So marriage is only about children now? That doesn't hold up historically at all. That's a recent thing. Marriage was originally, and for several millenia, about merging powers, economic benefits and alliances. Children, if they had them and they lived, were about extending the families power. Conservatives have rewritten marriage to make it into something ultra-romantic, which it has only become in the last century, possibly.

It's nice that we have the luxury to make marriage about love and security nowadays instead of power and alliances, but you can't change history, even if you try. Marriage has been an evolving institution since it was created.

No one could ever force a private institution to allow gay marriage within their hallowed halls. Just like they can't force the boy scouts to let homosexuals be troop leaders. Churches still have the opportunity now to refuse to marry anyone they want on any grounds they want, sexual orientation included. This isn't about whether or not all churches would perform or approve of gay marriage. Undoubtedly, many chuches would never, and some would (much like some don't allow female priests and some do). This is about the government allowing those institutions that do want to perform marriages for gays to do so, and to allow gays to have those benefits that anyone else would have. The idea that someone's church or town would be forced to actual perform or hold gay marriages is at least a misunderstanding and at best a red herring.

Actually, the idea has been suggested, and I see no reason to oppose it, that civil union or whatever become strictly a legal term, while marriage is strictly a religious term. So, if you are religious, you could get married and not get legally unionized (or whatever), or you could do both (at once as we already do, since the religious ceremony and the legal aspects are often done separately). And, if you aren't religious, you can avoid the religious connotation, or perhaps you are refused service by a religious institution, but you can still get the secular, legal benefits and social recognition. Basically, whether you are unionized (hopefully they would have a better term) or married would say more about your faith and beliefs than about what kind of discrimination you are the subject of.

Tell that to a single parent raising their child. Tell that to the grandparent raising a grandchild because their parents have died. Tell that to the aunt or uncle who is raising their niece or nephew because the parents have disappeared. Tell that to the older sister or brother who is struggling to make sure their younger sibling doesn't end up in foster care. Tell that to the new couple who have just moved in together (married or not).

Two people *can* and many times *do* make a family, even by legal definitions.

The line on incest is not as clear as you might think. As long as one partner is sterile, and the sex is CONSENSUAL as well....
Let me break it down for you people that only define incest as sex that can produce offspring or sex between parents and little children:
Father/son = no babies
Mother/daughter = no babies
Sister/sister = no babies
Brother/brother = no babies
Mother/son + one of them sterile = no babies
Father/daughter + one of them sterile = no babies

These folks will be wanting to add their relationships to the civil union services too.

So you don't want to open the door to legitimate relationships because some illegitimate relationships may slip in through the cracks? Sounds like arguments some people used during the miscegenation controversy...

What leads you to that conclusion? Usually, incest is not consentual, and even if it is, the people are related and therefore given family rights in the eyes of the law (i.e., they can make decisions concerning medical issues, they can inherit property, etc). Therefore, they would have no need for a civil union or marriage.


By the way, I think that this "homosexuals marrying could lead to the legalization of incest" argument is a bunch of nonsense. A line can still be drawn not allowing incest but allowing homosexuals to have the same rights as heterosexuals, i.e. getting married.

The definition of marriage, per dictionary.com is this:

mar·riage ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mrj)
n.

The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife.
The state of being married; wedlock.
A common-law marriage.
A union between two persons having the customary but usually not the legal force of marriage: a same-sex marriage.


There is nothing about religion in there. For some people, religion is a part of marriage but for many it is not. When you are married by the Justice of the Peace it IS marriage, even though there is no religion involved. THIS is what they are doing in San Francisco. This has nothing to do with religion, this has to do with law.

Homosexuals can live together and be committed to each other without being legally married. But, they can't visit their partner in ICU because visitors are limited to "family" only and they aren't legally family. They don't inherit anything from their loved one and can end up in legal battles over joint property after their loved one's death. In most cases, they aren't entitled to their partner's benefits. How is any of that fair? Add me to the list of those who don't understand why these people should not have the same legal benefits as heterosexuals.

