The Rainbow TL-logo - Page 87

On June 27 2013 02:46 RockIronrod wrote:

The problem is that it can be infinitely stretched and reworked to apply to all sorts of things, because without limit "equal rights" can apply to anyone, so it's a fundamentally weak argument since it assumes other people will automatically have the same idea of the limits you put on your definition of it (and you NEED to put limitations on it) and whether accidentally or on purpose won't stretch it to insulting boundaries.
It's a lot clearer to just point at the multitudes of evidence that cannot be manipulated that supports gay marriage.

On June 27 2013 02:45 Thieving Magpie wrote:


But it shouldn't reach this high!

The owners of the website decided to make a rainbow horse to show their support for something they believe in. That should not translate to 85 pages of content; it should not.

And if this were just a one case problem I'd be fine with it. But every female gamer thread, every scarlett thread, every women's rights thread, etc....

They all balloon with arguments valid or invalid. It's just aggravating.

On June 27 2013 02:58 Danglars wrote:

We're now redefining institutions based on how hard it is to get checklists on forms to change? I wouldn't be opposed at all if every single damn one were changed to Single/Divorced/Widowed/Partnered. It's the state, and I've seen time and time again the bureaucracy hurry to catch up with the changing powers, regulations, and procedures. Claiming some dunce lawmakers are cause enough to change terms is ludicrous. Since changing regulations involving who's a kid (26 sometimes) and who's an adult, let's just legally make all born men and women adults at day 0. After all, legislators might get it wrong, and it would be terrible to have people considered a kid for one right, and an adult for another ...

On June 27 2013 03:12 codonbyte wrote:

It's easy enough to say "just change every form to Single/Divorced/Widowed/Partnered", it's easy to say "oh yeah, lawmakers should include "civil union" wherever they include "marriage" in all their legislation, but what's forcing them to?
Making the word "marriage" apply to both gay and straight couples will legally force them to be treated equally because there is only one word for both of them. Equal treatment then has legal backing to it. The only way that your idea can have the same level of legal backing to it is if you make a law that says every form ever must say "partnered" instead of married on it, and require that every piece of legal code always uses the word "civil union" wherever it uses the word marriage. Such a law is basically saying "civil unions are the same thing as marriage".

And as BlazingHand said, why would you need to have a separate term for gays if you don't plan on discriminating?

On June 27 2013 03:22 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I don't think of teamliquid as the only good Starcraft site, we are a community. A community with some similar values. I support guy marriage, as do most people here, if you don't, and you don't like this rainbow logo, you can go elsewhere like reddit.

However, I do think that this logo is going overboard. The community knows what values here are. Like quality discussion with evidence, and people who are nice and like to think they are more intellectual than the average population, which I do think TL is. However it does not need to be shown so explicitly imo.

On June 27 2013 03:22 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I don't think of teamliquid as the only good Starcraft site, we are a community. A community with some similar values. I support guy marriage, as do most people here, if you don't, and you don't like this rainbow logo, you can go elsewhere like reddit.

However, I do think that this logo is going overboard. The community knows what values here are. Like quality discussion with evidence, and people who are nice and like to think they are more intellectual than the average population, which I do think TL is. However it does not need to be shown so explicitly imo.

On June 27 2013 03:26 Jormundr wrote:

They changed the color of 1/3 of their logo. It's not like they changed it to a rainbow unicorn rearing over a gay orgy with an american flag in its mouth...

On June 27 2013 02:49 codonbyte wrote:

It's easy to say "just give civil unions the same benefits and duties as marriage". However when you consider that there are over 1000 benefits and duties that married couples get that gay couples don't currently get, it becomes more difficult. How are you going to ensure that some law-maker in the future doesn't draft some legislation that has the word "marriage" in it without bothering to also include the word "civil union"? To quote now.org:

You really believe that every lawmaker is ALWAYS going to remember to insert "civil union" wherever they use the word "marriage" in their legislation? You actually believe that everyone who drafts a legal document is going to remember to use "married/in civil union"?

If there is a separate term for a union between a gay couple, then gay people are going to have to constantly be fighting tooth and nail to make sure that they continue to get the same rights that straight people get.

Edit: included link to the now.org page that I quoted: http://www.now.org/issues/marriage/marriage_unions.html

On June 27 2013 03:30 r.Evo wrote:

At that point it's up to purely semantics. If you take that out of the picture what I'm asking for is one thing for every single non-religious union between people and a different thing for every religious union between people.

I genuinely don't care whether it's civil union + marriage / civil union + religious union etc. pp. ~ My personal belief however is that it's much more sensible to leave the term "marriage" for the religious unions simply because that's what the majority of people who are against non-religous unions are bitching about in the first place.

