Govt Drops Defense of Anti-Gay Marriage Law

[Spartacus32]

[quote] lucasa wrote:

The statement you said I intimated, I didn’t intimate. Where’s the confusion? I agreed that an absolute imperative to reproduce at every opportunity or to otherwise constantly maintain maximal reproductive or population levels is absurd (reproduction isn’t ALWAYS good).[/quote]
You just stated exactly what I argued in my posts.

Just because you think it, doesn’t mean I said it. Even if every nation on Earth agreed to lessen the world population by reproducing less, the immediate next decision would be which nations still enjoy the ‘luxury’ of outbreeding others and which countries get compensated for making a greater sacrifice.

This is pure speculation, and assuming you have read my other posts you should know I don’t really argue speculatively. I argue the legality and constitutionality of certain actions.

First, under-populating doesn’t work in the long run either. Second, it’s not about making sense or not. A lack of resources inherently precludes reproduction. If you think societies as a whole are strictly sensible, I question your contribution to a forum debate which is based upon several levels of values and beliefs-based decisions.

Who argued underpopulation for an extended period of time? How would a lack of resources lead to more reproduction? Also, this thread was started about the Department of Justice not defending section 3 of DOMA, which has been declared unconstitutional and is in the appeal process. The DOJ announced that on cases where the spouses are legally married Section 3 will not be defended. Again, I don’t argue beliefs or values. I don’t care about yours and you probably don’t care about mine and neither of us are going to change the other’s opinions. Judge Walker even stated in his ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional that Proposition 8 was based on traditional notions of opposite-sex marriage and on moral disapproval of homosexuality, neither of which is a legal basis for discrimination. I only argue legality and constitutionality.

First, just because a society has enacted some form of birth control a) doesn’t mean it was effective (at best they slowed, not stopped growth) and b) doesn’t mean it was warranted. The British did some pretty horrible things to their underclass at the turn of the century to ward off ‘overpopulation’ and consumption of the World’s resources. Second, this isn’t what I asked for. I asked for a society that has literally bread itself out of existence. I’ll even enlarge the field to all vertebrates and populations in general.

I did not provide an example like that simply because I never argued that overpopulation will lead to extinction. It will lead to food shortages, famine, and a host of other problems but not the total destruction of a species.

[quote] You have still yet to explain why you think DOMA discriminates against homosexuals and why its repeal would discriminate against heterosexuals.

I don’t think you need me to explain how it discriminates against homosexuals. Given your predisposition you should already have a pretty good idea, additionally, there are certainly more and better posts, blogs, and literature. Personally, I think it is weird that you a) don’t see how not enforcing (effectively repealing without repeal) a duly processed act of Congress that supports homosexual marriage doesn’t discriminate against the overwhelming number (46-52%) of people (overwhelmingly heterosexual) who support the act and b) group homosexuals and heterosexuals together, but discriminate against other marriages or sexual arrangements.[/quote]

I have already explained why all of this is unconstitutional in my first few posts in this forum. I will only add that the only way to make this constitutional is through an Amendment to the Constitution. This would require more than a 52% majority.

[quote] What does any of this have to do with DOMA or legalizing homosexual marriage?

Shared ownership and medical visitation exist outside of marriage. If marriage isn’t about sex, reproduction, and/or cohabitation and/or codependency, why have it at all? [/quote]

Again, your views on what marriage should be don’t mean a damn thing when it comes to the law and the constitution. According to the Government Accountability Office , there are 1,138 rights, privileges and benefits granted by statutes and laws to married couple. (sex, reproduction, and cohabitation are not among them). It violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to deny these rights to any citizens of the United States.

Wait, so if I have a kid (being heterosexual I happen to be predisposed to acts of conception), I get more money from the Gov’t? And if the gov’t makes a small investment in encouraging me to have kids they can reap all kinds of payouts? It’s almost like the gov’t is paying (compensating? reimbursing? investing in?) me to have kids because kids aren’t as beneficial to me as they are to gov’t and the society at large.

