Amendment # 28 to ban Gay marriage!

You can pretty much stop right there, because that's as far as your slippery slope goes.You can have gay marriage (between two people) without having to change the marriage laws (except for the ones that say "no gay marriage," obviously) because the marriage laws don't make any reference to the genitals of the participants. (At my marriage, the pastor didn't ask "Got a penis? Check. Got a vagina? Check. ok, we can do this.") Marriage laws don't make reference to the ability to make children, simply the ability to raise them (it doesn't matter how you got them.)Change the number, and you really hav to redefine marriage - As Rrhain likes to ask, if A and B are married to C, are they married to each other?Who knows? The laws are written for two people. They're not scalable. But explain to me what changes for two adoptive parents if I tell you that they're both the same sex.Nothing. Too late. You live in a country with a "distorted sense of family", because unlike every single previous civilization before us, we define "family" to exclude grandparents and childless relatives living with us.Like always, society will define "family" any way that suits it. And people will define their families the way that suits them.The problem facing society isn't new kinds of families. It's people who are in no kind of family. Restricting gay marriage prevents people from being in the family they want. If you're so gung-ho about family, you should be supporting gay marriage, because of the new families it will create.Ultimately I see a lot of the "ick" factor in your arguments. You don't like gay marriage because you don't like gay sex. Well, that's fine. Gay marriage doesn't mean you have to marry a gay person. But I don't understand how, in the Land of the Free, you're comfortable restricting what other adults can do with each other simply because you think it's icky.

Once again into the breach... I'll repeat this for those that have not seen my writings before: I am totally for gay marriage. I think gays would find a more sympathetic ear if they went for Civil Unions that had all the same rights as marriage, but the argument (which the Mass. Court used) that it still creates a social, even if not legal rights division, rings true. So please nobody think I am against gay marriage.However, I see points which I have countered in another thread have popped up again here...

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You can have gay marriage (between two people) without having to change the marriage laws...

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This is wrong. Many if not most (or all) marriage laws are written with the assumption of a man and a woman... it is in the language of the law. This is also within the legal contracts of the law, as well as legal documents which surround marriage (for example getting a foreign spouse immigrated).While I do not think this is a major shakeup in having to do the rewrite, things will have to be rewritten, and when it comes to laws on state books this may require the congressional assembly of the state to pass law on it. It is not just a matter of someone taking out an eraser and fixing it.This was already seen in the Mass. issue. The state legislature was going to have to vote on the nature and wording of the new marriage legislation. I guess I could add that this is an unfunded mandate (it will cost money to change documents) which will piss some state officials off.In some states as well there are required blood tests. Since gays cannot have children are they exempt from this, or do we force them to have it anyway because that is what is on the perreqs to get a license because they assume reproduction...

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Change the number, and you really hav to redefine marriage - As Rrhain likes to ask, if A and B are married to C, are they married to each other?

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Yes this question was asked, and I ANSWERED THE QUESTION MANY TIMES!!!!It is a marriage CONTRACT. That makes it the same as the CONTRACT you sign with different credit card companies or banks. If you sign up with bank A and bank B, does that mean they are now in a financial obligation to each other?Only if a CONTRACT stipulates that A,B, and C are all married together and they all sign it are they each married to another. If not, it is the same as a step or -in law relationship.If people can handle the concept of having many lenders, or in laws, then one can handle the concept of polygamous marriage. The change to law and contracts will be the same (and less in some cases) then gay marriage.I do not understand where all of this confusion is coming from. There are already areas in the US and the world which allow polygamous marriages and so there is PLENTY of examples on how they would be executed. Up until a few years ago there were no such things as gay marriages anywhere in the world.The argument that gay marriage changes the idea or practice of marriage LESS than polygamy flies in the face of all evidence. Polygamy is already out there!Caveat: There is a growing hatred and bigotry toward polygamy, while there is a growing acceptance of gay culture and so gay marriage. So socially these are about to do a flipflop, but that does not change the reality of the legal practice and definition of marriage both in the US and worldwide.[This message has been edited by holmes, 02-14-2004][This message has been edited by holmes, 02-14-2004]

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

As Crashfrog said it seems that you just don't like the Idea of 2 gays. To be perfectly honest Thinking about gay sex Makes me sick enough to vomit.(I am sure they feel the same way toward straight sex) But because I don't like it should I stop someone from doing it? I also don't like artichokes they also make me sick.... should you not be able to eat them if you want or like them? There have been big debates on this board About Homosexuals being Genetic or a choice.(I think its genetic) Either way who is a straight person to tell them they can't love each other enough to get married?

