Political Crossfire Forums

[John Galt]

Skeptical Mystic wrote: John Galt wrote: Skeptical Mystic wrote: John Galt wrote: I don't think there is one, considering the rational basis for government-sanctioned heterosexual marriages revolve around procreation (they do their blood tests and whatnot and are trying to encourage more taxpayers) and homosexuals are incapable of creating offspring in a homosexual marriage.
In other words, the stabilizing influence upon society of two people settling down as a couple and supporting each other financially and domestically has no meaning in this equation. Only procreation matters and you don't care about the exceptions within the heterosexually married population.

Government interests are not necessarily moved forward by creating more 'taxpayers', especially when a significant number are so poor that they don't pay taxes and it actually costs the government more to have them around.

If you're argument about procreation were true, we'd have all-out government bans on contraception and abortion. Your so-called 'rational' argument, isn't.

No, children in homes with both a mother and a father are not poor, and the government thus has an interest in fostering their development in such a manner, since it will most likelylead the child to have a succesful life. I don't see where you get this argument about poor people. Decrease the surplus population eh?

In truth, nearly zero people in this country are poor. I find your premise of "significant numbers" of people being poor incorrect, as nearly everyone in this country has a TV (something along the lines of 97% of the bottom fifth have a color TV). Since the standard of being poor or not has been tradtionally food on the table and shelter, if nearly everyone in this country has a TV, then they have food and shelter and there are statistically no poor people to speak of.
\/ This isn't about the definition of what constitutes poverty. The central point of your argument was the creation of more taxpayers. You cannot deny the FACT that there are a number of people in this country who are considered 'poor enough' that they don't pay taxes and in fact receive monetary and other assistance from the government. Whether or not those people own a TV set is irrelevant to the question of whether or not they pay taxes - the central part of your so-called 'rational' argument for government recognition of heterosexual marriage.

OK, well most people in this country pay taxes, so your point is moot.

Quote: Quote: As for the "stablizing influence on society" that "two people" have, considering the idea of homosexual marriage seems to be tearing this country apart with people very upset about the issue, it isn't very stabilizing now is it.
The arguments over gay marriage can hardly be characterized as tearing this country apart. If anything, the majority are quite united in their resistance to the idea - if you doubt that, look at how lopsided the numbers are in those states that have put the question to a vote. It is that resistance to recognizing gay marriages that is causing the strife - NOT the marriages themselves, which do provide the stabilizing influence of which I spoke.

That made no sense. Sure, the two people may be stable, as in they are no longer being as promiscous as typically gay men are (but women civilize men, not marriage, so maybe not -- my better half, who has applied for jobs with some "Lavender" magazine or something like that, if this tells you anything about how she is, finally came to the realization that I was correct about that statement because on Oprah they revealed that factoid. I've been saying it for years...) but a society that feels as their marriages are being taken from them by a despotic court who are made up of elites and detached from society yet somehow think they should and can govern it is anything but stable so your argument fails.

Quote: Quote: Furthermore, I do care about the exceptions but unlike mandating homosexual marriages
Total mischaracterization. No one is 'mandating homosexual marriages' - no one is forcing anyone to enter into such an arrangement, or requiring states to meet a certain quota of gay marriages.

Court rulings? Yes, okay. You know there have been Court rulings that mandated gay marriage, correct? OK. Then it isn't a mischarachertization at all. It's more like "stating a fact."

Quote: Quote: this is an equal protection issue and it would not be constitutional to dissallow sanctioning of a man and a woman in marriage that did not invovle procreation.
If procreation is the center of your argument for there being a rational reason to recognize heterosexual marriages while denying all others, I say it's time to change the law, then. Only those who affirm their intent to reproduce should be allowed to marry, and if they fail to do so within a certain period of time, their marriages should be voided. No reason to maintain marriages once the couple has passed their reproductive years.

No, IF there is a rational reason to recognize only heterosexual marriages, procreation sure ain't it.

