ON REPRESSIVE SENTIMENTALISM: Mark Greif

in N+1:

Gays are our utopian heroes. Many things changed in the twentieth century. No change was more momentous and utopian than that men could choose men for love objects, and women choose women, to remake the sexual household. If the household organization of three thousand years of recorded history could be altered simply in the interest of what people wanted, in the interest of desire, then anything could be changed.

Traditional society choked this down—some more progressive parts of it did, anyway—by attributing same-sex love to brain chemistry, or a gay gene, and an eternal sexual identity that must be rigid and ineluctable. It hypothesized three millennia of men and women who must have been closeted, before they had such wonderfully enlightened friends and neighbors as we are. Only in this restricted way could society understand homosexuality without gayness threatening to reveal more new choices.

The utopians among us held our peace. It seemed impossible to stay in view of the rest of traditional society, the reactionary and hostile parts, and make our argument to fellow progressives that gay reorganization might be better than the old heterosexuality, and not just a neutral object for tolerance—that liberation from the heterosexual family was something we all could wish for, and that it needn't stop where it has. Then, because such a large part of the gay community publicly seemed to prefer the necessitarian, "eternal" framework, finding it the best way to make sense of individuals' own experiences, and to justify them to family and friends, we utopian straights—bystanders, well-wishers, but dilettantes—had another good reason to keep quiet. ...

Social utopianism has long focused on the reorganization of households, but has rarely accomplished much. Straight utopians argued for free love, free divorce, unorthodox childrearing and communal parenthood, and got divorce, followed by more imprisoning marriages, followed by more divorce. Because the home has seemed to be at the origin of economics (the word comes from the Greek oikos, household, and household management, oikonomia), a revision of the home, say one based on non-reproductivity and made by equals of the same sex, could ground a wider egalitarianism. Because the family, as the crucible of personality for children, seems to be the origin of violence, hierarchy, and tyranny—in the old descending triad of dominance: man-woman-child—a revision of the family, such that children could look forward to forming their own future households on different models, could gain new principles of power for society.

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Labels: abortion, beyond marriage, culture, fam, feminism, gay marriage, gay/straight differences

posted by Eve at 10:35 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

MARRIAGE FOR SAME-SEX COUPLES: A CONVERSATION

In the Columbia Law School Magazine:

2009 has been a landmark year for marriage equality advocates. In April, Iowa legalized marriage for same-sex couples. Vermont and New Hampshire soon followed suit, as did Maine—if only to have residents vote to repeal the right in November. The news did not stop there. In the same month, a narrow majority in Washington chose to grant same-sex couples the state-sanctioned benefits of marriage, but not the title. ¶ These developments, along with a host of individual triumphs and setbacks, sparked intense debates that echoed through the halls of Columbia Law School. Discussions were particularly pointed within the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, which offers the only curriculum of its kind at any law school in the country. ¶ Taking note of the variety of well-reasoned arguments, Columbia Law School Magazine approached four professors of varying backgrounds with an idea: They would document their thoughts on marriage for same-sex couples in a series of back-and-forth emails—no moderator, no referee. The scholars could drive the free-flowing conversation in any direction and expand on any thoughts that they found particularly compelling. ¶ In addition to Professors Suzanne B. Goldberg and Katherine M. Franke, the directors of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, the Magazine invited constitutional law and public opinion expert Nathaniel Persily to join the conversation, as well as Professor Elizabeth F. Emens, a noted scholar on discrimination and marriage. Each approached the issue with a unique perspective shaped by their legal expertise and differing experiences. Together, they discussed the future of marriage for same-sex couples in America. An edited version of the conversation follows.

Katherine Franke: Some have argued that marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples is the preeminent civil rights issue of this era. A long shot even five years ago (and a productive wedge issue for the Republicans in the 2004 presidential election), we’ve seen the tide turn in the last couple years such that the injustice of the issue has become more apparent to a larger section of the American people. To be honest, I didn’t see it coming quite so quickly. Did any of you?

Nathaniel Persily: The rapid and radical shifts in attitudes toward same-sex marriage since 2003 may possibly be unprecedented among so-called “moral values” issues that deal with family, sexuality, or intimacy. Let me begin by discussing the state of American public opinion on same-sex marriage. If present trends continue—and that is not a big “if”—a majority of Americans within five years will support the right of gays and lesbians to marry. ...

