In the recent presidential debate, Rep. Ron Paul stated his position on marriage:
[G]et the government out of it. Why doesn’t it go to the church? And why doesn’t it to go to the individuals? I don’t think government should give us a license to get married. It should be in the church.
The fact that a member of Congress could make such a bizarre statement probably shouldn’t surprise me—but it does. In fact, I’m always surprised when otherwise thoughtful and intelligent people—many of whom are merely frustrated by the same-sex marriage debate—make similar claims. The reasons why government can’t get out of the marriage business should be obvious to anyone who has spent more than two minutes thinking about the implications of their suggestion. Those who still don’t get it should read this explanation by political scientist Steven L. Taylor:
Here’s the deal: much of the significance of marriage is very much linked to civil-legal matters in a way that makes it impossible for government to extricate itself from its definition. Marriage is many things that have nothing to do with government such as romance, love, friendship, lifelong companionship, and even sacred bonds. There is little doubt that those things can all be achieved without the government being involved (as is the case with friendship, for example). However, marriage is also about certain mutual legal obligations regarding property, finances, children and whatnot, about which governmental intervention is sometimes necessary to resolve disputes (as is the case with any contractual relationship). Further, marriage diminishes legal complexity in a variety issues (children, death [i.e., funeral arrangements], hospital visitations, medical decisions, etc.). Now, we could utterly remove marriage as a legal institution, but then we would have to replace it with something else, and that something else would almost certainly be more cumbersome in terms of government entanglements that the current system.
To put it as simply as possible: for government to truly get out of the marriage business it would have to stop recognizing the spousal relationship as having special legal standing. This is because to recognize that relationship as having specific legal significances it would need a definition of “marriage” that could be held up to legal scrutiny (to, for example, stop people from arbitrarily claiming whatever privileges might exist for married couples). Such a stand would have to exist whether the government issued the licenses or not. Once the law has to define “marriage” then government is, by definition, in the “marriage business.”
June 15th, 2011 | 9:20 am
It is a matter of contract law as well as social institution.
A woman who gets a marriage contract before having a baby is protected when she enters a vulnerable period – even with all our attempts to offer protection to women who did not seek out a marriage contract before getting pregnant, it simply is not the same – in large part because we recognize that there is something unfair about forcing a contract onto a man who obviously did not enter into it voluntarily (that is, if he’d wanted to make a family, he would have married the woman when he found out she was pregnant, so the presumed contract is by its very nature ‘under duress’)
If government gets out of the marriage business, there will be an increase in the number of women who are abandoned when they are at their most vulnerable. There will be an increase in the number of men who are expected to provide for a child, but who are not granted the chance to develop a healthy relationship with the child – a loss to both father and child.
And of course there will be an increase in the number of babies abandoned every year, and/or taken out of inadequate homes.
Families need the protection of legally backed, socially recognized contracts.
June 15th, 2011 | 9:29 am
“Marriage is many things that have nothing to do with government such as romance, love, friendship, lifelong companionship, and even sacred bonds. There is little doubt that those things can all be achieved without the government being involved (as is the case with friendship, for example). However, marriage is also about certain mutual legal obligations regarding property, finances, children and whatnot, about which governmental intervention is sometimes necessary to resolve disputes (as is the case with any contractual relationship). Further, marriage diminishes legal complexity in a variety issues (children, death [i.e., funeral arrangements], hospital visitations, medical decisions, etc.).”
The first box that the author constructs — those aspects of marriage that have “nothing to do with government” — especially the “sacred bonds” — is as I observe what we argue over in the SSM debate.
The second box — the “certain mutual legal obligations” — could be replaced with a legal institution that is identical to marriage but called a “civil union.”
That’s my solution for privatizing marriage. Replace it with a “civil union” of two that ANY two people — even biological sisters who happen to be celibate nuns — and make “marriage” entirely a private matter.
June 15th, 2011 | 9:42 am
However, marriage is also about certain mutual legal obligations regarding property, finances, children and whatnot, about which governmental intervention is sometimes necessary to resolve disputes (as is the case with any contractual relationship). Further, marriage diminishes legal complexity in a variety issues (children, death [i.e., funeral arrangements], hospital visitations, medical decisions, etc.).
It seems to me all of the above are good reasons to legalize same-sex marriage.
It is interesting to note that for very roughly the first millennium, it was the Christian Church that was not involved with marriage. Marriage was left to civil authorities. And marriage in Biblical times was neither religious nor civil. It was a contractual arrangement between the parents of the bride and groom.
June 15th, 2011 | 9:56 am
The argument isn’t that the government should scrap the legal framework of obligations and rights that are described above.
The argument is that the legal framework be separated from the religious/social concept of marriage. Marriage is what happens in church; a ‘civil union’ would be what happens at the county clerk’s office.
The distinction already exists in practice. One can get a legal divorce while still remaining married in the eyes of the Catholic church, for example. Conversely, lengthy cohabitation may create a ‘common law’ marriage in some states… but that wouldn’t count as a marriage in the eyes of lots of churches.)
It would probably make sense for a religious marriage to, by default, create a civil union. But that wouldn’t be the only way to do so. In other words, it’s more about letting churches have the term ‘marriage’ while distinguishing that from the legal state(s) of union.
June 15th, 2011 | 10:07 am
Marriage is what happens in church; a ‘civil union’ would be what happens at the county clerk’s office.
No, no, no, no, no. Marriage is not “what happens in a church.” Marriage is an institution that predates both the state and the church. It is an institution that is formally recognized by both the church and the state but it is not created by either of them.
Marriages are not “civil unions.” If the state wants to include marriage in a bunch of other relationships that fall under the rubric of “civil unions,” then in essence it won’t be recognizing marriages as marriages at all.
It’s depressing that our culture has lost so much common sense that it now thinks that there is nothing special about the man-woman relationship of marriage. If our society is really that dumb maybe we don’t deserve to survive.
June 15th, 2011 | 10:35 am
Response to Joe Carter: “If our society is really that dumb maybe we don’t deserve to survive.”
Now there I do think you are on to something of importance.
If we continue on this path, we may continue to exist as a political unit and a geographical location but not as a coherent idea and a way of life.
June 15th, 2011 | 10:35 am
“…then in essence it won’t be recognizing marriages as marriages at all.”
Which gets back to Ron Paul’s question of why the “state” should “recognize” marriage.
June 15th, 2011 | 10:36 am
Actually, I think Tyler, while making some good points, surrenders important ground from the beginning by too sharply separating the “love/romance stuff” from the “law/contract” stuff, thus leaving the impression that perhaps we can separate the two for purposes of what government will recognize as reality. Actually, the two are united, and one provides the form and reason for the other. Moreover, love, and the form that love objectively has, does have something to do with government, and thus government has something to do with love. You don’t need the action of civil government to have love, of course, but that’s a different question.
June 15th, 2011 | 10:36 am
Replace it with a “civil union” of two that ANY two people…
But why only TWO?
June 15th, 2011 | 10:39 am
Which gets back to Ron Paul’s question of why the “state” should “recognize” marriage.
The state should recognize marriage because it is the primary institution of civilized society. For the state to do otherwise calls into question why we should “recognize” the authority of the state. The family—not the individual—is the basic unit of society (individuals don’t even come into existence without some semblance of a family) and marriage is at the heart of families. Any state that does not know its place in the pecking order is no longer legitimate.
June 15th, 2011 | 10:41 am
I think a big reason why activists want same-sex unions to be considered as marriages is implied in J.Rowes’ comment that “marriage diminishes legal complexity in a variety issues.” While it might be fine to allow any civil union *some* of the default legal benefits of actual marriage, granting all of them would raise many problems. By legally defining a same-sex union as “marriage,” all those other laws that refer to married persons suddenly apply as well, and I don’t think anyone has identified the extent of those laws or what is really being granted by giving the label.
