I have to say I found this a contradiction on your part:
"4) This also applies to infertile heterosexual couples, who do things like go hire
surrogate mothers to carry their children for them. I think that should be outlawed.
Look, if God or Mother Nature (whatever) decided that you can’t have biological
children on your own then do something good for someone else."
As an adoptive parent, this is a pretty heady choice, and I'd reeeeaaaally recommend AGAINST anyone getting into it because some law says you should. The contradiction lies in allowing homosexual unions the same priveleges of marriage, but yer supporting NOT allowing people with the will (and means, apparently) to get themselves a baby?
Seems like s direct contradiction to me.
I think it's balls to suggest a law to prevent them from making that decision.
*********
Yes it is. Luckily I’ve got two big brass ones, baby!
Actually I’m just talking about surrogate motherhood. That’s the
situation where usually a wife is able to get pregnant, but unable
to carry a child to term, so they implant the wife’s eggs & the
husband’s sperm into another woman who carries the baby for
them. I just think that’s wrong. Using a human being as an
incubator. Yes, I would outlaw that. Just because science CAN do
something doesn’t mean that they SHOULD.
I also don’t like sperm banks & artificial insemination for
single woman or homosexual couples, but I wouldn’t outlaw that
sort of thing. I would just try to encourage those people to look at
adoption, especially considering the millions of orphans in the
world who need someone to love them. But usually people go
through these extraordinary means to biologically reproduce, often
for reasons which I consider selfish (although I suppose that’s a
good thing from an objectivist p.o.v.) as in the example I gave of
my brother wanting a kid who looks like him.
I often wonder why some people want to have kids. Is it to love
and raise a decent human being, or just to create carbon copies of
themselves? As someone who has disassociated from his father &
most of the relatives on that side of the family, I can assure you
that’s there’s more to family than genetics. You don’t have to be
biologically related to someone in order to love & care for them.
Just my opinion.
Anyway, my hat’s off to Daddio for being an adoptive parent!
You’re a good man, Mr. Dew!
This message has been edited by JohnRichardLeMar on Mar 3, 2004 2:45 AM
JR LeMar wrote: "I just think that’s wrong ...I would outlaw that ... I often wonder why some people want to have kids ... Just my opinion."
__________________________________
JR, have you read any of Steve Ditko's strips, HEADS? It's unfair of me to whittle your post down like that, but it seems instructive for fans of Steve's strip.
BOSTON- With same-sex marriage generating nationwide debate, the same court that authorized gay marriages in Massachusetts is getting ready to decide another landmark question of family law: whether a woman can be forced to pay child support for a child born to her former lesbian partner.
The state Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments Thursday in the case of a woman who says she had a baby through artificial insemination after her former partner agreed to raise the child with her. There is currently no state law that addresses parental responsibilities when unmarried couples - heterosexual or gay - have children through artificial insemination.
The woman who had the baby, identified in court papers as T.F., sued her former partner for child support after she paid an initial $800, but then ended contact with T.F. and the baby boy and refused to pay any more support.
Lawyers for both women say a 1981 state law makes it clear what happens when a child is born through artificial insemination to a married couple. In those cases, both people are considered the child's parents, and both are legally responsible for the child.
But there is no state law that covers what happens if the couple isn't married.
In the case before the SJC, the two women had been partners for three years.
After initially saying she did not want to have a child, B.L., the woman now being sued for child support, changed her mind and told her partner that she wanted a baby. The couple spent the next six months planning for the baby and taking the steps necessary for T.F. to be artificially inseminated, said T.F.'s attorney, Bennett Klein, a lawyer for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders.
"They had numerous conversations that all parents have - about the expenses involved with raising a child, their mutual joys and fears and excitement, where to live for the best school district and who should be the Godparents," Klein said.
Klein said B.L. accompanied T.F. to her doctor's appointments and helped pay for the insemination. She also signed a document at the sperm bank on the line that asked for the "spouse's signature."
Four months after T.F. became pregnant, the couple split up. Three months later, T.F. went into premature labor and had a baby boy on July 1, 2000.
B.L. arrived at the hospital an hour after the baby's birth and accepted an identification bracelet given by the hospital to all new parents. She later e-mailed friends photographs of herself with the baby and wrote the message, "I hope you all enjoy the pics of my wonderful, beautiful boy," according to court documents.
"Both before the child's birth and after the child's birth, she repeatedly referred to herself as the mother of this child," Klein said.
But B.L. claims in court documents that she repeatedly told her partner during their relationship that she did not want to have children. She said she vacillated while she was under treatment for depression, but only agreed to look into the possibility of insemination.
Her lawyer, Wendy Sibbison, did not return several telephone calls seeking comment. Sibbison told The Boston Globe that there was no agreement to have a child.
"People say things all the time," she said. "When you're talking about a living child coming into being, there needs to be a written agreement before somebody - who has no biological relationship to the child, who doesn't adopt the child, and who is a stranger to the child - (can be held) legally responsible for that child."
A family court judge last year found that B.L. had made an agreement to have a child with her former partner. But the judge did not issue a ruling in the case, citing the failure in state law to spell out the legal responsibilities of unmarried partners who have children through artificial insemination.
The judge asked the state Appeals Court to offer her guidance. But the SJC agreed to a request from T.F.'s attorney's to take the case on direct appellate review.
Dr. Michael Grodin, the medical ethicist at Boston Medical Center, said the case is an example of the need for formal written agreements in cases involving nontraditional reproduction involving sperm or egg donors and unmarried couples.
"I think we need to be clear and explicit about all these reproductive technologies and arrangements so that everybody understands what the roles and responsibilities of all the parties are, and to think about it from the standpoint of the child," Grodin said.
"People talk about the reproductive liberties of these things, but there's not much discussion about what's good for the kids."
David Kaplan, a family law attorney from Amherst, said the SJC's ruling in this case could have broad implications for its November ruling allowing same-sex marriages.
"Legitimacy (of children) is presumed for married couples," Kaplan said.
