California's top court overturns gay marriage ban

[knight_shadow]

^^^ Thanks. I was trying to figure out WTF a Toonces was lol

[PeppyGPhiB]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

DAMN you beat me to it!

[Rudey]

Originally Posted by Kevin

How about this:

The government has several non-moral objections to animal marriage. The first that occurs to me is that if we were all allowed to marry our animals, the IRS Code could basically forget about having a "single" status for taxpayers. We'd ALL be "married, filing jointly" with Toonces. Being married to someone who doesn't produce income greatly reduces your own tax liability.

-- so there's a non-moral reason for you.

How about you respond to the whole remark (on morality, mind you) then? You should be able to marry your sister...polygamy should be ok...etc.

And your IRS argument is ridiculous but that's neither here nor there.

[Rudey]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

There are plenty of other bases of argument on behalf of gay marriage. Legal and financial being primary over most. Trying to muddy the issue by fear-mongering the "slippery slope" towards legalized beastiality and incest is not an educated approach to the subject.

Great way to avoid the topic.

And someone from Penn state talking about educated is...rich. In fact that same someone would have a lot of difficulty responding to an argument and make accusations of "fear-mongering"!

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Rudey

How about you respond to the whole remark (on morality, mind you) then? You should be able to marry your sister...polygamy should be ok...etc.

If you procreate with your sister, you're going to likely have kids which will burden the system due to their birth defects.

And your IRS argument is ridiculous but that's neither here nor there.

Not really. If my wife and I were to divorce and then marry our cats, we'd pay about half the taxes we do right now. When one spouse produces income and the other, Toonces, does not, there's a significant marriage bonus.

As for polygamy, assuming we can work out the tax stuff and not allow for some polygamy "superbonus," then I'm really okay with polygamy so long as we're still talking about consenting, non-related adults.

You asked for a rational, non-moralistic reason, so there it is.

In your furry-love world, if my cat decides it lives at another house, does that mean my cat gets half my stuff?

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by Kevin

In your furry-love world, if my cat decides it lives at another house, does that mean my cat gets half my stuff?

Well dang, if you're dumb enough to marry a cat, you better at least be smart enough to get a pre-nup! And, if you promise to stay married for life, are you promising for all 9 of the cat's lives? Or just the current one?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by AGDee

Well dang, if you're dumb enough to marry a cat, you better at least be smart enough to get a pre-nup! And, if you promise to stay married for life, are you promising for all 9 of the cat's lives? Or just the current one?

Valid questions!

1) How do we test the validity of a prenup with a cat? I mean... I could have been using duress.. like I'd change the food, cut back on treats or forget to change the litter if the cat didn't make its mark.

2) The life question is easy -- death ends a marraige, so the cat's first death during the marriage would be enough, I think to undo the deal... of course, that raises the question of whether the cat's share of the estate, especially if that cat had kittens.

[Rudey]

I guess you're having trouble reading so I will write it again for you just as I have before. I said marry. I didn't say have kids. We're not talking about children here. You can marry and not have kids as many do. Additionally, we don't play a game of eugenics in America where we prevent people from getting married based on certain genetic markers so not sure what you're getting at there.

I am talking about moral reasons that people are asking to remove from the equation. I could shoot a whole in your tax argument but then again I'd like to stick to morality.

So please read the words this time and then respond. It's an awesome tactic...I promise.

Originally Posted by Kevin

If you procreate with your sister, you're going to likely have kids which will burden the system due to their birth defects.

Not really. If my wife and I were to divorce and then marry our cats, we'd pay about half the taxes we do right now. When one spouse produces income and the other, Toonces, does not, there's a significant marriage bonus.

As for polygamy, assuming we can work out the tax stuff and not allow for some polygamy "superbonus," then I'm really okay with polygamy so long as we're still talking about consenting, non-related adults.

You asked for a rational, non-moralistic reason, so there it is.

In your furry-love world, if my cat decides it lives at another house, does that mean my cat gets half my stuff?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Rudey

I guess you're having trouble reading so I will write it again for you just as I have before. I said marry. I didn't say have kids. We're not talking about children here. You can marry and not have kids as many do. Additionally, we don't play a game of eugenics in America where we prevent people from getting married based on certain genetic markers so not sure what you're getting at there.

Preventing marriage due to the possibility of certain genetic markers, i.e., M.S., is one thing. Preventing it due to the probability of children which will have a host of birth defects is another.

We already have laws which outlaw procreation between siblings, parents, etc. with just that sort of purpose. I'm sure morality is involved, but you don't need morality to see that the decision to procreate in that sort of relationship harms others.

Using legalistic language, and even adopting the California view, under substantive due process, marriage is a fundamental liberty interest. If something is a fundamental liberty interest, we test a restriction's validity under strict scrutiny. There must be a compelling governmental goal -- here, we have the welfare and health of the children being born to the marriage, the effect that those sorts of children will have upon society, etc.

Part of marriage involves intercourse. For different-sex couples, intercourse almost always involves a risk of pregnancy, whether intentional or not.

I could see same-sex sibling marriage under California's law, but probably not between siblings of different genders. For the above reasons, I think there's a compelling governmental goal in preventing what may come out of that union.

You attempt to divorce marriage from procreation. I don't think that's really possible, at least where procreation is possible.

[Rudey]

I didn't ask what you thought was possible. Perhaps you should stick to the argument.

I'll make it very simple for you since it's difficult responding to the subject:
If johnny shoots blanks and jenny is sterile, and they are siblings, should they be allowed to get married?

