North Carolina Anti-gay marriage ammendment 1 written to protect "caucasians" only

[Leonel]

Originally Posted by MobBoss

Form, how can you say that? The ENTIRE basis of the argument is that SSM changes changing the traditional definition of marriage.

I think the only change is in the traditional definition of marriage recognized by the government. I'd think to change the definition of marriage in a religious sense, you'd need a Vatican III or something.

Even then, what is the traditional definition of marriage and where is it in the Bible?

[Ziggy Stardust]

It's right next to where the Bible condemns divorce.

[useless]

Here's traditional marriage defined:

[Ajidica]

Whoops, didn't realize the thread had moved on.
Ignore this post.

[Formaldehyde]

Originally Posted by IdiotsOpposite

Sigh...

http://www.canlaw.com/rights/thumbrul.htm

Now please, stop spreading that absurd and stupid myth. It lowers you as a person.

What a completely absurd statement to make based on the documented use of the cliche to do just that.

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/my...e_of_thumb.htm

A reference to this connection is found in 1881, in a book by Harriet H. Robinson: Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement. She says there, "By the English common law, her husband was her lord and master. He had the custody of her person, and of her minor children. He could 'punish her with a stick no bigger than his thumb,' and she could not complain against him."

Most of her statement is undoubtedly true: married women had little recourse if a husband treated her or her children badly, including many acts of battery.

There was an 1868 case, State v. Rhodes, where a husband was found innocent because, the judge said, "the defendent had a right to whip his wife with a switch no larger than his thumb," and in another case in 1874, State v. Oliver, the judge cited the "old doctrine, that a husband had a right to whip his wife, provided he used a switch no longer than his thumb" but continued on that this was "not law in North Carolina. Indeed, the Courts have advanced from that barbarism...."

No one has yet found, though, any written reference to such a rule in English common law, and if you read Robinson's paragraph carefully, she only ascribes that "her husband was lord and master" to English common law. The rest can be read as examples. It sounds as though she's quoting something or somebody, but that reference hasn't been found. Perhaps it was just common knowledge of her time, and she assumed her readers would recognize it. Whether the rule about "a stick no bigger than his thumb" was a common saying of the time, or something she invented, we don't know, but it sounds like it probably was.

But these references don't connect the actual phrase, "rule of thumb," to the "old doctrine" that was appalling to most of those who cited it.

Yet ... there can be no doubt that wife-beating was once common and, in most legal circles, acceptable if it didn't "go too far." The origin of "rule of thumb" may not be accurate, but the culture that it calls to mind was real. Debunking the myth of the origin of "rule of thumb" may be fun, but that doesn't make domestic violence, past and present, mythical. Nor is it a myth that culture has tolerated such violence. Domestic violence was, and is, very real. That women had little recourse was very real. Debunking the myth of the origin of "rule of thumb" cannot be used to debunk the reality of domestic violence or the role that cultural acceptance plays in keeping domestic violence a reality in too many lives.

I never stated that was the proper etymology of the term as you falsely claimed. I merely pointed out that it was indeed used as a basis by some to determine the proper way to beat your wife.

[Mango Elephant]

Originally Posted by useless

Here's traditional marriage defined:

Here's a nice video on the subject.


link to video.