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People are giving that comment far more time than it deserves. Please just stick to the actual topic.

 sebster wrote:

ConanMan wrote:
It is "in principle" impossible for a man and a man to have children. It is therefor a nonsense to suggest they need access to to an ancient legal and social contract desiged primarily to protect and nurture children.

Inheritance is the primary reason for marriage. The idea of marriage as the best way to raise children is a very, very modern thing, because thinking about anything in terms of how best to raise children is very modern.

The second part is this: I should NOT be reported for saying this. But I will be. Soon. If not already. Ask yourself how many laws ever got passed where right after it became illegal to object.

It's generally considered good form to wait until after you've been nailed to the cross before declaring your martyrdom.


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ConanMan wrote:
Can you honestly say that we are better at bringing up kids now?

Let's look at some metrics, shall we?

Teen pregnacy;


Drug use;


Teen crime rate;

Relationship breakdown all time high.

That is factually incorrect.




Let's just put this simply - you have absolutely no factual basis for any of your beliefset. Your theory is devoid of connection with the real world.

Your graphs are pretty bad, one for interpreting correlation as casuality, and because they don't go enough back in time. I would also like to see their sources.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
government has no place in marriage. if its going to go ahead and stick its nose in, then this is a good decision. now gimme cake!

Can use the basis for this ruling to allow Weed in all states now?

What about licensed Conceal Carry? Doesn't this lend weight to reciprocity now?

Well the right of marriage has been viewed as a fundamental right. So yea, the right to party is the next fundemantal right!

 Frazzled wrote:
So yea, the right to party is the next fundemantal right!

I hear that you have to fight for that one, though.

 cincydooley wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:


Any 2 people can enter into a marriage contract. Any 2 people can get married. There's only one type of marriage, 2 men can get married, 2 women can get married, and 1 man and 1 woman can get married. and a black person can marry a white person.
.

Well, that's not true either, is it?

In a number of states cousins cannot marry. In a handful it's even criminalized.

In contrast, in Arkansas its mandatory.


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 insaniak wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
So yea, the right to party is the next fundemantal right!

I hear that you have to fight for that one, though.

Thats what the universal CHL is for. Alternatively a brace of full auto wiener dogs insures that you are fully prepared to fight for the right to paaarty.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Wrong in one important part. Modern marrige also protects the partner and lets them speak for the other legally when one of them is incapacitated.

That is the part most homosexual couples are demanding to be treated fairly about.

I always thought this was the worst argument. A Power of Attorney fixes it and is available to everyone, regardless of sexual preferences. The argument seems to imply homosexual partners were either unwilling or unable to get each other a POA (and get god wills/living wills put in place) to protect them and their loved ones. I just don't buy that. Wether you are for, against, or completely uncaring about it, the argument just doesn't hold up.

There is nothing magical about marriage in the argument that POAs and other documents can't fix.

Heck, I had to get a POA to put money into my wife's IRA from our joint account.

 CptJake wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Wrong in one important part. Modern marrige also protects the partner and lets them speak for the other legally when one of them is incapacitated.

That is the part most homosexual couples are demanding to be treated fairly about.

I always thought this was the worst argument. A Power of Attorney fixes it and is available to everyone, regardless of sexual preferences. The argument seems to imply homosexual partners were either unwilling or unable to get each other a POA (and get god wills/living wills put in place) to protect them and their loved ones. I just don't buy that. Wether you are for, against, or completely uncaring about it, the argument just doesn't hold up.

There is nothing magical about marriage in the argument that POAs and other documents can't fix.

Heck, I had to get a POA to put money into my wife's IRA from our joint account.

The difference here is that in many places, a "traditional" spouse has always had that power, without a POA at the hospital. They also have "visitation rights" at the hospital, as in, they are typically allowed to stay beyond visiting hours, when most other people are asked to leave.

I have heard stories, though not cared enough to investigate their veracity, that even with a POA, some homosexual families were denied the "rights" entailed in the POA.


