chansen, now i see what you mean about better title. Mine was headline on Cnn news on Google.

I think the important thing here is that they are saying that a vote cannot be held to eliminate the rights of a minority.

Just think of what other weird votes could be held to eliminate someones rights just to get elected.

Glad they fought it.

I don't see where I am engaging in the fallacy you mention.  I can see how it looks that way, but fallacies are relative to one's intended conclusion.

If you don't have the legal right to marry, then that means that your legal right to marry has been legally removed somehow.  This works in other contexts.  One's legal right to drive is witheld on the basis of age, licencing, and rules violations.

Generally, something is legal unless made illegal.  We have the legal right to do X so long as X is not legally forbidden in some way.  Why should marriage be an exception to this rule?

EDIT:  Did you mean to ask initially, "Since when is marriage a protected right?"

Off topic - but your example of driving is a little misleading.....  I was told, when I went for my license, in Ontario, that driivng is a 'privelege" not a right.

Not sure what that means as far as marriage.

Beshpin:  As I understand it, it's not marriage that's a protected right.  It's the right not to experience discrimination on the basis of stuff like sexual orientation that's a protected right.

Jobam:  That is semantics on the part of the government.  It's meant to impress upon young drivers that they shouldn't take their legal ability to drive for granted.  In practice, there is little difference between a "right" as I am using the term, and a "priviledge".

beshpin...

first of all, anal sex isn't limited to gay people.  bringing it up in a discussion of gay marriage is a red herring, really.  heterosexual couples partake in anal sex, and lesbians do not. 

secondly, if your statement that marriage laws were created as some way to assist 'the future of the country' is truly and issue, then we MUST allow same sex couples to marry... they are adopting children, and many same sex couples have familes now. 

thirdly, your statement that 'If gay marriage was really about marriage, it wouldn't be an issue to call it something other than marriage or make a compromise." basically is nothing more that saying that because gay people want to call their unions 'marriage', the issue is therefore not about marriage.  this is quite a circular arguement here... would you care to make a more logical statement, please???

I'd like to address your post in its entirety, Beshpin, but this needs to be picked out and dealt with.  You see, I never claimed that marriage was a protected right.  In fact, I said the opposite in my previous post.  The text of yours that I just quoted indicates to me that you aren't reading what's written to you.  I am hesitant to write more to you if you are not willing to accurately read it.

You chose an odd way to write it.

Azd:  Not-X.

Besh: So Azd, why X?

A rare video from The Onion that I thought was quite good:

New Law Would Ban Marriages Between People Who Don't Love Each Other

Perhaps Beshpin, you need a history lesson or two.

The sodomy laws were very often designed or maintained to be discriminatory.  Kansas, Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma had same-sex only sodomy laws on the books when the Supreme Court said they were illegal. Sodomy was not illegal, being a gay man was. Sodomy BTW often included oral sex. It is how Canada had gay men declared dangerous offenders and repeat sexual psychopaths. Germany had sodomy laws that were male-male. 

As far as marriage as a right:

The language delivered by Justice Warren in Loving v Virginia in the second paragraph of Section II  said marriage was a right. Barring the exercise of that right, denied Due Process and violated the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause. The paragraph in part reads

"Marriage is one of the "basic human rights" of man, fundamental to our existence and survival....

In Turner v Safely, they conceded that the choice to marry was a fundamental right according to Loving v Virginia and Zablocki v. Redhail. In the end, the Supreme Court said re; Turner v Safely that prisoners have a right to marry. BTW Zablocki v Redhail said a state could not impede the right to marry...

The UN Declaration of Human Rights says in Article 16 that it is a right.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union Article 9 says it is a right.

So, do I read it right that you trump everyone by simply saying it is NOT a right?

There is more "right" legal lngugae, if you would like it or the case law in is found in posted

Romans 13: "the one who loves another has fulfilled the law." :3

How is it  hurting you, Besh, if they get married?

besh...

i'm still curious as to how my heterosexual marriage is more 'of value to the state' than a same sex marriage??

Really, if Beshpin believes what he's saying, then he should support the nullification of the marriages of every couple whose childbearing years are over.  That's really the test of it.  If Beshpin doesn't support such a motion, then he's not telling the truth about what he thinks marriage is all about.

Oh I'm sure he's telling the truth...........

Just like he was telling the truth when he said he was leaving....

That's not actually true.  Lots of same sex couple produce children biologically.  They just need some help doing it.  

