[Frieza_Prexus]

Originally Posted by Hasbinbad

That's all well and good but it's still an opinion / law interpretation piece.

What's your point? Is a debate over project1999.org somehow more valid? The ideas and arguments presented within the article are at issue, how is that not a valid submission?

Originally Posted by Hasbinbad

Yes, you publish what amounts to a direct support of modern american christian values BUT YOU DIDN'T MENTION CHRISTIANITY!!! lol

The arguments I have made are just as valid from a secular viewpoint as they are a religious one. Just because the goals of the secular and the religious arguments align does not mean that each necessarily must follow from the other. Dismissing something for sharing the same aspiration as something else is sleight of hand.

Originally Posted by Hasbinbad

Probably because what I said is common knowledge

Yet, if I had asserted a point as "common knowledge" you'd be dropping [citation needed]. Wait a minute...

Originally Posted by Hasbinbad

Millions of people define this as a civil rights issue, but XASTEN DOESN'T, SO IT MUST NOT BE. Not arguing to popularity tho, I'd take this point up with you in a side debate as well. This absolutely is a civil rights issue. It has to do with equality of government incentives.

No one, and certainly no Marriage law, deprives anyone of any actual right. Marriage is an institution which the law recognizes and regulates; the State does not create it. The "right to marry" is short hand for saying NOT that "I can do whatever I want and call it marriage," but rather a right to enter into this pre-existing institution. What is being proposed is to redefine the institution. Marriage enjoys a fundamental structure: Quantitative (2) and Qualitative (Male and Female): 2 and Male and Female. Under the guise of "civil rights" some are seeking to redefine that structure, which, some true civil rights issues such as miscegenation laws did not do. Miscegenation laws did violate civil rights because they wrongly restricted entry into the institution, an institution to which both sides accepted as a definitional matter; they did not redefine it as did polygamy (quantitative) does and as does same-sex marriage. (qualitative).

Marriage is NOT a private act; it is a social act and therefore, the State DOES have an interest in the institution: channelling responsible procreative behavior. The State recognizes that neither the Mother nor the Father are irrelevant to children and also that it is bad policy to create fatherless and motherless environments, something the law has long seen as bad policy.

All people have the right to marry, just as all people in the U.S. enjoy a host of other rights. Marriage as it is takes away nothing. All people possess the same right. Is polygamy also a civil rights issue? Group sex is not banned, nor is living together as a group, but group marriage is. What does marriage add that is not already available to this group? Should this restriction be lifted as well in the name of civil rights?

Additionally, even if marriage were somehow discriminatory in it's "unequal application" current jurisprudence would likely approve of it for furthering a compelling state interest (See Grutter v. Bollinger 539 U.S. 306 (2003).

Originally Posted by Frieza_Prexus

Why is marriage regulated, but friendships are not? Anyone who submits that marriage must be redefined must first answer this. Only then, can the discussion move forward.

This is not a strawman. It is an illustrative example. Consider: what is the GOAL of marriage that the government seeks to promote? It is not about love. It is about responsible child-rearing. You claim that "it takes a village to raise a child" - This is an explicit recognition that the creation of children is a public act, thus the government has a valid purpose in the recognition of marriage.

Friendship is not recognized because there is no goal to serve. It is a comparative example meant to tease out the distinction between marriage and friendship. Once the distinction is visible (that marriage is about promoting a mother+father+child relationship), you can then see the exact reason marriage was recognized by governments.

Originally Posted by Hasbindbad

This is really my favorite idea. Domestic partnerships have proven benefits to society, and should be encouraged. But get government out of "marriage."

I can agree with this to an extent. How does this sound: all rights that stand between individuals such as (medical) power of attorney, certain inheritance rules, the assignment of benefits, and so on are no longer controlled by marital status. Instead they are controlled strictly by contract. Marriage in turn, is recognized strictly as between a man and a woman as a means to regulate and promote the nuclear family by creating certain legal presumptions and frameworks to promote the valid public purpose of binding parents and their children to each other.

If this is unacceptable, why?