No, then it would violate equal protection. As it stands it denys NO MAN and NO WOMAN the ability to marry. You would have that changed, and thereby violate equal protection.

[F'losrix]

John Galt wrote: OK, well most people in this country pay taxes, so your point is moot.
Including gay couples whose marriages the government refuses to recognize, forcing them to subsidize an institution in which their participation is denied.

Quote: That made no sense. Sure, the two people may be stable, as in they are no longer being as promiscous as typically gay men are
Myth. Gay men aren't any more promiscuous than other men, and when they honestly and fully commit to a monogamous relationship, they're no more likely to fool around than straight men.

Quote: but women civilize men
BS. Men don't need women to be civilized. Coupling naturally leads people to tame some of their wild ways - and that applies just as much to gay couples as it does straight couples.

Quote: but a society that feels as their marriages are being taken from them by a despotic court
More BS & rhetoric. The court isn't taking away anyone's marriages. How does letting two guys or two women marry each other have ANY effect at all on someone else's heterosexual marriage? It doesn't - not in the least. If people 'feel' that it does, then that's very frankly their problem to deal with on a personal level. Denying a gay couple marriage recognition just because it will make some straight couple 'feel' bad is no way to run a progressive society.

Quote: who are made up of elites and detached from society yet somehow think they should and can govern it
Elites? Maybe. Detached from society? Very questionable. Think they should govern it? Funny, last I checked the judicial system was still a part of our system of government. For the court to be true despots, they'd have to be issuing arbitrary edicts. Since they only rule on the cases brought before them, your point is moot.

Quote: is anything but stable so your argument fails.
My argument doesn't fail because you concocted some fairy tale about a despotic court taking away the marriages of straight people. You'll need to do better than this.

Quote: Court rulings? Yes, okay. You know there have been Court rulings that mandated gay marriage, correct? OK. Then it isn't a mischarachertization at all. It's more like "stating a fact."
Still a mischaracterization. The court has not ordered anyone to have a gay marriage. It hasn't dictated that a certain number of gay marriages must be performed. It has only declared the barrier to recognition of gay couples' unions to be in conflict with that state's constitution - as a ruling in a case brought before them by a group of citizens. The court didn't just take this up on their own.

Quote: No, then it would violate equal protection. As it stands it denys NO MAN and NO WOMAN the ability to marry. You would have that changed, and thereby violate equal protection.
It's not a violation if the change is made part of the marriage laws. If marriage isn't a right, then the government can slap whatever 'reasonable' restrictions it pleases on the institution, correct? Making procreation (or the intent to actively pursue it) a required qualification for obtaining and renewing one's marriage license is little different from making gender a requirement. If it's made a part of the law, no equal protection violation, so long as all men and women who are qualified to procreate together have equal access to the institution. You can't argue otherwise without getting into the issue of substantive due process, which we already know you don't believe in.

You see, you aren't really claiming procreation as the rational basis for marriage recognition. You're claiming it as the rational basis to deny that recognition, then trying to eat your cake and have it, too.

So I renew my assertion: If procreation is the rational basis for marriage recognition, it should be incorporated into the laws that govern the institution. Requiring the parties to be opposite genders isn't enough.

[John Galt]

Skeptical Mystic wrote: John Galt wrote: OK, well most people in this country pay taxes, so your point is moot.
Including gay couples whose marriages the government refuses to recognize, forcing them to subsidize an institution in which their participation is denied.

No, it isn't denied. Gay people can marry. Just because we don't cater to everyones whim about who they want to marry doesn't mean anyone is being denied the ability to marry. You can marry.

Quote: Quote: That made no sense. Sure, the two people may be stable, as in they are no longer being as promiscous as typically gay men are
Myth. Gay men aren't any more promiscuous than other men, and when they honestly and fully commit to a monogamous relationship, they're no more likely to fool around than straight men.

