In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as gay marriage advocates insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement -- the number restriction (two and only two) -- is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice...If Krauthammer has been writing about this subject for 10 years, it boggles the mind that the obvious distinction has not yet dawned on him.
To simplify the logic, take out the complicating factor of gender mixing. Posit a union of, say, three gay women all deeply devoted to each other. On what grounds would gay activists dismiss their union as mere activity rather than authentic love and self-expression? On what grounds do they insist upon the traditional, arbitrary and exclusionary number of two?
Legal marriage isn't just about love, it's an economic arrangement. Having the state authorize your union is not the same thing as having your friends and neighbors approve of you and your religious leaders bless you. It affects taxes and employee benefits -- huge amounts of money. A gay person with a pension and a health insurance plan is incapable of extending those benefits to his (or her) partner. He (or she) can't file a joint tax return. That's not fair. A polygamous marriage, however, puts a group of persons in a position to claim more economic benefits than the traditional heterosexual couple. That doesn't appeal to our sense of fairness.
The law doesn't assess how much two people love each other. Two persons of opposite sexes can marry for all sorts of reasons. If there were a device that could look into their souls and measure their love, we wouldn't accept the outrageous invasion of privacy it would take for the government to use it. Excluding gay couples from marrying does generate the complaint that society does not sufficiently respect homosexual love, and by harping on this point, proponents of gay marriage activate their opponents who think that's a good thing.
But it's not all about love and who respects what. It's also about economics. And in that dimension, it's easy to distinguish polygamy.
UPDATE: This one has a lot of comments! And then there are the other bloggers writing about it. Eugene Volokh is disagreeing with me, but only because he's misreading me, and if he's misreading me, I've got to expect that misreading is rampant. I've tried to keep the commenters here focused on what I'm actually saying, but I can't rein in everyone who's talking about me. There are 98 comments right now on the Volokh post, and I'm probably not going to read many of them. But let me just say why I think Volokh has misread me. He seems takes that last clause "it's easy to distinguish polygamy" to mean what it literally says ripped out of its context. But I'm not saying that the distinction is so obvious that everyone will accept it. I'm just refuting Krauthammer, who thinks there is no way to stop the slip down the slope from gay marriage to polygamy. I'm against the scare tactic that is being widely used: don't accept gay marriage or nothing will stave off polygamy. All I'm saying is that there is a principled basis for drawing a line between the two. Nothing compels us to choose that line, however. I freely admit that.
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184 comments:
Re: "Legal marriage isn't just about love, it's an economic arrangement."
I beg to differ. A fundamental problem in discussing the expnsion of marriage beyond the traditional norm does in fact turn on these definitional problems.
We all end up playing the blind-men-describing-the-elephant game, or else we simply see marriage differently. Hence the rancor.
Many people, myself included, see marriage as the final result of tens of thousands of years of social evolution, which found that the most successful way to raise children was by a mother and father. This arrangement civilizes men and keeps them bound to one spouse, reducing the deleterious effects of one man controlling many women, thus limiting the social and reproductive prospects of other males, who will likely find something else to do (something not very nice). Women benefit by a stable social unit to raise a child.
The basis for this view is this: society needs children to further its own existence, and heterosexual marriage is the best way to do this. Changing the definition threatens to undermine the successful reproduction and rearing of children. Indeed, the decline of marriage itself has been accompanied by a decline in fecundity across the EU, threatening its very existence.
That's one argument; and the stakes are not small. That this arrangement is also a superior economic grouping is a necessary but not sufficient step in defining its value to society as a whole. Economic benefits could just as easily be conferred by another legal mechanism. And love? Again, necessary, but not sufficient to define marriage.
There is little guarantee that, should gay marriage become law, others would retain the economic definition you propose for very long. Very soon, many other arrangements would be demanded. Such is occurring in Canada. A slippery slope argument? To be sure.
Pogo: My post is about why polygamy is different from gay marriage. Even if everything you say is accepted for the purpose of argument, my point still stands. Groups of 2 are different from groups of more than two when we think about what is fair. That's my point. Address that.
I agree that there are issues about children that aren't addressed here by me -- or Krauthammer.
Pogo said: "Changing the definition threatens to undermine the successful reproduction and rearing of children."
-I disagree. If that were the currently understood purpose of marriage, we would need to either (or both): 1) require fertility tests prior to marriage, 2) institute policies that punish single parenting. In other words, many married people do not beget, or raise, children. In addition, many non-married people do reproduce. I don't believe that our present society discourages either of these decisions through any government policy. Perhaps we did so generations (or 'tens of thousands of years') ago, but as they say, things change.
I think that you unsuccessfully try to sidestep Krauthammer's point with the economic benefits of marriage. But why should they be any different for three, four, etc. people? I think that you can make very similar arguments about the advantages of a three member marriage as to a two member marriage - that there are economic advantages to being considered married.
I should add that until recently, marriage would have been an economic disadvantage as far as taxes are concerened for childless gay partners. Why? The marriage penalty. The federal income tax was set up such that the norm was either a married couple with one major earner, or single people. Married couples earning comparable amounts would pay more than if they were single. The married filing separate rate was the tax rate for a doubled joint income. Thus, it was designed to be a wash if a couple earning comparable incomes filed together or separate. The result was that at a given income level, filing married was the lowest rate, followed by Head of Household, single, and, finally, highest, married filing separate.
But getting back to your suggestion, what about a man who has kids with multiple women? Why should one of the women get everything, benefitting the kids of one of the women, at the expense of the others? After all, they are all his kids. Why should some of his kids be covered by his health insurance, and not the rest? Indeed, phrased like this, I think an argument could be made that covering all of a man's kids with his health insurance is more important, societally, than covering another man's domestic partner. After all, the domestic partner (or homosexual spouse) can presumably get a job of his own with its own health benefits, while the kids cannot.
Finally, polygamy has a long established history, while homosexual marriage does not. Indeed, one of the major religions of the world still allows 4 wives, and the Bible is full of references to polygamous marriages. Indeed, we are already faced with the problem of what to do when a Moslem family with multiple wives moves here, where the plural marriage was legal and sanctioned where they came from.
Regarding the issue of fairness: why do we conclude that couple are somehow "fair" while polygamous arrangements are not?
When only two are in a relationship, it's easy for an outsider to conclude that those two are equals. It's unnerving (to me, at least) to think of a relationship in which one side totally dominates the other. With a couple, I don't have to entertain that uncomfortable notion.
With polygamy, however, I am forced to conclude that one of the parties is unequal to the others. I have never seen or been party to a 3-way relationship that isn't at some point 2 vs. 1. That makes me uncomfortable, as it's not fair.
Ann,
Your insistence that marriage be restricted to two people is just as arbitrary as the distinction that it be between a man and a woman. (note: I oppose gay marriage)
First of all, there are worldwide, historical examples of polygamy (see Justice Bader-Ginsburg's remarks on international law) to justify it's legitemacy.
Legal marriage isn't just about love, it's an economic arrangement. Having the state authorize your union is not the same thing has having your friends and neighbors approve of you and your religious leaders bless you. It affects taxes and employee benefits -- huge amounts of money. A gay person with a pension and a health insurance plan is incapable of extending those benefits to his (or her) partner. He (or she) can't file a joint tax return. That's not fair. A polygamous marriage, however, puts a group of persons in a position to claim more economic benefits than the traditional heterosexual couple. That doesn't appeal to our sense of fairness.
First, the economic argument to support gay marriage was a red herring. Most of us who oppose gay marriage support a form of gay union to answer economic discrimination.
Secondly, the number of dependents in a family (be they children or spouses) has no determing factor in the economic definition of family. A man with sixteen children and one wife is no different than a man with twelve children and five wives economically.
Lastly, one only has to observe Canada and Scandanavia to see that the threat of polygamy is not just a slippery slope argument, but an accurate prediction of the consequences of legal gay marriages.
Ann:
Gays use the benefits and insurance issue only to try to get their foot in the door of the marriage chapel.
If it were only about equity for benefits, the gays and the libs would have been protesting for the single individual (gay or staraight) who really gets screwed if he dies before 62 and all his lifetime's social security "contributions" are left to no one but the government.
My point is if it were only about benefits, the libs and pols could fix that. AND it would be a fix for both single gays and single straights. And no need for mariage rights. And I don't know why the libs have not tried this tactic as a form of incremental progress to marriage goal.
Lastly, the way things are headed, employers will throw up their hands and simply grant every employee a fixed pot of gold (Say $400 per month) for fringe benefits (had to squeeze St. Patrick's Day reference in) and each employee can go spend the pot of gold however they like including helping to pay for gay partners.
That's what I will enact when I am emperor! So watch out.
Bruce: "Indeed, we are already faced with the problem of what to do when a Moslem family with multiple wives moves here, where the plural marriage was legal and sanctioned where they came from.
Well, we're also faced with the question of how to handle same sex marriages that are presently legal in other countries, and we have no problem refusing to recognize such marriages.
Dave, you completely missed Pogo's point.
Pogo wrote: Many people, myself included, see marriage as the final result of tens of thousands of years of social evolution, which found that the most successful way to raise children was by a mother and father. [emphasis changed by me]
Pogo did not say there couldn't be other arrangements for raising or producing children, he was pointing out what he feels to be the best method for raising them, the best method for creating a society committed to raising children well.
And while Pogo did miss the point about the fecundity of European women, so did you, even after you pointed it out! Europe may face problems with bad governance, but so have almost all countries at any point in history. Europe (and Japan) are facing a demographic crisis brought on by decades of declining birthrates. It may be coupled to crippling economic regulation, but even if they adopted more 'American' rules for the conduct of business, they still face a rapidly aging population that will be increasingly starved for entry level workers. And Brussells can't do shit about that.
Finally, I must address by far the most fatuous comment so far in this thread: What matters is that kids are raised by people who love them....
Wrong, wrong, WRONG! Parents that love their children but are completely incompetent as parents or spouses are no damn good as parents. How many divorced couples love their children, but said children end up being something else to fight about? How many parents are out there that love their children but are substance abusers? How many parents are out there that love their children but have no damn clue what they're doing? Love may or may not be necessary to raising a child well, but it sure as hell isn't sufficient.
MadisonMan
In a lot of marriages, there isn't equality. One runs the family, and the other takes orders. Traditionally, the man was king, though I think now that in many marriages, it is the woman who is now the boss.
There was a special on polygamy on TV last week, and one of the female proponents of it told of some of the advantages - for example, if she wanted to go out bowling one night, she didn't have to worry about the family or her husband. Rather, the other wives would cover for her, as she would for them.
I would suggest that the typical homosexual relationship is more evenly balanced than the typical heterosexual one simply because in the former, they don't have to deal with the traditional male/female role models, etc.
AJS
Which is fine when both are illegal, but right now in the world, there are a lot more people in plural marriages than in homosexual ones, yet the suggestion here is essentially that homosexual marriages can be justified at the exclusion of plural marriages.
Remember, this isn't a discussion (yet) of whether or not there should be homosexual marriages, but rather how they can be justified at the expense of plural ones.
As you can see, my impeccable logic PROVES that "if you’re against polygamy, you should be in favor of gay marriage."
It's also about economics. And in that dimension, it's easy to distinguish polygamy.
I don't see how. I mean, superficially, yes, the polygamists are potentially going to be distributing health benefits to more people. But it's the same way if you work someplace that gives you health benefits, and you have ten children (generally covered under employer health plans, I understand, although this is apparently changing) vs. a single man or woman who has none and no wife or husband either.
On the bottom line, economically, requiring employers to extend new health coverage to partners in homosexual relationships imposes new burdens on them. And extending the benefits to polygamous couples does the same.
Am I missing something? I don't find this economic argument persuasive at all.
Particularly when it's not the ground homosexual activists have chosen to make their argument on. Krauthammer is extending their argument, not trying to come up with independent justifications. And his entire point is that under the argument they have propounded, there is no meaningful grounds (other than, I suppose, mere animus against polygamists, which we have in spades) for excluding polygamous relationships from legal recognition.
Some opponents of gay marriage have pointed to the economic effects of a new, potentially large class of benefit claimants if gay marriage were allowed. A general discussion of the economic issues in allowing gay marriages (without a position being taken pro or con) is at http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/07/the_law_and_eco.html.
Second, while there certainly might be economic repercussions to a change in marriage law to allow polygamy, I find it hard to believe that the general idea of two-person marriage, when it originated at least, had much to do with the economic dangers of polygamy--else it is hard to see why so many cultures evolved with polygamy.
Third, whatever large economic issues that might arise in allowing polygamous marriage are not that hard to deal with at the time such marriages are authorized. (This assumes authorization comes from legislative action; if from the courts, god help us.) For example, social security benefits could, as now, transfer to the survivor in the marriage, in the same amount regardless of number of survivors, to be shared by however many spouses there are (rationale: that's all the money that was coming in when the deceased spouse was alive; no need to increase it based on number of survivors when he dies). Etc.
Finally, there are of course differences between two-person marriages and multi-person marriages, economic and otherwise. No question. But Krauthammer's point is that the form of argument that supports gay marriage also supports multi-person marriage. I just don't think it's an answer to say that there are some differences between the two. These are not differences that go to the rationale of the argument, which is based on notions of fairness, equality of treatment, the dignity to be given to personal preferences, etc. These are the rationales for gay marriage, and they are applicable, for better or worse, to polygamy as well.
Gahrie: "First, the economic argument to support gay marriage was a red herring. Most of us who oppose gay marriage support a form of gay union to answer economic discrimination."
It's not a red herring in the context of my post! (And it's not a red herring in the context of the current, proposed constitutional amendment in Wisconsin which outlaws these alternatives.)
"Your insistence that marriage be restricted to two people is just as arbitrary as the distinction that it be between a man and a woman."
First, neither distinction is arbitrary. Both draw clear lines in obvious places. I'm just saying why you can move the line to one place without being logically bound to move the line to the second place. Please address the argument I am making. Don't wheel out stock material. I've made a specific and precise point about a specific and precise problem, and I would appreciate it if people would take care to understand exactly what I'm saying and not make this another generic discussion of gay marriage.
The subject is the use of polygamy to scare us away from accepting gay marriage.
If marriage rights are to be decided by the people, then we should not concern ourselves with Polygamy vs Homosexual marraige. The legislature will pass what ever law society wants. Legislatures can freely decide that gay marriage is good and polygamy is bad..
However, if the Courts take it upon themselves to discover that gays have a right under the Constitution to marry under existing statute, then there is no rational reason to deny polygamists the right to marry as well.
Perhaps Justice Ginsberg will cite foriegn law and say that because polygamy is acceptable in foreign lands, it should be acceptable here.
AJ Lynch: "If it were only about equity for benefits, the gays and the libs would have been protesting for the single individual (gay or staraight) who really gets screwed if he dies before 62 and all his lifetime's social security "contributions" are left to no one but the government. "
He's dead! How much more screwed can he be?
The social security plan has always been based on the prediction that many would die without collecting benefits. Originally, the plan was that most would die. That's why it's underfunded. It's a provision for old age. If you don't enter the state of old age, you don't need the provision. You might just as well complain about paying for health insurance but then not needing any expensive medical care.
In a lot of marriages, there isn't equality. One runs the family, and the other takes orders. Traditionally, the man was king, though I think now that in many marriages, it is the woman who is now the boss.
Well, in my own experiences I have seen very few instances of one person making the orders and the other following. Even in the few marriages I know in which the man is the sole breadwinner, no one is issuing orders. At least, not in public, I won't speculate on what happens away from the public eye. And I do think many people feel this way: if a marriage is working, then there is equality and no one is running roughshod. That's a comfortable thing to think. And I maintain it's harder to assume equality from multiple partners.
As far as the bowling polygamist -- when I leave the house for the night on some errand, I don't have to worry about my wife/kids/house collapsing into an unordered heap. Similarly, if my wife leaves, she doesn't have to worry. I suspect this is true in many many relationships. It amazes me that the wife thinks her husband is so inept. Are these people not adults? I suppose a story involving functioning adults wouldn't be quite so entertaining for a TV journalist.
Sippican seems to be channeling Zulema (of "Project Runway").
I think that what Ann is trying to do is to argue against the slippery slope argument being made against homosexual marriage on economic grounds.
I, for one, though remain unconvinced that that argument has been made. So far, I see the economic arguments posited in favor of gay marriage as being easily expanded to include plural marriages.
There is an economic argument to polygamy as well. If the head of household wants more children and his first wife is too old, the younger potential mother would be at an economic disadvantage because she would not have the contractual rights of marriage protecting her in her agreement to have a child with the head of household. At the same time the head of household is bound to the older wife. Thus, either the younger wife takes the risk of not having rights, or the head of household divorces the older wife...or the younger wife decides not to have children. Polygamy would solve this problem (which is why Polygamy exists in other societies).
I don't support polygamy, but you can make an economic argument for it.
For most gay couples, Social Security is not an issue (whereas as it really may be for plural wives). That is because, in most cases, they would collect more on their own, from their own "account", than from their spouse's account.
I would suggest that if you are going to make this sort of economic argument, it would be better to concentrate on employee benefits, inheritance, and other legal next-of-kin issues, where gays do stand to benefit.
Bruce: "I think that what Ann is trying to do is to argue against the slippery slope argument being made against homosexual marriage on economic grounds"
I don't like the way you've put that. I'm saying that the economic distinction is a reason to reject the argument that if homosexual marriage is accepted, logic compels the acceptance of polygamous marriage. The point is that an appeal to economic fairness supports gay marriage in a way that it doesn't support polygamous marriage.
