Today could be an historic day for freedom and equality in Becky’s and my adopted home state of Colorado, as a bill establishing civil unions for gays & lesbians is on the verge of passing into law.
Even as North Carolina goes down a reactionary road (fueled in large part by ignorance of the facts), the former “Hate State” of Colorado could become another beacon of hope for those of us who believe the arc of the moral universe does indeed bend toward justice.
I said “could.” Nothing is certain yet. The bill has already passed the Democratic-controlled Senate, then eked through two GOP-majority House committees late last week, each time thanks to a single Republican dissenter — Rep. B.J. Nikkel, R-Loveland (a former aide to right-wing congresswoman and Federal Marriage Amendment co-sponsor Marilyn Musgrave) in the Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Don Beezley, R-Bloomfield, in the Finance Committee — and it is expected to pass the Appropriations Committee this afternoon, thanks to the declared support of Rep. Cheri Gerou, R-Evergreen. What happens after that is less clear:
GOP leadership will decide whether to call it up [to the House floor] and hear the measure. The bill must be debated today because the official vote has to be taken on another day as the debate, and Wednesday is the last day of the session. …
House leadership — Speaker Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, but particularly House Majority Leader Amy Stephens, R-Monument — will decide when and if it will be heard. Both oppose civil unions. Only one GOP vote is needed to pass the measure. At least five Republicans are expected to vote with Democrats. If approved, the bill goes to Gov. John Hickenlooper, who has said he will sign it.
So the question is whether McNulty and Stephens allow a floor debate [UPDATE: and initial voice vote] today. If they do, the bill will ultimately become law; if they don’t, it will die, unless Hickenlooper calls a special session, as the Denver Post has urged him to do if necessary. (He has called such talk “premature,” but hasn’t ruled it out.)
[UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: Eli Stokols explains the procedural requirements:
If [the bill passes the Appropriations Committee], the measure would still need to be approved by the full House on an initial voice vote by Tuesday at midnight.
That’s because bill’s must pass second- and third-reading votes on separate days; so if the House doesn’t do an initial vote by Tuesday night, there wouldn’t be time to hold a final vote on Wednesday.
Knock on wood, but I don’t think McNulty and Stephens will prevent a vote. Perhaps they’ll try to extract some sort of concession in exchange for allowing it, but in the end, I think their vague threats to prevent a vote are mostly posturing. If the GOP had the stomach for this fight, they would have stalled the bill already. They could have done so by delaying the committee report out of Judiciary, or by refusing to schedule a Finance or Appropriations committee hearing, all of which were discussed and threatened and fretted over. But ultimately, the relevant GOP leaders have caved at all of those critical junctures over the last few days. And McNulty and Stephens haven’t even clearly stated an intent to stop the bill. I think the state GOP leadership has made a judgment that, with a majority of the House supporting the bill, and an even larger majority of the public supporting it, this isn’t a hill to die on.
Moreover, the worst thing they could do, politically, is to let the bill get to this point, get supporters’ hopes sky-high, and then kill it. The outrage then would be far worse than if they’d killed it earlier, like after the Judiciary vote. Now, public pressure might well force Hickenlooper’s hand into calling a special session, thus embarrassing the GOP leaders further, whereas that probably wouldn’t have been the case if they’d killed it last week. So they’ve missed their ideal window to kill this bill — which they surely realize as well. That leads me to believe they ultimately will not kill it.
But we’ll see. Supporters certainly aren’t resting easy yet. Above is a photo from a rally this morning on the State Capitol steps. More below. See these dangerous radicals, promoting the gay agenda? Don’t all you fellow heterosexuals feels like your marriages are threatened just looking at these pictures? EVERYBODY PANIC!!!
To proclaim our support for civil unions, Becky went out and bought a rainbow flag this afternoon, and put it up on our front-porch flagpole. It’s 2′ x 3′, not as big as our American flag or our USC flag, because that’s the biggest one they had. But it still makes the point:
Let’s do this, Colorado!!!
P.S. We had an interesting discussion on Facebook about this issue last week, including the whole civil unions vs. gay marriage / “perfect being the enemy of the good” problem. Mike Wiser was, as always, the voice of reason:
I think that’s a complicated point. On the one hand, progress is good, even if it’s only incremental. But there is part of me that worries that such an incremental progress might stall out well short of actual equality. Those of us who such measures will directly affect are a very small minority; our only progress from a legislative end will come from convincing the much larger majority. One of the most effective ways of convincing the larger majority has been the justified moral outrage of the abuses in the current system — hospital visitation rights, next of kin status for medical and parental responsibility purposes, etc. As these terrible things are removed, it becomes harder to motivate unaffected third parties to care about smaller but still daunting issues for some couples, like access to spousal social security payments or the ability to file taxes jointly or transfer property to a spouse without incurring substantial tax penalties and the like. So I simultaneously want the most awful things taken care of as soon as possible…and worry that taking care of just the most awful things first will mean that the more moderate problems may not be taken care of for years or even generations longer than they would be in an all or nothing approach. Someone is going to lose either way.
If I had to choose, I think I’d go with the civil unions for now. Actual political change tends to happen over the course of generations; it’s less common that individuals change their minds, and more common that they are replaced by a new generation of voters who see things differently.* The generation of our grandparents, as a whole, is extremely unaccepting of homosexuality. Our parents’ generation is better; our generation is better still; the generation below us is even further along. I eagerly await the day when most people realize that the arguments against same sex marriage are virtually verbatim the same arguments previously used against interracial marriage. I think I’ll probably live to see that, but I may well be in my 60s by the time it happens. If I do find the right man, I think I’d rather risk some years of economic penalties than risk not being allowed at his bedside if he gets sick and his family isn’t OK with me. The economic penalties are more concrete and certain, but less terrible if they do happen. But the game of “pick the way in which you’d prefer to be legally screwed” is hardly a fun one.
* The main way individuals happen to change their views on this one over the course of their own lifetime is from having friends or family members members who come out of the closet. This is one of the major reasons I want as many of the adult gays as possible to come out of the closet. It would also be helpful if more of the truly bisexual people came out of the closet, though I can understand why many choose not to due to the ridiculous social stigma attached.
UPDATE: Mitt Romney is coming to Colorado tomorrow, and at least one event, he will be taking questions from local media (which he didn’t do ahead of his caucus defeat in February). Do you think he wants to answer a bunch of questions from local reporters about how the state GOP leadership torpedoed a bill the night before that has majority support in both houses of the state legislature, and 75% public support in this critical swing state?
Despite Mitt’s professed opposition to civil unions, I’m thinking Team Romney is silently rooting for McNulty and Stephens to let this bill come to a vote tonight. (Or maybe not so silently? Who knows?)
1) I support civil unions, and I would vote in favor of them if I lived in Colorado.
