FWIW, I’m not saying that this is the ONLY issue, and I’m not simplifying everything down to this single litmus test; I’m not saying that your answer will be the end of the discussion. I’m just saying it’s a necessary step along the way. If I’m going to try to understand where you’re coming from, I need to get a clear answer from you on this question, then we can move on.
If he or she gets married, then his next of kin is his spouse.
First of all, the numbers are miniscule of potential gay marriages. At most it would be 1 or 2 million marriages - if every gay person in America decided to marry. What favor is it doing people to treat them equally under the law? Are you doing favors for black people by allowing them the same privledges? It is our RIGHT by being citizens to be treated as equal under the law. Furthermore, are gay people exempt from paying school taxes? I think not. Why are childless gay people doing favors for people with kids in school? It’s an asinine question. And a completely asinine statement you made before.
What is the reason my proposal is unacceptable - if, obviously, you find my proposal unacceptable? Under the Bricker Plan, no person, or couple, would be denied any legal rights or benefits currently associated with marriage merely because they are in a same-sex union.
And, thanks, Chicago Faucet. I often think that I’m writing to sway not necessarily the person I’m debating - although that would be nice - but the Gentle Readers that rarely jump in to post. I am pleased and unaccountably smug just now. 
- Rick
Your insisting on a “Yes” or “No” answer to a question is an old debater’s and cross-examiner’s trick that I don’t want to fall for today.
Further, in today’s system your question is nonsensical since our legal system recognizes only hetero unions between one man and one woman. I say again that I do not favor our legal system recognizing same sex unions. Or recognizing same sex platonic roommate unions. Or recognizing legal unions of spinster siblings who only “want Social Security survivor/income tax filing/Health care benefits just as if they were married.”
I am not in favor of treating same sex unions the same way married couples are treated. Such treatment is unnecessary for same sex union participants (or at least those who are adults and who can presumably take care of themselves) and amounts to a huge new public subsidy that I do not want to pay for. As a self-appointed watchdog of the public purse I see no reason to give away money to couples of the same sex just because they’re sleeping together and have been doing so for a while. I see no reason that sodomy should be criminalized but it shouldn’t be rewarded either.
“huge new public subsidy” zamboni? Can I see your math?
What is your understanding of the nature of homosexuality? It’s important for to understand “where you’re coming from.”
As it is, it appears to me that you’re fudging your legal arguments to support an emotionally driven reluctance to consider homosexuals as full equals to heterosexuals. Your willingness to allow someone’s declaration of sexual orientation to subject them to burdensomely unequal treatment under the law seems to suggest, barring your explicit (and just as reluctant) clarification, that you “disapprove” of homosexuality.
Again, your refusal to clarify where you stand makes it impossible for me to understand your position fully.
Your dismissal of my request for clarification on grounds that it’s an old trick is, well, an even older trick.
I’m not asking for a final summation of your overall position on the debate as a whole. I am asking for a simple answer to a simple question that is simply one of the points along which this debate has meandered.
Your refusal to answer; your refusal to continue this debate in a mutually respectful give and take of relevant information; your insistance on debating behind a blind and refusing me an understanding of the overal context of the debate; all these leave me with an impression that you feel like you have something to hide, and that you’re not willing to debate this issue in full honesty, and with good faith.
I offer you one more opportunity to prove that impression wrong, by helping me to understand the context that this subject holds for you, and “where,” ultimately, “you’re coming from.”
Is such treatment is also unnecessary for different-sex unions? Why make a distinction at all?
And I’m sure that the gay community doesn’t want to pay school taxes for children that they’ll never have, either. This isn’t about what you want to pay for. This is about the inherent rights that people deserve. Can you give a legitimate reason for denying gays the same rights (e.g. the right to marry someone they love) as non-gays? Is this all about not wanting to “fund gay relationships”? Why do they not deserve the same “funding” that heterosexual couples receive?
Why should I want to give away money to couples of the same sex just because they’re sleeping together and have been doing so for a while? By your very logic, all marriage should be eliminated.
I see no reason that heterosexual sex should be criminalized, but it shouldn’t be rewarded either.
