Gay marriage

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Re: Gay marriage

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Re: Gay marriage

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It's officially better to be gay in Missouri than in Kansas

http://www.pitch.com/FastPitch/archives ... han-kansas
earthling
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Re: Gay marriage

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Gay Marriage is becoming accepted enough that it's almost not worth discussing as a 'culture war' issue anymore. Will polygamy be next?

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Silent Generation more accepting, big jump with Boomers...
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GOP support nearing 50%, likely to pass 50% soon...
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White evangelical support even 'progressing' a bit faster, and big Catholic jump in last year too...
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aknowledgeableperson
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Re: Gay marriage

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"Will polygamy be next?"
Not in our lifetime.
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Re: Gay marriage

Post by mean »

I don't see why not, and I can't think of a compelling reason to be against it. If it isn't how you want to roll, and frankly I don't think it'd be for me, that's fine, but what other consenting adults do is up to them. Sure, there are multiparty divorce and custody type issues that would need to be addressed legally, but it's not like it's an unsolvable problem.
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Re: Gay marriage

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I mean before you get into the weeds about what the problems are and how to solve them you have to identify some constituency that actually wants it. Is there really a big movement for polygamy in this country?
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Re: Gay marriage

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I don't see it happening because a growing base specifically want polygamous marriage to be allowed, but what is perhaps happening is a growing base of those who don't think anyone should be restricted/penalized/imprisoned from something that doesn't cause harm.

The irony is that humanity started out as polygamous and monogamous marriage didn't adapt widely until the concept of property (and single family homes) - and in some parts of world as a way to control spreading disease. Monogamous marriage was cultivated. There are practical/religious reasons to personally choose monogamous marriage but there doesn't seem to be any case to force others not to marry multiple people - except for religious principals, which isn't allowed in US.
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Re: Gay marriage

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Laws tend to be made after advances or social acceptance or demand occurs. For instance consider test tube babies, surrogate moms, sperm donors, egg donors, etc. Medical science was way ahead of the legislatures on parenthood, whose property sperm/eggs belong to, and so on.
With regards to marriage between more than two people how do you define it?
A woman is married into a situation with man and another woman. Is she marrying both? How do you handle divorce?
Why limit it to just a single person of one sex to multiple people of the other sex? Why can't it be, say, be a marriage with 2 men and 3 women?

I think what would need to happen first is some degree of the social acceptance of a man having a wife and a mistress in an open relationship. Or is it relationships? Of course it could be a woman having a husband and whatever you would call the other man. Or even a husband and wife with one of them in a homosexual relationship.
My, this can get very complicated with all of the possibilities.
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Re: Gay marriage

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California has banned travel to states that they deem to be anti-LGBT. But since same sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, I don't know how they determine what makes a state "anti-LGBT." Restroom laws? A gender neutral option for driver's licenses? Ross Dress for Less?
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mean
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Re: Gay marriage

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phuqueue wrote:I mean before you get into the weeds about what the problems are and how to solve them you have to identify some constituency that actually wants it. Is there really a big movement for polygamy in this country?
There's no specific movement for polygamy that I'm aware of. I just can't identify any reason to oppose it. Polyamory is pretty big. /shrug
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Re: Gay marriage

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aknowledgeableperson wrote: My, this can get very complicated with all of the possibilities.
Privatizing marriage would be no different than any other private contract between multiple partners that can be customized. You can have basic default contracts (similar to contracts you can pickup in office supply stores) that allow customization. More complex relations could have a more formally customized contract. Some forms of polygamy exploit others, which also happens in private biz as well as 2-person marriage. The courts can settle unfair polygamy no differently than any multi or 2 party situation that is exploited.

Have always thought that targeting gay marriage specifically was a mistake, it makes much more sense to privatize marriage overall and keep the govt out of arranging the terms of marriage. There can be Fed high level general terms that must be followed (tax implications, etc), as is the case with many custom private biz contracts too. Shouldn't be as difficult as you'd think if adapting marriage to private contracts no differently than any other private contract.
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Re: Gay marriage

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I don't think privatizing marriage is all that simple. For one is offspring. You would have birth mother and birth father but how would you recognize the other partners in the marriage? Another is financial support after the marriage ends.
To an extent most, if not all, states already recognized private marriage via common-law marriages. Plus there are pre-nuptial, even now post-nuptial, agreements that are recognized.
Say there is a marriage of one man and two women and one woman wants a divorce. Is the property split 50/50 or 33 1/3 each? What if there was one woman who worked and the other stayed home to watch the children and the working woman wanted a divorce. Would the working woman have to pay child support? And the woman who stayed home to watch the children wanted the divorce would the other two both have to pay child support?
You would still be faced with situations not covered by contract nor written laws. And let's not forget the oral and implied contracts that affected the many palimony rulings.
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Re: Gay marriage

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aknowledgeableperson wrote:I don't think privatizing marriage is all that simple. For one is offspring. You would have birth mother and birth father but how would you recognize the other partners in the marriage? Another is financial support after the marriage ends.
To an extent most, if not all, states already recognized private marriage via common-law marriages. Plus there are pre-nuptial, even now post-nuptial, agreements that are recognized.
Say there is a marriage of one man and two women and one woman wants a divorce. Is the property split 50/50 or 33 1/3 each? What if there was one woman who worked and the other stayed home to watch the children and the working woman wanted a divorce. Would the working woman have to pay child support? And the woman who stayed home to watch the children wanted the divorce would the other two both have to pay child support?
You would still be faced with situations not covered by contract nor written laws. And let's not forget the oral and implied contracts that affected the many palimony rulings.
None of your questions or points would have answers different from how we cover things today except for the number of parties involved.