Homosexual attitudes and behavior are dysfunctional at best. We should not recognize a dysfunction as equivalent to genuine marriage.
June 15th, 2011 | 10:43 am
Marriages are not “civil unions.” If the state wants to include marriage in a bunch of other relationships that fall under the rubric of “civil unions,” then in essence it won’t be recognizing marriages as marriages at all.
Joe,
It seems to me in the Catholic view, civil marriages are frequently mere civil unions. A Catholic married in the Church who civilly divorces and civilly remarried is not married in the eyes of the Church. If the Catholic Church can distinguish between “sacramental” marriage, which is indissoluble, and subsequent civil marriages, which it does not recognize as “real” marriages, I don’t know why it can’t distinguish between other kinds of civil marriage that it doesn’t recognize (same-sex marriage, for example) and sacramental marriage.
It’s depressing that our culture has lost so much common sense that it now thinks that there is nothing special about the man-woman relationship of marriage.
I think heterosexual love and heterosexual marriage are very special indeed. I see moves about heterosexuals and read books about heterosexuals all the time. If I could do something about it, 40 percent of children would not be born out of wedlock, 50 percent of marriages would not end in divorce, and 28 percent of women with two or more children would not have had them by two or more fathers. I would love to see the trend against marriage reverse itself. But I don’t think gay people are responsible for the state of heterosexual marriage, and I don’t think it will improve heterosexual marriage one bit if same-sex marriage is prohibited, or harm heterosexual marriage one bit if same-sex marriage is universally approved. The state of heterosexual marriage—and it is a sorry state—is entirely the responsibility of heterosexuals, who have watched it decline for decades while doing precious little. But now same-sex marriage is a possibility, and suddenly people says, “The line must be drawn here!” It seems to me those people are a lot more interested in preventing same-sex marriage than they are in strengthening heterosexual marriage.
June 15th, 2011 | 11:01 am
My apologies… J.Rowe was only quoting the article in the comment I cited. It was not his own words.
June 15th, 2011 | 11:02 am
It seems to me in the Catholic view, civil marriages are frequently mere civil unions.
I’ll have to let one of our Catholic readers answer that, but it is my understanding that while the Catholic Church considers marriage to be a sacrament, they also view marriage it as a natural right that is not reserved exclusively to Catholics or to Christians in general.
or harm heterosexual marriage one bit if same-sex marriage is universally approved.
Of course it will. As I’ve pointed out numerous times on this blog, there is a strong view within the homosexual community that monogamy is an emotional, not a physical bond. What most gay activists want (and in their more honest writings will tell you) is not a heteronormative-style monogamous marriage but a “marriage” defined on their own terms. Take monogamy out of marriage, though, and it is not longer marriage.
June 15th, 2011 | 11:19 am
Joe –
Let’s assume the state of affairs you say that “most gay activists want” actually comes to pass. Gays get ‘married’, then often sleep around with others.
How, exactly, does this “harm heterosexual marriage”? Will it force me to cheat on my wife? What’s the sequence, as you see it?
June 15th, 2011 | 11:35 am
Take monogamy out of marriage, though, and it is not longer marriage.
Well, what we have in America is, at best, not monogamy, but serial monogamy. And a great many Christians (not just Catholics) argue that marriage requires not only monogamy, but permanence. What ever happened to “till death do us part”?
You are apparently better informed than I am about what “most gay activists” want, but supposing we reach a point where virtually all gay men and lesbians get legally married. And suppose they all decide against monogamy and for “open marriage.” Wikipedia tells us that “researchers have estimated that between 1.7 percent and 6 percent of [heterosexual] married people are involved in open marriages.” Would all same-sex marriages, were they open marriages, equal the number of heterosexual open marriages? Why should practices engaged in by the small minority of people who will be in same-sex marriages affect marriage as an institution any more than the practices engaged in by a minority of people in opposite-sex marriages today?
Why the great fear that same-sex marriage will set the agenda for heterosexual marriage?
June 15th, 2011 | 11:37 am
David Nichols is correct. Marriage as a union of one man and one woman for life is in “a sorry state”.
His analysis can lead either to resignation and acceptance or concerted, energetic, creative attempts to re-inspire understanding of marriage as a life-giving union and a fundamental unit of civilized life (and also as a source of happiness, if the opportunity to build something substantial is still understood as happiness).
Again, he is right. It will not “improve heterosexual marriage one bit if same-sex marriage is prohibited”. I am of the opinion that it will do further harm, rendering the idea virtually meaningless (in that it will mean anything that any person or persons intend it to mean) but it will not correct the present sad situation.
It is even possible, I suppose, that it will help in the sense that those who are truly committed to marriage will be forced to “stand up and be counted” in ways that cost; in ways that will demand a high cost indeed.
Others may take the course that many young people have chosen. Single parenthood. Sequential live-in partners. Bradford Wilcox has written about the devastating effect this has on children.
June 15th, 2011 | 11:48 am
How, exactly, does this “harm heterosexual marriage”? Will it force me to cheat on my wife? What’s the sequence, as you see it?
Your question highlights one of the biggest problems in trying to discuss this issue. Both sides start with presuppositions that are so radical that it’s difficult for the other side to really understand them, much less accept them. For instance, the premise underlying your question is that that marriage is essentially about two people. Since it’s hard to see how harm could be done to a specific marriage (since that is all marriage really is) then it is difficult to see how any harm could be done at all. But for those of us (like me) who see marriage as part of a broader moral ecology, the question misses the point entirely.
Fortunately, we have a parallel that I think most people can agree on: divorce. When no-fault divorce was being championed the critics were asked why it mattered to them. The assumption was that if you thought divorce was bad then don’t get one. Otherwise why is it any of your business since it doesn’t directly affect the critic’s marriage directly.
With about 30 years of hindsight we can see the problem with such thinking. No-fault divorce degraded the value of all marriage, and made them more of a temporary contract than lifelong covenant. Think of it in economic terms. When the price of getting out of marriage got “cheaper,” more people were willing to “buy” it. So the entire institution became weaker because and many hundreds of thousands of children suffered because of it.
The libertarian Megan McCardle had a good (but lengthy) explanation several years ago pointing this out;
June 15th, 2011 | 11:54 am
Civil marriage as we know it today originated in the Napoleonic Code, and it was actually opposed by the Catholic Church as a usurpation at the time.
Civil marriage as it was known in the Early Church was a product of pagan Roman law, which treated the wife and children in a home as the property of the pater familias. Early Christians tolerated this arrangement, but pushed for its overthrow as soon as it became practical for them to do so (partly because the pater familias had the authority to kill his own children).
In the English common law tradition (which is the basis of American law), marriage was defined by the Church, but recognized by the law mostly for property rights purposes. However, there were also doctrines like couverture, where a contract entered into by a woman could be nullified by her husband. These mostly served to keep women under their husbands’ control.
Unsurprisingly, in America, the vast majority of English common law doctrines concerning marriage have either been stripped of their meaning or abandoned outright. Even in estate planning, the marriage-related doctrines are mostly default rules that no lawyer in his right mind would recommend to a client. They are almost always nullified by testaments. The exception to this is the spousal share, which cannot be nullified, and which, honestly, I think few would be loathe to see tossed out.
Other than the common law rules, there are more modern statutes like those in the tax code, which are meant to encourage marriage. I think it clear enough that these don’t work the way they’re supposed to. I mean, I like filing jointly as much as anybody, but this is off-set by the so-called “marriage penalty” as well. Those who file jointly benefit at the expense of other couples who must file separately.
All of this is to say that — on the whole — I think government’s involvement in marriage is a wash at this point. From a Christian viewpoint, civil marriage confuses the conversation, undermines the authority of the Church, and lends very few benefits. From a societal viewpoint, civil marriage does nothing to clarify the debate that’s going on right now, and only serves to place a concept important to certain parties in a public sphere where it’s up-for-grabs, and vulnerable to special interests.
