The Wisconsin State Journal reports: The state Assembly voted 62-31 Tuesday to let voters decide whether to write a ban on same-sex marriages and civil unions into the state constitution. But before the last lawmaker's vote was taken, supporters and opponents of the proposal were already looking past that action toward a costly campaign to win voters' support in November's popular referendum.
Opponents of the Republican-sponsored ban said they want Wisconsin to be the first state in the country to reject a proposed amendment, while supporters see the state as another chance to prove that upholding traditional marriage isn't just a Bible Belt issue.
With two years of preparation behind them, both sides promised a campaign that could run as high as several million dollars, include hundreds or even thousands of volunteers, and employ everything from the pulpit to Web sites and television ads.
"Wisconsin is significant because it's not a southern conservative state. It's not a state, I don't think, where the so-called religious right is considered to normally be a strong factor," said Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the pro-amendment Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. "It's important because it's illustrative of the fact that defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman has very broad appeal throughout the American population."
Tim O'Brien of the Human Rights Campaign, also in Washington, D.C., also saw Wisconsin as important to his gay rights group's efforts to oppose the constitutional bans that have swept many states.
"When you look at the national landscape right now, Wisconsin is a place in which we believe that we have a great chance of succeeding," said O'Brien, a former state resident who's working with state groups to defeat the ban. "I think that Wisconsin is just leaps and bounds ahead of any other state that has had this occur."
Things will be exciting here over the next few months, it seems. Gay rights groups should place special importance on defeating the anti-gay marriage amendment here in Wisconsin, because they think they can win here and maybe turn the tide on this issue nationally. The anti-gay marriage forces will need to respond strongly, and that may not play well among the general populace of this state. The amendment is broadly worded:
Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.
The second sentence goes beyond what is needed to satisfy traditionalists and takes a gratuitous swipe at benefits currently enjoyed by real families here in the state. I find it hard to believe that the decent, often religious citizens who think gay marriage is wrong will feel very good about the threat of depriving real individuals of insurance benefits. [ADDED: I'm referring to
health insurance!] We will see these individuals in the TV ads, and the other side will be reduced to arguing that the language of the amendment doesn't really mean that. Trust us, they will say.
Trust the courts to interpret the language of the amendment so that it won't mean the bad thing the gay rights groups are saying it will mean. You hypocrites! The argument for the amendment was that
we can't trust the courts not to find rights for gay people in the unamended state constitution.
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Assigning a beneficiary of an insurance policy does not amount to "legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals".
I have my sister as my beneficiary and I don't even live in Arkansas! Likewise, you don't need to be married to give someone power of attorney or medical power of attorney. You also don't need to set up a quasi-marriage system such as "civil unions" to achieve the same benefits. Hell, if the proponents of civil unions or gay marriage were actually concerned about those issues (and they're not, really) it would take one lawyer one afternoon to put together a packet of these and similar documents together for each state.
If someone as fair and balanced as Ann (I saw you on FoxNews!) is going to demagogue the issue I think it's fair to say the fight in Wisconsin is going to get pretty nasty.
NB&S is probably right that it will pass handily. Probably 60%+ in support.
Ann also writes: "You hypocrites! The argument for the amendment was that we can't trust the courts not to find rights for gay people in the unamended state constitution."
Actually, it is not hypocritical at all to point out that regardless of popular will we can trust the courts to ALWAYS err on the left side of any issue. If that state of affairs changes over the next 50 years (and it probably won't) maybe then we could revisit the issue.
"Demographically and politically, we're pretty similar to Wisconsin."
Are you? Your rural areas have a southern feeling, right? We are very northern in the rural areas.
Was the Ohio amendment worded gratuitously broadly like ours?
Shady Character: I'm talking about health insurance!
"Demographically and politically, we're pretty similar to Wisconsin."
Are you? Your rural areas have a southern feeling, right? We are very northern in the rural areas.
Was the Ohio amendment worded gratuitously broadly like ours?
Shady Character: I'm talking about health insurance!
Final point. Ann says the second sentence is unneccessary, but it clearly isn't. Without it, the first sentence is essentially meaningless.
"Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state."
Well, assuming a limited civil union system is set up, what's to stop a court (and stopping the out-of-control courts is the entire point of the amendment) from expanding the scope of civil unions until they are exactly the same as marriage? Traditionalists (i.e. the vast majority of Americans on this issue) are not engaged in a battle to save the etymological meaning of the Anglo-Saxon term "marriage", rather they aim to preserve the institution. Ann seems to imply that they should be happy if at the end of the controversy we had "Marriage" certificates granted to straight couples and "Marrriage" certificates granted to any other grouping of any number of men and women.
Of course it will pass. I'd be tremendously surprised (pleased by surprised) if any anti-gay measure doesn't pass anywhere in the US over the next ten years or so.
If activist courts hadn't interfered, I'm sure you could get anti-miscegenation laws revived and passed in many states.
Shady: You need to address the ugliness of threatening to deprive real families of their health insurance. Start by picturing some little children with cancer and then really think about the way your argument sounds to ordinary voters who are just trying to do what's right, maybe what their religion teaches them to do.
"Trust the courts to interpret the language of the amendment so that it won't mean the bad thing the gay rights groups are saying it will mean. You hypocrites!"
Uh, have they already made this argument? Nowhere in your post do I find they have. Hypocrites they may be, but maybe you should wait until they actually make the argument.
And why will strong action by the anti-gay marriage forces not play well with the populace of the state but equally strong action by the pro-gay marriage forces won't? The state assembly vote was 62-31. Doesn't the assembly come close to representing the will of the people?
History will not be kind to the framers of this amendment. Imagine using an American constitution to deprive rights to one group of individuals. Ugh. This is wrong on so very many levels.
What does one tell a gay neighbor couple if this passes? "I'm sorry there are people in this state who feel so threatened by your very existence" is about the best I could come up with. "If you want help packing to move somewhere more tolerant, I can help" I guess that would work.
Fundamentalism at its very worst. Note that I did not say Christianity, as there is absolutely nothing Christian about this amendment. Christ was a champion of the downtrodden and lampooned those who pharisee-like would pass moral judgements.
I agree with Ann -- Ohio and Wisconsin are miles apart politically. Look at our senators!
Pete: First, it's rude to say "uh" like that. Second, they are boxed in, where they are forced to make that argument. What is their alternative? You think I'm being too hard on them by anticipating the argument they have to make? Give me a break! These people are actively pursuing their agenda and deserve a strong response!
One of the authors of this Amendment was quoted as saying "marriage has always been between a man and a woman". Apparently he hasn't read either the Bible or an anthropology text. While sounding "reasonable", he is hoping this bill will get the unreasonable to the polls to pad decreasing support for his party.
If it can't pass in California--it didn't by a wide margin--it won't pass anywhere else.
Ann, you say "These people are actively pursuing their agenda and deserve a strong response!
That is akin to the kids who kill their parents and then beg for mercy because they are orphans argumment. This "issue" was raised and pushed by gay activists who tried to circumvent the political process by asking the courts to create a new set of rights for them. That the majority who disagree have chosen to react should not be held against them.
Secondly, no one is taking anything away from gays. They still have the same rights and freedoms and responsibilities of every other U S citizen no more no less. What is at issue is that they are not being granted the special privileges that have been traditionally reserved for married couples. Not granting a group a prefernce is not the same as discrimination.
