Philosophy, Marriage, and Moral Grandstanding
In a discipline whose point is dispassionate reasoning and discourse, some would shut down debate and silence dissenters on a deep and complex moral-political issue. And the view they would anathematize, far from irrational, is more coherent and more compelling than their slippery and ill-defined ‘default’.
Earlier this summer, my fellow philosophy graduate student at Princeton University, Richard Chappell, criticized an article in which Robert P. George, Ryan T. Anderson, and I defend the conjugal view of marriage as the union of husband and wife. I’m grateful for his criticisms, which allow me to correct some misinterpretations and respond to unsuccessful objections. But like Chappell’s, my contribution to this debate begins with a comment about the debate.
Philosophy and Name-calling
No serious philosopher would deny, in so many words, that to demonize opponents is to betray the vocation of philosophy. But some academic philosophers are so bound to the cause of redefining civil marriage that they would marginalize dissenters with epithets and analyze them as specimens of psychological pathology. Chappell, though he goes on to ask serious questions, is at pains to deny that he deems our argument worth engaging. For him, it is, like misogyny, merely unreasonable, subrational, and bigoted. Linking to Chappell’s critique, Brian Leiter repeats the charge and presumes to diagnose us.
The fervent policing of this newfound academic consensus, with its chilling effect on discourse, might be defensible if proponents of the conjugal view were, like Nazis or cannibals, advocates of ideas and policies repugnant to deep, enduring principles of our civilization. But even within the small, unrepresentative society that is academic philosophy, the very idea of same-sex marriage would have seemed mostly baffling (perhaps even patriarchally motivated) less than a generation ago. One can see the striking subsequent development as an epiphany of timeless moral principle denied the human race (including the sexual-traditionalist Mahatma Gandhi and other partisans of cruel and complacent class ideologies) these several millennia. Or one can judge the cause of redefining civil marriage to be a fashionable application of a perfectly disputable view of sex and human goods that has grown to dominate in the academy from its proximate roots in the ’50s and ’60s, in Sanger and Hefner, Kinsey and Reich.
I happen to think the latter a more reasonable interpretation. Human nature being what it is, there is a light burden of proof on anyone alleging insularity, and I happily accept that advantage. But it’s still worth exploring why anyone in the academy would bear the social and professional risks of a contrarian stance.
Clearly “homophobia” is not the only possible motivation for the conjugal thesis. According to that thesis, we can’t properly understand marriage apart from the procreative sort of bodily communion of spouses achieved in coitus. Some claim this is a gerrymandered definition built to exclude homosexually oriented people, but one might as well claim that Attic Greek grammar was designed to frustrate Victorian schoolboys. Before the 19th century, as best we can tell, the very category of the “homosexual” had at best a sketchy existence. Homosexual acts were known and (for centuries in the West) widely condemned, along with analogous acts between a man and a woman. But there is little evidence that a category of people marked by exclusive and enduring homosexual orientation was recognized consistently or sharply enough to gin up group animus.
To a man like Samuel Johnson, for example, though sodomy was immoral, “homosexuals” as an object of group hatred did not exist as “Frenchmen” or “Whigs” did, but at best as “drunkards” did. And yet the fundamentals of our marriage law, including the norm that a marriage could be consummated by no act other than coitus (when all the live but rejected alternatives were acts between a wedded man and woman), long predate Dr. Johnson. If this norm did not express belief in a deep link between marriage and the procreative sort of bodily union achieved in coitus, how can we explain it?
Nor can the conjugal view be “blamed” on religion, Brian Leiter’s preferred basis for dismissal and diagnosis. There is a 2,400-year-old philosophical tradition, originating independently of Judaeo-Christian influence, that distinguished the uniquely comprehensive and procreative sort of union consummated by coitus from all others, and affirmed its distinct personal and social value. This is the view to which Plato, Aristotle, Xenophanes, Musonius Rufus, and Plutarch adhere. Especially clear is Plutarch’s statement in Erotikos that marriage is a special kind of friendship uniquely embodied (“renewed”) in coitus (and not other climactic acts, which Plutarch regarded as intrinsically shameful).
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“might be defensible if proponents of the conjugal view were, like Nazis or cannibals, advocates of ideas and policies repugnant to deep, enduring principles of our civilization.”
It IS repugnant to deep, enduring principles in our civilization to treat citizens unequally! Why is it ok to redefine Equality but not ok to redefine marriage (an institution that has been redefined many times in its history)?
“the very idea of same-sex marriage would have seemed mostly baffling (perhaps even patriarchally motivated) less than a generation ago”
Well of course, because who knew there were so many same-sex couples and that being gay or lesbian was perfectly normal? Context is everything, isn’t it?
“But it’s still worth exploring why anyone in the academy would bear the social and professional risks of a contrarian stance.”
It’s not exactly contrarian to insist that all citizens have equal rights. It’s a pretty big club, as is the club that wants gay and lesbian couples to have equal marriage rights as straight couples.
“But there is little evidence that a category of people marked by exclusive and enduring homosexual orientation was recognized consistently or sharply enough to gin up group animus.”