I think there are very little actual law having to do with marriage that would not actually benefit if one were to remove the concept of marriage from it. Case in point: as our population ages, it would actually be really useful if we could easily extend the tax benefits for married couples to elderly people and their live-in caretakers.
Abolishing civil marriage would put more power in the hands of individuals to structure their affairs, which, in a time of looming demographic crisis may be essential.
June 15th, 2011 | 11:57 am
Ray:
Your kid grows up watching that marriage can include others, etc. Whatever the justifications for it are. He then tries this, and gets two girls pregnant. Or he finds that girls are not gay men, and dislike it when you use them as booty calls.
He then notices that for all the talk of marriage, gay marriages that sleep around really aren’t that happy, or in depth. The ones that are seem to be between people who can’t make it in the club scene. The weaker of the partners is always unhappy, because he “married” him because he loved him: if he wanted a booty call, why bother tie yourself to anyone?
Your kid sees this, and gets disgusted at the double-talk, and doesn’t get married. A lot of kids do so. They remember the same form of hypocracy over divorce.
June 15th, 2011 | 12:14 pm
The most important thing to remember is that no one ever makes an important personal decision by thinking of what is best for society.
That is never even part of the equation.
June 15th, 2011 | 1:02 pm
I think a big reason why activists want same-sex unions to be considered as marriages is implied in J.Rowes’ comment that “marriage diminishes legal complexity in a variety issues.” While it might be fine to allow any civil union *some* of the default legal benefits of actual marriage, granting all of them would raise many problems. By legally defining a same-sex union as “marriage,” all those other laws that refer to married persons suddenly apply as well, and I don’t think anyone has identified the extent of those laws or what is really being granted by giving the label.
We have already defined enough of those rights to establish that gays are not eligible for some of them.
Gays are not eligible for the right to be presumed the father of their lover’s child – which is one of the most important rights of marriage.
Look at the stuff about benefits and tax breaks and what you see is a code of law that would be meaningless and purposeless if we were speaking of two able-bodied adults, but makes perfect sense when we understand these rights as existing between two people – one of whom is a “primary breadwinner” or “head of household” and the other of whom is a “primary caregiver” or, to put it bluntly, dependent. These are reproductive benefits. They exist because when a man and a woman make a baby together, they can’t split the burden equally. Women carry the baby, women experience bodily changes (strong maternal urges, breastfeeding, etc.) that make them more likely and more suited to be the primary caregiver over the first year of that child’s life, and so on. For all these reasons, a mother has a legitimate claim on the father of her child – and that is where a contract becomes necessary.
The question of gay marriage would be a different question if gays intended to honor the part about “no adultery” – and strictly recognized that, because they cannot offer a child both mother and father, they are therefore doomed to be barren, or to argue that their case justifies a special type of law recognizing that since Joe can’t make a baby with Sam, he needs some special recognition that he and Mary are linked procreatively, but not as life-partners; Joe and Sam are life partners (such an arrangement would look a lot like stepfamilies).
But gays are not arguing for this. They are arguing for the right to basically employ adulterous and parasitic reproduction techniques, and have the “families” thus created by these techniques be presumed equal in status to other families.
I have asked many questions about why they think they warrant such an outrageous entitlement, but they never support it (no surprise; how could they, viewed objectively?) Instead they always redirect the conversation to their own ad misericordium arguments, or attacks on what sort of person I am, or just ignoring me altogether and addressing some other argument that is easier to rebut.
June 15th, 2011 | 1:11 pm
Further, marriage diminishes legal complexity in a variety issues (children, death [i.e., funeral arrangements], hospital visitations, medical decisions, etc.).
No. It really doesn’t. It actually adds a layer of complexity for parental rights issues, and in the other categories, all marriage does is set up a default decision maker. This does not make those situations any less difficult to handle, and, from a legal standpoint, it would be much better if everyone were simply required to designate a decision-maker and actually have to think about end-of-life issues before death/disability.
Now, we could utterly remove marriage as a legal institution, but then we would have to replace it with something else, and that something else would almost certainly be more cumbersome in terms of government entanglements that the current system.
Or, you know… alternatively we could use concepts tailored to the various areas of law where marriage pops up rather than some catch-all legal concept that has largely been stripped of legal meaning. I highly doubt this would result in more government entanglements.
(Incidentally, I don’t like the “civil union” idea. I think it’s lazy thinking. There is no logical reason to keep civil marriage or anything like it from a legal standpoint.)
June 15th, 2011 | 2:26 pm
Marriage is not merely a contract, but a civil status that carries with it rights and obligations.
To take the first example that comes to mind, just as children owe maintenance to their father and mother or other ascendants who are in need, “Sons- and daughters-in-law owe likewise and under the same circumstances, maintenance to their father- and mother-in-law, but this obligation ceases where the spouse owing to whom the affinity existed and the children born of his or her union with the other spouse are dead.” Further, “The obligations resulting from these provisions are reciprocal.”
Again, “Where the person who must provide maintenance establishes that he cannot make periodical payments, the “family causes judge” may, with full knowledge of the facts, order that he shall receive in his home, feed and maintain the one to whom he owes maintenance.”
Plainly, what we have here are not contractual obligations on the part of the in-laws, but obligations imposed by the law, in the interests of family solidarity. Note how they differ, depending on whether or not there are issue of the marriage. Nor can they be described as “default provisions,” for they cannot be changed by an act of the parties and the public authorities can enforce them if the party entitled to maintenance becomes a charge on public funds
Here is another example, “The spouses may not, separately, dispose of the rights whereby the lodging of the family is ensured, or of the pieces of furniture with which it is garnished. The one of the two who did not give his or her consent to the transaction may claim the annulment of it: the action for annulment is open to him or her within the year after the day when he or she had knowledge of the transaction, without possibility of its ever being instituted more than one year after the matrimonial regime was dissolved.” This is so, even if the purchaser is in good faith.
The fact that a paramour is liable in damages to the injured spouse is an example from the law of delict.
The law of succession is replete with similar examples, including the right to set aside lifetime gifts that diminish the reserved shares. Again, no contract could confer such a right against a third party in good faith.
June 15th, 2011 | 5:17 pm
Rather than speaking of presuppositions and hypotheticals, in what way can anyone demonstrate that the family unit been damaged in those states that have legalized SSM?
“Same-sex marriage has been legal in Massachusetts since November 18, 2003; in Connecticut since October 10, 2008 (with Connecticut having previously legalized civil unions in October 2005); in Iowa since April 27, 2009; in Vermont since September 1, 2009; and in New Hampshire since January 1, 2010.”
June 15th, 2011 | 5:25 pm
Joe –
Yeah, I saw that a while back, and was sad that comments were closed. I wanted to ask a question:
Sure, make single motherhood more tenable, you get more single motherhood. Make divorce easier, you get more divorce. Make more taxes possible, you get more taxes.
Now, make marriage more available, and you get… less marriage? Not following that…
June 15th, 2011 | 5:26 pm
Michael PS,
Interesting. Filial responsibility laws. I have just looked up the topic as it pertains to those of us in the United States. Thirty states have such laws, but they are rarely enforced. I had no idea they existed. I have never heard of children being obliged to pay for the care of indigent parents, and I was about to deny such a thing was possible in the United States before I looked it up. It is not uncommon in the United States for aging parents to transfer assets to their children so they (the parents) will be eligible for public assistance of some kind or another.
June 15th, 2011 | 9:14 pm
Ars Artium writes:
“If we continue on this path, we may continue to exist as a political unit and a geographical location but not as a coherent idea and a way of life.”
Jan comments:
I am not sure if haven’t already hit the end of the path.
