Gay Marriage Questions
I haven’t really said much about Proposition 8, the Constitutional amendment that passed in California except to say that strongarming old women and attacking peaceable Mormons is exactly the wrong way for gay marriage supporters to bring people to their cause. However, I will say that had I voted on the issue, I could have voted against it. I don’t see anything good coming out of carving an arbitrary exception to a rule that currently applies equally to everyone. If we say today that two gay men can marry, then we can not fairly prevent polygamy or close blood marriage or marriages of legal convenience.
Stacy McCain sums up most of my thinking on this and I find the argument darned difficult to refute.
The burden of proof in policy disputes ought always to rest with the advocates of innovation. The Burkean insight is that established law and social custom are presumed legitimate, and that revolutionaries who would overthrow the established order must first demonstrate (a) the necessity of the change to remedy existing evil and (b) some reasonable assurance that the new order would be a genuine improvement on that order which is to be destroyed. (Or, to quote Lord Acton: “Where it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.”)
The argument for same-sex marriage can’t clear this hurdle…
Gay marriage proponents haven’t tried very hard to clear it either. Most of the arguments I’ve heard are either some variation of “but we really want to and you’re mean for not letting us” or “why do you hate gay people?”, neither of which is sufficient to change my mind. Apparently, it’s not good enough to change the minds of most voters, since nearly every gay marriage ballot issue in the past four years has been decided on the side of preserving traditional marriage.
But I’m willing to be convinced. So I’ll throw this post open to anyone who wants to tackle a couple few questions I have.
1) How would you defend an exception of the rule that no two people of the same gender can marry to those of other nontraditional relationships who might want to marry as well?
2) What does gay marriage provide that some version of “civil union” does not?
3) How does gay marriage enhance the role that marriage plays in our society?
4) Why should we apply the standard of “but we really want to” to marriage but not to other laws?
Related posts:
- A Note to My Gay Marriage Proponent Friends
- We Need the Government Sanction of Marriage
- Gay Marriage, An Election Issue?
- Judge Rules against Voters, Traditional Marriage
Category: The Social Issues
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"What does gay marriage provide that some version of “civil union” does not?"
There are two major areas. One is quite practical, and that's portability. Marriage, with its long history, has a default assumption of portability – when you travel from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, the default assumption is that your marriage does not disappear. While this may be overridden in certain cases (say, if you're married to your cousin, legal in some states but not others), maintenance of marriage is the default not only between states, but between countries, and "marriage" is a concept that exists in every jurisdiction that I know of. So if a married couple travels elsewhere, and one lands in a coma (for example), the other can make medical decisions on their behalf. For a couple with a "civil union" in a country that has no such state, that may not be the case.
But the other major area is conceptual. "Civil union" is a second-class status. If you don't believe that, ask yourself this: how many mixed-sex couples are opting for "civil union" or "domestic partnership" over "marriage", in states where both are available? I can't quickly pull up the figures, but last time I saw them, it was almost zero.
"How does gay marriage enhance the role that marriage plays in our society?"
It embraces the primary role of marriage – the creation of stable relationships of mutual support – without burdening it as a tool of needless discrimination.
Marriage, for a lot of us, is like a long-established service organization in our small town. For a long time, we only saw white faces in the club, but didn't think much about it. It's an upscale town, rather white. And then as African Americans began earning more, a few showed up in town, but we didn't notice that there weren't any in the club.
But then one somehow became a member, and there was a hullabaloo, and a club vote. The next thing you know, he's out, and there's a "Whites Only" sign on the front door. And suddenly, the young folks, even the white ones, aren't so eager to join the club.
We're seeing signs of that now, of young couples who would otherwise get married, but are avoiding the legal status because they see it as discriminatory. It's doesn't seem to be a lot of couples, not yet – but the young folk are getting ever more accepting of the idea of gay marriage, and the taint of the gay exclusion will be a discouraging factor against marriage for the coming generations.
Very astute analysis to a non issue. The homosexual lobby cannot respond to the points you raise because they cannot. There is no issue, medical, inheritence, visitation that cannot be dealt with under the current system contrary to the assertions of the homosexual lobby.
