Judge Blocks Prayer at High School Graduation. Students still prayed.

[Perd Hapley]

And in this case the right to have the government not concern itself with the establishment of religion is being violated, although the majority agreed on it.

Certainly, the minority's rights ought to be protected from the majority, but what right is being violated?  No establishment is occurring under the scenario I propose.  A voluntary prayer by students or by their chosen representative is protected by the free exercise clause.  

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

[Perd Hapley]

I generally support legislation that would make it easier for two or more people to make legal arrangements concerning inheritance, powers of attorney, hospital visitation, etc.  There is no reason, however, to equate this to marriage.

All of those issues are automatic for a spouse.

Even POA?  In any case, why would we assume that two homosexuals or three brothers who live together all have the same needs in such arrangements?  

I'm gonna add a small requirement here: said family MUST be able to support itself...

I assume you wish to apply this rule to mono, hetero marriages also?  So poor people are denied the benefits of that institution?  

remember Paint your Wagon?

No I don't.

>And I wonder how long it will be before we begin to question why consenting fourteen-year-olds or 12-year-olds should not also be allowed to marry, or enter civil unions.<

That's the same arguement that the antis use against gun owners: "YOU have to accept restrictions because this groups of people that aren't even allowed to engage in this activity are a problem". Show me where a person under 16* has been allowed to legally enter into a legal contract, THEN we can discuss this idea...

Not at all.  Those who oppose homosexual marriage are not restricting anyone from marriage, we are simply opposed to legal status being conferred on a relationship that doesn't merit such.  But my comment was a rumination and not an argument.

[Stand_watie]

I cannot see how our current desire to expand the definition of marriage will not result in the legal recognition of polygamous marriages.

I have no desire to expand the definition of marriage. In fact, I'm content to leave control over marriage to the 'church' as a collective generalization.

So people wishing to engage in normal, monogamous, heterosexual marriages should apply for "civil unions," instead of marriage licenses?

For consenting adults, being required to have a license to marry is an anachronism in our society. If the states could figure out a way to tax it they'd require fornication licenses as well.

[Perd Hapley]

All they would have to do is go into their church and get married. No license. No tax. Their church would decide what is and is not marriage - for followers of their religion.

If they wanted to have it formalized, a civil union would be available also.

Again, Blackburn, that's the way it is now, except that the government rightly doesn't inolve itself in personal matters such as sexual relationships with no chance of producing children.

For consenting adults, being required to have a license to marry is an anachronism

So, if it's an anachronism, why is it now outdated?  What has changed?

[hso]

I'm with Nightfall on this issue.
The schools should not be institutionalizing a specific kind of worship (Baptist, Catholic, or even Zoroastrian). If a group of kids wanted to have a prayer service the school wouldn't be prohibited from giving the kids a space separate from the graduation ceremony (even half a dozen spaces if need be), but the full graduation ceremony isn't the proper place since it's intended for all students of all faiths, or none, to attend. A public school funded with your dollars and mine, and those of the kid that was uncomfortable with the prayer during his graduation, shouldnt subject anyone to having to sit through a religious event. Voluntary, sure. Mandatory, no. If you want everyone at your school to have to attend an event with prayer then attend a school where everyone has the same faith.

[Stand_watie]

All they would have to do is go into their church and get married. No license. No tax. Their church would decide what is and is not marriage - for followers of their religion.

If they wanted to have it formalized, a civil union would be available also.

Again, Blackburn, that's the way it is now, except that the government rightly doesn't inolve itself in personal matters such as sexual relationships with no chance of producing children.

For consenting adults, being required to have a license to marry is an anachronism

So, if it's an anachronism, why is it now outdated?  What has changed?

The production of children outside of wedlock has changed. The stability of marriage as a permanent institutition has changed. The supreme court has (like it or not) ruled that sexual privacy is a 'right', and anyone who chooses to marry (whatever that means to their faith) has as much of a 'right' to that privacy as do people who are engaged in the same amount of intimacy or behavior that affects the state as they are.

[cordex]

the government rightly doesn't inolve itself in personal matters such as sexual relationships with no chance of producing children.

Huh?  Since when did the issuance of a marriage license depend on fertility or the possibility of a coupling to produce children?  When my wife and I got our marriage license, we dropped the $20 and signed some papers.  Nowhere on those papers did it specify that either of us be fertile, nor was it necessary to prove that we were capable of having children together and finally we were not required to state that we intended to have children at any point in the future.

I've known couples who were infertile.  Completely incapable of having children due to sickness, injury, birth defect, surgery, and so forth and as far as I know their marriage licenses were not revoked.

[Strings]

>...the government rightly doesn't inolve itself in personal matters such as sexual relationships with no chance of producing children.<

Red herring. The ability (or lack thereof) to have children has no bearing on the rights and privledges that are sought by most of the gays *I* know. Things like visitation with their partner in the hospital, inheritance, insurance. Why SHOULDN'T they have acces to these things, with the same ease that hetero couples do?

 You seem to be missing that point: for a gay/lesbian/poly relationship to have the same legal protections, a lawyer must be hired, and lots of money spent. In most states, a heterosexual couple can take care of it with  half hour at the courthouse, and maybe $75...

