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You're arguing in very bad faith here. That's a huge misrepresentation of what pro-choice advocates want. > You're demanding a special privilege for your partn

You're arguing in very bad faith here. That's a huge misrepresentation of what pro-choice advocates want. > You're demanding a special privilege for your partner and then talking as though it were a natural right. It's not a special privilege. It's a privilege people who are straight get but not people who are gay, which is not okay.

lmm 6y ago
> You're arguing in very bad faith here. That's a huge misrepresentation of what pro-choice advocates want. It's the same kind of misrepresentation as saying Eich spent $1000 to hurt people like the poster. That's my point. No-one in these debates is actually setting out to hurt other people, yet from the other side that's how it's experienced.
- acdha 6y ago
  How is it a misrepresentation to say that donating to the cause of opposing gay rights harms gay people? There’s a direct cause and effect, linked by exactly that issue - the Prop 8 supporters weren’t even trying to hide it, either. They very explicitly wanted to take a right away from other people, even though they suffered no plausible harm from those people exercising that right.
  - wander_homer 6y ago
    There's a thing called ethical beliefs and people tend to feel quite strongly about them, even though they're not consistent or reasonable in many cases. Like most of the people in my country are pro gay marriage, however most of them are also against marriages of more than two partners or between close relatives. None of those type of marriages harms anyone else, and yet people don't support it, just because it feels wrong to them or because they want to draw the line at one point to not make marriage arbitrary. I'm also pretty sure that you draw the line somewhere and I'd be surprised if you were fine with siblings being allowed to marry each other, even when they're deeply in love, they take care of each other like other couples and them being together doesn't harm you or anyone else the slightest. Edit: My take on this is: Even though I'm married myself, I don't think marriage should be part of the legal system or the concern of the state. If the state wants to support people who take care of each other, it should state specific requirements and everyone who fulfils them gets the benefits, no matter who they are. And if people want to get married they can do that as part of a private ceremony, provided by the church or whatever, and if they can't live without the consequences of being married today, they can sign a private contract to their liking. No reason to involve the state in this private matter.
    - foldr 6y ago
      >No reason to involve the state in this private matter. You won't be singing the same tune when they take away the tax breaks, your right to visit your partner in hospital, your right to live in the same country as your partner should you be of different nationalities, etc. etc. I'm so sick of straight people who essentially say "well if gay people can get married then I guess marriage shouldn't be a real thing any more". In 100% of cases these people turn out not to have even minimally thought through the implications of this. But maybe suddenly stripping straight people of their right to get married would be the only effective way to stop the endless stream of heartless and hurtful comments on threads like this.
      - skissane 6y ago
        > You won't be singing the same tune when they take away the tax breaks, your right to visit your partner in hospital, your right to live in the same country as your partner should you be of different nationalities, etc. etc. Here in Australia, the government has decided that unmarried couples in long-term marriage-like relationships (with characteristics like intentions of permanence, sharing of finances and mutual financial support, living together, raising children together, etc) should be treated equivalently to married couples, and receive the same rights and entitlements as married couples do – those long-term marriage-like unmarried relationships are called de facto relationships. This has been enshrined in law, and is now mostly true (modulo some obscure legal technicalities, and the fact that some government agencies at times fail to adhere to the spirit or even letter of the law – although to my knowledge immigration is the main and maybe even only offender). So, in Australia, there are no special tax breaks for being married – unmarried people in de facto relationships can claim the same tax breaks. Family law courts, etc, treat long-term de facto couples as if they were married for issues like property settlements and child custody. This gave a somewhat different character to the same-sex marriage debate in Australia – unmarried couples, both opposite-sex and same-sex, already had pretty much the same rights as opposite-sex married couples, and extending the right of marriage was primarily a symbolic statement of equality rather than a change in people's real world rights and entitlements. I think other countries, including the US, should do the same thing as Australia has – extend long-term/serious unmarried couples the same legal rights and entitlements as married couples. And once you've done that, there really is no obstacle to abolishing marriage as a secular legal institution. People who want to participate in it, either as a cultural institution or as a religious institution (or both) are free to do so, but there really is no compelling reason for the government to get involved.

