johnpe1.... why not marry the oak tree? Aside from things like the tree being (probably) unable to sign the marriage license or say any religious OR secular 'vows,' the only issue is legal... Can your 'mate-tree' be named in your will? What rights do you have over your mate and your mate over you? How will courts adjudicate laws that might apply to your 'relationship' or individual 'legal rights'?
Is a chain saw a weapon of Murder or a legal means of 'divorce'?
I think many of those questions ARE answerable, although laws tend to follow cultural norms by a good distance.
:)

Do you promise to water, fertilize and prune your mate until death (or some horrible fungus) do you part?!

aren't licenses usually about 2 things,
control and taxes? -- j

p.s. protection of the public good appears to be
a secondary consideration.

Interesting point. We do not hear of a 'sacred' contract between - for example - companies. The removal of that word from the legal definition of marriage may be an aid for people who do believe in a 'sacred' component to marriage as performed by their church. Let's keep the civil marriage as a non-sacred contract and if people want the blessing of their deity on it, then their church can provide that.

Jan

Granted - but if I (an amateur history buff) can come up with a clear example whilst browsing a thread on a list, you would think that someone preparing for a Supreme Court case would have this and every other good example down pat.

I sure would have.

Jan

if we didn't have these onerous death taxes,
this would not be the challenge it is! -- j
.

Good argument - and it goes the other way too. Some civil unions have allowed an offspring-caretaker of a parent to name his parent as inheritor 'upstream'. The offspring had a very good job and was concerned about his parent's welfare if he should die - which he did but the parent was able to inherit 'upstream'. (I believe this happened in Europe.)

Jan

Been on the road for a day...

No, it;s not worth a glance, because I would assume Justice Scalia would have glanced at it, as I did, in high school. If he meant to instruct someone outside of SCOTUS to have a peek, fine. I still believe Greek and Roman traditions have no place at the level of argument the Supreme Court should be.

As far as your unique, personal definition of conservatism, fine with me. I only disagree with the more accurate interpretation of: it as believing in something on no rational basis, but simply because others have believed it,and, gee, for a really long time.

Personally, I don't care who marries whom if mental capability and consent issues are applied. (Which means, of course, a man cannot marry his horse i.e, a horse can't give consent). To paraphrase Jefferson, "whether a man marries a man or a woman, it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg nor diminishes my marriage."

Nevertheless, the prevailing sentiment of the local (state) culture, which issues the license, should be the answer to violating rights.

isn't it just contract law? . the second State should
apply contract law to the gay marriage from another
State, imho. -- j

While all true, it's a stretch to say that the Constitution authorizes the Federal Government to get involved. The Courts can intervene (and in fact hold original jurisdiction) in cases of State vs State issues, but the cases being presented to the Supreme Court at this time are about the penchant of individual Federal Judges to invalidate (and thereby force the opposite of) individual State's legal referendums and Constitutional Amendments. The questions before the court at this time haven't been centered on the State v State issue at all, but entirely upon that State's ability to pass their _own_ definitions of marriage.

Circuit guy your theory hold merit but then one could come along and state that those having homosexual traits is part of our social problems today. There is no ground breaking scientific proof either way. I would not like to be a supreme court judge on this matter it's a no win situation.

Ah, Jan, always the voice of reason, always a pleasure to read your thoughts.

Yes, evolution does not mandate monogamy. When battles killed off many of the men, it became necessary for one man to service many women to rebuild the population. Or as with kings, who were supposedly superior specimens, spreading their genes to as many offspring as possible, they had harems of hundreds of females.

Later developments of virginity and exclusivity may have had to do with eradicating sexually transmitted disease, and eventually assuring the handing down of property to one's own progeny. The selfish gene, after all, is primarily interested in its own kin.

As social structures grew more complex and controlled, reproduction became a central concern, including the protection of inheritance. The churches were the controlling authority in these relationships since it took belief in a superpower to enforce the rules. Thus social units, except among Mormons and Muslims, took on the form of one-couple marriage and the requirement of their remaining together to raise their children.

As society evolved into government welfare systems, the father/mother structure loosened, and households without fathers and pregnancy without marriage proliferated. Tax policies were set up to favor nuclear families. Non-traditional households developed when housing expenses skyrocketed, leading to roommates, extended families, group homes. When tax codes changed, friends of mine got divorced but continued living together because it was more favorable financially.

I can remember when motels would check for proof of marriage when males and females wanted to share a room. These were remnants of religious management of sin, and sex was, of course, a sin outside of marriage. The sexual revolution (thank you, Hugh Hefner) put most of that behind us.

That brings us to forming household units of any consenting combination of adults. And if it were not for archaic restrictions on inheritance and power of attorney, visitation rights, etc., there would never be a question of who could form permanent unions with anyone of their choice.

The state claims to have a vested interest in the welfare of their future taxpayers, so we get Child Protective Services that can step in and remove children from their parents, sometimes on the flimsiest of pretexts.

The state claims control over children from the moment of conception, and of adoptive parents' suitability. But reproduction is no longer dictated by a household unit of one male, one female. A Lesbian couple, friends of mine, managed to arrange for sperm donation from a checklist of qualities--health, longevity, intelligence, ethnic origin--and one of the women then gave birth to a great kid.

As long as the adults take responsibility for what they create, not relying on government subsidies, they should be free to build their lives any way they see fit, and with any partner(s) they choose. What I've noticed, though, is that humans tend to live by precedent, by tradition, and carry the same template forward, rejecting alterations to how things "have always been done". While there is some residual benefit in that--considering that practices evolved that best served the needs of survival--adapting to new conditions is likewise a survival trait. And quite outside of individual desires, I fancy that nature is increasing the number of gays to level off the population explosion.

Why do people want to have children, either their own or by adopting others'? That is a philosophical question, and my tentative explanation is that living things need a future, not just the present moment. Life's prime directive is... life. And in communal living, which humans have developed for mutual benefit, the macro structure itself, the society or community, takes on a life of its own and involves its individual members in cooperating to sustain it for their own benefit.

Hence the eternal tension between the collective and the individual, and their symbiotic interdependence. What makes humans unique among all the lifeforms on the planet is their consciousness, whether used volitionally or indoctrinated by custom. And for that independent consciousness, each individual must be assured of the freedom of self-directed choice, including freedom of association, as long as no one else is harmed. I conclude that government shall make no law establishing or forbidding the forms of private relationships of consenting adults.

(I do wish I could have said all this with your elegant terseness.)

Jan unless I've missed something primates have not evolved to our state. Multiple partners are another subject. No matter how many partners one has it is still one man and one woman that can conceive a child unlike the canine species where a single female can conceive from multiple male partners. Thus for survival of our species it takes one man and one woman. Thank for your response it has given my even more things to ponder. I hope my thread has given you the same.

that was fun, Jan! . had to look up monandrous and
hominins . . . found one and not the other! . hominids? -- j

and their disparate impact trail leads to wealth
redistribution (not just income redistribution) and
other such sh!t-logic. . how is PC evil? . let us
count the ways....... -- j

It's already an ideological battle but it's a lot easier and more accurate to measure "harm", or even "right or wrong", for that matter, in terms of the individual. Skipping over the individual and going straight to "society" is intentional because it is impossible to prove or disprove but it infers that individuals will be affected without having to prove it. The rights of the individual mean nothing here but he doesn't want to get caught saying that. He is just passing the buck.