Connecticut Legalizes Gay Marriage!

[WishfulThinking]

Date: 10/10/2008 4:55:52 PM
Author: Black Jade


Congratulations on your marriage. I wish you every happiness.

However, I''m confused, I''m aware of no laws in the US that ever banned Japanese and American marriages. I could be wrong, I know that there was plenty of anti-Japanese discrimination, particularly during the SEcond World War, but I am aware of no such laws.

Interracial marriage laws applied to everyone regardless of race. That meant people of Asian descent were banned from marrying white people just like African American people were. I do not recall whether people of minority races could marry one another, but I am pretty sure they could not.

 

[goobear78]

Date: 10/10/2008 4:55:28 PM
Author: Irishgrrrl

Date: 10/10/2008 4:51:34 PM

Author: EBree

That's wonderful news!

Ditto, Bree! Hopefully it won't be long until this is legal in all 50 states!

Ditto that!

Everyone should have the same governmental rights as others no matter your race, color or sexual orientation!

 

[Black Jade]

Date: 10/10/2008 4:12:08 PM
Author: MoonWater

Date: 10/10/2008 3:58:52 PM
Author: Beacon
I think it''s very nice. My husband is Japanese American and once upon a time the laws of our country would have prohibited our marriage. I always think about how laws change and how society changes. I am happy that gay people are getting more equal rights.

About 50 years ago my soon to be and I wouldn''t have been able to get married in the good ol'' USA. Marriage just wasn''t for interracial couples.

Marriages between blacks and whites in the US were illegal in many states until the 1960''s. I can remember when such marriages were illegal. I am mixed race--black and white (and some other things too)

I don''t see this as a good analogy. Marriage was at that time (is still, actually) defined as the union of a man and a woman. However a man and a woman could be denied the right to marry because one of them was black, thus making a difference between them and all the other men and women who WERE allowed to marry. Nothing about granting rights to blacks and whites to marry changed the definition of marriage from being the union of a man and a woman. However, saying that a man can be married to another man, or a woman to another woman RADICALLy changes the definition of matrimony and is very different from any definition of marriage that has ever existed throughout all of human history.

some of us just don''t think that a few judges have the right to make such changes.

 

[MoonWater]

Black Jade, I highly recommend reading through all the posts before you respond. Wishful has already addressed this point far more articulately than I ever could.

 

[WishfulThinking]

Thanks, MoonWater.

I''m going to bow out now. I''ve said quite a bit, and obviously it''s not quite hitting the target audience.

 

[Rank Amateur]

Date: 10/10/2008 5:05:48 PM
Author: Black Jade

Date: 10/10/2008 4:12:08 PM
Author: MoonWater

Date: 10/10/2008 3:58:52 PM
Author: Beacon
I think it''s very nice. My husband is Japanese American and once upon a time the laws of our country would have prohibited our marriage. I always think about how laws change and how society changes. I am happy that gay people are getting more equal rights.

About 50 years ago my soon to be and I wouldn''t have been able to get married in the good ol'' USA. Marriage just wasn''t for interracial couples.

Marriages between blacks and whites in the US were illegal in many states until the 1960''s. I can remember when such marriages were illegal. I am mixed race--black and white (and some other things too)

I don''t see this as a good analogy. Marriage was at that time (is still, actually) defined as the union of a man and a woman. However a man and a woman could be denied the right to marry because one of them was black, thus making a difference between them and all the other men and women who WERE allowed to marry. Nothing about granting rights to blacks and whites to marry changed the definition of marriage from being the union of a man and a woman. However, saying that a man can be married to another man, or a woman to another woman RADICALLy changes the definition of matrimony and is very different from any definition of marriage that has ever existed throughout all of human history.

some of us just don''t think that a few judges have the right to make such changes.

Hang in there Black Jade. You are on the right track.

To take this to its logical conclusion, marriage should be between any two people, right? Can they be related? If it''s not, at its core, about reproduction then you ought to be able to marry your mom, or dad if that''s your thing. To NOT allow it wouldn''t be fair, would it.

This takes me back to my idea to abolish marriage as a legal/civil entity.

 

[Black Jade]

Date: 10/10/2008 4:18:14 PM
Author: MoonWater

Date: 10/10/2008 4:00:04 PM
Author: Black Jade

Date: 10/10/2008 3:33:29 PM
Author: MoonWater
Well gosh darnit. Ban marriage for those heterosexual couples that have absolutely no intention of having children!!!!

