Political Roundtable Cosmic String of Cataclysm - Part V

[hands11]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUW4rdU4f88


Any idea what Fox Noise was running while this was happening live ? A piece on how Hannity was is going to do a show on how Obama is anti Israel.

Obama's Speech To Israeli Students - whatever you political party, this is a must listen to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjiLcl6WGBQ

[Induveca]

I'm interested in what Induveca thinks of the Cypriot haircut crisis. Hope you didn't change out ALL your dollars.

I don't think anyone with a brain has made a shell company in Cyprus the past 3-4 years. It is essentially Greece.

[pancakes3]

From what I understand it's mostly a haven for Russian mobsters. The fact remains that no economy is insular and Europe looks to be weaker than the US economy - at least from my perspective.

Oh, and also saw this image on FB. I'll try to embed it but apparently I'm just an enormous goof when it comes to coding.

[image]
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ... 6218_n.jpg
[/image]

[montestewart]

From what I understand it's mostly a haven for Russian mobsters. The fact remains that no economy is insular and Europe looks to be weaker than the US economy - at least from my perspective.

Oh, and also saw this image on FB. I'll try to embed it but apparently I'm just an enormous goof when it comes to coding.

[image]
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ... 6218_n.jpg
[/image]

Somebody was having a fashionable surf n turf n Dew party

[hands11]

Should they be eating McDonalds ?

Short of the M Dew, that looked like a healthy meal.

And it wasn't overly expensive. Most of those items are anymore then a large Philly Cheese steak at Jerry's.

[Zonkerbl]

Lobster tails? That's not on the list of approved wic items.

[Nivek]

Some of the questions asked by Supreme Court justices during yesterday's same-sex marriage arguments bug me. Alito talked about there not being enough evidence to know whether same-sex marriage would be a good thing or not. Kennedy talked about "uncharted waters."

Alito's point is basically one of the arguments used in an attempt to delay interracial marriage in Virginia (the argument was that there wasn't enough evidence to know how biracial children would do in society). That argument strikes a nerve with me considering that I've been in an interracial marriage for the past 18+ years, and that I'm raising three biracial children. But that's kinda beside the point.

What happened to the justices using things like the law and the constitution to guide their decision? In this case, what is there in the constitution that permits the government to restrict people of the same gender from getting married?

[nate33]

My question is, what is marriage?

Is it a religious endorsement of a union between a couple? If that's the case, then churches should have the right to prevent gay people from getting married because they're the ones defining what a marriage is. It would be a issue decided completely outside the boundaries of government.

Or is marriage a legal contract between two consenting adults that gives them various legal rights and privileges such as hospital visitation, survivor's rights, inheritance, etc.? If that's the case, then I'm struggling to see why these particular privileges should be afforded exclusively to a union of a male and a female. I don't see why it has to be called "marriage" though. We can call it a "civil union". As long as the rights are the same, who cares?

[fishercob]

My question is, what is marriage?

Is it a religious endorsement of a union between a couple? If that's the case, then churches should have the right to prevent gay people from getting married because they're the ones defining what a marriage is. It would be a issue decided completely outside the boundaries of government.

Or is marriage a legal contract between two consenting adults that gives them various legal rights and privileges such as hospital visitation, survivor's rights, inheritance, etc.? If that's the case, then I'm struggling to see why these particular privileges should be afforded exclusively to a union of a male and a female. I don't see why it has to be called "marriage" though. We can call it a "civil union". As long as the rights are the same, who cares?

If "who cares," why not call it a marriage -- because, who cares? Separate but equal ain't equal.

[Nivek]

My question is, what is marriage?

Is it a religious endorsement of a union between a couple? If that's the case, then churches should have the right to prevent gay people from getting married because they're the ones defining what a marriage is. It would be a issue decided completely outside the boundaries of government.

I agree completely. I see no reason why churches and governments need to define marriage in the same way. If a gay couple wants to get married in a church, there's no reason that Westboro (to pick an extreme example) should be obligated to do that. Especially when there are plenty of other churches that would be happy to perform the marriage.

Or is marriage a legal contract between two consenting adults that gives them various legal rights and privileges such as hospital visitation, survivor's rights, inheritance, etc.? If that's the case, then I'm struggling to see why these particular privileges should be afforded exclusively to a union of a male and a female. I don't see why it has to be called "marriage" though. We can call it a "civil union". As long as the rights are the same, who cares?

Mostly in agreement here, though I'm not convinced the marriage contract needs to be restricted to a two-party agreement. I don't know what the compelling governmental interest would be in barring multiple consenting adults from entering into a mutual marriage. Wouldn't be my flavor, but as a matter of law and constitutional rights?

As for calling it a civil union -- I guess I just don't see the point. It's a semantic thing and the union of two people in a domestic partnership with the various legal rights and privileges has LONG been called "marriage." In practice, my guess is that people in "civil unions" would still call each other husband and wife and would likely refer to their partnership as a marriage. If the rights/privileges are the same as marriage, I'd just skip the semantics and call it what it is.

[dobrojim]

Churches do Weddings. And as far as I'm concerned, they should be free to set
whatever stds they want to for that.

The "State" defines a person's status as married or single. It seems to me that
the couple from NY(?) has a compelling case against being denied equal access
to married status. We've heard far too many stories/anecdotes of ways gay citizens
have been discriminated against in ways that are clearly unjust. It needs to end.

[nate33]

My question is, what is marriage?

Is it a religious endorsement of a union between a couple? If that's the case, then churches should have the right to prevent gay people from getting married because they're the ones defining what a marriage is. It would be a issue decided completely outside the boundaries of government.

