Me again. grr
I don’t particularly care whether they consider my marriage equivalent in value to theirs; I care that they acknowledge that it exists. They have to acknowledge it legally. If they fail to acknowledge it socially then they come across as being rude (at least to those people who consider marriage to contain the social contract of recognising that the parties involved are partnered). The value of marriage is bound inextricably with its place as a covenant between the people involved and their community for mutual acknowledgement and support; they can’t dismiss my marriage in that context without running the risk that marriage itself will lose its value because it becomes acceptable to ignore it.
You’d have to ask my in-laws why they changed their attitude towards myself and my now-husband after we got married – when the justification for their previous behaviour was, I’m quite certain, religious, and we neither had a religious ceremony (let alone a ceremony that invoked their god’s blessing) nor invited them to the event. We told 'em we had the certificate on file, and that was what they needed to, for example, stop insisting that we (who had been living together for several years) should stop sleeping in separate rooms when we visited them.
Because the “option” destroys value that is critical to me, and I prefer to fight ignorance rather than cater to it.
While I can see where you’re coming from with your proposal, I think you’re missing a couple of things.
As you admit in your proposal, the state has to regulate something in order to identify the class of people to whom the rights in question are to be applied. Currently, that class is labeled “married”, and in your proposal would be labeled “civilly unioned”. That doesn’t “get the state out of marriage” in any way. It just changes the term by which the state refers to the regulation. In order to receive the rights, you still have to register with the state. If you really want to get the state out of marriage, then what you’re really looking for is to remove the package of state-granted rights from consideration, which I very much doubt you’re going to get people to agree to.
Second, you’re missing a very important social factor. Part of a government’s job is to promote social harmony among its citizens. Obviously, this can be done in many different ways, and has through history. The US government in particular, however, was created with certain principles in mind, that have led to a society that contains many different groups of people, with differing beliefs, all managing to live more or less at some level of harmony. It is in the best interest of society for the government to promote policies that in themselves promote social harmony. Central to that harmony is a need for respect of other groups and the institutions they create. And by respect I mean only a basic level of social acceptance. Each group can think or feel what they like, but they are not allowed to directly interfere with another group’s practices, because of that required respect. Without this, society fractures along group ideological lines. The government, by being a central body to which all groups have membership and to which all groups are subject at some level, needs to provide, through its regulations and mandates, a force that promotes and requires that respect.
In practice, this doesn’t always happen, but the basic requirement is there. A group can only go so far before they go beyond what is acceptable. Your proposal, by legitimizing the idea of separate standards, would create a situation in which it would be very easy for that sense of respect to be lost, with each group recognizing and respecting only its own version of marriage. Some amount of social cohesion would be lost, as well. Particularly as we’re talking about an institution that is, rightly or wrongly, central to many peoples’ ideas of what makes a family. In this case, I believe that multiple separate definitions would be divisive, not cohesive.
As a government of many disparate groups, the US government will promote social harmony by being inclusive. If it is exclusive, it will be promoting disharmony.
I can’t speak for Orthodox Jews, but I <i>can</i> speak for devoutely religious Catholics - and they certainly DO have a problem with the state permitting divorced people marrying. They just recognize there’s nothing they can do about it, because most Americans would be adamantly opposed to abolishing civil divorce. It’s a battle they can’t win, so they don’t try. Instead, they turn their energies toward battles they MIGHT be able to win: abortion and suppressing gay rights, because there are large elements in American society who, though not devoutely Catholic, share the Catholic view that that abortion and acknowledging gay rights (especially gay marriage) are wrong.
Good luck (and I do mean that sincerely). Homophobia seems even more deeply engrained than racism; I think we’re in for a very long struggle before homosexuals can expect the level of accceptance racial minorities have managed to achieve to date.
Way to go Arnie. I like my governor comparing weddings to free AK-47s. Looking at those lines of people waiting for days just to get married sure makes me fear for my life and the complete breakdown of law/order/American civilization.
Oh and in regards to him saying that “they can’t do that” in regards to selling drugs, perhaps he needs to read Prop 215 a little bit?
Like within the time that Arnold has been a politician?
