New York Recognizes Gay Marriage

More at the New York Daily News. 

And some food for thought: A libertarian friend writes, "When did states setting the terms of exchange become an expression of right to contract? The only rights-based approach would be states to stop setting the rules of marriage at all. Sadly we just get a stronger but fairer state." 

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Empire State "recognizes" gay marriage. Finally, a phrasing we can all agree with.

For gay couples, marriage means more than just swapping rings.

For the first time they qualify for the same 1,324 state marriage benefits afforded to straight couples.

Enjoy your new bennies, future divorc?es.

[Appalachian Australian]

Gay couples can now experience the "right" to pay higher taxes once they hit the 28% bracket.

On the bottom end, poor gay couples will find they're a lot less eligible for the EITC.

[BG]

Several problems with this.

First the 28% tax bracket only exists in federal taxation - where same sex marriages are still not recognized.

Second filing taxes jointly tends to reduce a couple's overall tax burden, especially if there is a large disparity in income (such as when one partner doesn't work at all).

As for Earned Income Tax Credit, you don't get that much anyway unless you have a kid (or several kids). And I am not sure if single people can legally adopt in NY.

Of course, in those unusual circumstances where getting married increases one's tax burden, same sex couples are still not required to get married just as heterosexual couples aren't required to.

[JoshINHB]

What would happen if Adam and Steve filed a joint return?

[John C. Randolph]

I would expect that the homophobic Obama administration would treat it as if they were tax evaders.

-jcr

[Duckie]

Oh my god, I love coming here. The idealism and sentimentality is so refreshing and life-affirming. I need to start taking a dose of Reason's comments every morning with my coffee.

[Joshua Corning]

Just wait until pot is legalized.

The mood here will be as dark as a black cat in a dark room at midnight.

[Joe M.]

Midnight on the dark side of the moon! Where it's always midnight!

[Hugh Akston]

Darker than a black steer's tuchas on a moonless prairie night.

[?]

Every silver lining has a cloud.

[Pink Cosmotarian]

Darkness warshed over the Dude...

[spencer]

+1

[blogimi Dei]

he pissed on your rug...

[Joshua Corning]

Midnight on the dark side of the moon! Where it's always midnight!

My inner astronomy nerd tells me it is not always midnight on the dark side of the moon.

[?]

The cup is always half-empty and draining fast in Libertopia. Happily, our collectivism holds us together. In this, we are unself-aware, according to the popular clich

[Episiarch]

You are endlessly tiresome, anonypussy. The only positive aspect to you is that you clearly hate yourself more than any of us ever could, and your self torment pleases and amuses me.

[prolefeed]

Please quit feeding the fucking trolls, Epi.

[?]

He never will, you know. He can't. It's a sickness.

[Knutsack]

All excitement for states recognizing gay marriage is wearing off. Am I really going to have to go through this forty-four more times (or fifty-one in Obama's United States)? I really don't care anymore, so I'm obviously homophobic.

Assail me with your slings and arrows you new civil rights heroes.

[danwgre]

Actually, I didn't even realize it was up to 6 states that recognize it, and I'm gay.
Then again, I always thought part of being gay was finding marriage abhorrent.

[Appalachian Australian]

Straight married people find marriage abhorrent as well.

[rather]

I always was suspicious of a handle with 'Appalachian' in it. Does your wife think you're on the trail?

[Apalachian Romeo]

My sister-wife is fine with whatever I hit, as long as it's in the family.

[Lot's Wife]

Does your dog count?

[rather]

So you are one of these?
http://alturl.com/cg3px

[Al Gore]

I told you they were real!!! I was totally cereal, you guys!!!

Oh, and global warming.

[rather]

It wasn't the GW Al. I think it happened when Lewis, Ed, Bobby,and Drew decided to canoe down the Cahulawassee River in the remote Georgia wilderness...

[Al Wayswright]

Graying queer women want gay marriage so they can qualify for survivor death benefits and a bumped on Soc Sec check.

Most queer dudes don't give a felch about it.

[Publius Cato]

So in short another group of old bitties want to saddle america with more debt? Thanks.

[prolefeed]

Actually, I didn't even realize it was up to 6 states that recognize it, and I'm gay.

You throw in the states that recognize civil unions, like Hawaii did this legislative session, or domestic partnerships, and it's a lot more states representing a big chunk of the population.

Well if the Supreme Court rules in favor of it then you'd only have to hear it one more time.

Something for you to root for.

[Anonymous]

My Facebook friends are treating this like it's Christmas or something. I guess you are homophobic

[Polonius]

Truly it's the worst insult to libertarian freedom since women being allowed to vote or [i]Loving v. Virginia[/i]. While a great day for individual liberty, it's a sad and tragic affair for fans of draconian state power. Ron Paul libertarians weep nationwide at this expansion of freedom.

[danwgre]

Please explain how this expands freedom?

[Cytotoxic]

By ending the state's ability to arbitrarily discriminate between a straight vs homo marriage.

[Michael Ejercito]

By ending the state's ability to arbitrarily discriminate between a straight vs homo marriage.

These unions are not the same.
For one thing, an opposite-sex union, on average, is many, many times more likely to experience an unplanned pregnancy than a same-sex union. This translates to medical expenses and lost wages. Laws should take these differences to account

[Al Wayswright]

Of course it doesn't expand Freedom. Freedom is the virtual realm where a man or woman is self-sovereign.

That those of Officialdom grant yet another privilege to those whose identity comes from a group has nothing to with natural rights inherent in each individuals.

As far as a privilege goes, it is rather bizarre to grant marriage status to what amounts to a sexual fetish -- homosexism -- and thus a mind disorder as all fetishes are.

Certainly, this is not an act of an enlightened people.

[curiousgeorge]

...I don't think that fetish: an object or bodily part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression

is the same as homosexuality: sexual desire or behavior directed toward a person or persons of one's own sex.

[alan]

I know a guy who says he is just in it for the dick. He finds most aspects of gay culture, except for being a gym rat, to be lame. Except he doesn't use the word 'lame.'

Is he an exception to the rule? I knid of doubt it. To a great extent, we are all suckers for the social conditioning that we are surrounded by, and much of what is considered the norm to the extent of being expected wasn't even accepted practice in gay circles a generation ago.

[kbolino]

The State of New York had impeded the rights of free association and contract in a manner it now does not.

It does not matter what your personal views on the morality of homosexuality are. You are caught up on the word "marriage" which does not mean what you think it means. It's just a form of contract, sanctioned by the state, which accords certain privileges and immunities by law. It could be called "civil union" or "domestic partnership" or "personal aggregation" and nothing else about it would change.

Religious marriage is a totally different matter. The state has no right to dictate the sacraments of a religion, whether it be to sanction or condemn them. Likewise, the state has no right to establish a religious sacrament as a legal institution. Thus, the form of contract that we call "marriage" carries the name only because of its historical origin, not because it actually has anything to do with the spiritual act or religious ceremony.

"Marriage" at the state level is essentially a piece of paper and a tax deduction (although many states connect other privileges, such as hospitalization and inheritance). You could argue that "marriage" as such is not the state's business, but that would apply equally whether the individuals involved in them were of the same or different sexes. However, as long as the state is involved, it should not practice discrimination without a rational basis.

[robc]

You could argue that "marriage" as such is not the state's business

Marriage is not the state's business. Expanding state licensed marriage is anti-liberty.

[kbolino]

The institution wasn't expanded--it entails no more than it entailed before, it grants no more than it granted before. Only its barriers to entry were relaxed. How is that anti-liberty?

[Al Wayswright]

Politicians and bureaucrats have conjured a new group -- homosexists -- and have conferred upon them a license that qualifies them to seek other privileges that they dole out to maintain power.

Always, authentic libertarians oppose any expansion of Officialdom at the expense of Freedom. That is why authentic libertarians oppose the queer marriage privilege, the illegal alien worker privilege, the 65 age-based welfare privilege, and a host of other privileges.

[DesigNate]

Oh. So you are one of these "No true Scotsman" type of posters. Here I thought you were just a racist homophobe.

[tarran]

Here I thought you were just a racist homophobe.

A person can be both 😉

[kbolino]

You have failed to establish that an expansion of power has taken place. The only thing that has expanded is the group of eligible people; the power of the state remains unchanged.

[fish]

It still enables the state to set the terms and limits of the arrangement. That's how.

[Huh?]

As opposed to the previous status quo, which was that the state was able to set the terms and limits of the marriage contract for homosexuals by entirely banning it?

The logical leaps one takes to see this as somehow an exapnsion of gov't power is mind boggling. It's neutral at worst.

[Anonymous]

Ron Paul thinks there should be no government involvement in marriage whatsoever. He also voted to end DADT. He's not a homophobe.

[Polonius]

Ron Paul supports the Texas GOP criminalizing homosexuality, and is against the Lawrence v. Texas ruling. He doesn't think it's a good idea to imprison homosexuals, but supports the effort because he thinks it's more important for the State of Texas to have that right. It's part of his general idea of a powerful State crushing rights versus individual rights.

And for the other poster, er, New Yorkers who are gay can now get married to each other? Seems like more freedom to me. Sorry if it pisses you off. Again, see the various prior expansions of liberty like Native Americans being allowed to vote or Asians being allowed to apply for citizenship. It upset a lot of conservatives, but such measures increased individual freedom.

[Cytotoxic]

RP thinks state 'rights' > individual rights.

[Tulpa]

RP thinks state 'rights' > individual rights.

Actually he doesn't recognize the federal right to privacy on which LvT is based. As a Texas voter he doesn't support the sodomy ban but he also doesn't support federal interference with it.

[Ray Eckhart]

Actually he doesn't recognize the federal right to privacy on which LvT is based

According to Randy Barnett, Lawrence v. Texas was not based on the federal right to privacy, but on an expanded idea of liberty.

Contrary to how their decision was widely reported, the Lawrence majority did not protect a ''right of privacy.'' Instead, quite simply, they protected ''liberty.'' Breaking free at last of the post-New Deal constitutional tension between the ''presumption of constitutionality,''on one hand, and ''fundamental rights,'' on the other, Justice Anthony Kennedy and the four justices who joined his opinion did not begin by assuming the statute was constitutional.

[Cytotoxic]

...which is a more detailed version of what I said.

RP thinks state 'rights' > federal enforcement of individual rights.

[West Texas]

Actually, Ron Paul is all for individual rights, he just thinks that these battles should all be fought at the state level and are not necessarily a federal concern. He's actually quite consistent and principled on these types of questions.

[Lot's Wife]

Voting isn't a liberty, twit.

[Polonius]

Do you get angry that black people are allowed to vote, in opposition of the founders' wishes?

[Lot's Wife]

The Constitution never prohibited people from voting because they were Black. You ought to ask that government school for your tuition back.

[Polonius]

Let's be more specific. Do you get angry that the descendants of slaves are counted as full human citizens as opposed to 3/5 of a person? And does the 15th Amendment expand or reduce liberty? Downthread you've expressed your issues with women voting via the 19th Amendment.

The more libertarians (or conservatives or whatever) continue to rail against individual liberty for people they utterly despise, the worse they'll do in elections.

[Lot's Wife]

You value positive liberty over negative liberty? Typical product of state indoctrination.

[roystgnr]

That "3/5 of a person" bit was a way of reducing the power of slave states' votes. The practical effect of enumerating slaves as a greater fraction would have been an even more disproportionate number of slavers' representatives in the House. That would have been a *bad* thing.

And, although this might be wasted on someone who just proved he deserves that refund:

The trouble with supporting violations and "reinterpretations" of the constitution, even when they seem beneficial to individual rights in the short run, is that in the long run replacing the Rule of Law with the Rule of Men has typically been devastating to human liberty.

If that's too philosophical and not practical enough: how can you be anti-bigot and anti-states-rights in the context of a story celebrating that the number of anti-bigot states is up to a whopping 6? Would you rather they all be overruled by the other 44 states?

[Lot's Wife]

Women voting has been devastating to individual liberty in this country.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Actually, it's been a mixed bag, but dudes voting has been, too. Women certainly don't seem to have been more enlightened as voters than males have been.

[Mnemone Jones]

As it was once pithily put: if women were the only voters, democrats would always win; if men were the only voters, the GOP would be the left-wing party.

[West Texas]

Not to mention being devastating to our public finances.

[spencer]

^^ZING^^

I used to argue with feminists about how suffrage was the start of the downfall of the US- listing the wars, prohibitions, etc., that came after it. I, of course, was only joking, but it was worth it to see them froth up.

[prolefeed]

Women voting has been devastating to individual liberty in this country.

Women only skew a bit more Progressive than men. Now, if you wanted to look at the sort-of-recently added group of voters that skew extremely Progressive, that would be black voters, and to a lesser extent young voters.

If you wanted to go down that racist and sexist and ageist road, that is. Me, I'm fine with expanding the voter franchise as a basic expansion of equality, even if the temporary effects on freedom isn't always so great.

[JW]

Did it think that Vermont and New Hampshire were just really good friends the whole time?

[Mike Laursen]

That funny.

[New York State]

Well, they kissed on the mouth, but they just said it was something they'd picked up backpacking in Europe!

[Duckie]

They made sure to get a "religious exemption" in there first. No religious institution has to provide wedding-related services to any icky gays if they don't wanna. Apparently all you have to do to get this special right to control your own time and resources is claim to know the creator of the universe's preferences on who's sleeping with whom and under what legal arrangements.

Presumably if you have some secular reason to deny a same-sex couple the use of your elegant venue or your tasteful flower arrangments, you can shut the hell up.

[Intelligent Leftist]

Stupid libertarian, has anyone ever told you that in your perfect society there would be no roads?

[Duckie]

I'd heard that. I always assumed that in Libertopia, we would have hovercrafts.

