5 ms·

I'm going to take issue with just one statement here because I'm short on time - > special kind of oppressor to tell you ... who you are allowed to love and al

by mhurron 13y ago

I'm going to take issue with just one statement here because I'm short on time - > special kind of oppressor to tell you ... who you are allowed to love and allow into your family. They don't. You can have a polygamous marriage all you want, you can have an open marriage, you can be as gay as you want. However, husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter and what not also have legal ramifications, and that is where the law has domain. It has nothing to do with any morality associated with the relationships. The gay marriage issues stem from a misunderstanding, willful or otherwise, of that. The marriage the state cares about is the contract between two adults, it doesn't give a damn about your morals or god.

sneak 13y ago
These legal ramifications should be either abolished or applied to everyone who applies those titles equally. Anything else is state-sponsored discrimination and harassment, which is our current sad state of affairs.
- mhurron 13y ago
  Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say. You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get? These are just two things off the top of my head that throw a monkey wrench in things making the 'just abolish it' not quite as simple. As for 'state-sponsored discrimination and harassment' just no. That is people and their attitudes, legality has nothing to do with it. Blacks weren't seen as equals and without harassment just because slavery became illegal and they could vote. Homosexuality is legal, but again, individuals don't harass based on legal status. You are conflating legal issues with personal views of morality, they are not the same thing and have very little to do with each other.
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say. I do. In the contract. You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get? Whatever the contract says. Any other questions?
    - zymhan 13y ago
      What contract? Are we going to have a standard contract specifying what you want to happen in every conceivable situation? Just imagine a some medical issues that could come up: kidney failure, liver failure, vegetative state, amputation, DNR, transplants, organ donation, etc. Any number of unimaginable situations could come up, which wouldn't be covered by a contract, and which a human being has to make a decision that directly affects your life. How do you handle loans? If I have 30k in debt, and I marry into a polygamous marriage, do the other spouses carry my debt? What if I die, then who owes the money? Not all tricky legal issues can be covered with a "well let's just make a contract."
      - eevee 13y ago
        Grep the US Code for "spouse", write a contract that covers those things? > How do you handle loans? If I have 30k in debt, and I marry into a polygamous marriage, do the other spouses carry my debt? I don't even know how this works with two people. I was under the impression that finances are separate unless you deliberately merge them, and that doing so is orthogonal to marriage.
      - CamperBob2 13y ago
        What contract? Exactly. That's the problem I have with marriage. So much for the rule against perpetuities, among other things. Not all tricky legal issues can be covered with a "well let's just make a contract." Sure they can. If one Fortune 500 company merges with another, the resulting contracts are thick enough to fill multiple heavy leather-bound volumes the size of major metropolitan telephone books. The lawyers are paid to think of everything that could go wrong. So it's not debatable that an adequate legal framework for simple domestic partnerships can exist, it's just that for some reason, people don't bother.
        dragonwriter 13y ago
        > That's the problem I have with marriage. So much for the rule against perpetuities, among other things. Since a marriage is always complete within the lifetime of a person living at the time it is formed, it has no problem with the rule against perpetuities.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say. Establishing a rule for priority in this situation is fairly straightforward. The most obvious rule is to support a pre-need declaration of priority if one exists, and otherwise default to an oldest-marriage priority. > You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get? This is essentially an identical issue to dissolution of a partnership with more than two partners, and as such is pretty well already solved by the legal system.
