Reader Adam Szczepanski points me to this piece on same sex marriage by Crispin Sartwell, which takes issue with precisely the kind of semantic legal argument I offered Friday. Writes Sartwell:
Of all the issues likely to confront a new justice of the Supreme Court, gay marriage is the easiest to resolve. The “legal” arguments against gay marriage are entirely fraudulent: fallacious and dishonest on their face. That anyone takes seriously the idea that court recognition of gay marriage would constitute “judicial activism” is a tribute to how enthusiastically people endorse any argument that flatters their bigotry.
Though I respect Sartwell, I must say I find both his premise and his rhetorical strategy quite off putting. First of all, to say that the legal arguments against same-sex marriage are “fallacious and dishonest on their face” is to accuse those who offer them of bad faith (else, how could they be “dishonest” rather than, say, mistaken?); secondly, I should think that if those same arguments are “fraudulent,” than there would be no legal wrangling over gay marriage to begin with, what with the law being so explicit so as to remove all doubt.
And so I’m not quite sure whose bigotry is being flattered here—my presumed bigotry against homosexual couplings, or Sartwell’s demonstrable bigotry against those who in good faith offer legal arguments against same-sex marriage.
Sartwell continues:
[…]
Marriage is a legal status that brings with it certain protections under state and federal law. These protections are witheld from certain—shall we say—romantic partners on the grounds only of the genders of the parties. Equal protection can easily be extended, and must be, according to the Constitution.
[my emphasis]
Well, the legal status of marriage is also witheld from minors (with ages varying by state), and so far as I know, this is not (and someone please correct me if I’m mistaken) a Constitutional problem, but is instead a state concern, introduced by legislation within the state and passed by the state’s electorate (Loving made marriage a civil right, but it did not tinker with the definition of marriage so much as it did destroy racial fictions that science had long since invalidated). Which is, of course, moot: because as others have pointed out, neither marriage nor its protections are witheld from any individual of consenting age. Instead, “marriage” itself is considered—both by the traditions of the institution in this country and by Church rite upon which the custom is based—to be a union between a man and woman, making it an unattractive arrangement for those who engage in same-sex partnerships.
Which, while I believe the government has a compelling interest to reward certain contractual arrangements, I still think is unfair to same-sex couples.
Which is precisely why I think that the protections that the legal status of marriage confer upon those who enter into that relationship should be conferred on same-sex partnerships, as well. But—and here’s the important distinction, I think— just because two different arrangements share the same protections does not mean that the two arrangements are the same.
To turn same-sex partnerships into “marriage” we must expand the definition of marriage to include the recognition of a new type of arrangement. And to many opponents of same-sex marriage, it is this perceived claim upon tradition (either cultural or religious) that acts as the sticking point.
As I’ve noted here on several occasion, if it were merely the protections offered to married couples that proponents of same-sex unions were agitating for, I believe such accomodations would be easy to obtain; many opponents of same-sex marriage would, in fact, prove outspoken proponents of civil unions.
But these same people are not willing to surrender the designation to something that they perceive to be different in kind.
Argues Sartwell:
One aspect of the situation that makes the decision incredibly easy is that extending equal protection of the law in this case does absolutely nothing to limit the rights of any other persons whatever. In that sense the implementation—like the argument—is effortless. No one is harmed in any way whatever
Well, again, in terms of their personal legal rights, no, they are not. But neither, then, could we argue that other consensual arrangement (polyamory, eg) would violates those rights.*
And it is simply misleading to argue that no one is harmed. Because while it is certainly reasonable, I think, to argue that the harm born from altering traditional definitions has no compelling legal standing, what is not arguable is that, without legal standing, the harm somehow magically disappears.
Sartwell:
I hope the argument is not that god-fearing heterosexuals will find it repulsive when men wear one another’s rings in public or cakes feature two brides. As sensible conservatives point out when it’s time to consider the pc speech code on campus: no one has the right not to be offended.
The only argument that I’ve heard against legal recognition of gay marriage goes like this. Such recognition constitutes judicial activism because it changes the meaning of the term “marriage” by judicial fiat. It is not up to judges to fix the definitions of terms by stipulation, but to interpret the laws under the meanings—and hence of the meanings of the terms composing them—at the time of their drafting.
But the interpretation of the intention of the framers of the Constitution such as Madison or Hamilton or of the legislators and others who framed and ratified the 14th Amendment after the Civil War is a complex matter. It is first of all not perfectly clear that it would have been impossible for such people to think of a partnership of two men or two women as a marriage, and many such partnerships certainly existed. This is a matter for serious scholarship.
Here, Sartwell essentially deconstructs his own argument.
He is absolutely correct to note that the intent of the ratifiers (which is what is most important, from an intentionalist perspective) is difficult to tease out, and that serious scholarship is required to know for certain what that intent was. However, I find it unpersuasive that the ratifiers would have been more open to the prospects of same-sex “marriages” than 21st century Americans. And given the likelihood that the intent of the framers of the 14th Amendment gave no thought whatever to same-sex marriages, we are back where we started, legally speaking, in asserting that equal protection under the law does not mean that the law must recognize all consensual relationships as the same, and that states have jurisdiction over the parameters of the marriage definition.
In short, I believe the 14th Amendment provides a strong argument for civil unions, and less so one for same-sex marriage. And should it come down to a Supreme Court ruling, I suspect many people would ask the federal government to recognize all domestic partnerships as civil unions before recognizing all such partnerships as marriages, thus returning marriage to religious institutions and taking away the court’s juridiction over these matters entirely.
Concludes Sartwell:
But either way, extending the marriage franchise to gay couples is obviously in keeping with the most basic principle on which the founders of the American republic staked their lives and sacred honor: that the purpose of government is to secure the greatest scope of individual liberty compatible with equal liberty for all. All persons possess certain rights in virtue of their humanity, and the scope of the rights of each are precisely fixed by the rights of others: you are free to do whatever does not harm other people or limit their freedom.
