The gay assault on marriage

[SolGrundy]

@Miller

I guess I have trouble reconciling the idea that you wouldn’t speak out against it if you didn’t understand it, but you’d be willing to vote against it with that same level of understanding. If you don’t understand it well enough to articulate a reason to vote against it, shouldn’t you not vote on it all?

Which is exactly what I have been doing all this time – not voting for or against polygamous marriage. Luckily, I’ve never been in an election that consists of Bricker’s asking me how I would vote on an issue and then immediately taking that to the polling booths. Insead, I’m given a voter information booklet so I can see what’s coming up for a vote, read the pro and con arguments, and then consult other sources (like the SDMB) for more clarification.

@Lilairen

But here’s where I think there’s the tactical problem – I would find it very easy to read your forceful writings on that subject in such a way as to suggest that only monogamous gays are worthy of having marriage rights.

No, that’s not what I’m saying, but I suspect that it’s closer to what I’m saying than you think. First of all, it has nothing to do with being “worthy.” I do not believe that polygamists are lesser or undeserving of being married, I do not believe that polygamists are capricious or fooling themselves or incapable of understanding what real love is, and I am not desperate to distance myself from polygamists in order to further my own cause. Second, it has nothing to do with being gay or straight. But I do believe that “marriage” as I understand it hinges on the concept of monogamy.

The question repeatedly comes up: what is the definition of “marriage?” For some people, a key component of the definition seems to be that it’s between a man and a woman. I claim (repeatedly) that that’s absurd and not an essential limitation; the institution as we know it can exist between two people of the same sex and has meaning beyond sexual intercourse.

Some people go on to say that it’s about procreation. I claim that that’s very important. But again, it’s not an essential limitation – there are plenty of marriages between people who either cannot conceive or choose not to conceive.

And then some people go on to say that it’s about exclusivity and monogamy. And here’s where I have to break off from the rest of the pack, because I believe that that’s key to calling the relationship “marriage.” And not just because that’s what I want for myself, but because that exclusivity – knowing I am the single most important person in my partner’s life, and vice versa – is one of the most important aspects of the term as I understand it.

I’m perfectly willing to claim ignorance about functional polygamous relationships. Until your response to Polycarp, I would not have known that bigamy and polygamy are not the same thing. You may take this as a slight, but I say that this is my entire point – you acknowledge that working out social contracts for polygamous relationships is complicated, and I say it’s even more complicated than that. Many people will have to get an explanation to be able to understand how any of this works at all. If someone were to ask me, “this weird ‘same-sex marriage’ you talk about – how is that supposed to work?” I can simply point to any one of a million heterosexual couples and say, “exactly like that, but just draw a beard on the wife, or boobies on the husband.” Done.

@Lilairen

(And it makes it easy for people to use my family as a political tool to attack yours, which makes me feel sick on a number of levels.)

And again, I appreciate that, and again, I don’t intend to give the impression that I’m promoting my idea of family by denigrating yours.

@Lilairen

So I say yes, it’s important to fight the stereotypes, and to do so thoroughly. But I think it’s also important to make it possible for those people who aren’t interested in monogamy but who still value marriage to not be excluded from the discourse, because otherwise you’ve got a weakness, a place that your enemies can divide your community. I think it’s important to frame the discussion so that all arguments for marriage can be heard, rather than pre-emptively silencing some voices.

You make a very good point, which as I understand it is this: you can’t base all your support for a cause on the cases of those who fit in with the majority viewpoint of what’s acceptable. Getting back to homosexuality (not necessarily same-sex marriage): you can’t attempt to “justify” homosexuality by saying that there are plenty of homosexuals who don’t fit the stereotypical lisping, promiscuous, limp-wristed caricature, because that is unfair to the homosexuals who do happen to fit the stereotype. But I’m not saying, “being gay is okay, because look how straight I can act! At least I’m not one of them!” Instead I’m saying, “look how silly your preconceptions of sexuality are, because the core of what being homosexual is is different from any of your connotations and preconceptions about how homosexuals act.”

And that’s what I have yet to get from any discussion of polygamy. My support of same-sex marriage isn’t based on the idea that marriage rights should be available to all consenting adults. It’s based on the idea of marriage that I describe above. I can easily see how same-sex couples fit into that definition; I still don’t understand how more than two people can fit into that definition. So when I point to a heterosexual couple and say, “see, we’re just like you!” I’m not claiming that because of our similarities I’m somehow more deserving of marriage than those who deviate more significantly from that norm. I’m only saying that the concept is there, it works, it’s been proven, and you already understand it completely.