"If you're saying on the one hand that you're permitting same-sex couples to marry, implicit in that is if they marry, they will divorce, and then they are going to have custody issues."
So, animals also have a homosexual population within their species? Would this not add more proof to the theory that people are born gay rather than it being a "choice"?
Technically, this is just anecdotal. The females are outnumbered by males by far. Some males fight for the elusive female company. This couple of males paired off instead.
Was it genetic? How can you tell?
Would they have paired off if female partners were available? Who can say.
I just like it. Makes me want to take my tux out of cold storage.
All kidding aside, homosexuality is present in many animals, but most commonly in various species of birds. However, it has also been observed in other species as divergent as bees and dolphins. Whether or not this adds any solid evidence to the idea that it's genetic, I don't know.
Five months after filing for divorce from Lionel Richie, the singer's estranged wife has just weighed in with a detailed bling! bling! of demands starting with at least $300,000 in monthly support payments, reports thesmokinggun.com.
According to Diane Richie, 37, the couple has led an "extraordinary extravagant lifestyle" and that she had "no limit on what I could spend," according to the Los Angeles Superior Court declaration filed last week.
The Richies, who wed in December 1996 and have two young children, live in a $40 million Beverly Hills mansion, which has 30 rooms spread over 18,000 square feet.
"In addition to nine full time staff members, we also employ people to maintain our plants, detail our cars, care for our pool, groom our dog, maintain our aquarium and a painter for regular touch ups on the house," noted Richie. She also gave a detailed monthly expense report that Lionel, 54, needs to cover: clothing, shoes, and accessories ($15,000); dermatology ($3000); laser hair removal ($1000); massages ($600); jewelry ($5000); gifts ($5000); and vitamins ($500).
Thesmokinggun.com showed plenty of other costs Richie listed, like $20,000 annually for plastic surgery and her nine-year-old son's $125,000 boarding school tuition.
According to Richie, she began dating the pop star in 1984, when they met at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles (she was an 18-year-old dancer). Since those teen days, the performer "paid my rent and/or mortgage, purchased automobiles for me, and regularly bought me expensive gifts," recalled Richie.
You have to check out that website & see the full
claim for yourselves. It's funny. She basically
blames him for "forcing" her to spend tons of money during their marriage, so now that they're
divorcing he has to keep giving her money because
it's his fault that she's used to it.
So do I need to bring up prenups again or have
beaten that horse to death already?
Alright, just one last news item & then I'm done,
I swear:
Statistics show that marriage is still a highly regarded institution in the United States that most adults partake in at some point in their lives, despite the fact that divorce, adultery, and cohabitation have eroded the notion of "'til death do us part" in recent times. A story in USA Today on February 26 used recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics to measure American trends in love and marriage.
"Marriage is such a great idea that Americans seem to love it too much -- the idea, that is," USA Today reporters Rick Hampson and Karen S. Peterson wrote. "The reality of marriage -- crumbs in the bed, toilet seat up (or down), meatloaf again -- suffers in comparison. And since the introduction of no-fault divorce, it has gotten easier across the nation to leave a real marriage behind and move on in search of the ideal one."
According to the U.S. Census, 95% of both men and women in the U.S. today have married at least once by the time they reach 55 years old. And much more than half marry for the first time before they reach the age of 35 (77% of men, 84% of women). But the majority of these marriages don't make it to their 25th anniversaries. In fact, only 52% reach their 15th anniversaries, compared to 65% that reach a decade or 82% that get to five years. One study by the Census revealed that 73% of women who married in the first half of the '80s reached their tenth anniversaries -- a clear majority, but still a downward slide from 90% who married between 1945 and 1950, the earliest part of the "baby boomer" era.
In 1970, 3% of the U.S. population was divorced; this rose to 6% in 1980, 8% in 1990, and 10% in 2002. Apparently in part because of the dramatic increase in divorce over the past few decades, younger adults are choosing delay their first marriages longer. Today, the average age of first-time marriage is 26.9 for men and 25.3 for women, compared to 22.8 for men and 20.3 for women in 1950 (and even younger in the latter half of the '50s).
Another factor that may have affected these is the current frequency of cohabitation, as some couples choose to live together first as a "test" before considering marriage. Today, the majority of newlyweds have cohabited first; Rutgers University sociologist David Popenoe believes that about two-thirds of people who marry today have previously cohabited with another person.
Yet people are still willing to try again when their marriages fail. The Census Bureau says that the median number of years people wait to marry after their first divorce is only 3.1 for women and 3.3 for men. But the median age of Americans' second divorce is 39.3 for men and 37 for women, which isn't far off from the second-marriage median ages of 34 for men and 32 for women, or those for first divorces (30.5 for men, 29 for women).
So the general truth seems to be that Americans still want to get married, and frequently do so, but their marriages don't last, with roughly 50% of marriages ending in divorce. Perhaps the preconceived notion Americans have of what married life is really like is the key issue, rather than marriage and divorce themselves.
I don't try to be a cynic, but surely we see that the romance of marriage is -- at the very least --a wild media exaggeration, if not a complete fantasy.
Well after WWI (even), marriage in America remained a legal exchange between families, popularly romanticized in fiction. Dating was unheard of. A suitor visited his prospective bride at her family's home and carried on conversation with her parents for the most part, not with her.
The venues for dating that we have today did not even exist until the turn of the century. Restaurants were rare and certainly not a place for unmarried couples to bill or coo. No movie theaters. Women were not admitted to bars unless they were "professional hostesses." Dance clubs did not exist.
Rich young ladies were introduced to "society" at debute functions by their families -- although many of the ladies would have been promised to suitors already, by the family. Middle-class young ladies met young men in such formal circumstances as school or church functions, where adults hovered as chaperones. Even if the couple loved each other madly, their marriage was mediated by elders.
