Gay marriage

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smh
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Re: Gay marriage

Post by smh »

ColumbusParkian wrote:planning myself a gay wedding right now. I find it really interesting to follow all of this news while i'm freaking out about caterers.
26" Pizza 51. Problem solved. Right?
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Re: Gay marriage

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My wife manages an event center that mainly does wedding. She is almost salivating at the prospect of a huge new customer base that traditionally has a free spending attitude.
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Re: Gay marriage

Post by mean »

shinatoo wrote:My wife manages an event center that mainly does wedding. She is almost salivating at the prospect of a huge new customer base that traditionally has a free spending attitude.
Seriously. As a purely economic issue, gay marriage is not a bad move.
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Re: Gay marriage

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shinatoo wrote:My wife manages an event center that mainly does wedding. She is almost salivating at the prospect of a huge new customer base that traditionally has a free spending attitude.
As the relative of someone who had their union blessed a couple of months ago, I can second this saliva. They dropped some serious coin, and most of it in downtown.
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Re: Religion...

Post by earthling »

chaglang wrote:
earthling wrote:Monogamy didn't take hold as a primary unit until the single family household was invented. We can define and change the social rules as we see fit, as our situations change. Social conservatives typically want to permanently bind to some rule they think is defined by some supernatural force they cant even interactively communicate with.
There's a tremendous momentum on these types of issues that is generated from nostalgia for an idealized form of society that never quite existed. Or if it did exist, the costs at which it was achieved are now outside the bounds of what we find acceptable. There is a book out by a sociologist named Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were, that traces the roots of these idealized forms of family and society. A couple of the chapters deal with the sanctification of the nuclear family in the last 150 years. It's a very interesting book, well worth reading.
Yeah, I posted this several years ago and will repost as I think it's relevant to assumptions people make about past social structure. It was originally a response to AJoD to think about what early humanity was like before civilization took hold...
There are still a handful of isolated tribal cultures left, most exercise polysexual behavior. Most of the ones left that have been untouched by modern ideas are in Papua New Guinea but the Christians and Muslims are moving in rapidly to 'correct' them. Some tribes such as the Mek have been around for 7K years, and most of their behavior is pretty much the same (until recent missionary activity). The behavior of remaining semi-nomadic tribes is usually accepted by anthropologists to be very similar to early mankind before large civilizations formed. When finding a common behavior in 3 very different isolated parts of world, is an indication its a core human behavior. Some of the remaining tribes in northern Brazil, especially along the Xingu River region are polysexual but have had some contact with the modern world in last 50 years so there has been some change. Many African tribes still exhibit polysexual behavior but they've had so much interaction with Western thinking for such a long time, I don't look into Africa as much.

Most polysexual tribes live in communes where the men sleep in one hut and the women/children in another - in various cultures around the world. There is significant evidence this was the case in many other cultures before civilizations took hold. Same sex contact would be obviously available in that situation. The men may have ritualized behavior to inseminate others into men, considered to be an honorable ritual to manhood. It is public and not hidden, it's highly honorable to them. The purpose varies widely depending on the tribe, but is common in most communal type tribes.

There also seems to be 'fair' polygamy in some tribal culture. Unfortunately in modern civilization, polygamy tends to favor men and is unfair to women for the most part. In some Xingu area tribes, they have a practical and rational form of polygamy but is complex to explain. A birth capable girl selects an older mate and as she gets older she picks younger males and trains them to be good mates for when those males get older and are selected by younger femals. She may have a new mate almost every year through her reproductive years in each age range - teens, twenties, thirties, etc. From the man's perspective it's similarly reversed but in the woman's control depending on the tribe. It's actually a very good system for mentoring others into good partners and parents. Same gender physical bonding fits in there as well, but for improving the soul, not for procreation.

The women that have bonding relationships in various tribal cultures tend to be more peer-based and for men, mentor/protege bonding. Curious enough, peer-based also was found to be more common for women in Greek/Roman cultures as well as tribal. Peer-based happened among males of course but the mentor/protege form had specific purpose (guidance to manhood), where peer-based was probably about meeting personal needs.

Much of this was probably driven by communal culture where the entire tribe takes care of the children. As families started to develop into individual households (not invented until well after farming), monogamy was more practical. Add to it risk of spreading diseases and other factors, monogamy was a reasonably good direction but not necessarily morally 'right'. Belief systems eventually favored monogamy as a moral right and started to categorize homosexual behavior as separate and unnecessary to pro-create. It only takes a generation or two for a 'moral right' to become 'cardinal sin' if disobeyed, which then starts conditioning. OTOH, early Greek/Romans used to say something to the effect 'a man having a relationship with another man is good for the mind and soul, a man having a relationship with a woman is only good for pro-creation'.

