Re: Referendum on gay marriage? : Tue May 21, 2013 2:32 pm  

Mintball wrote:

My understanding is that there are legal/pensions/tax differences anyway – and the civil partnership was not and is not marriage, which is a particular social construct.

Get hitched in a registry office and you're still married.. The original legislation was to enable LGBT couple to formalise their relationships, but without the big emotional row we're getting now because marriage is something different again.

The reality is that it means different things for different people; it has never meant the same throughout all human history or been carried out in the same way. but for many people it appears to be considered the apotheosis of a public statement of commitment.

Not all LGBT people will want to 'upgrade' their civil partnership into a marriage. They will have a choice (which they do not currently have). So the choice should also be extended to straight couple who don't want to marry but wish for some legal formality etc.

Indeed.
Equality should be a 2 way street.

Re: Referendum on gay marriage? : Tue May 21, 2013 2:55 pm  

Mintball wrote:

The reality is that it means different things for different people; it has never meant the same throughout all human history or been carried out in the same way.

It didn't even mean the same throughout the relatively short space of time covered by The Bible, despite what those who use religion to justify their bigotry would have us believe.

Re: Referendum on gay marriage? : Tue May 21, 2013 3:24 pm  

Dally wrote:

I still think the concept of gay "marriage" is ludicrous. It seems to me that the concept of marriage came about as a mechanism for holding couples together for the long period of time needed to raise human offspring. The fact that gay people cannot procreate seems to make it a wholly unneccesary concept so far as they are concerned. By all means allow them the same legal rights but let's keep the word and concept of "marriage" true to its original and cultural meaning.

Aye, well.
You're wrong and it appears to me, from your past rantings, that your opposition is rooted in some kind of feeling of superiority over gay people and you just can't stomach the fact that their love for each other might be just as valid as yours.

Re: Referendum on gay marriage? : Tue May 21, 2013 3:56 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Aye, well.
You're wrong and it appears to me, from your past rantings, that your opposition is rooted in some kind of feeling of superiority over gay people and you just can't stomach the fact that their love for each other might be just as valid as yours.

So you appear know what I think now!?

Re: Referendum on gay marriage? : Tue May 21, 2013 4:24 pm  

Dally wrote:

So you appear know what I think now!?

No. he said on the basis of "your past rantings". The two are not necessarily one and the same.

Re: Referendum on gay marriage? : Tue May 21, 2013 4:34 pm  

Mintball wrote:

My understanding is that there are legal/pensions/tax differences anyway – and the civil partnership was not and is not marriage, which is a particular social construct.

Get hitched in a registry office and you're still married.. The original legislation was to enable LGBT couple to formalise their relationships, but without the big emotional row we're getting now because marriage is something different again.

The reality is that it means different things for different people; it has never meant the same throughout all human history or been carried out in the same way. but for many people it appears to be considered the apotheosis of a public statement of commitment.

Not all LGBT people will want to 'upgrade' their civil partnership into a marriage. They will have a choice (which they do not currently have). So the choice should also be extended to straight couple who don't want to marry but wish for some legal formality etc.

I was under the impression that there aren't any legal/pension/tax differences. If there are, then there shouldn't be. It would certainly be wrong for there to be two distinct legal institutions with different legal rights. Not least because it would be confusing and misleading for those entering into civil partnerships. I would bet that 90+% of those entering into a civil partnership would do so believing that they were gaining the same legal rights of a marriage.

I don't see anything wrong in people describing their relationship as a marriage, civil partnership, common law marriage, cohabitation or whatever. But there shouldn't be different legal institutions.

Re: Referendum on gay marriage? : Tue May 21, 2013 4:42 pm  

Cibaman wrote:

I was under the impression that there aren't any legal/pension/tax differences. If there are, then there shouldn't be. It would certainly be wrong for there to be two distinct legal institutions with different legal rights. Not least because it would be confusing and misleading for those entering into civil partnerships. I would bet that 90+% of those entering into a civil partnership would do so believing that they were gaining the same legal rights of a marriage.