2) In North Carolina, the issue wasn’t civil unions, it was an amendment defining marriage (excluding gay marriage),which I also support, and would have voted in favor of it if I lived in North Carolina.
You’re wrong on the facts, gahrie. Gay marriage was already banned by law in North Carolina (though not in the state constitution, I believe). The amendment that passed tonight goes further, banning ALL “legal unions” other than heterosexual marriage, which includes civil unions. So, the primary issue, practically speaking, WAS civil unions, and those are now banned, which they weren’t before. The status of marriage remains effectively the same, though the ban is now enshrined in the constitution rather than merely in a statute.
If true (and I’ve only seen it discussed in terms of marriage, but I haven’t been paying that much attention) I would not have voted in favor of the N.C. Amendment. I can see no rational reason to be opposed to civil unions.
How do you feel about the fact that Pres. Obama refuses to support gay marriage and that the administration has spent so much effort to walk Biden’s recent remarks back?
How do you feel about the fact that Pres. Obama refuses to support gay marriage and that the administration has spent so much effort to walk Biden’s recent remarks back?
Obviously overtaken by events.
The question now is, how do the Black ministers react?
To back my claim on this being a generational issue: http://features.pewforum.org/gay-marriage-attitudes/images/Support%20for%20Same-Sex%20Marriage%20by%20Generation,%202001-2011.png
The better question, gahrie, might be whether this event will — if it does nothing else — trigger some acceleration of changing attitudes in the black community. The significance of a widely admired person (as Obama certainly is among blacks in general) taking a stance like this is certainly a potentially significant development.
Mike, that chart is great. What I find the most fascinating is how Generation X has seen a slight decline in support for gay marriage. The decline might be statistical noise, but in any event the support hasn’t increased, as it has among all the other generations, including oldsters!
Indeed, the percentage increase in gay marriage supporters is largest among the oldest generation listed, those born between 1928 and 1945. From 21% to 32%! That’s a big leap.
I’m betting with the Gen X crowd it’s statistical noise. I’d need to see the raw numbers involved to be able to say whether there’s actually a statistically significant over time (though I, oddly enough, do know the math of how to determine this).
With the oldest generation, I do see movement. I wonder whether that’s actually an effect of people changing their minds, or possibly turnover within that cohort. That is, could there be an effect that people who were more likely to favor the legalization of same sex marriage are also more likely to have lived longer, and thus be around to be asked in later years? You’d need longitudinal data for that, but it could be quite interesting.
Even if the downward tick is statistical noise, there certainly isn’t much of an upward trend, unlike with the other generations. Although perhaps the 2001 result was just an outlier — maybe they were including some Millennials at that point, since there wasn’t a Millennial data point until 2003? — in which case the Gen Xers would at least show a slight increase (if you started from ’03).
Bigger picture, if you don’t focus too much on slight movements up & down that might just be noise, there’s only modest, if any, movement between 2003/04 (the low point for all generations, coming right around the first Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage, as I recall) and 2009. From there, the clear upward trend begins, in all generations. I wonder what the 2012 numbers will look like. I’m guessing the upward trend accelerates further. It feels like we’ve passed some sort of tipping point with this, with Obama’s “evolution” — and the consequent adoption of “marriage equality” as a fully mainstream Democratic talking point (at least according to all the fundraising e-mails I’ve gotten in the last 24 hours) — being just the latest example.
Hmm. I suppose I could just take the percentages by year and run a linear regression on them and show that the slope is not a statistically significant negative for the Gen X crowd. Eyeballing it, it looks pretty obvious that the first year of data for them is an outlier, and if there is any trend for them over time it’s actually an upward trajectory.
I would argue that generation is a pretty fungible thing. Given that I am technically a Gen X and my wife is a Millennial. Neither our age or our outlook on this issue is all that different.
As a practical matter I think the current approach of the Republican party is damaging to their long term viability. Then again the Republicans have long used whatever wedge social issues they can come up with to convince unsophisticated voters to select people that are primarily concerned with the business interests of the wealthy and extremely wealthy. Ultimately if two people you’ve never meet and will never meet can get married impacts your day to day life and long term tax liability far less than if we go to war in Iraq and give kickback based sweet heart contracts to the Vice President’s former employer.
Good for Colorado. However, I reject the parallel between opposition to same sex marriage and opposition to interracial marriage. Opponents of both make/made similar arguments about the “unnaturalness” of the unions, the importance of tradition, etc., but similar arguments does not mean similar motives. Opponents of interracial marriage sought to keep the races separate, ostensibly so one could maintain its “purity” and thus dominance over the other. Opponents of same sex marriage want to keep marriage from being redefined as something it never was, but generally care not about “keeping the gay man down,” as it were — many if not most opponents of same sex marriage support civil unions because they recognize that homosexual couples should enjoy the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.
It’s a useful debate tactic to paint opponents of same sex marriage as racists, but the equivalence is false. Men and women are inherently and fundamentally different, but men and women of different races are not. Thus, imposed racial segregation is never rational or moral, but imposed sexual segregation can be. That is why separate male and female bathrooms are acceptable, but separate black and white bathrooms are not.
“many if not most opponents of same sex marriage support civil unions”
If this were the case, then with gay marriage polling at roughly 50-50 nationwide, we’d expect to see something like a 75-25 split in favor of civil unions (with half or more of gay marriage opponents supporting civil unions). I do not believe the polling data backs this up. In truth, a clear majority of gay marriage opponents are also opposed to civil unions.
Now, because the margins are close, there are just enough gay marriage opponents who back civil unions that civil unions have clear majority support overall, while gay marriage does not (yet). But that’s not the same thing as saying “many if not most” gay marriage opponents favor civil unions.
It should also be noted that it is absolutely, factually false that civil unions allow “homosexual couples [to] enjoy the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.” Civil unions give them SOME of the same legal rights. But only gay marriage — and the repeal of DOMA — can give them ALL of the same rights.
I care somewhat less about the motives of such opposition than I do about the effects of them. It’s not merely an issue of language, though I would argue that the insistence of using a different word sets up an attempt at a separate-but-equal system, which we’ve already shown in this country tends to be inherently unequal. Civil unions, domestic partnerships, call them what you will, not one of them provides all of the same rights to the individuals that a heterosexual marriage does. Even same sex marriages in the states that do allow them do not provide all of the rights that a heterosexual marriage does, as there are federal rights involved and a strong tendency for those rights not to cross state lines.
Beyond that, look at the language of the amendments that are being passed. Most of them do not merely define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. They also include language about how such unions will be the only legally recognized unions. These amendments eliminate domestic partnerships and civil unions, and prevent the states from continuing to offer benefits thereto. I’m in Michigan, and after our horrific amendment passed, there was a big battle because the major public universities did not want to stop offering domestic partner employment benefits to their employees, which they had been doing for years. After a protracted court battle, they were forced to do so. They found a work around for most cases — the University of Michigan, for example, created an Other Qualified Adult program that allows benefits to be extended to another adult living at the same primary residence for at least 6 months for any individual who does not enroll an individual in spousal benefits and who is not considered an employee or a tenant of the university employee — but it’s an awkward kludge. And the university had to do so over the objections of those who had brought the amendment to bear. There is real animus here, Joe Mama. Perhaps not on the part of all who vote for these terrible amendments, but certainly on the part of those who craft them, and the actual effect of such things reflects the hostility.