Recognition would only degrade the institution of marriage, recreating what is occuring in Europe, where the civic status of various nations is collapsing. I do wonder why the homosexual will not address the issue of why other non traditional forms of marriage or union shouldn't be legitimized if homosexual marriage is passed by judicial fiat.
1) I see no reason that we should enforce a religious view on marriage upon our entire society, especially since we are supposed to be protected from the religious views of others by the Constitution. You speak of polygamy; I ask you what is wrong with it? If two or three or ten women want and are willing to marry the same man, let them. If ten men all want to marry the same woman and are willing be in a polygamist relationship. What is wrong with that? The simple answer is that nothing is wrong with it if you take away your religious views. As for marriage between cousins; it is a proven fact that reproduction with within a family, inbreeding, can lead to many birth defects. That is why it is illegal in many states. What is one birth defect that would be the result of a gay marriage? Wait a gay couple can’t reproduce with each other so there can be no birth defects.
2) In Washington civil unions for homosexual couples are a very new right. There is a huge discrepancy between the rights and protections provided for a homosexual civil union and the rights of a married heterosexual couple. There are over 200 rights that you gain in Washington with a marriage license; a homosexual civil union gets you 30 of those rights. Most states don’t even offer that much to the gay community.
3) How would it negatively affect the role of marriage in our society? A group should not need to prove that they will enhance anything to be treated as equal citizens.
4) The argument for gay marriage isn’t “but we really want to”. It is that as citizens of the United States of America, everyone should have an equal right to marry the person they love. We are treating an entire community as second class citizens, they are told that they don’t deserve equal treatment. Why don’t they deserve it? Oh, you don’t live a “normal” lifestyle so you don’t deserve to be treated fairly at work, in the courtroom, or anywhere else. A gay man must lie about his sexual orientation to serve in our military and you think that the only argument this community gives for their rights is “but we really want to”?
I pity you.
1) You only half set up that religious strawman, so I'll let it pass unless you insist on raising it up fully.
But as for other forms of marriage, you have one problem. We know that traditional marriages are good for society because we've observed it in incredible detail throughout history.
What you haven't seemed to consider is the question of why marriage is so important. I think that giving the matter some serious thought would be useful.
2) Yes, but what does that say to my point?
3) they are being treated as equal citizens, as I explicitly stated in my post.
4) In other words, "because they really want to".
NatG – The problem with your analysis, which I did like, is that is assumes that marriage exists to benefit the individual. It doesn't. Marriage exists to benefit the society.
That's why I wrote my post. You have to be able to explain to me what greater societal benefit would be gained from allowing gay marriage. As well, I don't think you can support your last point factually. There are plenty of reasons that young people aren't getting married. Solidarity with gay people isn't one of them.
Not at all. Stablized relationships of mutual support are for the good of society. It reduces the number of individuals falling on hard time who have to rely on the support of the general society.
Except I've seen explicit statements from a number of folks to exactly that effect — and came close to being one myself. The anti-gay-marriage effort put a real pause in my consideration, and I compromised with myself by saying that if some state started permitting same-sex marriage before I was due to lock in a marriage location, we'd get married there. Of course, that wasn't too big a sacrifice when it looked like the first state would be Hawaii, looked a bit more of a cost when it looked like it might be Vermont… but ultimately I got married before the Massachusetts ruling, so the wedding remained legal.
But that's just people who are explicitly making that decision. It doesn't include those who, without conscious effort, may be finding marriage less appealing because it has that "straight folks only" sign in front of it. Just doesn't seem like their kind of thing, so much. It's just like, well, no one ever thinks they buy Pepsi because they saw a Pepsi machine in a movie… but there's a reason why Pepsi pays to put their machines there. Because subconscious senses of being "cool" matter.
However, family relationships are vastly better than generic "stabilized relationships". For one, they generally produce children and, eventually, adult citizens. Traditional marriage does a better than than any other sort of relationship of producing well-adjusted grownups. There are oddles of studies that have found that.
Anecdotes do not create proof. Indeed, I'd say that the overwhelming numbers of people who have voted to keep marriage just the way it is over the last two election cycles demonstrate that traditional marriage still has a larger number of fans (and that support does run into most age groups, including younger voters, and social strata).
