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Admittedly, allowing same-sex couples to marry will change the social meaning of marriage (it will no longer be part of this social meaning that every marriage is the union of a man and a woman); and for marriage to bring these intangible benefits, it needs to have a relatively stable and well-understood social meaning. However, there is no evidence that the introduction of same-sex marriage will change any other elements of this social meaning. Moreover, this social meaning has already changed radically over the years.
Marriage used to be generally understood as an unequal partnership, with the wife being subordinated to her husband, whereas now — at least in law and in most of mainstream culture — marriage is viewed as a partnership of equals. In general, the social meaning of marriage must change whenever such changes are necessary to avoid injustice; so this social meaning must now be changed so that it no longer excludes the participation of same-sex couples.
There is a lesson here for moral and political philosophy. In much of political philosophy, social institutions are conceived legalistically, as rules for the distribution of tangible benefits and burdens (such as money, health care, employment opportunities, and the like). Yet social institutions also have social meanings, which enable them to create important intangible benefits as well. Such institutions matter, not just because they are a mechanism for distributing tangible benefits and burdens, but because they create opportunities for meaningful human lives within society.
Published in journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society the study represents the most comprehensive study of polygamy and the institution of marriage.
It found significantly higher levels of rape, kidnapping, murder, assault, robbery and fraud in polygymous cultures found in Asia and Africa.
Prof Henrichs said that these crimes are caused primarily by pools of unmarried men, which result when other men take multiple wives.
He said: "The scarcity of marriageable women in polygamous cultures increases competition among men for the remaining unmarried women.
"The greater competition increases the likelihood men in polygamous communities will resort to criminal behaviour to gain resources and women."
Many who undergo weddings, for the best of reasons, do not seem to realise the dire legal effects of their actions. For a wedding means that a marriage contract has been entered into.
Every first-year law student used to know that marriage is a form of contract. Indeed, the celebrated case of Bardell v Pickwick reminds us that a legal action could once be brought for breach of a promise to enter such a contract.
Usually with such onerous contracts, both parties should have separate legal advice. I do not mean advice for a prenuptial agreement; I mean legal advice for both parties on entering the nuptial agreement itself.
A commercial transaction of comparable value -- say a share acquisition or a disposal of assets -- would normally be accompanied by lawyerly advice: seeking contractual protections, guarantees, and amounts in escrow. Various adverse outcomes would be discussed with harsh and open realism, and the parties would allocate risks and rights of termination accordingly. And once both parties were properly advised, and had mutually agreed the legal outcomes of various unhappy scenarios, then there would be a cooling-off period of 12 months before the agreement had legal effect.
Liberals sometimes feel that it is narrow-minded to favor traditional marriage. Over time, my reporting on poverty has led me to disagree: Solid marriages have a huge beneficial impact on the lives of the poor (more so than in the lives of the middle class, who have more cushion when things go wrong).
One study of low-income delinquent young men in Boston found that one of the factors that had the greatest impact in turning them away from crime was marrying women they cared about. As Steven Pinker notes in his recent book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature”: “The idea that young men are civilized by women and marriage may seem as corny as Kansas in August, but it has become a commonplace of modern criminology.”
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Eighty percent of the people in my high school cohort dropped out or didn’t pursue college because it used to be possible to earn a solid living at the steel mill, the glove factory or sawmill. That’s what their parents had done. But the glove factory closed, working-class jobs collapsed and unskilled laborers found themselves competing with immigrants.
When the Afghan government announced Thursday that it would pardon a woman who had been imprisoned for adultery after she reported that she had been raped, the decision seemed a clear victory for the many women here whose lives have been ground down by the Afghan justice system.
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Shah Marai/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPresident Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan offered his thoughts on an abused woman's case.But when the announcement also made it clear that there was an expectation that the woman, Gulnaz, would agree to marry the man who raped her, the moment instead revealed the ways in which even efforts guided by the best intentions to redress violence against women here run up against the limits of change in a society where cultural practices are so powerful that few can resist them, not even the president.