[Kolohe]

Again, it's steam punk dirigibles. It's hard to keep your monocle affixed in a hovercraft.

[dunkel]

"My hovercraft is full of eels."

[Apropos]

Do you want -- do you whhhaaaant, to come back to my place -- bouncy bouncy?

[dunkel]

"My nipples explode with delight!"

[James Anderson Merritt]

Of course there would be roads. There were roads before the government started to build them, and GOOD roads (toll turnpikes) in many places. In parts of my own county even today, residents pay for (sometimes directly construct and/or maintain) their own neighborhood surface streets, upon which they and the public travel without tolls. The government isn't necessary for building roads, and sometimes it actually gets in the way of creating them or keeping them in good repair. I wish we could drive a stake into the heart of the "no roads" canard. The interstates are convenient, but they amount to a major gilding of the lily. They are probably the only roads in this country that actually NEEDED government to get built, but we didn't really need them. I remember when there weren't nearly as many miles of interstate freeway as there are now -- and none at all in my part of the State. No big deal.

Saying we need government to make roads is like taking a free new Cadillac from Uncle Sugar in replacement of your used Ford and then telling everyone that we NEED the government to run GM. Wake up.

[Memes]

How the fuck do they work?

[Max Stirner]

The comments section is comedy gold.

Ah, religious socons, what will you complain about next?

[Fist of Etiquette]

"If it passes, we feel it's going to ruin our state and our country," said Dawn Adams, a coordinator of the Norwich Tea Party Patriots.

No doubt Agent 86 is upset because she believes - in keeping with Tea Party core values - that the state should be out of marriage altogether and not because she is a conservative who wants to make the TPM a purity exercise for the far Right.

[Appalachian Australian]

The family courts are well on their way to destroying this country.

It's a shame they'll now be extending their reach to destroying gay couples as well.

[Rock Action]

I saw that. How does a constitutionally legitimate exercise of legislative power portend the ruination of both state and country?

[Rock Action]

For FoE. Sorry.

[Tulpa]

Just because something is constitutional doesn't mean it's not dangerous and stupid. Hopefully libertarians don't believe the Constitution is protected by the Holy Spirit or whatever the analogue to Christian belief about the bible.

I should note that, while I oppose gay marraige, I don't think it will destroy anything other than a few homosexuals' sex lives. It's really a stupid issue; what irks me is libertarians acting as if support for gay marriage and DADT repeal balances out starting wars, spending money, and raiding dispensaries in the evaluation of politicians' friendliness to liberty.

[rather]

another idiot remark. It is no wonder that your reply to my spoof thinking it was me

[Sy]

"I don't think it will destroy anything other than a few homosexuals' sex lives"

And clearly that's okay with you.

[Rock Action]

You're absolutely right about the constitutional part, and I know that, and did know that.

My broader -- and for brevity's sake I quipped -- and unwritten point is that you'd think somebody who identifies herself as a member and a spokesman of a group ought to remember what the group's main goals are (the constitutionality of government actions and fiscal responsibility) and to publicly say things that will build the broadest coalition to achieve those goals.

[jacob]

somebody who identifies herself as a member and a spokesman of a group ought to remember what the group's main goals are (the constitutionality of government actions and fiscal responsibility) and to publicly say things that will build the broadest coalition to achieve those goals.

For your statement to be true, you have to first believe that the Tea party's only goals were "the constitutionality of government actions and fiscal responsibility." There are some of us who believe that the Tea party, either in totality or just the majority, is simply a way for the Republicans to re-brand themselves. This quote, to me, simply illustrates that.

Did you notice the Tea party tried to unseat Ron Paul?

http://www.newser.com/story/80.....-paul.html

[Rock Action]

And your point would be my gripe. It's illustrative, isn't it?

[jacob]

Yes you are correct.

[Mike Laursen]

Since when has the Tea Party movement stated any position on gay marriage?

[Lot's Wife]

She's speaking for her and her friends in the Norwich Tea Party Patriots, not the whole "movement". What part of decentralized do you not understand?

[Mike Laursen]

Why are you arguing with me? I'm on your side of the debate. I don't say anywhere in my comment that the Tea Party is centralized.

[jacob]

She is a conservative who wants to make the TPM a purity exercise for the far Right.

[squishua]

It's easy to recognize gay marriage. The telltale sign is when the couple is the same gender.

[Bar Student]

HAH!

[Art-P.O.G.]

Nominated.

[danwgre]

99% of my gay friends hate me for this; but all this gay marriage crap makes me kinda sad. A big part of accepting my own homosexuality involved knowing that I was a part of something special but different. Now it's being crammed down my throat 24/7 that I am "just like straight people"; but really just a crude facsimile... fuck that.

[N.Y. legislature]

"Then our plan is working perfectly!!

Bwaaahaahaahaahaaa!!!"

(turns into bat, flies away)

[rather]

Poor baby. Did you think you were an alien? 😉

[xenia onatopp]

^^This^^
Since I'm a straight married lady, not a gay man, I realize that my opinion here is somewhat superfluous, however: on the one hand, as long as the state is in the business of granting tax and survivor and various other benefits and recognitions to married couples, gay couples should be on equal footing; on the other hand, I have a lot of gay male friends and not one of them considers this an important issue. Perhaps because, like me, they came of age in the seventies, the desire to conform to societal norms is not strong in them; we grew up in a time when those things that placed us outside the mainstream were things of which we were proud. Nobody was looking for an imitation of middle-class suburban life-- that's what we were trying to get away from. Several of these friends have expressed a sense of sadness and loss in the last few days, although it is tinged with relief that, at least in NY, the issue can now be put aside and issues like rising rates of HIV transmission among young gay men can once again take center stage.

A generation removed, my 26 year old daughter tells me there is a similar widespread apathy on the issue, and active antipathy toward Barney Frank and the HRC crowd, among her gay friends; this is exacerbated by the fact that many of them are transgendered young people who feel as marginalized by the gay establishment as they do by straight society.

Yet another half-a-generation removed, my 19 year old fag hag daughter reports that, duh, nobody she knows has any interest in marriage at the moment, there's still way too much fabulousness left to experience before that notion rears its ugly head.

To end my little round-up, the one truly bright spot I've noticed is how much of a non-issue this has become in my socially conservative blue-collar city here in Western MA. Here in the hood, everyone, white and black, has at least one gay relative, and long before the state Supreme Court's 2004 ruling the attitude was pretty much live and let live. When everyone knows several generations of everyone else's family it's hard to cultivate and maintain a really strong anti-gay attitude. The guys I know in the building trades and skilled trades-- that is, my husband and all his hometown friends and acquaintances and also the spouses of my co-workers-- all these regular blue-collar guys, sure, on job sites crude jokes about gay sex are the norm and "faggot" is the insult of choice, but that is strictly among themselves; it doesn't carry over to their dealings with the rest of the world, and the reality of gay relatives, friends, and neighbors isn't generally considered noteworthy enough to even mention. My husband's take-- "it's not my religion, that's all"-- sums it up pretty completely.

[alan]

I don't know xenia onatopp, there is still a million ways to get in trouble, and that will never lose its appeal. Quietly knocking boots in a rest stop stall while a state trooper takes a shit the next one over will always be a great story to tell the kids no matter how many half generations removed they may be.

Some things will never change so long as we retain our humanity.

[xenia onatopp]

That made me actually laugh out loud, as opposed to lol. I guess the real difference is that in the sixties and seventies teens and their parents lived in different worlds, planets entirely alien to each other. We didn't aspire to their life because we couldn't. There was just no connection or commonality.

That's no longer so true. A lot of parents are consumers of the same pop culture as their kids, shop at the same stores for similar clothes, share the same crazy technologies and smoke the same pot.

Or maybe it's just my imagination runnin' away with me.

[Cytotoxic]

FABULOUS.

But no really this is great. The SoCon tears just sweeten the deal.

[Lot's Wife]

The state legislatures in Jesusland won't be following NYs example. Those are Catholic tears you're enjoying.

[Al Wayswright]

Are you kidding? Catholics are communists. They'd kill Jesus if that would advance their communistic agenda.

[Spoonman.]

Crazy people are fascinating, at first.

[Kevin]

Social Cons go nuclear in 3?2?1

Just go to The Corner at NRO if you don't believe me. Seriously, our governments on every level have no fucking money, we at stuck in at least three open-ended wars-four if you count Pakistan, the economy sucks & The Palins & Limbaughs of the world worry about this?

I really don't get Social Cons, you have a group of people who want to embrace this traditional idea of marriage and they want NO part of it just because they love someone of the same gender.

[Obvious Troll is Obvious]

I thought the traditional idea of marriage was that it was between a man and a woman?

[Lot's Wife]

Brothers and Sisters and Horses and Dogs now Bitchez!!!

Don't turn around on your way outta town if you're worried about your sodium intake!

[Mo]

If you're King Solomon it's a man and a hundred women.

[Social Conservative Obama]

I learned gay-bashing at the Rev Wright's church. I cannot support gay marriage. Now let me get back to golf and war.

[The Golf War]

Hey!

Where'd that conjunction come from?

[mad libertarian guy]

That they so openly worry about a non-issue is intentional so that they might engage in their wars, their law and order state, and their "we love 'small' government (*wink wink*)" agenda without interference from their ow constituency.

It's like yelling "squirrel" to a dog in Up.

[kf]

I was assuming the NRO crowd would be perfectly fine with this, because all their past arguments about judicial activists overcoming the will of the people and installing gay marriage by fiat were just chock full of principle.

Right? Right?

[Michael Ejercito]

I was assuming the NRO crowd would be perfectly fine with this, because all their past arguments about judicial activists overcoming the will of the people and installing gay marriage by fiat were just chock full of principle.

Yes, they were full of principle.

[Obese Child]

It's purty good.

This is the last big freedom fuck that the right is down with that really pisses people off. (Nobody really gives a shit about WOD/T). The right will give it up in a few years, and then it's just the left trying to tell you to eat protein shakes made of human poo.

[Lot's Wife]

Raise a glass of Santorum and make a toast to FREEDOM!

[Obese Child]

Salud!

[rather]

It seems weird that it is even a big deal. I feel like I'm in a weird version of Back To The Future when people bitch about gays.

[Bill's corpse]

The best part is going over to The Corner and watch the exploding heads of those hideous cow malignant Catholic cunts, Gallagher and Lopez.

[Not Carl Sagan]

Balloon Hitler:
Come here my Hebrew brother. I'm so sorry for misjudging you and your talented mongrel race. Embrace me and we will work together to put our differences aside so we may once and for all destroy the Gays!

[Rudan]

Ugh you guys are being such a bummer about this. Don't make me go to dailykos ir something to celebrate. This is good. It makes a lot of people happy and a lot of socons mad. It's a very good thing every time it happens.

[Anonymous]

False. It's a lame wedge issue that doesn't matter. It's not like there will be a huge rush from gays to get married. At least now maybe they'll think for themselves and stop being so damn collective.

[Cytotoxic]

My SoCon butthurt detecting is picking up some pings here...

[Lot's Wife]

Butthurt? Is it your wedding night?

[Tulpa]

+10

[Rudan]

They're not a "collective" on anything but this issue. It's an issue that matters to millions of people. Not that the scale of an issue determines its wrongness.

[Lot's Wife]

"Don't make me go to dailykos ir something to celebrate. "

Raise a glass of Santorum and cheer!

[WarrenT]

I like thin crust if it's done right. But some places make it so that it gets soggy. If it's going to be thin it had better be cracker like with just one or two toppings. A combo on thin crust just doesn't do it for me.

However, I prefer regular crust. I like a combo and a lot of cheese. It's more pie-like than a thin crust. Plus it's better cold as breakfast pizza than thin crust.

And wedge-cut slices are so much easier to eat than square cut slices. I don't see the attraction of square slices of pizza.

Flame away, thin crust partisans.

[Abersouth]

Obviously you are doing the soggy square slice of pizza wrong. You fold it in half and have a sandwich. With wedge slices you can fold But it. Doesn't work as well. But I guess haters are gonna hate.

[WarrenT]

Thin crust is the LeBron James of pizza.

Looks good, has a lot of fans but when it comes right down to it, fails to satisfy.

[heller]

A real Pizza Margherita (a nice smooth t-sauce, fresh mozz, fresh basil leaves) on a brick oven thin crust is godly.

[Cut it into quarters....]

the first three will be good, the last will stink...

[Amakudari]

In Japan normal pizzas don't exist. In pizzerias' constant quest to one-up each other, the "best" crust I have seen on offer consisted of a particular cheese-filled crust: the underside of the pizza featured a thin cheese filling, and they filled the outer crust not only with cheese but also sausages, which were in turn filled with cheese. I had a heart attack just thinking about it.

[.]

"Bring us your finest food, stuffed with your second finest."

"Excellent, Sir, lobster stuffed with tacos."

[Brian E]

What is "regular crust"? There are two types of pizza: thin and cut into squares, or thick with the sauce on top, often called "deep dish". Anything else is just the imitation pizza you find in chain restaurants and while traveling outside Chicago.

[Trespassers W]

I think you answered your own question...

[Joshua Corning]

When did states setting the terms of exchange become an expression of right to contract?

The state's recognition of marriage has a longer history then the history of the state.

As libertarians we should count ourselves lucky that it was at least able to be reformed....and perhaps move on to work on weakening something that is not so ingrained in our culture as it is nearly human nature.

Let the lefties and righties try to change humankind.

[affenkopf]

The state's recognition of marriage has a longer history then the history of the state.

So the state recognized marriage before the state existed?

[Joshua Corning]

Yes.

[affenkopf]

That makes no sense. How can a none existing entity recognize something?

[dbcooper]

If SoCons thought that "defending marriage" was so important then why didn't they push for federally recognised civil unions? That would probably have permanently stalled gay marriage.

