Support For Same Sex Marriage Grows

[Ben Kenobi]

Penalties for breach are put into a contract precisely because one party can destroy the agreement without the consent of the other.

No-fault divorce removes those penalties. There is no burden on the party who breaks the agreement without mutual consent. This is the problem.

For how long?

Marriage is a promise, "until death do you part". That's a pretty serious promise you are making.

Just like any other ongoing contract, consent is also ongoing. It's not a one time thing, where you consent once at the beginning and must go on performing the contract forever based on that single moment.

That is what marriage is yes. You consent and you don't get to have do-overs. Ongoing consent isn't a factor because you are promising to be with them until you pass away.

What does a penalty have to do with consent, and who's talking about feelings? If a couple wants to establish penalties in the case of one of them withdrawing his or her consent to be married in the future, they're perfectly free to do that.

Marriage as a contract should have those safeguards in them in all cases. No fault divorce denies that anything approaching a binding contract has been signed, that it is a testimony of momentary feelings, nothing more.

What you think the terms of the marriage should be has nothing to do with the level of consent required (either on an "is" or "should be" basis) to create/maintain/end a marriage.

Ongoing consent is irrelevant to the issue. You've promised to remain married until death do you part. If you aren't equipped or ready to make such a promise, then you shouldn't enter marriage in the first place.

Besides, instituting the penalties you seem to want wouldn't change the fact that only one spouse is withdrawing consent to be married.

It would change the fact that the marriage could be dissolved based on that one person's wishes against the person who does want to be married. If you want to get divorce, then you should have to convince the person you are married to that it would be best. I don't think it's fair to the party on the other end to wake up one morning and end up divorced based on the dissatisfaction of the other.

The simple fact remains that if mutual consent is required to establish or maintain something, then by its very nature, unilateral withdrawal of consent destroys that thing. When one party no longer consents, it is impossible to have mutual consent.

Why do you believe that contracts require ongoing consent? That's not true at all.

[MrFun]

Ok, several points here.

1. "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States. "

Now, if we look at a more pertinent law, regarding the specific question of marriage, "Is Polygamy considered among the privileges and immunities to which the citizens of the US are entitled?"

Reynolds vs the US.

Thus, from Reynolds, we can answer the question that polygamy is not among the privileges and immunities guaranteed to the American people. Now, this does not preclude from the guarantees wrt to freedom of association, to bar the relationships between one man and two women, if he should have desire, or for the inverse. It does bar the recognition of such a union between a man and two women, or in the larger example, the union of a man to more then one person at the same time.

Declaring that polygamy is not one of guaranteed rights for American citizens does not extend to denying legal recognition to gay marriages. What we're dealing with here, is difference between monogamy and polygamy. Gay monogamous couples do NOT challenge any ruling that polygamous marriage is not a guaranteed right/privilege.

Now, there are three clauses in the 14th Amendment.

The second says that the state shall not deprive anyone of life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness. The question then arises, does polygamy fall under any of these three categories? Is polygamy and the restriction of Polygamy considered contrary to the operation of life or Liberty. In Reynolds, they bring up two other cases, by which religious liberty may be constrained for the benefit of the people, human sacrifice and settee, by which the departed widow throws herself on her husband's pyre. Reynolds makes the argument that the problem with Polygamy is not the institution of polygamy, but the danger towards the overall definition of marriage, and the union between one man and women. Reynolds rightly answers that the reason why the second marriage is considered invalid, is because the union between a man and a woman is considered inviolable, and cannot by the same principle of law extended to the union, be extended to more then one person.

The judges who wrote their majority ruling on polygamy were ignorant of the fact that throughout human history, marriage has been a dynamic, changing institution. For instance, marriage used to be primarily used as a means to consolidate some of property/wealth of two families. So the fact that marriage has been predominantly heterosexual does not justify continuing to deny gay marriages legal recognition.

Another point is that extending such legal recognition to gay marriages will not violate the union of a man and a woman in monogamous, heterosexual unions. My marrying another gay man will have no effect on your marriage with a woman - your marriage will remain inviolate.