Now that there is not a threat to human population (or a need to grow the tribe), expecting a person to reproduce isn't needed as much. It took tens of thousands of years for humanity to hit 1 billion - we've gone from 1B to 7B in just the last couple hundred years. Reproduction is now a choice in our newly constructed world view centered on 'individuality'. Since hetero behavior has been institutionalized in most modern culture, it has become the system. But in reality, human behavior is probably naturally polysexual. We've just been conditioned (well, most of us).

I've studied several dozen pre-civilization and recent isolated tribal cultures mostly from the perspective of 'why do people believe what they believe', but sexual behavior is an interesting side track to look into. Not many books on anthropology fully explore it in terms of cross-cultural comparison, but might have a chapter about it. If early sexual behavior was studied more thoroughly and taught formally, we'd probably have a very different understanding of modern sexuality and formation of families. Single family households are actually a relatively new idea in context to the entire history of mankind. The cultural outcome of that was developed and institutionalized, but is not necessarily "the" only possible natural course of humanity.
And several years later after that post, the change back to accepting what is naturally human is happening way faster than any of us could expect. The masses took longer to take hold of cellphones and the internet. Same-sex marriage acceptance is happening overnight it seems, except for the 'traditionalists' who are not willing or able to step outside the confines of their learned culture.
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Re: Gay marriage

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Even Rush Limbaugh is commenting on the inevitablity of widespread acceptance (at least from government) of gay marriage. Many conservatives know the game is over here and are already moving on - It's actually good for the republicans as it is one issue less to be on the wrong side of in public opinion.
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Re: Gay marriage

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Highlander wrote:Even Rush Limbaugh is commenting on the inevitablity of widespread acceptance (at least from government) of gay marriage. Many conservatives know the game is over here and are already moving on - It's actually good for the republicans as it is one issue less to be on the wrong side of in public opinion.
Bill O'Reilly made minor waves when he said this week that gay marriage opponents have no substantive arguments to hang their hat on other than the Bible, which wasn't persuasive as a policy argument.

I think many Republicans are secretly glad to see this issue get behind them. OTOH, Mike Huckabee said if the GOP accepts gay marriage, the social conservatives will walk. However that's probably more posturing than anything.

Its still kinda puzzling why there are still Dems like Jay Nixon to the right of Rob Portman, Bill O'Reilly, Dick Cheney, and Glenn Beck on this issue, particularly since he doesn't have to worry about re-election.

Its still funny/disheartening to watch this. This wasn't that long ago:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/ ... k_gay.html
"I take umbrage at anyone who might suggest that those of us who worry about amending the Constitution are less committed to the sanctity of marriage, or the fundamental bedrock principle that it exists between a man and a woman going back into the mists of history, as one of the founding foundational institutions of history and humanity and civilization, and that its primary, principle role during those millennia has been the raising and socializing of children for the society into which they are to become adults."
-Hillary Clinton, 2004
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Re: Gay marriage

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I just want to hear more people complain about the divorce rate and turn around and oppose gay marriage based on the sanctity of the institution. That never gets old.
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Re: Gay marriage

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chaglang wrote:I just want to hear more people complain about the divorce rate and turn around and oppose gay marriage based on the sanctity of the institution. That never gets old.
The Right has lost it's credibility based on this alone. We either need to roll back to 1950's divorce law or quit pretending that marriage is a sacred religious institution.
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Re: Gay marriage

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Just curious. Does anyone have stats on the divorce rate for left vs. right?
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Re: Gay marriage

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If I remember correctly, I believe the divorce rate among Christians is higher than the national average of 51%. At least, that was a case at one point. Not sure about right vs. left, though.
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Re: Gay marriage

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longviewmo wrote:Just curious. Does anyone have stats on the divorce rate for left vs. right?
Just one study out of many I'm sure - divorce rate of 37% among liberals, 28% among conservatives, 33% for conservatives.

I think I've seen studies that divorce rates are lower in liberal-leaning states, but that doesn't necessarily mean its the liberals getting divorced less.
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Re: Gay marriage

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KCMax wrote:
longviewmo wrote:Just curious. Does anyone have stats on the divorce rate for left vs. right?
Just one study out of many I'm sure - divorce rate of 37% among liberals, 28% among conservatives, 33% for conservatives.
What's the difference between "among" and "for"? As in 28% among conservatives and 33% for conservatives.
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Re: Gay marriage

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KCMax wrote:
longviewmo wrote:Just curious. Does anyone have stats on the divorce rate for left vs. right?
Just one study out of many I'm sure - divorce rate of 37% among liberals, 28% among conservatives, 33% for conservatives.
What's the difference between "among" and "for"? As in 28% among conservatives and 33% for conservatives.
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Re: Gay marriage

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It was a typo, the 33% conservatives should have been 33% moderates.
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Re: Religion...