There is little evidence that people even understood that there was a category of people marked by exclusive and enduring homosexual orientation! But now that we now being straight or being gay are biologically rooted phenomenon, why play ignorant?
There is nothing about traditional marriage that requires that same-sex couples be forbidden to marry, Indeed, the author’s own admission that gay people as a class didn’t even exist until recently informs that different-sex marriage does not depend for its existence and place in society on prohibited same-sex marriage.
Limiting marriage to only different-sex couples simply falls afoul of our nation’s legal system. Unless and until the state can invent a reason why marriage must be limited to different-sex couples, it won’t be.
Ask people why they marry, instead of whom marriage should be limited to, and you’ll find the reasons are the same for straight and for gay couples.
I understand your frustration. The posters at NOM get the same thing. No matter what the point of what marriage is and its usefulness for society the opponents rather than refute chose to attack.
I think this article is better than the original article, in that it’s not so *esoteric*
Mr. Girgis exposes what I believe to be an important difference between the anemic (and ultimately dissatisfying) view of marriage as merely a *super special relationship* along a continuum of all or any relationships- as opposed to a view of marriage as a distinct *type* of relationship with a distinct purpose.
Mr. Girgis writes:
“Chappell’s revisionism would have us blur these distinctions. If marriage differs only by degree (and not in kind) from other bonds, then non-marital relationships, as between sisters or close friends, are diminished, for marriage offers simply the most of what makes any union valuable: shared experience. Those who (for whatever reasons) do not marry just settle for less.”
Indeed. And conversely, if your marriage does not fulfill all your needs all the time? Why settle for less?
“No matter what the point of what marriage is and its usefulness for society the opponents rather than refute chose to attack.”
No one disputes marriage is useful to marriage. In fact most intelligent persons see the value of marriage to straight couples just as valuable to gay couples, and therefore to society.
It’s not like all the issues haven’t been put out of the table for years now. You guys want to debate forever, as a way to enforce the status quo. The time for debate is over, since no new information is being produced, and the time for action is now, since far too many children are being raised outside of wedlock!
You overload the word “citizens” and therefore distort the issue.
“Pornographers” are citizens, for example, but that does not mean “pornography” merits equal acceptance with family values.
“Homosexuals” are citizens, but that does not men “men having sex with men” merits public acceptance.
The lines drawn in Lawrence v. Texas apply. Public policy can formally recognize and prefers opposite sex relationships, but the state is forbidden to criminalize private homosexual relationships.
Citizenship means your privacy is protected, not that your behavior must be formally sanction by public policy.
The point is that its nonsense to “diagnose” persons for holding the normal view of marriage especially when SSM is a novelty that just came on the scene less than ten years ago.
Sean is perfectly free to marry. He, however, wants to redefine marriage. His redefinition is de-gendered or totally neutered marriage. It is not SSM co-existing with OSM. Sean is not a sexual radical in this regard. He is an anti-sexual radical. His redefinition of marriage means that marriage would have nothing to do with sex, or children for that matter. His redefinition of marriage would affect all marriages and become the sole legal definition of marriage. He has yet to show any benefit to society from such a redefinition other than fewer law suits clogging court dockets. In contrast, it is obvious that de-gendering marriage would weaken the legal link between children and their biological parents (parenting will become “de facto” parenting) and will eliminate the legal basis of any recognition of the unique vulnerabilities that women face in relationships with men (e.g. the burdens of pregnancy, different biological clocks, etc.) or any legal ramifications of sexual infidelity. If our judges believe the law must be indifferent to the unique needs of women and children (one of the arguments surrounding the ERA, which amendment failed to pass), we should find other judges and pass a DOMA by constitutional amendment, as most state have done. As noted in another post of this blog, most courts, despite judge shopping and huge sums spent on lobbying and lawfare, have ruled in favor of the constitutionality of the heterosexual nature of marriage.
@Leo “He, however, wants to redefine marriage.”
Well, he still wants marriage to be defined as the right to conceive offspring, but he does want to redefine what it means to conceive offspring, so that using lab-created modified gametes satisfies the right to reproduce.
“The lines drawn in Lawrence v. Texas apply. Public policy can formally recognize and prefers opposite sex relationships, but the state is forbidden to criminalize private homosexual relationships.”
In fact, because of Lawrence v. Texas, obstacles to legalized same-sex marriage no longer exist, as Justice Scalia acknowledged. The government is required to explain why it prefers straight couples’ relationships over gay couples’ relationships, and so far, hasn’t done so.
“Citizenship means your privacy is protected, not that your behavior must be formally sanction by public policy.”
Legalizing something does not mean public endorsement: divorce is legal, as is pre-marital sex and adultery. I don’t think the government is endorsing those behaviors. The fact is, if the government is handing out marriage licenses to one kind of couple, it must hand them out to all kinds of couples, unless there is a rational public purpose in doing otherwise. There appears to be no rational public purpose in prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying.
“Sean is perfectly free to marry.”
Assuming Sean is straight and not already married. If Sean is gay, he is free to marry only in select jurisdictions.
“He, however, wants to redefine marriage.”
Call it redefining, call it extending the existing institution to all citizens equally, without regard to gender. Sean doesn’t care. Just so it happens.
