LOVE AND MARRIAGE: Maggie Gallagher replies to Matt DeMonte

In the classic (or what Don Browning now calls the "full-integration") western model of marriage (aka the Catholic model and derivations therefrom), marriage IS about love. The three goals/goods of marriage are sexual satisfaction (or relief from lust), caring love between the man and the woman, and children. Marriage is the word for the way we attempt to unite all these goods.

But what has this to do with the modern liberal secular state's interest in marriage? Why do we have laws about it? Why out of all the different kinds of loving, intimate relations people have or could imagine having, does the state try to benefit and burden with regulation this one kind of human relation? What's love got to do with it?

The state's interest in marriage primarily arises from the fact that sex between men and women makes babies. Irregularly, now, but still frequently, and without any particular intention on the part of the parties involved. (4 out of 10 woman ages 40 to 44 in this country have had an unintended birth).

Every society, including ours, needs a way to regulate those sexual relations that produce (or might produce, if unregulated) children. The alternative is widespread unmet dependency needs on the part of children and/or the absence of the next generation (aka depopulation).

That men and women fall in love and in lust is a fact of nature. Marriage is a creative cultural response to deal with this fact of nature.

The existence of a legal category called marriage regulates even the behavior of those who are not married, signalling to young people the condictions under which they should intensify or alternatively might cease those extremely onerous efforts (abstinence, devout contraception) needed to prevent the unmarried births, and indeed might even be welcomed for doing so.

posted by Eve at 7:01 PM | link 0 comments

LOVE AND MARRIAGE: Matt DeMonte replies to Michael Triplett

[Matt DeMonte is a chemical engineer from Michigan.]

Michael Triplett writes: "I've always been uncomfortable with this cultural sense that marriage is about children and obligation and commitment, not love. It feels very 'Vaticanic' (okay, I know that's not a word, but it fits). It's marriage as defined by hardline Catholicism where sex is dirty, children are expected, and love is optional. It feels oppressive and ancient and outmoded and patriarchial."

As a practicing orthodox Catholic, I would like to address these common misconceptions: First of all, the technical term is "Vaticanian." (kidding!) Yes, children are expected, but both children and sex are celebrated by the Church; it's just that the Church thinks the two shouldn't be separated. In fact, the Church teaches that each spouse's body, fertility and all, belongs to the other as a freely given gift; I find that pretty sexy. We were told by a priest at a marriage preparation class that the marriage act is virtuous and to enjoy it often. And love is most certainly not optional in a Christian marriage--it's a requirement, along with joy.

I think this is the root of this discussion: Christian love, or caritas, is not about husbands and wives just making each other happy--it's about helping each other to grow spiritually in mutual self-sacrifice, and usually focused on rearing children. This may involve a lot of work and isn't always fun. But Catholics believe that marriage and children together form a fundamental purpose of life (we have Darwin on our side, here) and are the most fulfilling things most people will ever accomplish. Marriage isn't just about love as my wife and I experienced it when we started dating, when we were mostly concerned with making each other happy.

To me, that's like dinner dates with only ice cream and soda pop and never getting to the filet mignon and merlot: Eventually you'll both get sick of it and split up to go try something different.

Love and marriage should go together, but the obligations of marriage are what make it special and worth preserving as a unique institution.

posted by Eve at 6:32 PM | link 0 comments

LOVE AND MARRIAGE: David Kuner replies to Michael Triplett

Michael Triplett said: "Now, maybe those are my issues, but I do think they inform the collective conscious as we view marriage. People talk about love because most hope to be able to be with the person they love for the rest of their lives."

I hate to beat this point to death, but how on earth have we gotten the idea the passion and obligation, or love and obligation, are mutually exclusive?

A sense of obligation will see you through times in your marriage when feelings of love fail you, and will in fact point you on to a love far more enduring that the fleeting sort of "drunken abandon" you're talking about. (Not that I am against drunken abandon per se. But from my experience, everyone who gets drunk has to -- or wants to -- sober up eventually). You can't force yourself to feel love, but you can see to it that you fulfill your obligations. And in the process, you might just find your way to greater happiness and real, abiding, mature married love.

