Same-Sex Marriage
Given the recent bill in the US to protect same-sex marriage, I'm curious what the reasoning is for or against same-sex marriage. Would these reasons also extend to polygamy/polyandry, incestral marriage, child marriage?
When I was a kid, I wasn't against same-sex couples, but I didn't think it was the government's place to say what marriage is or is not (for separation of church and state reasons). What changed my mind was hearing gay people say they wanted the same legal protections as straight people (immigration, taxes, etc). This was very compelling to me.
However I don't think it's much of a moral issue anymore. If the definition of marriage is a legally or formally recognized union of people as partners in a personal relationship (and marriage/married couples are beneficial to the government because they are often having kids, not engaging in crime, etc), then polygamy would be illegal simply because it would be difficult to arbitrate certain laws (such as immigration/green cards, who gets what when one spouse dies, etc). Same-sex marriage is petty easy to make "legal," and I guess laws protecting incest or child marriage would also be easy to make legal, so perhaps those would be next.
Its one of those things I support, but it feels like a knee-jerk reaction and not something I think I can give good reasons for to convince someone else of. What are your reasons (for or against)?
When I was a kid, I wasn't against same-sex couples, but I didn't think it was the government's place to say what marriage is or is not (for separation of church and state reasons). What changed my mind was hearing gay people say they wanted the same legal protections as straight people (immigration, taxes, etc). This was very compelling to me.
However I don't think it's much of a moral issue anymore. If the definition of marriage is a legally or formally recognized union of people as partners in a personal relationship (and marriage/married couples are beneficial to the government because they are often having kids, not engaging in crime, etc), then polygamy would be illegal simply because it would be difficult to arbitrate certain laws (such as immigration/green cards, who gets what when one spouse dies, etc). Same-sex marriage is petty easy to make "legal," and I guess laws protecting incest or child marriage would also be easy to make legal, so perhaps those would be next.
Its one of those things I support, but it feels like a knee-jerk reaction and not something I think I can give good reasons for to convince someone else of. What are your reasons (for or against)?
Comments (24)
The law shouldn't and for the most part doesn't treat marriage as anything more than a partnership. Partnerships have property, income, debts; so do marriages. Divorce therefore deals with marriage as a partnership being dissolved. Legal rights and obligations of parents and children aren't dependent on the marital status of parents. A parent has certain rights and obligations whether or not they're married. Children have certain rights regardless of the marital status of their parents.
From the legal standpoint, then, it should make no difference if a marriage is same sex or opposite sex based. Personally, I think what is called marriage should be considered a civil union regardless of the sex of those entering into the union. "Marriage" carries too much baggage, moral and religious. Religions may impose what requirements, rituals and ceremonies needed for the existence of a marriage they may please, but that shouldn't be any concern of the law.
Marriages resulting from incest and marriage to children won't be an issue until incest and sex with minors is legalized.
Thanks for your perspective, this makes a lot of sense and is a good answer. As you said I think what the government (and what most people think) is best described as a civil union, as religions have the freedom to say and deem what they dont think is true marriage.
I agree that Marriage tends to be a more religious term. Even the etymology of matrimony comes from m?trim?nium which is a combination of mother (matria) and monium (obligation) from Latin. This makes sense with many religious traditions such as the Catholic Church which sees the main purpose of marriage being having children.
If incest and sex with minors are legalized, then while I imagine most Protestant and Catholic Churches will still refuse to consider these marriages, the government will likely have to protect it too for much of the same reasoning.
I'm in the US and I'm looking to get married some day (I am a lesbian). However, I have sometimes felt like marriage should be a personal affair for many of the reasons that you cite. I feel as though some of the legal aspects to marriage (involving things like visitation, inheritance, household taxes, etc.) should have some "marriage secular" equivalent and then leave the aspect of some kind of formal union up to people themselves altogether.
For instance, I've had family members that had permanent roommates in their old age: not sexual partners, just "life partners," friends. Why should they get a different legal status if they just happened to be in a romantic relationship? It's kind of silly.
So I think really the government should just stay out of marriage but give the same sorts of legal protections to those who want them ("married" or not) in some kind of reasonable way (e.g., in the case of a polyamorous marriage, someone that's better at policy than I can figure that out; but a group of people in a household that aren't "married" should be able to get the same sort of status).