Again, the government does not provide the tax cut to encourage people to have kids. It provides the tax cut for taking legal responsibility for a person who cannot legally take care of itself. You get the same tax cut for adopting or taking in certain disabled people

[quote] You seem to be equating “cohabitating” (why don’t you just say living together) with “marriage” here, which doesn’t make much sense. People can live together and not be married so if that is not what you mean could you please rephrase that so I can understand the point you are trying to make.

Sex, love, cohabitation, reproduction, shared ownership, medical visitation, monogamy, heterosexuality. Aside from more overtly religious aspects, these are, IMO the entire components that make up a traditional marriage. Please add or eliminate all that don’t apply to alternative marriage. [/quote]

Again, your views on what marriage should be don’t mean a damn thing when it comes to the law and the constitution. According to the Government Accountability Office , there are 1,138 rights, privileges and benefits granted by statutes and laws to married couple. (sex, reproduction, and cohabitation are not among them). It violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to deny these rights to any citizens of the United States.

[lucasa]

[quote]Spartacus32 wrote:

This is pure speculation, and assuming you have read my other posts you should know I don’t really argue speculatively. I argue the legality and constitutionality of certain actions.[/quote]

That’s funny because;

[quote]
As to why there are no laws governing polygamous marriages in the U.S, there is simply no demand for it. There are not enough polygamous couples pushing for these laws or fighting the constitutionality of not allowing polygamous marriage. The same goes for incestuous marriages.[/quote]

Sounds rather speculative and distinctly counter to the idea of an ‘inalienable right’. Just because mobs of people aren’t demanding a right means that nobody has that right? Is that what you take away from your study of the Constitution?

Also, it’s becoming rather clear that you are a coward. When asked what you think marriage should be, what the point of marriage is, you provide the paper trail of the very thing you claim to be broken. You are too scared to actually solve any problem with marriage, you just want to put more pen to paper with a gov’t letterhead. I’m against that.

Again, your views on what marriage should be don’t mean a damn thing when it comes to the law and the constitution.

Wow. How tolerant.

According to the Government Accountability Office , there are 1,138 rights, privileges and benefits granted by statutes and laws to married couple. (sex, reproduction, and cohabitation are not among them). It violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to deny these rights to any citizens of the United States.

ANY citizen?

Looking at most of what you’ve posted, it’s pretty clear that you want marriage “rights” for homosexuals. What you’ve also made clear is that you don’t give a damn about who you exclude from the same ‘rights’ or why, you don’t care about who or what you trample in your quest to ‘attain’ these ‘rights’ or why, and you don’t care about any consequences of your trampling. You’re clearly a zealot as much as any Christian.

[CappedAndPlanIt]

Is this whole “Why not let any two people marry for any reason?” nonsense actually based on the notion that these types of marriages would become common if gay marriage is legalized?

What’s stopping those exact ‘marriages’ lucasa warns about from happening now, between a man and a woman? Are we supposed to swallow the notion that our cultures perception of marriage (between two individuals who are in love and want to become a family) is going to so radically change if you allow two homosexual individuals who are in love and want to become a family to do so?

[camdengolf]

The answer to everyone’s problems regarding this issue is “Civil Union.” Personally, I am straight and quite frankly I cant stand being around gay people just because of their personalities, but I also dont like being around a lot of straight people also (annoying, dumb, etc.)… but thats their deal not mine and whatever floats their boat i guess.

However, none of that matters nor should matter regarding law or constitutionality of a law. What really is in debate over this subject is giving Gay couples the same tax benefits and rights that heterosexual couples have. I would have a lot more respect for those fighting to obtain same sex marriage if they would realize that marriage is something heterosexuals celebrate already, why invade their celebration in the first place when you could simply get a Civil Union and enjoy ALL THE SAME tax benefits and rights that married couples enjoy today? Civil Union=Marriage for Gays.

Therefore, this is simply an attack on society for gays to feel accepted and normal, and that is unacceptable. There are other points to be made but this encases it all in a nutshell.

I hope i didnt re-state anything people already said on this topic as i did not read every page (but most i did)

[CappedAndPlanIt]

[quote]camdengolf wrote:

Therefore, this is simply an attack on society for gays to feel accepted and normal, and that is unacceptable.

