If homosexual marriage will be OK'ed

[dixonmassey]

then, there will be no legal/moral/medical reasons to ban polygamy and barren incest.

Polygamy may comprise marriages of
1) 1 male husban - many male "wives"
2) 1 female husband - many male "wives"
and so on

If all what matters is mutual desire/agreement then society must allow every imaginable kind of the voluntary "marriagelike" association. Daddy wants to marry his 22 y.o. daughter. What the hell, as long as they love each other and daddy's sperm count is low let them do it.

I guess, supporters of polygamy will be next to fight their discrimination.

 

[Avatar]

actually there are medical reasons
people mating in-family pollute their gene pool and many frightening things can come out of that

 

[dixonmassey]

Word "barren" means uncapable of reproducing. There are no medical reasons to prohibit barren incests.

 

[Insanely Elite]

Excactly what is wrong with poligamy. Who specifically does it hurt?
I know it wouldn't work for me, sort of tried it when I was younger. But if people can find their own happy pursuits, whom does it harm? Morales? Don't give me that. Sex outside of wedlock is the norm today. It was taboo 40 years ago. and (depending on nationality) a death sentence to women in days gone by.
Linking same sex marriage with incest? this shows your puritanical myopathy. Dick cheneys daughter does the twist with her girlfriend and he supports her personal decision. I am overjoyed that the log cabin republicans have left the party. Live your own life in an ozzie and harriet 50's throughback fantasy, leave the rest of your invasive morality at the door.
Have you ever done anything that was ammoral by your standards? Are you quick to judge so that you will be judged all the sooner?
Is it the beam in your eye or the stone in your hand that blinds you and weighs you down. Remove the beam and drop the stone and you will be free of this doomed path you walk.

 

[Asguard]

its simpler than that

what right have you got to tell me who i can and cant marry?
i actually KNEW a girl who found out she had a brother when she brought her new BF home to meet the folks and they said "i see you met your brother"

were they evil?
i mean they were twins who were sleeping together after all

whats SOOO bad about someone marrying the guy they love? even if its a guy?

 

[Avatar]

nothing at all

 

[Tiassa]

I hold with P.J. O'Rourke: incest is just admitting that you're too pathetic to find anything real to do on Friday night.

In the meantime, Dixonmassey, I would be interested to see you explain how incest or polygamy are treated by the U.S. Constitution.

Unlike incest and polygamy, there is legitimate constitutional support for same-sex marriage. In fact, refusing same-sex marriage rights is a violation of the U.S Constitution.

Make the same case for polygamy and incest, and nobody here will say word one about you wanting to marry your five sisters. Well, okay, the religious folk will, and the rest of us might berate you for being so pathetic in the first place (e.g. the O'Rourke principle). But if you make the constitutional case for polygamy and incest, well, that would be a hard argument to refuse.

 

[dixonmassey]

Tiassa, what does it have to do with me? I do not have sisters/brothers/whomever. I barely could keep my sanity hearing every-day bitching and moaning of a single woman. I would go crazy if I had several of them. I do not have kids. Sorry, I am not interested in boys.

Secondly, why should I give a damn about what P.J. O'Rourke considers to be pathetic? I may consider people with the name "P.J.O'Rourke" to be pathetic by definition in my coordinate system and nobody will prove me wrong.

I did not study U.S. constitution's treatment of polygamy etc. Constitution is just a paper written by people. It can be changed provided the will. If homosexual marriage will be OK'ed, then all constitutional bans on polygamy (if they exist, which I doubt) MUST be revoked. If refusing same-sex marriage rights is a violation of the U.S. constitution than refusing polygamy and incest rights are also violations of the U.S. constitution. Homosexual marriage rights and polygamy rights come together not separately. There will be no legal reasons to deny polygamy rights after homosexual marriages will be OK'ed. And, I am pretty sure that champions of polygamy will make the constitutional case for it 1 minute after homosexual marriage will be OK'ed. Incest freaks are much less numerous and, frequently, they are mental cases. Thus, their "discrimination" case may never be made or it may, who knows. Once a can of worms will be opened it will be hard to do anything about it. Nothing short of the full freedom for everybody to mary everybody will close the case.

