{"id":248,"date":"2012-07-10T21:41:48","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T20:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/?p=248"},"modified":"2012-07-10T21:41:48","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T20:41:48","slug":"reasons-to-support-same-sex-marriage-the-short-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/2012\/07\/reasons-to-support-same-sex-marriage-the-short-version\/","title":{"rendered":"Reasons to support same-sex marriage – the short version!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m quite pleased with my blog post about why legalising same-sex marriage is the only logical option<\/a>. It took me ages to finish, and I think it’s quite thorough. But at over three thousand words long, it’s not exactly bite-sized!<\/p>\n

So here I present its boiled down essence, in the form of an imaginary dialog (( and using my favourite under-used HTML element, the definition list 8)<\/tt> )). It follows the same order as the original post<\/a>, so if you want the details on any of these points, please look over there<\/a> before arguing with them.
\n<\/p>\n

The Arguments<\/h2>\n
\n
Marriage is about providing a stable environment to bring up a family.<\/dt>\n
In that case, we’d better ban marriage between couples who are celibate, infertile, or just happily childless.<\/dd>\n
An opposite-sex marriage benefits from the complementarity of the sexes.<\/dt>\n
I’m sure some do, but is that really the most fundamental thing which makes for a successful marriage?<\/dd>\n
Parliament has never tried to enact a definition of marriage before.<\/dt>\n
Just because they never have, doesn’t mean they never can; just like they could define “theft” in the 1960s.<\/dd>\n
Wouldn’t the UK be breaking with international agreement on the definition of marriage?<\/dt>\n
The UK would be joining Argentina, Belguim, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden, who have already introduced same-sex marriages. The American and French presidents support similar moves.<\/dd>\n
But there’s a universally accepted basic definition of marriage, right?<\/dt>\n
Well… apart from the historical and geographical technicalities, such as polygamy, dowries, arranged marriages, wildly divergent views of divorce…<\/dd>\n
Is this another move to disestablish the Church of England?<\/dt>\n
Marriages held in a registry office are already explicitly prohibited from including any religious element, so
\nthe battle to keep all marriages Christian was lost long ago.<\/dd>\n
This will open the door to other kinds of marriage, like incest…<\/dt>\n
Hm, there’s some interesting discussions<\/a> to be had there (if you don’t panic).<\/dd>\n
…or polygamy…<\/dt>\n
Yeah, that’s another interesting idea<\/a>. Although it could get a little complicated<\/a>.<\/dd>\n
…or marrying your dog!<\/dt>\n
OK, now you’re taking it too far; dogs can’t even voluntarily enter a legal contract!<\/dd>\n
Legalising gay marriage would to teenagers being taught about eating shit as a sexual fetish<\/a>!<\/dt>\n
Wait … what!?<\/strong> Is this some kind of satire? Have I been trolled<\/a>?<\/dd>\n
Same-sex relationships are just different<\/em> to marriages, so Civil Partnerships are the right answer.<\/dt>\n
Marriages between 20-year-olds are pretty different to marriages between 80-year-olds. How many different labels do we need?<\/dd>\n
But what’s the big deal? A Civil Partnership is the same as a marriage, just, well, not a marriage!<\/dt>\n
If it is equal, it is a marriage; if it is not a marriage, it is not equal.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Who Opposes It?<\/h2>\n

Obviously these are dangerously generalised, but I think there are four kinds of people arguing against gay marriage:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Homophobes<\/strong> – think that homosexuality is just plain wrong<\/li>\n
  2. Homosceptics<\/strong> – don’t believe that homosexuality is as “real” or “valid” as heterosexuality<\/li>\n
  3. Homonimby<\/abbr>ists<\/strong> – fine with homosexuality, as long as it\u2019s Over There Somewhere<\/li>\n
  4. Homodiscombobulated<\/strong> (( I couldn’t think of a good word for this one. But “discombobulated” is such a great word, right? )) – just find it all a bit icky, and frankly get a bit confused<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The End<\/h2>\n

    (OK, just over 500 words. That’s as short as you’re going to get folks!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’m quite pleased with my blog post about why legalising same-sex marriage is the only logical option. It took me ages to finish, and I think it’s quite thorough. But at over three thousand words long, it’s not exactly bite-sized! So here I present its boiled down essence, in the form of an imaginary dialog […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[158,159,162,6,160,80,164,161,163,165,166],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gay","tag-gay-marriage","tag-homosexuality","tag-law","tag-marriage","tag-politics","tag-relationships","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-sexuality","tag-shortened","tag-summary","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}