Bush backs Gay Marraige Ban Amendment

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well duh.

[Ned]

I think I would refer a constitutional amendment that would state that children should preferentially be raised by their biological parents who are married each other and that laws encouraging this do not violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

[optimus2861]

^ Holy smokes, that's even worse than your taxation proposal. I'm going to come back to the adoptive parents and their child(ren) again: what have you got against them that you keep seeking to exclude them from equal protection by throwing in the "biological" requirement? Don't adoptive parents make a positive contribution to society? Aren't the children that they raise better off than being in foster or state care, or being raised by the parent(s) who made the difficult decision to give them up in the first place?

[Ned]

Optimus: Adoptive is just fine provided the father or mother is dead, the surviving spouse remarries and the adopting parent is the new spouse. If both are dead, the benefit would go to the adoptive parents.

A single-mother who does not marry the child's Dad or who is divorced is SOL.

Gay couples could benefit if they adopt a child where both parents are dead.

[chequita guevara]

Good, punish the kids. Little bastards should stop sponging off society! Are there no prisons? Are there no poor houses?

[Ned]

Che, as always, you got it backwards.

[chequita guevara]

Humor is lost on you, isn't it Ned?

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Humor is lost on you, isn't it Ned?

I sure do not laugh when the likes of you an Rooney make fun of Christians and attack movies like the Passion.

I recognize that there is a significant problem in trying to incent raising children in stable families. But with religion being of less importance, we need to provide some incentive to raises kids in families and to penalize divorce.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
I sure do not laugh when the likes of you an Rooney make fun of Christians and attack movies like the Passion.

Christians need to get over themselves. First off, making fun of a scumbag like Pat Roberts (who claims regularly that he's in communication with the big G) isn't making fun of Christians. It's making fun of one particular Christians (and a very bad Christian at that).

I recognize that there is a significant problem in trying to incent raising children in stable families. But with religion being of less importance, we need to provide some incentive to raises kids in families and to penalize divorce.

While I think there should be more effort put into helping people realize exactly what marriage entails and trying to help couples work through their differences when it turns out to be a lot harder than they expected, I am strongly opposed to penalizing divorce. First off, no one should be forced to stay in a bad marriage. It's worse for kids to grow up with two parents who hate each other than to grow up in a split household. Second, by penalizing the couple, you are penalizing any children, who are surely innocent.

[MrBaggins]

Its the most naive thing I've ever heard to try to force stability into marriage.

People fall in love, and they fall out of love.

People have affairs and break up.

People develop unreconcilable issues with one another

Some people make good choices to marry, and some make bad choices.

Some marriages are abusive.

These are the reasons why marriages destabilize, and you can't legislate against them, unless you want to mandate all behavior, Nineteen-Eighty-Four like.

Why is a child *always* better off with an alive biological parent?

Some mothers AND fathers will always be worse caregivers than state and/or adoptive (including gay) alternatives.

If you want every child to be raised well by their biological parents, you have to ensure that only Ossie and Harriet have unprotected sex.

The world just doesn't work that way... its utterly myopic to think that it does.

[Ned]

If it is hard to get out of marriage, people will be a lot more careful before they get into it.

The ease of divorce makes divorce just one more way to handle the inevitable problems in marriage. As in war, divorce should be the last resort. I am not against repealing laws against divorce, mind you. I am against making it easy.

[Ned]

Che, if you have problems with particular preachers, name them.

But that is not the typical slur I hear from atheists.

The one thing I really like about Kerry, for example, is that he is Catholic. It appears that his recent shift on the gay marriage issue might have occurred because of his faith as opposed to the usual reason politicians change positions on issues. It was only a week ago that he called Bush "devisive" for calling for a constitutional amendment defining marriage. Now he favors it too, albeit in Massechussetts (now). He has also changed his position to support the DoMA. These are both steps in the right direction.

[Elok]

As this has already been bumped, I guess there's no harm in pointing out that Ben is correct: the Amendment does in fact oppose civil unions. It was quoted in the Outlook section today.

"Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

While it doesn't explicitly oppose civil unions, I don't see how it "provides for" them.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Ned
If it is hard to get out of marriage, people will be a lot more careful before they get into it.

The ease of divorce makes divorce just one more way to handle the inevitable problems in marriage. As in war, divorce should be the last resort. I am not against repealing laws against divorce, mind you. I am against making it easy.

Dunno if it would really lead to people thinking twice about marrying.

I think, many if not most of the marriages of young people take place because they didn´t care enough about contraceptives and therefore the female got pregnant.
So, I´d think the number of ill planned weddings would stay the same, especially if in school lessons in the use of contraceptives are neglected in favor of lessons in chastity (and so the teenagers who really wanted Sex probably wouldn´t know enough about Contraceptives to prevent pregnancy).

I think the main effect would be on people around 30+ (who perhaps even were married once and got diivorced).
IMHO people would really think twice about a second marriage, especially if it is much more difficult to divorce.

But IMHO the Effect on Marriages of younger people (around 20) will be minimal (because the reason for marriage was a pregnancy or they are romantic and inexperienced enough, to believe that they´ll love each other forever)