Gordian Knots, polyamory, polygamy, and tsunamis across the country:
That's what gay marriage in California will imminently produce, according to a brief filed yesterday by the folks asking the California Supreme Court to stay its gay-marriage decision. They note without intended irony that Alexander the Great himself "would be unable to unbind" the resulting tangles. And all that's just from the first paragraph of the brief.
Noteworthy, too, is the imaginative diagram produced as "Exhibit 1" at p. 28, showing what appear to be representations of six partners of different sexes connected by arrows created by various marriages and civil unions. Alas, I've learned that a six-sided figure like this is not called a sexagon.
Related Posts (on one page):
- California Supreme Court unanimously denies stay in gay-marriage case:
- Other States Intervene in California Marriage Case:
- Gordian Knots, polyamory, polygamy, and tsunamis across the country:
Parsing the original sentence in the brief, I would say they also note it without actually knowing the story of Alexander and the Gordian Knot.
The domestic partnership statute applied to heterosexuals over the age of 62 who had the right to get married also. It also could have theorectically also had a domestic partnership with one person and a marriage to another, apparently the appellants were not overly concerned about that. (for that matter, to the extent one thinks that this is a latent ambiguity of the domestic partnership statute this problem could have occurred with a bisexual person too)
I also find it interesting that the brief lays out several very practical reason why polygamy causes practical problems in custody and property that same sex marriage does not, thereby undercutting one of the slippery slope arguments.
We found him with five partners, each of a different world and sex."
-- Leslie Fish, "Banned from Argo"
This could happen via the formation of civil unions outside the state, followed up one or more of those persons traveling to CA to become legally "married" (since they were joined by civil union, not marriage). This could set the stage for polygamists to facilitate an "end run" around existing marital laws.
Verstehen Sie das?
Oh wait, that's already happening.
"It's not nearly as dramatic as a sudden judicial declaration of a right to gay marriage, but the practical effect is almost the same. There will soon be thousands of married gay couples in New York. And the very existence of so many married gay couples living in the state will make it harder politically to justify making the rest go through the motions of traveling out of state to get married."
Well, that's the liberal point of view. The /h/ of hexagon is the result of a sound change in the early history of Greek; it was originally an /s/. So if you like, you could promote sexagon as the conservative term.
I am not so optimistic that they will though, since someone is obviously trying to ramrod this through, all in order to force this disastrous redefinition of 'marriage' on the whole country.
so that's why people look at me funny when i ask them to be part of my sexagon.
Unless gay marriage generates a 300-foot tall Stay Puft Marshmallow Man that will destroy us all, I think we can handle the aftereffects.
It is in this case!
I thought it went the other way: the Hellenic /h/ went to /s/ in Latin (which is how you get from the Greek "hypo" to the Latin "sub": h (or rather, rough breathing) -> s, y -> u (which it is in Greek after a consonant), and p -> b).
Because the voters will overturn it in 6 months.
Dogs and cats, living together!!!
As Eric Posner puts it:
That's why they ask the stay.
But it doesn't, unless domestic partnerships somehow became the exact equivalent of marriage without anyone noticing. I may be missing it, but I don't see anywhere in the brief where Liberty Counsel alleges that if A and B are married in HI and C and D are married in VT, the decision allows A to marry C and B to marry D in CA.
That should be "unless domestic partnerships or civil unions." Sorry.
No. But if A and B have a CA domestic partnership and A and C have a CA marriage and C and B have a civil union in another state, then A,B, and C are all legally tied together in California with regard to community property and so forth. So it's like all three married each other. I think.
As I pointed out above, to the extent that you believe the interaction between the domestic partnership and marriage law creates a possibility of polygamy, this possibility existed with heterosexual domestic partnerships (available to those over 62 yrs old) and bi-sexuals before the supreme court decision. Therefore this decision does not "create" this risk, at most it extends it to more people.
If the issued involved two heterosexuals in a domestic partnership (as is allowed), I doubt any one would have a problem understanding that neither could legally marry anyone else until they desolved the domestic partnership.
I also suspect if those same two heterosexuals had a domestic partnership and wanted to marry, most courts would common sense rule that the marriage upgraded the domestic partnership automatically.
