Polycarp’s situations are what is going to occur in the absence of something uniform being passed or imposed. I tend to think that’s likely to be the state of affairs for quite a while.
Again, the FFC clause has no applicability to the interstate recognition of marriages, and public policy exceptions have been routinely applied in a variety of contexts.
What states permitted SSM?
New Mexico has never prohibited SSM by law.
No.
Your playful parody is noted, but you are missing the point.
One argument put forth in favor of SSM is that the same logic was used to prohibit inter-racial marriages. I support SSM. I do not support poor logic or twisted history. SSM is new. Inter-racial marriages were perfectly fine for tens of thousands of years until someone first dreamed up the notion four or five races* and then decided that two of them could not intermarry.
This statement is in error. There were not statutes that prohibited SSM only for the reason that no one would have ever considered two people of the same sex marrying. There are no statutes prohibiting marriage between humans and fence posts, but that does not mean that anyone applying to a state to marry a fence post would have been permitted to do so.
Again, the idea of SSM is new. It required multiple events to enter the public consciousness: the separation of marriage from procreation after science provided a chemical barrier that was +99% effective in the Pill and the ability to use IVF and surrogates to bring children into the world; the recognition that homosexuality was a human condition, and neither a choice of perverse pleasures nor a “lifestyle”; the recognition that people of the same sex could fall in love in the same manner that people not of the same sex fell in love and desire a permanent relationship recognized by law. All of those conditions were “unthinkable” prior to 1960 and all of those conditions have come to pass in the past 50 years.
Arguing for SSM is fine. Pretending that opposition to SSM is identical to opposition to interracial marriages and then re-writing history to support that argument is neither factual nor logical.
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Is that because New Mexico has always had same sex couples getting married, or is it because that when the marriage laws were written it was simply assumed that marriage was between people of opposite genders?
IOW, how many same sex marriages are performed in New Mexico each year?
You are suggesting that same sex marriage has historically been more accepted than interracial marriage? Same sex marriage wasn’t even thought of in political circles until the 1990s and didn’t become legal in any state until 2004. To pretend that it isn’t a change in law, but simply something that has always been there is willful blindness.
I think that you are being intentionally obtuse when you can’t think of differences between SSM and interracial marriage. Marriage has historically been, and recognized by the state, for the purpose of pair bonding by males and females as a healthy way to create and raise children and further provide for their care. Yet you ask how two people of the opposite sex who are capable of procreation is relevant to marriage law?
And yes, we allow elderly and infertile couples to marry simply because there is no public policy behind not allowing it. Many people believe that two people of the same sex are simply not capable of entering into what has been known as marriage. If we need to redefine the term, then let’s redefine it and not pretend that it is more of the same.
Marriage is not about procreation, that’s nothing more than a transparent ploy to justify persecuting homosexuals. Which is why the whole concept only comes up when someone is looking for such an excuse, and not all the other times people who can’t or won’t reproduce marry.
Bigoted people.
Our point is that there are no meaningful reasons to oppose them. They have that in common.
Gay couples are capable of adopting. Lesbians, in addition, are PERFECTLY capable of having babies. At very least, by this reasoning, the state should recognize lesbian marriages.
Well, that’s sort of broad. Puppy dogs and little babies are exactly the same because they are both cute, no? 
The fact that they can’t naturally have children is a meaningful distinction, IMHO. The state simply recognizes couples where children can naturally flow from the union. It always has. So when a same sex couple asks for the same recognition, I don’t believe that the burden is on the state to say why they don’t recognize the unions that don’t conform to the concept of marriage that has exists for hundreds/thousands of years.
The argument of “Well, I want those same benefits, too!” would apply to almost everything. Why can’t I get food stamps? Just because I’m not poor?
Knock it off.
Your inability to (or lack of desire to) imagine a that person might be simply confounded by a new idea rather than being entrenched in hatred does not make it true. Waving the “bigot” flag does nothing to promote discussion.
[ /Moderating ]
Anyone who doubts what you say about the recognition of interracial marriages can just read Othello.
As for the position of women, I don’t know if this counts as chattel, but as late as 1978 in Louisiana men were considered the “head and master” of the household, and the rights of women with regard to money were limited. (Much of Louisiana law is not based on English Common Law.) My wife was not allowed to get a check cashing card without my permission, despite making more money than I did. It was repealed, at last, but not without complaints by legislators who said they got married under the law and liked it.
