But I neither wish to "jealously guard privilege" nor deny the extension of the legal and social rights which they enjoy to people who have been denied those rights"Originally Posted by MikeL
I have no objection to anyone having the legal or social right to marry whomever they choose, providing they are willing to accept marriage as marriage. What I object to is people saying "we don't like the idea of marriage, so we want to create a 'watered down' thing and try to make society accept it as being as good as marriage"
Noone has ever suggested that anyone or anything was PREVENTING a man and woman "pledging themselves to each other for life". But, obviously, they could do that if the status of marriage did not exist at all. Which seems to bewhat you are saying - that you think that marriage as an institution should not exist, because people can still "pledge themselves to each other", even if there is no such thing as marriage. And, that is what the Civil Unions Bill attempts to do
The problem with that , is that marriage was (is) a PUBLIC pledge, AND a recognition by society as a whole of that pledge. A hypothetical man could pledge himself to his dog. But that is a purely private arrangement. Marriage was more than that (the fact that I feel constrained to say "was" indicates the depth to which we have fallen). Marriage was not just a private arrangement. It was a commitment, not just to the partner, but to society as a whole. To look after each other, to care for each other , and their children (if any) . And in turn an acceptance and recognition by the whole of society of that commitment. That is why a marriage cerermony was, by law, required to be held in an open church/office etc, which , in theory anyway, any memeber of the public could attend.
Reducing marriage to a purely private arangement, devoid of societal recognition does indeed degrade marriage.
There may have been marriages that just stayed together "for the sake of the children". That doesn't seem such a bad reason to me. Seems to me, that those people were indeed recognising their responsibility to each other, to their children, and to society, and placing that above purely selfish hedonism. 'Twas called duty. Now no-one is interested in doing anything "for the sake of the children", self interest is all.
So much for the arguments that Civil Union does not degrade marriage, and that marriage is an outmoded or bad thing. Now to the argument that it is somehow due to the rights of gay people, which we will see is also false.
This has NOTHING whatsoever to do with gays. For my part I see no reason why gays should not marry. The established churches might not to wish to conduct such a ceremony, but they could have married using a registry office or a marriage celebrant. The established churches will not recognise civil unions between gays either, so that argument is quite irrelevant.
If society felt that gay people should be able to marry , then it would have been perfectly simple to remove whatever restriction it was in the Marriage Act that prevented them doing so. The fact that the proponents on the Civil Unions Bill were not interested in doing this suggests to me that their intent was to attack marriage as an institrution, rather than any concern for gay couples.
If marriage, as you suggest, was a privilege, and some people felt excluded from that privilege, then it would have been better to extend the privilege to those who felt excluded , rather than abolish the privilege altogether.
You make the analogy of slavery. But your analogy is false. You have not emancipated gays. Rather you have abolished freedom altogether. As if to say "Some men are slaves and do not enjoy the freedom that free men have, so we must make all men slaves. Then none will be free and thus all will be equal"
Nor is this anything to do with "the existence of alternative ways of living one's life". This is another smokescreen. It has been centuries since anyone suggested that those who did NOT want to be married should be forced to do so. Anyone who wanted to live with a partner of any sex without being married could always do so. Rather, it is the proponents of Civil Union who object to the "existence of alternative ways of living one's life". They hate marriage and do not want to be married, so they wish to prevent other people being married. They cannot abolish marriage in one hit, but they seek to undermine it by stealth.
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