WHILE we're on the subject of gay marriage, I'm often at a loss for a good example of the logical fallacy traditionally known as "begging the question" (petitio principii), which did not historically mean simply "to raise the question". Our style book explains question-begging briefly here. But I think Maggie Gallagher, an opponent of same-sex marriage, actually just provided an even more perfect, real-world example for Daily Beast readers.
To beg the question means to base an argument on the very conclusion you're trying to argue. It's a form of circular reasoning. So what does Ms Gallagher say when asked what tangible harm has come from same-sex marriage in those states that have allowed it? She responds (1) that people who believe in opposite-sex marriage only are being stigmatised, and (2) that marriage threatens to be re-normed as the union of two people of whatever sex, which means that children may not (by definition) have both a mother and a father.
A more perfect bit of question-begging is hard to devise. To (1), those people are being stigmatised mainly for being wrong, not for being evil, and that's because they can't give any better argument against gay marriage than (2): that gay marriage is not marriage, which they define (without defending) as between a man and a woman.
I can certainly think of hypothetical bits of evidence that might make people like me and The Economist's editors re-think support for gay marriage. Ms Gallagher was asked to provide it. But she offers no children suffering because they have two mothers. No higher divorce rates. No other social ills in the states where gays can marry. This is all that one of the country's most prominent opponents of gay marriage has to offer when given a softball question about the harm of gay marriage: no actual harm at all, except to the entry under "marriage" in Maggie Gallagher's personal lexicon. That's a social ill I can live with.
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The base of the problem is not semantics, it is history, as a number of people always point out in different ways. Marriage is both a civil and a religious institution, and this status dates in our tradition to the times when the Church and state were two sides of the same coin. But in the US today, there is no reason this double status should still be in force and does create real problems in terms of the 14th.
The answer would be to make marriage an exclusively religious institution, and make the civil union the only status recognized legally and by the state. Different churches could do as they liked, and all it would take would be a sentence or two in the law saying that in terms of civil rights and responsibilities, the word and status of "marriage" is to be legally equivalent to "civil union" from the moment the law takes effect.
Of course, this would probably make the folks who object to the idea of gay marriage madder than just legalizing gay marriage.
That's Jon Huntsman's position and it was Gary Johnson's until a few months ago.
This would have been the answer... hundreds of years ago. But that boat has long sailed. There is no conceivable way that non-religious people who are now married or intend to marry will accept that their relationships should be redefined to suit the sensibilities of the church.
Calcagus, I think you misunderstand. Anderson-2's point is that everyone gets a "civil union", and that is what matters legally. Churches can "marry" people, and that automatically confers a "civil union" in addition. Effectively we make the term "married" have no meaning, legally.
I completely understand, thanks. That's what I mean: those people who are now married, or want to get married - straight or not - attach a non-legal significance to the term. They want to be married, not civil-unioned. They have a right to be married. Many of them *are* married. And they are not going to accept that from a certain point in time, only religious people can be married.
Now, you can argue that they can always call themselves 'married' if they like. But clearly, that's not going to solve the problem. It might take it out of the legal sphere, but it's still going to exist as a social problem.
This solution was never viable, because marriage isn't a solely religious institution, and you can't make it so by fiat.
I knew it was just a matter of time when it will be demanded that the official definition of marriage is relegated to a second level, the civil union term is adopted by the state and marriage to refer exclusively to religious rituals.
What about people that are NOT religious, yet understand the term as a description of a legal union between man and woman? Why are they wrong? By whom criteria?
So now some here propose that not only the term marriage is eliminated completely off the legal lexicon, but replaced with the one that is the most convenient and expedient for gays...let's switch the tables, and the heck with the rest.
That's the problem with liberalism as a whole, you give them a hand and before you know it, they have smashed you to the end because they say so. Before we know it, kids of heterosexual families will be treated as outliers and members of the bigot and unpc klan. Bring in the academia...!
Until yesterday I was indifferent in a benign way to gay unions, now I'm prepare for the next battle... As for who am I (or a gay person, for that matter) to deny a pedophile or incestuous or bestial person 'their god given right to happiness'? Doors are open, bets are off. Do whatever.
Thatseasy,
The suggestion in this thread that all civil marriages should be termed civil unions wasn't a sop to liberals, but rather to religious conservatives who seem to have a deep lexicographic need to preserve the term marriage for opposite sex unions.
But in any case, thank you for illustrating the vacuousness of the anti-gay marriage argument.
A state-recognized "civil union" would make much sense, but this would kind of avoid the goal of "complete acceptance" of homosexual union/marriage. It may be seen as avoiding the tough issue. The state has its interests, and civil union and its definition is going to be different than what individuals feel about "marriage." I think civil union would be acceptable to traditional sensibilities.
I had always understood begging the question to mean a rhetorical question/attack containing an implicit premise. "Have you stopped beating your child?"
Gallagher's remarks seem to, inadvertently, illustrate how little substance there is to the anti-gay marriage arguments, which basically consist of opposition on religious grounds and opposition based on the "ick" factor.
What is interesting is how many people on the Economist message boards seem to sympathize with that point of view. But what those apologists seem to do is to conflate two issues in the process.
Issue one is whether people have the right to their beliefs. And absolutely, people have the right to believe whatever religious edicts they choose, and to express whatever views about that they see fit, and more generally to feel however they want to feel about an issue. These are legally protected rights.
But what isn't and shouldn't be legally protected is to deny other peoples' rights based on those feelings. This is long established legal precedent in other contexts, whereby denying rights has to be justified under stringent tests, including both the lemon test regarding the Establishment Clause and "strict scrutiny" regarding the Fourteenth Amendment and Due Process Clause.
As a legal matter, even the most blatant bigotry is very clearly protected, but using the law to enforce that bigotry is not.
I think that where we disagree is in determining what behaviors violate the rights of others. I do think that the passive discriminatory actions of most private actors (e.g. refusing service at a restaurant) should not be made illegal. I think that the proper response to such bigotry is to punish the company or individual responsible through concerted actions by private citizens who find such behavior offensive (e.g. boycotting that business, and any that hires the person responsible in the future).
Obviously a different standard applies to the State, and I agree that all States actors have an obligation to grant the same rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples that they do to opposite-sex couples. Whether this is done through expanding the definition of marriage or establishing civil unions is immaterial to me.
It's good to make that distinction Anakha. In the case of the (captial-S) State, the legal and moral basis for prohibiting discriminatory action by government is pretty clear. For that reason, I'm pretty confident that gay marriage will be made fully legal everywhere, eventually...
But the other stuff you are talking about, public accommodations, is a different story, one that is more nebulous and messy. Is it a "civil right" to be able to eat in a certain restaurant, for example?
