At this point while talking about the issue I don't think we have any choice but to define it as different from what is understood to be "traditional marriage" in the short term, but much like interracial marriage I hope that soon it will be identified simply as "marriage."
Albeit one with the most FABULOUS cake and decorations ever!
Good point. I had not thought about it. And I beg to differ that we must think of it as different. More people are saying "my partner" now, and that seems perfect -- for serious unions of all kinds. After all, the details are really no one else's business.
ReplyDeleteCanadians never hear the term "gay marriage" anymore. As soon as the bulk of the U.S. gets over its guilt about enjoying sex and joins the 21st century, I guarantee the term will be as obsolete as "indentured servant".
ReplyDeleteOne day, in the not too distant future, marriage will be marriage will be marriage. For public discourse I agree the distinction is unavoidable.
ReplyDeleteRest assured, the majority of Americans know there is no distinction.
Please try to use marriage equality when discussing it politically because that is the issue and just say marriage if your friend is getting married.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI also use the term marriage equality. Especially with Minnesota's constitutional amendment voting happening this fall.
Though now, if two same sexed people are getting married, want to be married, talked about marriage ... I use the term marriage for them as I would for anyone else.
Yeah, I think that statement is kinda dumb, actually. Yes, it makes sense in the grand scheme of things that we'd like reality to be, but right now if you don't call it "Gay Marriage" then it's just confusing. Until equality is achieved, we have no choice but to frame it in that way so that the issue is acknowledged.
ReplyDeleteI mean, if you were talking about an ordinance banning Pitbulls, you wouldn't talk about "that anti-dog ordinance" unless you wanted to confuse and irritate people and/or look like an idiot.
So, smarmy internet meme creator FAIL as far as I'm concerned. The intent was nice though.
We'll get there. :)
I just saw a posting on Facebook, of a well known gay rights fellow, recalling an incident at a marriage license place.
ReplyDeleteThe clerk would not issue a license to two men wishing to marry, nor to two women. So they asked if one of the men, and one of the women, could get a license, despite how they would not love one another, nor have children together, and essentially make a mockery of the institution of marriage.
"Sure," the clerk replies. (So much for the argument that this discrimination is meant to protect the sanctity of marriage.)
My comment to that posting was:
Its so easy to fool a bigot. After all, that's how they got that way.
Much as the argument many make for 'traditional marriage' relies on the ability to provide a stable home for children.
DeleteI suppose that means that anyone who is physically incapable of producing children should not be permitted to marry.
Perhaps there should be a fertility test during the engagement to make sure that both parties are able to procreate. If someone is unable, maybe some sort of identification is in order...a tattoo on the forehead perhaps so that prospective suitors would be forewarned. And of course, anyone who is beyond childbearing age should naturally be prohibited from marrying. Maybe we should even consider dissolving marriages of anyone beyond their fertile years since that would no doubt make a 'mockery' of marriage as well.
If you offer these suggestions to those who are all for keeping 'traditional' marriage the only legal kind, they just don't recognize the absurdity of their arguments.
Oh well...we'll get there someday.
Wonderful observation Jesse!
ReplyDeleteI agree with the commenter above...there is no need to call it a same sex marriage and that really is no better than gay marriage. When you talk about as a political issue or struggle, refer to it as equal rights for same gender couples to marry, it is a struggle for marriage equality, not same sex marriage. Thanks for your sensitivity to language and even more for your efforts on behalf of equality for all.
ReplyDeleteWayne (an American expat, living in Quebec in order to stay with my non- American same-gender spouse, while waiting for the US to catch up on equal rights)
i'm in strong agreement with those pointing out that the current legal struggle is for "marriage equality" and in all other contexts marriage is marriage is marriage.
ReplyDeleteno one gets "same-sex married" anymore than they get "gay-marriage", they just "get married" as long as they legally can do so.....
maybe some of this is a generational thing? i don't think your daughter would say "dad, let's plan my same-sex wedding!" anymore than she'd say 'gay wedding' -wouldn't it just be "my wedding"?
also, i know you were joking around, but since your post is about being sensitive to how language both shapes our thoughts and betrays our inherent bias, you should be reminded that saying "Albeit one with the most FABULOUS cake and decorations ever!" is actually about on the level of a "funny" racist joke.
the reason why, is it reinforces the stereotypes that ALL gay people are gay men who fall into the "fabulous queen" caricature, and if you care about things like cake MUST be either a gay man or a girly straight chick.
clearly, this is untrue. there are plenty of gay dudes who are not effeminate, many lesbians who are not butch, plenty of straight guys who might appreciate things like a great cake and flowers at their own weddings and many straight women who don't care if they even have a cake......
and without the sexist assumptions underpinning them "FABULOUS" jokes cease to be funny.... so why make them at all?
luna1580@11:53... You speak Truth, and I thank you.
