Our stupid little system.
One of the neat things that happens when one reads books and pays attention to the world in which they live is that one discovers the manner by which ideas and concepts evolve over time. For example, by paying attention and reading books one can learn that the ideas and concepts and beliefs of Judaism and Platonism were combined to create Christianity. This is a handy tidbit of knowledge that is often useful when attempting to analyze what, exactly, is wrong with the Fundamentalist Idiot you meet in your local coffee shop. Turns out she is not crazy: she's a half-Jew Platonist.
More disconcerting than religious evolution, though, is the knowledge one can gain of governments and, most importantly, our own delightful government of the United States of America. Did you know that our political philosophy is based upon the writings of, among others, Hobbes and Locke? Did you know that they were absolutely, undeniably, demonstrably bat-shit crazy?
Oh, it's true.
Hobbes wrote in the Leviathan that in the Natural Condition of Mankind human beings were prone to smashing their neighbor's skulls at night and no progression was possible thereby entrenching man in a life "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". This of course explains how we came to this point given that all of our ancestors had their heads crushed by their rock toting neighbors. Locke was arguably the most important foundational writer on the concept of the social contract, a fabrication which can, and I say this with absolutely no respect, fuck its unfounded self right in the ear.
While the evolution of ideas over time is delightful to explore and incredibly interesting a problem occurs when we forget that our current concepts exist as a result of the concepts which existed before them; that our current state is the result of these past states; that our current political concept of marriage comes from the philosophical and non-philosophical views of marriage maintained in the past.
Which probably explains why our legal system cannot handle same-sex divorces.
(I, too, am sort of surprised that it took four paragraphs to get to the point.)
The quote from that article which struck me as most interesting follows:
"In the case of the doctor, she and her spouse each gave birth to a boy fathered by the same sperm donor. They then adopted one another's sons. Biologically, their children are half-siblings; legally, they are full brothers."
That is problematic. Regardless of your own view of homosexual marriage I think we can all agree that in no way does this current system behoove anyone. Think about that situation with regards to the children. They have a common father, each their own biological mother, and legally the same two mothers.
This is what happens when you take political philosophies from the bumblefuck era (late 1600s), combine them with rampant ignorant idiocy, and try to apply all of it to now within a legal framework.
The starting point for a government needs to be reality, an accurate assesment of the world in which we live and the situations therein. People of the same sex can fall in love, procreate, and love their children. When we ignore this; when we shove our collective heads up our assholes and create a political philosophy that starts with "what do I think ought to be the case" rather than "what IS the case" we end up with a stupid little system like the one we have where these two human beings can be married and their inevitable divorce conforms to the established system but those two human beings can only get married in that state and have to utilize a different system for their inevitable divorce.
What would Hobbes and Locke think about same-sex marriages? What Would Jesus Think? What would Plato think? What do we think?
It does not matter!
What matters is the reality of the situation: what actually happens.
"Federal law looks at gay divorcees as strangers," Eppley said. "Bob can't transfer property to Steve without it counting as a taxable transfer, whether in capital gains or a gift and potentially both."
See that? That is law conflicting with reality; a collection of baseless words and ideas causing problems for human beings living in the world who simply desire to live their lives.
If the government is going to be involved in marriage then the laws need to reflect reality and not puritanical idiocy. If you, personally, think that homosexuals are icky then by all means enjoy your missionary style heterosexual sex. But don't legislate morality. Don't fabricate a stupid little system based upon the writing of idiots which needlessly complicates the lives of other human beings who merely want to have access to the same opportunities as the people whose sexuality conforms to what people during the bumblefuck era thought was right and proper.