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mean wrote: While I completely agree that the government should get entirely out of the business of telling people who they can marry, as long as all parties involved are consenting adult unrelated humans, I don't see a near future where that happens. We'll probably all live to see gay marriage sanctioned by the government, though, and that's progress at least. Even if we are like the 12th or 15th country to do it.
I had to add the bolded part to be on the safe side. There are practical, non-moralistic reasons (aka recessive traits) not to support incestuous marriage.

Which is why I don't see any reason to make the "slippery slope" argument against gay marriage. Besides the above, child marriage is non-consensual, bestiality is non-consensual and is an extreme health risk, and so on.
I'm not well informed enough to make a stance on polygamy though.

Of course the whole issue is the legal connections to marriage. That is why simply the term should be removed from government lingo. All the rights and obligations gets recognized by the state as a civil union.
Let religious and secular institutions confer the title and ceremony if they so wish.

Because in the end, it seems like it's the terminology that people are getting hung up on the most.
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Re: Gay marriage

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I don't think that failing to outlaw incestuous marriage implies support. The number of people desirous of such relationships must be vanishingly small, and if they want to get their sex on they are going to do it whether or not they can get married, so frankly I don't think it should be addressed legislatively at all.
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Re: Religion...

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IraGlacialis wrote: Which is why I don't see any reason to make the "slippery slope" argument against gay marriage. Besides the above, child marriage is non-consensual, bestiality is non-consensual and is an extreme health risk, and so on. I'm not well informed enough to make a stance on polygamy though.
Agree with this if I follow you. There is a place for govt to interfere with non-consensual arrangements. And agree the 'marriage' term, ritual and meaning should be private. Since we have taxes, death and other implications that will apply to the 'contract', a governing body has to be involved in some ways but if it's consensual the state of the person(s) should not be one of the conditions for the Feds to involve themselves in, even for polygamy.

I personally don't have a problem with polygamy if it's 'fair' to all parties and is consensual but it seems to only work in communal type societies where everyone is responsible for the well-being of the entire 'tribe'. It's been attempted again in the 60s and 70s in the States (like hippie communes) but was maybe legislatively not given fairness/equality to work for the most part - so they had to operate as disconnected from the system - didn't work. The Mormon polygamy variety is questionable that it's truly consensual - and it basically favors men. The Xingu River tribes example I posted above is an example of a version that is proven to work reasonably well and fair to all parties involved.

Child marriage isn't considered consensual or acceptable in modern society but the curious thing is that Nature still allows child bearing to start around 12 or so and in early humanity when you had to grow the tribe or go extinct 12-14 was not only the norm, was necessary. So we now arbitrarily (?) set the age of consent at 18 in US - from an anthropological/biological perspective that age could be challenged as too high but from the direction modern society is heading, adult responsibility doesn't seem to broadly occur until around 21 to 25 these days it seems.
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Re: Religion...

Post by IraGlacialis »

Yeah, I think most of the arguments against polygamy stem from the idea of unfair distribution.
earthling wrote: Child marriage isn't considered consensual or acceptable in modern society but the curious thing is that Nature still allows child bearing to start around 12 or so and in early humanity when you had to grow the tribe or go extinct 12-14 was not only the norm, was necessary. So we now arbitrarily (?) set the age of consent at 18 in US - from an anthropological/biological perspective that age could be challenged as too high but from the direction modern society is heading, adult responsibility doesn't seem to broadly occur until around 21 to 25 these days it seems.
Well I think much of it is more on a psychological level, which wasn't factored back in the days.
Remember for the good chunk of history, marriage was political. i didn't matter that the wife was 12 and didn't consent; she was there to be a token and heir-maker. Thus the idea of adult responsibility didn't even register. If she actually loved her spouse, great but it wasn't required.
You see the same in cultures that still practice child marriage as they are almost always arranged.

On an interesting note, there are studies that suggest that in the past, human females actually reached sexual maturity much later than today, at least in Europe.
mean wrote:I don't think that failing to outlaw incestuous marriage implies support. The number of people desirous of such relationships must be vanishingly small, and if they want to get their sex on they are going to do it whether or not they can get married, so frankly I don't think it should be addressed legislatively at all.
You have a point there. Just the scientist in me is screaming at all the things that could go wrong (especially since allowing marriage would confer to them benefits), even if that what royalty did.
Keeping it in the family...
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Re: Religion...

Post by mean »

IraGlacialis wrote:You have a point there. Just the scientist in me is screaming at all the things that could go wrong (especially since allowing marriage would confer to them benefits), even if that what royalty did.
Keeping it in the family...
I have a similar visceral kind of reaction to the idea, on top of the "ew, that's yucky!" angle, but I have a vision of the legal definition of marriage as a sort of social contract that merely implies some kind of domestic arrangement rather than (necessarily) a romantic or sexual relationship. Sort of like an LLP for insurance benefits, inheritance, automatic durable power... that kind of thing.
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