Suzanne Goldberg: But I would have to disagree, somewhat, with Katherine’s characterization of marriage as the issue for up-and-coming activists, and Nate’s data likewise confirms that marriage, though important, is not the sole, or even the top, priority for many LGBT people today. It is no doubt true that many are embracing marriage as one of the important civil rights issues of the moment—perhaps with good reason, in that it is one of the few areas in which inequality is written formally into law. But at the same time, we have seen tremendous attention to the pervasive violence that continues against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and especially transgender individuals, as well as significant activism for antidiscrimination laws and against another major area of formal inequality—the military.

Nathaniel Persily: It should also be noted that gays, while much more supportive of marriage equality than heterosexuals, have not been uniform in their support.

As of 2004, for example, when faced with three options—marriage, civil unions, and no legal recognition—half of those who called themselves gay, lesbian, or bisexual said “they should be allowed to legally marry,” 31 percent said “they should be allowed to form civil unions but not marry,” and 17 percent said “there should be no legal recognition of their relationships.” I suspect the preference for marriage has grown by between 10 and 20 percentage points since then (as it has with the population in general), but the 2004 poll gives a sense of the diversity of views within the gay community, as well. ...

Katherine Franke: But liberty and equality aren’t the only rights being argued in the marriage cases. In many of them, the primary argument being made is that exclusion from marriage creates a dignity harm by refusing to acknowledge that same-sex unions are entitled to the same dignity and respect as different-sex unions. Yet to do so is to take for granted that marriage is something sacred, something to be honored, and something that dignifies those who earn its blessings. But doesn’t it, at the same time, risk implying that there is something undignified about a sexual relationship outside of marriage?

Suzanne Goldberg: To me, the dignity claim is rhetorically powerful because of its connection to equality: When we, as a society, deny some people equal access to state-sponsored institutions, whether marriage or anything else, we, in effect, treat the denied group as less worthy than the others. At the same time, Katherine’s question illustrates the tremendous power that government regulation has to sanction, or not, individual choices about intimate relationships.

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Labels: beyond marriage, culture, discrimination law, gay marriage, Marriage, polygamy

posted by Eve at 10:27 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

GOVERNMENT AND MARRIAGE: TIME FOR A SEPARATION: David Casavant and J. Douglas Wellington

in the Bangor Daily News:

It is evident that neither side of the fight over same-sex marriage is prepared to yield. This is unfortunate. Far too many individuals who strive for recognition of their committed relationship are being accused of undermining society; far too many individuals who genuinely care about marriage are being accused of bigotry. ...

At one time, determining the role of government in marriage might have been easy. In years gone by and based on the mores of the time, people could envision government fostering long-term, heterosexual marriages for the purposes of promoting a stable environment for offspring. The Maine statute on marriage states that Maine “has a compelling interest to nurture and promote the unique institution of traditional monogamous marriage in the support of harmonious families and the physical and mental health of children.”

However noble and worthy the sentiment, numerous heterosexual marriages end in divorce. Quite appropriately, there are no punitive measures for unwed mothers. Even government social assistance is not geared toward ensuring the stated interest of promoting heterosexual marriage and may actually encourage single parentage. In many respects, heterosexual couples have done a great deal to weaken the justification for government’s role in marriage. And yet, the current debate is whether to extend that role to same-sex couples. Citizens are caught in battle over a governmental status designation that may no longer have a meaningful function.

Is there a way to resolve the dispute? While at first blush the solution may appear radical, the answer seems quite clear — marriage should no longer be a governmental function. All couples, heterosexual and homosexual, should register as under the current Maine statute for domestic partners. This would allow couples, whether heterosexual or of the same sex, to obtain the benefits of health insurance, inheritance, hospital visitation, etc.

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Labels: beyond marriage, culture, gay marriage

posted by Eve at 12:21 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

PERRY V. SCHWARZENEGGER--WEEK ONE--THE "BEYOND MARRIAGE" PERSPECTIVE: Nancy Polikoff

blogs (I stripped the URLs, sorry, don't have time to put them all in):

...Anyway, I was surprised to see the issue come up immediately in this trial. Judge Walker interrupted Olson's opening statement to ask (among other things) if California could get out of the marriage business altogether and just provide domestic partnership for all couples. He pressed the point through additional questions, even though Olson said the state would never "get out of the marriage business."

