Gay marriage in Maine:
The Governor just signed the bill, making Maine the fifth state to recognize the marriages of gay couples.
Now get ready for the ballot fight. Opponents will move to collect the 55,000 signatures necessary to suspend the legislation until a referendum can be held.
Good for Maine. Beautiful state.
For a normal referendum, 55.000 signatures seems about a reasonable number, but if such a referendum also has the effect of suspending the law in question, it seems surprisingly low.
(2) Collecting 55,000 signatures simply puts the issue on the ballot; it does not repeal the law.
(3) Maine is the fifth state that will solemnize them... NY and now DC (and perhaps RI, according to Wikipedia) will "recognize" same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.
I suppose the law allows very vocal minorities to have a say, which overall might not be a bad thing if some laws tend to fall on a small percentage of the population. This is general law, though.
Technically true, but IIRC, none of the solmenizing States let non-residents tie the knot.
Given the provisions of section 16, the suspension created by section 17 (2) seems to be fairly unimportant. Given that, I withdraw my earlier remark.
The legislature passed it this time.
And like I said when VT started allowing gay marriage: I may not agree with it, but it has been instituted the right way.
That said, I hope the voters vote it down. And vote out substantial numbers in their legislature and their mayor, who said he opposes gay marriage.
Why would a state NOT marry non-residents?
Maybe the polygamists can start building a strong enough lobby to get polygamy to be recognized. Those poor Mormon fundamentalists are getting the short end of the stick since their lifestyle choices aren't recognized by the state. How many wed women are going without their rights being recognized by the state. Oh and the muslims as well. How unfair. Let's get polygamy on the books now. And if we're really fortunate and MANBLA builds a strong enough lobby we'll be able to see same-sex minor-adult marriages. And if MANBLA and the polygamists could get together, we might be able to see same-sex minor-adult polygamist marriages. Let no man or woman be denied their rights.
Well except for the bestiality nuts... they're just sick.
Since you seem to be the only one pushing for this, I don't suspect it will get far. But who knows? Perhaps you have powerful friends and can create a strong lobby. Good luck!
Yeah, it's about as bad as anti-SSM amendments have on gay families.
You are correct of course. But, I think it's a fair inference that if something passes the legislature (unlike when gay marriage is court ordered), it has widespread public support. Maybe or maybe not a majority, but definitely not a fringe position. Say what you will about politicians, but they're pretty good at getting re-elected and most would not needlessly jeopardize those prospects.
Well, let's see . . . did Jerry Lee Lewis marry his 13-year-old cousin in Mississippi or Tennessee?
And so it comes back to marriage. Where is our society's barrier? What is icky to you may not be icky for your neighbor? There are minorities throughout this country that are involved in a variety of sexually deviant practices and what we are doing is asking the state to recognize one of these practices as being foundational to a state recognized union. If this one? Why not others? What sets these particular sexual relationships apart from the rest of the pack? The slippery slope argument is ignored because the answer is grossly apparent... that once the barrier is broken nothing is too off the charts to be included under the umbrella. We can make leaps from A to Z or we can make incremental steps... but the end result is that we will reach Z.
Polygamy in Islamic societies is more than acceptable, for it is a mimicry of the behavior of 'the perfect man', Mohammad. As such, it is nearly seen as a religious practice. So, given that the courts have ruled that the state has basically no interest in who gets married, and in restricting it to a single person and another single person violates religious practices, poof, the restriction will go away.
And we have ample precedent for this. Canada and the UK both RECOGNIZE polygamous marriages for the purposes of doling out the dole, as long as the marriage was legal in the country it was conducted in.
Lewis married Myra Gale Brown who at the time was 13. Best as I can tell it occurred in MS. She was either a distant cousin (sources vary: either a third cousin, twice removed or 1st cousin once removed (see chart here for blood-relationships: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin)). Elvis married a 14 year old.
Lewis's marriage would not be considered incestial as it usually refers to the immediate family (tho laws are different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.)
But let me put it this way. If the southern states have an age of consent for marriage at 16 (or 14 or 12) should that be the law of the land? And if so, how about if we add the same sex factor into that?
Very briefly then, since you took the trouble to write something carefully sensible: You conclude by saying: "We can make leaps from A to Z or we can make incremental steps... but the end result is that we will reach Z." That begs the follwing question: If it is Z you're worried about, and possibly X and Y as well, how does that jusify not going to B, C or D? Given that - as you'll agree - every step does not inevitably follow from the previous, a choice for A does not inevitably imply a choice for Z. Every step involves some deliberation, followed by a free choice. While clearly the deliberation at every step is influenced by the path already traveled, I don't see why dislike of Z would cause one to outlaw B and C.
Let the people draw the line where they will. Slippery slope arguments are legitimately part of the discussion when we're talking about next steps that are close by; when talking about C, it makes sense to already look ahead to D and E. But scare stories about Z do not seem to me to be very helpful.
Marriage equality is about letting all citizens do what some citizens already do. We already let some citizens license their 'of age, non relative' male spouses and others their females spouses. This is just about letting all citizens do what some citizens could already do.
This is in contrast to letting citizens do what no citizens have been allowed to do, i.e. have a spouse below a certain age, multiple contracts, a spouse with a at least one pre-existing contract, more than 2 people in the mutually exclusive contract, etc.
Letting all citizens do what some citizens could already do opens no doors and greases no slopes to things that no one has been allowed to do.
It's our latest tourist promotion.
I would say that the line of what can be taken away while still following the constitutional process resides at the line where the populace would rise up in open revolt against the government.
Given how hard that is at the federal level it would require an extrmely entrenched minority and equally hostile majority to bring about.
Anything less and the government is still legitimate.
To illustrate where you go wrong, let me re-write your comment slightly:
Striking out the parts about "of age"/"under age" transforms your argument from one about marriage equality based on gender/sexual orientation to one that also covers marriage equality based on age. Why let 18+ people marry whichever 18+ person they like, but not younger? That's discrimination! Similarly, why discriminate based on whether the would-be spouses are related?
Your attempt to make some of these cases appear as discrimination but not others is fallacious. They're all discrimination, but in some cases the discrimination is justified.