Finally, your health care point doesn't hold up. Health care is not a right. It's a benefit. It's provided by employers. Any employer who wants to can offer health insurance to anyone they want to, and they do. This amendment won't change that.
Furthermore, health plans distinguish between dependants and spouses, so the child would be covered regardless.
Ann writes: "Shady: You need to address the ugliness of threatening to deprive real families of their health insurance. Start by picturing some little children with cancer..."
That's exactly my point about demagogary! It'd be as if the pro-amendment forces ran adds with men french-kissing and quoting the extremists in the opposing camp who loudly proclaim one of the chief benefits of SSM is the destruction of marriage as an instiution. Don't you think that would be equally demagogic and equally effective?
Either we will allow random groupings of adults to have "marriage" and thus debase entirely the institution that forms the bedrock of society or we will not. This is the deciding point.
Ann,
I apologize for my gaff. I’m a guest on this site and I would never be intentionally rude. The purpose of my verbal tic, written out, was to help demonstrate my thought that you’d jumped the gun in calling the anti-gay marriage crowd hypocrites for an argument they haven’t yet made. Because I’ve seen you scold other commenters for making arguments about facts that weren’t in an article or your post, I thought that was the general rule. I can see now that leaving out that little tic, I can still make the same point. Again, I apologize and I promise not make the same error again.
[Health insurance]'s provided by employers. Any employer who wants to can offer health insurance to anyone they want to, and they do. This amendment won't change that.
I disagree. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state. I read that to mean that benefits will not be extended to the un-married. And since gays can't marry, any same-sex benefits will vanish. I've also read the civil union benefits are at risk.
Which means this will be bad for business. Sure, it'll make insurance costs potentially cheaper, as unmarried partners are shed from insurance rolls, but when those people migrate to regions where partners are covered... Well, replacing skilled workers is expensive.
Gay marriage will not be a reality for quite some time in most states. On the one hand, you have an image of gentle church-going common folk making their case, then, opposing the ban, you have gay pride drag queens and lesbians donned in leather screaming at the top of their lungs about being no better off than slaves and abortion rights! Gee, since public opinion is tied to images in the age of mass media, I wonder which side will win??? The Gay Community has spent nearly three decades presenting itself as a collection of human oddities, using the tag line "We're Queer! We're Here! Get Used To It!". But now when the gay community is demanding the rest of society to treat them as normal human beings. Well, is it any surprise that they are losing this battle? This is an over simplification of why we are failing to sway public opinion, but I believe it plays a pretty large part of the process. But, the rhetoric spewed by the gay rights groups would have you believe that their failure to sell the idea of gay marriage fairness, to connect to the average Joe or Joan, is because of right wing fascists. A Gay Marriage ban passed in Oregon, hardly a right-wing bastion. And California can't even get a proposal on the ballot despite the screwy initiative process here. Hell, we got an initiative on the ballot a few years ago banning all human consumption of horse meat (I think it passed), even if there is a religious or cultural reason to do so (how's that for tolerance), but we in liberal California can't get gay marriage on the ballot? The ONLY reason gays can now marry in Mass. is because of an activist court decision. I do want to be able to marry my partner, but I'm not a fan of having public policy mandated by the courts.
Ooops, I'm ranting.
Dang, dash took all of my points so no point in re-hashing 'em here. But I haven't seen anynone else address MadisonMan's assertion so I'll take it up.
A private employer can extend health insurance to whomever it wants and this law won't prevent them from doing so. It's the flip side that won't happen: employers won't be forced to provide health insurance to gay partnersif it doesn't want to. Disney voluntarily covered gay partners in Florida - nothing personal, just business, an attempt to attract and keep employees - but eventually dropped the program for the very same reason - business.
A private employer can extend health insurance to whomever it wants and this law won't prevent them from doing so.
Well, I work for Madison's largest employer, the State. When extending health benefits to unmarried couples, why should the state care if they are gay or not -- or married? Isn't commitment the standard by which the union should be judged? (Interesting that this topic follows so closely the one on The Widow Anna Nicole Smith)
I've read several references to Massachusetts in this thread. What, exactly, is so bad that has happened there? Gay people can have their unions recognized by the State. They get benefits that are equal to those of heterosexual couples who are married. I don't see that the World As We Know It has ended there.
Madisonman writes: "When extending health benefits to unmarried couples, why should the state care if they are gay or not -- or married? Isn't commitment the standard by which the union should be judged?"
Well, no. "Commitment" can't be the measuring stick because it can't be judged. Are proponents of this view picturing the movie Greencard - with state bureaucrats asking questions like, “what face cream does Bob use?” and “Does Earl sleep on the left side or the right side of the bed?” or even “Which of the four of you generally prepares the communal meals?”
Would “commitment” be evident the case of two (or three) straight best friends who continue to date others but declare themselves committed to gain access to health insurance benefits? Could all the neighbors on a block, or all the residents of a town declare themselves committed to each other?
The solution to this “problem” is to simply leave marriage alone. The institution is so important (even if imperfect) that a society risks all when meddling.
Would “commitment” be evident the case of two (or three) straight best friends who continue to date others but declare themselves committed to gain access to health insurance benefits?
Well, two of them could marry, solely to acquire healthcare benefits for married couples. Without commitment at all. Yet a gay couple in a committed, decades-long union, cannot. Why?
I must note that healthcare benefits are just one of a laundry list that marriage bestows. The rights of inheritance, hospital visitation . . . on and on.
Again I will ask: what does one tell a gay neighbor couple if something like this passes?
As a gay man, I can understand, if not agree with, the reasons why so many straight people oppose gay marriage. The institution has such deep-rooted religious and cultural history that some will see a threat to their values in any attempt to broaden its meaning. This is particularly true when the vehicle for change is the courts and not the democratic process.
What I can't understand is why opponents of gay marriage are equally zealous to ban legal recognition of domestic partnerships. Society benefits from arrangements that promote stability, monogamy, and mutual responsibility in unmarried couples of all persuasions. Opposition to these values can be explained only by bigotry in its most rabid and repulsive form.
Good arguments all, and I salute the gay poster who reminds us that it was gay activists themselves who have pounded home the stereotype of the odd, promiscuous "queer," and equally that we should just get over it. Well, most people have, and it's a simplistic slur to say any opposition to gay marriage means naysayers cannot "tolerate your very existence."
Insurance is a non-issue. If you have a kid and need insurance, you're going to have to go to work for the government or big corporation like everybody else to get it. That's equality.
However flawed the proposition, I think we need to have this issue debated on its merits before running to the courts. If nothing else, the discussion will reveal whether or not there really is a "gay community" that represents gay thought, or if that's even possible. Discussion of the second sentence will tell us whether or not remedies exist already for legal problems of gay families or whether something else is needed.
I agree with Shady: it's time to get down to the basic issue of what marriage is, what we fear it could become, and what we want it to be in the future.
One thing I'm certain of. I don't want PatCA geting married, nor reproducing.
Not sure I understand the "threat to marriage" argument at all. I know many gay couples who consider themselves married, how does that have any impact on my marriage of 23 years? What does one have to do with the other? One could make a better case that infidelity should be criminalized. The second sentence of the referendum, that prohibits anything similar to marriage, shows what squirms underneath this supposed marriage protection bill.
Insurance is NOT an issue? We only want benefits? Let's examine this just a bit further shall we?
