Actually the Eiffel Tower doesn't believe in polygamy.

I'm pretty sure most farkers are not Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe people. If we're going for suitable objects in Paris, I'd guess most farkers are more likely to pair off with those weirdo sculptures at the Centre Pompidou...

The Arc de Triomphe is similiar to the Eiffel Tower, except instead of you and your buddy giving each other a double high-five, you simply arch your arms into that iconic shape.

Marriage is a binding legal contract. I don't know about Iowa, but in my state, only a competent adult has the legal capacity to enter into a binding, legally-enforceable contract. Perhaps in Iowa they've also extended that to livestock, but I doubt that even in Iowa an in a inanimate object has the capacity to enter into an enforceable legal contract.

People who say this sort of shiat have to be the dumbest motherfarkers on the planet.

Picture of what an inanimate object might look like.

Cyberluddite: Marriage is a binding legal contract. I don't know about Iowa, but in my state, only a competent adult has the legal capacity to enter into a binding, legally-enforceable contract. Perhaps in Iowa they've also extended that to livestock, but I doubt that even in Iowa an in a inanimate object has the capacity to enter into an enforceable legal contract.

People who say this sort of shiat have to be the dumbest motherfarkers on the planet.

Precisely. The Eiffel Tower, Children, Dogs, and Euler's Equation can't give consent in any manner we can understand.

Since there apparently really are people out there who are so retarded that this needs to be explained to them again, I guess I'll take this opportunity to explain why the slippery slope arguments against same sex marriage ("OMFG, if one dude can marry another dude, next we'll have to let him marry multiple spouses/his sister/a little kid/his dog/his car!") are all horseshiat. All right then, here we go--one more time:

Governments get to discriminate against certain groups if there is a legitimate reason for doing so, and they do so every day in a multitude of ways. To cite obvious examples, the government discriminates against blind people because the DMV won't give blind people a driver's license, and the government discriminates against convicted felons in their constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The goverment would say--and most people with functioning brains would agree--there are legimate governmental and societal interests that are served by such discrimination, so it's permissible.

Now, with respect to discrimination against certain groups in marriage:

Why it's permissible to discriminate against polygamists: A primary civil (or governmental) purpose of marriage to promote order in personal legal affairs, such as having one person who can make health decisions for you if you become incapacitated, one person who inherits your property if you die without a will, one person who is equally responsible for your debts and assets as community property, etc., etc. The entire purpose is frustrated when there are competing claims to these rights arising from multiple spouses--instead of promoting order, it would promote chaos (two or more spouses arguing about whether the doctor should pull the plug, fighting over the rights to inheret property after the plug is pulled, etc.). You may not agree with this justification, and I'm not necessarily sure I do, but the bottom line is that for the government to engage in discrimination against certain groups (other than certain classifications that have a long history of being discriminated against, such as racial group or gender, which are subject to stricter scrutity), all the government has to do is show that it can articulate some "rational basis" for the discrimination, and that's a very, very relaxed standard.

Why it's permissible to discriminate against incestuous relationships: If anybody has every been to Tennessee or taken a look at the British Royal Family, you will understand that incestuous relationships can create some really messed up mutant inbred offspring. The government has a legitimate interest in discouraging the production of such inbred mutants, especially since the government often winds up having to take care of them. (But what if they don't reproduce, you ask? Well, some states actually have laws allowing close blood relatives to marry if they can prove that one or both them is infertile.)

Why it's permissible to discriminate against turtle-farkers: This is just retarded. Marriage is a legally binding contract. Animals don't have the legal capacity to enter into contracts. What the fark is wrong with you?

Why it's permissible to discriminate against kiddie farkers: Why the government has a legitimate interest in preventing this should be obvious to anybody with two or more functioning brain cells. But even more fundamentally, see above: Kids don't have the legal capacity to enter into legally binding contracts. To the extent minors get married, such as in the knocked-up-16-year-old scenario, the parent or guardian must essentially enter into the contract on the minor's behalf by giving their explicit approval.