 

[Dr Lou Natic]

I think I'm starting to understand the argument against gay marriage.
Married couples recieve benefits from their country as a reward for helping in establishing the next generation of that country.
Gay couples can't do that so why should they be given money for nothing? Its not discrimination, its simply not giving people something for nothing. A straight married couple offers their services to the country in exchange for these benefits. Gay couples aren't offering anything and yet want to have "what they're having" anyway.
Its like if I whined about the nba not employing me "just because I'm not good enough to play proffessional basketball". You'll find thats actually a fair reason for the nba not to employ me, and its similarly quite fair and reasonable for society not to employ homosexuals. I'm not helping the orlando magic by not-playing basketball for them, and homosexuals aren't benefitting the society by being married.

On incest...
The dangers of incest are over exagerrated. It could be favourable in some cases depending on the individuals. Animal breeders invariably inbreed, no one would expect to produce quality stock without doing it a little.
Cousin marriage has only recently become taboo. It used to be very common. Charles Darwin married his cousin. It used to actually be more common for the upper class to inbreed than the lower classes. Funny how things change.
I'd bet at one stage in history relationships between cousins were more common than any other. We probably only used to add new blood every 4 or 5 generations.
We're social animals, at one stage that didn't mean social with strangers, It meant social with the extended family so getting a piece from anywhere else would have been quite difficult. You can see in tribal cultures today, occassionally a clan will trade a young female for a few pigs and a sack of wheat, and so the other clan will acquire some new blood. But they would largely be inbred. Thats just how our species was intended to be.
This species was built on incest, as most have been.
I personally am deeply unattracted to my sister, even though everyone thinks she looks like a movie star, I can't see it. This is a biological stop sign. I can feel it with my mother as well. Nature tells me I shouldn't breed with my sister or mother by making them completely unattractive to me. They're akin to dudes on my sexually attractive scale, they don't register at all.
But to be honest I don't feel that stop sign with my cousins. I'd never admit that to anyone in real life, but I could definately see myself getting dirty with some of my cousins. And its not a case of me being a perverted devo with an incest fetish, there's definately sexual chemistry racing around the whole clan of cousins. And I've sensed it in my friends' and acquaintances' families of cousins. I've noticed cousins aren't like brother and sister.
I'm pretty sure that if we were wild humans we undoubtedly would have fucked eachothers brains out by now and thought nothing of it.
And I don't think we're psychologically damaged or a particularly kinky family. We'd seem quite normal, and I think we are. I think you'd find all families, if living naturally as a family clan competing against neighbouring clans, would engage in incest and it would indeed make up the bulk of sexual encounters experienced because it would just be a hell of alot more practical than cruising the walking trails for outsider poon in hostile(or unpopulated) territories.
Every once in a while "outbreeding" would occur to stop the genepool from stagnating but this would only be an occassional drop in the flowing stream of hot incestual love.
This is almost certainly what our species has been since before we even became a species, and right on through untill about 100 years ago.
Now the idea of thinking about a relative in that way is the height of depravity, even though really a cousin is kind of a sex partner designated by nature.
Don't get the wrong idea, this isn't something I lie awake thinking about at night, I'm not bitter at the world for not letting me bone my cousins and I don't go weak at the knees in the presence of my cousins. This is the first time I've put anywhere near this much thought into it.
But the simple fact I'm not repulsed by them does raise questions in my mind because I tend to trust my instincts to tell me about human nature over the current opinion of society. With that in mind, and what the reality of our past must have been like, its hard to deny that the "wrongness" of incest has been blown way out of proportion.

 

[mouse]

Married couples recieve benefits from their country as a reward for helping in establishing the next generation of that country.

Its not discrimination, its simply not giving people something for nothing.

So, following that line of reasoning, a man and a female which are unable to produce children due to infertility of one of two, shouldn't be allowed to marry? And what about elderly but by choice childless married couples? Did they, in your perspective, dodge their "duty"?

 

[Dr Lou Natic]

My opinion has nothing to do with it. It isn't my money. I'd be paying people NOT to have children if it was up to me. But thats the reasoning behind it. Why childless marriages can still recieve the benefits is just because being too specific is kind of sci-fi creepy. Like the government owns the people.
But behind it all, thats the whole idea. And its understandable that homosexuals really have nothing to do with it. Denying childless couples those benefits is something homosexuals would have the right to strive for if they really wanted to, because in that sense they are being discriminated against. However, you can't say the same for them not recieving the benefits a normal family recieves. That isn't a case of homosexuals being discriminated against, IMO.

