Homosexual Marriage

[ansil]

If the government stepped in and said Homosexuals cant marry and if they are caught being married then they will be thrown in jail. Then that is a human rights problem, but the governement isnt doing that.

Instead the government is basically giving out marriage licenses to people who meet their agenda of what "marriage" is. They are not saying to homosexuals you can not have the same benifits, you just have to be more responsible. To that SVMC has already stated that homosexuals shouldnt have to be held to a higher standards. And so what, thats what marriage is define has. No one is preventing homosexuals from doing more work to ensure thier happiness.

Then we can argue we have to change the definition of marriage, what then to two consulting adults. Once again Incest comes into play, I dont have a problem with two sisters marrying each other to get benifits and I'm not trying to make homosexuality taboo, Im just using the definitions you have stated just like the government uses their definition of marriage right now. If you change the definition of marriage I dont see how you can deny two sisters from getting a marriage license or you are doing the same thing that "we" are doing to the homosexuals, denying thier rights for happiness. And using stats of how much incest is cause by child abuse is just like me saying 2 percent of homosexuals have been abused so its not a good thing to let them get married.

That leaves us to one thing, get rid of the governments hand in marriage altogether. We are all in aggreement to that. Let the church make the marriage and everyone gets the benifits equally, but reality sets in and theres no way thats possible. Too many Americans depend on the government's hand in soo many things we do. I too agree that the government has too much power, but we are way too late in our history to all of a sudden cut them off, we can start limiting their power so they can stop growing, but its very very very hard to give back power short of a revolution.

So like I said before, give homosexual marriage civil unions or a different set of benifits. Whats wrong with that. Still no one has given me an argument as to why, if homosexuals marriages are given a set of benifits that covers their worries, how does that breeches human rights. They are given the rights to persue their happiness. Give hetrosexuals their benifits they disire, homosexuals they desire, give inscest marriages thier benifits, give the man who wants to marry his horse the animal union benifits. The list goes on and on. The government has been giving different type of people different type of benifits, they are not saying you are not allowed to get benifits that another type of person is getting, just we are not including it into your package. Nothing wrong with that.

[ansil]

Quote by: Starboy This is the crux of it. You have one purpose in mind and yet there are many other purposes which people use marriage for every day. And in the final analysis the only difference in purposes between a hetero marriage and a homo marriage is the biological production of children. If this were the only purpose and use of marriage in our society you would have a point but it is not. And because the other purposes also apply to gays and it makes no sense to issue a "reproduction" marriage license and it leaves you with no reasonable distinction of purpose for marriage. One license will work for all as it does now since a homo couple is no different then an infertile hetero couple. And yet the infertile hetero couple gets the same marriage license as everyone else. Starboy

But the government definition of a "marriage" is bwetween a man and a woman. Not man and man. The government needs to change the definition of marriage to two consulting adults, and thats where the debats come in. Incest is two adults, do they get a marriage license? Two best guy friends who are not gay, want to get a marriage license, can they get one also so they can get the benifits package? I think theres the problem, we should define different "benifits" for different marriages, you cannot link them all in one, cause they are not all in the same. A man and a woman marriage is different from a man and a man marriage and that is different from an incest marriage which is different from two best friends marriage. T
he question is should the government see these different marriages has different or see them all as the same? And if they are seen as different marriages, why is that a breech of human rights if in the government's eyes they get different benifits packages, THE MARRIAGES ARE DIFFERENT.

[SVMc]

Quote by: Sasha This reason could be applied equally to poligoumous or incestuos relationships, In fact it is reasonable to suppose that the laws surrounding a marriage could give added protection to individuals in those relationships from the abuse and power imbalances you mentioned.

Since marriage laws are laws that govern responsiblity after an agreed upon contract I don't understand how it is possible to make the leap of logic that marriage laws could be preventative, much less how such laws could prevent the astounding relationship between incest and child-abuse or between women's exploitation and polygamy. Please explain.

Quote by: Sasha The incest argument is over in so much as I agree that child abuse, and incestuous child abuse are bad things, but although you have successfully established that most child abuse is incestuous, you have not established that most incestuous relationships stem from child abuse.