[/quote]

Nope. Its an attempt at equal rights under the law. (Actually equal rights, including the name.)

[BlueCollarTr8n]

[quote]camdengolf wrote:
The answer to everyone’s problems regarding this issue is “Civil Union.”
Civil Union=Marriage for Gays.
[/quote]

This approach would only fly if the term ‘marriage’ was removed from all law and replaced with the term ‘civil union’. The state/law would recognize only civil unions regardless, and people could proceed to be married by any church they choose, if at all. The Marriage wouldn’t mean shit outside of the couples religious group and all civil unions would be equal.

[lucasa]

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Is this whole “Why not let any two people marry for any reason?” nonsense actually based on the notion that these types of marriages would become common if gay marriage is legalized?[/quote]

I think it’s weird that it doesn’t seem natural to you. Of course a heterosexual male would think it more reasonable to be in a relationship with two females than a male. I think, right now, Charlie Sheen could utter a phrase about multiple marriage rights winning and have 100,000 people in the streets demanding it as a right.

What’s stopping those exact ‘marriages’ lucasa warns about from happening now, between a man and a woman? Are we supposed to swallow the notion that our cultures perception of marriage (between two individuals who are in love and want to become a family) is going to so radically change if you allow two homosexual individuals who are in love and want to become a family to do so?

I think you misunderstand, it’s not a warning because the change has already happened. As Spartacus pointed out, there are thousands of ‘Rights’ that go along with marriage. None of them are about love, sex, living together, or commitment. The majority are about property and/or ownership. The Pope, King, or Czar used to grant annulments or divorces under special circumstances. Now Brittany Spears (and anyone else under the sun) gets married and divorced in a weekend. If this bundling of rights, poorly collected and applied as it is, is so valuable, shouldn’t it be more widespread, clear, and targeted in its application? If it’s not so valuable and cleaved so far from what people commonly perceive as marriage, why have it around at all?

I think marriage could be radically changed to fix its own as well as other social problems. We, to a degree, dictate immigration by family and marital status, why not use marriage more appropriately as a citizenship tool? Why not use the law as a tool rather than perpetuating a schizophrenic vestige compromise? I’m not rosy-eyed, I know that very little of law is well targeted and applied and that there are certainly a LOT of vestiges. That said, I will freely admit to being a zealot about targeting and applying laws well (or in ways that I believe are well).

[lucasa]

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]camdengolf wrote:
The answer to everyone’s problems regarding this issue is “Civil Union.”
Civil Union=Marriage for Gays.
[/quote]

This approach would only fly if the term ‘marriage’ was removed from all law and replaced with the term ‘civil union’. The state/law would recognize only civil unions regardless, and people could proceed to be married by any church they choose, if at all. The Marriage wouldn’t mean shit outside of the couples religious group and all civil unions would be equal.[/quote]

IMO, this only expands the problems, renames them, and devalues any underlying institution. If a man can marry and divorce a Russian bride on a single weekend in Vegas to get her citizenship, why can’t two loving homosexuals marry? IMO, the focus is unduly on the fact that two homosexuals can’t get married (not that it should be ignored) rather than a) someone getting married and divorced in the same weekend is socially nonsensical and b) that a marriage in Vegas (hypothetically) allows someone citizenship.

Moreover, I think changing the legal concept of marriage to affect social structure is going to require more than just a renaming. A man and a woman together with wedding rings on implies marriage while two men or two women with wedding rings on does not. Two men and two women with wedding rings on implies two heterosexual marriages. No amount of renaming marriage is going to change this predisposition or undertone. It will always be there and always be able to be or perceived to be discriminated against. Either take the wedding rings off of everyone or let anyone have them and let them mean something more clearly and usefully defined. It’s going to take a definitive and clear change in the concept.

[CappedAndPlanIt]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

I think it’s weird that it doesn’t seem natural to you. Of course a heterosexual male would think it more reasonable to be in a relationship with two females than a male. I think, right now, Charlie Sheen could utter a phrase about multiple marriage rights winning and have 100,000 people in the streets demanding it as a right.

