I believe you, andi, but I've only known gay couples who got married in church. They refer to themselves as married, honestly, what do the couples you know who've gone through ceremonies refer to their state as?
I'm not trying to reignite the flames of controversy here. It just seems odd to me to refer to the ceremony you go through wherein you pledge your fidelity, etc, to them for the rest of your life as anything other than what it obviously is to me--marriage. It also sounds right, has the right connotations for me. I wouldn't know what someone meant of they referred to the state of their attachment as 'committed'. That would honestly be confusing.
posted
What would you call it when two people swear to love and protect each other for as long as they both shall live? If its legally called a Civil Union, I'd suggest we call it getting Civil-ized.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Ahh....this is Kwea again. I HATE it when she forgets to log off, and then I forget that she hasn't...
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:mph, not at all! I thought I had gone out of my way to specifically mention some people I didn't lump in with the other group, you in specific...
I am saying that the list was aimed at the segment of the population who really uses those particular arguments as a valid basis for refuting SSM. Other people, yourself included, may have felt it was mocking them as well, but I didn't see that....what I saw was a list that make fun of those specific arguments, and those that believe them and use them in their decision-making process.
Thanks for clarifying.
No problem...this is a touchy subject, on both sides of the issues, so it never hurts to be very, very clear....even if it takes 14 posts to do so. Posts: 325 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: It doesn't matter what the presiding official doing the ceremony calls it, or how the law defines it. The couple and everyone else is going to call it 'married'.
"Yeah, Stan and I just got civilly-unioned."
I don't think so.
Actually, I know a lot of gay people who refer to it as a "commitment ceremony" as in committing to spend a lifetime with one partner. They often refer to it as such both before and after the fact.
Not only did my partner and I call ours a commitment ceremony, we went out of our way, both verbally and in the text of the booklet we made for the occasion, to emphasize that it was not a wedding.
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posted
While I appreciate you giving support to the whole commitment ceremony idea, I'm really more interested in the 'why', when if it quacks like a duck, farts like a duck, and craps like a duck--by jingo, it's a freaking duck. Like, if you were on Jeopardy, and Alex Trebek stated "The name of a ceremony wherein two people in love pledge to spend the rest of their life together.", what is the answer that everyone will understand without jumping through hoops? Why use a word that no one knows what the heck you're talking about when there's a perfectly satisfactory one right there? What's the difference between the state you and your partner are in, the ideal you've committed yourself to, and the heterosexual state of marriage that a different word needs to be used?
Now, don't get me wrong. I am totally with you that the state needs to get out of the marriage business. But that doesn't mean that the idea of marriage can't be used by the private individual.
quote:I'm really more interested in the 'why', when if it quacks like a duck, farts like a duck, and craps like a duck--by jingo, it's a freaking duck.
Because, Storm, the entire controversy is about whether it does quack, fart, crap, or taste like a duck.
If one thing should be clear, it's that many people attach a particular, religious interpretation to what marriage is.
From what starLisa has posted, my impression is that she believes that, according to Jewish law or tradition (I'm not sure which word is really appropriate), a marriage is between a man and a woman, but that a relationship such as hers is not against Jewish law. In that case, she is being true to her beliefs in not calling it a marriage.
Your entire question attempts to circumvent the entire disputed issue.
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posted
disclaimer: I don't know anyone in this situation, so I'm speculating here.
I get the feeling that it's called a committment ceremony because the law doesn't recognize it. The fact that they don't say marriage reminds them that the government is treating gay couples unfairly. So if they were married in the eyes of the government, they would call it a wedding instead of a committment ceremony.
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Hey Dag, I was wondering, if I decide some random word is part of my religion, will you back me up when I want to dictate what the word means?
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quote: Your entire question attempts to circumvent the entire disputed issue.
Do ya think? Can we get a no shite, sherlock, in the house?
I know how you and others against gay marriage feel, in general. I just don't know how Lisa feels about her marriage, specifically. If she's posted her thoughts on the matter elsewhere, I missed it. That's why my question was directed at Lisa and wasn't stated as a general argument aimed at those who don't want to call gay marriage 'marriage'. It wasn't really an attempt at building a pro-gay marriage argument so much as honest puzzlement over why she and other gay people would call it something else when, as far as *I* can see, it clearly is, and calling it something else is confusing as heck to me. I am still unclear as to what she and most other gay couples who go through a committment ceremony would call their relationship because, all sarcasm aside, I think 'committed' is really inadequately descriptive, not least because no one knows what the heck it really means without elaborate explanation.
