77 Reasons to Support man/woman marriage
This pamphlet offers 77 incontrovertible statements in support of Natural Marriage,
all of which defend the premise without delving into ‘religious’ themes. If there is someone in your life whom you hope to influence without being accused of ‘preaching’, this pamphlet will be of immense value to you.
The pamphlet was written by Ruth Institute president and founder, Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., who was also the spokeswoman for California’s Prop 8 campaign. Dr. Morse has also been an ironclad defender of Natural Marriage as well as an informed observer of the political and sociological implications of Same Sex Marriage. Dr. Morse offers a complete argument, strategic and trenchant. You may order these pamphlets for distribution to your group or organization by clicking here.
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Who exactly is against man/woman marriage? I’ve never met a supporter of same-sex marriage who didn’t ALSO support man/woman marriage.
Nice idea, and it looks good based on the sample page. I take it you aren’t planning to reveal the 77 reasons here though?
Are any of them that same-sex marriage would either mean allowing same-sex procreation, which would be expensive and unethical for the person being created from experimental modified gametes, or it would mean that marriage had to change so that it no longer expressed approval of the couple conceiving children together?
Rob Tisinai: Exactly. Supporting same sex marriage does not diminish opposite sex marriage.
John Howard: “I take it you aren’t planning to reveal the 77 reasons here though?”
Of course not. They feel so strongly about their ideals that they want to make sure the get paid for them.
But just reading what they do show is a load of crap. My brother in law is not my niece’s biological father but has done more (and a better job) raising her than her natural father ever did. And, by marrying my sister and adopting my niece, he has all the rights of a “natural” parent.
Here’s a question then. Do you think there is any difference that the law should see in a same-sex relationship vs one that includes both genders? Any difference at all?
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t support man/woman marriage! This sounds like an answer to a question no one asked!
On Lawn: “Do you think there is any difference that the law should see in a same-sex relationship vs one that includes both genders?”
LOL, once again, On Lawn equates “same-sex relationships” to “same-sex couples” even though he has denied he does, in previous posts.
Howso?
On Lawn: Give me a for instance.
“incontrovertible”: I do not think that word means what Jennifer Roback Morse thinks it means.
On Lawn: “Howso? (sic)”
LOL, because, On Lawn, you use a baited question. You will soon devolve into a rant about romance versus not romance, mother-daughter relationships, etc. On Lawn is very predictable.
I’ll give you a “for instance,” Rob: Conception rights, the right to procreate offspring together using the couple’s own genes. The law should see a difference in whether the couple is allowed to attempt to procreate with their own genes or not. Trying to create offspring should be a punishable offense for two people of the same sex, but should always be approved and allowed for a man and woman (who must be at least eligible for marriage, and should be married to claim the right and approval).
Since the SSMers themselves rely on conflating same-sex relationship, same-sex couple, and gayness, well, it is they who are doubletalking.
1. The same-sex category of relationship types is not defined by the number two (i.e. couple) nor by gayness. Fact.
2. There are many types of relationships that include only one sex. Not all of them are sexually romantic although many are romantic in a nonsexual way. Most of the category consists of friendships or associations that entail love, commitment, and mutual caregiving.
3. The SSM idea’s gay emphasis requires that the SSMer refer to the gay relationship type that he has in mind, rather than some vague ‘same-sex couple’ or ‘same-sex relationship’ or even a couple of people who happen to self-identify as gay, homosexual, or otherwise a member of the LGBT identity group.
4. Marriage, as a foundational social institution, is comprised of the two sexes integrated; at its core is the provision for responsible procreation; yet the opposite-sexed category is much broader than the conjugal type of relationship (i.e. the union of husband and wife) and does include a range of sexual type of relationships — each type including both sexes — but is not limited by the notion of heterosexuality, straightness, sexualization and so forth. Thus the marriage defender is required to refer to the union of husband and wife, the conjugal relationship type, or, to counter the oxymoronic rhetoric of the SSM campaign, “man/woman marriage”.
5. Neither the same-sex category nor the opposite-sex category is intrinsically sexual. But the husband-wife type of relationship is sexual, by type, and is neither sex-neutral nor sex-segregative. Nor is it purely a sexual type of arrangement and thus is not by definition heterosexual nor straight. Its defining features, as a public type of relationship with a sexual basis that is, at once, both deeply private and societally significant, are 1) sex integration, 2) provision for responsible procreation, and 3) these aspects combined as a coherent whole (i.e. as social institution of civil society).
6. The SSM idea is not foundational to civilization; nor does it have a sexual basis, at law, nor even in its own argumentation; nor does the SSM idea entail a societal significance that arises from sexuality — neither gayness, nor homosexuality, nor same-sex sexual romance, nor same-sex sexual attraction, nor same-sex sexual behavior. Yet, with a self-servinging emphasis on gay identity politics, the SSM campaign’s rhetoric emphasizes gayness and these other non-features of SSM, at law, for the sake of replacing the core meaning of marriage with the hollow shell of SSM.
7. There are many, many, many reasons to support the special status of man/woman marriage (a term, as noted above, that is politically necessary to counter the rhetoric of the SSM campaign but which is reduncantly, purposefully). Apart from asserting the supremacy of gay identity politics, and to quash dissent and opposition to it, there is no societal purpose for replacing the marriage idea with the SSM idea. Zilch. Zippo. And that’s a huge reason to support the marriage idea and to oppose the merger of marriage and SSM in our legal system and in our culture.
The question, fundamentally, is not “why not SSM” but rather “why replace marriage with a special substitution”?
S.S.M. = Specious Substitution of Marriage.
Chairm:
“1. The same-sex category of relationship types is not defined by the number two (i.e. couple) nor by gayness. Fact.”
True, but the people who are supporting same sex marriage refer to same-sex couples which ARE limited by number. Is it defined by “gayness (what EVER that means), no nor is traditional marriage defined by straightness.
“2. There are many types of relationships that include only one sex. Not all of them are sexually romantic although many are romantic in a nonsexual way. Most of the category consists of friendships or associations that entail love, commitment, and mutual caregiving.”
The same can be said about relationships that contain both sexes. Your point being?
“3. The SSM idea’s gay emphasis requires that the SSMer refer to the gay relationship type that he has in mind, rather than some vague ‘same-sex couple’ or ‘same-sex relationship’ or even a couple of people who happen to self-identify as gay, homosexual, or otherwise a member of the LGBT identity group.”
Wow, this sentence doesn’t even make sense. But, people who support SSM are looking at those same-sex couples who wish to marry just as those who support OSM look at those opposite-sex couples who wish to marry.
“4. Marriage, as a foundational social institution, is comprised of the two sexes integrated; at its core is the provision for responsible procreation; yet the opposite-sexed category is much broader than the conjugal type of relationship (i.e. the union of husband and wife) and does include a range of sexual type of relationships — each type including both sexes — but is not limited by the notion of heterosexuality, straightness, sexualization and so forth. Thus the marriage defender is required to refer to the union of husband and wife, the conjugal relationship type, or, to counter the oxymoronic rhetoric of the SSM campaign, “man/woman marriage”.”
First, I don’t agree with the idea of “responsible procreation” as a provision for marriage. Again, for those that do, it means the exclusion of the infertile or those who chose not to have children. As far as you using the term “range of sexual type of relationships”, I assumes you mean it’s OK for a gay man to marry a straight woman? Fine. As far as I am concerned, if two male straight friends wanted to get married to raise children together, let them. Course, neither should be dating women, etc.
“5. Neither the same-sex category nor the opposite-sex category is intrinsically sexual. But the husband-wife type of relationship is sexual, by type, and is neither sex-neutral nor sex-segregative. Nor is it purely a sexual type of arrangement and thus is not by definition heterosexual nor straight. Its defining features, as a public type of relationship with a sexual basis that is, at once, both deeply private and societally (sic) significant, are 1) sex integration, 2) provision for responsible procreation, and 3) these aspects combined as a coherent whole (i.e. as social institution of civil society).”
Chairm, you are really sounding upset because, again, you are not making sense. “Neither the same-sex category nor the opposite-sex category is intrinsically sexual. But the husband-wife type of relationship is sexual ..”? Well, which is it? I don’t think a relationship can be called procreative if it is not sexual.
“6. The SSM idea is not foundational to civilization; nor does it have a sexual basis, at law, nor even in its own argumentation; nor does the SSM idea entail a societal significance that arises from sexuality — neither gayness, nor homosexuality, nor same-sex sexual romance, nor same-sex sexual attraction, nor same-sex sexual behavior. Yet, with a self-servinging (sic) emphasis on gay identity politics, the SSM campaign’s rhetoric emphasizes gayness and these other non-features of SSM, at law, for the sake of replacing the core meaning of marriage with the hollow shell of SSM.”
Actually, many civilizations in the past recognized SSM: American Indians, Greek and Roman. And there is even evidence that the early Christian church recognized it as the church felt that sexual activity outside of a relationship was taboo.
“7. There are many, many, many reasons to support the special status of man/woman marriage (a term, as noted above, that is politically necessary to counter the rhetoric of the SSM campaign but which is reduncantly, purposefully). Apart from asserting the supremacy of gay identity politics, and to quash dissent and opposition to it, there is no societal purpose for replacing the marriage idea with the SSM idea. Zilch. Zippo. And that’s a huge reason to support the marriage idea and to oppose the merger of marriage and SSM in our legal system and in our culture.”
So, it’s OK to assert the supremacy of straight identity politics? Society is not being asked to replace any idea of marriage, just to allow all citizens to exercise their equal rights. If two men or two women chose to join in matrimony, that does nothing (“zilch, zippo”) to anyone else’s marriage.
“The question, fundamentally, is not “why not SSM” but rather “why replace marriage with a special substitution”?”
Again, no one is replacing anything.
Mark you are correct that marriage (union of husband and wife) is not defined by straightness. It is defined by the core meaning, the essentials, of this foundational social institution. The obvious question is, what makes marriage foundational? What makes it a social institution? What essentials, what core, distinguishes the foundational social institution of marriage from other stuff?
It is not identity politics nor sexual orientation.
No, Mark, marriage defenders are not defining marriage by people “who wish to marry”, but you, as an SSMer, are claiming that the wish itself is the meaning of the social institution. But a wish is not a trump card for eligiblity to marry. It might be for the SSM idea, however.
Please clarify.
* * *
No, Mark, I am not upset but it is interesting that you deigned to comment errantly on my feelings while leaving the substance of what I had said virtually unanswered.
* * *
Mark, the marital presumption of paternity, for example, is in the marriage law regardless of your disagreement with it. Its sexual basis is inapplicable to all one-sexed arrangements, sexualized or not, but is part and parcel of each union of husband and wife, as a public sexual type of relationship. This presumption is one of the strongest legal provisions in our legal system. It is vigorously enforced. Your disagreement with it does not make it disappear. The replacement of the marriage idea by the SSM idea would abolish the sexual basis for this central feature of marriage law.
And, no, your infertility strawman argument does not negate the marital presumption of paternity. Your open rejection of this provision, central to marriage, has to stand on its own two feet. Hiding behind a misrepresentation of what you oppose prevents you from engaging the actual conflict between the marriage idea and the SSM idea.
* * *
Why shouldn’t two men form a committed relationship under the SSM idea and still date women? Be specific.
* * *
Mark read with more attention to what is actually said. There are two categories into which the SSM idea places relationships: neither is intrinsically sexual.
However the conjugal type of relationship, as a subset of the two-sexed category, is intrinsically sexual. Its sexual basis is both deeply private and societally significant. The SSM idea lacks such a sexual basis and so it also lacks this this aspect which is both private and public at the same time.
We are discussing types, not this or that particular individual’s private details. By type, the union of husband and wife is sexual; this is embedded in the marriage law as well as the customs and traditions of civilizations such as our own.
The same cannot be said of SSM. Indeed, given the rules of argumentation that you depend upon, such as the rules invoked by your infertility strawman, destroy the gay emphasis that SSMers reiterate endlessly but never enact into law when SSM is imposed nor is it anywhere discussed as a legal requirement when SSM is proposed.
* * *
In reaction to the fact that the SSM idea is not foundational to civilization, Mark made the following ahistorical claim:
“many civilizations in the past recognized SSM”.
This is a falsehood; at best it is derived via speculations designed to serve the propaganda of gay identity politics. There is no evidence that SSM was ever accorded the special status of marriage in past civilizations. Considering how brilliant the SSM idea is to SSMers, it ought to give them pause this has so rarely been enacted — an dimly at that — even within the convenient speculative accounts that SSMers hold-up.
No matter, the SSM idea relies on gay identity politics and that is something very new in the historical and anthropological records. Gay is not one and the same as same-sex sexual behavior; nor is it one and the same as same-sex sexual attraction. Gay is a socio-political identity. It is not something passed down through the millennia. It is a recent invention.
Anyway, as I said the SSM idea is not foundational to civilization.
* * *
Mark you just acknowledged that current marriage law is not defined by straightness; and yet in the last part of your comment you returned to categorizing relationships by identity politics. That may serve the assertion of supremacy of gay identity politics, but in the marriage idea there is no straight bookend to match your emphasis on gayness. You conceded as much moments earlier.
* * *
Throughout the discussions here, SSMers have shown that the SSM idea is very different from the marriage idea. So much so, in fact, that they have failed to distinguish the type of relationship they have in mind — by its esentials, as a type of relationship — from the rest of nonmarriage. Marriage defenders has more than adequately explained the special reason(s) for the special status of marriage; and it is this special nature of the social institution which sets it apart and which merits the preferential status that society accords marriage. The SSM idea lacks such and offers zilch to benefit society.
However, take the gay emphasis out of the SSM idea, which at law is neither gay nor marriage anyway, and what remains is a plea for the very sort of protections that are accorded the vast nonmarriage category. No, such protections are not everything that is entailed in marriage, but marriage merits more, not less, because it means more, not less. SSMers want marriage to means less than its core meaning. That is because they cannot offer a core meaning for SSM such that it would merit special status on par with marital status. All they can offer is a gay emphasis for the sake of plucking the gay subset out of the nonmarriage category and demanding special status based on gayness.
Gay identity merits no such preferential treatment. Meanwhile SSMers insist that gay identity, homosexual orientation, and same-sex sexual behavior are not legitimate for lawmaking; and yet that is their emphasis and the basis that rhetorically they demand the imposition of SSM on all of society. But not just that, they demand that the man-woman criterion of marriage be abolished not only from the law but also from the culture.
None of that is meritorious.
Why should society replace the marriage idea with the SSM idea? That is the question. The remarks of SSMers here and the argumentation of the SSM campaign place on the table an offer that consists of a specious substitution for marriage. Such an extraordinary proposal (often stated as a demand that society would have no choice but to slavishly comply with) requires an extraordinary justification.
None has been forthcoming.
I think the only question that matters, at this point, is, does the nation’s constitution require that same-sex marriage be adopted nationwide, or is it ok just for some states to adopt same-sex marriage. I think the answer is, “yes,” because every citizen gay or straight, is guaranteed equal protection of the laws, according to the 14th Amendment.
Chairm: “But a wish is not a trump card for eligiblity (sic) to marry. It might be for the SSM idea, however.”
The only thing two people need now, to marry, is a desire to form a committed relationship. That is all. Nothing else is asked of them. Nothing else is expected of them.
“Why shouldn’t two men form a committed relationship under the SSM idea and still date women? Be specific.”
The same reason that a man who is married to a woman should not be dating other men nor women. This is pretty simple.
“However the conjugal type of relationship, as a subset of the two-sexed category, is intrinsically sexual. Its sexual basis is both deeply private and societally significant. The SSM idea lacks such a sexual basis and so it also lacks this this aspect which is both private and public at the same time.”
The SSM does NOT lack a sexual basis, any more than OSM. This is a baseless argument and, rather disrespectful to those same-sex couples who wish to marry.
“There is no evidence that SSM was ever accorded the special status of marriage in past civilizations. ”
Then try reading more because it is out there.
“That may serve the assertion of supremacy of gay identity politics, but in the marriage idea there is no straight bookend to match your emphasis on gayness”
I am sorry but this is a really ridiculous, pointless discussion. Your name calling, and dismissive behavior are not supportive of any argument you make nor do they disprove mine.
“SSMers have shown that the SSM idea is very different from the marriage idea. ”
Actually, you are incorrect once again. It is those who oppose SSM who claim it is a very different idea when, in fact, it isn’t.
“Meanwhile SSMers insist that gay identity, homosexual orientation, and same-sex sexual behavior are not legitimate for lawmaking; and yet that is their emphasis and the basis that rhetorically they demand the imposition of SSM on all of society.”
In fact, it is those who oppose SSM that are making it a gay issue.
“But not just that, they demand that the man-woman criterion of marriage be abolished not only from the law but also from the culture.”
Your doom and gloom false predictions are exactly why Prop 8 will be over turned. SSM does not destroy the idea of marriage, it does not affect anyone who is already married, it does not prohibit one man-one woman from marrying. None of that will take place.
Society places marriage in a special category, not just for the sake of children (which is the only thing people who oppose SSM seem to be able to discuss) but because it recognizes the uniqueness in two people committing their lives to each other.
“Such an extraordinary proposal (often stated as a demand that society would have no choice but to slavishly comply with) requires an extraordinary justification.”
If it was such a monumental change, one might expect a specific justification. But it is not. It is a cry to uphold the basic freedoms our Constitution dictates.
“Why should society replace the marriage idea with the SSM idea?”
Society isn’t going to replace marriage, just extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. Straight marriage isn’t going anyplace! I don’t know how that rumor got started, but let’s quash it here and now: straight couples will still be allowed to marry when gay couples get the right to marry.
This is the “marriage idea”:
The following categories of people may be issued a license to have sex, called “marriage”:
The people must be:
Living
Two in number
Unmarried
Humans
of Opposite Sex
Adults
Who are not closely related.
Any changes to the above list would both replace it and weaken it.
We reached a high point in the history of marriage with the laws of the Old Testament,
Jesus perfected our understanding of those laws by making God’s view of the permanence of marriage very explicit.
Our society has greatly weakened marriage with no-fault divorce.
The only change that needs to be made in our marriage laws is to make a marriage much more difficult for one party to dissolve.
Sean, there are transhumanist bioethicists out there proposing mandatory screening of parents for known inheritable diseases. Already people feel pressure to substitute better genes than there own to have children. Next, testing will have to be publicly funded for everyone, and after that it will be a crime to create someone from unscreened unmodified genes. How will we defend our right to use our own gametes with our spouse if our rights have been equated to a couple of the same sex who either do not have the right to use their own gametes, or do have the right to use their own gametes, but only if “their own gametes” is legally satisfied by being modified lab-created gametes that purport to pass on someone’s genes.
John Howard, I disagree with the “for instance” you gave me. But before I can respond in any depth, you explain WHY you think it should be a punishable offense. It’s impossible to refute an argument when you haven’t bothered to offer one.
I think Sean’s narrowing of what we are to consider here is appauling.
The Constitution is based on protecting our rights, it is formed of the people, for the people and by the people — what we think is best to encourage liberty.
Its when we consider the 77 items, and the needs of everyone around us that we step outside of our narrow perspectives and find real enlightenment.
Why do I say this? Because the constitution doesn’t say that same-sex marriage is a good thing, or even a needed thing, or that affirming that marriage has equal gender participation is somehow inequality. Nor does the 14th Amendment extend to relationships. But Sean thinks it does, not because it actually does, but because with those 77 items he needs something to try to trump them.
Well the Constitution doesn’t trump marriage, not the 77 items, nor does it even try to. It lets us figure out the best we can how to protect everyone’s rights. While many try to claim the constitution puts force in their argument by labeling what they want a “right”, it is up to us to determine what is really going on.
Ruth:
“Any changes to the above list would both replace it and weaken it.”
Can you explain how it would be weakened?
Sean, don’t you also want to quelch the idea that marriage is an institution that explicitely targets the needs, rights, and responsibilities of the procreative relationship?
Don’t you also want to quelch the idea that marriage equality is the equal recognition of the man, woman, and child they potentially have together?
Don’t you also want to quelch the idea that the man-woman relationship is capable of things that are not found in the same-sex relationship of any kind?
Don’t you also want to quelch the idea that integration (in this case the expectation of equal gender representation in marriage) is a solid expression of the 14th amendment?
Don’t you also want to quelch the idea that children have a right to be raised by their natural parents, to know their parentage and heritage?
Don’t you also want to promote the idea that anyone who feels that the natural family has any unique value to society to be explicitely encouraged, should be left to die a silent death as bigots?
Now that is an interesting charge, and when I asked Mark to explain it, check out this answer…
I don’t see how Mark’s fears of what I might have done or will do in the future can explain how what I said in a previous comment was, equates “’same-sex relationships’ to ‘same-sex couples'” 😀
Care to try again Mark?
It should be a punishable offense to effectively stop any doctors from attempting it, obviously. Trying to create offspring for two people of the same sex should be stopped because it is an unethical way to create a person and we should do everything we can to protect people from being created in unethical ways that might cause them harm and suffering. It would be very bad and costly for society to allow it, as it would certainly become a publicly funded entitlement and also require billions of dollars to regulate and test and control.
Sean, do you really think the 14th Amendment could have been ratified if it had been understood to create a right to same-sex marriage?
On Lawn: “I don’t see how Mark’s fears of what I might have done or will do in the future can explain how what I said in a previous comment was, equates “’same-sex relationships’ to ‘same-sex couples’”
Not a fear, On Lawn, just stating the obvious.
OK, I will answer On Lawn’s question: “Do you think there is any difference that the law should see in a same-sex relationship vs one that includes both genders?”
No, I do not see any difference that the law should see in a same-sex relationship (such as a mother-daughter pair) versus one that includes both genders (like a brother-sister pair).
“Sean, don’t you also want to quelch the idea that marriage is an institution that explicitely targets the needs, rights, and responsibilities of the procreative relationship?”
No, not at all. Marriage can both be what you want it to be, and what same-sex couples and their many supporters want it to be. You keep arguing as if straight marriage is going away. It’s not. For the straight couple, marriage can very much be about procreation and children and sugar and spice, etc. None of that changes when same-sex couples marry.
“Don’t you also want to promote the idea that anyone who feels that the natural family has any unique value to society to be explicitely encouraged, should be left to die a silent death as bigots?”
My goodness, it’s silliness like this that is so useful to the marriage equality side! I thank you for your assistance and wonder which side you’re really one! Are you a stealth SSMer?
“Sean, do you really think the 14th Amendment could have been ratified if it had been understood to create a right to same-sex marriage?”
No. Why?
Mark said that the reason that two men who form a committed relationship should not date women is … “The same reason that a man who is married to a woman should not be dating other men nor women.”
Look, Mark, instead of hedging, just state the reason.
And please clarify: do you mean to use the phrase “committed relationship” as code for SSM? If so, then, you are conceding that SSM lacks a sexual basis much less a sexual romantic basis. As such, the reason you’d have in mind cannot be the same as for the union of husband and wife.
Go ahead and show how the reason distinguishes SSM from nonmarriage, because “committed relationship” does not do the trick since it is not nearly as narrow as you might imagine. Much like the same-sex category, as you have already conceded.
If, as you claim, there is a sexual basis for commitment, and for all committed relationships, please elaborate.
If, as I anticipate, you intend to narrow the meaning of commitment, you might be more forthcoming. Why the shadow dance?
You have already conceded that there is no sexual basis, at law, for your SSM idea. That’s according to SSM argumentation (the boilerplate of which you have been using in your many comments) and according to your own concessions. If you deem that to be disrespectful, then, blame it own SSM argumentation and your own concessions.
For the record I will repeat that Mark’s sideways assertion about SSM in history is false.
Mark said, without substantive comment, “SSM does not destroy the idea of marriage, it does not affect anyone who is already married, it does not prohibit one man-one woman from marrying.”
The SSM idea, as you’re own comments have shown, is an idea in conflict with the marriage idea.
The SSM idea would have society treat all unions of husband and wife as if they lacked either husbands or wives. Such an imposition would indeed abolish the man-woman criterion in the law — that is the explicit goal of the SSM campaign and of your own argumentative comments.
Since the SSM idea does not distinguish SSM from nonmarriage, and you yourself have failed utterly on that score, the imposition would also fail to distinguish SSM from nonmarriage. Now, if you are going to depend on some unstated gay criterion to distinguish SSM from the rest of nonmarriage, how come you have yet to propose it as legally compulsory for all who’d show up to SSM? Indeed, you have already conceded that SSM, at law, would not make that mandatory.
You demand something that you don’t really believe in. That has come into sharper focus with each response you have made.
I said: ““Meanwhile SSMers insist that gay identity, homosexual orientation, and same-sex sexual behavior are not legitimate for lawmaking; and yet that is their emphasis and the basis that rhetorically they demand the imposition of SSM on all of society.”
Mark reacted: “In fact, it is those who oppose SSM that are making it a gay issue.”
Not according to the argumentation of the pro-SSM lawyers in courtrooms; not according to the HRC’s propaganda; not according to your own gay emphasis; not according to the few pro-SSM court opinions. My quote at the top of this comment is an accurate account of these sources.
Marty makes an excellent point when he posts: do you really think the 14th Amendment could have been ratified if it had been understood to create a right to same-sex marriage?
However, I believe time has eroded what American society once universally knew. We can and should clarify the issue with a federal DOMA amendment.
Chairm: “Look, Mark, instead of hedging, just state the reason.”
Because, as in marriage, dating outside of that relationship would be considered adultery.
“committed relationship” as code for SSM?
Just as people use committed relationship for OSM as well.
“If so, then, you are conceding that SSM lacks a sexual basis much less a sexual romantic basis.”
Chairm, wrong as always. SSM contains a sexual and romantic basis identical to OSM.
“Such an imposition would indeed abolish the man-woman criterion in the law — that is the explicit goal of the SSM campaign and of your own argumentative comments.”
Chairm, you are wrong on so many levels. And your fear (or hatred) is crystal clear. No one is abolishing anything. If, some how, for you the magic of what marriage is disappears because we allow gays and lesbians from exercising their equal rights, then I do not see how marriage really has any meaning for you. It is a fragile institution for you, I am sorry for you.
“You demand something that you don’t really believe in. ”
No, Chairm, it is your failure to open your eyes and your heart. Marriage is marriage whether it is between one man and one woman, one man and one man, or one woman and one woman. Nothing changes. Nothing. Except for those who would deny their fellow citizens equal access to a wonderful relationship.
“My quote at the top of this comment is an accurate account of these sources.”
Again, no Chairm. It is your insistence that it become a gay versus straight, only one can stand kind of situation, that even relates to a gay issue. And that is sad. You try to blame the victims in this setting, the very people who you wish to deny marriage. Very sad for you indeed, Chairm. And heartless.
For more of Mark’s views on “a wonderful relationship”, please see the discussion at:
https://ruthblog.org/page/5/
under “Marriage, ‘a difficult issue’” (September 8th 2010) comments #33 and #34 on page 2.
Well I think it’s great that marriage rights are being extended to same-sex couples and their children! Anything that strengthens families is good for the country. There’s nothing sacred about marriage that whatever traditional role it has can’t be extended. The beauty is that opposite-sex marriage and same-sex marriage can co-exist, as we’ve seen in the states that have marriage equality.
Ruth: First, the reference you make is on a different page now.
Second, I don’t see a comment about relationships on that posting that relates to the current posting.
Honestly, if you have a point to make, go ahead and make it and then we can all respond.
While I’m waiting for Rob Tisinai to check back on this thread, I’ll recap the exchange so far:
On Lawn asked Rob: “Here’s a question then. Do you think there is any difference that the law should see in a same-sex relationship vs one that includes both genders? Any difference at all?”
Rob replied: “On Lawn: Give me a for instance.”
On Lawn never replied to that at all, but I had a ready answer: “I’ll give you a “for instance,” Rob: Conception rights, the right to procreate offspring together using the couple’s own genes. The law should see a difference in whether the couple is allowed to attempt to procreate with their own genes or not. Trying to create offspring should be a punishable offense for two people of the same sex, but should always be approved and allowed for a man and woman (who must be at least eligible for marriage, and should be married to claim the right and approval).”
Rob replied: “John Howard, I disagree with the “for instance” you gave me. But before I can respond in any depth, you explain WHY you think it should be a punishable offense. It’s impossible to refute an argument when you haven’t bothered to offer one.”
I replied to that about thirteen comments up, and now hopefully Rob will respond in depth about why the law should not see any difference between same-sex and man-woman couples in terms of their conception rights.
On Lawn, feel free to participate, you asked the question after all. And everyone here, please weigh in! I think this new Congress could be the one that enacts the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise and ends same-sex marriage and genetic engineering.
I think she means, this comment of Mark’s describing a gay couple bringing twin toddlers, dressed in leather, to a S&M fetish festival as well as selling sex toys to what he considers to be a family event, “I believe a higher power would find it a wonderful expression of the human spirit”.
On Lawn:”I think she means, this comment of Mark’s describing a gay couple bringing twin toddlers, dressed in leather, to a S&M fetish festival as well as selling sex toys to what he considers to be a family event, “I believe a higher power would find it a wonderful expression of the human spirit”.”
Per the story, they were not “dressed in leather” but way to exaggerate, On Lawn. And On Lawn continues to take comments out of context. My comments were related to Gay Pride events. Of course, On Lawn is only interested in the sex toys, but there are many other cultural events which are family friendly at a Gay Pride event.
Mark, you can’t wave away what you said by making vague accusations about context or exaggeration.
Nice try though.
On Lawn: “Mark, you can’t wave away what you said by making vague accusations about context or exaggeration.”
Context is only important if truth is important. The context of the discussion was Gay Pride parades, not an “S&M fetish festival”. But, sadly, On Lawn is like the majority of the media which will ignore 95% of gay pride attendees (those in polos and shorts with kids in strollers) and concentrate on the 5% in drag and leather. If one looks for bad stuff, people will find it. Taking it out of context makes it sound worse than it is in reality. An example would be comparing Gay Pride to one of the amusement parks this time of year. Certain areas have horrible monsters and blood, not suited for small children. But the vast majority of the park is family friendly. On Lawn just chooses to see the small percentage of what could be deemed negative and overlook the vast amount of good. Sad way to go through life.
Mark: > The context of the discussion was Gay Pride parades, not an “S&M fetish festival”.
Actually, both were mentioned as the same context. Look again in comment #29…
You said in comment #32, “Yes, it might get out of control, but I believe a higher power would find it a wonderful expression of the human spirit.”
I even pointed to comment #29 with a link in comment #33 to give you another chance. But even then you re-iterated in comment #34 that same statement, “I believe a higher power would find it a wonderful expression of the human spirit.”
Mark: > which will ignore 95% of gay pride attendees (those in polos and shorts with kids in strollers) and concentrate on the 5% in drag and leather.
As I said…
Does that have anything to do with marriage?
On Lawn, why not give us a “for instance” and take part in the discussion your question prompted?
