What is Marriage? David Blankenhorn speak for himself,
here. "It is almost certainly true that, since the SSM debate has taken center stage (or at least since I made up my mind about it and began speaking out publicly on the issue), I have stressed with as much emphasis and urgency as I can muster the particular point that marriage is intrinsically linked to bearing and raising children. Why this special emphasis on this one point? Why the urgency? Why now?
The answer is that, until about five minutes ago, no one was denying the proposition! There was no need to build an entire public argument around the idea, or offer all sorts of defenses of the idea, because the idea itself was not in public dispute.
. . .Whereas today, in the SSM debate, people like Andrew Sullivan and Evan Wolfson every day, with all of the passion and urgency they can muster, insist that marriage is the public recognition of private adult feelings, and that children don't necessarily have anything to do with it one way or the other. That's why people like the law professor William Eskridge, a key supporter of SSM, can write: 'In today's society the importance of marriage is relational and not procreational.'"
posted by maggie at
5:25 PM | Link |
I have stressed with as much emphasis and urgency as I can muster the particular point that marriage is intrinsically linked to bearing and raising children. Why this special emphasis on this one point? Why the urgency? Why now?
Because now you have to explain how, if marriage is about bearing and raising children, you justify depriving couples with children of marriage on the grounds that they're same-sex couples and so they shouldn't be married, even if they are bearing and raising children.
Also, even if in your view marriage is only for couples who both bear and raise children, why some couples who are only raising children, not bearing them, should be allowed to marry, while other couples in the same situation are not allowed to marry.
More and more it looks as if David is trying to pin-point his definition of marriage, not to make it more "pro-child", but to ensure he can exclude all same-sex couples from it, even if it means excluding by definition some mixed-sex couples too.
but to ensure he can exclude all same-sex couples from it
Same-sex couples are excluded from the definition of marriage. "Marriage" has never, ever, in history meant same-sex couples. That's simply not what it means.
Criticizing somebody's choice of words in 2000 or 2005 is just so much yadda yadda.
Now, there is *sort* of a point here - submitting to the pro-SS'M demands for rigorous technical definitions is a trap. "Marriage" already had a definition, which included the fact that it consists of a man and woman.
Holmegm: "Marriage" has never, ever, in history meant same-sex couples.
Which is only true when you redefine marriage to exclude all examples, through history and over the world, of same-sex couples marrying.
These days, you have to do that by wiping the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and Canada off the map of the world.
That's simply not what it means.
Except, you know, that it does mean that: same-sex couples can and do get married.
"Marriage" already had a definition, which included the fact that it consists of a man and woman.
Except where it didn't.
Which is only true when you redefine marriage to exclude all examples, through history and over the world, of same-sex couples marrying.
Which, prior to the current insanity, is ... ?
Holmegm: Which, prior to the current insanity, is ... ?
Excuse me, did you just claim that the legislature of Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and the State of Massachusetts, are insane?
Never mind. Holmegm, if you're at all interested in historical instances of same-sex marriage, aside from the American example (which I'm sure you're well aware of), it's tolerably easy to research on the Internet.
I confess, since you appear to deal with the modern definition of marriage as including same-sex couples by declaring all countries for which this is unquestionably true insane, I am not inclined to do the work for you.
OK, unwise? Foolhardy? Grant me some rhetorical excess, here.
I hope that all the people using phrases like "intrinsically linked" and "about" will soon see that there is a very definite legal term that they could be using instead of those murky vague one. Marriage grants the right to conceive children. It doesn't matter if people do it without marriage, we have to affirm that marriage grants the right to conceive children. Maybe David Blankenhorn has also noticed the very recent phenomenon that SSM supporters are now emphatically saying that marriage does not grant a right to conceive children? We have to respond to that and insist that of course it still does. Make them find one married couple in the history of the world that did not have a right to conceive children together, just one couple that, even though they woudl continue to be prohibited from conceiving, were allowed to marry.
(PS - Neither Massachusetts voters nor the legislature ever voted for SSM, the legislature only voted not to send a proposed ammendment to the voters)
Hmm, the about.com link for "berdache" says something about marriage, but wikipedia doesn't ... sounds like there may be some dispute about whether marriage was involved. Got anything definitive?
