New York approves Same Sex Marriage.Follow

It's not just unequal, but somewhat arbitrary as well. If the number of first cousins involved in sexual relationships were great enough to build into a voting block, we'd be hearing the same folks arguing for gay marriage insisting that first cousin's rights were being violated with just as much passion and certainty as they are today for gay couples. There is no standard being used. Which is scary as hell.

You just lost me. I'm not getting on that crazy train with you.

I see that people said, "Hey, we want this stuff for being married, it's only fair!" So the state responded with, "Ok, we can offer you this stuff and these protections, but you should let us know who you're marrying. Here's the best way to do that."

Then other tax paying American citizens said, "Oh, wait, that's not fair. I should be able to marry this consenting adult who is [insert illegal marriage issue here]. Make it so!!"



Blame that on the SCOTUS, who said it's a right when people wanted to discriminate against interracial couples.






No, same-sex marriage hasn't been legal because it's considered immoral and against the Christian right. Nice try, though.

It's funny, because he grounds his argument about marriage in the idea of "this is how it has always been and that's why it is this way." Because that's the only possible defense he has for his "for the children" argument (which is still wrong, because it's based on a wrong assumption).

Let's carry that argument to his cousin reference.

Fact of the matter is that marriage between first cousins is still extremely common in the Western World. And, historically, it was extremely common everywhere.

You should really study the history of marriage laws in the US. That's not how it happened at all. What happened is that most people just married in a church and were done with it. Or, they just started living together and called themselves married and were done with it. It was purely social. The community you live in knew who was who and that was all that was needed.

The government came along and said: "Hey! We need to keep track of who's married to whom, and who's responsible for who's kids. So we want everyone who's married to file a piece of paper so we can track you people".

And some people complied. But many didn't because it was a hassle.

So then the government said: "Ok. We'll give you guys some goodies if you'd pretty please make sure to file some kind of paper with us so we know who's married to whom? Here's some tax breaks. And we'll make it easier to buy property. And we'll toss in a toaster!" (this is what you were talking about, right?).

And some more people complied. But some still didn't.

So the government, cause it doesn't like people not doing what it wants, started passing common law marriages. So now, even if you never filed a piece of paper with the government, but you were living with someone of the opposite sex "as husband and wife" for X number of years, the government would just legally assume you were married! Cause we want to make sure everyone's accounted for, right?


Those last two didn't necessarily occur in that same order in every state btw, but that's basically what happened. It's abundantly apparent (obvious even) that the motivation of the government in this is to track people who are in marriage relationships, most specifically with the intent of ensuring that children are account for. Absent this, a man could father children in one state and move to another and no one could do anything about it. Heck. He could be "married" in multiple states to multiple wives.


That's how we got to where we are now.



They were already marrying. The "problem" was that they weren't filing pieces of paper telling the government who they were marrying, so the government couldn't hold them responsible for children, property in common, etc. It was all about making the government (and the courts) jobs easier. You are naive if you think that this was done because people getting married felt that if they weren't able to file a piece of paper in a court house somehow that their marriage wasn't really a marriage.

That's what people today think after a century or so of being taught that. Gee. I wonder what vested interest there would be in teaching people this? Not the individuals.



But not interracial couples of the same sex. Surely you can see that there's a difference between the sexual makeup of a couple and the racial makeup of a couple? Please tell me you can see this!


If you still doubt is has to do with children, just look at the frequency with which the question of children of mixed-race couples came up during the interracial marriage debate (on both sides). The states issue with regard to marriage has always been about children produced by the couple. Everything else is stuff tossed in on top in order to obtain that. I just don't know how many times I have to repeat this before it sinks in.




Same sex marriage isn't "illegal" now. Nice try with the whole "I don't know the difference between something being illegal and something not being rewarded".

Sorry, I couldn't read it any further. So how does this little line here, tie into people only get goodies from the government to have kids?

What Joph said.

Huh? I have *never* made this argument. My argument about marriage is that government's have an interest in getting heterosexual couples to marry so as to reduce its own load with regard to the children heterosexual couples will produce. It's not "it's always been this way". In fact, quite the opposite. Government's involvement in marriage is a relatively recent thing. For most of history, it didn't involve itself at all. Wealthy people wrote up marriage contracts because they had property and inheritance issues to deal with. Most normal people just got purely social marriages recognized only by their local community and/or their church.

So no. That's not it. If you're going to argue against me, at least take some time to read what I'm saying.



Nope. You're completely wrong.



Yet, not in the US. Why do you suppose that is? Don't just spout facts, but spend a bit of noodle time trying to think about what they might just mean.

Fun admin fact; the rate-up button is just below the Nuke button. If one of your posts disappears unexpectedly, just assume I meant to rate it up

That seems like bad design...

What's the state's interest then? Just to be nice? Lol!


I've stated mine, and I'm not the only one



This guy makes essentially the exact argument I've been making for years.

And this guy




This guy certainly assumes that procreation is the state's interest as well



Google the state interest in marriage if you want. You'll be hard pressed to find any site that doesn't discuss procreation and the government's need to manage it within society. But by all means, continue to bury your head in the sand, deny the obvious, and insist that since the obvious doesn't support your cart-before-horse argument, it must be wrong and there must be some other reason.


If there is, what is it? Seriously. You all jump on this and insist that I must be wrong, but no one ever seems to be able to give some other reason. What is the state's interest in marriage if it's not procreation? It's not just property. We have zillions of other contracts which manage that just fine. Can anyone provide an alternative explanation?

You're just being intentionally dishonest. I mean, it's one thing to be incorrect or have a different opinion but this is just a straight lie and you know it. You may not agree with the reasons but to deny that anyone has provided them is pretty pathetic.