Dear Friends of Marriage,
The battle for marriage is heating up in New Jersey!
During four years with Jon Corzine as Governor, the New Jersey Legislature didn’t touch same-sex marriage — it was just too controversial. But now, with Governor Christie set to take office in just a few weeks, and the next election nearly two years away, gay marriage advocates are making a last ditch effort to force the issue during the lame duck transition session — while voters are paying attention to things like Thanksgiving and Christmas plans, and trying to balance the family checkbook in the middle of an economic crisis that has left many families struggling to make ends meet.
But we’re taking the issue right to New Jersey voters.
New Jerseyans deserve to know what their legislators are up to. And we’ve launched a $500,000 voter outreach campaign to make sure they know what’s going on in Trenton. The campaign is highlighted by a new radio ad “Give me a break,” (click here to listen), which began running on New Jersey radio stations yesterday and will continue for at least two weeks.
The new radio ad underscores that Governor Corzine had four years to push a same-sex marriage bill, and shouldn’t be wasting the legislature’s time now when there is a critical budget deficit and economic crisis to be attending to. The ad will be supplemented with direct mail, telephone calls, and online advertising.
WE NEED YOUR HELP!
I hope you’ve taken a minute to listen to the New Jersey radio ad above (click here to listen). This is the type of hard-hitting ad that we’ve been able to bring to the marriage debate not only in New Jersey, but in every state where legislators have tried to push same-sex marriage. (Click here to see all of our TV and radio ads that have aired across the country.)
Thanks to your generosity, we’ve been the largest single contributors to the campaigns in California and Maine, and have been able to provide much-needed reinforcements to the state groups working on the ground in places like New York, New Jersey and elsewhere.
While funds for our New Jersey campaign have already been set aside, we need your help to replenish our emergency fund for the days ahead. We poured everything we had into Maine (and would do it again in an instant!) to assure victory there. The New Jersey funds we have were set aside weeks ago as we anticipated this desperate attempt to force SSM through during the lame duck session.
But in order for us to have the same kind of dramatic impact in 2010 that we’ve been able to have over the past year, we need your help today! Already, we know there will be continuing battles in New York and Washington, DC. next year. Undoubtedly, there will be other urgent needs as well, as legislators look ahead to the 2010 elections.
Will you stand with us today? Your gift of $50, $100, or even $1000 or more if you have the ability, would make a powerful statement as we rebuild our emergency fund. [We know our opponents read these emails, too -- and sometime publish them on the web -- and they know we've poured everything we had into Maine and New Jersey.]
We can’t afford to enter 2010 without a strong funding base. Our opponents press when and where they think we are the weakest. Thanks to your generosity, we’ve always had the resources to fight back.
I’m looking to identify 100 new monthly donors over the next two weeks. Whether it’s $10 a month, or $100 a month, our monthly donors provide the sturdy foundation that allows us to extend ourselves in places like Maine and New Jersey when the need arises. Would you join our monthly donor team today? Click here to make your most generous donation today!
And for every dollar given, we make this solemn promise: We will do everything within our power to make it as effective as possible. We don’t have the bloated infrastructure and overhead that many organizations do. Every dollar is focused on mission effectiveness.
California and Maine campaign manager Frank Schubert recently said: “I believe that NOM is the most effective national advocacy group in the nation. They are swift, nimble, completely mission focused and extremely effective.”
That’s our promise — to be as swift, nimble, focused and effective as possible with every dollar.
Thank you for standing with us and enabling us to make an impact for marriage all across the nation. Will you stand with us again today?
Faithfully,Brian S. Brown
Executive Director
National Organization for Marriage
20 Nassau Street, Suite 242
Princeton, NJ 08542
bbrown@nationformarriage.org
210 Comments
I have added NOM to the list of things I am really grateful for this Thanksgiving.
I believe, all rational people should be grateful to NOM and other pro-marriage, pro-family organizations.
Regardless of how you PERSONALLY feel about same sex marriage, denying same sex couples violates the constitution. DOMA will be overturned and same sex marriage will be legal across the US. I feel sorry for all of you who have wasted your time and money on trying to deny people their rights.
lets review how denying same sex couples marriage violates the constitution:
**Violates the Due Process Clause by impinging on fundamental liberties
**Violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
**Singles out gays and lesbians for a disfavored legal status, thereby
creating a category of “second-class citizens.”
**Discriminates on the basis of gender.
**Discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.
Michelle, please tell me when exactly we ammended the Constitution to permit gay marriage. Which amendment specifically did that?
And do you seriously think that amendment would have been ratified if the people voting for it knew they were approving SSM?
So either they voted to permit it, or you’re just making up constitutional rights out of thin air. Which is it, exactly?
Funny how people want to invoke constitutional protection for this or that, yet are perfectly willing to piss all over the people who wrote it.
If you want a constitutional right to SSM, it’s easy — just pass an amendment. But PLEASE stop trying to tell me someone already did. There is NO CHANCE any of our constitution could have passed the ratification process, if it had been understood to create a “right” to SSM.
Therefore, it never happened. Keep dreaming.
You nailed it Marty.
Michelle, your little list is based on the last item. Yet the marriage law does not include gay as a criterion for ineligibility; nor does it include straight as a criterion for eligibility. So the rest of the list comes tumbling down.
However, for the sake of discussion of constitutional principles, please reconcile the last item on your list with the second-last item on your list.
How does the letter of the marriage law unjustly discriminate on the basis of sex AND on the basis of sexual orientation?
Don’t bother citing or quoting pro-SSM court opinions. Use your own words and your own understanding. What principle(s) are you invoking in claiming both items?
Also, is one item enough or are both necessary simultaneously? Please state the principle(s) at work in your thinking.
It would also be useful for you to explicitly define your notion of “same-sex couples”. For example, is same-sex sexual behavior mandatory? Or same-sex sexual attraction? Or even some degree of adherence to group identity, i.e. gayness? Probably not on all three. Hence the need for you to be more clear in what you mean by the phrase “same-sex couples”. Afterall, your key items — the last two on your list — depend entirely on that definition.
By the way, Michelle, if you meant group identity (i.e. gay identity politics) rather than sexual orientation, feel free to replace “gay” and “straight” with sexual orientation in the second paragraph in my prevous comment.
The supreme court determined in Loving vs. Virginia, that marriage is a fundamental right of all [free] americans. This would be cited as case law, however anyone in second class status or homosexuals were specifically excluded.
Michelle you are head on! Great job siting sources and EXACT laws which prohibit discrimination. This is the very thing this “organization” is missing FACTS. The
Chairm: ” So the rest of the list comes tumbling down.” How? This doesn’t make sense. Prohibiting same-sex marriage clearly Violates the Due Process Clause by impinging on fundamental liberties and Violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Like she said.
Chairm: “Use your own words and your own understanding. What principle(s) are you invoking in claiming both items?”
I believe I just have…. so now your turn…
Marty: “Michelle, please tell me when exactly we ammended the Constitution to permit gay marriage. Which amendment specifically did that?”
Um, read above your post, or mine right here. Those are 2 very specific laws which are suppose to protect everyone, but are clearly failing.
Marty: “Funny how people want to invoke constitutional protection for this or that, yet are perfectly willing to piss all over the people who wrote it.” No sir, you are the one pissing on it by not standing up for what is says. It can not get any clearer, it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. SIMPLE AS THAT.
Look NOM (and its followers), you guys are scared. I get that there is a huge push for Equal Rights FOR EVERYONE and that can be scary. Look at the states and countries that have Same-sex marriage have they been diminished? Nope. It is a shame all of this energy is spent on hate and not for a good cause.
This year I am thankful for my family that raised me to have true values and to treat and love everyone how I would want.
Happy Holidays to everyone.
The Loving court found that marriage was a union of man and woman “fundamental to the survival of the species” and that race was irrelevant. I’m 100% sure the same court would have found that marriage was a union of man and woman “fundamental to the survival of the species” and that sexual orientation was irrelevant.
The problem with marriage isn’t that homosexuals are being treated differently — it’s that they ARE being treated equally! Your gender bias is just as irrelevant as your racism.
Go Marty! I’ve heard the loving argument twisted and abused so many times. It’s good to hear someone use it correctly.
Marty, you’re using the Loving decision incorrectly.
Just as the court ruled that social prohibitions against mixed race marriage could not be the basis for legal discrimination, so too will it rule that social prohibitions against same-sex marriage cannot be the legal basis for legal discrimination. Loving proved that marriage can be updated and redefined. Well guess what, five states have redefined marriage to include same-sex couples! And, as Justice Scalia noted in the Texas “sodomy” case, with homosexual behavior no longer criminalized, there’s little legal support for outlawed same-sex marriage.
“The problem with marriage isn’t that homosexuals are being treated differently — it’s that they ARE being treated equally! Your gender bias is just as irrelevant as your racism.”
Keep saying, maybe it will become true with repetition! No, gay couples do NOT have the right to marry the consenting adult of their choice. Straight couples do have that right. So actually, the problem is that gays are NOT being given equal protection: they are being denied a fundamental right based on gender and sexual orientation discrimination!
“Keep saying (it), maybe it will become true with repetition! ”
Truer words have never been spoken Kevinn. I’ve not heard such a sound assessment of your arguments. Thread after thread you trot out the same tired old lines, twistings and purposeful misunderstandings. But keep telling yourself that’s what Loving meant, maybe someday it’ll be true.
“No, gay couples do NOT have the right to marry the consenting adult of their choice. Straight couples do have that right.”
Hogwash. Straight couples face the exact same restrictions on marriage as gay couples do. Orientation is irrelevant — nobody even asks. Or cares.
Marty wrote: “The Loving court found that marriage was a union of man and woman “fundamental to the survival of the species.” Therefore, the infertile and elderly will be prohibited from marriage.
The court found that there is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white, fertile and non elderly persons demonstrates that classifications must stand on their own justification, not as measures designed to maintain [NOM's] Supremacy
Jerome, correct. The fact that only WHITE people were prohibited from marrying interracially is instructive. That would be akin to saying only STRAIGHT people could marry… yet there is no test for sexual orientation as there was for race, so obviously that doesn’t apply.
As for “standing on their own justification”, consider the statement from Loving:
[Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival]
I’d say that the man+woman requirement, the procreative union, is the part of marriage that is fundamental to our very existence and survival. It stands on it’s own justification very nicely thank you, and is entirely irrelevant to the sterile same-sex combination, which contributes NOTHING to “our very existence and survival”.
Loving works against you — it kills your argument completely. I have no idea why you keep bringing it up.
Of course I mean “you” in the general, pro-ssm side, sense. Not you specifically Jerome.
Josh, in your own words, explain the following:
“Prohibiting same-sex marriage clearly Violates the Due Process Clause by impinging on fundamental liberties and Violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Note: the above quote is your assertion and is not an explanation.
If you can explain without depending, utterly, on the last item in her list, please do so.
If you can’t, that’s okay, go ahead and try the second-last item on her list.
If you can’t explain with either, nor with both at the same time, then, backup your thinking som other way.
If you can’t, then, you will demonstrate what has tumbled down is the list which depends the bottom rather than the top of the list.
The onus is on you to explain your certitude.
* * *
As Marty pointed out, the marriage law has no sexual orientation criterion. No gay criterion for ineligibility; no straight criteriion for eligibility.
And, contrary to Kevin, there are two-sexed combinations, including those Kevin might describe as including heterosexual people, which are ineligible to marry.
Two straight men, for example, in Kevin’s formulation are ineligible. That is not due to some gayness factor.
Two siblings — straight or gay — cannot marry each other even if their consent was announced to the world.
You know that, surely.
That’s right Marty.
That court statement reflects the recognition that the white supremacy system relied upon outlawing — i.e. criminalizing — the mixing of genes. That’s what anti-miscegenation actually means.
Marriage integrates the sexes and provides for responsible procreation.
The racialist system used selective sex segregation, via a racialist filter. The proposed merger of SSM with marriage would bring sex segregation under the auspices of marriage, via a gaycentric filter.
Indeed, SSM argumentation goes further and disparages the mixing of sexual orientations — homosexual and hetersoexual for example — within marriage. Such mixed marriages are denounced as ’shams’. The excuse is a claim of purity of sexual orientation.
SSM argumenation would force society to treat all unions of husband and wife as if they lacked either husbands or wives. That is like the racialist argumentation which criminalized husband-wife unions which lacked racialist purity.
Just as the racialists, the gaycentric activists would use marriage for a nonmarriage purpose. That purpose — to assert the supremacy of their version of identity politics for the sake of innoculating it against oppositon and dissent. Not just on the marriage issue, but throughout society. For instance, they’d hope to create a new constitutional classificaton based on group identity. An that would not treat all persons as equal to all other persons, under the law. It would be a hostile stab at treating a group as superior to the rest of society.
Marty, you did not address Heterosexual infertile or elderly couples in your statement: “…sterile same-sex [or heterosexual] combination, which contributes NOTHING to “our very existence and survival”.
According to your argument “Procreation” should be a requirement for marriage? My infertile heterosexual neighbors often babysit for those that can and do procreate, so their is a contribution.
Charim, just exactly how have homosexuals created a superior class in Mass or Canada? Specific examples?
Jerome, I didn’t address it because I don’t have to.
Infertile and elderly couples are allowed to marry for the exact same reason gay and lesbian couples are allowed to marry. There is no test, either for fertility, intention, or orientation. There is one simple requirement for all, that the couples be opposite sexed. This is a simple matter of equality.
That some couples who do not intend to reproduce marry doesn’t change the fact that the opposite sexed requirement stands very well on it’s own, and is the very basis for the court’s ruling that marriage is “fundamental to our very existence and survival”.
In any case, infertility is a medical condition that can often be corrected, while age (the elderly) is a naturally post-fertile condition. Sterile-by design is something entirely different, and is entirely unrelated to marriage.
Jerome, read Michelle’s list. Read my responses to Michelle and to Josh (who adopted Michell’s list as his own). Note that neither has explained how their list of items can remain standing if not for the bottom item.
Can you? If so, please do so.
If not, then, you have your specific example. It applies as much in Massachussetts as in Canada. The arguments to impose the SSM merger begin and end with the axiomatic assertion that to disagree with the gaycentric merger is bigotry.
Such ad hom is the flipside of the assertion of supremacy via identity politics. And it corrupts constitutional jurisprudence, social policy, public schooling, and family law. The central theme is that the culture and the Government must prioritize gay identity politics (i.e. make it the trump card) above all other societal concerns.
The specifics follow from there. If you would respond to my brief second paragraph, we can proceed from there.
Everyone has the right to marriage. Some people just don’t want to get married. Marriage is the union of husband and wife. If you don’t believe me, you can check the dictionary. If you want to change the dictionary, take it up with Mr. Webster.
While you’re at it maybe change the definition of “eating” to include those who get nutrition through intravenous. Aren’t you outraged over this discrimination against the sick?
Current marriage law obviously is obviously discriminatory and will continue to be so until a man can marry the same people as a woman, and vice versa.
Charim, I’m not aware of any federal opinion that has ruled on same gender, or sex marriage equality and due process. Equal application of the law for those similarly situated. I’m sure you disagree with the outcome of the Iowa state supreme court. However, I don’t see how the government will, is or can make gay identity politics above all other societal concerns.
You say it corrupts constitutional jurisprudence? I respect your opinion, even the right of your religion not to marry same sex/gender couples. The real question is how to balance your view with others and the GLBT community who want the civil and social benefits of marriage. You may be able to change your thinking about marriage equality and the definition of your own marriage, somewhat easier than Gays and Lesbians or heterosexuals can change their sexual orientation.