I never said that he did. I said that he finally went on record with a definitive position, which is something which he avoided doing throughout his campaign. For the record:
From the Independent Gay Forum, an article which was originally published in the Chicago Free Press on 10/15/03, after the California recall:
It’s only been since he’s gotten into power than Schwarznegger’s espoused the same kind of rhetoric on the topic as the wing of the party he otherwise rejects.
Why, yes – my proposal does indeed allow people to exercise their first amendment rights to be jerks. This is a feature, not a bug, in my proposal.
Of course, to be fair, people already exercise those same rights, and if SSM becomes the law, the same people would STILL say, “that’s not a marriage.” So this isn’t especially a benefit of my proposal.
It’s true that my proposal would not force them to recognize your marriage in legal transactions. However, it would force them to recognize your civil union in legal transactions, and that would be exactly the same thing. In fact, because “civil union” isn’t an emotionally-charged word, you’d be a lot likelier to get your rights recognized if you used it than if you used the word “marriage” to describe a nontraditional partnership.
I’ve addressed this point ad nauseum, but apparently I’ve not been clear enough. The entire POINT is that it would change the term by which the state referred to the relationship, changing it from a term fraught with religious and political baggage into a much more value-neutral term. It would relegate the religiously-connoted, politically divisive term into the private sector, allowing the term to be used by each and every secular and religious person the way they want without having one definition bear the imprimatur of the state.
I am excruciatingly aware that this is a semantic change; I am also aware that this is a battle, to a very large degree, about semantics.
This is speculation, and I don’t see much grounds for it. Even if it’s the case, the government’s role in promoting social cohesion is counterbalanced by its obligation to stay out of religious fights. I know that changing the language the government uses would do the latter; I see no evidence it would damage the former. If you’ve got evidence this would happen, let’s see it.
Daniel
Well, admittedly, Dr. John Boswell’s case that the Medieval Church was performing same-sex marriages in the early Middle Ages remains controversial, he does make a good case in his Same-sex Unions in Premodern Europe. I have yet to hear a good refutation of his thesis.
Plus, the Church only regarded marriage as a compromise. “It’s better to marry than to burn,” but chastity was still the ideal. The clerical orders were often asked to bless marriage, as they would, say, bless crops, but it was primarily a business dealing at first, not a sacrament.
The idea that marriage is a Christian institution is actually pretty recent. It’s certainly not a 2000-year-old idea. As long as we’re quoting Christian Scripture, here’s the verse that pretty much defined Christian attitudes toward marriage for the longest time (Luke 20:35):
Don’t be so sure. When Quebec brought in same-sex civil unions, it said heterosexuals could get a civil union as well. I don’t think anyone has taken them up on the offer, but I’d be interested to see if the United States would recognize such a union. I’m pretty sure you guys didn’t change your comity agreement with us to recognize it, even though we’re your nearest neighbour, a major trading partner, etc.
I don’t expect conservative countries to recognize even civil unions. So what we’d have is a union that is not recognized in liberal countries, and not recognized in conservative countries – the worst of both worlds.
I really don’t expect Iran or Zimbabwe to say, “Well, we’ll treat you as if you’re married, just so long as you don’t use the word.” It would be nice to have a marriage you could, say, take to Europe. I don’t think you can take a civil union to the Netherlands.
Look around you. The dam is bursting. It’s one thing to prevent same-sex marriage from taking place, and quite another to annul marriages that have taken place in San Francisco and New Mexico. Could you imagine if the state decided to dissolve your marriage?
Meanwhile, the wall is falling everywhere else, too. this has become a major issue worldwide, and I doubt the rest of western Europe will be left far behind. If the US introduces an anti-gay amendment to its constitution, while the rest of the world grants gay marriage, it’ll further solidify the image of your country as backwards in the eyes of the world.
According to at least one study, that bad reputation has already begun to have economic consequences for the US.
Semantics is crucial to law. One misplaced phrase can change everything.
As a tool of social engineering, however, it leaves a lot to be decided. How long has it been since “retarded” (once the standard term) was changed to “handicapped?” How long was it before “handicapped” became an insult? How long will it be before religious conservatives start railing against “homosexual civil unions”? They still won’t want to be associated with us, if you rope us all together with the same term.