But before you conclude that the answer is certainly no, or that private action can sufficiently deal with some problems, consider what life is like in a place where a preponderance of the population actually is racist (or whatever prejudice were talking about), or sympathetic to prejudice. It's easy to assume that in your part of today's mostly progressive world, social pressure would make lack of accommodations a self-limiting problem. But that's not a given, and in a part of even today's world where prejudice is particularly strong, certain people are left with few and possibly no options on where to eat, where to live and where to work. We have public accommodation law because that's frankly not an acceptable outcome.
I would certainly agree that monopolies, for example, can legitimately be banned from discriminatory practices. However, I think there's a difference between few alternatives and no alternatives. That difference IMO is enough to tip the scales in favor of allowing such repugnant behavior (though admittedly I'm at my most impractical when I view an issue as a question of rights).
RLG: I always thought the canonical example of begging the question is the argument that the Bible is the infallible word of God because the Bible says that it’s the infallible word of God. (You can substitute a number of other spiritual texts for “Bible”, of course.) No?
Indiana GOP Senate Primary.
Lugar out, Tea Party guy wins.
NPWFTL
Regards
Basically, hedgefundguy, the TP's strategy is to reclaim Congress. In their opinion, whoever wins the Presidency is irrelevant.
PWFTL
Regards
two things that are as off topic as your post:
you really have to copy hedgie?
what is the tangential point between your post and the article?
We are conversing about REAL Democracy in America.
You know, people voting.
Some of us are very bad at Parlor Games that DiA has you folks playing.
Regards
NPWFTL
Here, just to keep you from whining.
But she offers no children suffering because they have two mothers.
Two words or one name:
Hilary Rosen
NPWFTL
Regards
Democracy in Washington
American Politics
Because you deserve to be informed, not lost in Plato's Cave.
(Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
Today's actions:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill Tuesday to preserve low interest rates for millions of college students' loans... ...The 52-45 vote to begin debating the legislation fell eight votes short of the 60 needed to proceed and stalled work on an effort both parties expect will ultimately produce a compromise...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans controlling the House are sparing
the Pentagon, military veterans and most homeland security programs from the budget knife as action begins on a set of spending bills setting the day-to-day budgets for federal agencies....
...the Obama administration has already promised to veto the measures because Republicans are cutting domestic programs below levels agreed to in last summer's budget pact.
NPWFTL
Regards
Quite honestly, Hedgie, I'm sure both Buttonwood AND Free Exchange appreciate your DiA contributions. You should cross post at both blogs because R.L.G. (Johnson) deserves to be informed.
PWFTL
Regards
No, this type of news belongs in the political blog.
NPWFTL
Regrards
Another weaker spin she frequently does off the first point is that gay marriage supporters are ignoring "how other people feel" about the issue.
Oh, and when people imply her arguments are dumb she's very often replies that she went to Yale. It reminds me of the Will Ferrell/Michelle Gellar SNL skit where the passive aggressive, WASP family quietly eats their dinner with occasional outburst of rage that concludes with Ferrell's dad character saying, "I drive a Dodge Stratus! A Dodge Stratus."
Her point about what cultural norms are overtly taught or implied in school materials is a tricky one worth discussion (I could care less), but that is tangential at best to gay marriage as public policy.
I hope the mormons are paying Maggie enough for her humiliating daily struggle to put a serious face on the anti-gay marriage crowd.
Well, I hate to come to the defense of the anti-gay marriage gaggle, but you are being unfair to this Maggie Gallagher.
First off, beliefs about marriage aren't right or wrong. They are beliefs, often religious beliefs. I know that mine are right and others' are wrong in the same way I know my religion is true and others are untrue. That is, not in any sort of objective, demonstrable way. Just because I believe something doesn't mean that people who believe something different are less intelligent. Just as it is gauche to go around denigrating other people's faith, it's wrong to denigrate other people's views on marriage.
Gallagher also has a point in that the whole gay marriage issue has given people a way to attack religions they disagree with under cover of defending gay rights. This is not okay. Calling people who don't agree with you bigots happens, and is wrong. This is "harmful".
The government should also not be in the business of telling school children what is or is not marriage. The government also cannot tell people what marriage is, they have to decide that on there own. If the attempt to get gay marriage legalized is not about having the state respect gay people's belief about their own marriages, but rather about flipping around what the government is calling wrong so that it gets turned on the anti-gay marriage people instead, that's a problem. I'm for gay rights: let's stop short of caeseropapism.
When she says it's a zero-sum game, she has a point in that people either believe in it or they don't. If believing in male/female marriage only is important, then people believing in gay marriage is bad. Zero-sum game. I just think the game doesn't matter because I don't care if other people have what I consider wrong ideas about marriage. Ms. Gallagher actually gets to this at the end, by saying it's a transcendent and beyond earthly laws. I think that renders the whole debate kind of moot- it is what it is and that's what it is whatever "it" is.
Objecting to gay marriage because of your Faith is not a bad reason. It's a perfectly good reason that I don't agree with. There are good objective reasons why it's bad for our society to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexuality. But, at the heart of it, I believe in gay marriage for no better reason than I just do. Ms. Gallagher and I have that in common.
"Gallagher also has a point in that the whole gay marriage issue has given people a way to attack religions they disagree with under cover of defending gay rights."
Nope. The identification of civil rights with religious tradition has given people a way to attach religions under cover of defending gay rights. If Maggie Gallagher is defending the Catholic Church's right not to perform marriages for same-sex couples I sure wouldn't attack her. Or disagree, actually. But she wants the state to discriminate so that American Catholics can feel officially petted. That's something I admit I have no right to expect and she has no right to expect it whether she thinks she does or not. I'll say right now and for the record that the government should deny nobody's right to do anything I'm grouchy about, pietistically or otherwise.
"First off, beliefs about marriage aren't right or wrong."
Beliefs can certainly be right or wrong. If one bases belief on religion, then it can be right or wrong based off of their religious text (or one of the many mistranslations of the text, more accurately), if one bases beliefs on morality regardless of religion, then beliefs can be right or wrong based on the philosophy in question.
But pedantry aside, bigotry is bigotry no matter the subject.
"If the attempt to get gay marriage legalized is not about having the state respect gay people's belief about their own marriages, but rather about flipping around what the government is calling wrong so that it gets turned on the anti-gay marriage people instead, that's a problem. I'm for gay rights: let's stop short of caeseropapism."
People may reason that state recognition of same sex marriage means they can go on the offensive and accuse those who don't share their views of bigotry with more force. That hypothetically could be their exclusive reason for supporting gay marriage. But the law would merely grant same sex couples the state sanctioned entitlements of marriage. It would do no more than that and people's motives are irrelevant.
