US non-religious heteros and same-sex marriage.

Great Debates
61

Magiver, do you have a clue how to construe the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause together? Because there are reasonable grounds for holding a different opinion than the Supremes on issues at hand – but the above ain’t one of them.

It’s quite legitimate for a Valedictorian to thank God for his or her success in school in private, or at a voluntary public gathering that can include everybody graduating from school, their parents, the school board, and all nine members of the Supreme Court for that matter, or in church, or on the school grounds whenever reasonable school regulations on student behavior do not prohibit it.

What he or she may not do is, at a graduation ceremony, attendance at which is mandatory for a student to graduate, where he or she has the privilege of making a Valedictorian speech, use the occasion to evangelize his or her fellow graduates – because he or she is coopting the authority of government – remember that attendance at the graduation ceremony is mandatory to receive one’s diploma – to press his or her religious views.

You may want to review Cole v. Oroville Union High School. My distinct impression is that a student who acknowledged his or her fellow students’ diversity of beliefs (and disbelief) and in the course of acknowledging influences on his/her life included a reference to God’s Providence and his/her own gratefulness for His blessing, without extensive discourse of evangelistic nature, would not violate the Establishment clause but would instead be exercising his/her own Free Exercise clause rights. This is illustrated by the discussion about Cole’s and Niemeyer’s speeches in the constitutional context in the cited review of the case. (Sorry to use “About Atheism” – as a sincere and freedom-loving Christian, I have to admit that they are one of the few unbiased sources around on the background behind what the Court actually said!)

The point, if it’s not clear, is whether anyone can use government authority to compel someone else to listen to what he/she has to say about religious belief – they cannot – not about whether or not anyone has the right to speak their mind – they do. The one thing they may not do is use the power of any part of government whatsoever to compel themselves a captive audience.

62

Aldebaran-
Don’t feel too bad - we are a confusing bunch, especially when religion mixes with politics. And we’re pretty damn conflicted, especially about anything to do with sex. Outwardly conservative, but inside closed doors we’re a randy bunch shagging most anything that moves! Just ask Bill O’reilly of Fox News! :slight_smile:

The thing you might be misunderstanding is that a ‘civil’ ceremony is not really differentiated from a ‘religious’ one in the US, at least in the legal sense. Any legally-defined church can perform a marriage that bears equal power in law to a civil ceremony, so it’s not a lot of difference as far as most people are concerned. And as already posted, lots of folks who aren’t religious themselves have church weddings simply to keep the family / in-laws / nosy neighbors happy, or just cause they want a big special deal in a church cause that’s what they always wanted.

To add more conflict to this already simmering pot, there is a law, called the Full Faith and Credence act, in the US which states that any state must recognize the ceremonies of another state. I could be married to my future spouse in the Great Church Bugga-Bugga who Likes Not Very Much in Washington state, and as long as that marriage was legal there Texas (or any other of the 50 states) would have no choice but to regognize my marriage as legally binding, so long as it didn’t break local laws (against bestiality or incest, for instance). This law also means that should California (or Massachusets) have same-sex marriage be legal, when that couple moved to Texas they would still be married in the eyes of the law.

Quite simply, because their spiritual leaders tell them they should. These people are being told loudly and vocally that their duty as Christians in America is to do what they can to prevent same sex marriage. It’s not a lot different than the preaching of the Imams at prayer in the Muslim world - they tell their followers what to care about.

As to what motivates the leaders to deny this right to same sex couples, lord only knows. Their public stance is that SSM will destroy the Christian family, and that it will pervert all forms of family life due to it’s very existence.

As for the relative silence of the people who do not want a SSM marriage constitutional ban, it’s important that you realize the most crucial word of your own phrase - relative. We’re just quiet in comparison to the shouting going on from the other side. People who’ve just lost a huge election badly tend to try to be quiet for a while, in an effort to regroup and rearm and get ready for another try.