I think your error is you are confusing the roles - the target, the spouse of the citizen, must always be someone eligible for marriage - the question then becomes "Why are some citizens able to do it and some not?"
So for age and relation there would already have to be some citizens that can license the contract with a person of those qualities, there aren't. But there are citizens who are allowed to license male spouses and others female.
So frame your complaints in a way to answer the question and you might have a point because as it stands
Are there citizens who can marry those less than 18 y/o? No, then its not an equality issue.
Are there citizens who can marry a parent or sibling? No, then its not an equality issue.
Are there citizens who can marry a particular gendered spouse? Yes, so why can't all of them?
Also, I'd say your argument is fairly pragmatic. It would be nice if there were some philosophical way to draw the line ex ante, analogous to the notion of ius cogens in international law. An example in domestic law is Lord Coke's famous ruling in Dr. Bonham's case, where he somehow combined judicial review with parliamentary sovereignty. (We're still not entirely sure how that works, which is why that case is so frequently discussed even today.) The key line is: "And it appeareth in our Books, that in many Cases, the Common Law doth controll Acts of Parliament, and somtimes shall adjudge them to be void: for when an Act of Parliament is against Common right and reason, or repugnant, or impossible to be performed, the Common Law will controll it, and adjudge such Act to be void".
It is questionable whether Coke accurately stated the law of England there. But is there a category of conceivable Acts that would be "against Common right and reason, or repugnant"?
Currently for most of the US it's 18, and younger with parental consent (typically 16, with exceptions like New Hampshire which permit marriage at 13 with special causes)
Minors don't have rights. Logical fallacy to imply that somehow the situations parallel.
If we were to put all the cards on the table and ask the question why gay marriage -- why seek it, the answer comes back not because of rights supplied through marriage (there are plenty of states that recognize the rights of same sex partners without marriage) but because it makes legitimate the relationship between the partners and the community at large. Since I lack the eloquence: a gay marriage says "look at me, I'm gay and you society have to accept me." It's the ultimate outing. If I were a psycologist, I would suggest that it is akin to an individual seeking approval for activity that individual itself feels is abnormal. But what impact does same sex marriage have on regular marriage? Does it weaken it? Does it strengthen it? Does it have no impact? What effect does it have on our society? Does it weaken, strengthen or have no impact? None of these questions are raised because we are far to afraid to address it. We are far too interested in oiling the squeeky wheel that debate is ignored or outright shunned and examination of the consequences or potential consequences are never considered... all in the name of equality.
A quote from one of the women who were first married in MA and quickly divorced after: "I would rather them recognize [a right to enter in to] marriage first, and then [allow] divorce. But it's a big step forward for our equality and our rights." Marriage is not a right, it's a rite.
(2) Every marriage entered into in which either the husband or the wife has not attained the age of seventeen years is void except where this section has been waived by a superior court judge of the county in which one of the parties resides on a showing of necessity.
"If we were to put all the cards on the table and ask the question why gay marriage -- why seek it, the answer comes back not because of rights supplied through marriage (there are plenty of states that recognize the rights of same sex partners without marriage)"
No, they don't work. Marriage is a legal term and the US is too disorganized to make sure that civil unions are treated equally with marriages. Also, you can't take a civil union across a border, causing legal chaos. This is 90% of the push from civil unions to SSM in those states (aside from the general principle of equality - to deny equality you need a valid reason, and aesthetic and religious reasons don't count as valid)
Marriage is a right, not a rite (no such thing as civil rites)
Because no one is allowed to marry their sister or other close relative.
The trick is there are two ways to look at gender, absolutely and relatively. While we have traditionally looked at it relatively, all the biological mechanisms behind the impulse to marry are absolutely, we are driven to marry 'males' or 'females' not 'opposites'.
With relation there is only one view - they are a relative or they aren't.
That's the difference you are ignoring and that is what absolutely excludes your sister as a spouse from an equality claim but doesn't someone one qualified in every way but possibly gender.
There are (or maybe were) reasons for such laws. Perhaps they should be changed. But, as BobVB has been trying patiently to explain, at present incest laws apply equally to everyone, gay or straight.
Why do you think no one cares? Why is it now totally unrelated to children, when thousands of gay couples do, in fact, have children, even if it's by a method resorted to by less than a majority of straight couples? They will still have offspring, and those offspring will now have the protections afforded by marriage. And so what if "fatherhood" and "motherhood" are totally unrelated to "husband" and "wife"? Many people, straight and gay alike, view marriage as a partnership. You can be a great father even if you don't take the traditional role of "husband". Finally, why does gay marriage mean that people won't stay together? That makes no sense.
Why would that be? Do same-sex marriages cause heterosexual marriages to stop existing?
Your point that we allow some people to marry and some people not marry is completely false. Nobody was allowed to marry another person of the same sex. All people were allowed to marry people of the opposite sex, except in cases of consanguination, existing marriages, and being under age.
Where is the discrimination in that if it applies to everybody equally?
The only counter is that engaging in homosexual acts is so pre determined that to bar them from marrying a person of the same sex is not a resonable restriction. Of course the intrinsic nature of conducting homosexual acts is completely unproven. Worse, it is proven conclusively that engaging in homosexual acts is NOT 100% determinisic.
One need only look at the Iowa SC ruling to see the logical pretzel turns they make to justify this. They basicially say, 'well we don't know if engaging in homosexual acts is deterministic or not, but people who engage in homosexual acts FEEL discriminated against so we can't have that'. So now we are granting exceptions in the law for people who FEEL like they have been disriminated against? What a crock.
So miscegenation laws and Jim Crow laws were not discrimination in your book, since they applied to all citizens equally?
It would not be illegal to write a law saying "no one may sit on a jury who is not a member of a race that sat on juries in 1850). It applies equally to everyone, right, so it's not discrimination?
I guess you would give safe harbor for any kind of discrimination
Exactly.
