Let’s analyze that thought. Which legal matters do you mean?
Power of attorney? You don’t need marriage for that. You could legally grant anyone close to you that privilege.
Inheritance after death? Technically, marriage isn’t needed for this one, either. Look at Raymond Burr. After his death in 1993, his homosexual “partner” inherited the wine orchard and other properties. They didn’t need marriage for that. As you know, any person could be named in a will.
Medical decision-making? That’s what health-care proxies have been established for. Non-married persons can name a health-care proxy to make healthcare decisions in case of emergency. Again, marriage isn’t needed here.
Co-ownership of property? This can be easily drawn up in a contractual agreement, without marriage.
Social Security and welfare benefits? This might be one minor case in which marriage has a benefit denied to unmarried partners. However, if this is the purpose for marriage, can you imagine the romantic wedding proposal, “Marry me, and we’ll share our Social Security checks”? “Marry me, and I’ll put you on the government dole”? The persons involved might as well stay single, and collect their government checks independently.
It makes no sense to say marriage is instituted by society solely for financial reasons, when a romantic couple is better off financially without getting married. There are great benefits to being unmarried. Unmarried couples pay less in federal taxes, are not automatically responsible for one another’s debts or medical bills, and share a lower Social Security burden. In addition, concerns about shared income are resolved by legal contracts.
In the long run, unmarried partnerships are legally less messy than marriage, given the lack of responsibility involved. Once you split, you take what’s yours, along with your share of co-owned property--just as in any business relationship. Unmarried couples are more likely to enter into legal agreements concerning property, medical wishes, and legal authority. These benefits have contributed to the rise of unmarried cohabitation.
With all these benefits to being unmarried, who needs marriage, after all? What is the purpose of governmental involvement in marriage?
Government should be involved in marriage; especially to prevent child marriages, and polygamy, which I assume exists for legal simplification (or logistics) of divorce, dispute settling, and filing joint taxes.
Polygamy, along with child marriages and incestuous marriages, were outlawed before the “filing of taxes” existed. Prior to the 20th century, paying taxes was a simple affair with no correlation to marriage. Simplicity in filing taxes was, it’s safe to say, far from the minds of Congress when, in 1862, it outlawed polygamy in Utah. Divorce was also very rare at the time, and was not a factor in the debates against polygamy. The settling of disputes was also a non-factor in outlawing alternative marriages. Simplifying disputes hardly seems a justifiable basis for making laws that discriminate against whole groups of citizens. Discriminatory laws must have a basis greater than convenience.
That aside, let’s assume you are correct. Let’s assume that the only reason to outlaw polygamy is because it complicates legal disputes, divorce, and taxes.
If this is true, we are saying the most complicated kinds of marriages should be outlawed. Guess what? That doesn’t bode well for same-sex marriages. Marrying persons together of the same sex tops the list of complications. At least in polygamy, matters of child custody could be settled as in traditional, two-parent marriage. The dispute in polygamist divorce would center on the birth parents--a relatively simple matter for the court to decide. As we have seen in gay relationships, however, child custody battles can be extremely complicated. In a lesbian relationship, there’s not just the two women fighting over custody, there’s also the father. Do the father’s rights take precedence over his ex-wife’s gay ex-partner’s rights? (Can you even follow that statement?) What if that father has been absent in his child’s life? What if the biological mother was the bread-winner, while her gay ex-partner stayed home and raised the kids? Does the gay ex-partner have any claim to the children she has been raising, even though they technically do not belong to her?
Same-sex marriage is inherently messy legally--the most messy legally, in fact, of all potential unions.
Obviously, you can no longer believe your own proposition that the legality of alternative marriages depends upon the complications they present. You’ll have to drop that premise.
Can you think of any other legal basis for discriminating against those wanting polygamy, underage marriage, and incestuous marriage?
So I believe that the real purpose of marriage, historically, is to sanction sex by society -- not to promote children -- that side effect is an implied probability.
Implied only in the man/woman relationship, you forgot to say.
Our conservative Catholic history originally defined marriage as "the only legal permission for having sex."
As does the Word of God in scripture.
But that’s beside the point. Here you’re bringing religion into the argument, as though there was no inherent state interest in the union. Do you see a state interest, a societal purpose, for government to sanction marriage? If marriage is just about romance, and if financial issues can be resolved by legal contracts, government should get out of the way, as it does in all our other friendships and associations. Wouldn’t you agree?
