Time to Recognize Same-Gender Marriage

"My point is that laws are made in terms of the TYPICAL case. There are always going to be exceptions on each side. "
********************

Most laws are designed to restrict rights, rather than define what is "typical". These restrictions should have some basis in what is deemed good for the population at large, since they are restrictions, and we don’t like to unnecessarily restrict people’s activities without good reason. Take marriage as our example. We have a right to marry. We put restrictions on this right. For example, you must be a certain age. This is for the benefit of the couple, and hence society, to ensure the couple is emotionally ready for such a commitment. We restrict anyone who is already married from being married again. This again is beneficial for society since multiple marriages complicates matters from a legal perspective. Now take a restriction on same sex marriage. One needs to demonstrate that there is ample reason for placing such a restriction on the institution. But what exactly is this reason? Your argument is that the benefit of the children should reign supreme, since this should be the primary driving force behind marriage. But, as others have pointed out, placing a restriction on same sex marriage for the sole reason of children would necessitate that we place the same restriction on couples who do not plan to have children, are sterile, too old to reproduce, or cannot or will not reproduce for any reason. But clearly we don't. So the argument against same-sex marriage based solely on children fragments rapidly.

The argument for restricting a right (and hence creating a law) simply due to the fact that an activity is not “typical” is just fraught with peril. It’s typical that most people work from 9 to 5. So should it be illegal for me to work in the night? Should it be illegal for me not to work at all, assuming I can afford to? It’s typical for men not to wear skirts (at least here in the USA). Should it be illegal for me (a man) to wear a skirt outside? I could write pages of examples, but I think you get the point.

You need to better understand the main purpose of laws. We all have granted to us rights as defined by the constitution. We only restrict those rights when it can be shown that some activity is harmful to the individual or those around him or her. Restricting an activity simply because it is not normal (but otherwise harmless) is not something a free society does.

this is a really death argument. lets make it this way,after God made adam, why did he created Eve an opposite gender and not a man like adam to marry? you see its somewhat of sick to think like that. man is made for a woman and the same-sex thing is the confusion and inordinate curiosity of humans coupled with lack of self-control. its inhumane awwww!
A. Keita (Pacifist)
Posted by: pacifistcode
**************************************************************************************
You're assuming that everyone believes that a non-corporeal supernatural being literally created a man by sculpting a statue out of mud and giving it CPR, then cloned an opposite sex version of him from one of his ribs. Such a belief is not necessary in order to be eligible for civil marriage.
And gay people don't exactly have a monopoly on lack of control.
Posted by: lepidopteryx
-----------
lepidopteryx is right. The argument based on Adam and Eve is quite frankly a little silly. What is needed is a rational discussion about why the institution of marriage exists and what are the best ways to use it for the happiness of human beings.

I disagree with gay advocates that including gays in an institution designed for heterosexuals is the best way to go. But there has to be SOME way to accomodate the needs of different groups.

Both Obama and Kerry have said that they are in favor of a civil arrangement specially designed for gays, and both have oppossed gay marriage. Since these two are not "right wing maniacs" we have to ask why they think as they do.

this is a really death argument. lets make it this way,after God made adam, why did he created Eve an opposite gender and not a man like adam to marry? you see its somewhat of sick to think like that. man is made for a woman and the same-sex thing is the confusion and inordinate curiosity of humans coupled with lack of self-control. its inhumane awwww!
A. Keita (Pacifist)
Posted by: pacifistcode
**************************************************************************************
You're assuming that everyone believes that a non-corporeal supernatural being literally created a man by sculpting a statue out of mud and giving it CPR, then cloned an opposite sex version of him from one of his ribs. Such a belief is not necessary in order to be eligible for civil marriage.
And gay people don't exactly have a monopoly on lack of control.

this is a really death argument. lets make it this way,after God made adam, why did he created Eve an opposite gender and not a man like adam to marry? you see its somewhat of sick to think like that. man is made for a woman and the same-sex thing is the confusion and inordinate curiosity of humans coupled with lack of self-control. its inhumane awwww!
A. Keita (Pacifist)

Tsk. Misphased it when I tried to encapsulate convoluted homophobic logic about how straight couples who don't care for their children are somehow 'better' than gays who *do*... On the 'odds, of course. Which must then define all possibilities... Cause of course when you talk *odds,* the whole point is to only acknowledge what you figure is the most likely-possibility, and then ignore all other possibilities.

You. And your Interpretation. Of. Your. Book. Rohit.

Don't get to make that call.

You don't get to say 'married' or not.

What you say, may as well have torn my own daughter out of my arms. 'Odds' were not for it. Nothing you say had anything to do with it. Except that it actually hurt our family. Too much.

You don't know whereof you speak. You just don't. All you see, or want to see, is *breeding,* not families.

