You never heard of black people “passing” as white? Shesh!
And if marriage is only for people who can procreate, then would you ban it for infertile couples? Post-menopausal women?
Not to mention homosexuals can and do procreate.
I certainly agree with all of this personally. I no more chose to be straight than homosexuals choose to be gay.
However, there are, I believe, many people who do think this way. Who feel like the only way to ensure that their children don’t “catch the gay” is by marginalizing gay people. Denying the benefits and obligations of marriage is part of that, as was denying military service.
It’s not entirely unique to the gay marriage debate, because at least part of the goal of anti-miscegenation laws was to demean racial minorities. But the “gotta keep my kids from turning gay” part is at least somewhat unique to gay-rights issues. Surely you saw or heard about the “slap your son around if he acts gay” pastor - there are plenty of people who agreed with every word he said.
And some straight people chose not to procreate. Should we asked everyone who applies for a marriage license if they plan to procreate? And how many years without having children before the marriage is declared “invalid”? If this doesn’t smack of 1984, I don’t know what does.
Annie-Xmas, striaght person with two marriages whose sister the lesbian has raised eight (!) daughers and is now legally married.
Absolutely. But there’s a difference between passing (or being in the closet) and just plain not being black or asian or tall or left-handed or gay any more. I don’t know if it’s been proven yet that homosexuality is innate, but if it ever is, asking people to stop being gay is probably going to lose some traction.
Yep…unfortunately (stuff like that makes it easy to become a misanthrope…disgusting).
Indeed if one of the main purposes of marriage is to procreate then allowing SSM would see more babies being born. Many gay couples want to marry in order to start a family. Without all the inherent protections marriage affords (inheritance rights, divorce, etc.) they are more reluctant to have children.
Bear in mind that I support same-sex marriage.
This question is not useful.
For example, let’s question the 55 mph speed limit. It’s there to preserve fuel economy. We cannot strike it down by asking why, if fuel economy is important, the government doesn’t forbid Humvees or at least require that the owners show a need for such fuel-gobbling cars.
In other words, just because a law is only partially effective at completing its purpose, and just because you can conceive other, more effective ways of completing its purpose, is not a basis to strike down the law.
Hmmm, I question the accuracy of this. Yes, there have always been occasional interracial marriages in western cultures (especially during periods of colonial conquest), but I doubt the claim that they were considered “the norm”. Ethnic prejudice against different racial groups goes back a long way, and has always been accompanied by disapproval of inter-group marriages.
Correct me if I am wrong but that only applies under Rational Basis analysis I thought.
The question then becomes whether homosexuals should be considered a Suspect Class and have a higher level of scrutiny applied (an argument I linked to in post #19).
I realize they are not deemed a suspect class currently so what you wrote is the case today. Doesn’t mean that can’t be changed.
Whether homosexuals should get strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny or the sometimes discussed (not currently existing) rational basis with teeth is of course debatable.
I think almost any scrutiny above rational basis (which is an absurdly low bar) would toss things like the procreation argument for marriage in the bin immediately.
Also, since marriage is not predicated in any way on procreation in laws regarding marriage can the government now claim that is what it was really for all along?
From your link:
So, “historically” we have a phenomenon that arose in one country fewer than 350 years ago. That is pretty much what ITR champion posted regarding the history or traditions of marriage–that extend thousands of years into the past and occur, (with variations), in every culture.
I would not claim that inter-racial marriages were a norm–simply because people of different perceived “races” did not previously have access to encounter each other on any regular basis. However, while it is probably true that endogamy has been the usual mode of marriage and xenophobia has often played a role in selecting or rejecting mates, (or scorning the mates of others), there does not appear to have been any routine prohibition against members of separate groups marrying, except to the point of proscribing exogamous marriage. (Did the anti-miscegenation laws, for example, prohibit marriages between whites and Indians or whites and Asians in the U.S.? How about between blacks and Indians? Are there any other societies that had general laws of a similar nature?)
The “rational basis” is not as pure as it has been, think of Department of Agriculture v. Moreno where they denied food stamps to "hippies" the court decided,"bare Congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group" was not justification under the rational basis.
Or in City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center "a bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group,’ are not legitimate state interests."
And in Romer, which along with Lawerance are the only precedence in most districts they court held them to Rational “with bite”.
I would say there is plenty of precedence without any claim of a semi credible state interest in banning them.
