Am I the only one who doesn't think marriage (well, civil unions, actually) should even be limited to two people?

What if more people than just a couple want to make a legal family? Think not only about religious polygamy, but also about polyamory. What if there's a group of people who wish to be married so that, should one of them die, their property gets divided between the members of that group, for example?

Sure, the law would have to be very flexible, and I can see problems emerging from that, but from the principle of personal freedom, I think it all should be allowed.

Shrugs.. big deal.

In all honesty, if tomorrow... everywhere banned gay marriage, or everywhere legalized it...

EVERYONE would still find tons more shit to complain and feel offended about.

Daniel Tosh actually said something related to this in one of his stand-up shows, "Even though they can get married, it's not like God's going to let them into heaven.".
Personally I don't believe in 'God' or that 'marriage' is anything more than a way for two people to manage money and responsibility (in regards to money, property, children, etc), but I like that quote because it kind of shows some of the ridiculousness of people that actually get upset by gay marriage.
If you have so much faith in your 'God', than also believe that he will judge people.
And 'marriage' isn't something magical and great, it's just something we humans came up with.
Wife beaters, racists, rapists, racists, frauds and such can get married just fine because their plumbing differs from their partners?

Basically what my view boils down to is this: just let people do what makes them happy, as long as they're not hurting any person, creature or thing.
So good on ya NYC Senate.

...or whatever kind of secular set up you want to make. I personally want to get "married" but am not religious. I agree, would like to get the government out of this thing entirely.

BUT THEN PEOPLE WILL TRY TO MARRY THEIR CHAIR OR THEIR CAR!

OH THE HUMANITY

Anyway, I don't care who you're boinkin' as long as you've got the same rights as I do, so I'm happy.

I only feel sorry for gay couples who'll have to experience the wonders of divorce lawyers. :P

Not all opinions are worthy of tolerance. If we were talking about equal rights for black people, would you consider it bad form to downvote people that were against it?

Not at all. Some french chick married her ... deceased ... boyfriend the other day. She had to get special permission from the prime minister himself. The unlucky grom in question died in a car accident two years ago.

Aside from that, I think marriage is an alltogether antiquated concept that we should rid ourselves of. Loving and choosing to live with another person is fine, but since it has all kinds of legal crapshit connected to it, I think I'll pass.

Austin, Texas is all kinds of friendly :-) What's wrong with the rest of the state?

I too, salute New York.

I know what you mean. My girlfriend and I think of marriage as a legal economic contract that might eventually be convenient to make, not that "happiest day of my life", "til death do us part", life-defining moment.

So, while I don't agree with the vision of marriage most people have nowadays, the reasons that caused it to exist in the first place are still here, so I don't see a point in opposing it.

Also, since it's a legal contract and nothing else (not considering religious marriage, which should be legally void in any serious country), I see no reason not to extend that to gays, or to a greater number of people.

As for objects, deceased people or things like that, it doesn't make sense from a legal, economy-based standpoint, so a marriage of the sort would be purely symbolic/esthetic (as the deceased example probably was).

It wasn't so confusing though when classical liberals (more akin to libertarians of today) sat on the left. Pretty simple, the more consistently minimal you wanted government to be (whether in economics or social issues), the further left-wing you would be. Near the end of the 1800's, for whatever reason, social liberalism became the left. It promised the civil liberties that the classical liberals held, but promised to bring them with government intrusion, which is a contradiction to the classic liberal since you get those liberties by keeping government minimal.

So now anyone who would argue for minimal government in people's economic affairs has been branded right-wing, since it's not a left-socialism ideal. Then they are branded as people who are against civil liberties, since those are "reserved" for the left. The whole process is confusing and it's highly frustrating, not to mention greatly inconsistent.

Anyway, to try to stay on topic, the whole gay marriage thing is pretty meh for me. I understand the argument of having equal rights, which is a good point, but that point doesn't hold for someone who thinks that the government should not be involved in any marriages, heterosexual or homosexual.

The issue really comes down to the fact the "marriage" is a religious construct and that the government doesn't really have anything to do with that in the US, however because civil and religious marriage have been conflated for years people end up getting really confused as to the difference. Additionally, because of the arrangement there are rights that seem to come from a religious ceremony that don't really come from a religious ceremony.

Typically you'll have both done at the same time, although not always. Some people will have a civil marriage without the religious one by going to an appropriate court.

On top of that confusion is the issue of the current ban on civil marriages performed in cases like same sex marriages and the ability of states not to grant full faith and credit to marriages performed in other states for same sex couples.

Personally, I'd rather that they took the government more or less completely out of the picture for any couples that want to get married, provided that they were adults and not already married to anybody else. Then more or less let the various religious denominations do as they please with how they handle religious marriage.

For me this is not an issue of equal rights and is not in anyway related to the civil rights for black people or any other. If someone does not agree that New York has done a great thing than they do not need to be low rated because of it. It is extremely difficult to conduct a discussion on "Hot Topic" issues in a game forum setting as they usually quickly descend into shouting matches with the most vocal taking over the discussion and silencing the other side. Suffice it to say NY has passed a Gay Marriage Law but lets not forget that since the Feds passed DOMA in 1996 there are over 38 States with similar acts and many of these States have passed with the vote of the people State Constitutional Amendments. This is a difficult debate at best and I do not feel Paradoks should have been low rated for a simple statement of his belief.

Well, I use "marriage" as a more general term, but I'll use "civil union" from now on.

So, non-religious people might want to make a civil union too, which is why I believe the churches should stay out of it, not the state.

It's my case. We are not religious, but we might still want to make a contract where the property of one of us would go to the other in case of death, for example.

So, I think religious marriages should be legally void, but the legal union should be flexible, so that each couple (or group) could set it's terms according to their religion, or overall interests if religion is not involved.

And you feel competent to judge which ones?

Lately some Canadian TV speaker lost his job, because he tweeted that he supports traditional meaning of the word marriage.

People are loosing jobs because someone thinks they have no right to speak for what they believe in.

In Great Britain some people were not allowed to adopt children because they refused to say they support same sex marriages.

Intolerance is when you are punished for what you believe or what you speak.