Holmes asks:

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...please nobody think I am against gay marriage.

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I don't, and I absolutely believe that if the government is going to confer the title of 'marriage' it should do so without regard to the sex of the partners. I just wonder what it is about the word 'marriage' that is so important to people. I suspect that for most, even those who would deny it, it is precisely because the word 'marriage' implies a type of blessing.If this isn't true, then please explain to me just what it is about that word that is so critically important. If there is no legal difference in a civil union and a marriage, then why is it so crucial for the state to perform 'marriages' rather than just 'unions'?If the word does imply some sort of blessing then why on earth do we want the government granting such blessings to anyone?I seriously doubt that my point of view on this will become popular, so in practical terms I also fully support gay marriage.I'm not sure I agree with you when you seem to imply that changing the laws to accomodate gay marriage will require a lot of work. It shouldn't take a major effort and besides I think most of us gays pay enough in taxes to warrant the expense. The language of these laws is not such that their logic fails if 'man and woman' were simply replaced with 'the two individuals seeking union' or 'spouse and spouse' or something like that.

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If the word does imply some sort of blessing then why on earth do we want the government granting such blessings to anyone?

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I think you and I are of the same mind on this, and it probably will not ever be the popular one. I would note that in Holland they have a civil ceremony that everyone must go through, and then if you want a regular church ceremony you can go and do that (as your church would allow). That made a lot of sense to me.Then again, when it came time for gays to get married they created yet another civil cermony just for them called a partnership. I believe this has now been changed so that everyone can choose between a civil marriage and a civil partnership. Crazy netherlanders!

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I'm not sure I agree with you when you seem to imply that changing the laws to accomodate gay marriage will require a lot of work.

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Ahhh... that is the next thing I usually get confused with saying. I think I'm going to have to create a boilerplate response on this issue which carefully addresses each possible implication.I was actually not trying to imply it would take a LOT of work. I was simply rebutting the idea that it would take NO work, as if there is no real change. There is. I don't see how that becomes an issue to deny someone their rights, but there will be a change and it will cost money and time to change documents as well as legislative efforts where changes to law require state congressional approval.If someone wanted to raise this as an issue to deny gays the right to marriage, I'd start raising how other changes to law are made all the time based on court cases and we've lived with them. So what's the problem with this case?To my mind that argument would be similar to creationists that leave everything in science alone except for anything that touches Genesis, and THEN science is said to be flawed and making things up.But that said, it is false to claim no changes need to be made and that it will cost nothing in time or money for states to implement the change. That's the way bureacracies work.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Lizard Breath responds to me:

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I'll try to explain why I feel that skin tone has nothing to do with it but your gender does.

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[discussion of friends deleted for space]

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Now with the women friends. Some are good friends of mine but I keep an invisible emotional distance from them. Why? Because they are women and I am oriented to be attracted to women.

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Precisely! That's the point! You're straight. Why on earth would anybody expect you to enter into a sexually intimate relationship to someone you aren't sexually attracted to?

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So I don't allow myself to have close friends who are women because of the obvious danger of being unfaithful to my wife.

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So you're saying that because you are incapable of controlling yourself, everybody else is, too.What a self-indulgent, egotistical view of the world you have.

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Now lets say that all of a sudden I decided that I wanted to sleep with a man and handle dude parts instead of wanting to be with a woman. It sounds graphic but that's what homosexuality is. Men who want to handle dude parts instead of women's parts, but the sex drive is still there.

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So that would mean that heteroexuality is "handling chick parts," right? No more, right?Strange how you've managed to forget that straight women "handle dude parts" and that gay women don't "handle dude parts."How telling it is that you have managed to reduce sexuality to a mere act of physics.By your logic, all the men in prison are gay. After all, they're "handling dude parts" and that, by your definition, is homosexuality.

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So now I have these 8 friends in my inner circle and 3 close friends and we are now all gay.

