Marriage as Sacrament versus State Defined

[DrTaffy]

That does not logically follow. The statement was credible only because it was imaginable, not because it was known to be a fact.

Evidence for this assertion?

We have a contemporary source explicitly stating that the ancient Egyptians practiced same sex marriage, and your only counter is a flat unsupported assertion that he must be lying.

The author was not warning against homosexual marriage per se.

Yes he is, quite explicitly.

You shouldn’t dismiss them all as a group just because they are “various”.

I dismiss them because they are unsupported. For example, you merely insist that the Sifra must be lying about Egypt.

The observation that marriage is understood to be something between a man and a woman by religious and non-religious alike does counter the implication that you were making that this definition was from a narrow group (the religious right).

I never said that only the religious right are opposed to same sex marriage. Nor have you explained why this quibble of yours is of any relevance to the rights and wrongs of this situation.

 

[DrTaffy]

Originally Posted by S. Lang, Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American cultures
I also learned that the term “two-spirit” (or “two-spirited” has come into general use in the urban Native American gay and lesbian communities. According to Anguksuaq (in press) , the term originated in 1989 during an international/intertribal gathering of gay and lesbian Native Americans

So the term ‘two spirit’ is of recent coinage, to replace the gratuitously obscene and offensive term ‘berdache’ - I never claimed otherwise. You have produced nothing to justify your assertion that the beliefs of the Native Americans were made up at the same time, nor for that matter would such recent coinage of the beliefs justify the contempt you show them.

If you others to show respect for your beliefs, you should show respect for theirs. It’s called the golden rule.

What I demand respect for is fact as opposed to the purposeful and deliberate distortion of a culture’s belief system to further a political agenda.

Such as your deliberate distortion of Native American beliefs to further your political agenda?

From a European point of view, he was correct. From the culture’s point of view, these were “marriages” between two distinct genders that were still not seen as equivalent to a male-female marriage (as seen in the issue of childrens’ clan membership).

Where is the proof of this assertion? More to the point, where is the proof that these couples (who were not one man and one woman) were not considered ‘married’? The fact that they recognised paternity in cases when it was obvious that the two spirited husband physically could not be the father does not establish that this was not a marriage.

For it to be read as allowing marriage between two male or two female Roman citizens, one would have to ignore the fact that the Latin clearly refers to a “male Roman citizen” and “female Roman citizen”.

But not in language that explicitly affirms that conubium is solely between a man and a woman. The phrase you cite is perfectly reconcilable with same sex marriage, in the original latin. If this were not the case, as I have pointed out, even a respected academic such as John Boswell would not have got away with asserting that same sex marriages were valid.

 

[Monkey1976]

So the term ‘two spirit’ is of recent coinage, to replace the gratuitously obscene and offensive term ‘berdache’ - I never claimed otherwise. You have produced nothing to justify your assertion that the beliefs of the Native Americans were made up at the same time, nor for that matter would such recent coinage of the beliefs justify the contempt you show them.

It’s not that the term was coined then, it’s that it is being used in a historically inaccurate way. Hwame were more equivalent to modern “transgenders”, not homosexuals, though “transgender” is still not an accurate descriptor for them. I’m not sure there is a single word in English that portrays them correctly, but the closest description would be those of one physical sex who take on some roles of the opposite physical sex, and are considered by the culture to be something different and distinct from both.

If you others to show respect for your beliefs, you should show respect for theirs. It’s called the golden rule.

I respect the actual, documented beliefs. Not something invented or distorted to give credence to a political movement.

Such as your deliberate distortion of Native American beliefs to further your political agenda?

Pointing out falsehoods is not distortion.

Where is the proof of this assertion? More to the point, where is the proof that these couples (who were not one man and one woman) were not considered ‘married’? The fact that they recognised paternity in cases when it was obvious that the two spirited husband physically could not be the father does not establish that this was not a marriage.

In Amerind culture, marriage served to establish clan membership for the children of that marriage. The fact that these relationships did not do so shows that they were not seen as identical to male-female marriages.

But not in language that explicitly affirms that conubium is solely between a man and a woman. The phrase you cite is perfectly reconcilable with same sex marriage, in the original latin. If this were not the case, as I have pointed out, even a respected academic such as John Boswell would not have got away with asserting that same sex marriages were valid.

I’ve already explained the problems with counting Dr. Boswell as an authority on homosexuality in history, as well as the issues with applying the term “respected academic” to him. The man pushed a falsehood and purposefully distorted Christian practices to further his agenda, then presented those distortions as fact. Had a professor of physics adhered to his “standards” in research, they would be out on the street. That’s academic politics for you.

I would love to hear how the original Latin allows conubium between Romanus and Romanus, when no such arrangement is mentioned even indirectly. To whom would the right of Paterfamilias descend? To which family did they belong? Could citizenship be granted to the spouse? These are serious questions under Roman law, which have no answer except in the case of marriage between a male and female citizen.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

And again, your ‘objection’ to the Sifra as an example of same sex marriage consists entirely of an unsupported assertion that the author must be lying. You have produced no evidence to support this.

If the Sifra is to be taken as evidence of anything, either pro or con gay marriage, it must afford that evidence on its own, not by relying on other sources. If some history of the Siwa Oasis is your source, then switch to that source and abandon the Sifra. You will have to excuse my intellectual limitations that prevent me from arguing on many fronts at once. Therefore, I focus on one thing at a time. If we cannot agree on the inherent meaning of the Sifra regarding this issue, it is unlikely we will agree on anything else. As to why I have chosen this particular issue to focus on, it is only to refute your reliance on it to support the notion that same sex marriage has a rich history in law.