To address the economic argument that you made, Ann ....
You are both wrong and right.
Obviously there are multiple partner arrangements where A has a relationship with B and a relationship with C AND B and C have a separate relationship with each other.
However, the majority (in my opinion) of polygamous relationships A has a relationship with B and a relationship with C and a relationship with D and a relationship with E. The marriage relationship doesn't exist between B, C, D & E. Each individually has a marriage relationship only with A.
Therefore, you would be correct to say that A would be unfair to demand the economic benefits for multiple partners. B, C, D & E, however, would only demanding those benefits for one partner - the same as heterosexual couples do.
I do think that this is a valuable discussion. I, for one, am more strongly opposed to plural marriages than I am to homosexual ones. Why? Because plural marriages, as we see them now in our country, are not a pretty sight. In the polygamous culture on the UT/AZ border, we see an extreme patriarchal society where 14 year old girls are pushed into plural marriages with their uncles. At least to me, this is a lot scarier than having long term gay couples I know legally marry. While I don't agree with the later, it is a mild disagreement, as opposed to a real fear of the former.
The subject is the use of polygamy to scare us away from accepting gay marriage.
Oddly enough, contra Bruce Hayden, I feel rather more comfortable with extending recognition to concubines and polygamous marriage than with homosexual marriage. Polygamous marriage has a long and quite successful tradition behind it, and is a living, ongoing cultural practice, and one people are going to engage in no matter what silly laws tell them they can and cannot do. Polygamy also makes perfect sense in the context of my view of what marriage is about, while homosexual marriage looks like it misses the point entirely.
Now, as a practical matter, it's true that many people think polygamy is more repugnant than homosexuality. And as a slightly different practical matter, polygamy is a viable, self-sustaining rival social order, while gay marriage is not. So polygamy is rather more of a threat to current mores than gay marriage -- gay marriage is unlikely ever to be more than a marginal presence in peoples' lives partly because there are so few gay people, and partly because heteronormativity is reinforced in every generation when children go through sex-ed and learn (wonder of wonders!) that a child is formed when a sperm of the male and an ovum of the female join together in the female womb and develop into a baby. But I digress. Anyhow, it's clear that, as you suggest, people dislike polygamy more than homosexuality, and will be less eager to support homosexual marriage if they think they're getting tricked into supporting polygamous marriage at the same time. Whatever the reason.
But that's almost certainly a problem only if we're required to be "fair" about how we issue marriage licenses, under the Constitution or a state constitution. In general, once out of the scope of the equal protection clause and due process and whatnot, I'm pretty sure state legislatures can impose whatever restrictions they want on marriage, and continue the ban on bigamy if they want.
That is, if it's a legislative proposal, the way I think it ought to be, I don't think it entails anything at all with regard to polygamy -- polygamy is not a suspect classification, and the legislature is not obligated to be 100% logical and fair about how it treats polygamists. It's only if it's a constitutional argument (state or federal) that the slippery slope really applies, since there, we may find ourselves bound by whatever particular reasoning is used to justify judicial institution of gay marriage.
Ann,
I am probably not the first one to try to rephrase a debate to my advantage. And, I agree that the economic fairness argument may be stronger for homosexual than for plural marriages.
Nevertheless, when you open up the debate to economic arguuments, you can't ignore those for plural marriages. Of particular note, what is central to plural marriages are children, and, thus, where the welfare of children is often of lesser importance with gay couples, it is absolutely central to that of plural marriages - because that is why they exist.
So, if you argue that it would be more fair if gay partners were able to get health benefits from their partner's work, I would suggest that it is even more important, from a societal point of view, for the kids of all a man's wives get those benefits. After all, the vast majority of gays are gainfully employed. Most kids are not, for obvious reasons.
I think that SippicanCottage alludes to an important point. The reason that we are even debating this is because homosexual marriage is being implemented through the court system, instead of the legislature. While that has some short term benefit, it opens up the way for polygamists to piggyback into legitimacy through slightly expanding the case law developed in favor of gay marriage. To repeat, the apparent slippery slope is almost entirely a result of implementing gay marriage through the court system instead of the legislature.
Sippican: Zulema was a contestant who got to the shared apartment's closet first and lined up many pairs of shoes on the only shelf. When the other woman suggested that out of fairness she ought make a double row and thus take only half of the shelf, Zulema's response was "I don't believe in fairness." My point: the real adults of this world think fairness is an important principle. Those who scoff at it are jerks.
I may be overreacting to polygamy. I mentioned the cult on the UT/AZ border. But that wasn't the norm in Utah before it became illegal (and apostasy to the LDS Church there). And I don't think that it is the norm throughout the rest of the world where it is practiced. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as it appears.
More directly re: the professor's argument:
It affects taxes and employee benefits -- huge amounts of money.
Gay activists often complain -- why do people care whether gays get married or not? What's it going to do to their marriage? This seems as good an answer as any. Huge amounts of money are involved -- and the more people claiming benefits (e.g. from your employer) the less there's going to be for you. So I don't think this necessarily cuts in favour of gay marriage. And I've heard gay marriage opponents (elsewhere online) indicate that this is, in fact, a major element of why they care about gay marriage -- they'll have to pay for it, and they'd rather not.
A gay person with a pension and a health insurance plan is incapable of extending those benefits to his (or her) partner. He (or she) can't file a joint tax return. That's not fair.
These are all true of other relationships too -- I cannot extend benefit to my good friend, say, even if she's dying of cancer. What makes it "not fair?" Ultimately, that determination of fair/not-fair must be relying on our understanding that two unrelated men or two unrelated women constitute a family, coequal with a marriage man and woman. That's not a place I think economic arguments can take you.
You need to rely on understandings of what "family" constitute, reduce family to the requisite love and affection (i.e. strip out childbearing and any penumbra of coverage it may happen to cast), and then analogise the loves involved, so that gay and lesbian love is equal to hetero love => it is unfair for hetero love commitment ceremonies to trigger benefits that homosexual love commitment ceremonies to not.
How would an economic argument get you to "not fair" without resting on deeper assumptions about affection and the substance of marriage?
A polygamous marriage, however, puts a group of persons in a position to claim more economic benefits than the traditional heterosexual couple.
Is that really the problem? I mean, per-capita, they don't claim more benefits, any more than my 10-child family, above, would. It's not like they're going to get money and benefits and then enjoy a higher standard of living than heterosexual families.
That doesn't appeal to our sense of fairness.
I think it really depends on what we consider "fair." I think polygamy has just as much claim on our sense of fairness. We can think of the children, for example.
Ann, can you craft a legal argument that would allow gay marriage but not polygamy? I'm not really concerned with the differing economic natures as I think they can be hammered out. Social Security could be limited to a primary beneficiary for instance.
In fact the economic benefits for polygamy could be huge. Think of a situation with two husbands and four wives. Could create lots of children but probably only one parent would need stay home with the kids. That's five adult salaries coming into the home instead of two and childcare.
If you really want to draw a line between the two, you have to wrestle with the logic of pogo's post. Western Civ has had one man/one woman marriage as one of it's bedrock foundations for quite some time. We've drifted from that for the last fifty years or so and the results haven't been pretty. The divorce culture and the idea of free love have had a huge effect on children.
There is an argument that bringing gay couples into marriage will have a stablizing effect on society as a whole. That's a much stronger argument than any economic one.
"...This overall debate on gay marriage is about freedoms to pursue your individual preferences..."
Mary, you are totally wrong. The gay marraige debate is about whether society should accept gay marriage. It has nothing to do with individual freedom. Gays have every right to co-haibtate and do everything married couples do. However gays do not have the social acceptance of their co-habitation. Gays want society to accept their marriage as equal to heterosexual marraige, with all the social benefits and taboos that accrued to marriage. If they did not care about social acceptance of this tradition, it would not be an issue.
I don't think anyone here opposes fairness. After all, its pursuit freed our slaves and gave women the vote.
But one of the things that distinguishes children from adults is an awareness that life isn't fair. Some are brought into this world rich and healthy, and others, poor and disabled. We, as a society, can do something about this, but can't alleviate it all, because if we did, we would give up many other things, notably our financial success as a nation.
Besides, fairness isn't the only virtue that we should practice. Compassion, esp. to those unable to take care of themselves, such as the kids of polygamous marriages, is of no lesser (IMHO) value. Indeed, I think a better moral case can be made for covering all the kids of a polygamist with his employee health care benefits than for covering a homosexual partner who most often can take care of himself.
Re children: economic benefits toward one's children do not depend on marriage, do they? They certainly don't need to. What are people talking about here?!
Re polygamous marriages to underaged girls: prosecute people for statutory rape. You don't need to reject polygamous marriages to prevent this. In fact, people are currently committing this kind of abuse. Maybe by making polygamists outlaws, you encourage them to do other illegal things and to be thoroughly alienated from our social norms. If they were included more, we could keep track of the real wrongs -- things that hurt children.
Note that there is an important distinction between opening legal marriage to polygamous unions and making it a crime to have a polygamous arrangement. I'd favor decriminalizing polygamy but not giving it the official legal status of marriage. This would be like the gay marriages that many people currently have. They can be open about saying they are married, have a ceremony, etc. But they don't qualify for any of the legal benefits of marriage.
"If the amendment passes in Wisconsin, I have no doubt the second sentence will fall in a court of law as too overreaching."
Since when can any court overide a constitution?
This is where Roe v. Wade has gotten us.
People believe if a court doesn't like the way a constitution works they can just make it up as they go along.
Balfegor: I feel rather more comfortable with extending recognition to concubines and polygamous marriage than with homosexual marriage
We already extend the privileges of marriage to concubines, but first the current wife has to lose the privileges of marriage.
Pogo and others would have us forget that a fundamental change has already happened to the "final result of tens of thousands of years of social evolution." Namely widespread divorce. "Traditional" marriage may rest upon the idea of one man and one woman, but it also rested upon the idea that this was a lifelong arrangement.
While the economic benefits of marriage appeal to same-sex partners, there are other tangible benefits of marriage that I believe hold even greater importance. That is, the right of one spouse to speak for another, as may be needed in medical emergencies or at the end of life.
Currently, a dying partner's family (which may have been antagonistic to his/her partner) would have more standing to make end of life decisions than his/her life partner. This is wrong, and it needs a remedy. The second line in the Wisconsin amendment prohibits such a remedy.
Furthermore, this ability to make decisions for ones spouse is something that would be hard to transfer to poly marriages. When a person (in a poly marriage) is no longer able to make decisions about medical care, to which of his/her spouses should the doctors listen?
Additionally, marriage makes it simple to transfer property after the death of one partner, even without a will. This would be complicated in the case of poly marriages.
re: children,
just Googling children, divorce, and employer health coverage, I come up with this link. If I look down at Spousal continuation, where it lists the divorced spouse and children as eligible to continue receiving health coverage, it actually looks like polygamists who practice serial marriage and divorce can get all their wives and children covered already. At least in Illinois. On about 2 minutes of research. Someone more knowledgeable than I about this area of law -- please feel free to correct me if I'm misreading that. Or if that "com" address means it's just some scam site.
But if that's right -- and it doesn't seem implausible -- it may be the case that allowing polygamy doesn't even add significantly to the private bottom line. The huge amounts of money are already in motion. Polygamy may have ramifications for inheritance and the like. But health care and the like -- maybe not?
Re: fairness, it's not fairness or a sense of fairness that's really the problem. Few of us wish to twirl our moustaches and cackle at the unfairness of the world. It's that many of us -- me for example -- don't actually think it's unfair to exclude homosexual couples from marriage. The problem is what particular criteria for fairness end up getting read into the law, if gay marriage gets implemented by a court. If it comes in through the legislature, I'm sure there are neutral understandings of what is and is not fair that could be used to justify recognising gay marriages while ignoring polygamous marriage.
Additionally, marriage makes it simple to transfer property after the death of one partner, even without a will. This would be complicated in the case of poly marriages.
Doesn't that depend on what kind of marital property regime it is? I mean, if it's a community property regime, then all marital property just remains community property. The dead person's private property can revert to the communal property in the proportion intestate law would have given it to the widow or the widower, and other distributions can proceed according to the usual byzantine machinations of the intestate code.
I don't think it would be much more complicated than it is now.
There are several places where kids of polygamous marriages are disadvantaged. One is Social Security survivors' benefits. Minor children of deceased workers get benefits, as do their wives if they are raising the kids. It is not clear whether or not this applies to kids outside a typical two-person marriage, but I think that it is clear that second, etc. wives cannot collect.
Some employer supplied health care programs give you three (or four) choices: yourself, yourself plus a family, yourself plus children, and, more recently, you and your domestic partner. Yes, some do cover all your children, regardless of maternity, but some don't. Oh, and what happens if the person with the employer supplied health care benefits is one of the wives? She may be helping to raise the other wive's children, but they legally aren't hers, though they are her husband's.
Ann:
Agreed if you are dead, you are screwed. My argument re social security is that married folks gain some credit for deceased spouse's earnings. Singles don't have that option and gays could argue this is unfair to both gays and straights.
Your argument about "no one was supposed to collect was plan's original intent" bears some truthiness but the plan and its tax rate has increased significantly from a very small % to an onerous %... it's almost 13% including employer's portion.
Mary,
Sorry - I noticed that my spelling is even worse than usual today.
Tom C
I think that the polygamous argument is better called a slippery slope argument than domino theory. There is an interesting law review article by Eugene Volokh titled "Same-Sex Marriage and Slippery Slopes" - where he discusses some of this in depth, but then comes to a conclusion that societally we are ready to accept gay marriage but not polygamous ones. I seem to remember some more ambiguous writings on the subject earlier by him, but can't find them on his web page.
A polygamous marriage, however, puts a group of persons in a position to claim more economic benefits than the traditional heterosexual couple. That doesn't appeal to our sense of fairness.
It also puts that traditional heterosexual couple in a position to claim more economic benefits than I can as a single man. Why is that fair?
The number two has nothing to do with fairness or economics, it has to do with biology--there are two sexes. Traditional heterosexual couples contain one of each because that's how reproduction works. If the DNA molecule had three strands rather than two, you'd think three was "fair."
And in human history, polygamy is far more common (often for economic reasons, in fact) than socially recognized homosexual unions.
All that said, would this stop me from supporting Gay Marriage? No way, I've always thought it was the right thing. ..... The answer, of course, is to act like an adult and draw a line for practices that harm society...
This is the exact answer many of us make when we oppose gay marriage. It doesn't seem to get us very far.
This is exactly why "legal marriage" should be eliminated completely. That would completely solve the argument of the legal definition of marriage.
Marriage is a religious institution--the joining of two people in the eyes of their god. Why/how the state ever became involved is beyond me. The only possibility I can come up with is that the state feels it is its responsibility to provide some form of social engineering which provides a more stable environment for children. If so, they are failing miserably.
There is no provable harm to society by extending civil rights to an underprivileged group. By denying marriage rights to same-sex couples, countries are forcing second-class status onto undeserving adults. And while polygamy would cause rewrites of everything from divorce law (how to break an agreement where one partner wants to leave but the other three would rather continue as they were is just one example) to insurance policy forms, it's pretty hard to claim good economic reasons.
Frankly, nobody here or anywhere has ever managed to make an argument against either same-sex or polygamous marriage that doesn't boil down to, "I'm scared of that, so I don't want anyone else to do it, either." You're dogs in a manger, the lot of you.
"Groups of 2 are different from groups of more than two when we think about what is fair. That's my point. Address that."
OK, but beware where your point may lead. If you make fundamental legal and moral distinctions turn on economic analysis, then you may be sorely disappointed when the economic analysis of the differences between "groups of 2" and larger groups is actually done.
First and most obviously, economic analysis has nothing to do with measuring "fairness" and everything to do with measuring efficiencies (or lack thereof) in the allocation of resources. (That's why, for example, standard antitrust analysis never posits, as the object of antitrust policy, the achievement of a "fair price" in any market, and it's also why "fair pricing" laws are always anything but.)
I didn't see much, in terms of economic analysis, in your post, or in the many comments it's generated. You begin with the observation that 2 is different from numbers larger than 2 -- not much to disagree with there, but it also doesn't help much as observations go. What follows are various untested hypotheses about possible efficiencies or inefficiencies that may be associated with groups of 2 vs. larger groups. Some seem to think that "group size" may result in significant differences in terms of the efficient allocation of health care benefits/insurance, child rearing costs/benefits, other social welfare costs of various kinds, tax burdens, etc. But the fundamental problem is that you can spin out these untested hypotheses about possible efficiencies or inefficiencies literally forever. Until someone goes to the trouble of trying to measure the actual efficiencies in play, there's not much "there there" in the supposed economic analysis.
Assuming that there were any such inefficiencies, then it's still quite a leap to say that, ergo, one arrangement is "fair" and the other is "unfair." So, as Tim would say, make it work, Ann! Economics is all about measuring inputs vs. outputs, and all the economists I know just can never have too many equations -- they really are intimidated by mathematicians and physicists. So where are your equations, Ann? What are the measurable inefficiencies in allocation of social goods that justify using a "group of 2" to define marriage if, as you claim, a numerically defined definition of marriage should be distinguished from a gender-defined definition? Do you know of any serious economic work that's actually been done on the differences, if any, in terms of the allocation of social goods between marriage defined as a "group of 2" vs. a differently sized group? All I saw is the observation that there are potential economies of scale with larger groups, and potentials for the opposite effect as well. I don't think that gets you anywhere. If that's your answer to Krauthammer's powerfully argued albeit not very novel point, I think you've got a long way to go before your argument has any real punch.
