Retirement communities...next SSM legal dispute

RestoreTheJoy

Well-Known Member
Supporter
Jul 13, 2018
5,087
1,642
Passing Through
✟449,721.00
Country
United States
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
...but you're still circumnavigating the point I was making. Which is, if this definition was based on a religious value, then the government never had any business attaching legal and taxation benefits to it.

If the definition of this institution has roots in religion (and from what you're saying, it does) then the legal benefits of it need to be removed...or, if you want the legal benefits to remain, then it needs to be redefined as a legal institution and not a religious one.

Do you agree that the government should be out of the marriage licensing business then?...and that the legal benefits should be removed from said institution?

We all understood shared this religious value of what constitutes a marriage, the same as we shared all the other religious values, such as not stealing, not killing, not lying, not committing adultery, not coveting your neighbor's stuff, honoring your father and your mother (as well as no other Gods, not taking the Lord's name in vain, no graven images, etc). This is the basis of our law.

I realize half of them are out the window now, but we are the poorer for it in numerous ways.

Do you wish to remove all the legal protections against stealing, killing, lying, committing adultery (at least in divorce court now) as well?
 
Upvote 0

ThatRobGuy

Part of the IT crowd
Supporter
Sep 4, 2005
24,640
14,524
Here
✟1,196,003.00
Country
United States
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Single
Politics
US-Others
We all understood shared this religious value of what constitutes a marriage, the same as we shared all the other religious values, such as not stealing, not killing, not lying, not committing adultery, not coveting your neighbor's stuff, honoring your father and your mother (as well as no other Gods, not taking the Lord's name in vain, no graven images, etc). This is the basis of our law.

I realize half of them are out the window now, but we are the poorer for it in numerous ways.

Do you wish to remove all the legal protections against stealing, killing, lying, committing adultery (at least in divorce court now) as well?

The morals of avoiding stealing, killing, lying, etc... aren't exclusive to religion.

The reason we have the 1st amendment is because it draws the line in the sand for which laws pass "The Lemon Test" and which ones don't. For those who are unaware, the Lemon Test basically dictates that a law must have a compelling secular purpose in order to be constitutional.

Stealing, killing, and things of that nature certainly fit that mold. A secular perspective can definitely tell that having your property taken, or being physically harmed is not a good thing and not something anyone should have to be subjected to. A secular perspective can't draw the same conclusions about marriage that you describe. Your definition of the restrictions that should be in place can only be drawn from religious teaching, and not conclusions that someone would draw organically.

For instance, if I hadn't been subjected to any other teachings whatsoever...if someone punched me in the face, I could reasonably draw the conclusion "hey, that's not cool when someone does that...there should be a rule against that". The same cannot be said about the restrictions the right-wing evangelicals propose for marriage. The only way to come to that conclusion is via religious upbringing and indoctrination.
 
Upvote 0

SimplyMe

Senior Veteran
Jul 19, 2003
9,612
9,329
the Great Basin
✟325,868.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
It is not at all about preferential treatment. It is about the meaning of marriage, which was commonly understood until the last few years, and needed no explanation.

And this would be an Appeal to Tradition, which is a logical fallacy.

Marriage is a societal construct as well as a biblical one. You cannot simply redefine it.

Who cannot simply redefine it? Are you saying that homosexuals can't redefine it. I suppose it was good that they didn't need to.

Look, first, (at least in English) "marriage" has been commonly used about a joining of two things -- not just a state of matrimony.

Beyond that, as you point out, it is a societal construct and it was society that changed it. Even before same sex marriage became legal in the US, most English language dictionaries already had changed the meaning to include same sex marriage.

It is only privileged in the tax law in the first place for the benefit of children and their parents - families. There is no issue in same sex relationships. They are relationships but they are not "marriage".

Source? This is one of those things that sounds good but just is not true, otherwise old people (those whose children are grown and can no longer have children together) would not be allowed to marry. Additionally, we wouldn't have separate categories of marriage law (which governs marriage and divorce) and family law (which deals with parents and children).