Finally, we have the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. This is the third and final clause. We have determined in the case of Polygamy, that to prevent the exercise of polygamy is not a bar against the liberty and the pursuit of happiness, nor is it among the rights and privileges granted to citizens of the US. Now, we have to determine whether the law as it stands is in any way discriminatory, whether it treats two plaintiffs in a different manner.

In the case of Loving vs Virginia, the answer is yes. If you have a man and a woman approach each other in marriage, they will be treated differently if they either the man or the woman is black, and their partner white. This is why the law as treated falls pray to equal protection laws. It can be stated that as soon as the law makes different outcomes depending on the plaintiffs that equal protection has been violated. WRT to polygamy, the answer is no. Whether you have two men and a woman or two women and a man, or a black woman or a black man is irrelevant to the law. The law treats all plaintiffs in an equal manner, and returns the same outcome regardless of the plaintiff.

I'm not an advocate for legally recognized polygamous marriages but unless I'm mistaken, such an advocate would argue here that such a prohibition would indeed be a violation of their basic right to marry - they would NOT be treated equally. You're simply stating here that prohibition against legal polygamous marriages treats everyone the same regardless of race - but it STILL DISCRIMINATES against those who wish for legal recognition of polygamous marriages.

WRT to gay marriage, we can conclude the following.

1. The federal government has the right to regulate the definition of marriage. They can determine whether marriage between two persons should be valid. This trumps the privileges of the citizen of the US, in that the federal government in making a determination as to what ought to be the law of the land, does not violate their privileges to which they are entitled.

2. The federal government has a vested interest in preserving the definition as one man and one woman, and that contrary interpretations may be rejected on part by the federal government per Reynolds. Reynolds goes so far as to say that religious liberties do not trump the right of the federal government to establish marriage within it's own jurisdiction.

3. Marriage, as currently instituted returns the same outcome. A gay man is treated exactly the same by the law as a straight man. Therefore, the marriage law wrt to sexual orientation does not fall to equal protection as does the intermarriage law in Loving vs Virginia.

In conclusion, gay marriage is not protected by the 14th Amendment, by any of it's 3 clauses.

1) The fact that the federal government has the right to legislate policy on what constitutes legally recognized marriage does not entitle the federal government to legislate UNJUST laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians no more than that this privilege allows federal government to make unjust, discriminatory laws prohibiting interracial marriage just because federal government has authority to decide what constitutes legal marriages. To say that gay men and lesbians can continue to associate with one another and still sustain a relationship without legally recognized marriage is to ignore the fact that deprivation of such legal recognition denies them more than one thousand rights and privileges that go with legal marriage.

2) What vested interest is there to keep marriage as defined between a man and a woman? Survival of human species through reproduction? Granting legal marriage rights to ten percent of population (gay couples) will not stop the rest of ninety percent of population from continuing to reproduce. Not to mention that reproduction happens outside as well within marriage.

3) Nope, you're still wrong here. Gay men are treated different from straight men when denied legal recognition of their marriages. When laws says that "gay men cannot marry a person whom they choose as long as mutual consent is present, but that straight men can marry a person whom they choose as long as mutual consent is present," there is discrimination and thus, different treatment. Gay men and lesbians are NOT treated the same in this respect.

[chequita guevara]

[Q=MrFun;5597112]All of the suffering that humans have gone through and continue to experience in this world come from our free will to choose between right and wrong. God does not intervene in this regard, because he would have to take away our free will - and he doesn't want to take that away from us because along with the bad, there is good that comes with having free will.[/q]

Bull****. There is plenty of suffering in our lives that doesn't come about by choice. Disease, being one of the big ones.

So I do not see God as being mean-spirited because he "allows" us to continue to suffer DUE TO OUR OWN ACTIONS. As for natural disasters that cause mass suffering that is out of our control, I do not believe God is responsible as these are explained by science - the source of these disasters are not from God.

"God" created the rules. If I don't have a railing protecting my staircase, and my baby falls over the edge and dies, I'm not absolved simply because I didn't chuck the baby over the edge. If you believe in a deity as the creator of the universe, then logically, that deity is responsible for everything that happens within it because of the rules it created.

