07-09-2010, 06:39 AM
Kalama boy,
Marriage exists in many forms and for many reasons in different societies and at different times in history, but the three reasons that are most consistently found are: care and nurturing of children, care of the elderly and infirm, and conservation of wealth or capitol within the family. The last one has a huge range from the right to sleep on a certain patch of sidewalk in India to wealth at the level of Bill Gates. Whose actual sperm and egg produce those children and who raises them varies greatly from society to society; in some societies children are rarely raised by the biological mother and father, but are raised by other family or clan members.
My husband and I cannot biologically have children together, as is the case with many heterosexual couples for various reasons including age, surgical or natural sterility, genetic incompatibility or choice. By your logic our marriage should not be valid and I find that line of reasoning personally offensive. With this argument you are attacking the validity of hundreds of thousands of non child bearing heterosexual couples, just to argue against the legal rights of gay people to register a committed relationship with the State of Hawaii, and receive the legal benefits they are due as citizens of this state. I think this "I believe in natural selection" line of logic is just a smokescreen behind which to hide oppression of a minority. The last group to use natural selection as a large scale basis for legal reasoning and to justify the oppression of minorities was in power in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. Do we really want to go there in this country?
Here in Hawaii first cousins can already legally marry, even though the odds of such a union producing children with genetic disorders is much higher than with non related parents. So if two people who stand a higher chance of having a genetically flawed offspring are allowed to have a legally recognized relationship in Hawaii, why can't two people whose marriage will never produce such a child? They can still form a family through adoption, still care for the elderly (gay people all have parents too), and now would be better able to conserve capitol within their family from generation to generation.
Again, anyone who doesn't want to participate in a gay marriage or civil union shouldn't, just leave the rest of us alone to pursue happiness as is our constitutionally protected right, and quit trying to justify legal oppression on religious or "natural selection" grounds.
Carol
Marriage exists in many forms and for many reasons in different societies and at different times in history, but the three reasons that are most consistently found are: care and nurturing of children, care of the elderly and infirm, and conservation of wealth or capitol within the family. The last one has a huge range from the right to sleep on a certain patch of sidewalk in India to wealth at the level of Bill Gates. Whose actual sperm and egg produce those children and who raises them varies greatly from society to society; in some societies children are rarely raised by the biological mother and father, but are raised by other family or clan members.
My husband and I cannot biologically have children together, as is the case with many heterosexual couples for various reasons including age, surgical or natural sterility, genetic incompatibility or choice. By your logic our marriage should not be valid and I find that line of reasoning personally offensive. With this argument you are attacking the validity of hundreds of thousands of non child bearing heterosexual couples, just to argue against the legal rights of gay people to register a committed relationship with the State of Hawaii, and receive the legal benefits they are due as citizens of this state. I think this "I believe in natural selection" line of logic is just a smokescreen behind which to hide oppression of a minority. The last group to use natural selection as a large scale basis for legal reasoning and to justify the oppression of minorities was in power in Europe in the 1930s and 40s. Do we really want to go there in this country?
Here in Hawaii first cousins can already legally marry, even though the odds of such a union producing children with genetic disorders is much higher than with non related parents. So if two people who stand a higher chance of having a genetically flawed offspring are allowed to have a legally recognized relationship in Hawaii, why can't two people whose marriage will never produce such a child? They can still form a family through adoption, still care for the elderly (gay people all have parents too), and now would be better able to conserve capitol within their family from generation to generation.
Again, anyone who doesn't want to participate in a gay marriage or civil union shouldn't, just leave the rest of us alone to pursue happiness as is our constitutionally protected right, and quit trying to justify legal oppression on religious or "natural selection" grounds.
Carol
Carol
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb