SCOTUS ruling

[RichardInTN]

So if I - who is pretty dang pale even for a Northwestern European - were to greet a bunch of dark skinned people with "hey you n*****s, how's it going?", and just insist that I totally mean it without any racist connotations, like, ZERO, and go on to elaborate that words can't be owned by groups (racists, in this case), then these dark skinned folks would be basically assholes if they got angry at me and pretended there actually objectively were undeniable racist connotations to the N-word, and started attacking harmless, innocent me out of nowhere, who was just politely greeting them?

Which works even better because the N-word, from its etymological history, simply means black. Let's not give Johnny-come-lately racist mass appropriation of a simple description of skin color any concern in our use of words, shall we? N***** and black person are totally synonyms! That's the first historical use, and only that one counts!

Uh huh. Rrrrright.


I'm understanding stuff just fine, thank you. Probably a lot better than you do.

But I also realize from how this thread is going that there are a considerable number of people on here with whom it makes as much sense to discuss secularity, as it does discussing evolution with Young Earth Creationists. It's sad and disappointing (especially on a board whose very topic would suggest that it's frequented by people able and willing to think outside of boxes), but I'll have to leave such people to the comfort of their rigid ideologies, even when they clearly blind them to real-world, verifiable facts and sober logical thinking. I just dearly hope that secular legislation never, ever gets ruined by hardheaded opinions prevailing over more rational minds.

Peace out. (What a stupid thread.)

There's a slight difference between "the N-word" and the word "marriage".

On the one hand, non-blacks can never be black. On the other hand, any two people that want to get married, however, CAN get married.

I've yet to come across a black person supporting "Save the word ni***r! Stop censoring it! We need to keep it a free word for all to use!". If you ever come across one... please let me know. I'll happily support THEIR fight to "normalize" it.

 

[Tonberry]

You are in absolutely no position to decide that it doesn't. It's about facts, not about what you or I believe.

I agree with that part. And the facts are that marriage predates religion (including Roman Catholicism) and that in most cases around the world, the word is used by people who are not Roman Catholic to mean something other than the Roman Catholic union.

Now are you saying that marriage should be a term for every single religion, despite the fact that it means very different thing in every religion, but not allowed as a secular term? Because if you're saying it should be exclusively Catholic, you definitely don't have a leg to stand on.

As for the way the word is used. I'm French. I think you may be, too, as you mentioned PACS (which doesn't give people the right to adopt children together, and many other things, which is why it's a different union than marriage. You can also get married when you're already pacsed, which cancels the PACS. As far as I know in France it's used more as an engagement than a marriage). For all of my life, I have used the (French) words for marriage, wife and husband without any religious connotation. Or legal connotation, for that matter. To me, this word still means "people in a stable, long-term, committed relationship" because this is how I was raised.

In France, like in many countries, a religious ceremony gives you no marriage rights. You need a secular ceremony to be legally married. If you want a religious union as well as your marriage, you need a second ceremony. As far as I know, most people do not bother with that second ceremony, having simply their wedding (same word as marriage in French) at the city hall.

The US is certainly a bit different. Because there isn't a separation of Church and State as there is in France, a religious figure is allowed to perform a legal marriage. It boggles my mind and I agree that shouldn't be the case. They should only be allowed to perform religious ceremony, not legal ones.

In the end, I'm fine with everyone keeping the word. The only people who keep insisting that the word needs to be different in a religious and in a secular context, though, are the people who decided, instead of creating a new word in the first place, to re-use the secular one.

You don't decide to use someone else's word and then exclaim they are no longer allowed to use it. I'm sorry, that's not how it works. People may decide to stop using a word, but you don't get to tell them to stop just because you like it and want it for yourself, so nobody else can have it.

In French, Christmas and Easter, both Catholic holidays, just re-use the word for the holidays that were there before (Yule and Passover). Can you imagine if Catholics exclaimed that Pagans and Jews are no longer allowed to use the words because Catholics are using them, so it must be theirs only? Or do you believe that should be the case, too?

By the way, you're on a forum that has a high US population. You should probably be aware that Catholics are a minority of Christians in the US. Most US Christians are Protestants. They probably wouldn't be happy with you claiming that marriage is specifically Catholic (nor would the religions that predate Catholicisms, either, and may be also using the word marriage).

As for your other argument, that if a word becomes religious, nobody else is allowed to use it anymore... Seriously? So you think religious people can go around, take a word someone else is using, decide to use it for something different, and then claim nobody else can use it anymore? We'd be out of words pretty soon if people could just use that excuse to change the meaning of words they don't like.

 

[kdt26417]

I'm afraid InsaneMystic has left the discussion.

 

[FallenAngelina]

I'm afraid InsaneMystic has left the discussion.

Peace out. (What a stupid thread.)

This is known as a flounce.

 

[LizziE]

So if I - who is pretty dang pale even for a Northwestern European - were to greet a bunch of dark skinned people with "hey you n*****s, how's it going?", and just insist that I totally mean it without any racist connotations, like, ZERO, and go on to elaborate that words can't be owned by groups (racists, in this case), then these dark skinned folks would be basically assholes if they got angry at me and pretended there actually objectively were undeniable racist connotations to the N-word, and started attacking harmless, innocent me out of nowhere, who was just politely greeting them?

Depends on where you grew up in the world.

A friend of mine does AirBnB, and has had a number of youngish (in their early to mid 20s) people/couples from Europe (mostly France & Germany) who were completely stunned that if they (pale-skinned people) used the 'N' word here, they would get into a LOT of trouble. Possibly badly beaten up.

Turns out, in parts of the world that haven't gone through the same course of racism and racial tension that the US has gone through, they completely don't get the offensiveness of that word (which isn't to say that they haven't gone through/are going through their own racial tension. It just hasn't involved that word). Several of my friend's AirBnBers protested "But I call my black friends that at home! When we agree on something, they tell me 'You my n-----', how can I not say it here?"

As far as I can tell, it's like the way we (Americans) might use the word "dude".

Peace out. (What a stupid thread.)

That's an amazing amount of time and effort you put into a "stupid thread". It's rather...interesting.

 

[LizziE]

Though getting back to the discussion on the word "marriage". I think the biggest problem would be that no matter what The Powers That Be decided in terms of who "gets" to use that word, and what word replaces it in whatever context, getting The Whole Wide World to agree and respect that...never going to happen.

We can't even agree if a damn dress in a photo is black and blue or white and gold, for heaven's sake.

 

[kdt26417]

Yeah, I think an idea has to become a popular movement before it can become a law (at least in relatively free countries).