- MaryBeth Williams, of Wampum, is running for the legislature. No joke. From being a fan of her blogging, I know MaryBeth is smart, passionate, compassionate, dedicated, feminist, educated and skeptical – everything I could want in a politician. Plus she’s a woman and a minority in a state that doesn’t have enough of either in government (is there any state with enough?). I only regret she’s running in the right-hand coast’s Portland, rather than mine.
She plans to keep on blogging, so there should be some fascinating blogging in Wampum as the campaign moves on. By the way, MaryBeth’s blog has a Paypal button if you’d like to contribute to her campaign.
- I can spend hours just yanking the funny flexi man back and forth. Back and forth, back and forth… If your browser lets you, zoom in so he’s bigger. Whheeeeee….
- There have been tons of great posts at Body and Soul lately. ‘Cheap’ has more than one meaning, sweetheart is one of my faves, and if you haven’t read it I recommend you do so.
- Just when you thought it was safe to go back to reading economics journals… “The Economics of Orgasm.”
- Two brief responses to this post of mine on the Family Scholars Blog: here and here. Until I have further information, I have to agree with Tom and David that NOW LDEF was being unfair and attacked what seems to be a decent program unfairly. On the other hand, I’m a little skeptical that the separate programs offered to women won’t be “lesser” – it definitely merits investigation.
I should also mention that David Blankenhorn was perfectly nice in his response to me – and even admitted error on one point – making me feel rather guilty that I was snarky in my comments to him. I’ll do better in future.
- A few days ago, the New York Times carried an article on the Justice Department seeking medical records of women who have had abortions. Most chilling quote:
Citing federal case law, the department said in a brief that “there is no federal common law” protecting physician-patient privilege. In light of “modern medical practice” and the growth of third-party insurers, it said, “individuals no longer possess a reasonable expectation that their histories will remain completely confidential.”
Unfortunately, at least one Judge (in New York) has taken Ashcroft’s side in this dispute. (Link via Rita Rambles).
- The Chicago Tribune and Ms.Musings have both recently linked to One Good Thing. Let me add “Alas, a Blog’s” tiny voice to the growing chorus – One Good Thing is smart, funny, mean as hell (in a good way) and wonderfully feminist take on motherhood, owning a sex toy store, current events and everything else.
- Speaking of sex toys, if you’re in the market, please make a point of shopping The Honeysuckle Shop; it’s a fine shop, plus the owners have good politics. Pass the word on.
- Back at the Family Scholars blog, Elizabeth Marquardt argues passionately that cloning is a women’s rights issue.
- Don’t know why I find this appealing, but I do. Dance, fat purple thing, dance!
- Interesting post at Crooked Timber on what makes a good childhood, venturing into thoughts about public spaces and TV watching rules. Via Apt. 11D.
- Excellent meta-blogging post at Feministe – you should go read it. When I started “Alas, A Blog,” there were many blogs by feminists, but relatively few feminist blogs. Now it seems to me that there are so many excellent feminist blogs. It pleases me (and gives me more to read!) – but at the same time, it makes me feel “Alas” is less necessary than it used to be. Like Feministe’s MsLauren, I’m wondering if it isn’t time to jettison the blog and work on other writing. (My fear is that without the blog I’ll do no writing at all – as MsLauren wrote, Blogging is the one kind of writing I seem to get done without deadline pressure.
From Feministe (and via Sappho’s Breathing):
The world is a strangely oppressive classroom in which memes we dislike and with which we disagree are taught to us every day. We often feel that we have no voice, no outlet, no space to call one’s own. Blogging has given us a space that is under our control, in which we can say what we like, popular or not, and form more concise ideas about who we are and what we really think about a given issue. We can accept or reject the memes as we so choose.I sometimes think I’ll spend my entire life doing nothing but unlearning poisonous memes the world has shoved down my throat. (Should I post this? It sounds negative, and my readers tend to like upbeat stuff more. And who can blame them?)
- Cyndi Lauper still rocks. Via MsMusings.
- Over at F-Word (a really good website I should read more often), the author linked in comments to this essay, “Feminists are sexist.”
From F-Word:
The thing is, I’m getting really, really tired of having to justify feminism by explaining how it also benefits men. And that, believe it or not, is the point of this article. What I’m angry about is not the genuine male enquirers who honestly wonder why “nobody complains about the stereotyping of men” (and they do exist, I replied to several of them), it’s the anti-feminist men who attack us for daring to get involved in a movement which aims to improve the lives of women.What this is really about is men accusing feminists of sexism and hypocrisy unless they can prove that they spend exactly half of their time, energy, and resources on campaigning on behalf of men. What this is really about is that if feminism only improves the lives of women, it has no value or importance. What this is really about is that feminism only has value if it works on behalf of men and improves the lives of men. What this is really about is anti-feminist men being threatened by women working for women. What they’re really saying is that to talk about women, to focus on women, to point out that something affects women badly; all of this is of no importance or value. It’s classic, really – because men are not always the focus of attention of feminism, these anti-feminists can’t stand it.
I very much agree, and even drew a cartoon carrying much the same message a few years ago.
- Heidi Bond at Crescat Sententia has written a post well-worth reading, “On Giving Up.”
- At A Fistful of Euros, Scott Martins discusses the headscarf ban in France. He also points out something I hadn’t realized (but should have guessed); one consequence of the ban is parents choosing to keep their daughters home from school.
- Gabriel Rosenberg responds to responses to his posts on incest and polygamy, and also argues, persuasively, that it’s unlikely that any state will be forced to recognize same-sex marriages in other states.
- A descriptive Village Voice article on gay and lesbian same-household co-parenting arrangements… at some point I should discuss my own somewhat odd home life on the blog.
In her late twenties, Beth decided she was ready to have kids. She met Phillip Hernandez and discovered that he and his partner, James Slayton, longed to have children, too. They joked about doing it together, and one day the conversation turned serious. The three drew up a formal agreement that was not legally binding but would serve as a framework for this family for the next 18-plus years. They now have two sons, 3 1/2-year-old Zander and 17-month-old Nicholas, and another son on the way. The boys are each biologically related to one of their dads, but Beth thinks the distinction isn’t important and balks when people ask her to clarify.
I always get a thrill from seeing people make alternative arrangements work.
- I’m sure most of my readers would hate Dust in the Light (it’s unapologetically anti-gay). But I have to admit, I like the design. Most special-effects heavy designs leave me cold (and with a headache), but for some reason this works for me. Except that the stained-glass-window thingy looks bad when text scrolls over it.
- Via Dust in the Light, I came across this Letter to the Editor by Karen Hayes:
Conservatives would have us believe that gay marriage threatens traditional marriage. But marriage and the “traditional family” have been in trouble for decades — for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with homosexual partnerships. No law against same-sex marriage will change the divorce rate; no constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman could have saved my parents’ marriage, or my own; and no legalized bigotry will heal America’s broken families.
Yup, yup, yup.
the people he picks to work in his administration are supposed to support that effort as long as they don’t…
I think the major problem with Dust in the Light’s design is having the blog-text scroll over the title text. It’s just all meshed up and aesthetically unpleasing. It does look cool before you start scrolling though.
I totally disagree with the linked essay regarding cloning.
Sorry to interrupt, but the argument in that letter is not valid, even if it conforms to your particular position. Let me illustrate:
“Environmentalists would have us believe that clear-felling rainforests threatens the environment. But “the environment” has been in trouble for decades, for a host of reasons that have nothing to do with rainforests. No law against clear-felling will reduce industrial pollution; no constitutional amendment protecting rainforests would have saved the Passenger Pigeon; no legalised theft of landowners’ property will restore the north atlantic fishery…”
I’m not saying your position is wrong, just that that particular argument, though rhetorically effective, is without intellectual merit.
parallel, not quite – your logic involves dealing with something concrete, whereas the letter is countering an entirely abstract argument and pointing it out as arbitrary. I think it’s still merited here.
Thanks for the praise on my “feminists are sexist” piece. I’m *extremely* flattered. :)
I gotta say that the Flexi-Man thing really weirds me out. It’s like a floating corpse. Very, very disturbing.
Catherine’s piece on whether feminists are sexist is very good. It got me thinking about the difficulties in fielding anti-feminist comments in general, as they come from all sorts of different ideologies, from religious fundamentalism, biological determinism, libertarianism of an odd type and now from this group of critics that Catherine addresses.
I’m not “anti-gay.” I’m against gay marriage. I’m also against my friend’s womanizing; that doesn’t mean I’m anti-my-friend. (N.B., I’m not arguing, here, that homosexuality is intrinsically akin to womanizing; I’m just illustrating how distinctions can be drawn.)
Oh, and if you click “Turn Light On” at the top of the sidebar on my blog, the design changes to avoid the quirks of its initial visual “statement.”
I don’t feel like arguing with you at this point, so I’ll just say that “Turn light on/off” thing is a pretty awesome visual feature.
Raznor,
I don’t see the distinction you are trying to draw. The argument in the letter was basically of the form that as marriage was already a damaged institution, and that banning same sex marriage would not repair the damage, and so (it is implied) the damage that same sex marriage may cause to the original institution may be ignored.
It is a dud argument, no question.
Whether or not you believe that gay marriage WOULD damage existing marriage is not the issue.
Forgot to say – loved the cartoon. Spot on! :-)
Loved the cartoon, Amp, and as usual a compelling set of linkage here.
Thanks for mentioning me, as well. I’m flattered!
I think, parallel, that the distinction is that the environment exists outside of human intervention, but since we invented the concept of marriage, we have the latitude to change it.
Clear-cutting impacts the environment (and life) negatively; it’s pretty easy to prove that. SSM doesn’t really alter the character of marriage at all, since marriage is anything we say it is. We’d have to prove that it has an objectively negative effect on society in order to support the current definition of marriage, and so far there is no evidence that we’d be any worse off with SSM than without it.
So the argument might be the same, but its validity changes according to context.
Hestia,
With respect, the argument does not hinge on whether or not the environment or a human institution such as marriage is the focus.
For example the argument can be completely reversed: no law PERMITTING homosexual marriage will reduce the rate of homosexual promiscuity, infidelity, or pedophilia; but it does not therefore follow that such a law should not be enacted. (Sorry about the double negatives there, folks!)
I am somewhat agnostic on the question of whether same-sex marriage (as opposed to civil union) would damage the original institution, but it can’t be dismissed. Who would have predicted that well-intentioned welfare reforms in the ’60s would lead to the virtual destruction of the urban negro family?
parallel, the thing is that argument you gave (reversal) would apply if pro-SSM people argued that lack of SSM would damage marriage. The point of the original argument is to counter claims made by anti-SSM people.
What I was referring to originally is that when discussing the environment, there is a very concrete and quantifiable amount of damage that can be done by clearcutting. The fact that the hypothetical argument you gave doesn’t address that is the most compelling flaw. However in the case of marriage, there is no concrete quantifiable amount of damage to address, so that flaw is avoided.
Mmmmmmmmm metalogic.
Maybe I’d be more clear in saying – a sound argument dealing with abstract concepts is not necessarily sound if it is altered to deal with concrete concepts.
With respect, the argument does not hinge on whether or not the environment or a human institution such as marriage is the focus.
Doesn’t it? I mean, perhaps the structure of the argument applies in each case, but I don’t think the weight it carries is the same. I believe there’s a difference when you’re talking about, as Raznor said, “a very concrete and quantifiable amount of damage” and an abstract concept that we define any way we want.
For example the argument can be completely reversed: no law PERMITTING homosexual marriage will reduce the rate of homosexual promiscuity, infidelity, or pedophilia; but it does not therefore follow that such a law should not be enacted.
I agree that this is a valid argument–but one that doesn’t make much sense. SSM is not trying to reduce promiscuity or infidelity. That’s not the point. The point is giving gays and lesbians the same rights as heterosexuals. Opponents have to prove measurable harm to society in order to make the case that we should ban SSM (would that fall under “burden of proof”?), and they haven’t been able to do it, nor do I think they can.
But I still don’t think either of these arguments can be applied in the same way to the environment, and vice versa.
(Plus everything Raznor said, I think; I can’t quite wrap my brain around it all, but I’m sure it’s perfectly correct. :) )
Raznor,
No, my reversal works, since the claim I am considering as follows:
The claim : That not-SSM harms homosexuals
The irrelevant comment : SSM won’t fix pedophilia, etc.
The bogus conclusion : SSM shouldn’t be enacted.
The argument pattern is the same, but the ‘sign’ of SSM reversed, viz:
The claim : That SSM harms marriage
The irrelevant comment : not-SSM won’t fix divorce, etc.
The bogus conclusion : not-SSM shouldn’t be enacted.
Note the “bogus conclusion” is intended to reject the claim, but does not follow from the comment which may be true or largely true, but is actually not relevant.
Nor does the fact that environmental damage is concrete affect my argument. The only real difference is that we agree with fact that the conclusion to the environmental argument is false, but disagree on the conclusion to the same sex marriage argument. The argument is invalid in both cases.
Let me be more specific:
An argument is VALID if it follows that if the premises are true, then so are the conclusions.
Hence, a valid argument + true premises means the conclusion must be true. In any other case – invalid argument, one or more false premises, or both – the conclusion may be true or false, you can’t tell (at least from the argument!).
If, however, the premises are true but the conclusion is false, then the argument MUST be invalid. This is true whether or not the conclusion is concrete or not.
The original argument – parsed into premises and conclusions – was:
P0) Traditional marriage has problems.
P1) No law against same-sex marriage will change the divorce rate;
P2) no constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union of a man
and a woman could have saved [the writer’s] parents’ marriage, or
[her] own;
P3) no ‘legalized bigotry’ will heal America’s broken families.
C1) Gay marriage will not threaten traditional marriage.
Now I happen to think that P0 is true, P1 may be true or false; P2 is almost certainly true, P3 is true (but contains an assumption – that a law defining marriage as excluding same sex unions is tantamount to “legalised bigotry” – which many wouldn’t agree with.) But if all are taken to be true, does the conclusion follow?
To answer this, we can reduce it to symbolic logic:
P0) Some desirable thing A has problems including B, C, D
P1) Preventing action X will not fix (or ameliorate) B
P2) Preventing action X will not fix (or ameliorate) C
P3) Preventing action X will not fix (or ameliorate) D
C1) Therefore, performing action X will not hurt A.
Now if the argument is VALID, then for ANY values of A, B, C, D, and X for which the premises P0 to P3 are true, then the conclusion C must be true. What I did with the environmental argument was to substitute values for which we would all agree that P0-P3 were true but conclusion C1 was demonstrably false. This is sufficient to show that the argument is invalid.
What it does NOT show is that the conclusion of the original writer, that gay marriage will not threaten traditional marriage, is necessarily false. In fact, it an invalid argument says nothing about whether the conclusion is true or false.
The fact that so many find this argument to be “true”, or at least has some relevance to them, probably lies in the fact that you already believe the conclusion to be true (or don’t care, perhaps because you think X is more desirable than A) and hence it provides a justification for your position. That’s fine as far as it goes – humans are rationalizing animals, not rational ones – but you can see why it fails as argument since it will not convince anyone who does not already share that opinion.
As an aside, one may guess that the original writer places a low value on marriage because her parents’ marriage and her own failed. If so, then naturally any damage to this low-value institution is of little account, outweighed by the perceived benefit of same sex marriage. Those who place a high value on marriage may see it differently.
And yet… why do some gay couples want marriage (as opposed to civil alternatives?) Do they see it as having a high value and thus desirable? If so, do they assume that that value will automatically be transformed to their relationships by legal fiat? Or do they see it as low value and hence conservative objections can be ignored, a thing to be grasped simply to allow later exploitation of anti-discrimination legislation.
Do we want the fate of marriage to be decided by those who do not value it?
Hestia,
If you regard marriage as an abstract concept we can define any way we want, how about redefining “happiness”, “love”, “freedom” and “democracy” while you’re at it – these are also abstract. We could pass a law, saying that “Everyone is happy”, “slavery is freedom”, “everyone loves Big Brother” – and it would be true, because we can define these any way we want! You’re just 20 years too late…
True, it IS a human institution which we can change if we choose, but that doesn’t mean that its positive contribution to society should be ignored when we do so.
