This was going to be a response on a previous post by Burt, but I decided instead to make it into its own post because it ended up taking a wider view than I had initially intended (and, as comments of mine are wont to do, ran long).
Burt asks:
what harm to man-woman marriages to SSM opponents perceive? I’m unlikely to find such a showing persuasive, and all I’ve seen out there in the sociology is a correlation, without causation, of declining marriage rates when SSM is adopted.
The answer to this, I think, is the continuation of the path that marriage has been down. We can argue “Well, if it’s already headed down that path anyway…” but that’s not really a compelling argument in favor of something that is perceived to be a potential contributor.
While anti-gay sentiment is certainly a driving factor, the SSM debate does extend to marriage itself. The reality that proponents of SSM also tend to favor more lenient divorce laws, laws that are supportive of children out of wedlock, premarital cohabitation as an acceptable social norm, and in some cases the dissolution of legal marriage recognition itself, the vague notion that marriage itself is under assault is not exactly far-fetched. That the people saying “trust us” on gay marriage are the ones de-emphasizing marriage on other fronts does not inspire confidence. The perception that marriage as an institution is only taken seriously when it means expanding it to people that are more likely, over the long term, to divorce with greater frequency, enter into open marriages, and so on, can be considered suspect. Not to mention the degree to which it opens the door for marriage to become further watered down by Shore-Crane marriages… which would itself distance marriage further from what they perceive to be its purpose (and would most likely be defended by proponents of SSM).
I am, as most of you know, a proponent of same-sex marriage. And I hope that, when it’s granted, that the concerns about what kind of marriages homosexuals enter will be disproven. That no ill-effects occur. That the weddings will be as tasteful and lovestruck as the last gay wedding I attended. I think that these concerns are overblown and that the effects will be positive, non-existent, or so minimal that I will remain proud of my stance on this issue. If I start to see articles in the New York Times gushing that homosexual marriages are more likely to be open and yay for progress and tolerance and open minds and that this is a good thing that we can learn from, or if Shore-Crane weddings start to become a norm, my response to it will probably make me look like a right-wing loon (though not in the form of anti-gay animus – they themselves have no control over Shore-Crane marriages, for instance).
At the end of the day, though, I am not going to assume bad things and then deny the right of gays on the basis of these assumptions (and besides, I am not assuming them to be true anyway). And, in addition to that, I believe that denying the right of gays to marry ends up with more should-be-married couples cohabitating because they have no other legal option. Though no doubt influenced by the fact that I do not see homosexual love or sex as sinful or even morally problematic, my essential argument in favor gay marriage is a conservative one: Marriage is a wonderful and powerful institution, and should be made available to loving and committed couples who are willing to make a promise to one another and to society (and to God, where applicable) spend their life together.
This is, ultimately, where I fear I part company with many of my allies in the SSM fight. And why, once same sex marriage is instituted, I will be considered a conservative on the issue of marriage. And probably a religious nut, my latent membership in a socially liberal church notwithstanding.
I am not sure that I am following your argument here, Will. Are you saying that you are for marriage (including SSM) but not thrilled about cohabitation (straight or same sex)?
Or is your objection simply that one side sees the advent of SSM as a cultural milestone, or even civil rights victory?
This is correct.
This is not my objection, but it is an objection that is bundled in with others in the opposition to SSM. That marriage equality is merely a cultural issue based around an institution its proponents have no respect for. I think the latter part of that is wrong (and probably should have said so more directly in the post), though I do think it the case that liberals and libertarians (or proponents of SSM more generally), do not broadly approach marriage as a cultural issue with the same gravity as conservatives. They are more likely to view it as a personal (and legal), rather than cultural, issue (except in the context of an aspect of gay rights more generally).
FWIW, this has not been my experience. Mind you, other than here I don’t have a lot of interactions with libertarians, but most people I know are still pro-SSM – liberals and conservatives alike. And I can’t think of one of them that is for it out of a “it’s all cool, do whatever makes you feel good” sentiment.
In my experience SSM proponents care just as much about marriage and it’s cultural implications as those against; the only people I hear these kind “because there is no morality/all choices are equal” arguments from are anti-SSM folks *saying* it’s why people are OK with SSM.
I can’t think of one of them that is for it out of a “it’s all cool, do whatever makes you feel good” sentiment.
Fair enough, but if you take a couple that has been living together for ten years, but refuses to get married… who is more likely to say that it’s a personal decision and who is more likely to say “they need to get married”? Proponents of same sex marriage, more generally, have more flexible views of marriage itself and view the decision to get married, or not, and what kind of marriage one has, more in a personal context rather than a social one.
I think this is where we disagree, though. I would argue that there is a cultural narrative people use when describing themselves and their beliefs, and that conservatives would – as you say – be more likely to speak this narrative that cohabitation, divorce, and pre-marital sex is bad. But I think that cultural narrative is disconnected from the lives people actually live.
When I travel around my state, I am much more likely to meet people on their third marriage, or “living in sin,” or being kicked out of their homes for adultery in the rural conservative areas. I do not notice that they do this with “we are awful people!” head-hanging. It’s just a part of their lives, and their friends lives. They will still say that liberals are immoral because they don’t value marriage the way they do, but as I say, this is more of a cultural identifier than it is choices they are making with their lives or lifestyles.
And at the end of the day your basis for being “pro-marriage” is simply that you say you are and others aren’t – I don’t know that it means anything of significance.
(On the other side of that coin, btw, liberals may say “it’s OK to co-habitate” but I notice they seem to be able to judge, shame and ostracize those that do same as conservative. Because their cultural narrative is no more accurate or self-aware than conservatives’.)
I think it is, too! But I think this comes back to the point that they are not comfortable with the lives that people actually live. This is trying to prevent the cementation, as Jaybird put it, or stop the progress that society is moving down (towards lower rates of marriage, increased rates of cohabitation, etc.).
They will say it, and FWIW this is an area where I am in disagreement with them. To me, it’s not a matter of stark black-and-white morality, but a matter of moral perspective. To say that I do not share the broad moral perspective of conservatives is an understatement, though I am more sympathetic to it than (I would guess) most people around here are.
I don’t disagree with it being a cultural identifier, but I believe that cultural identifiers are important. Because culture is important. Conservatives are left to live in the world as it exists. That they view the world as it exists, and themselves as they are, as being not what they want, is itself relevant. It may not be productive, but it factors in heavily to their way of thinking. To everyone’s thinking.
I get this.
Being a parent of a 15 year old, I might prefer my son has premarital sex at 18 than gets married because he is smitten with a girl. I might even prefer that he co-habitate. (Though I wouldn’t be very happy.)
For me, this personal preference is actually not because marriage means little to me, but because it means so much. And it is hard to see a life-long, happy marriage springing out of an 18 or 19 year old these days.
I would prefer a lot of things before my (figurative) kid marrying at 18, to be sure. I think the ship has sailed on premarital sex. We’ll see where our culture is on cohabitation in twenty years to see what our stance is then. As it stands, our view is Against. But, if that’s what they want to do, they’ll do it without us (and without our help). That was the expectation for my brothers and I growing up, and I think it worked out well. Culturally, though, it was swimming upstream. Very little social support for our decision (except from our respective parents), a lot of weird looks, and a couple people as politely as possible telling us that we were being irresponsible by jumping into a marriage without having tested the waters.
Which sort of goes back to the distinction between personal behavior and social philosophy. We are subject to the norms of the society that we live in. It may make us hypocritical to do these things that we wish society would have a stronger stigma on, but it doesn’t make the belief inherently insincere. This is true whether we are talking about sexual morality, SUVs and global warming, or accepting a tax refund while believing that taxes should be higher.