The "couple underneath the willow tree" in "Shine on, Harvest Moon" were revolutionary in their day, during the birth of jazz, shyly flirting in a secluded spot. The song at the time described them because what they were doing was remarkable, not traditional. Before that day, such romantic pleading -- as in ROMEO AND JULIET -- was the vast exception, not at all the rule. Nowadays, we think private romance has always been how lovers decide to marry. Not at all true! Private romance was a fantastic, splendid unlikelihood. Not real life, it was the rarest fantasy.
Marriage is a good thing, but our understanding of it in America is certainly fanciful. We plan our marriages based on unrealistic stories, then wonder why so many fail! Stumbling into a marriage of "true love" is a only a little more likely than being "discovered" by a Hollywood director while sipping a malt on Sunset Boulevard, or getting drafted to the NBA when a coach sees you shooting hoops on the street corner. It happens, but we mustn't use it as a model while making our own plans. It's a beautiful and valuable aspiration, but aspiration alone doesn't teach us how to make it so.
Maybe this rigamarole over gay marriage will give us all the opportunity to review marriage and the expectations we associate with it, and help us figure out how to do it.
BTW: anyone reading who HAS a marriage of true love -- you have my deepest respect and congratulations. Those of you who stumbled into true love by luck, without hard work, surely thou art blessed. Those of you who make your marriage good through work and wisdom -- to you, high five oh my brothers and sisters. Oh, what the hell, high five to all the judiciously single, too.
Well, gosh. I'm not a "psychic." That would be un-Objectivist of me.
YOUR timing is excellent, Chaz. You are entering not merely the old time-honored sacred tradition of marriage; you are entering the NEW and IMPROVED time-honored sacred tradition of marriage.
Kidding aside, CONGRATULATIONS, Chaz! Best wished to you and yours!
It's pretty much all about the insurance, Mike. If I could, I'd probably get the same deal as you and your partner got.* But thank you!
*Actually I wanted to ask you something: I was talking with somebody whose computer I was fixing, and they said a friend's girlfriend got laid off from her job, so the guy wanted to sign her up for his insurance plan. The employer did allow non-married domestic partners, but only for same-sex couple. You mentioned your employer offered this, but is it a same-sex only deal? The person I was talking to thought it was discrimination, and I tend to agree, although same-sex couples don't have the marriage option. What do you think?
After this topic came up elsewhere, I and an older co-worker went to ask if she and her live-in boyfriend were allowed domestic partner benefits.
The company recognizes same-sex domestic partnerships in lieu of same-sex marriage. It does not recognize opposite-sex domestic partnerships since marriage is an option for those couples. This was explained to me casually. i was not offered an official written statement of policy.
If or when same-sex marriage becomes legal in New York state, I wonder whether my company will revoke its policy and no longer recognize domestic partners. If that happens, JonnyWannabe and I will have to make a decision like yours, Chaz.
Do I support this ethical compromise? No. I prefer that "marriage" lose its legal meaning to become a wholly sacred institution, and that domestic partnership become the roughly parallel legal condition. I am "anti-marriage" in the semantic sense. Looks like our stupid motherfucking countrymen will insist on going the other way, legislating same-sex marriages. And then my company will come to The Wannabe Family and ask, "Are you faggots gonna tie the knot, or do we have to take benefits away from the cute one?"
If you have the legal option to marry, and your intent is to stay together "indefinitely" anyway (no breakup foreseen), then yeh you should marry. Otherwise you're just being a hippy.
It's not just specifically that I'm against marriage (I'm also against things like driver's licenses), but to me it's just another unnecessary bureaucratic structure. This is supposed to be a free country, why do we need to register our relationships with the government?
I ain't no hippy--I take clippers to my head every two weeks.
Heh. Of course one should be allowed to marry, not marry, call the relationship anything they want to or not have a relationship at all. What I'm looking at here is the consistency of how it's approached from a legal standpoint.
For the most part, marriage is treated by the government as an incentive-based system. (Incentives = Good, Restrictions = Bad.) The basic idea behind there being financial benefits to marriage is that the government sees strong family units as beneficial to society. I personally agree with this perception. So I see nothing wrong with there being tax and insurance advantages to getting married and staying married ~ you always have the option of not marrying, or divorcing, with the understanding that you wouldn't be entitled to the financial incentives.
Kinda, yeh. You know I don't like the idea of there being a different term for same-sex unions and opposite-sex unions. It just irks me. Seems PC or euphemistic. A marriage should be a marriage, period. It's like the government is saying, "Well if we call it something else then normal people won't mind so much ..."
Cos we're all told that if you and Chaz marry your partners then you're destroying the sanctity of all the heterosexual unions, so you have to be given a different term for it, then our marriages will still be, erm, sanct.
Actually my partner is female, so we're not technically destroying the sanctity of marriage. We're sure as hell trying though.
I agree there should be no distinction between the two types of marriages. But if there were no legal definition or recognition of marriage, it wouldn't matter.
LINDA wrote: "Kinda, yeh. You know I don't like the idea of there being a different term for same-sex unions and opposite-sex unions. It just irks me. Seems PC or euphemistic. A marriage should be a marriage, period. It's like the government is saying, 'Well if we call it something else then normal people won't mind so much ...'"
Fair, and plain.
I have been distinguishing "same-sex unions" from "marriages" out of respect for those who feel "marriage" refers to more than a legal arrangement. I avoided "marriage" so as not to require them to use language they find abominable.
But you're right. Whether they call same-sex unions "marriage" is their problem, and my concern for their sensibilities is really cryptic unctuousness.
I guess I have been slow in deciding whether I myself feel the term "marriage" refers to more than a legal arrangement.
Y'know, I was just reading this artical on slate: http://slate.msn.com/id/2100884
& I started to think about something. I've been in support of gay marriage all of this time. I figure, homosexuals should have the right to be just as miserable as hetersexuals. But I am starting to wonder if this could possible lead to more changes. I mean, I'm not trying to sound like one of those fundamentalist christian right-wing wackos, but if marriage between two men or two womem becomes equal to marriage between one man and one woman, then where does it end?
