sock puppet wrote:Parading a list of horribles often causes one to not consider what the real issue is. Pedophilia is vastly different than the age of consent to marry. Even as just sex, pedophilia does not involve only consenting adults; a child has not had enough life experience and mental maturity to make anything approaching the decision and thus give consent.
I realize this. However, "age of consent" is a form of discrimination and inequality. We, as a society, may generally believe that such discrimination and inequality is appropriate. However,, it violates the notion of "marriage equality."
Bestiality is vastly different than being a legal 'person' that can enter into a relationship with another that will be legally recognized--which is marriage and the topic under discussion, by your own thread title.
Again, I realize this. However, limiting marriage to "persons" is discriminatory and unequal and a violation of "marriage equality."
Polyandry and polygamy involve more than two legal persons, with exponential complications beyond what are attendant to a marriage involving just two consenting adults. The law recognizes a marriage between two as experience has shown it has a civilizing effect; the complications that come with more than two involved has a disruptive effect.
Okay. However, limiting marriage to two people, regardless of rationality, is discriminatory and unequal and a violation of "marriage equality."
Incest is defined by degrees of consanguinity (how closely related), and have been drawn to prevent genetic deficiencies common in offspring of parents too closely related biologically.
True. However, restricting marriages based on the degree of consanguinity, even if for reasonable heath concerns, is discriminatory and unequal and a violation of "marriage equality."
The real issue is why should two consenting adults not be permitted to enter into a legally recognized relationship, commonly referred to as marriage, because the are of the same sex as opposed to opposite sex?
The notion of "marriage equality," as Jaybear intimated, doesn't concern itself with rational reasons for permitting or not permitting legal recognition. It only concerns itself with whether, in their minds, there is inequality or not, and if there is, then things must be made equal regardless.
This is quite different from how I think. The key issue for me isn't equality, but what is in everyone's best interest.
Society will get more mileage towards avoiding those ills by making condoms regularly available and openly advocating their use than trying to argue for or legislate anti-human abstinence. It's not a workable solution to those ills.
That has been the liberal argument for decades. And, to the extent that it has had public and governmental sway, the results have been the opposite from what they theorized. As I indicate in my blog, by far the safest place for homosexuals has been the "closet." And, for heterosexuals, the safest time for them was when traditional marriage was actively promoted and valued and promiscuous behavior stigmatized and made illegal.
Thanks, -Wade Englund-