Ayyup, there's a typo in there, but I get what you are talking about.
So.......Zix, with all due respect,
What you are saying is, regardless of the fact that homosexuals are homosapiens, they do not deserve the same human rights as other human beings?
They don't deserve the right to have the same legal contract you do that allows you the right to determine care for your spouse in the event of a catastrophic illness?
Straight couples have the right to enter into a contract that avoids the problem. Gay couples are denied that right.
And as I said before, this is not the only scenario.
It is an issue of human rights and especially the dignity that each human being should be afforded.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
Straight couples who are unmarried are not forced to take advantage of a marriage contract. But they have the option. It is an option they have, as human beings. It is an option, a right.
Gays do not have that option, that right.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
When it comes to issues of the church and homosexuality, as another poster previously mentioned, that is where the line is drawn between the church and the state. I believe the government has no right to interfere with the church. Unless it breaks the law.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
Having at one time fully embraced TWI's doctrine of hate, I have gone through extensive examinations of my views on this area. Over the past several years, I have mentioned what I call "hard hat areas" of construction/reconstruction that I have in my life due to the careful and time-consuming reevaluation of everything I had formerly blindly accepted from the mouth of herr Wierwille and his bitch Martindale.
This is one of them. I am officially taking down the yellow tape and removing the orange barrels.
We need to carefully learn the lessons of history in order to not repeat them.
For several hundred years, Africans were viewed as sub-human and savage, undeserving of the same rights as "civilized" human beings.
Unfortunately, we still have problems today because even in a country that supposedly embraced principles of Enlightenment, there are still people in American society that still believe African-Americans are savage, subhuman, and incapable of civilized behavior.
We call these people ignorant and prejudiced.
In the previous century, horrendous crimes were carried out against another race that was also viewed as sub-human. Another entire government decided that not only were these people undeserving of the same rights and privileges as their own citizens, but these people were undeserving of life itself. Unfortunately, there are still organizations that exist for the sole purpose of bringing back that defeated regime in order to fulfill its original purpose of Jewish genocide.
We call those people Nazis.
Loy Craig Martindale declared regarding homosexuals, that "...some of us would gladly execute you!"
What is it we call those who embrace that view?
How many here feel these people have no right to life itself? Or to even conduct their lives in peace and privacy?
Come, show yourselves for what you are. Name yourself. Now.
If we fail to learn the lessons of history, we are in danger of repeating the worst humanity can commit against itself-- and we will deserve what we get.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally burn you."
Hans Scholl
[This message was edited by Catcup on March 09, 2004 at 17:45.]
What will be the next oppressed minority to seek its rights?
Pedophiles (both hetero- and homosexually based) are working the world of academia just like the left and the gays have done.
First its talk, then papers, then protests, then groups, then sympathethic collegees, then judges and then the masses are convinced this too is a legitimate lifestyle.
___________________________________________
Now hear this.
ARE YOU LISTENING?
Don't you ever, EVER attempt to equate education or academics with PEDOPHILIA.
What are you saying? Is education SO DANGEROUS that it will ultimately lead to the acceptance of PEDOPHILIA?
How utterly (fill in this blank with any curse word you like).
And yes, I AM YELLING.
And yes, I DID TAKE TIME TO COOL OFF BEFORE WRITING THIS.
Get a grip on the hatred, Def. I'm from Texas for 5 generations; I was brought up just as conservative as you were.
I am the NRA.
I had to put ducttape on my cowboy boots at age 16, because I had worn them out.
Like Catcup, I had some LEARNING to do, about COMPASSION.
Learning, I once heard, is an exciting adventure.
DON'T you try to lump me (or any other ACADEMIC) with pedophiles.
COLLEGE = GOOD.
Do you have ANY IDEA how many God-fearing, hard-working, pillar-of-the-community, medicine-discovering, WONDERFUL PEOPLE you just equated with PERVERSION?
I don't want to go to church with you.
(This message was edited to MAKE IT NICER.)
(BUT NOT BY MUCH.)
"Live just, and fear not."
[This message was edited by notinKansasanymore on March 09, 2004 at 22:08.]
[This message was edited by notinKansasanymore on March 09, 2004 at 22:18.]
