Marriage Equality - Sure, I'll start it up

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Obviously I think most people are aware that today gay marriage became legalized in all 50 States by a 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court. I don't buy into the whole slippery slope argument, and now people are going to be marrying frogs, and folks will marry their couch, whatever.  But one thing I think this does open up is should polygamy still be illegal?  If a male or female want to marry a half dozen people, why shouldn't they be allowed?  We've gotten past the whole concept that marriage is 1 man and 1 woman.

Should polygamy be the next thing to go?

 
"Why not?" isn't how things get done.  If someone wants to see polygamy (or incestuous marriage or marrying ducks, etc) legalized then they need to make a powerful and persuasive argument about why it should happen and why it serves society's interests.

 
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Yeah, on the radio I've listened to an Oxford-style debate, but the only persuasive argument against gay marriage is that children will not be able to live in a nuclear household due to the need for biological parents or some crap. The debaters against gay marriage refused to acknowledge the problems that pervade foster care, even when such parents who are one man one female, cause as much if not more trouble than gay parents. And they framed it in a way where old people can't get married, when in the newspaper the other day a 91 year old man married some woman in her eighties.

We have solid arguments on what constitutes a marriage, and it is one where two people (so far) have a really tight bond, and are willing to build a life together, among many things. We've defined common law marriages and that is clearly not traditional, and they are legal according to the eyes of the State. All I hear is a con for gay marriages by opponents is because they invoke the name of God because it is convenient.

Society has already defined and changed marriage over the years, and the Government should not be in the business of intruding on that right.

 
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"Why not?" isn't how things get done. If someone wants to see polygamy (or incestual marriage or marrying ducks, etc) legalized then they need to make a powerful and persuasive argument about why it should happen and why it serves society's interests.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXPcBI4CJc8

 
Wait until right wing republican conservatives start seeing a new wave of interracial-NOW with a helping of GAY marriages, wow that will surely blow their lid... HA HA HA !!!

Before they have to just suck it up seeing interraical-hetrosexual marriage, now they are in for a even more helping when the couples are also GAY....LOL

Is there anything worst for a racist right wing republican conservative then now seeing interracial + super gay marriage....

 
Don't fundamentalists also believe that women are NOT equal to men, especially in marriage. What is believed to be traditional marriage is already dead long before the Industrial Revolution.

The radio's constantly saying "our values are being under attack." Politicians constantly attack somebody else's values on tv all of the time. Latinos don't have values, Mr. Trump? Poor people don't? Women don't? Blacks don't? Asians don't? Get your head out of your butt. Quit invoking God just because it's convenient.

 
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No qualms here with gay marriage.  I've ran across a few people who think that the term marriage shouldn't be used except by religious organizations . . . which I find dumb.  Marriage and civil union are synonymous terms based off colloquial use.

Consenting adults should be able to get married.  Polygamy?  Meh, I'm not hot on the idea . . . but I'm not going to say no either.

From what I've witnessed, the only outrage has been from extremists.  Which I bet disappoints Finger_Shocker to no end.

 
Well, I suppose that depends on the definition of "extremist".  Much of the outrage over the decision is masked in complaints about the Supreme Court since it's more politically viable to say "This was judicial activism" than to say "I hate the fact that homos can get married".  But the numerous voices nattering about how we have to term limit the Supreme Court, make the Justices have to face retention elections, need to pass an amendment to restore "traditional marriage", etc are based in outrage over the fact that same sex marriage is now the law of the land.

 
Well, I suppose that depends on the definition of "extremist". Much of the outrage over the decision is masked in complaints about the Supreme Court since it's more politically viable to say "This was judicial activism" than to say "I hate the fact that homos can get married". But the numerous voices nattering about how we have to term limit the Supreme Court, make the Justices have to face retention elections, need to pass an amendment to restore "traditional marriage", etc are based in outrage over the fact that same sex marriage is now the law of the land.
Honestly, I've heard more complaints about the Obamacare ruling than the marriage equality ruling. In total, I've heard 3 complaints about the marriage equality ruling. Considering I'm involved in several firearm groups (which typically have those dreaded "right wing" people that Finger_Shocker hates), I'm thinking the outrage isn't nearly as large as you're making it.

Personally, I haven't read much on the Obamacare ruling. The complaint I've been hearing is that the judges essentially changed the law by reading into what *wasn't* written into the law and expanding upon it.

At least that's what I've witnessed. Maybe I'm missing something though.