 

[dixonmassey]

So, following that line of reasoning, a man and a female which are unable to produce children due to infertility of one of two, shouldn't be allowed to marry? And what about elderly but by choice childless married couples? Did they, in your perspective, dodge their "duty"?

In the late USSR, there was a tax on the childless families. Gun meat production was encouraged.

 

[spidergoat]

then, there will be no legal/moral/medical reasons to ban polygamy and barren incest.

It's my understanding that no one wants to change the laws about polygamy and incest, except a few mormons, and they go ahead in spite of the laws. The issue is one of civil rights, being able to adopt children, visit your spouse in the hospital, inherit property, etc... basically acknowledging the rights we already expect. In the case of polygamy, you already have those rights after the first marriage, so anything further is redundant; in case of incest, you're already a relative. The laws don't legislate morality, that is your own choice, and the medical reasons not to encourage reproduction among family members haven't changed.

The scientific barriers to same sex reproduction have already been overcome.

 

[dixonmassey]

It's my understanding that no one wants to change the laws about polygamy and incest, except a few mormons, and they go ahead in spite of the laws. [/I]

The number of adherents of one or another life style should not be used as a legal argument. What if only 100 slaves lived in USA? Would it be OK?

The issue is one of civil rights, being able to adopt children, visit your spouse in the hospital, inherit property, etc... basically acknowledging the rights we already expect. In the case of polygamy, you already have those rights after the first marriage, so anything further is redundant;

I really do not get how 5th wife, for example, in an illegal mormon marriage legally may claim the above rights? She's totally legally "rightless".

in case of incest, you're already a relative. The laws don't legislate morality, that is your own choice, and the medical reasons not to encourage reproduction among family members haven't changed. The scientific barriers to same sex reproduction have already been overcome.

So what if they are relatives? They may want just to to be legally married for the sake of it and file a joint tax return, adopt a child together, etc.

 

[Asguard]

this is so idiotic

there is no contract with the goverment when you get married. I dont get "fired" or "sued for breach of contract" if after marrying i chose not to have kids. This is all about the legal rights and responcabilitys that gay guys and women want with there partners

think about this: Your loved one (aged 40-50 say) is lying unconsious in hospital and the doc wants authorisation to operate to save there life. You have to go to your partners mother or father to get permission

is that right?

as i understand it a husband\wife can authorise medical atendion for there partner but can a gay authorise it for there partner?

what about adopting kids? cant do that if your gay can you?

and then yes there is the sad thing of who gets your money when you die, does your loving partner get it or does that cousin you hate get it because they are the only "relive" you have?

joint assests, morges, loans ect are all easier with a marrige

what about suing for death or injury under workcover? cant do that if your not married to your partner

and none of these things have to do with the goverment GIVING money to you, what would be so terrable about giving loving couples these rights? even if they were gay or EVEN brother and sister. really is this going to cause the world to end or is it just going to make some peoples lives better?

 

[Xev]

"what right have you got to tell me who i can and cant marry?"

Being the government that issues the marriage license gives them that right.

Marriage exists to propagate the race. The institution is outdated, and either should be scrapped (in terms of governmental aknowledgement) or regulated by eugenic policies.

Law does regulate morality - in a democratic system, it forces people to adhere to democratic morality. However, the denial of marriage benefits to same-sex couples violates traditional democratic morality, and should end both for the sake of consistancy and of pissing the Christians off. The same for denying benefits to any union that is not aggressively antisocial.

The only way denying those benefits can be logically consistant with democratic morality is if marriage is recognized as a union based on the production of children and treated thereby. But governments will never adopt eugenic measures.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

It is just a piece of paper issued by the government. Just write your own. Sure enough, you don't get the tax benefits and whatever. But is that what marriage is really about?

 

[one_raven]

But is that what marriage is really about?

Yes.
It is.

It is the legal binding of two people.

Othrwise what's the point?
Just live together.
Without the legal benefits/responsibilities, what's the point of getting married?

 

[Tiassa]

Tiassa, what does it have to do with me?

Which part?

What I'm pointing out is that your assertion that same-sex marriage somehow undermines the arguments against polygamy or incest is fallacious.

