The case against same-sex marriage?

[gaudior]

So, I was talking to Ada and Lauren this morning about how frustrated I've been not to find more convincing arguments against same-sex marriage. Because in the past, whenever I've looked hard at the views of people different from mine, I've found really interesting gaps in my own beliefs, and been able to come to a much more complex, interesting, nuanced view of the issue. I've done this with my views on capitalism (thanks, Ayn Rand!), war/pacifism, Christianity, environmentalism, and general social duties and roles. It's been very useful.

But when I look at same-sex marriage, I just have trouble finding good arguments. Everything has much more convincing counter-arguments.

The arguments I have found, in order from most- to least-convincing, are:

1) It's a good idea to make major social changes slowly, and we haven't yet seen the long-term results of same-sex marriage; it might make more sense to legalize it in some places and wait a generation to see how that goes. There might be unexpected factors that we don't yet know about.

2) Although same-sex marriage stimulates the economy by people taking part in the wedding-industrial complex (and spending scads and scads of money), people being married costs the state and employers in terms of tax benefits, insurance, etc. It's worth noting that this is an argument against anybody getting tax benefits and insurance because of their marriage; our society has agreed that marriage is worth supporting and protecting, that's why those benefits are there in the first place.

3) There's no real difference between calling it "marriage" and calling it a "civil union"-- the former makes gay people (and their allies) feel better, the latter makes anti-same-sex-marriage people feel better, so the real question is whom you want to please. It's not hurting gay people not to be able to be legally married, so why rock the boat? Judge Walker ruled that this was discrimination against a specific group simply due to their membership in the group. And it certainly does hurt us-- financially, legally, and emotionally. It doesn't necessarily kill anyone, but "it doesn't do that much harm, really" is not, to me, a convincing argument to keep something in place unless there are other very good reasons for it.

4) Some research suggests that there is a high correlation between children not living with two biological parents of opposite sexes and poverty, drug use, crime, and mental illness. This research fails to consider the confound of divorce, which is strongly correlated with all those things. It also fails to consider that many poor people have a high rate of early pregnancies to unmarried people, which are kept rather than aborted, and that poverty correlates strongly with drug use, crime, and mental illness. It ignores the research specifically on children of same-sex couples, which shows that these children do very well, and on average better than the overall population of children (because most of the children of same-sex couples are wanted and planned for-- when compared with other children who were wanted and planned for rather than the general population, it's about the same).

5) The purpose of marriage is the protection and raising of children, and same-sex couples don't have children. There are an estimated six to fourteen million children in the U.S. with at least one queer parent. That's about a seventh of all the kids in the U.S. on the 2000 census.

Also, while providing a stable and protected environment for children is one of the purposes of marriage, another major one is to take the burden of providing for old and infirm people off the state by designating another individual who takes on the practical and financial burdens there. Also, marriage is strongly correlated with better physical and mental health for many people. That has nothing to do with children, and everything to do with keeping people happy and healthy in a way they would choose.

6) You can get all the benefits of marriage by signing legal documents. Except that a) no, you can't, and b) this penalizes a group by causing them to pay significantly more than other groups.

7) The slippery slope argument: if you change something as fundamental as marriage laws, then they could be open to all kinds of changes, from bestiality to polygamy to necrophilia... It does, indeed, open the door to possible multiple marriages. I'm fine with that. But there is a very, very significant difference between a contract openly entered into by consenting adults and one involving the exploitation of children, animals, or dead people. The former conveys considerable benefits as stated above, both to the couple and to society. The latter does not.

8) Homosexuality is morally wrong. Says you. And your Bible. Which is not mine.

9) This is interfering with traditional marriage, which is traditionally male-and-female, and it is good to preserve traditions like this independent of any specific purpose the tradition may serve.. Marriage has changed markedly over all of human history, and is not the same now as it was a hundred years ago either legally or socially. We make changes in it (most recently Loving v Virginia) when the traditional way is causing more harm than can be justified by the value of the tradition.

10) Marriage must remain heterosexual because otherwise women will get raped and abused, and these things never happen except from a male perpetrator to an unmarried female victim. ...UM.

11) Gays are icky. That is not a valid constitutional reason.


But there must be more. What haven't I thought of?