Hospital visitation, social security, pensions, inheritance, spousal health insurance access aside. The children of gay and lesbian families, what does your movement say to them? What do you say to the child who has no health insurance (gay partner whose employer does not provide insurance to this family) in their state because of existing marriage law?
Jerome, your remarks indicate that you agree with the primacy of the last item on Michelle’s list.
Do you? Why?
Here is what I said in a previous comment @ November 26, 2009 at 2:32 pm.
“Jerome, read Michelle’s list. Read my responses to Michelle and to Josh (who adopted Michell’s list as his own). Note that neither has explained how their list of items can remain standing if not for the bottom item. Can you? If so, please do so.”
* * *
I also explained:
“The specifics [your requested] follow from there. If you would respond [...] we can proceed from there.”
* * *
Jerome, you have commented again but you have yet to respond to that brief paragraph. Here it is restated:
Please explain how that list of items can remain standing if not for the bottom item.
That bottom item is “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation”.
It appears to be the source of your own emphasis on “the GLBT community”. So you too would proceed from your understanding of the last item in Michelle’s list.
That would mean you do understand that discussion of the specifics you requested would follow from your explaination of that item, as per my request.
There have been federal court opinions on SSM, Jerome. But whether the court is federal or state, the pro-SSM reasoning stands or falls on that last item on Michelle’s list. Hence, let’s discuss your own reasoning, in your own words, on that item and proceed from there.
This is ridiculous and it makes me angry.
You guys live in the stoneage… No wonder why the US has the name of dumbest country in the rest world.
You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Charim,
I have no problem with the re-order in Michelle’s list with sexual orientation at the top and gender as number 2. There is no United States constitutional provision or amendment restricting marriage recognition to opposite sex couples. Heterosexual and homosexual orientation for most people seem to be an immutable characteristic. One question for a state interest may be there is sufficient constitutional justification to bar same sex couples from marriage. I would argue that heterosexual procreation has not been detrimentally impacted by SSM mergers or gay centric identity politics. However, heterosexual identity politics has a very significant impact on the daily lives of gay and lesbian families (a few examples provided in a prior post).
Does being labeled a bigot out weigh the very real and pressing needs that deny gay and lesbian access to pensions, their partners health insurance, inheritance, social security and some cases hospital visitation and community status/recognition of their relationship?
As to Marty’s comment about one of the courts determinations that marriage is fundamental to survival. So how how does a sterile SSM merger prevent survival? How has heterosexual procreation, adoptions, artificial insemination, or children from prior relationships impacted this “survival” due to SSM mergers? A more inclusive definition of marriage does not seem to impact the states interest in same sex civil marriage, in my view.
Jerome, by my reading, that the court found the man+woman union (aka Marriage) “fundamental to our very existence and survival” is precisely WHY the state has an interest in what otherwise may be simply a religious commitment.
The State has no interest at all in two men who want to shack up and play house.
Also, Jerome asks “How has heterosexual procreation… etc.. impacted due to SSM mergers?”
A fair question, and the short answer is that it hasn’t — yet. But lets look at the larger picture: How has the enormous increase in unmarried procreation, single motherhood, and fatherlessness impacted our society? The devastation is huge, and tremendously expensive, and should be obvious to everyone by now. Our prisons are chock full of fatherless young men, to name one example.
So you have to ask yourself, what will be the societal ramifications of the State neutering marriage, and saying to the world that no — Father’s are not important at all, and are just as easily replaced by a redundant mother figure?
I think we know that just isn’t true, and I think we can guess just what a dangerous message this would send to future generations.
I for one am not ready to give up on the idea that Fathers are gravely important to children, simply because a few lesbians don’t like men.
“One question for a state interest may be there is sufficient constitutional justification to bar same sex couples from marriage.”
If I may be so bold, this is really the ONLY question that must be answered. All citizens have the right to do something unless specifically prohibited. And if the state says SOME citizens have the right to do something, but others don’t have that same right, there’s a pretty high burden on the state to explain why those folks don’t have the right. The most common “discrimination” granting some folks a right but denying that right to other folks is based on age: you have to be a certain age to get a drivers license, hunting license, marriage license, etc. The state has successfully reasoned that each of these endeavors requires a level of maturity acquired at some (contrived) age.
Discriminating against homosexuals in the granting of marriage licenses appears to be based on: the minority status of homosexuals and the majority’s distaste for them, as well as religious descriptions of what marriage is. The latter is more often used as a rationalization of anti-same-sex marriage feelings, rather than a reason.
As faith groups grow more vocal in their opposition to same-sex marriage, they reveal the strong connection between religious belief and marriage discrimination, and so doom marriage discrimination, thankfully. The courts will not support religion-based legal discrimination.
“I for one am not ready to give up on the idea that Fathers are gravely important to children, simply because a few lesbians don’t like men.”
Don’t like men? Why do you think lesbians don’t like men? They just don’t want to have sex with them, or more accurately, prefer sex and romance with other women. I don’t want to have sex with men either but that doesn’t mean I don’t like them! Some of my best friends are men!
“Why do you think lesbians don’t like men? They just don’t want to have sex with them, or more accurately, prefer sex and romance with other women. I don’t want to have sex with men either but that doesn’t mean I don’t like them! Some of my best friends are men!”
Kevin are you saying now that you are a lesbian rather than a simultaneously twice widowed heterosexual who was once homosexual?
What did your wives die of again? Pancreatic cancer or Leukemia?
Jerome, you may have misread. I did not refer to same-sex unions as mergers. The SSM campaign seeks to merge one thing, known as SSM, with another thing, known as marriage. The merger would be of the two different things.
Jerome, your recent comment indicates that you depend on that last item in Michelle’s list. Without it, the rest of SSM argumentation tumbles. Agreed?
Kevin what the defense of marriage may appear like, through your eyes, is relevant only insofar as you confirm that you disparage the core meaning of marriage and would seek to abolish it in the law, social policy, and the culture. Your belligerence is noted. Your reasoning remains profoundly flawed because, as you just said, you depend solely on the assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics over the core of marriage itself.
Your view is bigoted. Your repeated anti-religious remarks are also bigoted. Your continued attempt to force society to turn a blind eye to the defense of marriage — which is not a purely religious argument — illustrates the bigotry that drives you to set the Government against religion and against religious people.
There is nothing of great merit in your comments, except for the fact that you keep showing the very poor hand of SSMers whose viewpoint is gaycentric rather than marriage-centric. Thank you for your continued exemplification of that for all to witness.
“Your reasoning remains profoundly flawed because, as you just said, you depend solely on the assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics over the core of marriage itself.”
I seem to be in good company, including, but not limited to, the Iowa Supreme Court. There’s no “supremacy” involved; just equality. Supremacy would mean that gays want to outlaw opposite-sex marriage and replace it with only same-sex marriage. Ironically, it is current supremacy of heterosexual gender politics that created this whole discussion in the first place, and is resulting in the striking down of discriminatory marriage statutes!
“Your continued attempt to force society to turn a blind eye to the defense of marriage…”
Society, and certainly not NOM, isn’t trying to defend marriage. If it were, it would outlaw pre-marital sex, adultery and divorce. It doesn’t. “Defending” marriage by excluding willing participants is like trying to “defend” BMW’s luxury brand image by excluding blacks from buying them: sheer bigotry.
Kevin wrote: “Society, and certainly not NOM, isn’t trying to defend marriage. If it were, it would outlaw pre-marital sex, adultery and divorce.”
Don’t be fooled here. Social conservative groups akin to NOM have been fighting for decades against the sexualization of our culture, premarital sex, cohabitaion, adultery, and easy no-fault divorce.
Yet when put to the question, Kevin has no desire to “outlaw pre-marital sex, adultery and divorce”. Which only shows that when it comes to defending marriage, Kevin is the enemy, and he knows it.
Marty,
And I’m not the one fighting against same-sex marriage! I guess my point was lost on you: since NOM is fighting the legalization of same-sex marriage, in the name of “defending” marriage, why aren’t they against legal pre-marital sex, legal adultery and legal divorce? I don’t see anything on this website to indicate they oppose any other those things, which do so much damage to marriage. If you’re gonna “defend” marriage, go after the stuff that actually harms marriage, not same-sex marriage!
Kevin, many of us who support NOM also support groups working for those very things. It’s called focus. Choosing your battles.
You might as well ask why the Army doesn’t have it’s own Navy or Air Force. We know you’re just being silly and disengenuous though. Thanks for playing.
Marty,
Then isn’t NOM’s claim of defending marriage hugely inaccurate? NOM isn’t defending marriage, it’ s against same-sex marriage. They are very different things. NOM opposes equal rights for gay couples and the best parenting environment for children. It probably can raise more money by claiming to be “defending marriage” though LOL.
When an SSMer mimics the defense of marriage, it is evident that he has no bearings of his own.
Kevin is lost at sea.
In seeking to find a rhetorical bookend for gay identity politics, he has conceded that the core of SSM is identity politics.
The core of marriage is not the equal of the core of SSM. Marriage is neutral on identity groups — in fact that’s the meaning of the repudiation of the laws against interracial marriage. However, marriage is not sex netural — it has a sexual basis that is extrinsic to the gaycentric version of identity politics.
In fact, there is no sexual basis for SSM, as per Kevin’s own comments. Only identity politics.
Meanwhile the sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity is the same as the sexual basis for consummation, and for provisions for annulment, and for adultery as grounds for divorce, and so forth.
Marriage does not include an identity group criterion for eligibility, nor for ineligibility.
And the lines of eligibility are drawn by each society in regards to the societal concerns for sex integration and responsible procreation. The sexual basis of this does not fit SSM and so any lines drawn for eligibility for SSM would be arbitrary — that is based on identity politics rather than societal concerns for the core of marriage. This is because the core of SSM is identity politics and nothing more.
Two men show up for a license to marry. They are ineligibile. Is it anti-straight discrimination?
I bet Kevin would say, no, because the men are gay.
But he doesn’t know they are gay. Neither does the law care if they are gay. Likewise, the law is neutral regarding homosexual orientation. The two men are ineligible gay or not, homosexual or not.
But a man and a woman show up for a license to marry. They are eligible. Is it because of pro-straight discrimination?
I bet Kevin would say, yes, because the two are straight.
He doesn’t know that. In fact, the man is gay and the woman is lesbian. The law is netural regarding group identity and regarding sexual orientation.
Kevin is not.
The man and the woman are closely related. They are ineligible. Is this discrimination against consenting adults?
Kevin’s argumentation would say, yes, but he’d say no. He cannot explain his answer and reconcile it with his own argumentation. Consent is not the trump card he imagines it to be.
And underaged woman and man show-up. The mutually consent but are ineligible — except under exceptional circumstances. The sexual basis for such circumstances exists even if the two are of different sexual orientations or of different identity groups.
Kevin might object because he thinks that age is proxy for maturity; yet some underaged persons are more mature than adult persons. The line is drawn based on the core of marriage to which the two consent and to which society consents. The sexual basis of marriage is no small matter when it comes to the variable age limits.
Likewise with the intersection of sexual incest and elibility to marry. If all it took was consent — adult or near-adult — then there would be no line drawn based on sexual incest.
And if society draws a line at sexual incest, it would do so in alignment with the sexual basis of marriage. See the marital presumption of paternity — i.e. responsible procreation — and see concerns about sex integration within the formation of families.
But these two persons show-up for a license to SSM. There is no sexual behavior requirement for SSM, according to SSM argumentation; indeed it declares that responsible procreation is irrelevant to society’s interest in issuing licenses for SSM; same with sex integration. There is no offered reason to draw a line at closely related people. To the contrary, SSM argumentation makes consent a trump card.
If the two are not sexually involved, and are persons of the opposite sex, they are still ineligible to marry. But would the core of SSM make them ineligible?
Nope. No SSMer has provided a strong reason to bar nonsexualized arrangements. That is because there is no sexual basis for issuing licenses for SSM. SSM argumentation has made this very clear.
SSMers usually announce that the lines of eligibility for SSM would mimic those of marriage. This is a very lame stance since SSMers disparage the core meaning of marriage around which those lines are drawn.
So SSMers would arbitrarily draw lines around SSM that depend on the very thing, the core of marriage, that they disparage as “sheer bigotry”.
The only reason that SSMers provide for such mimicry, and for such an exercise of arbitrary governmental power, is their desire to force society to favor the gay idenitity group.
Marriage defenders argue for the preferential treatment of sex integration, responsible procreation, and the foundational social institution of civil society — i.e. marriage.
Is is possible that some on the marriage side indluge in identity politics of some form? Sure some defenders might be tempted to mimic gay identity politics.
However, that’s not the core of marriage. SSM is not the equal of marriage even if some defenders of marriage would give in to the temptation to rhetorically mirror back to SSMers the “straight” version of gay identity politics.
SSMers who seek a bookend for “gay” should re-examine their argumentation. Their emphasis on identity politics is closely analogous with the racialist identity politics of white supremacy.
SSM is not the equal of marriage. Their core meanings are different and contradictory.
A merger of such unequals would not add to marriage but would substract from it the core that provides the special reason for special status. Marital status is a special status, even according to SSMers. However, that status is inapplicable to SSM — as SSMers keep reminding us — because SSM argumentation seeks to detract from marriage its core meaning.
Meanwhile SSM is the equal of the vast range of relationship types and living arrangements within the non-marriage category. If SSMers really were in support of equality, they’d not seek special status based on gayness. They’d not discriminate in favor of their brand of identity politics.
Some SSM supporters are more forthright than most. They agree that marital status should not be so special. They believe that it is unjust for society to discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage. All arrangements are equal, they say. And in so saying they reach the logical conclusion of SSM argumentation.
Marriage defenders defend against that. Indeed, we promote marriage as marriage, rather than as a basket of government goodies or as a vehicle for driving identity politics into the law, social policy, constitutional jurisprudence, and the culture at large. We have to pick our battles.
Until SSM advocates pushed their cause to the top of the agenda, we were making progress in stalling, if not reversing, some key nonmarital trends. But all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room by SSMers. Racialist identity politics did the same thing not so long ago. As did the no-fault divorce revolution. Both harmed society — not the least the most vulnerable amongst us. More of the same would not be good for citizens of this country — regardless of identity group and regardless of sexual orientation.
Game, set, match Chairm. Well done.
And Kevin, I’m still waiting for someone to show me exactly which Constitutional amendment legalized SSM.
Marty
Check out the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. Equal Protection. It’s the biggie preventing marriage discrimination. But Due Process guarantees also play a part as does the 10th Amendment guarantee that just because a right isn’t explicitly named doesn’t mean you don’ t have it.
The government can’t offer rights to some citizens but not to others. It’s not about whether marriage is a right or not, although the US Supreme Court has already ruled it is in several cases. If it’s a right, then it’s a right EVERYBODY has, not just some folks.
Thanks Kevinn! Now we’ve come full circle and are now back to the original list i posted. Maybe they’ll get it now.
Kevin, do you honestly think the 14th or the 10th amendments could have been ratified if they meant that SSM would be allowed?
It couldn’t have happened then, it couldn’t happen today, and it couldn’t have happened any time in between.
It never happened.
“The government can’t offer rights to some citizens but not to others. It’s not about whether marriage is a right or not, although the US Supreme Court has already ruled it is in several cases. If it’s a right, then it’s a right EVERYBODY has, not just some folks.”
And gay people do have the exact same right as everyone else to marry. Whether or not you want to participate is your own business.
Stop trying to invent discrimination where there is none. Stop trying to invent constitutional rights that don’t exist. And stop trying to force your twisted morality down the throats of your neighbors.