If you can’t think a reason to prohibit same-sex marriage, by all means, find a same-sex couples doing something unseemly. That will certainly help your case! And I’ll even bet that this particular couples isn’t even married, which begs the question, why point them out? You can’t say “they got married and immediately started taking their kids to potentially inappropriate venues…” or something. But smear, smear, smear.
And the anti-gay marriage folks INSIST it’s not because they don’t like gay people!
JH, you are on your own on that one.
Rob dodged a hypothetical question, as far as I’m concerned. He doesn’t need a for instance to answer if in principle he thinks there should by nothing uniquely recognized in what a couple can do that has both genders, or even that they bother to be a gender integrated couple, vs the sex-segregated couple.
He’s either willing to look at the discussion, or he’s avoiding it entirely.
I have no part in what you are doing though, and you know I have no support for your totalitarian agenda.
Mark conceded that there is no sexual basis for SSM law. Now he claims there is a sexual basis. Which is it, Mark?
I am still awaiting your stated reason that two men in a committed relaitonship should not date women. Committed relationship is not as narrow as you imagine — even within SSM argumentation and your own concessions.
Just state the supposedly sex-neutral reason for the “should” in your own statement. If you cannot, even in a third attempt, then, readers can fairly conclude that you do not know or are fearful of stating it openly.
Marriage is not code for committed relationship. Marriage is a type of relationship that is a subsert of the broader range of relaitonships that entail commitment, i.e. the category of committed relationship types most of which i neither sexual nor licensed nor accorded special status in our laws.
Mark is in a corner that he painted for himself.
Mark referred to adultery but that applies to the scenario of husband and wife and is depends on the same sexual basis as for the marital presumption of paternity, annulment, and consummation. It is an opposite-sexed basis that is inapplicable to the one-sexed scenario — sexualized or not.
Mark, state the sexual basis for you attempt to apply adultery to an all-male or an all-female arrangement. Is that baisis identical to both male and female? Is that basis identical to the union of husband and wife, nope.
Whatever that basis might be, in your view of things that is, what is the societal significance of that basis, if any?
By saying — the same as it is for the union of husband and wife — you don’t provide an answer. By saying, adultery, you don’t give an answer. You need to be far more specific given your attempted equivalence.
Mark, you are obviously against the man-woman criterion in marriage law. The SSM idea stands against it. The SSM campaign goes to courtrooms and argues against it. Pro-SSM court opinions deem such a criterion in the law to be unconstitutional and you support such opinions.
You favor the abolition of that criterion. You are against the sexual basis of the marriage idea and instead favor the SSM idea which has no sexual basis at law. You claim there is a sexual basis, even though you concede there is none in the law, and so you are running head-on into your own rules of argumentation as per your infertility strawman argument and as per you repeated assertions against the centrality of responsible procreation in the marriage law.
If it is not mandatory, it is not constitutional, according to you.
If it can and does occur outside of the licensed arrangement, it is not constitutional, according to you.
Gayness, same-sex sexual attraction, same-sex romance, and same-sex sexual behavior are not legitimate points for lawmaking, according to you.
So what is left to distinguish SSM from nonmarriage? Even within your own argumentation and concessions, there is nothing there. Hence you do not really believe in that which you promote. A same-sex sexual basis for something that does not distinguish, at law, SSM from nonmarriage.
Earlier Mark conceded that the marriage law does not include a gay criterion for ineligiblity, yet his own gay emphasis reads into the law the gay-straight dichotomy. He is at fault for the fault he perceives in the law. Not I nor the marriage law.
Frankly, what SSMers demand is that the law no longer recognize the special reason for the special status of the social institution of marriage. This means abolishing that reason from the legal system. And that means destroying, at law, the core meaning of marriage around which boundaries are drawn and justified. The special status of marriage thus becomes unsustainable except through the exercise of arbitrary governmental power. And that, supposedly, is the central complaint that SSMers have against the special reason for the special status of marriage in our laws.
They are against the special reason and thus against the special status. They are against the core of marriage and thus against the justification for the lines of eligiblity/ineligiblity drawn around marriage.
They offer the SSM idea as the substitute. The only permissable substitute, they insist, because it is sex-neutral and pro-gay. That means that they pluck the gay subset out of the nonmarriage category even as they offer no sexual basis for sustaining special status for the SSM idea. They offer no special reason, apart from favoritism for gay identity politics, to do any of this meddling with marriage law. Equal treatment of citizens does not necessitate the abolition of the core meaning of marriage from our laws; SSMers insist that the core meaning of marriage — what they deem to be hateful and bigoted (see recent comments from SSMers above) — must be abolished from the culture and the law is the means by which to enforce this totalitarian view of “committed relationships”.
The entrenchment of gay idenitity politics — the assertion of the supremacy on that basis — cannot be but an unjust imposition on all of society. Given the very low participation rates in SSM, under whatever name and wherever imposed, and the high rates of dissolution, SSMers can only really believe in the symbolism, not the actual delivery of SSM to the gay portion of the population, as empowering the Government to dismantle the foundational social institution of civil society.
That institution was not created by Government nor is it owned by Government. But SSM argumentation depends on such a totalitarian view of civil society’s nongovernmental institutions. There is no just way to reconcile Government ownership of the social institution’s foundational basis. Yet SSM argumentation depends on attacking the core meaning of marriage as somehow beyond the limits of Government to favor, on behalf of society. A prominent way in which this attack occurs is evident in the infertility strawman argument and in how the imagined solutions to such a strawman argument, as per SSMer’s own words, is to assume that Government owns each and every union of husband and wife. This is how the SSMer can propose that Government force a husband-wife to procreate or force a husband-wife to seperate and so forth.
In the name of false equality the SSM campaign demands Government intervention to impose a gay-straight dichotomy. But there would be no gay criterion for eligibility. Well, there is no gay criterion for ineligilbity under the man-woman basis of marriage law. So it is not really about making something mandatory nor is it really about forcing people to do this or that to earn marital status; the SSM campaign is really about forcing all of society, no exceptions, to comply with the assertion of the supremacy of identity politics of the gaycentric variety. And that goes further than marriage law, but marriage is the lever they hope to appropriate.
If there was a special reason for the special status of the one-sexed “committed relationship”, the SSMers would have stated that reason in discussions and have enacted a compulsory requirement for that in SSM law — or proposed such an enactment here in our discussions. They have not.
And that shows the argumentation is phony but the intent is totalitarian.
Please note: SSMers have railed against the very notion of lawmaking based on concerns for proportionality. They say that unless 100% of marriages procreate, and unless 100% of marriages are fertile, and so forth, that society may not empower government to favor a social institution on the basis of responsible procreation. So SSMers cannot now argue that the ‘same-sex’ category is a good enough proxy for ‘same-sex sexualized relationships’ — nor argue that they imagine that most in the same-sex category who’d wish for the license and special status are ‘gay”. Most is not good enough, according to SSM argumentation, but 100% would meet their rules of what is and is not legitimate for lawmaking.
Neither can they argue that there is a sexual basis for SSM since there is no proposal, and indeed no provision, that would make same-sex sexual behavior mandatory for those who’d show up for the license. Likewise, no 100% guarantee for same-sex sexual attraction or even same-sex romance. None of that shows up in SSM law — neither enacted, imposed, nor proposed.
Marriage is a subset of the types of relationships and arrangements that are in the opposite-sexed category. It is not definitive of that category. And vice versa.
SSM is the same-sex category. There is nothing to distinguish SSM from the rest of that category. And the same-sex category is a subset of the nonmarriage category. This subset includes no gay criterion. Indeed, the vast majority of the broad range of nonmarriage is comprised of people who SSMers would classify as straight, heterosexual, or eligible under the SSM idea to get a license and the status they seek for SSM.
Marriage does not organize society by identity politics. It was unjust for Government to organize society, via marriage, by racialist identity politics and it would be no less unjust (even if temporarily perceived as more benign) to organize society through the misuse of marriage law to impose the supremacy of gay identity politics. The marriage law today, with the man-woman criterion, does not organize society by ‘straight’ identity politics. SSMers need to fabricate a false ‘straight’ bookend for their avowed devotion to gay identity politics and their open demand that gayness be the point for lawmaking even as they complain that they perceive gayness to be an illegitimate point of the current marriage law.
If gay identity politics is so meritorious as to require society to defer to it in our laws and in our culture, then, SSMers need to make a much stronger case for this imposition on all of society. This is clearly not about equality of citizens but rather about asserting a false equivalence on relationship types and about asserting the supremacy of the SSM idea over the marriage idea.
Thusfar, SSMers have failed, utterly, to show how the SSM idea is superior to the marriage idea. And, just like their retreat to from making a moral argument in favor of same-sex sexual behavior (and thus their running away from the moral argument in favor of the sexual basis for the union of husband and wife), SSMers pretend that there is no conflict between the SSM idea and the marriage idea — and insist that the SSM idea is morally neutral and thus no moral argument may be used in lawmaking.
To fill the obvious gap in SSM argumentation, SSMers resort to throwing moral dynamite that they borrow from the racialist comparison. Yet it is the SSM campaign which is the racialist analogue since they insist on pressing identity politics into marriage law and in asserting the supremacy over all of society on that basis. They have yet to refute the legal reasoning of the Loving decision, for example, in which white identity politics was deemed unconstitutional.
On Lawn, is my “totalitarian agenda” banning creating people from modified genes? You prefer to keep same-sex procreation legal? Or just genetic engineering? What you don’t understand is that if those things are left legal, and if we don’t protect the right of every marriage to procreate using the couple’s own genes, then eventually we will have a giant government agency regulating and controlling everyone’s reproduction. Not to mention we will waste billions of dollars and megatons of oil fueling the Transhumanist agenda. Transhumanism may seem like Libertarian Utopia right now, but it would very quickly become Totalitarianism, and what at first would be “voluntary” genetic engineering would eventually become mandatory.
My agenda is not Totalitarian, even though it is based on a federal law that bans genetic engineering of people. That law is needed to preserve reproductive freedom and human equality and limited government, as well as marriage. You do want to preserve marriage, right?
I think you should be able to provide a “for instance” to your rhetorical question, otherwise, it seems to me you’re out of the game, you lose.
1) CU’s, RB’s and DP’s are examples where same-sex marriage is endorsed rather than prohibited. Also no state prohibits same-sex couples living their lives in their own belief of what marriage is. Sean’s assertion that same-sex marriage is prohibited/illegal/banned has been debunked. I wonder why he persists in it? Last Saturday I wrote at Opine Editorials about what marriage neuterists don’t know or don’t understand won’t hurt them. They persist in these because they have to, denial — even when it is obvious — is better than admitting the other side is right. This weekend, I intend to follow up with a similar piece, what they know to be true which isn’t. This one is already on that list
2) Funny Mark said it wasn’t unseemly, he found it a wonderful expression. And that is the point. When it is a normal family, it is unseemly, but there are some which think that it all of a sudden is okay in the context of same-sex marriage normalizing homosexuality.
3) This is an example of gay preference, of endorsing what otherwise is considered not a family event just because when we neuter marriage for the sake of homosexuality, the homosexual culture is the new norm.
“Sean’s assertion that same-sex marriage is prohibited/illegal/banned has been debunked.”
Legal same-sex marriage was legal in both Maine and California, and was banned by the voters. I know you really, REALLY want to pretend that same-sex marriage is legal everywhere, but the fact (and seriously, one does need to use facts as SOME point in one’s argument!) is, it isn’t.
“They persist in these because they have to, denial — even when it is obvious — is better than admitting the other side is right.”
Right about what? Not one argument has been made for why same-sex marriage should be outlawed. I get it, you want to just declare victory and go home. Be my guest.
“CU’s, RB’s and DP’s are examples where same-sex marriage is endorsed rather than prohibited. Also no state prohibits same-sex couples living their lives in their own belief of what marriage is.”
That makes a lot of sense: civil union et al. exist because same-sex marriage should? Um, that medical marijuana was supposed to be for medical not recreational use.
And no, same-sex couples don’t get legal protections when they “pretend” to be married, any more than straight couples (or little girls with pillow cases for bridal attire) do if they don’t possess the all-important marriage license. Pretending to be married may work for those not playing with a full deck, or perhaps those abusing medical marijuana.
“This weekend, I intend to follow up with a similar piece, what they know to be true which isn’t.”
OMG, I’m shaking in my boots! She’s on to me! I’m stating truths and she’s going to expose me! Oh the public humiliation! I’m just relieved my mother is no longer alive to watch me stain the family name with my truth-telling!
“This is an example of gay preference, of endorsing what otherwise is considered not a family event just because when we neuter marriage for the sake of homosexuality, the homosexual culture is the new norm.”
You need help. Professional help. Any “preference” for gays is only in the context that THEY’RE THE ONES BEING DENIED THEIR CIVIL RIGHTS! Straight people can already get married! When women demanded the right to vote, they weren’t asking for preference or “special rights,” as the anti-gay crowd calls it. When black people demanded their civil rights, it wasn’t in order to give them preference or special rights. You are so trapped by your Straight Supremacy convictions you can’t see straight (pun intended).
“when we neuter marriage for the sake of homosexuality”
No, we’re neutering marriage for the sake of our nation’s constitution, for equality for tax-paying, law-abiding American citizens, for the children of these citizens and to diminish the homophobia that leads to violence aimed at, and self-destruction of, America’s gay people.
Chairm: “I am still awaiting your stated reason that two men in a committed relaitonship should not date women.”
Check my post from November 1st, 2010 at 20:20 | #37. There is a clear answer. Sorry you somehow missed it. Maybe it’s because all of your postings are several pages long and you just aren’t paying attention to details.
Chairm: “Mark, state the sexual basis for you attempt to apply adultery to an all-male or an all-female arrangement. Is that baisis identical to both male and female? Is that basis identical to the union of husband and wife, nope.
Whatever that basis might be, in your view of things that is, what is the societal significance of that basis, if any?”
Marriage is marriage, whether OSM or SSM. The rules still apply. Funny that you would be arguing that they shouldn’t apply to SSM and that marriage should somehow be altered.
Chairm :”SSMers have railed against the very notion of lawmaking based on concerns for proportionality. They say that unless 100% of marriages procreate, and unless 100% of marriages are fertile, and so forth, that society may not empower government to favor a social institution on the basis of responsible procreation.”
In your pages of writing you claim marriage is not code for a committed relationship. It is simply one man, one woman for the sake of procreation, nothing more. That is Chairm’s definition of marriage. That is why Chairm feels it’s OK to discriminate against US citizens and deny them their equal rights since they do not meet that criteria. So, Chairm defeats his own argument by arguing that procreation should not be 100%. If it is an ESSENTIAL portion of your definition of marriage (one that denies US citizens of equality), why do you say it doesn’t have to be 100%? And if it doesn’t have to be 100%, then why discriminate against gays and lesbians?
Chairm: “They have yet to refute the legal reasoning of the Loving decision, for example, in which white identity politics was deemed unconstitutional.”
Because anti-gay politics is just as unconstitutional. Discrimination is wrong in a country of equality.
On Lawn: “Funny Mark said it wasn’t unseemly, he found it a wonderful expression. And that is the point. When it is a normal family, it is unseemly, but there are some which think that it all of a sudden is okay in the context of same-sex marriage normalizing homosexuality.”
On Lawn misses the point …. again. Sean indicated that On Lawn was making something seem unseemly. Of course, On Lawn had to lie and take comments out of context to try to prove this falsehood. Gay and lesbian families are normal families. And, straight or gay, I think if a child has a reasonable adult around them to explain the world, there are very few unseemly things. It’s just life. But, if some parents wish to lock their children away, shelter them from the real world, refuse to answer their questions – that, unfortunately, is a parent’s prerogative. I find it dishonest to the child. Children can be exposed to a whole host of situations and, if explained in an age-appropriate way, they are fine and probably better for the experience.
Mark: “Because anti-gay politics is just as unconstitutional. Discrimination is wrong in a country of equality.”
Not if there is a supportable basis for the discrimination, such as “you can’t marry a sibling because it may lead to birth defects and harm family order” or, “you can’t marry someone already married to someone else because they have made legal commitments, and lead to legal confusion, and it would decrease security and morality and good order if we allowed that,” or “people under 16 are too young to bear children”, and “children have a right to be born to committed and consenting adults in ethical circumstances, so you can’t .” The Loving decision specifically refers to the “insupportable basis” of maintaining a system of racial classifications and white supremacy.
The fact that humans are sexual animals and reproduce in male-female pairs, creating offspring by equally mixing the couple’s genes but always gestating the offspring by the female, is not comparable to the “insupportable basis” of racial classification. Richard and Mildred Loving did not have to have genetically modified gametes created for them by a lab, costing society Billions of dollars in research and regulation and litigation and using up billions of barrels of our remaining oil and spewing tons of greenhouse gasses to carry out the research necessary to conceive a baby together. Inter-racial couples could create perfectly healthy offspring together using unmodified genes, the problem was that they created interracial babies. It was the racial categories themselves which were irrational and insupportable, not the idea of prohibiting unethical procreation.
Mark, please state the sexual basis for adultery, within your view of SSM/marriage. What might an all-male or an all-female arrangement do sexually that would prompt socieyt to license it and provide it a special status? Be specific. Be explicit. Or drop the claim as SSMers typically do.
There is no sexual basis in the law of SSM anyplace it has been enacted or imposed or proposed. Certainly nothing that would merit special status or even licensing.
Mark misrepresents:
“It is simply one man, one woman for the sake of procreation, nothing more. That is Chairm’s definition of marriage.”
You have participated in discussions here in which I have been clear that the key is that to which consent (and commitment) is given; see sex integration and provision for responsible procreation — combined as a coherent whole — at the core of the social institution of marriage. Not only is the particular husband-wife duo committed to all that marriage entails, by their own volition, but society also commits to this core meaning. The marital presumption of paternity is part and parcel of the marriage commitment; its sexual basis is inapplicable to to the entire one-sexed category of relaitonship types (sexualized or not, gay or not) since there is no sexual basis to presume that a man impregnates another man nor that a woman has been impregnated by another woman. Also the unitive aspect of marriage — the integration of complementary sexes — is inseperable from responsible procreation and so this combination fits the opposite-sexed category of which only a subset is the union of husband and wife. The boundaries for eligiblity and ineligiblity exist; they are justified by this core meaning of marriage; society responds to that core meaning and draws the lines to express a sustainable commitment to the social institution, to the husband-wife duos who enter into it, and to the birthright of each child to know, and to be known by, the mom-dad duo who created her. The provision for responsible procreation is enbedded in the law and it is one of the most vigorously enforced maritla provisions. It is not, contrary to SSMers, a mandate from Government that would force each and every union of husband and wife to procreate; it is an explicit provision for responsible procreation, not forced or coerced procreation.
Mark scratches his head:
“Chairm defeats his own argument by arguing that procreation should not be 100%. If it is an ESSENTIAL portion of your definition of marriage (one that denies US citizens of equality), why do you say it doesn’t have to be 100%? And if it doesn’t have to be 100%, then why discriminate against gays and lesbians?”
1. That is not my argument nor is the 100% rule my rule. It is your strawman argument and it is certainly your 100% rule. You cannot deny this, Mark, for you have just invoked it again.
2. The social institution has a core meaning that distinguishes it from other stuff. People enter into this institution. They do not enter to some vague “committed relationship”; commitment is entailed in other stuff than marriage, afterall, so your core for the SSM idea is so ambiguous that you still have not distinguished SSM from nonmarriage.
3. Any social institution will have a core meaning, essentials, a definition (to use your term). Just because the SSM idea lacks this does not mean that the marriage idea must be dumbed down to lack this.
4. This core meaning does deny eligiblity to opposite-sexed arrangements. Yes, Mark, even those arrangements which are comprised of heterosexual participants. Yes, Mark, even arrangements in which the participants form a committed relationship, share love and caretaking, and even raise children together. The sexual basis for marriage has strong bearing on eligiblity; as does the societal significance of sex integration. The SSM idea has nothing that comes near to the societal interest in the core of marriage. Your own comments have illustrated this over and over again.
5. Marital status is unconditional; when people enter marriage they say, I do, to all that marriage entails, including its sexual basis (which is societally significant because of sex integration and because of the provision for responsible procreation and because these are combined as a coherent whole which is foundaitonal to civilization). The man-woman criterion is a legal requirement you wish to abolish; the provision for responsible procreation is a target of your scorn because it does not fit the one-sexed arrangement at all. But these legal aspects, for starters, clearly have far more weight and substance than your vague notions. Each is vigorously enforced; each justifies the boundaries for eligilbity/ineligiblity; each is how society responds to the two-sexed nature of humankind, the opposite-sexed nature of human procreation, and the both-sexed nature of human community. It has been so for millennia and for good reason. It has zilch to do with gayness.
6. You insist on 100% enforcement and so you can answer your own question about the lack of even a nod in the law that inquires about gayness for SSM. There is nothing in laws for SSM that remotely require same-sex sexual feelings, same-sex romance, same-sex sexual behavior, and cergtainly not proof of membership in the gay identity group. That lack does not withstand your own rules of argumentation; and that is ironic given that your gay emphasis is so lightweight when it comes to translating it into actual law governing SSM.
In other words, the core of marriage is well expressed in marriage law; there is no core of SSM so no attempt is even made to express it in law. The enforcement of the core of marriage is about as strong as can be in a social institution that is not regulated by a totalitariana regime — a regime that you imagine only as a way of attacking marriage itself. Your tactic is simply to insist that since we do not have a totalitarian regime in which the Government owns each and every marriage, well, then, this proves that marriage is meaningless.
I say that because you have yet to offer meaning to what you’ve called “same-sex marriage” and which you imagine to be identical to the marriage idea.
Mark you clearly rely on a gay emphasis. This not because there is a gay criterion for ineligilbity. You have conceded that no such criteiron exists in the law. But you want to pretend that there is societal significance to whatever an all-male or an all-female arrangement might do sexually — hence your gay emphasis since you conflate gay with same-sex sexual attraction and so forth.
But what is that societal significance? It is hardly foundational. Each one-sexed arrangement lacks the other sex, by design, so it is not sex-integrative but rather sex-segregative. It certainly is not a contingency for procreation via sexual activity within that arrangement.
You cannot argue that same-sex sexual behavior is morally meritorious so the default is to claim moral neutrality. But that would stand against society according preferential treatment for an arrangement that is supposedly homosexual — or to use your conflation, gay. Yet that is your emphasis, again, despite the lack of justification, in your own arguments, for special status based on same-sex sexual feelings, behavior, romance, and all the rest.
So what is left, Mark, to support society, through government, licensing a sex-neutral type of arrangement that lacks a sexual basis at law? Identity politics. And your way of asserting it is to claim superiority over the marriage law, the social institution, the special reason for its special status, and even over the constitutional jurisprudence at the highest levels. Indeed, your comments boildown to the gay radicals denying justice and emphasizing “just us”.
Mark the more you dodge the more clearly your concessions demonstrate that your ommissions are weak attempts to defend the indefensible.
John Howard: “Not if there is a supportable basis for the discrimination”
True, but that’s exactly what Prop 8 case showed, no supportable basis for discriminating against same-sex couples.
Chairm: “Mark, please state the sexual basis for adultery, within your view of SSM/marriage. ”
It is the same for SSM couples as it it for OSM couples.
Adultery: voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than his or her lawful spouse.
“What might an all-male or an all-female arrangement do sexually that would prompt socieyt (sic) to license it and provide it a special status?”
Marriage is not just about sex. Is that all you think it is Chairm? The very fact that two people wish to get marry is all that is important. What they do (or don’t do) sexually is really none of societies concern.
“Certainly nothing that would merit special status or even licensing.”
Then don’t get a same-sex marriage, Chairm. It obviously isn’t for you. But these questions are just ridiculous. All of the things you asked about SSM can be asked about opposite sex marriage and, with the exception of procreation, there are no specific answers for OSM any more than there are for SSM. We have an institution in society called marriage. There are numerous rights and benefits that go along with that institution. It is wrong to deny this relationship to some of our fellow US citizens because you feel there is no merit.
Chairm: “What might an all-male or an all-female arrangement do sexually that would prompt society to license it and provide it a special status?”
Create offspring together, specifically by hiring a lab to make stem-cell derived opposite-sexed gametes for one of them. This would be adultery if either partner was married to someone else.
“They do not enter to some vague “committed relationship””
I gotta ask, Chairm, exactly how to YOU know why some couples get married and others don’t? Since when does motivation play a role in determining who may marry and who may not?
“Any social institution will have a core meaning, essentials, a definition (to use your term). Just because the SSM idea lacks this does not mean that the marriage idea must be dumbed down to lack this.”
Says who, you?! Ha ha. I think you’re still evading the primary issue: there’s nothing about opposite-sex marriage that precludes same-sex couples from getting married.
“This core meaning does deny eligiblity to opposite-sexed arrangements.”
Exactly, and explains why same-sex couples are free to marry: no worries about pregnancy!
1) And still is with DP’s and CU’s.
2) False, see 1.
3) And even where there aren’t DP’s or CU’s their relationships are not prosecuted or made illegal in any way. Sean can disprove this with facts like, a same-sex couple was prosecuted for living together or having a wedding ceremony, or creating a domestic contract between them.
4) Note Sean’s comment is (I’ll bet) intentionally devoid of facts, while mine references current laws, and real situations that can be verified. Sean has only the persistence of his bigotry.
Just as I said
Note the acknowledgement of the “declare victory and go home” tactic. He who checks behind the door, checks where he hid once before…
But Sean is right if he really is saying that declaring victory is not the same thing as showing it. But then Sean can’t show any such thing either
Funny Sean talks about marijuana use, as well as being drunk while posting … all along the same lines
Little girls with pillow cases don’t get CU’s or DP’s either
Truths? Sometimes, sure. But the real problem are the things that aren’t true, which you have asserted are true. Nothing new to people here, but it is good to compile these every now and then. Can you guess which comment I’ll be using for that basis? I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t on this forum.
Yeah, yeah, we know and have debunked your claims alread. In the mean time, bringing it back to the subject. Mark has said that you don’t think that act was really unseemly, I just made it seem that way.
So what is your take? How would you answer the questionable circumstances that Mark said was a beautiful expression? Was it unseemly in your eyes?
On Lawn: “And even where there aren’t DP’s or CU’s their relationships are not prosecuted or made illegal in any way. ”
Continues the mis-perceptions and out right lies. Same-sex marriage is illegal in most states. For the final time, just because something is not prosecuted does NOT mean it is not illegal. Even a 1st grader knows the difference.
“Mark has said that you don’t think that act was really unseemly, I just made it seem that way.”
On Lawn’s inability to read and comprehend is astounding. Please, if you want to lie, On Lawn, keep it up but quit telling lies regarding me.
OnLawn: the gift that keeps on giving.
Marriage is not equal to civil union. A civil union is not marriage.
Now take a DEEP breath: same-sex marriage was legal in California. That’s how 18,000 same-sex couples were able to get married. Not civilly joined, not domestically partnered, but MARRIED. You with me so far?! Californians voted to take away the right to marry of same-sex couples. That’s how same-sex marriage was banned in California. Whew.
“But then Sean can’t show any such thing either”
Sean has clearly demonstrated why same-sex marriage will be adopted across much of, if not all, the land:
1. There’s no rational public interest in prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying.
2. There is much rational public interest in legalizing same-sex marriage
a. Constitutional equal protection guarantees; respect for our nation’s laws
b. The welfare of children raised by same-sex couples: married parents are better than non-married parents, ceteris paribus
c. The need to reduce the homophobic mentality in the country
3. The dishonesty and homophobia of the anti-gay marriage groups and people is so off-putting to normal, decent folks that many will support same-sex marriage just to neutralize the religionists and the conservatives
“But the real problem are the things that aren’t true, which you have asserted are true.”
What’s an example of this?
Seventy-seventh!
Nice one, John!
Are you sure it is the final time?
You have a good way of bringing up things that have no bearing on whether or not I’m still right. No relationship is prosecuted or made illegal in any way
You can call it a lie, if you want to make false accusations, but you can’t refute it is true.
And again, Mark is so afraid of me showing I’m right, he doesn’t even stick his neck out far enough to say what is the lie in that statement
He’s just doing more vague handwaving again.
Civil Unions are a form of same-sex marriage.
1) False. Sean has ignored, rather than refuted, that responsible procreation as found by numerous courts across the land is such a rational purpose. He ignores what he can’t refute
2) Justifying Civil Unions and other types of same-sex marriage.
3) Hence Sean’s anti-religious animus is showing. There are a lot of anti-religious folks out there looking for a divisive issue such as this to punish their enemies…
Its coming on Saturday, but you’ve mentioned a few of them in your list above
“Civil Unions are a form of same-sex marriage.”
How so?
“Sean has ignored, rather than refuted, that responsible procreation as found by numerous courts across the land is such a rational purpose. He ignores what he can’t refute”
What Sean has explained, time and again, is that now that courts are demanding evidence for marriage discrimination, folksy claims about procreation are no longer the “free pass” they once were. The Massachusetts court rejected it, the Connecticut court rejected it, the Iowa court rejected it and every dissension by a state that let a discriminatory marriage statute stand mentioned it. What purpose, if any, “responsible procreation” serves and whatever it means, it in no way limits the equal rights of gay citizens.
“Justifying Civil Unions and other types of same-sex marriage.”
Keep saying it…it will become true! I applaud your support for civil unions. They are the “gateway drug” to same-sex marriage. Most everyone else has figured this out, and is skipping them and moving directly to same-sex marriage. But have at it!
“Sean’s anti-religious animus is showing”
Works for me. Religion’s homophobia is well on display and my point was, payback is a b*tch. The country’s backlash against catholic and Mormon support for homophobia is a joy to behold. Who knew that religions would reveal their hates so plainly, even when it tarnishes their own reputations! Religion destroyed from within…..a dream come true!
CU’s, DP’s and RB’s, mind you. They were created to give same-sex couples a way to have their marriages recognized by the state, and have been used by same-sex couples to do that ever since they were created.
Notice Sean hasn’t refuted the evidence, he simply ignored it citing courts that have agreed with his point of view (which, in turn simply ignored the evidence themselves).
1) It isn’t a free pass, it is a humanitarian goal to promote taking adequate responsibility when procreating, to ensure equal recognition of the rights and responsibilities of the man, woman, and child they potentially have together.
2) Note, Sean’s citing of “every dissent”.
3) Which is why gay citizens have the choice of joining in responsible procreation with a member of the other gender in marriage, or forming their own system under CU’s, DP’s or RB’s, or private contracts. You don’t need to neuter marriage to provide equality — marriage already expects and promotes equality in how children are procreated.
1) It was true even before I said anything
2) Sean just admitted that Civil Unions were a comprimise given in bad faith. Notice he calls it a gateway drug. How can you trust Sean’s opinion of the grand ramifications of what neutering marriage will do, if he is always looking for gateway drugs to bigger and larger and worse injustices against civilization?
3) I would be happy to give up on Civil Unions also, except for the non-gay and gay same-sex couples who really could use recognition of their mutual trust and commitment.