This is the most general statement of the form of government embodied in the Constitition. It is the most fundamental commitment of the thinkers the founders most admired, and of the figures that most admired them, of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, of John Stuart Mill and Henry David Thoreau, of Thurgood Marshall and Barry Goldwater, and of course of Hamilton and Jefferson, Sam Adams and Thomas Paine.
If you can show me exactly how the legal recognition of gay marriage violates that principle—or for that matter if you can show me that witholding legal recognition does not violate it—I’ll agree with you that it would constitute judicial activism. Until then, feel free to retain your bigotry, but stop demanding that the state enforce discrimination.
Or, we can flip this around and ask how, exactly, recognizing civil unions does not accomplish these same goals—with the benefit of not alienating those to whom the distinction is important.
I want to marry my dog. (Hey! I love that bitch!)
I could use the tax break
Who’s it going to hurt?
Jeff, this started when people began calling Coors “beer.”
Here’s the principle you need to take home: Judges don’t get to change what words mean, and nearly every time the unwashed voters are asked, they don’t want to do it either.
Legal rights are one thing. But there is no “right” to get married, any more than there is a right to have a baby. Or Gary Coleman had to play in the NBA. Civil unions should be the legal norm. But two men can’t marry any more than I can have an abortion.
Great post, Jeff.
Civil unions are a tabula rasa which can reflect a commitment articulated in whatever form the signers bring to the agreement. Marriage, not so much. A bit steeped in tradition, that. Moreover, I’ve never heard gays demand that civil unions sanctioned by the state must be hetero-exclusive. A concern for individual liberty is not expressed by trying to force upon homosexuals a social custom that has evolved over the ages for the benefit of the hetero other. Sounds like someone missed the march to Montgomery and is overcompensating.
I don’t suppose that it would satisfy them if we called it homarriage?
Technically this is not true. The USSC deemed the right to marry a civil right with the decision in Loving vs. Virginia. However, the court did not expand the definition of marriage in that decision, which is what is being attempted now.
Great post Jeff. It would be great to see someone write an advocation for gay marriage that didn’t come down to “Yeah, well you guys are bigots for opposing it”. But then again, not being a bigot, I’m funny that way.
This is not a valid principle of America today. An easy counter example is the laws against drunk driving. A drunk driver is not harming anyone or limiting their freedom until he actually causes an accident. So how come drunk drivers get arrested every day?
There must be about 1000 other counter examples in America today. That principle is not applied here.
you are free to do whatever does not harm other people or limit their freedom.
Sure you are. But that is different then demanding government sanction of arrangements that may be detrimental to the General Welfare.
What always gives me the giggles of the tact that Sartwell takes is that while he draws his line at same-sex couples and sneers at those that hold the opposite standard, he fails to realize his arguments are entirely legitimate for the polygamist standing right behind him tapping him on the shoulder.
(and to date myself yet again…I’m reminded of the hilarious Jeno Pizza Rolls tv commercial of the 60’s that spoofed the Lark cigarette commercials …. oh please I hope someone else remembers it!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE-NdrzfFOo
Not sure if this is the one you mean. I didn’t know they had pizza rolls back then. Thought those came after the microwave.
DG
In Loving the Court, IIRC, relied on the 14th amendment and the reasoning was that race was not a legitimate criteria on which to discriminate.
IE you cannot deny a black man the opportunities that are open to a white man.
So the law cannot be marriage = one white man/one white woman.
Unless one wants to argue that men and women are biologically identical, then the argument that SSM and OSM are the same is fiction.
happy
Yep…that’s the one!!!
Pretty amazing, huh? I mean, with us all having to cook over open fires and having no indoor plumbing and all….
argh.
First–good stuff, Jeff. In the end, I think the kind of distinction you draw will be the outcome, but we still have some politics to play out.
My contention is that the semantic distinction won’t matter in practice. What we see in Sartwell’s argument supporting gay marriage is the importance of economics in the calculations and not, as he kind of backhandedly insults, “romanticism.” I’m almost certain there is a reading the 14th Amendment that supports that logic (e.g., the “Head of Household” income tax filing status). However, I’m equally certain that there is no such incorporation to defy religious traditions; the courts definitely will not decide to force gay ceremonies on churches.
Therefore, the secular recognition will be the one that matters and whether we term it “marriage” or “union”, it still will not undermine traditional marriage.
Publicist-drive Hollywood unions on the other hand…
Darleen – this page has the Lark commercial as well…
Marriage doesn’t exclude homosexuals from marriage, it’s the same-sex part that does.
McGreevy I believe married twice, and even had children.
Contractually same-sex couples are afforded all the rights opposite-sex couples are afforded, so how are same-sex couples denied equal rights under the law?
In any case as a former member of the second wave feminist movement I recall the argument was that parterships do not need to take vows of marriage to prove their love to one another. Whatever happened to that argument?
Darleen
Indeed. The 14th was in fact part of the basis for that decision (the 5th being the other source), and rightly so IMO. It goes a bit further than that, however, and does in fact enshrine marriage as a basic civil right.
In the words of the court:
syn
I believe that while economics may be a legitimate goal of SSM advocates, in reading their arguments, especially the more emotional ones decrying “heteronormative privilege”, what you have is a SOCIAL goal. They want a law that declares their relationships not just legal equals but social/ethical/moral equals with OSM.
Then count on the lawsuits or other means of legally harassing anyone that objects to SSM. They will be charged with being “haters”.
I blame ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’…
DG
Excuse me if I cringe at the language of making “marriage” a “civil right.” It’s like a “civil right” to a job, or a house, or food …
If I can’t find someone to marry, can I demand the state find me a mate? I mean, isn’t the state in the business of securing me my civil rights?