And don''t forget those women that can''t even have kids. Ban marriage for them too!!!!

And those mothers that turn right around and go back to work, losing no prime earning years....well heck, they shouldn''t be getting married either!!!!!

Not going to get into a big song and dance here about this.
But you are wrong.
I am not slamming you--it is admirable to want to be fair. But what looks like its fair sometimes needs a little more thought.

Many a heterosexual couple has started out not wanting to have kids and had them anyway. People change their minds, have ''accidents'' (and then find out that an accidental baby can be a wonderful thing), and then they go on and raise their kids.

It''s tragic for a woman to want kids and not be able to have them. They CAN, however, adopt kids and be mothers, as part of a couple that includes a mother and a father, the time-tested best way for children to be raised.

A working mother is still a mother. IF you did a survey of the women on this board, or of women anywhere who work, you would find that having children impacted their careers, earning power, promotions. What I stated before would still apply.

How exactly am I wrong? I used your logic. Maybe you want to re-read your post. I matters not if the couple changes their mind, they should be banned from marriage if their intention, when getting married, is not to have children. The same goes for women that can not have children. The same goes for women who have lost little to NO income when having children (and I know plenty of women that did not miss a beat, the little time they did take off was covered by their employers).

And did you not notice the sexism in your post at all? Protection only for women aye? Men don''t need time off. Screw those guys that decide to be stay at home dads and lose prime earning years! Oh wait, let''s stick with women. What about those lesbian couples, one of them gets pregnant and stays at home to raise the kid. No protection for her, nope, nosiree Bob.

But really, why don''t you read AGBF''s post.

Moonwater-it has usually been women who decide to stay home with children. And certainly men don''t need pregnancy leave--hence the phraseology of my post. But men who decide to stay home and be stay at home dads are protected by current marriage laws also, obviously. The husband and the wife can make these decisions as they choose about what will be best for the children that they have had together and raise them together as a mother and a father, which every child needs. (though they don''t all them, unfortunately).

The lesbian couple that you are bringing up cannot provide a father to children. Two mothers is not really the same thing. Not that there would really be two mothers. There would be ONE mother, and the person living with her, who is not actually related to the child. The child will have a (male, because that is the only kind) father somewhere. Which is messy enough. But also, there have already been some quite well publicized cases where the two ladies stop having a relationship and there are all kinds of problems because of this fact, which affect the child(ren).

I just repeat that we need to think a lot before continuing with the social engineering that creates these situations, especially when imposed from the top by judges who are not elected and who are listening to what the voters keep repeating, every single time that people are actually allowed to vote on this issue. Homosexual ''marriage'' has never been legalized anywhere where it was actually put to a vote.

 

[Black Jade]

Date: 10/10/2008 5:06:57 PM
Author: MoonWater
Black Jade, I highly recommend reading through all the posts before you respond. Wishful has already addressed this point far more articulately than I ever could.

Moonwater, just because you don''t agree with me doesn''t mean that I haven''t read through all the posts.
I''m not sure I want to have to have this discussion anymore, but if we do, let''s keep it on track, there''s no need to be rude.

 

[Beacon]

Date: 10/10/2008 4:55:52 PM
Author: Black Jade

Congratulations on your marriage. I wish you every happiness.
However, I'm confused, I'm aware of no laws in the US that ever banned Japanese and American marriages. I could be wrong, I know that there was plenty of anti-Japanese discrimination, particularly during the SEcond World War, but I am aware of no such laws.

Thank you very much. We have been married for 8 years and are extremely happy. To help you, please review the following which recounts the history of mixed marriage law in the US and elsewhere:

'Laws banning "race-mixing" were enforced in Nazi Germany, in South Africa during the Apartheid era and in individual U.S. states from the Colonial era until 1967. All these laws primarily banned marriage between spouses of different racially or ethnically defined groups, which was termed "amalgamation" or "miscegenation" in the U.S. The laws in Nazi Germany and South Africa under apartheid, and many of the U.S. state laws, also banned sexual relations between such individuals.
In the United States, the various state laws prohibited the marriage of whites and blacks, and in many states also the intermarriage of whites with Native Americans or Asians[5]. In the U.S., such laws were known as anti-miscegenation laws. From 1913 until 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced such laws.'

