Homosexual Marriage

[Jack]

Well, the local news reports that our governor will be vetoing the same-sex marriage proposal, as most of us suspected he would.

[Dirty Name]

Well, the local news reports that our governor will be vetoing the same-sex marriage proposal, as most of us suspected he would.

As well he should. It's bad law.

[mr.perfecto]

Three cheers for the democracy and the rule of law.

[italiangm]

Yawn.

[Waychel]

Whether the constitutional rights of homosexuals are being infringed upon is highly debatable.

Homosexuals argue that to deny their marriages legal recognition is to deny them the privileges that have been awarded to the institution of marriage itself (issues of property, consortium, etc. arising from marriage; primarily in dissolution). They claim that their unions are due these privileges and that legal recognition of their unions as marriage is therefore a "right" that they are entitled to under the Fourteenth Amendment. The argument of "civil rights" regarding homosexual marriage therefore hinges entirely on whether the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges and Immunities Clause and Due Process Clause touches upon this issue.

I am sure that most here are familiar with the Slaughter-House Cases, which in 1869 set forth a precedent of "Selective Incorporation" in how the Fourteenth Amendment would come to enforce the Bill of Rights over the states. The decision that court came to was that the Fourteenth Amendment was primarily intended to protect former slaves, and so could not be broadly applied to the states themselves, other than in those cases which "shock the conscience" (Rochin v. California). As the Supreme Court has yet to hear a federal case on this issue, authority over this issue is left to the states.

Whether homosexuals like it or not, whether we feel that they are entitled to loss of consortium or not, what they are claiming to be a "vested right" is in actuality a privilege left open to the discretion of the state to award. The Fourteenth Amendment is not at issue here -- neither have "rights" been established. The state has made it's decision and for now, that decision is the law.

[italiangm]

Quote by: Waychel Whether homosexuals like it or not, whether we feel that they are entitled to loss of consortium or not, what they are claiming to be a "vested right" is in actuality a privilege left open to the discretion of the state to award. The Fourteenth Amendment is not at issue here -- neither have "rights" been established. The state has made it's decision and for now, that decision is the law.

Your interpretation is equally debatable, which is why it is being challenged in the courts.

Until the Lawrence decision, hearings on gay civil rights cases were rejected because admitting one was a homosexual was essentially a criminal confession. With the criminal aspect eliminated, gay civil rights cases can proceed.

Just because bad laws were sheltered from review by layers of bad law doesn't change the fact the laws are bad.

Once the state stuck its nose in the marriage business, the rules say it must show a compelling interest for restricting marriage to a class of citizens. The absence of compelling interest will render such restrictions unenforceable.

The other option is for government to get out of the marriage business altogether and stick to adjudicating marriage and property contract disputes and protecting child rights.

[Waychel]

The state didn't "stick it's nose" into marriage business; marriage was already defined. Homosexuals challenged that definition, but the people of California voted and did not agree. Whether you like it or not, that is the state's right until the US Supreme Court deems otherwise.

The issue with Lawrence was that anti-homosexual laws existed. However, what we are speaking of here are not "anti-homosexual" laws, but a legal definition that restricts homosexuals from having their marriages legally recognized. Homosexuals are still allowed to be homosexual and they may even marry one another (without legal recognition of course). These are two very different circumstances.

If your analogy was correct, then Mormons could conceivably argue (as they already have) that defining marriage as being between two adults is an issue of invidious discrimination. The argument posed by the Mormons in this regard far outweighs that of the homosexuals: not only are their marriages not legally recognized, but laws exist (much like they did at the time of Lawrence) outlawing such unions entirely (despite the "religious significance" Mormons argue that these unions hold). This has been argued in cases as recent as Bronson v. Swensen, but as usual, it was found that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply:

"Contrary to plaintiffs' assertion, the laws in question here do not preclude their private sexual conduct," Stewart said. "They do preclude the state of Utah from recognizing the marriage [...] as a valid marriage under the laws of the state of Utah."

