ZOMBIE FORUMS

I've been wanting to post this topic for a while, but with finals I didn't really have the time to follow the discussion like I would want to. My last two finals are tomorrow and I don't have class again until Jan 13 so I'll have plenty of time to hang around for the next couple of weeks

Some of you probably know that I am a lesbian. I'm currently single, but I would one day like to settle down with a woman and raise a family. Unfortunately in my state (see the section Legal Relationships Among LGBTs) we could not legally get married or enjoy any of the legal benefits of marriage. Even if we went somewhere where same-sex unions are legally recognized like Vermont and got married there, NC will not recognize the union. Ideally my partner would be the biological mother of our children (I'm not real big on the whole pregnancy thing myself), but according to state law I would have no legal rights with any of her biological children. I am not allowed to adopt them. Adoption isn't even really a valid route because homosexuals can only adopt as single parents; a child cannot have two legally recognized parents of the same sex.

These laws are common to most of the states in the US, and there doesn't seem to be much sign of them changing any time soon. What are your thoughts on this? Are you for or against legally recognized same-sex marriages, and why?

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"Physics is like sex. Sure, there are plenty of practical results, but that's not why we do it." - Richard P. Feynman

I was initiated long ago on the old Keenspot boards, but I can't find the link anymore.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kevryn on 2002-12-17 01:06 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kevryn on 2002-12-17 01:07 ]</font>

Oh, good. A new debate thread.

I'm of two minds on this issue. As far as legal recognition goes, I think it's fairly obvious that gay/lesbian/bisexual/whatever couples (I'll abbreviate to "gay", for brevity's sake) should be entitled to the same protections and privileges as non-gay couples. This includes adoption and other issues involving children, although I can't help feeling a bit sorry for the kid involved. "Heather has two mommies" notwithstanding, such an arrangement would draw a lot of flak from the kid's peers; children are cruel, and they aren't known for being very accepting.

On the other hand, the whole "legal recognition of marriage" thing strikes me as increasingly obsolete. As I'm sure you've all heard, a majority of marriages end in divorce within a few years (a majority of <i>first</i> marriages do not, as far as I know), and an increasingly large number of couples (I don't have any numbers on this, but I know it's significant) now elect to live together without being legally married for whatever reason. Considering that most of the laws concerning marriage were formulated in an age where marriage was pretty much the only option for a couple that wanted to live with each other, it seems odd that non-married couples are not entitled to the same treatment as married ones.

If I were writing the laws, I would extend marriage protections to any couple, or perhaps any couple that's been together for more than a constant period of time. This would, of course, include non-traditional couples (relationships involving more than two people would naturally be a stumbling block, but I think it could be ironed out). An alternative would be removing any marriage protections altogether; either way, it doesn't seem entirely logical to give legal protection to a couple for having undergone a certain ceremony.

P-M

-><-

Marriage is overrated.

well, so far i'm agreeing with Pyro and Veritron.

Marriage IS over-rated, at least, for any relationship i would enter, marriage would be the furthest thing from my mind. if the love is there, and you understand each other, and the commitment you want to make to each other, then a legally/religously binding ceremony seems a little redundant.

i guess weddings are fine if you want to declare your undying love to the world, though, just not my cup of tea.

As for the whole legal side of it, marriage should be seen as any other kind of partnership, so any benefits/drawback should cover all committed relationships. a life partner, after all, IS a life partner. (ugh. Life Partner is so CLINICAL and PC...)

kids, i have no problem with gay couples raising kids. there are a lot of really shitty families out there that the govornment is quite happy to leve as-is, and apart from playground taunts, i can't see how a kid could be any worse off in a non-mommy/daddy relationship. being raised by my dad didn't have any adverse effect on me or my sister. to descriminate against people because of sexual preferencve is as stupid as discriminating because of eye color.

as for more than two people marriages...polygamy, that opens some scary doors for me, after being pulp-fed horror stories about cults and other religions advocating polygamy, which seems to be an excuse for men of the religious orders/cults to have as many underage wives as they can get their pedophile hands on to start popping out kids by the dozens. literally.

But as pyro said, someone a helluva lot smarter than me could likely find answers to the dangers that may arise from this.

that's enough Ranting for now. haha, it seems that in all these debates, i'd be better off just typing 'what Pyro said', but where's the fun in that?