Since you agree that my little reversal argument is valid but irrelevant, you should be close to grasping the point I am trying to make. Blocking homosexual marriage is not intended to cure the divorce rate or broken marriages either – which the writer insinuates is the reason. It is intended to avoid making them worse.
I don’t see how you can demand proof of “measurable harm to society”, more like you should demonstrate “measurable benefit to society” by the changes you are supporting. Many changes to laws have been performed, only to turn out later to be disastrous. The usual excuse is that “it seemed like a good idea at the time”. The change mooted here – of re-inventing marriage – is irreversible, it seems, so it is up to the proponents to demonstrate no harm and a tangible benefit.
As I said, I am somewhat agnostic in this – and honestly, to see such bogus arguments as the one put forward by Karen Hayes makes me more and more suspicious of the idea.
I support the idea of civil unions so there is no discrimination in the law. What else is really required, and why?
(Sorry, parallel, I didn’t read your comments to Raznor–I am easily confused by syllogisms–so if you’ve answered my comments there, please let me know.)
We could pass a law, saying that “Everyone is happy”, “slavery is freedom”, “everyone loves Big Brother” – and it would be true, because we can define these any way we want!
There’s a difference between “marriage” and “love,” “happiness,” and “freedom.” Love, happiness, freedom, and democracy exist outside of their definitions; if we didn’t have names for them, they’d still be around. Marriage wouldn’t. It’s only its definition.
I don’t see how you can demand proof of “measurable harm to society”, more like you should demonstrate “measurable benefit to society” by the changes you are supporting.
SSM advocates want to make marriage available to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. Their primary (sole?) reason is that denying it is unconstitutional, and there’s a good foundation for their argument (namely, the Constitution and previous interpretations of it). Dismantling unconstitutional discrimination is in and of itself a “measurable benefit to society.” In order to dispute that point, we would indeed have to show “measurable harm to society.”
I firmly believe that behavior that doesn’t hurt anyone should be legal, because the right to engage in this behavior is an inherent “measurable benefit” of American society. I call it freedom. As such, we need pretty damn good evidence that it’ll harm someone before we can ban it, and that evidence doesn’t exist in regards to SSM. You could say, “But same-sex couples can have sex and stay together forever and all that! Why should we let them marry?” I think it goes back to the Constitution and “special rights” for heterosexuals. You can’t deny something to an arbitrary portion of the population if you already offer it to the rest–unless, again, you have evidence of measurable harm.
I guess I’m saying that we should give more weight to the requirement for proof of harm than proof of benefit, because in this case we can take the benefits (ability to marry whoever we want) for granted.
The change mooted here – of re-inventing marriage – is irreversible, it seems, so it is up to the proponents to demonstrate no harm and a tangible benefit.
SSM advocates have shown that no harm would come of SSM, at least to as great a degree as they can. Let me know what you think SSM opponents are concerned about, and I’ll pull out the reasons why they shouldn’t worry.
I’m a little troubled with your implication that we shouldn’t allow SSM because there’s a possibility it’ll turn out badly. I don’t think that makes much sense. If we required absolute proof of “no harm and tangible benefit” with every change we make to the law, we’d never make any changes at all.
Finally, I don’t think the definition of marriage is irreversible at all. If we can change it to one thing, of course we can change it back.
I support the idea of civil unions so there is no discrimination in the law. What else is really required, and why?
Because civil unions are like black-only water fountains: separate but equal. They preserve the stigma of same-sex couples as somehow inferior to heterosexual couples, and they make room for discrimination based on the kind of legal relationship a couple has. (For example, some states could limit health insurance benefits to couples with marriage certificates.) Then there’s a chance that civil unions would not be the same as marriage at all.
Can you tell me if civil unions should provide the same rights as marriage, and if so, why we shouldn’t just let same-sex couples marry? It’d be much less complicated.
And just a brief note on a line I noticed:
Do we want the fate of marriage to be decided by those who do not value it?
No! That’s why heterosexual couples shouldn’t be able to ban it; they’re the ones getting all the divorces. : )
Seriously, I think that anyone who wants to get married wants to get married, and thus they place high value in marriage and do assume (correctly, I think) that it can be transmitted to their own relationships.
Hestia,
Firstly, I disagree that marriage is only a definition, while democracy, etc. is not. Marriage (and “family”, for that matter) existed before there was a word for it, and that is why the word was invented. It has changed its meaning as the institution has evolved, but the institution exists independently of the word.
I feel you are inconsistent in claiming marriage is just a definition, while at the same time saying it is unjust and “discrimination” that this definition does not currently apply to homosexual couples.
I don’t quite follow your constitutional argument. Assuming for the moment that you are correct and prohibiting SSM is unconstitutional, then if I understand you correctly:
the benefit of allowing SSM is to repair a currently unconstitutional situation.
But we can get the identical benefit by changing the consitution to make SSM illegal, since then the “discrimination” would not longer be unconstitutional.
So it seems you have to come up with a more tangible benefit than that…
I quite agree that behaviour which harms no-one should not be illegal, but I disagree that marriage is simply behaviour, or that it is a benefit to be granted by society. In fact, since you regard “marriage” as merely a benefit to be enjoyed, perhaps you don’t understand the concept at all.
Marriage is – or was – a responsibility, which offered benefits such as licenced sexual coupling, social status, and later government support to offset the requirements of fidelity, responsibility for children, and so on. This is why such a big deal was made of it, to make it harder for that responsibility to be shed. Obviously the equation is different now, and in many ways society is the poorer for it.
But given that sexual coupling now requires no licence, social status is independent of marital (or sexual) status, what DO you see as the benefits of marriage?
So your claim that “we could change the definition back” is completely disgenuous. If we did that, we would suddenly be declaring some number of couples “not-married” and hence – in your position – depriving them of some “benefits” they previously enjoyed. And you see no problem with this?
You say civil unions are like blacks only water fountains. Why are they not more like men’s and women’s public toilets? Or should they be outlawed as well as being “unconstitutional”?
Finally, if marriage is simply a definition, and that definition is a source of benefits, why should I assume that same-sex couples who want to get married see it as being of value in itself. They probably only want to gain access to those benefits.
This is typical. I have not heard ONE advocate of SSM say anything about the responsibilities involved in a same sex “marriage”, the concept is completely foriegn. They only ever talk about “rights” and “benefits”. And so they weaken the responsibilities society sees in ordinary marriage.
This discussion has been most interesting. I started out merely objecting to an invalid argument, but it has certainly changed my views to oppose the concept of SSM somewhat.
Parallel, you’ve successfully convinced me that the letter to the editor I quoted was, technically, a bad argument.
However, your anti-SSM arguments are even less persuasive. In particular, I’m not convinced by any argument that claims that SSM supporters talk about “benefits” but not “responsibilities.” First of all, it’s not true (Andrew Sullivan, probably the most prominant supporter of SSM, has often discussed responsibilites; he’s just one of dozens of SSM advocates I’ve seen discuss the need for equal responsibilities.)
Second of all, the dichotomy you suggest, between “benefits” and “responsibilities,” is more semantic than actual. In fact, many of the “benefits” SSM supporters talk about are responsibilities in disguise. For example, probably no “benefit” is talked about more by SSM-advocates than the right to visit an injured spouse in the hospital, and to direct the spouse’s care if the spouse can’t do so themselves. But that “benefit” is actually a heavy responsibility; SSM advocates are saying that SS couples should have the tools needed to take responsibility for their families, the same tools heterosexual couples take for granted.
Other supposed “benefits” fit into this same catagory; being able to have one’s earned social security “benefit” one’s family if one dies, for example. Insurance “benefits.” These “benefits” are all about taking full responsibilty for one’s family’s well-being, not about wealth or fun.
Plus, of course, there’s the matter of taking full legal responsibility for one’s step-children, which SSM proponants often discuss (including in at least two posts on this blog).
It is obvious that what’s being sought by SSM proponants is both benefits and responsibilities – which are, more often than not, intertwined.
* * *
You wrote: In fact, since you regard “marriage” as merely a benefit to be enjoyed, perhaps you don’t understand the concept at all.
“If you don’t agree with me, you must be ignorant” is surely the rudest, and the intellectually weakest, form of argumentation.
* * *
You bring up the example of separate but equal bathrooms – why are “civil unions” not like men’s and women’s bathrooms?
Well, first of all, “civil unions” are separate and unequal. No proposed civil union law would provide the same benefits and responsibilities as marriage. For instance, Massachusetts’ proposed civil union law wouldn’t do anything regarding social security.
Second of all, there is a purpose to maintaining separate-sex bathrooms aside from stigma. Separate sex bathrooms preserve modesty (for both sexes) and also reflect the fact that men require fewer toilets (instead using more water-efficient urinals).
In contrast, there is no real reason for “separate but equal” civil unions other than maintaining a stigma against same-sex couples and their families. Gay couples are not physically unsuited for using hospital visitation the way women are physically unsuited for using urinals.
The fact is, separate-by-sex bathrooms don’t carry a stigma; they don’t imply that women (or men) have less worth. In contrast, “civil unions,” like race-segregated water fountains, would carry a stigma.
* * *
Finally, there is the issue of the alleged harm to marriage if same-sex marriage is permitted. However, if we allowed this sort of logic to forbid progressive change, then married women would still be forbidden to own property of their own, and interracial marriages would still be illegal.
“Any change in institution A might harm A; therefore A must never be changed” is a dubious argument. It ignores the possibility that refusing to change A might also cause harm; or that changing A might also be a benefit to A.
Great response Amp. It seems unbelievable that a person could follow the SSM debate and “not [hear] ONE advocate of SSM say anything about the responsibilities involved in a same-sex marriage.” The repsonsibilities involved, though, are the same as for any other marriage. In fact, therein is the core of the equality argument. If a same-sex couple takes on the same obligations, shouldn’t they have the same tools available to help fulfill these obligations? Don’t they deserve the same recognition? Someone might disagree with another’s choice of spouse, but I fail to see how marrying that person is all of a sudden to be conisdered a selfish and irresponsible act.
I wanted to add another responsibility disguised as benefit that is too often overlooked. Divorce. People don’t want to marry so they can get divorced; they don’t enter a marriage thinking it might end. Yet divorce is a critical benfit/responsibility of marriage. Requiring one to obtain a divorce makes it more difficult to end the relationship. If it should end anway, divorce (at least ideally) does something to ensure both spouses are treated fairly and the children’s interests are considered. Alimony and child support have the effect of enforcing some of one’s responsibilities even after the marriage has ended.
I still don’t think the argument above is as invalid as parallel says. He ignores an important implicit premise, namely that the best measure of the “state of marriage” is the divorce rate. I assume the original author took this as a given since it seems self-evident – it is the only tangible measure I can think of to associate with the health of marriage as an institution, being such an intangible idea. So, taken with that, saying that a ban on SSM wouldn’t help the divorce rate is saying there’s no reason to ban SSM, that taken with the fact that banning SSM is discrimination against same sex couples would imply that we should enact Same Sex marriages.
Also, this is a primarily emotional argument, so I see no problem giving more leeway in assuming implied premises.
And besides this, there’s the underlying argument saying that since marriage has “been under assault” for so long, and still exists, it’s a far sturdier institution than anti-SSMers would have you believe, thus should still be fine even if some gay couples marry.
Once again, this is all implied. In the case of emotional arguments, one should take into account the implied underlying statements, and not subject it to the rigor one would of a purely policy-based argument.
And on a personal note, the fact that I’m willing to go along with you on a metalogical discussion of this should clue you in that there’s reasons for me trusting the argument beyond “agreeing with the conclusion”. I have not disrespected you in such a way throughout this, please extend such politeness to me as well.
Ampersand,
Thanks for your gracious post. I was not trying to make an argument against SSM – in fact, until I engaged in discussions on this blog and elsewhere, I held little opinion on the subject. I have made an attempt at formalising my position elsewhere, with several comments at:
http://www.yuppiesofzion.com/archives/000882.php#more
Note that this was written before I read your piece on responsibilities – I will have to consider if my argument requires changing or fails altogether.
It is true that I have missed discussions from SSM advocates including the responsibilities involved. However, I don’t see some of those as “responsibilities”. What you seem to be talking about is authority, not responsibility, although it may be needed to excercise that responsibility.
Take, for example, that of directing a spouse’s care. The spouse does not HAVE to make decisions (at least here in Australia), though they are consulted. It is assumed that their decisions, if taken, will be in the interests of (or at least in accordance with the wishes of) the disabled spouse, but there is no way to enforce that. Wasn’t there a case in the news recently about a man trying to get the life support turned off on his wife, and the suspicion is that he is eyeing the rest of her insurance payment?
I concede that responsibilities, though voluntarily assumed, may require some formal recognition to be exercised. But this is not simple even in the ordinary case of a divorced family with kids (see the divorce courts and custody battles) and I cannot agree that simply following the model of heterosexual marriage or its adoptive variants (which are even more convoluted) is necessarily the way to go.
Re civil unions and social security, and other issues of potential differential treatment – the question I would ask is, why is a benefit paid to the spouse? If the reasoning is also valid for a homosexual spouse, then (by principle of non-discrimination, or equal protection if you prefer) it should be paid in the SSM case. But I don’t see that we should necessarily assume that the reasoning will always be the same. BTW the converse need not necessarily mean that the benefit should not be paid, there may be other reasons.
I find the stigma argument unconvincing. People may regard SS couples differently whether or not the word “marriage” is imposed by the government, just as “common law marriage” carries a stigma in some quarters although here in Australia, de facto marriage is legally identical to de jure marriage in our terminology.
I agree that alleged harm has to be balanced against potential benefits – I just don’t see the benefit or principle at stake here though I can see the potential harm.
Gabriel,
I can’t quite see divorce as being a benefit or responsbility of marriage, rather a recognition that one’s responsibilities do not end with the marriage. I also do not see the issues of a homosexual divorce as being the same as that of an ordinary couple with children. Nevertheless your point is well made.
Raznor,
My apologies – no disrespect was intended. It is a common, almost universal, tendency to see arguments whose conclusions support our own as being valid. It is rare to concede as Ampersand has done above, even though he did not change his position on the issue of SSM (nor should he of course – the invalidity of that argument is completely independent of the wisdom of SSM).
I don’t agree that the health of marriage is measured by the divorce rate. Rather it is measured by the rate of responsibilities assumed in marriage being abnegated which, to me, is primarily responsibility for the care and raising of children. A divorce which is only the breaking of a sexual and financial partnership is only a problem for the adults involved. I saw a “equal benefits” based push for SSM as encouraging this trend (though this argument may fall down, see above).
Parallel,
The way I see it there are two ways the law is involved with repsonsibilities in marriage. The first is that it adds legal weight to some responsibilities already taken. Thus a person might be responsibile for certain debts occurred by a spouse. The other is that it makes it easier to fulfill some of the moral obligations undertaken by marriage. I think many of Ampersand’s examples fall into this category. So the benefit sought is the tools needed to take care of one’s spouse.
As you said divorce is a recognition that the responsibilities do not end at marriage. The fact that one must obtain the divorce (and not simply run off) is itself a responsibility, though. You say that the divorce of a homosexual couple is different than that of another couple. How so? Why should the divorce of a homosexual couple with children be any different than a heterosexual couple with children? Why should the divorce of a homosexual copule without chilren be any different than a heterosexual couple without children? More generally, you talk about the responsibilities of marriage. Why should these respnsibilities be any different for homosexual couples? Which specific legal consequence of marriage would you desire to change for same-sex coupls?
Parallel, you keep on saying “that’s not responsibility” in response to all pro-SSM arguments. But you haven’t defined what the term means to you. Perhaps this conversation could proceed better if you could explain what it is you mean by “responsibility.”
Regarding stigma, do you think that the old law requiring that blacks and whites ride separate train cars created a stigma? What is the distinction between this case of “separate but equal,” and marriage vs. civil unions, in your view?
