Dear Friends of Marriage,
NOM's President, Maggie Gallagher, asks a pretty good question: "Why has President Obama's Justice Department abruptly attempted to sabotage the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in federal court?"
Is there no justice for marriage?
Justice is supposed to be blind. And the Justice Department is supposed to do justice without regard to politics.
When Congress passed DOMA in 1996 with overwhelming bipartisan support, it laid out clear reasons why marriage deserves legal protection:
"At bottom, civil society has an interest in maintaining and protecting the institution of heterosexual marriage because it has a deep and abiding interest in encouraging responsible procreation and child-rearing."
As Maggie says, "This is not some kind of weird side argument drummed up by folks who don't like gay people. It has been at the heart of America's marriage tradition since the dawn of the Republic."
Dozens of courts have ruled that procreation is a key purpose of marriage -- long before anyone was thinking about gay marriage. A New Jersey judge in 1921 waxed pretty lyrical:
"Lord Penzance has observed that the procreation of children is one of the ends of marriage. I do not hesitate to say that it is the most important object of matrimony, for without it the human race itself would perish from the earth."
Even in liberal states like New York, Washington, and Maryland, state supreme courts have ruled: Marriage is not discrimination, because unions of husband and wife really are different, and they serve the government interest in promoting responsible procreation in a special way. It's not discrimination to treat different relationships differently. It's common sense.
But Pres. Obama's Justice department, in a nakedly political move after political protests, speaking on behalf of you and me as the government of the United States, just told a federal court of law: "The government does not contend that there are legitimate government interests in 'creating a legal structure that promotes the raising of children by both of their biological parents' or that the government's interest in 'responsible procreation' justifies Congress's decision to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman."
"I couldn't believe it," one high-powered lawyer emailed me. "I mean, it's one thing for Jerry Brown to make an argument like that to the California courts. It's another thing for the United States Justice Department to do it."
What just happened? Maggie said it better than I could: "A loud interest group that helped fund President Obama's victory succeeded this week by belligerent protests in gaining a key shift in Justice Department legal arguments. ...President Obama is sabotaging DOMA while pretending to defend it in court, in order to please a core political interest group that donated money to support his campaign."
If you have already taken action to send a message to Pres. Obama, thank you. If you haven't, fight back today! Justice for marriage today!
It's been a busy "NOM in the News" week, as you can see below. One thing I'd like to call to your attention is the huge success of NOM-Rhode Island's "Celebrate Marriage and Family Day." A handful of protestors turned out to what even the Providence Journal admits was a warm, inviting celebration of unions of husband and wife, capped by a vow renewal ceremony. As ProJo columnist Bob Kerr noted, "By all reports, the celebration in Warwick Sunday was warm and confirming. It was also a masterful piece of work by the National Organization For Marriage."
Help us fight for marriage! Your donations help us preserve and promote the beautiful truth about marriage.
Let me close this week with a letter NOM received from a pastor in Indiana. He was prompted to write after reading "The Carrie Effect," the cover story Maggie wrote in National Review from the frontlines of the marriage wars over the last few months.
"I just read your article on Carrie Prejean in the National Review. As a family values guy I thank you for your timely words. I was in fact beginning to feel like I was beseiged by the Borg. Your article has given me more than just fresh insight; it has given me hope that gay marriage is not inevitable. Your insight that when marriage becomes more about two adults in love than children in need our country is in big trouble has framed the argument in precisely the right way. ...
"Ms. Gallagher, I am a pastor in a main line denomination and as you can imagine, I hold a biblical world view. One piece of that biblical world view is that marriage is an institution between one man and one woman at a time. For holding this world view, the cultural elite of this nation has branded me, and others like me as a bigot, a hater and intolerant. But the other part of my biblical world view compells me to love all human beings as creatures who have been created in the image of God; as individuals of sacred worth in the sight of God. ...
"Unfortunately for all of us, the cultural elite of our nation has no interest in that part of me, or others like me however. They would rather focus on that first part of me because it allows them to hate me without knowing me; to hate without putting a real human face on the object of their hatred. I have discovered that when people hate, they can easily get around the reality that facts are stubborn things and that maybe, just maybe, those of us on this side of the debate have something important to say. In that context I would ask: 'Who indeed is the bigot?'
"To close, as I was reading your article, I was reminded of John F. Kennedy's book, Profiles in Courage, which I read some twenty or thirty years ago. I remember the book quite well and was very impressed by it. If someone were to write a new Profiles in Courage today, Carrie Prejean and her story would be worthy of a very lengthy chapter."
Thank you, Reverend. I just had to share your letter because it says a lot about who we in the marriage movement are--you and me, and the thousands of others who recognize that marriage is worth fighting for.
Here's the final piece of good news: There are not just thousands of us out there. This week we announced in a press release that we have passed a HUGE milestone: 500,000 activists have joined NOM's merry band of marriage warriors. We are well on our way to building two million marriage activists.
Thank the Lord! And thank you.
Let not your hearts be troubled. I hope and pray for God's blessing on you and your family, for your courage and your decency.
Until next week!
Brian S. BrownExecutive Director
National Organization for Marriage
20 Nassau Street, Suite 242
Princeton, NJ 08542
bbrown@nationformarriage.org
P.S. In these difficult times, we appreciate your contributions even more. Even a small amount--maybe a monthly donation of as little as $5 or $10--helps us spread the word about marriage. But if you can't give money right now, you can still help us! Just continue to speak up for marriage in your community, and please keep us in your prayers.
NOM Feature of the Week
Maggie on Obama's Dishonest DOMA Dance:
Why has President Obama's Justice Department abruptly attempted to sabotage the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in federal court?
Read the whole thing
NOM in the News
Maggie's exchange with Steve Chapman
"An Odd Silence on Gay Marriage"
Steve Chapman
Chicago Tribune
August 20, 2009
But with the experiment looming, some opponents seem to be doubting their own convictions. I contacted three serious conservative thinkers who have written extensively about the dangers of allowing gay marriage and asked them to make simple, concrete predictions about measurable social indicators -- marriage rates, divorce, out-of-wedlock births, child poverty, you name it.
You would think they would react like Albert Pujols when presented with a hanging curveball. Yet none was prepared to forecast what would happen in same-sex marriage states versus other states.
"Five Predictions About Gay Marriage"
Maggie Gallagher
National Review Online
August 20, 2009
But the game of "gotcha" having been begun by Steve, let me make a few preliminary predictions about the short-term effects of SSM:
- In gay-marriage states, a large minority people committed to traditional notions of marriage will feel afraid to speak up for their views, lest they be punished in some way.
- Public schools will teach about gay marriage.
- Parents in public schools who object to gay marriage being taught to their children will be told with increasing public firmness that they don't belong in public schools and their views will not be accomodated in any way.
- Religous institutions will face new legal threats (especially soft litigation threats) that will cause some to close, or modify their missions, to avoid clashing with the government's official views of marriage (which will include the view that opponents are akin to racists for failing to see same-sex couples as married).
- Support for the idea "the ideal for a child is a married mother and father" will decline.
"Celebrate Marriage and Family Day in Warwick draws protests"
Providence Journal
August 17
The Thomsens gathered at the Catholic Diocese property as part of Rhode Island's "First Annual Celebrate Marriage and Family Day," an event sponsored by the local chapter of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage. Paul and Lori Thomsen were among more than 100 couples to renew their marriage vows flanked by a large sign that read, "Marriage = 1 man and 1 woman."
"Competition Is Sometimes Very Quiet"
Bob Kerr
Providence Journal
August 19, 2009
By all reports, the celebration in Warwick Sunday was warm and confirming. It was also a masterful piece of work by the National Organization For Marriage. In the competitive scheme of things, it was a full court press. In the lazy days of summer, it served up the calm but clear testimony of hundreds of people that those who mess with marriage as it has always been do so at their peril.
Whether same-sex couples will choose to respond with their own marital version of dancing in the end zone is not clear at this time.
"Gay Marriage Supporters Protest RI Vow Renewals"
Associated Press
August 17, 2009
The rally, organized by the National Organization for Marriage's Rhode Island chapter, culminated in a ceremony for heterosexual married couples to renew their marriage vows.
"Protesting Anti-LGBT Bigotry in RI"
Socialist Worker Online
August 20, 2009
It was a beautiful summer day on August 16, despite the dark cloud cast by the National Organization for Marriage's (NOM) first annual "Marriage and Family Day," a fundraiser to "celebrate marriage between one man and one women and the families that come from them."
"Obama Backs Marriage Act Repeal"
Washington Times
August 18, 2009
Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, accused the president of breaking a campaign promise made in his televised interview with California megachurch pastor Rick Warren.
"In a high-profile interview with Rick Warren, Barack Obama convinced millions of Americans he opposed gay marriage," he said. "We are calling on the president to live up to his campaign commitment."
"Anti-Gay Group to Fight Marriage Efforts in D.C."
Washington Blade
August 21, 2009
The National Organization for Marriage plans to use its projected 2009 budget of $6 million to, among other things, help ban same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia and prevent President Barack Obama and a Democratic-controlled Congress from repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, according to Brian Brown, the group's executive director.
"NOM's New HQ"
Metro Weekly
August 20, 2009
While Brown emphasizes that NOM's move to D.C. is primarily to bolster the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) -- the 1996 law defining marriage at the federal level as the union of one man and one woman only -- there has been some movement at the local level. Brown, for example, is the treasurer of Stand 4 Marriage D.C., the group trying to block marriage equality locally. For context, he holds similar titles in other locales.
"Religious Groups Play Major Role in Campaign to Repeal Maine Marriage Law"
EDGE
August 18, 2009
Most of the money raised came from the National Organization for Marriage ($160,000,) the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland ($100,000,) the Knights of Columbus, a national Catholic fraternal organization ($50,000,) and Focus on the Family's Maine Marriage Committee ($31,000.)
"Out-of-State Donors Help Fuel Debate on Same-Sex Marriage"
Maine Sunday Telegram
August 16, 2009
Maine's same-sex marriage debate increasingly seems to be a coast-to-coast affair.
Earlier this summer, the campaign seeking to repeal Maine's new same-sex marriage law said it had retained Schubert Flint Public Affairs, the high-power firm that ran the successful effort to ban gay marriage in California.
Now it appears Sacramento, Calif.-based Schubert Flint may face some familiar foes.
"The Power of the Tiara"
Christopher Shea
Boston Globe
August 16, 2009
In June, a CBS/New York Times poll noted a surprising dip in support for gay marriage nationally: in two months, it had dropped 9 percentage points, from 42 percent to 33 percent. Why?
According to Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, writing in the National Review, the answer had little to do with the 2 million robocalls her group had made, or NOM's anti-gay-marriage advertising (the much-discussed and parodied "Gathering Storm"). Rather, the answer boiled down to one name: Carrie Prejean.
107 Comments
What are you so afraid of? Do you feel so threatened that a small minority want to get married?
The "small minority" should direct their attention (and millions of dollars they are wasting on their assault on marriage) to the fight against HIV/AIDS and other STD epidemics in the homosexual community.
Homosexual activity was the original cause of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and today, over 25 years later, homosexual activity is still the greatest contributor to the HIV/AIDS epidemic (and other blood/feces borne epidemics) in the U.S..
But, of course, homosexual activists have "more important" things on their agenda . . .
Bob, where you asking about the polygamists, or the polyamorists, or the siblings (who exprience genetic sexual attraction)?
Each is a minority that is ineligible to marry as they would wish -- including with adult consent and for many including children.
I suspect that you are fearful yourself. Fearful of being anything but indiscriminate.
But society may legitimately discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage, eligibility and ineligibility, and may use the law and social policy to show preference for a foundational social institution whose core meaning carries great societal significance.
If SSM has some special reason for special status (marital status is a special status), then, have courage and make SSM stand on its own two feet. Make the independant claim for whatever is the core meaning of SSM.
Don't fear marriage. Fear the lack of a core meaning for SSM.
Bob, did you mean to say that the small size of a minority has some bearing on the marriage issue?
Rather than focus our feelings, could you focus on your reasoning? It is the difference between trying to persuade and trying to convince. Also, when you rely so much on emotivism your reasoning becomes obscured. Identity politics has a way of suppressing reason and raising emotivism far above everything else.
Emotion in support of, and in balance with, reason is fair enough. But that's not in evidence with SSM argumentation. Your rhetorical questions -- with their implicit accusation -- shows the imbalance and the lack of support for reason that is all-too-common among SSMers.
Those who falsely claim to be defenders of traditional marriage and family should stop focusing on violating the rights of a tiny fraction of americans who happen to be gay,and instead concentrate on outlawing the ONLY kind of marriage Jesus ever spoke against.
Jesus never mentioned homosexuality,but he did have something to say about divorce,remarriage,and adultery.
This issue is seldom addressed by religious conservatives,however,and for obvious reasons.To do so might call into question the rights and the validity of the marriages of at least half the Christians in the country.
According to thier own religion,anyone who gets divorced and remarried for reasons other than those permitted by scripture is guilty of committing adultery.
Fundamentalists often ask why thier tax dollars should be used to finance a government which endorses 'sodomy',that to permit gays to marry constitutes an official endorsement of sodomy.
I want to make a similar complaint.
If permitting gays to marry is an endorsement of sodomy,then permitting the divorced to remarry is an endorsement of adultery.
So why should MY taxes be used to finance their adulterous unions?
These reasons are worth repeating though the lens of constitutional law. They will be carefully examined in federal and eventually the supreme court. Like intelligent design, we must carefully demonstrate actual outcomes as Maggie has so thought done to meet even the strict requirements for a rational basis review showing why SSM argumentation is illogical and without merit.
Long term effects of SSM:
1. In gay-marriage states, a large minority people committed to traditional notions of marriage will feel afraid to speak up for their views, lest they be punished in some way.