Also, Wilson and Schoenwether v. Ake and Ashcroft upheld the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to ban same-sex marriages. Saying that my post is "debatable" is an issue of the philosophies expressed; not the legal situation itself.

[italiangm]

Quote by: Waychel The state didn't "stick it's nose" into marriage business; marriage was already defined.

If you mean before government became involved, you're correct. Of course, the definition and application of marriage has been redefined many, many times for various reasons and purposes. Perhaps you might tell us why government got involved in the first place, hmm?

Quote by: Waychel Homosexuals challenged that definition, but the people of California voted and did not agree. Whether you like it or not, that is the state's right until the US Supreme Court deems otherwise.

Actually, CA still has an opportunity to resolve the issue, but I suspect it'll probably wind up in SCOTUS' lap.

Quote by: Waychel The issue with Lawrence was that anti-homosexual laws existed. However, what we are speaking of here are not "anti-homosexual" laws, but a legal definition that restricts homosexuals from having their marriages legally recognized. Homosexuals are still allowed to be homosexual and they may even marry one another (without legal recognition of course). These are two very different circumstances.

Again, the state must offer a compelling interest to support the opposite sex restriction. "Because we say so" isn't compelling enough.

Quote by: Waychel If your analogy was correct, then Mormons could conceivably argue (as they already have) that defining marriage as being between two adults is an issue of invidious discrimination. The argument posed by the Mormons in this regard far outweighs that of the homosexuals: not only are their marriages not legally recognized, but laws exist (much like they did at the time of Lawrence) outlawing such unions entirely (despite the "religious significance" Mormons argue that these unions hold). This has been argued in cases as recent as Bronson v. Swensen, but as usual, it was found that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply: "Contrary to plaintiffs' assertion, the laws in question here do not preclude their private sexual conduct," Stewart said. "They do preclude the state of Utah from recognizing the marriage [...] as a valid marriage under the laws of the state of Utah."

Citizens who wish to be involved in a marriage with multiple spouses may indeed be experiencing an unfair restriction of their liberties. That's an issue for the courts to deal with.

Quote by: Waychel Also, Wilson and Schoenwether v. Ake and Ashcroft upheld the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to ban same-sex marriages. Saying that my post is "debatable" is an issue of the philosophies expressed; not the legal situation itself.

Both philosophy and law have been, and will continue to be, debatable both privately and in the courts. Due process is still the law of the land and still reflects the true "legal situation" in the US.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Dirty Name, your thesis is pretty weak, but until this point (as far as I can see) noone has mounted an effective offense on it.

You are operating on a couple of false premises:

Quote by: Dirty Name And you know what, you can "revisit" the purpose for marriage any time you like, but it will never change the ORIGINAL purpose for marriage - to encourage both sexes to come together in a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship, form a family, and raise children.

This is a pure fiction. The original purpose of the legal institution of marriage was to deny blacks the right to intermarry with whites. This came about in the era of Jim Crow after the civil war. The first marriage licenses were introduced as a way to make sure that the marriage partners met the State's approval -- ie, both were white.

The social institution of marriage has never needed the "encouragement" of government to exist. It is pre-government. It is part of a basic social order that gives rise to government, not vice vera. Marriage existed thousands of years before the rise of the centralized state.

Quote by: Dirty Name I can name any number of areas where the government offers incentives so that citizens act or behave in a certain way. The entire federal tax code is riddled with such examples - tax breaks for buying a house that requires rehabilitation act as an incentive by sweetening the pot for potential investors. Farm subsidies encourage farmers to grow a particular type of crop. Tax breaks are given to folks who invest their money in a certain way. Tax breaks are given to encourage people to pursue education or vocational training.

Yes, and every one of them has harmful effects. I can't understate the danger in applying this kind of flawed logic not just to economic systems, but to the very fabric of society.

