Marriage and other LGBTQ Rights

[davieddy]

Losing my Religion

Sodom

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

[Moderator note: Split off from the New U.S. President thread.]
<snip penIs>

THERE AIN'T NO SANITY CLAUSE

Chico

[Jwb52z]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

Nobody is banned from marrying. Rather, same gender couples cannot legally call their partnership a marriage. Such people never wanted a traditional marriage, they just wanted to call a different type of relationship a marriage. Anyone who finds a partner of the opposite sex can still be married.

Similarly, specific groups are not banned from forming civil unions. Everyone is banned from it.

The relevant legal question is whether this is meant to target certain groups who are the most affected, or whether the proposal was sincerely an attempt to protect the institution of marriage and the family. Rest assured that the Supreme Court will eventually rule on that question (probably in about 2 years).

As long as straight/heterosexual people can enter into a union called marriage with a person whom they love and is a consenting adult, it's discrimination not to allow gay people to do the same with a member of the same gender. The US, nor any other place on Earth, shouldn't be allowed to codify any kind of discrimination like this into law.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

Nobody is banned from marrying. Rather, same gender couples cannot legally call their partnership a marriage. Such people never wanted a traditional marriage, they just wanted to call a different type of relationship a marriage. Anyone who finds a partner of the opposite sex can still be married.

Nobody is banned from marrying. Rather, couples of different races cannot legally call their partnership a marriage. Such people never wanted a traditional marriage, they just wanted to call a different type of relationship a marriage. Anyone who finds a partner of the same race can still be married.

Paul

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by xilman

Nobody is banned from marrying. Rather, couples of different races cannot legally call their partnership a marriage. Such people never wanted a traditional marriage, they just wanted to call a different type of relationship a marriage. Anyone who finds a partner of the same race can still be married.

Except that this only holds up under a revisionist view of marriage and history.

Interracial marriages have always, throughout human history, been considered marriages. Antimiscegenation has historically been about who is allowed to marry, and not what marriage is. Gay marriage, on the other hand, is both about who is allowed to marry *and* what marriage is.

I personally think that answer suffices. But, for the sake of argument, let us ignore that context. The question your post then raises is at what level discrimination is rational. Instead of interracial marriages, we could "fill-in-the-blank" (as I did previously) with other concepts, such as open, temporary, polygynous, polyandrous, polyamorous, incestuous, or bestial marriages. In my opinion, the only way to answer the question of what it is rational to discriminate against is ask "What purpose does marriage serve to society?" Or more fundamentally, "What is marriage?" Clearly, some of those listed options (like incest) run counter to a society which values certain basic human rights. For others, the answer may depend on what society wants out of marriage.

I would argue that allowing gay marriage fundamentally changes the historical societal purpose of marriage, and the stated purpose given in North Carolina, whereas interracial marriage does not. Furthermore, I would argue that banning interracial marriage in fact runs strictly counter to said purposes. In other words, if you want your parallel of my post to really be a parallel, you need to show how I am misinterpreting the purpose of marriage in North Carolina so that either (1) miscegenation does meet their purpose or (2) miscegenation doesn't meet their purpose, and banning gay marriage in some similar way also doesn't meet that purpose.

Most of this is spelled out more forcefully in the article I linked to earlier: What is Marriage?

[Christenson]

You can write such drivel as "What is marriage", but you might want to think about the fact that Woodrow Wilson, once president of Princeton, was a violent racist that set the cause of racial equality back about 50 years when he became president, by firing the white house cook simply for being black.

You can argue until you are blue in the face that allowing a "gay marriage" changes marriage fundamentally, but you language (or rather, lack of language using any other word for the phenomenon) indicates just how similar these partnerships are to the ones between men and women. As to the state interest, it should be limited to providing good homes for children -- and many gay couples want precisely the chance to raise children -- and there is no such thing as making someone gay by presenting that as an acceptable alternative way of being.

You can also argue about historical meaning until you are blue in the face, but consider what happens when an airframe manufacturer marries the wings to the fuselage of an airplane, or a steam locomotive is married to the tender, or the two halves of something big are married together. Marriage means a union of two things, intended to be permanent, with consequences for not becoming a union.

[Zeta-Flux]

Paul, in that last sentence replace "miscegenation" with "antimiscegenation laws".