[Mr. FIFY]

Gays should push hardest for civil union reforms.

Tony and his ilk can bitch all they want, but they could get what they want without the fucking permission slip which is, of course, a marriage license. Which is ALL it is.

[jesusbenananias]

Because their irrational hatred of gay people dominates their capacity for logical thought.

[Tulpa]

Like many other sorts of ideologues (no one on H&R of course!), they're not willing to compromise even when the utility of doing so is plainly obvious.

[jacob]

+1

[A Serious Man]

As far as I care, so long as the state 1. doesn't prevent two people from living together as they want and 2. allows them the same benefits of a marriage contract, it shouldn't matter what you call it. I find the argument that marriage is a social construct that can be defined by the majority as being between one man and woman to be very much sound. Thus, the gay rights crowd ought to be more angry at the state for making it impossible to distinguish between marriage as a contract and marriage as a religious sacrament.

[Bar Student]

Why should the minority have to accept the majority's social construct? Furthermore, social constructs change and it won't be long, if it hasn't happened already, when the majority accept marriage as between two people of any sex.

Also, marriage never has been and never will be a solely religious institution. When people were marrying off there daughters for dowrys was that god's will? I'm an atheist and my fiancee is agnostic. When we get married it won't be before god but the state of Texas will still recognize us as married. Gay people here don't have that option. Not only should everyone be able to form a contract but we should be able to call it whatever we damn please.

[Voros McCracken]

"Why should the minority have to accept the majority's social construct?"

They don't, but that doesn't change anything, it's still the majority's social construct. That's one of the main differences between a law and a social construct: you're free to ignore one of them. I ignore majority social constructs all the time.

[AJ]

This isn't a fight about whether or not the government should be using social engineering to promote a particular set of values. It's a fight about whose values the government is going to promote.

[Ken Shultz]

"The only rights-based approach would be states to stop setting the rules of marriage at all. Sadly we just get a stronger but fairer state."

I'm a small state libertarian, which means to me that I think protecting people's rights is the only legitimate function of government.

So much of what the government has done over the past ten years has been to water down people's rights, to the point that we tend to think of anything that strengthens the government's hand as being a bad thing for our rights.

But the government protecting people's rights is the one legitimate way to make the government stronger.

I think it's a big difference when we're talking about protecting people from discrimination by the government too.

[Leebig]

How are anyone's rights protected by this action?

[Ken Shultz]

The state of New York isn't discriminating against people on this basis anymore.

[sloopyinca]

But they are still enforcing a two-class system. People who are married are afforded different rights than people who are not married. They've just enlarged the married camp. Fourth Amendment be damned.

Exhibit A: look at their tax form. You fill it out two different ways based on which marital status box you check.

[Huh?]

Fourth Amendment?

[kbolino]

I believe he meant fourteenth.

[Jim Treacher]

Bloomberg is excited about gay weddings because now he'll have twice as many chances to run around swatting cake out of people's hands.

[Trespassers W]

Plusgood.

[Amakudari]

When did states setting the terms of exchange become an expression of right to contract? The only rights-based approach would be states to stop setting the rules of marriage at all. Sadly we just get a stronger but fairer state.

I'd question the word "stronger." If the state has fewer bases on which to restrict the right to contract, how is that stronger? Yes, yes, there are bennies associated with marriage, but would we really be better off or have a weaker state if it banned things like interracial or inter-religious marriage?

[Bee Tagger]

This action in New York hasn't increased the ability for private parties to enter into contract with each other. It just expanded the definition of who gets government benefits.

[Fist of Etiquette]

We aren't content with having the state enforce our contracts, they must also be a party in them. That seems like a good idea, right?

[Amakudari]

Then, if expanding the state's definition of marriage only has negative consequences by lavishing benefits on more parties, should we not also be opposed to interracial marriage?

I think we're more likely to end up with a definition of marriage approximating the libertarian one -- private parties entering into mutual contract -- by supporting marriage equality, such that government no longer has any role deciding who can get married. The argument for removing government will make much more sense then than one in which we have a large set of arbitrary restrictions.

[John]

http://chronicle.com/article/D.....nst/127924

Islamists versus atheists. It like Stalingrad, commies killing Nazis, Nazis killing commies.

[heller]

John: "derp!"

[John]

Actually it is more like France 1940 with the Islamists playing the Germans. The atheists don't stand a chance.

And come on Heller. Atheists talk enough shit on here. Nothing wrong with tweaking them back once in a while.

[heller]

Maybe troll atheists like shrike.

[John]

And fluffy when he goes on a bender.

[Joshua Corning]

What about poor old me who is an atheist but defends the religious?

Am I a commie or a Nazi?

[Phlogistan]

Profiteer?

[?]

I like how you change the original headline (Does Islam Stand Against Science?) to "Islamists versus atheists." Actually, it's religion vs. reason. But you know that.

[John]

It is talking about science being exclusively associated with atheism and that causing Muslims to reject it. So it is Islamists versus atheists.

[?]

Your original analogy ("It['s] like Stalingrad, commies killing Nazis, Nazis killing commies") is false, and you provide a patently absurd if not offensive equivalency: that atheists (or scientists, if you prefer) are Nazis. The fact remains that it's not the reasonable, rational people at war with the unreasonable, primitivist irrationalists, but the other way around. Atheist scientists (and not all scientists are atheists--another of your false premises) are not the ones strapping on bomb vests.

[John]

Sure they are not strapping on bomb vests, which is why they are probably going to lose. And if atheists were not so fucking smug and try to lay claim to all of reason, perhaps we would have better luck getting people to believe in science.

[John]

And yes the analogy was offensive. It was meant to be.

[MNG]

At least he got his Godwin-of-the-day off his chest quite early, now he can move on to 'dishonest' and 'partisans' and such.

[John]

I figured I would get in early before you got here to yell Shirley Sherod!! about everything.

Also, how does it feel to be pawned by the Pravada on the Potomac about the Issa Gunwalker story? You know the one you triumphantly posted on here only to have it later turn out to be an anonymous sourced story shopped by the White House that no other news outlet but the Post would touch and that was denied by everyone.

[MNG]

I triumphantly posted? Wow, you do assume a lot, and usually wrongly.

Now go back to Godwinning John.

[John]

Are you really going to make me dig that out? You posted it. Do you deny that? And if you didn't think it was true, why did you post it? You got pawned.

[MNG]

I posted it because that week we had been talking about the gunwalker story. I post a lot of things, some of which I agree with some that I do not, that's easy to verify. You're jumping to conclusions again and assuming things about people with no evidence, you know where that road leads you John...

[John]

Yeah you didn't believe it. That is why you posted it.

MNG|6.22.11 @ 8:56AM|#

chief Republican critic of a controversial U.S. anti-gun-trafficking operation was briefed on ATF's "Fast and Furious" program last year and did not express any opposition, sources familiar with the classified briefing said Tuesday.

Rep. Darrell Issa (Calif.), who has repeatedly called for top Justice Department officials to be held accountable for the now-defunct operation, was given highly specific information about it at an April 2010 briefing, the sources said. Members of his staff also attended the session, which Issa and two other Republican congressmen had requested.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html

You really put in a lot of qualifiers there didn't you? Face, you fucked up. You trusted the Washington Post.

[MNG]

John, you are so predictable. I didn't put any qualifiers because that is a direct selection from the linked story, which I do all the time when I post.

[MNG]

I'm sure you're digging it up right now..."Oh shit, he doesn't endorse it all, just posts it"

Here it is. I post a lot of things without vouching for whether I agree or disagree, believe or not, and often I post things which I disagree with and don't believe to be true. In this case I had no stance on whether it was true or not.

I know that is hard for you to understand because you post things in order to then get on your soapbox and manufacture RAGE about.

http://reason.com/blog/2011/06.....tcontainer

[MNG]

"before you got here to yell Shirley Sherod!!"

Because pointing out how your tendency of jumping to conclusions to manufacture outrage often blows up in your face= well, your tendency of jumping to conclusions to manufacture outrage which often blows up in your face

John, Master of Logic, Rhetoric, Spelling and Stuff

[John]

Don't worry MNG< I am sure the Post will tell the truth about something some day. They have to, don't they?

[MNG]

If the Post story is false the lesson you can learn from all this is that, unlike you, I didn't jump to any conclusions, endorse it and get on my soapbox in reliance on it. Might want to try it sometime, less egg on your face.

[John]

You just posted it as being true. I am sure you post false stories without comment all the time. You are so hysterical. Just like Joe. You can never admit you are wrong about anything.

[MNG]

"You just posted it as being true."

And you know this how?

John, John, you're jumping to assumptions again...

[MNG]

Eggs for breakfast again I guess, eh John.

[capitol l]

John, you are so predictable. I didn't put any qualifiers because that is a direct selection from the linked story, which I do all the time when I post.

PROTIP:

To avoid confusing your words with those you quote it is acceptable to use italics (as seen above), blockquotes, or plain old quotation marks (as seen below).

John, you are so predictable. I didn't put any qualifiers because that is a direct selection from the linked story, which I do all the time when I post.

"John, you are so predictable. I didn't put any qualifiers because that is a direct selection from the linked story, which I do all the time when I post."

[MNG]

Yeah, yeah, I know, I've had this conversation with people in the past because that's how I post in morning links. I realize that is the technical way to do things, but that's largely an academic or journalistic convention to not take credit for other people's work and to properly give credit for it to the source, all of which I feel I accomplish by 1. not adding anything of my own and 2. providing the link so everyone can see what comes from who and where. This is a discussion board, not a term paper.

[capitol l]

Then don't get all bent out of shape because someone who isn't familiar with your personal system assumes that your posts are written by you.

I can tell when you copy and paste because there will be no references to John or Shirley Sherrod, but to the uninitiated the post appears to be your doing. The issue isn't about technical convention to insure proper credit, but so people aren't arguing with a copied WaPo article.

Maybe you like that you can make those unfamiliar with your method look stoopid: "HaHa! FOOL! You are arguing with an article, those aren't my words!" If that's what it takes to get you through the day then maybe you should spend more time with your family and less time trying to one up John.

[MNG]

John is more fun than an entire barrel of monkeys, mostly because like a monkey he is completely predictable in this thinking.

Here he is when being accused of jumping to conclusions with no evidence replying by...jumping to a conclusion with no evidence. In John's Wacky World of Logic and Stuff you can conclude endorsement of something because you posted it...on topic...without comment...on a board for discussion...

[MNG]

It's also fun to watch monkeys pedal backward.

John @ 10:27: "You know the one you triumphantly posted on here"

John @ 10:43: "You really put in a lot of qualifiers there didn't you?"

John @ 10:53: "You just posted it as being true."

You posted it triumphantly! Oh, no evidence for that. Well, you posted it without qualifiers, that proves you believed it! Well, hell, you posted it at all, no that's the ticket!

[Au H20]

John, MNG, I'd like you to know: Thanks to your beautiful hate fucking, I no longer require pornography. Now, if you'll excuse me....

FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP!

[kwais]

Perhaps the problem with Islam is that unlike Christianity it is not easily contradicted by science?
Science contradicts Christianity, thus all reasonable Christians abandon Christianity as an absolute truth, and become cafeteria Christians, which is mostly harmless.

The religious people that are the problem are the ones that actually believe their book.
Not the ones that merely seek a plecebo help, or make use of superstition as is a natural human habit.

[MNG]

kwais, long time no see! How are things? Iirc correctly there was some bs you ran into with the state of NY, did that work out ok?

As to your comments you might be right about the relationship between how strongly you believe in the supernatural parts and how much trouble you are for a modern society, but sometimes it's the ethical guidance fundies seem to get from their Big Book that is far more worrisome to me than their supernatural beliefs.

[kwais]

Hey MNG,
Yeah, I was arrested in New York, spent two days in a jail in Queens. Was quite surprised by the experience actually.

That came up in the investigation of my clearance as it showed up as "charged with use of a gun in a felony", but the investigators were understanding when they heard the circumstances.

But we have talked since then.
Since then I have spent a year in Israel, and we have talked on that when it comes up on H&R.

[kwais]

OK so my point about Islam and Science vs Christianity and science is that:

Perhaps the problem with Islam is that it is not incompatible with Science. Or at least not as obviously incompatible to the common man.
And that is why it is a problem. Because not being incompatible with science enables relatively intelligent people to cling to it.

Of the religions of Abraham, the people that actually believe their book are more likely to be complete assholes and bigots.

John defends Christianity, but chances are, he doesn't actually believe what is written in the book.

[kwais]

Idk though, maybe how compatible the religion is with science has nothing to do with anything. The problem is the culture.
Maybe it is the collectivist culture that keeps them poor, and keeps them restricting the religious activities of their fellow man (and woman).
And has them blowing themselves up.

[MNG]

"the problem with Islam is that it is not incompatible with Science. Or at least not as obviously incompatible to the common man."

What do you mean, it doesn't make supernatural claims or claims that have later been shown false by science?

[MNG]

I recalled something about it, but what I remember was that it was still in the working out phase. Glad to see it worked out OK, still a shame you had to go through it at all...

[R C Dean]

Cracked explains why marriage is the worst thing that can happen teh gheys:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/3-.....-marriage/

[John]

It is blocked from where I am. But I assume it makes the point that right now gays, via private arrangements, get all of the advantages of being married without being married. In contrast straight couples have to get married to get things like health insurance benefits and such. Not once gay marriage happens. Then gays who live together and are not married, get treated like straight couples who are unmarried.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The gays just totally consented to be socially engineered by the state. The fools. The poor, fabulous fools.

[John]

Right now without gay marriage a lot of companies recognize gay partners for spousal benefits. If you are gay, you don't have to get married. You just say "hey, this is Bob, he is my partner, lets enroll him on my insurance". But with state sanctioned gay marriage, that probably ends. Companies will require gays to get married just like they do straight couples. That doesn't sound like a very good deal to me.

