Gay Marriage - are you for or against it and why?

[Ashendant]

Quad-bisexual-poligamies is the perfect type of marriage

[Autumnlicious]

That 'Loop Hole' you advocate leaves much room for those women to screw over the dudes. Two evil minds working together it wouldn't be long before both the butt-pirates found themselves in divorce court facing 18 years of child support payments (if adoption happened) and the loss of their home AND the loss of their child if they were able to adopt also.

We wouldn't have the vast body of laws today were it not for the fact that there were "loop holes" that were exploited in bad faith, hence necessitating more laws.

[HeyItsZeus]

I oppose it since I oppose the government getting involved with any aspect of religion. The government should stay out of all types of marriage (including heterosexual marriage); it has no business being there in the first place.

Do you understand that there will always be government involvement in our lives? Adapt to the situation and move on. (Pffftt....libertarians)

I support it because I have no reason not to. Besides, my morals dictate that I should treat everyone equally... I'm not religious, after all.

[Ashendant]

Hurray for progress

US gay marriage ban: US government drops defence of law
A wedding cake at a same-sex wedding ceremony. Gay marriage is legal in five states across the US, and the District of Columbia.

The US government says it will no longer defend in the courts a law banning federal recognition of same-sex marriages approved by states.

US Attorney General Eric Holder said President Barack Obama had found the Defense of Marriage Act (Doma) unconstitutional.

The 1996 law defines marriage as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife".

Five states and Washington DC allow same-sex marriages.
'Unnecessary and unfair'

Previously, the US had defended the law in challenges of its constitutionality. US President Barack Obama had said he supported only same-sex civil unions, though in December he acknowledged his position was "evolving".

White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Wednesday Mr Obama believed Doma was "unnecessary and unfair", but was still "grappling" with his personal views on gay marriage.

In the US, marriage comes under the purview of state law, and Doma, passed under former President Bill Clinton, states that no state or other jurisdiction of the US shall be required to recognise a same-sex marriage approved elsewhere.

The law also requires the federal government to interpret the legal concept of marriage only as a legal union between a man and a woman.

A spokesman to Republican House Speaker John Boehner said Mr Obama should instead be focusing on job creation and budget cuts.
Continue reading the main story
Places where gay marriage is legal in the US

* New Hampshire
* Massachusetts
* Connecticut
* Iowa
* Vermont
* Washington DC

"The president will have to explain why he thinks now is the appropriate time to stir up a controversial issue that sharply divides the nation," said Michael Steel.

In a letter to Mr Boehner and other Congressional leaders on Wednesday, Mr Holder said the Obama administration would not defend the law in two current court challenges brought by same-sex couples.

He said the president, a constitutional lawyer, had deemed the law violated the equal protection provisions of the US constitution.

But Mr Holder said the administration would continue to enforce parts the law requiring government agencies to interpret marriage as only a union between a man and a woman until the law was ruled unconstitutional by a court.
Court challenge

"While both the wisdom and the legality of... Doma will continue to be the subject of both extensive litigation and public debate, this administration will no longer assert its constitutionality in court," Mr Holder wrote.

At stake are thousands of federal benefits afforded to married couples, including Social Security benefits, tax benefits, immigration rights, family leave, military housing and other items.

[Dotard]

Is marriage now defined as between one person and one person? Or just not one man one woman?

I'd like to marry my dog please. Get a marrige tax break, some family leave and... oh, throw in some of those 'other items' also.

[Ashendant]

the legal or religious ceremony that formalizes the decision of two people to live as a married couple, including the accompanying social festivities: to officiate at a marriage.

[Dotard]

I've oft wondered why the importance of the label "Married" or "Marriage".

What would make that definition so unacceptable as to read; "...the legal or religious ceremony that formalizes the decision of two people to live as a UNITED couple, including the accompanying social festivities: to officiate at a marriage.

Just a simplistic label like HE for a dude and SHE for a woman. For a dude Married if with a female. United if with another homo. And as I am typing this I am realizing that would just be silly. Why would there be a need for separate noun for homosexuals? Just so people like me have instant confirmation if we suspect a dude is a homo? Silly and not nessesary. Marriage is just what we call two people who make a public announcement of their union as a couple. Seems it would apply to hetros as well as homos no matter how I try to twist and pull at the definition of marriage.

Fussing and fighting about a simple definition of two people entering into a civil union, no matter how I try to make it not so, defined as marriage, is really nonsense.

Marry my dog.... what the hell was that? I really took leave of my senses (I know, I know, not a stretch of the imagination for me to do so) on that one. I wish I could say "Oh I was stoned!" but I'm stoned all the time (hell, I'm stoned right now) so that's no excuse. It was a dummy thing to post and I was the dummy for posting it.

Homosexuality is still an abnormality though.

[Autumnlicious]

While Dotard I'd like to whack you over the head with studies on homosexual behaviors observed in the natural world, that is neither here nor there.

Marriage, the legal institution, should serve all persons, where person is defined as a sapient, thinking being on par with the average human. It seems arbitrary because it is - were there an AI or animal that had the same capabilities for social growth, mental agility and language, it would pretty much be a person.

To explain further on this, I indulge in the walks-like-a-duck, quacks-like-a-duck line of thought (called duck-typing in Python btw). If you accept that a human being is completely isolated from another human being with only inputs of the five senses and a "mind" to interpret them, then we essentially see the "human being" as a black box.

Now that we have this black box, or what we consider makes a thinking being a thinking being, divorced from the biology (but not the initial conditions set in this thought experiment), we must now consider what makes it akin to another, unrelated black box. However, this second black box can be derived from anything and compared to the first, which is derived from us humans. If both boxes share a significant set of similarities past an arbitrary limit (I would suggest the statistical differences between all human-derived black boxes), then they are considered of equal footing (as in rights, capability, personhood). Less (or perhaps more - supersmart AI's that outstrip us by chance?) would, of course, be subject to argument.

Either way, in the above, I laid out (at least what I see) a consistent system to compare, assuming we had all the information (this is an ideal system), multiple entities, a baseline for "personhood" derived from ourselves, etc,.

Why did I do this?

So I can shoot down your statement about marrying your dog, which probably doesn't have close to a significant fraction of "personhood" as a disabled, retard will have. Since we don't let them marry (very rarely it occurs - there is a court case over such a thing TBH), why should we let you marry your dog?

However, since we let persons marry each other (they must rate within whatever humans consider the norm - how us humans differentiate between normal and abnormal is still unknown, but when they see it, they object to it), then what does it matter, the genitalia at hand?

A person of appropriate personhood is given rights in our society (using actual terms from the ethics class on embryonic stem cells - fucking shit load of ethics papers I had to read :S). Finding the limits on what is a person is the question.

What is not in the question is whether or not same-sex lovers are people.

If they're people, they have rights.

Let the fuckers marry under the law and be done with it.

[everythingafter]

I don't understand the reasons against it and no one has ever given me a rational response.

That's simple, summer. It's condemned by Yahweh. Didn't ya know?? Oh, you said rational.

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For it. They should get the tax benefits that go along with it as well.

[Dotard]

While Dotard I'd like to whack you over the head with studies on homosexual behaviors observed in the natural world, that is neither here nor there.

How would that refute my contention homosexuality is an abnormality?

As for the rest of your post, sorry it took me a bit but you will see a a few posts later I retracted that "marry my dog" comment as idiotic.

Good Job refuting my retracted comment though!