Uh, no. Men are permiscuous. Women aren't. It's our respective natures.

Quote: Quote: but women civilize men
BS. Men don't need women to be civilized. Coupling naturally leads people to tame some of their wild ways - and that applies just as much to gay couples as it does straight couples.

No, it isn't BS. Women civilize men since men are biologically driven to spread their seed far and wide while women are driven to keep one man to keep a stable family structure. Women eventually win out the day for the same reason why men want to spread their seed and they civilize men. Get two men together and well, soon they've been through a few hundred in a night (which does happen. I noticed that new AIDS rate is back up in homosexuals (while they still have the vast majority of all cases) and people wonder why...).

Quote: Quote: but a society that feels as their marriages are being taken from them by a despotic court
More BS & rhetoric. The court isn't taking away anyone's marriages. How does letting two guys or two women marry each other have ANY effect at all on someone else's heterosexual marriage? It doesn't - not in the least. If people 'feel' that it does, then that's very frankly their problem to deal with on a personal level. Denying a gay couple marriage recognition just because it will make some straight couple 'feel' bad is no way to run a progressive society.

So what? You're entire thing is about how two people in love should beable to marry. No. Marriage isn't about love. It has really never been. It's about settling down and raising a family. It's the point of marriage. Love is not needed for a marriage to work. The people who spread such nonsense are the same ones who spread the liberalization of divorce laws. And now they want to mess with something that nearly everyone doesn't want messed with.

Quote: Quote: who are made up of elites and detached from society yet somehow think they should and can govern it
Elites? Maybe. Detached from society? Very questionable. Think they should govern it? Funny, last I checked the judicial system was still a part of our system of government. For the court to be true despots, they'd have to be issuing arbitrary edicts. Since they only rule on the cases brought before them, your point is moot.

The Judicial Branch is not allowed to govern. Period.

Yes, they issue on cases, but not all cases. They pick and choose and since there are thousands to choose from and they only pick 100 or so a year, they might as well be issuing edicts. They know what they are doing: destroying the Constitution.

And of course they are detactched from society. They are seperate from the Congress are they not? The Congress IS the people and if they ever disagree with whatthe Congress says then they are detatched from society, plain and simple.

Quote: is anything but stable so your argument fails.
My argument doesn't fail because you concocted some fairy tale about a despotic court taking away the marriages of straight people. You'll need to do better than this.

Quote: Quote: Court rulings? Yes, okay. You know there have been Court rulings that mandated gay marriage, correct? OK. Then it isn't a mischarachertization at all. It's more like "stating a fact."
Still a mischaracterization. The court has not ordered anyone to have a gay marriage. It hasn't dictated that a certain number of gay marriages must be performed. It has only declared the barrier to recognition of gay couples' unions to be in conflict with that state's constitution - as a ruling in a case brought before them by a group of citizens. The court didn't just take this up on their own.

They have mandated that it be allowed, I don't see how that is a mischarterization at all.

Quote: Quote: No, then it would violate equal protection. As it stands it denys NO MAN and NO WOMAN the ability to marry. You would have that changed, and thereby violate equal protection.
It's not a violation if the change is made part of the marriage laws. If marriage isn't a right, then the government can slap whatever 'reasonable' restrictions it pleases on the institution, correct? Making procreation (or the intent to actively pursue it) a required qualification for obtaining and renewing one's marriage license is little different from making gender a requirement. If it's made a part of the law, no equal protection violation, so long as all men and women who are qualified to procreate together have equal access to the institution. You can't argue otherwise without getting into the issue of substantive due process, which we already know you don't believe in.

You see, you aren't really claiming procreation as the rational basis for marriage recognition. You're claiming it as the rational basis to deny that recognition, then trying to eat your cake and have it, too.

So I renew my assertion: If procreation is the rational basis for marriage recognition, it should be incorporated into the laws that govern the institution. Requiring the parties to be opposite genders isn't enough.



