Phatscotty wrote:crispybits wrote:Phatscotty wrote:I told you already the answer. You can plug in the information from the top of this page to your equation. Sorry the quotes were getting out of hand
No worries, that's why I kept reminding you.
OK, I've asked person X and person Y everything I'm legally allowed to ask them from your description. Unfortunately one of them was born infertile (I can't tell you which for legal reasons), so they will never be able to have kids together, but apart from that they do share a special, loving committed emotional bond, they are financially stable, etc. Everything I am legally allowed to ask them which could be used as a legally valid reason to prevent them entering a legal contract has provided no red flags at all. So I can now assume that there should be no legal reason they should not be allowed to marry each other right?
Okay well like I already said, having children is not the only reason to get married, especially over the last couple generations.
All I am saying is that there is a name for the bond that a male and a female makes to become parents and create a child and to put something above themselves that can help survive the struggle through the hard times when people want to give up. That term is marriage, and I truly believe that the weaker marriage becomes, the more society will suffer as more and more children are raised without a father and born out of wedlock etc; raised in less than ideal situations. That isn't to say there aren't problems and circumstances beyond people's control, but it is to say we should hold up the ideal family structure as something to strive towards, but not imposed, and certainly not abandoned.
I think as long as person X is a male, and person Y is a female, and they are not related beyond a certain extent, and they are of legal consenting age, of course they should be able to marry. Why wouldn't they?
as an aside, do you believe that it is good advice for a couple to get married before they have children? why or why not?
And I am saying that bond is love, trust and commitment. Marriage is the name of the contract the two enter into in order to legally or socially or culturally or in some cases religiously affirm that bond to wider society, it's nothing to do with the bond itself. Or do you believe that when two people get married it somehow magically ties them together emotionally in a way that isn't possible without it? Emotionally, what is the difference in the actual relationship between a marriage and two people simply privately or publicly promising each other, with all their hearts, that they are there for life?
I can't ask person X or person Y their gender or I would be committing an act of illegal sexual discrimination. By law gender is irrelevant when entering a legal contract. I can check they are over the legal age of consent no problem, and they are. I can check that they aren't blood relatives, and they are not.
You say the ideal family unit (ideal by whose standards by the way) is something to strive towards, but not to impose, and yet you are imposing your own definition of both family and marriage in this debate. And we call that intolerant because you are discriminating based on legally protected charcteristics, on things that a person is born with and has no control over and which it is well established that it would not be fair in any way to deny them legal rights based on those characteristics. Not because you don't agree with us, but because you are acting illegally (or would be if you were in a positon of power and enforced that opinion on someone else.)
Take the legally protected characteristic out of your assertion "marriage is between a man and a woman" and it becomes "marriage is between a person and a person". The slippery slope you seem so fond of isn't particularly slippery. Multiple marriage is still banned. Incest is still banned. Bestiality is still banned. Paedophilia (through law about age of consent to form a contract) is still banned. You haven't redefined anything, except to remove the inherent gender discrimination that society has established is a bad thing and should be prevented. It's not even about sexuality, it's about gender.
I believe it is good advice for a couple to get married before having kids for legal reasons sure, as the legal benefits alone (ignoring the financial ones) are many and varied and I can foresee things like a pregnancy going wrong and the husband needing legal next of kin status over the wife to be able to make emergency medical decisions, rather than waiting for blood relatives to show up. I don't believe it's essential. I could walk about a mile from my house and show you the most in love couple you're ever likely to meet and their daughter, and they would be able to explain very eloquently why they have chosen never to get married, but also that they are with each other for life and that they love each other as deeply as any married couple. But I don't know where you're going with this as you've already said child production isn't essential to your definition (even though every time you give your definition it seems to include some reference to it).