2. Public schools will teach about gay marriage.
Parents in public schools who object to gay marriage being taught to their children will be told with increasing public firmness that they don’t belong in public schools and their views will not be accomodated in any way.
3. Religous institutions will face new legal threats (especially soft litigation threats) that will cause some to close, or modify their missions, to avoid clashing with the government’s official views of marriage (which will include the view that opponents are akin to racists for failing to see same-sex couples as married).
4. Support for the idea “the ideal" for a child is a married mother and father” will decline.
Paul
Your fears are unfounded. People opposed to same-sex marriage will always be free to condemn it whether same-sex marriage is legal or not. Just like abortion. Christians will always be free to teach their children at home and in their churches to hate homosexuals, as the Bible instructs.
Schools don’t teach about marriage of any kind so it’s unlikely that they’ll start “teaching” about same-sex marriage.
Churches will not face lawsuits unless they break the law. No church currently is forced to marry a couple it doesn’t want to marry. That won’t change.
The ideal environment for raising a child is a loving parent or parents. Marriage itself does not guarantee good parenting.
Kevin,
Give me a reference in the Bible where Christians are explicitly told to "hate homosexuals" let alone anyone else. In fact, as Christians we are to go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, love our enemies and those that persecute us. Unfortunately, Christians standing up for Truth and Righteousness (regardless of topic) get castigated for doing so. Why is that?
Susan: The NOM supporters should spend their money on helping fight cancer and straight STDs so that less people die from that, rather than spending money on something that's not life-threatening.
AIDS is spread just as much by heterosexuals as it is by homosexuals. It's easier to transfer, but it still greatly affects the straight community.
If it weren't for people like me marching in protest for womens rights in the sixties you would all be home, barefoot and pregnant, and need your husbands permission to open your fat traps. Why don't you all clean up your own backyard before judging others.
Nicholas: "Unfortunately, Christians standing up for Truth and Righteousness (regardless of topic) get castigated for doing so. Why is that?"
Becuase your definition of truth and righteousness arent everyone else's definition of truth and righteousness. That answer the question?
Perry,
No, it doesn't answer the question. By your definition, Truth and Righteousness, are subjective dependent on the person defining them, and therefore, relativistic. Mine is not as it is based on the character of God as the only source of Truth and Righteousness. Hope that helps.
Joel, I find your choice of comments quite offensive. I don't care which side of the argument you are on. Please, have decency.
I agree with you Nicholas. There are more evidences than arbitrary opinion in the case of marriage. One side is clearly beneficial to society. The other side, the best the advocates can say is they don't think it hurts, but the evidence doesn't follow. There's a big difference between a loving man and woman, bonded for life to each other and to their children and any other compositional unit, no matter the sex or number. No other group does as well for children as a loving mom and dad bonded for life. The science is there to back it up. Whether that science is heeded or not is again up to choice, but those who would like to pretend this is merely a game of political jihad are just deluding themselves.
Sabrina, your statement proving the health of the homosexual lifestyle was sadly mistaken. These are the most recent stats:
CDC Official: AIDS Rate is 50x Higher in Homosexual Men
August 26th, 2009
The dangers of homosexual behavior have been long known to anyone with eyes to see them and ears to hear them, despite the “mainstream” media’s efforts to sweep this information under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist; they are, after all, willing and eager participants in the effort to whitewash homosexuality in the eyes of the public.
Yet the information keeps popping up in places like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the New England Journal of Medicine, the Department of Justice, the American Sociological Review, the Archives of General Psychology, the Washington Blade, the Journal of Sex Research and more. No matter how badly the minions of political correctness want it to stay buried, the truth keeps slipping out.
Like Monday, when a CDC official stated that the AIDS rate is 50x higher in homosexual men.
An official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the CDC’s estimate Monday that in the United States AIDS is fifty times more prevalent among men who have sex with men (’MSM’) than the rest of the population. Dr. Amy Lansky revealed this statistic during a plenary session at the 2009 HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta.
The CDC had already revealed last year that approximately 53% of the estimated 56,300 new HIV cases in 2006 were in homosexual men, with the African American population being particularly affected.
The new statistics, however, estimate the prevalence of HIV/AIDS relative to the homosexual population, which allows comparisons to other groups in the wider population. Because of the difficulty of determining the homosexual population, the CDC had to estimate. Based on a variety of national surveys, they based their statistics on the median estimate that homosexual men constitute 4 percent of the overall male population, reports RH Reality Check.
According to Dr. Lansky, then, based on the 4 percent figure, the CDC estimates that in 2007 there were 692.2 new HIV cases per 100,000 homosexual men – or fifty times more cases than the rest of the population.
While merely an approximation, the CDC’s announcement confirms previous statistics and studies that indicate vastly disproportionate occurrence of sex-related diseases in homosexuals. According to a February 2007 study, for example, homosexual men with HIV are 90 times more likely to develop anal cancer than the rest of the population.
UPI cited a study which found the cancer rate for smokers to be 10-30 times higher than for nonsmokers.
You’re aware of the massive public campaign to warn people of the dangers of smoking, right?
When it comes to the dangers of an immoral, unnatural sexual practice that a mountain of health data says is very dangerous in a host of ways…well, the crickets are pretty loud.
These elevated dangers include not only AIDS, but many other forms of sexually transmitted diseases, anal cancer, hepatitis, depression, substance abuse, suicide and domestic violence.
For our “mainstream” media and most public health officials to ignore such huge health risks in a particular segment of society can rationally indicate only one thing: they must harbor incredible disdain and loathing for homosexuals.
Usually, when people care about their fellow human beings and see them in danger, they warn them as strongly as they can about that danger. Yet most of the elites in our society are actually encouraging homosexuals to destroy their lives and their souls.
“Tolerance” isn’t loving or compassionate when it encourages another person to plunge headlong into oblivion.
If SSMers insist that the issue is homosexuality, then, they ought to insist that homosexuality be imposed as an explicit legal requirement for a license to SSM.
But they won't. They don't say why. But they make a lot of noise about about it anyway.
On the other hand ...
Charles has just conceded in his viewpoint the licensing of SSM "constitutes an official endorsement of sodomy".
* * *
The sexual basis of adultery (coitus) does not apply to the one-sexed category. It is the same sexual basis for consummation, provisions for annulment, and for the marital presumption of paternity, for starters.
This sexual basis is extrinsic to whatever an all-male or an all-female arrangement might do sexually. Besides, SSM argumentation's emphasis on legal requirements means that the lack of a same-sex sexual requirement would render SSM sexless, at law, anyway. So on what basis can sodomy and adultery be analogized, really?
Well, as Charles said, he imagines that the marriage law endorses adultery so it might as endorse sodomy -- even if there is no sexual basis for distinguishing SSM from nonmarriage, at law.
Charles emphasizes the "tiny fraction" of the nonmarriage category. He distinguishes that fraction by pointing at sodomy. Yet he has not endorsed making sodomy a legal requirement for a license to SSM.
Meanwhile adultery is not a requirement for a license to marriage, although adultery is grounds for dissolution of marriage. As I said, the sexual basis of that does not apply to SSM. The SSMers themselves have insisted upon that.
If you're not for same sex marriage don't get married to anyone of the same sex. Your rights end at the trampling of others rights. The 14th amendment guarantees equality for all. Yours is the losing side of the argument. Ever consider what you would do if one of your 6 children were gay?
MarkD, it is awfully convenient to take the stance that anyone who disagrees with you hates you. It may just be possible that we know, love, accept our gay brothers and sisters, aunts uncles and cousins just fine but simply don't agree with their social policy. Has that ever occurred to you? Buck up buddy, it's not about you.
You NOM people are misguided and sad. You wrap yourselves in the cloth of protecting the marriage rights of a man and a woman. You also build an argument based on children. But, the bottom line is that most gays and lesbians have no children and no desire to have children. Does their marriage threaten that of a man and a woman simply by its existence? What about the sham marriages of polygamists? What about athiests? I believe gays and lesbians are children of God and were created by God the same way heterosexuals were -- no more, no less. I believe they deserve to be treated with the same dignity and respect, and accorded the same rights and obligations of other human beings. Your denial of marriage rights DEPRIVES them of significant rights -- that's a simple fact you cannot overcome. You can talk to it however you wish. But, you are DISCRIMINATING and, in the quiet of your hearts, you know the wrong you do. One additional thought: Discrimination and different treatment often lay a foundation for hatred and lead to violence -- history is rife with examples. You must also bear this -- a natural consequence of your work -- on your soul. I'll pray for you.
Brando,
If you loved and accepted your gay brothers and sisters, you would work to give them equal rights under the law but you don't. Why put up the silly facade when you clearly view them as second-class citizens? That's like saying George Washington wasn't a racist because he loved and accepted his slaves. Please.
Your intentional and patently unfair legal discrimination against same-sex couples might not be motivated by hate, it's hard to tell, but the result is clearly unequal treatment under the law so whether or not your motivatation is hate, your policy is still hateful because it discriminates without any rational basis. And when such discriminatory laws are aimed at directly at you, it is of course, very personal.
Just like slavery, segregation, and discrimination against women, marriage discrimination will also come to an end and people like you will be left to rust on the same miserable scrapheap of shameful American history. You must be very proud!
Jimmy, so I must agree with you in order to be acceptable to you? Interesting take on tolerance. You have no idea who I am or what I believe, yet you cast aspersions on my every intention simply because we disagree. Are you so insecure that you can't stand a little dissent? Where's the tolerance for others that you say you want for yourself?
"Discrimination and different treatment often lay a foundation for hatred and lead to violence — history is rife with examples. You must also bear this — a natural consequence of your work"
Interesting threat there friend David.
Brando: I intended no threat and I think you know that. I refer to what you must bear on your soul and reconcile in your conscience. I believe discrimination, like all acts of malice, tarnishes our souls.....we carry it within until we repent. I would analogize it to a term that was used in law in the past -- a "blackened heart." And whether you individually intend violence is not the question. Rather it is recognition that your actions lead to hatred and violence. And history *is* rife with this.
Take an example -- which we have even seen in our country: A man stands and speaks to a crowd (a political rally or a church gathering). He advocates a position of discrimination and points out differences in others. He may explicitly ask for tolerance (even pity) for those who are different. [I'm really giving this guy the benefit of the doubt since, in many case, the words are hostile.] Notwithstanding his pleas, some listeners take his words and "run with them" -- they mock, harrass, and tease the different individuals. Some look down on them because they're different. Some say they're lesser human beings. Some say they're destined to burn in hell for eternity. Some think they need to be taught a lesson. The lesson can involve horrible acts of violence and sometimes results in death. It all has a genesis in the words spoken to the crowd -- those words and others like them spoken by others. They lead to the creation of a culture that sees people differently and allows for different treatment.
Human beings aren't born with discrimination. They are taught it!
Hey Brian Brown! Nice writeup! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082704139.html?referrer=facebook
The institution of marriage has always been between a man and a woman. Yes, there have been homosexual relationships. But no society that he knows of, in the history of the world, has ever condoned same-sex marriage. "Do they always agree on the number of partners? Do they always agree on the form of monogamy? No," Brown says, but they've all agreed on the gender issue. It's what's best for families, he says. It's the union that can biologically produce children, he says. It's all about the way things have always been done.
"I think it's irrational that up until 10 years ago, all of these societies agreed with my position" on same-sex marriage, he says, and now suddenly that position is bigotry. "The opposition is trying to marginalize and suppress us," he says. "Usually, that happens with positions that are actually minorities. But we're the majority."
"You have to take them seriously," says Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow for the liberal People for the American Way. "They've raised a tremendous amount of money that they're funneling into various states. They're mostly responsible for putting the Maine veto on the bill."
Brown is confident that if people hear his message, they will believe it. "People already believe it," he says, "but the issue is so deep-seated that they've never had to create an argument for it. Now we have to give people the language to do that."
Go NOM!
NOM and other similar pro-family groups are doing a wonderful job educating the public about this whole "homosexual marriage" business.
One of the strongest (if bogus) arguments perpetuated by the radical homosexual activists is that "homosexual marriage" would not affect heterosexual families. That is NOT true.
Legalizing "homosexual marriage" would mean public acceptance of homosexuality as a lifestyle no different than heterosexuality. That would give radical homosexuals the right to teach OUR children that the two lifestyles are equivalent, something a great majority of people do not want.
Indeed, some homosexual rights advocates openly state that being able to teach children in public schools about the "virtues" of homosexuality is the the ultimate goal of the "homosexual marriage" battle.
This battle affects all of us, particularly our children and future generations. Please continue to support NOM in its fight for marriage and families!
MarkD, when you refer to "same-sex marriage" how do you distinguish it from the rest of the nonmarriage category of living arrangements and types of relationships?
Are you with Charlse who says the distinguishing feature is sodomy? Why?
* * *
David it is good of you to acknowledge that "most gays and lesbians have no children and no desire to have children". About 97% of the adult homosexual population does not reside in same-sex households with children. Your point is backedup by the available statistical evidence.
Your point about "most" adult homosexual people also validates the legitimate concern regarding proportionality. That is also applicable to the evidence that about 90% of the adult homosexual population does not reside in same-sex households (a Census category that is far broader than 'same-sex marriage'). Participation rates are relevant to the discussion.
* * *
The threat is not in what this or that particular person does, nor in the private living arrangement or relationship of this or that homosexual twosome.
The direct threat to the social institution of marriage, and thus to society, is in merging nonmarriage with marriage.
The marriage law recognizes the social institution. SSM argumentation disparages the core meaning of that social institution. Thus a merger would require government to suppress the distinctive features of marriage. SSM argumentation goes further and demands a cultural change such that the core of marriage be regarded as bigoted. The special reason for the special status of marriage -- in our laws, traditions, and customs -- would be abolished in favor of the arbitrariness of the SSM-merger necessitates. This would flatten marriage; and it would elevate gay identity politics as a trump card in the law and social policy -- and even in our constitutional jurisprudence.