Civil law still applies with private agreements. If you can't come to an agreement during a split you sue and let the courts decide. A three person marriage wouldn't be logically different from having three people in a business partnership.

Implying questions as if the courts are so stupid they can't add another party into the mix shows a clear lack of understanding of the legal system.
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Re: Gay marriage

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

"Implying questions as if the courts are so stupid they can't add another party into the mix shows a clear lack of understanding of the legal system."

Oh, I have a good understanding of the legal systems, have dealt with numerous contracts in the past plus legal coursework. The point I am trying to make is the court making decisions without laws to support those decisions. Then there are the cases where different judges, some within the same circuit, coming to different decisions. Yes, each case is unique but generally speaking there is a need for laws to make some uniformity on how cases are decided.


"None of your questions or points would have answers different from how we cover things today except for the number of parties involved."

Just that the more people involved the more complicated it becomes. Not saying the courts couldn't handle the issues but judges tend to look at laws and other judicial opinions to help in the decision making process. And with regards to marriages involving more than 2 people there is no guidance unless one might count Islamic customs with a man having more than one wife. Just look at the legal cases involving parenthood. Like who has the rights to a baby, the egg donor or the birth mother? Even now with unnamed sperm donors and their responsibilities to the offspring. Even now with the rights of the non-biological parent in a gay marriage is an issue with divorce.
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Re: Gay marriage

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mean wrote:
phuqueue wrote:I mean before you get into the weeds about what the problems are and how to solve them you have to identify some constituency that actually wants it. Is there really a big movement for polygamy in this country?
There's no specific movement for polygamy that I'm aware of. I just can't identify any reason to oppose it. Polyamory is pretty big. /shrug
No reason to oppose it is only part of the equation though. If there's no real demand for it, there certainly isn't going to be any movement among state legislatures to rewrite the laws. Could try to do it through a court challenge (to get standing I suppose you'd have to try to get a marriage license while you're already married to somebody else), but as much as we like to tell ourselves (and especially as much as judges like to tell themselves) that courts are just neutral arbiters of the law, how many of us honestly believe that Obergefell would have been decided the same way if it has come to the court 15 years ago? Would they have even granted cert?

That's why I agree with akp's "not in our lifetime" -- I don't know whether there's any particularly compelling argument to make against it, I just can't really imagine it happening if nobody is really agitating for it. (I disagree that any of the specific complications akp has highlighted would stand in the way of legalizing polygamy if it were otherwise going to happen -- courts and/or legislatures would come up with answers to each of those questions. The reason that polygamy isn't currently legal isn't that it's too hard to figure out the logistics.)

I also don't think ideological arguments about "if it doesn't hurt anybody, then consenting adults should be able to enter into whatever arrangement they want" will sway all that many people who have knee jerk reactions against it. People don't really respond to ideological arguments. We believe what we believe and nobody else is going to change our mind. What seems to have changed people's minds on gay marriage (and homosexuality in general) is actually knowing gay people. Hard (granted, not necessarily impossible) to sell polygamy the same way, so it's harder to see a broad coalition of non-polygamist allies coalescing around a polygamy movement even if one did develop.
Have always thought that targeting gay marriage specifically was a mistake, it makes much more sense to privatize marriage overall and keep the govt out of arranging the terms of marriage.
A "mistake" for whom? The people who wanted gay marriage were either gay people who wanted to be able to get married or straight people who wanted gay people to be able to get married. If you poll pre-Obergefell gay marriage advocates I doubt you'll find many who feel that it was some kind of missed opportunity to more fundamentally restructure the institution of marriage. They wanted a specific thing and they got it.
The point I am trying to make is the court making decisions without laws to support those decisions. Then there are the cases where different judges, some within the same circuit, coming to different decisions. Yes, each case is unique but generally speaking there is a need for laws to make some uniformity on how cases are decided.
Courts making decisions "without laws to support those decisions" is the historical foundation of our entire legal system. The principle of stare decisis is meant to ensure that there is uniformity on how cases are decided.
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Re: Gay marriage

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

"The principle of stare decisis is meant to ensure that there is uniformity on how cases are decided."
Stare decisis basically only applies once a state or the US Supreme Court decides on an issue. My reference of course was to decisions made by the lower courts on the various issues that might be involved with marriage between more than two parties.