Uh, no. You vote for politicians based on the promises they make and how good a game they talk. I know people like to act like everything politicians do is somehow an extension of the voters, and maybe to an extent it is. But I doubt the majority of Maine voters voted for anybody in their legislature because they figured one day they would
invent the right to gay marriagelegalize gay marriage.I assume this is a joke. You don't realize that if you can change one legal definition (marriage = union of opposite sex couples), you can certainly change another (minor = person under the age of 18 or 16 or ?)? In fact, the traditional view was that persons between the age of 7 and 14 were rebuttably presumed to possess reason and therefore to be responsible for their actions, while an irrebuttable presumption of rationality kicked in at age 14. It really is no great leap at all from gay marriage to child marriage--in fact (as with polygamy), there is infinitely more justification for child marriage in the history of world civilizations.
Which is the 'opposite' relative way to look at gender as I mentioned, but can we agree that there is another way to look at gender, 'absolutely' as male or female, correct?
That is the difference - looking from only the 'opposite' POV then yes, its equal, but there is another equally valid POV, and I would hold it is even more valid since our actual natural marriage mechanisms are keyed off the absolute gender of the the possible spouse, not their relative gender.
Even your counter argument is dogmatically based from only a 'relative orientation' point of view. I don't think there are are ANY directly homosexual or heterosexual 'natures' personally - everything seems to indicate there are androphiles and gynophiles and some of each of those are of either gender.
So IF there was only one valid point of view you might have a case, but there is another. With the 'relative' perspective you can say all have the same rights, but with the absolute gender perspective you see that we have citizens with 2 sets of special rights, some can license their marriages to men, some can to women and the question becomes why do we have citizens with special rights and why can't all citizens have the same rights?
But if I tell this to you, what is stopping me from telling it to my cell phone? Lol
Of course we could.
No great leap from allowing to adults to marry, to allowing 7-year-olds to marry? I see a leap there.
Really though, the only reason people who dislike gay marriage want to prevent it is just that: they dislike it. Of course it is necessary to concoct some plausible-sounding arguments to rationalize that dislike, but it's really visceral rather than rational.
When gay marriage is legal everywhere, our grandchildren won't even know there was a controversy -- it will just be normal background for them.
It might. I know I read a story that said a few Judges in Iowa have stopped marrying couples altogether. I think, depending on other legislation passed, some states might decide that ordained ministers who refuse to marry SSM couples might not be able to perform heterosexual marriages, lest they run afoul of the state's anti-discrimination statute.
Exactly.
Curse that powerful group of gay Maine residents (Mainers? Maine-iacs?) whose thirst for the power to get married has crippled the ability of ordinary and normal residents of the state to . . . um . . .
We can think in terms of stairs rather than slopes much of the time. Each step is just that and does not lead "inevitably" to the bottom, unless we wish to go that far.
It is true that 'some slopes really are slippery,' as logicians like to say. That does not mean that every descent - or ascent - is a slope.
@ Mr. T (B.A. Baracus): Your bigotry offends me. Your presumption that those individuals that oppose gay marriage somehow hate homosexuals is as dastardly as any anonymous hate-filled rant conjured on the internet. Remember when you point your finger, 3 are pointing back at you.
Opposition to gay marriage does not equate to hating homosexuals or even deny homosexual their rights. Certainly some individuals might hold the two positions, but they are mutually exclusive. The opposition to same sex marriage is grounded in the desire to preserve a divine rite which has been subverted into a relationship that is used to establish probate rights.
The Declaration of Independence cites "the laws of nature and of nature's god," so presumably there are constraints that are beyond a legislature's competence to change.
Were that that were true.
I really am not against SSM per se, but I do think that the push to re-define traditional marriage comes at a very dangerous time. As has been alluded by others earlier, and by me on prior threads, there is a powerful minority group that already practices both polygamy and child marriage on a massive scale (as well as first cousin marriage), and the polygamy is already rampant in this country. Child marriage can't be far behind, if it already hasn't started.
NPR, hardly a bastion of right wing intolerance, reported this a year ago in a two part series:
Some Muslims in U.S. Quietly Engage in Polygamy
Philly's Black Muslims Increasingly Turn to Polygamy
Child marriages are also very common in Muslim countries and are beginning to happen frequently in European countries.
UK Probes Forced Child Marriage
They will have on their side BOTH the arguments being pressed by pro and anti-SSM supporters - equal rights and religious freedom. In fact, their own prophet took many wives, one of whom was 9 years old.
What will be the argument again that they can't have these rights? (And remember, their willingness to peacefully take no for an answer has been pretty much documented to be non-existent.)
Now I'd better slip out before Joseph Slater or MarkField hits me with a steel chair.
:-)
Well they already have license to the civil contract with a spouse, wanting more than one spouse is a different issue. This is in contrast to marriage equality which is about all citizens having the same license to the existing civil contract that other citizens already have.
Beyond that, middle-eastern/biblical/proto-Mormon polygyny is incompatible with the American concept of equal rights under the law - the only thing that would be so is true polygamy. I assure you male religious polygynists do not want wives with the right to marry another husband, a right to file for divorce, lose their ability to dissolve their own marriages with extra-legal authority, etc.
This always impressing me as a red herring that no one really wants - they might want to not be criminal for having multiple wives but they don't have any desire to civilly license all of them.
Shoot I know the second wive of an Islamic man right here in Washington state, that there are practicing polygynists in the US is pretty much a ::yawn:: of a revelation - exactly were are any of them wanting to civil license their marriage to the entire group?
Regardless it doesn't have anything to do with all citizens having equal license to the existing civil contract of marriage with their spouse which is what marriage equality is all about.
I agree, government has no reason being in the marriage business. It's sole reason getting involved in the first place was so that the claims of the widow/er and other family members could be properly established. The bonus was that the government got a fee and another way to tax individuals. It (the state) also served as the enforcer for bond collection when someone failed to fulfill their marital obligations.
Civil unions sound nice, but I maintain that before creating this category we need to analyze the possible long term ramifications. As you state:
I know your intention was to address solely same-sex, but all the arguments above can be applied. If in fact that all homosexual marriage is trying to establish is the same rights given to heterosexuals through marriage are there not better ways to guarantee those rights? If I can give my parent, wife, sibling the power of attorney, could I not give it to my same sex partner. Could laws not be written to guarantee that same sex partners get insurance benefits? etc. etc. In other words, is the only answer to provide the rights to same-sex partners is through marriage or have we exhausted all possible avenues.