I’m all for “trial” premarital sex and cohabitation. A marriage should be a true commitment — and I’d rather people be able to say “yes we are compatible” BEFORE getting married.
That said, my view of this institution would be more like a public betrothal, rather than the rather casual (and commonplace) “we do this because it’s fun.”
@Kim – As soon as you allow marriage to about compatibility instead of a financial (or procreative) arrangement, you end up where we are. This is the mistake conservatives make when they attempt to discuss “traditional” marriage as if the kind that happened in 1970 is the same as the kind that happened in 1500.
Or, as Hayek might say, the problem with conservatives (in this case and many others) is that they’re always stuck defending the status quo as if it’s The Way Things Ought To Be without any reference to a deeper principle.
Provocative, WillT. I’ve found the “harm” meme to be more popular with pro-SSM types, the one I’ve seen here [perhaps from you] is “I’m happily married, and Adam & Steve getting married isn’t going to affect mine.”
Not really controversial; not really an argument made by SSM opponents. If you have a good marriage, the Russians could break it up.
The argument is that marriage will lose its meaning and significance to the younger generation[s]. I’ve seen Stanley Kurtz and Maggie Gallagher attempt some social science on marriage rates in Europe where SSM is legal, but there’s such a constellation of factors at work that their numbers cannot be persuasive to a skeptic.
Mostly, I think it’s a half-hearted attempt to hold that door open—not a main line of argument—against the assertion that there is NO evidence for negative effects of establishing SSM.
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Your core and provocative argument here touches on some stories [NYT?] I’ve run across on SSMs as well, that monogamy is by no means an assumption, as it has been culturally for the recorded history of marriage. If that is so, by integrating SSM into the traditional understanding of marriage and thereby diluting its presumption of monogamy, it does indeed present a palpable “harm” to the institution.
And as a corollary, its presumption of permanence, ’til death do us part. Under Burt’s companion post, I rather wryly/uncharitably put it that heteros have already made a joke of marriage—thinking exactly of the upswing in divorces, and in no small part the Gingriches and high divorce rates in the Red “Christian” states—so one more joke wouldn’t hurt.
It drew a properly offended response, which was cool. It was meant to sting, both those of the anti-SSM profile and those Pollyannas who might be hostile or oblivious to your [elegantly, gently couched, but very real] concerns here.
Because, bottom line, just my Burkean conservatism here—we have no idea how this one is going to play out.
_____________________
And to riff off your riff here, WillT, my stray thought has been that one of the biggest jokes heteros have put over on marriage is pre-nuptial agreements. They should be abolished immediately. One for all and all for one, eh? Then we’ll see how many gay folk even want to plunge into that morass.
How are marriage and a hurricane alike?
—First there’s a lot of sucking and blowing, then you look around and you’ve lost your house.
Most married men have heard this one.
I think the joke would be better if instead of “hurricane” being used, “tornado” was—more dramatic and tempestuous–like marriage, come to think of it.
And, I think, if we’re being truly honest with ourselves and one another, we would all more freely admit. Europe is a terrible example (due to the constellation of factors). Here in the US, we simply haven’t had time for it to play out.
Me? I see so much potential for good in SSM. The mainstreaming of gay couples (allowing them the opportunity to play by our rules and get our benefits). I find the possibility of harm unconvincing in comparison to ignore the potential good.
However, if I believed that homosexuality was a sin, and not a lifestyle worthy of respect, I would probably be wondering why in the world we should even consider taking this chance to begin with.
That’s why, despite a lot of what I say to the above (this is something I was not very clear on), this debate will be won by SSM proponents not on arguments of freedom or equality, but by destigmatizing homosexuality. Because my side cannot prove that there will be no damage in the long term (first, because it’s hard to prove a negative, and second because the evidence simply isn’t strong either way). We have to win it on the basis of dignity and respect, and fighting the cultural battles for marriage as they come.
I think that one eats its tail, Will, and certainly conflates “rights” and benefits. There is no question that any two people—same-sex lovers or “I now pronounce you Chuck & Larry, if you remember that forgettable movie—would benefit from married status.
Your inclusion of “social recognition” is of course the core criticism of the “gay agenda,” using the [coercive!] power of the state to re-order society. Many critics—I think validly—argue that that’s the real purpose of all this SSM business, not “legal protection” atall.
Legal recognition = social recognition
But hey, it’s nice down here in the sub-blogs sometimes, ain’t it, Will, where principled people can discuss principles?
[And I don’t know what “love” means, at least as a legal or even a scientific term. Playing on the empiricist’s home field here, by his rules.]
Don’t forget the whole “Ted Haggard” thing.
During the 2004 election, there were a lot of states that had State Constitutional Amendments designed to, ahem, “Protect Traditional Marriage” (from, presumably, dilutions of presumptions of monogamy and permanence) and folks like Ted Haggard were at the forefront of the movement.
Now, you don’t live in Colorado Springs so I’m going to guess that you probably never heard of him until the scandal (as everybody wanted to make perfectly clear after the scandal broke… “Ted Haggard? Never heard of him!”) but, here in Colorado Springs, he was pretty big news as were his arguments in service of Protecting the Institution of Traditional Marriage and the importance of passing legislation doing the same.
You may be surprised to find out that his arguments for Protecting Traditional Marriage would not exactly map 1:1 with yours.
Anyway, he and his did a lot of damage to the idea of Protecting Traditional Marriage.
Everybody heard of Ted Haggard, JB. Over and over in these discussions and now again. Doing meth and banging a gay hooker. Geez.
As if it mattered that the hooker was gay. Geez. That was just the salacious icing on the cake. In fact, you rather reinforce WillT’s point here:
If you’re married, no doing meth and banging hookers. Bad. Very bad.
No, Tom. Of *COURSE* everybody heard of him after the scandal.
I’m talking about prior to the scandal when he was the President of the National Association of Evangelicals and the founder of New Life Church.
Only folks in Colorado Springs had heard of him at that point… but he was very vocal when it came to Protecting Traditional Marriage.
To his credit, though, Haggard was pretty soft on the “gays are evil” angle. He preached that homosexual acts were sinful, yes, but sins like any other and that good Christians accept one another despite their sins. How much of that was motivated by his awareness of his own conduct? Hard to say in retrospect.
I mean, I was as guilty as anyone of reveling in the salaciousness of it all. But after a few days I calmed down and realized that if any good was to come of the situation the right thing to do was to leave the man alone.
My frustration arose out of the whole “this is how I want *YOU* to live” thing that he did with the State Constitution.
If he just wanted to preach about sin from the pulpit? More power to him. The second he wants to change a Constitution to recognize only heterosexual partnerships (serial or otherwise), he is engaging in harm.
The fact that what happened was something that, if you read it in a book or saw it in a made-for-tv movie, you’d call it trite and obvious and heavy-handed was just too funny (and a pity that the revelations came *AFTER* the damage was done).
Now, sure. As far as I can tell, Ted and Gayle are working on their marriage and are stronger for having gone through what they went through. More power to them. I wish them the best.
I certainly hope that they look at future attempts to amend the Constitution through the lens of the last time they tried it.
JB, Ted Haggard is the sideshow, not the center ring. Likko notes well:
>>>To his credit, though, Haggard was pretty soft on the “gays are evil” angle.
Y’d be surprised how many of these evangelical dudes were actually “soft.” Driving around one Sunday night, caught a marginal non-primetime talk radio that had Jerry Falwell “debating” a gay activist.
