Okay. I’m just asking for an example of how this might manifest itself.
Nothing legal or constitutional, I don’t believe. And from a practical perspective, if your hypothetical supposes that everything was in fact equal, I suppose things would have been all right. Of course, it wasn’t, and if you asked me for an example of how it wasn’t equal, I’d mention things like underfunded minority schools. See what I mean?
How would the US’s recognition of SSM suddenly make other country’s recognize the same?
Granted. It would deny the semantical right of legally referring to oneself as married.
I gave you one directly after that sentence:
I guess you and I differ on that. Segregation didn’t have to be illegal to have been a moral wrong. But, in fairness, I can’t articulate why, exactly.
They would have to, or they would abrogate currently standing treaties with us.
Change that to “unequal.”
Okay. Can you explain how that lack of precedent might manifest itself is a “separate but equal” disparity for someone who by legal definition has the same rights and duties as one in a heterosexual marriage?
I’m not sure you’re correct here. If we suddenly redefine cotton as being wool, it won’t escape a tariff from a country that applies one to cotton. I would think a country that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman would continue to do so. But I am not expert on such matters, I’ll admit.
It would have still been an impediment to the Constitutionally guaranteed right of free association, prohibiting people of different races from associating with one another in various public settings (a diminution of personal rights) which would have the effect of imposing a financial hardship on whichever group was less wealthy (since many financial arrangements (deals) are produced by way of associations at meals or sporting events).
Yes, I’ll buy that. But then you’ve blown up the hypothetical, which assumed it “worked,” which I took to mean that there was no disparity.
Not any clearer than I already have.
Sure, they can say they won’t recognize gay marriages we’ve performed. We can then say, “Fine, we consider you in violation of The Marriage Treaty of Dickety-Six and no longer recognize any marriages performed in your country as legally valid in ours. You want to send out the fliers telling your citizens visiting or living abroad that they’re living in sin, or shall we?” The ones that would, we probably don’t have too many relations with in the first place.
A country is free to void any treaty any time it wants. But if it does, it’s going to face political repurcussions. Most countries aren’t going to rock the boat over this particular issue.
Okee-dokee then.
I’ll ask any others, then, as I am sincerely interested. I’ve heard the visa thing, which seems incorrect to me, and that something bad could happen if we don’t call them marriages because then there wouldn’t be the common law to fend off such a transgression. But I don’t believe anyone has yet articulated the specific “bad thing” that could occur by virtue of this legal weakness if civil unions, by legal definition, have all the rights and duties of marriage.
Then they wouldn’t if we told them we require all foreign countries to provide spousal visas to those in civil unions. Spousal visas for homosexuals is either a hot-topic, sticking point with other countries, or it isn’t. Countries are either willing to stand up to the political pressure of disavowing the U.S. requirement, or they aren’t.
Well, I can give you a paraphrase of a real-world example which matt_mcl proferred on one of the earlier threads on this subject. Two men, legally married in Canada, attempted to legally vacation in Florida. To do so, of course, they had to gain entry to the U.S. Eva Luna or somebody can tell you what was the form they were called on to fill out, probably an application for a tourist visa IIRC. But the quite real dilemma on whose horns they were caught was the fact that that application asked for a variety of personal information, to be answered accurately on oath or affirmation and under penalty of perjury. When they answered honestly that they were married, their application was rejected on the grounds that the U.S. did not accept their marriage. The immigration officer told them they would have to answer “single” – which would be a direct and knowing violation of their word of honor.
Stratocaster, I sincerely hope that you never find yourself in a situation where you are barred from being with a loved one in a critical time, on the basis of lack of legal recognition for a “semantical right.” When Chris went for surgery to his ruptured appendix, with a real potential for death (I’m not clear how a ruptured appendix leads to probable death, but I understand it does), I had every bit of the emotional investment in him of a father for his only son. But not the legal right to be present, except through the courtesy of his mother after we finally found her and she came to the hospital. No, it’s not the same as a spouse, but I’m quite able to translate between different styles of distress and anguish to arrive at a vague sense of what a gay spouse in a similar situation might feel.
Those who claim that permitting same sex marriage would violate their religious rights to live in a country free from the “taint” of gay marriages – well, I struggle mightily to keep from telling them that their attitude violates my right to live in a country free from the taint of their perversion of Christian principles that they have enslaved to feed heir prejudice.
The main problem as I see it in this regard is that, as you say, there is a difference; semantic it may be, but it is there. And with this difference, any prosecutor/defender/judge can say “No, the years of legal precedent for marriage don’t count, because this isn’t marriage”. The rebuttal to that is of course “but it has all the rights of marriage”; to which the argument will be “but they are not the same thing. If they were meant to be the same, civil unions would just have been absorbed into current marriage. Precedent is not applicable.”.
Now, I see nothing unlikely about that. Any difference at all is a straw to clutch at by those who do not want any form of gay civil union. Plus, as people have already pointed out, setting out that civil unions have all the rights and duties of marriage does not preclude attempts by others to change that; again, if precedent is not followed, it would be a lot harder to defend those civil unions in court.
