In our society, nudism IS a hobby. My fleeting judgment of it as corny is irrelevant to my point.

Can you articulate why it is that you think people should be required by law to hand man-made objects from their bodies when they appear in public?

You utter imbecile, I just said that I DON’T. Ideally, nudism WOULD be legal. The reason that nudism is banned is that people are worried it would make it difficult to prosecute the guy who insists on stroking himself while walking naked through the primary school playground. And as nudists do not suffer from being required to wear clothes in public, there is no pressing need for making the complicated change in laws. Okay? Not an ideal situation, not fair on nudists — but neither is it even vaguely comparable to the humiliation of one’s relationship having no legal status even after decades of companionship. Your arguments are not just bad, they are preposterous and insulting.

Two points…

1.) The potential changes in the demographics of marriage between allowing interracial marriage is much greater than the potential change after allowing same-sex marriage.

2.) And you are still wrong. buzzle.com/editorials/7-17-2004-56743.asp The Catholic church performed same-sex marriages up to the 14th century, and that’s not to mention the many other cultures that had / have same sex marriage.

And as a bonus…

3.) You are still arguing tradition is a legitimate excuse to tell someone they are not allowed to marry the person they want. Tradition is not enough. You have to explain why a law should be in effect now.

In other words, they should pretend to be something they are not, and enter into a union with no love or commitment based on a lie. Yeah, that’s sanctity, all right.

… Does someone want to and a joke here?

I don’t think there’s any need, except to say heheh.

You obviously, still, don’t understand the constitutional difference between public nudity and marriage and I don’t really see the point in trying to argue you out of your beloved sophistry. Like I wouldn’t want to rip a security blanket away from a child.

Again, no one, regardless of gender, age, race religion, etc. has a right to be naked in public, although there are exceptions to the general ban as it nude beaches or asa a matter of free speech.

At present, only straight people can get married while gay people can’t. To suggest that if gay people want to get married, they just have to marry someone of the opposite gender is to entirely misunderstand the nature of homosexuality. It’s like saying that jim crow laws weren’t unconstitutional because if blacks wanted to sit at the front of the bus, all they had to do was be white. If you can’t understand that simple, basic fact, you’re hopeless.

The number of years a rule, law, tradition or custom has existed is also no argument in favor of its justice or its continuation. It’s like arguing that we shouldn’t have gotten rid of slavery because, you know, it’s been around so long. Granted, the longer a law has been in place the harder it is for people to get used to the idea that it’s gone. Change can be shocking, no one is denying that. But the degree of shock involved is also no reason to continue supporting an unjust law. You really feel okay with telling people that can’t have their constitutional rights until everyone is cool with it? Sorry. The Constitution doesn’t work that way. We have a constitutional process that can take time, moving from legislature to courts and back again, but that process should not be suspended simply because some people don’t like change or are afraid of it.

AW.: In other words, your analogy revolves around the assumption that my love for my partner is nothing more than a corny hobby. Not at all. But why do you dismiss nakedness, which is undeniably the natural state of things, as a “corny hobby?” Can you articulate why it is that you think people should be required by law to hand man-made objects from their bodies when they appear in public?

I am absolutely not trying to equate homosexuality to nudism. I am pointing out that the concept of what is “normal and acceptable” in a marriage is very similar to what is “normal and acceptable” in standards of clothing. That is, they are both based on long-standing and very deeply-seated traditions about how things are donr in society. THat doesn’t make one “right” and the other “wrong,” but it does help to explain why defense of one position or the other will often completely elude a person who sees things differently, as has happened in this thread.

By the way, the exact same arguments were used in the 1960s to keep interracial marriages illegal. The exact same arguments.

Interesting. I hear many of the exact same arguments being used to prevent people from walking around naked as have been used to prevent homosexual people from getting married.

In other words, your analogy revolves around the assumption that my love for my partner is nothing more than a corny hobby.

As an exercise, imagine how you would feel seeing an unattractive person naked in public

I wouldn’t give a toss.

But apparently you think you would be justified in demanding that all ugly and disfigured people wear masks.

Thank Tom Tomorrow. He made that point in a strip a while back and until then the obvious hadn’t dawned on me. Of course, he didn’t add the McCain bit, but I’m sure I’m not the first person to say McCain is older than the ‘traditional’ definition of marriage.

Hmmm, I wonder why a gay man would have no interest in marrying a woman. Or why a lesbian would have no interest in marrying a man. It boggles the mind …

You’ve really out done yourself here scratch.