Perhaps marriage is overrated, and I used to not want to get married at all (before I knew I was gay) but it's something I would like to do someday. Telling my wife and the rest of the world that I love her so much that I want to spend the rest of my life with her, make a family with her.
Of course I could do that without the state's approval, but I can't for instance make decisions about her medical care in an emergency or vice versa, and it would be the same with any children. We couldn't get family insurance coverage or file joint taxes, or claim our children as dependents. There's a huge financial burden to living together as a family without being legally married that I'm dreading having to face.
Maybe extending benefits to all couples regardless of marital status is the answer, but I don't see that law getting passed anytime soon, since the major argument I've heard against recognizing gay marriages is that it somehow "cheapens" the concept of what marriage is. Lots of people would be major pissed if unmarried couples "living in sin" were getting the same benefits as married couples. Perhaps this might happen eventually, but I think legal recognition of same-sex unions would be a good first step.


Pyro - yeah kids are cruel. I used to worry about the problems my kids might have as children of lesbian parents, but I realized that even if I were straight my kids would probably be picked on anyway. My parents are as "normal" as anyone else and I went through hell in my childhood because I was a short, academically gifted tomboy who wore cheap shoes. Kids'll pick on anyone who's different for any reason, and it's my job to make sure that my kids learn to deal with it without getting too psychologically damaged

Mad - I agree, I hate the term "life-partner". Bleah. Even if I'm never legally married, I'm calling her my wife. It's just easier that way.

[flamebait] I think women should be allowed to have sex with eachother, but not men![/flamebait]

Joking, of course...the trouble, I think, with this thread, is that the only argument against same-sex marriage is pretty much a moral one (all right, I'll grant the "but it'll screw up the kids" thing, but as other people have pointed out, a couple of guys who really love eachother for your parents won't screw you up any more than a pair of heterosexual alkies, or even just a couple of divorcees), and moral arguments just can't carry as much weight as practical ones (the economic argument, primarily). So, I don't think we're going to get much debate out of this thread, and what we will get would probably be with people so sure of their moral superiority that debating them is just a mental exercise that will achieve nothing in changing there minds.

On the plus side, it means that there really isn't any good reason to ban same-sex marriages, right?

Not to be disrespectful, but out of curiousity, why don't you move to another state where you CAN get married to your girl-friend? Oh and I wanted to mention that I had heard once about a law or rule or somthing stating that a couple who lived together for more than 7 years were considered legally married.The interesting thing to know would be whether this extended to all couples or only to heterosexual couples.

On the subject of polygamy. My feeling is that if three people reeeeeally love eachother they should be alowed the same rights as other couples, er triplets, but the fact is that most modern people are waaaay to jealous of their signifigant other to share them with someone else, even someone they loved. Anyway thats just how I see it.

I'm not against it per se, but it leads to a dilema:

If you recognize random unions between two people, what's to stop random unions between three, four, etc?

There's a *reason* we have marriage, and that is to raise children to adulthood. (Another reason was that before the female of the species became "wife of man," she was subject to being raped and brutalized at any time. This necessity is, thankfully, obsolete in first-world countries.) Sure, we tolerate childless couples, but they are by nature quite few compared to potential random unions.

So we have, in place, an imperfect but workable criteria that helps sustain the family as a basic social unit.

If we remove that legal recognition of union between 1 mand and 1 woman as the official social standard (and people do tend to recognize the law as a rough benchmark of what society expects) we could very well throw a spanner in the works.

I've read a fair amount on this matter, including <a href="http://www.andrewsullivan.com/">the only conservative supporter of gay marriage</a> I know of, and I'm not convinced. I think gay marriage supporters don't want to address the possible consequences.

That's another issue: gay marriage is a national issue. You can't have your marital status (which, hell, could determine your name!) changing as you cross state borders. What states are allowing it now, anyway? Hawaii and Vermont?

Yeah, and if gay marriage is legalized what would stop people from running over orphans in vans filled with performing bears and gardening equipment?

Honestly, I can't see how recognizing marriages between two people of the same gender would lead to unions of three or four random people for no apparent reason.

EDIT: Tycho's post is reply number 777 in the Debate Club.

Seven is darker.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rincewind MoG's Ghost on 2002-12-21 22:14 ]</font>

I see nothing wrong with letting 3 people marry each other. Or 4 people, for that matter. However the line would eventualy have to be drawn somewhere, because having 50 or so people marry each other would create tremendous amounts of paperwork, especially if they divorced into several groups.



Women in first world countries still get raped. I don't see how marriage protects them from that. Perhaps in a close-knit society it would be a deterrant, but I don't think most modern rapists stop to check if a woman is married before attacking them.

Women who are brutalized are most often abused by those they are in a close relationship with (their husbands or boyfriends).



The Arawak indians (native to the Bahama islands) had no insitiution of marriage. Mating between any two consenting parties was perfectly admissable, and children were raised communally. They were actually an excellent example of a functioning communist society, until the Spaniards wiped them out.

I've never understood the assertion that gay marriage will somehow undermine the institution of heterosexal marriage. Would someone mind exlaining this rationale to me?

