Marriage Protection Act

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

There’s a very big difference in perception going on here. Some of you are arguing, seemingly, based on the idea that marriage is some sort of fundamental right. I don’t think it is.

Firstly, as I said above, there are two distinct components to marriage: there is the package of contractual rights/responsibilities and governmental benefits, and then there is the social and/or religious marriage.

As to the second, there is nothing stopping any two adults from holding themselves out as “married” in that they are committed. Many churches will even perform same-sex ceremonies. What people can’t do right now (and, really, neither can heterosexual couples) is force churches to marry them or force others to recognize their marriage on a social level.

As to the first, the package of contractual rights bestowed on heterosexual married couples represents a policy decision to favor a certain type of contract for a specific reason. That reason was family stability. Whether you agree or disagree with that reasoning, there is no fundamental right to have the same benefits extended to different types of contracts. This is simply the case of the legislature handing out an economic goodie – it’s not a matter of a fundamental right. It’s really no different than the legislature deciding to give milk farmers a subsidy, or to give a stipend to those who wish to study engineering. The only difference is in people’s perceptions, and the fact that many people on both sides view the distinction in the case of the type of contract represented by marriage as having more of an impact on their self-defined personal identities than other distinctions.

This is actually very important, because it cuts to the nature of the problem: is it something judges should rule on, or is it a matter of legislative prerogative.

As for the contractual nature of marriage, what you basically have is a convenient, one-stop shop for the package of contractual rights that come along with marriage. However, at the same time, you are sacrificing flexibility.

For example, when you marry, you are automatically afforded some baseline legal status w/r/t one another in terms of contracting, or in terms of sharing one another’s property. However, if someone does not want one of those items, he or she must contract around it (think pre-nup, writing a will, or designating someone other than a spouse to make medical decisions). Other non-married people can create a specific package of contractual relationships that mimics marriage, or that serves whatever needs they want while leaving out other things that automatically flow with the marital contract.

My $0.02, for whatever it’s worth. In case you care, I think this should be a matter for individual state legislatures – which, actually, would allow for something of a “free market” system w/r/t marriage law.

62

I decided to pre-emptively deal with the likely counter-argument to my post above, which is an analogy that will likely go something like this:

Not letting gays marry is the same as not letting blacks marry.

This doesn’t satisfy, mostly because it bases its objection on a mischaracterization. Gays are allowed to marry in the exact same manner that straights are allowed to marry. A gay male could marry a female, or a gay female could marry a male. It is the type of contract, i.e. a same-sex marriage, that is not recognized. Whether a person wishes to avail himself or herself of the type of contract allowed is not the same thing a disallowing a group of people from entering into the contract at all.

De facto, this won’t make people very happy, as the effect is still that gay people won’t choose to enter into a marital contract. But legally it is a hugely important distinction. Disparate impact, as a theory, is really only applicable in the “suspect class” race cases.

63

sorry didn’t read every post on this thread before this reply. In fact not planning on reading every post in this thread. So homosexualists, lol, getting married endangers marriage more than all the things a couple goes through that leads to divorce? Not all hetero-appearing marriages go through divorce, but marriages appear to end in divorce more than death (‘til death do us part…’).

If fear is held by religiously influenced people, then just keep God the “white-man” related religion honest and pure to what it preaches. Oh wait, even that is harder to fix than homo-marriage. Ah, carry on you hopeless, scared people. Take on the easy “problems” in “society”.

64

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:

My $0.02, for whatever it’s worth. In case you care, I think this should be a matter for individual state legislatures – which, actually, would allow for something of a “free market” system w/r/t marriage law. [/quote]

BB,

I was hamming up the libertarian position mainly to stir discussion, but your legal analysis makes sense and I agree. Good discussion on your part. Let this be a “free market” decision. I think businesses should decide for themselves whether or not they want to extend certain employee benefits to gay couples. Churches can decide on their own whether they wish to perform gay marriage ceremonies. As you mentioned previously, with the right planning (drafting wills, powers of attorney), a gay couple can basically have most of the rights of a married couple.

65

Bump. Here’s one of the old gay marriage related threads. Let’s not rehash the same old territory.

66

[quote]rainjack wrote:
vroom -

Maybe that is emotional bullshit to you, but it is true nonetheless.

That’s why the family is in such a sorry state today - moms and dads aren’t staying together.

Did you ever miss your dad? Did you ever wish your parents had not split?

CS said it in one of his blog posts - to raise healthy kids requires not only a mom, but a DAD.

vroom - If I’m wrong - counter me. Do better than just calling bullshit - prove it.[/quote]

Rainjack,

I ignored this at the time, but since it’s been bumped…

Of course I missed my Dad. It wasn’t that I never saw him, of course, but hey, that is life. I missed my pets that aged and died or got hit by cars. And you know what, that is life too. We have to deal with things we don’t like all the time.

Although supposedly I got “owned” for stating it, marriage used to be all about a man earning a living and a wife looking after the home. Women could not easily leave because it was in fact very hard for them to earn a good income. Society was against an independent woman.

Now that women are generally educated, have work experience and can earn reasonable money, they are free to leave a marriage that does not satisfy them. It is feasible. So, when people get married young, and find that they grow up and realize their needs are very different than they thought, they leave.

Anyway, with 50% divorce rates these days, it is ignorant to claim that all of the children of divorced families are unhealthy. What a crock of shit that is.

Finally, the family was in trouble long before gays started deciding that they wanted to get married and divorced too. No matter what happens with the issues of gay marriage, marriage will continue to be in the sorry state it is in.

I think people need to wake up and see the reality sometimes. There are all kinds of problems that happen in a married household or a divorced household. These things are serious problems.

Violence, alcoholism, sexual abuse, cheating and so on are not rare in our society. Do you think victims of these issues are somehow better off because they are married and suffering from them, instead of divorced and free of them?

Marriage is healthy and productive if the partners in it are both decent human beings who make each other happy. Unfortunately, half the time, things just don’t work out for one reason or the other. Letting gay people get married won’t change that one bit.