If you are going to make the reproductive ability argument, at least be consistent.  Either reproduction is the point of marriage, or it isn't.  If it is only ONE point of marriage, then you need to explain why it is more important than any other one.  And if it is only the potential for reproduction, but not the actual reproduction that is important, you still need to explain why you approach sterile hetero couples differently than homo couples.

It's obvious Besh is just looking for excuses to oppose gay marriages. He's grasping at a weak straw so fiercely becasue he doesn't have anything better. Once he let's go he'll have to admit there is no logical or moral reason to oppose same sex marriages so his prejudice drives him to hang on irregardless of truth and reason.

I think Beshpin needs, at this point, to back up his claim that marriage is necessarily about having kids.  Kelly might object to us getting married if she's aware of that fine print, so I want to know where to look for it.

If one is just looking at tax advantage, the best situation is to be a single parent.  You can claim one child as equivalent to spouse, and if you don't make too much you get the child tax credit and GST for your children.

I know a couple who both had custody of children from previous marriages who lost well over $500 a month in loss of tax credits and increased taxes by marrying.

Beshpin,

I see you did not want to really talk about marriage as a right... even after you brought it up.
 

So, now onto marriage as a procreation promise or government contract...

My wife and I could have had children. We might be like many couples, hetero and homosexual alike,  at a fertility clinic. Or, NEWS FLASH we could have "done it" opposite sex style and made babies au natural.

To get legally married, what we call a coveant between ourselves (two people who love each other) and God- and you call a contract with the government,  we were asked the questions on any marriage license (for all those "differences" you see between heterosexual and homosexuals they were the SAME questions)... our marital status, religious denomination, age, where we were born, our parent's names, their dates and places of birth. NOTHING, not one line about "do you plan on procreating?" You would think this government contract that is about procreation might ask that, but nope not one question about offspring. Wonder why not?

They say they are looking for impediments to marriage, other spouses, being related...

Those breaks or deals given to married couples and yep that means married queers also...  but I am certainly not sure how you got the benefits were/are tied to baby making. They might be about stability or government having less at risk... but how it ties to babies I am not sure.

Well, the legal right to joint parenting, joint adoption, foster care, custody... those ARE related to children.

Not sure how next of kin status is about babies.
 

Joint auto insurance? Joint home insurance?
 

Community property? Inheritance in the absence of a will? Joint leases? Annuities and pensions access?

Wrongful death benefits to surviving spouse? Crime victim recovery benefits if a spouse is injured or killed? Bereavement and sick leave to care for spouse? Decisions about medical care, where they will be buried?

Now, I might agree that a spouse needs to rely on government hand-out less when they have those things...but again, fail to see how it is tied to children or procreation hopes?

There are over 1,000 rights granted to married couples... when my wife and I fought to have equal marriage, none of them (for us) was about tax breaks and nothing was ever asked about baby making.

Is it possible people get married because they love each other and that they want to grow old together or to the end of their days..... That when they "make it legal" it is about getting the rights to make decisions loved ones (next of kin) make about whether the person will be buried or cremated, that if need be a nursing home is close by to visit... and NOT about tax breaks?

Hungarian?

Sounds Croatian to me, Although she has more Serbian features

I seem to recall she's Romanian, but I could be mistaken.

That is far more honest... you are put off and will use any argument rather than admit it is about that. It is what most "put off" people do.

Being able or willing to say "i don't like it, but it is fair" is a step.

As far as personal definition and understanding of marriage, we all have that. That said, for me, my own personal definition and understanding means squat.

You see, celibate marriages, arranged marriages, marriages of conveniances... would not be for me and do not fit my definitionof marriage nor do I even understand them. Yet, they are marriages  and are so in the eyes of the law and my take be damned.

Even when it is highly emotional and is directly opposed to my idea of what a marriage is, like where there is violence, my emotion cannot overrule my intellect or the law. They are marriages. Again, my opinion be damned. That couple is married in the eyes of the law and unless I am an idiot, they are married to me even if I oppose the actions in that marriage.
 

As far as using language for clarity, in Detroit (post race riots and during the busing bomb threats) Lou and Barb moved into our neighbourhood. Lou was a black man and Barb was a white woman. Now, anyone not blind would know they were an interracial couple. If someone used the term "interracial" or "mixed" to describe their marriage when they were not visible or when Lou and Barb meant nothing, then they could get away with it. Much like my wife and I are called "the girls" to others because my name is not gender specific or if our names mean nothing, they may say "the lesbian couple". Yet, like Lou and Barb, it is simply not done with us around. For anyone who felt they had to point out Barb and Lou's colour difference with them present, it was either ignorance or it showed them for who and what they were.