See my comment about not being inclined to do the work for you?
Wikipedia has a problem in that all its entries can be edited by anyone. I've seen some entries on politically-controversial topics go back and forth a dozen times until the format finally settles on something that everyone can at least tolerate. I am unsurprised that the word marriage has been edited out of the wiki entry.
Info at the link on Berdache is rather ambiguous and describes the supposedly transgendered person as being treated as a third sex or as the opposite sex (a man treated as a woman, a woman treated as a man) and not always being bonded with the same sex.
It was not a Native American version of SSM.
Native-American transgenders, called berdaches, were mostly men who assumed female characteristics, though some were similarly situated women. . . . Other features for men were engaging in female occupations and emulating female speech patterns and mannerisms . . . Though berdaches acted as the opposite gender, they were viewed by their people as a third or alternative gender, neither male nor female. Similarly, berdaches felt their essence was unique, something distinct from both genders . . . Berdaches could be homosexual, heterosexual, and asexual, but no reports show them having sex with each other. Many accounts show berdaches as exclusively heterosexual, with male berdaches marrying women and female berdaches marrying men. . . . berdache status was primarily one of roles, and not one of sexual preference. . . . who are neither male or female. Some are married, but most are not permitted to do so . . ."
Defining something as so and then refering back to that definition to prove that it's so is just a bad case of circular reasoning.
The definition of marriage as changed quite a bit in the last century. Women were one considered their husband's positions in the "Treat 'em like chattel and breed 'em like cattle" mentality. Now the definition has changed to treat men and women nearly as equals.
Loving expanded the definition of marriage to include persons of two different races.
The history of our country is one which exemplifies the expansion of human rights. Adding SSM to the defintion of marriage is more progress is this direction.
The two sides of Loving agreed that marriage combined the sexes.
That was the point of the misuse of marriage by the white segregationists: to prevent "pure whites" from mixing their ancestory with non-whites.
That much is very obvious and means the case was about the right of a man and a woman to marry (and thus make babies together) free from government interference in what flows from marital status, such as legitimizing their offspring. There is no such interference with two men or two women who want to segregate themselves from the other sex outside of marriage. The Lovings could not even live together, or engage in casual sex together, under the white supremicist system.
SSM is not about equality of the sexes. It is not a redefinition of marriage. It is throwing marriage to the side and putting some new thing in the place marriage has occupied.
Children being raised by their biological parents and these parents have legal rights and protections. Children being raised by a single parent and these parents have legal rights and protections. Children being raised by a single parent and these parents have legal rights and protections. Children being raised by a parent and step-parent have legal rights and protections. How can anyone suggest that children being raised by SS couples and their parents should not have the same rights and protections as all of the rest?
I mentioned the Loving case to point out that there is no "fixed" definition of marriage, that the definition can change over time to become more inclusive.
Society, through its laws, promotes marriage because of the benefits it provides to the couples involved, their children and to society as a whole. Society would benefit by promoting gay marriage for all the same reasons that it benefits by promoting OS marriage.
Loving does not show that the definition of marriage changed. The segregationist system imposed on marriage was the flaw, not marriage.
How can anyone suggest that children being raised by SS couples and their parents should not have the same rights and protections as all of the rest?
No one says that. SSMers say it as a strawman. Name the direct legal benefit to the child-parent relationship that would justify SSM.
Society would benefit by promoting gay marriage for all the same reasons that it benefits by promoting OS marriage.
That has zilch to do with Loving.
And how precisely would society benefit from SSM rather than Reciprocal Beneficiaries?
RB is a trust relationship based on affidivat, a declaration that is clearly an alternative to the conjugal relationship recognized by marital status. Like SSMers claim, two people can consent to a mutual dependancy via an agreement that is supported by the government. It would be unavailable to marriageable combinations. It would not be a reinvention of marriage, but it would recognize far more families than SSM ever could, because it would not presume sex relations.
Chairm: Name the direct legal benefit to the child-parent relationship that would justify SSM.
