NJ Allows Gay Something
 

The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled[pdf] that gays deserve equal rights under the law, but you don't have to call it "marriage".

If it satisfies some fundies that a different word is used, I suppose that's fine. Everyone will use the word "marriage" colloquially anyway.

yippee. So now 50% of GAY couples can get divorced; just like straight ones.
I say ban ALL marriage! :D

Oh lord, now more soldiers will die and children will be having sex with their pets and probably the clocks will run backwards for an half hour this weekend.
Woe is me. :right:

Benito Martinez Abrogan died earlier in October. At the age of 119 (19 Jun 2005), god forced him to "tripping the light fantastic with any young nurse he could grab". Clearly god was punishing Benito because he attributed his long life to "He never married". As others have noted, the purpose of a penis is to procreate kids. He did not do that. Therefore he was punished.

God also hates gays. Therefore let them marry. Then they too will die from a torture called marriage. Sooner we kill off more gays by using marriage, then the fewer problems we will have from those evil people. Clearly there are too many gays living only because they cannot marry. Deny them marriage and they too might live to 120.

I just graduated from the Karl Rove School of Logic. Now I need a spokesman to say these things for me. Does George Jr have a brother?

Colorado actually has a proposal on its ballot to allow same sex couples to make legally binding contracts with one another. Such a contract would confer most of the things that a regular marriage would confer, but it would be called a civil union or something - NOT marriage.

Right after that is a proposal that would make "marriage" a union between a male and a female, only.

Poor Colorado! So far from God, so close to Focus on the Family!

I keep hearing this argument against gay marriage and everytime I want to hear the debate continued.

If the reason for denying gay couples to marry is that marriage is for procreation and same-sex couples cannot possibly procreate ... does that mean you would deny an infertile heterosexual couple the right to marry?

Can anyone tell me what the standard response to that would be?

(cue angry mob with burning torches)

Well, Bush has already popped out a few quotes. This might actually mean a few points for Republicans on election day.:mad:

If you get married and don't have kids, then you should be jailed. After all, marriage is from the procreation of kids. We must enforce morality on infidels.

Is anything government controlled actually refered to as 'marriage'? I was under the impression that the government issued certificates for what constitues civil union but that the word marriage was just used colloquially to avoid confusion.
Also, who is really specifying the difference in terms here? Is the government going to make sure they have a record of all homosexual couples so that no worker accidently calls them 'married' vs 'civil unioned' (or whatever)?

Perfect. No objections here.

I'm not sure what's on the certificate, but there are a lot of government forms that offer a choice of married/single/divorced/widowed.
The only thing not calling it "marriage" will do, besides placating some of the fundies, is add a few otherwise unnecessary words to government forms.

Unless they take a snapshot of all marriage rights, and write a parallel law for gays, and then let that lag behind if there are any changes. That could be a pain.

The only problem I have with that arrangement is that it reeks of 'seperate but equal' to me.

If they do it as a parallel law, then it is.

Before I got married, I had to get a "marriage license". After I got married, the only proof I had that I was, in fact, married was a "marriage certificate". I was married in a church, but I don't have something from the government saying that I am in a civil union, and a seperate something from the church saying I am married.

I think it's the religious folks who don't want the word "marriage" used. Seems it somehow dilutes the definition of marriage, although the old-time Judeo-Christian definition of marriage certainly didn't exclude multiple wives. ;)

Seems to me that *everyone* should have to get a civil union. If you want to take the additional step of getting married (presumabley in a church), that should be at one's (and one's church's) option.

That's something that doesn't seem right at all. I know it's marriage and not something like a restaurant or a school district, but still... we all know what happens when our government is trusted with equality.

Besides, there isn't much argument against gay marriage that isn't religious. The only atheist I've ever met that isn't for gay marriage (but is for "civil unions") said that it was dangerous not because of the shitty animal marriage concerns, but because of the polygamists.

The difference between them is that polygamy IS a behavioral choice, and that homosexuality is, by all scientific evidence, biological.