I am totally offended by the idea that marriage is reserved for people who wish to procreate. That is just as silly as the old laws that used to prohibit mixed ethnicity marriages. Going by this absurd idea, I take it that if a couple does marry and then proves infertile that they should promptly divorce? Or perhaps if their child should die, they no longer need their marriage and should then divorce?

It boils down to thinly disguised raciscm, call it what you want. The good news here is that society changes and laws change too. The "history" of slavery does little to convince anyone that it was a good idea. So I discount the idea that the "history" of marriage requires any particular attention. People should be free to make legal committments to each other regardless of their race, age, or sexual orientation.

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 10/10/2008 5:25:43 PM
Author: Black Jade

Date: 10/10/2008 5:06:57 PM
Author: MoonWater
Black Jade, I highly recommend reading through all the posts before you respond. Wishful has already addressed this point far more articulately than I ever could.

Moonwater, just because you don''t agree with me doesn''t mean that I haven''t read through all the posts.
I''m not sure I want to have to have this discussion anymore, but if we do, let''s keep it on track, there''s no need to be rude.

I wasn''t being rude. It honestly appears that you are responding before reading other posts. What you brought up was already covered and refuted by Wishful.

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 10/10/2008 5:20:59 PM
Author: Black Jade

Date: 10/10/2008 4:18:14 PM
Author: MoonWater

Date: 10/10/2008 4:00:04 PM
Author: Black Jade

Date: 10/10/2008 3:33:29 PM
Author: MoonWater
Well gosh darnit. Ban marriage for those heterosexual couples that have absolutely no intention of having children!!!!

And don''t forget those women that can''t even have kids. Ban marriage for them too!!!!

And those mothers that turn right around and go back to work, losing no prime earning years....well heck, they shouldn''t be getting married either!!!!!

Not going to get into a big song and dance here about this.
But you are wrong.
I am not slamming you--it is admirable to want to be fair. But what looks like its fair sometimes needs a little more thought.

Many a heterosexual couple has started out not wanting to have kids and had them anyway. People change their minds, have ''accidents'' (and then find out that an accidental baby can be a wonderful thing), and then they go on and raise their kids.

It''s tragic for a woman to want kids and not be able to have them. They CAN, however, adopt kids and be mothers, as part of a couple that includes a mother and a father, the time-tested best way for children to be raised.

A working mother is still a mother. IF you did a survey of the women on this board, or of women anywhere who work, you would find that having children impacted their careers, earning power, promotions. What I stated before would still apply.

How exactly am I wrong? I used your logic. Maybe you want to re-read your post. I matters not if the couple changes their mind, they should be banned from marriage if their intention, when getting married, is not to have children. The same goes for women that can not have children. The same goes for women who have lost little to NO income when having children (and I know plenty of women that did not miss a beat, the little time they did take off was covered by their employers).

And did you not notice the sexism in your post at all? Protection only for women aye? Men don''t need time off. Screw those guys that decide to be stay at home dads and lose prime earning years! Oh wait, let''s stick with women. What about those lesbian couples, one of them gets pregnant and stays at home to raise the kid. No protection for her, nope, nosiree Bob.

But really, why don''t you read AGBF''s post.

Moonwater-it has usually been women who decide to stay home with children. And certainly men don''t need pregnancy leave--hence the phraseology of my post. But men who decide to stay home and be stay at home dads are protected by current marriage laws also, obviously. The husband and the wife can make these decisions as they choose about what will be best for the children that they have had together and raise them together as a mother and a father, which every child needs. (though they don''t all them, unfortunately).

The lesbian couple that you are bringing up cannot provide a father to children. Two mothers is not really the same thing. Not that there would really be two mothers. There would be ONE mother, and the person living with her, who is not actually related to the child. The child will have a (male, because that is the only kind) father somewhere. Which is messy enough. But also, there have already been some quite well publicized cases where the two ladies stop having a relationship and there are all kinds of problems because of this fact, which affect the child(ren).

I just repeat that we need to think a lot before continuing with the social engineering that creates these situations, especially when imposed from the top by judges who are not elected and who are listening to what the voters keep repeating, every single time that people are actually allowed to vote on this issue. Homosexual ''marriage'' has never been legalized anywhere where it was actually put to a vote.

Alright...again, using your logic. People who adopt children aren''t really the parents to the children because you know, they aren''t actually related to the child.