Which leaves the question of my supposed double standard. I believe that simply because something deviates from the norm, that doesn’t automatically make it invalid or wrong. I believe that a deviation has to be dysfunctional and damaging to the parties involved for the government to make any attempt to declare it illegitimate. I believe that consenting adults should be allowed to determine the relationships that work for them without government intervention. I believe that the people who can make a type of relationship work are much more important and relevant than countless more examples of people who cannot make the relationship work. (In other words, not all gay people have to have successful relationships in order to legitimize same-sex marriage as a right). So based on all that, I automatically believe that supporting polygamous marriage is the right thing to do, right? Well, I don’t know. I know that it wouldn’t work for me, but you claim that it works perfectly well for you and the other members of your family. So just based on that, I’d support it. But I still wouldn’t know what the term “polygamous marriage” means. I have no frame of reference, nothing to compare it to, nothing to say, “it’s exactly like that, but with this.” Which would make my support meaningless, an empty vote.

[SolGrundy]

@Lilairen

What do you say to those people who say that they have an understanding of what marriage is, and it is between a man and a woman, and same-sex marriage as they understand it is fundamentally at odds with the institution of marriage as they understand it?

I made an attempt to presciently answer that question in my long-winded post above. In case I didn’t, I’ve been asked that question in threads before. And I respond by asking if the most important thing in their current marriage, what defines the love they have for their spouse, is that the spouse has either a penis or a vagina, and whether their relationship is all about sexual attraction. The answer to that is usually clear.

@Lilairen

What should I say to you?

“You have made several attempts to demonstrate that your viewpoints don’t show a lack of respect towards me or my family, but you still don’t understand the issue as I see it. Here is a separate thread in which you can ask questions about polygamous relationships in order to better understand how they work.”

[Kythereia]

@vanilla

I assume not many here read Dobson; I was giving his position.

As for being open-minded, us Christians are not called to be open-minded, we are called to follow the Lord, especially when its not popular.
sorry for the hi jack.

We’re called to love the Lord and love each other, mate. That includes being open-minded, IMHO. :dubious:

Now where’s that damn fridge?

Serious thought, prolly a hijack:

Is the definition of marriage purely rooted in socioreligious beliefs? Legally, a civil union means the same thing as a marriage, you get the same legal benefits out of both (I assume).

But marriage seems to me a religious (and by extension, social) institution. I mean, eight or nine times out of ten, when you go to get married, you find a religious leader (priest, rabbi, imam, etc.) to do it for you.

[Lilairen]

@Whack-a-Mole

What is wrong with calling these Civil Unions and be done with the whole, “You are destroying the institution of marriage,” bit?

Because that buys into the lie that marriage is originally or essentially religious, as opposed to an agreement between individuals or families.

Because that sets up a situation where one must be a member of (or at least willing to submit to the doctrines of) a religion that conducts religious marriages in order to be married.

[Lilairen]

Sol – rather than perpetrate the hijack further, I’ll ask directly – y’want me to start up an “Ask the Would-Be Polygamist?” thread to bang on the question directly?

(Which should be, ah, entertaining. I’ve never started a thread on here before. )

You did apprehend the major gist of my concerns correctly with this:

@SolGrundy

You make a very good point, which as I understand it is this: you can’t base all your support for a cause on the cases of those who fit in with the majority viewpoint of what’s acceptable. Getting back to homosexuality (not necessarily same-sex marriage): you can’t attempt to “justify” homosexuality by saying that there are plenty of homosexuals who don’t fit the stereotypical lisping, promiscuous, limp-wristed caricature, because that is unfair to the homosexuals who do happen to fit the stereotype.

There are a lot of people who are willing to do this sort of thing, and it makes it too damn easy to play divide-and-conquer. I’ve seen a fair amount of “We’re respectable, unlike the <scare tactic stereotype> people” in a number of areas, and it seems to me that in the long run it only hurts.

[Rune]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Simplicity. WHereas there’s a pretty cookie-cutter set of rights and obligations you can confer on a couple, the polygamous relationships out there are all over the place in terms of the rights and obligations that the lovers involved want to confer to each other. The government’s job is to serve its citizens efficiently and equably. SSM (or civil unions for everyone) accomplishes that by making all couples go through exactly the same amount of hassle to achieve those rights. There’s no easy way to confer the same rights to all polyamorous groups.

Which isn’t to say that polyamorists don’t deserve those rights; we should streamline the process by which they may achieve customized rights and obligations that fit their circumstances. But doing so is a task far more complicated than the simple task of standardizing how we treat couples.

