semantics, I don’t. Please see my previous assessment of your argument.

so you don’t know either?

*yes I said act wasn’t a personal insult for someone who says they’re in favour of same sex marriage (atleast I think that’s what you said) you’re doing a hell of a lot of arguing for the naysayers side of it.

I am in favour of same sex marriage, for everyone

edit for clarity, i mean the option of, not enforced

singletracked – Member
maybe discrimination against people who want something they people with no good reason say they cannot have. But it’s not discrimination based on sexuality.
FTFY. And it is.

Oh! that was very clever! I see what you did there, just a subtle change of wording! You are Oliver Goldsmith and I claim my £5!

If I said people with a surname patel weren’t allowed to do something, would you say oh that’s just discrimination based on name so perfectly fine or would you think it seemed a bit you know, racist?

Not sure really, why would injunction on Patel be considered racist?

Same sex sibling who want to “marry” for the tax breaks when they die

Oh, you can’t marry a sibling

oooops

Sexy party?

Oh no! That’s exactly what made start asking these questions!

Who are the other people that you’re preventing from marrying?

From the top…
Straight men who want to marry men

So its discrimination then as some folk cannot marry who they want and these folk are those who want to marry someone of the same sex

Yeah, probably, but I’m not sure what kind of discrimination, maybe discrimination against people who want to marry someone of their own sex, or people who want something they cannot have. But it’s not discrimination based on sexuality.

Qatar is very good, comparable to Emirates, if that helps.

If this is you argument could you explain why it is not discrimination as we still stop [some]people from marrying who they want to do but not everyone who wants to marry.

You do stop some people from marrying who they want to, but not only gay people.

Stop trying to play your boring semantic game and address the actual points.

I have, we’ve established that people get married for many reasons, romantic love is only one of them. For many of those reasons exist between a straight man might want to marry another.

It us not for us to say why two people might want to get married.