lmm 6y ago

> You're arguing in very bad faith here. That's a huge misrepresentation of what pro-choice advocates want. It's the same kind of misrepresentation as saying Eich spent $1000 to hurt people like the poster. That's my point. No-one in these debates is actually setting out to hurt other people, yet from the other side that's how it's experienced.

acdha 6y ago
How is it a misrepresentation to say that donating to the cause of opposing gay rights harms gay people? There’s a direct cause and effect, linked by exactly that issue - the Prop 8 supporters weren’t even trying to hide it, either. They very explicitly wanted to take a right away from other people, even though they suffered no plausible harm from those people exercising that right.
- wander_homer 6y ago
  There's a thing called ethical beliefs and people tend to feel quite strongly about them, even though they're not consistent or reasonable in many cases. Like most of the people in my country are pro gay marriage, however most of them are also against marriages of more than two partners or between close relatives. None of those type of marriages harms anyone else, and yet people don't support it, just because it feels wrong to them or because they want to draw the line at one point to not make marriage arbitrary. I'm also pretty sure that you draw the line somewhere and I'd be surprised if you were fine with siblings being allowed to marry each other, even when they're deeply in love, they take care of each other like other couples and them being together doesn't harm you or anyone else the slightest. Edit: My take on this is: Even though I'm married myself, I don't think marriage should be part of the legal system or the concern of the state. If the state wants to support people who take care of each other, it should state specific requirements and everyone who fulfils them gets the benefits, no matter who they are. And if people want to get married they can do that as part of a private ceremony, provided by the church or whatever, and if they can't live without the consequences of being married today, they can sign a private contract to their liking. No reason to involve the state in this private matter.
  - foldr 6y ago
    >No reason to involve the state in this private matter. You won't be singing the same tune when they take away the tax breaks, your right to visit your partner in hospital, your right to live in the same country as your partner should you be of different nationalities, etc. etc. I'm so sick of straight people who essentially say "well if gay people can get married then I guess marriage shouldn't be a real thing any more". In 100% of cases these people turn out not to have even minimally thought through the implications of this. But maybe suddenly stripping straight people of their right to get married would be the only effective way to stop the endless stream of heartless and hurtful comments on threads like this.
    - skissane 6y ago
      > You won't be singing the same tune when they take away the tax breaks, your right to visit your partner in hospital, your right to live in the same country as your partner should you be of different nationalities, etc. etc. Here in Australia, the government has decided that unmarried couples in long-term marriage-like relationships (with characteristics like intentions of permanence, sharing of finances and mutual financial support, living together, raising children together, etc) should be treated equivalently to married couples, and receive the same rights and entitlements as married couples do – those long-term marriage-like unmarried relationships are called de facto relationships. This has been enshrined in law, and is now mostly true (modulo some obscure legal technicalities, and the fact that some government agencies at times fail to adhere to the spirit or even letter of the law – although to my knowledge immigration is the main and maybe even only offender). So, in Australia, there are no special tax breaks for being married – unmarried people in de facto relationships can claim the same tax breaks. Family law courts, etc, treat long-term de facto couples as if they were married for issues like property settlements and child custody. This gave a somewhat different character to the same-sex marriage debate in Australia – unmarried couples, both opposite-sex and same-sex, already had pretty much the same rights as opposite-sex married couples, and extending the right of marriage was primarily a symbolic statement of equality rather than a change in people's real world rights and entitlements. I think other countries, including the US, should do the same thing as Australia has – extend long-term/serious unmarried couples the same legal rights and entitlements as married couples. And once you've done that, there really is no obstacle to abolishing marriage as a secular legal institution. People who want to participate in it, either as a cultural institution or as a religious institution (or both) are free to do so, but there really is no compelling reason for the government to get involved.