5 ms·

So we start with "how to put gay marriage in a database" and end with "marriage is a union between any number of people, where people can come and go as they pl

So we start with "how to put gay marriage in a database" and end with "marriage is a union between any number of people, where people can come and go as they please." By that definition, I could be married to the company where I work. Truly, an obliteration of any meaning to the word "marriage." Really, I think we should start over. What is marriage, in the eyes of the state? Why should it grant special privileges to encourage it? Does society reap benefits from having a man and a woman committed to each other? Does it benefit from having eight people of varying sexes and self-declared genders semi-committed to one another in varying degrees? Are we prepared to draw a line somewhere and - gasp! - judge some unions better than others? If we don't have widely-accepted answers to that, maybe we should stop recognizing marriages legally, substitute designations like "this person can make decisions for me if I'm ill," and leave marriage to be a religious designation only.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
axod 17y ago
>> "and - gasp! - judge some unions better than others?" That just isn't doable in this age of "Everyone is equal" political correctness stupidity. It'd be like saying that black people on average are better at basketball than white people! Which is clearly racist!!!
- jbm 17y ago
  I don't think you'd run into someone who is upset at you from a personal standpoint if you were to claim that there were more black players than white players in the NBA.
oldgregg 17y ago
Great point. Marriage will probably remain as an cultural artifact and that's about it. If marriage means everything then it means nothing-- people just won't bother getting married. Europe is already ahead of us in this respect. It's been a long time coming, from no-fault divorce to a culture where personal happiness is the only standard by which we make decisions.
- billybob 17y ago
  Yep. To put it another way, take the question "to whom should X be married?" If the answer is "it's 100% personal preference - no choice is better than another" - then the state shouldn't get involved. We don't pass laws encouraging you to wear blue instead of green, because it's just a matter of preference. So if your marriage choices don't matter to anyone, why should society bother recognizing and investing in them?
- sliverstorm 17y ago
  MARRIAGE may be a pointless cultural artifact, but the legal benefits they endow are certainly not pointless. I'm not gonna skip out on tax breaks and shared ownership and various other rights with someone I intend to spend my life with, just because I'm too lazy. Though, if there was (as I envision it) a state-based 'civil union' that conveyed those benefits, and also 'marriage' which was purely church-based and conveyed no benefits legally (though of course those getting married would also file for a 'civil union') I might skip out on the church part.
aristus 17y ago
Right now by defining it as "one man, one woman" the opposition is pissing off 10+% of the population. Claiming that gay marriage will lead to polygamy or bestiality is inflammatory. It's like saying that being religious is a dangerous choice because everyone knows it leads you to kill unbelievers. Redefinition depends on how far you want to go to deconstruct the term "spouse". In addition to making decisions when you are ill, how about "adopting my children", "inheriting my property (and debts)", or "becoming my common-law spouse after 6 month's co-habitation", or "perhaps not in my church but ok in another one", etc? After a certain point you either have to draw a line, ie "sorry, you can have this much dignity and no more", or you eventually accept the strong form of gay marriage. Anything else would be politically unstable. You can, politically, rule out polygamy and define marriage as "two people". It doesn't have to lead to chaos and anarchy.
- dmm 17y ago
  Corporations are now legal people, with all the rights that come with that status.
  - kevinh 17y ago
    I'm not sure if you're being serious, but they don't. They lack the 5th amendment right against self-incrimination, among some others.
- btilly 17y ago
  Where are you getting 10+% from? For a long time homosexuals liked to claim that at least 10% of the population is homosexual. That is what I suspect you are quoting. However that claim doesn't have good support. But figures that I have seen peg the rate of people who are primarily homosexual much lower than that. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality#Demographics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality#Demographics for some random figures. From that list the number I would quote for the USA is 4%. However if you look at it differently, much more than 10% of the population cares. According to polls almost half the electorate thinks that gays should be allowed to marry. And a lot of non-homosexuals agree that the issue is important. So supporters of gay marriage aren't limited to gays. My personal feeling is that consenting adults should be allowed to enter into any consensual arrangement that they wish. Therefore I am fully in support of allowing both gay marriage and polygamy, even though I have no desire to engage in either lifestyle. I should be clear on this. My position on polygamy doesn't come from my position gay marriage. They both come from more fundamental beliefs. But I suspect that as more people become familiar with the idea of polygamy as they have with the idea of gay marriage, that there will be a growing acceptance of it. And as an example of this I'd offer the changing opinions in Canada. First gay marriage became accepted, and now polygamy is becoming accepted. So while logically polygamy doesn't flow from gay marriage, I think that the opponents of gay marriage are correct that acceptance of gay marriage is a step towards the likely future acceptance of polygamy.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
lotharbot 17y ago
The state of Washington recently passed a law that replaced every mention of "marriage", "husband", or "wife" in state law with "marriage or domestic partnership" and "spouse or partner". This had the net result of conferring all of the same (state-level) benefits on same-sex couples and on elderly people who didn't want to remarry but were in new relationships, while completely avoiding the social/religious question of whether person X thinks relationship Y is acceptable or should be called "marriage". From a database perspective, there's no reason the Washington state database needs to track gender. It needs to track who's involved in the legal relationship and what legal rights they have regarding each other's person and property. (If we wish to make things more complicated by allowing arbitrary graphs for relationships, we need to write the laws governing those rights more carefully.)

