Well, I answered that to the best of my ability. I'm not familiar enough with legal jargon to know exactly what that means. I'll sign off from this now.

Quote:You bring up an excellent point regarding incest. As learned from the nobility of Europe inbreeding has some serious side effects over many generations but not right away. As it is right now the states may prohibit persons from incestuous relationships under rational basis (the state has a legitimate interest and the discrimination is reasonably related to that interest) under the rational that

1)Incestuous relationships are in opposition to the biological goal of dihybrid procreative means practiced by humans and all hominids.
2)Incestuous relationships are psychologically harming to the people directly and indirectly involved (such as the resultant children).
3)The state does not wish to encourage or promote the engagement of incestuous relations which may reasonable result in incestuous relations with children who are underage.

Under the petitioners propose change to a fundamental right that is recognition and dignity/security centric none of those reasons will pass strict scrutiny.

But the point I was making is that it isn't just gay people who can't procreate with one another, and it isn't just incestuous relationships that cause birth defects.

Just something to keep in mind and for everyone to cool down because and not get overlay worked-up or upset.

1. When this posting/ chat/ discussion topic, (whatever you wish to call it) was sit up by Anima he /she stated that they would like to argue about the issue of same sex marriage UNDER THE LEGAL ARGUMENT THAT IS BEING PRESENTED TO THE SUPREME COURT. Thus discussion is going to talk about the issue in legal terms and concepts. Upon reading HOW this wanting to be argued, I knew that legal jargon would be used and that the logic/reason of the argument would be law based.
Some have understudied this and have argued under the set statute of the discussion. Others, who forever reason, are not arguing law but personal feeling and views on what they think of the issue. Which is not what was the asked for when engaging this dissection. However, Anima has not complained about it and has even tried to address your comments. Yet, it is because of personal views, ideas and reasons that are not in keeping with the why this argument was to focus on, are being posted that a misunderstanding of the augment of the topic at times occurs. Thus, causing many becoming disrespectful, closed minded, unreasonable, frustrated and so on, which should not really be accruing if you are arguing it legally.


2. Now when arguing law a different way of approaching the topic is done in the court. The petitioners MUST LEGALLY proven the point of argument. This is done by, evidence, testimony and precedence (which are in the cases that judges have ruled on previously and is equal to the case that is currently being argued. The court CAN NOT AND WILL NOT say we will rule in your favor because of what you think and feel. If that were the case the law would be pandemonium, unruly along with many other devastating situations.
Case in point Zimmerman was found not guilty because UNDER THE LAW he was just in his actions. Now many say it was immoral, wrong, and even unjust, but it is the law that he is being tried under and the law said he is legally right. What the people think and feel is not taking to account in the court room.

P.S. writing in English is very difficult for me, hence why I almost never post anything bUT just read the augments. So sorry for any misspellings and bad grammar.

(June 5, 2015 at 11:07 am)paulpablo Wrote: But the point I was making is that it isn't just gay people who can't procreate with one another, and it isn't just incestuous relationships that cause birth defects.

The subject of infertile and elderly couples has been explained in previous posts and is covered under overinclusiveness of the procreation centric definition.

The state prohibition on incest relationships is under rational basis scrutiny and not strict scrutiny. It may be prohibited under rational basis for the reasons I presented.

Now if the petitioners win their claim and a fundamental right is established than strict scrutiny would be required to restrict incestuous relationships. An argument to birth defects would not satisfy strict scrutiny so under that argument incestuous relationships could not be prohibited.

"2)Incestuous relationships are psychologically harming to the people directly and indirectly involved (such as the resultant children)."

Proof??

I'm gonna go down do the courthouse and sort all this out. Give me the address.

They need some rank amateur with no legal knowledge and a plastic chainsaw to set things straight. These arguments may or may not be valid but by golly I'm going to shout a lot.

Erm, do you think they'll let me in?

