The following is a statement by Sarah Teather, a Liberal-Democrat Member of Parliament and former minister, explaining why she voted against the redefinition of marriage in the British Parliament on February 5.
This evening I voted against the second reading of the same-sex marriage bill. It was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever taken. As a life-long liberal and a committed Catholic I spent many months reflecting on this issue in the lead up to the vote. I wanted to explain to people why I took this step.
I have previously taken a very public stance in support of gay equality in a whole range of areas, including supporting civil partnerships legislation in 2004 (which I was very proud to do), voting for all stages of equality legislation passed in the last two parliaments, working with schools to address homophobia and lobbying the Home Office for fairer treatment of gay people seeking asylum from countries where they fear persecution. I feel strongly about these issues and have devoted considerable time to campaigning on such matters over the last ten years.
However, changing the definition of marriage for me raises other more complex issues.
I believe that the link between family life and marriage is important. We know that permanent stable loving relationships between parents are very important for children. Such relationships make it much easier to offer the kind of consistent loving parenting that enables children to grow into healthy happy adults able to play their part in society. I recognise that this kind of stability can exist outside of marriage, but the act of giving and receiving vows in front of others and making a commitment for life is an aid to stability. It is precisely the reason that marriage has formed the basis of family life for thousands of years, and is the reason that the state has historically tried to encourage it.
I also recognise that not all couples who get married have children for a variety of reasons, and similarly that many children are now born outside of marriage. My concern, however, is that by moving to a definition of marriage that no longer requires sexual difference, we will, over time, ultimately decouple the definition of marriage from family life altogether. I doubt that this change will be immediate. It will be gradual, as perceptions of what marriage is and is for shift. But we can already see the foundations for this shift in the debate about same-sex marriage. Those who argue for a change in the law do so by saying that surely marriage is just about love between two people and so is of nobody else’s business. Once the concept of marriage has become established in social consciousness as an entirely private matter about love and commitment alone, without any link to family, I fear that it will accelerate changes already occurring that makes family life more unstable. (I should add, that I also suspect it will make marriage ultimately seem irrelevant. After all, how long before gay people begin to say, as many straight couples of my own generation have begun to say, “if marriage is just about love, why would I need a piece of paper to prove it?”)
If I felt that the current legal framework left gay couples unprotected, I would be much more inclined to support the proposed legislation. However, the civil partnerships legislation, which I voted for in my first parliament, equalised relationships between same-sex couples before the law, providing the same protections as offered to heterosexual married couples. I felt strongly that it was right to support civil partnerships to ensure that gay people in committed long term relationships are not discriminated against financially and legally and can take part in decisions about their partner’s health care. Virtually no new protections are offered to same-sex couples on the basis of this legislation on marriage, and any that are could easily be dealt with by amending civil partnership legislation.
The argument in favour of same-sex marriage has mostly centred on rights. But this isn’t the only liberal philosophical perspective on the legislation. The more I considered this bill the more I was unsure about the state’s role. If an important reason for marriage is that it is a space for having and raising children, I can see the relevance for the state being involved in regulating it and encouraging stability for the good of society and for children’s welfare. Similarly, if there is a need for protection of rights to property and rights to make decisions, there are good reasons for the state to provide regulation. But neither of these things is what this legislation is trying to do. In this case, the state is regulating love and commitment alone, between consenting adults, without purpose to anything else. That feels curious to me, as I would normally consider that very much a private matter.
I have found this a difficult decision because of my work previously on gay rights issues, and my judgment is finely balanced. I recognise that others may reflect deeply on these issues and come to a different view, in good faith. But it is my view that where the extra protections offered to same-sex couples are marginal, and where the potential negatives to society over a period of time may be more considerable, I am unable to support the bill.
Although the vote today was subject to a free, unwhipped vote, I understand that my views place me out of step with most of my liberal democrat colleagues and party members. I have not often found myself out of step with party members over the last twenty years. But one of the things that always impresses me about our party is that we are liberal enough to accept that others may hold different views. Our party members hold strong views, but recognise and cherish the space for difference. I am proud of that.
This statement, first published by Catholic Voices, is reprinted with permission.
February 8th, 2013 | 1:51 pm
Except that, once again, the fact that gay couples raise children renders her arguments incoherent.
February 8th, 2013 | 2:04 pm
Almost a tear-jerker. A politician who can oppose gay marriage and genuinely support gay rights at the same time and who can articulate her views clearly and with reason and not cater to the lowest denominator. I never knew such a thing existed. Replace every American opponent of gay marriage with clones of her and the war is won.
February 8th, 2013 | 2:29 pm
Awesome!
1. Here’s an example of a (self-described) liberal opponent of SSM. People sometimes suggest that the liberal mindset was so constricting that such a person could not exist. Yet here she is.
I’m curious: Are liberals or conservatives more respectful of freedom of conscience – that is, of the right to dissent from their party’s prevailing orthodoxy? I can find various examples of pro-life Democrats; how many pro-choice Republicans are there? I can identify pro-death-penalty Democrats; how many anti-death-penalty Republicans are there?
2. Teather says,
This statement has been reprinted in Catholic Voices, and now here, apparently with approval. Does this suggest a growing consensus that civil partnerships should provide all the same benefits as marriages?
February 8th, 2013 | 2:34 pm
If I felt that the current legal framework left gay couples unprotected, I would be much more inclined to support the proposed legislation. However, the civil partnerships legislation, which I voted for in my first parliament, equalised relationships between same-sex couples before the law, providing the same protections as offered to heterosexual married couples.
This is an argument that can be made in Britain and also in France, but it does not apply in the United States, since 20 states have banned not just same-sex marriage but also civil unions. Gay couples do not have the kind of protection in the United States as they do in Britain and France. Also, the federal government in the United States does not recognize same-sex marriages or other legal unions that exist in some states.
February 8th, 2013 | 2:59 pm
This is a clear, courageous, compassionate statement that I hope will be a model for many, many other people of good will.
Respect for privacy; respect for protection from interference in adult personal affairs, respect for the human rights of children – Sarah Teather stands for all of these in one, integrated, principled statement.
February 8th, 2013 | 3:20 pm
Ugh. Conservatives can make the exact same arguments, down to “civil unions yes, marriage no,” but we get hammered. Make the dissenter a liberal though, and at least she gets praised while she’s not listened too. Tribe above all.
Sadly, she’s too late. Marriage is already divorced from childbirth to a shocking degree. This is just the whipped cream on the sundae, and I think our trad resistance is more the sign that we’re all doomed more than a wish to somehow turn back the clock.
February 8th, 2013 | 3:29 pm
The contraception mentality has already separated childbearing and raising from marriage. Gay marriage, or civil unions for such is merely an extension of the contraception mentality. All this was prophesied by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae.
I am glad to see this statement. Too little, too late.
February 8th, 2013 | 3:34 pm
Boo, you miss an important point. Children are entitled to a mother and father. A man cannot be a mother and a woman cannot be a father, no matter how loving they are.
February 8th, 2013 | 3:42 pm
Ugh. Conservatives can make the exact same arguments, down to “civil unions yes, marriage no,” but we get hammered. Make the dissenter a liberal though, and at least she gets praised while she’s not listened too. Tribe above all.
That’s because you can round up the number of liberals like Sarah Teather and fit them inside a Denny’s.
And yet: a cursory Google search indicates that gay blogs are already beating up Teather over her heresy.