I don't see anything wrong in people describing their relationship as a marriage, civil partnership, common law marriage, cohabitation or whatever. But there shouldn't be different legal institutions.

See the link to Lord Tebbit's interview to see where this could all lead from a tax planning angle.

Re: Referendum on gay marriage? : Tue May 21, 2013 5:03 pm  

Dally wrote:

See the link to Lord Tebbit's interview to see where this could all lead from a tax planning angle.

Lord Tebbit misses the point, the VERY BIG point that its not possible to legally marry your own blood relative, whether that be your children or your siblings.

For some reason he is under the impression that any new legislation to allow gay people to legally "marry" instead of have a civil partnership will include the provision to marry within your family too, indeed his quote is "we’ve got to make these same-sex marriages available to all. It would lift my worries about inheritance tax because maybe I’d be allowed to marry my son. Why not?"

He is an idiot.

I'll excuse him though because he's an old man and once had his pyjamas blown off by the IRA, that sort of thing is bound to affect your thinking process as you reach your twilight years - I just wish The Mail would leave him alone to sit on his porch and shake a fist at passing buses like all the other cranky old men though.

Re: Referendum on gay marriage? : Tue May 21, 2013 5:11 pm  

Mintball wrote:

No. he said on the basis of "your past rantings". The two are not necessarily one and the same.

Actually that's not quite right.

Dally's response was:

So you appear know what I think now!?

This confirms that the OP has correctly identified what Dally thinks. (As you couldn't possibly appear to know what I'm thinking, unless you correctly tell me what it is.)

Re: Referendum on gay marriage? : Tue May 21, 2013 7:47 pm  

JerryChicken wrote: Lord Tebbit misses the point, the VERY BIG point that its not possible to legally marry your own blood relative, whether that be your children or your siblings. For some reason he is under the impression that any new legislation to allow gay people to legally "marry" instead of have a civil partnership will include the provision to marry within your family too, indeed his quote is "we’ve got to make these same-sex marriages available to all. It would lift my worries about inheritance tax because maybe I’d be allowed to marry my son. Why not?" He is an idiot. I'll excuse him though because he's an old man and once had his pyjamas blown off by the IRA, that sort of thing is bound to affect your thinking process as you reach your twilight years - I just wish The Mail would leave him alone to sit on his porch and shake a fist at passing buses like all the other cranky old men though. If anyone needs a little distraction from the Dally Wail, you could do worse than read the comments from the very same swivel-eyed loons in The Spectator, Especially this one. There are some who claim that incest is not illegal in Belgium and that Peter Tatchell is just waiting for same-sex marriage to become law, so that he can then push for the right to shag 14 year olds. On the subject of taking advice from flaky old politicians, I have always questioned any advice received from anyone with liver spots

JerryChicken wrote: Lord Tebbit misses the point, the VERY BIG point that its not possible to legally marry your own blood relative, whether that be your children or your siblings. For some reason he is under the impression that any new legislation to allow gay people to legally "marry" instead of have a civil partnership will include the provision to marry within your family too, indeed his quote is "we’ve got to make these same-sex marriages available to all. It would lift my worries about inheritance tax because maybe I’d be allowed to marry my son. Why not?" He is an idiot. I'll excuse him though because he's an old man and once had his pyjamas blown off by the IRA, that sort of thing is bound to affect your thinking process as you reach your twilight years - I just wish The Mail would leave him alone to sit on his porch and shake a fist at passing buses like all the other cranky old men though. If anyone needs a little distraction from the Dally Wail, you could do worse than read the comments from the very same swivel-eyed loons in The Spectator, Especially this one. There are some who claim that incest is not illegal in Belgium and that Peter Tatchell is just waiting for same-sex marriage to become law, so that he can then push for the right to shag 14 year olds. On the subject of taking advice from flaky old politicians, I have always questioned any advice received from anyone with liver spots