1. I was born gay. It was not a choice.
2. If I was born that way, why am I denied the act of marrying the partner (one not multiples, not animals, not relatives, not children) ?
3. Why should I live my life just like everyone else, pay your school taxes even with out children, obey all laws and yet not be allowed to be protected financially as well as spiritually to my partner?
To the uninformed who say, "just go to a lawyer and get those protections", you are sorely lacking in your investigative powers. There are over 1000 benefits to marriage. It is not about "give me benefits" it is about fairness. A lawyer's fees for all of these benefits would bankrupt most people. AND the one glaring errror on your assumption is that these documents are fully supported by the law.
If the state constitution says you can't create unions similar or identical to marriage, what do you think would happen when someone challenges my legally drawn up documents? If my parntner and it pay (dearly) for a power of attorny and one of us ends up in a hospital, they could say, you know that the state does not recognize your marriage so your legal documents hold no weight here. IT has happened. It happens every day when families get greedy and cut out surviving partners. This is just one of the benefits we are talking about. The list is enourmous.
There is NOTHING different about my love, level of commitment and devotion to my partner than yours. Why should I be told that I am a second class citizen and should not have basic protections afforded by a public commitment to grow a stable loving home life and family?
You can keep the word marriage. You shouldn't however fight against Civil Unions.
I do love the people who use the Bible as their argument. Yes, the Bible mentions marriage as a religious institution. That is all however. All the benefits given by the federal government and the state government are societal constructs. They have NOTHING to do with religion. If religion is your argument you have not right to extend your fight to benefits given under these civil unions.
Gee, you would think that we want to hurt you. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sigh.
Hire a lawyer to draw up a will and a durable power of attorney agreement.
And the reason a committed gay couple must do this but a married couple doesn't have to is...?
Marriage bestows rights on the married. It seems to me, at least, that gay couples are (rightfully) asking for the opportunity in the future to have those same rights. (Who knows when that will be -- marriage between two men or between two women is illegal in WI) This amendment shuts that door, for no good reason.
downtownlad,
I'm not surprised at your insult. In all your posts, I have never heard an ounce of respect for straight people: we're all either homophobes or fag hags.
Hopefully, people more erudite than you will be stating the case for gay marriage--I assume you are pro-- when this bill is being debated.
Sorry for the rant. Hopefully next time I will slow down long enough to check my spelling. :-)
Nasty, Brutish & Short: "You are right that our rural areas are more Southern than Northern. Heck, I'm in Cincinnati and I can attest that it is more like Nashville than Cleveland. But Bush barely won here in '04, and Kerry barely won in Wisconsin. That's why I suggested a similar political climate--both are battleground states."
Bush won because of national security. You can't count votes for Bush as votes for social conservatism. Let me remind you that we also reelected Feingold. Our other Senator is a Democrat and so is our governor.
On the insurance point, I'm talking about families where one person works for the state government and currently is able to provide the whole family with benefits. Some people are threatened with the loss of benefits they now have. This argument doesn't depend on an assertion that they have a constitutional right to benefits! I'm talking about the political presentation of the issues that we will see. I'm saying that those who oppose the amendment have very good ways to make compelling, sympathetic arguments that the proponents should have difficulty countering. This is a referendum, not a court battle right now.
And I fail to see the point of saying that some gay rights activists don't look like they have traditional values. You could say the same for heterosexuals, who often dress up in an exaggerated sexual way. That doesn't mean other people should be disrespected or even, really, that they should be disrespected after they come home from their revelries. Look at all that heterosexual showing off that took place at Mardi Gras. Is there some reason to stop giving special benefits to marriage because of the exaggerated behavior of a few overexuberant heterosexuals?
Anyway, here are my pictures from a Madison gay rights parade. I challenge you to look at these people and explain why you think they are marginalizing themselves by parading. Parading is a long American tradition!
Finally, your health care point doesn't hold up. Health care is not a right. It's a benefit. It's provided by employers. Any employer who wants to can offer health insurance to anyone they want to, and they do. This amendment won't change that.
Furthermore, health plans distinguish between dependants and spouses, so the child would be covered regardless.
Bingo! And another red herring bites the dust.
Kent,
Our society, like every society, denies the right to marry to many, many people, not just gays or (in the past) biracial couples: various blood relations, and even further, the spouse of one's child, for example in many states; mentally ill people; more than two people at one time.
For the record I have no objection to gay marriage. I can't speak for anyone else. And I don't doubt for one minute the depth of your commitment to your partner or the benefit to society of such a union. But the marriage issue is bigger that the restriction against gay marriage alone, and I do think we need to admit that. Love is not the only criterion. You will hear worse, I'm sure, in the months to come.
Lawsuit Challenges Polygamy
The first sentence of the Amendment is an understandable provision, though one I personally disagree with. The second sentence is legislative gay-bashing, pure and simple. I don't really see how you can debate that.
Marriage is a religious institution. For a long time, the state had an incentive to encourage marriage because it needed to populate the country. Today, formal marriage, as opposed to mere cohabitation, serves several puposes, concerning property, taxes, and religion. No court is forcing any religion to recognize gay marriage, but if the state is going to do it, it can't limit its benefits only to straight couples. It doesn't have to call it marriage, but there should be something to recognize gay families. To the extent that marriage serves a state's interests -- in stability, raising children, promoting safe sexual behavior, and so on, it has an interest in formally recognizing gay partnerships. As far as I can see, there is no good way to rebut that, other than pure gay bashing.
Traditionalists (i.e. the vast majority of Americans on this issue) are not engaged in a battle to save the etymological meaning of the Anglo-Saxon term "marriage", rather they aim to preserve the institution.
Well, two points to be made here. I don't think a "vast" majority of Americans are really "traditionalists" in any coherent sense. Probably the majority of opposition to gay marriage has no firm theoretical foundation (e.g. traditionalism), and stems from a sense that there's something fundamentally off-kilter about the idea of gay marriage.
Second point: "not engaged in a battle to save the etymological meaning of the Anglo-Saxon term 'marriage'"?
I think, honestly, that is what a lot of opponents of gay marriage are struggling to do. Because marriage as an institution, or even just as a shared cultural concept, has already been destroyed. No fault divorce, casual adultery, trial marriages, tawdry celebrity marriages, and perhaps most significantly, wide disagreement over how marriage fits together with the family and the continuation of families across generations through children, have all combined to rip its heart out.
My sense is that marriage used to be about family and children. About lying back and thinking of England (as it were), and doing your duty by your ancestors, and raising your children up properly. And my sense is that marriage nowadays is about nothing more than two individuals finding happiness in each other, and if they choose not to have children, and run away from their families, well that's their choice. And if they choose to divorce, well, no one's going to give them the hairy eyeball or snub them in the street as a result.
As a result, I think trying to bar gay marriage is a vain attempt to shut the barn door after the cows are long, long gone. Traditional marriage, outside of a few dedicated pockets of society, is dead as a doornail.
As a practical matter, too, gay marriage is so unlikely to be anything more than an extremely marginal presence in society, that I think trying to pin responsibility for the death of traditional marriage on this tiny, marginal group really is a kind of scapegoating. People sense that somehow, the "institution" of marriage got terribly distorted at some point, but they don't actually want to have to knuckle down and give up the freedoms people gave up under the old model of marriage, so they blame it on this discrete outside group. I know that's an ad hominem of sorts, but I do think that's at least a bit of what's going on in the gay marriage debate.
