My, my, what a thread, and obviously a bunch of people don't know where marriage has come from, how it has evolved over time, and how it has even changed in some of out lifetimes. Indeed, for those of us old enough, it has what has changed in our lifetimes that has paved the way for all this.
Yes - as far as the US is concerned, it appears to be what 5 unelected US citizens decide, (as opposed to the 4 who thought otherwise). Not being bound by new the US law I believe I'm at liberty to express my own context of 'Marriage Equality' here and not to be abused for it in these forums (not referring to your post there, samh004 ) .
'Marriage Equality'. Nice term. It frames the debate. Sounds better than same-sex marriage, in the same way that pro-life sounds better than anti-abortion. I think the change from using 'same-sex' to 'marriage equality' had the effect of getting a lot of people on side, but unwittingly also brought in the possibilty that we were discussing something more. So to be clear. I use the term 'marriage equality' to mean the desire to broaden the definition of marriage to allow for same sex partners to be married.
I wonder what this thread would be like if the internet (in its current form) existed 30-40 years ago? I wonder if the same % of people who in 2015 are trying to come up with reasons why gay marriage is a bad idea would have back then been arguing that homosexuality didn't even exist or if they did indeed exist that they should be put in prison for it.
An interesting thing about the gay rights movements of the 70s is they weren't really interested in the idea of marriage, seeing it as too establishment!
You may be correct - marriage may well disappear in the same way that many other religious based "norms" are being seen especially by the next generation as being completely invalid and of little interest. But everybody has the right to make that evaluation for themselves - its a matter of the right of choice.
A good place to start with history - First and foremost marriage did not start out as a religous institution. Like much it was about property and labour and stuff. Religion came later.
Here's my prediction: it'll be legal in Australia before the next election. Why? Because most Australians support it as a concept and because it has already happened across the Anglosphere and Western world (without polygamy, child marriage, pillars of salt or plagues of frogs). I personally think marriage is a kind of out of date concept, but hey, if you want to go that route, by all means.
Not out of date. Just changing...
At last someone finally thought of the children!
Good thing the Christians did away with the idea about marriage being about children. It was about consummation - whether or not that resulted in children was immaterial.
So all the judges did was return to the old meaning of marriage. All new things are well-forgotten old things
Maybe. But it has been some relatively recent changes in how society views marriage that brings us to here. The idea that love is involved is quite new - only a few hundred years of people thinking its about love. But what really changes, and the thing that change recently, in our lifetime, was to remove the notion that marriage was about complementary gender based roles. Now that idea is gone, it has opened the door to gay marriage.
Of course all people should have the same legal protection for their partnerships. The argument is really about whether the word "marriage" should apply to both of the versions.
So we end up here. It's actually about the definition of a word. And it's a defintion that is intertwined in a lot of stuff. Maybe we should fully understand the ramifications of chaning the definition, lest there be unitended consequences. Or we should jsut come up with something new that everyone can particpate in.
