Amendment # 28 to ban Gay marriage!

Lizard Breath writes:

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I don't think the Gay marriage will have anything on the straight's as far as success rates.

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Well, if we look at the other countries that do allow same-sex marriage, gay couples tend to have a lower divorce rate than straight couples.Even in the US, the average same-sex relationship lasts longer than the average mixed-sex relationship.And regarding the military, how difficult is it, do you think, to go through all the emotional devastation of what amounts to a divorce when you can't tell anybody about it lest you get court martialed?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Lizard Breath writes:

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from someone who knows nothing about the Gay lifestyle

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Since you have said this twice...."Lifestyle"? Just what, precisely, is "the gay lifestyle"? You don't really think that gay people are all like the Fab Five or the cast of The L-Word, do you?It's a life, not a lifestyle. A "lifestyle" is how you make time to play tennis, go on amusement park tours, and like Danish Modern. It isn't about falling in love.Tell me, what is the "straight lifestyle" that accompanies the "gay lifestyle" and how do those compare to the "bisexual" and "asexual" lifestyles?

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from the perspective of a Gay.

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"A" gay? Who says this?One thing to help you understand is that gay people are not some mysterious "other" or that gays have a "lifestyle."

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I just don't understand why the Gay community would want to saddle themselves with the same burden instead of just co-habitating and being able to step back and laugh as the straight folk wind up back in court every time they change their formal partner.

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Because when your spouse is sick and is taken to the emergency room, the doctors ask you about treatment because you're next-of-kin. If your spouse dies, nobody thinks to take away your children. You can receive Social Security benefits should your spouse die. If you get married to someone who is not a citizen, you can sponsor your new spouse for citizenship.There are over 1,000 federal rights that come along with marriage. And that doesn't even begin to take into account the state rights that come along with marriage.But in the end, why does it matter why gay people would want to get married? Isn't equal treatment under the law sufficient? And it isn't like straight people are forced to get married. If marriage is such a horrible thing, why do straight people do it? They can shack up and "step back and laugh" as easily as gay people.

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I am at a loss and welcome your own reason why the Gay community might want Gay marriage.

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Perhaps you should look at it from the other direction: Are you at a loss as to why anybody wouldn't want equal treatment under the law?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Lizard Breath writes:

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but are there not legal remedies that can do virtually the same thing

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No. The only thing that confers everything that marriage does is marriage. Yes, there are legal contracts that can be drawn up to approximate marriage, but they will always be incomplete, are much more expensive than the marriage contract, and are often not recognized by the courts, especially when taken across state lines.Certain contracts can only be entered into by a married couple...it's called "joint" for a reason. And there is no way to achieve that status except to get married.

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especially rights to surviorship

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Nope. Not even a will is safe. Write up a legal will that leaves all your property to your same-sex lover of the past 25 years and your family can still contest it claiming that you were "coerced" and courts still to this day invalidate the wills of gay people.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Dan Carroll:

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Whatever happened with that judge, anyway? Last I heard people were going to try and physically block anyone who tried to remove the ten commandments.

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The monument was removed and he was thrown off the bench in a unanimous decision by the Court of the Judiciary.He's now considering running for Governor, if I recall correctly.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Lizard Breath responds to me:

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I don't know what your problem is with me but you are sure digging around dissecting what as I say as if you are trying to hold a trial here.

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No, I am pointing out that you are expressing yourself in such a way that would lead one to conclude that you view the world in a specific way. You claim you are having a hard time understanding why gay people would want to get married.I am simply pointing out that perhaps the reason you are having trouble understanding is because you have an unusual vision of what gay people are like...and that such a vision is borne out through the way you express yourself.

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If you're going to comment on how many times I said "lifestyle", then why don't you comment on how many times I said the word "the"?

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Because "the" as a plain article doesn't carry the same amount of meaning as "lifestyle."You see, a "lifestyle" is something you can change. It is something you adopt. By referring to homosexuality as a "lifestyle," it conveys the idea that gay people could convert to straight people if they simply put their mind to it.

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Where did I ever say that I have the opinion that the Gays are all cut from the fab 5?

