Your hot button issue

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Death penalty, abortion, affirmative action.

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And I was starting to like you; positive feelings just went down the drain.  If you oppose letting a mother and son marry, you are forbidding adults from marrying each other.

Edit: I mean a mother and her grown up son, of course.

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See, that's the thing: prohibiting consentual incest and having age differences are both restrictions on marriage.  You can't say it's "not the same thing."  How's it different?  Why do you claim to be so pro freedom for marriage and then support one type of restriction?

And my ill feelings stem not from disagreement on a minor issue but rather the fact that you had to bring me up personally in this thread.

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Interracial marriage really is not the same thing as a 19 year old marrying a 70 year old.

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No.  And I never proposed a 15 year limit.

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No.  And I never proposed a 15 year limit.

No, I'm sorry, it was 20-year...so, you think it's impossible for a 29-year old and 49-year old to really love each other?

No.  20 years is a bit too tight; 30 years is better.  Also, it's not about love, it's about marriage; I support no age of consent limits past those that establish the age of consent as 16 or 15.  You seem to think I'm going to get a policeman in every bedroom to stop 20 year olds and 50 year olds at having sex with each other.

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I did say 20 years originally and rethought the position.

I don't want to "ruin" people's lives.  I just don't think people should marry outside of their age groups.  This is why we do not let 14 year olds marry 22 year olds.  In four years, that marriage would be acceptable, but not at the time.  Similarly, a college student should not be able to marry a senior citizen.  Marriages with huge age differences are unequal (not to mention rare).

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If you want to compare marriage to bad movies or overpriced clothes, I guess you can see how little seriously you take marriage.

Like I said, I don't advocate marriages outside of age groups.  A senior citizen really shouldn't be marrying a college student.  A 65 year old and 25 year old getting married?  Such government-sanctioned relationships increase adultery, remarriage, and divorce rates.  Also, such marriages are not really equal, much in the same way that a "marriage" between a 10 year old and a 20 year old is not equal.  Age groups aren't made up for fun.

And no, I don't think that anyone who is elligible to vote should be able to marry their sister, despite being solidly pro voting rights (support lowering the voting age to 16, full voting rights for criminals and ex-cons).

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I don't define the right to vote by how competent someone is; for example, I think mental retards and seriously screwed up criminals should be able to vote.

And I am not trying to shape a paradise according to my personal preferences.  I am disgusted by anal sex but will certainly not outlaw it; who in their right mind would advocate making private consentual anal sex illegal?  I can go into further detail: I detest drug use, despite wanting to legalize marijuana and hard drugs for all recreational purposes.  Do you support legalizing LSD and heroin for recreational use?

I support the right of all law abiding citizens to own fire arms including assault weapons, despite the fact that I rarely use guns myself.

In my ideal world, nobody would smoke (the smell is disgusting IMO); in politics, I staunchly oppose any laws that would force privately owned restaraunts from banning the use of cigarettes on their premises.

No, I am not trying to create a paradise; I only think that the government should not sanction disequality by allowing marriages where the two people are fifty years apart, polygamy, or other practices that exploit people of certain ages, or, in the case of organized polygamy, exploitation of women (see: fundamentalist Mormon camps in Utah and Arizona).

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There are lots of ways in which a marriage can be unequal you know...should those also be out-lawed? What if my wife is richer or smarter or better educated than me? Shouldn't that also be prohibited?

And, once again, isn't it possible for people with that age gap to love each other? And if it is, don't you think it is cruel to forbid them from marrying? And you've gone from a 20-year gap to a 50-year gap. This indicates that you don't really have a clear idea of exactly when a marriage becomes "wrong", "immoral" or "inequal".

I used the 50 year gap as an example; I believe a 20 year gap is immoral, but not necessarily should be illegal, and a 30 year gap should be illegal.

It is most certainly possible for them to love each other, have sexual relations, etc.  But if they were to enter a marriage, it would be unequal as they are of different age groups.  I do not believe the government should sanction this.

Wealth and education are not in the same group as age because they are indefinite and controlled by circumstance.  Age is not.

Also, may I ask you what your position is on drug legalization and guns?

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You don't think age differences can be relative? You know, people can be very different within the same age group. I have a lot more in common with a lot of people in different age groups than my own than with many people in my own.

I mean to make no implications about maturity, only physical characteristics.  Many children are more mature than some adults; I oppose marriages with a mature child and mature adult because of the physical differences in those two age groups.

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Coming from a state where there is still sizable opposition to interracial marriage, I realize the similarity between the arguments, but I do not find any scientific or ethical reason to prohibit people of different "races" to marry.  There are, however, sometimes cultural barriers that should be worked out in the pre marital stages of a relationship.  But on the basis of race alone, there is no moral opposition to it that is sound.  Allowing interracial marriages is a step in the direction of equality, not a step backwards.