Elonka wrote:
] Decius wrote:
] ] Elonka wrote:
] ] ] Battles over wills and death benefits? It's not just about
]
] ] ] letting a gay man put his partner on his health insurance
] ] ] policy, there's a whole slew of legal battles that would
] be
] ] ] opened up by allowing gay marriages.
] ]
] ] Why should these questions be resolved any differently then
] ] for any other kind of couple. The only difference that I can
]
] ] see relates to child support, in that homosexual couples
] ] cannot produce offspring.
]
] Okay, how's this for a scenario: Joe marries Jack. Joe and
] Jack adopt a baby. Then Joe decides he's not gay anymore,
] divorces Jack, and marries Jill. Does Jill refer to Jack as
] "my husband's ex-husband?" Then what if Joe says that he
] wants the baby to have a mother instead of a second father.
] Does Jill have more right to take on guardianship than Jack,
] because of her gender?
]
] Marriage isn't just "a cool idea". It's something with
] thousands of generations of history and laws and economic
] policy that are based on the concept of marriage being between
] opposite genders, though there are of course differences in
] how marriage is regarded in different cultures. For example,
] considerable disagreement on *how many* spouses that a
] particular person can have. ;)
]
] I'm curious now though: Is there any historical precedent
] anywhere about a culture or country or kingdom that sanctioned
] homosexual weddings? Like in ancient Greece? I'd be curious
] to see such a list, if you can find one?

I'm going to take this argument in a different direction. It was not until recently that there were legal influences on what marriage means. Life insurance? Health insurance? Hospitals with visiting hours? None of these things existed until relatively recently, and because it was convenient, they were tied to marriage.

Now, it you want to maintain marriage as a personal, religious institution, that's fine and any of those organizations can say "Marriage is only between a man and a woman" if they want. When the state steps in and says that, it is saying, "only these groups, have this right."

If you want to go back a few months, you may remember I wrote up a nice little piece on this, and recent events are going to bring it to a head. Either the government will recognize marriage as one of a number of "civil unions," and we all know how well "separate but equal" works, or it will grant the word marriage to gays and lesbians. Well that sure as hell isn't going to happen.

Not only that, but show me a compelling state interest in blocking this? Isn't that what laws are about? That's exactly why this thing went to the Massachusetts Supreme Court and they told the legislature that they couldn't proscribe marriage in this manner. It served no state interest to block gay marriage. The only way to legislate it therefore, is to make it a Constitutional issue.

Bottom line, this decision is about hate.

RE: The Values-Vote Myth