In which ariyanakylstram makes an excellent point

[unixronin]

As ariyanakylstram pointed out about California Proposition 8,

If marriage is so damned sacred, get rid of divorce, not the right to marry.

Ah, but that would impact those who think they have a god-given right to say who may and may not marry and divorce as they please, wouldn't it?  Whereas banning gay marriage only impacts, you know, them.

Look, folks, it's this simple:  If you disapprove of gays marrying, DON'T MARRY ONE.  If your marriage is in such jeopardy that two people marrying several states away can put it at risk, maybe you should be paying more attention to your own marriage instead of worrying about who else is doing it.

You know, mote, eye, beam, all that jazz?  . . . You did actually read that book, right?

Comments

[house-pundit.livejournal.com]

My opinion on anything touching gay rights is the same.

1) It's downright creepy to care that much what other people are doing sexually behind their own closed doors, when those other people are folks who wouldn't want you sitting there and pondering on their sex lives. It's not the same thing as sticking a hidden camera in other people's bedrooms so you can watch, but it has an unpleasant whiff of non-consensual voyeurism.

2) If you don't like it, don't lick it.

My opinion on marriage:

It should be a contract and a matter of contract law. The state has no business in it except to enforce things like where they say a contract is unenforceable for some big reason--i.e. with a minor, or an over-broad employment non-compete clause, or in other cases where one party was in some way unduly pressured to make a contract patently overwhelmingly to their disadvantage.

I'm thinking in this case of sharia-type marriages. That's the kind of "agreement" that if you treated marriage as a contractual matter would have many provisions fit within the present legal framework defining unenforceable contracts.

Yes, this would effectively legalize long-term prostitution. Arguably, pre-nuptual agreements have already done that. (In places where prostitution isn't already otherwise legal.)

Let each state have a default contract kind of like the provisions for if you die without a will, let different religions or social organizations come up with boilerplate recommended contracts, let individual couples or groups hash out their own, and otherwise leave the state out of it.

I have strong personal feelings about this because of a bad experience when James and I got married. We had the ceremony we wanted--a handfasting performed by my then High Priest and High Priestess. The part missing was we had friends but not family, because we had family members who would have had religious issues attending. We solved the problem by, for extended family purposes, eloping.

Then we had to get married again at the registrar's office because we hadn't arranged the paperwork.

The judge or whatever read from the Christian Bible and used traditional Christian marriage vows, which I was extremely uncomfortable with but, hello, like I want to raise a fuss when I'm getting married?

It's not just gays who suffer from the government sticking its nose into personal, romantic, religious, and contractual matters.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

You won't hear any argument from me on any of that.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I claim that marriage is an activity that the state wants to actively encourage, because it's failure is more costly. To encourage marriage, the state provides incentives and privileges. I think your definition bypasses that function of the state intent. It is not really different from tax breaks to encourage activities that are beneficial to the state.

The root question is: Should the state provide incentives to encourage activities that benefit the state? (That is a major issue with a flat tax.) If yes, what activities need to be encouraged? (and Why?)