let’s not play semantics. In the case of SSM, as with other civil rights issues, the majority for little or no reason {such as the ones you’ve given} is denying a minority the same status, legal standing and the and accompanying privileges and responsibilities, that they themselves are given and take for granted. It’s basically the same as voting rights and interracial marriage. All three posed some vague potential threat to society and that was used as justification to fight granting equality. History revealed those vague potential threats as total bullshit. That’s it. All the opposition has is their interpretation of a 2000 year old book or just a feeling based on irrational unfounded fears. It’s a hell of a act to deny equal rights based on such things.
What is the compelling interest? I’ve stated that the state has a compelling interest in
fostering male-female unions in order to encourage the production of new citizens yet everyone in the SSM camp disagrees with this. So, the state has no interest in whether or not we reproduce? Then why concern ourselves with the potential harm caused to the children of incestuous relationships?
The case against polygamy is just silly. We are not talking about changing our entire culture in such a way that would present the types of problems Miller refers to. Sure, there may be a bunch of unmarried men in polygamous societies but allowing polys to marry here does not affect men in this way…unless you are suggesting that our entire culture will suddenly become polygamous. Also, the repression of women does not require a polygamous marriage. One could argue that anyone from a culture that oppresses women should not be allowed to marry. This might acually have a bigger effect on such repressed women but would be racist.
And your “mean” comment shows a lack of comprehension. I am willing to debate the issue but there is no talking to someone, including yourself, that starts the discussion by calling others homophobes, bigots, etc. or by claiming that we just want to deprive others of their “rights”. It is just childish to automatically assume that anyone who disagrees with you is evil.
No matter how many times you say it marriage is not a right. And, as I have stated previously, gays have the same ability to marry someone of the opposite sex as straights do. Just because they have no interest in marrying an opposite sex partner is no reason to fundamentally change the definition of marriage.
You really, seriously believe you’ve made some sort of clever point don’t you? You seriously do.
Even more surprisingly, he seriously believes that there’s no parallel with the fact that pre-Loving, blacks and whites in states with anti-miscegenation laws were equally free to marry within their own race.
That’s not the only state interest involved, nor is it a requirement. If it was a requirement, marriages that don’t produce (or couldn’t produce) new citizens would be automatically dissolved.
Arguably, a valid state interest is that the citizens have lives that are stable and comfortable and that they invest in and improve property, which adds to the overall wealth of the state. Marriage facilitates this by letting two individuals pool their resources and benefit from numerous tax and inheritance laws.
So a gay couple get married, which gives them certain legal protections when they pool their resources to buy a house, which they then renovate, increasing its value. Without these protections, there is far less incentive to make the purchase, since the death of one the partners invites the possibility of a protracted legal struggle with the dead partner’s biological relatives, who can claim half the house.
I’m sure I can think of other examples, but in any case the legal partnership known as “marriage” is useful for heterosexual couples. It remains unclear why homosexual couples should not have access to it, and please spare us the tired and impotent riposte that they do have access, as long as they’re willing to partner with someone other than their first choice.
You’re being given adequate space to explain your reasoning. So far, though, your reasoning is effectively identical to what a homophobe or bigot would say. I’m personally waiting for the moment when an argument against SSM comes along that actually makes sense and is not motivated by disgust or vague fears or ignorance.
I have not argued against civil unions and feel that gays in committed relationships should have all the same benefits (and costs) that straights have. Just don’t call it marriage. Hell, I wouldn’t personally care if every marriage was considered a civil union by the state and leave marriage to the religions. Problem solved.
Really?!? I don’t remember saying anything remotely homophobic. I think that any argument that disagrees with what you consider to be “the way things ought to be” is heard by your sensitive ears as hating gays and any other minority group.
Here is an example of the ill effects of polygamy. In Egypt, which allows it, a man divorcing a woman must pay her a significant fee, while a woman divorcing a man (perfectly legal in Islamic Law) must return her dowry, and gets nothing. Our guide when we were in Cairo told us that her husband, who wanted to get rid of her, did it by getting a second wife. In this way they can have all the sex they want, stay inside even religious law, give the woman no cause for religious or legal objection (unlike committing adultery here) and either make her life miserable or force her out of the marriage with nothing. They are at least as religious as anti-gays here.
If there were a tiny bit as much of a problem with SSM as this, I might be against it. There aren’t any issues at all, as far as I can tell. And the Egyptians seem to be able to define marriage just fine.
And I’m sure you can explain your sound, valid reasoning why the word “marriage” cannot be used for both situations.
And you’re free to assume so. I wasn’t aware that equal treatment under the law for all citizens was such a pro-gay shibboleth. I’d like to think that if we were having this conversation 50 years ago and you were arguing that laws punishing interracial marriage served a state interest, I’d disagree on the same basis - that the laws were unfair and accomplished nothing of any merit.
Are you going to start channelling magellan01 and explain why there’s absolutely nothing ‘separate but equal’ about your solution?
Wanting to deny basic human rights to gays because in your opinion it might, someday, maybe, cause some, unguessable problem, in a few decades is homophobic, silly.
You want to deny rights literally for no logical reason. You’re putting your irrational happiness before other people’s freedom. What do you think was the rationale for keeping blacks in the back of the bus?
I’m speaking of equality, as in, equal civil legally granted and acknowledged rights. Nobody has a right to ride in the front of the bus or drink from a certain fountain or vote, or marry someone of a different race and skin color until the courts recognized that the majority had no compelling justification to deny these rights to other citizens who desired them.