"(I disagree that any of the specific complications akp has highlighted would stand in the way of legalizing polygamy if it were otherwise going to happen"
My complications only point out the this type of marriage presents many questions that need to be answered instead of just saying it can be simply be handled via private contract means. And answered by laws not court decisions.
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Re: Gay marriage

Post by phuqueue »

aknowledgeableperson wrote:"The principle of stare decisis is meant to ensure that there is uniformity on how cases are decided."
Stare decisis basically only applies once a state or the US Supreme Court decides on an issue. My reference of course was to decisions made by the lower courts on the various issues that might be involved with marriage between more than two parties.
This is simply not true. Stare decisis binds courts inferior to the court that decided the issue (this means a court of appeals, not just a supreme court, can bind lower courts), as well as the court itself that decided the issue. A trial judge in District A, confronting an issue that has already been decided in District A, will follow that precedent unless he can distinguish this case from the earlier one. He's also likely to consult case law from District B if District A has never decided this issue before -- he's not bound by District B's decision, but he'll likely follow it, and if he doesn't, he'll articulate the flaws he sees in how it was decided or distinguish his case from it. Precedent encompasses far more than just state or federal Supreme Court decisions and courts don't operate in isolation from other courts.
"(I disagree that any of the specific complications akp has highlighted would stand in the way of legalizing polygamy if it were otherwise going to happen"
My complications only point out the this type of marriage presents many questions that need to be answered instead of just saying it can be simply be handled via private contract means. And answered by laws not court decisions.
Court decisions are laws. But in reality it is very likely that legislatures would address these issues. That there are open questions about how to handle this or that specific issue wouldn't be the reason polygamy wasn't legalized.
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Re: Gay marriage

Post by mean »

phuqueue wrote: No reason to oppose it is only part of the equation though. If there's no real demand for it, there certainly isn't going to be any movement among state legislatures to rewrite the laws. Could try to do it through a court challenge (to get standing I suppose you'd have to try to get a marriage license while you're already married to somebody else), but as much as we like to tell ourselves (and especially as much as judges like to tell themselves) that courts are just neutral arbiters of the law, how many of us honestly believe that Obergefell would have been decided the same way if it has come to the court 15 years ago? Would they have even granted cert?
I guess that's fair enough, but I think "not in our lifetimes" is a bit much. Demand for these things is hard to predict, and with the prevalence of polyamory it's not that much of a stretch for people to start wishing for legal protections for themselves and whatever arrangements they enter into. If I was into that kind of thing and I knocked up someone's "hot wife" it seems like it would be a lot less messy to just be married into the family than to have a custody battle.

But at the end of the day "I don't see why not" was meant more as a statement of non-opposition than a literal statement that I believed there were no sociological or psychological barriers to actual legislation being passed.
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Re: Gay marriage

Post by earthling »

phuqueue wrote:I mean before you get into the weeds about what the problems are and how to solve them you have to identify some constituency that actually wants it. Is there really a big movement for polygamy in this country?
There isn't the demand or movement but the way things work now a single case can become a hot button issue.

Is plausible within years (or 10) that someone pushes the polygamy button with a multi-partner relationship and challenges the system. They are prosecuted, maybe imprisoned and Netflix or whatever medium is hot in the future produces a flashy 6 episode VR mini-series on the case. It causes small bouts of public outrage that polygamists are prosecuted for not harming anyone. A few politicians get involved on various sides, someone else challenges, headlines, gets convicted and a good chunk of the public doesn't see it as fair, a court takes the case and challenges the current marriage process, headlines, ACLU and other 'liberal' orgs get involved, some DEMs propose privatizing marriage (perhaps in power), headlines, it eventually reaches Supreme Court (if even needed) and the process to privatizing marriage begins.

Could be any variation of the above but point being is it only takes a few challenging as a 'martyr' to their cause, creating change. Modern mechanisms make it pretty easy to create smallish but loud public outrage for otherwise ignored cases and the snowball effect of media/politics interrelationship takes it from there.

There isn't a good case that polygamists should be prosecuted/imprisoned other than traditional cultural reasons and the culture is changing more and more towards not convicting people if causing no harm. So yeah, 10 years is plausible, would be surprising if it takes 20. But also might take a movement too, some hippie communes tried in the 60s and such things often cycle about every 50 years or less. Some may try it finding some tax loop hole that benefits polygamy.
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Re: Gay marriage

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

"This is simply not true. Stare decisis binds courts inferior to the court that decided the issue (this means a court of appeals, not just a supreme court, can bind lower courts), as well as the court itself that decided the issue. A trial judge in District A, confronting an issue that has already been decided in District A, will follow that precedent unless he can distinguish this case from the earlier one. He's also likely to consult case law from District B if District A has never decided this issue before -- he's not bound by District B's decision, but he'll likely follow it, and if he doesn't, he'll articulate the flaws he sees in how it was decided or distinguish his case from it. Precedent encompasses far more than just state or federal Supreme Court decisions and courts don't operate in isolation from other courts."

I was using the following definition for my wording. Evidently wrong choice of source.
"For stare decisis to be effective, each jurisdiction must have one highest court to declare what the law is in a precedent-setting case. The U.S. Supreme Court and the state supreme courts serve as precedential bodies, resolving conflicting interpretations of law or dealing with issues of first impression"

"Court decisions are laws."
I understand that. But most people, I believe, would rather have legislatures make the laws instead of the courts.
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