Lesbians get nailed
 

Ubiquitous BBC link.

Okay, initially I looked at the headline and thought "yo that's pretty shit" (except i didn't think "yo", I just said that to improve the spirit of internet camaraderie we're feeling in this thread. However then I read a bit further down. Now, I don't really have any objection to this decision. All that's effectively been done is the judicial system stating that they are going to call a "partnership" between a man and a woman a marriage and a "partnership" between two people of the same sex a civil partnership. All that's really being said is that a civil partnership and a marriage are two subsets of the same form of partnership. As long as the same rights and privileges are extended does anyone give a shit over a word?



The only problem I can foresee is somewhere down the line people get really shit and try to take away some of those rights and privileges and it's easier for them to do so with the two being legislated separately. However if people did get that shit they'd be able to unentangle the two anyways so it's really a moot point.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

It does seem as if they're causing a lot of fuss over something which isn't really that important. Or at all, in fact.
They are still able to wear rings, tell their family/friends they're married and in all likelihood (especially given the amount they seem to care) then they ask to be referred to as such by people they know. I can't imagine anyone having a problem with humouring them, I certainly wouldn't want angry lesbians to have any excuse to hold a grudge against me.

btw is this thread going to be a dozen odd posts saying "I agree with the judge" or shall we try and get some hot lesbian jokes in here too. Obviously we can't right away as that would be a bit too contrived but I'll set us on the right direction by subtly adjusting the parameters of the debate.

Dildos.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Those lesbians were hoping for the right to munch carpet in public. You don't always get what you hoped for!

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

"Londonderry".

Sometimes its not the words but the implications which are important. you are always going to get militants here and there - i agree with the decision, but im also glad that we have people challenging it, continually making sure that the balance remains about right.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

That's just indicative of underlying social problems though. Maybe the question would be better as "should anyone give a shit over just a word?"

Edit: What do you mean by balance?

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

City in the land of potatoes which the protestants all call "Londonderry" and the catholics call "Derry". Its a point of contention and always controversial - you cant call it anything without revealing a bias.

My friend from Belfast says pretty much every sign that leads to londonderry, someone scores out the london, then someone else scores out the derry. Quite a few people call it "Stroke city"


Indeed it is indicative of underlying social problems; but im not sure how religious and sexual orientation divides are not so similar?

By balance; (which might not have been the right word) the way i see things is.. imagine 2d graph with loads of points plotted on it... then draw a line of best fit. Consider that "policy". And then consider the slightly extreme / almost wayward points as "controllers" rather than anomalies.

Im going to stop now because im going to confuse myself but do you understand what im saying :(

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

I'm not sure about "should", but I can see their point. The argument (from both sides, as far as I can tell) is that marriage has a long and rich tradition and has lots of implied meanings and values that go along with just the word. One side wants to be able to get "married" for exactly the same reasons the other side don't want them to.

Why is that distinction a useful one (aside from somehow "protecting" the tradition of marriage from the evil gays)? Why on Earth do we want to have different laws / regulations for different groups/people (except where such a distinction is rational)?

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

taking rights and privileges away from groups of which i am not part inherently makes my rights and privileges more valuable.

i should think that's pretty obvious.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

You're just going to end up with people using a version of the NTS fallacy anyways. "Marriage is between a man and a woman." "But wait my friend dave is married to a guy." "Ah, but that's not a true marriage." And the idiocy will be perpetuated. If you're going to cause a change in the social substructure and the way we consider same-sex relationships you're going to need to start off teaching children that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and that gay people aren't some terrible group of heathens out to get their souls.

It's not. It's fairly pedantic. But then again 975% of the rest of the law is so it doesn't really reveal any hidden bias or anything. To be honest I don't really find the legal term marriage useful as I don't think the state should play a role in defining relationships. If two people choose to live together then they can call it a ****ing discotheque for all I care.

Well, you have groups you literally want different things up there. One group wants to be part of the Britain, one group wants to be part of Ireland. That's a real social problem (unless like me you advocate the existence of a world state, and I use that term in the loosest way possible, which makes such distinctions the height of irrelevancy).