Let's say two lesbians have been a couple for many years, and they are raising two adopted children together. One is a stay-home Mom, and she is the "legal" adoptive mother of the children; her partner is a working Mom, and supports the whole family financially. Both would like the "working" Mom to also be a legal adoptive parent of the children, but they aren't allowed to be married, so they aren't legally able to both be adoptive parents to the same children.
Let's say that the working Mom dies in a car accident.
Even though she has been paying into social security for many years, the minor children (for whom she is just as much "Mother" as is her partner) will get no social security benefit for their upbringing.
If a heterosexual couple lost the breadwinner in the same accident, those same adopted children would have social security benefits.
The surviving heterosexual partner would be eligible for "survivor's benefits." The surviving homosexual partner may not even be notified by the police that there has been an accident. She may read about it in the newspaper.
Well, I suppose that's two or three of the many benefits, rather than one.
What you are saying is, regardless of the fact that homosexuals are homosapiens, they do not deserve the same human rights as other human beings?
No, I'm not saying that at all. All I was saying was that your example was not exclusively a gay-specific problem. Suppose a longtime couple had lived together for years without being married. Before they do, one person is, say, in a car accident, and left in a persistent vegetative state. The other knows the victim would not want to be kept alive by machines. Unfortunately, the other is out of luck, under current law. It doesn't matter if the two are different genders or the same. If it's a straight couple, the accident victim is not mentally competent to assent to a marriage in the hospital, so they are no better off in the state's eyes for being straight than gay, in this scenario. No discrimination--ALL nonmarried people are equally screwed.
It's only in that light that it isn't a singularly gay issue. It's a problem that needs to be corrected for ALL. That's what I was trying to demonstrate.
They don't deserve the right to have the same legal contract you do that allows you the right to determine care for your spouse in the event of a catastrophic illness?
Straight couples have the right to enter into a contract that avoids the problem. Gay couples are denied that right.
Which is why I don't mind a state-sanctioned civil union to address such an inequity. Ok?
The issue regarding the scenario I proposed is this:
The gay couple does not have the same OPTION as the straight couple. That is an inequity.
Zix, my friend, we are on the same page on the civil union.
But where the church is concerned, the government has no right to tell a church who they decide and decide not to accept into their organizations, or what to believe.
And as human beings, living in the wonderful country that we do, we can investigate the beliefs of relgious organizations and choose the one that we feel lines up with our beliefs.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
That's why tyrants throughout history burned books and went into universities and killed the professors when they wanted total control.
My good friend, the late professor Dr. Arthur Voobus escaped being assassinated because the Lutheran Church spirited him out of Estonia before he was murdered. Many other professors lost their lives at the University the day he left.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
Yes Catcup there is that wonderful choice regarding religion, there is over here also.
When it comes to citizenship matters it is a different ballgame. Not many are in a position to pick and choose which country they can investigate as being most condusive for them and move there. The secular setup has to consider the legitimate needs and desires of all its citizens, including minorities.
The issue regarding the scenario I proposed is this:
The gay couple does not have the same OPTION as the straight couple. That is an inequity.
Depends on how fine you want to split the legal hairs. Gay men still have the same legal option to get married as straight men do--to a woman. That may not be their preference, but it is still their right. "Ah, but they'll never exercise it, so it's an inequity!" Again, not precisely. The state has always reserved the right to prescribe boundaries on liberties. You can own a pistol, but not a machine gun. You can marry, but you can't marry your sibling, or a minor, or more than one person. Legally, as long as everyone can theoretically exercise the right, there is no inequity. It's not just gays who lose out on the marriage benefit. Catholic priests and nuns have a strong religious belief that they may not marry. There's no LEGAL reason why they can't, but again, it's their religious preference alone that keeps them from exercising the same societal right to marriage. It doesn't matter if they were "born that way" or not, the state can force neither a priest nor a gay man to marry a woman against their will. That should be obvious, right? Okay, so if you have the right to receive a benefit as legislated by the state, but you make a choice not to exercise it--for whatever reason--then you aren't being persecuted, and you aren't being deprived.