Identity politics -- such as the racialist kind -- has proven to be a reliable source of hatred, injustice, repression, and even violence. The vesion of identity politics that is gaycentric -- the version that is the driving force of the SSM campaign -- is not about adult homosexuals being socially expected to participate in SSM themselves; no, the driving force is the assertion of supremacy over the law, over the culture, over freedom of conscience -- in the name of a peculair sectarianism. Gay identity politics may define SSM but it would be unjust to press any kind of identity politics into the marriage law. The SSM campaign, by its argumentation, seeks to abuse the preferential status of marriage for a nonmarriage purpose: to innoculate gay identity politics from dissent and opposition.
All existing marriages would be relocated into this new Government-created institution -- this merger of nonmarriage with marriage. And all future husband-wife unions would be treated as if they lacked either husbands or wives.
SSM argumentation highlights a tiny subset of the broader nonmarriage category. This is a red flag. You should ask yourself why some nonmarriage arrangements are to be treated differently than others. Why the eligility of this tiny subset should be based on a sexual basis that is not a legal requirement. Why the discrimination? If it is justified by the core meaning of SSM, then, okay, you need to plainly state that core meaning. If it is justified because the core of SSM is gay identity politics, then, you concede a very big point that discredits the rest of your commentary above.
Jimmy, you referred to "gay brothers and sisters" so it appears that your emphasis is on "gayness".
Gayness is not the basis for ineligibility to marry. And if your emphasis on gayness also assumes an corresponding emphasis on "straightness", as I expect you meant in your previous remarks, then you will happy to know that straightness is not the basis for eligibility to marry.
Two straight men may not marry because marriage is two-sexed, not one-sexed. A gay man and a lesbian may marry because marriage integrates the sexes. The man-woman criterion is not a test for sexual orientation otherwise the first scenario -- two straight men -- would be discrimination against hetersexual persons.
So you must mean something else. Perhaps you think that the same-sex category is definitively homosexual? It is not. That category is far broader and does include heterosexual people and arrangements that are not definitively sexualized. That is so also of the even broader category of nonmarriage. There are two-sexed arrangements that are ineligible to marry -- regardless of sexual orientation.
Society may justly discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage. How? Well the lines of eligibility are drawn around the core meaning of the thing being recognized: the social institution of marriage is foundation; it provides for sex integration and it provides for responsible procreation; this core gives the institution its coherency. It is a combination of these essentials, these universal features, and its significance is greater than the sum of its parts. Attack the coherency, and you'd attack the insitution's sustainability. For one thing, you'd attack the special reason for the special status of the institution. And that is no small thing.
The same could be said of SSM. Has it got essentials -- universal features? What are they and what is the societal significance of that? Does this make SSM special? Does it have a special reason that justifies a special status among the rest of the nonmarriage category? Why do you think that society ought to discriminate between SSM and non-SSM? Surely you won't say it is due to gayness, for you have just said that such a criterion is invalid. Right?
What is the rational basis for singling out SSM from among the nonmarriage category?
Marriage is not SSM. You might assert that SSM is marriage but that is just your axiomatic statement. You need to back it up with something more than a leap of faith on your part. Otherwise, you'd be guilty of precisely what you have accused others of here.
* * *
And, Jimmy, I am proud to say that I defend the core meaning of marriage. I am also proud to say that I support protecton equality among the nonmarital category where families experience certain vulnerabilities. I don't single-out gayness for special treatment. Neither does the marriage law. And I am proud to stand against the assertion of supremacy via identity politics -- of all kinds -- because I agree with the repudiation of that very thing which was confirmed when the anti-miscegenation system was dismantled. I am proud to stand against the revival of identity politics that the SSM campaign presses into all discussions of marriage and into all discussions of the judicial role in our form of self-governance.
So, call me proud. Thanks.
"Charles has just conceded in his viewpoint that the licensing of SSM 'constitutes an official endorsement of sodomy' ".
You deliberately ignored the hypothetical "If" which preceded my comment.
I said,"IF permitting gays to marry constitutes an official endorsent of sodomy,then permitting the divorced to remarry is an endorsement of adultery'.
I was simply following the logic of those who oppose same sex marriage on religious grounds.
The point is, Christians who oppose same sex marriage on biblical grounds should be morally consistent.
If they want to be taken seriously,then they should stop condoning one sin while condemning another.
I wouldn't agree with them,because I think the primary purpose of government is to protect individual rights and liberties,not to protect definitions of terms like "marriage" in the minds of religious traditionalists by restricting individual rights and liberties.
Until religious conservatives start a movement to outlaw divorce and remarriage for those who have had their marriages dissolved for reasons other than those permitted by the Bible,then I will continue pointing out their hypocrisy.
If my support of legal gay marriage means I endorse homosexuality,then your support of legal divorce means that you endorse adultery.
David, interesting that you would advocate silencing free speech under the guise of discrimination. Isn't that one of the concerns here? Running into society screaming hate! hate! and pointing fingers isn't a very good way to engage in dialogue.
I do find it fascinating to hear you espouse the very ideas for silencing the opposition that many gay activists have claimed would never be.
Brando, good point. So...what's with all the trying to stifle debate by insinuating that one entire side of the argument is simply hateful and thus irrelevant? Sounds like a chicken dodge to me. I was just listening to the Glenn Beck http://usaguns.net/patriots/beckmonday.html and it's fascinating that the points he brings up about no one questioning what's going on in Washington is mirrored in this discussion. He asks:
Am I hateful if I ask:
Can we survive this debt? If so, how?
What is the rush on healthcare? Cap and trade?
Who is writing these bills?
Will Washington READ and Understand these bills?
Why is it grassroots if you're for it and astroturfing if you're against it?
He's right. There were members of congress just today who insinuated that these types of questions being asked about public policy were based in hate, bigotry and racism. Questioning your government is not only important, but in a democratic republic, it is required!
The choice to form a one-sexed arrangement (sexualized or not) is a liberty exercised, not a right denied by the marriage law.
* * *
Charles you can complain about "fundamentalists" and complain about "conservatives" and complain about "Christians" -- all of whom you have conflated into a monolithic block -- but you still have not provided an apt analogy.
The sexual basis for adultery provides grounds for dissolution of a marriage. It is not definitive of marriage. Adultery is not a legal requirement for a license to marry.
You have presented sodomy as definitive of same-sex union and thus a license for SSM would be an endorsement of sodomy. Or perhaps in your view the right to sodomy creates a right to a government license for sodomy, or somesuch.
You have not shown that sodomy has a societal significance that merits a license, much less a special status, much less again a special status on par with marital status.
Drop the supposed hypothetical. Is the license you demand for SSM a societal endorsement of sodomy?
If you really want a theological discussion, rather than a discussion of the actual disagreement on the marriage issue, then, perhaps you can visit a "fundamentalist" church.
If you really want a philosophic discussion instead, then, perhaps you can visit a conservative discussion group.
If you really want a Christian discussion instead, then, there are such forums available.
Meanwhile, your "if" is not an excuse your your lack of an apt analogy.
But it does illustrate that even by your own words you view the SSM campaign as promoting a peculiar sectarianism rather than pluralism.
If you are serious about the importance of sodomy for SSM, then, please cite the jurisdiction where sodomy is mandatory for those who show-up for a license to SSM; where the government revokes SSM status from those who do not engage in sodomy.
I doubt you will find such a legal requirement anyplace that SSM has been imposed.
So your emphasis on sodomy does not distinguish SSM from the rest of the nonmarriage category. SSM is nonmarriage.
Marriage is not SSM.
Your avowed lack of concern for marriage puts a stake through the heart of your own complaint about those who disagree with you on sodomy, adultery, or whatever else has prompted you to comment here.
Typo correction: "The sexual basis for adultery provides grounds for dissolution of a marriage. Adultery is not definitive of marriage. Adultery is not a legal requirement for a license to marry."
I'll add that you, Charles, seem to think that sodomy does the opposite for SSM. It defines SSM.
Contrary to the pose that Charles has struck here, he insists that he can instruct conservatives on conservatism, Christians and Christianity, and "fundamentalists" on fundamentalism. He has not displayed competency either of these so if he seeks to press a different view -- whether it be a theological assertion or a philosophic assertion, then, his purpose is to impose a double-standard.
If, as an SSMer, he believes that SSM is defined by sodomy, as his remarks strongly imply, then, he should be consistent in his argumentation. Apparently he values consistency, within his own viewpoint, as an example to others.
Charles, your emphasis has been on sodomy. Is that definitive of SSM, in your view? If it is not, then, say what is definitive of SSM so that we can assess your own consistency. You insist on a right to what? -- sodomy -- or SSM?
If you cannot state what SSM actually is -- what its core meaning actually is for society -- then your claim of a "right" to a license for what you cannot define is itself an example of hypocrisy.
Actually,the opponents of same sex marriage are the ones who claim that sodomy is definitive of SSM,not the other way around.
That is why they oppose it.
Those who support marrige equality are simply endorsing the 14th amendment.
Gays don't seek the right to marry based on thier sexual orientation or behavior,but on virtue of the fact that they are citizens of the United States,and as such,should be granted all the protections of the 14th amendment.
The opponents of same sex marriage want to deny gays this right because they believe the 'core' of same sex marriage is sodomy,and believe that permitting gays to marry would constitute an official endorsement of a behavior that the Bible condemns as immoral.
Furthermore,one need not define the 'core meaning' of marriage to society to justify legalizing marriage between two people of the same sex-- or the opposite sex,for that matter.
"Society" is a mere figure of speech denoting a collection of individuals,so what opponents of SSM are demanding in essence is that two consenting adults must first seek the permission of others(society) before they can legally claim the title "marriage".
This argument is collectivist to the core.
If marriage is not a right,but a priviledge the majority extends to whomever it wants through public ballot(as NOM and other opponents of marriage equality advocate),then there is reason one can name to oppose a majority which seeks to deny ANYONE the right to marry.
Whatsmore,if this issue can be decided by public ballot,why not other issues as well?
Lets decide the health care issue by public ballot.
Who cares if nationalizing health care would adversely affect business or personal choice and privacy.
The public should have the ultimate say in such matters,not the individual.
You think you have a right to own a gun? Those who believe that rights should be decided by a numerical majority would say it all depends on popular will.
So if the majority of the voters decide to put severe restrictions on gun ownership, or even repeal the second amendment altogether,then so be it.
Indeed,considering the trend toward statism it wouldn't suprise me if in the near future someone proposes a measure letting the majority decide how many children a couple may have.
You wouldn't agree?
Too bad.
Who are you to question the Will of the People?
Charles can you distinguish marriage from nonmarriage?
These are two distinct categories that your own comments recognize. So please state the essential(s) or the universal feature(s) of marriage.
Now, do the same for whatever SSM is.
Clearly when you refer to SSM you are referring to something you think you can identify. Please do so.
* * *
If a license is issued by the governing authorities on behalf of society, then, society is involved.
You demand that government be involved but that society bug out of it.
That contradiction is rather blatant. Especially since marriage is a foundational social institution of civil society. Government neither creates nor owns civil society. It is the other way around.
The governing authorities are delegated the role of regulating the paramenters of marriage; for instance, the eligibility lines are drawn around what marriage is, at its core, and this sustains both the core and the fairness of the boundaries.
No core, no boundaries. No core meaning, no societal significance. No societal significance, no special reason for special status. No special status, no justification for a license.
So the question really is: what is the special reason for a special status for SSM? Your remarks strongly relied on sodomy. Maybe you meant something else.
Now, marriage does have a core meaning. It is a social institution. And social institution's have meaning -- this gives them coherency.
None of this is "statist" but if you choose to object to the state being involved, on behalf of society, then, perhaps your real underlying objection is that a license for marriage is issued in the first place.
Please confirm or clarify. Thanks.
Charles, the SSM campaign emphasizes sexual orientation and gay identity politics. The legal briefs do the same thing.
You complain that the defenders of marriage respond to the emphasis of the protagonists.
The marriage law does not include sexual orientation for ineligibility nor for eligibility. That is a fact.
You are not alone among SSMers who runaway from stating the core meaning of SSM. The occassional SSMer will say that the core meaning is gay identity politics. It is evident that their assertion of equivalency depends on rendering marriage as societally meaningless as SSM. And the demand for a merger of SSM marriage, with this device, is an assertion, not of equality nor of equivalence, but of superemacy via identity politics.
Now, people who defend marriage come from across the political and ideological spectrum, however, identity politics tends to arise from a totalitarian impulse that sees Government as the solution for just about everything under the sun.
As I said, Government does not create and own civil society nor does it create and own civil society's foundational social institutions. But SSM argumentation assumes the contrary. Read the pro-SSM court opinions.
If that is not statist, then, perhaps you can explain what the word means to you.
Who am I to question the will of the People?
Questions are asked, Charles, but you seem reluctant to answer.
If your will was followed, what would the license to SSM actually license? What is SSM -- the essentials by which it can be distinguished from the rest of the nonmarriage category?
If your will is that there is no such distinction, then, you concede the major point I made at the top.
And since a chief complaint of the SSM campaign is that the marriage law is arbitrary, it does you no good at all to insist that your arbitrary will over-ride that of the People.
Who are you to over-ride the governed?
“So please state the essential(s) or the universal feature(s) of marriage.”
There are no essential or universal features of marriage, other than the parties who mutually agree to marry enjoy specific rights and obligations granted by the government. That’s about as universal as it gets. It’s not a religious phenomenon, because atheists are welcome to marry and no people of faith care to change that, the biblical “lifetime” commitment is now optional, and men no longer own their wives.
It’s not about gender, as opposite-sex and same-sex marriages are perfectly legal, though not everywhere.
It’s not about reproduction, since no one need be married in order to have children, and no married couple are obligated to have children.
