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Because then we have to legalize polygamy and polyandry and revisit incest laws. We either have the right to tell people who they can marry or we don't and if we don't, we don't for ANYONE. I'm not sure I want to go there. I'd rather see the legal definition of marriage abolished. While that won't stop polygamy and incest, at least we won't be forced to bless the practices.
Yeah, good luck with that. You have a long road ahead of you, being the only developed nation in the world to abolish government recognized marriage is not going to happen.
What about extending them to spouses in polygamous (or polyandrous) marriages? If they choose to commit to each other as spouses, why shouldn't they get the same benefits? For that matter, let's just all marry each other and then we can choose the best benefits....
Why don't you develop a workable plan to divvy out the rights and responsibilities of marriage between multiple partners, and then get back to us.
Start with the federal and state tax codes, work your way to social security benefits, then on to court immunities, followed by pension and insurance benefits, provided both by private and public entities.
Yep. Privatizing marriage would solve all the controversy surrounding same-sex partnerships overnight.
If gays were really about equality they would be trying to get govt out of the marriage business. All they really want is benefits that will still be denied to millions of others. Nothing equal about it.
Well, I can't say privatizing anything will instantly solve anything. But, I would rather give people choices, rather than tell them what to do. The truth about gay-marriage is that its really not about rights in the sense of the supposedly 1100+ privileges that married couples receive. Its about validation. Ultimately they want to use the government to force them to be able to marry, so that they can pretend that they are suddenly accepted by society.
The same people who don't like homosexuality will still dislike homosexuality if same-sex marriage is legalized. It really changes nothing. Just like legalizing abortions changes absolutely nothing. It is a social question that has to be addressed by changing the hearts and minds of people, not by using the government to force your views on others.
If you privatize marriage at least, it'll give people more choices. It effectively gives everyone the right to marry, and also gives everyone the right to ignore it. Because the only benefits of marriage once privatized, would be for social reasons or religious, not economic reasons.
I just believe its a step in the right direction, a step away from social engineering and democratic tyranny. And minimizes future marriage issues, such as polygamy.
Well, I can't say privatizing anything will instantly solve anything. But, I would rather give people choices, rather than tell them what to do. The truth about gay-marriage is that its really not about rights in the sense of the supposedly 1100+ privileges that married couples receive. Its about validation. Ultimately they want to use the government to force them to be able to marry, so that they can pretend that they are suddenly accepted by society.
The same people who don't like homosexuality will still dislike homosexuality if same-sex marriage is legalized. It really changes nothing. Just like legalizing abortions changes absolutely nothing. It is a social question that has to be addressed by changing the hearts and minds of people, not by using the government to force your views on others.
If you privatize marriage at least, it'll give people more choices. It effectively gives everyone the right to marry, and also gives everyone the right to ignore it. Because the only benefits of marriage once privatized, would be for social reasons or religious, not economic reasons.
I just believe its a step in the right direction, a step away from social engineering and democratic tyranny. And minimizes future marriage issues, such as polygamy.
I think you are delusional to believe that the opinions of rednecks, lhillbillys and assorted losers down on the bottom of society's educational pole matters one iota to gay people looking to get married.
The OP has a very different view of marriage and society. Fortunately, like the views of all libertarians, that view is based on such a crabbed, unrealistic idea of how people live together in society that it has essentially no chance of taking hold in America.
This leads the OP to absurd ideas, like the idea that society has no place agreeing as to the kinds of social arrangements we want to favor and creating structures and incentives to make it likely that people will act in ways that we collectively have decided are good for society. we provide incentives for people to marry, to raise children, to own houses, to go to college, to make certain kinds of investments, and probably thousands of other things, and that's not going to change.
People do things for all kinds of reasons, and in the case of marriage both the personal and emotional reasons and the practical reasons play a part. That doesn't mean that society is forcing or coercing us to do it: there is a difference between making one option better than another and "coercing" one or the other option.
The argument here is that millions of people now, and millions more in the near future, have come to realize that a committed same-sex relationship is every bit as deserving of support and respect as a committed opposite-sex relationship. As time goes on this trend is going to continue, and before long people who once thought that same-sex relationships were worthy only of condemnation will seem as strange as people who once condemned mixed-race relationships. There are still such people out there, but they are almost universally recognized as some of the most bigoted, narrow-minded members of our society.
Up to now the laws have mainly advantaged the opposite-sex relationships and disadvantaged the same-sex relationship. This has changed in some states, and if things go the way I would like to see them in the Supreme Court it is about to change in federal law. This is important, though. Because we will never get to where the OP wants to go, where there are no practical benefits to being married, if the benefits of marriage are denied to same-sex relationships then the law disadvantaging those relationships will lack legitimacy in the eyes of a growing majority of our population.