As for the author of the Sifra “lying”, I never said that. I said that it was not written for the purpose of historical accuracy. The author was not a modern day investigative journalist. It would be wrong to treat the text the same as you would treat a New York Times or Guardian article. Nor was its purpose the same as a history text. It was written to give the Jews an understanding of how the scriptures make them different. The portion you plucked out of the Sifra was one of several mirror-image phrases meant to contrast with the positive-image counterparts in Leviticus. I refer you to this analysis of the Sifra. Please read all the way from page 84 to page 89. This puts your excerpt in a better context. After reading that analysis, tell me if you can still rely on it as support that same-sex marriage was treated in law the same as opposite sex marriage.

 

[DrTaffy]

It’s not that the term was coined then, it’s that it is being used in a historically inaccurate way.

So what was the relevance of the quote you cited which pertains only to the coinage of the term ‘two spirit’?

Hwame were more equivalent to modern “transgenders”, not homosexuals, though “transgender” is still not an accurate descriptor for them. I’m not sure there is a single word in English that portrays them correctly,

There is one, ‘berdache’, that unfortunately is considered offensive by Native Americans (with good justification) and two words ‘two spirited’ that are accepted by Native Americans yet seem to infuriate you for some reason.

I respect the actual, documented beliefs.

The current beliefs of Native Americans are actual and documented. You do not respect them, but actively mock them.

How would you respond to non-Catholics coming here and mocking your belief in the virginity of Mary as being due to merely a mistranslation of Isaiah 7:14? They are free to hold their beliefs on the virginity of the BVM, or the correct translation of Isaiah, but to mock your beliefs is intrinsically contemptuous and disrespectful.

In Amerind culture, marriage served to establish clan membership for the children of that marriage. The fact that these relationships did not do so shows that they were not seen as identical to male-female marriages.

Establishing clan membership was not the only purpose of marriage, nor have you shown that the reported marriages of two spirited individuals were not actually marriages.

I’ve already explained the problems with counting Dr. Boswell as an authority on homosexuality in history, as well as the issues with applying the term “respected academic” to him.

You have slandered his academic reputation and called him a liar, but that is all.

Nor does this matter, except as a condemnation of your manners. Do you understand that I am emphatically not making the argument from authority,i.e. saying that you should accept Boswell’s opinion solely because he was such a great academic?

Rather, I was saying that despite him being so respected, he would not have been able to publish what he did if the interpretation of the passage in Gaius were as simple and naive as you imply.

So arguing that he was not respected only strengthens the point I am making.

I would love to hear how the original Latin allows conubium between Romanus and Romanus, when no such arrangement is mentioned even indirectly.

We have already mentioned numerous examples where historians record actual same sex weddings.

Your only (so far) shred of evidence to support you assertion that these weddings were invalid is a phrase equivalent to “marriage was only valid between roman men and roman women”.

This phrase is ambiguous - it could mean what you want it to mean, but it is also compatible with saying that two roman men, or two roman women, or a roman man and woman could get married.

Sure, the author could have been more explicit in either direction. But I am not relying on this passage to prove that Roman law approved of gay marriage, and therefore (for some reason) so should you, rather you are using it to ‘prove’ your assertion that Roman law forbade gay marriage despite the records of actual gay marriages taking place. And that therefore I should somehow have to accept your imposition of a ban on gay marriage.

 

[DrTaffy]

If the Sifra is to be taken as evidence of anything, either pro or con gay marriage, it must afford that evidence on its own, not by relying on other sources.

It does. It explicitly states, in so many words, that in ancient Egypt men married men and women married women. You are asserting that this is false, without (so far) a shred of evidence.

Yet you rely on the assertion (also presented without a shred of evidence) that marriage “has always meant a union of a man and a woman. It has never meant anything more general than that”, which would be conclusively disproven by the assertion in the Sifra, as justification for forcing your beliefs on those who do not share them.

If some history of the Siwa Oasis is your source, then switch to that source and abandon the Sifra.

No, you do not get to dictate which sources I may use, just because one is uncomforable for you to contemplate.

If we cannot agree on the inherent meaning of the Sifra regarding this issue, it is unlikely we will agree on anything else.

True anyone who would deny the inherent meaning of "a man would marry a man, and a woman would marry a woman” is probably not open to reason.

As for the author of the Sifra “lying”, I never said that.

You said that what it explicitly claims is not true. Without evidence. The fact that you assert this without evidence is far more important that any quibbles as to whether saying something that is not true counts as ‘lying’.

I refer you to this analysis of the Sifra. Please read all the way from page 84 to page 89.

Pages 88 to 89 are not shown in this preview

Cost to see those pages: £53.61

No thanks, if you have a point to make, just make it. Those parts of your link that actually worked did nothing to support your allegation.

After reading that analysis, tell me if you can still rely on it as support that same-sex marriage was treated in law the same as opposite sex marriage.

I don’t have to support it, you have to disprove it. As a tiny first stop towards supporting your allegation that marriage “has always meant a union of a man and a woman. It has never meant anything more general than that” and that I should be forced to accept the consequences of your beliefs on this matter.

 

[Monkey1976]

So what was the relevance of the quote you cited which pertains only to the coinage of the term ‘two spirit’?

As Dr. Lang pointed out, the term “…has come into general use in the urban Native American gay and lesbian communities”. If they are claiming that “Two-Spirit” is a direct replacement for what was once described as “berdache”, then they are using the term incorrectly. If they want to use “Two-Spirit” as a euphemism for homosexuality, they are free to do so, but don’t pretend that there is some grand history and tradition behind it.

There is one, ‘berdache’, that unfortunately is considered offensive by Native Americans (with good justification) and two words ‘two spirited’ that are accepted by Native Americans yet seem to infuriate you for some reason.

Because it is an invented term which is being used to describe two very different things, and the confusion over its definition is being taken advantage of by activists. If I say that “2 foo 1 equals 3” and “2 foo 1 equals 1”, what is the meaning of “foo”? It’s a deliberate obfuscation of the actual hwame tradition to cover something entirely else.