(By the way, one huge difference between “civil unions” and men’s and women’s bathrooms is that the latter isn’t a case of discrimination in law; its something private business owners do voluntarily. The bathroom thing doesn’t reflect a legal barrier between women and men. On the other hand, the refusal to allow same-sexers marriage is a legal distinction, and one that for most SSM opponants (not you) is driven by animus against same-sexers or by religious scripture. Given the context, I can’t see how banning same-sexers from marriage could help but perpetuate stigma against same-sex couples and their children.
Also, you keep on referring to unspecified differences between gay couples and straight couples, but you never explain what these differences are. Until you can explain what these differences are and why they matter so much, I don’t think your anti-SSM arguments can carry much weight.
You asked about Social Security. In the US, we spend our working lives paying part of our wages into the Social Security system (whether we want to or not), in return for which we are guaranteed some money for retirement. Social Security also provides “survivors benefits,” by which (if one member of a family dies) their spouse, their children, and their step-children can benefit from the Social Security the deceased family member has earned.
The purpose of Social Security (which was instituted after the Great Depression) is to keep workers from being penniless in their old age, and to keep worker’s families from being penniless if the worker dies.
Take two families. Family “A” consists of Bob, Sally, and Sally’s two children from a previous marriage. Family “B” is Alice, Lucy, and Lucy’s two children via artificial insemination. Bob and Alice both die in a car wreck. It seems obvious to me that Alice’s family isn’t less in need of support just because Alice was gay; however, under the US’s current laws, only Bob’s family is entitled to his benefits. (Civil unions will not solve this problem, by the way; Social Security is a federal program, which doesn’t recognize civil unions, only marriages).
You say that we shouldn’t assume that the reasoning is the same. How on earth could the reasoning be different, in this case?
I concede that responsibilities, though voluntarily assumed, may require some formal recognition to be exercised. But this is not simple even in the ordinary case of a divorced family with kids (see the divorce courts and custody battles) and I cannot agree that simply following the model of heterosexual marriage or its adoptive variants (which are even more convoluted) is necessarily the way to go.
Why not? Saying “this is not simple” is not an argument; you need to explain why the complexities referred to are enourmously different based on the sex of the couple. Why does saying “this is not simple” justify giving special, extra rights to heterosexual couples that aren’t available to same-sex couples?
You seem to think that same-sex couples are from another galaxy; that they have needs enourmously different from the needs of ordinary human beings, so that we can’t assume that something that heterosexuals find helpful will do same-sexers any good. Let me assure you that this is not the case. The digestive system is not simple, yet the food heterosexuals find filling will also feed same-sexers. Property law is not simple, but heterosexuals and same-sex couples still both seek low interest rates on their home loans.
Civil marriage in the US is a complicated suite of laws which have developed over time to help couples support each other and their families, by formalizing their benefits and responsibilities, and by providing formal recognition to them and their children as a family unit. Nothing about that is intristic to heterosexuality; same-sexers also exercise responsibility, enjoy benefits, and have a need for recognition of their families.
People may regard SS couples differently whether or not the word “marriage” is imposed by the government, just as “common law marriage” carries a stigma in some quarters although here in Australia, de facto marriage is legally identical to de jure marriage in our terminology.
Ironically, your argument here is nearly identical to the argument you entered this thread to object to.
P0) Social problem A has multiple contributing factors including B, C, D
P1) Allowing action X will not fix (or ameliorate) B
P2) Allowing action X will not fix (or ameliorate) C
P3) Allowing action X will not fix (or ameliorate) D
C1) Therefore, forbidding action X does not contribute to A.
Just because social problem A – in this case, anti-gay stigma – will not be eliminated by allowing gay marriage, in no logical way establishes that forbidding gay marriage does not contribute to stigma.
You’re correct, of course, that equal treatment under the law will not, in and of itself, eliminate stigma. However, unequal legal status is one of multiple factors perpetuating anti-gay stigma. Moving to equal treatment under the law is thus a necessary (although not sufficient) step towards eliminating as much stigma as possible.
Aw, man. I need to start checking this blog on weekends.
parallel, you seem to be implying that there would be a difference between the “responsibilities” and “benefits” of a heterosexual marriage and the “responsibilities” and “benefits” of a same-sex marriage. Could you explain what that difference would be, and why we should deny marriage to couples based entirely on sexual orientation?
I believe there’s a lot of implied value in marriage (commitment, for example, and spiritual connection). However, none of these things are required for marriage, nor is marriage the only way to achieve them. As far as the government is concerned, “marriage” is nothing more than a legal definition; everything else depends on the individual couple’s relationship. And the government shouldn’t be in the business of legislating those abstract values.
Most people, I assume, get married because they love each other. Others get married because they think it’ll help them raise a child. Some people marry so that one of the couple can stay in the country, some because they’re drunk, some to escape home, some for money, some for sex. The only thing all these marriages have in common are the legal “benefits” (ability to make health decisions, property rights, etc.). Since same-sex couples want to get married for reasons as legitimate as those above, we shouldn’t deny them government-sanctioned marriage.
Gabriel,
The responsibilities I was referring to are not those imposed by the law but the ones which have been part of marriage for quite some time, primarily duties to children and spouse. To some degree that includes the duty to care for a disabled spouse, but on reflection that really only arose since in the past there was no alternative. It is not clear that one can assume that a person would wish their care to fall onto their spouse, or even want the spouse to make decisions on their well-being – and that applies to ordinary marriages. It might be a default position in case of marriage or civil union, but allowing for either partner to nominate someone else to have that authority.
I don’t see divorce as a responsibility as such, it is rather a tidy way to finish the marriage and resolve issues. Without children, and (presumably) only financial and emotional issues, I see no difference between marriage and civil union. Perhaps I have not made it clear that here in Australia, there is no real legal difference between marriage and civil union, and little social difference apart from those who personally value marriage (primarily the religious).
Ampersand,
As far as I know, I am using the usual meaning of responsibility. Authority is something else. A parent is RESPONSIBLE for raising a child: to enable them to do so, they have the AUTHORITY to give them some control over the child. Perhaps you confuse them because the two so often go together – most systems require it in order to function. Authority without responsibility is unaccountable, responsibility without authority is impotent.
I would say that separate carriages and water fountains was the RESULT of stigma – the idea that negroes were somehow dirty – rather than cause of it.
As for men’s and women’s bathrooms, surely they are separate in public buildings as well? I thought the US was civilised! Or is that unconstitutional?
The difference between OS and SS couples is that marriage (and the concept of the family in general) evolved as an institution to serve the needs of OS couples and their place in society. It was a way of licencing procreation, ensuring the well-being of children to be raised as members of society, limiting competition among males for access to females, and had other social benefits. Although at various times and places there was legal enforcemement (either secular or ecclesiastical) in general the strength of marriage was the social sanction, the strong pressures to conform with its restrictions and responsibilities. Now some of these functions are outdated and social sanctions much weaker, but still the concept of marriage (whether or not you have the paper) is an important part of our culture.
Now you may think that as children are an optional extra today; and that even in the past there were marriages which had no children, either because of age of the female or fertility issues; and that children were born out of wedlock in the past; that marriage and biological children no longer form the tight nexus they used to. But marriage evolved with a certain proportion of childless couples and bastards, and even a certain proportion of cuckolds. But this evolution took place in the context that the majority of marriages were vanilla man+wife+their kids, and most deviations were concealed – the cuckolded husband usually kept quiet, the bastard child adopted out or the missing husband was elsewhere or dead, shotgun weddings, etc.
But it has never applied to same-sex couples, and such couples can never match the profile. They aren’t the same.
Social security – we have superannuation and pensions which work differently. Superannuation is owned by the contributor, if he or she dies, it becomes part of his or her estate and the beneficiaries of his or her will will inherit (by default, that is the usually the person they are married to). Pensions are provided by the government and actually married couples are discriminated AGAINST – the married pension is lower than two single pensions. Unmarried couples (including same sex couples) who live together while claiming two single pensions can get in trouble – actually tax inspectors can visit and count the number of beds!
When you told me the sad story of Bob, Sally, Lucy and Alice, I confess the first thing that popped into my head was to wonder why Bob and Alice were in a car together. So sue me. Since marriage is a Federal responsibility here in Oz, (it’s in our Constitution) we don’t have the issue you might have with different jurisdictions treating things differently. Married anywhere is married everywhere. The obvious answer is to have civil unions, and to petition them to be treated the same way where appropriate (as in this case, all other things being equal). To get around the inequity by simply declaring that the Lucy/Alice relationship is inherently the same as marriage IN ALL RESPECTS, rather than saying that it has equivalent justification for transferring social security as a marriage, is like getting around black-white inequality by declaring that black is white.
I don’t know what these “special rights” are that you think I am granting to heterosexual couples – unless you are thinking of marriage itself, rather than the “rights” that you think it brings. We can discuss what those rights are on a case by case basis – I think we would most likely agree almost everywhere, apart for some US/OZ cultural differences. But to say that homosexual couples have no right to be married is exactly equivalent to say they have no right to be heterosexual, since marriage has evolved as an inherently heterosexual institution.
Your description of civil marriage in the US is incorrect: there is one thing which is intrinsic to heterosexual marriage: “their children”.
I quite agree that families with same-sex parents will require some structure of recognition similar to that of a married couple with children. It doesn’t follow that it has to be identical, and I think it is not appropriate.
I take your point about the “stigma” argument – it was ironic. I think my point, that if stigma against gays is a real social problem, then forcing everyone to call them “married” doesn’t immediately spring to mind as a just or appropriate solution. To claim “I have a stigma, and you have to do what I say to fix it no matter what you think” seems rather selfish. Pure victimology. Plus, can you point to one person who would think better of gays if he/she was forced to acknowledge them as “married”?
To be honest, I can’t quite understand what this “stigma” you are talking about is. Is this some American thing? As it happens, my godson is being raised by a lesbian couple (his mother and her partner) and I am unaware of any stigma to him caused by them not being married – or even being lesbian, for that matter. My niece’s parents are not married, there is no particular stigma there. Why should there be? If there was, no doubt they would marry (they had plans to when my sister-in-law fell pregnant and just haven’t got around to it since).
Hestia,
I hope I have answered your questions in my longish reply above. It occurs to me that we might have a fundamental disagreement of what marriage actually is. The impression I get from the pro-SSM argument seems to think that marriage is a piece of paper you get from the government that gives you access to benefits and certain rights, or a state of pure bliss that it would be churlish to deny a couple simply because they have the same sex. I must have this wrong – you usanians aren’t that strange – but I would really like to know what you think we are talking about, what you see marriage as being and what role it serves in society. Remember, marriage existed long before government benefits and pieces of paper.
Of all the reasons you give for getting married, you missed out the primary one, the reason we have marriage as an institution today – to have children and raise a family together. You don’t need to get married to have gay sex, and I doubt any of the couples getting “married” haven’t been having it off for years. Health decisions and property rights are peripheral and there should be mechanisms to give others such rights (they are granted by YOU, not the government) and have it recognised without compromising a social institution which has much more important functions.
Hestia,
On checking my previous comment I see that I have accused you of being a usanian (ie. an inhabitant of the USA), on no evidence whatever. My apologies.
The impression I get from the pro-SSM argument seems to think that marriage is a piece of paper you get from the government that gives you access to benefits and certain rights
Yes, that’s it, as far as I’m concerned, and I honestly don’t understand why you think it’s so “strange.”
There’s a distinct difference between what marriage “is” and what it’s “for.” Marriage is a legal document. If it were procreation, married couples would be required to have children. If it were sanctioned sex, then we would outlaw extramarital sex. Instead, it’s a piece of paper we give to any man and woman who want it.
The answer to the question “What’s marriage for?” is complex and subjective, because the reasons people give for marrying vary so widely. The impression I get is that society at large believes marriage exists to create family units and long-term bonds between individuals, and that those bonds will lead to a better world, somehow, despite the fact that many of them end in divorce, and that parents can’t be good parents unless they’re married, because it’s hard to break out of a marriage, even though it isn’t, or something… But marriage clearly isn’t “for” supporting procreation, because heterosexual couples can easily get married without having kids.
We define “family” as either husband/wife or husband/wife/child(ren). If husband/wife is a legitimate family, why can’t husband/husband or wife/wife also fall into that category?
Of all the reasons you give for getting married, you missed out the primary one, the reason we have marriage as an institution today – to have children and raise a family together.
I’ve heard this argument over and over. It’s an opinion, not a fact, and it’s not a very easy opinion to defend.
If you feel this way, don’t you agree that all married heterosexual couples must be required to have children? and that we should outlaw all marriages that can’t or don’t produce children? And why don’t you count adopted children, or the biological child of one of the parents, as “their children”?
You’re implying here that allowing SSM will somehow destroy families. There’s absolutely no evidence that this is true. It’s not like fewer heterosexual couples will raise families, and if more gay and lesbian couples do, isn’t that a good thing? It won’t change the assumption that a stable family life is good for children, because same-sex couples can and do provide that kind of support. (Unless, of course, you think that homosexuality is unnatural, in which case we have other things to talk about.)
Before you get to “But it’s best for children to be raised by biological parents,” I’d like to point out that there’s no proof of this assertation, either, and besides, if we should only do what’s best for children, then we’d have stronger anti-poverty programs and try to seriously cut down on divorce and offer free health care to children and improve our public schools and a whole mess of other things that we don’t do. We clearly don’t aim for the ideal family life, so what’s “best” for kids is irrelevant in discussions of marriage.
But to say that homosexual couples have no right to be married is exactly equivalent to say they have no right to be heterosexual, since marriage has evolved as an inherently heterosexual institution.
Just because it “evolved” as one thing does not mean it can’t “evolve” into another. We don’t live in a static society. And your parallel between the choice to marry and the non-choice to be of a particular sexual orientation doesn’t make much sense.
I’m lost with your whole “Marriage evolved as X” point. Are you saying that because marriage has never included same-sex couples, it can never include same-sex couples?
(PS. I am indeed American. I’m amused that you think you’ve “accused” me of it. While I don’t always support my government’s actions, I’m not really ashamed of being from the United States.)
Hestia has said it all much more eloquently than I could hope for. I’d just like to add….
parallel writes: “Your description of civil marriage in the US is incorrect: there is one thing which is intrinsic to heterosexual marriage: “their children”.”
This is absolutely false. I’m married w/ no children. I doubt that I will ever have children. I know many other married couples w/ no children. That means that “their children” cannot be intrinsic to heterosexual marriage since the state of my marriage includes no children. Unless somebody can claim that I’m not married. Which would just be bizarre. There is just no way that your claim can stand up to the overwhelming evidence in front of us.
Maybe you can see how you might have lost me with that one.
Also, civil unions in the US are not identical to marriage. If they were, we’d be arguing solely about the stigma associated w/ the semantics of the situation rather than the rights denied to SS couples.
Jake is absolutely correct. I also have no children, but I am married. Parallel seems to be making distinctions based on whether a couple has children. I disagree that there should be a separate legal status for each, but suppose there were. Then same-sex couples with children should get married, and opposite-sex couples without children should have “civil unions”. A couple (regardless of gender) could have their civil union converted to a marriage when they have their first kid. It would get converted back to a civil union if they should no longer have any minor children. I don’t see any point to such a plan, but it would seem to accomplish what parallel wants.
since marriage has evolved as an inherently heterosexual institution.
As of 1919 in the United States, voting had evolved as an inherently male institution, so it makes no sense to allow women to vote.
As of 1869 in the United States, voting had evolved as an inherently white institution, so it makes no sense to allow black people to vote.
As of 1776 in the United States, voting had evolved as an inherently nonexistant institution, so it makes no sense to allow anyone to vote.
Bleh.
I love your logic.
—JRC
Gosh, you’re all piling on. I don’t think I have the time to give all your comments the justice they deserve, but I’ll try to hit the high points. I will try to address the points made more or less in order, rather than try to make a complete stand-alone argument.
