Explain how the reasons I've given for distinguishing between marriage between a man and a woman and any other relationship, even if it involves people who love each other and raise children together, distill down to either a religious justification or "ew, it's too icky."

You've accused me of "appeal to tradition" as a fallacy, when all I've done is pointed to the history of the institution of marriage as an indication of what the word refers to, i.e., to a relationship between a man and a woman where natural reproduction is understood as centrally constitutive of the relationship. Long before the state (or even the Church) was involved in recognizing what marriage was in Europe, for example, all that was required for a man and a woman to be married was that they intend to have children together that would be recognized as heirs. I'm pointing to that relationship or institution, and saying that it's what the term marriage historically refers to. Call it something else if you want, but admit that that's a different relationship from other possible ways in which a man and a woman (or two men or two women) can be related to each other sexually.

I don't care if you call that historical institution by a different name--call it traditionalbigotsunion if you insist--but just admit that there is SOME difference between that relationship (in which the natural result of the relationship between the two individuals is children) and any other relationship.

I'll also add that I understand the account that I'm giving of what marriage is--what the term referred to for its entire history up to the middle of the 20th century--is different from how many modern Westerners (mis)understand marriage. As a consequence of frequent divorce and rampant promiscuity, most people can't fathom that marriage is about anything other than personal satisfaction and romance as a means to it. But this is to say that the vows of marriage used to have meaning for the majority of people who enter marriage, where now they simply don't.

Am i the only one who thinks marriage was invented as a way for men to control women's vaginas and reproduction. Thats its tradition imo. Some jealous tribal guy with a small one didn't like the other men doing "his"girl. Boom we got marriage.

This is what it boils down to in the end, IMO. As long as there remains some little qualification, some tiny signifier indicating that this is the proper way - that other ways aren't as good. It makes the blanket charges of bigotry understandable, no?

Not a word about kids, you'll note.

Why are you so against the purpose of marriage changing in any way? Your argument is just weird. So what if that's how it used to be? Now many (most?) people get married for the romance side of it.

If recognizing legitimate distinctions is bigotry, then call me a bigot. And I agree that it's what it all boils down to: those who push for laws like the one recently passed in NY want to force those with traditional views to admit that there is no such difference.

No, but it includes the words husband and wife, which are obviously distinct terms, not just the generic term "life partner" etc. You wouldn't necessarily expect obvious things (at least obvious to people of the past) such as "what marriage is" to have to be spelled out.

In any event, in the Catholic ritual for marriage, prior to the exchange of vows, the couple is asked to declare their willingness to have children; the marriage is invalid without that intent, and a lack of intent to have children (i.e., if one lied when asked this question) is grounds for an annulment.

The way that marriage is understood by most people now causes tremendous misery. For example, the short- and long-term effects of divorce on children are awful.

The distinction is legitimate if it is drawn as advertised; your responses to the infertility question seem to indicate that it is not.

So the infertile couple...?

As I indicated before, infertility (whether known or unknown) does not preclude that a person can be open to the natural results of the act of sexual intercourse. For this reason, impotence is an impediment to marriage (because it prevents the marriage from being consummated), but infertility is not. As I also indicated, in many cases a diagnosis of infertility is not necessarily permanent.

Like most other legal institutions, the institution of marriage is founded upon what happens in the majority of cases rather than upon what is exceptional and rare. Total infertility is rare, even if partial infertility or decreased fertility is not uncommon. In any of these cases, marriage is the relationship between a man and a woman who agree to raise any offspring they may have together. That a person knows it may not be likely (or that it will be virtually impossible) that a child may be conceived does not preclude the right intention concerning marriage.

Anyway, your line of argument could at best lead to the conclusion that sterile people can't marry, not that there is no difference between marriage between a man and a woman and other relationships. I accept the explanation I've just given (that the intention to raise any children born as a result of the act that naturally produces children is sufficient for marriage); if you don't, then adopt the view that sterile people can't / shouldn't get married.

I almost pre-empted this dodge in my last post and I wish I had now. The dodge is that such couples are still 'open to life' (the phrase I've heard most often). Perhaps, the reasoning goes, there will be a little miracle for the couple, and for this reason their union is as legitimate as that of a fertile couple.

But we are not talking about some penny-ante low sperm count business, here. We're talking hysterectomies and various conditions and disorders which preclude conception - total infertility. Situations where the 'little miracle' would be no less a miracle than it would be for a gay couple.

As I said before, I think you simply stop at the most convenient level of abstraction - one penis and one vagina - and hand-wave the objection because bless their little cotton socks, at least the infertile couple are trying. It doesn't pass muster. If you do not oppose terming unions between the various iterations of couples that are not fertile heterosexuals 'marriage' then I don't see how you can continue to oppose gay marriage.

I'm pretty confident that same-sex unions will be in a considerable minority.

But all you're saying is that as long as they want kids... I'm confused. Many gay people want kids.

Eh, no, you adopt that view. I'm fine with marriage both for gays and for the sterile.

I gather from this that you would in fact oppose marriage for the infertile before you would endorse marriage for same-sex couples. I find that somewhat disturbing, I must say - and difficult to square with any claims of non-bigotry.

