Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie — with 6 children and 10 years into their relationship and after saying they would not marry until "everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able" — have married.
Should they not have waited until the Supreme Court releases the virtually undoubtedly forthcoming decision declaring a right of same-sex couples to marry? Ah, we're close enough! And is the Supreme Court really a more authoritative expositor of American rights that Brad and Angelina?
It is emphatically the province and duty of pop culture icons to say what the law is.
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96 comments:
Of course, everyone who wanted to be married has been legally able pretty much forever.
But you had to actually want to get married, not just enter into some other arrangement and expect everyone else to treat you as if that too was a marriage.
What Angelina wants, Angelina gets.
Does this mean that Brad Pitt will finally stop having sex with George Clooney, or have they jumped to polygamy?
Brad had been told these Promises before, but from Clooney they felt different, more... penetrating. It is as if he was touched in a place too deep to ever have been touched before.
To the extent Pitt and Jolie have money of course they define the law.
Their law is different than yours, yours from mine (different).
Like Rand Paul says, our "justice" system is racist. That means those profiting, including professors, are guilty of racist disparaties.
Shameless.
Well, it's about time. Now, when's the divorce? I mean, we all know how committed he was to his last marriage.
Lyssa said...
I mean, we all know how committed he was to his last marriage.
I didn't even know he had been married before. On such topics I am happy to remain ignorant
It would really suck if your parents were Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie but you turned out to be ugly.
Ignorance said: I didn't even know he had been married before. On such topics I am happy to remain ignorant
I'm literally angry when I realize I know things like this, yet can't remember things that are actually important.
Anyhow, Brad was married to Jennifer Aniston (sp? Rachel, from Friends), but cheated on her with Angie. It was a huge tabloid story for a long time. I think that Angie's been married before, too (Billy Bob Thornton? There was this thing about keeping vials of each other's blood or something), though I don't know what happened.
I seriously would like to purge my brain.
"It is emphatically the province and duty of pop culture icons to say what the law is."
Bob Dylan has not left the building.
But Jennifer Anniston was boring...
Neil Young is getting a divorce after 34 years....
Have you ever noticed that the same guy who drew Jiminy Cricket's mouth drew Angelina Jolie's?
Holy crap, they've been together 10 years? I'm getting old.
Maybe they meant polygammy? After all, it's a form of marriage thousands of years old. It's not a question of can "everyone" get married - that was always the case - it's can everyone get married to the person or persons to whom they wish to be married.
"Polygamy effectively decriminalized in Utah as judge strikes down ban in victory for husband and his FOUR wives who appear in TV show ‘Sister Wives’. . . "
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2736287/Final-ruling-issued-against-polygamy-ban.html#ixzz3BhY3NXc4
So, it was merely a political demonstration. For the second time in American history, the statutory law enforces selective exclusion. Perhaps their plan is for progressive inclusion; but, that does not seem likely. The normalization of couplets was accomplished through executive action, judicial decrees, and special rights litigation. It was not a democratic process. Not only did it ignore the people's will; but, it also used emotional appeals, benefits extortion, and coercion to selectively normalize a behavior, not orientation.
According to the Daily Mail, my source for all bigamy news, "The bigamy law in Utah is stricter than the laws in 49 other states - most of which prohibit people from having multiple marriage licenses. Utah makes it illegal to even purport to be married to multiple partners or live together."
All joking aside, in the face of Lawrence and the subsequent SSM cases, is there a coherent argument to be made why polygammy among consenting adults should be illegal?
holdfast:
Progress, but still selective (i.e. unprincipled). With the normalization of abortion, and now homosexual behavior, they can offer no logical opposition to a diverse set of behaviors and associations.
holdfast:
Apparently, their argument is that the number "2", whether as a couple or couplet, is sacred. However, with the rejection of natural principles, with the advent of "test tube" babies, and with the moral ambiguous "rent-a-womb" reproduction, those traditions are already archaic.
I wonder who cracked first, Pitt or Jolie.