I've been able to establish that the majority of incestuous relationships are harmful because they involve child abuse. You have failed to provide research on a substantive amount of incestuous relationships that do not involve child abuse. If you can provide substantive evidence that there is a significant number of incesteous relationships that do not involve child abuse when compared to the number of incesteous relationships that do involve child abuse then we have a dilemma on our hands. Until such evidence is provided I'm fairly secure in my argument that incest is harmful. It is your burden of proof to show that incest is not harmful.

Quote by: Sasha The argument your making is similar to saying that because the vast majority of rapes are committed by men, therefore all men are rapists. The more apt solution is to make child abuse illegal, like rape is.

Nope, unlike incest there is a substantive amount of evidence that there are a great number of men in fact many more men who are not rapists than men who are rapists.

Burden of proof is yours... but do you really want to build a case that incest is not harmful? If so this is where I really must suggest that we take this part of the debate to a new thread.

Also, there is no relationship between incest and homosexuality, so the status of harm or no harm on incest has little bearing on homosexual marriage other than the fact that people keep equating homosexuality with things like incest or polygamy or pedophila for no other apparent reason other than to create fear around homosexuality.

Quote by: Sasha It seems to me that the benifits of marriage are not granted simply to Quote by: SVMc extends benefits that society at one time has viewed are necessary to protect the individuals in a couple when the law enteres the lives of that couple. In cases of property division, inheritance, child custody, power of attorney and more, but rather as a means of encouraging a given relationship based on the premis that society would benifit from it.

I didn't say that that was the only reason why marriage benefits existed, I did state at least two more reasons in that same thread.

Also, it's not up to the government to reward particular kinds of relationships over others without proving that there is a different contribution made by one relationship that is not made by the other. If the government wants to reward the raising of children that is what the child tax credit is for. Not what marriage laws are for. We can slide back into the procreation debacle here, but it's probably easier to ask you to review those posts and tell me which parts you take issue with.

Quote by: Sasha the heterosexual couple can provide the child with a better upbringing. Now I realise thats a radical statement and it doesnt hold in ALL cases, but on the balance I think its a fair statement.

You know I would have to disagree with that statement. But it is not really relavant to this debate since marriage is not based only on procreation or child raising. Also a person does not have to prove their parenting abilities prior to marriage (although there are times that I'm sure we all wish that they did have to).

[SVMc]

(Oh good greif, we are going to reach 70 pages today aren't we )

Quote by: mr. perfecto You have suggested, "It is more accurate to say that marriage was a social custom to solidify the parentage of children produced inside a marriage." Whether you believe this to be true or not, if this is the purpose of marriage, would it be illegal discrimination to limit it to man-woman relationships?

In the current context yes.

Lets say we do agree on my definition of the origins of marriage (I know you don't agree, but you are asking me a direct question based on my own defintion - so for the purposes of this question, we will limit the response to within that definition).

Agreeing that the one origin of marriage was to solidify the parentage of a child produced inside a marriage does not hold up as a reason to continue to limit marriage as an only a man-woman institution, for two reasons.

First, historical roots can be discrimintory and harmful. In that same origin of marriage I also stated that women and women's reproductive abilites (parentage of children) were bought and sold. Simply because that was a custom is not sufficient reason to deny women full citizenship or to continue to treat women as property. Likewise simply because marriage was once used to establish the legal parentage of children does not mean that we still need it to preform that funciton, much less does is mean that we should continue to discriminate against who can and cannot get married to whom based on the parentage of children.

Second, parentage of children can and does frequently happen outside of marriage, futhermore at the time marriage established the parentage of children since there were few other ways to validate who the father of a child was. Today we have DNA, blood tests and much more to be able to establish parentage and parental obligations.

And as a side note the production of children is not the only reason or even a requirement for people to get married, so children are hardly even a factor when discussing who can get married to whom.

[SVMc]

Quote by: mr. perfecto I'm short on time so I'm going to skip this now,

Lets agree that you're last post was not as analytical and thought provoking as the previous two, so if I am in turn omitting replies to the third post it is simply because they were covered in my other responses, or they were one liners not worth responding to.

Quote by: mr. perfecto There is no harm associated with giving employed people unemployment assistance either, but it would silly to do so.

Silliness agreed,

Quote by: mr. perfecto So you admit then that the purpose of marriage is what the people who created it wanted it to do?

No, I agree that there were original people who originally drafted marriage legislation with some purposes in ind. I do not agree that the purpose of marriage is timeless and has not changed since its origins.

