heywood on 5/11/2008 at 23:45
Quote Posted by demagogue
Separate but equal != equal ... Civil unions aren't really an acceptable compromise to the target audience.
In case I wasn't clear, I'm not asking for civil unions for same sex couples. I'm asking for the state to stop issuing marriage licenses period.
I support equal rights. But the state can achieve equal rights either by sanctioning marriage for all couples or for none of them. It's not a compromise if the state only sanctions civil unions and not marriage. The inequality is caused by the state sanctioning two different things for two different groups.
I really believe the state really has no business telling anybody who they can and can't marry. I view current marriage laws as unconstitutional state interference in culture. This is a historic opportunity to do away with the old system and replace it with a fair and flexible legal framework that's not tied to a bunch of cultural, moral and religious baggage.
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One sort of irony in this issue is that, while gay marriage proponents tend to want to separate the institution or concept of "marriage" from its religious/historical social origins for tactical ends when arguing, the core of their position is that they want to participate in precisely the institution as historically and socially developed.
They (most of them) aren't fighting just for tax and insurance benefits, but to be able to say "we're
married" with all its unambiguous social connotations, and a state-sanctioned document to show for it.
Conceptually, it's like trying to surgically separate part of its historic social meaning from another, to keep one bit and throw the other out
My intent is to separate the social meaning of a marriage from the legal framework of a civil union, so the social meaning of marriage is free to evolve separately. A civil union should be viewed like a power of attorney, living will, or health care proxy. It should be just a legal agreement between two parties, which has nothing to do with marriage.
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California already recognizes gay civil unions. This is one of the reasons why the proponents of 8 are so fucking stupid. Their children could be in class with children whose parents are a civil unioned gay couple, but GOD HELP THEM if they will allow their children to hear about gay marriage.
Yes it's stupid, because the couple probably had a marriage ceremony and consider themselves married. I know gay couples who were married before any states recognized it.
I think what this boils down to is people trying to use the state as an instrument to slow down or stop the evolution of morality.
Peanuckle on 12/11/2008 at 03:41
I'm a hard-right, conservative christian.
I don't get what these people are doing preventing gays from marrying.
I don't agree with their lifestyle, but it sure as hell isn't up to me to say who can and can't marry. This is an example of popularly-supported big-brother-ism. (sorry for all the dashes).
When our freedoms are taken away, it won't be because of a conspiratorial coup or external threat; it will be in the name of the preservation of traditional values.
BEAR on 12/11/2008 at 04:02
You are very alone in this country, but hopefully you wont be for long.
I could see the democrats skirting the issue during the election because gay marriage is so unpopular. Biden did a fair job I think in the debate of coming out against gay marriage but being for equal rights. I don't agree, I think they should be able to call it marriage but I think thats part of the contention. Marriage is a funny custom, every culture has it but its also mired in religion, so its half in and half out, which is a dangerous place to be. Most people who are against gay marriage aren't against the rights that it implies, so just let them have their word for now. The real joke is "the sanctity of marriage", like it is actually some sacred thing among heterosexuals.
The funny thing is this: it will happen. There is no question that it will happen. The same people who oppose this and stemcell research are the same people who opposed black sufferage or homosexuals in general, and any other number of progressive social agendas, and they end up loosing. Religion in particular constantly pushes against changes like this, and they always go back on it eventually. And when they do, they will forget they ever did. After it becomes common place (most likely in my lifetime if not fairly soon), nobody will question it and it will be treated as if it was always that way.
Until the next issue. And the one after that. But in the scheme of things, there might not really be a big hurry, and having something to keep progress slow might not be as bad a thing as we think. We want to see all our advancements RIGHT NOW, with very little patience when in the historical sense, things are chugging along nicely for the most part. The civil rights movement not barely 30 or 40 years gone and we have our first black president. We would have liked it sooner, we always do, but it comes in chunks. Right now, the issue has been fairly settled, but as the older more conservative people (and I don't just mean republican) die off and are replaced by more tolerant people, it will change.
The thing that bugs me is the fact that they never learn from the past. The church will acknowledge homosexuals now, a thing they would never do in the past, but when an issue comes along that goes against their religion or their sensibilities, they will attack it with the same fervor that they attacked homosexuals in the past, and it will never end. Its like "Hey, yeah so we don't think that babies who weren't baptized are stuck in limbo anymore, just thought we'd clear that up". They will always feel like they are totally justified, until they give up and move on to the next issue. That depresses me because no matter how far we go, we're still human and we're still going to be up to the same old shit, which is why I think as we're built there will be a ceiling to how far we can go with these ape brains.
