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Originally posted by Orbax *winces

orbie!!!!!!!

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philippe - In MEXICO says: ur the most clever pothead i know philippe - In MEXICO says: u deserve a fucking medal

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Originally posted by arctic The pedophilia issue is an interesting one as well, whilst it is possible to argue that the children 'consent', it's also equally valid to argue that the children are in effect being forced into it. They're physically , mentally and emotionally weaker than an adult who decides he/she wants to 'have their way' with them, and it's no doubt possible to argue that they don't have the maturity level to actually consent at that age, although I know there are a few flaws that particular argument. 02.

The only thing I would have to say would be hard to argue is what exactly "mental" and "emotional" strengths are. How would you measure them? Who would make the test. You have to admit that any test is biased. White people answer tests differently than blacks, and once you get outside of America its even worse.

Judgment?? Again, its a totally subjective measurement based on what you think a good idea is.

I guess that would be one of those few flaws hehe.

Also, when you say that compared to bestiality and pedophilia, that homosexuality has no real discernable harm...again, its all just too much push from the gay community "No, we dont want civil unions, we want MARRIAGE! Just like straight couples"

Now that being the argument, you know what, it shouldnt be illegal, but if the churches were doing THEIR jobs, it wouldnt be an issue, the gays wouldnt be able to get married.

So yeah, I say go for it. The state cannot restrict OR ENFORCE the church. I think its lamentable that there are pastors out there willing to marry such a couple.

Whaddya gonna do though? I hate our society today

I always enjoy reading David Brooks' articles and listening to his commentary on McNeil Leher. Nobody can accuse him of being a "pretend" conservative.

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Op-Ed: The Power of Marriage By David Brooks Originally published in the New York Times November 22, 2003 Anybody who has several sexual partners in a year is committing spiritual suicide. He or she is ripping the veil from all that is private and delicate in oneself, and pulverizing it in an assembly line of selfish sensations. But marriage is the opposite. Marriage joins two people in a sacred bond. It demands that they make an exclusive commitment to each other and thereby takes two discrete individuals and turns them into kin. Few of us work as hard at the vocation of marriage as we should. But marriage makes us better than we deserve to be. Even in the chores of daily life, married couples find themselves, over the years, coming closer together, fusing into one flesh. Married people who remain committed to each other find that they reorganize and deepen each other's lives. They may eventually come to the point when they can say to each other: "Love you? I am you." Today marriage is in crisis. Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. Worse, in some circles, marriage is not even expected. Men and women shack up for a while, produce children and then float off to shack up with someone else. Marriage is in crisis because marriage, which relies on a culture of fidelity, is now asked to survive in a culture of contingency. Today, individual choice is held up as the highest value: choice of lifestyles, choice of identities, choice of cellphone rate plans. Freedom is a wonderful thing, but the culture of contingency means that the marriage bond, which is supposed to be a sacred vow till death do us part, is now more likely to be seen as an easily canceled contract. Men are more likely to want to trade up, when a younger trophy wife comes along. Men and women are quicker to opt out of marriages, even marriages that are not fatally flawed, when their "needs" don't seem to be met at that moment. Still, even in this time of crisis, every human being in the United States has the chance to move from the path of contingency to the path of marital fidelity — except homosexuals. Gays and lesbians are banned from marriage and forbidden to enter into this powerful and ennobling institution. A gay or lesbian couple may love each other as deeply as any two people, but when you meet a member of such a couple at a party, he or she then introduces you to a "partner," a word that reeks of contingency. You would think that faced with this marriage crisis, we conservatives would do everything in our power to move as many people as possible from the path of contingency to the path of fidelity. But instead, many argue that gays must be banished from matrimony because gay marriage would weaken all marriage. A marriage is between a man and a woman, they say. It is women who domesticate men and make marriage work. Well, if women really domesticated men, heterosexual marriage wouldn't be in crisis. In truth, it's moral commitment, renewed every day through faithfulness, that "domesticates" all people. Some conservatives may have latched onto biological determinism (men are savages who need women to tame them) as a convenient way to oppose gay marriage. But in fact we are not animals whose lives are bounded by our flesh and by our gender. We're moral creatures with souls, endowed with the ability to make covenants, such as the one Ruth made with Naomi: "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried." The conservative course is not to banish gay people from making such commitments. It is to expect that they make such commitments. We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity. When liberals argue for gay marriage, they make it sound like a really good employee benefits plan. Or they frame it as a civil rights issue, like extending the right to vote. Marriage is not voting. It's going to be up to conservatives to make the important, moral case for marriage, including gay marriage. Not making it means drifting further into the culture of contingency, which, when it comes to intimate and sacred relations, is an abomination.

http://www1.law.ucla.edu/~williamsproj/Ideas/power.html

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Originally posted by prolikewhoa orbie!!!!!!!

