AWKWARD ZOMBIE

I'm not stopping at the most vocal, invalidating the language they use, or saying they have no good ideas. I said so explicitly and have said so in the past as well. The language is fine. If I had anything to say about it at all, it would be that any language used in regards to such heavily emotional and important topics needs to be closely monitored to prevent them from becoming slurs, as is the case with non SJW terms still related to heavy subjects.

So people know all the words and terms to do with a game like Cockfighting Society - yeah, maybe you hadn't noticed but there's a forum over to your right for discussing videogames - that kind of specialist knowledge goes with the territory here. I personally could talk at length to people on science and art-oriented forums using words and terms that maybe only a few of you here would recognise - but there's a time and a place for those kinds of words - and a casual forum like this isn't necessarily the time or the place; I would argue the same of gender-specific words and terms.

Even so - though admittedly I had difficulty grasping the words to do with gender and stuff at the start - I tried incorporating them into my dialogue for the benefit of some of the users here - but I still got kicked in the teeth by those users for trying to get involved in conversations on certain topics - and in the end I felt like I'd only encouraged those user's bad attitudes and behaviour by acknowledging what they wanted.

So I guess - on my part - refusing to use those words is more an act of defiance/disapproval against the aforementioned individuals than the whole 'gender rights' thing; Maybe it's misguided of me - but I've also been personally insulted by these individuals so forgive me if I'm loath to do anything to please them.

I think for those people who this 'gender condition' thing is a big deal - they have trouble with people who don't see it as much of a big deal at all - and I think that's actually the problem; It's not fair for somebody to berate or hate upon somebody else because they don't care about something as much as they do - it doesn't make somebody a bad person if they couldn't care less about using words like 'cisgendered' - much less using them in the right circumstances to describe the right 'gender denomination'.

I guess I'm thankful for being introduced to these terms because if I found myself in a circumstance - outside the realms of the internet - where words like 'cisgendered' or whatever actually came up (it has not happened to me yet) I would at least be able to understand on some level what was being discussed. If I actually knew somebody in the outside world who spoke using these words and terms my appreciation for them would go up significantly - but, alas, they never do seem to come up.

It may not seem like it sometimes - but I'm only too happy for all the various 'gender conditions' to get more recognition - I'm just not massively interested in being involved in that - it's not a big enough part of my everyday existence for me to use these words all the time - or go out of my way to do so.


In closing; I'm not sure how much of your problem is to do with me personally, Oracle - but I'll just say this:

I am not - and I do not want to be - your enemy.



I never really liked the 'dumb comments/screencaps' thread myself for the reasons you've outlined - note that I only made the first version of that thread because Odds was flooding the 'funny pictures' thread with screencaps at the time (instead of funny pictures); I'm actually thankful that Lolita deleted that original thread because being the OP of the original kinda painted me up to be something I wasn't.

In addition; I have never believed that Tumblr is full only of 'psychopathic misandrist haters of the priveleged white cisgendered majority' - but I'll still make the odd remark about the individual comments/screencaps if they are deserving of one.

I hope it is clear to everyone that I respect the LGBT movement and anyone who can face what hardships the people of the LGBT community has had to go through deserves respect and admiration for having the courage to not change who you are just to fit within societal "norms".

I think that, since marrage is traditionally a religious institution, it should be that the beliefs of the religion aught to be able to decide who may or may not be considered a union in the eyes of whatever power or powers who may have created this world and its people.

HOWEVER, this does NOT mean that two people need to rely on a religeous institution in order to be considered by the public as a joining of two peopl who love and respect eachother. The government aught to have the first and final say in the decision of uniting the fates of two people.

I am not a religious person by any means, and in my own personal opinion, I don't believe I should be granted the right to be united by the ideals of an institution devoted to teachings and ideals which not only do I not agree with, I deny their supposed foundations, but my spirituality is not the topic of this post.

The point I would like to make is this:
Religion can define marraige so long as the government grants anyone the right to be united.

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what the gay marriage movement is trying to do

Really the main problem with civil unions is that they don't always get all the same rights as marriages (tax breaks, visitation, etc). Were they functionally identical to marriages, as far as the government has control over, there wouldn't be much issue. (well, it might bring up some seperate-but-equal types of discrimination, who knows)

Another problem is, plenty of people get married for non-religious reasons, but recieve the same government benefits as those who do. Since the government has no problem with that, this seems to imply that marriage is instituted by the government first and foremost. The question there is if something about that marriage is considered amoral by a religious principle, what place does that principle have in the government's treatment of that marriage? "Sinners" get married every day and get the same rights as everyone else.