Hestia,
Marriage existed long before there were pieces of paper and government benefits. It existed to serve a purpose that was critical to survival of society – and possibly still is. Alternatives are possible, but none that are compatible with our current notions of personal freedom. Perhaps this is why we disagree – you don’t see marriage as having any intrinsic value (apart from a reward for the couple involved which you cannot justify), while I do. For you the essense of marriage is the couple, of whatever orientation – for me, the essense is the future citizens.
Whatever the personal justification of marriage may be, the social justification – the reason that it is of interest to society rather than just the individuals involved – is to encourage women to bear children and for those children to be raised in a secure environment. An unacceptable alternative might be the mythical? Rape of the Sabine Women from early Rome.
The question “what is marriage FOR” does not refer to people’s reason for getting married – it refers to why there is such a thing as marriage in the first place. Yes, heterosexual couples can get married without having kids. Historically, if the woman was of childbearing age, that was usually because of infertility. But marriage still gave the couple the license to try to have children. In the modern case, where children are optional, if a couple choose not to procreate, I see no reason for society to grant them any special status or benefits – what’s in it for the rest of us? It’s just that the customs evolved before that was a real issue.
If I were designing an institution to encourage women to bear children, I might well restrict marriage to couples with children. But institutions evolve rather than are designed.
Of all the reasons to marry, only “having children and raising them” is one in which society as a whole has any interest. Why would we support any of the other reasons with status or money? Now that a license for sex is no longer required, all of the rights one can legitimately expect society to recognise, such as next-of-kin rights and inheritance rights, can be covered by such instruments as wills and powers of attorney. These are not rights granted by society, but by the other person, and society merely acknowledges them.
If “family” means “husband and wife”, why does the phrase “starting a family” refer to having their first child?
So you have heard the argument about having children being the purpose for marriage before. You seem to think that my facts are mere opinion, while your opinions are facts. Strangely, I think exactly the opposite :-) If you think you can shoot it down, you are welcome to try. Just don’t dismiss it as “hard to defend” before you’ve heard my defence.
I’m not trying to define marriage as having children, I’m saying that is why it exists. Obviously there have always been infertile couples and people who took advantage of the social status without the desire or means to have their own children. In the case of infertility – usually not known in advance except in case of advanced age of the female – marriage provided the security to TRY to have children. None of this invalidates the underlying purposes. But REDEFINING it by (in this case) judicial fiat in such a way as to separate the status of marriage from its social purpose would invalidate it.
As for adopted or step children – I didn’t know there was a requirement in the past for the adopting adult to be married (though obviously it was more convenient particularly in the case of a young child). Many weren’t adopted, that’s why there were “orphanages”. As for step-children, they were the product of a previous marriage of one parent. Neither breaks the pattern.
I have no problem with families where both adults are of the same sex (as noted above, I have fairly close connections with one) nor do I think they threaten the more usual family with opposite sex adults who are the parents to the children. I just would not describe the relationship of the adults in the former case as “married”. In all but one case, the children of the latter are actually the children of one adult brought into a later same-sex relationship. The exception is the case of a lesbian couple who deliberately have a child by means of artificial insemination or other arrangement. To my knowledge (and I’m open to correction of this) this arrangement hasn’t a great track record or lasting until the child’s maturity, but if adding the prestige and dignity of “marriage” to the relationship of the adults helps significantly, that would certainly fit my criteria. But you don’t recognise that prestige and dignity, since to you marriage is only a piece of paper.
I have never understood the “unnatural” argument (or the “sinful” one) re homosexuality. “Natural” means tetanus, dying in childbirth, losing most of your teeth by age 40. “Sin” means hurting other people unnecessarily. Exclusive homosexual relationships aren’t bad, but they aren’t a great way of producing the next generation of citizens.
On evolution: there is no reason in principle why marriage cannot evolve to include SSM, but the current change ain’t evolution, it’s social engineering which contradicts the role marriage has had in our society to this point. If such pairings turn out serving a useful social role – which I can’t see but I’m open to suggestions – then formal social recognition should follow. Given the biology, though, I can’t see that as being “marriage” since it is unlikely to serve the purpose that marriage serves.
PS. Re: Americans – for some reason, some non-Americans are insulted if they are assumed to be American.
Jake, Gabriel,
What does marriage mean to you?
If you remain childless by choice, gettng married is merely a personal convenience with no wider significance. Not that I’m advocating having children unless you want them – they are far too much work to be brought up by the half-hearted. There are other ways people can make contributions to society, if they want to.
JRC,
You missed out the EFFECTIVE granting of the franchise to negroes in the mid 1960’s.
The franchise trended closer to fulfilling its function, which was to give the people a say in the government.
In Australia, of course, we gave the women the vote from Federation (1901).
Now what do you see the function of marriage being in that same-sex marriage would be an improvement?
I think you’re missing the point. No one’s spoken at all of redefining marriage. There are some of us who favor expanding it to cover all couples who want it. If you truly believe that marriage without children and without the possibility of bearing children is without meaning, then how do you explain the sheer joy evident in those same-sex couples who have gotten married in the last couple of weeks? What I’m getting at here is that marriage does mean something more than just long-term-live-in couplehood to a large number of people, and to society in general, at least in the US. To deny that status to anyone based on who they are is against the highest law here. To legally define marriage as beween a man and a woman only serves no practical purpose other than to deny same sex couples the right to marry. It is therefore illegal. Whether individuals, even a majority of individuals, support it means nothing. That’s what’s at issue here.
Furthermore, I have yet to be presented with any evidence of any kind to support the pseudo-anthropological idea of the historical function of marriage as regards children. So all I can do is assume that it’s a myth being put forth by those who don’t believe in equal rights for all, and who wish to render certain individuals as legally sub-human.
(Dan J said it much better–and much, much more concisely–but since I took the time to write all this stuff, I’m posting it anyway.)
You think only biological parents should be married. You want to reward couples who have children. You acknowledge that there are indeed benefits to marriage: “In the modern case, where children are optional, if a couple choose not to procreate, I see no reason for society to grant them any special status or benefits.” And you apparently believe that marriage exists to help families give birth to children, not raise them. (From several of your comments, I gather that you don’t think marriage will help parents of adopted children in any way.)
I’m going to assume that you’re as fervently against marriage rights for infertile and elderly heterosexual couples and couples who don’t plan to have children as you are against marriage rights for same-sex couples. I’m also going to assume that you’re dead set against divorce and believe it should be made illegal, too, in every case.
With all due respect, I’m disappointed and a bit offended by that perspective. Let’s say I do not want children. Should I not have the right to make health decisions for my partner, or take sick leave to care for him, or inherit his savings if he were to die, or take sick leave to care for him? Many if not most benefits primarily strengthen the relationship between the couple, not the couple and their children. (See here; note this sentence: “Most of these legal and economic benefits cannot be privately arranged or contracted for…In addition, private employers and institutions often give other economic privileges and other benefits (special rates or memberships) only to married couples.”)
Your opinion also bothers me philosophically. I’m making a bit of a leap, here, but it seems to me that rewarding parenthood devalues people who aren’t parents. Does that mean non-parents contribute nothing to society? If they do, shouldn’t they be rewarded in some way, too? Or are some kind of contributions better than others?
And this: “Exclusive homosexual relationships aren’t bad, but they aren’t a great way of producing the next generation of citizens.” In other words, relationships that don’t produce children are inferior to relationships that do. Right? If you actually believe that’s true, then we have nothing further to discuss, though I’ll probably release a few expletive-laden sentences in defense of my worth as a human being as well as my relationship with my partner. (I wonder how you feel about people who have children but don’t marry. They’re “producing the next generation of citizens,” too. Why offer marriage at all if any man and woman can have a baby?)
And I’m appalled by this: “If you remain childless by choice, gettng married is merely a personal convenience with no wider significance.” Personal “convenience” (how, exactly, did love become convenience?) is the reason most couples get married. I’d venture to say that few if any children would be born if their parents didn’t get married first, not because they wanted children, but because they were interested in personal “convenience.” You show incredible disrespect and contempt for relationships that have made millions of people very, very happy. (American law, American culture, and American society at large disagree with you, by the way.)
I still don’t understand your point about the evolution of marriage. I really don’t care how we got here; I’m concerned about what it means now, how it affects people now. Past intentions are not today’s intentions. Earlier definitions of marriage have nothing to do with this discussion. Marriage does not currently exist to support procreation. If it did, we would currently not allow couples to marry if they didn’t have or weren’t planning on having children. But we do.
I understand that you want marriage to be limited to a pair of biological parents. Right now, it isn’t. Since it isn’t, how do you explain your alternative: limiting it to heterosexual couples?
Some specific comments:
If “family” means “husband and wife”, why does the phrase “starting a family” refer to having their first child?
In other words, you believe a married couple is not a family. I disagree–and so does American society, culture, and law.
You seem to think that my facts are mere opinion, while your opinions are facts.
I’m basing my argument on the fact that marriage is a set of legal rights. Hard evidence supports this definition: Any two heterosexual people can get married for any reason.
Your “fact” is that marriage exists to support procreation. But it doesn’t stand up to reality. (See last sentence of preceeding paragraph.) Whether it should support procreation is opinion.
if adding the prestige and dignity of “marriage” to the relationship of the adults helps significantly, that would certainly fit my criteria. But you don’t recognise that prestige and dignity, since to you marriage is only a piece of paper.
I never said that marriage doesn’t or can’t carry “prestige and dignity.” I personally may have no interest in it, but my opinions don’t always reflect society’s. (However, my opinions do show that the equation of marriage with prestige and dignity is not an absolute truth.) Society as a whole considers marriage to be both prestigious and dignified–despite divorce rates–and that’s exactly why we shouldn’t deny it to one group of people based on sexual orientation. If there’s a chance that marriage will help same-sex couples raise children–and, since you notice that families with unmarried parents tend to fall apart, it must–then shouldn’t we allow it?
On evolution: there is no reason in principle why marriage cannot evolve to include SSM, but the current change ain’t evolution, it’s social engineering which contradicts the role marriage has had in our society to this point.
Tell me what the difference is between “evolution” and “social engineering,” because I don’t see one. Was allowing interracial marriage “social engineering,” too?
Given the biology, though, I can’t see that as being “marriage” since it is unlikely to serve the purpose that marriage serves.
Here you’re saying that marriage exists only so children can be raised by their biological parents; this is opinion unsupported by present reality. You’re also saying that marriage can’t help same-sex couples–or heterosexual couples, either–raise adopted or half-biological (for lack of a better word) children; this is opinion unsupported by anything at all.
Parallel,
Well marriage means a lot of things to me. Most importantly my civil marriage identifies my wife as my spouse. If I was incapacitated she could make medical and financial decisions for me. If I died, she would make funeral arrangements and inherit my estate. She would be the beneficiary of my social security and life insurance. These are all social purposes. It ensures we are each cared for by someone we know and trust instead of by the state. If the only purpose of marriage were children there would be no need for the law to recognize the marriage until the first child was born. If something happened before then, tough luck.
I also had a religious marriage. This identified to my community that my wife was my wife. They recognize us as family. They know I have an obligation to care for her and she for me. Our civil marriage announces similar obligations to the broader community. This allows the government and others to make certain decisions based on this understanding. All of this relevant both before and after we have children.
At some point we do expect to have children. If she gave birth, I would be identified as the parent of the child automatically. This would benefit same-sex couples as well. You don’t need to be married to adopt, but in many states you need to be married to adopt jointly. That is to give the child two parents which is an enormous benefit to the child. Certainly marriage isn’t needed to give birth to children. It seems, as far as children are concerned, the great societal benefit of marriage comes in raising children. Same-sex couples raise children. They should be allowed to marry.
You admit marriage has evolved, but you don’t see allowing same-sex couples to legally marry as part of this evolution. Why not? The law in many states here has evolved to a point where there is no legal distinction between man and woman. As it has reached that point, there is no legal reason to deny someone a marriage license because of their sex. If you think such people are taking advantage of a loophole in the law, that’s your opinion. They’re taking advantage of the same loophole that allows the elderly or infertile to marry. In your view it should be better than an elderly couple marrying since same-sex couples might at least raise children.
Have defintional changes ever come from a judge before? Yes, often. Judges have ruled that where the law had said husband–for example, in regards to being the executor of an estate–it should now be read spouse. One of thhe most fundamental change (which came from judges in some states and legislatures in others) was the elimination of the notion of coverture. Before then, the “defenition” of marriage was the union of a man and woman into one legal identity. After marriage the woman had no separate legal identity. The elimination of coverture evolved marriage into the union of two individuals who maintained distinct legal identities and who retained individual rights. The purpose of marriage changed from a means of acquirig to a means of merging.
Perhaps of even more fundamental defintionally, was the elimination of the legal notion of legitimate children. Again this change came largely from judges. Perhaps the most important purpose of marriage before then was identifying legitimate offspring. If the marriage was valid the offspring were legitimate and could inherit. Courts repeatedly stated one of the reasons marriage was so important was it was the only way to legitimatize the children. Without marriage the children could still be born and raised.
Thus I don’t believe bearing children was ever “the purpose” of marriage. Marriage has evolved and judges have played a role in that evolution. It is natural at this point, for that evolution to consider people as human beings first and men or women second. It is also natural for courts to play a role, as they are charged with guaranteeing equal protection.
Damn, Gabriel. That was excellent. It says everything I could say and more. To answer parallel in my more modest and simple way….to me, marriage is a way of declaring my love for & devotion to my spouse to others. It is also a way to start a new family in the eyes of others. By “start a new family” I mean by the joining of non-blood related people into a family unit. Well, that’s not eloquent by any means, but I think it’s understandable. A family by choice not by blood. Is that better? And as a family, society & the law recognize certain rights and responsibilities that we have regarding each other. See Gabriel’s comment for many of those details.
Whew! I’m starting to get comment agoraphobia. I feel that I want to respond point by point, but that’s clearly impossible. OK, I try to cover the major points…
Dan J,
No one’s spoken at all of redefining marriage.
This is palpably untrue. That is exactly what is being talked of. The justification for the change – you do agree that it is a change for same sex couples to marry? – is that the old definition is discriminatory. The fact that the old definition wasn’t written down anywhere except in church services (“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony…”) doesn’t mean that it didn’t exist.
On a personal note, whenever I hear a statement like this from someone supporting SSM, it leaves me with the feeling there is something fundamentally dishonest about the enterprise. You’d be much better off just admitting you ARE redefining marriage, but explain that it is still justified because of … in fact I hadn’t even formed an opinion on SSM until I read the quote that started this comment which pegged my phony argument detector.
If you truly believe that marriage without children and without the possibility of bearing children is without meaning
No, I believe that such a marriage is of significance to the couple themselves, but not to society as a whole.
do you explain the sheer joy evident in those same-sex couples who have gotten married in the last couple of weeks?
Their happiness is the best reason I have seen for expanding marriage to include SSM, since I am generally in favour of people being happy and free. But why are they happy, if marriage (as claimed by Hestia) is just a piece of paper you get from the government that gives access to certain benefits?
I have a sneaking suspicion that at least part of their happiness is knowing they’ve outraged a section of society who disapproves of homosexuality.
the pseudo-anthropological idea of the historical function of marriage as regards children. So all I can do is assume that it’s a myth being put forth by those who don’t believe in equal rights for all, and who wish to render certain individuals as legally sub-human
Well, I’m not an anthropologist, but I do know that marriage is pretty universal in human society so it must do something. I can’t think what else that might be, and no-one has put up a viable alternative. The rest is rather unsubtle ad hominem. I suppose I should have expected it.
I’ll respond to Hestia and the others as I get the time…
But why are they happy, if marriage (as claimed by Hestia) is just a piece of paper you get from the government that gives access to certain benefits?
Well, Parallel, I believe there are two answers to that question.