 
So my question is will we continue to see gay pride events bi monthly? And at some point in history will we be offering reparations to people whose ancestors were oppressed due to their sexuality?
 

 
Honestly, I've heard more complaints about the Obamacare ruling than the marriage equality ruling. In total, I've heard 3 complaints about the marriage equality ruling.
Anecdotes and all that. I've heard a ton of complaints about the SSM ruling. Obviously I can't speak for what you have or haven't heard. Heck, the front page of National Review Online (popular conservative news/opinion site) has the first six stories about the SSM ruling. Again, this goes back to what we're calling "extremist".

So my question is will we continue to see gay pride events bi monthly? And at some point in history will we be offering reparations to people whose ancestors were oppressed due to their sexuality?
(A) Sure, maybe. Why not? I don't know where you're at that they're bimonthly but I'm guessing the gay people will still be proud. The gay advocacy groups will be shifting efforts for equal rights protection in housing, employment, etc and no doubt looking for gender preference to become a federally protected class like race, sex, religion and the rest of 'em.

(B) If we do, I guess they'll have to get in line behind everyone else still waiting for the government to make good. Based on our track record, I estimate that they'll get their reparations in 3570 AD.

 
Incest should be next to be legalized.  Then polygamy. (seriously)

Also, it was amusing having Roberts dissenting with his ruling from the previous day.

 
I don't see either happening any time soon.

Incest has a strong social objective to prohibiting it.  Also the arguments about it are opposite of those for same sex marriage.  With SSM, the argument against was that marriage is about procreation.  SSM advocates had to show that marriage was a larger sphere than simply procreation and, also, that same sex couples could raise children regardless.  With incestuous marriage, the issue is that they CAN procreate and there's no practical solution to that.  Yes, individual couples can use birth control but there's no assurance that they will.  In Sharp v Perez, it's said that marriage is a fundamental right that can't be abridged without a strong social objective and in the least intrusive way.  We already have a reason for prohibiting incestuous marriage and simply prohibiting it is simpler and less intrusive than things such as forced sterilization, fertility/chromosome tests for every couple or other similar solutions to the procreation problem.

Polygamy has the problem that it's a much thicker legal tangle than SSM.  With same sex marriage, you just scratch out "husband" or "wife" and write in "spouse" and you're pretty much done revising the rules.  With polygamy, you have a whole set of "What happens when..." scenarios to be legally solved.  I can't see even a liberal leaning court willing to throw open those floodgates and say "figure it out" -- it's going to have to proven at the state level first.

The other hurdle for both is, of course, public acceptance.  Not even in terms of the courts saying "Gee, people want this" but the resources to bring this into the public view, fund legal challenges, fund advocacy groups, etc.  I can't see a near term scenario where you have people putting millions of dollars into the right for sons to marry their mothers.

 
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Hunh, I think I either didn't write it very clearly, or folks were so anxious to rant on the topic, but I wasn't saying I buy into any of those slippery slope arguments about marrying animals, objects, etc.  I think they are ridiculous.  I was actually saying that polygamy could completely be viewed as a harmless act (unlike incest, where offspring have a higher chance of defects, not to mention the very likely chance that sexual abuse could occur with minors) or pedophilia, where the country should protect children from adults who want to sexually molest them.  Those are harmful acts, and I think the government should protect people from that.

Gay marriage isn't a harmful act.  Polygamy isn't a harmful act.  So if a band of folks wanted to get together, lobby Congress, and start a campaign to legalize polygamy, would everyone be as rah-rah about it?  If not, why?  Is it the Mormon baggage that makes people assume that's the purpose?  It's just more people embracing happiness and love via marriage.  I don't see it as a bad thing.

And to those who will skim over this post too, and try to paint me as some right-wing weirdo who is pissed off about gay marriage, I'm not.  A couple of gay guys having the right to get married doesn't impact my life in the slightest.  If they want to get married, it's nice they can do that now.  Why shouldn't a guy or a girl marry more than one spouse?

 
If a bunch of people want to lobby for legalized polygamy, good for them.  If they can make a good enough argument to the people and to the government then that's how the system goes.

I personally wouldn't go out of my way to advocate for it because it just doesn't hit my radar.  I don't think it directly compares to same sex marriage as that was a fight for an equal right -- to wed your partner just as heterosexual couples can.  Polygamists are fighting for an extra or expanded right that currently no one has: the right to have multiple spouses.  It's a pretty tough argument to make under Equal Protection that you're not being protected unless you get more than everyone else. 

