xtcian

I've never understood the argument that gay marriage threatens the "institution" of marriage. I have always liked John McCain and thought if he ran for president, then I'd vote for him. But these last few years he's catered to the far right, and for this election, taped phone messages for play in SC that reminds folks to go vote against gay marriage. And I will never vote for him because of that.

My mother voted for that amendment in SC. Don't get me started on that, or her Fox news lovin' self. I see this issue not being a governmental regulated one, but a church one. Meaning, the government should allow for people to marry who they want. Any particular church/denomination should have the right to marry or not marry gays. If you don't like gay marriage, then pick your church accordingly.

The only thing I can figure is that people sometimes fear what they don't understand. And I suspect that many Americans don't personally know any gay people--or any out gay people, at any rate. So when political leaders they know and trust, like John McCain,* tell them to vote for legislation that will ostensibly preserve the sanctity of marriage, they say, "Well, it's not hurting anybody I know or love, so I might as well." I want to believe that for some people, at least, the decision isn't rooted in hate. Just ignorance. Although ignorance can breed hate so easily.

*Scruggs, thanks for mentioning that; I never could have voted for him because he's pro-life, but now this? God. I used to think he was a pretty smart guy, even if I didn't agree with him on the issues. But no.

Just by the way, and with the disclaimer that I don't habitually quote celebrities on topics of importance, but...in a recent "Hello' magazine interview, Brad Pitt made a nice point on this issue (when asked for the umpteenth time when he and his partner are going to say "I do"):

"Angie and I will consider getting married as soon as everyone in America of legal age who wants to can do so."

Frankly, I think making marriage off-limits for gay people cheapens and degrades the institution, in that it smacks of discrimination, exclusivity, and passing judgment. I would never join a social club that excludes gay people, people of colour, etc., but now I find myself, as a married person, enjoying benefits denied to many of my fellow patriots throughout much of the U.S. Ugh.

Ian, thank you for this post. It is much appreciated. Three things really frustrate me with how this public debate typically goes:

First, the argument that you and Scruggs mention - that the institution of marriage will somehow be "weakened" by opening it up to same-sex couples. I just don't see how intelligent people can buy into that and actually believe that heterosexual unions will be affected one way or another by allowing people like my partner and me to get married.

The second thing that really gets me is the claim that gay marriage shouldn't be legalized given the biblical prohibitions. Frankly, I don't think my rights as a taxpaying American citizen should depend in any way on a few passages from the Bible and how some (admittedly many but certainly not all) Christians interpret them.

And the third thing that really pisses me off is the term "activist judges" - something I hear constantly living in Massachusetts. We actually had an elected official here who, after the decision was first announced, stated publicly that, because the vote was close, it shouldn't count. Unbelievable.

I could go on at length, but I have to get to work. Thanks again for the post.

Ah. A political issue that we can agree on. The post and every commenter has made great points. If I try to be consistent with my political beliefs, I don't believe that the government should regulate the marriage of gay people. Scruggs has a good point that each church should determine whether they will marry gay persons, but regardless a nonreligious ceremony should be available at the courthouse.

Beth correctly states that this prejudice stems out of a fear or ignorance.

A couple of years ago, we had a large faction leave our church shortly after Bishop Gene Robinson was ordained. I found that to be one of the most judgmental, non-Christian moves from a group of supposedly ultra Christian folks.

When it all comes down to it, we aren't talking about gay people. We're just talking about people.

One of this country's founding principles is to beat down minorities as long as possible. There will be a half-hearted embrace of gays at some point, just wait!

Strangely enough I think one front this war will have to be fought on is through the churches. When discriminating against gays becomes a moral issue (much like civil rights in the 60's) and is addressed from the pulpit, we might start to see some movement. The liberal faiths (Unitarian Universalists, Quakers, some Lutheran and Methodists, and others I'm sure I'm not even aware of) are making baby steps in this direction, but we have a long way to go.

The other front is a personal one. The more I come out in my everyday life, at work and otherwise, the more I give people, in my albeit small circle, reason to think twice about pulling a lever they think doesn't "affect anyone they know". When they hear from me that 80% of the challenges my family faces are the very same challenges they face (safe neighborhoods, affordable healthcare, good schools, etc) the less fair the unique 20% (homophobic discrimination) seem to them. I've had people tell me how "courageous" this is. For my children's sake I don't feel I have any choice.

I have self-abused to the pages of the Sears bra catalogue

is this a reference to Moe taking the lie detector test? one of the all-time great Simpsons moments...

IMO: Legal marriage (meaning civil unions) as licensed and recorded by the states should be open to everyone of legal age. The *religious* sacrament or ceremony of marriage can be performed, or not, according to individual religious traditions. Freedom of choice!

That seems to embody the concept of separating church and state, n'est-ce pas?

A brief postscript and question in response to Scruggs' and Emma's comments about churches above:

Personally, I agree with the idea that gay marriage should be legalized without necessarily requiring churches to perform specific ceremonies. The separation of church and state is a huge, huge issue for me as I indicated above - and to be fair, that should be a two-way street. If I don't want churches dictating what rights our government extends, then the government shouldn't dictate what practices churches must follow within their own congregations.

However... here's the question for the lawyers reading this discussion: does the government already dictate what marriages churches must perform? If a couple who can legally wed want to have their ceremony in a particular church, and that church objects to the union for some reason (maybe they're an inter-faith couple, or an inter-racial couple, or who knows what) - is that church free to turn them away and insist they marry elsewhere?

Regardless, it's not my goal or my interest to have the government force open the doors of local churches so my partner and I can have a wedding there. It's just about rights. I think it's really critical that voters understand the full scope of what's at stake here. The very real possibility that my partner and I could be vacationing somewhere, get in a serious accident, and then have some hospital prevent one of us from making emergency decisions about the other because we're not "legally" related is truly horrible. And that's just one scenario.