June 15th, 2011 | 10:27 pm
Joe
With about 30 years of hindsight we can see the problem with such thinking. No-fault divorce degraded the value of all marriage, and made them more of a temporary contract than lifelong covenant. Think of it in economic terms. When the price of getting out of marriage got “cheaper,” more people were willing to “buy” it. So the entire institution became weaker because and many hundreds of thousands of children suffered because of it.
Well actually marriages seem to be less degraded after no-fault divorce. You yourself cited stats not too long ago indicating infidelity is less common and less tolerated in marriage today than in the past. Other studies have shown that abuse rates have fallen too. When its easy for one party to leave a marriage without being made to prove the other side is at fault, it does act as a deterrent to abuse. On the flip side, I’m willing to grant you that being easier to to leave a marriage might cause some couples to give up on a marriage that in earlier days they wouldn’t.
But here’s the problem you have with SSM, you still have no ‘transmission mechanism’. Think of this in terms of polygamy, which usually is raised as a red herring in SSM debates. If tomorrow polygamy was established, it would impact all marriages. Why? Because it alters the ‘balance of power’ in marriage. Today your wife has married you knowing the rules of the game are you may marry only one woman. If tomorrow you want another woman your options are limited. You can take her in a covert affair, in which case the other woman will lack the legal advantages of a spouse. Or you can divorce your wife and marry your new gf, which may be quite expensive for you should your current wife not be too amused by your change of taste. (No no-fault divorce is neither cheap nor easy) If, though, polygamy was established tomorrow then the rules of the game have changed. Now you may be able to introduce your gf as a ’2nd wife’ and it is now your wife who must decide whether to tolerate it or endure the cost of divorce.
So while I’m not as down on no-fault divorce as you are I do agree it alters the ‘environment’ that marriages swim in and may impact even marriages where the couple has no intention of entertaining divorce.
This doesn’t quite fly with SSM. The only type of case I can think of is a person who married someone of the opposite sex today because he or she couldn’t marry someone of the same sex and if SSM was legalized they might be tempted to leave their current heterosexual marriages in favor of a gay one. But as you again pointed out not too long ago the portion of the population who is gay or even bisexual is very small. Even assuming a huge portion of them are in marriages today, you don’t have to numbers to make even a blip happen on the national marriage figures. More imporatantly, I don’t think even you can tell us with a straight face that marriage today depends on unhappy gays remaining married to straights to preserve its dignity. Is your marriage model really the marriages of the former governor of NJ or Sen. Larry Craig????
Blake
Gays are not eligible for the right to be presumed the father of their lover’s child – which is one of the most important rights of marriage.
FALSE FALSE FALSE I demolished this on the previous thread on NY’s SSM proposal.
June 16th, 2011 | 3:09 am
David Nichol
I should imagine that some sort of filial responsibility laws exist in most jurisdictions. What I find most significant is the responsibility between parents and children-in-law (which, like that between parents and children, grandparent and grandchild, is mutual i.e the child can also claim against the parent). This obligation ceases if their own child dies and there are no children of the marriage. In other words, it is an obligation to maintain the actual or potential parent of one’s grandchild (or the grandparent of one’s child).
To me, this is a vivid example of the way in which marriage is concerned with the bond between generations – the family extended through time and the juridical recognition of that bond. This sits very well with the notion of the primacy of filiation as the purpose of marriage.
It goes without saying that no such obligation exists, in the case of civil unions, which are all about the couple, whereas marriage is about the founding of a family.
June 16th, 2011 | 7:10 am
To me, this is a vivid example of the way in which marriage is concerned with the bond between generations – the family extended through time and the juridical recognition of that bond.
As our society increasingly tries to replace traditional morals with “legislated morality”, we increasingly face questions such as “grandparents’ rights” – the recognition that both grandparents and children have an interest in having a relationship with each other, and that our current view of children as little better than possessions or belongings of the parent – to do with as they see fit – is in conflict with this idea, as increasingly parents wish to deny the grandparent-grandchild bond for reasons that are selfish on the part of the parents, and not at all concerned with the child’s well-being.
I have already witnessed what happens when children are classed as “family”/”not family” based not on actual family status, but on the feelings and wishes of the parents involved. It is horrible. We must restore the idea that whether one is or is not “family” is not a choice – children are not things you “own”, because real harm is being done every time parents establish misleading or fraudulent make-believe relationships, and every time parents abolish relationships that should not be abolished.
Look at the lesbian couple who broke up – and now the one that is biologically related to the child is saying, “why should we pretend this person who isn’t related to my child is the child’s mother, just because we used to be married?” This is the truth – it is a charade, and now that the mother does not have an interest in it anymore, there’s no point in keeping it up. The girl does not really have a “second mommy”, she has a woman who wants partial custody for selfish reasons – of the three family bonds (biology, law, and affection) it appears that the only bond between this woman and this child is the legal bond: she “has a right” and she wants it. It’s not at all clear that the girl is better off being in the middle of this tug-of-war. There is a reason stepparents are not granted the same parental/custodial rights.
Nor is there any reason to suppose either parent cares about what’s really good for the girl. This is not an unrelated “oh but that’s just how divorce goes”. This is a direct result of valuing the child in terms of the parents’ needs instead of in terms of what’s best for the child.
We must have rules
We should recognize that every relationship between a child and that child’s family tree – not just the child’s parents, but the child’s relationship with grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and ancestry – has some value, and must be viewed as being of interest.
If the girl currently being squabbled over by those two lesbians had been granted the right to have a relationship with her real father (that is, if the “mothers” had been less selfish, and had contracted to have a baby with a gay man instead of a sperm donor), the issue would have been settled much more satisfactorily, and the “second mommy” would have been identified correctly as a stepparent – thus preventing the current conflict.
But what’s really heartbreaking is that the child’s circumstances of birth guarantees that she will have less of an extended family – she was deliberately severed from her real paternal family, and will have at best a dysfunctional relationship with her faux “paternal” family, and that is both her loss, and also a loss for any relatives she might have had who might have treasured that relationship.
That relationships are valuable is the basis of the gay argument. It’s odd that they think theirs are the only ones that matter.
June 16th, 2011 | 8:27 am
Michael PS
There is no law obligating grand parents to grandchildren or vice versa.
In the US the assumption of paternity is done only pragmatically, provided no one objects. A husband who suspects his wife was unfaithful, or even a wife who may not want her husband to be the legal father of a child from an extramarital affair, can dispute paternity. Often this happens during a divorce but it can be done even if the marriage is not being dissolved.
Likewise obligations to children are not contingent on marriage. In the US you don’t get out of any obligations to children you produce simply because you produced them outside of marriage.
You keep pushing the French conception of marriage law here but you need to come to terms with the fact that there are serious differences between French and American law in general and between French and American marriage law specifically. From what I’ve read, France has broken marriage in two. There’s a ‘civil union’ type structure that allows couples to use customized contracts (which may or may not deal with children)…..call it ‘custom marriage’. Then there’s more traditional marriage (call it ‘marriage-classic’).
Same sex couples utilize ‘custom marriage’ civil unions but so do many heterosexual couples making it nearly 95% heterosexual couples.
While the US has some minor experiments with ‘tiered marriage’, you can’t really call the civil unions in the US equal since they don’t produce equal tax treatment or cross state rights. If you’re going to consider France a model for US law you need to take into account that they have gone down a very different path when it comes to marriage.
For anti-SSM advocates, its interesting to me that while France is by no means an anti-gay country, SSM has not succeeded there. It seems by creating a serious civil union type structure that some of the wind was taken out of the SSM movement. IMO anti-SSM advocates in the US deserve credit for bringing about SSM. By insisting on not only trying to ban SSM but to go a step beyond and override state’s rights, ban civil unions and even try to attack the right to private contract anti-SSM advocates, amazingly, set themselves up as radicals attacking some pretty basic American traditions and institutions!