Or is marriage a legal contract between two consenting adults that gives them various legal rights and privileges such as hospital visitation, survivor's rights, inheritance, etc.? If that's the case, then I'm struggling to see why these particular privileges should be afforded exclusively to a union of a male and a female. I don't see why it has to be called "marriage" though. We can call it a "civil union". As long as the rights are the same, who cares?

If "who cares," why not call it a marriage -- because, who cares? Separate but equal ain't equal.

Well, I can see why the religious types don't like the legal contract aspect of a marriage to be called a marriage because it confuses the legal part with the religious part.

I personally see it as two separate things. One gets "married" at a church. And then one should get a "civil union" contract from the justice of peace. Legally, I have a civil union with my wife. Keeping the two things distinct will help avoid a lot of confusion on the matter.

[fishercob]

My question is, what is marriage?

Is it a religious endorsement of a union between a couple? If that's the case, then churches should have the right to prevent gay people from getting married because they're the ones defining what a marriage is. It would be a issue decided completely outside the boundaries of government.

Or is marriage a legal contract between two consenting adults that gives them various legal rights and privileges such as hospital visitation, survivor's rights, inheritance, etc.? If that's the case, then I'm struggling to see why these particular privileges should be afforded exclusively to a union of a male and a female. I don't see why it has to be called "marriage" though. We can call it a "civil union". As long as the rights are the same, who cares?

If "who cares," why not call it a marriage -- because, who cares? Separate but equal ain't equal.

Well, I can see why the religious types don't like the legal contract aspect of a marriage to be called a marriage because it confuses the legal part with the religious part.

I personally see it as two separate things. One gets "married" at a church. And then one should get a "civil union" contract from the justice of peace. Legally, I have a civil union with my wife. Keeping the two things distinct will help avoid a lot of confusion on the matter.

Nate, I completely agree with this in concept. If people want to enter into a marriage within their religious institution, the government should have no role in that, and if they want government benefits afforded by "coupling" they shouldn't need any sort of religious sanctioning. But to Kevin's point, practically speaking it is called "marriage," so I'm opposed to granting that title to straight couples but giving another designation to gays.

[BigA]

<snip>
Mostly in agreement here, though I'm not convinced the marriage contract needs to be restricted to a two-party agreement. I don't know what the compelling governmental interest would be in barring multiple consenting adults from entering into a mutual marriage. Wouldn't be my flavor, but as a matter of law and constitutional rights?
<snip>

That's right, it would seem to be difficult and tortuous to come up with a constitutional principle under which bans on same-sex marriages are unconstitutional but bans on marriages of more than 2 people, among cousins, etc., are constitutional. But we've seen some tortuous constitutional reasoning over the years.

In any case, if prop 8 and other similar state laws are swept away, I'd expect anti-polygamy statutes to be challenged almost immediately.

[fishercob]

I have no sense of how common polygamy is. And while it's not for me, in general I'm all for consenting adults to be allowed to do whatever they want so long as it isn't hurting anyone else.

[dobrojim]

I have no sense of how common polygamy is. And while it's not for me, in general I'm all for consenting adults to be allowed to do whatever they want so long as it isn't hurting anyone else.

+1

that said, I think history his shown that polygamy has been rife with
abuses that should not be condoned. If they came up with appropriate
protections against that, meh. Those same protections should apply
in marriages that are not polygamous although some of these abuses
that I remember reading/hearing about would be particular to polygamy
and impossible in a monogamous relationship. I don't care.

[nate33]

I have no sense of how common polygamy is. And while it's not for me, in general I'm all for consenting adults to be allowed to do whatever they want so long as it isn't hurting anyone else.

I could envision the polygamy thing, if legalized as a civil union, to be distorted. What if everyone in a corporation agrees to a polygamous marriage, and therefore individuals cannot be forced to testify against one another after they commit crimes?

(I'm not sure if this particular example makes sense, legally, but I'm sure people smarter than me can come up with clever ways to use a polygamous marriage to game the system in all kinds of ways.)

[Nivek]

nate: While I'm sure people would come up with ways to game systems using polygamous marriages, reality is that people are already gaming systems in countless other ways using whatever means they can find. If you have an institution, someone's going to figure out how to exploit it and use it for their own gain.

As for abuses of polygamy -- I wonder how much of that is because it's been more of a secretive practice. Also, through history, polygamy was almost always a man marrying multiple women in societies where women had little to no power or rights. I don't think that would be the case in this country. Plus, we have existing laws/institutions to protect people from abuse.

Gotta admit that what I've written on the polygamy subject has already exceeded my interest in it. The current issue is same-sex marriage, and I don't see anything in the constitution that would justify preventing it.

[montestewart]

Yes, polygamy and same-sex marriage are much different issues. Did the Justices ask questions related to polygamy? If so, you'd think their clerks would have studied up more on the subject, but maybe it was raised in the written arguments, so they just had to say something. (Could be the same with Alito addressing the dearth of evidence re same-sex marriage. Maybe it was raised in the arguments.) I wonder if they dragged in incestuous marriages and bestiality, other commonly raised "parallel" concerns.

[Nivek]

Yes, polygamy and same-sex marriage are much different issues. Did the Justices ask questions related to polygamy? If so, you'd think their clerks would have studied up more on the subject, but maybe it was raised in the written arguments, so they just had to say something. (Could be the same with Alito addressing the dearth of evidence re same-sex marriage. Maybe it was raised in the arguments.) I wonder if they dragged in incestuous marriages and bestiality, other commonly raised "parallel" concerns.

So far as I know, the justices didn't ask anything about polygamy. I introduced it to our conversation with my response to nate's "two consenting adults" comment.

My original post was more about the irrelevancy of the questions asked by the justices.

Prohibitions on incestuous marriage can be maintained through proven health issues -- high incidence of birth defects and genetic disorders in children produced from incest. Bestiality, by definition, cannot be engaged in by "consenting adults."