In a nutshell, they can keep the term if I'm allowed to be "married" (without officially calling it this way) with the same legal duties and rights.


Throwing "but hurpdurp maybe lawmakers are too stupid to use the terms right" is on a similar level as saying that "they have to use he/she in all possible cirumstances because otherwise a woman/man can be excluced". Over here civil unions between two people are almost there, it can't be that hard to introduce the same concept in the US. Now for polyamorous couples... those still get screwed more than anyone else at the moment, even here.

On June 27 2013 05:21 Pholon wrote:
more sources:
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/26/supreme-court/?hpt=hp_t1
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/26/195857796/supreme-court-strikes-down-defense-of-marriage-act
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/26/supreme-court-gay-lesbian-marriage-doma/2394621/
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/06/26/us-supreme-court-rules-that-doma-is-unconstutional/

wahey :D

On June 27 2013 03:22 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I don't think of teamliquid as the only good Starcraft site, we are a community. A community with some similar values. I support guy marriage, as do most people here, if you don't, and you don't like this rainbow logo, you can go elsewhere like reddit.

However, I do think that this logo is going overboard. The community knows what values here are. Like quality discussion with evidence, and people who are nice and like to think they are more intellectual than the average population, which I do think TL is. However it does not need to be shown so explicitly imo.

On June 26 2013 11:50 LarJarsE wrote:
Quite frankly, if you are against equality & equal rights, you are an asshole.

The debate over whether the state ought to recognize gay marriages has thus far focused on the issue as one of civil rights. Such a treatment is erroneous because state recognition of marriage is not a universal right. States regulate marriage in many ways besides denying men the right to marry men, and women the right to marry women. Roughly half of all states prohibit first cousins from marrying, and all prohibit marriage of closer blood relatives, even if the individuals being married are sterile. In all states, it is illegal to attempt to marry more than one person, or even to pass off more than one person as one’s spouse. Some states restrict the marriage of people suffering from syphilis or other venereal diseases. Homosexuals, therefore, are not the only people to be denied the right to marry the person of their choosing.

I do not claim that all of these other types of couples restricted from marrying are equivalent to homosexual couples. I only bring them up to illustrate that marriage is heavily regulated, and for good reason. When a state recognizes a marriage, it bestows upon the couple certain benefits which are costly to both the state and other individuals. Collecting a deceased spouse’s social security, claiming an extra tax exemption for a spouse, and having the right to be covered under a spouse’s health insurance policy are just a few examples of the costly benefits associated with marriage. In a sense, a married couple receives a subsidy. Why? Because a marriage between two unrelated heterosexuals is likely to result in a family with children, and propagation of society is a compelling state interest. For this reason, states have, in varying degrees, restricted from marriage couples unlikely to produce children.

[...]

Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason for the state to grant them the costly benefits of marriage, unless they serve some other state interest. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the advocates of gay marriage to show what state interest these marriages serve. Thus far, this burden has not been met.

On June 27 2013 05:33 karpotoss wrote:


Does it make me an asshole if i oppose equal rights to polygamy?

Also this i feel like this article is pretty good: http://tech.mit.edu/V124/N5/kolasinski.5c.html

The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage
Adam Kolasinski

The debate over whether the state ought to recognize gay marriages has thus far focused on the issue as one of civil rights. Such a treatment is erroneous because state recognition of marriage is not a universal right. States regulate marriage in many ways besides denying men the right to marry men, and women the right to marry women. Roughly half of all states prohibit first cousins from marrying, and all prohibit marriage of closer blood relatives, even if the individuals being married are sterile. In all states, it is illegal to attempt to marry more than one person, or even to pass off more than one person as one’s spouse. Some states restrict the marriage of people suffering from syphilis or other venereal diseases. Homosexuals, therefore, are not the only people to be denied the right to marry the person of their choosing.

I do not claim that all of these other types of couples restricted from marrying are equivalent to homosexual couples. I only bring them up to illustrate that marriage is heavily regulated, and for good reason. When a state recognizes a marriage, it bestows upon the couple certain benefits which are costly to both the state and other individuals. Collecting a deceased spouse’s social security, claiming an extra tax exemption for a spouse, and having the right to be covered under a spouse’s health insurance policy are just a few examples of the costly benefits associated with marriage. In a sense, a married couple receives a subsidy. Why? Because a marriage between two unrelated heterosexuals is likely to result in a family with children, and propagation of society is a compelling state interest. For this reason, states have, in varying degrees, restricted from marriage couples unlikely to produce children.