Subsequently, according to Prop8trialtracker.com, (scroll down to 3:20 pm update), the judge asked one of the plaintiffs, Sandy Stier,

"If the state were to get out of the business of using the term marriage, but created another name for it for all people, domestic union or whatever, would not that put you on the same plane as all others?

Sandy: I believe so. Yes. If we had the same access, I’d feel equal.

Judge: Even though the term marriage is not used?

Sandy: Yes, because if it’s not a legal status sanctioned by the state or government, I'd not have to worry about access to it because no one else would either."

Note that this is not the common answer from proponents of marriage equality. Yet it is precisely the glorification of marriage that I find so disturbing about same-sex marriage advocacy. On the same day of testimony, Sandy's partner, Kris Perry, (scroll to 2:46 pm)testified that:

"I don’t have access to the word to describe our relationship. Marriage appears to be really important to people. I’d like to use the word, too. You chose that person over everyone else. You feel that it should stick. You want the public support and inclusion that comes with marriage. If we got married, it would be an enormous relief to our straight friends who feel sorry for us. I can’t stand it. They have a word. They belong to this institution. Sandy and I went to a school football game. I realized they were all married and we’re not."

And in what I find the most disturbing portrayal of marriage, plaintiff Jeff Zarrillo said (scroll to 11;34 am):

"We have not had children because Paul and I believe that it’s an important step for us to be married before we have children. It would make it easier for us and our children to explain our relationship. It would afford different protections for our child. If we enter into that institution, we would want all of the protections so nothing could eradicate that nuclear family."

Of course this is completely in keeping with the argument that children do best with married parents, but that's an argument with its origin in opposition to same-sex marriage (Just look at the Hawaii litigation, for example.) Back when marriage equality was not a prominent item on the gay rights agenda, LGBT rights advocates opposed that reasoning, arguing that children do just as well with a gay or lesbian parent or with a same-sex couple. Now in furtherance of marriage equality, advocates assert that children with same-sex parents will be better off if those parents are married. Let me tear my hair out now. The tangible benefits of having two parents are not supposed to turn on whether those parents are married. I've written about this at length.

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Labels: beyond marriage, gay marriage, Marriage, Nancy Polikoff

posted by Eve at 8:43 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Separation of Marriage and State Watch

Cass Sunstein, Obama's regulation czar, urges the abolition of marriage. (link)

Labels: beyond marriage, civil unions

posted by Imapp Staff at 3:55 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

BENEFITS FOR GAYS? US, TOO, SAY THE UNWED: The Los Angeles Times

reports:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton won praise in June after pushing to extend many federal benefits traditionally provided to diplomats' spouses to gay and lesbian partners.

Since then, unmarried heterosexual couples have been lining up to ask for benefits too. They have approached the State Department's personnel office and the diplomats' union, arguing that they are entitled to equal treatment. At least one couple has threatened to challenge the rules in court as discriminatory.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which is responsible for policy on federal workers, is weighing such an extension of benefits, U.S. officials say -- to the consternation of conservatives. ...

Michelle Schohn, spokeswoman for the advocacy group Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, said her group was cautioned during the closing days of the George W. Bush administration about the consequences of demanding family benefits for same-sex partners. ...

Schohn said her group supported extending benefits to unmarried heterosexual couples. "They're our natural allies," she said.

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Labels: beyond marriage, discrimination law, heterosexual couples

posted by Eve at 11:50 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

I DO... WANT BENEFITS TO: Alison Lebron

in the Boston Globe:
...A common, and persuasive, argument for gay marriage goes something like this: We need marriage because if a gay person loses a job, he may not be able to get on a partner’s health plan. Or, a lesbian whose partner dies cannot collect survivor’s benefits from Social Security.

Those are formidable disparities, and ones that also affect the roughly 40 percent of Americans over 25 who are unmarried. If a single person dies without a dependant child or parent, Social Security benefits go back into the pot, not to a loved one. If I lost my job, I’d be thrown into the COBRA labyrinth while a married co-worker could simply get on his or her spouse’s plan.

Last year, I wrote an essay in this magazine on the advantage married people have of receiving lower auto insurance premiums than single people, driving records aside. But health care and life benefits can add up to quite a bit more money over time. ...

Our country’s habit of passing out financial perks based on marital status is hardly a time-honored tradition. According to marriage historian Stephanie Coontz, it wasn’t until the early 20th century that US governments and corporations began using marital status as a way to decide who got which benefits. “The development of the welfare state here was more attached to marriage than to individual rights,” she says. ...