[/quote]

I can make a case why polyamory is more “natural” than monogamy. But thats not the issue here - the issue is the idea that society as a whole will totally redefine its perception of marriage if both members have a penis.

Before gay marriage:

“Marriage is about falling in love with someone and starting a family. I wouldn’t marry someone unless I loved them and wanted to spend my life with them.”

After gay marriage:

“Anybody can marry anybody! I’m gonna go marry my hairdresser, because I’m bored.”

Do you really think that will happen?

I think you misunderstand, it’s not a warning because the change has already happened. … Now Brittany Spears (and anyone else under the sun) gets married and divorced in a weekend. If this bundling of rights, poorly collected and applied as it is, is so valuable, shouldn’t it be more widespread, clear, and targeted in its application? If it’s not so valuable and cleaved so far from what people commonly perceive as marriage, why have it around at all?

And where was the uproar about Spears just-for-fun marriage, from the “sanctity of marriage” folks?

If marriage is all about children and cohabitation, why not make one or both of those prerequisites? Why is it I could marry a woman I’ve never actually met in person, but a gay man couldnt marry his longterm boyfriend, who he lives with and acts as a family with?

Oh, right, because homosexuals dont produce children “in the aggregate”. Well, infertile couples don’t produce children “in the aggregate”. Elderly couples don’t produce children “in the aggregate”. Nonsexual couples dont produce children “in the aggregate”.

Yet an 80 year old, sterile man and an 80 year old infertile woman, who have never and will never even have sex, can marry (even though they fall three times under the “doesnt produce children in the aggregate” category) but never live together.

But they get grouped in based on the “heterosexual pairing” definition. Fair, right?

[CappedAndPlanIt]

Lucasa, if you support stricter marriage laws to prevent frivolous marriages, divorce, citizenship, etc, and if gay marriage falls under that, then I can understand your opposition to it. I still disagree, but at least you are consistent.

I think bigotry is revealed, however, in the people who have no problem will all other ‘uses’ of marriage, yet scream about the “sanctity of marriage” whenever they start to fear that the law will not continue to agree that “gays are bad and nobody should be gay ever”.

As a side, people like camdengolf seem to get so upset at the idea that homosexuals want to change laws because changing laws will change public opinion. What they dont seem to realize is that the laws in place already do influence public opinion. Any law is going to influence public opinion - dont be naive enough to not see it when those laws influence public opinion in a way you want.

[Spartacus32]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

That’s funny because;

As to why there are no laws governing polygamous marriages in the U.S, there is simply no demand for it. There are not enough polygamous couples pushing for these laws or fighting the constitutionality of not allowing polygamous marriage. The same goes for incestuous marriages.

Sounds rather speculative and distinctly counter to the idea of an ‘inalienable right’. Just because mobs of people aren’t demanding a right means that nobody has that right? Is that what you take away from your study of the Constitution? [/quote]

I wasn’t speculating. In all states, in order to be put on the ballot for an election, a proposition has to receive a certain a certain number of petition signatures which is usually a percentage (usually less than 10%) of people who voted in the last general election. (I don’t know each states requirements and am not looking them up for all 50 states). If a group, lets say polygamists, can’t get the support at least 10% of the voting population (the signers don’t even have to be registered voters usually) then the motion will obviously fail and it is a waste of time to put it on the ballot.

Also, when did I bring up inalienable rights? Inalienable rights are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. The government, through laws and statutes, has the ability to bestow rights upon citizens as long as the laws and statutes (and the rights bestowed by them) do not violate the constitution. It is not REQUIRED to create rights for a group where no rights already exist. Again, using polygamists as an example, since most of the rights and benefits bestowed by a legal marriage cannot be awarded to multiple spouses, they cannot be legally married in the U.S. and it is not a violation of the constitution to deny them these rights. They can still be married by their church. If polygamists desire legal rights to be associated with their marriage, they have to go through the process of getting those laws passed. It is not the governments responsibility to create these laws. As to how this applies to homosexual marriages, ALL of the 1138 rights and benefits of a legal marriages can be bestowed upon a homosexual couple. As such, it is unconstitutional to deny these rights to homosexual couples (or any marriage consisting of two citizens capable of signing legal documents on their own behalf). That is why in every case that has been brought before a federal court, it has been declared unconstitutional (the matter has to be brought up in a court case. Judges can’t just start declaring laws unconstitutional when they feel like it)

Also, it’s becoming rather clear that you are a coward. When asked what you think marriage should be, what the point of marriage is, you provide the paper trail of the very thing you claim to be broken. You are too scared to actually solve any problem with marriage, you just want to put more pen to paper with a gov’t letterhead. I’m against that.

