Pilot GOP blocks repeal of Defense of Marriage Amendment.\
Though unenforceable, the Defense of Marriage Amendment remains a stain on the Virgina Constitution.
Opponents of repeal said they feared if it were repealed, it might open the door to polygamy. Guess what, among consenting adults, that’s none of your damn business either.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
100% right!!! (Could be a first. 😁😉)
The other part of this report was the shutting down of voting rights restoration for felons who have served their time and paid their debt to society.
It was approved last year and had to be approved again this year for it to be sent to the voters. For a party that claims they work for the people, this is a funny way of not allowing the people to speak.
Mr. Roberts said on another thread that the people are becoming more powerful. The GOP members of this subcommittee just proved him wrong. – IMO
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Preventing polygamy?
Talk about lying to protect the real reason of pandering to the religious right. Somebody got to him.
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Well, he was also concerned people might marry animals.
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I believe same sex marriage will weaken marriage and families. The nation will suffer.
I justify the belief only by noting that same sex marriage has never existed in the world until the current age. Homosexual and lesbian relationships have always existed, but no legal system I am aware of has ever recognized a homosexual or lesbian marriage contract.
I suspect the reason such marriage contracts never occurred is because they were never necessary. Sexual pleasures and preferences have always been so easy to gratify that mere sexuality never threatened the intensely rigorous social and legal institution of marriage.
It is only in the current age when personhood itself has become a commodity that new forms of the marriage contract are needed. Because a man is nothing, he must have civil rights as the spouse of another man.
The same process once made chattel of women.
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There are property and legal issues that are protected by marriage for gay couples.
Prior to the SCOTUS decision making marriage available to gay couples, the General Counsel of the TLP and I were planning an online expert system that would generate the affidavits, contracts, and assignments that would give any couple the same legal protections as marriage. but SCOTUS made that moot before we figured it all out.
The Libertarian solution is separation of marriage and state. Allow any couple to form a civil union at the court house, and nothing more. If you want a wedding and the support of the community, then let your church, family or bowling league witness the union.
The government has no business in sacraments.
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RE: “The government has no business in sacraments.”
That’s fair. I would suggest, though, that sacrament is not the best context in which to contemplate this puzzle.
There must be a practical reason why law evolved to support only heterosexual union as the appropriate basis for marriage contracts. This bias must have been based on something.
I see a danger in changing the rules without fully understanding the game.
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Prior to our lifetimes, gay couples had no children to inherit wealth nor were there medical directives and next of kin issues.
The law has evolved in such a way that those unions now need formal arrangments.
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RE: “The law has evolved in such a way that those unions now need formal arrangments.”
Evolution, yes. Progress, hard to say.
Marriage once was recognized as a natural union. Now it is an invented one. I’m not sure that is an advance.
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That’s why Libertarians want to bifurcate the legal aspects of civil unions. the legal part of marriage, from the sacrament and social aspects.
The government is necessary for the legal aspects but the community supports the social construct.
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RE: ‘That’s why Libertarians want to bifurcate the legal aspects of civil unions. the legal part of marriage, from the sacrament and social aspects.”
OK, then. I see the logic. I think, however, the logic is ideological, not practical.
The social relation between men and women is profound. Show me something that shapes this reality in a new way, and I’ll listen.
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“Show me something that shapes this reality in a new way, and I’ll listen.”
Effective birth control.
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RE: “Effective birth control.”
We need same sex marriage because we have birth control?
Apart from that, I’d guess that birth control did more to lower the status of women in society than to raise it.
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I answered your question very directly.
If you do not understand or like the answer, fine.
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The sacrament of marriage has nothing to do with the civil partnership between two individuals. It is only for those whose religious beliefs lead them to marriage in a church or temple. And only if their church of choice recognizes their wish to married “in the eyes of G-D.”
Allowing individuals to live with and love a life partner legally, not religiously, is now the norm. Mr. Roberts may not see it as progress. I see it as progress and acceptance for individuals to be who they are without fear or legal ramifications that allow them the same rights of partnership that have existed for centuries.
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“I believe same sex marriage will weaken marriage and families.”
How so? I have known, throughout the course of my life many homosexual couples who were devoted to each other in ways not always seen (especially today). The only thing that was missing prior to the recognition of same-sex marriage, was the ability to live as a married couple, enjoy the same kind of benefits and rights as straight married couples, and to live and love OPENLY, without threat of harm by the state or others.
I have also seen straight, very toxic relationships that ended in divorce and ugly child custody fights.
If you believe that same sex marriage is a threat to your family in some way, like an abortion, don’t have one.
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RE: “How so?”
Societies have customary norms and values for a variety of reasons. One is that norms and values help children learn to become themselves as well as members of the community in which they live. When clear concepts (e.g., husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter) become ambiguous, the education of children erodes.
That’s one mechanism. Another is the impact on family law. Same sex marriage will require adjustments affecting inheritance, divorce, adoption, and child custody, to name a few areas. As the required accomodations pile up, the person-to-person social relationship of marriage will fade as a legal concept.
Other mechanisms may be in play, as well, but these two are enough to describe the process of turning personhood into a commodity, a thing with no natural identity or rights, except those that can be defined using legal concepts.
It would be best, in my view, if the law just stayed out of this whole puzzle.
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” One is that norms and values help children learn to become themselves as well as members of the community in which they live.”
Norms have shifted in that society accepts that same-sex couples can and do raise well-adjusted, good children who can accel in life the same as in straight parent families. Sometimes better, because the children tend to be more empathetic and understanding of those who are different from them. And part of allowing children to learn to “become themselves” includes allowing them to be who they are, love who they want, and live in peace with the same rights as everyone else, regardless of sexual orientation.