I think that a more sophisticated approach needs to be brought to bear to this topic. It's all well and good to simply demand your rights, but just because something is right doesn't mean that right is universally visible.

In a democracy, you need a majority to get anything done. The breakdown in the US is roughly this:

1. Gay rights supporters. I.e. gay people and the breeders who love them.

2. Bigots. Will never come around. They love to hate. Gets them up in the morning.

3. People of good will, who through religion or family tradition, think homosexuality is a priori wrong. These people don't hate gays but they don't think they know any, and aren't comfortable with the idea of same sex sex, or cuddling or anything. The idea of embracing gay marriage is like a rent opening in the fabric of their reality.

So it's the big #3 constituency that is the hope of gay rights. If anything is going to change, these people need to be convinced. I don't know how to convince them, myself, but smarter people than I need to take the job seriously and come up with ways to do it.

Our Quaker Meeting was divided between group 1 and group 3 about taking a gay marriage under the care of the meeting. The gap was too wide, so by Quaker tradition, nothing happened. The Meeting tabled the whole issue until the anti-gay-marriage people died or left the meeting.

And if you don't understand why group 3 exists, you don't know your Bible. It all goes back to Sodom and Gomorah, where the leather boys propositioned an Angel of the Lord in disguise. The 'defense of marriage' is really the defense of our civilization to these people, because they fear that if they accept gays and give them equal rights, they will be embracing the wickedness that brought Sodom and Gomorah low, and turned Lot's wife into a tasty mealtime garnish.

It does no one any good to demonize the sincere and otherwise lovely people of group 3, it only pushes them towards group 2. They need to be treated with love and given a gentle education. The single greatest attribute that determines whether a person is accepting of gays is whether they know and love gay people. If you get too ugly with our friends from group 3, you're not helping.

Cris - I do believe that churches and synagogues are free to turn away people who can legally wed. Both of my sisters have married Jewish men. Both of the wedding ceremonies were performed at my parent's house. With my sister who got married around 1988, an Episcopal service was performed followed by a Jewish ceremony. With my oldest sister who got married around 1979, our regular preacher would not perform the service and we had to get a family friend to do it. I don't think the government could require the church or the synagogue to perform these services.

Also for Cris, I hope that you and your partner do have health care powers of attorneys in place for each other.

OK....bash away.....

I think a lot of people here mistakenly brand "moral position" as "fear of the unknown" or "close mindedness". Has it ever occurred to you that the MILLIONS of Americans who are against gay marriage hold that position because they feel that homosexuality is flat out wrong?

Personally, I have no issues with gay marriage. I say it is a good thing because family is what matters most. A stable family, regardless of the make up, is critical to society.

I'm not attacking anyone here. I am more playing Devil's Advocate. Stop and ask yourself: Is being openminded and progressive a trait that can only be possessed by those that agree with you? Is is possible that millions of Americans who are against gay marriage are biggots, racists, etc? I think not.

I think marriage has little to do with it actually- it boils down to your personal feelings and whether or not you think homosexuality is right or wrong.

I happen to be in the camp that same sex marriage, if it is to be adopted in the US, and I believe it eventually will, should come by way of the legislature and not the judicial branch. (Ian's right that a change appears to be underway, evidenced by Arizona and the narrower margins elsewhere.) There are a number of reasons for this, not least of which is the constitutional consideration.

Marriage isn't a civil right. It's not enshrined in the Constitution (let's assume for the sake of this argument that we're talking about the US Constitution and not any particular state constitution -- and let's ignore the full faith and credit clause for a moment). We deny marriage all the time to entire classes of people who are consenting adults (e.g. those interested in plural and intrafamilial marriage) and will continue to do so after gay marriage becomes legal in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

I've never heard a satisfactory answer to the question of how the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment supposedly guarantees marriage rights between two same sex partners but not three*, or between two cousins who may or may not be of the same sex. What about two sisters? Two brothers? Father and adult daughter or son? Mother and adult son or daughter? Remember, the ick factor is not an acceptable argument.

If someone could answer that for me, I wouldn't mind judges imposing the change on society. They must, however, have a legal basis for doing so.

* The slippery slope argument is not easily dismissed. Indeed, the push has already begun. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_10_22-2006_10_28.shtml#1161812027

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/2004-10-03-turley_x.htm

Ian -
I used to really enjoy your writings - but no so much anymore. It seems to me your are just too INTOLERANT of anyone that thinks differently than you do.

my husband and I have gay friends, he plays tennis with a gay couple, we go to parties hosted by gay people ( they are usually the best parties), I hugged a gay co- worker friend of mine the other day etc.......

I do not think I am intolerant of gays, but for some reason my gut tells me that a marriage is between a man and a woman. It is fine by me for them to have a same sex union. I think they should get health benefits/tax benefits just like any other spouse should.

I do not think there were any gay marriage issues in my state – but I probably would have voted no. From the above I guess this make me a "homophobe" that "restricts the freedom of others" and "punishes those who were born differently". It is funny, while you seem me that way, I do not think my gay friends would see me that way. They might strongly disagree with me, but I bet they would be tolerant of someone who has a different view point that theirs - unlike you.

I will never understand why folks on either side of the aisle oppose gay marriage. It's easy to paint those in opposition to it as hate mongering, right wing zealots. But it's not that simple.

Many of my close liberal friends, for example, do not like the idea of gay marriage for the simple reason the Bible says "marriage" is between a man and a woman. They do not want to deny anyone their due legal rights, they just want a distinction between marriage of man and woman and the union of same sex partners. So, in their ideal world, gay couples would have the very same legal rights as married men and women but not the "title." I find the splitting of the hairs regarding that distinction to be silly.

For those who don't know me personally, my wife looks like she could be Tessa's younger, shorter sister and I look like I could be boxer George Foreman's stunt double, without the boxing ability. (Of course, when at Carolina, I more resembled El DeBarge, but I digress.)