February 8th, 2013 | 3:47 pm
Sarah Teather recognizes that tying matters of rights that concern all persons to marriage is counterproductive, yet linking property-rights and patient-rights to domestic-partnership laws is equally problematic for single persons without any immediate family.
In the U.S., President Obama made progress toward resolving the issue of patients-rights in an April 15, 2010 executive-order on hospital-visitation. The memorandum mandates that all hospitals that accept Medicare and Medicaid payments permit all patients to designate visitors and representatives for medical-decisions. Most hospitals in the U.S. center their operations around Medicare’s payment-structure, and while the problems that surround FFS and Medicaid are reason for concern, we can reasonably expect either to move toward a more federalized structure or see reforms of the aforementioned federal-programs. In both scenarios, hospitals will receive federal funds and thus face liability for honoring the memorandum. In the U.K., a country with an almost completely federalized medical-care structure, the matter of hospital-visitation and medical decisions rights ought to be easier to solve–without recourse to partnership or marriage law.
Concerning property-rights, in the U.S., multiple persons in any association–sexual or non-sexual–can already share property and expenses. The inheritance-tax is road-block for many non-marital committed relations but it is possible, and time, to repeal that misbegotten law via the national-legislator. I am unfamiliar with U.K. property-law, but I cannot conceive that partnership laws are the only avenue to address such concerns.
The question of rights is really one of human rights and thus concerns all persons—married or not—and the insistence to link human rights to identity-politics, domestic-partnership and marriage is counterproductive.
February 8th, 2013 | 4:25 pm
Beth so true. This is the whole point for me. I’m not for people changing definitions that belong to us all and trying to force others to change their thinking and words. No matter what—a man and a man– or– a woman and a woman–are not equal to or the same thing as a man and a woman, they are not. A man and a woman are not simply interchangeable, that is a lie and delusion and it is to devalue them. I don’t like the abuse of words and reason, I don’t like playing word games with reality and this game should not be imposed on children.
It is not truthful, objection number one. It is to dishonor reality.
February 8th, 2013 | 6:10 pm
I am very grateful to Sarah for her integrity and for the clarity of her position. God bless her.
February 8th, 2013 | 7:13 pm
I find it disappointing that we have to go overseas to find a liberal who will make a sensible comment in the debate. The all or nothing position that the Left has in this country just makes it difficult to come to any type of compromise.
I also think that Boo and Nobody.Really is the same person.
February 8th, 2013 | 8:21 pm
Why not just propose a motion to stop the government defining relationships altogether?
February 8th, 2013 | 9:47 pm
The truth matters. Thank you, Michael Servetus, for your comment.
The issue is the type of relationship, not gay this and gay that. No SSMer has managed to justify their gay emphasis.
Andreaus, thank you for your comment, especially the last paragraph.
Boo, the fact that 97% of the adult homosexual population does not reside in same-sex households with children is a legitimate point regarding the disproportionate push for SSM in the UK. And here, too.
SSM can not directly do what adoption can do. And even at that adoption is for children in need and not for needy adults.
The vast majority of children resident in same-sex households are children of divorced or estranged mom-dad duos. They already have the protections provided to children of divorce and unwed cohabitation.
Less than 5% of children in such households are adopted — so that means that the 3% of adult homosexual persons living in same-sex households with children translates into a fraction of 1% of the adult homosexual population residing with adopted children in same-sex households.
No, this push for SSM is about the asserted supremacy of gay identity politics over marriage and much else. At best, even for those who truly believe that SSM is a worthwhile gay rights issue, this is political symbolism — SSM is little more than a metaphorical marital relationship. A metaphor that lacks the core meaning of marriage.
February 9th, 2013 | 4:12 am
It is worth noting that, in France, Civil Unions [ Pacte civil de solidarité or PACS] have proved very popular indeed with opposite-sex couples.
in 2000, when they were introduced, there were roughly 350,000 marriages a year. in 2010, there were 250,000 marriages and 200,000 civil unions. Civil Unions between same-sex couples have never exceeded 7% of the total.
This suggests that they are seen as providing a viable alternative to unregulated cohabitation for many couples
February 9th, 2013 | 7:50 am
Bravo for voting according to your conscience. Exactly for that reason I would never vote for a Catholic.
February 9th, 2013 | 9:11 am
It is totally unacceptable to have one set of rules for some people, and a different set for another group. Your rational resides in some fabricated idea that marriage has always been one man and one woman, and that in some way single sex parent households are inferior to multisex households. The current President of the United States clearly demonstrates the falsehood in this assumption. Raised by a single woman (his grandmother) he has managed fine. Unless there is a proposal for divorced or widowed parents to be banned from raising children, your argument is totally invalid.
February 9th, 2013 | 10:04 am
The author seems to worry that the concept of marriage will somehow become detached from the concept of family. Maybe things are different in the U.K., but here in the U.S. those two terms have not been uniquely synonymous for many decades. Her argument may have been valid a couple generations ago, but not today in 2013.
February 9th, 2013 | 11:19 am
“Children are entitled to a mother and father. A man cannot be a mother and a woman cannot be a father, no matter how loving they are.”
Says who, first of all? And isn’t this largely an argument against same-sex parenting, not same-sex marriage? And what of all the single parents: should they be compelled to marry?
February 9th, 2013 | 11:53 am
“Raised by a single woman (his grandmother) he has managed fine.”
Wasn’t his grandmother a married woman? As I recall from his autobiography, President Obama lived with his grandparents in Hawaii. I have seen many boyhood photos of him with his grandfather.
February 9th, 2013 | 12:05 pm
Beth- what precisely do you mean when you say children are “entitled” to a mother and a father? Do you mean they are entitled to their birth parents? Because this is clearly not true as birth parents can relinquish custody. Do you mean they are entitled to a specific family configuration of a mother and a father? Why?
February 9th, 2013 | 12:07 pm
nobidy.really- “Are liberals or conservatives more respectful of freedom of conscience – that is, of the right to dissent from their party’s prevailing orthodoxy?”
That’s an interesting way of qualifying “freedom of conscience,” because the argument this MP is making essentially boils down to saying we have to restrict the freedoms of some people or else other people might make personal choices she doesn’t agree with.
February 9th, 2013 | 12:08 pm
Michael- “No matter what—a man and a man– or– a woman and a woman–are not equal to or the same thing as a man and a woman, they are not.”
And what is your evidence for this?
February 9th, 2013 | 12:13 pm
Chairm- “Boo, the fact that 97% of the adult homosexual population does not reside in same-sex households with children is a legitimate point regarding the disproportionate push for SSM in the UK. And here, too.”
Only if you believe that children are the sole reason for marriage, which you have not demonstrated, and that it is all right to violate the rights of people if their number is small enough, which is contrary to reason, and that your numbers are correct, which you have not sourced. Only if all three of those are true.
“SSM can not directly do what adoption can do. And even at that adoption is for children in need and not for needy adults.”
Who said that marriage is the same as adoption or that it’s for “needy adults”? The adoption process does not actually create the child in need of adopting.
“No, this push for SSM is about the asserted supremacy of gay identity politics over marriage and much else. At best, even for those who truly believe that SSM is a worthwhile gay rights issue, this is political symbolism — SSM is little more than a metaphorical marital relationship. A metaphor that lacks the core meaning of marriage.”
No, it’s about marriage.
February 9th, 2013 | 1:18 pm
Marriage between male and female is the only kind of legal arrangement that can *create* a child, without further legal arrangements being necessary. Not every such relationship will, but it is of the kind, that can. That is its uniqueness from a social perspective.