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 10/10/2008 5:33:45 PM
Author: Beacon

Date: 10/10/2008 4:55:52 PM
Author: Black Jade

Congratulations on your marriage. I wish you every happiness.
However, I''m confused, I''m aware of no laws in the US that ever banned Japanese and American marriages. I could be wrong, I know that there was plenty of anti-Japanese discrimination, particularly during the SEcond World War, but I am aware of no such laws.

Thank you very much. We have been married for 8 years and are extremely happy. To help you, please review the following which recounts the history of mixed marriage law in the US and elsewhere:

''Laws banning ''race-mixing'' were enforced in Nazi Germany, in South Africa during the Apartheid era and in individual U.S. states from the Colonial era until 1967. All these laws primarily banned marriage between spouses of different racially or ethnically defined groups, which was termed ''amalgamation'' or ''miscegenation'' in the U.S. The laws in Nazi Germany and South Africa under apartheid, and many of the U.S. state laws, also banned sexual relations between such individuals.

In the United States, the various state laws prohibited the marriage of whites and blacks, and in many states also the intermarriage of whites with Native Americans or Asians[5]. In the U.S., such laws were known as anti-miscegenation laws. From 1913 until 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced such laws.''

I am totally offended by the idea that marriage is reserved for people who wish to procreate. That is just as silly as the old laws that used to prohibit mixed ethnicity marriages. Going by this absurd idea, I take it that if a couple does marry and then proves infertile that they should promptly divorce? Or perhaps if their child should die, they no longer need their marriage and should then divorce?

It boils down to thinly disguised raciscm, call it what you want. The good news here is that society changes and laws change too. The ''history'' of slavery does little to convince anyone that it was a good idea. So I discount the idea that the ''history'' of marriage requires any particular attention. People should be free to make legal committments to each other regardless of their race, age, or sexual orientation.

Exactly!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[AGBF]

Date: 10/10/2008 4:53:50 PM
Author: Black Jade

I am a history professor. I have studied the history of the family in the ancient world (Egypt, Greece, Rome) in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, and in Ancient and Modern Chinese. I have heard this theory that you are putting forth here, but never in historical works based on actual documents (which would be sort of scarce from the hunter-gatherer period, Hm?) This is a feminist theory with no basis in any verifiable facts (and no, I'm not against feminist, just against poorly supported theories).

Since, as you say, hunter gatherer societies produce no "actual documents", I can understand your difficulty in finding any historical works based on them. However, many historians observe modern hunter gatherer societies as do anthropologists, for clues as to how ancient hunter-gatherer societies behaved. What is your field of expertise in history?


Deborah

 

[Black Jade]

Date: 10/10/2008 4:53:46 PM
Author: WishfulThinking

Date: 10/10/2008 4:48:50 PM
Author: Black Jade

Date: 10/10/2008 3:46:31 PM

Author: elledizzy5

Sorry, but I can''t wrap my head around actively denying rights to anyone in this country in the year 2008. It''s the saddest thing I''ve ever heard anyone defend.


People under 5 feet tall do have the right to play in the NBA, if they''re good enough. I''d love to see how it would go down if we started denying heterosexual couples the right to marry because the government determined their love wasnt good enough.


People are people. They all deserve protection. End of story.

Homosexuals do have the right to marry people of the opposite sex.

Which is what marriage is.

Please point out to me where I said that homosexuals weren''t people. OR that they didn''t deserve protection.

Actually, that first argument is exactly what the Supreme Court today decided was UNconstitutional. Do you think it does me any good to say that I *could* marry a man? For real? That is literally the same argument that racist people used to justify bans on interracial marriage before 1967, when the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia made interracial marriages legalized nationwide. At the time, people argued that Mr. Loving, a white man, was NOT being discriminated against because he *could* choose to marry a white woman. But he didn''t want to marry a white woman. He wanted to marry Mildred and she was black. He won that case, and just like is happening now when courts legalize same sex marriages, everyone freaked out about how our society is going to be in moral decay because the ''activist judges'' were overturning the ''natural order.''

This might be a good time for people to think about what they''re supporting. Would you advocate that interracial marriage be left up to the states to decide? That Mr. Loving should have sucked it up and chosen a parter who was white? That interracial marriage should be put up to popular vote? In 1967 there were many states in which racist populations would have GLADLY voted to oppress people based on race by denying them marriage rights. Which is exactly what they''re doing now to same sex couples.

