To the topic at hand: As far as opening the door to other definitions of marriage to be considered by the government, I see no problem with it. As long as all parties are consenting adults, what harm can it really do? Take for instance, polygamy. The legalities would have to be defined, case law would have to be set, and forms would have to be changed – in other words, some work on a government and judicial level would have to be done, and it could take many years to set the rules in stone. But, in the end, who is harmed if it happens? Sure, one can say that this might be abused and groups of people would marry so they could receive benefits…but this already happens under our current legal definition of marriage.

Also mentioned was that we should not let just any group receive legal standing just because they ‘want to’. I ask: why not? Any group which has had cause to petition a government for equal status did so because they wanted to. Our Fore Fathers had a revolution because they wanted to; blacks fought for their liberties because they wanted to; women were finally afforded the vote because they wanted to. These are not frivolous measures, nor should anyone’s desire for equal application of law and justice be treated as such. Everyone should be afforded the same opportunity. A government in a free society should never seek to oppress the liberties of any group…as long as said group poses no threat to the life and liberties of others.

And I’m not sure that the government backed idea of marriage has anything to do with procreation. If that were the case then people who marry with no intent of having children, or those who can’t, would be barred from having a legal union. I believe it has more to do with the definition of rights within a relationship, and what rights one has (or one’s offspring may have) if said relationship ends.

What it ultimately comes down to is morality, and whether one is allowed to define one’s own mores or if an outside group (government, in this case) is allowed to exert force to direct and control ones personal views. Some may view same sex marriage as immoral. So be it, as that is an individual choice and every one of us is entitled to make such decisions on what we find moral or not. But when the government defines marriage as only one thing, they are in fact defining moral values…which is simply not their job. Nor should it ever
be in a free society.

HSM…home of healthy, intelligent, respectful debate. Gotta love it

Opposite-sex couples are not always eligible for marriage in our country, for a variety of reasons which this culture has *presently* agreed to. Indeed, the rules can differ significantly from state to state.

The question of keeping marriage between opposite-sex couples exclusively is likewise a slippery slope, because it can then just as easily be argued that the qualifications should be *tightened.* After all, why not? Why not further restrict who should be allowed to marry and compose a nuclear family?

For me, personally, the reason why I have no issue with allowing two people of the same gender to marry is because I can’t find any discernible drawback to it. It poses no danger to my own life and liberty, nor does it seem to have any detrimental impact to the state or nation.

One area where a distinction can possibly be made between homosexuality and polyamory: there’s sufficient evidence (Kinsey being an example) that homosexuality is a sexual orientation, whereas polyamory is a lifestyle choice. Very few people are exclusively heterosexual or exclusively homosexual; were I in a judicial position and interested in continuing to bar a legalization of polyamorous marriage, I would use that distinction to justify legalizing same-sex marriage but not polyamory.

(As a tangent to this discussion: I personally find polygyny and polyandry to be distasteful, even though the former is a common practice throughout many human societies. Yet from a libertarian standpoint, a logical argument can be made for the consideration of such relationships.)

The problem with redefining a boundary is that, out of necessity, hypothetical extremes on both ends of the spectrum must be discussed. Because we, as a society, have to decide what level of middle ground we’re comfortable with.

My personal gut intuition suggests that, given the trend towards greater recognition of same-sex marriage both domestically and internationally, it is simply a matter of time until same-sex marriage is not only legalized at a national level, but in time considered to be no big deal. This will not happen overnight, but it is conceivable that it could take place in as little as two generations.

I wish there was something like this when I was in the service *cough* many years ago.

I was “released” from active duty prior to the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell coming into the service -- fought against them wishing to give me a Dishonorable Discharge for having “homosexual tendencies” and received a “general under honorable” discharge after 6 months of fighting.

I know what it was like then -- and I am sure it isn’t much easier today. There will still be hatred towards the Gay and Lesbian serving proudly within all branches of the military -- but I am sure each one will decide if/when they will “come out” to their friends/family/fellow soldiers.

I know I am proud of each one -- including you Bonzo!!

JPConway

As stated before, I think the economic incentive for marriage is intended to foster the development of a procreative family unit. Should there be unions that are established to accomplish things such as… joint custody of an adopted child? Sure there should be, but marriage has been established as a union between a man and a woman with the implication of procreation. I think the standards of marriage and what socioeconomic reasons we have for it justify keeping it between two consenting adults of the opposite sex. I think that is a reasonable boundary to have.

Marriage is a set institution and concessions for one group will inevitably lead to concessions for others, or at least give other groups cause to protest. I don’t think it would be wise to allow just any set or group of people to gain legal binding because they “want to”. We don’t allow opposite sex couples to get married for green cards for that very reason.

I would like to ask a question myself. Why not keep marriage between opposite sex couples only?

But as for your point of “the government shouldn’t exclude one group” I go right back to the polygamy thing. Do you believe it should be ok for groups of people to get married? You’re going to allow a concession for one group you must allow for them all.