Perhaps my frustration in all of this is that marriage has turned into such a weakened social contract thanks to no fault divorce that I fear that the next step will completely sink it; it will become nothing more than a designation on our 1040s. But maybe that's the intent. I can't say with any certainty, but given the vigor and recklessness that is being used to establish these marriages, the idea has to be entertained. If everyone can be special... then no one will be -- to paraphrase The Incredibles.
The civil rights argument for SSM is that I love my partner as much as my neighbor, the only difference is gender (and in Western societies we now view people as people more than as women and men - a mentality of gender equality is probably necessary to even begin debating SSM). Marriage is, according to the SSM argument, a romance-based partnership which has a bunch of legal benefits regarding inheritance, immigration, next-of-kin status, hospital decisions, etc. It is unfair to deny us control over these benefits just because of the gender difference. Also, it is not necessary to change all the laws in these areas to accomodate gay couples. For example when SSM starts, inheritance and divorce laws do not change, they just apply also to gay couples.
Not so for polygamy. What would happen to inheritance laws, or to divorce laws? (Imagine wife A is OK with the divorce, but wife B wants to contest it). What if wife A wants to pull the plug in the hospital but wife B is against it? It would be legal chaos. It doesn't fit into Western law at all.
Finally, polygamy is not theoretical. It was the definition of marriage in ancient times, Western societies have already experienced and rejected polygamy. It exists legally all over the world. Having polygamy makes a radical statement about the superiority of men over women, which is the polar opposite of the egalitarian arguments behind SSM. It is no mystery why the countries that have legal polygamy are the ones where gays are imprisoned or executed. The only argument that a Western country could accept would be some sort of ultra-multiculturalist non-intereference policy, i.e. we will let Muslims be polygamous and/or mutilate their daughters. I would hope that countries would place more emphasis on citizenship than allowing such radical apartheid
It hides beneath the rose...
You realize that it's pretty much impossible to take you seriously after you post that, right?
(1) What is the worst case if SSM supporters are right but that SSM is outlawed?
In that case, a small percentage (the minority of homosexuals seeking marriage) of a small percentage (perhaps 1 or 2% of the population?) will be denied a fundamental right that (frankly) no one, anywhere, in all of human history, even imagined that they might claim a decade or two before today.
But:
(2) What is the worst case if SSM opponents are right but that SSM becomes the law of the land?
In that case, for the sake of an utter legal novelty enacted for a vanishingly small proportion of the population, the fundamental unit of society will have been further weakened if not destroyed. Population will decline, and at the same time women and children will increasingly be unprotected. In the event of a catastrophe or increased social unrest, without that bulwark of social stability, we might just lose our civilization.
Balancing those equities, the answer seems obvious to me. I couldn't in good conscience support a movement that at best empowers a tiny minority at the risk of losing our entire culture.
1. Child marriage (with parental consent) is already legal to some extent in most of the States (see here). In CA, for example, there is no minimum age at all. I'm not sure why same-sex child marriage is worse than different-sex child marriage, but in any case since minors have been marrying adults legally for centuries while same-sex marriage is recent, I don't see any reason why SSM will have anything to do with child marriage.
2. Pappa John specifically refers to an adult marrying a "consenting minor". What is, exactly, a "consenting minor"?
3. Could you explain why polygamy is wrong in and of itself?
Many polygamous marriages are coerced; many amount to sexual abuse, in many cases sexual abuse of minors. Such conduct is already criminal, however -- regardless of the number of parties to the marriage. Similarly, when the legal system was heavily skewed toward the husband having several wives greatly jeopardized their legal rights. But in a more egalitarian legal system is there any reason to prohibit two women and a man from getting married?
There are practical issue with to legalizing multiple marriage not present in SSM. For example, if one spouse is incapacitated it is not clear how to resolve disputes among the remaining spouses regarding medical treatment. However, these "practicality" argument cannot be the reason why SSM must be banned lest it lead to legalized polygamy.
Parental consent
I posit that if people using the handle "nomilk" post on the internet, in ten years, because of those posts, western civilization will come crashing down.
No, others may believe -- perhaps even sincerely -- that my prediction is not correct. But why take the risk?
Are there citizens who can marry a parent or sibling? No, then its not an equality issue.
Are there citizens who can marry a particular gendered spouse? Yes, so why can't all of them?
That just depends on how you phrase it. I could just as easily ask "are there citizens who can marry the same sex? No, then it's not an equality issue." or "are there citizens who can marry Joe Blow? Yes, but *you* can't marry Joe Blow, because you're related, so it is an equality issue.
Actually, there are in fact people who claim that they are "polyamorous" in very much the sense of a "sexual orientation." Pretty soon we'll hear chants of "We're polyamorous / We're ubiquitous / Get used to it!"
So you're proposing to discriminate against them on the basis of your scare stories about polygamy?
Then we better outlaw having two parents, too.
Which you know I have already acknowledged - but the point is there are two ways to discuss gender.
"are there citizens who can marry Joe Blow? Yes, but *you* can't marry Joe Blow, because you're related, so it is an equality issue.
Come on, again please honest discussion. In your example you aren't even using 'relationship' as your first example and then sand bag it with the second.
The salient difference is that gender is unique in that there are two ways to look at it, 'relative' and 'absolute'. You can't do that with age, you numbers, relationship.
If you can't be honest enough to acknowledge there are two ways to look at gender why bother replying at all?
Please, spare us the heterosexist drivel of denying the concept of sexual orientation. You are just making stuff up at this point to support your prejudice
See here is what we disagree, it isn't a 'for' thing, its a 'it happens' thing. What is sleep 'for'? Doesn't matter its something humans naturally do. And similarly the human animal naturally marries.
Two halves of humanity? Men are just the basic body type with a mod kit - men and women are far more similar than they aren't with most living in the grey area in the middle overlap. Do many marriages result in procreation, sure - yeah! Is it required?
Sorry, marriage is a fundamental right the derives from our biology - a state that pretends that citizens don't marry just because their spouse is of the same gender is just a failed state that doesn't acknowledge the world the way it really is.
It is the the 'shouting' and 'thuggery' of those utilizing centuries old superstitions and assumptions and ignore what we know about the world today that are undermining the rights of their fellow citizens and causing the real harm.