“His redefinition is de-gendered or totally neutered marriage.”
Ok. Works for me. There’s no particular reason to limit marriage to different-sex couples. If you’re a committed couple, you should be able to solidify your relationship in law.
“His redefinition of marriage means that marriage would have nothing to do with sex, or children for that matter.”
Marriage already has no regard for sex or children. You do not have to have sex in order to get, or stay, married. You do not have to have children, in order to get, or stay, married.
“His redefinition of marriage would affect all marriages and become the sole legal definition of marriage.”
If marriage is extended to gay couples, straight couples will still be allowed to marry. Unless you think that marriage is only valuable because gay couples can’t do it, you will be unaffected. And even if your marriage depends on gay couples not marrying, legally, you will still be married.
“He has yet to show any benefit to society from such a redefinition other than fewer law suits clogging court dockets.”
I have enumerated again and again the benefits to society of same-sex marriage. Let me repeat them here:
1. Same-sex couples will be able to create stronger relationships and their relationships will be legally protected, and therefore more stable. Society prefers citizens in stable, long-lasting relationships.
2. The children of same-sex couples will grow up in more secure family environments, because the two adults raising them will be legally bound together
3. Married couples live longer, are healthier and wealthier, according to marriage expert Maggie Gallagher. To deny these tangible benefits to same-sex couples is immoral and illegal.
4. Our nation’s constitution requires that all citizens “similarly situated” be treated equally, lacking a rational public purpose to do otherwise. Since there is no rational public purpose to prohibit same-sex couples from marrying, marriage statutes that ban same-sex marriage are in violation of the US Constitution, and most state constitutions.
“In contrast, it is obvious that de-gendering marriage would weaken the legal link between children and their biological parents”
A falsehood. Also called a lie, or untrue.
Whatever special needs women and children have are not unaddressed because same-sex couples can marry. Your beef seems to be with same-sex PARENTING, which is already legal in all 50 states. If you wish to change that fact, perhaps there’s an organization to help you.
Read the second paragraph of post #9. The government is required to explain why it prefers straight couples over homosexuals couples. How about the government and societal need for us to replenish and reproduce ourselves so that we do not go extinct.
Is paragraph #8 in post #10 about as idiotic as you can get or what?
@Sean
De-gendering marriage would, indeed, weaken the legal link between children and their biological parents. In fact, “weaken” may be too weak a term. How about, “legally destroy the basis of?”
What, after marriage is redefined as having nothing to do with sex or children, is the legal institution that links biological parents to each other and to their children? It can’t be marriage if marriage has nothing to do with sex or children. The essential public purpose (not necessarily the private purpose, but the public purpose) of marriage is to link biological parents to each other and to their children. Sean proposes no other legal institution to do this while he is making the old institution legally incapable of doing this. He proposes to drive a bulldozer through centuries of family law and pretends this will have no effect on the people in or contemplating traditional marriage. He imagines that his radical redefinition of family law will produce more secure family environments when the opposite is more likely to occur.
Go back and read about the Delaware de facto marriage innovation on this blog for further implications. Parenting becomes redefined as de facto parenting, even without legal adoption. This will make children less secure as their legal attachments become increasingly confused and dependent on the courts, not biology.
Remember, once de-gendered marriage becomes the sole legal definition of the word, same sex couples cannot legally enter into the old institution of marriage. The old institution will no longer legally exist.
Sean has to ignore the issue of pregnancy, and its unique risks, costs, and burdens, and its unique and essential good (the production of children) to make his arguments sound plausible. When Sean and a partner of the same sex can ever under any circumstances generate a child just between the two of them (which one of them would get pregnant I wonder), then he can make his similarly situated argument.
Most states have DOMA by specific constitutional provision, recognizing the arguments the Ruth Institute supporters and other have been making are rational and functional, not irrational and discriminatory. Sean has to suppose that an institution found in virtually all historical cultures arose for no rational reason and that society has no rational interest in protecting and promoting fertility.
“De-gendering marriage would, indeed, weaken the legal link between children and their biological parents.”
Not at all. The biological parents of children always have rights to their children, unless they sign their rights away, as in adoption or surrogacy.
“The essential public purpose (not necessarily the private purpose, but the public purpose) of marriage is to link biological parents to each other and to their children.”
Even if that were true, how does that change when same-sex marriage is legalized? Are straight parents in Massachusetts less linked to their children because same-sex marriage is legal there? Parents are responsible for their children, whether they are married to each other or not. Gay couples getting married has no impact on this.
“Sean proposes no other legal institution to do this while he is making the old institution legally incapable of doing this.”
There is no need for a separate legal structure because the current legal structure is not impacted when same-sex marriage is legal.
“He proposes to drive a bulldozer through centuries of family law and pretends this will have no effect on the people in or contemplating traditional marriage. He imagines that his radical redefinition of family law will produce more secure family environments when the opposite is more likely to occur.”
No he doesn’t. I asked him. He says he just wants all citizens treated equally. Currently, gay and lesbian Americans are treated differently in their committed relationships from straight Americans, and the children of gays and lesbians are treated differently than the children of straight Americans. There is no rational public purpose for this distinction, which renders it unconstitutional.