The problem with your argument is that you’re trying to create a distinction between same-sex and different-sex couples where none exists. If it’s acceptable to fund heterosexual couples, as it were, then why is it not acceptable to fund homosexual couples? How is the relationship functionally different?
That should read:
“Why should I want to give away money to couples of the opposite sex just because they’re sleeping together and have been doing so for a while?”
Note to self: Preview is your friend.
After 67 replies, I wonder where the OP went?
I can’t imagine anyone taking seriously such an elaborately crafted straw man, and hit and run OP to boot, if it were posted by . . . [Church Lady]oh, I don’t know . . . let me see . . . DECEMBER?[/Church Lady]
Doghouse Reilly, back it up or back it down.
If you choose to keep implying that I’m a troll, remember that the rules of this board ask you to take it to the moderators. I’m sure they’ll be amused to hear you argue that I’m a “hit and run OP” because I started a thread shortly before I went to bed last night, and didn’t return to the thread until after I got home from work the next day.
The Ryan, Bricker, thanks for your input. What if I change the hypothetical scenario so that Janet conceives by artificial insemination while she’s with Alice? It seems to me that that removes a lot of the legal tangles involving the ex-husband’s claim on William, as well as removing the misercordiam factor.
The real reason I made the ex-husband abusive deserves some explanation. I needed to include a child who was the biological child of Janet, or else a lot of problems with the lack of gay rights wouldn’t be illustrated by my example. But if I had Janet conceive by artificial insemination, I was afraid a lot of homophobes would say, “Well, if she wants a baby so badly, she should be with a man” or some such nonsense. So, I gave Janet an ex. But then you have to have a good reason for her to leave the ex and go to Alice. If her reason were anything short of abuse, then that lays me open to the argument of, “I don’t see why she had to leave a perfectly good man and gallivant off with some woman. She just broke up her marriage because she wanted to be kinky.” But, all in all, you guys have convinced me that artificial insemination is the way to go.
Beyond that, I’m not sure how anyone could call my argument a “strawman.” I tried to create a hypothetical scenario which was an amalgamation of typical real-life cases and natural consequences of a ban on gay marriage.
Part of the reason I started this thread is because I want to know what the anti-gay-rights people want. To draw an example, if someone is, say, in favor of lowering the minimum wage, it’s not because they have some outright punitive desire to screw poor people out of good wages. On the contrary, my experience is that such people believe that the long-term effects on the economy will benefit poor people.
Gay rights is a little different. If someone wants sodomy to be outlawed, then it seems pretty clear to me that they want homosexuals to go to jail. And if they want homosexuals to go to jail, it’s hard for me to believe that they’re ok with civil unions. So, what do they want? They must want it to be possible for gay people to be barred from their “spouses’” funerals. I mean, why are they so hot to ban gay marriage, if not to deny gays the rights of marriage? So, all I’ve done here is to present a scenario that seems to include much of what they’re asking for and to put a human face on it, and ask them if that’s what they really want, now that it’s a little more concrete. As best I can tell, none of the hardcore homophobes have even replied to this thread, but I’d be very interested in seeing what His4Ever / lynn73 has to say, for example.
Ben, never mind whether your OP characters were made up of whole cloth. You may have created a hypothetical, but I just got home from a diocesan church meeting on our recent General Convention (the one that ratified Gene Robinson as bishop) – and guess what the hot topic was.
At that meeting a women spoke who could have been Janet – marriage to an abusive husband, three children, divorce, five years with a partner who loves and cherishes her (and vice vesa) and whom her kids adore and get good parenting from.
I don’t think I need to tell you that reading and responding to this thread today and then hearing her story on the same day administered a good swift kick to my conscience.
Well, if I understand what you’re proposing, I do have a problem with it.
You are changing the nature of marriage for everybody.
Instead of just being married to my wife, I now have two things: A civil union deriving from law, and a marriage deriving from religion.
Right now I have a marriage deriving from both law and religion.
Why do I need two things, where I had one? What good is this doing me to make my life more complex? What point is this serving? Who is it helping to divide things up like this?
As far as I can tell, the only people this helps are people who would feel somehow demeaned if gay people had something called “marriage” that was identical to what straight people have.
It seems that you’re dividing marriage into two parts simply to accomodate these idiots and their prejudices.
