Iowa District Court Rules Gay Marriage Legal

[HoreTore]

Just one thing here, Andres: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then isn't it a duck? You're basically saying "we'll give you this other title and it'll let you do all the things of marriage, but it won't actually be marriage".

Why not give EVERYONE that title as far as the state is concerned, and then let any other titles be decided by the religious group they belong to?

That would mean also mean that if a gay group starts The Big Gay Church of America, they're free to get people married...

But to the state, it won't matter at all what its called. Just as it should be, IMO.

[Crazed Rabbit]

They have equal rights already. They want more rights than anyone else has now.

Tax breaks are to encourage marriage therefore a stable environment for children, which gay couples don't, shall we say, provide.

"we don't need to" is not an explanation.

FWIW I think we don't need to is plenty good of an explanation for saying why the government should not do something.

CR

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Perhaps you should have read on:


EDIT:

Because Marriage has between about a man and a woman. It's a about a man and a woman coming together because they love each other, and to provide for the raising of children. Yes, not all couples have kids, that's irrelevant to the intention of marriage.

Gay marriage would cheapen the idea and tradition of marriage, and cheapen and degrade the bonds of family and marriage.

CR

Are you serious? Two things. "has been" and tradition are not valid reasons. If theres a good reason behind the tradition then explain it. I really don't know what to say about "cheapen and degrade". To cheapen something you have to add something of less worth, which your saying is the same sex unions. Wow.

FWIW I think we don't need to is plenty good of an explanation for saying why the government should not do something.

They didn't need to implement the do not call list either. If it was already legal, would you argue for it being made illegal?


Just to be clear, I'm not talking about the government or laws or tradition, I'm asking why you personally think it's wrong.

[Papewaio]

Tax breaks are to encourage marriage therefore a stable environment for children, which gay couples don't, shall we say, provide.

I think that is very old fashioned to say that the crux of marriage is to provide children. Are they supposed to provide alliances too? Is sex purely for procreation, and if that idea is so... isn't that mixing church and state as that is an idealogy of some (larger) churches (but certainly not all)

If we cherish this idea that marriage is purely a stable environment for children and that we give tax breaks to encourage such:
Until a couple has children they should get no tax breaks, nor should they get any of the other benefits of marriage such as pension and hospital visitation rights. One should after all only get paid for work done, not promises made.

I can just see all those childless couples, some because of genetics or health, others because they are saving money for thier first house before having a litter of children... are these in the same category as childless gay couples? Or is it still a gay only thing?

Now as for a stable environment. Who determines this? Do you want the government to license and vet who is and isn't fit to be a parent? Do you want to have to complete a uni degree in parenting and procreation (with pracs) before being licensed to be a parent? Do we remove all marriage licenses from people who have commited criminal acts? Are gays automatically criminals and hence not worthy?

Lots of strawman arguments.

But the essence is this. What differentiates a gay couple from a sterile one?

[HoreTore]

Tax breaks are to encourage marriage therefore a stable environment for children, which gay couples don't, shall we say, provide.

So, you fully support removing that tax break(and I'm sure a few others) for straight couples who choose not to have any children?

[Soulforged]

Why?

Two reasons that I can think of right now. 1- Language simplicity, when using legal technical terms or otherwise natural terms, refering to two different objects the same way creates the need for the use of adjectives, wich are unnecesary otherwise. For instance we know right now that if two people are married in the State of Brazil those two people are heterosexual and we don't need to call their union "heterosexual marriage".
2- Semantics, for there to be marriage you must have at least one mother. Just as the "patrimony" refers to the stock of goods under a persons property, "matrimony" refers to the union of a man and a woman under the rules of a certain institution.

There's no substantial issue at all considering that, for me, marriage or not, every sane and mature couple should have the same rights as any married couple. But the thing is that calling it marriage will cause some problems, perhaps not in Iowa or the US as a whole (I don't remember seeing the institution defined within the Constitution), but for example in my country the Constitution defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. So to avoid unnecesary problems we should seek for an easy identifiable term and intuitive like Civil Union, in which the sex of the couple would not matter.

I agree that the religeous component of marriage is for the respective religion to decide - this has nothing to do with the main point of the discussion in this thread though.

I only told that to clarify my perspective and also to prove that using the same term for two different things will bring obscurity to the language.

You might not consider this reasons sufficient, or even relevant, but in my opinion they're, I'm always for language clarity, everytime I see somebody write like "u r th 1" I ...

Just one thing here, Andres: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then isn't it a duck? You're basically saying "we'll give you this other title and it'll let you do all the things of marriage, but it won't actually be marriage".

It doesn't exactly looks like a duck now does it?

[Crazed Rabbit]

Are you serious? Two things. "has been" and tradition are not valid reasons. If theres a good reason behind the tradition then explain it.

