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| Proposition 8 ruled "unconstitutional"; ...sets up Supreme Court battle | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 7 2012, 10:09 AM (2,437 Views) | |
| ivorythumper | Feb 8 2012, 10:26 PM Post #51 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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exercising power is not the same as exercising rights. The state does all sorts of things that are well beyond its moral authority that limit human freedom. I'm asking for an argument of where does that right come from, and wherein does it adhere? You can assume for yourself that the state has the right to tell you what you can and can't do -- you can't expect others to just agree because you assert it. Power begets power in our environment as well, so I don't see your point. Law also allows unethical talent to amass power -- and it certainly does not stop obviously unethical people from amassing power. So law itself does not seem to be any real guarantee -- and if it can't guarantee a result, then why should anyone give up personal freedoms due to some policy wonk's calculations? |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Horace | Feb 8 2012, 10:42 PM Post #52 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Same reason why anti-trust laws are useful. As I said, free markets will devolve to dictatorships. Wealth is power quantified, and power is ... everything. Only law is higher than wealth. Both are forms of power. I added this to my previous post, but probably not in time for you to see it: Not for the first time, it occurs to me that some of you should do some thinking about the purpose of antitrust laws. It seems like you're coming from a worldview in which they are a Bad Thing.
Really? You don't see that every civil rights law we've passed in the past (h/t Larry) 60 years has been in service of the political evolution that I'm talking about? |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| ivorythumper | Feb 8 2012, 10:57 PM Post #53 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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You didn't even begin to address my question or concern about the difference between the power the government arrogates to itself and any moral claim to do so. Why did you choose to ignore the rest of the argument that gave the reason for not thinking that laws intended to maximize opportunity are not a decent trade off for accepting limitations on human liberty? |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| ivorythumper | Feb 8 2012, 11:15 PM Post #54 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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BTW, Horace -- I am increasingly interested in the question of the claim for government intervention against human liberty (just to be clear, my questions to you are in no manner personal or intended to be antagonistic). Government seems to be in the business of engineering every conceivable interaction between human beings, always with some claim of the greater good: to wit, LA County prohibits frisbees on the beach. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Horace | Feb 8 2012, 11:33 PM Post #55 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I get that, and I get that you've been different lately. I appreciate it.
Certainly could get to that point. My own sensitivities haven't been breached yet, but then I don't throw Frisbees on the beach. |
| As a good person, I implore you to do as I, a good person, do. Be good. Do NOT be bad. If you see bad, end bad. End it in yourself, and end it in others. By any means necessary, the good must conquer the bad. Good people know this. Do you know this? Are you good? | |
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| Dave Spelvin | Feb 9 2012, 07:23 AM Post #56 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Why would equality be inevitable in the cases of polygamy and incest? Society judges these practices to involve relationships between or among persons of different status, so one or more of the participants cannot choose freely. In one case, women suffer second-class status in polygamous relationships, and in the other, children are deemed to have insufficient intent to choose to engage in an adult relationship. There is more than a whiff of the predatory in each of those situations. On the other hand, two men or women who love each other and commit to each other are less likely to do so for such reasons. (Of course there are gay relationships that most of us would frown upon, just as there are similar heterosexual pairings. Few are charmed by the 85 year old billionaire who marries the 20 year old playmate, but society deems that they can.) Technically, your incest example is a more troubling one. If both participants have reached the age of majority and there can be no issue, where is the danger to society? I say "technically" because I'm not aware that anyone does this. Have you ever heard of this happening? Even once? With all the other scurrilous crap on television news and the tabloids, you'd think this would get a lot of attention if it ever happened. Level with me, 89: Do I need to keep my 18 year old son away from my 87 year old mother? See, now you've got me all upset. A slippery slope? Society has decided that pairing off is beneficial to society and provides certain status and benefits to people who do so under the law. I suppose society could decide that polygamy or incest is beneficial but that would be a hell of an uphill climb, not a downhill slide. So, to answer your question about whether someone could sue for the right to marry his daughter, sure he could. People can take people to court for practically anything. However, so far at least, society has decided that the danger of such a liaison outweighs any positive aspects there may be. Therefore, we do not allow such pairings the special status of "married". This takes us back to the supposed danger to society of homosexuals marrying each other. Is there a danger that outweighs society's desire for stable relationships? All of the above goes well beyond what the court said in this decision. It expressly does not provide a rationale for gay marriage generally but only in California when people who had rights woke up one morning without them as a result of a popular vote. Today you have a right to marry a woman. What if you woke up to learn that you no longer could because some number of your fellow citizens decided that marriage means something else? So exactly what precedent do you think this decision sets? |
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| Free Rider | Feb 9 2012, 07:32 AM Post #57 |
