vel&#39;s journaly thing

Yay!!!! Go judges!

Although I still personally believe that marriage should be outlawed by the government. We should have "civil unions" that are government approved and "marriage" through whatever Church we happen to belong to. To me, the whole idea of marriage as both a civil *and* social *and* religious construct is a clear breach of the line between church and state. I'd like to see them separated. People who want to be married, but not legally bound, can do it. People who don't want people who are gay/divorced/follow a different faith married (in their view) get it. (Although churches can always refuse to marry, so unsure of what the big deal is now...) But, eh, since this is never likely to happen, at least this is a step in the right direction.

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Maybe we just need different terminology. As a non-religious person, the word "marriage" just means the legal binding and nothing more; it has zero to do with religion to me. *shrug* The problem is that for others "marriage" means ONLY a religious thing. Of course I'd like to do away with organized religions altogether... I agree we ought to just avoid all the confusion with separate words to distinguish between legal and religious unions.

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Yes, and to me the easiest way to do that would be to say "civil unions are what we do as far as legal rights go" while "marrige is whatever you want to make of it".

I think that there's a lot of logic in separating the two, as many people want the legalities of marriage without the spiritual stuff, and others want the spirtual stuff without the legal stuff. Why not make a clear line between them?

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Why have government involvement at all?

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Well, for child custody, immigration rights, inheritance rights, rights of who makes life and death decisions when you're incapacitated, etc. Not to mention health care sharing, tax benefits, etc. There are a *lot* of reasons to be married to someone from a purely legal perspective. I just would like to see the legal rights separated from the societal rights. (And moved to a civil union sort of thing that didn't involve the idea of "sleeping with" the other person. Heck, I could even see advantages of marriage like rights with siblings, provided that they were who you *wanted* to be legally tied to for various reasons.)

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You can cover all that in the contract. Have the contract state what it needs to for those circumstances. OR at the very least, put something to the effect of "Person A has the right to act all of person B's matters And vice versa." Then you can avoid having the government involved.

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Not health insurance. Or immigration status.

And while you *can* put most of these in a contract, there is much to be said about having a very simple, set "form" that 95% of people can use (and don't need to get a lawyer involved with). Of course, you can always alter this with a pre-nup, but still...(And those often have some weird loopholes, too...)

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Plus, even in a contract, the *government* is who would enforce it...so no way to keep them out, unless you don't want any form of legal binding and don't have children.

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The health insurance would be done on a case by case basis that depends on the company the person works for. For instance, my health insurance can cover my "domestic partner" whether that partner is male or female. In fact because my vision insurance is better than what my girlfriend can get, she is on my insurance under this plan.

The immigration status is a bit more tricky. I hadn't thought in detail about that. I'm not sure what the solution there would be. Thanks for bringing that up, that's the first legitimate flaw that anyone has ever mentioned in regards to my marriage is a contract only idea.

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offroad.livejournal.com

Icon love.. all around.

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Love yours, too!

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assassingalaxia.livejournal.com

Heard this story on NPR the other day. Thought you might enjoy it.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128776382

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bella-cheval.livejournal.com

My icon sez it all!

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Indeed!

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rhodric.livejournal.com

omg velessa, you fag lover. how dare you! God made adam and eve, not adam and steve!!!

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nicole-mk.livejournal.com

I don't understand what the big issue is with this. Let same sex couples marry and be happy if that's what they want!

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I don't, either. Aren't there a hell of a lot more important things to get up in arms about, like the destruction of the environment?

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nicole-mk.livejournal.com

Completely agree!

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You know that just because someone doesn't agree with someone else's lifestyle, that doesn't mean that they are afraid of them. (I'm objecting to your use of the word homophobe here. the -phobe part implies fear. Plus I just really dislike that word. They could have picked a better one.)