I really, really don't :(

Are you saying we should compromise with people who think gay people should be burnt at the stake?

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

That's fair enough (I agree of course), but for the time being it does. I think it's reasonable that while we have a law/institution (the NHS, drug laws, etc) in place we should desire it acts equally/equitably or whatever.

So basically I can't see any reasonable basis for thinking the distinction should remain. In fact, if I wanted to s|k up this thread a little I'd say anyone who agrees with this ruling is an evil homophobic scum who should burn in hell for all eternity.

Sadly I can't be that angry. :(

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

But is is acting equitably though! It's just a name that's different.

Also I'm pretty sure the word scum is exclusively plural so the word "an" shouldn't be there :(

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Not really. One group of people can call their activity "marriage" another lot can't. Does it "really" matter? Not particularly, no. But if the crime of killing a white person was called homocide and the crime of killing a black person was called ridding-this-world-of-filthy-******s then I suspect some people wouldn't be terribly happy even if they had the same penalties, clear-up rates, etc.
Well, grammar was never s|k's strong point so I'm just staying in character.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Actually this raises other brilliant opporunities, i think we should push the civil partnership distinction to include marrying a man and a woman at the same time, or 5 different women etc

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

for practical purposes, given that the relevant issue of giving basic human rights to fags has on occasion gotten bogged down into the irrelevant issue of the definition of marriage, would you consider taking 'the easy way out'?

PS: homophobic is such a shit word.
PPS: i would make a strong statement here about how government should never use the word 'marriage' at all but i guess i'm too late to be :cool: like that

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

The other lot can, just in court it's going to be referred to as a civil partnership. Also your reductio ab absurdem is off base because we're precisely not going to define it as something absurd. There's nothing "dirty" about the phrase "civil partnership". To be honest the only thing it conjures up in my mind is that it's not between a man and a woman.

Me too!

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

The basic problem is that homosexuals asked for the right to get married, and the government refused. They provided civil partnerships basically as a way to say "we care about your rights, but not enough that we'd upset people to secure them." Homosexuals are the last social group to still face legal discrimination; its nowhere near as bad as it was under the tories, what with harmonisation of consent laws, the repeal of section 28 and, yes, civil partnerships - but the fact that the most sympathetic government the homosexual community in the UK has ever had is not prepared to actually make an effort on our behalf is what burns.

The term "marriage" means very little - but given that, why would they refuse us it?

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

My legally married wife and our boyfriend, along with the muslim man down the road with three wifelets and an irish man and his two mailorder brides beg to differ.



Im sure that in 20 years time the term marriage will have been used so widely to describe gay union that it won't raise a fuss when they legally call it marriage.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Yeah and there doesn't appear to be any justification for this distinction (aside from upsetting Christians).
I thought the majority of civil parnterships would be between a man and a woman? (But actually having looked, my belief appears to be wrong - I was under the impression you could register for this if you didn't want to be 'married' but the act seems to explicitly refuse this which means this all sucks even more)

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Yeah but we have to wait for all the shit people to die out you see.
I meant it raises the possibility that it's not between a man and a woman. Sorry but my head is ten seconds behind my typing today.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

No we don't.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

"They get to ride on the bus, even if they have to sit at the back"



(edit: I'm analogising, I'm not saying the scale is in any way comparable.)

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

I do sympathise, actually. Steering clear of semantics, I think the legal distinction between child-producing couples and otherwise is the most significant thing to come out of this. I'm guessing a lot of you wouldn't necessarily agree with this - I think I do, though.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

It might create less hassle though. Actually to be honest whichever way it goes I doubt it will create that much hassle.

You don't have to do anything or are restricted from doing anything. The only distinction is going to be if you go to court to get a divorce it's going to be a civil partnership that's ending and not a marriage.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

in the United Kingdom, homosexuals cannot marry, and heterosexuals can. What's complicated about this?