To those who claim that homosexual relationships, if not all sodomy in general, should be banned by the state, consider this. The Bible also prohibits touching the skin of a dead pig, planting different crops side-by-side, and wearing clothes spun from two different fabrics. It also prohibits adultery and working on the sabbath.
If the state of Wisconsin wants to ban the Green Bay Packers, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Wisconsin Badgers, police and firemen working on sundays, criminalize all adultery, severely limit the agricultural industry, and banning all cotton/poly, spandex/lycra, and wool blends, then I will say to you that you are not a hypocrite.
criminalize all adultery, severely limit the agricultural industry, and banning all cotton/poly, spandex/lycra, and wool blends
Criminalising adultery and banning blended synthetic fabrics sound just great to me! But more seriously, the argument that sodomy (or, per Justice Scalia, masterbation) ought to be criminalised need not rest solely on Biblical grounds, even if the majority of people supporting bans on sodomy (or, say, shellfish) are most likely arguing from Biblical grounds.
Bush won because of national security. You can't count votes for Bush as votes for social conservatism.
Point of clarification – defining marriage as “one man and one woman” isn’t just “social conservatism” it’s the social mainstream as evidenced by the fact that it almost always wins hands down (just as it did in two States that went for John Kerry in 2004) when people actually get to vote on it rather than have it shoved down their throats by an activist court.
On the insurance point, I'm talking about families where one person works for the state government and currently is able to provide the whole family with benefits.
Great, just the thing to get the taxpayer’s rights activists out to the polls who are sick and tired of paying high taxes in order to provide overly generous benefits to government employees.
Of course it goes without saying that Shady’s original point that there is a difference between a “spouse” and a “dependent” for insurance purposes and that the child(ren) of the State employee would be unaffected still stands.
Anyway, here are my pictures from a Madison gay rights parade.
Thank you for posting pictures of summer! Boy I could use a warm Spring day.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
I will agree that arguing about insurance is not the way to show disparity. But pointing out that committed gay couples can be compelled to testify against each other, and that they don't automatically inherit, and that they can be excluded from a hospital -- well, it's a long list of special treatment for married couples that are per force excluded to gay couples. And why?
Terry, don't forget the mildew or the complicated rules regarding menstruation. If any women start arguing about homosexuality using the laws of Leviticus as an example, I suggest asking them, politely, if they're menstruating. Wouldn't want to make all the chairs in the legislature unclean!
I would, however, refrain from using the term "gay bashing" to describe what you consider legislative action motivated by anti-gay animus. Gay bashing refers to physical violence and conflating the two, however misguided the anti-gay words or feelings, is not accurate or fair.
And I have to respectfully disagree with you Ann, when you say that Bush won in '04 because of national security.
I agree -- Bush won because the Democrats offered someone who could not show, for one reason or another, that he would be a better person for the job.
But I still think WI and OH are miles apart.
Ohioans said moral values 23% of the time, and terrorism 17% of the time. So maybe there is a difference between WI and OH. But not much of one. And I have to respectfully disagree with you Ann, when you say that Bush won in '04 because of national security.
This isn't quite determinative -- the question is not what issues were in play, but what issues drove swing voters. Here, the argument with respect to national security might be that while moral-values-voters are solid Republicans anyhow, national-security-voters were determinative, because they were up for grabs. I mean, it's entirely possible that you could get a poll where the largest single issue-bloc actually votes for the losing side in the election. What matters is those swing voters.
"I'm not surprised at your insult. In all your posts, I have never heard an ounce of respect for straight people: we're all either homophobes or fag hags." - PatCa
Darn right it's an insult. Now if only you'd be honest and admit that you are insulting 20 million gay Americans when you say that we should not have the right to marry or adopt. I can't help but laugh at how you instantly go on the defensive when somebody proposes taking YOUR rights away. You have no problem taking away mine.
Unfortunately - I have a hunch that the comparison will be lost on you . . .
Dan Savage said it best. The opposite of a gay activist is a gay doormat. And I have zero intention of being a doormat.
And sorry - I have lots of respect for straight people. Many straight people. You won't find many more people who are more forceful defenders of gay rights than Ann Althouse.
Darn right it's an insult. Now if only you'd be honest and admit that you are insulting 20 million gay Americans when you say that we should not have the right to marry or adopt.
Well, be fair -- he's saying (as gay marriage opponents in general are saying) that you do not have the "right" to marry another man (gay = man, right? I forget these things). You still have the right to marry. The problem is that you have to establish that marrying someone of the same gender is the same as marrying someone of the opposite gender. And there, that comes down to what you think "marriage" is, and what you think its purpose is.
If, having read reams of novels about unhappily married couples, and drunk deep of the mediaeval notions of romance, you think the notion that marriage is all about love and well-tailored for human happiness is dottily idealistic, and think it's mostly about children and bloodlines and family honour, then the idea of gay marriage may seem like it sort of misses the whole point of the thing. If you think it's about Adam and Eve and all that, again, Adam and Eve are a man and a woman, not a man and a man or a woman and a woman, and the idea of marrying a man to a man will probably seem awfully silly.
On the other hand, if you think marriage is there for people who love one another, so they can be happy together and collect tax benefits and evidentiary privileges the way a boyfriend and boyfriend (or boyfriend and girlfriend, for that matter) cannot, then gay marriage will seem perfectly natural.
And there are of course other ways of looking at it.
But in any event, the two of you almost certainly see marriage as different things. He's not insulting you.
Balfegor - Your argument breaks down when it comes to gay adoption.
In Florida - serial killers can adopt. Child molestors can adopt. In fact, the only people downright forbidden from adopting are gay people.
So yes - that's an insult.
By the way - do you have a sister or daughter? Would you like them to marry a gay man?
I am VERY tempted to find a nice Catholic girl, then marry here, then tell her I'm gay, then say "What are you going to do? Divorce me?????"
Ha ha ha. Would be too funny.
Balfegor - Your argument breaks down when it comes to gay adoption.
Which is why I talked about marriage. You conflated marriage and adoption, not me.
The argument against gay adoption is different, and rather harder, since sterile people and sterile unions have been adopting children to serve as their heirs and successors for thousands of years now. Caesar, for example, who seems to have been quite infertile despite his many, many seductions (of both men and women). But I'm fairly certain it's possible to come up with a perfectly respectable argument there as well.
Without first jumping to "you are insulting me!"
As a possibility (not meant seriously -- but I find it amusing) recall that many, many adoption agencies strive to place children with parents of the same race. If we maintain the analogy between race and sexual orientation that is often proferred in the marriage context (cf. Loving v. Virginia), what's the error in allowing the children of an heterosexual union to be adopted only by other heterosexuals?
There are better arguments I am sure.
I am VERY tempted to find a nice Catholic girl, then marry here, then tell her I'm gay, then say "What are you going to do? Divorce me?????"
Oddly enough, this reminds me of a Japanese case -- I forget the name, but I can probably find it if anyone is really interested -- in which a man and a woman marry, or have their marriage arranged, and then the man discovers that his wife is, in fact, infertile and sickly, and that this was concealed throughout the negotiations between the family. He argues for a divorce (under divorce laws rather less permissive than our own). Is this comparable? I am not a Catholic (I am not even Christian) so I don't know how they treat this situation, but it seems as though there is a colourable argument that such would be a marriage procured by fraud.