Granted, these restrictions are not absolute. A small minority of married couples are infertile. However, excluding sterile couples from marriage, in all but the most obvious cases such as those of blood relatives, would be costly. Few people who are sterile know it, and fertility tests are too expensive and burdensome to mandate. One might argue that the exclusion of blood relatives from marriage is only necessary to prevent the conception of genetically defective children, but blood relatives cannot marry even if they undergo sterilization. Some couples who marry plan not to have children, but without mind-reading technology, excluding them is impossible. Elderly couples can marry, but such cases are so rare that it is simply not worth the effort to restrict them. The marriage laws, therefore, ensure, albeit imperfectly, that the vast majority of couples who do get the benefits of marriage are those who bear children.

Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason for the state to grant them the costly benefits of marriage, unless they serve some other state interest. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the advocates of gay marriage to show what state interest these marriages serve. Thus far, this burden has not been met.

One may argue that lesbians are capable of procreating via artificial insemination, so the state does have an interest in recognizing lesbian marriages, but a lesbian’s sexual relationship, committed or not, has no bearing on her ability to reproduce. Perhaps it may serve a state interest to recognize gay marriages to make it easier for gay couples to adopt. However, there is ample evidence (see, for example, David Popenoe’s Life Without Father) that children need both a male and female parent for proper development. Unfortunately, small sample sizes and other methodological problems make it impossible to draw conclusions from studies that directly examine the effects of gay parenting. However, the empirically verified common wisdom about the importance of a mother and father in a child’s development should give advocates of gay adoption pause. The differences between men and women extend beyond anatomy, so it is essential for a child to be nurtured by parents of both sexes if a child is to learn to function in a society made up of both sexes. Is it wise to have a social policy that encourages family arrangements that deny children such essentials? Gays are not necessarily bad parents, nor will they necessarily make their children gay, but they cannot provide a set of parents that includes both a male and a female.

Some have compared the prohibition of homosexual marriage to the prohibition of interracial marriage. This analogy fails because fertility does not depend on race, making race irrelevant to the state’s interest in marriage. By contrast, homosexuality is highly relevant because it precludes procreation.

Some argue that homosexual marriages serve a state interest because they enable gays to live in committed relationships. However, there is nothing stopping homosexuals from living in such relationships today. Advocates of gay marriage claim gay couples need marriage in order to have hospital visitation and inheritance rights, but they can easily obtain these rights by writing a living will and having each partner designate the other as trustee and heir. There is nothing stopping gay couples from signing a joint lease or owning a house jointly, as many single straight people do with roommates. The only benefits of marriage from which homosexual couples are restricted are those that are costly to the state and society.

Some argue that the link between marriage and procreation is not as strong as it once was, and they are correct. Until recently, the primary purpose of marriage, in every society around the world, has been procreation. In the 20th century, Western societies have downplayed the procreative aspect of marriage, much to our detriment. As a result, the happiness of the parties to the marriage, rather than the good of the children or the social order, has become its primary end, with disastrous consequences. When married persons care more about themselves than their responsibilities to their children and society, they become more willing to abandon these responsibilities, leading to broken homes, a plummeting birthrate, and countless other social pathologies that have become rampant over the last 40 years. Homosexual marriage is not the cause for any of these pathologies, but it will exacerbate them, as the granting of marital benefits to a category of sexual relationships that are necessarily sterile can only widen the separation between marriage and procreation.

The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage. If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis can it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction than love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos.

Tl,Dr - marriage is an institution regulated by country to support the fuel of every society- another generations of people

On June 27 2013 05:33 karpotoss wrote:


Does it make me an asshole if i oppose equal rights to polygamy?

Also this i feel like this article is pretty good: http://tech.mit.edu/V124/N5/kolasinski.5c.html

The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage
Adam Kolasinski

The debate over whether the state ought to recognize gay marriages has thus far focused on the issue as one of civil rights. Such a treatment is erroneous because state recognition of marriage is not a universal right. States regulate marriage in many ways besides denying men the right to marry men, and women the right to marry women. Roughly half of all states prohibit first cousins from marrying, and all prohibit marriage of closer blood relatives, even if the individuals being married are sterile. In all states, it is illegal to attempt to marry more than one person, or even to pass off more than one person as one’s spouse. Some states restrict the marriage of people suffering from syphilis or other venereal diseases. Homosexuals, therefore, are not the only people to be denied the right to marry the person of their choosing.

