7 ms·

Personally, I don't support same sex marriage, bug legally I see no real reason to ban it. However, I'd prefer the government who represents me, not endorse a p

by learc83 14y ago

Personally, I don't support same sex marriage, bug legally I see no real reason to ban it. However, I'd prefer the government who represents me, not endorse a practice I don't support. My solution for years has been for the government to get out of the marriage business entirely. Marriage should be a purely religious ceremony, and we can establish something like a civil union contract law to handle issues like joint ownership of property, child custody, and inheritance. That way anyone, gay, straight, or polygamist can get the legal benefits of marriage, and they can find a religious institution willing to conduct the religious ceremony.

AznHisoka 14y ago
I agree. I also don't think it's an issue worth devoting much time over. Just legalize it, and stop debating it. There's so many more relevant issues at stake in society.
3am_hackernews 14y ago
Why should the government endorse practices only supported by you? You are not special. Marriage should not be a purely religious ceremony. It should be an individual's choice, consent of both the partners. I don't agree that a religious institution HAS to validate/conduct a religious ceremony. Again, it should be left to the individual.
- learc83 14y ago
  >Why should the government endorse practices only supported by you? You are not special. I don't. However ~50% of American's don't support it. At the same time I don't think there is a legal reason to ban gay marriage. This is a proposed compromise between both sides.
  - 3am_hackernews 14y ago
    I would strongly contest that statistic you came up with. Please provide a source for it. While I appreciate that you don't think that gay marriage is illegal, I am not sure if I understand your basis of accepting a compromise.
glhaynes 14y ago
This seems like the optimal legal approach to me, too. And I'm not really sure why no progress is being made toward it: I've rarely if ever heard objection to it and a "government out of marriage" approach seems appealing to most people on either side of the gay-marriage-legality issue that I've spoken to. [Obviously this is anecdote and narrow at that.] I suppose it's just not politically possible right now — if it were to gather any steam, no doubt it'd get bogged down in "these people are trying to abolish marriage!"; and it seems likely a more difficult solution to legally execute well. But the immediate question, regardless of whether government should be involved in marriage or not, is whether we should pass laws to cause the government to treat this institution that it is involved in in a fair and equitable way (and reject laws that would enshrine unfairness).
imgabe 14y ago
We effectively already have that. A legal marriage is obtained completely independently from a religious marriage. The simple fact that the legal construct is called "marriage" seems to throw the religious types into a fervor, because they somehow think that changing the legal construct has some effect on their own religious use of the word. I guess the fact that words can have multiple meanings and be used in different ways is not taught in Sunday school. There's no reason to change the name of the legal agreement known as "marriage" to "civil union" other than to pacify the superstitious.
- learc83 14y ago
  Culturally we make no distinction between religious marriage and civil marriage. The majority of people aren't even really aware of the difference. So long as this is the case there will be opposition to any legally allowed civil marriage that doesn't follow the traditional definition. Do you want to have this fight every time a new type of union wants the legal protections of marriage? My solution is a compromise, the alternative is to have this fight for the next few years, and then a few years later start it all over again for poly-marriages. >There's no reason to change the name of the legal agreement known as "marriage" to "civil union" other than to pacify the superstitious. Since the "superstitious" make up a large percent of the country you might want to find a way to "pacify" them. If we can compromise so that the majority of people are happy and no one's rights are violated, where's the problem? Unless you just don't want to "pacify" the "superstitious" out of spite.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    > Culturally we make no distinction between religious marriage and civil marriage. The majority of people aren't even really aware of the difference. Yet there it is, in black and white, in every statutory code in the country.
  - imgabe 14y ago
    So, we write our laws based on reason and justice, unless some religious group threatens to make a really big stink then we just do whatever they want? Is that a reasonable way to run a country? The statistics I was able to Google up show support for gay marriage at 43% of the US and against 47%. So it's not like it's some tiny percentage who are for it, and it's not even a majority who are against it. Personally, no, I don't want to have this fight. I also don't want to have to fight about evolution being taught in schools. Unfortunately some members of the population render this a necessity.
TylerE 14y ago
That is what a marriage (in the United States) is. It is a civil contract. There is nothing inherently religious about it. You can go down to the county courthouse, pay $20 or so, and be married by a judge. That some religions have a "marriage" ceremony is orthogonal. What makes you married in the legal sense is the marriage certificate you get from the government. Any ceremony is just for show. What the US Government defines as marriage is purely a civil thing.
- learc83 14y ago
  I'm aware of that, but that's not the perception read my response up top for a more thorough explanation.
mfringel 14y ago
"Government out of the marriage business entirely" would be great. Also agreed on the government providing civil unions that give all the current rights and privileges currently set up under what is currently known as marriage. As far as I can tell, the only feasible way that we get there is by the states allowing same-sex marriage, and then the FedGov comes along for the ride, followed by FedGov doing a ''mutatis mutandis'' change in law to talk about civil unions.
rayiner 14y ago
> and we can establish something like a civil union contract law to handle issues like joint ownership of property, child custody, and inheritance. We have such a contract. It's called marriage. If you look at the law of marriage, there is nothing in there that's predicated on there being a woman and a man, and there is nothing in there that is specific to religion. In the United States, which never had ecclesiastic courts, marriage has always been a strictly civil, contractual legal construct. The problem with a civil union contract is that the law is full of references to marriage. E.g. in the law of evidence there is the principle of marital immunity, which is that spouses can't be forced to testify against each other in criminal trials. Do you want to go back and rewrite all of that?
- true_religion 14y ago
  There are laws on the books full of references to "men" or occassionally "White men". The Americans, "re-wrote" all that by adding a few lines to the constitution saying that women and other races had equal rights as white men, and could not be discriminated against. Thus the old laws applied to everyone,without a need for someone to go at them with eraser and ink.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    I'm operating under the assumption that the "civil union" would be a separate legal construct, distinct from marriage, that defined its own rights for managing property, etc. Sure, it would be trivial to just say "gays can go down to the court house and get a civil union, and all civil unions should be treated exactly like marriages for the purpose of the law." But then civil unions are exactly the same thing as marriages.
    - true_religion 14y ago
      > " But then civil unions are exactly the same thing as marriages. That's right. Proponents of civil union say that everyone (including heterosexuals) should be granted civil union, and somewhere in the anals of law it should say "civil union is legally equivalent to marriage".
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rsanchez1 14y ago
The more I reflect on it, the more I convince myself that this philosophy on marriage is the best. Just eliminate a government definition of marriage altogether. Let marriage be defined by an individual person and their partner(s) based on what they believe. Generalize joint ownership, custody, etc. to any people who want to enter into a contract with each other. Considering how pro- and anti-gay marriage groups absolutely refuse to compromise, this approach makes the most sense to me.

