Jade Knight
...there are plenty of people that think that age shouldn't be a factor limiting marriage any more than sexual orientation. To them, it is discrimination. To you, it's simply common sense, decency, "protecting people", or whatever you'd like to call your own particular moralistic leanings.
You're right, there are such people, which is exactly why I pointed out that unless you're arguing that the legal age of consent ought to be changed, it's an entirely different discussion.
Simply because you are ignorant of the function ... it's a totally arbitrary, and somewhat ignorant, process.
Agreed on both major points. Ignorance of the function and history of an institution doesn't mean its essence has changed. And failing to understand the history of an institution while trying to change that institution is totally arbitrary and ignorant. You are correct.
It is, however, the nature of the society we live in that adults are free to do as they wish within the law and to change the law as they wish should they gather enough votes to do so. The historical roots of the institution of marriage should certainly play a part in the national discussion (much larger than it has to date IMO) but if you're going to claim that same-sex marriages (and by extension all the other permutations we've been talking about like polygamy and polyandry and chain marriages) will have a negative effect on society you're going to have to come up with a better line of reasoning and evidence than, essentially, "we've never done it before, therefore we shouldn't do it now" or even "we've never thought it was a good idea before, therefore it's not a good idea now" if you expect to change anyone's mind.
Ookla:
Skar, I don't think ... sum total reasons for marriage.
Agreed on the difference between passionate and mature love and the wisdom of marrying due to one or the other. However, it begs the question, are homosexual couples not capable of the mature love you describe? If they are, then those homosexual couples would be getting married for the right reasons would they not?
Incidentally, in my mind you could have replaced "passionate world-shaking love" with "mature considerate love" in my statement and the point would remain the same.
[EDIT: Anyway, passionate love has never been part of the legal requirements of marriage
Never said it was. My reference to passionate love was simply an illustration of the desire to get married.
And there are legal non-marriage solutions to inheritance and hospital visitation, etc. In California where domestic partners are allowed all the rights of married partners they can file state taxes jointly.]
So, essentialy, homosexual couples are separate but equal under the law?
A scenario like I described earlier, government handing out legal status to couples, and churches handing out their own brand of spiritual status to couples, or not as the case may be, solves that nasty "separate but equal" problem nicely.
Jade Knight:
Isn't that the truth, Ookla. And divorce statistics ... divorce rates to be higher among homosexuals than heterosexuals.
You could very well be right about divorce rates ending up being higher among homosexual marriages than heterosexual. However, if there's any truth to the idea that the institution of legal/secular marriage encourages fidelity and monogamy then allowing same-sex marriages under the law would result in a net gain of stable couples in our society no matter how high the comparitive divorce rates. That's a good thing right?
Incest: There are lots of perfectly good, scientifically proven, reasons to prohibit incest: balding insane women and children with flippers instead of arms, to name just two. Though with modern genetic testing you could probably determine beforehand whether even a brother and sister couple were at risk for genetic problems. Though that just makes an argument for denying close relations a marriage license on a case-by-case basis rather than a blanket prohibition.
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Can I just say I'm finding this entire discussion to be invigorating and mind-expanding?