> Marriage is a civil contract
> between two people

...And their surrounding community.

It's interesting how you always forget that part, except when you're pretending that it's what makes marriage so offensive to you.

How is marriage a contract between the two people and "their surrounding community"? If your neighbors get divorced, do you pay some of the settlement? Do you get a share of the bone china?

Marriage may work for some, probably best for those who are realistic about it, and see it in the way it was for centuries: a business partnership between two people in which love and sex may play a part but are not the raison d'etre.

(Per Stephanie Coontz' Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage.)

I believe in the concept, and romantic vision, ot marriage. In fact I believe it so much I have done it twice...

I really appreciate the fact that two people care so much for each other that they desire to commit to a permanent relationship. Whether they are the traditional M/F partnership or M/M or F/F. Of course, to people that allow religion to dominate their thoughts on every topic, homosexual relationships are taboo and don't really count. Once again religion, especially organized religion, rears its head as the great divider of humanity.

Too often people allow their religious (or non-religious "morals") to condemn others' choices.
If my male neighbor decides he loves another guy and decides to pledge his fealty to him, what business is that of mine? Do I personally share the same attractions? No. Does a life dedicated to mutual fudge packing seem attractive to me? Not in the slightest. Do I think it is - weird, odd, unusual. I absoolutely do. Do I belieev they have the right to do this? Absolutely. Life is hard, finding someone to cherish - and who in return cheriches you - is difficult. Why should anyone's personal decision be open to public scorn, criticism, or some religious-based morality that the people in question do not share?

Now one may argue if that is so, why not allow plural marriages? Why limit it to two people?
If we are going to open the floodgates to any relationship, why place any limitations at all?
I say go for it! If three women and a guy, or 3 guys and one woman or 2 guys and 2 women decide to share each other's lives in a pluralistic marriage - although I think its pretty insane - why should we prohibit it? Of course, I am not talking abouth FLDS style marriages where young teen girls are married to older men - that is pure exploitation. I am talking about adults who can reasonably be expected to act in their own self interests.

The point is, people should be able to find what makes them happy in life, and if its not criminal ( specifically: physically/mentally abusive, expolitative, or coercive) nobody should have the right to prevent them from doing so.

Lets put an end to the time-wasting and
energy-sapping arguments about how adults choose to find their mutual happiness and concentrate on stopping things that are really bad for society like child porn, rape, drug addiction, war, environmental degradation, poverty, illiteracy, and discriminatory practices (just to name a few). There are plenty of real issues to tackle in today's world that truly have a negative effect on all of humanity. Let's focus our energy on those.

I suspect what Crid means is this: the community decides what sorts of legal relationships and activities it permits. You can build on your property, but only according to zoning laws. In most communities you aren't supposed to run around naked. In short: in order to ensure a reasonably happy norm, communities place certain restrictions on individuals.

Marriage recognizes a particular relationship between two people. The community grants this relationship a particular status, not least of which is financial support in the form of tax advantages. Precisely who should be eligible for this is a legitimate question. And the answer is not "any random two people who want a tax break". A community has every right to restrict access to marriage in the same way they have the right to impose clothing requirements and zoning laws.

The catch in this particular case is that marriage also extends outside the community. I.e. if you are married in one town, you expect your marriage to be respected in every other locality in the country.

There are two legitimate points of view:

1. Marriage is the State's way of supporting families and encouraging people to have children. Gay marriage is a contradiction in terms. Anecdotes about adoption and infertile heterosexuals are irrelevant - we are speaking of general principles. Following this line of reasoning, if gays want a contract with one another, they can use standard contract law. But they should have no expectation of receiving the financial incentives and status associated with marriage.

2. Marriage may have once been a way to support families, but times have changed. Marriage has taken on a broader meaning, and now represents a partnership between any two people. What is the State's interest here? If it is, perhaps, general social stability, then allowing gay marriage does make sense. On the other hand, this argument can easily lead to the conclusion that civil marriage should simply be abolished.

My point is: most people debate the wrong issue. Before we can talk of gay marriage, we must first agree on what marriage is all about.

So, bradley13, if I'm understanding you correctly, view #1 expands on the issue of the state (or "community") granting tax advantages to people in order to encourage them to have children.

This is the part I see as being a complete crock. I say scrap the whole tax code as it exists and replace it with the FairTax. Problem solved.

Pirate Jo - I don't disagree. I don't expect it to happen any time soon, though. The politicians have far to much invested in the current system.

As long as we are dreaming, I think all governments should be required to publish annual reports that meet the same standards as those companies are held to. See where your tax dollars really went. Ha - fat chance - that would be the end of pork-barrel politics.

How disgusting is it that people get tax breaks for marrying? Why is the government endorsing one life-style over another? I'm fed up with the government trying to coerce me to marry. I don't live well with others.

I'd go along with abolishing all marriages except that I can see the ugly legal issues involving joint property and children in common getting even uglier in a split than they are now.

There's other issues too such as admittance to loved ones in hospitals, etc. that have raised their ugly heads. And, no, don't let just anyone in. I wouldn't want my siblings let in to see me. Or some asshole from work or something.

And that's why I support gay marriage because same-sex couples who build a life together should have the same protections as M/F couples.

Personally, I'd like to also have marriage-lite, like the PACS, in France, that gives you stuff like visitation rights in hospitals, and the right to stay on in an apartment if one's partner dies, but is dissolvable simply by going to city hall and putting in writing that you would like to dissolve your PACS.