Heh.
I’m trying to envision the congressional hearings on the legislation for that one…
I hear you Darleen,
I’m just blown away by the idea that the very ideology which sought to deconstruct ‘traditional’ marriage is now back demanding ‘traditional’ marriage be reconstructed on their terms and in their language.
I fucking hate the Collective
I’m trying to envision the congressional hearings on the legislation for that one…
Well, for one…there should be testimony on the marriage-parity gap
I mean … how dare some people marry 3, 4 or more times when there’s all those pining bachelors and lonely spinsters out there!
You could argue that that’s covered under the Equal Rejection clause, Darleen. Hey, did you get my email?
Dan
Yes…. I did. I’m still trying to come up with an “angle.”
Hell, give me a time machine and I will go back and convince Jefferson that allowing one branch of the ‘servants of the people’ oversight into what is and what isn’t constitutional is perhaps a really bad idea.
You know, because judicial review doesn’t seem to show up anywhere in my copy of the Constitution.
Libertarians. You can’t live with them and you can’t ship them off to Idaho with a copy of “Atlas Shrugged”. I have no problem with same-sex marriage. In fact, I support it. Still, marriage is a contract between two individuals co-signed by society. A contract is never valid if the signature of one of the signatories, in this instance society’s, is coerced. If enough people come around to my way of thinking, that nobody should be alone and permanent monogamous relationships are a good thing, that’s when we’ll see a lasting institution of same-sex marriage. Not when it’s imposed by judicial fiat.
I hate to quibble, nk–but there are specimens from my dating days that I would offer up as a counter-argument.
nk —
Letting the definitions soften naturally—and allowing the voters to condone the relaxation—is the proper way to proceed, should it be necessary to use the same word to describe the relationship.
So I agree with you, on the one hand.
On the other hand, legal protections are available now for the asking. Were it me, I’d just take the protections and refer to my relationship any way I damn well pleased.
After all, there wouldn’t be a law demanding you use the word correctly—only the sniffing of those who don’t agree.
That little quote doesn’t make a real good argument for same-sex marriage there, unless you take “man” to mean men, and men only.
I think the gov’t should get out of the marriage business entirely and give each person of legal age one adult dependant and a standard deduction for each child. Survivors benefits should be transferrable or should default to living children. Everything else should be done by contract.
Marriage seems to imply a recognition of a sexual relationship, which is why, I think, the gay lobby wants it so bad, and is why I think that the government should abolish it.
If I want to get “married”, I’ll do it in a church, like I did.
Most of the reasons for marriage licenses, the syph test, population estimates, tax status etc have been rendered moot by the modern way of doing things anyway, kill it off, it’s not the Gov’ts place.
Just don’t tell me that Neal and Bob are “married” because they aren’t. They can be “in love”, “committed”, “banging”, “shacking up”, “miserable” and even “content”, but not “married”.
traditionally this involves an ABC After-School Special no?
Here we have another example of the fundamentally dishonest Left at work. As Jeff has pointed out, rights are not the issue. Homosexual activists are attempting to use the court(s) to compel a societal assent to their behavior. In their messed up minds a thin majority of the Supreme Court faciliating marriage is the same thing as 300 million Americans saying, “Love the coordinated tuxedos, gents!”
It’s sad, really. Just as you can’t legislate morality, you can’t legislate societal acceptance of something most people find abnormal if not immoral.
They should be equal in exactly the same sense as “all men are created equal.” The cornholing (excuse the… fuck it, don’t excuse it) of any others by the tax code and other assinnine intrusions on who gets to do what and where is without merit except in a social engineering sense. And I abhor social engineering. Society should be observed and accommodated, not manipulated to achieve some fashionable desired end, which fashion could change on a dime or an election that say puts one party in a one vote majority in the Senate or the WH.
systems55. Are you kidding me? Because this kind of systemthink was quite popular in 1955
This is utter bilge. A drunk driver has increased everyone’s risk. The mere potential that idiots would drive drunk raises everyone’s insurance rates. Those are both harmful.
Sure, I’ll call that “moral94” if you insist.
Same argument for seatbelt laws then?
This is serious bullshit. It’s the kind of thing that causes people to have contempt for learning, words, and those who use them, and to use the term “intellectuals” with contempt. Too bad, really.
Very good post, Jeff, as was the one on race. But sometimes I have to wonder, since these debates tend to be so untethered from any kind of human reality.
Doesn’t the equivalence of SSM and OSM depend on what the purpose of marriage is?
Since the issue is state recognition, what is the purpose of marriage from the state’s point of view?
Some people say it’s the promotion of a good environment for raising kids. If so, then SSM makes little sense.
Obviously the gay-marriage proponents have other ideas….
I think it’s worth keeping in mind that, in the old days, civil marriage did not exist. You got married in a parish, of some kind, and you (effectively) got divorced just by moving.
Marriage as a religious institution came about obviously for reasons for child bearing and child rearing. It became a civil institution as the secular state (in one form or another) grew. The secular state, on its own, would not probably have invented marriage if it did not exist already.
Sometimes laws follow an existing reality. For example, Christmas is a national holiday not because anyone is trying to “promote” Christianity but because no one’s going to go to work on Christmas. Same with marriage. It is recognized by the state because it already existed.
I do believe that the function of marriage is, and should be, child oriented. To that end, I’d be willing to surrender my marriage rights, now that my children have been raised, to clarify this debate. (My wife, however, probably like a lot of wives, would be furious: the extent to which the institution is good for women, and the extent to which ratifying gay marriage harms women hasn’t been explored.)
Well, geez, what do you expect from a guy named “Crispin”?
Shit I’m going to regret this.
Okay Jeff
So what? All of this may be perfectly true, but as a political argument it’s fallacious. It rests soley upon a circular definition that I’m sure you see.
