Yeah, about that, Amerz... You don't think little children need the intimate love of their mothers, right? Totally optional. Am I reading that correctly? OK.

Crid, apparently, it escapes you that gays and lesbians can adopt children or have them with surrogates whether or not they are married.

This isn't going to happen because there's simply no way to force the other side to reciprocate. Obama picks an conservative attorney general, you think the Republicans will do the same thing if Ted Cruz became President next election?

If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you...

And I see Crid is making an idiot of himself on the gay parenting issue again.

Crid, once again, please prove to us that children of two fathers are somehow less productive, less successful, less happy, less well-adjusted, lesser patriotic, etc. than children who happen to have mothers. And while you're at it, prove that the lack of a mother was the cause of their supposed inferiority.

I remember the last time I brought this up, the Less-Then-Credible Crid self-righteously snarled that the children were not being judged, which I thought was absolutely breathtaking in its stupidity.

We're discussing parents...what other yardstick is there to judge the effectiveness of parents than the success of the children?

Du-u-u-u-u-u-u-U-U-U-U-U-UH...

And spare us your Because! I! Said! So! Dammit! routine.

Is there anyone not with the loony left who would be willing to work with Obama? The guys presidency has been all about poking the other guys in the eye and yelling 'na na you can't touch me'. This is good advice for future presidents, but I really doubt that Obama could pull it off or even be willing to try.

Is there anyone not with the loony left who would be willing to work with Obama? The guys presidency has been all about poking the other guys in the eye and yelling 'na na you can't touch me'. This is good advice for future presidents, but I really doubt that Obama could pull it off or even be willing to try.

Posted by: Ben at September 30, 2014 6:39 AM

There are some whores out there who are willing to do any thing for a paycheck, and the prospect of becoming a lobbyist after their tenure with the feds ends.

"Crid, once again, please prove to us that children of two fathers are somehow less productive, less successful, less happy, less well-adjusted, lesser patriotic, etc. than children who happen to have mothers. And while you're at it, prove that the lack of a mother was the cause of their supposed inferiority.
Posted by: Patrick at September 30, 2014 6:39 AM

I remember when I was a teenager, and these same arguments appeared about no fault divorce. How much better off kids were in single parent homes, if they parents were *fighting*
It turned out to not be true. Single parent homes are worse in almost every respect for children.

Gay marriage is a slippery slope because the same legal principles enforced impartially open the door to polygamy and incest as accepted and legally sanctioned lifestyles.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/12/22/the-slippery-slope-gay-marriage-has-begun/fGKIrzkw7k1vp3yYW9jR6H/story.html

"Gay marriage is a slippery slope because the same legal principles enforced impartially open the door to polygamy and incest as accepted and legally sanctioned lifestyles."

Logical Fallacies: the slippery slope.

Ok, Gog, if you allow SSM, how do you - with a straight face - tell polygamists they can not marry whomever they choose?

Isab: Gay marriage is a slippery slope because the same legal principles enforced impartially open the door to polygamy and incest as accepted and legally sanctioned lifestyles.

Well, no. The state has a compelling state interest in not allowing incest. Each generation of inbreeding will increase the odds of producing children with genetic defects, consequently increasing the welfare rolls. Gay marriage doesn't carry that risk.

Polygamy would also increase competition for potential mates, leaving some with diminishing chances of ever finding a partner. If the most affluent in our society opt to have five or six mates each, they would five or six times as many potential partners from the pool of prospective mates.

Gay marriage is no slippery slope when you can raise arguments against polygamy and incest that do not apply to gay marriage. Frankly, the slippery slope argument is simply an excuse to argue against something that you really have no compelling interest in stopping.

Isab: I remember when I was a teenager, and these same arguments appeared about no fault divorce. How much better off kids were in single parent homes, if they parents were *fighting*
It turned out to not be true. Single parent homes are worse in almost every respect for children.

And, like Crid, you have no evidence, none, that this would hold true for two same-sex parents vs. two opposite sex parents. Crid treats this as a given, and stomps and roars when anyone dares suggest that this is not a given and would like to see evidence for this supposed fact.

Can you prove that the children of same sex couples do less well than the children of opposite sex couples? And no, I do not accept any arguments that it's just common sense or everyone knows this. I would like to see the studies, if such studies exist.

And no, the fact that the children of two-opposite-sex-parent households fare better than single-parent households does not prove anything about the success rates of children in two-same-sex-parent households.

"Well, no. The state has a compelling state interest in not allowing incest. Each generation of inbreeding will increase the odds of producing children with genetic defects, consequently increasing the welfare rolls. Gay marriage doesn't carry that risk."

