No bold action will be taken.  This hardly takes any guesswork on my part.  There is no constitutency for legalizing parent/child marriages, and no reason to believe that there will ever be one.  A marriage between a father and a child is invalid in all 50 states.  In some states, such a union is criminal.  It's hard to imagine a group of laws that is less likely to be changed-- ever. 

The apt comparison to same-sex marriage is miscegenation.  50 years ago, slippery slope arguments were being made against interracial marriages.  These laws were finally ruled unconstitutional in the famous Loving v. Virginia decision.  The slippery slopers were on the wrong side of history, then and now. 

Get over your unfounded fears, stop reading WorldNedDaily, and get on the right side of history-- plenty of room over here!

There absolutely was, and always has been, a significant and natural constituency for same sex marriage-- the 10 million or so LGBT people in the U.S.  That they did not lift their voices on the matter until fairly recently probably has a lot to do with the fact that doing so would have come with the high likelihood of a beatdown or worse from bigots.  Once their voice was heard, it was a logical progression that the same groups that had joined in the civil rights movement would also join the gay rights movement.

No such constituency exists for marriages between biological parents and children.  Their numbers are tiny, and their cause is one that virtually everyone finds to be repugnant for a variety of reasons.  Despite the fact that in the modern era our society has been willing to expand rights for minority groups, the needle just hasn't moved an inch in favor of parents that want to have sex with their biological children, for reasons that are obvious to everyone but you apparently.  Polygamists, by comparison, are vast in number and mainstream, and always have been-- and by the way, nice try on moving the goalposts to include polygamists to try to make your original argument seem a little more reasonable.

 

Incest is already legal in New Jersey, which is why the couple mentioned in the WND article has chosen to live in that state.  And there is a growing constituency advocating for the mainstream acceptance of incest as a socially acceptable lifestyle whether or not you choose to acknowledge it.  By the way, nice try on moving the goalposts by narrowing the focus to include only parent-child relationships to make it seem otherwise.

My own opinion is that we would have been done with this issue decades ago had some folks kept their Religious convictions out of Civil Law.

Civil Marriage, the sort "licensed" by the State, creates a freestanding corporate body known as a Marital Estate, and effectively nothing more than that Estate. The notion of Civil Marriage being some sort of blessing or approval by the State is based upon what, the ability to pass property (upon death by inheritance or by a statutory defined line of succession), and the exercising of certain "rights" in and to that "estate"by and between ONLY the parties to that estate? That and of course certain Tax benefits which can ONLY be applied in such an arrangement, again, between the parties to that Estate between themselves and the Government? If the aforementioned is true, that means that State Law, as written, is NOT discriminatory unless it specifically states that marriage only exists "between a man and a woman". That's the Law for ya. So, the real problem here seems to be that the folks enforcing what they consider to be the "spirit of the law" are doing so in a manner which bestows the "benefits" of the law exclusive to only those that qualify to THEIR interpretation of it and the actual public be damned.

In the case of a same SEX marriage, which would probably be better characterized in legal terms as a same GENDER Marriage, because the State isn't really supposed to have any interest in the former three letter word anyway between consenting adults, it is not the issue of the licensed CONTRACTUAL rights under Civil Marriage that is being "discussed", but rather, an issue of animal husbandry , reproductive biology, and ultimately, a form of cloaked Eugenics.

As far as the adoption issue is concerned, it DOES seem discriminatory that the State of New York would take a stance that a same gender couples ADOPTED child would say anything at all about the kids parental lineage with respect to attending school or participating in much of anything. Lots of kids have run away to New York lived with complete strangers, and attended both school and probably every extracurricular activity under the sun and nobody's been the wiser of it. But I can see where some folks on the front end of operating some of those programs/agencies might just attempt to enforce their own "interpretation" of what the law says on everybody else.  

Ohio's marriage statute, ORC 3101.01, states that "[a] marriage may only be entered into by one man and one woman."  Not much room for interepretation there!  And that's typical in all states.  Legislatures, not court and not agencies, are making the law.