No mystic, Idon't believe in substative due process. What I do believe in is the law.

To deny barren couples would be to deny people based on some physical malady, and not behavior. You can argue that homosexuality is a physical malady, and perhaps it is, but it is immaterial to this subject. You are saying that it's okay to only allow certian people to marry other certian people, which is a violation of due process. I am stating that all people can get married.

While outlawing behavior does nto violate equal protection, to deny people the ability to marry if they do not have children is to deny them the ability to marry for future behavior, which is unknown to all. So you can't very well deny them marriage.

So the rational basis still is procreation and you cannot deny specific people the ability to have a government sanctioned marriage. Every man and every woman in this country can get married.

[F'losrix]

John Galt wrote: Skeptical Mystic wrote: John Galt wrote: OK, well most people in this country pay taxes, so your point is moot.
Including gay couples whose marriages the government refuses to recognize, forcing them to subsidize an institution in which their participation is denied.

No, it isn't denied.
Recognition of their marriages is denied. Denying that recognition prevents them from participating as a married couple.

Quote: Gay people can marry. Just because we don't cater to everyones whim about who they want to marry doesn't mean anyone is being denied the ability to marry. You can marry.
Whims? You think gay couples get married on a whim? You're hardly an authority on what drives gay couples to marry each other. If you deny them the ability to marry the partner of their choosing, it's equivalent to denying them marriage completely, as most would neve choose a heterosexual partner.

Quote: Quote: Quote: That made no sense. Sure, the two people may be stable, as in they are no longer being as promiscous as typically gay men are
Myth. Gay men aren't any more promiscuous than other men, and when they honestly and fully commit to a monogamous relationship, they're no more likely to fool around than straight men.

Uh, no. Men are permiscuous. Women aren't. It's our respective natures.
I detect a lack of reading comprehension on your part. I said gay men aren't any more promiscuous than other men (generally speaking). I did NOT say that men and women have the same biological drives. And if you think women are all 'civilized' and 'chaste', then you're living in a fantasy.

Quote: Women civilize men since men are biologically driven to spread their seed far and wide while women are driven to keep one man to keep a stable family structure. Women eventually win out the day for the same reason why men want to spread their seed and they civilize men. Get two men together and well, soon they've been through a few hundred in a night (which does happen. I noticed that new AIDS rate is back up in homosexuals (while they still have the vast majority of all cases) and people wonder why...).
Well, I guess my partner and I have some catching up to do, since we've been monogamous for 5 years plus. A few hundred in a night? Not every man is driven to promiscuity, and more than a few of us believe in something called personal responsiblity. And though I'm sure you'd never believe it (based on what you've written above), a great many gay men CAN and DO exercise personal responsibility, and they can form monogamous relationships with each other, if they choose to.

You should be ashamed for playing the AIDS card here. HIV/AIDS infection rates may be cyclical, and that cycle may be influenced by a number of factors. That the rate of infection is disproportionate among gay men is a fact. That this is due to a particular sex act practiced with frequency by some - not all, not even most - but only some gay men is a fact. That few gay men have such an astounding number of sex partners is also a fact.

But it is NOT true that the majority of gay men engage in risky sex practices with hundreds of partners on a regular basis. What I would like to say about your character for perpetuating that lie is something I must unfortunately refrain from if I'm to continue my participation in this forum.

Quote: So what? You're entire thing is about how two people in love should beable to marry.
I have never stated such bulls**t. What I have said is that two people who wish to enter into a marriage contract, presuming they are consenting and competent adults, should be able to do so, regardless of their genders. That is hardly the same thing as saying it's about love. The reasons for entering into a marriage contract vary from couple to couple - and it's something that is entirely the business of that couple - not someone else who isn't a party to that marriage and certainly not the government.

Quote: Marriage isn't about love.
For some it may play a significant role, but no - it's not required.