Either way, as Doug points out, this isn't about people's right to have opinions or the state imposing upon the church. Personally I think the states should call everything they recognize a civil union and let religious folks win the semantics debate. Full equality and everything else can be pushed into the pews and private disputes.
You could make the same argument about people who just happen to be opposed to interracial marriage, and in fact people did. But we recognize today, those people really were bigots. The same principle applies now. You are free to be a bigot if you want, but it's flat out moral relativism to argue that all beliefs are equally justified.
"But the law would merely grant same sex couples the state sanctioned entitlements of marriage."
That's not necessarily true. In CA, for example, there would be absolutely no measurable harm had Prop 8 been allowed to stand. The only thing at stake was what term the state would use to refer to the relationship.
It's in cases like this that I think publius is correct in saying it's no longer about gay rights.
There's plenty in the law that applies to marriages but not civil unions. In the rhetorical hypothetical world they may be equal, but in the actual one they aren't. Just the economic difference alone is significant.
And publius is flat out wrong if he thinks the only reason gay people want marriage equality is to use as a rhetorical device. This isn't about fighting some kind of culture war, it's defending their own civil rights. Claiming otherwise from the "anti" crowd appears to be an odd form of projection (accusing other people of trying to impose their beliefs on them...), and from the self-proclaimed neutral crowd it just looks like a false equivalence.
And just in a broader conceptual sense - the flaws in the premise of "separate but equal" are pretty well established.
What in the case of CA what would be the differences between civil unions and marriages? So long as DOMA remains in effect, I can't find any. I understand separate but equal has a (deservedly) bad name, but civil unions and marriages are not inherently unequal in the same way that any two schools are.
To your point about a culture war, when equality in fact, though not in name, is not good enough, it is about a culture war.
It's not that I think it's incorrect to call opponents of same-sex marriage bigots, I just think it's bad tactics. While I no longer think an uncompromising strategy is likely to result in a backlash that produces a Federal Amendment banning same-sex marriage, I do think it will make the process far more painful than it need be. I also worry that this issue will poison American politics for decades to come in the same way that Roe v. Wade has.
Which civil rights- if you give someone every single legal protection, as frankly is required under the Constitution, then they have every single legal protection.
Gay people have every reason to want to change people's opinion, to have them stop believing that there is something "wrong" with them. And I am all for that, because they are right. It should change, and it will because of individuals own conscience. What I do not support is using government to do this.
I thought the most revealing part of Gallagher's interview is when she alleged that somehow marriage is "a zero sum game".
On what planet? Even with gay marriage, straight couples are free to do as they see fit. Religious people are free to do as they see fit. The zero sum argument is prima facie false.
What Gallager and others are attempting is a rhetorical slight of hand. They are trying to conflate the notion that society is turning against the traditionalist view of marriage that says only same sex partners need apply with the notion that somehow the traditionalists are losing rights in the process.
No, you aren't losing rights when gay marriage gets "normalized", that is just history passing you by. Yes it sucks when that happens, but it isn't an impingement on the traditionalists' freedom.
What everyone should keep in mind in this debate is that fundamentally it is about one group of people telling another they should live their lives according to the first group's religious edicts, just because. You can find nuance in all of it if you look hard enough, but that doesn't change the big picture.
What about their freedom to be a$$holes and refuse to recognize the legitimacy of same-sex couples?
They are welcome to refuse to recognize the legitimacy of same-sex couples. Just as the Catholic Church is free to refuse to recognize divorce. In both cases, what is limited is their freedom to have the state enforce their particular views. (But perhaps their concern is that they fear that their beliefs cannot stand on their merits. Which is rediculous, and also kind of sad.)
People absolutely do have the freedom to be a$$holes. That's freedom of expression after all. But telling people you don't approve of their marriage isn't the same as putting the weight of law behind your religious preferences about how other people live their lives.
So do you think the Church should be free to refuse health benefits to same-sex spouses of their employees? If not, then aren't they being forced to recognize the legitimacy of that relationship?
Not that I have any idea why someone who's gay would want to work for the Catholic Church, but just to throw out hypotheticals...
Quote: "Not that I have any idea why someone who's gay would want to work for the Catholic Church, but just to throw out hypotheticals..."
Because of course the Catholic Church has absolutely no history whatsoever of same-sex, uh, action *within* its own ranks, and even less so to do with the absolutely despicable scandal of abused choir*boys* by, uh, priests.
Not that I want to put too fine a point on it, but you are not exactly dealing with mind-stretching hypotheticals here. :)
Exactly Jouris. The fear, explicitly stated even, is that if gay marriage is allowed, people will see how not deleterious it is and stop hating it.
Not at all Anakha. Providing employees with a comprehensive health insurance package is not the same thing as "recognizing the legitimacy" of their choices. It's merely recognizing that we have a system in this country where employers are responsible for providing insurance, and more broadly, that employees make and are morally responsible for their own health care choices.
Are they free to refuse to provide health benefits that include contreception? Even though that is also against Church teaching.
For that matter, do they? And if not, what is their rationale for treating this violation of Church doctrine differently than others?
And, now that I think about it, what about Church employees who are divorced and remarried? The Church doesn't recognize divorce. So, in its eyes, the marriage is invalid. Right? But do they refuse to provide health benefits to those spouses? Do they even make any objection to doing so? Not that I've ever heard of (although I admit that they might have made some quiet, pro forma protest that escaped my knowledge).
@sanjait:
It would still mean the Church has to recognize that they're married. Of course, the Church technically doesn't recognize any marriage not performed by a Catholic priest, and I'm sure they recognize the legal validity of such marriages all the time. But, if they want to single out homosexuality as the thing that offends them most, I think that's their business.
Wow - what a way with words you have. Oh and I really love the dollar symbols. They're totally the icing on the cake.
Same sex marriage will harm no one.
Neither will not allowing same sex marriage.
The anti-gay lobby cannot come up with a serious argument against same sex marriage because there aren't any. The day after it happens the world won't be any better or any worse and a year later there won't be a person in America who won't think "What on earth were we all so worried about?"
The other side is hysterical and ridiculous, trying to manufacture "oppressions" and "hate" that don't exist. The attempt by gays to annex the real suffering of blacks to their low-rent complaint and act as if they were about to cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge is contemptible -- just one example of their low dishonesty. There are many others.
It is a trivial national issue and the sooner we are done with it the better. By all means, legalize in every state of the Union if that is what it takes. Then, let's move public discussion on toward real issues. Civil union, gay marriage, Tea for Two . . . who the hell cares what we call it. Do it, get it over and put the melodramatic fandango behind us.