I have never once been asked what I think about what I think marriage should be or what the point of marriage is. Furthermore, I have stated that I am only arguing the subject of legality and constitutionality of the subject. What your (and my) own personal beliefs on marriage are is immaterial. Most people seem to be opposed to gay marriage based on religious beliefs (I don’t know if you are or not, I am just giving an example). This is fine. The government cannot force a church to allow homosexuals to marry and if the homosexuals and their supporters were trying to pass a law to that affect, I would be arguing the constitutionality of that too. I am leaving my personal beliefs out of my arguments because opinions and beliefs by their very nature are not logical or based on reason but somehow I am a coward because of this.

ANY citizen?

Looking at most of what you’ve posted, it’s pretty clear that you want marriage “rights” for homosexuals. What you’ve also made clear is that you don’t give a damn about who you exclude from the same ‘rights’ or why, you don’t care about who or what you trample in your quest to ‘attain’ these ‘rights’ or why, and you don’t care about any consequences of your trampling. You’re clearly a zealot as much as any Christian.

Why did you put rights in parenthesis? Are you implying that marriage rights don’t exist? As to
the matter of excluding other groups, I haven’t excluded anybody. I have argued for the rights of legal marriage for homosexuals because HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE IS ONE OF THE MAIN TOPICS OF THIS THREAD. When somebody brought up other groups that were possibly seeking marriage rights, I presented my arguments as to why the groups can or cannot receive the rights of a legal marriage as it is currently defined by the law and if it is constitutional do deny the groups those rights. You even quoted the very post where I presented those arguments above so I know you read it so now you are just making shit up. Also, whose rights are being trampled here? Homosexual marriage will not change heterosexual marriage one bit.

[forlife]

[quote]camdengolf wrote:
The answer to everyone’s problems regarding this issue is “Civil Union.” Personally, I am straight and quite frankly I cant stand being around gay people just because of their personalities, but I also dont like being around a lot of straight people also (annoying, dumb, etc.)… but thats their deal not mine and whatever floats their boat i guess.

However, none of that matters nor should matter regarding law or constitutionality of a law. What really is in debate over this subject is giving Gay couples the same tax benefits and rights that heterosexual couples have. I would have a lot more respect for those fighting to obtain same sex marriage if they would realize that marriage is something heterosexuals celebrate already, why invade their celebration in the first place when you could simply get a Civil Union and enjoy ALL THE SAME tax benefits and rights that married couples enjoy today? Civil Union=Marriage for Gays.

Therefore, this is simply an attack on society for gays to feel accepted and normal, and that is unacceptable. There are other points to be made but this encases it all in a nutshell.

I hope i didnt re-state anything people already said on this topic as i did not read every page (but most i did)[/quote]

First, I’m glad you support equal federal and state benefits for gay couples.

The California Supreme Court ruled that restricting the term “marriage” to straight couples creates a separate but equal status which violates equal rights. It’s like requiring mixed raced couples to call their union something different than marriage, back when anti-miscegenation laws were on the books. Personally, I don’t care what you call it, but I can understand and support those who do.

[forlife]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Is this whole “Why not let any two people marry for any reason?” nonsense actually based on the notion that these types of marriages would become common if gay marriage is legalized?[/quote]

I think it’s weird that it doesn’t seem natural to you. Of course a heterosexual male would think it more reasonable to be in a relationship with two females than a male. I think, right now, Charlie Sheen could utter a phrase about multiple marriage rights winning and have 100,000 people in the streets demanding it as a right.

What’s stopping those exact ‘marriages’ lucasa warns about from happening now, between a man and a woman? Are we supposed to swallow the notion that our cultures perception of marriage (between two individuals who are in love and want to become a family) is going to so radically change if you allow two homosexual individuals who are in love and want to become a family to do so?