I can’t possibly see how it hurts me in any way shape or form to let two guys get married under law exactly as I am married under law to my wife.
Since it does not possibly damage me or any tradittionally married couple what possible objection do I have to withholding marriage from gay people?
Why change things to accomodate bigots who seek a distinction simply to justify their prejudices?
How does it make things better to allow such people to say “Oh look at those two with their “civil union” snicker. snicker?”
Give me a rational reason why a gay couple should not be allowed to have a marriage as marriage exists now
Give me a reason why we should change what constitutes a marriage and make it more complicated when it works perfectly fine as it is.
Gay people don’t want a civil union. They want the same credibility and respect I and my wife are afforded by both law and convention.
I cannot for the life of me figure out why they should not have it, and I cannot see why any compromise is needed.
I know this thread has ranged far afield from where it was when this was posted, but I could not let it pass uncontested.
Yes, let’s.
**
I don’t believe Ben was referring to a nationally united band of homophobic idiots, but one cannot deny that groups of homophobes do in fact exist and that they do in fact attack gays. If you have doubts, click here to see a thread in which many of our gay Dopers relate their experiences on this front.
**
If I (a gay man, my username notwithstanding) were comatose or in intensive care, they would deny entry to anyone not my next of kin, i.e. my boyfriend, or to anyone else my family did not approve. I could lay dying alone because my (thankfully hypothetical) hateful family didn’t approve of my homosexuality.
**
Can you please call the State of Florida and let them know that I am accepted? I would love to adopt a child, but I can’t currently. Apparently, they don’t know that I’m fully accepted now. Could you also please call the armed forces, and the Boy Scouts, and maybe Fred Phelps? Since I’m accepted now, it shouldn’t be a problem to have my Scouthood reinstated and to enlist in the Navy. Please also call the thugs that hang around the edges of the gay bars and tell them to stop beating my friends, because we’ve been accepted.
Also, your last sentence in that quote is nonsensical. Where I live, as well as in the majority of the US, I can be fired or not hired because I am gay. I can be evicted because I am gay. I have no legal protection based upon my status as a gay man. And that disgusts me. If you have specific cites as to privacy laws that prevent asking if I am gay that apply either on a federal or state level, and that apply to me, I’d like to see them.
**
Yes, there is. A funeral is a private function, and if the family in question doesn’t want you there, you can’t be there. If they don’t want you, the funeral home is well within its rights to have you removed. I believe it was Annie X-mas who posted her story of a friend who doesn’t know where her love was buried because the family didn’t approve.
**
As I already mentioned, I am not permitted in this state to adopt a child. The State of Florida explicitly prohibits anyone who is gay from adopting a child. In addition, no matter the sexuality of either the non-blood lesbian and the abusive ex-husband, it is almost always the case that the child would be better of with the parent he or she knows. Think about what you’re saying – a woman who was completely capable of functioning as a parent for the first 12 years of the child’s life is now deemed unfit because she has no specific biological ties to the child. Her emotional support of the child for his first 12 years is completely irrelevant, and the long-term damage the child will suffer by losing both parents (the death of one and the legal removal of the other) is also completely irrelevant; I’m not even including the upheaval in the child’s life from having to change residences, schools, and social relationships.
This subject is extremely close to my heart, and I can’t believe that anyone can even suggest that I and my brethren and sistren are “socially accepted”. That tells me that we have a long way to go – Is this the majority opinion? My views are obviously skewed, as I am personally invested in this struggle.
On preview, I note with mild surprise that I agree with Scylla. First time for everything, I guess.
Not quite. As long as you submit to the way of the Catholic church, one can get married in a Catholic church.
My wife and I are both Atheists, but swayed to family pressure and got married in a Catholic church. This was no problem since we were both raised Catholic and had participated in all of the rites of passage up to that point within the Catholic church. If one of us had not been, say, Baptised in the Catholic church, then that would have been a problem since Catholocism is sticky about that. But that’s Catholocism for you. If you want to get married in their church, you have to adhere to their rules.