Richard Dolan
I find the point interesting that economists are afraid of mathematicians and physicists. My worst grade in graduate school (a C) was in an econometrics class where I had to repeatedly correct the prof's solving of derivatives. I should have kept quiet, but had a mathematics degree, and couldn't stand for him to make all those obvious mistakes.
The recurring argument that polyamory is more common throughout human history than gay marriage is completely irrelevant. Slavery was (and is) far more common than gay marriage, too, but that doesn't mean that slavery is right or good, or on any higher moral plane than two people who want to join together in marriage (and who happen to be the same sex).
Really, I think that many commentors are being deliberately obtuse in this thread. In any situation where two gay people want to get married, both of them are already eligible for marriage (thus, the oft-repeated and cruelly humorous argument that "gay people can already get married... they can marry any person of the opposite sex they want) as long as each one is 1) of marriageable age, and 2) not already married.
This would not have to change at all for gay people to be married under current laws, but it would need to be drastically changed for any legal recognition of polyamory.
To be honest, although I find polyamory repugnant in the extreme, I would have little problem with saying to polyamorists, "You can marry as many people as you want. However, you only get legal recognition and benefits for one of them, end of story."
I'm not particularly eloquent, and I know this argument won't sway many people (if anyone), but I saw far too many people playing devil's advocate for my comfort, and had to say something (however incoherently). There really are huge differences between two adults who get married to each other (of whatever sex), and any form of polyamory.
Nevertheless, I am not arguing economics, per se, here, but rather that without changes, the present system in this country probably disadvantages polygamous families more today than gay couples. And, in particular, many of the problems attributed to the inability of homosexuals to marry each other can be alleviated through contract. I see this as less so for polygamous families.
Hmm. Surely you don't mean to say that polygamy is distinguished from same-sex marriage because one is an economic arrangement and the other isn't. Both are both/and.
Marginal Revolution took on polygamy recently, as did the Undercover Economist.
Tyler: Marginal Revolution: The economics of polygamy
Alex: Marginal Revolution: In defense of polygamy
Economists are forever appearing to take the love out of marriage.
Sorry, I just realized how much I wrote to make a fairly simple point. Our marriage laws should reflect that any adult person who wants to get married and who is eligible for marriage (of age and not married), should be able to marry another adult person who is eligible for marriage. If person A is 25 and not married, and person B is 22 and not married, they can marry. If person C is 24 and not married, and person D is 24 and married, than they cannot be married. It's really very simple.
John:
The recurring argument that polyamory is more common throughout human history than gay marriage is completely irrelevant. Slavery was (and is) far more common than gay marriage, too, but that doesn't mean that slavery is right or good, or on any higher moral plane than two people who want to join together in marriage (and who happen to be the same sex).
And? Unless polygamy is somehow a moral wrong, on par with slavery, I don't see how your comparison has much relevance. Polygamy's ancient and continuing history is relevant to establish a) that it is a viable organising principle for a society and b) that there are potentially millions who would be disadvantaged by our laws against polygamy.
Really, I think that many commentors are being deliberately obtuse in this thread.
The same could be said of you. I don't mean offense here, but I do think you're being just as "obtuse" as we are.
In any situation where two gay people want to get married, both of them are already eligible for marriage (thus, the oft-repeated and cruelly humorous argument that "gay people can already get married... they can marry any person of the opposite sex they want) as long as each one is 1) of marriageable age, and 2) not already married.
Do you see what you're doing? We actually have three requirements (excluding incest for the moment:
(1) opposite sex
(2) not already married
(3) legal age
Now, you've decided that (1) can be thrown out. Why not (2)? Why do you privilege the one over the other? You can't just assume that, because many of us (me, for example) don't actually agree that (1) is less important than (2).
We may think (1) and (3) are the key defining elements. Heck, we may think only (1) is. I don't go that far, though.
This would not have to change at all for gay people to be married under current laws, but it would need to be drastically changed for any legal recognition of polyamory.
I think people overestimate how drastic it would be. They point to things like inheritance law and divorce custody and end-of-life decisionmaking. These can be difficult questions, certainly, but they are not really fundamental -- more administrative than anything else. Coming up with a governing legal regime for them is not actually difficult. I expect that once the polygamy movement gets up some steam, they're draft up model statutes themselves. So this doesn't seem, to me, like a valid objection. Polygamy isn't going to shake the foundations of the civil law.
To be honest, although I find polyamory repugnant in the extreme, I would have little problem with saying to polyamorists, "You can marry as many people as you want. However, you only get legal recognition and benefits for one of them, end of story."
Exactly what many people say to gays and lesbians. (Well, I think most people would be a little leery of admitting the "repugnant" part.) And it sounds just as cruel and bigoted coming from you as you claim it is when people say it about homosexuals.
I'm not particularly eloquent,
Eloquence is not the problem.
and I know this argument won't sway many people (if anyone), but I saw far too many people playing devil's advocate for my comfort,
I'm not playing devil's advocate. I actually do think polygamy deserves equal recognition. Just to squick you all out even more, I think incest ought to be legalised too, despite its loathsomeness.
and had to say something (however incoherently). There really are huge differences between two adults who get married to each other (of whatever sex), and any form of polyamory.
And my position is that if you take a step back, outside of our immediate cultural reference frame -- if we try to strip away our prejudices, that is -- we find they're different, but not more different than traditional procreative marriage is from its modern children, or from gay marriage. It's a different path, to be sure, and an older one, but equally valid.
Richard Dolan and John are right to dismiss economics as the means of distinguishing polygamy from gay marriage. In this thread we have seen a range of elaborate attempts to refute Krauthammer on economic grounds alone, and none have been particularly convincing. The reason is that our culture conditions us to see marriage as a life partnership based on mutual love. It's undeniable that this partnership has an economic component, but the economic component is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of "marriage."
To get us off the slippery slope, focus on the concept of "partnership" as implying the union of two parties with equal rights and responsibilities. This equal partnership could not exist in a polygamous arrangement.
As a followup to my previous post on biological aspects of the gay/polygamous marriage debate, I predict that if gay marriage is normalized, gays will become the strongest advocates of polygamy. Why? Because two is considered the "normal" number for hetero marriages only because there two sexes. But in a gay marriage there is only one sex; hence nothing special about the number two...it's just an imitation of a hetero marriage. When gay marriages are accepted as such, there'll be no incentive to imitate heterosexuality, and hence no reason to limit the number of partners to two.
Mary said, "So by this logic, if Wisconsin voters were to pass an amendment to their state constitution that prohibits say, interracial marriages, it must be accepted by the courts?
That's not the way the balancing between the branches works, eliot. I am confident of my earlier statement regarding the legal validity of second sentence of our amendment here. Time will tell..."
Yes, that IS how the balancing between the branches work.
Constitutions trump courts.
Where you're right is that the Federal courts could intervene as they did in Nebraska.
However, that's a Federal vs. States issue NOT a courts versus constitutional issue.
If the Federal Constitution was amended to prohibit interracial marriage it would have to be accepted by the courts.
There's no logical way a court could declare something to be unconstitutional when it's IN the Constitution.
tlj says: "To get us off the slippery slope, focus on the concept of 'partnership' as implying the union of two parties with equal rights and responsibilities. This equal partnership could not exist in a polygamous arrangement."
I don't understand your point. This seems to be just a fancy way of saying that 2 is different from all whole numbers other than 2. There is nothing about the concept of a partnership that makes the number 2 special -- but that is the point that Ann is trying to establish and you seem to think your observation supports. How? Consider other common forms of partherships. For example, I suspect that I'm not the only lawyer reading Ann's blog who has had more than 2 "equal partners" in his firm.
So how does the "partnership" concept get you anywhere, let alone off some slippery slope, when the issue is whether a numerical criterion can be justified in the definition of marriage if one posits that a gender-based criterion is not? Krauthammer says no, and Ann says yes (based on economic arguments that she never really makes). I don't see how the parthership idea helps one way or the other on that issue.
So Althouse's distinction between gay marriage and polygamy revolves around fairness - as in: it is unfair to disallow gay joint tax returns, therefore they should have them, and it is unfair for polygamists to game the system, therefore they should not.
Says who? The fuzzy concept of fairness should not affect the discussion. Life is unfair. Fairness is in the eye of the beholder. Let's make decisions based on the law as it is written, not on some arbitrary definition of what is "fair". Polygamists certainly feel they are being unfairly treated. Why is it any of our business? Why should some judge have the power to decide who gets the government goodies?
If you really want to be "fair", then get the government out of the marriage business entirely. Stop handing out government goodies
to favored groups and denying the goodies to others. It's really none of the government's business who wants to marry whom, and at the same time it's none of the government's business to levey taxes differently or provide services differently depending on these arrangements.
Hepzi:
We are not endorsing polygamy as a lifestyle. Those of us "defending" polygamy in this argument are mostly opposed to it. What we are doing is pointing out that there is no basis in law, or equity to allow gay marriage, and ban polygamy. The exact same arguments that support one, support the other.
One thing that Ann and others keep harping on puzzles me, this constant appeals to "fairness". The law is not based on fairness, it is based on equity.
So Althouse's distinction between gay marriage and polygamy revolves around fairness - as in: it is unfair to disallow gay joint tax returns, therefore they should have them, and it is unfair for polygamists to game the system, therefore they should not.
Says who? The fuzzy concept of fairness should not affect the discussion. Life is unfair. Fairness is in the eye of the beholder. Let's make decisions based on the law as it is written, not on some arbitrary definition of what is "fair". Polygamists certainly feel they are being unfairly treated. Why is it any of our business? Why should some judge have the power to decide who gets the government goodies?
If you really want to be "fair", then get the government out of the marriage business entirely. Stop handing out government goodies
to favored groups and denying the goodies to others. It's really none of the government's business who wants to marry whom, and at the same time it's none of the government's business to levey taxes differently or provide services differently depending on these arrangements.
So Althouse's distinction between gay marriage and polygamy revolves around fairness - as in: it is unfair to disallow gay joint tax returns, therefore they should have them, and it is unfair for polygamists to game the system, therefore they should not.
Says who? The fuzzy concept of fairness should not affect the discussion. Life is unfair. Fairness is in the eye of the beholder. Let's make decisions based on the law as it is written, not on some arbitrary definition of what is "fair". Polygamists certainly feel they are being unfairly treated. Why is it any of our business? Why should some judge have the power to decide who gets the government goodies?
If you really want to be "fair", then get the government out of the marriage business entirely. Stop handing out government goodies
to favored groups and denying the goodies to others. It's really none of the government's business who wants to marry whom, and at the same time it's none of the government's business to levey taxes differently or provide services differently depending on these arrangements.
I'm forced to skip ~40 comments, so I apologize if someone else has made these points.
I work in the exciting world of employee benefits. From that standpoint, gay marriage is not really an issue. Many employers (and probably most large ones) already grant domestic partner rights, which covers both homosexual and non-homosexual relationships. So gay marriage would not have much impact on the benefits world. And even for those employers that were impacted, it would more or less be the same as dealing with any hetero-marriage in this country.
Polyamorous marriages are another thing altogether. Frankly, they scare the hell out of me from a professional standpoint. Everyone keeps talking about traditional Old Testament type polygamy, but there are many other possible arrangements.
I imagine that most of you who went to college, and some of you who didn't, have known Robert Heinlein fans who would have loved to get involved in a group marriage. So imagine a marriage that has eveolved to the point where there are three husbands, four wives, and n children, with the children having a wide mix of possible parents. (In fact, assume that the children run the full range from being full siblings to half-siblings to non-siblings. The teen years will be a bitch.)
Further, assume that other than the first two people, everyone has come into the marriage at different points in time.
And finally, just to really add a kicker, imagine that one of the wives is strictly a lesbian. She only has sexual relations with some of the other wives.
Now you get some real fun. Let's say one of the husbands 'gets religion' and decides he want out. So divorce proceedings ensue. How are you going to split the property? What about parental rights? Child visitation? Does he have any rights with the children that bear none of his genes? Do other partners have any parental rights to children of this wayward husband even if they have no genetic connection? Is the lesbian entitled to less than a normal 'fair' share because she never slept with the departing husband?
This would be a nightmare in the courts, but it would also be a nightmare in the benefits world. If the husband is entitled to pension benefits from his employer(s), the remaining spouses can claim a share of that benefit through a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO). Anyone in retirement benefits that has had to deal with QDROs can tell you what a huge pain in the ass these things are when just two people are involved. The situation I layed out above? That would be a nightmare.
And yes, there would be few marriages like the one I laid out. But just a few would cause aenough nightmarish legal problems to cost a LOT of money. (Plus make my life hellish.)
So when we talk about the economics of these polyamorous marriages, remember to include the econimc cost of the divorces as well.
Richard Dolan:
You are missing the principal point I was trying to make, which is that marriage cannot be analyzed in purely economic terms. A relationship encompassing love, sex, and possible childrearing presupposes an intimacy which is not feasible for numbers greater than 2. It is clearly not comparable to a business partnership, in which any number can be equal participants.
We already handle "household" benefits that vary from one person to over a dozen without too much difficulty. Nobody spent much time complaining it was unfair that my Dad had a household of five people for benefits and tax deductions while a co-worker of his had a household of one. Sure, you can say the co-worker had the equal legal option of having a wife and kids -- but then, if polygamy was legal, houses with two-spouse marriages would have the legal option of adding a third spouse equal to that of those households that did have three-spouse marriages. Polygamy available to all isn't any more unfair than the current setup.
On a macroeconomic scale, having some percentatge of those multi-party households be three or four or ten adults isn't going to be noticable when we already have households of wildly varying numbers already. Polygamous-marriage households aren't obviously more economically distinguishable from monogamous-marriage households than monogamous heterosexual households are from monogamous homosexual ones.
There isn't, ultimately, a good reason not to extend marriage to polygamous relationships in principle unless for some reason it undermines the purpose of the institution of marriage. Which means you have to figure out what that purpose is, and then see if it does. As long as that question is avoided, there's no debate over whether and how far marriage should be expanded, there's merely a squabble.
Forget about the econmic arguments, what about individual liberty ? If two, three, or four people wish to enter into a private relationship, why should the state tell them they can't ?
My own post on this issue is here:
http://belowbeltway.blogspot.com/2006/03/gay-marriage-polygamy-and-individual.html
Ann Althouse: My point: the real adults of this world think fairness is an important principle. Those who scoff at it are jerks.
Here I will put on my annoying mathematician hat and ask, Can anyone give a good definition of 'fairness'?
I ditto the recomendation for the "Red Queen". Good book. I noticed it in my bookcase just yesterday.
Also, while Joseph Smith may not have lived in a society in which there were a lot of extra females, that was the case in Utah in the 50 years before statehood. Polygamy there came into widespread use as a means to support widows. Typically, the second wife was a "duty wife", typically a widow with kids. Many times, there wasn't that much sex involved, just the civic duty of supporting them. It was only after marrying and supporting the Duty Wife, that Mormon men could typically go on and become true polygamists.
As I understand this, they found themselves in this situation for two reasons. First, more women joined than men. Secondly, it was a harsh environment, and a lot of the men died trying to tame it. By the time the state joined the Union, most of these reasons had disappeared, and, thus, there was much less need for polygamy.
Doug asks, "If two, three, or four people wish to enter into a private relationship, why should the state tell them they can't?"
They can enter into such relationships. But when they start demanding legal sanction and legal arbitration, it becomes my business because now I have to foot the bill for all the legal wrangling that will ensue when some of these relationships break apart. As long as I don't have to think about it, pay for it, or sanction it, everyone is free to do what they want.
Further, after living in a country with polygamy, I can attest it is NOT a formula for domestic happiness. Maybe the man gets multiple partners, but the wives are constantly bickering, and the husband usually winds up beating the wives periodically to keep the peace. Yep. How would you feel if your husband showed up one day with another wife? You would be miserable and would not take it lying down--and trust me the women DO NOT. Plus the wives are fighting for the priority of their children within the pecking order. Polygamous households are BOILING BICKERING CESSPOOLS, and the wives behave like a gang of fishwives.
Er, so? We could have guessed as much from a brief perusal of Chinese literature. The Jin Ping Mei, if I recall correctly, depicts exactly that. But we're assuming consensual marriages here. If they want to try, who are we to tell them not to?
Mary- glad you agree with me. So can I count on your vote when I run for Emperor? Heck if you lived in Philly, you could vote more than once.
I'm puzzled, Ann. So the economic benefit is better for a group than for a couple. What does that have to do with fairness?
Fairness says that adult people who want to be together ought to be allowed to be together. That this fairness modulates in accordance with whether there are two or nineteen of them does not seem to follow organically from the argument's internal information.
It seems to me that the state either does or does not have the legitimate right to limit participation in the marriage contract for cultural, economic, or practical reasons. If we rule that the state may not regulate these things, then the state may not regulate them. This may well lead to the legalization of polygamy; I cannot understand the fairness or the internal coherence of a legal doctrine that would make gay marriage OK but bar polygamists or polyamorists from satisfying their particular desire about their marital arrangement.
What works, works. We have very few or no examples of successful matriarchal societies (Navaho is one that I know), polyandrous societies, or societies that prefer gay marriage.
I may not be smart enough to argue why that is, but I can certainly recognize a pattern.
Conventional man/woman, one-of-each marriage may not serve the individual participants well, but it seems to be a winner in terms of societal survival.
Polygamy seems a distant second, and other arrangements trail badly.
My utopian solution:
Marriage should be a two-tier arrangement. One tier is private, not subject to governmental definitions or laws, the understanding between the participants of roles and relationships. This can be religious or secular, but constitutes what most of us think of as the relationship implied by "loving" someone. There can and will be other motivations, but the point is that the government doesn't get to define the form of tier one.
