Arrr. OK. I feel the need to weigh in on the where does marriage stop debate. I agree with what people have said about bestiality. An animal is not capable of entering into a legal contract. End of discussion. Incest still squicks me out beyond belief. But I mean, I suppose that's my hangup and I shouldn't go around imposing it on others ('do unto others' and all that). Where I think the situation becomes more complex is polyamory and marrying minors. Polyamory is in theory no big deal at all. In practice, throughout history it tends to be practiced in such a way that the man has a crap load of wives. But each of his wives is expected to be faithful to him (ie. polygamy). Obviously that's incredibly sexist, and should not be encouraged. An equally polyamorous relationship where all people in the relationship are allowed to pursue other relationships is totally fine. Marriages with minors are also fraught with power issues. Parents and other adults have a lot of influence over minors, I'd hate to see someone forced into a marriage they're opposed to, a la Juliet and Paris (from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet). And @ Conservative man "It's bad enough that our society condones homosexuality"? Excuse me? I take exception to that. I know what your beliefs are, but I'll thank you to keep the personal slights out of this debate.

And as for the whole "No one should get married by the state, the state should only make unions no matter who you are." That's BS. I know I use kid/toy analogies a lot, but saying "If I can't be the only one to play with the truck then I'll break it so that no one can play with the truck" is not a solution. Straights need to learn to share and play nice. Marriage is not strictly a religious deal either. And as easy as it is to say "let's change the words!" those words have meaning, and getting rid of the word marriage to make everyone "equal", would be a huge slap in the face. It's certainly not a compromise I'm willing to accept. And as for the idea that that would make everyone equal? That's also bullshit. What if a gay couple feels the same way I do; that marriage has important symbolic value that a "union" does not? Frankly, gays and lesbians and everyone else are going to have a much harder time finding a priest than a straight couple. All you've done is create a situation where straights will have no trouble at all getting married, and gays will still have a lot of trouble. In other words, you will solve absolutely nothing. If that happens obviously the debate will leave the political sphere, but I'd be very surprised if the gay community accepts that.

@FS: How the heck am I different than a general anarchist?

@Mafia - In so far as marriage in a church, are you advocating the state be able to force a church to marry a gay couple? If so, how about separation of church and state? How about a congregations right to freedom of religion, even if their religion precludes homosexuality in it's midst. Freedom of religion is just that, freedom.

I support a gay or lesbian couple right to marry. I also support their right to get married in a church before God, if they can find a church willing to do that. I do not support their "right" to force their views on an unwilling congregation under threat of legal action.

No, I'm not advocating the state forcing a church to marry a gay couple. I'm just arguing that the state should maintain authority to perform marriages, (both in spirit and in name, ie. not "unions") and perform them equally for both gay/lesbian, and straight couples.

K, on that we are good.

Draugnar:

It is my understanding that the gay rights people merely want the legal protections and responsibilities that anybody who marries gets.

This does not mean that they could force any religious person to marry them against the will of their religion. This is not new. I couldn't get a Catholic priest to marry me in his church, because I'm in no way Catholic. Nor could I try to legally force him to do so, as that would violate separation of church and state.

This applies to secular law only. Justices of the peace, courthouse weddings, and the religious denominations that willingly perform marriages for gays and lesbians.

And, as I said, I have no problem and fully support and back them in their fight to gain equal protection under the law. I was just questioning Mafia as his wording was unclear on that when he said "If that happens obviously the debate will leave the political sphere, but I'd be very surprised if the gay community accepts that." as it sounded like he felt the GLB community would then fight to get married anywhere they wanted if there was no more fight in the political arena.

Oh! I see your confusion Draugnar, yeah that was ambiguous. What I meant was the LGBT community would likely not be happy with the state giving up it's power to perform marriages in favour of unions. I imagine the fight against any move to abolish courthouse/city hall weddings.

Err that should read "I imagine the fight would be against any move..."

Gotcha! I hadn't even thought about that, which is odd cause my wife and I were maried by the mayor of the city she lived in (we eloped) and didn't have a church "wedding" until we did a renewal of our vows with our minister in the chapel of the Enchantment of the Seas on her last cruise before she was drydocked to have a 74 foot midsection added to her.

Bob + 1

The word "Marriage" itself is a religious term. "Legal partnership" is a secular term. The government shouldn't mess with religion. The church has NO obligation to execute a marriage ceremony for same-sex couples. The church has NO obligation to recognize a same-sex legal partnership. Unless they are of a liberal faith, same-sex couples will never get religious recognition for their sinful relationship.

@ FS

The man-horse example may be sub-par (considering the Constitution only applies for American citizens), but the pedophilia example is not. If a 12-year-old boy and a 90-year-old woman go in front of a judge and demand marriage rights, I'm scared to death that there are some judges liberal enough to declare adult-child marriages legal. You guys say "Marriage rights are for all adult humans under the 14th Amendment." Okay, I could make the argument that children can wed under the 14th Amendment. The Constitution applies to everybody, from the two-week-old infant to the centigenerian (is my spelling right on that one?). The Constitution is higher than age-of-consent laws, isn't it? And if it isn't, then aren't voter initiatives like Prop 8 higher than the Constitution?