It’s not about parenting, since anyone is free to have a child in this country, regardless of sexuality, and anyone is free to pair up and live with anyone else, creating unlimited same-sex parenting situations.
“If a license is issued by the governing authorities on behalf of society, then, society is involved.”
Why don’t we vote on who gets a drivers license, or a fishing license?
“what is the special reason for a special status for SSM?”
There is no special status. The status of SSM is the same as the status of OSM.
And, contrary to your previous comment, Charles, we defend marriage for what marriage actually is.
SSM campaign promotes SSM for what SSM is not and flees from promoting what SSM actually is.
Marriage is not SSM. SSMers reject the core meaning of marriage and so they implicitly concede this decisive point. But they spend a lot of time insisting on the reverse -- that SSM is marriage.
That is, SSM is marriage without its core meaning. This explains their attack on that core and their disparagement of the societal significance of the meaning of marriage.
If SSM does not fit marriage, then, marriage must be gutted to fit SSM.
This is an abuse of marriage for a nonmarriage purpose. It is statist in that they demand that the big hairy hand of Government be moved to suppress as bigoted the core meaning of a foundational social institution.
No Government has any business doing that. And anyone who demands that the State takeover and control a foundational social institution must be prepared for takeovers in other areas as well.
So, Charles, your comments seem to come from a pose that ought to discourage Government intrusions of this sort. Instead you advocate this intrusion. Maybe SSM is a special case, in your personal view, and if so the onus is on you to provide the special reason.
The contradictions are piling up.
Kevin concedes:
"There is no special status. The status of SSM is the same as the status of OSM."
Marital status is a special status. So you are wrong on this point.
However, if there is no special reason for a special status for SSM, then, a merger of SSM with marriage would flatten marital status.
So on that point you concede very much.
Kevin said: "parties who mutually agree to marry enjoy specific rights and obligations granted by the government".
And yet not all man-woman combinations who would mutually agree are eligibile to marry.
That you reduce marriage down to adult consent is thus contradicted by our laws and by the anthropological and historical record.
Marriage is a social institution. It has features which are universal; and it has features that are variable. Pointing to the variables does not negate the universals.
* * *
SSM is not about same-sex sexual attraction and romance -- contrary to the Iowa pro-SSM court opininion -- "since no one need be [SSM'd] in order to have same-sex sexual attracton and romance, and no one who SSMs is] obligated to [engage in same-sex sexual behavior].
Kevin, you just debunked the court opinion you like to cite so much. Thanks, again.
* * *
Kevin said: "Why don’t we vote on who gets a drivers license, or a fishing license?"
Well, a license to drive is subject to what distinguish driving from other stuff. Likewise fishing.
Meanwhile, a license to marry signifies entering the social institution that the license recognizes as marriage. And marriage has a core meaning that distinguishes it from other stuff.
"And contrary to your previous statement Charles,we defend marriage for what marriage actually is"
It is how you are defending your defintion of marriage which concerns those of us who believe that the primary purpose of government is to uphold and protect individual liberties and rights,not defintions of words like "marriage" in the minds of traditionalists by restricting individual liberties and rights.
Is traditional marriage so fragile an institution that it needs the special protection of government?
Contrary to what you believe,legalizing gay marriage in no way invalidates traditional marriage.
I have yet to hear or read just one compelling reason why gays should be denied the right to legally use the term "marriage" to define thier domestic relationships.
Would you provide just one factual example of how that invalidates or "flattens" traditional or heterosexual marriage?
All the government does is issue a license to marry,but it leaves it up to each couple to define for themselves what constitues the "core" meaning of that relationship.
I see no reason why the government should recognize one but not the other.
Kevin, where direct votes have been held on marriage measures, these affirmed marriage.
The vote was on marriage. It was not a vote on SSM -- which you have failed to distinguish from nonmarriage anyway.
Meanwhile, you say that SSM is so special that it should not be subject to a vote.
But you have failed to plainly state the special reason that society ought to issue a license for SSM.
You can't say that SSM is marriage without distinguishing marriage from nonmarriage. You can't expect society to issue a license to SSM if you can't distinguish SSM from the rest of the nonmarriage category.
And it is an unserious response that society should not be involved just because adults consent to something.
Adults can consent to form many kinds of personal or private arrangements or relationships without demanding a license to do so. Why is SSM so special, in your view?
Thusfar you have supplied nothing that would merit a status that would make SSM special among the nonmarriage category.
If you deny that SSM is special, then, you concede a great deal. Indeed, you kick the teeth out of a societal interst in issuing a license for it.
"Government does not create and own civil society nor does it create and own civil society's own foundational social institutions"
I agree,but you refuse to take it a step further.
Government doesn't own the institution of marriage and in a very real sense,neither does society.
The ONLY marriage which belings to you is your own.
Charles said:
"primary purpose of government is to uphold and protect individual liberties and rights"
This is first and foremost about marriage. Using the rhetoric of civil rights does not transform nonmarriage into marriage.
The choice to form a nonmarital arrangement is a liberty exercised and not a right denied. Even when it comes to the government, this is not about restricting liberty. It is still about the special place of marriage in society.
Marriage law necessarily distinguishes marriage from nonmarriage and eligibility from ineligibility. This is based on what marriage actually is.
This is not merely about a "definition in the minds of traditionalists" only. The SSM campaign would impose this merger on all of society. That is the point of the SSM campaign, afterall.
The SSMers have a differrent definition in their minds. They want Government to protect that definition.
The SSM-merger would be the replacement of marriage recognition with recognition of some other thing. Their definition is so vague as to be meaningless. It does not distinguish SSM from the rest of the nonmarriage category.
If the SSM campaign is not first and foremost about SSM, then, it is about nothing.
The lack of a core meaning for SSM, as repeatedly conceded by SSMers, makes their fight about nothing.
What is at stake is the pressing of identity politics into marriage, marriage law, and constitutional jurisprudence. Gay identity politics is a threat to liberty -- of everyone and not just those who defend marriage.
You might think that this won't touch you -- just those meanies who disagree with the SSM-merger -- but you would be mistaken. The assertion of supremacy via identity politics is not the assertion of liberty and freedom from Government intrusion.
Charles, people enter the social institution. It is not something that each person creates out of whole cloth.
Kevin said:
"I have yet to hear or read just one compelling reason why gays should be denied the right to legally use the term “marriage” to define thier domestic relationships."
That right is not denied. We are not demanding that Government curtail freedom of speach.
You used the word, define, but have you heard or read a definition of SSM that distinguishes it from nonmarriage?
SSMers don't seem ready to define SSM except in the most vague terms which their own rules of argumentation would destroy.
So if we take SSM argumentation seriously, and look for some rational basis for marital status under the SSM-merger, there is nothing there.
Why should society have a thing called marriage if it signifies nothing?
Why should society expect Government to license and regulate nothing?
Oops, that quote was from Charles' comment. Sorry about that Kevin. Sorry about that Charles.
Charles said:
"I see no reason why the government should recognize one but not the other."
When each thing is recognized for what it actually is, then, we can proceed.
Marriage is ....?
SSM is ....?
For each, these essentials would distinguish from nonmarriage. That is how government would "recognize" what it regards.
If there is nothing universal about SSM; and thus it is not distinguishable from nonmarriage, then, there is good reason right there not to merge it with marriage.
"This is first and foremost about
marriage."
It is not about the defintion of marriage only,but about who should have the right to marry.
Again,I must say that if marriage is not a right, but a priviledge society bestows on people through means of a public vote(which is exactly what the opponents of marriage equality seek to do),then why shouldn't we vote on interracial marriage as well?
There are still millions of people in this country who object to people of different races getting married.
Their arguments for opposing interacial marriage are quite similar to the arguments of those who oppose same sex marriage.
Would you object if a majority voters in a particular state decided to outlaw marriage between blacks and whites?
Why not?
What possible grounds would you have to object to such a law if you think that the public should have the ultimate say in such matters?
You couldn't object on the grounds that one has the right to marry a person of a different race,because according to your argument, there is no right to marry,but only a priviledge to marry,and this priviledge may be permitted or denied to individuals by whatever group happens to enjoy the status of majority.
Charles, first let's keep this discussion civil. I appreciate your effort in that regard. Thank you.
* * *
You said: "It is not about the defintion of marriage only, but about who should have the right to marry."
There is no such right without marriage being distinguished from nonmarriage.
The license is pinned to something. The social institution has a core meaning that differentiates it from other stuff; and the license signifies the special status that society accords that core meaning.
You cannot possibly claim a right to nothing, surely. Marriage is something. And it is not merely the basket of goodies the government might supply. The content of that basket might be reduced or enlarged, but marriage could not be recognized if it was not recognizable as different from nonmarriage. The basket of goodies is derived from the special reason for special status of the social institution. People enter the social institution and do not invent it one-person-at-a-time. The core of marraige is what merits special treatment. But marriage is not derived from gifts from the government.
Sometimes I wonder how an SSMer can demand that society issue a license for something and at the same demand that society bug out of that something.
This is a pretty basic point about which your comments thus far have not really grappled.
* * *
You asked: "Would you object if a majority voters in a particular state decided to outlaw marriage between blacks and whites?"
Strictly speaking, no, but I would disagree with such a law for philosophic and religous reasons. I would vote against it; I would vote against politicians who supported it; I would use whatever influence I could muster to revoke it.
In my view, it would be a matter of simple justice -- not least of which is procreative justice as per the core meaning of marriage. And, in terms of governance, such a thing would be an assertion of the supremacy of identity politics. That's a very reliable source of injustice -- hatred, violence, corruption, and so forth. It goes beyond marriage but it would also do harm to the social institution itself.
Government ought to first seek to do no harm -- especially to the foundations of civil society. Government is instituted for the governed, and we are governed by fellow citizens rather than ruled by a State who'd reduce us to subjects.
Then ther are the stubborn facts. There is one human race and its nature is two-sexed. Human procreation is, in its essence, opposite-sexed. And the nature of, the essence of, human community is both-sexed.
Marriage arises from these three facts of humankind. No State can rewrite these three facts; no just society can disregard these this trio of directly related facts of humankind.
To the extent that sexual attraction plays a part, marriage is a coercive force in society: it is mildly coercive, mind, but it does influence people to channel opposite-sex sexual attraction into at least two societally significant activities -- each of which take a lifetime to fully actualize: integration of the sexes and responsible procreation.
So marriage is not about any and all sexual activities; it is not about any and all sexual proclivities; and it is not about any and all means and manners of procreation. The consent to marry entails all that marriage is; it cannot exclude its core meaning.
If you reject the anthropological fact that marriage is a universal social institution -- across history, geography, cultures, religious/irreligious belief systems, and on and on -- and that it indeed includees certain features that have remained despite (or perhaps even because of) many variable features, then, I guess we are not really discussing marriage qua marriage.
We are discussing your rather novel concept of a license for something that the government is required to issue due to some basis that is neither of societal significance nor related to what marriage is and is not.
I still await your plainly stated description of the essentials of what makes SSM, SSM. And what makes marriage, marriage. Following that we can discuss comparisons. But without that, we are talking past each other.
* * *
And I've said this before in other discussions on this blogsite and elsewhere in the blogosphere, the racial analogy is a bust.
Both marriage defenders and SSMers recognize that sex differentiation as an undisputed fact. What matters is what society does with that fact.
Meanwhile, I would challenge you to provide the objective basis for subdividing people into different subspecies of humankind. Would you rely on the criteria of the racialist identity politics which was entrenched in the anti-miscegenation system?
No, nor would I.
But opponents and proponents of the anti-miscegenation system agreed on the societal significance of marriage and, necessarily, its core meaning.
The racialist abused marriage for a nonmarriage purpose and made identity politics a trump card. Absurdly, they brought selective sex-segregation (via the racialist identity filter) under the auspices of the social institution that unites the sexes; they affronted responsible procreation by making it impossible for the mom-dad duo to legitimize their children. They outlawed marriage as criminal where marriage was recognized for the sake of the supremacy of racialist identity.
The anti-miscegenist system -- the denial of the mixing of genes of supposedly different subspecies of humankind -- looked to the past via ancestory and to the future via progeny and understood that procreation was at the core of marriage. And they exploited that for a nonmarriage and, indeed, anti-marriage purpose. Sex differentiation mattered even to the racialists who sought to segregate the sexes based on skin color or bumps on the head.
SSMers seek to merge sex-segregative arrangements with sex-integrative unions of husband and wife; they seek to treat all unions of husband and wife as if they lacked either husbands or wives. Their concept of SSM is so vague as to be meaningless, yet they would pour into that hollow shell the assertion of supremacy (over marriage, marriage law, and constitutional jurisprudence) a version of identity politics that is gaycentric.
SSM has no public sexual aspect that comes close to the societal significance of sex integration and responsible procreation. SSM argumentation's own rules destroy its own emphasis on sexual orientation. There is no legal requirement for same-sex sexual attraction for those who show-up for a license to SSM. Such attraction can occur outside of SSM. And so forth.
But marriage entails the marital presumption of paternity. The racialist identity filter disparaged this; as does the gay identity filter used in SSM argumentation. Yet this legal and vigorously enforced presumption of marriage provides the public and the sexual aspect of the conjugal type of relationship. Likewise, the man-woman criterion of marriage provides for sex-integration.
Without these legal requirements -- the stuff that people consent to when they say, I do, well, what is SSM?
SSMers may sincerely believe that their version of identity politics is much more benign than that of the racialists whose anti-miscegenation system corrupted far more than marriage -- for a time. However, it is no less arbitrary and no less just when pressed into marriage law and into constitutional jurisprudence.