The above is only my 2p (or cents or whatever), of course, you can take it or leave it.

63

To me this whole issue is word-play.

If you bought a bus (the kind you see in cities carrying 80 people to and fro) and told everyone “look at my new car”, people would look at you funny.

To you, it’s just a motor vehicle, and motor vehicle == car.

But to others thats not true. A car is a special type of motor vehicle.

So take marriage.

Marriage == man + woman.

Civil Union == person + person.

All marriages are civil unions but not all civil unions are marriages.

For me it’s just words. I have no problem with civil-unions for all (provided they are not treated differently as “marriages”).

64

That is an excellent way of putting it, and I agree completely. But on the other hand, I am not gay and neither am I religious. So it’s kind of a moot issue in my own back yard.

65

I’ve heard two objections to this that I consider legitimate:

  1. If the civil unions are available to all, but some people are able to get legal marriages in addition, then this creates a door through which discrimination can enter.
  2. If there’s no such thing as legal marriages, then our comity agreements with other countries (in which we recognize their marriages and they recognize ours) have got to be rewritten. Some folks believe that this will be a more difficult process than if we just expand our own definition of marriage. I disagree, but concede that it’s possible.

Daniel

66

I’m not sure it’s relevant to the discussion but attendance of a ceremony is NOT mandatory to get a degree. I had my college degree mailed to me because I didn’t want to snore through a bunch of crap.

I read your link (thanks for positing it) and agree with the school policy but the court decision was rather criptic in it’s delivery. snip quote from article: * The invocation would not have been private speech, because the District authorized an invocation as part of the graduation ceremony held on District property, allowed only a student selected by a vote of his classmates to give an invocation and no doubt would have used a microphone or public address system to amplify the invocation to the audience at the graduation ceremony. *.

The Supreme Court let the 9th Circuite ruling stand which seems to be a grey area. If the District reviews a speech then it is a defacto sponsor of the materical. If it’s not a grey area and your impression is correct then I stand corrected. Your point is valid.

67

Marriage==Social Institution, as in:

Marriage binds two ancestral lines of diverse lineage into… well, not exactly a Paradise.

As to Aldebaran, you don’t have to ask US’ers about societal difficulties to acceptance of same-sex marriage. Conduct a simple thought experiment. Take any Muslim country. Imagine that a strong SSM movement takes root there. Imagine the reaction to that movement. Now take a long sojourn in the West, come back in 10 years, remove all the corpses and clear all the destruction. Assess the situation, then reduce the violence by the factor of 1,000 or so. That would be comparable to US.

68

Good post (or re-post). You are the first person (I’ve seen) to add something interesting to the discussion. It gives me something to think about.

On a personal note: If someone says “God bless you for your efforts” that should taken with the love and respect for which it was given, not as an attempt to convert you. If someone from another culture were to bestow upon me such good intentions I would feel honored for receiving it because it means that person appreciates me and my efforts.

Whatever you did to get this “blessing” I hope you keep doing it.

69

Thanks–I appreciate it! FWIW, I’m slightly in favor of the solution of civil unions for everyone, under (roughly) the following plan:

  1. All existing marriages are grandfathered in.
  2. An announcement is made that any two, non-married, non-civil-unioned adults may forthwith jointly apply for a civil union certificate. This certificate will grant precisely the same rights and responsibilities as a marriage certificate.
  3. A simultaneous announcement is made that, starting one year from today (“today” being whatever day this Master Plan goes into effect) the state will stop issuing marriage certificates. From that point on, the state’s only opinion on marriages is that those issued prior to such a date will be treated exactly like civil unions. The state will not care whether you want to marry your boyfriend, girlfriend, guppy, refrigerator, or ten imaginary friends. That’s up to you and your buds.