Some argue that the road to true fairness isn’t expanding marriage rights -- it’s getting the state out of the marriage business altogether, a possibility that arose when the Supreme Court of California heard arguments on Proposition 8. In this scenario, religious groups and families would solemnize marriages (as they do now) and states would instead issue “civil union” licenses, giving the same legal rights and responsibilities to all who register. A heterosexual couple would get one. So would a gay couple. So, potentially, would unmarried siblings who make a home together. Coontz says Canada has considered proposals allowing a pair of friends to obtain rights (and obligations) similar to marriage.

This sort of proposal would, unfortunately, perpetuate the idea that pairing up is the only acceptable way to live. At the same time, it’s a step toward acknowledging that for millions of Americans, close friends or siblings are the most significant “other” in their lives -- and they should not face financial penalty because of it.
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Labels: beyond marriage

posted by Eve at 9:36 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

IT'S NOT THE STATE'S ROLE TO DEFINE MARRIAGE: Christine Todd Whitman

blogs:

What does government have to do with marriage?

I was brought up to believe that we had a constitutional separation between church and state — intentionally designed by the founding fathers so they could not tell us what our churches, synagogues, and mosques could and could not do. If that is the case, why are legislators across the country, and most recently in New Jersey, agonizing over bills to define marriage?

Wouldn’t it be better if government’s only role were to recognize the legal relationship between two consenting adults — something that occurs when you get your marriage license? Let’s call that license something other than a “marriage” license and leave the government’s role there.

If a couple wants to declare their lifelong commitment in a religious setting, and a church, mosque or synagogue will perform the service — whether heterosexual or same-sex — so be it.

Critics will claim I do not have an appropriate view of the institution of marriage. Quite the contrary — I see marriage as a sacred commitment that I have happily upheld in the 35 years I have been married to my husband. Similarly, as an elder in my church, I have a deeply held view of houses of worship: I believe this country was founded with the intention of providing, and should continue to protect, our freedom to practice the religion of our choice without the intrusion of the state.

Nowhere is this liberty more important than in the fundamental structure of life and family — the lifelong commitments that undergird our society.

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Labels: beyond marriage, culture, New Jersey

posted by Eve at 5:37 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

RETHINKING MARRIAGE: THE WORLD HAS CHANGED. IT'S TIME!: Melissa Harris-Lacewell

at Alternet:

...Marriage as the intersection between the personal and political is not new in the United States. In an upcoming book, ‘Til Death or Distance Do Us Part: Love and Marriage in African America, Frances Smith Foster challenges the received wisdom that black families were destroyed during American slavery. She marshals convincing, historical evidence refuting the assumption that enslaved people accepted that their marriages were not "real" because they were not recognized by the state.

Her study of slave marriage does not reveal fragile, transient attachments; rather Foster uncovers a rich legacy of love, struggle, and commitment among enslaved black people. By choosing whom to love, how to love, what to sacrifice, and how long to stay committed, black Americans carved out space for their human selves even as enslavers tried to reduce them to chattel.

In spite of the fact that their marriages were not legally sanctioned, many enslaved people formed lifelong attachments, sacrificed personal security and freedom to maintain their relationships, protected their fidelity despite unthinkable obstacles, and remained deeply attached to their identities as married persons.

Some black men and women chose to remain in slavery or to submit to more brutal enslavers in order to stay married to their chosen partners. Foster's stories of these marriages challenge any idea that marriage is just about health insurance and burial rights. Clearly marriage is rooted in something far more personal and spiritual. To sustain marriage some were willingly to endure slavery. ...

Together Foster's text and Bardwell's policy are reminders that marriage is a complex interplay between private choice and public practice. Marriage is never exclusively about loving attachment and commitment among consenting adults. It is also about state recognition of and ability to confer a specific bundle of privileges on particular individuals and relationships. But these privileges and state recognition are not enough to explain why people desire and chose marriage. The power to love, commit, and consent is more deeply human than that.

Enslaved people desired marriage, performed marriage ceremonies, and understood themselves as married, but without the protection of the state their marriages could be disrupted without their consent. They fought back, resisted, and sacrificed in order to stay married, but without the state they were vulnerable both as persons and as spouses.