Living in a stable household helps children, and marriage is a sort of cement between two people. When you marry something, you're committing to something, unlike just moving in with someone.

I really don't know what to say about "cheapen and degrade". To cheapen something you have to add something of less worth, which your saying is the same sex unions. Wow.

Yes.

What differentiates a gay couple from a sterile one?

Gee, maybe because one is a man-woman couple and the other isn't?

So, you fully support removing that tax break(and I'm sure a few others) for straight couples who choose not to have any children?

I don't like the idea of an income tax at all. But to answer your question; tax breaks allow a couple to save and prepare for a child before its even born.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about the government or laws or tradition, I'm asking why you personally think it's wrong.

Homosexual unions offer nothing to society, and I believe homosexual acts are wrong. Marriage between a man and a woman is the foundation in the civilized world for the continuation of mankind.

CR

[Soulforged]

Living in a stable household helps children, and marriage is a sort of cement between two people. When you marry something, you're committing to something, unlike just moving in with someone.

Jesus, again with that? How many times facts have to prove a certain person wrong before he desists?

Sexual orientation doesn't affect children

I don't mean any offense CR but you're seriously stubborn on this issue.

PS: Yes I've not posted many other studies in wich it says the contrary, but I've seen homosexual couples taking care of children just fine...

[Boyar Son]

Does marriage says its only for man and woman? (seriously does it its a ?)

if it is then its an unrespected rule. if it does not say man-woman only than theres actually no reason for the government to stop them (other than neocon reasons and religion which is about the same in some cases)

[Lemur]

Living in a stable household helps children, and marriage is a sort of cement between two people. When you marry something, you're committing to something, unlike just moving in with someone.

If you're seriously concerned with the well-being of children, you should look long and hard at divorce rates. Divorce does more harm to children than all of the gay men in recorded history. And no, I don't have a link to back that up, but common sense will show you the way.

Divorce is the big evil, not gay marriage. I suspect the truth of the matter is that your concern for children is a smokescreen for the ick factor.

[Soulforged]

Divorce is the big evil, not gay marriage. I suspect the truth of the matter is that your concern for children is a smokescreen for the ick factor.

I suspect he's against divorce as much as he's against gay marriage.

[Lemur]

Yes, well, the correlation between divorce and gay marriage is inverse, whereas the correlation between divorce and red states is direct. It's something that gets lost in the argument, especially when the "protect the children!" and "protect the families!" memes get trotted out. (There is no idea, no matter how scatterbrained or unsupported by evidence, that cannot succeed in American politics if you just wrap it in "protect the children!")

As researchers have noted, the areas of the country where divorce rates are highest are also frequently the areas where many conservative Christians live.

Kentucky, Mississippi and Arkansas, for example, voted overwhelmingly for constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage. But they had three of the highest divorce rates in 2003, based on figures from the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics.

The lowest divorce rates are largely in the blue states: the Northeast and the upper Midwest. And the state with the lowest divorce rate was Massachusetts, home to John Kerry, the Kennedys and same-sex marriage.

In 2003, the rate in Massachusetts was 5.7 divorces per 1,000 married people, compared with 10.8 in Kentucky, 11.1 in Mississippi and 12.7 in Arkansas.

"Some people are saying, 'The Bible Belt is so pro-marriage, but gee, they have the highest divorce rates in the country,' " said Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. "And there's a lot of worry in the red states about the high rate of divorce."

[Boyar Son]

Jesus, again with that? How many times facts have to prove a certain person wrong before he desists?

Sexual orientation doesn't affect children

those articles dont take me anywhere 2 of 'em "file not found" and 1 web page cannot be found.

[Soulforged]

those articles dont take me anywhere 2 of 'em "file not found" and 1 web page cannot be found.

Oops!! It worked the first time I saw it...Though to tell everyone the truth I was mostly convinced before that and then I saw Penn & Teller on this subject...

There's other links and sources scattered on the net, but that has nothing to do with the subject, so I'll just drop it...

[Ironside]

If you're seriously concerned with the well-being of children, you should look long and hard at divorce rates. Divorce does more harm to children than all of the gay men in recorded history. And no, I don't have a link to back that up, but common sense will show you the way.

Divorce is the big evil, not gay marriage. I suspect the truth of the matter is that your concern for children is a smokescreen for the ick factor.

Actually, it's trickier than that. Parents quarreling often is very bad for the child and in that case divorce is better than staying together "for the sake of the children".

[HoreTore]

Living in a stable household helps children, and marriage is a sort of cement between two people. When you marry something, you're committing to something, unlike just moving in with someone.

You don't think unmarried people are committing to anything? My father isn't married now, and he will never marry again. His partner share the same view. However, they will(at least probably) live together for the rest of their lives. How can you say that he isn't committing to his relationship?