  - john_b 13y ago
    > "Blacks weren't seen as equals and without harassment just because slavery became illegal and they could vote. Homosexuality is legal, but again, individuals don't harass based on legal status." When blacks became legal equals it went a long way towards their being considered cultural equals throughout society. The underlying motives for harassment may not be due to someone's legal status, but the legally endowing someone with less rights because of their race/sex/orientation/etc gives a lot of ammo to people who want to harass them. > "Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say." Unless otherwise specified, the first wife could have final say. Or the last. Any consistent system would work here. Important decisions about your health and property should really be decided and specified in advance by the individual. > "You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get?" <value of assets subject to forfeiture due to divorce>/<number of wives pre-divorce> seems reasonable. These are not hard problems. Courts exist to settle exactly these issues. The parent comment expressed a moral principle that it is wrong for any government to usurp your authority to form relationships according to your own desires or to legally recognize or withhold legal recognition (where necessary) from relationships in which it has no business. You are looking at implementation details and saying that because a change of this magnitude causes some practical problems (which would not be surprising) the moral premise is flawed.
john_b 13y ago
Many of the "legal ramifications" are legal priveleges. Your spouse can visit you in the hospital and be listed on your insurance policy. If your spouse is not legally recognized as your spouse then those benefits will be prohibited to you. Many other favorable incentives such as tax benefits rest solely on what the state thinks of your relationships, and not what you think of them. In some jurisdictions, the state can decide that you are formally and legally married even if you have never filed for a marriage license[1]. Like it or not, what the state thinks about your relationships can impact your life enormously. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage
falcolas 13y ago
> You can have a polygamous marriage all you want No, you can't. It's illegal in most states (see how the "Big Love" family had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah). > you can be as gay as you want. Not if you're male - sodomy is illegal in many states (despite a Supreme Court ruling that pretty much shuts them down) in the US, and many other countries entirely [1]. > [The law] has nothing to do with any morality associated with the relationships. Laws are derived from the morality of their times. The laws against murder, and exceptions thereof, are based on what society believes is wrong and right. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law
- zymhan 13y ago
  > Not if you're male - sodomy is illegal in many states (despite a Supreme Court ruling that pretty much shuts them down) in the US, and many other countries entirely [1]. Even if the law is on the books in some states, it cannot be enforced due to the ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas). Also, sodomy is not limited to gay men (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy). > Laws are derived from the morality of their times. The laws against murder, and exceptions thereof, are based on what society believes is wrong and right. Certainly there are laws based on morality, but it's absurd to claim that all laws are. Laws regarding the legal status of married people also help standardize common relationships. Can you imagine having to precisely define your non-married long-term relationship every time you fill out a form at the doctor's office or bank? The legal concept of marriage exists largely to codify the shared responsibility of each spouse when it comes to contracts, financial obligations, child care, etc.
- Xeoncross 13y ago
  > Laws are derived from the morality of their times. Yes and no. Some laws are universal wrong - like murder. However, government laws like banning drugs are based on the feelings and opinions of the people at the time. Both of these are evident from the history of civilizations. Murder has always been wrong - drugs not so.
- mhurron 13y ago