On the other hand, though, so long as you refrain from adultery and perform your husbandly duties to satisfaction, what has she got to complain about?
Gay marriage will be on the ballot this fall in Wisconsin.
But the amendment reads Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.
I don't see the word "gay" there, but I do see the word "one." Seems to me this is just as oppressive of polygamists as of gays. Don't polygamists have rights? Don't they need health insurance? How come nobody sticks up for them?
Energetic conversation here. I don;t think there is a single state whose voters would approve gay marriage. Re Wisconsin, it's pretty far from conservative but it, like others, tends to re-elect senators like Feingold (who are not really one with the average resident) because the senator has seniority, has not embarrassed the state or is fairly impressive in office. Here is Pensylvania, we kept re-electing dullards for that very reason.
That's my wto cents.
Oh how I loathe the "you already have the freedom to marry - someone of the opposite sex" argument. Talk about pedantry. It's sort of like saying "hey, black man, you already have the right to drink out of a water fountain- a blacks-only water fountain".
I don't, however, think that Dan Savage is right- the opposite of "activist" (oh how I loathe that word) is not "doormat". I can consider myself an advocate of equal legal rights for gay couples (marriage? who cares, that should be a matter for the individuals to decide) without being branded an "activist". I think the fundamental seriousness of a person should be called into question when they think that licking doorknobs is acceptable political discourse.
How come nobody sticks up for them?
They're not as sympathetic. And heck, didn't we even make abandonment of polygamy a condition of Utah's joining the Union? We'd look awfully silly if we backed down on that now, no?
Talk about pedantry. It's sort of like saying "hey, black man, you already have the right to drink out of a water fountain- a blacks-only water fountain".
Oh come now -- you disappoint us! The usual analogy here is the anti-miscegenation laws, isn't it? "You have the right to marry, just not the right to marry someone of a different race!"
But calling it "pedantry" sidesteps the issue. Because for me, while I have no particular problem with gay marriage (as I suggested further above, I think these attempts to defend "traditional" marriage are coming way, way too late to do anything), the idea of gay marriage nevertheless strikes me as bizarre. It does not compute.
Or rather, I mean, it computes in a narrow "I want these benefits" sense, because who doesn't want benefits if you can get them? But not in a deep, passionate "I want to get married" sense. Because marriage, the way I see it, is not about tax breaks, health insurance, and evidentiary privileges. Those are just results of the law being written around the social fact of marriage (cf. Griswold v. Connecticut, the bit at the end). It's all about the children and the bloodlines and the family honour. Or duty rather. And gay marriage doesn't do any of that -- you still have to reach outside the marriage and adopt, for your heir.
From the article Palladian just linked:
So, much as it pains me to confirm a hateful stereotype of gay men -- we will put anything in our mouths -- I started licking doorknobs. The front door, office doors, even a bathroom door. When that was done, I started in on the staplers, phones and computer keyboards. Then I stood in the kitchen and licked the rims of all the clean coffee cups drying in the rack.
Oh that is vile!
Among other things, though, he claims his sinuses were leaking. He could just have smeared mucus on the doorknobs or something and got the same effect. He didn't have to lick. That's absolutely disgusting. And gratuitously so!
ShadyCharacter wrote, "Either we will allow random groupings of adults to have "marriage" and thus debase entirely the institution that forms the bedrock of society or we will not."
Please tell me, specifically, how my marriage of 10 years will be debased if it becomes legal for TWO (not random groupings of) same-sex people to get married. Please don't resort to religious arguments because my wife and I are both athiests and were married by a judge.
People who are *truly* concerned about "defending" marriage should be trying to outlaw things like instant marriages in Las Vegas, or perhaps TV shows like "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire." Or even, as another commenter noted, infidelity.
I just don't see a reason NOT to allow gays to marry. It just strikes me as an appeal to that part of everyone's soul that is hostile and bigoted toward the unknown. We all have it in us. Our leaders can appeal to the best parts of ourselves (think Kennedy asking what we can do for our country) or the worst parts. With this issue, the GOP has struck electoral gold by appealing to the dark side of our minds and stamping it with a seal-of-approval from Christianity!
"Because for me, while I have no particular problem with gay marriage... the idea of gay marriage nevertheless strikes me as bizarre. It does not compute."
Talk about cognitive dissonance! You disappoint us!
Children? Bloodlines? Family honor? Come on! You just said a few sentences before that "Traditional marriage" was dead in the water.
I'm proposing a new amendment- that if opposite sex couples who get married do not produce offspring in a certain amount of time, their marriage shall be declared null and void and all benefits thereof shall be removed. After all, it's about children and bloodlines and family honor after all! If you're not pumping out mewling infants, you've failed the 1000000000 year old institution of marriage!
Leeontheroad makes some good arguments--much more beneficial to your cause in the long run than namecalling. Re your rhetorical question about a referendum on the civil rights bills, though, the Congress and Senate passed these bills by wide margins (yes, after lots of lobbying and haggling). That would indicate the majority of their constituents were in favor or at least would not object to its passage, wouldn't it? Why should gay marriage now get a pass?
You will only win by appealing to the center. Address the philosophical questions raised here. Convince them! If spokespeople continue to make the classic Democratic Party mistake--villifying all opposition as knuckle dragging religious cretins--gay marriage will fail.
Was the Ohio amendment worded gratuitously broadly like ours?
Yes. The current amendment in VA is even worse.
Re: Doris
You're perhaps thinking of guy marriage, not gay marriage. Women in same-sex relationships have biological heirs all the time.
By reaching outside the marriage for a donor. Strictly speaking, if they have a female friend willing to go to the trouble, a gay couple can have a biological heir that way too.
Of course, you're also placing the kind of emphasis on biology that demeans infertile couples who rely on reproductive technologies, families created through adoption, and the children those families nourish and support.
Yes, and? You could say I'm doing the same to gay marriages too, because I am, and that's practically the point of what I'm saying. You forgot to add that I'm implicitly looking down my nose at bastardy too. Because that's the clear implication of what I've said.
But more generally, you're just pointing out that my view of marriage and what a marriage ought to be -- my conceptual archetype of marriage -- is not the view of marriage prevalent in the wider population, and certainly not reflected in the law. And it is decidedly not.
But marriage, as I see it, is not about sweetness and light and making everyone feel that every marriage (or every family structure) is absolutely equal. It is not about saying that all there is to marriage is the forms and the motions, and if you match up the forms and go through the motions of the ritual, you have, there, a marriage in its true Platonic form. It is not about that any more than it is about saying a single-mother household is just as good as and just the same as a two-parent household, which is no better than a five-parent polygynous household, or a furtive two-parent household living in the shame of the shadow of incest.
Whenever there are definitions, someone is going to feel left out. But that doesn't make those definitions wrong.
Re: Palladian
You just said a few sentences before that "Traditional marriage" was dead in the water.
Why yes, it is indeed, because --
I'm proposing a new amendment- that if opposite sex couples who get married do not produce offspring in a certain amount of time, their marriage shall be declared null and void and all benefits thereof shall be removed. After all, it's about children and bloodlines and family honor after all! If you're not pumping out mewling infants, you've failed the 1000000000 year old institution of marriage!
this amendment (or one with substantially the same meaning) would never pass. Because my view of marriage is a minority view. Shockingly enough. But I don't feel any more obligation to follow the majority view than you do. Should I?