And, as for "it's beautiful sex, not just sex for procreation," guess what: Having sex for the purposes of procreation is not joyless drudgery. Many a husband and wife would tell you that it can be the most passionate, exciting and memorable sex that there is.

posted by Eve at 6:27 PM | link 0 comments

VT. JUDGE CLAIMS CONTROL OF SAME-SEX CUSTODY FIGHT: From the Washington Post

[Update on a story we've featured here before. --Eve]

A Vermont court has asserted its jurisdiction over a same-sex couple's contentious custody battle, finding Lisa Miller-Jenkins of Winchester, Va., in contempt for failing to permit her former partner to visit 2-year-old Isabella.
Rutland Family Court Judge William D. Cohen imposed no punishment. He said his goal was to ensure compliance with his earlier order granting Janet Miller-Jenkins visitation until custody of the child is determined.

The dispute between the women, who exchanged vows in Vermont in 2000, has been described by gay-rights advocates and opponents as a test of that state's civil union law, which took effect in 2000 and offers same-sex couples the legal protections of marriage under state law.

The case has sparked a jurisdictional squabble between courts in two states with decidedly different laws concerning the legal rights of same-sex couples.

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posted by Eve at 5:38 PM | link 0 comments

MARRIAGE, EUROPE, STANLEY KURTZ, AND STUFF: Chairm Ohn replies to Lucia Liljegren

[Sooooo much more social-scienceness than I can handle on a Friday afternoon. But those following the Kurtz/MV Lee Badgett debates should click here, read Lucia's original post, then scroll, scroll, scroll like the wind! until you reach Chairm's comments.]

EDITED: More here.

posted by Eve at 5:33 PM | link 0 comments

"MAYDAY FOR MARRIAGE" RALLY: From the Baptist Press

Seattle pastor Ken Hutcherson has a vision: one million Christians marching on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in support of the traditional definition of marriage.

He hopes to see that accomplished Friday, Oct. 15, when a rally -- "Mayday for Marriage" -- will take place in the nation's capital. James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Chuck Colson and Richard Land are among the pro-family leaders scheduled to speak. ...

For more information about the rally visit www.maydayformarriage.com.

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posted by Eve at 5:30 PM | link 0 comments

MASS. CATHOLIC HOSPITAL WILL NO LONGER OFFER BENEFITS TO SAME-SEX COUPLES: From the Herald News

Gay and lesbian employees at St. Anne's Hospital who provide health care benefits for their spouses will no longer be able to provide those services to their loved ones. Beginning Oct. 1, St. Anne's is changing all of its health plans to self-funded plans. The move allows the hospital's managing group, Caritas Christi Health Care, to stop extending insurance benefits to same-sex spouses of employees.

Under a self-funded plan, the employer pays funds for the plan based on its actual claims experience and hires a plan administrator to process the claims. A letter to employees dated Sept. 3 explained the change. "Since same-sex marriage is in conflict with church teachings, all Caritas Christi Hospitals are changing to self-funded plans."

St. Anne's Hospital is part of Caritas Christi's Catholic Health Care System, which is associated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. The group operates six hospitals throughout eastern Massachusetts. ...

Michele Granda, staff attorney for the activist group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said that the Caritas group should still provide same-sex spouses of employees with benefits regardless of Catholic teachings.

"They can make the teachings known without penalizing employees' spouses," Granda said. "They get paid the same and they earn the same benefits through the week--it should be good for all spouses."

Granda said that this is the first instance she has heard of employers making changes to health plans to deny same-sex couples shared benefits.

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posted by Eve at 5:27 PM | link 0 comments

GERMANY WON'T RECOGNIZE FOREIGN SSM: From Expatica.com

A court in Germany Friday ruled that a gay marriage licence issued under foreign law does not constitute matrimony under German law.

The Karlsruhe Administrative Court rejected a complaint by a Taiwanese man who said his Dutch gay marriage to a Netherlands man entitled him to a residence permit to live in Germany under European Union immigration regulations.

Under those regulations, the foreign spouse of a citizen of an EU country is entitled to apply for a residency permit in an EU country.

However, in handing down its ruling, the court said that the EU regulations allowed each country to define what constituted a "spouse" in legal terms.

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posted by Eve at 5:20 PM | link 0 comments

RELIGION AND SSM: PEW POLL

Poll is here in PDF form. SSM stuff starts on p. 45. Pew's summary, also PDF, is here.

Associated Press summary here: Americans in most religious categories want laws to define marriage as between a man and a woman, with support among black Protestants virtually as high as among white evangelical Protestants, according to a survey issued Thursday.