“Parenting becomes redefined as de facto parenting, even without legal adoption. This will make children less secure as their legal attachments become increasingly confused and dependent on the courts, not biology.”
If that were true, then we face a far bigger problem among straight couples who divorce, and remarry other persons. The children of the first marriage, living with the stepparent, face an uncertain legal attachment to the absent parent.
“Sean has to ignore the issue of pregnancy, and its unique risks, costs, and burdens, and its unique and essential good (the production of children) to make his arguments sound plausible.”
Well he told me that’s not true. He says that straight women can still get pregnant, with or without the benefit of marriage. Their call. Even when same-sex marriage is legal.
“When Sean and a partner of the same sex can ever under any circumstances generate a child just between the two of them (which one of them would get pregnant I wonder), then he can make his similarly situated argument.”
And what about the elderly couple who marry? The young but infertile couple? The couple who don’t want and refuse to have children? Are their marriages invalid because they can’t or won’t produce children? Should we ban such couples from getting married?
“Sean has to suppose that an institution found in virtually all historical cultures arose for no rational reason and that society has no rational interest in protecting and promoting fertility.”
Sean finds straight marriage to be an honorable and valuable institution. It started out as a way for a man to own a woman and any children she produced but has been redefined again and again over the years to something more in line with our modern notions of equality. Expect marriage to continue to evolve, like other institutions (women voting, women captains of industry, women politicians, etc.).
Being married does not make a couple more, or less, fertile. They may or may not be more comfortable with the idea of having children within marriage. I know I am. And that’s why I would like to see the children of same-sex couples be allowed to have married parents.
Sean’s argument relies on the false assumption that homosexual couples are similarly situated to traditionally married couples. In essential respects they are not.
Infertile heterosexual couples are not similarly situated to homosexual couples in some essential respects. Cars and bicycles are similar in some respects, but not in all essential respects, so it is rational and functional to treat them and license them differently. A car and a Waring blender have some similarities (glass and metal parts, a motor, etc.), but have different purposes. Institutions with different purposes can rationally be treated differently, even if some of those purposes overlap or bear some resemblance. The possible infertility of heterosexual couples is not manifest to the state, and it would be unconstitutionally invasive of their privacy to conduct fertility tests. (Privacy rights are now so strong as to be the basis of overturning anti-sodomy laws.) Their infertility is generally not inherent or necessarily permanent. Again, in the absence of unconstitutionally invasive testing, it is impossible for the state to determine if their infertility could be ever cured or reversed or which party is responsible at any given time. Even if it was constitutionally permissible, it would generally be expensive, impractical, and burdensome to require or to carry out on a large scale. We don’t want to encourage continual testing or to encourage men to abandon their wives if and when they became infertile. Women have given birth as late as age 70. Men have fathered a child as late as 90, which brings us to the larger asymmetry difference. A man-woman couple is not similarly situated to a woman-woman couple or a man-man couple in a number of biological ways, even if they are all infertile. Biological clocks, hormonal changes, human evolutionary conditioning, etc. render women vulnerable to men in ways that are not symmetrical. See The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine M.D. Women are not just like men. I think Sean knows that. He doesn’t really think an infertile woman is just like a man. If women were just like men, Sean would have no problem with marrying a woman, would he?
A few communities actually require gun ownership. The theory being that crime will decline if all homes are required to own guns. There is some evidence to support this theory. I note that even though gun ownership is required, the owners are not required to shoot burglars. They aren’t required to shoot straight, or even to practice shooting. They never even have to fire their gun. However, a owning a pea-shooter doesn’t qualify under the law, fulfill the law, or make them similarly situated with gun owners, nor would it have the same effect on the crime rate, the reason for the law in the first place.
Homosexual couples do not fulfill the essential public purpose of marriage which is to unite biological parents to their children and to each other.
Once marriage is de-gendered, parenting is also de-gendered. Sean constantly tells us that same sex parenting is legal in all fifty states. Since same sex adoption is not yet legal in all fifty states and since same sex marriage is not yet legal in all fifty states, we see Sean is already thinking parenting means “de facto” parenting, i.e. the parents are parents by virtue of acting in a parenting role regardless of biology or adoption.
With de-gendered marriage the traditional legal presumption that a child belongs to both spouses equally in biological parenthood will be replaced by the legal presumption that the child belongs equally to the partnered parents. Otherwise same sex couples and traditionally married heterosexual couples would be treated differently. Most states have not given equal custody rights to a non-biological mother or a non-biological spouse. Sean’s demand for equality requires them be treated equally. It is no surprise that equal treatment for non-biological spouses been championed by gays and lesbians. Equality is the ruling paradigm.
Now consider Sam and Jose. They are friends. Sam and Jose strike a deal. They get married under the new definition of neutered marriage. Their relationship is platonic, but mutually supporting. This allows Jose to get a green card, and Jose in return sends money to Sam. Jose then hooks up with Angela, and they have a child. Since Sam and Jose are linked by marriage, Sam is now a co-parent since he is the legal spouse of one parent. Jose then divorces Sam, marries Angela, and sticks Sam with child support.