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: tychoseven on 2002-12-20 01:58 ]</font>

I believe it is only Vermont right now. Hawaii had a same-sex union law, but that was repealed.

I'd say a three way union could be arranged, but it should be another KIND of union then a two people union. There is no reason to legally treat two men different then a man and a woman, but there IS a legal diffeence between two persons and three persons.

As of homosexual marriage. Bring it. And if some people bitch about 'marriage being this or that' then leave the term marriage for the churches and let the government deal in 'civil unions' or something. That's all that it is outside of the church (who can arrange couplings however they friggen' want as they have no lagally binding power anyway) and outside of romance (and romance is something governments aren't really meant to deal with) isn't it? A bureaucratic and legal assumption that two people will be living together for a long while.

Regarding the whole 'nuclear family' is good for society thing. It creates a bad precedent if a government is allowed to allow or disallow certain unions (that do NOT cross individual freedoms of course) for 'the common good' If all people decide that they all want to live in threesomes, or everyone living solitary, the government has to accept that, period.

same sex marriges should be legal

i dont have any reason for my statement that hasent already been posted by someone else

I'd just like to say what it is in NZ, is that if you're with your partner for 4 or more years (I believe) you are considered to be in a de facto relationship, and all the legal benifits of marriage apply, regardless of gender.

So if you break up, they get half your stuff.

The reason for this is the fact that New Zealand has one of the worlds highest rates of nmarried permanent couples.

Poeple here just don't get married. Something like half my friends are (literally) bastards, with most of their parent still together.

it just appears that using the term "marriage' pisses off too many conservatives to make it worth anybodies efforts.

Let the big biggited whitee weigh in on this one.

Gay marriages yes.

If your christian right /really/ wants to put up a stink about it, seperate religion from government. Have the government only recognize common-law marriages.

That is too say, give marriage benefits only too people who have been living together for a set amount of time.

Or, a system could be worked out for granting common law marriages in cases of children.

In Ontario, same sex marriages are not legaly recognized... but that doesn't stop people from registering them. You can go to a (fairly modern) church, and have the marriage. If you wish, the preist will even fill out a marriage certificate for you, and file it with the government. Now in thereoy, there is a fail safe in place to prevent illegal marriages. It is not being exercised, so while the government doesn't recognize same sex marriages... it ignores your sex. Nice set up... will need to be changed eventualy, but it works for now.

*takes first steps into the Debate room and choses an interesting topic*

I can't see anything wrong with same-sex marriages. This is the 21st century and new things are opened to us everyday. I think it is mainly being blocked by closed-minded morally correct old generation folk.

And that whole argument about it will "effect" (or is it "affect"?) the kids that are raised by same-sex couple is something I think is a bunch of (pardon the phrase) shit. They haven't even done any long term studies to even see if there is any difference of being raised by a heterosexual loving family or homosexual loving. A loving family is a loving family. No two way around the issue.



I thought of the same thing when i started reading this stuff. Ran a search on Google. Looked at a few and it seemed to apply to hetero couples.

Of course once you get into this sort of permanent couples being considered married after a certain amount of time, you have to decide what a couple is, and then how constantly they have to live together for the required amount of time to be considered married. For instance, say two guys live together as room-mates for the required time, but aren't gay per se, simply share rent or cost of living or whatever. Do they then consitute a married couple after a certain amount of time, even though they have no sexual, or romantic interest in eachother, but have simply elected to live together because they are friends and it is often cheaper to live with someone and share the costs. The second scenario is if two people live together, but one has a job which requires that he travel and stay away for long periods of time, such as an international reporter who must live in various countries for several months on end due to his duties in covering various stories. Does the couple have to start their living-togetherness all over again each time the absent partner stays away, or is it all considered continuous? What constitutes not living with a person anymore? An address change, or not being there for a certain amount of time? Anyway these are just a few little kinks which would have to be worked out before the common-law system could work for everyone.

Nothing really to post, I just wanna see if the avatar thing works.Sorry.

I don't agree at all with common-law marriage rules, if two people don't want to be considered married, why should the state stuff it down their throats.

Another thing, if a Lesbian couple has a child, why should the non-mother have any right to it? What did she do? Would she have to pay child support? Hardly.

As for same sex couples having kids, I just don't know, like it has been said, no long-term studies. I think kids need both male and female figures in their lives, If it was a male-male relationship, no worries, the kid will have all of its elementary teachers (primarily women). If it were a lesbian thing, I think the kid should spend time with its uncle or grandfather or something to provide necessary socialization with adult males. Too many kids are raised by just single mothers and never have male role models or other significant figures due to outright hostility toward men who try to get into elementary school-teaching.