The Roman Catholic Church reacted harshly Friday to a bill proposed by Mexico City legislators that would require all couples to sign a prenuptial agreement specifying how to handle child custody and other issues in case of divorce – and estimating how long the marriage is expected to last.
people should be aware of their responsibilities when entering into any legally binding arrangement-especially one that involves their entire financial life (or at least a large portion of it). While people are supposed to know about what they are getting into and everyone has heard the horror stories about divorces, it seems that most people do not fully understand the legal aspects of marriage and it is clearly remiss that the state grants licenses without providing such information.
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Interestingly, Mexico City law makers have proposed a bill intended to address the court clogging legal battles between divorcing couples. This bill would require couples to create a pre-nuptual agreement that would create a contract specifying what would occur if the couple divorces. This would include financial matters as well as issues regarding children. The intent is, of course, to reduce the burden on the courts and allow divorces to be settled quickly. Since the divorce rate about 40%, this certainly makes sense. It also makes sense because the couple would know what their exact obligations will be and they will not be going into a serious financial contract blindly.
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One rather controversial aspect of the proposal is that the marriages are supposed to have predicted timed of termination. Couples can, of course, use the traditional termination: “until death do us part” or they can opt for a shorter contract.
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"I went on a sex strike for five years after our kid was born, as a way to maintain my autonomy and agency once I realised the kid thing really did economically trap me into my (reasonably happy) marriage with a (reasonably egalitarian, yet clueless) guy. I just couldn’t give up that last thing of myself – if I had, then he would have owned all of me, not just my free childkeeping and house labour. (And I didn’t miss it. Caring for kid, going to school, making art took up all of my energy.)
When I did want to have sex again, I made the political decision to engage with men outside of the marriage, as well as the husband. If I was going to engage in (the oppressive act of) sex, then I would have it how I wanted it and with whomever I wanted it with, so as to expand the boundaries inherent in the system of non-consent."
The well-qualified man stayed at home caring for the kids while his wife worked as an IT manager, earning $12,000 a month.
When they got divorced, the court made the woman support her ex-husband and kids.
The ex-husband, was also given 40 per cent of the matrimonial assets (valued at about $700,000) as recognition for his sacrifices, though he had contributed only about 20 per cent.
The court also granted the husband’s application to be entitled to 50 per cent of the value of the wife’s unit trusts, valued at $115,000.
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Lawyers who have handled divorces told The New Paper on Sunday that while it was rare for a wife to maintain her husband, it depended on the circumstances.
Mr Michael Low of Crossbows LLP said: “In this case, it makes sense for the woman to pay the ex-husband, since their children are with him, especially whenthe wife has a higher earning capacity.”
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Asked for her comment, Ms Lelia Loges, chairman of the work-life balance sub-committee at women’s group Aware, said: “I don’t see why she shouldn’t pay... “He had to sacrifice his job for her to succeed, and lost 18 years of a chance at a career and seniority in the work place. It will be hard to find employment now since he is past 50.
“She is successful because he stayed home and took care of the children, and he should be recognised for that support.”
the point of this video – as indeed I did not realize at first – is to make opposition to homosexual “marriage” seem ridiculous through comparison to divorce. After all, no one in their right mind could possibly want to ban divorce, right? And so… if you won’t oppose divorce, what grounds do you have to oppose gay marriage? If you want to “protect marriage” by opposing homosexuality, you’ve got to “protect marriage” by opposing divorce as well.
And of course the response to this – and the reason I failed to perceive the satire at first – is to agree. To the folks who crafted that video, I say: yes, you’re right. If we are concerned about “protecting the family”, we should – and do – want to ban divorce as well. I may not have written it here, on this blog, but I have agreed for a long time that compared to divorce, homosexuality is a sideshow. No-fault divorce has wrought untold devastation upon the family and should be repealed at once.
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the lefties who crafted this video seem to be seriously out of touch with the folks they are arguing against. Worlds apart.
To the point that I initially failed to realize that the piece is intended as satire, and I still think it utterly fails as a parody. Why? Because I and many others agree with it literally. Look, the essence of successful political satire is to take a position, alter it slightly, and ridicule the new, altered position. The goal is for everyone to thus realize just how absurd the original stance was, too.
