On this site I have tried to explain in detail my views on same-sex marriage. Among other reasons I have given for my support, and upon which I have elaborated over the course of countless posts, are that I find the use of gender classifications unwarranted and problematic, I think that marriage would greatly benefit children of same-sex couples, and it would help society and the families involved by promoting and protecting stable and secure relationships. Here and elsewhere I have heard these arguments brushed aside by the remark that they are "just as applicable to other family arrangements that are also denied a right to marriage". This is a strange sidestep. For it says nothing about the arguments themselves, for example whether allowing same-sex couples to marry would indeed promote stable and secure relationships or whether that would be a good thing. Instead it merely asserts that the arguments could also be used in favor of allowing other couples to marry who are now currently prohibited. If this were true, then we would have arguments in favor of allowing those couples to marry. Presumably those making this claim, though, find something problematic in allowing these other couples to marry. So even though there are arguments in favor of allowing them to marry, there must also be arguments against allowing them to marry which outweigh these. Now perhaps there are also arguments against allowing same-sex couples to marry that would outweigh these as well. But then those arguments should be presented and weighed against these arguments in favor. Simply saying these arguments could be used elsewhere does nothing to deny that they are arguments in favor of allowing same-sex couples to marry.
That being said, are these arguments really "just as applicable" to other couples? Well let's examine each in turn.
No other couple is being denied the ability to marry based on gender classifications. So that argument can't be directly applied to other couples. The claim must be that a different equal protection argument could be made. What is the classification involved in those cases? Preexisting familial relationships. Now it seems strange to argue that we should be just as skeptical of this type of classification as we are of gender classifications. Hence many state constitutions have provisions like Massachusetts:
Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin.
It would be especially strange here, though, when those making this claim (that the state should be skeptical of classifying based on familial relationships) would then turn around and ask the court to recognize their familial relationships.
What about children? We are reminded that a parent and grandparent might also be raising a child together. Is that comparable to the case of two parents who adopted a child together? Of course not. In the former case there is one parent and the other person already has a formal relation to the child, grandparent. It is the parent who has primary and ultimate responsibility for the child. This is not the case with the child with two parents who have an equal responsibility to the child and must decide together what is best for their family. But I have also argued the benefit marriage would provide for a child in the situation of a parent and stepparent. Is the grandparent at least comparable to a stepparent? While this comparison is certainly more apt than the comparison to a parent, there are still some differences that are quite relevant here. Consider the case of a single parent who finds someone with whom he she becomes seriously involved to the point of them living together. That relationship could certainly impact the child, and I would venture it would be better for the child for the newly formed family to be stable and permanent. They should all be able to live with the expectation that the relationship will last and that the stepparent is not just a temporary visitor in the child's life. This would be better for the child than a steady stream of boyfriends or girlfriends moving in and moving out. Do we have the same situation with a grandparent? No. For one thing there won't be a steady stream of grandparents moving in and moving out. Secondly the relationship between the parent and grandparent (his or her parent) is already a well established and secure relationship. Even if they reach a point where the grandparent no longer lives with the family, he or she is still likely to be a part of the child's life. I would say that it would be a very bad idea if we made the relationship between grandparent and child dependent on the the parent and grandparent forming a new exclusive bond.
What about the notion of stable and secure relationships? Do we want relationships between family member to be stable and secure? Of course, but we don't need marriage for that and the idea it is necessary could make other family relationships less stable and secure. The key difference is that marriage makes new family. Close family members already have relationships with legal and cultural implications that are formed generally from birth. When a couple marries it is part of the process of two people who came to know, love, and trust each other making a commitment to become a family and take on these new obligations to care for each other. The key to this is the promise of permanence. As Maggie Gallagher and Linda Waite write in their book, The Case for Marriage, write:
The promise of permanence is key to marriage's transformative power. People who expect to be part of a couple for their entire lives--unless something awful happens--organize their lives differently from people who are less certain their relationship will last. The marriage contract, because it is long-term, encourages husbands and wives to make decisions jointly and to function as part of a team. Each spouse expects to be able to count on the other to be there and to fulfill his or her responsibilities. This expectation of a long-term working relationship between husband and wife leads to substantial changes in their behavior, of which the most important is, perhaps, what economists call specialization.
