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asleepathewheel
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listening too long to one song
Mar 2002
time: 00:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
I think the author of the US amendment is a congresswoman. |
Bork is one of the authors (I just found it online), Musgrave is who introduced it.
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optimus2861
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Halifax, NS
Nov 2000
time: 01:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
optimus, your argument reduces to a simple statement:
One cannot legislate in favor of traditional families as that would negatively impact children raised in alternative arrangements. |
Exactly. Your proposal advantages some children and disadvantages others, and uses as its rationale some value judgment about whether one set of parents is better than another set of parents.
The law should not make value judgments in such matters -- it is not up to the child what kind of environment he or she is raised in. What the law should concern itself with is providing equal protection to those children as per the constitution. Providing the parents of one child with benefits while denying those benefits to the parents of another child runs counter to that goal, and I don't believe your supporting argument is strong enough to trump the constitutional question (I'll go so far as to say I think it borders on an appeal-to-tradition fallacy). You seem to believe differently, that there should be a different basis for the law in such matters, and I don't think either of us is going to convince the other.
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:34
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quote:
Originally posted by The Mad Viking
No, you are wrong.
Most pensions allow survivor benefits only to spouses.
Pensions are not transferrable assets. You cannot leave it in a will, or give it to your son or brother. They generally have a survivor benefit, and it is EXCLUSIVE to LEGALLY MARRIED SPOUSES.
Hospitals - not adjustible. If the patient is conscious and requests a visitor, the hospital must allow. Otherwise, the hospital is in charge of all visitation policies- who, when, how, etc. |
But, THIS, has NOTHING to do with government. These plans could even today define spouse to include gay partner.
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Giancarlo
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Los Angeles
Apr 2000
time: 02:34
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The Economist, a magazine that in my opinion is typically slightly to the right, published an article on the case for gay marriage. Actually I was very surprised they would be in favor, very surprised.
quote:
SO AT last it is official: George Bush is in favour of unequal rights, big-government intrusiveness and federal power rather than devolution to the states. That is the implication of his announcement this week that he will support efforts to pass a constitutional amendment in America banning gay marriage. Some have sought to explain this action away simply as cynical politics, an effort to motivate his core conservative supporters to turn out to vote for him in November or to put his likely “Massachusetts liberal” opponent, John Kerry, in an awkward spot. Yet to call for a constitutional amendment is such a difficult, drastic and draconian move that cynicism is too weak an explanation. No, it must be worse than that: Mr Bush must actually believe in what he is doing.
Mr Bush says that he is acting to protect “the most fundamental institution of civilisation” from what he sees as “activist judges” who in Massachusetts early this month confirmed an earlier ruling that banning gay marriage is contrary to their state constitution. The city of San Francisco, gay capital of America, has been issuing thousands of marriage licences to homosexual couples, in apparent contradiction to state and even federal laws. It can only be a matter of time before this issue arrives at the federal Supreme Court. And those “activist judges”, who, by the way, gave Mr Bush his job in 2000, might well take the same view of the federal constitution as their Massachusetts equivalents did of their state code: that the constitution demands equality of treatment. Last June, in Lawrence v Texas, they ruled that state anti-sodomy laws violated the constitutional right of adults to choose how to conduct their private lives with regard to sex, saying further that “the Court's obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate its own moral code”. That obligation could well lead the justices to uphold the right of gays to marry.
That idea remains shocking to many people. So far, only two countries—Belgium and the Netherlands—have given full legal status to same-sex unions, though Canada has backed the idea in principle and others have conferred almost-equal rights on such partnerships. The sight of homosexual men and women having wedding days just like those enjoyed for thousands of years by heterosexuals is unsettling, just as, for some people, is the sight of them holding hands or kissing. When The Economist first argued in favour of legalising gay marriage eight years ago (“Let them wed”, January 6th 1996) it shocked many of our readers, though fewer than it would have shocked eight years earlier and more than it will shock today. That is why we argued that such a radical change should not be pushed along precipitously. But nor should it be blocked precipitously.
The case for allowing gays to marry begins with equality, pure and simple. Why should one set of loving, consenting adults be denied a right that other such adults have and which, if exercised, will do no damage to anyone else? Not just because they have always lacked that right in the past, for sure: until the late 1960s, in some American states it was illegal for black adults to marry white ones, but precious few would defend that ban now on grounds that it was “traditional”. Another argument is rooted in semantics: marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and so cannot be extended to same-sex couples. They may live together and love one another, but cannot, on this argument, be “married”. But that is to dodge the real question—why not?—and to obscure the real nature of marriage, which is a binding commitment, at once legal, social and personal, between two people to take on special obligations to one another. If homosexuals want to make such marital commitments to one another, and to society, then why should they be prevented from doing so while other adults, equivalent in all other ways, are allowed to do so?
