Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Say It Right...
One more quick moment of hilarity: according to the literal wording of Texas' anti-gay marriage amendment, there's no such thing as marriage in Texas, period. Of course no court would ever actually read the amendment that way, its intent being pretty crystal-clear... but it's still really, really funny.
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Okay, the Democratic candidate is reaaalllly stretching. The anti civil-union portion of the amendment bans Texas from creating an institution "identical to or similar to marriage." Mind you, that's maddeningly vague. Sure, they want to ban gay civil unions, but what else is "similar to" marriage? What if two unrelated people enter into a contract to live together and share their resources and give each other permission to visit each other in the hospital. Is that too "similar"?
But still, to say that portion of the amendment effectively bans marriages? Essentially, she wants to say "marriage, as defined in the first part of the amendment - union btw man and woman - is 'identical to' marriage. Therefore, it is now banned." Come on! To say A is "identical to" B is to say the 2 things share nearly all the same qualities....but are still 2 distinct things. Otherwise, you could just say "A is B."
I'm not defending the amendment. I'm just saying, the argument made by the Democratic candidate here is disingenuous.
Ben, are you saying I'm not identical to myself? I think I'm a little insulted...
Of course, I'm all in favor of banning state recognition of marriage (the "call everything a civil union and leave marriage to the churches" approach), so I'm fine with the law's wording regardless of interpretation.
Wait, Ben, are you saying that the principle of identity doesn't exist anymore? A = A isn't valid? Holy shit, I think you just blew the minds of every mathematician out there.
If they wanted to ban marriage altogether, they could say "the gov't can't recognize marriage, as defined in this amendment." Instead, they said "the government can't recognize insititutions identical to or similar to marriage." Poor word choice? Yes. But there still seems to be a clear distinction between the insitution the amendment says the government can recognize and the institution it can't recognize.
It's a stupid amendment, but that's still my reading.
Mathematicians: You fellas just stick to numbers. Leave words to the experts, like me. Neener, neener.
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