How Does Gay Marriage Harm Traditional Marriage?

[phraser]

originally posted by John Mace
Apos’ quote in the OP is prettty much self-explanitory. I don’t think that anyone can dispute that the “traditional family structure” consisted of Mom, Dad, and kids. Gay marriage allows other structures. It’s not so much that it’s a threat to any particular family (Ozzie and Harriet are safe), it’s the structure as part of society that gets chipped away.

However, the traditional family structure these days is just as likely to be : single parent raising children, “blended” family with step children, parent and other blood relative (grandparent, uncle, etc) helping to raise children together, group child raising among a group of parents in a community. There doesn’t seem to be many problems recognising these as “family units”… and if that’s the case, then how is it going to further change or degrade the family structure if some of the people in those families are unrelated adults of the same sex (seeing as we already have related adults of the same sex eg mother and grandmother, and unrelated adults of the opposite sex eg mother and stepfather)? Widows have been allowed to remarry for milennia (providing for an adult unrelated by blood to parent children). I’d like to add that there are already many families raising children with same-sex parents. The only difference (lacking legal marriage for the parents) is that they get a lot of discrimination (which certainly doesn’t benefit the children) in various avenues. Marriage would address this, but not further change the definition of family.

Also with respects the point about gays possibly being less faithful in their relationships/less committed/whatever:

I have seen studies which actually refute this (no cite, I don’t have access to my uni library catalogue from this computer). However, if this were the case, a reason might be that heterosexual relationships recieve a lot more support and encouragement in our society. The implicit support from the government, families, tv advertising, in every social avenue, means that heterosexual relationships get a lot more support, both overt and covert, than same-sex/queer relationships do. This might be one reason why they are often percieved as being briefer, or less faithful, or in difficulty.
If this were the case, then “marriage” would actually help change this phenomenon. Wouldn’t the “family values” campaigners love that!

I’d like to add that, as a Radical Queer (think of us as being a little bit like the Deaf community as opposed to the hearing-impaired community) I personally reject the notion of marriage because it’s part of heterosexual culture, and I believe that queers can come up with their own, better, culturally appropriate ceremonies, family structures and methods of bonding. And yes, this can/may involve polygamy.
However, I recognise that not all LGBTI-identifying people are radical queers, and some of them would love to get married, and for that reason I believe that we should all work towards the day when that can happen, without losing sight of the unique queer culture we have developed over the years.

[Summertime]

Heck, I would’ve liked to have had multiple parents when growing up.
The more the merrier!
They could’ve even voted on whether or not I could do something i wanted and i could’ve learned lobbying.

[Kalhoun]

Lots of people have multiple parents. My son and I lived with my folks for about six years. They weren’t “parents” per se, but they were authority figures who loved him and looked out for him. But we also lived with his father, with my brother and his roommates, with my roommate and her children, just the two of us, and with me and my husband. There are situations which change the “traditional” family set-up all the time…gay or poly- families are just another couple options to add to the mix.

[Apos]

“Traditionally,” I might point out, single parent families blended with extended families and entire communities were very numerous and widely accepted. It was because of the high adult mortality rate. The number of orphans used to be astronomical.

[Shodan]

I still haven’t heard the principle under which we can advocate same-sex marriage but exclude polygamy.

Closest I have seen is MrVisible’s rationale that polygamists need to lobby harder and build public support before they can get their relationships approved by the state.

So if someone objects to gay marriage by saying,“But that would open the door to polygamy and incestuous marriages”, the honest pro-gay marriage advocate should respond, “Right - that’s next.”

Regards,
Shodan

[Polycarp]

*Originally posted by Shodan *
**I still haven’t heard the principle under which we can advocate same-sex marriage but exclude polygamy.

Regards,
Shodan **

Try this one, then: “Marriage is the union of two people who love each other and choose to commit to each other in a lifetime monogamous relationship. Such a commitment is made before the assembled church with the priest officiating and witnesses present in order that God through the priest’s ministry may pronounce His blessing on the marriage and that the church may offer its prayers for their continued happiness and success in their wedded life.”

That’s the definition I was taught some time ago – done as strictly religious, of course, and the assumption that the people are adults or nearly so (late teens) is implicit.

