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Journal Morosoph's Journal: Gay Marriage 12

First draft Here.

I've not said much about gay marriage thus far, because it's hard to have a decent argument with someone who agrees with you, but below is my reponse to On Lawn's journal entry. I'm picking up on this argument because I feel that the sense of property infringement is at the heart of the conservative argument.

What should be understood in this debate is that homosexuals have the right to marry, what they are seeking after is the right to same-sex marriage. And in order to get it they need the intellectual property rights to marriage so they can re-define it in their image. Like flamboyant little Marxists, they only want to steal it from their neighbor so they can give it to everyone. But instead they wish to alter it and enforce their forgery on everyone else. Am I being just a little to strong in my language here?

Yes.

--prove me wrong.

IPR is completely inappropriate a concept for marriage. Marriage is primarily a bond between two people, and secondarily a contract with society. We are not all of one flesh, as Marxists and conservatives alike would have it, but are rather a collection of individuals. Society is emergent.

Your [quoted] argument is mean, and [itself] suffers from zero-sum Marxist thinking. If two other people marry, your marriage remains intact, they have not stolen from you any more than two others engaging in a trade that you do not approve of debases work that you contract to independently.

To make myself clearer, consider a time when it is legal to keep slaves. Any contract that a slave forms is invalid, for they literally do not possess themselves to form a contract: they have no rights to give. If we say that slaves cannot agree to contractual work because it would steal from non-slaves, you are simply asserting that slavery is right.

Even if IPR were an appropriate concept, if we look at copyright and patent laws, we see that these rights are not absolute. Rather, they are a calculated trade-off between various parties interests. If we look again to the analogy of slavery, we can see that we have decided that there are things that cannot be traded, and marriage is about identity; how we consider property is conditioned by such things as marriage. It is not one person, but two who own property. Property might be in one or the other's name, but when it comes to divorce, it becomes clear that this is simply a legal nicety.

As a society, we have already decided on the principle that people can marry, and this is on the basis that marriage is a blending of identities. To exclude some couples who love each other (ie. blend identities) from marriage on the basis on IPR is a serious case of defeating a higher principle (who one is) with a lower one.

Update: On Lawn and I have written a lot in On Lawn's JE; if you're interested in this topic, you'd be well-advised to go there!

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Gay Marriage

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  • thank you for reminding me - YET AGAIN- why i friended you. i wish that more people in the world thought as clearly as some of the folks around here.

    • IPR is completely inappropriate a concept for marriage.

      If thats clear thinking, maybe you could explain it to me then. I've been debating him/her to Tuesday and back and still have no idea why he/she feels that Marriage definition is...

      1) not intellectual property as much as any other definition, trademark or copyright,

      2) not in debate with entities either preserving or trying to change that definition.

      3) unclear in its definition.

      I don't mean to demean but I honestly found this (as its previous iter
      • i've missed parts of this, i think, so i can either try to discuss it with you on the fly or can you point me to the background? i can't claim to fill in their thought, but i can tell you my own.
        • It's a misperception, I think. One is applying the concept of intellectual property to marriage, and then refuting that application; the other is asserting that people in favor of granting marital status to same-sex couples have hijacked the definition of marriage, and he wants to assert some kind of intellectual property right over it. The root of the confusion probably stemmed from the use of the word "property"; it recalls the outmoded definition of marriage, in which the wife was effectively the prope
          • the other is asserting that people in favor of granting marital status to same-sex couples have hijacked the definition of marriage,

            I can suppose this is myself.

            and he wants to assert some kind of intellectual property right over it.

            I caution you in this. I do not in any shape or form claim to own marriage. I don't know any entity, not government nor religion that can claim to own what marriage is. Marriage is not trademarked, copyrighted or even patented. And I think it right to take exception that s
          • See here... [slashdot.org]

        • What is this? Did you not consider it clear thinking? If it was clear, then why should I not expect you to be able to explain it to me? Your reaction is not very reasurring.

          The background, btw, is pointed to by the JE author.
      • It's a him, but you probably guessed that.

        You brought up IPR when you said:

        And in order to get it they need the intellectual property rights to marriage so they can re-define it in their image.

        I am saying that this is the wrong way to think about what marriage is.

        I am essentially saying that marriage is a state of being, hence an issue of identity. Marriage begins with the example and experience of marriage. Its (relative) stability does help children, but the "infringement" of marriage-IP by an

        • You brought up IPR when you said, "And in order to get it they need the intellectual property rights to marriage so they can re-define it in their image."

          Exactly, and the IPR (which is the only terminology I could find that fits having the right to re-define something) is simply not up for sale by the government or religion. What marriage is understood as is trancedant of any government or religion. You may have caught that point already, but I thought it important to underline once again.

          But actually you
          • I'll reply to your post if I get a chance when I get back on Sunday.

            I tried to post this just after your journal entry got archived:

            Your seem to be confusing the differences between a BMW and a Pinto with the differences between a car and a bicycle. If I were to apply this analogy to the matter at hand I would say, "while a BMW and Pinto are different automobiles, it would be entirely too cumbersome, maybe even impossible, for government to provide a legal framework to apply to both cars and bicycle

            • I tried to post this just after your journal entry got archived:

              A underhanded trick to try to get in the last word? For some reason I expected you might just try that. I was on the computer this morning with the express purpose of foiling such an attempt, but got called away for family duties.

              Maybe but since your tone both posts managed to slipped in are simply appologetic, I expect you were may not have been attempting trickery.

              I claimed that the reason that we recognise the marriages of the infertile
            • Civil Unions will do this, but I think that it is in fact mean not to allow them to marry.

              That may be true, but I'm not seeing who exactly you accuse of oppression here.

              to disallow marriage because something else will do will not bring them the same support within society (and I'm not talking about government, here) that people sometime need to keep marriages together.

              I couldn't parse that.

              I expect that the support that they would legitimately receive would be similar to that that a childless couple

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