A lot of this issue is simple semantics. I've wondered for a while, why don't governments announce that, heretofore, the word "marriage" is no longer in the legal lexicon. The government will call it "civil unions", and any two people with capacity to make a legal contract can go down to the county clerk and get their civil union recorded. That would be the only requirement to have one in the eyes of the law. The civil union would then be afforded all the legal benefits, and be subject to all legal obligations, that marriage now has in the eyes of the law.

At that point, the government can tell all the churches that this will be the basic template to be followed by the law, without regard to religion, and that the law will now take no position on marriage at all. Churches are then free to add any little requirement or embellishment they want for marriage within their sphere. Nothing they do will, however, affect the contractural rights and obligations of civil unions.

It'd be that simple. Then, whenever someone complains about gay marriage, the govt. could repeat, as often as necessary, that we take no position on marriage of any kind, and that's that.

"How disgusting is it that people get tax breaks for marrying? Why is the government endorsing one life-style over another?"

The whole social engineering aspect of it makes me feel like a rat in a maze, looking for a piece of cheese. Another gripe is the mortgage interest deduction. Why does the government, of all the damn things, need to encourage people to buy a house? If you want to buy a house, buy a house. If you don't, don't. Leave the government out of it.

You can make a very good argument that renters are better for the economy because they are more mobile. It's easier for a skilled worker to move to where the need for them is greatest if they don't have to unload a house. I get a mortgage interest deduction and even *I* think it should be done away with.

Maybe the gay marriage issue will call more public attention to just how stupid and unfair the whole tax situation is. And it might help if the bible thumpers would shut up for five minutes.

I think cpabroker articulates the most rational position for the government to take on this. As far as the government is concerned, it's a a civil union - a contract that specifies rights and responsibilities of a pair of individuals - and churches may do what they will.

I've been saying since the 90's what cpa just said

Compliment me dammit,
do it
DO IT NOW!!!

> a contract that specifies rights
> and responsibilities

What responsibilities? Enumerate them. If you need an extra bluebook, speak up.

> How is marriage a contract
> between the two people and
> "their surrounding community"?

I can't believe you're so thick about this. Where to begin? In no particular order:

It involves the community because all those photos on the front pages of the papers this week are from public courthouses and the like, not private lawns and salons. The gay marriage types are --in a teenage kind of way-- trying to prove things to people.

It involves the community because you have a position on this, just as the rest of us do. If it were really a private contract, no one would care.

It involves the community because one of the few remaining reasons to get married is that in a few weeks, many of the newly marrieds will be returning to those same courthouses to demand adjudication of intensely private squabbles... Adjudication provided at considerable expense and distraction to the rest of the community.

It involves the community because that service, like the tax breaks and enforcement of domestic partnership agreements, will be provided even though these unions bring nothing/nothing/nothing to the society as a whole. Two gay men: One wants to work in the insurance business, his partner wants to have a few years off to take a few film studies courses and paint still-lifes. Why again is there union something the state needs to encourage? What do the other taxpayers (and the insurance company) get out of this?

It's pathetically, pathetically ironic: Never before has our society been more desperately (yet rewardingly) interdependent. Almost none of us could grow our own food (let alone build our own microwaves) or shoe our own horses (let alone program our own fuel injectors).

But never has there been a more entrenched fantasy of the citizen as a heroic ragamuffin, a forlorn urchin scraping by on his wits...

Who deserves as much free booty from the taxpayers as he can possibly extract.

I hate my culture. It's cowardly and daft.

why their union etc.

I hate that mistake

> Whether or not you or anyone
> else is weirded out by seeing
> gays more publicly

That's all you got, right?.. Your pretense of sexual sophistication and psychological insight. Some could write books worth of argument about the issues involved, but it blows right by you.

This is all about the need to look down on the broader public and to pretend, in a seventh-grader's-clique kind of way, that we're just so much more mature than those other guys.

Religion is A crutch for the weak of will, and I believe crutches are for people with broken legs. As for multiple marriages, I presume you enjoy being bound and flogged as well, since I see no appreciable difference between the two.

"Two gay men: One wants to work in the insurance business, his partner wants to have a few years off to take a few film studies courses and paint still-lifes. Why again is there union something the state needs to encourage?"

I get your argument, Crid, but I am running in a whole different direction with it. I read this example and wondered why a similar arrangement between a man and a woman is something the state needs to encourage.

It's good for the kids.

Ya know Crid for all your witty banter I have yet to hear you give one clear and concise reason to dent gay marrige or give any consequence for doing so.

What responsibilities? Enumerate them. If you need an extra bluebook, speak up.

I think I can handle this with the single blue book, thanks.

The basic legal ones: shared responsibility for debts incurred, medical decision making should the other partner become incapacitated, handling the disposition of the partner's remains when she dies, responsibility to parent and support children (if any).

The basic moral ones: do what you can to help your partner be healthy, happy and secure.

I'm sure there are others, but that's a good start.

"It's good for the kids."

Any other reasons? Would you equate a childfree heterosexual marriage as being just as big of a waste of space as a homosexual one?

I get your argument, Crid, but I am running in a whole different direction with it. I read this example and wondered why a similar arrangement between a man and a woman is something the state needs to encourage.

Posted by: Pirate Jo at June 18, 2008 11:25 AM

It's good for the kids.