The current beliefs of Native Americans are actual and documented. You do not respect them, but actively mock them.

When they’re clearly a recent creation out of whole cloth to further a political agenda, you’re correct.

How would you respond to non-Catholics coming here and mocking your belief in the virginity of Mary as being due to merely a mistranslation of Isaiah 7:14? They are free to hold their beliefs on the virginity of the BVM, or the correct translation of Isaiah, but to mock your beliefs is intrinsically contemptuous and disrespectful.

I would respond, “Oh - it must be Tuesday” and proceed to show evidence that they are incorrect.

Establishing clan membership was not the only purpose of marriage, nor have you shown that the reported marriages of two spirited individuals were not actually marriages.

I didn’t say that it was the only purpose of marriage, only that marriage served to establish it. Marriage also served to publicly recognize that the children born to a particular woman were fathered by a particular man - just as it does today.

(continued next post)

 

[Monkey1976]

You have slandered his academic reputation and called him a liar, but that is all.

Well, when a person lies, that makes them a liar. When they lie in an academic context, using that lie as support for their thesis, that calls their academic reputation in serious question.

Nor does this matter, except as a condemnation of your manners. Do you understand that I am emphatically not making the argument from authority,i.e. saying that you should accept Boswell’s opinion solely because he was such a great academic?

I do understand that, I’m simply making it clear why his spurious conclusions should be rejected out-of-hand. Perhaps I could have done so in a more charitable manner, but distortion of fact to further an agenda by those who should know better (like, say, a tenured professor) is something that deeply offends me, and I do not always react as kindly as I could. Mea culpa.

Rather, I was saying that despite him being so respected, he would not have been able to publish what he did if the interpretation of the passage in Gaius were as simple and naive as you imply.

So arguing that he was not respected only strengthens the point I am making.

His “Same-sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe” wasn’t published by an academic institution, but by a private arm of Random House publishing’s Ballantine Books division. There was no peer review prior to publishing. When it reached press, it was immediately following his death from AIDS-related complications, making it even less likely to receive an objective review.

We have already mentioned numerous examples where historians record actual same sex weddings.

I never said that same-sex “weddings” did not happen, only that they were void of any legal impact.

Your only (so far) shred of evidence to support you assertion that these weddings were invalid is a phrase equivalent to “marriage was only valid between roman men and roman women”.

This phrase is ambiguous - it could mean what you want it to mean, but it is also compatible with saying that two roman men, or two roman women, or a roman man and woman could get married.

For the phrase to be compatible, it requires that one ignore how to pluralize Latin words. The terms “civis Romanus” and “civis Romana” don’t mean “men” and “women” - they mean “male Roman citizen (singular)” and “female Roman citizen (singular)”. For “male citizens”, the term would have been “civis Romani”. For female citizens, “civis Romanae”. In other words, the right of marriage existed only between a male Roman citizen and a female Roman citizen. There’s an old joke from when Latin was commonly taught in schools: Julius Caesar walks into a bar. He tell the bartender, “I’ll have a martinus”. The bartender replies, “Do you mean a martini?”. Caesar says, “No, just one will do”. (ba-dum-tsss)

Sure, the author could have been more explicit in either direction. But I am not relying on this passage to prove that Roman law approved of gay marriage, and therefore (for some reason) so should you, rather you are using it to ‘prove’ your assertion that Roman law forbade gay marriage despite the records of actual gay marriages taking place. And that therefore I should somehow have to accept your imposition of a ban on gay marriage.

There is no question that same-sex couples engaged in “wedding” ceremonies, but they had exactly zero legal impact. Roman law didn’t ban same-sex “marraige” for the same reason it never banned naming a horse to the Senate. The requirements for conubium were simple and perfectly clear: One male Roman citizen (Romanus) and one female Roman citizen (Romana) or - with dispensation - a female Latin (Latina). No other arrangement could properly be considered a marriage under Roman law, because no other arrangements were defined as such.

If one contends that the ceremony alone makes it a legal “marriage”, then simply reciting the appropriate oath of office makes me President of the United States.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Cost to see those pages: £53.61

That is odd. I found that link just by Googling “Sifra a man would marry a man”, and this came up on Google Books preview for no cost. It must be different when accessed from the UK. In any case, it was a book “Defining Jewish Difference: From Antiquity to the Present” by Beth A. Berkowitz. Maybe you can find a free version somewhere else. I summarized pages referenced in my post #63 - the last paragraph which you failed to quote or even comment on. I am tired of repeating it, so please just go read post #63 again. This scholarly analysis is the evidence you keep calling for that the statement about gay marriage in Egypt is not to be interpreted the same as a modern day work of investigative journalism. It would be like taking the exact words of Genesis and treating them as a textbook on geology.

And as for forcing beliefs on those who do not share them, that is exactly what has been the effect of legalized gay marriage. People involved in the service industry for weddings have been forced to supply gay wedding cakes, gay floral arrangements, gay wedding albums, or else be sued out of business. Furthermore, public schools are forced to teach the kids that gay parenting is just as normal as mom and dad. It seems very little forcing is going on in the other direction.

 

[JB_Dugan]

That is odd. I found that link just by Googling “Sifra a man would marry a man”, and this came up on Google Books preview for no cost. It must be different when accessed from the UK. In any case, it was a book “Defining Jewish Difference: From Antiquity to the Present” by Beth A. Berkowitz. Maybe you can find a free version somewhere else. I summarized pages referenced in my post #63 - the last paragraph which you failed to quote or even comment on. I am tired of repeating it, so please just go read post #63 again. This scholarly analysis is the evidence you keep calling for that the statement about gay marriage in Egypt is not to be interpreted the same as a modern day work of investigative journalism. It would be like taking the exact words of Genesis and treating them as a textbook on geology.

