Okay, I’ll start.
Yes/No It’s called marriage
Well, we could do that. Of course, there’s over one thousand rights and priviledges tied to institution of marriage. So that would require a lot of voting. Plus, there’s the millions we’d spend running two parrallel beauracracies to keep track of two identical (except in name!) legal contract, so this is an excellant plan for all you big government fans out there. And, of course, every time there a change in the marriage laws, you’d have to pass an identical bill for civil unions. There’s also the risk that people are going to start trying to pass laws that only effect civil unions, most likely to their detriment. So you’re going to have a constant two front battle in which you’re always fighting to ammend gay marriage to match straight marriage, while defending it from being ammended so that it’s different than straight marriage.
Or we could just say, “Everyone can get married to whoever the fuck they want.”
Which one sounds easier to you?
“The benefits accessible only by way of a marriage license are enormous, touching nearly every aspect of life and death. The department states that “hundreds of statutes” are related to marriage and to marital benefits. With no attempt to be comprehensive, we note that some of the statutory benefits conferred by the Legislature on those who enter into civil marriage include, as to property: joint Massachusetts income tax filing (G.L. c. 62C, § 6); tenancy by the entirety (a form of ownership that provides certain protections against creditors and allows for the automatic descent of property to the surviving spouse without probate) (G.L. c. 184, § 7); extension of the benefit of the homestead protection (securing up to $300,000 in equity from creditors) to one’s spouse and children (G.L. c. 188, § 1); automatic rights to inherit the property of a deceased spouse who does not leave a will (G.L. c. 190, § 1); the rights of elective share and of dower (which allow surviving spouses certain property rights where the decedent spouse has not made adequate provision for the survivor in a will) (G.L. c. 191, § 15, and G.L. c. 189); entitlement to wages owed to a deceased employee (G.L. c. 149, § 178A [general] and G.L. c. 149, § 178C [public employees] ); eligibility to continue certain businesses of a deceased spouse (e.g., G.L. c. 112, § 53 [dentist] ); the right to share the medical policy of one’s spouse (e.g., G.L. c. 175, § 108, Second [ a] [3] [defining an insured’s “dependent” to include one’s spouse), see Connors v. Boston, 430 Mass. 31, 43 (1999) [domestic partners of city employees not included within the term dependent” as used in G.L. c. 32B, § 2] ); thirty-nine week continuation of health coverage for the spouse of a person who is laid off or dies (e.g., G.L. c. 175, § 110G); preferential options under the Commonwealth’s pension system (see G.L. c. 32, § 12[2] [“Joint and Last Survivor Allowance”] ); preferential benefits in the Commonwealth’s medical program, MassHealth e.g., 130 Code Mass. Regs. § 515.012[A] prohibiting placing a lien on long-term care patient’s former home if spouse still lives there); access to veterans’ spousal benefits and preferences (e.g., G.L. c. 115, § 1 [defining “dependents”] and G.L. c. 31, § 26 [State employment] and § 28 [municipal employees] ); financial protections for spouses of certain Commonwealth employees (fire fighters, police officers, prosecutors, among others) killed in the performance of duty (e.g., G.L. c. 32, §§ 100-103); the equitable division of marital property on divorce (G.L. c. 208, § 34); temporary and permanent alimony rights (G.L. c. 208, §§ 17 and 34); the right to separate support on separation of the parties that does not result in divorce (G.L. c. 209, § 32); and the right to bring claims for wrongful death and loss of consortium, and for funeral and burial expenses and punitive damages resulting from tort actions G.L. c. 229, §§ 1 and 2; G.L. c. 228, § 1. See Feliciano v. Rosemar Silver Co., supra)
deep breath in
"Exclusive marital benefits that are not directly tied to property rights include the presumptions of legitimacy and parentage of children born to a married couple (G.L. c. 209C, § 6, and G.L. c. 46, § 4B); and evidentiary rights, such as the prohibition against spouses testifying against one another about their private conversations, applicable in both civil and criminal cases (G.L. c. 233, § 20). Other statutory benefits of a personal nature available only to married individuals include qualification for bereavement or medical leave to care for individuals related by blood or marriage (G.L. c. 149, § 52D); an automatic “family member” preference to make medical decisions for an incompetent or disabled spouse who does not have a contrary health care proxy, see Shine v. Vega, 429 Mass. 456, 466 (1999); the application of predictable rules of child custody, visitation, support, and removal out-of-State when married parents divorce (e.g., G.L. c. 208, § 19 [temporary custody], § 20 [temporary support], § 28 [custody and support on judgment of divorce], § 30 [removal from Commonwealth], and § 31 [shared custody plan]; priority rights to administer the estate of a deceased spouse who dies without a will, and requirement that surviving spouse must consent to the appointment of any other person as administrator (G.L. c. 38, § 13 [disposition of body], and G.L. c. 113, § 8 [anatomical gifts] ); and the right to interment in the lot or tomb owned by one’s deceased spouse (G.L. c. 114, §§ 29-33).