Marriage made sense when it was a man and a woman and the likely beginnings of a family. Now that family/child have been removed from the equation it seems weird that public acceptance of marriage is based on sexual relations. As 40% of adults are single, many throughout their lives, why not take out the sexual relations part, as we have taken out the children part, and allow siblings to "marry", aunts to marry their nieces or nephews, etc. In short, marriage should be open to all and not limited to sexual relationships-simply significant others. Then marriage will be open to all.
Congrats to the happy couple!
He made that promise in 2006, but made a later promise of engagement in 2012.
If two promises conflict with each other, Jolie must decide on the operation of each.
"Marriage made sense...Then marriage will be open to all."
The acrobatics of everyone else now trying to score legal and financial marital benefits for themselves as well will make Cirque du Soleil boring.
And, really, why should they be deprived of the same material advantages?
And now, stay tuned as the unpredictable and unintended consequences, for good or bad, are visited upon our children and their descendants.
Jesus, we are a reckless generation.
Beaver7216:
You're right. There is no longer anything special about the number "2" in relationships or associations. There is no longer anything special about loving or not-so-loving relationships. In fact, with the normalization of elective abortion, there is really nothing special about evolutionary fitness. There is only a large-scale, but peculiarly selective, social and biological experiment.
Civil unions would be a way to reconcile the moral hazards created by selective normalization and actually exclusion. Unfortunately, that is not the goal of the "equality" movement. It is characteristically a Democrat enterprise in that it is an unprincipled exploitation of classes for political, economic, and social leverage. A means to marginalize or eviscerate their competing interests.
"duty of pop culture icons to say what the law is."
Except, of course, Dan Quayle.
SomeoneHasToSayIt:
Contrary to popular perceptions, evolutionary fitness is not comprehensive. Just do what feels good. While the minority directing this experiment know better.
In what Universe was Dan Quayle a Pop Culture Icon?
Jesus, we are a reckless generation.
We forgot what are genitals were for, and where to put them.
What are the legal marital advantages?
The inability to breakup without the hassle of divorce??
I smell tax planning.
Hospital visitation and medical decision-making rights and inheritance issues, just to name a couple.
That could be done without marriage and easier to change without a need for divorce.
Single people have visitors in the hospital too and single people die, as well.
And now we have paternity testing... So why make assumptions by marital status.
Renee-
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying such consideration are a good reason to change the institution of marriage. In fact, I'd say such things should be considered incentives to encourage traditional marriage. We could get rid of those incentives if we wish ( through the democratic process ) but we are not violating anybody's rights by providing such incentives.
Renee:
Paternity testing (commonly performed for shaming) in illegal "marriages" of multiplicity.
Is it just me, or is everyone laughing at the juvenile hijinks?
Getting married is a 'hassle', is marriage just a permit to have a wedding reception?
I'm sympathetic to the Windsor case. No issue with a conflict of children's rights, but redefining marriage wasn't the right public policy answer. Reforming tax/inheritance laws would of been the correct course of action.
I'm a big supporter on the anthropological ideal of kinship connection, but our laws are bias towards single people. We give legal benefits to couples, with no reasoning on why the government has an interest in coupling.
I'll join Lyssa in spouting off my knowledge of pop cultural icons.
Apparently, Brad and Angelina's kids have been asking them to marry for quite some time. I think that is what led to the engagement.
Funny how kids seem to think that sort of thing is important...
"In what Universe was Dan Quayle a Pop Culture Icon?"
I guess Murphy Brown finally decided he was. Not in your universe for sure.
Marriage is dead anyway. Or it is dying with our generation. I personally think the Game Over T Shirt was the coup de grace.
"Should they not have waited until the Supreme Court releases the virtually undoubtedly forthcoming decision declaring a right of same-sex couples to marry?"
Not... sure... if... trolling...
Can the owner of a blog be a troll on that blog?
It would certainly make Reagan a 'second Eisenhower.' Ike famously (perhaps apocryphally) said when asked about any mistakes he regretted from his years in the White House: "I made two mistakes, and both of them are sitting on the Supreme Court."
Actually Reagan's two mistakes (O'Connor and Kennedy) sort of pale in comparison to his triumph; Scalia.