Broaden the scope a bit. How is the state restricting gay marriage any different from restricting consensual incest or polygamy? (We'll leave pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia on the side for the moment since they all involve non-consent of one party.)
Zix, my friend, we are on the same page on the civil union.
Cool.
But where the church is concerned, the government has no right to tell a church who they decide and decide not to accept into their organizations, or what to believe.
Absolutely. If the Presbyterians want to perform gay marriages, but the Catholics don't, each should have that right.
And as human beings, living in the wonderful country that we do, we can investigate the beliefs of relgious organizations and choose the one that we feel lines up with our beliefs.
Again, absolutely. The day the state starts endorsing one religion (including atheism) above another is the day we move towards our own Taliban.
Thank you for leaving non-consensual sex out of the discussion. By its very definition it is rape, which is always wrong.
Polygamy as was/is practiced by some in our country has been oppressive to women. By and large the society in the United States recognizes such polygamy as oppressive to women and therefore illegal.
There are other societies where polygyny is practiced as a matter of course and is accepted widely. However, they tend to be in countries in which women are also subjected to genital mutilation and other oppressive practices.
There are genetic problems with consensual incestual relationships. Whether one uses contraceptives or not is a non-issue. All forms of contraception have been known to fail except for abstinence. For that reason alone, if you accept the responsibility of having sex, you accept the responsibility of having children born from the union. And if the children born from that union have an enormous risk of being born with monstrous and possibly unsurvivable genetic anomalies, it is unfair to the child.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
The marriage option issue is a big splitting of legal hairs. You don't think its discrimination because all may marry as long as it's a person of the opposite sex.
You have a problem in that there is discrimination against those who wish to marry a person of the same sex. There are various reasons why people don't avail themselves of the available option. You cite Catholic priests and nuns, but it is their religion, not the state that prevents them from marrying.
The state comes up with various allowances and prohibitions, some based upon religious sensibilities and some not. One can always find "if you allow this then why not this" arguments. But the state allows nobody to marry their sibling nor recognises polygamous marriages. Yet the state will only take action on polygamy where more than one civilly recognised mariage at one time has been contracted. The polygamists of Utah who have been religiously but not civilly married are not proceeded against unless there is another legal reason involved - such as bride being under age for sex etc.
In the case of incest or legal polygamy the discrimination is equal. It is not equal where a couple who are not related or under age may marry when they are of opposite sex and another couple who are not related or under age may not because they are of the same sex.
Nor would such an allowance require that two people who are of the same sex be gay, any heterosexual who wished to enter into such a marriage would be just as entitled to marry a member of the same sex as gay people are entitled to marry a person of the opposite sex. There is no compunction for them to do so. Priests and nuns would still be as disallowed by their religion as they are now.
Now for the $64,000 question: If the state did NOT regulate polygamy and incest, how would society as a whole suffer?
The answer is closely tied to the BENEFIT to the society of caring for children, and indrectly, women as the sole source of them.
1) Incestuous relationships have a much higher risk of gross genetic abnormalities in the children. Society usually has to pick up the burden of the severe health needs of such children, which means everyone has to pay for it. Since it's preventable with a zero-cost law, the state is justified in prohibiting it.
2) Polygamous relationships go the opposite way, usually relegating women to little more than baby factories--but not always. It's conceivable that one open-minded man and several well-educated women could enter into such a relationship freely, without the standard male dominance factor. How, then, could that be bad, if all parties fully consented as communal equals?
Simple. Due to the way the tax laws are set up, the number of tax deductions claimed goes up as number of wives increase, but the costs of maintaining the household don't increase as fast. In plain terms, polygamists don't pay their fair share of taxes. Which, again, means everyone else has to pay for it. And that's just the ideal case.
In real polygamous cases, the women are encouraged (or forced) to have as many children as possible. Just like in overcrowded classrooms, children who don't receive adequate amounts of parental attention are at a distinct disadvantage, emotionally, socially, and even physically. With only one father, and only so many hours in a day, the children don't have much of a chance for a normal, healthy development. Which, again, is to society's detriment--the optimum for any society is to give its children every possible advantage so as to keep the society strong as time passes.