I’ll defer to Brendan with respect to polling, but my point still stands — the motives of opponents of same sex marriage are quite different than the motives of opponents of interracial marriage.
As for civil unions, if they allow homosexual couples to enjoy all the same rights as heterosexual couples under the law other than calling their union a “marriage” (which is my off-hand understanding of civil unions and probably others’ as well), then as far as I’m concerned homosexuals have equal rights. I don’t follow the civil union issue closely so it may be that some civil unions are defined so as to deny some legal rights that married heterosexual couples have, but I don’t know what they are. The point is that if a civil union is the same as a marriage in all but name, then there is no inequality.
“the motives of opponents of same sex marriage are quite different than the motives of opponents of interracial marriage”
In some cases, yes. In the majority of cases, no, because both sets of opponents are the same people. [NOTE: See correction below. This isn’t what I meant to say at all.] For the most part, people oppose both, or neither. That’s a fact, as the polling (on which you’ve deferred to me) demonstrates. Don’t be fooled by the urban, professional, educated, heavy-Internet-using circles we run in. Among your urbane conservative friends, what you say is probably true. Among opponents of gay rights generally, it is categorically false.
“if a civil union is the same as a marriage in all but name…”
This is not true, ever, in any civil union law that ever has been passed, or ever could be passed (at least in the absence of FEDERAL recognition of civil unions as a direct marriage equivalent).
“…then there is no inequality.”
Leaving aside the false premise: if a civil union were the same as marriage in all but name (which, again, is always false), then perhaps there would be no “inequality”… but then what would be the purpose of giving it a different name? There’s a bit of a logical dilemma here: by insisting on calling it something else, one evinces an intent to make it different, but then you say you DON’T want it to be different…so why are you insisting on calling it something else? Just the desire to uphold the empty shell of an otherwise abandoned “tradition”? Is that really a good enough reason to create a separate-but-equal system?
But that’s a secondary point, since it’s based on a fantasy of equality. The main point is that your premise is just not true: civil unions are NOT the same as marriage “in all but name.”
Mike, it sounds like there are issues with how some civil unions are defined that don’t allow homosexual couples to enjoy all the same rights as married heterosexual couples do. Perhaps we still have a way to go before civil unions are the same as a marriage in all but name, in which case I wholly support the effort to make them equal.
Some concrete examples of rights that even same sex individuals who are legally married in places like Vermont and Iowa and Massachusetts do NOT have, that their heterosexually married compatriots do:
Citizenship for the spouse.
Spousal survivor benefits from social security.
Ability to transfer property to the spouse without incurring taxation on “gifts”.
There are several hundred more like those. These are real things that actually matter in the lives of many couples. There is a widespread belief that a civil union or a domestic partnership provides all of the same rights as a heterosexual marriage. This is false. Even a same sex marriage does not provide all of the same rights as a heterosexual marriage does because it is not recognized at the federal level.
Your perception that things are equal is common, but wrong. That’s part of the problem; most people don’t even realize the inequity because it doesn’t impact them. And thus they think it’s a fight about a word that matters to them, when it’s primarily a fight about quite a whole lot more of concrete importance than a word.
In some cases, yes. In the majority of cases, no, because both sets of opponents are the same people. For the most part, people oppose both, or neither. That’s a fact, as the polling (on which you’ve deferred to me) demonstrates.
Then I withdraw my deference to you, Brendan. You’ll have to show me proof that people oppose gay marriage in the same numbers as people who oppose interracial marriage today, because that sounds like an assertion that cannot go unchallenged.
If you support making civil unions equal, then I expect you would oppose these sorts of state constitutional amendments? Here, for example, is the text of the amendment that passed in Michigan back in 2004 (with a depressing 59% of the vote):
“To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.”
The “or similar union for any purpose” makes it very clear, to me at least, that this is not merely about what is called a marriage, but what rights may or may not be extended to certain categories of people.
Words have meanings, and are powerful things. But this fight is about a whole lot more than just words. And I honestly think a lot of people simply don’t realize that, because of the fact that it doesn’t really impact their own lives, and because it’s been framed as a symbolic word issue rather than an issue of a tremendous number of legal rights that are all currently bound to that word.
if a civil union were the same as marriage in all but name (which, again, is always false), then perhaps there would be no “inequality”… but then what would be the purpose of giving it a different name? There’s a bit of a logical dilemma here: by insisting on calling it something else, one evinces an intent to make it different, but then you say you DON’T want it to be different…so why are you insisting on calling it something else? Just the desire to uphold the empty shell of an otherwise abandoned “tradition”? Is that really a good enough reason to create a separate-but-equal system?
Because while you see heterosexual marriage as an “empty shell of an otherwise abandoned ‘tradition'”, I think the fact that it was the norm in almost every religious or secular moral system in human history makes it worth at least maintaining a small, semantic difference.
Joe, I’m sorry, I totally misread the passage that I quoted from you. I thought we were still talking about opposition to civil unions vs. opposition to gay marriage, not opposition to gay marriage vs. opposition to interracial marriage. Even though I copy-and-pasted what you said, which was perfectly clear, I just misread it entirely. As Rick Perry would say: “Oops.” Need more coffee. Sorry. Never mind. Carry on.
you see heterosexual marriage as an “empty shell of an otherwise abandoned ‘tradition’”…
I didn’t describe “heterosexual marriage” as an “empty shell of an otherwise abandoned ‘tradition.'” Rather, what I stated was that, in the hypothetical fantasy world where gays have the right to enter into civil unions that are functionally identical to marriage — a scenario which you support — in THAT world, the distinction between heterosexual “marriage” and homosexual “something that’s precisely identical to marriage but has a different name,” would be an illusory distinction, and thus the “tradition” of calling heterosexual unions “marriage,” while calling IDENTICAL unions between homosexuals something else, is hard to defend on the ground of “maintaining tradition,” because really, you aren’t maintaining tradition — all you’re doing is telling gays their relationships are separate-but-equal, and in the mean time you are not actually upholding any sort of meaningful “tradition.” It’s the identicalness of the two types of marriage (which is really what they are) that makes the “tradition” an “empty shell.” The “abandoned” part of the tradition, in this scenario, is the entire substance of the idea that only men and women can get married.