That said, I'm not threatened by it either and wouldn't go out of my way to help stop it.  I just think it needs its own unique argument instead of piggy-backing on the SSM debate.

 
I think Polygamy is going to be freakin' hard to justify and sort out. It used to be that a man can have as many wives as he wants, but the wives were more like child-birthing servants than actual partners in a relationship. Man/woman relationships, or two person relationships for that matter, have evolved over time where things are on some kind of equal footing for both parties, legally, economically, psychologically, etc. What do we as normal people know about three or more relationships outside of the ensemble, or boy band? Maybe we'll find out in 50 years time. Then again, such thoughts we have about "regular" relationships don't apply to lots of people, considering how effed up sh- can be or how half-assed people are to each other.

Man, sickened to hear that Mike Huckabee invoked MLK to say that Christian religious principles have a right to discriminate against LGBT people. They choose to torture scripture to their own means, even sixty years ago when brave men like Strom Thurmond gave a long-ass filibuster on why the Civil Rights Act is an abberation against God, society, and to the nations of Earth. We should regress to a point where interracial dating, nay communication should be illegal because God struck down the Tower of Babel.

 
I don't think Gay marriage is a slippery slope. I don't particularly care either way, and to be honest I'm not a big fan of marriage in general. However I do see how semantics can come into play, especially for those that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. It's like the subtle difference between cognac and brandy (where all cognac is brandy but not all brandy is cognac). To those people a man and a woman will be married and anything else is "Gay married". The same but still not the same despite being legalized. Whatever, don't care. But I think it's funny whether it's being done intentionally or not almost everyone still throws "Gay" in front of "married" when referencing the LGBT community.

 
Well, it's only been three days following however many millennium. Maybe give society a full week to adjust.

 
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I don't know but i'm watching the ESPY's - God knows why and Caitlyn Jenner is giving a 30 minute speech. Abby Wambach called her stunning I just wanna know if she'd do some freaky stuff with a tranny if not I'm handing in my rainbow tie.

 
I don't know but i'm watching the ESPY's - God knows why and Caitlyn Jenner is giving a 30 minute speech. Abby Wambach called her stunning I just wanna know if she'd do some freaky stuff with a tranny if not I'm handing in my rainbow tie.
All Bruce Jenner is is a PR whore. He stole that award from Lauren Hill to make more money.

He should burn in hell.

 
All Bruce Jenner is is a PR whore. He stole that award from Lauren Hill to make more money.

He should burn in hell.
He didn't steal anything. The award voters made that decision.

Anyway, for most of Western history, marriage was a private matter. It's only recently that governments have gotten into the game, and in America's case, it was done for racist and xenophobic reasons (as with most forms of social engineering).

Consenting individuals should be free to form whatever relationships they want and call it what they want. This includes polygamy and even incest.

 
He didn't steal anything. The award voters made that decision.

Anyway, for most of Western history, marriage was a private matter. It's only recently that governments have gotten into the game, and in America's case, it was done for racist and xenophobic reasons (as with most forms of social engineering).

Consenting individuals should be free to form whatever relationships they want and call it what they want. This includes polygamy and even incest.
http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/7/71/773662/report-caitlyn-jenners-rep-lobbied-espn-courage-award-exchange-pr-plugs

 
I bet ESPN is enjoying the free publicity.  Most people probably had no idea that the ESPYs existed until a bunch of people lost their shit about Jenner winning it and how this person or that person was robbed.

 
Like Feeding the Abscess has said a few posts above, I also believe that the marriage between two consenting adults is a private matter. By having government intervene it only validates the fact that they have power our relationships. In a free society we should be free to choose a spouse(s) without the intervention from the state. 

 
So, here is the question that intrigues me: Should the government be allowed to punish someone who doesn't want to participate in the ceremony based on his/her religious beliefs?  A person can opt out of fighting in a war due to being a conscientious objector, should they be able to opt out of playing a part in a LGBT wedding ceremony?  Should you be able to decline catering a dinner for Westboro Baptist Church due to being a conscientious objector?  Let me know what you guys think.

 
So, here is the question that intrigues me: Should the government be allowed to punish someone who doesn't want to participate in the ceremony based on his/her religious beliefs?
Absolutely not.

A person can opt out of fighting in a war due to being a conscientious objector, should they be able to opt out of playing a part in a LGBT wedding ceremony?
Absolutely, yes.

Should you be able to decline catering a dinner for Westboro Baptist Church due to being a conscientious objector?
Absolutely, yes.

