wtfunny wrote:
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Do you have any idea how many legal ramifications removing the term 'marriage' from all state law and regulation has?
So? The fact that there are laws on the books related to marriage does not make the state recognition of and regulation of such an institution desirable. It just means it has been this way for some time. Nothing more. Nothing less.
It means if you recommend undoing that, you'd want to have a darn good reason. Denying 'the gay's what everyone else has had for centuries isn't one.
wtfunny wrote:
It means if you recommend undoing that, you'd want to have a darn good reason. Denying 'the gay's what everyone else has had for centuries isn't one.
[sarcasm]Centuries? Don't you mean millenia? Clearly gays are due REPARATIONS for millenia of discrimination in every society in every age until just about now. Even the ancient Greeks denied marriage to gays.
Just about all human beings who ever lived were gay haters, until now.[/sarcasm]
Well, no, not entirely. Many cultures don't 'hate' gay people. Some even recognized marriages between gay folks.
"Reparations" might not be necessary - just the same respect and human dignity we accord the rest of society would be a good start, no?
Marriage is an arrangement that evolved for its biological advantages. Until people start shitting babies, it is what it is, no matter what the law says.
The law should reflect that biological reality. Trying to write some alternative fantasy into law is as stupid and futile as "transgender" surgery.
Beating up the straw man of religion is a meaningless diversion. Of course religion is full of shit. But biology is real. You can get your balls cut off and eat hormones to grow tits, but your y-chromosomes are still around, and other men will instinctively not consider you a woman. You'll just be a mutilated dude living out an unfortunate delusion. Gay marriage is no more real than that, and can use its legal status to drag others into the delusion as well.
So, Bad W, you oppose the delusion that post menopausal woman should be allowed to marry? Or sterile couples? Or people who simply intend to not have children?
Hopefully, our laws aren't based merely on 'biological advantages'; law of the jungle was led behind, ironically, when we left the jungle.
wtfunny wrote:
It means if you recommend undoing that, you'd want to have a darn good reason. Denying 'the gay's what everyone else has had for centuries isn't one.
Not really.
OK, so the denying gays thing is silly, I'll grant you that.
But the notion that 'you better have a darn good reason'... is silly. Laws and standards change all the time. There is nothing oh-so-special about marriage and the state's role in this institution that makes it semi-sacred and essentially untouchable.
Marriage is not even mentioned in the US Constitution. It is, by any rational account, simply not the state's business to be governing private relationships between consenting adults.
So Man wrote:
wtfunny wrote:It means if you recommend undoing that, you'd want to have a darn good reason. Denying 'the gay's what everyone else has had for centuries isn't one.
Not really.
OK, so the denying gays thing is silly, I'll grant you that.
But the notion that 'you better have a darn good reason'... is silly. Laws and standards change all the time. There is nothing oh-so-special about marriage and the state's role in this institution that makes it semi-sacred and essentially untouchable.
Marriage is not even mentioned in the US Constitution. It is, by any rational account, simply not the state's business to be governing private relationships between consenting adults.
Murder isn't mentioned in the US Constitution either.
I agree that marriage is neither sacred or untouchable. But for an institution to be so deeply embedded into our entire legal framework, to completely remove that would seem, to me, to warrant solid, substantiative reasoning. And there is none.
The state doesn't "govern" these relationships. Ironically, historically they (and/or the church, ie, the state of the day) did exactly that.
But marriage is about community recognition. And in a culture where the gov is "of the people, by the people and for the people", that means the gov recognizes marriage. And rightly so.
Wtfunny wrote:
I agree that marriage is neither sacred or untouchable. But for an institution to be so deeply embedded into our entire legal framework, to completely remove that would seem, to me, to warrant solid, substantiative reasoning. And there is none.
Of course there is solid, substantial reasoning. There is no reason the government should be involved in regulating private relationships between consenting adults. It enmeshes the state with a huge number of personal decisions which the state has no logical, rational reason to be involved with. You just dismiss this because you don't agree with it.
The laws governing marriage are woefully out of step with social reality at the current time.
I will grant that because government has been regulating marriage for a long time and in hugely intrusive ways, it would take some time and difficulty to remove all that meddling.