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Fulla-Carp
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![]() This is what I think about same sex marriage. |
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| John D'Oh | Feb 9 2012, 07:37 AM Post #58 |
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MAMIL
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Speaking of slippery slopes: |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| jon-nyc | Feb 9 2012, 07:43 AM Post #59 |
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Cheers
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| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Free Rider | Feb 9 2012, 07:43 AM Post #60 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Oh yeah, and BTW (CNN) -- A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Washington State voted Wednesday in favor of a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage, putting Washington on the path toward becoming the seventh state in the nation to legalize marriage for gay and lesbian couples. link: http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/08/us/washington-same-sex-marriage/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 I have been happy to see the tide turning, so to speak, on this issue. \ |
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| The 89th Key | Feb 9 2012, 07:50 AM Post #61 |
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BTW, I've said from the start (even in the OCR in 2004) that gay marriage will be legal throughout the US eventually. It's inevitable in a free society. Of course, that doesn't mean everyone will think it's right, but it will be legal. |
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| The 89th Key | Feb 9 2012, 07:52 AM Post #62 |
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Interesting. Do you apply that generic feel-good statement "just give everybody the chance to have the life they want" to other currently illegal forms of marriage or just same-sex marriage? I'm just trying to figure out if you draw a line anywhere in terms of "allowing people to have the life they want". |
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| Free Rider | Feb 9 2012, 07:56 AM Post #63 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Here's another diagram I like.![]() |
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| Free Rider | Feb 9 2012, 07:57 AM Post #64 |
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Fulla-Carp
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uhhh no, just to the same sex marriage issue. Unless of course it's John D'oh and I think he should be able to marry sheep. |
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| Dave Spelvin | Feb 9 2012, 08:14 AM Post #65 |
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Fulla-Carp
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If marriage by its nature has to do with the procreation and education of children, then require married couples without children to forgo the benefits of marriage. No one suggests this, of course, because marriage in actuality may or may not have to do with those things as determined by its participants. People may once have felt pressure to have kids, but that pressure (always societal but never by force of law in this country) seems to me to have decreased even during my lifetime. Have kids if you want them, or don't if you don't, and this seems to me the correct position. In any event, the government should have nothing to say about it. Leaving the secular arena for a moment, men or women cannot marry each other within the Catholic Church, and that's as it should be. But because same-sexers cannot marry within the Church does not mean that they cannot marry in their secular society, provided that their rights do not infringe on others'. Can you think of any reason that "marriage" should be identical in every respect under the Church and under the rules of secular society? I cannot.
We already have this. It's called marriage. What you have in your Church is also called marriage, but it is different from secular marriage. I assume you were married by a priest, so you were in effect been married twice: once by the state and once by god. You and I share the same secular benefits and responsibilities. However, you and your wife were joined by god and will go to heaven, whereas my wife and I were joined by a judge (so we go to jail?). (But it was a Jewish judge, my mother-in-law liked to say.) Perhaps calling both of these very different things "marriage" troubles some folks, but I've never heard about it. No one calls my kids bastards because their parents' marriage wasn't sanctified. (Maybe for other reasons, but you get the idea.) Your corporate suggestion is intriguing but seems to leave us in familiar territory: separate but equal. We have a history of that in the country and it doesn't fly. |
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| John D'Oh | Feb 9 2012, 08:21 AM Post #66 |
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MAMIL
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Marry sheep?? Are you freaking nuts???? That would completely ruin the whole thing!!!! To be serious for a moment, the whole bestiality argument really does plumb the depths of idiocy. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| Klaus | Feb 9 2012, 08:22 AM Post #67 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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The "problem" with marriage is that it is a legal status. Just remove the legal entity "marriage" and maybe replace it by "contracts about inheritors, hospital visits etc.". Contracts can be made between arbitrary groups of people, as they should be, regardless of gender, family relations etc. You cannot make a contract with animals, hence this would be clarified, too. Of course, marriages would still take place in churches or whatever entities you want, and every entity/church can have its own set of restrictions on who can marry; the only difference to today is that "marriage" has no legal significance. Problem solved, everybody is happy. |
| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| The 89th Key | Feb 9 2012, 08:56 AM Post #68 |
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Abuse and unhealthy relationships aren't exclusive to polygamous or other forms of marriage. Such attributes will be found in all forms of marriages, including traditional heterosexual marriage now! The government should focus on specific cases of abuse, not outlaw a type of marriage just because it occurs within that setting.