It also means that as long as those advantages accrue to married, opposite-sex couples, but not to married or civil union same-sex couples, it is not an answer to say that we're only arguing over a word, because it is much more. In fact, the Defense of Marriage Act was specifically drafted not only to prevent same-sex married couples from gaining the federal benefits of marriage but also to make sure that people in states that created civil unions and other legal recognition that do not involve "the word" are also unable to obtain the federal benefits that opposite-sex married couples receive, even though the states in which those couples live have already decided that those same-sex unions are just as good as opposite-sex marriages.
Teh OP's "simple" idea: to overturn centuries of domestic arrangements by prohibiting government from encouraging people to get married, and no doubt to bar the government from all kinds of other mechanisms that could be seen as social engineering, is not simple in the least. It's also never going to happen.
Marriage equality, though, is coming. The OP and his libertarian friends, and the right-wing religious and their allies, can try to stand athwart the path of progress and shout "Stop!" but that is not going to happen.
The liberal viewpoint of marriage and society is no different.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jackmccullough
The OP has a very different view of marriage and society. Fortunately, like the views of all libertarians, that view is based on such a crabbed, unrealistic idea of how people live together in society that it has essentially no chance of taking hold in America.
This leads the OP to absurd ideas, like the idea that society has no place agreeing as to the kinds of social arrangements we want to favor and creating structures and incentives to make it likely that people will act in ways that we collectively have decided are good for society. we provide incentives for people to marry, to raise children, to own houses, to go to college, to make certain kinds of investments, and probably thousands of other things, and that's not going to change.
People do things for all kinds of reasons, and in the case of marriage both the personal and emotional reasons and the practical reasons play a part. That doesn't mean that society is forcing or coercing us to do it: there is a difference between making one option better than another and "coercing" one or the other option.
The argument here is that millions of people now, and millions more in the near future, have come to realize that a committed same-sex relationship is every bit as deserving of support and respect as a committed opposite-sex relationship. As time goes on this trend is going to continue, and before long people who once thought that same-sex relationships were worthy only of condemnation will seem as strange as people who once condemned mixed-race relationships. There are still such people out there, but they are almost universally recognized as some of the most bigoted, narrow-minded members of our society.
Up to now the laws have mainly advantaged the opposite-sex relationships and disadvantaged the same-sex relationship. This has changed in some states, and if things go the way I would like to see them in the Supreme Court it is about to change in federal law. This is important, though. Because we will never get to where the OP wants to go, where there are no practical benefits to being married, if the benefits of marriage are denied to same-sex relationships then the law disadvantaging those relationships will lack legitimacy in the eyes of a growing majority of our population.
It also means that as long as those advantages accrue to married, opposite-sex couples, but not to married or civil union same-sex couples, it is not an answer to say that we're only arguing over a word, because it is much more. In fact, the Defense of Marriage Act was specifically drafted not only to prevent same-sex married couples from gaining the federal benefits of marriage but also to make sure that people in states that created civil unions and other legal recognition that do not involve "the word" are also unable to obtain the federal benefits that opposite-sex married couples receive, even though the states in which those couples live have already decided that those same-sex unions are just as good as opposite-sex marriages.
Teh OP's "simple" idea: to overturn centuries of domestic arrangements by prohibiting government from encouraging people to get married, and no doubt to bar the government from all kinds of other mechanisms that could be seen as social engineering, is not simple in the least. It's also never going to happen.
Marriage equality, though, is coming. The OP and his libertarian friends, and the right-wing religious and their allies, can try to stand athwart the path of progress and shout "Stop!" but that is not going to happen.
Why don't you develop a workable plan to divvy out the rights and responsibilities of marriage between multiple partners, and then get back to us.
Start with the federal and state tax codes, work your way to social security benefits, then on to court immunities, followed by pension and insurance benefits, provided both by private and public entities.
Simple. None of the above would exist, or would simply require the naming of a beneficiary(like in your last will and testament, or what you already list on your life insurance policy). Can only receive court immunities if verifiably married before the crime was committed. And the responsibilities and property rights of individuals within a marriage are basically based on a the same contractual obligations as a "trust". The agreement is that the property of all members will be placed in a trust, and the contract will state the rules regarding the trust in the case that it needs to be dissolved. Basically, the trust takes individuals and effectively makes them into a corporations of shareholders, who make decisions based on the charter of the corporation. It really works basically the same as a prenuptial agreement. It really isn't very difficult.
