Why couldn’t a group of adults pledge to be faithful to one another? While they could not technically be called “monogamous”, as there would be more than one of them, why couldn’t they be mutually faithful?
Additionally, would you support prosecuting people who cheated on their spouses?
** The state must be able to show that it has good reason to deny any right to anyone. Failure to do otherwise makes the state unjust.
In our current world, the state does not require that two heterosexual individuals of opposite sexes demonstrate their sincerity in wanting to marry. Why should this standard (or the lack thereof) be any different?
The legislators involved are either smart enough to phrase the changes in the laws to address same-sex couples specifically, and exclude any interpretations that would allow polygamy, or they’re too dumb to be trusted to write laws.
The idea that polygamists are just going to ride into legal legitimacy on the coattails of the gay marriage movement is patently ridiculous. It’s thirty-five years since laws against interracial marriage were struck down, and gays are having to fight, and fight hard, to be recognized. It’s hardly the kind of country where legislators, in a fit of glee after having provided rights to a group, just decide to give out rights like candy at Halloween. Saying we’re paving the way towards legitimizing polygamy is pure scaremongering.
Whether that’s true or not, how can you possibly think that could be an argument against giving gay people the privileges and protections of legal unions?
I believe the logic goes something like this (or at least this is the argument I’ve heard before):
Right now, if people want the benefits of marriage, they have only the option of a heterosexual marriage.
If the benefits are extended to homosexuals, people will have another option.
People who might have felt compelled to choose the only option available may now choose the second option, and therefore less people would excercise the first option.
Less people using the first option amounts to a weakening of the traditional notion of marriage.
There’s a fallacy to this line of reasoning, though. There have been such large scale economic and social changes in the last century that not being married at all has become a viable option for people. So, the idea that homosexual marriage would somehow draw from a pool of would-be heterosexual marriages, is really no longer relevant. Instead, homosexual marriages would probably draw from the would-be pool of not-married at all.
Perhaps slightly off the OP, heterosexuals are allowed a number of legalized practices that I would say definitively weaken the traditional notion of marriage. Divorce is legal. Adultery, while technically illegal in some areas, is not usual enforced as a criminal matter (although there may be some civil liabilites). Having children out of wedlock is legal. Heterosexual sex outside marriage is legal in most places (after the age of consent). So, while heterosexuals are allowed to engage in a number of activities that weaken the traditional notion of marriage, homosexuals are prohibited from engaging in an activity that through some tenuous reasoning may possibly weaken the traditional notion of marriage. When heterosexuals give up their rights to divorce, etc., then they can talk to me about weakining traditional notions of marriage without me rolling my eyes.
In the post referenced, I simply say that gay marriage is MORE of a threat to traditional family structure than decriminalized sodomy would be. That isn’t to say that it’s much of a threat at all: just that sodomy is REALLY not a threat (I mean, unless you think pregnancy-safe blowjobs are allowing people to have more non-marital sex that they substitute for marriage).
However, even that subtle point aside, I can only assume that Homebrew’s web browser must have exploded in brillant display of windows page fault errors at this point, or perhaps upon reading the first half of my sentance he slapped his hand to his forehead in so hard in shock and disbelief that he and his keyboard comically tipped over backwards in his rocking chair, after which he angrily proceeded to post this new thread without actually being able to see his computer monitor from where he was lying on the floor. Because he seems to have missed the part where I go on to explain that:
Which, I think, pretty goes to demonstrate that “…” must mean “stuff that directly contradicts everything Homebrew is ranting about” in Homebrew’s native language.
If gay marriages are allowed, all the straight marriages would look dull and uncoordinated in a fashion sense.
All the gay weddings will be spashier, more colorful and fun.
On a serious note. If gay marriages are allowed, it would legitimize an otherwise religiously banned lifestyle. If civil marriages are allowed, religions would have to consider the inevitabililty of considering homosexuality as mainstream. I am not saying that it is a bad thing. I am saying the source for the resistance to same sex marriages come from the same people who want to maintain marriage as a sacred and religious ceremony.
