The Volokh Conspiracy

Looking forward to the exchange, and appreciating the effort to present opposing views. Probably very smart to avoid the head-to-head as well, since those encounters usually decay into quibble matches very quickly. (Maybe after they've laid out their positions, an exchange would be fruitful? If that's not a loaded word here?)

Perhaps when Maggie and Dale are done doing their thing, you can get Kweisi Mfume and David Duke to debate whether slavery was such a bad idea after all.

I'd love to hear why same-sex marriage hurts the government's interest in "preserving the institution of marriage." Doesn't readily available, no-fault divorce hurt the institution even more?

Marriage is a social institution that serves social purposes. It is not, and until very recently in a historical sense no one thought it was, an institution created for the purpose of making individuals happy. The social purpose of the institution of marriage are to channel the sexual instincts of men into supporting mothers and raising children. It is only because marriage serves a social purpose that marriage is given a privileged position both socially and legally. The happiness of the individuals involved is a byproduct only. Arguing about individual "rights" makes no sense in this context since the institution was not created to vindicate individual rights to happiness and fulfilment but to provide for the procreation and raising of children.

Has no fault divorce hurt this institution? Emphatically yes in the case of marriages with children. Let's do away with no-fault divorce in such cases, as soon as possible.

Are there childless couples? Of course, but that's an exception. The existence of an exception doesn't disprove the rule.

Do all children deserve a father and a mother? Of course.

Does homosexual marriage threaten this institution? I don't know but why take a chance on an already threatened institution? I say, let's give federalism a chance. Let Vermont or Massachusetts experiment with homosexual marriage and the rest of us can watch over the next 20-30 years and see how it turns out.

Is Maggie getting paid to advance this particular agenda, and if she is would she remember to tell us this time?

Is Maggie getting paid to advance this particular agenda, and if she is would she remember to tell us this time?

I'm curious. Could you please explain the implications you believe this would have on the discussion?

Lamda Delta, Alliance Defence, et all are hired guns to promote agendas from various people. Would this have the same implication on the discussion?

I honestly don't believe so, probably because I am at heart a meritocrat. People are often hired because they are devoted and good at what they want to do. My current employment (which is entirely technical in nature) came at such evaluation of how much I liked doing it and how good I was at doing it.

So I am, of course, curious as to what impact you are expecting this would have on the debate.

Maggie,

What is a social institution? Can you give us examples of other social institutions that depend on the vitality of marriage?

* * *

[I think that SSM (or even Civil Union merged with marriage in all but name) would be a replacement for marriage. At the societal level, discarding the man-woman criterion of marriage would enact the notion that the nonconjugal unisexed arrangement is preferred over the conjugal relationship that society has long-recognzied as marriage.]

Another thing. A license, from reading legal dictionaries, are a special permit to engage in an activity that otherwise would be illegal. (I am not a lawyer)

Are non-State sanctioned church (ie non-501c3 church) marriages, illegal?

Would that not be an unconstitutional establishment of religion? Since marriage, in Christianity for example, is a religious covenant, the oath is taken under the authority of God and not the state. The oath is under God and NOT under Caesar.

What right does any couple or group of people have to get "stuff" from society—e.g., preferential legal treatment in estate planning? May a society decide, collectively, that some groupings are, from a social perspective, superior and, consequently, subsidize them in some fashion? Or does "equal protection under the law" mean that a people may not state its considered preferences and have those preferences embodied in the laws under which they live?

"The social purpose of the institution of marriage are to channel the sexual instincts of men into supporting mothers and raising children."

Ah, the heart of Maggie Gallagher's argument.

Even if this claim were true (and history shows many glaring reasons why it is not), it is a very poor reason to ban gay marriage.

For if the rights &priveleges of marriage can only be granted to the procreative, society must immediatly ban marriages of heterosexual couples that do not desire children, or ones that include a postmenopausal woman or any infertile partner.

But why stop with just mandatory fertility tests before marriage?