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What about it? You aren't sleeping with any of them, you don't want to sleep with any of them, what's the problem? Yeah, you're all gay, but so what? Just because you're gay doesn't mean you want to have sex with everybody of the same sex.Oh, you might have that problem, but don't confuse your inability to maintain decorum with a universal prediliction.

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I can no longer have the healthy man to man type relationship with them that I had before because now sex is involved.

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Wait just a parboiled second. When did that happen? When did we go from "gay" to "sexually obsessed"? You seem to think it is impossible to have friends with people whose body parts would be involved in any sexual activity you might have.My god, how on earth do bisexual people do it? They must be so lonely, seeing every single person in the world as a potential sex partner. They couldn't have any friends at all of any deep meaning because they're constantly thinking about sex!Do you not see how ridiculous this attitude is?

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So when we all go out camping, we can't sit around the fire anymore and just shoot the bull

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Why not?The mere existence of gay people proves you wrong. They do exactly that and no sexual tension happens.Just because you can't look at a woman without thinking of sex doesn't mean everybody else has the same problem.

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So what I see the gay's loose is that really cool man to man bonding and exchange it for a man to man sex/bonding with the sex always in the areana.

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BWAHAHAHAHA!Because you are incapable of keeping it in your pants, that means everybody else is just as obnoxiously satyriac as you are?I've got a suggestion for you: Find out what gay people are really like before you deign to pontificate about their relationships. If you really think that it is biologically impossible for a person to maintain a deep friendship with someone who meets a set of physical requirements that would normally represent an object of sexual attraction, then there is no point in continuing.The mere existence of gay people proves your conception wrong.

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So who then does the Gay man go to just bond with?

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Whoever they want. Just because you can't figure out how to be friends with a woman doesn't mean gay people can't figure out how to be friends with people of the appropriate sex.

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And in the military, open Gay service will be a disaster

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Bullshit.There are plenty of armies out there that include gay people and they haven't managed to encounter any "disasters." Do you really think Israel has a wimpy army because of their inclusion of openly gay members?Just now in Iraq, there didn't seem to be a problem with the American troops working with their openly gay British counterparts.In fact, the US government's own study into homosexuality in the military couldn't find a single reason to keep gay people out. The supposed "threat to unit cohesion" was nothing more than a myth, identical word-for-word to the same argument used to keep the ranks segregated. And yet when the military became integrated, there didn't seem to be a problem.Here's a thought: If you can't handle the idea of a gay man looking at your "dude parts," perhaps the solution is to remove you from the military. You are a threat to unit cohesion because you are too obsessed about the sexual activity of your fellow soldier to concentrate on the job in front of you.

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Can you imagine the complex dynamics now if the sex thing is permeated within the male ranks with each other?

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Let's see...[insert wavy lines here]"Sarge! It's about Johnson.""What about Johnson?""He's, well...you know....""No, I don't. What is he?""He's gay.""And?""Well, you know....""No, I don't. What about it? Has he made a pass at you?""Well, no....""Has he made inappropriate comments?""No....""Has he given you any indication that he would force himself upon you?""No, but--""But nothing! Get your mind out of Johnson's pants and if I hear one more time how you're whining about something that hasn't happened, I'll have your ass in a court martial so fast it'll make your head spin! Now get the hell out of my office!"[resume dissolve to return to present]What's so hard to understand about this?

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So my confusion comes in when I wonder why any man would want to throw away the really valuable man to man friendships and bonding and exchange it for a sexual relationship with each other.

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Have you considered the possibility that they aren't throwing anything away? That there was nothing to throw away? That gay people can have deep, intimate friendships with people of the same sex without having sex be a part of the deal?Oh sure, When Harry Met Sally popularized the idea that men and women cannot be friends because of sex, but reality proves that notion wrong.F'rinstance, would you have sex with your mother? Your sister? And yet don't you have a deep, intimate relationship with these women?

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I'm not knocking them although I don't know why a man would ever want to handle other mens dude parts.

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And yet, you hope your wife handles your "dude parts."What's so difficult to understand about a man wanting to do it, too?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Lizard Breath responds to me:

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If gender combinations is not an issue, then quantity is not an issue.