I'm 75; gay; was in a relationship for 30+ years, till death did us part. We did not get married; we did not have a civil union. My theory is that couples should stay together because they want to stay together. If they want to stay together, they will. Otherwise, they will eventually go their separate ways. I haven't been in favor of gay couples raising children, either. Of course I know gay and lesbian couples who did raise children, and they did well, as far as I could tell.
What SHOULD gay or lesbian relationships look like? They WILL look like what the partners make of them. Heterosexual married relationships seem to be burdened by a lot of expectations (by both parties). The heterosexual marriage success rate isn't as good as people wish. I'm not sure what the success rate for formally married gays and lesbians is.
A long relationship was never in my 5 year plans, but it happened, and I'm glad about that. Life with someone else is generally better than life alone.
How are these even vaguely comparable to same sex marriages?
Now that we know better how genetics work, don't you think heterosexuality should have a kind of social advantage because of the fact that they re the ones transferring their ADN to their children? Or you think this does not make any difference?
Will future transhumans marry? How much can you be cybernetic and still get married with full legal protections? Do you have to have a minimum organic content, such as a human brain? Perhaps in the future, every other part can be replaced by cybernetic system that look and function in the exact same way the flesh did but is a lot more robust and lasts a lot longer.
Will gender even make any sense for such transhumans?
Good point but I think it depends on the perspective. There are some people who think it is not worthy to have kids at all.
When we grow and start wondering about ourselves, the biological parents play 2 very important roles: psicológical and health related as well.
Same sex couple would then have a kind of challenge that other couples that raise their own children don't have.
I would not go to futuristic scenarios at the moment as that is quite sterile thinking but, staying pragmatic, pragmatic: a society that foster heterosexual couples?
The law is anyway the interpretation of how a society sees nature and the world and it makes sense, because we re the result of heterosexual evolution, that societies remain pro-heterosexual still for a long time.
Think about the future or risk being defined completely by the past. Sterile thinking is NOT thinking about the future.
I didn't say anything about thinking about the future.
Actually you can see, as per my pot, that I'm thinking about the future.
Not sure what you have in mind. What "social advantage[ s ]" do you believe should be given to heterosexuality?
I appreciate both of your perspectives, thanks.
I understand why the government has a desire to be involved in marriage because married couples tend to not be stable, law abiding citizens and often have children which they would also want to promote for financial reasons. I also understand why they would want to discourage transactional marriages like green card marriages for a fee (where someone abroad pays someone at home to marry them so they get citizenship).
I actually think homosexual marriages may be more stable or have a higher success (i.e. less diverse) rate than heterosexual marriages, Ill try to see if I can find data on it. My guess is because people have to go through more hoops and social barriers for a homosexual marriage, they may be more serious about it than the average heterosexual couple (pure speculation).
I tend to take a very Christian view of marriage, in the sense that I see it as a lifelong commitment to another person, not just well keep going until we dont feel this way anymore, and then well divorce.
Homosexual marriage, child marriage, polygamy, are all extending or changing the "traditional" view of marriage, which in Western culture (and it seems many other cultures around the world too too) was between a man and one woman (and not incestuous). Polygamy may even be more traditional than monogamy in early societies, but Christianity did away with polygamy in the west.
I don't think marriage was ever historically about two people "loving each other". I see marriage as an evolutionary adaptation to protect women and children (forcing men to take care of women). Men can easily have sex with many females, whereas the cost of being pregnant for women is much higher. Hence why I think many cultures find sex outside of marriage taboo-a man can get a woman pregnant and then leave very easily, whereas a woman cannot. Forcing promiscuous men to "settle down" and make a commitment with one person seems like it would be advantageous to many societies.
Now, with birth control (and the fact that women can now work and hold property), we don't really "need" marriage the way societies used to. Hence we see marriage redefined in a romantic way in terms of personal choice and "love", perhaps a result of the individualism from the enlightenment. If a brother and sister want to have sex now, they can use birth control without having to worry about inbred offspring. Will incestuous marriage be decriminalized in the future? Who knows
I wonder about this too; I think the definition of marriage has changed a lot over even the past century.
Your use of the word sterile is just your baseless (imo) opinion. If you go back 50 years ago in the UK or even most of the USA and someone suggested a 'futuristic scenario,' in which same sex marriage is legalised. Would you have called such a prediction 'sterile speculation?' If so, you would now have been proven dead wrong.
How you get your jollies is a matter for you. Don't imagine that I receive emotional rewards in the same ways you do. You again demonstrate your sterile thinking.
Better if you try to learn than merely echo.
& the same legal restrictions. Fools!
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