Index of SPPS Budget Discussion http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/spps-posts.html _________________________________________
To Eva:
God might hate shrimp, but he loves a barbeque. www.thewaronfaith.com/bible_quotes.htm "...and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the LORD." Numbers 28:1-15
Swift said:
No matter how you feel about the root cause of homosexuality, you cannot deny the fact that whom we choose to have relationships, sexual or otherwise are based on decisions we have control over.
Rick Mons replied: No matter how you try to objectify it, your argument still assumes a "choice" being made by the gay person. I don't think there's a hope of convincing opponents of same-sex marriages of the fallacy of this argument.
Mary Baker adds:
And besides, who cares? What if homosexuality is a choice? (Not that I think it is) So what? No one should legislate that I'm wrong to be far more attracted to brown eyed men than blue eyed men. Should there be laws saying that men aren't allowed to be attracted to women with a certain breast size? No! Having a "choice" over your sexual expression is not only a distraction, but an irrelevant one at that. Even if it is a choice, there's no meaningful reason why we shouldn't be allowed to indulge that choice with consenting adults.
Someone else was asking why goverment is in the business of legislating marriage at all. I think that's a good question. The standard reasons seem to be that the government has an interest in the raising of children, inheriting of wealth and identifying unrelated individuals with a legitimate interest in one another's welfare. Theoretically, all these goals could be accomplished without affecting the heterosexual notion of marriage. But theoretically we could all learn to speak Pashtu - my point being that making it clear that marriage applies to same-sex couples as it does to opposite sex ones is a lot easier and more efficient than coming up with a whole new set of laws.
In the end, the government is in the business of whatever we choose to have the government in the business of. If we choose to have the government regulate dog racing or coffee shop franchizing or marriage licenses or car inspection services, then the government will be involved in all of those. And so we have. There are some good reasons the government is involved in marriage licenses - it helps track households and establish responsible persons for children, it legally recognizes unions so that penalties accrue when and if they wish to part (these penalties exist to make sure children are cared for and that one party does not take undue advantage of the other), and it establishes in writing who is your backup to make decisions when you're not available. These are all good and useful things to have. I think we could get by without government involvement in marriage, but it would be much more difficult than what we're doing now.
Mary Baker East Side
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