No matter how many ways you say it, Marty, we do NOT have the same right as you to marry. I want to marry my partner, a woman who I’ve shared my life with for 12 years and I cannot.
And stop trying to force your religious dogma on us! We’re not forcing anything on you. If you dont like same sex marriage then don’t marry a guy! It’s plain and simple.
Michelle, you chose your partner — someone you KNEW you couldn’t marry. Be happy, and get on with your life.
If you want to marry, choose a marriable partner. Or not. I don’t care really. But you can stop pretending that separate is equal. How could it be?
Heh, “If you dont like same sex marriage then don’t marry a guy! It’s plain and simple.”
How about “If you dont like guys then don’t get married! It’s plain and simple.”
You knew exactly what you were getting into when you decided to shack up with another woman. That was your choice and you made it. You could have chosen otherwise, but decided not to. Fine. Stop acting like the rest of us OWE you something.
Marty do you think slave ownership could have been abolished when the constitution was signed, let alone miscegenation laws? Couldn’t happen then, but eventually there was a SCOTUS determination.
There is no constitutional amendment for marriage equality nor is there one against same gender marriage. Why is that do you suppose? Why is there no federal constitutional amendment banning SSM? Why fight this state by state with the two wolves and a lamb strategy of voting on what to eat for lunch?
Then we have the dual gender african athlete forcing inter-sex identity politics on the rest of us. 1 in 2000 people are born inter-sex. Who can they marry? No one, because they can’t procreate which will destroy the core meaning of marriage. What would the constitution say? No amendment says inter-sex have the right to marry.
Since marriage is also a civil contract, what do you tell a child of a same sex couple who does not have access (through marriage) to their partners company health insurance? Is your child better than their child because of your heterosexual identity political supremacy?
Michelle, you are where you began. Without the last item on your list, your complaint is baseless.
* * *
Marty, thank you, this discussion is like the Dead Parrot sketch of Monty Python.
Next Kevin will be singing about being a Lumberjack.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Jerome,
Are you deliberately avoiding the comment I wrote in direct response to your previous remarks? That response was written at your invitation.
Michelle, your list is based on the last item. Yet the marriage law does not include gay as a criterion for ineligibility; nor does it include straight as a criterion for eligibility. So the rest of the list comes tumbling down.
However, for the sake of discussion of constitutional principles, please reconcile the last item on your list with the second-last item on your list.
How does the letter of the marriage law unjustly discriminate on the basis of sex AND on the basis of sexual orientation?
Don’t bother citing or quoting pro-SSM court opinions. Use your own words and your own understanding. What principle(s) are you invoking in claiming both items?
Also, is one item enough or are both necessary simultaneously? Please state the principle(s) at work in your thinking.
It would also be useful for you to explicitly define your notion of “same-sex couples”. For example, is same-sex sexual behavior mandatory? Or same-sex sexual attraction? Or even some degree of adherence to group identity, i.e. gayness? Probably not on all three. Hence the need for you to be more clear in what you mean by the phrase “same-sex couples”. Afterall, your key items — the last two on your list — depend entirely on that definition.
Chairm
* * *
By the way, Michelle, if you meant group identity (i.e. gay identity politics) rather than sexual orientation, feel free to replace “gay” and “straight” with sexual orientation in the second paragraph in this comment.
Charim, I;m in agreement with you on the sexual orientation issue to be put at the top of Michele’s list.
Then we need to examine equal protection and due process to those similarly situated under the lens of the 14th amendment. This has not yet been done at the federal level, so is the point moot?
However, you have not addressed [...] the civil contract issue of marriage for several thousand benefits that support families. Health insurance being one for gay and lesbian families. Are you against health insurance, for these children? Are you against pensions, social security, inheritance and hospital visitation. Or do you just believe the extra paper work and expense that you don’t have to go through, is justifiable discrimination? Can you comment on these issues?
Many leading organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American
Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National
Association of Social Workers, and the Child Welfare League of America, weigh available research and support the conclusion that gay and lesbian parents are as effective as heterosexual parents in raising children.
Perhaps like slavery, the framers of the United States Constitution, knew that “times can
blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,” and as our constitution “endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom” and equality.
The constitution is not merely tied to traditional views about marriage, but like any form of discrimination recognizes the changing nature of society.
The point in time when the standard of equal
protection finally takes a new form is a product of the conviction of one, or many, individuals that a particular grouping results in inequality and the ability of the judicial system to perform its constitutional role free from the influences that tend to make society’s understanding of equal protection resistant to change.
Same sex couples are similarly situated compared to heterosexual couples. They are in committed and loving relationships, raising families, just like heterosexual couples. Moreover, official marriage
recognition of their status provides an institutional basis for defining their fundamental relational rights and responsibilities, just as it does for
heterosexual couples.
Chairm, society benefits, from providing same sex couples a stable framework within which to raise their children and the power to make health care and end-of-life decisions for loved ones, just as it
does when that framework is provided for opposite-sex couples. What a concept!!!
Jerome, you really need to brush up on your history. Slavery was abolished by executive order in 1862 (see Emancipation Proclamation), and by constitutional amendment in 1865 (see 13th Amendment).
SSM has no such history, nor such popular support.
Hey, if you want to pass a law making it legal, that’s fine. But please stop pretending we already have. The ratifiers of our constitution are rolling over in their graves while you piss on the grass above them.
“Same sex couples are similarly situated compared to heterosexual couples. They are in committed and loving relationships, raising families, just like heterosexual couples.”
Except that unlike heterosexual couples, same-sex couples are founded on gender bias and segregation.
This is NOT something we should be celebrating.
Marty are also implying that be legalizing gay marrriage the species is oging to stop? do you majically think were all gonna turn gay…hmmmmm
“Except that unlike heterosexual couples, same-sex couples are founded on gender bias and segregation.”
What does that even mean? Is a white woman who chooses to marry another white man discriminating against black men?
What does race have to do with marriage, Kevin?
Marty, my point was that slavery was an accepted practice when the constitution was signed. It took a few hours later to get the Emancipation proclamation and the 13th Amendment.
There are a few states (and a few countries) where SSM is legal. How is that for support? Perhaps its not pretense to assume SSM legality. Based on your analysis then, we need either a proclamation or amendment to make SSM legal? I’m not sure this is correct.
I must get back to the questions about gay and lesbian families. The civil contract issues that enable health insurance and about 1800 other federal and state benefits. Are your children “more deserving” of health insurance or other financial support through social security or pensions than families of Gay and Lesbians? I’m going to keep asking this question….
It sounds like you believe Lesbians are discriminating against men (gender bias?). I don’t know many men who want to marry a Lesbian.
According to a recent longitudinal study in the UK, the children of lesbians have better mental health outcomes than heterosexual or gay male counterparts. Should we take the children of heterosexuals and gay men and place them in Lesbian households? That is, If we are really concerned about the best interest of children, we need to make policy based on facts not unsupported opinion.
Can you address my questions about the financial and health insurance needs of gay and lesbian families. Please?
Why is
Let me jump in here on the race question… It falls under a classification known as “immutable characteristics.” For example, sexual orientation generally regarded as an immutable characteristic. The color of ones skin, while can be modified in some cases, might cause serious harm, therefor can be considered for practical purposes a immutable characteristic.
Now, let me ask again about the health and financial support question I asked about Gay and Lesbian families…. please.
Marty, race has nothing to do with marriage. Neither does gender. What DOES matter is love and commitment, unless you’re happy with instances of adultery and divorce.
Jerome, the question was not about where on Michell’s list we might place the sexual orientation item.
The entire list, for the purposes both Michelle, Josh, and now you, have brought it into discussion is toppled without that item.
I think you have confirmed this more than once in your remarks.
You depend on there being “discrimination based on sexual orientation”, right?
My point has been that marriage laws does not discriminate — neither against nor in favor– on the basis of sexual orientation.
Society discriminates, justly, between marriage and nonmarriage. The rest follows from there.
Jerome, you have not said anything that distinguishes SSM from the rest of the nonmarriage category — except for your own emphasis on identity groups.
Instead of talkinging about families, you really ought to explain why the sexual behavior of gay men and lesbians merits special status. And, if not the sexual behavior, the identity.
It is not about fairness, contrary to your remarks, if you favor a subset of nonmarriage over the rest on the basis of sexual orienation, much less on the basis of identity politics. Your own remarks about racialism, for example, make the case AGAINST the merger of SSM with marriage.
Jerome: Are your children “more deserving” of health insurance or other financial support through social security or pensions than families of Gay and Lesbians? I’m going to keep asking this question…. ”
Are thier children less deserving of a mom AND a dad, simply because mom doesn’t like boys? Smells like gender bias to me, and a cruel and unusual thing to do to a kid. I’m going to keep asking this question too…
Kevin: “Marty, race has nothing to do with marriage. Neither does gender.”
Until about 5 minutes ago, gender had EVERYTHING to do with marriage (ever heard of a shotgun wedding?), and everyone understood that perfectly well.
I get that you’d like to change that. Good luck.
Jerome: “For example, sexual orientation generally regarded as an immutable characteristic.”
Except for when it’s not. I think we ALL know someone who changed from straight to gay, and many of us know some who have changed from gay to straight.
Nevermind that there is no “test” for gayness, nor is there any outwardly identifiable characteristic — other than behavior. Gay is as gay does. It’s not an objective or measurable (much less “immutable”) characteristic.
(Yes, i’ll agree that it is “generally regarded” as such, by people who vote leftist. And I suspect their motives in this and many other areas.)
Kevin, I can’t remember if you’ve claimed to be a Christian here, but if you have or are, here’s something to keep in mind:
While it’s true that Jesus never said a word about homosexuality, He did have a thing or two to say about marriage. And sex/gender were central.
In comment sections where you’ve participatd, Jerome, I’ve already discussed, at length, the provision for designated beneficiaries, and other measures, that serve the nonmarriage category of arrangements.
If your actual demand is that society do away with the special status of the social institution of marriage, then, just sayso. That is the logical conclusion of SSM argumentation anyway.
If, on the other hand, you hope that society will retain, and affirm, the special status of marriage, then, please provide the special reason — the justification — for that special status if SSM and marriage become merged.
And, please, explain how that special reason does not fit the rest of the nonmarriage category of relationships and arrangements.
No, sexual orientation does not merit special status. No, identity politics does not do the trick either. Your own comments — and those of fellow SSMers — has repeatedly asserted as much.
The defence of the core meaning of marriage is not the defence of heterosexuality nor the defence of straight identity politics. It is not the assertion of supremacy on the basis of either of those things.
SSMers disagree with those things, even as these are probably not the real problem that they raise regarding vulnerable families, and fail to deal forthrightly with the actual disagreement on marriage.
1. Does marriage merit a special status?
2. If yes, state the special reason.
3. If no, state the extraordianry reason to impose upon society the extraordinary action to abolish that special status.
4. Reconcile the repudiation of white identity politics (of the anti-miscegnation system) with your own assertion of gay identity politics as a trump card in these discussions.
5. If you cannot reconcile that, then, justify the unprincipled exeption you assert for only a subset of the nonmarriage category which you favor over the rest of that category.
“Until about 5 minutes ago, gender had EVERYTHING to do with marriage (ever heard of a shotgun wedding?), and everyone understood that perfectly well.
I get that you’d like to change that. Good luck.”
I’d like to see gender discrimination eliminated. I think a man or woman should be able to marry a man or a woman, as s/he wants.
“I’d like to see gender discrimination eliminated. I think a man or woman should be able to marry a man or a woman, as s/he wants.”
So when it comes to sex/gender, separate IS equal, in your eyes. Got it.
Marty,
we’re talking about secular, civil marriage. Religions, since they’re voluntary, can call marriage whatever they want. Legally, since we’re all subject to the law, the discussion is a bit different.
“So when it comes to sex/gender, separate IS equal, in your eyes. Got it.”
Huh? maybe it’s getting late but that makes no sense.
Fair enough. I just thought I’d remembered you bringing up the religious argument once before.
I agree, this is a secular matter, but is deeply informed by the religious morals of We The People.
Sorry to confuse you.
Are two men equal to two women? Are two “moms” the equal of a mother and father?
From where I sit, men and women are NOT equals. Not physically, not emotionally, not legally. So I don’t see how two apples could ever equal two oranges, much less a fruit salad.
“In comment sections where you’ve participatd, Jerome, I’ve already discussed, at length, the provision for designated beneficiaries, and other measures, that serve the nonmarriage category of arrangements.”
I’ve missed it, basically looking for a yes or no answer. Are Gay and Lesbian families deserving of the same benefits/protections (health insurance, pensions, inheritance etc.) that your family enjoys? Just a yes or no answer will suffice.
“The entire list, for the purposes both Michelle, Josh, and now you, have brought it into discussion is toppled without that item. I think you have confirmed this more than once in your remarks.” –
Totally agree with you here, 100%. Without a premise, there is nothing to apply the due process and equal protection standards. Aren’t we stating the obvious?
Marty wrote: “Except for when it’s not. I think we ALL know someone who changed from straight to gay, and many of us know some who have changed from gay to straight.”
Really? Are you talking about orientation or behavior?
Please define exactly what occurs here. A bisexual that has changed what exactly? A gay man that thinks they can change their orientation by marrying a woman? Or are you talking about a gay man or woman whose mind is somewhere else while procreating?
You answered my question with a question. Hopefully you will answer the health insurance and financial benefit question with a yes or no. I will answer your question though in hopes that you will answer the question about the children of gay and lesbian families being less deserving of insurance and other financial benefits that your family enjoys.
Yes or No will do.
“Are thier children less deserving of a mom AND a dad, simply because mom doesn’t like boys? Smells like gender bias to me, and a cruel and unusual thing to do to a kid. I’m going to keep asking this question too…”
Children deserve loving parents. There is no data that shows that a mom and a dad can provide a greater benefit or mental health outcome for children. In fact, UK longitudinal research shows lesbian parents can provide better mental health outcomes for children than a mom and a dad or gay men. You have a nice, pretty opinion, but its not fact or supported by data or objective science.
1. Does marriage merit a special status?
2. If yes, state the special reason.
3. If no, state the extraordianry reason to impose upon society the extraordinary action to abolish that special status.
4. Reconcile the repudiation of white identity politics (of the anti-miscegnation system) with your own assertion of gay identity politics as a trump card in these discussions.
5. If you cannot reconcile that, then, justify the unprincipled exeption you assert for only a subset of the nonmarriage category which you favor over the rest of that category.
Yes I think marriage is a special status, recognition of a relationship, the legal and societal benefits that go along that recognition are special.
As to number 4, personally I don’t seek to make SSM a trump card. My own view is that full acceptance of this marginalized group through conversion is impossible. For example, Unitarians, Episcopal, Reformed Jew, Buddhist and Quakers either honor or perform same gender marriages. Full acceptance won’t be achieved by Mormons or Catholics. The KEY question to ask then, is: “Which view should prevail in CIVIL law?” Good argumentation exists that says NEITHER view should prevail. The tests of due process and equal protection applied to sexual orientation a criteria for access to civil marriage. Is there sufficient constitutional justification for excluding gays and lesbians from civil marriage. Will heterosexual marriages become less significant or meaningful, will procreation cease, will children be harmed?
No Jerome, the data has shown again and again that children do best with their own biological parents. The study you refer to is extremely narrow in scope, and biased from the outset.
My question to you is, is “because mom doesn’t like boys” a good enough reason to deprive a little girl of her own Daddy?
A cruel and unusual thing to do to a kid if you ask me.
