SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
Case Against Gay Marriage Now Depends on Accidental Pregnancies
It's become a key legal argument for why marriage should be limited to a man and a woman
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by Mary Noble
Image: Politix
Curiously, one of the central legal arguments against same-sex marriage hinges on the phenomenon of getting knocked up by mistake. The idea is that gay couples cannot become accidentally pregnant and thus do not need to marry.
That argument is now at the center of the Supreme Court cases on DOMA and Prop. 8.
"Only a man and a woman can beget a child together without advance planning, which means that opposite-sex couples have a unique tendency to produce unplanned and unintended offspring," according to the attorney representing Republican congress members on DOMA.
The ability of straight couples to accidentally conceive supposedly gives the government a unique incentive to recognize their marriages, so as to encourage couples who unintentionally become pregnant to create stable families.
The argument is by no means bulletproof. "One of many potential pitfalls of the argument is whether it follows that the government could pass a law saying that only fertile people are allowed to wed, for example," writes Liz Goodwin at Yahoo. "Or whether the state could ban marriage between elderly people."
Via Yahoo News.
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Is accidental pregnancy a good reason why marriage should be limited to a man and a woman? |