Today, modern countries have separated the laws for legal sex from the laws for legal marriage. I have yet to find a country in which the legal age for marriage does not match the legal age for sex. In the USA, its 18.
You’re uninformed on this point. Several states allow marriage for 16- 17-year-olds, without changing laws against statutory rape. A number of states allow marriage at age 15, under court sanction. Missouri implies marriageable age can be even lower, with court sanction. South Carolina allows marriage for girls as young as 14, and New Hampshire at age 13. Texas allows it for age 14-17 under fairly lenient conditions, with no court sanction required.
http://usmarriagelaws.com/search/united_states/teen_marriage_laws/index.shtml
I don't believe that it is right for the government today to discriminate against one's sexual preference in defining today's usage (not ancient definitions) of marriage
Here, again, you will need to modify your premise. You have already amply established that, contrary to this statement, you do, indeed, believe that government can “discriminate against one’s sexual preference.” You give preferential treatment to same-sex unions, yet oppose plural unions, underage unions, and incestuous unions, even when you declare some of these unions do no harm. You oppose these marriages, all the while stating, “Personally, no one else's marriage threatens my marriage.”
I would like a non-contradictory, judicious argument from you explaining why gay unions can be supported, while other “sexual preferences” remain opposed by law.
I drive this point home by pointing out that today gays legally can * adopt children * get Power of Attorney * have sex with each other * kiss in public * hold hands in public * have television shows dedicated to their gayness * publicly announce that they are gay * sue companies and the military for discriminating against them, etc.
The point you make undoes your point. It shows that society has no need to offer homosexuals marriage. They already enjoy more rights than polygamists, who live in seclusion, and who have been subject to laws barring them from the right to vote and to run for office, and even from being aided indirectly by others.
Either we offer marriage to all who want it, or we have restrictions. If we have restrictions, there must be a ethically sound, justifiable basis for such discrimination. What is it?
Congratulations for your considered, rational, cool headed responses. I gave up on this discussion some time ago. Too hot headed to deal with delusional people who refuse to see truth. I hope the person you responded to reads them and pays attention while doing so.
Your responses are superb and deserve to have a:
BTTT!
I guess I'm not following your argument how polygamy marriages would some how be easier for the government to handle than a 2-party gay marriage. It seems that all your arguments against gay marriages equally apply to second straight marriages; i.e. where two divorced straight couples remarry bringing along children. I'd need a specific example. Here's one. A man adopts a child from Romania -- all legal. Later, the man turns out to be gay and has a gay partner. I'm not sure where the original biological parents get involved. Here's a second scenario. A man and a woman have children. One of the parents die. The second parent later takes up a gay partner. Regardless of whether you believe that this is contradictory to "your" beliefs, how is this scenario different (or more messy) than had the surviving parent remarried straightly?
When referring to polygamy, I was merely stating that the legacy government revenue computer systems only have one field for "spouse's SSN" and would cost billions to overhaul for polygamy rules.
As we have seen in gay relationships, however, child custody battles can be extremely complicated. In a lesbian relationship, there’s not just the two women fighting over custody, there’s also the father. Do the father’s rights take precedence over his ex-wife’s gay ex-partner’s rights? (Can you even follow that statement?) What if that father has been absent in his child’s life? What if the biological mother was the bread-winner, while her gay ex-partner stayed home and raised the kids? Does the gay ex-partner have any claim to the children she has been raising, even though they technically do not belong to her?
But the condition for "messiness" existed a priori regardless of whether marriage was involved or not. For example, let me rewrite your entire argument changing the gayness to straightness:
As we have seen in
gaystraight relationships, however, child custody battles can be extremely complicated. In alesbianstraight relationship, there’s not justthe two womena man and a woman fighting over custody, there’s also the father. Do the father's rights take precedence over his ex-wife'sex-partner’sboyfriend's rights? (Can you even follow that statement?) What if that father has been absent in his child’s life? What if the biological mother was the bread-winner, while hergay ex-partnerex boyfriend stayed home and raised the kids? Does thethe gay ex-partnerex-boyfriend have any claim to the children she has been raising, even though they technically do not belong toherhim?
Isn't that just as messy? If you meant that the gay partners were married, then just assume that the boyfriend/girlfriend were married as well. It doesn't make it any less complicated. Some parties are legal guardians and some are not. Their marital status is irrelevant.