Some conservatives start bringing up marriage between family members, but that's just a red herring IMO. HOWEVER...what about polygamy, or polyamorous marriages?
Why can't three people get married? One man and two women, one woman and two men, three men, three women, whatever. Or four people, or five people? I'd imagine we'd see quite a few men in Utah applying for multiple marriage licenses if that became legal. And really, would there be any reason to deny the option if we allow same-sex marriage? We already see the arguments about extending "domestic partnership" rights to unmarried heterosexual couples if you're going to allow them for homosexual couples.
Seriously, what kind of impact would that have on society?
It would certainly change it as we know it. Now, I'm not saying that would be a bad thing. Who knows, maybe it'll be better. More love for everyone, y'know. I'm just raising the issue, because most here, with the exception of Darin (& where is he anyway?) seem to be supportive of gay marriage, and I was just wondering if any of y'all have thought about the possible negative implications this could have?
P.S. Congratulations, Chaz. (I guess.)
This message has been edited by JohnRichardLeMar on May 22, 2004 10:01 PM This message has been edited by JohnRichardLeMar on May 22, 2004 9:57 PM
Chaz I am totally confused ... why did I think you were gay? Misread your posts or something.
Anyway ... Mike, call your relationship whatever you want. But don't call it something other than you want to in order to avoid offending people. That's more offensive, I think.
>> HOWEVER...what about polygamy, or polyamorous marriages? Why can't three people get married? One man and two women, one woman and two men, three men, three women, whatever. Or four people, or five people? I'd imagine we'd see quite a few men in Utah applying for multiple marriage licenses if that became legal. And really, would there be any reason to deny the option if we allow same-sex marriage? <<
It shouldn't be disallowed if that's what people want to do. It's the "domestic partnership" thing that I wish were disallowed ~ rather, not recognised institutionally. Marriage is a legal committment. Of course it can be broken via divorce, but the institutionalisation of marriage, the licensing, the legalities and everything, that's what gives marriage status under the Law. If people want to extend that concept to 3 or 4 or 5 partners in one union, why not? As long as they're willing to commit legally to that union to the same extent that a union of 2 people would.
>> We already see the arguments about extending "domestic partnership" rights to unmarried heterosexual couples if you're going to allow them for homosexual couples. <<
THAT'S the Pandora's Box in this equation ... that's the typical result of incrementalism. (Incrementalism is usually begun by the Left, but is often supported by compromised Rightwingers, like much of the Republican Party.) A "reasonable" concept is put forward, like the above, but then eventually this reasonable concept is scrutinised under the Law and it becomes "Wait! If X has this right, shouldn't Y and Z also have this right?" Before you know it, everyone has a new Entitlement which has no actual basis in the Constitution. All from an initially "reasonable" concept.
This is why I think it's crucial that we draw a line in the sand and say No immediately to any concept which doesn't have a clear, literal basis in the Constitution, no matter how reasonable it appears to be. Incrementalism has made a bloated, government-encroached disaster of the lean, tidy nation the Founders wanted for us.
No problem Linda. At Brisbois's suggestion, I often referred to my now wife as my "domestic partner" because we'd been together a long time (almost 7 years now) and weren't married. From now on if you hear my say "domestic partner", I guess you can assume we've got another girlfriend.
I agree with your sentiments about the Constitution, which is why I don't think we need to have a legal definition of marriage. And it's one of the reasons I'm so opposed to an amendment banning gay marriage--how can there be a Constitutional amendment regarding something that isn't in the Constitution?
Well, if HE can't make it work, is there hope for any of us?
May 26 2004, 1:22 AM
By ANTHONY BREZNICAN, AP Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES - Snoop Dogg is getting a divizzle. The rapper/actor has filed for divorce from Shante Broadus, according to papers filed with Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday.
They have been married since 1997 and have three children: Corde, 9; Cordell, 7; and Cori, 4. He is seeking joint custody.
Snoop, born Calvin Broadus, cited general "irreconcilable differences" for the breakup.
"The only thing I want to say is Mr. Broadus hopes that the divorce can be as amicable as possible," Snoop's attorney, Robert Nachshin, told The Associated Press on Monday.
Snoop, 32, co-stars in the new movie "Soul Plane," which opens Friday. He also has appeared in the movies "Baby Boy" and "Starsky & Hutch," starred in MTV's "Doggy Fizzle Televizzle" comedy show and helped popularize new slang that adds a lot of unnecessary Zs and Ls to words.
He first made a name for himself more than 10 years ago, rapping about street violence, gangs, sex and marijuana. Recently, he has embraced the pimp style popular with many rappers while branching out into hosting porn videos (some filmed in his own backyard, according to his web site) and other sexually explicit material such as the "Girls Gone Wild" series.
Shante Broadus' attorney, James Durrant, did not immediately return a call for comment.
Come to think of it, I refer to JonnyWannabe as my "boyfriend" in common conversation.
I only use "domestic partner" when I'm referring to our longterm legal plans.
I get so over-inflated while discussing the topic of marriage, I just plain forgot I call him my boyfriend.
That oversight illustrates, perhaps, why I find irrelevant such terms as "domestic partner," "civil union" and so on. Language is lazy, especially here in America, and people inevitably fall back on the simplest available synonym --
-- except when they're disguising a hard fact, a la "post-traumatic stress disorder" and all those G. Carlinisms. Is that the case here?
My dictionary defines husband and wife as "a married man" and "a married woman", respectively. Marriage is
1. the state of being married
2. a wedding ceremony and attendant festivities
3. a close union
If we really want to get down to the basics of a language, anybody in a close, long-term relationship could presumably refer to their, uh, partner or whatever (I don't know what the hell to say now!) as husband or wife, as long as you're not talking in legal terms.
"Husband? I didn't know you and Jonny were married!"
"But of course, we have a very close union!"
I guess this would only work with people who scrutinize dictionaries, though.
Couple files suit one day after getting married in Mass.