To this plan, the only objections I’ve heard that gives me any real pause are:

  1. Chance in hell that it’ll be adopted. (I actually think it stands a better chance of being adopted than a SSM plan, given the state of our country; but I’m not sure).
  2. The comity argument. Again, I’m not convinced by it–I think our 800-pound-gorilla status could serve us well on renegotiating comity agreements, and I think that my proposal is more likely to gain acceptance in conservative countries than a SSM proposal–but I’m not sure.

Thanks, and I try to accept it in that spirit. Although imagine that you go to a school, and the obviously pagan teacher says, “Bright blessings!” to you. Would you feel even a teensy bit awkward? I know I do. I thank them for it, but I still feel a little weird about it.

As for what I do, I talk to kids about taking care of animals, about animal abuse, and that sort of thing. It’s my favorite part of my job.

Daniel

70

I think the problem is that there are people who want to marry 10 puppies (yes I get the exageration). Now you’re getting into the slippery slope area of social laws (laws that dictate behavior which the majority of people want to abide by). Those laws change with the tide of opinion and that opens up a can of worms that I’m not in the mood to dine on (those reality shows are starting to get to me).

There is another thing to consider down the road and that is the ability to alter a child’s sexual destiny. I suspect the question of homosexuality will fade over time as technology advances. The long spoken adage of gay people who say they wouldn’t choose their lifestyle will take on new meaning in the future (oiy, another can of worms).

The “bright blessings” thing made me laugh. I get your point. Kinda depends how serious you take the person’s spiritual feelings. I task you from this day forward with the duty not to laugh when someone dings you with their magic wand. Which has now been made harder by the image I just gave you (sorry).

71

On the contrary: under my proposal, someone who wants to marry their ten puppies is perfectly welcome to go ahead and do so, just like currently they’re welcome to baptize those ten puppies, canonize those ten puppies, or declare those ten puppies to be Co-Presidentes of Caninia. There would be no legal ramifications whatsoever of their actions. There would be no legal ramifications whatsoever of any marriage issued after my plan went into effect.

My goal is to get rid of social laws, not to use social laws to engineer the society I want.

My pardon, but I’m not sure that’s relevant. Even if I stipulated that it’d be relevant once technology advanced to such a state (and I’m not at all convinced it would be), we can no more base current policy off that than we can base our current transportation technology off Star Trek transporter units. We work with what we have, not with what we may or may not have.

Trust me: as an atheist, I’m a pro at not laughing.
Daniel

72

Left Hand of Dorkness,

Removing all social laws won’t fly (as you alluded to with your opinion on the chances of it happening) and I’m not sure I would want to take the trip. The longest and most successful reigns in history have revolved around social structure. I don’t think humanity has evolved even close to the concept of a society without any pre-conceived norms. I think you could write books on the subject.

Wish I could have availed myself of your expertise when I got my first cat. We had quite a go around before we reached an agreement.

73

[QUOTE=PolycarpWhat he or she may not do is, at a graduation ceremony, attendance at which is mandatory for a student to graduate, where he or she has the privilege of making a Valedictorian speech, use the occasion to evangelize his or her fellow graduates – because he or she is coopting the authority of government – remember that attendance at the graduation ceremony is mandatory to receive one’s diploma – to press his or her religious views.

[/QUOTE]

This subtle distinction to support the infringement of one’s free speech just doesn’t impress me. I’m hard pressed to work up the victimization that I would experience if a muslim student thanked Allah for his scholastic achievements as graduation valedictorian.

Co-opting the authority of government ? Tell that to the framers of your constitution. Your law requires attendance at graduation to get a diploma? Geez, you guys might want to move up to Canada. I got my grade 12 and my grade 13 honours diploma without attending the graduation ceremonies.

74

Not sure what laws you’re including here, then. If we’re just talking about sexual morality laws, then I think it’d be great to get rid of all the ones that interfere with consenting adults doing what they want.

As for basing our standards off those of long-lasting empires, I don’t so much like that idea. Plenty of long-lasting empires lasted a long time through pretty unsavory practices, be they torture of prisoners, slavery, or genocide of their enemies. We should base our society off what is ethical, not off of what’s going to lead to our long-term dominance.