The other tier can be handled quite nicely by a corporation, an entity owned by all the relationship participants, that owns the pooled resources, and is responsible for children and other obligations.
Once you introduce the state into the definition of roles (tier one), you've created the pseudo-problem of "fairness", and the relationship becomes distorted by the law.
Corporate law (tier two) OTOH, is quite clear on ownership and obligations, unlike our current laws around marriage.
As in math, the imaginary entity creates a clean solution.
Let me try to bring things back into context. One problem facing gay marriage proponents is the worry about the precedent they set being used to ultimately legimitize plural marriages. Eugene Volokh calls this the Slippery Slope problem. And, I think that it is a real problem because gay marriage is entering our society through the court systems, and not legislatively. That means that much of the case law that was used to support gay marriage can be hijacked for plural marriages. The Slippery Slope would be much less worrisome if legislatures were involved, as they discriminate every day for one reason or another.
The problem is not that most of us approve of plural marriage - quite the contrary. Indeed, at least for me, my opposition to plural marriages is significantly stronger than my opposition to homosexual marriage. Rather, it is the worry that proponents of plural marriage will leverage the gay marriage case law to allow plural marriages.
Ann, I think, is trying to find a way out of this, and, as a byproduct, refute the Krauthammer piece, through "fairness". I remain unconvinced.
Ann Althouse: My point: the real adults of this world think fairness is an important principle. Those who scoff at it are jerks.
Hmm, since "fairness" is in the eye of the beholder, I think it is unfair of you to apply the broad-brush of jerk-ism to those who think that there is no such thing.
[/sarcasm]
You're not being fair!
[/sarcasm off]
IOW, ad hominium attacks don't carry the day. Instead, prove the existance of fairness.
Those who complain of a lack of "fairness" seem to think that is a win-the-argument-free card. I don't buy it, and have found that people who don't think "fairness" is a principle at all, much less an important one, tend to be better off in dealing with life's vagaries.
Try it, you might like it. Next time you feel your indignation rising, ask yourself why. If your response is that "xyz isn't fair", then be objective - there is no such thing as "fair".
there is no such thing as "fair".
That may be true. But I think that most of the American public, when seeing something blatantly unfair, will take umbrage and will take steps to level things.
Andrew Sullivan talks about this article today as well.
tjl: "You are missing the principal point I was trying to make, which is that marriage cannot be analyzed in purely economic terms. A relationship encompassing love, sex, and possible childrearing presupposes an intimacy which is not feasible for numbers greater than 2. It is clearly not comparable to a business partnership, in which any number can be equal participants."
I agree with you that Ann is on very think ice in trying to craft a persuasive legal or constitutional distinction between gay marriage as "good" and polygamy as "bad" using economic concepts or analysis. But I don't think your effort to craft a persuasive distinction between marriage as an institution limited to two individuals rather than some number greater than two fares much better. Your comment, quoted above, only shows that you'd make an extremely poor polygamist (so would I, but that hardly matters).
There is nothing to show that, for people of a different disposition, a "relationship encompassing love, sex, and possible childrearing [and] presuppos[ing] an intimacy" is not possible among groups of adults larger than 2. For people of that disposition, rather than yours (and mine), what is the justification for refusing them the benefits (however defined) of a "marriage?" Indeed, many (both in the comments to Ann's post and elsewhere) insist that the same factors you cite are the reasons why marriage can only be between a man and a woman, thus ruling out gay marriage.
The reality driving this entire discussion is that, at least for now, polygamy is even more of a political loser in the US than gay marriage -- and that's really saying something, since gay marriage isn't such a great political issue for its proponents on its own terms. So Ann (and Sullivan and just about every other proponent) wants to justify gay marriage without being trapped into supporting polygamy too. The trouble is that marriage, even understood as a civil law concept and not a religious one, is an institution taht draws all of its content from our particular Western heritage as the union between a man and a woman -- i.e, both gender-defined and numerically-defined. There is nothing immutable about that concept of the institution of marriage, and many other societies and traditions have taken a very different view -- interestingly, though, only as it relates to the numerical factor not the gender factor. As others have noted, in Biblical accounts of ancient Judaism, in Mormon societies, and in Islamic societies today, to take only three examples, polygamy was an accepted form of marriage.
For many reasons, I think appeals like yours, or Ann's, seeking to justify marriage as an institution limited to 2 individuals are unpersuasive, once you reject (as Ann does but you may not) the authority of the traditional notions that have heretofore defined this fundamental institution of our society as the union of one man and one woman. Efforts to keep the "ones" but to get rid of the "man/woman" end us as pretty lame. On gay marriage, I find myself pretty much where Krauthammer ends up. And I'm fairly sure (but open to persuasion by Ann) that, if there is no principled reason to rule out gay marriage, then there's not likely to be any principled reason to rule out polygamy either. I suspect that, if others reach the same conclusion, then proponents of gay marriage will be in even deeper political hot water than they imagine.
The reality driving this entire discussion is that, at least for now, polygamy is even more of a political loser in the US than gay marriage
But this is rapidly changing since the partial successes of the gay marriage movement. Polygamy is beginning to enter pop culture here in the US.
In Canada and Scandanavia, polygamy is already in the court system and legislation.
The sad fact also is that given the tactics of the gay marriage movement, and the complicity of liberal judges, political considerations in this matter are moot.
"Legal marriage isn't just about love, it's an economic arrangement."
If this were truly the main issue in gay marriage, does it not hold equally true for a marriage that today would be prohibited as incestuous? If it were truly just a matter of economics, then why must the issue be limited to "gay" couples? By your own logic, I see no reason why the law should discriminate on the basis of assumed carnal comsumation. In fact, I fully support legal unions that allow any two consenting adults to easily enter into and mutually terminate co-support contracts for the purpose of simplifying Social Security and pension survivorship benefits, medical information and advice, etc.
The real truth behind the legal recognition of marriage and any attendent economic effects is best seen in pogo's first post: the implicit understanding by the law that a couple entering into marriage will, in all likelihood, have children and society's interest in the welfare of these children. As I have said before, the single most defining difference between a heterosexual couple and a homosexual couple is that absent specific efforts to the contrary the former will most probably result in progeny while without specific efforts to the contrary the latter will never. Contrary to the assertions of some, this is not a minor difference.
I think Kirk has the best idea so far. Abolish government marriage, and let people form corporations (or something similar) to handle that end. As for private marriage, leave it up to the individuals and their own voluntary institutions (churches, temples, community groups, etc.), but don't let it carry legal significance.
What should the government have to do with marriage anyway?
A few people have made the point that nothing prevents people from entering into any relationship they want to, but that state sanction of that relationship is a different point
Well, the problem with many of the anti-gay marriage amendments that have been passed and proposed is that they not only purport to ban gay marriage, they also ban any contractual relationship designed to emulate marriage. This, for example, is what will be in the Constitutional Amendment that voters here in Virginia will be considering in November. When you start restricting the right of people to enter into private contracts, then it becomes more than just an issue of "protecting marriage"
And the state sanction issue is a problem too. Government provides many benefits to married couples that are not available to unmarried couples. Restrictions on who can and cannot be married that have the effect of denying those benefits to an entire class of people raise significant Equal Proection problems
The Slippery Slope would be much less worrisome if legislatures were involved, as they discriminate every day for one reason or another.
I don't think you can stress this too much. This is the biggest reason the "slippery slope" argument has traction.
Courts tend to proceed by following the reasoning of other courts. Legislatures get to make up their own reasons anew every day. The only slippery slope to worry about, with the legislature, is the slippery slope of public opinion, and that's not nearly so slippery as are the courts. Not on this issue.
This could create a nightmare from an STD standpoint. One of the issues I hear raised with regards to gay marriage is the monogamy issue. I don't know if the facts that are thrown out are true, but I have heard that 50% of gay men don't want to be in a monogamous relationship, yet want to be "married". To me, marriage is a commitment to be faithful.
You are certainly entitled to your view of marriage. But does this reflect the character of the law? Does the state intervene heavily in favour of the commitment to be faithful? I don't think so.
Some states, I understand, still have anti-adultery laws, and the tort of alienation of affection. Perhaps they have not yet adopted no-fault divorce, or consider spousal wrongdoing when dividing the marital property in divorce. But the trend in the US over the past generation has been, clearly, to strip out the "faithfulness" component of the marriage compact. That's no longer a major part of what marriage has become.
My point: the real adults of this world think fairness is an important principle. Those who scoff at it are jerks.
Then there are a lot of jerks. Anyway, who gets to define what is fair? What about fairness to polygamists who are being unjustly denied the same rights as two person couples simply because the majority of society finds their marital arrangements abhorrent? It's true that as practiced in this country by sects that have broken away from the Mormon church its seems pretty horrible, but then it's been forced underground, making policing abuses much more difficult than it might otherwise be. Of course legalizing polygamous marriages is so 1840's Utah. Why no discussion of polymourous (group) marriages. Why are we being so unfair to them?
1) If there were a referendum on gay marriage, I would vote for it. I live in Massachusetts.
2) There was no referendum on gay marriage in Massachusetts, because the state's representatives, at the behest of gay groups who believed they would lose, ignored their legal duty (given the number of signatures collected for the referendum) to vote on whether to hold said referendum.
3) The state's Supreme court found some "penumbras and emanations," to use a Griswoldian term, to impose gay marriage. Unusually, they delayed their decision, most likely to thwart its repeal by constitutional referendum.
4) I would see gay marriage, properly arrived at by political bodies or referendum, as helpful to gays, their children, and maybe even marriage itself. But I do not see attaining it worth ignoring our laws and making things up about our constitution, especially because it is such vague legal arguments which are most subject to slippery slope problems. (Ironically, Massachusett's SJC proved Scalia right about that, as he predicted in the Texas sodomy case.)
5) Polyamorists can just as reasonably claim to be entitled to "equal protection" for their orientation as can gays and lesbians. The fact that polygamy has more economic implications than gay marriage may be one reason polygamy will not come to this country before gay marriage, but it does not mean that polygamy will not likely be arrived at by the same judicial logic. If marriage is merely a contract between consenting adults, and if gay people have a “right” to marriage (meaning that judges will, in the name of the constitution, overturn laws regulating marriage as between a man and a woman) then so do those with other preferences, such as polyamory, as long as they make similar claims (i.e., that it is an “orientation” and they have a “right” to its fulfillment).
6) So the Judiciary seeing marriage as a "right" will lead to polygamy, which I see as the road to the death of marriage, among polygamy's other faults. (For example, when 10 mob members can all marry each other, we will all lose the right not to have to testify against our spouses; when 10 people can marry one person with a state job and health insurance, all of our spousal health insurance will be at risk.)
7) The reason judicial forcing of gay marriage is not the same as judicial forcing of inter-racial marriage is not because race is a less real concept than gender (although that is true). It is because the 14th Amendment's "equal protection" guarantee, while vaguely written, was universally understood to be about race or ethnicity, and not sex, let alone LGBT status.
Ann, you need to revisit your calculations.
First, if people choose to get married in twos, threes or tens, in the long run there is still a limiting economic cost to society, which would be the cost of providing such benefits (whether government of private benefits) to 100% of adults. Right now, we already provide it to about 65% of adults (including survivors benefits for widow(er)s), and frankly conservatives bemoan the decline of marriage, as evidenced by the growing numbers of single people.
Think of it this way in terms of economic benefits: If there are 100 people in the room, and only people who find partners can get a piece of pie, then whether I have fifty groups of two (who each get 1/50) of the pie or 25 groups of 4 (who each get 1/25 of the pie) or five groups of twenty (who each get 1/5 of the pie), there is not any more pie to go around. Ann's argument is only focused on the increasing share per group (1/50 to 1/25 to 1/5) while ignoring the declining number of groups (50 to 25 to 5) or the constancy of the whole.
Second, right now, we who are straight and married effectively subsidize gay people who can't marry because of the lower deduction for a married couple than there is for two single people. This means that their tax rates are actually effectively lower. Now, if polygamy were legalized, then it is hard to suggest that Congress would do other than extend their current policy, which reduces the average deduction per individual when people are married. And heck, if it were legalized, it would take an act of Congress to even adjust the joint filing deduction at ALL; as such, if they didn't, then a family with ten adults, while certainly qualifying for numerous other deductions, could not deduct anymore than a couple could under current federal law if they filed jointly. Right now, they file singly and deduct MORE money as ten single filers (or as one couple and eight single filers).
Hey, you guys are talking up a storm in here, and I passed the point where I can make sure no one is distorting my position, so I'll just say I hope you're not!
Anyway.... a couple things:
Elliot: "Mary said, 'So by this logic, if Wisconsin voters were to pass an amendment to their state constitution that prohibits say, interracial marriages, it must be accepted by the courts?" That's not the way the balancing between the branches works, eliot. I am confident of my earlier statement regarding the legal validity of second sentence of our amendment here. Time will tell...' Yes, that IS how the balancing between the branches work. Constitutions trump courts. Where you're right is that the Federal courts could intervene as they did in Nebraska. However, that's a Federal vs. States issue NOT a courts versus constitutional issue.If the Federal Constitution was amended to prohibit interracial marriage it would have to be accepted by the courts. There's no logical way a court could declare something to be unconstitutional when it's IN the Constitution."
First of all, state courts as well as federal courts apply federal law, and the state constitutional provision could be striken down if it conflicts with federal law. Second, this isn't a matter of "balancing between the branches," but of federalism, as Elliot said, but as Mary implied, the state judges will say what state law means, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court knows how to be pretty creative. I think they could beat that second sentence into submission. Nevertheless, the whole point of amending the state constitution is supposed to be that you don't trust the courts not to find gay marriage in state constitutional law, so there's some serious hypocrisy here.
michael a litscher quotes part of something I wrote: "My point: the real adults of this world think fairness is an important principle. Those who scoff at it are jerks." And then he lectures me: "Let's see, you're attempting to legitimize an act, considered so abhorrent to God that he destroyed an entire city over it, by Mocking God through redefining His sacrament of Marriage. As a rationalization, you suggest that it's more fair for two (but not three) to raid the pockets of one of their employers for unearned benefits. As such, I'll take your lecture on "fairness" under advisement, counselor."
First of all, I take umbrage at being quoted out of context like that. "Jerks" only referred to people who don't think fairness is an important value. Sippican scoffed at fairness, in the abstract, and I compared him to Zulema, etc. etc. I did not say that everyone who fails to approve of gay marriage is a jerk and I don't like the way this comment made it look as though I did. My point about fairness was all about the sense of drawing a line that includes gay marriage but excludes polygamy. You should be able to see that this point does NOT mean that fairness requires you to approve of gay marriage. I only said that supporters of gay marriage can appeal to a sense of fairness with respect to some economic matters that supporters of polygamy cannot. This also does NOT mean that economic analysis should determine your opinion on these questions. You're welcome to base your view on your analysis of morality. I never said you shouldn't. You can even base your political thinking on what you think God wants, but I will say I don't find your image of a city-destroying, sodomy-hating God very convincing. I hope the proponents of the Wisconsin amendment lean heavily on that one, since I'd like to see the amendment fail.
Re:"Groups of 2 are different from groups of more than two when we think about what is fair. That's my point. Address that."
I based my comment on the assumption you'd made buttressing that argument, which stated
"Legal marriage isn't just about love, it's an economic arrangement." I feel that definition is itself arguable, so your main point doesn't necessarily follow. That is, whether two or more-than-two is a matter of fairness is a misunderstanding of marriage, as many people see it. You disagree, and I suggest that, once traditional norms are rejected, others will disagree with you that 2 is fundamentally different than >2.
But to your point, corporations are examples of legal entities of more than two people that confer economic benefits, an arrangement widely accepted as fair. Polygamy could be viewed quite similarly.
Re:"First, the rearing of children can be accomplished without marriage, and often is."
Of course it is; but you've missed the point. No method is equal or superior to the method of raising children in a heterosexual two-parent married household. That is the verdict of thousands of years of societal arrangements. You are free to theorize otherwise, but the traditional arrangement exists for a reason. It wasn't random chance.
Re:"changing the definition of marriage somehow affects the raising of children is rather a straw man: one thing has nothing to do with the other."
You make my previous point: your definition of marriage supposes no connection between marriage and child-rearing. My definition is shared by many people, and it posits that the primary purpose of marriage is child-rearing. That does not mean that children must be raised in every marriage, but rather that for society to successfully endure, heterosexual marriage is a necessary component, and children must be produced in the vast majority of them.
Re:"If European women were having sufficient amounts of children out of wedlock to grow its population (the so-called "replacement number") instead of caviling about fecundity you would be complaining about immorality."
I would, because shaming unwed mothers is part of the social process by which people are kept in marriages, for the good of society. It has worked well in the past, even though you dislike it.
Re:"What matters is that kids are raised by people who love them, not the sexuality of the parents doing the raising, or the marital status of the kids being raised."
Would that it were true. But it is quite false, every word, including "or" and "the".
Re: "If that were the currently understood purpose of marriage, we would need to either (or both): 1) require fertility tests prior to marriage, 2) institute policies that punish single parenting." False. It is sufficient that most marriages result in children. Societies do die out for lack of reproduction. It's happening in the EU, as the European population is replaced by the far more fertile Muslim immigrant population. In addition, shaming infertile people was common. This was intended to favor fecundity, whether you are in favor of it or not is immaterial. Societies that fail to reproduce themselves whither away.
Re: " Pogo and others would have us forget ....widespread divorce."