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"If one thing should be clear, it's that many people attach a particular, religious interpretation to what marriage is."
Is this somehow not relevant to your question? Did you just skip it so you could pull one sentence out of context and be a jerk about it?
starLisa is very religious. Did you somehow think that the fact that she is gay made it impossible for her to still hold a religious belief about marriage that doesn't include female-female relationships within it?
It's apparently not as obvious as no "shite, sherlock" would suggest because in neither the original question nor your little lecture to me did you bother to acknowledge that this might be relevant to starLisa's thinking.
I wasn't telling you what I thought about gay marriage. If you have honest puzzlement over why she and other people would call it something different, it's an indication that, to you, the idea of a religious definition of marriage mattering to a gay person is not "no shite, sherlock" obvious.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I guess, actually, that can be amended to any other gay people who've gone through ceremonies. Love to hear from you, too. What do you call, or plan to call, your relationship after ceremonies where you pledge lifetime committment to your partner?
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Sigh. Just move on. The point is that I'm asking Lisa a question. Not you.
Huh. Seems to me you could have just said that. I mean, if you were going to ignore what I said, it's possible to do that without trying to trivialize it.
Nice touch with the "sigh," though. You're so put upon.
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posted
And further, you weren't just asking a question. You were making an assertion, namely, that "it quacks like a duck, farts like a duck, and craps like a duck."
When you put an opinion out there on a gay marriage thread, expect it to be challenged. If you're interested in asking somebody's opinion, ask for it.
And if you happen to do both in the same post, don't get pissy when someone doesn't make the separation you should have.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: While I appreciate you giving support to the whole commitment ceremony idea, I'm really more interested in the 'why', when if it quacks like a duck, farts like a duck, and craps like a duck--by jingo, it's a freaking duck.
Maybe. But in Judaism, there's no such single thing as "marriage" the way you might think of it. Rather, there are two ceremonies / procedures / rituals, which together constitute pretty much what you'd call marriage.
Kiddushin, or Erusin, is the first part. In this ceremony, the man gives the woman a ring (in principle, it doesn't have to be a ring, but really anything above a certain value), and says a line in Hebrew that creates the status of Kiddushin.
Once the couple has finished this part, they are married in the sense that they need a get (writ of divorce) in order to no longer be married. The woman may not have sex with any man, including her husband. All of the various laws which pertain to a woman who is married now pertain to her.
Once upon a time, this ceremony used to be separated from the second ceremony for as much as a year. Nowadays, we continue straight into the second part, which is called Chuppah, or Nisuin.
Only after Nisuin are the couple permitted to have marital relations. And no, back when the two ceremonies were separated, they were not expected to live together celibately. The woman remained living in her parents' home in the interim.
Now, the reason I've bored you with the details is that these ceremonies, Kiddushin and Nisuin, have rules just like all of our ritual acts have rules. You can't say kiddush over a watermelon. You can't have a 5 year old lead services. You can't write a Torah scroll with a crayon. And you can't do Kiddushin or Nisuin without one male Jew and one unmarried female Jew. It just doesn't apply.
Judaism is very gender differentiated. Right now, we're in the middle of the festival of Sukkot. We eat our meals (weather allowing) in booths that we build outside of our homes. In principle, we sleep in them as well. Again, weather allowing. But men are obligated to do so, and women aren't. Men are obligated to pray three times a day, and women are just obligated to pray daily. Men are obligated to wear tefillin (phylacteries), and women are not. And the list goes on and on and on.
Judaism is built on a structure of differences. We never do anything to try and blur them. There are statuses of Kohen, Levi, Yisrael, Mamzer, Gerushah, Chalal, Ger/Giyoret, etc. When Shabbat ends, we do a thing called havdalah, which actually means "distinction". During havdalah, we speak of God as having differentiated between sacred and profane, between light and dark, between Jews and non-Jews, and between the seventh day (Shabbat) and the six days of creation.
A Kohen can't go into a cemetary (except to bury a parent, a child, a sibling or a spouse) or marry a divorcee or a convert. A mamzer can only marry another mamzer or a convert. A Torah scroll can only be written by a male Jew. A woman can't testify (except in certain exceptional circumstances) in a rabbinic court.