Louisa is a single parent. She lets her boyfriend Hank move in. She tires of Hank, and Hank isn’t really a good influence on Louisa’s child. However, Hank doesn’t want to move out. He tells Louisa if she makes him move out, he will sue for custody rights as his is now a co-parent by virtue of having been a de-facto parent in the household. Louisa, rather than face a legal custody fight, gives in and let’s Hank stay.
Consider John and Mary, a traditionally married couple both aged fifty. John falls in love with Susan, a thirty something he met at work. He divorces Mary. Mary demands a big settlement since she as a fifty year old woman gave the best years of her life (her child bearing years) to John and will have trouble finding a new marriage partner at her age. However, the judge will have to treat John and Mary the same as George and Bill, two fifty year old men who decided to divorce.
Consider Maria, who asks for a judge for a divorce, explaining that her husband Arnold has been sleeping around and even has an illegitimate child. The judge grants the divorce, but since marriage no longer has anything to do with sex or children the settlement is based on purely economic issues and custody of the children of Maria and Arnold is split equally. The infidelity and illegitimate child have no bearing on the divorce; except perhaps Arnold might consider suing Maria for child support, since she was the spouse of one parent when the love child was born. The child, to which she has no biological relationship, is now tied to Maria by virtue of the doctrine that children belong equally to both spouses if one is the biological parent. The child then might have three parents. Sean likes the idea that children can have more than two parents.
Lawyers will have a field day sorting this out. The primary factor determining which child belongs to which parent will no longer be something as irrelevant and old fashioned as biology. That’s medieval. The primary factor will be which adult has the best lawyers.
“Sean’s argument relies on the false assumption that homosexual couples are similarly situated to traditionally married couples. In essential respects they are not.”
Well you better alert the courts, because their decisions keep citing the fact that gay couples ARE similarly situated to straight couples. The similarities are quite extensive, such as commitment, sharing of resources, living together, having sex together, raising children together, etc. Courts don’t see enough differences between gay couples and straight couples to warrant denying marriage licenses to gay couples.
“Institutions with different purposes can rationally be treated differently, even if some of those purposes overlap or bear some resemblance.”
But if their purposes are so close, then it is unnecessary to create separate ones, and legal precedent rejects “separate but equal” accommodations or institutions. In reality, it is the couple that decides why it’s marrying, not the public.
“The possible infertility of heterosexual couples is not manifest to the state, and it would be unconstitutionally invasive of their privacy to conduct fertility tests.”
If you’re now proposing that marriage is about procreation, it’s not. There is no requirement to have a child to get, or stay, married. And no couple is required to get married who finds itself with a child. If the state were trying to promote procreation, it would not have legalized birth control and abortion. Still, if you want to exclude couples who can’t reproduce, it would be easy enough to do so, and not invasive: merely post signs in marriage license bureaus explaining that marriage licenses are available only to couples who can reproduce and who intend to have children. How hard is that?
Infertile couples and couples who don’t want kids can merely walk out of the office, no explanation required. And as word got out that we’ve redefined marriage to make it available only to infertile couples, infertile couples and couples who don’t want children would know not to try to get married.
“Women are not just like men. I think Sean knows that. He doesn’t really think an infertile woman is just like a man. If women were just like men, Sean would have no problem with marrying a woman, would he?”
Women don’t have to be just like men to receive equal treatment. Gay people don’t have to be just like straight people to receive equal treatment. Sean has no problem marrying a woman, and in fact did so.
“Homosexual couples do not fulfill the essential public purpose of marriage which is to unite biological parents to their children and to each other.”
This could not possibly be the purpose of marriage, since infertile couples and couples who don’t want children are free to get married. And biological parents are tied to any children they produce whether they are married or not: an unmarried father or mother still has responsibility to care for any offspring they produce. Sure, a lot of straight people walk away from caring for their kids. But they are breaking the law, unless other arrangements are made (such as putting the kids up for adoption).
“Sean constantly tells us that same sex parenting is legal in all fifty states.”
That’s because it is, and because most of the arguments here seem to object to same-sex parenting, not same-sex marriage.
“Since same sex adoption is not yet legal in all fifty states and since same sex marriage is not yet legal in all fifty states, we see Sean is already thinking parenting means “de facto” parenting, i.e. the parents are parents by virtue of acting in a parenting role regardless of biology or adoption.”
Same-sex couple adoption is legal in all but two states, Mississippi and Utah. Same-sex marriage is legally performed in six states and DC, and recognized in four more states. Whether you’re talking gay parents or straight parents, parenting is parenting.
“Most states have not given equal custody rights to a non-biological mother or a non-biological spouse. Sean’s demand for equality requires them be treated equally. It is no surprise that equal treatment for non-biological spouses been championed by gays and lesbians. Equality is the ruling paradigm.”
I don’t know much about child custody law so I can’t comment on how it works. Just as courts have to address each individual straight couple divorce and rule what will be done with the children, I don’t see how it’s burdensome for the courts to do the same with gay couple divorces. And straight couple adoption faces the same hurdles as gay couple reproduction, surrogacy and adoption. But of course, Leo doesn’t mind straight couple adoption or surrogacy because, well, they’re straight.