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I think not. One must concurrently be in two marriages, in order to be practicing polygamy, and being already married is a bar to entering another marriage.
More tyranny.
The only reason this is difficult is because marriage purists insisted that we call SSM something else.
First, the decision won't lead to anyone changing their personal choices. I doubt people will have more or less plural households because of the ruling. More importantly, this decision will not directly lead to legalizing plural marriage because of its reasoning.
Say I approach city hall for a permit to marry Mr. Y. Them refusing me for the sole reason that I am a man (since they would issue a woman in my position a license to marry Mr. Y), is an act of personal discrimination based on sex. It may be justified for reasons of public policy (say because same-sex marriage is bad), but nevertheless it is does discriminate against me personally on the base of sex. The fact that I have the option of marrying a woman, Ms. X, doesn't help me at all. You can think of that as a "separate but equal" solution.
On the other hand, if I showed up at city hall asking for a license to marry both Ms. X and Mr. Y at the same time, then city hall would refuse me, but also all similarly situated people regardless of sex, color, creed or any other characteristic. To conclude, as long as you analyze the second situation from the same point of view as the first one, the discrimination applied to plural marriages is not of the kind prohibited by State and Federal Constitutions.
The situation would have been different had the court based its decision instead on the freedom of contract. That reasoning would of course have carried over to any other form of marriage (as long as the parties are competent to enter into binding contracts). Myself and others support this view (unfortunately, no legislature or court has, so far).
No. It involves using a legislature to make law.
Is the right to make a contract something possessed by each individual, or by the whole group trying to make the contract?
In other words, if two people are prevented from entering into a business relationship, is the possibility of discrimination analyzed by substituting one party, keeping all others constant (trying to determine whether there was discrimination against that party personally) or by substituting all parties together (trying to determine whether the group as a whole was discriminated against)?
[In the marriage case, the question is whether we are saying that denying SSM discriminates against each spouse separately, or against the couple jointly] [For example, where does Loving v. Virgina fall?]
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Why? What do you have against polygamists? Why can't a person have more than one loving relationship? Perhaps the decision of the California Court is in accord with basic rights, and what is touted as "bad" is in fact "good."
The only essential part of a Jewish marriage ceremony is the marriage contract (traditionally, one signs the it then and there, but a willing acceptance of a thing of value [the ring] is considered sufficient indication of the desire to enter into a particular standard form of the contract).
We've had both, before the decision. I have close friends who are poly, with four people involved in one "couple", and three in another. Our esteemed host has been talking about a polygamous cult recently. Not recognizing them doesn't stop them.
In truth, most people don't want to go poly. Some do, and do it. It is difficult to navigate - they spend a lot of time negotiating. I really can't imagine a magic legal fairy snapping their fingers and thousands of folks suddenly deciding, "why, yes! Now I want a poly marriage!"
Just not going to happen.
You mean like the time the California legislature passed SSM. Twice?
They can absolutely arrange their love life however they want. Government recognition of marriage is quite a bit more than that.
Slippery slope to polygamy? So freaking what? Aren't there more important things to hand-wring about?
Perhaps you can argue that marriage is a 3-way contract between the state and the two people involved, but in that case it's clear that the state gets a say.
That is highly ironic coming from a supporter of so-called homosexual "marriage."
Those bills were vetoed, and under California law, had to be submitted to the people for ratification, anyway. So they weren't "passed".
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Not all at once, anyway. Trial runs followed by divorce is common. I don't know how the multi-marriage stats compare with adhering to the quaint "'til death do us part" thing.
This sounds like an argument against gay marriage.
Actually, he married three women, two Persian princesses, and also the mother of his heir who was Afghan (in modern terms), not Persian. He also had a lifelong romantic attachment to his best friend Hephaistion, and at the height of his power a Persian eunuch was his usual bedmate. There is also mention of a mistress and a bastard son, though this may have been just a lying pretender in the wars after his death when his legitimate son had been murdered. And by the standards for rulers in his day he was considered rather chaste and abstentious. Alexander's father had six known wives, and juicy boyfriend scandals galore.
For this reason, I don't see think the Federal government should give you a tax break when you get married.
More to the point, if you enter into an employment contract with a health insurance provision, the Federal government will give you a tax break: the health insurance premiums will not be taxed. Does that count?