Which isn’t to say that conservatives don’t have a right to be defensive about the term marriage, but that doesn’t translate into a right to have the state protect an idea in their skulls. As Sartwell points out, here in the world outside of their skulls, they are harmed not one whit by the existence of legal gay marriage, any more than men are harmed by giving women the vote. What the 14th Amendmentâ€â€the most important Republican political legacy next to emmancipation itself, ironically demands that if the states use the term “marriage” as the title of their basic household establishment contract, they need to make “marriage” available to everyone. If the states decide to call it “civil unions,” then it’s civil unions for everyone. If the states call it pumpkin pie then it’s pie for everyone. The “equal” in “equal protection” means “the same.”
Back in Reagan’s day that conservative lament was against the “liberal” judges who produced new rights with rulings such as Roe and Griswald. It’s only been since gay marriage got mainstreamed as a political issue that conservatives switched to “activist judges.” And that’s because the case for gay rights, as Sartwell describes so succinctly, is a conservative case, a classically liberal case. That’s why it’s not good enough to have states pass gay marriage bans. Such bans violate the Federal Constitution and most state constitutions on their face, thus making it necessary to modify state constitutions and amend the Federal Constitution. Anything less will ulimately not survive the court systemâ€â€especially conservative courts. This Supreme Court would follow in the footsteps of the Massachusetts Supreme Court if the right case came along. Only Scalia and Roberts would disent (Alito would be a toss-up).
Please point to the harm.
yours/
peter.
Y’know, I thought this post was a lot better than the one about Marcotte resigning. Shows what I know.
Great points, PJ.
For what it’s worth, I’m sure that it’s going to happen in time. But, the arguement over the title of “marriage” or “civil union” illustrates the hijacking of terminology for other reasons.
As I see it, that’s why the propsal in Mass, to put gay marriage to a popular vote, has had so much local press and why the Governor there doesn’t want a gay marriage vote to reach the general ballot.
By getting it labeled as “marriage”, as opposed to “civil unions,” homosexual activist believe that they could use existing legal definition of marriage to do a end around when entering other states. When this puts the legal definitions in conflict, between those of the entered anit-gay marriage state and the existing laws that claim that states honor the legitimacy of marriages in other states, the effort will be made to make it a federal courts issue by asking for rulings of the interaction of state laws.
Of course, I’m no lawyer and that’s all I could remember from college government classes, but the efforts seems to be the making it nationally accepted despite state laws to the contrary and without popular vote.
Fine, I’ll say it.
Sartwell’s
is objectionable rhetoric only because it’s misapplied here in a boring, obvious, lefty-asshole way. But politics, being violence, is only comprehensible in such “reductive,” soul-diagnostic terms.
Legal B.S. aside (because caring what’s legal, and confusing it with one’s “rights,” is a psychological problem, not something to argue about) the push for “marriage”–not for the recognition of partnerships (a fact of life no matter what the government does), or even the gaining of tax favors (a shitty but pragmatically justifiable aim), but for the government-enforced destruction of that word, of what it means to people who still care about it–is only being made because it will hurt those people, people its pushers, like Sartwell (and, especially, Andrew Sullivan), hate: ill-bred religious types, “Middle America,” Southerners, rednecks, country niggers–the whole of American “trash.”
Short of having them all rounded up and gassed, which, yes, they fucking do wish they could, they seek the next best thing: to have them exiled from government favor, which for them defines society.
Unlike many of you, I’m a lifelong fan of teh gheys–most of my heros, “some of my best friends,” etc.–but I’ll confess, it’s slipping. They’ve switched teams. I liked them more when they still considered themselves part of the “trash,” even though they weren’t, because it meant they didn’t hate you. Not so now.
What the gays want is the patina of respectability and power that comes with the term marriage. In order to do that, it becomes necessary to redefine marriage to the extent that the patina disappears along with any meaningful definition. I suppose the irony escapes them. Perhaps it will evolve into something like “I’m not gay you homophobe, I’m a married man!”
How strong does the separation have to be to please you jeff? Can the same clerk at the courthouse register both? in the same book? Are they put into the same database? Do they have to wait in line behind straight marriages? Or do they get their own window at the city hall and their own line?
You know what your attempt at separation is going to cause right? By convenience, people won’t really respect it. Then people like you are gonna get angry. And talk about downfalls or something.
Um, peance, if the law grants certain rights to members of a civil union, then for the purposes of the law, they’re equal. The attitude people have towards them is unimportant unless the sole purpose is to force people to accept them. There are plenty of marriages that are treated with contempt—trophy wives, pretty much any celebrity marriage—so there wouldn’t be any difference there.
But Jeff’s saying we can’t call them marriage. Does that means the window at city hall can’t say marriage? The clerk’s title can’t say marriage? The book they’re written in? The database they get added to? I know they’re equal. I know they want to be married. I’m fine with that. I just want to know how far we have to enforce the separation in order to make the people of the world screaming “different different different” ok with all of this.
First of all, I am one of “the gays” who would benefit from marriage beyond just the social recognition, which is all I apparently want. My partner is from another country, and he does not yet have permanent resident status. (Don’t panic, he is here legally.) The problem is, in order to gain that, the ONLY option he would have to return to his country, apply for a permanent visa, and then wait ten to fifteen years, if a visa is even granted. (According to current immigration regulations, it is basically impossible for someone to adjust their status to permanent resident unless an immediate family member, such as a spouse, sponsors him. Otherwise, he’s SOL.) If I could marry him, I would be able to sponsor him for a visa, but as it stands now, our relationship is basically non-existent as far as the government is concerned. If I die, my possessions and home would all go to my parents instead of him (I’ve taken care of some of that, but a court could still thwart my wishes after my death).