But relationships with other family members (parent-child or sibling) are already expected to be permanent. They know from day one that it is expected to be permanent and don't need to undergo this transformation at some later point. (And the idea that they do, could weaken the security of existing relationships). Nor are such relationships based on the same emotional connection as marriage. Again as Gallagher and Waite write:
To be successful, marriage needs to meet some of the emotional needs of the partners. Individuals may have many emotionally fulfilling relationships--with children, with parents, with their siblings, or with friends. But the emotional relationship that underlies marriage is fundamentally different from these because of the couple's exclusive sexual bond.
So I don't buy the claim that these arguments apply just as well to other couples who cannot marry, and even if they did that does not make the arguments any less valid. The more this issue is debated, the more it seems that the promise of permanence is going to be key to the discussions. Those who support marriage (or at least civil unions) believe that it is also important for many reasons for gay and lesbian relationships to undergo this transformation. It is the one of the key differences between marriage and cohabitation. Those that oppose even civil unions generally don't want gay and lesbian relationships to ever take on this promise of permanence. They view heterosexuality as the ideal that all should strive towards, and for such relationships to undergo this transformation would be to acknowledge their permanent rejection of heterosexual relationships. To people with such views there is not much that I could say to change things. They may come to see things differently someday, but it won't be because of what I write, rather it will be because of who they know.
Well then we agree. Since no child is conceived apart from a femaile mother and a male father, and we agree that this mother and father should be (and remain) married to each other, what are we arguing about?
Posted by: Marty | June 15, 2005 at 09:28 PM
what are we arguing about?
I don't know. We seem to agree on this matter. That is possible, you know.
Posted by: Galois | June 15, 2005 at 09:41 PM
So "permanent guardian" and "parent" are synonymous or at least adequate substitutions to still relay your point?
Ditto on the Civil Union Marriage?
Heres what it looks like now:
BTW: what do you mean by "permenant" guardian? What mechanism denotes the permenance to you?
PS: I think we'll be ready to roll assuming there is nothing left to clarify after your answers.
Posted by: On Lawn | June 15, 2005 at 11:01 PM
So "permanent guardian" and "parent" are synonymous or at least adequate substitutions to still relay your point? Ditto on the Civil Union Marriage?
Well they are certainly not synonymous, but many of the reasons that marriage would benefit the child would also apply to cvil union. Likewise many of the reasons why it is beneficial for the parents of a child to be married (or in civil union) it seems it would also imply it is beneficial for permanent joint guardians to be married (or in civil union) (and bearing in mind I don't know so much about guardianships).
So I would tend to agree with your claim for many of the reasons I agreed with my original claim.
what do you mean by "permenant" guardian? What mechanism denotes the permenance to you?
I discoverd there are many different guardianship arrangements out there and they vary from state to state and even within one state there may be several different forms of guardianship. In some cases a guardian is appointed for a time being or for limited purposes. Usually a parent can terminate guardianship at any point. Some states, like Oregon, though apparently have a permanent guardianship option which seems more like adoption. This page writes:
It doesn't mention anything about joint guardianships, but supposing they existed, I think it would be benefiical to the child if those joint permanent guardians were united in marriage or civil union. It's difficult to say anything in general about guardinships, though, because it is clear there are likely to be unusual and unforseen circumstances. Still, speaking generally, the child should not be placed into two separate families, but rather into one family.
PS: I think we'll be ready to roll assuming there is nothing left to clarify after your answers.
Great! Does that mean you're finally going to tell me the claim that you were making way back when you were using reductio ad absurdum?
Posted by: Galois | June 15, 2005 at 11:29 PM
Careful fellas, i've covered this ground here before -- i don't thing Galois uses the same definition of "parent" that the rest of us do. For him, "parent" is a purely social construct -- a legal fiction, if you will -- that has nothing whatsoever to do with the fundamental modes of conception or biological kinship. Isn't that right G?
Posted by: Marty | June 15, 2005 at 11:53 PM
Allright folks, watch for my reply at Opine Editorials sometime between 2-3pm Pacific Time.
Galois, the reductio ad absurdum was already posted in my first response to this thread. All you've done is show that Op-Ed was right on every count. Thanks for playing...
Posted by: On Lawn | June 16, 2005 at 12:16 AM
Marty, No that's not right. I simply believe "parent" also includes those who adopt, and I don't personally know anyone that wouldn't use it that way.
Galois, the reductio ad absurdum was already posted in my first response to this thread.