The 4,000 respondents chose among three options: legal status only for heterosexual marriage (55 percent of the total sample in favor), legalized civil unions (18 percent) or legalized same-sex marriage (27 percent). ...

The only groups giving majority backing to same-sex marriage were Jews (55 percent), white Catholics identified as "modernist'' in belief (51 percent), followers of faiths other than Judaism or Christianity (50 percent) and the growing category of those with no religious affiliation (50 percent).

posted by Eve at 5:16 PM | link 0 comments

CATHOLIC BISHOPS BACK LA. SSM BAN: From the New Orleans Times-Picayune

Louisiana’s Catholic bishops Thursday urged voters among the state’s 1.5 million Catholics to approve a measure on the Sept. 18 ballot that would add a ban on same-sex marriage to the state Constitution, adding their voices to those of other religious leaders supporting the measure. ...

Seventy-five percent of evangelicals and 72 percent of black Protestants favor traditional marriage and oppose either same-sex marriage or legalized civil unions, according to a survey of the religious views of 4,000 people conducted during the spring by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The margin of error for the survey is 2 percent. But religious opinion is by no means monolithic. ...

The Pew Forum survey showed that support for gay marriage or civil unions is stronger among mainline Protestants such as Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Methodists. About 53 percent of those believers said they supported gay marriage or civil unions. ...

While renouncing "unjust discrimination or animosity" toward gay men and lesbians, the Catholic bishops said that "the traditional family has shown throughout history to be the best context for promoting stability and nurturing children."

"The gift, meaning and truth about marriage come from creation and are not ours to change," their statement said. ...

Researchers found that 52 percent of Catholics declared themselves in favor of gay marriage or civil unions.

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posted by Eve at 5:10 PM | link 0 comments

LOVE AND MARRIAGE: Lauren Winner

...It is, of course, a salutary thing to suggest, as Stark does, that our frantic jobs are less important than the fabric of our marriages. But is the "solution" to America's married sex "crisis" really simply to work harder at sex--an idiom that befits a society in thrall to advanced capitalism? Maybe roommate-like status is not what we ought to be aspiring to in marriage--but neither is the thrill and romance that one associates with one's fondly remembered dating days. (Why bother with marriage if the romance of dating is all you're after?) Surely what married people should aspire to is, well, living as husband and wife.
...Our task may not be to cultivate moments when eros can whisk us away from our ordinary routines, but rather to love each other as eros becomes imbedded in, and transformed by, the daily warp and woof of married life.

Lurking underneath the romanticized eros is a certain individualism, and, indeed, almost all of today's marriage guides frame marriage strictly as an individual project. The marriages that emerge from the pages of these books are marriages of two people who rarely engage their communities. Marriage is figured as something that is undertaken by, and that serves, only the husband and wife. None of the books' rules, guidelines, or suggestions urge couples to understand marriage in the context of the communities to which they are committed. ...

And, yet, marriage is meant to be communal as well as couple-centered both in its means and its meanings. At the most practical level, it is our friends, our brothers and sisters in the church, our aunts and uncles and colleagues, who can remind us why we got married in the first place. It is this community that, when we lay our marriages bare before them, are able to hold us accountable, and also celebrate with us. This is what the Book of Common Prayer's Order of Marriage is getting at when it prompts the celebrant to ask the congregation if "all of you witnessing these promises [will] do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?" The congregation's response is a hearty "We will." If we Christians want to get our divorce rates down below the national average, rendering our marriages visible to our communities--opening ourselves up to our friends' support, prayers, questions, and rebuke--would be a good place to start.

But recalling the communal dimension of marriage is not merely a strategy for sticking it out and navigating the rough patches. It is rather an assertion of God's purposes for marriage. Our surrounding society tells us that marriage is a private endeavor, that what happens between husband and wife behind closed doors is no one else's concern. But in the Christian grammar, marriage is not only for the married couple. Insofar as marriage tells the Christian community a particular story, marriage is for the community. It reminds us of the communion and community that is possible between and among people who have been made new creatures in Christ. And it hints at the eschatological union between Christ and the Church.

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posted by Eve at 8:16 PM | link 0 comments

LOVE AND MARRIAGE: Michael Triplett

I think the disconnect between the popular view of marriage and the alleged "cultural" view of marriage is the disconnect between love and obligation. If you stopped people on the street and asked them about marriage, most would talk about love and few would talk about the obligations that seem to form the cultural model.