Because while men and women are capable of making long term loving comittments to each other, they are not capable of making long term loving comittments to…each other…?
I don’t see it so much as redefining the definition as expanding the definition We’re not suggesting hetero marraiges won’t count anymore. They will still be the most common by far.
I like the suggestion that the folks who have a strong religious objection establish their own super special holy marriage. In factcovenant marriagealready exists.
This has the effect of keeping church and state seperate while repecting thier religious beliefs and the freedom to hold them.
I’m not sure how any couplele’s legal rights are clearly established under your proposals. They simply register as married?
The concept that states recognize visiting couples as married even if they couldn’t marry in thier state makes sense.
I prefer the idea that all those folks with religious objections to SSM go above and beyond the legal rights associated with marriage and form something like the covenant I linked to in another post.
Your position was binary. Have you changed to a relative one now? Why? :dubious:
If you don’t know that is not true, you need to learn. Marriage has *never *been limited to that, nor has that alleged purpose even been articulated except since its invention in fearful reaction to the 21st century and as a rationalization for opposing equal rights, since no true and defensible reason can be stated.
All right then, is there a public policy, stated or even reasonably inferred, against allowing same-sex couples to marry? Other than this priceless bit of nonsense, that is:
:dubious: Not capable? How so? Please expound.
Guess what? We aren’t redefining it. What you call the “traditional definition” still exists. Men and women can still get married, and those marriages are just as meaningful as ever. Mine certainly is. What *are *doing is removing an arbitrary, unfair restriction on who is eligible for its rights and responsibilities and recognitions.
Using some of the logic presented here, regarding marriage and procreation, one might argue that we have a public policy responsibility to allow SSM, since these individuals can and do adopt children. If you argue that marriage promotes successful raising of children (assuming by creating stable pair-bonds and by affording legal protections to the parents, since procreation happens just fine without marriage) then we should encouraging SSM all the way!
There have certainly been times and places where wives were considered in law to have no rights or privileges independent of their husbands. My objection is to erroneous claims that those laws are universal in time or place. Blackstone, (perhaps reflecting the particular situation of eighteenth century England), expounded on that theory in his commentaries and shaped a lot of law that followed those commentaries, but there have been many times and locations where his views had no part in the law.
Simple. There are a number of people, raised in the period when homosexuality was deemed variously as either a choice for deviant behavior or a mental illness, who believe that a homosexual relationship must be based on nothing more than a desire to engage in various sexual acts, independent of genuine love.
Those people are wrong, but jtgain was simply noting that fact and not defending it. Pretending that no one actually holds those beliefs is silly. We have had at least one poster argue that position on the SDMB within the last couple of weeks.
No. It is being redefined.
The old definition was “people of different sexes joining in a lifetime commitment” and the new definition is “people joining in a lifetime commitment.” The new definition does not destroy the old definition; it expands it. However, that expansion is a change and pretending that it is not a change is, again, silly.
Can we please hear from the person actually making the claim? :dubious:
He was, if you’ll reread, presenting it as a defense of a position he is coyly presenting as an abstraction that he himself is coyly not claiming to hold.
Pretending that anyone is pretending that is silly.
Not to be trite, but, cite? That statement has been made here many times, but never solidly backed up.
Assuming the premise, as well as strawmanning and use of adolescent namecalling in lieu of argument. Please.
[quote=“ElvisL1ves, post:58, topic:656765”]
Piffle. Your interpretation is consistent with your need to make nasty comments, but that is not what he posted.
I really hope you post in front of a mirror. You have pretty well described all your posts in this forum.
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You are being trite. Also disingenuous.
Merriam-Webster Seventh Collegiate Dictionary, 1963:
Merriam-Webster Ninth Collegiate Dictionary, 1990:
The Amrican Herityage Dictionary, Second College Edition, 1982
Do you actually have a citation prior to 1990 that does not include a reference to the parties being of different sexes? Or are you simply JAQing off and pretending that you are really that ignorant of history and reality.
Is expanded really a redefinition? A change for sure, but it doesn’t seem to be a redefintion since the change {expansion} still leaves the traditional definition completely intact.