I am not particular about the word marriage myself. I would be totally happy with equivalent civil unions. If it ever happens, I know we will be married whether anyone else wants to call it that or not. However, marriage or civil unions are the one thing that could enable my partner and I to be together permanently. Besides, I have the same desire to commit myself to another person as anybody else. You can insinuate as much as you want that I’m just in it for the social approval, but that is a strident insult to me and many other Americans who only wish to make a life with someone they love.
Jeff, thinking about your argument made something very clear to me. As what one might call a ‘religious’ person, I find Gay marriage offensive for a particular reason.
Not civil unions mind you, just gay marriage.
And it is this. I consider Marriage between a man and a woman a sacred bond. Language is in many ways more important than law; (because it can change the law without its consent)
What is being done is, I, in marriage, would be equated to a gay couple, who are practicing what I would regard as a sin. In other words, I am being automatically identified with someone doing precisely what I intend not to do.
This is think is the ‘bee’ buzzing beneath a lot of arguments for religious folk- we could care less what you do with your partner, but leave us out of it– to argue that marriage is just a word is to forget that the words proceed the law, the law is made of words, and the meanings of the words can change the law entirely.
It is a harsh argument, but true; I cannot be expected to regard homosexual acts as non-sinful as an act of kindness; that is the equivalent of lying to people to make them feel better.
The best route is to argue for civil unions to provide an equal protection; but calling them marriage is to associate marriage with something a great number of people find abhorrent.
And please note, I did not say I found being gay sinful; I said the acts involved.
I’d willingly be a target for anyone who wants to dismantle my argument. It is, I believe from a Christian standpoint quite sound. (Could use some tweaking.)
It hinges on the implications of using the same word for something that is seemly alike on the surface but very different in meaning. I think what is being done is not just bad morally, but I think it is an abuse of our language. And that pisses me off.
Anyway, if you don’t hold to the immorality of homosexual acts the argument may be invalid to you.
Just an FYI.
peance
If you can’t even recognize those that are on your side on this issue, then do you really expect to have any hope of accomplishing your goals?
You are not likely to have any Bull Conner fire hose moments, so you are going to need to convince the people another way.
Of course no firehoses. And no separate drinking fountains. I’m just trying to figure out how separate this is all going to have to be in order to please those that maintain it must be separate. Because I want them on my side, of course. I want on my side the people that say that gay people getting “married” is goign to hurt “marriage” and thus all married people everywhere. Some, like River, are even goign to have to start thinkgin about icky things gay people do to each other, and is goign to be “automatically identitfied” with that. yuck!
You said you’d be fine with the idea of civil unions; that tells me you’re more interested in the legal issues than the social engineering. I have no problem with civil unions; never had. It’s the insistence on the misapplication of a word that bugs me; I believe civil unions would be a national reality if the debate were about them.
River,
I’m on board with you due to being one of the paste eating religous types.
I think that a lot of people outside of mainstream Christianity don’t realize that it is the acts of homosexuality not the person themselves that we consider sinful due to scripture. They also don’t grasp that according to scripture we’re all sinful anyway and that there is no misdemenor/felony system in it by which the homosexual is worse than the liar or cheat, ect. Mostly that’s due to the vocal group of Christians whom rail against homosexuality because it’s so much easier, as a human, to point out the things that you aren’t involved in. Is that right, no. Does it happen, you bet and it’s something that we need to police internally. It’s a bane that overrides people from hearing the message that Christianity is more about the relationship that God wants to have with you than anything else. If we had to be perfect to pursue or be a part of it, we’d all be screwed.
I hate to sound like John Kerry, but there’s some nuance in there that we need to get across to the secular world. Sadly, the finger pointers have a tendency to drown that out.
Likewise, as an American, I realise that despite my wishes for what this country is and should be we are based on individual freedoms. As a result, the only thing that will effetively end this debate would be an ammendment. Anything less than that would get challenged along the grounds of discrimination and personal freedoms, which it justifiably should.
The situation described above by John S is a perfect example of why. Even if he was for nothing less than the pure legalization of marrige, including the usage of that term, he’d be justified under our system of government to pursue it and, I believe, be eventually successful. I do give him full marks for valuing his relationship more than the idealism that would mandate the equality of terminology as the only means to the equality that he seeks because it think it shows the sincerity of his emotions.
That being said, and despite my concern that being part of “the gay” and the larger mainstream christian reaction to that will seperate John from the pursuit of understanding his relationship with God, I can’t justify actively opposing what I believe is right for our nation, as an American.
However, I will say, that your arguement is sound from a christian perspective and I do agree with your assessment of why people oppose it on the definition of what “marriage” means. This is one of those times where we can vote our ethics but I feel that unless we include a lot of other moralistic code, which I don’t think we should do, into the Constitution we have to accept that the very freedom that we have to practice our religion is going to allow for concepts that counter our beliefs. Thankfully, as a paste eating Christian, I have no qualms about allowing for that because I truly believe that in the marketplace of ideas the actual message of Jesus Christ can more than hold it’s own despite contrasting ideas and the faults of the people He allows to spread it.
peance
Well ok then, as long as you are sure. I suppose the important thing then is that you have identified the “enemy”. Good job and good luck storming the castle!
You will fail, of course, because there is nowhere near a large enough majority to force through a change to the legal definition of the word. But you will always have your fabulousness, so that’s something!
Alternately, you could take the rights, which the people ARE willing to secure for you, and allow the definition of the word to change through the natural course of things. Which is, oddly enough, what Jeff wrote.
He can say “baked potato and a pot of beans”, if he likes. But just like I can call my brother “Mommy”, that doesn’t make it so.
What is anyone attempting to separate, peance? Mind you, the answer would need to be something that is currently together.
The only attempt to change things is coming from the opposite direction.
Those who are offended, but cannot think of any “sound reason” to not allow “loving couples” to be granted their greatest wish – to enter into blissful matrimony – are merely showing their willingness to address the greatest social upheaval in the world on purely emotiuonal levels, instead of doing any historical legal investigations whatsoever.