Daniel

75

The one big difference, right now, is that civil unions do not confer many federal benefits that marriage does. So they are separate and not equal. If various federal regulations were changed to make civil unions the same as marriage, in terms of benefits, I suspect that at least some of the furor would die down. (But not all, since your point on discrimination is a good one.) That this is not happening is a good indicator that protection of marriage is not the only thing going on here.

76

I should add that my proposal would really only work if instituted on a federal level, for this reason.

Of course the federal government can’t trump an individual state’s marriage rules. But what they could do is refuse to offer any federal benefits (e.g., income tax recognition, payment of SS benefits to spouses) of marriages performed by states after a certain point, instead recognizing only civil unions after a certain point.

Which makes my proposal even more unrealistic, I know. Alternatively, the federal government could agree to provide state-issued civil unions with exactly the same R&R as state-issued marriages, and then leave it up to each state to enact my plan.

Daniel

77

I wasn’t aware that Caesar had an opinion on the Constitution.

It amazes me that some people cannot distinguish discussing religion and ramming one’s god down the throat of those with different beliefs. The notion that one cannot mention god in school is utter horse hockey. In 7th grade my daughter, in a very liberal California school, had a section in social studies on World Religions that was very well done. All religions were given equal time, no one tried to push one or the other, and all in all it was a model of how to teach about religion.

I hope you weren’t thinking of this clown from Cupertino now in the news. First, non-Christian parents had complained about him before this happened. Second, as far as I can tell, he was presenting his class with a very one-sided view of the beliefs of the Founding Fathers. If he showed them the Treaty of Tripoli, or talked about Jefferson’s version of the Bible, or, Og forbid, told them about The Age of Reason, it hasn’t been mentioned in the news around here.

Only 60 years ago my great-aunt had to lie about being Jewish - in New York, yet - to get a job. if Christians are ever persecuted in the US, they’ll know it.

78

The way the word marriage is used by the religious opponents of SSM.
They take the word “marriage” (as they use it to describe a purely religious ceremony) to obtain that their religious interpretation of a marriage is accepted (or at least is indoctrinated as if being) the only possible one that can be described with the word “marriage” in the US society.
It is not only abusing the word. It is even claiming the exclusive right on the word itself, as if they have the exclusive right to define what should be understood by it in the US society as a whole. To the non-religious part of that society it is a clear cultural message that in any case “marriage” can only be understood as union between man and woman.

Yet if this issue shows itself to be of much focus and concern during a presidential election, don’t you think it is time for the atheist to pay more attention to its impact on the rest of the population and even on the choice of a president for the USA?
If you are not interested or concerned, then you silently approve and support the “collection of rants” that has showed itself to have the ability to play a significant role.

Thank you. I hope the concert was a great success.

Yes, this is what I mean. And the explanation of rjung is something I had in mind as a possibility.

My conclusion on this:
US’ers commenting on USA 1 → debated by other side of the spectrum, but in any case, they are still Made in USA 1, which gives them rights to post what they think about their USA.
Comments on USA1 from outside the USA → debated and although not Made in USA, no big deal as long as they come from Western angle = A perspective that is not pre-defined as alien, hostile, hopeless uninformed and backwards/retarded.
Comments on USA 1 coming from Middle-Eastern/Arab/Muslim → What?!?
To begin with: Camel-driving backwards Towel Heads are supposed to be in tents in a deserted desert, instead of having access to PC and Internet.
They can not read or write in their own language, do not hear or see anything besides Al Qur’an, are all recruiters of Terrorists or supporting these Evil Bastards = They are the incorporation of Backwardness and The Enemy by definition of their location and worldview.
Comes along one of these Sand-eating Towel Heads who has PC and internet and even can read an write and By God: Even does that using more or less The Sacred English Language. And what does this Lucky Guy with all these favours bestowed on him by Superior Western Civilisation?
He comes to a US message board and instead of showering it with admiration for the Land of the Free (unless you are homosexual wanting to get married and a few other minor details) he dares to make remarks and critiques on USA 1 and the Holy Bush Administration.