Daniel

Ok. I should have added a “in principle” since mere juridical difficulties should not deter us from doing what we think is right. I do support “gay marriage”, polygamy as well as any other form of lawful union imaginable between humans (adults as well as children, though I don’t necessary see why they should all be called the same thing, what difference does a name make when the rub is legal equality – and of course the state should keep it grubby fingers out of our religion) – but I do realise “gay marriage” is a form of slippery slope if you consider polygamy and what have you not to be a widening of marriage to the point of actual abolishment.

[Rune]

@SolGrundy

What are the arguments that do include polygamy? The idea of two people who are in love and want to commit to and publically acknowledge that committed, monogamous, relationship in the eyes of society and the state, and recognize that relationship morally, legally, and socially – how does that have anything to do with polygamy?

I don’t need any arguments for this specifically, any more that I need arguments for gay marriage, since I don’t think it’s any of my (or the state’s) business to say what is proper and what is not. And when you talk of “monogamous” “in the eyes of society” and “morally” and “socially” you’re way out of bounds for what I think state sanctioned legal unions should be about, which is mere legalities. If your objective with “gay marriage” is to force a moral and social acceptance on people I can very well understand why they would resent that, since neither you nor the state (especially the state) have any damn business forcing your morals and social preferences on anybody else. And what should be done with somebody who one day gets all morally inflamed about the injustice of denying marriage rights to two people and the next day want to deny those very same rights to some other people on grounds of moral objections? Demanding equality requires a willingness to give equality.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Rune

Demanding equality requires a willingness to give equality.

Hear, hear!

@Lilairen

Not merely out of the self-interest of LHoD’s “Those people who want to establish legal rights & responsibilities should have equal access to the mechanisms to do same”, but because it’s the right thing to do.

Huh? That’s not self-interest–I’m already legally married. That’s the principle of justice. Folks in similar situations ought to be treated similarly.

My objection to tying SSM to polygamous marriage is that logistically they’re two different issues, even if at heart they’re the same issue. Look at it this way: preventing the abuse of children, and preventing the abuse of the severely mentally disabled, are both at heart about the same moral issue. However, it’d be ridiculous to hold up laws against child abuse until the laws were rewritten to cover the abuse of the severely mentally disabled: logistically, such laws may have to deal with different particulars.

I find SolGrundy’s initial position, that he’d vote against a polygamous marriage bill, odious. He’s since modified his position to the point where I’m not sure what it is, but I think he’s retracted that initial statement, based on the argument presented. I sure hope so.

Daniel

[Homebrew]

@SolGrundy

My support of same-sex marriage isn’t based on the idea that marriage rights should be available to all consenting adults. It’s based on the idea of marriage that I describe above. I can easily see how same-sex couples fit into that definition; I still don’t understand how more than two people can fit into that definition.

And here’s where you go fundamentally wrong. You don’t have to understand how a poly relationship works. Just like the straight grandma doesn’t have to understand how two men can want to marry. I know a married couple in which the wife accepts that the husband has girlfriends, even letting one of them sleep at their house sometimes. Monogomy is not required by law. You don’t have to understand that. All that matters is that the law treats people equally.

That being said, I do see a critical difference between a couple marriage and a poly marriage. When two people get married, they get the same set of rights. It’s pretty much one-size-fits-all. However, poly marriages are as different from one another as they are from couple marriages. Each instance has to be a custom fit and therefore the simple idea of marriage doesn’t fit. For example, which member of the group gets to decide when it’s time to pull the plug on the one who is dying? In a couple, it’s the spouse. But in a group, who knows?

That doesn’t mean I don’t support the rights of poly families to be legally joined. I believe there should be mechanism by which they can be married. I just don’t know what it is and I can’t think of a way to do it as efficiently as a simple, couple marriage. But if someone comes up with one and puts it on the ballot, I’ll vote for it.

[jeevmon]

I’m never quite sure what the polygamists are clamoring for when they ask for “recognition” of their arrangement. If they’re asking not to be locked up for participating in it, I fully agree. But if they’re asking for the legal benefits of marriage on par with monogamists, the issue becomes much more complicated.

Fundamentally, the reason gay marriage is even an issue is that the law confers certain benefits on “married” people. By getting “married,” the participants are entitled to those benefits without having to do anything else. And the entitlement to those benefits is fairly hard to challenge. Those who are “married” can make alternative arrangements - giving Aunt Mildred medical power of attorney instead of the spouse, for example, but a special effort is required.