Posted by: Crid at June 18, 2008 11:31 AM

And what if they don't have kids? My aunt and uncle are blissfully wed and childless (and will remain so, as she got her tubes tied). He works a higher-paying job for Aveda. She, in the last 10 years, has gone about half way to get her bachelor's in anthropology, has taken a few drafting courses, and goes on "retreats." Now, some may see this union as useless in that allows one person to contribute little or nothing to society (ie, has no kids and no income) while remaining supported by a spouse. I am also inclined to see their relationship this way. So, if we allow straight couples to do it, why not gay couples? Or why don't we ban this kind of arrangement alltogether?

Maybe we could allow marriage only to couples who plan on having children or adopting children within, say, 5 yrs of their vows? No kids w/in 5 years, and the vows are dissolved.

What we currently have is a system that does not allow some couples who want (or already have) kids to get married or get the benefits of marriage with the ease that other couples do--AND that allows some couples who DON'T want kids to have the benefits denied to couples who DO want kids. It defies logic.

Not to jump on Crid (especially considering how this is well-tread territory between he and I), but I just want to focus on this argument:

"It's good for the kids."

Which is essentially the cornerstone of (from my POV) the opposition stance. As I recall, nearly all of Crid's (and other's) responses boil down to the idea that a gay marriage is a sanction of a sub-optimal condition for raising children.

Of course, this argument is severly weakend by the fact that gay couples have been adopting children for years. I've yet to see a single study suggesting that these children are somehow damaged or disadvantaged for the experience. Indeed, by opening up the pool of willing and able parents, we'd likely be alleviating the suffering of children who are being raised in sub-sub-sub-sub-optimal conditions, of which there are unfortunately far too many.

On an entire other note - for me, the only argument I have against sanctioning gay marriage is that I frankly don't want to make it any easier for terrorists/illegal aliens/bad guys to remain in this country, by claiming they are married to their fellow jihadists.

Not really an issue until the Federal definition of marriage gets to the Supreme Court, but I'm frankly surprised more people don't mention this.

Gay marriages do have social value because they encourage stability, at least in theory. Our society wants people to commit to one person, buy property together, have or adopt children together, etc. Of course, gays can't have biological children together, but many are having them through other means, and we want these children to grow up in stable homes with two parents who take equal responsibility for them.

Whether we think Heather having two mommies is unhealthy isn't the point: Heather WILL have two mommies, and marriage is a means of encouraging both mommies to play an equal role. This may or may not pan out, but it's a crap shoot in hetero relationships, too.

Allowing gays to marry has just as much value to society as it does to the gays in question.

> I have yet to hear you give
> one clear and concise reason

You could publish a good thick book out of all the impacts I've listed in these blog comments. If none of them come to mind for your, than we might surmise that [A} you're being childishly argumentative just to spark up a conversation that don't have the candlepower to engage more thoughtfully or [B] you're such a shabby reader that nothing sticks anyway. Guess which presumption I choose, loojy.

And just for the record, buttercup, I don't remember any "clear and concise" argument you've made saying why it should happen.

Gotta go to work. I'll mock the rest of you later.

I never said you hadnt given plenty of reasons, I was just saying they were all stupid and not really substanitive.

And I did give one reason and only one reson is needed

Equal protection under the law

Exactly.

And this from Pirate Jo was right on:

I get your argument, Crid, but I am running in a whole different direction with it. I read this example and wondered why a similar arrangement between a man and a woman is something the state needs to encourage.

What's good for the goose and gander...

> The community grants this
> relationship a particular
> status, not least of which
> is financial support in the
> form of tax advantages.

Thanks Bradley, but I've never heard anyone explain where the money for the new expenditure will come from. For nearly five years I've been begging people to say what value mutually-married gays will bring to society, and no one's ever answered. Everybody apparently thinks an old white guy somewhere (maybe Cheney!) will have to open his wallet and fork over the dough... For some reason, no one imagines that black people or women or poor people or any other kind of taxpayer will be burdened... But of course they will be.

> granting tax advantages to
> people in order to encourage
> them to have children.

People don't need to be encouraged to make babies, they need to be encouraged to do it responsibly.

> Why is the government endorsing
> one life-style over another?

Because some "life-styles" have better impacts on the rest of us than others do.

> but is dissolvable simply
> by going to city hall

I coulda sworn you said last year you wanted the state out of it completely. You gonna make me google it?

> why don't governments announce
> that, heretofore, the word
> "marriage" is no longer in
> the legal lexicon.

First, you mean hereafter. Second, because it's a bad idea: In the United States, government is of the people. It's not some supernatural third party that makes these "announcements" to us.

> This isn't about the state
> "encouraging" anything, but
> granting rights to all people

One third correct. The two errors: States don't grant rights to people, people grant charter to states; and gays have always had precisely the same rights as straights.

> The basic legal ones:

Opah-leeze. Supporters have never made the case that marriage will make gays more responsible than they already are; it's always been about collecting more treats. As noted above, gay marriage has certainly never been about doing anything for anyone else in society. It's about taking.

> Would you equate a childfree
> heterosexual marriage as
> being just as big of a waste
> of space as a homosexual one?

Nope. I think marriage (straight marriage, the real kind) speaks to genesis in an important way. The question isn't why are gays forbidden to marry, or brothers, or parents and children, or healthy people and insane ones, or old people and toddlers. Marriage is (was) an institution that spoke to an especially powerful kind of human union, the one that made good children... Even when it didn't.

> this argument is severly
> weakend by the fact that
> gay couples have been adopting
> children for years.

Not really. Alcoholics have been raising kids for years, too, but I'm still agin' it. My point is that nothing's better for kids than a loving mother with a loving father. My opinion might change if millions of mothers in America were screaming through talk radio and newspaper editorials that their femininity was not a distinctive, pivotal blessing in their child's lives, and that their husband and one of his golfing buddies could do as well at raising a child. But you never hear women saying that. How come?