On a personal note, if the gays want to get married, I have no issue with them taking their free will and doing what they want with it. I think government shouldn't be involved in anyone's marriage, gay or straight, or whatever. A marriage should be a contract between 2 people. There is no need to involve government in that unless someone breaks the contract and seeks damages of some sort. If the people agreeing to this contract want to have a ceremony, thats fine by me, but there is no need for the government to recognize or have anything to do with the ceremony any more than there is for them to have anything to do with the contract.

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How about gay haters, that better?

I find it hard to believe the people who sunk so much time and money into this idiotic measure aren't mostly homophobes, though. Their whole argument in the trial was that marriage is only for procreation, and they FEAR that homosexual marriage will threaten heterosexual marriage and childrearing and turn straight kids queer or some crap like that.

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You make a valid point I hadn't thought of in terms of the use of that word. Bravo.

I do disagree with their life style myself, but it has nothing to do with fearing them, so much as I think what they do is morally wrong. The human race will continue whether they are breeding or not. But those are my morals, I don't push them on anyone else, and they have the exact same free will that I do. Having said that, what I posted about the government being involved at all stands 100%. No need for the governments greedy fingers to be in that pie.

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What would you have them do, live in celibacy and misery for their entire lives just because they didn't win the genetic lottery like you? Morality has nothing to do with it, it's biology, plain and simple. A gay person doesn't choose to be gay any more than a zebra chooses to have stripes. You think they should be punished for something they had no control over, a mere misfire of too much sex hormone of one kind or the other in the womb? Do you honestly think they would CHOOSE to be marginalized, persecuted outcasts of society, spending their lives fighting for the very rights and privileges the rest of us take for granted, if they had any say in the matter? You think a woman in Afghanistan would choose to be female and treated as nothing more than property if she could help it?

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To be honest I don't know if it is a choice, or if it is genetic. Either way there are things that are choices that are morally wrong, and things that (science says) are genetic that are morally wrong. I mean it could be (and has been) argued that (most) men are genetically inclined to mate with every young woman they see. There are scientists who say that it is genetically ingrained in men to spread their seed as far and wide as possible, like some animals in the animal kingdom. Yet if a husband does this while he is married, he will end up in divorce court. It is morally wrong for him to go cheat on his wife, despite what his genetics might tell him.

As far as that goes, what a person chooses to do, or not do is up to them. They have free will. I wouldn't choose anything for them.

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Of course men want to mate with every woman they can; they're driven to spread their genes as far and wide as possible to give them the best shot at genetic survival. But females are very particular and choosy as they are the ones that will be burdened with the brunt of the childcare, and she cannot produce anywhere near as many offspring as a male can. It therefore behooves a woman choose the very best specimen she can find, the strongest, handsomest man, to sire her offspring while keeping the dopier but perhaps better provider guy at home to help her care for them. But it's also genetically ingrained for him to only want to provide for his OWN biological offspring and thus ensure the passage of HIS genes, therefore it behooves the woman to also keep the real identity of her offsprings' father a secret from her provider mate if at all possible.

This continues to happen all. the. time. (cheating on both sides) despite our best efforts to live on a higher moral ground and act less like the animals we are because society tells us to fight this part of our nature. On the other hand, the only real benefit to developing these so-called "morals" of pair bonding is to know for sure whose offspring belongs to whom, and hence not-so-great-specimen-but-good-provider gets to pass on his genes as well, giving the genetic pool more variation. The question is, do we want to keep his genes or not? And it's a completely moot point regarding gay people since they can't reproduce naturally, anyway.

As a lifelong student of biology, I can tell you the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that the root of homosexuality is biological, an anomaly that crops up in all species across the world with heterosexual parents. It isn't detrimental, or at least not detrimental enough, to have been bred out of animal populations, and it can even be beneficial (e.g. gay penguins that adopt and raise an egg that has lost its biological parents). I suspect in humans either it has seemingly become more prevalent due to the crazy amount of hormones that get into our water and food supply, or just that people finally feel less terrified about coming out of the closet and aren't willing to live a straight lie any longer. In any case, I definitely think it's a good thing, since many gay people will never have biological children, because the human population is running rampant out of control toward a serious overpopulation disaster; the more non-breeders produced, the better!

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