City of San Francisco issuing marriage licenses to gays, weds 1 couple so far...

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Very fair question. In my analogy, I argue that marriage being a contract denies the connection between men and women who get married ought to continue after the marriage. That you can flip a switch off and on between marriage and not marriage.

First, historically marriage as an institution WAS initially a contract. People married off their kids to other families to bring in more land, end clan warfare and the like. It is believed by many that its initial purpose was for this sake.

Second, the people who are rushing to get married in SF show that they're NOT thinking of it as a contract, since the SF marriages right now carry little weight. They think of it as a way to embrace lasting commitment and love with their partners. DF's argument about it being a contract is for showing that, in a legal sense, people should be allowed to enter into any such arrangement they choose with one another. That doesn't mean the people who make the effort to enter into it only view their marriage as a contract and therefore turn their marriages "on and off," as you say. This is just another unfounded statement on your part, and it's effectively another way of denigrating gay relationships. If gays only cared about the contractual aspect, why would they be so keen on getting the term "marriage" instead of just accepting the more palatable civil unions?

This change now removes any concept of marriage with respect to gender roles. You are changing the very nature of the connection. I can see plenty of confusion, as to what would be expected, from the husband and the wife, and how they are to live with one another.

You're saying that by allowing gay marriage, suddenly heterosexual couple will experience some sort of gender role confusion? Chalk this up to one of your most outlandish assertions yet. Heterosexuals, by and large, don't get married for the purposes of fulfilling gender roles. They get married because they love one another and want to be legally united with each other. Maybe you're looking for a little spouse who knows her way around the kitchen, laundry room and such, but today most people accept that there are no predefined gender roles necessitated by marriage, other than the obvious biological case of who gets to birth the babies. Regardless, I fail to see any logical case as to how heterosexual couples will suddenly get confused over thier "role" in thier own marriages.

You also deny that there are differences between men and women, and that these differences not only should be respected, but embraced. Husbands will get frusterated with wives, and wives with husbands as to why they act differently, then the way in which they expect.

I deny there are significant enough differences that should somehow prohibit a same-sex couple from being married. Nothing in marriage as it stands require any preset gender roles--that's simply the view of an increasingly smaller, narrow-minded set. Sometimes wives now go to work in the corporate office and men stay home to raise the kids. I know this makes fundies shudder in horror, but that's the way of the world. The only husbands and wives it will frustrate are those who enter into such non-gender-stereotyped relationships with the expectation they will be such. If that's the case, it's their fault for not finding a compatible partner who shares their archaic views.

Regardless, you haven't made any sensical reasoning as to why stereotypical gender roles in marriages would somehow be undermined by allowing same-sex marriage (since, presumably, heterosexual marriage will continue to have gender differences, that being a given, after all).

Sorry, this argument just doesn't hold any water.

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
In my analogy, I argue that marriage being a contract denies the connection between men and women who get married ought to continue after the marriage.

I didn't know legal marriage made any presumptions on what the two people should feel for eachother before they got married, or how they should live their married life?

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
And I refuted this argument by the argument that men and women are not interchangeable within the context of marriage.

In what way aren't they interchangeable? Do they have to sign different contracts? If the man and woman would swap places in a wedding ceremony, would that make any difference?

[Boris Godunov]

And the fact that legal marriage doesn't have any predefined gender roles (i.e. man must go hunt, woman must stay home and clean cave) shows that the gender roles are indeed interchangeable. Now the woman can go hunt while the man sweeps up the cave and cares for the little kids.

[Guynemer]

Congrats, Wittlich! Hope that the wedding is all you imagine when you manage to pull it off.

That reminds me of something a comic (can't remember who) said recently about gay marriage. Republicans really ought to be 100% for it--the amount of money spent of the weddings and receptions to make them (as Wittlich said) fabulous would pump up the economy in no time.

[girlfight_club]

Y'know, if Gay Marriage were a Civ/SMAC Tech Upgrade, everyone on these boards would be for it.

Happy Valentines, San Francisco!!!

GFC

[Neutrino]

Another step in the right direction for social progress.
(And another step away from religious bigotry).

edit:
and congrats, Wittlich

[Hagbart]

Cool!

Only 15 years behind. Danish law has allowed this since 1989. (First in the world, yay )

[DinoDoc]

Any word on the State response to a city exceding the authority they gave it?

[Wittlich]

Nothing yet....

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by DanS
I think trying to force the issue through the judiciary will lead to a backlash. Unless gay marriage is accepted broadly by the people, arrived at through something like democratic concensus, most of the gains will be fleeting.

The issue has been fluid for a long time. This will just set up battle lines on terms that are unfavorable to the cause in the long run.

