@Grey Acumen.

But rights are meant to be held above everything in America, including morality.

Grey Acumen. Just because you say its a choice, and that is what you were taught at sunday school by some kiddie-fiddlers, does not mean that it is true.

One of the principles of this country is separation of church and state. If you want tax breaks for mirage, fine. But to do that, you need to strip all religious meaning of the word away first. If you don't, then you must believe in god before the government will provide you with additional benefit, or it's against our constitution.

We did that, and the christians got what they wanted. Now when people you don't agree with want the same benefit, you can't now say it's a religious thing. You can't have it both ways.

I want to get married so my wife can visit me when I get sick, so if I die, she is better protected. So she can be on my health benefits, and use my car insurance.

I don't believe in your god, but I do believe in equality. So, allow whomever wants to marry whomever the right to do so.

If you don't want that, fine, remove every government privilege first.

Well i just mean so in that i think it's stupid we recognize marriage as a government thing.  This used to not be the case in the ancient world and things worked much better if you ask me.

I mean what benfits do marriages have legally?

1)Tax breaks....

Why? If anything people who are married are going to use up less resources then two signle people, if we're going with a progressive tax system it'd seem they should be taxked more not less.

2) Spousal privelege in courts

Why?  Why should it suddenly be ok to talk about the crimes i'm going to comit to my wife?  Doesn't this just grant a criminal more comfort?

3) Hospital Visitation

Once again... if confuses me.  Why is this limited to spouses?

4) Inheretence

Okay.  This one makes sense... but really why not just make everyone have a will?

Kasz, I agree. Privatize "marriage", turn it into a non-state issue of private contracts between people, and this issue goes away.

It allows homosexuals to marry, it allows the religious to handle their marriages as they see fit, and it removes the state nearly entirely outside contract disputes (divorce, if you will).

But that won't happen and therefore, gays deserve the right to marry and get fucked by the system, just like the rest of us.

Ah ok.  Then i totally agree.

Heck it'd even get the state out of contract disputes i'd imagine.  Since people couldn't fall back on established marriage law everyone would need some kind of prenup. 

I think you guys (Rocket, Real Mafoo and Kasz) misunderstand my use of the word religious, I'm sorry for not being more clear.  Religion is a very complex word and isn't so easily defined.  Theologist argue the meaning of the word.  From a anthropological point of view Religion isn't always tied to a diety or the supernatural, it is at it's simplest form the system a behaviors and morality that control.

Marriage is definitely a part of a system of behaviors and morality that control.  So even if you still don't think it's religious, I'm still pretty sure from your other posts, that you agree, that the government should not be involved with those types of things (unless said behavior is damaging).

What you're missing is that tax breaks have nothing to do with the religious side of things. The whole point is to protect society as a whole, of which a key aspect is supporting the upbringing of children, which will be the future society. Marriage, and specifically religious marriage is for a man and a woman to commit to a relationship that will result in bearing and raising children together. The tax breaks are to support and strengthen the relationship BEFORE the child is born so that it is already a solid foundation with which to raise the child.

Of course then you get into the whole issue of comparative abilities of child raising, and you hear people putting out cases about how they were raised by single parents just fine, or cases where a man and a woman turned out to be horrible parents, etc etc, blah blah, but a man and a woman in a committed relationship are still going to be the best option for child raising, and religion has nothing to do with that.

1) A marriage between a man and a woman can typically be expected to result in offspring, maybe not immediately, maybe not always, but typically. If you were to force this issue, then that would put unreasonable strain on the relationship between the man and woman that is needed as the stable base for child raising, which is why you base the tax breaks on the marriage, not the presence of children.
A marriage between two men or two women cannot truly be expected to result in offspring. At this rate, any guy could just find another guy and say "hey, lets get married so we don't have to pay as much taxes, if we want to marry a chick, we'll just get a divorce(it's not like there's any legal backlash to getting a mutual divorce)"

Now, there are of course a few arguments against this, such as adoption, artifical insimenation, and sterile couples, which I will address next.

2) Even for those couple that cannot bear children naturally, there is still adoption and artificial insimination. For these cases, gay couples technically have just as much of a shot as straight couples. Except I turn back to original statement that a man and a woman is still the best way to go for child raising. You can bitch at me all you want, my reasons aren't religious, so harping on that isn't going to get you anywhere, but you still don't have a chance at changing my views on that.
Men and Women are physically, socially, physiologically different from each other. When it comes to a relationship, this doesn't make that much of a difference to me, it's purely a personal thing, but when it comes to raising children, the differences are crucial. No matter how in touch with his feminine side a guy is, or how butch a woman is, there's a limit to how well they can understand, empathize, and get the opposite gender to recognize that empathy. Lacking a true mother or father figure that is commited to the other is a SEVERE handicap to child raising, whether that child is a boy or a girl, not only for their ability to grow as an individual, but also for their ability to interact with the opposite gender, form a stable relationship of their own, and raise their own children.

Of course, this is where the main arguments come up involving the single parents, whether by death or by seperation, and I get the indignant questions of "so since my dad raised me alone, I'm less of a person?" Quite frankly it's ridiculous. I never said it's IMPOSSIBLE, I said it's BETTER, and don't give me this shit about "Oh, so I would have been better off if my mom stuck with her abusive husband" and again, no, quit being a retard. The issue is that with the same individual emotional stability of two people involved in childraising, a team of a man and woman will always have the best range of skills and perspectives to handle whatever comes up. That's why a marriage between a man and a woman should be supported.

What this all boils down to is that the purpose of States laws recognizing and supporting marriage is that you cannot make a law that forces people to reproduce and raise children, but that action is still essential to society, so all it can do is encourage those actions.

Couldn't a guy and woman also just get married for the tax benefits?

Sociologically there is oddly very little difference between heterosexual and homosexual parents raising a child.

Having two parents basically just means the most because it means you can spend time with your child due to the one parent not having to constantly work.

The only downside to being raised by a homosexual couple seems to be... well bigots giving you trouble for your parents being gay.

Yes, but again, your chances of a child still resulting from this relationship is higher. As I said, since you can't legally force people to have and raise children, all that state laws can do is encourage the action.

and no, as I said, there are differences in perspective between the genders and having both of these is important. a very basic example is how well a single father would be able to help his daughter deal with her first period, or how a single mother would be able to teach her son to pee standing up. There are other far more subtle things that are still highly important, and it's not just a matter of one gender having a better perspective for a certain situation, but that having both differening perspectives is what is important as well.