[Phlogistan]

Ooo! Nice catch! $$$$$ a penny saved and all that

[Bar Student]

If you think that the points made in the article are anywhere near as serious as that, then you haven't read Cracked before.

[Joshua Corning]

But I assume it makes the point that right now gays, via private arrangements, get all of the advantages of being married without being married.

Cracked is about comedy:

#1.
Gay Marriage Will Destroy The Gay Job Market

#2.
Once You Get Married, Your Sex Won't Be Hot Anymore

#3.
Once Marriage is Legal You Won't Have an Excuse Not to Commit

[Bobby]

I don't know why, but I'm amazed at the amount of people who read that article, took it seriously, then angrily commented about it. Although I'm not sure what's worse, not recognizing the satire or taking an articled from cracked seriously in the first place?

[Joshua Corning]

I like the pie chart of the gay women work force:

Home Depot Employee: 189.22%

[JS123]

"10 Answers to Arguments in Favor of Gay Marriage": http://apoxonbothyourhouses.bl.....f-gay.html

[Bar Student]

The entire argument is based on the idea that reproduction is the function of marriage but he gives no reason why this is the case or why the government should be enforcing that function. Furthermore, it ignores modern science which does allow gay couples to produce children and raise them (yes it will only have one of their genes [for now] but that is still more than adoption).

[JS123]

Obviously you didn't reason the article as it does explain why reproduction is the function of marriage. Government should be enforcing that function for the same reason it distinguishes farmers from blacksmiths by function, namely, that it bestows benefits based on function.

[Bar Student]

Farmers and blacksmiths, wtf?

[JS123]

The function of marriage is determined the same way that the function of the heart is to pump blood, or the function of a hammer is to drive nails, or the function of the police is to prevent crime. Or yes, the function of farmers is to raise crops and the function of blacksmiths to forge iron.

[Bar Student]

And yet the farmer can drop his scythe and the blacksmith his hammer to seek new function. Or yes, a man may forsake Venus' maw and seek that which is the same to live forever in joyful bliss.

[JS123]

None of which changes the function of a scythe, hammer, blacksmith, or farmer. Nor does the choice of sex partner change the function of marriage.

[Bar Student]

Ah, but you said that the government should be enforcing those functions, so why should a farmer be allowed to change professions? And why can't things have more than one function? A scythe is both a tool and a weapon. A blacksmith can be both a worker and a husband and father. A marriage can be for reproduction and for companionship.

Also, you have not addressed the fact that gay couples can produce children and raise them with modern science. Pretty soon they will be able to produce children with BOTH of their genes. http://news.nationalgeographic.....males.html

[JS123]

It never says that the government should be enforcing those functions. In fact it says the exact opposite and that in a liberal society individuals can choose whatever function they want and whoever they want to perform a function with as partners. But a same sex couple will not be joining the institution of marriage any more than two people who make furniture will be farmers.
As to your other point, it doesn't matter what an item is used for, its function doesn't change. I can use a screwdriver (or a scythe) as a hole-puncher, weapon, peanut butter jar opener, but its function remains to turn screws. Likewise with marriage, you can use it to seal an alliance, to avoid deportation, to get rich, but its function remains to prevent the problem of producing children by heterosexual intercourse.

[Bar Student]

Except a Scythe is both a weapon and a tool (i.e. scythe could be built for BOTH functions as their intended use).

You still have not addressed the fact that gay couples can produce children which is your stated function of marriage.

"but its function remains to prevent the problem of producing children by heterosexual intercourse."

Wait we get married to prevent producing children? 😉

Ignoring your typo, if a marriage is to seal an alliance then its function is to seal an alliance. To say otherwise is absurd.

Most of all address the fact that gay couples can (and in the future even more so) produce children and therefore can fulfill your so called "single function."

[JS123]

The problem is evolutionary, not technological. Heterosexual attraction is selected for by natural selection for its ability to bring male and female together to produce offspring. This is the problem marriage is designed to solve. Even if I grant for the sake of argument that in a dystopian future children will be produced by genetic engineering that doesn't mean that homosexuals can marry now since as of now they can not take on the function.
Marriage doesn't prevent the problem of producing children, it prevents the problems that result by producing children. Children (currently) result from heterosexual intercourse and require nurturing, and care for their emotional needs. There are three types of problems that can result: societal problems (street children, the need to fund orphanages), the problems the child can experience by abandonment (teenage girls raised in a single-parent household are more likely to become pregnant as a teenager. Boys raised by single-parents are more likely to have problems with aggression, attention deficit disorder, delinquency, school suspensions, and are more likely to end up in prison), and the problems ones mate would experience by raising a child alone (financial, for example). Marriage solves these problems by having obligations taken on by the married couple to not abandon the child or each other.

It is not any more absurd to say that even if a marriage is made to seal an alliance, that is still not its function, anymore than it is absurd to say that if a screwdriver is used to open a can a peanut butter that is still not its function.

[Bar Student]

While opening the can that is its function, not to turn screws. Why can you not grasp that?

"Children (currently) result from heterosexual intercourse"

This is no longer true, children can be produced without intercourse, without even knowing who the biological parents are. In the near future we won't even need the parents genders to be different.

"The problem is evolutionary, not technological. Heterosexual attraction is selected for by natural selection for its ability to bring male and female together to produce offspring."

We are products of evolution and our technology is the product of us. It is no less natural than mitochondria, chloroplasts or joints (organic machines). Further, evolution is not a dead end and natural selection moral purpose. Two gay men can both easily pass down their genes and raise their children together. From an evolutionary perspective they will have succeeded.

"require nurturing, and care for their emotional needs"

The gender and biological relation of the parents is irrelevant to this. All those problems can be "solved" just as easily by a gay couple as a straight couple (and I don't see how them being married is relevant either).

[Bar Student]

*natural selection [has] no moral purpose.

[JS123]

Because a screwdriver has the function to turn screws even if it is not doing it, even if it never does it. Hearts have the function to pump blood even if they can't do it because they are diseased or deformed. Sperm has the function to fertilize an egg even if never does it. According to you sperm has no function except at the moment it is actually fertilizing an egg, which is absurd, it is still a sperm's function to fertilize an egg even if it never does it. It is still a heart's function to pump blood even if it can't do it.

Do you agree that just as society needs the police to solve the problems of crime, society needs institution by which to prevent the problems that result from the production of children? Do you agree that two men can not (now) produce children? Do you agree therefore that there is no problem of producing children that requires an institution by which to prevent these problems?

[Bar Student]

No, I'm done seeing how many circles you'll think through.

[Duckie]

Marriage is about "producing children"? Really?

Perhaps you are proposing that we invalidate the marriage licenses of all infertile or willfully childless hetero couples, and that we refuse marriage licenses to women past menopause. Sure, I guess we could do that.

But see, straight people have spent the last couple of centuries vigorously redefining marriage from a system for transferring the ownership of a woman's reproductive capacity to an equal partnership which may require monogamy, include children, and last until death. Or it may not. The law really doesn't give a shit if you're a childless, thrice-divorced swinger. You get your marriage license anyway.

If you have to resort to bullshit about the existential purpose of screwdrivers to explain why you want to legally bar other people from shopping for spouses in whatever gender they damn please...

You've already lost.

[JS123]

There is no reason that infertile or celibate couples can't get married. As I've said a million times, things that do not or can not perform a function still have that function. So there is no reason why an infertile or celibate couple could not get married.

[JS123]

There is a large literature in the philosophy of science dedicated to understanding functions. All of the points I have been making stem from the results of this literature. For those interested I can recommend the books "Natures Purposes" by Colin Allen, Marc Bekoff and George Lauder, and ""The Modern Philosophical Resurrection of Teleology" by Mark Perlman, online here http://findarticles.com/p/arti.....n29112178/

[Duckie]

There is a large literature in the philosophy of science dedicated to understanding functions.

Actual scientists consciously avoid framing their hypotheses in teleological terms, because the existence of "final causes" in the universe has not (and possibly cannot) be demonstrated.

The number of teleologies depending on the existence of a god or on unprovable woo like Plato's "abstract forms" also strikes me as problematic.

[Duckie]

...things that do not or can not perform a function still have that function.

Well, um, no they don't? My broken toaster and my dog both "have the same function" when it comes to making toast. But one is generally understood to be for making toast, while the other is not. This general understanding is not an objective rule of the universe. Objects have only the purpose we, as humans, assign to them. There is no objective "function" inherent in any collection of molecules - not a screwdriver, not a toaster, not a uterus.

Your personal, subjective opinions about the purpose of specific objects is not a strong nail on which to hang this particular argument.

[JS123]

Read ""The Modern Philosophical Resurrection of Teleology" by Mark Perlman, online here http://findarticles.com/p/arti.....n29112178/

[JS123]

So according to you the function of the heart is not to pump blood? I'll alert the biology department of every university on earth as we have a major revolution at hand.

[Duckie]

Referring me to an article doesn't refute or even engage with what I said. You can't expect me to invest time in reading a third party's philosophical argument that you haven't even summarized here.

So according to you the function of the heart is not to pump blood?
If it's in a dead zebra, perhaps the heart's function is to be tasty noms for lions.

No, I kid. Of course "hearts are for pumping blood" is a useful, concise description of how things work. But statements which imply that nature has goals are misleading, and they play into the human tendency to assign intention to everything. Talking about what it's "designed" to do implies a designer, etc.

Basically, I don't think objects have abstract forms or inherent purpose.

I've just re-read the thread and realized how far we've strayed from the original question of whether the function of marriage was reproduction.

And I submit that marriage sure as hell doesn't have an abstract form or inherent purpose.

[JS123]

That article I linked to is a summary of the debate over functions, not one person's theory. I thought it would be helpful since there is so much confusion here.
I'm sure that every biologist worth his salt thinks that the function of the heart is to pump blood and also that nature itself doesn't have goals, nor does it imply a conscious designer. Saying a thing has a function implies neither of these things, that is Darwin's great insight. I don't believe any of these things either. Functions are what things do that they are selected for reproduction.

[Duckie]

I'm sure that every biologist worth his salt thinks that the function of the heart is to pump blood and also that nature itself doesn't have goals, nor does it imply a conscious designer.

You're right, and here we actually do agree. I got all distracted and carried away with my "Matter has no inherent purpose or meaning!" argument. I almost got a little pomo for a second, which is scary.

But I also think that hearts pumping blood and marriages producing babies are not analogous. Biological facts are difficult to alter. Social constructs (ack, I'm talking pomo again) are more malleable, and indeed marriage has been radically redefined in different times and places to suit the needs of particular cultures. (I was discussing that with Michael Ejercito downthread.)

So why define marriage around the physical act of reproduction? I could maybe understand if someone wanted to define it as a framework in which to raise children. But people can raise kids in whose conception they played no part - why require the necessary equipment for it?

You said it's unnecessary for a couple to intend to have kids or even be physically capable of conceiving in order to qualify for marriage. Your sole requirement seems to be that one party has XY chromosomes and the other XX. And I can think of no justification for this criterion other than appeals to nature's intentions.

[heller]

Again, that begs the question by claiming that hetero and gay marriage serve different functions. Nowhere in the article does the author explain why the function of marriage is reproduction.

[JS123]

You didn't read the article.

[heller]

Yes I did...

[heller]

Listen you obviously have some screws loose since you're going round and round and nowhere fast. Repeating a bunch of bullshit about tools isn't logic, come back when you've made a clear logical leap from fact to assertion.

[JS123]

It is you who refuse to admit that marriage has a function and then refuses to think about what that implies. If you don't like using functional items like screwdrivers we can use an an example another social institution like a police department which has the function to prevent crime. The same principles apply.

[heller]

Marriage can have many different functions. There is not a single core function of marriage.

[JS123]

OK, suppose we come up with a new institution. We can call it the "child production problem prevention pact." It would say that if you and another individual together form a natural reproductive unit you are encouraged to join up for this pact because there are problems that need to be prevented, namely the problems that result from the production of a child. This pact would contain an obligation to not abandon your partner to raise the child alone, to not abandon or mistreat your child, and not to burden society with uncared for children. How's that?

[heller]

Yeah sounds like marriage to me. Good job. I'm glad we could come to an agreement here.

[Joshua Corning]

So lets say you are correct...Marriage is an innate human institution adopted through natural selection for the purposes of reproduction.

Now given this do you think it is a good idea for the state to prohibit people who cannot have children but do have an innate drive to get married from getting married?

[JS123]

Thanks for your comment. I don't think that marriage is an innate human institution anymore than a police or fire department is. I think that marriage is an institution designed to prevent the problems that result from the production of children. When it comes to infertile couples, they can still join the institution of marriage because they form a natural reproductive unit, as designed by natural selection. A male/female pair is a single functional device with the function to produce offspring. When it comes to homosexuals, they are not a functional reproductive device. Since the state will be giving benefits the institution bestows to society, and homosexual couples do not have that function, it is just to deny homosexuals the title of marriage just as it is just to prevent the benefits which a program that gives tax breaks to farmers from going to non-farmers.

[JS123]

I'd like to say that originally I was very much in favor of gay marriage. But I'm also very much interested in evolutionary biology. One day I asked of marriage the same questions you'd ask of anything else in biology. I asked why is there marriage? Why has it existed for so long? Why hasn't it died out? There must be something that it does that keeps it getting reproduced for centuries and millennia. the answer struck me right away: marriage solves the problems that result from the production of children. That is the recurring problem it is prevents, that is its function.

[Joshua Corning]

But I'm also very much interested in evolutionary biology.

If you are interested in evolutionary biology then I suggest you look at how applying the state's law to enforce some mad man's interpretation of it has had some pretty nasty results.