Now for the definition of Family per dictionary.com:

fam·i·ly ( P ) Pronunciation Key (fm-l, fml)
n. pl. fam·i·lies

A fundamental social group in society typically consisting of one or two parents and their children.
Two or more people who share goals and values, have long-term commitments to one another, and reside usually in the same dwelling place.


Note, the second definition says "two or more people". How are heterosexual couples who decide not to have children leading to the dissolution of the family? I think if people don't want children, they shouldn't HAVE children. What a horrible situation for those unwanted kids to live in if they did.

Incest holds issues other than the genetic factor. Generally, there is a power issue there. Just as it is unethical and illegal for a boss, psychologist, doctor, pastor, police officer, etc. to take advantage sexually of someone who is in the scope of their care, it has to do with equal power in a relationship. It is too difficult to determine whether it is consensual in unbalanced relationships such as these.

I truly don't understand what it will take away from heterosexuals to allow homosexuals to marry. I hope those of you do feel that way, thank God every day for making you heterosexual so that you don't have to deal with those issues.

Dee

That is not the argument at all. My point is that if you want homosexuals to be allowed to get married, then you cannot discriminate (draw a line) against "appropriate" incestuous relationships too. They loooooovvvvvvveeee each other and want to get married too and want the relationship to be recognized by others as such.

Or relationships where there are WILLING participants who want to have mutiple wives or husbands (they do exist outside of the Mormon faith).

I think some people are too quick to call it semantics when these types of relationships are brought up, quickly forgeting that not so long ago, a gay marriage was considered to be on the same level as an incestuous or multiple-partner marriage.

A new "enlightenment" I guess...........

ETA:

On DST Blvd there is an article about a WILLING, full-blooded father and daughter couple who are married. These are the "incestuous couples" that I'm referencing.

The line between heterosexuals and homosexuals is just as "artificial" as you are trying to make the line between incestuous and gay relationships seem.

Are you seriously comparing the act of incest to a commited couple who loves each other and want to get married? That seriously boggles my mind. In most cases, incest is a crime of someone taking advantage of someone else. I fail to see the comparison to a gay couple who wants to declare the same commitment and love as their fellow heterosexual citizens.
Its basically making the statement that these people are sub-human and are not entitled to the same rights and privleges as everyone else.
Personally, I think people like Britney Spears and Liz Taylor, and the throngs of people who marry at will and dump like it never happened are more of a "threat" to the institution of marriage than two women who have been together for 50+ years.

Good for Rosie!
 

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Yay for my sisters Dee and Jen and your excellent comments! :)

Mayor of NY Town Marries Gay Couples

By MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press Writer

NEW PALTZ, N.Y. - Up to a dozen gay couples began exchanging wedding vows on the steps of village hall Friday in a spirited ceremony that opened another front on the growing national debate over gay marriage.

Officiating was Jason West, the 26-year-old Green Party mayor in this village 75 miles north of New York City, who joined Gavin Newsom of San Francisco as the country's only mayors to marry same-sex couples.

"What we're witnessing in America today is the flowering of the largest civil rights movement the country's had in a generation," West said.

Billiam van Roestenberg, 38, and Jeffrey McGowan, 39, were the first to wed to the cheers of the crowd. Wearing suits, they held hands and carried flowers.

"I feel happy and joyful and peaceful," van Roestenberg said. "A little bit of peace has finally come in. I feel proud to be an American."

"Now I'm normal and equal like every one else," he said.

More than 100 people, mostly supporters of gay marriage, turned out on the green across from village hall, outnumbering family and friends of the couples there to marry. A few scattered protesters carried signs opposing gay marriage.

Jay Blotcher of High Falls, N.Y., said that while West could only give him a certificate and not a marriage license, it was still important to go through the ceremony.

"We have to show people who we are," he said. "We've been badmouthed by religious zealots. We've been deprived by President Bush (news - web sites) and we have to show people that we're your friends, neighbors and family."