Yes, a lot of people *have babies* trying to prove to you and maybe your God and themselves that they're straight and worthy of being human citizens.

Having babies does not make these things so.

But there are diapers.

All the other things you think are so horrible.

What are the odds, ...a crazy punk chick like me ends up having some little girl say, 'Will you be Mommy?'

Dead certainty, my friend, dead certainty.

Cause that's what is, and you don't wanna be the man or God standing between that and anything important. I assure you.

So hetero couples, you will deign to give an 'unearned honor' while using the government to try and punish gay couples for not resembling those you can pretend 'earned' this thing you think is yours to give or take away?
Posted by: Paganplace
-------
No one is trying to punish gay couples.

Also, I know from previous experience that being abusive comes easy to you, so I am reluctant to discuss anything with you.

ROHITCUNY wrote:
"....why we have the institution of marriage at all....
I would suggest that it has to be with the upbringing of children."
________________________
Ok, by your "logic", ban marriages for sterile heterosexuals and those who refuse to have children.
Just because I don't think much of Mormons, is it my right to say that they can't use the word "marriage" because only me and mine have the God given right to define it?
Posted by: coloradodog
---------
Not really because laws are based on the typical case. For instance, driver's licenses are meant for people who plan to drive. But there is no law that says that you cannot have a driver's license if you do not own a car or have the money to rent one. But typically people who have driver's licenses also actually drive.

Also, unless you have taken courses in logic, you perhaps are not competent to talk about "logic". But in case you ARE inerested in logic, let me recommend the Blackwell guide to philosophical logic edited by Lou Goble.

Anyway, Rohit:

(in his infinite divine Biblical wisdom on how when straights don't care for their children, their straightness makes them more like people who do, than are straights who are in fact parents but still shouldn't be able to marry who they choose.....)

"Are gays really going to do that kind of work? Of course some of them will adopt children, and do such work and some hetero couples will not have children at all."

And some gays will have babies trying to do what you and most of society demands, change the diapers, raise the kids, still not be straight, get dumped by the dude who didn't want to have babies or get married, but will still turn around and say the birth mother doesn't deserve to marry someone who *will* love her and the child, since to straight couples, 'marriage' is really 'defined' as 'permission' to have straight sex, and the child and family thing is acutally just a 'sentence' to carry out or duck, for most men.

Who are still more worthy of 'fatherhood' by *completely not being there,* than any other woman could be who *wants to.*

Right.

"But the odds are that the work of waking in the middle of the night, changing diapers, listening to screams, and talking endless baby talk is going to be done largely by biological parents."

What in the *ten thousand names of the Mother do you know about 'odds?' This isn't about *odds,* Christian. This is about *what is.*

" And society honors that work. Hetero couples who do not have children are merely going along for a free ride, they have not actually earned that honor. And neither have gays."

So hetero couples, you will deign to give an 'unearned honor' while using the government to try and punish gay couples for not resembling those you can pretend 'earned' this thing you think is yours to give or take away?

Honestly, it's a little *scary* when people use sitcoms to try to determine what the Ultimate Will Of Gawd And Thus the US Government is regarding a minority, but at least there's potential for progress, when things just aren't funny anymore, even with a laugh track.

Still, I can see the potential... We could have like an LBGT Pagan 'Good Times....'

Hey, CMalloy:

"There are serious questions that must be answered in the discussion on gay marriage.
When gay people get a divorce who gets to go on Oprah? When gay people get married how can they resent the opposite sex? Who gets to pick out the living room furniture? Well at least there won't be any debate about birth control for gay couples. See, deep meaningful discussions. Get it right America their here their queer and they want to drink beer."

I don't know if you've noticed, but, actually, even including the occasional stereotypical LBGT person in them occasionally just *hasn't* brought any new jokes to the 'Situation Comedy' since 1958.

Imagine what fun your stereotypes could have in half-hour increments, laughing their way to oblivion if a few sitcoms actually had gay characters in them?

It could be like 'Benson,' only with a whole new set of double-entendres. :)

I think the *serious* question, though, is, if you can't wrap your head around how my dear one and I divide labor in our own household, what gave you the idea you were the one to consult whether or not our marriage is 'real?'

I am totally opposed to same-sex marriage, and have recently confirmed that both god and jesus agree with me. We should immediately make such marriages illegal, and establish a uniformed federal sex-polizei to rigorously examine all candidates for marriage, and previously married couples, to ensure compliance.

Mr. PRESIDENT, Ms. POLOSI & CO.:

"Ho Ho OBAMA & YOU Must Surely GO!"

"HO HO, OBAMA & CO. must Surely GO!"

"DOWN with OBAMA & CO., 2013"

"YO YO, OBAMA Gots To GO!"