Hardly. Widespread divorce is part and parcel of the dissolution of marriage itself, of which gay and polygamous marriage will play no small role. They will lead to reduced fertility and less successful child-rearing, and then the death or takeover of society by another social group that rediscovers how high fecundity in the context of heterosexual marriage leads to demographic control.
I only said that supporters of gay marriage can appeal to a sense of fairness with respect to some economic matters that supporters of polygamy cannot.
But you haven't supported that statement--saying it doesn't make it so. For many of the commenters here as well as for Krauthammer, a "sense of fairness" includes polygamy just as much as gay marriage.
Groups of 2 are different from groups of more than two when we think about what is fair. That's my point. Address that."
What matters economically is the family, not the marriage, and most families already comprise more than two individuals, so you don't have a point.
"[When asked why polygamy isn't as much a civil right as gay marriage is] Gay activists typically answer by saying that marriage by definition is between two people... The real response, however, has been, in effect, that only crazy right wing fundamentalist heterosexual rural Mormon white people want to practice polygamy, and we all know that civil rights don't apply to them." -Steve Sailer
Ann, you say, "A polygamous marriage, however, puts a group of persons in a position to claim more economic benefits than the traditional heterosexual couple."
I don't think that has to be true at all. Perhaps with the current marriage contract this would be a viable argument, but if we were to legalize polygamy, we'd need to make a corresponding adjustment in the law so that the the SAME benefits get distributed, just among a larger set of people.
Let this be a legal and economic contract, and model it so that any number of consenting adults can partake in it. If I want to share my meager life insurance with 1000 other people, why not?
Re: "There are millions of gay people in America. In the past they have been mute. "
Mute? Mute??
Good lord, the cacaphony of gay demands over the past 25 years has led me to think, "Don't they ever just shut up?
Mute? Feh.
Whoo-hoo, I'm the 140th comment. No one is sure to read this.
"Slippery slopes" have jumped the shark.
Amazing! 139 comments. I find it amazing that so many heterosexual people feel so strongly about condemning and restricting homosexual people. (I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, before reading the comments, that a lot of the zeal of this discussion is driven by that.) I understand the objection to public lewdness, or exploitative or promiscuous behavior on the part of anyone, regardless of orientation. I really do not understand the objection to the orientation. That "the Bible says so" just leaves me flabbergasted -- because, of course, not being a Biblical inerrantist, I think what's divinely inspired in there is all mixed up with a lot of sheer anthropology. This is the elevation of a primitive prejudice -- or maybe a specific spiritual response to a pagan surround -- to an eternal principle. IYAM, it's nuts!
Now I'll go read everybody else's comments . . .
dan said: Gay people exist abundantly. Everybody knows one; everybody is related to one.
I know several gay people, but I'm not related to any. Considering the astounding size of my extended family, it's surprising to me, but I've quizzed cousins of two or three generations and not one of us can think of a cousin, aunt, or uncle who is gay.
Pogo has more than adequately expressed my own opinions on the issues discussed here, so I won't reiterate.
This is silly. All the millions of Americans who voted to outlaw gay marriages did not sit down and do any serious thinking on the subject. Not because it was a "no-brainer" but because they don't really care about the issue. They just said "Eww! Icky! Homosexuals!" and they punched the card.
If straight people were in fact so almighty and righteously concerned the the "threat" to marriage, then they simply would stop getting divorced. Thats really all it would take.
But why do that when you can get puffed up on a false sense of self-importance and claim that the downfall of Civilization As We Know It is somebody else's fault?
Marriage was not defended on election day. It was cheapened. But not by those wanting gay marriage, but by those who just don't really give damn about it in the first place until someone comes along and shames them into noticing what they had throw away.
Regarding marriage straight people have behaved like a dog that is careless about where it leaves its favorite bone. Until a littler dog comes along and sees the treasure that was discarded. Then the big dog comes running back huffing in an indignant rage and chases the little dog away.
Yip. Yip.
Pogo,
How does changing the definition of marriage to include gay couples undermine heterosexual marriage? Heterosexuals can go on marrying and raising children the old-fashioned way. Homosexuals are quite a small percentage of the population. If you really care about seeing children raised in two-parent families, it would be easy divorce and encouraging single parenthood that you'd want to to after, not gay marriage.
Most of us who oppose gay marriage support a form of gay union to answer economic discrimination.
Gahrie: "Most of us"? Really? Aren't most of the state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage also banning civil unions? (Which seems really gratuitous.)
Balfegor: Oxymoron alert.
And extending the benefits to polygamous couples does the same.
Polygamous couples?
vw: zxmuryd
you can't have zx unless you're muryd!
Balf: I take it back. "Couples" has come to mean two, but more than two can "couple." Like railroad cars. It doesn't really mean "two" except by association.
The social security plan has always been based on the prediction that many would die without collecting benefits. Originally, the plan was that most would die. That's why it's underfunded. It's a provision for old age. If you don't enter the state of old age, you don't need the provision.
Solution to the Social Security crisis! Lift all those annoying smoking restrictions!
I think the diversity of arguments here is the proof of Krauthammer's error--he assumes gay rights activists are one monolithic bloc with only one logical argument for supporting gay marriage, when in reality there are nearly as many reasons for supporting gay marriage as there are people.
If one argues that gay marriage should be legal because anyone should be able to enter into any relationship with any other consenting adult they choose, then Krauthammer's slippery slope argument holds.
But there are numerous other reasons why people would support gay marriage. They could view it as gender discrimination-- unconsitutional in the same way that anti-miscegnation laws were. (Although I don't support a judicial fiat approach at marriage reform, all should be aware that such a legal argument exists that applies to gay marriage but does not apply to polygamy.)
Or they could believe, as Krauthammer quoted from his friend Andrew Sullivan, that "homosexuality and polygamy are categorically different because polygamy is a mere `activity' while homosexuality is an intrinsic state that `occupies a deeper level of human consciousness.'" It is disappointing that Krauthammer fails to see that one doesn't have to agree with straw-man version of gay rights activism that he sets up in order to support gay marriage. There are an awful lot of people--even straights like me--who would think that gay marriages are moral and polygamy is not. Just because I think someone is a bigot for opposing gay marriage doesn't mean I think they're a bigot for opposing incest. We're not arguing for the abolition of standards--we're simply arguing that you've got the wrong one.
Moreover, there's the sociological argument. And there's even three of these--either citing the apparent disfunction of polygamous families among Mormon fundies (seriously, how could gay adoptions be anywhere near this bad), the inequality of such relationships, or the effects of polygamy on liberal democracies which assume equality among their members.
Now, by my count that's five completely independent reasons why someone would favor gay marriage but oppose polygamy. Add in Ann's economic argument and get six. Many people who pro-polygamy (including some gay activists, I imagine) or anti-gay marriage would disagree with all six of these reasons. Even many people who agree with the conclusion would disagree with one or more of the six arguments--or perhaps all of them, if they have their own seventh argument.
But Krauthammer's criticism is utterly inapplicable to any of these six arguments. His slippery slope argument depends on a straw man that I'm not actually convinced the majority of people supporting gay marriage would agree with.
Brendan said..."Ann, one of my fave professors responds to you here. Not sure if you've seen it or not:
http://mu-warrior.blogspot.com/2006/03/ann-althouse-and-gay-marriage.html"
Brendan, one of your favorite professors is not a very accurate reader of the posts he imagines he's shredding. F!
where the welfare of children is often of lesser importance with gay couples, it is absolutely central to that of plural marriages - because that is why they exist.
Bruce Hayden,
Is it why they exist? Or are children a byproduct of the middle-aged uncles' right to enjoy the dewy-fresh 14-year-olds when the bloom is off their wives? Which is a desirable (from the uncle's point of view) byproduct of the other? In the UT/AZ cult case, polygamy may be about male power and sexual prerogative. In the "polyamory" case, it's about "liberated" and "truthful," bonobo-style sexuality. In neither case is it exclusively or perhaps even primarily about children.
Amba: "you can't have zx unless you're muryd!"
LOL.
In other words: society might have some interest in expecting and rewarding a commitment to one partner. In principle if not in practice, in a society where the sexes are at least approaching equality (so that women don't have to be married to survive), a marriage of two has a better chance of stability than a marriage of 3 or more. Doesn't it? I suppose you could argue that having the 3rd partner there is some kind of safety valve for the need for variety which would otherwise break up the 2, but . . . I don't think so. It's almost chemical that 2 has a better chance of being a stable bond, so society and parenthood won't entirely be like a game of musical chairs.
For some reason this reminds me of a really terrible joke my sister in Canada sent us all:
Q: Why do Canadians do it doggie-style?
A: So they can both watch the hockey game.
Those groups having three or more children and their religious beliefs will ultimately prevail over our system and this discussion will be moot.
Unless those children rebel . . .
Think of a situation with two husbands and four wives. Could create lots of children but probably only one parent would need stay home with the kids. That's five adult salaries coming into the home instead of two and childcare.
-peder, that's interesting. It suggests that polygamy could recreate the extended family that in many ways was a better environment for children to grow up in than the nuclear two parents! If people aren't going to live with their blood clan, maybe they'd be motivated to live with their main and subsidiary squeezes . . . thus providing more adults for children to interact with. (Just goofing, or am I?)
In the societies allowing polygamy, the poorer/less desirable males have a hard time attracting mates and are thus denied this advantage.
"That's not fair!" That's the sense in which life is not fair.
Actually monogamy gives the guys lower in the pecking order a much fairer crack at mating and reproducing. And, as someone pointed out, the result is more genetic diversity. (Did you hear about the genetic testing that showed that some 3 million men in the world's population are all probably descended from one Irish king? Niall of the Nine Hostages. There's polygamy at work for ya!
Glaivester
Mormons, if defined as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Later Day Saints, abhore polygamy and polygamists, despite many of them having such in their family trees. Those who practice it in their name are considered apostate.
The problem is that a bit over 100 years ago, their prophet had a divine revelation that polygamy was no longer acceptable by their church. Those who couldn't accept this split off, declared him a false prophet, and selected one of their own who had a contrary revelation.
The problem is that, at one level, the Mormon Church is run by revelation. So, the legitimacy of the Church, and its teachings, is dependant upon the legitimacy of its prophets. Those who split off and continue to practice polygamy thus deny the legitimacy of the mainline Mormon Church by denying the legitimacy of their prophets - which is why I termed them apostates, which makes them worse than gentiles, or even heretics.
And, because of this, I expect that Utah, Idaho, and maybe Wyoming, would be the last states in the country to accept polygamy. For most of us, it is just something that we disagree with. For them, it is a fundamental attack on their religion.
lindsey
There is a logical difference between being born homosexual and homosexuality being of genetic origin. One theory I have seen about one source of male homosexuality is that male fetuses require shots of testosterone at (three?) specific times in utero for their brains to develop as fully masculine. This can supposedly be interferred with through, for example, maternal stress. Remember, the default for mammals, without shots of testosterone, is female. This apparently applies to our bodies in general, and, in this case, our brains. At one point, apparently, we are developing our sexual orientation, and at another, our sexual approach (agressive versus passive / receptive). Statistically, a larger percentage of homosexual males (w/female sexual orientation) have a female sexual approach than do heterosexual males (though there are some of them too who have such).
My point there is that there are theories that suggest that at least some male homosexuality is determined by the time of birth, but doesn't depend on genetics.
Believe it or not, I'm watching Bill Maher and he just asked a very anti-war Michael Stipe, who said R.E.M. had just celebrated its 26th anniversary, "That's nice to hear, there's usually all this drama with bands. What's THAT all about?" And Stipe says, "Oh, sure, there's always drama. It's just like being married to several people. Of course in the case of R.E.M. we all happen to be of the same sex . . . not that that bothers me . . . "
Didn't say anything about benefits for bandmates, tho. :)
the primary purpose of marriage is child-rearing. That does not mean that children must be raised in every marriage, but rather that for society to successfully endure, heterosexual marriage is a necessary component, and children must be produced in the vast majority of them.
Let's grant, Pogo, that heterosexual marriage is "a necessary component" -- why would the other component, hypothetical gay marriage, invalidate that? Maybe gay marriage could be seen as "a necessary component" with a different purpose -- to integrate the gay people who are always going to exist into a stable society that values monogamy as an ideal (even if, for that thousand years you claim and more, the monogamous part of it has often been honored in the breach)?
For all those who respond to "it isn't fair" by saying "Life isn't fair." Well, it's true, the circumstances of life are very often not fair. Does that mean we can just throw the idea of fairness out the window, because "life isn't fair"? I gave one of my kids a 2006 Mustang and the other one a popsicle. The one with the popsicle said, "Hey, that's not fair!" I, of course, rightly respond, "Life's not fair." A voter on election day gets to cast his vote with no opposition, while the voter behind him is beaten with a club and turned away. "Life's not fair," sneers the man beating him.
Do you see how ridiculous this is? Just because random events in life affect some people more than others, it doesn't absolve us of the responsibility to be as fair as we can possibly be.
I, for one, would love to adopt children and raise them, but I'm not going to do that unless I can actually marry my partner.
By the way, another argument for legal gay marriage: my partner is from another country (although here on a legal visa), and even though we would love to be together for the rest of our lives, we can't be sure that will happen, since he's not a citizen. If I could marry him and he could become a permanent resident and then a citizen, it would be another story. However, it is so incredibly difficult to legally emigrate to the US that we don't know how we can manage it. (And before some of you assume I favor illegal immigration, I absolutely do not. I think that the sheer volume of illegal immigration is one reason it's so hard to do it legally.)
Balfegor:
I would be perfectly willing to posit that polygamy, like slavery, is objectively wrong. However, my opinion has no force for anybody else, so that's moot.
Also, when I said I find polyamory repugnant, I didn't say that I found the people to be repugnant. I hardly think that's cruel and bigoted. And I think my "everybody gets one" idea is very much a part of our culture. It applies when distributing cookies to kids, for example, if you're not sure you'll have enough if some people take more than one. Polyamory is people wanting more than is their fair share. Gay marriage is just about people getting their fair share to begin with.
Re: "Let's grant, Pogo, that heterosexual marriage is "a necessary component" -- why would the other component, hypothetical gay marriage, invalidate that?"
Heterosexual marriage is the tradition, the culmination of ages of societal experimentation, precisely because it demonstrates that the union of a man and a woman -over against any other grouping- is the most likely unit by which to advance and continue the community. The success of that unique combination is not replicated in any other set of "parents", not gay, not government.
The problem afflicting all of leftism is the arrogance to insist that the eons of cultural learning, passed on as tradition, can be reinvented at your whim. Despite the repeated warnings that your hubris will inherit the wind, you persist, convinced that each age can ignore man's essential nature, and invent its own future unencumbered by the past.
The 20th century saw repeated disasters from this illiberal concept. But the hope does not die. Now you want to put asunder the very pillar of civilization, marriage, that begets Burke's "little platoons". And because you can twist a Gordian knot of logic around it, you think you can invent a new reality that will have no deleterious downstream effects.
While you may succeed in gaining gay marriage, you will lose the only present civilization that permits open homosexuality, that of the West. The EU is soon to be under sharia law for the reason of simple failure to reproduce. It will not treat gays so kindly, more given to crushing with stones than granting marriage licenses.
I argue that expanding "marriage" beyond a heterosexual union invalidates the concept of marriage for the very reason gays wish to convert the definition to one more of their liking: it is a special class, one they wish to adopt for themselves.
But once that class has been redifined, it is no longer "special", but something else, something lesser. And soon enough, something meaningless. A mere legal contract. That you cannot see this fact is immaterial; it exists.
I fail to comprehend the liberal unwillingness to admit this argument has any validity at all, but insist instead on some moral failure, economic calculus, plea to fairness, or Randian freedom to do as one pleases.
Pogo said, "The EU is soon to be under sharia law for the reason of simple failure to reproduce."
How soon? You're on record.
Legal marriage isn't just about love, it's an economic arrangement.
Historically, that was the sole basis for marriage. Love and marriage is a 20th century convention.
In ancient Rome marriage was a contract. The woman had all of her possessions in her name and it went with her if there was divorce.
In medieval times, again marriage was a contract. It was used to stave of political and social problems and increase stature and power that could occur by the union of two houses.
This economic contractual approach continued well into the Renassaince and Victorian eras. Women were observed as goods or commodities that enhanced the power and prestige of not only the man but his entire pater familias.
At no time was there more than one wive in these arrangements. [Sorry for assuming that the monogamy was only on the female part, but, in fact, it was.] Having more than one spouse would have really comlicated the economic and power balances.
Now, and here's the kicker, if you go back to ancient Old Testament Hebrews, polygamy runs rampant. The irony of the argument against polygamy being next after gay marriage cannot hold water because the very foundation of the christianist point of view undermines it. Polygamy would not come next.
It came first!
There is no significant group of would-be plural marriagers lobbying their politicians to win the right to marry more than one person.
But there is a man in court being tried for polygamy that is using the exact same arguments to defend himself that the proponents of gay marriage are using in the courts. Courts are about equity, and there is no equitable reason to allow gay marriage without allowing polygamy.
Polygamy is already entering our popular culture (a TV show and numerous articles in trendy news magazines), is being legislated in Canada, and is becoming more and more prevalent in Scandanavia.
I think you are seriously underestimating the impact polygamy is going to have on our culture in the very near future.
1) Genetically speaking most evolutionary biologists would have to admit that men are made to be polygamous. So it is natural, every man is in fact born that way. It is civilization (patriarchy) that restricts this behavior.