Quote: It has really never been. It's about settling down and raising a family.
No, it's about whatever the married couple decides it's about. It's their marriage, not the government's and not yours.

Quote: Love is not needed for a marriage to work.
I never said it was. Will you deny that it is nonetheless an important factor in most marriages in the U.S.?

Quote: The people who spread such nonsense are the same ones who spread the liberalization of divorce laws.
You've got the cart before the horse. What you need to do is make it tougher for people to get married if you don't want them getting divorced. When you turn marriage into something to be licensed instead of a contractual arrangment, this is the result.

Quote: And now they want to mess with something that nearly everyone doesn't want messed with.
If nearly everyone decided that only people who share a religious faith should be allowed to marry each other and didn't want that messed with, would that make them right? Should their wishes on the matter be codified as law just because it's the majority opinion? What if that opinion changes 5 years from now and a slim majority decide that it should be changed? Then would you support it?

Quote: The Judicial Branch is not allowed to govern. Period.
BS. There are three equal branches of government, and the judicial branch is one of them. They're decisions do have a role in governing, whether you like it or not.

Quote: Yes, they issue on cases, but not all cases. They pick and choose and since there are thousands to choose from and they only pick 100 or so a year, they might as well be issuing edicts. They know what they are doing: destroying the Constitution.
:roll: Tell me another one. You would have us believe the justices are all in cahoots to destroy the Constitution. That they all have despotic ambitions. Sorry, I'm fresh out of tin hats.

Quote: And of course they are detactched from society. They are seperate from the Congress are they not? The Congress IS the people and if they ever disagree with whatthe Congress says then they are detatched from society, plain and simple.
Gigantic leap of logic. The fact that we have an independent judiciary does not equate to them being 'detached' from society. It merely means they're judgments aren't controlled by the fickle whims of society's opinions, but by the law. They couldn't function as a check and balance on the power of the legislative and executive branches if the situation were otherwise.

Quote: To deny barren couples would be to deny people based on some physical malady, and not behavior. You can argue that homosexuality is a physical malady, and perhaps it is, but it is immaterial to this subject. You are saying that it's okay to only allow certian people to marry other certian people, which is a violation of due process. I am stating that all people can get married.
What you are stating is that people (in this case, men) shouldn't be allowed to marry certain other people (in this case, other men). How is that any different?

Quote: While outlawing behavior does nto violate equal protection, to deny people the ability to marry if they do not have children is to deny them the ability to marry for future behavior, which is unknown to all. So you can't very well deny them marriage.
Not at all. You make them take a fertility test. If either of them is infertile, you have grounds to say they're incapable of fulfilling the rationale that underlies government's recognition of marriage and therefore disqualified. You require those that are fertile to affirm their intent to procreate and give them a set time frame within which to initiate a pregnancy. If they fail, you revoke the recognition of that marriage - based not on future behavior, but on their actual behavior (the failure to procreate) within the time frame that has now past. If they later fulfill their obligation to procreate, they can reapply for marriage recognition at that time.

It's not unlike the process for licensing drivers. We don't issue a license to everyone - some people don't qualify.

Again: If procreation is the rational basis for marriage, then rewrite the laws to ensure that marriages conform to that rationale. No equal protection violation because you're not considering marriage to be a right in and of itself. Equal protection only applies to those who qualify as a matter of procedural due process. You can't get around this unless you resort to some form of substantive due process. You're not willing to admit the validity of substantive due process, so you're left either arguing that marriage should be recognized as a right (which then gets you into more trouble with denying gay couples) or you must accept that marriage can be further restricted to make it conform to your rational basis for its recognition.

Quote: So the rational basis still is procreation and you cannot deny specific people the ability to have a government sanctioned marriage.
We can. We do. Incest. Polygamy. Procreation is possible in both situations.

Quote: Every man and every woman in this country can get married.
Only with government sanction & recognition if their choice of partner conforms to whom the government says they can legally marry. When the choice of partner is limited according to gender, you are setting up a situation where one set of couples is treated unequally. You are extending protection to the marriages of one group while denying that protection to another. Nothing equal about it.