Right now marriage is defined as a man and a woman. That’s an easy line to make. One man. One woman. If you move that line under the heading of “well they are pursuing life liberty and happiness and it doesn’t hurt anyone” then you open the door for all sorts of couplings for people to try to try to get married for all sorts of reasons.

If I may also add: There are two distinct types of ‘marriage’ in the US. One sanctioned by the government (where the economic incentives arise from) and one defined by individual churches (which have its own set of incentives).

The ’blessings’, if you will, of the government should be available to all people and lifestyles – anything less and the government is in the position to use its authority to pick and choose which of its citizens gets special privilege and who doesn’t…a power which no government should have (and one which our government exerts far too often for my taste). In my view if a person consents to being in a same sex or even polyamorous relationship, bound together with paperwork by the state that is entirely up to them.

Now, one could of course argue that such unions may seem unsavory to one’s personal mores – such feelings deserve all the validity due to people who believe the opposite. But, in the end, from the stand point of civil liberties and governmental control, all that is really accomplished by barring any groups from all available liberties is that a segment of the population is shunted into a ‘second class citizen’ status. This is simply not the right or just thing to do.

Now, on the ecclesiastical side of the coin, there’s a whole different ball of wax. Although the government should not bar a portion of its population from the same rights enjoyed by others, a church (in the loosest meaning, as an organized place of worship) or religion is a private organization which does not (and should not) play by the same rules. That being said, any church or religion that wishes not to allow such unions to be recognized within their organizations should be free to do so. It is their right, and the right of their parishioners, to exclude such unions from thier organization.

What it comes down to is that while a religion is free to pick and choose among its flock, the government should never interfere with someone’s pursuit of life, liberty or happiness unless it prevents someone else’s life, liberty or happiness – which same sex relationships do not. Additionally, the ideal is that the law, or any benefits derived from law, should be shared equally among the citizenry. That being said, as people who decide to live ‘alternative lifestyles’ pose no real threat to anyone else’s liberties due to their choice of ‘lifestyle’, then the government should have to apply the same legal entitlements of marriage to all sections of the population, not just the majority or popular front.

When I first began to write for the gay community article, and it was one of the first that we have done. I did not know at the time of the the importance of that article, nor how emotional that article made me feel. ( From listening to the interviews, I felt a range of emotions that I had never felt before, from anger, to sadness, to joy.) But I am so glad that I had met and interviewed JPConway and Darksided Gay, they have both shown me that there is a gay community that exists and will continue to exist, on playstation home, as a Haven and hopefully as a place of safety and friendship.

If we reduce this topic to its core, the question is whether or not same-sex marriages should be allowed — and, if so, what the potential social repercussions are. I would contend that *any* social practice which is open to one group of people but excludes another group is inherently discriminatory. This does not suggest that discrimination, unto itself, is necessarily a bad idea; I doubt anyone would argue with the idea of barring a convicted paedophile from ever teaching preschool, for instance.

At present, we have a set of rules for who qualifies for legal marriage in this country. Anyone who does not meet those guidelines is, technically, discriminated against. This is not necessarily a bad thing. However, it does not mean that those rules are sacrosanct — witness the number of amendments to our own Constitution, for instance.

Thus, while it indeed is a slippery slope to redefine who qualifies for marriage in our culture — as it is a slippery slope to redefine any such rule, on any topic, which permits one group of people entry and yet bars another — that in and of itself does not necessarily invalidate the idea of allowing two legal adults (as presently defined) to marry, regardless of gender, and thus setting that as the new boundary.

Would such a boundary be challenged again in time? Almost certainly. Because societies change and evolve, and the digital revolution we now live in has only sped up that process.

I do think that we shouldn’t be considering what other cultures are doing when it comes to defining our cultures institutions. There are many cultures that are vastly different than America’s. Some of which demand that women be completely subservient to men, others in which young girls are married off to middle aged men… so just because a foreign culture does it isn’t really a qualifier for “correctness”. In my opinion.

In my referencing to the sibling and polygamous marriages I was simply stating that if we view marriage as an economic establishment we remove much of what a marriage is. Once we simply refer to marriage as a means to an economic end, we could very well end up with a greater number of non-sexual couplings requesting those same rights. What would stop any two individuals from arguing that they also deserve the right to be married because they live together, nevermind their lack of sexual involvement.

That being said, adding more stipulations to the question of why shouldn’t a SSM be allowed really only muddies the issue. Are we now defining marriage as an emotionally and economically viable union in which people provide offspring for the society? If that’s the case then are we going to exclude male/female couple who can’t or choose not to have children because they aren’t providing offspring? If not, then how is it fair that we are only considering SSM couples on the basis that they are able to provide a stable home? Wouldn’t that be discriminatory?

