It absolutely does need one. There is a massive difference between "don't do it" and "the thing is banned under penalty of law"

Here are some things that have negative effects on multiple people that we don't ban

- Insulting other religions
- Cigarettes
- Adultery
- Helping the enemy team in a competitive team videogame

i don't know if you're high or what, but your questions were very poorly worded. that said, yesterday's ruling was completely absurd. look at jewish, christian, or muslim tradition and you will see nothing about marriage being between a man and a man. what you have is the court overruling religious rights in favor of so called "gay rights" (priviledges).

Marriage existed before any of those religions (before recorded history in fact). It was originally used to, among other things, create alliances between kingdoms and families. It's a civil institution, and has been for a very long time, because it has civil consequences. Therefore, not only does government have every right to make yesterday's decision, but religion has no right to interject into this decision. We are NOT a theocracy. At the same time, no one is forcing churches to marry people if they want to be bigoted about it.

In any case, I find the OP's lack of a link for people supporting "pedophilia" (I guess he meant marriage to underage children?) to be disingenuous, since the intention is clearly to link homosexuality to sex with children, something the religious right movement has always attempted to do but has always required a massive leap in logic.

Beyond that, we already have places that actively allow legal marriage of adults to children, which is itself an ancient practice that's been done for millennia. So you can't really ask about where "humanity's" morality is heading, when we already have places with legalized pot, and we have places that NEVER illegalized incest, polygamy, and marriage to children.

You are free to discuss bigger issues in the appropriate thread. 

The fallacy of relative privation, or appeal to bigger problems, is an informal fallacy in which it is suggested an opponent's arguments should be dismissed or ignored, on the grounds that more important problems exist, despite these issues being often completely unrelated to the subject at hand.

You make it sound like the entire US is now lulled in the midst of this progession of human rights. I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. If anything by solving this problem the media can now focus on other problems. 

I would say the longer human civilization exists, the longer humans will have to realize that books from thousands of years ago, probably aren't the best compasses for morality (A 4th grader could rewrite the 10 commandments in a more moral fashion).

I believe the country will go downhill from here, not to say we're already going downhill..

I think it would be very hard to prove when a male started puberty. A girl is pretty easy, just ask when she started her cycles. But still, that is something very difficult to do and not everybody would want to answer that question. Having a set age just makes things a little bit clearer, especially on the part of the defendant. There would just be too much legal convolusion to not have a set age.

Still anything would be better than the current laws.

I read a case recently about a 19 year old college kid who had sex with a girl who I think was 14 or 15. They met on one of those hookup apps, she lied about her age, and neither his parents nor her parents had an issue with it (her parents recognized that she lied.) The court didn't care. It is truly ridiculous. Now he can't log on to the internet without supervision and he's on the sex offender registry. There was no actual victim in this case, yet his life - as he planned- is essentially ruined from this (he was a computer science major, so obviously now he needs to change majors.)

I'm all for protections for pre-pubsecent children, but I know that I personally wouldn't have minded to have had sex with an adult when I was 14 or 15, and I know that is true for many 14-15 year olds. My understanding of sex and why I want(ed) it when I was a 14 year old is no different from what it is now (as a 21 year old.) So i really don't see ephebophilia as wrong ethically or morally. I do think it can lead to some problems (particularly with parents) and levels of maturity of the younger person, but that is irrelevant to the actual act, and more of a side-issue that people should decide for themselves.

What I mean is, things that should at least be strongly discouraged. Like an "unwritten law", like you can do certain things, but people won't like it. Insulting other religions is rude, and it brings more benefit to both sides if you do criticism of a belief with gentleness. Smoking isn't good for you. Adultery is technically illegal in nearly half of the states, and it isn't good for relationships, and helping other teams is your choice.

Nope I think that people are confusing the difference between discrimination and being moral. I could look at a wedding between two guys and see love. Someone else will look at the same couple and see evil. Simply believing that something is evil doesn't effect the individual in question.

And I don't understand why polygamy is on this list when it persisted in the Bible.

An argument with its basis in morality, that is inconsistent with the Bible it casually misquotes is a malformed argument.

Those reasons are truly insignificant compared to say first cousin marriages having double the chance of genetically/mentally deformed offspring that in many countries need to be supported by taxpayer dollar public healthcare system.Sister/Brother offspring have a far greater chance than double of deformities.