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What do you think the word "lifestyle" means? What the guys on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy do is provide a change of lifestyle: They redecorate, alter wardrobe and grooming, provide new culinary experience, and discuss culture (or whatever the hell it is that Jai actually does).And all the guys end up looking somewhat the same: Loose clothing, bed head, nouveau cuisine, pseudo-modern furnishings, and certain CDs in the player.That's a "lifestyle."Now here's the point you missed: I didn't bring up the Fab 5 because I seriously thought you attributed their lifestyle to all gay people. I brought them up because they epitomize a certain type of lifestyle...a lifestyle that the vast majority of gay people don't live out.So these guys are gay. They have a lifestyle. Does that mean it's the "gay lifestyle"?The point was to make you come out and specifically describe what this "lifestyle" is you keep talking about. If it isn't them, what is it?

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And don't tell me that it's not a lifestyle.

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Oh, but I did! It isn't.What is the "gay lifestyle"? How does it differ from the "straight lifestyle" and how are those different from the "bisexual" and "asexual" ones?Be specific.

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The homosexual community uses the term themselves so if you want to correct someone, go explain it to them.

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No, they don't. Not really.Do I need to point out that even mainstream advertisers have figured that out? Do you not remember the Johnny Walker ad which read, "For the last time. It's not a lifestyle, it's a life."That phrase is quite popular among gay rights groups.

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The other thing you comment on is that I am supposedly saying that marriage is such a horrible thing.

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Let's take a look at what you actually said, shall we? Now tell me: What is a "burden" if not a "horrible thing"? You seem to be saying that gay people shouldn't get married so that they don't have to go through the pain of divorce.I don't know about you, but that seems to indicate that you think there are some down sides to marriage. I hardly said nor implied that you think marriage is a ridiculous thing from start to finish.Instead, I pointed out that your harping upon the not-so-nice things about marriage is not a reason to convince gay people not to get married. Straight people know about the risks and still get married. Why on earth wouldn't gay people do the same thing? And with nothing prevent straight people from not getting married, wouldn't the same advice apply to them?

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Again you betray yourself that you've got some personal vendetta against me.

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How could it be personal? I don't even know you?

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So what's your problem dude?

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The problem is that I see a statement that claims to be wanting one thing while betraying that desire in the way it is expressed.This has nothing to do with you. It has to do with what you said. You are not the same thing as what you said.

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I didn't ask whether anyone wanted to be treated less of a human being by the government.

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But you did ask why gay people would want to get married. Wouldn't their reasons be the same as straight people's reasons?If equal rights under the law is a good thing, why wouldn't gay people fight for that, even if they wouldn't want to avail themselves of that right?Most people don't vote in this country. We had to amend the Constitution in order to guarantee the right to vote to women and people who aren't white and those who are 18. And yet, they mostly don't take advantage of it.Does that mean it was inappropriate to have worked to give them that right?

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You are making a big stretch by inferring that by my asking why Gay's want legal marriage that I'm questioning their right as human beings to be treated with dignity.

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You are questioning their motivation for fighting for equality. Why would gays want to get married?How is that not questioning their right to equality?Does it matter why someone is fighting for equality?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Lizard Breath writes:

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I personally don't equate inter-racial marriage with the Gay marriage issue.

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Why not? What is it about the sex of the spouse that makes it something to care about compared to the race of the spouse?

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I don't believe the skin tone tells anything about the make-up of a person.

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And sexual orientation does?What is this "gay lifestyle"? What does being bisexual tell you about the makeup of a person?

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I place some concerns on people of different cultural backgrounds getting married because your cultural roots make up more of who a person is than the amount of melenin in your skin.

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And how does sexual orientation tell you what a person's culture is?What is this "gay lifestyle"? What does being straight tell you about a person's culture?

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I am not a racist and I don't have anything against people of different racial make-ups getting married.

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But you do seem to have a hiccup regarding people of the same sex getting married.If the race of the participants is of no concern when it comes to marriage, how is the sex something to worry about?The arguments as to why marriage cannot be denied on account of race can be mapped perfectly to sex by mere substitution.Hint: Do be aware that the means to an end is just as important as the end, itself. The ends can never justify the means. 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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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

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!

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!

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!

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!

berberry responds to me:

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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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Where do you come by data to support this? I ask because I've not noticed this at all

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Oh, I'm going to have to search for the notes again. The study found, if I recall the numbers correctly, that gay men actually tended to have the longest-lasting relationships, about 8.9 years on average, compared to something in the 7s for lesbians and 6s for straights.This study of only gay couples found that gay men tended to have longer relationships than gay women (6.9 years to 4.9): Partners National Survey of Lesbian & Gay CouplesOverlooked Opinions published in the mid-90s that straight relationships were about 7 years, gay male about 9, and lesbian about 20. And if we look at the divorce rate of heterosexual to homosexual couples in those countries that do allow same-sex marriage, we find that it's less than half.

