# Why do gays want to call their relationship a "marriage"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 7, 2015, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436 "2015-07-07T01:03:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/381 "2015-07-13T00:46:32Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Un-fucking-believable. Nah, the un-fucking-believable part is when he asked [QUOTE= D’Anconia] Isn’t justice supposed to be blind? [/QUOTE] to justify\* arresting someone for refusing to leave their same-sex partner’s bedside. (\*Or maybe just minimize. Your pick) ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/382 "2015-07-13T01:09:56Z")
There’s some people who are just compulsively oppositional. Or even perversely so. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/383 "2015-07-13T01:51:20Z")
Nuh-uh! ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/384 "2015-07-13T02:16:28Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Nuh-uh! Pervert! ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/385 "2015-07-13T02:58:47Z")
> [@raventhief](#): > > I’m sorry, what? > > You yourself agreed that he was charged with trespassing for refusing to leave. That’s what trespassing in this case means. > > Refusing to leave = trespassing. He was fined for trespassing. Because he refused to leave. Perhaps I am missing some nuance here. Please enlighten me. > > If refusing to leave = trespassing, then how is the “why” of the trespassing arrest not the refusal to leave? > > [Here is the account of the daughter, who was there.](http://www.weareatheism.com/arrested-at-hospital-just-for-wanting-to-hold-his-partners-hand/) > > Beyond that, I don’t even know what you want in terms of a cite. From this account, I feel like there’s something missing to the story. Did they guy need to be admitted to the hospital? If not, why did they admit him? If so, why does the daughter blame the brother for the guy losing out on vacation deposits? And why does she end by saying he’ll be getting out soon, instead of by saying they cleared up the misunderstanding and he left right away? What was the fight about? Was it about the guys’ treatment? The hospitalization? I’m pro same-sex-marriage, and I’m in favor of spouse’s being in the patient’s room and participating in decisions and all that. But there’s something about this particular story that doesn’t add up. ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2015, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/386 "2015-07-13T19:02:36Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I’m pro same-sex-marriage, and I’m in favor of spouse’s being in the patient’s room and participating in decisions and all that. But there’s something about this particular story that doesn’t add up. I don’t know why it’s particularly important to this tread. **D’Anconia** asked if a specific thing had happened. **Miller** provided 3 different cites. **D’Anconia** chose to latch on to one. It’s really just an attempt to derail the thread unless she can similarly discredit the other 2 cites which she hasn’t even acknowledged. ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/387 "2015-07-14T05:26:35Z")
As a “straight” person I’d almost rather have universal civil unions. I never much cared to get “married” myself, but I did. I was privileged enough to be able to just do it, and not think too much about it. Maybe if I were denied access, I would be much more interested in having one. What the Netherlands has to do with a social/ political issue in a country where most public officials are required to be outwardly Christian and kiss ass of religious bigots, I have no f-ing clue. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/388 "2015-07-14T11:57:48Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#): > > As a “straight” person I’d almost rather have universal civil unions. I like what we ended up having in Spain, where the two systems are parallel. While not every religious officer can act as a civil officer, many can; people can choose to be civil-married but not religious-married, vice versa or both. The vice versa is usually chosen when there would be negative economic consequences to getting a civil marriage, such as loss of retirement pensions. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/389 "2015-07-15T03:24:16Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > From this account, I feel like there’s something missing to the story. > > Did they guy need to be admitted to the hospital? If not, why did they admit him? If so, why does the daughter blame the brother for the guy losing out on vacation deposits? And why does she end by saying he’ll be getting out soon, instead of by saying they cleared up the misunderstanding and he left right away? > > What was the fight about? Was it about the guys’ treatment? The hospitalization? > > I’m pro same-sex-marriage, and I’m in favor of spouse’s being in the patient’s room and participating in decisions and all that. But there’s something about this particular story that doesn’t add up. Honestly, I don’t know any more than what’s been reported. Some aspects of the story seem a bit incomplete to me, but I don’t really _know_. But I was arguing primarily in defense of Miller’s cite. “Marriage” confers certain understood rights, and it appears that in this case, the understood rights of a “civil union” were ignored. ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/390 "2015-07-15T17:01:19Z")
At the risk of an own goal, what, in practice, can a patient’s legal spouse do if a medical facility refuses to acknowledge the marriage for whatever reason? If in the (hypo perhaps tenuously based on) the case being argued about, the patient and his partner were legally married but the homophobic hospital staff refused to treat the husband as they would a patient’s different-sex spouse, would the outcome have been significantly different? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/391 "2015-07-15T17:05:14Z")