I think you are delusional to believe that the opinions of rednecks, lhillbillys and assorted losers down on the bottom of society's educational pole matters one iota to gay people looking to get married.
You aint that special.
First, you do realize that not only "rednecks, hillbillies, and assorted losers" are opposed to gay marriage, right? And secondly, do you think it is best to argue by saying anyone who disagrees with you, must be intellectually inferior?
The truth is, marriage was primarily created for the sake of having children, generally for the sake of transferring property and title to the real offspring of those married. People didn't transfer their property or title to adopted children for instance. It was only along a true bloodline. The marriage was to ensure that the man and woman were the true parents of their offspring.
Over time, marriage became more and more aligned with religion. Primarily because religion became the organizing force in society. In a time where government was largely absent from peoples lives. And most people saw marriage as uniting two people before god himself, forever. Which was mostly intended to pressure people to stay together and not get divorced.
So, we come to today. In which many people get married, neither for the sake of having children(the original intent of marriage), nor for the sake of uniting two people together before god, forever(people readily get divorced and remarried several times in their lives). So what is the purpose of getting married?
Some might say, its a commitment. But is it really a commitment? It is so easy to get divorced these days, its hard to argue that its anything remotely close to a real commitment. So what is the point of marriage?
Well, primarily, there are two purposes of marriage in modern times. There is really the legal and the social. The legal purpose, is to receive the myriad of benefits that the government throws out to married people. Which even heterosexual unmarried people don't get. And really, if we were concerned about fairness or equal rights, we would get rid of all the legal benefits of marriage, or convert them to simple contracts.
And the second part, is the social aspect. Which is what gays are actually fighting for. They aren't really fighting for benefits or protections or responsibilities. What they hope to accomplish is use the concept of legal rights under the law, through the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, to acquire acceptance of their lifestyle. They don't want Civil Unions, because Civil Unions aren't marriage, and thus, will not validate the gay lifestyle as equal or normal. It wouldn't matter if they were legally exactly the same.
The problem is, giving gays the right to marry doesn't change how anyone feels about homosexuality. And thus, does not achieve the goal that gays are seeking. At least not anymore than what is already going on. If anything, I think it hurts them, because it emboldens those who are opposed and polarizes this country.
If gays actually were seeking fairness, they would seek to get rid of all the special privileges of marriage. And if gays were actually seeking acceptance, they would simply seek acceptance. Rather than attempting for force their views on others.
Thus the only fair solution which doesn't employ force. Would be to get rid of all the government benefits of marriage, turn them into contracts that anyone can enter, and privatize all the social aspects of marriage. Then everyone can walk away with their head up. Because everyone wins. Anything less than that, and someone has to lose.
Because then we have to legalize polygamy and polyandry and revisit incest laws. We either have the right to tell people who they can marry or we don't and if we don't, we don't for ANYONE. I'm not sure I want to go there. I'd rather see the legal definition of marriage abolished. While that won't stop polygamy and incest, at least we won't be forced to bless the practices.
No "we" wouldn't have to legalize polygamy and polyandry and revisit incest laws if gay marriage were legalized. You and some of your compatriots like to make that argument, so you can oppose gay marriage, but your logic doesn't hold up.
Look, the argument seems to be. Since married couples get benefits, that its unfair that homosexuals can't marry(to receive the benefits).
This ignores the more important question. Which is, should people only receive benefits if they are married?
Take for instance, two people who don't want to get married. And who might live with each other for decades(happens all the time). They won't receive the benefits of getting married unless they actually get married. So for the entire time they are together, the government is dangling a carrot in front of their face. Trying to coerce them to get married.
Ultimately marriage is nothing but a contract. But it is a special contract created by the state which operates differently than other contracts. Primarily in the nature of providing certain benefits to the couple. And those benefits are absolutely denied to that couple unless they agree to the conditions that the state requires. When all of the benefits and privileges that married couples currently receive, can and basically already are, covered by contract law.
Thus, the simple solution to the marriage problem is to simply get rid of the special privileges that marriages already endow. Which is in line with natural law, being that, the state should not have the power to coerce you do something, by bribing you. And in the absence of these special privileges endowed by the state. The state would no longer even need to be in the business of controlling marriage(outside of maybe age restrictions or otherwise harmful practices). But would rather only be involved in enforcing contracts.
And in that case, the whole gay-marriage problem would be basically eliminated. As it would then be turned over to private entities(businesses, organizations, churches, etc), which are self-regulated.
Will it make everyone happy? No. But what solution will?
What we have is a misfit problem....and we have been allowing them to control our national social agenda for a generation.
That is why we are a nation hopelessly lost and fading fast.
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What marriage problem?
