What does Pluto have to do with gay marriage?
Maybe he wants to get married to Goofy?[1]
But I just had a whimsical notion pop into my head, related to the ridiculously long discussion Jerrod and I had on JP's blog, and specifically the bit about opposition to calling gay unions "marriage" based on not wanting to redefine the term "marriage" because it already has a current meaning.
Note: I don't intend this as a reply to what Jerrod said. This is just something that popped into my head. So it's mostly stream of consciousness and unpolished.
For a long time we thought there were 9 planets and Pluto was one of them. Then our technology and knowledge got better and we discovered there are a lot of Pluto-like things out there and we have this problem of what to call them, because we don't want there to be zillions of planets, so maybe instead we downgrade Pluto. It's fine that we used to think it was a "planet" but then we refined and expanded our knowledge and realized it's not really like the other major solar system bodies.
So for a long time marriage has meant man+woman because that's really the only type of union we thought we had. Then "recently" (however you want to interpret that) as societal mores have shifted etc. we realize there are other non-traditional pairings that serve largely the same purpose as marriage (besides procreation I mean).
Some people jump up and down and say nononono everyone learned that Pluto is a planet and we can't change that now and you'll confuse the children[2]. On the other hand you have people trying to cherry-pick a new definition of planet whereby you get to exclude Pluto, and on the gripping hand is the thing I heard from Neil DeGrasse Tyson (I'm sure's not the only one to express this thought) that, whatever you think about Pluto's (non-)planethood, getting too hung up on the terminology doesn't advance science, or learning, it's just enumeration. Teaching kids "this is a list of things called planets" doesn't help them understand gravity, orbits, coalescing dust disks, etc. Which is not to say that definitions and clear communication are unnecessary, but keep an eye on the big picture too.
I have no idea where I'm going with this or if there's any really useful comparison to be made; like I said, it was just a whimsical thought. (EDIT: there's probably enough Rorschach in the concept that you could use Pluto/planethood to argue against redefining marriage too. Anyway I thought it might be interesting to discuss.)
[1] Confusion concerning Goofy and Pluto: Disney has needed to deal with a certain amount of confusion concerning the fact that the anthropomorphic Goofy, and dog-like Pluto often appear on screen together, yet are the same species. [...] This problem was humorously illustrated in the movie "Stand By Me" in which one of the boys ponders, "Mickey's a mouse, Donald's a duck, and Pluto's a dog. What the hell is Goofy?"
[2] won't someone think of the children?
But I just had a whimsical notion pop into my head, related to the ridiculously long discussion Jerrod and I had on JP's blog, and specifically the bit about opposition to calling gay unions "marriage" based on not wanting to redefine the term "marriage" because it already has a current meaning.
Note: I don't intend this as a reply to what Jerrod said. This is just something that popped into my head. So it's mostly stream of consciousness and unpolished.
For a long time we thought there were 9 planets and Pluto was one of them. Then our technology and knowledge got better and we discovered there are a lot of Pluto-like things out there and we have this problem of what to call them, because we don't want there to be zillions of planets, so maybe instead we downgrade Pluto. It's fine that we used to think it was a "planet" but then we refined and expanded our knowledge and realized it's not really like the other major solar system bodies.
So for a long time marriage has meant man+woman because that's really the only type of union we thought we had. Then "recently" (however you want to interpret that) as societal mores have shifted etc. we realize there are other non-traditional pairings that serve largely the same purpose as marriage (besides procreation I mean).
Some people jump up and down and say nononono everyone learned that Pluto is a planet and we can't change that now and you'll confuse the children[2]. On the other hand you have people trying to cherry-pick a new definition of planet whereby you get to exclude Pluto, and on the gripping hand is the thing I heard from Neil DeGrasse Tyson (I'm sure's not the only one to express this thought) that, whatever you think about Pluto's (non-)planethood, getting too hung up on the terminology doesn't advance science, or learning, it's just enumeration. Teaching kids "this is a list of things called planets" doesn't help them understand gravity, orbits, coalescing dust disks, etc. Which is not to say that definitions and clear communication are unnecessary, but keep an eye on the big picture too.
I have no idea where I'm going with this or if there's any really useful comparison to be made; like I said, it was just a whimsical thought. (EDIT: there's probably enough Rorschach in the concept that you could use Pluto/planethood to argue against redefining marriage too. Anyway I thought it might be interesting to discuss.)
[1] Confusion concerning Goofy and Pluto: Disney has needed to deal with a certain amount of confusion concerning the fact that the anthropomorphic Goofy, and dog-like Pluto often appear on screen together, yet are the same species. [...] This problem was humorously illustrated in the movie "Stand By Me" in which one of the boys ponders, "Mickey's a mouse, Donald's a duck, and Pluto's a dog. What the hell is Goofy?"
[2] won't someone think of the children?