Enough said.
On Lawn: “No relationship is prosecuted or made illegal in any way”
Sorry, On Lawn, you are just crazy. Same sex marriage is ILLEGAL in most states of the US. You can lie about all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that you are wrong.
“Mark is so afraid of me showing I’m right, he doesn’t even stick his neck out far enough to say what is the lie in that statement”
On Lawn is wrong SO often (in fact, always) that it is rather heartless to constantly point it out.
The amount of disinformation on this thread and others I’ve read here is why I’ve come to believe blogs generally open form comments are a bad thing.
@On Lawn: Civil Unions, Domestic Partnerships and Reciprocal Benefits arrangements are not the same as marriages — on that, Sean and Mark are absolutely correct. That is why I’m in favor of allowing some recognition of such arrangements so long as they are open to individuals who are not in sexual relationships at all as well as anyone else.
@Sean and Mark: Only individuals of the opposite sex can marry. It is the very nature of marriage that one of the parties must be a male and the other a female. Saying that does not make other arrangements (CU, DP or RB) second-class. Marriage is and always has been the joining together of two individuals who are capable of engaging in the sexual act by which children are naturally procreated. Engaging in that act, indeed, was historically considered to be the consummation of the marriage, that is, the last act needed to complete the marriage. Failure to engage in the act, whether by volition or by inability, meant the marriage had not been completed and, so, was subject to a declaration of annulment, that is, that no marriage had taken place.
All the governments of the world can “recognize” same-sex unions as “marriages” but that doesn’t make them marriages. What you ask for is impossible to grant to you. If same-sex unions are called “marriages” then the word “marriage” ceases to mean what it has historically meant. It becomes a label for something entirely different. You’ll have something which we will then call “marriage” but it will be fundamentally and essentially different from what marriage has always been. The distinction which the word once was used to signify will still exist and heterosexual couples will still have a fundamentally and essentially different relationship from homosexual couples even if we pretend otherwise by purging our language of the word used to label to former’s relationships and engaging in the legal fiction that the two are the same, we just will no longer have a word to describe the distinct nature of heterosexual unions. Our law and our language will be the poorer for it, or rather, we will be the poorer for lacking a word and a legal recognition for something that is distinct from other unions. In the end, what you ask for is that society delude itself.
To say this is not to be cruel or fearful of anyone (Sean, you make yourself look like a petulant child by constantly insisting that those who disagree with you on this are homophobic), it is merely to state the facts. Whatever we may say, whatever laws we may enact, whatever words we may define, the distinction historically recognized at law and in our language will remain. Nature is not subject to our whims or self-induced delusions. And nature will, over the long sweep of history, prevail. Men may willingly delude themselves for a season, but nature will not be ignored. This season of delusion will pass. And so, while I resist the effort, I’m not overly concerned about it because I’m confident that my descendants will some day again come to their senses. Every age has its delusions and fights against nature, this appears about to become one of ours.
You all may now go back to using this thread and the others on this site to post your disinformation and to call me names like some schoolyard boys because I don’t agree with your goals and won’t surrender my intellect to your delusions. The Ruth Institute really should close its blog posts to comments, not giving space to the big lies, but that’s its choice, not mine.
On Lawn: “[CU’s, DP’s and RB’s] were created to give same-sex couples a way to have their marriages recognized by the state, and have been used by same-sex couples to do that ever since they were created.”
No, they were created to give same-sex couples a way to have some of the rights and protections and benefits of marriage. Marriage is a legal status of being approved by society to conceive offspring together. No state has considered the possibility of same-sex conception, let alone approved of it.
On Lawn is obsessed with anarchy, he opposes laws and thinks that the government should not prohibit any couples from conceiving children together. I am not sure if he thinks siblings can get married, of if their marriages are illegal. I am also not sure why he opposes same-sex marriage, or even if he does. Does he have a goal in mind, and a plan to achieve it?
Greg: “All the governments of the world can “recognize” same-sex unions as “marriages” but that doesn’t make them marriages”
So then what does make a marriage? You do define it this way: “Marriage is and always has been the joining together of two individuals who are capable of engaging in the sexual act by which children are naturally procreated”
In other words, you are back to excluding the elderly and the infertile as well from marriage.
“Our law and our language will be the poorer for it, or rather, we will be the poorer for lacking a word and a legal recognition for something that is distinct from other unions”
I think it’s well worth it to allow all citizens to have equal rights.
“I’m not overly concerned about it because I’m confident that my descendants will some day again come to their senses. ”
I am glad because your descendants will see this issue as we now see interracial marriage.
“The Ruth Institute really should close its blog posts to comments, not giving space to the big lies, but that’s its choice, not mine.”
I am sorry that you would be happier to only hear from those who support your position. It really is a rather narrow view of the world.
Don’t worry Greg, you and I are in agreement there. I’ll post more on that later, just understand that a “form of marriage” means it isn’t the same as marriage. But it is same-sex marrage, and I can prove it.
Here is a list from the ACLU…
That list describes what the ACLU would consider a “Domestic Partnership”. I’d argue with you that number 4 is not relevant, and there is no reason such an arrangement has to be intimate. But they do use the term “marry” in describing that union.
I can also pull out many news articles that show where passing DP’s or CU’s was headlined as passing gay marriage. I can show where Evan Wolfson considers DP’s and CU’s to be same-sex marriage, and because of that he wants people to stop using that term.
It is amazing that with just a few years of historical context the treachery of the gay marriage movement is clear. To say that DP’s and CU’s are same-sex marriage, to now saying it is outlawed in the very states that created them, is part of the con-game they are playing.
Again, I’ll agree that CU’s and DP’s work best as a recognition of domestic mutual trust, but to say that same-sex marriage is illegal in states that have CU’s and DP’s is completely wrong.
Nope, he didn’t show anything verifiable in that statement either. He’s obviously afraid to do so.
Just as I said
“CU’s, DP’s and RB’s, mind you. They were created to give same-sex couples a way to have their marriages recognized by the state, and have been used by same-sex couples to do that ever since they were created.”
Thank you! And unless you can think of a substantial way to make them different, and actually a rational reason to do so, the courts will through them out, in favor of non-discriminatory marriage. It’s already happening.
“It isn’t a free pass, it is a humanitarian goal to promote taking adequate responsibility when procreating, to ensure equal recognition of the rights and responsibilities of the man, woman, and child they potentially have together.”
I know you won’t address it because you can’t. Whatever role responsible procreation has in marriage is in no way affected when same-sex couples marry. That bears repeating: whatever role you think responsible procreation plays in marriage, it is in NO WAY AFFECTED when same-sex couples marry. Yes, I realize, you want to argue that because something is about something, it can’t be for anything. But that doesn’t work, at least not legally. Driver’s licenses are for making sure a driver is adequately aware of the rules of the road; that does not prevent someone from getting a driver’s license for photo identification, to impress his friends, to fill in a slot in his wallet, etc.
“You don’t need to neuter marriage to provide equality”
Actually, you do. There is no rational public purpose to granting marriage licenses to straight couples but not to gay couples.
“Sean just admitted that Civil Unions were a comprimise (sic) given in bad faith.”
Sean admitted no such thing. Civil Unions were a compromise because Neanderthals like you would react to same-sex marriage just as you have: with lies, dire predictions and homophobia.
“How can you trust Sean’s opinion of the grand ramifications of what neutering marriage will do, if he is always looking for gateway drugs to bigger and larger and worse injustices against civilization?”
Because Sean uses facts to back up his arguments. Sean is arguing with knowledge about the nation’s legal system, first and foremost. That alone makes Sean’s arguments credible and others arguments, well, not so much.
People of faith have shown their true colors. Christ instructed Christians to love, and yet they can’t wait to show hate. Very informative!
“Only individuals of the opposite sex can marry. It is the very nature of marriage that one of the parties must be a male and the other a female.”
Greg, exactly what do you call a same-sex couple in Massachusetts who possess a marriage license? Here’s what I call them: MARRIED! You and OnLawn and others like you are either using some sort of illegal substance or are like children insisting Santa Claus really does exist.
“Marriage is and always has been the joining together of two individuals who are capable of engaging in the sexual act by which children are naturally procreated.”
This couldn’t be more false. Marriage was about establishing a woman as property to a man, and thereby making it easier for the man to claim the children she had as his own. With all the ways that marriage has changed over the years, it is simply beyond belief why extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians is getting so much attention.
“All the governments of the world can “recognize” same-sex unions as “marriages” but that doesn’t make them marriages.”
Another child-like expression. And states can let inter-racial couples marry and those aren’t really marriages, either?
“If same-sex unions are called “marriages” then the word “marriage” ceases to mean what it has historically meant. It becomes a label for something entirely different.”
Ok. That’s a problem, why? If religious people want to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples, there is no reason for them not to. But you better come up with a lot better arguments that you have if you want to discriminate against same-sex couples.
“Sean, you make yourself look like a petulant child by constantly insisting that those who disagree with you on this are homophobic”
And you’re not a child for insisting that same-sex marriage doesn’t exist, when obviously, it does? At least I have evidence that a substantial number of Americans believe in Straight Supremacy, especially in the case of marriage. Do you think it is especially mature to insist that one group be allowed to marry, but another group be forbidden, once someone explains to you how the US Constitution works? Do you think it’s particularly mature to seek revenge against three Iowa judges who did exactly what their job was, interpret the constitutionality of a state law? This discussion is drowning in immaturity by some people who insist the world has to be their way! That’s the height of immaturity: holding your breath to insist that you get your way, no matter whom it hurts.
“Nature is not subject to our whims or self-induced delusions.”
So stop being self-delusional. If you want to call the marriage between two opposite-sex people a natural marriage and that between two same-sex people an unnatural marriage, be my guest. But legally, they’re both married.
“I can show where Evan Wolfson considers DP’s and CU’s to be same-sex marriage, and because of that he wants people to stop using that term.”
The more you keep insisting the civil unions and marriage are the same, the more you make the case that they must be thrown out, because they create “separate but equal” accommodations! I know you want to not believe this aspect of the law, but find any other set of laws that identical benefits but are called different things for different people. There is not a court in this country that, with time, will not strike down civil unions and marriage statutes that provide the same benefits but for different groups.
“To say that DP’s and CU’s are same-sex marriage, to now saying it is outlawed in the very states that created them, is part of the con-game they are playing.”
The con game is being played by the marriage discriminators. First they smugly say that straight people and gay people are being treated equally: gays just have to marry an opposite-sex person! When the courts reject that, they say that marriage (suddenly, without warning!) is about procreation. When one notes that the elderly and infertile are allowed to marry, marriage suddenly becomes about the “procreative unit,” meaning, I guess, that you have to be able to reproduce or at least look like you can. When same-sex marriage becomes legal in some jurisdictions, along comes Greg to tell us that same-sex marriage is impossible!
“to say that same-sex marriage is illegal in states that have CU’s and DP’s is completely wrong.”
Ok, here goes….oh, nevermind!
Mark, there is no sexual basis for SSM law.
Consummation, annulment, adultery, AND presumption of paternity are based on coital relations between husband and wife.
That is inapplicable to any one-sexed scenario.
You said that SSM and marriage have the identical sexual basis and yet that is obviously a falsehood. What would an all-male arrangement do that would be identical to what an all-female larrangement would do to fulfill what you believe to be the sexual basis for SSM law? Holding hand perhaps?
If someone is obsessed, Mark, it is you with your gay emphasis (conflating gay identity with same-sex sexual attraction); you are the one who has falsely equated coital relations with same-sex sexual behavior. What is the societal significance, if any, of same-sex sexual behavior such that it ought to be licensed and accorded special status?
Now, based on your argumentation, to serve that societal significance, this behavior — whatever you’d specify it to be identical for both the male and the female arrangements — it cannot be so vague as “sexual intercourse” but it must be mandatory and enforced 100% by Government.
The typical SSMer drops the sexual basis for the SSM idea that they imagined had existed; and drops the 100% rule immediately when it comes to making law for SSM. And I anticipate you will do so as well. Indeed, you already have done so without showing the courage to admit it forthrightly.
Mark dropped the sexual basis for the SSM idea when it came to his version of SSM law: “The very fact that two people wish to get marry is all that is important. What they do (or don’t do) sexually is really none of societies concern.”
Even if there was a same-sex sexual basis for the SSM idea (a basis you have yet to specify), you have conceded that it would not merit a license issued by society, via government, nor does it merit special status (on par with marital status or otherwise) accorded by society, via government. You have just declared that there is no societal regard for whatever that same-sex sexual basis might be.
I realize you thought that would help you to dodge, but you just gave up your pro-gay argument and have shown a profound lack of confidence in your own gay emphasis in these discussions. You have offered no reason to license and accord special status based on your gay emphasis; indeed, you have just eschewed the gay emphasis of pro-SSM legal arguments and pro-SSM court opinions.
Mark said:
“We have an institution in society called marriage. There are numerous rights and benefits that go along with that institution. It is wrong to deny this relationship to some of our fellow US citizens because you feel there is no merit.”
Evidentily you feel that there is no merit in the sexual basis for the SSM law, as per your own freely given admission.
Yes, there is a social institution called marriage. It has a core meaning that distinguishes it from other stuff (i.e. nonmarriage). You would reduce the meaning of marriage to Government permission (the license) and Government bennies based on the “wish” of this or that person to partake of that permission and special treatment. That is the SSM idea but it means much less than the marriage idea.
Fellow citizens comprise the nonmarriage category. The ‘wish’ to marry is not and has never been a trump card. The starting place is the core of marriage, not the legal incidents that flow from societal regard of that core. You have things backwards and this boilsdown to the belief that Government owns marriage and (based on your contradictory and ciruclar thinking) Government licensing and according of special status is entirely arbitrary and thus unjust.
In effect, Mark, your remarks stand against the special status of marriage. You stand against societal preference for what marriage is; instead you are self-conflicted — you demand (wish hardly describes it) a public status for a private thing (as you yourself had described it). You can offer no principled basis upon which to offer “rights and benefits” from society (via government) for the type of arrangement you have in mind.
And just because you can offer no principled basis for imposing the SSM idea, you pose as one unwilling to recognize the principled basis for the long-established and just marriage idea.
Society may discriminate in favor of marriage; society may discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage, even if SSMers fail to know how to do so.
Hey Sean, you ought to ask Mark your question since he demands a public and preferential status based on private reasons alone:
You asked: “Since when does motivation play a role in determining who may marry and who may not?”
As I have said, societal significance is at issue, not private motivations. The question above is a direct challenge to the pro-SSM arguments of plaintiffs and the few pro-SSM court opinions of judges.
Besides, the bit you quoted, Sean, was part of mhy response to Mark’s vague notion. Marriage is a public type of relationship at law and not a purely private thing whereby societal significance is trumped by private motivations.
Oddly, SSMers insist that private choice (i.e. motivation) of relationship type dictates marriage law.
* * *
I thought this quote from an Australian conservative politician was insightful:
“Senator Arbib has major influence in the Right and his decision to break ranks will have an enormous impact on the debate within the ALP. “If I was the parent of a gay son or daughter I don’t know how I could tell them they didn’t have the same rights as I do,” he said yesterday.”
Maybe Australia will be the next marriage equality country!
“The ‘wish’ to marry is not and has never been a trump card.”
Actually it is a trump card. If gay couples sue for the right to be treated equally, and the government can’t come up with a reason for disfavoring them, then the gay couples win. See Prop 8 trial in the 9th Circuit. The 14th Amendment says you can’t treat people differently without a rational public purpose. Since there’s no rational public purpose to giving marriage licenses to straight people but not to gay people, guess what?!
“As I have said, societal significance is at issue, not private motivations.”
Exactly. Since there’s no public reason to treat gays differently from straights, there’s no reason to discriminate in granting marriage licenses.
“Marriage is a public type of relationship at law and not a purely private thing whereby societal significance is trumped by private motivations.”
Right again. The public has an interest in seeing as many children raised by married parents as possible, and that includes children being raised by same-sex couples.
“Oddly, SSMers insist that private choice (i.e. motivation) of relationship type dictates marriage law.”
I don’t think that’s what they’re saying, Chairm. They’re pointing out that few, if any, couples think they’re getting married to serve a public purpose; they’re getting married for entirely selfish reasons, like security, love, proclaiming that love, etc. Nobody says, “hey, let’s get married so we can responsibly procreate!” or “Susie, will you marry me so that we can have public approval of our right to have sexual relations?” It’s nice to define a public purpose for marriage but when nobody who gets married seems to be aware of what that public purpose is, or doesn’t cite that public purpose as the reason they got married, that public purpose is suspect.
None of this matters, of course. Whatever public purpose marriage has, it isn’t compromised when same-sex couples get married.
Sean’s scoring a lot of irrefutable points, and On Lawn is revealing his fraudulent game.
That’s indisputable. I’ve thought of a substantial way to make them different and a rational reason for it: they shouldn’t approve of procreation, because procreating with someone with the same genomic sexual imprinting would be unethical and it is bad public policy to allow the genetic modification it would require and leave same-sex procreation legal. Fraudulent marriage defenders think same-sex procreation should remain legal, they destroy marriage by separating it from its inherent essential meaning.
It is affected because it equates using modified or substitute gametes with using the couple’s own gametes. The only way to responsibly procreate is by marrying someone of the other sex and then having sexual intercourse. (oh, and not a close relative, someone married, or under 18, because it is unethical to conceive children in those circumstances, it would be irresponsible, just like same-sex procreation would be.)
Driver’s licenses give the state’s approval to drive. So even though they don’t require the person to drive, they allow the person to drive. So they aren’t given to blind people, or people who have lost the right to drive, even to use as an ID. Those people have to get the “Civil Union version” of a license: a State ID, which could be understood as a “driver’s license minus driving rights.” We could issue Driver’s Licenses to everyone who wants one, and then have separate “driving rights” documents, but that’d make driver’s licenses mean a little bit less, wouldn’t it? How would it impress your friends or make you feel proud, if it didn’t mean you were now allowed to drive?
Marriage should always protect and affirm and approve the couple procreating offspring together, from their own genes. We should not affirm or approve of a same-sex couple attempting to procreate offspring together.
It is appreciated by John.
Thanks for bringing that up, Sean. I do have a good reason to make them different than they are now, because non-romantic couples are being unjustly kept from them. There is no reason why CU’s, DP’s and RB’s can’t be for every committed same-sex couple, even if they aren’t a homosexual couple.
And that way marriage can continue to recognize (as justices and legislators have recognized for centuries) the needs that are unique in how we procreate children. How can you promote marriage equality — the equal recognition of the rights and responsibilities of the man, woman and child they have together — if marriage no longer expects a man, and a woman, and the potential for a child?
Just another of the many questions Sean has never answered.
Actually, they have Photo I.D’s to cover that, thanks for making my point for me
You can have both, and to cover everyone’s needs you need both.
It is funny, even when Sean claims I haven’t addressed “it” he does in his own special way.
No, you don’t have to neuter marriage to provide equality. You’ve never proven that you do have to.
Calling people names doesn’t cover up the fact that you called them exactly what you thought they were, a “gateway drug”. A compromise of values given in bad faith in hopes they “skip[] past” it for something even more dangerous for them.
And, since you bring it up why all the invectives and pejoratives to accompany your back-peddling?
“How can you trust Sean’s opinion of the grand ramifications of what neutering marriage will do, if he is always looking for gateway drugs to bigger and larger and worse injustices against civilization?”
Because Sean uses facts to back up his arguments. Sean is arguing with knowledge about the nation’s legal system, first and foremost. That alone makes Sean’s arguments credible and others arguments, well, not so much.
Sorry, I can’t read that without chuckling. When Sean starts using facts, I’ll be sure to take notice. And when he argues with a good knowledge of our legal system, his arguments might start having some effect here.
Because, as Sean noted in passing, those that have done those things have turned out to be much more credible than Sean.
The only one here who’s openly shown hatred is Sean. I suspect hatred is behind Mark’s rudeness and frustration, but Sean is still the only one openly hating.
There’s a lot to comment on in that, but only one thing that is emminent — Sean didn’t even deny that I’m right. He never said it isn’t a form of marriage, he never said it isn’t same-sex marriage, just that he doesn’t think such a thing is equal to marriage. And while his claim for equality orthoganally based on his own designs, it doesn’t contradict anything I said.
Note again, he doesn’t say I’m wrong. He just tries to distract with his own hastily drawn accusation made to be as much like mine as he can.
Immitation, you know what they say about it
Never the less, Sean’s use of the sterility strawman, even after it has been discredited shows his own desperation.
Because he knows I’m right
Hopefully people still say “let’s get married so we can responsibly procreate.” We certainly have a very strong public interest in maximizing the number of people who say that before they procreate irresponsibly, on behalf of the children being conceived, each member of the couple, their families, and the rest of the public. My proposal would remind people that procreation rights are found in marriage, and it would respect married couples as having the right. And lots of people want public approval of their sexual intercourse. Don’t forget that parents and grandparents are part of the public, and most people want their approval, no one likes being disapproved of. And the public approval in general, expressed by the Justice of the Peace on behalf of the state, makes everyone feel good too. No one gets married to face alimony or lose their freedom if things go sour and have an expensive divorce, and men don’t do it for the wedding party or bridal showers, they do it to have and feel that official state approval.
Chairm: “Mark, there is no sexual basis for SSM law”
Your needle seems to be stuck. What exactly do you mean by this statement? You ask me questions, I answer and then you claim my answers are incorrect and gay biased. But that is because you continue to define the terms (adultery, etc.) using a heterosexual bias.
“As I have said, societal significance is at issue, not private motivations. ”
Then why does society allow marriage for infertile couples? Why does society not imprison people who divorce? Why does society allow incarcerated felons to marry? Explain the social significance of each of these examples. You accuse SSM supporters of trying to force something new on society and then you claim that society MUST overrule any private relationship.
“You stand against societal preference for what marriage is;”
Nothing I have said shows I am against marriage. I am only against your narrow minded definition of marriage claiming it is ALL about procreation and then can NOT support how marriage is OK for infertile individuals but NOT OK for same-sex couples.
On Lawn: “Because he knows I’m right”
No, On Lawn, it’s because Sean is right and you refuse to see reason and just fill up space with worthless commentary. Same-sex marriage is illegal, period.
John Howard: “Hopefully people still say “let’s get married so we can responsibly procreate.” ”
LOL, seriously?
LOL?? SRSLY? You think it is funny for people to feel they should get married before procreating? You actually laugh out loud at a couple that thinks they should marry if they are going to have children together? We aren’t even talking about just having sex here, we’re talking intentionally having children together. It shouldn’t be funny for people to think they should get married before they do that. It would be even better if people said “let’s get married so we can have sex,” and that isn’t something to LOL about either, .
“Marriage is not code for committed relationship.”
Exactly! It’s a very public statement about a committed relationship!
“I do have a good reason to make them different than they are now, because non-romantic couples are being unjustly kept from them. There is no reason why CU’s, DP’s and RB’s can’t be for every committed same-sex couple, even if they aren’t a homosexual couple.”
I agree. Even though civil unions are a temporary fix so that people like you can used to the idea that gay couples have the right to get married, too, whatever we end up calling the legal union of two people, it should be available to all adults. Unless society can come up with reasons to do otherwise that don’t violate anyone’s constitutional rights.
“And that way marriage can continue to recognize (as justices and legislators have recognized for centuries) the needs that are unique in how we procreate children.”
Marriage can continue to recognize “the needs that are unique in how we procreate children” (sic), even when same-sex couples marry. Procreation, or responsible procreation does not depend on same-sex couples not getting married in order to function properly.
“How can you promote marriage equality…”
Because I define marriage equality as equal access to marriage for both straight and gay couples.
“…if marriage no longer expects a man, and a woman, and the potential for a child?”
Opposite-sex marriage isn’t going away, that I’m aware of. Marriage can still be a badge of honor for fertile straight couple who wish to “responsibly procreate,” while less responsible unmarried parents continue their irresponsible ways!
“You can have both, and to cover everyone’s needs you need both.”
Nope, not if our nation’s constitution has anything to say about it, and I am still in shock at how many Americans appear unfamiliar with this important document, especially its 14th Amendment!
“No, you don’t have to neuter marriage to provide equality. You’ve never proven that you do have to.”
Yes I have, about a million times now. The US constitutions says that all citizens have to be treated equally, including equal accommodations. That precludes the long-term viability of alternate arrangements for gay people, which are based on keeping gays away from marriage, for reasons that are, well, not very polite.
“Calling people names doesn’t cover up the fact that you called them exactly what you thought they were, a “gateway drug””
You have proven yourself deserving of the occasional name-calling episode, if only because after knowing how prohibiting same-sex marriage hurts gay people and their children, you persist in arguing against it. By “gateway drug,” I’m referring here to the obvious next step after legalizing civil unions: marriage. Why not just skip this inevitable step, and go straight for the only legally permissible outcome?
“When Sean starts using facts, I’ll be sure to take notice.”
And when OnLawn starts processing facts, I’LL take notice!
“He never said it isn’t a form of marriage, he never said it isn’t same-sex marriage, just that he doesn’t think such a thing is equal to marriage.”
Well then let Sean take this opportunity to clear the air: civil unions, whether you want to call them a form of marriage, are not legally acceptable, because they create a separate but equal accommodation. They are designed exclusively for the purpose of segregating gay couples from straight couples. This is constitutionally impermissible.
“Note again, he doesn’t say I’m wrong.”
OnLawn, a lot of the stuff you say isn’t wrong, it just isn’t germaine to the discussion about equal access to marriage for gay couples. I keep trying to explain to you that it’s about what you or anyone else thinks marriage is about, it’s about whether the government can give straight couples marriage licenses but not gay couples. That’s the nature of the legal issue.
It’s like I tried to explain with driver’s licenses: their purpose, from the state’s perspective, is to make sure people who operate a motor vehicle have adequate knowledge of the road. That, however, doesn’t mean someone can get a driver’s license to use for identification, to impress his friends or keep up with what other people are doing, to have a driver’s license number for employment applications, etc.
Until you come up with reasons why the state must prohibit same-sex couples from marrying, it doesn’t matter what rosy, traditional, serious sounding statements you make about marriage and its purpose(s): none of that is effected negatively if same-sex couples marry. You need to come up with a harm in order to argue against same-sex marriage.
At this point, the only real argument is whether states MUST allow same-sex marriage, or whether they are permitted to accept or deny it as they choose.
Mark continues to astound me with his powers of projection
So Mark, other than you wish you were right, how do we know you are right?
We know you are wrong because CU’s, DP’s and RB’s exist, and were pitched at the time to be “same-sex marriage”.
Mark, how do you feel about what Sean just said about extending rights beyond homosexual couples to all same-sex couples? I’m leaving Sean’s confession that CU’s are a false compromise as it is.
Exactly, when same-sex couples marry and have those marriages recognized with CU’s, or DP’s, or RB’s or even private contracts, they don’t have to neuter marriage.
Seems like we agree, you can have government recognize both marriage and what you consider to be same-sex marriage with an institution arranged for both, is there something wrong with both sides getting what the recognition they want? Where is the hold up?
Right, you replace the humanitarian marriage equality — the equal recognition of the rights and responsibilities of the man, woman and child they potentially have together — with something akin to making race-segregated schools become “equal” in public funding with integrated schools.
I for one couldn’t do such a thing, it compromises my sense of humanity and dignity for all.
I’m not fighting for opposite sex marriage, I’m fighting for something more, something that marriage needs to fully realize the rights of the man, woman, and child they potentially have together.
What is Sean fighting for? To remove that, for the sake of needling the religions that he wants to “silently die”. That Sean wishes to do harm to marriage has also already been shown.
I totally agree, John. How much pain and heartache would be saved if people did things in the correct order. Wouldn’t it be nice if they did?
It sure would be, Betsy. I hadn’t realized we’d gone all the way from feeling marriage is important before having children, to it being laugh out loud hilarious to feel that way. How did that happen? I’ve known that feminists have been saying that people who accidentally get pregnant shouldn’t reflexively marry, and I know that people are now asserting a right to have children without marrying, but I hadn’t realized it had now become laugh out loud funny to believe it was a good idea to marry the person you want to procreate with!
“Exactly, when same-sex couples marry and have those marriages recognized with CU’s, or DP’s, or RB’s or even private contracts, they don’t have to neuter marriage.”
But the US legal system doesn’t like “separate but equal” accommodations, although your acknowledgement that same-sex couples deserve legal protection for their relationship is a good start at accepting marriage for same-sex couples. States like Massachusetts and Iowa have shown that straight marriage and gay marriage can exist side-by-side, with no undesirable side effects.
“Seems like we agree, you can have government recognize both marriage and what you consider to be same-sex marriage with an institution arranged for both, is there something wrong with both sides getting what the recognition they want? Where is the hold up?”
Although civil unions can only be an intermediary step before the legal-required “marriage for all couples” situation finally arrives, some states won’t even recognize the need for same-sex couples to have legal recognition for their relationships! I know, it’s bizarre. That’s the hold up, mostly due to pressure from religionists and other homophobic groups.
“I for one couldn’t do such a thing, it compromises my sense of humanity and dignity for all.”
I wonder, how does your “sense of humanity and dignity for all” not insist that the children of same-sex couples be afforded the family security that everyone wants for the children of opposite-sex couples? Don’t children deserve the best circumstances possible? Oh, and what about same-sex couples? Aren’t they human? Don’t they deserve the dignity that comes from participating in marriage?
Men and women become no more or less equal after marriage. Ironically, of course, to those of us familiar with the history of marriage, marriage actually made a woman LESS equal to a man, until fairly recently. Using the language of segregation and equality in the context of marriage is good for a laugh though!
“I’m not fighting for opposite sex marriage, I’m fighting for something more, something that marriage needs to fully realize the rights of the man, woman, and child they potentially have together.”
Super, that’s super. And you know what? Whatever it is you want marriage to be, it can be that, and still accommodate other peoples’ needs, like, say gay people. Because no purpose for marriage requires that same-sex couples not be permitted to marry, except for one: the Straight Supremacist purpose. Straight Supremacists insist that gay people not be allowed to marry so that they can reinforce their supremacy. Otherwise, every other reason for straight marriage is easily accommodated in marriage laws that permit same-sex couples to marry.
“What is Sean fighting for?
Sean is right here with me so I’ll ask him what he’s fighting for. Hold on.
Ok, I’m back. Yeah, he says he’s fighting for the right of all Americans to choose their marriage partner, free of unnecessary constraints, like gender. He says he feels strongly that the nation’s constitution should be honored, in this case, the 14th Amendment guarantee that all citizens be treated equally. He says that what really clinched this issue for him was after he read some articles by NOM’s Maggie Gallagher that claim that married couples live longer, are healthier and wealthier than unmarried couples, and that the children of married couples do better in life than the couples of unmarried children. Children deserve the best we can give them, don’t they?
“…it speaks in favor of expecting integration of both genders in each marriage….”
Really? It does? Where?
“CU’s and DP’s are not “keeping gays away from marriage”, they are giving them access to it.”