It is just silly, overwrought sexual political theater -- from both sides.
well I used to agree with you on the matter of the name thinking it was just semantics, but after spending some time with people who volunteered within Ireland campaigning on this issue I realised the name is significant from a legal standpoint, the fact is if you don't call it marriage then the legislation passed prior to will not allow it the same protections (they don't say & civil unions), if its not marriage its not marriage, it's something else and thus lesser and different. the state has a duty not to discriminate in it's task of recognizing legally binding unions and giving them the protections that affords (in this case, named marriage)
This reeks of false equivalence. Gay people are manufacturing charges of oppression and hate? Is this another one of those message board satires that I just fail to recognize?
I opt for "Tea for Two."
whoa I didn't even read the second paragraph you wrote properly, you really think their isn't genuine hate or oppression of gays? did you ever go to highschool? I went to a fairly tolerant one in Canada and the kids who were openly gay were subject to abuse that should never be tolerated and was (by parents, peers and administrators) I'm also sure that suicide rates are higher among gay teens, there has been lynchings and murders and legal persecutions in the recent and not so recent past if you need a more dramatic example of bigotry? sure its easier to hide your sexuality and perhaps it was a more slow burning intolerance butit has been every bit as hateful at times than racism you care to name, remember, homosexuals were among those sent to concentration camps in the holocaust. and were just talking about Europe and America..... Africa and the middle east is a whole other thing.
By the way, are you referring to just the name, or all the legal protections that homosexual couples are denied? Are you talking about the status quo vs. marriage or civil unions vs. marriage?
I responded to your thread from before, as to why all the legal protections matter.
http://www.economist.com/comment/1400415#comment-1400415
The argument for its immateriality only makes sense if the alternative is civil unions. I actually agree with you that the semantics don't matter.
If RR wants to call it a tea party rather than marriage, that's his prerogative. If Uncle Sam wants to call it a tea party rather than marriage, that's his prerogative. I don't care. I know I'm right and they're wrong. Them being wrong doesn't matter. That's a problem for them, not for gay people as far as I see it. And they can think the same of me.
I remember your thread but I don't find any of what was cited very important. Legal inconveniences on minor matters of property are bothersome but do not constitute "oppression." All of us have gay friends, gay committed couples (my wife and I recently attended a church-committment ceremony)included, and here, at least, is what I see: they have nice houses, decent jobs, are involved fully in politics, take their vacations in Mexico or Europe like many of us and putter about their gardens or spend weekends Simonizing their cars. If this is "oppression" then we need another word for what happens when one REALLY suffers.
IMHO, much of the heat about this silly issue stems from a younger generation that missed what mine did in the '60s and '70s when civil rights and the war called many of us into agendas that really did involve genuine oppression and, in the case of the war, life and death and a beserk foreign policy. The gay-marriage lobby, compared with these causes, is just a hobble-de-hoy in Father's clothing: wannabe crusaders and protestors.
Years ago my state voted for civil unions and years later everything there is just hunky-dory. Some details of inheritance laws have been clarified for gays and a few other items, hospital visits, for instance, have been put on a more compassionate basis. So, yes, this seems like a decent solution and I would recommend it.
But, as moral and political issues go, this whole brouhaha verges on the ridiculous. And, I mean both "sides."
No. I don't think there is real oppression of gays in the United States and I think it is silly and hysterical to claim otherwise. The huge issue right now is gay marriage and this involves nothing more than an adjustment of some minor issues on the ownership and inheritance of property. Gay couples that I know, individuals, too, have decent jobs, full political rights, take nice vacations and seem to live exactly as the rest of us.
That people should not be bullied is evident. But, all sorts of people are bullied in high school -- I am not gay but there were bullies after me. I was angry but I wasn't "oppressed." Not everything untoward that happens in life is "oppression."
As for suicide rates, that is an individual decision on the part of the person who takes his/her own life.
Lynchings . . . murders . . . not in America. The Matthew Shepherd case years ago angered everyone and the perpetrators were swiftly and severely punished and the entire nation applauded their punishment.
As for what happened in the Shoah or in other countries, what has that to do with gay marriage in the USA? That's casting one's net pretty wide, isn't it, to try and manufacture a case?
There is more whining than oppression among gays and their allies. They are trying to steal the genuine suffering of others and present it as their own. On the other side are those who make terrible remarks about the sexuality of a group that is as God has made them and do no harm to anyone, themselves included.
The whole issue has been falsified by both "sides."
Andros, I'm sorry but that's just nuts. The gays you know are affluent and need nice lives ... well great. Ever consider the possibility your making what statisticians call "non-representative samples"? And the notion that incidence of lynchings is the only indicator of "oppression" is just mind bogglingly narrow. If that were the case, we didn't have oppression of blacks after about the 1920s.
The fact is, all over this country, gays are marginalized socially, victimized by crimes frequently, denied economic opportunities and restricted access to one of the most critical contracts available to everyone else under the law (not to mention, being gay itself was illegal in many states up until about 10 years ago). Nobody is making this up. Use the google machine if you really don't believe me.
If gays are "marginalized socially" it is because of the natural chemistry between opposite sexes. Sex is nearly the most personal thing there is about us and those who do not share in sexuality the same way as the vast majority of the species (i.e. opposites ) are always going to be a bit on the outside looking in. That's life.
If a gay is "victimized by crime," the legal system responds. I don't see gays walking around in fear of their lives.
As for economic opportunites, the gays I know have good jobs and often move to better ones. Business is about money, not sexual orientation and you are nuts to fire a capable employee because you don't like his race, sex or religion.
Yes, there was punitive legislation against gays in the past and we're all glad that this is over. But, it is over.
The gays I know are solidly middle-class. As for your "non-representative samples," you can easily convince me that poor gays have it rough. But, all poor people have it rough. Being gay doesn't make you any poorer.
Feeling left-out at a mixed-sex party isn't oppression. What happened to somebody else years ago isn't oppression for you today.
I am old enough to remember well the separate schools, drinking fountains, etc., with which blacks had to contend. I remember atrocities like that which happened to Emmitt Till and I remember martyrs like Medgar Evers. There are simply too many memories here to even begin to cite. Oppression of blacks was on a scale and magnitude so entirely different from the petty bitches of today's gay movement as to be embarrassing to the latter.
For the record, I am in favor of permitting civil union, gay marriage ... whatever one wants to call it. I don't think we have a right to judge others and if we must, then it must be on the basis of what they do, not what they are.
But, compared to real oppression in the nation's history the current gay movement is, as I wrote elsewhere, just a hobble-de-hoy in Father's Clothing.
I went to high school in the US and graduated about ten years ago. I came out my Junior year and immediately a parents group organized to attempt to have me expelled because in their view I was a danger to their sons and daughters. Fortunately I had a level-headed administration that refused to expel a student simply for being gay, but that didn't stop the parents and other students from making my remaining two years of high school difficult- I was threatened numerous times with physical harm.
