Agree or disagree with this statement regarding civil unions?

[JohnLocke]

Poll question: Agree or disagree with this statement regarding civil unions?

"The government should solemnize for all legal and public purposes, in the form of civil unions, the joining together of two people, and grant them full rights, responsibilities, and protections under the law, including all federal and state benefits, as long as the contractual agreement made is between consulting adults of reasonable age, and is not incestuous, bigamous, or polygamous in nature."

[Sandpiper]

1. I'm not bothered by polygamous or bigamous relationships either

As long as they're between consenting adults. I'm against incestuous relationships because it's bad for the gene pool.

[JohnLocke]

5. The thing about bigamy/polygamy is it leads to a host of social ills.

[Sandpiper]

8. My chief complaint with polygamous relationships

Is that in most places where it is/was practiced, it wasn't between consenting adults. It was usually a middle aged man with a harem of teenage brides.

[opiate69]

31. such as??

[jansu]

12. I agree, it is no one else's business what consenting adults do!

CONSENTING ADULTS IS THE POINT! There are many problems with any interaction between human beings. It does not matter what the makeup of these interactions is.

[JohnLocke]

2. For those who voted the secord or third answers, please respond.

[outinforce]

4. Responding

As requested, sir.

[JohnLocke]

6. Respond and justify.

:)

[outinforce]

9. Justifying

(or perhaps explaining)

My version of what I think/support goes this:

"The government should solemnize for all legal and public purposes, in the form of civil unions, the joining together of two or more people, and grant them full rights, responsibilities, and protections under the law, including all federal and state benefits, as long as the contractual agreement made is between consulting adults of reasonable age."

I can certainly support the joining together of two unrelated people.

But I do not like the part about limiting it to two, or about non-incestuous relationships.

[JohnLocke]

11. You support the right to incest and polygamy?

:wtf:

[outinforce]

13. Sure

Why would you want to deny two elderly sisters, or an daughter who cares for her elderly mother the right to be in a civil union and to enjoy the many government benefits that flow from that type of civil union? Is it because you think that civil unions necessarily mean sex? Please.

And why do you want to limit civil unions to just two people? Why not three gay guys? Or four lesbians? Or One straight guy, a bi-sexual guy, a bi-sexual woman, and a lesbian?

[JohnLocke]

15. That's disgusting.

[TahitiNut]

16. The "disgust" must be all in the mind of the disgusted, imho.

Try reading again ...

"The government should solemnize for all legal and public purposes, in the form of civil unions, the joining together of two or more people, and grant them full rights, responsibilities, and protections under the law, including all federal and state benefits, as long as the contractual agreement made is between consulting adults of reasonable age."

There is absolutely nothing "disgusting" there and, in particular, there is nothing that refers to anything sexual of any kind.

Nor was there anything of a sexual nature in the original message -- which is one of the reasons many might have indicated their agreement with it! After all, what fucking (pun intended) business is it of the government whether or not (or even how!) consenting adults privately exercise their sexuality??

IMHO, it's a sign of self-righteous zealotry to project one's own imagined "disgust" onto others.

____________

Corporations can "join" together and form a "union" of many and "reproduce" demon spawn by the hundreds and fuck over virtually everyone ... so why are human beings not allowed to exercise the (in)human rights of corporations???

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[outinforce]

17. You Asked

I replied.

If you really did not want an answer (or only wanted an answer that agreed with your views), why did you ask?

I would point out that there are many people in our society today who would respond to the statement posed in your poll as follows:

"That's disgusting".

[Djinn]

21. If it's not sexual then it's not incestuous

Having a relationship with ones sister or brother isn't incestuous - so you actually don't agree with legalising incest.

As for who marries who I really couldn't give a toss - I've always viewed marriage as pretty pointless - I'm not religious and I already "live in sin", but I, as a hetero chick have the option. I also get protection under the law as a defacto, but even that isn't overly important to me - I've pretty much always earned more than my other half and have no plans to reproduce so the financial thing isn't too important, in the area of health/death the other half's family would leave it up to me anyway.

Give every couple (or committed threesome or whatever) full rights after a certain period of cohabitation - personally I think that'd generally be couples coz it's hard enough for two people to live together for (say) 2 years plus but if you make it work with 3 who am I to say you shouldn't.

As for marriage in a church - I'm of the opinion that "I don't want to join any club that doesn't want me" but who wants to sit theough a boring arsed church wedding anyway!