In sum: the racialist analogy is profoundly flawed when used in aid of SSM argumentation, but it is much more apt when comparing the sex-segregation and the affront to responsible procreation that is at the heart of both anti-miscegenation laws and SSM laws. Indeed, they also have in common the attempt to entrench a cultural and political change via government policy and the law. The innoculation of a certain kind of identity politics is given greater brutal strength, or power, when it leverages the foundational social institution of marriage.
But that begins with making marriage mean less and less. And then filling the void with a nonmarriage purpose.
Typo correction: "However, it is no less arbitrary and no less unjust when pressed into marriage law and into constitutional jurisprudence."
Charles said:
"according to your argument, there is no right to marry, but only a priviledge to marry,and this priviledge may be permitted or denied to individuals by whatever group happens to enjoy the status of majority."
I missed that.
That is not my argument. You may have mistaken me for someone else.
It may surprise you that the margin of victory for the CA marriage amendment was supplied by athiest voters; and that half of the margin was delivered by homosexual voters.
If by "majority" you meant to include these voters, your political meaning is unclear.
If you meant that there is a straight majority versus a gay minority, then, again, your meaning in that remark is unclear.
Is it your underlying thought that minority-rule is superior to majority-rule? I'd hope not.
Surely you would have applauded a No victory as exemplary of winning a fair contest. You'd expect the will of the majority to stick in that case, right?
Also, you probably have no objection to majorities per se since you have referred to the prospect of the US Supreme Court's justices voting in favor of the SSM-merger. Surely you would object if a minority of votes on the court decided the matter.
And, would you object to an abuse of judicial review, even if it produced a pro-SSM outcome? I would object if an abuse of that sort produced an outcome I favored. A justice is not empowered to press his social policy preferences into the law -- into the constitution -- on any issue.
Indeed, the various anti-miscegenation cases (in the CA high court and the US Supreme Court) stand as repudiations of the reliance on identity politics to manipulate the marriage laws.
No, I don't think for you the majority idea is somehow the problem.
Rather it is the very idea that society recognizes marriage and regulates its paramenters via the normal governing process within our republican form of government.
When an individual sitting on a high court makes an error, must society be resigned to the imposition of his error for all-time? Is there to be no check and balance? Are we to be ruled by a super-legislator of fellow citizens who are supposed to serve society via the judicial role?
Look, if SSMers made strong arguments based on the actual disagreement over marriage, then, I would applaude and welcome the maturity that such an approach would merit.
However, the complaint of SSMers amounts to nothing more than that SSM does not fit marriage and so marriage must be made to fit SSM. And even at that, there is no core meaning of SSM other than identity politics.
That is just not good enough. However, SSMers keep forecasting that in the near-future the majority will agree with them and, thus, validate the SSM-merger. They often point to opinon polls that suggest that they already have majorities among certain segments of public opinion. So the legitimacy of the majority is not something that SSMers would reject -- if the majority favors the SSM merger.
I also saw this happen in Massachusetts when the SSM campaign sought (and won) the legislative denial of a direct vote on the issue. This, the SSMers announced, gave democratic legitimacy to an undemocratically achieved outcome.
That revealed the means to the end is to thwart the majority and to innoculate gay identity politics against dissent and opposition; the goal being to entrench SSM and its peculiar sectarianism until a new majority in favor can be manufactured through indoctrination.
It should raise a red flag for all whose philosopical bent is toward libertarianism: When SSMers cannot plainly state the essentials of SSM and cannot argue for the societal significance of those essentials, then, the demand for a license is not a plea for a right to be recognized but rather a special status to be created based on something other than the claimed equivalence to marriage.
That ought to mean that SSMers are requesting, as a right, a privilege for something that lacks sufficient merit. Hence the first resort to namecalling and the continuous rejection of marriage itself. They mistakenly see marriage as a special status for straight identity; and so, mislead by that error, they demand special status for gay identity.
The special status of marriage is for a special reason. SSMers can offer no legitimate special reason for special status.
Indeed, the low participation rates in SSM (under whatever guise, including the broadest category of same-sex householding) reinforce this observation. The vast majority of the adult homosexual population does not practice what the SSM campaign preaches.
Does THAT majority count for nothing?
Also, Charles, I would clarify that the governing authority may legitimately drawn lines for eligibility, and ineligibility, around the core of the thing being recognized.
That applies to other issues as well. It certainly is a clear them in my defence of marriage here.
Not all consenting adults are eligibile to marry. The rules might be different for nonmarriage, but that is not the issue here.
I never argued that marriage be made to fit advocates of SSM anymore than I think marriage should be made to fit advocates of OSM.
As long as the governement is involved,I see no reason why it cannot accomodate both froms of marriage.
Personally,I believe that government should extricate itself from the institution of marriage altogether,and issue only licenses for civil or domestic partnerships.
Let private organizations like churches and synogogues decide for themselves whether to santify same sex unions as marriages.
Until that happens,I think marriage should be "made to fit" both same sex marriage and traditional marriage.
"Is your underlying thought that minority rule superior to majority rule?"
No.
My underlying thought is that there are certain things which shouldn't be decided by vote,period.
My underlying thought is that my life belongs to me and your life belongs to you.Why must either of us seek the permission of the government or society to sign a legal contract?
I think the right to marry is a secondary right which is subsumed under the fundamental natural right to pursue happiness.
You claim that marriage is first and foremost a social institiution which should be regulated by government.I disagree.I think marriage is first and foremost a private instituition which shouldn't be regulated by government,and has societal or social signifigance only for the families and friends of the two people who get married.
Charles, you argue for a merger of SSM and marriage. So you do argue that marriage be made to fit SSM.
I see you tried to switch what I said. I referred to SSM but you switched to supports of SSM. I referred to marriage and you switched to supporters of OSM. Please do not make such switches because you misse the meaning of what was actually said.
SSM is not a form of marriage.
You have not shown what makes marriage, marriage. You have not shown what makes SSM, SSM. You have not distinguished either from nonmarriage.
Until you can do these things, Charles, you are not making an argument but merely asserting your fear of being anything but indiscriminate.
* * *
As I had anticipated in a prevous comment in another discussion, you prefer disestablishment of marriage.
But not really. You would lump it into a nonmarriage category that you have labelled "civil or domestic partnerships".
You introduced the idea here. Now, please state the essentials of "civil or domestic partnerships" such that this can be distinguished from the rest of the types of relationships and living arrangements.
I anticipate you will again point at the license issued by government, on behalf of society, rather than at what this new thing actually is. It probably is just SSM with a different name. And that is nonmarriage. Which would be your concession that in our exchanges I have been correct on this point.
Charles said:
"there are certain things which shouldn’t be decided by vote"
State constitutions are ratified by ballot votes. Amendments, too. The content of the highest law in the land is decided by vote.
Marriage laws are legislated by elected representatives. Votes matter there too. Statutes are revised, repealed, enacted -- decided by vote. And in most states the governed can have a direct say as well. Such votes are decisive.
Interpretation of statutes and constitutions is also decided by votes. Justices form opinions and, if they refrain from abusing judicial review, the appeals process leads to a vote on the highest court. That is how interpretation is decided.
You have repeatedly pointed at the 14th Amendment which was enacted by vote. It has been interpreted by vote. Majorities decide. And, even though the process may be arduous, the governed can vote -- one way or another -- and that can be decisive, too.
I dunno. You seem to object to the man-woman criterion of marriage as if it is a purely religious factor. It is not. You suggest marginalizing marriage but you have yet to give a reason that society should be so hostile to this foundational social insitution. The 14th does not supply the reason. It is up to you to supply it. And somewhere, somehow, a vote will decide the matter.
* * *
Charles said:
"Why must either of us seek the permission of the government or society to sign a legal contract?"
Well, as you must be aware, some contracts are criminal and some are simply unlawful. But if you want to sign a contract that is neither of these things, okay, fine. Do it. As you said, you do not need permission from government.
Such contracts can be entered into today.
Marriage, however, is not like that. It is first and foremost a social institution. You might not like that fact, but you do not get to choose your own facts.
The license, and the contract, to marry has meaning -- it has societal signficance -- but in your viewpoint this is not important to the sort of contract you would rather be available.
It seems to me that marriage is a non-issue for your viewpoint. You can form agreements today -- and remain in the nonmarriage category -- withough touching the marriage law.
Now that I read your second comment above, it is clear that you do seek the disestablishment of marriage.
You had asked me earlier what it means to flatten marriage. Now you have your answer. Merging marriage with nonmarriage -- indeed seeking a cultural change that would deinstitutionalize marriage and to replace it with some purely private agreement -- that would flatten marital status.
It is odd that you would seek to do that given your disinterest in the social institution. And given your preference for a type of nonmarital contract that is already available.
Maybe, as I had suggested in a previously discussion, you do not believe that marriage has societal significance such that it possesses a specia reason for its special status. I say, maybe, but your recent comments strongly imply -- Yes, absolultely, there is no special reason for a special status.
Please confirm, correct, or clarify. Thanks.
Contrary to what you may think,we do not live in a pure democracy regardless of how much you desire that the Voice of the People be the ultimate authority on all matters.
In a pure democracy,the majority can do anything it wants,with no legal or ethical restrictions.
We all know what unlimited majority rule did to Socrates and Jesus.
I guess you think that fundamental rights like life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should also be determined by ballot.
"You are not making an argument but merely asserting your fear of being anything but indiscriminate"
By making that statement you are merely psychologizing,not making any rational argument.
And by introducing into politics the principle that rights should be decided by public vote,groups like NOM want to indiscrimnately use referendums to maginalize thier opponents.
Charles, as I have made very clear, it is just for society to discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage.
You have given no reason for your hostility toward a foundational social institution of civil society. Your stated proposal is that society blind itself to the core meaning of marriage and replace marriage recognition with recognition of some other thing.
SSM argumentation promotes such a substitution but does so on the basis of the supremacy of gay identity politics. That's the reason they give.
But you give no real reason other than a very vague notion that you will depend on the abuse of judicial review to impose a merger of nonmarriage with marriage.
Depending on Government to do that for you, and insisting that Government license what you concede is a private arrangement (in your view), all told, contradicts your pose as someone who would rather the State stay out of this business. Can you reconcile the contradictions?
* * *
Our republican constitutional form of government has checks and balances. And I support the legitimate role of the judiciary in that framework. So you have just made a false allegation against me. Review what I have actually said and you might see the error you have made on that point.
In CA and other states the idea that the people have a direct say on the content of their state constitutions is not something that NOM has introduced. It is a principle embedded in our form of governance.
You have not given a good reason to be so hostile to the principles of good governance. Read the Declaration of Independence:
"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government."
-- Thomas Jefferson.
We vote as citizens in elections. We vote as elected representatives. We vote as citizens serving in the grand jury system. We vote as citizens serving the appointed judicial role. Votes and majorities decide these matters.
You might object to the fact that we do ordain and establish our state constitutions via the authority of the governed. I don't.
Further, if you approve of a judge injecting his own personal policy preferences into court opinions, and thus abusing judicial review, then, you have abandoned your stated desire for an objective standard.
* * *
You have refused to distinguish between marriage and nonmarriage (or even between SSM and nonmarriage).
You have yet to explain through reason your hostility toward the preferential status of the social institution of marriage.
So it is fair to observe that you have displayed fear in being anything but indiscriminate.
If it is not fear, maybe it is a lack of discernment, I dunno. How do you explain your reluctance to distinguish marriage from nonmarriage? How do you explain your desire to replace marriage recognition with something else? How do you explain your hostility toward deciding matters by majority vote?
Your last remark about "indiscriminately use [of] referendums" expresses fear. As I said, NOM argues that marriage has societal significance and that it is justly due preferential status in our laws, customs, and traditions. That is not indiscriminate. And the referendums have been affirmations of marriage and its place in society.
What would a pro-SSM referendum be an affirmatin of, in your view, Charles, if not gay identity politics? You can't claim equality because you have not even established what the license is supposed to be for -- nor have you established how SSM is different, in the law, from nonmarriage. Your own proposed solution is a huge concession on these points.
So, no, my observation is not a case of "psychologizing" but of reasoning via your own stated standards and the various assertions of the SSM campaign which you have endorsed here.
You fear being anything but indiscriminate.
"We all know what unlimited majority rule did to Socrates and Jesus."
There is a huge difference between the majority vote and a mob. If the people have the ability to prevent the government from smearing family values as a bigoted civil and human rights violation at the ballot box, then good for them. And it has nothing in common with a lynch mob.
"There is a huge difference between the majority vote and a mob."
Sorry,but unlimited majority rule is a form of both anarchy and tyranny.
Unrestrained by the principle of individual rights,the power of a majority can become lawless and absolute.
While were on the subject of majority rule,I wonder what you think of the idea that government provided health insurance should be decided by national referendum?
Or abortion?
Or gun rights?
Or censorship?
Or tax exemption for churches.
The majority in California last year decided that a parent has no right to know if his under-aged daughter has obtained an abortion.Too bad for those parents who consider abortion murder,isn't it.
And here they thought that they have a "right" to know.The majority said otherwise.
"It is just for society to discriminate against marriage and nonmarriage."
It is not just for a "society" to claim that the rights and liberties of some individuals should take precedence over the rights and liberties of other individuals based on thier ability or potential to procreate.
The government doesn't take the position that one religion is better than another and therefore deserves special status.
Why should it do so with marriage?
Charles, the phrase "tyranny of the majority" only applies when you don't get your way and the outcome of a vote conflicts with your views.
Not for me, however. Whenever a vote does not go the way I want, instead of throwing a fit by squealing TYRANNY! or ANARCHY! like a spoiled child and advocating forcing my views down everyone's throats, I instead excersise my right of free speech to persuade people. I'm not king after all.
But that is not the way of gay activists who use activist judges who legislate from the bench. They also motivate legislators with campaign contributions to influence them to vote the way they want. They have to do this because they know they cannot convince most Americans that family values is in the same league as racism.
Referendums are necessary from time to time as they keep political, social, and cultural agendas from being forced upon us common folk by wealthy elites.