Yes, but if marriage is about natural procreation, the argument for gay marriage fails also.
Gay marriage has nothing to do with children or biological parents.

When marriage becomes about *who you love*, the argument against a statistically increased chance of birth defects, (and really, that is all the incest argument is) fails also.

You also failed to address polygamy, which carries no such risk.

But I suppose you could support the rights of close relatives to marry, and then throw them in jail for the act of criminal incestuous pro creation.
That would teach them.

Also, I object to this demagoguery that a child "needs" a mother's love. "Needs"? What happens if there's no mother or the mother doesn't love the child? Do the children wither and die or something? Do they fail to thrive 100% of the time? Are they doomed to never measure up to their mother-loved peers?

Unless the question to all of these questions is "yes," (and it isn't), then it cannot be said that these children "need" their mother's love.

Is it nice to have? Of course. Can a child fare just as well with the love of two fathers and no mother? I'd like to see the evidence, please.

Gay marriage is no slippery slope when you can raise arguments against polygamy and incest that do not apply to gay marriage. Frankly, the slippery slope argument is simply an excuse to argue against something that you really have no compelling interest in stopping.
Posted by: Patrick at September 30, 2014 9:25 AM

Me thinks you misunderstand the nature of *compelling interest*
My interest is not in stopping anyone from standing up in front of their relatives and saying vows.

State sanctioning of those relationships is an entirely different matter.

My interest is not extending government benefits to spouses, of what ever sex, who have no legitimate reason to stay in the home.

I am also wary of the witch hunts going on now against anyone foolish enough to express support for traditional libertarian values of freedom of speech, and freedom of conscience.

Gay marriage is a slippery slope because the same legal principles enforced impartially open the door to polygamy and incest as accepted and legally sanctioned lifestyles.

So what? If 12 women choose of their own free will to share one man, or 12 men one women who gives a fuck?

And why should I care if a 22 yr old woman wants to fuck her father?

The state has a compelling state interest in not allowing incest. . . inbreeding . . .children with genetic defects, consequently increasing the welfare rolls.

End welfare, problem solved

Polygamy would also increase competition for potential mates

Thats a valid sociological argument that 99.99% of people opposed to polygamy dont even consider.

Yes, but if marriage is about natural procreation, the argument for gay marriage fails also.

As does the argument for hetero marriage for anyone using BC, anyone who had their tubes tides or balls snipped, and one naturally sterile, and any women past the age of child bearing.

Personally I support traditional marriage. That of one man; and his identically cloned, twin brother, genetically modified, to be a woman capable of conceiving after having sex with her twin brother.

Anything else is blasphemy.

Gay marriage isn't merely about who you love. It's about who you love as long as it harms no one. Incest produces increasing chances of producing genetic defects in subsequent generations. You might love your brother or sister, but the state has a compelling interest in not allowing you to marry, namely the genetic train-wrecks your union is increasingly likely to produce depending on how many generations you've been inbred.

You might love him, him, him, him, and him. But the state has a compelling interest in keeping you from marrying all of them. Namely that you've taken five times as many potential mates for someone else as someone would in a monogamous relationship.

Regarding the whole marrying your brother or sister, then being thrown in jail for incest, that might not be so far-fetched. I might want my sister to be able to inherit pension, make medical decisions and all the other rights and privileges associated with marriage. Doesn't mean I want to sleep with her.

> it escapes you that gays and lesbians
> can adopt children

Why would you think so? You are, somewhat literally, doing babies and bathwater.

> once again, please prove to us

Prove to us that you're not nine; this presumption that the world has to demonstrate its truths to petitioners in their ignorance is the pattern of a child.

> that children of two fathers

There's no such thing.

> Logical Fallacies: the slippery slope.

No, Cosh mopped this us ten years ago. (Note the red meat thrown for Moozlim fear-mongers!)—

Canada is standing on the precipice of abolishing the traditional legal definition of matrimony as involving one man and one woman. This will be done with the support, judging by polls, of about half the Canadian public. I count myself in that half, though in a wavering sort of way. But I am aware, in so counting myself, there is no logical seam that will let you change "man" to "woman" or vice-versa in the classic equation, but then balk at changing a "one" to a "two" or a "three" or a "sixty." This slope, I'm afraid, is pristine in its slipperiness.

Having unmade matrimony, we could simply dig in and assert stubbornly, arbitrarily, that "marriage is defined as the union of no more than two whatevers." I expect that this would be a pretty popular solution, despite its illogic. But it wouldn't be popular with the minorities excluded by it, or with courts that need important pretexts for restricting the civil privileges of such minorities.

