Comments | hattrickflyer: For Alan

hattrickflyer

For Alan

Oct 14, 2008 23:40

Is the right of any two consenting adults to enter into marriage, with the full cultural and (more importantly) legal rights and responsibilies thereof, as important as the right of any individual to worship as they please? While I don't see much point in banning gay marriage, it's actually more logical than banning, say, bigamy (from a pure ( Read more... )

Comments 7

yukimi October 15 2008, 15:51:02 UTC

How does anyone with a brain know Jason Simpson did it? Also, OJ's behavior afterwards is pretty incriminating.

hattrickflyer October 16 2008, 05:08:28 UTC

Oh, the DNA. Parents match 80% of their childrens' DNA, which is the same percentage match they had on OJ during the first trial. And Jason has never provided an alibi for the time when Nicole Brown was killed.

flwyd October 15 2008, 19:47:20 UTC

I think it would be great if marriage and civil unions were completely different things. If you want, you can be married but not have legal recognition. If you want, you can have legal recognition but not be married. In the former case, your relationship is recognized by your religious organization and fellow practitioners. That community reinforces acceptable behavior and gossips about transgressions of personal responsibility. In the latter case, you get legal benefits like power of attorney, partner health insurance coverage, automatic inheritance, alimony, and joint tax returns. If you want both, you can get both (assuming you meet both the religious and civil requirements). If you want one but not the other, that's fine too ( ... )

hattrickflyer October 16 2008, 05:09:00 UTC

Yep, I fully agree. Then again, as a fiscal conservative, I'm in favor of not extending special benefits to anyone, lol

flwyd October 16 2008, 06:42:28 UTC

From a tax standpoint, I think that makes sense. I got a crazy tax discount just for living with someone with a vagina. But I guess that's not so much stranger than getting a crazy tax discount for buying a big house on credit.

Most other marriage perks I think are sensible. If we're going to tie health care to employment, supportive family members who can't currently get a job (because they're taking care of kids, going to school, or whatever) should have an option to get it. In a crisis situation, a family member will be the most qualified one to make reasonable decisions on behalf of an incapacitated person. And whoever plays a role in raising a kid should have a voice in what happens to the kid if they raisers stop spending all their time together.

So tax rates are the most obvious perk of marriage, but not the most important one.

gojutremere October 16 2008, 05:53:56 UTC

The concern however is that people seem to assume that we have a "natural" right to worship as we choose. Dozens of countries around the world deny their citizens this so called right ( ... )

hattrickflyer October 17 2008, 23:17:00 UTC

I'd say you have a natural right to believe as you choose, if not worship. I mean, heck, we don't let people have human sacrifices NOW even if their religion demands it.

"Life, liberty and the pursuit of property" is the quote from which the Declaration of Independence's unalienable rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is taken.

I understand what you're saying now, tho. My only disagreement is that logic and government seldom need to go hand-in-hand :-) Unfortunately society is a long string of those in power imposing their beliefs on those who aren't - it all gets back to Churchill's? line about democracy being the worst form of government, except for all the other choices.