In your research start with the word eugenics.

After you are done with that check out the theory of natural selection and pay special attention to the parts about how it is directionless.

As in not directed by you.

[JS123]

That why it so hard to have any discussion on the Internet. You say you're interested in evolutionary biology, so that means you must be in favor of eugenics. If you read the article it clearly states the the choice of partners for marriage should be left up to the individuals involved. Just as the choice of taking on any functional institution should be left up to the individuals involved. But the State is justified from distinguishing functional institutions from each other, such as the example I gave of if that state is giving tax breaks to farmers it is justified in denying this to blacksmiths and other non-farmers.

[Res Publica Americana]

I'm eagerly awaiting the announcement that New York is repealing all gun and labor laws tomorrow! Yay! Freedom prevails!!!!

[Res Publica Americana]

I'm eagerly awaiting the announcement that New York is repealing all gun and labor laws tomorrow! Yay!

[?]

Senators passed the bill 33 to 29 as the normally somnolent chambers erupted in a raucous chant of "USA! USA!"

"I'm verklempt," said a nervously optimistic Assemblyman Matthew Titone (D-S.I)

*barf*

[? Sockpuppet]

"I'm verklempt," said Assemblyman Matthew Titon.

"It's like butter!" added his boyfriend.

[robc]

See all my responses in yesterday's rust belt thread.

Replace "right to work" with "gay marriage".

Sweet, Ive made about 100 posts in this thread all at once.

Im not sure my MLB post holds up thru the transition though.

[MNG]

robc, shhh! John thinks noone here opposes extending marriage to gays because it expands the state, so make yourself and your buddies scarce lest you burst another of his bubbles.

[MNG]

Is Bristol Palin's new memoir the story of a rape survivor speaking out?

While Palin does not accuse former boyfriend Levi Johnston of rape in "Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far," her account of the night she lost her virginity certainly sounds nonconsensual. Palin writes that she got so drunk on wine coolers provided by Johnston during a camping trip with friends that she has no recollection of having sex. Afterward, she was distraught.

"Levi wasn't even there to help me process ? or even confirm ? my greatly feared suspicions," she writes.?"Instead of waking up in his arms .?.?. I awakened in a cold tent alone." Palin realized that she had lost her virginity only after a friend told her what happened.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ml?hpid=z5

[Fist of Etiquette]

So baby Tripp has that about his parents to look forward to reading when he gets older.

[MNG]

"look forward to reading when he gets older"

I thought that too. Why would you write that knowing your kid (and his peers) will have to read that one day? Is the advance for writing the book really worth that?

It's sad if you think about it, Bristol is still just a kid imo and is making bad choice after bad choice.

[MNG]

Here's a good example of what I was talking to John about. I thought this article would spark discussion. I actually don't think Bristol Palin was raped as I understand it (though it may technically, legally be one I think our legal re-definition of rape has gone too far). But according to John because I posted it for discussion I must believe everything in it. There's a name for that fallacy, but why bother with those that are impervious to logic?

[Bar Student]

It is a very difficult question. At what point of intoxication does it become non-consensual? If Levi was also heavily intoxicated could either of them still rape each other? Does consenting to the intoxication mean that you consent to your actions while intoxicated? I don't have answers to these questions. In this particular case it would depend on the circumstances. If she passed out and he had his way with her it is certainly across the line, if she was drunk but willing then I don't see how he could be charged with a crime. In any event she apparently didn't hold it against him so backhandedly accusing him of rape years later makes me skeptical.

[Duckie]

Based on this description of what happened, while I doubt whatsisface should go to jail on rape charges, I would give a heads-up to any female friend of mine he took an interest in. Something like, "He treats the women in his life as though they exist solely for his pleasure. Please sexually boycott the little douchebag."

[Bar Student]

I would agree. It seems what likely happened is she made a poor choice, heavily influenced by alcohol, and he wasn't big enough of a man to wait for another day. We'll probably never know exactly what happened of course. People get drunk and have sex they later regret every day, deciding which ones where consensual and which ones were not is pretty much impossible.

[MNG]

Five economic lessons from Sweden, the rock star of the recovery

This Scandinavian nation of 9 million people has accomplished what the United States, Britain and Japan can only dream of: Growing rapidly, creating jobs and gaining a competitive edge. The banks are lending, the housing market booming. The budget is balanced.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html

[Ken Shultz]

Other than noticing the article was about Sweden, did you bother to look at any of the five reasons they gave?

1. "In 2007, before the recession, the U.S. government had a budget deficit equivalent to 3 percent of its economy, as did Britain. Sweden, meanwhile, had a 3.6 percent surplus."

...

2. "There was some extra infrastructure spending and a well-timed cut to income tax rates..."

...

3. "the Riksbank set an explicit target of 2 percent annual inflation, and stuck to it, and over the next 15 years attained enough credibility on global markets that it could respond as aggressively as it did to the financial panic without sparking another krona collapse."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....story.html

They're saying the reasons Sweden did so well coming out of the recession was because of a mixture of the following:

1. Fiscal conservatism that you would undoubtedly denounce as "extremist".

2. Cuts in marginal tax rates (rather than tax credits) which disproportionately favor the rich? oh noes!

3. A monetary strategy ripped straight out of Milton Friedman's playbook.

If you're gonna quote an article, you should at least take the time to read it--but thanks for giving us such a great example of why the Obama Administration obviously has no idea what it's doing.

Sweden isn't even as dumb as the Obama Administration!

[MNG]

Er, Ken, why do you assume I'm posting this as a gotcha on somebody or group?

I thought it was interesting, that's all.

BTW-Nice of you to drop the stimulus part of number 2 in your summary.

[Ken Shultz]

I was pointing out the differences between what Sweden did and what we did.

We had stimulus. So what?

We didn't cut income tax rates--and that's a difference.

And just because you didn't notice the Obama Administration is dumber than Sweden? Doesn't mean I shouldn't.

P.S. The Obama Administration: Dumber than Sweden!

[MNG]

Well, there was some differences in the two stimulus programs which are discussed, but yeah, I thought when reading it that the article had a lil' something for everyone!

[MNG]

"but the most basic response to [by?] the government was to do what the nation's social welfare system ? lavish by American standards ? always does: Provide income, health care and other services to people who are unemployed."

[Ken Shultz]

Oh there's no doubt--the stimulus we did? Wasn't particularly stimulating at all!

It didn't target unemployed people and give them jobs--the only thing it did jobswise was keep overpaid bloat on the state employee payrolls longer--the ultimate effect of which was the opposite of "stimulative".

That's part of why being a "Keynesian" has been so pathetic over the past few years. Because despite what almost everyone on the left has been saying, "Keynesian" doesn't mean gross incompetence by the president and the Democratic Party.

Keynesian economics certainly isn't anywhere near as stupid as the the Obama Administration has made it out to be. Keynesian economics may be wrong--but it isn't stupid.

But look what the Swedes did! They slashed income taxes--which made hiring unemployed people less expensive ...which made some marginally unprofitable employees--profitable.

Even the Swedes?! Even the "socialist" Swedes are smart enough about capitalism--to use what works?

But not the Americans?! Not the Obama Administration? The Obama Administration is fighting to raise taxes as part of the ongoing budget fight--even as I type.

Barack Obama is a profoundly stupid human being. Fighting to raise taxes amid tepid economic growth--is a profoundly stupid thing to do.

[MNG]

Hey, you will not get much disagreement from me on this. I've long said I wanted to see more and better tax breaks as part of the stimulus. The way Obama did the ones he did had virtually no effect.

But hell, he's bungled everything else (health care, the Libya action, etc), why break form with the stimulus?

[Ken Shultz]

I'd argue that the tax breaks he gave us weren't really tax breaks--they were tax credits. If you bought a house, you got a credit. If you company used biofuels, your company got a credit.

I think one of the smartest things we could do right now is slash or eliminate the income tax for people making less than a certain amount a year. Say $40,000 or $30,000 and less!

That way? You make unemployed people in those lower income levels much more attractive to hire. People in lower income tax brackets tend to save less anyway--so there's less reason to worry about them saving instead of spending their money...

I'm a supply side guy. But there were, in fact, smart Keynesian things the Obama Administration could have done. And the reason I keep bringing up the Obama Administration is because it appears to be his ideology that's a big part of the problem.

It often seems to be the case that the Obama Administration's policy prescriptions aren't really about trying to solve the problem--their policy prescriptions are really about trying to prove supply side economic wrong. And that's a really crummy way to run the country.

Anyway, if I think one of the biggest problems our economy is facing is the reactionary ideology of our president, then pardon me for bringing it up all the time. The problem with the president isn't that he doesn't mean well. Jimmy Carter meant well too--and even Carter was smarter about this stuff than Obama appears to be!

At this point in Jimmy Carter's tenure, he had already deregulated the airlines. I'm not usually one to blame the president for things beyond his control--good or bad. But at some point, if the president's ideology becomes the problem? Then it's the problem.

[MNG]

"I'd argue that the tax breaks he gave us weren't really tax breaks"

I was talking about those strange breaks he gave that people were supposed to see in their paychecks or whatever, but I get your point about breaks vs. credits.

[Au H20]

So, OF COURSE, at Feministing, one of the commentators had to get a bur in her ass over the religious exemption. I mean, seriously, that's stupid. If a Methodist walked into a Catholic Church and demanded that a priest married them, the priest wouldn't.

Plus, the Unitarians will totally marry gays, because they're the freaking Unitarians.

[MNG]

I wouldn't whine over the religious exemptions. This can actually create market incentives to be more tolerant of gays. Lots of gays might have grown up in denominations that will now have to invoke the exemption, then those gays can go to more accepting denominations which, if you think about it, they probably should have looked into in the first place. Why would you go to a church that treated you as some kind of second class citizen?

[John]

Wow, freedom of association. Amazing how that works. Of course it works the other way as well. People who object to their church recognizing gays can leave and join churches who don't.

Oh noes!! people are doing what they want and associating with whom they please. The horror.

[MNG]

I think especially with churches this is un-objectionable. I can at least see the argument with places that provide services like hotels and employment, people need things like that at times and they hold themselves out to the public in general, to be turned away for irrational characteristic x can truly be harmful at times. But churches are expressive, voluntary associations, their entire function is to be a community of like-minded believers, forcing them to accept otherwise undermines their entire purpose.

[MNG]

Iirc the law allows churches to discriminate in areas where it is critical to its function, i.e., a Methodist church need not consider a Muslim applicant for pastor, but they cannot discriminate in other areas, i.e., they must consider a Muslim applicant for janitor. That strikes me as reasonable.

[Bar Student]

Hotels and employment are expressive, voluntary associations as well. Which is not to say that churches shouldn't be allowed to discriminate but that everyone should be able to on their own private property whether it is a church or a hotel. I personally will not be giving my business to either that discriminate but it is their right.

[MNG]

"Hotels and employment are expressive"

?

[heller]

The point is that laws allow churches to be expressive and discriminatory but hotels can't express an idea or create an atmosphere through discrimination, not because that is not the "function" of a hotel, but because the law does not allow them to. If I wanted to create a hotel where only beautiful, slim people could go, the only thing that is stopping me is the law, not some made-up responsibility to service fat people.

[Bar Student]

Yes, businesses already discriminate against both customers and employees for the purposes of expressing a certain image (Hooters is a clear example but all do it). At a basic level a business and a church are the same thing, its just that the law has singled out salvation services and given them special restrictions and privileges.

[MNG]

Your Hooters example is telling, exemptions are made for secular orgs that argue certain discriminations are fundamental to the kind of service they provide.

[Bar Student]

And what if the service I want to provide is a hotel for straight people only? Wouldn't that discrimination be fundamental to the kind of service I provide?

[closeted]

As a straight man, shouldn't I be able to go on a gay cruise?

[MNG]

Then you open a private club-hotel and sell 'memberships.'

[heller]

And then I get brought to court for discrimination.

[Au H20]

Disney is changing its rides to accomodate fatter Americans, leading Jezebel to conclude...

FATPHOBIA!!!

[P Brooks]

Ken, why do you assume I'm posting this as a gotcha on somebody or group?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[MNG]

Brooksie is mad because in the union thread the other day Tulpa caught him where his union-hate made him cross the borders of Libertopia. Now that Brooks has admitted that losing your job can be a form of coercion him and I are going to be good buddies in many a future thread.

[Joshua Corning]

Now that Brooks has admitted that losing your job can be a form of coercion.

Only the threat of losing your job can be a form of coercion and it is always equal to the coercion of the threat to quit your job.

P Brooks was talking about the coercion of a third party (a union) to threaten to take your job which has no counter.

[MNG]

He was talking about when a union and an employer have an agreement that only union members will be employed.

[heller]

I still don't see where coercion comes into play here...

[MNG]

According to Brooks below it's very, very, very, thinly veiled. You have to squint to see it...

[Au H20]

Also, I am so sad that I didn't post this in Fridays's morning links, but here it is:

Pimping ain't a game, it's a way of life!

[Au H20]

Really? Three hundred posts and no one wants to talk about two 70 year old professors, one a former president of the state university, getting arrested for running a prostitution ring?

I R DISAPPOINT, HIT AND RUN!

[heller]

No subscription...

[P Brooks]

Did anybody else notice how hard the news reports pushed Whitey Bulger's hoard of "OMFG TEH CASH AND GUUUUUUUUUUUUNZ!!!!111"?

Only criminals pay cash.

And guns- well, that's just self-evident.

I'm surprised he didn't have a Gadsden Flag on his living room wall.

[MNG]

To be frank, I'm always just a little impressed when someone wanted like he was can evade the authorities for so many years. Even when a monster like Ratko does it I'm impressed.