Unless Hopey is mistaken this doesn't seem to be true.


They cant honestly have the intent to have children.

Divorce? So you're saying:

Marriage as a romance and life partnership --> divorce

Marriage as a unit to raise kids --> no divorce

Not everyone gets married for the reasons you want them to. This doesn't mean they're doing it wrong, it means that different people get married for different reasons. That you're trying to say everyone should get married for the same reason is just weird and bizarre.

Exactly. The appeals to tradition are pretty shoddy (pretending for a second such an appeal would be valid in the first place) since you have to pinpoint a specific tradition in both time and space, which becomes arbitrary eventually. This is where they have to point to the Bible for their specific definition. Also there was a lot of man-boying going on in those times so they had to use religion to advise against that. But mainly it was about vag control.

So, the real tradition of marriage is: caveman style vaginal lockdown mixed with deterrent to pedo-boyrape. Nice tradition, I will take the new modernized definition thx tho.

Typical religious attitudes towards everything. My/our way, or no way.

It's a shame to waste your life thinking like this. Makes me sad. Oh well, I'm going out and going to get drunk tonight, I'll get over it quickly.

"Parental consent" is not the same as being "a consenting adult." This has been my argument the entire time.

Could you ctrl+f 'man and woman' and then ctrl+v 'consenting persons in a multi-lateral agreement'? I don't think it's really not as simple as you're pretending it to be.

I'm not a lawyer, so coming up with specific laws will be difficult. However, any law that pertains to any gender distinction with regards to marriage or family will need to be reconsidered. I can cite three areas that would at least need to be examined:

1) The fact that paternal/maternal leave are not interchangeable is problematic for the purposes of adoption.

2) If there are still some gender distinctions in aspects of common law marriages, this will have to be re-examined.

3) Any laws that regulate homosexual expressions with respect to children (potentially in parental visitation rights) will need to be revised.

Given the huge number of laws that have been written, it seems odd to me that you think it's just a simple matter of copy-paste to make effective changes in the law.

As far as I can tell, there were no substantial or necessary revisions to law in order to accommodate women voting. You're welcome to prove me wrong.

I've mentioned before ITT that I'm not even convinced that governments should be in the business of marriage licenses. I'd support it in a de facto manner in roughly the same way that I do right now.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...l#post27297341

I agree. DOMA is the current federal law, and it favors my position relative to yours, and it is quite explicit.

Do you have any legal support for this "broader definition" of marriage?

Says who?

Funny, I always thought it was about committing yourself in a loving relationship with one other person.

You don't need to be married to have children, and you don't need to have children if you're married.

I don't know what that's aimed at.

Right, talked you down from 'many' to 'three I can think of'. That's progress of a sort.

1) There is already adoption leave; 2) Probably not before time and 3) I'm unaware of any such laws and suspect they are rarely if ever enforced if they do exist.

All of which is to ignore that you have effectively ceded the issue of rights and legitimacy and are now, to all intents and purposes, arguing on the basis that the paperwork will be expensive.

It's only a figure of speech. I'm sure it will take years to iron everything out. It's just that I don't care.

Still waiting for an answer - legal status of a man's vote changed by women's suffrage: yea or nay?

If I'm not convinced that governments should be in the business of prohibiting marijuana use, I should still be in favour of equal enforcement of the relevant laws - I should oppose allowing policemen to use marijuana as a perk, even though I favour allowing everyone to use it. Consistency is the key.

I wouldn't say that I've 'ceded the issue' of rights, I've never said it was anything BUT an issue of rights. I've been fairly explicit that it's the creation of a fundamentally new type of legal right. I've argued that there is a form of re-definition that is happening that takes what is currently a legally understood right and lumps it in together with this fundamentally new type of legal right.

BTW - Fixing tax law is nothing more than an expensive paperwork issue.

No because there were no substantive necessary changes in law in order to accommodate it.

Again, my position is that this is a fundamentally new right. So the question of "equal enforcement" is not in play in my mind.

This made my head hurt.

I only looked around briefly, but I don't think that the inequity I presented is actually addressed. It seems that adoption leave follows the same pattern of maternal/paternal leave, which are still not interchangeable (that is, maternal leave and paternal leave follow different rules, usually giving more to maternity leave).

So two men who adopt a child will not be granted the same privilege as two women who adopt a child, and this will be problematic.

Sorry.

What is the extant "legally understood right"?

If that's an attempt at sarcasm I'm unimpressed.

Oh dear, now you'll need to define "legal status" and outline what does and doesn't constitute "a change in legal status". How tiresome.

Yes, the 'special rights' lobby is squarely aimed at maintaining institutionalised discrimination on the basis that there is no equal protection consideration here. It doesn't fly with me; let it be an "entirely new" right (absurd claim). Its being new does not speak to its legitimacy.

If one of them is the primary care-giver while one the main breadwinner and if maternity leave is greater on the assumption of primary caregiving (as opposed to the physical exertion involved in childbirth) then it seems fine for the primary caregiver to claim 'maternity leave'.

The fact remains that this is an ancillary complication and not in any way an actual objection.