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Incorrect.You see, changing the race or the sex of the participants of marriage doesn't actually change the way the contract of marriage is administrated.But changing the number of participants in marriage does change the way the contract is administered. There may be very good answers about the questions that necessarily come up with the concept of polygamy, but the fact that you have to ask them in the first place means that the contract of marriage is different.For example, if person A marries person B and if person C then wanted to get in on it, would C have to marry both A and B or can C only marry one? In short, is marriage transitive?We would have to rework benefits payments to spouses. Currently, the benefit is a right of the spouse. Would multiple marriage mean that each spouse has a claim for an equal amount or would it mean that the person providing the benefit has only so much that is to be equally divided among the spouses?Again, there might be perfectly reasonable answers for these questions, but the point is not that there is a reasonable answer but that you have to ask the question in the first place.

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If quantity is not an issue then age is not an issue.

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Even assuming the number isn't an issue (which it is), of course age is an issue.It has to do with the question of consent.And why am I not surprised that when the question of same-sex marriage came up, you immediately jumped to polygamy and pederasty.I mean, that is obviously the next step...a loving, mutually supportive relationship between two consenting individuals has so much in common with the exploitation of children.

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I wonder at what point the whole concept of marriage becomes unrecoverably distorted

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What distortion?How is a same-sex marriage different from a mixed-sex marriage?Be specific.

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If the concept of a family unit becomes trashed

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What trashing?How is a family headed by a same-sex couple different from a family headed by a mixed-sex couple?Be specific.

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What did you mean by saying "Being in support of same-sex marriage because it is what the constitution demands is not the same thing as being in support of it because it is the right thing to do"?

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There is a difference between doing something because you have to and doing something because you want to.In other words, there is a difference between seeing something as a "sacrifice" and seeing it as a benefit.A person who thinks that homosexuality is wrong might think that the government intrusion into a person's personal life and the unequal treatment of citizens is even worse. Thus, they would accept the bad thing of legal marriage for gay people in order to prevent the worse thing of governmental tyranny.Contrast this with people who don't see anything wrong with being gay. Of course they should get married if they want to. Why would anybody try to stop them? They, too, are fighting against the concept of inequality, but they do not see gay marriage as a bad thing that needs to be accepted in order to prevent something worse. Instead, the worse thing needs to be prevented so that a good thing can happen.

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Do you mean that anyone who does not believe in his heart that Gay marriage is just as right as straight marriage has the real troubles.

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It's called "homophobia."

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If so, what would you do with those straight disidents and how far would you go to identify them?

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Nothing. People have every right to be fools and jerks.They don't have the right to stop other people from living their lives when it doesn't affect them.Don't want to "handle dude parts"? Then don't. Nobody's making you.Why do you think your personal squick factor has some magical power over everybody else?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

I am married and I have Female friends....... And I don't think about having sex with them....... I think you have a problem if you can't be friends with a female without thinking about sex....
Do I prove your whole theory wrong? Or could it be your wife is very jealous? If thats it she has the problem. No offence really intended sorry if I offend you....

holmes responds to crashfrog:

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You can have gay marriage (between two people) without having to change the marriage laws...

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This is wrong.

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Prove it. For once, answer the questions I asked of you.Other than the obvious and trivial example of having to rewrite marriage laws to allow people of the same sex to get married (which is the entire point), what else in the contract of marriage would have to change in order to allow people of the same sex to get married?Would same-sex couples be forced to pay more property tax? Extra votes in elections? Required to do it in the missionary position?Be specific.

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This was already seen in the Mass. issue. The state legislature was going to have to vote on the nature and wording of the new marriage legislation.

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Incorrect. The ruling of the SJC was that the Legislature could rewrite laws regarding marriage, but they didn't have to. In 180 days, they would simply have to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples. The Legislature could speed things up and rewrite the laws to allow same-sex marriage before the 180 days or perhaps rewrite the laws so that the state doesn't have a contract of marriage. There are all sorts of things that the Legislature could do, but the only thing that was required of them was to make sure that whatever marriage was, it would be something that a same-sex couple could do as well as a mixed-sex couple.But making marriage available to same-sex couples does not automatically cause the dissolution of inheritance rights that come along with it.Or does it? You keep saying that allowing same-sex marriage requires marriage laws to be rewritten and yet you have yet to come up with a single concrete example of such. Please do so. What would change if the people getting married were of the same sex as opposed to the opposite sex?Would they not be allowed to file joint taxes? Would they not be allowed to divorce? Would the right to sponsor a foreign spouse for citizenship suddenly go away for all?Be specific.