A civil marriage would be quite similar – formal public taking of vows before witnesses and an officiant licensed to preside at marriages.

It seems to cover the situation quite adequately, without allowing for Santorum’s slippery slopes.

As for me, I’d stand by it as what I’d consider a proper marriage. I can vaguely wrap my mind around three or more people, each of whom loves both/all the others enough to want to make that lifetime commitment to both/all of them. And IMHO that’s their business, and there ought to be ways to enable them to make such a commitment. How it affects their status in other ways (can they file a joint tax return, for example) is stuff that can be worked out.

But that is neither here nor there. Take a good hard look at that definition I gave above, and tell me what in it you find injurious to marriage as we now know it, and why you would construe it to exclude a gay couple who wishes to make that commitment.

And let’s avoid bringing up hypotheticals about six men, five women, their grandmother and the toddler sister of one of them, four household appliances, their dog, cat, and pet goat. (Anyways, PETA would object on the grounds of cruelty to the goat!)

[AZCowboy]

Holy shit! Somehow, I feel responsible for all of this! Live and learn…

In the OP, Homebrew takes Apos to task for a comment in a linked thread. IMHO, the implication is unwarranted, when read in context, Apos point was contrary to the implication set forth in the OP of this thread. But that has already been resolved.

In the linked thread, Apos was responding to an editorial I linked from National Review Online, by Stanley Kurtz. I noted in that thread that I have never linked to a National Review article in GD before. Apos response to my link spawned this thread, and at least two others. I hope I’ve learned my lesson! :eek:

In any case, I think it may be useful to read the NRO editorial (linked above). It makes a few interesting points, such as:

Clearly, Sen. Santorum is making a classic slippery-slope argument here — a fact that has been completely lost amidst the claims that he has “equated” homosexuality with, say, incest.
…
Sen. Santorum is obviously concerned that, if the Supreme Court rules that the state has no right to regulate sexuality in the case of sodomy, a court might someday deny the state the right to regulate even incest.
…
And as Ponnuru shows, Santorum’s underlying constitutional point can be accepted either by those who do — or who do not — favor sodomy laws.

Now, in response to the question at the heart of this OP, Kurtz continues:

The truth is, throughout his interview, Santorum was defending two things: the current law of the land (i.e. that sodomy laws, whether advisable or not, are indeed constitutional), and the widely held views of Catholics (and other religious people) about homosexuality. Catholic doctrine holds that individuals with a homosexual orientation are to be loved and nurtured. Yet Catholic doctrine also admonishes against these acts, and considers that homosexual acts, along with other forms of sexual activity outside of marriage, are “antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.” So if the Democrats or the mainstream press believe that Santorum’s remarks mean that he must step down from his leadership position, then they are saying that no traditional Christian ought to hold a position of political leadership in this country.

Unless Kurtz misstates Catholic doctrine, and regardless whether one subscribes that doctrine, the point is self-evident.

While I disagree with both Santorum and the Catholic churh, I do respect their right to their opinion. I certainly don’t accept their doctrine as “established fact”.

On the “slippery-slope” argument, I have to agree with the point Shodan made (did I really just do that? mark that down…). In the thread spawned by this one:

AZCowboy wrote in another thread in this post:
I can appreciate that incorporating poly unions with gay marriage legistlation would make that legistlation less likely to pass as a practical matter, and therefore, I can understand your position if this issue hits close to home. I cannot understand your position if you hold it on any sort of idealistic basis, such as a libertarian philosophy.

To which I might add, that supporting gay marriage rights, without poly marriage rights, at least for gays, appears self-serving and not principled.

Polycarp wrote:
Take a good hard look at that definition I gave above, and tell me what in it you find injurious to marriage as we now know it, and why you would construe it to exclude a gay couple who wishes to make that commitment.

The problem I have with the definition that you provided is that it is “strictly religious”, which allows it to be narrowed to heterosexuals, just as Santorum (and apparently the Catholic church) suggests. I preferred your later, more pragmatic, definition, personally.

