Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: The crux of that argument

I must have been unclear.
Mary Anne — (archived)

I think that making polygamy complex enough to commit (as if its reality wouldn't be) will discourage only the most determined. I never meant that it should be illegal, but I did mean that the law should take everyone covered in the contract into account whenever it changes.

If all the parties concerned have to draw up and sign contracts specifying who gets to do what when, who has a right to what property, etc., polygamy will not be as spontaneous as Britney and her instant husband demonstrated monogamy to be.

We already practice polygamy in this country, sequentially.

Any reason two non-gay roommates couldn't get married for the legal benefits?

This is already done, and without remark, by men and women in celibate marriages, and with remark, none of it good, in the case of "marriages" to obtain green cards. The former is often religious in nature. The latter is fraud, because money changes hands and the couple don't live together and share property with the intent of circumventing the law. What you mean is, two non-gay same-sex roommates. I'd have to ask you, in your world of hypotheticals, why they would want to do that, especially if either of them ever entertained the idea of marrying a member of the opposite sex, or even dating one.

But since opposite-sex straights do this anyway, why shouldn't same-sex straights have the same option?

The other two -- the brother and sister and the parent and child -- are both very strange. I'm not sure where it was established that consanguinity was not a basis to deny marriage. It seems to me that you established that ground rule. I did not agree to it. There are very good reasons to deny marriage to consanguine relatives, even if one or both are sterile: their blood relationship makes the legal benefits of marriage superfluous. People can and do claim elderly parents as dependents, and brothers and sisters can be designated "next of kin" because they are next of kin.

Re: being hung from a tree, loss of voting rights, and sitting in the back of the bus:
How would you feel if you couldn't speak for your spouse as she lay in a coma? Are you aware that gay youth are at greater risk of being beaten up and even killed because they're gay and people fear and loathe them? Would you say the pink triangle was less of an offense against humanity than the yellow star of David?

To single out and isolate a group is to make its members into targets for all the disaffected and violent people around them. Normalizing their legal status would be an important step toward affirming their humanity and making the world a little safer for them. They are valuable members of our community. They should be treated as such.

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