ETA: Well-- there's one which kind of resonates with me, I think. It is: Marriage is hard. Being married to someone-- living with them, learning to trust them, arguing with them, staying with them even when they're driving you up the wall, taking care of them when they're sick, taking care of them when they're sad or scared... all those things are a lot of work. It's expensive, it's time-consuming, it takes your energy... it's not easy. I think anyone who's been married has had times when that marriage vow was the only thing between them and walking out the door. And I think a great majority of people who have had that experience has later been very, very grateful for that vow, because we would have regretted intensely leaving.

So it makes sense to me that people wouldn't want anything to happen that would weaken that vow. That vow is sometimes the only thing that stands between you and the catastrophic loss of one of the foundations of your life. And so it raises the question-- what does that vow mean? Is it between you and God? you and your community? you and your honor? Because we can say that that vow is between you and your spouse, but when your spouse has just said the one thing most likely to make you explode and run screaming from the room, that could use something else to back it up.

For me, it is between me and my honor. I would not respect myself if I broke my word. I would not be the person I want to be if I did that.

But if you're someone for whom it has been based more on a vow sworn before God... then I could see it being very, very unnerving for people to come along and say, "Well, marriage isn't really about religion, anyway! So it doesn't matter that your God disapproves of me and my relationship-- marriage is about civil structures and long-term benefits to society!" I do not think that many people decide not to walk out the door because of long-term benefits to society. I am just saying.

So... I guess that does make sense to me.

But I still want to be married to my wife.

--R

ETA August 15th: Found a comment which articulates the point clearly (if not articulately). From an August 13th article in the Los Angeles Times.



PhatMhat at 10:50 PM August 13, 2010

marriage doesnt mean crap anymore. let anyone get married. why do we care?

kids dont care who raises them. let anyone have them and adopt them. better yet, if youre not ready to raise one, just wear a condom or take a pill before or after or if you messed up, just kill the kid before its born so you can live your life and not mess up his or hers.

oh but wait, it wouldnt matter if you raised the kid because remember, it doesnt matter if your 15 and raising a kid with your parents and the government and your teachers' help. youre giving that kid just as good a chance as any other kid coming from any other family.

are you guys pickin up my point? its seriously gotten to the point where it just doesnt matter anymore. why the heck raise any sorta of standard or try to hold to any sort of standard? doesnt matter if your 15. doesnt matter if your gay. doesnt matter if youre on death row. doesnt matter if youve gotta 60 percent chance of getting divorced.

if this stuff doesnt matter then why do we even care if groups get married? seriously what is the problem with that? if ppl want to commit to each other and love ea other and raise children they adopt together, why should anyone care?

why not just marry your pet?

marriage and family don't mean crap anymore.

Similarly, from a comment in an article in the Washingon Times, August 15th:

Why would somebody want a Gay-"marriage"? Only to make the term marriage meaningless, to rip out all spiritual content of something essentially holy. Thereby the family would lose its meaning and, down the road, the individual stripped of his God-given rights and dignity (as there is no use of God and his order when none of his laws is valid anymore). The homosexuals themselves would be prime victims of such a developement.

Comments

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

You're hitting all the major points that I hear a lot. Coming from people who are actually against gay marriage, points like (7) are a lot more elaborate, but at bottom it's the same as you give it here.

It's easy to make any argument concerning the raising of children sound convincing--that's just a matter of picking the right statistics about whose children grow up to be criminals.

[navrins]

Nitpicking #7, a marriage "contract openly entered into by consenting adults" of the same sex is obviously not considered beneficial by everyone, or this argument wouldn't be happening. Then again, plenty of opposite-sex marriages aren't considered beneficial by everyone (e.g. lots of celebrity marriages, shotgun weddings of people who got pregnant but don't actually want to be married, the jerk one's child insisted on marrying), so that doesn't really nullify your point.

Regarding #10, I think that "gays are icky" and "marriage is supposed to be this way" should not be conflated as you've done. I think that "Same-sex marriage is bad because it rewards/encourages homosexuality, which is bad" (which would be compelling if I thought homosexuality was bad) is a substantially different argument from "Same-sex marriage is a contradiction in terms; marriage is by definition an opposite-sex thing" (which would be compelling if I felt that was an essential part of the definition). I am not persuaded by either argument but I do think they are relevantly distinct.