[sub]Note: Homebrew, in the future it would be helpful if you would include a link in the original thread to the OP of this one, much like autz did here. I was participating in the original thread, but only found this one while backtracking in autz’s thread. Thanks.[/sub]

[MrVisible]

*Originally posted by Shodan *
**I still haven’t heard the principle under which we can advocate same-sex marriage but exclude polygamy.

Closest I have seen is MrVisible’s rationale that polygamists need to lobby harder and build public support before they can get their relationships approved by the state.

So if someone objects to gay marriage by saying,“But that would open the door to polygamy and incestuous marriages”, the honest pro-gay marriage advocate should respond, “Right - that’s next.”

Regards,
Shodan **

There have been a number of people who have pointed out that polygamous marriage is not analogous to gay marriage, for both practical and philosophical reasons. Implementing polygamous marriage would take a entirely different legislative approach, and have entirely different legal consequences. Check the Polygamy (and Gay Marriage) thread for an extensive discussion of this.

Personally, and please keep that in mind, that this is my own personal opinion, I think that the legal consequences of polygamous marriage are acceptable, and I would support efforts to legalize those relationships. However, given that they are significantly different legal consequences from gay marriage, I understand how someone could weigh both sets of consequences and support the one which has less impact, while not supporting the one which they consider to have too much impact.

As I stated in the post you referred to, they are entirely separate issues. And it would be disingenuous for me to say polyamorous marriage is next; I have no way of predicting the future, and I know that if polyamorists do decide to take on this challenge, they’ve got a long, hard fight ahead of them, with absolutely no guarantee that they’ll win.

The honest pro-gay activist, then, when confronted by the question of whether legal polygamy is a necessary consequence of legalizing gay marriage, will say something like “Certainly not. That’s an entirely separate issue, legally and morally. If the polyamorous community wants legal marriage status, they have a lot of groundwork to lay. Some gay people will support them; some gay people will not. We’ve had to work for decades to get anywhere near legal recognition; we don’t anticipate that their fight will be any easier.”

Which is tougher to fit into a sound bite, but it’s a lot more honest than your suggestion.

[MrVisible]

*Originally posted by AZCowboy *
To which I might add, that supporting gay marriage rights, without poly marriage rights, at least for gays, appears self-serving and not principled.

There’s a big difference between “supporting polyamorous rights” and “supporting polyamorous rights by conflating gay rights and polyamorous rights legally, and thereby making sure gay marriage doesn’t get legally recognized.” They are, as I keep mentioning, entirely separate issues that need entirely separate legal approaches.

I personally will happily support the polyamorous marriage movement. I will do so by voting, by marching, by letting my representatives know my feelings on the matter. Much as with the gay movement, there’s a lot of work to get done before they have any chance of getting legislation passed, and I will happily help with that work. But supporting the notion that “if gay marriage gets recognized, everything gets recognized or you’re being a hypocrite” is nonsensical.

[AZCowboy]

MrVisible, I certainly appreciate your support for polyamorous unions. Since you didn’t specifically comment, I want to make sure that you read the part where I quoted myself, just above the quote of mine you selected.

When you continue to say that they are entirely separate issues, I fail to see how. In fact, as X~Slayer(ALE) pointed out in the other thread, gay unions could be considered a subset of poly unions.

Unless such a proposed law required at least one person from each sex be maintained in a marriage (a limitation I couldn’t possibly imagine being included, and problematic for gay unions), the gay union rights could be considered a subset of poly union rights.

If we agree that it is arbitrary and capricious to limit marriage to one male and one female, instead of “two people”, how is it not arbitrary and capricious to limit marriage to two people, instead of more? Why is your only concern with gender, and not number?

That’s the question I am struggling to understand.

[X_Slayer_ALE]

*Originally posted by Polycarp *
**And let’s avoid bringing up hypotheticals about six men, five women, their grandmother and the toddler sister of one of them, four household appliances, their dog, cat, and pet goat. (Anyways, PETA would object on the grounds of cruelty to the goat!) **

damn! I guess I’ll have to start a separate thread about the possibility of marrying your robot or your artificial intelligence program so long as it passes legal definitions of sentience… aw poo.