"In the meadow we can build a snowman,
and pretend that he is Murphy Brown,
We'll say are you married she'll say no man!,
But you can be the dad while your in town!"
The funny thing is that I heard a "Christmas Carol" last year with this part edited to make it less "offensive."
It's official: "everyone... in the country who wants to be married is legally able."
This is demonstrably false.
Actually they changed "Parson Brown" to "Circus Clown" and deleted all reference to marriage from the song.
But there is no war on marriage, no sirree!
Renee:
The government's interest in naturally-motivated marriage (i.e. a social contract between a man and woman to promote responsible procreation) is declared in the preamble to The Constitution, specifically: "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ... and our Posterity".
The relevant changes are not the normalization of dysfunctional or unproductive (e.g. kink) behaviors; but the advent of "test tube" babies, morally ambiguous "rent-a-womb" reproduction, "marriages" in multiplicity (e.g. "friends with benefits"), and normalization of elective abortion.
Technology has changed the character of procreation, and politics has motivated its exploitation. Obviously, the consequences enabled by "progress" need to be reconciled; but, people are either unwilling or incapable of doing it. They would rather conduct a large-scale, social and biological experiment, practice selective exclusion, and create moral hazards for our posterity.
Sounds familiar? And we don't have the mortal threat of invasion -- or perhaps we do -- to justify our delayed action.
@tim in Vermont,
Many will not see their parents stay married or even be married, only 70% for millennials compared to 90% of many boomers being raised with married mom and dad.
Only people marrying are the liberal elite...
@ n.n.
But our own narcissisism gets in the way, changing course seems impossible when we lost the map.
Actually they changed "Parson Brown" to "Circus Clown" and deleted all reference to marriage from the song.
Oh, for pity's sake.
The "circus clown" line was added in 1953, to make the song more appropriate for children to sing. Notice how the line says "until the OTHER KIDDIES knock him down"?
But there is no war on marriage, no sirree!
If they hadn't changed the line, and kids were still singing the original version in schools, you lot would be whining that the song endorses group child marriage.
We use the power of the state all the time for public policy to enforce morality. Your morality is complete indifference to the rights and needs of the defenseless. Children. We have no say in family structure. We have no say if we have a relationship with both our mom and dad. We, as children are completely at the mercy of adults.
Now again you've have attempted to twist it as anti-gay and any religious beliefs I may hold. Thanks for the lack of sincerity.
Marriage is not a private relationship, it to a public one.
One behavior produces children, the other doesn't. Do you not understand biology?
Civilization is dead. Enjoy the decline.
Whatever Revenant.
Doesn't matter anyway. Marriage as we knew it is all but dead. Hey so what? People can still use it to scam benefits so there's that.
Ms. Althouse, why the tsk tsk?
I'm sure there are some lovely gay people, I probably know a few and don't know they are gay. Who cares.
"You just can't use the power of the state to continue discriminating in favor of your personal religious or moral beliefs" misses the point entirely that no one is using the power of the State to discriminate. The State decided to attach "rights" to marriage because presumably someone in the government thought the State had a vested interest in encouraging the behavior.
Should the State decide it has a vested interest in encouraging homosexual behavior, the State has the ability to encourage homosexual behavior. That the State has not, and that a path to redefine an institution that has been in place for recorded history is the method to "correct" this "discrimination" instead of addressing the "issue" is strong evidence that there is something seriously wrong here.
Again, I'm sure there are some loving and gentle gays who think they should be able to be "married," but the question remains should the State encourage such, i.e., is it good for the State?
This a very sly post, Prof. Althouse. You seem to enjoy inviting people to oversimplify your views and predictions. Or maybe I'm just imagining that.
If you're cool with legalized incest, then have your gay marriage and enjoy. Guarantee you that within months of a SCOTUS decision all Roe v. Wade in the matter of gay marriage, the incest marriages will start popping up like prairie dogs.
Every one was already legally able. The rules for every individual wishing to seek a marriage were always equal.
Every combination of two or more people aren't legally able to marry. As always, some combinations of two or more are treated better than others. The specific combinations have changed. Because, apparently, some combinations get what they want and some don't. And we pretend one set of preferences is rational and another set isn't.
