# Homosexuals marry and the Republic falls; how? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 24, 2003, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940 "2003-06-24T03:51:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/41 "2003-06-25T20:46:03Z")
Well, it does say “colour”, so redheads are probably safe. Left-handers and short people are a better example. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/42 "2003-06-25T21:36:21Z")
Reviewing this thread, I find the only serious arguments are about “judicial activism,” etc. No poster has yet put forth a serious argument that legal recognition of gay marriage **would** present some kind of threat to society. Does this mean that none of the posters hold that opinion? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/43 "2003-06-25T21:39:44Z")
The sanctity of marriage argument is sometimes fleshed out a bit. To get away from the religious angle it’s talked about as “the basic unit” of our society. One man one woman generating the next wave, etc,etc. The problem is, it always tapers out before they explain how/why heterosexual Canadians will stop forming couple-bonds and procreating. Will het-guys refuse to get married now because it’s “too gay” to get married? (like going to the ballet 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/44 "2003-06-25T21:43:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Apos \* > \*\*Why give him credit for holding a position I find to be inexcusably immoral? > > Why assume I a) have any interest in Hillary Clinton’s particular stance and b) don’t know what it is already? We already have a poster here recylcing Sullivan blogs, thanks. \*\* The hell with blogs, listen to her [yourself.](http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/06182003) I thought she did a nice job on national security by the way. She’s running. As for Santorum… He hasn’t misrepresented his position. But, that was obvious when I made the observation the first time. ---
**Author:** ![Hamish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a5b964/32.png) [@Hamish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamish)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/45 "2003-06-25T22:21:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RickJay \* > \*\*Most of the negative attitude towards the decision has been the criticism that the court made a decision that wasn’t based in law. There is not actually anything in the Canadian constitution that specifically justifies the decision; sexual preference isn’t a prohibited form of discrimination in Sec. 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, an omission that was not accidental. > \*\* Section 15 of the Canadian charter of Rights and Freedoms: > [@](#): > > - > > Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, **in particular** , without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.\* The Egan case in in BC decided that this list was not exclusive (hence **in particular** ), and that sexual orientation was analogous to everything else on the list – after all, it is an identifiable group, tradionally suffering from discrimination, and the quality that defines that group could not, the court decided, be changed. As for whether the “omission was not accidental,” I would like to a cite for a that. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/46 "2003-06-25T23:26:49Z")
Beagle, you continue to be devoid of a point. What does Hillary have to do with anything? You brought her up, I didn’t. Yes, I’ve read her position. So what? Where’s the waflfing? What does Santorum’s openess about his opinions have to do with anything? What are either of your two posts other than diversionary tactics? ---
**Author:** ![Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susma_Rio_Sep)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/47 "2003-06-26T00:01:58Z")
I will call this tax missionary tax. But of course exemptions are available on justifiable reasons. Everyone human has a very broad duty of keeping our species going, right? Why not also every hetero couple that’s childless? Childless but still possessed of the innate capacity, even for being obselete; you must look into that aspect why that tax will not apply to such a couple. But you are right, it’s a discrimination of sorts; but I think homo and lesbian couples can see the benevolent aspect of this tax; anyway they can always opt to be exempted on grounds of psychological incapacity or incompetence for bringing up a fellow human to be useful to himself and to society. Just the same, maybe we can accept some kind of religious objection to child adoption and upbringing as a duty? like to war or military duty of the killing kind? Susma Rio Sep > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Homebrew \* > \*\*On what pretense would this tax be based? And why not impose such a tax on _every_ married couple until they have a child or adopt one? \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/48 "2003-06-26T00:07:37Z")