Where a married couple has children, their children are also directly or indirectly, but no less auspiciously, the recipients of the special legal and economic protections obtained by civil marriage. Notwithstanding the Commonwealth’s strong public policy to abolish legal distinctions between marital and nonmarital
children in providing for the support and care of minors, see Department of Revenue v. Mason M., 439 Mass. 665 (2003); Woodward v. Commissioner of Social Sec., 435 Mass. 536, 546 (2002), the fact remains that marital children reap a measure of family stability and economic security based on their parents’ legally
privileged status that is largely inaccessible, or not as readily accessible, to nonmarital children. Some of these benefits are social, such as the enhanced approval that still attends the status of being a marital child. Others are material, such as the greater ease of access to family-based State and Federal benefits that attend the presumptions of one’s parentage.
Quite a bit, eh? Guess what would be easier?
Easier to implement or easier to pass?
It WILL eventually pass and be accepted. It’s vastly important not to take some bullshit “separate but equal” compromise on an issue like this.
We’ll keep hammering at it.
Which ever you like: the answer’s the same for both.
Do you want to try to vote the ballot that has those thousand+ measures on it, if the decision is made to put every single benefit up to a vote as to whether a gay couple is entitled to each and every one or not? People at the polls were complaining this year that our 2-sided ballot was long.
Or do you want to spend the next brazillion years voting on potential gay marriage benefits a few at a time over the course of maybe a couple hundred elections?
Would ANYONE benefit from that kind of bureaucratic nonsense, as opposed to simply cutting and pasting the current list of benefits conferred by heterosexual marriage?
What a question. Did you read Miller’s and Hamlet’s answers?
I’m sure this will sound willfully stubborn or stupid to those of you who oppose SSM, but I don’t understand why you feel that a same-sex marriage is fundamentally different from opposite-sex marriage. Why are the sexes of the people involved so important that the definition of “marriage” hinges on them? Marriage is really very flexible. There’s marriage of convenience, marriage for love, pre-arranged marriage, open marriage, closed marriage, polygamous marriage, sexless marriage, loveless marriage, childless marriage, marriage for the children, life-long marriage, marriage that ends in divorce, interracial marriage, interreligious marriage, secular marriage, etc. etc. All of these are legal somewhere in the world, and all except polygamous marriage are legally recognized in the United States. I’m only 27, and I’ve known people in almost every one of those categories. We in this country are increasingly free to reject tradition, in part or in whole, and negotiate with our partner to create a marriage that works best for us. Why is the umbrella of marriage so broad that every opposite-sex couple can find shelter under it, but not broad enough to make room for same-sex couples?
None. I feel they are not entitled to some privileges, much in the sense that 14-year-olds can’t vote. You’re not denying them a right.
(I know that eventually they will, it’s just an imperfect analogy)
Yes, in Judeo-Christian culture yes. Greeks and Romans seem to have had it too. Those guys are the foundation of western civilisation.
Because they won’t have marriages. They are given Pepsis instead of Cokes. Because many pro-SSM people don’t want civil unions, they want marriages.
Ultimately, I was just covering my bases, belt-and-suspenders.