2) Currently the most expensive lifestyle is single motherhood, which is responsible for most child poverty in America. Much of single motherhood is the result of polygamous behavior (one man fathering many children- and this results in matriarchal socities). If we're going the libertine route, legalizing polygamy can solve the problem because instead of needing many households, all the mothers and children could live under in one home, so there are economies of scale. Also problems like unemployment are mitigated.
3) The slippery slope from gay marriage to polygamy is this: if we say that traditional marriage is arbitrary, just a definition, AND that society can choose to change this to allow for gay marriage, THEN if society can choose what marriage arrangements it wants, why can't it choose to discriminate against homosexuals in the first place? One you change the marriage laws, you can't stop anyone from kicking the sand and making a new line. So this argument has 2 benefits for the traditionalist: a) polygamy does not directly follow but the conditions are created whereby at anytime in the future it could become legal and b) if society can choose what marriage is, it can choose to exclude gay unions.
4) On fairness: traditionalists see things this way: how can it be fair for gays to get married but polygamists cannot? The thing for traditionalists is, they don't want polygamy, but they can't see how if they are being unfair by not allowing gays to get married, that they will then be fair to deny polygamists this right. The point, and this is important, is that for traditionalists the slippery slope exists- i.e. if they can't see how you can ban polygamy in that legal environment, they themselves may be forced to legalize it, because of their sense of fairness.
5) The only reason gay marriage is discussed is because the modern defintion of marriage has divorced itself from it's traditional roots. (If you want an iron clad contract to get your partner's benefits, I suggest homosexuals not choose marriage. No fault divorce can wreak havoc.) It is true that adding gay marriage is another attack on traditional marriage, just as no-fault divorce (the other major cause of single motherhood) was. Attacking the very foundation of traditional marriage, that is it between a man and woman, does not help traditional marriage.
I can't get over all this solemn sentimental idealization of "tradition" when clearly, "tradition" has made many things of marriage. Probably the most "traditional" form, measured by sheer temporal preponderance, was a property transaction, an exchange of women as chattel/goods between male groups interested in forming alliances. Read your Lévi-Strauss.
"Tradition" in many countries also is: the husband has one or more mistresses (or male lovers, if that's his thing) and does as he pleases, the wife goes to church for consolation. "Tradition" in many places also is wife-beating. Lovely stuff. Let's bring back tradition!
The Greeks thought marriage was inferior, spiritually and emotionally, to homosexuality. Marriage was for having children and maintaining a household, but not for the higher reaches of love.
The nuclear family is NOT the ideal way of raising children. The extended family/clan is. Children probably grow up less neurotic when not trapped in the hothouse of interaction between just 2 adults, but have a variety of adults to turn to and to observe.
The thing is, Matthew, polygamists CAN get married. They just have to pick (from several) who they most want to get married to. Gay people can't marry ANYBODY of their choice.
Straight people and polygamists can at least marry someone that they love. Gay people can't marry anybody that they love.
Re: The nuclear family is NOT the ideal way of raising children. The extended family/clan is.
Although that makes a nice thought process, it fails on numerous grounds. But foremost it lacks evidence of superiority by not existing in numbers greater than that of nuclear families.
The thing indeed speaks for itself.
Re: The Greeks thought marriage was inferior, spiritually and emotionally, to homosexuality.
Quite correct. And for their utopian beliefs, and ultimate preference for idle hedonism over the work of creating families, the Greek society declined and fell, and was integrated into the Roman Republic in 146 BC.
Societies do, in fact, whither away, and are replaced by something stronger. Most often, it is succeeded by the people that reproduce, those being among a culture that has rediscovered how to civilize its men. In marriage.
History has conclusively favored the raising of children by their biological parents. It's the only grouping that has resulted in a civilized man.
That two men want to raise a child, or that it would turnout "okay" (whatever that menas) doesn't matter a whit. It's about making a nation and era that endures, marriage is not about you, it's about making the best next generation.
Your wishes and desires are subordinate, and matter very little. Destroy that connection between marriage and children, and destroy the society. It is, in fact, occurring across the EU. Gay marriage will hasten its death, and Eurabia -or something else- will succeed it.
Surely you cannot be unaware that 1970s radical feminism, and its Marxist forebears saw the death of the family as essential to the eventual leftist revolution, and destroying marriage was the key. Where they failed in nation-building (and 100 million dead for the effort), they were correct in guessing how to destroy the West: undermine marriage.
Re: He says Islamic sharia law will be established throughout Europe as a backlash to gay marriage.
No, I said that the dissolution of marriage, already extant across Europe, will be hastened by the expansion of the the definition of marriage to include gays and then polygamists. Child-rearing will then disappear at a faster rate than before.
Islamists are out-reproducing the native Europeans, and will replace them. The Islamists have not demosntrated much tolerance for gays in the past, so once their majority is reached, gay marriage will be gone again.
Re: The chances of sharia law becoming dominant in the West are zero.
England and much of europe are now living under de facto sharia law in its first iteration: obediance to the dictat that criticism of islam is forbidden. Alarmist!
Re: Pogo can’t champion and defend Western civilization if he believes it to be so fragile that it will disappear in mere decades under the threat of Islamist extremism.
Your hubris is astounding. Your belief that "faith in the fundamental strength of civilization" will eventuate the survival of the west is a curious and shallow reading of history.
The entire 20th century exemplifies how very fragile is Western civilization. It was nearly undone by leftism on a repeated basis, countered only by spilled blood and endless effort. Faith? Necessary, but not sufficient.
Civilization is a fragile thing. Each child is born a barbarian (ask any parent), and must be civilized. This process is best achieved in a heterosexual monogamous household (and the dominance of this form in the past 1000 years is its own proof). The fate of black men in the past 100 years is solid proof that, absent marriage, a culture can quickly devolve into barbarism. No one can argue that having one in four black men experiencing prison is an example of the success of faith in the West. It is instead an example of the failure to encourage marriage.
You misread my point, and I think deliberately so. Marriage is already in decline, and its demise will be hastened by gay marriage. "Faith" in the West (whatever that means) will have nothing to do with it. Those selfsame forces that led to its decline in the first place now ask to increase the speed at which it falls away by fundamentally changing the definition of marriage away from child-rearing (its only true role) to one of an economic contract between adults.
Re: "...gay marriage will ultimately be legalized throughout the West"
I agree that it will. And then the west will be replaced by something else. What exactly, I do not know. But a society that does not successfully reproduce itself will die. (BTW, this rhetoric was once common knowledge in the US, if you care to research it) "Faith" in the triumph of the west -absent marriage to pass the belief on- will be as successful as the asexual utopian communities of the 1800s. I hear many of their old communites have been turned into little shops or something. Cute places with funky art.
I think that gay marriage and the rise of Islam in Europe are interrelated, in that both are symptoms of somewhat the same thing there. Western Europe lacks vigor, and is thus losing out to the much more vigorous Moslems who immigrate there. The Moslems are having large families, and the western Europeans very small ones - well below their replacement level.
Why is this? My guess is self-indulgence. It takes a lot of sacrifice to have and raise kids. To do it right, it takes a lot of time, energy, and money. It means not going out on the weekends to a nice restaraunt, driving as nice a car, going on exciting vacations, etc.
So, I see the analogy with ancient Greece to be somewhat appropriate. They lost their vigor and were swallowed up by the much more vigorous Romans of their era, who were in turn overtaken by the much more vigorous Germans of six hundred or so years later. And now it is the turn of the Germans and Celts who conquered Rome to give way. (As a note, the Romans outbred the Greeks, the Germans and Celts outbred the Romans, and the Moslems are outbreeding the descendants of those Germans and Celts).
The reason that we are not in as dire straights is that we have a bunch of fundamentalists (including those accursed polygamists) plus a lot of Catholic immigrants providing that vigor. But part of the political shift we are seeing in this country is demographic - conservatives outbreeding liberals.
What I think has to be recognized is that gay marriage, just as single motherhood, easy divorce, etc., are all symptoms of putting the individual before the nuclear family, defined at a minimum as a breeding pair plus offspring. The argument for gay marriage is not that it will do a good job at creating and raising the next generation, but rather that the people who pursue it are somehow owed it because others have it. Because it is "fair".
But I don't think that fairness is necessarily the most important principle here. Rather, the question I think should be what is best for society? What is going to let us survive as a people best?
As a note, as should be obvious, I am not just pointing my finger at gay marriage, but also at other aspects of our society that detract from the nuclear heterosexual breeding and child rearing family, including single parenthood and divorce before the kids reach maturity.
The majority of your post, about the "laughability" of the demise of the West, belongs on another thread, and I won't debate the point here except to say I disagree. I am glad for your optimism, but modernism (high tech and science) and trade can exist in many forms; the West is just one of them.
"...something else that won't happen: people all of a sudden deciding to stop procreating. This fear is so ridiculous, it hardly deserves a reply. "
What I said was that Western people in the EU have already diminished (not ceased) procreating sufficiently to replace, much less expand, their population. This has already happened.
Immigrants lacking the European tradition are quickly overtaking them (the 50% point to be reached in just a few years). And then Europe will become something else. My bet is Eurabia, but an amlgam of sorts is possible.
Anyway, while the EU is currently run by "a culture that is very accepting of gay people and their full legal equality", there is little to suggest that its replacement, the one that burns cars in France, kills filmmakers in Denmark, and riots over cartoons, will be similarly accomodating. Polygamy they'll like, though.
But I enjoy your faith in the West, and hope you are right.
I think that brings to another point - why polygamous marriage arguably has a better justification than does gay marriage, and, thus, why the slippery slope is still an issue.
The traditional purpose of marriage has been to foster the optimal environment for creating and raising the next generation.
The argument, most morally and legally, for gay marriage seems to be mostly that it is fair - others have it, and it is unfair to deprive gays of it too. Plus, that raising kids in a gay marriage is better than in a single parent household.
Nevertheless, it is an argument primarily aimed at reaping the benefits of marriage, without paying the costs (of having and raising kids). Yes, the argument is made that plenty of heterosexual couples don't have kids either, but it still comes down to personal rights and ignores obligations.
Contrast this with polygamous marriages. There, the primary purpose is child rearing. If a woman is infertile, then the guy marries another woman, and the first one helps raise the kids. More kids? More wives. It apparently is not uncommon for the polygamous husbands to have a dozen or more children.
Thus, a polygamous family is much more closely related to the traditional role of marriage than is a gay marriage.
So, when it comes down to the question of what is more important in identifying what should be the determinant of a marriage, I think that having a set of breeders breeding and raising kids is more important and closer to the core basis of marriage than the number two.
And, thus, the slippery slope argument: gays get marriage because it is fair, but the traditional purpose of marriage is having and raising kids, gays cannot do the former by themselves, and often don't bother with the later, while plural marriages do this in abundance. Thus, why should gays get the marriage they want, but not polygamists?
As my doctor friend says (in an ironic tone), "...and I say the autopsy will prove me right!"
Edward,
I do agree that the Moslems, esp. in Europe, will ultimately slow down their population growth. But that population growth must be contrasted with the negative (i.e. below replacement level) population growth of the "White" Christian European population. History is replete with examples of one group out producing another in terms of population growth, and then swallowing the later. You seem to be banking on Moslem population growth slowing fast enough that they don't swallow the non-growing (and ultimately shrinking) Christian population there. Maybe, but maybe not - esp. when they see population growth as the key to their success.
I don't see European civilization as all that vigorous. Rather, I see it turned inward, and, yes, concentrating on individual liberties, when they are being swallowed by those who laugh at them and their concentration on these liberties, while breeding them into oblivion.
For better than 2,000 years, we have looked at the ancient Greeks as an example of how to live and how define the optimal society. And, yet, they were easily swallowed by the (much faster breeding) Romans, and, then later, by the (much faster breeding) Turks. And, indeed, it is only because of the benevolence of those Turks in the administration of their conquered territories that anyone speaks Greek today as a first language.
Regan said: "Only a person convinced of the inferiority of gay people as spouses and parents would speak of the destruction of marriage or it's tradition in that way.
I'm calling you out on that conceit, so at least be honest that's exactly what it is."
Quite the opposite is true, and your choice to insult me is an unpersuasive tactic to convince me otherwise. It is rather juvenile to suggest that all those who disagree with your line of reasoning are bigots per se.
You know nothing about me, so I forgive your childish attempt to call the question by an ad hominem attack. Whether I like or dislike gays, am or am not gay myself, am or am not married myself is not the issue. I say marriage is one thing, and you wish to redefine it. The only "proof" that it will be harmless or (unilkely) a marginal improvement over the current system is time. The downside, you must admit, is that you are wrong. And the predicted downside is disastrous.
So, your insults aside, why should I favor your argument?
If 'tradition' is a weak argument in support of leaving marriage as is, then why would gays or polyamorists act in pursuit of an institution that has meaning only because it is a tradition that excludes all other unions?
That is, you reject those components of the tradition of marriage that do not conform with your goals, in order to gain the benefits of a tradition whose historical basis you reject.
That's just playing dress-up, nothing more.
Re: "Surely a conservative such as Pogo seems to be does not need me to explain why marriage is a very appropriate and advantageous outcome to the process of falling in love."
Then you've understood nothing of what I've written.
The traditonalist view is is that marriage has little to do with recognizing 'love', but with securing a union under which to raise children. Period. You want it to mean something else.
We continue to talk past each other. You grant none of my concerns about the long-term effects of redefining marriage, and I will not grant to you that your definition of marriage is in any way 'conservative'. It's mere cultural crossdressing; playing at marriage, sans the duty and effort in begetting and raising one's own children under guidance of a man and a woman. (Any substitute is inferior, Regan).
It has been said several times in this thread that "marriage is not about you". I think that is absolutely and completely backwards. Marriage is not only about you, that's what it's primarily about. My Dad (a conservative Lutheran pastor) always told me growing up that the partners in a marriage are the most important thing. He said that even though he loved us kids and would even die for us, the person of primary importance to him was his wife.
Bill Cosby had it right when he quoted his father: "I brought you into this world, and I'll take you out. And it don't matter to me, I can make another one just like you."
And even more basically, God created Eve in the Garden of Eden primarily to be a partner, and equal, to Adam, and secondarily to be the mother of all the living.
Re: "If Congress wants to make a law about marriage, or if many States do, they cannot a priori exclude a class of people."
Funny, then, that marriage has, in fact, done just that for centuries under our Constitution. You can, in fact, exclude a class of people. And we did. Instead, you want to change the rules to fit your desire of the good. Put it to a ballot, then.
Re: " I think that is absolutely and completely backwards. Marriage is not only about you, that's what it's primarily about."
I was speaking of the institutions role in society, for which marriage is about society's interests in how children are raised.
One's own marriage is certainly about the couple, Don't be silly. You missed the point entirely, and so badly that I think it was on purpose.
But fundamentally, when two people (and it can only occur between two people) approach each other romantically, each must regard the significant other as equally significant. Whatever else the relationship's dynamics, tensions, dialectic, elasticity, etc., a romantic relationship must be between equals. Take away that fundamental equality, and one fundamentally strips romance out of the relationship.
You're positing that that co-equal romance can only occur between exactly two people... but I see not reason to believe this to be true.
If two can romantically treat each other as co-equal, then three should be able to as well.
What is it that you allege makes this formation impossible?
DSH is the perfect exempler of the postmodern mind. Nature, Natural
Law, traditional human institutions are all nonsense. Rights? Well, they're just "mental constructs".
Here are few questions for DSH: What exactly is a "mental contruct"? How are these things constructed and what are the rules of contruction? How does one know if my "mental contructs" are the same as DSH's? Indeed, with everyone creating their own subjective "mental constructs", how is communication between minds even possible? Isn't the notion of communication itself a subjective "mental construct?
And what about this autonomous self and its freedom that DSM worships? Can such an entity really relate to anything or anybody outside of itself?
If we cut to the chase and drop the jargon, what DSM is really saying is that human rights are imaginary. Therefore, they have the same ontological status as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
Imagine trying to construct a rational political philosophy that rests on the premise that human rights are imaginary and, at the same, preserves the notions of justice and dignity that rest on the Judeo-Christian and Natural Law traditions. It can't be done; DSM is trying to square the circle.
This is why Nietzsche reserved his greatest scorn for those like DSM who think they can preserve the moral insights arrived at by the old traditions while at the same time rejecting the metaphysical world view that sustained those very same tradtions. Nietzsche saw these "nihilism with a happy face" folks as naive bumblers who didn't have a clue as to what was about to descend on Western Civilization after the masses bought into this notion that human rights are imaginary.
I suggest that a likely candidate waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces is radical Islam.
Re: "Gay marriage will in no way change the number of kids living in heterosexual households. Gay marriage will not deprive any child of a mom or dad who would otherwise have one. This argument is illogical and completely without merit."
Given the depth and breadth of the discussion already presented here, I would suggest that either you deliberately ignored these prior explanations or you simply are incapable of understanding them.
That does not make my argument meritless, it only exposes your rejection of it on its face.
Re: "Respect must be paid."
Why must it?
On what basis do you demand such respect, when you offer none for tradition?
Must respect be paid to whatever concept you create, regardless of its effects, because you said them?
Must repsect be paid to illogical misrepresentative arguments that fail to address core issues?
Why is that?
You propose a tectonic shift in a central pillar of civilization, and point only to people 'feeling bad' about their inability to participate in this facet of life as the reason for putting asunder what took millenia to build.
You pay no repect to civilization, but demand to use its benefits as you see fit, damn the consequences.
Well, I disagree. respect is not due here.
I think you miss the point entirely. (or at least often)
Marriage limits itself to a class of people.
That class is one man one women.