Yes, PoAs are great, and they solve a lot of problems that many families face, but the fact still remains that for a long time, different places like hospitals denied things to one group, but not another.

I never said there was no difference, I said it was the worst argument I had seen to justify gay marriage as the reason was not existent if the couple got the proper legal documents to protect each other.

Had a state said "No, you can't be the executor of the living will because you are the same sex as your partner" then the issue would be valid.

I would bet in the majority of the horror story cases where the life partner was not allowed in to see their dying loved one there were no legal documents done up (or they were out of date) and/or some fether hospital admin person didn't know what they were doing and the problem was easily corrected when someone smart enough to recognize the documents came into the picture.

I'm sure there will be a handful of examples where good (correct) legal docs were presented and some refusal still occurred, (there always is an example. But I am willing to bet it was rare.

 CptJake wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Wrong in one important part. Modern marrige also protects the partner and lets them speak for the other legally when one of them is incapacitated.

That is the part most homosexual couples are demanding to be treated fairly about.

I always thought this was the worst argument. A Power of Attorney fixes it and is available to everyone, regardless of sexual preferences. The argument seems to imply homosexual partners were either unwilling or unable to get each other a POA (and get god wills/living wills put in place) to protect them and their loved ones. I just don't buy that. Wether you are for, against, or completely uncaring about it, the argument just doesn't hold up.

There is nothing magical about marriage in the argument that POAs and other documents can't fix.

Heck, I had to get a POA to put money into my wife's IRA from our joint account.

That is just 1 example of the 1,138 things married couples get automatically. So making anyone suffer through filling out 1,138 POA's is inhumane when there is one form that can be filled out that covers all of them.

There are 1,138 benefits, rights and protections provided on the basis of marital status in Federal law.
http://www.hrc.org/resources/entry/an-overview-of-federal-rights-and-protections-granted-to-married-couples

Your definition of inhumane and mine are not closely related.

And I'm not seeing anything at your link that shows this as one of the 1,138 things. Your link doesn't address it at all. It isn't (as far as I know) a Federal issue where it would make that list.

Even with married couples, they go through the 'inhumane' process of wills/living wills and POAs if they want to make sure their bases are covered.

Look at the Schiavo case. Even 'traditional' marriage has not been a guarantee for these issues.

 CptJake wrote:
Your definition of inhumane and mine are not closely related.

And I'm not seeing anything at your link that shows this as one of the 1,138 things. Your link doesn't address it at all. It isn't (as far as I know) a Federal issue where it would make that list.

Even with married couples, they go through the 'inhumane' process of wills/living wills and POAs if they want to make sure their bases are covered.

Look at the Schiavo case. Even 'traditional' marriage has not been a guarantee for these issues.

The big ones usually comes down to the money, do you think the military would pay out survivor benefits to anyone not listed as a spouse just because you had a POA? or social security benefits?

How about immigration, where being married to an american leads to a different route for spouses to get citizenships, I'm sure Immigration would take a POA though.

Try getting someone added to your family insurance plan with a POA.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/mar_bene.htm

On the order of 1,400 legal rights are conferred upon married couples in the U.S. Typically these are composed of about 400 state benefits and over 1,000 federal benefits. Among them are the rights to:

Most of these legal and economic benefits cannot be privately arranged or contracted for. For example, absent a legal (or civil) marriage, there is no guaranteed joint responsibility to the partner and to third parties (including children) in such areas as child support, debts to creditors, taxes, etc. In addition, private employers and institutions often give other economic privileges and other benefits (special rates or memberships) only to married couples.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Your definition of inhumane and mine are not closely related.

And I'm not seeing anything at your link that shows this as one of the 1,138 things. Your link doesn't address it at all. It isn't (as far as I know) a Federal issue where it would make that list.

Even with married couples, they go through the 'inhumane' process of wills/living wills and POAs if they want to make sure their bases are covered.

Look at the Schiavo case. Even 'traditional' marriage has not been a guarantee for these issues.