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Well, exactly. And so we're left with a decision on whether we should annoy a bunch of old, intolerant jerks or people who happen to be attracted to someone of their own gender.

Seems pretty straight-forward to me.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Well when the concept marriage is equal to another concept which homosexuals can do the point is fairly irrelevant as you're just arguing over semantics.


Turns out the old intolerant jerks make up most of the judicial system. Zing!

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Well, yeah but I thought this was about what "we" thought should happen (we being the hip internet kids). Obviously the judiciary will do whatever they choose, the crazy scamps that they are.

To be honest I just wanted to prove Deepflow's implied assessment of this thread wrong when he thought it might be 'a dozen odd posts saying "I agree with the judge"'.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

I was coming at it from the angle that this is a very good compromise. There's no real differences. Words are pointless semantics. We all hate the state anyways and the sooner they bugger off the better.

I just wanted to post a thread with a witty title :(

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

seperate but equal

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

But they are separate. You could even come up with different terms for partnerships between black and white people or different terms for everyone on the face of the earth and I still wouldn't really care because it's just a word!




Albeit an enormously and pointlessly large number of words by that point.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

There is no such legal distinction: you have misinterpreted or willfully ignored what the case actually says.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

I have no real idea how precedent is set: do the presiding judge's comments have no influence upon later cases? In any case, stop being a big gay pedant, ignore the word 'legal', and address the point.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Boogster hereby presents Missing The Actual Point 101 :(


Precedent is set by the ratio decidendi of a case - the reasoning behind a decison. It is the point in the case that determines the judgement. For example, Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner. I don't like linking to wikipedia for this, but most law databases require special access, usually via Athens for us students.



The judgement for the lesbians' case can actually be found here. I've skimmed through to look for the ratio:

There's then a whole load of stuff on the European Convention on Human Rights. Essentially the judge (Sir Mark Potter, President of the Family Division) finds that the European Court of Human Rights has already ruled against the suggestion that the Convention creates a right to same-sex marriage.



It's easy really!

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Well, smother me with chocolate and sell me for 10p: I'm a right chump am't I?

I know all this stuff. I was simply going on this:

'But the judge told the couple they faced "an insurmountable hurdle" in trying to have a same-sex marriage recognised in English law.
Giving his ruling on Monday he said the majority of people and governments across Europe regarded marriage as an "age-old institution".
Marriage was, by "longstanding definition and acceptance", a formal relationship between a man and a woman primarily designed for producing and rearing children, he said. '

Forgive me, I simply couldn't be bothered to look up the stuff. Thanks for doing it for me and for the great lashings of condescension.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

You'll have to forgive me as well.

The insurmountable hurdle refers to s.11(c) Matrimonial Causes Act 1973:

The judgement was partially deciding why it wasn't incompatible with the Convention.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Actually having thought about this, i agree with Phang, im deeply uncomfortable with the 'seperate equality' that arises in situations like this. Im not saying it is apartheid but it certainly gives an air of that. We can see the idiocy in saying black people and white people should have equal rights but are inherently different and that difference should be recognised in law yet we seem ok with saying that when dealing with sexual orientation.

Im still working this out in my head but as an example lets say biblical terms are taken to say that races shouldn't intermarry. White people can marry white people and black people can marry black people, but a white person can only have a 'civil partnership' with a black person.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

It's an interesting situation over here in canada. When the legislation went in, there's still a load of fuss over various rights and priviledges... and from what I've been hearing, there's a province or two fighting it.

It gets more interesting, as the government who put the legislation into the fray in the first place, is no longer in power (liberals), and we now have a conservative {tory, but not anywhere near the extent of UK tories apparently} government in power who in their platform said they would publically try and abolish the gay marraige laws. At some of the gay bars around here, there were a helluva lot of posters up calling Stephen Harper a satanist amongst other things. I'm not surprised they're having a nasty time with their union in the UK, as they're still having quite the interesting time over here.

Yay politics!

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

In a remarkably stupid move Boogster responds to allegations that he is homophobic with ... er ... homophobia.

Another brilliant coup!!!