February 9th, 2013 | 1:22 pm
In point of fact, not that it’s terribly relevant, but Barack Obama was raised at various times by his mother, both his grandparents together, and his mother and stepfather together. I don’t believe there’s any sense in which he was raised by his grandmother as a single woman, since she was never unmarried during Barack Obama’s lifetime (she outlived her husband.)
February 9th, 2013 | 2:52 pm
Marriage between male and female is the only kind of legal arrangement that can *create* a child, without further legal arrangements being necessary.
pentamom,
Marriage doesn’t create children and never did. And in the United States, 41% of children come into existence without their mothers being married. In Britain, France, Norway, Iceland, and Sweden, 50% or more of births are out of wedlock. I am not saying this is a good thing. But it is just the case that the association between marriage and procreation is becoming increasingly weak.
February 9th, 2013 | 3:45 pm
Boo, you are fond of swiping at strawmen of your own making. My comment, which you quoted, does not depend on procreation being the sole purpose of marriage. Prove otherwise or drop it.
February 9th, 2013 | 3:53 pm
Boo, you are mistaken if you think my comment depends on procreation being the sole purpose of marriage. Nor does it depend on the rights denied based on the size of a group. The census in the UK and the USA and other countries backs up what I have said regarding the scarcity of same-sex households raising adopted children. You can also check with Gates of the Urban Institute. On all points your first paragraph is a failure to engage the actual content of my comment.
SSM cannot do what adoption can do directly.
If SSM is marriage, by your lights, then, state the essentials of the type of relationship you have in mind for SSM. Then we can compare it with the rest of the types of relationships that populate the non-marriage category. You love to emphasize legal requirements making this or that mandatory — but you oppose the bride-plus-requirement for the sake of a non-requirement; there is no sexual attraction requirement in the marriage law today prior to your proposed revision. So your pro-SSM complaint is baseless, by your own stated standards. And why impose SSM if there would be no requirement for same-sex sexual attraction for those who’d SSM? Again, your own rhetoric and argumentation defeats the SSM idea. So this stuff you go on and on about is not about marriage — except where you attack marriage — but about something else. Your gay emphasis points at the asserted supremacy of gay identity politics.
February 9th, 2013 | 4:00 pm
David Nichol you contradicted yourself.
You said that, “Marriage doesn’t create children and never did.”
Then you said, “the association between marriage and procreation is becoming increasingly weak.”
The key here is the marriage idea versus the weakening of the marriage culture. That you feel entitled to assert a falsehood in your first sentence, based on the evidence of the second sentence, well, that says a great deal about what is wrong with the SSM idea itself. It is premised on marriage meaning less and less in our society.
When the law of marriage is drawn farther from the marriage idea rather than closer to the marriage idea, and the culture follows that lesson, then, the sort of nonmarital practices you mentioned increase. The relationship between the law and the culture is a mix of cause and effect; sometimes the law does harm to marriage (and the law can get marriage wrong) by obscuring the marriage idea itself; sometimes the culture loosens its regard for the core meaning of marriage (cultures can get marriage wrong). One influences the other. However, it is shameful that the SSM side depends so much on the nonmarital trends being taken as ratcheting only in one direction so that imposition of SSM supposedly becomes more plausible.
The statement by this Liberal-Democrat is spot-on. Why take issue with it if one is pro-marriage?
February 9th, 2013 | 5:26 pm
Chairm- interesting that the moderators don’t seem to be applying the double comment rule to you (but that’s their hypocrisy, not yours).
First you say “the fact that 97% of the adult homosexual population does not reside in same-sex households with children is a legitimate point regarding the disproportionate push for SSM in the UK. And here, too.” then you say your comment doesn’t “depend” on that. Ok, so what does it “depend” on?
Then of course you turn around and say “The census in the UK and the USA and other countries backs up what I have said regarding the scarcity of same-sex households raising adopted children.” How many times do you intend on contradicting yourself? Do you believe the ability to procreate together is a necessary requirement for marriage, yes or no? And if yes, do you wish to see heterosexual couples who cannot procreate with each other denied marriage rights? And if not, why not?
“You love to emphasize legal requirements making this or that mandatory — but you oppose the bride-plus-requirement for the sake of a non-requirement; there is no sexual attraction requirement in the marriage law today prior to your proposed revision.”
I honestly have no idea what you’re trying to say here. I never said anything about a “bride-plus-requirement”
“And why impose SSM if there would be no requirement for same-sex sexual attraction for those who’d SSM?”
Who is “imposing SSM”? Are you somehow under the impression that the goal is to force everyone to get gay married? Rest assured that is not the case.
February 9th, 2013 | 5:42 pm
Boo:
While I can’t fully understand Teather’s rationale from her remarks, I read her to say:
1. People in marriage and people in civil unions should receive equality before the law.
2. Marriage and civil unions provide equal treatment before the law, or will do so very shortly. Thus, the issue is merely one of symbolism rather than substance.
3. Teather declines to vote for state recognition of same-sex marriage in order to provide symbolic support for the idea of children being raised by their biological parents.
I support a person exercising freedom of conscience to publically proclaim her sexuality, her choice of association, her views on same-sex marriage, etc. I do NOT believe a person has a freedom of conscience to receive state recognition for her social arrangements, or to achieve any state-bestowed status under law. These issues implicate the equal protection of the laws, not freedom of conscience.
And in any event, I don’t need to put up with this. As John remarked, Boo and I are the same person. I’m not going to waste electrons arguing with myself.
Well, maybe I’m being too hasty.
NO, I’m NOT.
February 9th, 2013 | 5:51 pm
That you feel entitled to assert a falsehood in your first sentence, based on the evidence of the second sentence, well, that says a great deal about what is wrong with the SSM idea itself.
Chairm,
“Marriage doesn’t create children and never did” is a true statement. We may read some meaning into pentamom’s statement that “marriage between male and female is the only kind of legal arrangement that can *create* a child,” but taken as it is, it basically makes no sense. Marriage has never created people. For a very long time, married people were mostly the ones who had children, and were supposed to be the only ones who had children. But marriage never created people.
What I object to is the use of basically meaningless statements to make arguments about same-sex marriage. A good example is, “Every child has a right to be raised by his or her biological mother and father,” especially when used as an argument against conceiving children. It makes no sense to talk about the “rights” of the unconceived. This is not to say that people who talk about the alleged rights of unborn children don’t have a perfectly valid point that they are attempting to make. But they have to make it clearly and logically and accurately.
If we attribute human rights to the unconceived, what about the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? How do we grant the unconceived the right to life?
February 9th, 2013 | 6:26 pm
This is the testimony of someone who knows deep down that the proposal on the table is wrong, but lacks the intellectual and moral framework to even begin to articulate why, and is reduced to flailing for any half-baked reason to justify her resistance. I give her “courageous” stand against the orthodoxy of the age about four weeks, before she melts into a puddle of apologies for her lack of sensitivity, silently pleading to be spared any further vilification. I feel sorry for her.
February 9th, 2013 | 7:16 pm
However, it is shameful that the SSM side depends so much on the nonmarital trends being taken as ratcheting only in one direction so that imposition of SSM supposedly becomes more plausible.