IMO, the US should ensure equal treatment of marriages regardless of any religious principle. The only reason anyone considers gay marriage to be wrong is because of religious principles. But that shouldn't play any role in what rights people get.

My question is if marriage and civil unions are meant to be synonymous in nature, why is there a need for the seperate word?

Why not just call it "marriage" and save effort?

Its a cultural thing, calling civil unions its own thing implies that its worth less than marriage, even if they had the same perks, whcih they dont. It SHOULD be called the same thing, and be the same thing, but since the anti-gay marriage groups would rather hack off their own limbs than accept that, this HAS to be forced through.

because people who think they're being traditional get their panties in a twist if they have to share their social structures with someone they don't like. Depending on what region or culture you look at, marriage started out as either a social/economic construct, or a religious one. The people who have held onto it being a religious construct assume that that is what ALL marriage is. So, they get offended when someone tries to use the word for something different. And for the cultures where marriage was a socioeconomic thing, the point of it was originally not to just get two households together, but keep the bloodlines going. So that's where that idea of that one excludes homosexual couples.

The socioeconomic side has been kind of phased out and been altered as we've done away with arranged marriage in a lot of western cultures. So now, it's entirely a small-scale social construct. It is the permanent sharing of a lifestyle and home with a partner. Legal matters, such as property, documents an names are maintained by the government, which increasingly doesn't care what two individuals are involved, so long as it's two adults. So that side of it is solved.

The problem shows up with the people who still hold onto the religious traditions of marriage. However. Just acknowledge that not every marriage is a [Insert faith here] marriage, and as such, should not be put in the same category of marriage. All of them count for the state, your faith does not have to acknowledge them. The religious tradition is an additional foundation of the marriage.
A church, being a non-state entity, should have the right to refuse a ceremony if they so choose (I mean for anyone, not just homosexual couples). However, they should not have the ability to dictate what the state says about an issue that does not cause anyone harm.

Oh I know. It's more a stab at the ones saying "Why are you complaining?! It's the same exact thing?!"

I've heard a few grammar-nazi types defend the use of using a word other than "marriage" for the sake of maintaining clear definitions of what each word means. Meaning that if "marriage" refers to all romantic unions, using the word will make it ambiguous as to the genders of the people involved.

In place of "civil union" and some other euphemisms, you could have something like:

marriage = man + woman
larriage = woman + woman
narriage = man + man

Of course, you can put any word in the place of those last two. The point being that having separate words for each type can make identification of who's involved easier and thus avoid offending anyone accidentally. Like if you were reading a form that said: "Married: Mark and Sam" and you called the person and addressed them as "Mrs. Sam" when it is actually a man. (Or vice-versa, you could assume Sam is a man when she's actually Samantha.) If it said "Larried" or "Narried" or whatever then that part would be clear.

In this respect the separate words are simply for clarity of meaning. I can understand the reasoning behind it, but I'm not sure how well this sort of thing would go over in practice (see the "separate but equal" thing above).

Under that logic, the word "person" is bad because you can't immediately guess if it's a guy or a girl.

Well, I didn't say it was perfect logic.

In that context, I guess "civil union" could be used as a fourth, neutral term?

But then we're right back where we started.

Just call it marriage (because that's what it is) and be careful before you say "Mr. and Mrs.".

Just call them a nice couple.

"The Smeagols"

"The Smeagol Family"

"You two"

I usually never call people by their names anyways.

I guess my biggest beef with the "marriage is a religious thing" argument is that we don't force people of non-christian denominations to call their unions something different, nor do we prohibit athiests or agnostics from being married under the law. In some states minors are allowed to marry, and while I have nothing against divorce, from the standpoint of marriage being meant to be about commitment, divorce is both common and largely unregulated in terms of the "requirements" for it. People make an argument about homosexual persons being promiscuous or undevoted, but I feel it would be hard to make that argument accurately when we specifically prohibit them from entering into registered, monogamous unions, especially when more people argue against allowing same-sex marriage than against divorce. It rubs me, accurately in my opinion, as an in-group trying to keep the out-group "out".