Falwell, great monster of the Religious Right, never took the bait, but as a pastor spoke gently about the persons involved, not to condemn them but to restore them. Not to heterosexuality, he didn’t go there. Just to turning away from sin, because in the end, “sin” isn’t what makes you happy, it’s what makes you unhappy.
I’m not a fundamentalist, or an evangelical or even a Protestant. Just reporting on what I heard that night. If you’re shopping for someone to condemn you, sure you’ll find him. Then you could condemn him instead of questioning yourself. That’s how this whole thing works.
But why were you shopping for someone to condemn you in the first place? It’s so easy to change the station…
But why were you shopping for someone to condemn you in the first place? It’s so easy to change the station.
Hence my:
If he just wanted to preach about sin from the pulpit? More power to him. The second he wants to change a Constitution to recognize only heterosexual partnerships (serial or otherwise), he is engaging in harm.
TVD,
all due respect, but marriage has always been an economic institution (pre1950’s), and all presumptions of marital fidelity were basically moral fictions. 15year olds who were married still had sex (often “forced and unwilling” on the woman’s part), and 12 year old boys “got girls pregnant” (ahem. well, their daddy did).
Nature is a harsh and unyielding mistress, and she hasn’t designed a good deal of the population for marital fidelity.
I have an autographed book on Open Marriage at home (just inherited it). That book was circa 1970. In the past forty years, I don’t see marriage having decayed.
The idea of marriage as something that is static, except for “the present immorality” is just plain dumb.
It was around to take care of kids (and pregnant ladies), so that they would be fed and treated at least decent.
TKelly, pls help me out here, as you accidentally hit on something on the legal end that I hope WillT won’t mind me dropping in here.
“because there is no morality/all choices are equal”
Well, I think you mean this dismissively, but stay with me if you would:
I’ll borrow from David Bentley’s critique of Christopher Hitchens’ critical thinking—
“As best I can tell, Hitchens’ case against faith consists mostly in a series of anecdotal enthymemes—that is to say, syllogisms of which one premise has been suppressed. Unfortunately, in each case it turns out to be the major premise that is missing, so it is hard to guess what links the minor premise to the conclusion. One need only attempt to write out some of his arguments in traditional syllogistic style to see the difficulty:”
[See the whole essay for other examples of the same logical structure that follows.]
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/04/believe-it-or-not
I adapt it so:
Major Premise: [omitted]
Minor Premise: The Constitution demands equal protection of the laws.
Conclusion: SSM is a constitutional right.
We must plug in a major premise!
“because there is no morality/all choices are equal”
works very well, and makes it a proper syllogism. As a gentleman who tries to live Opposite Day every day, stating the other side’s premises fairly, I find that trying to gussy-up the phraseology gets more and more poetic but less logically defensible as anything more than sentiment expressed as self-evident truth.
“Marriage is a wonderful and powerful institution, and should be made available to loving and committed couples who [WillT’s particular provocative provisos omitted—fill in the blank or don’t fill it in atall]…”
Nice, but a sentiment and an assertion. Your mission, should you decide to accept it—or Will or Burt or anybody else:
Propose [and defend] a Major Premise that makes the above syllogism valid and workable.
[“enthymeme”—man, that’s the word of the day, if not the past century…]
[The Legal protections and legal and social recognition conferred by marriage is a right that benefits heterosexuals who are in love and committed to spending their lives together.]
Dang, misplaced this reply in the thread:
I think that one eats its tail, Will, and certainly conflates “rights” and benefits. There is no question that any two people—same-sex lovers or “I now pronounce you Chuck & Larry, if you remember that forgettable movie—would benefit from married status.
Your inclusion of “social recognition” is of course the core criticism of the “gay agenda,” using the [coercive!] power of the state to re-order society. Many critics—I think validly—argue that that’s the real purpose of all this SSM business, not “legal protection” atall.
Legal recognition = social recognition
But hey, it’s nice down here in the sub-blogs sometimes, ain’t it, Will, where principled people can discuss principles?
[And I don’t know what “love” means, at least as a legal or even a scientific term. Playing on the empiricist’s home field here, by his rules.]
Ugh. WordPress ate my very lengthy response. I’ll have to get back with you on this.
There is no question that any two people—same-sex lovers or “I now pronounce you Chuck & Larry, if you remember that forgettable movie—would benefit from married status.
Sure, which was why I mentioned Shore-Crane marriages. The difference between Chuck & Larry and between a genuine gay man and his genuine gay spouse is the difference between a real heterosexual marriage and a greencard marriage.
Your inclusion of “social recognition” is of course the core criticism of the “gay agenda,” using the [coercive!] power of the state to re-order society. Many critics—I think validly—argue that that’s the real purpose of all this SSM business, not “legal protection” atall.
Well, it’s certainly easy to take the most sinister-sounding motive and declare that the only one. What they’re “really” after. I am regularly told what my “real” motivations are by both the right and left. Often, it turns out, they can’t actually read my mind or the minds of those I find common cause with.
But hey, I will freely admit that social recognition is what I would like to see. Some will grant it, some won’t. But whenever it was that we gave the government the ability to determine the special status and validity of some relationships over others, we inherently made this an either-or. Either a man can have more than one wife, or he can’t. Either a white man can marry a black woman, or he can’t. There’s no way to earnestly ignore the fact that there are social repercussions here.
Right now, where I live, a gay couple that has had a wedding can be considered married or not. Personally, I would call his husband his husband. Another guy would say that their marriage isn’t real. Legally, they would be right. In Massachusetts, on the other hand, I would legally be right. They can recognize the legitimacy or not, just as I declare legitimacy or not now. But the law must decide, one way or the other. Social conservatives know this, which is one of the reasons they fight on this particular hill. It’s a stretch to suggest that they should be outraged that maybe the other side knows that there are cultural ramifications as well.
The real alternative to all of this, to completely decline to use the power of the government to play favorites, is to take the libertarian solution and abandon civil marriage altogether. I really don’t think this is what social conservatives want. It’s the social conservative part of me that doesn’t want this, anyway.
[And I don’t know what “love” means, at least as a legal or even a scientific term. Playing on the empiricist’s home field here, by his rules.]
Some things are better left as known unknowns. Go too far down this rabbit-hole, and you’re back to the libertarian solution. Because the more you try to define it, the more elusive it becomes and eventually you end up with an emptiness. So a greencard marriage becomes entirely legit, for instance.
Or alternately, we set up Love Courts to determine who is really in love enough to marry, who is getting married for the right reasons or whatever.
To some extent, we have to rely on cultural assumptions as to what constitutes love. The best we can do is to let people decide for themselves, within certain parameters. I believe those parameters include two men or two women.
Oddly, Tom, I think from my point of view you have done here exactly what you are criticizing Hitchens (and myself?) for doing.
I have never argued that there is a Constitutional right to marriage; so plugging that into your formula as a way to condemn the notion feels as much like cheating as the argument you are taking on.
That you shouldn’t treat gays and lesbians with scorn (and I believe saying I can get married an you can’t is a way of doing so) isn’t an argument about Constitutionality, IMHO. It’s one of human decency.
I have never argued that there is a Constitutional right to marriage…
The Supreme Court, however, has. Or, at least, the dicta in Loving v. Virginia expressly describes marriage as “one of the basic civil rights of man”.
Tod, I wasn’t dragging you into the legality thing, it’s that you hit something that works as a Major Premise.
Of course, that’s assuming the only ‘correct’ way to look at marriage is a lifetime commitment. For instance, I think it’s a good thing for the culture for the past thirty to thirty-five years that divorce has been easily available. I realize that conservatives wouldn’t agree with this, but the idea that it’s not a cultural issue on the left (ignoring the gay rights aspect of it) is kind of being silly.