I don't like the idea of an income tax at all. But to answer your question; tax breaks allow a couple to save and prepare for a child before its even born.

But the question was a couple who won't have any children AT ALL, simply because they don't want any. How is that different from a homosexual relationship? And do note that there are plenty of homosexual relationships WITH children... It's not very hard to visit a sperm bank, you know.

Homosexual unions offer nothing to society, and I believe homosexual acts are wrong. Marriage between a man and a woman is the foundation in the civilized world for the continuation of mankind.

I feel I must apologize for your extremely close-minded view of things, and I hope you will see things differently one day.

[Lemur]

Lots of men today are roommates in apartments or at college; it would be equally absurd to think that means they are gay. It's equivalent to seeing a apartment contract, seeing that two men are the cosigners, and assuming they are gay.

Sorry I failed to address this bit of sophistry earlier. Note that the "brotherments" found by the researcher also include unified finances and property. When's the last time you shared your bank account with your roommate? When's the last time you bought property with your roommate?

Well, who knows, maybe you did. After all, you are a Republican adamantly opposed to gay marriage. That position doesn't have a good track record.

[Samurai Waki]

Heh. Arguing that the reason why gays can't get married because of tradition or because it isn't right, is like saying whether you believe in equality or not.

[Productivity]

They have equal rights already. They want more rights than anyone else has now.

This logic falls down. If they have equal rights allready, ie. a gay man has every right to marry a woman, giving a gay man the right to marry another man does nothing to create more rights as a straight man can also then marry a man if he so chooses. The fact that the straight man would be unlikely to excercise that right does not man that he does not have that right, if you argue the same thing for gay men.

I don't like the idea of an income tax at all. But to answer your question; tax breaks allow a couple to save and prepare for a child before its even born.

You haven't addressed how this differs from a sterile couple. Your logic is bang on until you hit that hurdle.

Homosexual unions offer nothing to society, and I believe homosexual acts are wrong. Marriage between a man and a woman is the foundation in the civilized world for the continuation of mankind.

You're confounding two seperate arguments here - whether homosexual acts are wrong and whether homosexual unions offer nothing to society. I can think of a number of acts that would offer plenty to society but are morally wrong. Somethings inherent morality does nothing to reflect it's utilitarian value to society.

As for marriage in a traditional sense being the foundation of the civilised world, I thought it was the scientific tradition, enlightened debate etc.
100 years ago someone could have easily put that men only voting is the basis of the progress of mankind, you could do the same with slavery etc. To attempt to claim that any one institution is the foundation of civilisation as we know it is to inflate that one issue beyond all recognition in terms of importance and hardly shows strong reasoning.

[Lemur]

Productivity, I would take it from a slightly more specific angle:

The family is the smallest unit of civilization, and therefore the most important. This is why it's frustrating that so many "pro-family" people are dead-set against allowing homosexuals to form, um, families. People who are in long-term committed relationships make different choices than people who are perpetually single. Compare Hugh Heffner to any responsible family man, and you'll see what I mean.

Families are generally more conducive to the things that make our society tick -- paying taxes, not breaking laws, bearing personal responsibility, planning for the future, etc. Any attempt to stifle the formation of families is, in fact, destructive.

[Xiahou]

This logic falls down. If they have equal rights allready, ie. a gay man has every right to marry a woman, giving a gay man the right to marry another man does nothing to create more rights as a straight man can also then marry a man if he so chooses. The fact that the straight man would be unlikely to excercise that right does not man that he does not have that right, if you argue the same thing for gay men.

All you're saying is that same sex marriage would not be discriminatory in itself. So long as being homosexual isn't a requirement, you'd be right. But saying same sex marriage is not discriminatory is not the same as saying that male/female marriage is discriminatory. This has been my point all along and why I feel the courts should stay out of the issue and allow it to be resolved in the political arena.

[Lemur]

I feel the courts should stay out of the issue and allow it to be resolved in the political arena.

This is a very valid point. Look at Roe v Wade -- a court imposed abortion rights on the entire nation, and we've been enduring the fallout ever since. I feel confident that if the abortion debate had been left in the political arena, we would have wound up with a reasonable compromise over time. No late-term abortions, counseling, expanded adoption efforts, and clean, legal help for first-trimester abortions.

Instead it was treated as a "right" by the courts, a one-size-fits-all solution was applied, and the subject has been a hot-flash of anger for much of the U.S. ever since. (I don't believe the extreme right would have gained so much power in this country if the Supreme Court had not imposed Roe v Wade, for what it's worth.)

Gay rights will progress, but they need to do so in the political arena, not the courts. This is not the moral equivalent of slavery, where we need to impose a unified solution with an army. (Note that many Southerners are still bitter about that as well.)

I'm all for gradualism.