And in an age when people in America don’t think of marriage as a Covenant anymore, and shove the wedding cake in eachother’s faces, because they don’t know the declaration the wedding cake and the wine or champaign or fruit punch is making, or the significance of keeping themselves true to their future or current marriage, anymore, why should anyone be surprised, that so many moderates and conservatives who otherwise consider themselves the keepers of the flame, the ones who are trying to preserve America on the foundation of the Constitution, are now willing to capitulate on this critical issue, just because, without investigation, they cannot think of any sound reason to object besides the gutwrenching feeling in their guts that this is a disaster they really wish had never come upon us.
I put before you that the Covenant, the foundation of Blood Brotherhood, is one of the most ancient of instruments, and as the Marriage Covenant, is indeed the very oldest legal instrument between humans, aside from God or religion, purely on a legal basis.
Covenant is the legal treaty between two parties, which might be a marriage between a man and wife, or between two tribes, or, as I just mentioned, the basis for Blood Brothers, and also the basis for Adoptions. But it was and still is a widely recognized legal instrument in nations where one’s word is still expected to mean anything whatsoever – in America, we don’t know much about it – but then, we’ve been reduced to breaking ADOPTIONS as easily as movie star’s contracts.
The study of a Covenant relationship is a very deep subject, and not casually explained – but let me just say this – it is a vow – and a vow is as far above a promise as the sun is above the earth – the penalty of breaking a Covenant Vow is Death.
The Marriage Vow is to do the other person good all the days of their lives, even to one’s own harm and even death – the cake and wine are representative of the same Covenant Elements as the Communion Supper of the Lamb of God: the Vow says, I will give my life before I let you suffer harm, with this cake I feed you by my own hand, I declare that I will die and give you my flesh to eat before I let you suffer hunger, and with this wine, I declare that I will die and give you my blood to drink before I will let you go athirst.
Every one of you know that a homosexual couple BREAKS THAT VOW as they attempt to consumate the “marriage” in a homosexual union, in ordinary human medical physical terms aside from any religion. They also break it in Fidelity, as well. They make a mockery of it.
This brings us to the crux of the whole matter in the first place – Family, based on a married man and his wife, is the Cornerstone of every viable civilization that has ever existed – and decadence has been the destruction of every single civilization that has failed.
The human experience that outlawed homosexuality as a detriment to civilization was not overcome by medical expertise as was proposed by some lobbyists, about 30 years ago. To the contrary.
Furthermore, in a democratic Republic, it was NOT with the approval of the general population that homosexuality was decriminalized – just because folks were offended by the idea that the only alternative meant they “wanted to be the bedroom police”.
The fact is, that silly notion is NOT the “alternative” to allowing homosexuality to be “considered normal and healthy”.
Just because power structures in any Society decide to become decadent doesn’t make them right. Their tolerance of previously taboo behavior doesn’t make them “broadminded and fair”.
The earth has many destroyed civilizations to show for it, which simply imploded, all due to moral decay.
And that fact is the basis for the list created by Stalin’s order of a list of agendas he ordered to be promoted from inside America, to cause the decay of America’s strengths, to the point where she could be pushed over and con quored without a fight.
Many Liberals at this point are screaming that Stalin died decades ago – yet all data of the decay in America can be largely pinpointed to a major spearhead in 1963 – the same year that Stalinist Agenda was published in the Congressional record on January 10th.
His agenda proceeds apace! Thanks to the Liberals and the Democrat Party.
That agenda listed the goal of presenting homosexuality and promiscuity and other sexual perversions as natural and healthy, and that easy divorce was to be promoted, and children separated from the influence of their parents.
The family has eternally been considered the only cornerstone from which a healthy community will thrive, and no nation with a homosexual community ever promoted the well-being of the family, and homosexuality was never in one single instance included in the definition of a healthy family or a healthy community.
Just because the Liberal COURTS struck down our traditions of criminalizing many various behaviors that have traditionally been considered detrimental to a community, and our Liberal Congressmen have passed laws creating programs that have been terribly destructive to the family, at a time in history when Americans were least prepared intellectually to fight for what is healthy in a community due to pure ignorance does not make these issues, pressed by the instigation and advice of Stalin on a false basis of “civil rights” doesn’t make these clowns RIGHT or CORRECT, in fact.
The inablility of Conservatives to find words to defend that gutwrenching feeling in the pit of their stomachs and present a case doesn’t make them wrong.
Some of you should resort to the writings of your Founding Fathers before you let their unique and remarkable blood-bought gifts to you be so easily swindled from your feeble hands.
Look here and see that our Founding Fathers and Joseph Stalin all agree on the source of America’s strengths, they just have two different sets of goals for the American people:
Joseph Stalin – “America is like a healthy body, and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we (communists) can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within.”
“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.” –George Washington
“What is liberty without…virtue? It is…madness, without restraint. Men are qualified for liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.” –Edmund Burke
Samuel Adams – A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy…. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader…. If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.
Samuel Adams – The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.
Samuel Adams – He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man…The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.
Patrick Henry – …Virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible. These are the tactics we should study. If we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed…so long as our manners and principles remain sound, there is no danger.
Patrick Henry – Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
Patrick Henry – Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…. O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people!
Wading cautiously in… In Spain and Italy (and elsewhere, for all I know), isn’t it the usual thing to marry in a church, then go off to the public records office to enter into the contract called “marriage”? Or the other way around? In any case, isn’t that kind of a description of civil-union-mandatory (in order to secure legal rights and protections and obligations), marriage-optional?
