YOUR TURN: READERS' ROUNDUP

From Gabriel:

First of all, thank you very much for setting up this blog. The debate over same-sex marriage is vitally important, and it is crucial for all sides to be able to listen to other views.

In any equal protection argument one of the first questions to ask is how is on what basis is a person being treated differently. So if Jon is not allowed to marry Bob, but can marry Jane then Jon is being denied because he is male. If Don (already married to Sue) is not allowed to marry Betty, but Bill (a single man) is allowed to marry Betty, then Don is being denied because of his marital status. So the first major difference in the equal protection argument for same-sex marriage and polygamy is the basis for classification (gender vs. marital status). Often, legally, one needs a stronger reason to classify based on gender than to classify based on marital status. One can certainly be consistent while coming to the conclusion that gender is not sufficiently important to marriage, but monogamy is sufficiently important. If one believes that one of the main reasons for state recognition of marriage is to establish a system of mutual trust, obligation, duty, responsibility, sacrifice, etc., then one could conclude that a person is less likely to feel such an obligation or even be capable of such a duty to more than one person.

From Peter:

The truth of the matter is that if I marry my partner, the heterosexual couple next door is completely unaffected. A legally married man and woman are totally untouched by the existence of gay marriage. It is important to remember that interracial marriage was once illegal, as was marriage between negro slaves. I am sure many of the same arguments were used to try to prevent the legalization of these unions.

From Eric:

If you believe that marriage is about monogamy and raising children, then by all means, be monogamous and have children. But when you claim that YOUR marriage is somehow threatened by MY freedom to choose something different, and thus you have a right to curtail my freedom, then we have a problem. You seem to be very threatened by the idea of people having freedom to choose something other than what you want; you rationalize this need to control other people by saying it's "for the children".

Bryan:

If proponents of gay marriage were going about it in a truly democratic, legislative fashion then the slippery slope argument would have less, um, traction. But gay marriage proponents are using two methods--public castigation of their opponents (see Andrew Sullivan's diatribes against evangelical Christians due to their opposition to gay marriage), and the courts. That is what creates the slippery slope--it will be very difficult to maintain any ban on polygamy/polyamory if a pro-gay ruling based on equal protection survives the ensuing court challenges.


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