“Lawyers will have a field day sorting this out. The primary factor determining which child belongs to which parent will no longer be something as irrelevant and old fashioned as biology. That’s medieval. The primary factor will be which adult has the best lawyers.”
I’m sure you’ve amused yourself with your scenarios but as you’ve shown, custody issues are as much an issue with straight couples as with gay couples. The state redefined marriage for straight couples in such a way that it made marriage a viable and desirable institution for gay couples. When coverture was eliminated, it put each person on an equal footing, de-gendering marriage: the woman is no longer subordinate to the man. Socially, couples are no longer under any particular pressure to have kids when they marry, and many times can’t have kids, but get married anyway.
I think if you ponder why elderly couples marry, you’ll understand why gay couples want to get married, too. Actually, if you ponder why any couple wants to marry, you’ll understand why gay couples want to marry.
@Sean
““De-gendering marriage would, indeed, weaken the legal link between children and their biological parents.”
Not at all. The biological parents of children always have rights to their children, unless they sign their rights away, as in adoption or surrogacy.”
Cause it’s all about what the parents want, right?
If there is no rational basis for distinguishing between men and women, then there is no rational basis for Sean’s orientation, and it makes no more sense for the government to sanction it than it does for government to sanction a lunch counter’s preference for whites.
If there is a rational basis for distinguishing between men and women, then relations between two men or two women or a man-woman pair can rationally be distinguished. Of course, there are things a man-woman pair can do that a homosexual pair cannot do. What they can do is produce children. Since the state has natural interest in preserving the population, it has a rational interest in promoting fertility. But that promotion can only affect man-woman couples since they are not similarly situated to homosexual couples in that regard. But if the state creates an institution designed to promote fertility, that wouldn’t be treating homosexual couples equally to heterosexual couples. Therefore, if equality is the ruling factor, the state can’t constitutionally promote fertility, at least not among couples. Maybe the state could create something novel along the lines of Brave New World.
When a traditionally married couple has children, those children are automatically assumed by the law to belong equally to the two parents. No adoption papers are required by the state. No paternity tests are required by the state.
Now consider Betty and Martha, a “married” lesbian couple. A child somehow comes into their lives, perhaps from the womb of Betty or Martha. If the state is to treat Betty and Martha as legally equivalent to a traditionally married couple, that child must automatically be assumed by the state to belong equally to the two spouses or partners. But you see now that marriage is neutered, the paternity of children is also changed. The biological father of the child is now legally excluded from membership in the marriage, and the non-biological mother now has equal claim to the child as the biological mother. And Sean thinks this will have no effect on centuries of family law or on the rights of fathers or on the rights of biological mothers.
Consider how the liberals introduce a radical change with emotional appeals and tell us how it won’t affect the rest of us. Just let women have abortion on demand for any reason. That won’t affect you will it? A generation later we see a massive destruction of fertility and a social security system that can’t be supported by the rising generation, and we know it has had an effect on everyone. Consider no-fault divorce, that won’t affect most of society will it? Then the divorce rate rises to near 50% with the corresponding social costs that the government now picks up, including the feminization of poverty. Consider medical marijuana. It can’t hurt to have a few clinics for the few people who really need it, can it? Then suddenly “clinics” are popping up all over town like mushrooms after a spring rain to cater to a previously healthy army of eighteen year olds. Consider integrating women into the military ranks. That will be good for women, right? Then there is a scandalous increase in the abuse of women in the military. We were told the so-called ERA wouldn’t mean SSM, but the Massachusetts ERA provided the rationale for the deciding vote in defining marriage in that state.
All these issues can be rationally debated with pros and cons on each side. I am OK with someone being on each side of these issues even if I am on the other side, but to claim there are no unintended or no unadvertised consequences of such radical changes is just trying to fool yourself or, more likely, the public.
“There is a 2,400-year-old philosophical tradition, originating independently of Judaeo-Christian influence, that distinguished the uniquely comprehensive and procreative sort of union consummated by coitus from all others, and affirmed its distinct personal and social value. This is the view to which Plato, Aristotle, Xenophanes, Musonius Rufus, and Plutarch adhere. Especially clear is Plutarch’s statement in Erotikos that marriage is a special kind of friendship uniquely embodied (“renewed”) in coitus (and not other climactic acts, which Plutarch regarded as intrinsically shameful).”
Whole civilizations have been built on fertility. No civilization has come down to use that has been built on infertility. If you don’t agree with all those philosophers, at least consider Darwin. But if it is rational to support fertility, then the core of Sean’s argument fails. Any government policy that supports fertility is not equally available to gays, unless, of course, reproduction is moved entirely to the laboratory.
@Leo
“And Sean thinks this will have no effect on centuries of family law or on the rights of fathers or on the rights of biological mothers.”
Or on the rights of children.
@Leo
“Lawyers will have a field day sorting this out. The primary factor determining which child belongs to which parent will no longer be something as irrelevant and old fashioned as biology. That’s medieval. The primary factor will be which adult has the best lawyers.”
My cousin is going to “marry” his gay lover who works for a college, so that he can go to school for free. I wonder if there is someone I can marry so that I can go to law school for free. Law is looking very lucrative these days.