I would suggest that the current discussions regarding the legalities of laws on this topic be taken to a different thread. I think that they have been offered in good faith, but I do not think that this was the discussion the OP was seeking, and they are going to get tangled with the OP’s question, leading to unnecessary conflict. (We want only necessary conflict in this forum.)
Stick to discussions regarding the “rightness” of such laws.
[ /Moderating ]
I’m not arguing with the moderation so much as the relation of the legalities of the law to the “rightness” of the law. As Bricker and others point out, I think the “rightness” of the argument depends largely on whether sexual orientation is deserving of a more than rational basis or even strict scrutiny test.
If it is, then you can no more say that gay people can’t do X than black people can’t do X. If it is rational basis, then you can certainly say that gay people can’t do X, just as you can say that jaywalkers, or litterers, or bank robbers can’t do X.
I think that the legalities argument gets people to the core of the debate: Should sexual orientation be a protected class? If yes, then no argument can be right. If no, then many arguments are right.
The OP is simply assuming that miscegenation and same sex marriage are the same type of debate. Without answering the scrutiny question, the GQ answer to his question could be an unqualified “no” but be meaningless if sexual orientation is/should not be protected.
Ya lost me there, tom. AFAICT, “proscribing exogamous marriage” is “prohibition against members of separate groups marrying”. They’re the same thing. Any society that has historically proscribed exogamous marriage has by definition ruled out inter-group marriage.
Funny thing is, making a homosexual “pass” for straight (i.e. get into a hetero marriage, have children, act “normal”) is viewed quite differently from having a black person pass for white. The former wasn’t talked about, the latter was near-certain to generate a strongly negative response if discovered.
To clarify my statement, I don’t think such marriage were common, merely that for most of history there have not been any laws against them. In the Middle Ages, the only time I ever recall hearing of the issue disputed was in a history of the Crusades. When one bishop in the Crusader Kingdoms refused to marry Europeans and Arabs, the Pope intervened directly to overturn that decision. Other than that, I can point mainly to evidence from literature. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, stories of European travelers bringing home smashingly beautiful black or Arabian princesses were very popular, as in Don Quixote to name just one example. When Jonathan Smith made up his story about being rescued by Pocahontas, he was really just adding to a long tradition of adventurers winning the heart of beauties from primitive tribes. In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were countless novels about Englishmen going to distant places and meeting beautiful women who were amazingly willing to please. Doubtlessly such stuff was popular partially because it was viewed as exotic, but it wasn’t viewed as utterly unacceptable.
Yes, but there was also a long tradition of literature expressing disdain or repulsion towards members of other races, like William Dunbar’s 15th-century poem “On a Blackamoor”. Likewise, there was a long tradition of homoerotic poetry as well, including some by Shakespeare.
Racism and homophobia have both been strong influences against interracial and same-sex relationships, respectively, for most of the history of western cultures since medieval times. But neither one ever completely dominated cultural attitudes about them. You’re quite right that most such societies would legally recognize an interracial marriage where it existed; but of course most interracial relationships in those societies, like homosexual relationships, never even attempted to seek the official status of marriage.
Well, but once you get into the 18th and 19th centuries, you’re in the historical period where anti-miscegenation laws actually exist, despite (or perhaps partly because of) the perennial attraction of the “dusky-maiden” theme in literature. What people like to read about is not a reliable guide to what they consider officially socially acceptable.
Loving v. Virginia was a case where criminalization of interracial marriage was at issue. The SC decided that the law that criminalized that conduct was a violation of equal protection. As far as I know, there is no statute that criminalizes SSM, instead, it just isn’t recognized as legally valid in the majority of the U.S. That being the case, there is a great difference between the arguments against SSM being the same as against interracial marriage. It is the difference between going to jail and not being able to do what you want to do, ie f****** someone you love of your own sex and calling yourselves married. To my mind there is a huge qualitative difference between those two things.
One friend of mine puts the argument this way: marriage between a man and a woman is a benefit to society as a whole because it produces and raises the next generation of people. SSM, generally speaking doesn’t. As such, marriage between a man and a woman is entitled to the legal benefits and state support of marriage, while SSM shouldn’t be.
Of course, we all know that men and women have sex and produce and raise children outside of marriage, and that men and women marry and don’t have children. We also know that while same sex couples can certain raise children, they can only produce children with the aid of modern medical technology. If they aren’t producing children naturally then they aren’t entitled to the benefits of marriage. So says my friend, and I agree with him, and that and a $1 will get me a cup of coffee maybe.
With that, I take my leave, to threads about baseball and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where I am much more at home. 