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, none of this is news to either Christian traditionalists or the pagan manosphere. In these camps, the idea of curtailing divorce laws is pedestrian (how many of you, as you watched the first minute of that video, found yourselves agreeing completely and wondering where on earth the punchline was?). Outside the internet, in The Real World, there are similar rumblings in actual state legislatures. And that’s the reason I bothered to write about all this in the first place: I was stunned that these lefties actually thought that banning divorce was so far-fetched that the idea could only appear as parody. That’s how out of touch the anti-traditional values crowd is.
Branding Christians and traditionalists ‘bigots’ for being Christians and traditionalists and thus none too keen to fundamentally revise the definition of marriage is a highly unattractive exercise in liberal self-righteousness that makes Miss America look quite sophisticated. Not to mention sounding a lot like pots and kettles rattling. It’s faintly absurd to have to even say this, but it isn’t bigoted to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s just being conventional. And after all, marriage itself is convention and tradition tied up in a big red bow and covered in confetti and sprinkled with Holy Water. Which is exactly why lesbians and gays should have nothing to do with it.
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Miss California, a practising Christian, was last week denounced by Miss America judge Perez Hilton on his blog as ‘a dumb bitch’ and unworthy of the Miss America crown because she gave the ‘wrong’ answer to his chippy question about gay marriage. Like most Americans – including the current Democratic President of the United States – she believes that marriage is ‘between a man and a woman’. Boo! Hiss! Rip her to shreds!
It wasn’t just the famously bitchy gay gossip-monger Hilton casting stones, however. For honestly and somewhat courageously answering his question Miss California was roundly condemned as a ‘bigot’ by hosts of gay and liberal bloggers, and was even denounced by the directors of the Miss California pageant who declared themselves ‘saddened’ by her views and that they had no place in the ‘Miss California family’, whatever that is. Most now agree with Hilton’s gloating claim that her answer cost her the crown.
Candidate Obama expressed the exact same view during the Presidential Election: “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian, it’s also a sacred union. You know, God’s in the mix.” Instead of being scorned as a bigot and a dumb bitch, Obama was handed the Mr America crown by liberals and probably most gay voters. But I suppose that being President of the United States is a rather less important title than Miss America.
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gay marriage zealots, many of whom admit that they themselves don’t wish to get married, insist on characterising civil unions as ‘second class’, ‘social apartheid’ or ‘riding at the back of the bus’. I’d like to think it was merely a ploy to make fully-recognised civil unions more achievable, but many really seem to believe their own shrill propaganda. Worse, they’ve made even more of a fetish of the word ‘marriage’ than the religious right they rail against.
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Now that same-sex marriage has been legalized in New York, at least a few large companies are requiring their employees to tie the knot if they want their partners to qualify for health insurance.
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Corning, I.B.M. and Raytheon all provide domestic partner benefits to employees with same-sex partners in states where they cannot marry. But now that they can legally wed in New York, five other states and the District of Columbia, they will be required to do so if they want their partner to be covered for a routine checkup or a root canal.
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On the surface, this appears to put the couples on an even footing with heterosexual married couples. After all, this is precisely what they have been fighting for: being treated as a spouse. But some gay and lesbian advocates are arguing that the change may have come too soon: some couples may face complications, since their unions are not recognized by the federal government.
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I was struck by this paragraph from the lead story in the Sunday edition of the Times, which charts the unlikely path New York’s marriage equality bill took to passage late last Friday night (read the whole thing, by the way, it’s a wonderful snapshot of modern American politics in action:
“…the donors in the room — the billionaire Paul Singer, whose son is gay, joined by hedge fund mangers Cliff Asness and Daniel Loeb — had the influence and the money to insulate nervous senators from conservative backlash if they supported the marriage measure. And they were inclined to see the issue as one of personal freedom, consistent with libertarian views.
Within days, the wealthy Republicans sent back word: They were on board. Each of them cut six-figure checks to the lobbying campaign that eventually totaled more than $1 million”
In other words, if a particular billionaire hadn’t have had a gay son, we might not be looking at legalized same sex marriage in the most populous state yet.
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I still think it makes for a powerful example of how much sway wealth has over the political process. The Republican senators that voted in favor of marriage equality — after having previously voted against it two years ago — said they changed their minds and were now able to vote their conscience. Only the promise of vast amounts of campaign financing and support allowed them to do so.