My soul is probably worth more than money.
Nevermind.
@Anne
“Cause it’s all about what the parents want, right?”
Why not drop your feigned concern for children? You don’t want the children of same-sex couples to have the security and normalcy of having married parents, so clearly the selfish desires of adults like you who don’t want gay couples to have the same right to marry that straight couples seems to trump the needs of children. Yes, adults can be so selfish!
Whether you like it or not, adults do make most of the decisions that affect children, and often not in a very nice way. Like when my nice catholic stepmother, with 12 years of catholic school under her belt, had an affair with my father (she was his secretary at work), knowing full well he was married and had three children. Yes, adults, even religionist ones, are very selfish!
Isn’t the use of birth control selfish? Abortion? Who practices these things, in huge numbers, straight couples or gay couples?
@Leo
“If there is no rational basis for distinguishing between men and women, then there is no rational basis for Sean’s orientation, and it makes no more sense for the government to sanction it than it does for government to sanction a lunch counter’s preference for whites.”
Well, when is it rational for the government to distinguish between men and women? And why do you think it is rational to let straight couples marry, but not gay couples?
“Since the state has natural interest in preserving the population, it has a rational interest in promoting fertility.…”
If the state were interested in maintaining the population or even increasing it, legal birth control and legal abortion don’t make a lot of sense, do they? Oh and by the way, does getting married make a couple more fertile, or less likely to use birth control or abortion? Do straight couples make decisions based on whether or not gay couples can get married? Me thinks not.
Leo, try all you want, but child custody issues for straight couples are just as complicated as they are for gay couples. And I’ll assume that you don’t object to childless gay couples marrying, who skirt the issue of child custody.
And yes, by all means, blame liberals for gay couples wanting to be treated equally under the law.
“Or on the rights of children.”
Boy, I sure wish I had had the right to be raised by my biological father and my biological mother! But that right was denied to me by my biological father, who decided to have an affair with the woman who was to become my very non-biological stepmother.
My situation was not unique. Many children are raised by a biological parent, and a non-biological parent, with “visiting rights” to the other biological parents, often under supervised circumstances, and rarely. Gosh adults are selfish, even straight ones!
Post #24 directed at Anne has to be the most mean spirited, bigoted, hatefull and offensive post that could be directed at Anne. I am offended by it. All of the loving, thoughtfull, posts that come form Anne show what a loving mother she is and shows her love for children and the pride she takes in being a mother to her children. THIS IS SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT HAVE A FEIGNED INTEREST IN CHILDREN AND CARES DEEPLY FOR THE NEEDS OF CHILDREN.
The greatest compliment that I could make is that Anne as a mother reminds me of my own mother. I am convinced her children are proud to have a mother like her.
Leo: Love the arguments you are making. Your rebukes of Sean are awesome. Let me add two new things that Sean choses to ignore.
(1) Over and over again he claims that the state has no interest in promoting procreation. If this was the case there would be no such thing as a marriage license and the procreation incentives that come with it. If procreation is unimportant then why are the SSM advocates fighting for that license and the procreation benefits that come with it? You see everybody the state does indeed have an interest in procreation. That is why it is in the marriage business and handing out all of the benefits that come with that license.
(2) The second part of the absurb claims that Sean makes is that he ignores the entitlement state. This is also where the liberals show their ignorance and stupidity. It was liberals who championed and fought for Social Security and Medicare. How is this funded? By the offspring of man/woman marriages who pay the Social Security and Medicare taxes. Yet the bonehead liberals contradict themselves by supporting SSM. It makes no logical sense. Why support an institution that threatens to weaken or even bankrupt the entitlement state that you fought so hardly for. Liberals even accuse us conservtives of throwing Granny over the cliff. But who is fighting to keep marriage one man/one woman? Is it the liberals or the conservatives?
Notice that Sean and his SSM liberal followers never have an answer for the fact that the offspring of married couples are the ones that are paying for the safety net for seniors. When Sean turns 65 and wants to collect Social Security and Medicare who is supposed to pay for it? Of course the biological offspring of those man/woman couples who made sure to procreate and did not have Sean’s attitude of children and marriage do not matter.
My Lord!! Sean detests us Christians but is depending on us heterosexuals to procreate the offspring so he can retire in his old age.
@Leo
“Whole civilizations have been built on fertility. No civilization has come down to use that has been built on infertility. If you don’t agree with all those philosophers, at least consider Darwin. But if it is rational to support fertility, then the core of Sean’s argument fails.”
Sean has already stated that he believes ‘we are a much more enlightened society than all previous generations’. Although his statement doesn’t seem to ever preclude him from using history to support his own conclusions. Seans arguments are quite “fluid”. They bring to mind the phrase “It’s like nailing jello to the wall.”
@John Noe
“Post #24 directed at Anne has to be the most mean spirited, bigoted, hatefull and offensive post that could be directed at Anne. I am offended by it. All of the loving, thoughtfull, posts that come form Anne show what a loving mother she is and shows her love for children and the pride she takes in being a mother to her children. THIS IS SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT HAVE A FEIGNED INTEREST IN CHILDREN AND CARES DEEPLY FOR THE NEEDS OF CHILDREN.
