From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Thu Jan 17 2002 - 10:37:17 MST
> (Mike Lorrey)
> Well, I'd have to contest some of this. lgbt individuals have the same
> right to marry someone of the opposite sex just as straights do. Giving
> lgbt individuals the right to marry someone of the same sex, while not
> conferring the same right to hetero individuals, is a violation of the
> equal protection doctrine. Furthermore, even conferring this right on
> heteros still discriminates against sibling and parent/child,
> aunt/uncle/neice/nephew/cousin couples, whereupon you wind up legalizing
> the sort of garbage that NAMBLA promulgates.
> When it comes to marriage, it needs to be recognised that it is very
> much a discriminatory institution, and discriminatory for a signficant
> purpose, so use of 'equal protection' arguments by lgbt
> couples/advocates is simply hypocritical.
Oh, grow up, Mike; we're talking about marriage here, not sex.
Bringing up the latter is childish. One cannot honestly deny that
the /state/ confers specific legal privileges to married persons
that have absolutely nothing to do with sex, procreation, or any other
aspect of "traditional" concepts of marriage. It is not really any
of the government's business granting these legal rights, but it does;
and the fact that it only grants them to pairs of people who meet
certain criteria that /should/ have no legal standing is clearly
discriminatory.
People have a right to discriminate: if you, or your religion, or
some other private institution wants to define marriage by its
traditional functions--which, as you correctly point out, are
discriminatory by their very nature--that's fine. But the
government /doesn't/ havethe right to discriminate, because it's
a monopoly. "Equal protection" is exactly the right argument, and
anyone who doesn't see that has no business calling himself a
libertarian.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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