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I guess I could add that this is an unfunded mandate

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And that would be ridiculous as well as a non sequitur. After all, what does having to change the certificate to read "Spouse" and "Spouse" instead of "Wife" and "Husband" have to do with the rights and responsibilities that come along with marriage? How do the words used to describe the participants change the requirements of what those participants need to do?And are you really saying that equal treatment under the law is trumped by printing costs?

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In some states as well there are required blood tests.

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Yes. But what does that have to do with anything? They're not testing for genetic defects. They're testing for venereal disease with some states looking for rubella and tuberculosis.

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Change the number, and you really hav to redefine marriage - As Rrhain likes to ask, if A and B are married to C, are they married to each other?

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Yes this question was asked, and I ANSWERED THE QUESTION MANY TIMES!!!!

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No, you didn't.Is marriage a hub-and-spoke arrangement like those of one husband and multiple wives where none of the wives consider them married to each other but rather share a husband? Or is marriage a maximally interconnected relationship where all members consider themselves married to each other?The fact that we have to ask this question in the first place means that marriage among three people is a different thing from marriage among two people.You see, a two-element relationship is both hub-and-spoke and maximally interconnected. We don't define the contract as one or the other because there is no point in doing so. But in going from a two-element set to a three-element set, we need to make a distinction we never had to before.

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It is a marriage CONTRACT.

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Right. And what sort of contract is being arranged among the three people? Is it A connected to B but not connected to C? Or is it A connected to B and C?

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That makes it the same as the CONTRACT you sign with different credit card companies or banks. If you sign up with bank A and bank B, does that mean they are now in a financial obligation to each other?

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No, it doesn't.But who said that a marriage contract was like a bank contract? Why wouldn't marriage among three people create financial obligations to all members?

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Only if a CONTRACT stipulates that A,B, and C are all married together and they all sign it are they each married to another.

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Precisely. So wouldn't allowing marriage among three people require us to consider that as the definition of polygamous marriage?You seem to think that marriage is defined as hub-and-spoke. But where is that written? Marriage is a contract that is only allowed between two people and thus there is no difference between hub-and-spoke and maximally interconnected. And since there is no difference, it was never identified as to what a two-person marriage is.Why are you assuming that marriage is hub-and-spoke? Why isn't it a maximally interconnected relationship?

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I do not understand where all of this confusion is coming from.

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It's because you are operating under an assumption that you have neve stated until just now:Marriage is hub-and-spoke.Please justify this. Why isn't marriage maximally interconnected?

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There are already areas in the US and the world which allow polygamous marriages

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Incorrect. There is no state in the US that allows polygamy. Do not confuse a local community's lack of concern over a cultural practice with a legal contrct. Tom Green, the most famous polygamist of late, was sentenced to five years in jail on felony bigamy charges.

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so there is PLENTY of examples on how they would be executed.

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Which kind, though? Hub-and-spoke or maximally interconnected?There is more than one way to have multiple marriage. Which one are you talking about?

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The argument that gay marriage changes the idea or practice of marriage LESS than polygamy flies in the face of all evidence.

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Um, could you provide a single example of what would change in the contract of marriage if it were between people of the same sex as opposed to people of the opposite sex?Would social security payments suddenly disappear? Would adoption shift to only single people?Be specific.

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Polygamy is already out there!

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So is same-sex marriage.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

holmes writes:

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I was simply rebutting the idea that it would take NO work, as if there is no real change.

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But you haven't rebutted it. You've simply asserted without any supporting evidence.Other than the trivial point of replacing words (which is the entire reason for legalizing same-sex marriage), what would change? Would a man married to another man have more legal obligations to his spouse than he would if he were married to a woman? Would a woman married to another woman be required to pay a "double vagina" tax?What in the contract of marriage changes if you replace "husband" and "wife" with "spouse"?Be specific.

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There is.

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Like what?Be specific.