To be gay in America today is not the same as being a slave in the 19th century. Despite the civil inequality faced by LGBT communities, little in human history compares to the realities of intergenerational, chattel slavery. But there are important connections between the realities of marriage for the enslaved and for contemporary gay men and lesbians. ...

But, there is more than one lesson to be learned from the parallels between racial and same-sex marital exclusion. Today, black Americans can securely marry one another. And despite the bigotry of officials like Bardwell, they can legally marry opposite-sex partners of a different race. But despite this formal, legal equality, marriage has never been more rare or more insecure among African Americans.

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Labels: beyond marriage, gay marriage, Marriage, race

posted by Eve at 3:08 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

TRANSFORMING MARRIAGE: Erwin de Leon

blogs:

...The fact of the matter is, whether opponents of equality and some of us don’t like it, lesbians and gays are getting married and the time will come when all Americans can marry if they so choose. But how the act and institution will change us is an interesting question.

In her recently published book, "When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage," economist and LGBT researcher M.V. Lee Badgett asks, “Will marriage change gay people?”

She writes that “Some hope so, arguing that gay men will be more monogamous and gay relationships more stable if same-sex couples can marry, and gays and lesbians will be better assimilated into the larger culture. Opponents of marriage equality believe that gay and lesbian people will not be able to gain from marriage, though. Others in the gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities fear that distinctive features of gay life will be transformed in negative ways.”

At a book reading last week, she added that there are those who fear that the relationships of lesbians and gays who opt to stay in domestic partnerships or in alternative arrangements (such as polyamory) will be deemed inferior to those of married couples.

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Labels: beyond marriage, gay marriage, M.V. Lee Badgett, Marriage

posted by Eve at 2:29 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

EEOC NOMINEE SIGNED RADICAL MARRIAGE MANIFESTO THAT PRAISED POLYGAMY: Catholic News Agency

reports:

A law professor nominated by President Obama to become a commissioner for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was a signatory to a radical 2006 manifesto which endorsed polygamous households and argued traditional marriage should not be privileged “above all others.”

Georgetown University Law Center professor Chai R. Feldblum, nominated as a commissioner for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), is listed as a signatory to the July 26, 2006 manifesto “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision for All Our Families & Relationships.”

The manifesto’s signatories said they proposed a “new vision” for governmental and private recognition of “diverse kinds” of partnerships, households and families. They said they hoped to “move beyond the narrow confines of marriage politics” in the U.S.

Describing various kinds of households as no less socially, economically, and spiritually worthy than other relationships, the Beyond Marriage manifesto listed “committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal partner.”

Same-sex marriage, the manifesto said, should be “just one option on a menu of choices that people have about the way they construct their lives.”

“Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others,” the manifesto continued. “While we honor those for whom marriage is the most meaningful personal ­– for some, also a deeply spiritual – choice, we believe that many other kinds of kinship relationship, households, and families must also be accorded recognition.”

The manifesto listed as one of its principles “freedom from a narrow definition of our sexual lives and gender choices, identities, and expression.”

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Labels: beyond marriage, culture

posted by Eve at 12:01 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE DELAWARE DE FACTO PARENT LAW--A CHILD CAN HAVE THREE PARENTS: Nancy Polikoff

blogs [and answers the question I was wondering about when I read her initial post--Eve]:

I failed to note in my last post an unusual and important aspect of Delaware's new statute creating parentage in a person who qualifies as a "de facto" parent:
This is a statute that explicitly authorizes three parents (or more) for a child.

The statutory interpretation is easy. A "de facto" parent must satisfy the criteria (check my last post for these). The first criterion is "has had the support and consent of the child's parent or parents..." So a child can already have two parents. Both those parents must consent to and foster a parental relationship between the child and another person. That person then satisfies the remaining statutory criteria, and, voila, the child has three legal parents.

The entire subject of more-than-two parents is severely untheorized, and the law in this area is profoundly underdeveloped. When you consider the number of children whose parents divorce and then couple with other partners, there are many, many children with more than two parental figures. The standard course, however, is that for a step-parent to become a legal parent that person must adopt the child and for that to happen the noncustodial parent must consent to termination of his/her parental rights.

There are a handful of court decisions allocating the rights and responsibilities of parentage among more than two parents, including a few states in which trial courts have granted third parent adoption decrees to the partner of the biological mother when the semen donor is also a functional (and legal) parent. But those are the exception.

