I suppose we’re doing the same old dance here, but I can never resist you as a partner.
I had a nonreligious marriage ceremony for which the government sanction was unwelcome (but necessary for legal reasons). It was the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done. The value of my marriage has nothing to do with the fact that Sean Hannity is forced to recognize it, or that Mary Lisbluth in Nowhere Wisconsin is forced to recognize it. It has everything to do with the fact that my wife recognized it, and that sixty of our friends and family both recognized it and signed our marriage covenant, both as witnesses and as our community that pledged to support our marriage. In other words, everyone who recognized it did so voluntarily; that’s the “larger society” whose recognition matters.
I believe in the past you’ve said that, even though I don’t care about compulsory recognition by other people, you do, and I ought to respect the fact that such compulsory recognition matters to you. The problem is, while I don’t care about compulsory recognition by other people, I do care about being compelled to recognize other folks’ marriages. I don’t like the idea in principle, and having been to Vegas recently for the first time in my life and seeing casinos with wedding chapels in them, I specifically don’t like being compelled to recognize the marriages of drunk fools in them*.
I just don’t see that the government has an appropriate role in compelling people to recognize one another’s emotional relationships.
Daniel
Not that everyone who gets married there is a drunk fool; I’m shamelessly stereotyping here.
Governments should also stop issuing “birth certificates”, or keeping statistics about “live births”, or using the words “born” or “birth” in official contexts. These words have inescapably religious connotations (“born again”, “New Birth Baptist Church”). Instead, the government should issue a “certificate of commencement of respiration”. Of course, if people wanted to, say, “get baptized” after being “born”, that would be OK as an entirely private and unofficial matter.
Not exactly, but you’re close: governments should stop issuing baptisms or confirmation certificates. If they want to issue birth certificates (which recognize a change in legal status but do not have religious overtones) or voter registration cards (which signify a change in legal status but do not have religious overtones), that’d be peachy.
Marriage is unlike birth and unlike baptism because it has both a governmental AND a religious significance. I submit that the governmental role, while historical, is historical because the government has historically had the weight of the church behind it. The legal rights pertaining to marriage are useful for folks who do not want the historical social obligations of marriage, and ought to be obtainable by them; I do not want to be in the position of socially approving of marriages that I think are rubbish.
It counts in the eyes of the church. Other than the state, there is no association larger than myself in which the validation of my marriage would have any meaning. If the state is removed as an agent in the recognition of marriage, then it’s impossible for me to have my marriage recognized in any meaningful fashion.
This aspect of marriage is the only one that the government should have any involvement it. Why should it be the government’s job to validate your emotional needs? It’s not. It’s categorically not government’s job to do that.
Uh-huh. And this aspect of marriage is none of the government’s business at all.
Oh, baloney. You could have your “nonreligious, non-government sanctioned marriage ceremony” and there are plenty of people who would recognize that as a valid marriage, myself amongst them. I consider the Godfathers of my kid to be as married as anyone I know, and a lot more than most. What you wouldn’t have is any legal standing as a couple. That is a function of government, and the only function of government WRT marriage. SSM is legally occurring, as we speak, in California. Do you honestly think that any of the vocal opponents of SSM regard these people as actually married? No matter what the government says? Of course they don’t. Let the government do it’s part, ensuring your legal rights as a couple, and then go do whatever you want to. It might be a traditional wedding in a catholic church. It might be a “nonreligious, non-government sanctioned marriage ceremony”. It might be a ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl. Who cares? Not me, and certainly the government shouldn’t. Individuals sanctify their marriages by their commitment, regardless of the ceremony around it. Stop trying to have government do more than it’s supposed to do.
Not meaningless, but also not contingent on the performance of a marriage ceremony. If I’m in a relationship that’s deep enough that we’re considering marriage, then my friends and family already know about it. The importance of marraige to me is in its implications beyond my immediate circle of acquaintances.
Huh? I thought the whole point of the conversation is that the state wouldn’t recognize any marriage, only “civil unions.” Are we talking about something else now?
Sort of - the hetero marriage-thingies would also become civil unions under Wd’s plan.
In other words, the government gives you a sheet of paper allowing you to…er… unite, meaning you get civil protections and rights of next of kin and so on
If you want to go the whole hog and get married, it’s a meaningless ceremony performed by the holy person/civil servant/ship’s captain/Elvis impersonator of your choice.
Honestly the “oh we’d be fine with calling our long-term, committed, legally-recognized relationship a ‘civil union’ rather than a marriage, why shouldn’t they?” and “let only religious ceremonies be called ‘marriages’” chants are so disigenuous they make me want to puke. The only reason y’all spout these bullshit party lines is because you know you don’t have to make that choice and you never will. Because you know we heteros will never have a problem finding a church/synagogue/whatever to perform our ceremonies and therefore get to call ourselves “married.” Because you know most churches will not marry a pair of men or women, and that a non-religious service is usually the only option for gay couples.
Thus your “ooh! I know! Let’s say only couples who get hitched in a religious ceremony can call themselves ‘married’” hypothetical claptrap is simply a backdoor method of denying gays the “marriage” label, which you so jealously and protectively guard like the dog in the manger.
I strongly doubt that any of you decided that “governments shouldn’t be involved in marriage” until the gay marriage subject entered the arena. You weren’t offended by government-sanctioned “marriage” before, and if you have a shred of intellectual honesty left, you shouldn’t have a problem with it now. (I know, I know – that’s the cue for an automatic cry of “I’ve felt that way forever before I ever knew what a homosexual was!” Yeah right.)
These sly little “wink-wink” provisos intended to obfuscate your desire to prohibit gay marriage remind me of the poll tax. “Why, certainly, anyone can vote! We welcome all to the polls, you just have to pay a trifling fee to do so. What’s that, you say? Few blacks are able to pay? Tsk tsk, what a shame, but it’s nothing to do with us. Take it up with society as a whole. Until then, our requirement is utterly fair and reasonable.”
Now, choie, why don’t you show us where I said the proposed ceremonial marriage had to be a religious ceremony?
Then you can show us how you managed to read an entire thread without understanding a single word of it. That’s a neat trick.
Let’s pay particular attention to my posting history, which indicates pretty clearly that I’m as staunch a straight defender of gay marriage as you’ll find.
Ah, Daniel, so you want to allow for those folks who are true believers in this bullshit? Those who believe their own attempts at justifying their bigotry? “They mean well! They genuinely think they’re being fair!”
They’re just scary. Pathetic. Delusional. If you really buy this line, you’re just as delusional.
Really Not All That Bright, you’re not the only person posting in this thread. Maybe you should remind yourself of the OP and Weirddave and so on.
In any event, you’re almost as bad as the rest, considering that again, your lovely hypothetical “separate ceremony” situation is never gonna happen for heterosexuals. Never. So it’s still a nice effective way to discriminate against gays.
It’s good that choie came along and averted this thread from being hijacked into a thoughtful discussion about marriage rights and the role of the government therin, and returned it to what it’s really all about: an idiot screaming “bigot” at the top of her lungs, without paying any heed whatsoever to what anyone is actually saying.
“We are gathered here in the sight of nothingness to conduct an empty ceremony to affirm the committment of these two deluded nitwits, who apparently believe that love matters in a howling existential wilderness of emptiness…”