by mhurron 13y ago

sneak 13y ago

These legal ramifications should be either abolished or applied to everyone who applies those titles equally. Anything else is state-sponsored discrimination and harassment, which is our current sad state of affairs.

mhurron 13y ago
Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say. You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get? These are just two things off the top of my head that throw a monkey wrench in things making the 'just abolish it' not quite as simple. As for 'state-sponsored discrimination and harassment' just no. That is people and their attitudes, legality has nothing to do with it. Blacks weren't seen as equals and without harassment just because slavery became illegal and they could vote. Homosexuality is legal, but again, individuals don't harass based on legal status. You are conflating legal issues with personal views of morality, they are not the same thing and have very little to do with each other.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say. I do. In the contract. You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get? Whatever the contract says. Any other questions?
  - zymhan 13y ago
    What contract? Are we going to have a standard contract specifying what you want to happen in every conceivable situation? Just imagine a some medical issues that could come up: kidney failure, liver failure, vegetative state, amputation, DNR, transplants, organ donation, etc. Any number of unimaginable situations could come up, which wouldn't be covered by a contract, and which a human being has to make a decision that directly affects your life. How do you handle loans? If I have 30k in debt, and I marry into a polygamous marriage, do the other spouses carry my debt? What if I die, then who owes the money? Not all tricky legal issues can be covered with a "well let's just make a contract."
    - eevee 13y ago
      Grep the US Code for "spouse", write a contract that covers those things? > How do you handle loans? If I have 30k in debt, and I marry into a polygamous marriage, do the other spouses carry my debt? I don't even know how this works with two people. I was under the impression that finances are separate unless you deliberately merge them, and that doing so is orthogonal to marriage.
    - CamperBob2 13y ago
      What contract? Exactly. That's the problem I have with marriage. So much for the rule against perpetuities, among other things. Not all tricky legal issues can be covered with a "well let's just make a contract." Sure they can. If one Fortune 500 company merges with another, the resulting contracts are thick enough to fill multiple heavy leather-bound volumes the size of major metropolitan telephone books. The lawyers are paid to think of everything that could go wrong. So it's not debatable that an adequate legal framework for simple domestic partnerships can exist, it's just that for some reason, people don't bother.
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        > That's the problem I have with marriage. So much for the rule against perpetuities, among other things. Since a marriage is always complete within the lifetime of a person living at the time it is formed, it has no problem with the rule against perpetuities.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say. Establishing a rule for priority in this situation is fairly straightforward. The most obvious rule is to support a pre-need declaration of priority if one exists, and otherwise default to an oldest-marriage priority. > You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get? This is essentially an identical issue to dissolution of a partnership with more than two partners, and as such is pretty well already solved by the legal system.
- john_b 13y ago
  > "Blacks weren't seen as equals and without harassment just because slavery became illegal and they could vote. Homosexuality is legal, but again, individuals don't harass based on legal status." When blacks became legal equals it went a long way towards their being considered cultural equals throughout society. The underlying motives for harassment may not be due to someone's legal status, but the legally endowing someone with less rights because of their race/sex/orientation/etc gives a lot of ammo to people who want to harass them. > "Your wife can mandate health care when you are otherwise incapable. You have 7 wives. Who has final say." Unless otherwise specified, the first wife could have final say. Or the last. Any consistent system would work here. Important decisions about your health and property should really be decided and specified in advance by the individual. > "You get a divorce from one wife. What does she get?" <value of assets subject to forfeiture due to divorce>/<number of wives pre-divorce> seems reasonable. These are not hard problems. Courts exist to settle exactly these issues. The parent comment expressed a moral principle that it is wrong for any government to usurp your authority to form relationships according to your own desires or to legally recognize or withhold legal recognition (where necessary) from relationships in which it has no business. You are looking at implementation details and saying that because a change of this magnitude causes some practical problems (which would not be surprising) the moral premise is flawed.

john_b 13y ago

Many of the "legal ramifications" are legal priveleges. Your spouse can visit you in the hospital and be listed on your insurance policy. If your spouse is not legally recognized as your spouse then those benefits will be prohibited to you. Many other favorable incentives such as tax benefits rest solely on what the state thinks of your relationships, and not what you think of them. In some jurisdictions, the state can decide that you are formally and legally married even if you have never filed for a marriage license[1]. Like it or not, what the state thinks about your relationships can impact your life enormously. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage

falcolas 13y ago

> You can have a polygamous marriage all you want No, you can't. It's illegal in most states (see how the "Big Love" family had to move due to pending prosecution in Utah). > you can be as gay as you want. Not if you're male - sodomy is illegal in many states (despite a Supreme Court ruling that pretty much shuts them down) in the US, and many other countries entirely [1]. > [The law] has nothing to do with any morality associated with the relationships. Laws are derived from the morality of their times. The laws against murder, and exceptions thereof, are based on what society believes is wrong and right. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law

zymhan 13y ago
> Not if you're male - sodomy is illegal in many states (despite a Supreme Court ruling that pretty much shuts them down) in the US, and many other countries entirely [1]. Even if the law is on the books in some states, it cannot be enforced due to the ruling in Lawrence v. Texas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas). Also, sodomy is not limited to gay men (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy). > Laws are derived from the morality of their times. The laws against murder, and exceptions thereof, are based on what society believes is wrong and right. Certainly there are laws based on morality, but it's absurd to claim that all laws are. Laws regarding the legal status of married people also help standardize common relationships. Can you imagine having to precisely define your non-married long-term relationship every time you fill out a form at the doctor's office or bank? The legal concept of marriage exists largely to codify the shared responsibility of each spouse when it comes to contracts, financial obligations, child care, etc.
Xeoncross 13y ago
> Laws are derived from the morality of their times. Yes and no. Some laws are universal wrong - like murder. However, government laws like banning drugs are based on the feelings and opinions of the people at the time. Both of these are evident from the history of civilizations. Murder has always been wrong - drugs not so.
mhurron 13y ago