About those anti-aviatoin newsgroups

You just made the point I was illustrating - to arbitrarily define that
"marriage" can only be between persons of opposite gender may be traditional
but it is an anachronism based solely on an aversion to homosexuality. It
presupposes that homosexual love is somehow of lesser moral quality than
heterosexual love. People should be free to marry any person who wishes to
marry them back, regardless of their respective genders, and have the legal
entity of a marriage of two same gender persons be indistinguishable in any
manner from that of two opposite gender persons. That is not to say that
religious organizations shouldn't be able to define marriage and those
eligible to do so within the context of their congregations and rituals as
they wish - I was married in the Catholic church and my wife and I had to
conform to certain requirements that were not part of the civil requirements
for marriage and that is at it should be. But the *civil* authority should
treat same-sex and opposite-sex couples exactly alike in every respect,
including the terminology that is used to refer to the union.


"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
et...

"Steve House" wrote in message
...

Really?


Yes, really.



Go down to your local county clerk's office and apply for a
marriage license to someone of your own gender.


Marriage involves persons of the opposite sex. Homosexuals are free to
marry persons of the opposite sex just as heterosexuals are. Homosexuals
are not denied any rights in this matter, nor in any other matter I can
think of.

Marriage involves persons of the opposite sex. Homosexuals are free to
marry persons of the opposite sex just as heterosexuals are. Homosexuals
are not denied any rights in this matter, nor in any other matter I can
think of.

You just made the point I was illustrating - to arbitrarily define that
"marriage" can only be between persons of opposite gender may be
traditional
but it is an anachronism based solely on an aversion to homosexuality.

You're trying to change many millennia of history and tradition by
arbitrarily re-defining marriage to suit your own agenda -- and you accuse
Steven of being arbitrary?

Now THAT is ironic.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:Yd90b.182702$YN5.135190@sccrnsc01...
Marriage involves persons of the opposite sex. Homosexuals are free to
marry persons of the opposite sex just as heterosexuals are.
Homosexuals
are not denied any rights in this matter, nor in any other matter I can
think of.

You just made the point I was illustrating - to arbitrarily define that
"marriage" can only be between persons of opposite gender may be
traditional
but it is an anachronism based solely on an aversion to homosexuality.

You're trying to change many millennia of history and tradition by
arbitrarily re-defining marriage to suit your own agenda -- and you accuse
Steven of being arbitrary?

No, we're trying to remove an arbitrary restriction that has been in place
for millennia. You speak as though the mere extent of the historical
precedent automatically makes the restriction reasonable. What if
interracial marriage had been banned for millennia? Suppose marriage had
always been defined as the union of two persons of the same race (as indeed
it has been in many times and places). Presumably you would not object to
the "redefinition" of marriage then, nor call the proposed change
"arbitrary". Therefore, you need to cite something other than history and
tradition if you are to justify continuing the exclusion of same-gender
couples from marriage.

--Gary


Now THAT is ironic.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Gary L. Drescher" wrote in message
news:x2b0b.148123$Oz4.40213@rwcrnsc54...

No, we're trying to remove an arbitrary restriction that has been in place
for millennia.


Why don't you remove the "restriction" on division by zero while you're at
it, or the "restriction" on perpetual motion machines. Those are just as
arbitrary.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
k.net...
Why don't you remove the "restriction" on division by zero

There are, in fact, methods for dealing with division by zero.

[...] or the "restriction" on perpetual motion machines.

I'm not aware of any arbitrary restriction on perpetual motion machines.
You are more than welcome to build one, should you happen across a method to
do so.

In any case, as far as genuine arbitrary restrictions go, be patient.
Eventually, we'll get to them all. But for the time-being, it's "one step
at a time".

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...

I'm not aware of any arbitrary restriction on perpetual motion machines.


Exactly. There's no point in restricting what is impossible anyway, such as
same-sex marriage.

Exactly. There's no point in restricting what is impossible anyway, such
as
same-sex marriage.

Can you explain how this "impossibility" is occurring now in Canada and
several other nations?

"Steve House" wrote in message

....- to arbitrarily define that
"marriage" can only be between persons of opposite gender may be
traditional
but it is an anachronism based solely on an aversion to homosexuality.

