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While one may excuse human/animal marriages as absurd, all you need is to get a lawyer to argue that since you can legally leave money to your pet, why cant you marry one?
A minor point...you cannot leave money to a pet. They are not legal entities. You can leave money to a trust to be operated by a human or other legal entity for the benefit of a pet, but that's the best you can do on that score.
As for marriage, it is based upon mutual consent. Animals and furniture are presumed to be unable to provide consent, hence they are not eligible as partners in marriage. The same is true for young children, which is why there are age of consent laws in virtually every state. The same is NOT true for gays or lesbians. Each partner IS able to provide his or her consent. This makes their case very different from these others.
Keep in mind that the concept of homosexual "marriage" is considered absurd by many reasonable people...
It is the very concept that such people actually are reasonable with respect to this issue that is under question. One cannot simply presume the reasonableness of a position. One cannot use the precedent of having often been reasonable with regard to other matters as a cover to extend into this matter. Reasonableness must be capable of being demonstrated. It is in this area where you will fall short. Personal conviction and various tenets taken from religious doctrine will not suffice to make the case unless they themselves can first be shown to be products of a reasonable origin and derivation...
So, in my view marriage is reserved as is, and a second level of legally acknowledged relationships is established within the context of civil unions.
Keeping in mind that marriage however defined is a civil union -- i.e., one that is controlled by the state -- you cannot square this approach with the 14th Amendment. If separate but equal cannot stand, then certainly separate but unequal does not...
A minor point...you cannot leave money to a pet. They are not legal entities. You can leave money to a trust to be operated by a human or other legal entity for the benefit of a pet, but that's the best you can do on that score.
As for marriage, it is based upon mutual consent. Animals and furniture are presumed to be unable to provide consent, hence they are not eligible as partners in marriage. The same is true for young children, which is why there are age of consent laws in virtually every state. The same is NOT true for gays or lesbians. Each partner IS able to provide his or her consent. This makes their case very different from these others.
Marriage is not based upon mutual consent, marriage is based upon first being able to give concent (which is where I conceed your point), but without the legal definition of marriage being met, you need more then concent.
All one needs to do is look at the legal definition of "rape" to run into a similar situation. Having a child concent to being raped, or a child concent to marriage does not mean that its possible if it clearly violates the law, (which gay marriage does)
These are perfectly reasonable arguments, but how would you keep any two signatories (friends, brothers and sisters, parishoner and unscrupulous clergyman, owner and pet, etc.) from taking advantage of such benefits?
What reasons would you have for preventing such persons from "taking advantage" of such benefits? The right to individual selection of a spouse is deeply embedded within the sense and rights of personal autonomy and privacy that are the cornerstone of ordered liberty. You do not have any presumptive right to interfere. You will need a reasonable and convincing case in order to justify any limit at all. See if you can provide such...
I disagree. To me, the issue is one of whether we want the word "marriage" to mean what it tradionally has and currently does ("the union of a man and a woman"), or to mean something else. Marriage has a special meaning. It refers to the union of two opposite human beings. Not different: opposite. It has metaphorical value as the cement of our society and our culture. It is a reflection of the way living things are designed to reproduce their species. It is a vehicle for the melding of the two sexes, with their radically different ways of seeing, knowing, and loving.
Not the first time you've gone off into such flights of personal fancy. As with anyone else, you're welcome to whatever inspiring imagery you'd care to come up with, but your personal sense of metaphorical value and peculiar interpretations of biological observations are no more valid in their basis than those of anyone else. Yours seem frankly to be the product of some long-ago LSD-trip to me. The relevance of your musings attaches to no one but yourself and hence can have no standing whatsoever before the law when set against the long and well established rights of others.
Well, of course. But there would undoubtedly be more abuse of the law than currently exists, and by a rather steep percentage, given the ethical standards of the general public.
What "abuse of the law" do you observe now, and in what areas do you foresee this steep increase as arising? Are you arguing that a suitor must come to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage, and that you may refuse that request and have that refusal be legally binding upon the parties actually involved? It does sound, after all, as if you wish for all desiring to be married to obtain first the Yeledaf Seal of Approval, one which apparently will not automatically be forthcoming. I must ask again...who are you? Where do you get off with this?
Marriage is not based upon mutual consent, marriage is based upon first being able to give concent (which is where I conceed your point), but without the legal definition of marriage being met, you need more then concent.
You contradict my point, then concede it. Interesting. But speaking of contradiction, your legal definition contradicts other and higher pirnciples of law. Such tension is resolved by rewriting the definition to bring it into compliance with those other and higher principles of law.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pghquest
All one needs to do is look at the legal definition of "rape" to run into a similar situation. Having a child concent to being raped, or a child concent to marriage does not mean that its possible if it clearly violates the law, (which gay marriage does)
We are not talking about the desire of two Brownie or Cub Scouts to be married. Age of consent laws cover such outliers at least adequately. As for rape, no consensual act between adults can qualify. The crime is predicated upon either a lack or a withdrawal of consent. As above, it is the law that violates the law in this case. The law itself is out of order...
What reasons would you have for preventing such persons from "taking advantage" of such benefits? The right to individual selection of a spouse is deeply embedded within the sense and rights of personal autonomy and privacy that are the cornerstone of ordered liberty. You do not have any presumptive right to interfere. You will need a reasonable and convincing case in order to justify any limit at all. See if you can provide such...
I have none. I was just curious to see how far your sense of the absurd extends.
Yeldaf - Saganista any be a lot of things but absurd is not one of them. You have prevented this by having a lock on it.
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