Why consider one axis only? If the mayor of SF wants to wash away the immutable absolutes, then he should allow polygamous marriages as well, n’est ce pas?
Honestly, I don’t know why we didn’t get some wagon trains coming to SF from Colorado City last month.
Actually, they are quite new. Here is the law that has been on Georgia’s (where I live, so handy) books for quite some time, the one about who can not marry:
Here is the recent addendum, which was added during the last few years:
So, how do we make same sex marriage legal in Georgia? Repeal the recently added 19-3-3.1. Seems quite simple, as laws are repealed all the time with little effort.
(1) Nothing keeps you from considering the other axes. But since motion along one does not mean motion along the others, justifying gay marriage =/= justifying polygamy =/= justifying dog-marriage and those arguing in favour of one are not obligated to defend the other just because they’re challenged
(2) The phrase about “immutable absolutes” is not his, it’s mine, it’s in reference to that repetitive chant about how if you change one thing you ust be in favor of changing anything, and if I may point out, immediately after writing them you may have read how I think that had already been taken care of well BEFORE gay marriage.
(3) The mayor is making a (political) point about gender identity equality, and no point about any other rights. It obligates him to nothing, it DOES NOT follow he “should” anything.
It may be new to Georgia, but laws prohibiting men from marrying men are nothing new in other places.
It’s new in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, …
In fact, of every single state (and I went all the way to those that start with H) I checked, the laws were passed within the last 8 years. The few states that are skipped are not skipped because the laws are longstanding, but only because the dates are not listed. I’d be willng to bet that even they are recent.
So, where are all of these “other places” that you speak of? Iraq, perhaps?
Check again. The source you site refers to §308.5 of California’s Family Code. It fails to say anything about §300 of that code, which reads:
Marriage is a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary. Consent alone does not constitute marriage.
It seems as if the reference you’re using is pointing you only to recent additions to make it Perfectly Clear that men are not allowed to marry men.
You might want to look at the codes for the original 13 Colonies. Then, go back to English Common Law. Then, go back to the 1600s.
Like I said, laws prohibiting men from marrying men are far from new.
I should have said . . . *recent additions make it Perfectly Clear that marriages between men in such far away and exotic places as Massachusetts have no validity in California and will not be recognized here. *
These recent additions to the law are to protect states from having to accept any redefinition of marriage that might be contemplated in such far away and exotic places as Massachusetts.
Neither is slavery, and I must point out that slavery goes back to the original 13 Colonies. Then, go back to English Common Law. Then, go back to the 1600s.
Because it was does not mean that it has to be. Society is not a static thing - it evolves and changes with time.
Is that applicable in this case? That is up for debate. Maybe society has not evolved in that direction far enough.
Now, now… in fairness, numerous jurisdictions HAVE had provisions in their code to the effect of marriage as authorized by that state or country being a civil contract between a man and a woman for umpteenth years.
But these were often mere procedural dispositions. What IS recent are "DOMA"s, statutes and constitutional dispositions explicitly excluding the alternative, declaring that this must remain so forever and that the state will refuse to recognize any marriage that does not fulfill that requirement, no matter where or how it was entered and that it was legal there.
So while laws implicitly providing only for marriage of F/M may have been longstanding, laws explicitly forbidding any accommodation for any same-gender union ARE relatively recent.
Still new. The Family Code was redone in 1992, due to fundamental changes in Family Law.
Hell, even if it were ancient, you’ve given a single example, which doesn’t even dispute my contention that this is a recent development, versus the list I gave and I just scratched the surface. Face it, gays were always “icky” to most of the population, but they never really thought that gays would actually have the balls to even think about getting married, so rarely was there legislation specifically addressed to stop it. If you were to find an old statute that specifically said “Man and Woman”, it would likely be accidental, not some prophetic vision by the respective legislature nipping SSM in the bud.
So, are you ready to to start writing your congressmen to start repealing all of these new laws yet, or are you going to keep moving the target?
DMC: you might want to check out, also, the Code of Hammurabi. For that matter, you might want to look at the law code of an ancient tribe of Asians that calls for the execution of men who have sex with one another (and which also prohibits the eating of pork, lobster, shrimp, and clams, and requires criminals to pony up anything from a goat to a sack of flour for certain crimes).
Doing neither. I have absolutely no interest in seeing the state say that it’s OK for men to marry one another. Nor am I moving the target. Laws against men marrying men are way old, and I see no compelling reason to change them now. For what?
That’s the best argument you can come up with?
Have you studied the cultural history of laws regarding homosexuals?
I suppose one could make all kinds of arguments about family structure, love, children, free will, human rights, international law, and a few other topics… but you’d only reply with, “Yea, but we always did it this way.”
Lamest. Argument. Ever.
The best argument for what? What do laws regarding men marrying men have to do with the Pledge of Allegiance?
I thought you weren’t moving the target?
In any case, the Pledge was “always done” since it was written c. 1891 without the “god” bit, so that case is moot.
The Hammurabi Code explicitly bans same sex marriage? I’m going to want a cite for that. Heck, from my recollection, I don’t even think it touches on sodomy, <wink wink nudge nudge>.
For the record, it does include such sound legal work as:
Who needs juries when we have rivers all over this planet?
Did you really have to seek some obscure law from an unnamed ancient Asian tribe to find laws calling for execution of practicing homosexuals? I’m afraid even I can find more than that, as hate filled bigots have been a part of our planet for a long time, and they are certainly not isolated to a tribal region on the other side of the globe.
Are you hoping for laws calling for the execution of homosexuals now, or was there actually a good reason to bring this up?
You said laws against men marrying men were just a few years old. I made the point that such laws have been around for thousands of years. That’s all.
I believe that you need to edumacate yourself a little. You can start by reading some of the posts in [url=“http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=246254”]this thread
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Laws (and customs) against homosexuality in historical cultures are far from unanimous. In fact, if you want to be a literalist and go back to the Roman and Greek systems from which much of our own system is devised, you will note that homosexuality was a fairly widespread practice.
Some cultures banned it, some cultures allowed it, some cultures embraced it. It depends largely on which despot was in charge at the time. If you are looking for a historic precedent, you’ll find it fuzzy, if you bother to look at the whole picture instead of cherrypicking.