I witnessed the shockwaves of indignation since the beginning of my membership and I can understand it. Really, I can. Even my old camel and skinny goat - standing silently behind my black tent under a fabulous nightly sky with the Alpha Taura as one of its brightest stars - understand this. And they don’t even know how to read and write their own language.

Exactly the same happens in Belgium.
In Belgium SSM is a legal (and largely socially accepted) procedure.

Yes, that is what I meant with “abuse” of the word.

No, that was what I referred to in the OP = explained in an other thread, and in my view this habit is one of the main causes for this whole issue in the USA.

But you would have a problem with calling both civil marriage and religious marriage simply all the same “marriage”?
Why?
What is the marriage of people who marry without religious ceremony called today? Are they not “married”?

To those who by all means want to drag Islam (or even Islamic nations) into this:

  1. I did not mention in my OP that I was starting a comparitive study. You can always make a thread of your own if you want discussion the issue in such a context.
  2. Like it or not, but the US culture has its roots in Christianity and its culture, not in Islam. The fact that most of the Muslims in the USA would be in a sort of agreement the Christian standpoint can only have a marginal (if any, which I doubt) effect on the way SSM is looked at when comparing this with the problem the Christian opposition forms for the homosexual community in the USA.
    Suppose it were only Muslims in the USA who were against SSM: How much reporting on that would be done and how much influence would this Muslim opposition have on the general mindset in the USA, compared with the attention the Christian opponents get now?
    With only Muslims opposing SSM, would you even see SSM become one of the issues taken into account by the electorate? Excuse me, but I don’t believe in fairy tales.

Salaam. A

79

I’ll ignore most of this, as it didn’t seem to be in response to me and I don’t want to get into a religious or Anti-Bush thread (again :rolleyes: )

Well, I personally don’t really care who ‘marries’ whom, and as I am neither gay nor religious, I would have to go out on a bit of a limb, but I think it boils down to this:

Gay couples want to have legal marriage in every sense of the word. They (and many others) do not see marriage as a religeous institution, but instead as a statement of the love and devotion two people can share, regardless of sexuality or progeny. Add to this that not all states have ‘common law’ or civil marriages, so they also want access to the full legal benefits of marriage (health benefits, bereavement benefits, next of kin status, etc…)

Religious people and opponents of SSM see it as a corruption of the holy institution of marriage, which to their mind exists only as a man + woman, for the purposes of creating and supporting progeny, and is a ceremony ordained by God (or Allah or Yahweh or whoever). Of course, a minority of them (IMO) also just hate gays and want to be cruel to them, and that I can’t and won’t comment on.

As for the terminology of someone who is ‘married,’ this too is a legal status, and has naught to do with the ceremony performed. Marriage is a legal state, which incurs certain benefits (as mentioned above). Someone who has a civil ceremony to wed their partner is ‘married’ in the eyes of the law, and if that marriage is legal in one state it is legal in all 50 states, and by treaty, in most of the countries in the world.

Now, one of the problems comes from the fact that many states, by not supporting common law or civil marriages, have allowed some pretty horrific things to happen, such as gay partners not being able to see their dying loved ones because they are not a ‘family member’ in the eyes of the law. Or not being able to be in someone’s will for the same reason. So the gay couples in my opinion have a legitimate beef.

Sorry if I have added confusion, and I hope things are a bit more clear, but it’s a pretty convoluted issue, really.

80

[QUOTE=Magiver]

That’s a nice illustration of why it’s not necessary to mention a specific religion to violate the Establishment Clause.

High schools and colleges take different attitudes toward these sorts of things. Attendance at my high school graduation was very much mandatory.