Only 52 years ago, prior to the landmark case of LOVING v. VIRGINIA, our inter-racial marriage would not have been recognized or legal. With respect to the issue of marriage, at least, I believe the railing against gay marriage is as capricious and arbitrary as the antiquated railing against inter-racial marriage.

I would like to see a law where anyone of legal age can marry any ONE person (sorry polygamists) of their mutual choosing. No marriages to anyone in your immediate nuclear family, but if two 1st cousins want to marry and risk having kids that look like Prince Charles and those Dumbo-esque ears of his, then so be it. And then let the churches regulate only the pomp and circumstance of the weddings and ceremonies.

I got married on a beach in a foreign country. Does that make my marriage any less valid, even if the guests were less sober during the ceremony than they might otherwise have been in a church?

It has been my experience that an overwhleming majority of the loudest opponents to homosexuality are those who are (1) in the closet themselves, (2) uncertain about their own sexuality or (3) embarrassed about a relative or loved one who is openly homosexual.

Personally, I have terrible GAY-DAR and was shocked, SHOCKED to hear that "Doogie Howser" and "George" (from Grey's Anatomy) came out of the closet. That being said, when I hear a loud voice railing against homosexuals, my ears perk up and I start paying attention to determine which of the three categories they fit in above.

Elizabeth - The problem with legislating the restriction of rights is that it can't be an issue where you can stand by a gut feeling. In the same way that you might feel that abortion is wrong, that isn't what is important. You have to be able to argue that there is a legal reason for limiting a person's rights.

In the case of abortion, if you argue that life begins at conception, then we have a real debate... in fact it would be very difficult for those arguing against it to gain a moral foothold. But if you simply say "I have this gut feeling that abortion is wrong" then you aren't saying anything with legal or legistlative teeth.

Someone needs to explain how limiting the rights of homosexuals is protecting the rights of someone else, and they have to show it very clearly, otherwise this is an injustice.

And yes, I'm disregarding the feelings of those who think homosexuality is wrong. I've got relatives who keep kosher and relatives who follow the pearl of great price, and I can respect them wanting to do it, but if they tried to argue that coffee and bacon should be outlawed, I would scream my head off.

And bacon's probably killed more people that shared love has.

However... here's the question for the lawyers reading this discussion: does the government already dictate what marriages churches must perform? If a couple who can legally wed want to have their ceremony in a particular church, and that church objects to the union for some reason (maybe they're an inter-faith couple, or an inter-racial couple, or who knows what) - is that church free to turn them away?

No, it doesn't, and yes, the church can.

Marriage laws, by their very nature, address secular, LEGAL marriage. They have no influence whatsoever on holy matrimony as it is understood by Christianity or any other religion.

That's part of what separation of church and state is all about. No Ten Commandments in the courthouse, and no mandatory US flags in the church sanctuary.

If the scripture of a particular religion (Catholicism, for instance) defines marriage as between one man and one woman, and state law allows same sex marriage, the priests are still free to tell same-sex betrotheds to go elsewhere. In fact, their orders probably require them to do so.

The only ones who MUST perform same sex ceremonies are those judges and other secular officials who have legal, not religious, authority to perform marriages.

If there's spin fiction in the hate-based community about christian clergy forced to marry same sex couples against their beliefs, I'm not surprised. But it is just that--fiction.

fyi
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/us/politics/10marriage.html?hp&ex=1163221200&en=483323395748e3b8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

There are so many awesome comments here, and I agree with many of you and have nothing new to add. I will however point out that I find it surprising, no SHOCKING to find out that Ian loves expensive hair care products. Are you serious?

Hell yes - that American Crew Fiber pomade is like $20 for a tiny jar!

Ian,

As a gay dude, I just want to say thanks for the support.

Attitudes about gays, gay rights and gay marriage have already changed substantially in the past ten years and things only look to be getting better and better.

Gay visibility is up. Gay characters are becoming more and more common and accepted in film and television. Gay kids are coming out in high school now, which is pretty clear news that the social stigma against homosexuality is lessening among the young. Young people are overwhelmingly more liberal in their positions on gay marriage and gay rights than their parents are.

We've got full marriage in one state and civil unions in three others, not to mention the unions and marriages being granted to gays in Europe and Canada. As time goes by and these states and countries don't see the full scale collapse of their societies, the argument that the social stability requires the public disapproval of homosexuality is, I think, going to come to seem a little...well...quaint.

In short, I think the battle's already won. We just have to be patient and keep on getting the word out. It's slow moving, yes, and it's cold comfort for those of us who have to live with anti-gay discrimination today, but that's social change for ya.

The big question, I think, isn't whether we'll eventually have gay marriage and full gay rights. We will. The big question is how hard a blow Christianity is going to take because of it. As Europe became increasingly liberal, the unwavering conservatism of the Catholic church on issues like contraception, women in the church, and gay rights has made it an increasingly irrelevant force in Europe. The Church simply stopped reflecting the values of Europeans, and so Europeans stopped going. Will Christianity come to a different understanding of itself, embracing gay tolerance and revising its understanding of the anti-gay passages of the bible (in a similar way that it came to re-evaluate the, say, pro-slavery portions of the bible) or will it draw a line in the sand and make "thou shall not commit male on male sodomy" into the defacto 11th commandment?

Nate

My eyes are all watery right now...it's amazing what support will do for a (gay) guy. Sadly, it comes all too rarely from people outside of the 'family' and for that, Ian and other supportive commenters), I love you. Sad that I'm afraid to ask my family how THEY voted on the amendment that passed in Michigan a couple of years ago...because I think I know the answer.

It's a process. A long, heartwrenching, exhausting, hair pulling process. But we'll get there. For my own sanity, I have to believe that.

XOXOXO.

Another point: Don't wait around for the government to ratify who you are. Waiting on the government for anything is a loser's strategy.

There's no gay marriage in Iowa. But many companies (and many if not all state government agencies) extend spousal benefits to same sex partners.