“I realize that conservatives wouldn’t agree with this,”
As a cultural touchstone issue, maybe. In reality, though, I reject this premise. Until Rs & Evangelicals start divorcing at a lower rates I count this as one of those truths we tell ourselves despite the obvious data to the contrary.
Well, yeah. I meant policy-wise (pushing covenant marriages, etc.), not in reality of their actions.
I would maintain that there is an ideological distinction between a group of the population that sees a divorce rate and sees it as a failure (something to be rectified) and another who sees the divorce rate more neutrally or a matter of personal freedom.
Also, there is the issue of some subcultures entering marriage with counterproductive enthusiasm (marrying too early, marrying the wrong person) while the other forgoes the institution entirely. In addition to marriage failure rates, there are also marriage rates to begin with. Also, various tangential issues to marriage rates and divorce such as cohabitation, children and wedlock, and so on.
I will grant that I am drafting a definition of marital reverence more according to the conservative point of view than the liberal, but this post is meant to be approaching things from the conservative point of view, in the sense of “What are they afraid of?”
To the extent that weakening marriage is a cultural issue, then sure, it is a cultural issue. But it’s framing the cultural issue as a more personal one (If you don’t want to be married, then unmarry.) rather than viewing the institution of marriage as a socially and culturally important one.
This lies on the assumption that impermanence in marriage weakens marriage (instead of looking at it like “marriage is made stronger by binding only those that want to stay bound”), but this is not how conservatives (and I) approach the subject.
But which institution of marriage? Because the modern conception of marriage, where people marry for love, stay together forever, have equal rights within and out of the marriage and stay faithful to each other has only been really common for the last few decades, maybe a century at the outside.
Before then, the woman was basically property, being passed from father to husband. You married because her family had high social status but no cash anymore, you were trying to connect two families within the same industry, and so on. And if you did get married, as a man, in polite society, you didn’t let it all hang out you were cheating, but hey, a man has his needs.
So, I’m sorry, the modern “institution” of marriage is about as old as the FDA. Not as old as the Egyptians. 🙂
Getting rid of the modern concept of marriage as a lifetime commitment because we got rid of the parts of marriage wherein women had little or no rights is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are parts of the modern marriage that are worth preserving. Including, in my view, the presumption that it is permanent* and the assumption of and social pressure for monogamy. The definition of marriage need not remain the same forever, but redefinition should be approached with caution.
* – That does not mean that I favor outlawing divorce. The choice between “Hey, divorce is no problem at all!” and “Divorce should be prohibited” is a false dichotomy.
First, either the modern conception of marriage is either a relatively new concept or an “institution.” It doesn’t get to be both. Either you take the bad of hundreds of years of treating women like property or you take the bad that the modern marriage is as old as the National Park Service.
Second, explain to me why I (and as a result, the government) should care if say, two people in their middle age who have gotten their kid’s out of the house realize, “crap, after twenty years, three kids, two jobs, we don’t actually have much in common anymore” and decide to mutually end a contract between each other? Their church can sanction them all they want, but the only thing the state should care is if both people are mentally sound, how to divide up the community property, and to update their tax withholding.
In addition, it isn’t a false dichotomy. Unless you want to make it more difficult to get married, then you shouldn’t want to put any governmental regulations in force to make it harder to get a divorce.
I mean, I can sort of see the government getting involved if there are kids or such and I can understand the government argument of making those marriages harder to get out of, even if I disagree. But aside from that, the state should care everybody’s an adult, nobodies related, and both parties are able to consent. Beyond that, they shouldn’t care.
Institutions don’t have to be static. Just because an institution changes does not mean that it is not an institution. This is why I believe that gay marriage will not destroy the institution of marriage. Beyond that, this sub-conversation has largely not been fruitful so I will be moving on, except to say…
That is really close to what I meant above about marriage being a personal rather than a cultural issue for many supporters of SSM. To me, half of the justification for having state recognition of marriage is that the state has a stake in culture. Absent that, I would take the libertarian perspective that marriage should be abolished or privatized.
To what extent is it true that conservatives take marriage as a cultural issue more seriously that liberals. It’s always been my assumption that that the sort of “pro marriage” language and philosophy they espouse is only taken seriously in so far as it opposes gay rights and women’s rights.
To the extent that divorce is usually initiated by women, and therefore that inherently makes support for more lax divorce laws “opposition to women’s rights”, then it can certainly be framed as being primarily about women.
However, looking more broadly almost all opposition to non-marital cohabitation comes from the right. Then you have divorce laws. Making it tougher to get married and get divorced (covenant marriage). The greater moral urgency on the issue of children out of wedlock and sex outside of marriage more generally. Support for younger marriage. A pattern emerges that one side views marriage as more of a cultural issue (an obligation before country and god) and the other as a more personal or legal issue (for benefits, or if a couple wants to, but if they don’t, who am I to judge?).
But, why isn’t considered to be a cultural issue if I believe a culture where marriage is something you only actually do when you’re absolutely sure you want to do it instead of something you do because otherwise, your favorite deity will strike you down?
‘Cause, as an evil socialist, I don’t judge, but look at the societies where people wait to get married ’til they’re actually ready. Now, look at the societies where you get married and knocked up ASAP. I’d rather live in option A. And that’s a cultural choice, because a lot is derived from that choice because there’s a whole ‘nother basked of issues that results in that marriage age flowing up or down.
You certainly can, and it can be a cultural issue. It’s just my experience that liberals and pro-SSM are more likely to view marriage, whether to get quickie married in Vegas or to never get married at all (and live together indefinitely), to leave it or to stay in it, as a personal decision and not a cultural one. The decisions that we make in this regard do not or should not affect anyone else. The decisions others make do not or should not affect us. It’s personal and nobody else’s dang business, for the most part. These are memes I hear a lot from the left and fellow SSM supporters. These are not memes I hear from SSM opponents. That’s what I am driving at.
I guess my point was this: I see plenty of evidence that “family values” conservatives hate gay marriage, and a smattering of evidence that they dislike divorce. But I don’t see much actual appreciation of straight marriage.
You know who seems to bitch about their wives the most? conservative men. You know who seems to bitch the least about their wives? Jewish lesbians.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the people I know aren’t a representative sample of the whole US. I’m just curious–to what extent does the “family values” crowd actually value families, and to what extent is the whole thing just coded language for bias?
Alan, that conservatives ought to spend more time actually celebrating straight marriage rather than just running down its alternatives is a pretty fair criticism.
I simply don’t believe that it is all about coded bias, however. And given that, I think it worthwhile to response to the more substantive points rather than focus on non-falsifiable accusations.
Alan,
when you put two disssimilar people in a house, the potential for conflict seems a bit higher. It sounds like conservatives incentivize increasing the difference between men and women (manly men, “ladies of the house”)…
When birth control divorced sex from procreation (amicably!), it changed the character of marriage.
The argument that gay marriage would change it further is wrong, I think. It’s more that gay marriage would cement the new character.
Denial of gay marriage strikes me as misapprehending exactly what has happened and how deeply the institution has been modified in the wake of the earlier divorce.
“When birth control divorced sex from procreation (amicably!), it changed the character of marriage.”
This, and other stuff as well. Women are now able to achieve affluent lifestyles without finding a husband to provide them one, for example.