Quote by: mr. perfecto GITMO

What? Confused.Yes looked at link.... still confused.

Quote by: mr. perfecto I think you need to show how homosexuality ties in with marriage in order to prove your case.

See my definition of marriage in previous post.

Bush... if we want to avoid topic drift lets leave bush out of it.

[SVMc]

Quote by: ansil THE MARRIAGES ARE DIFFERENT.

In what way that the law should acknowldege are the marriages different?

[Starboy]

Quote by: ansil But the government definition of a "marriage" is bwetween a man and a woman. Not man and man. The government needs to change the definition of marriage to two consulting adults, and thats where the debats come in.

And they may need to do that. Your point?

Incest is two adults, do they get a marriage license?

If they are infertile then why not? If they are fertile then I would say that they could only get married if there was no way for them to have biological children. In the case of incest there is a real public concern regarding increased birth defects.

Two best guy friends who are not gay, want to get a marriage license, can they get one also so they can get the benifits package?

Sure, why not? Why should marriage be a sex license? I think it would do the institution of marriage a whole lot of good if people stopped thinking of it as a sex license. In any case if those two buds wanted to be a non-sexual family and deal with the problems of getting divorced if they ever did so then why not let them get married. I think you all have very, very dirty minds if you think of family purely in terms of the sexual act.

That is probably why marriage as an institution these days is not doing so well because so many people are so screwed up in the head as to what marriage is. And many are getting married because they see it as a sex license instead of a family license. So people who really have no interest in being in a family but just want a bitch to screw every night get married cause well gee, that is what everyone says you are supposed to do.

I think theres the problem, we should define different "benifits" for different marriages, you cannot link them all in one, cause they are not all in the same. A man and a woman marriage is different from a man and a man marriage and that is different from an incest marriage which is different from two best friends marriage. T he question is should the government see these different marriages has different or see them all as the same? And if they are seen as different marriages, why is that a breech of human rights if in the government's eyes they get different benifits packages, THE MARRIAGES ARE DIFFERENT.

Why create different sizes of something when you already have a size that fits all? What purpose does it serve other than to discriminate against people unnecessarily? As I pointed out earlier, the same marriage license works for hetero couples that are infertile and either cannot have sex or have no intention of having sex. Why wouldn't the same exact license work for couples of the same sex that would obviously not be able to have children and may or may not have sex? What is the need for different marriage licenses when the current one already works in all the possible cases?

Starboy

[SVMc]

Ansil - what I am gathering from your argument is that you recognize that not allowing same sex partners to marry each other in the same way as heterosexual couples do is a form of discrimination. Where you run into problems is that you see it as a minor or less serious form of discrimination than what occured during the race and gendered civil rights movments. Consequently you are advocating that same sex couples should accept a separate form of civil union from marriages for the time being, and wait for public opinion to change a little more overtime, for people to adjust to the idea, rather than pushing for full equal marriage rights in the immediacy.

Am I understanding your stace correctly?

If so, let me try this analogy.....

You mentioned earlier that you are black. So what if it was still the case that you were not allowed to marry any woman who was not black. It may not effect you personally since you may not want to get married, or when you do want to get married it happens conveniently enough that you want to marry a black woman. However, consider two things... one what if you want to marry a woman who isn't black, how would you react to the government deciding that your skin colour is a factor in who you can love and partner with. Second, thing to consider, even if you do want to marry a black woman, would you feel some resentment at the government placing a stipulation based on your skin colour that you had to marry a black woman and could not marry any other woman?

In some senses this is a redundant question. The chances of a person in contemporary times being able to honestly say that the government placing a limit on them based solely on skin colour is fair is highly unlikely.

So here is the question. If it is not legitimate to discriminate against people based on race, gender or religion then why is discriminating against people based on sexual orientation fair?

[mr.perfecto]

Quote by: SVMc I think this is where the heart of the debate lies, so I'll begin here then address the other points. First, nice splicing of my comments to make me sound like I was saying something I did not.

Based on my reading of the post I am responding to, I don't see how I altered your point at all. :confused: You repeatedly say that property sharing, custody, etc. are benefits of marriage, but you admit that those things are not exclusive to marriage.

So lets take this one step at a time. You are saying that: We are both agreed that homosexual and heterosexual couples have the ability to write various legal agreements that pertain to property sharing, custody, inhertiance, power of attorney etc.... I am saying that: civil legal marriage is special because it gives spouses rights in regards to each other when no other agreements exist.

