CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

[Kitalrez]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

Polygamy is miles ahead of gay marriage. Utah's had it for years.

Not for lack of trying to change that. As Texas is finding out fast, it's an expensive proposition to take down a polygamist sect. DNA tests to determine paternity, lawyers and defense counsels for 100+ statutory rape cases when the paternity tests come back, neglect and abuse investigations, incest investigations, etc. I think Texas has spent several million dollars so far and they're not even to a trial stage yet. If we tried something like this in Utah, we'd basically bankrupt the state's legal system and prevent them from trying anything else for a few years. They also control several industries here, for instance the Kingston clan owns a giant portion of the garbage collection industry, as well as huge mining interests. The FLDS had most of southern Utah's construction industry locked up for awhile. Other states have organized crime, here in the west, we have polygamist clans. Utah, Arizona, Texas, Idaho, Colorado, it's going to be a mess if they ever decide to really work on this problem.


But that's more my own weird tangent. Back to the discussion at hand, the slippery slope argument doesn't hold a whole lot of weight for me simply because the most egregious portion of it: "people would just marry animals", isn't possible under the legal system. You could probably legalize polygamy, or at least define certain standards under which you wouldn't bother prosecuting it, such as over a certain age, median income, treatment of people within the marriage, etc. Polygamy works in the example because the people involved are considered legally capable to make contracts. They are further considered legally able to enter into a well-considered contract with another person or persons, and be bound to that agreement. How exactly does that work with an animal?

Here's the argument I use to annoy animal-rights protesters:

"These animals deserve rights."
"What, like people?"
"Yeah!"
"Oh, so you're in favor of bestiality, then?"
"What?"
"Well, if they're people, they should be able to decide for themselves what they can and can't do with their bodies, shouldn't they?"
"Um... I'm not really-"
"-Sure they should! And our laws probably reflect this. I mean, it'd be a little hard to decide guilt in an animal rape case, but that shouldn't stop us! Who's to say Fluffy the sheep wasn't asking for it? Sure, she may be shy now, but what about last week when the alleged incident happened?"
"Now look here-"
"Actually, I know how to solve this! Let's bring Fluffy in here, you grab your velcro gloves and start giving it to her, and I'll see if she seems to be enjoying it or not."

*This is the point where I get hit, usually*


The point I was making with that ridiculous example is that animals aren't considered mentally capable of creating or agreeing to contracts. If you don't have that, you can't get a marriage license. Even now, when you have people below the age of consent getting married with parent approval, it's assumed that at some point they will become mentally capable, with the ability to dissolve that contract if it isn't working. You just don't get that with dogs, cats and sheep. Gay marriage has about as much chance of leading to people marrying animals as skin cancer does of leading to an ebola virus outbreak.

[Telera]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

I don't necessarily think you should get 'benefits' from being married, but dissolving it as a state of being sounds asinine in the extreme. A ceremony (religious or otherwise) binding two people in love has been part of the human culture since <insert whatever you believe the dawn of human life was here>.

To simply say 'Oh, get rid of it, no one wants to do it anymore.' is grossly over-simplifying the matter. Perhaps get rid of the benefits and penalties of marriage, as pertains to the government, taxes, etc. but dissolving it as a state will never happen, as people will carry on saying they are married or not, either way, irregardless of what the government stance is.

The fact that many young people don't want to marry is a whole other kettle of worms, largely tied to the fact that our society is entirely too sex-driven. Media feeds us that sex is all there is, that if you can't have sex life isn't worth living (see: Viagra et al. There's a reason your penis stops working. It's so you can leave your damn wife alone when she's too old to give a fuck.) and that if your marriage is failing, it's somehow *always* going back to sex. I'm sorry, sex is a very small part of what makes any true and strong relationship work. There are over half a dozen things I could point to that are infinitely more important and pressing on the survivability of a relationship. If you marry -or commonlaw, whatever- someone and live with them 50 years, all the time you spend fucking is infinitely smaller than the time you spend living. As in talking over finances, going places, etc. And if you don't love someone enough to stay with them if you can't fuck them, you don't love them enough and need to do both of you a favor and move out/on with life.

Those who want to just mess around all their lives probably won't marry. More power to them. Those who want a single person with which to share a meaningful bond with, will stay with that person, either married, or simply living with them for the rest of their lives.

[Feba]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

irregardless of what the government stance is.

Agreed. Marriage should be a private matter-- like if I make a promise to you, or I call you my best friend, the government would be positively asinine to interfere or give us benefits for being bffs4evr, but I'm still perfectly allowed to do it.

The fact that many young people don't want to marry is a whole other kettle of worms, largely tied to the fact that our society is entirely too sex-driven.

I'd have to disagree. I'd say it's more in the breakdown of the traditional family structure. When marriage is a binding between two people far more than a working arrangement (wife stays home and takes care of the kids, husband goes to work) it becomes less desirable, more of a hassle, and not nearly as needed. There's also things like divorce (mainly, settlements and such) that make it less attractive. Marriage is also no longer seen as a necessity; people living together, boinking, and even raising kids without being married are not nearly as looked down upon or uncommon nowadays. I also want to make it clear that I don't see any of these as being bad things.

problem.