Chairm,
It’s an interesting point. I’m trying to decide if it is a valid one. I get what you are saying, but in general I think there are two (at least) schools of thought about marriage. One holds marriage to be a divinely created institution, or something like a platonic form. It is what it is—a union between one man and one woman—and anyone who departed from that (Abraham, David, Solomon) was wrong. So a legislature can no more establish same-sex marriage than they can repeal the law of gravity. People in this school obviously oppose same-sex marriage. The other school believes that marriage is a human invention, and the way you arrive at a definition of marriage is to observe “marriage-like” arrangements throughout history and throughout the world, and formulate something that describes all of them. And marriage, like language, evolves, so you can no more claim same-sex marriage is impossible than claiming words don’t come into existence or change meaning over time. The fact that at least eleven countries have same-sex marriage means that same-sex marriage is indeed one form of marriage. People with that view of marriage are much more open to same-sex marriage.
February 10th, 2013 | 9:24 am
David Nickol
The meaning of a word is defined by its use and that means being attentive to the social and cultural context in which it is being used. That is what Carbonnier meant, when he said that the meaning of (civil) marriage must be sought within the two covers of the Code Civil. He did not mean that we should look for a formal definition, for the Code contains none, but we should look at its legal incidents and what distinguishes t from other forms of life for couples, such as unregulated cohabitation (which is not devoid of legal effect) and civil solidarity pacts.
Nowhere does this appear more vividly than in the case of the recognition of foreign marriages, where the court has to decide whether the relationship between the parties under the foreign law is sufficiently analogous to the relationship of husband and wife, as described in the Code Civil, to make it just, by classifying the relationship as “marriage,” to apply the same rules to them.
This is very far from embracing a Platonic view of language.
February 10th, 2013 | 9:35 am
David Nickol- A lot of it is also failure to note the distinction between civil and religious marriage.
February 10th, 2013 | 10:41 am
I think the only valid argument left is the ‘decoupling’ one. That if you associate marriage with non-procreative couples then procreating couples will cease to see any need to get married. This argument fails IMO for two main reasons:
1. The boat has already sailed. Plenty of non-SSM jurisdictions have seen high rates of out of wedlock births, including couples doing it on purpose rather than as an ‘accident’. In fact, it seems that going on record emphatically against SSM has done nothing to lower the rate of out-of-wedlocksim in many states where so-called ‘defenders of marriage’ have won victories while states that have SSM seem to do slightly better in this regard!
2. Plenty of non-procreative marriages have been embraced with no ill effects observed. No one thinks marriages of 65 yr olds will cause 21 yr olds to ‘decouple’ making babies with marriage. Yet percentage wise SSM couples are unlikely to ever be anywhere above a trivial portion of all marriages.
Of course the argument also fails logically. There’s no particular reason why if down the street Adam and Steve are in a civil marriage rather than a civil union it makes any sense at all for you to either choose not to have children or choose to have children without marrying your partner. This is one of those arguments that sounds like it makes sense until you actually think about real life people doing it in the real world.
February 10th, 2013 | 12:27 pm
Booton
We find that opposite-sex couples, who currently have a choice between marriage, civil unions and unregulated cohabitation, are opting for civil unions in increasing numbers. In France, in 2000, before civil unions (PACS) were introduced, there were roughly 350,000 weddings a year. In 2010, there were 250,000 weddings and 200,000 PACSs, almost all of them between opposite-sex couples.
This suggests that there is a difference between the two institutions. I have yet to hear any supporter of SSM address that distinction. What does marriage do, what function does it serve, that a PACS does not? Why have two institutions, rather than one?
February 10th, 2013 | 3:26 pm
My earlier comment depends on “the disproportionate push for SSM in the UK” in light of which the very low rate of same-sex householders with adopted children is “a legitimate point”. See also: “SSM cannot do what adoption can do directly.” There is no contradiction in these comments. Also, if you had actually engaged my previous arguments, you would have noticed the typo; here is the obvious correction — “bride-plus-room requirement”. As for your infertility strawman argument, here is a link to that answers your misunderstanding and unreasonable rhetoric.
Infertility is a disability
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/search/label/sterility%20strawman
The imposition of the SSM idea does not force people to SSM. Neither does it come with a legal requirement making same-sex sexual attraction mandatory for those who’d SSM. So that can’t be the justification for its imposition, by your own stated standards.
February 10th, 2013 | 3:29 pm
David Nickol said: “The fact that at least eleven countries have same-sex marriage means that same-sex marriage is indeed one form of marriage.”
You agree, I think, that the law (and culture) can get marriage wrong. So that fact does not mean that SSM is a form of marriage. You need to provide the sound argumentation from the essentials of the type of relationship you have in mind for SSM. And, based on your various comments, and based on SSM argumentation and rhetoric of the leading voices of the SSM campaign, that type of relationship is not marital. Indeed, the use of non-marital trends to propose that SSM is more plausible demonstrates a profound fault line in SSM argumentation.
February 10th, 2013 | 4:58 pm
“Marriage doesn’t create children and never did. And in the United States, 41% of children come into existence without their mothers being married. ”
Okay, let’s try again. Marriage is the only kind of legal arrangement in which a child can be created without further legal arrangements being necessary to establish the legal relationships between the child and the parents. I was using a bit of shorthand, I thought my meaning would be rather obvious.
That should take care of your first sentence. As for your second, since when is “not being married” a legal arrangement?
February 10th, 2013 | 5:32 pm
So that fact does not mean that SSM is a form of marriage.
Chairm,
Of course same-sex marriage is a form of marriage. Polygamous marriage is also a form of marriage. They both exist—the latter from the dawn of history until the present, which makes it odd that so many people use the slippery-slope argument that same-sex marriage will open the way to polygamy.
This reminds me of the old joke:
First person: Do you believe in infant baptism?
Second person: Believe in it? I’ve seen it done!
There are well over 100,000 same-sex married couples in the United States today. How can it be argued that they are not married, or that the same-sex couples in other countries that allow same-sex marriage are not married? If people want to insist that we say they are only “legally” married, I have no objection. But they are definitely legally married. So same-sex marriage is a form of marriage.
Catholics may want to argue that people who validly marry, divorce, and remarry without an annulment are not “really” married (in the eyes of God), but those people are very definitely legally married.
If opponents of same-sex marriage believe the state doesn’t have the power to join a same-sex couple in marriage, let them go through the courts and make that argument. As far as I know, no one has tried that. It would appear to me that it is an acknowledgment of the state’s power to permit same-sex marriage to amend the state’s constitution to forbid it. If a government really doesn’t have the power to permit same-sex marriage, then why amend its constitution to say it doesn’t?
February 10th, 2013 | 8:10 pm
Marriage is the only kind of legal arrangement in which a child can be created without further legal arrangements being necessary to establish the legal relationships between the child and the parents.
pentamom,
But being married is not necessary. If an unmarried man and woman who have a child list the man’s name on the birth certificate, he is the legal father of the child. Do you consider filling out a birth certificate a “further legal arrangement”?
February 10th, 2013 | 8:34 pm
Michael PS
We find that opposite-sex couples, who currently have a choice between marriage, civil unions and unregulated cohabitation, are opting for civil unions in increasing numbers…This suggests that there is a difference between the two institutions. I have yet to hear any supporter of SSM address that distinction.
And yet France does not have SSM. This would seem to be a failure of the decoupling argument. How has keeping gays out of marriage prevented France from making more and more babies outside of marriage?
What does marriage do, what function does it serve, that a PACS does not?
If I had to guess it would seem less to do with children and more to do with marriage’s life-long…or longer life nature. People opt more for an institution that leaves a little bit more of an ‘escape hatch’ than marriage. Granted I’m sure France has divorce but I suspect it’s still easier to dissolve a PAC or unregulated cohabitation than a marriage.
pentamom
Okay, let’s try again. Marriage is the only kind of legal arrangement in which a child can be created without further legal arrangements being necessary to establish the legal relationships between the child and the parents.
