Romania votes about gay marriage and adoption

[Endus]

Once again, you're trying to use things the state has authority over to prove the state's sole authority.

Because that's a strong argument.

Religious groups do not have authority over anything with regards to marriage. The capacity for a religious leader to act as an officiant in a marriage is a privilege that they are granted by the government. If your religious group is not recognized, you have no such authority. Without state approval, you can say you're "married" to friends and such, but if you ever try and act on that marriage in any official sense, you are committing actionable fraud.

Religious groups do not have authority when it comes to marriage, save as such authority is granted to them by the government. I could go outside and declare that I'm "married" to the tree in my backyard, and that has exactly as much meaning and truth to it as a religious "marriage" without State involvement.

[PosPosPos]

Wat. Why the fuck would people in the US push something in Romania? Are homophobes really that desperate?

You obviously missed the news.

And here's the thing with people - they are more likely to share their brand of hate rather than spread love, because it makes them feel better about themselves if everyone, and not just a few handful, suffers.

[Endus]

And every government in the western world is younger than those religions.

And? This is a statement that has no relevance to anything.

Worse, it's objectively incorrect in a lot of cases.

[Endus]

It's not objectively incorrect. The institution of marriage predates any system of government currently practiced in the western world.

And now you're moving goalposts.

You claimed that religious groups were all older than the nations in question. That was, in many cases, objectively incorrect.
Now you've moved that goalposts from "religions" to "the institution of marriage".

And that institution of marriage also predates every modern religion. So your own moved goalpost works against you.

[Endus]

The fact that government has intervened with the process does not make it any less religiously-founded and instituted.

Religion didn't found the concept of marriage, and it's been primarily legally instituted for well over two millenia, in the Western world at least.

They are. The systems of government we now have in place came into existence in the last 500 years. Unless you're going to claim the religions are younger than that then the religions had their claims staked to marriage long before the government did.

If we're talking about religious groups like the Baptists or Presbyterians or the like, really any Protestant sect, they're younger than many governmental systems, like the British system. Just by way of example. And they're relatively old sects.

And the modern involvement of the government is even more recent.

Yeah, this is bullshit. Government's control over marriage dates back to the Roman Republic, at least.

[Dentelan]

Gays are sick. They must be cured. With fire.

Infracted

[Endus]

What about religions that pre-date those? That still exist. Show me a government in the west that still exists from 3000+ years ago.

The whole angle of argument is pointless, since those religions do not and have never "owned" marriage as a concept. Honestly, I shouldn't have even entertained it in the first place. Your position wasn't true 3000 years ago, and was never true in those millenia of history, and remains untrue today. And really, all that matters is the legal status quo in the Western world over the past few centuries, which is exclusively against religious control over marriage, and the enshrinement of marriage as a primarily legal institution.

And that last bit is all that really matters. Ancient history doesn't change the objective reality of the modern era.

[PosPosPos]

What about religions that pre-date those? That still exist. Show me a government in the west that still exists from 3000+ years ago.

Rome... which is more recent than religion's claims on it. Nice try buddy, but you really need to go back and check your dates again. No government in the west is even an offshoot of the governments that existed when religion governed who their followers could wed.

Okay so....what has all this passive-aggressive nitpicking of yours have to do with marriage?

Yeah even if you are right that there's x obsolete religion predating marriage, does it mean it should be the authority on what marriage is today? You may as well assert the earliest life known to man, the earlier microorganisms, should dictate what humans must strive to be, just because they predate all other lifeforms.

Also, what the fuck is wrong with you recently, did someone shit in your cornflakes that's why you have been taking meaningless potshots at everyone for the most frivolous and petty reasons(like that ridiculous altercation you started with me over Toadstool)? I didn't recall you to be this narrow-minded.

[Moralgy]

1/10. Gave you a point for being able to type the words.

Gotta step up your game given the level of trolling going on in the last few pages.

I would give it a 2/10 at least these days, simple and not hiding behind a wall of text for plausible deniability. We are missing a lot of that these days!

[Deleted]

Didn't Slovakia undergo the same process with the same result? (low % and invalidated referendum).

[Easo]

I guess the lesson here is to take care of the more pressing issues before going all social justice

I guess the lesson is that you didn't understand what the referendum was about.
It was to never have gay marriages, in a nutshell (mariage can only be union between man and a woman, blah blah).

[Endus]

Read what I was responding to. It was a fallacious statement that religions involvement in marriage was a recent, and temporary, thing.

Religion's attempt to seize control and authority over marriage is a relatively recent and temporary thing. It's a decided shift away from the pattern of Western legal governance on the matter over the last several millenia, and it's something that's just arisen in the last few decades.

It's primarily a legal institution. You can get legally married without religion. You cannot get religiously married without the support of the law.

[Endus]

Imo, what the government is actually governing is civil unions.

"Civil unions" are a concept that was only invented because religious extremists got their pants in a twist because their religious views promoted hatred towards people who could get married.

It's a marriage. There's no reason to use "civil unions", other than hatred. That's the root of the entire rhetorical concept; hate.

No, it isn’t. Go study the power that religion weilded over social institutions. It predates the modern level of government control.

Not since the Middle Ages, at least. And then, as I said earlier, only because the medieval Church was politically strong and essentially a second level of state governance, with its own legal system and everything.

[Endus]

It wasn’t until the industrial revolution that church control really lapsed...

This seriously is not true. The rise of Protestantism shattered the remaining religious control over these things, because there was suddenly not one single religious authority which could make such rulings.

[Nihilist74]

i'm of the opinion that marriage shouldn't be recognized by the government, and if you want to get benefits for being with a long term partner it should be a civil union.

marriage is a religious institution and separation of church and state should be paramount.

Potato - potatoe.

[klepp0906]

shouldnt be allowed.

[PosPosPos]

I’m calmly debating a topic that interests me. The supposition that was put forth was as I stated above. I was simply refuting the idea that government alone has a claim to marriage. Imo, what the government is actually governing is civil unions. They just called them marriage because that was the common parlance of the time.

My breakfast wasn’t shit in or pissed in. Thanks for your concern though POS.

So you are now only interested in nitpicking over petty technicalities.

Okay, you do have the right to change, even if it's clearly for the worse. Do carry on.

[Moralgy]

shouldnt be allowed.

I agree, a total ban forever should not be allowed!

[Deleted]

Okay so....what has all this passive-aggressive nitpicking of yours have to do with marriage?

Yeah even if you are right that there's x obsolete religion predating marriage, does it mean it should be the authority on what marriage is today? You may as well assert the earliest life known to man, the earlier microorganisms, should dictate what humans must strive to be, just because they predate all other lifeforms.

Also, what the fuck is wrong with you recently, did someone shit in your cornflakes that's why you have been taking meaningless potshots at everyone for the most frivolous and petty reasons(like that ridiculous altercation you started with me over Toadstool)? I didn't recall you to be this narrow-minded.

I don't know he's been like this for months, being passive aggressive over semantics and obtuse nonsense. Probably depression or insecurity

[Wyrt]

30% seems like a low threshold for a constitutional amendment, but good for the Romanian people boycotting that shit.