Ah, so even in prehistory we are to blame all on "homophobes". Tripe. The
notion of a two-gender relationship around a core family unit evolved
millenia ago, even before the concept was recognized or codified as
"marriage". It evolved that way because even the most primitive of human
groups could recognize and understand the benefit to the entire clan of a
structured society and of a cohesive social fabric in which to provide
security for the clan and to raise and protect their young as they grew and
learned the ways of the clan. To state that such an evolution was based on
an arbitrary aversion to homosexuality is ludicrous.

It presupposes that homosexual love is somehow of lesser moral quality than
heterosexual love.

I can't quite get my hands around a picture of a primitive clan discussing
the "...lesser moral quality..." of other members of the clan. Such a
prehistoric evolution more likely simply recognized that a homosexual
relationship made no concrete contribution to the stability, security, or
social interweave of the clan.

JG

"John Gaquin" wrote in message
...

"Steve House" wrote in message

....- to arbitrarily define that
"marriage" can only be between persons of opposite gender may be
traditional
but it is an anachronism based solely on an aversion to homosexuality.

Ah, so even in prehistory we are to blame all on "homophobes". Tripe.

You don't think there were bigots thousands of years ago? The Biblical
penalty for inter-ethnic sex was death--same as the penalty for gay sex, or
for worshipping the wrong deity. Those sentiments echo all the way to the
present.

The notion of a two-gender relationship around a core family unit evolved
millenia ago, even before the concept was recognized or codified as
"marriage". It evolved that way because even the most primitive of human
groups could recognize and understand the benefit to the entire clan of a
structured society and of a cohesive social fabric in which to provide
security for the clan and to raise and protect their young as they grew
and
learned the ways of the clan. To state that such an evolution was based
on
an arbitrary aversion to homosexuality is ludicrous.

To say that heterosexual unions evolved as an aversion to homosexuality
would indeed be ludicrous, but no one has said anything of the sort.

However, there does seem to have been an ancient, widespread aversion to
homosexuality, just as there were similar ancient, widespread aversions to
inter-ethnic sex, religious pluralism, political and social equality between
men and women, and countless other such prejudices. (No one knew better
back then; now we do.)

What Steve said is that the present-day insistence on excluding gay couples
from codified marriage has its origins in an arbitrary, ancient
prejudice--not that heterosexual couples or families originate from such
prejudice.

Incidentally, your fanciful story as to the origins of family structure is
almost as ludicrous as the story that you inaccurately attribute to Steve.
Family structures occur even in species that have no cognitive ability to
assess and compare the relative merits of various forms of social
organization, hence no ability to "recognize" or "understand" the putative
benefits of what they are doing. There is no evidence that early human
family structures arose more ratiocinatively than did the similar structures
in other primates.

It presupposes that homosexual love is somehow of lesser moral quality
than
heterosexual love.

I can't quite get my hands around a picture of a primitive clan discussing
the "...lesser moral quality..." of other members of the clan.

Good, since no one has proposed that picture. If you look at the full
quote, the "it" Steve refers to is the present-day marriage exclusion,
rooted in the ancient prejudice.

Such a
prehistoric evolution more likely simply recognized that a homosexual
relationship made no concrete contribution to the stability, security, or
social interweave of the clan.

That's a pretty far-fetched conversation for the ancient clansfolk to have
had, too. But since I can't interpellate your prehistoric protagonists,
I'll have to ask you instead: In what way does a childless gay couple make
less of a contribution to social stability etc. than does a childless
straight couple? In what way does a gay couple raising children make less
of a contribution to social stability etc. than does a straight couple
raising children?

--Gary

JG

No, I'm done with this. You run in circles, "proving" that the sky is green
by claiming that the sky is green.

There are subsets of humankind that have managed to alienate themselves from
every society they have lived in for thousands upon thousands of years. Is
this arbitrary coincidence? Secularists would have you believe that just
within the past few hundred years we have become so sophisticated as to
negate millions of years of evolutionary caution. I don't buy it. Species
continually protect themselves. Sophistication is a thin patina indeed.