Renee:
I assume that you recognize the merits of so-called "traditional" marriage, right? If that is the case, then my position does not differ from yours. It may only be the justification which is overlapping, but not necessarily convergent.
My objection to changing the original definition is two-fold. One, it is presumed justified by virtue of technological and moral changes (i.e. "progress"), which libertine heterosexuals, and especially pro-choice advocates are responsible for. Two, it is in fact a practice of selective (i.e. arbitrary or unprincipled) exclusion, which is known to create moral hazards. It represents a large-scale social and biological experiment, and a regurgitation of past failures.
That said, homosexual orientation (i.e. preference or predisposition) is dysfunctional with respect to evolutionary fitness. Still, when it does not represent a progressive condition, then it can be reasonably tolerated. However, since homosexual behavior has no redeeming value to society or humanity, it is illogical to normalize (i.e. promote) it.
Finally, I want advocates and activists for normalization of homosexual behavior and especially elective abortion (i.e. "pro-choice") to accept responsibility and defend their inability or unwillingness to reconcile the disparity between their two public faces, specifically their selective principles.
" but it would be nice to credit the homosexuals with all that power to bring down an institution and all. "
I don't blame gay marriage for the death of marriage. That is a trivial consequence of its devaluation to the point that it is has become about scamming benefits and questions of minimizing taxes.
BTW, My generation is fine, thank you.
Kohath:
There is a politically-motivated "kink" factor which is uncomfortable for so-called "liberals" to acknowledge. However, this uncharacteristically conservative character of "liberals" may only be a practical consideration in order to avoid overwhelming their base, which is primarily interested in political, economic, and social benefits, but not normalizing dysfunctional behaviors. Still, if they are willing to forcefully normalize a subset of dysfunctional behaviors and devalue human life (i.e. "pro-choice"), but not other dysfunctional behaviors and degrading "procedures", then the implication is that there are practical limits to the realization of "liberalism". Perhaps the next generation of "liberals" will overcome their inhibitions with the proper incentive.
tim in vermont: Marriage is dead anyway. Or it is dying with our generation. I personally think the Game Over T Shirt was the coup de grace.
It's dying for poorer people. Wealthier people get married (and stay married) at healthier rates. (Anyway, the joke in those "Game Over" images is as old as the hills.)
Polygamists want to get married. Can they marry legally? soooooo.......
Homosexuals (those identifying as gay or lesbian) constitute 1.7 percent of the population. In statistics isn't that amount insignificant?
That's an interesting, if innumerate, belief you've got there.
Guarantee you that within months of a SCOTUS decision all Roe v. Wade in the matter of gay marriage, the incest marriages will start popping up like prairie dogs.
You have to wonder about people who think the law is the only thing stopping incest from being popular.
Really it's not any different than a judge deciding what the law on marriage is these days. Because it's not about the law, it's about feelings.
Super-citizens are more equal than the rest of us in asserting their feelings, whether they be judges or celebrities.
1.7% or even if there were 20 self identifying homosexuals or 100 million in the United States, they all have a mom and dad. The relationship between our mother and fathers affects our well-being as children.
Our parents mean so much to us, and their choices (good and bad) profoundly matters directly to each and everyone of us.
Remember: the Webster definition of "husband" is " a man with a wife...and a broken spirit."
The unprincipled objection of "equal" advocates to normalization of other "kink" behaviors is several-fold. One, it will diminish their political leverage through dilution. Two, they are uncomfortable with some behaviors, which carry a traditional "ick" or "gross" factor. That not even executive orders, judicial decrees, or litigation will change. Three, they are afraid of people forming unproductive associations, especially with elective abortion (aka "pro-choice"), which undermines any logical objections to a diverse set of relationships and associations.
Really, they can only object to relationships and associations formed without consent, which traditionally includes children, but only as a cultural artifact of a religious civilization. Actually, not even that. With planned murder (i.e. elective abortion) of wholly innocent human lives by the millions, not even respect for freewill is a consideration.
