(no subject)

[bzarcher]

As mephron noted, this is all you need to know about 'marraige protection' week.

Marraige in America should not be forced to one religion's standpoint, either de jure or de facto. Christianity is a good thing. I have no issues with Christianity, even if I think some of it's members can go rather against what its' founder had in mind. For that matter, I have no problems whatsoever with encouraging the idea of a lasting, monogamous marraige.

Limiting the scope of who is 'allowed' to enjoy a lasting monogamous marraige, however, I have a problem with.

Love is something we shouldn't ever try to forcibly legislate, and the fact that this 'marraige protection' mentality could also be used to prevent dissolution of abusive marraiges or divorces for legitimate healthy reasons is just as disturbing as the idea that anything other than a Christian heterosexual marraige is something that we as a nation should be attacking.

Comments

[silentsteel.livejournal.com]

This thing is why I've been quietly writing same-sex-marriage short fics. Almost all of them with original characters. o.o

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

*nods*

Love Unregulated

[xsm.livejournal.com]

I wonder - do you support incestuous marriages between direct relations? For example, would you support marriage between father and daugther, assuming the couple does not intend to procreate (but may intend to raise a child which is not biologically a product of their union)?

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

No, but that's an issue that is based on common sense, to my mind.

Besides, note my emphasis on healthy couples, regardless of gender. An incestual couple does not fit my definition of healthy.

[xsm.livejournal.com]

I don't know what you mean by "healthy" and "common sense". The only health issue would be if the couple were intending to procreate, which is why it was ruled out as part of the question. You can't mean healthy as in natural, since incest is natural among all species of animals. Yes, common sense tells us that men don't get romantically involved with their daughters, but it also tells us that men don't get romantically involved with other men. Neither of these notions, although quite sensible, are always true.

I believe that the notion that homosexuality is not amoral has nothing to do with common sense and a lot to do with how powerful mass media is over our culture, and how easily a few people can use that power in ways we may not want or even realize. If you can think of a valid line of reasoning that would support homosexuality but not incest (bearing in mind that both couples are entirely consensual, and neither intends to procreate, although they may raise a child), I'd be interested to hear it - otherwise, maybe "common sense" could use some common sense.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I'd disagree that the only health issue is procreation, as there are a lot of emotional and stability issues that I think a father/daughter or mother/son marraige would have. Yes, animals may do it. Animals also operate with a lot less complex genetic code and a lack of sentience. For that matter, as there are signs of genetic markers for homosexuality in species, while there are not for incest, I'd say there are certainly better explanations for homosexual pairings in nature. Also, most of those 'natural' incestual situations occur strictly for breeding, and if I'm not mistaken, most often for breeding in situations where the pool of acceptible candidates is low to nil, so I'm not sure they're proper examples.

Yes, I can see the argument that both incestual relationships and homosexual ones, particularly non-procreative ones (though that would be harder to avoid accidents with in the case of incest unless we also assume a vasectomy or removal of ovaries), are the same under your definintions, but I can offer a few things.

1) In the incestual relationship, it would be very difficult to say the partners had a full range of options in how to live their lives or 'entirely consensual'. If your hypothetical parent had raised the child with an eye towards eventual marraige, and conditioned them to the idea, even unconciously, that seems to preclude free will or choice due to a corrupted upbringing and questional mental health and safety.

2) This would not be a relationship of equals. Admittedly, no relationship is assured to be a relationship of equals, but this one has a lot of marks against it.

3) The homosexual relationship, or even heterosexual relationships, allow the possibility of the parters splitting, hopefully amicably, and being able to make fresh starts. Can you see a parent/child relationship ending without emotional trauma or the child being able to operate successfully in the modern world?

Anyhow. There's my logic, and there we go.