Marty,
Are you therefore advocating outlawing same-sex parenting? Because right now, it’s legal in all 50 states for same-sex couples to raise children. Should that change? And if not, why not grant same-sex couples the right to marry, if only to provide the best possible environment for their children?
You know I do find it very interesting that whenever someone on the right suggests that gay-activists are out to “destroy the family” they are quickly denounced as biggoted reactionaries.
And yet we have Jerome here, and Kevin, who insist that mothers and fathers and intact biological families are not important at all, and in fact, perhaps 2 lesbian moms make the best parents after all.
No, nobody out to destroy the family here…
Marty,
You’ve invented that false construct: that biological mothers and fathers aren’t important. Most of us are just saying that there are exceptions to that traditional circumstance. Like the mother who also works full-time instead of staying home full-time with the kids. You need to learn to trust other people to do what’s right in their own lives and accept that people have different approaches to life, depending on what life has handed them.
Kevin, I’m no more for outlawing same-sex parenting than I am for outlawing single-parenting.
Neither should we reward or celebrate such less than ideal situations. You can choose to marry, or you can choose not to. But just because you don’t like boys is hardly an excuse for society to change the meaning of marriage.
Kevin, so you’re saying that “mom doesn’t like boys” is an “exception to the traditional circumstance that mothers AND fathers are important.”
I don’t buy it. Your gender bias is your problem — not something that should deprive a kid of his own father.
Marty, you still won’t answer my question about health and financial insurance benefits for Gay and Lesbian families. I won’t ask you to explain your answer. Just a simple yes or no. “YES” you think they are deserving of those benefits just as your own family might be or “NO” they are not as deserving as my own family. Sure I would like an explanation for either answer, but a simple si or non will do.
What evidence are you referring to that children do best with biological parents? If your evidence meets the standard of peer review, can be duplicated independently, the way knowledge or data is certified. Then I think you may indeed have a gold mine. Will you marry me?
Many leading organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American
Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National
Association of Social Workers, and the Child Welfare League of America, weigh available research and support the conclusion that gay and lesbian parents are as effective as heterosexual parents in raising children.
In fact this evidence has been examined by our legal system as well for findings of fact, vs. opinion.
Please share the information.. i want to check it out to see if your data meets the standards off peer review, and follows the scientific method. Not some religious organization that pays $35.00 a page to have an opinion published.
I don’t like boys? What on earth are you talking about? I’m a middle-aged heterosexual man, widowed actually. I like boys. I don’t want to have sex with them, is all.
I would like you to address the well-being of the children of same-sex couples. Chaim avoids this topic. Maybe you won’t. If having married parents is good for kids, as NOM’s Maggie Gallagher says, on what basis should society deprive the children of same-sex couples this enormous benefit? Is it enough to justify this based on a personal or religious distaste for their parents’ romantic inclinations?
Jerome, I will respond to #88 when I have more time.
Kevin, “you” is used euphamistically. YOU know exactly who I’m talking about.
“on what basis should society deprive the children of same-sex couples this enormous benefit?”
On what basis are they already being deprived? On the basis of gender bias, it seems to me. If Mommy wanted to be married, she would be. But if her distaste for men is so overwhelming that she would prefer her child be raised without a father in an unmarried situation, well, I suppose that was her choice.
She can still choose otherwise, if she gets over her bias.
Marty,
You’ve avoided the question, or didn’t understand it. You seem to have it in your head that lesbians hate men, for some reason.
The question is, since same-sex couples are legally raising children in all 50 states (about 500,000 children, by one estimate), and we all agree that having married parents is better for children than having unmarried parents, why wouldn’t you insist that same-sex couples raising children get married, for the benefit of the children?
I didnt avoid or misunderstand the question. Lesbians choose not to marry, because that would mean marrying a man.
That’s their choice. I’m not going to force them to marry against their will, neither will I pretend that their relationship with their girlfriend is a “marriage” in any way. If they want to marry, equally, just like everyone else, no one is stopping them. They simply choose not to, even at the “enormous” cost to their children.
Again, the question is, since gays and lesbians, as human beings, are fully within their human and civil and legal rights to reproduce, and also within their human and civil and legal rights to form a couple with another same-sex person, what do you think of creating a substandard environment, that is, being raised out of wedlock, for their children? I’m running out of ways to phrase the question LOL.
I think it is a less than ideal, but perfectly legal choice. They’re adults, and knew what they were getting themselves into i presume. If their gender bias trumps the benefits of marriage for their kids, so be it. I find it morally abhorrent personally, but a perfectly legal choice. To each his own.
Please don’t ask me to reward them for making a morally abhorrent choice, or to pretend that their less-than-ideal situation is “equal” to that of a married mother and father. Because it isn’t.
Morally abhorrent? Reproducing is morally abhorrent? Maybe we’re splitting hairs on what “equal” means but same-sex couples ARE equal to opposite-sex couples, at least they should be, legally speaking. Are childless couples not the equal of couples with children? What’s so special about opposite-sex couples?
I don’t believe heterosexuals are following some moral code when they marry someone of the opposite sex; I think they’re following their lusts, their desire for companionship, distaste for loneliness, etc. Are you saying there is some kind of morality involved when a man and woman marry?
Still never heard of a shotgun wedding Kevin? I know they’re currently out of fashion, but obviously there’s a strong moral component involved.
Men and women are not equal. Not physically, not emotionally, not legally. So it makes no sense that “2 men” could ever equal “2 women”, much less “man and wife”. Apples, oranges, etc.
Morally abhorrent: Same-sex couples don’t have kids by accident, or through acts of love. Many same-sex couples create “broken families” deliberately, with the sole purpose to ensure that their child never has a father to call his own. Cruel, and very very unusual.
(And yes, i feel the same about the so-called “single moms by choice” whose own needs trump any right of their kids to have and know a father.)
Marty,
I guess I’m not going to get a straight (ha ha) answer from you on this issue of the status of the children of same-sex couples. Therefore, I shall assume that you consider them second-class citizens, unworthy of equal treatment with the children of opposite-sex couples, by virtue of their bad luck at being born to, or adopted by, same-sex couples. Would that accurately portray your viewpoint? That the children of same-sex couples deserve their diminished status because they had the bad luck to be born to, or adopted by, a gay couple?
If the children of same-sex couples have a “diminished status”, it is because of the decisions of the parents. They knew what they were getting into when they had/adopted these kids — and knew that marriage was not an option. Still, they proceeded. I respect their choice, while respectfully disagreeing with it.
I certainly don’t owe them or their children anything. They made this bed, I’m happy to let them sleep in it.
Or, if they are really so concerned with the wellbeing of their kids, they can marry someone of the opposite sex, just like the rest of us. It’s their choice.
I didn’t ask whether you think THEY are concerned about their kids: that’s a red-herring. No person or couple, straight or gay, is ever asked to make a choice between being a parent and being a GOOD parent. I’m asking YOU, knowing that gays and lesbians are out there raising children, and they’re going to do this anyway, just like straight but flawed people are out there raising children, what is the best situation for children: having married parents or unmarried parents?
You always get to decide what kind of parent you want to be. If I want to have children without a husband, I can. However, society, science and everyone else knows that kids are better off with a mom and a dad. I’m free to choose to create a substandard family. That is my choice. It is your choice too, if you decide to create motherless or fatherless children. Calling someone’s relationship something it isn’t can’t repair that damage.
Kevin, you said it yourself: “they’re going to do it anyway.” They know the score, they made their choice.
I personally disagree. If what you and others claim, that the disadvantages are REAL, then many will surely NOT “do it anyway”, simply for the sake of their kids. And I applaud that particular decision.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again because for me, this is what it all boils down to: legal recognition of SSM will mean that MORE children, not fewer, are deliberately deprived of their Fathers (and occasionaly their mothers) for no better reason than the gender bias of their remaining biological parent.
Jerome, here are a few items that should meet your criteria, and one particularly revealing example.
——–
“A child is one hundred times more likely to be abused or killed by a step-parent than by a genetic parent. This startling finding was unearthed by two Canadian scientists who predicted, on Darwinian grounds, that the official orthodoxy, which ignores family ties, obscures the increased dangers to children of living in stepfamilies.” The Truth about Cinderella: A Darwinian View of Parental Love
By Martin Daly and Margot Wilson, Professors of Psychology at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
Kristin Anderson Moore et al., “Marriage From a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and What Can We Do About It?” Child Trends Research Brief, June 2002, p. 1.
Mary Parke, “Are Married Parents Really Better for Children?” Center for Law and Social Policy, May 2003, p. 1.
Jame Q. Wilson, “Why We Don’t Marry,” City Journal, (20 October 2004).
Ronald P. Rohner and Robert A. Veneziano, “The Importance of Father Love: History and Contemporary Evidence,” Review of General Psychology 5.4 (2001): 382-405.
Ronald J. Angel and Jacqueline Worobey, “Single Motherhood and Children’s Health,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29 (1988): 38-52; Ronald J. Angel and Jacqueline L. Angel, Painful Inheritance: Health and the New Generation of Fatherless Families, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993).
Bonnie Barber and Janice Lyons, “Family Process and Adolescent Adjustment in Intact and Remarried Families,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence,”
Michael Stiffman, et al., “Household Composition and Risk of Fatal Child Maltreatment,” Pediatrics, 109 (2002), 615-621
———-
But perhaps most damning of all, comes from your own side!
A Mr. (Dr?) Richard E. Redding writes in the Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy such amazing things as:
“A plausible reading of the research is that fathers and mothers each make a unique–though not essential–contribution to children’s social, emotional and intellectual development”
Neat how he stresses “not essential”… you’d think the “pro-diversity” crowd would be celebrating the unique contributions of mothers AND fathers…
“But dual-gender parenting may be modestly advantageous for children’s development….. Thus, a two-parent mother and father family may be the best family structure for childrearing, everything else being equal.”
So he admits what the rest of us have always known, and that the data has repeatedly proven.
He goes on to admit the disadvantages of same-sex parenting:
“First, research suggests that children raised by lesbigay parents may be more likely to develop a homosexual orientation” (But thats not a problem, he continues)
“Second, children raised by lesbigay parents frequently report concerns about peer rejection if friends find out that their parents are gay or lesbian, and many times they go to considerable lengths to keep this a secret. /i>” (Again, not a problem he claims)
“ Third, gays and lesbians have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse than the general population,” (OBVIOUSLY because everyone else is a homophobe)
“Fourth, the extant research suggests that mothers and fathers each make a unique contribution to children’s social, emotional, and intellectual development, though the relative advantages of dual-gender parenting appear to be modest.”
WOW! He downplays both the significant and well documented problems with same-sex parents, AND he downplays the significant and well documented advantages of intact biological families.
And to think some suggest gay activists are out to destroy the natural family!
I enourage you to read it all. It’s depth and bias towards depravity are simply mindboggling.
http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?15+Duke+J.+Gender+L.+&+Pol%27y+127
You know, you gotta love “researchers” like Redding here, whose bias is so obvious to everyone.
On one hand he admits the advantages of intact biological families (modest, he claims), and on the he other he admits the DISadvantages of same-sex parenting (again, modest), while completely ignoring the middle sort: straight single-parent, and remarried step-families.
So it’s a double-whammy! Not only must children of same-sex parents endure the (modest) disadvantages of that household, they are also deprived of the (modest) advantages of an intact biological home. Quite immodest, in my opinion.
I will hand it to Redding though (again, read it all), his dissertation is deep (nearly exhaustive), fair, and frankly should be devastating to those like Jerome who insist there’s no substantive difference between same-sex or heterosexual parenting, and that kids do not benefit especially from intact biological families.
Yet despite all that, Redding still manages to reach the (foregone) conclusion that SSM should be formally recognized and legally sanctioned by the State.
Which just goes to show, all this arguing we do here on NOM and elswhere, and all the biased research coming from one side or the other, won’t change any minds. We’ve already made them up for the most part.
I’m not here to change anyone’s mind on the matter. But I do hope to help give words to some of the things you may have felt and always known, but couldn’t quite put a finger on, and to supply ammunition to others who find themselves being assaulted by the raging pro-gay radicals who see nothing but homophobes and bigots behind every bush.
A broken home is a tragedy. It’s not something to formally recognize or legally sanction, much less celebrate under some false notion of “diversity”.
Thanks for listening, you guys.
Marty,
“Kevin, you said it yourself: “they’re going to do it anyway.” They know the score, they made their choice.”
Yes, but the children didn’t get a choice. That’s what I’m saying. Forget the parents for a minute. If we know that having married parents is better for kids, regardless of whether you like or approve of the parents, don’t the children deserve the best possible parenting situation?
And how can we, as a society, talk about the importance of “in tact” families yet refuse to let gay couples create strong families via marriage? Your point would make sense if we outlawed same-sex couples or same-sex parenting. We don’t: both of those activities are perfectly legal in all 50 states, with no initiatives or referendums pending to change that. Many states, however, were very quick to prevent these legal same-sex couples and their legal parenting from creating stronger, better families via marriage. It’s almost like society wants to keep gay people at a disadvantage, rather than “protecting” marriage.
Why don’t we try same-sex marriage nationally for ten years and see how it goes. If all sorts of unanticipated pathologies emerge, we can then outlaw it. In the interest of children, I think it better to give same-sex marriage a try before outlawing it. It seems odd to constitutionally outlaw something that hasn’t even been legal yet.
“A broken home is a tragedy. It’s not something to formally recognize or legally sanction, much less celebrate under some false notion of “diversity”.”
Then why not let same-sex couples, at least the ones with children, get married, so the home won’t “break”? Again, either outlaw same-sex parenting and same-sex marriage, or make both legal. To outlaw just same-sex marriage is wholly illogical.
“Your point would make sense if we outlawed same-sex couples or same-sex parenting. We don’t: both of those activities are perfectly legal in all 50 states, with no initiatives or referendums pending to change that. ”
I agree there is no momentum for outlawing such arrangements (perhaps if anyone could come up with an enforcement mechanism that wasn’t even WORSE for the child…), but just because something is legal doesn’t mean we have to support or encourage it. Think Smoking: it’s legal. people are going to do it anyway — yet we stigmatize it right and left. As we should.
“Then why not let same-sex couples, at least the ones with children, get married, so the home won’t “break”? ”
They are already broken. By design, and through the active choices of adults who knew exactly what they were signing up for. Hey, it’s a free country. We don’t have to outlaw every bad thing — but that doesn’t make it good, simply because it’s not illegal. Perhaps just the lesser of evils… and contrary to liberal opinion, we ARE a very tolerant bunch.
Thanks for the debate. I’m going to take a break and watch a football game. Lets give Jerome a chance to recover before we rehash everything we’ve already covered before, ok Kev?
WHO DAT!
“And how can we, as a society, talk about the importance of “in tact” families yet refuse to let gay couples create strong families via marriage?”
Gay families cannot be strong “intact” families. They lack half the gender by choice and design. Calling two men shacking up and playing house married doesn’t change the fact that their children lack a mother.
“the children didn’t get a choice. That’s what I’m saying.”
That’s why the french commission found that children’s rights came before adult sexual preference. It isn’t fair to the kids.
Jerome, you say that the list of items needs a premise. Okay, what is that premise, plainly stated?
* * *
Jerome asked: “Are Gay and Lesbian families deserving of the same benefits/protections (health insurance, pensions, inheritance etc.) that your family enjoys?”
My family? Why are you trying to hyper-personalize a discussion of the principled basis for distinguishing marriage from nonmarriage?
Do you mean to compare different types of domestic arrangements? Well, if so, just state the chief features of the two things you are asking about.