Which brings us back to homosexual marriages. Civil union should be enacted to address the inheritance and power of attorney inequities for all single individuals regardless of sexual preference. But, since the ONLY reason the state should subsidize marriage in any way is to foster the care of children, any relationship where it is obvious that there is no chance of children is not in the interest of the state. The state (ideally) should never give public money away unless it gets something in return that benefits everybody.
Current laws already allow for adoptive and/or single parents to gain the marriage subsidy (the tax break) without regard to sexual orientation. The children are covered.
As for heterosexual marriages that are childless, that stems from the state respecting the privacy of the individuals. There is no fertility test administered for a marriage license--that would be unnecessarily intrusive. The state gives heterosexual couples the benefit of the doubt, with the subsidy paid to childless couples offsetting the invasion of privacy required to enforce a stricter standard. But when it's blatantly obvious that two people of the same sex cannot produce children without some third party being involved, extending the marriage subsidy to civil union is throwing money away in broad daylight. In short, "I want my money" is not sufficient cause for the state to pay you.
"Nor would such an allowance require that two people who are of the same sex be gay, any heterosexual who wished to enter into such a marriage would be just as entitled to marry a member of the same sex as gay people are entitled to marry a person of the opposite sex."
Among the Yoruba, Asante, Zulu, Xhosa, and Masai peoples of African culture, there was such an arrangement. Woman to woman marriage, although prrobably not a modal pattern, took place in these male-dominated societies.
Because this arrangement was socio-economic in nature, woman to woman marriage did not imply a sexual relationship.
This relationship was a means to obtain greater authority as an individual, and as a form of economic investment.
If a woman acquired profits from her own efforts in agriculture, artisanship & trade, or inheritance, she would lose these to her husband if she married a man. If she married a woman, she would invest them as bridewealth, therefore keeping her own money. There were also other advantages, such as control of a production unit or an heir to political office.
Had nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with keeping and protecting what she had earned herself, and elevating social status.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
Hans Scholl
[This message was edited by Catcup on March 10, 2004 at 13:16.]
[This message was edited by Catcup on March 10, 2004 at 13:26.]
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Zixar
Trefor: I can state categorically that it is entirely false. (Read what you wrote again...
:D--> )
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Catcup
Ayyup, there's a typo in there, but I get what you are talking about.
So.......Zix, with all due respect,
What you are saying is, regardless of the fact that homosexuals are homosapiens, they do not deserve the same human rights as other human beings?
They don't deserve the right to have the same legal contract you do that allows you the right to determine care for your spouse in the event of a catastrophic illness?
Straight couples have the right to enter into a contract that avoids the problem. Gay couples are denied that right.
And as I said before, this is not the only scenario.
It is an issue of human rights and especially the dignity that each human being should be afforded.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
Hans Scholl
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Catcup
BTW
Straight couples who are unmarried are not forced to take advantage of a marriage contract. But they have the option. It is an option they have, as human beings. It is an option, a right.
Gays do not have that option, that right.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
Hans Scholl
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Catcup
When it comes to issues of the church and homosexuality, as another poster previously mentioned, that is where the line is drawn between the church and the state. I believe the government has no right to interfere with the church. Unless it breaks the law.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
Hans Scholl
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Trefor Heywood
oops! Thanks Zix for pointing out my typo!
This has now been corrected. You can now disagree with it properly!
:D-->
Trefor Heywood
"Cymru Am Byth!"
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Catcup
Having at one time fully embraced TWI's doctrine of hate, I have gone through extensive examinations of my views on this area. Over the past several years, I have mentioned what I call "hard hat areas" of construction/reconstruction that I have in my life due to the careful and time-consuming reevaluation of everything I had formerly blindly accepted from the mouth of herr Wierwille and his bitch Martindale.
This is one of them. I am officially taking down the yellow tape and removing the orange barrels.
We need to carefully learn the lessons of history in order to not repeat them.
For several hundred years, Africans were viewed as sub-human and savage, undeserving of the same rights as "civilized" human beings.
Unfortunately, we still have problems today because even in a country that supposedly embraced principles of Enlightenment, there are still people in American society that still believe African-Americans are savage, subhuman, and incapable of civilized behavior.
We call these people ignorant and prejudiced.