Are you arguing, then, that marriage doesn't benefit children at all? Odd, this does seem to be a consistent claim with anti-SSMers: that as marriage isn't beneficial to children, it's not discriminatory to children that same-sex couples who are parents can't get married.
I disagree: I think that it is directly beneficial to children if their parents are married. I think that marriage provides a legal and emotional stability. One reason why I summarize those opposed to same-sex marriage as "the anti-marriage crowd" is because in order to define marriage as something from which same-sex couples can and must be excluded, they are required to strip away all the obvious benefits of marriage, to the couple and to the children of the marriage, and leave... what?
Maggie's central idea is that marriage is about procreation - not about raising children, not about mutual support and stability - just so a couple are married on conception/birth of their children. She's argued that it's not important for couples who adopt children to be married, not important for step-parents and parents to be married, not important for couples who have children by AID to be married, not important for childless couples to be married: her idea of marriage is procreational, exclusively and only.
It's a cold, unattractive view of marriage, and it depresses me enormously.
Society provides a background of support for those who marry and encourages them to stay together. These stable long term relationships are a most important factor in successfully raising children. We have a book describing how the disruption of divorce has a negative effect on children.
Saying that marriage is procreation while discounting the 18+ years of stability that marriage provides while raising a child ignores the fact that raising children is more important than how these children came into existance in the first place.
What's oddest is that simultaneously with Maggie claiming that marriage makes no difference to children, she also claims that divorce does terrible harm. I wonder how she manages to hold the two ideas in her head simultaneously - that children don't need their parents to be married, but that when their parents get divorced, it's harmful to them? One of the many things I suppose she'll never explain.
Are you arguing, then, that marriage doesn't benefit children at all?
Nope, didn't say "not at all" but asked what the direct benefits are to the child-parent relationship that is not provided by the more direct option of second-parent adoption. Your answer is ... ?
I raised the question at Opine [see Children and the legal incidents of marraige]in response to the marriage blogothon at Volokh Conspiracy.
There was too much background noise at VC and no answer was provided there, as far as I could see. Nor by Carpenter this past week. None was provided in the comment section at Opine.
But you are more than welcome to address it in full under my post -- or we can address it here since it began with 3 points made by Maggie to which SSMers found objection yet did not much articulate the problem.
Chairm: Nope, didn't say "not at all" but asked what the direct benefits are to the child-parent relationship that is not provided by the more direct option of second-parent adoption. Your answer is ... ?
Read Maggie Gallager's book. ;-)
One reason why I keep nagging Maggie about her claims that children don't benefit from marriage is that she has written a book explaining how children do benefit from marriage... but she evidently just doesn't want to think, or doesn't want to discuss in public, why the children of same-sex couples deserve to be excluded from the benefits of marriage.
So, do you feel that it would serve all children just as well if the partner of their birth mother - male or female - had to apply for second-parent adoption? If not, what would you see as the problems with it?
You see, I am just arguing that children of same-sex couples ought to be treated equally with the children of mixed-sex couples. I don't see that I ought to provide any reason for doing so other than the simple fact that it's wrong to discriminate against children because of what their parents are.
It's the people on the other side of the fence, who are arguing that it's perfectly right and just to discriminate against children because of their parents, who I feel need to show active evidence that they are justified in doing so: not merely that they are doing no harm to those children, but that they are promoting some active good.
This, opponents of same-sex marriage have singularly failed to do. For the most part, like Maggie, they close their eyes to these children: where their eyes are open, they claim that marriage makes no difference.
In a more recent thread, Eve shows an example of how a child of a same-sex couple can be discriminated against because her parents were not married: not least, that someone like Eve will try to claim that her other mother is just the equivalent of a nanny or a lodger.
The kids do not get rights from marriage. They are not discriminated against. Frame the issue correctly and you would see this clearly.
the people on the other side of the fence
Respond to the question: What moves the state's hand in elevating the unisexed relationship with preferential status?
Resorting to "me-too-claims" is like piggybacking on the conjugal relationship rather than standing SSM on its own two feet and arguing its merits.
Follow the links in my previous message and you'll find the SSMers have yet to respond directly to that challenge, which is THE challenge of all SSMers.
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