One can question whether the law should even provide these benefits at all. There are those who would say that the law should just get out of the business of creating marriage rights altogether and instead let everyone order their lives with contracts, powers of attorney, etc. Many gay couples, in fact, have done precisely this - used legal documents to create a semblance of marriage rights. With some of the state constitutional amendments now on the table, it’s not clear that those documents will be enforced, but that’s a side issue.

The benefits granted to being “married” permeate so many legal areas, however, that excising those benefits and restoring us to a state where people just use contracts and other legal documents to order their affairs is, as a practical matter, unworkable. So we pretty much have to take the existence of marital benefits as a given.

The legal framework underpinning the benefits granted to married people defines the rights and obligations of one person to another. And the law can do this pretty well, defining, for example, obligations of a parent to a child, spouses to each other, employer to employee, etc. But the law, generally speaking, doesn’t define my obligation to Aunt Mildred or hers to me. And one of the reasons the law doesn’t define those obligations is because it becomes unworkable. Aunt Mildred and I may have our own understanding of our rights and obligations to each other, perhaps reduced to legal documents, perhaps not. But that’s our private understanding - the law doesn’t force us into that relationship.

Denying legal recognition to monogamous homosexual relationships is unfair on a variety of levels, but economically speaking, the unfairness is that such denial imposes transaction costs (in the form of using legal documents to create a semblance of marriage rights) that mixed-sex couples do not have to face. Put another way, Britney Spears, when she was drunk in Vegas, was able to sign up for a whole host of more-or-less incontestable rights and obligations in an instant that monogamous homosexual partners have to pay thousands of dollars for. Such transaction costs are appropriate if homosexual marriages impose greater costs on society than heterosexual relationships, since we frequently require those who impose greater costs (such as those driving during rush hour) to pay a greater amount for the right to do so (by imposing higher tolls or congestion fees). But in the case of homosexual marriage, there is no greater burden compared to heterosexual marriages.

Mulitiple partner arrangements are different. In the case of multiple-partner relationships, the law would be trying to define a default position for the rights and obligations of a number of people to each other. The legal framework of marriage presumes “one size fits all” and requires you to go to the legal tailor (your lawyer) if you want to vary it. Perhaps it shouldn’t so presume, but to dismantle that framework is practically unworkable, particularly in the present climate. There is no reason why the same suit can’t fit monogamous same-sex partnerships. But I have yet to be convinced that the suit can readily fit mulitiple partner arrangements. There are too many interest groups whose rights and obligations with respect to each other need to be defined. What works for Lilairen and her family may not work as well for Joseph Smith and his six wives. Yes, this is true of monogamous relationships too, but generally speaking, the suit fits. Some benefits of marriage are also harder to extend to multiple partners. Medical decisionmaking is a good example. How do we resolve deadlocked disputes over whether the plug is pulled?

I know someone is going to step in and call “Schiavo,” and smugly assume that they’ve destroyed my argument on medical decisionmaking. Wrong. Terry Schiavo, like Elian Gonzales, was an extreme example of the government intervening in a highly publicized case to overturn well-established principles of family law. Both cases were controversial for precisely that reason, and hardly represent the typical situation.

So I’m not at all sure what “recognition” of polygamous relationships entails. If it entails societal approval, it simply can’t be done. Nor can such approval be guaranteed for homosexual marriage, interracial marriage, marriage between partners of very different ages, marriages between Montagues and Capulets, or any other arrangement. People will always object to things they think are objectionable, and there’s not much to be done about that. If it entails legal approval, such recognition depends on what rights and benefits. I think multiple-partner arrangements are going to have to do a fair amount of customization anyway and it is basically unfair to impose a structure of rights and obligations on them that may need significant alteration. Provided that we don’t give interlopers broad rights to attack the validity of those documents, or create a legal framework in which recognition must be denied, I don’t see the unfairness in imposing the cost on multiple partner families to tell us, in the form of legal documents, how they want their affairs ordered.

[Lilairen]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Huh? That’s not self-interest–I’m already legally married. That’s the principle of justice. Folks in similar situations ought to be treated similarly.

It’s entirely possible for people to argue that my believe in that principle is self-interest, however, despite the fact that I am also legally married.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Lilairen

Because that buys into the lie that marriage is originally or essentially religious, as opposed to an agreement between individuals or families.

Because that sets up a situation where one must be a member of (or at least willing to submit to the doctrines of) a religion that conducts religious marriages in order to be married.

What lie?