We did this to prevent all Grandmothers involved from suffering from massive spontaneous coronaries, and the banishment of us from all future family activities. We bent our beliefs enough to appease all parties, and out of respect for our families, without us feeling compromised ourselves, in order to keep the respective peace. It is just a shame that homosexuals cannot bend enough to meet the prerequisites of getting married in a Catholic church. But why worry about the Catholic church? I don’t owe them anything.
Sure, we used a loophole towards our fortune, and got married out of love eventhough it was against our core beliefs. As you demonstrated above with the Elvis example, marriage in respect to the law and the church has become a gray area due to all of the loopholes, allowances, and exceptions.
I truly believe in the separation of church and state. However, it seems that things have gotten out of control, and the “concept of marriage” is a prime example of this. Your marriage can be recognized by the state, but not by the church, and vice versa, except in New Jersey, blah, blah, blah. The exceptions are numerous.
The church, take your pick, invented the concept of marriage and set the rules governing marriage from the beginning. But that doesn’t mean that a homosexual couple has to get married in a church. There should be some alternate “unionization” option, not called “marriage”, because it technically is not.
Okay, it’s mine turn. I’d like to see a cite for this.
I’m still waiting for zamboni to address some specific points I brought up. Each of the points that I thought were most germane to this discussion he’s passed over; for all I know he hasn’t read them.
I’d argue that you have had two things all along. You had a civil union - the marriage license picked up at City Hall or otherwise issued by the state - and you had a religious union, which was the marriage ceremony performed by or with the blessings of your church. Granted, they were both called “marriage,” but that doesn’t change the fact that they were separate and distinct entities.
I’m simply proposing that we cede the word ‘marriage’ to the religious side of the house. Logically, it’s irrelevant what it’s called. Your argument
is not convincing, since I have no doubt that, were the word “marriage” applied to same-sex unions, the same people would simply say, “Oh, look at those two with their ‘marriage’ <snicker, snicker>.” It’s simply not buyable to me that the mere use of the word marriage will erase or reduce any prejudice that might otherwise ensue.
If the argument is that same-sex couples are denied the rights that straight couples have, then my proposal addresses this. What I’m now hearing is an argument that the “rights” in question extend to the use of a particular word in describing the union. I don’t believe that’s so. In weighing the harm done by denying the actual, substantive rights to same-sex couples, I agree that a change is in order. In weighing the harm done by affording them the substantive rights but denying the use of the word ‘marriage,’ I’m not remotely convinced of the grave injustice.
Moreover, there is a practical side to the idea of civil unions, but not ‘marriage,’ for same-sex couples: it is far more likely to be enacted into law. If you’re going to get behind an initiative, mine is the one to champion; insistence on “marriage,” in name as well as form, is unlikely to succeed any time soon, if polls are to be believed.
And if your ultimate goal remains the use of ‘marriage’ for all couples, my proposal is STILL the one to support as an interim step.
- Rick
You know, lissener, it really doesn’t matter, ultimately. Zamboni’s argument is that gays can currently get some legal protections and that’s all that’s necessary. He has already admitted to holding gays to a different standard and an unwillingness to provide them with the same level of recognition of their relationships.
There are something along the lines of 60 legal documents required for a gay couple to attempt to secure the full compendium of rights that are automatically attached to heterosexuals automatically via the signed marriage license. Obtaining those documents requires a considerably higher level of effort and cost than are involved in obtaining a marriage license, and even doing so does not guarantee that the protections that they seek will always be honored.
And when they are questioned or countered, the appeal to tradition most certainly works against them. If a parent, for instance, went to court to fight for guardianship of their incapacitated adult child, the biological relationship would certainly be argued to have more weight than the relationship which prompted that adult child to draw up a document indicating their wish that their same-sex partner be granted guardianship in such a situation.
An argument between a woman’s parents and her husband would never be predicated on the “their relationship is lesser” ideal inherent with a non-binding, patched together, paperwork protection scheme that a couple was forced to cobble together because society deemed them unfit to be granted the single piece of paper which would put an unquestionable imprimatur of officiality on their relationship.
Saying that this is okay by you, especially on spurious financial grounds, is a statement borne out of a presumption of inferiority of gays and their unions. There are no two ways about that.
Well, that’s certainly the impression zamboni’s evasions suggest; I was offering him an opportunity to clarify. His refusal to do so smells like a forfeit to me.