Did allowing women and other races to vote fundamentally change the definition of voting? Did interracial marriage fundamentally change the definition of marriage and families as more mixed race children were born? Many claimed all those things had the same vague potential threat to society somewhere down the road, that you are now claiming about SSM. All proved to be total nonsense.
That last sentence is revealing and tragic.
Is the definition of marriage as two human beings who make a loving commitment to each other that also carries certain legal responsibilities and obligations that much different or worse than “one man and one woman”?
How does that change offer any threat whatsoever to those “one man one woman” couples, or families and children or society as a whole? You’ve offered nothing to show there is any risk whatsoever to any others or society and yet you casually make the statement that denying them equality and all the pain very real human tragedy that denial has caused, is no reason to make a change that offers no real risk to others other than the same vague phantom threats that all proved to be BS in other civil rights issues.
There is nothing to call that but an irrational unfounded fear that helps perpetrate and justify harm to others.
This is not a problem with polygamy. This is a problem with islamic law.
Finally, an answer! I feel honored.
Even if this were a compelling interest, you haven’t explained why it requires the exclusion of same sex unions. Yes, the government has an interest in fostering marriage, and therefore acts in wasy such as providing tax breaks. Now how is this interest furthered by refusing to permit SSM?
As for your comments on incest, you are making no sense. No one has argued there is not a government interest in encouraging procreation. However, once again, there is nothing about SSM that affects this interest at all. The government is concerned re the harm to children because, well, the government is concerned re the harm to children. Didn’t think that needed explaining.
Polygamy does tend to cluster. There are strong links between abuse of children and polygamous groups in the US, both of the females forced into marriages and the males ejected from the society.
And once again, the legal framework of marriage would have to be dramatically altered to permit plural marriage. Despite me asking multiple times, you have completely failed to come up with laws that would need any significant change were SSM to be permitted.
I didn’t start the discussion by calling you a homophobe or a bigot. In fact, I seem to remember that we specifically aren’t allowed to call you a bigot in this thread. But, once you showed yourself to be a homophobe, I see no reason whatsoever not to refer to you as one. Sorry if that upsets you - it upsets me you support the denial of rights to my friends and family because somehow, in some way you have been completely unable to explain, you think your marriage is weakened by my cousin’s marriage.
What do you mean “just don’t call it marriage”?
I’ve asked you this before, but had no response. I’m a stone atheist. I say that I’m married to my wife. Do you think I’m abusing the english language in making such a claim, and that only religious people can really be married? Or can atheists and hindus and conufucianists get married too?
If you want to change every law that uses the word “marriage” and replace that with “civil union”, well, that’s fine. But what would be the purpose? Because even if the laws said “civil union” the rest of us would still use the word “marriage”, even if we’re atheists, or gay. Heck, even polygamists use the word “marriage” to describe their relationships.
How are you going to stop us from using the word “marriage” in our daily lives? And if the only effect of your proposal is to change the wording of the law, yet have the law keep the exact same function, then what’s the point? That’s a change that has no real purpose behind it.
Here in Washington state we had a very silly legal change. We already allowed people to enter into civil unions, including same sex partners. So rather than allow gay marriage, we just voted to make civil unions exactly legally equivalent to marriage. Which means that a same sex couple in a civil union (or an opposite sex couple in a civil union) will be treated by the State of Washington exactly like an opposite sex couple in a marriage.
The only problem is that the federal government will not recognize the union as a marriage.
But OK, so we have a situation where same sex couples can get a civil union, and in this state they will be treated as if they were married. What happens when those two unmarried people colloquially refer to themselves as “married”? Because they will, you know. And atheists like me, who weren’t married in a church or by a religious figure, will still call themselves “married”. Even though I suppose in your eyes we aren’t really married at all, because we didn’t get married in a church.
So in your eyes am I really married, or only pretending to be married?
I don’t think that it’s particularly absurd to suggest that someone who is arguing in favor of unequal treatment between two groups at a governmental level, that they’re exhibiting some degree of prejudice towards that group. And, perhaps unfortunately, the term for prejudice towards homosexuals is “homophobia.” So, I’m afraid that as long as you are arguing that marriage should be reserved as the exclusive privilege of heterosexuals, you are indeed saying something homophobic.
How is that relevant in debate, though? It’s classic ad hominem.
Bricker, please refresh yourself as to the subject of this thread.
I think they are related. After all, the woman is a lot freer to divorce than in some societies. Polygamy is just going to strengthen the imbalance of power which exists in almost all societies. Gay marriage does not. In any case, we didn’t have any problem with the definition of marriage when talking to her, and for the short time SSM was legal in California I didn’t have a problem with it either. In any case, given that societies exist today where your worst case situation of polygamy is widespread, I really don’t see its relevance to the current debate.
Given the actual title of this thread, though, it’s more than relevant that the people seeking to change the law in California last November, who prevailed as it happens, were the “Yes” crowd. The California State Supreme Court had ruled that under the Constitution as it read prior to the passage of Proposition 8, allowing opposite-sex couples to marry but not allowing same-sex couples to do the same constituted a violation of the state constitution’s equal protection clause. The state thereupon adopted procedures to solemnize and recognize gay marriages.
The voters of the state, by a 52:48 edge, chose to remove a right enjoyed, for six months, by a minority in their midst. that fact cannot be argued.
I’m also curious as to wether the language in Romer v. Evans might be relevant to equal protection claims in Federal court. That decision held thar Amendment II to the Colorado State Constitution was invalid because it acted, without rational basis, to deny rights to homosexual persons simply because they wee homosexual persons. While I’m grateful for ** Bricker**'s analysis in post #481 (and failed to express my thanks then), I’m mildly curious as to whether the language in Romer may be relevant to equal protection status.