As I have already said and, based on your comments to Sasha and the statement underlined above, you agree with my point that marriage is an agreement in and of itself. Do you understand what you are saying? In the absence of any agreement at all, you have none of those rights with respect to another individual. You have already stated that marriage is more than just a property sharing agreement, or just a bundle of agreements. Yet, you are saying that marriage is special because it creates a sort of super agreement to do certain things, whether a person wants to or not.

Something about your responses is just not meshing--I suspect that you were less than honest with yourself in your response. Remember, the question was, why is marriage special.

To the best of your knowledge, are adult siblings or parents and their adult-children forbidden from entering into any other agreement besides marriage?

If you can't think of any, What would be the deciding factor between marriage and all other agreements that would cause the state to forbid people enter into a marriage under those circumstances?

You have agreed that: <snipped> Here is where I take issue with your argument, you are saying that as individual people a homosexual person has the legal right to enter into marriage, but obviously under the current law the only way a homosexual individual could get married would be to go counter to their own desiers and marry someone of the oppostie gender. This is why it is a debate about same-sex marriage between same-sex couples not a debate about individual access to marraige. If marriage were an individual acitivy this would be a completely different debate. However, benefits, status and laws of marriage all pertain to the relationship (legal contract) between two people. The issue is the government discriminating which two people are allowed to enter into this contract and which two are not and based on what criteria.

Have you ever explained how it is possible to discriminate against a class of people without discriminating against the individuals that make up that class?

Individuals have rights. Groups do not. Not in America. We may have irreconcilable cultural differences here and I don't want to be sidetracked on this issue in this thread, but if you don't agree with this, I will discuss it with you in another thread.

For something to be illegal, is has to be demonstrated to be protecting a social good or to be causing harm. The marriage of same-sex people (to members of the same gender) causes no harm to the people involved or to society at large. There is no social function that contemporary marriage preforms that is a social good that marriage between same sex people to memebers of the same gender would endanger.

At least you have admitted that, based on your own definition, there is no logical reason for marriage to exist at all.

BTW I have seen no answer to this question, feel free to link to the post where you did answer it because I obviously have missed the answer: What you have not responded to is: Why should a homosexual couple be held to a higher legal standard of responsibility to ensure their rights than a heterosexual couple?

I believe I did and that you quoted my response there. There is no higher legal standard of responsibility ( :( certainly not for the homosexual couple.) Following the laws of the United States is not a benefit of being an American citizen. It is a requirement for being considered one.

??? Okay sharing property, survivor rights, child custody etc... if you get married become requirements since they are stipulated in marriage laws.... on the otherside if couples are denied a marriage license those same requirements of marriage are also benefits of marriage that couples who are denied marriage licneses are excluded from.

:eek: As I've already stated, they are not benefits of marriage because you can perform the same actions whether you are married or not.

Separating the races is now viewed as something that was highly discriminatory, was a human rights violation and is now illegal. The only point of not allowing individual homosexual people from marrying another person of the same gender is to perpetuate a heterosexual society as the social "norm". Why is this a social good? The existance of homosexuality will not create the extincition of heterosexuality. Simply because homosexuality exists does not endanger heterosexuality. Why then would homosexual marriage infringe on heterosexual marriage?

There is nothing within the marriage laws which would cause a person to be identified as a homosexual or a heterosexual and I have never claimed the existence of homosexuality is a threat to heterosexuality. Indeed, I find it odd that you see marriage laws that don't even mention sexual preference as an attack on homosexuality.

And please don't be silly. Heterosexuality will always be the "norm." We should all hope so, anyway! I certainly don't look forward to spending my retirement years doing back breaking labor. Reguardless of what your preference is or your outlook on parenthood, someone somewhere has to be producing, feeding, and educating the next generation. Plenty of social good in that.

No, because none of those unions would be consentual and prevent harm. Why is this concept so difficult?

Again, we are speaking about adults. You are saying that if two adults walked into a courthouse, they should not be allowed to marry because the law says their relationship is based on childhood abuse whether they believe it or not?

Odd, you didn't like that statement when I made.

Yes it is. Only heterosexual people want to marry a person of the opposite gender. Homosexual people want to marry someone of the same gender. By not allowing consenting adults of the same gender to marry, marriage is an alternative form of legal agreement that is exclusionary of homosexual people.