Speaking only for myself, I’ve long thought this solution to be a terrific one: it enables people who, in their youth, foolishly proclaimed that they’d never give in to “The Establishment” via getting married, but who now find themselves inexplicably drawn to make a lifelong promise to another person, to fulfill that wish without compromising their earlier principles; it enables committed gay people easily to gain the benefits of the social contract of marriage regardless of whether their creed will sanctify their union; it requires everybody to recognize that marriage is not just a fluffy lacy ceremony in a church, but a legal contract as well.
Of course, I’d still support age restrictions, and I’d have to think hard about polygamy, and overall I’m a states-rights gal, but civil unions for all/marriage for those whose religions or spirituality desire and allow it is MY vote.
Robert: Thats why its the opponnets of gay rights that are making the debates about marriage, not civil unions. Thats why they propose amendments that ban civil unions and call them “marriage amendments.” People support civil unions. Thats what the haters are afraid of. Why they’re trying to get these broad amendments passed now.
defense: you’re not getting that I’m not talking about forcing the changing of legal definitions of words. I’m asking how much we are going to force the separation. River doesnt’ want to be “atomatically identified” with gay people. Will he be that way if he’s in line at the city hall with them? If the cerimonies are done en masse? [I state your name, do here by marry/civil union…] Or one after the other with the people in line having to see the officiating of the ones in front? Having to sign the same register?
What the gays want is the patina of respectability and power that comes with the term marriage. In order to do that, it becomes necessary to redefine marriage to the extent that the patina disappears along with any meaningful definition. I suppose the irony escapes them. Perhaps it will evolve into something like “I’m not gay you homophobe, I’m a married man!â€Â
Posted by bobonthebellbuoy
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Yeah! That’s the nail – they can try to elevate the station of a perversion, but all they do is lower themselves, removing their own foundation and standing. They can dress it up in fancy new clothes, but they cannot make it be anything other than what it is.
If the destruction to communities this has caused had come from Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick Fever, you can bet they’d be the ones screaming the loudest for someone to do something about it.
Posted by peance
No, we do not support civil unions, we do not support homosexuality, even though we do not hate homosexuals the way we are portrayed as doing – but there comes a point when ac tivities must be weighed in terms of viability inthe community, the viability OF the community to sustain itself while accomodating all its various members – the community has the right to decide which activities it is not willing to bear the burdens for – and deadly activities just aren’t on the top of most community-minded arbitors to try to find a way to support within the vital structures a community must maintain.
There isn’t a single “benefit” of marriage the homosexuals cannot attain to via the methodology of a legal business partnership, or other legal instruments that already exist.
Since those issues aren’t serious, because there aren’t any communities that don’t have ways for all kinds of relationships, brother/sister, estate executives, business partners, fraternities, etc. to accomplish those individual goals, then we have to consider what this is really all about – and it isn’t about them trying to gain rights they think they deserve, the very activitiy that is primary in their lives is a civil rebellion that belies their demands for that very social patina of acceptability – it is about a destruction they are trying to perpetrate, as usual.
But the job of married couples is to tend to the signs of the health and viability of their community – because if the activities of the community aren’t promoting the health of the families, the community isn’t accomplishing its primary function.
That primary function is NOT to provide a safe haven for Anarchists – if it isn’t a safe haven for healthy families and posterity, it is dying.
Like Europe.
peance
Ok, I see what you are saying. You want to avoid, and rightly so IMO, the sort of seperate but equal nonsense we had before.
Man, I hate getting to these things late! Words of wisdom never seem by those who have confused the immediate with the important. Not that these words are either wise, immediate or important.
That being said, it appears that we are setting up two systems based on sexual preferences/imprinting/choices/ or something: Marriage for heterosexuals, civil unions for homosexuals. Question: what if two heteros decided for a civil union instead of a marriage? What’s the difference?
The argument has been (previously valid) that marriage was a contract administered by the government that established rights and protections for children. It guaranteed parental responsibilities (ha!), inheritance, etc. In the past (long ago), legitimate offspring had more legal standing than illegitimate offspring. However, the courts have pretty much enforced the rights of children regardless of the marital status of their parents. Furthermore, adoption by homosexual couples of whatever legal standing has conferred the same rights to the kids adopted by homosexuals as those who get embroiled in the legal issues via heterosexual marriage.
What exactly does it mean for a civil union to be dissolved, and what happens to children, health insurance (assuming one partner has health insurance), property, and so on? Does it get lumped into the same ugliness as divorce? If is becomes a divorce, then the union was a de facto marriage.
So what does marriage mean, or what does a civil union mean? Speaking as a pro-marriage, patriarchal Christofacist, it looks like this pissing match is rendered moot by practice and court decisions. And I’m not sure that we are better off.
rose, you’re not the target here. There’s not much to be done for your type. As to benefits of marriage, I beleive the GAO once counted up a few thousand in the federal code alone. and this ignores the fact that lots of family and estate law is a state issue. Up above someone else mentioned their immigration problems.
But that doesn’t really matter. You’re not goign to be convinced. The convincing material is already out there. Its really only going to come from within you. so i’d rather just gloss over yuo.
Ironically, adopted children actually have more rights than legitimate offspring and illegitimate offspring in that there is no legal mechanism allowed to disown them.
Not a major sticking point, or anything, just interesting.
At bottom, to argue for the equivalence of same sex marriages versus straight marriages you have to argue two things:
1. That there is no possible functional difference between two gays and a straight couple,
2. That women are the same as men.
The first point is clearly false, and the second may be true in some vague pre-Larry Summers way, but in terms of actual experience, it is false, and part of the reason it is false is because #1 is false.
The only way gays can get around the first point is by arguing in terms of “companionate marriage”, but I doubt if most marriages especially among people younger than say 40 are contracted on those grounds.
Marriage, as currently constituted, benefits children, and women, which means that children and women will be negatively affected by an expansion of the marriage concept that makes children and women irrelevant.
(I know that marriage benefits men also, but, honestly, a single mom or a middle aged divorcee typically have it much, much harder than a man in similar circumstances, let alone some gay guy.)
