Comments about ‘Nathan B. Oman: Whatever your thoughts on marriage, gay divorce is a concern’

While this article seems harsh due to its stripping the emotional arguments that both sides tend to want to focus on it gets to the core of why marriage matters and why extending anything less to gay couples is not acceptable. At the end of the day marriage is a contract that provides specific protections and obligations to both parties involved that can only happen through a marriage contract .

What a boondoggle. Gay divorce law is not going to be the same concerning parental rights, that's for certain, since gay couples only have children if there is at least one other birth parent involved.

Another concept that would need to be redefined is "fidelity." Infidelity with traditional marriage means having no relations outside of marriage. The Gay community commonly allows that within a so-called "committed" relationship, occasional trysts with other partners is acceptable.

Why should the law for gay divorce be any different than those for heterosexual marriages? If a state permits gay marriage the laws regulating it should be the same and the laws concerning divorce should be the same. On the Federal level the issue is constitionality. Gay marriage either is or it isn't constitutional. If it is, the laws regulating marriage and divorce should be left to each state. But if not, the issue of gay divorce is moot.

But the elephant in the room is not really gay marriage or divorce, if gay marriage is constitutional then what other forms of marriage must be constitutional? Polygamy?

This description of the purpose of the "Law of Marriage" is flawed. Legal sanction of marital relations cannot be merely to lay the foundation in event of divorce. That's why we also have "Divorce Laws". Why do people persist in advocating behaviors that have wreaked havoc throughout the world?

@1covey
I don't know why don't you tell us why you push discrimination since that is the only behavior here that has and continues to wreak havoc on the world?

Marriage law establishes a connection, a legal recognition, between two adults. Obligations and responsibilities go with benefits and rights.

There are well over a thousand such responsibilities and benefits in federal law and many hundred in state laws.

The author's mistake? No consideration for the regular purpose in marriage law - dissolution after a death. Inheritance, property, taxation, social welfare . . . you name it, all are contingent on martial recognition.

Divorce may be a feature of many straight marriages. I doubt most gay couples will follow that pattern. We're just too patient, good-natured and forgiving. Gaining the right to marry certainly has demonstrated those characteristics.

A couple can get "married" at the courthouse.
No religous ceremony, No rings, No clergy, No mention of God.

A Justice of the Peace, and a legal document.

These would be considered "Civil Unions" or "Domestic Partnerships".

But --

Because conservatives have taken this stupid All-or-Nothing extremeist approach -- i.e., ZERO compromising -- they are about to get their hats handed to them once again and loose everything they'd hoped to protect.

I think both tolstoy and especially Leslie make very good points. It is fascinating that this article and thread have been largely ignored by the usual posters. Once you remove the emotional reactions this subject really becomes rather simple.

@mike in ceder city
whether polygamy as a form of marriage that should be legalized is a discussion worth having but should be argued on its own merits rather then used to try to dilute the discussion on the gay marriage.

is a form, sorry

Let's look at marriage in reverse...divorce.

Q: Who presides and has the legal authority to dissolve a marriage?
A: the Government [courts]

So,
Q: who then has the legal authority to create a legal marriage?
A; the Government.

Even the most Religous marriage ceremonies requires the proper legal Court Documents or it is considered completely 100% null and void.

Case dismissed.

It never occurred to me that failed gay marriages would end any differently than straight marriages. Divorce is the dissolution of the legally-binding marriage contract issued by the State. That is why we have "Divorce Court" and not "Divorce Church."

I guess I fail to see the point the author is trying to make. Of course, gay people will marry and some will divorce. It is going to happen. Custody is not a real issue as a child who is adopted, for example, is treated with the same consideration as that of a birth child.

The whole point behind using the legal word, "marriage" is so the State is blind to the genders of the parties involved. People are "married," period. They are not black married, interracially married, straight married, or gay married. They are simply married. Case closed.

Trying to stir a caldron to create a perceived new problem is disingenuous. Gays will get divorced just like everyone else, and probably for many of the same reasons.

Open Minded Mormon and Chuck:

If this is where we're headed, we should discard the term "marriage" from the legal lexicon altogether; for purposes of the law put me in a "civil union" with everyone else.

Unfortunately, obfuscation of the term "marriage" for unions of any gender removes a distinction, traditionally reserved for units that are fundamental to society as they are where new members of society are brought into the world. We lose something when we fail to recognize the unique potential of a man/woman union as a procreative unit.

However well-meaning or equalizing we may try to be, failing to recognize the unique nature and potential of a traditional marriage will do damage over the long term--not because sociological studies say so, or that any evidence is currently available to support it, but that changing marriage's definition will weaken its status as a stabilizing social structure; and just like removing nails from the supports of a house, we cannot expect but that a weakened societal fabric will be the result.

Some people get married and then divorced. I don't see any difference between what will happen with gays once they're allowed to marry than what already happens with straights.

What an odd argument against same sex couples being allowed to marry: "they might get divorced".

Observator

You "fail to recognize the unique potential of a man/woman union as a procreative unit" every time an elderly couple marry, a married couple do not have any children, 50% of marriages end in divorce, or 40% of children are born to single women who never marry.

That does not bother you? Two men getting married, two women getting married, that somehow makes a man and a woman decide not to marry? Not to have children? No one I know thinks a straight couple is confused, or need to have everyone else in a "civil union" to "preserve" their idea of marriage.

If more couples getting married "obfuscates" marriage for such a couple, then it is doubtful they will ever have a marriage, no matter what the law says.

Two people decide on marriage - that they will, and what their marriage means - they do not ask you, or me, or total strangers to "vote" on their marriage. No one, not even you, can expect all of them to have children. Some of them do, despite you, or your theories about "social fabrics."

Marriage is a verb for the couple who do, not a noun you hand out.

Gay divorce exists? Wow, it's like they're normal people.