**Susma** , I addressed this in my 6/24/03 7:39 PM post above. I would very much appreciate an answer – the idea that “I’ve failed in my duty” is one that tends to irk me significantly, and out of respect from your past courtesy and thoughtfulness I am restraining my temper regarding your comments, as I did not do with some apparent trolls trying to make about the same case in the past. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/49 "2003-06-26T00:38:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Elenfair \* > \*\* > It’s a sticky debate here. My generation (twenty-somethings) and the younger folks don’t seem to care - in fact they seem happy that their peers are going to have the same rights and freedoms as the rest of us. The older generations (the 50+ crew) are mostly opposed, and generally bring up the definition of marriage as their argument cornerstone. > > _shrug_ \*\* Mebbe so, **Elenfair** , But I think if you asked us old folks, you’d find that a lot of us don’t care either. And if you asked youngsters, you’d see that quite a few say “EW” at the idea of gay marriage. It’s the times, I think, more than age. As gay marraige becomes more common, so will acceptance. Polititians are just fearful of public opinion. Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/50 "2003-06-26T01:00:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Apos \* > \*\*Beagle, you continue to be devoid of a point. What does Hillary have to do with anything? You brought her up, I didn’t. Yes, I’ve read her position. So what? Where’s the waflfing? > > What does Santorum’s openess about his opinions have to do with anything? > > What are either of your two posts other than diversionary tactics? \*\* Did you read my posts? Neither party has the cojones to stand up for gay marriage. You don’t hear politicians pushing to remove sodomy statutes from the books. They have been in some states. It wouldn’t take that much courage. Why attack Santorum as an enemy when your supposed allies don’t even support your position? He’s a religious conservative. It’s a foregone conclusion that he will not favor gay rights. Although, there is a fairly significant debate going on within the Republican Party re gay rights. FTR, as a libertarian leaning type I think Santorum is wrong. A better question, to me, is why Senator Clinton of mostly progressive-minded NY doesn’t favor gay marriage? She could push to repeal the DOMA, for example. There are a number of obstacles to gay marriage in the US, state laws, federal laws, and the common law to name three. Politicans can’t expect the judiciary to undo all that without legislative help. Rick Santorum, duh, isn’t going to push the legislation necessary. Is reality a “diversion” for you? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/51 "2003-06-26T01:59:58Z")
**SRS:** _But you are right, it’s a discrimination of sorts; but I think homo and lesbian couples can see the benevolent aspect of this tax; anyway they can always opt to be exempted on grounds of psychological incapacity or incompetence for bringing up a fellow human to be useful to himself and to society._ 😕 Where do you get the idea that homosexual couples, male or female, would mostly wish to be “exempted” from “bringing up a fellow human to be useful to himself and to society”? I know several gay couples who **are** bringing up children, and others who have done so or hope to do so in the future. What you really seem to be advocating is a “childlessness tax”; while I don’t see anything wrong with that in theory, as others have pointed out, it can be argued that childless people are already in effect paying such a tax, given that they pay the same school taxes, etc., as parents do and don’t get child tax breaks. And I don’t see at all why such a tax should be imposed on sexual-orientation grounds, since, as I said, many gay couples **do** bring up children and many straight couples don’t. As for the “definition of marriage” thingy, I’ve always thought it would make good practical sense for a government to institute a legal category, called “civil union” or “pair contract” or something, that would be **absolutely identical** to legal matrimony except for the **name** “matrimony” or “marriage”, and make it available to gay and straight couples alike. Then gay couples would be able to have their “civil unions”, and lots of gay-friendly straight couples would choose to have “civil unions” too, and by and by legal “marriage” would be just a nominal distinction clung to only by anti-gays. For everybody else, the difference between “marriage” and “civil union” would soon get completely blurred and be no different for gays than for straights. But because the government would never (or at least, not yet) be claiming that gay unions count as **marriage** , all the preserving-the-definition-of-marriage arguments would be irrelevant. Anti-gays could keep the official **legal** designation of “marriage” all to themselves, and nobody else would care. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/52 "2003-06-26T02:27:46Z")
In view of world population problems, it would be profoundly stupid to craft a tax system to encourage people to have children. If we want to use taxes as a social-policy tool in this area (do we?), our policy should be the opposite: penalize reproduction, reward childlessness. Of course, straight or gay couples who want to adopt and raise children somebody else already has produced should be rewarded, not penalized. (In Joe Haldeman’s science-fiction novel _The Forever War,_ the interplanetary human government strongly encourages homosexuality for no other reason than population control. After a few generations of this, everybody is gay, and straight sex is considered a perversion.) But this is all beside the point of the thread. Nobody has yet seriously discussed any bad effects legal gay marriage would have on our society. Why not? I’m sure there are some social conservatives on the board. Why can’t you guys come up with something concrete here? Is it because there **isn’t** anything for you to come up with? ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/53 "2003-06-26T04:28:08Z")