In the US the mother is the person who gives birth and the father is the person named as the biological father. Even if that man is a person a married woman was having an affair with. Barring anyone jumping up and challenging that, that is how it’s done.
And children are created by sex, not ‘legal arrangements’. People managed to have children before they had lawyers.
February 11th, 2013 | 11:28 am
Chairm- “My earlier comment depends on “the disproportionate push for SSM in the UK” in light of which the very low rate of same-sex householders with adopted children is “a legitimate point”.”
Yes, but as I said, this matters only if raising children is the sole reason for marriage, which it is not, and only if it is okay to discriminate against a group of people based on their being a small group, which it is not.
And I am not opposing the bride-plus-groom requirement for the sake of a sexual attraction requirement. If someone wants to marry someone else that they are not sexually attracted to, I don’t think it’s the smartest idea ever, but it’s their choice. I oppose the bride plus groom requirement because it is arbitrary.
Whether or not you want to count infertility as a disability (you might ask post-menopausal women how they feel about that) is neither here nor there. If the reason for marriage was conception the law would reflect that in marriage requirements. It does not.
“The imposition of the SSM idea does not force people to SSM. Neither does it come with a legal requirement making same-sex sexual attraction mandatory for those who’d SSM. So that can’t be the justification for its imposition, by your own stated standards.”
That is not my stated standards at all. Please stop putting words in my mouth.
February 11th, 2013 | 11:31 am
Michael PS- so establish marriage equality and get rid of civil unions. Problem solved.
February 11th, 2013 | 11:36 am
Boonton, please, I said legal arrangement “in which,” not “by which,” correcting the earlier misconstruction of my point.
And once again, “not being married” is not a “legal arrangement.” Of course babies with recognized parents come about in other ways, but not in the context of a “legal arrangement.”
The contrast is to any kind of legal union of members of the same sex. No child can come about in that union, or as a result of that union, and be recognized as the child *of* that union, without further legal arrangements being necessary.
February 11th, 2013 | 12:24 pm
And once again, “not being married” is not a “legal arrangement.” Of course babies with recognized parents come about in other ways, but not in the context of a “legal arrangement.”
Again in the US the mother and father of a child are the mother and father, not simply the man who is married to the mother. I’m not a lawyer but for the most part US law does not make a distinction between ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ children hence is not greatly focused on children ‘from’ a legal union versus those from outside.
In other countries, particular ones with histories of monarchs, there might be a lot of legal importance in declaring some kids bastards and others legitimate (for example, the king’s legitimate son may get the crown while his bastards get zilch). that’s all well and good but hardly serves as a universal purpose for civil marriage as many countries long ago ditched such distinctions or never had them to begin with.
February 11th, 2013 | 5:33 pm
“My concern, however, is that by moving to a definition of marriage that no longer requires sexual difference, we will, over time, ultimately decouple the definition of marriage from family life altogether.”
Your position is demonstrably inconsistent with itself.
You seem to define family life as the raising of children.* Gay couples can and do raise children. If you actually believed that the connection between family life and marriage was the key to determining who should be able to marry, you should support gay marriage by your own argument.
And yet you do not. From your article, you apparently believe in an addition criteria- that marriage should uphold family life amongst opposite sex couples who reproduce biologically and do not adopt. THIS is a decoupling of family life and marriage. YOUR position. I don’t see why you don’t recognize that, given that it stems from the very arguments you’re offering in the article that you wrote.
*If this is not how you define family life, I invite correction. Correction will need to be followed by an explanation of how gay couples cannot engage in family life so defined, or else your argument will remain inconsistent with itself.
February 12th, 2013 | 1:28 am
David Nickol, where SSM has been imposed in law, the law is wrong. You claim the reverse. You’d agree that sometimes law gets marriage wrong. This type of relationship has a reality independent of and apriori the law. That is the starting place, not the law itself.
Boo and Boonton (same person?) use the same stated standards you have used with your reliance on revision of the law to claim SSM to be marital. So the challenge for you is to state the essential feature(s)by which a special status is merited and by which goundaries for eligibility and ineligibility are justified … mere assertion does not suffice. Afterall, the central theme of your pursuit of revision in the law is thedemand that the law be justified rather merely asserted, as in, the law is the law and that decides the matter.
That to which the law is drawn is the basis for deciding if the law is justly drawn. The rest follows.
The SSM idea is in direct conflict with the marriage idea, with the core meaning of this social institution, with the essentials of the marital type of relationship, with the preferential status of marriage, and with that to which societal regard justifies eligibility and ineligibility boundaries.
Polygamous practices are based more closely on the marriage idea than on the SSM idea. SSM leapfrogs over the justification for the line drawn on polygamous practices. It is not a slippery slope argument. The SSM idea and its argumentation does not provide such justification … for it disregards the difference between the union of husband and wife and all other types of relationships. Arbitrariness is the main feature of the imposition of the SSM idea.
February 12th, 2013 | 3:05 am
Boo/nton, my point does not depend on childraising being the sole reason that people enter the union of husband and wife. That is your strawman dancing your tune. In other words, your misrepresentation leads you to another error.
Is raising children mandatory for those who’d SSM? Nope. Do all same-sex households adopt children? Nope. Raising adopted children is not a legitimate basis for arguing eligibility revisions to impose SSM, as per your own stated standards.
Besides, SSM cannot do what adoption does directly.
Proportion entered the discussion via your own talk of adoption. Apparently it mattered decisively that some but not all who’d SSM might adopt. I added some perspective on your disproportionate gay emphasis: about 99.9% of the adult homosexual population does not reside in same-sex households raising adopted children. And I’ll add that, in absolute numbers, there are far more people — millions more — in nongay same-sex scenarios that are ineligible to SSM where SSM has been imposed. That there is even one instance (a minority of one) must be intolerable, based on your absolutist standard.
Now you have acknowledged that sexual attraction is not a legitimate basis for lawmaking on eligibility. It is not a requirement and it is not an essential feature of this type of relationship. The pro-SSMcomplaint based on sexual attraction is a nonstarter, based on that acknowledgement. Your gay emphasis is misplaced.
However you have now asserted that you think that to SSM without sexual attraction is not smart. Why?
February 12th, 2013 | 4:21 am
Boo wrote, “Michael PS- so establish marriage equality and get rid of civil unions. Problem solved.”
On the contrary. Civil unions are nearly as popular as marriage with opposite-sex couples (200,000 as against 250,000 a year) and the total umber of marriages and civil unions together is 450,000 a year, as against 350,000 marriages a year, before their introduction.
In other words, there are reasons why many people, given the alternative, prefer civil unions. This raises the obvious question of the difference between them.
February 12th, 2013 | 9:08 am
David Nickol, where SSM has been imposed in law, the law is wrong. You claim the reverse.
Chairm,
What I claim is that in jurisdictions where same-sex marriage is legal, those same-sex couples who fill out the appropriate forms and go through the appropriate ceremony are legally married. Consequently, same-sex marriage is marriage. Similarly, although the Catholic Church believes in the indissolubility of marriage, those people who are validly married in the Church, civilly divorce, and civilly remarry without an annulment are legally married.
Government has the authority to join two men or two women together in civil marriage.
February 12th, 2013 | 10:43 am
David, civil marriage is what I referred to when I said that sometimes the law gets marriage wrong. Human reason, rather than divine revelation, soundly makes the case for me in argumentation.