May 27 2004, 1:28 AM
The Associated Press
Updated: 2:39 p.m. ET May 22, 2004
BOSTON - One day after getting married, a lesbian couple filed a medical malpractice lawsuit asking that one of the women receive damages because doctors failed to detect breast cancer in her spouse.
The lawsuit filed Friday claims “loss of consortium” for Cindy Kalish, 39, because of the advanced breast cancer in new wife Michelle Charron, 44.
Loss of consortium is a legal claim long available to spouses, but only newly available to gay and lesbian couples since the state began allowing same-sex marriage Monday. The lawsuit provides a glimpse into the kinds of legal battles involving gay and lesbian unions that Massachusetts courts can now expect.
“I think there will be tons and tons of incidental issues, and this apparently is the first one,” said Boston lawyer Steven Schreckinger.
Charron and Kalish were seventh in line on Monday to apply for a wedding license, and were married Thursday. The lawsuit contends that two doctors affiliated with Fallon Clinic failed to order a biopsy for a lump in Charron’s breast, which she first brought to their attention in December 2002.
By the time the biopsy was performed nearly eight months later, Charron’s lump had grown and she was diagnosed with advanced cancer that had spread to her liver and sternum. Doctors have given her 10 years to live.
A spokeswoman for Fallon Clinic declined to comment on the case.
The Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that unmarried partners cannot bring lack of consortium claims, said David White-Lief, a specialist in personal injury law and a former chairman of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s civil litigation section.
Schreckinger said the lawsuit’s timing could be challenged, because the alleged negligence was before the couple was married. But the couple’s lawyer, Ann Maguire, said the court will view the case differently because marriage was not an option before Monday. The couple had a commitment ceremony in 1992.
*************************************
I think this is a HUGE mistake. Exactly what the gay rights campaign does not need right now. It makes it look as if this is just some political agenda and that they are, in fact, attempted to shove there lifestyle down everyone's throats.
So, the spouse of the alleged victim of malpractice is now suing? Why in the name of anything would the medical community be held liable for the law? So they weren't allowed to get married, under the existing law of the period wherein she was diagnosed? So what? How can the medical malpracticioners be at fault?
They CAN be at fault for their lack of diagnosis, etc. and I assume the victim has already sued, but now they want the new spouse to receive damages? Thats ridiculous, and JR is right; it will only serve to infuriate those who might otherwise be willing to accept this new era, even if slowly.
Yeah, that was what I was trying to say, Daddio. The argument for gay marriage has been that 2 gay people in love should be able to have that loving relationship legally recognized just like 2 straight people do, that it was about simple human dignity. But a case like this makes it look like it's just about being able to sue somebody to get money. Of course we know straight people get married for nebulous reasons every day, but this really doesn't help the gay marriage agenda.
And by the way, I would be against this lawsuit just the same if it were filed by a straight couple. This ultimately has less to do with gay rights and more to do the lawsuit-happy nation we've become. The patient filed her lawsuit & got her dough, why should her "spouse" (of whatever gender) be able to file a seperate lawsuit? Presumably, any money awarded to the patient would be shared by the spouse, so why do this?
For those who care, a small bit of info to contribute to the this never-ending thread (at least it's not about Star Wars, right?):
I've got a friend who just started working for Starbucks. Apparently, they allow you to have a domestic partners in your insurance plan, regardless of gender. This is the first I've heard of a company that does this.
No writer that I know, and I am absolutely no exception, has the right to speak as an authority for all men. No matter what I say about honor and pride some guy somewhere is going to spend his last dime on a dominatrix or propose to a coke whore. There’s no getting around it. It’s a fact. We can quibble and pretend dominated males are exceptions but there are legions of guys out there who will put up with any abuse that a woman sends their way. That being said, I would like to address this column to those not pining for the submissive’s chair or anxiously awaiting a girl on a white horse who’ll allow them to pay off her car note and college loan without saying thank you.
The fundamental question is, “Should a man nowadays get married at all?”
My take on the issue is that the appropriateness of marriage has to be determined on a case by case basis but that presumption, in this day and age, should always be against marriage. To put it more simply, the tie cannot go to the runner. Men, when in doubt, walk away. If you have serious reservations about a woman and you marry her, a number of things may happen. One of them is good. Your negative intuition could turn out to be wrong and you’ll end up having a wonderful, blissful life with your bride. Unfortunately, lots of bad things could happen as well:
1. Your intuition was right and she divorces you. She thereby acquires half, if not
all, of your assets and possessions. The state is thoroughly biased against men and seems to have no threshold for its love of male suffering. This is a very real and tragic possibility.
2. Your intuition is right and she’s unreliable. You experience strange men calling the house and hanging up should you be the one to reach the phone first.
3. Your intuition is right as your experiment with paying for her college education ends in her befriending evil radical feminists who call the house and scream “rapist” at you as a greeting. They then follow up this pleasantry with asking if their “play kitty” is home.
4. Your intuition is right and she spends money like a gay party boy on Fire Island leading you slowly but gaily into Chapter 7.
5. Your wonderful children to be get aborted as she decides they’d take up too much time during the day.
6. You spend all your free time with her at the mall or, far worse, with her family and friends.
Well, you see my point. It’s bad scenario a-go-go. So, in the spirit of the boss from the film Casino: “Why take a chance?”
That’s easy for me to dismissively say but then there’s tons of dopes like this writer who are smart enough to know better but then get married anyway. When I got engaged at Christmas time, Eric Ericson emailed me and said something to the effect of, “Have you lost your mind?”
As it turned out, I had not. I sanely and soberly weighed the pros versus the cons and determined that this particular woman was unlike all the others I had met and that she gave me the best chance of fulfilling my dream of fathering a couple of little critters and having a faithful, intelligent person as a partner. Yet, even with such a rational determinations made in advance, the situation changed and in April I found myself in the midst of an ugly soap opera on which I turned out to be only a temporary, non-recurring character. I was written out of the series before summer hit. For the future, I’ve decided, that unless its near-perfect there is no way I’ll get engaged again.