Hey! I heard some women would marry their vibrators if it could mow the lawn and fix the car.

*Originally posted by AZCowboy *
****If we agree that it is arbitrary and capricious to limit marriage to one male and one female, instead of “two people”, how is it not arbitrary and capricious to limit marriage to two people, instead of more? Why is your only concern with gender, and not number?

That’s the question I am struggling to understand. **

Well for the most part, I agree entirely that marriage between 2 people should not have any limitation as to the combination of their sexes. There is no real social, scientific or political reason what this cannot be.
However, while I agree in principle that polygamy (in any combination both in number and sex) should be allowed, aside from the legal pitfalls that will create there is another barrier that must be overcome. I dont think the world is ready for it. The social maturity of the average person is not up to it yet. Based on the posts on this forum alone, there are so many doubts expressed that have no real basis in fact that its almost irrational. There is not enuf data to base a conclusion on.

If the polygamists lived in a life of relative seclusion surrounded by like minded people supporting their lifestyle, they should be allowed to do their thing. I wouldnt try this social experiment in Los Angeles or New York because it is doomed to failure. Too many closed minded people will ruin it. It might take a commune of successful polygamists challenging the constitutionality of anti-polygamy laws to test this nations maturity to accept this idea.

Same sex marriage may have come of age but I dont think polygamy’s time has come yet.

[AZCowboy]

And that is about the only explanation I find credible, appealing on a practical basis only.

Frankly, I can’t understand why something cannot be legal if the social maturity of the average person is not up to it yet. If that were the case, I’m not sure why the 21st amendment ever passed.

FTR, I would not be willing to withhold gay union legistlation just to force poly union legistlation.

But from a purely principled perspective, I fail to see how support for one does not lend itself to the other.

[MrVisible]

If you can’t see the distinction between gender and number, then I don’t have much hope for getting you to recognize that the two are separate issues. Fortunately, gender and number are easy to distinguish. Example:

Bob is a guy.

There are two people working at the hot dog stand.

I really don’t see how anyone can confuse the two. It seems to be pretty evident. If I ask, “How many people are going with us to the movies,” you probably wouldn’t reply, “Female.”

I’m also pretty puzzled at people’s definition of the word “Support.” Sure, I support polyamorous marriages, and I will be happy to vote in favor of them, march in their parades, etcetera. However, “Support” doesn’t imply that I have an obligation to combine the two political struggles into one, doomed, political struggle.

The scenario here is pretty simple. The movement to achieve gay marriage rights is gaining momentum, and looks to be able to achieve its goal sometime soon. Seeing that, the religious right is now trying to saddle the movement with the responsibility to achieve not only the right to same-sex marriages, but to achieve equality for polyamorous people too, knowing that polyamory doesn’t have a chance in hell, as of yet, of gaining enough support for a successful run at legalization. Oddly, I don’t know of any polyamorous people who take the position that gay people shouldn’t marry if they can’t. No polyamorous organization is taking that stance.

If “support” means “support them by doing anything your opponents tell you supports them,” then I get to insist that Rumsfeld support our troops by baking them all meatloaf. Personally. in an EZ-Bake Oven. That oughta keep him out of trouble for a while.

[X_Slayer_ALE]

*Originally posted by AZCowboy *
**And that is about the only explanation I find credible, appealing on a practical basis only.

Frankly, I can’t understand why something cannot be legal if the social maturity of the average person is not up to it yet. If that were the case, I’m not sure why the 21st amendment ever passed.

FTR, I would not be willing to withhold gay union legistlation just to force poly union legistlation.

But from a purely principled perspective, I fail to see how support for one does not lend itself to the other. **

the repeal of the 18th ammendment signified the nations social acceptance that alcohol is not evil. They drank alcohol whether it was legal or not which means the law is behind them in the curve. The majority of people do not understand polygamy enuf. The law is still par with social maturity. Most of the people do not object to polygamys restrictions and punishments. Until enuf people oppose the law to make the law obsolete or irrelevant, the law is within social standards.