And as for forcing beliefs on those who do not share them, that is exactly what has been the effect of legalized gay marriage. People involved in the service industry for weddings have been forced to supply gay wedding cakes, gay floral arrangements, gay wedding albums, or else be sued out of business. Furthermore, public schools are forced to teach the kids that gay parenting is just as normal as mom and dad. It seems very little forcing is going on in the other direction.

Excellent points. Leaf. (and I hope your Christmas was as wonderful as mine)

Dr Taffy has made points about the acceptance of homosexual relationships by ancient cultures and a means to refute the fact that marriage has been a union of a man and a woman since before these ancient cultures even existed.

Egyptian history has never interested me and I have no idea what a “Sifra” is. Also, I have no opinion of the early North American Savage Tribes.

However, the Greek and Roman cultures are a noble study.

Despite the widespread practice and acceptance of homosexual relations in the Greek and Roman cultures, neither Greek law nor Roman law ever sought to grant legal status to same-sex relationships or to define them as “marriage". However, from the start, early Christians distinguished themselves from the Greeks and Romans in rejecting their promiscuous understanding of sexuality and embracing instead the virtue of chastity both within marriage and outside of marriage.

The Christian culture lives on after 2000 years while the ancient hedonistic Greco-Roman cultures have been relegated to the dust bin of history.

One other point I would like to make is that when the State (government) legalizes same sex marriages it is acting illegitimately, and in opposition to reason.

A re-definition of marriage to include same-sex marriage is beyond the competence of the state, because marriage both precedes the state and is a necessary condition for the continuation of the state (because future generations arise from and are formed in marriage). When a state enacts a law saying that a same-sex relationship can constitute a marriage, it has the power to enforce that in a society’s external practices, but it is devoid of any intrinsic moral legitimacy and is a contrary to any natural reality. As in the apples to oranges example.

If the government says that an apple is now the same as an orange, and the law requires everyone to call apples “oranges,” the state would have the power to punish anyone who calls an apple an “apple” instead of an “orange,” but it would be a totalitarian abuse of raw power and would not change the biological reality of the nature of the fruit in question. So too with the definition of marriage.

 

[DrTaffy]

As Dr. Lang pointed out, the term “…has come into general use in the urban Native American gay and lesbian communities”. If they are claiming that “Two-Spirit” is a direct replacement for what was once described as “berdache”, then they are using the term incorrectly.

Since they coined the term, how can you assert that they are using it “incorrectly”? And again, (if the response to the previous question does not answer this) how does your quote about the term being coined recently in any way support or excuse the contempt you display towards their beliefs?

I would respond, “Oh - it must be Tuesday” and proceed to show evidence that they are incorrect.

You are ignoring the question of whether such behaviour would be acceptable, especially in light of CAF’s rules about showing respect for others’ religious beliefs. Believe me, to an outsider their beliefs are no more ridiculous than yours.

I didn’t say that it was the only purpose of marriage, only that marriage served to establish it.

So how does your claim in any way counter my claim that these were marriages that were not between one man and one woman?

Well, when a person lies, that makes them a liar. When they lie in an academic context, using that lie as support for their thesis, that calls their academic reputation in serious question.

You have merely asserted that he was a liar, and completely avoided the fact that his academic reputation remains high. How could this be if his assertion were as obviously false as you claim?

I do understand that, I’m simply making it clear why his spurious conclusions should be rejected out-of-hand.

No, again, you are merely asserting without evidence that his conclusions should be rejected out-of-hand.

I never said that same-sex “weddings” did not happen, only that they were void of any legal impact.

And you evidence for this assertion is, yet again, completely invisible.

For the phrase to be compatible, it requires that one ignore how to pluralize Latin words.

Plurality is not the issue. The fact is that the latin phrase you cite does not explicitly define marriage as between one man and one woman. The english phrase I give is an example of a similarly vague phrase in english, not a literal translation.

There is no question that same-sex couples engaged in “wedding” ceremonies, but they had exactly zero legal impact.

Again, evidence for this assertion? Just one ambiguous offhand phrase?

The requirements for conubium were simple and perfectly clear: One male Roman citizen (Romanus) and one female Roman citizen (Romana) or - with dispensation - a female Latin (Latina).

Yet that is not what the phrase you quote says.

 

[DrTaffy]

I summarized pages referenced in my post #63 - the last paragraph which you failed to quote or even comment on. I am tired of repeating it, so please just go read post #63 again.

If you have only cited it once, you have hardly repeated it, have you? However, neither the pages I could access nor your summary seem to give any evidence or proof that the assertion in the Sifra is not literally true. Indeed the pages I read explicitly drew attention to ways the Sifra diverge from the Leviticus text.

You merely assert that it was in some way poetically mirroring Leviticus, and as such may not be true, is that right?

Quick sanity check as to whether we are both on the same discussion: Are you merely arguing that the claim in the Sifra may be false, or arguing that you have presented evidence that would convince an impartial observer that it must be false? If you are using the assertion that marriage “has always meant a union of a man and a woman” to justify forcing your view of marriage on others, I would be looking for the latter.

And as for forcing beliefs on those who do not share them, that is exactly what has been the effect of legalized gay marriage. People involved in the service industry for weddings have been forced to supply gay wedding cakes, gay floral arrangements, gay wedding albums, or else be sued out of business.

Those examples are about legislation against discriminating against gay people, not legalising gay marriage per se - the one cake incident even took place where gay marriage was explicitly still not legally recognised.

Nor has anyone been forced to enter into a gay marriage, nor a religious group forced to carry out a same sex wedding, nor a ‘traditional’ marriage denied legal recognition, while the anti gay marriage lobby are explicitly preventing people from entering into legally recognised gay marriages and tolerant religions from carrying out same sex weddings.