“Same sex marriage will require adjustments affecting inheritance, divorce, adoption, and child custody, to name a few areas”
Not really. There are already laws in place that covers these items. No need to alter them because the couple is same-sex.
The only thing the law has done is recognize same-sex couple in the same manner as straight couples.
So NOW what is the problem with allowing couples to love each other and enjoy the same rights as you and your wife?
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RE: “So NOW what is the problem with allowing couples to love each other and enjoy the same rights as you and your wife?”
Same sex couples have always had that particular freedom. I see no reason to take it away.
I also see no reason to give legal recognition to relationships of that kind. On the contrary, I see many reasons to give legal recognition only to traditional marriage.
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Your spouse is your presumptive next of kin if medical decisions need to be made on your behalf. Who should make such decisions for a gay person in that situation?
Should a gay couple be taxed differently than a married couple?
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“Same sex couples have always had that particular freedom. ”
Uh, no they haven’t.
“I also see no reason to give legal recognition to relationships of that kind”
Medical decisions (including visitation), property rights, inheritance, and several other things that you and your spouse enjoy, legally protected, that same-sex couple did not until 2015.
Traditional marriage has been legally recognized for centuries.
Your posts come of as anti-individual, which goes against many of the principles you tend to support and espouse.
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For another look at the subject of same sex attraction and activities:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/190987/scientists-explore-evolution-animal-homosexuality/
I think we have evidence of same sex attraction in humans as long as we have recorded history. And if it is also a phenomenon in nature as observed by scientists in the field, then perhaps a percentage of every population having homosexuality is a natural state of communal and social animals, including humans.
In primitive cultures, large families are a plus since mortality rates are high and small societies need to expend a lot of energy for food and shelter. Industrial societies, on the other hand, create burdens for large families in the sense of expense and more crowded conditions. Or, another way to look at it, every child is a burden and must be supported by parental labor. Primitive children are a necessity to provide for the elders. A reversal of roles in a simplistic way.
Bottom line is that procreation is a luxury that is often subsidized. But the drives are indubitably still present. So the question then becomes whether marriage is even desirable except as a sort of supportive role to procreation in a more limited fashion.
Or, make marriage a contractual arrangement among adults, same sex or not, children or no children.
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“I believe same sex marriage will weaken marriage and families. The nation will suffer.”
Do you know what weakens my marriage and family and harms the nation? Raising a family now requires 2+ full time jobs. PK is scarce and prohibitively expensive, so you either come up with a second mortgage payment, or your kids miss out on crucial learning and socialization opportunities. Every family I know who don’t come from money have to make the decision if one parent will quit their job because their take-home pay doesn’t offset PK/childcare costs. That hurts the economy and puts incredible strain on families. In my family, my wife is the bigger earner, but I am the one whose job provides benefits, so what to do there?
I wonder what the GOP (or Democrats) are doing to strengthen families on this front?
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Making a robust child tax credit permanent would be a good start. Many other advanced countries provide a “child allowance” for each and every child. No means test. No social workers. No questions asked.
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The $600 a month was nice and helpful, but now that’s gone. And here’s the best part! It get’s counted against our income tax return this year. What a country!
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I think it actually works a little differently. If you received payments over the course of the year, you have to include those. If you did not, then you can claim the credit if eligible.
I’ll know more when I sit down and work through my daughter’s taxes with her.
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Sure, we can then pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.
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“Sure, we can then pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.”
A little too cryptic. What point are you making?
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Try it. It doesn’t work.
Taxing people to pay for their expenses they could either pay for themselves or negotiate with their employer adds no net benefit to the economy. It only gives the government the choice of how the benefit is used instead of the user.
It’s like putting a sales tax on cars to give people a voucher to by a car.
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“Try it. It doesn’t work.”
I think we must be talking about different things. I am talking about a negative income tax for low-income people with children to care for. What are you talking about?
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While I’m not religious, I still believe it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve in the garden of eden. That said, from a medical perspective gay males should be classified as a public health hazard since they are by far the largest source of new AIDS infections. Maybe something to do with nature saying it’s not healthy to have sex with a sewage system. Do what you want but don’t expect others to pay for the results of your perverse proclivities.
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Homophobia on full display for Tidewater Forum’s own hateful troll.
“Do what you want but don’t expect others to pay for the results of your perverse proclivities.”
No one is asking any one to pay for anything like that. It is only recognition of people and couples, regardless of orientation, to be afforded the same benefits of partnership that you and your spouse enjoy.
…”it’s not healthy to have sex with a sewage system.” And yet here you are with your oral fixation of anti-people sewage….
And to pre-empt the coming “you must be queer” comment that I suspect is forthcoming, I say that whether I am or not is irrelevant. I can say that I have known throughout my life numerous gay couples who are more devoted and loving to each other than some straight couples.
And I said this once before, and the more homophobic comments from you flow, I am starting to believe the troll doth protest too much.
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“. . . the troll doth protest too much.”
So true and so obvious!
There is a fair amount of rigorous scientific evidence that the more virulently homophobic you are, the more likely it is that you have strong but repressed homosexual desires. Another way of putting it – virulent homophobia is a form of self-hatred. For example, this study. . .
https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0021-843X.105.3.440
which concludes: “Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.”
or this report of a similar study in Scientific American. . .
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/homophobes-might-be-hidden-homosexuals/
with this headline: “Homophobes Might Be Hidden Homosexuals”
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