Subject: RE: Supreme Court extends same-sex marriage nationwide Originally posted by tuwood
Originally posted by jennifer_runs Originally posted by jmcconne Originally posted by jennifer_runs And lo and behold-- marriage equality doesn't allow .... or polygamy. Imagine that! I have no idea why people think that polygamy shouldn't be legal based on the reasons that were provided for legalizing gay marriage. The reasons against it seem very similar to the reasons people provided for thinking gay marriage was a bad idea. Mainly that it was weird and they don't think it is healthy. The reasons people wanted same-sex marriage granted the same rights are opposite sex-marriage have to do with spousal rights. Couples get certain rights granted to the partner (economic, health decisions, etc. ) and the legal marriage forms that legal couple partnership. In states that forbid same-sex marriage, the partner was denied all of those rights. Imagine if your partner was dying and you weren't even allowed in the hospital room because you aren't "family." This is the kind of thing that same-sex couples deserve in the same way as any other couples. If polygamy were legal in this sense, then you could designate multiple partners? Who gets spousal rights? The government isn't going to stop you from having two women in your bed, but they just don't have legal partnership rights. I'm playing devils advocate here, but why shouldn't they have those rights? Every person in America should be offered the same rights correct. (I think this is where I'm supposed to insert something about "why are you such a hater" /sarc)
The difference is that one is discrimination. The other is not.
We live in a society where special marriage and spousal rights have a place in the partnership between two people. You could live, say, in a village in Africa where this wouldn't be the case, and then the whole issue of legality of same-sex marriage isn't even on the radar. But there you might see that the social norms about property and family rights extend to more than one spouse.
There have been laws about homosexual BEHAVIOR on the books in many states in the past (some still exist ), but that's not what this ruling was about. It was about affording the same rights of marriage and partnership to same-sex couples that opposite-sex couples have had for years. To do otherwise was discrimination simply on the basis of whom you chose as a partner. As a society we do not currently believe that someone can marry multiple people and have all of those get legal protection and rights as spouses (like survival benefits, family benefits, etc. ). That's not discrimination -- that's simply a choice that we've made as a society. |