In the previous century, horrendous crimes were carried out against another race that was also viewed as sub-human. Another entire government decided that not only were these people undeserving of the same rights and privileges as their own citizens, but these people were undeserving of life itself. Unfortunately, there are still organizations that exist for the sole purpose of bringing back that defeated regime in order to fulfill its original purpose of Jewish genocide.
We call those people Nazis.
Loy Craig Martindale declared regarding homosexuals, that "...some of us would gladly execute you!"
What is it we call those who embrace that view?
How many here feel these people have no right to life itself? Or to even conduct their lives in peace and privacy?
Come, show yourselves for what you are. Name yourself. Now.
If we fail to learn the lessons of history, we are in danger of repeating the worst humanity can commit against itself-- and we will deserve what we get.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally burn you."
Hans Scholl
[This message was edited by Catcup on March 09, 2004 at 17:45.]
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Trefor Heywood
Oops! Got the number wrong it's over 1,000 though!
http://www.hrc.org/PrinterTemplate.cfm?Sec...tentDisplay.cfm
Wonder where one can get a full list of them though...!
Trefor Heywood
"Cymru Am Byth!"
[This message was edited by Trefor Heywood on March 09, 2004 at 18:24.]
[This message was edited by Trefor Heywood on March 10, 2004 at 6:29.]
[This message was edited by Trefor Heywood on March 10, 2004 at 6:31.]
[This message was edited by Trefor Heywood on March 10, 2004 at 6:32.]
[This message was edited by Trefor Heywood on March 10, 2004 at 6:35.]
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Trefor Heywood
Ok I give up! How do you make the above URL work properly?
Trefor Heywood
"Cymru Am Byth!"
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GarthP2000
Trefor,
Here is the proper syntax:
{URL}http://www.hrc.org/PrinterTemplate.cfm?Section=Marriage3&CONTENTID=16388&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm{/URL} (replace the { } characters with the [ ] characters)
which produces this:
http://www.hrc.org/PrinterTemplate.cfm?Sec...tentDisplay.cfm
Hope this helps.
:)-->
My own secret sign-off ====v,
Rational logic cannot have blind faith as one of its foundations.
Prophet Emeritus of THE,
and Wandering CyberUU Hippie,
Garth P.
www.gapstudioweb.com
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notinKansasanymore
Def59 said:
______________________________________
What will be the next oppressed minority to seek its rights?
Pedophiles (both hetero- and homosexually based) are working the world of academia just like the left and the gays have done.
First its talk, then papers, then protests, then groups, then sympathethic collegees, then judges and then the masses are convinced this too is a legitimate lifestyle.
___________________________________________
Now hear this.
ARE YOU LISTENING?
Don't you ever, EVER attempt to equate education or academics with PEDOPHILIA.
What are you saying? Is education SO DANGEROUS that it will ultimately lead to the acceptance of PEDOPHILIA?
How utterly (fill in this blank with any curse word you like).
And yes, I AM YELLING.
And yes, I DID TAKE TIME TO COOL OFF BEFORE WRITING THIS.
Get a grip on the hatred, Def. I'm from Texas for 5 generations; I was brought up just as conservative as you were.
I am the NRA.
I had to put ducttape on my cowboy boots at age 16, because I had worn them out.
Like Catcup, I had some LEARNING to do, about COMPASSION.
Learning, I once heard, is an exciting adventure.
DON'T you try to lump me (or any other ACADEMIC) with pedophiles.
COLLEGE = GOOD.
Do you have ANY IDEA how many God-fearing, hard-working, pillar-of-the-community, medicine-discovering, WONDERFUL PEOPLE you just equated with PERVERSION?
I don't want to go to church with you.
(This message was edited to MAKE IT NICER.)
(BUT NOT BY MUCH.)
"Live just, and fear not."
[This message was edited by notinKansasanymore on March 09, 2004 at 22:08.]
[This message was edited by notinKansasanymore on March 09, 2004 at 22:18.]
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notinKansasanymore
So, okay, Tref, here's one.
Let's say two lesbians have been a couple for many years, and they are raising two adopted children together. One is a stay-home Mom, and she is the "legal" adoptive mother of the children; her partner is a working Mom, and supports the whole family financially. Both would like the "working" Mom to also be a legal adoptive parent of the children, but they aren't allowed to be married, so they aren't legally able to both be adoptive parents to the same children.
