Mass. Court Rules on Gay Marriage

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Mass. High Court

[andyfox]

Yeah, our President weighed in on this, right after he took a poll.

Since 50% of heterosexual marriages end in divorce (in both the general population and in my life [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]), I'd be more interested in banning heterosexual marriage than homosexual marriage. As I've said here before, men are pigs anyway. The least desirable union is probably between a man and a woman; the next most desirable would be two men, who tend to sensitize each other; and the best is two women.

Guess I'm not going to be able to run for office anytime soon.

[MMMMMM]

andy this is idiotic. You are falling into the common trap of 'group thinking' (not to mention several other errors). I know you're being partly facetious but I think you actually partly believe this too. What a sad day when people can't just look at others as individuals. Also if the most desirable unions were as you suggest don't you think nature would have evolved things to be predominantly that way over millions of years.

I also suspect your cynicism is coloring your thinking. Sharpen up and try looking at everything as if you were considering it for the first time.

[HDPM]

I dunno, I was kinda thinking the female-female thing was the best too. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Chris Alger]

"What a sad day when people can't just look at others as individuals."

This from the guy with the bilious rhetoric about "the" Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, grouped without distinction by their "savage and barbaric culture" and "divisive" religion. It's the hopeless essence of "conservatism": we must treat members of the favored classes as individuals because of the nature of their humanity. Lesser groups are so much foul soup.

[daryn]

gay marriage is just stupid. like i said before, everyone should be treated equally.. obviously, but marriage is marriage! man and woman, it's in the definition!

i was talking with a friend the other day about this and he said something like this

gays saying they want to be able to have a marriage is like black people back in the days of the civil rights movement saying they want to be whites. it just doesn't make sense.. , now, blacks saying they want equal rights as whites makes perfect sense, any intelligent man would say so..

and gays who want to be joined in some union and given equal rights to a married man and women deserve that privilege as well...

but it's not marriage! how can any rational person get past this????

[MMMMMM]

This post just shows how little understanding you have, Chris.

I look at everyone as an indiviual, but that doesn't stop me from criticizing intolerant religious systems or bad political systems or backwards cultural practices.

Your problem is that you see my criticism of those systems as criticism of the individuals contained in those groups. It is not. I see the individuals in those groups as victimized by the same bad systems that they are living under. Criticizing pernicious customs or institutions is far different from criticizing people for being what they are. You aren't looking nearly deep enough.

[andyfox]

What is the difference between "union" and marriage? A marriage is a union sanctioned by law. Why shouldn't two people who want to get married be allowed to?

[andyfox]

Yes, partly facetious, of course.

But the arguments in favor of maintaining marriage as a strictly heterosexual thing don't work for me. The court said, "Whether and whom to marry, now to express sexual intimacy, and whether and how to establish a family--these are among the most basic of every individual's liberty and due process rights. And central to personal freedom and security is the assurance that the laws will apply equally to persons in similar situations." With this I agree.

In an opinion piece in today's L.A. Times, a person who opposed the ruling said that "reserving marriage to a man and a woman is the rational belief based on millenniums of experience that marriage is a cultural institution, not merely a lifestyle choice Marriage promotes procreation, ensures the benefits of child rearing by the distinct attributes of both father and mother and makes intimate sexual activity orderly and socially accountable."

Poppycock.

First of all, milleniums of experience mean nothing. It simply means that those opposed aren't looking at things as they should, as you suggest--as if they're looking at them for the very first time, instead of just assuming things are better because, well, we've been doing it that way for a long time.

And in fact, milleniums of experience show nothing of the sort. Most pre-modern societies had very different notions of sexuality and union than we do now. [And shouldn't the plural of millenium by millenia?]

Sure marriage promotes procreation, but how would allowing gay people to marry inhibit procreation? And don't we procreate pretty good with or without marriage? In fact, there'd be more demand for the results of procreation, since these people wouldn't be able to procreate within their marriage.

I am in agreement that children are best off in marriages with both parents present and accounted for. But marriage has in no way assured this in our country. Half of all marriages end in divorce and, as that great philosopher, Keanu Reaves, said in Parenthood, "You have to get a license to drive or fish, but they'll let any old [censored] be a father." {I may not have this quote just right, but it's close.] It doesn't take a whole weeks worth of listening to Dr. Laura [a punishment worse than capital, I'm sure] to know how many less than great fathers there are out there.

As for "orderly and socially accountable" sexual activity, please. Maybe I'm biased by living in La-la land, a sin city of siliconic proportions, but where exactly is this orderly and socially accountable sexual activity taking place? {I'm sure my buddy HDPM will tell me in Idaho.]

[andyfox]

Yes, I knew that. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I guess the President wasn't all that busy in merry olde England, since he had time to comment on a Massachusetts court decision, calling marriage a sacred institution. If only he could find an Attorney General who would feel the same way about the Constitution.