You claim to support "traditional values" and "social order", but at the same time you support meddling government policies which are likely to do much greater harm than good to society. Consider the skyrocketing divorce rate, which even you must admit is detrimental to the institution of marriage. Why do you think this is happening? It's because so many people are getting married when they don't really intend to spend the rest of their lives together. And why are they doing that? Because the government is holding out cookies and saying, "Here, kids! Get married!"

So your brand of government intervention is actually harming the institution you claim to be trying to strengthen.

Quote by: Dirty Name Most damaging to your argument, however, is the fact that marriage benefits for heterosexual couples exist in the first place. They didn't just magically appear - they were inserted into the tax code for a reason.

You seem to be using the madhouse logic that all laws are good and just. I've got news for you buddy -- the vast majority of laws out there exist for no reason other than to expand the size and scope of government, or to pander to a sensationalist and ignorant public. "Oh yes! I'm pro-family values!" says the politician, as he gives a tax cut to married families and gets re-elected. It doesn't have to be correct -- just popular. You know this.

Quote by: Dirty Name So we just do away with 229 years of marriage law, property rights law, estate law, child custody law, divorce law, alimony law, paternity law, etc. Is that your solution?

229? More like 100. The twentieth century has seen a cancerous growth of Law in the United States, most of it redundant or harmful. Throw it all out, and we'll be better off than when we started.

Most of the types of law you mention, however, would remain intact with or without a legal institution of marriage.

Quote by: Dirty Name The effects of legalization of all/any form of marriage would be extremely disruptive to our legal system and economy. If the company you work for currently gives you family benefits such as group insurance coverage for your dependents, you can kiss them goodbye, because there is no way your company could afford to provide benefits to the various combinations of dependents when polygamist marriage and non-sexual partnerships are allowed. This is just one way in which people are harmed by the gay marriage movement.

A dependent, as far as I know, is a minor. Restructuring the laws surrounding marriage isn't going to have any effect on the number of children in the world, so I don't see where your concern here comes from.

Quote by: Dirty Name . If you remove "government control" of marriage, then aside from religious reasons, there is no point to getting married. Shacking up becomes the smart play (current evidence suggests the incentives to marry aren't strong enough even now).. Why commit to someone in a marriage if you don't have to? Without the government incentives to marry someone and stick with them, the whole institution loses a level of formality and becomes nothing more than the old phrase "going steady."

This is the weakest point in your whole argument.

You are asserting that without government subsidization of marriage, marriage would cease to exist. If this is true, then marriage has no innate value.
Why would you want to subsidize something with no innate value?

Quote by: Dirty Name Therefore, if ANY form of domestic partnership qualifies for government benefits, then the following things happen: 1) Either the government goes broke granting tax breaks and social security benefits to every conceivable combination of domestic partnership - or - the government decides to discontinue marriage benefits altogether.

Unlikely, considering the number of disenfranchised couples is small compared to the heterosexual population.

Quote by: Dirty Name 2) Regardless of which path the government takes, the net effect is that marriages are no longer regarded as "special" by the government. One is no longer required to commit to someone for life in order to qualify for domestic partnership benefits.

As things stand, no one is required to "commit for life" to get any kind of benefits from the government.

Quote by: Dirty Name It is possible for two kids fresh out of high school to declare a domestic partnership, regardless of gender, level of sexual intimacy, or any other factor. Because such partnerships can be entered into and exited freely, there is zero point in getting "married" in the manner in which we understand the term today.

....you just described "married" as we understand it today. As it is today, two kids fresh out of high school, regardless of sexual intimacy or any other factor, can get married and then just as easily get divorced.

Quote by: Dirty Name 1) Biological parents are, generally speaking, legally, socially and economically best for their children

That's quite an extravagant claim. You have quite a case to make there. Better get crackin'.