:confused:
You told me that the definition of homosexual was (paraphrased) a person who had strong sexual desire for people of the same gender.

I really have no idea how you came to that leap of logic, I am saying no such thing. I am saying that the current marriage laws do discriminate against homosexual people, by not allowing homosexual peopel to get married to a partner of the same sex. I am in no way saying that the purpose or function of marriage is to discriminate against homosexuals.... I thought that was your argument? :p

It took some time, but at least I finally started to see what you are accusing me of.

Ask anyone what the purpose of not allowing blacks to drink at whites only water fountains was, and they will tell you that the purpose of excluding blacks was to discriminate against them. You have used the example multiple times and I personally find it annoying. So, I just have to remove it from your basket of slogans. Since you don't believe that the purpose of marriage is to discriminate against homosexuals, it would be disingenuous of you to continue to use it as an example.

Well obviously we are talking at cross purposes somewhere, so back to the basics it is. My take: Marriage is two fold. On one side marriage is a social or religious function which never should have come into legal status. If marriage had been left as a social or religious function then differnt cultures, sub-cultures, religious could choose who was recognized as married or not married within their own requriements without any legal benefits being extended or denied. On the other side marriage is a legal act, structured by access to the marriage license which is a contract between two individuals choosing to enter into the contract in the eyes of the law. When two adult consenting individuals enter into the marriage contract in the eyes of the law the get the beneifts or accept the requirements of marriage which include access to spousal benefits (power of attornery, survivor rights, inheritance consideration etc..) and fiduciary obligations (property sharing, standard of living, child custody). Since the second or legal aspect of marriage is managed and administered by a civil, secular government, if the government upholds a definition of marriage that limits marriage choices exclusively to a member of the opposite sex, then the government is discriminating unfairly without reason of harm or consent against homosexual people. Your turn.

I think you should submit this last part here to a poll or something. Hopefully I am not the only one who fails to follow the chain of thought that brought you to your conclusion.

[mr.perfecto]

Quote by: SVMc LOL, your loss, my grades were quite exceptional... and it seems to fly with publishers Really though you have been unable to discredit any of those claims. So why is the heterosexual definition of marriage worth preserving?

I haven't tried to discredit any of them.

Because, despite what some folks think (even some around here,) women need men and men need women.

[mr.perfecto]

Quote by: SVMc Lets agree that you're last post was not as analytical and thought provoking as the previous two, so if I am in turn omitting replies to the third post it is simply because they were covered in my other responses, or they were one liners not worth responding to. Silliness agreed, No, I agree that there were original people who originally drafted marriage legislation with some purposes in ind. I do not agree that the purpose of marriage is timeless and has not changed since its origins. What? Confused.Yes looked at link.... still confused. See my definition of marriage in previous post. Bush... if we want to avoid topic drift lets leave bush out of it.

Okay, forget Bush's programs. Do you agree that those things would be benefits of marriage where property sharing, custody, etc. are not?

GITMO is an American naval base in Cuba. There is a prison there. It has been in the news on a regular basis since 9/11.

[ansil]

Starboy
"Why create different sizes of something when you already have a size that fits all? What purpose does it serve other than to discriminate against people unnecessarily? As I pointed out earlier, the same marriage license works for hetero couples that are infertile and either cannot have sex or have no intention of having sex. Why wouldn't the same exact license work for couples of the same sex that would obviously not be able to have children and may or may not have sex? What is the need for different marriage licenses when the current one already works in all the possible cases?"