I was an excellent student, involved with the community through several boards and youth organizations locally, did not get into trouble, was accepted or received scholarships to every college I applied to including a prestigious scholarship to NYU. The sole reason for the organization of the parents for my expulsion was my sexual orientation.
Clearly there is discrimination against GLBT people, anyone who says otherwise is lying. There are clear parallels to the civil rights movement of the '60s. Most obviously is the regular suggestion that gay people be allowed civil unions that are in every way identical to marriage but simply use a different name. The argument being that the two statuses are separate but equal. Bigots in the sixties attempted to use the same argument to maintain segregation and African Americans endured years af listening to whites insist that what they had was just as good, just a little different. Of course the reality was that segregation was not equal, nor would a civil union be.
To take this back to a simple level, don't you remember how romantic it was when Snow White civil unioned Prince Charming? Neither do I. I'm not asking to civil union the person that I've chosen to spend the rest of my life with. I'm asking to marry him. Because that's what society recognizes as the strongest bond between two people. It acknowledges sacrifice, love, commitment, joy, pain, longevity, oneness of two people who care deeply for each other. When I make that decision with my partner I expect society to call it what it is, not some poor substitute.
"That's a social ill I can live with."
Loved it!
I am reminded of two stand out parts of the Prop 8 hearings in California.
First, when Judge Walker asked for evidence of the damage same-sex marriage would cause, the opposition could provide nothing but an embarrassed silence, shifting uncomfortably as the tumbleweed blew by.
Second, addressing the point that civil unions are available with the same rights as marriage, Walker summed up by stating that if civil unions were an identical institution in terms of rights, then the only possible reason for the different name was, by definition, discriminatory.
The weakest part of Walker's decision is his claim that traditional marriage was never gender-specific. This is important because the originalists need to be convinced that gay marriage is a fundamental right protected by the 14th Amendment.
Absolutely Keir. It was a devastating decision for gay marriage opponents, because it very systematically took apart their argument and made it hard for serious people to claim these issues somehow remained unclear.
In the court of public opinion, they had a chance (at least temporarily). But in a court of law, the lack of evidence to support their fears was manifest. I wonder if they realized that going in? Or did they just take on the case and then discover that they didn't have a factual leg to stand on?
I think they probably assumed that California's civil union law would prevent the courts from finding any actual harm to same-sex couples. I don't think they expected Prop 8 to face a rational basis test.
They had to take the case because they had to defend the ban. I think a better legal team would have thrown up a fog of nuance to try to hide the lack of a legal basis, and a more sympathetical judge would have allowed them to slide by on a weak argument. But unfortunately for the prop 8 folks they ran into Judge Walker, who not only rejected their tortured logic but set out to systematically dismantle it with a long string of findings of fact, leaving appellate courts no room to wiggle out of agreeing with his findings.
It's really an amazing court decision as far as court decisions go...
We're working on two different planes of thought here. Watching that video, a gay marriage supporter can easy retort with "so?" because she doesn't mention secular harms. As a gay marriage opponent, I think an argument over secular harms is futile. You'll find well-adjusted children raised by gay couples. People like Maggie Gallagher are too smart to take that approach. If she did, you'd jump all over it.
Instead, she's arguing in defense of the sacred, the ideal of traditional marriage. Suppose some people want to change the American flag. There aren't really any secular harms that would come of it but there is a sense of wanting to protect the sacred. When you ask someone who opposes changing the flag to cite harms caused by some states changing the flag or schools displaying both flags, they might say something like "because it makes changing the flag more acceptable."
When the US will recognize all of the marriages performed in Canada by, say, the RCC, but not all of the United Church of Canada's marriages (they perform marriages for same-sex couples), isn't this explicitly religious discrimination and favoring one church's beliefs and practices over another in law?
Except that the community of faith and not the government has the responsibility for keeping the sacraments holy. Your argument, which is much better than Gallagher's, is basically that the government should endorse an establishment of religion despite the first amendment.
The flag is different. Nobody claims it is sacrosanct according to any religion. And defacing the flag is protected by the constitution although not from me.
I really like your analogy. Let me take it a step further:
When the world changed (e.g. when states were added) we em>did change the flag -- we added more stars. And the flag did not become any less sacred, just because a small part of the design was expanded. Similarly, marriage would not become any less sacred, just because it was expanded to cover a few more people. (The whole secular harms question is, of course, entirely separate.)
Having gone to a debate with Ms. Gallagher, her main argument that night was the harm to children caused by the erosion of marriage. She kept listing statistics of about children born out of wedlock, and the declining marriage rates, then would imply that the temporal correlation between the rise of gay rights and the decline of marriage rates had a causal component. Her argument boiled down to a belief that allowing gay marriage undermines traditional marriage leading to more out of wedlock births and higher divorce rates, and that these real problems hurt children.
My con law professor made the point the entire audience was thinking; 'how do gay people wanting to marry cause straight people to have kids before marriage or cause straight couples to divorce.'
The idea that government shouldn't recognize any marriages, homosexual or heterosexual, appeals to many gay marriage opponents.
I used the flag as a secular example of the sacred. To use another religious analogy, think baptism.
The kind of change matters. The addition of stars was consistent with the flag's traditional meaning. Gay marriage opponents would contend that gay marriage is a fundamental change. I think the better pro-gay-marriage argument would concede that point but then ask "so?" Argue for a different flag on the grounds that the old flag is outdated and no longer accurately represents the country.
The Baptism example presents the same problem - that you are arguing somehow the government should be in the business of enforcing what is "sacred" as a matter of law.
There are two arguments to that.
1. Government can promote certain institutions in a secular manner for no other reason that it makes people happy. E.g., government promotes the arts.
2. It's one thing if government didn't promote any marriages. But it does. So the choice isn't whether government should enforce what is sacred, but given that it already does, what should be considered sacred.
I think RR if you concede no secular harm then any other arguement runs into conflict with the first amendment specifically prohibiting favoring of a religous practice over another or an established state religion,
Ok, I will. The thought of the government deciding who can be baptized makes me want to join Tribulation Force.
I'm not sure what is unclear here. The government can promote secular things, but it can't promote religious things (unless there is a secular purpose a la the "Lemon Test"). The point everyone is making is that, lacking a secular harm, there is no basis for government to promote marriage "sacredness".
The motivation need not be religious. It can be "I like straight marriage because I think it's cool."
If opponents of gay marriage could articulate a secular motivation that passes the test laid out in Lemon v Kurtzman, they'd have a case.
But they seem to be failing miserably at that. And no, "straight marriage is cool" doesn't qualify.
It doesn't need to pass the Lemon test because there's no First Amendment challenge. Nobody defending gay marriage bans in the courts is making a religious argument. You're in the wrong part of the Constitution.