Despite this, I keep going back to the fact that the vast majority of people who are against SSM seem to have little or no problem with any of the other changes – they certainly divorce, have sex out of wedlock, and commit adultery at rates no different than their pro-SSM peers. Because of this, of all the issues out their where I find it easy to see the other side of the argument, I confess it’s hard for me not to translate it all as “gay people are icky.”
Despite this, I keep going back to the fact that the vast majority of people who are against SSM seem to have little or no problem with any of the other changes – they certainly divorce, have sex out of wedlock, and commit adultery at rates no different than their pro-SSM peers.
I’m pretty sure that, if asked, they’d explain that divorce is bad, sex out of wedlock is bad, and adultery is bad… even Newt Gingrich would say that. More to the point, I think that a real person who did such things would say that. They’d argue that they were weak and they failed and whatnot. (The more defensive ones might argue that “nobody’s perfect”.)
Now, my support for gay marriage is more of the “it’s none of my business but with that said…” form that supports lifepartnerships and sees a lifetime commitment as a good thing and would see a divorce and/or adultery in a gay marriage through a lens of “it’s none of my business but with that said” disapproval. (Sex outside of wedlock is more of a “it’s none of my business but with that said it will all end in tears” attitude.)
Enough about me: Most folks see divorce as something that should be avoided even if they’ve gotten one. Even if they’ve had eight. It’s rare to find someone who sees divorce as just another choice that people make with no ethical content whatsoever… mostly because it’s so rare to find a divorce between two people who just see it as a choice that they’re making with no ethical content whatsoever.
Yeah, it seems that it gets very easy for folks to criticize the hypothetical “divorce” and divorce rate, but when it comes down to individual divorces, or more accurately *MY* divorce, “well it was regrettable but if you knew the circumstances you’d certainly see that it was necessary and unavoidable.”
So there seems to be a distinction made sometimes, and not always out of malice, about “divorce” and *my* divorce.
This is a fantastic point. I would add, I think, that the cementation is itself cause for trepidation among those who do view marriage, sex, and procreation as linked. The problem is, when they try to frame it this way, they are criticized for not forbidding marriage between the infertile (for instance) and thus hypocritical.
forbidding marriage between the infertile
You know what they call two infertile people who hump all the time? Often enough, they get called “parents”.
It’s a miracle.
(More seriously, there are enough cases of people thought to be infertile that end up with someone knocked up that denial of marriage to them before the fact assumes so many facts not in evidence that it’s not fair to accuse people of hypocrisy for not denying marriage to people who merely haven’t gotten knocked up *YET*.)
… wonder how many of them just “used a sex partner”? It’s not the sort of thing you ask…
This is easier for one gender to successfully pull off than the other, of course.
I’m sure you could find plenty of other things that were linked together before a scientific advance changed things. Oddly, I’m sure the fact the world changed as a result of those scientific advances are seen as positives, but not this one. Of course, I’m guessing most of those other scientific changes didn’t give women actual control over their bodies.
Perhaps, as you suggest, opposing SSM is trying to shut the cultural barn door after the horses are out already, but it’s also not as if there weren’t significant cultural and legal efforts to restrain access to birth control. Or to encourage continued adherence to traditional notions of marital property. Or to water down or restrict no-fault divorce laws. Or… the list could go on.
I get Will’s point that SSM could be viewed as “another brick in the wall” rather than something of monumental importance in isolation, by one counseling caution in the face of rapid cultural, social, and legal change. So I’m glad to see something with a little bit of principle behind it out there. Of course, I’m an advocate on the issue, so it’s my impression that Burkean caution has by now encountered enough real-world data from which a reasonable prediction can be made that indeed SSM will not work unexpected harms.
That it takes a fellow SSM advocate to make such a point as lucidly as this is an irony to which I am content to merely point.
For what it’s worth, I deeply sympathize with the best goals of what the Pro-Traditional Marriage folks claim to want.
Stronger marriages. Less divorce. Less adultery. Life Partnerships.
I want those things too. (I’d be willing to say that a huge majority of people want those things.)
My issue is that banning gay marriage will not do that… and I suspect that allowing gay marriage could actually nudge us in that direction.
From my perspective, the Pro-Traditional Marriage folks are working against something that would help what they claim to want. And that is very frustrating.
Same-sex marriage has evolved to a point, that to express even the slightest opposition to it, brands one a homophobic bigot–it’s just hysteria gone wild. There is no longer any debate on the issue–it’s shut down entirely. You would think that the dissenters to the politically correct orthodoxy are asking for a restoration of slavery.
And just as I said they would, they have the church clearly in their cross hairs–the ACLU is preparing a major legal offensive against the Catholic Church and any other church that refuses to perform same-sex marriage.
It wasn’t that long ago, that the main goal was not having their civil rights violated. Check. Then it was civil unions. Check. Then it was the sanctity of federalism and by a state by state basis, the will of the people in each state would be the final arbiters of accepting or rejecting same-sex marriage. Check. Okay, that’s not working out too well–think its 31-0 in favor of defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman–you know the it’s been for the last 5,000 years or so. And then it was, okay, let’s see what they state legislatures. To be honest, I’m not sure where that stands–have any state legislatures voted in favor of sanctioning same-sex marriage? I’m guessing if the vote was in favor, it was then put on a ballot and resoundingly defeated, but again I’m not positive. Now it’s the state courts that are jumping into the circus and out of thin air, finding same-sex marriage defended under “equal protection” clauses. The Supreme Court is the next and final step in this process and I’m of the opinion that same-sex marriage will be given the long-awaited imprimatur and case closed. It would be a terrible and public relations disaster to keep kicking this can down the road and start leaning on churches to marry gays as the UCLU is planning to do. Is there anyone here who will go on the record and say they would oppose this action unequivocally? Just one? Please? I’ve already told you my brother has walked down the aisle, hand in hand, with a……..guy. Yes, he married a guy. It was only recently I found out about this, and of course went into immediate shock and had to be rushed to a hospital and convulsed on the floor of the ER flopping around like a beached whale, screaming like Nancy Kerrigan, “why me…why me….why me…..” . Just a little teasing there gentlemen. I love my brother dearly, even though he’s Johns Hopkins Ph.D. political science liberal nutcase but would never, ever abandon him. As a joke–well sorta, for a birthday present, I did hire a deprogrammer for him–I
told him liberalism was like Hare Krishnaism, or Scientology or Moonism, or Raelism…needless to say, my passionate invocations fell on deaf ears.
And there you have it. Another same sex-marriage story hopefully with a good ending. I told him to get militant and try forcing churches to recognize same-sex marriage would cause a blood-in-the-streets revolution. It would get very, very ugly in a hurry and whatever progress was made, with regard to this issue, would disappear overnight.
Churches should be allowed to marry whomever they want, and shouldn’t be forced to marry people they don’t think should be married. The state of current law, though, is that only those churches who refuse to marry same-sex couples have all of their marriages recognized. My church marries same-sex couples, but those marriages aren’t recognized.
You see what I’m saying, Heidegger? The current law in most of the U.S. is discriminatory against certain churches, certain religious views. I even know of at least one Catholic church that performs same-sex union ceremonies despite Vatican strictures against them. So stop talking about “the church” like it’s monolithic.
My hearty congratulations to your brother and his husband!
Just wanted to say, this was beautifully put.
Good evening, Mr. Boegiboe. And thanks for the kind words about my brother–I’ll be sure to extend your good wishes to him. As a matter of fact, I’m going to send your entire post to him. Undoubtedly, his reply will be, “why the hell can’t you feel like that!”