Yes, you could be right. But you could be wrong and you have no way of proving which one you are. Still, you have that huge hurdle to jump and you haven't gotten close to getting over it yet.
But incentivizing those who would otherwise enter into same-sex marriage if available to instead enter into mixed-sex marriage would not seem to be wise if stability is among one's goals, and would not seem likely to generally create the healthiest of environs for raising children due to that instability.
There have been oodles of studies in that regard for various sorts of other relationships. There have not been oodles of studies for other sorts — married same-sex couples, for example.
Individual incidents to contradict absolutes, which is what you presented. The open question is the extent, not whether it occurs.
Well, you're mixing apples and oranges there. Traditional marriage was not put up for a vote. No state that I know of was looking to illegalize mixed-sex marriages. (However, I suspect that had they, it would've been voted down soundly, as most people would vote against it even if they also support gay marriage.)
I don't see us incentivizing gay people into traditional marriages. If I can borrow your ability to use anecdotes, the stories I've overwhelmingly heard over the years about gay people in a straight relationship is that they entered into one because they believed that's what they were supposed to do to be seen as "normal". I've never heard someone say they got married for the bennies.
I mean, it could be happening, but I would imagine that if it were widespread, it would have become bigger news by now.
The latest studies, made in the few years, have. Stanley Kurtz has also done extensive work on the effect of gay marriage and civil unions on society in Scandinavia (which has had both for some years).
Indeed they were. What's been mixed is the news coverage of the issue. The vote in California was not to make gay marriage illegal. It was to put the matter of whether the definition of marriage should be altered and gay marriage should be made legal beyond the reach of the courts, which has already invalidated one vote.
This has been a clever manipulation by gay marriage proponents. They say that the vote in California, and elsewhere, was to make gay marriage illegal and to "criminalize love". That's simply untrue. Gay marriage was, and has been, illegal. The vote was to maintain the status quo and prevent it from becoming legal. I do give them credit for having the MSM squarely on their side.
Problem is, it's deceptive. If they can't make their case without lying to the electorate about what a law will or will not do, then their argument simply can not be that strong.
I do like it when the argument tries to follow rational lines; it gives me an opportunity to critique.
It says that your claim, that gay citizens are currently treated equally, is false. Although it does indicate how they could be treated equally under the law, even under Prop 8.
Is that the base claim on which your argument rests? It is not supported by evidence. Thus David's response, that the inequality constitutes a societal harm, stands. You may believe that the societal benefits of supporting conventional marriage outweigh the societal harm, but your approach of denying that any harm occurs, does not address the issue.
I'm sure it's much easier to argue when you can cast the opposing viewpoint to be anything you want… But the point David made was that the exception to the law is justified by the principle of equal treatment under the law. You might want to address that claim, instead of substituting a different one.
Of course, by now you're not arguing with David, but with Nat, so my analysis is likely rendered moot…
@Mr. Science Guy
I believe I addressed the claim he made in that point. Here's what he said: "The argument for gay marriage isn’t 'but we really want to'. It is that as citizens of the United States of America, everyone should have an equal right to marry the person they love."
I don't see a lot of daylight between those two sentences. When you drill down to the center of every law, there's a mechanicsm that prevents someone from doing something they really want to do. Polygamists undoubtedly love all the people with whom they are entangled, but that has never been a reason to overturn polygamy laws, nor should it be. So long as the marriage law is equal, and David had yet to address my point that it is, changing it only to satisfy the desires of a minority is foolhardy. It's tinkering with something that is vastly important to our society on what is essentially a whim.
And part of that normality has been marriage — and that part had only been available if they got into a straight relationship.
I mean, it could be happening, but I would imagine that if it were widespread, it would have become bigger news by now.
But not on the raising of children born into married same-sex households. Sliding goalposts.
Yes, it was. It really was.
That is untrue. In California, gay marriage was legal before the vote. The vote eliminated that. Really.
You may want to tell that to the Yes-on-8 forces, who tried to falsely claim that not passing this law would curtail religious liberty.