Again, reasonable minds might argue about whether some of these justifications are legitimate, or whether it's just an excuse to discrimate against behavior most of society doesn't approve of. But the government is given pretty wide latitude in these situations (at least when the group being discriminated against isn't a group that has historically been significantly disadvantaged by discrimination, such as discrimination based on race or gender--or possibly based on sexual orientation). If the government comes up with any sort of rational basis for claiming that the discrimination serves some sort of government interest, that's usually good enough to uphold the law creating the discrimination.

Now then, unlike the situations above, can anybody answer this question for me, which I've asked those who oppose same-sex marriage a brazillian times and have never had answered: What legitimate, non-religion-based GOVERNMENT justification does the GOVERNMENT have for discriminating between same-sex couples and heterosexual couples in being allowed to marry?

Hint: It doesn't have one. "Some of us just don't approve of their lifestyle" isn't good enough. If it were, we could ban marriage for all kinds of groups, including, for example, Mormons, Scientologists, telemarketers, and Republicans.

Oh, and I'm more of a Space Needle kind of gal.

fritton: So the root of this argument is: "If we give equal rights to all people, then we may have to next 'create' rights that don't even exist for anybody to then give to all people"?

That doesn't seem to be logically coherent....

From Bachmann? You don't say?

cyberluddite

your argument against polygamy is a load of shiat

but the rest of it is pretty spot on

Absurd "slippery slope" fallacy, left over from the fight to ban interracial marriage.

Prank Call of Cthulhu: So, Bachmann's co-chair is a lyin'-ass biatch too? She's got a lot in common with Bachmann. Michelle should dump that gay guy she's married to and marry this chick instead.

i hear that Iowa will marry them too.

From the looks of John McCain and Newt Gingrich's wives, it looks like people already are.

Masterstuff: Eiffel Tower? Too sharp. Below my standards.
Now the Colosseum's got curves in all the right places.

A man after my own tastes. I, for one, would bang the hell out of the Pantheon, right through the oculus.

GhostFish: Kazan: cyberluddite

your argument against polygamy is a load of shiat

but the rest of it is pretty spot on

Polygamy has a math problem. The birthrate for boys and girls is roughly 1:1. Just about every polygamist is looking for a situation where one man can have several wives to himself. The numbers just don't work out well, and there can be some rather nasty side-effects. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_boys_(Mormon_fundamentalism) (new window)

A) so some guys will have several, and some other guys will have none. that's how it already is in reality. oh and not every guy and not every girl is interested in polygamy
B) any arguments from mormon examples are invalid, because that is attempting to say that they're the one and only form of polygamy, and that is a load of shiat

Snarfangel: Actually, the argument against consanguineous relationships doesn't work, because that would mean the government should sterilize carriers of genetic diseases, as well as women over 40 (just look at Sarah Palin).

possibly. they could also simply say that genetic testing must be done and featuses with genetic disorders will be aborted - which is what people should be doing anyway. of course the government will never order that.

Kazan: cyberluddite

your argument against polygamy is a load of shiat

but the rest of it is pretty spot on

It's not my argument, it's the government's, and I even said right in that paragraph that I don't necessarily believe it to be credible. But it's certainly enough of a justification for that form of discrimination to be consistutional, since the government only has meet a very low standard. Except when the discrimination is based on constitutionally suspect classifications (race, religion, gender, or national origin), courts will find that form of government discrimination to be consitutional as long as the government can come up with, in the Supreme Court's words, any "reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification"--even if the government never thought of it when coming up with the law.

cyberluddite

the government has to show a legitimate government interest. evidence that their claims of the effects they're trying to prevent not happening is normally sufficient to blast those claims out of the water.

Can a male human marry a female cow?

No?

Then why do you think that would somehow change?

(That being said, it is time to allow ghost-horse marriages.)

Philip Francis Queeg: Coco LaFemme: I've been having a torrid affair with the Chrysler Building for 4 years.

I'm so ashamed.

The Chrysler Building is a slut. It will put out for anybody.

Has the Slut Walk taught us nothing? Buildings have the right to freely explore their sexuality without having patriarchal assholes like you judging them. Like Herbie Hancock said, you need to hang up your hang ups. Meanwhile, I'll be getting down with the Autobahn and i'mma spooge so hard, gonna turn that highway into a causeway, son.