You can stop trying to make this about religion. It would help you to engage in the actual disagreement.
Government has no authority to abolish the bride-plus-groom requirement for civil marriage. Government’s role is to support and to promote this type of relationship rather than to obscure it by distancing law and policy away from the core meaning of this foundational social institution. Government does not create nor own marriage.
But you claim otherwise.
Whence the authority of Government to impose SSM by revising marriage law?
If you agree that sometimes the law (and culture) can get marriage wrong (please do clarify on that point), then you’d acknowledge that the marital type of relationship, as a type of relationship, has a reality independent of the law. It is that reality to which the law is justly drawn closer. Drawing the law farther and farther away would increasingly obscure that independent reality upon which just marrriage law is justified.
We are discussing the law and marriage. So you need not repeat that we are discussing civil marriage.
February 12th, 2013 | 11:15 am
David, regarding the yet-to-be-concieved:
The birthright of the child is the birthright of us all.
You might acknowledge that we work to protect the right to liberty for the here and now, sure, but only for us but also for those who who follow us.
Procreative justice is part and parcel of that work that continues, generation after generation. Justice (to each his due) morally obliges us to speak for those yet-to-be-concieved because, frankly, we can certainly expect more conceptions and more children in future. They do not have a voice so we ask what would be due us if we were them. There is a birthright, you might readily agree, for justice and liberty. It is ot reinvented with each birth.
We do not assume the contrary, obviously. We safeguard justice and liberty and not just for us here and now. I personally fought in just wars to that end … for the sake of children and their children (and their children and so on) who have the same moral obligation toward future generations. None of those children had yet been concieved. I do not think this is beyond you ability to grasp.
February 12th, 2013 | 11:26 am
Typo corrections: “but not only for us”.
And: “it is not reinvented”
I’ll add that human nature is a constant so we can discern this birthright today as bearing on the yet-to-be-concieved. The longstanding marital presumption of paternity is a basic example of this across hundreds if not thousands of years of civilization.
February 12th, 2013 | 1:47 pm
Chairm- “Boo/nton, my point does not depend on childraising being the sole reason that people enter the union of husband and wife. That is your strawman dancing your tune. In other words, your misrepresentation leads you to another error.”
Then why don’t you just come out and say what your point depends on? (And no, I’m not Boonton)
“Is raising children mandatory for those who’d SSM? Nope. Do all same-sex households adopt children? Nope. Raising adopted children is not a legitimate basis for arguing eligibility revisions to impose SSM, as per your own stated standards.”
No, that is not my stated standard. I will ask you once again to please refrain from putting words in my mouth. Please try to pay attention- raising children is *one* reason gay couples need marriage rights. It is not the *only* reason.
“Besides, SSM cannot do what adoption does directly.”
So what?
“Proportion entered the discussion via your own talk of adoption. Apparently it mattered decisively that some but not all who’d SSM might adopt. I added some perspective on your disproportionate gay emphasis: about 99.9% of the adult homosexual population does not reside in same-sex households raising adopted children. And I’ll add that, in absolute numbers, there are far more people — millions more — in nongay same-sex scenarios that are ineligible to SSM where SSM has been imposed. That there is even one instance (a minority of one) must be intolerable, based on your absolutist standard.”
Again, that 99.9% is a number you seem unable to back up, and again, why does the proportion matter? Since when is it ok to deny rights to a group based solely on their numbers? You refuse to answer this point.
“The pro-SSMcomplaint based on sexual attraction is a nonstarter, based on that acknowledgement. Your gay emphasis is misplaced.”
Who said it had to be based on sexual…
February 12th, 2013 | 5:08 pm
Boo, in previous comments you said: “Only if you believe that children are the sole reason for marriage”. And you said: “this matters only if raising children is the sole reason for marriage”.
Now, you have not shown that either assertion — by you — follows from my comments. Instead you keep raising this as YOUR standard for rejecting the core meaning of marriage is that if something is not compulsory then it is not a legitimate basis for lawmaking on eligibility. You have repeatedly said that of procreation and, now, of child-raising.
Marriage is a foundational social institution and its core meaning is the coherent whole of integration of the sexes combined with provision for responsible procreation. This does not mean that children are the sole reason for marriage nor does it mean that my comments here have depended on child-raising as the sole reason for marriage. The law that governs marriage ought to be drawn closely to the core meaning of marriage.
Take a step back from your rhetoric and read with the goal of understanding rather than attacking what you have been taught (by the SSM campaign) to expect me to say on these matters.
—
The census and the HRC’s own analysis of the census does back up what I have said here.
Same-sex Householders in US Population (sources cited) http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2006/12/same-sex-householders-in-us-population.html
Gary Gates of the Urban Institute estimated that about 5% of same-sex households included adopted children. The HRC’s census analysis pegged the adult homosexual population (openly homosexual, mind) at 5% of the general adult population.
The number of same-sex households is low — so about 90% of the adult homosexual population does not reside in such households and 97% does not reside in same-sex households with children.
So, of the 3% who do reside in such…
February 12th, 2013 | 5:13 pm
Who said the pro-SSM complaint is about unjust discrimination based on sexual attraction?
If not you explicitly, Boo, then, just about all other SSM advocates — which actually aligns with the gay emphasis in your comments. Please clarify.
February 12th, 2013 | 10:04 pm
Michael PS
In other words, there are reasons why many people, given the alternative, prefer civil unions. This raises the obvious question of the difference between them.
No doubt your answer is that in France marriage means the husband is automatically legal father to any child the wife bears…hence marriage is about children and civil unions is about everything else. Yet as clever as that sounds it misses your question. Why do rank and file people opt for civil unions in numbers equal too or greater than marriage?
I think the answer is perfectly obvious. Paternity has nothing to do with it. A man never has to seriously worry about proving paternity. If a woman asserted her boyfriend wasn’t the father a quick DNA test would establish it (which is why more often than not the law is chasing men who are claiming NOT to be the father). People would rather not make a lifelong committment. Therefore the essential difference between marriage and civil unions is the ease with which one can get out of such a relationship legally. Therefore they opt for non-marriage types of legal relationships in France even when they are heterosexual, even when they are having kids.
The question you have to answer is if marriage’s legal purpose is kids then why do so few French who are having kids opt to do so under marriage? If the civil institution is tailored to faciliate child making and raising then wouldn’t lots of couples intending to have kids or who have kids be opting into it when there is absolutely no barriers to it for them at all?
February 12th, 2013 | 10:05 pm
Boo and Boonton (same person?) use the same stated standards you have used with your reliance on revision of the law to claim SSM to be marital. So the challenge for you is to state the essential feature(s)by which a special status is merited and by which goundaries for eligibility and ineligibility are justified … mere assertion does not suffice.
As noted Boo is not I nor I Boo.
Essential features for which civil marriage is justified? Pretty easy, it’s the practice of humans to pair together and live most of their adult lives in mutual support. The law follows human nature, rather than the law trying to make human nature. Since marriage is what people do, there’s lots of laws about marriage, just as people tend to trade and make a living for themselves so there’s lots of laws about contracts, businesses, employment etc.
You are free to argue that some types of marriages can just never work. Perhaps infertile marriages cannot work. Perhaps same sex ones can’t. That has no particular bearing on the law. Maybe certain types of people can’t run businesses, the law doesn’t have to worry about that when granting business licenses….but the individual should consider that before they start their own business.
