Most liked posts in thread: Gay Marriage

I agree, I always saw marriage as a concept having strong religious roots and any attempt by the government to define marriage was them stepping over the line. This really shouldn't be an issue since if you approve of homosexuality you probably support gay marriage and if for some religious reason you don't support or approve of it then you should support it so the government doesn't meddle in your religion any further. I know the arguments get more complicated but the basic thing is if you don't like gay marriage, don't marry someone who's gay.

 

Why bring this gay subject up in a Mini / MINI forum? I would rather hear about how they modded their MINI and if they happen to be gay and want to get married, who cares, thats besides the point.

 

As a closet etymologist it always fascinates me to track how a word changes meaning over time.

gay

1178, "full of joy or mirth," from O.Fr. gai "gay, merry" (12c.); cf. O.Sp. gayo, Port. gaio, It. gajo. Ultimate origin disputed; perhaps from Frank. *gahi (cf. O.H.G. wahi "pretty"), though not all etymologists accept this. Meaning "brilliant, showy" is from c.1300. OED gives 1951 as earliest date for slang meaning "homosexual" (adj.), but this is certainly too late; gey cat "homosexual boy" is attested in N. Erskine's 1933 dictionary of "Underworld & Prison Slang;" the term gey cat (gey is a Scot. variant of gay) was used as far back as 1893 in Amer.Eng. for "young hobo," one who is new on the road and usually in the company of an older tramp, with catamite connotations. But Josiah Flynt ["Tramping With Tramps," 1905] defines gay cat as, "An amateur tramp who works when his begging courage fails him." Gey cats also were said to be tramps who offered sexual services to women. The "Dictionary of American Slang" reports that gay (adj.) was used by homosexuals, among themselves, in this sense since at least 1920. Rawson ["Wicked Words"] notes a male prostitute using gay in reference to male homosexuals (but also to female prostitutes) in London's notorious Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889. Ayto ["20th Century Words"] calls attention to the ambiguous use of the word in the 1868 song "The Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store," by U.S. female impersonator Will S. Hays. The word gay in the 1890s had an overall tinge of promiscuity -- a gay house was a brothel. The suggestion of immorality in the word can be traced back to 1637. Gay as a noun meaning "a (usually male) homosexual" is attested from 1971.

 

This is a walled off area for people to speak their mind. Please see http://www.motoringalliance.com/forums/politics-other-messy-stuff/1497-woah-whats-about.html

 

Rather than beat a dead horse, although I do enjoy some Necro-S&M beastiality from time to time, I'll just laugh at Nathans choice of word's

 

No, I still pretty much hide the fact that I read dictionary's for fun.

What should be interesting to see is how the Google Ad's change as they pick up this thread...

 

The ads are still MINI related, we must be full of joy or mirth over our MINIs still.

 

MINIs are gay.

Or so I've been told by PLENTY of people here in North Carolina.

And I'm married.

So that's that.

My two cents? The government should have NO INTEREST in "marriage" - period.
Why do they?

1) Taxes - because the tax code is a hairball, with special interest provisions for just about everything. Stop using the tax code to create incentives for certain types of behavior... and this part doesn't matter.

2) Regulation - government wants to "protect" you from "discrimination" from just about anything that a sufficient lobbying group can get defined as making you a member of a "protected class". If there were enough (but not too many) crazy cat ladies in the world, THEY would be a "protected class". By definition, heterosexual middle-class white natural-born males can not become a "protected class".

3) Insurance / Healthcare - the government is in that business, as well as regulates that business (regulating an industry that you yourself compete in is a darn good gig if you can get it). And, for some reason, they think coverage and benefit eligibility has something to do with your marital status. It shouldn't.

I'm sure someone here can cite some other reasons.

But if government stuck to it's Constitutional enumerated powers..... none of them have a darn thing to do with whether you're married or not. Then "marriage" is between you, your partner, and perhaps your God/god.

Government being involved in such facets of our lives becomes a slippery slope... and makes it nearly impossible to stay within guardrails like 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"...

 

I agree with Paul, although I think another solution would be to separate the religious and governmental definitions of marriage, because lumping them all into one causes too many problems. I don't care if you don't want two men married in your church, just don't deny two prospective parents adoption rights and next of kin status. And I don't think gay parents are any better or worse than straight parents.

And as for the idea of the sanctity of marriage and the traditional family, take a look at this data from the Pew Research Center.

Interactive Map - The States of Marriage and Divorce - Pew Social & Demographic Trends

As an example, ten percent of Arkansans have married three or more times, which is twice the national average. Where's the outrage over that? It's all kinda silly.

 

.... give me some GOOD reasons why there should be any such thing as a "governmental" definition of marriage. I'm listening.

The problem with that strategy: because of the tax code and other incentives for "marriage", taxpayers in some brackets are subsidizing the marriage of those in other brackets. If taxpayer X practices a religion that forbids any behavior that condones homosexuality... then you've slid down to the bottom of the slippery slope. Unless you start granting tax waivers for a nearly infinite number of religious objections, you have trodden upon at least my interpretation of the First Amendment.

Of course, 75% of us can declare the First Amendment null and void if we believe it just makes "governing" and "spreading the wealth around" too hard to manage.... maybe that's the best solution.

I'd suggest that the divorce rate is yet another reason why there should be no government incentives for marriage.

 

I am married. For the life of me I can't figure out what's so special about it. Lord knows I slept with more women and had more freedom when I was single.

 

i have a girlfriend i'm happily committed to
does that count for anything?

gov't should just leave the marriage thing alone and just let the church decide that. i mean, marriage has never been through the government, it's always been through many different types of religious services. i believe that people are free to do whatever they want, and if it doesnt directly affect me in some way, then i'm not gonna make a big deal out of it.

 

This made me laugh...

My mom collects dictionaries and other reference books. I got a big kick out of reading "A dictionary of American slang" but it was old enough not to have lots of the modern stuff in it (must have been from the 40s or 50s).

But one of the family favorites was the Etymilogical Dictionary.......

When in grad school I switched to IC data books!

On the subject at hand, I cannot belive the hypocracy of the anti-gay marraige crowd. Anyway, let people who are committed get married. If a curch doesn't want to condone that marraige, let em go to the justice of the peace to get it done. Just like they do now with hetero couples that don't meet the standards of thier particular church.

Oh well, just another example of how screwed up our society has become.

Matt

 

Guess it can be said that all marriages can be a pain in the arse on some level.... So it's your bed, you make it..

 

This was true at one point but today because of tax codes, health insurance, and even legal issues such as adoptions, liability, and inheritance, the government has made itself into the primary definer of marriage. The process to remove these would run into all sorts of issues though, repealing tax breaks for married people (lets see someone get elected running on that platform), writing insurance policies to cover dependents rather than spouses and children, and setting standards for adoption based on the actual quality of the home that would be provided rather than the presence of a gender defined mom and dad.

 

To wed or not to wed

Whether to choose to take that plunge or not is your business.... the government should NEVER be allowed to determine whether or not you have that right.
I think it's BS. rrr:

 

I'm old enough to remember when "Gay" meant "Happy" and Coke only came in a glass bottle.

We have 2 MINIs, both with male names. Seeing as how the question if MINIs are gay comes up every few monthsut:, if we decide they should marry, we can always go to Canada:arf:

Mark