Hello Susanne,

I will up vote you. In fact I have been giving this serious consideration. "The anti-conceptual mentality takes most things as irreducible primaries and regards them as “self-evident.” It treats concepts as if they were (memorized) percepts; it treats abstractions as if they were perceptual concretes. To such a mentality, everything is the given: the passage of time, the four seasons, the institution of marriage, the weather, the breeding of children, a flood, a fire, an earthquake, a revolution, a book are phenomena of the same order. The distinction between the metaphysical and the man-made is not merely unknown to this mentality, it is incommunicable." “The Missing Link,” Philosophy: Who Needs It, 38

To me, we should all be free to equal opportunity in all of its forms. My most recent bog has provided much food for thought. Still, as an academic question, I wonder why when we see two ducks, one black and one white, we naturally call them ducks, but when we see two swans of different colors they are conceptually different enough to have their own name. Yet if one draws any distinction just as evident to the senses between types of unions, though not opposed to such a union, one must be bigoted.

When we did the right thing and rectified the problem of inequality for blacks, we legislated a solution with the 14th amendment. We did not re-issue birth certificates to all, (though not all listed race many government documents like that do {frankly I think it should be removed from all government documents just as we should stop being hyphenated Americans}) saying despite the evidence of our eyes we were all exactly the same. When we corrected another matter of inequality in the matter of women's rights we legislated a solution by enacting the 19th amendment. For some reason our incompetent legislature has failed to find a legislative solution and the SCOTUS decided a matter that it should not have had to.

I am now of the opinion that regardless of the procedure ( whether proper method or not), if the outcome is more equality and hopefully domestic tranquility, it will be for the best. If however it creates more turmoil, then it will be on the heads of the legislators for not doing their job as was done in the past.

Respectfully,

O.A.

By the way, happy to remember the meaning of this weekend and celebrate freedom and liberty with you! No such thing as poking a hornets nest among family whom are open to accepting open discussion but maybe not necessarily agreeing.

A rational or objective view point is accepting the idea that individuals have their own right to private marriage without social, religious, government, etc. interferrence in their private affair. If they choose to make their marriage "public" or look for acceptance otherwise they may then open Pandora's Box to all that is within it.

Agreed.

Great poke, Susanne. +1

Since you're bringing up God, you'll read that God wanted man to expand and cover the whole earth. The obvious outcome of such would be a bit of inbreeding. To suggest that, because of inbreeding, we're not supposed to intermarry, is ignoring another statement from Genesis, viz., ALL MEN ARE OF ONE BLOOD. Since that's a fact, supported by the fact that intermarriage leads to healthy offspring, questioning intermarriage suggests an attempt to stir the pot, just because.

There does seem to be an emerging concept of switching from a 'licensing' model to a 'registration' model. This has the subtle characteristic of the government not being involved in the permission to marry, simply in registering the existence of the contract.

Not quite. The brain is about 80% water, but their problem is in the rest of it, not the water.

Those people who are of religious inclination may want to share their relationship with their deity - they find the term "marriage" to be important. So they should continue to use it per their own tradition. Other people (not religious) may also want to use the term for tradition's sake - and they should not be encouraged to do so.

I think we will see an increase in the number of people who just plain do not care one way or the other about the word "marriage" though.

Jan

Responsibility for children follows from producing the children. Adopting children does not depend exclusively on marriage. A healthy marriage is important, but being married is not by itself enough. There are many qualifying factors before someone should be allowed to adopt a child. Children have limited rights because of limited capacity while maturing, but they are not to be sold, traded, or given away as if they were objects just because the recipients happen to be married.

This question would have been more difficult to answer before the advent of genetic screening. Now, one can say, "the genetic parents are responsible". I know several young men who have had genetic screens to establish whether or not they were the father of a particular child. This really has nothing to do with marriage: none of the people involved in these relationships were married to anyone.

Jan

Marriage is a relationship independent of religion. It existed long before and independently of Christian "sacraments". Religion has not been a requirement for marriage in this country for a long time. People are married by a justice of the peace in very simple secular, more personal ceremonies all the time. People are treated differently before the law in a range of property and other considerations, not just because of the IRS. This is discussed in more detail on this same gg thread here: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/386ab024/privatize-marriage~siipgqqskvd6bc54chsgd5kyqi

Was marriage only a term coined by religion? And Religious Sacrament? Spiritual couples and agnostic would also most likely agree that the government has no jurisdiction in the marriage of two "responsible and rational" adults.

Marriage could be "privatized" if it were to be kept distinct from but related to other laws such the inheritance you mention. Assumed legal rights of inheritance and other actions such as responsibility for children and visitation rights in hospitals were historically based on the already existing institution of marriage.

At least in modern times in the US that institution has already been a contractual one, with no religious requirements, serving as an assumed sufficient basis for all kinds of laws, whether the kind referred to above or artificially induced rules such as joint filing of taxes where the onerous progressive levies had to be adjusted for one income families or face revolt.

There is no reason why other contractual arrangements could not also be used. Inheritance is already based on a whole legal framework of wills and trusts, and the broader concept of "civil union" (without religious or other personal characteristics), properly delimited so as not to be completely arbitrary, would suffice for such a broad legal base.

But the "civil union" approach has already been seriously tried, and unlike "gay marriage" has been generally supported including by Christians (of the more American secularized variety). What happened to that approach? The counter culture adamantly refused it. It isn't "civil rights" that they want, but a government moral and cultural sanction dictatorially imposed on everyone in the name of the collective, redefined as a phony "civil rights".

They have demanded and received a judicial decree literally redefining the concept marriage as a package-deal anti-concept on their own behalf. The a-philosophical libertarian subjectivists are no better with their 'anything goes, anyone can "define" marriage to be anything they feel like' mentality, perfectly willing in the name of "freedom" to let the government impose what the pressure group warfare activists demand.

It's not surprising that conservatives, religious or not, or anyone else find this offensive.