>I assume you wish to apply this rule to mono, hetero marriages also?  So poor people are denied the benefits of that institution? <

I was mainly thinking of instances where kids are involved, like the one polygamist with several wives (and all of 'em were on welfare)...

[Desertdog]

Things like visitation with their partner in the hospital, inheritance, insurance. Why SHOULDN'T they have acces to these things, with the same ease that hetero couples do?

I fully agree, they should.  Why shoulden't anybody with any type of personal relationship be able to do the same, without a judge, lawyer or hassel.

For inheritance, a will does work.   Putting their name on life insurance as a beneficiary will work.

Hospitals need a form for paitents to sign as to who gets info, who can or cannot visit, ect.

For work benefits and beneficiaries, the rules  can be negotitated.

I see no reason for the goverment to get into the argument.

[Perd Hapley]

True, cordex.  Marriage licensing is usually an unintrusive process, as it should be.  It is recognized, however, that as long as two people are married, they may well have children.  If the govt. has any interest in this union at all, it is the effect it has on children and on the inheritance of property.  This is why the legal entanglements of divorce are intensified when children are involved.  

Before the marriage, however, there is no need to pry into things like fertility.  Public facts like gender however, are perfectly obvious questions to ask.

[cordex]

True, cordex.  Marriage licensing is usually an unintrusive process, as it should be.  It is recognized, however, that as long as two people are married, they may well have children.  If the govt. has any interest in this union at all, it is the effect it has on children and on the inheritance of property.  This is why the legal entanglements of divorce are intensified when children are involved.

So you believe that the government's only interest in a marriage should be that of inheritance (including between partners) and children produced by the union - regardless of the ability of the members of said union to generate children?

Before the marriage, however, there is no need to pry into things like fertility.  Public facts like gender however, are perfectly obvious questions to ask.

Why?
If the raison d'être of marriage is progeny and the protection thereof, why would we allow couples beyond childbearing age or individuals who are infertile for whatever reason to marry?

[Perd Hapley]

Cordex, here is something from an earlier thread that explains my position in an organized fashion.  

RE:  homosexual marriage and civil unions

Some have expressed a desire to have the legal arrangements attendant on marriage for their homosexual partners.  However, if marriages or homosexual civil unions deserve such consideration, then other pairings or groups of people should not be excluded.  If they are, sex (or a romantic relationship) is made the basis of public policy in a way it was not previously.  Certainly homosexuals would not wish to discriminate against those who choose not to have a sexual or romantic relationship.  I suggest, then, that if civil unions are introduced, it must not be done in behalf of homosexuals, and in fact should not be linked at all with sex or romantic love.



Secular Argument against homosexual marriage and homosexual civil unions


Thesis:

The law should not treat monogamous homosexual relationships differently than it treats similar relationships that do not involve sex.  

Or to put it another way:

If homosexuals do not want government in their bedrooms, then why do they want their sexual relationship to be recognized?


Supporting argument:

If we have no grounds to discriminate between marriage and homosexual relationships, then neither have we grounds to discriminate against other long-term friendships or partnerships.  Advocates of homosexual marriage, hereafter referred to as HM, complain that married couples receive certain benefits denied to homosexual couples.  However, it would hardly be right to deny such benefits to other pairings or groups of people.  Such rights, if extended to homosexual couples, ought also to apply to friends or adult relatives who live together or can claim some other lasting bond.  To recognize HM is to say that any long-term sexual or romantic relationship is equivalent to marriage.  It is to bring sex into legal scrutiny in a way that marriage never has.  


Consider two fictional men named Jake and Ramon.  In a possible future which includes HM, Jake and Ramon have shared a house together for twenty years, but because they do not have sex with one another, or enjoy a romantic relationship, they presumably cannot enjoy the benefits of marriage.  Hector and Cecilia live next door, and they may get married even if they hate each other and never touch one another.  Why?  Because marriage is not the private behavior protected by the Lawrence v. Texas ruling.  Sex, love, romance; these are private.  Both couples may partake of them as they wish.  Marriage is a public commitment, solemnized by religious and/or social recognition and supported by law.  The difference between marriage and cohabitation is just this: the married couple makes public their long-term commitment to one another.  The noncommittal nature of cohabitation is its distinction from marriage.

If the state has any reason, justification or interest in recognizing Hector and Cecilias relationship, it because it is expected that a man and woman living together will have children - a helpless third party that did not agree to the union that led to their existence.  That marriages usually produce children differentiates them not only from homosexual relationships, but from all other relationships.  Only long-term heterosexual cohabitation could come close to having the potential to produce children that a marriage does  perhaps that is why these are often considered common-law marriages.  The state does not probe to find out whether a married couple loves one another or whether they have sex or children.  The state doesnt care, unless divorce occurs, and neither do we.  The minister who conducts their wedding ceremony may counsel them and may refuse to marry them if he finds they do not love one another, but this is the business of churches and other social groups.  It is not within the purview of a secular state.  Nor would it be desirable or practical to ban the infertile from marriage.  People deemed infertile sometimes are able to have children, especially with the advent of fertility drugs.  Weeding out the infertile would be costly and overly intrusive and serves no purpose.