It seems to me that the way to uphold “tradition” is for churches that wish to sanctify only opposite-sex marriages to do so — which I have no problem with, and indeed I would take to the streets in protest if the government ever tried to force churches to sanctify gay marriages — and meanwhile, for the government (at all levels, federal included) to provide identical rights, and identical names, to civilly recognized gay and straight unions (whether called “marriage,” “civil marriage,” or whatever)
P.S. I say that “I have no problem with” the idea of churches sanctifying only opposite-sex marriages. I should clarify. I, personally, would feel more comfortable in a church that is willing to sanctify both types of marriages. But that’s me. That’s a personal thing, and a faith-specific thing, and it’s entirely up to them — I would never try to impose my beliefs on them (just as they shouldn’t try to impose their beliefs on me).
P.P.S. Having said all that… I would be relatively okay with living in the above-described fantasy world, in which civil homosexual unions really are identical, in all but name, to civil heterosexual unions. I would prefer a world in which they’re called the same thing, but if the rights truly were identical, I wouldn’t exactly go to the barricades just for the name….even though the nomenclature difference would be a rather pointless, and vaguely offensive, vestige of discrimination, in my view.
But we don’t live in that world; we aren’t even close to living in that world. So this is all a somewhat silly hypothetical.
What features of marriage do you think are the norm in almost every religious or secular moral system in human history?
A tremendously large number of societies have historically embraced polygyny. Not necessarily polygamy, but poygyny — multiple wives to a single male, but not vice versa.
For large numbers of societies, marriage was not a decision for the two individuals getting married, but actually a decision for their families to broker. Sometimes at birth, sometimes later, but typically with an eye towards economics (for the masses) or political power (for the elites). Love was not high on the list, and powerful men were expected to have mistresses.
The concept of a wedding in a church is even historically unusual in the context of European Christianity. Throughout the middle ages, it was common practice that a couple were married when they said they were married, regardless of any ceremony, or even witnesses. The idea of witnesses largely grew out of conflicts arising from a disagreement between the individuals as to whether they had gotten married or not.
Historically, divorce has been largely impossible for women, and often impossible for men. The notion of “until death do you part” was taken rather literally. Henry VIII founded the whole Anglican church because he wanted to get a divorce in his rather deranged quest to have a male heir, because otherwise the throne would pass to…Elizabeth I, ruler of England’s Golden Age.
So…which are the features of traditional marriage?
Mike, in response to your question, I would oppose the Michigan amendment for the reasons you suggest.
What features of marriage do you think are the norm in almost every religious or secular moral system in human history?
For starters, how about the feature that is common to all of your examples?
I’m glad of that. But the MI one is not an outlier. This type of text exists in the majority of such amendments. I can’t say all because I haven’t read through all of them yet, but literally every one I’ve read the text of so far as some language along those lines, so I’m willing to claim majority even though that might technically be wrong. Which is your state? Since virtually every state which does not currently allow same sex marriages has actively banned them, I’d be interested in looking up what your state’s language is.
So, at least one man, at least one woman? And polygyny is more acceptable than same sex marriage, because there is a longer historical track record thereof?
What Mike said (in comment 26).
Also, while I don’t think Mitt Romney’s faith or family history should be a political issue, there is a certain inherent irony in him, of all people, defending “traditional marriage” when, just two generations ago, his family fled the country so that his grandfather could continue having multiple wives. To be clear, his grandfather’s actions don’t reflect on Romney whatsoever. But surely, just in terms of understanding historical facts, his own family history should discourage him from having such a blinkered, narrow view of what constitutes “traditional marriage.”
all you’re doing is telling gays their relationships are separate-but-equal, and in the mean time you are not actually upholding any sort of meaningful “tradition.”
First, “separate-but-equal” is obviously a loaded term, but in a strictly technical sense I’m perfectly fine telling gays that they should be satisfied with a hypothetical civil union in which they have all the same rights as married couples but which is called something else.
Second, I disagree that calling identical unions between homosexuals and heterosexuals different things has no real meaning. As your friend Mike put it: “Words have meanings, and are powerful things.”
So, at least one man, at least one woman? And polygyny is more acceptable than same sex marriage, because there is a longer historical track record thereof?
Um, no. I don’t know how you connected those dots. Respecting marriage as an institution that throughout history has always been of the opposite sex and not of the same sex, as demonstrated by all of your examples, obviously does not preclude some of those arrangements from being morally objectionable.
After reading through several more states’ amendments, I find that text banning marriage like arrangements under other names is not universal.
Mike: My state is VA which has banned civil unions.
Your argument about tradition involves cherry picking. If the fact that it has historically meant people of different sexes and that’s a reason to limit it to just different sexes is a valid argument, then I’m not sure why the fact that it has historically often meant more than one wife per man is not a valid argument for polygyny.
This is not to say that you cannot formulate a defensible argument for keeping it to just opposite sex couples, but relying on the notion of “tradition” is a weak sell, when historical analysis shows how different things actually were from what we consider “tradition”
Yep, Virginia’s amendment is even more explicit in preventing anything separate but equal.
“Shall Article I (the Bill of Rights) of the Constitution of Virginia be amended to state: ‘That only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions. This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.’? ”
Passed with 57% of the vote in 2006. I find it…implausible that many of the individuals who voted for that would have supported equality in all but name for civil unions, domestic partnership, or whatever else you might want to call it.
My argument about tradition involves cherry picking? You are the one looking only at societies that have practiced polygyny (which I strongly suspect pale in comparison to the number of societies that did not, although I do not have supporting data at my fingertips) as a means for ignoring the obvious fact that marriage has always been between the opposite sex.
Always opposite sex? No. Not even always in Christianity. http://anthropologist.livejournal.com/1314574.html
As far as polygyny, how about the quote:
“The notion of moderate polygyny is supported by the global anthropological record. We find that most societies condoned social and genetic polygamy – almost always in the form of polygynous polygamy – but also that most individual bonding and mating arrangements were monogamous. Of 1,154 societies described in the Human Relations Area Files, 93% recognize some degree of socially sanctioned polygyny, and in 70% of all cases polygyny is the preferred choice (which does not mean that it is dominant in quantitative terms).5”
(source: http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/060807.pdf)
(Beware absolute words like always, never, all, none, etc. They tend to be targets for people like me, as so few things are categorically one way or another. Marriage has typically involved at least one man and at least one woman. But not *always*.)
Interesting article, too bad it has no citations. Also, it’s conclusions apparently have been called into question.
Would you prefer a citation to the Navajo tradition of recognizing what we would today call transgendered individuals, granting them social standing as a member of the gender they identified with including marriage rights, so individuals with the same style of genitals were married?
Sure, but if it’s from an author whose conclusions are as questionable as Boswell’s, then I’m not sure what you’ve gained.
(Beware providing citations as categorical proof. They tend to be targets for people like me.)