Alright, how about 3 men who want to marry each other. Should that be legal? What about 4? 5? Where do you draw the line?
Yes, there are real examples of this. See: http://www.news.com.au/world/man-to-have-baby-with-his-lover-grandma/story-e6frfkz0-1225860821857
What do you mean by "society"? Voters approved the definition of marriage being limited to a man/woman, is that not society voicing its collective decision? And I agree that someone could eventually sue to have the right to a marriage that may be currently illegal, and that brings me back to my whole point. This court decision is setting a precedent that says if a certain law violates the 14th amendment, then that law should be overturned, and I'm saying that can apply to many cases in addition to gay marriage. I know it seems like a stretch, but if you told someone a hundred years ago that two men wanted to marry each other, they'd look at you like you're a crazy person from another planet. "Two men? That doesn't make any sense!" they'd say. But eventually the issue became reality and society voted, the courts ruled, and precedents were set.
Probably not, although some would speculate otherwise, the short answer is probably not. But such a question could be applied to all forms of relationships, as weird as you think they might be, you'd have to be intellectually consistent and apply the same logic to them as well, no? And I'd argue that it's in the country's best interest to draw that line somewhere, and IMO that logically makes sense where it stands now in most states, one man and one woman. |
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| The 89th Key | Feb 9 2012, 08:58 AM Post #69 |
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Ok, then you disagree with the very quote you posted, correct? |
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| Dave Spelvin | Feb 9 2012, 09:37 AM Post #70 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Absolutely right, but combinations of two consenting adults are surely less likely to create such imbalances than a father having sex with his child. This is where I draw the line you keep talking about.
Stated above. 2 consenting adults should about do it. Society may decide otherwise at some point but I have no reason to believe that's coming anytime soon if ever. And I certainly see no reason to stop gay couples from committing to each other and sharing the societal benefits of marriage because of some people's fear that this change will precipitate other less savory changes. Obviously, if the marriages of gay couples are detrimental to society, then all bets are off, but I've seen nothing to suggest that it is.
That one shocks the conscience, doesn't it. Thanks for providing this. I'll start worrying about their wedding when it becomes something other than the extremely rare one-off. And I'm calling my mom and son momentarily.
As I'm using the word, "society" moves more slowly than one election and individual rights do not track with the population's whim at any given moment. If any particular vote determines what society is, why don't we just leave our rights in the hands of our neighbors to be changed as they wish?
I'm happy to see that you don't find anything inherently dangerous about same sex marriage. I happen to agree with you. And yes it could (and should) be asked of all forms of relationships seeking special legal dispensation, and consistent logic should be applied. When I apply the same logic, I find the other relationships falling short for reasons I discuss in other posts. So, specifically, how does the court's decision in this case make polygamy or incest any less dangerous? And, generally, how would same sex marriage between two consenting adults pave the way toward legalization and acceptance of polygamy or incest? |
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| ivorythumper | Feb 9 2012, 09:51 AM Post #71 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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I disagree, David -- the real reason no one suggests that is that would be massively meddling in the private lives of persons. I am always amused when I hear this argument -- all that legal and public policy talk about patients' rights, rights to privacy, keep the government out of my bedroom, keep your laws off my body, etc seem to be immediately offered for sacrifice on the altar of same sex marriage. So I do find that an untenable position to take on any level, and it in no way addresses that the whole nature of complementary sexuality is geared toward reproduction, and that the parents of the children are the optimal formators and educators and providers of the children for all of their emotional, physical, psychological, social, relational, economic, and existential needs.