What you cite are not examples of people being forced to accept gay marriage as valid, just examples of them being compelled to make reasonable compromise with others’ beliefs in business. Just as I am prevented from discriminating against Catholics, or forcing Cathlic employees not to wear crucifixes and so on.

It seems very little forcing is going on in the other direction.

That is blindness on your part - you lot are directly preventing people from getting married and religions from celebrating marriages that they wish to celebrate. How is that not forcing your views on them?

That there is some need for reasonable accomodation to others beliefs on your part is simply part of life. You only see it as persecution because Christians in general and Catholics in particular have been used for so long to forcing your beliefs on everyone else, at least in the western world, and demanding that all the accomodation be on the part of others, not you.

As Louis Veuillot allegedly said of the Catholic view of religious liberty:

“When you are the stronger I ask you for my freedom, for that is your principle; when I am the stronger I take away your freedom, for that is my principle.”

 

[Monkey1976]

Since they coined the term, how can you assert that they are using it “incorrectly”? And again, (if the response to the previous question does not answer this) how does your quote about the term being coined recently in any way support or excuse the contempt you display towards their beliefs?

Their assertion that “Two-Spirit” is identical to “berdache” is simply incorrect. The term “Two-Spirit” was invented as a descriptor for gay Amerinds. The hwame/“berdache”/etc. were not gay Amerinds - the closest modern equivalent would be a transsexual, though even that doesn’t cover the “third gender” belief. A close approximation to this situation is the Japanese officers in WWII who considered themselves to be “samurai”. The actual samurai had ceased to exist long before, and those calling themselves “samurai” during WWII had almost nothing in common with the historical reality.

You are ignoring the question of whether such behaviour would be acceptable, especially in light of CAF’s rules about showing respect for others’ religious beliefs. Believe me, to an outsider their beliefs are no more ridiculous than yours.

Is being “gay” now a religion?

So how does your claim in any way counter my claim that these were marriages that were not between one man and one woman?

As I said: In the eyes of the culture in which they occurred, these were not marriages between two men or two women. There is no equivalent modern term for the relationship between a man and a physically-male hwame or a woman and a physically-female hwame. In patrilineal cultures, if a woman married another man, any children she had transferred to the new husband’s clan/family. When a man or woman entered into a relationship with a hwame, the children’s clan/family membership was unaffected. Similarly, in matrilineal cultures a child’s clan membership followed the current female wife of the father, and was unaffected if the mother or father took up with a hwame. Therefore, they were not considered equal to the union of male and female by those cultures. Also, there are still exactly zero instances of one hwame “marrying” another.

You have merely asserted that he was a liar, and completely avoided the fact that his academic reputation remains high. How could this be if his assertion were as obviously false as you claim?

He misrepresented a rite of the Eastern Churches as being a same-sex “wedding” ceremony. How is that not a lie?

No, again, you are merely asserting without evidence that his conclusions should be rejected out-of-hand.

Without any evidence except his patently false claims about Adelphopoiesis, and his use of those claims as a foundational argument. If an astronomer made claims about the existence of alien life based on the “fact” that the Moon is made of green cheese, how should that astronomer’s conclusions be treated, and would that person have any right to academic respect?

And you evidence for this assertion is, yet again, completely invisible.

Under Roman law, the purpose of marriage was to establish citizenship for the children born of the union (cf. Gaius’ Institutes, §56). That union is specified as being between a Roman male citizen (singular) who takes to wife a female Roman Citizen or female Latin. In §58 of the Institutes, there begins a listing of what women it is prohibited for a Roman male to marry which continues through §63. The issue of how marriage bestows citizenship - something of paramount importance under Roman law - is covered in §65 - §107. Not once is mention made of the “case” of a “marriage” of a Roman male to another Roman male, or to a Lain male, or to an alien male.

Plurality is not the issue. The fact is that the latin phrase you cite does not explicitly define marriage as between one man and one woman. The english phrase I give is an example of a similarly vague phrase in english, not a literal translation.

Then allow me to provide the literal translation:
Gaius' Institutes:

A Roman citizen contracts civil wedlock and begets children subject to his power when he takes to wife a citizen of Rome (Romanas - female) or a female Latin (Latinas - female) or alien (peregrinasue - female) with whom he has capacity of civil wedlock;

Again, evidence for this assertion? Just one ambiguous offhand phrase?

See above.

Yet that is not what the phrase you quote says.

Can you show a single Roman law reflecting any arrangement other than male and female being considered as marriage? Positive evidence, not arguments from silence.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

You merely assert that it was in some way poetically mirroring Leviticus, and as such may not be true, is that right?

Correct. It would be very difficult to prove the non-existence of anything. Therefore, as you noted, I have not supplied any evidence for the non-existence of governmental recognized equivalence between same sex and opposite sex marriage. Nor could I supply any evidence for the non-existence of unicorns. But those who argue for unicorns have the burden of producing them.

Those examples are about legislation against discriminating against gay people, not legalising gay marriage per se

That would only be true if you first establish that what was being denied to gay persons was the same thing that was being afforded to others. But that relies on accepting gay marriage as a marriage, a point I am not willing to concede. If you instead start from the assumption that gay marriage is something different, then the wedding services being requested are not for real weddings, therefore they are not the same services as these people normally render. It is more like a photographer being asked to cover a wedding of two pets. They would not be discriminating against pet owners if they said “We don’t do pet weddings”. It is much the same thing when they are asked to cover a gay wedding. So you see how everything hangs on this one question of what is a marriage.

What you cite are not examples of people being forced to accept gay marriage as valid, just examples of them being compelled to make reasonable compromise with others’ beliefs in business.

It is a matter of some debate whether those compromises are reasonable. The gays were not discriminated against just for being gay. Their request was denied because of the very nature of the request itself. It is different sort of request because what they were asking for was marriage services for something that was not a marriage (except in the minds of the participants).