by learc83 14y ago

AznHisoka 14y ago

I agree. I also don't think it's an issue worth devoting much time over. Just legalize it, and stop debating it. There's so many more relevant issues at stake in society.

3am_hackernews 14y ago

Why should the government endorse practices only supported by you? You are not special. Marriage should not be a purely religious ceremony. It should be an individual's choice, consent of both the partners. I don't agree that a religious institution HAS to validate/conduct a religious ceremony. Again, it should be left to the individual.

learc83 14y ago
>Why should the government endorse practices only supported by you? You are not special. I don't. However ~50% of American's don't support it. At the same time I don't think there is a legal reason to ban gay marriage. This is a proposed compromise between both sides.
- 3am_hackernews 14y ago
  I would strongly contest that statistic you came up with. Please provide a source for it. While I appreciate that you don't think that gay marriage is illegal, I am not sure if I understand your basis of accepting a compromise.

glhaynes 14y ago

This seems like the optimal legal approach to me, too. And I'm not really sure why no progress is being made toward it: I've rarely if ever heard objection to it and a "government out of marriage" approach seems appealing to most people on either side of the gay-marriage-legality issue that I've spoken to. [Obviously this is anecdote and narrow at that.] I suppose it's just not politically possible right now — if it were to gather any steam, no doubt it'd get bogged down in "these people are trying to abolish marriage!"; and it seems likely a more difficult solution to legally execute well. But the immediate question, regardless of whether government should be involved in marriage or not, is whether we should pass laws to cause the government to treat this institution that it is involved in in a fair and equitable way (and reject laws that would enshrine unfairness).

imgabe 14y ago

We effectively already have that. A legal marriage is obtained completely independently from a religious marriage. The simple fact that the legal construct is called "marriage" seems to throw the religious types into a fervor, because they somehow think that changing the legal construct has some effect on their own religious use of the word. I guess the fact that words can have multiple meanings and be used in different ways is not taught in Sunday school. There's no reason to change the name of the legal agreement known as "marriage" to "civil union" other than to pacify the superstitious.

learc83 14y ago
Culturally we make no distinction between religious marriage and civil marriage. The majority of people aren't even really aware of the difference. So long as this is the case there will be opposition to any legally allowed civil marriage that doesn't follow the traditional definition. Do you want to have this fight every time a new type of union wants the legal protections of marriage? My solution is a compromise, the alternative is to have this fight for the next few years, and then a few years later start it all over again for poly-marriages. >There's no reason to change the name of the legal agreement known as "marriage" to "civil union" other than to pacify the superstitious. Since the "superstitious" make up a large percent of the country you might want to find a way to "pacify" them. If we can compromise so that the majority of people are happy and no one's rights are violated, where's the problem? Unless you just don't want to "pacify" the "superstitious" out of spite.
- rayiner 14y ago
  > Culturally we make no distinction between religious marriage and civil marriage. The majority of people aren't even really aware of the difference. Yet there it is, in black and white, in every statutory code in the country.
- imgabe 14y ago
  So, we write our laws based on reason and justice, unless some religious group threatens to make a really big stink then we just do whatever they want? Is that a reasonable way to run a country? The statistics I was able to Google up show support for gay marriage at 43% of the US and against 47%. So it's not like it's some tiny percentage who are for it, and it's not even a majority who are against it. Personally, no, I don't want to have this fight. I also don't want to have to fight about evolution being taught in schools. Unfortunately some members of the population render this a necessity.

TylerE 14y ago

That is what a marriage (in the United States) is. It is a civil contract. There is nothing inherently religious about it. You can go down to the county courthouse, pay $20 or so, and be married by a judge. That some religions have a "marriage" ceremony is orthogonal. What makes you married in the legal sense is the marriage certificate you get from the government. Any ceremony is just for show. What the US Government defines as marriage is purely a civil thing.

learc83 14y ago
I'm aware of that, but that's not the perception read my response up top for a more thorough explanation.

mfringel 14y ago

"Government out of the marriage business entirely" would be great. Also agreed on the government providing civil unions that give all the current rights and privileges currently set up under what is currently known as marriage. As far as I can tell, the only feasible way that we get there is by the states allowing same-sex marriage, and then the FedGov comes along for the ride, followed by FedGov doing a ''mutatis mutandis'' change in law to talk about civil unions.

rayiner 14y ago

> and we can establish something like a civil union contract law to handle issues like joint ownership of property, child custody, and inheritance. We have such a contract. It's called marriage. If you look at the law of marriage, there is nothing in there that's predicated on there being a woman and a man, and there is nothing in there that is specific to religion. In the United States, which never had ecclesiastic courts, marriage has always been a strictly civil, contractual legal construct. The problem with a civil union contract is that the law is full of references to marriage. E.g. in the law of evidence there is the principle of marital immunity, which is that spouses can't be forced to testify against each other in criminal trials. Do you want to go back and rewrite all of that?

true_religion 14y ago
There are laws on the books full of references to "men" or occassionally "White men". The Americans, "re-wrote" all that by adding a few lines to the constitution saying that women and other races had equal rights as white men, and could not be discriminated against. Thus the old laws applied to everyone,without a need for someone to go at them with eraser and ink.
- rayiner 14y ago
  I'm operating under the assumption that the "civil union" would be a separate legal construct, distinct from marriage, that defined its own rights for managing property, etc. Sure, it would be trivial to just say "gays can go down to the court house and get a civil union, and all civil unions should be treated exactly like marriages for the purpose of the law." But then civil unions are exactly the same thing as marriages.
  - true_religion 14y ago
    > " But then civil unions are exactly the same thing as marriages. That's right. Proponents of civil union say that everyone (including heterosexuals) should be granted civil union, and somewhere in the anals of law it should say "civil union is legally equivalent to marriage".

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

rsanchez1 14y ago

The more I reflect on it, the more I convince myself that this philosophy on marriage is the best. Just eliminate a government definition of marriage altogether. Let marriage be defined by an individual person and their partner(s) based on what they believe. Generalize joint ownership, custody, etc. to any people who want to enter into a contract with each other. Considering how pro- and anti-gay marriage groups absolutely refuse to compromise, this approach makes the most sense to me.