e-monk

I think he's saying that african americans shouldn't be allowed to get married because they have a shorter life expectancy than white people do but instead of african americans he said gays and instead of life expectancy he said marginally increased tendency to get certain kinds of cancer

e-monk

chattel transaction

Ron

There ya go...taking the sublime to the ridiculous.

But in this case, it does apply. And it just goes to show where the slippery slope of such an argument can lead to.

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Prince

My chances of developing cancer will go up if I live with a smoker. Are you saying I can't marry someone who smokes? How about marrying someone who has a healthy appetite for red meat, which in turn could affect your diet and increase your chance of developing heart disease? Am I not allowed to do that as well?

If you have the legal right to marry whoever you wish, then it is your right to choose to who you want to marry and accept whatever consequences marrying that person might have.

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Da Grinch

actually i dont believe a govt. has any obligation to enact laws that dont show any benefit to itself or its citizens on the whole.

obviously laws are brought into being pretty regularly that dont but it shouldn't be that way at all.

i dont care what people do behind closed doors , its their own business, but if the goal is to have the government to acknowledge and support them in whatever endeavor ....it should be logical for it to do so.

and it really isn't in the case of gay marriage , especially since there are civil unions


the mistake made is how quickly and in my opinion how predictably posters decide they know what my motivations are , when its clear they dont ....i find it funny really . you can see how quickly people get their feeling hurt just because someone disagrees with them and take to lashing out which is the easiest way to see they dont have the moral high ground they seem to think they own on this issue.

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Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb deciding what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.

Ron

I'm just going to disagree wholeheartedly with you.

Marriage is not about anything other than recording a document with the local county government, as I said above. Like recording a piece of real property. It's all contractual; its all about money; its all about a financial transaction.

That's why you also file divorce proceedings with the County court system. Same ****ing thing. That's the problem...people are relating "marriage" to some kind of religious or spiritual act, which it has nothing to do with.

So no, civil unions are not the same. Not even close.

No one got "their feelings hurt" from your post. Get over yourself. It's all about whether you are open-minded enough to know this is a foregone conclusion, its just a matter of time where this becomes law throughout the land.

The part I find funny is some people thinking they can hold onto the past and bring it into the present and future as if it will last forever. Nothing ever does.

Change. Embrace it, and move forward into enlightenment.

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Prince

Still waiting for your retort in regards to the health reasons, unless of course you realize now how profoundly stupid the idea of it is.

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e-monk

I think he did because he just tried to pull a okee-doke with the whole 'govt has no obligation to enact laws that dont show any benefit' deal which just goes to show he may not be a native speaker because I really dont understand what the hell he was trying to say there - I mean the words he used literally dont add up to a cogent thought in relation to the conversation at hand, he may think he's posting in another thread in fact, let's wait and see what he says next

e-monk

but seriously, 3% more likely to get certain kinds of cancer = deprivation of civil rights how again? wait, I know, they are less biologically viable and therefore we should kill them all off? am I on the right track?

Mrs. Thang

Even though most public opinion on the subject is focussed around religious opposition, I think there are valid secular reasons to oppose gay marriage (or at least some of the benefits implicit in it), primarily revolving around financial benefits.

Why do we provide tax benefits for married couples? Its not a reward for being in love. Its a public investment in the nuclear family to promote successful child rearing. Better children lead to a better future and less headaches for eveyone else. Its probably the most sensible subsidy in the entire tax code. There are obvious reasons why same-sex couples may not make sense for this model.

The same argument applies to health care benefits. Marriage provides health care coverage under a spouses plan because it allows one of the partners to stay home with the children. Again, this can be viewed as more of an investment in children than it is in the partners.

Its seems like it would be easy to roll the more sensible points (like the ability to act as a medical proxy) into a civil union package that would provide the benefits it needs to provide without rankling religious groups or passing out tax subsidies that have no benefit to society. (And yes, it could even include joint filing status and health coverage for co-guardianship of an adoption or science baby). This would involve surrendering the word "marriage", which probably isn't palletable.

Unfortunately, most people want a cause more than they want a solution, so its unacceptable to get what they want if it's viewed as defeat.

E.H. Munro

Actually, no it wasn't what I was commenting on at all. Mayhaps you should go back and read the thread again? Then you might see the actual remark I was replying to.

Alas, no. Because part & parcel of the shitty marriage laws are the common law marriage laws which means that even if you don't marry, the fact that you could have married means that you are married after the requisite time. There's a reason that the Divorce Attorney's lobby has been the hardest charger in this debate.

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If everyone loves you you're doing it wrong.

"Opium is the religion of the masses." Fred Reed

The Power of 99 Press

"He thinks it's going to be fun being governor. It's only fun being governor of New York if you have money to spend, and I spent it all." Nelson Rockefeller on his successor, Hugh Carey.

E.H. Munro

If you do they'll be here to protest the thread.

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If everyone loves you you're doing it wrong.

"Opium is the religion of the masses." Fred Reed

The Power of 99 Press

"He thinks it's going to be fun being governor. It's only fun being governor of New York if you have money to spend, and I spent it all." Nelson Rockefeller on his successor, Hugh Carey.

E.H. Munro

It certainly does benefit, but the reason for the promiscuity of the 70s & 80s was strictly cultural and marriage laws wouldn't have changed anything. The older members of the community certainly didn't have the problem, because culturally speaking they were far more monogamous than the children of the 60s & 70s. Promiscuity was a problem across every segment of the society for that mid sixties to mid eighties time frame (and as you're my age I know you know this). And yes, even within "straight married couples" back then.

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If everyone loves you you're doing it wrong.

"Opium is the religion of the masses." Fred Reed

The Power of 99 Press

"He thinks it's going to be fun being governor. It's only fun being governor of New York if you have money to spend, and I spent it all." Nelson Rockefeller on his successor, Hugh Carey.

Krstic All-Star

That would be awesome - I'm always up for some bigot bashing

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LIPA delenda est

e-monk

that's kind of the problem, what you were commenting on wasnt what was being discussed - not whether state sanctioned marriage was a good or bad thing but whether gays should enjoy the same rights as everyone else - your comment was:

so as a monetary reason the whole lawyers spiel about which, whatever, enjoy your hobby horse

and as a 'logical' reason essentially you are saying gays should not be allowed to enjoy the benefits of state sanctioned marriage because no one should be allowed enjoy the benefits of state sanctioned marriage

so ok, first of all, that's just not on the table for discussion, it's not going to change, and you stand on the side of the minority of actually wanting it to change so welcome to democracy and second whether or not it were to change at issue remains whether or not gays are able to enjoy the same privilidges as straights - that's what is at stake in this instance and very specifically because they're gay (and so would want a same sex partner) they dont get to and that's wrong