Originally posted by SleepyguySo did the cave men receive benefits from the state for....well....you know, whatever it is they did after they clubed their victim on the head?
Marriage, even the homosexual kind, has been around far longer that the state. Here's video proof!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPnCqsNv9v4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karankawa
The Karankawa (also Karankawan, Clamcoëhs, and called in their language Auia) were a group of Native American peoples, now extinct as a tribal group, who played a pivotal part in early Texas history.
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Exposure to new infectious diseases, loss of control over territory, conflict with the newly arrived Europeans, and war brought them to extinction before 1860.
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Gender roles
One unusual aspect of the Karankawa culture was their distinction in having three gender roles: male, female, and a third role taken on by some males. Males who took on this third role are called berdache (Karankawa: monanguia[1]), and generally took on female roles and activities in daily life, while playing a special role in religious rites. According to some accounts, the berdache were passive sexual partners for the regular males.[2]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berdache
Two-Spirit People (also Two Spirit or Twospirit), is an English term that emerged in 1990, out of the third annual inter-tribal Native American/First Nations gay and lesbian conference, in Winnipeg, to describe Native Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations indigenous groups. The mixed gender roles encompassed by the term historically included wearing the clothing and performing the work associated with both men and women.
A direct translation of the Ojibwe term, Niizh manidoowag, "two-spirited" or "two-spirit" is usually used to indicate a person whose body simultaneously houses a masculine spirit and a feminine spirit. The term can also be used more abstractly, to indicate presence of two contrasting human spirits (such as Warrior and Clan Mother) or two contrasting animal spirits (which, depending on the culture, might be Eagle and Coyote); however, these uses, while descriptive of some aboriginal cultural practices and beliefs, depart somewhat from the 1990 purposes of promoting the term.
According to Brian Joseph Gilly, male berdachism "was a fundamental institution among most tribal peoples."[1] Will Roscoe writes that male and female berdaches have been "documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America, among every type of native culture."[2]
Originally posted by whodeyI think the real question is, is it right for those of the same gender to marry each other?
Just out of curiosity, how many here think that the state has no business in deciding who can marry and who does not? Should the state OK a marriage or should they keep their nose out of our affairs?
The state entirely tolerates - by continuing to grant the full panoply of basic rights to participants - all manner of 'unconventional' relationships. So long as the living arrangements and sexual relations within those arrangements do not break laws (protecting animals and children, preventing non-consensual arrangments, etc), people can do as they wish. But it's bizarre to suggest the state has 'no business' in who marries, since marriage is a form of formal recognition by the state of a type of living arrangement. It is precisely the state's business.
So long as everyone consents, a man in Britain may live with as many women as he wishes and have children with as many of them as he wishes; that does not mean that the state must, or should, fully recognise polygamy as a form of marriage. It does not mean that there are not states which should and do formally recognise the practice.
Reducing this, yet again, to the tiresome discourse on rights is peremptory and nihilistic, as always: jurisprudunce taking the place of politics.
Originally posted by DrKFWhy must the state recognize a living arrangement?
. But it's bizarre to suggest the state has 'no business' in who marries, since marriage is a form of formal recognition by the state of a type of living arrangement. It is precisely the state's business.
Originally posted by DrKFWhy is polygamy "immoral" or inferior in the eyes of the state?
So long as everyone consents, a man in Britain may live with as many women as he wishes and have children with as many of them as he wishes; that does not mean that the state must, or should, fully recognise polygamy as a form of marriage. It does not mean that there are not states which should and do formally recognise the practice.
Reducing this, yet again, ...[text shortened]... e on rights is peremptory and nihilistic, as always: jurisprudunce taking the place of politics.[/b]
I have become of the opinion that the state has NO business deciding who can marry and who cannot. Really the question becomes, what benefits should the state give through marriage? Why should it give any? The state is deciding a matter than not only extends entitlements to the populace, it also decides upon a highly devisive and controversial issue of what marriage should consist of. What this does is only further divide an already politically polarized culture as well as eat up resources of the state that should be going towards other things. In short, I don't want to watch another political debate with a commentator asking, "What do you think of gay marriage?" Who cares what he thinks? If they want to marry then let them marry so long as they can find someone willing to perform a ceremony for them. Whether the baffoon in question thinks thumbs up or thumbs down should be irrelavent. The state should mind its own business. The only reason anyone cares what the baffoon thinks of marriage who is in office or running for office is because they want to know what benefits from the state they can recieve for getting married when really nothing should be given.
Originally posted by whodeyAs marriage is an economic arrangement, I think enforcement of contracts is one role that government has. I certainly think government has a role in forbidding "marriage" where there is no consent or some kind of illegal duress. An argument can be made for various 'benefits' for legally defined 'married couples' etc. though not being an enthusiastic supporter of redistributive subsidies and payments, I will leave it to others to argue that case. If these 'benefits' do exist they should apply to all couples equally, regardless of sexual orientation.
I have become of the opinion that the state has NO business deciding who can marry and who cannot. Really the question becomes, what benefits should the state give through marriage?