Why I support gay marriage and my issue with my own logic.

[kittenpants]

My support for gay marriage has always been based on my view that two adults who love each other should be able to be married. To not let them be married and to have the same rights as everyone else seems to be a clear case of discrimination. Maybe that is a simplistic view of the issue, but that is how I have always seen it.

Now my problem... I feel that most people who object to gay marriage do so on the grounds that they feel it is morally wrong. Equating it to "legislating in the bedroom" and saying that allowing something so "deviant" would be a step toward allowing pedophelia, etc (a la Santorum)is ridiculous to me because clearly that deals with those who aren't adults and able to choose their own lives. My problem though is with bigamy. I feel that it is 'wrong' in that it seems demeaning to women, but I admit I also feel a vague moral discomfort with it. I know the two issues are not the same, but I wonder, am I hypocritical in supporting gay marriage but not supporting bigamy?

I'm NOT equating the two, but just saying that by my rationale I feel I am being a hypocrite. I just wonder how other people feel about this.

[bullimiami]

1. ive got it even simpler than that. everyone should be treated equally in

the eyes of the government.

period.

[kittenpants]

3. yeah, I'm not soul searching about my support of gay marriage.

My belief in that is firm, I just feel a bit like a self-righteous fundie in my objections to bigamy.

[Warpy]

2. Funny, I have no problem with anything consenting adults do

in order to get through life, and that includes polygamous marriage.

Notice there are two components here, "consent" and "adult."

Equating gay marriage with pedophilia or bestiality ignores both these components.

All consenting adults should be able to enter into a legal contract, which is what marriage is. Government either needs to get completely out of the marriage business (leaving people with no recourse once the marriage breaks down in obtaining a fair disposition of property and appropriate custody of children), or it needs to allow all citizens to enter into it.

You'd think the family values crowd would be pushing gay marriage as a way to encourage state sanctioned monogamy. That they are not points out their hypocrisy in the matter.

[Boomer]

4. It's a valid question

I've also mulled over the difference between gay marriage and polygamy. I'm for the former, and extremely ambivalent about the latter, but can't construct a rational argument against it.

My reservations come from the abuses that have accompanied polygamous practices in Utah, but I can't persuasively argue that those abuses are a result of polygamy itself.

Abusive marriages are all too common in our society. How can polygamy inherently promote those abuses? The scenarios I've read about seem more an outcome of poor, uneducated women living in social isolation and with few resources to escape exploitation. Polygamy isn't required for a 15-year-old girl to be enticed into a marriage with an older man who lives off her welfare income.

Polygamy provides more incentive for men to assemble a harem to financially exploit, but that's hardly an inditement of the institution so much as a testament to human greed. You could as easily argue that having banks increases the incentive to rob them.

[mordarlar]

5. I have no issue with polygamy as long as it does not involve minors.

Edited to add. Good for the goose, good for the gander tho IMO. Women and men should have equal rights on this. I do not support this as only a one man multi women situation scenarios. Women, if this were legal, should also have this right.

Of course this would most likely change the enthusiasm for the practice among many supporting males.

LOL polygamy is sounding better by the minute.

[TahitiNut]

6. It's not a question of "how many" but of "whom".

Equal rights and entitlements are not violated in the slightest when everyone is subject to limitations in quantity.

Since 'marriage' (in the civil sense) is an economic entitlement (an advantage conferred by law), no person should be denied access to such an entitlement based upon any private and personal preference or orientation. Since when is fucking a state interest? As a single straight male, I see no reason I should be denied the entitlements of a civil 'marriage' if I were to choose a "marriage of (economic) convenience" with any other person - male or female. Why should it be presumed that such a 'marriage' includes copulation? (Maybe we should require people in mixed-gender 'marriages' to publicly prove that they copulate!?!? Annually?!? On public-access TV?)

"Marriage" in the civil sense is and always has been about property.

[Karenina]

7. DING, DING, DING!!!

:loveya:

[gollygee]

8. The problem I have with polygamy

is that it would be harder to get fair laws put together.

With same-sex marriage, there is a very very small change that has to be made to existing laws - turn "one man and one woman" into "two adults". Everything else can stay the same.

Polygamy has all sorts of potential legal issues. It works OK in more male-dominated countries. If a man has two wives and one wife leaves the group, she gets nothing. But here, if there is a marriage consisting of one man and two women, when one woman leaves does she get a third of the assets of that family? Does the whole marriage end or does just her part of it end? What if one man and one woman have a child together. Does the other partner have any rights or responsibilities with regard to that child?

The problems *could* be worked out fairly, but I don't think it's fair to keep same-sex couples from marrying just because it would take a while to find out how and if it is possible to come up with fair laws for polyamorous marriages.

[GreenPoet64]

9. Personally I think the government should not be involved in . . .

defining marriage at all. A contract is a contract--and two adults should be able to make any contractual agreement regarding property, insurance, living arrangements etc. and have the government uphold that contract.

Marriage is a religious ritual--and that should be defined by whatever religious or non-religious terms two people agree to.

The government shouldn't be involved in matters of marriage either gay or straight, but should simply uphold the contractual agreement.

[kittenpants]

10. since you keep saying "two" should I infer that you oppose polygamy or

since you think the gov't should keep out of marriage are you for it?

are you "for it or agin' it?" as Granpa Simpson would say?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Civil unions. "Marriage" should be left to the churches.

The government, if necessary, should treat it as a contract between the participants. If they want the "blessings" of religion, let them find a church that will give it to them.

Take the religion out of it, and the problem disappears.