And for your information, every individual has the right to marry anyone of the opposite sex, regardless of their sexual preference. Special considerations for a single sexual preference is not an example of equality.
Charles, you misrepresent those with whom you disagree when you talk about "unlimited democracy".
So your rhetoric about "mob rule" is based on that falsehood.
* * *
You have just cited an example of how the lack of judicial restraint, indeed the abuse of judicial review, can serve the manufacture of a supposed "right" which actually arises from nothing more than the policy preferences of the appointed individuals sitting on the high court. The ripples are seemingly endless and the matter removed from the normal governing process.
There is probably no license that cannot be converted into a "right" if a majority vote on the high court would have it so. Or that is the thinking of those who'd rely on a subjective standard rather than the objective standard you had earlier called for.
When willfully rejecting judicial restraint, the judiciary loses its legitimacey in our form of government.
The same goes for the other two branches of governemtn; and for the People when exercising their influence -- indirect or direct.
Please attempt to reconcile your example with your insistance on an objective standard.
Please explain why you would throw away restraint when it comes to the issue of SSM.
* * *
What is marriage?
You don't or can't say.
What is the societal significance of SSM such that it merits a license issued on behalf of society?
You don't or can't say.
Indeed, you reject the very idea of societal significance for the very thing you demand that society license.
A blank check is not restraint. And no one -- and no identity group -- has a right to a blank check, Charles.
Charles, the man-woman criterion of marriage is not a purely religous criterion. Your misrepresentations are now piling-up alongside your contradictions.
I said that it is just for society to discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage.
You disagreed with that. You don't want to discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage. Your stated view is on the record.
Now you'd try to switch to a different disagreement -- one which features a strawman of your own making, I think. But there is a chance I have misread your remark.
Please restate what you meant to say about procreation.
"You reject the very idea of societal signifigance for the very thing that you demand the society liscense"
Perhaps you misunderstood me.
I think the government should stop granting marriage licenses to anyone. But given the fact the the state is involved in just about every human activity,it is unlikely that the institution of marriage will ever be privatized.Since that is the case,then to be fair,I think government should issue licenses to both gays and straights and let each couple determine for themselves what "signifigance" their marriages have,and not just to marriages which have "societal signifigance" as defined by you and organizations like NOM.
The term "societal signifigance", in my opinion, is just abstract verbiage to disquise the fact that you seek to deny to gays and lesbians what you wouldn't deny to yourself.
Collectivists can never truly understand that when two people marry,they do so for thier own sakes and not for the sake of abstract entities like "society".
It may be true that marriage benefits society,but that is not its primary purpose.
Whatever social benefits result from the marriage of two people should be considered irrelevant to this issue.
The primary funnction of marriage is to benefit the the individuals who marry.
Wes,the phrase "tyranny of the minority"only applies when you don't get your way and the outcome of a court decision or a state legislature conflicts with your views.
All the states which have legalized gay marriage have done so through either the legislatures or the courts.
While it is true that gay rights organizations have used money to influence legislators, so have the opponents of same sex marriage.
"Referendums are necessary from time to time as they keep political,social,and cultural agendas from being forced upon us common folk by wealthy elites"
Liberals say the same thing in regards to nationalized health care.Many want to put government provided health insurance to a national referendum.
The 'wealthy elite' they seek to restrain is the insurance industry.
Do you agree with them?
Charles you have confirmed my understanding of your stated view:
You said: "Whatever social benefits result from the marriage of two people should be considered irrelevant to this issue."
I take it you'd say this very thing about the license to SSM (not that you have said what SSM actually is).
I had said: "You reject the very idea of societal significance for the very thing that you demand the society license”
If society is "abstract verbiage", then, what is this license that you demand of society?
People are already enjoy the liberty to form private arrangements for personal reasons. There is a nonmarriage category of arrangements and types of relationships that are not distinguishable from SSM -- but for the license that you say should be instituted for SSM.
What would society be licensing, Charles? I bet you rely on the license to distinguish SSM from the rest of the nonmarriage category. That would be circular thinking on your part.
* * *
Neither the marriage law nor I oppose the participation in marriage of people you might describe chiefly as "gays and lesbians". No individual is barred on that basis.
Your complaint is quite different, Charles, given your emphasis on identity politics of the SSM issue -- which is exemplary of collectivist causes.
You said: "The primary function of marriage is to benefit the the individuals who marry."
By your own remarks here, you cannot attribute anything concrete to marriage when you have failed to distinguish it from nonmarriage. You are travelling in higher and higher abstractions.
Indeed, the real challenge for you to be consistent in your demand for indiscriminateness while also insisting on a license for SSM -- something you haven't made identifiable except to attempt to attach it to the hip of marriage.
Maybe society ought to license nonmarriage and make no distinctions. That's your underlying belief anyway. That way you wouldn't have to pose a theory, as you just did, that nonmarriage has the same primary function as marriage.
* * *
Regarding places that have imposed the SSM-merger, where no votes counted in the court and none in the legislature? You, Charles, are okay with majority-rule when the outcomes suites you, apparently, so the process is not your real beef.
The pro-SSM court opinions have been blatant abuses of judicial review. Pro-SSM legislators have followed the poor reasoning and, like you, relented to gay identity politics.
* * *
The analogy with health care is very weak.
Whether or not one is in favor what Congress has cooked-up under the Dem leadership, the fact is that there will votes on the matter via the democratic process. The People are now exerting influence on that process, directly and indirectly, and that is as it should be.
Marriage is not really a rights-based issue. Start with what marriage is. Proceed from there to what you think SSM. Distinguish each from nonmarriage. Then compare. The process is not that complicated, really, because marriage has a core meaning while SSM does not (except for the assertion of gay identity politics).
There are vulnerabilities experienced by nonmarital families -- especially those with children. The wide range of the nonmarriage category includes one-sexed and two-sexed scenarios as well as sexualized and nonsexual types of relationships.
If you want equality where nonmarriage arrangements are treated alike based on those vulnerabilities, terrific. Protection equality can be justified, I think.
But those vulnerabilities arise due to a societal problem: the lack of, or the diminishment of, sex integraton and responsible procreation in these circumstances.
Marriage's influence flows from its core meaning. So reaffirming it is essential to stalling and reversing the nonmarital trends that harm society -- and, yes, the individuals who are more than mere statistics.
Reaffirm the special reason for the special status accorded marriage. And provide for protective provisons based on actual vulnerabilities outside of marriage. But don't encourage the flattening of marriage -- don't press for a merger of nonmarriage with marriage. That's doesn't help society.
On the other hand, your argument is that we should bend to identity politics and target "gays and lesbians" for special treatment for no other reason than group identity. Or, better yet, according to you, drop marital status and just license anything and everything.
I say anything and everything because you have also failed to distinguish "domestic partnership" such that it merits a license from society -- as per your proposal.
* * *
I've enjoyed the exchange with you, Charles, in no small part due to your courtesy and civility.
It is remarkable to me that your view is so inconsistent and depends on subjective criteria -- while you have called for consistency and for an objective standard. And that you use terms like "statist" and "collectivist" to describe the defence of the foundational social institution of civil society -- while you have relented to the politics of group identity.
I've asked for you to try to reconcile these contradictions and I think it fair to say that you have not bothered to even make the attempt. And that is dissappointing.
"Wes,the phrase “tyranny of the minority”only applies when you don’t get your way and the outcome of a court decision or a state legislature conflicts with your views."
When have I ever used the term "tyranny" to describe the outcome of any vote? The point I'm trying to make is that a referendum is used sometimes as a check and balence to keep wealthy elites from forcing an agenda on us commoners.
"All the states which have legalized gay marriage have done so through either the legislatures or the courts. While it is true that gay rights organizations have used money to influence legislators, so have the opponents of same sex marriage."
Except that gay activists have have promoted their agenda from the top down, by using the least democratic institutions as a first resort. In contrast, pro family activists are more grassroots in their efforts, promoting their views from the ground up. That is why organizations like NOM has had more victories than defeats in this country. Never underestimate the power of the people.
Marriage is really not a rights based issue?
There are literally dozens of court cases which prove otherwise.
And also,if marriage is not a right,but something else like a priviledge,then what makes you think that YOU meet all of the qualifications for obtaining a marriage license?
Because you are a heterosexual?
Because you intend to "procreate responsibly"?
What if you decided not to establish a family,but wanted a marriage license to protect your own interests or simply to legitimize the love and committment you have for your partner,but the government denied you a marriage license because you sought a childless marriage?
A right to marry entails first distinguishing marriage from nonmarriage. Identify this thing called "marriage" by its essentail(s) such that it won't be mistaken for nonmarriage.
A right to SSM would entail first distinguishing it from the rest of the nonmarriage category.
You have failed to do either of these basic tasks.
Calling it a privilege does not solve your problem on this fundamental point.
There is no right to a license for SSM. SSM is not a foundational social institution. It is sex-segregative and cannot provide for responsible procreation and so it is not marriage. It is part of the nonmarriage category And no SSMer has distinguished SSM from the rest of the nonmarriage category such that it can be identified by society. And this is probably the root problem for your side of the argument, Charles, since you cannot claim a right to something you have failed to identify and for which you reject the very idea of societal significance.
Your argument is self-defeating. You've no idea what you mean by SSM and no idea why society would be required to issue licenses to SSM.
You can call it a right or call it a privilege. But you have all but conceded that you cannot say how SSM is different from nonmarriage, much less how marriage is SSM.
Charles said:
"There are literally dozens of court cases which prove [marriage is a rights issue]."
But, Charles, I said marrige is not a rights-based issue. Please don't misrepresent what I have said.
Claiming a right to something makes it a contention, but as your own remarks here have demonstrated, the contention is not based on a right but on falsely equating nonmarriage and marriage.
The underlying issue is one of recognizing marriage, as marriage, and the rights contention rests on that.
As I explained:
"Start with what marriage is. Proceed from there to what you think SSM. Distinguish each from nonmarriage. Then compare. The process is not that complicated, really, because marriage has a core meaning while SSM does not (except for the assertion of gay identity politics)."
* * *
I take it that your emphasis on the courts is central to your entire viewpoint.
* * *
By the way, votes on the US and the state high courts decide rights contentions. Do you prefer that minority votes decide such court cases? No, I expected not.
But you did call for an objective standard. However, each pro-SSM court opinion (i.e. the legal reasoning offered) has been an abuse of judicial review -- whether the opinion was in the minority or in the majority. If you think not, then, plainly state the standard that has been applied and which is consistent with your own remarks here. A justice is duty-bound to show restraint and not to inject his or her personal policy preference into the interpretation of the law and constitution. If you rely on the sayso of a justice, because that subjective view aligns with your own, then, you do not depend on the justice performing the judicial role but rather you depend on the justice performing the legislative role.
Frankly, no court is well-positioned nor competent to decide the marriage issue. Deference to society is necessary because marriage has societal significance; it is from that significance that a right might arise.
Rights don't just pop out of the arse of a judge.
The right of a husband and wife to have their union recognized and shown preference arises not from their particular details but from the social institution into which they have entered. This has ever been so. Again, you can call it a privilege, instead, but the license to marry arises from what marriage is. The eligibility and ineligibility lines are drawn around the core of marriage, the social institution.
None of this pops-out of the arse of a lawyer-citizen sitting on the bench.
* * *
A childless husband-wife does not transgress the core meaning of marriage.
That is so regardless of the sexual orientation of either of them.
Furthermore, the special status of marriage is not based on this or that particular couple's private details.
It is however, at its core, the combination of 1) sex integration and 2) provision for responsible procreation.
Your last comment thus invokes another of the self-defeating rules of SSM arugmentation.
If there is no legal requirement that forces married people to do (fill-in the blank) then that is not an essential to the marriage law.
You mentioned something about love. There is a correlation, but there is no love legal requirement.
You mentioned commitment but commitment to what? To marriage? Then what is marriage? You don't or won't say.
Meanwhile the legal requirements that do answer the SSM rule are requirements that SSM argumentation rejects or disparages. See the man-woman criterion which stands for sex integration; see the marital presumption of paternity which stands for provision for responsible procreation.
If you complaint is really that the marriage law is not strict enough, then, demanding the law be made less meaningful is a rather odd way to remedy your complaint.
You also seem to emphasize intent, but if people intend to marry, what is marriage?
Back-up the truck: if people intend to SSM, what is SSM? Distinguish it from the rest of the nonmarriage category.
I know, you won't bother. But in your latest comment you hinted it was love. But what kind of love and how much love? What is the government's test? How is this enforced? Is it even mandated by government?
I anticipate that by "love" you meant romance and by romance you meant sexual attraction and by sexual attraction you meant group identity.
There is no legal requirement for romance, sexual attraction, nor group identity.
See how the pro-SSM rule of argumentation that you just invoked defeats the demand that society change marriage to fit SSM? SSM is not defined by legal requirements.
But it does emphasize a tradition of romance. SSM argumentation has tried to kick the teeth out of tradition as the basis for marriage law.
It goes back to the thing for which you demand a license. The thing for which you demand society treat as a privilege -- or as a right. That thing, SSM, is nonmarriage but maybe it merits special status among the nonmarriage category.
Make SSM stand on its own two feet. If it lacks societal significance, then, there is no right to a license for whatever SSM is supposed to signify.
SSM argumentation looks a lot like a bunch of kids playing make-believe. They stand around a kitchen table and argue about an invisible cake. They want a piece of that cake. But there is nothing there. So they raid the refrigerator and pretend that the bucke to of ice cream, call it cake, and thus have their cake and eat it too.
From a purely secular perspective marriage,like all other important institutions, is a human invention designed to serve human needs,whether for the protection of children, or simply as a means of expressing the love and commitment two people have for each other, as in the case of gays or those who want to marry without any intention of having children.