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To be fair, the Times story details a number of ways in which our democracy functions beautifully — the part about the Queens senator who said he’d vote in favor only if more constituents wrote to him supporting the measure than opposing it, and did so after organizers helped mobilize his district was especially encouraging
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A 2007 study by then City Comptroller William Thompson estimated that marriage equality would add $142 million on a net basis to the city’s economy during the first three years after the legislation was passed. Most of that income would come from the increased number of visitors, who would travel here to either get married or attend a wedding. The study estimated that more than 56,000 couples would travel to New York from out of state to marry here
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NYC is hoping to capitalize on all of those couples by promoting wedding deals and venues on its NYC I Do website. The rest of the state looks to make a cool $391 million during the same time period, a point some state senators drove home in the hours leading up to the crucial vote.
So far, appeals to basic human rights and dignity have failed to win over many state and federal legislatures in the gay marriage debate. Maybe it’s time gay marriage proponents start appealing to their wallets instead.
While New York had already recognized same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, that recognition didn’t extend to state income taxes. Now, couples who marry and live in New York will be able to file their state tax returns jointly. Wealthier couples may end up paying more in taxes, but families with lower incomes may owe less.
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there’s still a long list of federal benefits that will remain out of reach. Since the federal Defense of Marriage Act — which defines marriage as between a man and a woman — is still being enforced, gay couples in New York will still need to file separate federal tax returns. They will not be eligible for Social Security spousal or survivor benefits. And they will continue to owe extra income taxes on their spouse’s health insurance benefits — a cost that opposite-sex married couples don’t have to pay.
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Income Taxes Married couples will be able to file their state tax returns jointly, though they will still need to file separate federal tax returns (either as single or head of household). Some couples who jointly earn less than $65,000 may end up paying less in state income taxes than if they filed individual tax returns because they will get what known as a marriage bonus. But some couples with higher income may be end up in a higher tax bracket by filing jointly. In other words, they would owe less if they remained single and filed separate returns, said Tina Salandra, a New York accountant with expertise in planning for same-sex couples.
Filing joint state returns is also likely to complicate matters for federal tax purposes, and it’s likely to cost the couple more in tax preparation fees (or time, if they fill out their own returns).
Here’s why: Even though the couple must file separate federal tax returns (as single or head of household), they must still prepare a dummy federal tax return using a married filing status, so that they can use that data for filing their joint state return.
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The fight over legalizing gay marriage in New York is getting ugly online as the Republican Senate plans to finally consider the bill in closed-door conference Thursday.
The leader of the state Senate, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and at least one other lawmaker have been besieged by offensive posts, forcing them to curtail comments.
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"Our unofficial Facebook policy is not to automatically delete comments that disagree with us, but when the comments come into untruths or uncharitable, then we have to delete them," Poust said. "And when it really becomes abusive we have to ban them."
According to the group, one Facebook post stated: "Eventually your kind of 'religion' will be extinguished from the memory of mankind forever, because this sort of interference in the lives of people you only wish to harm. You have NO MORAL AUTHORITY any longer because of your evil pedophilia."
Another said the Catholic church only approves of marriages "that produce altar boys to be molested."
The group deleted both.
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"The tension has really reached a fever pitch for some people. ... I'm sure there are certain unstable members of both sides who are prone to excess," Poust said.
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The law recognises you as the father as far as making you pay is concerned but doesn’t grant you the right to see and love that child.
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little girls – and teenage girls and girls in their twenties – dream about their wedding day. Is it something in the human psyche or, as Suzanne Moore says in her article in The Guardian on Saturday (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/12/suzanne-moore-marriage-tax-breaks), just a cultural artefect?
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I’m ambivalent about marriage (even though I’m on my second one). If two people want to make a lifelong commitment, that’s fine. Is it realistic? It depends on the couple. Do I think it’s meaningful? No, not really. Years ago, I worked with a divorced woman who had been married for a couple of years. Since her divorce, she’d seen her ex-husband once, in a supermarket. The marriage might not have been for life but the separation was obviously working out very well.
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One in five adults in love with someone other than partner
One in five adults is in love with someone other than their partner or spouse, a study has found.
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