So why is choice involved at all? If the purpose of marriage is to propagate the species, why not have a genetic council pick two people most likely to produce superior offspring and only sanction a marriage between these two people?

I'll give you a hint: Its because the purpose of marriage is not to have kids. That is an option that many couples take and it is (thanks to natural selection) an important side benefit that marriage encourages this to happen. But it is not the purpose of marriage, in relation to any one individual.

So, again, the state's position is that of social engineer, to determine what is and is not appropriate for parents to do. Why not regulate in what manner they raise their children? Surely many parents have policies that harm children psychologically, scar them for life even or just poorly equip them to succeed; if the state has the right to not recognize certain unions based on the idea that they would be bad for a theoretical child that may or may not ever come into play into the relationship, why does it not just drop the pretense and nationalize the profession of childrearing?

Not only that but Imperator also implies that if unions between homosexuals are allowed, homosexuality will spread. Otherwise, how would it have any impact on society at all? Homosexuals are already allowed to raise children!

lol...

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...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn

Try Austin. It's not so much like alot of the rest of TX. Plus I was born there, so I'm a 'native born Texan'. And Galveston has some nice spots.

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please click and help the eggs hatch!

"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love"
-Anias Nin

Many articles do not bear this out- I haven't yet seen a study that found evidence of any adjustment problems in children with same sex parents, and it isn't for lack of looking.
Examples (abstracts):
There are more, but this seems enough for the moment.

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please click and help the eggs hatch!

"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love"
-Anias Nin

Great points brought up here on both sides. My personal views on same-sex marriages revolve around what I believe should be the government's role in our country. I think what I am about to say has been metioned in different words earlier, but here it goes:

In my opinion, the government has no right to recognize marriages at all. I believe the only thing our government should know about any marriage is a change in last names (for records, taxes, etc.) So basically, I'm saying that gay marriage/civil unions should be OK (not legal, mind you, as this would mean it is regulated by the government).

I believe this because of my strong belief in individual freedom. No government should regulate any aspect of the private lives of its people. Having said that, I also believe that tax reliefs given to married couples is wrong.

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"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
-Samuel Adams

So, out of curiosity, do you believe that marriage as a state sanctioned contract exists only for the purpose of producing children? In other words, we owe it to The State to procreate?

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

You know what the best part of Texas is?

The middle.

Because no matter which way you go, you're leavin'...

Steve

WRT Texas, @JHC -- I think you formed a bad impression about Texas because you went to some of the worst places in Texas to go. I've lived in Texas almost most of my life, and farmer is right. Just because you spent some time in Dallas, Houston and Amarillo doesn't mean you've experienced it. Go visit the Davis Mountains in west Texas for some excellent scenery, for example. Most of West Texas is very spread out and very much like what I would expect of Wyoming. Also, Austin is arguably the most interesting city in all of Texas. It stands out, it's not much like the rest of the cities in Texas. Next time you make your way down, give those areas a try.

Marriage grants certain privileges, protections and benefits issued by the governmental sanction of partnerships. One can discuss if much of the benefits and privileges shouldn't apply out of context of marriage but some privileges (or rights) and protections only apply to an explicit consensus between partners in a relationship.
That goes for financial protection, custody protection, inheritance arrangements and (other) transfers of certain rights and duties between partners. A lot of those arrangements would be hard to establish without governmental sanction of the contract between partners that marriage is. And some would be impossible to maintain (in case of military duty, tax responsibilities, enforcement of child support, alimony etc.)

I would definately not call it a right for government to recognize marriage. On the contrary, it's a duty that the government has and shall have.

Any mismanagement of the concept of marriage is, in my opinion, caused by the apparantly inseparable and seemingly unchallengable fusion of religious sanction and governmental sanction of relationships. In a country founded on the separation between state and church, there are no ties between the purely pragmatic and legal contract sanctioned by government and the spiritual contract sanctioned by the church. Except perhaps for one or both partner's wishes to protect the other partner and any offspring in this life as well as the next. Whoever possesses that sentiment can keep it and do whatever they feel to impose the fusion on others. But when it comes to government, it has a duty not to impose or insist on any fusion.

