A couple years ago, he got a bit fed up with being dogpiled on the subject, and announced that he wasn’t just going to support SSM bans at the ballot, but would volunteer his time to help pass them.
I can only assume the large number of victories for SSM in the last few months are a direct result.
IMO, this is the hallmark of a genuinely indefensible position.
Exactly. The position of, “why won’t you accept civil unions that are otherwise completely equal to marriage,” does not come free of baggage. It comes with the centuries of discrimination and hatred and bigotry, and in many it cases from the same people who, 5 or 10 or 20 years ago, were purveying that bigotry.
Dan Savage puts it very well in this article. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but this is the crux:
Which also raises the practical problem with civil unions in the US. (I realise that the OP of this thread was about a hypothetical country, but the discussion seems to have moved on.) There is no way in hell that the current GOP-dominated Congress would pass a law giving civil unions exactly the same federal rights as marriages. And without those rights, civil unions are not equal; it’s the DOMA issue all over again.
I’ve been staring at this for ten minutes now,
[/QUOTE]
Oops. That should have read:
Now if you were Sailor and felt disparaged by the existence of another group called Soldiers, then the problem seems to lie with some insecurity you have.
No.
If I were a part of a married couple, and had a problem with the existence of another group called “a softball team,” then the problem would lie with some insecurity I had.
However, if I am a member of a married couple, and am threatened by the existence of another married couple who are not exactly like me, then the problem would be with some insecurity I had.
Wanting to call another couple who are just like my wife and I, excepting for what they do in the bedroom, by a different term is absurd. (For the record, I am not certain my hetero-married friends do the same things in the bedroom as my wife and I, and whether they do or not is irrelevant to whether they are a married couple.)
You objected to marriage and civil unions being legallly the same because of the “separate but equal thing”. I am trying to find out what the basis of that objection is.
Civil unions and marriage would be legally equivalent in my scenario. Marshall’s opinion in Brown v. Board was that the physical separation of segregation made it inherently discriminatory. There would be no physical separation in civil union vs. marriage. They would use separate terms to refer to the respective institutions. So they would be as far as I can tell truly separate, but equal.
The objections are that calling one side civil union is inherently discriminatory, because of the motives of some on the other side. That doesn’t follow, since the same motives would exist no matter what they call it, and since there is no right not to have other people disapprove of you. The other objection is that calling it marriage would prevent later changes that degrade the institution, and that doesn’t seem to be the case either, as witnessed by the UK cite.
Regards.
Shodan
What scenario is that exactly? Are you talking just for a state or the US or the world?
Right now, my same-sex marriage in Minnesota would be recognize by The Hague Convention of 14 March 1978 on Celebration and Recognition of the Validity of Marriages. which states:
So for your “scenario” to work, we would have to:
Or
There is, if/when they seek to codify that disapproval in the form of law.
I didn’t say it would prevent later changes, just that it would make them more difficult, and it would more transparently identify any such changes as purely meant to harm gay couples.
I think you would need to do a good deal of amending changing the definition of marriage to include SSM - probably as much as creating civil union as a new institution.
I don’t see how the likelihood of that happening is affected by calling it “civil union”. It would be more likely (IMO) if those who want to retain the current definition of marriage are disparaged and penalized, as suggested in the OP.
My proposal avoids that danger. But it does require both sides to accept reality. Proponents of a traditional definition of marriage have to accept that recognizing an identical institution for same-sex couples does not disparage them. Proponents of same-sex unions have to accept that calling it "civil union’ does not disparage them either.
But it is a recognition of reality. Traditionalists cannot point to anything about civil union that actually affects them, and thus fall back on “but I don’t liiiiiiike it!!!” And likewise for the other side - they can’t point to any actual negative effects either, and fall back on the same argument. Or un-falisfiable stuff about it will make it difficult to discriminate against same-sex unions, even in the teeth of evidence that calling it SSM hasn’t been shown to prevent it at all.
Regards,
Shodan
I am reminded of the old joke about the difference between the righteously earnest Americans and the godless commie Rooskies – if you have one horse and your neighbor has two, your response is (if you’re a go-getter American) to work on getting yourself a second horse or (if you’re a pinko Rooskie) to sneak into your neighbor’s barn and poison one of his horses.