I've enjoyed the debate but I've found it hard because

1- I don't know shit
2- I'm getting all the info about what is happening from the guy debating me
3- I'm getting all the legal facts from the guy debating me
4- I'm better at maths

But I had fun anyway. I appreciate the effort

(2 and 3 aren't criticisms, I understand it's a difficult position to run. It's not your fault I don't know anything about the subject, just explaining why my arguments are probably not my best.)

(June 5, 2015 at 1:35 pm)Anima Wrote:

(June 5, 2015 at 11:07 am)paulpablo Wrote: But the point I was making is that it isn't just gay people who can't procreate with one another, and it isn't just incestuous relationships that cause birth defects.

The subject of infertile and elderly couples has been explained in previous posts and is covered under overinclusiveness of the procreation centric definition.

The state prohibition on incest relationships is under rational basis scrutiny and not strict scrutiny.  It may be prohibited under rational basis for the reasons I presented.

Now if the petitioners win their claim and a fundamental right is established than strict scrutiny would be required to restrict incestuous relationships.  An argument to birth defects would not satisfy strict scrutiny so under that argument incestuous relationships could not be prohibited.

So going back to what the procreation centric definition is, all you gave me is a list of people who either can't procreate or if they did procreate might have children with some defects. 

So what is the actual definition and where does it come from?  Is it a term used in law?  The only time I can see it is related to Christian marriage and Christian arguments against gay marriage.

I'm quite far removed from this argument because (1) I'm not gay (2) I wouldn't want to get married if I was gay (3) I don't know about law.

I don't know the difference between gay marriage and civil partnership if there is a difference and I don't know why/if homosexuals are wanting to get married within the Christian church and if they aren't wanting to get married within the Christian church why Christians would have any opinion on gay marriage anyway.

I could google all this stuff but (1) I have no motivation to do so because of the 3 points I listed previously and (2) Google has been working slow for me the past few days.

Fucking civil partnership. That pisses me off. It might as well be called, "Underclass marriage".

If there is a good reason why it is called that, I'd love to hear it. But my guess is it's to appease the religious/homophobic aspect of our country. Maybe one day it can just be called marriage and people can grow the fuck up.

(June 4, 2015 at 11:43 am)Cato Wrote: Anima,
I heard a slightly different argument. The state interest was specifically characterized by the need to ensure the bond between parents and children. The reason for excluding homosexual couples was based on the unsubstantiated claim that changing the definition of traditional marriage for their inclusion would result in fewer heterosexual couples entering into marriage which would legitimize the exclusion based on the stated state interest.

In my opinion there were no substantive answers when challenged by the extremely high increase in out of wedlock births since 1970 and the evidence from Maine or Massachusetts (can't remember which) that indicated no such decline in heterosexual marriage rates have been noticed in the past ten years. I think I remember the answer to the latter was a hand wave at ten years not being sufficient time for demonstration.

Cato;

I meant to respond to this and got side tracked. My apologies for the delayed response.

As a legal right the states may restrict marriage under rational basis scrutiny. Under rational basis the state must have a legitimate interest and the discrimination must be reasonably related to that interest (even if tenuously).

As such the respondents stipulate, under rational basis the state as a legitimate interest in tying children to the biological parent to establish parental right and liabilities in regards to a child. The discrimination is reasonably related (even tenuously) to the interest as evidenced by the impact of previous change to marriages in history. With the introduction of no fault divorce in the 1970s the amount of children born out of wedlock increased substantial.

The impacts of no fault divorce were an increased rate of divorce (this is evidenced by its implementation) an unanticipated impact of increased divorce is a sentiment that there is no point in getting married as it will just result in divorce. A further unanticipated impact of this sentiment is that while the quantity of marriage is decreased the rate of births did not decrease proportionally, resulting in a greater rate of children born out of wedlock, due to the decrease in sentiment to marry, cause by no fault divorce. (As I said, under rational basis the reasonable relation needs to exist no matter how tenuous!!)

