What's the next "rights" movement?

Great Debates
1

I think that we can agree that people in the past could not have forseen the “rights” movements that took place in their future. Acceptance of interracial marriage, for example, was unthinkable in much of the US just over a half-century ago. So…what will the “reforms” of the future be?

  1. Using the same argument as the gay-marriage-ites, polygamous marriage, incest, and (gradually) pedophilia will become accepted. Arguments include assertions that since they are all loving relationships, they are no different from traditional (which by now would include gay) marriage. Fingers will be pointed at abusive “traditional” marriages, showing that the proposed kinds are not so bad. Taboos (including statuatory rape laws) will be denouced as a remnent of an intolerant past.

  2. Affirmative action for intelligence. (bit of a stretch, but so is peering into the future anyway) Colleges asset the need for a diverse body of students like that which one would find in the real world. Since there are smart and dumb people in the real world, there will now be a quota of low-scoring students that need to be in each class.

Thoughts? Flames?

2

  1. Polygamous marriage, maybe. It’s the only one that can’t be defended very well by whoever’s doing it. Incest and pedophilia are both damaging to the people involved (in the case of the pedophilia the child is harmed, and in the case of incest there’s a risk of birth defects).

  2. I’ve always joked about this: people could start complaining that they’re discriminated against because they’re not as intelligent as others, but should still have an equal opportunity to receive an education, get a high-paying job, or whatever.

I doubt this would be a factor in college admissions, but consider this: a court ruling that says intelligence must not be a factor in hiring employees if the job does not demand it: i.e. it would be illegal to hire a college graduate to man the cashier at McDonald’s if there was a high school dropout applying for the same job. I believe this is already how the Americans With Disabilities Act is phrased - all that would need to be changed is the addition of “stupidity” as a disability.

3

I’ve been led to understand that “consensual” relationships between men and young boys were the norm at certain times and places in the realm of ancient Hellenic culture; to the extent that pederasty can ever be consensual, of course. I wonder if a case has ever been made about the benefit or detriment of this custom with regard to the individuals involved, or even to society at large.

Anyway, I think your question presupposes a linear model of cultural and social progress over indefinite amounts of time. I don’t think it works that way. Civilizations and cultures rise and fall. Their customs come into being, survive, and die off in a complex web of interplay between tradition and pragmatism; that which they inherit from their forbears vs. that which is practicable in the environment in which they exist.

Even if our society does progress in a totally linear fashion, however, I don’t see sex with children ever becoming acceptable. The (relatively recent) changes in our ideas about marriage derive from our high regard for the ideal of The Individual’s Right To Determine His/Her Own Destiny, not from a desire to normalize every kind of sexual relationship under the sun. This is not compatible with the idea of adults having sex with children. Consensual incest between adults has a greater chance of becoming acceptable for that reason.

As for affirmative action for intelligence… are you sure this OP shouldn’t be two threads? Again, we value an individual’s right to fulfill his/her own destiny and achieve his/her potential, and affirmative action is one way society tries to afford people that right. Its goal is not to put less able people into more demanding positions, it’s to give people who are able a shot at such positions without regard to other aspects of their person. Whether or not it’s successful can be debated, but I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that its scope will ever be wider than that which is perceived to be in accordance with that stated goal.

4

Well, I’m hoping for youth rights. The idea that teenagers lack the capacity to handle their own affairs, hold a job, and consent to certain relationships will be put to rest; and the continuing trend of trying juvenile offenders as adults will raise arguments similar to those raised by the draft during Vietnam: “If he’s old enough to be executed or imprisoned for 25 years, he’s old enough to vote.”

5

Gay rights for sure is and will be a major force for the forseeable future.

If they pass that, we are one step closer to Harrison Bergeron. Please, no.

6

Careful there, that’s a mighty slippery slope you’re standing on. If increased risk of birth defects in potential offspring is grounds for denying marriage, then shouldn’t people who are genetically inclined to produce offspring with defects be disallowed from marrying anyone?

Besides which, incest does not necessarially lead to birth defects. From the url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incest_taboo]Wikipedia:

7

Male Rights

8

That Wikipedia article doesn’t say what you think it does. Well, I mean, of course incest does not necessarily lead to birth defects. But it does increase the chances. All the article says is that inbreeding will not increase the frequency of birth defects in a population over time, because those born defective will not reproduce - lethal recessives are concentrated and selected against. This does not mean that inbred offspring do not carry a significantly higher risk of birth defects than the general population, and is cold comfort for those who should be the unfortunate recipients of a pair of lethal recessives.

9

Very true. However, inbreeding can only increase the risk of birth defects if the genetic code is already there ready to be passed on. In that case, in the interest of fairness, shouldn’t restricting incestuous marriage on the grounds that it may increase birth defects require restricting other couples who are carrying pairs defective genes from marrying? Otherwise it’s not really the risk of defects that is motivating the restriction.