On one hand you said “Gay and Lesbian families” (your use of upper case signifies something, does it?) but then your question went mushy.
Let me ask you, on what principled basis should any type of domestic arrangement be denied the things you listed in your question?
See, I think your question depends on identity politics rather than the principled basis for such things in your list.
That holds true for the list that Michelle presented and which you have not explained here.
If your question boilsdown to — “Does identity politics require society to create a special class of families?” my answer is NO.
What is your answer?
Marty,
Thanks for the sources, most of this is the authors opinion about existing studies. However, I can’t see much in the reading to support a notion that children of gay and lesbian families fare worse in their development than heterosexual counterparts.
Marty stated: “Redding though (again, read it all), his dissertation is deep (nearly exhaustive), fair”
Then this “opinion” should be able to stand on its own merit or objective peer review. I strongly suggest a friend of the court brief for Judge Walker or the Prop 8 supporters below:
In the current Prop 8 Federal District Court hearing, Judge Walker asked for specific “adverse consequences” that could follow expanding marriage to include same-sex couples. - Prop 8 defense attorney Cooper cited a study from the Netherlands, showing that straight couples were increasingly opting to become domestic partners instead of getting married.
“Has that been harmful to children in the Netherlands? What is the adverse effect?” Judge Walker asked.
Prop 8 defense attorney Cooper said: he did not have any facts.”
Judge Walker also asked Cooper, how would procreation (core meaning of marriage) be impeded by allowing same-sex couples to wed? Cooper replied: “The answer is, I don’t know”
Further, these data sources (critiqued by opinion) seem to demonstrate the well thought out conclusions of our main stream organizations:
“Social scientists and mental health professionals have conducted over fifty studies, of varying quality, to examine the effects of lesbigay parenting on children. In many cases, the investigators undertook the research to inform, if not directly influence, legal policy. They have concluded that the findings “are exceptionally clear,” and demonstrate that there are no relevant differences in outcomes between children raised by heterosexual versus homosexual parents and that lesbigay parenting has no negative effects on children.40 Children raised by lesbigay parents do not have disturbances in gender identity, they have normal peer relationships, their mental health and psychosocial [*pg 136] adjustment is as positive as that of children raised in heterosexual households, and homosexual parents are no more likely to sexually abuse children than are heterosexual parents.
Indeed, leading professional organizations including the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the National Association of Social Workers,42 and most recently, the American Medical Association,43 regard the findings as sufficiently compelling to warrant statements against policies that disadvantage lesbians and gays in child custody, adoption, and foster care proceedings. Advocates have used these research conclusions to bolster support for lesbigay parenting and marriage rights, and the research is now frequently cited in public policy debates and judicial opinions.”
Kevin contradicted his own list of people who the SSM-merger would exclude from so-called “marriage-equality”.
He said: “I think a man or woman should be able to marry a man or a woman, as s/he wants.”
Not according to your previous remarks about eligibility and ineligibility.
Chairm, I think the premise is discrimination based on sexual orientation. Then one can apply the standards of due process and equal protection, rational basis review etc. to the premise.
The basis for denial of these benefits under discussion appears to be based on the civil contract ofd marriage, to try and answer your question. This holds true for Michelle’s list as well.
I don’t think my argument is based on creating a ’special’ class of families, but an ‘equal’ class.
I want to read your reply to the 7 year daughter of a Lesbian who has been a committed relationship for many years, who can’t afford cancer treatment because of the marriage requirement for her partners health insurance access. Whose home is in foreclosure because off the medical bills.
At least Chairm you can smile because you likely will have the insurance coverage to prevent the loss of your own home if this tragedy affected one of your own children.
Ahh but traditional marriage is protected.. what a warm feeling.
Jerome. Take your time, read it all. I suggest Mr. Cooper do the same. The facts are out there, and they work against your case every single time.
Whether or not you care about children is another matter entirely.
Jerome said: “Yes I think marriage is a special status, recognition of a relationship, the legal and societal benefits that go along that recognition are special.”
What is the special reason for special status?
Please state the essential(s) of the type of relationship that differentiates that type from the rest of the nonmarriage category.
Note: I am not asking for the specifics of this or that particular person’s relationship. I am asking for the societal signficance of the TYPE of relationship; and asking for the feature(s) that make that type different from the broad range of other types. In other words, I am asking you to plainly state the principled basis for eligibility and ineligibility.
* * *
Jerome said: As to number 4, personally I don’t seek to make SSM a trump card.”
I did not ask you if you sought to make SSM a trump card.
Number 4: Reconcile the repudiation of white identity politics (of the anti-miscegnation system) with your own assertion of gay identity politics as a trump card in these discussions.
Where you misread “make SSM a trump card”, read “assertion of gay identity politics as a trump card”.
Each time you ask about “Gay and Lesbian families” for example, or you make assertions on behalf of “the GLBT community”, you indicate that you expect society to show favoritsim toward an identity group.
* * *
Jerome said: The KEY question to ask then, is: “Which view should prevail in CIVIL law?”
Readers will note that the core meaning of marriage is not purely religious. Your view would set Government against religions and religious people, writ large.
Jerome said: The tests of due process and equal protection applied to sexual orientation a criteria for access to civil marriage.
False.
The marriage law has no such criterion. See Michelle’s list, which you have adopted as your own, and state the premise of your complaint.
See your own remarks above about “gay” men marrying women.
Jerome asked: Is there sufficient constitutional justification for excluding gays and lesbians from civil marriage.
Once again, gayness is not the basis for ineligibilty nor is straightness the basis for eligibility. Your thinking is circular and that is a fatal flaw.
Jerome asked: Will heterosexual marriages become less significant or meaningful, will procreation cease, will children be harmed?
This, too, is a misrepresentation of the actual disagreement.
The question, at root, is “what is marriage?”
And before you can get to that question, you as an SSMer must plainly state your answer to “what is SSM?”
The common assertion that SSM is marriage is not justification. It is mere assertion. You need to go to the essentials of SSM, distinguish that TYPE of relationship from other types, and then justify special status based on those essentials.
Thus far, you might agree, you distinguish SSM from the rest of nonmarriage by nothing more than your own emphasis on gayness, the GLBT community, and the group identity.
The Constitution does not answer these questions for you. You need to do that work yourself.
By the way, Jerome, gay identity is not one and the same as same-sex sexual attraction (aka homosexuality). While the latter might be inborn, or it might not be inborn, no socio-political identity is inborn. No such identity is immutable. It is chosen and constructed — both individually and socially and politically.
Your attempt to carve out a classification amounts to the attempt to press identity politics into constitutional jurisprudence. In the case of marriage, in Loving for example, the use of identity politics in the marriage law was repudiated. Your classification would revive it. Please reconcile this contradiction, if you can.
Now, you might imagine that your version of identity politics is more benign, but even if we were to grant that for the sake of discussion, it does not follow that identity politics (of whatever variety) may be justly wielded as a trump card.
For that would be an arbitrary exercise of governmental power. Agreed?
Jerome, for the record, please state the scientific standards you believe must apply to all social scientific claims regarding family types.
I will note that the “leading” organizations you listed have made political statements that are short on science. That suggests to me that you are not an authority on the subject matter.
An SSMer claimed that “same-sex couples are legally raising children”.
Maybe 4% of the children were adopted (which would include second-parent adoptions); less than 1% were attained via alternative methods such as “donor’ IVF/ARTs. These are generous estimates based on the available data from Census, CDC, and related sources. No firm count has ever been done and will probably never be possible given the tiny size of the target population.
By far, most of the children residing in same-sex households (the Census term for households presumably led by homosexual twosomes) got there by migrating from the previously procreative relationship of either mom or dad (typically marriage).
This shows two key things: 1) the man-woman criterion of marriage does not make homosexual persons ineligible to enter the social institution; 2) sexual orientation is irrelevant to the core of marriage which entails the marital presumption of paternity, which in turn provides protections both to the children and their mom and dad — regardless of sexual orientation.
Also more than half of the individuals who SSM have been previously in husband-wife unions — or in unwed opposite-sex cohabitation. This probably accounts for the 95%-plus of children resident in same-sex households. These children have the protections that already are available to children of divorced, seperated, or estranged mom/dad duos.
Pointing to adoption points outside of marriage; pointing to the practice of third party procreation (i.e. “donor” sperm and ova) points outside of marriage (extramarital procreation).
Also, according to the Census and HRC’s own analysis of the 2000 Census, the vast majority (about 90%) of the adult homosexual population does NOT reside in same-sex households; that the vast majority (about 97%) does NOT reside in such houeholds with children.
This is the virtual inverse of marriage and its core meaning. Participation rates are significant because the demand is not quite what the SSM campaign would portray it to be. SSM is a politically symbolic tool of a brand of identity politics; and it is also a tool, tragically for SSMers, of those who openly seek to flatten marital status and destroy its special status in the law and in the culture.
Gay identity politics can be about real issues, that significantly impact peoples lives on a daily basis.
I think Marty would say something like: “well this is a consequence of her choice to be with another woman.” Living a lie with a husband to have medical insurance, pensions and social security. That does not seem fair to either party.
I’m looking forward to the federal Prop 8 case starting January 11. Where both sides have a chance to prevent their case. I want to see how marriage equality for gays and lesbians impacts, or lessens the significance of traditional marriage. Some courts have found that tradition alone, is not sufficient justification for continuing a restriction or past practice.
Jerome, you comment @ November 30, 2009 at 11:37 pm does not make the case for the supremacy of identity politics over the rule of law, the constitution, and the core meaning of the marriage.
Make your case here, if you can, and refute the repudiation of identity politics that was at the root of the dismantling of the anti-miscegenation system. The Loving case, in particular, was a unanimous decision on that basis. Yet your comment would breathe new life into identity politics in the exact opposite direction.
Jerome, if tradition alone is insufficient, then, why do SSMers emphasize the over-riding importance of the relatively recent tradition of romantic love?
That tradition would not suffice in differentiating SSM from the nonmarriage category, right?
Chairm,
Jerome, for the record, please state the scientific standards you believe must apply to all social scientific claims regarding family types.
I will note that the “leading” organizations you listed have made political statements that are short on science. That suggests to me that you are not an authority on the subject matter.
–
Have you got me here? That the APA votes on its policy recommendations and is therefore political?
That this voting process is not based on peer review, or the scientific method? A group of professionals voting their identity politics, not based on scientific claims or evidence?
Sounds strikingly similar to the voting process in California and Maine. Who cares about science or the facts, where folks can vote based only on which side of the bed they woke up on a given morning?
Lets say the APA support of marriage equality is based ONLY on gay identity politics. Totally ignoring peer review or the science. Does this mean all the other organizations that are supposed to base decisions on facts and the science are solely political as well? Could not at least one other organization serve as a check and balance to the other. I find it really hard to believe they are all in cahoots on the “gay agenda.”
Jerome said: “Living a lie with a husband to have medical insurance, pensions and social security. That does not seem fair to either party.”
In other words, such an arrangement, in your view, would be a sham marriage, right?
What would make it “a lie”, in your view?
Jerome, what are the scientific standards? I asked because you brought it up.
I said the statements were political. I said they were short on science. I did not say that political statements and science are incompatable. But you just did.
I expect you meant to say something else and simply mispoke.
Is romantic love a tradition or a human condition?
This core meaning of marriage, to be sure I understand, means procreation and a mom and dad?
—-
“….does not make the case for the supremacy of identity politics over the rule of law, the constitution, and the core meaning of the marriage.”
I sure hope I’m not making a case for supremacy of identity politics over the rule of law and the constitution. Instead, better described as equal application of the law, due process and equal protection.
Core meaning of marriage? How about a more inclusive core meaning of marriage?
Well said, Lana (@Lana Posted November 30, 2009 at 6:16 pm).
SSMers make moral claims all the time. But somehow when marriage defenders discuss morality this is a cue for SSMers to denounce “legislating morality”.
Marriage — as a foundational social institution — is accorded a preferential status in our society. This is a moral choice.
SSMers make their own moral choice by supporting the merger of SSM with marriage. They wish for the Government to take sides, of course.
The difference is that defenders of marriage are prepared to live and let live; SSMers, or at least most who comment in the blogosphere, insist that those who disagree be branded as bigots and that the core meaning of marriage (for which the preferential status is due) be abolished from the law and from the culture.
Nonmarriage relationships are not defined by gayness nor by sexual orientation nor by minority status. Instead of “marriage equality” — by which SSMers mean special treatment based on gay identity — the SSM campaign should instead seek protection equality within the nonmarriage category. That is readly available, today, and is widely supported among marriage defenders.
It also has the value of being based on truth about marriage and is thus a just solution to the pro-SSM talk of protections — for vulnerable children, for example.
Demoting marriage from its preferential status does not do anything of the sort. SSMers need to recalibrate and seek justice instead of special treamtnet for “just us”.
I don’t think I said political statements and science were incompatible. What i was trying to say, is that not every decision is based only on politics. Look at the debate going on over breast cancer screenings. On that issue, professional organizations are not in agreement at the present time. Serving as checks and balances on each others recommendations.
Jerome, so now you are saying that romantic love is a condition? Is is immutable?
I asked if the tradition of romantic love is sufficient or not. Now you would transform it into a condition. Well, is it sufficient as a condition?
Is there a legal requirement for this condition — is it compulsory — for those who’d show up for a license to SSM? Not anyplace where SSM has been enacted or imposed. Maybe you are aware of, or propose, such a compulsory pre-requisite?
* * *
Okay, Jerome, what is the “more inclusive core meaning of marriage” in your view? I asked about the essentials. Does that include “the romantic condition”, for instance?
Jerome, regarding the social science on family types, if the standard is a competitive system of political checks and balances, then, why did you bring up scientific standards?
As I said, I thought you had mispoken, but perhaps you did not. I dunno.
“but just because something is legal doesn’t mean we have to support or encourage it. Think Smoking: it’s legal. people are going to do it anyway — yet we stigmatize it right and left. As we should.”
Smoking is legal. It’s bad for people. Marriage for some is illegal, and yet it’s GOOD for people, and their children. Makes no sense. If smoking is legal but frowned upon, why not treat same-sex marriage the same way?
“By design, and through the active choices of adults who knew exactly what they were signing up for.”
Yes, but the children didn’t….oh, nevermind!
“Gay families cannot be strong “intact” families.”
Says who? Why do we let these deficient families form, then?
“That’s why the french commission found that children’s rights came before adult sexual preference. It isn’t fair to the kids.”
Then let’s outlaw same-sex parenting and same-sex marriage. But outlawing only same-sex marriage makes zero sense. It’s like telling driver he operate a motor vehicle but he’s not allowed to wear his safety belt. It’s senseless.
In other words, such an arrangement, in your view, would be a sham marriage, right?
What would make it “a lie”, in your view?
–
Faking sexual attraction, trying to be something that your not, being in denial…” A sham, a lie and unfair for both parties. Not facing the reality of what is.. trying to live a fantasy.
Sometimes much easier to choose a different religion that accepts ones sexual orientation. Than trying to make a straight person gay or lesbian for example.
We allow one to choose a different religious view, why apply a different standard to sexual orientation?
Is there a legal requirement for this condition — is it compulsory — for those who’d show up for a license to SSM? Not anyplace where SSM has been enacted or imposed. Maybe you are aware of, or propose, such a compulsory pre-requisite?
——-
Okay, Jerome, what is the “more inclusive core meaning of marriage” in your view? I asked about the essentials. Does that include “the romantic condition”, for instance?
I’m not aware of any legal requirement for a romantic condition… perhaps instead a promise to love, honor and cherish until death do us part.