And stop talking about the cost to the taxpayer for healthcosts. If we were worried about costs, we would have gotten rid of lawyers a million years ago but we're stuck with you arent we?

Originally Posted by Kevin

Preventing marriage due to the possibility of certain genetic markers, i.e., M.S., is one thing. Preventing it due to the probability of children which will have a host of birth defects is another.

We already have laws which outlaw procreation between siblings, parents, etc. with just that sort of purpose. I'm sure morality is involved, but you don't need morality to see that the decision to procreate in that sort of relationship harms others.

Using legalistic language, and even adopting the California view, under substantive due process, marriage is a fundamental liberty interest. If something is a fundamental liberty interest, we test a restriction's validity under strict scrutiny. There must be a compelling governmental goal -- here, we have the welfare and health of the children being born to the marriage, the effect that those sorts of children will have upon society, etc.

Part of marriage involves intercourse. For different-sex couples, intercourse almost always involves a risk of pregnancy, whether intentional or not.

I could see same-sex sibling marriage under California's law, but probably not between siblings of different genders. For the above reasons, I think there's a compelling governmental goal in preventing what may come out of that union.

You attempt to divorce marriage from procreation. I don't think that's really possible, at least where procreation is possible.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by Rudey

Look folks, I didn't say what is or isn't right. I just am saying that you can't subjectively remove "morals" from certain legislation and keep it for others. It doesn't matter what the source of those "morals" are...bible, your mother, etc.

I'm totally grunching this total trainwreck of a thread (seriously, can a mod just rename it "lessons in logical fallacies"?), but it seems like we're getting into a cum hoc ergo propter hoc deal here.

That is to say, I agree completely with your first assertion ("you can't subjectively remove "morals" from certain legislation and keep it for others") while completely disagreeing with the second ("it doesn't matter what the source of those morals (is)"). In fact, it very much does matter - not only because there are (relatively) universal moral and ethical standards and there are standards from dubious or non-universal sources, but also because there is a stated dissociation from one source of moral relativism in the United States that precludes that from being the sole source of moral authority.

Let's look at it like this, since you keep bringing up the example: universally, barring exceptionally niche elements such as Satanists or whatever, people know that it is unacceptable and immoral (and unethical, whichever term you'd prefer) to kill another person. The reason is because that person has its own rights (which cattle do not share; cattle as we know them would likely be extinct without human intervention, and it is also a universal moral standard to separate people from animals in at least some regard).

This is not a strictly "Christian" moral. However, the overwhelming majority of anti-gay marriage advocates openly (and honestly, which I find very respectable) declare that they are relying on a strictly Christian definition of marriage. There is no universal sympathy on this issue, and the relative moral outcry comes from churches (and some synagogues and mosques).

The two are not akin, nor should they be in the eyes of the law - a strict separation of Church and State requires that the state enact laws that utilize a moral authority more universal than any one church (or even any majority set of churches).

It does, indeed, matter which source is used for "moral" lawmaking.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Rudey

If johnny shoots blanks and jenny is sterile, and they are siblings, should they be allowed to get married?

I don't see how a distinction like that would be bureaucratically manageable.

[Rudey]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

I'm totally grunching this total trainwreck of a thread (seriously, can a mod just rename it "lessons in logical fallacies"?), but it seems like we're getting into a cum hoc ergo propter hoc deal here.

That is to say, I agree completely with your first assertion ("you can't subjectively remove "morals" from certain legislation and keep it for others") while completely disagreeing with the second ("it doesn't matter what the source of those morals (is)"). In fact, it very much does matter - not only because there are (relatively) universal moral and ethical standards and there are standards from dubious or non-universal sources, but also because there is a stated dissociation from one source of moral relativism in the United States that precludes that from being the sole source of moral authority.

Let's look at it like this, since you keep bringing up the example: universally, barring exceptionally niche elements such as Satanists or whatever, people know that it is unacceptable and immoral (and unethical, whichever term you'd prefer) to kill another person. The reason is because that person has its own rights (which cattle do not share; cattle as we know them would likely be extinct without human intervention, and it is also a universal moral standard to separate people from animals in at least some regard).

This is not a strictly "Christian" moral. However, the overwhelming majority of anti-gay marriage advocates openly (and honestly, which I find very respectable) declare that they are relying on a strictly Christian definition of marriage. There is no universal sympathy on this issue, and the relative moral outcry comes from churches (and some synagogues and mosques).

The two are not akin, nor should they be in the eyes of the law - a strict separation of Church and State requires that the state enact laws that utilize a moral authority more universal than any one church (or even any majority set of churches).

It does, indeed, matter which source is used for "moral" lawmaking.

Oh now I get it. Picking who you can marry and sex are equivalent universal human rights...akin to being allowed to live.

[nittanyalum]

Originally Posted by Rudey

Great way to avoid the topic.

And someone from Penn state talking about educated is...rich. In fact that same someone would have a lot of difficulty responding to an argument and make accusations of "fear-mongering"!

Says the man who avoids the legal and financial topics because all he's got is the "marry your sister" or "marry a cow" reasoning.

And L.O.L. at Toonces.

[Rudey]

Originally Posted by nittanyalum

Says the man who avoids the legal and financial topics because all he's got is the "marry your sister" or "marry a cow" reasoning.

And L.O.L. at Toonces.

I was discussing one aspect, not 5 others. You make no sense. Penn State's fault or yours?