Marriage and the State

Essentially they choose to share income and expenses by living together, and would like society to accept such as the equivalent to marriage of a man and a woman which would produce additional benefits.

 

When I think of "marriage" I see two ketchup bottles being combined. So, what's your point?

 

Let couples wether it be hetrosexual or homosexual have the same marriage benefits, which would be none. Let them choose who they want to spend the rest of their life with, but financially no laws or government should be involved, only paper signatures. If they divorce from another all they gotta do is sigh one to get their name off, or something along those lines.

Yea marriage has been between a man and woman for centuries but really, who gives a fuck. This is not 410 BC or 1340 AD, times sure have changed and i think it's ok if some things do as well. Personally i think same sex coupling is really gross and i couldn't ever see myself attracted to another guy. Though to say they should not have the same rights as me is still really dumb. They are still men, still human.

Let them marry, let anyone marry who ever they wish. Just don't give married couples, and none married, different benefits, or anything for that matter. You should not get tax breaks, taxed harder, insurance cuts, insurance raises, money should NOT be involved, period!

 

I don't expect you to believe it, you seem to have a vested interest in not believing me but it's true and it's not an excuse, it's my reason.

PS I don't like the words gay, queer and faggot being used to mean homosexual either, they have other perfectly good meanings but now can no longer be used for those because of their recent misuse.

 

Well stated.

 

I like it. Gaarriage or maybe just garriage.

Personally I believe that, as you mention, same sex couples should have a way to obtain the same legal benefits and recognition as marriage, which to me seems to be the real problem and not what you call it.

 

Yes but the thing is that with marriage comes a lot of things that that one does not realize. To me, one of the big ones is a wife can visit her husband in the hospital and can be informed of his condition, something often denied same sex couples, which I find to be cruel.

 

I have to ask, how often do you go to the marriage of two ketchup bottles? Does it usually take place in a church or is it more of a civil ceremony? Do you have to get dressed up?

 

In many states, including mine, a living will allows you to designate the person who is to be the key decision-maker for you if you are incapacitated, and there are no restrictions on who that can be. It's a blank line on the form, not a multiple choice question. That person cannot be cut out of the information loop by the hospital. They might try it, but presenting a photocopy of the living will always puts an end to any controversy.

Also, federal privacy laws now require every doctor to have you sign a HIPAA form (I don't remember what the letters stand for) where you tell them who is allowed to have access to your medical information. They started doing this because of nasty, bitter divorces and separations, nosy employers, and meddling parents, not to help gay or cohabiting couples, but it gets the job done just the same. If you consistently put the same person's name on every one of these forms, there isn't much the hospital can do to push them aside, no matter how conservative the hospital's chief administrator might be. And you can list multiple people on the form.

There are different formats for the ceremony, but the best part is the wild sex party that always follows the reception. It's a pizza heaven.

 

Do they generally serve fries?

 

I've been thinking about this all week. I've been trying to put myself in the place of young women who have fathers who are more like my (maternal) grandfather than my father, who would require everyone in the house to conform in a very rigid way to fundamentalist Christian values, which in my case would have included abstaining from alcohol and premarital sex. It really made me appreciate the freedom that I have now, and realize how true it is that there is no freedom without money. If my daily survival depended on someone who required me to study the Bible every night, I would have to do it. I can have my own life only because I have my own money.

All the more reason for government policies to stay the hell OUT of family life.

 

Many of the girls I know nowadays come from liberal to semi-liberal households, and they become willingly obsessed with putting a ring on the first whipped dude comes their way.

They are so desperate to re-create mom and daddy`s little household, it`s almost hilarious... :biggrin:

 

I agree, the state shouldn't be involved in marriage or divorce.

 

Exactly.

And the additional benefits are ones that DO follow, it's not like you get married and the government buys you a benz.

Why should they not get those? I don't care if it's not called marriage, if the state supports and endorses heterosexual unions, they should do the same for homosexual unions.

 

Why should there be any government benefits at all? And why should businesses provide anything more than a wage or salary to their employees?

 

The word "state" is loaded with too much emotional baggage for rational discussion. You can think of the state as the operational branch of society. So let's talk about society's interest in marriage.

Historically, couples had an interest in having society (i.e. neighbours, friends, family) witness their stated commitments to each other. If a deadbeat dad decided to welch on his promise to support his wife and kids, it was to the woman's advantage to be able to call on witnesses to support her claim that such a promise had been made.

Similarly, if a family dies in an accident, society has to figure out what to do with their estate(s). If is helpful in that situation to know what the relationships are and what commitments were made, in order to figure out what is the right thing to do.

So society has an interest in recording relationships. In my mind, marriage has nothing to do with religion, and nothing to do with permission. It is primarily a recording and public witnessing function.

That was the reason my wife and I got married: we wanted people to witness our commitment.

I am in favour of the idea suggested earlier in the thread where a common-law relationship becomes equivalent to marriage after a period of time. In Canada, for most purposes, that period of time is one year. That is just a change in process: instead of hearing the promise itself, we look at their actions and see that it seems to be working to some degree. It is still a way for society to note that the relationship exists.

 

I think this is one of the first thoughtful and informed posts in this thread.

 

My father was not religious at all, but still got that overly strict king of the hill shit from him, as did many other kids growing up in my rather secular neighbourhood....which basically in the end comes down to them having no real clue how to parent, too scared to admit they dont know what they are doing - which of course usually comes out via the medium of frustration and anger.

Some kids are going to get that crap whether or not the parents are religious or not. Religion is just the cover excuse

I am of the opinion that with kids growing up, the influence of same age peers, no. of siblings, how they socialise with other kids is far more important than anything to do with the parents.

But when it comes to parents, I'll say something controversial just for the hell of it - chics are just for the most part better at it, better geared for it, better programmed for it.

A generalization, yes, there can be some shitty mothers, some guys that are better at it than most chics, but across the board, for the majority, when it comes to parenting too many guys are clueless going in and it takes them way too friggin long to work out the basics and will resort too often to aggressive behaviour to handle things in the interim


Forget this is coming from a gay guy for a second, but why is man and woman thrust down our throats as the best parenting model. The union of man and woman usually always starts from the need for them to bump uglies together - how does this then translate a couple years later to that being the best parenting model? One doesnt really have anything to do with the other.

I or you mentioned another way before - however we get there, the best model probably involves more gals involved with the parenting and more kids around them whether that be siblings or otherwise

 

Maybe there shouldn't, but either way, there should be the same level for homosexuals as heterosexuals. If you want to campaign to remove all marriage benefits, be my guest, but first homosexuals need a union option with the same benefits, however high or low those benefits may be.

 

The reason for male/female parenting is obvious: you bump uglies, this creates chemical bonds (BECAUSE it also creates kids) and hopefully assures that there will be two parents. If you end up with kids without the bumping uglies part and two of the same sex, I don't see a problem with it, but the biological reason for male/female parenting is obvious.

I personally think parenting can be done fine how it was through most of our history as apes.... you should probably, if possible, have your biological parents around (they will have chemical/hormonal ties to you that might make them morel likely to go out on a limb for you, if all that bonding happened right) but there's no reason to ONLY have two parents/role models, and there's no reason to not have an equally respected/important family group.