After all, Maggie (or the handlers that secretly pay her) claim they just want to give kids the best possible homes.

So in that case, why not ban marriage for those parents likely to produce children with severe genetic defects? Or why not screen out abusive parents, alcoholics, the chronically unemployed? Heck, why not go Bill Bennett and ban marriage for blacks -- statistics tell us blacks don't provide an ideal environment for raising kids?

If there is a good reason to ban gay marriage - and I have yet to find one - the procreation issue is not it. And unfortunately for Maggie &company, she's running our of other ideas.

I'm just curious what happens to the procreation strawman when biological sciences advance enough to allow 2 human males or 2 females to produce genetically related offspring. In vitro production of embryos from two sperm or two eggs have been experimented with in mice, so what happens when this becomes possible for humans and thus allow any two people, regardless of sex, to bear genetically related offspring? Thus, same-sex couples will be procreating (albeit with some help from a lab), so at that point, will they be welcomed into the 'marriage is for procreation' fold?

Or at that point, will the argument be changed to 'marriage is only for non-lab assisted procreation', or perhaps to 'marriage is only for sperm and egg procreation'?

> Peacebewithyou: Homosexuality is not a disability?? I'm shocked to hear it from you.

Just a question, do I know you? Are you confusing me perchance with someone else? The underlying link in that quote is to my own writings which date back many years. It is suprising that you are at all shocked.

Seeing as we agree on that, then what evidence do you have that shows homosexuals are inferior to heterosexuals in raising chilren?

The issue that crystalizes this part of the debate comes in realizing we are not discussing the capacity to raise children between any random set of couples. Orphanages raise children, wolves raise children (sorry that was a World News Daily think I think), grandparents raise children, foster parents raise children, etc... In all of those cases there needn't be a marriage, nor is there one solicited.

We are talking about a child's parents. Evolution has given us the mandate that only by combining the two sexes are children created. A child's parents sharing physiology and with equal gender representation are the most advantaged couple in raising that child.

Beyond that a marriage establishes the governance in a home. Just as we wouldn't want to see California take Nevada's seats in Congress, it is not equal representation when only one sex is represented in a marriage. But that is also covered in the link in the previous paragraph. So while gender orientation is orthoganal to raising children (i.e. "homosexuals" and "heterosexuals"), the makeup of the household governance does play a role.

You seem to agree that elderly couples or those not wanting children are _undeserving_ of marriage licenses.

My view is the opposite, as explained in the post above. They have been presented to me as undeserving and I have defended their rights. So where exactly did you get that opinion from?

Of course you have no such empathy for the intrusion of government into homosexual lives, but I don't want you to explain that contradiction.

You'll have to explain to me how marriage's equal gender requirement amounts to intrusion on homosexual lives. If anything it is an intrusion on the lives of heterosexual couples. For instance immigration services will often intrude into private affairs of individuals to make sure they are in fact married.

why not wait to grant marriage licenses to those that have children?

Or why not give marriage licenses to every couple that has a child? Hmmm?

Marriage has many dimensions to it but underlying the state's purpose in recognizing it is the potency of the combiniation of genders -- it makes new citizens who the state has an interest in ensuring certain rights of.

A marriage is a three-party contract between husband, wife, and state, and all three have different interests (as with any contract). The state's interest is much like an insurance policy, it covers the potential of something happening. We don't wait for someone to have an accident to sign them up for car insurance. We don't wait for a house to burn down to sign them up for house insurance. But we do note that cars have the potential for accidents, and houses the potential to burn down. And when gender's combine intimately there is the potential for children, and that is enough.

But marriage is only for the procreative -- you said it yourself!

Procreative... not neccissarily procreating. Which would be the point of my previous post.

It meets both your tests:

The policy over marriage may need to be adjusted from time to time but things work pretty well already. Even for same-sexed couples who already through contract law can have everything a marriage gives aside from how people recognize that relationship. And honestly people are free to recognize if they give benefits to married people just as much as any contractual same-sex couple.