Many of these issues seem to be circumvented with the concept of redefining marriage as a legally binding act between individuals. I would, however, use the same thought process that lead us to this conclusion to ask why only two individuals? While we’re redefining what things legally mean, let’s challenge what a “legal adult” is too.

I still stand by the slippery slope argument. That once a concession is made for SSM, a whole world of relationships will have to be considered for marriage under the same pretext.

I may have a somewhat different perspective on this matter because I’m divorced, and in addition to this I also have a fairly decent background in social anthropology; it was amazing to study different marriage systems outside of the Indo-European model our culture presently subscribes to.

Marriage, in our culture, is taught to us as the ultimate expression of love and affection. This cultural teaching exists merely to reinforce the creation of a stable environment in which to create offspring and perpetuate the society. It’s also why it’s relatively easy to get into a marriage in our country, and ridiculously hard to get out of one.

The first rule of human behavior is that people respond to economic incentive. So as long as there are demonstrable economic incentives for marriage (such as the amount of non-taxable income from a Capital Gains event), there will be people fighting for it. A friend of mine married someone for a set length of time in order to get him access to this country; they worked out a private arrangement in terms of economic compensation, they’re good friends, and it’s a very tidy transaction. It also has absolutely nothing to do with starting a family. Whether that’s right or wrong is irrelevant; it’s *allowed.*

Marriage can easily be redefined as an act between two legal adults, regardless of gender or romantic interest. Marriages have, throughout history, been used for reasons other than romance; monarchs historically would arrange marriage for political gain, for instance.

Polygyny and polyandry are an interesting question, as humans aren’t naturally wired to be monogamous. Monogamous marriage is a uniquely Indo-European conceit (as outlined in Helen Fisher’s “The Sex Contract”). I don’t mean to shock anyone out there, but according to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook, only about fifteen percent of all human societies in the world are monogamous. It is only our natural tendency towards anthropocentrism which tells us that the rest of the world is like us, or should be.

Marriage between siblings or any close family relations is forbidden in nearly every culture, however, due to the higher propensity for genetic disease. The offspring thus place a heavier burden on the society, in terms of resource consumption relative to productivity. Of course, economic incentive can overcome even this taboo: the many instances of inbreeding amongst monarchical families, for instance.

It can be argued, of course, that if the justification for marriage is first and foremost procreation — as opposed to economic incentive (which is designed to foster procreation as well) — then a gay couple would not qualify. However, in this day and age, adoption and in-vitro fertilization are alternatives, and I would posit that two homosexual adults in a loving relationship may, on average, provide better odds for raising a productive child than one heterosexual adult. This is not a slight against the many, many single parents out there; it simply suggests that there is no reason to deny a two-parent household based solely on the grounds of gender.

So: if a homosexual couple can provide the same benefits as a heterosexual couple in terms of raising offspring, I fail to see why — outside of any religious arguments — they should be denied the same economic benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy when marrying.

Would we allow marriages between multiple individuals? Would we impose a limit on how many husbands or wives a man or woman could have? What about a marriage between non-romantically involved roommates? What about marriage between siblings? If this union is going to be sought after for its economic benefit why shouldn’t any two individuals be allowed to get married to they can check that little box on their taxes, be covered by the insurance and get a little more back each year?

You asked “Why two legal adults of the same gender should not be entitled to the benefits (and miseries) of marriage?”… I ask, why is the label stopping any couple from enjoying the emotional and personal benefits (and miseries) of marriage? Just because a couple can’t get a marriage certificate doesn’t mean they can’t make a commitment to one another just as deep and meaningful.

I do, however, disagree that anyone who enlists (or gets commissioned) in the military takes it seriously. I grew up as a military brat and I have known some individuals who see their duties in the military as a joke. I have known people who see it as a meal ticket. I have known people who just can’t wait to get out.

Lastly, there are many, many things that can have someone kicked out of the military. From having unknown medical conditions to obesity to having depression, people are discharged from the military frequently for circumstances that many would find unfair.

Thanks again for continuing to write here. Hope to see more from you in the future!

I feel compelled to mention this because one of the failings of our society today is that we don’t bother to even make a pretense of entertaining a different point of view. One of my favorite shows, when I was growing up, was “Firing Line” — a show which most of the readers of HSM will undoubtedly be familiar with. William F. Buckley was an amazing debater, but rather than the shout sessions you see on TV today, he enforced logical, rational and polite discourse — even when he clearly disagreed with the other person’s point of view.

I’ve sometimes said (and it may even be here in the pages of HomeStation), when describing this publication, that it’s designed to be Home’s Firing Line. That, to me, serves a very useful purpose for the community as well as the developers.

So, by all means, please join the discussion.

It seems that politically, we may be of the same chior, Norse. I may have to corner you someday in Home and have a discussion on stuffs

Bonzo, thank you for sharing this personal story with us. I love to hear how Home has touched and made a difference in their life.

Now I just wish the people in the real world would treat all people equally.