I am glad to have read the comments here, and I look forward to the debate.
I usually have an opinion on most anything. This one leaves me split.
I will say that I understand the second sentence. It makes sense to me to keep the courts from end running the first, and no, I do not regard it as gratuitous nor affecting insurance. I hope the debate doesn't descend to that silly level.
I also hope the debate stays on track, honest, and respectful of the sincerity of differing opinions.
I hope the same thing is true if the Supreme Court ever were to rescind Roe v. Wade and the people of this state have to decide the abortion issue.
These are things that are close to people, matter on a fundamental level, have a high emotional content and a great capability to hurt, and no easy answers.
Well, leaving off the snark for a moment, I should bring forward a point I made about (when I engaged in a bit of light ad hominem) -- traditional marriage is dead in the wider society, because it involves burdens (e.g. childbearing, childrearing, sticking with it and not getting divorced, etc.) that most modern couples just aren't willing to put up with. When I say traditional marriage is dead, that is what I mean -- the majority just aren't going to bind themselves in that way again for a good long while. Continuing to adhere to heterosexual marriage will do absolutely nothing to restore the old patterns of marriage, because heterosexuality is not the whole of what a marriage used to be. Nor will it, contra Stanley Kurtz, do a thing to reverse the decline of the traditional family.
Small, point just coming back from work: someone writes: "Thus far in Wisconsin, more churches have taken formal positions against the civil unions and marriage ban than for it. These churches represent nearly 500,000 congregants"
Wisconsin has 5 million people. If the post-Christian "churches" with their shrinking congregations have chosen once again to embrace the political issue du jour in contradition to thousands of years of Judeo-Christian teachings they will be rewarded with continued and growing irrelevance.
And another point I forgot to make -- Palladian speaks of an amendment. And I'd noted that the laws and privileges we have built up around marriage didn't make marriage, they just recognised the social fact of it. That leads me to say:
Once you're depending on Constitutional Amendments to shore up your "institution" of marriage, it should be pretty clear that institution is pretty far gone.
A marriage ought to be something that is recognised by the law, not an artifact of a legal code.
Doesn't Rousseau say something of this sort about censors? How they're powerless to restore an old morality?
While this conversation has been interesting, I see that it has largely descended into a downtownlad all those who disagree with me are GAY-BASHERS AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!
With that, I'm out of here, unless I come back.
I see that it has largely descended into a downtownlad all those who disagree with me are GAY-BASHERS AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!
I thought it had descended into me bloviating endlessly, actually.
And as long as I am infesting this comment thread, I might as well clarify what -- it occurs to me -- may have been slightly unclear in what I said before:
"Because for me, while I have no particular problem with gay marriage... the idea of gay marriage nevertheless strikes me as bizarre. It does not compute."
Talk about cognitive dissonance! You disappoint us!
Children? Bloodlines? Family honor? Come on! You just said a few sentences before that "Traditional marriage" was dead in the water.
When I say "I have no particular problem with gay marriage," I mean that I think the amendments proposed here are silly and a waste of time, and I would not be terribly bothered by gays getting married. There are so few of them, after all, especially when compared against the Vegas instant-marriages and adulterers and all that.
Here's an interesting, if tangential article that is suggestive of the fact that it might be the high water mark for the SSM movement. Wait 50 years and demographics may have tilted the pendalum back towards sanity and traditionalism in the ordering of society [downtownlad reads - GAY-BASHING AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!! =)].
Basic gist is that traditional minded, conservative people are the only ones reproducing at above replacement rate =)
sorry...
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3376&page=0
As a supporter of equal marriage rights, I am excited... really ridiculously excited. I cannot wait to be here in Madison for the vote in November. Wisconsinites are too smart for an amendment like this. At some point someone is going to be the first to put their foot down and I'd put my money on the cheeseheads.
I realize that marriage is a state issue. However, consider Wisconsin. If I had to guess, Madison would have a majority of the state's same-sex marriages, followed closely by Milwaukee. If I had to guess, those two cities would have at least 3 times as many gay marriages as the rest of the state combined. I know some people here in Madison who grew up in small towns, and told me they never met a gay person until they moved to Madison. Even people from cities the size of Green Bay might not have met an openly gay person before they moved here.
So, basically, a bunch of small town people are going to take their pastor's word for it, or Pat Robertson's or Sam Brownback's word for it, and negatively effect the lives of people in bigger cities where nobody opposes gay marriage.
Democracy at its finest.
Shadycharacter should definitely not be able to reproduce either.
But hey - if PatCa and Shadycharacter disagree, they should "convince" us. They should "make the arguments" as to why they deserve to be married and reproduce, despite the fact that their children are certain to be just as narrow-minded, hateful, and shallow as they are.
After all - it's the people who should decide if they should get married - not them.
downtown, you forgot to say GAY-BASHER AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!
Anyone who is saying that health insurance will not be removed as a result of this amendment is either 1) a liar or 2) ignorant.
Health insurance has already been removed from gay couples in Michigan.
Me thinks the bigots should do their homework.
I have a proposal.
They stop passing bigoted constitutional amendments, and we'll stop calling them bigots.
Shadycharacter - Let me ask you a question.
Do you really think that you're NOT bigoted towards gay people?
If so - I'd really like to try what you're smoking . . .
ShadyCharacter said...
Basic gist is that traditional minded, conservative people are the only ones reproducing at above replacement rate =)
Probably not as fast as Islamic fundamentalists, though. So it'll be American Gothic v. Islamofascism.
Ah, the radiant future that awaits our posterity....
Here's proof that those who claim that benefits will not be removed from gay people are LIARS.
Yup - that's right. Good old Christian, deceptive, liars. Just as the 10 commandements tells them to be.
http://www.stcynic.com/blog/archives/2005/02/michigan_gay_ma.php
Re: Lawyapalooza:
We can simply agree that discrimination of any kind should not be written into our constitution.
I think that already steals a base though. Many people -- myself included -- think that stating that no, same-sex marriages are not really marriages is not actually meaningful discrimination, because that's just reiterating the meaning of the term "marriage."
A stronger and more general argument would be, I think, that a state constitution is simply not an appropriate place to be implementing marriage laws, particularly when, as we can see from the past hundred years, the mainstream conception of marriage can change so radically in so little time. This goes, of course, for court actions to mandate gay marriage too.
Probably not as fast as Islamic fundamentalists, though. So it'll be American Gothic v. Islamofascism.
新中華帝國万歳！万歳！万歳！
This goes, of course, for court actions to mandate gay marriage too.
So you think Loving V. Virginia should be repealed? That was an activist court turning down laws against inter-racial marriage after all.
On what grounds is there a right to marry someone of another race?
Re: Downtownlad
Two points here:
First, if the people of a state really want to put miscegenation laws back, then that is their choice. And mind, I say this as the product of miscegenation. I mean, heck, on my mother's side, there's no legal record of the marriage or my existence, and we're completely invisible in a book we have tracing the history of my mother's family. And yet my grandparents treat us as kin, notwithstanding the law, and really, that is all that matters, no? The social fact of marriage. Anyhow, personal ramblings aside --
Constitutionally, I think the matter is slightly different.
On what grounds is there a right to marry someone of another race?