An overview of the Two Spirit phenomenon can be found on the Wikipedia page, complete with a large number of citations. What sort of scholarly articles would work well as a citation for you? I rarely know what sort of library access people who aren’t employed by universities have.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Spirit
Thank you, that was extremely illuminating. I hereby amend my previous remarks as follows:
You are the one looking only at societies that have practiced polygyny (which I strongly suspect pale in comparison to the number of societies that did not, although I do not have supporting data at my fingertips) as a means for ignoring the obvious fact that marriage has nearly always been between the opposite sex.
And my reference to the paper from which it was argued that 93% of societies engage in some degree of socially sanctioned polygyny? I assumed it was merely the article on same sex marriages in early Christianity that you felt had no references, as the paper I linked to on polygyny has many.
I’m not mocking monogamy here. I hope for monogamy myself. To put it delicately, I’ve even repeatedly declined to be the source of non monogamy in the relationships of others, because I did not feel it was the right choice for me. But the data are compelling that monogamy is not the only model of relationships, including those termed marriages, either within most societies historically or across all societies. Arguing that traditional definitions of marriage are the ones that need to be upheld because of tradition is vulnerable to the reducto ad absurdum that lots of other things which are traditionally part of marriage are not part of what this “tradition” argument seeks.
I assumed it was merely the article on same sex marriages in early Christianity that you felt had no references, as the paper I linked to on polygyny has many.
You assumed correctly.
And you are more right than you know. Tradition shmadition … next up, EQUAL RIGHTS for people who want to marry farm animals 😉
Yes. Because farm animals are legally competent to enter into binding contracts. 😉
But Joe, it is trivially easy — without resorting to crying “tradition,” or citing religious texts, or exalting long-standing societal taboos to the status of moral absolutes — to justify a ban on human-animal sexual relationships/marriages. Animals cannot consent. There. Done.
Indeed, of the many other types of sexual relationships that are often compared to homosexuality in the slippery-slope argument regarding “things that we might have also have to legalize if we legalize gay marriage” (or, in the original articulation of this argument, if we deem sodomy a constitutional right), it is trivially easy to distinguish most of them. To wit:
Bestiality / Human-Animal Marriage: Animals cannot consent. So, this is rape, by definition. Duh.
Pedophilia / Adult-Child Marriage: Again, obviously, this is absurd; children cannot consent, so this is rape. You don’t need religious texts or “traditions” to justify banning rape, in any form.
Incest / Intra-Family Marriage: If we’re talking about adult-child incest, again, children cannot consent, so again, this is rape. If we’re talking about adult-adult incest, the argument would be that society has an interest in preventing the much higher incidence of birth defects and other genetic abnormalities that result from this type of relationship. Now, you could logically extend this to places we wouldn’t want to go — like barring people from genetic disorders from mating — but the fact that the principle can be taken too far, doesn’t mean it’s impossible to articulate the principle and draw certain lines in the sand that are logically defensible. In any case, the argument for banning incest is certainly a different argument from the argument for banning gay sex/marriage. So allowing the latter need not lead to allowing the former.
Polygamy: This one is, admittedly, probably the hardest to distinguish. But still not THAT hard. I think the evidence is pretty strong that polygamy, in practice, tends to lead to blatantly unequal power relationships between genders that we deem inherently objectionable in modern society. We can justifiably make a judgment as a society that granting people this “right” isn’t worth that tradeoff. Additionally, I’ve yet to see any compelling evidence that some individuals, by their inherent nature, can only be biologically and emotionally fulfilled in multi-partner relationships, in the same way that gays and lesbians can only be biologically and emotionally fulfilled in same-sex relationships. Also, and forgive me if this seems tautological or begging the question, but polygamy REALLY DOES “redefine” marriage in a way that is logically unbounded — the whole concept of marriage becomes amorphous and almost undefined if an unlimited number of people can theoretically get married. By contrast, merely “redefining” marriage to include two people of the same gender — but still just two people — is a FAR less drastic structural change. It’s a change; I don’t deny that. But it’s a simple change, one that can be implemented with minimal disruption, and one that doesn’t necessitate any further changes of substance. The “minimal disruption” is key: even if you could find evidence that there are inherently polyamorous people — that polyamory, like homosexuality, is not a choice — it would still be easier to justify banning plural marriage than it is to justify banning gay marriage, simply because the legal ramifications of plural marriage are so much harder to grapple with. What are the tax consequences of a 5- or 10- or 25-person marriage? What are the implications for inheritance? Etc., etc. Our entire legal regime would be upended. You’d have entire groups of people getting married just for the health benefits, you’d have courts grappling with complex multiparty divorces, etc. etc. The law and the economy would have a terribly difficult time adjusting to all of this. By contrast, simply saying, “hey, two men or two women can do this too,” doesn’t cause anywhere NEAR that amount of disruption. So there’s far less reason, if any reason at all, to resist that minimal change…other than religious beliefs, social taboos, and the almighty vaunted “tradition.”
In fairness, Brendan, I believe that was a joke on Joe’s part.
Indeed, I was just citing a bizarre story to have a little fun at Mike’s expense. Look, the data unequivocally shows that the tradition of opposite sex unions is the rule throughout human history and not the exception. Now maybe it’s an outmoded tradition, and there is a valid argument to be made that human beings’ capacity for reflective reasoning over time means it is now good and right to overturn that tradition. But let’s not bullshit ourselves with outliers like some Native American tribes or some professor’s misinterpretation of Christian church liturgies into believing that we’re not changing a basic facet of human relationships, because we are.
Do you actually believe that granting the legal rights of marriage is changing a basic facet of human relationships? Same sex couples exist, and have for a long time. What we’re advocating for is a change in the legal recognition of those relationships.
The horrific amendment passed in NC this week doesn’t change the type of guy I’m trying to go out with, or how I behave around him, or what my ideal future might be (other than that it makes a future living in NC a little less appealing than it would have been last week). I’m not going to suddenly stop being gay just because I can’t get legally married to another guy. The relationship will be there or not, depending on my luck on the dating scene. Legal recognition is not what makes the relationship, but it does have significant and substantial daily ramifications.
My pointing out the different faces marriage has had over time wasn’t meant to argue that same sex marriages have been the norm throughout history and across society. It was to combat the statement that marriage has *always* been about two people of different sexes. It hasn’t — neither on the two people, nor the different sexes part. I repeat my point from before: the argument you’ve advanced on the basis of “tradition” cherry picks only certain facets of tradition.
The one Western civilization to most successfully integrate homosexuality openly into society is illustrative here. Several of the Greek city states had traditions that marriage, and sex with women, were for raising children. These same men also had long term committed relationships (including sex) with other men, but these relationships were never called marriage.
Of course same sex marriage changes a basic facet of human relationships because it doesn’t leave intact the historic definition of marriage and merely expand the pool of people granted the right to marry — it abolishes the historical concept of marriage as it has been understood in the world’s major religious and secular traditions (man and woman) and replaces it with a concept of marriage that recognizes any consensual relationship regardless of gender. Whether same sex couples have always existed is beside the point. Same sex marriage changes a basic facet of human relationships because marriage is a basic facet of human relationships and it changes what marriage is.