And so thats my point also. One size doesn't fit all. I agree that a hetrosexual couple marriage that is infertile is close to a homosexual marriage, except there is a difference bwtween those two marriages and a homosexual marriage that can have kids. Power of Custody of the kids is a huge civil matter that is addressed in marriage benifits. The hetrosexuals and the homosexuals do not need to have anything in their marriage liscence that deals with kids (of course adoption etc, but we are talking about "tradition" baby making. whereas the kids have both genitc makeup). So there right there is an example where the two non kid making marriages are different than the supposedly making babies marriage (Although I agree with you in these times not every hetrosexual marriage has kids, but they have the ability to so in essence need that extra benifit). Right there is an example in a legal standpoint where the marriages ARE different. Religiously they are all the same marriages, correct. I agree with you there, but I still cant see how one size fits all works for all the different type of marriages. Another example if you use your "one size fits all" If two best friends who are not in a sexual relationship, man and woman, the woman gets pregnant by another man and has a kid. Does the man in the "marriage" gets child custody now? Thats another example where that "type" of marriage differes from the hetrosexual "traditional" marriage. So I say once again, my argument is as follows, because different types of marriages are getting a set of different types of "BENIFITS" I may add, does that make it a discrimination. No of course not. There are thousands of example where different types of people get different types of benifits. If the person next to me gets a loan from the government to start his business because he went to grad school and I didnt. Does that make it a human right violation? No. Those were choices we made differently. Now if he got a bigger loan cause he is white and we both went to same exact Law School, then thats a human rights violation. They only looked at physical attributes. But thats not happening in this case, Homosexuals are "allowed" to get married, they are "allowed" to get benifits, they just cant get it all assumed under one marriage license. And if you want to argue that its discrimination that they are "held to a higher responsibilty" I dont see why you cant see them giving them a.k.a. Civil Unions, which have the benifits they need in persuit of happiness, for they do fall under a "different" category of marriage and should get a different set of benifits. That doesnt make them a second class citizen. It is not the same type of marriage,
And I guess that leads up to SVM's question
SVM
"So here is the question. If it is not legitimate to discriminate against people based on race, gender or religion then why is discriminating against people based on sexual orientation fair?"

Race and gender are being discriminated against in America. The government has step in and already has stated that socially women and minorites are given a disadvantage in America so we are going to step in and give them "packages" For example, minority quotas for Law School. I had three friends, both of them who went to UT. They both wanted to get into Law School, They all pretty much had the same levels of achievements. But 2 of them got in, One was a woman the other was black. The white guy, not out of spite, knew he didnt get in cause he was white. The government gives out special benifts to people of physical attributes all the time. Once again my argument that the government does look at social structure to determine its benifits is true again. Now gender and race are physical attributes that can not be helped. You are born black and born a woman.
I think the underlying problem is that you guys keep using Race and Gender has examples whereas I do not look at those the same way as sexual orientation and religion. I think the problem lies from the bases of what everyone sees homosexuality has? Some people say its genitcs, I say its a choice of sexual preference. So from that argument you go in a total different direction.
We need to first figure out the bases of homosexuality first. Genitics, Environment, Choice. And if by your eyes, you see it has a genitics, has something you cant help, then you are given a different set of benifits, just like Blacks are given as to a White person, and a woman is given as to a man. Does that make homosexual a second class citizen, because he is given benifits from the the government as they see forth and their persuit of happiness a.k.a civil unions. NO. Although we all agree that government shouldnt be given out benifits to start off with, but thats a different thread.

I have some more points to put, but I have to go to work.

[JamesMcBride]

I've tested the hypothesis of a gay marriage against every moral, ethical and practical constraint that I have - and I cannot see one reason why they should be objected to.

[ansil]

........

[JamesMcBride]

And what? I have no objections to it since I can't form an ethical objection, a practical objection, moral objection or rational objection.

[ansil]

what are you objected, the fact that they cant get married?
They can get married, but the dont cant get any marital license from the government. I didnt understand what you were posting, forgive me if I sounded prude.

[Starboy]

Quote by: ansil Starboy Quote by: Starboy "Why create different sizes of something when you already have a size that fits all? What purpose does it serve other than to discriminate against people unnecessarily? As I pointed out earlier, the same marriage license works for hetero couples that are infertile and either cannot have sex or have no intention of having sex. Why wouldn't the same exact license work for couples of the same sex that would obviously not be able to have children and may or may not have sex? What is the need for different marriage licenses when the current one already works in all the possible cases?" And so thats my point also. One size doesn't fit all. I agree that a hetrosexual couple marriage that is infertile is close to a homosexual marriage, except there is a difference bwtween those two marriages and a homosexual marriage that can have kids.

If they don't have kids or the kids are of legal age there is no difference. You forget than many older people who are well past the age of reproduction get married all the time and the vast majority of them have no intention of having children.

Power of Custody of the kids is a huge civil matter that is addressed in marriage benifits. The hetrosexuals and the homosexuals do not need to have anything in their marriage liscence that deals with kids (of course adoption etc, but we are talking about "tradition" baby making. whereas the kids have both genitc makeup). So there right there is an example where the two non kid making marriages are different than the supposedly making babies marriage (Although I agree with you in these times not every hetrosexual marriage has kids, but they have the ability to so in essence need that extra benifit). Right there is an example in a legal standpoint where the marriages ARE different.