Our society has two components to marriage. A civil side and a religious side. You do not have to be married under any religion…go see a judge and have it done (or a ship captain).

“Gay marriage” is primarily an effort to obtain rights enjoyed by heterosexual married couples. Essentially to end discrimination.

The state has NOTHING to say about what your religion will or will not do. That is between you and your religion. You can choose to go to another religion (or even different place of worship in the same religion in many cases), you can work to change the religion’s attitudes, you can just ignore them altogether as you like or you can stay and suffer their indignities towards your lifestyle. Up to you.

By making these distinct you can assuage the religious right who abhor same sex marriages as somehow fundamentally against god’s will. The State however does not give a rat’s ass about what their god says about it. Discrimination is a no-no in this country so same-sex partners willing to make a committment should get the same legal benefits as hetero married couples.

Call it whatever you like (arrangement between families historically) it does not matter. Deal with today and how our society is (trying) to handle this.

[SolGrundy]

@Homebrew

And here’s where you go fundamentally wrong. You don’t have to understand how a poly relationship works. Just like the straight grandma doesn’t have to understand how two men can want to marry. I know a married couple in which the wife accepts that the husband has girlfriends, even letting one of them sleep at their house sometimes. Monogomy is not required by law. You don’t have to understand that. All that matters is that the law treats people equally.

But that’s kind of my point; I don’t believe that that’s all that matters. I do believe that there is a moral component to law, and that that’s a good thing. When I argue in favor of same-sex marriage, I’m not just trying to say, “the idea works for me, so you just stay the hell out of my business.” I’m genuinely trying to get people to understand how and why it works for me and for other homosexuals. I don’t want people to vote against their conscience or vote for something they don’t understand or don’t support, just because it’s “fair.”

Now, that being said, that’s just how I’m approaching the topic of same-sex marriage, and how I will continue to argue in favor of it. I mentioned this thread to a friend of mine over lunch today, and his comments made me rethink my position on how it all comes down to legal issues, specifically in regards to polygamy. His explanation was basically like yours, and it comes down to supporting something verus banning it. And while I can’t say that I support polygamy, simply because I can’t conceive of how it works, I definitely can’t say that I’m against polygamy. And if there are functional, healthy families out there who can make it work and need this type of legal protection, then there’s absolutely no reason why I should vote against it. So in other words, my initial response to Bricker’s question was incorrect; I wouldn’t vote against it.

To take it back to the issue of same-sex marriage, I can imagine three possible responses a heterosexual man or woman would have to the issue:

1. I can’t conceive of my having any attraction to or love of a person of the same sex, but I understand how my relationship works and that your love is the same as mine, so I fully support your right to marry.
2. I can’t conceive of my having any attraction to or love of a person of the same sex. I can’t understand how you can claim to love another man; I cannot imagine how that could possibly work for you. Still, it harms no one else and it affects me in no way, so I will support your right to marry.
3. I can’t conceive of anyone believing that he or she is attracted to someone of the same sex. You are wrong when you claim that this works for you, and I will not allow you to do it. I will vote against your right to marry.

On the issue of polygamy, I myself would be a number “2”. On the issue of same-sex marriage, I want everyone to be a number “1”.

[KellyM]

@Polycarp

I know we offended KellyM and lee with the idea that a “staged” approach, getting rights recognized as established in sequenced stages, might be wise

Polycarp, I can’t recall having been offended by anything you’ve ever had to say. Can you please refer me (and lee) to wherever it was that this took place?

FWIW, I don’t expect (or really require, although it would be nice) to see polymarriage legalized any time soon. I would, however, like to see the voluntary associations of adults in sexual relationships outside of the confines of marriage completely decriminalized. Since there are still many situations in which the voluntary association of two adults into a lasting sexual relationship is prohibited by law (typically, the case where one of the partners is married to someone other than the other partner, although in some states it is also illegal for two unmarried persons to have a relationship), we aren’t there yet.

I am also opposed to “piecewise” expansions of nondiscrimination laws, specifically with respect to the efforts of the HRC (which may finally be past; time will tell) to limit the expansion of ENDA to cover antihomosexual discrimination without also covering antitransgender. This is more or less an unrelated issue, however.

I’d also point out that eliminating sex discrimination in the institution of marriage is a big issue for transsexuals because once we have equal access to marriage regardless of sex, those who intend to marry have no need to prove their gender, thus avoiding one of the biggest issues for transsexuals in family law. As far as I’m concerned, the full legalization of gay marriage kills two birds with one stone, and anything less than that (such as a separate-but-equal civil union law, such as Vermont has) falls short.