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The way to phrase your suggestion: marriage is a cultural institution, not civic. There shouldn't be laws about cultural institutions. People should just do wh
by ivankirigin 18y ago
The way to phrase your suggestion: marriage is a cultural institution, not civic. There shouldn't be laws about cultural institutions.
People should just do whatever they want.
- axod 18y agoYeah it's all well and good to say you should be able to do what you want, but you have to take responsibility for society as a whole. Is poligamy valid in law? not here and rightly so I'd say. Also, it's just not very nice to hijack words. It's like people who call HTML a programming language.
- Retric 18y agoWhat's wrong with poligamy? I am all for protecting the young, but WTF do you care what three forty year old people do in their own home?
- axod 18y agoSorry perhaps I should have been clearer. I think there is something wrong about "marrying" multiple people at the same time. What you want to do in your own home is up to you.
- abstractbill 18y agoI guess I'm not seeing what impact marriage has on society as a whole - can you elaborate?
- axod 18y agoWell I'd say to abolish marriage would be a big mistake for society. For me the main function of marriage is to provide the optimum situation for bringing up kids, as well as promoting monogamy and faithfulness which are IMHO good for society. I think hijacking the word to mean other things muddies and confuses things for society, when there's actually an opportunity to use a new word to mean marriage between a same sex couple.
- abstractbill 18y agoFor me, marriage is something more personal - something a couple does because they want to let each other, and the rest of the world, know they're committed. To be fair, I guess I can't say for sure what I think about whether marriage is important to kids until I have some of my own.
- kingkongrevenge 18y agoThis is the fundamental conflict here. Liberals look at marriage and see something people do to be happy. Telling some people they can't marry and be happy is just mean! They fail to see the deeper consequences of messing with tradition.
- abstractbill 18y agoYes, I think that's exactly right. To elaborate, I see the attitude of not wanting to mess with tradition as being the same attitude that used to make people say "if God wanted us to fly he would have given us wings". Perhaps messing with tradition is risky, as was trying to fly. But I'm ok with that.
- scott_s 18y agoSo what are the deeper consequences of allowing homosexual couples to legally marry?
- kingkongrevenge 18y agoIt devalues real marriage. The consequences will be much the same as past developments that devalued marriage as an institution and an oath, for examples no-fault divorce and much public welfare. One can reasonably anticipate more out of wedlock births and more divorce.
- scott_s 18y agoJust to be clear, you're seriously arguing that homosexual marriage will lead to more out of wedlock births and divorce among homosexual couples?
- ram1024 18y agopeople should have every right in the world to define their relationship to each other in any manner they like. the law should simply allow simplification of contract terms should they be required (custody, assets, etc). the idea that "marriage" is a set legal method that is rigid and unyielding to change is retarded. the concept is so ridiculously outmoded. society and culture have moved on, it's time for "marriage" to get with the program
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago> I guess I'm not seeing what impact marriage has on society as a whole Are you blind? You haven't noticed that it's ghetto shit-hole everywhere in modern world that stable two parent families aren't the norm? Marriage in its traditional form is an institution arrived at through a Darwinian process of cultural selection. It has been proven by time to be the best way to further a society. Messing with it is extremely dangerous. Cultural conservatism is much like environmentalism. You just don't want to go blindly messing around with complex natural systems. The consequences are usually bad.
- Retric 18y agoFor most of human history people married who their parents told them to. Calling what we do now traditional marriage is silly because it's been changing fairly rapidly over time. Look at marriage in nortic countries and you will see a large separation between having kids and getting married yet they are doing better than most of Europe and the US on most measurements of heath, happiness and economic growth. Looking back it's hard to extrapolate the value of "traditional family values" because we have a lower crime rate, better educated population, and a better economy now than we did back with they where more common.
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago> because it's been changing fairly rapidly over time No, it's been changing fairly rapidly for less than 100 years, and usually with serious unforeseen consequences. > Look at marriage in nortic countries I'm tired of hearing about nordic countries. First, they aren't nearly as great as the pom-pom crowd thinks. If you do an apples to apples comparison of middle class whites in northern US states to nordic countries, they're really not so fantastic. And there is plenty of hand-wringing about social degradation in Sweden. They're, what, one generation in to their shift away from more conservative arrangements? Give it time and you'll see problems.
- Retric 18y agoEdit: Deleted double post.
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago> WTF do you care what three forty year old people do in their own home Have you read ANYTHING about these polygamous communities? They produce cast off boys and a trickle of 15 year old girls fleeing rape by 50 year old men. I would argue these are long term consequences of polygamy itself, not features of communities that happen to practice it.
- tdavis 18y agoAnecdotal evidence is my favorite flavor of evidence.
- aaronblohowiak 18y agoI read your argument as: insular religious extremists do bad things! Therefore, we should also deny thinking and responsible adults freedom to live as they please. If anything, the lesson is that making something illegal pushes it underground, which makes it harder to protect those that may suffer from it in addition to punishing those that would gain from it. This is a lesson demonstrated over and over again -- there are even comments about it in the Tao Te Ching.
- kingkongrevenge 18y agoThere are of course non-isolated societies in the world that allow polygamy. You wouldn't want to live in any of them.
- aaronblohowiak 18y agoI'd like you to a cite a source about where I would and would not want to live.
- RK 18y agoSo you think only gays should have the right of polygamous marriage?
- run4yourlives 18y agoYou're missing his point. That has nothing to do with polygamy and everything to do with being a wacko religious sect.
- ibsulon 18y agoI agree. Let's go back to the original definition of marriage. How much for your daughter?
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago> There shouldn't be laws about cultural institutions. That's a pretty shaky assertion. I doubt there's a society in human history that didn't treat cultural traditions and taboos as law in some form. Are you for legal incest and sibling marriage?
- ivankirigin 18y agoI'm not going to voice approval for things that are taboo. I am going to stand my ground in claims that there is little benefit in laws about such taboos. Your examples are debatably child abuse in the likely of troubled pregnancies, and so could reasonable be treated as violence. I'm all for laws against violence. One take away is that you don't need laws against taboos. They are taboo and so largely self enforcing.
- gaius 18y agoWell, that's not strictly true. Marriage is different things to different people. The State, the Church, individuals, all have their own meaning. To the State, marriage is a mechanism for forming binding contracts to create viable economic units for raising small children. All the stuff the State tacks onto it, like tax breaks, are in support of that primary goal.The State does this because it needs a fresh supply of well-raised kids in order to fulfill its responsibilities, which range from schools to manning the military. In the eyes of the State, if you take the benefits of marriage and don't have kids and raise 'em good, you aren't upholding your end of the bargain. Equal rights for their own sake is a laudable goal, but someone is going to need to articulate to the State what the benefits to the State of gay marriage are. Once that's done, you'll see some progress.
- ivankirigin 18y agoforming binding contracts to create viable economic units for raising small children. The purpose of government is to limit its own power and extinguish violence. Where exactly is that part in the constitution about stepping in to optimize GDP or influence child raising decisions?
- gaius 18y agoWhere is marriage in the Constitution at all? My point stands.
- ivankirigin 18y agoActually, that is my point.