Of course I never expected that this would satisfy your ridiculous obsession, which was why I asked the other day if you required some kind of formal, notarized, km-approved form. Pffffft.

Show me all the others who were shocked at my original statement. Show me one other response other than yours — let alone who else continues to schlep this old news out of the waste basket. The smart ones here knew not to even take such a remark seriously. Wedge issues? You mean the wedgie you get whenever someone dials in your number? Five months and you're still harping on the irrelevant. Tell me again who's scraping bottom. Tell me again who's got nothing. Look in your own mirror, bubelah, and see if you can get the double image to resolve into one.

A lot of the old chestnuts are the best ones. No, it's increasingly relevant because the argument for gay marriage was lost with the Civil Partnership Act 2004.


Invisible, yes, void. They'd be recognised as civil partnerships.


No, forward.


Well 'marriage' properly so described is mainstream throughout the world. It's Vermont and a handful of other states and nations that are isolationist.


They can apply... I wouldn't like to speculate whether they'd get in.


Good, because neither country nor government is going to abolish marriage just to appease a minority of self-centred bigots.

km

An Easter gift! 'minority of self-centred bigots' is definitely an upgrade from 'tendency towards intrinsic moral evil'. Brought a tear to my eye.

I love this teensy island I live on that still thinks it's so important. It's like all those cute kitten videos on youtube.

Well those are only local re-definitions - they don't have any effect on the rest of the world. In the States they tried to re-define 'torture' to mean that they could knock the living daylights out of foreigners and Arabs but almost everyone else said 'no - it still means what we said in the first place'.


There aren't many nations that run referenda on such issues - Switzerland maybe that rejected it... most nations have used a system of representative democracy.

km

Exactly. It can't interfere where doing so infringes constitutional rights but it can interfere to defend constitutional rights. Only the latter is concerned with unlawful discrimination.


Yeah, may be allowed... or maybe not allowed.


Yeah, but we all know that analogies have been discussed throughout the thread as well. The fact that you appear to have no answer to the women's institute problem is hardly a reason for terminating discussion of it.


T'hoYeah, I'd like to see you take a point off Martina Navratilova... if the abolition of justified discrimination is going to become all the rage on grounds of rigid dogmas about equality we'd have to get rid of not only clubs and associations but gender specific sports and mixed events. The only questions would be 'are you a person' and 'who is the best person at this game'.

km

You're trying to redefine 'universal' to mean something other than 'universal' - that's a very local re-definition.

"There is clearly a majority in the people who get to vote on these changes" was already pointing to representative democracy; if I'd meant the general public, I'd have just said "there is clearly a majority of people". The people who get to vote on these changes are mostly the legislative bodies themselves, the lawmakers. Some of them around the world are changing the laws in that direction; it's just not happening at the moment on this little sceptred isle.

No, I'm using it to mean 'of general application'.


Oh! In that case your statement was wrong then... the majority have voted against same sex marriage not for it.


Some of 'em yeah - a minority. Not the majority as you said earlier.

km

Tiresome merry-go-round of careful misunderstandings this be...

I said that the reason why certain states in the US, and certain countries in Europe and elsewhere, have changed their laws to define marriage not merely in terms of man/woman/consummated, is because in each case a majority has voted for it, which refutes your statement about 'universally accepted meaning'. If you meant 'generally accepted meaning' this was only apparent to you.

Meanwhile, I've belatedly realised this discussion has absolutely no possibility of resolution, since what it actually is, is the men's singles Morality vs. Morality. there will be no tiebreaker, and no need for new balls. Actually it's more like tennis vs. D&D. Entirely incompatible sets of rules, can't play together.

I see you've had a look in that mirror you mentioned the other day. Good man!


Oy.

You didn't say 'in each case' - you said:

"There is clearly a majority in the people who get to vote on these changes who are voting for the change"

which is incorrect because overall the majority has voted against. It goes without saying that in each of the minority of cases where the change was approved there must have been a majority vote in favour.


Noope - 'universally accepted meaning' is what it is. You're trying to re-define "universally' accepted meaning to exclude 'generally' accepted meaning which is taking up a futile argument with the Oxford dictionary.

km