First, realize that “riding in the front of the bus” isn’t, in itself, all that huge a benefit . . . and yet African Americans were thrilled to have that aspect of segregation overturned. It’s not because they got vicarious thrills by pissing off segregationists (although, if they did, who could blame them?), it’s because the legal distinction, small as it was, was designed to oppress. The same is true here. Denying marriage to same-sex couples only exists to stigmatize their relationships. It not about “protecting heterosexual marriage,” or “protecting the children,” or “protecting society,” or “protecting the churches,” or anything else. I have never heard or read an argument making any of those points that stands up to more than about 15 minutes’ scrutiny.
Second, the “certain benefits” you pooh-pooh as being insufficient to cause happiness are, in fact, HUGE. The “benefit” of knowing that your husband or wife will be able, after your death, to continue living in the home you shared. The “benefit” of being able to visit a loved one in the hospital. The “benefit” of not being compelled to testify in court against your husband or wife. The “benefit” of shared health insurance and tax status. The “benefit” of legal co-parentage of your children.
There’s nothing confusing or unusual in same-sex couples being happy, nay, THRILLED about this.
—JRC
Hestia,
You think only biological parents should be married
No, I think marriage exists as an institution to facilitate people becoming biological parents and raising their children, which in these days, with falling fertility rates, is becoming an issue it hasn’t been for a century.
you don’t think marriage will help parents of adopted children in any way more than a civil union would. Correct. Obviously it’s better for the child if it has two adults responsible for it than one.
I’m going to assume that you’re as fervently against marriage rights for infertile and elderly heterosexual couples and couples who don’t plan to have children as you are against marriage rights for same-sex couples.
This is a straw man argument as I have already addressed these issues above in my post of Feb 26, 2004, 0638 am. The point is that although these marriages do not serve the purpose of marriage, they do not threaten it either because they have always existed. I think SSM will threaten marriage.
I’m also going to assume that you’re dead set against divorce and believe it should be made illegal, too, in every case.
Why do you assume that? Are you also going to assume, without evidence, that I oppose contraception and abortion?
With all due respect, I’m disappointed and a bit offended by that perspective. Let’s say I do not want children…
I see no cause for offence – have I missed something? In any case, it was unintentional. If I wanted to offend you, you would be in no doubt. :-)
As for the long list of Federal benefits, I think you will find that most have been attached to “marriage” either to encourage the responsible bearing and raising of children, or for other purposes. It makes sense to me that if civil unions (which I support) are developed, that most of those laws should be changed to apply to civil unions on a case by case basis. Those benefits which are actually grants of rights to one’s spouse should be identical whatever the gender of that spouse. I’d even suggest that heterosexual couples should be able to contract “civil unions” with the option to change if they decide to have children. Similarly with lesbian couples – the implication would be that the non-biological parent accepts the additional shared reponsibilities for the children.
This makes sense from another perspective, since it is not unusual for a married couple to have different views on children. If getting “married” (as opposed to civil union) carried the social implication of trying to have children at some point, and also explicitly meaning that both parents intended to take responsibility for them when that happened, then some problems would be avoided. I was thinking of a case where a woman wanted to use sperm from her dead husband to have a child, but a judge refused because being married was not proof that he wanted to bring a child into the world.
rewarding parenthood devalues people who aren’t parents…
… and giving a first prize devalues the people who come second. The reward is to encourage, not to devalue others.
which leads you to infer that I believe that And this: “Exclusive homosexual relationships aren’t bad, but they aren’t a great way of producing the next generation of citizens.” In other words, relationships that don’t produce children are inferior to relationships that do
Sorry, that was unfortunately phrased: I didn’t intend the words “aren’t bad” to imply “not good” or “mediocre”. Please read that as saying “There is nothing wrong with exclusive homosexual relationships, but…”
Hestia, you have already stated that you believe marriage is solely a piece of paper from the government that entitles you to certain benefits. So now you are implying that value of your relationship is determined by the government benefits it delivers. I don’t want to go into details, but surely the value of a relationship has more to do with the happiness the partners derive from it?
As for your question about unmarried parents: there’s nothing wrong with that if the both take responsibility for raising the children. In Australia, that is quite a common pattern and no different in law from being married, actually. For the case of a single parent, it is harder to do a good job raising children by yourself, and you are much more likely to depend upon state aid to do so.
Why offer marriage? Because this arrangement supplies the best and safest conditions for a woman to bear and raise children. It’s possible to do it other ways, but usually harder. Oh, it has rewards for men as well which is why it arose in the first place – it just happened, it wasn’t designed.
how, exactly, did love become convenience
The question more accurately is, how did love become a part of marriage? “Romantic love” is a recent addition and not widespread – and I suspect not the best foundation for a long relationship. But what I meant by “convenience” is that it is simply a private matter, as I don’t see that society has any pressing concern with a couple unless there are children involved. They could love each other, just friends having sex, or strangers sharing accomodation – the value to each other varies widely, but this is not societies concern, apart from recording if they have granted any rights to each other.
I don’t know what americans think, but it seems to me that if a potentially fertile OS couple gets married without even considering whether or not they want to have children, they’re not taking it seriously.
Past intentions are not today’s intentions
I can see where you are coming from and I think your point is well made, but I disagree with your conclusions. It is the positive role marriage plays in society, not intentions, that should determine the outcome. I believe that marriage has “prestige and dignity” and that these are (i) derived from its long history; (ii) important to the role it plays in society in encouraging responsible childbearing and rearing; and (iii) that role is still important. This is why I think gay marriage (as opposed to civil unions) would damage society. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, any more than common divorce was the end of the world, but society will be the poorer for it.
But since you insist that there could be no other meaning of marriage than that “piece of paper you get from the government that gives access to benefits and rights” and that it is “strange for anyone to believe otherwise” you are unlikely to understand this.
Marriage does not currently exist to support procreation.
They why does it exist, in your opinion? If it serves no social purpose and causes such conflict, why aren’t you advocating removing it altogether?
I wrote: If “family” means “husband and wife”, why does the phrase “starting a family” refer to having their first child?
In other words, you believe a married couple is not a family. Idisagree–and so does American society, culture, and law.
So if a new bride told you that she and her husband planned to wait a couple of years to get settled and then start a family, you wouldn’t know what she meant, eh? And I though Americans were supposed to understand English. Starting a family is a common idiom that means having children, not a definition of family (which actually has several meanings). In this context, it means children. You should considert the significance of this.
Any two heterosexual people can get married for any reason.
Not true. Brothers and sisters cannot get married. Now why do you think we have that rule if marriage is a piece of paper? Discrimination! Unconstitutional!
Was allowing interracial marriage “social engineering,” too?
Actually forbidding interracial marriage was social engineering, both in the American South and in Nazi Germany (steering perilously close to invoking Godwin’s Law).
Here you’re saying that marriage exists only so children can be raised by their biological parents
No I’m not, I’m saying marriage exists so that children will get born with a reasonable prospect of surviving and being raised properly with both biological parents. This assumes that the mother has some choice in the matter, of course. These days, surviving and being raised are much less dependent on biological parents: the getting born part is still very dependent.
I think SSM will threaten marriage.
How, specifically, and by what mechanism, specifically, do you believe that SSM threatens traditional marriage?
What I’m looking for is something in the form of: “If gay marriage is allowed, fewer heterosexual couples will become married [specific threat]because they would rather not be involved in a process which includes homosexuals [specific mechanism].”
I’m not saying that’s your argument, of course, just trying to give an example of what I’d like to see. Also, if we had an actual falsifiable argument about specifics to look at, we could test those specifics against countries that already have legal SSM, and bring actual facts into the debate.
Call me crazy, but I think that would be neat.
—JRC
Gabriel,
Many of your “civil marriage” rights are rights granted by your spouse to you rather than benefits conferred by the state. I agree that there is no reason that a civil union cannot work the same way.
The ceremonial announcement part could also be a part of a civil union. I think the religious part may be a problem for most religions in the case of SSM, but people can invent their own as long as they don’t feel they require religious sanction.
So why are civil unions unacceptable again?
If your wife gives birth, you would normally get the status of social and biological father. I don’t see that this benefits a same-sex marriage since it would be obvious that the spouse is not the biological father. Suddenly the old ways of dealing with this no longer work, and it is futile to pretend otherwise. In my experience, which may not be universally true, it is a matter of “mother and mother’s partner”, not “mother and father”.
So, why should be modify an institution which has served us so well, when civil union seems to be an alternative?
The law may be written in gender neutral language and properly so, but it still distinguishes between men and women. Just try that argument on a cop after walking into a women’s toilet. I also suspect if you indicated that you were female on some official form, the state wouldn’t be quite so gender blind. I would even guess your wife couldn’t legally walk around without a top on, while you could.
Judges may evolve the law or legal definitions, but it does not follow that all such evolutions are good or acceptable. Some lead to legislative change or appeal court overrule. Some lead to terrible injustice. It seems to me that this particular ruling which fundamentally changes an important social institution should have happened in a more democratic manner instead of judicial fiat – and the filibuster in the MA house was disgraceful.
I believe that it is absurd to claim that the most important aspect of marriage was to define legitimate children for the purposes of inheritance. If that were the case, why would this be at all applicable to gay marriage where any children are definitely not the biological offspring of both adults?
You also ignore the institution whereby a male could acknowledge his offspring by a woman not his wife, and the legal consequences of this.
Without marriage the children could still be born and raised
I think you will find that in almost all cases where a child was raised by both biological parents who were not married (to each other), that the parents could not marry for some legal reason. They probably would have considered themselves married and internalised the social sanctions applicable to that status, even if it wasn’t recognised by the rest of the community.
Marriage existed long before judges. I bet you could go to any primitive tribe on earth and find something which is recognisably marriage in the sense of binding a male to one (or more) women and their children. Even the language recognised this: prior to family names, you have names like “Edward, son of John” which still exist in the Russian patronymic and I believe also in Hebrew even though family names are used. Judges may have codified it by writing down what the current practise was, and possibly arbitrating on the thorny problems that human institutions always seem to generate, but discontinuous changes such as coverture probably only happen in response to existing changes in society and without changing the fundamental institution.
I think the proposed changes ARE fundamental and should not be done by judicial fiat.
Thus I don’t believe bearing children was ever “the purpose” of marriage.
One of two purposes, the other being to reduce violent competition among males for access to females. Note: these are the functions it had in society which made it useful, univeral, and persistent in its myriad forms, not necesarily the purpose of those who participated in it. So, what if any social function did marriage serve, and what does it serve today?
Jake,
That’s a good answer as to what marriage means to you.
The next question is how a civil union, which hypothetically gave the same recognition of mutual rights and responsibilities and the same government benefits, would be different. Recall that much of the debate (the rational part of the debate that is) is over the issue of whether civil unions, properly constituted, would serve the needs of same-sex couples.
parallel, the problem I’m having with your argument is that it isn’t based in reality. According to the government, marriage is not about procreation in any way, shape, or form. There’s hard evidence to support this fact, which I’ve mentioned several times: Thousands of legitimately married couples do not have children and do not intend to have children.
Whether marriage should be about procreation is irrelevent–rather, it’s a different discussion, one I’d be happy to consider–because the issue is whether same-sex couples should be allowed to enter into marriage as it currently exists. The government offers benefits to married couples regardless of parental intentions, and in light of this fact there is no good reason to deny it to same-sex couples. (Sidenote: Even if it is about procreation, same-sex couples have and raise children, too.)
You’re being a bit disingenuous in saying that I consider marriage to be nothing more than a piece of paper. Technically that’s true. But I also said: “I believe there’s a lot of implied value in marriage (commitment, for example, and spiritual connection). However, none of these things are required for marriage, nor is marriage the only way to achieve them. As far as the government is concerned, ‘marriage’ is nothing more than a legal definition; everything else depends on the individual couple’s relationship. And the government shouldn’t be in the business of legislating those abstract values.”
Personal intentions and marriage’s implied values are indeed important both to individual couples and society as a whole–at least as important as the legal benefits. However, there isn’t any one set of personal intentions–love, commitment, parenthood, boredom, social pressure–that marriage requires, which is where your argument falls apart.
My main questions that I’m hoping you take time to answer: Do you agree that the current definition of marriage–the one upon which the issuance of marriage certificates, and therefore the status of marriage, depends–doesn’t require procreation? Assuming you do agree, what function does marriage currently serve? Also, what’s the difference between a married hetero couple without kids and a married same-sex couple without kids, and why should we allow the former and not the latter? and what’s the difference between a married hetero couple with biological or adopted children and a married same-sex couple with biological or adopted children, and why should we allow the former and not the latter?
A couple other points:
Actually forbidding interracial marriage was social engineering
So…forbidding SSM is social engineering, right?
I think you will find that in almost all cases where a child was raised by both biological parents who were not married (to each other), that the parents could not marry for some legal reason.
Where did you get this idea, especially since there’s no reason (that I can think of) they wouldn’t be allowed to get married? Why is it so strange to think that a couple raising a child would choose not to get married?
So why are civil unions unacceptable again?
Because they leave open the possibility for both private and public discrimination (for example, if an employer requires a “marriage” certificate before they offer joint health insurance), and they keep gay and lesbian relationships in an “other,” “abnormal” (i.e., non-mainstream) role for absolutely no valid reason whatsoever.
Let me turn your question back to you: If they offer the exact same benefits, and if marriage will continue to be available to heterosexual couples who can’t or don’t intend to have children, then why complicate matters with civil unions?
JRC,
Sorry for not responding sooner – your short question was lost between two rather longer posts of mine.
>>I think SSM will threaten marriage.
How, specifically, and by what mechanism, specifically, do you believe that SSM threatens traditional marriage?
To answer that, you have to agree that marriage actually has some value to society, and that it is possible for this value to be lessened or removed. From the other posts on this thread, this opinion is not widely held. However, my reasoning is as follows.
The value of marriage to society – as opposed to the individual – is to encourage the bearing and raising of children. There are other benefits that flow from this – for example, an adult who has offspring to cherish has a greater interest in the longer term, such as what the world will be like after they die, and a desire to pass on knowledge and accumulated wealth to his or her children – and these are also great goods for society.
Marriage gives this value by means of its “prestige and dignity”, and this is primarily as a result of its long and successful history. Getting married is a big step, it should represent a commitment by each individual to something larger than themselves. Specifically in the case of the husband, this ordinarily includes an expectation that he will support his wife and their children will be raised jointly. Breaking this compact traditionally has social costs to the errant spouse.
In the last few decades, governments have made laws relating to married couples and offered certain benefits. The justification for this is primarily in recognising that bearing and raising a family has a financial cost (particularly to the mother).
The press for gay marriage seems almost entirely based on self-interest. Some have argued here that it is just a piece of paper with government benefits. Some have claimed that it is a “right” to be married and thus to lay claim to the status society awards to marriage. Marriage is redefined to centre on the two individuals and their interests instead of on man, wife, and their children.
Marriage thus redefined loses much of its benefits to society. If marriage is a matter of self interest – status or government benefits – it is of little concern if one partner later reconsiders their interests and decides to proceed elsewhere. Marriage becomes a matter of convenience rather than committment.
Thus the institution of marriage is damaged. In turn, this harms society as a whole.
The decline in prestige of the marriage weakens the bonds keeping families together, which has costs to society in support payments to single mothers, children being raised in less ideal circumstances, and a weakening of the social ideals of personal responsibility. Women will be less ready to commit to bearing children if there is less chance the father will still be there in a few years time. Possibly some government benefits, which are only justified because they recompense couples who have generally raised children, will be diluted by being applied to almost invariably have not.
What I’m looking for is something in the form of: “If gay marriage is allowed, fewer heterosexual couples will become married [specific threat]because they would rather not be involved in a process which includes homosexuals [specific mechanism].”
I’ve tried my best. How about doing the same analysis with specific benefits for redefining marriage to include homosexual unions, with specific mechanisms. Note that its the benefits that EXCEED the benefits of civil unions that matter.
I’m not saying that’s your argument, of course, just trying to give an example of what I’d like to see. Also, if we had an actual falsifiable argument about specifics to look at, we could test those specifics against countries that already have legal SSM, and bring actual facts into the debate.
Call me crazy, but I think that would be neat.
