# That means you can marry your dog **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 16, 2008, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512 "2008-05-16T03:07:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2008, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/101 "2008-05-19T16:47:44Z")
[QUOTE=Zoe] > [@](#): > > **Polycarp** : If you can show me a dog that can saym “I, Rover, take thee, John, to have and to hold…” Now wait a minute. Already you’re talking about same sex man-dog marriages. Keep it quiet for a while. [/QUOTE] I’ve been looking through all my baby name books, and I can’t see where it says “Rover” is exclusively a boy’s name. IOW, it’s possible to have a girl dog named Rover. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2008, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/102 "2008-05-19T22:07:56Z")
[QUOTE=kaylasdad99] I’ve been looking through all my baby name books, and I can’t see where it says “Rover” is exclusively a boy’s name. IOW, it’s possible to have a girl dog named Rover. [/QUOTE] The other dogs would make fun of her. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2008, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/103 "2008-05-19T22:17:01Z")
To be fair, while dogs can’t talk, they _will_ have consentual sex with humans. They do it all the time to inanimate objects and people’s limbs, and they’ll be even happier to do it to a real vagina. (cite: eMule “Duke college student”) Also, packs of male dolphins roam the seas trying to rape swimmers, but you don’t want the ungodly thrust of their members anywhere near you. OTOH, I’ve read an account that female dolphins will also porposition humans, and it’s ok to have sex with them. (Although they’ll probably make fun of you to their friends.) ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2008, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/104 "2008-05-19T23:02:25Z")
[QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] To be fair, while dogs can’t talk, they _will_ have consentual sex with humans. They do it all the time to inanimate objects and people’s limbs, and they’ll be even happier to do it to a real vagina. (cite: eMule “Duke college student”) Also, packs of male dolphins roam the seas trying to rape swimmers, but you don’t want the ungodly thrust of their members anywhere near you. OTOH, I’ve read an account that female dolphins will also porposition humans, and it’s ok to have sex with them. (Although they’ll probably make fun of you to their friends.) [/QUOTE] It’s not my understanding, from my college days, that an expressed desire to have sex is equivalent to an expressed desire to marry, though. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2008, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/105 "2008-05-19T23:27:02Z")
[QUOTE=magellan01] Yet when it is suggested that we can grant all the legal rights, yet call it something else, that is unacceptable to most gays. In my experience on these boards and elsewhere anyway. [/QUOTE] If you’re going to grant all the rights of marriage anyway, why bother with seperate institutions? Unless, of course, the intent is to emphasize that the two institutions aren’t really equal after all. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2008, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/106 "2008-05-19T23:36:16Z")
[QUOTE=magellan01] Yet when it is suggested that we can grant all the legal rights, yet call it something else, that is unacceptable to most gays. In my experience on these boards and elsewhere anyway. [/QUOTE] Except no one has even tried to grant us all the legal rights. Let’s cross that bridge and then discuss what to call it. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2008, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/107 "2008-05-19T23:36:17Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] If you’re going to grant all the rights of marriage anyway, why bother with seperate institutions? Unless, of course, the intent is to emphasize that the two institutions aren’t really equal after all. [/QUOTE] Oh come on, doesn’t the phrase “separate but equal” just have a _ring_ of fairness and equality to it? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2008, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/108 "2008-05-19T23:36:31Z")
[QUOTE=magellan01] Yet when it is suggested that we can grant all the legal rights, yet call it something else, that is unacceptable to most gays. In my experience on these boards and elsewhere anyway. [/QUOTE] Others have already pointed out that if it’s truly the same thing, no name difference is needed. And i’m wouldn’t myself consider an all-the-same-rights-but-different-name unacceptable myself, just suboptimal. But I would say that having the same name might be required for granting all those legal rights. The legal precedence for marriage could be argued to not be applicable to civil partnerships (or whatever the term) as the difference in names in law indicates a difference in nature in law. Total equivalence is impossible, since judges are different, after all. But it’s not enough just to say the text must be the same, the reading needs to be the same as well, and I would say calling the two different things would much more easily lead to an ongoing difference in interpretation and differing levels of acceptable precedence. The only way, as I see it, to ensure that marriage and civil partnerships would be treated equally legally would be to have a clause indicating the two terms are interchangable, what applies to one applies to the other - IOW, that calling it something else is entirely necessary to truly grant all the legal rights. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2008, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/109 "2008-05-19T23:41:00Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] If you’re going to grant all the rights of marriage anyway, why bother with seperate institutions? Unless, of course, the intent is to emphasize that the two institutions aren’t really equal after all. [/QUOTE] Oh come on. Two “institutions”? An “institution” is where you should be locked up. Basically, there’s a lot to ‘marriage’ that’s just a name. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2008, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/110 "2008-05-20T00:26:56Z")
[QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] Oh come on. Two “institutions”? An “institution” is where you should be locked up. Basically, there’s a lot to ‘marriage’ that’s just a name. [/QUOTE] Are you saying that I, personally, should be locked up in an institution, or are you simply unaware of what the word “institution” means? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2008, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/111 "2008-05-20T01:08:20Z")
Worth observing: A marriage in Vermont is recognized by the IRS as grounds for filing jointly, and by Virginia as giving visitation rights to a child of that marriage. A civil union, contrariwise, is recognized by neither. So much for “legally equivalent to”! ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2008, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/112 "2008-05-20T01:56:49Z")
[QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] An “institution” is where you should be locked up. [/QUOTE] I, too, am curious as to your intent. (Regardless of intent, you will do well to proof your posts to make sure that you are not hurling insults “inadvertantly.”) [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2008, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/113 "2008-05-20T02:55:34Z")
[QUOTE=Billdo] … There is a distinction, however, in polygamous marriages, as they do not fit within the existing scheme of rules concerning entry into marriage, marital property, divorce, inheritance and the like. As such, there is no real equal protection or similar basis to claim that three or more persons should be treated like the two in our existing legal-cultural view of marriage. [/QUOTE] Actually, poly marriages could be conducted legally under the current laws. If the partners were to divorce by law, then marry by law the next partner, poly families would be perfectly legal. The only difference would be which partner had legal status. In a tight knit community, social status has more weight than legal status. Appropriate legal financial obligations specified in the divorce decree would need to include children conceived after the divorce. Poly marriages could be set up as corporations for family financial assets, just as (?) family farms are. Furthermore, as a step-parent, I can testify that poly marriages (poly in every way but sexually) exist in the main stream. Divorce does not end responsibility. Holidays, school functions, vacations, unexpected financial problems, etc. will efffect all involved families. Women and men will bond with their own gender in any extended family. Insurance obligations require cross family conferences. I don’t get the dog-marriage, either. ---
**Author:** ![DKW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dkw/32/3118_2.png) [@DKW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DKW)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2008, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/114 "2008-05-20T03:52:59Z")
I for one have _always_ found the slippery slope argument to be at best utterly ridiculous. If gays marry, some dope will attempt to marry his dog? Fine. Legalize gay marriage, then calmly explain to the dope the concept of consent and how it applies to what he’s attempting. I don’t see how “someone will try to do this” is a legitimate rationale for childish paranoia. Don’t our state and federal governments have entire departments with the sole purpose of setting dummies straight? But animal marriage is an easy one; polygamy, that’s a legal minefield, you say? So what, that justifies being too lazy or cowardly to touch the issue? Look, here’s how it works: A thorny, complicated issue comes up, _we deal with it_. Just as an example, nobody with two brain cells believed that ending slavery would instantly make lives better for the former slaves. But America dealt with the initial backlash, it dealt with sharecropping and continued discrimination, it dealt with Jim Crow laws, segregation, poll taxes, and racist psychopaths, it dealt with the long, painful process of integration, and it dealt with race riots. And guess what, we’re dealing with race issues to this very day. (What do you think the rap against Barak Obama is, his haircut?) Sure, it’d be much simpler to keep these unwilling immigrants in chains for all eternity. But that’s not how a civilized society works. That’s not how _America_ works. Just another feeble, meaningless argument from people who, at times, don’t seem to be capable of much more. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2008, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/115 "2008-05-22T21:16:13Z")
[QUOTE=DKW] I for one have _always_ found the slippery slope argument to be at best utterly ridiculous. If gays marry, some dope will attempt to marry his dog? Fine. Legalize gay marriage, then calmly explain to the dope the concept of consent and how it applies to what he’s attempting. [/QUOTE] One of your dopes wants to adopt an ape and a [judicial court has accepted the case](http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23486466-details/European+Court+agrees+to+hear+chimp's+plea+for+human+rights/article.do). Now you’re in the land of PETA which is located next to the Isle of sheep lovers. It’s a crazy world out there. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2008, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512/116 "2008-05-22T23:17:46Z")
[QUOTE=t-bonham@scc.net] But if 10% of those remaining men were gay, and ended up marrying each other, that would leave the remaining numbers of men & women roughly balanced. [/QUOTE] What if 10% of women were lesbians? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/that-means-you-can-marry-your-dog/449512.md?page=5)