ETA: ''which is what marriage is''
Yes, and marriage used to be ''a union between a man and woman of the same race.'' It evolved. Now people like you try to claim that the definition should remain ''between a man and a woman'' because it has always been that way. Well, besides the obvious historical fallacy there, it hasn''t always been that way at all. There were all sorts of caveats having to do with race and gender that we no longer have. We call that the ability of societies to change and adapt and grow to be more inclusive and enlightened rather than trying to live in the dark ages where oppressing people is thought to be a-okay.

Wishful, I wish you the best, but I don''t see how pointing out that a marriage is a union between a man and a woman is oppressing anybody. Or denying anyone rights. As I stated in my very first post, marriage is not a right. And it is not something that ''evolves''. The Loving case (which I am very well aware of) is not a good analogy. Mr. and Mrs. Loving were being denied rights that other men and women (that is, who were not related and who were of age to marry) were being granted. You are asking for new and unheard of ''rights'' that change the definition of marriage entirely. I think it is very reasonable to say that society as a whole should be allowed to vote on this as it is going to affect society as a whole.

Blacks and whites being forbidden to marry was not historically denied, either. It was denied in the US for a short period of time. IT was not denied in all human societies everywhere. Though, in the case of homosexual marriage, it is really strange to talk of ''denying'' something that is impossible. Marriage is defined as the union of a man and woman. You become more inclusive if you change that--but then again, it is no longer marriage. I do not think that it is becoming more enlightened. It certainly puts us on dangerous ground so far as the care of children is concerned.

You really cannot compare this issue to the racial issue, also, because the color of a person''s skin does not change, while people do change their sexual orientation. I have personally known people who have done this. You may not want to, and it is certainly your right not to. But the fact that it is possible makes it a bit different, doesn''t it, than being black, or white.

I don''t want to hurt your feelings, but I didn''t think that it was right to behave as if you were an elephant in the room and ignore what you were saying, since you have been brave enough to come forward and explain that this issue is personal to you (which must not be easy). I throught it was best to address you directly. You probably do not believe me when I say that I wish you well. However, this is true. However, I cannot change what I think is right because of you, nor do I think it is right not to express my point of view, as this issue is so important for society as a whole.

I do think that it happens a lot that someone makes a post like this one, saying isn''t such and such a thing great and everyone who agrees with it says, yes and everyone who doesn''t just avoids the subject. So everyone thinks that all agree and that there is only one side of the argument. And then people are surprised when it comes to a vote and they realize that actually the majority of people do not agree with this at all. But people who don''t agree are afraid to say. I think it''s better to say.

On a side note, I want to say that I grew up in New York and went to high school in the Village and since that time have had many homosexual friends. I remember the day (it''s not all that long ago) when a judge decided that people should not prosecuted for homosexuality and that seemed right and fair. I was happy about that. The dissenting judge that day said, Now the gates have been thrown open for homosexual marriage and I was so shocked that he would say that. I thought it was something he was saying just to scare people and to ''go back to the Dark Ages'' as you would put it. I didn''t want to be scared into denying people their rights, and people have a right to have a relationship and to not be prosecuted. But people don''t have a right to something that is not possible and that changes the whole definition of something.

 

[Black Jade]

Date: 10/10/2008 5:39:56 PM
Author: AGBF

Date: 10/10/2008 4:53:50 PM
Author: Black Jade

I am a history professor. I have studied the history of the family in the ancient world (Egypt, Greece, Rome) in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, and in Ancient and Modern Chinese. I have heard this theory that you are putting forth here, but never in historical works based on actual documents (which would be sort of scarce from the hunter-gatherer period, Hm?) This is a feminist theory with no basis in any verifiable facts (and no, I''m not against feminist, just against poorly supported theories).

Since, as you say, hunter gatherer societies produce no ''actual documents'', I can understand your difficulty in finding any historical works based on them. However, many historians observe modern hunter gatherer societies as do anthropologists, for clues as to how ancient hunter-gatherer societies behaved. What is your field of expertise in history?


Deborah

Chinese history and also French. But I am trained in ancient civilization and I teach that.
I am not, however, an anthropologist. So I am good with documents, in several ancient and modern languages, but not with ''clues.''

 

[Beacon]

Reading BJs post is almost like stepping into another age. While I don''t want to comment too much, my overwhelming question is this:

If gay people are allowed to marry each other, what is the big HARM of it? Who suffers? I cannot think why this is a big deal. It might not be "traditional" but so what? In other words - what''s the problem with it?