That is blindness on your part - you lot are directly preventing people from getting married and religions from celebrating marriages that they wish to celebrate. How is that not forcing your views on them?

We have to look at whether the act of getting married is an act just of those being joined, or is a communal act involving a recognition on the part of society in general. We are not preventing gays from doing anything that involves only an act on their part. We are only declining to lend that communal recognition that is the distinguishing feature of societal marriage. So it would be wrong to cast this as a freedom issue. In asking for the right to marry, they are not so much asking to be allowed to do something (in the sense that they are the ones doing it) as they are asking that the rest of society join them in their act by affording them societal recognition.

That there is some need for reasonable accomodation to others beliefs on your part is simply part of life.

The extent to which this accommodation asks for active cooperation from society, and not merely tolerance to allow someone else to do as they please is what makes this accommodation unreasonable.

 

[DrTaffy]

Their assertion that “Two-Spirit” is identical to “berdache” is simply incorrect.

They defined the term, they are the culture in question, so who are you to come along and try to dictate to them what being “two spirit” (or hwame or whatever) means? Especially in such disrespectful terms?

Is being “gay” now a religion?

The native american’s religions are religions. Which would include their beliefs about same sex marriages.

As I said: In the eyes of the culture in which they occurred, these were not marriages between two men or two women.

They were not marriages between one man and one woman. And they were marriages between two people of the same physical sex, regardless of the cultural view of their spiritual or psychological gender.

He misrepresented a rite of the Eastern Churches as being a same-sex “wedding” ceremony. How is that not a lie?

He explicitly referred to them as “same-sex unions” not “marriages” or “weddings”. Which they clearly were.

So now you have ‘lied’ to slander his reputation, do we automatically dismiss everything you say? Or does someone ‘lying’ mean more than just them saying something that is, at least in your view, false?

Positive evidence, not arguments from silence.

Sorry, but you are the one making ‘arguments from silence’ in asserting that in the absence of a positive statement that the historically recorded same sex marriages were valid, we must assume that they were not. The burden of proof is, after all, on you to justify your appeal to tradition argument that marriage has always been exclusively heterosexual.

 

[DrTaffy]

DrTaffy;11557912:

You merely assert that it was in some way poetically mirroring Leviticus, and as such may not

be true, is that right?

Correct. It would be very difficult to prove the non-existence of anything.

It would certainly be possible to prove that a particular assertion in a particular book was false.

You apparently assert that you not only have not supported the foundational assertion of your argument, but that you cannot. How does that justify your argument or shift the burden of proof?

But those who argue for unicorns have the burden of producing them.

You made the assertion. But I have provided evidence that, on face value, flatly contradicts your assertion, and - if I read you correctly - you simply assert that you choose not to believe it. How does that justify you denying legal recognition to other couples?

In other words, if you felt that you had proven that marriage was always heterosexual, that would be understandable, if still a fallacy. But if you merely choose to believe that, how on earth do you justify forcing the results of that view on others?

That would only be true if you first establish that what was being denied to gay persons was the same thing that was being afforded to others.

A cake is a cake. A heterosexual couple walking into the same bakery and asking for the same cake would have had no trouble, so the refusal is explicitly discrimination against gay couples.

Note also that it is at least claimed in many of these cases that the business in question is actually doing better as a result of the support of the rest of the anti-gay lobby. Which illustrates why gays do need protection from that lobby and indeed suggests that the law is far from being too strict.

It is a matter of some debate whether those compromises are reasonable.

Not really. There are already exemptions for religious organisations, for example, that would allow someone with genuine religious problems to structure their business such that they could only sell wedding cakes to heterosexual couples, such as by only selling cakes directly through a Catholic church where the wedding took place.

Yet all too often christians seem to feel that not only should their religious rights trump all other rights, but that they should do so automatically without any compromise on their part.

The gays were not discriminated against just for being gay.

The Judge and I both disagree.

We are not preventing gays from doing anything that involves only an act on their part.

It certainly does not require any act from you. And it is society at large that is taking the act of adopting legal recognition of same sex marriages. Who are you to say to the rest of society that they do not have the right to recognise such marriages?

 

[Monkey1976]

They defined the term, they are the culture in question, so who are you to come along and try to dictate to them what being “two spirit” (or hwame or whatever) means? Especially in such disrespectful terms?

I am a student of their history. If a group of Navajo claim that they are the rightful owners of Boston, should I respect that claim? Or should I be intellectually honest and point out that there is no link between the Navajo and the Massachusett, who were the actual inhabitants of the Boston area? Respect for a belief is one thing. A demonstrable falsehood deserves no respect.

The native american’s religions are religions. Which would include their beliefs about same sex marriages.

But the assertions of those who defined the “Two-Spirit” term, and the actual historic beliefs attached to the hwame (a non-offensive, accurate term for a physical male who was believed to have a female spirit, or vice-versa) are radically different. The history doesn’t support their claims about their beliefs. It’s similar to me, as a Catholic, claiming a belief that the Pope cannot sin. No matter how ardently I might claim that it is authentically Catholic, such a claim is demonstrably false based on documented Catholic belief.

They were not marriages between one man and one woman. And they were marriages between two people of the same physical sex, regardless of the cultural view of their spiritual or psychological gender.

I did not say that they were. What I said was that they were unions between two different genders - as understood by the contemporary society - whose familial consequences were documented as being different from those of marriage. There is still no record of “marriages” between - ans understood by the culture - fully male and fully male, fully female and fully female, or hwame and hwame.

He explicitly referred to them as “same-sex unions” not “marriages” or “weddings”. Which they clearly were.

First, he described it as a “matrimonial ritual” - his own words. Second, they were indeed unions which involved two persons of the same sex. That’s what brotherhood is. To imagine that these unions were in any way homosexual in nature is an insult to both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

So now you have ‘lied’ to slander his reputation, do we automatically dismiss everything you say? Or does someone ‘lying’ mean more than just them saying something that is, at least in your view, false?