I come from the school of thought that the only purpose for government is to create and enforce laws whose intended benefit to society require complete cooperation. Of all the benefits that citizens bring to our great country, only a small amount of these benefits require everyone to participate. So I'm one of those small government advocates. For example, if I mow my lawn, it makes my house look good, my neighborhood look good, and hence improves our entire society, but only by the amount that I contributed. If I choose not to mow my lawn, this does not prevent you from marginally improving society by mowing your lawn. Therefore, mowing lawns is beneficial to society but does not require uniform cooperation. So federal government should stay laissez faire. If it weren't for this type of definition of government utility, we'd become slaves to some small oligarchy's rule of what they thought was beneficial, just as the USSR fell trap to that. However, some local home associations think otherwise and consequently make local rules about home ownership, which members can optionally choose to become members, and later choose to leave. But our debate is about federal law. In contrast, society believes (and proves) that counterfeiting US dollars is something that everyone must uniformly agree not to do. One person violating this law does far more damage to the system than just their part. So federal government gets involved with strict penalties.
To continue, let's assume that marriage is beneficial to society, fine. If I choose to get married, and you choose to stay single, any benefit my marriage is to society is beneficial only by the amount that it contributes. If you choose to stay single, society is only less served by the marginal benefit your marriage does not bring to society. Otherwise, the federal government would mandate that everyone over a certain age must get married. But this isn't the case. So government should stay out of it. And that really is the case. Your marriage (or singleness) does not affect my marriage anymore than the gay couples gayness down the road affects it. And with all the ways modern straight couples have bastardized marriage today, the only purpose I see in government getting involved with marriage is sort of a convenient catch-all wrapper legal implication that settles disputes when tragic things happen.
You’re uninformed on this point. Several states allow marriage for 16- 17-year-olds, without changing laws against statutory rape. A number of states allow marriage at age 15, under court sanction. Missouri implies marriageable age can be even lower, with court sanction. South Carolina allows marriage for girls as young as 14, and New Hampshire at age 13. Texas allows it for age 14-17 under fairly lenient conditions, with no court sanction required.
I stand corrected. Thanks for the fact. So why does the government require that the PARENTS give consent for these types of marriages? Why not ask for my opinion? Why not just make a federal law that prohibits it? Because the parents are legally responsible for what these kids do. In this case, I can see that some parents want to be young grandparents. But hey, there's tons of 14 year unwed mothers. I think I'm getting out of my league here. In any case, I think your facts best supports my original claim, that the feds should just stay out of it all and leave it up to local groups, states, and churches.
Maybe that's one thing we're missing today - hard statistical facts that compare how married straight couples somehow make society better, regardless of whether they have children or not, and how this compares to single parents with kids, gay parents with kids, gay couples without kids, etc.
I would like a non-contradictory, judicious argument from you explaining why gay unions can be supported, while other “sexual preferences” remain opposed by law.
I don't know if I can give you one. But I bet I win the argument in the long run when gay people start getting legally married in one state after another as time passes, because you cannot give a good reason why they should not. We have scientific studies that having sex at too young an age can be harmful throughout all of history. We know that incest is "bad" for DNA and evolution. Not surprisingly, we find these two taboos in every country. Violations of these taboos can cost us lots of tax money trying to correct it later. I cannot see the problem with polygamy so long as all partners involved consent. Not question, we find many country do support polygamy. We are starting to see countries supporting gay marriages. This observation alone supports my claim that gay sex is not equal to or worse than incest.
My claims are this:
The point you make undoes your point. It shows that society has no need to offer homosexuals marriage. They already enjoy more rights than polygamists, who live in seclusion, and who have been subject to laws barring them from the right to vote and to run for office, and even from being aided indirectly by others.
Nope. I believe in "negative" constitutional powers, as opposed to the "positive" constitution of the ex-soviet union. The constitution exists to limit government -- not citizens. Laws do that, and most laws should be state-created.
Also, polygamists are not illegal in America. The laws prevent them from obtaining legal marriage recognition in the eyes of the state. Since they do not have the paperwork, they are not married by state definition. This does not mean that a man cannot live 25 women that he claims to be his wives, nor does it mean that he will be arrested for doing so. The state just doesn't recognize the marriage in a civil dispute. Polygamists do not live illegal lives in seclusion. Any polygamy arrests usually have minors involved.