LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

But then you have to define "persons" which is pretty much the same thing anyway.

Eh, not necessarily. A child is a person but they can't consent and hence can't marry.

edited 5th Nov '12 3:24:52 PM by LoniJay

Yes, hence they'd fail the consenting bit. Children can not consent.

That's... what I just said?

My point was, it can't just be 'people', it has to be 'people capable of giving informed consent'.

Ok, how about "mature consenting sapient beings"?

Mature in this case meaning old enough to be considered an adult by their species standards. I'm covering all the bases. Robots can take a test or something.

I'm still saying human needs to be there until we actually find fuckable aliens.

If we do that we'll go through all this malarkey again when we do. Trust me, it will save time and effort in the long run to get a definition that will work for any reasonable situation we may encounter in years to come.

edited 5th Nov '12 3:44:27 PM by Elfive

If it's going to be "any number of any beings of any species or sex or lack thereof, that are able to give informed consent of any kind", then why not just abolish civil marriage and be done with it?

edited 5th Nov '12 3:47:20 PM by lordGacek

Tax purposes, mostly.

As far as I see it, "informed consent" is the only important bit.

edited 5th Nov '12 3:49:34 PM by Elfive

So it's just a tax cut in exchange for declaring that you intend to spend at least some time with certain people?

edited 5th Nov '12 3:53:49 PM by lordGacek

So it's just a tax cut in exchange for declaring that you intend to spend at least some time with certain people?

What? What?!!...What.

Am I the only person who thinks marriage will mean something even if us godless sodomites are allowed to participate in it?

edited 5th Nov '12 4:00:18 PM by Morgikit

Who said anything about godless sodomites? If, as it's been said, it's mostly taxes, then I ask, why bother inventing ever broader definitions at all, and just deal away with it, instead?

Marriage: Its all about the taxes.

Not as romantic as the notion I grew up with.

edited 5th Nov '12 4:10:18 PM by DeviantBraeburn

I just find it a bit suspicious that now that non-heterosexuals might be allowed to participate, all of the sudden it's just a tax thing with no meaning so let's get rid of it.

That.

edited 5th Nov '12 4:23:49 PM by Morgikit

Its always been a tax thing. Were just now honest about it.

Although I don't think we should get rid of it.

It's not just a tax thing. It's inheritance rights. It's medical visitation. It's custody. It's being able to make certain that your children are taken care of in case one of you dies. It's a lot of things. Not just taxes.

I think you can do this without marriage.

I'll have the law books/The Internet.

edited 5th Nov '12 4:25:26 PM by DeviantBraeburn

I'd put it this way, the issue of gay marriage made me put my mind to the nature of civil marriage in general.

So — why make it a marriage? Love does not need a state endorsement, at least last time I checked. Is it any difference if the deal about giving the preference in inheritance to someone isn't called "marriage", then?

edited 5th Nov '12 4:28:42 PM by lordGacek

Without marriage, if you've got kids and you die, their closest kin will become their legal guardians. If someone adopts a child and isn't married to their partner, their partner has no legal right to become the child's guardian upon the child's adoptive parent's death like they would in a married couple.

Essentially, marriage gives both partners dual adoptive parent status; without it, the only legal guardian is the one under whose name the child was adopted.

edited 5th Nov '12 4:31:27 PM by Kotep

!!!! That may have been the most hilarious thing I've ever seen on the internet.

But rest assured, they haven't taken all the nice-looking black men.

Edit: I nominate Barkey's post 4909 on this thread as one of the top 25 most epically awesome posts in TV Tropes history.

edited 6th Nov '12 11:20:04 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

It's not my best work. There's a redundant "it" in there that I didn't correct.

Are you saying that you favor a healthy admixture of fair means with the foul? That's a handsome concession, but I'm not sure it's as much a relief as you intended. If semantic end-runs around the existing legal verbiage, or judicial end-runs around the existing legislation, remain tools in the toolbox, your willingness to do things through commonly accepted means (when it will serve the purpose) fails to impress. And depending on how one means to "change the existing legal term" and "challenge the law ... in the courts," that's what it would amount to.

Now, I could be misreading you badly, and if so, I apologize. However, the current debate—and this very thread—has been dominated by adolescents of all ages who are frank in their contempt for footling concerns like the rule of law, when compared to their personal readings of what justice requires. Consider the history of measures such as Prop 8: the contempt for playing by the same rules as everyone else has been palpable, and continues to be so. For all the fine talk of "LGBTQ activists" about rights, no one gauche enough to differ from them—religious people abundantly included—believes that their respect for anyone's rights extends a micrometer beyond the point at which their own advantage ends.

You may say that the intemperate words and actions of certain silly fundamentalists have damaged their side's credibility and moral capital, and there's something to that. But for someone who started with less of both, the other side's burned through theirs even more quickly for my money. If you eventually receive no more benefit of the doubt from citizens at large than you'd afford the foamiest evangelicals, don't be shocked.

Your position of superior intellect no doubt enables you to label many people participating in this thread "Adolescent".

Mine allows me to label you as arrogant.

So, as far as I can tell from your rather.. odd writing style, you think that we are wrong for wanting to change the laws, simply because it's "Fair" enough already?

A man and a woman can marry. Everyone can marry someone. That's fair?

Proposition Straight was a mistake. As are all other such attempts to enforce "traditional" marriages as the only valid ones. Equality treatment before the law should not be up to popular vote.

Traditional marriage is trading your daughter for goats. This new-fangled "love" thing came about in much more recent times.