While I agree with you that this whole thing is driven by religion, there are some serious civil issues raised such as survivor's rights, health care decisions, and so forth. And what happens if I live with two different women, say my wife and a friend of ours.

Arizona, where I think you live too, has fairly progressive laws on some of these issues, we are very backward in most ways though. In Arizona we ban gay marriage but have legal support for domestic partnerships and a lot of rights for registered partnerships.

Yet, in the situation above, if our friend got pregnant, Arizona law would automatically define me as the baby's father even if we had never slept together. (I'm not sure if that is based on our legislature codifying virgin birth or what). But that is one problem with trying to "simplify" things based on observable such as living arrangements. Simplification leads to complication! The state has an interest in knowing who the father is to enforce the child's right to support. But by trying to use living arrangements without getting very invasive turns into a mess.

Why not just let the two people go register at the courthouse and be done with it?

Things are always more complicated than you would want them to be, but the general idea would be that anyone living together in the same house would be able to jointly file taxes, share insurance, etc... If they chose to, of course. It couldnt be automatic because that would put landlords out of business.

Im very libertarian minded, so I dont like the idea of being forced to tell the government the status of your relationship with another person. They dont need to know whether its a sexual, asexual, friendship, mutual hatred put aside in the name of better finances, or whatever else. It is none of the government's business what your personal relationships are. I also do not like the idea of giving benefits to a people based on their own claims. Benefits should be given based on circumstance.

3 college kids living in an apartment together face all the same problems that two married people living together would face. Why benefit the married couple over the unmarried? That is again legislating religion/culture. Registering as domestic partners also implies a sexual relationship and again discriminates against two people living as roommates. The government shouldnt grant you benefits for having sex with each other.

If three of you are living together, then you should all be able to file taxes as one household if you wish.

As for child support, etc, then you go with blood relation. Most of the time, the father acknowledges his relationship at the time of birth. If there is some kind of dispute over the father of the child, then a paternity test can easily figure that out. Ill leave it to the courts to decide when this is neccessary.

Ok Savvy, you make some good points. So once we get the government out of our bedrooms everything gets simpler. I actually agree with you about everything you said. I had not thought about it that way. So things like survivors's benefits, health insurance, health care directives and so forth you would just be able to name a person without specifying relationship, and that's it. I like that. Put the government completely out of the marriage business. I see the logic.

And if we can see eye to eye on this, then maybe there is hope for America.

Since we're already on page three, I opted not to read the thread and just chime in with my thoughts I'll read some of it later.

I think both sides are idiots:

The owner of CFA has a right to whatever beliefs he has. If you don't like his beliefs you don't have to support him, but trying to use the government to ban a business because of the beliefs of the owners is a clear violation of his free speech. The intolerance of his intolerance seems rather hypocritical to me.

Now, if the company is acting on those beliefs through policies in the business (i.e. hiring, firing, promoting, etc.) because of those beliefs, then the company is breaking the law should be punished. I have no idea if they are doing this or not. I've never eaten at a CFA nor have I been paying much attention to the recent news... it's just impossible to miss all of it.

As for the "appreciation day," I think the vast majority of them look like a bunch of bigots.

My position? I lean in favor of gay marriage, but would rather just have the government out of marriage in the first place.

My problem with CFA is less the "free speech" and more that the company donates corporate profits to a known hate group. The head of CFA can say all he wants, and I would still eat that delicious chicken. Profits donated to a hate group? My money isn't going there any more.

This is why dinner tonight is a copycat CFA recipe.

I've never seen it. I even did a text search for the word "marriage" in a pdf version of the constitution, and it doesn't come up.

Savarel -

100% agreement. I've been trying to articulate my position on marriage for quite some time without success. I knew it in my head, but couldn't put it into words.

That is it completely.

Savarel, I'm going to play devil's advocate and disagree.

Marriage is good for society. Not necessarily hetero marriage, but marriage itself. It provides a structure for families. When there are children involved, marriage is a legal framework to keep things more equal. Otherwise, you can have a woman who is a SAHM, gives up her career and retirement earning power in order to raise children, and there would be nothing to stop the man from up and leaving her with nothing after the children are grown. It's a protection. With marriage, the man would have to legally divorce her and give half his retirement account. Without, she's left with absolutely nothing.