This is Judaism. This is the Torah. This is what God told us to do.
But anything that isn't required, we don't have to do. And anything that isn't forbidden, we can do. For example, when a Jewish boy turns 13 years and a day, he is a Bar Mitzvah, obligated in all the commandments. When a Jewish girl turns 12 years and a day, she is a Bat Mitzvah, obligated in all her commandments as well. No ceremony is necessary for this to happen. It's automatic.
It's been very common throughout most of our history to celebrate a boy's Bar Mitzvah. It was relatively rare, but not unknown to celebrate a girl's Bat Mitzvah. But these days, it's quite common to do so, and that's because we like celebrating happy things. We certainly mourn enough for unhappy things; why not have a good time when we can.
A Bat Mitzvah celebration has no significance in Jewish law. You can do it when the girl is 10, and it just doesn't mean anything. You can do it when she's 45, and it similarly doesn't change anything. But if you have a 45 year old woman who never had any kind of Jewish education, and she decides to learn and have a Bat Mitzvah celebration at that age, it certainly means a lot to her. And to her friends and loved ones. Even if it has no actual religious significance.
It was in that spirit that we had our commitment ceremony. We wanted to share our love and our commitment for one another with friends and family. We wanted to celebrate a very happy thing. But it has no religious significance.
When you say that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... well, you know, in different languages, concepts are formed differently. To use a classic example, an object with a flat surface and four legs positioned at the corners is a table. Such a thing used to serve food is a dining room or kitchen table. Such a thing positioned in front of a sofa is a coffee table. Use it to do work on, and it's a desk. It's no longer a subset of "table"; it's something different in basic character.
Ah, but in Hebrew, what we call a desk is called something that translates as "writing table". In Hebrew, and in the minds of Hebrew speakers, a desk is a subset of "table" in a way that it isn't in English.
This works for cultures as well as for languages (and for the same reasons). What constitutes relevant similarities is subjective. Remember the "one of these things is not like the other" game on Sesame Street? Well, suppose the four pictures are of a cow, a sheep, a horse and a tomato. I imagine most Americans would select the tomato as the one that doesn't belong. Fine, but I'd select the horse. It's the one that isn't kosher.
I fully understand that the eyes that see the tomato as the odd thing out would also see our commitment ceremony as a wedding and our relationship as marital. But to the eyes that see the horse as the thing that's different, there's a world of difference between what we did and getting married.
quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: Like, if you were on Jeopardy, and Alex Trebek stated "The name of a ceremony wherein two people in love pledge to spend the rest of their life together.", what is the answer that everyone will understand without jumping through hoops? Why use a word that no one knows what the heck you're talking about when there's a perfectly satisfactory one right there? What's the difference between the state you and your partner are in, the ideal you've committed yourself to, and the heterosexual state of marriage that a different word needs to be used?
In secular law, there isn't. I don't think so, anyway. I'm in favor of whatever it's called being equally accessible (or inaccessible) to opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples. Right now, it's marriage, so my partner and I should be able to get married. We should be able to file our taxes jointly, just like any other married couple. We should be able to hold title in our home as a married couple. We'd just do it before a judge, and not do some kind of fakey "Jewish same-sex marriage". I don't believe in that.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Hey jebus, I was wondering, did you bother reading the previous page of the thread?
Of course I did... Well most of it... The important bits... I definitly read the bit about trick-or-treating and spare clothes, that ketchupqueen is a riot, isn't she?
Anyway, so are you saying that you won't help me dictate the word in question's use but you will help me remove it from any kind of official usage so that everyone is happy?
Posts: 3564 | Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
But, it's still unclear to me what you call yourselves so that your committed life status with your...SO? wife?...see, it's confusing:)...is accurately described. As for that, what do you call your 'wife' when people ask?
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
We generally use "partner". I often use "boss", at least when she's not in the room. <grin>
"Partner" has become common enough that it's even used by some married couples. And by many common-law married folks. I think that's a shame, because it reflects the way in which marriage as an institution has declined, but "wife" tends to push buttons.
Of course, when I feel like pushing buttons... <grin>
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
It's really not confusing, Storm Saxon. Just because we are uninformed about a particular subject-in this case, the particulars of starLisa's living arrangements and love life-do not make it 'confusing' (implying that the issue needs to be 'clarified'), it means we're uninformed.
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