Posts by Emma Hart
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That clause is ridiculous
Wow, that's quite bizarre.
While we're vaguely on the subject, can anyone tell me why I can't legally marry my father-in-law?
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Actually, for a lot of people a civil union is a better option than marriage, so it's hard to determine which comes first in a continuum.
At the time CUs passed, yeah. From here, the options are only:
- Civil Unions only
- Civil Unions AND the extension of marriage to same-sex couples.
Regardless of which form each individual couple finds personally suits them, having the choice is surely better than not having the choice.
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You subtle bugger
Heh, so subtle we did it in the fog so you couldn't even SEE it happen. We just blew the full-time whistle and said 'hard but fair, full credit', picked up the trophy, sang the Reuben Thorne song, and left. You lost, just take our word for it.
Disclaimer: I love the Hurricanes. They're so pretty and interesting. But the Chiefs have Richard Kahui. Usually.
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I'm not sure that they are irrelevant.
Yeah, bad choice of words there. (Can I admit now that I'm running on three hours sleep?) I guess what I mean is, while all those things may be ideologically connected, and people probably have different points on that continuum where they get off the Okay Train, all we're asking for right now is same-sex marriage. Arguments against it must be based on same-sex marriage, not donkey-sex marriage or whatever. The journey to a hang-up free utopia comes one step at a time.
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Hang on a minute - my what now?
And I've just been back through that thread, and I can't find the damn quote. It's possible it wasn't you, or that I dreamed the entire thing. Anyway, the point was the one about marriage have negative, and therefore positive, significance, and that was the only thing I was talking about.
Obviously I am also in favour of civil unions, and of legalised formal polyamorous relationships, and all kinds of other stuff people find squicky. But none of those things are directly relevant to the issue of gay marriage, and they get used to cloud the issue.
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Angus, I know there are practical difficulties. I also happen to believe that human rights issues shouldn't be subject to referenda, but there you go. We didn't wait for the majority of NZers to be staunch supporters of legalising gay sex before we did it. It didn't happen in the States with desegregation. Right now what we have is "New Zealand: less liberal than Iowa!".
From memory (and my mind creaks a bit on this one, but I was pretty damn engaged at the time) a poll done during the DOMA bill idiocy post CUs passing indicated that fewer than 60% of NZers were opposed to gay marriage. That was FIVE years ago. Five years we've had civil unions, and every argument against gay marriage has crumbled, because we don't have to speculate about what would happen, we can look overseas and know.
So no, Angus, I'm putting my money on five years at the outside, providing the yapping never goes away and the issue hangs around rather than vanishing into the background.
So whilst people may disagree with the Catholic definition of the sacrament of marriage, it is consistent.
Which is lovely, and fine, and they can have whatever definition of marriage they like. It's just completely, utterly irrelevant to the law.
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(Admiringly) That's quite a number of grooms you've got there.
Oh! Heh, in the interests of full disclosure I should probably mention that the groom isn't in that photo. There's another with him in the same position I'm in there. I don't think the photographer quite knew what to make of us.
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You stop justifying gay marriage and they will continue to outnumer you and the law will remain on their side. Heck, sit on your hands long enough and you might lose civil unions and perhaps even the right to practice a homosexual act.
Angus, what was it about
It's a question I'm going to ask and ask. I'm going to be the Little Yappy Dog of Gay Marriage until we get there. I'm going to do whatever I can to keep the issue on the table and in the right ears until we grow enough balls to do what's right.
that suggested 'sitting on my hands' to you?
And actually, pretty much all I have to do is wait for old people to die. The skew in opinion on gay marriage by age is enormous.
They believe they own the trademark on that concept.
I can believe I'm a hippo, it doesn't make it so. Nor does it require that anybody else take that belief seriously.
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Both. "yay. go crusaders. woo."
From the other side of this, I don't know who to support, Chiefs or Hurricanes, to make it through to get beaten by the Crusaders in the final. I'm sort of leaning towards the Chiefs because we've beaten the Hurricanes in the final before.
But I'm open to persuasion.
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I'm saying marriage seems to be a sincere religious construct - so why do non-religious folk buy it?
One last go, Richard. Try to pay attention.
Because marriage is not and never has been solely a religious construct. Please re-read my and Deborah's previous comments on this.
Therefore there is no necessity whatsoever to 'buy into' any religious construct in order to get married, or want to marry a particular person. That's an emotional and to a lesser extent practical decision which is nothing to do with anyone who isn't directly involved.