Marriage from the point of view of government is merely a legal contract,not a "sacred" institution.
It is not a proper function of government to address the religious aspects of marriage.
And yes,regardless of what you claim to the contrary, I think you oppose same sex marriage for the simple reason that it goes against the biblical definition of marriage.
Most SSM opponents claim to be conservative when it comes to issues like gun rights, or the right of individuals to make decisions about thier own health care,but that government acting on behalf of majorities,must decide who can marry and for what reasons.They oppose government regulation or control of economic institutions like business and industry,calling it 'socialism',yet they believe that government should have the final say in matters pertaining to the social sphere.They desperately cling to the idea that an individual has the right to buy and sell a gun,or to make medical decisions without state interference,yet they demand that the social institutions of marriage and family should be socialized,i.e.,that the government should oversee marriage for the same reasons liberals believe government should oversee business and industry and medicine.
"If it(SSM) lacks societal signifigance then there is no right to a license for whatever SSM is suppose to signify."
I see.
So what you are saying in effect,is that one doesn't have a right to marriage, or anything else for that matter, unless it has societal signifigance to the group ,i.e.,society.
Another example of your latent collectivism.
Chairm demands:
“Make SSM stand on its own two feet. If it lacks societal significance, then, there is no right to a license for whatever SSM is supposed to signify.”
Sure. Here are the social benefits of permitting same-sex, as well as opposite-sex couples marry:
1. It honors and respects the US Constitution’s requirement that all citizens be treated equally, the 14th Amendment, the so-called “Equal Protection” clause. Government sanctioning of unconstitutional laws weakens respect for the law, and therefore harms society.
2. Denying marriage rights to same-sex couples denies those couples all the legal and social benefits of marriage, as well as the “health and wealth” benefits so carefully described by NOM’s own Maggie Gallagher. It is grossly unfair and immoral to withhold a known health benefit to a specific minority merely because of tradition. Marriage is proven to extend life and improve health; there is no possible validity for denying a specific group these advantages. Legally, this could be construed as “cruel and unusual punishment,” made worse by the lack of commission of any crime. No one questions the right of adults to form committed relationships in the first place. To then deny them the right to marry makes zero sense.
3. The children of same-sex couples suffer by virtue of the insecurity of having unmarried parents. This is grossly unfair to these kids. Christ instructs us that what you do to the least among us, you do to Him. Please think about that as you argue against same-sex marriage.
Kevin, this is your substance? your societal significance? SSM's big contribution?
1. All men already are treated equally, you're asking for special allowances. That argument is a red herring.
2. It's unfair? See #1 and #3.
3. Children of same sex couples will suffer. Agreed. The benefits of having married parents are the benefits of having a mom and a dad. This was denied by design BY advocates of SSM and yes. Children will suffer.
SSM is not marriage. It doesn't provide for the benefit of society, it adds nothing. No security, no help to children....It is at best on par with divorced and single parents, something society discourages. The benefits that society finds in what marriage gives people is not a function of their certificate, it's a function of what got put into the marriage. Men and women compliment each other in healthy ways. They have what no SSM can provide.
Great article from the Maine perspective:
"SSM will radically redefine marriage, one of society’s oldest and most fundamental institutions. The changes that would result would be so fundamental and far reaching that we certainly should not tamper with it lightly.
Yet, throughout consideration of this bill in the Legislature its supporters argued there would be no negative effects, that it is only about “civil rights” and merely a question of treating all Maine citizens equally. The truth is no society has ever given anyone an unqualified “right” to marry. Instead, they have always regulated marriage entirely for the benefit of society. Parents cannot marry their children, for example, no one can marry someone under a certain age no matter how much they might love them and no one can marry someone who is already married.
Social science research has now documented what societies throughout human history have learned from practical experience about the importance of marriage: children do best by far on every measure of health and welfare when they are raised by their married biological parents. No other arrangement works nearly as well. This body of scientific evidence is now so overwhelming there can be no argument about this fact.
Children are literally the future of any society. A society that fails to do everything it can to protect and support children is literally risking extinction. This is why societies have always given marriage special status and benefits. They have found out the hard way that anything that encourages men and women to have and rear children within the bounds of a married family benefits society. Anything discouraging that relationship harms society.
So, the fundamental question, the issue really at stake in this people’s veto vote, is whether legalizing homosexual marriage would harm this time-tested institution of marriage and thereby harm society as a result. Clearly it would.
It would take a social institution that has always been primarily child-centered and radically redefine it into something completely different, a new institution of genderless marriage. Because it is biologically impossible for two individuals of the same sex to produce children, this new genderless marriage institution would make “marriage” nothing more than an official recognition of two people’s professed love for each other.
Such a radical redefinition would have a dramatic impact on all aspects of society but mostly on our children. No matter what their parents may teach them, ...schools would indoctrinate their children that homosexual marriage is completely normal and equally desirable as traditional marriage and there is nothing parents could do to prevent it. We know this would happen here because it is happening everywhere that same-sex marriage has been legalized. In Massachusetts, the federal courts have already sided with the schools and against parents on this issue.
As a result, children would view marriage completely different and fewer are likely to set marriage as a goal. That will mean fewer children will be born into the environment that social science has proved is most advantageous to them and society obviously will suffer as a result."
This guy says it perfectly:
"Opponents of racist laws in Loving did not question the idea, deeply embodied in our law and its shaping philosophical tradition, of marriage as a union that takes its distinctive character from being founded, unlike other friendships, on bodily unity of the kind that sometimes generates new life. This unity is why marriage, in our legal tradition, is consummated only by acts that are generative in kind. Such acts unite husband and wife at the most fundamental level and thus legally consummate marriage whether or not they are generative in effect, and even when conception is not sought.
Of course, marital intercourse often does produce babies, and marriage is the form of relationship that is uniquely apt for childrearing (which is why, unlike baptisms and bar mitzvahs, it is a matter of vital public concern). But as a comprehensive sharing of life—an emotional and biological union—marriage has value in itself and not merely as a means to procreation. This explains why our law has historically permitted annulment of marriage for non-consummation, but not for infertility; and why acts of sodomy, even between legally wed spouses, have never been recognized as consummating marriages.
Only this understanding makes sense of all the norms—annulability for non-consummation, the pledge of permanence, monogamy, sexual exclusivity—that shape marriage as we know it and that our law reflects. And only this view can explain why the state should regulate marriage (as opposed to ordinary friendships) at all—to make it more likely that, wherever possible, children are reared in the context of the bond between the parents whose sexual union gave them life.
If marriage is redefined, its connection to organic bodily union—and thus to procreation—will be undermined. It will increasingly be understood as an emotional union for the sake of adult satisfaction that is served by mutually agreeable sexual play. But there is no reason that primarily emotional unions like friendships should be permanent, exclusive, limited to two, or legally regulated at all. Thus, there will remain no principled basis for upholding marital norms like monogamy."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970204619004574322084279548434.html
L Marie
Clearly your logic and analytical abilities are lacking. All men are created equally, I agree. But they are not treated equally. Homosexuals, who pair up with someone of the same sex, are treated differently: they are not permitted to marry. That violates the US Constitution’s guarantee to US citizens of equal treatment under the law. It’s stunning to me how readily people like you reject the US Constitution when it suits your viewpoint.
The security and companionship of marriage, that is, the legal binding of a couple together, creates health and wealth benefits that are clearly substantive. It is clearly in violation of the Constitution, and any morality, to deny these benefits to a specific group of people based on a tradition or religious belief. Be prepared to answer to God for why you knowingly advocate harming the health of homosexuals who wish to marry.
Children are more secure when their parents are married. That’s because marriage binds a couple together legally, and makes it harder to part ways than if the couple were unmarried. That’s good for kids, whose parents are more likely to stay together and finish the job of raising them if those parents are married. Be prepared to answer to God for why you knowingly want to hurt the children of same-sex couples.
Marriage doesn’t create a man and a woman. A human being has a sex before he or she ever marries. The value of marriage is not that it brings a man and a woman together, it’s that it KEEPS them together. That same fact holds for same-sex couples.
"Be prepared to answer to God for why you knowingly advocate harming the health of homosexuals who wish to marry."
Interesting take Kevin. Unfortunately it is not society that is harming the homosexual population, unfortunately, and it truly is unfortunate, they are harming themselves. Relationships are far shorter in homosexual populations, with more disease and unrest. Marriage has not been able to solve those inherent ills according to statistics from countries where SSM is allowed. In fact, not many homosexual couples in those countries have chosen marriage, and those who do are often less than monogamous. It is a fact that there is a large section of the homosexual population who believe that monogamous marriage is unnecessary. Even in MA and VT the marriage rates among the homosexual population remains astoundingly low.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5grllk_nt63q2NPIotyM9xpL4hwkwD9ADBD481
Isn't it time for everyone to come clean about the real motivation here? It's not about wanting marriage, health or longevity or even wealth is it? The decline of marriage is only furthered by opening the door to nonmarital situations like SSM.
I’m not Charles. My views about marriage discrimination are more practical:
1. Respect the US Constitution, even if doing so makes you feel uncomfortable or violates your personal religious beliefs
2. Give the children of same-sex couples the same kind of security the children of opposite-sex couples get from having married parents
3. Give same-sex couples the same access to the life-enhancing benefits of marriage (greater health and wealth)
Pretty simple, isn’t it? Some might say it’s a no-brainer.
Charles, my arguments in the defence of marriage have not been biblical arguments. The core meaning of marriage has stoof for thousands of years, across religious (and irreligious) lines, across geography and cultures, and across a seemingly infinite range of governing authorities.
Your remark about religion shows that you have relented to the identity politics of the SSM campaign. You would make the SSM issue one in which Government is set in opposition to civil society -- in particular to the pluralism of our form of governance.
No matter the source of one's beliefs -- religions or otherwise -- the case for marriage is the case for more liberty and more freedom and less Government interference. SSM argumentation is quite the opposite.
Charles said:
"From a purely secular perspective [...]"
Huh?
Our laws are expressed in secular language that reflects the pluralism of our society.
"Pure secularism" -- whatever that might be (it sounds like an irreligious perspective) -- is not the font of wisdom that dictates as a sole authority in our society.
You might want to recalibrate your thinking on this, Charles, so that you can best avoid falling into the grips of collectivism that is "purely secular" or whatnot.
Charles said:
"So what you are saying in effect,is that one doesn’t have a right to marriage, or anything else for that matter, unless it has societal signifigance to the group ,i.e.,society."
Nope.
But you depend on group identity politics to demand a license for something you have failed to distinguish and for which you have failed to justify societal involvement in issuing a license for it.
* * *
The right to a license depends on what is being singled-out by that license.
Try getting a marriage license by filling out the application for a fishing license. Even if you qualify for the latter as an individual, you won't be eligible to marry the fish you catch.
Poor list, Kevin. You did not make SSM stand on its own two feet. You tried to ride the back of marriage.
Anyway, L Marie toppled your 3 items. Let's bury them now.
1. Abuse of judicial review weakens the judicial role and undermines our form of governance. Assertion of identity politics does not justify such abuse of government.
2. Merging nonmarriage with marriage does not magically bestow health improvement on those in nonmarriage. Protection equality outside of marriage is eschewed by the SSM campaign due to a demand that government show favoritism based on gayness.
2b. Reaffirming the core meaning of marriage serves to promote marital trends and to combat the rise of nonmarital trends. The SSM-merger would entrench nonmarital trends because it depends on marriage meaning less and less.
3. The SSM-merger would not promote procreative justice; rather the contrary. The unity of fatherhood and motherhood is extrinsic to SSM.
The unstated item that you left off your list is that the SSM-merger would innoculate gay identity politics against dissent and opposition.
That sort of imposition is a throwback to the racialist kind of identity politics that was repudiated with the dismantling of the anti-miscegenation system.
Most who are sympathetic to the SSM complaint might hope that gay identity politics would prove to be more benign than the racialist identity politics.
But consider that there range of nonmarital families is far broader than that subset defined by gayness. The need for protective measures is snot limited by identity politics. So the promotion of remedial measures, based on the lack or diminishment of sex integration and responsible procreation, can serve to recalibrate the SSM complaint into one that reaches millions more people (including millions of children) and which does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gay identity.
But such protective status is not meant to promote nonmarital trends, rather to ameliorate the harm exprienced. And Government need not be the sole provide of such protective measures.
The longterm solution is to promote the core of marriage for all of society -- in our laws and in our traditions and customs -- and reduce the nonmarital trends. We will bequeath success or failure to future generations. And in this way we are no different than past generations -- recent and distant.
The core meaning of this foundational social institution is:
1. Sex integration (see the man-woman criterion).
2. Provision for responsible procreation (see the marital presumption of paternity).
3. These combined as a coherent whole.
That's the societal significance of marriage. And this is the special reason for special status. We delegate to government the role of regulator -- based on what marriage actually is.
If the SSM campaign wants the government to play a regulatory role for some special reason, they ought to state it plainly. And then they ought to show the legal requirements that would make it so.
It won't be gayness. And it won't be love. Nor romance. It might be certain vulnerabilities experienced by familie s-- especially those with lyoung children -- outsid eof marriage. And that they would have in common with a much broader range of living arrangements and types of relationships -- few of which are defined by some sexual aspect. Most are nonsexual.
Chairm:
Court decisions in defense of the constitution that you don’t like do not represent judicial abuse. Describe what the abuse is, or drop it.
No one is merging nonmarriage, with marriage. Marriage is the legal union of two adults, although 44 states still discriminate against same-sex marriage, denying same-sex couples the right to marry. Nor is anyone asking for special treatment for gays, just equal treatment. Gay people should not be discriminated against in the granting of marriage, drivers, fishing, medical or other licenses, due to their sexuality.