It's called change, folks. SSM is pretty much the final nail in the coffin for traditional marriage.
Oh, for that bygone era of witch-burnings, pogroms and executing gay people! I know, that was truly the height of Christian civilization.
No, this is of course a gross misrepresentation of what I stated.
It would be illegal to write a law stating that no one may sit on a jury who is not a member of a race that sat on juries in the 1850's because that would explicitly bar people of one race from sitting on the juries while those of another could not. Race is a) 100% deterministic and b) explicitly covered under a myriad of laws of equal protection.
The question is, why are people who engage in homosexual acts given the same protections when a) engaging in homosexual acts is not 100% deterministic and b) those who engage in homosexual acts are explicitly NOT covered by the myriad of laws for equal protection?
Let's us be clear, we are not discussing Gay Marriage or Lesbian Marriage, we are discussing Same Sex Marriage. Why? Because there is NO deterministic or concrete way to define who a gay person is. I just cannot be done. We can only discuss people who ENGAGE in acts, not in people who HAVE a status. It is a behavioral, not a status definitional issue.
Whatever works for OSM* will work for SSM. Multiple marriages require new rules (even if the rules say "do the same as in analogous situation X"). When we legalize multiple marriage every employer will have to decide if and to what extent the company health plan will cover multiple spouses; hospitals will have to develop visitation rules; inheritance laws may need to be updated .... These are not difficult problems, just time-consuming ones.
(*) opposite-sex-marriage
Clearly this is about a new form of marriage between adults and minors, not the form that is already recognized by all states.
If the only reason you are against SSM is that it will lead to something terrible, the answer is quite simple -- push for an amendment to the US consitution to deny incestual marriage, bestiality, and polygamy. If your position has the support that you believe it does (and I don't doubt that it does), then it should pass quite easily.
Therefore, that eliminates the fear. If such an amendment were passed, would you then support SSM? Or is there another reason?
Shelby" It's called change, folks. SSM is pretty much the final nail in the coffin for traditional marriage."
Oh, I suppose you are going to argue that 'traditional marriage' is dead in Mass, Canada, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, Spain, S. Africa and Denmark? No one is getting married or having children there?
But Thanks for the hysteria Shelby. When your opponents are reduced to nothing more than fearmongering, you know you've won.
milk: "Balancing those equities, the answer seems obvious to me. I couldn't in good conscience support a movement that at best empowers a tiny minority at the risk of losing our entire culture."
Wow! 1% of the population would be able to destroy our ENTIRE CULTURE! Because we know that once the gays get married, no one else will want to get married or have children. Too bad it hasn't happened anywhere yet....
However, I'm, glad that you did the balancing act. Let's do it for climate change, shall we? Let's do nothing: The best case scenario is that the climate isn't changing at all, so doing nothing is the best solution. The worst case scenario is that our entire plant will change climate, causing mass starvation, massive amounts of refugees, the flooding of most coastal cities, mass extinction of species and so on.
Therefore, using your analysis, we must do whatever we can to reverse climate change immediately, right?
You are entitled to your opinion but not to your own set of facts.
Sexual orientation is NOT per-determined a la race. Don't believe me, believe every study on the issue. Here is what Simon LeVay a researcher on the subject:
There are people who engage in homosexual acts and there are people who don't. There are people who are predetermined to engage in homosexual acts, that is plain misreading of the facts.
You are also misreading LeVay.
Nor, did he disprove that homosexuality is genetic.
LeVay, quite properly, does not extend his work beyond what he found. He did not find any evidence of cause, one way or another. He found a brain difference between heterosexual and homosexual men.
Yeah, LeVay's work doesn't show that gay people are born that way. Doesn't show that they're not, either.
I'm not sure any of it matters anyway. If we discovered tomorrow that propensity to murder was genetic, that wouldn't make it OK. If we discovered tomorrow that homosexuality were a choise, that wouldn't make it wrong.
The homosexuality arguments strikes me, for a variety of reasons, as being more about personal liberty than about equality. However, folks like spinning it as an equality issue because the legal and social tools for getting the right result are more available.
Neither is race - the president gets to choose his race as many do.
Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain. The INAH3 is less likely to be the sole gay nucleus of the brain than a part of a chain of nuclei engaged in men and women's sexual behavior
Wasn't it Foucault who pointed out there is no pure knowledge because we shape the answers we will accept by the very questions and terms we use to seek it out.
Punctuate my earlier point - there are most likely no 'homosexual' or 'heterosexual' anythings, there are just people who are androphiles or gynophiles and that are men and women in both categories.
We have mechanisms that make us attracted to men or women and what your gender is is almost beside the point. So the question is:
Can we choose the gender we can marry? Its the answer to that question that should guide us.
Now back to reality. We forbid same-sex marriage, which effectively forbids Gay and Lesbian marriage. Just like the Jim Crow laws. And if gays are not included in the antidiscrimination laws in your state, then that is a problem. In most of the US and the Western world gays are included in the antidiscrimination laws. Law should be based on ethics, not vice versa!
Sexual orientation is much more like race than it is like religion (absolutely voluntary). And like Shelby said, it doesn't matter, it doesn't change the fact that denying committed adult couples marriage or its equivalent is unethical
You mean, like people who choose their religion? A person can practice catholocism, but that doesn't make them a catholic, right? A person who practices a religion doesn't mean that the person is religious.
So -- when you are worried that religious people might have their rights curtailed by SSM, that's a moot point, since there ARE no religious people.
Dont' worry, we DON"T believe you. So how do you explain the fact that all the major medical associations, the APA, the AMA and so on, all agree that sexual orientation is set and can't be changed? How do you explain the fact that Exodus, the leading "ex-gay" organization, has stated that most people cannot change their sexual orientation, and that for most people, it remains a 'lifelong' struggle?
Surely, a group devoted to helping people change their sexual orientation from gay to straight would be saying that you can change very easily, if you were correct.
But I guess none of the people who have actually studied the matter count, right? Only the anti-gay people like Dr. Socorides are right....