You’ve failed to demonstrate that I lied. I have documented Dr. Boswell’s lies regarding adelphopoiesis - specifically, his claim that it was a “matrimonial ritual”. Remember when I mentioned a Catholic claiming something as a Catholic belief that is not supported by the historic record of Catholic belief? Bingo.

Sorry, but you are the one making ‘arguments from silence’ in asserting that in the absence of a positive statement that the historically recorded same sex marriages were valid, we must assume that they were not. The burden of proof is, after all, on you to justify your appeal to tradition argument that marriage has always been exclusively heterosexual.

Apologies - I meant “argument from ignorance”. Roman law clearly states what they considered to be a legal marriage. If you can show evidence that same-sex “weddings” resulted in legal marriage, then do so. All I’m asking for is a single reference to how the “marriage” of two men would impact their citizenship, or rights of inheritance, or to whom the role of paterfamilias devolved. They carefully documented every possible combination of male and female - male citizen and female latin, male citizen and female alien, male citizen and female latin or alien who claimed to be a citizen, male citizen and female slave, male citizen and freed female slave, and vice-versa for each of those. Show me the legal consequences of a same-sex “wedding” under Roman law. It is reasonable to apply an argument from silence to same-sex “weddings” having legal effect, as there is no mention of their legal effect in any pre-Christian Roman legal text which references marriage. As one would expect a compendium of laws to include laws governing the “marriage” of two male Roman citizens, or a male Roman and a male Latin, or a male Roman and a male alien, etc, an argument from silence has a valid application here.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

You apparently assert that you not only have not supported the foundational assertion of your argument, but that you cannot. How does that justify your argument or shift the burden of proof?

If by “foundational assertion” you mean that same sex marriage was never recognized by society as equivalent to opposite sex marriage, then no, I do not claim to have “supported” it by anything more than by pointing out the faults in the arguments that say it has existed in history. I made the claim. If it is false, it should be easy to demonstrate that fact. I have not closed the door to considering new evidence of which I was not aware. I see nothing intellectually dishonest in doing just that and nothing more. You can make an assertion and I can make an assertion. If neither of us wants to support our assertions with evidence, then I guess there can be no debate. I would be just as guilty as you. My only defense is that your assertion should be easier to prove than mine.

But I have provided evidence that, on face value, flatly contradicts your assertion, and - if I read you correctly - you simply assert that you choose not to believe it.

Your support does indeed seem to provide that evidence on face value. And if I did nothing more than reject it out of hand, I would be intellectually dishonest. But I did look at your support as closely as I could given the resources I have, and even in that short time found serious problems with it, which I mentioned. It on the basis of these problems that I do not believe your assertion, not because I am closing my eyes to that evidence.

But if you merely choose to believe that, how on earth do you justify forcing the results of that view on others?

I am not forcing my view on others any more than any other citizen of a society who makes his views known in a democratic fashion is forcing his views. Do you think that anyone who votes against same sex marriage in a democratic election is unduly forcing his views others?

A cake is a cake. A heterosexual couple walking into the same bakery and asking for the same cake would have had no trouble, so the refusal is explicitly discrimination against gay couples.

A cake is not a cake - at least not a wedding cake. They are highly personalized, with decorations and lettering. If a gay couple had come in to the bakery and requested an off-the-shelf cake as a commodity, then denying them that cake would be discrimination. But declining to participate in the personalization of a cake for a gay wedding is not that kind of case. The same thing for photographers. I noticed you didn’t comment on them, choosing instead to focus on the wedding service that is most like a commodity. I don’t think you could say that about photographers.

Note also that it is at least claimed in many of these cases that the business in question is actually doing better as a result of the support of the rest of the anti-gay lobby. Which illustrates why gays do need protection from that lobby and indeed suggests that the law is far from being too strict.

They are doing better until they loose a large law suit, which they certainly will when gay marriage is fully accepted into law.

There are already exemptions for religious organisations, for example, that would allow someone with genuine religious problems to structure their business such that they could only sell wedding cakes to heterosexual couples, such as by only selling cakes directly through a Catholic church where the wedding took place.

The objections to gay marriage do not come exclusively from religious people. It would be unfair to atheists to deny them the same exemptions.

It certainly does not require any act from you. And it is society at large that is taking the act of adopting legal recognition of same sex marriages. Who are you to say to the rest of society that they do not have the right to recognise such marriages?

If the rest of society chooses to recognize same sex marriage, then so be it. I am merely speaking as one member in that society. But as for same sex marriage not requiring any act from me, that is clearly wrong. If I am a public school teacher, this legal recognition requires that I teach my students that same sex parenting is just as normal as mom and dad. If I am involved in the wedding service industry, this legal recognition requires that I provide that service for such weddings. I have mentioned these already, but I will add one more. If I am a taxpayer, the legal recognition requires that some of my taxes are used to subsidize any tax breaks or other financial benefits that gay couples would now enjoy. If you respond to anything in this post, please respond to this last point. I would like to see how you show that this is not requiring something of me. Paying taxes is not passive tolerance. It is an act on my part.

 

[DrTaffy]

If by “foundational assertion” you mean that same sex marriage was never recognized by society as equivalent to opposite sex marriage,

What you said was that marriage “has always meant a union of a man and a woman. It has never meant anything more general than that” which is rather stronger than what you put there. But yes, that is the assertion I am referring to.

I see nothing intellectually dishonest in doing just that and nothing more. You can make an assertion and I can make an assertion. If neither of us wants to support our assertions with evidence, then I guess there can be no debate. I would be just as guilty as you. My only defense is that your assertion should be easier to prove than mine.