You can't get a marriage license, but if you want to get married, go ahead. Find someone to perform the ceremony, and talk to a lawyer about how to set up the legal framework that will give you what a marriage license automatically gives straight couples. Durable power of attorney if either partner is incapacitated, joint custody of children, shared ownership of property.

The government won't explicitly license your union but screw the government. I'm married and I haven't laid hands on my marriage license since the day we got married. It's way overrated as a personal artifact.

Sure it would be nice if society as a whole would give you equal recognition, but black people don't have that yet, and skinny pretty people discriminate against the lumpy proletariat all the live long day. The world kinda sucks in a lot of ways, but at least you're not getting your limbs hacked off in Darfur.

yeah, but that's a priveleged point of view, Kent. the gov't is not really some "other" - we ARE the gov't.

and if a person who pays taxes and could get drafted and is not in prison or something wants to get married to somebody, they should damn well be able to demand that from the gov't. just because it doesn't mean something significant to you or me doesn't mean that it's not significant to some other citizen, so beware of complacency.

greg makes a good point though, you know people said the same thing about segregation, i.e., if a child of color gets an education in some other form, why should they be demand to be allowed into the white school? from the pseduo-well intentioned white folks in group #3's point of view it's like, "just be happy with what you've got and stop trying to have what WE special ordained white people have. WE're the entitled ones and YOU have to settle for something DIFFERENT but EQUAL."

just insert hetero for white and marriage for education. duh.

it's just so ludicrous from a non-Judeo Christian standpoint.

i mean, what if the Buddha was gay?

can you imagine a powerful and poltically influential group of gay Buddhists saying that marriage can only be between 2 gay people because Buddha said so? and all the hetero folks have to have SOMETHING ELSE?

WTF!!

get over it, all you elitist judeo christian hetero-separatists! you can take your bigot-god and shove him up your sodom-and-gomorrah hole.

Of course I'm gay, so I'm going to agree with you, Ian. I saw at least one reference to the Christian bible being cited as a reason to disallow equal marriage rights for gay people -- aside from the fact that we're not all Christian and shouldn't all be forced to abide by those rules, there's also a case to be made that what the Bible says isn't at all clear regarding same-sex relationships.

Here's an excellent reference for that:

http://www.soulforce.org/article/homosexuality-bible-walter-wink

Kent, unfortunately what you're suggesting here: "Find someone to perform the ceremony, and talk to a lawyer about how to set up the legal framework that will give you what a marriage license automatically gives straight couples. Durable power of attorney if either partner is incapacitated, joint custody of children, shared ownership of property."

Just doesn't cover it. There's no way to completely recreate the legal rights of marriage in this way, and doing what can be done is much more expensive than getting a marriage license -- I know because I've gone through it when I had open-heart surgery last year.

And that doesn't take into account that all of the legal tangoing in the world can and is being undone by the specific languages of these marriage amendments. This is the language in the infamous "second clause" of our proposed anti-equal marriage rights amendment here in Indiana:

"This Constitution or any other Indiana law may not be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents of marriage be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups"

That single clause would cause all of our powers of attorney to be invalidated in a courtroom.

wow.amazing comments. i wish you were all running for office. you would have my vote. its my birthhay today and as a minority within a monority ( bisexual) i am moved by the level of discourse. where is this dialogue in the press? from our "leaders"?

the problem with any arguement against gay marriage is that ultimately you come down to "i want something and i want to deny you what i believe is MY right to have". its just completely illogical and ultimately unsupportable.

i grew up in in Rhode Island,a state founded for religious freedom. home of the first synagoge, the first methodist church etc. perhaps it is time for all religions to realize and meditate upon the history of their own persecution and then ask themselves if its ok to apply that same hatred ( yes,,,HATRED and not fear..fear is what those who hate refer to it as to soften their own image. fear is what i feel whenever i am in public with another man, fear is what i feel whenever i am asked if i want a room with two beds when checking into a hotel, fear is a constant companion that accompanies every transation every day. try living with THAT and then talk to us about fear vs hate.)

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.... we spend a lot of time in this country debating the meaning of life and when it begins, and equal amount of time debating liberty. but we stay away from the discussion about happiness. i think our founding fathers ( and mothers) chose that word because of its expansive nature.

i demand my happiness be respected and legislated and accepted.

this country needs to grow up and begin acting like a mature adult instead of the schoolyard bully both in terms of our own citizens and as a citizen of the world.

and ian, thanks for the best birthday gift ever

Matt

I noticed no one stood up to answer your challenge about the slippery slope between gay marriage, polyamory and incest, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I can’t speak intelligently about the constitutional jurisprudence of the 14th amendment, so let’s make this less academic and change the question just a bit: If fairness requires that we allow gay marriage, doesn’t it also require that we allow polyamorous (multi-party) marriages and incestuous marriages?

I’ll deal with polyamory first. I’ve got two arguments on this score that I'd like to run by you.

WE DON’T HAVE TO RECOGNIZE POLYAMOROUS MARRIAGES BECAUSE IT’S IMPOSSIBLE.

No, this isn’t the argument that marriage is, by definition, between only two people. That’s a crap argument, and if I allow it against polyamorous couples, it should work just as well against gay couples. What's good for the good and all that. What I mean is that many of the benefits of marriage are not, in principle, extendable to pairings of more than two people. We can't give them exactly the same rights because it's impossible to give them exactly the same rights.

Take automatic inheritance. Most marriage laws provide that all possessions and property owned by someone who dies without a will are automatically transferred to his or her spouse. But if there are two living spouses, how does the inheritance get split. 50/50 is an obvious choice, but it’s important to realize that it’s not the ONLY choice. There are other good candidates. So, for instance, in many polyamorous cultures, for instance, a man’s first wife receives authority and benefits that his subsequent wives do not. Seniority counts, in other words. To do justice to these relationships, the law could proportion inheritance to the time a man has been married to each of his wives. If a man was married to his first wife for 20 years, his second for 7, and this third for 2, his first wife would get 20/29ths of his assets, his second wife would get 7/29ths and his third would get 2/29ths. Or perhaps inheritance laws in polyamorous marriages should take into account how many children each wife has born to the man, with wives receiving inheritance in proportion to the number of children they have born their husband.