That would be neat, but I do call you crazy. Falsifiable arguments in the social sciences? You jest, surely. I claim plausibility, possibly even likely, but no more. As for comparisons with other countries… well, ideally you want a country very like the USA, but with SSM. Surely you realise that there is NO country, with SSM or not, that is at all like the US. As a veteran of many debates on the topic of gun control, country comparisons are facile and pointless.
Hestia,
I would love to have the chance to consider your latest post and respond appropriately, but I’m not likely to have the time for a couple of days at least. It may not look it, but you lot are really making me work at this. I’ll try to reply as soon as I have the time.
Parallel wrote: The value of marriage to society – as opposed to the individual – is to encourage the bearing and raising of children.
No, that’s wrong. For one thing, there’s no evidence that marriage increases the number of children who are born and raised – it might decrease it, by discouraging men from sleeping with multiple women.
What you mean, I think, is that the value of marriage to society is to encourage children to be raised in the best possible situation; all else being equal, it is better for a child to be raised by married biological parents.
However, right away I have to marvel about how one-dimension and simplistic your view of marriage is. Is that all marriage is for? If we took your views seriously, we’d have to conclude that childless marriages have no value. We’d also have to wonder about laws that allow heterosexual cousins to marry so long as they are infertile – if you were right and heterosexual procreation was the only purpose of marriage, then such laws would never exist.
Moreover, gays and lesbians will be having and raising children regardless of the marriage laws. Since that’s the case, isn’t it better for them to be raised within marriage?
Marriage gives this value by means of its “prestige and dignity”, and this is primarily as a result of its long and successful history.
First of all, by linking marriage to discrimination – which making it an exclusively heterosexual institution does – you’re reducing marriage’s prestige and dignity. (Did you read the recent Village Voice article about the growing trend of young heterosexuals refusing to get married because they don’t want to be part of a discriminatory institution?)
Second of all, for most of history marriage has been a means of trading women like property from their fathers to husbands. A married woman had few property rights, and until very recently husbands had the de facto legal right to rape their wives.
Marriage is now much-improved from what it used to be, but only because activists have successfully changed our society’s understanding (both legal and extralegal) of marriage. What I conclude from this is that changing marriage doesn’t necessarily harm it. Marriage reactionaries – those who have been saying “don’t change it” – have a long history of being wrong.
Considering how much of marriage’s history is disgusting and wrapped in misogyny, I cannot consider any argument based on “two thousand years ago, when barbarians conquered weaker city-states, raped the women and declared them ‘wives,’ the resulting marriages were opposite-sex” to be very compelling. You obviously view history through rose-colored glasses, Parallel; the real history of marriage isn’t as pure and admirable as you’re implying, and it’s certainly not something we want to thoughtlessly emulate in our society.
Am I saying marriage has no value? Of course not. I am saying that the value of marriage is based on its benefits for our present society. Considering how often marriage in the past has been based, in part or in whole, on elements we’d find unsavory nowadays, it’s a bad idea to suggest that we model today’s marriage on what was done a thousand years ago, or even a hundred years ago. A more intelligent approach is to apply the best parts of marriage to our current society.
Specifically in the case of the husband, this ordinarily includes an expectation that he will support his wife and their children will be raised jointly. Breaking this compact traditionally has social costs to the errant spouse.
But nowadays this is understood to be mutual. If the husband is unemployed and the wife is not, the wife is expected to share with her husband, rather than letting him starve or throwing him out of the house, and the same for her children. I know couples in which the wife works and the husband stays at home taking care of the children; that arrangement works fine.
Nothing about this is inapplicable to same-sex couples with children. Every benefit you mention, would benefit same-sex families as well.
The press for gay marriage seems almost entirely based on self-interest.
You say this over and over, but you haven’t supported this with either logic or evidence. Are we supposed to just take your word for it?
To want to be better able to form a family and carry out responsibilities to one’s family is not “entirely based on self-interest.” To want to be able to take one’s place in society as part of a new family unit, to be the responsibility of and responsible for a mate, and to form a stable home environment for raising one’s children is not the purely self-interested thing you think it is. Yes, it benefits the people getting married; but it also benefits their families, their children, and society as a whole. That you keep on calling the desire for marriage a matter of pure self-interest shows that you have no perception of what the issues involved are, and calls into question whether you understand the idea of marriage at all.
What you don’t seem to understand is that gays and lesbians are pretty much like heterosexuals. In your mind, heterosexuals get married out of high, virtuous, unselfish reasons, while gays get married out of pure self-interest. In the real world, however, same-sex and op-sex couples form relationships for pretty much the same reasons, and get married (or would, if they were allowed) for pretty much the same reasons.
Also, you keep on talking as if all same-sex couples are childless, and all op-sex couples have (or want) children. This is not true; the more often you base your arguments on these implicit assumptions, the clearer it is that the case against SSM has very little connection to reality.
As for comparisons with other countries… well, ideally you want a country very like the USA, but with SSM.
So make some predictions. It’s clear that Massachusetts will soon have legal same-sex marriage. What changes can we expect to see in Massachusetts as a result, compared to other NorthEastern states? And how large will the differences be, and how long will they take to come about? If you’re not willing to put your money where your mouth is and predict some real harms, then I don’t see how you can expect us to take those alleged “harms” seriously.
Marriage is redefined to centre on the two individuals and their interests instead of on man, wife, and their children.
Did you read the essay that Amp reposted a while back about the woman who had no end of legal troubles taking care of her late partner’s disabled children because they couldn’t be married and so she wasn’t recognised as a co-parent? Maybe you should read it and then come back and defend the above statement.
You want to pretend that because it’s easier for heterosexual couples to procreate that they’re the only ones doing it. It just ain’t so. Gay couples can raise children too, and the strongest argument for allowing them to marry is to give those children the security that the children of married heterosexual couples already enjoy.
[Link added by Amp]
I just want to reiterate what other people (Ampersand and Nick most recently) have said:
If marriage is indeed related to procreation, it can serve two purposes. First, it can promote the conception of new children. I don’t really think we need, or should have, a program to reward childbirth at this point. People are going to have children regardless of the availability of institutions to support them; they don’t have more children because marriage exists, and they won’t have fewer children if it didn’t exist, or if it’s offered to same-sex couples. Besides, we’ve got more than enough people on the planet right now. A slightly smaller birthrate might not be be such a bad thing.
Second, marriage could exist to help parents raise children. In that case, it should help families raise all children: biological, step-, and adopted. Children will continue to live in divorced and/or remarried families, they will continue to be abandoned and orphaned. Limiting the benefits of marriage only to biological children, then, seems cruel and unfair to other children. In that case, we should definitely allow same-sex couples to get married, as they raise biological and adopted children, too.
Parallel:
I think Hestia, Ampersand, and Nick have covered most of what I would have said in response, but I did want to take the time to briefly answer the questions you asked of me and to ask a few in return…
So why are civil unions unacceptable again?
I wrote about this a few weeks ago.
I don’t see that this benefits a same-sex marriage since it would be obvious that the spouse is not the biological father.
In a same-sex marriage the spouse would be indentified as the other parent. This is an enormous benefit to the child. I’m wondering why is the distinction “biological” so important to you? You use it repeatedly to differentiate. In our laws we don’t make this distinction, nor do the people I know make it socially. I refer to both “biological” and “adoptive” cousins as just “cousins”. I have friends who adopted a daugher from China and also have a “biological” son. I refer to both of them as “their children” equally without distinction.
but discontinuous changes such as coverture probably only happen in response to existing changes in society and without changing the fundamental institution. I think the proposed changes ARE fundamental and should not be done by judicial fiat.
But the elimination of coverture did change the fundmentals of marriage as understood at the time. People said the change would destroy the institution and that it went against the laws of God. Furthermore, gay marriage is also a response to changes in our society–amongs these are the legal equality of men and women, and the recognition of gays as full and equal humans. Why is this change so bad, but other changes are so good?
So, what if any social function did marriage serve, and what does it serve today?
I can’t answer this question briefly. There are so many functions, past and present. I would suggest What is Marriage For? by E.J. Graff. She looks at the functions it has served and does serve and places them into six broad categories: Money, Sex, Babies, Kin, Order, and Heart. She also notes that, as applied today, all of reasons make sense for same-sex couples as well.
Hestia,
I meant what I said – the value to society is to encourage the bearing and raising of children. When women have a choice, they prefer to bear children with the father to help. Babies born to single mothers are often (usually?) a burden on society, so for the cost of one such child, society could support more than one being raised in a family with married parents. I agree that biological parents are generally better for children, all other things being equal – of course in many cases they are not equal. Most men would feel a stronger bond with their own child than that sired by another, and the mores surrounding marriage means that it is far more likely that his wife’s child is also his, so here marriage serves the reproductive interests of both men, women, and society.
I don’t agree with your argument that the law follows what is good for society – many laws are not (eg. anti-sodomy laws). You could only argue that outlawing non-fertile marriages would not harm society’s interest (since no fewer children would be born as a result) but even then you would need to show that no other social interest is harmed, and even then I would argue that – since infertile male-female pairings have always existed – having them remain lawful is both in keeping with the historical institution of marriage, and also does not harm procreative marriage the way that SSM marriage will.
If you think my view of marriage is one-dimensional, what of your own? Marriage is far more than that – for the individuals concerned – but since we are talking about government benefits and social status – that “piece of paper” – only society’s interest are significant.
In the case of SS couples raising children, why, exactly, would it be better if they were married – or rather, had some government-defined pseudo-marriage with no relationship but the name to the historical institution? This is not to say that SS relationships cannot have romantic bonds just as strong or as meaningful as hetero ones, its just that I don’t see the difference “marriage” would make more than a civil union would.
Your story about young heterosexuals not getting married because of “discrimination” amuses me. Obviously this improves the gene pool because some stupid people are less likely to reproduce, and society is better off because they won’t absorb those government benefits. If they value it so little, it wouldn’t do them any good anyway.
Your criticism of marriage in the past are ill-aimed. Those were not faults of the institution, but of society as a whole that women were subservient. This was never an essential part of the institution. Our view of marriage hasn’t changed, rather our view of women. The real impact of these changes has little to do with fathers passing their daughters over to their husbands, or the fact that the husband had a legal right to have sex with his wife (no, not a right to rape, just that rape was – by definition – impossible). The real impact on marriage – which we are still trying to sort out – is the working mother and families with children where both parents work outside the home as a very common pattern.
Your point that marriage in the past was imperfect – by our standards – seems like you are arguing for NO marriage, not an expanded definition… is that your real position? From my point of view, you are arguing in favour of something quite destructive to the institution, and all you are interested in is the name.
Nothing about this is inapplicable to same-sex couples with children. Every benefit you mention, would benefit same-sex families as well.
You misunderstand the nature of the benefit, then. Why should a gay couple participating in a “marriage” redefined by government or judicial fiat feel any greater responsibility to bear and raise children (who would be biologically related to only one of them) than they would without the “piece of paper”? For that matter, wouldn’t the responsibility felt by a hetero couple be less under those circumstances than now, when marriage (through its prestige, etc.) still carries some weight?
>>The press for gay marriage seems almost entirely based on self-interest.
(You say this over and over, but you haven’t supported this with either logic or evidence. Are we supposed to just take your word for it?
Perhaps I was unclear – I meant that the press for gay marriage as opposed to civil unions. I thought that should be clear from the context, since I have several times written that I support the idea of civil unions.
You haven’t given a single argument as to any other reason for wanting “marriage” as opposed to “civil union”, and in fact you have several times demonstrated that you hold the institution of marriage in some contempt. That “piece of paper”, and your extremely negative recounting of marriage through history. So why should those of us who DO value marriage have to change it so suit those who DON’T?
Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to argue to remove financial benefits for married couples?
That you keep on calling the desire for marriage a matter of pure self-interest
I think I called it that once and I haven’t seen anything to refute it. You have made this accusation – of repeating this argument – more often than I actually made it. :-)
shows that you have no perception of what the issues involved are, and calls into question whether you understand the idea of marriage at all.
Hestia, earlier you agreed that, as far as you were concerned, marriage is a piece of paper you get from the government that gives you access to benefits and certain rights, and that you couldn’t understand why I thought that attitude strange. Now I will agree that your attitude seems to have gone through a considerable evolution since then, but I honestly don’t think you are at the point when you can claim that I am the one who doesn’t understand marriage.
If you’re not willing to put your money where your mouth is and predict some real harms, then I don’t see how you can expect us to take those alleged “harms” seriously.
Look at the post below yours, in my reply to JRC, where I address this question in detail.
PS. Early on, you raised the issue (false, to my mind) that not recognising SSM was “discrimination”, and that civil unions would fail by analogy to the “separate but (un)equal” decisions of the SCOTUS. I happened to come across an article by Eugene Volokh, a constitutional lawyer who happens to support SSM, but who thinks this argument is bogus, and whose reply is EXACTLY what I would have written if I were a genius who happened to be a constitutional lawyer.
http://volokh.com/2004_02_29_volokh_archive.html#107825038066155066
Aaargghhh!!
I thought I was replying to Hestia, and just realised I was replying to Ampersand.
As usual, I notice this 15 milliseconds after pressing the Post button.
Sorry, I am an idiot. But you probably guessed that anyway.
So, some of the replies to arguments Ampersand made (which I thought were made by Hestia) and that I refuted by reference to previous posts by Hestia (rather than Ampersand) should now be disregarded.
Particular apologies to Ampersand for the snarky tone in replying to arguments that would have been snarky if they had come from Hestia.
And apologies to Hestia for not replying to her post before Ampersand’s.
Not a problem. Having read your answers to Ampersand’s post–and I have some comments on them, and also on the part of Volokh’s post you refer to, but I’ll wait to see if you address my concerns later–I’m curious to see how you’re going to answer mine.
(In case anyone’s interested, I posted a response to the part of Volokh’s post that parallel praises here. Basically I say “separate but unequal” applies to sexual orientation, not gender, as Volokh suggests.)
Hestia,
In response to your post of March 1, 2004 08:38 AM (this time!)
According to the government, marriage is not about procreation in any way, shape, or form.
You have the citation from the government that says this?…
There’s hard evidence to support this fact, which I’ve mentioned several times: Thousands of legitimately married couples do not have children and do not intend to have children.
This statement – like the one which started this thread – is a logical fallacy. This is like saying seatbelts have nothing to do with safety, since people still get killed wearing them, and people survive crashes who don’t. Not all thieves go to jail and not everyone in jail is a thief, so jail has nothing to do with theft.
The government offers benefits to married couples regardless of parental intentions, and in light of this fact there is no good reason to deny it to same-sex couples.
Were we discussing marriage, or benefits? If the government – actually, the people – choose to offer benefits to SS couples – that is a separate issue from marriage as such. In fact, this argument is exactly why I believe the motivation behind SSM is self-interest. The reason they want to adopt the name is so as to gain access to those benefits whether they are warranted or not.
You’re being a bit disingenuous in saying that I consider marriage to be nothing more than a piece of paper. Technically that’s true. But I also said: “I believe there’s a lot of implied value in marriage (commitment, for example, and spiritual connection).”
A key point. Commitment is important for an OS marriage since bearing and raising children us a long term proposition. Traditional marriage reinforces this – it isn’t “implied” value that is added by the married state, rather it is the set of social expectations and the sanctions applied against violators.
But in the SS case, not only is the commitment aspect less important (as far fewer such unions would bear children), but I see no reason to think that “marriage” would add any value to that commitment. I believe that SS couples can be as devoted to each other for as long as OS couples, but I don’t see that as being a function of being married or not.
However, none of these things are required for marriage, nor is marriage the only way to achieve them. As far as the government is concerned, ‘marriage’ is nothing more than a legal definition; everything else depends on the individual couple’s relationship. And the government shouldn’t be in the business of legislating those abstract values.”
If the government is only concerned with a legal definition, and is trying to keep that definition from being changed by judicial fiat, I don’t see that it is legislating abstract values.