Of course, your point also ignores the fact that a number of same sex households have children -- either their own (even if from previous marriages or a donor parent) or adopted.

I do believe we are going to have to have churches retain the control and not the government in reference to marriage licenses, the way things are going, now that that horse is out of the barn.

Did you forget a "not" there? The second part of your sentence doesn't seem to fit the idea of churches retaining control of marriage licenses.

The opinion piece about the Starbucks cup is just that. An opinion piece. Few people really care enough about Starbucks and their questionable values to care about their mugs. This guy was just stirring the pot. One guy. Millions just go about their business and buy their holiday mugs where they can.

And, at the same time, the opinion piece (and others like it), including some of the boycotts organized, do support that a number of people did care -- even if you aren't one of them. The "War on Christmas" movement is more than just one gay -- including several here on these forums that seem to care a lot about it.
 
Upvote 0

SimplyMe

Senior Veteran
Jul 19, 2003
9,612
9,329
the Great Basin
✟325,868.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
The complaint says otherwise - these ladies were not honest and up front about it, paying a deposit without ever mentioning their situation.

I'd be curious to see that in the complaint -- I can't find it -- the most I see is that they never informed the administrator because they had been led to believe it wasn't an issue. It merely states they visited multiple times. At the same time, they were never told of the cohabitation policy. If the cohabitation policy is such a major issue, why (after just a few visits) were they not informed that two women cannot live together. Whether they mentioned they were married or not, they never hid the fact they intended to live together (cohabitate).

After numerous visits and finally putting down some money, an administrator later called to ask about their legal status, and only then did they reveal they were legally spouses married in Massachusetts (when it wasn't legal nationally).

I'm not sure of your point about being married in Massachusetts before it was legal nationwide -- as it has no bearing on this case. They were married and, when this occurred in 2016, same sex was legal nationwide -- and because of the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution -- their marriage was valid in Missouri.

The board of directors who had defined as policy that marriage was one man and one woman declined their application.

So then the ladies waged the battle on the meaning of the retirement home Cohabitation policy, which apparently holds that residents can't shack up and they began arguing that other couples shacking up had been denied as well. This should be fine, but today, you have to pretend that live in couples are exactly the same committed couples as married couples (as a landlord or housing provider such as this one) which is silly, but I digress.

Which, again, has nothing to do with anything -- as this is a married couple.

The retirement home was warned to change the policy to avoid litigation. It refused. Hence, litigation, trotting out all the big wigs in the same sex marriage lobby, including an attorneys for the ACLU, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Relman, Dane, and Colfax a Washington Law firm who show up in a whole lot of the transgender and same sex cases that get a lot of press.

Yes, because (at least per the federal government) the retirement home is in violation of housing laws -- they are illegally discriminating based on gender.

Tell me, should we complain equally if a Christian is prevented from reading the Bible in school, in violation of their rights, and the ADF, Liberty Legal, Christian Legal Society, and other Christian legal groups show up? I don't see the point in trying to be negative because various groups, where this case coincides with their interests, show up to help protect these women's rights.
 
Upvote 0

jayem

Naturalist
Jun 24, 2003
15,262
6,943
72
St. Louis, MO.
✟371,163.00
Country
United States
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Married
Marriage has always meant what it meant, a man leaving his father and mother and cleaving unto his wife and the two became one flesh, certainly since the genesis of this country.

Let's face it... societies, populations, cultures, and values change over time. What was thought to be right and proper 100 years may no longer be acceptable or expedient in today's world. And what was once thought to be taboo, may no longer be objectionable. At the very least, we absolutely do have the right--if not the duty-- to change our laws to reflect the realities of modern life. As Thomas Jefferson said, the present belongs to the living, not the dead.

But now that has happened. Our Supreme Court has actually had the audacity to attempt to redefine marriage.

SCOTUS did what it has the authority to do. Which is to rule purely on the LEGAL status of state marriage laws. That's all it did. I have a traditional marriage. The Obergefell decision doesn't demean your, or my, or anyone else's traditional marriage in any way.
 