I do not claim that all of these other types of couples restricted from marrying are equivalent to homosexual couples. I only bring them up to illustrate that marriage is heavily regulated, and for good reason. When a state recognizes a marriage, it bestows upon the couple certain benefits which are costly to both the state and other individuals. Collecting a deceased spouse’s social security, claiming an extra tax exemption for a spouse, and having the right to be covered under a spouse’s health insurance policy are just a few examples of the costly benefits associated with marriage. In a sense, a married couple receives a subsidy. Why? Because a marriage between two unrelated heterosexuals is likely to result in a family with children, and propagation of society is a compelling state interest. For this reason, states have, in varying degrees, restricted from marriage couples unlikely to produce children.

Granted, these restrictions are not absolute. A small minority of married couples are infertile. However, excluding sterile couples from marriage, in all but the most obvious cases such as those of blood relatives, would be costly. Few people who are sterile know it, and fertility tests are too expensive and burdensome to mandate. One might argue that the exclusion of blood relatives from marriage is only necessary to prevent the conception of genetically defective children, but blood relatives cannot marry even if they undergo sterilization. Some couples who marry plan not to have children, but without mind-reading technology, excluding them is impossible. Elderly couples can marry, but such cases are so rare that it is simply not worth the effort to restrict them. The marriage laws, therefore, ensure, albeit imperfectly, that the vast majority of couples who do get the benefits of marriage are those who bear children.

Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason for the state to grant them the costly benefits of marriage, unless they serve some other state interest. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the advocates of gay marriage to show what state interest these marriages serve. Thus far, this burden has not been met.

One may argue that lesbians are capable of procreating via artificial insemination, so the state does have an interest in recognizing lesbian marriages, but a lesbian’s sexual relationship, committed or not, has no bearing on her ability to reproduce. Perhaps it may serve a state interest to recognize gay marriages to make it easier for gay couples to adopt. However, there is ample evidence (see, for example, David Popenoe’s Life Without Father) that children need both a male and female parent for proper development. Unfortunately, small sample sizes and other methodological problems make it impossible to draw conclusions from studies that directly examine the effects of gay parenting. However, the empirically verified common wisdom about the importance of a mother and father in a child’s development should give advocates of gay adoption pause. The differences between men and women extend beyond anatomy, so it is essential for a child to be nurtured by parents of both sexes if a child is to learn to function in a society made up of both sexes. Is it wise to have a social policy that encourages family arrangements that deny children such essentials? Gays are not necessarily bad parents, nor will they necessarily make their children gay, but they cannot provide a set of parents that includes both a male and a female.

Some have compared the prohibition of homosexual marriage to the prohibition of interracial marriage. This analogy fails because fertility does not depend on race, making race irrelevant to the state’s interest in marriage. By contrast, homosexuality is highly relevant because it precludes procreation.

Some argue that homosexual marriages serve a state interest because they enable gays to live in committed relationships. However, there is nothing stopping homosexuals from living in such relationships today. Advocates of gay marriage claim gay couples need marriage in order to have hospital visitation and inheritance rights, but they can easily obtain these rights by writing a living will and having each partner designate the other as trustee and heir. There is nothing stopping gay couples from signing a joint lease or owning a house jointly, as many single straight people do with roommates. The only benefits of marriage from which homosexual couples are restricted are those that are costly to the state and society.

Some argue that the link between marriage and procreation is not as strong as it once was, and they are correct. Until recently, the primary purpose of marriage, in every society around the world, has been procreation. In the 20th century, Western societies have downplayed the procreative aspect of marriage, much to our detriment. As a result, the happiness of the parties to the marriage, rather than the good of the children or the social order, has become its primary end, with disastrous consequences. When married persons care more about themselves than their responsibilities to their children and society, they become more willing to abandon these responsibilities, leading to broken homes, a plummeting birthrate, and countless other social pathologies that have become rampant over the last 40 years. Homosexual marriage is not the cause for any of these pathologies, but it will exacerbate them, as the granting of marital benefits to a category of sexual relationships that are necessarily sterile can only widen the separation between marriage and procreation.

The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage. If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis can it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction than love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos.

Tl,Dr - marriage is an institution regulated by country to support the fuel of every society- another generations of people

On June 27 2013 03:41 Shiori wrote:

If "civil unions" and "marriages" have the same rights before the law, why should the law distinguish between them? It's not like straight people own the word marriage or something. Hell, even religions don't own the word marriage. Separate but equal is inherently unequal, etc.

e.g. Let's give interracial couples all the same rights as others when it comes to marriage, but call the former "interracial marriages" and the latter just "marriages." I can't imagine anyone being happy with such a law. Why do we need to protect the feelings of people who are intolerant of something that literally doesn't affect them at all?