When I was in Australia earlier this year, I spent some time with a family of four parents...the bio mom, her partner, the semen donor/bio dad, and his partner. The women are the primary parents. The men are secondary parents. The child is seven years old, and the relationships have been stable throughout his life. Australia's parentage reforms of the past year do not allow for even three parents, let alone four. ...

Of course the Delaware statute isn't just for same-sex couples and our families. And since there are way more heterosexual families, I wouldn't be surprised if the first three-legal-parents family in Delaware is a divorced couple and a step-parent -- all by consent. After the stepparent has a bonded parental relationship with the child for a sufficient period of time, and with the agreement of both the child's legal parents, a court should issue a parentage order to the step-parent. It does happen that post-divorce family configurations actually work well enough for such an arrangement to be appropriate --- to be the matching of legal parentage to all the child's emotional parental relationships.

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Labels: beyond marriage, de facto parenting, Delaware, donor conception, Nancy Polikoff

posted by Eve at 1:20 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Worth the Effort?: The ABA Journal

reports:

When the American Law Institute published its long-awaited proposals for sweeping changes in divorce law in 2002, they were met with great fanfare. One academic predicted the proposals would be a “resounding success,” while the New York Times said they would likely have a “major impact” on the development of the law.

But a recent empirical study of the recommendations indicates that the group’s proposals—formally known as the Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution—have been a resounding flop.

To date, only West Virginia has enacted legislation referencing any part of the ALI’s proposals, according to the study, American Law Insti­tute’s Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution, Eight Years After Adoption: Guiding Principles or Obligatory Foot­note? The study was published in the ABA’s Family Law Quarterly, fall 2008 edition.

West Virginia adopted principles relating to child custody in 2003; oth­er provisions deal with alimony, the division of property and the rights of unmarried cohabitating couples, gay and straight.

The ALI proposals have fared only slightly better in the courts. Accord­ing to the study, only 100 cases have cited the ALI’s principles since work on the group’s proposals began in 1990; that’s fewer than half the number of cases citing other treatises on tort law and remedies that were pub­lished around the same time. And the courts in those cases rejected the ALI’s proposals more often than they accepted them, by a ratio of more than 1½-to-1.

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Labels: beyond marriage, cohabitation, divorce, family structure

posted by Imapp Staff at 4:36 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

WHY MARRIAGE?: Megan McArdle

blogs:

Why are we getting married? ask commenters. Why not simply live together, and avoid the tax hit?

Well, it's outre, I know, but I sort of believe in marriage. I believe in the act of committing for life to another person. I believe in the power and the joy of facing your life as a team. I think you can have a very happy, fulfilled life without being married, and before I met Peter, I was preparing to. But my life is even happier and more fulfilled with him. So naturally, I want to start building that life as Team McSudelman.

There's a reason for the social role of "spouse". And there's a reason for all of the legal and social systems that have grown up around that role: they reinforce and strengthen it. It would be much harder to do many of the things we want and intend to do, for and with each other, without that useless little piece of paper.

But more to the point, once we'd decided to do what spouses do, why wouldn't we, well, become official spouses? Just because I enjoy akward five-minute conversations about how my "partner" is a he, not a she, and you know, we really love each other, but we just don't believe we need society's ratification . . . I don't, I assure you. And I'm happy to have society's ratification. Celebrating our marriage will be one question upon which society and I agree 100%.

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Labels: beyond marriage, culture, Marriage

posted by Eve at 3:12 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

GAY OR NOT, MARRIAGE LIMITING: Mikaya Heart

in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

...Nowadays, I think everyone ought to be allowed to do her own thing. That includes getting married, whatever sexual orientation you are. Still, that word marriage doesn't sit easily with me. Yes, I want the legal benefits. It infuriates me that we must stoop to subterfuge so our foreign lovers can live in the United States. Beyond those kinds of legalities, I don't need my partner and me to be seen as a couple by the authorities.

The concept of marriage has too many assumptions attached. Married couples settle down together. They are responsible for each other. They owe each other. They are dependent on each other. They are meant to consult each other on long-term and day-to-day decisions. They are meant to be monogamous. They are meant to be willing to give up things they really want for the sake of the marriage. If they get divorced, which is usually horribly messy, they are considered to have failed, even when divorce is the most growth-enhancing option. There is a tendency to use being married as a safety net enabling one to get away with behavior that lacks integrity: We're married, so s/he's not going to leave me.