[Phlogistan]

Hunting fugitives is lucrative for the Government hunters. Catching them is not until their service time makes them eligible for promotions.

[heller]

Government stupidity should always be the preferred explanation over government conspiracy.

[P Brooks]

Yes, you've got me, Rex. My objection to third-party interference in contractual agreements means I have to turn in my monocle.

[MNG]

Yeah, because when two parties contract to only do business with each other its third party interference when they refuse to do business with that third party.

Or something. It's delicious when your irrational union hate trumps your vaunted principles. But it's going to be even more fun to remind you in future worker's rights discussions that you are in my camp now of finding a refusal to hire or threat to terminate as unacceptable "coercion" now.

Welcome aboard chum.

[Au H20]

New York Times is all for deficit reduction... as long as it raises taxes and doesn't cut unemployment, TANF, Medicaid, or Food Aid.

Weirdly, they are now apparently cool with Medicare cuts:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06.....l?_r=1&hp;

[MNG]

I can see that as those programs are in theory targeted towards the "least of us." The idea being they need their benefits far more than most government recipients and therefore humanely they should be the last ones to be cut.

[Au H20]

I guess my problem is the mission creep, so to speak. Not so much the NY Times itself, but it does seem that a large swath of people who lean left basically will not allow ANY entitlement cuts. And those make up 56% of our budget. Yes, the right won't allow military cuts, but at least that is a much smaller % (and, honestly, I find the whole attitude I see at Daily Kos and Huffington Post, that the military should be cut first, odd because the military is a big employer of lower income and lower educated folks... and cue John to bitch about left wingers after my comment).

[MNG]

You don't need John to bitch about it, I will. One of the most distasteful mindsets common the left today is this idea that the poor are entitled to this help. It may be a humane thing to do to help them, but they are not entitled to this help. People that pay taxes are hurting, to be mad at and scold them because they are not as enthusiastic about supporting other people is terrible. If they do decide to provide any support that is being magnanimous. That is lost on the left a lot today.

[MNG]

To be fair the right is not rushing to make entitlement cuts if by entitlements you mean Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Those were part of their "common sense exceptions," along with military spending, to cutting that they ran on last year. It's 'discretionary' benefit programs they aim at.

[John]

A lot of people depend on medicare and medicaide. Why should we cut one dollar from those programs until we have eliminated the Commerce, Education and about three forths of the cabinet departments? When politicians say "lets do entitlements first" they are really saying "lets fuck the American people so all of my buddies in Washington can keep their jobs". Medicaide and Medicare are not my favorite programs. But I will be damned if I will support curring them so the Department of Labor can have three more GS 15 diversity consultants.

[MNG]

Is there some personnel fat that could be trimmed in those agencies? Probably so, but the savings would likely be miniscule compared to the spending that goes with entitlements or the military as percentages of overall government budgets.

[John]

I don't care if it is miniscule. You are still spending money to support the bureaucracy at the expense of people. And I am not talking fat, I am talking getting rid of the entire thing. And when you do that, you will increase productivity and thus tax revunue making dealing with entitlements that much easier.

The problem is Congress and Democrats in particular care more about the bureaucracy than they do the people they are supposed to serve. IF we cut one dollar from someone's social security while allowing that bureaucracy to exist, it is a fucking crime.

Do liberals believe in anything but power and graft MNG? How can you say that? Well, it is just a small amount of money so lets just steal it at the expense of everyone else.

[MNG]

Well, some people think that apart from that fat (which noone supports, it's just harder to cut the fat without hitting muscle than people think) and some concededly bad programs the Departments of Labor and Education, etc. perform some important functions, and you need employees to perform that function.

[John]

No cue me to bitch about your slander of the military. The whole "only lower income uneducated folks join the military" is just an absolute lie. You can google it yourself and see how untrue it is. It is when Libertarians put out leftwing bullshit like that that causes people to think they are nothing but lefties who want to smoke dope and dodge their taxes.

[Au H20]

Well, I think it is hard to deny that the military, with the GI Bill and ROTC, does offer a form of advancement to people who don't have a ton of scratch, which isn't a bad thing.

[John]

Actually the military has become almost its own caste. Most of the people in the military are the sons and daughters of people who were in the military. It is not a good thing. But that is what is happening. It is not about wealth or education. It is about culture. You either grow up in a family that values it or you don't.

[heller]

My cousin was born to my father's white trash sister, but raised by her middle class Jewish parents. Despite this, he turned out stupid and white trash too, and he joined the military as a flight engineer since he couldn't go to college and had no plans for a career. You can't deny that the military is heaven to white trash John.

[John]

yes i can Heller. You are a bigoted moron. I have spent my whole life around the military. You in contrast have one anitcdote that fits your stereotype. Ignorance is a sad thing.

[heller]

So there is not a large amount of poor white folks in the military John?

[Res Publica Americana]

So we're to expect the complete nullification of New York's entire collection of gun and labor laws tomorrow, right? Awesome!

[Res Publica Americana]

So we're to expect the complete nullification of New York's entire collection of gun and labor laws tomorrow, right?

[P Brooks]

your irrational union hate

Based on personal experience; not "irrational".

I despise unions and their "negotiation" based on thinly veiled threats of violence and will continue to do so, no matter how hard you bark.

[Number 2]

"When did states setting the terms of exchange become an expression of right to contract? The only rights-based approach would be states to stop setting the rules of marriage at all. Sadly we just get a stronger but fairer state." "

Exactly. This quote neatly summarizes the discomfort I have with gay marriage as a libertarian issue. Regulating all people equally may be fair, but it hardly qualifies as liberty.

[Bar Student]

But it is still an improvement over discrimination. So let us be happy at this small victory.

[robc]

This is a small defeat, not a small victory.

We see in this thread and the rust belt thread, who values equality over liberty as a core value.

Obviously both are important, but when in conflict, liberty should win out (which, interestingly enough, when liberty wins, equality happens too. Its almost like liberty leads to equality).

[Bar Student]

I value liberty more than equality but that wasn't the choice now was it? Furthermore, I only value equality under the law, nobody is equal.

[robc]

I only value equality under the law

Well duh.

that wasn't the choice now was it?

The vote was to expand state power. So, yes, liberty was part of the choice.

Those libertarians wasting any time fighting for gay marriage instead of fighting against state licensing of marriage are doing libertarianism a disservice.

See the Rust Belt thread from yesterday. As I said above, same with right to work laws. They seem like a keen idea, but they are anti-libertarian. Instead of wasting time passing RTW, lets overturn the awful labor laws instead.

[Bar Student]

I don't see why we can't fight for gay marriage in the short term and against state licensing in the long term. If anything, as more and more states change their laws, conservatives might join our side in retaliation.

[robc]

Because expanding the state is against our interests.

NEVER GIVE A INCH!

[Hopefully that isnt too obscure a literary reference]

Mathematical example, maybe* gay marriage laws are worth +1000 in equality points, but its ONLY -1 in liberty points.

1 liberty point is worth more than infinity equality points, because liberty is the ultimate political value.

Plus, if we got the 1000 liberty points I want by eliminating state licensing, we would still get the 1000 equality points because straights and gays would be exactly equal before the law.

*I would actually disagree, but that is entirely beside the point

[Bar Student]

Isn't allowing gays to marry increasing their liberty though? I mean explain to me how it is not?

[heller]

We also want to allow gays to marry, but we don't want the state to have the power to say who can and can't marry in the first place. Getting permission from the state to do something isn't really an increase in liberty because you are acknowledging that the state had the right to decide in the first place.

[Name Nomad]

I don't really understand this argument. Wouldn't that be tantamount to saying that states changing their concealed carry policy to shall-issue is an evil, since you shouldn't have to get a permit/license from the state to concealed carry; therefore, everyone would be better off if you couldn't conceal carry at all?

I'm only able to see it as a victory within the context of the current political reality that marriage (and the privileges implied therein) is regulated by the state, while the other point is another, broader issue.

[heller]

It's not a question of "better off" though. You aren't more free when you have to get a permit from the state instead of not being able to conceal carry at all. You might be happier and better off, but the state still has the power to ban you from doing it. In fact, legalizing gay marriage makes it even less likely that the state will relinquish its powers over marriage. The more people that are appeased by their illusionary freedoms, the less likely it is that they will cry out for their real freedoms. A slave who gets a break every once and a while is still a slave.

[Paul]

A slave who gets a break every once and a while is still a slave.

The goal is to make sure the slaves have full employment and free access to healthcare. Let freedom ring.

[robc]

Pre Lawrence v Texas that analogy is closer.

But gay couples dont get arrested. They can get married now, its just now acknowledged by the state and doesnt come with the state "benefits". They have the full liberty to marry now.

If I conceal carry in Illinois, for example, I get to go to jail. I dont have the full liberty to conceal carry.

So, the difference is that a concealed carry law both decreases liberty by granting the state the power to license and increases liberty by allowing someone to carry without getting arrested. And, since they already claimed the power to arrest, the state was already claiming the original power, so it really didnt increase that.

If Vermont changed their law to have a concealed carry license, that would be increasing state power and I would agree with you.

[Robert]

You're right, but I'm not sure you know the reason. Gov't licensing of marriages is, unfortunately, here anyway regardless of this issue. However, marriage and the language related to it ("married", "spouse", etc.) pre-existed both gov't & religion and were established by custom, similarly to money. By acknowledging that gov't is now decreeing the meaning of these words not only in its own statutes (which is OK, legal documents define their own technical terms) but also everywhere in law (including private contracts) that the words exist, retroactively -- similarly to decreeing that "thaler", "pound", etc. no longer meant a certain fixed weight of silver, but rather whatever the party privileged by the sovereign delivered.

This is a separate issue from licensing, but the legal & political discussion of it does seem to establish a precedent that a license to do something constitutes not only permission but establishes the fact of its having been done. It's as if a dog license could confer the status of dog on a cat, or a fishing license could be extended so as to allow something else that's been caught to be deemed a fish.

[Bar Student]

I already said I agree that the government not being involved at all is better but I don't see how having state sanctioned gay marriages is worse than not having them at all.

[robc]

state sanctioned

Right there is the answer to your question. The more state sanctioned marriages, the worse the situation.

[Bar Student]

Would you have objected to the legalization of inter-racial marriages?

[Robert]

The reason state sanction of same sex marriage makes things worse, all things equal, is that it retroactively changes the meanings of existing enforceable contracts with 3rd parties referring to persons being "married", having a "spouse", etc.; and establishing another precedent that the state can redefine, not only for its own use, but the use of everyone else in legal documents, the meaning of a word (as previously done with "dollar", etc.). Plus even the whole debate has tended to rewrite hx and make people think the state (or, failing that, the church) invented marriage and can dispose of it as it sees fit.

[Bar Student]

It doesn't change those contracts at all. What nonsense Words have been evolving for millennia, including the word marriage.

[dunphy]

this is the perfect example of funhouse mirror purity at all costs, self-destructive libertarianism. it's the difference between ideologies that make real world sense, and those envisioned in stoned out college bull sessions by people who have never lived in the real world (tm)

[heller]

Dunphy I don't see how the position that "the government shouldn't subsidize or define marriage" is any less realistic than "the government should subsidize and define marriage to include teh geys."

[Bar Student]

I value liberty more than equality but that wasn't the choice now was it? Furthermore, I only value equality under the law, nobody is equal.

[robc]

I prefered your first version of this. I dont value them equally.

[Bar Student]

lol

[Ken Shultz]

"Exactly. This quote neatly summarizes the discomfort I have with gay marriage as a libertarian issue. Regulating all people equally may be fair, but it hardly qualifies as liberty."

Again, I don't see anything wrong with restricting the government from discriminating against certain people.

I don't know the nuances of this bill, but if all it means is that the state government will no longer discriminate against gay people who want to get married? I don't understand why that constitutes an expansion of government power.

If you want the government out of the education business? I'm all for that from a libertarian perspective too. ...but just because I don't want public schools doesn't mean I'll condone segregation.

I certainly wouldn't oppose integrating schools--from a libertarian perspective--because it strengthens the argument for public schooling. ...suggesting that people have a right to go to school.

I still want to privatize the school system--stopping the discrimination that non-Caucasians once suffered does nothing to change that. I want to privatize the schools regardless.

If you want to get the government out of the marriage business, I don't see why anyone would let the government marrying gay people get in the way.

If the government can no longer discriminate against whoever wants to get married? That's not an expansion of government--that's taking power away from the government.

[Ken Shultz]

I don't think I even get the logistics here...

How do you get the government out of the marriage business--without getting them to stop actively discriminating against gay people?

I mean, if you're trying to take away whatever legal protections there are in marriage--inheritance, etc.? Then there's no reason to look further than the closest mirror for who's trying to destroy the institution of marriage.

[jacob]

I think you have a very logical take on the issue.

What I see is that there are some libertarians that are siding with statists on this issue. In other words, the folks who want a constitutional amendment banning homosexuality make the identical argument as the big L argument that this bill is "bad" for liberty. The motivations and of these two groups and what they hope for the future is very different.

I can see why they say it, but personally I don't care enough to fight it either way.

Let's work together to get the state out of marriage instead of bitching just about homosexual marriage.

[Robert]

You can't get the state out of marriage as long as the state operates courts. When someone takes an insurance company to court claiming benefits for another person alleged to be that person's spouse, the court has to settle that question of fact. It must resolve what "spouse" meant in the contract at the time the parties agreed to it. Having the state substitute a non-customary definition of "spouse" is as unjust as when someone contracted to pay in thalers (dollars) of silver, and then the state redefined the thaler as whatever a certain privileged banker offered.

You can get the state out of the business of licensing marriages. You can get the state out of the business of regulating or controlling marriages, as when it forbids marriage under some circumstances. But you can't get the state out of the marriage question as long as the state operates courts.