And I repeat my response to your point from before: Marriage has nearly always been about opposite sex unions, and the cherry picker is you.
… and maybe changing what marriage is is okay. But be honest about it.
Joe, you accused me of cherry picking before I even mentioned that there are and have been societies in which people of the same biological sex have been married. Go back and check the comments if you like — you leveled it in regards to polygyny. On which I’m right; polygyny has been historically practiced by more societies than strict monogamy has been. As stated repeatedly, the only reason I brought up the the examples of same sex marriage historically is because you made the claim that marriage has always been between different sexes. It has not. All that’s required to counter a claim of “always” is a single counter example. Typically, yes, marriage has been between different sexes. But a whole host of the other aspects of “traditional” marriage, as it is argued at the present, are simply not the overwhelming majority of cases either through time or across societies.
Mike clearly has the better of this argument here, though it gets lost a bit in the semantic weeds of “always” versus “nearly always.” That isn’t the main point, it seems to me. The larger point is, when you say “we must defend traditional marriage because…well…because it’s tradition!” and then someone notes that lots of other things are also “tradition” (like marriage having nothing to do with love, men treating women as property, men being fully expected to have mistresses or even multiple wives, etc.), the onus is on the person who cried “tradition” in the first place to explain why THIS tradition (marriage solely between men & women) is worth preserving, while those OTHER traditions are not. The question doesn’t answer itself just because you keep repeating “but it’s [nearly] always been this way!!!” So has profoundly unequal power between husbands and wives; heck, so has (sorry, but it’s true) a profound taboo surrounding interracial marriage. Lots of things about marriage are “traditional” throughout most of human history, many of them things we don’t want to maintain. You claim marriage being solely between men & women is one “tradition” we should maintain, unlike all those other bad traditions. Okay. WHY?!? Again: the question doesn’t answer itself. You have to answer it, or you don’t have an argument.
More broadly, just because something has traditionally been a particular way throughout the majority of human history, it does not follow that it’s necessarily a good idea to keep it that way. The vast majority of human history has been, for the vast majority of humans, pretty damn horrible by modern standards. For most of human history, there has been slavery, oppression, discrimination, brutality, etc. I’m not equating marriage to those things, of course. As a happily married heterosexual, I think marriage is rather nice. 🙂 But the issue isn’t whether marriage is nice. The “tradition” that marriage is nice, or that we should have marriage, isn’t the “tradition” at issue. (After all, no one is trying to forbid heterosexual marriage.) Rather, the issue is whether marriage ought to be, as per tradition, solely between men and women — or, to put it another way, whether same-sex couples ought to be forbidden, as per tradition, from participating in the institution of marriage (which everyone agrees is rather nice, and no one is trying to “attack” or declare “war” on; that whole notion is utterly bizarre). That is the “tradition” at issue — the tradition of restricting marriage to heterosexual couples only, thereby excluding homosexual couples from marriage. That certainly is the tradition; I don’t think either Mike or I would dispute that. The question on the table is whether we should maintain that tradition, or discard it. And if the only argument for maintaining this traditional practice, other than “the Bible says so” (which is obviously an inadequate rationale in a pluralistic, non-theocratic society), is the rather circular argument that “it’s tradition” or “that’s the way it’s always been” … well, that just isn’t good enough. By itself, without more, “we should do it because we’ve always done it” is fundamentally a bad argument, because it’s equally true of so many awful things. You need more than just history and tradition. What else you got? To defend the desirability of the tradition, you need to explain the benefit of the tradition — not the tradition of marriage, remember, but the tradition of restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples only. In what way does that tradition benefit society? Its longevity isn’t an answer. What is the answer?
Gahrie, it’s fascinating that you seem to think rampant adultery (men cheating on their wives with other men) is a better way to “integrate homosexuality openly into society” than allowing those men to simply marry each other, if they so desire. I didn’t realize adultery was a conservative family value. I fail to understand how America would be more “successful” at “integrating homosexuality” if we encouraged gays to enter into sham heterosexual marriages and then cheat on their spouses, as was the norm in ancient Greece. Among other things, this might not be ideal for the women (probably not a big concern of the Greeks, but rather more important today, now that we view women as fully human rather than part property).
I realize you aren’t literally advocating that, but you do seem to be suggesting that it’s preferable to permitting gay marriage. I do not see how that position is remotely defensible. The widespread harm that would be caused by that sort of arrangement is obvious and evident. Meanwhile the alleged harm done to society, or to heterosexuals, or to heterosexual marriages, by permitting same-sex couples to marry each other, remains as elusive to me as it has ever been.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t the typical case of same sex sex in the Greek city states actually a case of pederasty? That is, it was only socially acceptable to be the receptive partner prior to adulthood.
At the risk of being vulgar, the fact that I’m gay means that I’m attracted to men. It doesn’t mean I’m attracted to boys. In fact, I’d argue that the typical 21 year old man looks a lot less like the typical 15 year old boy than the typical 21 year old woman looks like the typical 15 year old girl. This is even part of why I had no desire to come out of the closet in high school, since my high school was filled with, well, boys, and there were only a handful that were physically mature enough to be attractive to me even at the time. The fear people have of gay men targeting children has always struck me as odd for that very reason.
Gahrie, it’s fascinating that you seem to think rampant adultery (men cheating on their wives with other men) is a better way to “integrate homosexuality openly into society” than allowing those men to simply marry each other, if they so desire.
1) I didn’t endorse the practices of the Greek city states…i just cited the example that even they, the most homosexuality-friendly civilization of the West, realized the essential difference between homosexual relationships and marriage.
2) The Greeks did not consider the homosexual relationships as adulterous, precisely because they were seen as fundamentally different from heterosexual relationships.
Meanwhile the alleged harm done to society, or to heterosexuals, or to heterosexual marriages, by permitting same-sex couples to marry each other, remains as elusive to me as it has ever been.
People said exactly the same things about no fault divorce, and the Great Society programs.
People said exactly the same things about no fault divorce, and the Great Society programs.
Perhaps so, but those people were foolish. It’s easy to articulate the potential harm done to society by no-fault divorce (encourages instability in families, which is bad for children) and welfare-type programs (while well-intentioned, they can lead to a culture of dependency). Reasonable people can disagree about whether those potential harms outweigh the potential good, but it’s easy to articulate what the harm *is*.
I have no idea what the alleged harm of gay marriage is. I have NEVER heard anyone articulate it in a non-circular, non-tautological fashion. It always boils down to “we’ve done it for a long time” (not a valid argument), “it’s tradition” (same), “the Bible says so” (not a sufficient reason in a pluralistic society), “it’s an assault on traditional marriage” (this begs the question; it ASSUMES that there’s harm in breaking the tradition, rather than articulating what the harm is), or some gussied-up variation of “I don’t approve of gays, I think what they do is yucky” (good for you; maybe gays don’t approve of you and think you’re yucky; that’s not an argument for making policy).
