Does The Government Have The Right To Rule On Gay Marriage?

[dUSt]

Me neither, to be honest. 

 

Polygamy. What is the limit then? Three? Four? You can't legally have a limit can you? So, an entire community can form a single "marriage".

[xSilverPhinx]

And furthermore, I should be able to marry my brother or sister as well. Why does a marriage have to be sexual? If me and my brother are roomates, why can't we enjoy the same tax benefits as a married couple?

 

But marriages are sexual, and in that vein there are very good reasons for siblings not to marry. If you're wanting the same tax benefits by sticking with your sibling, that would be something else entirely, but not marriage.  

[xSilverPhinx]

Polygamy. What is the limit then? Three? Four? You can't legally have a limit can you? So, an entire community can form a single "marriage".

 

No, there's no need for slippery slope arguments. Polygamy could reasonably exist with some limitations and rules. For example a poor man with many wives, unable to sustain a very large family, couldn't have as many wives as a better provider.   

Edited December 31, 2014 by xSilverPhinx

[Celeste Angelus]

The best remedy is to simply get government out of the marriage business entirely. Remember that during the French Revolution the state insisted on  interfering in marriages, which was the domain of the church.

 

[Socrates]

There was no such thing, really. But we should definitely go back to the old days of Catholic Europe.

 

If we're still discussing the alleged "right" to state-sanctioned same-sex "marriage," we don't even have to go back that far.

We'd only have to go back to anywhere in the U.S.A. anytime prior to 2005, when courts never recognized anything other than union between a man and a woman as marriage.

And (all left-wing hysterical hyperventilating hyperbole notwithstanding), the U.S. was neither Stalinist nor a "theocracy" through that time.

[Socrates]

We've had numerous Catholic theocracies. Like all theocracies they were awful and barbaric and poor. Because that's what happens when you have a totalitarian system. The very worst of that society, those most fervent and ruthless in enforcing their delusions or those most cynical and willing to use social delusions to advance themselves at the expense of everyone else, rise to the top and stomp down on those who are creative and willing to try new, disruptive ideas. 

 

See The USSR or Iran or North Korea or Medieval Christendom 

 

Actually, the entire idea of individual human rights arose out of Catholic Medieval Christendom, which in reality was actually far from totalitarian, and much more free and civilized than most of surrounding and previous pagan world.

 

(Might want to check out Rodney Stark's The Victory of Reason: How Christianity led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success.  And before you immediately dismiss Stark's work as right-wing "Christianist" proaganda, it should be noted that Stark is an atheist, though one who recognizes the achievements of Christian civilization.)

 

It should also be noted that the USSR and North Korea were/are atheist states, and Marxist-Leninist Communism a leftist atheist movement.

[Socrates]

This is all laughable. There is no God. Your beliefs are just a silly superstition. 

 

Sassy Gay Friend hath spoken.

Do not question his authority.

 

(And Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un approves this message.)

Edited December 31, 2014 by Socrates

[dUSt]

But marriages are sexual, and in that vein there are very good reasons for siblings not to marry. If you're wanting the same tax benefits by sticking with your sibling, that would be something else entirely, but not marriage.  

So are you saying people who choose not to have sex should not be able to get married?

 

What about a brother and sister who are in a consensual sexual relationship? It's okay for them, but not the brother and sister who are not having sex?

 

Seems illogical.

[Winchester]

I want a small government that can decide to not recognize my contracts.

[SaintOfVirtue]

I want a small government.

[4588686]

And furthermore, I should be able to marry my brother or sister as well. Why does a marriage have to be sexual? If me and my brother are roomates, why can't we enjoy the same tax benefits as a married couple?

 

 

Yep. Great question.

 

You should be able to. Catholics having monogamous, contraception free sex does not impact my life, neither do polyamorous couples. Let's just let grown up make agreements between themselves. 

[4588686]

 

It should also be noted that the USSR and North Korea were/are atheist states, and Marxist-Leninist Communism a leftist atheist movement.

 

That's right. That's why I mentioned them. Any system where a small subset gets to announce the true will of God/History/that cat over there who is really Jesus come again (which, of course, only they are privileged t0 be able to interpret). Again, point me to a theocracy that has ever outperformed a liberal market society in terms of innovation, wealth creation/standard of living, and intellectual advancement. 

 

Tolerant, free societies are smarter societies. Most people understand this. Hence the slide of the social warriors and the True Believing Marxists into ever greater irrelevancy. 

 

Don't know how long that will last. Maybe widespread peace steady economic advancement will end up being a blip on the radar and we'll become poorer and poorer and stupider and stupider. I don't know. But at least it's been a good run.

[4588686]

Here. An actual small government conservative can explain this pretty well:

"The case for individual freedom rests chiefly on the recognition of the inevitable ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievement of our ends and welfare depends.

If there were omniscient men, if we could know not only all that affects the attainment of our pres­ent wishes but also our future wants and desires, there would be little case for liberty. And, in turn, liberty of the individual would, of course, make complete foresight impossible. Liberty is essential in order to leave room for the un­foreseeable and unpredictable; we want it because we have learned to expect from it the opportunity of realizing many of our aims. It is because every individual knows so little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it.

Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preserva­tion of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. These ac­cidents occur in the combination of knowledge and attitudes, skills and habits, acquired by individual men and also when qualified men are confronted with the particular circumstances which they are equipped to deal with. Our neces­sary ignorance of so much means that we have to deal largely with probabilities and chances."

 

http://fee.org/freeman/detail/the-case-for-freedom

 

[Era Might]

(Might want to check out Rodney Stark's The Victory of Reason: How Christianity led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success.  And before you immediately dismiss Stark's work as right-wing "Christianist" proaganda, it should be noted that Stark is an atheist, though one who recognizes the achievements of Christian civilization.)

 

Speaking purely as a history lover, that is a completely un-historical title. It uses a series of plastic words (Christianity, Freedom, Capitalism, Western, Success) and throws them together in a 2,000 year stew that encompasses the histories of a whole lot of different nations, people, events, and ideas and conveniently links them all together. An equivalent title would be "The Victory of Cheese: How Greek Farming led to Milk Moustaches, Free Cartons of Milk at School, and Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Apparitions." It also fallaciously paints the past as an embryonic form of the present, which it is not. Even the idea of "Christian civilization" is philosophical, not historical, as is "western success." Muslim empires were wildly successful before Western Europe really became anything resembling a "civilization" (and Byzantium was still thriving, legitimately, as the Roman Empire).

 

I don't know if the book is propaganda, but the title sure is. Hopefully, it was selected by the publishers and not the author, because it doesn't reflect well on the book's historiography from the get go.

[xSilverPhinx]

So are you saying people who choose not to have sex should not be able to get married?

 

What about a brother and sister who are in a consensual sexual relationship? It's okay for them, but not the brother and sister who are not having sex?

 

Seems illogical.

 

 

I'm saying I think a purely "contractual" non sexual marriage would be an odd marriage. Maybe it should be called something else. 

 

Sexual relationships between siblings is where I draw the line, same sex or not. That just seems wrong on so many levels. Though in order to maintain consistency, if they are consenting adults, who am I to judge? I just feel personally disgusted at such an act but wouldn't defend passing a law to keep it from happening.     

Edited January 1, 2015 by xSilverPhinx