The specifics don’t matter, of course. The point is that many of the benefits and obligations surrounding marriage specifically reference the fact that marriage is a two-person affair. When a wife is incapacitated, the husband receives exclusive power of attorney. But there’s no way to extend this right, to grant EXCLUSIVE power of attorney, in a polyamorous marriage. When the polyamorous trio says, “We want the same rights as other people!”, the reply is “we CAN’T, because the rights we grant specifically REFERENCE the structure of the union as two person.” We can’t give you the same rights. At best, we can only give you SIMILAR rights. (So why not give them similar rights? For more on that, see the next argument?)

Notice that this argument doesn’t hold with gay unions. The rights and benefits of marriage aren’t gendered or age-specific in their structure. Getting power of attorney doesn’t change depending on whether it’s a man or a woman who receives that power or whether it’s a 18 year old or a 21 year old that gets the power. But getting power of attorney certainly DOES change if you have to share it, or if it goes to the oldest spouse, or what have you.

IT’S SELF-DEFEATING

The point of our marriage laws are to encourage a certain sort of stable pairing which we think is essential for a stable, well-functioning society. Let’s assume that’s right and that the state does indeed have a legitimate interest in encouraging individuals to settle into stable, caring relationships. Would granting polyamorous couples encourage stability?

There’s good reason to think that they won’t. Look at inheritance again. However we decide to divvy up the spoils of marriage, the upshot will be that marriage benefits will have to be shared by the spouses. Let’s say we settle on a 50/50 inheritance division, so that if a wife dies, her two husbands each inherit half of her remaining pension benefits. But if Husband 1 is forced out before the death, Husband 2 would be entitled to 100% of the pension benefits. The benefits that marriage laws provide, the ones that are supposed to encourage people to get married, will, in this case, provide an incentive to push out the other spouses. If I’m only entitled to half of my wife’s possessions because she has another husband, then it’s in my interest to force him out, so that I’m now entitled to 100%. The laws will serve to make it rational for spouses to compete with one another as they try to maximize their share of the marital benefits. They thus act as a destabilizing force, one that serves to make these relationships less stable, which is precisely the opposite of what the law is trying to do.

Okay, that's it. I think these are two on-the-surface-compelling arguments for why recognizing gay marriage doesn't require recognizing polyamorous marriage. I haven’t thought a tremendous amount about them, so they may end up not surviving scrutiny, but I guess that's the way with most arguments. Comments and criticism welcome if you have them.

Incest later.

Nate

I'm really enjoying this discussion, and almost everything I would want to say has been said better by others already.

I do want to add one point though. Some have said that homosexuality is wrong because it is prohibited in the Bible, pointing out that the Bible goes so far as to say that "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them." (Lev 20:13)

If we accept that argument, we get into real trouble, because the Bible also says that you should be put to death if you work on the Sabbath (Ex 35:2), that stubborn children should be stoned (not the fun way) by their parents (Duet 21:18-21) and that if a woman grabs a man's private parts during a fight, her hand must be cut off (Duet 25:11). Now, I may agree with that last one, but most reasonable people will agree that the Bible has a pretty absurd sense of justice in a number of cases.

Oh, and by the way, the Bible says that slavery is OK (Ex 21), that incest is just dandy(Gen 20:12), and that a man can marry more than one woman (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David, among others, all had multiple wives).

great post today ian. i don't have too much to add but i need to tell elizabeth that i found her post to be offensive. saying gays have great parties is akin to saying blacks can dance or any other ridiculous stereotypical belief. and how brave of you to hug a gay co-worker!!! talk about tolerance.

I have 3 comments:

1 - I heard last night that there are still about 200,000 uncounted votes in Arizona regarding the gay marriage proposition. Apparently, there's still a chance it might pass.

2 - Thought I never felt like I wanted to get married to my girlfriend in a traditional, like-my-parents-had, "marriage-y" ceremony (I always preferred throwing a huge warehouse party to celebrate), it's becoming more appealing than the process one encounters in registering in California as a "civil union."

FYI, the steps are: 1) Download PDF from internet. 2) Print out page (ONE page), sign, get notarized. 3) Send to State of California with $10 check. 4) Throw confetti on ourselves(optional)

While easier (and cheaper) than planning a wedding, it lacks a little something in the romance department, I think. Does the day we notarize the PDF become the day we celebrate our anniversary? Or the day that our check gets processed by the state?

3 - If you asked 1,000 people which was a better option: Me marrying my girlfriend or Britney marrying Kevin Federline (or ANYONE marrying Kevin Federline, for that matter), I think you'd have a very close race.

Seriously, can we legislate that K-Fed getting married actually does cause damage to the institution of marriage, to the country's collective intelligence, and adds to a general lack of productivity in the nation's workplaces? He gets married, impregnates his wife, gets divorced, repeats...yeah, he's great for family values.

I'm just saying.

I'm sorry to break the news to you on your birthday dpdir, but you need to get real. It's for your own good. As a citizen of this country, you are within your rights to demand that your happiness be legislated. Wide-spread respect and acceptance of your happiness, however, is totally out of your control.

It's only a matter of deliberate speed before same-sex marriage is legalized. That much is obvious. What you need to prepare yourself for is that the fear your feel will never go away. Our culture of heterosexism is institutionalized. If you recall your American Civil Rights history, de jure rights and de facto rights are two totally different things.

Every American has some sort of social fear or stigma ingrained in them. Everyone lives with it. Prejudice and discrimination are quite natural phenomena, truth be told.