I think you've omitted, "Marriage is traditionally male-and-female, and it is good to preserve traditions like this independent of any specific purpose the tradition may serve." (Which I think is one of the arguments I respect the most, even though not being in any way a traditionalist I am not persuaded by it.)

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Oh, good points! Before I read your comment, I revised #10-- see what you think. But I will definitely go back and put in the "tradition" argument.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait, I had already: it was #9. But I have expanded it using your words, and I hope that that is okay?

You're right that my wording is sloppy on #7-- I'll go fix that.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Yeah, seriously! And have you noticed that there's a trend for us to always base political arguments on the benefits of children, pretty much no matter what the issue is?

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I wish I could give you more, but the anti-same-sex-marriage people I knew in high school (which is to say, my whole high school) were all about #8. Well, there was a side of 7 and 11, but 7 and 11 were mostly used to try to rally support from people with less strong religious belief in 8. In other words, all the other arguments were a means to an end, whereas 8 was the whole point for that group of people.

The problem, of course, is that it's very hard to understand a position based on faith if you don't share the faith, since, almost by definition, faith is not something that you reason your way into. (It is, for the same reason, extremely difficult to debate, because it's very difficult to reason someone out of a position that they never reasoned themselves into.)

But yeah: the argument was that God said it was bad, and everything else was window dressing.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Which is funny (in a ha-ha-sob kind of way) when you consider how little money and importance we as a society put on things that actually affect children, like health care and money dedicated to education.

[nightengalesknd.livejournal.com]

I'm trying (and asking my lawyer mother) to find any legal statement or precident that seems to support not allowing same-sex marriage. We're both hard put to find any. She's just afraid the Supreme Court is not going to decide this case favoribly with the current make-up.

My comment on #5 - what about heterosexual marriages that don't include children? If the whole point of marriage is for the children, should we annul these marriages? Forbid marriage of infertile people? Require fertility tests prior to marriage? Place a manditory adoption clause? One would hope the absurdity of these suggestions would be evident.

And on the other hand, a growing number of children in this country are being produced or raised outside of marriage. Sometimes both parents are involved and sometimes they aren't, sometimes the parents were married at some point but often they weren't. If it is so vital to the state that children only be raised in two parent heterosexual households, what do they propose to do with these children who exist in substantial numbers?

[navrins]

I don't recall the orginal wording of #9; I read it as something a little different. I've no objection to you using my words.

[plasticsturgeon.livejournal.com]

What about, "The marriage norm is kind of creepy and it isolates people and privileges sexual relationships over friendships & family relationships, so why are we trying to spread it around?"

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

The anti-gay-marriage people I usually spend time around* use one argument almost exclusively: "Gay marriage cheapens marriage." By that, I think they mean that they don't expect same-sex couples to form lasting marriages. As far as they're concerned, same-sex couples are a bunch of hypocrites who just want to claim all the benefits of the societal institution of marriage without actually living up to any of its standards.

And get this: I've heard them both give a passionate defense of marriage that is almost word-for-word what you just said. All of it, the message that marriage is hard but that it is wonderful and worth all the work that goes into it, and that the act of taking vows of fidelity to one another keeps them from doing things they'd regret later--they talk about their marriage the way you just did. I find it very touching, coming from you or from them.

If they heard you talk that way about same-sex marriage, I believe they'd be surprised, they'd think very highly of you, and then they'd go, "Of course, Gaudior is an exception, that's all," and carry right on dismissing the validity of same-sex marriage. Because there's none so blind as those that don't want to see.

Ah, heck, that was probably way more than you wanted to know. Still, it might interest you.



*Note I'm not saying who these people are. I love them when they're not being jerks, but they really are jerks about this.

[ifnotnow.livejournal.com]

Someone I respect a lot once suggested that the government should be out of the marriage business entirely: Anyone, gay or straight, who wanted their relationship recognized by the government would get a civil union. If you also wanted a religious marriage (or a marriage ceremony of your own design), you could do that, but it would have no bearing on your legal status. It makes a lot of sense to me, but I'd say it has zero chance of becoming reality.

Much as I support gay marriage, and have no real counter-arguments to suggest to you, I do think the question of "Is there any good reason to oppose gay marriage?" is different from the question of "Does the U.S. constitution require the states and the federal government to recognize gay marriage?". My answer to the first question is no, but I'm far less certain about the second question. I know what I want the answer to be, but I'm less convinced that it's actually the legally correct answer.

