You do realize that all those people in childless marriages do not have the same rights as those with children do you. For example the childless are missing out on dependant tax deductions .
I don’t understand how that is a dimunition of rights. If one lacks dependants, why should one get a dependant tax deduction?
Is that really a “right” or a particular circumstance that happens to have an associated tax ramification?
For example, if I read your comment literally, it means that couples that adopt an infant from Africa and raise the child cannot count him as a dependent on their tax form. They didn’t “procreate” that child.
What core factual basis that actually allows the tax deduction for dependents? Being married? Being straight? Being gay? Being a biological parent? Adoptive parent? The act of supporting the child financially?
I suppose one could make the tired argument that homosexuals can still marry someone of the opposite sex. No I don’t get it either.
Perhaps I’m not understanding the argument … gays marrying is (IMHO) an example of similarly situated people being treated similarly. That’s why gay marriage makes sense.
People without dependants are not similarly situated to people with dependants.
Yes, but the argument is that gay people can already marry someone of the OPPOSITE sex - hence no inequality. Not that I buy that argument.
Agreed.
Yes, broader than what we have now, but not as broad as marriage to cats and bats. In any case, broad and specific are not contradictory - you can have two specific instances of allowable marriages instead of one and not be overly broad.
Yes. Though I don’t think it necessary to invoke “God”. Even leaving God out of it, marriage is tightly correlated with family and procreation. And a look at the natural world around us makes the case that a male-female pairing is what nature intended.
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I’d suggest you read Dr. Tatiana before you talk about what is natural. There are clearly evolutionary advantages to the existence of homosexuality, or we wouldn’t be seeing it in the numbers we do.
Mind linking to some people making this argument, which seems to be that most of the world misreads the law? The argument I’ve seen is that the law, as written, is unconstitutional, not misunderstood.
So, the argument goes that heterosexual married couples who don’t reproduce is small compared to the number of homosexuals, so we shouldn’t worry about the minor detail that such couples exist?
Well, let’s see about that. The high-end estimates for the proportion of people who are homosexual is somewhere around 10%. Meanwhile, the average age at death for human women is around 75, and most women are menopausal by 50. So the typical woman spends about a third of her life post-menopausal, or (looked at another way) if the population is stable, then at any given moment about a third of the female population is post-menopausal.
If marriage were really all about procreation, then we ought to be going after the elephant in the room, not the gnat. Before we forbid the 10% of lesbians from marrying, we ought to go after the 33% of crones.
Which wouldn’t last long thanks to inbreeding. Anyhow, you are assuming that both of these people are fertile.
Methinks the island would do a lot better with one man and three or four women. Cite: Dr. Strangelove.
One man and many women still leaves you the inbreeding problem, since all of the next generation would be half-siblings. If you’re allowing multiple founders, it’s best in the long run for them to be more or less equal numbers.
But this is drifting a bit afield of the OP.
I don’t either. To my mind there is no sensible distinction, other than one of custom and tradition, which prevents gay couples and straight couples from being considered ‘similarly situated’ to each other; thus depriving one of the rights enjoyed by the other is wrong.
Well technically the “specific meaning” involved in marriage is the transfer of the bride, as property, from her father’s household to her husband’s. If we are going back to basics shouldn’t we revert to that meaning of the word ?
I’m generalizing my own lack of obliviousness onto the majority of Americans. I can easily believe that many Americans wouldn’t consider a marriage between two men to be a “real” marriage, or an acceptable marriage, or a marriage that should be permitted. But if you want me to believe the majority of Americans are unaware that same-sex couples sometimes refer to themselves as being married, or that in some locations they can actually be married in the eyes of the law, I’m going to need to see a pretty impressive cite. This could only be true if the majority of Americans totally ignored both current events and popular entertainment. Heck, we’re 15 years past the Friends episode about a lesbian wedding.
Among who? Alzheimer’s patients? The Amish? People who’ve been hiding in bomb shelters since the 1950s? Mainstream America has had plenty of exposure to the concept of gay marriage, regardless of how accepting of the idea individuals may be.
I’m not talking about the rest of the world, I am talking about the US, Hence the mention of “equal protection” and my cites of US law. I hardly think anyone outside the US is basing their social policy on US law.
As I said, anyone who claims that gays are being denied the equal protection of the marriage laws because the state does not recognize SSM is making the argument I mentioned. Marriage means the union of one man and one woman. Gay people are perfectly free to enter into a marriage consisting of one man and one woman, therefore no violation of equal protection is occurring.
If marriage meant “the union of one man and one woman, or two men, or two women”, then not recognizing SSM would be a violation of equal protection. It doesn’t, so it isn’t. This could certainly be changed, providing it was done legitimately, but until then, marriage does have a specific meaning.
Regards,
Shodan
You are acting like this is a universally settled and agreed-upon point of law, which is an opinion that seems a mite out of touch with modern reality.
Where do you get that marriage is defined as between a man and a woman?
He gave three cites earlier in the thread. Which means that no legal authority in America disagrees with his interpretation.
This thread or a different one?
Marriage is a state, religious or community authorized kinship contract that provides various rights and obligations between the contracting parties, and which may provide various rights and obligations between the contracting parties and the state. The contract is in force until divorce or death, upon which there is a change or termination of the various rights and obligations.
Different jurisdictions have different constraints on who may marry, be it the number of parties to the marriage / the number of marriages a person may be party to at the same time; the age of consent; whether or not the age of consent differs by sex; whether or not a person’s guardian can give consent; whether or not a person’s guardian can give consent against the party’s wishes; whether on not a prior divorce permits a further marriage; whether or not consideration, such as a dowry, is a necessary condition to forming the contract; whether or not a non-animate object may be a party to a marriage; whether or not parties to the marriage may be related by blood or by another kinship contract, and if so, to what degree; and whether or not there are endogamic restrictions based on religion, culture, tribal alliance, race or sex.
Each state (in the broad sense) must decide for itself what constraints it will put upon those who wish to marry, and decide for itself the rights and obligations that will arise out of parties forming the contract.
Pretending that a marriage is not a marriage because it does not fit on person’s particular opininon of who should and who should not be married is silly. A marriage is a marriage is a marriage. Whether or not certain parties should or should not be permitted to enter into the contract, and what rights rights and obligations should attach to the contract or following the breaking of the contract, are open for discussion, but let’s not pretend that the validity of a marriage at one point in history in one particular nation defines marriage for all peoples for all time.