News Scwarzenegger announces veto on Californian gay marriage bill

[cronxeh]

That explains why you enjoy gay porn. In case you were wondering.

Yes well when I need your opinion on anything I'll let you out of my closet and you can strap on that gimp costume that you enjoy so much

 

[Townsend]

Well if its an issue of discrimination then perhaps they should institute a civil union with same rights and tax codes as for marriages, but not call it a marriage

Not a bad idea...

Taking the religious aspect out of it is a good start.

 

[cronxeh]

Religion is the reason these laws even cause controversy in the first place. They don't belong in politics let alone in state affairs

 

[Townsend]

Religion is the reason these laws even cause controversy in the first place. They don't belong in politics let alone in state affairs

Exaclty...

 

[TRCSF]

Well if its an issue of discrimination then perhaps they should institute a civil union with same rights and tax codes as for marriages, but not call it a marriage

Seperate but equal? That didn't work.

Call it marriage, if it's the same legal thing you can call it the same thing.

If you don't like gay marriage, don't have one.

 

[cronxeh]

Exaclty...

Religion belongs in the Churches/etc, and to those who use it I have to say this: "go back to Church and don't come out until Jesus returns"

Seperate but equal? That didn't work.

Call it marriage, if it's the same legal thing you can call it the same thing.

If you don't like gay marriage, don't have one.

How do you not get this? I don't care what you think

 

[TRCSF]

Religion belongs in the Churches/etc, and to those who use it I have to say this: "go back to Church and don't come out until Jesus returns"

How do you not get this? I don't care what you think

What about churches that want to marry gays?

Oo, somebody's getting a little upset. I must have hit a nerve.

 

[Art]

Not a bad idea...

Taking the religious aspect out of it is a good start.

This has already been done long ago for those who want it. Many people these days get married in civil ceremonies which have nothing to do with religion.

The idea behind marriage is to create the basis of a secure family unit which is believed to be the best environment to raise children in.

Some folk question whether a same-sex union is a good environment for children and so the state is reluctant to grant official status / approval to such relationships. The consequences of this for people in 'unsanctioned' unions are that they have inferior inheritance rights, tax rights and adoption rights etc..

 

[vanesch]

Why shouldn't we accept bigamy? Why does a person's personal life have to be socially acceptable?

Oh, but I didn't have anything a priori against bigamy either. The point is that the civil marriage gives certain rights to a group of (2 ?) people ; it is in fact the only reason to subscribe to a civil marriage.
They are essentially 2-fold:
1) financial aspects, like lower taxes on heritage when one of the partners dies
2) co-parentship when (one of the?) females in the couple gives birth.

Now, there's a long-standing tradition of 1 man and 1 woman as such a basic cell which doesn't even find its origin in religion but finds it in Darwinism: promote the chances of transfer of the genes to the future generation. The optimal team is then of course a man and a woman, because their kin has 50-50 gene content, so this man and this woman will optimize the transfer of their genetic material to the future (will care best for their kin).
All other combinations will do less good. In a situation of one male with several females, the females who didn't give birth to certain children will have of course all advantage to care more about their own children than of the children of the other spouses of their male ; on the other hand, the male would like to see ALL its children cared for (he has 50% of the genetic material in all of them). So this situation is only advantageous if the male is very dominant over the females. In fact, what males hate the most are unfaithful women because then they are caring about kin that has NOT their genetic material - hence the usually very harsh conditions that are put traditionally on adulterous women by a male-dominated society.
See, all tradition (cast into iron by religious traditions) have to do with optimal gene transfer to the next generation, and marriage is one of those traditions, and explains why those traditions have a strong preference for the 1man-1woman situation.
From the moment you leave that reason (such as gay marriages) you can relax in fact all conditions, and have a general kind of contract between members of a group.

 

[arildno]

The government currently grants marriage rights to people.

Correct, and that is the basic issue here.
The same rights that are granted couples married in a church are also granted to those couples who merely go to the public registrar (or whatever his title is).
So no, marriage between a man and a woman is NOT a solely religious matter.
What type of unions a religious sub-community chooses to celebrate, is basically their own affair.