I'll vote for same-sex marriage rights every chance I get. This is America, after all. When your honeymoon's over though, there you'll be. Just like everybody else. I know I forgot the sugar coating, but you need to knuckle-up if you're proud and put that fear to some good use. Majority rules in the Home Of The Brave and the rest are forced to assimilate, as you well know.

Thanks for the response, Nate. You make some good points about the problems inherent in polyamorous marriages. Yet a major argument in favor of same sex marriage is that it's a civil right. As such, I would think that bigamists who are in committed relationships would find unsatisfactory the contention that marriage shouldn't extend to them because its legal benefits and obligations are too complicated. Afterall, they may love each other just as much as two persons do. The destabilization claim as a matter of public policy is stronger, I think, however the same argument is often raised against gay marriage.

Drawing a distinction from, say, cousins marrying, is harder to make, especially if we are working from a constitutional standpoint, which most states are. If it is court-imposed change in the definition of marriage that we are looking at, I don't think this debate can exist outside of a legal framework. Basically, if one is supporting the legalization of gay marriage but not polyamorous or intrafamilial marriage, one is simply redrawing the lines of what society considers acceptable. That's the domain of elected lawmakers, not judges. Absent a constitutional basis, courts should not be setting social policy.

Just to re-state the question for others: How does the EPC of the 14th Am guarantee same sex marriage but not marriage between brothers (to use one example).

I have to head out the door now, but look forward to reading the rest of your argument when I get back.

no, matt, the judicial system seems to be doing a fine job right now of preventing hetero brother-sister marriage, so i think they can handle keeping brother-brother, sister-sister marriage off limits too.

the slippery slope thing is the most idiotic argument i've seen yet.

Can someone explain to me what would happen when a same sex couple married in Mass moves to another state (where same sex unions are not legal).

What kind of problems would they face? Insurance? Tax filing?

Hey Matt:

Thanks for your reasoned response and giving my arguments a fair hearing.

I agree that the marriage question is a civil rights issue, but I think there's a tendency to be vague about what that means.

On the one hand, saying that marriage is a civil right could be taken to mean that the government MUST be in the marriage business, that there'd be something wrong if the government simply decided to wash its hands of the whole thing and leave marriage entirely to the private sphere. Maybe some people think that, but I don't think that that's the main argument. I certainly don't endorse it. It seems overly strong to me.

But there's ANOTHER thing people might mean when people say that denying gay's marriage violates their rights, and that goes something like this: "Given that you are giving a benefit to one segment of the population, it violates the civil rights of the others to withold it from them without a good reason." That's the sense of civil rights that's in play. If a benefit is given to one segment of the population, then the other segments are entitled to THE SAME BENEFIT unless the government can provide a good reason why it shouldn't.

My first argument, then, was that the good reason the government gives for not providing the SAME BENEFIT to polyamorous couplings as it does to straight couplings is this: WE CAN'T GIVE YOU THE SAME BENEFIT, the nature of your relationship prevents it. And this is NOT a rejoinder that the gov't can give to gay couples, since extending the benefits of marriage to gay couples doesn't alter any of the benefits of marriage.

So the argument isn't that "it's too complicated to give you the same rights". The argument is "we can't give you the same rights. The fact that they're complicated MEANS that they're not the same. The best we can do is give you a SIMILAR institution, with SIMILAR rights."

If you want to use a science fiction geeky geometry analogy, imagine that the polyamorists are two dimensional people and the rest of us are three dimensional. The government gives all three dimensional couples cubes. And the two dimensional people all cry out! "No fair. We're entitled to cubes, too!" The reply is: Well, I'm sorry, But you're two dimensional. You can't have CUBES. It's impossible. Cubes are necessarily three dimensional and you guys are only two dimensional. We could give you something similar, we could give you SQUARES, but we can't give you cubes.

(End of geeky geometry analogy. Please accept my apologies.)

You also pointed out that the destabilizing argument is often used against gays. You're right. But the argument as it's employed against gays is different than the one I was making. When used against gays, the argument is that letting gays marry would be generally destabilizing for society in general. It would, so it is conjectured, lessen straights' willingness to get married, thereby weakening the institution as a whole and consequently, society. I should say that this is an on the surface good argument. I think it happens to not be true, but if it were, if allowing gays to marry would result in a noticeable decrease in marriage across the board and subsequent social chaos, that would be a very good argument about keeping us homos out of the country club.

But note that this scenario depends for its efficacy on the widespread hatred of gays. Society doesn't like gays, so they think less of marriage once that gays are allowed to join and subsequently, decide to pass on it. The law itself doesn't weaken marriage, the law itself continues to provide incentives to get and stay married. None of those incentives change by adding gays. Any weakening of marriage isn't provided by the law itself, but by the psychological effect of letting gays into the club. The weakening of marriage is, to borrow a technical term from economics, an externality.

But the case with the polyamorous is different. In any case where you divide up the spoils of some benefit among people, the fewer people that are party to the agreement, the higher each individual's share. In the case of polyamorous unions, giving any benefits that must be divided up among the remaining spouses provide economic incentives to push the others out. That is, the law ITSELF provides reasons for individuals inside the marriage to compete with each other and dissolve the union. But the whole POINT of the law is to DISCOURAGE competition between members of a marriage. The law is self-defeating in that sense. So when the polyamorous couple comes to say "hey, why don't you encourage our stable unions like you do with straights and (hopefully one day, gays) the answer to give is "because giving incentives encourages straight couples and gay couples to stay together, but giving similar incentives to multi party couples will only encourage them to fight over who gets what share of the benefits."

Or so that was my thought. Like I said, provisional, and maybe there's a big argumentative hole I'm not seeing.

Incest is another topic, which I think, requires an entirely different sort of response.

Nate

John,

My understanding is that the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by Clinton, specifically says that no state shall be obligated to accept the same sex marriages of any other state. So if you get married in Massachusetts, you're only married in Massachusetts. This may vary from state to state, especially in states like Vermont and Connecticut that have legalized gay unions. They may have added legislative provisions that deal with this.

