Melissa Etheridge to Stop Paying Taxes Due to Prop 8

[Sewer Bull]

Originally Posted by Type 97 Chi-ha

It's Krang's right to do that, isn't it? A number of people have been banned from this forum, presumably for valid reasons.

Sorry, but "gay marriage" is no more a right that it is a right to have multiple spouses. The government does have the right to say who can marry whom; and no, religion has nothing to do with it. At the end of Gilbert and Sullivan's H. M. S. Pinafore, Sir Joseph marries his first cousin (her idea), which was legal in Britain, at least at the time. I don't believe it is legal here. If gay marriage is a right, then we are real dinosaurs for not allowing cousins to marry as well.

Banning marriages between cousins has some scientific purposes. On the other hand tho' - why not let them have it as well? It's people's choice if they want to deal with crippled kids or not, as long as they don't sue the state for that.

As for the institution of marriage... I've always considered it (along with several benefits going along with it) as some sort of social incentive to make people procreate and raise their kids. Obviously, gay people wouldn't reproduce (let's leave the cases of adoptions and children conceived with earlier partners out of that), but on the other hand, infertile straight people wouldn't as well. Everyone should possible get through fertility test to get an attestation for marriage and then make sure to conceive at least one brat within two years after getting hitched - because that's what one man and one woman are needed for.

If we agree on the existence of "fruitless straight marriages", then I don't see any reason gay people can't marry as well.

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

I don't get why marriage is such a huge deal, no one said gay people can't live together and be married, just not in the legal sense.

Taxation, inheritance, hospital visits etc.