I know for a fact that she was told that even though his first marriage was ruled valid by the Church, and he was legally divorced ,if he turned Catholic she could then marry him in the Church(Have the marriage blessed).At this point he no longer wanted to live with her. I asked him why he didn’t just get a no fault divorice and he said" I just want to make her life miserable as she kept me from a true love who had now moved on with someone else.
She went through a lot of things with the Rockford dioscese,and since they were not having marital relations and living as brother and sister she was allowed to go to communion and went every day and did.
I have several nieces that have married several times and they cannot go to communion although the church excepts the fact that their marriage is legal.
Monavis
The Church can and does call it an annulment when they declare it wasn’t a marriage to begin with. Regardless if it is a Catholc or non-Catholic marriage.
I have a friend who was married in the Church and was granted an anullment because she and her family said she was married with a wrong intention. I also heard that people can claim they were forced into a marriage, or were not in their right mind at the time. It is much easier today than it was years before Vatican 2.
Monavis
Were you married to some one else before that? Just being non-Catholic or athiest is not a problem, a Catholic can marry( as a sacramental one) as long as a priest is present. Some weddings I have been to had a priest and a minister have the cermony.
Monavis
I haven’t skimmed the whole thread, so apologies if this notion has been posted before, but a nasty little slimebag editorial journo from a Melbourne daily newspaper has possited that because gay people are promiscious, it will encourage promiscuity in hetero couples if gays are allowed to marry.
Like heteros never have affairs???
I nearly spat in my coffee…except I didn’t want to corrupt it with such bullshit.
Poly, why do you seem to think I advocate a scenario that would permit this? And more to the point of my question, if civil unions provide all the duties and rights of marriage, how could this situation occur?
I’m not trying to be obstinate. I’m on record as saying I’m not proposing civil unions over SSM. I am asking, out of intellectual curiosity, what makes the two things differ, other than semantics. It could be that I am naive in thinking that a legal definition that assigned all marital rights to those in a civil union would actually operate that way. Perhaps I misunderstand the real nature of a civil union. I am honestly just trying to understand what seems to be an important distinction to many.
But I gotta tell you, I think you’re missing my point–and being unfair–if your response implies that I think a situation where someone is barred from being with a loved one in a critical time is no big deal, so long as it doesn’t involve me.
Is this also addressed to me? If so, it’s an odd retort when my position is that purely religious issues have no place in the public realm. My religion teaches what it does, and I’m free to believe it. But religious belief should intrude in the public realm only to the extent that they overlap with the need to protect another person’s rights. I tend to be pretty libertarian on matters like this. Why should I get a say in this, other than to decide whether or not SSM is a choice I’d make personally?
Relative to my own religious beliefs, I’d liken it to divorce or adultery. I can believe what I want, but I don’t think it’s good policy to make it illegal for Catholics to divorce and remarry. We shouldn’t pass legislation saying that all Christians are legally compelled to attend services on Sundays. I can’t and shouldn’t legislate those kinds of moral decisions. That’s up to every individual, to the extent that their decision doesn’t violate another’s rights. How is this any different?
In envisioning this situation, however hypothetical, where this would occur, can you tell me what bad thing might occur? What right might be denied? The specific disparity that would result? All due respect, this is what I’m reacting to. The repetition of, “This could permit some bad thing to occur,” without describing what that bad thing might be. I’ll also be repetitive: I’m not suggesting you aren’t correct. I’m just interested in what people envision when they invoke this concern.
This seems like a dubious assertion to me, even if you are referring solely to Western civilization, (which I think you are.) Here is an interesting little piece on the history of marriage, wich includes this item–
Marriage has not always been one particular institution, and those who appeal to its historical authenticity should be prepared to accept it in all its aspects.
Ah, I see. Sorry, I was replying to the wrong thing; you’re wanting specific instances of bad things. Ok.
One example that’s been brought up is immigration difficulties. If one partner is not from the U.S. (or whichever country), the right to stay in the country or citizenship for them may need to be a hard fought battle.
A second example may be property rights. I’m not certain what the laws are over there in the different states, but it’s possible that on seperation property may be adjudged to belong to the purchaser, not the couple. This might even be a case where the system is worked by one of the couple themselves; however, the ideal here is equality, and an extra loophole that doesn’t exist for opposite-sex marriages is just as wrong as the other way around.
And as I and others have said earlier in the thread, it would be a lot easier for people to go un- or lightly punished for discriminating against a gay couple. If a company (insurance companies in particular may show an important difference in recognition of same-sex and opposite-sex unions) discriminates against a couple, then opposite-sex marriages have years of legal precedent which may be disallowed with a same-sex union; resulting in a (if we assume complicit system) lighter sentence, essentially condoning different insurance costs for same-sex and opposite-sex couples.
How are other countries reacting to gay marriages that have been performed in the US (Mass.)? Or can that be ignored since the rest of the country doesn’t accept it either?
For that matter, do we recognize gay marriages from countries that have made them legal? I think we’re more in danger of violating some marriage treaty than some other country.