Also, I don't believe that the Defense of Marriage Act has been challenged constitutionally yet, so it's possible (though highly improbably given the current Supreme Court) that it might be overturned as incompatible with the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution.

But I'm not a lawyer, so it's not unlikely that I'm suffering from what is an embarassing miscomprehension of the state of play on this issue.

Nate

As a Mass resident I tell you this: No state can be more proud - we have gay marriage! But, on our ballot question 1, the people defeated selling of wine in groceries stores! Makes sense, huh?

Nate, I see your point about the nature of polyamorous relationships, but I can't say I'm entirely convinced that it makes a significant enough distinction to justify excluding them but not other forms of non-traditional marriage. And I think you agree that the argument doesn't work with the cousins scenario.

At any rate, let's assume for a moment that everyone wants same sex marriage (not merely civil unions) to be available. How do we get there? We could: 1) pass laws through state and federal legislatures -- a means less controversial since it would be achieved through the democratic process; or 2) Allow courts to impose a new definition of marriage on society based on a strained (to say the very least) reading of the 14th Am.

I would favor the former, of course, but if we go with the latter, and I'll repeat for those who weren't paying attention in my previous comments, what legal justification is there then to deny marriage to polyamorists or to two cousins? What reading of the EPC allows us to do so? I can't see one. So when people say the slippery slope argument "is the most idiotic" thing they've ever heard, and they agree with such judicial interpretations, I'd ask them to answer that question for me. The first link I provided above shows not only that the slippery slope is real, it's how we got to where we are now. The second is an article by a well-known liberal law professor advocating in favor of plural marriages using -- you guessed it -- a constitutional argument. Polygamist groups have also snatched onto the coat tails of the gay marriage movement and begun filing lawsuits of their own. By what reasoning is the Massachusettes Supreme Court to deny them?

Thanks for the debate, Nate. I hope I understood you clearly. You can have the last word, if you wish.

Oh geez...i have not read the other FORTY comments. The whole gay marriage debate has nothing to do with marriage. It's about some irrational fear over mainstreaming homosexual lifestyles with the rest of society.

What are the consequences of this happening? Can't think of any myself.

What an interesting and lively discussion. While I very much appreciate the nuanced articulation in many posts, at the end of reading all of them I still feel (like Josie above) plainly and simply that people irrationally hate and fear gayness.

What happens to straight people who are lucky enough to be yanked out of this miasma somehow (by having a loved one come out to you, usually) is that you look back at your life and think, WTF was I afraid of? It is a total "There's a Monster at the End of This Book" scenario. You've been inculcated with some fear and dread that you've never bothered to examine or think about, and then when you finally are forced to confront it, it's made out of absolutely nothing at all.

There are many other variations, of course, on this story: gay people's own journeys towards accpetance/self-acceptance, folks who are raised in actively gay-tolerant/supportive homes, but for the majority of Americans I would hazard a guess that we are fed homphobia (silently and invisibly, like a noxious gas) and then we either get over it, or don't. It's a great gift to have the opportunity to get over it and not be gnawed away at by anxiety when confronted with All Things Gay.

Short on empirical argument here, but A FAG-AND-DYKE-LOVER FOREVER!!!

http://www.youtube.com/v/7Xo56nmUTcI

john

while i appreciate your attempts to "set me straight" (pun intended) , i whole heartedly disagree with you. i dare you to tell me what great social stigma you feel as a straight white male in america? have your rights to an afternoon of golf come under fire lately?

as to your 'suck it up..its a majority" philosphy... well thats just a subtle expression of your own bigoty ...and the kind of condescension that comes from one who sits in the cat birds seat.

frankly, i have no interest in ever getting married and have a hard time understanding why gays and lesbians would want to imitate an inherently straight institution. civil unions i get...equal rights, tax breaks, inheritence, visitation rights.

but your strong arm philosphy of "majority rules and the rest are forced to assimilate".. is temporal ethics. there are, and history has shown it, when leading is not about following the 51%. those "activist" judges that people scream about are doing their job of interpreting the spirit of of our founding fathers and protecting the pillars of this country even at moments when the majority may be motivated by lesser angels. i know its hard to recall under the current administration, but we actually have 3 EQUAL branches of gov't.

some of us dream and fight for a better future. if your solution is "to assimilate" then i hope that eventually that lack of flexibility will become as obsolete as the subtle predjudice inherent in your suggestion.

you might wanna "knuckle up" yourself or you may wake up one day a minorty wondering how that happened.

I'm sorry to break the news to you again, dpdir, but I'm a straight, African American male, and I wake up every day a minority.

Would you like to reread my post and respond to me again?

no john... it only adds to my utter surprize at your submission and suggestion that i should "accept" things the way they are rather then fight for change. hate turned inward seems to manifest itself in a feeling of defeat.

i wish u well and,whether you "approve" or not, i will continue to fight and not settle for simple assimilation.

ps: have you ever seen a documentry entitled "Tongues Untied"? its a brilliant piece of work about what it means to black and gay. the whole 'downlow" phenomenom is another serious can of worms that is the result of fear turned inward.

Ian! See how important your blog is? Thank you!

A thread I see running through a number of posts is the idea that same-sex marriage has been banned, and a corollary implication that same-sex marriage is normal and common except where there is Christian oppression.

Only in the last ten years has there been advocacy for same-sex marriage in the U.S. Marriage long pre-dates Christianity and has existed for millenia in non-Christain cultures. There is no legal or cultural tradition of same-sex marriage anywhere in the non-Christian world. The decision by some European countries to change their legal definition of marriage also is recent.

Advocacy for same-sex marriage is advocacy to change the legal definition of marriage. The burden of persuasion, therefore, is on those seeking to make this change in the law and the culture. What I see from some however is an effort to shift the burden of persuasion from those seeking to make the change, to those who either oppose it or are simply undecided.