And therein, lies the problem. In conversation with him, I’m never rude or judgmental about this situation, but I’ll be honest, something just eats at me, and I have a very difficult time accepting this. It doesn’t help that his partner and I do not get along at all. I don’t have the slightest idea what happened to him. He was a star athlete in high school, very handsome, we used to play baseball for hours and hours a day during summers. He had tons of girls chasing him all through high school and college but somewhere along the line he apparently took a different fork in the road. I have no idea when, why, or how it happened, but it did. Is it just a matter of time before I
I can accept this? As I’ve said before, I had many gay friends when I was in music school–several times we collaborated on chamber music and other things, but the gay thing never came up or presented any kinds of problems whatsoever. I have no idea what’s going on inside my head or why I have such bitterness about it all but it exists and it’s my problem and I’ll just to figure it out on my own.
Thanks again, Boegiboe. It would have been very easy of you to go off on me as a despicable, contemptible, homophobic bigot. Good of you to resist that temptation. Or maybe you’re saving it for the next post–heaven’s to Betsy, no!!
p.s. Regarding the church issue, I have no problem with them marrying whom they want to–I DO have a problem with them being legally forced to perform same-sex marriages when it violates every moral law they feel obligated to obey. And that is precisely what the ACLU intends to do with their latest crusade against the Catholic Church–make it mandatory to perform SSMs or face charges of discrimination. Are you going to go on the record and say you would be unequivocally opposed to such legal action to remedy the “injustice” of a church refusing to marry same-sex couples?
p.p.s. Whatever Catholic Church you know that is performing same-sex marriages, they must be doing in some nuclear bunker that is about 5 miles deep into the earth, because if Pope Benedict knew of such a thing taking place, that church would be shut down immediately without hesitation or debate of any kind. As well it should.
Any priest taking part in such a marriage would be immediately excommunicated. We’re talking 2,000 years of strict canonical law regarding Matrimony and it hardly is a situation where a priest can just flippantly flip off the Vatican because of his personal opinion that the Church not recognizing same-sex marriage is immoral and discriminatory. Fat chance that will ever happen. You’ll see the church giving their approval to partial-birth abortion or rejecting the
Resurrection of Christ before you’ll ever see them sanctioning SSM.
From what I can tell, most who oppose same-sex marriage see it as a government endorsement of homosexuality, which they oppose for religious reason. To that, I can’t help but ask why people with strong religious beliefs are assigning so much importance to what the state thinks rather than leaving it with their god. They act like marriage was always a government thing or something…
Way I see it is quite simple: they’re consenting adults, the fish do you care what they do?
Mr. Psycho, your first 2 clauses are accurate. Legalization becomes endorsement on the social level, this is true, and is key here.
By contrast, the decriminalization of sodomy, even per Lawrence v. Texas, is not necessarily the same thing. If you follow.
If legalization is endorsement, then why is the government “endorsing” ANY relationships at all? That argument doesn’t just challenge same-sex marriage, it challenges marriage-as-government-license entirely.
This assumes the public actions of consenting adults does not affect people who are not the consenting adults. The continued legal recognition of marriage – and the debates over marriage, divorce, and family – is based in part because most people don’t agree.
How does it effect me and my relationship if two dudes or two women form one?
Even if you bring in children as a factor, that’d actually make gay marriage look better arguably, with the decreased likelihood of raising children since it’d require more deliberate action to occur.
In isolating, with only a single relationship? Virtually no effect.
However, if marriage is opened up to a population with a different concept of what marriage entails, all marriages are affected by the changing social norms. As mentioned in the post, I believe marriage to be more than an agreement between two people but rather a social contract to one another and society at large.
Or, if straight people were to use gay marriage for illegitimate ends, a la Chuck & Larry, then laws as they pertain to inheritance and the like would need to be changed to prevent estate tax evasion (for instance). The very definition of marriage could change from a loving couple who intends to spend their life together to two people merely assigning one another Next of Kin and avoiding gift/inheritance taxation together (a la Shore & Crane).
I don’t believe any of this will happen, but the possibility is itself significant. And it would affect a lot more than those gays who choose to marry. None of this deters my support, mind you, but I do not consider these concerns wholly illegitimate.
I suspect that those things won’t happen if only because of all of the cultural associations with marriage.
A story I’ve told before involves a couple of kids I knew back in college who got married for the financial aid. They pointed out that it was just for the financial aid and nothing else. It wasn’t a “real” marriage.
Well, they got married and, within a couple of months, she was telling us how she was frustrated with his tomcatting around and how he was never home. They got divorced the next year… before they graduated. “Marriage” contains a lot of little things. Even explicitly saying “oh, this version won’t” doesn’t do a great job of making sure that this version won’t.
I hope this is right. I think this is right. Particularly so long as (a) you only get one spouse and (b) being married would hinder your romantic prospects to find the one that you want to be with. And yet… and yet… cultural associations can change with a culture. What seems odd or offensive of pitiable at one point can be considered normal. It wouldn’t surprise me too much if the kid you know had a different perspective if she knew a lot of other people similarly situated. I’d imagine her situation was kind of isolating, precisely because it’s rare. Would it stay rare indefinitely?
I can’t say for sure that it would. All I can say is that this possibility in itself is insufficient to deny gay couples the right to marry.
…and the two actually in the relationship are supposed to find out the obligations “society” plans to impose on them from, let alone communicate the obligations they’d rightfully be able to apply the other direction to ______?
This is what gets me about social contract talk. It’s implied that the identifiable parties to the relationship are diminished compared to the amorphous collective view, which has zilch to answer to in the agreement — then when put in practice it always ends up leading to Society = State, a falsehood. The resulting “contract” IMO is total bullshrimp which no one in their right mind would willingly agree to if made clear.
It’s interesting to me that, when we talk about same-sex marriage and the harm it might do to “traditional” marriage (which, as has been pointed out, is a complete sham of a thing to even attempt to talk about, but I’ll leave that aside for now), what we really mean is men marrying men. But we don’t always just say that.
I think there are a number of reasons for this. The fact that we have historically called it gay marriage, and when we say “gay” we are more likely to imagine men (if we’re imagining women, we’re think “lesbians”). I also wonder if there isn’t the implicit idea that it’s marriages between two men and not two women that we have more to worry about.
Either way, the irony of this bias is that (if only by virtue of the fact that there are more of them), I suspect that lesbian marriages are more numerous than gay male ones.
Right. I think the implication is precisely that gay men are what we see as posing a problem to the virtues we claim marriage ought to support. Monogamy and duration of commitment are things lesbians, broadly (pun intended?) speaking, tend to be super good at.
I’m not sure what the second paragraph means. My understanding is that gay men substantially outnumber lesbians, although I still think your conclusion (more lady/lady than dude/dude marriages) is likely correct.
What, something like 97% of guys have gay tendencies, and something like 100% of women have lesbian tendencies?
[Continue to maintain that the omnivorous nature of not-first-choice homosexuality present in the military is what made “gays in the military” so touchy. The blokes who actually preferred women, even if they slept with men, didn’t want to be thought of as gay.]
My understanding, based only on anecdote, is almost the reverse. I don’t know which one of us is right.
Culturally, women are more at ease admitting to lesbian tendencies. It’s because men are seen as predators… If you count every guy who was willing to bang a guy friend in prison/in the navy, you’d probably get upwards of 50% of the population.
The answer to this, I think, is the continuation of the path that marriage has been down.
You mean with a divorce rate that’s been falling for years, and a teen pregnancy rate that’s near a record low?
Cool. I’m glad you think so highly of gays and lesbians.
I have a suspicion you don’t have to think either highly or lowly of gays and lesbians to believe they aren’t going to meaningfully contribute to the teen pregnancy rate.