And while we’re at it, how about incestuous marriage where the couple is sterile?

10

Well, I think the historical fact of the matter is that until recently, consanguinity was the only known factor that correlated with birth defects. Hence, the near universal social taboo against incest, which understandably became codified into law. However, the advent of of modern medicine has changed the game, and I would agree that the likelihood of birth defects is not now a legitimate reason to proscribe incestuous marriage - both because, as you point out, other couples can now be known to have elevated risk of birth defects, and, as you don’t point out (but allude to with the sterility comment), a closely related couple can easily avoid having children. I would say, myself, that the responsibility for deciding whether to have children in the face of heightened risk of birth defects should be up to the prospective parents, and the state shouldn’t be trying to influence that with clumsy half-applicable statutes.

To my thinking, the only legitimate government interest in preventing incestuous marriages is the issue of consent. Even between adults, family structures are oft fraught with power relations which make real consent very difficult. But not impossible, so perhaps a more narrowly tailored restriction could be devised.

A similar issue arises with polygamy. While I see no reason to prevent the polyamourous from forming plural marriages (assuming the legal details can be worked out), I do think that young girls in LDS splinter groups should be protected from becoming some misogynist asshat’s fourth wife.

11

Given the “think of the children!” movement that has been present for over a hundred years now, and without substantive abatement, I would be rather surprised if there was an unchecked and successful “Pedophile rights” movement. I think that the gay rights movement still has between 20 and 50 years left before everything that’s going to happen (and it isn’t everything we necessarily want to happen, but then some of what will happen might not be stuff we asked for anyway, though we’ll be glad when we get it) does happen.

At such a time, I tend to three schools of thought:

  1. Marriage will become more “loosely” defined as the same arguments used against interracial marriage yielded to arguments against gay marriage will yield to arguments against polygamous marriage. I think the same “tradition” and “natural law” and “it’s a union between two people” and other such arguments will arise, and they will eventually fall. This may be colored more than slightly by the last of the push for gay marriage, and as such is difficult to predict in any useful way.

  2. Drinking/smoking/driving/drafting, and the legal ages. Currently in the US, smoking (or, rather, the purchase and/or use of tobacco, since it isn’t just cigs) is permitted at 18, drinking at 21, driving at 16, with leeway there depending on the state IIRC, and the draft is at 18. Either all of these will be raised to 21 or some (drinking, probably) will be lowered.

  3. Marijuana. This is a current fight, though I’m not sure it’s as outspoken nor as vigilent as the fight for gay rights. As more people discover that there are schools of thought other than what the Ad Council and the government espouse, more and more people will push for this. Fall before last there was a guy running for some sort of Virginia state government position who was running on a pro-pot platform. Granted, this was Northern Virginia, which tends to be ever so slightly more liberal than SOVA (;)), but still. When gay rights have gotten enough headway and it’s no longer a bitter fight to get the very basics, politicians will probably start hoisting this one up if for no other reason than to get votes.

The polygamy fight will probably be the most bitter. The marijuana fight will probably be the most peaceful. The drinking part of it will probably involve the most propaganda. I would guess, if I had to, that marijuana would come first, that it would be followed, or possibly be in conjuction with, drinking et al., and that polygamy as permitted by state law, with all those lovely benefits that MF couples enjoy, could conceivably be here by the end of the century.

I would dearly love to be proven wrong and see it happen tomorrow, but we’re looking at 34 and into a 35th year of pushing for gay rights (whether weakly or strongly), and it took 100 years after slavery ended to finally do away with miscegenation laws.

12

Thanks, Senator Santorum. :rolleyes: Seriously, I don’t think there’s even a chance. There are way more gay people to form a movement, for one. And I’d say the ‘ick’ factor for bestiality, incest and pedophilia is substantially higher than for gay sex.

The ‘it’s happened historically’ argument is pretty weak, too, seeing as how that’s also true of slavery and any number of other practices now considered unseemly.

You can assert anything you like… I don’t think this will ever carry weight with enough people for it to make a difference.

People denounce that now, too, but like I said, for a movement to get anyplace, substantial numbers of people have to get behind it. These are slippery slope arguments, not reasons people will support the issues.

[Comic Book Guy] Worst. Idea. Ever.[/CBG] EVER. You can debate affirmative action all you like and make valid points about it being possibly contrary to the nature of higher education, but at least there’s a possible upside. Who would argue in favor of this idea? Colleges want a diverse student body for a number of reasons, but it would be contrary to the college’s interest to start bringing in people who don’t benefit it in any way.

Hmmm… your post appears to be an attempt to critique liberal ideas by carrying them to absurd and unsupportable extremes instead of an actual debate?