You can have all the sacred marriages in churches (temples, etc) of your choice -- but you're not legally married until you've met the requirements of the state (in California a marriage license, a solemnization, and return of the authenticated license to the county recorder).
Why so many people think other couples' civil marriages must meet their definition of sacred still baffles me.
I wish people would google before trying to tell me I'm wrong...
RR ... the argument you are making is the exact argument addressed by Lemon v Kurtman. People claiming to not make religious arguments for policy face a test over whether that claim is credible, and as everyone is trying to tell you, the anti- gay marriage people have failed that test.
Also ... in Perry v Schwarzenegger, which you referenced yourself critically in another comment thread the pro prop 8 set not only cited the First Amendment specifically (in a failed attempt to claim somehow Prop 8 was allowed), and Judge Walker cited important Establishment Clause precedent in this passage:
"A state’s interest in an enactment must of course be
secular in nature. The state does not have an interest in
enforcing private moral or religious beliefs without an
accompanying secular purpose. See Lawrence v Texas, 539 US 558,
571 (2003); see also Everson v Board of Education of Ewing
Township, 330 US 1, 15 (1947)."
... which include citations of cases that were both the predecessor and successors of Lemon v Kurtzman.
I'm sure you'll just get more obstinate about this, but ... whatever.
It wasn't an argument made by any party as Judge Walker states in the very next sentence of the quote you cite. He addressed it only to say that it's NOT what is being argued.
Talk about selective interpretation. The citation you are mentioning says specifically that there was a previous argument from the campaign to argue that which you claim nobody is making, which they abandoned in an attempt at creating the pretense of secular validity, which is the exact circumstance Lemon is meant to address. Seriously ... look it up. It's meant to address a situation where petitioners claim not to have a religious motivation but fail to come up with anything else. And yes, this does tie together with the 14th amendment scrutiny tests in Everson.
But also, the main thing you should notice RR is that YOU made the very argument, in this thread, you claim nobody is arguing.
The Campaign made a religious argument as do lots of people but to repeat myself nobody is making the argument IN COURT. I wrote the original comment to present a philosophical argument, not a legal one. Somewhere along the line, it turned into a legal debate.
I think adding another star is the better analogy. Marriage will still be a union between two people who want to merge their lives and households, supporting each other into their old age. The only change is that the two people need not be of opposite gender. All of the benefits would be the same, etc. The same as before but a little different.
Marriage no longer has a procreative purpose. That's a fundamental change.
For the last time RR... the Lemon test regarding the Establishment Clause isn't for people who make religious arguments in court, it's for people who mask their obviously religiously motivated law (aka the california gay marriage ban) with secular pretext.
You keep saying "they didn't argue religion IN COURT" ... but that's not the point at all. As usual though, you only see what you want to see, so I'm done here.
Google "adversarial system." If one side makes an argument, the other side can challenge it. Here, neither side is claiming that there's anything religious. There is no First Amendment claim or challenge. You're argument is as useless as saying that ObamaCare must pass the Lemon Test. The First Amendment isn't even an issue! If it makes you happy, sure, gay marriage bans, ObamaCare, Arizona's immigration law, NY's smoking ban, and EPA regulations all have to pass the Lemon Test.
I will SO use that in a debate at some point. Many thanks.
When my 90 year old uncle married my 89 year old aunt, I see no way that there was a "procreative purpose" to their marriage. Indeed, a lesbian couple have a far higher likelihood of becoming parents (via IVF, hardly an unknown procedure in heterosexual marriages either) than they do.
The fundamental change you refer to must have happened a long way back.
I agree with most of that, and am not basically opposed to gay marriage, but I think that the arguments both for and against are emotional. Which means that, yes, Santorum is being demonized for being for his own emotions and against those of others.
I think Santorum is completely wrong, but Dan Savage is the Andrew Dice Clay of homosexuality-- coarse and crude about his own sexuality, which seems that central to his existence.
The problem stems from Santorum expressing those emotions through law, resulting in a limiting of the associative freedom of other people under the law, e.g. Dan Savage.
In a reversed role, Dan Savage's emotions on the issue, should they be expressed in law, would have no personal impact on the associative freedom of Santorum and his wife.
There would me a (marginal) impact based on tax benefits, insurance, etc., but if that's raised as an issue by Santorum, then the issue becomes why his choice of association should be privlidged to receive the subsidy from Savage without reciprocation.
The conservative answer, in the cautious sense of the word rather than the political sense, would be that which limits the restrictions on the individuals, in this case, allowing the same rights of the chosen personal associations.
The slippery slope argument, of course, is when the Supreme court has recognized/granted free speech protection as persons to corporations. Obviously, the next step is to allow corporations marriage rights. I'm not clear how the health insurance benefits would properly apply.
I agree that in a free country you need a good reason to make something illegal, not a good reason to make it legal. Nevertheless, it wasn't Santorum's opposition to gay marriage that made Savage and his crowd coin a new and nauseating definition for his name, but Santorum's comparisons of homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia. Emotions flying on both sides. And minorities can't be considered better people for being weak-- for lacking power to abuse.
I never understand the ranting some people do about corporate personhood. If it were struck down, they'd have a human spokesperson do the speaking, or donating. And I doubt it's possible to use an aspect of power to genuinely nullify another.
My emotions drive me to compare your natural born and essentially harmless sexual preference to bestiality and pedophilia, and your emotions drive you to lash out at me ...
And in your assessment, we're both equally at fault?
The re-defining of Santorum is a seperate issue from the proposed legal structures though - other than involving two participants in the debate over the legal recognition, it has nothing to do with the question. They just really don't like each other.
The coporation comment was tongue-in-cheek, and partially to poke fun at the slippery slope arguements put forth about gay marriage. That said, I have some qualms about conferring legal personhood in terms of rights of speech to an entity that is legally required to pursue its charter - generally profit - to the preference of all other concerns. If there is a major public benefit to choosing a slightly less profitable action, say polluting within the law, but at a greater level than necessary, the officers could be sued and found guilty for choosing the option that is net better for the public, yet it's the public's laws that enforce this. I don't have an answer that I'm happy with, but I'm pretty sure that there is a problem/inefficieny in that situation, and that it can be improved.
Corporations already have marriage rights -- they're called mergers, and can even be polygamous. They can also have offspring in the form or subsidiaries or spinoffs.
I have some qualms about conferring legal personhood in terms of rights of speech to an entity that is legally required to pursue its charter - generally profit - to the preference of all other concerns.
Honestly, I think that something that pursues rational self interest turns out to be a lot better than a lot of humans, at least in politics. A lot of the things that humans do are outright self-destructively awful, like trying to stop other people from getting married. Seriously, !?