That distinction necessarily relates to childbearing.
As a class (men & women) are capable of producing children.
Even if, in a specific incident, members of that class cannot.
Homosexuals as a class (two men, or two women) can NEVER produce children.
This goes for any same gender combination, regardless of orientation.
So, as it stands: marriage necessarily relates to procreation.
After the proposed change; marriage would necessarily NOT relate to procreation.
I.E. . As an institution it is integrally related to procreation.
To end this connection is to move us further away from the important norm of insuring that children are born to married mothers and fathers.
You can discount this goal; but you cannot maintain that marriage does not necessarily relate to procreation at present. Nor can you maintain that same sex “marriage” does not necessarily separate marriage & procreation.
The argument for Polygamy is actually a stronger argument than the one for same-sex “marriage".
1. The potential market for polygamy/polyandry/“polyamory” is vastly greater than for ss “m”
2. Polygamy has a historical & cultural heritage that ss “m” does not.
3. Polygamy can make authentic religious rights claims that ss “m” cannot.
4. Polygamy avoids the strongest arguments against ss ‘m’. It provides children their natural born parents living together.
5. Polygamy’s children receive equal gender representation.
(no slippery slope – nope, not a bit.)
University academic arguments for ss “m” always leave open the possibility for Polygamy or more precisely “polyamory”. That is: The serious law and humantites professors and their organizations (like the ALI) do not endorse so called “conservative” case for gay marriage.
They want to de-privilege the privileged
(i.e. – traditional marriage)
And privilege the de-privileged
(i.e. – anything but traditional marriage)
Re: "Case Closed."
Thus Spake Zarathustra.
Regan, don't be so obtuse.
Want to compare bona fides? I have a black cousin and an Asian sister-in-law. My white brother married a black woman and has 3 kids. My daughter is dating a black man. My nephew is gay. I have autistic siblings. So what?
None of that matters as to the underlying question. You prefer to view this an issue of indiviual liberty. I view it as a broader issue. You choose to ignore or reject the potential deleterious effects, I am concerned about them being disastrous.
Anyway, Ed sez "Case Closed", so we can't talk anymore.
And what do you have against speedboats?
Without that violence, the historical record would be very different from what it is. Gay marriage would have existed in some form in the West for a long time, and today’s opponents of gay marriage would not have the crutch of “tradition” to lean upon in these debates.
Don't be so sure. Even in the ancient societies where homosexual behavior was tolerated or even elevated -- among the ancient Greeks and Romans -- homosexual "marriage" was a non-starter. These civilizations acknowledged a special relationship among men but also had the sense to understand that such a relationship was extraneous to the continuation of society. Marriage has always been about managing children and property, not personal satisfaction.
Re:"Lorenzo points out, however, that the only reason a tradition of gay marriage is missing from history is because horrific violence has prevented it from forming."
The only reason? How facile and anti-intellectual. "My opponent is and always has been EVIL." Feh. I understand your point, I think, but you do not understand mine. You either refuse to recognize it, or lack the capacity to do so. I disagree with your conclusions; you find me evil. What a childish postion; can't you do better than that?
So let's put it to a vote. In my home state of Minnesota, theDemocrats are refusing to put it on the ballot. Why? Are Minnesotans evil?
One question: Why exactly do you suppose their has been violent opposition to homosexuality among cultures in the past? Any ideas?
Ed, if it's really "Case Closed," as you dogmatically claimed, why are still kvetching?
So we come back to Ann's post. She suggested a way to keep gay marriage about gay marriage alone, and not about polygamy. I disagreed, and still do. Subsequent posts in favor of SSM give arguments that will also be used for polygamy, yours especially. Case closed, Ed?
P.S. And the "the viciously homophobic cultural conditioning that every adult in this country was exposed to growing up", when did that happen?
I don't recall the two minutes of hate in school, but maybe I missed it when I went to the john.
But that must explain the violent oppostion to Queer Eye, Will & Grace and multiple other gay-themed TV shows in the past ten years or so. It's vicious, I tell ya!
Re:"If that's not intellectually and emotionally violent, then I don't know what is."
Preaching that people will go to hell is "violence"? Interesting, but now that you mention it, that Jesus guy was pretty much a fascist after all, wasn't he, condemning people to hades and stuff. Where does he get off with that emotional violence?
I am curious as to my prior question:
Why is it, do you suppose, that cultures have had any dislike for homosexuality? What possible purpose could it have served that is no longer present (or never was)?
Re: "And I never called you evil. Misguided maybe... "
If you don't consider that 'defending a tradition of violence' is evil, I think you ought to change your standards.
Edward said...
“Gay marriage (and gay rights more broadly) also constitute one of the social phenomena that radical Islamists most oppose. Thus, by establishing gay marriage here, we will differentiate ourselves even more from oppressive regimes where Islamism holds sway.”
There is also the possibility Edward (and I believe it to be the more likely one) that a regime of gay marriage in the west will only alienate us further from traditional societies. In establishing liberal democracies, it is important that third world countries view westernization as non-threatening to there most cherished values. There is little more threatening that the west’s breakdown of the traditional family. Sexual mores and the sexual exploitation of women in western society.
First world third world relations require that we concentrate on similarities. Marriage is one universal that we can all share. Indeed; with the prevalence of divorce and remarriage in the west, most Islamic societies are less polygamist than we are.
Edward said...
“agree with her, and my last post provides another, more empirical reason for why Ann is right about this. Much of the debate in this thread has been highly speculative, and that is especially true in terms of the posts opposing gay marriage. Opponents of gay marriage use polygamy as convenient cudgel to attack gay marriage, but they ignore all the historical evidence and actual experience that suggest few things could be more antithetical than gay marriage and polygamy.”
Antithetical is a big word. You seem to engage in hyperbole at your leisure.
Reasons why gay marriage and polygamy are not “antithetical”
I stated above in my two earlier posts.
To further press the point….
Gay marriage is premised on the case that the government must (as a matter of basic fairness/civil/human rights) allow people who love each other top get married. Once that is established (and the necessary link to childbearing severed) then their remains no principled reason for denying multi-partner unions.
Edward said...
“American conservatives, many of whom hardly know or understand gay people at all – then there is zero chance that gay marriage will result in legalized polygamy.”
The first part of this sentence is pure pap, you have no reason to assume that “conservatives” don’t know or understand gays. (its ridiculous given their average dispersal throughout ethnic, religious, & class divisions)
then there is zero chance that gay marriage will result in legalized polygamy.”
You seem to want to arrive at this iron clad conclusion. But merely asserting something strongly does not make it so.
Since you have a penchant for the word “empirical” – Here is conclusive “empirical evidence” of the link between gay marriage & polygamy.
It is a federal study from a country (Canada) recommending adoption of polygamy.
(Canada’s high court imposed gay marriage several years ago)
http://www.wluml.org/english/newsfulltxt.shtml?cmd%5B157%5D=x-157-507316
http://www.un-instraw.org/revista/hypermail/alltickers/en/0120.html
Re: "...polygamists have not been the target of violence throughout Western history to anywhere near the same degree as homosexuals"
I would have some faith in your conclusions if you'd performed even a modicum of research.
The Mormons were persecuted because their polytheism and polygamy. They were met with mob violence in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and they were repeatedly forced to move, often just ahead of the law or the mob.
From there they went to Missouri where the Governor directed that the Mormons be "driven from the state or exterminated", ending in Haun's Mill massacre. 17 Mormons were killed. They escaped to Nauvoo, Illinois, but Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by townspeople. On to Utah!
No violence here. Just move along.
"Why exactly do you suppose there has been violent opposition to homosexuality among cultures in the past?"
There can be only one answer: it must be because hetrosexuals are unnaturally predisposed to violence. Thus they have created religions that serve only to justify their propensity towards violence.
How is an enlightened society to deal with this unpleasent fact? The solution is obvious: the violent nature of hetrosexuality will have to be exposed. Our public schools will be critical in this task. At an early age, children must be made aware of this most dangerous aspect of hetrosexuality.
Second, the entire question of the role of religion in a society of free individuals must be re-examined. Unless religion can be disengaged from hetrosexual violence, enlightened minds will be forced to conclude that religion is detrimental to a free society. And this insight, of course, will have legal implications.
Alaska Jack.
Both your points (above) are quite salient.
Much is already happening.
(three random examples)
http://www.startribune.com/191/story/317243.html
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/04/29/arrested_father_had_point_to_make/
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/16/across_the_country_church_agencies_eye_adoption_practices/
In NJ, the SUpreme court heard arguments for gay marraige last month and the justices seemed very aware that polygamy was just a red herring.
The Justices were too sharp for that nonsense.
I was in trenton the day the arguments took place and was in a conference call w/ activists afterwards. the transcripts here:
http://einkleinesblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/new-jersey-supreme-court-hears-gay.html
jay lassiter (writes)
“NJ, the SUpreme court heard arguments for gay marraige last month and the justices seemed very aware that polygamy was just a red herring.”
I don’t recall that?
You can label it a “red hearing” all you like. Never the less, the two arguments are inseparable. If marriage is just the ability to marry someone you love (separated from procreation) than why the arbitrary two?
Whats your “rational basis”?
Go chase these “red hearings”
http://www.wluml.org/english/newsfulltxt.shtml?cmd%5B157%5D=x-157-507316
http://www.un-instraw.org/revista/hypermail/alltickers/en/0120.html
Edward (wrote)
"In fact, the worst enemies of homosexuals throughout history may well be other homosexuals -- more precisely, self-hating homosexuals who become particularly homophobic to conceal and suppress their own sexual urges."
Were is your evidence for this phenomena? This canard seems to be pulled out against anyone who refuses to toe the politically correct line.
Its accusing anyone who disagrees with homosexuals to be themselves homosexual. Its impossible to prove OR rebuff. ( I find this speculative and silly)
Edward (writes)
"Muslim countries certainly have just as many gay citizens as does the West. Their cultures are so extremely repressive concerning homosexuality -- and, indeed, concerning all forms of sexuality -- that the resultant sexual frustration is without question fueling unnecessarily their rage against the West."
“WITHOUT QUESTION”??!!!?? you certainly like hyperbole don’t you Edward.
Are we supposed to believe that Osama Bin Laden attacked us on 911 because he is a repressed homosexual?
Are the protests against the Danish cartoons being fueled by angry mobs of repressed homosexuals?
If you want people to take you seriously, you have to be more careful in your arguments.
Edward (wrote)
"Muslim countries certainly have just as many gay citizens as does the West."
“certainly” ??!!?? – You’ll want to do more research into homosexuality.
Start here and read carefully.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226470202/qid=1142882124/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-2081900-0635010?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Edward (wrote)
“ I'm not saying all opponents of gay rights are themselves gay. I'm saying a certain amount of hostility to gay equality is the result of self-hatred on the part of some closeted gay people.”
I know what you’re saying, and I’m refuting it. If their “closeted” than how do you know their gay? And where does your evidence for “self-hatred” come from?
I have heard this before, it seems spurious and silly.
Edward (wrote)
“I'm also not saying that Osama bin Laden is gay, but if the Muslim Middle East had a more realistic attitude toward all forms of sex and sexuality, there would probably be more social and political stability in that part of the world. And they would hate the West a lost less. And there would probably be less terrorism.”
That’s a ridiculous argument. Lack of “realistic attitudes about sex” lead to war? The Greeks and Romans were pretty libertine by today’s standards and they were constantly warring. This is an untenable line of reasoning and shows a sophomoric infatuation on all things sexual. I suggest you drop it as a an active thesis.
Regan (wrote)
This is so crazy. We don't allow schools or school authorities to let children harm another over looks, size, physical ability or mental prowess.
Only with gay kids, are school authorities and boards allowed to put gay kids in the position of being alien to their peers, where they shouldn't be.
Alien and unwanted.
Well, why?
Your premise is false, kids get made fun of over their “looks, size, physical ability or mental prowess” all the time. (or didn’t you go to high school).
Teachers and administration discourage and punish such behavior regularly. As they both do and should for teasing related to perceived sexual orientation.
In none of the cases is specific legislation necessary, and neither is it for perceived sexual orientation. Schools do and should discourage unwarranted harassment as a general matter & discourage bullying as a general matter.
(of coarse none of this has anything to do with marriage or polygamy)
Regan (wrote)
“As for marriage, gay couples can and do establish themselves. They have children, whether biological or adoptive.
Now we can either enable them to be more secure and protected as such, or we can go around preaching this fiction that marriage is and always has been motivated by piety and love and romance and children.
And only hetero people know how to commit.”
Its not a question of commitment. It’s a question of the purpose of the institution and its importance to society. Government does not sanction marriage because it makes people feel better. Marriage wasn’t created to make homosexuals feel excluded. I and others don’t defend the institution to punish homosexuals.
On the contrary, the overwhelming number of people are heterosexual’s. These people do have sex and can produce children. The government has an interest in encouraging man & women to marry in order that their natural children are brought up in intact, married households. Gay marriage & polygamy undermines this norm. It locks in and reinforces the notion that all family forms are inherently equal. They are not.
Well, it all comes down to how you define marriage, doesn't it? To me, legal marriage is about taking a non-familial person (although I'm sure there are exceptions) and elevating them above your blood relatives by making them your legal next-of-kin.
Currently, the restriction is that one can only do this with one person of the opposite sex.
Allowing a person to do this with someone of the same sex, allows them to place that person ahead of their family in the next-of-kin position.
Moving onto polygamous or polyandrous relationships, when you pick a second or third mate, where in that hierarchy of next-of-kin do you elevate them to? Do you elevate subsequent mates ahead of previous mates, or behind them on the next-of-kin scale?
Marriage for same sex couples doesn't run into the next-of-kin complication that polygamy does, and to me, that is the deciding factor in differentiating between the two rather easily.
Anonymous
Its called a will.
Elevate whoever you want to whatever position you deem appropriate.
Stephen
While your off fetching hubbys slippers, look up “polyamory” on the internet.
Most Academics who want plural marriage, wish it for non-religious purposes.
What about bi-sexual’s who demand equal gender representation to satisfy their true natures?
Your case is weak and has been refuted up thread several times.
Soldats
I was answering anonymou's querry.
But yours is even simpler.
For a Terri Shaviro situation its called (in my State) a “patient advocacy form”.
It gives all legal rights to make medical decisions, over and above what a spouse would have.
And it FREE. (just go to your library)
Regan(wrote)
“Or you keep falling back on the 'it's about procreation and the support of children' defense. Forgetting ALL about the laws having NO regard for the sterile or those who choose never to have children ever who are included in marriage. + 1. Marriage is an institution for children and procreation (but not all who are married are required to intend or do either.”
I think you miss my point entirely. (or at least often)
Marriage limits itself to a class of people.
That class is one man one women.
That distinction necessarily relates to childbearing.
As a class (men & women) are capable of producing children.
Even if, in a specific incident, members of that class cannot.
Homosexuals as a class (two men, or two women) can NEVER produce children.
This goes for any same gender combination, regardless of orientation.
So, as it stands: marriage necessarily relates to procreation.
After the proposed change; marriage would necessarily NOT relate to procreation.
I.E. . As an institution it is integrally related to procreation.
To end this connection is to move us further away from the important norm of insuring that children are born to married mothers and fathers.
You can discount this goal; but you cannot maintain that marriage does not necessarily relate to procreation at present. Nor can you maintain that same sex “marriage” does not necessarily separate marriage & procreation.
Regan(wrote)
"And with gay parents raising about 14 million kids in this country"
Were did you get this number? Please link, or reference.
Pogo said: "Many people, myself included, see marriage as the final result of tens of thousands of years of social evolution, which found that the most successful way to raise children was by a mother and father."
There is no contesting that contemporary marriage is the result of thousands of years of social evolution. But the "final" result? Why would social evolution stop now? Why should it?
Also, most children in the world are NOT raised in your hypothetical family with Mom, Dad, Baby Boy, Baby Girl. That's not true in the U.S. and its certainly not true in world as a whole. Most children are raised in extended families. Reliance on independent parents unconnected to other family as the idealized way of raising kids is far from empirically accepted as the best environment for child rearing.
REGAN
I am Interested in ALL children.
That’s why I support ONLY the traditional norm that allows those children to be born into intact married households with their natural mother and father.
(The crux of my previous post is…)
To end this connection is to move us further away from the important norm of insuring that children are born to married mothers and fathers.
You can discount this goal; but you cannot maintain that marriage does not necessarily relate to procreation at present. Nor can you maintain that same sex “marriage” does not necessarily separate marriage & procreation.
This is the most important reason for preserving traditional marriage. (as well as encouraging traditional sexual restraint among youth) I constantly point to the Moynihan report in conversations.
http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm
(Below is further explanation as to the importance of this debate to society as a WHOLE. Perhaps it will help you overcome the idea that marriage exists merely for individual couples and is not a general societal standard for the benefit of all)
How can we restore a culture of marriage amongst the underclass when we are innovating as to its very definition? Why would young poor youths feel more pressure to get married after same-sex marriage is normative. Does anyone really think that straight young men will see gay men and lesbian marrying and find the institution more desirable?“Oh – boy mommy, look at the two homosexuals…their so in love. I wanna get married someday too!!!??!!”
The illegitimacy rate in the underclass is a 70% already. The point is not that it would have a further detrimental effect. No rather the argument is that it will make efforts at family revitalization impossible. By locking in reinforcing the notion that all family forms are now inherently equal. And by proving that marriage is outdated. On the contrary; same-sex “marriage" exemplifies the lack of seriousness among the cultural left toward the institution of marriage. So strong is my indictment that one is forced to dismiss it rather than confront it; for fear of descending into ridicule. How is it, that exalting and subsidizing same-sex marriage and adoption does not explicitly undermine the importance of Fathers? I’m afraid its called a “social fabric” for a reason. The normative traditional ethic of sex, marriage and childrearing has an irrefutable logic and legacy. It makes both natural parents indispensable and necessary as a social norm.
