Err, you seem to be wandering into an entirely different ball park in order to save your argument here. Yes, LEGAL definitions certainly need to be specific in order to prevent people from lying during a business transaction, or just to make clear where the law stands in order to avoid miscarriages of justice.
But what does that have to do with furry? Furry isn't a legal definition, nor have I seen any evidence that it needs to be at present. For one thing, simply misrepresenting your identity, whether it be furry or gender or sexuality, is not in and of itself illegal. If it came out that the leader of a gay rights organisation was not himself gay and had been lying to his members for decades, that would be a disgusting thing to do and certainly piss off the members of his group, but he wouldn't be breaking the law. The outcome would be the same if furry became a legal term.
Likewise, a product advertised as being "furry" could not really be sued for misrepresentation. I mean, if advertising said, "This product is of an anthro dog" and then the product was of a human, that would be false advertising because there's a specific difference between the advert and the product. But if advertising just said, "This is a furry product." and the customer disagreed, there would be no recourse for the customer.
Maybe one day there will be a law defining what a furry product is. But laws like that are only made in response to actual cases where people claim that products have been falsely advertised. And in my very short time here, I haven't heard anyone complaining about products simply labeled as "furry" being falsely advertised. I've heard lots of complaints about other business transactions at and around conventions, but not that. Then again, I haven't been to a con yet so maybe this happens all the time and mysteriously nobody talks about it online.
In the here-and-now, furry fandom does not need to concern itself with the idea of furry as a legal definition. And as I explained in earlier posts, neither does it have ANY need for furry to be defined in fixed terms. I still believe that by trying to create a fixed definition and then force it on others, that you are, a) doing a huge disservice to the variety of identities within furry fandom and to the unique nature in which furry represents identity, and b) completely wasting your time because most people do not want a fixed definition of furry and will just ignore you no matter what your influence in the fandom might be.
There's also the question of whether an external third party defining furry in the name of the fandom would even be a good thing at all. Do you really want a non-furry defining your identity and then authorising it as a LEGAL definition that could be used against you in a court of law? That sounds pretty scary to me. For one thing, they may not define furry in any way close to your own definition; they could make it all about the sex or the core identity and you wouldn't be able to do a thing about it.
Err, you seem to be wandering into an entirely different ball park in order to save your argument here. Yes, LEGAL definitions certainly need to be specific in order to prevent people from lying during a business transaction, or just to make clear where the law stands in order to avoid miscarriages of justice.
But what does that have to do with furry? Furry isn't a legal definition, nor have I seen any evidence that it needs to be at present. For one thing, simply misrepresenting your identity, whether it be furry or gender or sexuality, is not in and of itself illegal. If it came out that the leader of a gay rights organisation was not himself gay and had been lying to his members for decades, that would be a disgusting thing to do and certainly piss off the members of his group, but he wouldn't be breaking the law. The outcome would be the same if furry became a legal term.
Likewise, a product advertised as being "furry" could not really be sued for misrepresentation. I mean, if advertising said, "This product is of an anthro dog" and then the product was of a human, that would be false advertising because there's a specific difference between the advert and the product. But if advertising just said, "This is a furry product." and the customer disagreed, there would be no recourse for the customer.
Maybe one day there will be a law defining what a furry product is. But laws like that are only made in response to actual cases where people claim that products have been falsely advertised. And in my very short time here, I haven't heard anyone complaining about products simply labeled as "furry" being falsely advertised. I've heard lots of complaints about other business transactions at and around conventions, but not that. Then again, I haven't been to a con yet so maybe this happens all the time and mysteriously nobody talks about it online.
In the here-and-now, furry fandom does not need to concern itself with the idea of furry as a legal definition. And as I explained in earlier posts, neither does it have ANY need for furry to be defined in fixed terms. I still believe that by trying to create a fixed definition and then force it on others, that you are, a) doing a huge disservice to the variety of identities within furry fandom and to the unique nature in which furry represents identity, and b) completely wasting your time because most people do not want a fixed definition of furry and will just ignore you no matter what your influence in the fandom might be.
There's also the question of whether an external third party defining furry in the name of the fandom would even be a good thing at all. Do you really want a non-furry defining your identity and then authorising it as a LEGAL definition that could be used against you in a court of law? That sounds pretty scary to me. For one thing, they may not define furry in any way close to your own definition; they could make it all about the sex or the core identity and you wouldn't be able to do a thing about it.