"We put in place subprime loans thinking it was going to be a great boon to the economy. Well, there was a big bust and the government has been paying the consequences," Pritchard says. "Well, I think the same thing with marriage."
"Basically we've got a crisis now with divorce, but now we're going to be adding into it counterfeit marriages -- same-sex marriages. And the problem with that is it dilutes the currency -- the value of marriage -- such that I think you're going to have more family breakdown and problems resulting from that."
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Whatsa matter Tommy? Afraid the wife will leave you for her girlfriend if gay unions are given the same legal protections as heterosexual unions?
Seriously though. If one really looks at history one will find that marriages have always split up with amazing frequency. Oh sure, some cultures at some times show lower numbers for divorce but, that has more to do with stigma than the actual health of marriages.
Leaving aside the legal term "divorce" about half of all marriages have always failed. In other times and places those failed marriages may result in affairs, separate bedrooms, or murder. The only reason divorce is more common today, in the U.S., is that people who get divorced are no longer treated like lepers. And the acceptance of gay relationships has never shown the slightest affect on traditional marriages.
"Marriage" is not a continuous set of equal parts that can in any way be seen as analogous to a currency. Each marriage is a discrete instance, separate from every other. The fact that there are a huge number of straight people who marry while drunk out of their skulls in Vegas doesn't dilute the love in other couples one bit. And gay couples formalizing their relationships doesn't affect the relationships of other people. How the fuck can that be so hard to understand?
Once again, fundies show their love for thinking about the world exclusively in laughably simplistic, superficial metaphors, with predictable vagueness, inaccuracy and outright crazy-talk in the positions such an approach leads them to take.
Can you imagine, say, a physicist taking such an exclusively metaphorical approach in their work? I imagine they'd end up, for example, likening the attraction of opposite charges to sexual attraction, then wasting the rest of their lives trying to find a subatomic equivalent for divorce.
Metaphors and analogies can only be taken so far, and usually not very far at that;beyond that point, madness (or at least abject idiocy) lies. They're useful as a starting point for a subsequent direction of original thought; you can't substitute an assumption that the analogy is exact in every possible facet and trying to shoehorn the whole new thing you're analysing into it for actually figuring out how it really works.
The "value" of marriage!?? You assholes wouldn't know the value of marriage if it was ear fucking you. You have a 50%+ rate of divorce, you've got closeted gays with beards, you've got infidelity and men getting involved with prostitutes. I think you pretty much de-valued marriage a loooong time ago.
How does the status of one couple's marriage affect another couple's marriage? Is a straight couple going to wake up one morning and say, "You know, now that gays can have counterfeit marriages, I just don't love you anymore"?
Marriage =/= Money. Same sex marriage has absolutely no effect on either you, or your marriage, unless you happen to be in a same sex marriage. There is no inherent flaw that makes them breakdown any more often, and there is nothing that makes them cheapen traditional marriage. Your only objection is that you don't like gays and you wish to deprive them of anything you can. It's cheap, it's petty, and it's immoral.
Yep, because allowing gay people to marry each other will cause others to want to end their marriages.
Man, I hate these people.
Uh, the value of marriage? what value is that? it's a contract of devotion and love between two people, there isn't an inherent value, aside from the federal benefits, which should not be in place to begin with, it's just a statement to the world saying "Hey, we're in love and plan to stay that way" unless you're a fundie, in which case it's a statement of "HAHA FAGGOTS WE'RE BETTER THAN YOU ALL BECAUSE WE GOT HITCHED, SUCK IT!"
That lasts until equality rolls in and then you're bitter and angry you have to concede the same things you enjoy to those unclean folk you despise, and then you post crap like this, in short, find a fire, you will know what to do.
Does that mean if I'm in a "sub-prime" marriage, I get a multi-billion dollar bail-out?
Because my wife's not the looker she once was, to be frank.
"#920201
I don't think even Tom believes what he's saying. But you never know."
I don't get it, you're... putting a dollar value on marriages? Are you worried about their share price or something? That's a pretty high risk stock, considering how many Christians have been getting divorced, more than anyone else in fact. These homossexual marriage bailouts to save the marriage price are meeting stiff competition too, no telling how long it will take for them to bring the value back up. You might want to call your broker and shift your investments into something a little more blue chip, like casual fucking. I never hear any complaints from investors there.
First, there was the meaning of "open, dignified, and fair discussion" from Oklahoma...
And now from Minnesota...
I'm starting to think of going to USA to improve my vocabulary.
"And the problem with that is it dilutes the currency -- the value of marriage"
The value of marriage is tax breaks and a few medical rights.
I don't think it's possible to dilute those.
Massive. Economics. FAIL!
"We put in place subprime loans thinking it was going to be a great boon to the economy."
No we put those in because they were a fast way to make money for banks and speculators during a time of rising property prices, however they were AAA secured investments based on false assumptions that housing and property prices would never fall, or that if they did that clever investors/banks would get rid of the subprimes before they turned bad. They didn't. Moron.
Also you can't put a price on a marriage douchefag. Although I'm still in favour of civil unions as opposed to marriages. I say scrap marriage laws (as they're discriminatory), create civil unions (which allow gay unions) and allow faiths to apply to the govt to register their own religions type of marriage as a legally binding one. Which would consequently be fairer to Muslims as well as gays because then they could also have polygamous marriages registered for the muslim faith. As it stands today the legal definition of marriage is the Protestant or "Christian" marriage which is far from a seperation of church and state in law. /endranting
The value of my marriage is exactly what my husband and I think it is, and that in not affected by how nmany other people are married, regardless of whether they are same-sex couples.
@David B: I hope you have a comfortable sofa, because I suspect you will be sleeping on it for a while!
I think they should abolish the idea of legal marriage for EVERYONE. If you want a religious marriage, find yourself a church that will do it, but no one gets tax or any other benefit from being married.
Is it a coincidence that most divorces stem from Christian weddings?
Baptist divorce rate = 29%
Hmm, so everyone who is NOT Christian has a better chance of a successful marriage. Now, I'd love to know the divorce rates of same sex marriage but I have a feeling it's probably lower than you think you jerk!
Oh please. Gay marriages (and unions, where marriages are still not legal) have had zero impact on my family, unless you count the *happiness* I felt when I saw my good friend and his boyfriend have their union last year. (My husband and I walked the boyfriend down the aisle, as his family are homophobic and were not in attendance.) And guess what! My marriage is still as stable now as it was then. In some ways, moreso.
You're an idiot, and have no idea what you're talking about.
Same-sex marriage was legal for years here in Canada before I, a married heterosexual, even noticed.
Impact on my marriage: zero.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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