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Is my experience misleading me?

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According to the studies I've seen, yes.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

holmes responds to me:

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I have directly expressed (though never used to the term) "hub and spoke" arrangements for Polygamous marriage.

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While it is true you never used the term, you never made even indirect reference to the concept. That's why I kept asking you if marriage was transitive.And what you don't seem to understand is that we have to make the determination of whether the contract of marriage is a link between two individuals (either or both of whom might already be married to another person) or whether it is a connection between a person (and all the people he is married to) and all the people to whom he wishes to marry into.The current marriage laws don't specify what it is. They only recognize two people and thus there is no difference between the two arrangements. Your assumption that expansion of marriage to more than two people would be of a hub-and-spoke arrangement is precisely that: An assumption.But even if we assume that marriage is hub-and-spoke, you still haven't dealt with the aspects of the rights and responsibilties of marriage.If a married person dies, his spouse has a right to survivor's benefits. If he is married to more than one person, do each of his spouses have an equal right or does he merely have a single benefit that will be divided amongst his spouses?We have to make a decision about this...one that we have never had to do given the way marriage was like before. There may be a perfectly reasonable answer to the question, but the fact that we have to ask the question in the first place is the point at hand.

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PLEASE STOP RESPONDING TO MY POSTS.

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Oh, please.Grow up. If you don't like my comments, then don't read them. Nobody forces you to do anything you don't want to do. I will respond to whatever post I wish to until such time as the moderators let me know that I have overstepped the bounds.

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If you have something to say regarding something I have said, please make a general reply to topic, and state counterfactuals instead of posing questions to me.

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Fat chance.Get over yourself and answer the question:What, specifically, would be different about the administration of marriage if we changed the words "husband" and "wife" for the word "spouse"?Would same-sex couples get extra votes at elections? Would they have to pay higher property taxes? Would the right to sponsor foreign spouses for citizenship disappear? What about the ability to file taxes jointly? The right to make medical decisions for the other when incapacitated?Be specific. You keep saying that things would change, but you have yet to come up with a single thing. The closest you have done is to say that there would be printing costs reflecting the change in the law as if that actually had something to do with the rights and responsibilities that come along with the contract of marriage.Why is this so hard for you?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

holmes responds to crashfrog:

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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.

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Well, no desire means nothing as accidents can happen. But infertile couples is a good question. If they go in knowing they cannot have kids (not usually the case but very plausible), must they have the blood tests?

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Yes. Because they're not checking for genetic defects but rather for venereal disease and tuberculosis.

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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?

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To the man you have the contract with,

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Why? Why not to all the other wives, too? You're assuming marriage is hub-and-spoke and there is no evidence to suggest that it is.

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and (to head off a possible future question) you'd owe child support for the children you had with the man and not the other women.

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Why? Why not them, too? You're assuming marriage is hub-and-spoke and there is no evidence to suggest that it is. In fact, current attitudes regarding child support indicate that marriage is a maximally interconnected arrangement. To wit, if a married woman has an affair and becomes pregnant, her husband is considered the legal father and is financially responsible for the child should they divorce, even though he is not the biological father.

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The family will always be defined legally the same between two persons as under any other type of marriage... your spouse and your children.

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But if you have more than one spouse, what happens then?

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It just seems more complicated to me... Polygamy is simply one subset of plural marriages. Where's the legal precident for a marriage of three guys and two women?

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Ahhhhhhh... what you are doing is looking into many different permutations of multiple marriages and so making ALL OF THEM more complicated.

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Incorrect. Multiple marriage by definition includes a marriage of three men and two women.Once again, you're assuming that marriage is hub-and-spoke and you have provided no reason to justify that assumption.

