On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 21:29:11 GMT, "David J. Allen"
<dallen03NO_SPAM@sanNO_SPAM.rr.com> wrote:
>
>"Brandon Sommerville" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 18:18:29 GMT, "David J. Allen"
>> <dallen03NO_SPAM@sanNO_SPAM.rr.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >"Brandon Sommerville" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> >news:[email protected]...
>>
>> >> So view gay marriage as a marriage with one sterile member. How can
>> >> one "detract" from marriage these days? With a 50% divorce rate it
>> >> seems that hetero couples have done a pretty bang up job detracting
>> >> from it on their own. Perhaps gay couples could show us how to live
>> >> together happily for an extended period.
>> >>
>> >By giving it's benefits civil rights status.
>>
>> Again, what's wrong with this?
>
>Marriage isn't about civil rights. If it were, you couldn't discriminate
>amongst those who could lay claim to it on civil rights grounds.
>
>Marriage is what it is for the benefit is provides to society not for any
>civil right it satisfies.
And that benefit is children, right? Which brings us back to couples
who can't or don't want to have children. It also leads us to the
question of what is better for kids? An unhappy marriage between a
man and a woman or a happy relationship between two men or two women?
As long as they learn how to love someone else, it doesn't matter the
sex of that person.
>>
>> And the right wants to limit who gets these benefits, right?
>>
>No. The right believes in natural rights that are God given.
Tough on atheists, isn't it? Every right is granted by the community,
not god (which god anyways?).
>The left
>loves to pile on with new rights all the time. We start out with rights of
>life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the bill of rights and the
>libs want to drive it as far as they can with rights to benefits, jobs,
>shelter, health care, etc.. All of which would obligate the government to
>provide them. The right believes that, generally, individuals should be
>responsible for their own welfare and do a better job of it that the
>government.
If only we could come to a fair balance. The problem now is that as
soon as something is suggested by the left the right reflexively
dismisses it and the same thing happens to that suggested by the
right. *Who* puts forward the idea has become more important than the
idea itself.
>> Why is this not good? Hell, 50 yrs ago the idea of a woman working
>> outside the home was a bad thing. The idea of a woman executive was
>> unthinkable, yet here we are today.
>>
>Because it changes the nature of marriage. It changes it into a union whose
>purpose is to acquire benefits, most of which are available outside
>marriage, and are specific to protecting the dependents of a provider.
Women working changed the nature of marriage too. We survived.
>BTW, we don't have a completely gender normalized society and it's debatable
>that it would be beneficial. One could *never* differentiate based on
>gender. Is that necessarily good?
Why should you differentiate on gender for anything except who your
life partner is?
>> What do you consider to be true civil rights?
>
>I'm sure the list is long, but it includes speech, assemble, congregate,
>vote, property, worship, access to courts, due process, etc., etc.
>
>The people don't have a absolute rights to everything. The government can
>regulate many things based on legislation. One of those is who can and
>can't marry to the extent that it can stop certain marriages based on a
>compelling state interest (polygamy, same-sex, siblings, etc.). There's our
>argument. Making marriage a civil right, turns off that filter and we can
>no longer (or would have a much harder time) stop any type of marriage from
>occuring. Intellectually, opening the door to same-sex but closing it to
>other possibilities becomes discriminatory in the same fashion. If it's a
>reflection of public values, then it will be what the people will tolerate.
>If it's a matter of civil rights, then it doesn't matter what the people
>will tolerate and the courts will protect whatever individuals choose.
The courts *should* protect what individuals choose. It would seem
that you're all about freedom until it compromises your ideas about
what people should be doing.
--
Brandon Sommerville
remove ".gov" to e-mail
Definition of "Lottery":
Millions of stupid people contributing
to make one stupid person look smart.