Of course, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest the existence of such a creator.

[MrFun]

from, Identity and the Case for Gay Rights: Race, Gender, Religion as Analogies by David A. J. Richards (1999)

On the view I have taken, the moral slavery of homosexuals is as much constitutionally condemned by the Thirteenth Amendment as that of African Americans and women, and the correlative guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment must be interpreted accordingly to give effect to this rights-based normative judgment in all its relevant dimensions. These dimensions include the abridgment of the basic human rights (conscience, speech, intimate life, and work) and the inadequate sectarian grounds on which such abridgments have been rationalized. Even discrimination on grounds of sexual preference has now been acknowledged by the Supreme Court as a ground to some degree thus suspect (Romer versus Evans, 1996). The right to intimate life has played an important role in each of these interpretative developments . . . because its abridgment has been so historically connected to the cultural formation and support of rights-denying dehumanizing prejudices. page 156 of book

Now, we can update this author's argument with the recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling that has declared the unconstitutionality of prohibiting legal gay marriages.

Antimiscegenation laws thus continued, long after the Civil War, the dehumanizing attitudes to African Americans that had, under slavery, deprived them of the basic rights to intimate life (including marriage and control of family relations) and thus dehumanizing their treatment to the level of cattle and reduced to their utility (including reproductive fertility in producing further slaves) to the master class. Antimiscegenation laws abridged the basic human right of intimate life in a way that sustained the sectarian sexual mythology of the subhuman image of African Americans. page 157 of book

Author went on to say that we see today how prohibitions against legal gay marriage similarly dehumanizes gay men and lesbians in eyes of many straight people. Gay men and lesbians are unworthy to be permitted to freely exercise the right to intimate life.

You can try distorting the point by saying that gay men and lesbians can enter relationships with another without legal recognition but the point here is that they are denied the more than one thousand privileges and rights that go with legal marriage. And such discrimination has no compelling, secular grounds. Gay and lesbian couples may be free to associate with one another intimately but without legal recognition by our government, straight people's dehumanization of gays and lesbians is that much more strongly reinforced, along with denial of basic human rights.

[MrFun]

Bull****. There is plenty of suffering in our lives that doesn't come about by choice. Disease, being one of the big ones.

I already covered that in my post, with my comment on natural disasters.

[Ben Kenobi]

Declaring that polygamy is not one of guaranteed rights for American citizens does not extend to denying legal recognition to gay marriages.

Actually, yes it does. When Reynolds says that the state ultimately determines marriage within it's own jurisdiction. In short, there is no fundamental right to marriage wrt to Polygamy, ergo, there is none for gay marriage either. Reynolds says that the state decides, even in the absence of benefits because legal recognition in and of itself confers privileges backed by the state.

The judges who wrote their majority ruling on polygamy were ignorant of the fact that throughout human history, marriage has been a dynamic, changing institution.

Reynolds, if you read the decision, discusses that very fact. They reject the notion that because different societies have different definitions of marriage, that this bars the government of the united states from determining what marriage should be within it's own jurisdiction. Plurality of marriage is assumed in Reynolds, which is why the state ought to have control, to establish a consistant standard.

Another point is that extending such legal recognition to gay marriages will not violate the union of a man and a woman in monogamous, heterosexual unions.

Reynolds asserts that Polygamy, by definition breaks the union existing. Ergo, polygamy is legally impossible. The argument wrt to gay marriage is that the union is defined, in and of itself as between a man and a woman, and that alternative arrangements do not fulfill these requirements.

Reynolds defines marriage as centered not on love, but on the union, which is why Polygamy is rejected because you cannot be in union, with two women at once.

My marrying another gay man will have no effect on your marriage with a woman - your marriage will remain inviolate.

The union of a man and a man does not meet the qualifications to establish a marriage, as it does the union of a man and a woman. The effect on other partners is irrelevant, the actual union is not the same. No union, no marriage.

I'm not an advocate for legally recognized polygamous marriages but unless I'm mistaken, such an advocate would argue here that such a prohibition would indeed be a violation of their basic right to marry - they would NOT be treated equally.