I’ve heard that the divorce rate is higher in the Bible Belt than in the rest of the country. You can’t simply apply a group average to the rights of individuals. Whether gay people in general are less monogamous says nothing at all about whether particular gay couple that wants to marry is going to be less monogamous.
But marriage isn’t a sacred and religious ceremony, which is why that position is stupid.
As I pointed out earlier, having a ceremony performed in a church is not enough for the government to recognize two people as married. It takes a marriage license for that – and the license is recognized with or without a religious ceremony.
X slayer said, "If gay marriages are allowed, it would legitimize an otherwise religiously banned lifestyle. If civil marriages are allowed, religions would have to consider the inevitabililty of considering homosexuality as mainstream. "
Hey, religion doesn’t run the show in the U.S. of A. You can have a religious ceremony/union if you want, but it doesn’t mean squat on the American landscape. Marriage in this country is a legal contract. Nothing more, nothing less. My marriage is legit, even though I was married by a guy and his bartender wife in Las Vegas. Where I insisted the “G” word not be uttered whilst I was in the building.
Well of course religion doesnt run the show in the USA. However you cant deny that it has great influence and power not only in govt but in the opinions and rationale of their followers. The people who make the laws go to churches too.
“Telling gay people that they need to support the rights of polygamists to marry as a consequence of fighting for their right to marry”
Hold onto your hat, there, Mr. Visible. Nowhere did I say any such thing. I just said they appear hypocritcal to me. Please don’t distort my words. (I can do that fine by myself.:))
“Polygamy is a red herring in this discussion. In other words, take it elsewhere.”
Homebrew: No, that’s not what “Red Herring” means. But you know that.
I fail to see the distinction. Why is telling me that I’m a hypocrite for supporting gay marriage and not polygamous marriage different than telling me that if I support the right for gays to marry, I need to support the right of polygamists to marry?
The distinction seems pretty darned fine. Besides which, what point are you trying to make by making that distinction?
More to the point, do you have any reply to my post?
Theoretically, they could. Practically, this sort of thing rarely turns out well. There are exceptions, of course, but this sort of thing typically results in a whole lotta jealousy and resentment. Humans are possessive creatures, and they don’t like sharing.
And that ignores the family aspect of marriage. One of the most useful features of a two-person household is that it’s an extremely productive environment in which to raise a child, more so than an environment with 3 mommies and 5 daddies. It’s more stable, and less confusing for the child.
Of course, none of this impinges on a group of peoples’ “pledge to be faithful”. They can pledge all they want, and they can raise their kids in a commune if they so desire. The only thing they can’t do is get the government to endorse it.
No, and that suggestion in no way follows logically from my initial argument. Not endorsing a behavior is hugely different from criminalizing it.
MrVisible:
It’s not a matter of intelligence, it’s a matter of politics. And even if a law is passed that simply says, “Okay, gays can marry”, that in no way addresses the future prospect of group marriages. I would like something that specifically says “No” to state-recognized polygamous unions.
There’s a huge difference between gay marriage and interracial marriage, unless you’re claiming that the differences between a man and a woman are fewer than the differences between a black person and a white person. Race is a somewhat nebulous concept, but sex is pretty cut-and-dried. At any rate, I wouldn’t expect group marriage to “follow on the coattails” in the sense of Congress legalizing gay marriage one week, and group marriage the next. But it could give legitimacy to any polygamist crusaders out there. All it takes is one lawsuit and an “open-minded” SCOTUS.
Simple. If gays are, as a class, far less monogamous than straights, then this promiscuousness would be incorporated into the “new” definition of marriage. Monogamy would cease to be as vital an element of marriage. For this to be true, of course, the schism between hetero- and homo- monogamy would have to be pretty large, and like I said, I can’t comment on the validity of such claims.