 

[Black Jade]

Date: 10/10/2008 5:33:45 PM
Author: Beacon

Date: 10/10/2008 4:55:52 PM
Author: Black Jade

Congratulations on your marriage. I wish you every happiness.
However, I''m confused, I''m aware of no laws in the US that ever banned Japanese and American marriages. I could be wrong, I know that there was plenty of anti-Japanese discrimination, particularly during the SEcond World War, but I am aware of no such laws.

Thank you very much. We have been married for 8 years and are extremely happy. To help you, please review the following which recounts the history of mixed marriage law in the US and elsewhere:

''Laws banning ''race-mixing'' were enforced in Nazi Germany, in South Africa during the Apartheid era and in individual U.S. states from the Colonial era until 1967. All these laws primarily banned marriage between spouses of different racially or ethnically defined groups, which was termed ''amalgamation'' or ''miscegenation'' in the U.S. The laws in Nazi Germany and South Africa under apartheid, and many of the U.S. state laws, also banned sexual relations between such individuals.

In the United States, the various state laws prohibited the marriage of whites and blacks, and in many states also the intermarriage of whites with Native Americans or Asians[5]. In the U.S., such laws were known as anti-miscegenation laws. From 1913 until 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced such laws.''

I am totally offended by the idea that marriage is reserved for people who wish to procreate. That is just as silly as the old laws that used to prohibit mixed ethnicity marriages. Going by this absurd idea, I take it that if a couple does marry and then proves infertile that they should promptly divorce? Or perhaps if their child should die, they no longer need their marriage and should then divorce?

It boils down to thinly disguised raciscm, call it what you want. The good news here is that society changes and laws change too. The ''history'' of slavery does little to convince anyone that it was a good idea. So I discount the idea that the ''history'' of marriage requires any particular attention. People should be free to make legal committments to each other regardless of their race, age, or sexual orientation.

I stand corrected about intermarriage of whites and Asians. As I said, I was not aware of this, but I am not aware of everything and clearly you are right.

I wonder what you would like to base marriage on, however, if you are ''offended'' on the idea that it is linked to procreation. Should it be based on people just wishing to ''make legal commitments to each other''? Any people? Does it really have nothing to do with age? So an adult should be free to marry a 5 year old? As someone pointed out, I think they were poking fun at me, but its a good point, should really close relatives then be allowed to marry? What about marrying a non-human? As in , an animal?

You don''t want to be convinced by history, you say, because there are bad things in history. Like slavery. I know you are not trying to say that marriage is a bad thing, like slavery, because you wnat to expand it. But how do you know it will work anymore, if you expand it? How far are you going to expand it? I can understand that you are upset about former wrongs and discriminations and are anxious that no one should be discriminated against in the future. But you need to be sure that it really is discrimination and ''thinly disguised racism'' or just simply being in the dark ages that has people disagreeing with you on this issue.

Thirty years ago, a lot of people were very unhappy in their marriages and there seemed to be no reason that divorce laws should be so strict, except a lot of outmoded history and tradition. So in many places (not in all) the old laws were thrown indiscriminately out and it became very easy to get a divorce, for any reason whatsoever. And a lot of people were hurt by the changes, particularly children.

Maybe we don''t need to keep everything because it is historically so, but maybe we need to keep some things, because there are good reasons to keep them.

 

[ladypirate]

Gay marriage is not even remotely the same as incest, bestiality or pedophilia. There is a reason that an adult cannot marry a child (the child is not old enough to make that decision), that you cannot marry a dog (if a child has no say, the dog certainly doesn't) and that two siblings cannot marry (genetic mutations). There is no reason that two consenting same-sex adults who want to make a legal commitment to each other should not be afforded the same rights they would be if they were of opposite genders.

 

[Beacon]

Date: 10/10/2008 6:24:11 PM
Author: Black Jade

Date: 10/10/2008 5:33:45 PM
Author: Beacon

Date: 10/10/2008 4:55:52 PM
Author: Black Jade

Congratulations on your marriage. I wish you every happiness.
However, I'm confused, I'm aware of no laws in the US that ever banned Japanese and American marriages. I could be wrong, I know that there was plenty of anti-Japanese discrimination, particularly during the SEcond World War, but I am aware of no such laws.

