Sex is looked upon differently than race. That’s as simple as I can read it. There seem to be fundamental differences between bigotry shown to ethnic vs. sexual minorities, one of which is explicit denigration in the Judeo-Christian scriptures, upon which the majority of Americans feel our core moral values are founded upon. To ignore this unfortunate distinction is to ignore reality, IMO.
I must stress again, I have absolutely no sympathy with those who oppose gay marriage. I oppose state-sanctioned marriage of any kind, but if such a thing must exist, then I feel very strongly that it should be granted to all citizens in a consensual adult relationship. But lets fact it: To a large majority of Americans, marriage is a sacrement, and has traditionally been reserved for heterosexual unions. That’s just the way it is, like it or not. It does very little good, from a strategic point of view, to deny how important an obstacle such an ingrained social restriction really is. Why, to do so might lead to things like constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, voted in by huge majorities.
Nonsense! People make things possible. All the time. Accepting something as halfhearted as civil unions, when they’ll just get voted down, is cowardly.
And I’m a little surprised that I sound like a Reaganaut. Hell, I’m extremely surprised.
That may be. But we’re talking about legislated bigotry right now.
And I apologize, Polycarp, but I’m afraid that I don’t understand what you’re saying in your post. Might you elaborate a bit?
[QUOTE=GLWastefulAnd I apologize, Polycarp, but I’m afraid that I don’t understand what you’re saying in your post. Might you elaborate a bit?
Waste[/QUOTE]
Oh, sorry! I was agreeing with you – and doing a riff on “reinventing the wheel” by creating a new jargonic term – my point being that we have a working definition of what rights and responsibilities accrue to marriage civilly, whether or not you accept it as something beyond a civil institution – so why create a new institution and then have to navigate through that complexus of rights and responsibilities to determine how to make each apply to the new institution?
Maybe tomndebb or another knowledgeable Catholic can wander in here and speak to how Catholics regard marriage – especially the marriages of non-Catholics. As I recall, they carefully distinguish between the sacramental marriages entered into by Catholics (and some other Christians) and the perfectly valid in their eyes but non-sacramental marriages that two atheists, two Baptists, or two pagans would join in. The metaphysics they bring to it might illuminate the problems that some people have with gay marriages as somehow “demeaning” what they mean by marriage.
Well, I’m glad to that you recognize that suggesting heterosexual married couples should have to make do with civil unions is absurd. That’s a start. The part that I’m still sketchy on is why it’s not absurd to expect the same thing of homosexual married couples.
I was under the impression that the whole purpose of our legal system was to do what’s right, not what’s convenient. And not just for most people, but for all people. I don’t understand why it’s so unrealistic and fantastic to expect people to just do the right thing.
I’d suggest that if you really are a proponent of civil unions for the people who need them, that you speak out in favor of civil unions. Don’t appropriate an issue that is at best tangentially related – the issue of two loving consenting adults who want to be married, not partnered – and criticize them for getting in the way.
Why should I accept a civil union with the man that I love, when one of my best friends is perfectly entitled to be married to the woman that he loves? Is it because it’s politically expedient? Or is it because that’s the most I deserve, and I should just be pragmatic (read: defeatist) and accept it?
Sol, what I have to say in this post is not my position, which I think you realize is all for enabling gay marriage on an equal status as “normal” marriage. But it’s a plausible argument that I think needs to be addressed. It runs as follows:
Marriage in the traditional man-woman sense has two primary purposes: the procreative and the unitive. It’s the coming together of one man and one woman with the intent of creating a family. That family will in the normal course of events include children, though from time to time a valid marriage will be contracted which cannot expect children – one partner is sterile, the woman is past menopause, etc. But the potential for children is there, even if near-miraculous events need to occur to actualize that potential. Even if the couple has no present intent to ever have children, or no intent to have children at the present time (with the intent of doing so at a later time), the procreative intent is present in the second case, just postponed, and in the first case, the option to change one’s mind exists.
This procreative intent is coupled with the equally valid unitive intent – to join together as “one flesh” (in Paul’s phrase) by celebrating their desire to unite and commit to each other both physically and emotionally.
A rational observer sees the latter unitive intent in a gay couple’s desire to wed. But he or she will not observe the procreative intent – it is a physical impossibility for them to conceive a child together (absent relatively outré circumstances like a M2F lesbian who has banked sperm prior to SRS).
Now, as a genetically childless married man with several wonderful kids and grandkids not recognized by the law but which I, they, and I’m sure God see as father/son or grandfather/grandchild relationships, I hold that the alternative modes of entering into parenthood – use of host-mother, sperm donor, adoption, fostering – are equally available to you as they were to Barb and me.