It is the same with us. We are the same sex. It is fairly obvious to most people when meeting couples if they share a sex or are opposite sex. I would not expect it to be pointed out.  I never hear " this is Bob's opposite sex wife". I am doing a marriage for a couple I will call Steve and Sally. I have never felt the need to qualify that they are opposite sex. I think, if I did, people would look at me odd.

As far as "intent" being different, how exactly do you arrive at that? Couples marry with intent to form family and sometimes that shape is one they chose or one that happened, it can be them or them +... There may or may not be intent to have biological children,  have biological children, to wait and see, to adopt, to foster, to not have any children, to have pets, to just be the two of them..... That does not depend on the genitalsl of the couple, it depends on the circumstances, the decisions they make or are made for them....

Equality means that the baby thing does not matter. If it does not matter for other couples, to make it legal and recognized as a marriage, then it should not and does not  matter for us.

A little flavor from the Prop-8 crowd:

RivermanJae, thank you for the paste, somehow I missed a most hilarious comment by Beshpin :

"If gay marriage was really about marriage, it wouldn't be an issue to call it something other than marriage or make a compromise"

This way of thinking we should have said women did not get the right to vote, that was emotionally charged, divisive and gave those who discriminated something to use.... we could have said "Women win the right to swing levers" or " Women get the chili mac"....

"Compromises" in the American South like separate counters and water fountains were also not equality.

"Compromising" or "calling it something else" is a) not equality and b) means whatever the concept, word, activity, institution... is not valuable enough to fight for.

Women fought for equal rights. Blacks fought for equal rights and gays fought for equal rights.

Marriage means something to some people and those who it does mean something to will not call it something else because nothing else equals it.

In all honesty,  I tend not to think of it as a difference of opinion on the purpose of marriage... at least, not in the case of most people. I think it is all that goes to our "stuff" behind the opinion. You may be one off the exceptions, but I do not believe so.

You see, I think people are better than that. Call me an optimist.

I think most people believe men are more than the sum of their offspring and the viability and agility of their “swimmers”. That most people believe a woman’s worth is more than the hospitality and function of her womb. I do not believe most people think marriage is about nakedness and pumping to churn out Christian soldiers.

I think most people accept the barren and the childless, because if you ask them their opinion they will mostly say compassion trumps any verse.

I also think most people see marriage as more than tax breaks or someone to share in the paying of bills.

I would also like to think that most people see marriage as something more than a fairy tale and Hollywood and Victoria Secret negilees.

That to most it is about  love and respect, honesty and trust…. That it is about the truly good stuff and the bad stuff alike… that yes, it is about deciding to have children or finding out you are, but that it is also deciding together that you won’t or holding each other close when once again it has not happened.

That it is in a smile across a room, a shared laugh, morning breath and tousled hair. It is another person’s ability to make you so happy that you can look up over the pages of a book and wipe a tear from your eye and yet also make you so infuriated or frustrated that you lose your ability to form sentences.  It is in paying bills and knowing there is not money to do that. It is in doing chores together and arguing over who does what and who appreciates it. It is in hearing a cupboard swing or a breath be exhaled and knowing to ask,  “what’s wrong”. It is in hearing “nothing” and knowing it means “not now” or “I can’t”. It is in making plans for the future as well as having a future snatched from you and the long goodbye.

Call me a romantic or an optimist, but I believe that if asked to say what marriage is most won’t say procreation.

You might say it is an appeal to emotion, and I will say, “You are damned right it is”.

I'd be interested in learning more about a place in the world where non-white women hold the power and exercise undue authority against everyone else.

Motheroffive:

I apologize for Beshpin's trollish remark.

Beshpin,

Not in this specific thread, but in general -you have repeatedly stated equal marriage is not about marriage. You have also repeatedly said that if it was, proponents of equal marriage would accept another term for it or a compromise. Have you not?

 Hi, Besh...

I'm sitting here, having just read through the thread... and I'm trying to figure out if my partner and I would be heading towards an amicable divorce, if Canadian marriage laws were set up on the basis of what you're suggesting.

We're an opposite-sex couple.

We're infertile.

It is impossible for us to conceive children together - with or without medical support.

(As an aside, and - hey - why not complicate things - we are also parents - our family enlarged through the process of adoption, six and a bit years ago.)