Thank you very much. We have been married for 8 years and are extremely happy. To help you, please review the following which recounts the history of mixed marriage law in the US and elsewhere:

'Laws banning 'race-mixing' were enforced in Nazi Germany, in South Africa during the Apartheid era and in individual U.S. states from the Colonial era until 1967. All these laws primarily banned marriage between spouses of different racially or ethnically defined groups, which was termed 'amalgamation' or 'miscegenation' in the U.S. The laws in Nazi Germany and South Africa under apartheid, and many of the U.S. state laws, also banned sexual relations between such individuals.




In the United States, the various state laws prohibited the marriage of whites and blacks, and in many states also the intermarriage of whites with Native Americans or Asians[5]. In the U.S., such laws were known as anti-miscegenation laws. From 1913 until 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced such laws.'

I am totally offended by the idea that marriage is reserved for people who wish to procreate. That is just as silly as the old laws that used to prohibit mixed ethnicity marriages. Going by this absurd idea, I take it that if a couple does marry and then proves infertile that they should promptly divorce? Or perhaps if their child should die, they no longer need their marriage and should then divorce?

It boils down to thinly disguised raciscm, call it what you want. The good news here is that society changes and laws change too. The 'history' of slavery does little to convince anyone that it was a good idea. So I discount the idea that the 'history' of marriage requires any particular attention. People should be free to make legal committments to each other regardless of their race, age, or sexual orientation.

I stand corrected about intermarriage of whites and Asians. As I said, I was not aware of this, but I am not aware of everything and clearly you are right.

I wonder what you would like to base marriage on, however, if you are 'offended' on the idea that it is linked to procreation. Should it be based on people just wishing to 'make legal commitments to each other'? Any people? Does it really have nothing to do with age? So an adult should be free to marry a 5 year old? As someone pointed out, I think they were poking fun at me, but its a good point, should really close relatives then be allowed to marry? What about marrying a non-human? As in , an animal?

You don't want to be convinced by history, you say, because there are bad things in history. Like slavery. I know you are not trying to say that marriage is a bad thing, like slavery, because you wnat to expand it. But how do you know it will work anymore, if you expand it? How far are you going to expand it? I can understand that you are upset about former wrongs and discriminations and are anxious that no one should be discriminated against in the future. But you need to be sure that it really is discrimination and 'thinly disguised racism' or just simply being in the dark ages that has people disagreeing with you on this issue.

Thirty years ago, a lot of people were very unhappy in their marriages and there seemed to be no reason that divorce laws should be so strict, except a lot of outmoded history and tradition. So in many places (not in all) the old laws were thrown indiscriminately out and it became very easy to get a divorce, for any reason whatsoever. And a lot of people were hurt by the changes, particularly children.

Maybe we don't need to keep everything because it is historically so, but maybe we need to keep some things, because there are good reasons to keep them.

Oh please.

Once again, take a look at the law and see if minors are allowed to enter into binding contracts without a lot of legal intervention by their guardians, etc.

As for age discrimination and marriage, a procreation based marriage philosophy would by it's nature exclude people who are too old to procreate. Under that idea a woman past her child bearing years would be proscribed from marriage. That is what I meant by age discrimination.

Ummm, are you thinking it is nice for people who are unhappy in their marriage to be forced to stay in by onerous divorce laws? I do not see how that is relevant to gay marriage at all.

 

[Black Jade]

Date: 10/10/2008 6:18:55 PM
Author: Beacon
Reading BJs post is almost like stepping into another age. While I don''t want to comment too much, my overwhelming question is this:

If gay people are allowed to marry each other, what is the big HARM of it? Who suffers? I cannot think why this is a big deal. It might not be ''traditional'' but so what? In other words - what''s the problem with it?

I must not be entirely from another age, since even some of the judges in Connecticut didn''t agree. So many people in the US (and the world) don''t agree with this that as I stated before, there is nowhere, NOWHERE, where this has been voted in. It ALWAYS has to be imposed from above.

I can clearly see that no one in this discussion has been swayed at all, much less convinced, by anything that I posted and Beacon hasn''t even seen why I think it is harmful. Quite possibly I have expressed myself badly. But it could also be that all of you are so convinced that there is no other possible point of view than yours (since it is, at least superficialy ''fair'' and since you can bring in the magic word ''rights'' without actually thinking about how it really applies to this particular situation) that you are incapable of considering whether there is any truth in anything that I have said.

At any rate, it doesn''t seem pointful to discuss this anymore.

Best to all of you. I do think that you mean well and that you are nice people.