Do you agree that the current definition of marriage–the one upon which the issuance of marriage certificates, and therefore the status of marriage, depends–doesn’t require procreation?
It doesn’t require procreation, but that is nevertheless the fundamental justification for the institution, the reason why it exists and is almost universal across many different societies. The one thing that IS required at present is that it be between one man and one woman.
If I may employ an analogy, is driving a car a necessary consequence of getting a driver’s licence? I know two people who hold licenses but haven’t driven since the test. Would you thus reason that the licence and driving the car are unrelated?
>>Actually forbidding interracial marriage was social engineering
So…forbidding SSM is social engineering, right?
No. If you think about it, you will see why. Nor is the forbidding of inter-racial marriage – actually, an attempt to reduce inter-racial SEX and hence miscegenation – at all related to forbidding SSM which does not limit sex in any way – or any other behaviour that I’m aware of – rather, it is refusing to change the definition of a long lived institution to suit a minority and against the wishes of the majority.
>>So why are civil unions unacceptable again?
Because they leave open the possibility for both private and public discrimination (for example, if an employer requires a “marriage” certificate before they offer joint health insurance), and they keep gay and lesbian relationships in an “other,” “abnormal” (i.e., non-mainstream) role for absolutely no valid reason whatsoever.
What is your basis for assuming that accomdations worked out for OS couples are automatically applicable for SS couples?
It seems likely to me that some cases of different treatment would be justified, and some others not. Which is which may take a while to work out. For example, if a benefit is calculated on some data representing MF couples, but the relevant data for MM and FF is different, can that be taken into account? Or by saying – by judicial fiat – that all marriages are the same, should benefits be reduced for the MF couples. Is that your idea of justice?
Let me turn your question back to you: If they offer the exact same benefits, and if marriage will continue to be available to heterosexual couples who can’t or don’t intend to have children, then why complicate matters with civil unions?
For two reasons. Firstly, I think this will do real damage to the institution of marriage and hence society as a whole. Secondly, marriage is not a matter of mere words, it is something which is extremely important to many people. Finally, the majority of citizens oppose the change to marriage, whereas civil unions have a smaller number of objectors.
||
parallel: “If I may employ an analogy, is driving a car a necessary consequence of getting a driver’s licence? I know two people who hold licenses but haven’t driven since the test. Would you thus reason that the licence and driving the car are unrelated?”
Bad analogy. See, if you are caught driving a car w/o a driver’s license you are penalized by the government. If you are caught having a child w/o a marriage license, the government does not penalize you. Thus it follows that, in government’s view, a drivers license is required to drive an auto while a marriage license is NOT required to procreate.
I still haven’t seen any evidence that marriage was created primarily to promote procreation. Can you provide us with any?
A couple basic points:
You seem to believe that the only reason same-sex couples want to get married is for the benefits. That’s not true. They want to get married for the same (personal) reasons–love is probably the most popular one–opposite-sex couples want to get married, which include, but don’t consist solely or even primarily of, those benefits. While I’m at it, opposite-sex couples don’t marry for the benefits, either, or just so they can have children, which implies that there’s more to marriage than procreation–and it’s that “more” that same-sex couples want.
As far as commitment is concerned, yes, it may help raise children, but that’s not the only reason commitment is important to couples who are or plan to get married. To most people, commitment means spending the rest of one’s life caring for another person. If society as a whole sees commitment as an implied value in marriage, then it makes sense that many same-sex couples would feel more committed if they were married. If they were raised, as most of us were, to equate marriage with an ultimate commitment (divorce aside), then of course they, too, would believe that marriage would change/improve their relationship.
Also, same-sex relationships are essentially the same as opposite-sex relationships. Both (can) involve spending time together, having sex, sharing finances, raising children, running errands, etc. I can’t think of one thing that applies to all heterosexual relationships and no homosexual relationships, and vice versa.
Finally, you missed a couple of my questions: What’s the difference between a married hetero couple without kids and a married same-sex couple without kids, and why should we allow the former and not the latter? and what’s the difference between a married hetero couple with biological or adopted children and a married same-sex couple with biological or adopted children, and why should we allow the former and not the latter?
You have the citation from the government that says [marriage is not about procreation]?
I don’t need a citation. All I need is evidence that the government allows couples to get married without requiring them to have children.
This is like saying seatbelts have nothing to do with safety, since people still get killed wearing them, and people survive crashes who don’t.
This doesn’t make any sense. I’m not talking about an abstract concept like “safety” or “theft,” I’m talking about marriage as defined by the government. Although if you want to stick with that argument, then marriage is also about sharing a house, knowing another person in any capacity, and domestic abuse.
(as far fewer such unions would bear children)
Please provide evidence that a smaller percentage of married same-sex couples would raise children than married opposite-sex couples. How, exactly, does sexual orientation affect desire for children? If commitment supports procreation, I posit that an ability to marry would encourage more same-sex couples to raise children.
If the government is only concerned with a legal definition, and is trying to keep that definition from being changed by judicial fiat, I don’t see that it is legislating abstract values.
The government isn’t trying to keep the definition of marriage from changing (the FMA isn’t going to pass), and it shouldn’t; otherwise, we’d still ban interracial marriage, etc. It is and must be concerned with the question of whether or not banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. If the government determines that we should ban SSM because marriage is about procreation, then to be consistent it must also ban divorce and marriages between couples who can’t/don’t plan to have children. But if consistency doesn’t matter…well, then we might as well make whatever laws the majority wants. Christianity for everyone! (That’s what the courts are for, I think: to ensure consistency in law based on the Constitution.)
It seems likely to me that some cases of different treatment would be justified, and some others not.
Examples, please? I can’t think of a single one.
Firstly, I think this will do real damage to the institution of marriage and hence society as a whole.
In what way? How, exactly? How will currently-married couples be affected? How will couples who intend to marry be affected? How will the raising of children be affected? If divorce didn’t damage marriage, how will allowing same-sex marriage?
Secondly, marriage is not a matter of mere words, it is something which is extremely important to many people.
Like, oh, I don’t know, same-sex couples? Seriously, how can you say this without admitting that “many people” includes homosexuals?
Finally, the majority of citizens oppose the change to marriage, whereas civil unions have a smaller number of objectors.
Ditto with interracial marriage. This is a terrible reason to keep any current definition.
It doesn’t require procreation, but that is nevertheless the fundamental justification for the institution, the reason why it exists and is almost universal across many different societies.
Please provide some kind of evidence supporting this sentence. Until you do, you’re basing your definition of marriage on your opinion and not reality, and frankly, I’m much more interested in reality.
Parallel wrote: If you think my view of marriage is one-dimensional, what of your own?
I think marriage is about many things. It’s about trying to create the best possible environment for the raising of children; it’s about giving adults formal recognition of new families independent of their source families; it’s support for a coupling structure that seems to make many people spiritually and emotionally happier; it’s giving people the tools necessary to better take responsibility for each other’s well-being; and it?s about love, too. All of these things are good for the couples, good for their children (if any), and to varying degrees benefit society.
You, on the other hand, consider marriage to be about the production of biological children, and that’s all you consider marriage to be. So yes, I?d say your view is FAR more one-dimensional than my own.
Also, you do exactly what you accuse Hestia of – you consider marriage to be nothing more than a piece of paper. As I understand your argument, you’re claiming that marriage won’t provide anything significant to same-sex couples that civil unions won’t also provide. No one who truly valued marriage could make that claim; only someone who thinks marriage is just a piece of paper, an empty word, could claim that civil unions and marriage are interchangeable.
If you think marriage is more than a word, then you have to admit that you’re robbing same-sex couples of something significant by denying them marriage. If you’re saying that there’s no significant difference between civil unions and marriage, then obviously you don’t consider marriage to be anything significant. You can’t have it both ways. So which is it?
Why should a gay couple participating in a “marriage” redefined by government or judicial fiat feel any greater responsibility to bear and raise children (who would be biologically related to only one of them) than they would without the “piece of paper”?
For the exact same reason that a child’s heterosexual stepfather may feel a greater responsibility than he would if he were just the mother’s boyfriend. Marriage is an important way many folks in our culture form, solemnize, and legitimize their families. It also creates a social pressure to support the children of those families. A stepfather has more of an obligation to support a stepson than to support his lover’s son – and that’s true regardless of if the lover is male or female.
For all the reasons marriage can often benefit the adopted children, the step-children, and the artificial-insemination-children of op-sex couples, it can benefit the adopted children, the step-children, and the artificial-insemination-children of same-sex couples.
For that matter, wouldn’t the responsibility felt by a hetero couple be less under those circumstances than now, when marriage (through its prestige, etc.) still carries some weight?
Nope, I don’t believe that at all, and you haven’t proven it in the slightest. The one thing has nothing to do with the other; marriage is not a zero-sum game, in which more marriage for gays means that heterosexuals get less.
Your story about young heterosexuals not getting married because of “discrimination” amuses me. Obviously this improves the gene pool because some stupid people are less likely to reproduce, and society is better off because they won’t absorb those government benefits.
Those “stupid people” include good friends of mine, who are (judging by your performance in this thread) much smarter than you’ll ever be.
Your criticism of marriage in the past are ill-aimed. Those were not faults of the institution, but of society as a whole that women were subservient. This was never an essential part of the institution.
With hindsight, you can say that. But at the time, virtually no one would have agreed with you that these were not essential parts of marriage.
Our view of marriage hasn’t changed, rather our view of women.
These are not separate things. As our views of gender changes, the meaning of marriage changes also. Once we no longer considered women chattel, then marriage changed to no longer be about men owning women. Similarly, now that the sex roles have changed so that we no longer believe that only men can be breadwinners and only women can be homemakers – or that these roles are mutually exclusive – marriage is changing to no longer be sex-specific.
For centuries and centuries, disposal of chattel WAS an essential part of marriage – or so folks claimed. Once we got rid of that, however, it turned out that it wasn’t so essential for marriage after all; marriage continued, changed but still recognizable. The same thing will happen once SSM becomes an accepted practice. People will still marry, still form families, still take responsibility for each other, still be parents of children together, still get together in front of family and community to have their vows solemnized; none of that will change. Despite your cries of doom, marriage will continue after SSM is legal everywhere – marriage will be changed, but still recognizable.
…or the fact that the husband had a legal right to have sex with his wife (no, not a right to rape, just that rape was – by definition – impossible).
Talk about a distinction without a difference!
So why should those of us who DO value marriage have to change it so suit those who DON’T?
Actually, I’m convinced by this discussion that you consider marriage to be very little more than a piece of paper – otherwise, you would know better than to claim gays lose nothing by being denied marriage but allowed “civil unions.” You also don’t seem to realize that there’s anything more to marriage than procreation, which shows that your understanding of marriage is both narrow and shallow.
In short, I’m not even slightly convinced by this discussion that you value marriage more than I do. And, again, if you read some of the most prominent pro-SSM authors – Sullivan’s book would be handy – you’d know that they certainly value marriage highly.
Ampersand: That you keep on calling the desire for marriage a matter of pure self-interest shows that you have no perception of what the issues involved are, and calls into question whether you understand the idea of marriage at all.
Parallel: I think I called it that once and I haven’t seen anything to refute it.
First of all, you’ve said that or the equivalent – arguing that same-sex couples are in some way selfish and therefore undeserving of marriage – a few times in this thread. You suggested that same-sexers see marriage as “a thing to be grasped simply to allow later exploitation of anti-discrimination legislation,” and that same-sex couples don’t see marriage “as being of value in itself. They probably only want to gain access to those benefits.” You also put in a link directing me to other writings of yours, in which you wrote “So now we have a group who see marriage purely as a source of benefits…”
Again and again, you’ve said that gays and lesbians are self-interested in some unique way which should disqualify them from marriage. You haven’t provided any evidence, or even a coherent argument, explaining why this is so. (You have claimed that you’ve never seen a pro-SSM person talk about responsibility, but a) that only shows that you aren’t very familiar with this debate, and b) that’s simply not true if you’ve been reading this blog, or even just this thread).
There’s no logical reason to believe that lesbians and gays get married for reasons that are any more selfish than the reasons heterosexuals get married.
Regarding proof, Parallel wrote: Look at the post below yours, in my reply to JRC, where I address this question in detail.
In your reply to JRC, you said that inter-country comparisons were not viable. I responded by pointing out that you can make predictions between states. You haven’t given the slightest reason to believe that making comparisons between states is impossible.
So, again, if you actually believe in these so-called “harms” of same-sex marriage, make some predictions. Compared to neighboring states with similar cultures, what trends will speed up or slow down in Massachusetts and (possibly) Oregon? And how large a difference do you think SSM will make?
If you’re not willing to make falsifiable predictions, then I don’t think you really believe that SSM will do any significant harm. (For the record, I’ll make a falsifiable prediction: I predict that Massachusetts will not experience changes in any significant way, compared to similar northeastern states, except that it’ll have more marriages).
If “family” means “husband and wife”, why does the phrase “starting a family” refer to having their first child?
It doesn’t have to refer to that (although often it does). I’m a wedding coordinator, and I’ve attended thousands of weddings. I’ve heard that phrase, or similar ones (“today you begin a family,” “welcome the new family of Bob and Susan…,” etc) used hundreds of times to refer to couples getting married. Usually the person using the phrase is the minister.
Nick,
I skimmed that article, and although it makes a good instance where legal recognition of the writer’s relationship with her partner and their adopted children would be just, I don’t think it makes a case that SS relationships in general are the same as marriage.
One thing that did strike me in that tale is that although the writer identifies herself as a lesbian, in fact the sexual relationship she had with her partner was completely irrelevant to the story.
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Surely you don’t think that all that romantic relationships come down to is sex?
Hestia (in response to March 2, 2004 07:38 AM),
You are still confusing marriage with government benefits. My point is that the benefits of the instititution of marriage – as opposed to government benefits which could just as well be applied to civil unions – are not transferrable by fiat, and the attempt to do so harms the institution and reduces those benefits currently enjoyed which help them to raise children… and thus harms children.
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So what are these non-governmental benefits, why should same-sex couples be denied them, and why does attemting to broaden the number of people who receive these benefits (if they, in fact, do even exist)reduce them for those who already have them? And, even if that were true, how specifically would that harm children in a way that children aren’t already harmed by other things such as having parents who don’t treat each other well and that sort of thing? In other words, what is the real problem, and why are same-sex couples being scapegoated?
The comments are piling up faster than I can respond properly, so I’ll have to skim a bit.
I also notice people are raising issues that I have covered before, or suggested that I haven’t responded when I believe I have. I you disagree with something I have written, by all means say so and explain why (as I try to explain why I hold my postion). Don’t carry on as if I hadn’t written it.
Gabriel,
On civil unions, without re-reading your article again I recall thinking there was nothing there that was a deal breaker. Although it might be a while to get civil unions accepted as worthy of similar benefits and rights as marriage, that still seems better to me than short-cutting the process by pretending they are the same to the detriment of the latter institution.
As for claiming coverture was equally important to marriage as procreation, I disagree completely, and so do not find your argument that it is equivalent to removing the man-woman requirement for marriage convincing.
Jake,
The licence/car analogy to marriage/children holds, since all it is meant to prove is that the argument that “not all marriages produce children, and so marriage is not about procreation in any way, shape, or form” is fallacious.
I still haven’t seen any evidence that marriage was created primarily to promote procreation. Can you provide us with any?
Actually, my claim is that is one of two main social functions it served in the past and is the only one of continued importance. Apart from the logic of my argument, which as far as I am concerned no-one has successfully challenged, what would you ACCEPT as evidence?
Hestia, (from March 5, 2004 08:53 AM)
You seem to believe that the only reason same-sex couples want to get married is for the benefits.
No, but that does seem the reason for insisting on it being called “marriage” rather than “civil union”. Personal reasons for forming a union aren’t part of my argument.
If society as a whole sees commitment as an implied value in marriage
The main value of commitment to society is to ensure that children produced by the marriage don’t become a burden on society but grow to become good citizens. I don’t see that society has any particular interest in romantic commitment which is a personal rather than a social value.