I've always been uncomfortable with this cultural sense that marriage is about children and obligation and commitment, not love. It feels very "Vaticanic" (okay, I know that's not a word, but it fits). It's marriage as defined by hardline Catholicism where sex is dirty, children are expected, and love is optional. It feels oppressive and ancient and outmoded and patriarchial.

Love, on the other hand, is the opposite of the Vaticanic approach. It's marriage based on passion, not obligation. It's beautiful sex, not sex just for procreation. It's drunken abandon, not optional feelings.

Whenever I hear someone say "marriage is about having children and procreation" my mind flashes to a 1950s classroom with nuns wielding rulers telling straying students that sex is sinful and that women should enter marriages not because they love a man, but because they are expected to be mothers and dutiful wives, damn the consequences. It's stifling and shaming and humorless.

Now, maybe those are my issues, but I do think they inform the collective conscious as we view marriage. People talk about love because most hope to be able to be with the person they love for the rest of their lives. They have children because they want a product of that love and passion and commitment. Most people, I think, feel disconnected from this alleged cultural view of marriage as a procreative relationship where love is optional and maybe not even preferred.

posted by Eve at 8:14 PM | link 0 comments

LOVE AND MARRIAGE: Jason Kuznicki

In the fourteen months that I've been married, I have lost count of how many times someone has asked me to show them my wedding ring. But Scott and I have never exchanged rings, neither at our legal marriage nor during the five years that we considered ourselves married in spirit. ...

...I would never ask for Scott's love out of compulsion--and I would never love him if he demanded obedience from me. ...

But this isn't a post about gay marriage; it's a post about the marriage band, or the lack thereof. This weekend was my twenty-eighth birthday, and I am coming to realize that unbandedness has a number of other meanings, not all of which I can control.

As Wikipedia tactfully notes, "It is considered rude to make sexual overtures to a man or woman wearing a wedding ring."

What Wikipedia fails to mention is that for the ringless, there exists a remarkable double standard. It is considered polite and even flattering for a man to make sexual overtures toward an unbanded woman. But for a man of a certain age, being unbanded is a sign that something has gone terribly wrong. You're either unable, unwilling, jilted... or maybe you're gay. ...

Let's not forget, having a band presents difficulties of its own. Strangers would be even more likely to assume that I was straight, and I've never come across as especially gay in person. Worse, bandedness smacks of conformity at a time when marital innovation has probably never had so great an opportunity. Now is the time for experiment, for devising new cultural signifiers and doing away with the old.

And, in an era when gay marriage is frankly contested, wearing the band almost seems to presume too much. It's never going to convince the traditionalists, and it's not going to impress the radicals.

So I've come to like being unbanded. It throws my lot in with the misfits, with the misunderstood, with the loners. It shakes people up a bit. It makes them question what's really important about a marriage and what's a mere distraction. And that, to my mind, is single most important thing that gay marriage itself might stand to teach the general public.

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posted by Eve at 8:10 PM | link 0 comments

LOVE AND MARRIAGE: David M. Wagner

"Historically eros, for example, was considered more a threat and a rival to marriage than a justification for it or an intrinsic part of it. Has that changed?"

Yes, to some extent: beginning in the Renaissance, the West has tried to bring Eros and Marriage into closer alignment. ROMEO AND JULIET finds them in perfect alignment, though out of alignment with the state. Most of Moliere's plays are about the triumph of an Eros-supported engagement over an engagement with social (usually paternal) sanction only. Almost all of Jane Austen's novels are about efforts to use the virtue of prudence to bring about a closer alignment of Eros and Marriage. (Austen characters who spurn Eros utterly in pursuit of Marriage are sometimes called to account for it -- Charlotte in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE -- and the reader may decide whether they do so successfully.)

But alignment is one thing, identity is another. Eros is not marriage. At best (and we hope this is often) it provides the fuel for a marriage to achieve escape-velocity from the atmosphere of whims, lust, and roving eyes. But once up there, Marriage is in its own orbit, promoting vital social goods, and flourishing on many wholesome emotions besides Eros. That's what's missing from the gay marriage vision: the rhetoric of "commitment" is there, but it's left very vague. I find no gay equivalent of the traditional marital ideal of "growing old together."