But the issue of, in their theory, a marriage requiring both procreative and unitive intents, not merely unitive, is one that truly needs to be met. And I think it’s usually raised in good faith, not as a rationalization for anti-gay feelings. So I’d like to see how you and other gay men and women would respond to it, ideally without invective.
Mr. Moto, I’m not sure why you think civil unions would have a better chance of becoming law if backed by the gay lobby. Seems to me, if homosexuals started lobbying for civil unions instead of marriage, then the idea of civil unions will be attacked every bit as viciously, simply because they are perceived as something gays want. Your position seems reasonable, but it’ll never work because the homophobes are not acting out of reason, they are acting out of pure spite and hatred. IIRC, you have personal reasons for wanting civil union legistlation open to people co-habiting in a non-romantic sense. Something about your aunt, right? I respect that, I’d be in favor of the sort of legislation you suggest if it ever showed up on a ballot, but it seems to me that yoking that cart to the gay rights horse would be about the best possible way to make sure it never, ever happens.
I also agree with you: gay marriage is not going to happen on a nation-wide level any time soon in this country. It’s going to be a long, ugly, and bitter fight. But I don’t think that, if we wait for another five or six decades, the fight is going to go any easier. If we press for gay marriage now, we might get it by 2050. If we wait 'til 2050, we won’t get it until 2100. I think the country is as ready as it’s ever going to be for this issue: the only way it’s going to become more accepting of gay marriage is through the process of fighting for gay marriage.
It has nothing to do with deserving. We deserve to be married. We deserve to have equal rights. We deserve to have people not hate us. But that’s not happening right now, and that’s not happening in the near future. You should accept it because, as unfair as it may be, it’s better than nothing, and we’ve got nothing right now.
Let’s face it. 78% of the population of Louisiana who voted said that we shouldn’t have equal rights. Now, you may say they’re wrong, and they are, and you may say they’re bigots, and they are, but they’re in charge right now. It’s just the reality of the situation.
I don’t really know what we should do. We try for civil unions if we can get them. We try for ENDA, and we try to elect gay-friendly politicians from both parties. We’re in the middle of a backlash here, and I don’t know if we have a choice but to ride it out.
I have two responses to that, one personal and one political. Both come down to the same thing: equality.
Personally, I’m all for the procreative intent of marriage. I very much want to start a family and raise at least one child. I believe that’s my ultimate purpose on the planet, and I selfishly want to have the joy of teaching a child what I’ve learned and seeing the world through his eyes as he grows up. For a long time, I was convinced that the only way to get this would be to “pass for straight” and have a passionless (although loving) relationship with a woman, get married, and have children, all for the sake of having a “normal” family.
But then I realized that the act of raising a child is far more important than that of conceiving a child. And that the most functional, stable, and successful families I’ve ever encountered haven’t been “normal” – there’s been adoption, divorce, remarrying, artificial insemination, half-siblings, stepfathers, and so on. I don’t understand why I’m unfit to marry and raise a child just because I am and have always been a homosexual. There is no law preventing me from marrying a sterile, hairy, masculine woman. So apparently, the only thing that makes me an unfit husband and and unfit parent is that the type of people that I’m attracted to also have penises. Somehow, that doesn’t strike me as quite fair.
I’ve been told several times by people, both gay and straight, that “marriage is for straight people,” or “why do you want to be married? You went through so much just to come out of the closet, why give that up just to be like everybody else?” I simply can’t think that way. I can’t believe that my time on Earth ends here with me; I have to believe that I’m going to give something to someone else to carry on.
On a more political level, I’ve seen countless instances of heterosexual couples who are married with absolutely no intention of having children. I’ve seen many instances of couples who are permitted to marry and are unable to have children. I have never seen a marriage license that asks the couple if they plan to conceive. I have never attended a wedding ceremony that demands the couple commit to having children.
I believe that if an amendment were proposed that bans the right to marriage against all couples who are unable to bear children, there would be an outrage like nothing the country’s seen before. What about these poor people? Haven’t they suffered enough, being infertile? Instead of chastising them, shouldn’t we be doing everything we can to help them start families?
And yet, when we see cases of thousands of infertile couples (because they happen to be of the same sex) attempting to get married, there is no sympathy. There is no compassion. There is no desire to help them start a family. Instead, there is derision, mockery, fear, and condemnation.
They are called sinful, immoral, and promiscuous, even though they are fighting to have their stable, loving, and monogamous relationship recognized by society.
They are called selfish, even though they are fighting to be able to bring a stable. loving home environment to a child.