ReplyDeleteftd
Let's see, how many atheists have a problem with marriage equality and how many religious people have a problem with marriage equality. Put those numbers side by side and the answer will be what?
ReplyDeleteI believe that there are many kinds of intelligence. There is the emotional intelligence, the mental intelligence, the 'common sense' intelligence to just name a few. So, exactly what this writer is referring to when he says 'intelligent' is open to interpretation.
That said, it does seem that religious people struggle with their faith and live in more distress and angst, guilt and superiority, within their beliefs, while those who don't ascribe to an organized faith seem more free in their thought, not anchored to a particular dogma or edict. If that is considered more intelligent, then the answer is obvious. If living within faith is considered more intelligent, then the answer is obvious.
For myself, I like the idea of 'god' within, far more than 'god' outside of myself.
That 'god' idea that is used in biblical references has been subject to so many interpretations that it has become severely distorted and therefore no longer representing a pure idea.
The idea of all of us being connected in a divine way is far more appealing that most of what I have heard fall from ALL religious mouths throughout my lifetime...christian, moslem, sikh, mormon, catholic, protestant, episcopalian, in other countries and cultures. It's all pretty much rooted in guilt, fear, parroted storylines and mythology. And most of these ideas/beliefs claim to be the ONLY WAY/Our way or the highway kind of mentality, which is very unappealing to me.
Anyway, on to the article...
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Atheists are more intelligent than religious people
Writing in the Freethinker (July 2008) Chris Barker argues that there is nothing racist about suggesting that atheists are more intelligent than believers.
IT was bound to happen. When Professor Richard Lynn claimed last month that people with higher IQs were less likely to believe in God many of those outraged by his assertion quickly tried to give his words a racist cast.
Professor Lynn, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Ulster University, said many more members of the “intellectual elite” considered themselves atheists than the national average. A decline in religious observance over the last century was directly linked to a rise in average intelligence, he claimed.
Professor Lynn, who has provoked controversy in the past with research linking intelligence to race and sex, said university academics were less likely to believe in God than almost anyone else.
A survey of Royal Society fellows found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God – at a time when 68.5 percent of the general UK population described themselves as believers. A separate poll in the 90s found only seven percent of members of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God.
Professor Lynn said most primary school children believed in God, but as they entered adolescence – and their intelligence increased – many started to have doubts.
He told The Times Higher Education magazine:
Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population.
Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God.
He said religious belief had declined across 137 developed nations in the 20th century at the same time as people became more intelligent.
But Professor Gordon Lynch, director of the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society at Birkbeck College, London, said it failed to take account of a complex range of social, economic and historical factors:
http://freethinker.co.uk/2012/05/26/atheists-are-more-intelligent-than-religious-people/
I'm not certain why anyone would want to engage in marriage, but I support any fool that does!
ReplyDeleteSo True. Reminds me of Cyndi Lauper's argument.
Delete"If gay people want to get married, I have no problem with that, now they can be miserable just like the rest of us married people"
Marriage has always been the same. It is a union of two people who love one another.
ReplyDeleteIt never occurred to me, but it makes me question why I never realized? I don't consider myself bigoted, but it's true, why differentiate with nomenclature?
ReplyDeleteThe most fabulous cake and decorations is a fallacy. One (same sex) Wedding I participated in had neither, but it was one of the most memorable ceremonies I've ever seen.
What I'd like to see are more characters on television and the movies that depict realistic portrayals of Gay couples. I'm sick of the stereotypes. ("Who's the man and who's the woman in the marriage?", effeminate males, butch females, lisps, limp wrists, and over the top emotions etc...). I think it would go a long way to helping people who don't think they've encountered or interacted with gay people to realize love is love, and there's no difference other than the obvious between their "traditional" wedding and a same sex "traditional" wedding.
so it's ok if I marry my dog now?
ReplyDeleteTraditional marriage is a misnomer and it has not always been a union of two people who love each other. The traditions have changed drastically. Mitt Romney's grandfather had other ideas about marriage. Arranged marriages between strangers still exist today. It's a big world, people, with a long history. Some would say not being able to sell your daughter into marriage for 3 goats and a cow is a redefinition of marriage.
ReplyDeleteTo anonymous at 3:05...how do you know your dog wants to marry you? You may think it's a marriage between equals but most thinking people would differ.