There is no right to marry someone of another race -- there is only a right not to be classified (with particular burdens and benefits apportioned) according to race. My reading of the equal protection clause, if I could sweep away history and rewrite constitutional law all by my lonesome self, might be somewhat different from the current reading, but I think we agree here: Under the current reading, racial classifications are subjected to the strictest level of scrutiny. There would have to be a rather strong reason underlying the bar on miscegenation. Now, there is a reason -- racial purity -- and at a certain time and place, that was considered a very real and perfectly legitimate end (and there was narrow tailoring etc.) But I don't happen to think that's a legitimate end, so I am quite glad the court agrees.
In the case of gay marriage, though, using a comparable equal protection argument does not get you nearly as far. First, sexual orientation only gets you as far as rational basis scrutiny (or rational basis with bite, if you prefer). Even Lawrence v. Texas still only uses the rational basis standard, which is the most permissive standard, and under which the court usually just makes up a reason, any reason, for the state to have implemented the law. They didn't do so in Lawrence but because of peculiarities in the law (which exempted straight couples from the anti-sodomy provisions IIRC), it was, frankly, rather difficult to come up with a consistent rationale underpinning it. One that made sense, at least.
But there are no such difficulties for heterosexual-only marriage -- I have been banging on the rationale in this entire comment thread: procreation.
The usual argument against procreation as a rationale is that marriage is not (at all) narrowly tailored for procreation. Because there is no test for fertility beforehand, no requirement (cf. Palladian's proposed amendment above) that a married couple procreate, and the fertile-octogenarian rule not withstanding, we let people who are clearly not going to be bearing any children get married, etc. And this is all true. But frankly, it's not like marriage is tailored for anything else. And I don't think (though I may be embarrassingly wrong here -- this is a ConLaw prof's blog, after all, and I was an indifferent student of ConLaw in law school) there is a narrow-tailoring requirement under rational basis scrutiny.
For other reasons, I do not think that equal protection under a gender-discrimination theory (more directly analogous to Loving) works either, in part because once procreation is given as the rationale, the sex differences between men and women become meaningful.
Now, this argument was considered and rejected by the Massachussetts Supreme Court, as I recall. But that doesn't particularly matter to me, because I think they got it wrong.
As long as people who have the right to vote equate marrying your partner with marrying a goat, liberals are going to continue to make "I'm moving to Canada" jokes.
I think if SSM is put up for a vote it will always be voted down. Not because the majority of people are against it, but, because the majority of people just don’t care either way. And, the people that do care (thinking it will be the demise of all that is sacred) out number the minority wanting equal rights.
Thankfully, in Canada the decision was taken out of the people’s hands. After all, why should equal rights be up for a vote? Following in the footsteps of our late P.M. Pierre Trudeau, who was responsible for removing laws against homosexuality saying, “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation”, Jean Chrétien then Paul Martin after him, stood firm and said anything less than equal rights will not be tolerated. We now have the Civil Marriage Act, which legalizes SSM.
Our newly elected PM had promised to put this issue up for a vote in the parliament. I’m sure he probably will. However, most Canadians are as ambivalent about the subject as Americans are… and, seeing as how the wrath of God hasn’t descended upon us yet, the feeling seems to be ‘just let it be’.
Okay, Terry, now that alsojsr has fallen into the trap (oh, those red state cretins!) let's turn it around: what bars to marriage, if any, would you make in your perfect world?
I love how people make the slipperly slope argument that gay marriage will lead to people marrying their goat.
Rediculous.
BUT, the slipperly slope argument in the other direction is NOT rediculous. First they ban gay marriage, and pretty soon they'll be putting gays in concentration camps and killing them.
After all - that slipperly slope argument HAS happened. And the favorite researcher of the Christian right, Paul Cameron, has publicly called for the execution of gay people. As does the Bible I might add. And we all know that fundamentalists believe the Bible word for word.
I have been reading and it is both enlightening and disheartening.
Bottom line.
I was born gay. You may disagree but I can ask, "at what point did you decide to be heterosexual"? Exactly. There was not a point I decided to be gay... always have been, always will be.
Why should that preclude me from the benefits that adulterous heterosexuals get for a 25.00 marriage certificate?
That is what I thought.
I have been reading and it is both enlightening and disheartening.
Bottom line.
I was born gay. You may disagree but I can ask, "at what point did you decide to be heterosexual"? Exactly. There was not a point I decided to be gay... always have been, always will be.
Why should that preclude me from the benefits that adulterous heterosexuals get for a 25.00 marriage certificate?
That is what I thought.
Patca - Well, I would start by asking, to what extent does marriage relate to the interests of the government?
The traditional answer to this question has been that the state has interests in monogamous relationships, and creating stable environments in which to raise children. Same-sex marriages can accomplish both of those goals. Marrying goats can not. Conservatives attempt to draw an analogy to bestiality because far more people find bestiality repugnant than homosexuality.
Its worth noting that until relatively recently, very few people got officially married. My grandparents, for example, were my first descendants (at least in the U.S.) to get married in an actual church with all of the ceremony that entails. Common law marriage was far more prevalent, because few people other than the middle class (which used to be far smaller than it is now) and the wealthy could afford to get married. Formal marriage arose in large part to establish a way to pass property rights along from one person to another. Since so few people had property, there was no reason for them to go through an expensive, elaborate ceremony. Common law marriage was seen as every bit the equal of church marriage in this country until the church LOBBIED the state legislatures to require an actual marriage in order to be legitimate in the eyes of the state, so that the churches could collect more fees. True story.
Balfegor,
I'm curious. Do you believe there is a constitutional right for heterosexuals to marry and procreate?
I do not think there is a Constitutional right to marriage, standing alone. I tried to be careful above in arguing that in Loving, it was a right to equal treatment on the basis of race which was then implicated in the marriage law itself. And I think this largely because I see a yawning disconnect between "marriage" as a legal concept, and the substance of "marriage" as I understand it. When "marriage" becomes a trick of definitions, I think it's hard to maintain that there's a Constitutional right to this "marriage" thing.
On the other hand, I think there must surely be a right to procreation -- if there is any unenumerated right, that right must be among them. Do I have a Constitutional provision for that? No. I think it's just a fundamental human right. In some sense, the quote from Griswold below explains why I think that -- it precedes the law, in some sense. It's like a natural-law unalienable right.
And - do you believe that there is a constituional right for those married couples to engage in sexual activity, even if it is not procreative?
Yes. If we look at Griswold the majority opinion actually finishes up by saying:
We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights - older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.
Now, I think there may be disagreement on what people think that "purpose" is -- I obviously think it is procreation, and the perpetuation of a family and family culture (and ultimately, the culture of the civilisation) through the union and through the offspring of the union. Others can say it is happiness or personal fulfillment. In either case, although I do not really agree with a "zone of privacy" logic, I think the underlying concept is sound -- that there is a union and a relation here that the state has no right to intrude upon.
Now, I happen to think this is so because I think the right to procreate (if you can find a willing partner) is fundamental, unalienable, and all that, so there is a kind of zone of privacy surrounding the procreative relation, even extending to the aspects of that relationship that are not procreative. This also includes contraceptives, of course, as in Griswold. It also includes child-rearing, say, and preserving the privacy of a couple's private conversations right along with their pillow-talk.
I mean, this is a very fuzzy boundary I'm drawing here, because there are many procreative relationships in which there is no real closeness -- the father abandons the mother and the children, say. Or a man and a woman just habitually sleep around, and the woman happens to get pregnant.