Do I agree with getting religion out of civil marriage? Absolutely. But I feel that the spousal benefits are necessary to stable society.

I meant that the marriage is currently defined as between one man and one woman according to the Federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996. It is the law in the U.S. Like I said the Supreme Court will eventually have to deal with it.




Once again, Dan Cathy can say he believes that he supports traditional marriage. It's his right under the first amendment. The simplest way to not support Chick-Fil-A is not to buy their food. I say again, I wonder if conservatives were to boycott companies like Target and JCPenney for supporting same-sex marriage, etc. what the Media outcry would be? The free market should be free from government threats based on individuals ideas.



Okay let's see the civil and/or criminal court case numbers for such well-documented prior behavior. Or are there police reports too?



Okay so then the Mayors of the respective cities weren't speaking for all citizens then? So they were in fact being two-faced and discriminating against Cathy as well as any citizen who doesn't agree with same-sex marriage? Threats and intimidation by government officials against a private company is clearly un-American in my opinion.

Marriage is not a right protected under the Constitution as I've already stated. Under the law it is a privilege between one man and one woman. Once again the Supreme Court will address this eventually. But for now the law stands.



I personally have homosexual friends. I don't agree with their lifestyle and they know it. It is their choice to live in that manner. But that doesn't mean we can't be friends.

Lol I was wondering when it would come. I think personally you just like to find fault with my arguments. I think it would be called nit-picking in English. I did address the issue you mentioned. I mistook the law defining marriage to be in the Constitution instead of being a law. The point was marriage is defined by one man and one woman.

From my view you haven't addressed the core of the argument – free speech. It feels like you just like to discredit my thoughts and/or ideas based on a couple of sentences in a thread. And somehow this makes discussing all the valid arguments I made on this thread for example invalid. No matter. I still value the criticism because at least you do try to be somewhat constructive.

And how would we keep track of anything? Between common law marriages and divorces the system is bogged down as it is already...



Really? Okay let's take your example...



Okay so three college kids – Adam, Berry, and Catherine. All three live together for 6 months – no hanky panky. Now let's say that Adam moves out after the 6 month period and rooms with Daniel and Edwina. How would they all file their insurances? Adam can be claimed by Berry and Catherine for half the year? And Daniel and Edwina can claim him for half the year?

Let's take a more complicated set of events. Adam, Berry, and Catherine all live together for 6 months. Adam moves out after 3 months. He moves in with Daniel and Edwina. About that time Fernando moves in with Berry and Catherine. Berry move out after 6 months to live with George and Harry. Need I go on? How the heck would all these people claim each other for tax purposes? What about insurance, etc.? That would be a mess.



I'm waiting on a response to this. Seems logical to me.

Actually, kaitlyn's quote is as follows:



(Emphasis added)

Why did you edit out the bolded part?

Because I could? Didn't seem important. Family provides structure for families. That is the premisis of the argument.

Is that all you care to comment on lol?

It's funny how you're content with one law (yet to be addressed by the Supreme Court) yet deeply unhappy with another law that has been addressed by the Court.


Okay, I'll bite. The issue was about Marriage, not Free Speech (that was, I believe, your first question). As for the second question,, I have no opinion about those mayors. If you believe that this is a free speech issue, those mayors have no less a right to it than the CEO of Chick-Fil-A. And as long as they're not breaking the law as well, they can do whatever they like as long as they do not exceed the powers granted them by the people who duly elected them.

As for my "nit-picking", why don't you simply do a little research before posting and then say what you actually mean? Your little "English" errors have a tendency to change the entire meaning of your statement! We've demonstrated this over and over and over ad nauseum. These a error in fact, not in spelling or grammar. How very convenient. Your little English errors that the foundation of propagating FUD. I offered up a little wager on another thread. Care to take me up on it?

Edit: oh, and whenever I go beyond your English, you change the subject! Heck, you even misquote yourself when being asked about your past statements. The only way to get any clarity from you is to pin down one statement at a time, hash it out until it's established what you really mean, and then move on to the next one.