Why should SSM be such an issue in regards to civil law? Why not simply treat SSM as any other marriage that may be technically legal but you do not consider a valid spiritual one such as, say, Newt Gingrich’s latest ‘marriage’?
February 13th, 2013 | 12:56 am
If so then what is the societal purpose of the gay emphasis in the rhetoric and argumentation of the leading advocates of SSM? Mutual support is key to your idea but it is not justified by the gay emphasis nor any emphasis on same-sex sexual attraction. Why would the sexual aspect be the central theme of mutual support, anyway? And yes, why lifetime support?
February 13th, 2013 | 4:02 am
Booton
One important difference is that a PACS creates a strictly personal relationship. There is nothing corresponding to Article 206 that imposes a duty of mutual financial support between parents-in-law and children-in-law. Art 206 applies between remoter ascendants and descendant, too. It is vigorously enforced, when there is a risk of someone becoming chargeable to public funds.
This obligation is based on the family nature of marriage and its linking of the generations. This is clear from the fact that, if my son dies, my obligation to support his wife (or her obligation to support me) ceases, unless there is living issue of the marriage, in which case it continues.
Again, to take another example, gifts are irrevocable between PACS partners and cohabitants, whereas gifts of future assets are always revocable between spouses, to allow resettlement on the birth of a child and different, rather complex rules apply to « biens de famille » or property acquired by gift or inheritance from an ascendant.
Then again, there is n duty of sexual fidelity between PACS partners, for obvious reasons.
That supporters of SSM acknowledge the link between marriage and family formation is shown by yesterday’s vote in the National Assembly approving both marriage and joint adoption for same-sex couples.
February 13th, 2013 | 12:06 pm
“Those who argue for a change in the law do so by saying that surely marriage is just about love between two people and so is of nobody else’s business. Once the concept of marriage has become established in social consciousness as an entirely private matter about love and commitment alone, without any link to family, I fear that it will accelerate changes already occurring that makes family life more unstable.”
They don’t say that it is just about love and commitment. Marriage is about all sorts of things, very much including raising families. However, not all married couples can, or even want to, raise children, and that does not mean that they have somehow missed the main point of marriage. Your fear that allowing SSM will somehow cause heterosexual marriage to become less stable is extraordinarily nebulous. It’s about as good an argument as saying that to deny same-sex couples the right to marry will gradually lead to the extreme alienation of hundreds of thousands of people, and ultimately to violence and social disorder. These are weak arguments used to justify a gut feeling that arises from your religious views. Your real argument could be summed up as follows: God says it’s wrong, so it must be.
February 13th, 2013 | 5:39 pm
Chairm
If so then what is the societal purpose of the gay emphasis in the rhetoric and argumentation of the leading advocates of SSM?
I’m sorry but can you try to write a bit more clearly here…I can’t quite get what you’re trying to get at. It sounds like you’re asking something like “why does the subject of same sex marriage sounds gay?” which is kind of like asking “why does all the discussion about the Pope revolve around the Roman Catholic Church?”
Michael PS
This obligation is based on the family nature of marriage and its linking of the generations. This is clear from the fact that, if my son dies, my obligation to support his wife (or her obligation to support me) ceases, unless there is living issue of the marriage, in which case it continues.
Errr in the US you have no legal obligation to be supporting your adult son and his wife. Such a concept would be rather problematic if you tried to enforce it here.
But the question is why are so many heterosexual couples who are clearly interested in procreating failing to use the institution in France that is supposedly tailor made for that purpose?
Look at it this way, a corporation is a legal entity designed to facilitate profit seeking businesses. While clearly not every business would incorporate, if we observed fewer and fewer businesses taking advantage of incorporation and instead using other legal forms to seek profit (like partnerships), one might wonder if there was something wrong with the view that incorporation was an ideal legal form for businesses.
February 14th, 2013 | 2:28 am
Boo, my “if so” comment was directed to David. It follows his comment.
Mutual support need not be sexual so why the gay emphasis? And if the idea is to just go along with what people do, why the gay emphasis where about 90% of the adult homosexual population does not reside in same-sex households (a more inclusive category than civil union, registered partnership, and SSM combined)? As for pairing, why limit mutual support that way; and why even expect a lifetime commitment of mutual support? What has that gay emphasis got to do with any of that, anyway?
Sure, there is this idealization of a stereotypical SSM relationship that probably does not exist and has never existed as a norm with the adult homosexual population. So is this really just about trying to use government to make that segment of the population conform? Government knows better than they, perhaps?
The gay emphasis is like a toad on a fence post. How did it get there? Right, someone lifted it up and placed it there — but what is the societal purpose of this emphasis. It provides no rationale for limiting mutual support the way that David proposed it ought to.
February 14th, 2013 | 2:35 am
Family is defined as the mother, father, and their children. This is the basic unit of humankind.
The nature of humankind is two-sexed, not one-sexed, and upon this all past, present, and future generations arise.
Families do come apart, tragically yes, and families do merge together, sure. But the basic unit is the intact family of mother, father, and their children.
Non-marital trends might make the SSM imposition seem more plausible, I suppose, but that exposes a profound fault line in SSM argumentation. If you depend on such trends in this way, then, the SSM idea is not really ya pro-marriage idea.
February 14th, 2013 | 3:55 am
Booton
My own impression, as a lawyer specialising in estate planning, is that the more flexible property and inheritance régime that a PACS provides suits “blended” families, in particular, rather better. As the Pécresse Commission noted, “in this country, the model has long been the peasant family, structured around a patriarch and expanding from hearth to hearth” and the Code reflects this.
Again, PACS partners (unless they agree otherwise), whilst obliged to contribute to the household expenses, owe no duty of maintenance to each other, so there is no question of aliment on dissolution.
Remember, the PACS was designed as an alternative to unregulated cohabitation,as well as marriage, in which it would appear to have been rather successful. I wonder how the American experience compares?
Your point about corporations is well taken. In the UK, many bodies do choose the greater flexibility of operating as partnerships, or voluntary associations, with their property vested in trustees. One notable example is the Inns of Court, the barristers’ professional body.
February 14th, 2013 | 8:57 am
Chairm
Mutual support need not be sexual so why the gay emphasis
Well if you’re talking about non-related people being intimately close to each other there’s usualy some degree of sex involved. But fair point, not all marriages are sexual and during the full course of a marriage sexual activity can vary a lot. But then you’re the person brining up sex here. Of all the legal marriages that have happened, I have no idea how often sex happened in each one. I do not know, for example, if Michael Jackson and Elvis’s daughter ever had sex during their brief and somewhat odd seeming marriage. I suppose in places that have SSM there are some same sex couples who marry but don’t have sex just as I’m sure there are some different sex couples who do as well.
Family is defined as the mother, father, and their children. This is the basic unit of humankind.
The basic unit of human kind would be individual humans. Note even in the Bible, God speaks to humans as individuals not as ‘family units’…even sometimes asking individuals to break from their families.
The nature of humankind is two-sexed, not one-sexed, and upon this all past, present, and future generations arise.
I’m find with saying this applies to a supermajority of humans (say 90%+). It’s also perfectly consistent to note that it’s possible that a small portion are simply not heterosexual. Among many social animals there are groups in the population not inclined towards direct reproduction.
February 14th, 2013 | 6:32 pm
Michael PS
It would seem then that French law does have some really important differences between marriage and PACS that have little or nothing to do with children. It sounds like these differences can be summed up as marriage creates more serious legal committments that PACs do not. One can see how some heterosexual couples would want fewer such binds and hence opt for PACs. Likewise some would want those binds and demand marriage.