I think you misunderstand, it’s not a warning because the change has already happened. As Spartacus pointed out, there are thousands of ‘Rights’ that go along with marriage. None of them are about love, sex, living together, or commitment. The majority are about property and/or ownership. The Pope, King, or Czar used to grant annulments or divorces under special circumstances. Now Brittany Spears (and anyone else under the sun) gets married and divorced in a weekend. If this bundling of rights, poorly collected and applied as it is, is so valuable, shouldn’t it be more widespread, clear, and targeted in its application? If it’s not so valuable and cleaved so far from what people commonly perceive as marriage, why have it around at all?

I think marriage could be radically changed to fix its own as well as other social problems. We, to a degree, dictate immigration by family and marital status, why not use marriage more appropriately as a citizenship tool? Why not use the law as a tool rather than perpetuating a schizophrenic vestige compromise? I’m not rosy-eyed, I know that very little of law is well targeted and applied and that there are certainly a LOT of vestiges. That said, I will freely admit to being a zealot about targeting and applying laws well (or in ways that I believe are well).[/quote]

If marriage were only used as a citizenship tool, would you support marriage for gays?

[lucasa]

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:

Before gay marriage:

“Marriage is about falling in love with someone and starting a family. I wouldn’t marry someone unless I loved them and wanted to spend my life with them.”[/quote]

I think you’re being simplistic and naive. Originally (waaayy before gay marriage) marriage had little to nothing to do with love. Pretty directly a vehicle to transfer wealth and power through women. It was co-opted by the Church as social check on royalty, the love of Christ was baked in. The public portrayal of marriage in the '50s was hardly based upon love (unless you presume women love nothing but having kids, cooking, cleaning house, and doing laundry). Arranged marriage is older and than Western Marriage and arguably has little to do with love or starting a family.

[quote]After gay marriage:

“Anybody can marry anybody! I’m gonna go marry my hairdresser, because I’m bored.”

Do you really think that will happen?[/quote]

Not quite as trivial as a hairdresser because of boredom, but this already does happen. Also, you (to me) portray it as though I’m talking about the day after gay marriage is sanctioned, I’m not. Swinging was a little bit before my time, but I can only presume that since the 60s the absolute number of swinging couples has only gone up. People hold Greece up as a model of a society that condoned homosexuals. The Spartans were notably polyandrous rather than monogamous or homosexual. Additionally, I’ve seen other fads or zeitgeists come and go, I don’t know why some wouldn’t come back.

I think you’re being naive to think that some ultra-liberal coven, ultra-conservative LDS church, or ultra-crazy celebrity won’t bring the issue up ever.

And where was the uproar about Spears just-for-fun marriage, from the “sanctity of marriage” folks?

AHEM In case you missed it, I’m STILL complaining about it.

Oh, right, because homosexuals dont produce children “in the aggregate”. Well, infertile couples don’t produce children “in the aggregate”. Elderly couples don’t produce children “in the aggregate”. Nonsexual couples dont produce children “in the aggregate”.

Umm… maybe you haven’t understood the part where I say common law marriage, based around lengthy stable cohabitation without respect to sex, reproduction, or number of participants is a better idea than homosexual and/or heterosexual marriage?

What part of not living together and not bearing/raising children typifies any concept of ‘love’, ‘marriage’, or ‘family’ to you? Why should three asexual women raising a child together be excluded from marriage but two gay men who keep separate homes with no kids be allowed to marry? Why should an irrelevant relative have rights to children or property that an au pair who cared for them doesn’t? Especially when it’s so easy to extend the benefits to everyone while simultaneously raising the bar on the quality of the institution.

But they get grouped in based on the “heterosexual pairing” definition. Fair, right?

I don’t think you’re reading what I’m saying. If you are, you’re not digesting it and thinking about the larger ideas behind it. You said;

“Marriage is about falling in love with someone and starting a family. I wouldn’t marry someone unless I loved them and wanted to spend my life with them.”