-Prof. GATES, not Bill Gates, Not Asst. Sec. State Gates.., Must GO To Jail asap For almost (Conspiring) insighting a National & Possibly International (RACE BASED) RIOT!? The TERRORISTS & CO., are LOVE-N THIS!

......___________________......
...........||.......||........||.......||
...........||.......||.., , ,.||.......||
...........||......(||../|/(\.||/......||
...........||.......||.._'_ .,||......||
...........||.......||..o o..||.......||
...........||......(||...m...||)......||
...........||.......||...=....||.......||
...........||.......||.\___/||.......||
...........||.___||..).,.(..||___.||
......... /||..--...||.-\_/-.||..---,.||\
........./.||.--,_,||____.||.._--||..\
..........(||)RACE-GATES(.||)
............|"""""""""""""""""""""|......
...|ACTS AGAINST AMERICANS|...

Mr. OBAMA. Please, like an EX-Friend, Distance yourself from Mr. "Racist-GATES", not P.O. Crowley, like ye didth with REVrend/Brother Mr. Wrong, ooopps Meant your Ex-Friend Rev. Jeramiah (Bul{Frog) Mr. Wright!

--Or Else: "DOWN with OBAMA & CO., comes 2012 and beyond!"

"Ho Ho OBAMA & CO. Must Surely GO!"

"HO HO, OBAMA & CO. must Surely GO!"

"YO YO, OBAMA Gots To GO!"

ROHITCUNY wrote:

"....why we have the institution of marriage at all....

I would suggest that it has to be with the upbringing of children."

________________________

Ok, by your "logic", ban marriages for sterile heterosexuals and those who refuse to have children.

Just because I don't think much of Mormons, is it my right to say that they can't use the word "marriage" because only me and mine have the God given right to define it?

There are serious questions that must be answered in the discussion on gay marriage.
When gay people get a divorce who gets to go on Oprah? When gay people get married how can they resent the opposite sex? Who gets to pick out the living room furniture? Well at least there won't be any debate about birth control for gay couples. See, deep meaningful discussions. Get it right America their here their queer and they want to drink beer.

Let me compare sexual preference with religion. There are two million Hindu Americans in the US. They do not go to church, they go to Hindu temples. There are comparable numbers of Muslims and Buddhists, and they also do not go to church but to mosques or to a temple. All of these religions claim the civil right to a tax free status but none of them insists that their places of worship be called churches. Hindus are quite happy to go to a temple and do not want to go to church.
Nor do they insist that "because of equality" Hindu places of worship should be called churches.

Gays can have the civil rights which hetero married people currently have. But why do they want to CALL their relationships marriage? Muslims do not want to call their places of worship churches - they have too much self respect for that.

Don't gays have self respect? Of course there has been discrimination against gays. But there has also been discrimination against Muslims. If you want self respect you have to respect your own way and your own customs.

Ms.Dixon must read the post 'Marriage: Both Civil & Religious'. The wisdom of Ms. Pamela K. Taylor may help her regarding marriage.

Fertility rates so low that cultures will be disappearing within a couple of generations. Abortion, even second or third abortion rates skyrocketing. Out of wedlock children the norm. Traditional marriage disappearing.......And we have leftists like Ms Dixon saying that we MUST go down the same disastrous path???
Posted by: Rob-Roy
----------
Ms. Dixon's views are an example of what I call "constitution fundamentalism", the belief that ALL human and social questions are solved by the US constitution, a document which is only 220 years old and which, in any case, is being constantly reinterpreted by the judiciary (with the support of people like her).

Jesus did say, "Render unto Caesar what is Caeser's" but Caeser in those days did not seek to legalize abortion among Jews or to interfere with their customs. It was simply a matter of taxation.

But now the government is deeply intertwined with society and thus the call, "separation of Church and State" becomes also a call for separation of Church and Society. Religion is thereby turned into a hobby, no different from golf or bridge. This seems not to have good results, and I say this even though I personally am an atheist.

Muslims, who are rightly suspicious of the attempt of governments to take over society and separate them from their own religion, resist Westernization, and rightly so. But they do not have the intellectual tools to construct a tolerant and dynamic society in which science and technology live side by side with their moral values.

The West will have to find its own way back to morality and to common sense. It won't be easy. Perhaps Ms. Dixon can be of help if she realizes that some of her own views are part of the problem - that it isn't just a case of "those bad people, hardline Christians from the South and the Midwest" afflicting America.

My point is not that gay couples should not be recognized and treated with respect. I think they have a right to be treated with respect both by society and the law. Where I differ from the LGBT community is the movement for "same-sex" marriage. I think it would be a mistake to use the same word "marriage" for the two kinds of relationships since there are very important differences.

America has now become a country where each American seems to think, "I have a right to do whatever I like irrespective of society." The movement for gay marriage, the desire to carry concealed weapons, driving SUVs, and the large scale use of abortion as a birth control device are all symptoms of individualism run wild.