If 'equal protection under the law' means you can setup the laws to purposely exclude any group of people from their protection as a procedural matter, then you can do exactly what I've said - you can exclude all non-procreating couples from marriage recognition so long as you apply that standard equally. This is exactly what you're doing to gay couples - you're saying that equal protection doesn't apply to them because the law defines marriage in a way that procedurally excludes their marriages from recognition. If you can restrict marriage according to gender using procreation as the rational basis, then you can restrict it in other ways that relate to procreation using that same rational basis.

[F'losrix]

Now, to get back on topic:

We went to see "Brokeback Mountain" tonight. I wasn't impressed. Here's my laundry list of complaints:

1) No time spent developing the relationship of the two men. How are we supposed to buy into the idea that these guys love each other from a few moments of implied rough sex? I'm not saying that they needed to show the sex in full graphic form. I'm not saying that they needed to go on talking about their relationship ad nauseum. I'm not saying that every male/male love relationship has to be characterized by tenderness. What I AM saying is that they didn't spend enough on the development of that relationship - whatever form it took. There was no real build-up to the pivotal scene of their initial sexual encounter and I didn't buy the swift change from near violence to sex that was used in it. It felt completely contrived.

2) Mumbling dialogue. Sure, it fits with the characters - but if I can't figure out what they're saying most of the time (and this was in a very quiet theatre), how can I be expected to follow the storyline? Mumbling has its limits and this movie far exceeded them.

3) No chemistry between Ledger and Gyllenhaal. As in zero, nada, zip, zilch.

4) Ledger looked rather puny in a couple of scenes, given the character he was supposed to be portraying.

So, it's an okay movie for what it is. I kept waiting to be swept up in this supposedly great storyline and it just never happened.

[ToonArmyIsComing]

It was a fairly decent movie. I think it's wrong to think of the movie as making gays look heterosexual. What I understood from the movie was that these two men could not be who they were because of the society's intolerance and they conformed to the society's norms that everyone should get married. So it was actually a good movie IMHO.

[Æ]

SavannahMan wrote: I expect it to be a total flop.

I also expect a sequel in which the boys take a liking to the sheep they have been herding. :lol:

[connermt]

John Galt wrote: Skeptical Mystic wrote: John Galt wrote: OK, well most people in this country pay taxes, so your point is moot.
Including gay couples whose marriages the government refuses to recognize, forcing them to subsidize an institution in which their participation is denied.

No, it isn't denied. Gay people can marry. Just because we don't cater to everyones whim about who they want to marry doesn't mean anyone is being denied the ability to marry. You can marry.

Quote: Quote: That made no sense. Sure, the two people may be stable, as in they are no longer being as promiscous as typically gay men are
Myth. Gay men aren't any more promiscuous than other men, and when they honestly and fully commit to a monogamous relationship, they're no more likely to fool around than straight men.

Uh, no. Men are permiscuous. Women aren't. It's our respective natures.

Quote: Quote: but women civilize men
BS. Men don't need women to be civilized. Coupling naturally leads people to tame some of their wild ways - and that applies just as much to gay couples as it does straight couples.

No, it isn't BS. Women civilize men since men are biologically driven to spread their seed far and wide while women are driven to keep one man to keep a stable family structure. Women eventually win out the day for the same reason why men want to spread their seed and they civilize men. Get two men together and well, soon they've been through a few hundred in a night (which does happen. I noticed that new AIDS rate is back up in homosexuals (while they still have the vast majority of all cases) and people wonder why...).

Quote: Quote: but a society that feels as their marriages are being taken from them by a despotic court
More BS & rhetoric. The court isn't taking away anyone's marriages. How does letting two guys or two women marry each other have ANY effect at all on someone else's heterosexual marriage? It doesn't - not in the least. If people 'feel' that it does, then that's very frankly their problem to deal with on a personal level. Denying a gay couple marriage recognition just because it will make some straight couple 'feel' bad is no way to run a progressive society.