Frustration with those who oppose this change, whether on religious or non-religious grounds, is understandable. I agree that the best approach is to pursue a dialogue with the large number of undecided. I suspect that the undecided want what anyone wants: to be respected during the discussion and for those seeking change to take seriously the issues that have been raised and to address those issues thoughtfully.

nope, fuck that.

the best approach is not to pursue a dialogue with a large number of undecided. the best approach is to demand that the government give equal rights to the homosexual minority, regardless of whether the old christian dudes in omaha can be persuaded by a gentle and compassionate sweet-talking dialogue about just how much equality other folks should have.

but see, matt, here is where i show my true colors as the way-the-fuck lefty that i am, because first of all, i really don't give a shit about the polyamorists getting married. i say go for it! let em! let em ride up to city hall in their medeival rennaissance fare garb or get their wiccan wizards to marry em by the truckload! makes no fucking difference to me, because they are going to live that way anyway, it's just going to give them more legitimacy and legal rights.

legitimacy and legal rights = good; 2-3 people in a sexual & intimate relationship with equal responsibility and shared property but not on the rental agreement or insurance policy = bad.

and if you and Nate think that's too complicated for our lame ass govt. to handle, then how the fuck does the govt. figure out a corporation's rights?

if GE gets to be as complicated as it wants to be, then i say let people be complicated too, because people are MORE fucking important than corporations.

oh, and let's not forget all the crazy ass polyamorous mormons! all those women living like uber-christian slaves would actually have some friggin rights for a change and wouldn't have to go shuffling around in their aprons hiding from the law!

now wouldn't that fuck some shit up in a divorce settlement, when one of those assholes has to send out 5 or 6 alimony checks? it'll be like the wives can engage in collective bargaining, that would be so kick-ass!

and as for cousin on cousin marriage, big fucking deal. i mean, the big deal is fucking, right? closely related cousins making fucked up babies? well, until there is a law against actually fucking your cousin and knocking her up, looks like marriage won't really make a big difference, right? but at least if there's a legal marriage maybe someone will make them take a blood test or give them a stern warning or something.

OK, xuxE. If you want to argue in favor of marriage between two cousins, two brothers, fathers and daughters, the Green Bay Packers, etc., be my guest.

Matt,

You've brought up the incest issue several times without a rejoinder from anyone, so I thought I'd chime in.

But a few things first. One, so far as I know, it's not illegal to have consensual sex with a family member who is of age. Two, passing a law that would make consensual sex between two adult family members is, if not unconstitutional, than

Your comment was cut off, Nate, so I'm not exactly sure where you were going, but I'd like to note that I'm not arguing for a law preventing, say, consenting brothers from having sex, nor am I suggesting there must be if they are to be denied marriage rights. I use the incest scenario as an example because it shows rather well the basic flaw in the EPC argument for expanding the definition of marriage. Once the barn door is open... well, you get the idea. We can redraw the lines if we want, but unless we're in xuxE's crazy camp, we shouldn't kid ourselves that we're making marriage "equal" for everyone. We're not. We would still be discriminating against minority groups and denying them the same protections of the 14th Am that we used to include gays.

I think I'm in love with Nate and xuxE. Think I can convince them both to marry me?

The government should stay our of the marriage business.

The EPC of the 14th amend does not preclude the states from their traditional roles of ensuring the "health and welfare" of it's citizens. While science has now proven that genetically there is no downside to marrying your first cousin, their is clearly a genetic downside to marrying a sibling due to basic genetics 101.
The arguement that opening the door to homosexual sex will lead to opening the door to all types of marriages (dog/man, man/child, man/six women, etc.) is based on the "gateway drug" theory of marriage or simply, the "slippery slope", We are all familiar with the now standard "pot is a gateway drug" to hard drugs arguement created by the War of Drugs crowd. Oddly, they never talk about alcohol being a gateway drug. The marriage arguement is the same arguement. "Gay marriage will lead to drawfs marrying monkeys" is tossed out all the time. However, Gay marriage is simply following the gateway relationship, heterosexual marriage. So, to summarize, heterosexual marriage leads to the end of the institution of marriage.

Sorry, my post was cut off. What I was going to say was that I think the reasons underscoring our laws preventing cousins from marrying ARE pretty weak, and weak for precisely the same reasons that our laws preventing gays from marrying are.

(Small caveat: I can think of at least one argument for making Parent/Child unions illegal, which is that we don't want to sexualize the parent/minor child relationship, and thus we want to discourage parents from thinking of their children as POTENTIAL sexual partners. And something similar might be said for a law against sibling marriage. I'd have to think about that more in depth, though, before I endorsed it).

Anway, I think Matt's right to point out that the laws preventing marriage between, say, cousins, looks arbitrary in precisely the way that the line preventing gays from marrying is.

(In fact, the reasons for preventing cousins from marrying appear even weaker than the reasons for preventing gays from marrying. After all, no one is contending that it's part of the definition of marriage that you not be related to the person you marry, in the same way that it's part of the definition of marriage that there be two sexes involved.)

But even granting that point, I don't necessarily see what role this point is supposed to play in the greater argument over this issue. The objection to these laws is that they're ARBITRARY exclusions of some citizens from a benefit enjoyed by others. What makes them objectionable is their ARBITRARINESS. Allowing gays to marry won't make the prohibition of cousin marriage less arbitrary, and allowing cousins to marry won't make the prohibition of gay marriage less arbitrary. Granting one doesn't make the case against the other stronger. If, for instance, there had never been a law against cousin-marriage, it doesn't seem like any of the arguments for gay marriage would be one bit different. All the same arguments in favor of gay marriage could be and would be made. So how is talking about incest anything but a side issue?

Nate

Tim:

Thanks. Yours is officially my first blog related marriage proposal. Send me an email if you're ever in Canada, Amsterdam, or Massachusetts and we'll talk.

Nate