You miss the point. The law on equal protection does not represent groups of individuals, rather it recognises individuals by themselves. It guarantees equal protection of the law to each individual citizen of the US. While it would treat the group differently, it does not treat the individual man or woman differently.

1) The fact that the federal government has the right to legislate policy on what constitutes legally recognized marriage does not entitle the federal government to legislate UNJUST laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians no more than that this privilege allows federal government to make unjust, discriminatory laws prohibiting interracial marriage just because federal government has authority to decide what constitutes legal marriages.

Dealt with already. Gay marriage bans pass the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment because it treats individual men exactly the same. It returns the same outcome irrespective of sexual orientation, that it is permissible for them to marry a woman. Whereas one may believe that the law as it stands is unjust, it does not violate the 14th amendment. This is not true of Loving, where an interracial ban will not necessarily return the same outcome depending on the race of the partners.

To say that gay men and lesbians can continue to associate with one another and still sustain a relationship without legally recognized marriage is to ignore the fact that deprivation of such legal recognition denies them more than one thousand rights and privileges that go with legal marriage.

Much as couples engaged in bigamy and polygamy are deprived legal recognition. Yet you would deny legal recognition to these couples.

2) What vested interest is there to keep marriage as defined between a man and a woman?

Reynolds states explicitly that it is for the preservation and good order of society to maintain the definition of one man and one woman.

Survival of human species through reproduction? Granting legal marriage rights to ten percent of population (gay couples) will not stop the rest of ninety percent of population from continuing to reproduce. Not to mention that reproduction happens outside as well within marriage.

Reynolds rightly concludes that marriage outside of these bounds is an impediment to good order and the preservation of society, and therefore is not entitled to legal recognition. It is not enough to simply say that it will only harm a proportion of society, while maintaining the majority. Reynolds argues that the purpose of marriage laws is to ensure the perpetuation of society, and that definitions contrary to one man and woman act contrary to the purposes of the law in the first place.

3) Nope, you're still wrong here. Gay men are treated different from straight men when denied legal recognition of their marriages.

How so? Example A. I go to the marriage register, as a straight man and attempt to marry Jim Bob, who is also straight. The government denies the marriage.

Example B. You go to the marriage register to get married to Asher. You are denied. Same result for both of us.

Example C. I go to get hitched to Mariah Carey. The state approves, we are married.

Example D. You go to get married to Ella Fitzgerald. The state approves you are married. The law returns exactly the same result irrespective of the sexual orientation of the parties.

Equal protection laws are limited in this manner, in that the law must not return different results depending on the plaintiff.

When laws says that "gay men cannot marry a person whom they choose

The same law applies to straight men also. You cannot say that equal protection is violated, unless it were to permit me to marry a man as a straight man, and bar you from marrying a man, or vice versa. Or if the law were to permit gay men to marry, and not lesbians, or vice versa.

as long as mutual consent is present, but that straight men can marry a person whom they choose

I cannot marry a straight man.

What you really mean to say is that you want to marry a man, and that the straight man wants to marry a woman. Wants are irrelevant. I could want to marry my sister, but the law would not permit it even through mutual consent. I could want to marry two women. Are you saying that I would love those two women less then you love another man?

[chequita guevara]

I already covered that in my post, with my comment on natural disasters.

Yeah, and I pointed out that your explanation was crap. Don't cherry pick like Ben.

[MrFun]

"God" created the rules. If I don't have a railing protecting my staircase, and my baby falls over the edge and dies, I'm not absolved simply because I didn't chuck the baby over the edge. If you believe in a deity as the creator of the universe, then logically, that deity is responsible for everything that happens within it because of the rules it created.

Of course, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest the existence of such a creator.

Just to be sure I'm not cherry picking . . .

1) I do not believe that God created the universe, or life. Rather, I believe in astrophysics and evolution.

2) The nature of faith, is that it is not dependent on need for evidence in order to believe.