No it wasn't. As part of such an argument you need to make a claim that you set out to demonstrate. Nowhere do you make such a claim, and I've now asked for one maybe six times and you still haven't said what your claim is. When you're trying to distort my positions you can say A: "......." B: ".....", but when it comes to your own positions, you can only make vague references to things you've already written and insist it's in there somewhere although for some reason you refuse to identify it.
In the first post on this thread, in fact, you made it clear that you weren't actually making any arguement, but rather engaging in ad hominem as you wrote:
I have given you plenty of opportunity to make an argument for youself, but instead you're "playing" some game. It seems like you've just been wasting my time as you continue to try to use this space as free advertising to try to increase your web traffic. Oh well. I should have known better.
Posted by: Galois | June 16, 2005 at 12:57 AM
Interesting, suddenly we seem to agree on almost everything...
So, since you agree that children need and deserve both their mother and father (ideally married to each other), and you personally think that those mothers and fathers who adopt are also "parents" (i agree), then by what stretch of the imagination could you approve of two-dads or two-moms adopting orphaned children, or creating them out of a laboratory with some anonymous third-party software, and calling themselves "parents" when something is so glaringly missing from the child's "family"? And how again does this tragic experiment justify making those two "parents" a Marriagable combination?
(Sorry, i wasn't goint to interrupt the whole A-B thing, but G's sudden "reasonable agreement" on everything has got me befuddled :P)
Posted by: Marty | June 16, 2005 at 06:37 AM
Marty,
We agree about something. It is clear we don't agree on almost everything as we seem to have widely differing views on adoption. You seem to think that if a child is adopted by a couple of the opposite sex, then it matters if they are married, but if they are adopted by a couple of the same sex then not only does it not matter if they are married, but it is preferable if they are not. I can't understand that.
As for ART, my positions on that are influenced by my religious teachings and touch on difficult ethical issues and I refuse to discuss that matter with you. For the sake of argument you can assume I oppose ART and would prefer couples who would use it to adopt instead. But does it follow that for couples who use it anyway it doesn't matter if they are married. Is it preferable that a heterosexual couple which uses ART be unmarried so that the biological mother might someday track down the donor and marry him? No. If a couple has one child naturally and another through AD, and they later divorce, is it believable that the divorce would have a great impact on the one child and no impact on the other? No. If a heterosexual couple used ART would you say they aren't parents? Would you say they aren't a family?
Your problems seem to be with a child having parents of the same sex. Fine. In Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, etc. a child does have parents of the same sex. The question is whether the child would benefit from the marriage of those parents? If you don't think the child would, then say so, but the fact that you don't think they should be parents in the first place is well established and not particularly relevant to the question at hand.
The fact that same sex couples are parents does not make them marriagable. They would be marriagable anyway as a number of same sex couples without children have been married. In Europe I belive both Belgium and The Netherlands permitted to same sex couplpes to marry while prohibiting them from joint adoption. In any case, people have asked what benefit there would be from permitting same sex couples to marry and the benefit there would be for these children should not be discarded because you don't wish to consider them a family.
Posted by: Galois | June 16, 2005 at 01:42 PM
Galois,
No it wasn't.
Yes it was :)
you made it clear that you weren't actually making any arguement
Actually you were the one who clearly stated you weren't making any argument for calling same sex couples "married".
you're trying to distort my positions
Funny, I've been very careful to not distort your position. I've gone out of my way to listen to you and try to figure out just how you get from your stated argument to your position in Oregon. Yet even with this painstaking attempt to listen you try to resort to this "appeal to accusation".
And just an edit:
Which is true when a contradiction gained by extending the premise comes from the person and not the argument. When we see a contradiction where the argument expects harmony, that denotes prejudice.
Marty,
Bang on cue! We worry about the surrogacy industry, but imagine the orphan industry. All these unwanted babies created solely to justify the state's recognition of an impersonation of marriage. Its a supply and demand crisis that the medical industry must be licking its chops to fulfill.
But its worse than that. Look again at Galois's insistance that his argument apply to "permanent" guardians. Then he points out how "permanent" guardians in Oregon law are court appointed relatinoship that a "birth parent is prohibited from petitioning the court to terminate ... once it is granted".