Then why is your moral outrage targeted against SSM? If you truly believed what you say, then you should oppose all kinds of marriage. There are old people, for instance, who marry only to obtain social security rights. There are plenty of women who marry onlyu for money, not love. All those captains of industry who take on trophy wives -- surely that is subverting marriage to just a relationship to establish monetary rights?
But I don't see people like you suggesting that these marriage rights be taken away. Didn't Britney Spears get married because she got drunk one night? And divorced the next day? Therefore, we should ban her from ever marrying since she obviously has not respect for the institution, right?
But here's where it really gets bad: Your assumption that the ONLY reason gay people get married is for probate rights. Can you not ever concieve of a situation whereby two gay men may actually want to marry because they are in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together?
What about the gay couples that are currently raising children: Don't those children deserve to have married parents, just like children of straight parents? Or don't those kids count?
No , you are correct, not everyone who is against SSM is a bigot. But if you honestly think that the gays are not capable of love as you do, or that the only reason we are trying to get married is for the 1000 rights that come with it, then I would say your opposition is getting pretty darn close to bigotry.
Cheers,
I can't quite tell if you have ever received an education or not, but given that you jump directly to insulting people rather than in engaging in open debate suggests to me either you really don't understand your position, you don't understand the anti-SSM position, or frankly you just don't have a leg to stand on and so must divert the topic away from the issue.
I will happily skip over anything labeled with your handle so as not to waste my time with your vacuous frothings. However, I do encourage you to keep posting because your rants only further polarize the fencesitters into the anti-SSM crowd, much like those anti-Prop 8 protests did, after all why would anyone want to reward tantrums with something so important as marriage.
A minor given as chattel to a man viz a viz arranged marriage as practiced in many cultures = Nonconsenting
vs. "Gosh Ma, I really love him and I'm gonna marry him whether you like it or not". Or much like many of our grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and great aunts. = Consenting.
Actually you coudn;t be further from the truth. Sexual reproduction necessitates that the resulting offspring are going to pass on the genetic code to future generations and that by its very nature our attraction to and recognition of a particular sex is imprinted at a very early age. The very act of reproducing is instinctual... it isn't taught despite the good efforts of our school boards. And anything that hinders reproduction is quickly swept out of the gene pool. If the sexes were merely just andro/gyno-philes this would almost assuredly result in extinction of any species. The randomness with which opposite sexes would copulate with the correct sex would eventually cull down the population to those sexes that always correctly chose the opposite sex to ensure the passing of the genetic code. In other words there would be a shift towards gynophilic males and androphilic females within that species. Moreover, because the sexual organs are designed to provide reward for reproductive success (e.g. fertilization), populations would continue to shift in favor of opposite sex coupling despite the small percentage of the population finding their pleasure/reward centers aroused by the same sex couplings. In short, your assertion can not be correct because it would result in catastrophic extinction. A species can only survive as long as it can pass on its genetic code to the next generation. If it is not designed to do that, it's extinction time. Nature is cruel mistress.
I've reread Danny's posts, and I don't see where he showed any hatred towards Christians. He did take scattergood to task over his statement that being gay is a choice, as he should have. The literature is well settled that sexual orientation is not a choice, but something that is settled if not at a very early age, then perhaps before birth. No one knows for sure exactly, of course, but the only people who argue that sexuality is a choice are extremists.
The only thing that could be remotely construed as " heterophobic bigot" is that he stated that people who use a slippery slope argument are just using that as a cover for their hatred towards gays. Now, one can argue that that makes him a bigot, but he didn't characaterize you as such.
And in any case, need I remind you that you wrote this: " And if we're really fortunate and MANBLA builds a strong enough lobby we'll be able to see same-sex minor-adult marriages. And if MANBLA and the polygamists could get together, we might be able to see same-sex minor-adult polygamist marriages. Let no man or woman be denied their rights."
First, the organization is labeled NAMBLA, not "MANBLA", but more importantly, to reduce the love between two people to make a cheap joke is deeply offensive. If Danny said anything to offend you, your comment was far more offensive, and frankly, you should be ashamed of such a statement.
But other than that, I'm sure you have the highest respect for gay people, right?
Imagine for a moment that we allowed SSM to occur but dissolved the concept of no fault divorce. Do you think the SSM proponents would be clammering for it? I doubt it. The institution is a joke and the few of us who think that marriage isn't something to be entered into lightly are aghast at what we see as a political toy much like the sex lives of the people who are clammering for it. Was I surprised when the first couple to be married in Massachusetts were divorced with 5 days? Of course not. They were making a statement. Narcicism at its finest. Imagine if they couldn't have divorced. Imagine if they knew they would be bound together until a court decided they could be unbound would they have entered into that marriage lightly. Old couples... I can give them a pass... security is an as legitimate reason to marry as any and has been historically for hundreds of generation. Britney doesn't get my pity. Either her marriage should have been disallowed or worse she shouldn't have been able to get a divorce without major penalty (no fault... sigh).
Love, I would argue is not the reason to get married but the reason a couple remains married. Certainly it helps, but love can be fleeting... driven by those strange chemicals in our brains. Love can be confusing and is often confused with lust and desire which have an even shorter shelf life. Just because you love someone means you should marry them. Love comes in a multitude of flavors. I love my brother, but it doesn't drive me to marry him. A man can love his best friend, but that doesn't necessitate marriage either. I could love my sister-in-law, but I don't foresee us ever getting married. I love my wife and that love is diferent from the love I have for any of the other people in my life including my children. Love is merely the glue that holds two people in a relationship... be it platonic or romantic or familial.
I could address the practice of same-sex couples adopting, but it would digress from this discussion. So I'll leave it alone for now.
Personally I would accept a no-fault divorce gay marriage
Anyway, I'm glad you came to Danny's defense. Here's his quote:
That sounds heterophobic to me and while he didn't address me directly it's this type of crap that makes people like me who are happy to engage in serious discussion, even being able to agree to disagree, to say no more. Enough is enough. Just because you're loud and proud doesn't make you correct. Prove to me that thousands of years and across thousands of cultures are wrong and somehow in this little speck of time in this small corner of the earth that somehow your position about marriage is the correct one. The burden of proof falls to your side. Not to ours. I will say you are correct in one respect, I probably should have led my post way at the top with a sarcasm tag. Sarcasm isn't always obvious on the internet... but then again, maybe I wasn't being sarcastic at all. Sometimes it's best to let Rome burn so you can rebuild from the ashes.
