Massachusetts High Court rules same-sex couples entitled to marry

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


My point you claim proves your point has nothing to do with children. My point was that the state provides no extra protection for married families with children than to unmarried families with children except if one of the partners isn't working, which isn't that common anymore.

This just in from CheNews unemployment at record lows. Yayy capitialism!!!!

[mindseye]

Originally posted by JohnT
I'm still trying to figure out how the upcoming MrFun/Starchild nuptials will make Laura love me less.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by mindseye

Excluding lesbians? Excluding half of gay people? Well, I guess that narrows it down a little.

From what I'm lead to believe, the vast majority of gays are male and lesbians account for a rather small minority of all gays.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


This just in from CheNews unemployment at record lows. Yayy capitialism!!!!

5.6 percent today, yes, I heard. That's not a record low. Also, between 120,000 (Fed numbers) and 200,000 new jobs added last month.

Question, what does this have to do with more families being double income rather than one?

[JohnT]

I think Ogie was joking, Che, and not making a reference to the new US unemployment figures.

However, I think MrFun and Boris would be a better match than MrFun/Starchild.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

What JohnT said.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by mindseye
Excluding lesbians? Excluding half of gay people? Well, I guess that narrows it down a little.

That part was too easy considering you said within the context of a relationship and I wished to skip the obvious answers.

Anyway, regarding the other (male) half of gay people, gay men can (and do) sire children.

I suppose. This requires extending the definition of the word relationship a small bit esp. in light of the last otion you alluded to.

[Az]

the fact that there are more male gays that female makes me suspect that people becoming gay has something to do with the fabric of our society. It couldn't be genetic, could it?

[chequita guevara]

Why not? If the gene is on the X chomosome, then men would be more likely to get it, like baldness.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Why not? If the gene is on the X chomosome, then men would be more likely to get it, like baldness.

I'm by no means a geneticist but I believe thats "y" chromosome.

XX= female
Xy= male

[East Street Trader]

Originally posted by mindseye
I can't believe anyone would trot this old nag out again.

EST, could you maybe explain why heterosexuals incapable of having children (infertile, or past the age) are allowed to get married? No one seems to have any problem about that. But more importantly (listen up, now): gay people can have kids, too! And many already do! Even within a gay relationship!

I agree that there are people who marry who have no intention of founding a family. For the reasons you give and for other reasons also.

And it is possible to add the point that society has never demanded of persons recording themselves as married that they must undertake any obligation - whether to found a family or indeed to do anything else.

But that is not enough to negate the proposition that marriage as an idea is largely predicated upon the need for society to create the right social and legal conditions for families to be founded and to thrive. It simply shows that this is not something worked out to comply with a blueprint but rather arrived at by the usual sort of human muddling through. A minor anomaly (very bad pun fully intended ).

I acknowledge your point being a homosexual does not prevent a man being a father nor being a lesbian prevent a woman from being a mother. But that is of no relevance unless there is an intention for the child concerned to be brought up in a family composed of the homosexual/lesbian couple and the child. And in that case I stick to my guns. It is not clear to me that all the explanation which registering the couple concerned as married would entail is worth it.

I defer, on this, to anyone with worthwhile experience of actual situations. I have no real handle on how the child in such a case would feel. I can perfectly well imagine such a child liking the two adults they depend on being married but I can just as easily imagine such a child finding that it just caused lots of unprofitable confusions.

From the point of view of the adults I would take quite a bit of convincing that the mere title is of any significance.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


I'm by no means a geneticist but I believe thats "y" chromosome.

XX= female
Xy= male

Baldness is carried on the X. With two X's, there is a chance that the gene will be blocked by the other gene. With an X and a Y, with a the Y chromosome being much smaller, there's nothing to block the single recessive gene.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

See told you I was no geneticist, despite my Father being a Biology Prof.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by JohnT
I think Ogie was joking, Che, and not making a reference to the new US unemployment figures.

However, I think MrFun and Boris would be a better match than MrFun/Starchild.

Um . . . . . .


no -- I would rather keep my distance from Boris.

[Adam Smith]

Editorial in Today's Washington Post

Why Not Civil Unions?

Friday, February 6, 2004; Page A22

THE HIGH COURT of Massachusetts delivered a hard-line response this week to the state Senate's request for guidance on the subject of gay marriage. The Senate had asked for clarification of the court's earlier ruling that, under the state's constitution, gay men and lesbians were entitled to marry -- specifically, whether the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling might be satisfied by a bill creating Vermont-style civil unions, which confer all the benefits of marriage on gay partnerships while reserving the word "marriage" for opposite-sex couples. The idea was to avert a showdown over amending the state constitution by passing a civil-union bill instead. "The answer to the question is 'No,' " the court responded. Civil unions were akin to the separate-but-equal doctrine that permitted racial segregation, and the "history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal."

We support gay marriage. It is, in our view, wrong to deny to people in loving, lifelong relationships the benefits and rights that normally attach to being married. At the same time, we are skeptical that American society will come to formally recognize gay relationships as a result of judicial fiats, and we felt that the 4 to 3 majority on the Massachusetts court had stretched to find a right to gay marriage in that commonwealth's 224-year-old constitution.

Now the same majority has stretched still further, finding that the state constitution not only grants to same-sex couples a substantive right to marry but also dictates the nomenclature of the unions. When moral certainty bleeds into judicial arrogance in this fashion, it deprives the legislature of any ability to balance the interests of the different constituencies that care passionately about the question. Given the moral and religious anxiety many people feel on the subject and the absence of clear constitutional mandates for gay marriage, judges ought to be showing more respect for elected officials trying to make this work through a political process.

The judges' action has increased the likelihood of a state constitutional amendment that could ban gay unions under any name. Politicians at the federal level now more than ever will trip over one another to swear allegiance to traditional marriage and push a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay unions in all states. The case for this noxious proposal rests on the claim that judges are forcing gay marriage down people's throats in an anti-democratic fashion. In refusing to allow the people of Massachusetts to choose civil unions as an alternative, the court seems bent on playing to this caricature.