 

[Jelly]

YAY for Connecticut!! Boo on the haters. hehe

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 10/10/2008 6:37:22 PM
Author: Jelly
YAY for Connecticut!! Boo on the haters. hehe

Hehe

 

[MoonWater]

Date: 10/10/2008 6:37:00 PM
Author: Black Jade

I must not be entirely from another age, since even some of the judges in Connecticut didn''t agree. So many people in the US (and the world) don''t agree with this that as I stated before, there is nowhere, NOWHERE, where this has been voted in. It ALWAYS has to be imposed from above.

Hmm...well I''m not a Historian like you and Deborah, so correct me here. How did slavery end? Was it voted on or imposed from above? How did the ban on interracial marriage end? Was it voted on or imposed from above?

Ya know, so many people in the US (and in the world) don''t agree with interracial marriage or bans on slavery. Perhaps we should listen to those folks instead of being concerned with the well being of those effected by such a decision.

 

[Beacon]

I think gay marriage will ultimately be one of those issues that we''ll look back and say, "remember back in the old days when gay people weren''t even allowed to marry each other?" It is an idea whose time has come.

I imagine that when interracial marriage, interracial schools, the right for non whites to own property in the US, were "new" ideas that they provoked the same emotional responses from people who felt that the ideas were too radical, too threatening. We now understand that those ideas are perfectly acceptable. But in the "old days" they were very unsettling for some people.

What we find "illegal" in one age, we find totally normal in another.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 10/10/2008 4:53:50 PM
Author: Black Jade

I have studied the history of the family in the ancient world (Egypt, Greece, Rome) in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, and in Ancient and Modern Chinese. I have heard this theory that you are putting forth here, but never in historical works based on actual documents (which would be sort of scarce from the hunter-gatherer period, Hm?) This is a feminist theory with no basis in any verifiable facts (and no, I'm not against feminist, just against poorly supported theories).

Black Jade,

When I studied the history of the family, I will tell you what I studied. I am not sure why you labelled it, "feminist theory" or what you even meant by that.

One of the books I read was an anthology of essays (Centuries of Childhood), all by trained historians, but historians who were psychoanalytically informed and anthropologically informed and who drew on the work of Philippe Ariès. I, of course, read Philippe Ariès' Centuries of Childhood (in English translation) at the same time. Since this was many, many decades ago I do not recall all the other rading, which was not all about childhood, but about other aspects of family life in Euope. It was social history. I read about the evolution of marriage customs, for example, of how a couple would marry themselves without benefit of clergy by having sexual relations in early Christian Europe, for example. All I recall now, except some general concepts, is that it was fascinating. Aging being what it is, I could now read all those books again and they would all be totally new to me again!

Deborah

 

[AGBF]

I was too late to edit my posting above, but I need to correct an error made in haste. I called the anthology of essays to which I referred Centuries of Childhood, which was the title of the book by Phillipe Ariès. It did not have the same title! I was just rushing. Its title was The History of Childhood and its editor was Lloyd deMause.


Deborah

 

[icekid]

Date: 10/10/2008 4:26:16 PM
Author: Miranda
I'm not sure why the government has the right to say who should and should not get married. IMO, the individual states should be in charge of keeping records. It should end there. All legal adults should have the right to marry whoever they choose. I just don't get the governments claws in EVERYTHING. It is so maddening to my 'leave me alone and I'll leave you alone' mind.

Couldn't have said it better, Miranda. Glad to hear that CT will allow its people to marry as they please.

ETA- what is this craziness about marriage being created for the protection of women? seriously?! and even if that were true, I think it's about damn time we be progressive and allow people to marry whomever they love and deem worthy. why is this your business, Black Jade?

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Apparently I''m so consumed by news about the presedential race and stock market that I''ve missed out on normal news, haha. Good for Connecticut!

 

[IloveAsschers13]

I just want to say I''m so happy for Connecticut! I think it is ultimately wrong to deny people marriage based on the fact the person they love is not the opposite sex. Just to touch on a point someone mentioned, I know numerous people who I have had classes with and I am friends with who have lesbian/gay parents, and they are in no way lacking in any department. They were raised by two mothers/two fathers, not just someone who "lived with their mother/father." Yay for them, and for everyone granted their wishes!!!

woo-hoo!

 

[Gypsy]

YAY!
and
GO WISHFUL. DITTO EVERYTHING YOU SAID!