Keith Devens .com

I've always found this a very strange aspect of a majority of Republicans. One of the GOP's most fundamental platforms is that government not interfere i.e. minimization of government. But, they do want to interfere in what sexual practices consenting adults engage in? Seems odd...

[From one side of mouth] The Government has no right to dictate whether or not you can own handguns nor can they dictate what kind of handguns you own. The Government should not take people's hard earned tax-money and use it; people should be able to decide for themselves how to spend their money.

[From other side of mouth] The Government specifies what is appropriate sexual behavior between consenting adults.

I just want a little consistency ( <-- from either of the major parties).

i think the argument against polygamy would be that because the burden of handling the legal issues with polygamy outweigh the benefits such a "family" would bring to society, it is not given status by the state. what if the sole man (or sole woman with multiple husbands) dies? what if one of the parties wants to leave, how do you handle custody and property?

divorce in couples brings a burden to the state, but the benefit is greater. with more parties to a marriage there are just more issues.

that's not to say a religious community couldn't bless a marriage among multiple parties - they'd just need to come up with their own arrangements in terms of legal issues.

this is the same issue as with gay (civil) marriage. if the church of bob chooses to define marriage as a man and a woman it is under no obligation to bless gay (religious) marriages.

it's unfortunate that the legal framework for families and the religious framework for families have the same names. kind of like java meaning a programming language and a virtual machine. you can write c and run it on java (virtual machine) and you can write java (code) and run it on a sparc. neither excludes the other.

anyone who has had friends or partners who have severe diseases, who has gone through a divorce or custody battles, or who has had a partner die will understand the desire among gay couples to get married. those who haven't are very lucky, but i suggest they keep an open mind. it's not about sex, it's about families and it's about love. i can't imagine what bush's family life is like any more then i can imagine what rosie o'donnell's family life is like. but i think we as a society should on a secular level give those families equal footing.