San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders (R) announces support for Gay Marriage
Also:
Maybe everyone already knows about this, but here's the HRC's lovely, visual-aid-y, list of maps that show state-by-state GLBTQ laws. Awesome.
and, it's GLBT month at Young Adult Books Central. Check it out!
Showing posts with label civil unions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civil unions. Show all posts
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Bigamy, biga-you.
Greetings! This is my first official "Don't Box Us!" contribution, provided "frequent profile tweakings" are excluded. I'll tell you right off the bat: this post isn't nearly as fleshed-out as I'd have liked it to be, but I wanted to get the bare necessities down before something bright and shiny steals my attention again.
And so, my friends, caveat lector.
Last week, Stephan Kinsella posted an article in the Mises.org blog entitled, "How Can Bigamy Be Illegal?" I'll attempt to distill it here:
The state fails to accept responsibility when an illegal second marriage has been granted. Indeed, the criminality of bigamy seems, according to Kinsella, to mean the submitting of certain documents rather than the act itself, since marriage alone is perfectly legal.
That the state plays a part in enabling illegal activity while simultaneously condemning it is a curious hypocrisy. Kinsella notes how the drug trade is comprised of what appear to be legally-recognized "sales", without being characterized strictly as "the physical transfer of money if it is somehow associated with the physical transfer of possession of narcotics." He goes on to discuss the history of the phrase "legal tender" and its place in contractual obligation, but that isn't what I wanted to get into. At least, not today.
Let me state for the record that I find the Mises blog to be one of the most intelligent blogs out there, and that I regularly enjoy Kinsella's work. In fact, I could find only a minor bone--a phalanx, perhaps--to pick with Kinsella about this one. It would have been worth mentioning that marriage, as recognized by the state, may be a legal institution, but its true nature is religious. Ergo, why does the state recognize marriage as legal at all, when religion and public policy are supposed to keep off one another's lawns, so to speak?
I used to believe that all marriages between and among consenting individuals should be recognized as legal by whichever states deem it so. The more I think about it, though, civil unions should be the basis for the rights and privileges now conferred to "married" individuals, whereas marriage should be an optional religious complement to a legally-recognized union.
I still maintain, however, that we should protest a federal mandate in either direction.
Ah, it's good to dream the impossible dream.
(I should note that I don't really believe that many things are impossible, though I do recognize the unlikelihood of, say, a nickel ever costing more to mint than it is actually worth.)
Oh, wait...
And so, my friends, caveat lector.
Last week, Stephan Kinsella posted an article in the Mises.org blog entitled, "How Can Bigamy Be Illegal?" I'll attempt to distill it here:
The state fails to accept responsibility when an illegal second marriage has been granted. Indeed, the criminality of bigamy seems, according to Kinsella, to mean the submitting of certain documents rather than the act itself, since marriage alone is perfectly legal.
That the state plays a part in enabling illegal activity while simultaneously condemning it is a curious hypocrisy. Kinsella notes how the drug trade is comprised of what appear to be legally-recognized "sales", without being characterized strictly as "the physical transfer of money if it is somehow associated with the physical transfer of possession of narcotics." He goes on to discuss the history of the phrase "legal tender" and its place in contractual obligation, but that isn't what I wanted to get into. At least, not today.
Let me state for the record that I find the Mises blog to be one of the most intelligent blogs out there, and that I regularly enjoy Kinsella's work. In fact, I could find only a minor bone--a phalanx, perhaps--to pick with Kinsella about this one. It would have been worth mentioning that marriage, as recognized by the state, may be a legal institution, but its true nature is religious. Ergo, why does the state recognize marriage as legal at all, when religion and public policy are supposed to keep off one another's lawns, so to speak?
I used to believe that all marriages between and among consenting individuals should be recognized as legal by whichever states deem it so. The more I think about it, though, civil unions should be the basis for the rights and privileges now conferred to "married" individuals, whereas marriage should be an optional religious complement to a legally-recognized union.
I still maintain, however, that we should protest a federal mandate in either direction.
Ah, it's good to dream the impossible dream.
(I should note that I don't really believe that many things are impossible, though I do recognize the unlikelihood of, say, a nickel ever costing more to mint than it is actually worth.)
Oh, wait...
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