They are condemned as sinners by those who divorce, commit adultery, are lustful, enter into capricous weddings, or have children they do not want or cannot raise.
Which all leads me to believe that the claim that marriage’s chief purpose is procreation is nothing more than a red herring. The same people who would fight against a same-sex couple’s right to marriage, would be appalled at the concept of preventing an infertile couple from marrying. The same people who would claim that a child must be raised by parents of both sexes, would never think of removing a child from the home of a widow or widower.
So then, what is left to fight against? If procreation is not the damning factor against same-sex marriage, why is it so repulsive to so many people? It must be the unitive purpose of marriage that you mention. It must be the very idea that two people of the same sex could desire the union of marriage. The very notion that a man could be in love with another man, or a woman with another woman.
It’s the same mentality that makes people laugh when they see two men holding hands, or kissing. It’s the same mentality that makes men say that the most horrible thing that could happen to them would be receiving a sexual advance from another man. It’s the same mentality that makes people think that all homosexual men are effeminate, mincing fairies, and all homosexual women are aggressive, flannel-wearing bull dykes.
That is why I believe that every argument against same-sex marriage reduces to nothing more than homophobia, bigotry, and prejudice, even though most opponents to same-sex marriage would immediately deny that they’re bigoted or that they have anything against homosexuals personally. We have seen time and time again that the procreative obstacles against same-sex couples can be overcome. We have also seen time and time again that couples who don’t even want to procreate have been permitted to marry without giving it a second thought. There is nothing left to rail against other than the sex of the couples involved.
And that is why I have to wonder what it is that people see in me, when they tell me that they’re not anti-gay, but they don’t support same-sex marriage. Why it is that they wouldn’t give a second thought to a man who married a woman – they wouldn’t ask him if he were promiscuous, who was on top, if they planned to have children, or if they were really in love. But when I claim to want to marry another man, all these things and more are demanded of me. Do they believe, as many do, that because I’m gay I’m less of a man? Or that I’m lustful? Or that I’m capricious? Why am I not entitled to the same thing as every other man? Why did you (rhetorical you, not Polycarp) not have to spend days and days arguing and presenting your case before you were allowed to marry? Why do I not deserve to be happy with the person I love? Why must I settle for calling him my “partner,” when your wife is automatically entitled to call you her “husband?”
Actually, I don’t take back anything that I just wrote; I just realized I can put it a lot more succinctly:
Read the text of the Louisiana ban again, or the Missouri ban, or the proposed Constitutional amendment. They don’t mention procreation. It don’t mention beastiality, or pedophilia, or any of the other “slippery slope” arguments that people try to apply to same-sex marriage. They only say that marriage is exclusive to a man and a woman.
We (homosexuals) are being targeted, pure and simple. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise is being, at best, disingenuous.
Well I won’t speak for Steve MB, but I would greatly appreciate *your * analysis! Is there a concrete list of the “privileges or obligations of marriage”? I would offer that a generally accepted “privilege or obligation of marriage” is the power to make medical decisions when the other party is incapacitated. Does this mean that if my Dad gives me power of attorney (in case he is incapacitated) the contract is void? What about you? Can I give you power of attorney to act on my behalf if we’re the same sex and the power I want to give you is a “privilege or obligation of marriage”? Or are we okay as long as the contract only give some of the “privileges or obligations of marriage”?
Some several years ago, here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, there was a joint meeting of the judiciary committees that was open to arguments from the public. Among other things, the subject under discussion was the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act”.
The concept was raised that marriage is all about the children, stable home life, etc., etc., and so forth; you know the drill. One of the gay men who was there got up to address the committee and said something to the effect of:
“You say that marriage is for the sake of the children, for their protection, making certain they have parents who will look after them and care for them, making sure they have health care, keeping them with a custodial parent if one dies, and so on.”
Pause.
“Why doesn’t my daughter deserve the same protection?”
The purpose of interpreting law is to give full effect to the intent of the legislature. If the statute’s words are plain, then the interpreter need not go further than the plain meaning in ascertaining the intent.
A contract between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage is prohibited. I know of no authority for the proposition that a “living will,” naming another party as the responsible person for the purposes of medical decisions is a “privilege or obligation of marriage.” It is true that marriage confers this ability without recourse to a living will, but it is also true that living wills have a history of conferring such powers upon other relatives, or even close friends, without any of the antecedents of marriage. It would be quite a stretch, in my view, for any court to interpret this clause as voiding any living will that gives decision-making authority to a person of the same sex as the testator.
Similarly, general or limited power of attorney in case of incapacitation has a long history. Indeed, even marriage does not confer this right: you do not automatically have power-of-attorney for all things for your spouse.