The only difference between us and a same-sex couple is... well... we're opposite-sex. We don't even have the possibility of one of the two of us conceiving and giving birth (as in SG's post.)

So. If marriage is solely - or even primarily - about reproduction, then we shouldn't be able to be married.

Unless... you'd let us stay married by "riding on the coattails" of couples who can reproduce. (This kind of thinking tends to go, "Well, all things being equal, with your bodies working the way they were supposed to, you'd be able to reproduce through conception and pregnancy... so we'll let you stay married because of the non-existent-though-possible-possibility.")

So... should we be married?

Christ's peace - 

rb

It really is about marriage, Beshpin, I kid you not. That is why we don't want to settle for a secondary term. It is not about stealing the word marriage, it's about wanting to live life the way that the majority of people were taught to (partner, house, career, and for some, children), the only difference is the gender of one's partner (and 9.99 times out of ten that isn't a person's choice, which I know you probably don't believe, but you're not really in a position to rule on that since you haven't dealt with it yourself).

Why is it so important that same-sex relationships are defined as marriage instead of 'life partnership' or whatever? Easy, we don't want the impression to be that same-sex couples are any better or worse than hetero couples, because a lot of the time there aren't many differences (aside from genders) between a hetero couple and a homo couple as many people already pointed out with their personal stories and opinions. It seems more that the opposition to SSM are the ones caught up in semantics....

despite all the arguments against Same-Sex marriage, it's been a very good year for equality and the LGBT community! Iceland (who even has the first homosexual President), Portugal, and Argentina all legalized Same-Sex Marriage despite the latter two being extremely Catholic-based countries. Just goes to show that some countries truly believe in the separation of church and state...

Besh and his straw-grasping aside, what are the non-religious reasons for not allowing same-sex marriage?  "Not able to have children" has been done to death here and is easily debunked by the obvious points of infertile opposite sex couples, those who choose to adopt, etc.  Are there any other reasons given that don't appeal to faith?

Well, yes and no.  There are lots of people with no religious practice that still hold onto old fashioned traditions as important.  The tradition they are appealing to is one invented in the last couple of centuries by faith communities, but there are some who now appeal directly to tradition, without any mention of religion.  It has "always been that way", and they see no reason to change it.  There is also a very strong anti-gay sentiment that has nothing at all to do with religion, but rather to do with perceptions of masculinity.

Marriage is an institution invented by religion, so in a certain sense all discussions about it, and all forms of it, have their origins in religion.  But if you don't want to go quite that deeply back in time, then it is easy to see lots of marriages that have nothing at all to do with religion.  And there are certainly some people who love those traditions regardless of any religious perspective.

Kind of like the current idea of "traditional marriage", which doesn't exist in the Bible, and only shows up in our culture in the last 50 years or so, and most often in "leave it to Beaver" re-runs.

 Chansen, 

I can. (if people read noticing my tongue in my cheek)

It is not natural. We all know we reject artificial colours, artificial flavours, artificial sweetners, polyester and all the unnatural materials. We reject artifical cooling or heating.... 

Gay parents raise gay kids. All straight parents produce and raise are straight kids, right? Have to ask my mom and my dad.... 

It will make marriage less meaningful or make a mockery of the institution The lengthy marriages like Britney Spears and Jason Alexander, Dennis Hopper and Michelle Phillips, Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine... just won't happen anymore. You won't have the likes of Zsa Zsa Gabor, Elizabeth Taylor, Larry King, Mickey Rooney, Lana Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis....

Children need a male and female role model at home. That is why we ban single adoptions and single people getting IVF and all that. It is likely why we should start to take single peoples kids away and ban all divorce.  

 It changes society as we know it. That is why we also reject electricity, televisions, cars, antibiotics.... 

(humour folks)

...Internet discussion forums....

Anybody who thinks that tradition, for it's sake, is a valid argument for anything, needs to read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson.

http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lotry.html

Besh this is a public discussion forum...no one has to drop anything.

As-salaamu alaikum

-Omni

Well except that his "I'm done with this discussion" appears to be as dishonest as his "I'm leaving" rant lol.

How can we miss him, if he won't go away?

Back to Chansen's question...I seem to recall that when many same-sex couples intially started to sue employers for spousal benefits ('80's-90's?) , the organizations involved brought up the 'enormous' cost that such a change would involve --similar of course to the moaning that arises whenever employment equity related to gender comes up (still) every so often, usually in the public service.

You guys are talking about marriage as if it was something holy. Please. Marriage has always been about property. But that's just my opinion.