[Ken Shultz]

It used to be a contract going back to Roman times.

That's what Roman dowries were all about. If you divorced your wife, you had to give her back the dowry--minus her expenses while you were married.

That's why it seems absurd to me to expect the government to completely get out of the marriage business--it's just like expecting the government to stop enforcing contracts.

Marriage is a contract. Why wouldn't the government be in the contract enforcement business?

I'm a small state libertarian, which means I definitely want the government for at least three things:

1) Protect my rights from foreign invaders by way of national defense.

2) Protect my rights from domestic criminals and false accusations through a criminal justice system.

3) Contract enforcement!

Those are the essential functions of government--refusing to enforce certain contracts for arbitrary reasons like sexual orientation is absurd.

[Ken Shultz]

Are there any other contracts that the government should refuse to enforce because of sexual orientation?

Or is marriage the only one?

[heller]

This issue isn't about the government enforcing contracts, it's about the government's ability to regulate marriage through license, to tell people who can and can't get married. What we mean by getting government out of marriage is to eliminate this licensing mechanism (and the subsidization of marriage). If two gays want to make a marriage contract, then the government shouldn't be able to stop them. All libertarians want to allow gay marriage, but some don't see the difference between the state giving permission to gays and not allowing the state to give or deny permission at all. And some don't see why the latter is the preferred libertarian option.

[Huh?]

I largely agree with this, but the licensing and court enforcement are largely tied up together as it is. You CANNOT enter into a private marriage contract in the sense that the state will not enforce that contract as against a third party (e.g. insurance benefits). Ideally, you'd untie the two and allow anyone to enter into an enforceable (private) marriage contract. Duh.

But, until that happens, the New York law is at least liberty enhancing in that, as to court enforcement of contact, gays can have such contracts recognized. Yes, it strengthens the licensing power of the state, but it also enhances the state's (legit and constitutional) role in protecting the right to freely contract, in the sense that, before the law, gays were prohibited from entering into the contract at all, regardless of the procedural mechanisms for entering into it.

I think some commenters here assume that gays were always free to enter into a private contract that gave them the same legal rights as marriage (e.g. private contracts granting the 'spouse' hospital visitation rights), but of course that is not true. Courts could not enforce such contracts.

[Res Publica Americana]

So we can expect to hear of the complete nullification of New York's entire collection of gun and labor laws tomorrow as a start, right?

[The Truth]

Is John seriously defending his Sky Fairy by saying the other guy's Sky Fairy doesn't exist?

[John]

Don't you have business stopping the red hoard or something? Or stopping the chinks?

You are my favorite Reason troll. You like the perfect storm of stupid. Whoever is behind your posts is an artist of the highest order.

[Garland]

I seriously doubt he's a troll -- he's too consistent and realistic. He's just a totalitarian pinko mother-fucker, and he can go burn in whatever Hell may or may not exist with the rest of his ilk.

[Au H20]

John, The Truth is one of the most important people in the world, locked in a secret but neverending battle with his archenemy, The Lies, that has gone on since the dawn of man.

Our The Truth is actually the 49th generation to hold that title.

[The Truth]

Come on, John, tell us all about the talking snake and Zombie Jesus.

[Ken Shultz]

Isn't it hard to argue for tolerance out of one side of your mouth--and make fun of other people's religious beliefs out of the other?

It would be hard for me.

[The Truth]

Do you believe in the talking snake, Ken?

[Ken Shultz]

What difference does it make?

Do you believe people's rights should only be tolerated if they have a genetic basis?

How is intolerance of people who believe in a talking snake substantively different from intolerance of people who want to get married?

A bigot is a bigot, and if you go around making fun of people because of their religious beliefs? Then you're a bigot too.

Making fun of people because they believe in the religious traditions of their ancestors going back thousands of years is no way intellectually superior to making fun of people because of what they like to do with their weiners.

And just because you really truly believe in your bigotry? Doesn't mean you're not a bigot, Archie.

[heller]

You're right The Truth, China could kick God's ass.

[Res Publica Americana]

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2912787481/

I just got a fucking blitz from a TeamSpeak channel full of European World of Warcraft players about that trailer for the "heroes are made in America" line. Roflmfao, best entertainment I could have hoped for on a quiet Saturday.

[wef]

Scanning NRO Corner: Am I perverse to take some pleasure in the whining of the power-worshipping "right" over the NY gay marriage nonsense? Putting one's faith in the state to sanction and enforce one's moral vision is deserving of bitter disillusion and even ironic punishment. As was the case of money, having granted the state the power to define marriage, do not be surprised if the thing is debased.

[P Brooks]

Russell Roberts is crazy

The savings from higher productivity don't just go to the owners of the textile factory or the mega hen house who now have lower costs of doing business. Lower costs don't always mean higher profits. Or not for long. Those lower costs lead to lower prices as businesses compete with each other to appeal to consumers.

The result is a higher standard of living for consumers. The average worker has to work fewer and fewer hours to earn enough money to buy a dozen eggs or a pair of shoes or a flat-screen TV or a new car that's safer and gets better mileage than the cars of yesteryear. That higher standard of living comes from technology. It isn't just the rich who get cheaper TVs and cars, plus the convenience of using an ATM at midnight.

If those poor bank tellers only had a union to defend their rights...

[Somalian Road Corporation]

So, anyone want to put the over/under on poly marriages?

[wef]

The fight will not end until we have polyandrous gay marriage under Al-Shari'ah.

[fyngyrz]

Poly marriages aren't even a tough question; the answer is obviously that as long as all parties to the poly arrangement offer(ed) informed consent, poly is perfectly fine.

If you want a slightly tougher one, consider voluntary slavery.

Say Joe offers a significant exchange (from Janet's perspective) in return for Janet becoming his permanent, unconditional, irrevocable by anyone but Joe, slave.

Janet, mother of Lou and Betty, evaluates the offer and decides that the benefits she can pass on to Lou and Betty using the exchange Joe is offering are absolutely worth entering into unconditional, permanent, irrevocable by anyone but Joe, slavery.

Should Janet be allowed to enter into such slavery? Should Joe be allowed to make the offer? Should Lou and Betty be allowed to benefit from the arrangement?

Why or why not?

[robc]

All contracts are revocable by both parties - there may be a penalty however. So your premise is invalid.

[fyngyrz]

No, my premise is fine. What's broken is your idea of what a person is free to contract, and that includes the issue of irrevocable, or not. If you wish to say that a person can't put revocation on the table as a negotiable item, then your idea of freedom is badly crippled, frankly. But I'll accept the answer under those terms: that you prefer a mommy-state idea of what freedom to contract means.

[heller]

Sure Janet should be allowed to enter into such an arrangement, as there is no libertarian way to stop her. The only problem with your hypothesis is that there is no such thing as an "irrevocable contract." Contracts are broken all the time, which is why good contracts have conditions of revocation. And if there aren't any conditions of revocation, then the two parties have to settle the dispute over the contract in mediation or in court.

[fyngyrz]

there is no such thing as an "irrevocable contract.

Of course there is. You contract me to shoot you in the head. I do so. What's the mechanism for revoking the contract? There is none - the deed isn't undoable. What *you* are trying to do is say that this isn't something you would extend to give someone a choice in; so your idea of what an individual may choose to contract is very limited... left-wing mommyism.

[heller]

That isn't analogous to what we're talking about. If a contract is fulfilled, then of course it can't be revoked, because the contract no longer exists! That is not an example of an irrevocable contract. In the context of a contract, this means that the agreement will be discontinued. It does not mean that everyone is put back into the exact same position they were before the contract.

What *you* are trying to do is say that this isn't something you would extend to give someone a choice in; so your idea of what an individual may choose to contract is very limited... left-wing mommyism.

No, I specifically said the opposite if that, that no one should be disallowed from making such a contract:

"Sure Janet should be allowed to enter into such an arrangement, as there is no libertarian way to stop her."

But the idea that someone can contract themselves into slavery is contradictory. If you choose to be a slave, you are not really a slave. And if you no longer choose to be a slave, you will revoke the contract.

[fyngyrz]

"But the idea that someone can contract themselves into slavery is contradictory. If you choose to be a slave, you are not really a slave. And if you no longer choose to be a slave, you will revoke the contract."

That is so simple-mindedly wrong, it's worth a LOL.

Say you choose to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff. You haven't hit ground yet; but you can't revoke your decision, can you? This is because the choice you made doesn't offer you the opportunity to change your choice once you engage in the action. Same thing for voluntary slavery: you choose to give up your ability to unslave yourself, just as you chose to give up your ability to walk away from the clifftop when you jumped over it. You can, in fact, give up your freedom and place your future entirely in someone else's hands. Saying you can't is simply meaningless hand-waving.

The only questions that actually remain are the ones I posited: Should you be allowed to do this? Should someone be allowed to offer an opportunity for this? Should third parties be allowed to benefit from this?

No answers of the "impossible" type allowed; they're wrong, based on grade-school (at best) reasoning.

[Drave Robber]

There's a funny moment in Charlie Stross' Accelerando where a teenage girl sells herself into chattel slavery to a Yemen-based (IIRC) corporation owned by, well, herself ? in order to be able to tell her mother to f___ off.

Stross is by no means a libertarian, but that sounds like an ingenious way of achieving self-ownership.

[fyngyrz]

lol

[P Brooks]

First polygamy, then DOGS!

[Bar Student]

So?

[heller]

No, no, it's polygamy, then sheep, then dogs, then donkeys. Get the order right.

[Banjos]

Well we can't have the dogs livin' in sin now can we? Personally, I am more excited about line marriages.

[Res Publica Americana]

OT:

1) What is, in your opinion, the (overall) best and freest state in the Union to live in?

2) Excluding New York, what's the most Hong Kong-ish city in the United States?

[Res Publica Americana]

OT

1) What is, in your opinion, the best and freest state overall in the Union?

2) What is the most Hong Kong-ish city (lavish, large, shiny, relatively free) city in the US (excluding New Yawk City)?

[Res Publica Americana]

OT

1) What is, in your opinion, the best and freest state overall in the Union?

2) What is the most Hong Kong-ish city (lavish, large, shiny, relatively free) city in the US (excluding New Yawk City)?

[CE]

Ron Paul pushing for five million by the end of the 2nd quarter for FEC reporting. Go to the campaign website and chip in.

[MNG]

At the heart of the Browne Report and the government's higher education policy is a simple notion allegedly grounded in economics: that the introduction of market forces into the higher education sector will simultaneously drive up standards and drive down prices...Whenever university standards are talked about, the basis for comparison is taken to be the annual THE-QS World University Rankings.[*] Every year since 2004, these tables have appeared under some variation of the headline 'US Universities Dominate World Rankings...'It isn't difficult to see how these tables have helped push government policy towards its current infatuation with markets. All but one of the 13 American universities which have routinely topped the tables are private institutions, and those inclined to neoliberal ways of thinking are unlikely to see this as a coincidence...Yet all those journalists and politicians who have leaped so nimbly from league tables to university policy have apparently overlooked the fact that the US is larger than the UK: its population of 311 million is five times the UK population of 62 million. Already, the American three-to-one lead in the World University Rankings looks far less impressive. In fact, over the past seven years, the UK has had more top 20 universities per head of population (one per 15.5 million) than the US (one per 23.9 million). And since the UK institutions in the top 20 are on average slightly larger (20,500 students) than the US ones (17,300 students), almost twice the proportion of the UK population has been studying at top 20 universities (1 in 756, compared with 1 in 1383). In economic terms, the two countries differ by an even larger margin: US GDP (at $14.658 trillion) is 6.5 times larger than UK GDP (at $2.247 trillion). For the past seven years, the UK has been maintaining fully twice as many top 20 universities as the US for each unit of financial resource....No less important, Americans spend a far higher proportion of their national wealth on higher education than the British...The UK has somehow managed to maintain top-ranked universities for only about a fifth of the US price...There is no evidence here that private sector competition drives up academic standards, but there is clear evidence that market competition drives up prices, since academic excellence apparently costs much more in the US than the UK.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n10/h.....ivy-league

[heller]

This article is bullshit. It's based on this premise:

This analysis has serious implications for government policy. There is no evidence here that private sector competition drives up academic standards, but there is clear evidence that market competition drives up prices, since academic excellence apparently costs much more in the US than the UK. Why is this? It isn't in fact difficult to see why the introduction of market pricing into a small cohort of elite universities will drive prices up, not down. Wherever a small and strictly limited supply of a highly desirable commodity ? such as places at Harvard ? is introduced into a genuinely open market, the wealthiest cohort in society will drive its price up to levels only they can afford.

Yes, yes, market forces drove up education prices. Except for the fact that the college bubble started at the same time the government decided to start subsidizing education heavily in the early 1900s. Hmmm, which one caused the bubble?

Considering the education system has become *less* marketized as the price has gone up, and that it's well known that bubbles like this are caused by the increase in the availability of loans, shouldn't the clear answer be the opposite of what Hotson is saying?

When the government backs up banks that are giving student loans, gives out its own loans, directly subsidizes tuition, and tells us that everyone should go to college, what the hell do you expect to happen to the price of the limited supply of education??? It goes way up! When demand increases, price goes up!

But I suppose that answer isn't the one Hotson likes so he's going to blame "market forces" and those goddam elitist richies.

[MNG]

"the college bubble started at the same time the government decided to start subsidizing education heavily in the early 1900s. Hmmm, which one caused the bubble?"

Are you arguing that the British system is not similarly, if not more so, subsidized?

[MNG]

b/c he argues their more relatively more subsidized system has lower prices, which seems to provide empirical problems for your axiomatic argument...

