Governator to veto gay marriage billFollow

Abby... someone.

Well. Someone asked about fertility tests for marriage, and there used to be exactly that. Somewhere along the line, we decided it was discrimination to not allow infertile couples to marry.

But there's no slipperly slope here. Uh uh...

Up until the last 50 years or so, we had no way to tell if two people could concieve together. However, until somewhat recently (last couple hundred years maybe), men could divorce women if children were not concieved in most western countries. Heck. It's been a pretty common practice across many cultures. It's one of the reasons why multiple wives/concubines came about in the first place. You don't hear a whole lot about people beyond child-bearing age marrying up util the last hundred years or so either. It happens, but typically only in the context of property or inheritance issues. It's a rarity in history to find two old folks deciding to get married "just because".


In modern parlance, your objection really doesn't matter. Marriage is defined to include the set of all people who *can* procreate. In the absense of tests, the only way to do that is to allow any male and any female to marry. Remember, the point is to ensure that all couples who produce children together can become married, not to ensure that *only* those couples who do or will can become married. You are asking for the state to be prescient. It would have to know the future to know if those two people will end up having children or not. Since I think we can all agree that the state cannot write a law that requires that it know the future (or at least should not!), then the only sane way to ensure that the requirements for marriage (available to all people who can produce a child together) is met is to define it as one man and one woman.

You *could* expand that definition, but now you are including sets of people who may not have children, not just because of some infertility, or age, but because they physically cannot naturally do so. Men and men cannot produce offspring. Women and women cannot produce offspring. Thus, there is no reason to include them in the set of people who can get married.

I can just as easily justfy an argument that we can legally expand the definition of marriage to allow me to marry my pet. At this point, you are changing the definition, not because marriage makes any sort of sense changed in that manner, but purely to meet a desire a segment of society has. Just because gays want to be married is not a rational reason to allow them to. I'd like to get free cable, but I'm not dense enough to think we should pass a law making free cable a right of all people. In exactly the way I don't think the fact that it might be nice for gay people to allow them to marry is a good enough reason to make that some sort of legal right.


Just because you can do something, is not a reason to do it. You need to show how our society benefits from this change. Does granting marriage status to gays fill some need? Does it fix some problem? Remember, since we're talking about a government issued status, with government provided benefits, you need to put that in the context of a problem that would otherwise cost the people/government *more* if the status did not exist then if it did. We can clearly see that with the status of marriage, government encourages that procreation occur more often in conditions underwhich the couple can support the child without government assistance. It's worth it for the government to provide a tax incentive for hetero couples to marry, if it reduces the rate of unwed childbirths, right? You can *see* the direct connection between those two things. Where's the equivalent justification from the state's perspective for gay marriage? The fact is that it simply does not exist. There is zero chance that a gay couple may hook up and produce a child that the goverment may need to support if that couple doesn't get married. Thus, there is zero need for the government to provide that status to gay couples. It's really that simple.

Um, no. The bloodtests that in the last century were required for a marriage license were intended mainly to screen for STIs and had nothing to do with fertility.

Going further back, the only "fertility test" that was ever required before marriage is a tradition dating back some thousand years or so of having a year-long betrothal period in which a couple cohabited to see if they could conceive a child before formalizing the marriage.

This was done, as has been mentioned before, mainly to insure property rights and inheritance in what was essentially a land-ownership contract, not because there was any religious dictum that married couples must be required to procreate.

The process was not halted to prevent discrimination against infertile couples. It was halted because the Catholic church decided that any form of sexual union outside the confines of matrimony (even between betrothed couples) was immoral.

Property and inheritance is also why virginity in females became a prerequisite for marriagability. Unless the girl was a virgin, the husband could not be certain the offspring were his, and his family did not want him entering into a union where offspring not of their bloodline would stand to inherit their properties.

Procreation has NOT always been the purpose of marriage. It has always been a civil contract designed to merge estates and fortunes or solidify political alliances. Offspring simply provided a way to insure that those estates and holdings remained in the bloodlines of both families.



Edited, Thu Sep 15 17:26:36 2005 by Ambrya

The fact is that the majority of adults, married or not, have children at some point. You're deciding that if all cats are mammals, being a mammal must be all about being a cat.

Because that's too much government!

It's far better to deny homosexuals the ability to marry then to risk that!

Huh? But you're trying to argue that a statement like "Most cats like to drink milk" is incorrect because most mammals *also* like to drink milk. That's totally silly logic Joph. Now you can argue that my statement is irrelevant, but you can't say it's "wrong".

Your argument would be a better argument for the elimination of the marriage status entirely. I'm saying that marriage exists as an encouragment for couples having children to create a stable economic and social unit. Your little bit of logic only makes sense if you're trying to argue that since people have children without that stable social-economic unit, that marriage doesn't need to have anything to do with having children. Um... But that doesn't make any logical sense either.