Upvote 0

Mayzoo

Well-Known Member
Jun 17, 2004
4,173
1,561
✟202,451.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Private
Same sex Marriage has been recorded since before Christ (around 30 BC). It is not a new fad, nor is it about causing conflict. SSM is about exactly the same thing as heterosexual marriage. Love, commitment, and now tax benefits. It only becomes a conflict when people are denied rights or common decency.

"Ancient times[edit]

Main article: History of same-sex unions
Various types of same-sex marriages have existed,[1] ranging from informal, unsanctioned relationships to highly ritualized unions.[2]

Cicero mentions the marriage (using the Latin verb for "to marry", i.e. nubere) of the son of Curio the Elder, but he does it in a metaphorical form to criticize his enemy Antonius. Cicero states thus that the younger Curio was "united in a stable and permanent marriage" to Antonius.[3] Martial also mentions a number of same-sex marriages, but always in derisory terms against people whom he wants to mock.[4]

Practices and rituals for same sex unions were more recognized in Mesopotamia than in ancient Egypt.[5] In ancient Assyria, there was considered to be nothing wrong with homosexual love between men.[6][7][8][8] The Almanac of Incantations contained prayers giving equal standing to the love of a man for both a woman and a man.[9]

At least two of the Roman Emperors were in same-sex unions; and in fact, thirteen out of the first fourteen Roman Emperors held to be bisexual or exclusively homosexual.[10] The first Roman emperor to have married a man was Nero, who is reported to have married two other men on different occasions. First with one of his freedmen, Pythagoras, to whom Nero took the role of the bride, and later as a groom Nero married a young boy, who resembled one of his concubines,[11] named Sporus.

Adolescent emperor Elagabalus referred to his chariot driver, a blond slave from Caria named Hierocles, as his husband.[12] He also married an athlete named Zoticus in a lavish public ceremony in Rome amidst the rejoicings of the citizens.[13]

These same-sex marriages continued until Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. A law in the Theodosian Code(C. Th. 9.7.3) was issued in 342 AD by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans. This law prohibited same-sex marriage in ancient Rome and ordered that those who were so married were to be executed.[14][15]

In the Middle Ages, a same-sex marriage between the two men Pedro Díaz and Muño Vandilaz in the Galician municipality of Rairiz de Veiga in Spain occurred on 16 April 1061. They were married by a priest at a small chapel. The historic documents about the church wedding were found at Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova.[16]

The Siwa Oasis in Egypt had an historical acceptance of male homosexuality and even rituals of same-sex marriage — traditions that Egyptian authorities have sought to repress, with increasing success, since the early 20th century.[17] The German egyptologist George Steindorff explored the oasis in 1900 and reported that homosexual relations were common and often extended to a form of marriage.[18]"

Wikipedia
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

Episaw

Always learning
Nov 12, 2010
2,547
603
Drouin, Victoria, Australia
✟38,829.00
Country
Australia
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
Politics
CA-Conservatives
So you don't actually have a rebuttal to the points I made then?

The fact remains that you've only provided anecdotal examples (and proceeded to tell us that you have 700 cases documented on you computer) and expressed that your friend wrote a book about it and that people showed up to protest it.

Care to give specifics of that encounter? Title of the book, what it was about in particular?

For all we know right now, it was a book intentionally designed to provoke, and when it got the expected response from the community it targeted, your friend then flipped the script and made themselves a victim of the "intolerant left"...as many right wing authors tend to do.

Is that so?
 
Upvote 0

Belk

Senior Member
Supporter
Dec 21, 2005
28,242
12,994
Seattle
✟895,241.00
Faith
Agnostic
Marital Status
Married
It is not at all about preferential treatment. It is about the meaning of marriage, which was commonly understood until the last few years, and needed no explanation.

Appeal to tradition. Simply because marriage was different in the past is not a reason to keep it the same. Do you wish you had payed your wife's bride price in goats?

Marriage is a societal construct as well as a biblical one. You cannot simply redefine it.

I, along with the rest of society, are free to define marriage however we wish.