Marriage is not defined by parenting. There is no obligation to marry in order to have children, nor is there any obligation to have children while married. The false “cause-and-effect” connection has already been soundly rejected. Like many others, I believe that children are more secure when their parents are married, and that applies equally to the children of dual-gender parents and single-gender parents.
The use of heterosexual identity politics to shore up marriage discrimination violates constitutional and moral imperatives, as I’ve previously demonstrated.
The notion of a “core meaning” of marriage is itself false. What’s the core meaning of fishing or driving, other regulated and licensed endeavors? Can we use their “core meanings” to discriminate against granting those licenses, too?
Marriage does indeed deserve special status. It does not deserve special power to discriminate against same-sex couples and their children.
abuse of the constitution? where? There is no abuse of the constitution if you and I have the very same rights. I can marry a girl, you can marry a girl. I think Chairm's got a great point. You're asking for something that is not marriage.
Rob
You’re absolutely right, thank you. We all deserve to have the same rights. Straight people get to marry the consenting adult of their choice. They like to sound as if they married someone of the opposite sex out of duty to God and country but the fact is, they’re attracted to someone of the opposite sex, fell in love, and wanted to cement their relationship with legal status. Gay people are no different.
Gays are not treated equally: they are not permitted to marry the person of their choice. I think most people would say an adult has a fundamental right to marry the consenting adult of his or her choice. Why shouldn’t that apply to gay people? And why should society discriminate against the children of same-sex couples, by not permitting them to have married parents and all the security that having married parents provides?
If that's all marriage is, choosing someone of your choice, then why have any limitations? Seems to me there are limitations for a reason.
Remember, Robert, the government regulates marriage, and determines who may or may not marry, in order to serve the public good, such as public safety or to protect children. The public is in no way threatened if same-sex couples marry, and there is much to benefit the public if same-sex couples CAN marry: greater family stability for the children of same-sex couples, for example, or respecting our Constitution, which demands that all citizens be treated equally. Evidently, there was even a study that says states could save money by letting same-sex couples marry, rather than be joined in civil union, or not be legally joined at all.
I realize we’re seeing a minor bit of social upheaval as same-sex marriage becomes the norm in America but it’s nothing compared to freeing slaves or giving women the vote. And even if same-sex marriage somehow threatened opposite-sex marriage, it would nothing compared to adultery and divorce, both of which are perfectly legal and widely practiced in this country, with no objection from anyone, least of all NOM.
"The public is in no way threatened if same-sex couples marry"
"And even if same-sex marriage somehow threatened opposite-sex marriage, it would nothing compared to adultery and divorce"
It sounds like you're saying that you're not sure whether same-sex couples hurt marriage or not. There are a lot of people that believe it indeed does hurt marriage. If you're not even sure....sounds like we need to back up a bit and do the social science before we tinker with marriage. Just because adultery and divorce are not addressed to your liking, that doesn't mean we should allow more cracks in the levy system. Sounds backwards to me.
"I realize we’re seeing a minor bit of social upheaval as same-sex marriage becomes the norm in America"
Is that what the riots in CA were Kevin? a bit of social upheaval? the personal attacks? how about the thugs who shouted down the old lady of el coyote? the one who was trembling so hard trying to explain her 100 dollar donation that she had to have her daughters literally support her elbows... was that social upheaval? I call it disrespect for the system, the people and the antithesis of tolerance.
Susanne
A few people reacting badly to having their right to marry the person they love is hardly a condemnation of legitimate social change. Blacks behaved pretty violently at times, too, in protest of their treatment.
Is there a gracious way to react when you’ve have the right to marry taken away from you? How would you react if you had the right to marry and then a slight majority voted to take that right away from you? If my right to marry were taken away from me, let me assure you, I would react with great hostility. And it would be entirely appropriate to do so.
Brando
I’m quite certain in my view that same-sex marriage strengthens marriage, just as extending voting rights to women strengthens democracy. The people who think same-sex marriage “hurts” marriage seem to be indifferent to the massively corrosive effects of adultery and divorce on the institution of marriage, which was intended as a lifelong commitment. I was merely pointing out the hypocrisy of the position that even if marriage was somehow damaged by same-sex couples participating, it’s a minor concern compared to legal adultery and legal divorce. Talk about having it backward!
Kind of like having a patient in the emergency room with a severed arm and bleeding profusely, and you recommend we attend to their bad haircut first. The entire notion that opposing SSM is merely to “protect” marriage is completely, utterly dishonest and unfounded.
Brando I’m quite certain in my view that same-sex marriage strengthens marriage, just as extending voting rights to women strengthens democracy. The people who think same-sex marriage “hurts” marriage seem to be indifferent to the massively corrosive effects of adultery and divorce on the institution of marriage, which was intended as a lifelong commitment. I was merely pointing out the hypocrisy of the position that even if marriage was somehow damaged by same-sex couples participating, it’s a minor concern compared to legal adultery and legal divorce. Talk about having it backward! Kind of like having a patient in the emergency room with a severed arm and bleeding profusely, and you recommend we attend to their bad haircut first. The entire notion that opposing SSM is merely to “protect” marriage is completely, utterly dishonest and unfounded.
"I’m quite certain in my view that same-sex marriage strengthens marriage, just as extending voting rights to women strengthens democracy"
The problem in your analogy is that women wanted democracy with the same definition it always had. SSM seeks to change marriage.
"let me assure you, I would react with great hostility..."
Wait, you're advocating violence?
"minor bit of social upheaval as same-sex marriage becomes the norm in America"
"let me assure you, I would react with great hostility. And it would be entirely appropriate to do so."
The types of personal attacks that went on in California especially, the anthrax scares, graffiti, the riots, the hate maps where they listed the names and addresses of prop 8 supporters WITH DIRECTIONS TO THEIR HOUSES....I'm surprised you would condone this as appropriate. It was shameful, low behavior. You should be ashamed. This movement isn't about love or tolerance or acceptance. Forcing people to do what you want with threats is not right.
and we're supposed to believe that those with differing views from yours would be protected if gay marriage were the law in this state, I doubt it highly. It is a war of ideas, your way or the highway. disgusting.
Kevin, in our exchanges we have already discussed the judicial role and the abuse of judicial review.
You made key concessions and now you pose as if you haven't a clue about the ground already covered. You have proven yourself to be an intellectually disohonest participant in these comment sections.
The SSMer who assets the following has abandoned the law and common sense:
"No one is merging nonmarriage, with marriage. [...] Nor is anyone asking for special treatment for gays, just equal treatment."
That same individual has failed to distinguish marriage from nonmarriage. His remarks are premised on the merger he now would deny.
There is a nonmarriage category. Among all the possibilities, the SSMer demands special treatment based on gayness. He does not, or can not, say why gayness is a factor that should be read into the law and so cannot distinguish SSM from non-SSM within the nonmarriage category.
To sum: The SSMer cannot say what marriage actually is; nor can he say what SSM actually is; so he talks in such generalities, and in contradicition of his own stated standards, that the effect is to blur and merger marriage and nonmarriage. He does so because he insists that since SSM lacks distinction, then, for the sake of Government enforcing a false equivalency, marriage must be rendered as indistinguishable as SSM.
The marriage law does NOT rely on gayness for ineligibility nor straightness for eleigibility. The freedom to marry is not restricted on such a basis.
Meanwhile SSM laws do not include a gayness requirement.
So the SSMer above has abanoned the law and common sense and demands that society behave as insane as his ideas.
Upthread the challenge was made to SSMers: make SSM stand on its own two feet and provide the independant claim for a license to "SSM".
Naturally, that would entail plainly stating what would distinguish SSM from the rest of the nonmarriage category.
Nothing was offered. Instead, it was a repeat performance: the SSMers tried to lift nonmarriage up onto the back of marriage.
He failed to even attempt to meet the challenge. So he returned to the pro-SSM talking points which have already been refuted.
The medical analogy works the other way and does so far more closely: the SSM campaign demands that the heart and lungs of marriage be cut-out and that the social institution be propped-up with plastic pillows. Haircut optional.
Chairm
“That same individual has failed to distinguish marriage from nonmarriage.”
Marriage is when two people are married. Nonmarriage is anything else I guess.
“Among all the possibilities, the SSMer demands special treatment based on gayness.”
If that’s true then aren’t OSMers demanding special treatment based on straightness?
“He does not, or can not, say why gayness is a factor that should be read into the law”
That’s about all I’ve been saying: don’t discriminate against gay people, because doing so violates Equal Protection guarantees of the US Constitution. Don’t use gender or sexuality to determine who can access the rights and obligations of marriage. It’s discrimination. And it’s illegal.
“The marriage law does NOT rely on gayness for ineligibility nor straightness for eleigibility”
Yes it does, de facto, according to the well-reasoned decision of the Iowa Supreme Court. Offering marriage licenses only to opposite-sex couples amounts to favoring straight people for marriage and discriminating against gay people.
Okay, marriage is marriage and nonmarriage is nonmarriage. With such circular thinking, no wonder your comments are dizzy.
Sexual orientation is not in the criteria for eligibility nor for eligibility. Neither is identity politics. Two straight men cannot marry each other, but a gay man and a gay woman can marry each other, so that must be anti-straight discrimination, according to the simple-minded assertions of SSM argumentation.
It is the SSM campaign that presses gayness as a factor in the marriage law. That's all they do say: that gay identity politics trumps marriage, the constitution, and our democratic form of government.
The comment above has just conceded this key point ("That’s about all I’ve been saying") -- once again.
When an SSMer relies on the abuse of judicial review evident in the Iowa high court's pro-SSM opinion, he relies on an anti-marriage assertion in the name of identity politics.
No SSM law (anyplace where SSM has been imposed) includes a gayness requirement that those who show up for a license to SSM. SSMers such as the commenter above has expressly demanded that sexuality be taken out of consideration altogether. There is thus no sexual basis for a license to SSM. As such it is no different that the rest of the nonmarriage category of living arrangements and types of relationships.
The nonmarriage category is not loveless and is not without need for protections and yet the SSM campaign and its argumentation seeks to raise the gayness factor to a special reason for special status. That is discrimination, whether or not the SSMer will admit it. The discrimination is between one type of nonmarriage and the rest of nonmarriage.
Marriage is, by law, a sexual type of public relationship that unites the sexes and which provides for responsible procreation. The sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity is not sex-neutral; the equal participation of man and woman is not sex-neutral; and the societal significance of this core of marriage is not indiscriminate. Hence society shows preference for the foundational social institution which has always had this meaning throughout history and across the anthropological record.
No SSMers has justified special status based on gayness. The demand is based only on an axiomatic belief, not on reasoning, that the core of marriage is bigoted. And suppression of the corre of marriage is something that they seek the Government to enforce on all of society -- on those married now and those who'd marry in future generations. The bigotry is on the pro-SSM side as there is zero tolerance for dissent and opposition. The goal is to innoculate gay identity politics and raise it above our laws, our constitutional jurisprudence, and our form of governance. This is a throw-back to racialist type of identity politics that has long been repudiated with the dismantling of the system that barred "interracial" marriage.
Upthread @
http://nomblog.com/?p=360#comment-7281
"What’s the core meaning of fishing or driving, other regulated and licensed endeavors?"
The fact that you acknowledge that there are DIFFERENT licenses for DIFFERENT things should help point the answer to your own first question.
In case you haven't understood your own concession: Yes. We license stuff based on what that stuff actually is. Basic lawmaking entails discriminating between stuff.
As I had already said:
"http://nomblog.com/?p=360#comment-7092
"[A] license to drive is subject to what distinguish driving from other stuff. Likewise fishing. Meanwhile, a license to marry signifies entering the social institution that the license recognizes as marriage. And marriage has a core meaning that distinguishes it from other stuff."
Again @
http://nomblog.com/?p=360#comment-7281
"Can we use their 'core meanings' to discriminate against granting those licenses, too?"
The answer should be obvious to you by now. Not all discrimination is unjust. The law discriminates justly between hunting and driving, for example. Indeed, a license to hunt moose with a rifle does not empower you to shoot your rifle while driving on city streets. Basic lawmaking and common sense requires that license pertain to what society licenses -- the thing that is being regulated is distinguishable from other stuff.
As I said earlier
http://nomblog.com/?p=360#comment-7274
"The right to a license depends on what is being singled-out by that license. Try getting a marriage license by filling out the application for a fishing license. Even if you qualify for the latter as an individual, you won’t be eligible to marry the fish you catch."
SSM argumentation defines SSM by a supposed gayness factor. The rest is just empty rhetoric in the cause of falsely equating nonmarriage with marriage. SSM argumentation emphasizes gayness but can provide no sexual basis in the law for special status.
Marital status is not 'equal status' -- it is a special status based on special reason. See the core meaning of the social institution. Contary to SSM argumentation, the license to marry, as a device to regulate marriage, is NOT the core meaning of marriage. It is more like a gateway into the social institution that is distinguished by its essentials -- by its core meaning.
If there was a gateway for whatever you mean by SSM, would gayness be an essential for the people who show up and want to enter? Your rhetoric screams, YES!, but your actual reasoning, such as it is, shyly concedes, nope.
The sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity is not homosexuality nor is it asexuality nor is it heterosexuality.
The sexual basis of the social institution into which people enter when they marry? See the integration of the sexes; see responsible procreation; see these as a coherent whole. Without this, the rest is just a bunch of bits and pieces none of which is essential.
The basis for SSM is not even homosexuality, really, but identity politics which is asserted for the sake of supremacy. Supremacy over our laws, over the foundational social institution of civil society, and over our constitutional republican form of governance.
No SSMer has been able to reconcile that fact of SSM argumentation with the repudiation of identity politics with the dismantling of the anti-miscengenation system that was based on the racialist kind of identity politics.
That ought to weigh heavily on the SSM campaign and on anyone who feels pressured to relent to the emotivism of SSM argumentation. It is quicksand.
Better to defend marriage on firm ground rather than join SSMers in the sinking bog.