There's a reason gay marriage is the issue at hand, and not polygamy or bestiality. A significant portion of the population believes it should, in fact, be legalized. The jump from hetero marriage to homo marriage is much smaller, than say, marriage to multiple partners, thus will gather a much larger amount of support. Such an abundance of the US, if not the world is against polygamy it's a no contest in regards to legalizing it. I'd wager bestiality even moreso.
Now if you want to go into more technical reasons backing why gay marriage doesn't result in polygamy, I'll try to conjure some reasoning. Marriage has long been considered between two people, namely a man and a women, created and mantained as such. In at least my opinion, the main calling card for marriage is a loving bond between two people. Expanding to a coupling of two males, as opposed to a male and female, is simply a small expansion on the idea of a bond between two people. Polygamy comes from the entirely different angle that the intiment bond is shared by more than two people, an ideal that to my knowledge has remained consistently underground and unpracticed throughout history. Or something like that. My stance is a work in progress. Cut a bit of slack here, I've never bothered trying to type up any definitive stance such as this.
But once again, rest assured, polygamy has no hope of ever being legalized (at least for several generations). Outside of sexual orgies, the only news you hear of people "loving" more than one person rests in marital affairs. This idea has been trampled down so much by common belief and media display, it would be nothing more than a bump in the road. Granted, legalization of gay marriage would bring more media attention to the idea of 3+ parties participating in a marriage, but there's such minimal support outside of radicalist democratic parties, it's a fruitless cause. Sort of like Nader running for president.
Marriage between young and old runs somewhere along the same lines. There are POSSIBLY a few examples of significant age differences for desired marriage, between one party under and one party drastically under and one drastically over the age of consent. However, I feel the lack of hormonal agression in a young child would come close to, if not entirely, preventing the desire for such. Small children try to imitate what they've been brought up seeing, alongside medial portrayal of relationships. This portrayal has remained untouched, and will probably remain unchanged, for generations to come. There's no worry there. It isn't until the teen years couples even start to get serious about marriage, or a life together. The problem that needs to be focused on here, in fact, is unsafe sexual practice and relationships fueled on by infatuation.
Bestiality is so farfetched, I don't think a relevant argument even needs to be constructed at this point. Sure, you can stumble upon animal sex on the internet and such. But the property aspect, ownership ideal, and inabiity for the animal are inescapable boundaries. Not to mention, ANIMALS HAVE A SIGNIFICANTLY SHORTER LIFESPAN. If a person is crazy enough to think they and a household pet are in love, then you can count on them to take the relationship seriously. And the death of the animal in a marital relationship is something I'd like to see, purely from a psychological standpoint at least.
So you see what I'm saying? Nepharski, your "If...then" stance sounds like something being thrown out by an overly careful corporate lawyer concered with liability. It's like trying to say warning labels should be put on tall buildings, as you could fall from the top and kill yourself. Or, maybe that's a bad example. But you're trying to say something so abstract can arise, even though all common sense and statistical fact point against it. The mass public doesn't believe in polygamy, minor marriage, or bestiality. Sensible fact. A good portion of the mass public dose, however, believe in gay marriage.
Accept this is a fact you will have to tolerate, as it's an issue that is only going to exponentially increase given time. The world is becoming ever increasingly liberal. Now, the conservative bunch can try to unite and crush these upcoming ideals, or it can learn to keep to itself on issues that don't affect their lives. Two men married in Maine doesn't mean an elderly hetero couple in Oregon love matters less.
You can't legislate morality. Prohibition has proven that.
And anyways, what kind of guy hates lesbians?
(Damn, this took a long time.)
EDIT: It's about time for me to be off now. Nepharski, I see you're typing a response. I'll pick up my slack tomorrow.
Last edited by Majic; 11-27-2004 at 09:28 PM..
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It's ridiculous to not allow a couple to marry because they have matching genitalia. And what's wrong with their being married in a church, Alcar? Haven't you been saying this whole time that the Bible has nothing against homosexuals? Christians can be gay too, afterall.
