Gay Marriage: Inciting a backlash, or dragging along too slowly?

[Sandy]

I'm thinking of my grandmother, who was a physician and a suffragette. She practiced medicine and paid taxes for 20 years before she got the right to vote. And she kept on for women's rights, persuading President Roosevelt to allow women medical personel to be commissioned as officers so they could serve in the military. Point is, you need to be constantly at work on this, we can't simply expect demographic shifts or the passage of time to secure civil rights.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Thanks for sharing that, and you are correct about "keeping on keeping on."

[janjo]

I'm thinking of my grandmother, who was a physician and a suffragette. She practiced medicine and paid taxes for 20 years before she got the right to vote. And she kept on for women's rights, persuading President Roosevelt to allow women medical personel to be commissioned as officers so they could serve in the military. Point is, you need to be constantly at work on this, we can't simply expect demographic shifts or the passage of time to secure civil rights.

Your Grandmother sounds like my kinda gal, Sandy.
She sounds truly inspirational.

[Marge_Innavera]

I was thinking of the women who gathered in Elmira (or was it Seneca Falls?) in New York State in the 1840's for the right to vote, among other things...  And it took 80 years from then to be able to do so.

And the suffragist movement saw the same stages: at first the idea of women being allowed to vote was considered to be so ridiculous as to not even be worth discussing.  Then the "will of God" got dragged into it, as well as concern over the social impact and about women's health. (in the 19th century, education is considered to be hazardous to women, since it supposedly drew blood to the brain and away from the reproductive organs.)

And you can your assets there were more than a few people saying that "there are more important things to accomplish."

[AZ.bbm]

Since marriage equality foes like to use the buzzwords of "redefining marriage,"
I thought I'd post this succinct rebuttal to that idea I read today:

Just as the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote,
did not change the meaning of voting, granting gay and lesbian couples
the right to marry does not change the meaning of marriage.

Lyle,
I think I understand why no one responded to your post, above...

Could it be that no one here is sure just how 'voting' was defined, prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment..?
Was voting, like marriage, defined in terms of Process, i.e., objectively, or, was it defined in terms of Persons, i.e., who was eligible to do it?

If the latter, then voting, too, was re-defined.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Who may or may be not be allowed to do something doesn't
redefine the activity in question.  State constitutions, in fact,
never stated that marriage is only between one man and one
woman, that's why all these ballot measures were put on state
ballots so that gay people could be excluded from marrying. So
then, are they redefining marriage, or redefining who's allowed
to legally participate in marriage?

Every once in awhile you hear about a high school female participating
in a sport only the males have usually been associated with, like football.
Does it change the definition of football if the participants change?  I do
not see how.

[AZ.bbm]

Contained within the definition of marriage is language which specifies the parties.

 'The formal union of a man and a woman, typically recognized by law, by which they become husband and wife.'

In order to include unions between same-sex partners you would necessarily be redefining what marriage and the act of marrying means.

 As I see it, one faction, the gay advocates, is attempting to broaden the traditional understanding of marriage while the other faction, the traditionalists, is attempting to narrow that notion (in order to exclude gays). --So, in reality, both factions are attempting to "redefine marriage."


2.  When you think of a gender-dominated sport, e.g., 'football,'  'mud wrestling,' 'knitting bees,' etc., you rarely think of the opposite sex being involved in the game.  By advocating for the opposite sex to be accorded the right to participate in a gender-based activity or event you are redefining perhaps not the thing in and of itself, but the overall character or sphere of the thing..

Some things are simply understood to be the case,  as when a woman says, "I'm getting married," one makes the *reasonable* assumption that she is marrying a man, not a woman, nor her car, etc.

[AZ.bbm]

And the suffragist movement saw the same stages: at first the idea of women being allowed to vote was considered to be so ridiculous as to not even be worth discussing.  Then the "will of God" got dragged into it, as well as concern over the social impact and about women's health. (in the 19th century, education is considered to be hazardous to women, since it supposedly drew blood to the brain and away from the reproductive organs.)

And you can [bet] your assets there were more than a few people saying that "there are more important things to accomplish."

A woman didn't have an independent existence apart from a man, be it her father, husband, etc.. Like blacks, by law a woman represented only some fractional portion of a human being, while all white men were created equal, and whole.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

I do not know why you want to argue about the deifnition of marriage.

Contained within the definition of marriage is language which specifies the parties.

If that is true, then why all the measures on ballots to define it if it's already defined?

Some things are simply understood to be the case,  as when a woman says, "I'm getting married," one makes the *reasonable* assumption that she is marrying a man, not a woman, nor her car, etc.

Yes I would reasonably assume a woman wasn't going to marry her car since an inanimate
object has no faculties to agree to such a contract.  However, if I know a person is gay I
would assume they'd reasonably be marrying someone of the same sex.

The "some things are simply understood" applies to those who can do what the
minority simply don't understand why they cannot.  It is not simply understood to those
who are being barred from doing things--blacks and whites marrying, women voting, gay
people marrying...  The redefining is on the majority side, the minority side doesn't think
being legally allowed to participate is a redefinition of what they want to do.

If people want to think of it as redefining then, I say let's celebrate that the human
race can redefinie things to make them better for all people.  Redefining is a good thing!

As a dictionary definition of "define" says:  "to discover and set forth the meaning of (as a word)"
Let's hope the act of discovery isn't always seen as negative or set in stone.

[AZ.bbm]

^^^
-THAT'S the spirit! 

[tfferg]

The meaning of a word is a social convention. Definitions in dictionaries have in recent decades been descriptions of the range of conventionally accepted meanings of words and how they are used in communities of speakers. Etymological dictionaries show how the meanings of words have changed over time.

The concept of marriage has evolved over time in our societies and legal definitions have changed over the centuries. On a global scale, anthropologists have found eight forms of marriage in different societies.

The meanings of words in constitutions and pieces of legislation are often open to interpretation and dispute. They derive their meanings from the contexts in which they are written and as contexts change, understood meanings may change and be challenged.

Change may be rapid or glacial, but it is constant. Some people understand the constancy of change and respond accordingly; others are frightened by it, resist and cling to obsolescent meanings.

[MaineGirl]

Not sure where to put this sweet video.  It's short- less than 2 minutes.  I'll put it here and you can link it to the military thread, if you'd like.

Homecoming

Beautiful...        

[MaineGirl]

Your Grandmother sounds like my kinda gal, Sandy.
She sounds truly inspirational.

I agree.

[Sandy]

The meaning of a word is a social convention. Definitions in dictionaries have in recent decades been descriptions of the range of conventionally accepted meanings of words and how they are used in communities of speakers. Etymological dictionaries show how the meanings of words have changed over time.

The concept of marriage has evolved over time in our societies and legal definitions have changed over the centuries. On a global scale, anthropologists have found eight forms of marriage in different societies.

The meanings of words in constitutions and pieces of legislation are often open to interpretation and dispute. They derive their meanings from the contexts in which they are written and as contexts change, understood meanings may change and be challenged.

Change may be rapid or glacial, but it is constant. Some people understand the constancy of change and respond accordingly; others are frightened by it, resist and cling to obsolescent meanings.

I agree with all of this except for the phrase "concept of marriage." There are many concepts of marriage, many of which exist simultaneously in a given group.

As a linguist, I have serious problems with politicians trying to use lexicographic means to secure a monopoly for themselves on concepts. Marriage in the law is a contract. and should be judged accordingly.

[janjo]

Why do some people fight and fight against change, whilst others embrace it?
An interesting question that I was discussing with a student this very afternoon.