So… what’s the harm in allowing same-sex couples to marry, while changing opposite-sex couples’ rights not one iota? If it’s so easy to articulate, articulate it please. But remember: “it’s tradition,” “it’s been that way a long time,” etc., are NOT arguments for why breaking the tradition is BAD. I acknowledge that allowing same-sex couples to join the institution of marriage is breaking with tradition; so was the abolition of slavery. I want to know why breaking this tradition, unlike breaking that one (and countless other bad “traditions” throughout human history), is a bad thing.
So… what’s the harm in allowing same-sex couples to marry, while changing opposite-sex couples’ rights not one iota?
The basic argument is the same cost/risk analysis that the climate change alarmist use: if I am right, the consequences are disastrous for civilization, so therefore I must be granted all benefits of the doubt. If I am right, how do you propose to fix the damage?
The difference between us is that I am resisting a movement to fundamentally change human society and they are attempting to enforce a fundamental change to human society. Mike can spend his time pointing out all of the exceptions to the nearly universal constant of traditional marriage, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are isolated exceptions to the norm for human societies. Given the precarious nature of the family today, dare we risk a fundamental change in the definition of marriage?
Civil unions provide all the benefits of marriage to homosexuals without changing marriage.
Didn’t I just spend extensive time earlier in this thread proving that no, civil unions do NOT provide all the benefits of marriage to homosexuals?
Gahrie, what you call “a fundamental change to human society,” I call “ending a longstanding regime of fundamental and unjustifiable discrimination.” It’s all about the framing of the issue, my friend. Presumably you don’t accept my framing; well, I don’t accept yours. So let’s step away from the empty rhetoric, and actually discuss the substance of the topic. The question remains: what conceivable harm can result from allowing same-sex couples to marry?
You still haven’t even remotely answered the question. Instead, you seem to be saying, “I don’t need to justify my position, because you’re the ones calling for change. YOU [meaning gay-marriage proponents like Mike & me] are the ones who need to prove that there won’t be any harm from gay marriage.” But of course, that’s ridiculous, because you’re not only asking us to prove a negative, you’re asking us to prove the negative of an alleged harm whose substance and nature you are unable to articulate. You’re essentially saying, “I don’t know why this is bad, but I have a vague fear that it might be bad, and if I’m right, the consequences (whatever they might be) are potentially dire. Prove me wrong or I win the argument!” That’s utterly absurd.
To be clear: I’m not asking you to define, with mathematical precision, the exact parameters of the harm you fear would flow from permitting same-sex couples to marry. I’m also not demanding that you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the harm is real, or that it outweighs the benefits. I’m simply saying, tell me the general nature of the type of harm that you fear. Give me SOME sort of idea, beyond meaningless platitudes and generalizations, what you’re worried will happen if same-sex couples are allowed to marry. What is the nature of the threat to heterosexual marriage, or to society, from allowing that? What are the basic parameters of your concern? That’s all I ask. But you refuse to do even that. You simply say, “it redefines marriage,” and leave it at that. That just isn’t good enough. I concede that it redefines marriage. The question at hand is whether there is any conceivable harm from that redefinition. If you can’t come up with a single, non-circular, non-tautological example, even a general one, of what sort of harm might result, then you have no argument.
Civil unions provide all the benefits of marriage to homosexuals without changing marriage.
Now you just aren’t paying attention. This is empirically false. Scroll up and get back to me.
By the way, when you state that you’re using “the same cost/risk analysis that the climate change alarmists use”… are you suggesting that you AGREE with that cost/risk analysis? That you think the “alarmists” are JUSTIFIED in framing the issue that way? That you think the “alarmists” SHOULD be “granted all benefits of the doubt”? To be clear, I don’t concede the analogy, because the two topics are so different in so many ways, and because I don’t think you’re fairly characterizing position of the “alarmists.” But if you’re going to use that analogy, shouldn’t you at least recognize that you’re undermining your own position by explicitly mimicking a logical framing that you believe is unreasonable when (according to you) “climate change alarmists” use it? Why does that framing then become reasonable and proper when you use it?
Given the precarious nature of the family today, dare we risk a fundamental change in the definition of marriage?
In what conceivable way would allowing a new group of people to get married — while not affecting one iota the rights of those who are presently able to marry — have a negative impact on “the precarious nature of the family today”? If we were talking about polygamy, I would understand this argument; if we were talking about no-fault divorce, I would understand this argument; hell, if this were the 1960s and we were talking about birth control, I would understand this argument. That doesn’t mean I favor making birth control illegal or eliminating no-fault divorce, but I understand where those arguments come from, logically. But this? Asserting, without explaining, that legalizing gay marriage undermines heterosexual families? WTF? How on earth does allowing an entirely different group of people, a group with no interest in opposite-sex marriage*, to also get married, undermine opposite-sex marriage and families centered around opposite-sex marriage? I challenge you to articulate a single conceivable way in which the mere existence of same-sex marriage would undermine heterosexual families. You haven’t yet. I’m not sure anyone ever has. I certainly haven’t heard it. The question doesn’t answer itself. So why don’t you answer it? (Hint: you can’t, because you’re wrong.)
*I recognize that many homosexuals have married members of the opposite sex over the years. I would argue that this was largely due to social pressure, and that by definition, homosexuals can never be fully satisfied in such marriages — nor can their partners, except perhaps a sham situation where a gay man marries a lesbian with a mutual understanding of what’s going on and recognition that they will both cheat on each other (but that rare situation is hardly a “traditional marriage”). In any case, if it’s your contention that the institution of marriage would be stronger if more gays ignored their innate sexual orientation and married members of the opposite sex, then that at least is an articulable answer, albeit one I would find rather peculiar. Is that your position?
1) I am not saying that heterosexual couples will be harmed by fundamentally changing the institution of marriage. I am saying that marriage and as a result the institution of the family will be further, perhaps irreparably harmed. At a time when some communities are experiencing a 75%+ illegitimacy rate, is the risk worth it?
2) Saying that I use a similar cost/risk analysis as the climate change alarmists does not connote that I endorse their argument. (besides the basic difference is that they are arguing for a radical change, and I am arguing against a radical change)
If we were talking about polygamy, I would understand this argument;
We are, and will be. There are already cases winding through the federal courts.
In the UK they are already giving welfare benefits to multiple wives of the same man.
I challenge you to articulate a single conceivable way in which the mere existence of same-sex marriage would undermine heterosexual families.
Words have meanings. Both sides of this debate realize that, which is why the homosexual activists are demanding the term “marriage” and are unwilling to accept “civil unions”. First you change the language, then you change the institution…the Left has been using this tactic for fifty years.