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there will be a change

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Like what?Be specific.Surely you're not saying that because we have to retype the physical piece of paper the marriage license is printed out on somehow changes the legal rights and responsibilities of what that marriage certificate creates, are you?Here's an exercise for you:List out the rights and responsibilities that come along with marriage. Please tell us how these rights and responsibilities would have to change if the people involved in the marriage were of the same sex as opposed to the opposite sex.If you get to the end of the list and find that none of them are different in effect, then it seems that there is no difference between same-sex and mixed-sex marriage.Please note that printing costs of the piece of paper the marriage certificate is written on or the law is printed in are not rights and responsibilities of marriage. I'm talking about things like the right to sponsor a foreign spouse for citizenship, inheritance rights, next-of-kin relationships, assumption of debts, etc.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Well, I don't know all the laws, but when I look at my marriage license, there's no gendered terms. It lists us by name.The license application had boxes for bride and groom, and the ability for both of us to change our names if we wanted (I considered a name change to "Duncan MacAsskicker", but the wife veoted it).The laws may very well say "bride" and "groom" but that's hardly a gender requirement. And since the terms are interchangeable with each other - brides don't have any rights that grooms don't have, and vise-versa - then what's the difference if you have two brides or two grooms? What changes? That, or you just allow one of the participants to arbitrarily be "groom" and the other to be "bride". Does it matter? Infertile couples in the same states get the blood tests too, I imagine, as well as those with no desire for children. When a spouse divorces, there's an obligation for support if they supplied income to the family. If you divorce a man, and you were supporting him and his wives, who do you owe support to?It just seems more complicated to me. The examples of polygamous marriage I'm familiar with are exactly that - poly-gamy, or "many women." Where are the examples of polyandrous marriage? Polygamy is simply one subset of plural marriages. Where's the legal precident for a marriage of three guys and two women?Is plural marriage really relevant here? I don't see the slippery-slope argument being valid. It's like saying "we can't let those black folks vote, or else those hispanics will want to, as well." Well, yes it probably will. As it turns out, when you start handing out civil rights, you have to hand them out fairly.Gay marriage might well lead to plural marriage. (I hope it does, actually.) But just because you don't like plural marriage is hardly a reason to deny gay people their rights.

crashfrog writes:

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The examples of polygamous marriage I'm familiar with are exactly that - poly-gamy, or "many women."

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No, that would be "polygyny." The suffix -gamy means "marriage" from the Greek "gamein," to marry.Marriage to more than one person, regardless of the sex of the people involved, is "polygamy."Marriage to more than one woman is "polygyny."Marriage to more than one man is "polyandry."

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

My mistake.But isn't it true that all the societies Holmes was talking about are only polygamous in the sense that one man can have many wives?That hardly gives us a framework on which to base all plural marriages. I mean, if three men are married to five wives, who owns the wives? (Ownership of wife apparently being part of the basis for polygyny. )

crashfrog responds to me:

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But isn't it true that all the societies Holmes was talking about are only polygamous in the sense that one man can have many wives?

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No, there are polyandrous societies. The Kno Parvati in India, for example.

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That hardly gives us a framework on which to base all plural marriages.

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That's because holmes is stuck on the idea that he has only now directly expressed that marriage is a hub-and-spoke arrangement. What if it's a maximally interconnected arrangement?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Rrhain writes:

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Even in the US, the average same-sex relationship lasts longer than the average mixed-sex relationship.

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I was reading back over this thread and realized I had somehow missed this. Sorry to bring it up at this late point, but...Where do you come by data to support this? I ask because I've not noticed this at all. In fact, my experience points in the opposite direction, so much so that I've even used this bit of conventional wisdom (a phrase I don't like because it seems oxymoronic) to argue in favor of gay marriage. I've said that one reason gay relationships don't usually last very long is that there's no way to codify the union and make it a contract. A contract can only be broken at considerable emotional and financial expense. In my opinion, it is these expenses that have saved some straight marriages. If one were to consider an affair, one might decide against it when one considers the potential pain and expense. Such motives for restraint don't exist when there is no legal contract.I've seen a lot of marriages and divorces as well as gay unions and disunions over the years, and the straight people I've known have had a better track record at making these things work than the gays. Is my experience misleading me?