[MrFun]

BK, your asinine claim that straight men are not allowed to marry straight men completely ignores the point. Gay men are attracted to men, while straight men are attracted to women. So a straight man has the freedom to marry a consenting straight woman while a gay man is prohibited from marrying a consenting gay man. Hence, there is DIFFERENT treatment under the law. DUH

Also, you distorted my argument by saying that I am for allowing harm to ten percent of population. There is NO harm in a gay man marrying another gay man. It's a positive good when it results in stable, loving relationship between the two gay men.

Okay, the judges did indeed discuss the fact that there have been different concepts of marriage. But the point is not that the federal government has no authority to legislate on legal marriage because marriage has changed throughout history. Rather, the point IS that because of such changes and differences, judges ought not justify unjust, discriminatory laws on premise that concept of marriage should never be changed, as if such change in of itself always has to be a bad thing.

It's almost 2:30 in morning - I'm done for now.

[Solomwi]

No-fault divorce removes those penalties. There is no burden on the party who breaks the agreement without mutual consent. This is the problem.

No it doesn't. No-fault divorce speaks to the allowed reasons for instituting a divorce, not to the repercussions of doing so.

Marriage is a promise, "until death do you part". That's a pretty serious promise you are making.

Sometimes it is, and usually it's meant to be, but from a purely contractual standpoint, that's irrelevant, as I'll discuss below.

That is what marriage is yes. You consent and you don't get to have do-overs. Ongoing consent isn't a factor because you are promising to be with them until you pass away.

No, it's not. Again, I'll expound on this below, but marriage requires both parties to continuously affirm their consent to be married to one another.

Marriage as a contract should have those safeguards in them in all cases. No fault divorce denies that anything approaching a binding contract has been signed, that it is a testimony of momentary feelings, nothing more.

Here you're doing two things wrong (besides once again misdefining no-fault divorce): (1) trying to impose your view of what a contract you're not party to should say, and (2) misunderstanding what it means to have a binding contract. First, you're free to put whatever safeguards you like into your marriage, but your preference in safeguards is irrelevant to the general question of consent. Second, the fact that a contract can be ended, even prematurely, makes it no less binding. In fact, any contract can be ended prematurely by one party, and without penalty. Actually, penalty clauses in contracts are not enforceable in the U.S. The purpose of the law when a contract is breached is not to penalize the breaching party or force continued performance, but to put the non-breaching party in the same position he would have been had the contract been carried out (hence alimony, the enforcement of the duty of spousal support even after the marriage ends). Sure, there are cases where specific performance will be enforced, but (1) those are typically cases where it won't force the parties to interact much, such as a contract for the sale of land (you make the sale and go your separate ways), and (2) marriage is most like a personal services contract, on which specific performance is not enforced. You want a marriage to your particular spouse, not a marriage to anybody, just like someone who hires Prince to play a concert wants a show from Prince, not just any musical show.

Ongoing consent is irrelevant to the issue. You've promised to remain married until death do you part. If you aren't equipped or ready to make such a promise, then you shouldn't enter marriage in the first place.

Ongoing consent is the issue. Whether you should have made the promise is beside the point. You did, and now you find yourself miserable because of it, so miserable that the expense, hassle and other costs associated with divorce look preferable to continuing to fulfill that promise. Your preferred regime makes marriage consent/no consent, since your spouse can now force you to remain in a marriage to which you no longer consent.

It would change the fact that the marriage could be dissolved based on that one person's wishes against the person who does want to be married. If you want to get divorce, then you should have to convince the person you are married to that it would be best. I don't think it's fair to the party on the other end to wake up one morning and end up divorced based on the dissatisfaction of the other.

No it wouldn't. It would change the consequences of making that decision, not whether it could be made. Again, when you get married, feel free to include a "divorce only by mutual consent" clause (and good luck getting specific performance on that, should you ever need to), but don't presume from your own ideas of fairness that it should be universal.

Why do you believe that contracts require ongoing consent? That's not true at all.