But the law makes no mention of the duration (actual or intentional) of a marriage, there’s no stipulation as to the ‘with them’, and love is completely absent. So the law heterosexual or homosexual isn’t talking about your concept of marriage. If it’s doesn’t really represent the concept you outlined, why keep it?

Interestingly, in your example with ‘love’, ‘family’, and ‘with them’ nowhere is there a mention of a finite limit of participants, let alone two. I don’t mean to insinuate anything about you, more point out that an off-the-cuff generalization of marriage didn’t contain the idea of “ONLY them” or “just us together”.

EDIT: Posted this, THEN read your 12:52 post.

[lucasa]

[quote]forlife wrote:

If marriage were only used as a citizenship tool, would you support marriage for gays?[/quote]

If the application of the tool trivialized citizenship, no. If the application of the tool applied only to people participating in homosexual acts and no one else, no. Otherwise, yes to gays and anyone else who fit the criteria.

[forlife]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

If marriage were only used as a citizenship tool, would you support marriage for gays?[/quote]

If the application of the tool trivialized citizenship, no. If the application of the tool applied only to people participating in homosexual acts and no one else, no. Otherwise, yes to gays and anyone else who fit the criteria.[/quote]

That sounds fair. Marriage actually already includes several important benefits along those lines, like citizenship rights, immigration rights, green card qualification, etc.

[lucasa]

[quote]Spartacus32 wrote:

Something. [/quote]

Either your occupation or the internet has robbed you of your ability to think and interact. You appear too cowardly to express your opinion freely on the internet, even when asked. Apparently all you can do is effectively quote rule of law.

[lucasa]

[quote]forlife wrote:

That sounds fair. Marriage actually already includes several important benefits along those lines, like citizenship rights, immigration rights, green card qualification, etc.[/quote]

I know marriage currently includes those things and I think it trivializes the citizenship to a degree. We can make people wait to exercise their right to own a firearm, why not their ‘right to marry’?

[Spartacus32]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]Spartacus32 wrote:

Something. [/quote]

Either your occupation or the internet has robbed you of your ability to think and interact. You appear too cowardly to express your opinion freely on the internet, even when asked. Apparently all you can do is effectively quote rule of law.[/quote]

My opinion has no effect on the point I was making. The subject of the OP was both a legal and a constitutional matter, so I argued using my knowledge of the law and not my personal opinion of homosexuals. Since you keep pressing for my opinion, though, I will state that I am against homosexuality. I am not going to present my reasons why I am of this opinion in this thread as the purpose of the thread was not about whether homosexuality is right or not. If someone decides to start a thread on that topic, I will present my reasons there. I happen to believe in the constitution of this country which is why I do not allow my personal beliefs and opinions to lead me to try and deny anybody their constitutional rights.

As to your comment in an earlier post about my not offering a solution to the marriage problem, I would like to see all legal rights and benefits associated with marriage done away with and have the subject of marriage be a completely religious one. Since this is not likely to ever happen, I offer arguments as to what should be done that are within the realm of possibility; hence, my support of legally allowing homosexuals to marry.

[Spartacus32]

[quote]lucasa wrote:

IMO, this only expands the problems, renames them, and devalues any underlying institution. If a man can marry and divorce a Russian bride on a single weekend in Vegas to get her citizenship, why can’t two loving homosexuals marry? IMO, the focus is unduly on the fact that two homosexuals can’t get married (not that it should be ignored) rather than a) someone getting married and divorced in the same weekend is socially nonsensical and b) that a marriage in Vegas (hypothetically) allows someone citizenship.

[/quote]

There are actually laws and regulations regarding using marriage to immigrate to the U.S. The Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments of 1986 placed a 2 year probationary period on allowing an immigrant to keep permanent residency status. If the marriage is dissolved during this period, the immigrant is not allowed to keep their residency status. Also, during this time period the Citizenship and Immigration Service can and does conduct an investigation to conclude the couple is maintaining a relationship. Things the couple will need to prove include a shared language and possibly religion, shared finances and government benefits, shared property, shared vacations, and individual interviews where personal questions must be answered. If you have seen the Ryan Reynolds movie The Proposal the process described is very similar to what happens in real life.