It’s easy to change words (outside of law, that is). It’s much harder to change attitudes.
And I reiterate: why should I care what they think? Both your country and mine have freedom of religion. Yours goes a step further, and formally seperates Church and State. By forcing the government to define marriage along their terms, religious conservatives are hoping to mix their Church with your State.
And that’s one marriage you should want to prevent.
Am I to understand that you’re claiming the prevalent Christian attitude has been that you can’t get into heaven if you’re married? Are you kidding?
I bolded the important part for you. My proposal isn’t that het couples could choose between a marriage license and a civil union (at least, not after the first twelve months); my proposal is that het couples could choose between a civil union and no government recognition of their union. Completely different situation.
Nice how you moved from the speculative, “What would happen IF a heterosexual couple decided, instead of getting a marriage license in Quebec, to get a civil union license there instead, and then moved to the United STates?” to a flat “union that is not recognized in liberal countries.” Totally bogus bait-and-switch.
Again: if this were the only type of government recognition of a union available to Americans, you bet your ass the US would pursue comity agreements posthaste with other countries – and you bet those other countries would agree, if they wanted to maintain comity for their own unions in the US.
That may well happen: the states may well decide to dissolve certain marriages. Not mine, because I’m lucky enough to have a marriage that falls within the parameters set up by the majority in this country; but since the government currently insists on defining marriage, there’s only room for one definition in this country, and in a democracy, that definition is very likely to be determined by majority rule.
Look, if the dam bursts, I’ll be almost completely okay with that. If the government decides, in a fit of schizophrenia, to recognize SSM, I’ll be joyful. But that ain’t gonna happen. Rather than go for the second-best solution – in which the government continues to favor one definition of marriage above other definitions, and hope that bizarrely the government chooses to favor a minority definition – i’d rather go for the best solution, in which the government gets out of the marriage business entirely, and cedes the definition to each individual.
Daniel
EXACTLY! That’s EXACTLY what I’m trying to prevent!
As long as the government DOES define marriage, it’s quite likely to be defined in terms dictated by the majority in our country – which majority is religious and vaguely homophobic. The harder activists push to change that definition to one they like, the harder that majority is pushing back to permanently exclude a gay-friendly definition.
My proposal removes entirely the ability for religious conservatives to define marriage along their terms, except in their own personal lives.
Of course, it also removes the ability for anyone else to define the term for other people, too.
But that’s a good thing.
Daniel
I disagree.
By making such a massive adjustment to accomodate for the demands of a vocal religious group, and put at risk the rights of a minority (and nothing you’ve said has convinced me those rights wouldn’t be at risk under a “civil union”), then you’ve acquiesced. You’ve handed them a victory. You have effectively said, “We are prepared to bend to the requirements of your religion. We are prepared to limit the rights of our citizens in a compromise, rather than tell you you are wrong.”
The risk of backlash can never be a valid excuse to limit one group’s rights. If it were, there were be no progress, because all progress carries with it the risk of a backlash.
This is so blatant a misrepresentation of what I am proposing that I am unable to respond constructively to it. I expect better of you, Hamish.
Daniel
I don’t think it is.
I have stated that there are risks to going with a civil union. You’ve presented counter-arguments, but nothing that I’ve found convincing. Most are speculation.
Admittedly, I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think you are, either. I have talked to lawyers on this specific issue, however, and I have read up on it. In fact, I work as a volunteer at an organization where I am sometimes required to explain this stuff to people, and we get regularly updated information on it.
Every opinion I’ve heard so far is that changing it to “civil union” is dangerous, particularly from a point of international law. That word has no legal weight there. It may in time develop some, but that could be decades or even a century.
You have not convinced me otherwise. So I believe there are still risks of less-than-full equality.
You present your argument as fair, because it offers the same risky compromise to heterosexuals that it does to homosexuals (let’s leave aside for a moment that plenty of heterosexuals would not be ready to accept such a risk). Your plan is a total overhaul of one of your country’s institutions (and it is a total overhaul when you consider that marriage registration is often a matter of constitutional law), with attendant risks, and for what reason?