One protester stood outside the hall with a sign that read, in part, "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

"It's against nature," Angelo Da'Quaro said. "It's against religion, it's against all of that."

The ceremonies came a day after the state Health Department said New York's domestic relations law does not allow marriage licenses for same-sex couples. It said a clerk issuing such a license or anyone solemnizing such a marriage would be violating state law.

West and some legal experts said they read the law differently.

"For a marriage to be legal in this state all that's required is for it to be properly solemnized by someone with authority to do so," West told the CNN cable network early Friday. "I'm fully able to do that."

Vincent Bonventre, a professor at Albany Law School, said nothing in New York law explicitly prohibits same-sex weddings, but that the framers "clearly were contemplating opposite-sex marriages."

Discussion of gay marriage heated up this month after the top Massachusetts court ruled that anything less than full-fledged marriage for gays there would be unconstitutional. Since then, San Francisco officials have performed more than 3,400 same-sex marriages and have challenged their state law barring such unions. Earlier this week, President Bush endorsed a movement to amend the Constitution to ban the practice.

A bill in the New York Legislature would ban same-sex marriages. Similar bills have died without action in the past. At least 34 states have enacted so-called defense of marriage laws.

***********

(Bolding added by me to emphasize good points.)

She should really state it is against HER religion. I know in mine it isn't. I don't see how religion was involved with a mayor performing a Civil Ceremony, if it was performed in her church then that comment would be valid. Also if she is so concerned with things being against religion, why isn't she going after all these heterosexual couples that live together unmarried and people having children outside of marriage? Some consistency would be nice.

NinjaPoodle, I won't be home for a couple weeks, but have there been any protests that you know of at City Hall, or anywhere in The City?

Honestly both these mayors should be drawn and quartered

Last time I checked, the Patriot Act didn't get rid of the Eighth Amendment. :rolleyes:

You obviously have no clue what I'm trying to say and in your attempt to utter a bit of an emotional response just so you could show how incredible a person you are, you made a very ridiculous post. By two people I meant the two people in the marriage and not the child.

-Rudey

Nice usage of dictionary.com. It went a long way in proving how you know how to go to that website. It did not show anything about how families are a two person thing.


If you want to be without children then why would you marry?? Nobody seems to be able to answer that.

Godfrey if it's about all these incentives and benefits then why aren't all those single folks getting married and divorce going down? What no answer?? come on.

-Rudey

I could and would make the comparison. In fact it seems you are incestphobic when so many countries in the world have cousins and closer marrying each other. You are an incestaphobe!!!

-Rudey

Eleanor Roosevelt's maiden name was... Roosevelt. She, and FDR, were cousins.

I suppose then you should write what you mean...you said "2 people do not make a family". Not terribly ambigous is it. I say two people *can* and do make a family.

I can answer why two people without children would want to marry....because they love each other, because there are significant legal advantages to being married, because they MAYBE they don't like children...can't have children....children don't fit with their life plan.

Fifth cousins once removed actually.

and if you are not....I am worried for your family members :)

Yeah ok incestaphob...you just have a lot of bias and hate.

-Rudey

So I guess if you're not married you're not in love and I guess people just are retarded because they choose not to get married and get those benefits. Yay!!!

-Rudey

Rudey,
I would just second this post. You keep asking why anyone would marry if they don't want kids, as if it is a ridiculous thing to do. Well, first, some very valid reasons have been suggested that you have not been able to discount (you simply sputter that they are ridiculous) AND the fact remains that it happens, whether it makes sense to YOU or not. Obviously, your thoughts that the only reason to get married is for kids is not unequivocally true. Just because you fail to understand the value childless couples find in the institution of marriage does not mean that no value exists.

You are making a false dichotomy here to make the opposing argument seem ridiculous. You say no one should get married if there will be no children, she said that people do find value in getting married without children and somehow you jump to the idea that people who don't get married are stupid because they don't choose to obtain those values/benefits? Hardly what she or anyone else insinuated. There are also some reasons that people may not WANT to get married. That value judgement is for the individual couple to make, based on their individual situation and needs. Except for gay couples, of course, who have no choice.