But they violate “separate but equal” accommodations legal prohibitions. Did I mention that before, because I can’t remember if I did or not.
“Note even though he wishes to call me names (would he if he had any valuable argument to offer?) he never the less admits I’m right.”
Sean can’t resist calling chronically stupid people names sometimes. It’s just part of the fun. Sean thinks you’re right about a lot of stuff, just not with regards to why same-sex couples can be legally prevented from getting married. You spend a lot of time describing what you believe marriage to be and Sean doesn’t have much disagreement, since it’s all just your opinion and irrelevant. Sean keeps waiting for that argument that explains not what marriage is or isn’t, or what non-marital options are available to same-sex couples but rather, why society/the government must prohibit same-sex couples from marrying. Or whether states must, under the US Constitution, legalize same-sex marriage.
“It doesn’t explain why marriage itself needs to be removed so one of those programs can have its name. Nor, after all this time, has Sean explained that.”
No one is removing marriage. In fact, it’s the opposite: we’re expanding marriage by extending it to include same-sex couples. That’s because the law requires equal treatment of all citizens.
John Howard: “You think it is funny for people to feel they should get married before procreating?”
Of course not, get a grip. I was laughing because I really doubt that is what ANYONE has said to each other. “I love you”, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you” are all more common things people say. That is why I was laughing.
On Lawn: “We know you are wrong because CU’s, DP’s and RB’s exist, and were pitched at the time to be “same-sex marriage”.”
Again, I think it’s time to let On Lawn wander in the make believe world he dreams about. While CU’s, DP’s and RB’s do exist, they are not equal to marriage and same-sex marriage remains illegal in most states. These are facts, of which On Lawn seems to be unable to deal with. Remember, rights unrealized are not rights.
That is the sound of Mark in denial.
Mark, can you show proof that CU’s, DP’s, etc… are not same-sex marriages? Because you didn’t right there
Note: I already showed where the ACLU called DP’s marriage. I can also produce quotes from Evan Wolfson and numerous headlines of newspapers. Mark shows nothing other than his own belief that he knows everything — even when he’s wrong.
On Lawn: “Mark, can you show proof that CU’s, DP’s, etc… are not same-sex marriages? ”
Beside the cost (for attorney’s to write these up), all someone needs to do is go to this site:
http://www.hrc.org/issues/5517.htm
and they will see how these entities are not the equality of marriage (same-sex or otherwise).
And I would love to see where the “ACLU called DP’s marriage.”
Item 1: “Actually it [the wish to marry] is a trump card.”
As per the SSM idea, sure, but that is false when it comes to the lines of eligilbity/ineligiblity drawn around, and justified by, the marriage idea.
SSMers cannot justify boundaries based on the SSM idea; but they superficially point to the boundaries justified by the meaning of marriage that they reject; and when pressed they point outside of the SSM idea to attempt to (again superficially) add more than a mere shrug when it comes to eligibility and ineligiblity criteria.
This is largely due to the vagueness of the SSM idea which lacks a core meaning apart from the assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics.
* * *
Item 2: “Since there’s no public reason to treat gays differently from straights, there’s no reason to discriminate in granting marriage licenses.”
Society discriminates between marriage and nonmarriage, when issuing licenses to marry. The SSM idea cannot distinguish SSM from the rest of nonmarriage.
Meanwhile, there is no straight criterion for eligibility to marry; and no gay criterion for ineligiblity; the man-woman criterion of marriage does not discriminate between gay and straight citizens.
But the SSM idea sure does have a gay criterion and would read that into the law. So SSMers are in favoring of using gayness a the basis for lawmaking — contary to their superficial objection that gayness is an illegitimate basis for lawmaking. That’s their complaint in court. Yet their remedy is to read into the law what is not actually there.
That is hypocritcal and it defeats their complaint, on its merits as stated by themselves. The pro-gay bigotry cannot be justified even by SSM argumentation. So their empty rhetoric is substituted.
* * *
Item 3: “Whatever public purpose marriage has, it isn’t compromised when same-sex couples get married.”
On one hand, the SSMer rejects the societal significance of the social institution’s core meaning; on the other hand the SSMer claims that such rejection does not compromise that significance.
There is no special reason for special status for the SSM idea; so the goal is to gut marriage of its societal significance so as to render it the same as SSM — which is a subset of nonmarriage. The merger of nonmarriage with marriage has deep public meaning.
That is a bid deal — even for the SSMer who would wish for The Gay Relationship to be attached to the special status of marriage. Cutaway the special reason for that special status, depend on private motivations rather that societal significance, and say goodbye to the very status that the SSM campaign demands for the SSM idea. Gayness does not justify special status. Neither does nonmarriage.
This is part of the big lie which same-sex advocates repeat over and over again in an attempt to scare people. It’s part of their fear mongering designed to convince the elderly and the infertile that they need to support same-sex “marriage” to defend their own marriages. The problem is that it twists the definition of “marriage” from what it has always been just as much as their efforts to have the definition of “marriage” expanded to include people of the same-sex.
I’ll try this once more since Mark seems to have problems with this very simply concept. Historically, an act of normal sexual intercourse between a man and a woman (male deposit of semen inside the woman’s vagina) has been held to be a necessary “consummation” of the wedding. Until this act occurred for the first time, the couple was not married (and thus, the marriage could be annulled, that is, declared a nullity). After it occurred, they were married (and thus, the marriage could not be annulled unless some other impediment was discovered, such as lack of mental capacity or consent). Fertility was never necessary for a couple to marry. Only a man and a woman are capable of the sexual act required to consummate a marriage and, thus, only a man and woman can marry.
And, Mark, that’s not just my definition. That’s the definition which has applied for millennia and it is the one which comports with nature. The definition you offer is a novelty of the past few decades and is made in defiance of nature.
Mark, attack that precept if you wish, but it is the historic definition. But please, stop the intellectual dishonesty of misrepresenting what I have written and misapplying it in an effort to reach a conclusion which is neither supported by my words nor by the historic definition of marriage. At least be honest from now on. State clearly and honestly that what you propose is to deny the natural and immutable difference between a heterosexual union and a homosexual one, that the former allows the couple to engage in the act by which new life is procreated and the latter does not. Infertile heterosexual couples can still perform the act and it is performing the act which makes a marriage, not whether it actually results in new life.
You can call them whatever you want. You’re calling them “married” doesn’t make them married. Nor does the state calling them “married” make them “married”. Or, if they are “married”, then “married” no longer means what it once meant and, so, they still aren’t married according to the historic understanding of that term. Same-sex couples can never be “married” according to the historic definition because they cannot commit the consummating act. And heterosexual couples who can will always be able to have what same-sex couples cannot, a true, natural marriage. The whole human race and all its governments may lie and say otherwise, but nature is what nature is and same-sex couples cannot have natural sexual intercourse.
The state could also give me a license to fly without any artificial aid and call me a flying human, and the whole world could agree that was the case, but that wouldn’t make me a flying human. Nature would still trump man’s lies. This is the point of the story of the emperor who has no clothes. Everyone in the empire is afraid to tell the emperor the truth but their going along with the lie doesn’t change the truth. And so with those who insist in calling same-sex unions “marriages” when they are not.
So, when you call the same-sex couples of Massachusetts married you are lying to yourself and everyone to whom you make the declaration. Your believing it doesn’t make it true. I won’t lie to make you feel good about yourself. When you have legitimate claims, such as claims for next-of-friend status, you can expect my support, just as I have given my support to such claims in the past, but I won’t agree to redefining marriage to mask a real and important distinction between heterosexual sex (that is naturally life-giving) and homosexual sex (that is naturally sterile) and I won’t agree to deny what it truly means to be married.
Greg: “Or, if they are “married”, then “married” no longer means what it once meant and, so, they still aren’t married according to the historic understanding of that term.”
This is the case. Marriage never used to mean a right to use genetically modified lab-created gametes, and it always used to mean that the couple was approved and allowed to create offspring together. Massachusetts same-sex marriages have changed the meaning of marriage, completely negating everybody’s procreation rights.
1) I’m happy discuss what marriage equality is with you, but your answer is still ambiguous as to whether or not you think CU’s and DP’s and such are types of same-sex marriage or not. Is there any clarity you can bring or do you not know for yourself?
2) http://web.archive.org/web/20030428220132/http://archive.aclu.org/issues/gay/dpmodel.html
The marriage statutes in Massachusetts continue to include the man-woman criterion. The judiciary is not empowered to rewrite the statues and so they remain unchanged; the executive branch is not so empowered and so the man-woman criterion remains good law; the legislative branch has not rewritten the statutes to abolish this criterion and so it remains a key differentiator between marriage and nonmarriage even in the laws of that state.
So, on what possible basis might SSMers assert that SSM is included in marriage law in the state of Massachusetts? It must be some unconstitutional or extraconstitutional authority that acted arbitrarily, right?
“SSMers cannot justify boundaries based on the SSM idea; but they superficially point to the boundaries justified by the meaning of marriage that they reject”
Sure they can. If it’s boundaries you require, just think of same-sex marriage’s boundaries as being the same as OSM: not too young, not too related and not too already married. Voila! What changed? No more gender references, that is, drop the unnecessary “one man and one woman” reference. If a hermaphrodite wants to marry a man, go for it! If a man wants to marry a woman, peachy. If a woman wants to marry a woman, have a great marriage!
“This is largely due to the vagueness of the SSM idea which lacks a core meaning apart from the assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics.”
The core meaning is the public acknowledgement of a romantic relationship, just like it is for straight people.
“Society discriminates between marriage and nonmarriage, when issuing licenses to marry. The SSM idea cannot distinguish SSM from the rest of nonmarriage.”
Sure it can: if you don’t have a marriage license, you’re not married.
“Meanwhile, there is no straight criterion for eligibility to marry”
In practice, there is: the opposite-sex requirement that some states still have strongly favors straight couples, to the detriment of gay couples. “Opposite-sex” is a surrogate or synonym for straight. The correlation is pretty high LOL. But if you think it’s ok to limit worshipping to Sunday, despite the imposition that would pose on Jews, or limiting handwriting to use of the right hand only, despite the imposition that would pose on left-handed people, well, I guess you can convince yourself that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples only is ok.
“But the SSM idea sure does have a gay criterion and would read that into the law.”
Only if you believe that OSM has a straight criterion. See, the only reason that “gay” is mentioned at all is because that’s the group being excluded: gay people.
“on the other hand the SSMer claims that such rejection does not compromise that significance.”
Well, what evidence do you have that it does? Your theoretical construct of what you think marriage is all about doesn’t square with marriage in practice, and it’s the practice of marriage that has spurred gay couples to come forward and say,” hey, this would work for us, too!”
“Only a man and a woman are capable of the sexual act required to consummate a marriage and, thus, only a man and woman can marry.”
So who gets to say that this particular concept of marriage trumps other concepts of marriage? Marriage today is much different from the time when sexual intercourse was a defining characteristic. Today, even a couple incapable of having sexual intercourse, perhaps due to age or infirmity, or even personal choice, can get married. Certainly, no couple need meet any standard for sexual behavior in order to get married.
And ironically, an opposite-sex couple composed of a gay man and a gay woman are free to marry, even if they sign an affidavit revealing their intention NEVER to have sexual intercourse with each other, and in fact pursuing their personal sexual desires outside the marriage. They are welcome to get married in marriage discrimination states. And they are evidently encouraged to get married by the Straight Supremacy crowd, who believe that appearances of straightness are sufficiently obedient to their Straight Supremacy goals.
As Judge Walker in California noted, opposite-sex marriage only statutes do nothing more than enforce the Straight Supremacy Campaign’s rules.
Greg: “It’s part of their fear mongering designed to convince the elderly and the infertile that they need to support same-sex “marriage” to defend their own marriages. ”
Actually, you are quite wrong. This is not “fear mongering”. It’s just showing the gaping hole in your air-tight definition.
“Only a man and a woman are capable of the sexual act required to consummate a marriage and, thus, only a man and woman can marry.”
I notice how the definition changes when you are unable to support the previous one. So, it really has NOTHING to do with procreation and is ONLY defined by penile-vaginal intercourse with ejaculation. So, that’s all it takes. Hmmm…….a LOT of people out there are going to be surprised to realize they are really married and a lot of people are, per Greg, bigamists.
“And, Mark, that’s not just my definition. That’s the definition which has applied for millennia and it is the one which comports with nature. ”
Not true either, Greg. You buy into the whole “millennium” myth. Read just a little bit of the history of marriage and you will see it has changed over the millennium.
“So, when you call the same-sex couples of Massachusetts married you are lying to yourself and everyone to whom you make the declaration. Your believing it doesn’t make it true. ”
This is not a question of beliefs or what make believe world you live in. In Massachusetts (as in other locations such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec), same-sex couples are LEGALLY married. THAT is the fact. If you choose to not accept it (as people who don’t recognize equal rights for minorities) that is your choice. You will just go down in history as the bigot you are and be forgotten.
On Lawn: “CU’s and DP’s and such are types of same-sex marriage or not. Is there any clarity you can bring or do you not know for yourself?”
LOL< you are JUST having all SORTS of trouble with basic reading comprehension, On Lawn. As I have said numerous times, CU's and DP's are NOT same-sex marriage. They do not provide the same rights as same-sex marriage does.
And, about the link you provide, I see nothing at that link that states the ACLU says that DP's are same-sex marriage. It's also interesting that when one puts "ACLU" into a Google search, it does not go the link you provide. On Lawn is using the ACLU archive, dated 1997. I guess On Lawn feels nothing has changed since 1997 (even though the site does not even say what On Lawn claims it says).
Chairm: “The marriage statutes in Massachusetts continue to include the man-woman criterion. The judiciary is not empowered to rewrite the statues and so they remain unchanged; the executive branch is not so empowered and so the man-woman criterion remains good law; the legislative branch has not rewritten the statutes to abolish this criterion and so it remains a key differentiator between marriage and nonmarriage even in the laws of that state.”
All of this is true. The point you seem to be missing, Chairm, is that the judiciary (whose duty it is to interpret the laws) has said that Mass. law does not allow the state to discriminate against same-sex couples, therefore marriage in Mass is for everyone. The legislature has not rewritten the statutes so it must agree with the judiciary.
So, as you say, even after same-sex marriage has been made legal, man-woman marriage still remains intact. Nothing has changed. Thank you for making this point.
Go ahead Sean and justify the following without relying on the core meaning of the social institution of marriage:
1. not too young
2. not too related
3. not already married
Rely solely on the one-sexed relationship that you have in mind. Do not transgress the rules of argumentation you have invoked over and over.
A. If it can occur outside of SSM, it is not a legitimate basis for SSM law.
B. If it is not compulsory, and enforced 100% in all instances, then it is not a legitimate basis for SSM law.
And, no, reading a gay criterion into SSM does not fix the problem with line-drawing that you keep trying to dodge. However, if you agree that the lines would be arbitrary and that you are not capable of defending the lines, then, sayso and drop the attempt to copy-paste lines drawn around the core of marriage. You reject that core as illegitimate for lawmaking so you cannot rely upon it to support the SSM idea.
There is no romance requirement in the marriage law and there is no proposal for such a requirement for SSM. Romance can and does occur without government license and special status. So your statement, Sean, on romance transgresses your own rules of argumentation.
You wasted no time kicking yourself in the head.
A license for romance does not exist so no such license would distinguish SSM from the rest of nonmarriage.
A license system does not self-justify. That point is of the utmost importance to the pro-SSM complaint — and to your own remarks Sean. You need to back-up the truck and justify the license itself. The license signifies societal consent to accord special status. Marital status is a special status.
The basic way that any licensing sheme is justified is by distinguishing what is license from other stuff that is not licensed by that scheme. You don’t go for a fishing license if you purpose is to use the license to marry or to dispose of toxic waste or to practice medicine. Society issues licenses based on the thing being licensed — and that means acknowldgement of what makes that thing distinctive. Based on that, justification can be established.
Since the SSM idea is so vague, it is unsurprising that boundaries are unjustified within the argumentation of SSMers.
Your own — the license makes the argument for SSM — illustrates that very well.
So, before you pin a license on it, before society would accord it special status, it is necessary to distinguish marriage from nonmarriage; and for you it is necessary to distinguish SSM from nonmarriage, also, while showing that SSM is identical to marriage at the same time.
If you can’t do that, okay, sayso and we can proceed from there.
“The people who really ticked off Jesus were the Pharisees, who were self-righteous and hypocritical, which could fairly describe many of today’s Christians.”
Or today’s “traditional marriage only” supporters. This article in USAToday, from where the quote comes, if very good.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-11-08-column08_ST_N.htm
Chairm,
Relax and take a deep breath. Get a beer or something. Same-sex marriage is just like opposite-sex marriage, except with a same-sex couple instead of an opposite-sex couple. Seriously, you’re making this more difficult than it is. Just look at the states that have marriage equality and you’ll what same-sex marriage is. Call it “Massachusetts marriage” and “Virginia marriage” if that helps: the former lets same-sex and opposite-sex couples marry; the latter opposite-sex only couples.
You are seriously stuffy.
This is a good quote from that article, too:
“What about heterosexuals?
If this [anti-gay marriage] movement isn’t driven by anti-gay bigotry, then where is the outrage and “Day of Truth” over heterosexuals who are engaging in sex outside of marriage? Why aren’t Christians running around confronting their sexually active heterosexual co-workers and friends about their “lifestyle”? I guess because there is no “ick factor,” to borrow a phrase former presidential candidate and Southern Baptist minister Mike Huckabee used recently to describe gay men and lesbians.
This double standard might have something to do with the fact that many Christians also violate the Bible’s condemnation about sex outside of marriage with impunity. (I’m still waiting for the constitutional amendment banning extramarital sex.)
A few years ago, I attended a talk on the plague of pornography in our society at a New York City evangelical church. At one point, a speaker asked the group of about 300 young Christians, “How many of you are pursuing purity?” About 10 people raised their hands.
Has anyone noticed that there is this special little area carved out where the Bible’s teachings must be enshrined in U.S. law, but only when it applies to others, i.e. gay people?”
Opposite-sex is a very poor, and vague, proxy for straight. Likewise same-sex is a very poor, and vague, proxy for gay.
Socio-political identities are not limited to your gay-straight dichotomy; and, if your conflation of gay and same-sex attracted is what your really meant when you suggest that same-sex is proxy (or surrogate to use your term) for homosexual, then, you are not depending on what SSM is but on what you imagine to be the definitive feature of a particular identity group.
In other words, you are proposing that homosexuality — or gayness to be more precise — merits special status rather than SSM. This is a rather common attempt at sleight of hand that SSMers use when confused by the conflict between their own stated standards and their demand for the arbitrary exercise of governmental authority. This exposes pro-gay bigotry.
And you immediately confirmed your reliance on gay identity politics: “Only if you believe that OSM has a straight criterion. See, the only reason that “gay” is mentioned at all is because that’s the group being excluded: gay people.”
You, not I, believe that there is a straight criterion in the marriage law.
Well not quite. You have already agreed that there is no such criterion in the law but that you choose to read into the law what is not actually there. So you need to believe there is both a straight and gay criterion even when that’s a deliberate fiction.
Meanwhile there are opposite-sexed arrangements that are ineligible because they are opposite-sexed. This is due to the core meaning of marriage and societies response to that core meaning.
The SSM idea is a response — a direct rejection of that core — and so you can not defend the SSM idea by relying upon criteria that flow from that core meaning. You must depend on the notion you have asserted: that society licenses romance.
Without a romance requirement, of course, but with a romance criterion read into SSM law where it does not actually exist.
So, if your want to use romance as some sort of surrogate for same-sex sexual attraction or same-sex sexual behavior, okay, but none of these things show up as legal requirements or as legal criteria for eligiblity to SSM anyplace where SSM has been enacted or imposed — under whatever name. Thus, same-sex is not proxy for any of that stuff which you like to emphasize along with your reliance on gay identity politics.
Since you propose that society reject the core meaning of marriage you cannot also claim that entrenching such a societal rejection would not compromise that core meaning.
If you think otherwise, then, please reconcile the conflict in your own remarks.
Mark, legal fictions are created in law. Some are justified and other are unjustified. The legal fictoin that SSM and marriage are one and the same remains unjustified, even within your explanation of your own viewpoint.
Mark, you agreed that the law was not changed, but you did not even respond to last paragraph in my comment on Massachusetts:
“So, on what possible basis might SSMers assert that SSM is included in marriage law in the state of Massachusetts? It must be some unconstitutional or extraconstitutional authority that acted arbitrarily, right?”
Whether or not you imagine the legislative branch agrees with the judicial branch, the legislative branch has yet to change the marriage statutes. The court suggested that the legislature make a change but the judiciary cannot do it for the legislature and it cannot force the legislature to act on its suggestion.
So, do you agree that if SSM was imposed it was done via extraconstitutional authority of some sort? Please explain.
Chairm: “The legal fictoin (sic) that SSM and marriage are one and the same remains unjustified, even within your explanation of your own viewpoint.”
You just keep believing that, Chairm. You will soon go the way of the dodo.
“So, on what possible basis might SSMers assert that SSM is included in marriage law in the state of Massachusetts? It must be some unconstitutional or extraconstitutional authority that acted arbitrarily, right?”
Massachusetts law is very clear – equality for ALL of it’s citizens, not just the ones Chairm and his ilk believe are somehow more deserving. Therefore, SSM IS marriage, plan and simple.
“The court suggested that the legislature make a change but the judiciary cannot do it for the legislature and it cannot force the legislature to act on its suggestion.”
And the legislature feels it does not need to change any of the statutes. And the state is currently enjoying an economic growth, thanks to SSM.
“So, do you agree that if SSM was imposed it was done via extraconstitutional authority of some sort? Please explain.”
Give it up, Chairm. You are beating a dead horse. SSM is inherent in the Massachusetts constitution as it gives all it’s citizens the same equal rights. It was done WITHIN the confines of the state constitution and not “imposed”. Nice try, though, to try to assume that not all citizens are equal.
Chairm: “Go ahead Sean and justify the following without relying on the core meaning of the social institution of marriage:
1. not too young
2. not too related
3. not already married”
Chairm, couldn’t those be justified in terms of social stability, so that those people are off-limits for getting your jollies with, allowing for platonic and familial relationships to flourish? Wouldn’t those also apply to same-sex relationships? Even gay people might want to consider their brothers and children and married people off limits, to have social stability in their family and society.
I’m curious why you didn’t answer your question about the core meaning, why you merely asked it, rhetorically. Why are you so vague? State what it is once in a while! The only core meaning you could mean, one that doesn’t also apply to same sex couples as I showed above, is being allowed to procreate children. Because like those relationships you mention, procreation is wrong and unethical for same-sex couples and they should not be allowed to procreate or consider each other potential reproductive partners, because it is unethical, inherently unsafe and unnecessary and expensive.
Chairm: “So, on what possible basis might SSMers assert that SSM is included in marriage law in the state of Massachusetts? It must be some unconstitutional or extraconstitutional authority that acted arbitrarily, right?”
Not if we don’t prohibit same-sex procreation, which we don’t. As long as people have an equal legal right to procreate with someone of either sex, no matter what sex they are, then the state cannot deny them marriage.
Mark: Massachusetts law is very clear – equality for ALL of it’s citizens, not just the ones Chairm and his ilk believe are somehow more deserving. Therefore, SSM IS marriage, plan and simple.
Right, but we all only have a right to use our own unmodified gametes to reproduce, there is no right to modify our gametes and use experimental and risky procedures, because it is another person that is being created, and they have rights too, among them, not to be created experimentally and intentionally riskily. The courts didn’t consider the issue of same-sex procreation rights, because it isn’t their job to prognosticate and keep up with technology, though they do seem to follow social changes.
“Since you propose that society reject the core meaning of marriage you cannot also claim that entrenching such a societal rejection would not compromise that core meaning.”
I think society should hold on to the core meaning of marriage: the public and legal recognition of consenting adults’ relationships. It’s good for adults, it’s good for society and certainly it’s good for children being raised by adults!
Thanks Sean for stating what you think the core meaning of marriage is. Would you say that a couple that got married and got “the public and legal recognition”, but which was also prohibited from creating offspring together, perhaps forced to undergo a sterilization, or forced to use long-term contraception, or told they’d be jailed for ten years and fined millions of dollars if they produced any offspring, still had the core meaning of marriage? I think the core meaning of marriage is that the couple is approved to procreate children. There has never been one marriage that was publicly prohibited from creating children. (Go on, cite China, cite incarcerated prisoners, cite Arizona elderly cousins – all prove my point in different ways.) We could strip procreation rights from marriage, but it would be really bad for human rights and a sustainable future. Marriage should always retain the core meaning, the sine qua non right, which is the right to have sex and produce offspring together.
What does Chairm think the core meaning is? What does everyone think: do we have an equal right to procreate with either sex?
I think the current list of qualifications of people who may be issued a license to have sex, aka “marriage”, is complete:
The people must be:
Living
Two in number
Unmarried
Humans
of Opposite Sex
Adults
Who are not closely related.
The only change that needs to be made in our marriage laws is to make a marriage much more difficult for one party to dissolve.
“I think the core meaning of marriage is that the couple is approved to procreate children.”
How does that make sense, in a country where there is no penalty for having children out of wedlock? And where many couples often marry who have no ability or intention of having children?
Seriously, and I really don’t mean to be disrespectful, but how can you keep tying marriage to procreation when the fact is, any couple can have children together legally? And no couple need get married in order to procreate legally? No couple needs the state’s permission to procreate. Certain groups are prohibited from having sex, such as closely related people or underage people but that’s a separate issue from procreating.
“Marriage should always retain the core meaning, the sine qua non right, which is the right to have sex and produce offspring together.”
Again, how can this be marriage’s core meaning, if any couple not prohibited from having sexual relations can have children if they wish? I don’t think you have a firm grasp of the role of marriage in our society, or the reason why couples marry.
Ruth: “The people must be:
Living
Two in number
Unmarried
Humans
of Opposite Sex
Adults
Who are not closely related.”
You had me until “of Opposite Sex”. Otherwise, I agree completely.
Mark, you still haven’t answered the question regarding extraconstitutional authority imposing SSM in Massachusetts.
The legislature did not legislate SSM. Neither the Judiciary nor the Executive are empowered to legislate instead. The man-woman criterion of the marriage statutes are unambiguous, as even the state’s high court acknowledged.
You need another explanation if you really believe in the authority of the Massachusetts Consitution. Or you can continue to hang your hat on extraconstitutional authority acting arbitrarily. That’s not justified by your gay emphasis.
John Howard, I asked SSMers to justify the limits they’d impose; and I asked if they would do it based on justification derived from the SSM idea rather than something outside of SSM. Also, I asked if they would do it without transgressing their own rules of argumentation. The point is that SSMers are not reasonable when it comes to making laws. Their double standards are their best friends.
John Howard I’ve been explicit in discussions with Mark and Sean and many others here in the comments sections of this blogsite. And with you elsewhere.
The core meaning of marriage is 1) sex integration, 2) provision for responsible procreation, and 3) these (at least) combined as a coherent whole (as a foundational social institution). The marital presumption of paternity, for an example relevant to your concerns, expresses this very reasonably in our legal system, customs, and traditions.
The liberty to procreate together is certainly instrinsic to the core meaning of marriage and that liberty is best protected through societal preference for the union of husband and wife. The first principle of responsible procreation is that each of us, as part of a procreative duo, is responsible for and to the children we create together; the child has a birthright to know and to be known by her mom-dad duo; marriage protects and empowers the father, mother, and child (who is the most vulnerable and cannot speak for herself); society’s consent is what raises the union of husband and wife in societal regard — in terms of a preferential status based on how the social institution benefits society and so society benefits the social institution.
I am curious as to why you’d reduce the core of marriage to the liberty to procreate? I mean, extramarital procreation is not outside of that liberty even if it is outside of the social institution. That liberty would become vulnerable indeed if the manufacture of human beings (what you’ve described as same-sex procreation) was treated as the equivalent of human procreation and if it became entrenched under the auspices of the liberty to procreate together. That could occur if the core of marriage is disregarded and, in its place, the core of SSM is imposed on all of society.
The core of SSM is gay identity politics. The assertion of the supremacy of identity politics, of whatever form, strongly tends toward totalitarianism and so your concerns about human manufacture are valid concerns, given that context. But marriage itself does not confer a right to human manufacture. The misuse of marriage for nonmarriage purposes is always a threat to all of society; SSMers seek to jettisson the core of marriage for a nonmarriage purpose; and the manufacture of human beings is clearly a nonmarriage purpose.
Sean, marriage means more than “legal recognition of consenting adults’ relationships”. Thus your response shows you seek to make marriage mean less and less. You do stand against the core of marriage and instead offer a vague idea that does not differentiate itself from the rest of nonmarriage.
And you are quite willing to do so while transgressing your own stated standards of argumentation. Consent is not a trump card for much, under the law, and certainly not for marriage, as per the boundaries around the core meaning which your given response cannot possibly justify.
Somethings are outlawed; somethings are tolerated but neither protected nor preferred; somethings are more than tolerated — they are protected due to vulnerablities that society chooses to respond to; and somethings are more than tolerated and protected — they are preferred because societal significance weighs heavily in favor of the essence of the things preferred.
Hence we have relationship types that are subject to criminal law; and other types that are tolerated but given no particular protections and which do not merit special status; and other types of relationships that, due to society’s response to certain vulnerabilities, merit particular protections — sometimes even a protective status as a type of relationship; and we also have preferential relationship types that are accorded special status for special reason(s).
Reasonable standards of lawmaking are used to manage what is not tolerated, tolerated, protected, and preferred.
The SSM idea would reduce the core of marriage (and thus marriage itself) from its preferential status by merging marriage with nonmarriage; indeed, the assertion of supremacy of gay identity politics would use arbitary government power to make the core of marriage a barely tolerated thing in our laws — with the goal of making it untolerated in our culture. This is an explicit goal of the SSM campaign’s leading figures and groups.
Chairm: “The SSM idea would reduce the core of marriage (and thus marriage itself) from its preferential status by merging marriage with nonmarriage”
Same-sex marriage is marriage, not nonmarriage. Please use terms correctly.
“…the assertion of supremacy of gay identity politics would use arbitary (sic) government power to make the core of marriage a barely tolerated thing in our laws — with the goal of making it untolerated in our culture. This is an explicit goal of the SSM campaign’s leading figures and groups.”
Wow, bit paranoid I would say. And, actually, quite incorrect. People working for equal rights in marriage respect marriage and merely want to make it available equal to all US citizens. Sad that Chairm sees fighting for equality as some sort of evil, underhanded campaign.
“The core of SSM is gay identity politics.”
Maybe but it’s gay people who are being discriminated against, so it’s hard not to talk in those terms. So I guess OSM is at its core straight identity politics?
“The misuse of marriage for nonmarriage purposes is always a threat to all of society”
What misuses to you know of, and how were they harmful to society?
