well, yeah!

[brinian]

Rob Thomas writing on the Huffington Post site:

"A civil union has to do with death. It's essentially a document that gives you lower taxes and the right to let your faux spouse collect your insurance when you pass away. A marriage is about life. It's about a commitment. And this argument is about allowing people to have the right to make that

Comments

[brucix]

I think his argument is kind of ruined given that the concept of marriage itself is diluted by the divorce rate.

Humans in general don't seem qualified to commit to marriage; heck, humans in general can't even commit to stopping their automobiles at the giant red sign that says "STOP" at the Eastbound end of Wren road in Washington County. Humans seem too self-involved to follow any rules that don't have dire practical consequences.

Maybe instead of arguing for same-sex marriage, we should be arguing for "no marriage for ANYONE" until humans can prove on an individual basis via academic and pratical examination (regression-based) that they can actually "commit" to something.

[brinian]

Quoting the divorce rate to argue against allowing any marriage makes no sense at all since marriage is a social institution of millennial standing, and one in which you participate. Quoting the divorce rate to argue for more counseling or pre-marriage counseling, OTOH, does make sense. And FWIW, my non-marriage has already lasted longer than my parents marriage did.

[brucix]

Social institutions of millennial standing have been dismantled. That's an "appeal to tradition" which is a logical fallacy.

Me being married is also irrelevant to my argument of the dilution of the concept of marriage. I'm not claiming that a diluted definition of marriage is harmful or 'morally wrong'(therefore implying that I should end my marriage to avoid imposing harmful consequences on anyone).

I'm claiming that an argument on 'equality' based on the idea that marriage is really about 'lifelong committment' when a large fraction of humans fail to even satisfy that definition seems dubious (or at a minimum, ineffective).

I guess I'm saying that his argument is weak because a 'commitment' is weaker linguistically (and in this case, statistically) than a 'contract'. There is no way to achieve 'commitment equality' but there is a way to achieve 'legal' or 'contractual' equality.

[brinian]

BUT, our legal system has extended contractual rights and responsibilities to what is essentially a state of 'commitment' sanctioned by religious bodies. Therefore the act of marrying constitutes a legally binding contract.