13

I think we’re trickling towards a complete re-evaluation of the place of gender and the gender paradigm in our society. It seems to me to be the logical intersection of the feminist and queer-rights movement: that gendering people is not totally essential, logical, or natural, and in what ways it impacts people’s lives and freedom of choice.

14

Unlikely, IMHO. As gov’t becomes increasingly entangled with medicine and starts to pick up a larger and larger share of people’s medical costs, they will naturally start to get more and more involved in keeping those costs down through prevention. Part of that will probably be a new Prohibition era, beginning with outlawing tobacco products. I suspect that gov’t will also make every effort short of outright Prohibition to curb alcohol consumption. And with the supposed justification of reducing accidents, they might convince states to raise the driving age to 21.

So I suspect the age will be 21 for both drinking and driving, with increasing regulations curbed at all but eliminating alcohol use. Tobacco will probably be driven underground to join marijuana, where marijuana will remain because it’s smoked and so will be tarred with the same brush.

The draft: this could go one of two ways. On one hand, the notion that the gov’t can conscript people into military service hasn’t been politically viable for years, and so the mechanisms exist only as relics that might disappear. On the other hand, it has been seriously considered by various talking heads from time to time that the US should adopt a mandatory service period, where everyone from 18-21 would either do military service or some civil service or build schoolhouses in Africa, or whatever. That idea might gain some traction with those who believe the military is being unfairly staffed primarily with racial minorities, who join due to lack of better opportunities, while suburban white kids run off to college to get drunk and fuck a Delta girl. It might seriously be proposed that a draft is the only “fair” way to staff the military that doesn’t place the burden of war entirely on the poor.

Personally, I see individual rights and liberties in the future declining, steadily shrinking as the gov’t stretches its tentacles into more and more facets of our lives.

15

I think there’s a really big oversight here - arguments in favour of same-sex marriage include the really significant factor that no harm is done to non-consenting parties. The same simply isn’t (and cannot be) true of paedophilia.

16

That is not borne out by practice in countries that do have universal mandatory or state-provided health insurance.

17

I believe the Marijuana issue will be very heavily opposed by the “Powers that Be” for the simple fact that the Govt. is very reticent to retract fallicious assignments. The campaign for the last 50 years (with increasing momentum) has been to demonize the humble weed of peace as that which leads to all things evil from murder and rape (just take a look at “Reefer Madness” ) to heroin and beyond. The “Gateway” Theory has been so proliferated with no real evidence what-so-ever and generally accepted by nearly everyone over the age of 50 - at least in the industrial midwest…
I know this is a little OT but since it was brought up…

18

>I think there’s a really big oversight here - arguments in favour of same-sex
>marriage include the really significant factor that no harm is done to non-
>consenting parties. The same simply isn’t (and cannot be) true of paedophilia.

Sure, that’s what we think now. But again, most reform movements were unthinkable a century earlier, and I certainly think it will take at least that long for public opinion be receptive to even contemplating these practices. Certainly if the sex is nonconsensual, there’s not much of an argument. But what if the child agrees? The argument could be made that historical discounting of a child’s agreement is simply a remnant of an intolerant past, just as the Bible’s opposition to homosexuality is viewed by some.

>Thanks, Senator Santorum.

Hey, senator is a step up :wink:

>Seriously, I don’t think there’s even a chance. There are way more gay people to
>form a movement, for one. And I’d say the ‘ick’ factor for bestiality, incest and
>pedophilia is substantially higher than for gay sex.

True, but a movement often gains support (and members) from its own momentum (like Kerry! Well, sorta.). If you asked around mere decades ago, you would have found far fewer self-professed gays than you do now. If a pedophile movement ever gains momentum, members may come out of the woodwork (is that how you use that expression? First time I used it).

Granted, it is not certain whether or not they exist in said woodwork, but don’t discount the possibility.

>The ‘it’s happened historically’ argument is pretty weak, too, seeing as how
>that’s also true of slavery and any number of other practices now considered
>unseemly.

Maybe, but the gay-rights movement uses it now, pointing to Greece to show that normalization of homosexual relationships is nothing new.

>If they pass that, we are one step closer to Harrison Bergeron. Please, no.

Please explain? :confused:

19

Harrison Bergeron is a short story (Ray Bradbury?) about a future where total equality of all people in enforced by the government’s office of the Handicapper General. Strong people have weights tied to them, smart people have transcievers in their ears to keep them from thinking too much and getting an advantage, etc.

That’s true, but there are still more gay people than pedophiles, probably by a huge margin. And Mangetout already pointed out the real problem with your argument: in a gay relationship, everybody consents and nobody’s being hurt. You can’t say that in a case of an adult having sex with a child or an animal.

20

I think Kurt Vonnegut, I’m certain not Ray Bradbury.

and my answer to the OP- polygamy, marijuana, ephebophilia (not pedo-), adult consensual incest- in that order.