“SSMers seek to jettisson the core of marriage for a nonmarriage purpose”
Not at all! Straight people will still be allowed to marry under the new regime. Whatever you conceive marriage to be for straight people, that will be allowed.
“Sean, marriage means more than “legal recognition of consenting adults’ relationships”.”
For you, maybe. Most people want and expect legal recognition for their committed relationship, the relationship that they hope lasts a lifetime and is exclusive.
“Thus your response shows you seek to make marriage mean less and less.”
I think marriage means whatever you want it to mean: security, companionship, having babies, a more secure environment for raising children, etc. It seems like each couple gets to decide what its marriage means, and I think that’s for the best.
“You do stand against the core of marriage”
No I don’t. I totally support couples committing to their relationships and wanting to get legal protections for it.
“Consent is not a trump card for much, under the law, and certainly not for marriage, as per the boundaries around the core meaning which your given response cannot possibly justify.”
I would ask that you use English if you wish me to respond.
“Reasonable standards of lawmaking are used to manage what is not tolerated, tolerated, protected, and preferred.”
Fair enough and because society values the formation of couples into long-term relationships, you can see why marriage needs to be extended to include same-sex couples, especially if those couples are raising children.
“The SSM idea would reduce the core of marriage (and thus marriage itself) from its preferential status”
Not at all! Same-sex, like opposite-sex, marriage would still be a preferred status for couples.
@Mark
Ruth:
“I think the current list of qualifications of people who may be issued a license to have sex, aka “marriage”, is complete:
The people must be:
Living
Two in number
Unmarried
Humans
of Opposite Sex
Adults
Who are not closely related.
The only change that needs to be made in our marriage laws is to make a marriage much more difficult for one party to dissolve.”
Mark:
“You had me until “of Opposite Sex”. Otherwise, I agree completely.”
There are other people who would say the very same thing you did, only their one item of disagreement would be a different one than yours.
Me: “I think the core meaning of marriage is that the couple is approved to procreate children.”
Sean: “How does that make sense, in a country where there is no penalty for having children out of wedlock? And where many couples often marry who have no ability or intention of having children?”
You don’t need approval now, but marriage is still approval. It still isn’t ever given to couples that don’t have approval like siblings. I still want it to express that same approval it always did, even if I could procreate without it. I don’t want a Civil Union defined as “marriage minus conception rights” because I want to feel that my marriage did something more than give me obligations and however many legal benefits it supposedly gives, I want to feel that my marriage smiles on conceiving children with my spouse using our own genes. Even if we never do, even if it turns out we are unable to, even if we never even want to, I want that social approval of the concept of children of me and my wife. And I certainly don’t want to be prohibited from using my own genes to procreate with my wife, which could happen if marriage loses the core meaning, and my rights are held to be equal to a same-sex couple’s. I don’t mind IVF being banned, as long as it is banned for everyone, as that wouldn’t prohibit me and my spouse from using our own genes, it would just limit us to natural sex in order to try.
“Seriously, and I really don’t mean to be disrespectful, but how can you keep tying marriage to procreation when the fact is, any couple can have children together legally? And no couple need get married in order to procreate legally? No couple needs the state’s permission to procreate. Certain groups are prohibited from having sex, such as closely related people or underage people but that’s a separate issue from procreating.”
No, that’s not a separate issue from procreating. Prohibiting a couple from having sex is prohibiting them from procreating. Allowing sex is allowing procreating.
me: “Marriage should always retain the core meaning, the sine qua non right, which is the right to have sex and produce offspring together.”
Sean: “Again, how can this be marriage’s core meaning, if any couple not prohibited from having sexual relations can have children if they wish? I don’t think you have a firm grasp of the role of marriage in our society, or the reason why couples marry.”
It’s the core meaning because every couple that has ever married in history was allowed to procreate offspring together using their own genes, and, tenuously, still is. Couples that were and are not allowed or approved to procreate have never been allowed to marry. It used to be very clear, because fornication laws were enforced and respected (and are still on the books in Massachusetts) and marriage was understood (by our parents generation) to mean that the couple is now allowed to have sex and conceive children together. Most people waited until their wedding night. Never in history has any couple that got married been arrested for fornication on their wedding night or from then on, and it is that significance that I want to retain, even if we’ve been having sex already for years. I still want to feel that social meaning, and I certainly don’t want to be told that it doesn’t mean that we can procreate children with our own genes anymore, because now procreation rights are separate.
You are right, I’m mystified why people get married these days. It’s like a gay thing now, pure camp, repulsive. And you know that people advise men against marriage now, because it is not a smart deal for men? I’m not at all alone in not having married, but I do think I’m missing out on something that previous generations found great value and joy in. I would enjoy being married, as long as it was socially meaningful and not a stupid thing to do.
Ruth’s list is a good one, and I’m glad she included “living” in it. Note that it is also the list of who we may ethically procreate with. This is relevant because people are now doing unethical things like using a dead person’s sperm to procreate with, and that needs to be prohibited. People are also considering using non-human genes, and the gametes made, from embryonic stem cells, and if you aren’t allowed to marry these things, you shouldn’t be allowed to procreate with them.
1) CU’s DP’s, etc… are a form of same-sex marriage. Mark is relying on us taking him for his word, mimicking stability in his opinion through recalcitrant repetition, and brutish insults of anyone who disagrees. I’m supporting what I say with numerous examples from third party sources.
I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which is more credible.
And, about the link you provide, I see nothing at that link that states the ACLU says that DP’s are same-sex marriage[1]. It’s also interesting that when one puts “ACLU” into a Google search, it does not go the link you provide[2]. On Lawn is using the ACLU archive, dated 1997[3]. [… juvinile baiting removed …] nothing has changed since 1997[? 4]
1) False, it does say they are a form of marriage for same-sex couples.
2) Its called the “Web Archive”, and it, no, isn’t indexed by Google.
3) Yes, which is the same time that DP’s were being sold to America as “same-sex marriage”.
4) Plenty has happened. The institutions offering DP’s etc… pulled the rug out from underneath the american public, and decided they never would accept them as same-sex marriage themselves.
On Lawn: “:1) Facts:
a) There is no law forbidding a same-sex couple from having a wedding ceremony and living their lives together, and considering it a marriage.”
It’s interesting to consider this as it applies to siblings, because there certainly is a law against siblings doing this, right? Because “considering it a marriage” means feeling it is OK to have sexual intercourse together and procreate children together and actually going ahead and doing those things together. There is certainly a law against that, not just against them getting legally married. And there should be a law against same-sex couples conceiving children together too, and that is something that people who consider themselves to be “married” should consider themselves allowed to do, and all their acquaintances and family and the public too. Couples who aren’t allowed to procreate offspring together can’t consider themselves married, it’s a contradiction.
“b) CU’s, DP’s, RB’s and many private contracts are all types of same-sex marriage. Many same-sex couples in those relationships call themselves “married”, have had weddings to commemorate their CU’s etc…, and they were even pushed by the ACLU as same-sex marriage. News reports have headlined where CU’s etc… have been enacted as a form of marriage.”
If they are types of marriage, it is only because same-sex procreation is currently legal, and marriage is not sufficiently protective of the couple’s right to procreate together. I don’t get the purpose of saying CU’s are a form of marriage. And I didn’t see where the ACLU said DP’s were marriages in that archive. They don’t have the same divorce laws, for just one example of how they are different. And they make no mention of the procreation rights of the couple, because they assume that same-sex couples have procreation rights together using whatever technology they feel like, whether they have DP’s or not. That there is an equal right to procreate with someone of either sex is the assumption of all same-sex marriage activists I encounter when I pin them down. They all say that same-sex procreation should be allowed and not prohibited. I can’t understand why you let Mark and Sean persist in holding that assumption, it is that assumption that is incorrect and dangerous and needs to be corrected.
“I don’t get the purpose of saying CU’s are a form of marriage.”
I think I know why: it’s to try to keep couples away from marriage, because for some people, something bad will happen is same-sex couples get married! What it is, they don’t say but the inference is there. But civil unions and other substitutes for marriage are constitutionally impermissible, because they create “separate but equal” accommodations.
Mark, the phrase and your use of the phrase “same-sex marriage” [sic] is oxymornic. Please use the term, marriage, correctly.
Or you could explain how marriage is different from nonmarriage. If you point at the label, well, then, the label can be pinned to the rest of nonmarriage just as readily; if you point at a license, the same applies to the rest of nonmarriage. You need to start with the essential(s) of the type of relationship you have in mind. The rest follows from there.
The proof is that you have yet to show that SSM is different from the rest of nonmarriage. Sure, you can arbitrarily pin the label, marriage, on it; sure you can arbitrarily pin the special status of marriage on it, too; but that arbitrariness stands against the central theme of the pro-SSM complaint about the arbitrariness of the marriage law. You need more: you need positive justification for treating a subset of nonmarriage on par with marriage.
And you also need to justify boundaries around it. You have failed to do that from within your SSM idea. Your gay emphasis does not suffice yet it is all you have offered.
It does not suffice because your complaint is that gayness is not a legitimate basis for lawmaking. So you simply cannot single out the gay subset of nonmarriage and declare it “marriage” arbitrarily, not even by your own terms of argumentation in favor of the SSM idea.
John Howard:
Keep going with what you are trying to do.
You bring something very important to the table on this issue.
Sean, the fact is that society discriminates between marriage and nonmarriage. You have offered zero justification for that.
Nada. Rien. Nothing.
But you do admit that the core of the SSM idea is gay identity politics; and that is easy to admit since it is so very obvious.
Meanwhile you have not responded substantively to the core meaning of marriage, as I have described it. You have not accurately represented my remarks nor have you been able to justify special treatment based on gay identity politics.
Contary to the SSM idea, the core of the marriage idea is not identity politics. You have just discovered a key differentiator. The reasoning of the Loving decision, for example, stood against white identity politics and it stands against the very thing that you just admitted is the core of the SSM idea.
Racialist identity politics was a nonmarriage purpose; it did harm on many levels, but in terms of the leveraging the social institution of marriage, the anti-miscegenation system diminished the provision for responsible procreation and selectively segregated the sexes via the filter of identity politics. It undermined the coherent whole that is the core meaning of the social institution that the law recognizes but does not own nor create. Marriage is foundational to civil society. These are the factors that make marriage a fundamental right in our constitutional jurisprudence.
The SSM idea would bring selective sex segregation under the auspices of marriage — via the filter of gay identity politics. It too would sideline the provision for responsible procreation as well as sex integration; it too would diminish the coherency of the special status of marriage in our civilization; it too would show favoritism for an identity group; it too would stand against procreative justice; it too would abuse the marriage to make normative a falsehood — that sex difference is irrelevant to the foundational social institution that unites the sexes and unites fatherhood and motherhood. If you cannot count harm among these things, then, your long past the place where you can justify society discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage.
* * *
By the way, it is not I who conceives of marriage in this way, for it is so across the anthropological and historical records. And, no, it is not just a meaning for “straights” but for all of society. Hence the societal significance of the marriage idea is at stake.
For SSMers, the societal significance of favoring the gay identity group is at stake and, according to the public arguments, nothing is more important than that to the SSM campaign.
Nothing. Rien. Nada.
* * *
A typical pro-SSM notion: “It seems like each couple gets to decide what its marriage means, and I think that’s for the best.”
Then there is no societal significance and thus no justification for society discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage. This is a legitimate view, of course, but it is not the pro-marriage view you’d portray it to be for the sake of merging SSM with nonmarriage.
You just conceded that for you marriage should mean less because you reject the societal significance of the social institution, as a social institution, and this explains why you are at a loss to offer a core meaning of marriage that you can use to justify its special status.
* * *
The core of marriage is not commitment but that to which commitment is made — and not just by the participants but also by society at large. The core of marriage is not government protections but that for which government, on behalf of society, accords a preferential status. it is not merely a protective status. It is preferential for good reason — reasons that exist with or without government bennies.
There are relationship types in the nonmarriage category which feature commitment, long-term intentions, and childraising. The SSM idea does not distinguish SSM from nonmarriage on such critreria. Nor does the call for protections since marital status is a preferential status and not merely a protective status.
* * *
Your taunts are getting old, Sean, and if you can’t raise your level of discourse, your comments will soon be disregarded by myself. You keep trying to engage me in discussion so I assume you find some value in the exchanges. Maybe I assume wrongly. Your level of discourse will signal if that is so.
If you cannot respond substantively, then, don’t respond at all.
* * *
SSM is not an extension of marriage. It is a subversion of marriage; a rejection of marriage; and an anti-social assertion of supremacy for gahy identity politics. Your recent comments have illustrated this very well.
Nothing you have offered necessitates the limit to “couples” that you keep invoking. Logic does not require it; certainly there is nothing foundational about SSM that would justify such a limitation.
While the same-sex category includes the lone individual, and has no obvious reason to make threesomes or moresomes out of bounds, the number two is inherent to the opposite-sex category. And there is ample justification for the limit of two — a man and a woman — based on the core of marriage as I have defended it.
Meanwhile, if marriage means whatever the particular individual wants it to mean, as per the SSM idea, then, the boundaries set by society mean very little to the individual. By your reasoning, boundaries and justification of boundaries is incomprehensible — not “English” (to use your tauntful language) — and thus foreign to the SSM idea.
And yet the SSM idea is sold with a gay emphasis and with a copy-paste of the boundaries that are justified by the same core meaning that the SSM campaign rejects and wishes to brand as intolerable in our society.
Nonmarriage is treated as nonmarriage. Marriage is treated as marriage. The key is differentiating one from the other — before according this or that treatment and before even attempting to justify a licensing scheme.
Separate but equal does not apply when it comes to treating marriage with societal preference. Yet SSMers invoke seperate but equal when some places are more generous in how nonmarriage is treated in its laws and social policies. This, more than anything, demonstrates the double-standards and the lack of a principled basis for merging SSM (a mere subset of nonmarriage) with marriage in our aws and culture.
Since the merger of marriage and nonmarriage is unjustified in the first place, it is unjustified under whatever name — SSM, Civil Union, Domestic Partnership, and so forth. So creating a system to cater to gay identity politics — with no actual justification — is a bad idea on its own. It is made worse by the political fact that the SSM campaign demands such nonmarriage alternative systems only to subsequently deride these as unjustly discriminatory. Thus very gay friendly places have been hoodwinked into treating the gay subset more generously with a marriage-like system. It was arbitrary anyway; and no less so than a merger of SSM and marriage would be. Joining marriage to the hip of civil union, for example, is a lousy idea for all kinds of reasons. Certainly the generousity of gay friendly places has been abused by the SSM campaign and that speaks against such special treatment in the first place.
If an idea has merit, it can be proposed and if justified it can be made to last. That has not been done for civil union and the gay emphasis.
On the other hand, provisions for designated benefiaries have long existed and have endured for nonmarriage purposes. This is not meant to be marriage in all but name. But it is a fair and generous, and merit-based, treatment of types of relationships and types of arrangements that do not meet the core meaning of marriage.
On Lawn: “1) False, it does say they are a form of marriage for same-sex couples.”
LOL, On Lawn dodges and hedges. At firs, On Lawn stated “and they were even pushed by the ACLU as same-sex marriage.”. NOW he says that the ACLU says they are a FORM of marriage. Well, actually, prove even the later statement, On Lawn because NO WHERE does the ACLU say that CU’s and DP’s are a form of same-sex marriage.
Nice try to continue with your lies.
More important Sean, you missed John Howard’s point. The reason he doesn’t get the purpose is because of what he sees marriage to be. You didn’t answer these points of what JH requires for something to be a marriage…
JH is complaining that I’m being too soft on you, is all. No, the problem is I don’t follow JH’s agenda, not one bit. Marriage doesn’t bestow procreation rights, marriage is a procreation rite. JH does advocate the kind of totalitarian enforcement that you and Mark have expected, yet you argue with him just the same.
But since you don’t have the requirement of enforcement of the right of procreation for something to be called marriage, you are still left without any reason to say CU’s are a type of marriage — in your advocacy neither have anything to do with that right. Actually, JH who does have that belief still doesn’t discredit what is obvious because it is clear that same-sex marriage is just a form of marriage, an imitation, it doesn’t have to have all of the qualities to be modeled after it.
CU’s are clearly a form of same-sex marriage. I say it only because it is obvious, evident through journalism and education based on the subject from people who supported CU’s etc… They refer to it as marriage — calling themselves married, celebrate their creation with wedding ceremonies, have their own dissolution agreements (like a divorce is) etc…
Not if they don’t give the same bundle of rights, Sean. That’s why there needs to be a substantial difference (that substantial difference is also what allows states to enact them that have protected marriage in their constitutions). And, lo and behold, people shouldn’t have the same rights with a man that they have with a woman, or, in other words, people should only have a right to procreate with someone of the other sex. And the right to procreate happens to be the essential sine qua right of every marriage throughout the world and all of history.
What I don’t get is why On Lawn wants to imply that same-sex couples have all the rights of married male-female couples, just with a different name. He is persisting in precisely what the courts have said is only irrational animus, it makes no sense. I think same-sex couples should be allowed to marry if they have the same right to procreate offspring together, even required to be married if they intend to procreate offspring together.
“Sean, the fact is that society discriminates between marriage and nonmarriage. You have offered zero justification for that.”
Sure I have: married couples possess a marriage license. That distinguishes them from unmarried couples. There are enormous legal differences between married couples and unmarried couples. The former can make unfettered medical decisions for an incapacitated partner, for example.
“But you do admit that the core of the SSM idea is gay identity politics; and that is easy to admit since it is so very obvious.”
Well, yeah, just as “black identity politics” was the basis for equal rights for black Americans. It’s hard to not identify the group that’s being discriminated against, with naming them.
“Meanwhile you have not responded substantively to the core meaning of marriage, as I have described it.”
Maybe you haven’t described it accurately or in such a way that merits continued response!
I think you have an idea what you want marriage to be, or who may participate in marriage, and you seem to think that creates an exclusion for anyone not included in your preferred identity group (i.e., straight people). It doesn’t. Marriage can be what you want it to be (except the Straight Supremacy part) and still let others consider marriage what they want it to be. It really boils down to each couple’s reason for getting married, doesn’t it?
“The SSM idea would bring selective sex segregation……society discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage.”
Marriage can and is still whatever you perceive straight marriage to be even when same-sex marriage is legal. Just look at Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, all states that have successfully implemented marriage equality. The status of opposite-sex married couples didn’t change one iota. Your concerns about the well-being of straight marriage are therefore unfounded.
“By the way, it is not I who conceives of marriage in this way, for it is so across the anthropological and historical records. And, no, it is not just a meaning for “straights” but for all of society. Hence the societal significance of the marriage idea is at stake.”
And as I’ve proven, in places where marriage equality is the law, straight couples have suffered no harm or diminished status or lost rights.
“For SSMers, the societal significance of favoring the gay identity group is at stake and, according to the public arguments, nothing is more important than that to the SSM campaign.”
How is that any different from the Straight Supremacy Campaign’s desire to maintain primacy on this particular issue?
“You just conceded that for you marriage should mean less”
Go back and reread what I actually wrote. Marriage can mean what you want it to mean; I said nothing about it meaning more or less.
“Your taunts are getting old, Sean, and if you can’t raise your level of discourse, your comments will soon be disregarded by myself.”
I’m crushed. Feel free to ignore me. You’ve made this promise before and can’t seem to do it. Follow through for once.
“You keep trying to engage me in discussion so I assume you find some value in the exchanges.”
Actually I’m just more interested in correcting falsehoods that seem to infect this issue on the anti-gay side. References to parenting, procreation, God’s will, tradition, none really have much impact on what is essentially a legal argument: is it permissible to discriminate against same-sex couples in the granting of marriage licenses.
“Nothing you have offered necessitates the limit to “couples” that you keep invoking.”
It is you, not I, who wants to limit marriage eligibility.
“While the same-sex category includes the lone individual, and has no obvious reason to make threesomes or moresomes out of bounds, the number two is inherent to the opposite-sex category.”
Really? Gee, how did the Mormons get the idea that multiple wives was ok? Why did biblical characters have multiple wives? Did they not first consult you about what marriage “really” is?!
“Meanwhile, if marriage means whatever the particular individual wants it to mean, as per the SSM idea, then, the boundaries set by society mean very little to the individual.”
Society can set whatever boundaries it wants, it just can’t violate the constitutional rights of citizens. This argument about eligibility is going to be decided by the courts, state legislatures and to some extent, the people. But the courts will have the final say, especially because a majority population, straight people, is trying to keep a right for itself, but deny it to a minority.
“Nonmarriage is treated as nonmarriage. Marriage is treated as marriage. The key is differentiating one from the other — before according this or that treatment and before even attempting to justify a licensing scheme.”
Marriage is when two people possess a marriage license. That’s pretty much it in terms of the law. If you don’t possess a marriage license, you ain’t married!
“Separate but equal does not apply when it comes to treating marriage with societal preference.”
I believe the courts will strongly disagree with you on this one. Acknowledging the need for same-sex couples to have legal recognition of their relationships is kind of the last hurdle to marriage equality, legally. I’ve long maintained that it must be exasperating for the Straight Supremacists to decide to either stop all legal recognition for same-sex couples, and appear heartless and mean, or give them a parallel structure that risks violating “separate but equal” prohibitions. It’s kind of funny, actually.
“It is made worse by the political fact that the SSM campaign demands such nonmarriage alternative systems only to subsequently deride these as unjustly discriminatory”
Well, even if it was a sneaky end-run, it was only because people like you are so obsessed with keeping gays away from marriage that you didn’t clearly think through the implications. Whose fault is that?
“Thus very gay friendly places have been hoodwinked into treating the gay subset more generously with a marriage-like system.”
I’d like to see an example of who has been “hoodwinked.” Oh, and gays are just asking for equal rights.
“If an idea has merit, it can be proposed and if justified it can be made to last. That has not been done for civil union and the gay emphasis.”
Civil unions and other marriage substitutes are falling out of favor because of their impermissible “separate but equal” status.
“provisions for designated benefiaries have long existed and have endured for nonmarriage purposes.”
So how does a same-sex couple write up a contract that gives them the right to not have to testify against each other in a court proceeding?
On Lawn: “CU’s are clearly a form of same-sex marriage. I say it only because it is obvious, evident through journalism and education based on the subject from people who supported CU’s etc… They refer to it as marriage — calling themselves married, celebrate their creation with wedding ceremonies, have their own dissolution agreements (like a divorce is) etc…”
LOL, what a ridiculous argument! Even though CU’s do not provide the rights of marriage, even though CU’s are not recognized in all states, even though to get a CU is far costlier than a marriage, as long as the journalists and press refer to it as marriage ….poof…it MUST be marriage!
“Marriage doesn’t bestow procreation rights, marriage is a procreation rite.”
Are you under the impression that a couple has to be married in order to legally procreate? If so, let me correct you: they do not.
“JH does advocate the kind of totalitarian enforcement that you and Mark have expected”
We have? Really? Where and how? If you’re referring to the notion that if procreation is supposedly an exclusionary basis for marriage, then childless couples need not get married, there’s nothing “totalitarian” about it. You simply inform everyone of marriage’s new definition: for procreation only. Because as it stands currently, marriage is available to any opposite-sex couple, with procreation abilities or intentions, or not. Something as simple as signs in marriage license bureaus would do the trick, without being intrusive in the least: “Marriage licenses are available to couples who can have, and plan to have, children ONLY!”
Otherwise, marriage is simple one more reflection of the Straight Supremacy Campaign’s efforts. Limiting marriage to any opposite-sex couple that’s old enough and not closely related simply creates primacy for straight couples. What is society’s rational public purpose in making straight relationships superior to gay relationships?
Whatever civil unions are, they are a legally impermissible substitute for marriage. They create a “separate but equal” accommodation that the law doesn’t allow. You should have learned this in high school. States like Connecticut and Vermont got rid of marriage substitutes when they legalized same-sex marriage in order to avoid getting sued on this issue. Other states were smart enough to avoid the problem altogether, heading straight to marriage equality.
“Not if they don’t give the same bundle of rights, Sean.”
And exactly what rights would marriage have that civil unions wouldn’t? And why would the courts not reject differences crafted for the purpose of creating differences substantial enough to pass “separate but equal” scrutiny? You’re grasping at straws. Any marriage law can include a reference that married couples may only reproduce naturally or something. Both straight and gay couples would be affected with your proposal but go ahead and try to get it enacted.
“people should only have a right to procreate with someone of the other sex.”
Your opinion, not necessarily shared by anyone else. But you are free to try to persuade others to your point of view. It’s still not a marriage issue but a reproductive one, like abortion.
“And the right to procreate happens to be the essential sine qua right of every marriage throughout the world and all of history.”
But is it relevant today? Is it illegal to procreate if a couple isn’t married?
“[OnLawn] is persisting in precisely what the courts have said is only irrational animus, it makes no sense.”
Welcome to my world.
“I think same-sex couples should be allowed to marry if they have the same right to procreate offspring together, even required to be married if they intend to procreate offspring together.”
Instead of obsessing about procreation, what about raising children? Don’t they count after they’re born? We now that children do better with married parents. Why on earth would we not want the children of same-sex couples to have the same benefits that the children of opposite-sex couples have?
On Lawn, please explain how my agenda is totalitarian. Is insuring that every person has an equal right to marry the person of their choice (with the exception of certain relationships for which there is a supportable basis to prohibit procreation, such as siblings, children, dead people, and people of the same sex) totalitarian? Is insuring that all marriages have a right to use their own genes to conceive offspring totalitarian? Ah, I bet I know: prohibiting use of modified gametes is what On Lawn thinks is totalitarian, or maybe just prohibiting same-sex procreation is totalitarian? It shouldn’t be a secret where you disagree with me! By the way On Lawn, is prohibiting incest totalitarian in your opinion? Are you a Transhumanist?
I’m trying to prevent a regulated coercive genetic engineering industry from gradually eroding natural reproductive rights and the basis of human equality and dignity. That would be much more totalitarian than simply letting people marry and procreate like they always have done, without any eugenic pressures to use different genes than their own. I’m trying to prevent that kind of totalitarian eugenics, and preserve universal natural equal reproductive rights.
Sean: “Because as it stands currently, marriage is available to any opposite-sex couple, with procreation abilities or intentions, or not. Something as simple as signs in marriage license bureaus would do the trick, without being intrusive in the least: “Marriage licenses are available to couples who can have, and plan to have, children ONLY!””
It is not available to siblings, etc, and they can have children, so that sign doesn’t work. Marriage is only for couples that are allowed to procreate. It is for relationships we approve of procreating together, upon approval (one of the criteria for approving of a couple procreating is that they publicly and solemnly consent to the obligations of marriage, if they haven’t done that, society doesn’t really approve of them procreating). Being pronounced legally married conveys that state approval and officially bestows the right to procreate upon the couple, and that is the most essential right of marriage. If it would be unethical for their type of relationship to procreate, then marriage is not allowed.
I do think that intentional unmarried procreation should be banned (ie, donor conception outlawed and sperm banks should be shut down), but accidental unmarried procreation should be dealt with as we do today: the father is obligated to support the mother and child just as if they had been married and divorced; they are essentially married and divorced by the state automatically if procreation occurs, and if it doesn’t, they are allowed to abandon each other. That’s why unmarried procreation is legal, because it is not truly unmarried procreation. True unmarried procreation would be like it was back when men didn’t have to support their illegitimate offspring or their mothers, and that hasn’t become legal, only abandoning sex partners when no procreation occurred.
Sean: “And exactly what rights would marriage have that civil unions wouldn’t?”
The right to procreate offspring from the couple’s own genes. Civil Unions would be defined as “marriage minus conception rights.”
Sean: “And why would the courts not reject differences crafted for the purpose of creating differences substantial enough to pass “separate but equal” scrutiny?”
Because a) there is no right to procreate with someone of the same sex found in human history or nature, it is not a basic human right, b) there is a supportable basis to prohibit same-sex couples from procreating using their own genes because it requires modifying the genes and cannot be done safely using the couple’s own genes. So they wouldn’t claim to be equal or try to separate, rather they are explicitly unequal but together, in that they bring same-sex couples in to the same club as married couples in all other regards, except for the one necessary difference.
Sean: “You’re grasping at straws. Any marriage law can include a reference that married couples may only reproduce naturally or something.”
That would be good, but of course unmarried couples should also only be allowed to reproduce naturally, so it wouldn’t be the marriage law that needed that reference. It also might be very hard to prohibit “unnatural” methods of procreation because it is such a basic human right to procreate and the line of natural/unnatural is rather arbitrary, plus it’s been going on for a while now and people think of IVF as a right already. And, even natural unmodified reproduction by same-sex couples would be very unethical, because joining unmodified gametes of the same genomic imprinting almost always results in embryos developing very abnormally and resulting in miscarriage. So society can’t approve of a same-sex couple reproducing together naturally or unnaturally, it is never ethical. And marriage should always approve of the couple reproducing, that approval is meaningful and important.
Sean: “Both straight and gay couples would be affected with your proposal but go ahead and try to get it enacted.”
Straight couples would not lose the right to procreate together at all, and they won’t lose the right to use modified gametes because there is no such right to lose. But yeah, it would affect straight couples that wanted to use modified gametes, and therefore stop genetic engineering and transhumanism. I think that’s what On Lawn doesn’t like about it.
Me: “people should only have a right to procreate with someone of the other sex.”
Sean: “Your opinion, not necessarily shared by anyone else. But you are free to try to persuade others to your point of view. It’s still not a marriage issue but a reproductive one, like abortion.”
Yes, my opinion, but I’m confident that there is no basis to claim a right to procreate with someone of the same sex, because the right to procreate itself is based in human biology and the equal rights of man in nature, and there is no right to manufacture human beings.
Me: “And the right to procreate happens to be the essential sine qua right of every marriage throughout the world and all of history.”
Sean: “But is it relevant today? Is it illegal to procreate if a couple isn’t married?”
It;s never been more relevant, because genetic engineering of designer babies looms large, and already donor gametes are becoming more and more pervasive and coercive, and people are already beginning to feel obligated to use better gametes, as if they don’t have a right to use their own. And there are now self-proclaimed radical “bioethicists” out there writing books about how we should have mandatory screening for inheritable diseases and intervene in all procreation in order to eliminate genetic diseases and improve humanity. That is not sustainable and it is bad public policy.
I think intentional unmarried procreation should be illegal and punishable. And as I wrote in the comment above, I think there is no such thing as unmarried procreation anymore, now that we have paternity testing and child support, it is more like we have “automatic marriage and immediate divorce” for procreative couples.
Me: “[OnLawn] is persisting in precisely what the courts have said is only irrational animus, it makes no sense.”
Sean: “Welcome to my world.”
I feel for you. I think it’s because he’s got a secret eugenic agenda, and it’s his job to obfuscate and waste our time while pretending to be the opposition to same-sex marriage. I’ve been going through this for five or six years with him, and he’s still never really explained what he’s trying to accomplish.
Me: “I think same-sex couples should be allowed to marry if they have the same right to procreate offspring together, even required to be married if they intend to procreate offspring together.”