[ansil, it would improve the readability of your posts if you would use the quote function to place the comments of other posts into a quote box. Just a suggestion. I can deal with your posts as they are but others may not find it as easy.]

But all marriages are different. That is my point. That the marriage certificate as it stands already handles a vast array of circumstances regarding marriage. That there is no reason to create a different kind of marriage certificate.

And of course you are aware that there is nothing stopping a lesbian couple from going down to the sperm bank and making a withdrawal and having a child. Why wouldn't the state not allow both mothers to raise the child? In fact the state already does allow for it. Why would it not be better for the child if both mothers were bound legally under the law for the welfare of the child than just the one mother? Why if there were a custody dispute not allow the judge the luxury of using both parents to provide the best possible home for the child after the divorce?

You are still trying to make a marriage license into a sex license. It is a terrible idea. It is one of the reasons why things are as screwed up as they are. That just because two people can make babies doesn't in any way mean that they will provide a good home for that baby and in most cases of such baby making they probably will make a horrible family. And yet you all want to frame family in that context. It is just plain idiocy.

Religiously they are all the same marriages, correct. I agree with you there, but I still cant see how one size fits all works for all the different type of marriages. Another example if you use your "one size fits all" If two best friends who are not in a sexual relationship, man and woman, the woman gets pregnant by another man and has a kid. Does the man in the "marriage" gets child custody now?

In some cases yes. And it is happening more often all the time. It appears to me that you have never been married. That you have never had children. That you are pretty clueless about the whole thing. Well someday you may be married. And if you are I hope that you find a decent responsible intelligent girl to settle down with. But if you don't and your marriage ends up in divorce it could very well be the case that you would make the far better parent. And it will distress you to no end that in some states with some courts there will not be a dang thing you can do about it. And why is that? Because so many morons confuse a marriage license with a sex license. They think that a pair of boobs, a cunt and a dick are magically a formula for a healthy family than any other combination. They are actually a bunch of perverts in my opinion because they are so obsessed with the sex that has not occurred to them that it is about the people themselves. And this crap about confusing a sex license with a marriage license completely ignores what should be important in a family.

Thats another example where that "type" of marriage differes from the hetrosexual "traditional" marriage. So I say once again, my argument is as follows, because different types of marriages are getting a set of different types of "BENIFITS" I may add, does that make it a discrimination. No of course not. There are thousands of example where different types of people get different types of benifits. If the person next to me gets a loan from the government to start his business because he went to grad school and I didnt. Does that make it a human right violation? No. Those were choices we made differently. Now if he got a bigger loan cause he is white and we both went to same exact Law School, then thats a human rights violation. They only looked at physical attributes. But thats not happening in this case, Homosexuals are "allowed" to get married, they are "allowed" to get benifits, they just cant get it all assumed under one marriage license. And if you want to argue that its discrimination that they are "held to a higher responsibilty" I dont see why you cant see them giving them a.k.a. Civil Unions, which have the benifits they need in persuit of happiness, for they do fall under a "different" category of marriage and should get a different set of benifits. That doesnt make them a second class citizen. It is not the same type of marriage,

Okay, here is another fact for you. Gay couples in many states may already adopt children. So your argument regarding child rearing is just flat out specious. In fact there are so many children that need a home desperately it would seem to me that any nation that would not consider every possible resource to provide a loving home is just full of religious assholes. For some reason you make the presumption that a hetero couple will automatically do a better job when these children are coming from hetero couples that obviously did not do a better job. The issue of a loving home has everything to do with the people involved and nothing to do with their gender.

From what I can see the gays are many times more savvy at being married than the heteros because the gays already understand that marriage is not a sex license but a family license and thus homo families already have a leg up on hetero couples because of that. The fact is that in most states gays can already do all the things that you seem to think requires a separate marriage license for. So the gays are not looking for the marriage license to allow them to do those things. What they are looking for is the same recognition under the law of their families that hetero families have. Because they are doing everything that hetero families are doing but without the government recognition and that is flat out discrimination. And anyone that defends separate treatment is no different than someone that defends separate treatment for blacks vs. whites.

Starboy