As far as I know, the corporate lobby is generally pro-gay marriage. I, for one, welcome our new corporate overlords.
In that case, we're both equally disgusting. I've read Savage's stuff before, and this kind of thing is entirely is character for him. (I might add that to Santorum, saying that it's naturally born and essentially harmless is itself begging the question, though I disagree with him.) It often happens that a cause is better than the people defending it or associated with it in the public sphere, and that's the case with gay marriage and Savage.
If the definition of marriage is so flexible as to be unharmed, except in Gallagher's lexicon, by redefinition then why bother redefining it at all?
I think that the insistence around using the courts to redefine marriage has slowed down broader acceptance of the whole same sex union thing. My personal preference is to let the state establish (and maybe expand) how it defines civil unions (which are pretty comprehensive and available to any two adults) and leave the whole marriage definition alone which, after all, does have emotional loading for people who chose to participate in it.
I agree with you, whaleyboy, but the problem is that most opponents of same-sex marriage are also opponents of same-sex unions, same-sex couples, and really same-sex-anything that isn’t a sports team or a private (preferably religious) school. So it comes as very little surprise to me that they’re being fought by any means necessary.
I think the majority of people who are opposed to same-sex marriage just think it's gross. Using the courts as a bludgeon to denounce them as bigots is hardly likely to win them over and make them more accepting of same-sex couples.
And yet some of us who are creeped out by the thought of gay sex are still long-time gay marriage supporters. It's not an impossible circle to square. All you have to do is realize that what is right isn't limited to what you are comfortable with. And most religions seem to include something about morality being more than hedonism.
Calling someone a bigot (especially if it's true) isn't likely to make them reflect on their beliefs and prejudices. They're going to get defensive, and double down on their position.
I guess it depends on whether your goal is to gain society's acceptance, or to get back at people who picked on you in high school.
I think you must be living in a country with different courts than me, because I’m not aware of any US courts having denounced anyone as bigots. Did that happen and I missed it?
Eric, you've caught Anakha conflating two issues here. People go to court to protect marriage rights because they want to protect marriage rights. They denounce people as bigots because they are bigots. Those two groups might happen to substantially overlap, but the courts are about asserting rights and they don't go around declaring who is and isn't a bigot.
@eric:
Perhaps they haven't used that specific word, but it's difficult to read, for example, Judge Walker's opinion and not take from it the message that opponents of gay marriage are bigots.
I don't think it's conflating two issues when those backing the legal challenges are the same groups calling same-sex marriage opponents bigots.
Nor is it obvious that any of the court cases have been about protecting pre-existing marriage rights. They're about expanding the definition of marriage, and that includes the Prop 8 case which is just the latest stage in a legal battle that began with the initial challenge in CA state courts that provoked Prop 8.
Here's a sample of an argument against gay marriage which might be made. And makes more sense than any of the ones that opponents have actually made.
- because of the push for gay marriage, we invented things like "domestic partnerships".
- because domestic partnerships are available, and provide most of the benefits of marriage without the responsabilites, some heterosexuals have opted for that, rather than for marriage. (More heterosexuals than homosexuals in California are domestic partners.)
- so domestic partnerships have harmed marriage.
Therefore, the push for gay marriage (albeit not gay marriage itself) has indirectly harmed the institution of marriage. Q.E.D.
Hey, it's blaming the messenger. But it's at least got some actual data to the point.
Jouris, I appreciate your attempt. In the same spirit, I'll try too. First though, I would note the "no harm" principle is a relatively new idea, as in the YR2000s new. I can't say it is 100% correct and I don't think it is. Majority's moral views certainly form the basis of many if not all laws and I see that as legitimate. But I'll accept the no harm rule for the sake of argument, as RLG implicitly insists I must. Here's my attempt: children are born when two tango, sort to speak, and it is worthwhile to society therefore to elevate those two, say they are special, and tell them very clearly that there is an institution to be enter if you want to do that sort of thing, and they should stay together for life with very few exceptions allowed. The whole sanctity of marriage idea, sort of. With this rationale, no fault divorce I think is more of a violation of it. But so are other things. And yes I know they let old people marry, but knowingly risking that I'll be accused of question begging, I don't see those as marriage in what I think is the proper understanding of the word, which inherently and necessary revolves around baby making... not just loving someone else.
If you define marriage as a baby-making institution, designed to improve child-rearing, aren't you assuming your conclusion?
If that were the case, then not only would old people not be allowed to marry, but fertility checks would be required. (I seem to recall some points in history where the bride was expected to be pregnant, just to demonstrate that. But they were rare.)
It would also seem to preclude use of contraception by married couples. At least until at least one child is born. Otherwise, they wouldn't be properly married.
So you’d be in favor of legislation to require all marriages produce offspring, ccusa? It would be easy enough to test: marriage licenses have dates, and birth certificates have dates. Produce one of the latter within (say) five years of the former, and you can stay married. Otherwise, the state annuls the marriage. Yes?
Oh, we’ll also need to forbid any marriage to any woman past menopause, or to any man who’s had a vasectomy. Ditto any adult who is medically infertile, which should provide a nice boost to the fertility-testing sector of the economy—since proof of fertility would be a necessary precondition of receiving a marriage license. Government requiring medical tests before marriage: the true conservative’s dream!
I've always wondered if homosexuality isn't a genetic fub up. Meaning, some people are born with physical handicaps, some with emotional handicaps, some with mental handicaps, some with social handicaps; it stands to reason that someone could also be born with a sexual handicap. In an evolutionary sense, homosexuality serves no purpose, in most cases it is a waste of otherwise completely good genes. Homosexuality hinders that individual's ability to do what millennia of genetics has programmed us to do, pass on our DNA. Doesn't it seem reasonable that something isn't functioning properly?
Well, there are other ways for a characteristic to be evolutionarily beneficial that do not involve personal reproduction. (Cf drones among bees, which do not reproduce, but are part of the colony which allows it to survive and reproduce.) So if you are going to argue that homosexuality is a genetic error, you need to make a rather more complete case than just noting that they do not reproduce.
For openers, you need to suggest some reason why, if it is an evolutionary negative, it has not been bred out? Like maybe show that whatever gene(s) are involved are linked to other genes which are beneficial -- just a thought.
Good point. I think you are confusing genetic with hereditary, they aren't the same thing. Like down syndrome for example, it is genetic but not hereditary. Homosexuality could be similary genetic and not hereditary making the idea of being "bred out" irrelevant.
As far as homsexuality being somehow evolutionarily beneficial, well that would suppose homosexuals are somehow better at something than their same-sex counterparts, which I think you'd find hard to prove. It would seem that the only difference between homosexuals and hetrosexuals is the sexual drive that could lead to procreation. Which in an evolutionary sense is a catastrophic mistake.