> [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](#): > > At the risk of an own goal, what, in practice, can a patient’s legal spouse do if a medical facility refuses to acknowledge the marriage for whatever reason? > > If in the (hypo perhaps tenuously based on) the case being argued about, the patient and his partner were legally married but the homophobic hospital staff refused to treat the husband as they would a patient’s different-sex spouse, would the outcome have been significantly different? Probably not. But with the existence of national SSM, it becomes a lot harder for someone to argue against there being a marriage solely on the basis of “Gee, how could we have known they were married?” Obviously, no law is immune from dumbasses. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/392 "2015-07-15T18:06:50Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > No one was offering civil unions that covered all the same legal protections of marriage. Some states went so far as to ban civil unions from conferring the same protections. This throws is squarely into the realm of the equal protection clause. Hypothetical. \*\*IF \*\*there was a federal bill passed that superseded all state laws and altered other federal laws to make the designation of a civil union legally identical in all ways to the designation of marriage, do you think the call to call committed gay relationships marriage instead of civil unions would have abated? I don’t, because I don’t believe part of the fight was for social/societal acceptance of gay relationships in a more official manner, a turning of the tide that could only be granted by the honorific, “marriage.” > [@](#): > > It isn’t key, but it is on the list. Why should one man get to introduce his spouse, but another man only be allowed to introduce his “partner?” The “separate but equal” issue galls and carks, and was a large moral element of the debate. It wasn’t key, but it wasn’t negligible. Incidentally, I liked the result of the gay marriage ruling, but now how we got there. I’d much have preferred state after state abandon the traditional definition of marriage and expand it to include gay couples. But the equal protection argument always struck me as a a willfully deceitful one. People always pretend that their own personal limits are some high minded and airtight logical analysis of the nature of the relationships in question when they debate whether there is a meaningful difference between the relationship status of hetero couples and homosexual couples and… polygamist relationships wanting to be called marriage. What about marrying two 15 year olds? You want to know the airtight logical argument about why we grant special treatment of one group against another? Why some restrictions cut out some pairings or groups of people all clustered together? The arbitrary blessing and sanction of man. The reason gay marriage is OK today is not because of equal protection, it’s because important people making the decision decided that gay couples are not meaningfully different than straight couples. Had the same case come before the court 50 years ago different important people would have come to a different conclusion. What changed? The arguments details about equal protection, no, the minds of men. It’s ARBITRARY. And that’s OK. People fight to the death to deny any arbitrary elements to why we approve of x vs y. But that’s how a lot of our decisions and attitudes are constructed. The reason we allow gay marriage now is because our standards of what we consider a relationship worth blessing has expanding to include gay relationships. IF it ever expanded to include polygamist relationships we’d OK those marriages too, but I doubt we will on that front anytime soon. Not because of some made up hand wavy argument about the different numbers and natures of the relationship, because most people find those pairings questionable and suspect. (imo for good reason, we all have these internal metrics, and they are NOT absolute laws of the universe arrived at from pure reason, that is a conceit.) > [@](#): > > It certainly does give the blessing you observe…but it does not in any way give the “fuck you” to anyone else. It does not diminish the value of anyone else’s marriage at all, except perhaps in their own eyes…and what responsibility is that of anyone else? > > Say I buy a nice Cadillac. And then the big fat slob down the street, the ugly guy whose house is a mess and whose kids are always screaming, buys a Cadillac too. Does that demean my possession? Do I have a case against him in civil court for alienation of a presumption of being cool? > > As has been pointed out many times, really dorky celebrity marriages, like the one that lasted a few hours before divorce, do a fuck of a lot more “harm” to the dignity of the institution of marriage than gay marriage ever could. Society has given its legal blessing to such farcical marriages, but not its cultural blessing. > > No one is compelled to “accept” someone else’s marriage in the cultural fashion. There are lots of Catholics who do not consider many people truly married, because they were married before to other partners. The Catholics can say, “They may be married in the eyes of the law, but not in the eyes of the church.” > > You get to say the same thing about gays who are married. “Bob and Bill say they’re married, but we know they aren’t really.” You can say anything you want: freedom of speech! (You can say cats are really dogs, too.) Your “blessing” is not compulsory, only the legitimacy under the law. I don’t think it’s a fuck you to social conservative marriages, I DO think it’s a fuck you to their conception of what a proper marriage is. Society writ large has taken the measure of their conception, placed it up to be analyzed and judged, and REJECTED their standard. I agree with that rejection, but it’s still a repudiation of their conception of marriage. I don’t see any way around that. And that’s fine by me. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/393 "2015-07-15T18:14:52Z")