[outinforce]

26. My Objection Was

to the part in the OP about not allowing marriage if the relationship was incestuous, which I tool to mean that marriages between closely-related people would not be alllowed.

I don't know what, exactly, one would call a marraige between a mother and a daughter, or between two sisters.

And I'm not sure I have any really big hang-up about sex (as long as it is between consenting adults) involving close relatives. Some say it "damages the gene pool", but there are plenty of other types of marriages that do that. Besides, since we do not screen people now who want to get married for potential "damage to the gene pool", why should we dney the right of marriage to close relatives, based upon some assumed (but not shown in any particular case) damage to the gene pool.

By the way, concerning your statement about "boring" church weddings -- might I suggest that you get out a little more. Some marriages -- especially straight marriages planned and coordinated by gay folks -- a just fab-u-lous!!

[TahitiNut]

27. Well, secular 'marriage' is not and has never been about sex.

Marriage, in the secular sense, is about property and nothing else. Anyone that knows even the first thing about divorce should be fully aware that it's only about property. (Even though it might seem like it, nobody has their genitals removed in a divorce or installed during a marriage.)

Let's state the very obvious: People have sexual intercourse of every kind either with or without a "permission slip" from Uncle Sam. It doesn't start with a license and a ceremony and it doesn't stop after divorce. Children are conceived and born irrespective of any "hall pass" by some pretentious priest or pompous potentate. Without a divorce, spouses can and do stop having intercourse and even with a divorce they often do not.

It's a total and complete fiction that marriage has even the slightest thing to do with sexual intercourse of any kind. When people choose to comply with a fiction, that's either called "religion" or "mime" -- it's not called justice.

The notion that incest or polygamy is somehow 'prevented' or 'prohibited' by the denial of a secular marriage is sheer insanity. If anything, merely by precluding the property distribution of a divorce process, it compounds the inequities. People fuck! It's a fact!

People should be free to define and comply their own "family values." To impose a narrow government definition of a legitimate 'family' based on such prejudices is the same as an 'establishment of religion' - commingling the secular with religious repression.

_____

Closing thought: When we associate sex with property it's called prostitution. When a government does it, it's no better than a pimp.

[arewethereyet]

33. wrong

marriage legitimizes sex and more specifically the result of sex which is children. marriage can be terminated for sex with someone other than the spouse.

noone disputes that sex happens in many ways with many partners but to suggest that sex plays no part in the socio-legal aspects of marriage is obviously incorrect. and has been so for as long as the institution has existed.

[TahitiNut]

35. Nonsense.

To the degree that marriage and intercourse have been wrongly related legally, marriage actually illegitimizes sexual intercourse. Let's, for instance, take the example of adultery.

adultery

conjugal infidelity. An adulterer was a man who had illicit intercourse with a married or a betrothed woman, and such a woman was an adulteress. Intercourse between a married man and an unmarried woman was fornication.
Adultery was regarded as a great social wrong, as well as a great sin. The Mosaic law (Num. 5:11-31) prescribed that the suspected wife should be tried by the ordeal of the "water of jealousy." There is, however, no recorded instance of the application of this law. In subsequent times the Rabbis made various regulations with the view of discovering the guilty party, and of bringing about a divorce. It has been inferred from John 8:1-11 that this sin became very common during the age preceding the destruction of Jerusalem. Idolatry, covetousness, and apostasy are spoken of as adultery spiritually (Jer. 3:6, 8, 9; Ezek. 16:32; Hos. 1:2:3; Rev. 2:22). An apostate church is an adulteress (Isa. 1:21; Ezek. 23:4, 7, 37), and the Jews are styled "an adulterous generation" (Matt. 12:39). (Comp. Rev. 12.)
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=adultery

Historically, where laws prohibited adultery, it was typically only with regards to a married woman -- who was regarded as PROPERTY! It's about the PROPERTY! The reason it was considered a "social wrong" is because it was regarded like theft. Women were chattel -- a form of property.

Nonetheless, such restrictions were actually only imposed on married people. Sexual intercourse between two single people is not adultery and isn't legally prohibited. Thus, marriage had the "legal" impact of making something "illegal" that wasn't "illegal" for unmarried people.

[arewethereyet]

36. tell that to a family court judge

and he'll wonder why so many couples come in there complaining about infidelity.

[Djinn]

32. Don't know what it'd be called either

but it wouldn't be called incestuous if there was no sexual contact - by definition.