> [@](#): > > that would be absolutely identical to legal matrimony except for the name “matrimony” or “marriage”, and make it available to gay and straight couples alike. That’s more or less what we already have here in Quebec. The trouble is getting it recognized elsewhere. The word “marriage” actually matters - it wasn’t until the Ontario court ruled that gay couples having their relationships solemnized in Canada had a serious chance of same in the US. Our comity tradition with the US has to do with marriage - not civil unions. ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/54 "2003-06-26T04:29:37Z")
BrainGlutton, we do penalize the children already. We have jail cells for S50-70K a year ready for the newgeneration of criminals, while we blanch at spending as much as a tenth of that in preventing a child from becoming a criminal, and indeed become instead a productive ember of society. Besides, who will pay for your corporate welfare, BrainGlutton? ---
**Author:** ![Lucki\_Chaarms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lucki\_Chaarms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucki_Chaarms)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/55 "2003-06-26T07:19:44Z")
If I may defer to Margaret Cho on this issue? > [@](#): > > We need to recognize that any government that would deny a gay man the right to bridal registry is a fascist state. LC ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/56 "2003-06-26T12:33:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > \*\*In view of world population problems, it would be profoundly stupid to craft a tax system to encourage people to have children. If we want to use taxes as a social-policy tool in this area (do we?), our policy should be the opposite: penalize reproduction, reward childlessness. Of course, straight or gay couples who want to adopt and raise children somebody else already has produced should be rewarded, not penalized. \*\* I’ll be the obligatory doubting Thomas who says “There is no world population problem. We can support everyone alive and everyone expected to be born.” Someone had to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/57 "2003-06-26T12:40:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > \*\*Reviewing this thread, I find the only serious arguments are about “judicial activism,” etc. No poster has yet put forth a serious argument that legal recognition of gay marriage **would** present some kind of threat to society. Does this mean that none of the posters hold that opinion? \*\* When it has come up in the past, the only arguments have been various vague predictions and slippery slope fallacies. I think the posters here who do oppose legal recognition of gay marriage do so for religious reasons. That can’t really be debated. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/58 "2003-06-26T12:51:57Z")
Well actually it can, and the riposte is some version of “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries”, altered to suit. I found it astonishing that people thought their religions so fragile that it wasn’t enough just to allow _them_ to celebrate the marriages _they_ wanted to, they also had to prevent _my_ religion, and my parents’ from celebrating the marriages _we_ wanted to. **Hamish** came with me to the House of Commons hearings, and by the end of the day he was fuming, “What about _our_ religious freedom? At least _we’re_ not claiming that our faith requires meddling in the affairs of others!” In short, legal same-sex marriage is not forcibly changing the Catholic concept of marriage or the Protestant concept or the Jewish or Pagan concept or anyone else’s. It’s changing the state’s concept, and I don’t think the Catholics have any more right than we do to have their particular concept of marriage recognized in secular law. It should go according to equal justice under law, and the court has ruled. _Les chiens aboient, le caravane passe._ ---
**Author:** ![Esprix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprix/32/7899_2.png) [@Esprix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprix)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/59 "2003-06-26T16:10:38Z")
Between this and the US Supreme Court ruling sodomy laws to be unconstitutional (and I’m sure there’s a GD thread or two about it), we’ve made some major victories for equality this month - which just happens to be Gay Pride Month! w00t! Esprix ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940/60 "2003-06-28T21:27:42Z")
Posted by **capacitor:** > [@](#): > > BrainGlutton, we do penalize the children already. We have jail cells for S50-70K a year ready for the newgeneration of criminals, while we blanch at spending as much as a tenth of that in preventing a child from becoming a criminal, and indeed become instead a productive ember of society. > > Besides, who will pay for your corporate welfare, BrainGlutton? Of course we “penalize the children already.” I was talking about penalizing parents for **producing** children – not a policy I actually support, I was just trying to put this whole tax-breaks-for-gay-parents thing in its proper perspective. And what’s corporate welfare got to do with it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/homosexuals-marry-and-the-republic-falls-how/183940.md?page=4)