I don't think that's what God meant when it created Eve and Adam. However, I also don't think it was in God's intention that we hunt down animals when we have a plenty of fruits and vegetables. I cannot force others to live according to my beliefs. Everyone should have the same liberties and rights given by God as long as those liberties don't violate the liberties of the other.

This statement might make me a hypocrite but whatever. I think same-sex couples are beneficial to society. Some want to raise a family but cannot have children. Children without parents need a family. Don't you think those things fit almost perfectly together?

He's already conceded the argument, Free_thinker, and declared his intention to terminate discussion.  Let's honor that request.

Anyone ever consider tweaking the common law laws and removing all legal and government relationship to marriage and leave it to individual churches.  So that upon a couple being a sexual pairing for x amount of months would be declared a couple and i they want to get "married" it is simply a religious and cultural ceremony that no longer has any legal implicaitons.

Peace

Joel

Good bye besh. have a nice day.

geez, besh, for someone who is 'done with this thread' or whatever, you sure seem to be attached to it...

you remind me of that one cartoon, where the person is saying 'hey, i know its 4am, but i can't come to bed now, someone is WRONG on the internet!!'

go get yerself some fresh air, besh.  sounds like you could use a bracing reality check.

preecy,

I have taken up for consideration what you propose. Actually, we all have, as it was in place prior to equal marriage. Common-law status is what we (menaing same-sex couples) had. We also could (and in our case did) have the opiton of "Holy Union" ceremonies in churches that offered such.  What we did not have was government recognized marriage.

Ok, but that also meant we fell into common-law status and not married. We may use common-law "spouse" or common=law "marriage, but there was/is a difference in status as married or as spouse.

It meant/means things coming into relationship, while in relationship and if coming out of a relationship....

It meant that though other common law couples could choose to be marry,certain common law couples were barred from making that choice.

It meant that in immigration, common-law couples use "humanitarian and compassionate grounds". It means they are a couple and uniting them is compassionate and humane. Common law does not have "family status"... People ask "so what?" Under common-law one proves relationship and length. The problem is that being same sex (even church married) may mean it is harder or impossible to have family write suppotive letters and all the things they wanted. In fact, open cohabitation may be hard to prove or may not have taken place. Decisions were made by workers who may or may not have had sensitivity or understanding that a couple can be legitimately  "together" and have it hidden from everyone. Family status, like "spouse" also means that health issues do not bar immigration. Under, H&C grounds, it did. Opposite sex couples could decide to marry in government recognized marriage, same-sex couples could not.

The difference between common-law and married has big legal differences. It is frightening finding out how many couples do not know the differences.

It meant/means in Ontario, that breaking up... marital couples have the automatic right to equal property acquired during the marriage. Common law in Ontario depends on "unjust enrichment", you prove someone was unjustly enriched by you, it is unclear and is complicated, costly.

In marriage, you have right to the matrimonial home no matter who's name it was put in or who could qualify. In common law, the one who's name it was in it belonged to. You could be the partner who paid off a mortage off and find yourself homeless and without a right to a penny. Also, the matrimonial home, is marital property no matter when it was bought or whom it belonged to prior. It was there to safeguard those who moved in "family homes". Without marriage, there is no legal "matrimonial home".

 In marriage, if someone dies without a will, you automatically are entitled to the estate Not so, in common-law. You get nothing, you are not next of kin. You live 20-30 years together and you die and the kids force you to move or a parent, sibling.... You would have to fight using unjust entitlement. It is the scene in "The Single Man" and not having funeral rights or the scene in "If These Walls Could Talk ii" where an elderly person has to leavetheir home because the home is not legally theirs.

In marriage there is automatic right to spousal support from day one. In common-law you earned it, you had to live together 3 years, have children etc, Married you can also apply anytime after you separate, there was/is a  timetable for common-law.

If you are married you can get a court order to stop dissolutuon of property between separation and divorce, in common law you cannot porevent dissolving assets.

The fight for equal marriage in Canada was because common-law is NOT equal to legal and government recognized marriage. They tried telling people that it was, but it was not and is not. It is still not for opposite sex couples. They to need informed that it is not.

SG you mis-read my suggesting

- I get it that common law is not marriage.  I am fully aware that there are several differences that is why I suggested outlawing marriage (by the state) for same sex and opposite sex couples.  This would then obviously entaila tweaking of common law marriage laws.  I realise that it is an out there suggestion and was partially toungue in cheek. 

Peace

Joel