No, your insurance example does not count because the employer actually has to give you something material for it to count. Two people can get formally married and never speak to each other again.
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Income tax code penalizes the joining of independent wage-earners, the so-called "marriage penalty" tax. Is that the tax break you are referring to?
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There would be a tax benefit (to the government) to recognizing the joining the incomes of multiple partners, should the aggregate result in entering a higher tax bracket.
Elliot is right -- testimonial privilege is a cleaner example of my point.
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I'm not clear on what your "point" is in this regard. Are you against polygamy? If so, is it because (not the exclusive reason, just an example) it broadens testimonial privilege?
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On reflection, I'm inclined toward "tax breaks" being popular, period. Polygamists would like them, hetero married couples would like them, homo married couples would like them, and single people would like them.
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At any rate, it's possible to construct a set of revenue neutral tax rules in correspondence with any set of "social units" people choose to enter into.
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That's half of the equation. Are there to be any prohibitions? More particularly, is it to be legal to have a polygamous family unit, as long as the unit doesn't (at first) claim any tax, legal, medical, or other bureaucratic benefit?
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Can a two-person joining be concurrently contained in a larger self-declared unit? All the kids could be claimed to belong to the (or "a," depending on the size of the commune) "legal couple," while the others are simply rendered into the silent treatment, "I don't see you" zone.
That's actually a very important point that needs to be made loud and clear. Once upon a time marriage was the relationship bright line -- people were either married or they weren't. Now, however, because of opposition to allowing gay people to marry, various forms of marriage lite have been created, with the result that marriage is now simply a lifestyle choice among many. If marriage advocates wanted to keep marriage special, they would have tactically been much better off letting gay people marry in the first place before all these forms of marriage lite were cooked up as a compromise.
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Any discriminatory or exclusionary policy is diluted when the rules for entry are relaxed.
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If the first rule is "heterosexual couples are special," then the rule "heterosexual AND homosexual couples are special" dilutes the "speciality." The rules for club membership are broadened.
Marrying comes with a whopping big tax penalty, except in the sole case that one of you isn't working and continues not working, in which case your taxes do indeed go down. If you're a Congressman marrying your teenage page you do well.
But otherwise, if two single people file married jointly, then not only do they go into a higher tax bracket (e.g. their combined income is taxed at 35% instead of 25%), but their per capita deductions decrease. And if they file separately, their tax rate is higher than if they file single (which they can't do anyway). If either has children, e.g. from a previous marriage, the hit is even worse, because you give up the higher deductions and lower rate of head of household.
On the latter, we do have stats - last I saw was that 50% of marriages ended after 13 years. No, I don't have a cite.
I know of no studies of poly arrangements, but I expect them to not last as long - more people == more moving about, careers, interpersonal dynamics, etc. Most of the poly folk I know are smart, ambitious and likely to follow jobs rather than homestead. But the other question comes up - what is the family unit? If you have four adult people involved, one leaves, a new one comes in, is that still a family? I tend to think so - especially if kids are involved.
And that, I think, is the real reason for some of the opposition to gay marriage. It's the dog in the manger argument -- we've got it, you can't have it, neener neener neener.
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Exactly The real reason for some of the opposition to polygamous marriage is the dog in the manger argument -- we've got it, you can't have it, neener neener neener.
Well, the Goodridge and the recent California Supreme Court decisions in favor of SSM could not produce a majority of justices who'd agree with that assertion.
The man-woman criterion of marriage does not unjustly discriminate on the basis of sex.
For polygamy to significantly and negatively impact the country, or even a relatively small goegraphical part of the country, all it takes is a minority to partake of it.
Suppose that on average a polygamist marriage included one man and four women. That leaves 3 men, on average, unmarried unless they relocate. On this basis, all it would take is one-fourth of married men to form such arrangements and, presto, three-fourths of the adult male population would be out of luck.
That's an overly simplified illustration meant to emphasize the segregation of the sexes that would result in such a skewing of family formation in a given population. In some societies less than 10% partake in polygamy yet this hugely impacts the culture far beyond courts and law schools.
A merger of SSM with marriage does not treat marriage as special nor would it be a solution to the "marriage lite" problem you described.