The debate over whether or not the state ought to confer benefits (judicial&fiscal, mainly) to any particular union, or if all such benefits should be withdrawn, is another matter.

However:
By extending these rights to gay couples by no means reduce these rights to straight couples (i.e, the majority), so a woolly argument against "special" privileges to small groups simply doesn't hold.

 

[Townsend]

The idea behind marriage is to create the basis of a secure family unit which is believed to be the best environment to raise children in.

I don't think the government knows what is best for me or my kids...(I don't actually have any kids but if I did..)

So far the American government has not impressed me with their wisdom and I really don't care for their wisdom on how to best raise kids.

I think we can all agree that the governments job is not to micro manage people's personal lives.

 

[Smurf]

I completely agree Townsend. I don't trust the government to pave roads. Why would I trust them to raise my kids?

 

[TRCSF]

The issue really isn't about raising kids.

It's about pandering to homophobes.

People used to make the same argument about kids when interracial marriages were illegal. "Oh, all those poor kids are going to be so confused."

Baloney. Those people didn't want interracial marriages because they hated black people. Pure and simple. Arguments about kids were just a deflection. A phony excuse.

Same thing here.

 

[arildno]

The idea behind marriage is to create the basis of a secure family unit which is believed to be the best environment to raise children in.

Some folk question whether a same-sex union is a good environment for children and so the state is reluctant to grant official status / approval to such relationships. The consequences of this for people in 'unsanctioned' unions are that they have inferior inheritance rights, tax rights and adoption rights etc..

So why are these rights granted to heterosexual couples where the female is past her menopause at the time of the marriage ceremony, then?
(Tens of thousands such marriages happens every year in the US, if not hundreds of thousands, so this is no silly hypothetical example)
There won't be any children in these unions..

 

[arildno]

I completely agree Townsend. I don't trust the government to pave roads. Why would I trust them to raise my kids?

If they disappoint you; vote them out of office.

 

[Art]

I completely agree Townsend. I don't trust the government to pave roads. Why would I trust them to raise my kids?

There was a controversy in the UK a few years back when a left wing authority in a borough of London insisted the schools under it's control use readers for the very young with titles such as "Tom lives with Dick and John."

As the title suggests the book was intended to show children being brought up in a homosexual family unit as being a normal everyday event. Many parents with children at these schools were (in my view understandably) livid.

At christmas this same authority advertised for a black, lesbian Santa Claus.

The point being whilst homosexuality is fine and the vast majority of people have no problem whatsoever with what 2 (or more) consenting adults get up to together they still represent a small but very vocal minority of the population and most people would prefer if they were to stop forcing their sexuality onto everybody else.

 

[arildno]

The point being whilst homosexuality is fine and the vast majority of people have no problem whatsoever with what 2 (or more) consenting adults get up to together they still represent a small but very vocal minority of the population and most people would prefer if they were to stop forcing their sexuality onto everybody else.

And when did demanding the right to visit my dying lover in the hospital, irrespective the wishes of his blood-kin become forcing my sexuality down your throat?

 

[Skyhunter]

Why shouldn't we accept bigamy? Why does a person's personal life have to be socially acceptable?

Gay couples don't harm me, heterosexual couples don't harm me, what people do with their personal lives should be up to them.

I say the government has NO business involving itself in the institution of marriage, what so ever. Why should two (or more) people need a license to get married?

Besides all of that, isn't marriage a religious institution? What business does the government have with the regulation of religious practices?

Originally government involvement in the US was simply to record the marriage.

I agree with Townsend. If people want to be married, all they should need to do is commit to one another using whatever vows or church or rituals they deem appropriate. And there sex or numbers should be of no ones concern but the consenting adults. I do have a problem with arranged marriages, especially when they involve children.

The idea that society would be harmed by allowing gay couples to enjoy the same rights as hetero couples is ludicrous.

I didn't vote for Arnold. I was not happy with Davis, he seemed to spend more time fund raising than governing. I voted against the recall, and for the porn queen (don't remember her name). I did argue that we needed to support him because he took on a tough job and needs support to be effective. However he has shown himself to be just another pandering politician. This veto is just another example.