We know that some of these children would be provided by (as you call it) "third party software" where responsible procreation is nothing more than a supply and demand commercial endeavor of the medical industry and bio-parent-for-hire. But we also know that some of these cases are created by divorce. In fact right now a majority of these cases are from divorce. One member of a marriage decides they like their own gender better and, well, let me come at this another way: How important then would the courts ability to lock out the birth parent be in a case where a divorcee wishes to truely divorce themselves from the need to comprimise with a member of the opposite sex? How important would it be for the court to see a same-sex couple as married to accomplish that?
Thirty years ago people would have never believed that Roe v Wade would lead to abortions of 8 1/2 month babies. One would have never concieved that the inconvenience of life and right to choose not to be inconvenienced would even lead people to kill babies with birth defects as Dr's in Sweden recently admitted to. And now integration with another sex is just another inconvenience for the state and medical industry to overcome. And where that will lead only the real drivers behind this movement know, and they dare not tell us (hence all the backpeddling we watched Galois go through on this thread and others).
Posted by: On Lawn | June 16, 2005 at 01:49 PM
BTW, about three hours and counting for the real reply. (I'm not discussing anything here that'll steal its thunder, I promise :)
Posted by: On Lawn | June 16, 2005 at 01:51 PM
Your problems seem to be with a child having parents of the same sex. Fine. ... The question is whether the child would benefit from the marriage of those parents?
Not quite the same. I am opposed to SSM for a number of reasons, but if the voters decide to legalize it, i can live with that decision.
What is most galling however, is all this talk of discrimination and rights. The same-sex parents who suddenly feel like they deserve a right to same-sex marriage knew darned well what they were getting themselves into when they adopted children or chose ART. If their children are being denied anything, they have only their parents to blame. Their parents knew the boundaries of marriage, and willfully chose an option outside the line.
Seems kind of silly (pathetic, and often pathological too) for them (and you) to now say "Well since it would be better for our children to be on the inside, society will just have to redraw the boundary."
Posted by: Marty | June 17, 2005 at 12:55 PM
I see, Marty. Well in this case I was talking about what benefits same-sex marriage could provide, ie the policy question which Hayleyanne asked about. In the context of legal cases, the argument is not that they have children, therefore they have the right to marry. In fact, they argue that the right to marriage is not based on whether one has or will have children. The issue of children is raised sometimes by the state which says the state has an interest in prohibiting the couple from marrying because marriage is about raising children. At that point, they respond back they also raise children. But they never claim that their right to marriage is based on the children.
Posted by: Galois | June 17, 2005 at 02:00 PM
When the state prohibits a couple from marrying, it is ALWAYS to prohibit them from creating children together. It never has anything to do with prohibiting them from raising children they may already have. A brother and sister who each have children from previous marriages are not prohibited from raising them together, but they are prohibited from marrying. Why?
Posted by: Mr. John Howard | June 17, 2005 at 02:25 PM
I was talking about what benefits same-sex marriage could provide ... the argument is not that they have children, therefore they have the right to marry.
Ithink the discussion about benefits is what people are talking about. I had said in response to Marty...
And as far as I can tell Marty didn't state "therefore" either:
Marty clearly and accurately addressed how they feel they deserve the right, rather than inferred the right directly.
ie the policy question which Hayleyanne asked about.
As you chose not to respond to Marty or myself, lets see what Haleyanne says. We find that Haleyanne addressed this concern also...
To which you replied...
Mr. John Howard is probably the most relevant in his reply in when he addresses just how more congruent marriage's role in society is when procreation is addressed. Children exist, but not without procreation. Its like the old addage, take care of the dimes and the dollars take care of themselves. Marriage takes care of procreation which when applied correctly takes care of children.
Gallagher notes the marriage covenant as something the people themselves enter into to validate themselves and their procreation as noted by Galois:
This trasformative power is not coincidentally connected (though we may be lead to believe it is nothing more or less than coincedence) with another transoformative power noted by a new book (interview at Time).
Also of note: the quote from Hayleyanne is from the previous article, Galois' first utterance of her or her position in this article happened just now in that post. Of course who he is replying to is inconsequential, what matters is *what* he is replying to. Yep, just as marriage makes us smarter so does procreation. A great article on how marriage and procreation are manifestations of the same social and biological phenomenon is here.
One could call this argument of Galois as a bastardization on many levels. Instead of considering the children itis is nothing more than a hostage taking. It is his version of a Parent Trap. Part two is due out again today at the same time.
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