So what? You're entire thing is about how two people in love should beable to marry. No. Marriage isn't about love. It has really never been. It's about settling down and raising a family. It's the point of marriage. Love is not needed for a marriage to work. The people who spread such nonsense are the same ones who spread the liberalization of divorce laws. And now they want to mess with something that nearly everyone doesn't want messed with.

Quote: Quote: who are made up of elites and detached from society yet somehow think they should and can govern it
Elites? Maybe. Detached from society? Very questionable. Think they should govern it? Funny, last I checked the judicial system was still a part of our system of government. For the court to be true despots, they'd have to be issuing arbitrary edicts. Since they only rule on the cases brought before them, your point is moot.

The Judicial Branch is not allowed to govern. Period.

Yes, they issue on cases, but not all cases. They pick and choose and since there are thousands to choose from and they only pick 100 or so a year, they might as well be issuing edicts. They know what they are doing: destroying the Constitution.

And of course they are detactched from society. They are seperate from the Congress are they not? The Congress IS the people and if they ever disagree with whatthe Congress says then they are detatched from society, plain and simple.

Quote: is anything but stable so your argument fails.
My argument doesn't fail because you concocted some fairy tale about a despotic court taking away the marriages of straight people. You'll need to do better than this.

Quote: Quote: Court rulings? Yes, okay. You know there have been Court rulings that mandated gay marriage, correct? OK. Then it isn't a mischarachertization at all. It's more like "stating a fact."
Still a mischaracterization. The court has not ordered anyone to have a gay marriage. It hasn't dictated that a certain number of gay marriages must be performed. It has only declared the barrier to recognition of gay couples' unions to be in conflict with that state's constitution - as a ruling in a case brought before them by a group of citizens. The court didn't just take this up on their own.

They have mandated that it be allowed, I don't see how that is a mischarterization at all.

Quote: Quote: No, then it would violate equal protection. As it stands it denys NO MAN and NO WOMAN the ability to marry. You would have that changed, and thereby violate equal protection.
It's not a violation if the change is made part of the marriage laws. If marriage isn't a right, then the government can slap whatever 'reasonable' restrictions it pleases on the institution, correct? Making procreation (or the intent to actively pursue it) a required qualification for obtaining and renewing one's marriage license is little different from making gender a requirement. If it's made a part of the law, no equal protection violation, so long as all men and women who are qualified to procreate together have equal access to the institution. You can't argue otherwise without getting into the issue of substantive due process, which we already know you don't believe in.

You see, you aren't really claiming procreation as the rational basis for marriage recognition. You're claiming it as the rational basis to deny that recognition, then trying to eat your cake and have it, too.

So I renew my assertion: If procreation is the rational basis for marriage recognition, it should be incorporated into the laws that govern the institution. Requiring the parties to be opposite genders isn't enough.



No mystic, Idon't believe in substative due process. What I do believe in is the law.

To deny barren couples would be to deny people based on some physical malady, and not behavior. You can argue that homosexuality is a physical malady, and perhaps it is, but it is immaterial to this subject. You are saying that it's okay to only allow certian people to marry other certian people, which is a violation of due process. I am stating that all people can get married.

While outlawing behavior does nto violate equal protection, to deny people the ability to marry if they do not have children is to deny them the ability to marry for future behavior, which is unknown to all. So you can't very well deny them marriage.

So the rational basis still is procreation and you cannot deny specific people the ability to have a government sanctioned marriage. Every man and every woman in this country can get married.

"Uh, no. Men are permiscuous. Women aren't." :shock:
I don't know what Little House on the Prarie people you know, but let's come back to the real world, OK? Women are permiscuous. Maybe not quite as much as men are, but that blanket statement is wrong on every level possible.