It is only privileged in the tax law in the first place for the benefit of children and their parents - families.


I am married and have no children.

There is no issue in same sex relationships. They are relationships but they are not "marriage".

<Looks at his married gay friends> Nope. They are married.

I do believe we are going to have to have churches retain the control and not the government in reference to marriage licenses, the way things are going, now that that horse is out of the barn.

Marriage started as a secular event and it is only within the last thousand years that it has become religious. Prior to that the church saw it as a function of the state.


The opinion piece about the Starbucks cup is just that. An opinion piece. Few people really care enough about Starbucks and their questionable values to care about their mugs. This guy was just stirring the pot. One guy. Millions just go about their business and buy their holiday mugs where they can.
 
Upvote 0

SilverBear

Well-Known Member
Sep 2, 2016
7,359
3,297
57
Michigan
✟166,106.00
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Widowed
The complaint says otherwise - these ladies were not honest and up front about it, paying a deposit without ever mentioning their situation.
Bull. go look at the application for residency. its right there on page one. after name of applicant there is "who if anyone will be living with you?" followed immediately by"relationship"


After numerous visits and finally putting down some money, an administrator later called to ask about their legal status, and only then did they reveal they were legally spouses married in Massachusetts (when it wasn't legal nationally). The board of directors who had defined as policy that marriage was one man and one woman declined their application.

their rejection form Friendship Village of St Louis came in the form of a letter dated July 29, 2016, from Michael Heselbarth, a Friendship Village administrator. This was after the court ruling so there is no way you an pretend that they were not married


So then the ladies waged the battle on the meaning of the retirement home Cohabitation policy, which apparently holds that residents can't shack up and they began arguing that other couples shacking up had been denied as well. This should be fine, but today, you have to pretend that live in couples are exactly the same committed couples as married couples (as a landlord or housing provider such as this one) which is silly, but I digress.

The retirement home was warned to change the policy to avoid litigation. It refused. Hence, litigation, trotting out all the big wigs in the same sex marriage lobby, including an attorneys for the ACLU, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Relman, Dane, and Colfax a Washington Law firm who show up in a whole lot of the transgender and same sex cases that get a lot of press.

You accuse the couple of not being honest but you are the one presenting false witness.
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

KCfromNC

Regular Member
Apr 18, 2007
28,632
15,949
✟484,092.00
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Private
It is not at all about preferential treatment. It is about the meaning of marriage, which was commonly understood until the last few years, and needed no explanation. Marriage is a societal construct as well as a biblical one. You cannot simply redefine it. It is only privileged in the tax law in the first place for the benefit of children and their parents - families. There is no issue in same sex relationships. They are relationships but they are not "marriage".

No, marriage is about legal rights for spouses for thing like heath care and financial planning. Since Christians can rely on god to take care of these things, there are no issues there in Christian relationships. Therefore they are relationships but not "marriage".

I do believe we are going to have to have churches retain the control and not the government in reference to marriage licenses, the way things are going, now that that horse is out of the barn.

Retain? Pretty sure marriage licenses come from the government. Now sure, if you want to redefine marriage anything is fair game. But I thought the whole point was that we need to stick to traditional marriage, which in this case is a legal contract endorsed by the states.
 
Upvote 0

KCfromNC

Regular Member
Apr 18, 2007
28,632
15,949
✟484,092.00
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Private
That's not what happened. No one has ever restricted anyone from accessing marriage; the fight was on redefining it to mean something other than marriage

In your previous post, you just made an argument based on marriage being legally restricted from certain people. Now here you're claiming it was never restricted to anyone?

I find this inability to stick to a consistent story interesting.

Marriage has always meant what it meant

Always? Hmm, didn't know that Utah was always a state : https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/utahs-very-interesting-path-to-statehood
 
Upvote 0

jayem

Naturalist
Jun 24, 2003
15,262
6,943
72
St. Louis, MO.
✟371,163.00
Country
United States
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Married
Yep. Want to convince me that traditional means anything? Agree to use "traditional" 8th century medicine rather than the stuff that modern doctors have redefined.