@ Conservative Man:

What is a general anarchist? :)

Haha, but okay, let's say we were to take an aggregate average of anarchist opinions the interweb. You are very atypical as an anarchist in the sense that you use primarily Christian justifications for your beliefs, and the fact that you appear to be rather socially conservative.

More importantly however, I disagree with many of the finer points of your reasoning patterns and find them to be both unusual and unrepresentative of how I, and many others who argue anarchist positions defend those positions. Examples of this would include your views on criminal actions, on human nature, on the reality of statist power, etc.

Obviously you are entitled to call yourself an anarchist, and you certainly share many common views with me, but in higlighting our differences am attempting to ensure that readers of this thread were aware that they were in no sense arguing against 'anarchists in this forum', or at worst, 'anarchists' by arguing with you.

Is that fair? :)

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@ The Master Warrior

First, thank you for admitting that the bulk of your previous post was utterly worthless. :)

Regarding adult-child marriages, I am curious as to where in the American Constitution it says that all the rights and priveliges enjoyed by adults may also be enjoyed by infants. I am curious about this because I suspect you are making shit up again. In the absence of specific decrees by the Constitution (which I do not regard as infallible, but anyway) laws dictating that only adults may enter into consensual contracts work perfectly fine.

In any case, there is a clear difference of categories between two or more sexually mature people engaging in consensual sexual acts or related contracts and such relationships involving someone who is A) unable to meaningfully consent B) not sexually mature and C) not fully autonomous in other aspects of the law (ie. they have a parent or guardian)

ALSO

"The word "Marriage" itself is a religious term. "Legal partnership" is a secular term. The government shouldn't mess with religion"

Firstly, aren't you mistaking 'secular' for 'legal and/or bureaucratic'?
I happen to know plenty of married people who spit on the name of your God. Does that un-marry them?

Secondly, what about religious denominations and churches that allow same-sex couples to marry? You can't copyright a several thousand year old term used by billions of people from millions of cultures and creeds simply by virtue of appealing to the man in the sky.

Tough luck. :)

@FS: How am I socially conservative?

You disapprove of homosexuality and polyamory. You seem believe in strong family strutures. (ie. partriachy). Also your name is Conservative Man. As I said, you 'seem' socially conservative, though I have no way of knowing whether you are or not.

Think of it as a vibe. ;)

@ FS: Re: Your last post.

The Constitution applies to ALL American citizens. Minors can be US citizens. So, doesn't the Fourteenth Amendment apply to them? And, if so, don't they have a right to marry. If Prop 8 is below the Constitution (which it is) then aren't age-of-consent laws below the Constitution, and unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment?

I'm arguing that the word "marriage" is not a correct, secular term. "Marriage" is a religious contract between one man, one woman, and God. "Legal parnership" is a partnership between anyone and anything. I'm not saying gays shouldn't have access to a legal partnership. I'm saying that they shouldn't have access to the religious sacrament of marriage (in a Christian context). Liberal denominations who recognize and perform same-sex marriages are directly contradicting God. The word "marriage" has been, until recently, a religious term. It has been abused by everyone who uses it to explain a legal partnership.

My point is, the left is bending and twisting the Constitution. Under their logic, child legal partnership is protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Constitution is not designed to flex this much to accomodate a radical agenda.

"aren't voter initiatives like Prop 8 higher than the Constitution"

@TMW, No. Federal Constitution trumps all (with the proviso, as mentioned in the 9th Amendment, that some rights are still retained by the people even if they are not specifically named in the Constitution - this is, by the way, the basis for the right of privacy mentioned in Roe v. Wade). Since the 14th Amendment *is* part of the Constitution - as all amendments are - then it trumps all else (including any portion of the Constitution that was in place before the 14th Amendment that it contradicts)**. Federal laws based on the Federal Constitution (exercising powers named therein) come next. Then the State Constitution of your respective state. Then state laws based on said State Constitution. Prop 8 was a proposition that aimed at amending the State Constitution... it is still trumped by the Federal Constitution and particularly the 14th Amendment that it violated. Thus it was invalid and illegal and was struck down.

I'm not a lawyer - so if anyone wants to point out an error I made, go right ahead... but I think I got it basically right.

The basic idea is that there is a balance between the will of the people and basic rights that should not be violated even if a majority of the people want to (the so-called "tyranny of the majority"). Prop 8 may be the majority wish of California at the time it was passed - but that doesn't make it legal... it still has to pass muster regarding whether it is unconstitutional according to the federal constitution (and it didn't).

**the fact that the 14th Amendment supersedes the 10th Amendment in areas where the two conflict (because the 14th came later and amends all before it) is often lost on state's rights advocates.