Seems logical, right?
But gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens are more likely than their straight peers to get pregnant
http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2009/01/03/02970.html
You did read the part where I said that I was not particularly concerned about deleterious effects of gay marriage, yes?
Anyhow, the path I refer to is the one things were headed on well before gay marriage entered the equation (a path that, arguably, we’ve seen the worst of and are rebounding from, on the whole). That there have been no negative effects (yet) is, in addition to being unsurprising to me personally, a good point in favor of the argument that “No, this won’t rock the boat and will not affect marriage on the whole (except, perhaps, in a positive way by expanding it to people that it had previously been unavailable).”
Though the counterargument would be that it’s too new to have had much effect either way. The problem with both arguments is that since we don’t know what the long-term effects might be, most of us (on both sides of the issue) simply lean on our fears or hopes as predictions.
You did read the part where I said that I was not particularly concerned about deleterious effects of gay marriage, yes?
I did. But I think you’ve bought into the idea that marriage is in decline, when, by almost any measure, it isn’t. It’s just that almost everyone thinks it is.
Look, I’m getting old. I’m 35. I’ve been committed to my husband for thirteen years. We’ve had a daughter for two. It’s great that you’re on our side in this. But we’ll never get anything by worrying that we haven’t genuflected hard enough.
Fair enough. I think we’ve seen improvement in some areas, though other numbers are more troubling. Some of this depends on how one views marriage (cohabitation, single parenthood, and other things).
It’s not that I don’t think we haven’t genuflected enough. The main point of this post (except for using up remnants of a never-written Opposite Day post) is to bring up the more valid (or less invalid) reasons for the resistance. Rather than dismissing the opposition purely on the basis of the weaker arguments.
Crickey, I’m 32 and have been with mine for 12 years. We must have met our S/O’s at almost the same time!
You guys are making me feel like a late bloomer.
Will, I wouldn’t even pretend to claim that either Jason or I are typical. Technically my husband and I were only married two years ago now. I think I mentioned it on the League at the time in passing. My mother cried, the weather was lovely, it was nice.
Meanwhile his mother here in Minnesota swore that if he ever is incapacitated for any reason she’s going to try and have me thrown out of his hospital room. We have medical power of attourney etc… very expensive getting all the drawn up and when you ask the lawyers if it’s air tight they say things about getting the wrong judges and depending on where it happens etc…
But I never get tired of reading socialcons talking about how SSM is all about commanding the heights of the social evolution and heaping ruin on religious people. Who knew?
Oy, North, that sounds really intense. (The second family dynamic, that is. The rest sounds lovely.)
Yeah the husband and her haven’t spoken much since then. Personally I appreciated her honesty, she’s very Christian and it sure helped motivate us to jump through all the hoops and shell out the dough for the paperwork.
North, yeah, some people just think that way. A while back I had a discussion with an online acquaintance who was convinced, CONVINCED, that the main reason for anti-vax-shaming was the secular left utilizing an avenue of attack of religious conservatives (calling them bad parents, backwards, etc.). This was a guy who had his own children vaccinated and believed in the science behind vaccinations. But the issue of mandatory vaccines and the perceived smugness of pro-vaccination folks was first and foremost a socio-political struggle (and the persecution of Christians) and not about, you know, saving lives.
“Meanwhile his mother here in Minnesota swore that if he ever is incapacitated for any reason she’s going to try and have me thrown out of his hospital room. We have medical power of attourney etc… very expensive getting all the drawn up and when you ask the lawyers if it’s air tight they say things about getting the wrong judges and depending on where it happens etc… ”
Wouldn’t this cause laws against SSM to fall into the category of “undue burden?”
Laws don’t compell me to invest the additional expenses and time into such arrangements as power of attourney et all, Fish. I could simply accept standing on the sidewalk while a woman my partner of over a decade loathes made his medical decisions for him. So I don’t think undue burden comes into the equation though again I’m no lawyer myself.
If love and commitment are the overriding factors and reasons why Prop 8 should be overturned, why should that precise same logic not be applied to best friends, brother and sister, brother and brother, mother and son or any other combination two people or, who knows, maybe, three, four, five, six people–if I deeply love 5 women or men, and want to commit my life to them, why should I not be afforded the exact same rights and benefits same-sex married couples will receive? If same sex marriage should be recognized by the Federal Government with it, the 1,000+ rights and benefits, there must be a very strong and compelling reason to redefine a 5,000 year old tradition that has existed in just about every culture and country.
Now, why is this? The cold-hearted reality is that the state’s primary concern is in regulating marriage is procure the very best possible environment in which to procure mentally and physically healthy children. A child is a considerable and expensive investment for the state that they’re not about to just willy-nilly toss is aside for reasons of politically correctness. Procreation matters. Big time. The survival of a society depends on it, and the most favorable environment for a child to be raised in, is an environment where a child has both a mother and a father. Same-sex marriage with a 100% certainty guarantees that that child will always be missing a mother or a father, both are which, are indispensable and critical in rearing a healthy and happy child which is why the state grants so many legal and financial benefits to married couples. The state has a strong, vested interest in doing everything it can to protect a stable relationship that allows children to be reared in such an environment
As cold-hearted as this may sound, same-sex marriage does nothing that is essential to the advancement of society and as such, the state has no public imperative to bestow special economic benefits that have been reserved for heterosexual couples. In short, homosexual unions that would be recognized as marriages by the Federal Government would unjustly and categorically deny the special, vital, foundational social value of heterosexual marriages. If it is determined that marriage is fundamentally an institution in which its purpose is to express and serve as a symbol for the expression of love and commitment between two people, what basis does the state have to deny that recognition to trios, quartets, quintets, etc?
If best friends, brother and sisters, brothers and brothers, mother and sons or any other combinations of two people or, who knows, maybe, three, four, five, six peoples wish to advocate for marriage rights Heidegger then let them stand up and advocate, demonstrate and agitate for it and perhaps we’ll take that argument seriously. Otherwise they remain the red herrings that SSM opponents flick about when the argument gets heated like a squid releasing an ink cloud.
I’d note also that your 5,000 year old tradition has been vigorously and hugely revised many many many times throughout its history but I imagine it’s probably a waste of words since that’s been pointed out to you before and since you have no means of rebutting it you just pretend it hasn’t been brought up.
I’ll also note that of the gay couples present on this very site the majority of them are raising children. The canard about both parents being indispensible is also looking pretty wobbly since currently the indicators are that two caring parents (same sex or otherwise) do a better job than single parents but that there’s only very small differences between opposite sex and same sex couples in child rearing outcomes. But even this paragraph of yours is contradictory. If the governments primary concern is the welfare of children then explain why it benefits the government to withhold SSM and make some children’s environments unavoidably more unstable and dangerous when there is no indication that granting SSM would have any effect of children in current or future opposite sex households at all?
As cold-hearted as this may sound I am dubious that you actually think about these arguments at all rather than just regurgitating the sound bites you’ve heard for the sake of combativeness and tweaking “libruls”. But I do appreciate how well you highlight the towering hypocrisy of many of the most common canards against SSM. SSM opponents privilege hypothetical and imaginary incestuous and poly couples and imaginary triples or quadruple relationships in order to penalize actual existing same sex couples. SSM opponents point to imaginary (and generally undefined or nebulously defined) harms to opposite sex couples in order to justify painful towering real documents harms to same sex couples. SSM opponents use imaginary dangers to imagined children to justify destabilizing and endangering the home lives of real life children in the care of same sex couples. Always the mantra is repeated in some form or another “these real people should suffer because of the imagined pain I think will fall upon the people in my head if we do something to help them”.