June 16th, 2011 | 2:04 pm
Anyone care to answer?
Rather than speaking of presuppositions and hypotheticals, in what way can anyone demonstrate that the family unit been damaged in those states that have legalized SSM?
June 16th, 2011 | 4:22 pm
R Hampton, unfortunately its hard to gather statistics on that level outside of a research project. Average people like us can’t poll or do long-term tracking studies.
It’d be nice if the conservative thinktanks actually tried to do so. I live in CT, but the problem is it’s a balkanized state, and the culture in Hartford is miles different than either Darien, New London, or Griswold. In Hartford papers you get swingers ads and ballet, New London farm shows and local reporting.
June 16th, 2011 | 5:48 pm
Dblade,
There’s more than seven years worth of data for Mass., so surely something should have surfaced by now, right?
In any event, in what way should we expect to see the damage manifest itself: lower marriage rates? higher divorce rates? an increase in the number of children born out of wedlock?
June 16th, 2011 | 6:45 pm
It’s a small statistical sample, but in my tiny congregation, we have a number of gay couples, several of them married in San Francisco, Vermont, or DC, who have come back home to us. Their children attend Sunday School and worship. Their children babysit ours and vice versa. They participate with our children in homeless and building projects, food pantries, etc. Their grandparents come and worship with us. We watch their wedding videos at gatherings.
I haven’t noticed any effect on my marriage or the marriages of anyone else in the congregation. We are united in the Body of Christ as families are in any church. We worry more about the unchurched and seek ways to reach out to them.
What I hear them express more than anything else is their gratitude in belonging to a church that accepts them as ordinary Christians, struggling to live faithful lives as all Christians do.
June 16th, 2011 | 7:25 pm
R Hampton, I’m honestly not sure. That would be like asking about a study of the sexual revolution’s effects while it was going on. We’d see I think a rise in cohabitation or disillusionment with marriage, or mass confusion about what it means.
Michael,
Here’s the problem. What are those gay families going to say when they need to witness the Gospel? How can they say “repent of your sins” when they are embracing one wholeheartedly?
June 16th, 2011 | 7:43 pm
There is some support for believing the recognition of same-sex unions is good for the people who form the same-sex unions. See the paper The Effects of Legally Recognizing Same-Sex Unions on Health and Well-Being.
June 16th, 2011 | 8:38 pm
Dblade,
“The Pill’s revolutionary breakthrough, that it allowed women to separate sex from procreation, was what conservatives feared most. The theory was that the risk of pregnancy and the stigma that went along with it prevented single women from having sex and married women from having affairs. Since women on the Pill could control their fertility, single and married women could have sex anytime, anyplace and with anyone without the risk of pregnancy. ”
- American Experience, PBS
Conservatives at the time were able to voice very specific damages that they could, in theory, predict from the sexual revolution. In turn these predicted damages could be measured against real-world data to track the accuracy of their concerns: increases in pre-marital sex and extra-marital affairs (among other dangers).
Conservatives today are concerned that gay marriage will have very specific and measurable impacts on their religious freedom, but I have yet to hear the same kinds of specifics regarding the family unit. So I can’t help but think that even religious conservatives doubt that heterosexual marriages/families are going to be measurably harmed.
June 16th, 2011 | 9:34 pm
Dblade,
Like most parents, they spend a good bit of time talking about sin and responsibility. Our church is a Methodist reconciling congregation, so everyone is quite clear that the church doesn’t recognize homosexuality as a sin, which means that kids can’t complain that their parents are being hypocritical for asking for repentance for one sin and not another.
In one Bible study group, a gay friend explained that, as a young man, he hated his homosexuality and tried to rid himself of it. Only later, when reading Paul (I wish I could remember the passage), did he accept grace, realizing that God really did love him just as He had created him. He was free to be gay. Since then, he’s been with one man for nearly thirty years and raised two adopted children.
The witness he and his family have made and the effect they’ve had on the other marriages—gay and straight, legally recognized or not—in the congregation has been very clear.
June 16th, 2011 | 11:42 pm
R Hampton:
Well, all of us here aren’t “all conservatives.” There’s a difference from Dblade being unable to predict specifically than all conservatives being unable to. then again, who among us here predicted we’d be arguing this on computers? Futurism for the average person is hard work.
Michael:
He says the church and God say its ok. The actual book says it isn’t. You really don’t see a bit of a schizophrenic attitude here? I mean the same person who wrote the theology about grace he clings to wrote about it being a sin.
That’s part to us all, but I don’t think any belief system, personal or collective, can stand under that. It just dissolves into norman vincent peale style self affirmation and the rescued setting the rules up of how the rescuer should act.
I mean, if he ever tries to witness to a friend he is going to get that tossed back in his face so fast its not funny. He marches in a pride parade for support of ssm or something, what will he say to the others? I’ve never seen stuff like that end well: even in other sins.
June 17th, 2011 | 12:33 am
Dblade,
The kind of tension you’re finding between one use of scripture and another, even by the same author or in the same book, is found in every exercise of the Christian faith. The church is there to guide us so that the interpretation of scripture isn’t merely personal or isn’t limited to one congregation.
When Christians try to witness to anything, someone throws a contradictory passage back at us, and our answer is always that the passage in question needs to be properly understood in relation to another, to tradition, or to teaching.
I’m not quite sure what you mean when you say that “the rescued is setting the rules up of how the rescuer should act.” There are a lot of straight Christian couples that can’t stay married thirty years and raise two challenging children, but he has. It’s hard for me to comprehend that his choice of life partner makes him less serious or successful a Christian. I’ve seen how much good he, his partner, and his children have done in the world, and I’ve prayed, worshiped, and done good deeds with them all. Take out the fact that he’s done all this with another man instead of a woman, and any congregation would feel blessed to have him be a member. I couldn’t say that about an unrepentant adulterer, thief, etc., because their sin spills out and infects everything.
June 17th, 2011 | 2:47 am
Dblade
R Hampton, I’m honestly not sure. That would be like asking about a study of the sexual revolution’s effects while it was going on. We’d see I think a rise in cohabitation or disillusionment with marriage, or mass confusion about what it means.
Are you making a prediction about SSM or speculating about effects of the sexual revolution?
I’d say if you’re making a prediction about SSM we already have some serious data that you need to contend with. Has cohabitation, disillusionment with marriage (measured I suppose by divorce rates) decreased dramatically in states that went hyper-into the anti-SSM camp passing laws and amendments declaring that they would never permit SSM in their state and even going out their way to ban civil unions and even private contracts to boot? It stands to reason if a state adopting SSM will see all the bad things you wrote about….well states that veer in the opposite direction should see the reverse….yet I don’t think you can find any such evidence.
My prediction is a big yawn in terms of marriage stats. First, there’s no ‘transmission mechanism’ to most straight marriages. Get as convoluted as you want with your philosophy and rationalizations, at the end of the day you don’t love your wife any less because down the street Adam and Steve happen to have a marriage license rather than a civil union one or just some type of private arrangement. As I pointed out before things like a change in divorce law does impact your relationship to your wife because it alters the ‘rules of the game’ for you and her. SSM doesn’t except maybe for a tiny sliver of cases where you have someone who marries someone of the opposite sex because they couldn’t legally marry someone of the same sex. Second, well the numbers just aren’t there. You have maybe 4% of the population whose gay…even if 50% of them get married (which is probably a high rate) you’re talking about 2% at best of marriages. There are probably more ‘swingers’ out there today than there would ever be SSM couples.
June 17th, 2011 | 3:41 am
I do not think the question of the effects of SSM can be considered apart from the questions of public in relation to adoption and assisted reproduction and the effect on children.