Sorry for the rant. Just got done watching a show on Lee Atwater on frontline and its got me in a mood.
Fafhrd on 12/11/2008 at 04:59
Quote Posted by BEAR
Biden did a fair job I think in the debate of coming out against gay marriage but being for equal rights.
The beauty part of Biden's answer to the gay marriage question in the debate is that he pretty much said outright that the definition of "marriage" shouldn't be up to the government, and that if you wanted to call it marriage that was up to you.
Also: Nationwide anti-Prop.8 protests (
http://jointheimpact.wetpaint.com/?t=anon) this Saturday.
Stitch on 12/11/2008 at 05:23
I can't protest on Saturday because I'm going to a straight wedding lol
(for real)
Muzman on 12/11/2008 at 06:04
Is there some sensible legal analysis of the whole marriage question around?
This stuff probably does keep coming up because of basic anti-gay prejudice, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's some legal type who could argue quite sensibly (if conservatively) that watering down or shifting marriage too far too quick might cause some hideous clusterfuck of common law and succession shenanigans.
demagogue on 12/11/2008 at 07:34
Since the issue isn't about legal rights, only terminology (use of the term "marriage" as opposed to "civil union"), by definition there really isn't an argument that any legal rights of anybody should be affected.
There are a number of interesting and maybe unexpected legal implications in the bigger picture of equal protection for gays that may be involved that are worth taking a critical look at, though. I did a little thinking-in-writing, but it ended up too long to put in a post, so I published it (
https://docs.google.com/a/trioptimum.com/View?docID=dcj39h99_8jvzcddhj) here.
nickie on 12/11/2008 at 09:17
I'd like to read that but I can't access it.
demagogue on 12/11/2008 at 18:48
Oh, damn :erg:
Thanks for reporting it because the stupid check-box says "publish on a public page".
And it worked before when someone from TTLG was quoting another doc, but they have a new version, so I'll see about that. I still don't like long posts for a forum, though, since it really kills the flow of the conversation, and because it's just preliminary thoughts it's not good to sound "official" before really vetting them.
For the record, a shorter version is just that equal protection law in the US works by classifying certain targeted groups as "immediately suspect" (race, nationality), "intermediate scrutiny" (gender, legitimacy of birth, sometimes ok to target), and "just needs to be rational" (age, most any other group). Right now gays are in the last group, but there's pressure to bump up the scrutiny with these cases. The current tactic is just to say the classification isn't "rational" for the purpose of most laws, so judges don't have to deal with it. But that's a bit clunky, and do you really want to leave judges with that open door? But when you think about them as a "suspect" group it's also a bit clunky, because they aren't as cleanly defined as race or gender (e.g., is "gay" something you are or something you do, as far as the law targets you?). And when you look at that question from a functionalist perspective, it gets into interesting issues.
Sort of complicated to explain briefly, though. A EP functionalist would ask "Is the XXX-ability of gays the same, or functionally equivalent, as straights?" where XXX is whatever qualifies the target for the benefit or right the law wants to promote or protect. So with marriage, the functionalist question is, is the "sexual-co-habitability" of gays the same as straights vis-a-vis what legal marriage is trying to accomplish? And you can point to a lot of different things to say it is. That might get you to "civil union". The functionalist question for the actual "married" status, the label itself beyond the rights, is more tricky ... One might want to frame it, is the "promotes-the-historic-cultural-role-of-"marriage"-in-Western-society-ability" of gays and straights functionally equivalent? Open up any book in anthropology or cultural studies, though, and you'll quickly see that "marriage" doesn't have a functional core across societies, and even within societies it's hard to pin it down ... at best it's a family-resemblance or narrative-center-of-gravity concept. But a concept like that is very hard to apply legally. With Prop 8 they are taking a round-about track to attack the ban on procedural grounds, which is one safer way to go. Then they can capture the functionalist ground by political fiat ... that's how a lot of social change happens ... The status comes first, then the "social function" gets collectively reinterpreted over time, although within boundaries (gays don't want to entirely overturn the institution of marriage, just broaden it). But it's not a clean process; I think mixing a bowl of melting chocolate was my analogy. It's lumpy going and there are parts that resist getting smoothed out as different states and cases go in different directions for a while.
But all of this is just set-up to the discussion, and it's already getting long. And you really have to look at concrete cases so it's not just abstract talking.
I'll try to figure out why what I wrote before isn't getting published like the check box promised me.