Let me know what you guys think.
Deriving from the principle of self-ownership comes the freedom to associate, which necessarily includes the freedom to disassociate. What people choose to do with that freedom may at times be reprehensible, but social mores should come about as the result of cultural exchange, not the hand of the state.

 
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So, here is the question that intrigues me: Should the government be allowed to punish someone who doesn't want to participate in the ceremony based on his/her religious beliefs? A person can opt out of fighting in a war due to being a conscientious objector, should they be able to opt out of playing a part in a LGBT wedding ceremony? Should you be able to decline catering a dinner for Westboro Baptist Church due to being a conscientious objector? Let me know what you guys think.
Depends on where and who. For instance, most churches provide marriage services exclusively for their parishioners on a non-profit basis as part of their religious services. In that case, I'd agree that they are under no onus to provide services to people who do not fit their criteria. But there are also people, even clergy, who perform wedding ceremonies as a side business unrelated to their capacity within the church. In this case they should be held to the same rules as any other business enterprise. This was the case in Idaho where two ministers were threatened with fines for refusing same sex ceremonies. They were not performing the ceremonies as part of a religious service within a church but rather ran a "Hitchin' Post" wedding chapel -- a for-profit business much like a Vegas wedding chapel.

What those rules are depends on where you are. In some states, homosexuals are a protected class so refusing to cater a dinner, bake a cake, etc on the basis of their gender preference is explicitly illegal just as it would be to refuse them based on their race, gender, religion, etc. In other states there are no such protections. So whether or not a business should be able to refuse a homosexual couple for a wedding would be the same answer as if someone asked "Should a restaurant be allowed to refuse to seat gay couples?" or "Should a grocery store be allowed to refuse to sell food to gay people?" Either they are a protected class for business purposes or they are not.

Conscientious objection doesn't really apply here. Although it's worth noting that conscientious objectors are still required to perform service, just not actual combat duties (well, were, since we don't have a draft these days). That's not something that applies to weddings -- "Ok, you don't have to perform the service but you still have to clean up the reception hall later."

You can refuse service to essentially any specific person or group of people provided that your reasons for doing so aren't directly about their membership in a protected class. Refusing to cater an event for the Westboro Baptist Church based on their being nominally Christian or Baptist would be an issue but refusing to cater it because I don't cater events for anti-military protest groups or organizations on the SPLC Hate group list would probably be okay assuming that I apply that rule evenly.

 
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"cultural exchange" instead of the state?

Cool. Wonder where we'd be in 2015 if there was no Emancipation Proclamation, 14th Amendment, Loving v Virgina, Brown v Board, etc.

Probably WAY AHEAD in race relations, right? Should have let the free market decide.

:roll: so hard my eyes are gonna bug out of my sockets.

Speaking of the 14th amendment, it's funny how quickly Libertarians, who hide behind some silly idea that they're more Constitutionally authentic than anyone else, will disregard the portions they don't like (see also: Rand Paul and his attitude towards the 14th).

 
"cultural exchange" instead of the state?

Cool. Wonder where we'd be in 2015 if there was no Emancipation Proclamation, 14th Amendment, Loving v Virgina, Brown v Board, etc.

Probably WAY AHEAD in race relations, right? Should have let the free market decide.

:roll: so hard my eyes are gonna bug out of my sockets.

Speaking of the 14th amendment, it's funny how quickly Libertarians, who hide behind some silly idea that they're more Constitutionally authentic than anyone else, will disregard the portions they don't like (see also: Rand Paul and his attitude towards the 14th).
I'll give you all of those legal amendments and changes. I'll take never instituting slavery as a legally codified construct and remain confident that relations between races would be better off than currently constituted.

Generally speaking, libertarians who believe in the Constitution believe in it as a restraining measure against the state. It's perfectly legitimate and consistent to oppose portions of the document if those ends are no longer met. Perhaps the most explicit and obvious example of this would be the 18th amendment.

 
Then you don't actually support "cultural exchange" instead of the state.

The state's what got us to where we are, not Woolworth's changing its fucking lunch counter policies.

 
Then you don't actually support "cultural exchange" instead of the state.

The state's what got us to where we are, not Woolworth's changing its fucking lunch counter policies.
The state legally codified slavery, and instituted numerous laws to protect slaveholders. Holding the abolitionist position as it relates to slavery in early American history should be entirely uncontroversial in 2015. It's also consistently anti-state. I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

 
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