(The breach is only in my blogging, I should state. Quin has become a blogging machine.)
Anyway, I loved the new rules for hypocrisy that Margaret and Helen established today so much, I’m just going to reproduce them right here. My soul has spoken; onward with the day. Love those ladies!
* If you’re Michael Jackson’s father, now is not the time to be enjoying the limelight.
* You can’t be Pro-Life and Pro-War at the same time. If one of these dispositions has to be in your cadre, then pick one and live with the consequences.
* You can’t deny the right to marry to some and then cheat on your spouse. The right to happily marry belongs to all no matter how unhappy it makes you.
* You can’t tolerate the atrocities of one President for eight years and then assign the consequences to one who follows. From this day forward everything was Reagan’s fault.
* The Christian Right should be forced to spend a week in Iran. May the best radicals win.
* The Real Housewives should actually be housewives.
I am so sending my grandmother a link to Margaret and Helen. They are so cool.
Actually, you shouldn’t cheat on your spouse, ever, regardless of what else you do.
And you also shouldn’t cheat and change the definition of marriage when the subject of the debate is the definition of marriage.
The definition of marriage is a union of a man and a woman. The debate is whether to change that to “a union of man and a woman or man/man or woman/woman” or “whatever we want it to be.”
But it is cheating to beg the question and say we should change to the new definition because everyone has a right to your new definition.
Do you all even realize how you commit that fallacy, or is it so habitual that you actually think you are making a point?
Do you also believe that divorce is never an acceptable option, Neil, or are you completely loony?
The definition of marriage espoused by most religions is a man and one or more women. (Don’t try to say it’s only one – read your bloody bible, there are multiple wives all over the place.)
People who wish to marry outside of this heterocentric paradigm are trying to get the *legal* recognition of their union. The government is not going to force any church to accept it or to perform it.
Oh, and words change definition all the time. Language is not static. Just because *you* don’t like the new definition doesn’t mean that it won’t come into common use. I hate the new usage of ‘gay’ to mean that something is stupid, but there’s nothing I can do about it, nor would I want to because that would be an infringement of free speech.
Personally, I think marriage should be able to have a legal union of however goddamned many people want to get married, of whatever gender fits their fancy. I don’t think *any* religion should have its belief system and/or moral code enshrined in law, especially as that’s, yknow, against a little thing we have called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
But then, I’m a polyamourous liberal atheist unpatriotic bisexual female, what do I know?
Interesting point about definitions, Neil. Let’s actually take a look.
Googling “dictionary:marriage” gets these as the first five definitions.
From http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marriage
From http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/marriage
From http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=marriage
From http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/Marriage.html
Hmm. Looks like the train left the platform a while ago, Neil. That definition been done changed already.
Oops, that’s only four, I just realized! Point stands, though.