—
Allow gays and lesbians the legal right to civil marriage would be my own definition of a more inclusive meaning of marriage. Extending the same status and legal benefits of current marriage to include (inclusive) gays and lesbians.
Jerome asked for clarification: “This core meaning of marriage, to be sure [that] I understand [you], means procreation and a mom and dad? ”
Marriage is first and foremost a social institution — not a government creature but an organic social institution which grows from the following facts:
1. The nature of humankind is two-sexed;
2. The nature or the essential of human procreation is opposite-sexed.
3. The nature of human community is sex-integrative.
Now, when I say the nature of, I mean to speak to the essence, the fundamentals, the roots, of the thing.
The nature of marriage, its core meaning, is known by its universal features: 1) sex integration which is expressed in the man-woman criterion of our laws and customs; 2) provision for responsible procreation which is expressed in the marital presumption of paternity; and 3) these — at least these — combined as a coherent whole which.
Not that number three is simply what makes any social institution a social institution — it has coherency.
SSM does not appear to have this coherency. Nor is it foundational to civil society. It would be created by, and utterly dependant upon, the Government’s arbitrary exercise of power. It is sex-segregative and cannot provide for responsible procreation. For example, no one-sexed arrangement can procreate within it — and so must go outside of the relationship and engage in third party procreation. And, for another example, no one-sexed arrangement can raise children within it under the solidarity of fatherhood and motherhood. This solidarity is no small thing and marriage is not neutral about it: see the presumption of paternity. That presumption has a sexual basis that is exstrinsic to all one-sexed types of arrangements — sexualized or not. That sexual basis is also present in marriage provisoins for consummation, adultery as grounds for divorce, and so forth.
Okay, so there is an actual, a fact-based, difference between SSM and marriage. But is that difference of sufficient societal signficance to demarcate a line between the two?
I think so. Sex integration matters to civilization; as does the norm that mom and dad stick around to raise their children together; as is the stability of universal features of an institution that exists across anthropological and cutlural lines.
But maybe you have an over-riding reason to disagree. Something that is brand new to civilization. Something that is of greater societal signficance.
If so, then, draw the line some place else. How would YOU differentiate the SSM-merger-with-marriage from the rest of the nonmarriage category? I am asking about eligiblity here.
What is the core of SSM? How is that not also applicable to other arrangements which would be ineligible?
Typo correction:
“and 3) these — at least these — combined as a coherent whole.
Now, number three is simply what makes any social institution a social institution — it has coherency.”
Chairm, do you believe our legal system is capable of serving in the role of checks and balances for an electorate that sometimes votes opinion vs. facts and evidence.
If not, how and where do you propose we address these issues?
I think you were on to something when you mentioned justice (and may I add fairness?)
“SSMers make their own moral choice by supporting the merger of SSM with marriage. They wish for the Government to take sides, of course.”
Well, yeah! It’s the government that is issuing the marriage licenses! Who would you recommend marriage equality supporters turn to, the Catholic Church LOL? Religious marriage is subordinated to legal marriage. It just kinda makes sense to go after who’s in control, not who whines the most!
“The difference is that defenders of marriage are prepared to live and let live; SSMers, or at least most who comment in the blogosphere, insist that those who disagree be branded as bigots and that the core meaning of marriage (for which the preferential status is due) be abolished from the law and from the culture.”
The “defenders” of marriage are certainly NOT prepared to live and let live: they want to exclude an entire, already maligned, part of the population from having the rights and obligations of marriage. If bigotry isn’t relegating a specific part of the population and their children to second-class status, what is?
Whatever the core meaning of marriage is (I still don’t know!) it may or may not go away if same-sex couples get married. Maybe the core meaning of marriage can kick in when opposite-sex couples marry, and be ignored when same-sex couples marry!
“Demoting marriage from its preferential status does not do anything of the sort. SSMers need to recalibrate and seek justice instead of special treamtnet for “just us”.”
On the contrary, same-sex couples are buying into the preferential status of marriage, not demoting it; they’re not lobbying to outlaw marriage, just discriminatory marriage laws. Again, equal treatment, not special treatment.
Kevin proposed: “Why don’t we try same-sex marriage nationally for ten years and see how it goes. If all sorts of unanticipated pathologies emerge, we can then outlaw it. In the interest of children, I think it better to give same-sex marriage a try before outlawing it.”
Such arrangements are not outlawed. Experiment away, on a small scale. I think it is morally abohorrent to do so and agree with Marty.
But you can now stop demanding that society entrench the SSM-merger into constitutional jurisprudence. Effectively, you’ve just downgraded the argument to one of social scientific experiements with children.
For ten years.
Look, the one-sexed arrangement, where children are involved, shares key deficits with arrangements that are also measured against the standard intact married-mom-dad scenario.
It lacks one of the sexes and shares this with single-parent scenarios. Even accounting for differences in income and education, the deficit is found in the available evidence.
It also is not intact, for most children in same-sex households have come from broken relationships of mom-dad. The shortfall experienced by children of such broken homes is well-documented and researched.
It would also share features with step-famlies. Having two moms — and a dad — does not balance the scales; likewise having two dads — and a mom.
Add up the deficits. There is nothing about gay or lesbian identity that has been proposed which would balance things out.
The deficits are found in non-gay households. There is no good reason on offer to expect these deficits to be transformed into advantages through the alchemy of gaycentric identity.
Experiments on children hardly seem to fit the rhetoric of SSMers who talk of the interests of children. But maybe SSMers here can explain how the gay factor balances these deficits and how the best interests of children are served by this sort of (10 year!) experiementation on them.
Chairm wrote: “I think so. Sex integration matters to civilization; as does the norm that mom and dad stick around to raise their children together; as is the stability of universal features of an institution that exists across anthropological and cutlural line.”
I don’t see how gay and lesbian marriage equality will change or significantly alter this particular heterosexual phenomena.
I’m in agreement with your following definition except for the very strong government role in creating a civil contract and the legal benefits associated with that contract. Otherwise, I fail to see how SSM prevents or attenuates the following for heterosexual couples:
Marriage is first and foremost a social institution — not a government creature but an organic social institution which grows from the following facts:
1. The nature of humankind is two-sexed;
2. The nature or the essential of human procreation is opposite-sexed.
3. The nature of human community is sex-integrative.
Now, when I say the nature of, I mean to speak to the essence, the fundamentals, the roots, of the thing.
The nature of marriage, its core meaning, is known by its universal features: 1) sex integration which is expressed in the man-woman criterion of our laws and customs; 2) provision for responsible procreation which is expressed in the marital presumption of paternity; and 3) these — at least these — combined as a coherent whole which.
“Sex integration matters to civilization; as does the norm that mom and dad stick around to raise their children together; as is the stability of universal features of an institution that exists across anthropological and cutlural lines.”
If you, and society, really believed this, divorce would be illegal, at least with minor aged children in the household. Your reliance on procreation and parenting is a side show: there’s no requirement to procreate for married couples, and no test for determining who is a good parent and who isn’t. To suggest that the mere presence to one adult male and one adult female is the magic formula for good parenting is easily refuted, just as the assertion that same-sex couples aren’t or can’t be good parents.
Since procreation is unconnected to marriage, and your views on parenting are irrelevant, since outlawing same-sex marriage does nothing to prevent same-sex couples from raising children, why don’t you take a different tack, just for a change of pace?
Jerome, that is not the role of the judiciary in our legal system. When it comes to the contitution, the role is one of interpretation, not acting as a super-legislature that stands over the other branches of government and, indeed, over the governed.
The judiciary has its role. And judicial review has zilch to do with inmposing identity politics as decisive in our jurisprudence.
Your question was already answered in my points about Loving — and my questions to you on that remain on the table. You have just now given it greater emphasis.
Careful putting words in my mouth Jerome. Whether or not it is a “lie” is also and entirely her choice.
You may excuse such bias, based solely on gender, but I never will. I was raised better than that.
May take me a full day to catch up on all you and Chairm have been up to tonight… forgive me if I dont chime in.
PS: WHO DAT??!?!!!?!!!
Kevin sounds surprised: “It’s the government that is issuing the marriage licenses!”
Society issues the licenses via our government. Hence, you need to supply the societal signficance that merits 1) the license and 2) the special status.
You still haven’t done so.
But you have continued to press for favoritism based on identity politics alone.
* * *
Kevin seems astonished: “Maybe the core meaning of marriage can kick in when opposite-sex couples marry, and be ignored when same-sex couples marry!”
It would be ignored and abolished under an SSM-merger. You have made it clear that you hope for that to transpire.
Also, what is the core of SSM — you still have not said.
Where the core meaning of marriage has been affirmed, the core of SSM remains invisible.
But where the SSM-merger has been imposed, there is no core to be manifested — except for the assertion of supremacy of gaycentric identity politics. So that speaks for itself.
* * *
SSM is indistinguishable from nonmarriage. They are merged already. So SSMers seek to merge nonmarriage with marriage. This is regressive. It subtracts from marriage. It adds nothing to nonmarriage.
The SSM campaign, however, seeks to add something — identity politics of gaycentric variety would become a new trump card on all matters of social policy, family law, and constitutional jurisprudence.
That would not serve justice.
Jerome, correct if I am wrong, but you believe that SSM and marriage can coexist.
I agree.
But they are not the same thing. In fact, the provision for designated beneficiaries has long-existed — including under the realm of civil contract.
It is not shaped purely for this or that identity group. And it has slowly evolved in our legal system. It is not a merger with marriage — not in name and not in substance.
So we can agree to leave marriage alone. And then turn to protection equality, which appears to be central to your viewpoint.
“Society issues the licenses via our government.”
Nope. The government issues licenses in order to regulate marriage. No special status, just equal status. Equal status, equal status, equal status. Broken record status achieved on this.
“Where the core meaning of marriage has been affirmed, the core of SSM remains invisible.”
Think of it this way, even though you refuse to actually write out “same-sex marriage,” even you are still referring to it as marriage. Same-sex marriage is just a subset of the marriage category, just as opposite-sex marriage is. A male nurse is still a nurse; although the term is falling out of favor, it gets called out because men are still underrepresented, and uncommon, in the nursing profession. But no one says, “he’s not really a nurse because he’s not a female.” Left-handed pitchers get called “southpaws” simply to reflect the fewer numbers of these pitchers. But they are still pitchers. And so it is with marriage.
“SSM is indistinguishable from nonmarriage”
Except that married same-sex couples have a marriage license and are recognized by the state as married and deserving of the privileges of marriage.
“The SSM campaign, however, seeks to add something…”
No, it seeks to subtract something: discrimination against same-sex couples and their children.
FWIW, I’m not even sure I would vote to support “designated benificiares”, as Chairm has often described. Marriage-like benefits available to all of the “non-marriage” categories… brothers, sisters, roomates, a single mother and her mother (the child’s grandmother), or two lesbians playing house…
No, i’m not sure I would vote for that… BUT it sure sounds a lot more like an argument for “equality” than anything I’m hearing from the pro-gay “separate IS equal” crowd… it’s worth considering, especially since it’s a legislative option and not some juducial fiat accompli! (pun intended)
Kevin you have yet to address my point that men are women are NOT equal. Not physically, not emotionally, not legally. Yet you keep harping on about “equality equality equality”, as if two apples could ever equal two oranges.
Explain to me how women have more constitutional rights than men do, or just shut up about this whole “equality” charade, OK?
The problem with that, Marty, is that it still calls into question the treatment same-sex couples would have and these documents are unproven that try to mimic the same rights and obligations of marriage. My brother and his partner have an extensive collection of legal documents to make it clear what they’re relationship is. But unlike Marriage, which everybody gets, it is unclear to what extent they’d get legal protections that married persons take for granted.
Jerome @
Kevin said: “there’s no requirement to procreate for married couples, and no test for determining who is a good parent and who isn’t.”
So what? No one here has said that the government makes procreation compulsory. You misrepresent and then attack a strawman. This has been corrected many times, Kevin, so now you are engaging in outright lies.
Please correct your behavior.
Those who enter the social institution give their consent, to one another and to society, which entails the sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity. Society consents, as well, and society vigorously enforces this requirement.
The SSM-merger cannot do this by treating all unions of husband and wife as if they lacked either husbands or wives.
Marriage makes responsible procreation normative. SSM-merger would do the opposite. The power of a social institution is not in forcing people to do this or that; it is in influencing social behavior both on the intimate level and the public level. If you tell people that marriage and procreation have nothing to do with each other, then, they will act as if that’s true.
See the nonmarital trends upon which you, Kevin, have built your argument in favor of the merger. More of the same is not pro-marriage.
You can’t trivialize the societal signfricance of this without society paying a high price. The example of the divorce revolution illustrated this.
* * *
Kevin ranted: “To suggest that the mere presence to one adult male and one adult female is the magic formula for good parenting is easily refuted, just as the assertion that same-sex couples aren’t or can’t be good parents.”
I’ve not made those suggestions — but you have. Now your misrepresentations have become outright deliberate lies.
Please correct your behavior.
You know, take a more intellectually honest tact, for a change.
You can continue to runaway from the actual disagreement, Kevin, but your comments do not hide such cowardice. You want to argue in favor of SSM? Okay, then, make it stand on its own two feet.
Don’t tell us what marriage is NOT. Tell us what you think SSM actually IS.
No circular thinking. Start with SSM and work from there with no mention of marriage. Show the courage of your convictions.
no one says, “he’s not really a nurse because he’s not a female.”
heh. “no one says, “he’s not really a Mom/wife because he’s not a female.”
Please, continue.
Marty
Men and women ARE equal in this country, or more specifically, they have equal rights. . They’re different in many ways but they’re equal. Find me a law that says men are permitted to do something, but women are not.
My brother and his partner have an extensive collection of legal documents to make it clear what they’re relationship is. But unlike Marriage, which everybody gets, it is unclear to what extent they’d get legal protections that married persons take for granted.
Oh I think we get it alright. We just dont think its “equal” in any way shape or form. Founded on gender bias, and sexual segregation, how could it be? Unless you and your brother are ready to admit that separate IS equal, after all.
Well, Kevin keeps reaffirming what I’ve observed about SSM argumentation.
I had said: “Society issues the licenses via our government.”
Kevin asserted: “Nope. The government issues licenses in order to regulate marriage. No special status”
Earlier he acknowledged that the pro-SSM complaint is about the arbitrary exercise of governmental power.
And now he acknowledges that is exactly how he views the license and the status that is accorded marriage.
He does this because that is what would be required for the SSM merger.
However, it has not be required for marital status which stands on its own two feet as a foundational social institution of civil society. Society, through our government (lower case g), shows preference for the core of this institution.
SSM disparages it and demands that Government (upper case G) abolish the core and destroy the special reason for special status in our laws, customs, and social policy.
Thank you, Kevin, for forewarning all of us of the SSM campaign’s modis operandis.
Kevin, women are permitted to kill my son. Or, to hold me financially responsible for his adolescent lifetime.
Can you show me a similar “right” that men have?
You can’t. Females have reproductive rights — males have only reproductive responsibilities.
This gets to the core of the conversation. Are you really ready for a discussion about equality?
Heh, Kevin has trouble keeping up with these discussions.
He said: “Think of it this way, even though you refuse to actually write out “same-sex marriage,” even you are still referring to it as marriage.”
The obliviousness of this guy is remarkable.
S.S.M. = the Specious Substitution of Marriage.
No one can misconstrue my comments to mean otherwise.
Sorry Chairm, we really shouldn’t be double-teaming the poor kid. I’m off to bed. We’re on different tracks and should give him time to address them separately.