If there was a valid reason, I would think, maybe you should go for it. But there isn’t. There is nothing but the hot air spouted by a group of people who seem convinced that their deity is going to going to rain fire and brimstone on Washington, DC, if their governments allow same-sex couples to be treated equally under state, federal, and international law.
I don’t take those views any more seriously than I do Raelian cloning or “mud people” theories. Neither does the law of any Western nation I’m aware of. We’ve long since agreed, as a civilization, that one’s personal religious views have no bearing on another person’s rights.
So it is caving in to religious conservatives. You would not be suggesting this plan if they hadn’t shouted about the definition of marriage. And the plan has too many flaws to be workable. So the only reason to insist on it, IMO, is because of pressure from those religious conservatives, whose demands exceed what we recognize as reasonable under the law and modern ethics.
I’m sorry, but that’s how I see it.
You’ve talked to lawyers about the specific issue of changing marriage to civil unions for everyone? The only lawyer I’ve talked to about it endorsed this idea wholeheartedly. If you talked with them about civil unions only for SS couples, that’s an entirely different proposal, one that I would not support.
Other than the comity risk, I’ve not seen you describe what these risks would be. The comity risks are going to be there no matter what solution is put forth, as we talked about pages ago in reference to polygamous marriages etc.
Wrong. The valid reason is that marriage is (draws breath, then repeats himself yet again) intimately tied up with religion and politics in our culture. As long as the government gives a definition of that word, it is de facto entering into a religious debate. Since there’s no need for the government to do that, it shouldn’t.
What planet do you live on? Is it a planet in which abortions and divorces are easy to obtain in Ireland? Is it a planet on which liquor can be sold on Sundays in the southern US? Is it a planet on which sex ed in American schools isn’t based on a “no-sex-until-marriage” ideology? Is it a planet on which several states in the US haven’t defined marriage as between a man and a woman?
You may not take the views seriously, but then, the lawmakers don’t take your views seriously. As long as you let them set the terms of the debate, they’re gonna win the debate.
By rejecting my proposal, which removes the debate from their arena entirely, you seem happy to lose.
Daniel
Comity is enough. More than enough, in an age where people where people travel so easily from place to place.
And comity problems are far less likely with the word “marriage” than with the word “civil union.”
I understand your point exactly. I just don’t agree. Repeating yourself will not convince me.
Government has long since taken over the institution of marriage. We have long since had secular marriage. Simply because some religious groups now lay claim to the word as their property is no reason to recognize that claim.
Many people don’t religion as integral to marriage. The law hasn’t recognized that connection for a long time. Marriage did not begin with Christianity, nor has the Christian definition of marriage remained static, by any means. I do not see the connection as automatic, I certainly do not see the two as inseperable, and I do not see civil marriage as some fossilized relic that must be jettisoned as insalvageable. I think that would be far more radical, simplistic, and drastic than simply changing the definition of a civil marriage.
If religious conservatives do not like that, they can find some island somewhere and start a theocracy. Our definitions do not require the Bible, or Christian tradition.
This one :mad:
Allow me to clarify then. The West has long since established the secular principle in law in principle, although we have not always lived up to that principle, it remains, and is usually written into our constitutions.
That’s why we have constitutions and courts that can enforce them: it’s a recognition that a democracy, paradoxically, cannot survive on pure rule of the majority. If minorities are too intimidated to voice their opinions, too bullied by the loud and obnoxious among us, then no contrary ideas can never be put forward, and debate and discussion stagnates.
You are saying here that a loud and obnoxious group – even one whose argument is contrary to the principles of democracy and your constitution, and the principle of secularism that has been at the heart of the West since the Enlightenment – has the right to bully a minority into a needless and messy compromise.
I also note that on your list, quite a few countries are missing. You picked the two Western nations that are the worst at separating Church and State. The others are conspicuous by their absence.
That’s why we have constitutions, and why constitutions are so hard to change. That’s why we have courts to back up the constitutions. I don’t think Bush will get this amendment past. There are plenty of conservatives who are scared by this kind of thing, IMO.
I’m setting the terms of the debate, or rather pointing out that the Western legal tradition – which is the only thing that’s relevant here – does not recognize a single point they’ve made.