[pastwatcher]

Logically if one's religion is what matters in defining marriage, then s/he shouldn't have to worry about the /legal/ definitions that affect other people. Separation of church and state is a founding principle I need this country to operate on, and they are shaking the foundations of /my/ world with this constant pushing of religious morals.

I also think marriage being defined as heterosexual-only makes no sense if you don't believe that one's sex should affect one's legal rights. Carrying a child has legal implications, but just being female shouldn't.

[pastwatcher]

I also thought the idea in the first paragraph made the most sense.

[pastwatcher]

But silly, that's not a socially conservative argument!

Seriously though, I've heard this as an argument against fighting for same-sex marriage when one could fight for other rights for LGBT people. I don't see it as a good argument against allowing same-sex couples to take the privilege if opposite-sex couples already can have it. Trying to reduce the negative social effects of all marriages at once, to me, is a good idea but should not be done by barring certain individuals from marriage.

I've also been wondering about my stance on same-sex marriage a lot, though, which is why I sound so opinionated when I'm not sure. I think I'm convinced that allowing same-sex marriages is a step for equality, because marriage is made more oppressive and gets more recognition by that explicit exclusion.

[eredien]

So it makes sense to me that people wouldn't want anything to happen that would weaken that vow. That vow is sometimes the only thing that stands between you and the catastrophic loss of one of the foundations of your life. And so it raises the question-- what does that vow mean? Is it between you and God? you and your community? you and your honor? Because we can say that that vow is between you and your spouse, but when your spouse has just said the one thing most likely to make you explode and run screaming from the room, that could use something else to back it up.

For me, it is between me and my honor. I would not respect myself if I broke my word. I would not be the person I want to be if I did that.

But if you're someone for whom it has been based more on a vow sworn before God... then I could see it being very, very unnerving for people to come along and say, "Well, marriage isn't really about religion, anyway! So it doesn't matter that your God disapproves of me and my relationship-- marriage is about civil structures and long-term benefits to society!" I do not think that many people decide not to walk out the door because of long-term benefits to society. I am just saying.

I would find this argument re: God/religion a lot more compelling if there was also a large public outcry over atheists/agnostics getting married--but there's not, not at all as far as I can tell. If non- or anti-religious people swearing love to each other cannot cause people to question the purpose of a marriage vow sworn to God, I don't understand how gay people would cause a bigger shaking at the foundation than that. The fact that religious preference or lack thereof is not considered a matter of interest when straight couples get civilly married tells me that people don't really care about it all that much.

I find it really offensive, additionally, when people of my own religion (or others) tell me I am not worthy to stand before God and say, "I love this person." I figure that God knows that whether I say it or not, but people don't, which is why I have to say it out loud in the first place. But --God never gets pissed off about it, somehow.

I think it might be a challenge to people's idea of God that sets them off. I think it might be even more scary for people to come along and say, "Well, for me marriage really is about religion, so it doesn't matter if your God disapproves of me and my relationship, because I'm right with It."
That makes people who are religious start thinking that either somebody's got God from the wrong end or they've got themselves from the wrong end, or both, and they usually pick your God to be the one who's wrong since it's usually easiest to attack somebody else's idea of God than your own idea of God, your own idea of yourself, or the actuality of the other person standing there.

More on this maybe some time when I'm not super tired.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

There is an absolute social assumption among many right-wing religious types that all gay people are not only not religious but anti-religion. I think the reason that there isn't more outcry from this type of person about atheists getting married is that they don't in many ways believe in atheists-- they believe in a few outspoken atheists they see on television, and they assume that everyone else (read: most heterosexual couples who aren't observing a non-Christian religion) is, as they are, following their version of God's rules just as they do. Because the vast majority of atheists and non-religious people don't take out ads in the paper about it. This is one reason that fundamentalists argue that they are the majority: they do not manage to differentiate not having noticed dissenting views from there not being any.

But gay people? That's visibly different. That's publicly different. That's obviously-contradicting-them different. That's different that they have to admit exists, as opposed to genuine atheists, who can be safely rather more mythical. Therefore gay people = obviously irreligious = Our World Is Crumbling Around Us, whereas atheists and non-religious people = There Aren't Any Around Here.

Also religious beliefs are seen as more innately changeable than sexual orientation. Atheists are considered to have the chance of being born-again. (So are gay people, but in practice this has proven not to work out very well a lot of the time.)