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I have already said (in another thread) that if we were to move to group marriages as opposed to simple polygamy,

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Why the assumption that "simple polygamy" means hub-and-spoke rather than maximally interconnected? Why is it the one you chose over the other one? I dare say, just going off of personal experience, I don't know of a single triad where it's hub-and-spoke. Oh, I know they exist. After all, men get busted for bigamy all the time where the wives don't know that they're married to a bigamist. I'm simply pointing out that all of the examples of relationships among more than one person that I know of personally, every single one of them considers themselves a trio.The only reason I can think of to lean toward hub-and-spoke is the assumption that all the people involved are Kinsey 0s and thus would never be involved in having sex with someone of the same sex. But as we have seen regarding the controversy over same-sex marriage, that is an unwarranted assumption.

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So yeah, I agree that group marriage will bring up complications.

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And how is that not "polygamy"? How is that not "multiple marriage"? Why do you simply assume that we're talking about hub-and-spoke arrangements and not maximally interconnected ones?

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But that is separate from simple polygamy,

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Why the assumption that "simple polygamy" is hub-and-spoke?It would seem that your concept of "simple polygamy" would better be termed "strictly heterosexual polygamy."

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which is single contracts between partners who want to be married.

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And when the hub dies, what rights do all the spokes have? The original contract was based on the idea that there was going to be only one claim. Now there is more than one. What do we do?

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Will they be complex to handle if problems occur? Yeah, they'd have more layers, but none requiring change of law.

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So how do we handle something like the right to make medical decisions when the spouse is incapacitated? Suppose one spouse wants to go in one direction while another spouse disagrees? Who is the final authority? Under marriage as we currently understand it, it is simply the "spouse" that has that right. Well, now there are two people who have that title, so which one do we defer to?

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This is the same for marriages between very rich people that have estates they want protected, or with children where some get adopted (from previous marriages) and some don't.

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But you keep avoiding the issues I have raised.Survivor's benefits are the rights of those that lived. They were created with the assumption that there would be only one spouse to make the claim. Now that there is more than one, what do we do? Do they all get the same amount or do we split it among the survivors?

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My problem is with gay marriage activists that are so in tune with their own political needs they deny that others are making the same constitutional claim as they are, simply to avoid getting tied into that other group.

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BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!Oh please. The claim for polygamy is not the same constitutional claim as for same-sex marriage.Again, you have an assignment:Go through the rights and responsibilities that come along with marriage as currently defined. In that list, determine if the effect of those rights and responsibilities would change if we substituted "spouse" for "husband" and "wife."Now, do this again and change it from "husband" and "wife" to "all spouses."And now, consider if you need to add any new legislation to tie up any loose ends that might need to be clarified given the new arrangement.If you find that nothing changes in regard to the first but something does change in regard to the second or if you need to add legislation, then you will find that same-sex marriage doesn't actually change the contract of marriage while polygamy does change it.That doesn't mean there is no constitutional claim for allowing polygamy. It merely means that those claims are not the same as those that are used to justify same-sex marriage.In other words, the constitutional claim for same-sex marriage is that marriage already exists and the rights and responsibilities that are conferred by that contract would not change by the substitution of "spouse" for "husband" and "wife."To justify polygamy, we would have to explain why the current contract of marriage is insufficient since it will have to change due to the differences between a marriage of two and a marriage of three.

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But he turns his whole argument around when it comes to whether polygamists are due their rights under the same constitutional claims as gays.

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But that's the point. If the claims are not the same, then they don't equate. Same-sex marriage requires no change in the contract of marriage. Polygamy does. The argument for same-sex marriage is that the contract exists and must be applied equally to all applicants. It does not seek to change the contract. Polygamy, on the other hand, states that the contract is insufficient and needs to be changed.

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He actually said at least polygamists get to marry, so they are not being deprived of their right to marry.

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Precisely...assuming that it's a heterosexual marriage, of course.A person who wants to marry someone of the same sex, given the current marriage laws, cannot get married at all. But a person who wants to married more than one person (assuming heterosexuality), can still get married. He can't marry everyone he wants, but there is still the availability of the marriage contract as it currently exists.There is a contract of marriage which has certain obligations that need to be met and confers certain rights and responsibilities. The argument for same-sex marriage recognizes that changing the obligation set to be "two persons" rather than "one man and one woman" does not change anything about the rights and responsibilities.

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missing the whole point of what POLYGAMY means...

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Indeed. You have missed the whole point of what polygamy means. You seem to think that it only means something out of the Bible. Reality shows that it includes all methods of combining more than two people.

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and the rights that would give their relationship.

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And indeed, you have missed what those right would be. I've asked you to spell them out and you have yet to come up with a single one.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!