The greatest compliment that I could make is that Anne as a mother reminds me of my own mother. I am convinced her children are proud to have a mother like her.”
Thank you for such a beautiful sentiment John!
My marriage and motherhood are my vocation and my life. It truly is my desire to respond to the call as best I can with love and sincerity. Not with pride or self righteousness.
I fear that Sean has experienced the opposite of sincerity and love in his relationships and that his experience is standing in his way of recognizing truth and coming to true fulfillment. I am committed to keeping him in my prayers.
You are in my prayers as well John, in gratitude and appreciation for your efforts here and your kind appreciation and recognition of the rights and efforts of others.
I am happy to be considered in your Mother’s company if you are a product of her effort. May God bless and keep you in His Love.
“My Lord!! Sean detests us Christians but is depending on us heterosexuals to procreate the offspring so he can retire in his old age.”
And I thought it couldn’t get any stranger in here. On what possible basis do you think Sean is expecting your children to support him in his old age?
I don’t think I detest Christians, just the harm they do to others.
“Why support an institution that threatens to weaken or even bankrupt the entitlement state that you fought so hardly for?”
I’m sure this made sense in your head but it lost something on its way to mine. How does legal same-sex marriage weaken or even bankrupt the entitlement state? Are people going to stop having children if same-sex marriage is legal? Will they become less fertile? I suspect legal birth control and legal abortion are far more likely to deny us the future generations we need than legal same-sex marriage will.
@Anne
“I fear that Sean has experienced the opposite of sincerity and love in his relationships and that his experience is standing in his way of recognizing truth and coming to true fulfillment. I am committed to keeping him in my prayers.”
Sean has highly satisfying relationships, not that it’s any of your business. The truth which YOU refuse to acknowledge, is that our government is tasked by the documents that binds us together as a nation and a society, known as the US Constitution, to treat all citizens equally.
The truth is that there are hundreds of thousands of children being raised by same-sex couples OUTSIDE of marriage, and are worse off for it: they have less access to health care, employer benefits through their parents, etc. In addition, they internalize negative feelings that something’s wrong with their parents, because society won’t let them get married. I wonder, do you think this is a good thing to teach children, that their parents are defective?
I have repeatedly prayed to God to help you open your heart, and practice the love of neighbor that Jesus Christ insists on. I keep my fingers crossed that some day, God’s word will penetrate your hardened heart.
“I have repeatedly prayed to God to help you open your heart, and practice the love of neighbor that Jesus Christ insists on. I keep my fingers crossed that some day, God’s word will penetrate your hardened heart.”
This from the guy who severely and openly dislikes “religionists” and Christianity. And yet again, when it suits him, he used capital letters for God and says Jesus Christ instead of “Mr. Christ.” You are a complete contradiction, Sean.
@Betsy
“he used capital letters for God”
I think our prayers are working!!!
@Sean
“I have repeatedly prayed to God to help you open your heart, and practice the love of neighbor that Jesus Christ insists on.”
Thank you Sean. I can use all the help I can get.
@Sean
Every child whose parent or parents act, as your father and stepmother did, out of selfish motives, needs and deserves society’s agreement that those adults are not acting in the child’s best interests.
We will continue to tell the truth to all children.
Thank you Anne, I did not realize that you have seven children like my sister did. As usual Sean could not debunk or answer my point about how the offspring of married people like Anne are the ones who fund the entitlement state that Sean and the others like him deny. See his absurb statement in post #31. He apparently has never heard of Social Security or Medicare or is just lying and knows he cannot answer my post.
@Sean
“How does legal same-sex marriage weaken or even bankrupt the entitlement state?”
Declaring that people have a right to have offspring with someone of the same sex is costing us billions in stem cell research and genetic research, and would cost us billions more to make it safe and affordable and accessible to everyone. Already IVF is mandated insurance coverage in Massachusetts RomneyCare and will probably be mandated for national Obamacare as well. That kind of entitlement wil bankrupt us, especially if it is expanded to same-sex couples.
“As usual Sean could not debunk or answer my point about how the offspring of married people like Anne are the ones who fund the entitlement state that Sean and the others like him deny.”
As usual, John Noe makes no sense. Sean is happy to see straight and gay couples create and raise all the children they want! I am not against child-bearing and child-raising!
I am against arbitrarily treating gay couples differently from straight couples, to their detriment, and the detriment of their children. That’s it. Plain and simple. Doing so is immoral, unjust and unconstitutional. There is no clearer legal and moral issue facing our country at this time, and what must be done is quite obvious, and easy to do.
A serious problem with an easy solution….how often does that happen?!
John Noe may make no sense to Sean but I am not concerned with that. As long as I make sense with the openminded people on this blog and website. Along with my fine colleagues such as Awesome Anne, Logical Leo, God fearing Glenn, and of course the esteemed Dr. Morse I am very confident that when open minded Orlando and undecided Ulyesses log on and see our fine arguments they are convinced themselves and come over to our side.
@John Noe
Thanks John.
Take solace, in good company: I’m pretty sure that Beautiful Betsy, Devoted Deb and Righteous Ruth are incomprehensible to Sean as well.