[seishonagon.livejournal.com]

This isn't as much a conservative argument as a libertarian argument that I've heard, but here it is, and I have to say I kind of agree with it:

"Marriage" needs to be removed from law altogether, as it is a belief-based attachment(not necessarily religion-based, but can be based on a person's beliefs about themself, etc). All such contracts, homosexual, heterosexual, whatever, should be civil unions. Period. Marriage should be a personal ceremony that carries no legal binding or extra legal privilege beyond those of a civil union, and civil unions are available to any two consenting adults, regardless of sex.

This differentiates civil unions from domestic partnerships. A domestic partnership is primarily a financial arrangement between two people living together. A civil union carries every single benefit that marriage currently carries. There is legal precedent for these definitions, though they aren't always the ones applied in gay marriage arguments.

One other that I have seen:

Because "marriage" can be a religious term as well as a legal one, there are many who see a future in which religions which are not accepting of homosexual relationships are *required* to violate their own beliefs and marry two individuals of the same sex. Unfortunately, just as there is a lunatic right wing, there is also a lunatic left wing, and there are just enough people who speak out against people's right to their religions that this fear is justified. I personally don't see it happening, ever, but I can see where the fear comes from.

[eredien]

Oh, yes. This. I remember watching a video of some guy saying something like, "gay people don't go to church or tithe," and I remember thinking how profoundly strange his world must be.

I guess if you know only "religious people who tithe," and know no openly gay people, then you wouldn't know any gay people who tithe. But it's a huge jump from "I don't know any people like this" to "there aren't any people like this."

They do not manage to differentiate not having noticed dissenting views from there not being any. That's a breathtakingly provincial view of the world, "anyone you don't know personally must not exist."

[eredien]

I actually agree with this idea, and there are a lot of other people I've seen who agree with this idea. The theory has several very good things going for it:
- Religious marriage very clearly remains religious marriage for people who want to get a religious marriage.
- Civil marriage is very clearly differentiated from religious marriage, for people who want to get civil marriage.
- Domestic partnerships, and their attendant benefits, are more clearly differentiated from civil marriages and their attendant benefits.

This makes people who want more separation of church and state happy. It makes people who want civil unions without the religious implications of the word "marriage" happy. It makes people who want religious marriage, gay or straight, happy. It probably makes lawyers and judges a little happier, too.

But the kicker with this one is that I've never seen anyone who is married, even anyone who is married and says that they support this idea, say that they'd be willing to give up their current marriage for something with the same benefits called a "civil union" instead of a "marriage." Would you yourself give that up, Sei? (I do believe you would, but do you truly think you are in the majority?)

I think this is the most workable legal option, and probably the most workable moral option too, but I think it is the least workable emotional option: the people who do not support same-sex marriage say that we are trying to take their marriages away from them by adding onto the definition of marriage. If we actually "take their marriages away" by renaming them "civil unions," then their worst fears would be confirmed. They'd fight even more over this option, were it seriously proposed in a court or legislature, than they are currently fighting over the current option.

The alternate option, I suppose, would be to leave existing structures/names alone until a certain date, after which the idea of marriage would be removed from law and civil unions would take the place of marriage in law. But law has its own history, and the thousand years of intermingled cannon and common law which enshrined the idea of "marriage" into law in the first place isn't just going to go away on some arbitrary date set by a judge or legislature--the confusion of legally separate/distinct pre- and post-switchover terms would probably create a greater legal nightmare than the current system.

It's a fantastic idea, but in my opinion simply not workable at all in either the "married people all switch to civil unions" or "changeover date" implementations, so in the end I always have to see this argument as more a thought-experiment than a real argument against same-sex marriage.

What do you think; do you have other ideas? I'd love to hear them.

[ifnotnow.livejournal.com]

But the kicker with this one is that I've never seen anyone who is married, even anyone who is married and says that they support this idea, say that they'd be willing to give up their current marriage for something with the same benefits called a "civil union" instead of a "marriage.

Really? Why not? It wouldn't actually mean "giving up" marriage, just supplementing it with civil union. I would still consider myself "married" to my husband, but that would refer only to our religious marriage, and to be recognized by the state we would need a civil union. Applied retroactively (i.e., All of you who think you're married, guess what? The government doesn't recognize that anymore so you need a civil union.), it would be ridiculous, but if it became the law going forward I don't think it would be ridiculous. People already have to get marriage licenses from the state (something that would end under this proposal), and there's no reason that entering into a civil union would have to be substantially more complicated than the current procedure for getting a marriage license.