[heller]

MNG, pointing to England and saying "look at their prices!" is a roundabout way of showing anything about the US. There are so many factors that can affect this comparison, it's just a bad idea. For one, we aren't given any idea about what the demand for higher education is in England. Is there a sense that everyone should go to college? How available are loans? I know that before 2006, going to university in England used to be "free," but Hotson never clarifies whether he is simply comparing tuition prices or the actual cost, which would include the portion of taxes that goes to paying for British students.

But Hotson doesn't have any proof for his central claim, empirical or speculative, that comes from the United States itself. The fact that education has become more socialized and less marketized as the price has gone up directly contradicts Hotson's claim, as there are no other factors that Hotson can blame this problematic correlation on while still maintaining his claim. Hotson is too blinded by hatred of teh evil marketz to actually come up with a correlation that makes sense. His entire argument is based on an idiotic tautology, "well prices have gone up so teh greedy market forces must be increasing which cause prices to go up." Then he points across the pond, as if he can compare prices in two very different countries and pin down a single factor that explains the entire difference. So Hotson gives us a Pledge (his claim), a Turn (pointing at England to distract you from the US), and a Prestige (Using England to "prove" his claim about the US). In other words, an illusion. Hocus pocus.

[MNG]

So the fact that as government intervention in education has increased the price has increased in the US is proof of your claim that government intervention increases price but the lower price comparatively in England accompanied with comparitively more government intervention can safely be ignored because, you know, lots of other things can be going on there. Because lots of other things couldn't be going on in the US. Gotcha.

As long as you are picking cherries make sure you get a nice ripe one.

[heller]

No, it's a correlation that contradicts his claim. If his claim were true, then the causality would result in a correlation. You can disprove causality if correlation is absent. You can't necessarily prove causation just from the presence of correlation.

[Bill]

No surprise there. Since when does any government driven bubble get the blame it deserves in the media, congress, and the man in the street?

[Mr. FIFY]

Wow... hundreds of posts, and not one from our resident expert on homsexuality.

[Pink Cosmotarian]

You mean me?

[Binky]

I thought you were the homosexual expert on residency.

[Pink Cosmotarian]

Residency in your butt! Bring me more flirtinis!

[Mr. FIFY]

I meant Tony, who is also an expert on why raising taxes only on rich people equals The Cure for Everything.

[heller]

Yes I know that's what you meant. Tony would call raising taxes on the rich "decreasing taxes on the poor" or "a decrease in spending," so libertarians should be in favor of it. I know this because he has referred to decreased taxes on the rich as literally "increased spending" and "raising taxes on the poor."

[Mr. FIFY]

While tax hikes on gasoline and home energy bills, wouldn't be considered "regressive".

What a topsy-turvy world the Tonys live in...

[Winston Smith]

Tony is double-plus good!

[Just Dropping By]

260+ posts and no denunciations from Michael Ejercito yet? He must have had a stroke when he heard the news.

[Tulpa]

300 posts and no Tarzan Boy videos yet?

[4chan]

I find the commentators against this interesting on the grounds that the state shouldn't recognize marriage in the first place.

So you're saying that government shouldn't recognize contracts then? Because that's what marriage is to the state. A contract between two people who decide for better or for worse to combine their assets and liabilities.

Let me put it another way, if the government didn't recognize your contract, what good is that contract then?

[robc]

Wrong. The government is part of the contract. They, in fact, dont recognize the contract between individuals in many ways. If, for example, a man and woman promise to marry "until death do us part", many states dont recognize that as a legally binding oral contract, and force no fault marriages upon people.

In other words, breaking that contract should involve penalties, but the state, thru their licensing power, puts their own contractual language in play, as one of the parties to the contract, and forces people into their terms.

I mere recognition of contracts would be okay. A license is not a recognition of a contract. I can contract with someone else without having to get prior permission from the government and that contract will still be valid in court.

[robc]

no fault divorces, not no fault marriages.

If it was just a matter of recognizing a contract, they would use the penalty terms laid out in said contract, or when terms are lacking, fall back upon common law. "No fault" would only be in play if that was what was specified in the marriage contract.

[Huh?]

But that's not true of a marriage contract, which is the problem really.

[Visine]

Marriage licenses are not merely "recognized" by the state; they're GRANTED or DENIED by the state. Important distinction.

[Closet Monogamist]

"...with the power vested in me by the state of New York, I now pronounce you eligible for survivor benefits, expensive divorce proceedings, and slightly more entitled to your own money than single people. You may now lick my boots, together as one."

[Mr. FIFY]

+infinity, Closet!

[Constance]

God knows there isn't anything more important that New York should be dealing with, right?

[Closet Monogamist]

Why aren't the lefties up there fretting over the potential loss of tax revenue? This seems like the perfect example of how philosophically opposed to itself their "ideology" is.

[The Enforcer]

I'm a strait person and I find the issue of government being involved with "marriage" degrading to the institution for all couples-strait, gay, or anything else. Having it pegged on the same level as a fishing, hunting, or drivers license is wrong. Government can of course codify a legal contract of duties and reciprocal obligations but...JUST CALL IT GODDAMN SOMETHING ELSE THANK YOU.

[The Enforcer]

straight rather...strait is as in Strait of Gibraltar, lol

[George Strait]

*ahem*

[chris_dennis]

"...with the power vested in me by the state of New York, I now pronounce you eligible for survivor benefits, expensive divorce proceedings, and slightly more entitled to your own money than single people. You may now lick my boots, together as one."
@ I paid $32.67 for a XBOX 360 and my mom got a 17 inch Toshiba laptop for $94.83 being delivered to
our house tomorrow by FedEX. I will never again pay expensive retail prices at stores. I even sold a
46 inch HDTV to my boss for $650 and it only cost me $52.78 to get. Here is the website we using to get
all this stuff, BetaSell.com

[dunphy]

one of the more substantial rights of married couples, not often commented on are the marital confidences privilege and the spousal testimonial privilege.

these are substantial rights. they can literally mean the difference between death penalty and acquittal

[Michael Ejercito]

one of the more substantial rights of married couples, not often commented on are the marital confidences privilege and the spousal testimonial privilege.

Are these constitutional protected, or mere statutory privileges?

[dunphy]

i have no idea. i am only edumacated in the practical aspects of these privileges, not in their legal genesis, so to speak

[The Immaculate Trouser]

They date back to common law, if I read my William Blackstone right.

[Michael Ejercito]

What evidence is there that the social understanding of marriage had changed to warrant redefinition?

In what ways should the law account for the sexual makeup of unions? For one thing, an opposite-sex partnership has a much, much greater chance of experiencing unplanned pregnancies than same-sex partnerships. In addition, an opposite-sex partnership is the ideal core for a family, which means that the ideal adoptive parents would be an opposite-sex couple in a legally recognized union. How should the law account for these differences?

[Duckie]

What evidence is there that the social understanding of marriage had changed to warrant redefinition?

Straight people have spent the past couple centuries busily redefining marriage. Marriage was once understood as the transfer of rights over a woman from her father to her husband. Now it is regarded as an equal partnership between people who may (or may not) choose to be monogamous, to raise children, and to remain together until death. At this point, a childless, thrice-divorced philanderer can marry a fourth wife without anyone ever questioning his right to do so. His character, perhaps. But no one proposes legally barring him from the institution.

It seems odd to insinuate that some immutable historical consensus on the nature of marriage has only just now been overturned by this shocking development.

In addition, an opposite-sex partnership is the ideal core for a family

To my knowledge, there is currently zero evidence for this assertion.

[Michael Ejercito]

Marriage was once understood as the transfer of rights over a woman from her father to her husband

Which rights were these?

[Duckie]

Which rights were these?

This question strikes me as disingenuous. Most educated people are aware of our species' long history of sexism.

But, since you asked:

You are familiar with the modern custom of "giving the bride away"? That wasn't always a metaphor. The father transferred ownership/custody of a woman to her husband, who may have paid a bride price for her. Throughout most of history, women were treated either as chattel or as childlike dependents. The man who held ownership or custody therefore had the right to determine her fate in various matters which we now consider to be exclusively her own damn choice.

Obviously, the details of laws and customs governing marriage have varied wildly between times and places, because - and here's the important part - marriage has been redefined to suit the needs of changing cultures over and over again throughout history.

[Michael Ejercito]

The man who held ownership or custody therefore had the right to determine her fate in various matters which we now consider to be exclusively her own damn choice.

And yet the father of the woman obviously did not have sexual rights over his daughter.

Obviously, the details of laws and customs governing marriage have varied wildly between times and places, because - and here's the important part - marriage has been redefined to suit the needs of changing cultures over and over again throughout history.

And what need did redefining marriage fill in this particular case. Assuaging the feelings of a small number of activists does not qualify as a need.

[Duckie]

And yet the father of the woman obviously did not have sexual rights over his daughter.

He had the right to control sexual access to her. This is why we still see honor killings in extremely patriarchal cultures. Daddy's princess exercises her own control over her sexuality, Daddy finds out she has humiliated him by taking away his control, Daddy (and occasionally her brothers too) beat her to death/stab her/run her over with a car/take your pick of recent news stories.

And what need did redefining marriage fill in this particular case.

Marriage has already been redefined to the point where there is no reason other than precedent that it should require the participants to have any particular genitalia. A commitment to pool resources and build a life together as romantic partners need not be gender-specific. Excluding same-sex partnerships from this legal institution makes no sense and causes unnecessary hardship or pain to millions of people. Why would we keep excluding them?

[Michael Ejercito]

Excluding same-sex partnerships from this legal institution makes no sense and causes unnecessary hardship or pain to millions of people. Why would we keep excluding them?

Why can there not be an institution under a different name?

What hardship and pain is caused by not calling them marriages?

[Duckie]

Why can there not be an institution under a different name?

Why should there be?

What hardship and pain is caused by not calling them marriages?

I meant the hardship and pain caused by the actual consequences of being unable to marry your partner. The ones having to do with Social Security benefits, veterans' benefits, health insurance, Medicaid, hospital visitation, estate taxes, retirement savings, pensions, family leave, and immigration law. Civil unions simply do not confer the same legal rights and benefits that marriages do.

Are you suggesting that gay people should be satisfied with civil unions as they are? Or are you suggesting that civil unions should be functionally the same as marriages, but with a different label?

[MNG]

"an opposite-sex partnership is the ideal core for a family"

Citation needed.

[Hugh Akston]

In addition, an opposite-sex partnership is the ideal core for a family

To my knowledge, there is currently zero evidence for this assertion.

Well, to be fair, you can't have a family without the fusion?or partnership, if you like?of a spermatozoa and an ovum.

What happens after that, of course, can vary.

[Duckie]

Well, to be fair, you can't have a family without the fusion?or partnership, if you like?of a spermatozoa and an ovum.

Maybe - assuming you're talking about a family all scientific-like as a group of very genetically similar people. But if you're talking about the family as a social institution defined by communal sharing and intense bonds of partnership and love, then... less so. Without this crucial conception process there would be no families, because there would be no people. But it's like saying that you can't raise armies or build cathedrals without hetero sex. At some point, yeah, you need some sperm'n'eggs to make your people. But nobody needs to be having hetero sex within your institution for it to accomplish its goals.

/overanalysis

Sorry, I just get all hypersensitive and talky about the legitimacy of blended/non-biological/unconvential families.

[It's "same sex marriage," bitc]

How many times to I have to correct you, reason??? Stop using the ambiguous "gay marriage" already.

[heller]

Charlie: We'd be two cool, straight dudes married together.
Frank: Oooh. Well, I never thought of it that way. Two dudes getting married, that doesn't seem very gay.

[It's "same sex marriage," bitc]

It's bound to happen. Stay tuned to daytime TV.

See also, "gay woman marries gay guy."

[heller]

Yeah I don't think a gay woman marrying a gay marriage counts as gay marriage. No more so than two shotguns getting married is a shotgun wedding.

[heller]

Yeah I don't think a gay woman marrying a gay *man* counts as gay marriage. No more so than two shotguns getting married is a shotgun wedding.

[The Word Police]

Would you like us to thrash this "reason" soundly about the head and shoulders with our truncheons?

[It's "same sex marriage," bitc]

I know, crazy, right? It's like reason? magazine doesn't have to follow proper capitalization because they are libertarian or something.

[heller]

We're too cool for your authoritarian "grammatical rules."

Also, if a lesbian and a gay man marry, is that gay marriage?

[a bitc]

I resent being dragged into this.

[It's "same sex marriage," bitc]

A marriage between lesbian and a gay man is a regular old marriage, obviously.

Is it also a "gay" marriage? I don't know, you tell me. What does "gay marriage" mean?

[Mr. FIFY]

Semantical bullshit, whoever you are. You know what "gay marriage" means, and it means the same damned thing as what you are harping about. Which is nothing.

[It's "same sex marriage," bitc]

A marriage between lesbian and a gay man is a regular old marriage, obviously.

Is it also a "gay" marriage? I don't know, you tell me. What does "gay marriage" mean?

[Daniel Reichert]

For me, the most startling issue with the state's regulation of marriage is that these rules often provide tax benefits to married individuals. This "Loner Tax" unfairly punishes those who are already unlucky enough to live alone. Do we really need the government to act as our secular priest? Does the regulation of marriage make us freer in our personal lives, or does it ask us to give up privacy in favor of conformity?

[fred]

I paid $32.67 for a XBOX 360 and my mom got a 17 inch Toshiba laptop for $94.83 being delivered to our house tomorrow by FedEX. I will never again pay expensive retail prices at stores. I even sold a 46 inch HDTV to my boss for $650 and it only cost me $52.78 to get. Here is the website we using to get all this stuff, BuzzSave.(c)om

[Thomas]

As I heard, there was an amendment added that recognized the right of religious institutions to refuse to marry gays. Excellent. As many here probably agree, I support the rights of gays to marry (even though I believe the government has no business regulating marriage at all), but I also recognize the rights of private organizations to make their own rules.