Well, then the Supreme Court disagrees with me. We probably disagree on a lot of things, but if the SC suddenly declared that pickles are made of cheese, that wouldn’t make it so. A “right” is something inalienable, something that exists outside of the government. The “right” to associate with whom you choose, the “right” to go where you please, the “right” to pursue the sort of life that you would choose. These are “rights”. Marriage doesn’t fit this description. Marriage is a set of benefits the government chooses to give to certain people who meet certain qualifications. To claim that joint tax status, for instance, is a “right” is ludicrous, whether the SCOTUS says so or not. Note that refusing to legalize gay marriage does not prohibit two people of the same sex from deciding to spend the rest of their lives together, raising children, or any of the things that are commonly understood by “marriage” in a non-legal sense. It simply removes a small set of privileges granted to some (not all) other people. Just like unemployment benefits are benefits granted to a small class of people who meet certain requirements. Or should I be suing the government for my “right” to receive tax-payer money like the unemployed do? BrightNShiny:
I agree that that argument against homosexuality is stupid.
Jeff
Well, it looks like ElJeffe has beat us all to a pretty darn sound refutation of the “if you allow homosexual marriage, you gotta allow polygamy too” argument. They aren’t the same at all, he says: two people marriages are more productive, more stable, and less confusing for children.
How does gay marriage harm tradition marriage? It doesn’t. I think this is the biggest disappointment I have with my party. I can fathom believing that allowing gay people to marry is going to harm the “sanctity” of marriage, it would strengthen it, I think; more marriages would give more legitimacy to what some are beginning to view as an antiquated idea.
The only thing that gay marriages would harm is the notion (and not so secret a one, sadly - funny how some people will show their true colors if they assume that everyone who votes their way shares their beliefs) that homosexuals are all bed-hoppers and flighty sluts. If they get married, thus showing a willingness to commit to a relationship, then the bigots can’t keep their precious idea alive. Of course, they’d just come up with another reason to hate, but too many people are awfully fond of this one.
Then go out and campaign for that law. It has nothing to do with gay marriages, and provisions for or against polygamy should not be included in legislation extending the rights of marriage to same-sex couples.
There’s a huge difference between polygamy and homosexuality, too. And still you manage to conflate the two enough to argue against legalizing one, in case it accidentally legalizes the other. Weird.
On that basis, I suggest we keep our legislators from making any new laws at all, ever. Who knows what precedents they may be setting that the completely theoretical “open-minded” Supreme Court may take advantage of one day? Hey, the whole court might get mass dementia at some point, and start looking through old laws just to see what weirdness they can extrapolate from them. We can’t have that.
Once again, I point out that it’s taken decades of continuous legal struggle for the GLBT population to get as far as we have in this struggle. The idea that we’ve set some sort of precedent that a single lawsuit is going to take advantage of to suddenly legalize all sorts of marriages is complete hyperbolic fiction.
So, don’t base arguments on them. Besides which, comparing the monogamy rate of two classes of people when one of the classes cannot even aspire to marriage, the ultimate goal of monogamy, and is deprived of the rights and privileges that make married life easier on a couple, is pretty damned unfair, isn’t it?
This small set of privileges, as you call them, is going to cost me several thousand dollars in the near future, as marrying my partner and making sure that his future is as secure as I can make it is going to take extensive legal consultation. Currently I have no health insurance, simply because my partner’s insurer won’t recognize me as a family member without a license, provided by the government. If we adopt kids, we’ll have to go through an enormous amount of legal issues in order to make sure that the kids are protected in the event that anything happens to either of us. We’re buying a house together; we have to spend even more on legal counsel in order to find out how to buy it so that we both get some of the tax benefits involved in owning property, and so that if anything happens to us, the other’s right to the property is unassailable. Sure, we can do the same things as everybody else; we just have to work harder for them, pay more for them, and wind up less secure and with less benefit for them than everybody else.
This isn’t some nebulous set of theoretical rights to me. It affects me every single day of my life.
Just as the rules for who qualifies for unemployment change frequently, the rules for who qualifies legally as being married need to change.