To date, even in jurisdictions that allow SSM, there have been few “stranger adoptions” by such couples; most involve a biological parent and his or her same-sex partner. Accordingly, it is likely to be some time before we have really reliable evidence, such as psychoanalytical case studies of such children in adulthood and even longer before theory is developed to interpret them.
June 17th, 2011 | 6:02 am
[...] HT: Joe Carter [...]
June 17th, 2011 | 8:50 am
R Hampton
June 15th, 2011 | 5:17 pm
Rather than speaking of presuppositions and hypotheticals, in what way can anyone demonstrate that the family unit been damaged in those states that have legalized SSM?
============
Society as a whole has been damaged, that’s the issue. Normalizing homosexuality is harmful to society.
Apparently you don’t read much of this blog, because it’s been repeatedly explained why.
We can, nevertheless, repeat again and again if you can’t find the posts with a search.
June 17th, 2011 | 6:12 pm
Has anyone read “Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy”?
The deconstruction of marriage is tied to the devaluation of children.
We place children on the sidelines of our life.
We hurry them to be adults.
Then marriage becomes an appendix:
what was this ever for?
June 17th, 2011 | 8:26 pm
Rather than speaking of presuppositions and hypotheticals, in what way can anyone demonstrate that the family unit been damaged in those states that have legalized SSM?
This is a trick question, because it presupposes that SSM is not harmful until and unless harm is done – not just “could do” harm, but actually “has done” harm.
Harm is done every time a gay or lesbian couple takes advantage of the “presumption of paternity” to fraudulently classify themselves as the parent of a child they know perfectly well they’re not actually the parent of.
The law recognizes differences between parents and stepparents for a reason. All children have the right to a relationship with their biological parents, and the only time that right should be severed is under certain specific conditions that were supposed to be about protecting the child:
1) only a judge can sever this relationship
2) the relationship can only be severed when doing so is in the best interests of a child.
It is not in the best interests of a child to let him or her remain in the custody of the sort of parent who would deliberately arrange for that child’s motherlessness or fatherlessness.
So if gay marriage is to become law, at the very least we need to reinstate adultery laws – to recognize that we recognize adultery as inherently harmful and contrary to marriage. If you marry Sue, you have no business making a baby with anyone except Sue. (If there are any arguments that exceptions should exist for the infertile, those arguments would be based on the argument that there is no way for them to have a child otherwise – an argument that does not apply to gays).
If gays’ own arguments are true, then gay marriage is destructive: if it is morally wrong to deprive people of important relationships, then it is morally wrong to deprive a child of a mother-relationship or a father-relationship. And if pretending sex doesn’t matter is “living a lie”, and it is further true that nobody should be forced to live a lie – if that is true for gays, it’s just as true for their children.
What gays are doing relies on violating children, families – and honesty itself.
Whatever right they have to “recognition”, it does not extend to procreative benefits – and hence cannot honestly be considered “equal to marriage”.
June 17th, 2011 | 9:08 pm
No, it’s not a trick question.
As is the case with restraining orders, libel suits, claims of negligence, etc., a clearly perceived danger must be demonstrated — it’s simply not enough to claim the possibility of an undetermined injury from an unknown harm. Given seven years of SSM in Mass., courts will rightly ask what harm that has befallen upon the state’s heterosexual families.
Can you provide evidence of damages?
June 17th, 2011 | 9:48 pm
Blake’s error in misunderstanding paternity law has been explained in detail several times now. By ignoring this and raising the same point over and over again he is now veering into dishonesty here.
June 18th, 2011 | 3:12 am
R Hampton
June 17th, 2011 | 9:08 pm
No, it’s not a trick question.
As is the case with restraining orders, libel suits, claims of negligence, etc., a clearly perceived danger must be demonstrated — it’s simply not enough to claim the possibility of an undetermined injury from an unknown harm. Given seven years of SSM in Mass., courts will rightly ask what harm that has befallen upon the state’s heterosexual families.
Can you provide evidence of damages?
==========
In a nutshell, since you insist on ignoring what has been written extensively already, normalizing homosexuality does harm in several ways.
Let me ask you this: if we had today the means to resolve someone’s homosexuality problem, say, within 2 weeks, would you still want to legalize homosexual marriage?
Whatever for?
The normalization of homosexuality is prescribed on the false dogma that the problem of homosexuality cannot be resolved.
It is therefore a collective drive and a mandate for absolute ignorance concerning the problem.
Ignorance must reign at all times and anyone (namely researchers, clergy, professionals and policy makers working with such issues) who would like to have or develop further knowledge on the issue must be attacked and barred from acquiring it. The public as well must be kept misinformed and ignorant at all times.
Not only are we all supposed to be ignorant about the real causes of homosexuality (a profound developmental problem -which includes a fundamental and substantial cultural component), we, as a society, must be kept ignorant and ineffective in developing therapies and others means of helping people overcome and resolve their homosexuality problem.
It is one of the most irresponsible, harmful set of attitudes and ideological frameworks that anyone could come up with.
The second highly problematic and harmful aspect of normalization of homosexuality, which obligatorily also harms society as a whole, is that this normalization is nothing more than one element in an interlinked set of edicts decreed by liberals concerning acceptable mores for sexuality and personal relationships.
Americans must have their pornography, their drugs, their adultery, their promiscuity, their abortions on demand, their S&M and their homosexuality.
This is a culture where any deformed, perverted, destructive, disorientated attitude, ideology, psychological dynamics or behavior concerning sex is glorified as individual freedom and the hallmark of progress in society.
Thus the legitimation and justification, and not merely the legalization, of all these destructive sexuality problems is intense in liberal America.
(An objection is made to pedophilia, but given the high rates of child abuse of all kinds, we know that many Americans prefer lip service to real action to prevent, remedy, and punish child abuse).
Perhaps the most glaring measure of the level of deformity of the ideology of people pushing for SSM is that they do not push to change the laws permitting pornography, S&M, abortions on demand, etc. They are all so very fine with it.
I’ve also hardly ever seen more than a tiny minority of SSM supporters who dedicate at least the same amount of their energy or resources to public actions concerning prevention or reduction of child abuse, for example, as they do for their obsession with normalizing homosexuality. Why are these people so neglectful? Why is their value hierarchy so deformed, so unethical, so unhealthy?
It is clear SSM promoters spend an inordinate amount of time and resources attacking traditional marriage. This is done as if they were not enabling by their silence and inaction – when not their outright participation and advocacy- a much more seriously harmful combined set of sexuality and relationship practices in society.
So, yes, yours was not only a trick question, but it is a trick question which has as a basis a “trick” ideology. Misguided, irresponsible, and ignorant.
June 18th, 2011 | 3:28 am
[...] Can Government Get Out of the Marriage Business?Wednesday, June 15, 2011, 9:00 AMJoe Carter [...]
June 18th, 2011 | 4:10 am
Conservatives today are concerned that gay marriage will have very specific and measurable impacts on their religious freedom,
============
*Will* have?
Now, there’s a joke.
As was posted before, here are some examples of the extremely harmful consequences of normalizing homosexuality (of which SSM is but one component) which directly impacts conservatives from the perspective of fundamental rights concerning employment, education, freedom of conscience, religion, and speech.
Expelled out of school for thought crime:
Real case – Jennifer Keeton:
http://chronicle.com/article/Augusta-State-U-Is-Accused-of/123650/
http://socimages.blogsome.com/2010/08/25/augusta-state-university-and-american-counseling-association-only-immoral-beliefs-allowed-otherwise-you-are-expelled/
http://socimages.blogsome.com/2010/07/24/grad-student-accused-and-condemned-on-thougt-crime-the-issue-homosexuality-thought-crime-of-course/
I think it is interesting that they didn’t recommend she attend a counseling section for people with a homosexual problem who do not want to have a homosexual problem, and are looking for a therapist to help them; nor homosexuals who infect others with AIDS by their irresponsible, promiscuous behavior; nor the significant number of homosexuals who sexually harass or engage in domestic violence; nor the ones who abuse adolescents; nor the ones who exploit prostitution; nor the ones who produce pornography, as a few examples.