Originally Posted by Hasbinbad

I really don't understand what you're trying to say here. Please clarify.

See answer immediately above.

Originally Posted by Samoht

i'm pretty sure that nobody is asking for marriage to be redefined, anyway (ty hbb for pointing out this little gem).

current definition: a domestic union between loving adults.

new definition: a domestic union between loving adults.

now, i'm pretty sure that's the same definition, but if you've got anything to show me i'm wrong, i'd be happy to show you how you're being a bigot.

This sounds very much like the "consenting adult standard" First, see my original post here: http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...&postcount=102

Originally Posted by Frieza_Prexus - ORIGINAL POST

one can start with an acknowledgement that certain "victimless" activities (See: the consenting adults argument) are still regulated and controlled by our culture and system of laws. For example, incest is regulated by our society. The reason is that society recognizes a valid public purpose in the regulation and promulgation of certain relational behaviors. IE: society is served by the preservation and promotion of cultural institutions that provide positive societal benefits.

Also, see above. Marriage has nothing to do with love. If you wish to express your love I'm sure one can do it fully without government help. Do you mean to say that the government has to recognize love before it exists? Marriage is recognized, again, to promote the public purpose of responsible child-rearing. Also, why reference love? Friends love one another, but that does not grant them a civil right to be married. Love is legally irrelevant to why the State licenses marriage--would we want the State to inquire as to a person's quantity or quality of love before permitting marriage?

Originally Posted by Samoht

that seems convenient enough. from now on, when logic interferes with my argument, i'll just refer to it as the exception.

I suspect that you may not have fully grasped my statement so I'll restate it for you: The infertile couple still exists within the marriage framework because the regulation of marriage is concerned with promoting the familial capacity in society as a whole. The role of mother and father cannot be reduced to a set of rote tasks. Each gender plays a unique role, and together they enable the family environment that the government seeks to promote. They need not realize that framework, but they have enabled it and this fits within the purposes of the current recognition of marriage.

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

all of these reasons double for gay marriage, with the footnote that gay couples are not capable of producing their own offspring. you're unnecessarily concerned with optimization. unless you contend that gay couples can otherwise be convinced to enter heterosexual unions, society would be best served by facilitating gay unions as an optimal association for gay couples -- just as we are best served by facilitating unions for infertile couples. a gay married couple would form a union that produces a home with mutual parenting responsibility, a home that theoretically should produce greater benefit to society through improved parenting capability as opposed to single gays, unmarried gay couples, or foster homes. where you have a gay couple, you cannot have a straight couple. you can either have a married gay couple, an unmarried gay couple, or two single homosexuals. for the same reason a stable nuclear family is preferable to a single parent, society should prefer a stable gay union and should thus promote it via marriage

The answer is twofold. Noting that a gay union will not produce offspring we then ask why do they needed to enter into the institution of marriage is the first place? Note that I say this in light of my earlier point in this post that starts with "I can agree with" several paragraphs up. Secondly, once marriage is redefined the basis for defending it is lost. We already accept certain restrictions on marriage (blood-relatives, group marriage, etc.), but those restrictions are built off the notion that they are prohibited as unaligned with the specific policy goal of responsible child rearing. Note that "unaligned with" is NOT the same as "opposed to."

Allowing gay marriage would be a relatively minor change, but the effects would be legally far reaching as it would be a complete concession that the definition is subject to change. As I've already said several times, the gay marriage debate is really only one microcosm in the overall discussion on the integrity and preservation of marriage as a social institution. This is a wide discussion which includes many related issues such as no-fault divorce, polygamy, and even multiple-parenthood (see my original post for a link on SB 1476).

Redefining marriage to be more inclusive sets up a domino effect that will have legal ramifications because it redefines existing legal structures, titles, and inherent rights.

No one is seriously arguing that some rights should not exist, such as the ability to have a legally recognized partnership that allows things like inheritance, (medical) power of attorney, and so on. Marriage however, is accompanied by those powers; it does not concern them. That is the locus of the controversy; you cannot make it into something it is not.