(Continued from above)
Remember all the stresses present in the current black community (poverty, racism, joblessness,) were also present in post 1960’s America. Yet black family unity remained strong. Indeed it was far below the illegitimacy rates now recorded for our society as a whole.
The intervening cause was the rise of the cultural left and its ethos of the sexual revolution and contempt for traditional institutions and morality. When the movement for no-fault divorce first hit our culture a common refrain from the cultural left was.. “What do two people getting divorced have to do with your marriage?” Well, if you can figure the cultural causal connection your probably against same-sex “marriage”. If you cant, you probably don’t see the big deal. A corresponding decline in traditional sexual norms is more than evident in the general population at all class levels. While not the only factor in black pathology, it certainly can be isolated as a major contributing factor and deserves recognition as such.
The basic premise and five points I make below see to stand on their own. If one is capable of refuting these axioms than one should feel obliged to do so on a point for point basis. I stand ready to defend them.
Same sex “marriage” does two things necessarily (a..) Separates marriage from procreation. (b.)Androgynizes marriage.
1. Fathers are not vital for raising healthy children
2. Natural parents are not vital in raising healthy children.
3. Mothers don’t necessarily need the support of their child’s natural Father.
4. All family forms are inherently equal.
5. Marriage in its traditional form is outdated. Any form is now acceptable.
(ergo- I don’t have to do the right thing and marry the mother/ be a good father/ abstain from sex/ abstain from parenthood outside marriage)
Taxpayer: You should still accept my argument that a principled distinction can be drawn between gay marriage and polygamy.
In any event, pension benefits and social security don't have anything to do with supporting children.
Yes Ann, A principled distinction can be made between gay “marriage” and polygamy.
The problem is: what’s the principle?
In your post you have relegated it to a mere economic one.
Will this be sustainable politically?
Is this line as defensible as the present reproduction/ family formation centered line?
What other principled argument would be surrendered along with gay “marriage” that would make arguing against polygamy more difficult?
I believe these are valid questions based on your distinction.
You wrote
In any event, pension benefits and social security don't have anything to do with supporting children.
Its my understanding they are. Both social security & pensions are designed to give surviving spouses the reassurance and ability to stay out of the labor market and rear children. They certainly have this effect.
Of coarse both apply regardless of gender
I'm puzzled by this matter of same-sex couples and children. How would a little girl, raised by two fathers, learn the qualities of a good mother? Similarly, how would a little boy, raised by two mothers, learn the qualities of a good father? What would be their frame of reference? Or doesn't it matter?
And if it doesn't matter, must we then conclude that our traditional ideas of what we thought were the characteristics of a "good mother" and a "good father" are misguided and outdated?
AlaskaJack wrote: "How would a little girl, raised by two fathers, learn the qualities of a good mother? Similarly, how would a little boy, raised by two mothers, learn the qualities of a good father?" Your comment has nothing to do with the post but I'll address it anyway.
I'm curious what kind of mother you had if you (assuming you're a man) couldn't learn how to be a good father to your kids from her. Having good role models of the same sex is a legitimate thing to seek out for a kid, but no one learns everything about being a man from his father or everything about being a woman from her mother. And its good they don't because lots of mothers and fathers are bad role models.
We need not live in such a sex segregated world where girls have to do girl things and boys have to do boy things. Kids figure out what kind of people they are going to be on their own and they don't need to be shown how to be masculine or feminine. Hence, all the gay kids raised by straight parents.
All good parents seek out external role models for their kids and gay parents are no exception. In fact, gay parents are arguably the most responsible parents around. Gay couples rarely accidentally end up with kids. They are usually very much planned and wanted and that's the most important quality in a parent.
Ann Althouse said: "In any event, pension benefits and social security don't have anything to do with supporting children."
Unless you count the idea that women live longer than men and might, after spending their peak earning years raising children full or part-time, have little if any claim on SSI or pensions.
Unless, of course, society were to discriminate in favor of marriages that are biologically likely to produce kids, with care provided by a parent that sacrifices his/her income in order to raise kids. (That this group tends to be women is no small concern.) Absent that caveat, no, it has nothing to do with old age economics at all.
Edward, you are correct that equality under the law is very important. But there's a big difference between, say, laws governing criminal and civil trials, and laws enacted as a form of social engineering by the government, for the purpose of encouraging certain behaviors and discouraging others. By their very nature, this second type of legislation is, and always will be, discriminatory. It's supposed to be.
I've been reading this comment thread since day one, and for the past several we've just been circling the drain here. As Pogo said right at the outset, the people on opposite sides of this argument simply see marriage differently. Proponents say it's about love, equality, fairness; opponents say it's about the continuation of society, and encouraging the best environment for the raising of children. No, not the only environment, and no, not every hetero couple has or even wants children -- but by far the overwhelming majority of married couples does produce children.
No matter how much you want to, you simply can't look at an institution that has been around for centuries and declare that it's something that it's not. Well: you can, but it's not a persuasive argument, because the weight of history is against you. We are not arguing opinions here --on what is the purpose of marriage -- we are arguing historical fact, which you seem more than willing to ignore.
Regarding the role model question, I had to comment on this: Kids figure out what kind of people they are going to be on their own and they don't need to be shown how to be masculine or feminine.
Yes, kids do figure out things on their own. However,the absence of male role models has led to the skyrocketing illegitimacy rate in poor black communities. The young men have no concept of fatherhood, and the cycle of poverty, fatherlessness, and rising crime and incarceration rates continues to perpetuate itself. Isn't that enough evidence of the effects of undermining the traditional family?
If we're going to change the definition, the very purpose, of marriage to something as wishy-washy as proponents of same-sex marriage wish it to be, I don't see how the legalization of polyamory can be avoided. It's not a slippery slope. It's a cliff.
Re: "In a very practical sense, gay marriage has no impact on heterosexual marriage, and it certainly does not harm heterosexual marriage."
Ah, well then. I'm so glad he's settled that issue for us. I feel way better about it, now that edward has conclusively proved (as in his prior declaration: "Case Closed") that gay marriage is Safe and Effective and Nothing To Worry About At All, and that all anti-SSM folks are just ignorant bigots.
Anyway, I certainly feel better now, don't you?
Re: "No honest opponent of gay marriage can deny that, from the most practical and concrete point of view, legalized same-sex marriage will have no impact on heterosexual marriage."
Ed, buddy, pal. Whenever I read an argument that starts with a description of their opponent as such: No honest opponent....blah blah blah I can be certain that not only has a logical fallacy been written, but that the writer is himself either ignorant or dishonest.
Simply because Ed cannot agree that gay marriage will have deleterious effects doesn't make his opponents dishonest, it makes them Ed's opponents, nothing more.
Edward & Regan
Edward (wrote)
“No honest opponent of gay marriage can deny that, from the most practical and concrete point of view, legalized same-sex marriage will have no impact on heterosexual marriage. Allowing gays to marry does not in any real way prevent heterosexuals from marrying. It doesn’t even necessarily require heterosexuals to think any differently about their own marriages. Nor does it automatically prevent heterosexual couples from having just as many babies as they always have.”
Edward, you use words like practical, concrete, no impact, & necessarily very loosely indeed. If you Notice in my post above how I use the term “necessarily”. There is a adherence to logic that “necessarily” has a specific philosophical meaning. Remember we are in the realm of social science here. If you want your opponents to “prove” that there is no connection from same-sex “marriage” to marital decline or polygamy, then you need to ask yourselves a few questions.
“Prove” to the satisfaction of whom?
Why is the burden of “proof” on opponents of ss “m”?
Should not the burden of proof be on the one’s advocating for the change?
You seem to be implying a level of proof (practical, concrete, no impact, & necessarily) that approaches the empirical & scientific?
Must we prove our case using laboratory mice?
Edward (wrote)
“No person in his or her right mind would ever claim that gay marriage will literally prevent heterosexuals from procreating. I don’t care how conservative you are; you would have to be insane to make this argument. Married gay couples are not going to sneak into the bedrooms of straight couples and somehow prevent sperm from meeting up with eggs to produce pregnancy. Gay marriage is not going to literally force any woman to have an abortion who would not otherwise have one.”
Your right Edward, terms like right mind & insane are appropriate here.
That’s why no one is making such arguments.
What you have done is create a straw man argument that you then refute as “insane”. (well it is, that’s why no one is making it)
Note too: the use of words like “literally”
(the proper word here is “actually” not “literally”)
Edward (wrote)
“Because practicality and realism (narrowly understood) are squarely on the side of supporters of gay marriage”
Very narrowly indeed, I’m afraid.
Edward (wrote)
“Practically every opponent of gay marriage insists that they are not homophobic. People against same-sex marriage often say that they like gays just fine, have no problem with them, want them to be happy, and even want them to have full legal equality – except, of course, when it comes to marriage equality.”
To this end, Edward, Regan and others; I suggest the article at the link below.
This is an article by a gay man. I think if you read it carefully and with an open mind he may help you find what your looking for.
http://www.policyreview.org/jun05/harris.html
Note: This article highlights the social, historical, philosophical, & anthropological aspects of human societies as they relate to marriage. The debate is highly nuanced and sophisticated. It does not lend itself to political sloganeering. Nor does it lend itself to words like practical, concrete, no impact, necessarily, literally & insane.
However; if you our willing to broaden your mind, it may become illuminated.
Fitz: thanks for linking that article. It was not an easy breezy read, but it was very well-reasoned and well expressed.
As I was reading, I tried to flag passages that could be extracted to summarize the arguments in it. Because of the scope and detail, it really isn't possible. However, I did like these particular passages, which occur quite late in the essay, after the discussion of the defense of tradition (and the demolition of those defenses):
Civilization persists when there is a widespread sense of an ethical obligation on the part of the present generation for the well-being of the third generation — their own grandchildren. A society where this feeling is not widespread may last as a civilization for some time — indeed, for one or two generations it might thrive spectacularly. But inevitably, a society acknowledging no transgenerational commitment to the future will decay and decline from within.
...
In the current debate on gay marriage, its advocates are cast in the role of long-oppressed suppliants demanding their just due. Indeed, the whole question is put in terms of their legal and moral rights, against which the opponents of gay marriage have nothing to offer but “residual personal prejudice,” to recall again the memorable words of the chief justice of the Canadian Supreme Court.
But it is a mistake to conflate the automatic with the irrational, since, as we have seen, an automatic and mindless response is precisely the mechanism by which the visceral code speaks to us.
...
Those who are married now, and those thinking about getting married or teaching their children that they should grow up and get married, may all be perfect idiots, mindlessly parroting a message wired into them before they were old enough to know better. But they are passing on, through the uniquely reliable visceral code, the great postulate of transgenerational duty: not to beseech people to make the world a better place, but to make children whose children will leave it a better world and not merely a world with better abstract ideals.
We have all personally known shining examples of such human beings, just as we have all known mediocre parents as well as some absolutely dreadful ones. Now suppose we are told, as we often are told in the gay-marriage debate, that the institution of marriage is not what it used to be. What does this mean? Does it mean that the shining example of a good marriage, of a good father and a good mother, and of a happy family has ceased to be one that we want to realize in our own lives? Not at all. We may in fact be farther than ever from living up to the shining example — but that is hardly proof that we should abandon it as an ideal to which to aspire. If the crew of a ship is developing scurvy because limes have gone out of fashion, is this a reason to throw the limes overboard or a reason to change the fashion?
The shining example of a happy marriage and its inherent ideality was something that we once could all agree on; but now it is a shining example that has been subjected to the worst fate that can befall one: It has been become a subject of controversy and has thereby lost its most essential protective quality: its ethical obviousness in the eyes of the community. Once the phrase “gay marriage” was in the air, marriage was suddenly what it had never thought to be before: a kind of marriage, a type — traditional marriage, or that even worse monstrosity, heterosexual marriage.
...
The essay's conclusion:
Even the most sophisticated of us have something to learn from the fundamentalism of middle America. For stripped of its quaint and antiquated ideological superstructure, there is a hard and solid kernel of wisdom embodied in the visceral code by which fundamentalists raise their children, and many of us, including many gay men like myself, are thankful to have been raised by parents who were so unshakably committed to the values of decency, and honesty, and integrity, and all those other homespun and corny principles. Reject the theology if you wish, but respect the ethical fundamentalism by which these people live: It is not a weakness of intellect, but a strength of character.
Middle Americans have increasingly tolerated the experiments in living of people like myself not out of stupidity, but out of the trustful magnanimity that is one of the great gifts of the Protestant ethos to our country and to the world. It is time for us all to begin tolerating back. The first step would be a rapid retreat from even the slightest whisper that marriage ever was or ever could be anything other than the shining example that most Americans still hold so sacred within their hearts, as they have every right to do. They have let us imagine the world as we wish; it is time we begin to let them imagine it as they wish.
If gay men and women want to create their own shining examples, they must do this themselves, by their own actions and by their own imagination. They must construct for themselves, out of their own unique perspective on the world, an ethos that can be admired both by future gay men and women and perhaps, eventually, by the rest of society. But there can be no advantage to them if they insist on trying to co-opt the shining example of an ethical tradition that they themselves have abandoned in order to find their own way in the world. It will end only in self-delusion and bitter disappointment
One of the preconditions of a civilization is that there is a fundamental ethical baseline below which it cannot be allowed to fall. Unless there is a deep and massive and unthinking commitment on the part of most people to the well-being not merely of their children, but of their children’s children, then the essential transgenerational duty of preserving the ethical baseline of our civilization will become a matter of hit-and-miss. It may be performed, but there is no longer any guarantee that it will be. The guarantee comes from shining examples.
----
It's obvious to me that the social experimentation of the 60s and 70s, with the sexual revolution, widespread availability of birth control and later abortion, the de-stigmatization of out-of-wedlock pregnancy and the easing of restrictions on divorce, has had many, many negative unintended consequences. We have clearly been having trouble in meeting Harris's minimum precondition for civilizations, maintaining that "fundamental ethical baseline below which it cannot be allowed to fall."
Just because we've screwed up in the past 40 years doesn't mean we have to give up entirely.
Regan, you apparently failed to note that the passages I quoted were written by a gay man, the author of the essay linked to by Fitz, by the name of Lee Harris. Those were his words, not mine.
Fitz is right, you really should read the whole thing. Harris starts out talking about tradition, and the various theories of people who have tried to defend tradition, and jettison it. It's quite a thorough discussion. His use of the term "shining example" is quite specific to his discussion, and not necessarily the hot button you've treated it as.
In context, I found it impossible to disagree with Harris when he identified gays seeking marriage as co-opting the basis of the ethical tradition they have rejected. It doesn't make sense. You want to be different, but you insist you are the same. You cannot be both. You have to choose one.
Will you now identify Harris as a self-hating homosexual, thereby enabling you to ignore his arguments completely?
Regan
There is no WANTING to be different. Gays and lesbians ARE different through no choice.
Sometimes we want to close discussions before a full airing of all views.
I hope you read Harris with an open mind. He’s not saying HE doesn’t want to get married. That’s not his critique.
I also suggest you pick up a copy of this.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226470202/qid=1143076038/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/104-6982462-9567116?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
You may want to read that in light of
K. E. Ernulf, S. M.Innala, and F. L. Whitam, “Biological Explanation, Psychological Explanation, and Tolerance of Homosexuals: A Cross-National Analysis of Beliefs and Attitudes,” Psychological Reports 65 (1989),
Nigel Dickson, Charlotte Paul, Peter Herbison, Same-sex attraction in a birth cohort: prevalence and persistence in early adulthood. Social Science & Medicine 56 (2003)
Human sexual orientation. The biologic theories reappraised. Archives of general psychiatry [0003-990X] Byne yr: 1993 vol: 50
One can never be too informed.
Check out this link for a great discussion of the spiritual roots of polygamy: mormoncentury.org
The passing of polygamy in to law would benefit the modern society whereas gay marriage does not. First off, the natural reproductive futility of gay marriage is self-evident. Polygamy's structure enables its participants to be fully equipped as a working family with multiple supporting parents! This fact presents an economic and emotional plus to this presently taboo institution.
Whereas gay relationships and specifically gay marriage require the involvement of third parties to propagate, polygamy increases the probability of reproduction by increasing the quantity of participants. The inclusion of an individual of the opposite sex in a homosexual relationship is necessary at some point. The superiority of polygamy as a social construct is pretty much cut and dry in my book.
Prof. Althouse is absolutely correct on all points. In 1981, I wrote a legal article reaching the same conclusions ('Polygamy and the Right to Marry: New Life for an Old Lifestyle') which has been cited in polygamy cases and quoted texts on human sexual and social behavior, although not always quoted correctly. I am particularly pleased to note her understanding of the economic advantages of plural marriage, which recommends the lifestyle to the elderly and the poor. I continue to believe that plural marriage itself as a lifestyle is lawful; the States can easily find means to regulate those relationships to prevent the abuses of some well-publicized religious sects, but there is no rational basis for excluding the right to marry plurally from the general right to marry. Nor is this about fundamental Mormons. Plural marriage is not limited by religious belief, geography, or politics. It is an alternative form of marriage to monogamy and has been so since the dawn of man. The key to this debate, like the debate on abortion, is choice; if women are free to choose the lifestyle, there is no reason why it should not be legalized.
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