With regards to legislation, as I have mentioned in part, poly union legislation can never happen unless legislation allowing gay unions is accepted. You can never have a legal polygamic marriage while prohibiting gay marriages. You can however have a wide acceptance of same sex marriages and not even touch on the issues regarding polygamy. The conservatives are right, it is a slippery slope but so are the rides in a waterpark. Not all slippery slopes are dangerous. All this requires is the right level of maturity.

[Homebrew]

Whether or not you buy the arguement that approval of Gay Marriages necessarily leads to approval of Poly Marriages, the fact is that is not the question I raised by the OP.

My question, was this:

How does allowing Gay Marriages Harm Heterosexual Marriage?

The question of whether Gay and Poly Marriages should be linked for legislative purposes is irrelevant to my question, which nobody has answered.

[X_Slayer_ALE]

Perhaps the lack of answers is your answer. It may most people here believe that Gay marrriages would not harm heterosexual marriages because they are not related. Much like an interracial marriage does not harm the relationship the pair has for one another and it certainly should not affect their neighbors. I cant think of any reason why one marriage would affect another.

The resistance to gay marriage is anti-gay. It seeks to deny legitimacy to a lifestyle that is already prevalent and accepted as a fact of life. The fact that gays exist doesnt harm the heterosexual lifestyle, so gays getting married will not harm the institution of heterosexual marriage.

[Polycarp]

Cowboy, the reason that I used it (the first definition) was that it was an existing definition used by a religious organization that failed to rule out gay marriages. And remember that for a fair proportion of Americans, a marriage is something beyond a form of civil contract – it’s a religiously-based union of two people into an actual new entity that has a distinct metaphysical reality. Failure to take that perspective into account is as much a compulsion of others to (the generic) your point of view as is the heteromarriage-only standard. That’s why I shaved off the religious perspective to give the second, civil definition – they work hand in hand.

And while, yes, the first definition (and the second) can be changed to permit only heteromarriages, that’s akin to “amending” a bill under consideration by Congress by striking everything after “Be it enacted that --” and adding the following text: “…” It says two people and that’s what I meant – not “two people who happen to be of age 21 or greater and of opposite sex from each other and not related in closer than the third degree of proximity, and who shall have paid unto the proper authorities the fee prescribed and passed the following tests”

Marriage for me is two people who commit to each other to live together for life out of love for each other. People are welcome to invent whatever forms of union they find desirable, and provided that it works no harm or coercion on any party, I’ll accept their choice as viable for them. But I gave my definition – and it’s what I feel is right.

[look_ninjas]

*Originally posted by ElJeffe *
[BIf 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.
**

[raises hand] Um… what if the promiscuous homosexuals just decide not to get married? Because the right to marry is not the same as the obligation to marry, so…

Seriously, I don’t see how it matters whether or not there are more promiscuous homosexuals than promiscuous heterosexuals. If people want to continue to sleep around, they’re probably not going to get married anyway.

Homebrew: Fred Phelps could tell you why homosexual marriage is harmful. But there might be too many bleeding-heart liberals on this board to help you out.

[Lilairen]

Polycarp, it may interest you to know that “Marriage for me is two people who commit to each other to live together for life out of love for each other” is also a perfect definition of my own beliefs. It’s one of the reasons I was arguing with someone who suggested that plural marriage is a more practicable or feasable approach than permitting multiple marriages.

Homebrew, I think X~Slayer is completely right. I suspect at least here a large number of people are in the “My marriage doesn’t need defending; sorry to hear about yours” camp. There isn’t, as far as I’ve seen, any justification that doesn’t require partaking of axioms that are far from universally accepted.

Incidentally, for those people who run up against the idea that marriage has always been defined as a heterosexual thing in European culture, one of my mailing lists threw up a book recommendation earlier today – Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell. I’ve not read it, but the fellow who brought it to my attention says that it includes reference to liturgies celebrating same-sex unions from the 1100s. I figured someone around here might be interested.

[davidm]

*Originally posted by SuaSponte *
**If gay marriages were allowed, people may see a heterosexual married couple and mistakenly assume they were gay.

Sua **

Huh??? I can only see that happening if one or both of the heterosexual couple were sexually ambiguous in their appearance. And if that were the case, then the mistake could be made whether gay marriages were legal or not. I don’t understand your point.