From 1967 when the definition of marriage changed to, “between a man and a woman” from, “between a man and a woman of the same race.” Before that, it was less than a century before the previous major change in definition as it used to be, “between a man and a woman of the white race” as blacks were not allowed to get marriage, even to each other.

By the way, the exact same arguments were used in the 1960s to keep interracial marriages illegal. The exact same arguments. Yes, that includes the inability to have kids.

Scratch: “I have a pretty good grasp of homosexuality.”

… Does someone want to and a joke here?

Scratch: “Let me make it as simple as possible: Until recently, marriage has been understood to mean a commitment between a man and a woman. So a commitment between people of the same gender is not covered by any law that deals with marriage. Thus, homosexual people are not prohibited by law from entering into a marriage as it has been defined by custom for centuries. Of course, they have no interest in doing so.”

Let me be equally as simple. You are wrong. You are wrong about how traditional the definition of marriage is. Marriage hasn’t been defined as between a man and a woman for very long, nor has it always been defined as just between a man and a woman.

I have a pretty good grasp of homosexuality.

Let me make it as simple as possible: Until recently, marriage has been understood to mean a commitment between a man and a woman. So a commitment between people of the same gender is not covered by any law that deals with marriage. Thus, homosexual people are not prohibited by law from entering into a marriage as it has been defined by custom for centuries. Of course, they have no interest in doing so.

You lost me here. To the list of things you really don’t understand, including the Constitution, we now have to add homosexuality itself.

Fafaroo…

Thanks for the thoughtful response. You are probably not surprised that I stand by the analogy. The reason it is such a powerful analogy, in my opinion, is that it is so easy for a reasonable and well-meaning person to fall into the trap of presuming that “of course, obviously, people can’t walk around naked.”

I think your response exposes two flaws in your thinking. First of all, you claim that the laws regarding marriage apply only to heterosexual people (or that a ban applies only to homosexuals.) That is not true. Any homosexual person may marry a person of the opposite gender, while no heterosexual person may marry a person of the same gender. It truly is not the who, but the what, as you put it so well. I’m not trying to be cute here…I could easily claim that laws banning public nakedness apply only to nudists, couldn’t I? Because nudists are the only people who want to be naked in public. Similarly, it does so happen that homosexuals are the only people who want to marry a person of the same gender, yet the law applies to both hetero- and homosexuals just as public nakedness laws apply equally to nudists and, ern, clothists. The reason you are caught in this trap? Your definition of marriage apparently includes adults of the same gender making a commitment to each other. But like it or not, neither society nor the law have ever (as far as I know) recognized this definition (save for a few locales in recent years.) The traditional definition has been–right or wrong–a man and a woman.

The second flaw is found in your claim that the desire to be naked in public is “weighed against community decency standards…” You understand, of course, that a great many people feel that two people of the same gender getting married is indecent? So I believe that what has happened is that the idea of public nakedness violates your ideas of decency. As an exercise, imagine how you would feel seeing an unattractive person naked in public, and then see if you can imagine how others might experience that same feeling if they saw two men kissing in public. The latter might not violate your ideas of decency, but for many others it does. Can you see that? If you are prepared to call those people hateful or bigoted, then you must be prepared to explain why your sense of decency in the issue of public nakedness does not make you yourself a hateful bigot.

The traditional definition of marriage people are fighting to defend is barely more than 40 years old.

McCain is older than the traditional definition of marriage.

Yeah, well, that makes sense giving how much actual thought you seem to have put into it.

Laws against public nudity do not discriminate based on the age, gender, religion, sexual orientation or race of the person who wants to get naked on Main Street. Like any freedom of speech issue, it is the content of the speech or expression — in this case nudity — that is weighed against community decency standards and not who actually does the speaking.

Laws that exclude gay couples from state recognition as “married” base the exclusion on the who, not on the what. That is, the laws aren’t against marriage, they are against gay marriage, in particular. In other words, laws that recognize straight marriage but not gay marriage discriminate based on sexual orientation, that is, they exclude one portion of the community based on who they are. Again, the California Supreme Court found that this kind of exclusionary recognition was unconstitutional. If someone passed a law saying only straight people could be naked in public, that too, would be struck down, not on the basis of public nudity, because of it’s clear discriminatory nature.

One of the reasons why you think the nudity analogy makes sense is because you really don’t understand the issues involved in gay marriage and you really don’t understand how the Constitution works.

If you would care to elaborate, I may be able to help you understand.

Oh. My. God. What an idiot.