Would not same sex couples therefore see the same division?
So if one insists on a very high level summary, it would seem France has a three track system. There’s marriage, ‘marriage-lite’ (PACS) and ‘just do your own thing’ (unregulated cohabitation). The US for the most part has done the two track route eliminating the middle. Civil Unions I think are intended to essentially be marriage, not PACS but have unintentionally created a grey zone since some states recognize civil unions nad some don’t.
February 15th, 2013 | 4:07 am
Booton
I would agree that there are important differences between marriage and PACS that are not related to child rearing. However, I would argue that all the differences stem from the inter-generational character of marriage, which is absent from a PACS.
Put another way, a PACS unites the partners and a marriage unites families. A French word for in-laws is « Les alliés » in the sense of the English word “alloy,” a solid solution or homogeneous blending. The legal obligations of support rest on a widespread clannish sense of family solidarity.
In this context, I would cite to a remark of sociologist Martine Segalen to the Pécresse Comission, “Studies show that when a member of a family lives with a partner outside marriage, that person is considered to belong to the family only from the birth of a child on.” Again, we have the strong vertical dimension of the French concept of family.
February 15th, 2013 | 8:54 am
But you also said that a father is not required to support his daughter-in-law if his son dies. So even in marriage, the ‘intergenerational’ aspect of family depends on kids. If your daughter-in-law had a child, then you’d be obligated indirectly as she is your grandchild’s mother.
But then if your son never married her, only was with her via a PAC or ‘cohabitation’ you’d still be obligated to your grandchild and indirectly to her. So it’s not clear to me that marriage is doing anything really special in regards to ‘intergenerationalness’ under French law. Under US law we are much more individualistic and have little patience for the concept of ‘clans’ or monarchy. The degree you have to support your adult children and their children is up to you and independent of their marital status.
February 15th, 2013 | 10:14 am
Booton
“a father is not required to support his daughter-in-law if his son dies.” Only if there is no issue of the marriage living. If there is a child or remoter issue, even an adult child. In which case, the obligation of support would be apportioned between the father-in-law and the children, at the discretion of the judge, depending on their respective means.
And, of course, the obligations are reciprocal; the father-in-law can claim support from the daughter-in-law, depending on circumstances.
Article 206 rests on the perceived moral obligation of the family to support its members.
February 17th, 2013 | 6:43 am
Boonton said: “But then you’re the person brining up sex here.”
Oh? The complaint against the marriage law that SSM advocates have pressed is quite clearly based on sexual attraction.
You have conceded, of course, that there is no legal requirement for same-sex sexual behavior, same-sex sexual attraction, and gay identity where SSM has been imposed.
And you’d assert that there is no legal requirement for opposite-sex sexual behavior, opposite-sex sexual attraction, and “straight” identity.
So the pro-SSM complaint is without merit. The pro-SSM imposition is not legitimately drawn on that complaint.
Meanwhile, there is the legal requirement for bride and groom; and the legal requirement for consent to all that marital status entails — including the sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity, consummation, annulment, adultery, and so forth. That sexual basis is two-sexed, not one-sexed nor sex-neutral. These legal requirements map quite reasonably to the core meaning of marriage but are unintelligible in regards the SSM idea.
The marriage idea fares much better than does the SSM idea when it comes to your stated standard that unless something is legally required it is not a legitimately basis for lawmaking on eligibility.
Boonton said: “The basic unit of human kind would be individual humans.”
You used the plural. The basic unit is the family comprised of human individuals. As your last paragraph noted, humankind is a social being and I’d add the obvious observation that no individual is an island.
Likewise, no generation of humankind arose from same-sex sexual behavior, same-sex sexual attraction, or gay identity. The family, on the other hand, is a basic unit of humankind vis-a-vis from which each generation of humankind follows.
Your last paragraph is nonsensical in that very context.
February 17th, 2013 | 10:02 am
Oh? The complaint against the marriage law that SSM advocates have pressed is quite clearly based on sexual attraction.
No, it’s based on the fact that it’s what people do. Sexual attraction is often a factor in marriage but I know of no one who asserts its the driving factor or only one. And I think most would agree it would be foolish to base a marriage only on it. Since that is not a premise used to base arguments about SSM, your attempt to refute it becomes moot.
You used the plural. The basic unit is the family comprised of human individuals
This is a silly semantic attempt to game the argument. Clearly if I were to say the basic unit of chemistry are atoms the fact that I used the plural wouldn’t alter that fact. Chemistry begins with the atom even though a lot of it is looking at groups of atoms called molecules. Likewise even though there’s a lot of family law (as well as business law, contract law, criminal law etc.) the fact is the law treats the individual as the ‘basic unit’. If it didn’t, then it would be impossible, say, to convict individuals of crimes. You’d have to convict and punish the entire family. Likewise intrafamily legal disputes would be impossible.
The family, on the other hand, is a basic unit of humankind vis-a-vis from which each generation of humankind follows.
You seem to be swapping your terms around here. You say ‘basic unit of humankind’ when you clearly mean ‘basic unit of direct biological reproduction’. Of course humans are social animals and with social animals the indirect reproduction is usually more important than direct reproduction. You also forget that marriage is about human life. Reproduction is but a subset of a lifetime.
February 19th, 2013 | 7:58 pm
SSM side has prominently emphasized same-sex sexual attraction as the basis for the SSM complaint and their proposed remedy.
That is just what they do. Perhaps contrary to you, Boonton.
As for the family, well, there would be no individuals And no subsets of lifetimes if not for the simple fact that each individual is born of a man and woman.
The social nature of humankind is not contradicted by the organic reality which encompasses each indivual.
The lone individual, acting alone, would lack the other sex with whom to form the basic unit of humankind. A twosome or moresome of individuals of the same sex do not form this basic unit — not one at-a-time nor in the aggregate. Likewise a whole tribe of individuals of the same-sex would be short of individuals with which to form this basic unit of humankind. Add sexual attraction or sexual behavior and this does not change. Add an individual or individuals of the other sex and the potential to form the basic unit presents itself. Each individual is born (equal by the way) of man and woman.
A man is an individual, sure, and a woman is an individual, sure, but together these individuals can form the basic unit of humankind from which arises generations — consistently so in past, present, future.
Only a fool would strike the pose of Mr. Contrary and insist upon the individual as the basic unit of humankind. So, to be charitable, we might assume you agreed that male individuals and female individuals can, together, form this basic unit of humankind. They’d do together what no individual can do individually, alone. That is so of man and woman and of each child. No child, alone, can individually form the basic unit from which he or she arose and is a part of.
Perhaps this is not true of you, Boonton.
Perhaps past, present, and future generations arose from the individual unit of Boontonkind whose…
February 19th, 2013 | 8:19 pm
Perhaps past, present, and future generations arose from the individual of Boontonkind whose ‘indirect reproduction’ is social rather than organic.
But if social then it cannot be reduced to the lone individual as a basic unit. The social unit is the Boontonian basic unit of which the individual is a bit or piece or fraction or incomplete thing. The social completes the basic unit of Boontonkind.
On the other hand, the basic unit of humankind is organic both socially, reproductively, and constitutively — man and woman and their children.
Pressing the Boontonian template onto humankind means severing the social from the rest of the organic whole. But even at that it cannot reduce Boontonkind … much less humankind … to the lone individual. Perhaps social does not mean social in the alternate Boontonian reality.
Of course the human individual is real but alone cannot form the reality of the basic unit of humankind.
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