I only say that, now that Kevin has finally addressed the “equality” argument that I find so disengenuous. It’s a crucial point imo.
Again, the oblivion in which Kevin sits at his keyboard is on display.
He said: “these documents are unproven that try to mimic the same rights and obligations of marriage”
No, I clearly indicated that the provisions for designated beneficiaries is not a merger with marriage. The purpose is to serve protection equality rather than to mimic marital status — ie. to impose the SSM merger under some other moniker.
There is no sexual basis for such provisions, as per Kevin’s own remarks about SSM. And it is based on contract so he has no beef on that score either. If this is what he thinks SSM is — open to all who consent — then the solution has long-existed without the merger.
Chairm
I’m responding to your assertion that procreation is a “core meaning of marriage.” How can it be, if procreating is entirely irrelevant, if by legalizing abortion and the use of birth control, the state is actually discouraging procreation?! And unmarried persons are free to have children out of wedlock. States issue marriage licenses; they definitely don’t care if you have kids or not.
“sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity. Society consents, as well, and society vigorously enforces this requirement.”
Even if this were true, the “marital presumption of paternity” doesn’t exist if no children come along. It’s like saying, you must pull to the side of the road is a fire truck with its siren on approaches from behind. Well, if no noisy fire truck appears in your review mirror, that rule is meaningless.
“Marriage makes responsible procreation normative.”
Whatever that means.
“The power of a social institution is not in forcing people to do this or that; it is in influencing social behavior both on the intimate level and the public level.”
Well, then marriage is a failed social phenomenon: many marriages fail, many children are born out of wedlock.
“Please correct your behavior.”
I’ll correct mine when you stop saying that marriage is about procreation and that same-sex marriage, which even you call marriage (even if abbreviated) isn’t marriage. Deal?
“Tell us what you think SSM actually IS.”
The legal joining of two persons of the same sex, just as OSM is the legal joining of two persons of the opposite sex. Simple, isn’t it?
Jerome #114, I give you peer reviewed studies and in depth analysis — from one of your allies no less — and you respond with sound bytes from a judicial ruling and policy statements from clear biased associations? Surely you can do better than that.
Read the whole report from Redding. Re-read my comments at #114,115 and address them specifically, just as I did yours.
Chairm
I’m responding to your assertion that procreation is a “core meaning of marriage.” How can it be, if procreating is entirely irrelevant, if by legalizing abortion and the use of birth control, the state is actually discouraging procreation?! And unmarried persons are free to have children out of wedlock. States issue marriage licenses; they definitely don’t care if you have kids or not.
“sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity. Society consents, as well, and society vigorously enforces this requirement.”
Even if this were true, the “marital presumption of paternity” doesn’t exist if no children come along. It’s like saying, you must pull to the side of the road is a fire truck with its siren on approaches from behind. Well, if no noisy fire truck appears in your review mirror, that rule is meaningless.
“Marriage makes responsible procreation normative.”
Whatever that means.
“The power of a social institution is not in forcing people to do this or that; it is in influencing social behavior both on the intimate level and the public level.”
Well, then marriage is a failed social phenomenon: many marriages fail, many children are born out of wedlock.
“Please correct your behavior.”
I’ll correct mine when you stop saying that marriage is about procreation and that same-sex marriage, which even you call marriage (even if abbreviated) isn’t marriage. Deal?
“Tell us what you think SSM actually IS.”
The legal joining of two persons of the same sex, just as OSM is the legal joining of two persons of the opposite sex. Simple, isn’t it?
“We just dont think its “equal” in any way shape or form. Founded on gender bias, and sexual segregation, how could it be? Unless you and your brother are ready to admit that separate IS equal, after all.”
Well the facts are in the way of your opinion. Where same-sex marriage is lega, marriage is marriage, regardless of who is participating.
“Earlier he acknowledged that the pro-SSM complaint is about the arbitrary exercise of governmental power.”
Exactly. It is arbitrary to grant one kind of couple, opposite sex couples, a marriage license, while prohibiting same-sex couples from getting those licenses.
“Earlier he acknowledged that the pro-SSM complaint is about the arbitrary exercise of governmental power.”
Yes, it is arbitrary to same straights can marry, but gays can’t.
“This gets to the core of the conversation. Are you really ready for a discussion about equality?”
Certainly, so long as it’s in terms of couples. Males and females need not be Identical, just similarly situated, in order to received the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.
“The purpose is to serve protection equality rather than to mimic marital status”
And what do you think will be the ultimate legal dispensation when judges rule on states with two-track marriage laws, one for straight people and one for gay people, that are identical except in name only?
Jerome, sorry, thats 104 and 105, thanks.
Marty, yes, let’s ask Kevin to think through a constructive response to your comments on equality.
Tomorrow is another day.
Kevin go to sleep and think more carefully when next you comment.
G’Night.
“How can it be, if procreating is entirely irrelevant”
Dabbling around the edges I see… Keep going Kevin! You may well find the answer to my #157 if you aren’t afraid to dig too deeply!
Yes, perhaps something we should all sleep on. Night friends.
Sorry, one more, because Kevin merged my comments with Chairm’s so I nearly missed it. I must respond to this:
ME: “We just dont think its “equal” in any way shape or form. Founded on gender bias, and sexual segregation, how could it be? Unless you and your brother are ready to admit that separate IS equal, after all.”
Kevin:
Well the facts are in the way of your opinion. Where same-sex marriage is lega, marriage is marriage, regardless of who is participating. ”
Yes and if the government tells your child that he must wear two left shoes, because two shoes are
“a pair of shoes” and two lefts are “equal”, then it simply must be so, right? And if he walks with a limp, that’s his own problem!
Got it.
Marty, if I walked into a court room with a book describing Cinderella, her evil step family and the natural order of lions in protecting their young, as an attempt to show that gay and lesbians don’t deserve to be parents, I think there might be a serious problem with my case. Perhaps their is a better argument to made about not allowing divorce?
Marty wrote:
If the children of same-sex couples have a “diminished status”, it is because of the decisions of the parents. They knew what they were getting into when they had/adopted these kids.
This means to mean that children without health insurance are less deserving of health insurance, than your own family for example. Not to put words in your mouth, but this is a close as I can get to a direct reply from you to a question I’ve asked your reply once or at least twice
So if I took this up with Jesus, would he back you up on this determination?
Marty, this is what peer review means to me. Do you think your references and other books or articles have met this standard?
———-
Sample from APA (AMA, JAMA have similar procedures).
“Document Deposit Procedures for APA Journals
Authors of manuscripts to be published in APA journals may post a copy of the final peer-reviewed manuscript, as a word processing, PDF, or other type file, on their personal Web site or on their employer’s server after the manuscript is accepted for publication. The following conditions would prevail: The posted article must carry an APA copyright notice and include a link to the APA journal home page, and the posted article must include the following statement: “This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.” APA does not provide electronic copies of the APA published version for this purpose, and authors are not permitted to scan in the APA published version.
Depending on the deposit requirements of your research funding agency, the APA will deposit either the accepted peer-reviewed manuscript or final published article on your behalf to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central (PMC). You need only let us know what deposit requirements apply to your article.”
Chairm
“Such arrangements are not outlawed”
Yes they are, in 45 states. That’s far too many.
“I think it is morally abohorrent to do so and agree with Marty.”
Then don’t marry someone of the same sex!
“But you can now stop demanding that society entrench the SSM-merger into constitutional jurisprudence. Effectively, you’ve just downgraded the argument to one of social scientific experiements with children.”
Actually I just want the US Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection recognized and executed, even when folks like you find doing so “morally abohorrent.”
“Look, the one-sexed arrangement, where children are involved, shares key deficits with arrangements that are also measured against the standard intact married-mom-dad scenario. It lacks one of the sexes and shares this with single-parent scenarios. Even accounting for differences in income and education, the deficit is found in the available evidence. It also is not intact, for most children in same-sex households have come from broken relationships of mom-dad. The shortfall experienced by children of such broken homes is well-documented and researched. It would also share features with step-famlies. Having two moms — and a dad — does not balance the scales; likewise having two dads — and a mom.”
Then outlaw same-sex parenting. Outlawing same-sex marriage does nothing to create this ideal family situation you worship: one adult male married to one adult female and children, who may or may not be the biological children or one or both of these adults. If I haven’t mentioned it before LOL, outlawing same-sex marriage does nothing to stop the 500,000 and growing number of children being raised by same-sex couples, out of wedlock I might add.
“Experiments on children hardly seem to fit the rhetoric of SSMers who talk of the interests of children.”
Ok, well my experiment with same-sex marriage offers hope to the children of same-sex couples. It’s hard to imagine that letting their parents get married, with the documented benefits marriage gives couples and the security it gives their children, will harm children. Your experiment forces children to be raised out of wedlock, makes them think society doesn’t like their parents or that their parents are freaks, and logically might impact their own self-esteem.
Please, for once, own the fact that you are willing to live with the fact that you’re making children collateral damage in your jihad against homosexuals.
“No one here has said that the government makes procreation compulsory. You misrepresent and then attack a strawman. This has been corrected many times, Kevin, so now you are engaging in outright lies.”
Well, gosh, if procreation is part of the “core meaning of marriage,” how can it be optional? If the government is indifferent to whether couples reproduce or not, how can any argument against same-sex marriage, be centered around such arcane concepts as the “marital presumption of paternity”? By legalizing abortion, the use of birth control and permitting unmarried persons to have and raise children, as well as permitting no-fault divorce even in cases where there are children in the household, do tell how the government is using marriage to advance the sanctity of procreation.
I’ll give you credit for threading needles, by the way. Not everyone has that gift!
“You can’t trivialize the societal signfricance of this without society paying a high price. The example of the divorce revolution illustrated this.”
I think what you’re talking about is fathers taking responsibility for their children. I agree wholeheartedly. But what does that have to do with marriage, opposite-sex or same-sex?
“Don’t tell us what marriage is NOT. Tell us what you think SSM actually IS.”
I keep telling you what marriage is. You just don’t want to accept my definition. Marriage is the legal joining (not religious joining, not social joining, not cultural joining) of two consenting adults not otherwise prohibited by law (incest is illegal; siblings can’t marry. Argue for or against the legality of incest but until someone convinces society that incest shouldn’t be illegal, it is.) It’s that simple. The government is handing out rights and privileges to SOME couples while denying those rights and privileges to other couples. That’s unconstitutional. And it hurts the couples being denied the right to marry, as well as their children because marriage experts like Maggie Gallagher have shown that married people live longer, are healthier and wealthier than non-married couples. And their children are much better off, on nearly any measure.
“Society issues the licenses via our government.”
You mean like fishing licenses and driver’s licenses? Let’s say that’s true. Then any changes to marriage/fishing/driving should be put to a vote by the people, right? Yet clearly that hasn’t happened. The government outlawed polygamy without a popular vote. Individual states eased the requirements for getting a divorce without popular approval. Prohibitions against inter-racial marriage were knocked down against the wishes of many people. “The people” have had no direct input of the rights and benefits of marriage, other than lobbying their legislators, theoretically. Apparently same-sex marriage deserves special scrutiny although the basis for this special status is unclear.
“It would be ignored and abolished under an SSM-merger. You have made it clear that you hope for that to transpire.”
That’s impossible. The core meaning of marriage is the legal joining of two consenting adults not otherwise prohibited. I want to extend the right to marry to all eligible citizens not just to some; I’m not advocating the outlawing of marriage!
“SSM is indistinguishable from nonmarriage”
Sure it is. Same-sex marriage describes a married couple. Married couples have different status than unmarried couples.
Jerome, I think most of those references are peer reviewed. I can’t say with that 100% certainty (not even sure how one would check), but the authors of the Cinderella book, and Mr. Redding, appear to be serious and respected researchers. Google them yourself.
Ok, Chairm and Marty, your move:
“When Americans debate the value of marriage, most attention focuses on the potential harm to children of divorce or illegitimacy, and for good reason. Mountains of research tell us that children reared outside of intact marriages are much more likely than other kids to slip into poverty, become victims of child abuse, fail at school and drop out, use illegal drugs, launch into premature sexual activity, become unwed teen mothers, divorce, commit suicide and experience other signs of mental illness, become physically ill, and commit crimes and go to jail. On average, children reared outside of marriage are less successful in their careers, even after controlling not only for income but also for parental conflict.”
- Maggie Gallagher, “Why Marriage is Good for You”
Tell me why you believe the children of same-sex couples, currently numbered around 500,000, are acceptable collateral damage in the fight against same-sex marriage.
Kevin, you’ll have to ask their mothers, who refuse to marry their fathers.
No, Marty, I’d like an answer from someone like you, who accepts same-sex parenting, but rejects same-sex marriage. As I’ve noted, the two are inter-connected, like driving and wearing seatbelts.
Marty, —
These submission requirements (unlike publishing a book or magazine article) must meet rigorous empirical requirements. Otherwise its only the authors opinion. Which may be well thought out, but the conclusions or assumptions have not been independently verified. Problems in the assumptions and conclusions were identified and addressed.
From the APA website… One part of the peer review process is: Masked Review
This journal uses a masked reviewing system for all submissions. The first page of the manuscript should omit the authors’ names and affiliations but should include the title of the manuscript and the date it is submitted.
Footnotes containing information pertaining to the authors’ identities or affiliations should not be included in the manuscript, but may be provided after a manuscript is accepted.
Make every effort to see that the manuscript itself contains no clues to the authors’ identities.
Cover Letter
The cover letter accompanying the manuscript submission must include all authors’ names and affiliations to avoid potential conflicts of interest in the review process. Addresses and phone numbers, as well as electronic mail addresses and fax numbers, if available, should be provided for all authors for possible use by the editorial office and later by the production office.. Papers that do not conform to these guidelines may be returned without review.
In addition to full-length manuscripts, the JCCP will consider Brief Reports of research studies in clinical psychology. The Brief Report format may be appropriate for empirically sound studies that are limited in scope, contain novel or provocative findings that need further replication, or represent replications and extensions of prior published work.
—-
they are indeed researchers, but they have not gone through the peer review process that would get their findings or opinion certified to be published by the AMA and APA for example.
Kevin, I tolerate it — I don’t “accept it”. I’ll be happy to outlaw it as soon as we can find a way that doesn’t harm the kids even further.
Jerome, care to address any of the points in 104/105? (Peer review aside, click the * next to Dr. Redding’s name at the top of the article. I’m sure you will find his credentials satisfactory)
“Kevin, I tolerate it — I don’t “accept it”. I’ll be happy to outlaw it as soon as we can find a way that doesn’t harm the kids even further.”
Then given the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples and their children, why can’t you bring yourself to “tolerate” same-sex marriage? Again, your viewpoint is illogical. You and others, including this website, are neutral or indifferent to legal same-sex parenting. Or at least you don’t think you can change that, and you’re probably right: human reproduction is the most fundamental of rights. And you don’t advocate criminalizing same-sex couples. Again, your position may be one of pragmatism: it’s unlikely that society would vote or legislate such a thing.
I wish you could put your homophobia aside long enough to consider the needs of the children of same-sex marriage. By all accounts, these kids would be better off with married parents. Don’t punish them because you don’t like their parents.
Heh, homophobia is it? Yeah, that’s got to be it, because it’s not like I’ve explained my position in detailed, dispassionate language, over and over again.
Oh wait, I have. Once more, with feeling:
“legal recognition of SSM will mean that MORE children, not fewer, are deliberately deprived of their Fathers (and occasionaly their mothers) for no better reason than the gender bias of their remaining biological parent.”
Don’t talk to ME about homophobia. Talk to THEM about sexism.