The government never has had anything to say about whether a couple actually does have kids -- except of course for the social engineering eugenics sterilizations in our history.
Define marriage. A more or less conventional working definition throughout history would be something like the permanent, exclusive and stable commitment of a man and a woman for the purposes of companionship, mutual assistance, and procreation and rearing children -- a partnership of the whole of life for the good of the spouses and of any children engendered. What would you eliminate from or add to that working idea to meet the rules of secular society? (apart from presumably the whole procreation and good of children engendered parts)? No. The marriage is only registered by the state. The spouses marriage each other -- God does not marry them, God blesses the marriage. I am not even sure that is any different from a secular understanding, apart from the "God blesses" part. The langauge of the judge "by the authority vested in me by the state I now pronounce you man and wife" is not "making" the marriage happen -- it is only a societal pronouncement, public recognition and legal registration of what two people are doing.
I understand what you are saying, but that has nothing to do with the Catholic concept -- marriage is a natural institution between a man and a woman. In Catholic theology, Christ raised it to the level of a sacrament, and the requirement for sacramental marriage is binding on Catholics -- but the Church recognizes all other (monogamous) marriages as legitimate. In fact, if a secular marriage between two non Catholics failed, and one later wanted to marry a Catholic, that original failed marriage would still be subject to examination for a decree of nullity. So there is no judgment or "second class" status accorded to a nonCatholic marriage as distinct from a Catholic one: you and your wife both presumably have the same moral obligations to care for the good of each other, to be faithful and kind and loving until death, to care for your children, etc. We do have a history of that and it works -- a non profit corp has the same legal standing as a for profit corp or a human person. LLCs are set up for particular benefits, C corps for others -- separate but equal. Marriage is a type of corporation (I am speaking abstractly here, but the term is apt given the bodily nature of marriage) for particular purposes -- a state recognition of the legal rights and responsibilities of the spouses, the legal rights and responsibilities of the parents to the children, property and inheritance rights, etc. There is no reason that with a different set of concerns in a different sort of partnership a different corporate structure could be designed to satisfy the requirements of any number of individuals of any set of sexual identity. Really, what grounds would you have for denying a free love commune of 15 people a corporate structure to ensure the same rights to establish a life of mutual companionship and benefit and legal standing as you would give a gay couple? Would you accord that arrangement the name of "marriage"? If not, why not? |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Axtremus | Feb 9 2012, 10:02 AM Post #72 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Regarding ivorythumper's "domestic corporation" idea ... Ask him whether he would allow a "domestic corporation" consists of same-sex couple to adopt children. There's your "separate and not equal" right there.
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| ivorythumper | Feb 9 2012, 10:06 AM Post #73 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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Of course its separate but equal -- no one or any group has any natural right to adopt a human being -- just like McDonald's can't adopt children. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Axtremus | Feb 9 2012, 10:10 AM Post #74 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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See? Q.E.D. |
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| Dave Spelvin | Feb 9 2012, 10:32 AM Post #75 |
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Fulla-Carp
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IT: Based on your understanding of marriage, if it is somehow based on children but there are no children, then how can a childless marriage be a marriage? Such an arrangement would seem to fail by definition. And I don't understand your statement about meddling. What I hope I expressed is that it is not the government's business to meddle in this. However, at present, heterosexual couples enjoy legal rights that homosexual couples do not, and we appear to agree on this, based on your suggestion of corporate substitutes. I see what you mean about there being no difference between your marriage and mine (other than that different people are in it, of course) but I'm not sure I buy it. My wife and I are not guided by or subject to your lord's teachings with respect to my marriage, but only by our respective consciences. You and your marriage are subject to your god and his rules. Doesn't it follow that our marriages are not the same in some very basic way? I'm perfectly happy to let the matter drop here. I need to earn a living. Please have the last word if you wish. |
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12:53 AM Jul 11