Let’s have some common sense here.
Only, Peter, if you cannot spot the point on the circle where the the definition began. Once you do that, the argument may be circular, but only because it’s been forced to take that shape.
And I simply don’t find your (or Sartwell’s) suggestion that marriage between two consenting parties is a civil right that, per the 14th Amendment, the Constitution demands is unmodifiable, or subject to no voter / legal restrictions.
I think equal protection, as I said, speaks to kinds of protections afforded, not to the right to use terminology that has no basis in tradition or law to describe the relationship you hope to tether to it.
As for what the harm is—I imagine to those who still consider marriage a religious sacrament, it would be the cheapening of that sacrament by a living Constitution stretched to conform to certain social calculations that are outside of its purview. I don’t have this concern—I’m not particularly religious—but I can certainly respect that others do.
Which is why, from my reading of the 14th Amendment, the real problem is with the state calling its sanctions of unions “marriage,” not with those who believe in the religious history of institution refusing to allow what has never been marriage to become so.
We have a winner! ding. ding.
I think you’ve hit it on the head here, by sanctioning “marriage’ the state removes equal protection to same-sex couples since “marriage” is a union between a man and a woman. States that choose to ammend their constitution to clarify this definition will end up on the wrong side of a court case sooner or later. The solution is to abolish state-sanctioning of “marriage” and introduce some king of civil union with limits.
Of course, these would have to be limits that reasonable people can live with, kind of like the limits on “marriage” we have had for the previous 200 or so years. And no, I don’t care if in 200 or so years some idiot wants to marry a statue of his dog, I’ll be dead. I hope.
peance —
I’m not calling for separate but equal—which is quite loaded, and what I constantly hear from those who are trying to shame me out my argument.
Instead, I am calling for two separate things to receive equal considerations with respect to legal protections. Just because the 14th Amendment grants equal protection to men and women, for instance, doesn’t mean we must necessarily give up the distinctions by folding one group into the other.
The distinctions may not matter much to you, but to some people it matters a great deal, and there is simply no compelling reason that I can think of to force a removal of that distinction by fiat—particular if the goal is to ask for equality before the law.
If the goal is to insist that you be recognized as part of something you have never, using standard definitions, been a part of, then that is a much tougher sell—particularly to those who think of marriage as more than simply a celebration of being in love.
LMC,
I’m sure the Enron execs would have loved to marry the company in order to recieve the protection of not having the spouse being forced to testifiy against you.
TW:why18, because we said so.
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Since they were doing that for hundreds of years before you were born, with the full approval of our Christian Founding Fathers, excuse me, but who made YOU the arbitor of those legal definitions, just because some judges decided to experiment with Social upheaval without the vote, or due Constitutional process.
Rose,
They were doing a lot of suff with the full approval of the founding fathers, Christian or no, that we don’t do any more. But if you feel that the definition of “marriage” should include same-sex unions or man-horse unions or whatever, feel free to insist on government sanction of “marriage” over civil unions.
Ahhh… if only I were NOT a member of the vast majority of Americans.
So gloss all you want – it ain’t gettin’ you any traction.
We’ve sustained all the damage we believe we CAN, and we don’t WANT to sustain any more. You Liberals have really been busy the last 50 yrs pushing way way too hard on way way too many different issues, and Liberalism and all its various destructions have taken way harder a toll on our patience and our resources than we ever consented to.
And where the destruction of our Society is concerned, we frankly don’t owe you a blasted thing.
Liberalism just hasn’t made any beneficial impact on our lives, and the dead weight is more unbearable than you have the capacity to imagine.
We don’t exist to provide a nest for your Anarchy. We don’t owe you one, either.
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No.
And my point is that if anyone wants to do things our Founding Fathers didn’t do, they won’t get there by ignoring the due process of our Constitution – winning approval of hte vast majority of American citizens who are eligible to vote on the issue, by perverting the plain meaning of words and winning lawsuits before a few Oligarchial Liberal judges.
They’ll have to convince the community to accept it – and if they convince America to accept this, there soon will be no America to make a neat little nest for it – as other nations and societies have already fully demonstrated.
The current batch haven’t changed their fatally flawed ways of negatively impacting the host society.
So right now, all they can do is destroy the house, but they won’t end by gaining the “respect” they claim they are after, by continuing to ignore the damage in their own wake.
Hint, they haven’t got the markets cornered on the global map that are causing folks of all stripes to beat a hot trail to their little utopias. Not in a single instance, not now, not in America, and not in history, anywhere.
I’ve seen 3 yr olds pretend they weren’t the one who accidently knocked a glass off the coffee table, shattering it all over the entire floor, when they toddled by – but all these folks are adults, and still blithely expect a blase’ statement of “no harm no foul” to outweight he real facts on the ground – which are repeating themselves with unerring historical accuracy, once again.
It’s really tiresome beyond endurance.
Someone else said separate but equal on this thread. That they came to that on their own while thinking about your arguments may show you what problems your proposal has.
I’m curious as to how separate you want it to be. How far you want to go in maintaining these distinctions.
Say all that you want about how we don’t gloss over the differences between men and women, how is it going to work out? Will there be two books? The same ceremony? The same line at the clerk’s office where people like River will be “automatically identified” with the gay people in line with him too? Will we be able to stop the credit bureaus from callign these people ‘married’? Banks, etc.. from simply using the word ‘spouse.’ ? I don’t think so.
And thus we will slide into Rose’s anarchy, all along while he blames liberals for the policy you support.
Posted by peance
Bambi called his new little skunk friend, “Flower”, too. So what?
I defy you to show us how the wrecking ball is equal to the work of the mason who builds with brick and mortar, even though both may be called part of the Construction business. They aren’t the same, they aren’t equal – they never will be.
And yet, they both get the same business licenses and tax treatment.
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