I agree. However: if this is the case, then why do you rule out homosexual marriage?
Übereil
Because I believe that it hurts the children, must be my most important reason.
I do believe they have the right to live together and even make civil contracts binding them together as long as they don't have children, but that is mostly what marriage is for.
First to show your love for one another, but also to have children know they have parents behind them, both a mother and a father to teach them.
(1) Would you be ready to apply the same standard to a multiple-person civil solidarity contract? That is, not outlawed, but harder to get? If not, why not?
What do you mean by multiple-person civil solidarity contract ?
(2) Do you believe that life for children is necessarily worse following a divorce than inside an unhappy, loveless couple? If so, why?
No, I don't, but I believe people shouldn't get married on the flick of the moment, but build a relationship before marrying. If you mind extreme examples tell me, but look at all those celebrities out there, then count all the divorces. I think Mrs. Spears is about 25 yrs old and married thrice already. Being together for two months doesn't mean you'll want to be together for the rest of your lives. In modern society this is what is happening; people meeting people, going on a date or two, then marrying, sometimes even have a kid and then divorce.
I believe that is bad, but if people really are unhappy and have tried to work things out after years of marriage and they see their children suffering from it, then this would be the part where the divorce would be accepted.
Now all you have to do is contact a lawyer who draws up copies of a paper, changes the names and asks people to sign them. He then gets money for it.
(1) Do you believe that divorce necessarily ruins your life and the lives of your children? If so, I believe I could produce evidence to debunk this belief -- that is, pretty well-adjusted adults whose parents divorced.
Not always, but I know for sure it doesn't make people happier and certainly not the children. And of course you can find examples of people who got adjusted to it, that's how the human brain works, it tries adjusting itself to different situations. It still doesn't mean it is a good thing. Well-adjusted also means they had a bad time during the divorce, this alone is enough for me to spare children of that.
I even know someone whose father committed suicide and he's well adjusted and he's studying for his Bachelor now. It doesn't mean what happened didn't affect him. It did, but his brain is trying to adjust to the situation.
You said that we're talking about men marrying a lot of women. As far as I can tell, you're the only one on this thread doing this.
Oh, I said "we" as I was talking about it, yes. I actually meant 'on' or 'men' in French and Dutch respectively, but I don't know the correct translation for that in English. It means 'we', but in general. It's translated as one on babelfish in the sense that: One might say...
Sorry for the confusion, I should have used 'One' but I didn't know (or rather forgot) I could use it like that in English.
Certainly I see a problem with the children. I just don't see that the problem is necessarily any greater than with serial polygamy (i.e., divorce and remarriage).
It is because it is a constant factor as in normal marriages a divorce shouldn't happen and that effect would be null. I'm for monogamy, not serial polygamy, as you may have noticed by me being against divorce.
Quite, but unless you can present some evidence showing that "trees are likely to fall," the slippery slope *is* a fallacy. You haven't; you've simply asserted this to be the case.
The example with trees is an example of the "slippery slope" being a fallacy. (Maybe you should reread it or take a look at the whole article on Wiki, as I think you might have misunderstood it.)
What I'm saying is that I prefer not to let event A : "The first tree to fall down", cause B : "have a 95% chance of letting another tree fall down" at all.
I prefer to stop event A before it even happens.
Big topic, but Wikipedia is a good place to start: [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_parenting ].
Okay, you mostly changed my mind about gay parenting.
Just give them civil contracts then to stay together and bind them forever (in sickness and in health )
There's only the problem of custody battles between same-sex couples. Who should the court favor if two fathers want to be with their child ?
(In opposite-sex marriage as I said, the court often rules in favor of the mother.)
I meant that questioning yourself and your parents is all part of growing up. Almost everybody does it.
I meant, questioning them in a bad and negative way. In who's my real father (if growing up with two mothers or vice versa) ? Or: Mom, are you my mom or is mom2 my mom ?
In my book, this treatment is in and of itself unfair. If the parents are unable to agree on custody arrangements, the courts should do their level best to determine which one can be the better parent, and give custody to them. Biological parenthood or gender should not enter into it at all.
Even though I agree with you, that's not how it's happening.
Long post, don't post too fast, I want some rest