> they encourage stability,
> at least in theory.

A favorite aphorism: The problem with theory is that it assumes there's no difference between theory and reality; but in reality, there is a difference.

> many are having them
> through other means, and
> we want these children to
> grow up in stable homes

I have no patience with arguments that describe future incompetent babymaking as a fait accompli; social pressure can do much to ensure 'stability' by expressing what's best. And what's best for children is a loving mother with a loving father. I don't like you, Monica.

> And I did give one reason
> and only one reson is needed
> Equal protection under the law

Gays have always been protected by exactly the same laws as anyone else.

> What's good for the goose

Fer chrissake, look at the first words in your post: "The nutters..."

This is all about the need to be smug and look down on someone. A huge percentage of people has been convinced (perhaps by nearly a century of Hollywood youth & fashion) that nothing is more important than an appearance of sexual sophistication. Moreover, that only means erotic sophistication: You can't imagine that sex could mean anything else to anyone, hence you won't answer any argument except to presume that "public kissing" is the problem. That's where you're head's at, so you assume that's what everyone's obsessed with.

It's lazy and cowardly... As was the mechanism of law used to make this happen. As with abortion, it's considered too much trouble to actually make your case to people. So a pathetic collection of fucktard California judges pretends that the issue has just been raised for the first time... And whaddya know, the constitution has something to say about it! This may be a new record for humanity's presumptive stupidity.

And perhaps the matter will be no more settled than abortion is. I kind of like the idea that dim people still get really worried about these “rights”. They deserve to.

>>My opinion might change if millions of mothers in America were screaming through talk radio and newspaper editorials that their femininity was not a distinctive, pivotal blessing in their child's lives, and that their husband and one of his golfing buddies could do as well at raising a child. But you never hear women saying that.

And again, I reply in a voice "ever soft, gentle, and low" Crid, that my femininity means nothing on its own to my children.

It needs to be allied to other positive qualities(responsibility, unselfishness etc) before it becomes a distinctive, pivotal blessing for a child.

"People don't need to be encouraged to make babies, they need to be encouraged to do it responsibly.

> Why is the government endorsing
> one life-style over another?

Because some "life-styles" have better impacts on the rest of us than others do."

People do not need the government to "encourage" (read: "subsidize") them to make babies responsibly. They don't need the government to "encourage" them to bathe daily, eat healthily, exercise regularly, or buy tasteful clothes. The only things the government is authorized to do are enumerated and limited. Of course it doesn't work this way in practice, or we wouldn't have most of the federal government bureaucracies that exist, or an income tax. But hey, you're speaking about ideals, so why can't I.

I'm with getting the government out of it completely.

That's OK, Crid. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, other people like me.

Marriage promotes stability. And grants rights that shouldn't be prohibited based on sexuality, since we don't deny jobs, etc., based on sexuality. So...Crid...those two lesbians who've been together 40-plus years? They shouldn't be married to each other because it makes the churchies and a few of their neighbors uncomfortable?

Bad haircuts make me uncomfortable. There ought to be a law!

Don't worry, Monica!

Crid is the deacon of the divine intersection!

There's no shifting the guy on the subject of the ideal genders of a mommy and daddy.

I don't know about the marriage promotes stability argument frankly. I think that depends on the inviduals involved wether same sex or opposite. I'm just saying that committment to build a life together should have nothing to do with the gender(s) of the two fools in love (or marrying for whatever reason they are).

As for stability, there's plenty of stable singles and unstable marrieds out there. I resent the implication that I'm not stable because I'm single. In what aspect, please?

I'm not one to move around a lot. Had too damned much of that growing up. My married parents moved me around too much.

I'm not one to switch jobs much. I like the stability/job security of being a long time with an employer. I've been 9 years, 8 years and 7 years with the same employers. (And the last 7 years returns to the employer of 9. Christ, have I really been working this long?)

The only law I've ever broken is interference with visitation rights when I moved to Colorado to protect my daughter from her asshole perv of a father when the courts wouldn't/couldn't. It wasn't even kidnapping since I had full custody. Squeal on me. Well, don't bother. Pretty sure the statue of limitations has run out A and B he'd have to press charges and since he's dead... But only carries a 3-day prision sentence anyway.

Where's the instability of this single? Oh, please. Marriage makes for more stability. No, stability is an indivdual thing and while some individuals may be more stable in marriage, it doesn't follow that all are. Frankly, I was far less stable for the four years I was married. That asshat drove me crazy.

Frankly, if I had it to do over again I wouldn't ever marry or have a child.

Donna, I agree that stability is an individual thing, but I do think marriage helps promote it. For example, as a single woman with no kids and no property, I can stay in the apartment I've been living in for two years and the job I've been working at for five, or I can pack my bags when my lease ends and go teach English in South Korea for a year.

If I were married, my husband's wishes and job would be factors in that decision. if I had kids and a house, those would be more things tying me to my community. Whether this is a positive or negative thing is up for debate, but stable in this sense (resistant to sudden change) is not a psychological trait but an economic/social one.

Opah-leeze. Supporters have never made the case that marriage will make gays more responsible than they already are; it's always been about collecting more treats. As noted above, gay marriage has certainly never been about doing anything for anyone else in society. It's about taking.

This is crap. Sullivan, a supporter of gay marriage if there ever were one, has been making the responsibility argument for years. My experience as a married person suggests he has a point. Small example: My wife and I lived together for years, but I only got life insurance after we married. Marriage encourages people to think about things in much longer terms, which mostly means better decision making for society. This is a value-added proposition.