Let's say that the working Mom dies in a car accident.
Even though she has been paying into social security for many years, the minor children (for whom she is just as much "Mother" as is her partner) will get no social security benefit for their upbringing.
If a heterosexual couple lost the breadwinner in the same accident, those same adopted children would have social security benefits.
The surviving heterosexual partner would be eligible for "survivor's benefits." The surviving homosexual partner may not even be notified by the police that there has been an accident. She may read about it in the newspaper.
Well, I suppose that's two or three of the many benefits, rather than one.
"Live just, and fear not."
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Rocky
And the surviving "mother" is not guaranteed to get custody of the children...
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notinKansasanymore
Yes, that too.
Is that four?
"Live just, and fear not."
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Zixar
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Trefor Heywood
Thanks Garth!
By Jove, I think I've got it!
Trefor Heywood
"Cymru Am Byth!"
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Catcup
The issue regarding the scenario I proposed is this:
The gay couple does not have the same OPTION as the straight couple. That is an inequity.
Zix, my friend, we are on the same page on the civil union.
But where the church is concerned, the government has no right to tell a church who they decide and decide not to accept into their organizations, or what to believe.
And as human beings, living in the wonderful country that we do, we can investigate the beliefs of relgious organizations and choose the one that we feel lines up with our beliefs.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
Hans Scholl
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Catcup
Notinkansas:
Yes, education is dangerous.
Education is dangerous to tyranny.
That's why tyrants throughout history burned books and went into universities and killed the professors when they wanted total control.
My good friend, the late professor Dr. Arthur Voobus escaped being assassinated because the Lutheran Church spirited him out of Estonia before he was murdered. Many other professors lost their lives at the University the day he left.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
Hans Scholl
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Trefor Heywood
Yes Catcup there is that wonderful choice regarding religion, there is over here also.
When it comes to citizenship matters it is a different ballgame. Not many are in a position to pick and choose which country they can investigate as being most condusive for them and move there. The secular setup has to consider the legitimate needs and desires of all its citizens, including minorities.
Trefor Heywood
"Cymru Am Byth!"
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Zixar
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Catcup
Thank you for leaving non-consensual sex out of the discussion. By its very definition it is rape, which is always wrong.
Polygamy as was/is practiced by some in our country has been oppressive to women. By and large the society in the United States recognizes such polygamy as oppressive to women and therefore illegal.
There are other societies where polygyny is practiced as a matter of course and is accepted widely. However, they tend to be in countries in which women are also subjected to genital mutilation and other oppressive practices.
There are genetic problems with consensual incestual relationships. Whether one uses contraceptives or not is a non-issue. All forms of contraception have been known to fail except for abstinence. For that reason alone, if you accept the responsibility of having sex, you accept the responsibility of having children born from the union. And if the children born from that union have an enormous risk of being born with monstrous and possibly unsurvivable genetic anomalies, it is unfair to the child.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
Hans Scholl
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Trefor Heywood
Zix:
The marriage option issue is a big splitting of legal hairs. You don't think its discrimination because all may marry as long as it's a person of the opposite sex.
You have a problem in that there is discrimination against those who wish to marry a person of the same sex. There are various reasons why people don't avail themselves of the available option. You cite Catholic priests and nuns, but it is their religion, not the state that prevents them from marrying.
The state comes up with various allowances and prohibitions, some based upon religious sensibilities and some not. One can always find "if you allow this then why not this" arguments. But the state allows nobody to marry their sibling nor recognises polygamous marriages. Yet the state will only take action on polygamy where more than one civilly recognised mariage at one time has been contracted. The polygamists of Utah who have been religiously but not civilly married are not proceeded against unless there is another legal reason involved - such as bride being under age for sex etc.
In the case of incest or legal polygamy the discrimination is equal. It is not equal where a couple who are not related or under age may marry when they are of opposite sex and another couple who are not related or under age may not because they are of the same sex.