Because it's how contracts work, and absolutely true. If you and I agree that you're going to supply widgets to my factory (even if we stipulate that the arrangement is to last until one of us dies), performance of the contract requires both of our consent to persist. I affirm my continuing consent every time I place an order, and you every time you fill one. If I find a better deal on widgets, I can end our contract. If I stop needing widgets I can end our contract. If you find a buyer willing to pay a higher price or stop selling widgets, you can end the contract. It only takes one of us withdrawing consent. I may have to pay you damages based on the profit you expected to make by selling me widgets (or the expense you undertook in reliance on my promise to buy), or you may have to pay me damages and/or find me a replacement source of widgets, but it still only took one of us no longer consenting to end the deal. The fact that a contract is to establish a marital relationship, rather than a vendor relationship, doesn't change the consent requirements.

Anything that requires mutual consent (and contacts, by definition, require mutual consent) can be destroyed by unilateral removal of consent. To make it otherwise is to change the initial requirement of mutual consent.

[Ben Kenobi]

BK, your asinine claim that straight men are not allowed to marry straight men completely ignores the point.

We aren't permitted to marry gay men either, and gay men aren't allowed to marry us.

Gay men are attracted to men, while straight men are attracted to women. So a straight man has the freedom to marry a consenting straight woman while a gay man is prohibited from marrying a consenting gay man. Hence, there is DIFFERENT treatment under the law.

Once again, the law applies equally to everyone. Gay men want the law to treat them differently. That's fine, but the state determines the definition, and there is nothing unconstitutional about them rejecting gay marriage. Attraction is irrelevent. They don't hook up partners to an attraction gage, to determine whether they are sufficiently attracted to one another to marry. The only thing that does matter is whether the couple meets the state requirements, and whether they have mutual consent.

Also, you distorted my argument by saying that I am for allowing harm to ten percent of population.

Your argument that it affects only 10 percent of the people while leaving 90 percent, fails. It can be used equally as an argument by anyone on the fringes to change the definition.

There is NO harm in a gay man marrying another gay man. It's a positive good when it results in stable, loving relationship between the two gay men.

Statistics show otherwise, that gay men live shorter lives on average, significantly shorter then what would be expected. The state has a vested interest in the preservation and the perpetuation of the state. Changing the definition to accommodate a fringe desire which works contrary to the purposes of marriage, doesn't benefit the state.

Okay, the judges did indeed discuss the fact that there have been different concepts of marriage. But the point is not that the federal government has no authority to legislate on legal marriage because marriage has changed throughout history. Rather, the point IS that because of such changes and differences, judges ought not justify unjust, discriminatory laws on premise that concept of marriage should never be changed, as if such change in of itself always has to be a bad thing.

The law doesn't even say what you are trying to make it say. The law simply says that the authority rests with the state to determine marriage, and that preserving the definition of marriage between one man and one woman is constitutional. Your argument that because marriage has changed in other jurisdictions is a terrible argument, it says nothing about the authority of the state to define marriage in it's own jurisdiction.

Reynold's argues just the opposite. Reynolds looks at the legal tradition wrt to Polygamy (which has a much stronger case), and argues that in English Law, which is the foundation of American law, there is no traditional support for polygamy whatsoever. The same is true for gay marriage. Labels such as 'unjust' and 'discriminatory', again can be applied equally to the requirement for monogamy. You've not given me a single argument to justify your own position of this far and no further.

My concern, and I live in a jurisdiction which approved polygamy 5 years after it approved gay marriage. I don't think your argument works in the real world, and that polygamy and gay marriage are bundled together.

[Drake Tungsten]

Proponents of gay marriage that are opposed to legalizing polygamy are massive hypocrites.

[Ben Kenobi]

No it doesn't. No-fault divorce speaks to the allowed reasons for instituting a divorce, not to the repercussions of doing so.

Actually, it works in the opposite way. The party least likely to initiate the divorce is the most likely to pay penalties associated with marriage. This is wrong. The party who initiates the divorce should bear the costs for their decision, unless abuse is involved.

No, it's not. Again, I'll expound on this below, but marriage requires both parties to continuously affirm their consent to be married to one another.

No, it doesn't. It requires them to affirm it once. Why do you believe it requires both parties to continuously affirm their consent? I've never heard anyone say that about marriage before.