Crid is the deacon of the divine intersection!

I thought he was the high priest! I think Jody wins the best snark award for this thread.

'K, you guys. There's been an ongoing discussion about teh gay marriage thing on another blog I visit. Here's what someone posted in response to a question of mine:

Flynne says:
"Ultimately, aren't ALL marriages civil unions? Why does the word 'marriage' carry so much more weight when 'civil union' will suffice?"

Nemesys says:
"Well, there's 2 reasons, and 2 sides. You are correct when you imply that the issue has more to do with the word and the concept than it does the people involved.

The gay folks want marriage because they can't have it. It's a "fairness" thing. Whether they have any real use for it is secondary to their desire for it.

The non-gay folks don't want to give it to them becasue it's un-nerving to re-write the definition of a word that represents what is probably the most universal and time-honored formal relationship in the history of humanity. Re-defining it is sort of like Orwellian Newspeak... what other concepts are going to be re-defined by politicians?

I don't care if gay folks get hitched... have a nice honeymoon. But just understand that when the word marriage gets re-written, the prize has been devalued and is vulnerable. Poly will find its way in soon enough... if love is the only critera, the legal precident will have been set. Where will the gay lobby be when someone in the future wants to marry a ficus plant, their Buick, or the Supremes?"

I thought he was the high priest! I think Jody wins the best snark award for this thread.

Justin, I think you trumped Jody! o_O

"when my lease ends and go teach English in South Korea for a year."

Don't smoke joint there while you are teaching English. This guy got 3.5 years for that.
http://www.amazon.com/Brother-One-Cell-American-Prisons/dp/067003827X

Let me know how you liked Kim Chi and Dog Dish. Yes, they do eat dogs.

>>It's a "fairness" thing. Whether they have any real use for it is secondary to their desire for it.

Flynne - can't we accept it's a "fairness" thing - without getting sneery about the real motive?

I wasn't getting sneery about it, that was Nemesys, whoever s/he is. I just posed the question, the rest of the post is hers/his. I'm still trying to figure out WHY it's such a big deal to be 'married' when it's the pretty much same thing as a civil union. It's a contract. If it's legal, no one can undo it, except for a legal dissolution. Why does "marriage" have to be fair, if legal civil unions are? What's the difference, really??

> I reply in a voice

And it's only you, and it's only after you've been asked. You've always aspired to sophistry, and "on its own" is your new meager effort. The reason that titty-swingin' legions don't support you in this assertion is that it's simply not true. Hence the inanity:

> It needs to be allied to other
> positive qualities... before
> it [becomes] distinctive

And I'm like, huh?

> my femininity means nothing
> on its own to my children.

What makes you think so, other than that you want so badly for it to be true? If Michael Jordan we're 5' 4", he wouldn't have been Michael Jordan. He wouldn't even have been spud web. To be a really great basketball player he needed to be tall. The qualities are not divisable.

And why is yours the lonely, feeble voice that makes the case?

And how (comically) far are you prepared to push this? Presumably your husband's golfing buddy will have his personality warped as necessary toward feminine constraints, with emergency infusions of 'intuitive' responsibility and 'compassionate' unselfishness, before you'd think them fit for childrearing together... Such that eventually, it would just be easier for him to have married a woman. Which is what he actually did. See how that works? (You need to work on your putting, though.)

> I'm with getting the government
> out of it completely.

Well Peej, having drawn a firm line against 'fait accompli' arguments here, I don't want to quibble too much. But when we see how intrusive government has become in so many matters, and yet how tremendously helpful it has been to so many, it just doesn't seem probable that we'll let citizens form whatever unions they like and make babies in whatever context they like.

> other people like me.

Wait until they figure out that your social scheme demands endless rescues.

> Marriage promotes stability.

Then why are you against it? Don't be so destabilizing, Amy! Stability! Stability!

> since we don't deny jobs,
> etc.

Whoever told you that American employment law was the pinnacle of human achievement and the model for all other projects may have been pulling your leg. While that whole "slavery" thing's pretty well mopped up at this point, there's still much to be done. (And on matters of employment, we often hear you argue against the legally-exercised impulses of trendy, feel-good liberalism. What up, Sister Red?)

> because it makes the churchies
> and a few of their
> neighbors uncomfortable?

Again, you're stuck in the seventh grade. You're obsessed with the idea that this is about adult erotic "comfort". You can't argue any other point.

(If you'd ever found the courage to actually go to a church, your smirks might have more charm. Considering how much energy you expend confronting religion, it's surprising that you've never attempted battle in close quarters. There's much you could learn about your adversary there. I think you're afraid of having your brittle ego overwhelmed by the Great Christian Machine.)

> no shifting the guy

It's nothing personal. Tell you what, when the natural world starts delivering fertile offspring from the intersection of two men or the intersection of two women, we can talk.

> Sullivan, a supporter of
> gay marriage

He's not a particularly convincing one.

> has been making the
> responsibility argument

Nobody else has. Everyone else has been describing gays as these angelic little citizens who just need a pat on the head from the courthouse. We've not been told that they have any bad behaviors in their lives that a marriage license would cause them to correct. "Golly, the little darlings are perfect just the way they are!"

> can't we accept it's a
> "fairness" thing - without
> getting sneery about the
> real motive?

With Justin and Amy sneer about their high-minded (though perhaps fictional) erotic clarity, there's no reason to trust your presumption that this is about "fairness".