You're confusing polygamy (marrying multiple people) with cults that just so happen to practice it. There's really no more reason to object to polygamy than gay marriage (read: religious douchebaggery), the problem is the other things these cults practice (child abuse would be the big one, but then almost all kids in America are abused; mentally if not physically).

[Telera]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

bffs4evr

...seeing you type that struck me as extremely hilarious and I have no idea why.

I'd have to disagree. I'd say it's more in the breakdown of the traditional family structure. When marriage is a binding between two people far more than a working arrangement (wife stays home and takes care of the kids, husband goes to work) it becomes less desirable, more of a hassle, and not nearly as needed. There's also things like divorce (mainly, settlements and such) that make it less attractive. Marriage is also no longer seen as a necessity; people living together, boinking, and even raising kids without being married are not nearly as looked down upon or uncommon nowadays. I also want to make it clear that I don't see any of these as being bad things.

Point taken. Boinking without marriage is what I was getting at though. Not that I think it's a bad thing, I just think it's a large contributing factor in why many young people don't bother. That whole milk and cow adage. I couldn't personally fuck someone I wasn't tied to in some 'permanent' fashion, but I don't see anything wrong with people who can. But on the other hand, that's why most people my age don't bother. That and sue-happy American men/women wanting 'spousal support'. Child support, okay. Spousal? lol...

[Feba]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

Spousal? lol...

To be fair, this is required in some cases-- mainly when one of them stayed at home to take care of the place, and the other pulled in income-- the other person will have a hard time finding a job, especially one that pays well. I'm pretty sure they just call that alimony, most places, though.

Boinking without marriage is what I was getting at though.

I really don't think that's the problem. It might be that people want to be able to get out of a relationship easily if it goes south, but if it were as you describe it, I doubt said young people would bother having long term relationships at all.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

The problem with marriage is divorce. How many contracts do you know of that you sign but years later decide to get out of but don't need a reason? (Irreconcilable differences reminds me of a 4 yr old pointing at another kid and saying "Cause...cause....I....I....I don't like her/him!!" /puke)

[Feba]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

The problem with marriage is divorce.

This is another one. The divorce rate is extremely high-- many people are going to look at marriage as being pretty futile; especially when so many of their own parents have been through divorce.

(Irreconcilable differences reminds me of a 4 yr old pointing at another kid and saying "Cause...cause....I....I....I don't like her/him!!" /puke)

Would you really want someone to stay in a relationship if they weren't happy, though?

[Armando]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

Would you really want someone to stay in a relationship if they weren't happy, though?

'Course not. I think her point was that too many people pull that card without ever having put some honest effort into making the relationship work. If you're going to divorce on the grounds of "irreconcilable differences," then I would hope those differences are truly irreconcilable.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

Would you really want someone to stay in a relationship if they weren't happy, though?

The point I was making is that it is far too easy to get out of a marriage. If there were consequences or if there were steps you had to take in order to achieve one, people would think twice about getting married. I've been through some hellacious bumps in my marriage. Most people would have been divorced within the first few years of marriage if they went through what I did. Thank goodness, to me, marriage isn't disposable.

Interestingly enough, my daughter just had her final court date for her marriage. She came home and we talked....well I talked and she sobbed. My daughter wanted "forever" but her husband thought that marriage was all sunshine and dancing in the flowers. When they hit a speedbump the first thing he did was bail out. My daughter tried to get him into counseling and he went a total of 2 visits. Maybe if there were a mandatory year of marriage counseling for a couple that wanted a divorce, there might be less divorces. (Of course, this does not apply to extreme cases (i.e. abuse, etc.) But people just go, "I'm outta here..." and move on to the next poor sap.

Work is like a job. Realize that before you decide to do it. You work at it EVERY SINGLE DAY. If you don't, your marriage suffers....its that simple.

[Feba]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

people would think twice about getting married.

Anyone sane already does. Making it hard to get out of a bad situation is going to hurt far more people than it would help.

Thank goodness, to me, marriage isn't disposable.

While your marriage might be good for you, in the long run, it could be very very bad for others. There's also the fact that if you had left, you might have had an equally or more fulfilling life, in addition to it being worse. There's far too many ways for it to go for you to act like staying married is the only option for everyone.

Maybe if there were a mandatory year of marriage counseling for a couple that wanted a divorce, there might be less divorces.

And what good would that do? Many of them may still be unhappy. It might even be made worse. Then you've done nothing but waste a year of their lives (we don't get that many!). And for what; to prevent a few broken hearts on the part of people like your daughter? Don't get me wrong, it sucks that that happened, but making divorce MORE of a pain isn't going to improve the situation (not to mention that, again, the government needs to take far less interest in marriage, not more)

Would you really want your daughter to be stuck with someone who couldn't take responsibility for himself? Or be stuck in an unhappy marriage because she couldn't get a divorce? Spouses tend to have quite a few legal rights-- one could seriously screw with the other if they were angry or unhappy enough to want to separate, and you'd basically have to live with it for the year.