Then there is also Julea Ward:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/28/court-university-expel-student-opposes-homosexuality/
more similar examples:
Philip Lardner (UK):
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/08/10/former-tory-candidate-warned-by-employer-over-anti-gay-comments/
Dr Sheila Matthews (UK)
http://socimages.blogsome.com/2010/11/15/doctor-driven-out-of-her-job-because-of-her-healthy-sexuality-views-on-homosexuality-and-adoption/
Here’s one more case:
In the case below in the US, it was a raging queen that demanded that Michael Campion lose his job.
A psychologist who screened potential Minneapolis police officers will receive a $210,000 settlement from the city over his firing, which stemmed from his affiliation with the Illinois Family Institute and his support for treating the problem of homosexuality.
Why was he fired?
Although never admitted to be more than just a coincidence, Former City Council Member Scott Benson, who has a homosexual problem and is a lawyer, sent a note to then-interim Police Chief Tim Dolan and asked, “How did Dr. Michael Campion, who was a board member of the Illinois Family Institute (a notoriously discriminatory anti-gay group) become the psychologist for the Minneapolis Police Dept. for screening new hires etc?”
Then Campion was fired.
Should I also post about the couple in the UK who was denied foster parent status and declared unfit for parenting because they were a healthy, wonderful Christian family who does not promote homosexuality, (pornography, and prostitution)? Treated as criminals.
We also need to add that this British couple has been married for 39 years and they had successfully fostered 15 children in the past. How many people do you personally know that match this record?
http://www.christianpost.com/news/attorney-tells-uk-christian-foster-parents-that-appeal-is-futile-49363/
However…
Flaming Gay-Married White Liberal Rapes Adopted 5 Year Old Black Boy
http://www.belch.com/blog/2009/06/29/flaming-gay-married-white-liberal-rapes-adopted-5-year-old-black-boy/
“Meet Gay Associate Director of Duke University’s Global Health Policy, Frank Lombard. He and his gay partner, who live in a wealthy hippie commune in Durham, North Carolina, decided to adopt black children because, as liberals and queers, that’s what they think society should allow them to do.
But there was a catch- Lombard was a child predator who only wanted the children so he could film himself having sex with them and sell their “sweet black asses” for sex to other perverts on the internet. As for Lombard’s gay husband/clueless lifepartner who supposedly knew nothing about Lombard anally raping their child? Who knows what he is up to now- probably doing research on gay divorce.”
In the chat transcript (by undercover police), “F.L.” is asked how he got access to a child so young. “Adopted,” he replied, and said that the process was “not so hard … esp (sic) for a black boy.”
In the chat, “F.L.” told Palchak that abusing the child was “easier when he was too young to know what was happening and when he couldn’t talk …He had a little too much Benadryl. Was knocked out.”
………………………
And then there’s this detail- what’s the homosexual monster’s job?
In the Duke University’s Global *Health Policy* dept.
=========
Lastly, all the time and resources that are being wasted on the question of trying to legalize SSM could have been much better spend in investing in solutions for problems that occur in families, harmful problems that disintegrate families, or which hurt the most vulnerable, such as child abuse, elderly abuse, and espouse abuse.
June 18th, 2011 | 12:17 pm
Blake’s error in misunderstanding paternity law has been explained in detail several times now. By ignoring this and raising the same point over and over again he is now veering into dishonesty here.
You are the one who does not understand.
Let’s try to explain it:
Current law: Family is defined by family.
Exceptions must meet two burdens of proof:
1. Need – demonstration: it is in the child’s best interest to sever the relationship between the child and one or both of his biological parents
2. Desirability of adoption – demonstration: it is in the child’s best interest to create a new legal bond between the child and an adoptive parent.
New law, as proposed: family is defined by biology or choice – with people required by law to view both types of bonds as “equal”.
1. Both burdens of proof are removed: people no longer need to go before a judge to gain the legal right to “adopt” a child.
2. The standard is changed away from the “child’s best interest” standard: it is now acceptable to do things that are not in a child’s best interest if it serves the parents, because the new standard is whatever is best for the parent (as defined by the parent) that matters, and what is best for the child is secondary.
All of this is what you have so far failed to grasp.
June 18th, 2011 | 12:18 pm
Excuse me, I meant to say
Current law: family is defined by biology
My apologies for the mistake.
June 19th, 2011 | 12:57 pm
Alessandra
Let me ask you this: if we had today the means to resolve someone’s homosexuality problem, say, within 2 weeks, would you still want to legalize homosexual marriage?
Absolutely.
Let me put forth a slightly different hypothetical. Suppose someone announced that they could resolve ‘Christianity problems’ within 2 weeks? A drug which impacts certain areas of the brain is shown to fully cause anyone who takes it to cease believing in Christianity. The subjects show no ill effects, no depression or other side effects and appear to carry on perfectly normal lives after taking the drug. BUT no amount of reasoning, preaching, apologetics etc. can convince them of Christian doctrine or dogma. They just ‘don’t feel it’ enough to ever take it seriously again.
If such a thing was invented, would I case supporting religious freedom? No. I may not standing in anyone’s way of taking the drug but I would never support forcing it on anyone (or even encouraging it for that matter).
In general, we are more comfortable with giving people unrequested attention for physical problems but not psychological ones. Say we come upon someone who is unconscious and has a broken leg. I don’t think anyone would object to an emergency room doctor setting the broken leg before getting the guy to wake up and ‘consent’ to the aid.
But what if the guy had some psychological issue? Suppose a blood test is developed that can detect mild depression. Do I think the ER room should start giving the man prozac? No. I think they should first get him to be conscious and then get consent before ‘curing him’. I set the bar very high before forcing ‘cures’ on anyone.
For one thing, as the hypothetical ‘cure’ for Christianity shows when it comes to pscyhology there’s a thin line between imposing your will on someone else and ‘curing’ them of something. A ‘cure’ for homosexuality, even if it existed, would still not have the philosophical final answers you seem to want it to have.
As for your examples of ‘harm’. Total BS. Look if someone’s rights are violated because they are ‘politically incorrect’, then the problem is that their rights are violated for being ‘politically incorrect’. Let’s imagine a strict Catholic asserts in a class on family law that he thinks divorce is horrible and should be abolished. Say some divorced classmates take offense and call him up on ‘insensitivity’ or some other type of politically correct charge. The problem here is not that divorce exists but that free speech is not properly respected. If some SSM critic was treated unfairly, the logical solution is not to ban SSM so they need never criticize it…the solution is to address unfair policies.
Blake
You are the one who does not understand.
You cited, as an example, two gay men, one of whom, sleeps with a woman in order to produce a child. You then asserted that the woman’s name would be ‘crossed off’ the birth certificate to be replaced with the man’s partner’s name.
This is false. The birth certificate records the child’s biological parents regardless of marriage. Arnold’s son by his household maid, for example, would have listed him as the father except for the fact that she gave her husband as the father.
The maid’s husband has no special status over the child simple for fact that he is her husband. That he was listed as the baby’s father only happened because all the players either deceived the state or did not realize the true paternity themselves (the husband because he may not have known of his wife’s affair, and the wife might have honestly believed the child was from her husband and not Arnold).
Now later on a challenge to paternity may be rejected by the courts not because marriage gives the maid’s husband special status but because the standard is the child’s best interest. Even though Arnold is technically the biological father, he may not sweep in ten years later and deprive the child of the father he knows.
Current law: family is defined by biology
Paternity is defined by biology, not marriage. A male and female who create a child are defined by law as its parents, whether or not the parents are married to each other or not…even if they are married to other people! SSM law does not alter that and you have failed to demonstrate that it would.
