[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The concept of a marriage for some people seem to be absolutely arbitrarily. Everybnody can marry whomever he/she wants. But that concept of the term is questionable, it is not that arbitrary. And no religion supports that concept either, neither does history. So it is not just stubbornly sticking to the dictionary, Steve.

I wouldn't have thought that you would use any religion to back up your arguments. Is the concept arbitrary? Is it not? I don't know. As I've said, you have some points.

Others like me and Aramike point out that the term "1 man, 1 woman" is an integral, inherent part of the term's meaning, definition, essence and nature, in most cultures and era and religions. Historically. Religiously. Regarding the biological possible consequences. Regarding the vital interest of the community. I also point out the connection to "family" where children are prodcued from within the natural setting of that marriage/living together, wiothiut need from foreigners, withiut need from laboratories, surgeons, and adoptation of "foreign flesh and blood".

Foreigners? I'm not sure what you're suggesting here.

Homo/lesbian couples already can live together, and stay together for all life. And they already can register their partnership, and introduce their partner as "their partner" to other people. They are perfectly free to do so. What the hell is the problem? The still shove it down our throats that they are being discmrinated that way, many of them. But they want "marriage" in my above understanding of the term, which is well founded in history and culture. So what they a actually do shove down our throats by doing so is their complaint that they are not heterosexual couples. If that is not ironic.

I understand your point here, but I still don't see how this could cause any harm, and for me that's the whole point of having laws.

Many pages in this thread but nobody has given a reasonable answer to that. Nobody. And you wonder why I stick to my assessment, and accuse me for doing so, Steve!? I chnage my opinions, occasionally, sometimes over long priods of time. But I demand argument that convinces me and that makes sense to me. Or reality showing me wrong.

No, I don't accuse you for sticking to your guns. Your points are good ones. I'm not trying to convince you. I'm not trying to convince anyone. For my part, I've only said why I personally don't oppose this.

The point is - you guys have no point that forces me to take it into account as something justifiable.

The truth is, as I said, I'm not trying to convince or change you. I'm just stating my feelings on the subject.

Terms have meanings. But your concept of unlimited freedom once again leads you so far as that you even take the freedom to redefine totally new meanings to terms, Steve, and then we are again at this older debate of giving freedom, and that you even will it to those who expiclicitly abuse freedom to destroy freedom while you deny it at the same time - the point where you hopelessly entangled yourself last time.

Now you're reaching. I only "hopelessly entangled" myself in your imaginings. That argument was never resolved, and you never proved anything. You once again accuse me of being willing to guarantee freedom to those who would destroy it, and I once again accuse you of wanting to deny freedom in the name of preserving it. Again, on that point, I see you as the enemy of freedom. And you ignored my constant claim that all I ever defended was the right to erect a building. Bringing that up again and saying I "entangled" myself is the same as shouting "I won that time", when you did no such thing.

I sometimes think you are so free that you even stand in your own way, so free you are.

And I sometimes think that you are so convinced of your own "rightness" that you feel you can tell everyone what's good for them.

I wonder if you ever get ground under the feet and contact reality that way. To me this thinking sometimes sounds like somebody who has no contact to or no roots in reality, and dwells in absolute ideals instead. And since you ust redefione "marriage" and simply skip over board the long since delivered understanding of it, I wonder if we even speak the same language anymore. You use the same words like I do, but you do not mean what they mean, but take the freedom to mean just anything by them.

To that I say that you don't know me at all. You read into my words what you want to, and ignore anything I say to the contrary. Once again, I have said that your points are valid, and I've explained as carefully as I can why I feel the way I do, but you drop right back into the old discussion of what you think my concept of freedom is. You're arguing against what you want me to have said, not what I actually said.

It's is not about keeping certain segments of society in their "place". It is about keeping the meaning of terms and not allowing to compromise the institution of "family" by relativising it - through raising other elements to it's protected special status, neutralising its own specially recognised status that way.

You say that, and I don't believe it. I'm not accusing you, I'm merely expressing my distrust of anyone's motives in general. It looks to me like there's more here than meets the eye, and as always I could easily be wrong.

And that is not more discrimination of gay and lesbian people as it it discrimination of me. A single, non-family man. I can live with that. And I insist that they live it it, too. Not for my own sake, but for the sake of our community's vital future interest, and for the sake of families.

And to my mind it's only discrimination if it actually causes harm, and again I don't see how any hetero person, or the "institution" of marriage would be harmed by this.