Exactly. As though mothers and sons and sisters and fathers or cowboys and turtles are simply waiting until gays have the right to marry before they make their stand for same. Like it would be unreasonable to fight for that right until *after* SSM was a done deal. Camel’s nose in the tent and all.
Well by the reasoning here Mothers and sons, or Fathers and daughters, should already have the right to marriage since we allow opposite sex marriage.
Heidegger, bravo. Your comment was precisely on point to the OP, and it advances an articulated argument referencing objective facts. I don’t agree with you, but more like this, please.
If love and commitment are the overriding factors and reasons why Prop 8 should be overturned, why should that precise same logic not be applied to best friends, brother and sister, brother and brother, mother and son or any other combination two people or, who knows, maybe, three, four, five, six people–if I deeply love 5 women or men, and want to commit my life to them, why should I not be afforded the exact same rights and benefits same-sex married couples will receive
Precisely. There is no particular reason to deny the covenant of marriage to any of the above kinds of relationships. Even if we can point to concrete arguments to show that such relationships are against the laws of God and Nature, that is not in itself sufficient to justify legal sanctions against such relationships. The denial of all those legal rights counts as such a sanction.
I’m betting that’s not where he wanted you to go with his “reasoning”.
Forget marriage, my mother’s still waiting to get the green light for abortion!
Gentlemen, I thank all of you very much for your reasonable and well-articulated replies and I very much appreciate it that you didn’t immediately go for the hopelessly homophobic, bigoted, jugular thereby shutting down the discussion entirely. Your comments certainly give one food for thought. It’s not that I’m so deeply entrenched as an opponent of same-sex marriage, that I can’t entertain contrarian positions on this subject–and all of you have made excellent points that need to be considered and that, I will do.
For the most part, I was looking at the “big picture” aspect of SSM and how it comports with the underlying meaning and philosophy of just what marriage means, both to a society and to an individual.
In not one reply did anyone answer my question: what compelling reason is there for the Supreme Court to overturn Prop. 8 and thus redefine marriage to include the union of same-sex couples? And please do NOT bring in Loving vs. Virginia. Well, if you must, go ahead, but the two could not be less similar. In the Loving case, he was clearly being denied his civil rights to marry another woman. One man, one woman does NOT= one man, one man or one woman, one woman. His civil rights were being violated because he was not able to partake in the civilly protected right to legally marry another woman, who was white–a clear cut case of discrimination based solely on race. Marriage was indeed one of the most fundamental civil rights a citizen can have and the Fourteenth Amendment makes it clear that an individual has the right to marry whomever they wish, regardless of the color of their skin. Remember these were anti-miscegenation statutes of Virginia that were violating the due process clause and equal protection clause. At no time has the constitutionality or the lack thereof of SSM ever been on the table. When these rulings took place, marriage was defined as the union of one man and one woman–the anti-bigamy statutes made that abundantly clear. Without Federal recognition of SSM you can’t have a violation of equal protection because as far as Federal Law is concerned, same-sex marriage is in violation of well established marital laws and regulations.
North, you always bring up this business about SSM being successfully tried in other societies and cultures. That just is not the case. On the very few occasions it is has been tried, it was merely a small, informal, practice, usually a family affair with no legal validation whatsoever, and moreover, we are not talking about thriving, successful, exemplar cultures that recognized and practiced same-sex unions. The key ingredient missing, and a very important ingredient is, the longevity of that particular society and culture.
Also Northie, the statistics re SSM–at least the ones I’ve read, come to entirely different conclusions than your sources do. Most troubling of all, are the numbers: In SSM between two males, the average number of sexual partners outside of the marriage is between 8-10. That hardly represents success. Or maybe I’m just being naive or not with the times. To the gentlemen here that are married to other men, does that number seem exceedingly high? Average? Acceptable?
Sadly, it appears we are at an impasse, gentlemen. Maybe my brother will be able to knock some sense into me. And to the gentlemen on this site who are married to other men, I sincerely wish the best of luck to all of you. And cheers to your health and happiness for 2012. May your relationships last a lifetime!
And Mark, while I truly love turtles, I’m not sure my affection meets the threshold to have me extend my hand in marriage and walk down the aisle with one of the lovely little critters. I could though, walk proudly down the aisle with my three Labs, a black, a yellow, and a chocolate one, but that might be a violation of the bigamy laws. To be honest, I’m really smitten by my gorgeous floppy-eared Nubian goat, Rachel. She’s my true sweetheart–until death do us part!
All things considered
Blaise, you have an extraordinarily wide and nasty mean streak in you. Has it always been thus? Sometimes your every word seems cloaked in uncontrolable rage and hatred.
Forget the Vietnam war, I suspect you are haunted by nocturnal demons because of shooting to death that would-be robber.
Oh no–forgot an l in uncontrollable….sorry.
And by the way, I challenge you to produce one single lie regarding the run-up to war with Iraq.
The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow.” — Bill Clinton in 1998
“I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons…I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out.” — Clinton’s Secretary of Defense William Cohen in April of 2003
“Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.” — Al Gore, 2002
“There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein’s regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed.” — Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002
“Iraq is a long way from USA but, what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.”
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological
weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program.
He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002-
They all saw the exact same intelligence reports Clinton and Bush saw–is the Anointed One, Monsieur Pascal, declaring them all to be liars? Since you seem so certain that lies were told, it leaves me wondering why you weren’t called upon to assist the inspectors in their search of WMDs. Imagine the time and money that could have been saved had you been the Head Sleuth! I can just picture you and Joe Wilson, two washed up fops being carted around in a rickshaw, sipping tea, and belittling your lowly Untermenschen servants…
You’ll have to point out to me the section in my response where I asserted that SSM has been successfully tried in other societies and cultures. Since I didn’t and haven’t (it’s been instituted in several but is too new to make calling it a success anything more than premature) I have nothing to say to that.
Secondly the statistics, I suppose we could wheel out dueling statistics but instead I’ll note a couple things. First, the question of monogamy and fidelity is somewhat aside from the question of child rearing outcomes since those are two different studies. Second is that the statistics YOU use also indicate that lesbian couples are massively more loyal and monogamous than heterosexual couples. By your own rule then, marriage should be available only to homosexual lesbian couples since they are enormously less prone to cheating than heterosexual men. I’ll also note that your stats here are referring to non-married homosexual couples since, under the current regime, legal marriage isn’t possible for such couples. I suspect you’d find the numbers a lot closer if the studies compared unmarried homosexual couples to unmarried heterosexual couples.
I suppose I should leave your first question of SSM’s constitutionality to burt to defenestrate. Personally I’d much prefer prop 8 die at the hands of the voters rather than the courts as it eventually will though the dishonesty that was used to coax it through to it’s squeaking white knuckled victory is certainly appalling. The argument has and is being made that prop 8, by singling out homosexuals for specific inclusion from marriage, is falling afoul of CA state antidiscrimination laws. I’m not qualified myself to draw many decisions on that. Do you have any thoughts oh how the anti-SSM plaintiffs in this case were utterly unable to muster any concrete legal objections to SSM? Were you as bemused as I was when their sole expert witness had to reverse himself on the stand?
I’ll also note that you have remained silent on the two brothers, sister brothers, triple quadruple marriage issue. I interpret that as complete capitulation on the subject and applaud you for it. Just keep it in mind if you are tempted to drag that hoary old herring out in a future SSM discussion. Oh and I’ll echo Burt in observing that you’ve kept pretty much on topic so good job on that.