Comrades magellan01 and Shodan, like Comrade Preacher who wrote this screed, have declared their side of this fundamental divide…
This question reminds me of the evening after the X-Files episode “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’” originally aired. Somebody posted a query on the show’s Usenet group (don’t worry if you don’t recognize the name; it’s one of those stone-knives-and-bearskins things from the Before Times):
“I missed last night’s episode. Can anyone post a brief plot synopsis?”
The consensus was that the only answer to this question is “NO”. The same is true here.
That’s why I didn’t put in it a quote box. Using quotes to indicate paraphrases is a board convention you understand perfectly well since you do it yourself 5 posts later.
If the word “marriage” carries significant cultural weight, then something called a “civil union” will be perceived as inferior. But if the word “marriage” doesn’t carry significant cultural weight, then it doesn’t matter if we use it to refer to gay unions or not.
You’re simultaneously arguing two contradictory positions. You’re saying that the word “marriage” carries such a wealth of historical and cultural connotations that we should come up with a different term to refer to gay people. But you’re also saying that words are arbitrary labels so we shouldn’t take historical and cultural connotations into account to determine if that different term is perceived as inferior.
If calling something a “civil union” is just a matter of attaching an arbitrary label that doesn’t carry any sense of inferiority, then why not just call it “marriage”? It’s simpler and clearer.
It’s like you didn’t read my link at all. But to reiterate: “No. No you don’t.”
Personally, I have a mental image of George Wallace running around whack-a-mole style trying to somehow block all the doorways as new ones are constantly carved out.
Don’t give him ideas.
If we call it all marriage - if it is defined as exactly one and the same legal concept, then any future proposed change to anything related to marriage affects everyone - and (if it’s a detestable change) it will have majority opposition,
If we call it civil union, even if all of the rights and privileges (except name) are aligned at this point in time, it’s a separate entity, subject to future change independent of any change affecting marriage, so in the case of a future detestable change, all the people covered by the cosy and unaffected Marriage category, can sit and do nothing whilst inequalities are introduced.
Making it all ‘marriage’ ensures future equality. ‘Separate but equal’, even if that made sense, allows for the possibility of one supposedly-equal category to go to shit later, especially if that category is a minority.
Well, then, you’ll have no objection whatsoever to the proposal advanced on the “Is The Gay Marriage Debate Over?” thread.*
*Period, not question mark. This is not a query; it is a statement of an obvious and inescapable corollary to your on-the-record position.
No speaking for Shodan, but…
What you’re missing is the difference between the legal privileges and benefits marriage affords a couple and the symbolism that the word carries. You might not agree with the idea, but it is a statement of fact that Civil Unions can be afforded the exact same set of legal benefits and privileges as marriages. That’s a fact. If there was the will to do this it could be done.
The symbolism aspect is the reason that those who believe in traditional marriage want SS couples to us another word. The position is both logical and consistent. From a legal standpoint, SS couples should get all the benefits and privileges that OS couples enjoy. From a symbolic standpoint, while I understand why they’d want it, but that doesn’t mean that society needs to acquiesce to their desires. If SS couples believe that their Civil Union is inferior and feel bad, we’ll, that’s their problem. As Shodan (I think) said, there is no right to not feel offended. I’d go as far as to say that IF they really want to demonstrate that their relationships are every bit as wonderful as those of OS couples that they, that they should proudly start their own institution. Maybe over time it’ll be viewed as positively as marriage. Maybe it’ll be viewed as even better than marriage. Maybe it’ll fall short of marriage. Regardless of the outcome, it will be deserved.
And this leads back to the earlier question I asked, what prevents SS couples from embracing their own form of union and being proud of it? Is there some feeling among gays that there relationships are, in fact, inferior in some way? Why not embrace it the same way Sailors and Soldiers each embrace and are proud of the groups they are members of?
If they mean exactly the same thing, then why not drop marriage as a legal term and open up civil unions for everybody?
On the other hand, don’t bother answering, because it isn’t necessary-You’re already losing this war. I have same sex friends that are already legally married in every sense of the word, and more of them will be able to marry in the future. Do you feel diminished? Do you feel less “married”? Can you give us any predictions about how this will negatively effect those that refuse to drop their bigotry?
Got any more bizarre analogies to share with us?
And separate drinking fountains for blacks can be kept maintained and cleaned just as shiny as those for whites.
I think it’s already been demonstrated (and continues to be demonstrated in debates like this one) that the will to maintain equality in a notionally ‘separate but equal’ arrangement is not universal.