It's All Andrew's Fault
Andrew linked an article about gay marriage to me, so the entirety of this post, including the motivation, is clearly all his fault. He's wholly responsible and should be, obviously, destroyed.
The article he linked me was this one and it got me thinking about just what the hell anyone ought to do about the whole thing.
Now, I've got an idea that wouldn't work: make marriage available to any combination of two human beings (man/man, woman/woman, man/woman, or any other transgender fun you can imagine). It wouldn't work, obvs.com, because people would just lose it over such a liberalization of something so sacred [sic] and wonderful [sic] as marriage, something that's timeless [sic] and totally great [sic] and has always [sic] led to great [sic] and wondrous [sic] joy [sic].
Andrew's article discussed an idea by two lawyers on opposite sides of the California mess arguing that marriage should not be governed by the government, only by the churches. What they would like to see (really just to compromise and bring an end to the whole thing) is the government grant civil unions to anyone and then allow whatever religious organizations out there that have the desire to grant any kind of supplementary title like "marriage."
But why sacrifice the word "marriage?" I think that would just piss everyone off even more. And it seems a little strange to more or less guarantee that marriage is then a religious thing. A lot of people, religious and otherwise, would be pretty upset about that inevitable label.
I say we just try to force through my original plan: making marriage available to any combination of two human beings. It would take money, time, and a fair amount of violence, but hey, what are things like equality and justice for if not to fight and die for?
This always makes me wonder about bigamy. Is it really a bad thing? Andrew, Philippi, Fillman, and I had a chat about this a few weeks ago and I think the general conclusion we came to (at least I think it was "we"; it might have just been me, I guess) is still significant: that the follies of marrying multiple people are the result of the person and not the situation. That is, the reason so many bigamist marriages are fucked up and evil and wives get beat up or abused or not taken care of is because people are messed up, not the marriage itself.
And really is there is anything different that occurs in a bigamist marriage not in a regular ole' man/woman marriage? Surely domestic violence happens in both and surely bad shit in general happens in both. It may be that more bad shit happens with bigamist marriages, but that's probably due to the type of people that try to live bigamously, which is illegal. I can't imagine all men and women who want to marry multiple people are awful, turrrble, and just all-around shitty human beings.
It's worth a thought, I suppose.
The article he linked me was this one and it got me thinking about just what the hell anyone ought to do about the whole thing.
Now, I've got an idea that wouldn't work: make marriage available to any combination of two human beings (man/man, woman/woman, man/woman, or any other transgender fun you can imagine). It wouldn't work, obvs.com, because people would just lose it over such a liberalization of something so sacred [sic] and wonderful [sic] as marriage, something that's timeless [sic] and totally great [sic] and has always [sic] led to great [sic] and wondrous [sic] joy [sic].
Andrew's article discussed an idea by two lawyers on opposite sides of the California mess arguing that marriage should not be governed by the government, only by the churches. What they would like to see (really just to compromise and bring an end to the whole thing) is the government grant civil unions to anyone and then allow whatever religious organizations out there that have the desire to grant any kind of supplementary title like "marriage."
But why sacrifice the word "marriage?" I think that would just piss everyone off even more. And it seems a little strange to more or less guarantee that marriage is then a religious thing. A lot of people, religious and otherwise, would be pretty upset about that inevitable label.
I say we just try to force through my original plan: making marriage available to any combination of two human beings. It would take money, time, and a fair amount of violence, but hey, what are things like equality and justice for if not to fight and die for?
This always makes me wonder about bigamy. Is it really a bad thing? Andrew, Philippi, Fillman, and I had a chat about this a few weeks ago and I think the general conclusion we came to (at least I think it was "we"; it might have just been me, I guess) is still significant: that the follies of marrying multiple people are the result of the person and not the situation. That is, the reason so many bigamist marriages are fucked up and evil and wives get beat up or abused or not taken care of is because people are messed up, not the marriage itself.
And really is there is anything different that occurs in a bigamist marriage not in a regular ole' man/woman marriage? Surely domestic violence happens in both and surely bad shit in general happens in both. It may be that more bad shit happens with bigamist marriages, but that's probably due to the type of people that try to live bigamously, which is illegal. I can't imagine all men and women who want to marry multiple people are awful, turrrble, and just all-around shitty human beings.
It's worth a thought, I suppose.
3 erotic poetry prompts:
Hmmmmm. . . I always find the fight for the right to marriage to be such an interesting one. Would it be that bad if the government merely granted unions? There is a case to be made that the idea of marriage is really a religious one to begin with. I, for one, am down with removing all vestiges of religious descriminatory language from a government that is supposed to without religious bias. Let the government acknowledge unions. That should be the goal of the state, to acknowledge non-biased contractual relations between two adults (we'll stick to the discussion about two at the moment, as adding a third individual in plays havoc with other ideas like inheritance and tax code. . . you get the picture). And then let people call it whatever they want. Seriously. But ultimately, the government must remove itself from religious descrimination. Let that be the province of the churches, so long as the same rights are guaranteed and protected by the government to all.
Now, as far as polygamy is concerned, there is a lot of ridiculous observations to be made about the state of health of all parties involved in such arrangements. Whether or not such observations are correct, who knows? I am more interested in what such things might mean for changes in tax codes. Can you imagine a house full of roomies claiming a polygamist marriage for a tax break? It might be interesting, honestly. Or perhaps a conspiracy in which all parties married each other so that they couldn't be compelled to testify against each other. I mean, the possibilities are interesting, right? Perhaps an interesting inheritance tax shield so that one could get around inheritance tax. Just wondering.
Yeah, I thought about all the pragmatic details, like taxes and such, but I didn't bother to say anything. It kind of bores me. Besides, I tend to be more interested in questions of principle and you with questions of pragmatism (which is totally fine; I'm not dissing it or saying that's bad).
And I'm not sure about the word "marriage." I keep mulling it over and I just think that too many secular people rely on the word, detached from its religious significance. But maybe I'm inflating a small group of individuals. Who knows.
I will fix all your tax issues with a flat tax
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