See Things Our Way, Or Else

The conversation I detailed yesterday has continued.

Marriage neutering advocates say that marriage has always been changing, and make claims about past laws regarding marriage that they, and often others, are glad aren’t in place anymore. This, however, does not demonstrate that further change is needed. Also, throughout all of the changes in marriage laws in the past, marriage has always been about uniting the sexes, almost always about uniting one man with one woman. Even in polygynous marriages (Islam, plural marriage of smaller Mormon denominations) and polyandrous marriages (practiced in some places in the East), the people of the same sex are not married to each other, they are each married individually to one person of the opposite sex. The women of "Sister Wives" are not married to each other; each one is seperately married to Kody Brown.

Even in societies where homosexual behavior was publicly accepted, even expected and celebrated, marriage involved uniting the two sexes. That marriage neutering advocates can cite isolated incidents where rogues united a few same-sex couples in a ceremony no more indicates that a same-sex coupling has historically been recognized as marriage than the incidents of women "marrying" themselves demonstrates that marriage only requires one person, or someone "marrying" the Eiffel Tower means that human-building unions have been recognized as "marriage".

Pauls_View  @pauls_view 
@PlayfulWalrus Here is the history of marriage: historyofmarriage.org It has changed many times. You want no more progress. Closes minded.

Paul assumes neutering state marriage licensing is progress, but I don’t agree. He calls me closed minded, but his mind appears to be closed to the idea that uniting the sexes has a distinct value.
In response to what I posted yesterday:

@PlayfulWalrus Do you not see how this video has a point of view & is trying to prove it? He says the versus are irrelevant! Ridiculous! 

What's wrong with the video having a point of view and trying to prove it? Isn’t that what Paul is trying to do as well? Isn't that what the media he links to is trying to do? In the video, Alan says getting into the Biblical verses themselves is irrelevant to the discussion of the graphic, because the graphic does not prove that the bride+groom core of marriage is wrong. Rather, it is designed to attempt to ridicule the Bible. Interesting that people who claim to be Christians are so quick to dismiss the Bible. I wonder why they call themselves Christians? Presumably because they claim to follow Christ. But how do they know anything about Christ and His teachings?

@PlayfulWalrus The video so biased.

So? And Paul isn't?

The nutty part of the bible are explainable(not really nuts)but the homosexuality parts are set in stone

"Nutty" likely means that Paul doesn't care about context. He simply reads the passages as though they are written exclusively to Paul in the 21st century, living where he does. The Bible doesn't talk about homosexuality too much, rather, throughout the Bible, clearly and repeatedly, marriage is presented as uniting a bride and groom, and sex is presented as something for marriage, regardless of era, regardless of nation, Jew or Gentile. That rules out many behaviors, but Paul only seems to care about one.

@PlayfulWalrus You Playful Walrus are so set in your non-empathetic ways that you refuse to see the humans impacted. Very, very sad. 

On the contrary, it is because I have empathy and I care about humans, especially what we’re passing on to our children, that I think it is important to continue to legally distinguish marriage from other relationships. We hurt society and future generations when we try to force on everyone the lie that there’s no difference between marriage and other kinds of voluntary associations. Would anyone in their right mind tell their 14-year-old daughter or niece that there is no difference between her being with a girl or being with a boy? Clearly there is. If she is with a girl, she’ll never be secretly taken from school to go get a late-term abortion without her parents being informed, because there is no possibility of her getting knocked up.
Getting back to my point with my original tweet, I asked Paul:
@pauls_view Do you support any of these? Which ones? freedom of association, freedom of religion, free enterprise 
Paul responded:

@PlayfulWalrus 1&2 yes, 3 need regulation. BUT freedom of religion does not excuse discrimination on a civil level. 

I continued:
@pauls_view So a flower shop owner shouldn't have her freedom of association & religion to NOT work a groomless ceremony? 
That was Matt Barber's point.

@PlayfulWalrus A private flower shop can do as they please.

Hello! Paul agrees with Barber! So he agreed with Barber on this point, but chose to respond to my tweet by attacking Barber as a person anyway, staring this whole conversation.

The government must NOT discriminate. Equal rights under the law. Not a theocracy.

  The government should, and can, and does, discriminate between different kinds of voluntary associations. Bride+groom requirements in state licenses DO provide equal rights. One need not be religious at all to recognize the truth of these things. 
SearchCz disagrees with Matt Barber, me, and Paul, commenting here on the blog:

Ms. Stutzman has voluntarily chosen to establish a business of public accommodation. Nobody forced her to become a florist. But as a florist she has extended a tacit offer (and has a legal obligation) to accommodate the public - even folks she doesn't like.

Clever, but I'm not letting you get away with that sleight-of-word. She HAS served these customers, and there is no indication she doesn't like them. Disapproving of an event or a behavior is acceptable.

If her religious beliefs are in conflict with her obligations as a business of public accommodation, she is free to choose whichever is more important to her.

Here, SearchCz supports homofascism. If you are a faithful Christian, you should be denied employment or your own business. Maybe you should wear a patch on your clothes with a cross or some other symbol to identify you as a Christian, too.

She is free to announce - for example - that the purchased flowers can't possibly be for a wedding, unless both a bride and groom are present.

I fully expect that bakeries are going to get sued if they only offer bride+groom cake toppers and don't carry toppers with two men or two women.

There's a wide range of freedom in there - it just stops short of allowing her to force others to comply with her beliefs.

She is not forcing them to comply with her beliefs. She is exercising her freedom of association. The state official is now trying to force her to comply with their beliefs.
In another comment, SearchCz said:

The gentleman in the video seems to have contradicted himself.

Seems. To you.

At 00:30 he tells us that marriage isn't something we can define. Rather, its something that we describe.

I think he loses all credibility when, at 09:05, he tells us that even with polygamy, you have a "one man, one woman" kind of thing going on. Because polygamy describes one man being married to many women.

  Actually, polygamy (in this case) describes one man having more than one marriage.

And he totally loses it when he tries to convince us @ 9:28 to dismiss biblical polygamy because it is never prescribed, it is merely described.

Words are equivocal, not univocal. The State of Washington did not create marriage. Marriage existed thousands of years before the state came into existence. The laws of the state, until recently, accurate described marriage for the purposes of distinguishing married people from unmarried people in the state laws. The Bible describes (records) many things that are not endorsed in the Bible as the right thing to do. It's as if I said "Blondie had a hit with that song" and later said in the same conversation that "That guy hit on Deborah Harry."
So, there's no contradiction. But by all means, keep proving Matt Barber's point that we can expect fascism in the dismantling of marriage.

Let's get back to the tweets from Paul.

@PlayfulWalrus Playful Walrus, I find it very sad that you & others use religion as a means to discriminate w/ NO empathy for those impacted

I'm not using religion to note the obvious difference between men and women, and thus marriage from brideless or groomless pairings, nor do I use religion in recognizing a floral shop owner should have the freedom of association. Paul discriminates, too, but he must have some other source informing his descisions than his religion, or the biological reality and government-documented fact that men and women are not the same. I have empathy for business owners and anyone who does not want to be forced to participate in what they see as a mockery of marriage.

@PlayfulWalrus Same-sex marriage hurts NO ONE! Not an ethical sin. Religions can still discriminate the government MUST not.

Counterfeiting does hurt, and the process of neutering marriage certainly hurts people, as do the results. For example, the florist.

@PlayfulWalrus The issue is CIVIL marriage, not religious marriage. To try to set American law based on the Christian bible is un-American!

Again, recognizing and valuing the difference between marriage and other voluntary associations is something that need not be based on Christianity. Just look all over the world, and all throughout history.