One of the ironies on display will be that of liberal feminists hoping to prevent harem-formation by pounding their fists and asserting the cultural superiority of the Western way of life they have spent 30 years denouncing as a femicidal conspiracy. They will be left looking even sillier the first time some moneyed Saudi immigrant to Canada asks why homosexuals should be the only ones who get to rewrite the common law of marriage on selfish grounds.

And there is no good answer, unless you think "That's just not how things are done here, dammit," is a good answer, as stern conservatives do. Polygamy -- to understate the matter considerably -- has a much firmer track record than same-sex marriage. It is a genuinely tenable "alternative lifestyle" that extends real benefits to its practitioners. The most notable victims, actually, are probably the men ultimately denied wives by someone else's collector instinct, since males and females are born in roughly equal numbers. Feminist opponents of polygamy are, thus, probably serving the interests of those men more than anyone else's.

During the argument for gay marriage, we have been asked, incessantly, to simply "keep an open mind" and imagine the possibility that such an arrangement might be happy, permanent and beneficial. But open your mind that far, and you'll find that polygamists -- like it or not -- can make the same case, upon a good deal more data.

You might love your brother or sister, but the state has a compelling interest in not allowing you to marry, namely the genetic train-wrecks your union is increasingly likely to produce depending on how many generations you've been inbred.

How does the state stopping you from an incestuous marriage prevent infectious fucking and subsequent offspring?

You might love him, him, him, him, and him. But the state has a compelling interest in keeping you from marrying all of them. Namely that you've taken five times as many potential mates for someone else as someone would in a monogamous relationship.

How does the state stopping a polyamorous marriage prevent polyamorous attachments and mate retention outside the bounds of a legal marriage?

I grew up in Utah, literally right behind my house lived a guy with three "wives". The fact that he was not legally recognized by the state as being married t number 2 and 3 didnt stop the sex or the birth of children.

Crid: > that children of two fathers

There's no such thing.

The law in an increasing number of states says you're wrong. Ultimately, your argument boils down to stomping your widdle feet and insisting that it doesn't meet your definition of "father."

You'll need to go find your own rat's patoot because no one is going to give you one when it comes to your personal definition of anything.

Crid: Prove to us that you're not nine; this presumption that the world has to demonstrate its truths to petitioners in their ignorance is the pattern of a child.

The only one who's being childish is you. You're the one who insists that mother's love is something children need, as if children will wither away if they don't have that magical person in their life who averts some sort of cancer that claims the lives of children if she's not there. Or at the very least, that children cannot thrive or be nearly as successful with this mystical mother's love.

You're the one who claims that the children of two fathers just will never be as good, happy or successful (or whatever) as if they had one father or one mother.

Now, kindly prove this assertion. You know, present evidence of some kind, some scientific study or some such. I know that it's so bothersome to you that the burden of proof is on the one who asserts something. In your perfect world, the mere that you're an ornery curmudgeon with an opinion should validate everything you say. But alas, it does not. So cough up the evidence. After posting with you for over a decade, I've come to find your chronic crankiness unpersuasive. I'm honestly surprised that you've only just recently become a senior citizen. You must have been born old.

Isab: My interest is not extending government benefits to spouses, of what ever sex, who have no legitimate reason to stay in the home.

Why?

The natural world cares not at all for our political boundaries.

Crid: The natural world cares not at all for our political boundaries.

True. Not sure how it's relevant, but it's true.

Isab: My interest is not extending government benefits to spouses, of what ever sex, who have no legitimate reason to stay in the home.

Why?

Posted by: Patrick at September 30, 2014 12:38 PM

Because the government is paying those benefits by devaluing the dollar and screwing the middle class.

The rich don't care, the poor don't care, and the people who actually work for a living are being robbed of their retirement by the government's unending money printing, and the inflation it has caused.

Maybe some day when you go to the VA and can't get treatment because all they can give you is a bandaid you will understand what opening up government benefits to damn near everyone really means.

The US population needs to learn to be more independent not more dependent on government for retirement, health care, and everything else. The system is not sustainable.

Unlike Crid, I don't believe government should have any involvement in marriage at all.

> I don't believe government should
> have any involvement in marriage
> at all.

I'd believe you if you offered a workable and appealing scheme for extralegal adjudication of divorce, inheritance and similar family crises.

But I bet there's a lot of involvement of government in marriage that you're pretty cool with.

>>I'd believe you if you offered a workable and appealing scheme for extralegal adjudication of divorce, inheritance and similar family crises.

Since most people aren't even bothering to get married anymore, these problems remain.