My logic is sound Joph. How many people date or meet casually and discuss whether and how many kids to have? Pretty much none? How many married couples do? All of them? Yeah... Why do you suppose that is? Because one of the first things married couples talk about. In fact one of the things they *should* talk about before getting married, is the matter of children. They do that because there is an assumption that children is a part of being married. Unmarried people don't do that. Children may result, but the rate of planned births among single women? Not terribly high I would assume.

But those are all things non-married couples do as well. They aren't restricted to married couples.

It's realy simple Joph. What exactly is the rate of "planned births" among unmarried couples? Don't most unmarried couples, upon deciding to have children, get married? Why do you suppose that is if marriage has *nothing* to do with generating children?




Yes. And giving all black people handicapped stickers for their cars would only be giving them a benefit that every single non-crippled handicapped person has.

That's not a good reason to do something Joph. The government generates handicapped stickers on the assumption that *most* handicapped people will need the benefits they provide. They don't test each and every one to see if they can or can't walk to the store from the regular parking spaces. They simply hand them to everyone that meets the criteria of "handicapped" in order to ensure that everyone who *needs* the benefits will get it.

Your argument is identical to saying that since not every single person who is handicapped "needs" the parking benefits, that it's somehow wrong to deny those parking benfits to any other group that also does not need them.

Get it? Gay couples do not need the legal status of marriage. They can co-habitate without it. They can share finances and bank accounts without it. They can gain legal guardianship over eachother without it. They can gain power of attorney over eachother without it. Every single legal thing that gays actually want they can get without being married. In fact, the absolute only things that you can only get via the legal status of marriage are the tax rates and some federal loan benefits. Both of which exist because of the likelyhood of married couples to be existing on a single income (something that does not occur normally with gay couples).


I'm sorry. I don't see how gay couples need any special legal or financial benefits beyond those any other two people may get. Two incomes can support a household quite easily. When you take the generation of children out of the equation, the financial benefits of marriage are simply not needed. They would really just be a bonus given to gay couples for *no* reason...


It has nothing to do with being squeemish or some other silliness. That's what the gay marriage proponents want people to think. And while I'm sure there are many private citizens who don't want gay marriage for that reason, that does not make it the *actual* reason why it's not done at a government level.

Wow. Looks like its back to the Amb's tagteam on Ghabji. Why?

Cause you're an idiot.

Here's a simple fact that will very quickly bring your world crashing down.

Soon, as in already scientifically feasible, it will be possible for a gay couple to have a child. This isn't some far-fetched, star trek, Philip K. D[b][/b]ick type feasible, it's like 5 years or less. Male couples just need a surrogate mother, not unlike many couples. And Female couples just need the invitro procedure. What are you going to do then? Things get very confusing once this possibility comes into play.


And just because 'marriage' as a concept meant something 50 years should not define it's meaning today. The world is moving alot faster everyday, concentrate on the battles that matter, not the ones you're gonna lose anyway.

Edit: Stupid language filter.

Edited, Sat Sep 17 01:34:31 2005 by AmbroseOdin

THE TERMINATOR IS DA MAN'

As a matter of fact this is the same topic i have assigned to for my English 102 final and belive it or not i completely Agree with the Terminator, Marriage Is 1 man 1 woman point blank, I am complety Againsit Gay marriage it has no place in families.
Civil Unions are another issue, But to call it "marriage" is wrong. Marriage in my belief is the joining of 2 ppl under god, ( jesus in my book) god would never endorse this, and neither should u if u give 2 cents for the last shred of morals we still have in this country.

And he will be back next term cuz im voting for him.

Link to back up my claims - http://www.nogaymarriage.com/information.asp
this is just one of many, if u want books by scholars il direct u to them 2.

GFY... I pray to your god that you don't fail any of your students for disagreeing with you... and WTH is gay marriage doing on your english final?



People like you make good **** like me want to beat the bejezuz out of the nearest sentient thing. Gay marriage will not unravel the remaining shreds of our moral tapestry... The entertainment industry will do that.

and who the hell really endorses the opinion of an english teacher who uses U for YOU

stop teaching, you'll have a bigger hand in destroying morals than gay marraige will with your "god would never endorse this" ************* how the hell do you know what god/jesus would/wouldn't endorse? Have you spoken to them recently? Or are you going by that made up novel called the bible that was writtin by someone OTHER than god/jesus...

for the love of everything holy, please burst into flames, and save everyone from your morality.

That website was pretty funny. In ten steps, they went from ******** about Scandinavia to the apocolyptic destruction of the Earth at the hands of a vengeful God if we allow gay marriage.