I don't agree with that analysis at all, you say that polygamy is an active choice? What are the grounds for that? If you say that someone should just be happy with a single spouce then I can make the argument that someone should just be happy with a partner of the opposite sex. Even putting aside the issue of choice, it's going to be open and shut to get polygamy passed from a legalistic point of reference, which is really the only thing that matters here. I think we're going to see alot of the same people who called gay marriage dissenters bigots go out of their way now to smear polygamists as much as possible. One of the strongest arguments against gay marriage is the fact that one you put it into law it sets all the legal precidents needed to forge ahead with polygamous marriage. What's really going to make me sick is when liberals start using family values and scare tactics to make polygamy look like a cult in order to side step the issue that it is the logical continuation.

I'm against polygamy on a moral basis, but I think making it legal would be the right thing to do, as long as it's carefully checked for abuse and all the other assorted filth that often goes along with it. Having multiple spouses, okay. Abusing them or their children, NOT okay.

Of course, so what you're saying is that they should be governed by the same rules as the rest of us then...

Exactly. No restrictions on who you marry (or, i guess, how many), but the same restrictions on what you can do after that as anyone else.

I wonder if this is going to have any impact on the benefits extended to couples with children, and how the paperwork is handled. Beyond just adding a few checkboxes to the forms, do you think that fewer and fewer perks are going to be tossed at parents? Maybe it's not as bad as it looks, it may start to turn back the trend of the educated classes having 1.2 kids while Mr. Woodsman goes home to his family of 12.:rolleyes:

I don't see what polygamy and gay marriage have in common. I don't see why there is or should be any connection between the legislation of gay marriage and polygamy.

The arguments for them are generally the same. 'Consenting adults should be able to marry who they want.' Can you think of an argument that makes polygamy inherently wrong, as long as all of the adults involved are consenting?

Well I don't see anything inherantly wrong with either, so I see the point now. Thanks. I had no idea that was the main argument against it.

In response to everything that was said after my post:

You know, this is going to sound false, but I mean it. You guys have kind of changed my mind. It isn't fair for any consenting adults to be restricted in their affections, emotional, physical or otherwise.

The government should have no power over consenting relations.

The gummint doesn't have any power over consenting relations (in most states), but it has the ability to restrict a set of rights.

To the state, a marriage is a financial and legal partnership. To deny this partnership to any two individuals is wrong, but the state can call it whatever it wants to.

As for the polylove argument: that such partnerships simply can't be three-way, seems much more logical than to say a legal partnership can't be made between two people of the same sex. The legal difficulties of a three-way partnership are mind-boggling to start.

Yeah, the legality of it is what matters. I don't think many people are pushing for religiously recognized same-sex marriage. Then again, I could be wrong.

I don't understand polygamy, which I suppose would give me more license to research it than to condemn it. That would be pretty hard to govern, but at the same time, the more I think about it, the more it just seems like another consenting relationship.

That's the main word, consent.

Ugh, just try to imagine a polygamist divorce: Joe wants to divorce wife #2, Anne, while staying married to Betty and Louise. Is Anne entitled to half of the value of the house, or 1/4th? If it's not half, do you also take into account the fact that Betty has been part of the marriage for several more years than Anne? What if Louise and Anne share a car; are they getting divorced too, or is it just a divorce from Joe? What a nightmare.

On the other hand, the type of people who get into polygamist marriages are also not usually the type to divorce.

Jesus, I'd never thought of those legal tie-ups... that would be such a bitch for the one to deal with the paperwork.

Good point.

So make up the rules before making it legal. If they want in, they have to play by the rules of the game.

If they are, it's a separate argument, and more - it's a separate argument in each religion.

I've heard some campaign commercials that advocate anti-gay-marriage laws and ammendments by implying that priests will be forced to officiate over gay marriages. The fact is, even if every other religion, and every nation on Earth, allows gay marriage, the lone holdout would still be perfectly free to refuse.

Interfaith marriage happens all the time, even though there are plenty of religions that won't officiate over them.

That's your choice you can go to a JP. ;)

The problem with polygamy is that people would use it for business purposes.

Our marriage had nothing religious at all in it... so, in the eyes of a neo-con are we married? Not that I give a shit, but religion and marriage should have nothing to do with each other. The state and religion should have nothing to do with each other, EVER.

I don't think that's a problem for anybody except the people who try to do it. There are a ton more legal implications to marriage than the ones that might be attractive from a business standpoint, and that could get real creepy real fast.

But if someone manages to make it work, more power to 'em.