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Old Sep 12, 2005, 07:46 pm   #1931 (permalink) (top)
Dirty Name
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I am differentiating implications from direct consequences, or trying.
Nevertheless, what I and others are saying is that the legal arguments used to justify gay marriage will also be used to justify polygamy and incest. I am not clear on how you would differentiate gay marriage from polygamy and incest, or if not sexual incest, then let's call it a mutual care familial relationship.

Hypothetically speaking, if we all agreed that gay marriage was worthwhile and that gay couples were in fact worthy of equal status, but we also all agreed that incest is not worthy of equal status, how do we argue legally against incestuous marriage when we already demonstrated a willingness to lower the "equality" threshold to accomodate gay marriage?

I understand that incestuous sexual relationships can result in harmful effects to offspring. But what about non-sexual mutual care familial relationships? Are these not worthy of the same equal status?

The point really goes back to the obvious fact that "couples" don't merit equality in the same way that individuals do. This much is obvious from the current structure of our laws. The very existence of our laws is proof that incest, multi-partner unions, and same sex couples have not been considered equal to heterosexual couples.

Now, you are wishing to lower the threshold, saying, that, yes, in fact, same sex couples ARE worthy of equal status - but to do so, you demand that we ignore some very important differences between the two. Could not multi-partner unions and family partners (sexual and otherwise) argue the exact same thing?

And what possible grounds would you have for rejecting them? Sadly, many of your contemporaries are coming to the conclusion that there aren't any such grounds, and that government should be out of the marriage business altogether. In light of this fact - I can only conclude that any argument in favor of SSM carries with it some significant flaws.


The Secular Case Against Gay Marriage:
http://www.volconvo.com/forums/socie...tml#post348891
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