This is an issue of tyranny of the masses as opposed to democracy. What right does even a majority have to impose it's morality? This is a union between two consenting adults and affects no one else. In terms of civil rights, gay marriage should be automatically allowed, or in fact any kind of union between two consenting adults - whether they be related, same sex or not even sexual partners.

[Provost Harrison]

Ben, I am not going to go into detail on every point, but why do you insist on supporting this completely discredited standpoint? Who are you to stand in judgement, to be a moral dictator, of what is right and wrong to two consenting adults? If you want to live your life one way, then go ahead...but you have no right to impose it on others. Now go and mind your own business and stop curtain twitching...

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Who are you to stand in judgement, to be a moral dictator, of what is right and wrong to two consenting adults?

A believer.

[Theben]

Adam Smith & Drake, re: civil union vs. marriage:

To explain Asher's answer further, the different nomenclature allows for different legisation to affect one definition and ignore the other. FE, 5 years after a civil union law is passed- and we'll say that at 1st marriage & the civil union laws start out legally equal- someone decides to amend the civil union law, downgrading it in some fashion, BUT leaves marriage laws unchanged. Now explain to me how that's "separate but equal". HOWEVER, if the term 'marriage' is applied to gay unions then the only way to amend gay marriage would also involve amending straight marriages- perfectly fine by me, as they get the same treatment.

"Separate but equal" isn't a strawman. It is THE reason to avoid different terminologies.

[Theben]

p.s. to DanS- If a majority of the country didn't accept interracial marriages until 1991, do you think we should have waited until then to allow them to be legal?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Any word on the State response to a city exceding the authority they gave it?

party-pooper!!

[Sava]

Originally posted by molly bloom


Yes it's been downhill since they did away with the concept that a wife was her husband's property or chattel (from which we derive the word cattle).

Of course these days, what with them working and voting, all sorts of nonsense gets into their heads that wouldn't if they were chained to the kitchen sink or handcuffed to the bedposts.

Some of them even think they can be judges, and mathematicians, and doctors, and lawyers, and lawks-a-mercy, politicians.

It's the thin end of the wedge- next they'll be allowing gay and lesbian marriages.

BRAVO

[mindseye]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

And secondly, you are already equal in the eyes of the law, since the law does not prevent anyone from getting married to someone of the opposite sex.

Are you really dragging that dead thing around here again? This is the fourth time I've seen you field this argument. Each time previously, the problem with your reasoning was shown, yet you keep repeating it in other threads, as if repitition alone could patch up your leaky logic.

Look, if you want to debate around here, that's great, welcome. But if your arguments are fairly trounced, simply repeating them in thread after thread as if you didn't know better demonstrates only that you are a crank, wasting our time, or both.

When you notice fewer and fewer people taking the time to point out yet again the problems with the same arguments, you can take this as evidence not of the efficacy of your arguments, but of the Ignore List.

[Az]

Originally posted by molly bloom


Yes it's been downhill since they did away with the concept that a wife was her husband's property or chattel (from which we derive the word cattle).

Of course these days, what with them working and voting, all sorts of nonsense gets into their heads that wouldn't if they were chained to the kitchen sink or handcuffed to the bedposts.

Some of them even think they can be judges, and mathematicians, and doctors, and lawyers, and lawks-a-mercy, politicians.

It's the thin end of the wedge- next they'll be allowing gay and lesbian marriages.

Why do you portray this as an idea of women?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by mindseye



Are you really dragging that dead thing around here again? This is the fourth time I've seen you field this argument. Each time previously, the problem with your reasoning was shown, yet you keep repeating it in other threads, as if repitition alone could patch up your leaky logic.

Look, if you want to debate around here, that's great, welcome. But if your arguments are fairly trounced, simply repeating them in thread after thread as if you didn't know better demonstrates only that you are a crank, wasting our time, or both.

When you notice fewer and fewer people taking the time to point out yet again the problems with the same arguments, you can take this as evidence not of the efficacy of your arguments, but of the Ignore List.

Mindseye -- Bennie likes to distort the argument by saying that homosexuals are free to marry someone of the opposite gender, in order to avoid discussing the real problem -- that homosexuals want legal recognition for marrying someone of the same gender.

It's one of his favorite distortions to use.

[JohnT]

Azazel, I'm pretty sure that Molly Bloom is being sarcastic.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Azazel


Why do you portray this as an idea of women?

Because, Azazel, it's the opposite of what I believe.

If you examine what passes for Kenobi's thinking in this and other threads on gender, gender roles and parenting, he seems to think that men and women are genetically predetermined to suit different roles in life, and that is what they should do, regardless if Mr X is better at looking after little Johnny and Mrs. X makes for a superb lawyer, or that Mr. Y is an excellent kindergarten teacher, and Mrs. Y might make a fantastic military strategist.