Sup, babe!

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Originally posted by Orbax Although I agree with you on stuff about what Marriage ought to be, and on some other issues, they are purely ideological, and in this particular discussion I think it would benefit all of us to speak more on the impact that these things have on society than merely talking about Utopia. It gets kind of redundant when someone says, "well gays shouldnt marry because its wrong" "why" "because it says so in the Bible". Its called the fallacy of ex cathedra (from the pulpit) and its logically unsupportable. Again, I agree with the Bible, but not everyone considers the Bible to be God's word, or even that God exists. Like I said, focus more on oberservable effects and probabilities. They make you look less emotionally vested in the subject, and help people focus on what is being said, instead of who is saying it. Research is a thumbs up. Cheers

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Originally posted by Orbax The only thing I would have to say would be hard to argue is what exactly "mental" and "emotional" strengths are. How would you measure them? Who would make the test. You have to admit that any test is biased. White people answer tests differently than blacks, and once you get outside of America its even worse. Judgment?? Again, its a totally subjective measurement based on what you think a good idea is. I guess that would be one of those few flaws hehe. Also, when you say that compared to bestiality and pedophilia, that homosexuality has no real discernable harm...again, its all just too much push from the gay community "No, we dont want civil unions, we want MARRIAGE! Just like straight couples" Now that being the argument, you know what, it shouldnt be illegal, but if the churches were doing THEIR jobs, it wouldnt be an issue, the gays wouldnt be able to get married. So yeah, I say go for it. The state cannot restrict OR ENFORCE the church. I think its lamentable that there are pastors out there willing to marry such a couple. Whaddya gonna do though? I hate our society today

lol yes, they were basically the flaws that I had in mind. You have to admit though, people who are victims of pedophilia are nearly always fucked up for life, there have been a million studies that show that victims are far more likely to turn to hard drugs, to cut themselves, commit suicide etc. I know it's almost impossible to measure/define, pedophilia causes serious harm to the people involved, whereas I don't think homosexuality does.

It seems you're coming at this from a 'harm to society' point of view, whereas I'm looking at it from a 'harm to the individuals' standpoint. I think that marriage in it's current form could accommodate the vast majority homosexuals, although I would like to see a system whereby there are benefits given to people who reproduce/adopt, therefore meaning that most gay couples (ie: ones who do not adopt) could have a civil union or something of the sort, along with hetro couples that don't want kids.
Then again, that's probably not going to happen.

The church point is an interesting one, down here the church objecting wouldn't have much of an effect, a lot of people just get civil celebrants to perform their marriages anyhow, with no church involvement whatsoever. Being an atheist, if I ever get married, I'll no doubt go down the same road as well...

Oh yes, thumbs up to you for not being one of those typical bible bashing American Christians who think that the bible/christian teachings should apply to everyone, including non believers.

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I agree that pedophilia messes people up. But then again, OJ did it. Its all about legal system. If this was a debate on what is right and wrong...hehe.

Yeah, I seriously have no problem with people getting unioned by a civil servant (legally of course. Morally, I find it highly disturbing). The thought of my church marrying homosexual couples under God is what bothers me. As long as that is upheld, people can do whatever they want, im not going to change them. Unless of course them "doing whatever they want" includes fucking with me, or someone else. Then they get teh smackdown.

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Originally posted by arctic Yes, I'm aware that the incest laws are basically based on religion, an 'is incest wrong?' debate would be very interesting in my humble opinion. I agree that the current marital system is flawed, I think that perhaps there should be benefits for people having children, whereas gay couples who don't adopt and heterosexuals who don't want/have children get a different set of benefits more appropriate to there situation.

Ah getting into gay adoption are we... now that's a whole other issue in itself. Since gay adoption is essentially forcing that family structure upon the child, I think we'd need to do a very thorough analysis of the effects on the child and on society at large, before attempting to legalize such a thing. Tito's mentioned earlier some of the problems with homophilic societies, including but not limited to the birth rate. Nevertheless, if it could be determined that no negative effects would arise from this (doubtful), then sure, it could happen. For now though, let's just leave adoptions out of this.