Quote by: Dirty Name 2) Pregnant women suffer significant hardships and make significant sacrifices to bring a child into the world.

Since when is this a disincentive for women to have children? Every girl I know can't wait to pop one out.

Quote by: Dirty Name 3) Legal benefits offered by the government act as an incentive to encourage stronger marriages and families.

Absurd on its face. If the family requires government subsidies to be held together, its by definition weaker than a family that recieves no subsidies.

Quote by: Dirty Name 1) The state has a compelling interest in propagating itself in perpetuity.

So we are pawns to the interest of the state? This is ridiculous. I can't believe you have the nerve to actually use this as an argument.

Quote by: Dirty Name 3) The state recognizes that biological parenthood is the parenting solution which places the least burden on the state,

Do you have any kind of reasoning behind this non sequitur?

Quote by: Dirty Name that biological parenthood gives a child the greatest chance for success and well-being.

Then the state is operating on some rather extravagant assumptions.

Quote by: Dirty Name 4) The state recognizes that biological parents are the ONLY people whom the state can hold accountable for the welfare of their mutually created child - all others have to volunteer for the duty.

....and volunteers can't be held accountable?

Quote by: Dirty Name Now, your reply will of course be that gays can adopt children, so doesn't the state have a compelling interest to protect their relationships too? The answer, is that gays are no different from any other type of person who adopts a child.

Here, either willfully or out of ignorance, you are omitting the fact that many states do not allow same-sex couples, or homosexuals, to adopt a child.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Part 2

Now that I've debunked your whole argument, I'll make the case for same-sex marriage.

You've probably gotten the sense that I'm not a big fan of the legal institution of marriage in general. I'd like to see the whole thing abolished. Unfortunately, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

But there's a whole package of benefits that only married couples can get:

-joint parenting;
-joint adoption;
-joint foster care, custody, and visitation (including non-biological parents);
-status as next-of-kin for hospital visits and medical decisions where one partner is too ill to be competent;
-joint insurance policies for home, auto and health;
-dissolution and divorce protections such as community property and child support;
-immigration and residency for partners from other countries;
-inheritance automatically in the absence of a will;
-joint leases with automatic renewal rights in the event one partner dies or leaves the house or apartment;
-inheritance of jointly-owned real and personal property through the right of survivorship (which avoids the time and expense and taxes in probate);
-joint filing of customs claims when traveling;
-wrongful death benefits for a surviving partner and children;
-bereavement or sick leave to care for a partner or child;
-decision-making power with respect to whether a deceased partner will be cremated or not and where to bury him or her;
-crime victims' recovery benefits;
-loss of consortium tort benefits;
-domestic violence protection orders;
-judicial protections and evidentiary immunity;
-and more....

Why in the hell should same-sex couples be excluded from any of these things?
You can't tell me that these are privileges rightfully extended only to different-sex couples.
All of these things would be available to gay couples if it weren't for the massive intertwining of the legal institution of marriage with the general legal structure of this country.

It's just plain wrong that anyone, gay or straight, has to get married to be eligible any of these things. These are our rights to contract, being held hostage as it were, until we gain access to them by jumping through a legal hoop.

A hoop that only some couples are allowed to jump through.
So the government has taken away the right of same-sex couples to freely contract.

And it's wrong. That's why I support same-sex marriage.

There's another reason it's wrong, though, too.
In order to refuse to marry a same-sex couple, the government must first determine what gender the betrothed are, and then decided, based on their genders, whether to allow them to get married.

The law should make no distinctions based on gender.

... any more than it should make distinctions based on hair color or any other arbitrary consideration. All citizens should be equal under the law. The institution of specifically heteosexual marriage requires that the law distinguish two different types of citizen. That's wrong.

[belverron]

I love your thoroughness, Morgan_Freeman. Arguments are so much more impressive when they aren't presented piecemeal.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: belverron I love your thoroughness, Morgan_Freeman. Arguments are so much more impressive when they aren't presented piecemeal.