Marty, they are indeed researchers, but they have not gone through the peer review process that would get their findings or opinion certified to be published by the AMA and APA for example.
These submission requirements (unlike publishing a book or magazine article) must meet rigorous empirical requirements. Otherwise its only the authors opinion. Which may be well thought out, but the conclusions or assumptions have not been independently verified. Problems in the assumptions and conclusions were identified and addressed.
From the APA website… One part of the peer review process is: Masked Review
This journal uses a masked reviewing system for all submissions. The first page of the manuscript should omit the authors’ names and affiliations but should include the title of the manuscript and the date it is submitted.
Footnotes containing information pertaining to the authors’ identities or affiliations should not be included in the manuscript, but may be provided after a manuscript is accepted.
Make every effort to see that the manuscript itself contains no clues to the authors’ identities.
Cover Letter
The cover letter accompanying the manuscript submission must include all authors’ names and affiliations to avoid potential conflicts of interest in the review process. Addresses and phone numbers, as well as electronic mail addresses and fax numbers, if available, should be provided for all authors for possible use by the editorial office and later by the production office.. Papers that do not conform to these guidelines may be returned without review.
In addition to full-length manuscripts, the JCCP will consider Brief Reports of research studies in clinical psychology. The Brief Report format may be appropriate for empirically sound studies that are limited in scope, contain novel or provocative findings that need further replication, or represent replications and extensions of prior published work.
Marty
You’ve already said you think lesbians hate men, an unfounded position that reveals your bias. Or ignorance. Or both.
You refuse to accept responsibility for your position that hurts children. I find that sad but not unsurprising. Kids are acceptable collateral damage in the jihad against gay people, right?
As I’ve said before, it was their “parents” who put them in this position. If the kids are being damaged, talk to them about it.
Neutering marriage will not fill the void for children being raised by same sex couples. Every child deserves a mom and a dad.
“Neutering marriage will not fill the void for children being raised by same sex couples. Every child deserves a mom and a dad.”
And outlawing same-sex marriage does nothing to accomplish this. It just forces children to be raised out of wedlock.
Marty, I think you have a great opinion well stated below:
“Neutering marriage will not fill the void for children being raised by same sex couples. Every child deserves a mom and a dad.”
Let me make one too:
The children of same sex couples deserves the legal benefits that include, health insurance too.”
There a number of religions that support your view, while there are a number of religious views that support full marriage equality.
So whose view should take precedence? Where do we resolve strongly held beliefs and opinions with facts and science?
One way is to vote opinions, our likes and dislikes and strongly held beliefs. An other way is to try and strip out bias, opinion and belief from the decision making process and try to make a determination by findings of fact.
Both side get to present what they believe to be facts and our courts weigh them and come to a final conclusion sometimes after several appeals.
Do you have a better method for determining which view should take precedence, vs. “because I say so?”
A correction I meant to say L. Marie not Marty in the above post. My apology,…
“One way is to vote opinions, our likes and dislikes and strongly held beliefs. An other way is to try and strip out bias, opinion and belief from the decision making process and try to make a determination by findings of fact. ”
I think he just called you stupid L. Marie. As if your opinions and strongly held beliefs are not informed by “findings of fact”.
Marty, that was a tad unfair.. Your same premise would apply to my data points as well.
“Both side get to present what they believe to be facts and our courts weigh them and come to a final conclusion sometimes after several appeals.”
The court is not the proper place for this and you know it. If you want to pass a law granting insurance benefits to gay couples, just call your congressman. Writing a check doesnt hurt either
But trying to convince a court that anyone else has already passed such a law as same-sex marriage (by fiat) is a bit of a joke, and exactly what has led to 30 state defeats for your side.
Keep at it. We only need 38 for a federal amendment.
Marty, Lets say MY set of facts or what I believe them to be won’t pass constitutional muster, who gets to make that determination? You?
“My truth is so true that it is beyond any requirement and need for examination or further analysis.”
I think we are in the same page with the federal amendment. Just call your congressman and get it done… Writing a big check doesn’t hurt either
Marty wrote: “The court is not the proper place for this and you know it.”
Are you saying that the Episcopal or Unitarian church is the proper place to resolve constitutional questions? I guess I don’t know….
Kevin said: “incest is illegal; siblings can’t marry. Argue for or against the legality of incest but until someone convinces society that incest shouldn’t be illegal, it is.”
Let’s walk through this in four easy steps. (Kevin, try not to trip over yourself.)
1.
Related people can and do consent to form and maintain their loving and committed relationships. Society has long been convinced that such relationships should not be illegal. And we did not need the judiciary to decide for us.
Hang on. Why would you appeal to society when you’ve insisted that society should be disconnected from the issuing of a license for SSM?
Ah, right, you keep changing the rules. That is another example of your arbitrariness.
* * *
2.
Maybe you meant sexual incest of some sort. If so, you are rather skittish about saying so. That is probably because you’ve already conceded that the government would not force people to engage in same-sex sexual behavior to get SSM’d. You said that sexuality is irrrelevant to SSM. So the SSM license would not be be restricted by sexual behavior, incestuous or otherwise.
* * *
3.
On the other hand, you have emphasized that sexual orientation is the crux of your complaint and your demand for SSM. Well, genetic sexual attraction is where closely related people are sexually attracted; and they can and do consent to form committed and loving relationships.
Either way — emphasizing sexuality or deeming it irrelevant — your own words indicate that you are convinced that the legal joining of related people should NOT be illegal.
* * *
4.
Besides, you have insisted that some related couples would be eligible to SSM while other related couples would be ineligible to SSM. Denying some couples is unconstitutional and it harms the children they’d raise together.
You said so.
But, as always, you said no, too.
I would like to accept your definition, as your definition, if only YOU did not so insistantly and continually disagree with YOURSELF.
In other words, it is time you admit that you do not know what you are talkikng about.
Kevin’s anemic definition of SSM: “the legal joining of two consenting adults not otherwise prohibited by law.”
Circular thinking. Arbitrary. And self-defeating on your part.
Kevin said: “I keep telling you what marriage is. You just don’t want to accept my definition.”
For the sake of discussion, I have already accepted that as YOUR definition of SSM and you’ve been asked to justify it. Since you have not justified it, yet irrationally have irrationally clung to it, this goes to show that you neither accept that definition as viable nor stand by your own rules of argumentation.
In light of that, your definition does not merit acceptance as THE definition of SSM, much less of marriage, that you would hope to be imposed on all of society.
State constitutions provide for direct participation through direct votes on single issues. And for representative participation through general elections. That’s embedded in the framework of our constitutional form of republican governance.
If you don’t like it, then, don’t participate in it (to paraphrase the sentiment of a certain SSMer).
* * *
A little levity this morning:
A fishing license is for fishing. A hunting license is for hunting. A marriage license is for marrying. Some unsolicted advice to you Kevin: don’t show up at the registrar’s office expecting that a license to fish will serve as a license to marry that fish. And don’t shoot a moose if you are armed with only a license to marry.
Oh, and the hunting and fishing regulations don’t include seasons for marriage. It’s always open season.
Society issues licenses, via our government, for all kinds of stuff. And we do distinguish one kind of stuff from other kinds of stuff. Fishing licensing, for example, reflects societal concerns about water safety, ecology, and recreation. Consent to fish is no trump card if you are out of season. Likewise with hunting licenses. But shooting fish from a duck blind is not covered by hunting licenses nor by fishing licenses no matter the season.
And no one (except maybe PETA) expects the participating moose and other prey to give consent. We usually like to just sneek up and surprise them.
—
Anyway, what happened to Michelle’s list and its dependence on the last item? What is the premise that Michelle, Josh, and Jerome think gets the ball rolling in their complaint? Or is that list no longer really applicable?
Now for some really good news for Israeli gay and lesbian couples. The Israeli Health Ministry is considering to allow gay couples to have a child through surrogate mothers, according to ministry legal adviser Mira Huebner-Harel.
So the Israeli taxpayer is going to have to pay the huge costs of surrogacy for people who don’t even have a medical infertility issue? Nice.
All this, just so little Susie won’t have a Mommy of her own. Lovely.
Chairm
I’ve been consistent all along. You, however, change, with whatever wind is blowing. And come up with inscrutable justifications to maintain marriage discrimination. If nothing else, since the courts will ultimately decide whether marriage discrimination will stand or not, the arbitrary fretting of marriage equality foes will have been in vain.
I said sexuality should be irrelevant to obtaining a marriage license. The state should not be discriminating against couples because of their sexuality. Sexuality IS the crux of the complaint: 45 states are still discriminating against same-sex couples because of their sexuality.
“Kevin’s anemic definition of SSM: “the legal joining of two consenting adults not otherwise prohibited by law.”” It’s certainly no less wanting than the definition of marriage now enshrined in many state constitutions: “marriage is the union of one man and one woman.” How’s that for lacking?! Makes marriage sound very appealing, doesn’t it?!
I find it to be a rather robust definition of all states of marriage, not just same-sex marriage. It includes OSM.
“State constitutions provide for direct participation through direct votes on single issues”
Correction: SOME state constitutions provide for direct participation. Some don’t. And they can’t reach an outcome that violates that US Constitution, as time will show.
When it comes to fishing and hunting licenses, the government doesn’t arbitrarily discriminate against specific groups: gay can get a hunting license, blacks can get a drivers license, etc. That’s what’s so odd that the states have chosen to discriminate against gays in getting a marriage license. It’s an inconsistent position to take, which I’m sure will be pointed out in future court proceedings regarding marriage discrimination.
Heh, but a license to fish is not a license to marry the fish you catch. The license arises from societal concerns about fishing fish, not marrying them. So the licensing for fish and marriage are distinguishable based on what fishing is and what marriage is.
Group identity politics has zilch to do with it — at least not in states that have reaffirmed marriage against the efforts of some people to merger marriage with nonmarriage. Where the localized merger has occured, against the popular will, against the core of marriage, and against the plain meaning of state constitutions, it is evident that the imposition is driven by gaycentric identity politics.
But such an assertion of identity politics was repudiated in the US Supreme Court’s Loving case. SSMers have been invoking a kind-of-racialist argument in favor of the merger. But they haven’t yet refuted the repudiation of identity politics.
SSMers, such as Kevin, flee from their own arguments all the time. They move goal posts. They rely are the arbitrary exercise of governmental power. They have no justification for what they demand. Their complaint is baseless: the man-woman criterion of marriage has never been a sexual orientation criterion.
* * *
Since the state should not be discriminating against couples because of their sexuality, Kevin’s argument stands in favor of lifting the ineligibility of all couples who are related.
He noted that sexual incest is illegal. But he has not connected THAT with the his definition of SSM.
Afterall, our prison system does not overflow with people convicted of the crime of forming loving relationships with their relatives. Since consenting to form such relationships is lawful, Kevin’s stance is in favor of issuing licenses for SSM to related couples. Indeed, his remarks would support threesomes and moresomes, if he was consistent.
He now says that his own reasoning is consistently inscrutable to himself. That’s progress of a sort, I guess.
Now, if only he, or some more competent SSM supporter, would provide the justification for special status for SSM itself — make it stand on its own two feet — and, if possible, for the merger of SSM with marriage.
Note: the SSM merger means the Specious Substitution of Marraige (S.S.M.).
If you take a step back, Kevin, you will see that your definition is pale and weak.
Related people may form nonsexual relationships. You, not I, have made the case for a government license for a nonsexual type of arrangement. By type it would be loving and consensual. This covers far more than the narrow subset of nonmarriage that you wish to grant special status.
The point is not that related people may not marry — due to the public sexual aspect of marriage which is a two-sexed sexual basis — but that you haven’t made it clear what makes your definition exclusive of related people.
Indeed, you must know that related people can and do marry in this country. Some may not. Now, where does your definition draw the line? At those prohibited. Can you not see the circularity of your thinking?
If you can’t justify SSM based on some sexual basis, then, you can’t draw lines of ineligibility on a sexual basis. That’s the problem you are dodging.
Those few states which do not provide for direct votes can certainly amend their constitutions to add that.
The US Constitution does not prohibit such a provision. Nor does it prohibit the amendment of state constitutions that currently don’t have such a provision.
Anyway, direct votes are not unconstitutional and are not against the democratic republican form of government.
If you don’t like it, don’t participate by voting.
Jerome, the political statements to which you first referred, were not subjected to the peer review standards you’ve now cited. That is because they are political statements and not scientific papers.
Probably out of an honest misunderstanding, you are comparing apples and oranges.
I do think that SSM supporters in those organizations have made such statements with the purpose of lending a scientific air to their political views.
Caution is advised — for both marriage defenders and SSMers alike. Political statements by such organizations too often are short on science.
NOM has provided political support for the core meaning of marriage, based in part on the available social-scientific consensus on the value to children of intact unions of mom and dad i.e. marriages. Based also on the anthropological and historical record that illustrates the universal features of marriage.
The available evidence from these sources is highly significant but not decisive in the political sense. Basically, as NOM repeatedly explains, what we do with our inheritance is at issue. Marriage is not without a core meaning. We know this from social scientific evidence and from reason as well. Politically, NOM’s view has won far and wide. All of that weighs in favor of the core and against the merger.
Science does not decide for us. SSMers who say otherwise are not being intellectually honest in their advocacy. Nor politically honest.
THANK YOU NOM!!!!!!!
We can dispute easy points in each other’s arguments all day, but I find it more efficient to cut to the chase and find the fundamental disagreement that fuels each argument.
First, I am in favor of same sex marriage. My view is that it is a perversion of the bill of rights to amend the constitution so that gays may not be married. I believe this because people have a right, a: not to be discriminated against BY THE GOVERNMENT, and b: the only time when such a thing would be acceptable would be if including same-sex marriage in the legal definition of marriage were infringing upon another’s rights. I know you believe that your rights are being discriminated against, and I have researched many of the reasons. I don’t agree with any of those I have researched.
So, I if you agree with my view of the constitution and bill of rights, then clearly, and in your own terms, present to the group different ways that the SSM infringes upon YOUR rights as YOU see them. I stress want to stress that you respond to my ENTIRE argument because I notice that some people occasionally, and conveniently, leave out key points when counter arguing. I will then do my best to respond to that.
Noah, you would “cut to the chase”?
There is no gay test for ineligiblity; nor is there a straight test for eligiblity. If you read such a test into the law, then, you would inject something that is not there.
It is constitutional for society to discriminate between marriage and non-marriage. SSM argumentation has failed to spell-out what differentiates the type of relationship that SSMers have in mind — from the rest of the types of relationshps and the types of living arrangements that comprise the nonmarriage category.
Our form of government (lower case g) draws its legitimacy from the consentn of the governed. Marriage is a foundational social institution of civil society and is not the creature of the the Government (upper case G). The People have a government, not the other way around. The government issues marriage licenses on behalf of society. Society consents to the special status of marriage; that special status begins with special reason. SSM does not.
Marriage is not SSM. A merger of SSM and marriage — even as described by SSM supporters — would amount to nothing more than the Specious Substitution of Marriage. There is no principled basis to force society to discriminate between SSM and the rest of the nonmarriage category. SSM argumentation has conceded this. All that is left for SSMers is the demand that society — or, as you put it Government — discriminate in favor of gay identity politics. The assertion of the supremacy of identity politics was repudiated with the dismantling of the anti-miscegenation system. See the autonomous Loving decision, for a federal example of this.
The gist of your argument has been dirrectly address in its parts and on the whole.
If your research is as incomplete as your view of the constitution and of marriage, then, you have much homework to do yet.
Cheerio.
Typo correction: See the unanimous Loving decision.