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With the animal point, do they even have the intelligence/self awareness to consent to sex with another species. I've always assumed that the only purpose for animals having sex is to reproduce, therefore I can't see how they would be able to consent to sex with a human. I can't imagine an animal would approach a human for sex either, the human would no doubt effectively rape the animal.

Well now I suppose it just depends which perspective you take, doesn't it? It's all well and good to say that they don't have the mental capacity to consent, but it makes equally as much logical sense to say that they don't have the mental capacity to refuse. And in many cases, an absence of refusal is consent. Is it sexual assault to jack off a horse? If I'm not mistaken, this is actually common practice (with race horses or something like that), although I don't remember the details.

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The pedophilia issue is an interesting one as well, whilst it is possible to argue that the children 'consent', it's also equally valid to argue that the children are in effect being forced into it. They're physically , mentally and emotionally weaker than an adult who decides he/she wants to 'have their way' with them, and it's no doubt possible to argue that they don't have the maturity level to actually consent at that age, although I know there are a few flaws that particular argument.

Yes there are a few flaws, and we're both aware of them - their mental and emotional capacity is fairly subjective, as is clearly shown by the distinct variations in age of consent in different countries - for example, the USA says it's 18, but Canada says a mere 14 years of age is old enough. I think in Europe the general consensus is around 15. So let's say a 22-year-old wants to marry a 17-year-old - in many parts of Europe, this could happen, but in the USA, it could not. Who decides what is right? Should the USA change the law to accomodate families that might have come from a European background?

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As for the reproduction argument, marriage isn't necessarily about reproduction, people who are sterile are still perfectly able to get married, as are people who openly state that they will never, ever have children. If the (secular) marriage laws were re written to expressly state that marriage was designed to give benefits to those who wanted to bear children/reproduce, then very well, just give gays who don't adopt a civil union, along with heterosexual couples who don't (or won't) reproduce.

Again I'd like to leave gay adoption out of this for the time being... but in any event, yes, I agree that the marital benefits should really only be conferred upon those who actually have children or intend to have them at some point. However, once again, from a policy standpoint, we can't really do a full-scale investigation on every couple wanting to get married, so we just assume that every couple might have kids. A homosexual couple, however, is pretty much guaranteed not to reproduce, so from a policy standpoint, it doesn't make much sense to give them childcare benefits.

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The main problem I see with lumping all the 'abnormal' sexual behavioral patterns in together is the fact that some clearly cause emotional/mental harm (ie: they involve people/creatures who can't reasonably be expected to knowingly consent to the acts being performed), whilst others such as homosexuality, don't necessarily harm anyone. Two gay men are perfectly able to consent to having sex together/living together as life partners, whereas (in my opinion), a 10 year old girl is not able to do the same with a 40 year old man/woman.

The "consent" issue is no less subjective than the "morality" issue when it comes to homosexuality. While I understand where you're coming from, it doesn't hold water as a logical argument because it essentially depends on one's personal opinion. I don't even think there are laws against bestiality (although someone might feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), so it follows that the state doesn't view this as rape or cruelty. And even if there are laws against it in this country, I know for a fact that there aren't laws against it everywhere.

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I'd actually like to see the whole concept of marriage looked at again, as I mentioned before, I think civil unions should be there for non child bearing couples (gay and straight), whereas (secular) marriage should be reserved for adopting homosexuals and straight couples with kids.

No need to repeat my comment about adoption, but other than that, I'm not disagreeing with you - I simply don't see it happening, though, because it's not efficient for the government to implement. Yes, they should, but they won't. It's a good idea in an idealistic sense, but it's just not practical. What's practical is to keep things just as they are.

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That David Brooks article was brilliant. I started off reading it assuming it would have a very different line. What a nice surprise. I'd never thought of homosexual marriage in that light, but it does make sense.

It's not just the tax breaks that are the issue. As it was mentioned before it goes into estates, signing authority, death, etc etc etc. If both people in a relationship are earning a decent amount of money being married WILL NOT give you any tax breaks. Those that post on about these magical tax breaks clearly aren't old enough or making enough money to understand this yet.

Wills are awesome, everyone should have one.