It is not good for society and that is why people are happier in Europe, or even in Bangladesh than they are in America. Marriage has eroded severely in the last few decades and I do ask my gay fellow citizens not to push to erode it still further.

So adoptive straight parents are less likey to get up in the middle of the night to comfort their crying chilren, change diapers, endure temper tantrums. mitigate episodes of sibling rivalry, and talk to their infants in repetitive nonsense syllables?
What about the gay couples who are raising children who are the biological progeny of one of the partners?
Many straight parents become parents by accident. A condom slipped, antibiotics caused birth control pills to fail, or there was a spontaneous erotic encounter before the calendar said it was safe to do so. What makes them automatically more likely to be loving parents than people who have gone through much effort to bring children into their lives, either through AI or adoption?
Posted by: lepidopteryx |
------------
My point is that laws are made in terms of the TYPICAL case. There are always going to be exceptions on each side. Typically, hetero couples do much more child bearing and child upbringing than gay couples and it is quite fair if they are treated differently. There are lots of examples where we go by the typical case. If you are drunk it is illegal for you to drive even half a mile. If you are sober, then it is legal even if the fact that you broke up with a boyfriend makes you an unreliable driver. The law cannot take all these exceptions into account - it has to go by the general case.

The Episcopal denomination is imploding because of "leaders" like Ms Dixon who spend more time on homosexual advocacy then spreading the Gospel of Jesus. In the recent General Convention, there were more resolutions about GLBTQ... adovocacy than any other topic. Regardless of how one feels, should a supposed Christian organization be spending so much time on a secular issue? Other denominations take warning, the agendites have infiltrated all levels of leadership and will not let the topic of conversation be changed.

But one should ask why we, as a society, should bow down to the homosexual agendites. Should beauty pageant contestants be required to ape canned answers that homosexuality is really swell? Is it really great? Look at Western Europe from a secular point of view:

Fertility rates so low that cultures will be disappearing within a couple of generations. Abortion, even second or third abortion rates skyrocketing. Out of wedlock children the norm. Traditional marriage disappearing.......And we have leftists like Ms Dixon saying that we MUST go down the same disastrous path???

ROHI:
I would suggest that it has to be with the upbringing of children. Because love by itself does not require a long term commitment including a financial one. Love by itself cannot be the support of marriage even though we pretend it is.
**************************************************************************************
Then please explain how it is that so many couples remain married and childless their entire lives. If love isn't the basis of their commitment, what is?
My husband's and my love for each other was what made us want to offer each other the protections and rights associated with marriage, as well as take on marrriage's attendant responibilities toward each other.

ROHI:
But the odds are that the work of waking in the middle of the night, changing diapers, listening to screams, and talking endless baby talk is going to be done largely by biological parents. And society honors that work. Hetero couples who do not have children are merely going along for a free ride, they have not actually earned that honor. And neither have gays.
**************************************************************************************
So adoptive straight parents are less likey to get up in the middle of the night to comfort their crying chilren, change diapers, endure temper tantrums. mitigate episodes of sibling rivalry, and talk to their infants in repetitive nonsense syllables?
What about the gay couples who are raising children who are the biological progeny of one of the partners?
Many straight parents become parents by accident. A condom slipped, antibiotics caused birth control pills to fail, or there was a spontaneous erotic encounter before the calendar said it was safe to do so. What makes them automatically more likely to be loving parents than people who have gone through much effort to bring children into their lives, either through AI or adoption?

If marriage is not a religious institution, why do we have so many pastors speaking up on the issue? :) If it is really a civil matter, then you should keep quiet. If we were talking about whether seat belts should be required or whether smoking should be permitted in restaurants, no one would ask religious people and they would not be better qualified than the rest of us to speak.

I myself think it is not a religious issue, and it is not a constitutional issue. It is a pragmatic issue and the first question we have to ask is why we have the institution of marriage at all.

I would suggest that it has to be with the upbringing of children. Because love by itself does not require a long term commitment including a financial one. Love by itself cannot be the support of marriage even though we pretend it is.

Once we see that marriage has to do with children, we can also see why it is to society's benefit to support that institution - because couples having children do an enormous amount of unpaid work in producing and bringing up the next generation.

Think about this, the average mother speaks about 20,000 words EVERY day to her child until the child is about 3 years old.

Are gays really going to do that kind of work? Of course some of them will adopt children, and do such work and some hetero couples will not have children at all.

But the odds are that the work of waking in the middle of the night, changing diapers, listening to screams, and talking endless baby talk is going to be done largely by biological parents. And society honors that work. Hetero couples who do not have children are merely going along for a free ride, they have not actually earned that honor. And neither have gays.

So let gays declare their love and commitment to each other - all power to them. But let them not claim the honor which we currently give to the parents who do such a large amount of unpaid dogwork.