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

axod 17y ago

>> "and - gasp! - judge some unions better than others?" That just isn't doable in this age of "Everyone is equal" political correctness stupidity. It'd be like saying that black people on average are better at basketball than white people! Which is clearly racist!!!

jbm 17y ago
I don't think you'd run into someone who is upset at you from a personal standpoint if you were to claim that there were more black players than white players in the NBA.

oldgregg 17y ago

Great point. Marriage will probably remain as an cultural artifact and that's about it. If marriage means everything then it means nothing-- people just won't bother getting married. Europe is already ahead of us in this respect. It's been a long time coming, from no-fault divorce to a culture where personal happiness is the only standard by which we make decisions.

billybob 17y ago
Yep. To put it another way, take the question "to whom should X be married?" If the answer is "it's 100% personal preference - no choice is better than another" - then the state shouldn't get involved. We don't pass laws encouraging you to wear blue instead of green, because it's just a matter of preference. So if your marriage choices don't matter to anyone, why should society bother recognizing and investing in them?
sliverstorm 17y ago
MARRIAGE may be a pointless cultural artifact, but the legal benefits they endow are certainly not pointless. I'm not gonna skip out on tax breaks and shared ownership and various other rights with someone I intend to spend my life with, just because I'm too lazy. Though, if there was (as I envision it) a state-based 'civil union' that conveyed those benefits, and also 'marriage' which was purely church-based and conveyed no benefits legally (though of course those getting married would also file for a 'civil union') I might skip out on the church part.

aristus 17y ago

Right now by defining it as "one man, one woman" the opposition is pissing off 10+% of the population. Claiming that gay marriage will lead to polygamy or bestiality is inflammatory. It's like saying that being religious is a dangerous choice because everyone knows it leads you to kill unbelievers. Redefinition depends on how far you want to go to deconstruct the term "spouse". In addition to making decisions when you are ill, how about "adopting my children", "inheriting my property (and debts)", or "becoming my common-law spouse after 6 month's co-habitation", or "perhaps not in my church but ok in another one", etc? After a certain point you either have to draw a line, ie "sorry, you can have this much dignity and no more", or you eventually accept the strong form of gay marriage. Anything else would be politically unstable. You can, politically, rule out polygamy and define marriage as "two people". It doesn't have to lead to chaos and anarchy.

dmm 17y ago
Corporations are now legal people, with all the rights that come with that status.
- kevinh 17y ago
  I'm not sure if you're being serious, but they don't. They lack the 5th amendment right against self-incrimination, among some others.
btilly 17y ago
Where are you getting 10+% from? For a long time homosexuals liked to claim that at least 10% of the population is homosexual. That is what I suspect you are quoting. However that claim doesn't have good support. But figures that I have seen peg the rate of people who are primarily homosexual much lower than that. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality#Demographics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality#Demographics for some random figures. From that list the number I would quote for the USA is 4%. However if you look at it differently, much more than 10% of the population cares. According to polls almost half the electorate thinks that gays should be allowed to marry. And a lot of non-homosexuals agree that the issue is important. So supporters of gay marriage aren't limited to gays. My personal feeling is that consenting adults should be allowed to enter into any consensual arrangement that they wish. Therefore I am fully in support of allowing both gay marriage and polygamy, even though I have no desire to engage in either lifestyle. I should be clear on this. My position on polygamy doesn't come from my position gay marriage. They both come from more fundamental beliefs. But I suspect that as more people become familiar with the idea of polygamy as they have with the idea of gay marriage, that there will be a growing acceptance of it. And as an example of this I'd offer the changing opinions in Canada. First gay marriage became accepted, and now polygamy is becoming accepted. So while logically polygamy doesn't flow from gay marriage, I think that the opponents of gay marriage are correct that acceptance of gay marriage is a step towards the likely future acceptance of polygamy.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

lotharbot 17y ago

The state of Washington recently passed a law that replaced every mention of "marriage", "husband", or "wife" in state law with "marriage or domestic partnership" and "spouse or partner". This had the net result of conferring all of the same (state-level) benefits on same-sex couples and on elderly people who didn't want to remarry but were in new relationships, while completely avoiding the social/religious question of whether person X thinks relationship Y is acceptable or should be called "marriage". From a database perspective, there's no reason the Washington state database needs to track gender. It needs to track who's involved in the legal relationship and what legal rights they have regarding each other's person and property. (If we wish to make things more complicated by allowing arbitrary graphs for relationships, we need to write the laws governing those rights more carefully.)