My decision is not respected by many of the women I know who attempt to use what I call “shame-based” therapy as a means of coercing guys like me into finding a wife. I am at the point where I can vigorously beat back their attempts to manipulate me but I thought I’d share my responses the reader in the hopes that my words can be of benefit in case they encounter similar harassment.
First, I say that the situation had changed with men and women. It used to be that when a man got married he got a deal. A woman would remain faithful to him or, at the very least, cook and clean for him. You’d get something in exchange for what you brought to the table. Today, men get very little in comparison with the past. I have met no end of women who ask in advance if I cook because they themselves do not. When I tell them that I cook everyday they are quite impressed (although I leave out my belief that pre-made salads, brats, and pizza are the height of fine dining).
Promiscuity is another issue. The promiscuity of the modern female makes marriage a very dubious proposition indeed. Who the heck wants to marry a girl that’s had more sleeping partners than a bed at the Motel 6? Not me that’s for sure. I’d rather die a cold and lonely death than marry a skank–Paul Craig Roberts produced a magnificent column on this phenomenon a few years ago. I’ve never understood the argument that “all their experiences make them good in bed” either. If they’re attractive, how good do they have to be? If you ask me, no amount of tricks she’s learned can make up for huge “Tyrone” that her ex-boyfriend had tattooed upon her back (and he was smart enough not to marry her).
Another huge factor to me is the obesity epidemic. While I acknowledge that its not really an epidemic by most definitions, weight increases seem to heavily effect married women. I’m 34 years old now and I’ve met countless females who ballooned to MGM proportions after getting hitched. To me, this is deplorable. I knew one who showed me a picture of her when she was 22. She was better looking than most movie stars. Her body was hard and trim and her face was pure allure, but by age 28 she had gained 65 pounds and wore pants that William Perry could have fit into. I’d look at her husband sorrowfully when she talked of having children. The act of conception with her would have required the courage of St. George. No mere oral dose of Viagra would do. It would require hypodermic injections to get old Bumpty into Humpity form.
My last argument is also my most recently derived one. If its at work where I’m getting harassed about my lack of romance (read: susceptibility), and it usually is, I tell them: “I have plenty of masters here. Why do I need one at home?” No more accurate words could be spoken. I’m ordered to do things all day long at work. When I get home I want to relax. I’m not going to waste time doing unnecessary chores or shopping for things I do not need. The homage we domestically have to pay to our wives is outrageous. Why are they my boss? Here’s what I say now, “Let’s take an IQ test and if you win then you can tell me what to do.” I’ve had no takers yet as I’m not giving out a big enough point spread.
In summation, with women, unless they’re without flaw, my advice is to ride the train for as long as you can but let some other sucker pay for its maintenance and servicing, and always make sure you get off of the route before it reaches matrimonial terminal.
“Bachelors know more about women than married men. If they didn’t they’d be married, too.” – H.L. Mencken.
A great sage predicted I’d take some serious abuse for what I wrote about marriage the other day. He was right but, for the benefit of our readers, I’m going to provide public refutation to some of the arguments and whines that were thrown my way en masse–if nothing else, their vaginations actually strengthened my overall position.
Burn the Heretic!
As I have noted in a previous article, Supine or Fall, whenever a man stands up for himself on gender issues he is immediately accused by women of being unmanly. Why? It’s because we stood up to them, and that’s not right. That’s not manly. We’re supposed to let them walk on us. These women, and those lickspittle male orcs who hobble in their wake, would be wise to remember that the western world now embraces equality between the sexes (at least officially), and that no one should be de facto superior to anyone else. Walking on men, in theory, is not allowed.
Furthermore, it’s a man’s duty to define and defend himself, and I can think of no occasion when this is more true than in making personal life choices. Marriage can be life joy or it can be life sentence, but there’s no room to make allowances for political correctness when thinking deeply about such eventualities. Why would any women be aghast at our pontificating over it? Should we not stop to smell a flower before picking it? I say stop and smell, inspect its structural base, and chemically analyze the ground around it before making a purchase. Perhaps some women became irate at me because they secretly realize that marriage does not offer men the advantages it once did, so their awareness causes them to go after heretics like myself who threaten to make this knowledge public.
I’ll recall the case of Darren Blacksmith here. Darren wrote a “just say no to marriage” piece and got kerosene poured all over him. His offense was such that he quit the business. Luckily, this would never be my response. I’m incorrigible. Harassing me only produces more words. It’ll take more than a few china dolls to deter me from tackling this subject, and if I keep hearing from them, Part III will be even better than Part II!
Nuance Lost:
As much as I hate the word, “nuance,” with its outraged tobacco-addicted, post-modernist French professor connotations, I think that the nuance of my argument was lost on some of my critics. Emotions run so scarlet on marriage that many a female reader did not understand the point that I was trying to make. Marriage certainly can be a very good thing and it is, on the aggregate, beneficial for society, but, in this day and age, PRESUMPTION must be against it. Our default position should be–“it’s not a good move.” That does not mean it isn’t a good move for every body in every situation. There are over three billion women on this planet and many of them could make excellent wives but you should be vigilant and nowhere is this more true than in the uber-spoiled United States. Men have too much to lose if things don’t work out. Think of my friend Robert and the trauma that he went through. Western independent females, as a rule, do not make the best wives. They’re too me oriented for that line of work. One must be very careful indeed. Sit and observe closely before making any decisions.
Who’s Fault is this Predicament?
Is it the fault of free marketeers like myself clamoring for government to get more of its vile fingers into our private lives? Hell no! Ask the individuals who keep voting for political figures who brag about increasing taxes and adding to the burden with which government sabotages our lives. Many of those who automatically look to the state to provide solutions are the same ones who complain about the decline of marriage today. If they didn’t elect redistributionist judges and politicians, men would not fear marriage the way we do. It shouldn’t be, “if you can’t marry a man, marry the government.” Let’s change it to “solve problems amongst yourselves.” I think that’s an ideal solution. If the divorce courts end their war on men then we will once again become more friendly regarding matrimonial vows. Until then, it’s best to harken back to the wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli: “Every woman should marry–and no man.”