The big ones usually comes down to the money, do you think the military would pay out survivor benefits to anyone not listed as a spouse just because you had a POA? or social security benefits?

How about immigration, where being married to an american leads to a different route for spouses to get citizenships, I'm sure Immigration would take a POA though.

Try getting someone added to your family insurance plan with a POA.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/mar_bene.htm

On the order of 1,400 legal rights are conferred upon married couples in the U.S. Typically these are composed of about 400 state benefits and over 1,000 federal benefits. Among them are the rights to:

Most of these legal and economic benefits cannot be privately arranged or contracted for. For example, absent a legal (or civil) marriage, there is no guaranteed joint responsibility to the partner and to third parties (including children) in such areas as child support, debts to creditors, taxes, etc. In addition, private employers and institutions often give other economic privileges and other benefits (special rates or memberships) only to married couples.

I responded to:

Modern marrige also protects the partner and lets them speak for the other legally when one of them is incapacitated.

And THAT is what I addressed. Add in any other things you want and then try to attribute my response as you desire. It won't matter because any additional issues you bring up were NOT what I was addressing.

A POA (or in some cases a will/living will) allows one partner to speak for the other legally when the one is incapacitated. It does. And that is ALL I addressed, and in fact why I addressed it. Because THAT ONE issue is, as I said, a bad reason to use when wanting to justify gay marriage. It isn't an issue if the couple worked out the documents they way they should have, knowing at the time that it would preempt issues if one of them were to be incapacitated.

Why should gay couples be forced to go through extra paperwork/hassle to get the same rights as straight couples?

The fiscal conservative in me welcomes the gay and lesbian community into our Marriage Tax Penalty club.

Try the nachos. They're extra spicy!

 CptJake wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Your definition of inhumane and mine are not closely related.

And I'm not seeing anything at your link that shows this as one of the 1,138 things. Your link doesn't address it at all. It isn't (as far as I know) a Federal issue where it would make that list.

Even with married couples, they go through the 'inhumane' process of wills/living wills and POAs if they want to make sure their bases are covered.

Look at the Schiavo case. Even 'traditional' marriage has not been a guarantee for these issues.

The big ones usually comes down to the money, do you think the military would pay out survivor benefits to anyone not listed as a spouse just because you had a POA? or social security benefits?

How about immigration, where being married to an american leads to a different route for spouses to get citizenships, I'm sure Immigration would take a POA though.

Try getting someone added to your family insurance plan with a POA.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/mar_bene.htm

On the order of 1,400 legal rights are conferred upon married couples in the U.S. Typically these are composed of about 400 state benefits and over 1,000 federal benefits. Among them are the rights to:

Most of these legal and economic benefits cannot be privately arranged or contracted for. For example, absent a legal (or civil) marriage, there is no guaranteed joint responsibility to the partner and to third parties (including children) in such areas as child support, debts to creditors, taxes, etc. In addition, private employers and institutions often give other economic privileges and other benefits (special rates or memberships) only to married couples.

I responded to:

Modern marrige also protects the partner and lets them speak for the other legally when one of them is incapacitated.

And THAT is what I addressed. Add in any other things you want and then try to attribute my response as you desire. It won't matter because any additional issues you bring up were NOT what I was addressing.

A POA (or in some cases a will/living will) allows one partner to speak for the other legally when the one is incapacitated. It does. And that is ALL I addressed, and in fact why I addressed it. Because THAT ONE issue is, as I said, a bad reason to use when wanting to justify gay marriage. It isn't an issue if the couple worked out the documents they way they should have, knowing at the time that it would preempt issues if one of them were to be incapacitated.

I got that, but it's a much larger issue than that ONE ISSUE. Which is why I pointed out there was 1138 things that you get from marriage. That might have been the biggest issue to AegisGrimm and why he lead with it. There is NO ONE issue to justify marriage equality, there are 1400+ issues to justify it. You might object to a few of them that could be handled with a POA, But only a handfull of them. Thankfully SCOTUS settled the matter and granted same sex couples access to all the protections & granted under the law.