Sean: “Instead of obsessing about procreation, what about raising children? Don’t they count after they’re born?”
Well yeah, that’s why people that might make children should be legally committed to each other, in case they make children, so that children can be raised by their mother and father.
Sean: “We know that children do better with married parents. Why on earth would we not want the children of same-sex couples to have the same benefits that the children of opposite-sex couples have?”
Existing children being raised by same-sex couples would benefit from their guardians being legally committed to each other, but they would not benefit from them trying to conceive biologically related children, because that would divert too much money and attention away from the existing children, as well as hurt their feelings by implying that their guardians don’t really love them as much as they would biologically related children. Existing children (and all existing people, for that matter) would benefit from same-sex procreation being illegal, and are harmed by it being legal.
“It is not available to siblings, etc, and they can have children, so that sign doesn’t work.”
New sign: “You must be XX years old, unrelated to your intended partner and able to procreate and plan to procreate, in order to get married. No exceptions!”
“Marriage is only for couples that are allowed to procreate.”
We will probably need a national ad campaign, too, to let the public know that marriage has now been redefined as a procreative institution only. It’s a big change, and would probably be stressful to childless married couples, but if procreation is the new thing for marriage, let’s go for it!
“Being pronounced legally married conveys that state approval and officially bestows the right to procreate upon the couple, and that is the most essential right of marriage.”
And yet unmarried couples are completely free to procreate, without government “approval.” I’m hard-pressed to understand the difference, legally, between the unmarried couple and the married couple with regard to procreation.
“but accidental unmarried procreation should be dealt with as we do today: the father is obligated to support the mother and child just as if they had been married and divorced; they are essentially married and divorced by the state automatically if procreation occurs”
This is an excellent observation: it shows the disconnect between the supposed need for “responsible procreation” to get careless, irresponsible straight people to take care of their children. Married or not, you still have to take care of any children you create.
Man, if you haven’t read the wikipedia summary for the Prop 8 trial, it’s a great read. I actually got a little choked up for what gay people go through in this society, and how lame it is to discriminate against them and their children for the purposes of marriage.
Sean: “New sign: “You must be XX years old, unrelated to your intended partner and able to procreate and plan to procreate, in order to get married. No exceptions!””
But you don’t have to be able to procreate, or plan to procreate. You just have to be allowed to procreate, ie, not be forbidden to procreate, because marriage should approve and respect and celebrate the couple being allowed to procreate together. The couple don’t have to actually procreate.
Sean: “And yet unmarried couples are completely free to procreate, without government “approval.” I’m hard-pressed to understand the difference, legally, between the unmarried couple and the married couple with regard to procreation.”
When we got rid of illegitimacy laws, it was done because the laws punished children and made “illegitimate children” into a second-class group, a 14th Amendment violation because they did not have equal rights. And when paternity testing and contraception came on the scene, it made it more practical to deal with unmarried procreation in a reactive rather (child support) than in the old proactive way (fornication laws), to better protect the women who gave birth to illegitimate children. Fornication laws could never completely stop fornication, and so illegitimate children were born in spite of them, and the new system protected those women and children. But the new system never was not supposed to make unmarried procreation an acceptable norm, or declare it a right, or reduce the legitimacy of marriage or negate marriage’s right to procreate. Marriage still makes it legitimate and legal and approved and sanctioned, even though there are measures in place now that make it unnecessary.
Sean: “This is an excellent observation: it shows the disconnect between the supposed need for “responsible procreation” to get careless, irresponsible straight people to take care of their children. Married or not, you still have to take care of any children you create.”
Thank you. It should be noted that it is still responsible to marry before procreating, because it increases the chances of children being raised by their own parents.
“In the second half of
2004, the California Secretary of State mailed a letter
to all registered domestic partners advising them of the
changes and telling recipients to consider whether to
dissolve their partnership. Herek “find[s] it difficult
to imagine that if there were changes in tax laws that
were going to affect married couples, that you would have
the state government sending letters to people suggesting
that they consider whether or not they want to get
divorced before this new law goes into effect. I think
that —— that letter just illustrates the way in which
domestic partnerships are viewed differently than
marriage.””
This is a great example of how marriage substitutes are really not the equivalent of marriage, and unsuitable for, well, anybody, let alone same-sex couples. This is from the Prop 8 trial verdict.
I just finished reading Judge Walker’s actual verdict and it is brilliant! I’ll try to cut and paste some of the more interesting findings at some point. My eyes are bleary now from reading 140 pages of online scanned verdict!
Of course, Sean, SSM is the specious substitution for marriage. Your comment thus stands against the merger of SSM and marriage.
Sean said: “married couples possess a marriage license. That distinguishes them from unmarried couples.”
That is not justification for discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage. Pointing at government benefits that flow from marital status does not justify those benefits. You have the cart before the horse.
I did not ask about distinguishing unmarried couples, Sean. You did a switcheroo to avoid the actual question as asked. You still have offered zilch to justify, in your view, why society discriminates between marriage and nonmarriage.
Sean said: “just as ‘black identity politics’ was the basis for equal rights for black Americans.”
That is a falsehood. The argument against the anti-miscegenation system, for example, was that pressing identity politics — white supremacy — into the marriage law was a misuse of marriage. The argument was not that identity politics of this or that kind be written into the marriage law but quite the opposite.
Your gay emphasis is not about equal rights but about using the gay trait as the means by which to assert the supremacy of gay identity politics over the core meaning of marriage. The SSM idea is the racialist analogue and stands squarely against the societal significance of the marriage idea.
Sean asked: “It really boils down to each couple’s reason for getting married, doesn’t it?”
No. Society issues the license and accords the special status, via government regulation, and so marriage is obviously more than you portrary it to be. As I observed, you seek to make marriage mean less and less.
That is a legitimate position, Sean, and yet even though your remarks outline that position very clearly you keep trying to distance yourself from it. The SSM idea is as you described it. It is in direct conflict with the marriage idea. And that conflict has been well described here. And each time it has been described you have rejected the marriage idea for something that means less and thus is not an extension of marriage but a regressive reduction.
Sean admits that he can offer no justification for limits on the SSM idea:
For instance, he said the following: “It is you, not I, who wants to limit marriage eligibility.”
That was in direct response to the folloswing that I said: “Nothing you have offered necessitates the limit to ‘couples’ that you keep invoking.”
There he specefically eshewed the two-person limit; he does not want to limit eligilbity, he said. This is evident in the SSM campaign, as well, since the SSM idea fails to justify limitations of any kind and so relies on the deception of copy-pasting the boundaries justified by the marriage idea which the SSM campaign insistently rejects as unjust, bigoted, and unconstitutional.
Henceforth read Sean’s usage of ‘couple’ as an insincere invocation of the bilinearity of marriage. Of course, even if you recognize the deception, you can still ask for justification for that usage. Like Mark, Sean has failed to show two contradictory impulses (rather than reasonable responsnes): 1) the fear to be anything but indiscriminatory and 2) the arbitary desire to favor gayness over the intrinsic man-woman criterion of the marriage idea.
This is not about ‘couples’ but about the SSM idea versus the marriage idea. It is remarkable that SSMers lack the confidence to defend the SSM idea and instead rely so much on attack the special reason(s) for the special status of marriage. Remarkable because it is self-defeating: how can they wish to attach SSM to a special status the reason for which they reject as anti-SSM?
Typo correkshuns:
Sean admits that he can offer no justification for limits on the SSM idea:
For instance, he said the following: “It is you, not I, who wants to limit marriage eligibility.”
That was in direct response to the folloswing that I said: “Nothing you have offered necessitates the limit to ‘couples’ that you keep invoking.”
There he specifically eshewed the two-person limit; he does not want to limit eligilbity, he said. This is evident in the SSM campaign, as well, since the SSM idea fails to justify limitations of any kind and so relies on the deception of copy-pasting the boundaries justified by the marriage idea which the SSM campaign insistently rejects as unjust, bigoted, and unconstitutional.
Henceforth read Sean’s usage of ‘couple’ as an insincere invocation of the bilinearity of marriage. Of course, even if you recognize the deception, you can still ask for justification for that usage. Like Mark, Sean has shown two contradictory impulses (rather than reasoned responses): 1) the fear to be anything but indiscriminatory and 2) the arbitary desire to favor gayness over the intrinsic man-woman criterion of the marriage idea.
This is not about ‘couples’ but about the SSM idea versus the marriage idea. It is remarkable that SSMers lack the confidence to defend the SSM idea and instead rely so much on attacking the special reason(s) for the special status of marriage. Remarkable because it is self-defeating: how can they wish to attach SSM to a special status the reason for which they reject as anti-SSM?
See the assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics in our laws and culture. Prominent SSMers have acknowledged this as ‘the queering of society’.
Polygamous marriage is a series of one-man-one-woman marriages. It is not group marriage, contrary to Sean’s ahistorical account. His ignorance might be excused but it is no defense of the SSM idea’s lack of justification for the limit invoked by his usage of ‘couple’.
Sean said: “Marriage is when two people possess a marriage license. That’s pretty much it in terms of the law.”
That is pretty much it in terms of the SSM idea and yet …
1. You have not justified the limit to “two people” because you begin with the license rather than that which is licensed.
2. No licensing scheme self-justifies; nor does special status.
Again, you set the cart before the horse. Even the SSM campaign and your own remarks keep harping on justifying this and that. But you can’t bring yourself to justify the licensing nor the special status and thus you have not justified societal discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage. Instead you point at the mechanisms of discriminating — the license and the special status — which are setup because of something special about marriage.
The marriage idea is in our laws but you reject the very stuff that distinguishes marriage from nonmarriage and so must resort to the superficial: that the license does what the SSM idea cannot do. In direct conflict with that is your claim that there is a right that exists only for those with a government license to exercise that right.
I think the readership has followed your meanderings and has noted the patterns in SSM argumentation that set seemingly impossiblely high hurdles for the marriage idea and naively shallow hurdles (or no hurdles at all) for the SSM idea.
The SSM idea depends on Government owning a constitutional right rather than protecting liberty. It depends on the arbitrary exercise of governmental powers. It is an unjust imposition on society and its argumentation corrupts the public discourse of lawmaking and constitutional principles.
Sean asked: ” Whose fault is that?”
It is the fault of the SSM campaign and the hockers of gay identity politics. Have the courage to accept the blame for the deliberate deception of people even the more gay-friendly places. The double-standards are indemic to SSM argumentation and the campaign’s rhetoric.
“So how does a same-sex couple write up a contract that gives them the right to not have to testify against each other in a court proceeding?”
A contract between themselves does not obligate societal preference.
How do siblings or others ineligible to marry? Or those in lawful arrangements in the nonmarriage category?
They don’t.
The legal incidents that flow from marital status actually flow from the special reason for the special status of marriage in our laws, customs, and traditions.
Since you can’t justify special status, you are at a loss to justify that which flows from special status. And you invoked ‘couple’ again even though you have yet to justify that limitation within the SSM idea.
Sean said petulantly: “I’m crushed. Feel free to ignore me. You’ve made this promise before and can’t seem to do it. Follow through for once.”
Well, your latest comment in response to mine is an improvement.
I had said:
Your taunts are getting old, Sean, and if you can’t raise your level of discourse, your comments will soon be disregarded by myself. You keep trying to engage me in discussion so I assume you find some value in the exchanges. Maybe I assume wrongly. Your level of discourse will signal if that is so.
If you cannot respond substantively, then, don’t respond at all.
Now, you add that your purpose is to point out falsehoods. Yet in making the attempt you havde fabricated misrepresentations of what others have actually said. That is a common hazard in discussions like these, however, I think you cannot claim to be making misreading or misunderstanding and thus producing misrepresentations inadvertently. You are deliberately trading in falsehoods.
“That is not justification for discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage.”
Must one justify discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage? Sounds like more rhetorical BS to me. The only discrimination against any couple who wants to marry is: don’t be too closely related, don’t be too young and don’t be already married. Other than that, the bar is pretty low. You can marry whom you want, except some states have this arbitrary rule that says same-sex couples can’t marry. They don’t know why they have this rule, but they do. It wouldn’t matter but since the rule discriminates unconstitutionally against gay couples, the rule has to go away.
“Pointing at government benefits that flow from marital status does not justify those benefits.”
No but it does put the burden on the government to explain why it is privileging some copules but not others. All you have to do is explain why opposite-sex couples are so useful, and same-sex couples are not, to warrant about 1,500 state and federal benefits. Make the case why same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry, in other words. All the soaring, if incoherent, rhetoric about opposite-sex couple marriage doesn’t explain why same-sex couples must be prohibited from marrying.
“You still have offered zilch to justify, in your view, why society discriminates between marriage and nonmarriage.”
I don’t think society does discriminate between marriage and non-marriage. It discriminates on eligibility, without a rational public purpose in doing so.
“pressing identity politics — white supremacy — into the marriage law was a misuse of marriage”
Pressing Straight Supremacy is just as egregious. The notion that marriage is exclusively for straight people and gay people must not be allowed to marry appears to be founded in a belief in Straight Supremacy, nothing else.
“Your gay emphasis is not about equal rights”
Yes it is: it is gay couples who are being denied the equal right to marry in some states.
“Society issues the license and accords the special status, via government regulation, and so marriage is obviously more than you portrary it to be”
The government issues the license, not “society.” The government makes the rules about who may marry and who may not marry. No couple requires permission from fellow citizens to exercise this or any other right. Whatever government rules there are, they must make sense, particularly if they exclude one group but not other groups.
“The SSM idea is as you described it. It is in direct conflict with the marriage idea.”
It is conflict with your vision of marriage, and the need to exclude same-sex couples. Yet you offer no justification for why your vision of marriage depends on excluding same-sex couples. The only reason to exclude same-sex couples is a Straight Supremacist view that straight people are to be privileged and gay people are not.
“Sean admits that he can offer no justification for limits on the SSM idea”
Sean is more interested in who is being excluded who shouldn’t be, rather than finding people to exclude.
“the SSM idea fails to justify limitations of any kind”
Same-sex marriage simply includes same-sex couples in the eligibility arena, because it is constitutionally impermissible to exclude them. States can still prohibit closely related individuals, individuals that are below a certain age, and individuals who are already married, without violating constitutional imperatives.
“It is remarkable that SSMers lack the confidence to defend the SSM idea and instead rely so much on attack the special reason(s) for the special status of marriage.”
Sean is quite confident in his defense of including gay couples in marriage eligibility. Sean is quite confident of the reasons driving his belief that same-sex couples should be eligible to marry: he knows and understands the nation’s constitution, and has quite a few judges, legislators and fellow citizens who agree with his position about the constitutional requirement of Equal Protection; he has read about and studied the benefits of marriage to married couples and cannot deny these benefits to those couples; he knows that children are nearly always better off if their parents are married; he realizes that he government-backed slight of gay people is one more rationalization for homophobia.
“You have not justified the limit to “two people” because you begin with the license rather than that which is licensed.”
The limit to two is a social convention, and completely constitutional. It can withstand constitutional scrutiny, while gender- or sexuality-based discrimination cannot. So if society wants to limit marriage to a couple, no problem. Same with closely related individuals or individuals below a certain age or people already married.
“No licensing scheme self-justifies”
No one is asking marriage licensing to self-justify either, if that even means anything. What we are asking is, if the government is going to hand out marriage licenses to couples, please don’t do so in a manner that violates the nation’s guarantee of equal protection.
“But you can’t bring yourself to justify the licensing nor the special status”
Sure I have, repeatedly. One, the state can’t discriminate against some citizens but not others without a good reason. Marriage is a fundamental right and just as a mixed-race couple questioned the necessity to prohibit mixed-race marriage, the state had to justify itself and the US Supreme Court said it couldn’t. Now as same-sex couples question reserving marriage to straight couples, the state has to explain why it is doing so. Not very effectively though.
“The marriage idea is in our laws but you reject the very stuff that distinguishes marriage from nonmarriage”
Yes, if straightness is the basis for marriage eligibility, then I reject the very stuff blah blah blah. There is no rational public interest for reserving marriage and its many benefits for straight, but not gay, couples. There is no particular public interest in legally sanctioning straight couples’ relationships, while not affording equal adoration for gay couples’ relationships.
“seemingly impossibly high hurdles for the marriage idea and naively shallow hurdles (or no hurdles at all) for the SSM idea.”
I set the same level hurdles for both: be consenting adults not too closely related, not too young and not already married. My hurdles exclude about 6 couples nationwide who might otherwise want to marry but can’t because of these hurdles. See, marriage is really not the exclusive club you might like to think it is.
“It depends on the arbitrary exercise of governmental powers.”
There is nothing arbitrary about the 14th Amendment.
“Have the courage to accept the blame for the deliberate deception of people”
You have obviously mistaken me from someone from NOM, which habitually runs misleading ads and scare campaigns. A gathering storm?! Gay people want to take away my freedoms?? Same-sex marriage will turn your kids gay?? These are despicable and desperate.
“Since you can’t justify special status, you are at a loss to justify that which flows from special status.”
The special status is the legal recognition of the relationship. That’s all marriage is. There’s no particular reason that an opposite-sex committed couple should be allowed testimonial immunity and a same-sex committed couple should not. Distinguishing between opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples is of no public benefit. Therefore, it should not be done.
“You are deliberately trading in falsehoods.”
Again, you have mistaken me for someone else. I am not a Straight Supremacist or a NOM representative. I am merely pointing out that there is no public benefit in distinguishing between couples based on their gender composition. And there is no public benefit to denying gay couples a marriage license. Whatever expansive, if impractical, notions you have of straight marriage are unaffected when same-sex couples marry. What you think marriage, or is for, does not explain why same-sex couples should not be allowed to marry.
I know you won’t do it, but you really should read Judge Walker’s decision in Perry v. California. It is quite illuminating, and explains the pertinent issues.
There’s a great analysis of the many flaws in Robach’s logic with this pamphlet:
http://prop8trialtracker.com/2010/11/15/nom-accidentally-argues-for-same-sex-marriage/
Try reading the site then, because everyone I’ve talked to about it sees it — except Mark
Not only that, it is one of many dimensions used to show that CU’s and DP’s (et all.) are forms of same-sex marriage.
This is turning out like Mark’s other escapades in definitions…
1) Mark claimed that a same-sex couple isn’t in a same-sex relationship.
2) Mark claimed that “coitus” doesn’t mean a specific act between specific organs of a man and a woman
3) Mark claimed that a couple only refers to romantic couples.
4) Mark claimed that a same-sex relationship fits the definition of “infertility”.
and on, and on,
1) Actually that CU’s don’t provide all the same rights is just another form of the argument that they are not universally recognized at this point. But neither is any other form of same-sex marriage.
What is even more ridiculous is claiming after that single point, that you refuted that CU’s (et. all.) are forms of same-sex marriage.
2) No, a ridiculous argument is claiming that CU’s (et. all.) are not same-sex marriage because they aren’t universally recognized
Yes, what poor victims they make of their children, forcing them to be without a daddy or mommy because that person is of the gender they segregate against.
It is a few things, for one it is a good example of political rhetoric (not legal reasoning).
1) A divorce disolves the relationship, they split homes and often argue the rest of their lives. The letter was simply asking people to consider whether their relationship was best expressed as neutered marriage (as tenuous and wrong such an institution is), or DP’s. It is no different than a corporation deciding whether or not they are best expressed as an S-Corp or C-Corp.
2) Same-sex couples get the choice of another option, whereas couples with both genders do not. An obvious case of discrimination was under the Judge’s nose all along, and he couldn’t see it because he doesn’t mind discrimination in favor of same-sex couples.
“Yes, what poor victims they make of their children, forcing them to be without a daddy or mommy because that person is of the gender they segregate against.”
Well, gosh, if you think same-sex couples shouldn’t be raising children together, feel free to speak up! As homophobic as NOM is, even they don’t have the guts to advocate that gay people not be allowed to reproduce and raise their children with the partner of their choice! Of course, if you really cared about children, you’d want them to be raised by a married couple, stuck together by forced of law. That’s a more secure environment than an unmarried arrangement, for the security of children. Condemning gay people for having the audacity to reproduce (who do they think they are?!) doesn’t do much to make the live sof children better, does it?
“The letter was simply asking people to consider whether their relationship was best expressed as neutered marriage (as tenuous and wrong such an institution is), or DP’s.”
Really? Same-sex marriage wasn’t legal in California in 2004. Domestic partners only had the choice to stay domestically partnered or split up. I guess you didn’t get or read the letter, did you?!
“Same-sex couples get the choice of another option, whereas couples with both genders do not. An obvious case of discrimination was under the Judge’s nose all along, and he couldn’t see it because he doesn’t mind discrimination in favor of same-sex couples.”
You’ve become even more unhinged from reality, if that’s possible. Same-sex couples had the option to stay together as domestic partners, or split up. To argue that gay couples have some advantages, legally, over straight couples is nutty even for you.
On Lawn: You’ve been absent so many days, I thought maybe you had died.
Let’s look at On Lawn’s gross errors:
“1) Mark claimed that a same-sex couple isn’t in a same-sex relationship.”
Not true. I have always said a same-sex couple is a same-sex relationship, just not the other way around. It is On Lawn who continues to insist that all same-sex relationships are same-sex couples, despite the definitions on the web.
“2) Mark claimed that “coitus” doesn’t mean a specific act between specific organs of a man and a woman”
It doesn’t. It refers to sexual intercourse, independent of the gender of the participants.
“3) Mark claimed that a couple only refers to romantic couples.”
Wow, wrong again, On Lawn. There are many types of couples as I have said, such as a dance couple.
“4) Mark claimed that a same-sex relationship fits the definition of “infertility”.”
When On Lawn can’t give an opinion, he makes something up. But, note, this is another example of how On Lawn confuses “same-sex relationship” with “same-sex couple”. On Lawn has said elsewhere on this blog that the terms are not equivalent and yet he continues to use them interchangeably.
On Lawn: “Actually that CU’s don’t provide all the same rights is just another form of the argument that they are not universally recognized at this point. ”
LOL, On Lawn, how I have MISSED your ignorant comments! Even within a state that recognizes CU’s, CU’s do not have the same rights as marriage.
“No, a ridiculous argument is claiming that CU’s (et. all.) are not same-sex marriage because they aren’t universally recognized”
CU’s are not same-sex marriage due to the huge list of inequities (that means CUs do not provide the same rights as marriage).
1) a) Not all same-sex couples are formed out of intolerance of the other gender.
b) And no one is saying that their intolerance and prejudice is illegal.
c) No one said same-sex couples shouldn’t raise children together.
d) However, it is intolerant to have a child with someone, but then bar them from any marriage just because they are of the other gender.
2) And they aren’t.
3) See 1, especially d.
4) I’m not interested in more of Sean’s “If you loved them” fallacy.
5)
Split up? Are you sure Judge Walker read that as asking them to no longer see each other?
“Same-sex couples get the choice of another option, whereas couples with both genders do not. An obvious case of discrimination was under the Judge’s nose all along, and he couldn’t see it because he doesn’t mind discrimination in favor of same-sex couples.”
You’ve become even more unhinged from reality, if that’s possible. Same-sex couples had the option to stay together as domestic partners, or split up. To argue that gay couples have some advantages, legally, over straight couples is nutty even for you.
Nope, I’m firmly in reality. You are right, neutered marriage wasn’t available at the time, but my main argument is still that you are over-stating (and to a large degree Walker) that they had to break-up. They were only advised to consider how their relationship was legally expressed.
Even if Sean is willfully avoiding the actual disagreement, readers can see the conflict between the SSM idea and the marriage idea — in sharp relief — in Sean’s meanderings:
1. “Must one justify discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage?”
Yes, as Sean implicitly acknowledged (with slight edits for clarity in the context of this discussion):
2. “[The] burden [rests] on the government to explain why it is privileging [the union of husband and wife] but not other [types of relationships and arrangements].”
Sean said: “Make the case why same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry”.
1. Justify your phrase ‘same-sex couples”. Justify your rhetorical limitation of ‘same-sex’; justify your rhetorical limitation ‘couple’. Don’t transgress your own rules of argumentation.
Since you have not justified any of the above, apart from empty rhetoric that clearly transgresses your own rules of argumentation, each time you invoke the phrase — and the supposed meaning you intend — the readership can not that as an insincere and unserious usage on your part.
More importantly:
2. Marriage integrates the sexes, provides for responsible procreation within the union of husband and wife, and does these two key things (at the least) as a coherent whole. This is the foundational social institution of marriage.
This is what justifies the special status of marriage; this is what justifies society finding ways to signify who is and who is not married — licensing schemes for example; this is what justifies societal concern for boundaries as per the limitations that SSMers routinely copy-paste but steadfastly refuse to justify within the SSM scenario.
3. SSM segregates the sexes, cannot provide for procreation within it, is neither foundational nor a social institution, and stands opposed to what makes marriage, marriage.
As a sidelight, Sean (and the typical SSMer) cannot justify boundaries and even expressly concedes that he has no interest in limiting eligiblity — not based on the SSM idea and not based on any of the features he has repeatedly brought up to argue for SSM — not ‘same-sex’, not ‘couple’, and not ‘children’, and not ‘liberty’, and not even the usual package of gaycentric features: gay identity, same-sex sexual attraction, same-sex sexual romance, same-sex sexual behavior. The sidelight shows the contrast between the background (gay identity politics which SSMers hope imposition of SSM will innoculate against dissent and opposition) and the context of marriage (a foundational social institution of civil society that the government neither creates nor owns but which society benefits because society benefits from marriage).
Sean said: “notion that marriage is exclusively for straight people and gay people […]”
That is your notion, not that of marriage defenders, since, as you have conceded there is no gay criterion for ineligilbity and no straight criterion for eligilbity. You have also conceded that gay people have married, are eligible to marry, and, thus, your abuse of the common meaning of words is again on display — marriage is not “exclusively” as you described.
It is you, as an SSMer, who is the racialist analogue in this discussion. You’d press identity politics into the marriage law. Your pro-gay bigotry is not somehow more noble than that of the pro-white bigotry of the anti-miscegenists in the past. It is of a kind.
Sean said:
1. “The government issues the license, not ‘society.'”
Government does not own society. Again, you have put the cart before the horse.
2. “Whatever government rules there are, they must make sense, particularly if they exclude one group but not other groups.”
What groups are excluded? The marriage law does not mention groups and does not order individuals by group identity, as you have already conceded.
The man-woman criterion does makes loads of good sense since marriage integrates the sexes and provides for responsible procreation, as a coherent whole, and this criterion is not a group identity criterion.
Since you have failed to justify special status for the one-sexed scenario, your SSM idea fails your own test: it makes no sense to accord such a status much less to license the one-sexed scenario. Not even your gay emphasis can provide the sense since you have eschewed gayness as a legitimate basis for lawmaking. And you can’t fairly rely on the arbitrary exercise of govdernmental power, as per your own remark, as quoted above.
Your use of the word, group, clearly applies to those who’d be excluded by your copy-paste of the marriage limitations to the SSM idea. Go ahead. You said these must make sense. Make sense within the one-sexed scenario. Don’t transgress your own rules of argumentation.
Sean admits his anti-marriage starting place: “there is no public benefit in distinguishing between couples based on their gender composition”.
Society distinguishes the union of husband and wife from other types of relationships and other types of arrangements whether or not the gender composition is also opposite-sexed.
It is not “gender composition” that is the basis for discriminating between marriage and non-marriage. Society favors the marriage idea and the core of that idea — of that foundational social institution — is what distinguishes the union of husband and wife from other man-woman arrangements (sexualized or not).
The special status flows from that; the licensing scheme follows from that; the limitations for eligilbity are boundaries drawn around that. Society responds to the core meaning of marriage by 1) according special status, 2) licensing it is some manner, and 3) expressing in law, custom, and tradition the lines that demarcate the eligible from the ineligible types of relationships and types of arrangements.
It is not just a relationship recognized by law. There are tons and tons of different types of relationships and different types of arrangements that are recognized by law for what they are — even when they remain in the nonmarriage category. Marriage law recognizes marriage for what it is — a union of husband and wife, a type of relationship that merits special treatment.
Within the type of relationship known as the union of husband and wife there is great diversity and variety, however, the core meaning of the social institution is societal, not individualistic, and this is directly reflected in the actual disagreement and conflict between the marriage idea and the SSM idea.
When the gay emphasis is removed, the SSM idea is really just a call for protections for vulnerable families of the nonmarriage category. It is not actually a call for special status; however, the SSM campaign has pressed gay identity politics into this idea and distorted it to mean that gayness itself somehow merits special status in our laws and policies and our culture. It is a bald assertion made in the name of the gay identity group but which lacks justification. Hence SSMer runaway from even trying to justify gayness as a legitimate basis for lawmaking.
@OnLawn
“Not all same-sex couples are formed out of intolerance of the other gender.”
I doubt ANY same-sex couple is formed because of an intolerance of the other gender. I suspect same-sex couples are formed when two people of the same sex find each other attractive and appealing.
“No one said same-sex couples shouldn’t raise children together.”
Good, then it’s settled: same-sex couples raising children should be allowed to marry, for their own benefit and the benefit of their children.
“it is intolerant to have a child with someone, but then bar them from any marriage just because they are of the other gender.”
Good thing no one is doing this!
“I’m not interested in more of Sean’s “If you loved them” fallacy.”
Of course you aren’t! Your Straight Supremacy approach to marriage leaves you in the awkward position of denying some children the right to have married parents. You SHOULD feel uncomfortable creating an unnecessary second-class existence for the children of same-sex couples. But evidently, kids are acceptable collateral damage in the war against “the gays”!
“Split up? Are you sure Judge Walker read that as asking them to no longer see each other?”
I have no idea how Judge Walker read that letter, since my comment didn’t come from him. “Split up” was used in the sense of dissolving the legal relationship, not severing the romantic relationship.
“I’m firmly in reality.”
The evidence is not there to support this claim.
“my main argument is still that you are over-stating (and to a large degree Walker) that they had to break-up. They were only advised to consider how their relationship was legally expressed.”
As usual you missed the point. It was: the state doesn’t notify married people to reconsider their marital status based on changing tax laws or other events. It suggests a lack of permanency of domestic partnerships, predicated on mere tax advantages. It undermines the claim that marriage and marriage substitutes can be thought of as equal.
@Chairm
“Justify your phrase ‘same-sex couples”. Justify your rhetorical limitation of ‘same-sex’; justify your rhetorical limitation ‘couple’. Don’t transgress your own rules of argumentation.”
No I don’t feel like it. I feel like transgressing.
“the readership can not that as an insincere and unserious usage on your part.”
The readership? All six people who come to this website? That readership?!
“Marriage integrates the sexes”
Really? I thought it just let two people in love legally cement their relationship and commitment. In any event, marriage can still “integrate the sexes” when same-sex marriage is legal.
“SSM segregates the sexes, cannot provide for procreation within it, is neither foundational nor a social institution, and stands opposed to what makes marriage, marriage.”
