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Geez! So you tell me why in the hell government involves itself in endorsing, encouraging and subsidizing marriage, if we, the people, did not think it was because of the children? Hospital visitation rights??
Reasoning only matters to court cases.
The law stands as it is, and as it is, children have nothing to do with the ability to legally obtain a marriage certificate.
Therefore, the procreation angle for being against same sex marriage is stupid.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals stated your argument this way in a ruling upholding a ban on ssm---
"The State argues that the many laws defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman and extending a variety of benefits to married couples are rationally related to the government interest in “steering procreation into marriage.” By affording legal recognition and a basket of rights and benefits to married heterosexual couples, such laws “encourage procreation to take place within the socially recognized unit that is best situated for raising children.”
The argument is ... also based on a “responsible procreation” theory that justifies conferring the inducements of marital recognition and benefits on opposite-sex couples, who can otherwise produce children by accident, but not on same-sex couples, who cannot. Whatever our personal views regarding this political and sociological debate, we cannot conclude that the State’s justification "lacks a rational relationship to legitimate state interests."
“Even if the classification . . . is to some extent both underinclusive and overinclusive, and hence the line drawn . . . imperfect, it is nevertheless the rule that . . . perfection is by no means required.”
That is how I intrinsically view government's involvement in marriage. It's only common sense, that we as a society want people making babies, to raise them in a structured way that benefits the nation, and to promote the best future generation as possible.
As opposed to some folks, we are not going thru all this to give love birds a piece of paper and wedding photos.
Marriage was always about men and women, being married to each other and making babies, its the libs who want to change it. It was the fault of the people who did not have the forethought to define marriage a hundred years ago, so even an modern day idiot would understand it.
Really? I seem to recall a Roman Emperor or two who married other men.
Marriage is also about the family. The extended family is very important to any nation and society. When people fall on hard times, or need assistance, and strong family of cousins, aunts, grandparents will be there to care for and help each other out.
A nation with a strong and healthy extended family structure removes a lot of burden from the social welfare systems of government.
I couldn't agree more. It's why I am pro-marriage for straight and gay people.
The law stands as it is, and as it is, children have nothing to do with the ability to legally obtain a marriage certificate.
Therefore, the procreation angle for being against same sex marriage is stupid.
We have traffic laws because people drive cars, not because they own them and leave them parked in the garage. There is no law that demands you drive your car, in order to legally obtain a driver's license either. We just assume you will drive your car after getting a license, just like we assume couples will have children after getting married.
Our government involves itself in marriage because of the children, and not for any other reason.
You''ll need to restate that, cuz i dont know which state you are referring to, nor what those rights are.
I'm asking for your personal opinion. You seem to think that marriage is only valid when procreation / child rearing is involved, so I want to know if you think that only couples with children should get the rights that come with a civil marriage. When a couple contracts a civil marriage in the US, they are endowed with some 1400 rights (well, heterosexual couples get these rights - even legally married gay couples in places like New York are denied them). For example:
When a spouse dies, the surviving spouse is exempt from estate taxes on inherited assets that were not joint marital property.
Married couples are exempt from the gift tax when giving each other non joint marital property.
The right to sue for wrongful death (Do you remember that black man who was recently run over and killed for being black by a group of white teenagers - turns out he was gay and had a husband for over 17 years. Because he's gay, his husband is not allowed to file a wrongful death suit against the murderers).
If a member of a married couple is foreign, he automatically gets a spousal immigration visa.
If one spouse owns a business and employs the other spouse, then that business is exempt from paying unemployment insurance tax on the employed spouse's wages.
If one spouse is in the military, he is paid more. Also, his spouse gets to shop at the base commissary and PX.
If one spouse dies, the other gets social security survivorship benefits.
etc, etc, etc.
We already know you don't think gay people should get them, but, since in your opinion marriage is only valid when children are involved, should only couples with children get these rights?
We have traffic laws because people drive cars, not because they own them and leave them parked in the garage. There is no law that demands you drive your car, in order to legally obtain a driver's license either. We just assume you will drive your car after getting a license, just like we assume couples will have children after getting married.
Our government involves itself in marriage because of the children, and not for any other reason.
And so you'd agree that preventing a gay couple from getting married and raising children would be against the spirit of marriage. After all, there's more than one way to obtain children: artificial insemination, adoption, surrogates, etc We allow straight people to get married and obtain children by means other than penis-vagina interaction. Why not homosexuals? By getting married, they have formed the same kind of stable family unit that heterosexual couples do.
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