02-26-2004, 10:53 PM
Would I be correct in concluding that you are saying that my widowed mother and her widower beau should not marry, since neither is now interested in having more children? Or when a couple is proved to be infertile (and who refuse to consider adoption) that their marriage should be dissolved?
No, those are both fine situations to be married as far as I'm concerned (provided that the love and commitment is there, of course). They are also carefully chosen exceptions. Marriages like these are both significant and justified, but it is the role of marriage within the family structure that I think makes it an essential institution to society. Where you see marriages for business reasons or legal reasons or manipulation or flash-in-the-pan marriages because the people involved didn't know what they were getting into, these are some types of things you can't really make illegal but also kind of cheapen the ideals of marriage. These were the kind of examples other posters were using to suggest that marriage is a broken institution already, and I suggest that the existance of bad marriages is not an excuse to allow more bad marriages.
As for why an infertile couple can be a good marriage in my eyes while two men or two women could not, I've opined on that very bluntly in the past and have no desire to persuade people here into joining my moral beliefs in that regard.
I can see an argument for this, if all the laws that concern married people were to be thrown out. Laws about the tax-free passage of one person's goods to the surviving spouse come to mind as an example of how the legal system is involved in the marriage business. Or was this a corollary of this other comment?
The problem with getting rid of the legal aspect of marriage is that you have all of these other things to deal with. Tax free inheritance problem is easy to solve... just get rid of inheritance taxes altogether :) But seriously, everything from legal custody of children to inheritance to joint property ownership to income tax laws and on down the line, these would all have to be either streamlined out of existance or else handled through legal processes and agreements by everyone to whom they apply. Such a process is greatly complicated by the fact that there is this massive population currently married and currently involved in such legal agreements that are embedded in marriage. To make the civil aspect something other than a mirror image of marriage would seem to be the kind of red tape platform that has "political suicide" written all over it.
It does seem to me that is what others here have advocated - that all the government should cover is 'civil unions'. leaving the religious and social ramifications of 'marriage' to the individuals concerned and the social/religious groups to which they belong. Why is that problematic?
Because it is where we stand already, and the legal union is firmly connected to the religious and social ramifications. This cuts both ways. People are opposing the idea of the legal union because of the religious/social ramifications, and people are pushing the idea of the legal union because of the religious/social ramifications. The end result is, that it will be a messy evolution. Ultimately, I do think that this will be a federal issue and most of the states will follow along whichever way the federal policies swing. If and when gay couples win the legal front at the federal level, I will expect a significant series of splits and reformations within the Protestant churches, as congregations polarize around the issue.
No, those are both fine situations to be married as far as I'm concerned (provided that the love and commitment is there, of course). They are also carefully chosen exceptions. Marriages like these are both significant and justified, but it is the role of marriage within the family structure that I think makes it an essential institution to society. Where you see marriages for business reasons or legal reasons or manipulation or flash-in-the-pan marriages because the people involved didn't know what they were getting into, these are some types of things you can't really make illegal but also kind of cheapen the ideals of marriage. These were the kind of examples other posters were using to suggest that marriage is a broken institution already, and I suggest that the existance of bad marriages is not an excuse to allow more bad marriages.
As for why an infertile couple can be a good marriage in my eyes while two men or two women could not, I've opined on that very bluntly in the past and have no desire to persuade people here into joining my moral beliefs in that regard.
I can see an argument for this, if all the laws that concern married people were to be thrown out. Laws about the tax-free passage of one person's goods to the surviving spouse come to mind as an example of how the legal system is involved in the marriage business. Or was this a corollary of this other comment?
The problem with getting rid of the legal aspect of marriage is that you have all of these other things to deal with. Tax free inheritance problem is easy to solve... just get rid of inheritance taxes altogether :) But seriously, everything from legal custody of children to inheritance to joint property ownership to income tax laws and on down the line, these would all have to be either streamlined out of existance or else handled through legal processes and agreements by everyone to whom they apply. Such a process is greatly complicated by the fact that there is this massive population currently married and currently involved in such legal agreements that are embedded in marriage. To make the civil aspect something other than a mirror image of marriage would seem to be the kind of red tape platform that has "political suicide" written all over it.
It does seem to me that is what others here have advocated - that all the government should cover is 'civil unions'. leaving the religious and social ramifications of 'marriage' to the individuals concerned and the social/religious groups to which they belong. Why is that problematic?
Because it is where we stand already, and the legal union is firmly connected to the religious and social ramifications. This cuts both ways. People are opposing the idea of the legal union because of the religious/social ramifications, and people are pushing the idea of the legal union because of the religious/social ramifications. The end result is, that it will be a messy evolution. Ultimately, I do think that this will be a federal issue and most of the states will follow along whichever way the federal policies swing. If and when gay couples win the legal front at the federal level, I will expect a significant series of splits and reformations within the Protestant churches, as congregations polarize around the issue.