Wow, I thought straight couples would still be allowed to marry, when same-sex marriage is legal.
“Sean (and the typical SSMer) cannot justify boundaries and even expressly concedes that he has no interest in limiting eligibility”
Well Sean doesn’t see marriage as a particularly exclusive club so why limit eligibility at all? In practice, creating a minimum age makes sense: lack of maturity to make a good marital decision, including choice of partner, ability to make the commitment, etc. It makes sense to prohibit close relatives because they already have a kinship bond. It makes no sense to prohibit same-sex couples, because they are similarly situated as opposite-sex couples.
“SSMers hope imposition of SSM will innoculate against dissent and opposition”
Maybe some do but I think most supporters of same-sex marriage just want same-sex couples, especially those raising children, to be able to marry. The Straight Supremacists and homophobes will always be around to trash gay people.
“there is no gay criterion for ineligilbity and no straight criterion for eligilbity.”
Yes there is. Perhaps a quote from the Iowa Supreme Court ruling (have you read it yet???) would be instructive here:
“It is true the marriage statute does not expressly prohibit gay and lesbian persons from marrying; it does, however, require that if they marry, it must be to someone of the opposite sex. Viewed in the complete context of marriage, including intimacy, civil marriage with a person of the opposite sex is as unappealing to a gay or lesbian person as civil marriage with a person of the same sex is to a heterosexual. Thus, the right of a gay or lesbian person under the marriage statute to enter into a civil marriage only with a person of the opposite sex is no right at all. Under such a law, gay or lesbian individuals cannot simultaneously fulfill their deeply felt need for a committed personal relationship, as influenced by their sexual orientation,
and gain the civil status and attendant benefits granted by the statute. Instead, a gay or lesbian person can only gain the same rights under the statute as a heterosexual person by negating the very trait that defines gay and lesbian people as a class—their sexual orientation. In re Marriage
Cases, 183 P.3d at 441. The benefit denied by the marriage statute—the status of civil marriage for same-sex couples—is so “closely correlated with being homosexual” as to make it apparent the law is targeted at gay and lesbian people as a class. See Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 583, 123 S. Ct. at 2486, 156 L. Ed. 2d at 529 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (reviewing criminalization of homosexual sodomy and concluding that “[w]hile it is true that the law applies only to conduct, the conduct targeted by this law is conduct that is closely correlated with being homosexual. Under such circumstances, [the] sodomy law is targeted at more than conduct. It is instead directed toward gay persons as a class.”).”
“You’d press identity politics into the marriage law.”
Only as an antidote to the current situation where Straight Supremacy is being advanced through the marriage law.
“Government does not own society. Again, you have put the cart before the horse.”
Then I can assume the people can vote to determine who may get driver’s licenses, fishing licenses and medical licenses. Why not? Why deny the people the right to determine who may drive? Or practice medicine? Or fish?
The fact is (yike, facts!), the law is used to advance a government interest, not a popular interest. That’s why not one court ruling has determined that marriage discrimination is constitutional on unconstitutional based on the will of the people. The notion of popular input in this issue is a demonic creation of the Straight Supremacists/homophobes/”I make a lot of money in the hate-gay-for-pay industry!” crowd.
“What groups are excluded?”
Gay people.
“The man-woman criterion does makes loads of good sense”
And so far as I know, no one wants to get rid of it. Straight people will still be permitted to marry when same-sex marriage is legal.
“Since you have failed to justify special status for the one-sexed scenario”
I have? Are you saying it’s not enough to respect constitutional guarantees of equal protection, creating a more secure environment for children and reducing the impact of homophobia in society (and therefore violence against gay people) aren’t enough? Just out of curiosity, what justification would suit you?
“Make sense within the one-sexed scenario.”
Respect constitutional guarantees of equal protection, create a more secure environment for the children of same-sex couples and reduce the impact of homophobia in society (and therefore violence against gay people), as well as the benefits of marriage (longer life, better health, greater wealth) for the couple itself.
Now explain why same-sex marriage needs to be outlawed.
“Sean admits his anti-marriage starting place”
Sean is very much pro-marriage.
“Society distinguishes the union of husband and wife from other types of relationships”
Yeah, because they’re married. That’s why same-sex couples want to marry: to get that same status.
“It is not “gender composition” that is the basis for discriminating between marriage and non-marriage.”
But it is gender composition, in part, that is used to determine who may and who may not marry. That’s a big problem.
“Marriage law recognizes marriage for what it is — a union of husband and wife, a type of relationship that merits special treatment.”
But without justifying WHY this particular arrangement has special value to society, and why it would be undermined if same-sex couples marry, nothing else you say really matters much. No matter how many words you take to say it, or how often.
Chairm: “Hence SSMer runaway from even trying to justify gayness as a legitimate basis for lawmaking.”
Another person I thought might be gone, welcome back. I really wish you could limit your diatribes to a paragraph or two – would make responding easier.
We get it, you hate gays, you find them disgusting. You think that two men or two women who want to create a life together are asking for some sort of “special rights”. You couldn’t be more wrong. All people who support SSM want is equal access to marriage. This is why it is similar to allowing interracial marriage in the 60’s. Marriage didn’t collapse and it won’t with SSM.
So, those who hate gays and SSM really need to JUSTIFY how they can DENY EQUAL RIGHTS to US citizens. The rest is just wasted air.
More from the Iowa court:
“By purposefully placing civil marriage outside the realistic reach of gay
and lesbian individuals, the ban on same-sex civil marriages differentiates
implicitly on the basis of sexual orientation.”
Well said.
Mark continues in statements that are clearly wrong. The [1]st contradicts itself, and the second is clearly not true, when I’ve mentioned that [2] same-sex relationships between three or more people is not a same-sex couple. And Mark is clearly contradicted by the Wiki and a human rights organization in Australia who state clearly that a same-sex couple is simply two people in a same-sex relationship, and not all same-sex relationships are homosexual (or sexual at all).
As Op-Ed explained back on October 11th…
Alright, show one right “within a state that recognizes CU’s” that isn’t the same as marriage.
Which right, specifically, means it isn’t a type of same-sex marriage? And how does lacking that right prove it is not a same-sex marriage?
Sean admits he prefers to depend on double standards of his own making: “I feel like transgressing [the rules of argumentation invoked against marriage and in favor of SSM].”
Readers will note that S.S.M. = Specious Substitution of Marriage.
Some related people may marry; the SSM idea provides no basis for drawing a line based on relatedness. Some underaged people may marry; the SSM idea provides no basis for drawing a line based on age which, as Sean just made clear, is merely proxy for maturity — some underaged people are more mature than some adults and some adults are less mature than some underaged people.
Again, it is not commitment itself that matters but that to which commitment is given — not just by the individual but also by society.
The SSM idea does not provide justification for line-drawing. Copy-paste is a poor substitute since SSM argumentation expressly rejects the core meaning of marriage around which the copy-pasted boundaries are drawn and from which those lines are justified. For example, Sean has readily and eagerly conceded that there is no sexual basis for SSM, at law. So even gayness cannot be cited as justification for restrictions on commitment by related people nor by underaged people.
Of course, transgressing his own rules of argumentation is routine for Sean and the typical SSMer. That is his flagrant admission of intellectual dishonesty and his display of contempt for the principled basis upon which society may discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage.
The SSM idea, and the argumentation used by SSMers, depends, utterly, on the arbitrary exercised of governmental power. Yet the SSM campaign’s central complaint is expressed as an urgent concern that the husband-wife basis of marriage law is somehow an arbitrary act of governmental power. We have seen SSMers abandon the supposed sexual basis for the SSM idea even as they continue with their gay emphasis. That emphasis, they repeatedly insist, trumps everything else.
Sean, the bit you quoted from the pro-SSM court opinion damns itself.
1. “marriage with a person of the opposite sex is as unappealing to a gay or lesbian person as civil marriage with a person of the same sex is to a heterosexual”.
Under the marriage statute there is no such thing as “marriage with a person of the same-sex”; and there is no sexual orientation requirement. That opinion speaks in circles. This is why it appeals to you, Sean, and why you mistakenly thought that this quote helped your argument here. It rather does the opposite: it shows the abuse of judicial review is blatant.
Sean said: “Then I can assume the people can vote to determine who may get driver’s licenses, fishing licenses and medical licenses.”
Driving licenses are not used for fishing; fishing licenses are not used for medicine; medical licenses are not used for driving nor for fishing.
Marriage licensing is for marriage, not for nonmarriage.
The People can vote on licensing schemes.
When marriage measures of put to a vote at the ballot box, the issue is marriage, not nonmarriage. SSMers can’t help but depend on confusing the two and pretending that “people”, rather than The People, legitimize government and are not owned by Government. Sean’s contempt is obvious: he bristled at the notion that the People have a government and not the other way around.
Sean, explain what you really mean by the following: “Straight people will still be permitted to marry when same-sex marriage is legal.”
Gay people are permitted to marry today without the enactment or imposition of SSM. You meant that committed relationships would be legal in SSM was law, however, that is also true, today, without SSM.
The SSM idea is a lousy substitute for the marriage idea, in law and in the culture, so instead of dealing with that conflict you continue to make identity politics your top priority. That’s okay, I have been making that observation and you keep reinforcing it with each comment you make. It is what it is.
The following is not a statement describing an actual fact:
“The fact is (yike, facts!), the law is used to advance a government interest, not a popular interest.”
The marriage law arises from societal regard for the social institution of marriage; society accords a preferential status for the union of husband and wife; society benefits from the social institution and so society benefits the social institution; the societal interest in sex integration and responsible procreation, combined as a coherent whole, is well-expressed as a government interest in our laws.
The SSM — as per Sean’s own concessions — advances no such government interest outside of the nonmarriage category. There is no rational basis for copy-pasting boundaries of marriage for supposed boundaries of SSM. Those boundaries, minus the core meaning of marriage, do not justify ineligiblity for the one-sexed scenario — gay or otherwise — and do not justify ineligiblity of two-sexed scenarios that are out of bounds for marriage.
Societal response to the core meaning of marriage is at stake, clearly, but SSMers seek to divorce societal significance from a special status; and so they seek to sever marital status from the reason(s) that justify special treatment.
They pretend that straight versus gay is all there is and that gay must be asserted as superior. That is the wrong way to frame the disagreement since this is about marriage, not about gayness. SSMers fail to grasp this obvious fact. So they prefer to argue about something other than the justification for the special status of marriage in our society. And their first step is to assert that Government (upper case G) owns this foundational social institution and that the big hairy hand of Government must be recruited to impose the supremacy of gay identity politics over all of society.
They insist, in various ways, that this is their most cherished hope — that the culture will be subverted by Government. Yet they can offer no moral argument in favor of same-sex sexual behavior and always retreat to moral neutrality. This obviously cannot justify the special status they demand for SSM. And so they insist that morality is antithetical to Government interests. Again, for this they depend on inverting the relationship between governing authorities and society.
By the way, that totalitarian impulse is oft-expressed in the comments that SSMers make when invoking their infertility strawman. And in remarks against sex integration; and in the double-standards whereby a 100% guarnatee is demanded of marriage law but nothing remotely close to a guarantee is proposed for SSM law.
Sean has confirmed this hostility toward society is deeply rooted in SSM argumentation.
Sean said: “Are you saying it’s not enough to respect constitutional guarantees of equal protection, creating a more secure environment for children and reducing the impact of homophobia in society (and therefore violence against gay people) aren’t enough?”
1
Sean said: “Are you saying it’s not enough to respect constitutional guarantees of equal protection, creating a more secure environment for children and reducing the impact of homophobia in society (and therefore violence against gay people) aren’t enough?”
1. Equal protection exists without imposition of SSM. In the nonmarriage category, of which SSM is a subset, protections are available justly under the Constitution.
You disagree. You want to impose special treatment for your favored identity group. You do not begin with marriage nor with the Constitution. Your starting place it outside of both.
2. Children are raised in many types of relationships and types of living arrangements within the nonmarriage category. The gay subset does not merit special treatment.
3. Discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage has zilch to do with your accusations of homophobia. However, discriminating between the gay subset of nonmarriage and the rest of that category is clearly driven by pro-gay bigotry — analogous with racialist bigotry.
4. If you are now proposing a 100% guarantee that violence will be reduced with the impositoin of SSM, then, step up to the plate and provide evidence, now, of that prediction coming true in any jurisdiction that has imposed SSM. If you cannot, then, your fanciful prediction is bogus.
Meanwhile, gayness does not justify special status on par with marital status. Your own terms of argumentation knock the knees out from under your gay emphasis, as clearly outlined upthread.
Mark said: “We get it, you hate gays, you find them disgusting.”
No, you really don’t get it. Your misrepresentations do not suffice. If you want to engage the actual disagreement, then, start by accurately restating, in your own words, the core meaning of marriage as I have described it.
If, as I anticipate, you prefer to stick with your misrepresentations, then, you will demonstrate that you lack the courage to fairly defend the SSM idea; instead you will continue to attack the marriage idea and continue to place gayness over and above all else.
Mark said: “You think that two men or two women who want to create a life together are asking for some sort of ‘special rights”’ You couldn’t be more wrong.”
Marital status is a special status, as you have conceded. However, you have failed to state the special reason(s) for that special status. Whatever you offered is applicable to the nonmarriage category. And, no, gayness does not suffice.
Your gay emphasis clearly demands special rights based on nothing more than the assertion of the supremacy of that socio-political identity.
Mark said: “All people who support SSM want is equal access to marriage. This is why it is similar to allowing interracial marriage in the 60′s. Marriage didn’t collapse and it won’t with SSM.”
Marriage did not collapse under the anti-miscegnation system, as you might already be aware. However, the racialist identity politics did misuse marriage for an expressly nonmarriage purpose. This the SSM campaign has in commmon with the racialists.
You might hope that your identity politics is more benign, but that does not negate your obvious gay emphasis and reliance on it trumping marriage law and constitutional law.
Mark taunted childishly:
“So, those who hate gays and SSM really need to JUSTIFY how they can DENY EQUAL RIGHTS to US citizens. The rest is just wasted air.”
I have justified society discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage. You have not; you have not even justified discriminating between SSM and nonmarriage much less justified special status for SSM.
Your participation has not been a waste for your remarks have accurately represented the SSM campaign and its argumentation: and so the readership will not have been forewarned of what the real meaning of SSM is for all of society. For that you are thanked.
Typo correction: “Your participation has not been a waste for your remarks have accurately represented the SSM campaign and its argumentation: and so the readership will now have been forewarned of what the real meaning of SSM is for all of society. For that you are thanked.”
On Lawn: “And Mark is clearly contradicted by the Wiki and a human rights organization in Australia who state clearly that a same-sex couple is simply two people in a same-sex relationship, and not all same-sex relationships are homosexual (or sexual at all).”
On Lawn continues to beat this dead horse with no proof of his claims. But I will leave it up to anyone to go to the sites he points to. It only make On Lawn look more and more moronic.
“And in the medical definitions, it was explicitly said to be between specific organs of a male and female.”
On Lawn cherry picks the dictionaries that support his claims. LOL, amazing how On Lawn can be SO clueless in basic research.
“Mark has not produced any cases where a same-sex relationship was deemed infertile, nor could he professionally bring himself to claim in diagnosis that a same-sex relationship truly performed coitus without having a child if that was all he had to go on to diagnose infertility”
LOL, OK On Lawn, get back on your meds. You are just talking crazy talk now. This rant makes absolutely no sense. First, coitus is sexually intercourse, period. It is not related to procreation, even in On Lawn’s small brain. Secondly, if On Lawn wants to say that same-sex relationships (notice how he continues to equate these to same-sex couples) are fertile, let him.
“There you see it, Mark contradicts #1 above again, and misses how poorly his argument is applied to my point”
Give it up, On Lawn. You are just acting and sounding like an idiot. Nothing in what I said contradicts a previous statement by me.
“because then you have to explain how someone confused and doesn’t understand basic English is running circles around you both in reading comprehension and understanding of reality.”
Only you, in your small pathetic mind, think this, On Lawn. Anyone with half a brain can see how ridiculous you come across.
On Lawn: “Alright, show one right “within a state that recognizes CU’s” that isn’t the same as marriage.”
Sigh, once again, because On Lawn’s attention span is so short, is a list:
* Hospital visitation. Married couples have the automatic right to visit each other in the hospital and make medical decisions. Same-sex couples can be denied the right to visit a sick or injured loved one in the hospital.
* Social Security benefits. Married people receive Social Security payments upon the death of a spouse. Despite paying payroll taxes, gay and lesbian partners receive no Social Security survivor benefits — resulting in an average annual income loss of $5,528 upon the death of a partner.
* Immigration. Americans in bi-national relationships are not permitted to petition for their same-sex partners to immigrate. As a result, they are often forced to separate or move to another country.
* Health insurance. Many public and private employers provide medical coverage to the spouses of their employees, but most employers do not provide coverage to the life partners of gay and lesbian employees. Gay and lesbian employees who do receive health coverage for their partners must pay federal income taxes on the value of the insurance.
* Estate taxes. A married person automatically inherits all the property of his or her deceased spouse without paying estate taxes. A gay or lesbian taxpayer is forced to pay estate taxes on property inherited from a deceased partner.
* Family leave. Married workers are legally entitled to unpaid leave from their jobs to care for an ill spouse. Gay and lesbian workers are not entitled to family leave to care for their partners.
* Nursing homes. Married couples have a legal right to live together in nursing homes. The rights of elderly gay or lesbian couples are an uneven patchwork of state laws. Home protection. Laws protect married seniors from being forced to sell their homes to pay high nursing home bills; gay and lesbian seniors have no such protection.
* Home protection. Laws protect married seniors from being forced to sell their homes to pay high nursing home bills; gay and lesbian seniors have no such protection.
* Pensions. After the death of a worker, most pension plans pay survivor benefits only to a legal spouse of the participant. Gay and lesbian partners are excluded from such pension benefits.
But even in a specific state, like New Jersey that recognizes CUs, there are cases being brought because of this lack if equality.
http://data.lambdalegal.org/in-court/downloads/lewis_nj_20100318_brief-iso-plaintiffs-motion-in-aid-of-litigants-rights.pdf
And, finally, a simple guide to the different types of relationships – and why they are not equal:
http://www.equalitymaine.org/marriage-civil-unions-and-domestic-partnerships-comparison
“Sean admits he prefers to depend on double standards of his own making”
Yes, it makes Sean feel powerful and important. No wait, that’s Chairm, writing 5,000 word essays that say….nothing.
“the SSM idea provides no basis for drawing a line based on relatedness”
Well, I’ll take this opportunity to speak for the SSM idea and say that we’re good with whatever the OSM idea is doing with relatedness, that is, not too closely.
“the SSM idea provides no basis for drawing a line based on age which, as Sean just made clear, is merely proxy for maturity”
Well, isn’t age a proxy for maturity, whether it’s opposite-sex marriage or same-sex marriage? Are gay people more, or less, mature, than straight people. Let me guess, it has to be a negative comparison, so gay people are less mature than straight people?
“some underaged people are more mature than some adults and some adults are less mature than some underaged people.”
Well, go talk to the OSM people and interrogate them: they started it with the age thing.
“Sean has readily and eagerly conceded that there is no sexual basis for SSM, at law”
Well there’s no sexual basis at law for OSM, is there? There’s a sexual orientation basis, in states that still discriminate against gay people. Is that what you meant?
“Of course, transgressing his own rules of argumentation is routine for Sean and the typical SSMer”
That’s because we’re naughty and generally pranksters by nature.
“That is his flagrant admission of intellectual dishonesty and his display of contempt for the principled basis upon which society may discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage.”
Hey, look, it does a body good to flip off society every now and then and transgress the rules, man. But truth be told, I do feel contempt for society’s “principled” basis for letting straight people marry, but not gay people. I don’t see the public good in it, and there is much public bad in it.
“The SSM idea, and the argumentation used by SSMers, depends, utterly, on the arbitrary exercised of governmental power”
I don’t see the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment as arbitrary. If it’s got any teeth at all, we have to honor it both when it “pinches and when it comforts,” as some important legal dude said a while back.
“Yet the SSM campaign’s central complaint is expressed as an urgent concern that the husband-wife basis of marriage law is somehow an arbitrary act of governmental power.”
Well, yeah. What isn’t arbitrary about saying straight people can marry, but gay people can’t? What’s the public purpose in such a rule? Why is it worth harming the children of same-sex couples with less secure lives and adult outcomes? I really don’t get it.
“Sean, the bit you quoted from the pro-SSM court opinion damns itself.”
Damn, I was afraid of that.
“it shows the abuse of judicial review is blatant.”
I think it shows that if we really mean it when we say we want all citizens treated equally, we’re going to have to honor the adult committed relationships of all people, not just straight people.
“Driving licenses are not used for fishing; fishing licenses are not used for medicine; medical licenses are not used for driving nor for fishing.”
I totally agree with you on this.
“Marriage licensing is for marriage, not for nonmarriage.”
I also totally agree with you on this!
“The People can vote on licensing schemes.”
Not when a fundamental right, like marriage, is involved. See Supreme Court ruling in Barnette v. West Virginia
“Sean’s contempt is obvious: he bristled at the notion that the People have a government and not the other way around.”
Well, no, not exactly: “the People” approved a US Constitution, through their elected representatives, as well as individual state constitutions. These constitutions are the rules that “the People” insist we all live by. If the People insist that all Americans be treated equally, well, gosh darn it, we have to follow the People’s rules, even if we don’t want to.
“Sean, explain what you really mean by the following: “Straight people will still be permitted to marry when same-sex marriage is legal.””
Well, many posts here seem to imply that when marriage rights are extended to gay people, straight people won’t be allowed to marry. That’s how I perceive that persistent remarks about how children need a mom and a dad, or how marriage has been about one man and one woman for millions of years, and stuff like that. It’s the argument one might use if opposite-sex marriage were being replaced by same-sex marriage. But it’s not: straight people will continue to be allowed to marry, so far as I know, when gay couples marry.
“Gay people are permitted to marry today without the enactment or imposition of SSM”
Not sure where you’re coming from with this one. In states where same-sex marriage isn’t allowed, gay people can’t get married.
“The SSM idea is a lousy substitute for the marriage idea”
I don’t think it’s a substitute, if that implies that straight people won’t be allowed to marry if same-sex marriage is legal. Look at Massachusetts or Connecticut: both straight and gay couples can get married. Whatever is going on in those states, and a few others, that’s what many of us want nationwide.
“The marriage law arises from societal regard for the social institution of marriage; society accords a preferential status for the union of husband and wife; society benefits from the social institution and so society benefits the social institution; the societal interest in sex integration and responsible procreation, combined as a coherent whole, is well-expressed as a government interest in our laws.”
And like many, if not all, marriage equality supporters, I want this aspect of marriage to stay!
“The SSM — as per Sean’s own concessions — advances no such government interest outside of the nonmarriage category.”
That’s extremely false. Society has the same interest in seeing committed same-sex couples get married as seeing committed opposite-sex couples marry: create stable relationships as the foundation of society; see children raised in a more secure environment; and in the specific case of gay people, help reduce the amount of homophobia in society that leads to violence against gays, including gay violence against self (that is, suicide).
“They pretend that straight versus gay is all there is and that gay must be asserted as superior.”
You do your side no favors, Chairm, by posting silliness. Nothing about marriage equality gives gays a position of superiority.
“They insist, in various ways, that this is their most cherished hope — that the culture will be subverted by Government.”
The government can’t hope to undermine marriage with the same effectiveness that straight people have: rampant pre-marital sex, rampant adultery, rampant divorce, rampant serial marriages. It sometimes makes one wonder why gays want to get married!
“Yet they can offer no moral argument in favor of same-sex sexual behavior and always retreat to moral neutrality.”
The moral argument in favor of homosexuality is that it’s normal and should be treated as such. Straight Supremacy is so yesterday, Chairm!
“that totalitarian impulse is oft-expressed in the comments that SSMers make when invoking their infertility strawman.”
It’s not a strawman and nothing about pointing out the obvious, that marriage is not connected to procreation anymore (if it ever was) is totalitarian. If you want to redefine marriage as only for procreative couples, then let’s just issue a broadcast email to all Americans stating such: no kids, no marriage!
“Sean has confirmed this hostility toward society is deeply rooted in SSM argumentation.”
Sean just hates society, and is arguing in favor of social fairness and social justice, as well as support for the nation’s constitution and the nation’s vulnerable children, because he hates society that much.
“Equal protection exists without imposition of SSM”
Nope, not even close. You know this, but some invisible force drives you to pretend that nonmarriage for gays is equal to marriage for straights.
“You want to impose special treatment for your favored identity group.”
Nope, just equal treatment.
“Children are raised in many types of relationships and types of living arrangements within the nonmarriage category. The gay subset does not merit special treatment.”
But children do deserve equal treatment. There is no reason for society to favor the children of opposite-sex couples but disfavor the children of same-sex couples. With no rational public purpose, the children of same-sex couples are denied the many advantages of having married parents. This is a national disgrace. You know it, realize what I’m saying is true, yet your obsession with keeping marriage away from “the gays” is so strong, you are willing to hurt children to achieve your goal. This is about as immoral as it gets.
“If you are now proposing a 100% guarantee that violence will be reduced with the impositoin of SSM, then, step up to the plate and provide evidence, now”
Did I say there would be a 100% reduction? Read much? And reduction in the level of homophobia in this country is welcome relief for gay people and their children. So long as the government puts an official stamp of disapproval on gay couples, homophobes will have an institutionalized reason to offend/chastise/criticize/harm/ gays. “See? Even the government doesn’t approve of homos!” Like religion, there is no public purpose in the government taking sides. Law must be color blind, religion blind and yes, sexuality blind. To do otherwise is to have the government taking sides.
Wow, that is a great example of the court over-reaching with their conclusions. Civil marriage, in their view, is “purposefully” placed outside the reach of gay and lesbian individuals. They didn’t even establish, credibly, that it was out of reach in the first place.
“Civil marriage, in their view, is “purposefully” placed outside the reach of gay and lesbian individuals. They didn’t even establish, credibly, that it was out of reach in the first place.”
Yeah they did. You should read the decision, it might make you rethink your animosity toward same-sex marriage. The court said that the context of marriage, including intimacy, creates a barrier to gays and lesbians, who prefer romance and sex with someone of the same, not opposite, sex. They create committed couples on this basis.
They furthered reasoned that asking gays and lesbians to marry opposite-sex persons is asking them to deny the very trait that defines them as gay and lesbian: longing for companionship and intimacy with someone of the same sex.
It would be like asking Jews to worship on Sunday, instead of Saturday: worshipping on Saturday is so fundamental a part of their weekly worshipping that forcing them to worship on Sundays instead of Saturdays undermines the context of worshipping for them.
Sean, a proxy does not provide the 100% guarantee that your terms of argumentation demand. So, no, age as proxy for maturity fails your own standard. So you double-back and shrug as you did with relatedness. If you drop the 100% guarantee, then, proxies are legitimate in law. But your pro-SSM argument depends on it, utterly.
The SSM idea is different from the marriage idea. The former does not mirror the latter. It contradicts.
Copy-paste does not provide a basis for the use of age and relatedness in drawing lines of eligibility for the SSM idea.
Sean said: “Well there’s no sexual basis at law for OSM, is there?”
There is a sexual basis for marriage in our marriage laws. You reject it. See the sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity, for one glaring example. See the same sexual basis for consummation, annulment, and adultery-divorce, among other things. None of that is sex-neutral. None of that is one-sexed.
Your admission is on the record, however, and so your complaint, based on a sexual basis, is nullified by yourself.
Your remarks regarding The People and The Constitution don’t actually support the abuse of judicial review upon which the pro-SSM court decisions have depended. Yet you repeatedly show your own support for such judicial abuse. Circular thinking like that keeps you from engaging the actual disagreement, Sean, which does leave you with the self-limiting role of prankster.
Sean said:
“[M]any posts here seem to imply that when marriage rights are extended to gay people, straight people won’t be allowed to marry. That’s how I perceive that persistent remarks about how children need a mom and a dad, or how marriage has been about one man and one woman for millions of years, and stuff like that. It’s the argument one might use if opposite-sex marriage were being replaced by same-sex marriage.”
That is not the implication. Your misperception has been corrected plenty of times. Yet you persist with your error.
But let’s follow your perception more carefully: will the government abandon the special reason for the special status of the social institution of marriage, if society, via government, were to drop the core meaning of marriage?
You might say, there is no such core meaning and it depends on the individual’s personal motivations. And, that, Sean, would mean the answer is actually yes, the special reason for the special staus of marriage would be abandoned.
Society accords special status. You need an extraordinary reason to abandon the special reason for that special status. None has come from you nor from the SSM campaign.
The special status would be unsustainable, within the SSM idea itself, so special status would instead depend not on marriage but on the arbitrary exercise of governmental power. That is the antithesis of liberty, Sean, and it sets Government against the governed in ways that are profoundly at odds with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution and at odds with the text and framework of the Constitution on the whole.
This is not about your proposed gay-straight dichotomy. It is about the core meaning of marriage. That meaning sustains the special status.
The SSM idea provides nothing that would sustain special status on the merits.
So, yes, there is a replacement proposed by the SSM campaign and, yes, it would replace the marriage idea with a conceptual mess that blurs, entirely, marriage with the nonmarriage category. Your own remarks have offered little more than rhetorical shrugs at the prospect of that.
Imposition of the SSM idea in place of the marriage idea would indeed tie the hands of government to honor the union of husband and wife — Government would also be used to coerce society to blind itself to the core meaning of marriage and to treat each and every union of husband and wife as if it lacked either a husband or a wife.
The only way to prevent that, in the case of imposition of the SSM idea, would, again, be for an arbitrary exercise of governmental power to treat the union of husband and wife differently from SSM. But that would directly contradict the pro-SSM rhetoric about ‘seperate but equal’ as well as directly contradict the pro-SSM complaint about governmental arbitrariness.
As I said, the replacement would be a conceptual mess that undermined the special status of the union of husband and wife, marriage, and elevate gay identity politics far above the liberty and freedom the protection of which civil society has delegated to government. The SSM idea inverts the principles of good governance and asserts Government takeover of civil society’s foundational social institution — for the sake of the proposal that gay identity politics trumps all.
Sean has clung to the following falsehood:
“In states where same-sex marriage isn’t allowed, gay people can’t get married.”
1. Committed relationships are allowed throughout the country.
2. There is no gay criterion for ineligiblity, as you have long conceded.
If you meant that the SSM idea has not been given top place in most of the country, and at the federal level as well, then, sure, but that does not speak to the fact that the marriage law does not impose a group identity test, as your remark indicated.
Sean said:
“Society has the same interest in seeing committed same-sex couples get married as seeing committed opposite-sex couples marry: create stable relationships as the foundation of society; see children raised in a more secure environment; and in the specific case of gay people, help reduce the amount of homophobia in society that leads to violence against gays, including gay violence against self (that is, suicide).”
Stable relationships exist in the nonmarriage category. Children are raised in the nonmarriage category.
