The Song Fight Bulletin Board

[[citation needed]]

Also, many states recognize common-law marriages, which do not require a license.

California should protect marriage even further and ban straight divorce.

stateshirt wrote:California should protect marriage even further and ban straight divorce.

amen, I mean...you know...to preserve the sanctity it insists that is so precious.

stateshirt wrote:California should protect marriage even further and ban straight divorce.

That's the church's role.

So is banning gay marriage.

Libertarians think this is an easy one. People can enter into any kind of contract they want. No one else should care whether this is a recognition within their church, a vow of monogamy, or a legal contract specifying what happens to salaries and life insurance. And the government's role in siphoning "everybody's" money into the Agreed Good Causes [tm] is supposed to be obsolete. (Libertarians aren't very realistic.)

Government also does another thing though which is to try to specify who gets to take care of people who can't take care of themselves: children (and severely damaged others). It's a deep-rooted, emotionally charged system that gives blood parents the first crack at it and then figures out what's next from there. The supposedly sanctified "marriage" is the only other status given a comparable position. Conferring marriage confers power: large numbers of people will always try to prevent minority groups from having some of that.

I'm not sure libertarians can come to a logical consensus on the child custody thing. Some people feel they own their child, others probably feel that the child is their own self even before they've come of a reasonable age. Someone else's, kid, I mean. Not their own!

Did you hear about this:

BE IT ENACTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ARKANSAS:
Section 1: Adoption and foster care of minors.
(a) A minor may not be adopted or placed in a foster home if the individual seeking to adopt or to serve as a foster parent is cohabiting with a sexual partner outside of a marriage which is valid under the constitution and laws of this state.

I saw it in the New York Times and the Daily Kos. It's probably in the Seattle Stranger also. See, it's a gateway to clobbering all kinds of people's family structures, with gays nominally at the head of the line.

Arkansas is not far from Texas. There's a place for solidarity, for sure!

Yeah, I don't think anyone was really surprised by the anti-gay developments in Florida and Arkansas, but California is generally regarded as the "gay part" of the country (with San Francisco being its capitol).

Which is why people panic everywhere - the bellwether's going down!

fluffy wrote:Yeah, I don't think anyone was really surprised by the anti-gay developments in Florida and Arkansas, but California is generally regarded as the "gay part" of the country (with San Francisco being its capitol).

While there is no way I can argue with the impression that California offers in the way of alternative lifestyles, I hesitate to believe that this state (Florida, with Jacksonville, Miami, and Tampa as well as the college town of Gainsville...)has any likeness to Arkansas on the same subject.

Its pretty progressive here in Tampa.

Hoblit wrote:Its pretty progressive here in Tampa.

I understand it's the strip club capitol of the US. Not sure how that type of commerce dovetails with gay rights, though.

Hoblit wrote:

fluffy wrote:Yeah, I don't think anyone was really surprised by the anti-gay developments in Florida and Arkansas, but California is generally regarded as the "gay part" of the country (with San Francisco being its capitol).

While there is no way I can argue with the impression that California offers in the way of alternative lifestyles, I hesitate to believe that this state (Florida, with Jacksonville, Miami, and Tampa as well as the college town of Gainsville...)has any likeness to Arkansas on the same subject.

Its pretty progressive here in Tampa.

I thought Florida was mostly full of grumpy old people.

Reïst wrote:

Hoblit wrote:

fluffy wrote:Yeah, I don't think anyone was really surprised by the anti-gay developments in Florida and Arkansas, but California is generally regarded as the "gay part" of the country (with San Francisco being its capitol).

While there is no way I can argue with the impression that California offers in the way of alternative lifestyles, I hesitate to believe that this state (Florida, with Jacksonville, Miami, and Tampa as well as the college town of Gainsville...)has any likeness to Arkansas on the same subject.

Its pretty progressive here in Tampa.

I thought Florida was mostly full of grumpy old people.

*Hoblit shakes cane

You really think so eh? Maybe you should get back to your deer and mushroom hunting, smoke your lawless weed, and drink some Moosehead you hoser. Poutine anyone?

Hoblit wrote:

Reïst wrote:

Hoblit wrote:Its pretty progressive here in Tampa.

I thought Florida was mostly full of grumpy old people.

*Hoblit shakes cane

You really think so eh? Maybe you should get back to your deer and mushroom hunting, smoke your lawless weed, and drink some Moosehead you hoser. Poutine anyone?

Haha, I hate to sound like a walking stereotype, but you're pretty much dead on. Except for deer. I'm no hunter.

ps - poutine kicks ass.

erik wrote:

Lord of Oats wrote:Churches should issue marriages and governments should issue civil union/domestic partnerships.

Seperate but equal is never equal. All the rights and shit are great, but people want to be marrrrried. No one wants to hear someone go down on one knee and say "Will you unite with me civilly?" or "Will you form a domestic partnership with me?" People want to be married. Calling it anything other than marriage implies that it is in some way different from marriage, and people don't want different. Everyone has an idea of what marriage is and what it implies. Civil unions/domestic partnerships sound so bland, cold and formal. If I was not legally allowed to marry a person that I was in love with, being able to form a civil union with her wouldn't make me feel all that great.

Currently anyone who wants to is allowed to marry anyone else they want to in the eyes of God (or Goddess, or Gods, or whatever)

It's marriage in the eyes of the state that is being restricted. I have been to a gay marriage, it was performed by a minister and in the eyes of the religion they follow they are married, as well as in the eyes of their community and family. Never mind that Oregon, where it occured, does not license unions between two people of the same gender. That doesn't much matter as far as the romantic hearts and flowers "I wanna be married" side of thing goes. It does matter when it comes to legal rights like hospital visitation, inheritance, mutual property, adoption of children, etc.

The sugestion I saw was to extend civil unions to straights, and get rid of "legal marriage" entirely. Not a bad idea, if it makes the religious whack jobs shut up. The only problem is I don't think it will.