>>But I bet there's a lot of involvement of government in marriage that you're pretty cool with.

Posted by: Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at September 30, 2014 3:04 PM

You would be correct, but those simplified inheritance laws, and divorce laws etc. are not as cut and dried as you think.

I see the possibility of the government treating everyone as an individual, except for minor children, as a good one.

When I say, I want the government out of the business of marriage, it means only that the state governments primary focus should remain on protecting the interests of minor children in this country regardless of whether the biological parents are bound by that apparently worthless piece of paper.

(It seems for some odd reason to bind fathers, but not mothers)

The state and the Feds should not be in the business of either endorsing or punishing what two consenting adults do with their private parts or fail to do with their private parts.
The state should care less about that.

Right now marriage laws are being used as a club to beat mostly gainfully employed men out of their money to support children that have been removed by their mothers often for trivial reasons.

This has discouraged the responsible people we want to become parents, in many cases,from ever having children.

The current marriage laws are bad social policy with loads of unintended consequences.

There doesn't need to be any Federal recognition of marriage in this country. Marriage has always been a state issue, and should remain so.

My state has been really smart so far. They have passed no laws either in favor of, or against gay *marriage*

Isab is right here. Traditionally marriage and the rights/responsibilities involved in it were for the creation and protection of minor children. It wan't possible to tell who the father was after the fact so you ended up with a variety of social mechanisms. Shotgun weddings are one. Jewish matrilineal heredity is another. Today that is not true. There are other ways than marriage for the state to persue it's interest. And those ways are more efficient as well.

And the traditional religious prohibition on incest was not about two headed babies. It was about removing sex from the family. Mainly parent/child sex. That leads to all kinds of mental and social issues that tear a society apart.

> it means only that the state
> governments primary focus should
> remain on protecting the interests
> of minor children in this country
> regardless of

Well, I mean, c'mon, with an exception like that, who'll mourn the rest of government authority? What's to miss?


> Traditionally marriage and the…

Cosh also reflected on the sort of situational fondness of tradition:

I'm in favour of permitting gay and lesbian marriage and polygamy and polyandry, of course. I just wonder why the people who aren't--which is most of you, at a guess--pretend that society cares about marriage. A society that cared about anything traditional wouldn't keep voting for Liberals, now would it?

SCOTUS tells us, in the Loving v. Virginia case, that we have a "right to marry." They made no addendum "as long as they have children."

And since such rights cannot be infringed you also cannot stop polygamy, incestual marriages, or even human-non human marriages. Is that what you mean Patrick? After all it doesn't say "as long as the children are genetically normal or non-existent" or "but only one person at a time".

Crid,

I'm ready to call for the separation of church and state and ban all secular marriage. I mean, come on. It is a ritual traditionally overseen by a priest in a church.

And in this day and age I can't see a 'compelling state interest'. After all, marriages come and go. It costs you ~$20 to get into one and filling out a form to get out of one. Recognition of love is not a compelling state interest and realistically is not a part of marriage.

And on the practical side, even if there is a 'right to marry' nothing says what that marriage entails. Marriage laws and divorce laws are radically different all over the US. So maybe you married in Ohio. But you divorce in Alabama. The divorce is under Alabama's laws, not Ohio's. And they don't have to have even a passing resemblance to each other.

What damnable idiots.

If you think the state has no compelling interest in marriage, or the individual gets no benefit from a marriage license, you need to go down to the courthouse and sit in probate court for just one hour.

The concept of property is discussed, as is the concept of inheritance.

If you want to do away with both, then go right ahead and advocate for the abolition of marriage as endorsed by the state.

"If you think the state has no compelling interest in marriage, or the individual gets no benefit from a marriage license, you need to go down to the courthouse and sit in probate court for just one hour."

There are extremely simple ways for even unmarried people to avoid probate.

However most people whose estates go through probate are beyond caring.

And anyone whose spouse dies before them, who hasn't done estate planning will have their estate go through probate anyway.

You aren't seriously suggesting that probate is so awful that 80 year old people should get married on their deathbed to save their estate from probate? (And in the process dis inherit their children?)

One of the smartest things you can do, if you want to leave someone money, married or not, relative or not, is to take out an insurance policy on your life, and make them the beneficiary.

Like most things, the choices are on a scale ranging from white to black. The ideal (speaking as a divorced parent) is a happy fulfilling traditional male-female couple raising their own biological children. Somewhere down from that is a two-parent family raising children who are legally adopted by both, and down from that is a step-family. Down further is a single-parent family, and below that is foster care. And so it goes.