If the concept of polysemy is alien to you, it ain’t my fault.
And, no, SSM is not part of that polysemy.
We also kill programs were I work and I still am against killing people.
There’s no physical law preventing me from killing my neighbours, so that’s an even weaker-ass argument.
Ah, bigots who wrap themselves in the cloak of progressivism. Fundamentally frightened little people.
When a bigot can’t be convinced of the inhumanity of his position, he falls back on *ad hominem *with a nice side order of ad populum.
No SSM, that’s way easier. My answer was to a hypothetical question by Antinor01. I clearly see the boatloads of bureaucratic shit that would come out of that.
Because marriage is a man and a woman, simple. A hotdog is a bun and a sausage, substitute sausage for bacon and, voilà, no hot dog.
Marriage ISN’T very flexible.
Keep pushing back. When you’re literally thought of in the same moment and the same way as Bull Conner and Orval Faubus and their thousands of followers in the 50s and 60s, you can thank your stubborn attempt to cling to bullshit “tradition” for it.
We SHALL overcome, and we’re going to march right up your back if you don’t get out of the way.
Well, no, that’s not going to be easier, because if we don’t have SSM, we’re going to keep having this debate, over and over and over. We’re going to keep having protest marches, and ballot initiatives, and ugly political fights, every year. Forever. Because we’re not ever going to give up on this. Look forward to hearing about this for the rest of your life, because if the only way we can get SSM is to wait for dinosaurs like you to die out, well, that’s what we’re going to have to do, then.
Or you could just give up on this nonsense now, vote “Yes” on SSM, and get it all over with once and for all.
Nope. Totally wrong. A marriage is whatever people say a marriage is. And people have been using marriage to describe committed gay relationships for more than thirty years now. You’ve already lost the semantic fight. Now we’re just talking legalities, and the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to sort out the legalities is to make same-sex marriage a legal reality, instead of simply a social reality.
Good Christ, man, all in one post you:
-Contradict yourself
-Dance around my question as I predicted
-Self-own by proving your own argument wrong
Do you not see the irony in your words or are you really that blinded by your hate?
By the way, since you’re such a strict, formal linguist, I have a question for you. I’m confused by the entry on marriage in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, especially definitions 1a(2), 1b, 1c, and 3. These all seem to be in direct contradiction to what you’re arguing here. Can you please explain?
Demonstrably Bullshit. Marriage is what it is at any given time.
I may have done this before but if I have it’s been years and it’s relevant here as well. I once demonstrated how “unchanging” and uniform marriage is by taking a random but I think well and fairly chosen sampling: people on U.S. Currency (bills and state quarters). This was specifically to debate people who maintained that marriage was a union based on love and primarily dedicated to the procreation and raising of children.
BILLS
$1 George Washington- married his wife, a widow, for money (didn’t even much try to deny it) and had no children with her (though he did raise her kids and grandkids).
$2 Thomas Jefferson- married a wealthy widow (though he does seem to have loved her) who made him vow to never remarry (which was selfish for a widow to do especially) which he honored by instead taking her half-sister whom he owned as a concubine.
$5 Abraham Lincoln- after numerous false starts (at least one broken engagement and one cancelling of the wedding) he married Mary Todd. It was perhaps founded in love, perhaps not, but it was a miserable marriage. They probably never had sex after the birth of their youngest child, for doctors told her she stood a good chance of dying in childbirth if she became pregnant again, thus it was a chaste union by the White House.
$10 Alexander Hamilton- he was absolutely shameless and blatant in admitting he married Elizabeth Schuyler for social position and money. He wrote letters some regard as love letters to an aristocratic male comrade (John Laurens- who abandoned his own wife when she was pregnant) and assured him nothing had changed in his love for him due to his marriage.
$20 Andrew Jackson- his wife never bothered to divorce her first husband, at least not until long after she formally married Jackson. They had no biological children but when her sister had identical twins they took one home (no paperwork, just a “pick of the litter” agreement). I’ve always thought one of his slaves looked more than a little bit like him. He also kindheartedly adopted a Creek Indian orphan after slaughtering the child’s parents and their village.