Ah, so your rebuttal of his claim is, "The two statements you made seem to me to be contradictory." That's far more to the point, but not originally well communicated. Instead, you appeared to be saying, "demanding equal treatment under the law amounts to demanding the right to break it." Sometimes poor communication happens, that's why we clarify.
Incorrect. David's rebuttal of your claim was "There are over 200 rights that you gain in Washington with a marriage license; a homosexual civil union gets you 30 of those rights." At this point you can argue that his evidence is incorrect, or that it doesn't prove his claim of inequality under the law…but your statement that he didn't address your point says you couldn't follow his argument well enough to know what he was talking about. Evidently poor communication again–but I hope I've provided the clarification you need to get back to the point of contention.
@Mr. Science Guy
Indeed.
But David still has only danced around my original post on that point. I'll try to restate it more clearly.
The rule for marriage now is that only a man and a woman may marry each other. I do not see how adding one exception makes it more equal.
David's answer was to ask why we shouldn't allow anyone to marry anyone else in whatever combination they chose. That certainly seems to me like he was granting the validity of my point by saying that granting one exception would not, but granting every exception certainly would.
I grant that he's right, but it doesn't really go to my point. In fact, I said pretty much the same thing back in the blog post. His real question was "why shouldn't we?" and I think I answered that question as well.
Okay, I'll grant that he was trying to address part of my point from an entirely different direction (though I'll say that he could simply move to one of the states that grant more generous allowances for civil unions, and there are those which do). I'll answer it this way – gay marriage and civil unions are two separate things that serve two separate purposes.
If that's your position, it appears you no longer require an answer to: "2) What does gay marriage provide that some version of “civil union” does not?"
Thanks for having this discussion, Jimmie. But I won't address your comments or anyone else's. I come from a different perspective, and it's too radical for any politician to mention. I don't think there should be marriages at all. At least not from the government perspective. As far as the government is concerned, we should all get civil unions. Everyone should be able to enter into a binding contract with one other person. Only churches should be able to conduct marriages. And they can define those however they want. This isn't really so radical. We already have it, but we just legally call a heterosexual union a "marriage." But not every church will accept those "marriages." Let's put it this way. Suppose I were dating an orthodox Jewish girl. I could get married in her synagogue. But not until I got "recircumcised." Apparently, the first circumcision wasn't good enough for them (done by a Goyim). Fine, but the government isn't asking that of me, are they? I bring this up because different churches have different standards on marriages. And they have every right to impose those standards. The government has no such right. But they do have a right to enforce contract law. To me, that's the solution. Everyone gets a civil contract, and if you want a religious marriage on top of that, go to your church to get it. To me, this is a no-brainer. But for some reason, it's considered too radical to talk about.
I should add that I have a particular problem with Common Law marriage. I don't want to get married, but I have "lived in sin." Under Colorado law, if I live with a women for a month, I'm married to her. Regardless of whether I want to be married, I am married. And it turns out that I have already been legally married. Didn't even know it, but I was, twice. And one of the women I've lived with has been legally married to three men at the same time (she got married when she lived with me and another man). For that reason, I don't rent to women anymore. Technically, if I have a lease contract, that invalidates the common law marriage, but it will cost me a lot of court fees to prove that. And she can put a lean on my house by divorcing me. That's a nasty legal mess. So I stay away.
Okay, so check this out. I was talking to woman lawyer about this. She owned her house and had a live-in boyfriend that she didn't want to marry. She rented a studio apartment to deal with it. She forced her boyfriend to live there two days out of every month. That prevented her from going the legally required 30 day stretch to qualify for common law marriage. That way, he couldn't file for divorce and get her house. Smart woman. But the law shouldn't force her into that position.
In the Czech language there is no "Gender Neutral" word for "To Marry" or "To Wed". A "convulsive term" such as "Matrimonying", I suppose, could be created as a neologism. When a man gets married he does a "Z`ENIT se" Which translates as "WOMANNING". When a woman weds she does a "VDAVAT se""To Give of Self". The traditional Czech lexicon will not know what to call a same sex marriage. Christian missionaries in Hawaii and other Pacific islands had a difficulty conveying the idea of a "Virgin Birth" to peoples who had no concept of virginity or a word for the condition.
Submitted by a curious Czech in Los Alamos NM USA HELP!