But even accepting commitment of itself as of social value, I don’t see why a SS couple who are “married” would feel any greater commitment than those who have just had a civil union ceremony. I don’t see the same social sanctions operating, I don’t see why they would consider the thousand-year history of OS marriage to be directely appliable to them, and they will never experience the bond of shared biological children.
What’s the difference between a married hetero couple without kids and a married same-sex couple without kids, and why should we allow the former and not the latter?
I don’t know what you mean by “allowing” in this context. All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t pretend that the second case are participating in the institution of marriage. They don’t fit the definition, follow any of the historical precedents or prototypes, are not subject to the social sanctions and mores which have grown up around the OS institution of marriage, nor would their relationship be shaped in any way by the historical patterns of marriage.
About the “government definition” of marriage. Hestia, marriage existing long before government. Government basically took the existing definition of what was recognised socially as marriage. This says nothing about the social purpose for which marriage exists.
Actually, if there is any institution whose definition of “marriage” should bear weight, it is the Catholic Church, having been involved with marriage in our tradition for a thousand years longer than government. Would you care to discuss their definition? :-)
>(as far fewer such unions would bear children)
Please provide evidence that a smaller percentage of married same-sex couples would raise children than married opposite-sex couples.
The word I used was bear, and the percentage of SSM couples who would bear children of the couple is precisely zero.
On your constitutional argument: defining marriage in the constitution to consist of one man and one woman would not change marriage, since that is the definition that has applied for the last couple of thousand years. Same-sex marriage was literally unthinkable at the time the constitution was drafted. If you want to complain about constitutionality, I suggest that the habit of judges creatively interpreting what was written down to suit their own political and social is something the founders would have regarded with some horror.
>Firstly, I think this will do real damage to the institution of marriage and hence society as a whole.
In what way? How, exactly?
I have written on this at length before – please read my comments, especially from March 2, 2004 01:41 AM.
>Secondly, marriage is not a matter of mere words, it is something which is extremely important to many people.
Like, oh, I don’t know, same-sex couples? Seriously, how can you say this without admitting that “many people” includes homosexuals?
The people I was referring to value marriage for reasons other than the government benefits. I’m still waiting for a reason for a SS couple to value marriage (as opposed to a civil union) apart from those benefits.
>Finally, the majority of citizens oppose the change to marriage, whereas civil unions have a smaller number of objectors.
Ditto with interracial marriage. This is a terrible reason to keep any current definition.
So in other words, the majority is always wrong? That’s why you need enlightened judges to tell everyone else what to do. Well, I’m the minority on this comment thread, so obviously I must be right!
>It doesn’t require procreation, but that is nevertheless the fundamental justification for the institution, the reason why it exists and is almost universal across many different societies.
Please provide some kind of evidence supporting this sentence. Until you do, you’re basing your definition of marriage on your opinion and not reality, and frankly, I’m much more interested in reality.
On the evidence, see my comment to Jake above. In your reality, marriage is defined by government and consists of benefits and rights. I can only say that a lot of other people see it differently.
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I skimmed that article, and although it makes a good instance where legal recognition of the writer’s relationship with her partner and their adopted children would be just, I don’t think it makes a case that SS relationships in general are the same as marriage.
Well no, largely because it wasn’t intended to make any such case. Talk about a strawman. Opposite sex relationships in general aren’t the same as marriage, but no-one is suggesting straight marriages shouldn’t have legal status. The case is that this couple’s relationship, and many like it, are like marriage in all but name, and deserve legal recognition as such.
One thing that did strike me in that tale is that although the writer identifies herself as a lesbian, in fact the sexual relationship she had with her partner was completely irrelevant to the story.
That’s the whole point. Their sexual relationship doesn’t come into the question. What matters is that they founded a family together. Since marriage stopped being the only way to have socially-acceptable sex, the sexual relationship between partners is irrelevant in all cases.
the percentage of SSM couples who would bear children of the couple is precisely zero.
Not as precisely as you think. It’s possible for a gay transman to carry his partner’s child, therefore a small but finite proportion of same-sex couples can “bear children of the couple”. Not that this should be a defining feature of a marriage, of course.
I’m sorry, I’m beginning to feel like a broken record. My questions aren’t getting anything that resembles answers–how is “Because they’re different” any kind of response to a question that asks why we should allow childless opposite-sex couples to marry and not childless same-sex couples? It’s getting a little old. But I have a couple parting thoughts:
More and more I’m beginning to believe that the “Marriage is all about procreation” position is nothing more than a case of “Do as I say, not as I do.” (Standard disclaimer: I’m sure everyone who espouses this opinion is a fine and upstanding individual. My complaint is with the position in and of itself.)
All of a sudden, this belief is popping up all over America in opposition to SSM. But in the past several decades, there has never–never–been any outcry to create an amendment outlawing divorce, even though divorce is demonstrably harmful to the institution of marriage, much more harmful than SSM could ever be. (SSM would create more married couples, not fewer.) Likewise, no one has ever complained that married couples without children are taking advantage of the government. Before the issue of SSM, that idea was unthinkable. Every TV show, every magazine, every wedding announcement in the newspaper touted marriage as a commitment between two people who loved each other–never two people who wanted kids. And the American government is constantly engaged in stripping away laws that protect children’s interests, sans comment from the procreation camp.
In light of these facts, I can only believe that people with this opinion aren’t really interested in marriage as procreation at all. I can only think that this particular rallying cry is purely an anti-homosexual political agenda. In fact, I’d be surprised if the procreation crowd really cares about children’s place in marriage at all. If the institution of marriage in and of itself helps couples raise children–regardless of whether the child is their own, the biological child of only one of the couple, or someone else’s entirely–they all need parents and a stable family, after all–then allowing more people to marry can only help more children.
Everyone who believes marriage is about procreation needs to take a good hard look at what they say and how it conflicts with what they’ve always said and what society is doing and has always done. They need to consider why, if they believe marriage is about procreation or children, they aren’t driving around with bumper stickers saying, “Ban Divorce!” and “No Kids? No Wedding!” and why they don’t intend to support either sentiment.
From this angle, the procreation position looks a whole lot like hypocrisy, and I can’t condone attempts to enshrine hypocrisy into American law.
If marriage really is about procreation, then we must eliminate every obstacle to that goal. In terms of this opinion, saying that we should keep the status quo just isn’t going to fly, especially since the status quo allows both divorce and marriage without procreation. I’m willing to consider offering marriage benefits (all of them, the government ones, the ones society creates, the personal ones) to parents only, but until that point, I refuse to say “Marriage is about procreation–but only when it comes to gays and lesbians.”
It was a nice discussion, parallel. You appear to be an intelligent and articulate person, and until I started having to repeat myself, I was really thinking hard about what you said. If nothing else, I’ve added to my arsenal of rebuttals to the “marriage is procreation” argument, and I appreciate that. In the future, though, I’m going to remember to define marriage early on as official recognition of the love and commitment between two people–better to just ignore all the couples who get married for other reasons than get myself misunderstood again–and to emphasize the point that if marriage is about children at all, it’s about raising them in a secure and stable home, not just getting them into the world.
Ampersand (in response to yours of March 6, 2004 01:00 AM)
You, on the other hand, consider marriage to be about the production of biological children, and that’s all you consider marriage to be.
I think you are drastically mis-stating my position. My position is that the production and raising of children is the social reason that marriage has existed for so long, and is still the primary reason it is in the interests of society today. The personal reasons of the people involved weren’t mentioned – though I may point out that your list of what marriage is about is not applicable for most of the time marriage has existed, and that you missed out what may be historically the most important personal reasons: for the male, easy access to socially sanctioned sex and offspring; for the female, a provider for her and her children. And my response was actually directed towards Hestia’s position, not your own. I don’t consider your (Ampersand’s) view one-dimensional, but I do think you are missing out on why marriage was such an important institution in the past.
Also, you do exactly what you accuse Hestia of – you consider marriage to be nothing more than a piece of paper. As I understand your argument, you’re claiming that marriage won’t provide anything significant to same-sex couples that civil unions won’t also provide. No one who truly valued marriage could make that claim; only someone who thinks marriage is just a piece of paper, an empty word, could claim that civil unions and marriage are interchangeable.
I do value marriage, but unlike you, I value it for a reason. The reason marriage adds value to a relationship is that it has a long history and is part of our culture. I have explained why this is the case. So when someone who values it gets married, they know that they are participating in something whose essentials have been pretty much the same for a hundred generations, that they have a lot to live up to, and models of correct and honourable behaviour.
Now how does that apply to a same-sex couple, who are getting “married” because some idiot judge said they could last Wednesday, taking advantage of the fact that because a fundamental truth of marriage was so obvious it was never written down, he could pretend it never existed?
This nonsense is engendering not only a disrespect for marriage, but a (well-deserved!) disrespect for judges.
If you think marriage is more than a word, then you have to admit that you’re robbing same-sex couples of something significant by denying them marriage.
Emotive words with no substance. You’re refusing to face simple reality here. How does it add value to SS couples when idiot judge redefines a term which has been understood differently by billions of people for hundreds of years? All that does is compromise the value that others gain from marriage.
If you’re saying that there’s no significant difference between civil unions and marriage, then obviously you don’t consider marriage to be anything significant. You can’t have it both ways. So which is it?
It is of worth to OS couples because the value of marriage is based on its long history which is exclusively heterosexual. Where else does the value come from?
…
For the exact same reason that a child’s heterosexual stepfather may feel a greater responsibility than he would if he were just the mother’s boyfriend.
Or may not – on average, step-families don’t work out as well as biological ones. In the OS case, for a young child, it is at least possible to pretend the biological relationship exists. Actually “biological” isn’t quite the term I want, since I would regard the infertile husband whose wife has been impregnated by donor sperm as the “father”… am I inconsistent?
I would say that step families, blended families, etc. are all modelled on the successful nuclear family but in many cases the analogies don’t work too well. I advocate traditional marriage only because I think the chances of success are greater – but any arrangement where there are adults to take responsibility for children and to bear and raise them with love and affection are “family”.
Marriage is an important way many folks in our culture form, solemnize, and legitimize their families. It also creates a social pressure to support the children of those families. A stepfather has more of an obligation to support a stepson than to support his lover’s son – and that’s true regardless of if the lover is male or female.
I would say adoptive parent rather than step-parent. There is a long history of abusive step-parents… because the relationship is arrived at second hand, by marriage to the biological parent. Adoption explicitly states a primary relationship, that responsibility to the child is specifically accepted rather than a minor part of a package. This is far too sensitive an issue to be relegated to secondary importance.
For all the reasons marriage can often benefit the adopted children, the step-children, and the artificial-insemination-children of op-sex couples, it can benefit the adopted children, the step-children, and the artificial-insemination-children of same-sex couples.
I don’t see marriage as giving any benefit here. I think the point is that both adults jointly commit themselves to the child’s welfare. The OS/SS nature, or whether they have a sexual relationship at all, is of secondary importance. Traditional marriage is probably the only structure where you can assume that both adults are automatically committed to the children since there is both the biological bond and bearing and caring for their children is part of the deal.
marriage is not a zero-sum game, in which more marriage for gays means that heterosexuals get less.
My theory of the value of marriage predicts this. What is your theory? What do you see the value of marriage as being, where does it come from? Would marriage have the same value if it were invented yesterday? What does a homosexual feel like when they get married? What are their expectations and those of the people around them? Are they the same for a heterosexual couple, and if so, why? And what evidence do you have either way?
>Your story about young heterosexuals not getting married because of “discrimination” amuses me. Obviously this improves the gene pool because some stupid people are less likely to reproduce, and society is better off because they won’t absorb those government benefits.
Those “stupid people” include good friends of mine, who are (judging by your performance in this thread) much smarter than you’ll ever be.
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Hestia,
I’m sorry, I’m beginning to feel like a broken record. My questions aren’t getting anything that resembles answers–how is “Because they’re different” any kind of response to a question that asks why we should allow childless opposite-sex couples to marry and not childless same-sex couples?
I’m not answering those questions because the question is broken. Any question of the form “Why do you do X” assumes that I am doing “X”. If I’m not doing “X”, then I can’t explain why I’m doing it.
As I see it, I am not allowing or disallowing anything. I am only stating my opinion that marriage, for historical reasons, involves a man and a woman, and that it is not legitimate to arbitrarily redefine it. A gay couple can do what they like, but it isn’t marriage.
But I have a couple parting thoughts: More and more I’m beginning to believe that the “Marriage is all about procreation” position is nothing more than a case of “Do as I say, not as I do.” (Standard disclaimer: I’m sure everyone who espouses this opinion is a fine and upstanding individual. My complaint is with the position in and of itself.)
One thing I have frequently noticed in this thread is that when what is supposed to be “my position” is echoed back to me, it doesn’t match what I think or (I believe) what I wrote. I’m not saying this is anyone’s fault – it may just be that I’m not very good at explaining. I certainly don’t own to any “marriage is all about procreation” – I have scanned through the text of this thread and I explain what I do mean in several places – and that isn’t it.
If I’m wrong in this, surely a quote would be appropriate?
All of a sudden, this belief is popping up all over America in opposition to SSM. But in the past several decades, there has never–never–been any outcry to create an amendment outlawing divorce, even though divorce is demonstrably harmful to the institution of marriage, much more harmful than SSM could ever be. (SSM would create more married couples, not fewer.)
Divorce or anullment has always existed, historically for reasons such as barrenness and non-consumation (procreation again!) Divorce does damage marriage, but then so does homosexuality, infidelity, and a host of other things – and for many years there were laws restricting or outlawing the above. Liberalisation of these was a tradeoff, giving an overall increase in freedom at the cost of additional marital instability. A constitutional amendment is seen as a remedy in the case of SSM, and not the others, because it seems the only democratic way to prevent idiot judges from meddling in something which is not a matter of freedom but simply access to government benefits which could be obtained in other ways, albeit more slowly.
From this angle, the procreation position looks a whole lot like hypocrisy, and I can’t condone attempts to enshrine hypocrisy into American law.
Hestia, since you clearly intend to imply that this bogus “procreation” position is one I hold, I challenge you to come up with a single statement or statement of mine which implies that I ought to think divorce or childless couples should be banned.
Recall that I got involved in this thread because I thought a particular argument was logically bogus (as it was).
If marriage really is about procreation then we must eliminate every obstacle to that goal.
How does that follow? Is marriage the most important thing in the universe to which everything else must be subordinated?
In terms of this opinion, saying that we should keep the status quo just isn’t going to fly, especially since the status quo allows both divorce and marriage without procreation.
Since the previous opinion is bogus, this is nonsense.
It was a nice discussion, parallel. You appear to be an intelligent and articulate person, and until I started having to repeat myself, I was really thinking hard about what you said.
If you say so. From my viewpoint, I kept on finding my main points were ignored, while many comments directed towards me seemed pure rhetoric (such as your question above) which sound convincing until you examine them in detail. But every one I addressed would pop up again a couple of posts later.
If nothing else, I’ve added to
my arsenal of rebuttals to the “marriage is procreation” argument, and I
appreciate that.
Just between you and me, Hestia, “straw man” and “rebutting an exaggerated form of opponent’s argument” are not generally considered valid arguments – if you are actually trying to explore an issue, which has been my position (I certainly never thought I would convert anyone!) They can be effective in debate, though.
In the future, though, I’m going to remember to define marriage early on as official recognition of the love and commitment between two people–better to just ignore all the couples who get married for other reasons than get myself misunderstood again–and to emphasize the point that if marriage is about children at all, it’s about raising them in a secure and stable home, not just getting them into the world.
This is a great improvement over your original definition. Your next points should be:
“Official recognition is important, as…”
while parrying the obvious counter attack with:
“This is different from what a civil union can provide, because…”
then attack with a pincer movement from the right:
“Marriage actually helps to provide a secure and stable home for children by …”
and from the left:
“This will work for same sex marriages, since…”
then cut off their retreat with
“This change will not weaken the bonds of traditional marriage, because…”
Happy arguing!
Right on Parallel!