Thanks to you, belverron, for teasing the bits and pieces out of him. And for providing the list of marriage benefits.

[mr.perfecto]

Quote by: belverron I love your thoroughness, Morgan_Freeman. Arguments are so much more impressive when they aren't presented piecemeal.

Such a large post merely makes the process of responding more time consuming. If you reviewed this thread, you would see every point he has made has already been addressed. He isn't the first person to offer such a flawed viewpoint, he likely won't be the last one corrected.

[Dirty Name]

the rules say it must show a compelling interest for restricting marriage to a class of citizens.

And that compelling interest is twofold:

1) Propagation of society into perpetuity.
2) Encouragement/protections of biological parenthood to decrease the burden on the state.

The fact that some marriages turn out to be fruitless is irrelevant. The state has a compelling interest to promote and protect the institution because it's the most efficient means for achieving the goals listed above - and there is no better solution.

All other forms of "marriage" not involving biological parenthood are secondary and inefficient in the eyes of the state. Further, altering the law to accommodate one form of marriage carries significant consequences, the realization of which would be detrimental to the state.

It is my sincere desire for people to understand that there are legitimate arguments against gay marriage far removed from the shrill calls of "intolerance!" "Bigotry!" and "Hatred."

[belverron]

Quote by: mr.perfecto Such a large post merely makes the process of responding more time consuming. If you reviewed this thread, you would see every point he has made has already been addressed. He isn't the first person to offer such a flawed viewpoint, he likely won't be the last one corrected.

Even if Morgan_Freeman only compiled what was already present in the thread, he did a good job of it. His presentation was excellent, and I believe he approached some of the points from a new angle. If you want to blame someone for the large post, blame Dirty Name. He's the one trying to overcomplicate the issue to support his side of the argument.

[Dirty Name]

If you want to blame someone for the large post, blame Dirty Name. He's the one trying to overcomplicate the issue to support his side of the argument.

There's nothing complex about my argument. Gay couples aren't equal to heterosexual couples, period. What is so hard to understand about that? There is no merit to any claim of philosophical equality between "couples," and there is no merit to the claim of literal equality between gay couples and heterosexual couples.

What possible case do you have?

[Dirty Name]

Perhaps you might tell us why government got involved in the first place, hmm?

Does this really matter? If there are valid current reasons for a law that transcends the original logic of the law, should that law be rendered invalid, only to be replaced by an identical law for the right current reason? Such thinking is senseless.

What matters most is that we have good, sound laws in place, period. Who cares what the original reasoning is? What if we banned murder 200 years ago just because our Founding Fathers were offended at the sight of blood? Should we remove murder prohibitions from the books just because the original logic contained some miniscule flaw? Of course not. And so it is with current marriage laws. They are here now, and they do a good job of achieving two goals that are compelling interests for society:

1) Propagation into perpetuity
2) Efficient child rearing

To alter the laws would automatically weaken the system in the same way that other incentive systems are weakened by dilution, and would open up a can of worms so ugly that we have no idea what the final outcome would be on future generations. And for what? A demand for "equality" that you can't even justify?

[belverron]

Do you have any idea, Dirty Name, how meaningless the term philosophical equality is?

[Dirty Name]

Do you have any idea, Dirty Name, how meaningless the term philosophical equality is?

No, I have no idea why you can't wrap your head around that term. But let me try to help you by asking what sort of "equality" you are demanding when you say gays deserve it?

It is my contention that the concept "All Men are Created Equal" is based on the notion of "philosophical equality." Because we can easily see just by looking that we are NOT literally equal. Some of us are fat, some are thin, some tall, some short, some handsome, some ugly, some smart, some who cannot grasp terms like "philosophical equality."

OK, that was mean, and you don't deserve it, Belverron. I am sorry, but it was too easy. If you have a better term for what I am trying to communicate, by all means, feel free to coin it.