Be careful, conservatives are trying to stop this in various places as well.


I agree 100%. Legal contracts for property and such would still exist but 'marraige' would be reserved for the churches. I also never understood the tax breaks for couples. I mean, if you are guaranteed 2 incomes instead of 1, shouldn't they be taxed more if differently?


See, I am against this from the getgo. It is not the governments job to sanction certian lifestyles.

Granted, but what you have said raises two questions (this may be because I might not fully understand what you are saying):

1. Wouldn't a legal contract between two partners accomplish the same thing (with the exception of tax-related issues)? In other words, the agreements and wishes of both partners (custody, death, inheritence, etc.) could be decided through the law, which the government would recognize as a legal contract (but not the marriage itself, just the actual agreement).

2. What is your position on same-sex marriage?

I appreciate all of that info, though. There were some things in there I did not know about.

__________________
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
-Samuel Adams

1. Sure. Any legally binding contract can be enforced via normal judicial practice. After all, a contract is just a legally binding agreement of promises made by one or more parties. However, if the government is one of those parties making promises (in the form of, say, various pensions, tax deductions, tax transfers, various survivor coverages, veteran spouse benefits etc. etc.), isn't it then natural to expect that the government should sanction the contract? I would if I had anything vested in a contract.

I'm sure alot of the promises made by the state can be arranged in some other manners (without being sure how, though). I'm also sure alot of them could be dismissed alltogether or at least rearranged so that they extend beyond any future notion of 'privatized marriage'. But if there are any promises left, made by the state, it means that the state will remain a party in the contract. I can only see it as being in the public's best interest to make sure that the promises are redeemable. And that, in my opinion, makes it a question of protecting the privileges that the state promises to grant by sanctioning the relationship instead of a question of the state interfering with private affairs.

I strongly oppose the latter. That doesn't mean the state shouldn't have interests in the infrastructure of its most valued raw material, the people. It just means that it should keep its nose out of private affairs. Which it of course doesn't (hence the origin of alot of the marital privileges/rights/benefits and especially those that trigger obligations in return). But it should.

2. I'm all for equal rights and that includes same-sex marriage, or civil unions at least. I'm also for a strict separation between church and state, which in this case means that no church has any business in defining the governmental sanction of marriage. Religions can have their own rituals, sanction whatever they feel is right to sanction and make themselves a party in whatever contract they may wish to launch in return for such a ritual but without any connection to the aforementioned.

I agree but it's the duty of government to see that it keeps the promises it makes. Please see the response to HammerShot.

These days, you're under no obligation to get married. But the government still has obligations should you choose to get married.

Even if the contract is sanctioned to some extent, wouldn't federal anti-discrimination laws stop them from not giving the same priviledges to homosexuals?

I'm not clever enough to decipher more than one negation in one sentence but if you mean privileges still within the context of marriage then yes, there shouldn't be anything able to discriminate potential marriage partners on the basis of sexual orientation, except criminal code. One can even argue if discrimination laws (such as anti-sodomy laws) and anti-discrimination laws should have any influence on marriage in the first place.

Marriage is surrounded by its own set of requirements that can be seen as forms of discrimination simply by being defined (age, kinship or consanguinity (sp.?), number of partners, citizenship and residency, mental capacity, veneral diseases in some cases etc.). While the connections to anti-discrimination laws can be easy to understand morally, they can be complex and hard to establish legally. And especially politically.

For example, could same-sex marriage be considered possible to become legal while anti-sodomy laws were in effect? Since sex is not a requirement for marriage (although I've heard that sexual consummation is a requirement in some states?!!), enforcing anti-sodomy laws while allowing same-sex marriage isn't technically different than enforcing normal criminal code such as, say, incest while allowing opposite-sex marriage. But morally, and therefore politically, it's pretty hard to defend the legitimacy of same-sex marriage while having effective anti-sodomy laws.