[damnraddem]

3. Get government out of the marriage business altogether.

Civil unions can account for all needed government concern with couples'/families' relationships.

[JohnLocke]

7. Right on!

[Woodstock]

28. Agreed

If marriage is something "religious" - that's the reason used to oppose gay marriages - then why should the government be involved in the first place?

[meatloaf]

10. It's time to grow up and act like the adults we claim to be.

In that context we have to examine all forms of marriage that are not a direct threat to society including bigamy, polygamy, polyandry, etc...

The only logical requirement is between consenting adults of reasonable age.

[ihaveaquestion]

14. Adult relationships are no-one

else's business. Get gov't out of it except in the enforcement of the legal contracts and the protection of children's rights.

[Bertha Venation]

18. As long as it applies to couples of whatever gender mix - I agree. eom

[Deja Q]

20. Let bigamy and polyagamy through.

Hell, if half the heteros can't keep their marriages (but sometimes for good reasons), we may as well bestow the same waste of time onto other consenting-adult-only groups who won't live by the vows either. :eyes:

[AP]

22. "solemnize"? Forget that. You should be able to register your partnership

on the internet.

Let the church do the solemnifying (if you even care to do so).

Getting access to a set of such valuable rights and duties (as are conferred by marriage today) should be made as simple as possible.

The decision to engage in that relations should be made in private, according to your own beliefs. Once you get over the private hurdle, the government should make the public part as simple and easy to do as possible, and shouldn't be looking into your heart or your sould for anything more.

Is getting a drivers license or registering a C-corp solemn? No it isn't -- at least not as far as the governemtn is concerned.

[arcos]

23. "... in the form of civil unions"

no marriage :thumbsdown:

[Darranar]

24. I voted "yes"...

but I disagree with some parts of it; I didn't notice the ending.

I think polygamy should be legal.

[JohnLocke]

25. Kick (nt).

[ConcernedCanuk]

29. OK - I'll put my foot in . . .

.
.
.

The original post:

"The government should solemnize for all legal and public purposes, in the form of civil unions, the joining together of two people, and grant them full rights, responsibilities, and protections under the law, including all federal and state benefits, as long as the contractual agreement made is between consulting adults of reasonable age, and is not incestuous, bigamous, or polygamous in nature."

I suggest:

"The government should solemnize for all legal and public purposes, in the form of civil unions, the joining together of two people, and grant them full rights, responsibilities, and protections under the law, including all federal and state benefits.

and stop there.

WHOAH you say . . that's too open ended.

Well, consider this:

Each state already has their own versions of the rest:

", as long as the contractual agreement made is between consulting adults of reasonable age, and is not incestuous, bigamous, or polygamous in nature."

I say leave that part up to each state.

Heck, sure don't need 50 states revisiting all the issues around age, incest, bigamy, and polygamy.

That just opens the door to revisit isues like oral, . . I don't need to list all the rest of the issues that could be dragged into this discussion. I'm sure everyone can create their own "list".

The issues are the "joining" and "benefits" parts.

- leave it at that.

[MrPrax]

30. wow...

why bother unfreeping a Fox poll when you can do it here...

edit: 'civil unions' for 'marriage' and you got my vote...

[Dark Angel]

34. What's wrong with bigamy and polygamy?

I can undersatnd the incest thing, but if the bigamy and polygamy is consensual, I see no problem with it. The Republicans are just trying to bring those up as part of a slippery slope argument. Please don't buy their anti-gay crap. We need to stick together against them.

I support gay marriage. Civil unions are not good enough for gay people.

[JohnLocke]

37. Bigamy and polygamy lead to a host of social ills.

[Dhalgren]

38. People lead to social ills. Or perhaps society

leads to social ills. Any relationship of any kind CAN lead to a social ill. Simply saying that "polygamy leads to social ills" is meaningless. Society sets up rules to govern itself by; if the rules are followed there will be no "ills" (beyond what is unavoidable). The rules are arbitrary in that trial and error come into play (as well as desired power relationships). To simply catagorize social relationships as the source of social ills is like saying physical contact is the source of injuries in football - ya' think?

[ret5hd]

39. you keep saying that as if...

repeating it often enough makes it true (or at least believed).

There is another group i know of that does that, but i can't put my finger on their name right now...hmmmm.

Why not detail what all of those "social ills" are while i think on it a while.