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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Constant Reader who wrote (71381)	8/3/2003 2:42:07 PM
From: Rambi	Respond to of 82486

Hi CR! I am a none of the above too, since there are so many things that I have never considered, and I am not exactly sure what the gay community itself is asking. It seems to me that much of the objections raised so far have been thinly veiled yuck factors though, or a fear of change, or a protection of traditions that I don't think is necessarily misplaced, but needs to be examined. There is one benefit that could get confused with the religious one (but that I believe is different) and it may be the one CH doesn't want to grant to easily. Marriage is a special commitment to society and to each other. It grants a certain gravitas to a union. It elevates it, gives a relationship a social legitimacy. I can't speak for gays, certainly, but, maybe they are saying we want the acknowledgment that we can make this responsible commitment to a partner. Living together is not the same thing. I don't see any reason to deny any two adults this privilege at this moment. However, I am still processing. I thank you for the great summary of the different legal aspects. I hadn't realized that some of those were already in effect. Oh-- I'm not sure what the custody cases have to do with being gay or straight actually--In both of them, I believe that the ones who have been functioning as the parent should retain custody. In the case of a sperm donor, I see no reason he has any rights at all- whether he donated to gays or straights. Sperm donors should give up any rights just as someone putting a child up for adoption should. And in the second case, if the natural father has been actively parenting and has never relinquished parental rights, then he has a good case for custody. Mostly , I come down on the side of the one who has been the true parent. Biological claims lose a lot of their weight when you work in the system for a while. You know, a long time ago on Feelies, several of us had a discussion on marriage and its survival. There were a lot of interesting options presented. Someone pointed out that the person you lust after at 18 may not be the person you want to raise your children, and the person who is a great parent may not be the person you want to spend the last 30 years with... we expect an awful lot of people when we ask them to commit for as much as 75 years to one person. In olden times, this wasn't quite as huge a demand. Maybe we ask too much. Maybe there are a lot of things that should be examined. Redefining terms is always scary. Change is scary.

To: Constant Reader who wrote (71381)	8/3/2003 8:32:39 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 82486

At any rate, this is going to be a great boon to political fund-raising, silly initiatives, and even more ill-considered legislation than we normally see. And to family law attorneys. I've already had cases concerning the break-up of same sex realationships, and have turned down several requests to draft documents for homosexual couples not from any sense of personal belief but purely because I don't have experience in them and am at the end of my career so it's not profitable to take the time to learn enough to do a good job. (Because there is little case law on the issue, there is a higher risk of malpractice if one is not really informed and really careful. I have no interest in drafting an agreement which may be an issue in ten years, when I'm well retired, and some obscure issue that nobody thought of in 2001 comes up and I'm sued for not having foreseen it.)