Happy to lose? It certainly isn’t lost in my country. As for your country, time will tell. Even in a worst-case scenario, though, this will be one of those things that people shake their heads over, a generation from now, and ask, “What were they thinking?”
At this point we’re obviously talking past each other. You think that my position is a risky compromise; I think it’s a sensible change of the terms of debate. You think your position is in keeping with separation of church and state; I think it muddles the line between the two, only in a way that conforms to your own particular metaphysic. You think the comity risks are sufficient to discard my plan; I think the comity risks are less under my plan than under yours.
I don’t see that there’s much left to say.
Daniel
Well, we are talking past each other. That much is obvious.
But to say that “getting the state out of the marriage business,” and then replacing marriage with a supposedly identical institution, constitutes the separation of Church and State, is rather odd to me.
Marriage is not Christian, anymore than Christmas is Christian. Marriage is a business contract once celebrated by pagans. Christianity only warmed up to it slowly. Jewish people could always marry, so there has never been a point in our history when it has been exclusively Christian. Since our modern states were set up, non-religious marriages have been offered.
I think a lot of the problem here is that conservative Christians have not only been allowed to set the terms of debate, they’ve been allowed to rewrite the history books in their favour. Now, suddenly, it’s as if Christ himself were dictating how government forms should read, that the Church invented marriage, and that it’s been happily performing them for two millennia without any controversy. If religion was once wrapped up in marriage, it’s because religion was once wrapped up in everything. It’s no more fundamentally Christian – or even religious – than a business merger or a tax form.
And while we’re on the subject of history, allow me to point something out about the history of the battle between the secular and the religious in the West. If I were a betting man, I would not put good odds on the conservatives. They’ve never won.
Established, institutionalized Chrisitanity has lost every battle. First, the Medieval Church lost it to its own dissedents like Luther, the Anabaptists, Calvin, etc. Then it began losing ground to the secular forces. They lost the Galileo battle, the Catholic reactionary forces lost the French Revolution, and the Creationists lost against Darwin.
They never learn. They keep drawing these lines in the sand, but the world keeps moving forward.
I was born 9 years after my country legalized homosexuality. In my lifetime, I’ve watched my country legal protection for me to the constitution. I’ve watched the beginning of gays in our military, the beginning of civil unions in Quebec, and now the first gay marriages. It’s not just legal, but social to: when I first came out eleven years ago, I lost friends and family. Now straight people are generally cool with it, and some are more passionate about gay rights than I am 
Things change, and faster than anyone expects. What you see as a a turning of the tide of battle, I see as one last, desperate, and doomed assault before their ranks are broken, at least for this issue.
In the long term? Well, maybe. In the long term, we’re all dead. In the short term, conservatives win all the time in my country. I seem to recall a minor conservative victory here in 1996, the Defense of Something or Another Act. I wish I could share your optimism, but I’m afraid it might come from being Canadian :).
In the meantime, I figured out why it pissed me off so much when you were suggesting I was compromising: it’s because either you don’t understand my position, or else you don’t understand what the word “compromise” means.
I looked it up, to make sure I understood the word. I try not to pick on folks’ language use, but this word is important to the argument.
A compromise is a “settling of differences through concessions on both sides.” In order for my position to represent a compromise, I’d have to be making a concession.
But, you see, I have three interests in this issue:
- I want folks to get rights from the government equally and regardless of sexual orientation; and
- I don’t want the government to be poking around in my love life; and
- I don’t want the government to be getting involved in contentious religious/cultural issues unless it’s got a compelling reason to do so.
Points 2 and 3 are pretty trivial in this case, especially as compared to point 1; I wouldn’t argue for my proposal based solely on these points, and I would happily back any proposal that had a chance of satisfying point 1 even if it thwarted points 2 and 3.
But if I backed such a proposal, THEN I would be compromising: I’d be making concessions in order to settle the disagreement. As it is, I’m backing a proposal that satisfies all three of my concerns.
I think you may be using “compromise” to mean “proposal that everyone, even fundamentalists, could live with.” That’s not what it means. The phrase you may be looking for is “creative solution.”