There is no causal link between the core meaning of marriage and what you label “homophobia” and what you claim leads to violence and or suicide. Your rhetorical assertion might, at best, promise a vague correlation in terms of decreases in your claimed results.
On the other hand, reaffirming the core meaning of marriage and working to increase the normative influence of marriage would decrease nonmarital trends and the harms suffered where there is a lack of (or diminishment of) sex integration and responsible procreation.
Sean said:
“The moral argument in favor of homosexuality is that it’s normal and should be treated as such.”
That is not a moral argument. At best it is the beginning of a demand for moral neutrality.
Sean said, regarding his dependance on the infertility strawman argument:
“It’s not a strawman […]”
But soon repeated the blatant misrepresentation:
“If you want to redefine marriage as only for procreative couples, then let’s just issue a broadcast email to all Americans stating such: no kids, no marriage!”
So, yes, Sean it is a strawman argument.
Here is Sean’s full paragraph on the infertility strawman:
“It’s not a strawman and nothing about pointing out the obvious, that marriage is not connected to procreation anymore (if it ever was) is totalitarian. If you want to redefine marriage as only for procreative couples, then let’s just issue a broadcast email to all Americans stating such: no kids, no marriage!”
It is obvious that the marital presumption of paternity connects marriage to procreation and has done so for a very long time and the presumption is still vigorously enforced. Also, obvious, the same sexual basis (opposite-sexed) for that presumption applies to consummation, annulment, adultery-divorce, and the like. It is clearly obvious that the man-woman criterion of the marriage law signifies far more positive societal significance than the anemic and unjust redefinition offered by the SSM idea.
Expressed over and over, the infertility strawmen belies a totalitarian impulse that would make Government the owner of each and every union of husband and wife — to the extent that a married mother would be presumed to have been sexually unfaithful unless proven otherwise, the contrary of the marital presumption of paternity.
No one-sexed scenario depends on a presumption of sexual fidelity in terms of attaining children. Each such scenario that attains children through third party procreation obviously depends on going outside of the one-sexed scenario to use the other sex in ways that are essential to procreation. 100% guaranteed. That fits the rule upon which the infertility strawman supposedly depends; thus, its straw falls out and nothing remains of it. Nothing but the gusts of hot air.
Sean miscontrues: “some invisible force drives you to pretend that nonmarriage for gays is equal to marriage for straights”.
1. Nonmarriage is not defined by gayness nor by straightness.
2. Most of the nonmarriage category of types of relationships and arrangements is two-sexed, not one-sexed. So same-sex does not define the nonmarriage category.
3. Marriage law, and the social institution of marriage, do not sort people by the gay-straight dichotomy. The SSM idea, as argued by SSMers such as yourself Sean, does that.
4. If anything, I have said that nonmarriage is not the equal of marriage. I have challenged you to show A) that the gay subset of nonmarriage you favor is distinguishable from the rest of nonmarriage (before you pin the label and accord special status) and B) that this subset is identical to the type of relationship that is defined by the core meaning of the social institution of marriage (union of husband and wife — sex integration and provision for responsible procreation).
4b. There is no invisible force supporitng the core meaning of marriage, but there is plenty of good solid reason underfoot and plenty of high respect for human dignity. However, your shrugs and vagueness and open hostility toward the marriage idea has been accompanied by an unmistakably gay emphasis; if it was not for the assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics, there would be no visible support for your energetic handwaving.
Sean said:
“With no rational public purpose, the children of same-sex couples are denied the many advantages of having married parents. This is a national disgrace.”
Well, if you feel that strongly, then, what about the millions of children living in the nonmarriage category whose caregivers (including parents) are not eligible to marry?
The national disgrace is that the judicial system has been abused so blatantly in an anti-marriage movement to abolish the core meaning of marriage from the legal system and from the culture.
What portion of the adult homosexual population (5% of the general adult population as per the guesstimates of the HRC) resides with children in same-sex households (census term)? Well, 95% or more does not reside in such households with children.
Meanwhile there are tens of millions of families in the nonmarriage category who are raising children. Equal treatment within that category would be justified — regardless of the “gender composition” and regardless of sexual orientation of the caregivers (usually parents). Equal treatment is NOT what SSMers clamor for: they demand special treatment (marital status is special status) for their favored identity group. They’d pluck the gay subset from the nonmarriage category.
And SSMers, such as yourself Sean, who drag children onto center stage in aid of your attempt to abolish the core meaning of the most pro-child social institution we have, well, their misguided behavior would lead to a national tragedy.
Clearly, Sean, you think that entrenchment of a bigoted idea would be a national disgrace; yet here you are arguing with ways and means that are bigoted and all in aid of pro-gay bigotry. Your stubborn intolerance of the marriage idea is not redeemed by your mistaken switch from 1) your insitance that marriage and procreation are disconnected to 2) your insistance that children are the reason to impose SSM on all of society.
At least as many if not more children live in polygamous households, for instance, than in same-sex households. The presence of children in grandmom-mom households, or grandparents-son households does not fit your copy-pasted boundaries very well, either. So, as per your rhetoric, crash down the walls of the social institution and make the SSM idea supreme across the land. Hey, relabel the single household, marriage, and the one-sexed scenario becomes SSM, as per your many shrugs in these discussions.
The unity of fatherhood and motherhood is at stake.
Marriage is about making it normative that the mom and dad duo make provision for responsible procreation: each of us, as part of a procreative duo, are responsible for the children we have together and responsible to those children in terms of their education, well-being, and socialization — and so necessarily responsible procreation (as a set of coherent principles and practices) begins even before coital relations and continues long past the children have become adults.
Whatever other alternative scenarios might exist, or might be envisage for those who seek to experiment, this has been the golden standard against which all other kinds of family formation have been compared and fallen short. We are discussing a type of relationship and a type of union that has withstood the trials of diverse history and anthropology. The union of husband and wife, of father and mother, of man and woman is as foundational to civlization as social institutions can get. Detracting from it, making it mean less and less, harms children, harms generations that follow, harms the good order and coherency of societies, and ultimately undermines respect for human dignity.
Integration of the sexes is combined with provision for responsible procreation — as a coherent whole — and this forms the core meaning of the bedrock social institution of marriage. Humankind is two-sexed; human procreation, opposite-sexed; and human communithy, both-sexed or complementarily-sexed. Society responds to these facts of humankind, these givens, which are objective and inescapable; these givens cannot be disregarded as inconsequential for the consequences are all around us. Marriage is the societal response. The health of a marriage culture is both a cause and an effect of the health of a civilization. It is a two-way street.
The SSM idea, and the campaign to entrench it as the replacement of the marriage idea, would hoist nonmarriage onto the back of marriage and coerce society to give SSM a free ride; but it would also drive marriage the wrong way down a one-way street.
SSM, if it has merit, should stand or fall on its own two feet. The SSM idea eshews the marriage idea, eschews the special status of marriage, and eschews societal preference of the unity of motherhood and fatherhood. Okay, so SSMers have undertaken the burden of making the independant claim for the special status of SSM, for the superiority of the SSM idea, and for societal indifference to the unity of fatherhood and motherhood.
If they can’t deliver the goods, society should not favor the SSM idea.
I said this to Sean: “If you are now proposing a 100% guarantee that violence will be reduced with the impositoin of SSM, then, step up to the plate and provide evidence, now”
Sean reacted: “Did I say there would be a 100% reduction?”
Heh, did I ask about complete elimination? Nope.
I asked, Sean, if you guaranteed a reduction. You reacted as if your distorted view of language and argumentation was shared by myself. Heh.
Obviously you balked at the promise a 100% reduction. Your double-standards are showing, again. Besides, doesn’t violence (and suicide) occur outside of the gay identity group? Sure. So your promise, if it is a promise, doesn’t tightly fit your stated purpose of a vague reduction.
Anyway, if I had intended to ask if you proposed a 100% elimination, I would have asked that, but I did not.
I’ll ask it again: Do you propose a 100% guarantee of a reduction directly connected to the imposition of SSM?
If yes, state the promised amount of reduction directly caused by the imposition of SSM elsewhere. State the criteria, if any, by which the connection is measured, if at all.
And, at the same time, admit that proportionality, rather than absolutism, is a fair means by which to assess your own stated purpose of SSM. Your reaction above is an implicit admission so you might as well be explicit.
Sean said: “Like religion, there is no public purpose in the government taking sides. Law must be color blind, religion blind and yes, sexuality blind. To do otherwise is to have the government taking sides.”
Taking sides?
You clearly insist that there be one marriage law and that it govern marriage for all of society. How can government not take sides?
Ah, right, by treating marriage as nonmarriage. But that would abolish the special status of marriage. Government would take sides against societal preference for the core meaning of a social institution that the government neither owns nor creates.
If you want to blind society, via government coercion, just say so and be done with it.
On the Iowa pro-SSM court opinion:
Sean said: “The court said that the context of marriage, including intimacy, creates a barrier to gays and lesbians, who prefer romance and sex with someone of the same, not opposite, sex. They create committed couples on this basis.”
Is “intimacy” compulsory for those who’d show-up to SSM? Nope. Not in Iowa and not in that court’s opinion.
Is romance? Nope. Is sexual behavior? Nope. Not even in Iowa.
As for commitment, well, that to which commitment is given is the key, not commitment itself. No one-sexed scenario — a lone individual, a twosome, or a moresome — would include commitment to the union of husband and wife. It might include commitment to something else. But given the court’s offerred reasoning, a faith (in gay identity, for instance) ought not to move the hand of government.
Sean said: “They furthered reasoned that asking gays and lesbians to marry opposite-sex persons is asking them to deny the very trait that defines them as gay and lesbian: longing for companionship and intimacy with someone of the same sex.”
Who asked them to do what? Not the government in Iowa.
Is that ‘longing’ compulsory for those who’d show-up to SSM? Not in Iowa. And not in that courtr’s opinion.
So the attempted religious analogy fails, utterly.
But it is interesting that the pro-SSM court opinion, and Sean too, retreated from their own rules of argumentation used to attack the core of marriage; they retreated to notions that are not expressed in the court’s own imposition of SSM, at law.
Double-standards, much. Reach the opinion and count them.
As for Sean’s account of the context of SSM, well, consider that, according to Sean, there is no sexual basis for SSM, at law.
See his comment:
https://ruthblog.org/2010/11/03/77-reasons-to-support-manwoman-marriage/comment-page-5/#comment-10061
Ooops.
“What SSMers demand today is the specious substitution of the marriage idea with the SSM idea”
I know of no one who wants to limit marriage to same-sex couples. Straight people will still be allowed to marry, as demonstrated by the states that have marriage equality laws.
“the abolition of the significance of marriage in law and in culture.”
Straight marriage has never depending on same-sex couples not marrying in order to be meaningful.
“Not even in ancient societies where same-sex sexual behavior was accorded a favored and special status.”
Not even ancient societies outlawed slavery. If ancient marriage is so appealing to you, let’s return to the days when:
1. Marital rape was legal
2. Men owned their wives
3. Women lost rights when they married
4. Extra-marital sexual relations were criminalized
5. Polygamy was possible
6. Etc.
“Sean, a proxy does not provide the 100% guarantee that your terms of argumentation demand. So, no, age as proxy for maturity fails your own standard. So you double-back and shrug as you did with relatedness. If you drop the 100% guarantee, then, proxies are legitimate in law. But your pro-SSM argument depends on it, utterly.”
There’s no need for a 100% guarantee, whatever that means. It sure sounds good though! Practicality often requires that a surrogate or proxy be used: age as a proxy for maturity. But as courts have recognized, straightness is a poor proxy for procreative ability and intent, since so many straight couples can’t have or refuse to have, children. If the marriage is to be unblessed by children, then there’s no real need to marry, according to the “responsible procreators only!” theory of marriage.
“The SSM idea is different from the marriage idea. The former does not mirror the latter. It contradicts.”
But only marginally. Same-sex marriage addresses the issue of eligibility, not the practice of marriage.
“There is a sexual basis for marriage in our marriage laws. You reject it.”
No I said it doesn’t create any kind of exclusion for same-sex couples.
“Your admission is on the record, however, and so your complaint, based on a sexual basis, is nullified by yourself.”
Shoot, I was afraid that would happen.
“Yet you repeatedly show your own support for such judicial abuse.”
I guess I don’t define “judicial abuse” as “the court didn’t reach the decision I wanted.” You, apparently, do.
“Circular thinking like that keeps you from engaging the actual disagreement, Sean, which does leave you with the self-limiting role of prankster.”
I like being a prankster sometimes!
“will the government abandon the special reason for the special status of the social institution of marriage, if society, via government, were to drop the core meaning of marriage?”
Well let’s look at states where same-sex marriage has been legalized: nope, they still think straight couples are real special. They still let them marry.
“That is the antithesis of liberty, Sean, and it sets Government against the governed in ways that are profoundly at odds with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution and at odds with the text and framework of the Constitution on the whole.”
Alert the media!
“Imposition of the SSM idea in place of the marriage idea would indeed tie the hands of government to honor the union of husband and wife”
Oh, are straight people no longer getting married in Massachusetts?
“Sean has clung to the following falsehood”
Sean can get clingy at times.
“Stable relationships exist in the nonmarriage category. Children are raised in the nonmarriage category.”
Yeah, and those kids are getting raised in a less secure environment because some twerps consider them acceptable collateral damage in the war against gays. Very, very sad.
“It is obvious that the marital presumption of paternity connects marriage to procreation and has done so for a very long time and the presumption is still vigorously enforced.”
Thank goodness that won’t change when same-sex marriage is legal!
“Expressed over and over, the infertility strawmen belies a totalitarian impulse that would make Government the owner of each and every union of husband and wife — to the extent that a married mother would be presumed to have been sexually unfaithful unless proven otherwise, the contrary of the marital presumption of paternity.”
No, it’s easy to mount a national ad campaign informing the public that if you can’t have, or don’t want, children, you are not eligible to marry. Because under the current system, few if any people think that children are an essential component of marriage. If you want to change over to a new system, it might take some work but it’s doable.
“Marriage law, and the social institution of marriage, do not sort people by the gay-straight dichotomy.”
Oops. But they do. Opposite-sex only marriage eligibility is a pretty darn close proxy for “be a straight couple.” Dangerously close, I’d say. Needlessly close: there’s no rational public interest in limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. There’s lots of good reasons to let same-sex couples marry, which have been mentioned but left unaddressed in this forum, for some reason.
“there is plenty of good solid reason underfoot and plenty of high respect for human dignity”
Well back at ya with good solid reason underfoot to let same-sex couples get married! They’re humans and they deserve dignity, too.
“However, your shrugs and vagueness and open hostility toward the marriage idea has been accompanied by an unmistakably gay emphasis”
I like both the marriage idea and the same-sex marriage idea. You can like ‘em both.
“Well, if you feel that strongly, then, what about the millions of children living in the nonmarriage category whose caregivers (including parents) are not eligible to marry?”
Who? Where? How many couples raising children are ineligible to marry, who want to marry? If a couple raising children don’t want to marry, we can’t force them. But if they want to marry, we can certainly let them!
“The national disgrace is that the judicial system has been abused so blatantly in an anti-marriage movement to abolish the core meaning of marriage from the legal system and from the culture.”
Name one place where this has happened.
“Meanwhile there are tens of millions of families in the nonmarriage category who are raising children.”
Well, who’s stopping them from marrying? Themselves?
“And SSMers, such as yourself Sean, who drag children onto center stage in aid of your attempt to abolish the core meaning of the most pro-child social institution we have, well, their misguided behavior would lead to a national tragedy.”
Hey, you’re the one who advocates a public policy that forces children to be raised in the insecure confines of an unmarried couple. Shame on you!
“Your stubborn intolerance of the marriage idea”
I totally love the marriage idea! That’s why I want same-sex couples to join the rest of us, and have the opportunity to get married! Duh!
“The unity of fatherhood and motherhood is at stake.”
I think that ship sailed when single parenting, same-sex parenting and easy divorce became socially acceptable across the land.
“The SSM idea, and the campaign to entrench it as the replacement of the marriage idea, would hoist nonmarriage onto the back of marriage and coerce society to give SSM a free ride; but it would also drive marriage the wrong way down a one-way street.”
Wow, I hate freeloaders. And I don’t want to have an accident….no, I still have to support access to marriage for all eligible adults committed couples, regardless of gender.
“SSM, if it has merit, should stand or fall on its own two feet.”
I think it is, as the many good reasons for legalizing it attest.
Op-Ed did, as well as a few others, and found the same thing. Sure, I invite everyone to check it out and give their opinion as well!
Note what Mark thinks is “clueless” basic research is looking in medical dictionaries for a medical definition of a term
Since Mark can’t produce any research to the contrary, my point stands.
Remember that medical dictionary thing Mark just got through claiming was clueless research? I wonder why those same medical dictionaries linked “coitus” with fertility also, if it is all in my small mind, that cluelessly looked in those dictionaries to begin with 😀
Mark, keep it up. The more you keep trying to insult people for proving you are wrong, the more frivilous and frustrated you look.
Whats even funnier is that Mark claims to be a Physician, and calls medical dictionary research “clueless”, especially after it contradicts what he claims.
Mark’s self-assertions are all he has to go on. Actually reviewing the evidence is apparently too much risk for Mark’s commentary 😀
Any reason it takes half (or presumably less) of a brain? Any reason you count yourself among those?
Mark provided a list, lets see how well he did,,,
* Hospital visitation. (Hospitals that do recognize CU’s do grant the same access)
* Social Security benefits. (Retirement plans from organizations that do recognize CU’s do treat them the same as marriage)
* Immigration. (National governments that do recognize CU’s recognize them as the same as marriage)
* Health insurance. (Health insurance companies that do recognize CU’s recognize them as the same as marriage)
* Estate taxes.(Governments that do recognize CU’s recognize them as the same as marriage)
* Family leave. (Employers that do recognize CU’s recognize them as the same as marriage, but this does bring up a question, does a gay couple (male) need paternity leave?)
* Nursing homes. (See Hospitals above)
* Home protection. (See governments above)
* Pensions. (See retirement plans and employers above)
It seems every one of Mark’s examples where benefits are not recognized are really cases where someone doesn’t recognize CU’s, just as I said.
Chairm: “There is no gay criterion for ineligiblity (sic), as you have long conceded.”
But there is, and you know it, Chairm. Two people who love each other can only marry if they assume a posture of heterosexuality.
No, Mark, the fact is that there is no gay criterion of ineligiblity.
And, no Mark, love is not a legal requirement for SSM anyplace where it has been imposed or enacted. Also a fact.
Sean, you did not offer a substantive response to my comment when you said: “I know of no one who wants to limit marriage to same-sex couples.”
Since I have not said otherwise, you are misrepresenting what I did say. You have no excuse: you cannot claim to be misreading, misunderstanding, or making a typo on this one. You are now deliberately repeating a falsehood.
You reveal yourself to be an unserious commenter on the serious subject of marriage in our laws and culture.
Sean, the special status of marriage has depended on the core meaning of the social institution; your rhetoric assumes a right that is severed from that core meaning.
You said: “Straight marriage has never depending on same-sex couples not marrying in order to be meaningful.”
Never depended?
Distinguishing between marriage and nonmarriage is the core meaning of marriage. You reject that core meaning and offer nothing substantive in its place. SSM lacks meaning, even according to your own argumentation, but SSM depends on a free ride on the back of marriage.
You reject the core meaning of marriage, fine. Now, independent of that core, go ahead and justify special status for SSM. If you want to imagine SSM and marriage merged, fine, but you still need to justify special treatment. And if you can offer no core, no essential(s), of the type of relationship you have in mind — before you attach special status to it — then you cannot justify what you demand of all of society.
The secondary features of ancient marriage may not appeal to us today, however, the core meaning of the social institution of marriage existed then as it does today. Sex integration. Provision for responsible procreation. These combined as a coherent whole. This is not variable between then and now.
SSMers reject this core but then, fearful of being anything but indiscriminate, claim that the marriage idea is in effect merely a subset of the SSM idea which, they say, is more inclusive.
Well, nonmarriage is just as inclusive as the SSM idea. No more and no less. That is, if the gay emphasis is removed. Such removal would be just. But the gay identity group is not so keen on justice; it is more keen on “just us”.
Sean you are still stuck on misrepresenting the provision for responsible procreation.
* * *
Sean also said: “Practicality often requires that a surrogate or proxy be used: age as a proxy for maturity.”
Good, you can now discard your infertlity strawman.
But you cling to it and continue to misrepresent provision for responsible procreation.
* * *
Sean also said: “as courts have recognized, straightness is a poor proxy for procreative ability and intent, since so many straight couples can’t have or refuse to have, children.”
Straightness is not a criterion for eligiblity to marry. It is therefore not proxy for something else.
And provision for responsible procreation is not a government mandate to force married people to procreate against their will; nor is it a mandate for a totalitalrian regime to own each and every marriage to the extent that the union of husband and wife can be unilaterally dissolved by an intrusive government.
That fantasy of yours contradicts the marriage idea; and, not incoincidentally, that fantasy of yous is very impractical, anyway, Sean.
Heh, Sean, like a roomful of monkeys clanging at keyboards, managed to type an accurate description of the SSM idea:
“Same-sex marriage addresses the issue of eligibility, not the practice of marriage.”
The SSM idea essentially destroys justification for the lines drawn for eligiblity to marry; it does so by rejected the core meaning of marriage around which such lines are drawn by society.
SSM argumentation puts all boundaries on the table; and the SSM idea itself provides nothing within it to justify eligibility/ineligibility lines. SSMers shrug because their argumentation stands against the special status of marriage.
Sean, my previous points stand unchallenged by you.
I said: “There is a sexual basis for marriage in our marriage laws. You reject it.”
Your rejoinder: “No I said it doesn’t create any kind of exclusion for same-sex couples.”
You said both. You have rejected the sexual basis for marriage in our laws. You said that neither SSM nor marriage has a sexual basis, at law. You need this to be true because the fact is that no place that enacted or imposed SSM has forced people who’d SSM to engage in same-sex sexual behavior, same-sex sexual attraction, nor same-sex sexual romance — not even to prove that they are “gay”. No such legal requirements; and you have said that there are no such mirrored legal requirements under the current marriage laws. Of course, the latter is false while the former is quite true.
The sexual basis is two-sexed, not sex-neutral nor one-sexed. The provison for responsible procreation does not apply to the one-sexed scenario, sexualized or not, gay or not, romantic or not, etc. Your disparagement of the marital presumption of paternity, for example, whereby you continue to assert that marriage and procreation are not connected despite this vigorously enforced law in our legal system, is necessary for your blindness regarding the sexual basis for marriage, at law. You need to be blind so as to not see the exclusionary principle that justifies society discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage.
Marriage is not one-sexed. Its core meaning, and the sexual basis as expressed in our marriage laws, happens to provide the just exclusionary principle for the two-sexed and the one-sexed scenarios in the nonmarriage category. You just do not wish to acknowledge it as such; instead you reject it outright and have nothing to offer in its place.
The abuse of judicial review, Sean, is what I said. And each and every pro-SSM court opinion has relied, utterly, on such abuse of judicial review as revealed in their offered reasoning. You favor the results even when they depend on the abuse of judicial review, as the record shows.
Meanwhile the court decisions that do not favor the merger of SSM and marriage, well, you don’t like the results so you reject the reasoning.
You do not defend the pro-SSM reasoning; you defend the results. So, this amounts to the fact that you think that a decision is bad when the result does not suite you, regardless of the reasoning; and you think a decision is good when the result does suite you, regardless of the reasoning. End-gaming is the product of circular thinking and you have displayed that throughout your commentary here. It is also arbitrary, as per your own terms of argumentation. You should be against such results reached through such an abuse of judicial review. But the results, not the offered reasoning, is what convinced you that the pro-SSM court opinons are super-dooper while the others are the opposite.
I’ve challenged you to defend the reasoning. You have repeatedly lept directly to the results and even quoted from those opinions big examples of arbitrainess and ciruclar thinking on the part of the pro-SSM court.
Sean asked: “Oh, are straight people no longer getting married in Massachusetts?”
The marriage statutes remain unchanged. There is no straight criterion for eligilbity and no gay criterion for ineliglibity to form the union of husband and wife in that state.
If your favor Massachusetts as a good example of a place where SSM is licensed, please cite the statutory provision for SSM. Please cite the authority by which SSM is licensed in that state.
Note: that state’s high court is barred by the state constitution from changing the unambiguous meaning of statutory law; the executive branch is not empowered to amend statutory law; and the legislative branch has not changed the marriage statutes.
I anticipate that you will show your dependancy on the abuse of judicial review and the entrenchment of this corruptive influence in the name of gay identity politics. Heh, you probably cannot resist doing so.
Sean openly admits his disdain for society discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage, when he responded to something I said about children living in nonmarriage families.
I said: “Stable relationships exist in the nonmarriage category. Children are raised in the nonmarriage category.”
Sean spat out: “Yeah, and those kids are getting raised in a less secure environment because some twerps consider them acceptable collateral damage in the war against gays. Very, very sad.”
The hockers of gay identity politics have declared war on marriage.
Sean’s pro-gay bigotry is unmistakable. The nonmarriage category is not defined by gayness. It is a far wider spectrum of relationship types than the SSM campaign pretends. The gay subset is not special and does not merit special status. Sean has not offered a good reason to pluck the gay subset out of nonmarriage and to treat it as more equal than the rest of nonmarriage. He just pounds his little fists into the air and demands what he has not, and cannot, justify.
Stable relationships exist in the nonmarriage category — far more are nongay than gay; children are raised in the nonmarriage category — in families that are not defined by Sean’s gay emphasis.
These are hard facts and as such are stubborn things. So Sean must remain stubbornly intolerant of the special reason for the special status of marriage; and he must remain stubbornly beligerent in favor of special status based on gayness alone. His comments are of a kind with the SSM campaign so readers can benefit from his outright admissions.
Sean said: “it’s easy to mount a national ad campaign informing the public that if you can’t have, or don’t want, children, you are not eligible to marry”.
You continue to misrepresent provision for responsible procreation.
Misrepresrentations, such as yours, can occur due to misreading, misunderstanding, or even miscommunications. However, that’s not the case here. You are making deliberately misleading representations of something you oppose. That is the work of a liar, Sean. Your deserve that designation in this instance.
As for an ad campaign, well, that hardly meets the heatedly demanded terms of your own pro-SSM argumentation, Sean. You keep burning yourself.
I said: ““Meanwhile there are tens of millions of families in the nonmarriage category who are raising children.”
Sean said: “Well, who’s stopping them from marrying? Themselves?”
You don’t even see them, Sean, due to your belligerent gay emphasis. The SSM idea, as you presented it, lacks any justification for denying the rest of nonmarriage the same status you demand for the gay subset of nonmarriage.
Who would stop them? You, for one.
You reject the core meaning of marriage around which lines of eligilbity/ineligiblity are drawn. Indeed, you reject the reason(s) that marriage has a special status in our society in the first place.
Yet you have repeatedly approved of copy-pasting those lines to SSM. Your description of SSM does not justify those lines. So you reject what does justify discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage; and you would arbitarily impose on the SSM idea the lines justified by the core meaning of marriage.
You could try to explain your reasoning by first stating why society would accord special status to some types of relationships but not to other types of lawful relationships. Remember, you have made it a big deal that society allows people to do this or that outside of marriage; you said that since that stuff can occur outside of marraige, then, that same stuff can not provide the basis for line drawing.
Nevermind. You are unserious. You are not capable of thinking clearly; you do not stand on the firm ground of reason; you do not stand in favor of respect for human dignithy; you stand against whatever stands in the way of the assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics. And that includes marriage itself.
Mark, what is the identical sexual behavior (as per your equating coitus and intercourse) for the all-male and the all-female versions of SSM? As such, is it identical to the union of husband and wife? I suspect you are trying to make coitus a highly abstract thing which explains your disconnection with the sexual basis for the union of husband and wife. In your remarks on that topic you have shown the way that the SSM idea would have society treat each union of husband and wife as if it lacked either a husband or a wife — for the sake of equating the sex-segregative types of arrangements that might fit SSM.
But whatever you think is identical between the all-male and the all-female scenarios, what is its societal significance, if any?
“You reveal yourself to be an unserious commenter on the serious subject of marriage in our laws and culture.”
Well I am the most persistent unserious commenter!
“the special status of marriage has depended on the core meaning of the social institution”
And yet whatever you perceive marriage to me is unaffected when same-sex couples marry, unless you believe marriage to be an institution designed to exclude same-sex couples. Because that’s the only thing that happens when same-sex marriage is legalized: it no longer excludes same-sex couples.
“Never depended?”
That’s right. Never depended.
“SSM lacks meaning”
Then so does OSM.
“SSM depends on a free ride on the back of marriage.”
That’s sort of like saying women voting depends on a free ride on the back of men voting, as if this statement makes any sense either. Just because men got there first with the whole democracy thing, doesn’t mean women have to be shut out. Same with marriage: it’s great that straight people decided to legally protect their relationships. Now let’s extend the same great idea to gay people’s relationships! Straight people should be proud of their ground-breaking efforts with the institution of marriage, but there’s no need to jealousy reserve it for themselves only!
“Now, independent of that core, go ahead and justify special status for SSM”
Sure. Same-sex marriage lets same-sex couples legally solidify and protect their relationships. Even if all the straight people in the world stopped getting married, same-sex couples would still have reason to do so, in part, at least, because of the 1,500 state and federal benefits of doing so.
“however, the core meaning of the social institution of marriage existed then as it does today. Sex integration. Provision for responsible procreation. These combined as a coherent whole. This is not variable between then and now.”
These important features of marriage are unaffected when same-sex marriage is legalized. Their validity does not depend on gay people not getting married.
“Good, you can now discard your infertlity strawman.”
But I can’t, because “being straight” is not a good proxy for procreative ability and intent. We also know that many same-sex couples will create and/or raise children together, and their children are as deserving of the protections marriage offers as the children of opposite-sex couples. Don’t you want to see all children given the security they deserve?
“Straightness is not a criterion for eligiblity to marry. It is therefore not proxy for something else.”
In states where marriage discrimination still exists, straightness is a criterion: you must be an opposite-sex couple, with “opposite-sexness” a proxy for being straight. I’m not saying marriage statutes were designed to exclude gay couples; I don’t think they were. But knowing what we know of human sexuality and sexual orientation, and now that’s it common for gay people to form couples (I know, you’ll probably argue that gay couples can only exist if straight couples exist, right?)
“SSMers shrug because their argumentation stands against the special status of marriage.”
If supporters of equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians are shrugging, it’s probably due to the amazing amount of collateral damage “OSM only” types are willing to accept in their goal to keep marriage away from gay people.
As always, I continue to await any rational reasons for prohibiting same-sex marriage. I would welcome a discussion on that topic, in fact.
Sean, unless you add substance to your empty rhetoric, please consider your comments ignored by myself, henceforth.
Promise?