Just for good measure here in Ohio, the legislature added a provision that "[t]he recognition or extension by the state of the specific statutory benefits of a legal marriage to nonmarital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is against the strong public policy of this state. Any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of this state, ... that extends the specific statutory benefits of legal marriage to nonmarital relationships between persons of the same sex or different sexes is void ab initio."  So, no civil unions here either.

Scott,

With respect to your analogy via comparison to arithmetic, you've actually written the "proof" to MY equation.. Arithmetic is but one BRANCH of Mathematics, and Arithmetic is merely an interpretation of Mathematics Science along that specified tradition of study. Arithmetic is  the  organizational equivalent of a sect.

Our Marriage Laws may have a Judeo Christian moral background/tradition behind them, but there is no cite of any Religious text, be it from the Bible, the Tonakh or any other document claimed to be the Governing/authority instrument of any Religious Denomination or Sect contained in any State or Federal Law for a good reason; The First  Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states the following to wit;;"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...) etc. And the fact is that if anybody thinks they can impose Religious based restrictions or benefits based upon their belief system into Civil Contract Law, then in my opinion they will be shot down by whomever the final legal authority is going to be, because it ISN'T going to be settled in a Court of Canon Law which according to most Churches WOULD be the proper jurisdiction for hearing such an argument. And by golly, we don't have those in our legal system.

I can agree that the cite that you reference as being representative of Judeo-Christian tradition is such, what I will not agree with is the notion that this very same "tradition" is exclusive to only the Judeo-Christian tradition, so why make the definition itself exclusive? And if you want to get right down to the meat and potatoes of the Religious part of it, although under Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity Marriage is considered a Sacrament, it is NOT considered to be so under Judaism nor even most Protestant denominations. The underlying truth to this entire legal conundrum actually being that what the "Traditional Marriage" people are discussing is a matter of Religious Commitment, and everybody is in fact free NOW to practice their own Religion under Constitutional Law to whatever extent so long as it  does not encroach upon the "rights" of others. So why CHANGE any of it at all?

And although in peoples minds the concept of Marriage in this Country may date back to Biblical times, even beyond that,  any  requirement to REGISTER and license marriages through a Civil Authority does not. That's why for a long time our States actually accepted the rights of  claimed spouses based upon "Common Law" marriages. Even the Catholic Church did that for quite a while.

When my wife and I got married, many years ago, the requirement for a Civil Marriage License was made by the Church we were getting married in, not by the State. We could have co-habitated under State Law until the first of us kicked off and as far as inheritance. and all the rest of it NOTHING would have changed one bit. So where is the "benefit" or the "privilege involved in that?

My thought is that the ONLY people receiving any sort of benefit out of this entire argument are.) 1.) the folks claiming they're protecting everybody else's rights in some "institution" as opposed to protecting their OWN rights, and 2.) the Lawyers they are paying to do it FOR them.  How much did that proposition floated in Cali cost?

As far as me inferring anyone is some kind of Bigot because I disagree with an argument based on principles, I don't think I've ever done that.

In MY book, everyone is entitled to hold their own opinion, even if it happens to be wrong from MY viewpoint. (LOL)          

Hi Slade,

Not sure if I agree with you on the language being typical in "all" states.

The fact being, the "one  man and one woman language" has actually been a PROBLEM in a LOT of States, or rather the LACK of it, and that's what a lot of these Voter Referendum Initiatives were actually drawn up to correct. To enable the voters to OVERRIDE the failure of their own Legislatures to pass that very same verbiage to amend their existing law. Problem is though, that a lot of voter Initiatives that do make it get thrown out by the Courts eventually anyway. To tell you the truth, often times I'm not really sure whether these initiatives are actually an attempt at changing the law, so much as they are at trying to overturn opposing pieces of legislation passed in other states upon later review.

The "one" man etc. being some sort of attempt at limiting the possibility of the practice of bigamy/polygamy apparently, because it doesn't really speak to the other issue, which the rest of it DOES speak to..

