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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (28646)	2/9/2004 6:58:10 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793917

Just for the record, I am not advocating gay marriage although I don't object to it. I do favor something that makes available for everyone the ability to form legal families for the purpose of the benefits that are associated with that. That could be a some kind of civil union. Or we could reevaluate all the stuff we are currently hanging on the marriage Christmas tree and see if it really makes sense to have it there. Either way, I think it's only fair to have equal opportunity for whatever legal benefits there are. Re your slippery slope, I have an answer, not particularly snappy, but it works for me. What are we afraid of? First of all, how many people are going to want to marry their sisters? I think it was you who mentioned earlier that not all that many gays really want to marry. How many people want to be polygamists? Some might want to do those things if they were suddenly given the opportunity simply to be different or out of pent-up hostility to repression. But in the long run, those things don't make sense and they will never become popular. The marketplace will take care of the slippery slope. Secondly, much/most of the reason we care about marriage is because of children. What does marriage have to do with children nowadays? Not all that much. If someone wants to have an intimate relationship with his sister, he'll do it marriage or no. And if they produce "defective" children and aren't married we get the satisfaction of knowing that we didn't sanction it? Not very helpful. We are producing so many "defective" children already and doing it enthusiastically what with advances in medicine for early premies. The problems of children produced of siblings are a drop in a very large bucket. Tay-sachs, now that's something nasty, but we don't keep those folks from marrying. I don't expect those arguments to persuade any traditionalists, but I think the marketplace can deal with this nicely. The marketplace is a great antidote to slippery slopes. The world isn't going to come to an end if a few polygamists marry. We stand to lose more as a nation over the polarization and hostility of the culture wars.