You misunderstand paternity law, conflating the pragmatic assumption many states make that a wife’s husband is the father of a child by her with some grand ultimate ‘right’ of married couples. With your error, your argument against SSM, shall we say, totally flames out.
‘Gay marriage’ has nothing to do with biological paternity of children.
June 19th, 2011 | 1:52 pm
‘Gay marriage’ has nothing to do with biological paternity of children.
I will believe that when I see someone pressing charges against the gays and lesbians who are using the marital presumption of paternity to fraudulently present themselves as “the parents” of children they aren’t actually related to.
Unfortunately, your argument is an outright lie: gays and lesbians have already used – and won cases by relying on – the argument that marriage establishes paternity.
To grant marital rights to gays and lesbians is to grant codify the idea that “gay rights trumps kids’ rights” – to grant them the “right” to found a family is tantamount to granting legitimization to adultery and fraud and parasitism as legitimate reproductive strategies.
June 19th, 2011 | 1:55 pm
If marriage is not about paternity, then what gives Jenkins any right of access to Miller’s child?
She’s not the child’s mother, nor is she the child’s father.
She is a former stepmother.
Why was she acknowledged as anything other than a stepmother?
Stepmothers do not continue to have rights after the dissolution of a union. There’s a reason for this – because there’s a legitimate basis for recognizing that a stepparent is different from a real parent.
June 20th, 2011 | 6:12 am
Boonton
June 19th, 2011 | 12:57 pm
Alessandra
Let me ask you this: if we had today the means to resolve someone’s homosexuality problem, say, within 2 weeks, would you still want to legalize homosexual marriage?
Absolutely.
Let me put forth a slightly different hypothetical. Suppose someone announced that they could resolve ‘Christianity problems’ within 2 weeks?
========
Just to emphasize how sorry your logic is above, if someone announced they had invented a pill that would make all Christians non-Christians in two weeks, why would we need Christian marriage? There would be no Christians left.
The same for the problem of homosexuality.
You resolve it and all your arguments about why we should impose homosexual marriage on society have not a single iota of a reason to exist. All these people would then want to marry like everyone else, that is, a man marrying a woman.
Without people with a homosexual problem there’s no need for homosexual marriage or homosexual anything.
Why you are so obsessed with fomenting and perpetuating a culture that endorses someone to have a homosexuality problem is telling of just how misguided society is at the moment.
June 20th, 2011 | 7:54 am
Bake presents a fascinating case…except for one little detail, it has nothing to do with SSM.
Isabella’s daughter was born in 2002 and the case erupted in 2007, five years later. Vermont did not legalize SSM until April of 2009.
The case you describe then demonstrates your argument has nothing to do with SSM. It is no different than the form of Arnold losing a court battle to try to wrest custody of his son from his maid’s husband on the grounds that he’s the true biological father. In both that hyothetical case and the actual one the question hinged not on whether or not the couple was married but what was best for the child. In the case you describe the courts were concerned with getting rid of someone who had been with the child for years, not whether Janet by sake of simply being Isabella’s former lover magically had automatic rights to her child.
June 20th, 2011 | 8:15 am
Bontoon:
But what if the guy had some psychological issue? Suppose a blood test is developed that can detect mild depression. Do I think the ER room should start giving the man prozac? No. I think they should first get him to be conscious and then get consent before ‘curing him’. I set the bar very high before forcing ‘cures’ on anyone.
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And here is where you once again debate your own strawman argument, not anything I’ve said.
But it’s an interesting point to clarify anyways.
Perhaps you ignore that no one can force the resolution of a psychological problem on someone else. Resolving a problem is therefore never an imposed process and your assertion that this could even be possible is illogical.
In your example above, what the hospital staff did with the drug was to temporarily change the byproduct (the feeling of depression) that resulted from the man’s deep psychological problems. They did not work with the man so that he could resolve any of his deep seated problems. This would take time and expertise, and, often enough, also require changing crucial life or environmental conditions.
Stop the drug the next day and the depression sets in right away because the root problems were not addressed. So what was cured of the problems producing depression? Nothing. What does this example of taking an anti-depressant have to do with homosexuality? Nothing.
What anti-depressants may do in an indirect way is to enable a person to artificially feel better, but, in any case, the improved wellbeing is real. This improved sensation of wellbeing then allows them to change things in their lives which affect their more deep-seated problems, so this entire process may *sometimes* end up impacting some root causes or enable the person to resolve some deeper seated problems. But the drug itself doesn’t solve a single deep-seated problem.
Furthermore, anti-depressants do not, however, work well in every case; it takes a host of changes to help someone overcome deep-seated problems which produce depression.
Lastly, no one needs drugs to solve the greatest majority of psychological problems. What is lacking is expertise, often enough.
‘ I set the bar very high before forcing ‘cures’ on anyone.’
No one is suggesting forcing any cures on anyone, so your comment is completely illogical as to what is being discussed.
However, society has an interest in not lying to itself about the psychological problems people develop, exactly so that they can resolve them.
Being in denial, misunderstanding problems, misdiagnosing them, being negligent or even encouraging people to have deformed, disoriented psychologies regarding sexuality or personal relationships is a recipe for disaster and it’s what people who normalize homosexuality advocate.
I believe, though, that what you really resent even more is for people to be held accountable for not taking actions to resolve their psychological problems and their resolution, no matter how many problems they cause to themselves or to society.
“For one thing, as the hypothetical ‘cure’ for Christianity shows when it comes to pscyhology there’s a thin line between imposing your will on someone else and ‘curing’ them of something.”
In what way does this have anything to do with homosexuality?
June 20th, 2011 | 9:08 am
In Quebec, the presumption of paternity applies to two women, married to each other, one of whom bears a child. Registration is by the
mother and co-mother, or by either on behalf of both. Surrogate motherhood is against public order, so no similar presumption can apply to two men
In Belgium and the Netherlands, the presumption does not apply to a same-sex married couple, leading some French jurists to argue that these jurisdictions have extended the name, but not the substance of marriage to same-sex couples.
All these jurisdictions permit joint adoption by same-sex married couples
In France, since the formal decision of the Cour de cassation plenary on May 31, 1991, which preceded the legislative ban, jurisprudence has regarded as a perversion of the institution of adoption the full adoption of a child that is but the final phase of an overall process designed to enable a couple to take into their home a child conceived under contract and abandoned at birth by his or her mother. It thus prevents adoption by a woman of a child her husband has acknowledged if the child was born of a surrogate mother (who would usually exercise her right to give birth anonymously). Similar considerations would, no doubt, apply, if SSM were introduced.
June 20th, 2011 | 10:13 am
Isabella’s daughter was born in 2002 and the case erupted in 2007, five years later. Vermont did not legalize SSM until April of 2009.
Are you claiming that Jenkins is not trying to use her marital status as a basis for establishing paternity? Y/N?
Because three different news reports have reported otherwise.
Are you claiming that gays are not now using, and are not in the future going to use, marital status as a basis for establishing paternity via fraudulent means? Y/N?
Why do you make all these arguments that avoid the actual point being addressed? Gays claim a right to have their unions be considered (under pain of penalty) equal to marriage, but they’re not equal, or the same: they’re different in a way that is both relevant and significant.
Now can you or can you not address that?
That the right to be viewed as equal is only a right for those who actually are equal, that is, the same?
That the right to force people to treat two things as equal should apply only to things that genuinely are equal?
That the existence of relevant and significant differences in this case is a problem that requires some response other than merely name-calling aimed at anyone who dares point it out?
How about some recognition that in this case the differences – relevant and significant differences – are leading to fraudulent outcomes, that is, a situation where people can use (and demonstrably are using) the law to gain benefits they are not entitled to – which is of course the whole point of the exercise: to separate the rights of marriage from the corresponding obligations of marriage.
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