Iceland passes gay marriage law in unanimous vote

[puckluck]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

While I doubt this is what the OP was suggesting, there is a defensible third opinion that says that the state should not use the word "marriage" at all to describe legal partnerships between consenting adults because it is such a loaded term. Any such partnership (hetero or homosexual) could be called "civil unions" or even "civil marriages", affording upon those adults the tax status, inheritance, child rearing and legal protection that is currently afforded to married folk. In this system, it would be up to people to decide how they identified their partnerships, be it through the definitions of their church or their own personal or family definitions.

Marriage is a term with specific meaning within certain religious groups so it does create friction to use that term to describe a union that is antithetical to those religious groups' teachings. For instance, the Catholic Church keeps its own council on who it considers to be Married and who is not, using a system of annulments for declaring that certain unions are still valid and that others never were. This is fine in my opinion because churches must be able to set their own definitions unless we seek to strip the right to Freedom of Religion.

I'm pretty certain that setting up a second tier of legal unions just for gay people (even if those rights were identical) would not pass a court challenge in Canada. To me, the choice is: use the word marriage for everyone or use it for no one. That it is the inevitable consequence of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as is the next step that will include the legalization of polygamous relationships as soon as someone challenges the current law.

I agree with all of this, but the point I was making was whether the word be called marriage, or whatever would make the anti-gays happy, it should apply to everyone, and not just alienate one group of people. I'm not really that familiar with the word marriage holding a special religious meaning to be honest, but I don't think the government should have to follow religious laws.

I think the people who are against gay marriage who use that argument are just using that as a shield to hide their homophobic views.

[Bownesian]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

A response.

Originally Posted by photon

A pair of responses.

Originally Posted by Thor

A fourth response.

As I have said above, I agree with all of you on the substance of this debate. In my opinion, there isn't a just cause for the state to keep equal rights from gay couples. I have participated in a gay pride parade; I have participated in a lesbian wedding; I am in a co-parenting collective with my sister-in-law and her wife while we keep their daughter and my twins out of daycare.

What I don't care for is how people on the socialist atheist left (tongue firmly in cheek) use tactics of denegration, scapegoating and straw men when they make arguments against the beliefs of religious people. They use the language and tactics of intolerance when fighting for tolerance.

The religious people in my life are good-hearted, honest, hard-working and generous with their time, resources and affection. They believe certain contentious things that I disagree with - abortion is murder; homosexuality is unnatural and threatens one's immortal soul; marriage is meant to be between a man and a woman, is the ideal (or only) institution for raising a family and is meant to last for life. They also believe that it is as important to save their own souls as to save the soul of another person and thus, they argue against abortion and gay marriage and encourage people not to live in sin. That is the essence of evangelism.

In the Canadian context, they lost all of these battles since the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was made to be the law of the land, but the Charter also protects their rights to feel the way that they do and I support that. They may put the blame on "activist judges" or somesuch but their beef should be with the Charter, which is the sole cause of the rulings against their positions.

I find that the "left wing" can be at least as bad as the "right wing when it comes to demonizing people who hold opposing opinions:
-Because I think that Israel has the right to defend itself against people whose goal includes their destruction, I support genocide and aparthiad.
-Because I think that the Kyoto Protocol is a waste of resources that filters money from industrial advanced nations to corrupt poor ones, I am a "denier" (in the holocaust denial sense) and am actively seeking the destruction of the earth.
-Because I think that industry creates wealth for nations and society and should be allowed to operate efficiently to the betterment of all, I don't care about poverty or the environment.

I wanted argue for a little nuance and understanding of the other side's point of view in these debates because they invariably resort to name calling and other base tactics that disengages both sides.