Re: [UUPoly-L] Poly reality

["Bear" <beardrummer@gmail.com>]

Instead of trying to quote and paste, I am just going to state my view... 
ya'll who are reading this thread already know what everyone else has said.

There are many injustices done in our supposedly free country. There are 
several issues nationwide, and several more on the local levels, that this 
isn't true. In this case, the main point is that I do not wish to have other 
peoples religious beliefs imposed on me, just as they wouldn't want mine 
imposed on them.  It is supposed to be one of the fundamentals of our great 
country.

The current issue is that of what constitutes a family.  This has 2 parts, 
legal and moral.

The legal issues are also 2fold: what are familial rights, and how do we 
document previously non-familial individuals establishing a new family unit.

Our government recognizes that family members have rights that do not exist 
for those outside the family.  For instance, family members have the right 
to a higher level of contact in medical situations than non-family.  (your 
mother, brother, daughter have the right to come in and see you while you 
are in a coma - a right that non-family just do not and should not have). 
To keep individuals with power from keeping family from performing as a 
family should, there does indeed need to be a codified definition of what 
familial rights are.  These issues range from making a standard of 
inheritance for those who do not specify, to rights to care for family 
members who are incapacitated and unable to care for themselves (physically 
and mentally), and decisions on child rearing.  We do not have to let 
government decide these issues - we could have a government that looks at 
individuals but not family, and then marriage and family rights would not be 
legal issues.  I do believe that most people will agree that government 
needs to protect family rights.

For those who do not agree, there is your platform - lobby for government to 
not have any say in family.  For the rest of us, defining what constitutes a 
family unit is where the moral issues interfere.

There is only one family unit that is obvious to me - birth mother and 
child.  This is rather direct and self-definable.  The rest is in need of 
defining.  Do we grant the biological father familial rights?  The 
grandparents? A non genetically related man or woman? Do siblings have 
familial rights?  How many people can make a family?  Are there situations 
where the birth mother should NOT have familial rights? Does it matter the 
gender, age, etc of the adults in a family?  Does a family require some form 
of sexual compatability or conformation?

All good questions.  All of them can be argued differently from different 
moral backgrounds.  To answer from a moral standpoint is to deny a different 
morality their freedom.

I see only one real and workable solution, that also comes in 2 parts (today 
is a 2day, pun intended)
1. Let the government set familial rights (hospital visitation, standard 
inheritance, etc.) and make non-consent laws (age of participation is based 
on ability to make informed and intelligent consent... there are other 
issues as well)
2. Let the defining of family be a contractual civil matter, definable by 
the contract between consenting signatures... regardless of gender, number, 
color etc... Making divorce a "breach of contract" or "release of contract".

This combination allows familial rights to be protected, while not 
pressuring one morality on all involved.

Tony
BearDrummer@GMail.com