I still don't think it's going to happen, though.

[eredien]

I have been reading the Volokh Conspiracy again lately, and in a thread on gay marriage, another commenter named Cold Warrior put out a reason for keeping marriage as heterosexual-only that I haven't seen here or anywhere else, which I think is really thought-provoking and probably totally accurate, if terrifyingly so.

That theory is:
many, many people are bisexual in orientation.In fact, probably many more people than those who are purely homosexual in orientation.Among those bisexual people are many who are able to form lasting, rewarding, satisfying intimate relationships with persons of either sex.And allowing only opposite sex marriage is rationally related to what may be the state’s goal to steer more of these people to longterm heterosexual relationships than longterm homosexual relationships.


This is what I wrote in return:
This is a really interesting argument. After some thought, I agree that this might be the real purpose behind the state's interest in steering more people to heterosexual relationships than homosexual relationships--and I feel that way because out of all the arguments I have seen to restrict marriage to heterosexual couples, this argument is an "invisible" one, one that (like bisexuality itself) is not getting much discussion.

I also feel like this argument rings true to me because it is not theory; it is actually what already happens.

There are a lot of social pressures on bisexual people to settle in an 'acceptable' heterosexual pairing, one which looks entirely heterosexual from the outside, rather than a less acceptable homosexual pairing, which of course looks entirely homosexual from the outside. Those social pressures usually do not come into play unless one is openly bisexual, and so a lot of heterosexual people are not aware of how firmly "legal marriage for heterosexuals only" already actually affects bisexual people (open or not) in steering them toward heterosexual relationships. I know a lot more bisexual people in heterosexual relationships than I know bisexual people in homosexual relationships: those people do not stop being bisexual when they entered into a heterosexual relationship, but they did start getting legal benefits.

The way that heterosexual-only-marriage law is currently set up mirrors an equally rarely discussed social idea: bisexual people will not stop being bisexual if they are in a heterosexual relationship, but as long as their relationships seem heterosexual socially, the fact that the persons in question are still bisexual does not seem important enough to make others uncomfortable with the implications of that.

I think the real question is whether the state--rather than current social or religious moral code--should have a compelling interest in making bisexual people appear socially heterosexual. The way that current law answers that question tilts toward "yes," and I am not convinced the state has a good legal reason why it gives that answer.

--
So, that's what I wrote there. Here's what I want to write here: Law is of course concerned with defining the ways in which it is good (or bad) for people to act socially in a given society at a given time, and the fact that our laws currently offer incentives for bisexual people to become socially heterosexual (and conversely, disincentives for bisexual people to become socially homosexual) says a huge deal about our laws, and about just how much we will do to stigmatize even the concept of sexual orientation, by making any sexual orientation other than the norm invisible.

[eredien]

When legal incentives are offered which have the effect of making any sexual orientation other than a heterosexual one socially invisible, ultimately the concept of sexual orientation itself is stigmatized. Does the state have a legal interest in stigmatizing the concept of sexual orientation?

I think that's the question that any supreme court decision on gay marriage will ultimately boil down to.

[pastwatcher]

I don't get it either, at least not rationally. Rationally, it seems blindingly obvious to me that what everyone should do is form legal unions of the sorts that work for them economically, and religious/spiritual/ceremonial unions of the sorts that hold meaning for them spiritually/emotionally. I suppose people have an emotional tie to the legal recognition of unquantifiable implications...but I don't believe anyone has a right to that. (I just believe that /if/ any couple gets this privilege, every couple should. As long as we're only talking about couples, which isn't fair either.) And I'm hardly libertarian.

[eredien]

What I am saying is: I agree it would be ridiculous applied retroactively, as you stated.

However, I ALSO think it would be ridiculous applied going forward, because the concept of "marriage" as separate from "civil union" would still need to be a concept maintained in law (so pre-cutover married people would still be able to get divorced, for instance).

I believe that as long as the legal idea of "marriage" must remain distinctly separated from the legal idea of "civil union," people are going to have a basis for believing that those two concepts are different. And as long as people believe that those concepts are different, some of them are going to believe that one of them is better, if for no other reason than one of them was around for a longer time.