$50 U.S. Grant- pretty much a Dick and Jane marriage- he married a woman he loved and they had kids. Nothing to see here, move along- a “conventional” marriage.
$100 Benjamin Franklin- he began living with his wife sometime around 1730. She was a married woman at the time, though her husband had left her and could not be found to procure a divorce. Her first marriage was later annulled but she never formally married Franklin. His very famous early anniversary gift to her was his illegitimate son by an unknown mother. (She didn’t much care for the gift.)
There are larger bills of course, but not in circulation. Cleveland’s probably the most interesting marriage of the lot, though Salmon Chase’s letters to his daughter Kate asking her to find him a fourth wife were something out of first century Rome (he had his heart set on Stephen Douglas’s widow, though he’d never met her, but ultimately decided 3 widowings was enough).
COINS
$1 Sacagawea- she was the wife and property of Jean Toussaint Charbonneau, who purchased another slave/wife [Otter Woman] around the same time. He beat the hell out of her on a regular basis [it’s recorded by Corps of Discovery chroniclers] and his abuse may be a large reason she gave her children to William Clark to raise, but she stayed married to him. He outlived her by many years- when he died he was around 80 and his youngest wife was around 15.
Dime- FDR- married his bisexual cousin and kept a long term mistress.
Missouri Quarter- William Clark (see above)- remained a bachelor until he was 38 when he married a 16 year old girl. A few months after she died in childbirth he married her first-cousin (who also died young).
California- John Muir- disappointingly conventional marriage (though she was an heiress which may have had some bearing on the reason they wed).
Of the others on State Quarters, all are either (as with Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, etc.) already mentioned or else (as with Helen Keller, Caesar Rodney, the Wright Brothers, etc.) never married, save for one-
Saving the Best for Last-
Hawaii - King Kamehemehe- not only did he have more than a dozen wives (probably a lot more), several of his wives had [simultaneous to him] other husbands, and several of whom were his close relatives.
Just looking at the people on American currency, Marriage Is Flexible, in motive, in style, in practice. It’s not likely that any French Canadian could buy a bunch of adolescent Indian girls today or that many famous 38 year olds would marry a 16 year old or that political figures in common law relationships would be quite as respected, and we won’t even get into Hawaii.
Just like to get a couple of comments off my chest, since this is the pit:
I am a practising heterosexual. I have been legally formally married for 14 years. Prior to that, I was legally common-law married for 10.
My moral marriage status comes from the mutual love of me and my spouse, not from any priest or preacher. My legal marriage status comes from the province, not from any church or temple. Fuck any religion or “Judeo-Christian tradition :rolleyes:” which thinks it can define or otherwise control anything about my marriage. Play your little games with your “holy matrimony” and leave my marriage alone.
My marriage is strong. Double fuck anyone who tries to tell me my marriage will be cheapened or made less strong by two strangers of the same sex who also happen to get married. If you think your marriage will be harmed by this, I think you need to look at the participants in your marriage, not that of two strangers.
When do you expect to go pro?
Wow! What YOU said! Well done!
Sampiro
I must protest your bigoted statements regarding the marriages of Grant and Muir.
disappointing, nothing to see here clearly, you’re a heterophobe
2nd
high double fucking five
Re: Boston Marriage reading…
Portions of various Lillian Faderman books are applicable (I’m not going to apologize for any titles. The information is the information.)
* Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, And Lipstick Lesbians (2006)
* Naked in the Promised Land: A Memoir (2003)
* To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done For America - A History (1999)
* I Begin My Life All Over : The Hmong and the American Immigrant Experience (1998)
* Chloe Plus Olivia: An Anthology of Lesbian Literature from the 17th Century to the Present (1994)
* Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers : A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (1991)
* Scotch Verdict : Miss Pirie and Miss Woods v. Dame Cumming Gordon (1983)
* Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present (1981)
Here’s an applicable essay: http://www.public.coe.edu/~theller/soj/ess/donovan1.html
And, believe it or not the about.com pages are quite good: