Posted: Apr 09, 2012 8:10 pm
MacIver wrote:UndercoverElephant wrote:What extra do they gain by doing so?
I'm not gay, so I can only speculate.
But I would imagine it is because they want the love they feel to be recognised as equally important as the love heteros feel. Irrespective of any legal or financial advantages marriages (or civil partnerships) imbue they are fundamentally about the love of one person for another.
I don't understand this argument. What are civil partnerships for? Well, it's because the law treats married couples differently to unmarried couples in terms of their financial/legal commitments to each other. It does so precisely because married couples have made a long-term commitment to each other, based on mutual love. And a civil partnership legally entitles gay couples who want to make the same commitment to each do so. That does recognise, legally, that their love is as important as that of heterosexuals.
I think you're right that it is about recognition of something, but it can't be something that civil partnerships already recognise. Something else is going on here.
Your argument seems to be pinned on two beliefs: that marriage is fundamentally about procreation...
Not the only one, but one of the fundamental pillars, yes. Marriage is a human cultural institution which was fundamentally about procreation since the dawn of civilisation, and still is.
and that it is historically and culturally about a male and female.
Yes. Of course it is.
If the first was true then why do we allow infertile couples to marry?
Two reasons. The first is that procreation isn't historically the sole reason people got married (maybe they were already too old to have children, for example). The second is that many infertile couples are already married when they discover they are infertile.
And the second is true only if you create cut of points into history that you don't wish to look beyond. Marriage used to be about the coupling of one man and several women. It use to be about a male having ownership of a female. It use to be about a lot of thing we today don't agree with.
I know that. See my last post.
But today we have moved on. We believe that marriage is about love. And it is my opinion that the love between two men or two women is just as important as the love between a man and a woman. And if they are equal then they deserve the same name.
They are already equal. They have a different name because they are, erm,....different?