[Karinya]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

The point I was making is that it is far too easy to get out of a marriage. If there were consequences or if there were steps you had to take in order to achieve one, people would think twice about getting married.

I can't quite tell if you mean steps you have to take to get a marriage, or to get a divorce. The former might have some effect (at least it would weed out people who *know* they're not serious about it), but the latter won't. Nobody gets married expecting to get a divorce later, any more than anyone commits crimes expecting to get caught. Making divorce more difficult or painful to stop people from getting married is just as pointless as passing longer sentence laws to stop people from committing crimes - in both cases, everyone expects that they're going to beat the odds and have a good marriage/a clean getaway. (No, I'm not suggesting marriage is a crime, only that marriage and crime both might have very good results or might have very bad results, which doesn't deter some people from trying them anyway. The worst marriages are probably already worse than a prison term, even without stricter divorce laws than we already have.)

I've been through some hellacious bumps in my marriage. Most people would have been divorced within the first few years of marriage if they went through what I did. Thank goodness, to me, marriage isn't disposable.

Well, that's your choice. Doesn't make it right for everyone. (And there's a difference between trouble that you can get through together, and a breakdown of the relationship to the point that you're not even on the same side anymore.)

Work is like a job. Realize that before you decide to do it. You work at it EVERY SINGLE DAY. If you don't, your marriage suffers....its that simple.

I guess you mean marriage is like a job? Anyway, the plain fact is that lots of people *won't* think about it before they do it. Society has to make rules that work for the foolish people as well as the wise ones, because there's lots of fools and they aren't going away.

Also: this comes across as a little judgmental toward people whose marriages don't work out as well as yours. You might want to watch that.

[Jonastb]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

Why is divorce so expensive? Because it is worth it.

Ha ha, little joke. By the way, you can buy yourself out of any contract if you have enough money. And really, that is what divorce is, buying yoursolf out of that contract.

A lot of people go into marriage with a preconcieved notion that being a married couple is the end all be all bliss of life. A lot of those people had it shoved down their throats that they can't live happy without marriage. So they get married early and realize that while in the past, marriage was the way to go, it isn't a requirement, or even desirable anymore.
Those old thoughts and beliefs are starting to fall to the wayside. The whole thing with no sex before marriage, just about gone. There are still a few who will cling to the old ways (there always are). But for the most part, society as a whole is changing its attitude toward the whole affair (no pun intended).

I would rather than be harder, divorce be easier to come by. The faster people can get on with their lives, the faster people can get back to normal, the better for everyone involved.

Oh, and as for the job analogy; when you are in a job that is just not working anymore, you can't stand it, or handle it, what do you do? You go look for another job, then put in your notice when you find one. Same goes for a better opportunity.
If you do that in a marriage, it is called Adultery.

[DanteWolfWood]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

Why is divorce so expensive? Because it is worth it.

Ha ha, little joke. By the way, you can buy yourself out of any contract if you have enough money. And really, that is what divorce is, buying yoursolf out of that contract.

A lot of people go into marriage with a preconcieved notion that being a married couple is the end all be all bliss of life. A lot of those people had it shoved down their throats that they can't live happy without marriage. So they get married early and realize that while in the past, marriage was the way to go, it isn't a requirement, or even desirable anymore.
Those old thoughts and beliefs are starting to fall to the wayside. The whole thing with no sex before marriage, just about gone. There are still a few who will cling to the old ways (there always are). But for the most part, society as a whole is changing its attitude toward the whole affair (no pun intended).

I would rather than be harder, divorce be easier to come by. The faster people can get on with their lives, the faster people can get back to normal, the better for everyone involved.

Oh, and as for the job analogy; when you are in a job that is just not working anymore, you can't stand it, or handle it, what do you do? You go look for another job, then put in your notice when you find one. Same goes for a better opportunity.
If you do that in a marriage, it is called Adultery.

You are the biggest bum and crybaby if you quit every job you had just because it wasn't "working out"

[Jonastb]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

You are the biggest bum and crybaby if you quit every job you had just because it wasn't "working out"

Lol, that whole thing and that was all you got out of it. Not working out can mean soooooo many different things. I put it in the simplest terms. Well, maybe not simple enough.

[DanteWolfWood]

Re: CA: Gay people to be miserable, too!

no, that's not all I got out of it, it's just the only thing I wanted to comment on.

And ya, I don't care what you mean by "working out", if you need a job, the only real reason you not be able to work is if you are terminated, or Legal reasons.

I guess it's how you look at it, I see jobs and marriage as a privilege, not a right.

Somebody was willing to give a career so I can put food on the table and not starve to death. So when something happens, its gonna take more than it "not working out" to make me leave.

Same thing with marriage, we should be happy someone was willing to put up with our sorry arses in the first place, especially us men. Its gonna take more than me not feeling "in love" with my wife in the morning to make me leave her