I don't see why it would not matter if that one point was the single area of discrimination. Why should gay people have to get a POA?

Which, yet again, is why my point was simple: That one issue was/is in my opinion, a dumb one to bring up for justification. Period. Stop. End.

With a slew of other issues, some very damned good issue to be brought up, one that is/was frankly silly because it was so easily addressed within the existing system was a poor issue for justification of a major change.


So, if you want to bring up a slew of other issues, have at it. Just don't quote my post as a transition to your diatribe as if it related to what I posted.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't see why it would not matter if that one point was the single area of discrimination. Why should gay people have to get a POA?

Because even married couples get (and in cases like the one I brought up) NEED POAs.

And more bluntly, within the system at the time if The Issue was inability to see your dying spouse, that Issue was simply addressed. To NOT have gotten POAs or wills/living wills knowing what the system was, you were either lazy, ignorant, selfish or didn't care enough about your spouse to protect each other. Because if you wanted to, the issue was easily addressed within the current system. To bet on an incapacitation happening and deliberately not getting the documents needed so that you could make political points would be disgusting behavior. I doubt it happened.

And, yet again, even 'traditional' marriages need POAs and other documents to ensure the correct actions are taken at the appropriate times. Again, I gave examples in my personal life of needing POAs. I gave an example where a husband still went through all kinds of legal problems in an attempt to take care of his incapacitated wife as he believed she would have wanted it. Marriage never was a Magic Wand that fixed this issue.

The Shiavo case is an extreme anomoly. It became a polutical football.

Interesting question.

G couple wants to have a wedding at a specific church. One of the couple is a member.

Priest says has to be a members but that doesn't work. Church also has a day care welcome to all, and occasionally permits other small congregations to meet in the central meeting area downstairs.
Priest says he won't do it, but they denote they can bring their own priest in.
Can the G couple force the ceremony there if the head priest refuses to permit?

Especially in light of:
http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_14356033972578&key=9ccbab91d8f6f0e1e79434d722376fbd&libId=ibi96xbw010004jd000DAgh4z3ia7&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.texasguntalk.com%2Fforums%2Fnews-articles%2F67857-abbott-statement-gay-court-decision-14.html%23post1254116&v=1&out=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aclu-nj.org%2Fnews%2F2012%2F01%2F13%2Fjudge-rules-in-favor-of-same-sex-couple-in-discrimination-case%2F&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.texasguntalk.com%2Fforums%2Fmembers%2Fzincwarrior.html

 Frazzled wrote:
Can the G couple force the ceremony there if the head priest refuses to permit?

IMO that depends entirely on the details of the church's wedding policy.

If it says "all members can use the church for a wedding" then they would have an obligation to allow it as long as one of the people is a member.

If it says "all members can use the church for a wedding, according to the stated rules of the religion (which only allow weddings between one man and one woman)" and there's no issue of making false or ambiguous promises about what services the church provides to recruit a potential new member then no, they wouldn't have an obligation to allow it.

If the church rents space as a general wedding service to anyone who wants to use it then they've crossed the line from being a private club into being a for-profit business and would have to obey any relevant anti-discrimination laws, including laws against anti-gay discrimination, and therefore may have an obligation to rent their space to the gay couple.

What if they don't have a written wedding policy? (but have a wedding policy for members-aka members believe this)

I doubt many churches have written wedding policies (as, you know, its a church).

This is the rub I see. it sounds stupid, but fanatics make things stupid.

 Frazzled wrote:
What if they don't have a written wedding policy? (but have a wedding policy for members-aka members believe this)

I doubt many churches have written wedding policies (as, you know, its a church).

This is the rub I see. it sounds stupid, but fanatics make things stupid.

Our catholic church had very detailed wedding policies. The couple had to meet with the priest at least twice. The priest would NOT perform outdoor ceremonies. And a bunch of other stuff. That was back in 1998 when I looked at it, so I don't know what all was in it.