In the case of a cut-off date switchover, the concept of "marriage" as being different from civil unions would not die until either the last officially "married" person died off (or got divorced and then had a civil union). Also, the historical/legal record would still have to show evidence of those two concepts having being different.

Obviously we have *already* enshrined these concepts of "civil union" and "marriage" as different in law, with one being viewed as better and one being viewed as lesser, and I think that it makes more sense to fight for the concept already enshrined as "better" than it does to fight to change the definition of which one is "better" and which one is "lesser."

Let me put it another way: Sally has a china doll, and Jo has a rag doll. This would not be a problem--the dolls are available to buy in shops--except for the fact that there is a law that no one named Jo may own a china doll.

Jo, having saved up enough money, has decided that this law is unfair, and additionally is unwilling to change her name in order to get a doll (even though that is what most people suggest, and is what many girls named Jo actually do).

Jo has to convince Sally that the china doll law is unfair.

Is it more effective for Jo to do that by telling Sally that china dolls are no better than rag dolls? As long as Jo is relegated to rag dolls, many people like Sally are going to believe that exclusivity is exactly what makes china dolls, and anyone who owns one, better and more special than rag dolls and anyone who owns one. Besides, if Jo went around saying that china dolls were no better than rag dolls, everyone would "know" it was just because Jo wanted a china doll herself.

Or would it be more effective for Jo to tell Sally the reasons that she should be able to buy her own china doll? Everyone already "knows" china dolls are better than rag dolls, so Jo's desire and motivation to own one is entirely understandable to the other children. Now all she has to do is convince them that it is as much her right as theirs to buy what it is that she actually wants and already has the money for, and it's not that hard a sell--if Sally can see that Jo is miserable without the doll, Sally may eventually want to change the law for her own reason--because she cares about her friend.

[seishonagon.livejournal.com]

Would you yourself give that up, Sei? (I do believe you would, but do you truly think you are in the majority?)

I certainly would - in fact, my marriage is legally based in civil union as is, so it doesn't make that much difference. However, as you say, I am almost certainly not in the majority.

As for the issues going forward and going backward, all you have to do is add a clause in that says, "All previously conducted marriages shall be construed to have all the privileges, rights, and responsibilities of a civil union."

Marriages remain marriages. No name changes. Anyone who wants a marriage can still have one, it just has to accompany a civil union to carry force of law(and hell, pretty much does already, when you take vows to receive a marriage license in most states - and the procedure could very easily be altered to remove the license entirely and replace it with the actual civil union). A religious group that doesn't want to conduct gay weddings doesn't have to (something I think more gay rights groups should specify - I know quite a few people who are terrified that the government will try to require them to change their religious views, opening a dangerous precedent, if gay marriages are legalized, and I also know quite a few people who say, rather frighteningly in my opinion, that all religious groups should be required to perform gay marriages, without exception). A gay couple who wants a marriage in addition to the civil union, can find someone who will conduct them - they aren't all that rare, even in areas where gay marriage has been treated shamefully, such as in my own state. The state should not have jurisdiction over marriage, as a religious ritual. It does have jurisdiction over civil union, as a legal procedure, but there is, as has just been determined in California, no conceivable legal interest on the part of the state in prohibiting gay couples from civil union.

[seishonagon.livejournal.com]

Oops, I combined my response to this post with my response to your other post. Sorry. My full response to both is below.

[ifnotnow.livejournal.com]

This is pretty much exactly what I meant.

I still don't think it's going to happen, and as such I can agree with those who think it makes more sense to fight for (state-recognized) gay marriage.

[plasticsturgeon.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, if you're going to have it at all everyone should be able to do it. Like the military, except that they actually exclude many groups of people from the military so maybe that's not a good analogy. It just disturbs me, especially the part about how if you can't find or hold down a full time job you need to find someone to [theoretically] fuck in exchange for medical care. And it also privileges the middle class above the lower class, because a lot of lower class women live with their mothers or daughters and the daughters' children.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

But the kicker with this one is that I've never seen anyone who is married, even anyone who is married and says that they support this idea, say that they'd be willing to give up their current marriage for something with the same benefits called a "civil union" instead of a "marriage."

Well, you can count me as one such person fwiw.

[eredien]

*nod* Thanks for clarification.