If you establish the constitutional case that forbidding legal recognition of polygamous or incestuous marriage is a violation of a person's rights, the only people who will object to the practices will be certain religious conservatives on religious grounds and also the most part of modern society for reasons very concisely expressed by P.J. O'Rourke.

Secondly, why should I give a damn about what P.J. O'Rourke considers to be pathetic? I may consider people with the name "P.J.O'Rourke" to be pathetic by definition in my coordinate system and nobody will prove me wrong.

That's beside the point. Think what you want of him.

I did not study U.S. constitution's treatment of polygamy etc. Constitution is just a paper written by people. It can be changed provided the will. If homosexual marriage will be OK'ed, then all constitutional bans on polygamy (if they exist, which I doubt) MUST be revoked. If refusing same-sex marriage rights is a violation of the U.S. constitution than refusing polygamy and incest rights are also violations of the U.S. constitution.

There's so much there. Okay:

(1) "I did not study U.S. constitution's treatment of polygamy etc" - I'll save you the effort. Just follow along and I'll try to make it clear.
(2) "Constitution is just a paper written by people." - It has the conventional respect of the people and therefore is, as it declares, the Supreme Law of the Land within the United States of America.
(3) " It can be changed provided the will." - This is true, though for the thousands of attempts to alter the Constitution, only twenty-seven have ever made it. (There's a scandalous argument that there's a twenty-eighth, specifically a Thirteenth Amendment not nearly of legend and only excluded from the Constitution by a thin technical argument about paperwork; it's passed and ratified.) As it stands, prohibition of same-sex marriage runs afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment.
(4) "If homosexual marriage will be OK'ed, then all constitutional bans on polygamy (if they exist, which I doubt) MUST be revoked" - This is the argument I need you to fill in. The portion of the Constitution that the prohibition of same-sex marriage violates does not apply to either polygamous or incestuous unions.
(5) "If refusing same-sex marriage rights is a violation of the U.S. constitution than refusing polygamy and incest rights are also violations of the U.S. constitution" - I assure you that you are wrong in that assertion.
​

The problem with prohibition of same-sex marriage comes in the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Source: Legal Information Institute

This section is what is commonly referred to as the Equal Protection Clause:

The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. In other words, the laws of a state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances. A violation would occur, for example, if a state prohibited an individual from entering into an employment contract because he or she was a member of a particular race. The equal protection clause is not intended to provide "equality" among individuals or classes but only "equal application" of the laws. The result, therefore, of a law is not relevant so long as there is no discrimination in its application. By denying states the ability to discriminate, the equal protection clause of the Constitution is crucial to the protection of civil rights.

Generally, the question of whether the equal protection clause has been violated arises when a state grants a particular class of individuals the right to engage in activity yet denies other individuals the same right . . . . The Supreme Court . . . requires states to show more than a rational basis (though it does not apply the strictly scrutiny test) for classifications based on gender or a child's status as illegitimate.

Source: Legal Information Institute

The discrimination in question in the case of same-sex unions is, you guessed it, gender. A law prohibiting marriage on the basis of gender needs more than merely a rational reason. And, frankly, there is no rational reason.

Furthermore, as you cannot open, say, incestuous marriage to barren couples without running afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment at least (e.g disability as basis for extraneous advantage under the law, thereby denying fertile incestuous couples their equal protection, and as there is on the one hand a rational reason against incestuous marriage--endangering the community--and to the other a lack of a Constitutional argument supporting incestuous marriage, there is no Constitutional obligation to allow incestuous marriage.

While the rational argument against polygamy, on the other hand, is merely that we should not empower the mentally incompetent to destroy themselves, I would love to see the Constitutional argument obliging legal recognition of polygamous marriage. It has stitch-busting potential. Merely declaring the Constitutional obligation, as you have, does not make it so. There is simply no Constitutional basis I can think of to oblige recognition of polygamous marriage.

Homosexual marriage rights and polygamy rights come together not separately.

How so?
____________________

• United States Constitution (courtesy of Cornell University Legal Information Institute) - See http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html
• Legal Information Institute. "Equal Protection: An Overview". See http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/equal_protection.html

 

[spuriousmonkey]

Yes.
It is.

It is the legal binding of two people.

Othrwise what's the point?
Just live together.
Without the legal benefits/responsibilities, what's the point of getting married?

Because you make a commitment to each other to stay together for the rest of your lives and try to make each other happy???