Its a potential issue. our church overlooks a certain lake in Austin, and we get queries A LOT. Hence the rules about members only etc.

On the flip side we welcome anyone who brings tasty treats.

 Frazzled wrote:
What if they don't have a written wedding policy? (but have a wedding policy for members-aka members believe this)

I doubt many churches have written wedding policies (as, you know, its a church).

This is the rub I see. it sounds stupid, but fanatics make things stupid.

If they don't have a written policy then the court (if relevant) has to consider unwritten policies. Saying "I'll do this in exchange for that" is still an agreement that can be enforced in court, even without a written document. It just gets harder to prove the details of what was promised.

Fair point.

I'd bring it up to vestry, but frankly I'd get tickled pink (pardon the pun) if someone tried it.

As the fat Budha once said: "Suck it Martians!"

 skyth wrote:
The Shiavo case is an extreme anomoly. It became a polutical football.

Yeah, the courts, IRRC, sided with the husband on all, or nearly all occasions. It was the Florida Legislature that kept getting involved. It was a hot mess, but the husband did prevail in the end.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CptJake wrote:
And more bluntly, within the system at the time if The Issue was inability to see your dying spouse, that Issue was simply addressed. To NOT have gotten POAs or wills/living wills knowing what the system was, you were either lazy, ignorant, selfish or didn't care enough about your spouse to protect each other. Because if you wanted to, the issue was easily addressed within the current system. To bet on an incapacitation happening and deliberately not getting the documents needed so that you could make political points would be disgusting behavior. I doubt it happened.

And, yet again, even 'traditional' marriages need POAs and other documents to ensure the correct actions are taken at the appropriate times. Again, I gave examples in my personal life of needing POAs. I gave an example where a husband still went through all kinds of legal problems in an attempt to take care of his incapacitated wife as he believed she would have wanted it. Marriage never was a Magic Wand that fixed this issue.

You don't know what nearly all people that study human behavior on a large scale know: by your standards, nearly everybody is "either lazy, ignorant, selfish or didn't care enough about your spouse to protect each other."

People make shockingly little effort to take care of important matters. My parents are college educated people that never saw a financial planner. My Uncle has substantial assests, no children, a wife that brought even greater assests into the marriage, and no will. Things happen, they happen quickly, and things we promised to do we never do.

You can get on a high horse judging people, or you can understand that there are huge benefits to being a legal spouse, that range from the relatively minor to the enormous. I had to move for work, literally six weeks after my wedding. My moving expenses increased to include her. Marriage ties everything together.

Benefits? Legal recourse? Visitation hours?

How about... being able to be married to the person you love? Not enough for some, I suppose?

 Jambles wrote:
Benefits? Legal recourse? Visitation hours?

How about... being able to be married to the person you love? Not enough for some, I suppose?

that's part of it, but being married comes with tangible benefits as well.

Marriage, more than anything else from a legal standpoint, is the act of making two people related. My wife and I are legal relatives, we are family in the eyes of the law.

Love is great, but love don't pay the rent. Love doesn't get somebody health insurance, or the ability to sign documents, or any of the other day to day benefits of being married.

 Jambles wrote:
Benefits? Legal recourse? Visitation hours?

How about... being able to be married to the person you love? Not enough for some, I suppose?

Everyone already has that. What the argument is about is specific government recognition and the legal ramifications of that.

 Polonius wrote:

 Jambles wrote:
Benefits? Legal recourse? Visitation hours?

How about... being able to be married to the person you love? Not enough for some, I suppose?

that's part of it, but being married comes with tangible benefits as well.

Marriage, more than anything else from a legal standpoint, is the act of making two people related. My wife and I are legal relatives, we are family in the eyes of the law.

Love is great, but love don't pay the rent. Love doesn't get somebody health insurance, or the ability to sign documents, or any of the other day to day benefits of being married.

Sure, I get that - but I got the impression from reading some of the posts that there's a belief these benefits are the only motivation for extending marriage rights to more people.