If gay marriage is legal so should a marriage between brother and sister be legal

They're not asking for "equal" rights. They're asking to have the same special priviledges that "striaght couples" have.

 

So you think the government should be able to prevent you from reproducing because you might pass on a disability to your child? Sounds like you're setting the stage for a eugenics movement to me.

 

So you're saying heterosexuals have "special privileges?"

Why should that be the case?

 

Hardly. Partnerships can have multiple partners.

 

Structured partnerships often have limits on the number of partners. A California LLC may be limited to 6 partners, a S corporation to 100, and a marriage to 2.​

 

It shouldn't be, that is the point. There should be no special tax benefits to married couples, or any other government benefits. All the other needs for marriage (inheritance, dissolving the marriage contract, children, etc) can be handled with a marriage contract. No license is needed. Any two individuals could write a marriage contract and call it that. If nobody else wants to recognize it as marriage, it doesn't matter. The government is not involved in the formation of the contract, so marriage is no a political issue. It becomes a purely moral issue for people to determine themselves.

 

It's not that simple (wish it was). There are significant concerns in how a couple is treated by the state. It's not so much a benefit as it is an accommodation or recognition hat the couple is living as a single unit.

Married couples don't pay less taxes than two individuals (the reverse is generally true), but the IRS allows them to file a single accounting of their combined expenses and income. It's not about paying less, but it is a hardship for a couple living one life to break out all their expenses and income and file separately. Think of how you and your college room mate split expenses and imagine doing that every year for life.

A contract won't extend 5th amendment privilege to both halves of a couple, without it the legal system can do an end run around a person's constitutional right by subpoenaing the person who's been sharing their life for decades.

The reason being married is a civil issue is because it fundamentally changes how the law sees us: two individuals or one couple. You take out that accommodation and you're unnecessarily making life a lot harder on anyone who wants to live as a couple. And contract law won't fix it.​

 

Sure sounds good, however until the day that the government is no longer involved in marriage, it need to be equally available and applied.

 

If shuch lobby did exist, it would have to make a little more noise to be heard. As lang as that doesn't happen, there is no point in fiction.

 

A couple is not a single unit. A couple is two individuals in a relationship with each other. There are still two units.

If the point is to make it easier for people living together to file taxes, then anyone who is living together should be able to file jointly, married or not. What you are referring to is a problem with the US tax code. Government marriage licenses should not be used to paper over these problems.

What about parents and their children? A parent can be forced to testify against their child, and a child against their parents. Assuming a healthy family relationship, parents and children know each other longer than spouses possibly could. I don't like the idea of subpoena in general. But why should someone be able to extend their 5th amendment right to their spouse, but not to their own blood?

What makes life harder for individuals is the law, not the absence of marriage licenses.

 

I agree. I just think getting rid of the license for good and allowing the people to determine what marriage is and isn't is a much better long-term solution. If government has the power to change the definition of marriage, it can change it again in the future to further discriminate against other groups of people.

 

Yes and no. Discrimination may be due or undue, depending on the situation. The government certainly can discriminate where doing so has a rational basis. It can do so if there's a compelling interest. It's desire to practice arbitrary, undue discrimination isn't unchecked.

 

No, just yes. If government can define marriage as only heterosexual now, it can define marriage that way again in the future.

 

It's the other way around. The marriage certificate doesn't patch the legal system, marriage predates the legal system and when new laws were introduced they took into consideration those couples who choose to live one life.

Marriage is two people merging their financial, social, and legal lives to form one couple. It's quite reasonable for the IRS and other institutions to respect that life choice, less reasonable for them to make the accommodation for room mates who might only be sharing an apartment for six months.

The law doesn't try to make it harder for couples, it expects those couples who want to be treated as one unit to demonstrate that commitment and marry -- and makes the appropriate accommodations for those that do. What makes it hard is denying that option to couples who have made the commitment to live as one.

And good luck subpoenaing a minors testimony on anything against the parents will.​

 

Dunno, you can claim it's an unintentional mistake or part of the learning process the first time. Once you know you're breaking the rules, it's harder to get it into law a second time. I won't say never... but I'd guess some restrictions the state has made on marriage in the past, then learned were wrong and removed won't be reversed.​

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Marriage does predate the legal system. Marriage licenses are something else. And couples are still living two lives. A couple is two individuals. If living together with someone without a marriage license is unnecessarily legally difficult, then the problem lies with the law. The problem is the tax code. If it were simplified, no accommodation would be necessary.

The law does make it harder for couples, unless those couples obtain a marriage license from government. That license is essentially a privilege given to people the government says deserve it. That is wrong no matter how you spin it.

I never said a thing about minors. You do not have to be a minor to have parents. You missed the point.

 

You cannot say with certainty that future discrimination will not occur. A license is discriminatory by its nature. Why should government have the power to define a social relationship?

 

You cannot say with certainty that future discrimination will not occur. A license is discriminatory by its nature. Why should government have the power to define a social relationship?

 

If anyone does that today they would be labeled sick and immortal. Same place gay people were in some years ago.

As is the case of gay marriage, what matters is how much support you have from the general public, not what argument you have for your stance.

 

I am starting to think that some of the people posting in this thread may have siblings for parents.

 

The public starts to support something they do not exist? A lobby has to be active to enter a process such as demanding rights. Especially in modern times, including internet and other highliy efficiant methods of communication, it doesn't matter how immoral something is deemed to be, as long as it's not prohibited by law a lobby will rise. Is there a growing trend of incest I'm not aware of?

 

Does government have the ability to do things that it shouldn't in violation of the Constitution? If that's all you mean, then yes; but you're completely ignoring the legal arguments as I laid them out.

I don't indulge one-liner posters who ignore context, post replies that are unresponsive to my points, troll, etc. If you want to have an honest discussion, we can have one. If you want to be a jerk, I can ignore you. Your choice.

 

In a court of law, the arguments do matter. We have a constitution for a reason, and some of it acts as a check on public opinion determining the rights of disfavored groups.

 

Is there something you want to tell us?

 

How will you enforce that caveat?