But on some level, I think there is something protectible there, because "Family" is something that exists before the reality of law -- here in the US, especially, I think most of us must be conscious that our families had endured long before the ancestors of the Revolutionaries even set foot on the American continent, and even longer before there was any American law or legal tradition to set down that in this particular land this would be a true marriage, and these would be the relations between parent and child, and so on and so forth. Many of us may even know that history, stretching back through the Middle Ages of the West. So the notion that some Johnny-come-lately law could interfere too deeply in that ancient thing strikes me as peculiar -- on what grounds can it have got such a right over all of us?
But in any event -- to sum up: Yes, there is a right to procreation, no, no right to marriage, Yes, a right to nonprocreative sex within marriage, and yes a right to contraceptives.
It's funny, because lesbians procreate all the time, via artificial insemination.
Why are these conservatives so willing to HURT THE CHILDREN of these marriages, by preventing their parents from getting married.
The conseratives don't give a crap about the children. They only care about making life hellish for gay people.
Balfegor:
You attempt to distinguish the equal-protection analysis of Loving v. Virginia by relying on procreation as your rational basis for discrimination against same-sex couples. This is unconvincing for several reasons, which I will summarize by offering you Exhibit A, fresh from her Supreme Court appearance - Anna Nicole Smith.
You attempt to distinguish the equal-protection analysis of Loving v. Virginia by relying on procreation as your rational basis for discrimination against same-sex couples. This is unconvincing for several reasons, which I will summarize by offering you Exhibit A, fresh from her Supreme Court appearance - Anna Nicole Smith.
And I respond: "There is no narrow-tailoring requirement under rational basis scrutiny."
LOL.
This is unconvincing for several reasons, which I will summarize by offering you Exhibit A, fresh from her Supreme Court appearance - Anna Nicole Smith.
That is truly a good one. However... don't forget Brittney and her marriage affirming 48 hour union to ... what was his name? Yes we must protect these heterosexual marriages from the 10, 20 ,30, 50 or more year commitments of "some" gay people. hmmm....
Still have to say.. as a gay man, I can assure you I was born this way. If I could take a pill or snap my fingers and be "normal" I would. It would be much easier to "if you can't fight 'em, join 'em."
However, I can't. Why? I WAS BORN THIS WAY. and for that i must fight my way through the only life I was given?
Thanks. You really do make me want to join your loving, jesus fearing, do unto others, moral majority, I am perfect, I must help you out of your misery, I can't be bothered by equality, cause.
It may not be in my life but eventually there will be a consensus of god-fearing, and moral folks who realize that hatred has NO place in any society.
"HELENA - The gay and lesbian partners of Montana university system employees could be offered health insurance benefits as soon as April, members of the state Board of Regents said at their meeting Thursday.
The Montana Supreme Court ruled in December that the university system's current health insurance policy, which allows unmarried heterosexual couples to receive benefits, violates the equal protection clause of the state constitution since it doesn't afford gays and lesbians the same benefits.
Cathy Swift, attorney for the office of the commissioner of higher education, will develop health insurance policy options for the regents to consider at their March meeting.
"I hope the people of this state don't think we're going to decide the issue of same-sex marriage and civil unions," regents' Chairman John Mercer of Polson said Thursday morning. "But I think we want people whoever they are to have insurance, especially if they're willing to pay for it."
While the university system pays for the full cost of its employees' insurance, employees must fully pay for coverage of spouses and dependents.
Commissioner of Higher Education Sheila Stearns said it's more likely that the university system will open its policy to include gays and lesbians, rather than restrict it to heterosexuals who are legally married. A constitutional ban on gay marriage in Montana, as well as a state "Defense of Marriage Act," prevent gays and lesbians from marrying here."
***
It seems to me the common sense application of the second sentence of the amendment to insurance is that suggested by Montana:
1. If you only insure married couples, you can't make an exception to also ensure same-sex couples because they are similar to married couples.
2. On the other hand, if you insure unmarried heterosexual couples, you cannot refuse to provide insurance to umarried same sex couples.
Make sense? Such a rule would apply to government employers. I am less sure of its applicability to a private employer (is sexual preference a prohibited discrimination like race or sex?).
Terry,
I'm asking you, as you are the one who has come before this forum asking for relief! :)
Could I marry my sister, two men, or three of my best friends, or my 17-year-old but very mature neighbor? Could religions who believe in polygamy be able to legally marry multiple wives? How about multiple husbands. I'm asking where the line should be drawn, and why.
Could I marry my sister, two men, or three of my best friends, or my 17-year-old but very mature neighbor? Could religions who believe in polygamy be able to legally marry multiple wives? How about multiple husbands. I'm asking where the line should be drawn, and why.
PatCA: Why do we have to prove where a line should be drawn? I see where you are going with this, but you are being extreme. We are talking about two people that are in love and wish to share the rest of their lives together. Isn’t that what you want or have right now? That is all we’re asking for. You equating giving us our right to marry with being able to marry a sibling/teenager/multiple partners is insulting. That should be a separate issue that we all can discuss. And, when it’s raised on a ballot I’m sure it will be.
esk,
I don't think that it's too extreme to ask for a definition of the "line" because what you are arguing is essentially private behavior with no effect on others isn't just private.
Polygamy proponents have already filed suit asking for legalization. I think when one man, for instance, has five wives, that's four other men who don't get one. In communities in the US who practice polygamy, often the husbands beat up and expel the "extra" men. The rural ME and other areas where polygamy is practiced also have lots of extra men, also causing problems. So, I will go out on a limb and state polygamy is not good public policy for a stable liberal capitalist democracy.
Could I marry my best friend? It would sure be cheaper to get health insurance. What would that do to the bottom line of insurance companies, and would it be fair to someone who chooses to be honest and not marry just a friend? And incest over several generations does cause an increase in birth defects--just google consanguinity and birth defects.
So, I think it would be a huge societal change if all barriers to marriage were removed.
Anyways, we're not going to solve it all tonight. Nite all.
Doris said...
John(classic),
Before you go all q.e.d. on us, check out the Montana amendment. Then check out the Wisconsin amendment. Notice the huge difference?
Why does this difference change the result? It would seem to me it would just reinforce it.
If insurance is provided for "married" couples, same sex couples would be excluded. If insurance is provided for umarried heterosexual partners, it would have to be provided for unmarried same sex couples.
What am I missing?
"Why do you think they cannot consent to having sex with humans in the same way they consent to having sex with eachother?"
If I were a sheep knowing what I know about what happens to them, I'd much rather have some human or humans have sex with me on a regular basis than be hit in the head with a pneumatic hammer, be hung upside down and have my throat slit. I'm not sure that all sheep would make that choice, but I given those options, yeah bring on the lonely shepherds.
Lawyapalooza, for the record I am absolutely in favor of state sanctioned same sex marriage and think opponents are not-so-benignly misguided at best and dirty-minded little bigots at worst.
The US is clearly behind the curve on this one and needs to catch up with the civilized world.
My post was on the question of animals and consent, OT but sort of interesting in a sordid way.
I just wanted to go on the record by saying that I love Lawyapalooza and her arguments...
Do you need a summer intern?
Lawyapalooza:
Thank you for bringing this discussion back from "Animal Planet" and reminding everyone of what is actually at stake here.
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