Oh, well. It seems that the consequences of moral hazards created today will be left for our progeny to suffer and reconcile.
I feel bad for Reney's hubby-no blow jobs.
But he gets coitus.... So he ain't complaining.
But what about the polyandrists? Will no one protest for them?
"See all the gay "singles" have been subsidizing your family, and ex-, and currently married benefits for years and years. Now, we're all sharing in the pool."
Are you freaking kidding me? My wife and I pay a huge chunk of extra taxes for benefit of being married. My company gave full benefits to same-sex partners years ago, so I was paying for that long before I was married.
Really, they can only object to relationships and associations formed without consent, which traditionally includes children, but only as a cultural artifact of a religious civilization.
Say what? The idea that marriage should be restricted to consenting adults is a modern invention. Child marriage was the norm throughout Christianity, Islam, and Judaism for almost all of their histories.
For pity's sake, Jesus's MOM was only 13 or 14 when he was born. And his dad's a saint! Today he'd be restricted from living within 1000 yards of a school.
I hope they will be very unhappy together.
Wealthier people get married (and stay married) at healthier rates.
Indeed, the elites have long been engaging in a sort of upside-down hypocrisy: preaching vice publicly while practicing virtue on the sly.
"It's lovely that your private company offers benefits to gay workers; the federal government does not, yet they lift the same amounts from gay paychecks than from "family" pay."
First, ANY benefits paid by any government are just a cost center for the overall economy - the less the better, by whatever means.
Second, how many kids do you have?
If not, who will be paying the social security premiums when you and I are in our dottage? Your dogs?
Who will be manning the ramparts against the barbarians a couple of decades from now? Your pet cat or my boys? And remember, you're pretty high on those barbariansi hit list. Higher than me anyway, but my family will be contributing to the common defense. Yours?
Reny, your hubby secretly wants a blowjob where your better yet, someone he doesn't know, sucks and swallows his load.
Trust me Reny, from Lowell, which I am sorry for, how po are you girl? Lowell, really.
He jerks about it, watches porns about it, and has some device that allows him that joy.
Isn't coitus oral? I don't know because I know nothing about pussies...gross.
Rockfeller you never got a blow job in Drum Corps?
Wow, sorry dude.
Nope, We're Catholic so its unprotected. Coitus is pretty specific and a woman's cervix is a perfectly acceptable place for sexual climax.
No need for porn, we got Market Basket back open!
Reny, your job, as the subservient wife, is to worhip the hog.
Now get on your knees and start sucking the load from that hog. Think like a whore girl!!!
who cares?
On a related note, I fondly remember the days when leftists scoffed at the notion that same sex marriage would open the door to legalized polygamy
Over to you Althouse Department of Unintended Consequences. Or was that the Althouse Department of 2nd and 3rd Order Effects?
I wholeheartedly support public financing for psych meds going to those who post the same thing over and over again.
Going for a record
apparently, this blog is simply an exercise in narcissism for one, or two, people.
Dissenting views not to be tolerated, and no one the wiser, as the comments are deleted without anyone seeing them, or at least, someone has to have been on at the right time to see un-moderated comments. What a perfect illustration of today's leftism. guess this explains your votes for Obama.
Fah!! a pox on ye
"Really it's not any different than a judge deciding what the law on marriage is these days. Because it's not about the law, it's about feelings."
The higher law is written on the hearts of the people.
God said: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts…"
If we Christians were smart, we'd start our own Lawfare now, before it's too late.
That should be "yet again", not "now".
Did they get legally married, in France with a California judge officiating?
Must be one hell of a complex prenuptial agreement if it took this many years before they got hitched.
I give them five years before they split.
"God said: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts…"
Ah, but does not the Psalmist say, "From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits" and "So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices"?
And the prophet Jeremiah, does he not add, "But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts; they have turned aside and gone away"?
"God said: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts…""
And therefore, no one has an excuse when they stand before their maker.
Yay an entire thread of people arguing over who gets to force their definition of marriage on everyone else. Again. And how dumb everyone else is for not seeing all those unintended consequences.