The government is trying to draw a line on that scale, somewhere in the grey area, saying definitions on this side are A-OK, and on the other side are bad juju. In real life, that line doesn't exist, across the multiple/hundreds of thousands of individual situations.

So, in drawing that line, is government supposed to err on the side of making adults happy, or making children better off? Because, sometimes (maybe even often), in that grey are where it's contemplating that line, those are mutually exclusive.

> I'm ready to call for the
> separation of church and
> state and ban all secular
> marriage.

Eh? Not tracking. The separation you speak of has already been called for; What does "ban all secular marriage" mean?

> And in this day and age I
> can't see a 'compelling state
> interest'.

Stand outside a family court for morning. Hyooge numbers of people are holding the rest of America responsible for sorting out their intimate problems.

As Isab said, marriage doesn't prevent probate. Though it can make it easier. And not being married doesn't cause probate. One alternative is to setup a family trust.

And if you want to define the 'compelling state interest' in marriage is property and inheritance I can see that argument. But that raises a whole host of issues with gay and polygamist marriage.

The main issue with gay marriage is really gay common law marriage. In many states it is very risky for people of the opposite sex to rent an apartment together. Either one can claim common law marriage and go after the other person's property. A simple solution has been to only room with like gender. With gay common law marriage that solution goes away.

With polygamist marriage there is the major problem that the laws were all set up with the assumption there would be one spouse. In community property states this could be resolved fairly easily. But in equitable distribution states things often become a muddled mess. Which wife gets the house when there are three? More significant is welfare. Which spouse gets the SS check? If three people work and two stay at home how do you split the SS benefits? What happens when to benefits as you add and subtract members from the family? Just as importantly, can we afford any of this?

So if we are expanding the definition of marriage there are a whole host of other laws that need to be updated as well.

1. If marriage is a religious institution then the state should stop issuing licences. Similarly churches should not be issuing state licences.

2. Family court deals with a lot of families that were never married Crid.

> Family court deals with a lot
> of families that were
> never married

And yet the never-married want those same protections (or intrusions) applied.

"One of the ironies on display will be that of liberal feminists hoping to prevent harem-formation by pounding their fists and asserting the cultural superiority of the Western way of life they have spent 30 years denouncing as a femicidal conspiracy. "

The problem with Cosh's statement here is that once the feminists have mulled it over, I think they're going to be quite happy about the idea of polygamous marriage. Why? Because it gives more women access to powerful and high-status men. One thing the sordid Clinton business made quite clear is that feminism is eager to marry into power, so to speak, and polygamous marriage will be retconned as a literal implementation of that. It also has the advantage of accomplishing another feminist goal, which is the emasculation of low-status men by denying them mating opportunities.

> it gives more women access to powerful
> and high-status men.

Naw. I don't think any of them could actually form the words to encourage women to take positions of achievement through marriage, as Hillary and Pelosi did.

They want to believe that women will achieve authority for their own work, Palin-style.

Except... Y'know.

What protections are the never-married wanting Crid? There is no question they have no right to specific property. And Child support is quite separate from marriage.

Right, so the magnificence of your libertarian intention isn't clear.

I just asked a simple question Crid. You say '... the never-married want those same protections (or intrusions) ...'. I just asked for clarification. What are those 'protections (or intrusions)'. I didn't ask you to clarify the magnificence of my libertarian intentions, whatever that means.

I think the fallacy in Prof. Reynolds' suggestion is the notion that there is a class of lawyers willing to work for the federal government who are notable for their professionalism and a vibrant an motivating sense of what the purpose of prosecutions might be and the role of the courts in a democratic system. Big yuks.

I think the fallacy in Prof. Reynolds' suggestion is the notion that there is a class of lawyers willing to work for the federal government who are notable for their professionalism and a vibrant an motivating sense of what the purpose of prosecutions might be and the role of the courts in a democratic system. Big yuks.

Posted by: Art Deco at October 2, 2014 6:32 AM

When I was in law school many years ago, there was essentially a communist lawyer organization that was very big in school called the Lawyer's Guild.

These people are still out there but they are disguising themselves better.

http://www.nlg.org/our-history

Bet you ten bucks almost every Obama Administration flunkie with a law degree was in it.

I see they are calling themselves Progressives now....what a shock.

"Naw. I don't think any of them could actually form the words to encourage women to take positions of achievement through marriage, as Hillary and Pelosi did."

Yep, and John Kerry too... oh, wait... Seriously, you're right, but I don't know if they actually need to say the words -- it's a deep-seated mating instinct and all they need to do is hint at it. They may themselves not even understand that that's what they are doing, but they are.