Of course, a committed relationship, whether considered to be a marriage or not, doesn't have to be that way. But I'm not on the front lines of the campaign for gay marriage. I'm going for a model that is conceptually broader. I want love and intimacy, and I want freedom, which means not being tied down. My personal experience illustrates that's quite possible. I'm not saying it's easy. It requires a unique level of honesty and responsibility, and it's made far more difficult by social disapproval. Those of us who are choosing these kinds of options are on the cutting edge of something absolutely new in Western culture. That certainly doesn't mean it can't work. It already is working on a small scale.

I hear people saying, but what about the children? In a village type of community, children have half a dozen people, or more, to parent them, and, in my opinion, that's much healthier than having only two.

In this day and age, plenty of other people feel the same way as I do, and are open to very different models of partnership. Next month, I'm participating (not for the first time) in a commitment ceremony involving three people. I'm looking forward to the day when we can do that kind of thing in public, and be honored for it.

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Labels: beyond marriage, polyamory

posted by Eve at 7:38 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

FROM UNIONS TO ARRANGEMENTS: James Poulos and Matthew Yglesias

debate marriage.

Labels: beyond marriage, culture, gay marriage, government interest in marriage, Marriage

posted by Eve at 2:19 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Doug Kmiec v. Robert George on Marriage and the State: Catholic.org

post:

A top constitutional law professor who served as a surrogate for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama told CNSNews.com that he would like to see “marriage” replaced in the legal sense with a neutral “civil license.”

“As awkward as it may be, I think the way to untie the state from this problem is to create a new terminology that they would apply to everyone--straight or gay--call it a ‘civil license,’ said Douglas Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University and author of “Can a Catholic Support Him?’

“The net effect of that, would be to turn over--quite appropriately, it seems to me, the concept of marriage to churches and a church understanding,” Kmiec said.

Kmiec said that one of the things that motivated the passage of California’s Proposition 8, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman, “was a genuine concern on the part of religious believers--including myself--that the previous California ruling was not addressing what that would mean for religious practice.”

“After the state of California acknowledged same-sex marriage, would that mean, for example, that churches like the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church, which don’t acknowledge those relationships as a marriage by virtue of their scriptural and theological teaching--would they be subject to penalty? Would they lose public benefits? Would they be subject to lawsuits based upon some theory of discrimination?” Kmiec said his idea would address those questions.

“One of the possible outcomes that would be good in this case, would be if the state got out of the marriage business, did their licensing under a different name--which, of course, would satisfy the state’s interests for purposes of distribution of taxation and
property, but then the question of who can and cannot be married would be entirely determined in your voluntarily chosen faith community.

“We know that religions differ as to how they see that question,” Kmiec said. “But it
seems to me that would be a nice way to reaffirm the significance of marriage as a religious concept--because that is a much fuller concept than just civil marriage.” ...

But Princeton University law professor Robert George, who is also a top constitutional scholar--and a Catholic academic--said that Kmiec’s idea would do away with the public role of marriage--and banish it to the religious “ghetto.”

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Labels: beyond marriage, civil unions, gay marriage, government interest in marriage, Marriage, religion, religious liberty

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:58 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

MARRIAGE WARS--THE REAL FIGHT IS OVER MORAL SUPERIORITY: Bella DePaulo

blogs:

...I'd never stand in the way of non-discrimination, so same-sex marriage has my vote. Still, I don't like this route to fairness. Any attempt to achieve social justice simply by expanding membership in the Married Couples Club is always going to come up short. As a single person, I don't have access to anyone's social security benefits, and I can't leave my own for anyone else - they just go back into the system. Were I to fall ill, no one can take leave under FMLA to care for me, nor can I tap its protections in order to care for a peer who is especially important in my life. Where's the justice in that?

Fortunately, there is growing momentum for more inclusive approaches that do not make the marital door the sole point of access for caring, sharing, and fairness. The "Beyond Sane-Sex Marriage" project, Canada's "Beyond Conjugality" project, and Nancy Polikoff's Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage book are just a few of those efforts. Now there's a storm I'd like to gather in my arms and run with!

I started writing this post because Jen, a Living Single reader, asked whether I thought that people on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate were making arguments that are matrimaniacal. Were they, she wondered, viewing marriage as an all-purpose magical solution to everyone's problems? And, she asked, isn't all this incessant promotion of marriage, in a way, a devaluing of marriage?