So none of you have answers. I see OK. Lots of people just don't want benefits. They are stupid I guess. Yay!!! Lot's of people want marriage and not civil unions because I guess they don't want just benefits but wait they do. I'm so so confused.

Let's use big words instead of simplicity to top it off and say we're debaters too.

At the end of the day, the majority votes no to Gay marriage. Enjoy that.

-Rudey

At the end of the day, the majority are also against a constitutional amendment to ban it. Enjoy that.

P.S. "Separate but equal" didn't work before. Why is there reason to believe it would/should now?

Just making an off-topic correction. The Latter-Day Saints Church (Mormons) do not allow polygamy or polyamory. It became grounds for excommunication in 1890. On the contrary, Mormons have probably one of the strictest policies on marriage of most Christian religions.

There are sects in Utah (mainly) who practice polygamy and borrow some of their beliefs from the LDS church, but they are in no way recognized, affiliated, or accepted by the Church itself.

Sorry for the tangent, but this mis-conception is one of my biggest pet-peeves.

Just for Ginger....

WILLINGLY couples who want multiple wives or husbands.

I couldn't imagine putting up with the isht of two husbands, no thanks ;)

Is anyone hearing rumblings in their own communities or religious groups (for either side)?

With my church (sageofages you're ELCA if I remember right), out this way many pastors have been performing these unions for years, so it is not anything new, and I know I read in The Lutheran about some back east as well. However you're closer to the hotdish/jello salad motherland, and I believe not in a big city. I think we're going to have another schism over this, and ordination of homosexuals/gays. To my knowledge we allow it as long as they agree to be celibate :rolleyes: , and I think we're going to have to make a decision one way or the other, and soon church wide.

Yes, ELCA, live in a small Iowa town, just south of Des Moines...

The ELCA church is currently working on a position statement in regard to homosexuality and the church. There was a practice, committed pastor at the church in Ames that was "relieved" of his pulpit (not a fun effort :( because of his committed longtime relationship, and not celibate.

I think the ELCA is going to watch the Episcopal Church closely following the gay bishop installation, to see what falls out. (I was raised Episcopal, which went through h*ll when they decided to ordain women, and h*ll again when they started having "Holy Unions" for same sex couples...and they survived, I think they will survive the bishop in the end)

Speaking of Lutheran, look in the front of the March Issue, I had an anectdote published!

:D Thanks! I just took issue with the idea that it existed within the Mormon faith, because it doesn't :)

Carry on!

Rudey, I don't want to have children. I will probably want to get married for the same reason many homosexual people want to get married -- for example, right now, my boyfriend has health insurance and I don't because I'm unemployed. If we were married, I could be covered by his health insurance. Also, if I became seriously ill, I'd want him to be able to see me in the hospital -- stuff like that.

Aside from that, although I have some issues with the concept of marriage and I am not at all religious, it just seems like a nice thing to do. It's not always based in logic. Sometimes people want to do things just because. I would hope that nobody would deny me that just because I don't want to breed, and I would hope that nobody would deny anyone else that because they are homosexual.

Will you marry me? I have much better insurance than he does.

-Rudey

Rudey,

Surely you realize that people are talking about legal benefits to marriage in addition to making a long term commitment to love each other and be faithful to each other because they are in love. People who love each other in that way want to be able to share their lives, their money, their benefits, etc. Heterosexuals have those perks, homosexuals do not. Most people do not get married for the sole reason of having children. Why would you see senior citizens who are beyond child bearing years getting married if that were true? There are numerous financial and legal benefits to being married. However, that doesn't mean that people get married for only that reason. Sometimes those benefits aren't worth putting up with the person, which is why some people choose to divorce. From sharing Social Security income to visiting your partner in ICU, there are numerous benefits to marriage, to someone you love.

Dee