An effort to rebuttal this argument is being provided in regards to 2 data points of Maine and Mass. who studies show no noticeable decline in the rate of marriage over the last 10 years. Rebuttal to this rebuttal has been made in regards to statistical outliers and the law of diminishing return. The argument is that 2 data points in contradiction to the great body of data in affirmation of the impact of no fault divorce do not constitute sufficient proof of no reasonable relation. The other argument is that the impact of no fault divorce was most prevalent in the initial years following its implementation and the institution has modified to account for this impact (which is akin of saying the base of the comparison has change from Xnow/X1970 to Xnow/X2000); once again holding that the impact is the same but the rate of the impact is diminish due to the limitation of the study range, which does not constitute sufficient proof evidence of no reasonable relation.

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(June 5, 2015 at 4:13 pm)Losty Wrote: "2)Incestuous relationships are psychologically harming to the people directly and indirectly involved (such as the resultant children)."

Proof??

Umm... Internet search. I would prefer not to have to comb through the myriad of websites that will popup in regards to incestuous relationships. But I am confident you can find it.

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(June 5, 2015 at 6:38 pm)paulpablo Wrote: So going back to what the procreation centric definition is, all you gave me is a list of people who either can't procreate or if they did procreate might have children with some defects. 

So what is the actual definition and where does it come from?  Is it a term used in law?  The only time I can see it is related to Christian marriage and Christian arguments against gay marriage.

I'm quite far removed from this argument because (1) I'm not gay (2) I wouldn't want to get married if I was gay (3) I don't know about law.

I don't know the difference between gay marriage and civil partnership if there is a difference and I don't know why/if homosexuals are wanting to get married within the Christian church and if they aren't wanting to get married within the Christian church why Christians would have any opinion on gay marriage anyway.

I could google all this stuff but (1) I have no motivation to do so because of the 3 points I listed previously and (2) Google has been working slow for me the past few days.

The procreation centric definition comes from biology, it is how we got here

Furthermore, it has been explicitly and implicitly included in the definition of marriage and inheritance throughout the world as far back as may be historically recognized.

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(June 6, 2015 at 3:57 am)robvalue Wrote: Fucking civil partnership. That pisses me off. It might as well be called, "Underclass marriage".

If there is a good reason why it is called that, I'd love to hear it. But my guess is it's to appease the religious/homophobic aspect of our country. Maybe one day it can just be called marriage and people can grow the fuck up.

Passions aside. There is very little legal distinction between civil partnership and marriage. Even the European Civil Rights Court in 2015 has stated that civil partnership is legally equivalent to marriage.

With that said it is recognized that there is a moral distinction between civil partnership and marriage. Society has assigned a moral rightness to marriage of heterosexuals that it is has not assigned to homosexual civil partnership. The argument of the petitioners (initially made in US V Windsor) is that the moral assignment is attached to the marriage moniker and is transferable to homosexual marriages by their inclusion.

Respondents argument is that the states and the court are not in the business of conveying or withholding social moral rightness. Social mores being assigned by the populace cannot be legislated. The example given in US V. Windsor is that if you tell a child to be friends with another child he does not like, and further compel him to call that child his friend to his previous existing friends that he does like. The child will naturally create a new moniker to distinguish one group from the other. He is my friend, you are my buddies. He is my buddy, you guys are my pals. etcetera.

I love it, from "we have an interest in continuing our discrimination" to "we'll just continue to be bigots no matter what laws you pass".

On the first count, we don't (and isn't it lovely to frame the conversation in such a blatant display of disregard for our fellow man...lol), and the second is a -no shit- statement.  

Of course bigots will continue to be bigots regardless of the laws we write or the manner in which we coerce their compliance....if that weren't true then we probably wouldn't need to discuss this issue at the level of the supreme court, eh?

@Rob, LOL..you don't need to know much to get to the heart of this, all the legal'eez is just a veneer through which the witless argue -for- that which they would otherwise be ashamed -of-.