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Labels: beyond marriage, culture

posted by Eve at 12:23 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

WHY GAY COUPLES ARE LIKE STRAIGHT COUPLES: John Corvino

at 365Gay.com:

...Anderson and Girgis instead propose the following: “revisionists would agree to oppose the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), thus ensuring that federal law retains the traditional definition of marriage as the union of husband and wife …In return, traditionalists would agree to support federal civil unions offering most or all marital benefits.” But these unions “would be available to any two adults who commit to sharing domestic responsibilities, whether or not their relationship is sexual,” provided that they are “otherwise ineligible to marry each other.”

In other words, there would be federal civil unions for gays--but also for other domestic pairs: elderly widowed sisters, for example, or bachelor roommates.

At first glance, their claim that Rauch and Blankenhorn base their proposal on “the presumption that these relationships are or may be sexual” seems strange. After all, Rauch and Blankenhorn never mention sex, and the state neither knows nor cares (nor checks) whether people are having sex once they’re married or “civilly united.”

On the other hand, people generally assume (with good reason) that marriages and civil unions are sexual, or more broadly romantic. Romantic pair-bonding seems to be a fundamental human desire--for straights and gays--and part of what marriage does is to acknowledge pair-bonds. It does so not because the government is sentimental about such things, but because it recognizes the important role such bonds have in the lives of individuals and the community.

Anderson and Girgis are correct that there are other important bonds in society, and we may well want to extend more legal recognition to them. There is no reason that two cohabitating spinsters shouldn’t be granted mutual hospital visitation rights if they want them.

But the question remains whether we want to extend “most or all” federal marital benefits to any cohabitating couple otherwise ineligible to marry, as Anderson and Girgis propose.

And this question prompts additional ones: why limit such recognition to couples? Mutually interdependent relationships don’t only come in twos. Oddly, Anderson and Girgis seem to have more in common with radicals who seek to move “beyond marriage” than they do with anyone in the mainstream marriage debate.

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Labels: beyond marriage, civil unions, David Blankenhorn, gay/straight differences, Jonathan Rauch, Ryan T. Anderson, Sherif Girgis

posted by Eve at 12:26 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

FORGET MARRIAGE--CIVIL UNIONS FOR ALL: Terry J. Allen

in In These Times:

...Making your marriage sacred should be between you and your goddy thing.

Making your union legal, on the other hand, should be between you and state-guaranteed legal and human rights. And it should be available to any two people, gay or straight, in whatever configuration: Mother and son, grandparent and grandkid, mother and daughter, and best friends should all be able to form legal couples that enjoy the rights, privileges, financial benefits and responsibilities now assigned to marriage. (Calm down Rev. Rick: Only two people, no pets allowed.)

America’s current marriage system, even when it includes same-sex couples, inherently discriminates against millions of people who are not in a sexual relationship. (That many legal marriages are platonic only adds irony to injustice.) Ensuring equal rights for all requires relegating or elevating (however you look at it) marriage to the realm of religion. Kind of like christenings, bar mitzvahs and chicken sacrifice.

The state’s job, then, would be to assign benefits, if any, to couples, but not to define who can enter into coupledom. There is no rational, as opposed to religious, reason why any two people shouldn’t be able to form a civil union that carries the same rights as marriage: to pass on and inherit property, make decisions for the sick, visit inmates and get discounts on Carnival cruises.

Without the religious framework, joining civil, secular rights to heterosexual or even gay coupledom becomes bizarre. Think about it: To enjoy the tax and other benefits of marriage (or its gay stepchild, current civil unions), a couple is assumed to have consummated the deal with sex--with each other.

But why shouldn’t any practical or loving couple be able to form a unit and consummate it with anything they choose? A night at the opera, a day at the races, a signature on a will?

Irrational fear and religion (but I repeat myself) underlie the state’s stance that it can assign secular rights to a sacred institution designed for sexual partners—and can exclude platonic couples. But really, would the legal right to shared Social Security benefits so excite two heterosexual women that they would turn lesbian? Would allowing two brothers to share medical benefits inspire them to acts of incest?

Or would, God forbid, too many people get health benefits and share incomes and resources?

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Labels: beyond marriage, civil unions

posted by Eve at 12:09 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT