lpetrich

Also, the Bible presents another kind of alternative marriage: the marriage between one man and more than one woman. Polygamy is common in the older parts of the Bible -- consider all the wives that the Israelite kings had had. And while various kings are denounced for worshipping pagan deities and other such things, none is ever denounced for having more than one wife.

scigirl

Very good point, lpetrich.

Also I wonder - if gay sex makes baby jeebus cry, than why aren't there any words in red that condemn gay sex in my bible?

scigirl - straight but not narrow

MortalWombat

It happens even more in quite normal animals without birth defects. There are over 300 species of vertebrates alone that naturally engage in homosexual behavior. These include several species of primates, flamingos, and male sheep. And that's not even counting the insects.

scigirl

FYI - this thread inspired me to start a new thread in MF&P which I termed homobigots. Here, I attempt to explain why common arguments against gay rights are bigotry.

scigirl

abe smith

that *fromtheright*'s bland assertion of the fictional existence of his "Gahd" to justify ftr's position about all-this is an bunch of bulloney. I'm not buying anyone's assertion of "gahd"; and i sure as hell am not going to accept being bullied by anybody's UNPROVEN effing deity. Your fake "gahd' is NOT an agrument; and if you can't find a better argument than that, forget it.

Jewel

Excellent post, BTW, Scigirl! It honestly never ceases to amaze how narrow reality is for some folks.

Stephen Maturin

This codswollop comes as no surprise whatsoever:

One of the court rulings they're waiting on is a case pending in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts where the issue is whether that state's "male-female only" marriage law passes muster under the state constitution. The case has been decisional for quite awhile and a ruling could come at any time. Here's an article on it.

And here's the text of that federal constitutional amendment:

The knob who introduced this proposed amendment seems to think it won't affect state laws conferring benefits on same sex couples. From the Washington Times article linked above:

I ain't so sure about that. After all, the amendment says that NO state law can be construed as conferring legal incidents of marriage on unmarried couples. Doesn't that include state laws that expressly DO confer legal incidents of marriage on unmarried couples? Christ, what a train wreck. :banghead:

villainess

I'm starting to wonder if we shouldn't drop "marriage" as a legally defined entity entirely.

It made sense, before well-developed reproductive technology came on the scene, to assume that most long-term male-female relationships would eventually result in sex and one or more children, whereas short-term pre-sexual male-female relationships, male-male relationships, and female-female relationships would not. In order to influence the way children were raised, therefore, society legislated long-term male-female relationships and provided them with certain benefits to help the child-rearing process along. (Leaving aside, for the moment, the property and inheritance issues.)

Obviously we can all think of a dozen ways in which this process was always far from perfect and now between the Pill, A.I., and a more sophisticated understanding of the variations in what exactly biological sex and social gender may or may not entail, besides the old issues of infertility and single motherhood, it seems far more sensible to cut to the chase and regulate the relationship between parent and child directly, as we do now in custody and child support laws after a marriage breaks down.

I obviously don't have a perfect, watertight scheme as to exactly what this would look like, only I'm thinking that it would be analagous to what we currently do with marriage in that the prospective parent would have to fill out a brief form and state intent before a judge to fulfill certain obligations to the child for the remainder of its minority. Cessation of this bond would be more strict, like divorce was formerly - only allowable on the grounds of disappearance, madness, or cruelty of an adoptive parent. There would be no formally recognized relationship between two (or more, perhaps?) legally recognized parents of one child, though in practice there would obviously need to be some kind of contact, and a second parent adoption should probably only be allowed with the permission of the first parent.

Most importantly, though, there would be no legal regulation of the sex (or race, or what have you) of respective adoptive parents, since the state as I said is not regulating their relationship but only each one's individual relationship with the child. Also, I'm thinking that the birth parents of any infant should not automatically be assigned the adoptive relationship rights and responsibilities, as they now are, but rather that each, birth mother and birth father, should be individually given first right of refusal on the adoptive relationship with the child, which they could decline without legal penalty. (Something would still have to be come up with for the unknown father situation, I suppose. Perhaps the right of first refusal would be for a limited term only, after which adoption rights go up for grabs.)

In practice, I imagine that this would lead to a society that in many ways would look much like the one we have now, in which the majority of births are to more-or-less longterm couples who both want the kid, have quite likely been through the marriage ceremony of the religion of their choice and are married, though the state has no say in it, decide to have a child together and both 'adopt' the kid practically as soon as it is out of the womb (or before) and go through the rest of their lives much the same as they would have under the current system, only without joint tax filing. (There'd be some other weirdness in adjusting the way taxes and property were handled, but society would cope. Presumably if one partner wanted to be a stay-at-home parent, they'd have to draw up an enforceable contract to protect their rights in the case of a split, but it's good practice to do that now anyway. This would also have the benefit of establishing a normative paid value for housecleaning and childrearing, boosting the GNP.... but I digress.) The main benefit as I see it would be to 'single' mothers (obviously, to the state they'd all be single mother under my system) who would, after the birth father waives or is termminated from his rights, be able to allow anyone to pick up the adoptive rights; not just another male partner, but a female partner, the baby's birth grandmother or some other relative - basically, the child would be given a legal safety net in a lot of situations that exist de facto now but are not legitimatized because of the law's obsession with the marriage relationship rather than the parent-child relationship as the prime determiner in the family. If the 'single' mother and the repective birth father both elected not to exercise the birth parent option, the child would be up for adoption and in the foster care system, the reform of which is unfortunately not in the scope of the long honking essay I've already written here.

Obviously, I think way too much about this issue for someone who is not planning on marrying or having kids. But to bring matters fully back around to the topic, getting rid of state recognized marriage would certainly remove the burden of deciding to support or oppose gay marriage from our legislators.

the.villainess

enfant terrible

Personally, I agree with this, but... let's be realistic.

Toto

Interesting speculations, villainess. But I think that if you look at the history of marriage, there is no indication that it arose as a way of providing for children. That is just a later rationalization of its function.

My only problem with gay marriage is that the history of marriage is tied in with the subjugation of women. Around 1900 or so, in most of the territories governed under Anglo-American jurisprudence, a woman who got married lost a large part of her legal identity. She could not sign contracts, her wages belonged to her husband, her children belonged to her husband, etc. In turn, her husband had the legal obligation to support her and their children. Divorce was generally not allowed. Why would a woman want to get married under these circumstances? Probably because women were barred from earning a living on their own in the professions and in most of the economy. The earliest feminists rejected the institution of marriage completely.

After the first and second waves of feminist reform, most of this (the doctrine of "coverture") has been swept away, and women now have equal rights to earn a living and practice a profession. But we are still left with a system in which one person's legal obligation to support another has been translated into government benefits and private insurance benefits, and other presumptions of "family rights."

Gays who want to be married want these benefits, and also public recognition and validation. I don't see why they should be denied. But why not allow any two adults to form a "domestic partnership" without asking if they sleep together? Or any number of adults to declare themselves a family?

I think this is just too rational for American politics right now. The term "marriage" has too many emotional overtones. The polls indicate that opposition to "gay marriage" resonates with conservatives who send money to conservative causes.