> [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](#): > > At the risk of an own goal, what, in practice, can a patient’s legal spouse do if a medical facility refuses to acknowledge the marriage for whatever reason? > > If in the (hypo perhaps tenuously based on) the case being argued about, the patient and his partner were legally married but the homophobic hospital staff refused to treat the husband as they would a patient’s different-sex spouse, would the outcome have been significantly different? Well, he could have sued the hospital in that case. Or sought an injunction allowing him to visit his husband. In the context of an unrecognized relationship without a power of attorney, he couldn’t do either. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/394 "2015-07-15T20:12:54Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Hypothetical. \*\*IF \*\*there was a federal bill passed that superseded all state laws and altered other federal laws to make the designation of a civil union legally identical in all ways to the designation of marriage, do you think the call to call committed gay relationships marriage instead of civil unions would have abated? > > I don’t, because I don’t believe part of the fight was for social/societal acceptance of gay relationships in a more official manner, a turning of the tide that could only be granted by the honorific, “marriage.” . . . If the compromise had been offered early, and in good faith, it might have succeeded. As I note above, it still would have failed ultimately, as people in “Civil Unions” would have spoken of themselves as “married,” and there isn’t a damn thing that anyone can do to stop that. You’re only partways right here. Part of the fight was for social/societal acceptance. But part of it was for equal legal accommodation, and if that had been offered, many would have accepted it. (And…if the fight was for social/societal acceptance…great! Super! That’s a good thing. What possible reason is there do deny social acceptance of a class of persons on such a basis? What did society really lose, in any kind of real terms, when that acceptance began to be realized? The world is a better place because of that acceptance.) ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2015, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/395 "2015-07-16T03:27:26Z")
> [@boytyperanma](#): > > I don’t know why it’s particularly important to this tread. **D’Anconia** asked if a specific thing had happened. **Miller** provided 3 different cites. **D’Anconia** chose to latch on to one. It’s really just an attempt to derail the thread unless she can similarly discredit the other 2 cites which she hasn’t even acknowledged. Fair enough. ---
**Author:** ![Reads\_a\_Lot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9a28c/32.png) [@Reads\_a\_Lot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reads_a_Lot)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2015, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/396 "2015-07-16T03:40:00Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > no one said you have to be able to produce to get married. who said that? I am simply asserting that we need some kind of term for the relationship that has the capacity (if everything is healthy and working properly) for procreation. > Here is why I care. Typically, a “marriage” referred to the relationship that we are now calling “breeders”. That is why the law or the govt was interested in breeders. Since breeders have the capacity for bringing children into this world, the govt has an interest in ensuring that these children are given a suitable upbringing. That is the ONLY reason the law got involved in this relationship. > > My problem is not so much with gay marriage (which is a non-entity IMO) but with gay parenting. Gay parenting is cruel and a denial of a child’s basic human rights. Whoa. Your extreme homophobia is showing. Gay men and women make wonderful parents. Or crappy parents. Or OK parents. Just like heteros. Your ability as a parent is not linked to your sexuality. ---
**Author:** ![Reads\_a\_Lot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9a28c/32.png) [@Reads\_a\_Lot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reads_a_Lot)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2015, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/397 "2015-07-16T03:52:26Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > I would say that a father brings a measure of bravado, discipline, risk-taking, and other such things typically associated with maleness. Father’s typically discipline their children with greater severity and consistency than the mother. On the other hand, a mother brings tenderness, compassion, and other such typically associated with femininity. When a child gets hurt, s/he runs to mom, not dad. Whoa. Sexism. Get you some. Oh, wait. You already have some. I am bold, love to take risks and, frankly, am a dick sometimes. I’m also a woman married to a man. So, there you go. Stereotypes. They’re just not true. ---
**Author:** ![Reads\_a\_Lot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9a28c/32.png) [@Reads\_a\_Lot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reads_a_Lot)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2015, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/398 "2015-07-16T03:57:26Z")
> [@cornopean](#): > > Seriously, my interpretation of marriage may be “odd” to you but it has been the understanding of marriage of the vast majority of world history including the three major theistic religions. It at least deserves respect. Actually, in the vast majority of history, women were simply a form of currency and marriage was the payoff. They had no rights and certainly no say in whom they married. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/399 "2015-07-16T13:13:10Z")
And no rights to inherit or own property in their own right. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2015, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436/400 "2015-07-16T13:47:24Z")
> [@Reads\_a\_Lot](#): > > Actually, in the vast majority of history, women were simply a form of currency and marriage was the payoff. They had no rights and certainly no say in whom they married. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > And no rights to inherit or own property in their own right. That’s varied a lot by time and place. In traditional Jewish law, a wife is sort of a superior slave, who is owned by her husband, but women do have rights to own property. It was customary for a woman to sell herself into marriage in exchange for a bride price which was held in escrow, but given to her outright in the event her husband divorced her. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-gays-want-to-call-their-relationship-a-marriage/724436.md?page=21)