The unintended consequence of most import is what happens when you have the government define marriage and force majority rule on the population. We end up with endless threads like this.
@Paddy My point is that the highest part of the law, the constitutional rights, has endurance and meaning precisely because it is written in our hearts.
These rights are felt deeply inside. You disparaged feelings as what's wrong with the way rights are understood, but you were missing this dimension.
There will still be disputes about the scope of our rights, but if we hand them over to judicial scholars peering at the words alone and attempting the inhuman feat of neutrality, we have lost the essence of rights and the ability to notice when the judges have interpreted them away.
Look at the Second Amendment. The judges had seemingly interpreted it away, but the people retained the feeling that the Right to Bear Arms is substantial, and in the end, the judges saw the rights again.
Look at the Free Exercise of Religion. The judges had reduced it to a nondiscrimination principle, and the people reacted powerfully and our representatives in Congress gave us the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
How will our rights be taken away? What kind of feeling does it take to resist? What was written on the hearts of the American revolutionaries who acted on the Declaration of Independence? Even if what's written on your heart is fealty to the Constitution's Founders, what was written on their hearts?
Blogger sunsong said...
Congrats to the happy couple!
And when they get divorced, you'll be the first one to say, "Back off! This is a private matter!"
I don't disagree with the feelings part. I think that's absolutely the case. I think postmodernity is right in pushing back against the supposed objectivity, as though law is a science.
But, at the core, I think (I'm not a Constitutional scholar) of the Founders's intent was that our feelings are of great value but are not always trustworthy. The Constitution places barriers so that a king or general or judge can't determine the law based on their own feelings of what should be done.
It's the navigation of opposing feelings, "this is right!" and "this is wrong!" that we need the law to help us.
But clearly we're at a point where feelings of some are more important.
It's not an issue of legal scholars determining the law based on the text, it's an issue of judges overturning laws voted on by the people where the texts are effectively silent. Do we really think that Madison et al would have argued for gay marriage?
So, the feelings of the great majority are being overtuned by unelected super-feelers, who are justifying their cause based on the sorts of arguments that make for good blog discussions but don't seem to really be dependent on anything other than one opinion versus another.
Posner, for instance, might make a very good argument, but his feelings on the matter, his being convinced on the matter, his feelings, shouldn't be more weighty than anyone else when the issue simply isn't represented in the Constitution. But they are more influential, just like celebrities are. Their feelings matter more.
Congress certainly could lay claim for representing the mood of the people, but legislatures are being overturned as well. And Congress is just too wimpy to take a stand.
As a Californian, I've become entirely passive about the voting process. Every resolution that passes that a liberal doesn't like gets overturned. Our feelings do not matter unless a super-feeler approves it.
And that is getting close to what the Revolutionaries were feeling, enforced passivity in the face of whims posing as Law. The judges are our new kings.
We're very far from where those earliest Americans were, but the flavor and feeling is there in the increasing governing contempt for the people. Which works out fine in this case if you're supporting gay marriage, but it's a bad road to go down.
Revenant wrote:
"You have to wonder about people who think the law is the only thing stopping incest from being popular."
Why is the popularity of it relevant to whether govt should be able to deny people the right to marry? Its popular to those who are engaged in it, no?
"1.7% or even if there were 20 self identifying homosexuals or 100 million in the United States, they all have a mom and dad. The relationship between our mother and fathers affects our well-being as children.
Our parents mean so much to us, and their choices (good and bad) profoundly matters directly to each and everyone of us."
Who doesn't have a mom and dad? Polygamists have moms and dads too. If that's the reason why you must legalize a marriage then the mere fact that people are born from two parents would mean all marriages would need to be legalized.
This is a variation of the "we're only human argument". Who isn't though? Murderes are human, as are ISIS when they chop off journalists heads. Just becuase we are all fundamentally of the same species doesn't mean you can't make distinctions about human behavior.
"Posner ... might make a very good argument..."
The answer to Posner's rhetorical question is to deny his premise. A small child is much more likely to ask his two fathers why he has no mother like his friend Jimmy has. Or, if she has two mothers, why she has no father like her friend Lilly has.
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