Haven’t there been people who have asserted in gay marriage threads that because the majority of Americans don’t want gay marriage, that everyone else must go along with that? Or that because it is a view held by the majority, that it must be right and good?
I’m pretty sure I do remember such comments, but I have no idea how to search for them. But if I’m right, perhaps Binarydrone was confused because of it.
I have in fact asserted in past threads that, absent a clear constitutional prohibition, legislative enactments should not be struck down – respect for democratic self-governance demands as much.
That is not the same as my giving moral approval to any particular legislative act. I can vehemently disagree with actions taken by my fellow citizens and yet still honor their right to do so.
Y’know, I already called John Mace on his earlier comment, so I see where your previous post is coming from, but you’re being a little unfair to DCU here. He (rightly) pointed out that you were responding to a point JM didn’t make, that’s all. Nowhere did I see him defend prohibitions against same sex marriage.
Yes, when I said “right and good,” I meant in a moral sense, not in a legal or legislative sense.
And to make it absolutely clear, I don’t think you have asserted such. Just saying that I believe it HAS been asserted.
If you coud have anything but an emotionally reflexive response to my post, you would realize how ludicrous you sound. As Dewey already pointed out, I was merely countering the argument that the “raidical right” had a monopoly on opposition to gay marriage. If you think that opposition to gay marriage is confined to the “radical right”, there is no other conclusion to reach other than that you are delusional. (Gotta love the Pit for allowing an honest evaluation of a particular scenario.)
You are absolutley correct in that the a belief by the majority is in no way indicative of the absolute truth of any particular idea. However, given that we live in a democratic society, if the majority holds to a particular idea, and desires it to be part of our constitution, then we have no way of voiding that decisions other than rule by force. I’m sure that is not what you are advoacting.
I think that I wasn’t clear on what I was suggesting. It’d be a multi-part plan:
Hamish, you raise the interesting point that the word “marriage” carries connotations in international legal law that “civil union” doesn’t carry. I’m not sure you’re right, though. As you state, some other countries currently grant same-sex marriage licenses; are these widely recognized by countries that don’t issue such? Some countries issue polygynous marriage certificates (I assume – certainly they recognize polygynous marriages); are these widely recognized in countries that don’t issue such?
In other words, is there a history of countries recognizing marriages that they themselves wouldn’t consider legal?
I want to re-emphasize, since the point seems to be getting lost, that I would only advocate this solution if civil unions carried (at least in the state in which they’re issued) identical rights to those normally carried by a marriage license. Obviously we can’t control what rights they’ll carry in different countries, but then, we can’t do that with marriages, either.
Daniel
I endorse Left Hand of Dorkness’ plan completely.
Left-Hand, you’re dead on. Unfortunately for us, it won’t happen.
Your plan is unnecessary, Left Hand of Dorkness. Civil Marriage is already separate from Religious Marriage. Besides being even more unlikely than a Constitution Amendment to ensure the rights of gay people to marry, why is it necessary to change the name?
The answer to this seems painfully obvious: people have religious associations with the word “marriage” that they don’t have with the phrase “civil unions,” and so renaming it would go a long way toward quelling the passions over the issue.
If hospitals issued Baptism certificates instead of Birth certificates, you can bet that the Baptists would get all pissed off about Baptism certificates being issued to atheist kids. But since the certificates they issue have no religious connotations, Baptists don’t get pissed off about it.
Remove the religious connotations, and it becomes a lot simpler.
I’d like to know why on earth you think this would be more unlikely to pass than an amendment ensuring the rights of gay people to marry. Do you have any evidence to back this up at all?
Daniel
Dewey, John and others: First, an apology. It would seem that I misunderstood your position. You are correct in that this is an emotional issue for me, which it seems can lead me to miss some nuances of the positions of others. I am glad, in this case, to be wrong and to hear that you do not support legislating the inequality of homosexuals.
I will say, on the issue of the Radical Right, that there are very compelling reasons to view the gay marriage issue as being “owned” by them. When you look at issues like the proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage as only for mixed sex couples, it seems to me that (although many Americans may feel queasy about it) that the Radical Right is the engine driving the process. They have shown time and again that they have the political will to impose their morality on others. When I perceive someone as lending weight to their position, I do tend to shoot first and ask questions later.
These revelations are why I am here. This place continually helps me to think more clearly and refine my positions on the subjects that are important to me.
