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I oppose any statute, law or amendment that restricts marriage and/or the benefits thereof to couples consisting of a man and a woman who are sexually involved. I think that the benefits of marriage (child custody, beneficiary of estate, tax exemption, right to decide on medical issues, etc.) should not be restricted to heterosexual couples engaged in sex with one another. Those benefits should be granted to any pair of people who vow to assist one another in life, child rearing (if any children exist), to love (even if only platonically) and protect one another. Should two roommates and life long friends decide to marry, they should be allowed to, even if one is a heterosexual man with a child from a previous marriage and the other is a homosexual man with no intention of pursuing sexual relations with his spouse-to-be.
Sexual orientation and sexual behavior are not necessarily linked to marriage and the benefits thereof. It is no one's business whether those involved in a marriage are fertile, having sex, having kinky sex, not having sex, using birth control, are homosexual, have an open relationship or any of the other zillion variants of human sexual behavior that exist. The law should not attempt to legislate which kinds of sexual behavior are allowed in marriage, nor to judge couples as fit or unfit for marriage depending on their gender.
Some people say that allowing gay marriage would open the door to allowing incest, polygamy, bigamy and marrying pets. To which I say: So what? We'll examine each on their merits. Right now it's perfectly legal for a half brother and sister of the same father to marry as long as they are unaware or unadmitting of their shared parent. And it is illegal for step siblings to marry even when they share no biological tie. Why? Why should the law care about this, so long as all involved are consenting adults? I accept that society has a binding interest in preventing unions too close genetically. I find it strange though - we find it acceptable to outlaw unions of siblings based on a 1 in 8 fear of genetic anomoly, but when it comes to restricting the reproductive rights of people with a known genetic disease and a 1 in 4 chance of passing it on, we have an "up to them" policy.
As for the multiple spouse marriages - shouldn't this be something we should at least look at? (Not necessarily right now, as we have a different proposal on the table.) A lot of societies and religions embrace the idea of allowing multiple spouses with as much fervor as Christianity cleaves to having only one. Polygamy is not a practice that should be dismissed out of hand just because it isn't in the background of the majority of folks in the US. As for marrying pets - pets are not legally people, thus they can not be granted tax exemption or make informed decisions regarding child custody or medical conditions of their "spouse". So that one simply doesn't fly.
Mary Baker East Side
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