Civil unions are not enough
The reason, according to Mr Bush, is that this would damage an important social institution. Yet the reverse is surely true. Gays want to marry precisely because they see marriage as important: they want the symbolism that marriage brings, the extra sense of obligation and commitment, as well as the social recognition. Allowing gays to marry would, if anything, add to social stability, for it would increase the number of couples that take on real, rather than simply passing, commitments. The weakening of marriage has been heterosexuals' doing, not gays', for it is their infidelity, divorce rates and single-parent families that have wrought social damage.
But marriage is about children, say some: to which the answer is, it often is, but not always, and permitting gay marriage would not alter that. Or it is a religious act, say others: to which the answer is, yes, you may believe that, but if so it is no business of the state to impose a religious choice. Indeed, in America the constitution expressly bans the involvement of the state in religious matters, so it would be especially outrageous if the constitution were now to be used for religious ends.
The importance of marriage for society's general health and stability also explains why the commonly mooted alternative to gay marriage—a so-called civil union—is not enough. Vermont has created this notion, of a legally registered contract between a couple that cannot, however, be called a “marriage”. Some European countries, by legislating for equal legal rights for gay partnerships, have moved in the same direction (Britain is contemplating just such a move, and even the opposition Conservative leader, Michael Howard, says he would support it). Some gays think it would be better to limit their ambitions to that, rather than seeking full social equality, for fear of provoking a backlash—of the sort perhaps epitomised by Mr Bush this week.
Yet that would be both wrong in principle and damaging for society. Marriage, as it is commonly viewed in society, is more than just a legal contract. Moreover, to establish something short of real marriage for some adults would tend to undermine the notion for all. Why shouldn't everyone, in time, downgrade to civil unions? Now that really would threaten a fundamental institution of civilisation.
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http://www.economist.com/opinion/di...tory_id=2459758
Civil Unions is not enough and this says it quite clearly. This is also a source that will make it hard for the religious right to dispute. It is very credible. Much moreso than CNN.
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optimus2861
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Halifax, NS
Nov 2000
time: 01:34
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^ Holy smokes, that's even worse than your taxation proposal. I'm going to come back to the adoptive parents and their child(ren) again: what have you got against them that you keep seeking to exclude them from equal protection by throwing in the "biological" requirement? Don't adoptive parents make a positive contribution to society? Aren't the children that they raise better off than being in foster or state care, or being raised by the parent(s) who made the difficult decision to give them up in the first place?
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MrBaggins
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Its the most naive thing I've ever heard to try to force stability into marriage.
People fall in love, and they fall out of love.
People have affairs and break up.
People develop unreconcilable issues with one another
Some people make good choices to marry, and some make bad choices.
Some marriages are abusive.
These are the reasons why marriages destabilize, and you can't legislate against them, unless you want to mandate all behavior, Nineteen-Eighty-Four like.
Why is a child *always* better off with an alive biological parent?
Some mothers AND fathers will always be worse caregivers than state and/or adoptive (including gay) alternatives.
If you want every child to be raised well by their biological parents, you have to ensure that only Ossie and Harriet have unprotected sex.
The world just doesn't work that way... its utterly myopic to think that it does.
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Proteus_MST
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
If it is hard to get out of marriage, people will be a lot more careful before they get into it.
The ease of divorce makes divorce just one more way to handle the inevitable problems in marriage. As in war, divorce should be the last resort. I am not against repealing laws against divorce, mind you. I am against making it easy. |
Dunno if it would really lead to people thinking twice about marrying.
I think, many if not most of the marriages of young people take place because they didn´t care enough about contraceptives and therefore the female got pregnant.
So, I´d think the number of ill planned weddings would stay the same, especially if in school lessons in the use of contraceptives are neglected in favor of lessons in chastity (and so the teenagers who really wanted Sex probably wouldn´t know enough about Contraceptives to prevent pregnancy).
I think the main effect would be on people around 30+ (who perhaps even were married once and got diivorced).
IMHO people would really think twice about a second marriage, especially if it is much more difficult to divorce.
But IMHO the Effect on Marriages of younger people (around 20) will be minimal (because the reason for marriage was a pregnancy or they are romantic and inexperienced enough, to believe that they´ll love each other forever)
Last edited by Proteus_MST on 01-03-2004 at 03:17
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27-02-2004 11:41
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Are there no prisons? Are there no poor houses?
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