> I thought he was
> the high priest!

OK, I think I've figured this out. The reason you guys are so upset is that you're so wrong. What's it like to be so wrong? It's gotta be humiliating.

>>To be a really great basketball player [Jordan] needed to be tall.

Crid,
You're making the same argument in new clothes.

Tallness is not the sole defining quality of a great basketball player - there's a lot of other "pivotal" physical and mental shit you need to.

And, y'know? Only cartoon husbands always come with golfing buddies!

Jody, let me help you... I had introductory philosophy classes in my first semester of college thirty years ago, so I know all about this stuff.

I'm not saying womanhood in a parent is sufficient to give a child what's best. I'm saying it's necessary, as is manhood. (I'm not saying height in basketball is sufficient to be the most successful player who ever lived; I'm saying it's necessary.)

OK? Good. Glad to have cleared that up.

> Only cartoon husbands
> always come with golfing
> buddies!

By all means, give us the real-life examples of his dearest friends, and how they together would have been naturally equipped and inclined to do for your children what you did.

Also, I'm not through with this...

> can't we accept it's a
> "fairness" thing

...Which pinpoints the essentially teenage texture of your argument. "Can't you just admit that we mean well? We're just trying to be nice! Actual consequences aren't really such a big deal...."

That's really, really what this is about. You guys wanna be saluted for good intentions.

No dice

Crid, accusing people of defending their opinions passionately because they're defending their wrongness is immature. Using that standard, I could conclude that you are also "so wrong," but I prefer to believe that you simply feel strongly about the issue.

Ultimately, nothing I have seen has convinced me that two men or two women can't raise a happy, healthy child into adulthood.

In the end, the argument isn't about gay marriage. The argument is, "What the hell is marriage, anyway?"

The reason you guys are so upset is that you're so wrong.

No your* so wrong looser*!!1!!

That advances the the discussion.

*Yes, I know.

> accusing people of defending
> their opinions passionately because
> they're defending their wrongness
> is immature.

Maybe. But having been repeatedly accused of sexual squeamishness rather than having my points considered, I figure the gloves are off. Knowutimean, jellybean?

Besides, I didn't say I was mature, I said I was right.

> nothing I have seen has convinced
> me that two men or two women can't
> raise a happy, healthy child
> into adulthood.

And if that we're the question, it would be good to know. But I know plenty of happy, healthy people who are full of shit.

> In the end, the argument
> isn't about gay marriage.

Yes it is. It's about gay marriage.

> That advances teh discussion.

No less effectively than does accusing one's adversaries of sexual squeamishiness and naivete. Justin, you've brought this discussion back to junior high... Don't complain about the mood in here now.

Justin, you've brought this discussion back to junior high.

Accusing people of squeamishness and naivete isn't junior high behavior, it's more like college frosh behavior.

I think everyone here knows your point - that somehow gay marriage is going to make for more children having bad childhoods - they just don't buy it. And you don't buy anyone else's point that letting gay people marry will encourage more stability and responsibility (particularly among gay men).

We're at an impasse and the only thing left is mockery.

Tomorrow night, I'm going to see the two children of probably the lone Beverly Hills Republican, who happens to be a lesbian. One of her boys is graduating, with high honors, I'd imagine (from what I've heard about him in the past), from his tony private school, and going off to college. You couldn't meet more model young citizens. And both boys are straight, very smart, and very polite, and don't take drugs, etc.

They're polite!

> I think everyone here knows
> your point - that somehow...

That ain't it exactly, and you've been reading this blog for years, and you've been to college. People are thick. My work continues.

With all due respect, Monica, no. It's still an individual thing.

I'm not the sort of individual that just ups and takes off to parts unknown on little or no notice or a whim even with just myself to consider.

I already conceded that some inviduals will have decisions of that kind of nature affected by marriage but let me also add that is perhaps why they seek marriage. Because that's what they want out of life. To stay relatively put, etc. and they'd like to have company in that lifestyle of their choosing.

And we've all heard the stories of the married ones who still take off despite the spouse and kids. Please, it's a stereotype to say they went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back.

Like I said, it's an individual thing. Marriage has nothing to do with stability and I resent the implication that it does.

Donna- I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say, but I think I disagree. Marriage can do a lot for stability. Stability is by no means my highest value... As you can see from my mockery of Amy on this point in the earlier comment. But marriage is also called "settling down", and it's called that for a reason.

That ain't it exactly, and you've been reading this blog for years...

It's close enough, and that it's not precisely right doesn't mean invalidate my point - that neither you nor I find the other's reasoning persuasive.

Didja offer any?

Sure did, Crid. I think this is the most persuasive case:

Society as a whole benefits when we encourage people to pair up. Being married encourages responsible decision making more than it doesn't, and helps ensure that people have someone else looking after them. Both of these things have tangible, real good effects on society, regardless of whether it's straight or gay people doing them. It's a bad idea to deprive 10-15% of society the opportunity to pair up with someone who can be a real life partner for them and be given substantive legal force to that partnership. There's the human-rights aspect too, but this is the real value-add.

Let's start with the abject stupidity.

> a bad idea to deprive
> 10-15% of society

That number it horseshit. It sits reeking in the afternoon sun under a halo of buzzing flies. If you've had a college-level statistics course –requisite for a functionary in your field, no?– it's not possible that you could offer it with a straight face. Even in your wackyshit city of San Francisco (whose politicos show no mastery in matters of the heart), there's just no sense in saying that three out of ten people have been "deprived"...