[Perd Hapley]

Red herring. The ability (or lack thereof) to have children has no bearing on the rights and privledges that are sought by most of the gays *I* know. Things like visitation with their partner in the hospital, inheritance, insurance. Why SHOULDN'T they have acces to these things, with the same ease that hetero couples do?

Why should they?  The two relationships are demonstrably not the same.  My comments were not a red herring, they spoke directly to the point.  It is the manifest sterility of homosexual unions that indicates they should be treated like other relationships.  If it is too hard for homosexuals to arrange for visitation rights, inheritance, insurance, etc., then it is also too hard for business partners, relatives and friends who live together, etc.  I have said before and will again, that I would support a plan for civil unions that was not based on sexuality, although probably, a loosening of government red tape would do the trick.  To limit such unions  or other legal arrangements to people who are having sex with each other, is to increase govt. oversight of sexual behavior.  Marriage does not do this, as it simply recognizes that a man and woman living together may well produce children - no questions asked.

See above post.

[cordex]

I agree, fistful, insomuch as you say that civil unions should not be based on the sexual nature of an arrangment.  In other words, a civil partnership including all the legal benefits of what is currently given the legal moniker of "marriage" should be available to a heterosexual marriage as well as a homosexual partnership and an elderly group of unmarried sisters who want some added security to their arrangement, a couple of old army buddies or a line marriage right out of one of Heinlein's dirty books.

Agreed?

[Perd Hapley]

Not quite.  I have tried to point out that heterosexual marriage is different from the other institutions you have described, except perhaps for line marriage, whatever that may be.  For this reason, marriage (between heterosexuals) probably would need to be treated differently by the law.  I see two different types of relationships, perhaps three.  One would be traditional heterosexual marriage, and the other would be all other permanant partnerships.  We may need to put business partnerships in a different category, just as for-profit and not-for-profit organizations are classed differently.

[Desertdog]

Just for curiosity sake; how did this get from original topic of "Judge Blocks Prayer at High School Graduation" to non-tradional partnerships.

[Perd Hapley]

Ye fool.  Know ye not the ways of the fora?

[cordex]

Desertdog,  high winds cause drift.

Fistful,
Why would heterosexual civil unions need to be treated differently just because they're capable of producing children?  Why not treat all civil unions the same?  Even a homosexual pairing can involve children.

If the union produces or involves children (before or after the union is forged), whether they come into the picture through a fertile heterosexual coupling of the two members of the union, an infertile heterosexual coupling made fertile through science, adoption, children from pre-existing relationships, or are somehow scientifically created from a homosexual coupling, the aspects of the union that address children would then be used.  If the pairing (hetero, homo, poly, whatever) did not produce children, those aspects simply wouldn't come into play.

[Strings]

what cordex said!


Sorry... my eloquence deserted me...

[grampster]

I think fistful and hunter rose should get married.

[Perd Hapley]

Holy, funky underdrawers, that would be frightening!  What would CSI make of that double murder?

 

Sir, it appears this one choked on the other one's ear, and this one died from a .44 to the chest.

Wait, you think this bloody pile is two human bodies?  Yeah, I guess so.  Gruesome.

[Perd Hapley]

cordex, what if a single woman has a child by any means whatsoever?  Then she moves in with her best friend or hooks up with a lesbian lover.  That's a marriage to you?  Why can't she be served equally well by a civil union?

[Strings]

Funny thing is, for all the arguements fistful and I have, we'd probably be great friends in person. He reminds me of a friend I have up here. When he found out we were going to have our second BACA meeting at a church, he got me a hardhat...

[Perd Hapley]

Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?

End musical interlude.

[cordex]

what if a single woman has a child by any means whatsoever?  Then she moves in with her best friend or hooks up with a lesbian lover.  That's a marriage to you?  Why can't she be served equally well by a civil union?

Whether or not it is marriage to me is unimportant.  (FYI, it is not what I would consider a marriage.)
Assuming the "hooking up" is a long-term commitment, consolidation of resources and so forth on par with your typical "marriage" of today, a civil union would be absolutely fine in the case of your hypothetical lesbian couple with children.  Just as a civil union would be fine in the case of a more traditional heterosexual marriage that is a marriage in my eyes.  The civil union should be the joining together of consenting adults.  Defining or approving "marriage" doesn't need to be addressed by the government at all.  You and I are perfectly capable of shouldering that burden ourselves, eh wot?

You keep saying that a heterosexual union of one male and one female should be legally considered differently than any other long-term relationship.  I'm saying that there need be no legal difference between a heterosexual union of one male and one female and a homosexual union of two females despite the fact that you or I might not consider it to be a marriage.  If the membership of any civil union generates or involves children, that civil union should be capable of protecting the interests of those children whether the members of the union are man and wife or two women or two men or whatever else.

Oh, and I don't think that the civil union need address the sexual aspects of the relationship at all.  If we changed your hypothetical to the single mom moving in with her single sister and forming a civil union to help raise the kid, I think that would be fine as well.