The only 'point' to address is that nothing you said was correct:
"the legal distinction between child-producing couples and otherwise" - There is no distinction, legal or otherwise, between child producing and non-child producing couples.
"is the most significant thing to come out of this" - Nothing has 'come out' of this case.

But hey! Here's an idea, why don't you go on posting meaningless shit and pretending that you weren't wrong.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

Shouldn't it be up to the church whether or not homosexuals can get married?
It is their phrase after all.

Any rights given by the state should depend on a legally binding agreement between two people, whether they are male or female is irrelevant.

that the church has any involement at all is stupid and pointless and mostly the only reason people get married in a church is because they want the 'big white wedding' and religion doesn't come into it.

It still strikes me as bizarre why anyone would want to join a group (religious or otherwise) that is openly hostile to a major aspect of your life. It's like a black person wanting to join the KKK.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

I'm pretty sure they just stole it off the romans dude.

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I'm pretty sure that the concept of marriage isn't the exclusive property of the Christian church. I even hear people can get married in non-Christian countries but hopefully that's just an unfounded rumour.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

That is vicious heresy :mad:

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

I've always wondered and debated with friends over which gender created the idea of marriage. Was it the women who created it to keep the man from running off if she got pregnant, or was it the men in an attempt to be able to say that this woman is my property (keeping in mind we're talking a few thousand years ago).

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

But we are talking about the Christian church here. I'm not sure but I would imagine that each religion has a different term for marriage.

Seeing as marriage is 'the union or man and women in the eyes of God' it kind of makes sense that each religious group should have the choice of who can participate in this ceremony. that said, this ceremony should be just a ceremony and whilst it might be binding in the eyes of God it should not be legally binding in the eyes of the law.

I would argue that the legally binding agreement should not be called marriage as this links the state to Christianity and I believe in the separation of church and state.

Dante, the phrase 'non-Christian countries' is something I dislike. Britain should not be considered a 'Christian country' rather it should be seen as a country where most people identify themselves as Christians. there should be no promotion for one religion over the other. I know that is because of the head of state and all that but that would be side-tracking

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

and where do you think the term Roman Catolic comes from, and is is the churches word i guess. All religions use it and it doesnt just symbolise being with someone its about having children predomanantly as well i know not always but definately for the majorety

In Ye old times people got married to have kids. The debocle is can lesbians or gays have kids. The real answer is no unless you include adoption.

I think the best way to phrase what i mean is do you call two gay partners in a "civil relationship" with adopted chidren a married family with kids. personally i believe no there more than entitled to do this if they so wish but to call it marrige is incorrect as marridge comes from church or romans and im pretty sure they didnt have gay mariges back then ( from fear of god).

In summary marrige aplies to straight people

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

You would be incorrect. They might have different original terms in their "mother tongue" or whatever but that's it. Two muslims married in Britain is still called a marriage.

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No, you are talking about the Christian church. Everyone else is talking about the laws of Britain as far as I can tell.
Yeah, so what? I'm sure different languages have a different term for marriage even inside the same religion but we can work on common ground.
I would disagree with this definition. But yeah, obviously if we're going to define things like that then we can't (well, by definition) have gays getting married. But that's rather circular.
Fair enough. I don't really care tbh but I can see your point. It's like saying England shouldn't be called an English speaking country but a country where most people speak English. You're of course correct (and since the majority of British people are probably vaguely agnostic my analogy is not quite correct, but you can hopefully see my point too).

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

The fact that the patriarch in Rome got uppity in about 500 AD and decided he wanted to be head christian dude?

It's not about anything. It's just a word used to represent a concept.

In ye old times people hunted wild animals with spears. Nowadays we've marvellously technologically progressed and through artificial impregnation and the like lesbians can have children! And how did the word debate become the "word" debocle?

No, back in Roman times marriage was a word using in agriculture.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

You learn something new every day. I still stand by my point though that a 'marriage' should have no legal weight due to its religious connotations.

Re: Lesbians get nailed
 

So maybe the only legal term should be civil union?