Just a couple of thoughts here: It would be great if you would simply express how you, personally, feel about this issue. You seem to be implying that you perceive me as some Gore supporting Liberal, and that I (and my ilk) want to have it both ways (as in impose our will on the majority even though we despise that when the Right does so). That said, your post seems rather backhanded in its point so some clarification is in order.
To me, if the State can be said to have any point, it is to guarantee that its citizens all have equal access to the institutions of society. There have been numerous cases where this was clearly not happening and where the majority of the citizens were fine with that so the State had to step in and correct the problem.
That the State has been corrupted in to attempting to codify inequality, to me, is not only vile but it is a perversion of what it is supposed to be for. This is a road that we do not want to start down, and something that we as good citizens should be fighting tooth and nail.
I think you’re misunderstanding Hombrew. He is saying that is already possible to get married in the US without any sort of religion/religious act entering into the equation.
This is already called by everyone a marriage. There is no distinction now between marriage ceremonies performed by the Justice of the Peace or by a Preacher. They both get you all the goodies and the same name to your union. Therefore it isn’t necessary to institute any new procedures to allow SSM, just changes in the law. It is all still called marriage.
Also, I think you might not understand the difference between birth and baptism. Everyone gets a birth certificate to certify the fact that they were born at whatever time and place on whatever date to whatever people. A baptism is a ceremony performed at a church well after the birth by many christian sects, not only by Baptists. One has nothing to do with the other.
I do not support legislating the inequality of homosexuals. I am, though, really intregued by how the legal issue of gay marriage is going to get worked out. Like Dewey, I’m concerned as much with the process as with the outcome. I don’t have a personal stake in the outcome, unlike our gay friends who post here, and maybe that makes me sound unsympathetic at times. For me, this is a fascinating intellectual exercise of legal argument.
I do think that many posters are naive about how straight-forward this issue is, on both sides. If you think, for example, that the Supreme Court will not consider the historical purpose of marriage in society when they consider the case, then you are deluding yourself.
I think it’s also important to recognize that we do live in a democracy and that there are almost certainly going to be some states that will enact state constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage. CA might even be one of them-- the CA state constitution can be amended by ballot initiative w/ only a simple majority vote.
There’s misunderstanding here, but I don’t think it’s on my part.
Of course I’m aware that you can get married in the US without technically having a religion enter into it. My own wedding ceremony was nonreligious in nature.
HOWEVER, and I’ll make this as clear as I can, the word “marriage” has religious connotations to many people. My suggestion is almost entirely semantic, then: separate that word from the bundle of rights the government gives to couples. Surrender the word entirely to the nongovernmental sector, and let the government deal entirely in the bundle of rights.
My point is that if you do that, then the religious right will no longer be able to argue that marriage is traditionally between a man and a woman. As far as they’re concerned, it can still remain entirely between a man and a woman. However, the government will no longer be forced to take sides in that debate. This new “civil union” thing will be between two individuals committed to one another, and it’ll enable them to deal with the government in a coordinated fashion. The government will no longer recognize marriages.
Is that clear? I’ll try to rephrase it again if necessary.
Believe me, I understand that. My point is that, just as baptism is a recognition of birth (or, in the case of some sects, rebirth) that the government doesn’t need to be involved in, marriage is a recognition of couplehood that the government doesn’t need to be involved in. And funerals are a recognition of death that the government doesn’t need to be involved in, and bar mitzvahs are a recognition of adulthood that the government doesn’t need to be involved in.
Separate the religiously-charged word from the stuff the government needs to do, and I predict you’ll get a lot less opposition from the faith community.
Daniel
I have another question for the lawyers, especially Bricker (who, incidentally, flatters me with his endorsement of my plan 
): could a civil union law enacted in one state be phrased in such a way that other states would be required to recognize it under the Constitution? I know, or at least believe i know, that a contract signed in one state is considered to be binding in all fifty states, right? Would a similar principle apply to civil unions, if set up properly? Or would civil unions necessarily be too different from any existing document to receive such automatic respect in all fifty US states?
If, say, Massachusetts could replace all its marriage licenses with civil union licenses, and if by doing so they could force civil unions enacted in MA to be recognized in SC and GA and MS, that might prove a rapid end-run around the whole debate. Even if SC passed a constitutional amendment saying that marriage was between a man and a woman, this might have no effect on a civil union between two women that moved into the state; and passing an amendment saying that civil unions were between a man and a woman would be considerably more difficult.