...Especially when, as I should trust you to concede, gays have never been denied access to the institution that their straight neighbors enjoy. (Saying this upsets people: I wish that just once one of them would tell me why it's not true... Using their own words, and demonstrating that they've given it more that three second's worth of thought. Presumably they won't do it now, either. As usual, I'm left to answer the point for them, and will do so presently. Don't thank me, I'm all about courtesy.)

> Being married encourages
> responsible decision making

Mebbe. But a lot of young marriages seem to be about making babies and little else, and when this is either accomplished or discovered, they fall apart.

> and helps ensure that people
> have someone else looking
> after them

Probably. But no one's offered evidence (or presented any 'encouragement') that gay marriages will last any longer than regular ones.

It would be nice if gays always did that for each other. But as it happens, the gays I'm closest to nowadays (if only for this season) are doing it anyway. They didn't need special exceptions made to ancient institutions to get their needs met. It would be kind of neat if we could convince others to do it too, and if there's any spiritual warmth to be received from marriage, it would be a shame if gays couldn't get at it.

But I regard depriving children of the opportunity to intimately experience the loving resolution of sexual differences across the period of their growth as too high a price to pay for providing this "encouragement" to adults, who ought to be expected to answer their responsibilities as a matter of course.

> Society as a whole benefits
> when we encourage people

Just from the encouragement, we benefit? (I'm not being legalistic: Your entire comment has a summer-camp sing-along quality that deserves refutation.) What will society do with contented singles like myself? Will the "encouragement" you offer be gentle or wrathful? Either way, I'd prefer not to be bothered.

But I'm not too worried on my own behalf, because I've never seen a single word from you –including brief favorites like "the" or "of"– about "encouraging" marriage in any general way. Nor from any other rhetor in this matter. You simply don't mean it.

You just want to do this for gays. No other considerations apply. You don't want to deal with questions, and are content to slam it through judicial fiat rather than legislative persuasion.

Why is that? I think there are two factors, though which comes first is like the chicken and the egg.

An early passage of the Goldberg book points the way:

"Liberalism, unlike conservatism, is operationally uninterested in its own intellectual history. But that doesn't make it less indebted to it. Liberalism stands on the shoulders of giants and thinks its feet are planted firmly on the ground."

We see this all the time. Liberal impulses are expressed with wordless, feminine head-tilts or staccato 'just-becauses'... They come out of nowhere (like your new “human right”) and don't need defending because... Well, they just don't! Being well-meaning should be enough.

And let's face it, liberals have had several shabby decades in a row. In the 1990's, perhaps America's pinnacle for prosperity and safety (and opportunity for attention to interior matters), the lefty Boomer President squandered the office on blowjobs from a woman not his wife and not half his age. The Boomers needed a Montgomery-style "civil rights" achievement to call their own, and they needed it now, before Obama-types pushed them offstage.

(On the internet, Goldberg playfully notes that liberals get cranky when you tell them that MLK would be against gay marriage.)

So why did they chose this for a slam-dunk? What accounts for your infantile taunts of "homophobia"... Grotesque accusations of mental illness blended with social cowardice?

Aside from the Hollywood-nourished fascinations with sophistication, I think it's because of the reticence that comes from two or three generations of divorce culture. Every person of even moderate sensitivity has felt, if only in close sympathy with a friend, the devastation that divorce has wrought. All of us at least work with people who've told their tiny daughters something like "You'll always be Daddy's Little Girl, even if he's moved to Florida to start a different family and raise a new little princess and can't be bothered to write checks or birthday cards." A few episodes like that can leave anybody ambivalent about the composition of family.

(For the record, I personally have zero such people as friends.)

You personally have not expressed why your father's example of masculinity in your own life would be disposable. (Or your mother's example of femininity.) And nobody who talks about this ever does, whether or not their own families are intact. I think the insanity from parenting corrupted by divorce is so prevalent that people are, in accordance with a tragic metaphor, throwing out the babies with the bathwater. To avoid feeling guilty, they pretend that sex is only about eroticism. (This may explain some of our paranoiac obsession with kids & sex abuse, as with the Davidians in Waco, the FLDS in Eldorado, and Michael Jackson in Neverland.)

And no one in our divorce culture –not in the churches, not in the marketplace, and certainly not in Hollywood– has hands clean enough to argue otherwise.

I don't have to like it.

First:

Your math sucks. If the people in the 10% are also pairing with people in that 10% then it's still 10%.

Gavin Newsome is a tool, and irrelevant to the discussion, no matter how much fun it is for you to mock his ham-handed affair.

Jonah is an intellectual middleweight (at best) who got his nice sinecure at NRO and the opportunity to write his book by standing on Lucianne's shoulders. Quoting him is better than quoting K-Lo, but not much. I'm also not a liberal in the sense that people like Goldberg use it. So whatever.

They come out of nowhere (like your new “human right”)

This thinking didn't just emerge out of nowhere. All of the things we now consider human rights were once new ideas, and not necessarily popular ones at that. I'm perfectly OK with the conception that our standards of what we think are basic rights changes over time.

You just want to do this for gays. No other considerations apply. You don't want to deal with questions, and are content to slam it through judicial fiat rather than legislative persuasion.

I think it the the right thing for them, yes. Personally, I would have preferred the legislative route because the judicial alternative makes people so pissy, but people still would have complained and probably put together a ballot measure similar to the one we'll vote on anyway. (Side note: What happened when courts overturned anti-miscegenation laws? Did people get all ginned up over judicial fiat then? Mmmm... gin.)