I'm not going to bother addressing your snide statement one way or the other:
It's a deflection at best and attempt to get me to reveal how much or little empathy I have with the gay community. As far as you know I could be gay, a self-loathing gay woman at that. Or I could be a Sheet wearing homo-bashing polygamist. Or I could lie someplace in between. You've already made your assumption about me and I'll let you keep it.
As for love, read my previous post. I think I addressed your comment there.
That statement makes no sense since what I said is directly in line with what you said. Of course most androphiles endup female, and gynophiles male, but that really has nothing to do with the basic mechanisms still only andro- and gynophilic. There is no 'attraction to opposite' mechanism to any of the attractors.
So sounds like we are both spot on the truth, with the fact being no one is attracted to opposites - they are attracted to male or female. If you can present a mechanism that is opposite triggered I'd love to hear it.
If it is not designed to do that, it's extinction time.
There need be no design, just needs to happen. The vast majority of sex doesn't result in breeding - that it does is a great and essential side effect, but that's not its main function - if it were we'd have far less of it.
First, with regards to sexual orientation, I can tell you unequivocallly that I am gay and that I have always been gay (never had any sexual or romantic attractions to any woman), and that I never choose to be gay. Indeed, I spent a good part of my life trying NOT to be gay, or ignoring the issue, hoping it would go away. Didn't work.
Now, if you want to dismiss my statement, that somehow you or somebody else knows me better than I do, please, by all means, go ahead. Every single gay man I know says that same thing, they their sexual orientation is innate, so you would have to dismiss the evidence of virtually all gay men. Which of course, you can do so.
However, my experience is that the only people who ever argue that sexuality is a choice, and that there is no such thing as homosexuals, just wayward heterosexuals, are people who are deeply anti-gay and do not want us to have any rights, let along marriage. They just don't like gays, period. (It is strange, of course, that these anti-gay types throw away any evidence at all from the very people they purport to be studying. It's like a doctor telling a patient, I don't care where you tell me the pain is in your leg; I know where it is, and you are lying when you tell me otherwise.)
Additionally, I have never, in my experience, seen anyone raise the issue of NAMBLA except to insult gays, or to spread fear amongst people that gays are sexual predators going after your children.
Now, perhaps you do like gay people, want us to have all civil rights up to civil unions, have no problem with our full participation in society and think that most gay people are pretty much like more other people. Perhaps your comment on NAMBLA was merely sarcastic and you didn't mean to insult us.
If so, kudos to you. However, if that was your intention, then you certainly should not be using the language, arguements and tactics of the worst of the anti-gay crowd. If you don't want gay people to think that you are a firebreathing gay hater, then please don't use the same arguments of those people who do. And if you do, then please don't complain when we confuse you with that crowd.
"Prove to me that thousands of years and across thousands of cultures are wrong and somehow in this little speck of time in this small corner of the earth that somehow your position about marriage is the correct one. The burden of proof falls to your side. Not to ours."
For thousands of years, women had no rights in marriage. I guess according to your logic, we should never let them have rights. Or they should have to prove why they need those rights.
No one is saying that thousands of years have been wrong. (And actually, you are wrong -- gay marriages occured in the early days of the church, the roman emperor Hadrian married Antinous in a very public ceremony, there exist memorials in english parish churches from the 17th and 18th centuries to two men. But I understand your bigger point). What we are saying is that our understanding of sexuality has changed over the years. Not too long ago, homosexuality was considered a pathology, and classified as a disease by the APA. But with further study, they found out that it isn't. that, in my opinion, is a good thing.
As to who has the burden of proof, I would say you do. marriage is a basic right (See loving v. Virginia). If you want to deny a basic right to a group, you have the burden to show it is needed. You haven't shown it. But we can certainly show harm -- when two gay men have children, those children are deprived of the benefits of having married parents. Certainly, you would argue that it is better for the parents to be married than not, if for no other reason to offer the added protections and benefits to the children.
Furthermore, we have had SSM in Mass for several years now. Many other countries have had it. Even if you think the burden is upon us, how much longer do you need? After five years, you can't show ANY harm to society or to marriage because of SSM. Do we have to wait ten years? 20? At some point,even you will have to come up with evidence of harm to continue your opposition to SSM.
Then: "maybe I wasn't being sarcastic at all. Sometimes it's best to let Rome burn so you can rebuild from the ashes."
Of course.
If you look at the history many groups have been accused of being either pedophile or eating children. In medieval Europe they said the Jews baked the blood of Christian babies into their bread, and the ancient Romans said that Christians drank Roman babies' blood during communion. In the red scare they said that communists ate babies, remember? Always for political reasons..
Young people are not stupid, despite what adults think of them. They see how the world really works, not how their parents tell them it should work.
So young people see gay a couple as neighbors. They keep the house up, the yard clean, they are good people to have in town. They also are raising two kids, and they are nice kids, well adjusted. Everyone knows they are not married because they can't get married. And the reason they can't get married is that it will destroy marriage and our civilization.
So what is the role model here? Young people see that you CAN live together as husband and wife, and you CAN raise a family without benefit of marriage.
So they grow up thinking, who needs marriage? The gay couple wasn't allowed to get married, and they turned out fine. So why should we get married? We can raise kids as well as they gays -- heck, everyone is telling us that because we are man and woman, we will be even •better• at raising kids than the gay couple was.
If there were a movement, as cmr fears, to destroy marriage, what better way to do it than prove you don't need it?
So there is your argument offered as proof as to why we should allow gays to be married. It's in your own best interest.
You need to read up on the processes of evolution.
An exception for marrying for "security"? I think you just ended your own argument right there.
Cheers,
Cheers,
Cheers,
"The few of us who think that marriage isn't something to be entered into lightly are aghast at what we see as a political toy much like the sex lives of the people who are clammering for it. Was I surprised when the first couple to be married in Massachusetts were divorced with 5 days? Of course not. They were making a statement. Narcicism at its finest."