In any case, if it’s your contention that the institution of marriage would be stronger if more gays ignored their innate sexual orientation and married members of the opposite sex, then that at least is an articulable answer, albeit one I would find rather peculiar. Is that your position?
No, it’s my contention that the institution of marriage would be stronger if homosexual activists and courts would stop ignoring thousands of years of experience and the clearly expressed will of the people in an attempt to force a fundamental change to an essential institution.
I am not saying that heterosexual couples will be harmed by fundamentally changing the institution of marriage.
Okay, I’m glad we established that.
I am saying that marriage and as a result the institution of the family will be further, perhaps irreparably harmed.
Irreparably harmed how?
(Also, can you explain what “marriage and as a result the institution of the family” means to you, if it doesn’t mean “heterosexual couples”? I’m confused as to how the “institution” of marriage could be harmed, without individual marriages being harmed.)
At a time when some communities are experiencing a 75%+ illegitimacy rate, is the risk worth it?
The risk of what? What is the “harm” that we are “risking”?
First you change the language, then you change the institution…the Left has been using this tactic for fifty years.
Uh-huh. And in what way is the proposed “change” to the “institution” a bad thing? You still haven’t said.
it’s my contention that the institution of marriage would be stronger if homosexual activists and courts would stop ignoring thousands of years of experience and the clearly expressed will of the people in an attempt to force a fundamental change to an essential institution.
Again, in what way is that “fundamental change” potentially a bad thing? In what way is anything or anyone harmed? You still haven’t said.
(Just to eliminate the “judicial activism” side of this, which is a distraction from what I’m trying to ascertain regarding your position on the underlying issue, I’ll concede — for the sake of argument only — that gay marriage should only ever become law by operation of popular referendums, which as you’ll doubtless note, has yet to happen anywhere. Fine. Now, let’s pretend we’re in a state with such a referendum on the ballot. Citizens have the opportunity to legalize gay marriage by popular vote. So, in this hypothetical, “judicial activism” is not at issue, and the “clearly expressed will of the people” is not under threat; it is the will of the people that will decide the issue. Nevertheless, you are presumably opposed to this referendum, given your statements on the subject. I am asking you to articulate why, and to do so in a non-circular, non-tautological fashion, without begging the question, and without merely saying “it’s tradition” or “that’s how it always been,” given that I acknowledge the existence of the tradition, but am asking you why the tradition is good, or perhaps more precisely, why ending this particular tradition has any potential negative consequences at all.)
Regarding polygamy, I addressed this earlier. It is easy to articulate why legalizing polygamy is problematic, and therefore should be easy for courts and legislatures to resist any pressure to do so. It is NOT easy to articulate why legalizing same-sex marriage is problematic — as evidenced by the fact that you have yet to articulate a single reason why it’s problematic. You just keep repeating over and over the fact you think it’s bad to end the tradition of limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples, without ever explaining WHY it’s bad (or even potentially or arguably bad).
By the way, do you concede that you’re wrong that “civil unions provide all the benefits of marriage to homosexuals without changing marriage”? (Yes or no question.) I ask because you are factually incorrect on that point, as has been amply demonstrated in this thread (and if you need further evidence, The Google is at your disposal), yet you seem to still be holding to your factually incorrect belief, as evidenced by your statement that “homosexual activists are demanding the term ‘marriage’ and are unwilling to accept ‘civil unions’.”
In the UK they are already giving welfare benefits to multiple wives of the same man.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they are in fact giving welfare benefits to the numerous children that the same man has had by multiple wives. This is conceptually a rather different thing than what you’ve stated, as polygamy need not be legal in order for men to have many children by many different women. Overly generous welfare benefits certainly may be deemed a problem, but giving welfare benefits to the children of polygamists does not constitute legal recognition of polygamy, as giving marriage-related benefits to multiple wives on the basis of their marriage would.
In any case, whatever they might be doing in the UK, the fact remains that polygamy is easy to distinguish from gay marriage, and thus legalizing gay marriage does not, by any stretch of the imagination, guarantee that we’ll move down the slippery slope to legalizing polygamy. If that ever happens, which I seriously doubt, it would be because of an independent judgment about that separate issue, not because the logical necessity of doing so will become overwhelming and undeniable once gay marriage is legalized. This is a completely bogus argument.
P.S. One thing some conservatives like to do on this topic is point out that “there are activists out there right now, pushing for plural-marriage rights!” Sure there are. There’s also NAMBLA, and the American Nazi Party, and Lyndon LaRouche, and all sorts of other weird fringe groups pushing for things that will never become law. Activists seeking legal recognition for the “polyamorous” lifestyle are an extreme fringe group, and there is no reason to believe that will change in the foreseeable future. If you seriously believe that America will legalize polygamy in 10 or 20 or 30 or 50 or 100 years, because of gay marriage, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.
But now you’ve distracted me. This polygamy business is a sideshow. The crucial question remains unanswered:
“I’m simply saying, tell me the general nature of the type of harm that you fear. Give me SOME sort of idea, beyond meaningless platitudes and generalizations, what you’re worried will happen if same-sex couples are allowed to marry. What is the nature of the threat to heterosexual marriage, or to society, from allowing that? What are the basic parameters of your concern?”
HOW will the institution marriage be “irreparably harmed”? WHAT is the “risk” that isn’t “worth it”? IN WHAT WAY is the feared “fundamental change” (from only opposite-sex marriage being legal, to opposite-sex marriage and same-sex marriage both being legal) potentially a BAD THING? This should be an easy question to answer….unless of course there is no articulable harm of any sort.
I did a quick scan in this thread for “Sean Vivier” and came up empty, so I’ll go ahead and chime in with the libertarian approach which is, why don’t we get the state out of the marriage business altogether? In fact, I think we could solve a lot of heterosexual marriage issues this way (e.g. high rates of no-fault divorce, the law’s dichotomous impacts of splitting divorced men into either deadbeat dads or second-class paternal citizens, and the many other systemic legal practices around the institution of marriage that have built up over time due to both common law and well-intentioned legislation which result in wild legal inequality for men compared to women).
Let’s reposition “legal marriage” as a simple civil contract between a man and a woman (not unlike how the Puritans approached marriage, incidentally), and from there, apply common law tort and contract law principles to legally married couples. Legal marriage contracts can be restricted to no more than two parties, while religious institutions can be free to marry however they wish (including gay marriage and even polygamy / polyamory, which is pretty impossible to restrict if a group of people decide to practice it de facto).
As for North Carolina going down the reactionary road and being ignorant of “facts”, the simple reality that lib-progs don’t really care to address is the overwhelmingly hostile opposition to gay marriage by the African-American community and the role they have played in sending gay marriage and civil union hopes down in flames (terrible pun intended) in virtually every state that has held a popular vote on the issue.