 It seems to me though that the present actions relative to attempting to get the Federal Courts all the way up to the Supreme Court to "decide" the validity of various state's Marriage Laws is probably NOT something that Court will want to address directly anyway.  It really doesn't affect the Federal Government except maybe with respect to State contracts paid for with Federal Funding, which of course the Feds already are in the hammer position because they are holding the purse AND have the right to approve or reject the terms of any contract they might enter into without having to comply with state law anyway..

If it IS truly a States Rights issue, then why would any state have any sort of "RIGHT'  to change the law in ANOTHER state by using the Federal Court system to swing the hammer? Just Plain old Pretzel Logic as far as I am concerned..

Old adage I learned many years ago; NO one is required to do business with anyone.

On either side.

. 

Actually, what I said was that the fact that there was no room for interpretation was typical. The language varies a bit.  Here's a rundown of all the state marriage laws: http://www.clgs.org/marriage/state-definitions.  I don't think any of them are ambiguous as far as whether they allow or do not allow same-sex marriage.

Marriage "Licenses" are simply a marriage TAX.  No different than having to get your dog licensed in the municipality where you live.

Unfortunately, we Americans have bought into the over-taxing government bodies and figured, oh heck, if the government says it's ok, we'll buy into it.

We should have established CO-HABITATION LAWS YEARS ago where in ANY couple could claim themselves as spouses and a household.  If you want to dissolve the union, you do it via divorce.

Colorado has Common law marriage.  No 7 year bs, you simply declare yourselves as spouses to the world, (Hey, we're married now or hey, guess what?  We're spouses now" )and you are legally "married"  The union can be dissolved by an actual divorce, not just the couple splitting up.   No licenses involved.

So, we missed the boat on the "marriage" issue.  Now we have to have "specialized" marriage defined by your sex.  Why?  What business is it of government or your work place?

As to religious, Church-based marriage, that's between you and your Church.  And as we all know, government has no business in our religion either.   Otherwise, they'd be taxing you for attending your Church of choice.

As to same-sex marriages, there will always be a moral factor to it for some people based on their religious beliefs.  Deal with it.  It is what it is and you have to decide what you believe as a person.  No one is going to change that.

As to same-sex marriages and the law, we are making slow progress.  It's a new legal territory as mentioned to adoptions, work benefits for spouses, etc.  

It would be so much easier if the laws were straight across the board for ALL couples, regardless of sex, age, religion, etc.

But our government is smart enough to know if they ever made sense and made things easy, they'd lose that golden revenue called "Marriage Tax"

Just think if we REJECTED the government's involvement in our personal rights and decisions? 

Just think if we stood up to our employers and demanded equality for all. 

But, the reality is that most people just post stuff ON line and never take the FRONT line

Off the soap box for now. . . 

YOU ARE INCORRECT. Same sex marriage is the cause. It requires the legal redefinition of marriage. instead of redifining the lawful word. A new word to define a gay couples union should have been created and made lawful. say a word like Melded, Melding: a thing formed by merging or blending etc... They should have brought that to the Surpreme court and legalized it so they can have their own unigue lawful union.

But this is not the AGENDA. The agenda (from the Political point of view, not the personal or individual who is ignorant to the machinations of those who are in power and desire to control and manipulate the politics and industry of the world), is to destroy cultural, societal norms and destroy the strength of every country, which is the family and population growth, among many other motives which I won't delve into at this point.

YOU ARE INCORRECT. Same sex marriage is the cause. It requires the legal redefinition of marriage. instead of redifining the lawful word. A new word to define a gay couples union should have been created and made lawful. say a word like Melded, Melding: a thing formed by merging or blending etc... They should have brought that to the Surpreme court and legalized it so they can have their own unigue lawful union.

But this is not the AGENDA. The agenda (from the Political point of view, not the personal or individual who is ignorant to the machinations of those who are in power and desire to control and manipulate the politics and industry of the world), is to destroy cultural, societal norms and destroy the strength of every country, which is the family and population growth, among many other motives which I won't delve into at this point.