An Elite Club:
Women of the sistahood view marriage as being an elite club and want nothing more than full-time membership. They, whether they deny it or not, admire their friends who are married and this admiration can sometimes even be transferred onto their friend’s husbands. Women who are married, even if it’s to users who care nothing about them, are higher on the social plane than women who are single. This is implicit acknowledgment of the sweet deal many women receive through marriage. Personally, I do not begrudge them their social hierarchies and care little about affairs apart from my own, but, these same women, then try to fit guys like me into their social parameters, which is absurd.
Male Diversity Verboten:
This attempt to coerce men into accepting their worldview is quite disturbing but it is also rather comical. Ironically, it indirectly benefits fellows like me as the fact that I’ve been married before makes me seem far more legitimate than most of my friends. I am a man who could be amenable to their terms and line of reasoning, or non-reasoning as the case may be. After all, I made the vow once and bought rings twice, so I must be on their wavelength. Am I not? Not. [1] Yet, my friends, like the infamous Dianabol, are knocked out of the box repeatedly because they’ve never been married before. Why should he be part of the caste of untouchables? They’d say because he’s a 40 year old perpetual bachelor. Therefore, he must be a loser. I even heard a girl say this very thing about him the other day. She assumed that since he was never married before that there must be something wrong with him. Why did she not assume that there may be something very right about him? Dianabol is a prince of man. He exercises five days a week and drinks for four on the weekends. He works constantly, makes serious coin, and has an apartment that looks like it came out of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” [2] Dianabol’s a profoundly educated man with a high thrill seeking personality who strikes the great majority of girls as being the epitome of fun, but his uncomplicated (legally speaking only) past precludes him from some of their considerations. Guess what? Its their loss.
What’s in it for Me?
I found out yesterday that I’m not supposed to be asking this question about marriage. It appears that many women believe our default position should be “why ask why” on the topic (rather than “why me”). One girl even called me selfish for putting forth the proposition! Shouldn’t I be selfish about my own interests? Maybe I’m not supposed to have any interests. Perhaps my having interests is really a plot to dehumanize women. It seems that the message sent is, “you will marry a chick the size of Toronto and you’ll like it!” Ah, no. I think I’ll pass. I don’t want her, you can have her, Toronto’s too big, and socialistic, for me.
Contrary to what many a woman may say, I believe that, “what’s in it for me?”, is the central question one should ask before signing one’s life away. If you derive no benefit then run, don’t walk. Again, of course, there’s the nuance thing as it’s situational. My life certainly is worth signing away in a fight against Hitler or Pol Pot, but I refuse to fall down upon my sword in a scrape for Calphalon pots or Lancome makeup.
Well, you’ve heard what I have to say about the matter, but never forget the triumphant words of Zsa Zsa Gabor before making your own decision, “A man is incomplete until he is married. Then he is finished.”
[1] Of course, I say that now but got engaged a second time at Christmas. I suppose if the right youthful Laotian national comes along next year I may have to eat my above words. I’m just letting you know in advance due to a history of snap decisions on my part.
Calling the approval of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts "the straw that broke the camel's back," a group of Christian activists is in the beginning stages of an effort to have one state secede from the United States to become its own sovereign nation.
"Our Christian republic has declined into a pagan democracy," says Cory Burnell, president of ChristianExodus.org, a non-profit corporation based in Tyler, Texas. "There are some issues people just can't take anymore, and [same-sex marriage] might finally wake up the complacent Christians."
Burnell is leading the charge for a peaceful secession of one state from the union, and after originally considering Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina due to their relatively small populations, coastal access, and the Christian nature of the electorate, Burnell says South Carolina has been selected as the target location.
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The plan initially calls for at least 12,000 Christians willing to be active in political campaigns to move to the Palmetto State.
"We're not an invading force, we're reinforcements," Burnell tells WorldNetDaily, saying it would be a waste to move to liberal-minded states such as Massachusetts, New York or California where conservative votes would be diluted.
According to the ChristianExodus website, which is slated for a major relaunch next month, "Christians have actively tried to return our entire land to its moral foundation for more than 20 years. We can categorically say that absolutely nothing has been achieved. If you disagree, consider this:
Abortion continues against the wishes of many states
Children may not pray in our schools
The Bible is not welcome in schools except under strict federal guidelines
The 10 Commandments remain banned from public display
Sodomy is now legal and celebrated as 'diversity' rather than perversion
Preaching Christianity will soon be outlawed as 'hate speech'
Gay marriage will be foisted upon us in the very near future
"All these atrocities continue in spite of the fact that we now have the 'right' people in places of power. Indeed, the occupant of the White House is a professing Christian. The U.S. attorney general is believed to be a devout Christian. 'Conservatives' control both Houses of Congress, and Republican presidents appointed seven of the nine Supreme Court justices."
The idea of moving thousands of people to affect the voting in one state is not new. As WorldNetDaily has previously reported, the Free State Project has goals of restoring certain personal liberties and limited government – but without seceding from the union. Last year, a group of 4,500 libertarians decided New Hampshire would be the best state.
S. Carolina state flag
Burnell, a math teacher and cell-phone dealer, stresses he's not looking for bloody battles that took place in the American Revolution and the Civil War, but is rather seeking a "political divorce."
"It's got to be different today," he says. "It has to be peaceful, brokered."
But he admits if the federal government decides to use military force to stop the effort, "Then it can't happen."
Already a dozen people are actively working on the project, and some 1,500 e-mails of support have been received.
If all goes according to plan, Burnell is hoping to have a constitutional convention by 2014, with a president of the new nation – still to be known as South Carolina – elected in 2016, which is also a presidential election year in the U.S.
He says the nation would be founded on Christian principles, and the people writing its constitution would have to hash out details to safeguard it as a Christian republic.
For now, Burnell prefers to shy away from specifics on the precise laws governing the country.
