Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: False, the statistics that you're refering to are deceptive in thier presentation. The statistic that 50% of marraiges end in divorce takes into account second and third marraiges so people who keep remarrying over and over are factored into the numbers multiple times. The number of first marraiges that end in divorce is less than one third (wich is too high, but a far cry from over half.) Allow me to demonstrate how this works.
you have six people 1 2 3 4 5 6 all of whome get married. Person 1 and peson 2 both get divorces. they remarry, but because they were never good at commitment in the first place both of these marraiges end too. so they get married a third time again these marraiges also end in divorce, so now while we have 6 representives we have 10 marraiges half of wich ended in divorce however 3 4 5 and 6 all stayed married too the same person leaving us with a two thirds success rate umong our sample. That's where this false 50% number comes into play. And as far as using this as a factor of who holds marraige sacred even the less than one third marraiges that end in divorce doesn't take into account that in many of these cases there may an innocent party who still holds marraige as sacred.
Aren't we a bit off topic? Marriage was originally a means of forming strategic alliances between kinship groups. The concept of legitamacy of birth, you bastard, stems from the heritability of property. In many parts of the world and even among our own upper classes that is still the case. Romantic love was added as an after thought. Abelard & Heloise are credited with interjecting it into the mix of modern culture. As for the Song of Soloman, if I want to read sexy middle eastern fairie tales I'll stick with 1001 Nights.
Why is it I can't see how same sex marriages devalue str8 marriages? You seem to have a problem with the word itself. What should it be called? Buggerage perhaps? Carpetage for lesbians? The core of the argument you make against gay marriage relies on Magical Thinking. You believe that there is some intrensic superiority of straight marriages over gay marriages and somehow (magic?) gay marriages reduce the value of str8 unions. I think everyone agrees that procreation is not the only reason for str8 marriages so that leaves property, rights of inheritance as well as romantic love as the basis of marriage. In what way does this differ between gay and str8 couples?
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."John Stuart MillAmerica is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.Oscar WildeHe who dies with the most toys is nonetheless dead.