Marriage has a special status because of its core or its essentials. If SSM is merged with marriage, how would you describe its core or essentials?
On based on that, on what basis could you prohibit polygamy whether in the form of marriage that bestows a special status or in the form of "marriage lite" that bestows something else?
There is a case in Texas that currently involves an entire polygamous community. How has it negatively impacted the US?
Re: Alexander the Great. When he was presented with teh Gordian knot, he didn't even attempt to 'unbind' it, he just cut it with his sword. These idiots on the brief can't even get their metaphors right.
Oh, I don't know. How about attending some weddings? The minister or priest usually mentions the core essentials. Let's have a try, shall we?
Marriage is about two people in love who wish to spend the rest of their lives together, to cherish and care for each other, til death do them part.
If that's not enough, we could add: Each must share the household chores, must agree never to go to bed angry, must learn the value of saying "I'm sorry" and "I was wrong."
Does that adequetely get to the core essentials of marriage. Please, feel free to add your own!
Actually, since forever. Unlike Canada, in the US married people have an option "Married filing separately", but that is not the same as a single person filing.
@NI:
You mean the time when keeping mistresses was the norm for men who could afford to, polygamy was normal for Jews and Muslims in the Middle East, and many more family structures existed in Africa and Asia?
@Chairm:
Are you seriously arguing that we should deny some women the right to marry the man they want in order to force them to marry someone else instead? Men and women are not property -- they do not belong to society, to be disposed of as society sees fit.
Legal retainer agreement.
Trying to summarize your argument: because opposite-sex couples can get some benefits (e.g. spousal testimony privileges or tax breaks if they exist) via a sham marriage, groups who contract to be married should not get the same benefits. I really don't understand the argument.
Marriage is an arrangement whereby a couple (or more) agree to lead their lives together. Common components are a shared household, shared finances, common rearing of children, and decisions such as who provides money and who works around the house. You still haven't explained why such arrangements should not be analyzed as contracts, or why society should limit people's ability to enter into such contracts.
Could you explain in what way the current way to get married and enjoy the attendant benefits (i.e. signing papers in city hall) is so special that we cannot think of it as simply two people entering into a contract? It sure looks like a contract signing to me.
Nick
So for example, a woman with Swyer Syndrome and 46xy (male) chromosomes could get married to a woman in Kansas (by Kantaras vs Kantaras, male chromosomes == male), then move to Louisiana, and marry a man. Neither state would recognise the other marriage as valid, so there's no question of bigamy. Things would get very complicated if she became a surrogate mother, from an egg donated by her wife and fertilised by her husband.
(1) Testimonial Privilege
(2) Half of Social Security Pension (you can't just sign that away in a regular contract)
(3) Estate tax exemption
(4) Workplace health and pension counted as tax free (if I enter into an employment contract, health or pension for my domestic partner is taxable income whereas health or pension for my spouse is not taxable income).
There are 4 solid 3rd-party benefits of marriage that cannot be achieved a mere contract by two (or any number) of parties.
Looks like a contract to me. Now if we can just get rid of that pesky "man" and "woman" language...
This is an ipse dixit. You are defining marriage as requiring one man and one woman, and so you've won the argument by defining it. The problem is, not everyone uses your definition.
Marriage is a social construct so society can define it pretty much however society chooses.
Additionally, married couples are entitled to benefits from the federal gov't, like social security benefits, that cannot be contracted for. Employers often give benefits to spouses, but not to domestic partners or other who are unmarried, despite whatever contracts they might draw up.
Furthermore, the cost to draw up all the various contracts and send it to everyone who should be notified would be pretty high. Much cheaper to just get a marriage license.
Clearly to get spousal privilege you have to be married. But this says nothing about whether your marriage is a two-person marriage or a plural marriage.
The questions are:
1. Why should we restrict the particular grouping of parties that can make a marriage contract? [for example, restrictions based on consanguinity make sense, unlike ones based on number and sex]
2. Why should all privileges and duties of marriage not extend automatically to all marriage contracts?
Quite the opposite: married couples are entitled to the benefits are as a consequence of their marriage contract. That real-estate contracts don't carry the same benefits is beside the point.
Yes! Which is why common prevailing definitions should not be arbitrarily redefined by judges. This is a matter for the people to debate and decide.