Agree. Some people are so hung up on traditions. But legally recognizing same and opposite sex marriages alike isn't mutually exclusive. It doesn't diminish the status of traditional marriage in the least. Why can't old traditions peacefully coexist with new ones?
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

RestoreTheJoy

Well-Known Member
Supporter
Jul 13, 2018
5,087
1,642
Passing Through
✟449,721.00
Country
United States
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
In your previous post, you just made an argument based on marriage being legally restricted from certain people. Now here you're claiming it was never restricted to anyone?

I find this inability to stick to a consistent story interesting.



Always? Hmm, didn't know that Utah was always a state : https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/utahs-very-interesting-path-to-statehood
Anyone could always get married, assuming appropriate age, legal competency, and not already married. We always had those restrictions. Marriage = a man and a woman. Anyone can do this.

What anyone could not do prior to our current era is say that marriage = any two people
 
Upvote 0

RestoreTheJoy

Well-Known Member
Supporter
Jul 13, 2018
5,087
1,642
Passing Through
✟449,721.00
Country
United States
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
Agree. Some people are so hung up on traditions. But legally recognizing same and opposite sex marriages alike isn't mutually exclusive. It doesn't diminish the status of traditional marriage in the least. Why can't old traditions peacefully coexist with new ones?
Because it isn't marriage. You cannot say that nonmarriage=marriage.

There is nothing to limit the meaning of marriage now that the Supreme Court made such an egregious call. It can mean two old fishing buddies who enter this legal contract so that both of them can use the better insurance.
 
Upvote 0

RestoreTheJoy

Well-Known Member
Supporter
Jul 13, 2018
5,087
1,642
Passing Through
✟449,721.00
Country
United States
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
Bull. go look at the application for residency. its right there on page one. after name of applicant there is "who if anyone will be living with you?" followed immediately by"relationship"




their rejection form Friendship Village of St Louis came in the form of a letter dated July 29, 2016, from Michael Heselbarth, a Friendship Village administrator. This was after the court ruling so there is no way you an pretend that they were not married




You accuse the couple of not being honest but you are the one presenting false witness.
The cause of action that the attorney filed was exactly as I stated.

They entered a contract in Massachusetts in 2009. It was not legal marriage in the country (but it was in Massachusetts). That is what I said. Get your facts straight.
 
Upvote 0

Mayzoo

Well-Known Member
Jun 17, 2004
4,173
1,561
✟202,451.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Private
Anyone could always get married, assuming appropriate age, legal competency, and not already married. We always had those restrictions. Marriage = a man and a woman. Anyone can do this.

What anyone could not do prior to our current era is say that marriage = any two people

Same sex marriage has been around since at least 30BC.
See above post

Incesteuous marriage has been around pretty much forever.
Cousin marriage - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage

Child marriage has been around for thousands of years, and is still going on.
Child marriage in the United States - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States

Do you have any proof that marriage between "any two people" is a current or recent trend?
 
Upvote 0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums

SimplyMe

Senior Veteran
Jul 19, 2003
9,612
9,329
the Great Basin
✟325,868.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Because it isn't marriage. You cannot say that nonmarriage=marriage.

There is nothing to limit the meaning of marriage now that the Supreme Court made such an egregious call. It can mean two old fishing buddies who enter this legal contract so that both of them can use the better insurance.

And before it could have meant two fishing buddies that wanted the better insurance, just that one of the buddies needed to be male and the other female. Just look at the movie Green Card from back in 1991, before gay marriage was a thing.

More than that, though, if we go back 50 years, marriage was even more "restrictive" it was a man of one race and a woman of the same race. Of course, if we go back to the appeal to tradition (marriage throughout the world), the marriage also includes a man and multiple women (or even multiple people of varying sexes). Granted, you don't agree with those marriages but they still occur in various areas of the world -- and are part of "traditional" marriage.

And that's ignoring the evidence that same sex marriage existed historically. Your welcome to your own opinion of what marriage is but it is not shared by society as a whole.
 
Upvote 0