American writer Laura Kipnis has provoked a storm in the US with a new book attacking marriage. Here, she explains why monogamy turns nice people into petty dictators and household tyrants
Sunday September 7, 2003
The Observer
Marriage: The new blue-light case of the week. Everyone is terribly worried about its condition: can it be cured? Or has the time arrived for drastic measures - just putting it out of its misery? Euthanasia is a dirty word but, frankly, the prognosis is not so great for this particular patient: a stalwart social institution is now scabby and infirm, gasping for each tortured breath. Many who had once so optimistically pledged to uphold its vows are fleeing its purported satisfactions. In the US, a well-publicised 50 per cent failure rate hardly makes for optimism; in Britain, too, the Office for National Statistics report that divorce has reached a record high at around 15 per cent. But this lower figure goes with a drop in the number of weddings - at their lowest level since the reign of Queen Victoria; this should mean fewer divorces, since not getting married in the first place seems the best way - these days - of avoiding this sorry (often expensive, usually ego-damaging) denouement.
Certainly, there are happy marriages. No one disputes that and all those who are happily married can stop reading here. Additionally, there is always serial monogamy for those who can't face up to the bad news - yes, keep on trying until you get it right, because the problem couldn't be the institution itself or its impossible expectations. For these optimists, the problem is that they have somehow either failed to find the 'right person', or have been remiss in some other respect. If only they'd put those socks in the laundry basket instead of leaving them on the floor, everything would have worked out. If only they'd cooked more (or less) often. If only they'd been more this, less that, it would have been fine.
And what of the growing segment of the population to whom the term 'happily married' does not precisely apply, yet who none the less valiantly struggle to uphold the tenets of the marital enterprise, mostly because there seems to be no viable option? A 1999 Rutgers University study reported that a mere 38 per cent of Americans who are married describe themselves as actually happy in that state. This is rather shocking: so many pledging to live out their lives here on earth in varying degrees of discontent or emotional stagnation because that is what's expected from us, or 'for the sake of the children', or because wanting more than that makes you selfish and irresponsible. So goes the endless moralising and finger-pointing this subject tends to invite.
Let us contemplate the everyday living conditions of this rather large percentage of the population, this self-reportedly unhappily married majority: all those households submersed in low-level misery and soul-deadening tedium, early graves in all respects but the most forensic. Regard those couples - we all know them, perhaps we are them - the bickering; the reek of unsatisfied desires and unmet needs; a populace downing anti-depressants, along with whatever other forms of creative self-medication are most easily at hand, from triple martinis to serial adultery.
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Yes, we all know that domesticity has its advantages: companionship, shared housing costs, childrearing convenience, reassuring predictability, occasional sex, and many other benefits too varied to list. But there are numerous disadvantages as well - though it is considered unseemly to enumerate them - most of which are so structured into the expectations of contemporary coupledom that they have come to seem utterly natural and inevitable. But are they?
Consider, for instance, the endless regulations and interdictions that provide the texture of domestic coupledom. Is there any area of married life that is not crisscrossed by rules and strictures about everything from how you load the dishwasher, to what you can say at dinner parties, to what you do on your day off, to how you drive - along with what you eat, drink, wear, make jokes about, spend your discretionary income on?
What is it about marriage that turns nice-enough people into petty dictators and household tyrants, for whom criticising another person's habits or foibles becomes a conversational staple, the default setting of domestic communication? Or whose favourite marital recreational activity is mate behaviour modification? Anyone can play - and everyone does. What is it about modern coupledom that makes policing another person's behaviour a synonym for intimacy? (Or is it something about the conditions of modern life itself: is domesticity a venue for control because most of us have so little of it elsewhere?)
Then there's the fundamental premise of monogamous marriage: that mutual desire can and will last throughout a lifetime. And if it doesn't? Well apparently you're just supposed to give up on sex, since waning desire for your mate is never an adequate defence for 'looking elsewhere'. At the same time, let's not forget how many booming businesses and new technologies have arisen to prop up sagging marital desire. Consider all the investment opportunities afforded: Viagra, couples pornography, therapy. If upholding monogamy in the absence of desire weren't a social dictate, how many enterprises would immediately fail? (Could dead marriages be good for the economy?)
And then there's the American mantra of the failing relationship: 'Good marriages take work!' When exactly did the rhetoric of the factory become the default language of coupledom? Is there really anyone to whom this is an attractive proposition, who, after spending all day on the job, wants to come home and work some more? Here's an interesting question: what's the gain to a society in promoting more work to an overworked population as a supposed solution to the travails of marital discontent?
What if luring people into conditions of emotional stagnation and deadened desires were actually functional for society? Consider the norms of modern marriage: here is a social institution devoted to maximising submission and minimising freedom, habituating a populace to endless compliance with an infinite number of petty rules and interdictions, in exchange for love and companionship.
Perhaps a citizenry schooled in renouncing desire - and whatever quantities of imagination and independence it comes partnered with - would be, in many respects, socially advantageous. Note that the conditions of marital stasis are remarkably convergent with those of a cowed workforce and a docile electorate. And wouldn't the most elegant forms of social control be those that come packaged in the guise of individual needs and satisfactions, so wedded to the individual psyche that any contrary impulse registers as the anxiety of unlovability? Who needs a policeman on every corner when we're all so willing to police ourselves and those we love, and call it upholding our vows?
In this respect, perhaps rising divorce rates are not such bad news after all. The Office for National Statistics blames couples' high expectations for the upswing in divorce. But are high expectations really such a bad thing? What if we all worked less and expected more - not only from our marriages or in private life, but in all senses - from our jobs, our politicians, our governments? What if wanting happiness and satisfaction - and changing the things that needed changing to attain it - wasn't regarded as 'selfish' or 'unrealistic' (and do we expect so much from our mates these days because we get so little back everywhere else?). What if the real political questions were what should we be able to expect from society and its institutions? And, if other social contracts and vows beside marriage were also up for re-examination, what other ossified social institutions might be next on the hit list?
Current Topic - OT: Government & Marriage, Part Three
... Linda.