It's always taken as read by people of his ilk that somehow because a woman has a womb and breasts then it follows like a, b, c, that she'll be better suited to 'kinder, kuche, kirche' as a certain reactionary German political party used to propound.

Frankly I think it's a load of codswallop.

[Arrian]

Ok, now I know why my views are so different than Ben's (besides that whole "belief in God" thing) -

I was mainly raised by my father, who is older and retired when I was 5. My mom worked.

It's a miracle I'm not a corrupt homo! Fathers staying home and raising children! What's next? Women being the primary breadwinners? Oh, right, I forgot, my gf out-earns me by roughly 50%.

My father, by the way, is a product of his era & homeland, which is to say early 20th century Britain. He can be quite conservative. He drives me nuts sometimes with the crap he says on topics like religion and politics (which of course just eggs him on, the old rascal). I count myself lucky, however, that he wasn't so rigid as to rule out doing what he did: quitting his high-level (and high stress!) executive job and staying home with me. I think we're probably both better off for it.

-Arrian

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Arrian
Ok, now I know why my views are so different than Ben's (besides that whole "belief in God" thing) -

I was mainly raised by my father, who is older and retired when I was 5. My mom worked.

It's a miracle I'm not a corrupt homo! Fathers staying home and raising children! What's next? Women being the primary breadwinners? Oh, right, I forgot, my gf out-earns me by roughly 50%.

-Arrian

(Spooky Hallowe'en type voice):

'Come over to the dark side, Arrian. The Homocistas are recruiting.......'

Say, how do you know that your Mum wasn't really a man in drag? And that your Dad wasn't a bearded lady?

I mean, your upbringing was darned unnatural. Everybody knows there are divinely ordained roles for men and women.

Men are by nature more stoical and less emotional, more controlled and intellectual, as any glimpse of the crowds at a major sporting event will show....

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MrFun


party-pooper!!

How so? It's an important question.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
How so? It's an important question.

But it's much less fun than trashing Ben Kenobi's tired argument once again.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Any word on the State response to a city exceding the authority they gave it?

Schwarzenegger is between a rock and a hard place. His best recourse for his political future would be just to do nothing and let the courts work it out. If he steps in against the marriages, he alienates a huge part of the liberal electorate who voted for him. Since he's a social liberal, this isn't appealing to him. He'd best just pretend it isn't happening.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
If he steps in against the marriages, he alienates a huge part of the liberal electorate who voted for him.

He doesn't have to come out against the marriages. He can just be against cities venturing into areas law out of thier perview.

[Monk]

Originally posted by Hagbart
Cool!

Only 15 years behind. Danish law has allowed this since 1989. (First in the world, yay )

Hey Hagbart - sure, we got a nice reputation when we were the first to legalize porn and recognize same-sex partnerships as equal in the eyes of the law. However, they're not officially 'marriages', and after 1997 I'm afraid we've been knocked off our throne as the most sexually progressive country.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
How so? It's an important question.

I should have put a wink with my joke.


sorry

[mindseye]

Originally posted by Adam Smith

But if the only difference is nomenclature, I don't see how the Jim Crow argument applies.

AdamS, I have to say I am rather surprised that you don't seem to get this, especially after Starchild's reply.

Ok, lemme try: choosing a special name for something that is identical in every relevant way to something else implies that they are somehow not the same. If they really were the same, why would you choose a special name for one of them? Where's the logic in that? If there is no reason to differentiate them, why are they differentiated in name?

As Andrew Sullivan memorably put it, giving gays all the rights of marriage but not the name is simply a finer form of discrimination (i.e. you can have the rights, but you still don't qualify).

To alter Starchild's example, suppose you took your two Chinese daughters to a movie. When you try to enter the theater, a polite usher points out that your daughters must enter through a door on the other side of the building, a door marked "Chinese Entrance". The usher assures you that the Chinese Entrance is functionally identical in every way to the Main Entrance, it's just that Chinese (and only Chinese) are asked to enter from the other side.

You wouldn't have a problem with such an entrance?

In case there is any confusion remaining, consider Ramo's citizenship example. Suppose a new form of American citizenship was defined, and called "Membership". The rights, responsibilities and privileges of American "members" would be in every way identical to those of American "citizens". Now, imagine that people of Arab descent - and only Arabs - were asked to use the "member" label, while everyone else retained the "citzen" label.

Can you see why Arab Americans might be alarmed over having a "seperate but equal" form of citizenship?

Similarly, if there are all different types of "marriage" around it is more difficult for religious parents to teach their children what a religious marriage means.

Think of what you are asking of gay people! And for what, because you speculate that some religious parents might have a religious education issue?

Should we not allow mixed-race couples to marry out of concern that some white-supremicist parents might have difficulties teaching their children what a "proper" marriage is?