@dexter - it is my understanding (and I'm not a lawyer either) that, unless specifically spelled out in the constitution, states rights trump federal. The constitution limits the power of the feds to very specific aspects of society. however, the 14th amendment is one of those places where the LGBT community may well win their court case on. It will depend on the make up of the Supreme Court at the time, whether they want to even touch it, and what the last ruling was at the Court of Appeals.

Of course, it could be argued that LGBT individuals are getting equal protection. they can marry anyone of the opposite sex that they like and str8ts can't marry someone of the same sex, so it's completely equal. I'm not saying I agree with it, just presenting a devil's advocate argument which will probably come up over the course of this brouhaha out of desperation when California finds themselves on the losing end yet again.

"The Constitution applies to ALL American citizens. Minors can be US citizens. So, doesn't the Fourteenth Amendment apply to them? And, if so, don't they have a right to marry."

Why does the right have no concern over this supposed weakness of the Constitution when we are talking about hetero unions? Is it likely to happen that 4 year old girls will be married off to 40 year old men? Nope, never happened in this country. Every state defines the age of consent - and I believe the lowest is 14. Don't like your state's age of consent? Get it raised. The case law on the age of majority (adulthood) is clear... states and the federal government can both restrict such rights. Here's a page, for example, on constitution.net, that goes into quite a bit of detail on how student rights have been restricted - and how the supreme court has upheld (usually) such restrictions: http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_stud.html

The concept of age of majority goes way back (certainly throughout written history - and if we are to believe anthropologists who study aboriginal cultures, it goes way back before that) - and I imagine that the framers of the constitution simply didn't even think of mentioning it... and would have laughed at the concern. Just as I'm laughing at the concern right now.

Hell, the 14th amendment even specifies the age of 21 for voting. So yes, the constitution supports the idea of an age of maturity/consent and therefore the feds will find it outside their sphere of power to say that a person must be allowed to enter into a contract no matter what their age.

@Draugnar, yes, the 14th amendment is apparently the key in this case. ...though I would argue that the 1st Amendment is relevant as well... in the so called "freedom of association" that the Supreme Court opined was part of the Amendment (in their opinion in striking down a law that told the Boy Scouts, a private group, that they must accept a gay)... i.e. the same opinion that allowed the Boy Scouts to define who was a proper boy scout even if it excluded gays could also be used (in my opinion) to allow a person to decide who was a proper marriage partner for themselves even if in their particular case it excluded people of the opposite sex.

Marriage is not a religious institution. At some point, some religions started stepping into marriage and declaring it a religious thing, but it didn't start that way. It is annoying that some religions like to define everything as their own. Values, holidays, traditions, institutions...for instance, Christianity took most of what it was from Pagan religions, and called them its own. Marriage is performed by Churches now, but that doesn't mean they own it. Stop stating that over and over again.

The problem with the 1st Amendment (and in the boyscout case too) is that it specifically limits Congress. It says nothing of what the states may or may not do, just what Congress (i.e. the Federal Government) may or may not do. California is a state and the first amendment doesn't apply to a state.

First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Ah - Draugnar, yes, the text of the 1st Amendment says that... but you're forgetting (?) that all subsequent amendments have inherent, based on them being later, the possibility of amending that earlier amendment. You cannot look at the text of one amendment in isolation from the later ones that might amend it. Example: 14th amendment says 21 is the voting age... the 26th amendment says that 18 is the voting age... guess which amendment rules? the 26th, of course.

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment states: "Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

This clearly amends the 1st. The 1st Amendment's restriction to only be in regard to actions of Congress is expanded by the 14th to include state actions as well.

I was pointing out that your thought on the 1st amendment applying was incorrect. I agree that the 14th very much applies and I think California will ultimately find they are banned from implementing the amendment in their constitution specifically because of the 14th amendment.

oh - sorry - we're on the same page, I guess. What I meant was the 1st amendment as modified by the 14th. But that's probably a confusing way for me to think of it.

Draugnar-

I am a lawyer, and your understanding of state's rights trumping federal is exactly and completely wrong. Look up the Supremacy Clause sometime.

I know about the Supremacy Clause.

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."

Please note the last part actually gives states back their power should the fed not have any laws on the books that already counter it. This is, of course, going to be where the problem lies for AZ and their immigration enforcement act.

But also note that the Supremacy Clause does *not* override the limits set on Congress by the Constitution. It merely says that if Congress passes laws in accordance wiht the Constitution, those are the laws o fthe land. In short, Federal trumps state where Federal has jurisdiction (14th amendment, interstate commerce, immigration, etc.), but Federal doesn't always have jurisdiction. In those cases where the Constitution doesn't give rights to Congress, the States have jurisdiction.

For instance, let's say congress tried to pass a law making it illegal to publish reports on what is happening over in Iraq. That violates the first amendment. Now comes the State of New York. It passes a law declaring the federal government to have overstepped it's bounds and let's the Times and the Post report on the activities over seas. The Feds would not be able to use the Supremacy Clause because it is restricted to laws which pass constitutional muster and that one would not.

good catch, Bob. It does help to have a lawyer in the house... though really, the Supremacy Clause is as plain as day and I should have remembered it.