Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Lee Haslup <biglee AT haslups.com>]

I said...

> > I'll take a stab at it while we're waiting for Tom to get back to
> > us.  The "Gay Marriage" thing is one more attempt to use the coercive
> > power of the State to destroy (or at least greatly change) an
> > institution from which certain people feel excluded.
> >    
> David replied...
> If "marriage" has such a religious/moral implication that the government
> should not be able to legislate the definition, then it should not have any
> involvement, in my opinion. Why not call any union sanctioned by the
> government to be a Civil Union (be it heterosexual or same-sex). Those that
> want to be "Married" can have a religious ceremony.
>  
Interesting idea but it fails in a couple of respects.  First, if you 
look at what is going on in Mass. you will see that it is not what the 
proponents of same-sex marriages want.  Mass. had a roughly comparable 
"civil union" law which was struck down by the courts using "separate 
but equal is not equal" reasoning.  Second, there are good, 
purely-secular reasons for granting special status to marriage as the 
union of a man and a woman.  From a secular point of view, marriage is a 
social institution designed to encourage a stable environment for the 
rearing of children -- a provision for the reproductive potential of the 
union.  Its trivial benefits may be granted, in some part, to the 
current generation but the intended beneficiaries are the next.  Given 
that the institution looks to the next generation, in order to claim 
exclusion, someone would have to claim that his or her parents were not 
one man and one woman. 

>  
>
> > As a libertarian (of a different feather) I unflaggingly support any gay
> > couple's right to do anything that married couples do -- live together, shop
> > together, sleep together, love each other, fight, buy furniture -- but I do
> > not support their efforts to compel an unwilling majority to call them
> > "Married". 
> >    
>
> I may be wrong, but I believe that most same-sex couples fighting for the
> right to "marry" are looking for the rights that accompany such a union,
> rather than attempting to co-opt the "sanctity" of "marriage." I think you
> omitted from your list of things married couples can do some that same-sex
> couples can not, such as participate in a spouses' health insurance (in most
> cases), and have a say in their partners' health care (especially
> end-of-life issues). I believe there are tax/inheritance issues involved as
> well--very worldly concepts, rather than spiritual ones. I pity the same-sex
> couple in the US which one is not an American citizen (check out US
> immigration law, and see what additional rights "Married" couples get that
> same-sex couples can not).
>  
Yes of course, you are correct that they are seeking equal "rights" in 
the sense that they seek to compel other people and the community at 
large to treat them as if they were "married."  The special benefits 
granted to married people are not free; we pay for them with higher 
taxes, increased insurance premiums, etc.  The presumption here is that, 
when the majority of the people decided to put these benefits in place 
they had a group of recipients in mind (arguably committed man/woman 
couples and their anticipated offspring.)  The gay marriage types are 
seeking their "fair" share of benefits intended for someone else.

> As some anecdotal evidence of this--my wife's grandmother remarried a few
> years back (I believe she was 83, and married a younger man of 82). Was the
> motivation their strong religious beliefs that men and women in
> relationships should get married? No, it was because he suffered a heart
> attack (while they were in the UK, so she was allowed to see him in the
> hospital), but the realization that if anything happened while in the US,
> they would have no legal standing. Would they have settled for a "Legal
> Union" if it conveyed all of the rights marriage currently does? As a devout
> atheist, I believe she would have.
>  
For the social institution of marriage to be most useful it needs to 
have fairly simple rules.  Most people know what a "man" and a "woman" 
are and infertile couples, childless couples, elderly couples, etc. can 
still support the institution by observing its customs. 

> A recent quote I heard was something to the effect of "the worst thing that
> happened to marriage is allowing heterosexuals to do it, since half of their
> marriages fail." I don't have the stats available, but I have heard this
> from many places. I wonder what would happen to the stats if same-sex
> marriage was allowed.
>
> Personally, I am hoping my recent religiously performed, heterosexually
> oriented, marriage beats those sad statistics (as does my wife, lurking on
> this list). It doesn't feel any different now that same-sex couples are
> getting "Married." Should it?
>  
Check back with me in ten or fifteen years and we'll talk about your 
kids' friends, especially the boys who are growing up without an engaged 
male role-model.  It is in the socialization of males that societal 
problems with the integrity of families shows most strongly. 

> The suggestion that liberals and the religiously observant are on opposite
> sides confuses me, though. While fairly "liberal" (though more correctly,
> probably more libertarian in leanings), my wife and I are also religious.
> Those that know me, know I server on the board of a state-wide religious
> organization (though I am not expressing, or representing the  views of that
> organization when I post on the list). My wife organizes a monthly religious
> service (if you are looking for an independent, reform-leaning, Jewish
> service for twenty and thirty-somethings, let me know off-list).
>
> So, if the "religious right" is against equal rights for same-sex couples,
> does that make me part of the "religious wrong?"
>  
It makes you not a member of the Religious Right.  Most people aren't.  
The "Religious Right," to the extent that they exist at all, are the 
useful idiots used by the secular left to delegitimize protest against 
their attacks on common sense, common understanding, and at times, 
common decency. 

BigLee