What is “my assertion”? That you have not proven your case? I thought you had just admitted that?

Or do you think that I am making a similar appeal to tradition as yours, but saying that you should accept same sex marriage because I assert that it existed in Egypt? I am emphatically not - that is as much a fallacy for me as it would be for you.

But I did look at your support as closely as I could given the resources I have, and even in that short time found serious problems with it, which I mentioned. It on the basis of these problems that I do not believe your assertion, not because I am closing my eyes to that evidence.

Sorry what problems? All I saw was an assertion that it was a poetic passage and so that you choose to believe that it is not telling the truth.

That seems an odd assertion - why would a poet assert that Egyptians had same sex marriage if he didn’t believe it? Mirroring Leviticus doesn’t answer this, as Leviticus says nothing about same sex marriage and nothing about the Egyptians attitude to homosexuality, as far as I am aware.

But as soon as you are not claiming that it (whatever ‘it’ is) proves that the Sifra was untrue, I lose interest. Are you now claiming at least evidence that the Sifra is likely to be untrue or what? And why? Saying that it must be untrue because it is mirroring the Bible seems an unusual claim from a Catholic!

I am not forcing my view on others any more than any other citizen of a society who makes his views known in a democratic fashion is forcing his views. Do you think that anyone who votes against same sex marriage in a democratic election is unduly forcing his views others?

So if I vote in favour of a law saying that employees insurance should cover abortion and contraception, is that just expressing my opinion or trying to force that opinion on others?

I would suggest that when it comes to voting on something that would be legally enforced, one should consider not just one’s opinion on the issue (e.g. should marriage include same sex couples?) but also whether you have the right to force that opinion on others.

If you don’t agree, what are you complaining about? Surely others have the same right to vote however they wish without you being able to complain that they are forcing their views on you?

 

[DrTaffy]

A cake is not a cake - at least not a wedding cake. They are highly personalized, with decorations and lettering.

“A cake is not a cake” is not an assertion that gives me much confidence in your grasp of logic!

If it were just a case of the respondent refusing to apply a particular decoration, I would see that as more of a ‘reasonable accomodation’ - even possibly not in conflict with the law at all. But at least in the Colorado case (haven’t there been a couple of these cases?) the baker refused to supply any kind of cake for the weddings, even commodity cupcakes. From the Probable Cause decision:

Stephanie Schmalz (“S. Schmalz”) states that on January 16, 2012, she and her partner Jeanine Schmalz (“J. Schmalz”) visited the Respondent’s place of business to purchase cupcakes for their family commitment ceremony. S. Schmalz states that when she confirmed that the cupcakes were to be part of a celebration for her and her partner, the Respondent’s female representative stated that she would not be able to place the order because “the Respondent had a policy of not selling baked goods to same-sex couples for this type of event.”

I see also that the baker was willing to sell cakes for the wedding of two dogs!

The same thing for photographers. I noticed you didn’t comment on them, choosing instead to focus on the wedding service that is most like a commodity. I don’t think you could say that about photographers.

I picked one example. If anything I was influenced by my love of Portal.

If anything I think the photographer has an easier time of it. I’m looking at this as a question of whether the current law is a reasonable compromise between religious and gay rights, and in my opinion the photographer has more options to wiggle out without overtly breaking the law, in that the service is provided long after the initial interview. So he can either arrange for someone else to turn up on the day, or call in sick, or take his time to come up with a better excuse.

This sort of case can really only come up when the ‘christian’ not only refuses service but makes a point of making it obvious that it is because of his (or her) objection to same sex marriage.

They are doing better until they loose a large law suit, which they certainly will when gay marriage is fully accepted into law.

In many, if not most, of these cases they have already lost a law suit, and are still (said to be) doing better as a result.

The objections to gay marriage do not come exclusively from religious people. It would be unfair to atheists to deny them the same exemptions.

Ah - so now you want to let anyone discriminate against same sex couples? Is that the real goal here, just remove all protection against discrimination for homosexuals?

Note that even an atheist could do as I suggested.

But as for same sex marriage not requiring any act from me, that is clearly wrong.

These are all secondary effects of legal recognition of same sex marriage, simply a result of people having to make reasonable accomodations in a pluralistic society. Unlike the direct effect of banning SS marriage on same sex couples and other religions.

So how can you justify directly forcing your views on same sex couples and other religions, while complaining about being expected to merely make some compromises yourself?

Certainly, trying to say that an entire class of millions of people should be excluded from marriage merely so you don’t have to face some compromises is nuts - like saying that Catholics should be banned from ever wearing a crucifix or other visible sign of your faith just so that atheist employers don’t have to face allowing their employees to do so.

If I am a public school teacher, this legal recognition requires that I teach my students that same sex parenting is just as normal as mom and dad.

I’m sorry, but given the attitude of Catholic Schools who fire teachers who express support for gay marriage, or even the woman who just referred to her girlfriend at her mothers’ funeral (i.e. not even at school), this just makes you look horribly hypocritical.

And compared to Catholic schools who are already firing teachers for their actions outside of school, it is not even clear to me how every (or even many) teachers would be required to teach any such thing. Why would a maths or french teacher even raise the subject? What teacher would be forced to raise the subject?

I have mentioned these already, but I will add one more. If I am a taxpayer, the legal recognition requires that some of my taxes are used to subsidize any tax breaks or other financial benefits that gay couples would now enjoy. If you respond to anything in this post, please respond to this last point. I would like to see how you show that this is not requiring something of me. Paying taxes is not passive tolerance. It is an act on my part.

So you don’t pay taxes now, and yet will have to if same sex marriage comes in?

In other words you already pay taxes. As do homosexuals and their allies. Just as atheists have to accept tax breaks going to churches, you cannot insist that nobody you don’t like get tax breaks - especially when these are tax breaks that heterosexual couples already enjoy.