[Mr. P-1]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

Most of this is spelled out more forcefully in the article I linked to earlier: What is Marriage?

Lengthy rebuttal here.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

I would argue that allowing gay marriage fundamentally changes the historical societal purpose of marriage, and the stated purpose given in North Carolina, whereas interracial marriage does not.

Okey-doke, I'm going to give in to your position totally and make another proposal. That ok with you?

I propose that nothing be changed in the institution of marriage in any way whatsoever. Only couples of opposite sex may marry and all the rights, restrictions and obligations (such as inheritance, residence, financial, and so on) of married people to each other and to and from society remain exactly the same as now. Is that acceptable to you?

That is the first half of the proposal. The other half is that couples of the same sex may enter into a state which, purely for the sake of needing a word to summarize it, I will call marklar. The institution of marklar will have enshrined rights, restrictions and obligations ((such as inheritance, residence, financial, and so on) which are equivalent in law in every respect that married couples have to each other and to and from society.

Given that I've already conceded your every expressed requirement for marriage and, I suspect, many others that you have not yet expressed, would you support this compromise proposal? If not, why would you not allow same-sex couples to marklar each other?


Paul

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by xilman

Okey-doke, I'm going to give in to your position totally and make another proposal. That ok with you?

Sure.

I propose that nothing be changed in the institution of marriage in any way whatsoever. Only couples of opposite sex may marry and all the rights, restrictions and obligations (such as inheritance, residence, financial, and so on) of married people to each other and to and from society remain exactly the same as now. Is that acceptable to you?

Not really. I'm not one to reject all change. I'm glad, for example, that in some countries a wife can now inherit her husbands estate when previously that was not the case. I would also favor more stringent restrictions/penalties on divorce, and make it easier for a husband who has been faithful to get at least partial custody after a divorce.

That is the first half of the proposal. The other half is that couples of the same sex may enter into a state which, purely for the sake of needing a word to summarize it, I will call marklar. The institution of marklar will have enshrined rights, restrictions and obligations ((such as inheritance, residence, financial, and so on) which are equivalent in law in every respect that married couples have to each other and to and from society.

Given that I've already conceded your every expressed requirement for marriage and, I suspect, many others that you have not yet expressed, would you support this compromise proposal? If not, why would you not allow same-sex couples to marklar each other?

Why do same sex couples get this institution and not best friends? In other words, what is the societal purpose of this institution? Is it simply to legitimize homosexual relations?

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by Mr. P-1

Lengthy rebuttal here.

Thank you for posting that link. If you would like me to respond to them, I'm happy to do so. I've read the first couple, and will read the rest if you think they adequately address George's paper.

Article I: I like the author's colloquial way of writing, how he admits to his own weaknesses and the strengths of the paper he is attempting to refute. And I like his bravado in attempting to run with the big dogs.

Article II: I appreciate the authors attempt to classify the philosophical background that George (and his coauthors) are coming from; and think that he probably gets it right that George is a natural law philosopher (at least in this paper). However, I also see a strong weakness in this response-- he never quotes from the paper to back up his assertions. When he says

He thinks we can use reason to discover morality (and in fact, his article’s argument is intended to be purely secular, with no appeal to religion), but the conclusions derived from reason have to match truth as revealed in the Gospels and interpreted by the Church, or they are flawed. That shapes his approach to “What is marriage?” because he knows the answer before he begins; his job is to develop a rational basis for defining something that has already been eternally defined in a higher realm.

he gives no evidence for this claim. Further, when he recommends that when defining marriage we should "look at what people in this world call marriage, what led them to marry, and what they hope to achieve by marrying. Let’s find the essential, common features, and use them to define what marriage is." I think he missed a great deal of what George and others did. They examined all sorts of marriage laws, and their stated purposes.

He claims that George builds his view from a very few basic ideas, but I don't see him ever listing those ideas or really addressing any deficiencies (just claiming they exist).

Article III: I started reading it, but had to stop immediately. He draws some Venn diagrams to try and make his point, but they are faulty. The question is whether one can hold both viewpoints and have a coherent model. As stated, the two viewpoints are in opposition to one another. One could modify them and try to make them compatible, and George et. al. address such modifications later in their paper, but it is clearly NOT the case that those who favor same-sex marriage can view marriage as limited to a conjugal relationship between a man and a woman.