 

[Skyhunter]

How many gay people are there in the United States?
How many straight people are there in the United States?

http://www.newdirection.ca/a_10per.htm

Apparently not that many. So why should the government support the ~2% at all times - be they the filthy rich ones or the extremely homosexual ones?

Extremely homosexual?

What does that mean?

I that like extremely pregnant?

 

[Skyhunter]

Well if its an issue of discrimination then perhaps they should institute a civil union with same rights and tax codes as for marriages, but not call it a marriage

This is my suggestion.

Classify all government sanctioned marrriages as civil unions. Let the Churchs or whatnot add other labels if they like.

 

[arildno]

Ousted from the party?

I'm not aware of that ever happening. Rising through the party due to other politicians' approval of you? I don't know how that would manifest either.

Eeh?
Who choose a party's candidates to various positions?
That's an internal party process in just about any political party I know of.

 

[TRCSF]

And when did demanding the right to visit my dying lover in the hospital, irrespective the wishes of his blood-kin become forcing my sexuality down your throat?

Yeah, what is it with homophobes and their fantasies about homosexuals shoving things down their throats?

 

[Skyhunter]

This has already been done long ago for those who want it. Many people these days get married in civil ceremonies which have nothing to do with religion.

The idea behind marriage is to create the basis of a secure family unit which is believed to be the best environment to raise children in.

Some folk question whether a same-sex union is a good environment for children and so the state is reluctant to grant official status / approval to such relationships. The consequences of this for people in 'unsanctioned' unions are that they have inferior inheritance rights, tax rights and adoption rights etc..

Not to mention if their partner is in an accident they are not immediate family and would possibly not be allowed to visit them in the hospital, would have no say in the care they receive etc.

 

[Art]

And when did demanding the right to visit my dying lover in the hospital, irrespective the wishes of his blood-kin become forcing my sexuality down your throat?

It didn't, why on Earth would you think that? IMO you'd have every right.

 

[arildno]

Not to mention if their partner is in an accident they are not immediate family and would possibly not be allowed to visit them in the hospital, would have no say in the care they receive etc.

But, inasmuch as you would like these rights to be conferred to gay couples by the state (from what I know, hospitals cannot deny a person the right to visit his wife, unless there exist strictly medical reasons for such a denial), then this would be an "interfering" from the state, whether you call the formalized co-habitation between the couple as a civil union or a marriage.
(As a note, gays in Norway can't marry, they may form an officially recognized "partnership")

 

[arildno]

It didn't, why on Earth would you think that? IMO you'd have every right.

But that is one of the basic issues at stake here, and why so many gays want to have the possibility to get a formal recognition of their relationship.

 

[Art]

Not to mention if their partner is in an accident they are not immediate family and would possibly not be allowed to visit them in the hospital, would have no say in the care they receive etc.

Yes I agree. It would be better for all if some form of compromise could be reached. My personal opinion is I couldn't care less if gay people get married as I believe it is unfair for them to be penalised for their sexuality. My post just laid out the arguments for and against.

 

[pattylou]

Now, there's a long-standing tradition of 1 man and 1 woman as such a basic cell which doesn't even find its origin in religion but finds it in Darwinism:

Oooooh. I like this. This'll wind up the fundamentalists on the school boards here, for sure!

Thanks Vanesch!

 

[pattylou]

People used to make the same argument about kids when interracial marriages were illegal. "Oh, all those poor kids are going to be so confused.".

When were interracial marriages illegal??

This is news to me, but could be as useful as Vanesch's perspective, if I ever address the school board here.

Got a reference?

Edit: Slave days?

 

[2CentsWorth]

This is my suggestion.

Classify all government sanctioned marrriages as civil unions. Let the Churchs or whatnot add other labels if they like.

Personally this is my position too, and as you say there are many private sector restrictions such as hospital rules, medical benefits, etc., which discriminate against those not considered legally married.

This goes for heterosexuals living together, even under 'common law' too. Where I once worked my boss was diagnosed with liver cancer. Fortunately for her, when she reached the point where she could no longer work and qualify for her medical benefits, her boyfriend married her so she could be on his policy. But at least they had that option.

And now...in all fairness to Arnold...the majority of Americans are against making gay marriage legal. So it is not a popular position for any politician to take.