"It's a deflection at best and attempt to get me to reveal how much or little empathy I have with the gay community. As far as you know I could be gay, a self-loathing gay woman at that. Or I could be a Sheet wearing homo-bashing polygamist. Or I could lie someplace in between. You've already made your assumption about me and I'll let you keep it."
I think your quotes speaks for themselves. How could your tone be any more dehumanizing with regard to gay couples? The lesbian couple who divorced after 5 days had been together for many years. You use the pedophile libel without apologizing. And yet you have the gall to call gays "heterophobic". We gays all have heterosexual parents and family, so do we then hate our own families of origin?
Your shifting argumentation reveals your lack of a solid basis for your reasons for denying gay couples SSM. Even your name "pappa" in Italian means "baby food" or something mushy and pasty like guacamole or hummus. I think you are guided by animus and then to justify yourself you reach for any argument - religious, sociobiological or pseudo-sociological - then when people respond to your specific arguments, you ignore the answers and find something else. Way to win a debate.
LMAO. Your argument instantly reminded me of the nutcase high school science professor who is trying to stop work at the atomic collider in Switzerland because he claims it could create a black hole destroying the world. Just because some quack claims that something will be the end of the world does not mean that it will.
A clarification on the Goodridges, the first same-sex couple to marry in Massachusetts were married much longer than a mere 5 days.
They married in May, 2004. They separated in July, 2006.
It's a little over two years. Sad to see a relationship that had lasted for more than twenty years end.
Boston Globe article: After 2 Years Same-Sex Marriage Icons Split Up
More than two years, not only five days.
That's a revealing statement. Why do you doubt it? Because you think gay people don't commitments seriously? Or is there some other reason?
In many species, having some finite chance of non-reproduction increases genetic utility by freeing up the non-fertile family members to take care of their siblings/nephews/neices.
This is only true for species in which having fewer, high-quality offspring is a better strategy than having as many offspring as possible, at the expense of quality, of course.
@ Zuck: It's good to see that you took a basic biology course at one point and can point to all of the major examples used to demonstrate homozygous diseases vs. heterozygous carriers. Unfortunately, your examples have little to do with actual reproductive success. If, for example, you are homozygous for the Tays-Sachs mutation odds are against you surviving beyond infancy. Granted there are rarer later onset TSDs, but in the absence of modern medicine, TSD (e.g. homozygous alleles) is considered a lethal mutation. In the early 70s, it was hypothesized that there was an advantage to being heterozygous for the mutation (much like being heterozygous for the sickling gene), but studies demonstrated that there was no correlation with survivability (in fact it showed the opposite). I could address the sickling gene and hemophilia in much the same manner. In short, the heterozygous genotype does no harm, but the homozygous genotype is lethal. Nature doesn't select against harmless.
Now it's easy to be flippant about what I say... after all you disagree with my position on SSM, but what I said is true. If a genetic trait doesn't promote reproductive success and/or survivability, then it is selected against. That's fact. If genetics predisposed a species to copulating only with the same sex then there is only 1 possible outcome: extinction.
Which leads to me the article linked to in Grover's post. I really do hope you read the New Scientist as we need more people informed on scientific news. But what you linked to is not a scientific article. It's a news report. Using an article like this as evidence is akin to using Time magazine as case law. In any event, in that article there was a link to a previous article that references a study made by an Italian group in a low impact journal. In that study, the researchers were trying to determine if there was a correlation between gay men and the fecundity of their female family members. The claim made was that the female family members had more children than the female family members in the non-gay men control, ergo there must be some genetic component shared that results in homosexuality the first group. Now there are many problems with the study not the least of which is that they were trying to link behavior and genetics without actually examining the genetic component. But the claim that homosexuality is sexually advantageous is far from the findings of the study. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the study is the homosexual men have female family members that have more offspring. It doesn't show cause and effect. Perhaps homosexuality is a result of the increases fecundity -- e.g. a mechanism by which an individual seeking attention attempts to get more attention (small fish/big pond) or it could be just a mathematical observation (e.g. bigger pool of individuals greater occurrence of homosexuality) but statistically insignificant. Had I been a reviewer on the paper, I would have had a lot of questions -- but because of the journal it was published in, I'm not surprised that the stringency for review was low.
@Grover: Why do I not think that SSM proponents wouldn't favor no fault divorce? Well it certainly isn't because I think that gay couples aren't capable of long term monogamy. I know for a fact that they are. My suspicion lies in what I believe the driving impetus is behind SSM... that it's not about marriage at all but about trying to legitimize or normalize an aberrant lifestyle (look no offense with the word, but alternate just didn't work here). All the rights that SSM individuals are seeking can be accomplished easily through other legislative means and through mechanisms that are already in place. And the legitimacy of the SSM movement is weakened when 14,000 couples line up on the steps of the courthouse to "exercise their right" in one day. These are activists trying to make a point, not people who want to acknowledge a relationship until death do they part. How do you expect those of us who hold the marriage contract as sacred and binding to take you seriously if 95% of the people lining up for the certificate have no intention of living up to the contract. And using the "but heterosexuals... blah blah blah" argument... yeah we know the problems. And it angers people like me to see that certificate used as toiletpaper by anybody. But of course I take my cell phone contract seriously, so who am I really but a man who thinks his word is his bond. People like me see marriage not as a right per se but as a privelege and in its current weakened state (no fault of SSM) it could not survive as anything other than a tax designation. And frankly, I hold the institution with greater esteem than that.
Now go ahead and rant away. I'm done with this topic for now. I got my chance to vent. For what it's worth, I'm not particularly homophobic (tho I have cringed at the images I've seen of the San Francisco street festivals... there are certain things you just can't unsee) and actually have both friends and family members who are gay and are in long term committed relationships. Just because people like me disagree with people like you doesn't make us hateful or intolerant... we're just living by a set of principles that we believe are basic and foundational. And frankly we don't see why we have to be the group that has to give up our principles.
Cheers,
Cheers,
So let's see: he uses insults and hateful language (NAMBLA), assumes the worst motives for most gays, believes he has higher principles than gays do, and insists that he will have to give up the principle of living as a straight man once gays get married -- because he'll have to give up his principles.
But no, he's not a bigot. And I never said he was.
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