The controversy around Mozilla's new CEO Brendan Eich continues. Eich made a personal $1000 donation to California's Yes on Proposition 8 campaign in 2008. Now, dating site OkCupid has started redirecting Firefox users to a page explaining Eich's views against marriage equality, and asking users to switch to IE, Chrome, or Opera.
If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we've worked so hard to bring about would be illegal. Equality for gay relationships is personally important to many of us here at OkCupid. But it's professionally important to the entire company. OkCupid is for creating love. Those who seek to deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration are our enemies, and we wish them nothing but failure.
Visitors are then provided links to alternative browsers, or they can continue to the site by clicking a hyperlink at the bottom of the page.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by GeminiDomino on Tuesday April 01 2014, @04:26PM
There don't seem to be any that hold up. They all seem to boil down to the "fact" that "the purpose of marriage is to create children" or somesuch.
Except that's obviously not true (plenty of kids to unmarried parents, plenty of hetero married couples with no kids), so once you discard that... nope, we're back to none.
"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wjwlsn on Tuesday April 01 2014, @04:42PM
The argument that there are plenty of kids to unmarried parents doesn't disprove the assertion that the purpose of marriage is to create children; one does not preclude the other.
The argument that there are plenty of hetero married couples with no kids doesn't disprove (completely) the assertion either. Childless marriages are still in the minority, and not too long ago (in societal terms), they were very uncommon. One could also say that couples that marry, but don't have children, don't receive all the same legal/tax benefits that families-with-kids receive.
I'm not picking on you in particular, but there are a lot of people here that seem willing to dismiss the argument against same-sex marriage with very little critical consideration of what supports that argument. That's why I've posted such an argument (and a very long reply to someone else) about this in another part of the thread.
If I'm going to refute the "anti-gay-marriage" argument, like I intend to do with anybody that brings it up around me, I want to be able to do so from the position of understanding their argument (having taken it seriously).
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 1) by Tork on Tuesday April 01 2014, @05:13PM
It proves that kids happen either way, as opposed to marriage, then kids.
Yes, it does. There are no prerequisites to marriage that are based on fertility. There is no objection, for example, to a post-menopausal woman getting married.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Tuesday April 01 2014, @05:52PM
The purpose of frying pans is to act as a vessel for cooking food. (It may not be the only purpose, but it is the main purpose, and the reason it came into being in the first place.)
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 1) by Tork on Tuesday April 01 2014, @06:00PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Tuesday April 01 2014, @06:35PM
"Marriage's primary purpose is procreating and raising children" is to "married couples sometimes don't have children" as "Frying pans are for cooking food" is to:
(a) "Frying pans are sometimes just hung for decorative purposes", or
(b) "Frying pans might melt when exposed to flame"
What's your answer?
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Tork on Tuesday April 01 2014, @07:06PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:07PM
Alright, to recap:
The assertion I posited is that "the purpose of marriage is to create children", and that the existence of marriages without children doesn't disprove that assertion. You then claimed that it does disprove the assertion because fertility is not a prerequisite for marriage, and gave the example of post-menopausal women getting married. While I happen to agree with you, I still don't think you've managed to fully refute the original assertion in a convincing manner.
Unmarried people can have children, and married people can choose to forgo having children. Unmarried people can live together without having children, and married people can live apart even if they have children (I'm including separated/divorced parents in this). None of those conditions disprove the assertion that, by and large, the primary reason that the institution of marriage exists in American society is procreation and child-rearing.
I'm not saying this assertion is completely accurate, but I am saying that it represents a very common viewpoint. You can try to refute it, but it's very difficult to do so in a manner that would change someone's mind. Trust me, I've tried; my Dad can be the most logical, dispassionate, areligious son-of-a-bitch in the world, and we agree about many things, but I don't think I'll ever be able to dislodge him from this particular position. I was hoping that somebody here would be able to give me the winning counter-argument, but I haven't seen it yet. In fact, I've tried many of the ones that have been posted here, but none have worked.
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 1) by Tork on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:19PM
The assertion hasn't been proven either. Since they do wish to block gay marriage, but do not wish to block marriage to an infertile couple, your rationale doesn't work.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by wjwlsn on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:26PM
Hmm. Guess I sort of forgot the particulars of this case along the way; I was thinking of the more common case in which same-sex marriages are not yet legal and the legal motion is by those wishing to allow it.
Arg.
I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday April 01 2014, @08:33PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 02 2014, @04:01AM
Fact of the matter is that frying pans can both be hung for decorative purposes, cooked on, and melted over a sufficiently hot flame. My cast iron pan will be glowing orange hot after just a couple minutes on a campfire, and I could certainly make a fire hot enough to melt it.
(Score: 1) by blackest_k on Wednesday April 02 2014, @05:45AM
There is a whole bunch of things that marriage gives that just cohabiting does not.
If you ever watch judge judy you might notice that a married couple who split up get a much better hearing than a couple who lived together. Thats because there is law in place to give the married couple rights in the case of divorce and nothing in the case of unmarried couples splitting up.
As a married man my wife qualifies for a widows pension if I die, as a divorced man she doesn't and nor does my girlfriend no matter how long we have been together. As a single man under the eyes of the law only my blood relatives have a claim on my property by default and even without blood relatives, the state has a better claim on my property than does my girlfriend.
That institution of marriage does give some stability and weight to the relationship between a husband and wife. There are not the same protections for boy and girlfriend.
That legal framework does not depend on a married couple having children.
Over all it is a pretty good system, nobody is arguing that just because you are dating somebody that if you happen to die that your girlfriend/s at the time should get your pension rights.
Same sex couples can make the same commitment to each other as heterosexual couples and it is a good thing to recognise this in law and in marriage.