I thought I avoided the "somehow better" requriement by suggesting that the genes which result in homosexuality might be linked to other (different) genes which do have some benefit. At least, I intended to make that point.
As for the genetic accident/Down syndrome analogy, there is rather a difference in incidence. the frequency of Down syndrome is, what? Somewhere around 1 in 800, as I recall. Whereas the incidence of homosexuality (somewhere) upwards of 1 in 50. That makes it rather harder to support the thesis that it is also the result of a genetic accident. Not impossible (you could suppose that errors in any of a dozen different places could result in homosexual orientation), but a harder case to make.
"I've always wondered if homosexuality isn't a genetic fub up."
It's quite plausible. And even if not genetic, attributable to some other biological factor (like womb conditions early in embryonic development).
But that "begs the question" (not really, but couldn't resist...): So what? Is there any bearing on the moral or legal questions surrounding gay marriage that is affected by the question of causality, other than to note that homosexuality very much appears to be biologically determined?
Here you go:
http://www.economist.com/node/12465295
Also this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35347847/ns/health-behavior/t/gay-guys-make-...
There are actually a large collection of characteristics that affect about 10% of the population. Baldness, ADHD, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrom, color blindness, homosexuality and so forth. It's not that something is "wrong", because they are widely prevalent and consistant over time and across cultures. Instead, something is different, and it is a difference that is useful in some contexts but not for everyone.
If we look at it from a game theory perspective, the Nash equilibrium is a mixed strategy. (The other theory is that there is not a genetic basis for "homosexuality" but rather one for "attraction to men" or "attraction to women", supported by evidence that sisters of gay men have more children than other women. Ergo, some percentage of people are highly attracted to men, some are highly attracted to women and the majority are bisexual regardless of gender: again, a mixed strategy is dominant.)
We have several thousand years of history on marriage, and the consensus across millenia, across many different societies, is that *that's not what marriage is*. It's a bit more than just the entry in Maggie Gallagher's personal lexicon.
Sociologically, marriage has served, not as a license to have sex, but as a license to reproduce. (Admittedly, this is less so today, with people having babies out of wedlock and without seeming to suffer any stigma.) But gays, by definition, don't need a license to reproduce. (Yes, I know, they can adopt. So can single people. And yes, I know, they can use a surrogate, if male, or be artificially inseminated, if female. But these days, there's not much stigma on a single person doing those things, either.)
Bottom line: "Gay marriage" is simply not what marriage is.
If the argument of marriage as an institution to promote reproduction is the only one left, you must see that homosexual marriages can be no less valid than heterosexual marriages between those who are incapable of having children.
Unless you can provide an additional difference besides the question-begging issue of gender, then not only should infertile heterosexuals be banned from marriage, those who do not wish to have children might have to be as well.
Wrong. Marriage has not always been between one man and one woman. It has always been a social convention, defined variously. It is still a social convention and in a country where the state is expected to encroach only with a near-consensus and a national interest, it should be defined variously unless you think Maggie Gallagher has made a sound argument.
With a little delving into history, I think you would discover that marriage was originally to do with property transfers and the formation of alliances.
Bottom line: marriage is simply what the state says it is.
Hmm... I don't see where rewt called marriage between one man and one women. He said it's been about reproduction which is true.
So gay marriage was traditionally allowed? No? Why not? Wasn't it only about property transfers and the formation of alliances?
Does it say that in the old testament? In the new? In the Koran or the Vedas? In English law? In Roman law? In Aristotle or Confucious? Seems awfully innovative for an appeal to orthodoxy.
In English law. Don't know about the others.
In English law it says marriage is a license to procreate? I didn't know that. OK, I apologize for a few percent of my tone.
... In Aristotle or Confucius
I don't know what Confucius said on the subject. Pre-Confucius societal mores required for the performance of the "Ceremony of Zhou" a marriage ceremony. Since the Ceremomy of Zhou means a man takes the virginity of a woman, I guess folks in those days were saying marriage was between a man and a virgin woman. Until the missionaries came along, all marriages were civil unions. Another piece of trivia: In the old days, a man could have only one wife but more than one concubines. The difference between a wife and a concubine would be in the property rights transferred at death of the man. There was a panhandler in my neighborhood when I was a child in HK who had 3 concubines. He sent them all panhandling 8 hours a day while he stayed home snoozing. Reportedly the "family" made a decent living and everyone was happy. I don't know what Uncle Clive would think about this arrangement. BTW, it was the Communist regime that outlawed the concubine system, recognizing at law only a one man one woman union.
Yeah. The "classic purpose [of marriage] across time and history and culture" was to join one man and SEVERAL women -- 85% of all known societies have been polygynous. Should we be defending this much more ancient and widespread form of marriage against the monogamists, who leave divorcees, single parents, and fatherless children in their wake?
It would be nice if we could reserve "marriage" for the optional consecration within some tradition of a universal "civil union" that entails all of the legal aspects of . . . er . . . marriage, damn it. There are plenty of countries where a civil ceremony precedes a church wedding. I'm sure it makes local officials much happier in their work to have so pleasant a duty.
Why should clergymen act as agents of the state? In the US, of all places?
Is anyone pushing for the state to force clergymen to perform homosexual marriages? I'm as pro gay marriage as you can get until this line is crossed. Let the churches and their ministers remain as bigoted as they like, so long as anyone who wants a civil marriage can have it.
...'a wall of separation' and all that.
Totally didn't expect that from you. That's a reasonable compromise.
Why didn't you expect that from bampbs? He's been saying it for years here. I've been agreeing with him for years.
Agree with this compromise as well. Remove "marriage" completely from the secular/legal lexicon and replace it with civil unions for all - gay, straight, etc. Those who would like to be married or however bonded in the eyes of their respective religious representatives may do so, but it carries no legal weight.
Marriage is already a secular institution in this country. Clergymen are involved as officiants, but so are regular old judges, and the "institution of marriage" is not affiliated with any particular religion.
People act like religions are somehow being violated if the term "marriage" is applied to something by anyone that doesn't fit into Scriptural doctrine, but that ignores the reality of today, where officiants come from not just the ranks of secular judges but also every religion, from Evangelicals to Satanists to the Church of Elvis, and most importantly, *no doctrinal requirement is now required for a wedding to be recognized*.
But, but...taking the word "marriage" off of what the state sanctions is just more of the War on Marriage! Because being blessed by the state validates the religious nature . . . AHEM
/sarcasm
I can live with that.
What Doug said—all three things he said, in fact.
Man, a lesson on a logical fallacy, a Maggie Gallagher takedown, and a link to TE's style guide, all in 4 grafs? Good form.