But this is speculation on my part. How would reciprocity of law between states apply to civil unions?
Daniel
I don’t know anyone (including my preacher who is fairly conservative) who considers the word “marriage” to have a strictly religious connotation. Marriage means that two people share property, have legal rights concerning each other, have pledged to stay together forever, and you have to go through a lot of shit to get out of it. Perhaps I’m not religious enough.
I think the federal government does need to be involved in the regulation of the institute of marriage. ** I also believe that SSM should be legal.** I think the federal gov’t should declare certain unions illegal (incestuous, underage, inter-species) so that there aren’t issues regarding who is legally married in this country and who isn’t - to remove the problems people have when moving around the country. I think the name of this union shouldn’t be changed because it would create more confusion over what is the same thing - and a name change could be an incentive to limit the rights of SS couples as compared to mixed-sex couples.
I for one, were I married, would be completely resistant to the idea of having my marriage license changed to a civil union license. Even though I favor SSM, a change like that would make me vote against such a law. In my opinion it is completely wrong to change everyone elses marriage to satisfy a few people. I am much more in favor of making it possible for SS couples to marry and to call it marriage.
Grr. Neither do I. That’s why, when I talked about marriage having a religious connotation, I didn’t say a strictly religious connotation. What the hell does that have to do with anything, that most people you know acknowledge that marriage has connotations beyond religion? That IN NO WAY has any impact on my point, which is that marriage has religious connotations.
Given that you didn’t include some phrase about “Being gathered here today in God’s presence to bear witness,” that you didn’t mention anything about marriage involving three partners (husband, wife, and God), that you didn’t mention anything about being united in holy matrimony, perhaps you’re not “religious enough.” Certainly you didn’t mention many the things that religious people tend to talk about when they discuss marriage.
And you also didn’t mention the religious argument that God intended marriage to be between a man and a woman, or any of those things.
Those arguments are what I’m addressing. Of course I acknowledge that marriage also involves sharing property; are you intentionally throwing up red herrings?
Why? What compelling interest does government have in marriage that wouldn’t equally be served by calling it a civil union?
Again, why? You can still get married, just like you can still get baptized or bar-mitzvahed or handfasted or born again or whatever wild and crazy ritual suits your preferences. I’m married, and I’d love for the government to change my marriage license to a civil union license: my government has no business nosing into my love life.
Daniel
Depends on what you mean by ‘recognizing’. The government commonly gives formal recognition to the credentials of foreign diplomats, including accepting their passport and those of their several wives. This seems to be recognizing them as married. But not the same as receiving government services or benefits, like Social Security death benefits, etc.
Here in Minnesota we have the Mayo Clinic, which often has patients from foreign countries. And they frequently bring family with them that would not be acceptable as family under our laws. Recently, for example, there was an Arab official who rented an entire floor of a local hotel for his several wives. (I don’t know how they figure out which wife to list as “next of kin”. Maybe their forms have multiple spaces?) But this is a regular occurrance, and the Clinic is quite accustomed to dealing with it. This is a private medical facility, even though mostly paid with taxpayer funds.
Historically, we have had marriages with multiple spouses in the USA in the past. The territory of Utah in early Mormon times had many such marriages. Their admission as a US state was held up until they changed Utah law to prohibit polygamous marriages. But that change did not invalidate the existing marriages. Some of those multi-person married couples (triples? quads? whatever) probably survived until about a hundred years ago. And even today, there are areas in the outback of Utah, Idaho, etc. where polygamous marriages are still occurring.
Interesting. This is more than I realized we recognized; at the same time, I expect that cultural diversity appreciation is higher amongst the diplomatic services than in the rest of government :).
I guess, in order for it to be completely relevant, we’d need to know how such marriages would be treated when folks move to the United States and become fully subject to US laws. Would a man with four wives be able to claim them all as dependents for tax purposes? Could they all file jointly? If he died, would his estate be divided equally among the wives? If he went into a coma, who would gain power of attorney?
And what if we look instead at a same-sex marriage? If Jeff and Tony marry in Denmark, would the IRS recognize their marriage here?
My understanding is that they would not, but I could be wrong. Assuming I’m right, it undermines Hamish’s argument that marriage carries a particularly strong legal weight across national lines: it would seem that only marriages considered legal in the “home court” are recognized, regardless of the rules under which the marriage was originally recognized.
Daniel