...Especially when, as I should trust you to concede, gays have never been denied access to the institution that their straight neighbors enjoy.

You always make this argument, and I worded my point carefully to address it.

But I regard depriving children of the opportunity to intimately experience the loving resolution of sexual differences across the period of their growth as too high a price to pay for providing this "encouragement" to adults, who ought to be expected to answer their responsibilities as a matter of course.

This is why you and I can't agree. Grossly simplified, the core of your perspective is, "marriage is all about babies". Because gay marriage doesn't provide he best environment for babies, it's not a good idea. Let me know if I'm wrong.

I'm happily married, in my 30's and childless. I don't expect we'll have kids. I don't see marriage primarily as a vehicle for facilitating child raising. It once might have been, but in an era where people in the developed world can still have lots of sex and don't have children unless they want to, this notion no longer seems applicable.

This isn't romantic, but I basically see the institution of marriage as a good way to develop a foundation for a happy, healthy and secure life. Among other things, it facilitates property ownership, efficient division of responsibilities, pooling of economic resources, and in a world where we are increasingly separated from our families, provides someone with legal rights act on one's behalf when needed. Looking at it this way, I can see no reason why the particular genders involved should matter.

Know what I like about you? Beating your brains in.

> If the people in the 10% are
> also pairing with people in that
> 10% then it's still 10%.

What “10%”? What could you be trying to say? Maybe you're not the science major I thought you were. It's not possible that ten percent of the population is inclined toward exclusively homosexual romantic bonding (and that wouldn't excuse the “15%”, anyway). I think the better figure is 4%, tops. Maybe 6% when factoring weird weather, voodoo spells from drug-addled Amazonian tribesman, and completely gratuitous rhetorical allowance to a notoriously petulant and self-centered voting bloc. (Act-up!)

> Gavin Newsome is a
> tool, and irrelevant

No, he's a tool and perfectly relevant. It was he who made the first strong effort to have gay marriage happen here. Shit fuck, Justin... If he's not relevant to the movement, who is?

> Jonah is an intellectual middleweight

Who cares? I don't like people who are smart, I like people who have insight. And few have offered as much as he has in the last 8 years. His enthusiasm is obviously very much his own. Did you read the book yet? It's going to hurt your feelings.

> This thinking didn't just
> emerge out of nowhere.

Without Googling or research, sketch for us the intellectual lineage of this movement from the dawn of time to, say, 1970. Give us anything... Anything at all.

> All of the things we now consider
> human rights were once new ideas

You essentially concede the point. You think of something, are arrogant enough to imagine yourself the first to feel aggrieved, and strike a self-righteous pose. But the fact that someone thinks you're wrong doesn't mean you're not a childish asshole. Ethics are not so mechanized.

> Grossly simplified

Why would you want to grossly simplify?

> I would have preferred
> the legislative route

Did you ever say so? To anyone ever? Ever write that down or speak it aloud? The legislative route doesn't make people “pissy”, it makes them disenfranchised.

> I worded my point carefully to address it

That part got lost on your modem.

> I don't see marriage primarily
> as a vehicle for facilitating child
> raising.

As Daltrey once said, “Go to the mirror, boy.” Speak the phrase “a vehicle for facilitating child raising” three times, twice watching your lips and once watching your eyes. Then try to imagine a more bloodless, heartless description of the most meaningful thing in a child's life. If the mirror doesn't help, try it on your own loving parents. They'll probably ask what the fuck you're talking about.

> gay marriage doesn't provide
> he best environment for babies

No, worse: It mocks and corrupts that “environment” in the service of adult fulfillments. And I swear to God, all this vehicular facilitation of environmental horseshit is half the problem. Pop psychology (and that includes Ms. Alkon's precious sociobiology) has ripped the meaning out of some of humanity's clearest lessons. It's like people are trying to deal with the world phonetically.

> Looking at it this way

You're looking at it the wrong way. But now that we've certified the depth of your newfound enthusiasm for marriage, all of Amy's readers look forward to your many expositions of this theme in the times ahead, as the topic will certainly appear in many contexts. We certainly don't think a principle of such profoundity could apply only to the present crisis....

No, he's a tool and perfectly relevant. It was he who made the first strong effort to have gay marriage happen here.

Pity people who can't recognize the difference between a good person, a shithead and an opportunist (Gavin's batting .667). His being such is not relevant to whether gay people marring each other is a good idea or a bad one.

You're looking at it the wrong way.

I think the same.

Amy's readers look forward to your many expositions of this theme in the times ahead, as the topic will certainly appear in many contexts

You must have missed this. I'm not an idealogue. Plus, I'm really busy. I'll pop around here and comment when I feel so inclined.

My point stands - we can have no useful discussion here because we look at the institution in question too differently. "It mocks and corrupts that “environment” in the service of adult fulfillments."

I get you, I just disagree. Have a nice weekend.

> His being such is not
> relevant to whether gay
> people marring each other
> is a good idea

You can say that again: He did nothing to describe the goodness of the idea, he just tried to get it codified into law through the backdoor. (So to speak.)

> I'm not an idealogue.

And yet Didso/Didnot is apparently your way of life.

> I'm really busy. I'll pop
> around here and comment

Okey fine, I'll dry your scalp and throw it on the pile, but when was the last time anyone on this blog simply took a point?

My townhouse. I like to hang out on the roof.

I'll dry your scalp and throw it on the pile,

If scalps are obtained through sheer perseverance rather than persuasive arguments, then you are welcome to it.

I'd return your toupee if you didn't fold at first challenge ("didn't emerge out of nowhere").