Here you're doing two things wrong (besides once again misdefining no-fault divorce): (1) trying to impose your view of what a contract you're not party to should say,

Actually, I'm stating that contracts work this way, including marriage. I'm rejecting your argument that any contract can be written in such a way as to require a party to continuously affirm their consent.

and (2) misunderstanding what it means to have a binding contract. First, you're free to put whatever safeguards you like into your marriage, but your preference in safeguards is irrelevant to the general question of consent.

All contracts have some sort of penalties associated with breaking the contract. I'm arguing that the law should have required penalties in place wrt to marriage.

Second, the fact that a contract can be ended, even prematurely, makes it no less binding.

Oh, I'm not arguing that at all. I'm simply arguing that right now the system doesn't work the way it should. Most people filing for divorce actually benefit, at least financially, which is the opposite way that contracts are supposed to work.

In fact, any contract can be ended prematurely by one party, and without penalty.

No, not true at all. The party who breaks the contract is usually punished for doing so, usually financially, as a way to protect both parties.

Actually, penalty clauses in contracts are not enforceable in the U.S. The purpose of the law when a contract is breached is not to penalize the breaching party or force continued performance, but to put the non-breaching party in the same position he would have been had the contract been carried out (hence alimony, the enforcement of the duty of spousal support even after the marriage ends).

Umm, you most certainly can have penalty clauses in contracts. Marriage doesn't do this though. It pays out alimony, even when the husband is the non-breaching party, it pays out child support, even when the husband is the non-breaching party. This is the problem. It doesn't restore the non-breaching party to where they were prior to marriage, instead it puts them in a worse position then when they were married, and in a worse position then prior to marriage.

I am arguing that the breaching party, to compensate for the losses sustained by the non-breaching party should give half their income to the non-breaching party. Child support should be waived if the husband is the non-breaching party.

Ongoing consent is the issue. Whether you should have made the promise is beside the point. You did, and now you find yourself miserable because of it, so miserable that the expense, hassle and other costs associated with divorce look preferable to continuing to fulfill that promise. Your preferred regime makes marriage consent/no consent, since your spouse can now force you to remain in a marriage to which you no longer consent.

No, they can't. You can get out, but it will cost you, like it would to break any other contract prematurely.

No it wouldn't. It would change the consequences of making that decision, not whether it could be made. Again, when you get married, feel free to include a "divorce only by mutual consent" clause (and good luck getting specific performance on that, should you ever need to), but don't presume from your own ideas of fairness that it should be universal.

It should be universal, and with most contracts, this is how they work. Specific performance isn't the issue, compensation is really the issue.

As for me, I wouldn't initiate the divorce, ever. It's simply out of the question.

Because it's how contracts work, and absolutely true. If you and I agree that you're going to supply widgets to my factory (even if we stipulate that the arrangement is to last until one of us dies), performance of the contract requires both of our consent to persist. I affirm my continuing consent every time I place an order, and you every time you fill one. If I find a better deal on widgets, I can end our contract. If I stop needing widgets I can end our contract. If you find a buyer willing to pay a higher price or stop selling widgets, you can end the contract. It only takes one of us withdrawing consent. I may have to pay you damages based on the profit you expected to make by selling me widgets (or the expense you undertook in reliance on my promise to buy), or you may have to pay me damages and/or find me a replacement source of widgets, but it still only took one of us no longer consenting to end the deal. The fact that a contract is to establish a marital relationship, rather than a vendor relationship, doesn't change the consent requirements.

Ok. That's exactly my point. You have to pay some sort of penalty associated with breaking the contract. The same should be for marriage too.

[chequita guevara]

Just to be sure I'm not cherry picking . . .

1) I do not believe that God created the universe, or life. Rather, I believe in astrophysics and evolution.

2) The nature of faith, is that it is not dependent on need for evidence in order to believe.

So you believe in a God that had nothing to do with reality?

[Ben Kenobi]

I don't think he's even a Deist. Deists believe that God created the universe, but since then, God hasn't had to do anything at all.

Saying that God didn't create the universe? That's seriously way out there.