Nor would such an allowance require that two people who are of the same sex be gay, any heterosexual who wished to enter into such a marriage would be just as entitled to marry a member of the same sex as gay people are entitled to marry a person of the opposite sex. There is no compunction for them to do so. Priests and nuns would still be as disallowed by their religion as they are now.
Trefor Heywood
"Cymru Am Byth!"
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Zixar
Catcup: Right, right, and right. Good!
Now for the $64,000 question: If the state did NOT regulate polygamy and incest, how would society as a whole suffer?
The answer is closely tied to the BENEFIT to the society of caring for children, and indrectly, women as the sole source of them.
1) Incestuous relationships have a much higher risk of gross genetic abnormalities in the children. Society usually has to pick up the burden of the severe health needs of such children, which means everyone has to pay for it. Since it's preventable with a zero-cost law, the state is justified in prohibiting it.
2) Polygamous relationships go the opposite way, usually relegating women to little more than baby factories--but not always. It's conceivable that one open-minded man and several well-educated women could enter into such a relationship freely, without the standard male dominance factor. How, then, could that be bad, if all parties fully consented as communal equals?
Simple. Due to the way the tax laws are set up, the number of tax deductions claimed goes up as number of wives increase, but the costs of maintaining the household don't increase as fast. In plain terms, polygamists don't pay their fair share of taxes. Which, again, means everyone else has to pay for it. And that's just the ideal case.
In real polygamous cases, the women are encouraged (or forced) to have as many children as possible. Just like in overcrowded classrooms, children who don't receive adequate amounts of parental attention are at a distinct disadvantage, emotionally, socially, and even physically. With only one father, and only so many hours in a day, the children don't have much of a chance for a normal, healthy development. Which, again, is to society's detriment--the optimum for any society is to give its children every possible advantage so as to keep the society strong as time passes.
Which brings us back to homosexual marriages. Civil union should be enacted to address the inheritance and power of attorney inequities for all single individuals regardless of sexual preference. But, since the ONLY reason the state should subsidize marriage in any way is to foster the care of children, any relationship where it is obvious that there is no chance of children is not in the interest of the state. The state (ideally) should never give public money away unless it gets something in return that benefits everybody.
Current laws already allow for adoptive and/or single parents to gain the marriage subsidy (the tax break) without regard to sexual orientation. The children are covered.
As for heterosexual marriages that are childless, that stems from the state respecting the privacy of the individuals. There is no fertility test administered for a marriage license--that would be unnecessarily intrusive. The state gives heterosexual couples the benefit of the doubt, with the subsidy paid to childless couples offsetting the invasion of privacy required to enforce a stricter standard. But when it's blatantly obvious that two people of the same sex cannot produce children without some third party being involved, extending the marriage subsidy to civil union is throwing money away in broad daylight. In short, "I want my money" is not sufficient cause for the state to pay you.
Bottom line: Civil union? Yes. Tax break? No.
(Edited to remove unwieldy spoiler-space box)
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Zixar
Garth: Can you edit your above post to break up that long URL with a space or two? It's screwing up the formatting.
Thanks.
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Catcup
Tref: In response to your comment:
"Nor would such an allowance require that two people who are of the same sex be gay, any heterosexual who wished to enter into such a marriage would be just as entitled to marry a member of the same sex as gay people are entitled to marry a person of the opposite sex."
Among the Yoruba, Asante, Zulu, Xhosa, and Masai peoples of African culture, there was such an arrangement. Woman to woman marriage, although prrobably not a modal pattern, took place in these male-dominated societies.
Because this arrangement was socio-economic in nature, woman to woman marriage did not imply a sexual relationship.
This relationship was a means to obtain greater authority as an individual, and as a form of economic investment.
If a woman acquired profits from her own efforts in agriculture, artisanship & trade, or inheritance, she would lose these to her husband if she married a man. If she married a woman, she would invest them as bridewealth, therefore keeping her own money. There were also other advantages, such as control of a production unit or an heir to political office.
Had nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with keeping and protecting what she had earned herself, and elevating social status.
"Tear out our hearts--- and they will fatally wound you."
Hans Scholl
[This message was edited by Catcup on March 10, 2004 at 13:16.]
[This message was edited by Catcup on March 10, 2004 at 13:26.]
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