Nothing really new here: C.S. Lewis wrote about this in the love-and-sex chapters of MERE CHRISTIANITY, and he made the vital distinction between Eros and Storge (love of the comforting and familiar) in THE FOUR LOVES.

posted by Eve at 8:01 PM | link 0 comments

LOVE AND MARRIAGE: Jim Woodhill

You will make yourself crazy (not to mention a great polemical target for Andrew Sullivan et. al.) if you try to define "marriage" in terms of any *essential* activity (/refraining from activity). There are valid marriages where the partners raise children and ones where they don't. There are valid marriages where the partners love and care for each other and others where they don't. There are valid marriages where the partners have sex only with each other, and valid marriages where they don't. Indeed, as Caitlin Flanagan wrote in her review of various books on marital celibacy, there are valid marriages where the partners have sex with no one at all. (At my suggestion, a recently-divorced lady colleague of mine polled her "happily married" 30-something friends and was shocked how many of these women told her that they had last had sex with their husbands years ago.)

In olden days, at least among royalty, it was very clear what "marriage" was--it was the only available way of uniting two separate families. Today, it is one of two available ways that people can formally become "family" to each other (the other is by adoption of one by the other). One of the problems we have in the fight against gay marriage is that the position that there should be *no* way in which gay people can formally become "family" to each other is very hard to defend. (Not to mention the need to make having sex and having babies out of wedlock (which gays may do today) a *conservative* cause.)

posted by Eve at 7:59 PM | link 0 comments

LOVE AND MARRIAGE: Lucia Liljegren replies to Daniel Moloney

...Considering the current lack of enthusiasm for arranged marriage in the western world, I would be surprised if large numbers of heterosexual American men or women would willingly allow their partners be chosen for them. Westerners rejected the idea that children should submit their parents choices for life partners, particularly when they cannot love the partner. Like Shakespeare, many of us consider the custom of marriage without pre-existing love shameful.

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posted by Eve at 7:55 PM | link 0 comments

SSM AND BULLYING: Matt Taylor

I agree with R.K. Becker that legalization of SSM would probably have little effect in reducing harassment and bullying of gays. As R.K. argues:

It is among the minority that tends to engage in intolerant acts toward people who are different that any reduction in anti-gay sentiment would have to come. And I am not at all persuaded that this group will become any less intolerant toward gays because SSM is legalized.

On the other hand, I believe the SSM debate itself is having a significant effect in reducing the kind of anti-gay behavior to which R.K. refers. In the context of the policy debate, opponents of SSM are only able to formulate a compelling position by rejecting overt hostility and/or violence toward gays. The result is that, across the political spectrum, public figures are reinforcing the idea that gay bashing is immoral. In decades past, our leaders' silence on this question may have allowed some to convince themselves that attacking gays is morally acceptable; this is no longer the case.

posted by Eve at 7:48 PM | link 0 comments

FROM HERE TO MATERNITY: Mary Garth replies to Phillip Longman

...Mainly, I want to focus on what is entirely missing from Longman's analysis: the fact that even if they have fallen, fertility rates are still higher among Hispanics, and that the U.S. does not now nor ever has relied solely on fertility for its population growth--Longman completely ignores immigration (not to mention internal migration between states).

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posted by Eve at 7:45 PM | link 0 comments

DOMAWATCH SITE: Joshua Baker

The Alliance Defense Fund has just launched a new website (DOMAwatch.org) which, according to the site, "is designed to inform legislators and attorneys about current laws and litigation involving Defense of Marriage Acts." DOMAwatch.org pulls together marriage-related news, legislation, and litigation updates, and looks to be one of the more comprehensive efforts in this regard.

posted by Eve at 7:42 PM | link 0 comments

OREGON POLLWATCHING: From The Oregonian

[Poll itself is here (PDF).]

A new poll of Oregon voters shows President Bush and Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry deadlocked in the state, while a ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage has strong support.

The poll, conducted Aug. 26 to Sept. 1 by Riley Research Associates of Portland, included 507 interviews with registered voters who said they were "very likely" to cast a ballot in the Nov. 2 election.

Pollster Michael Riley, who conducted the survey on his own and not for a client, said the "very likely" voter screen produced the best picture of people who would vote. It projected a Republican advantage in turnout, which meant the survey probably showed more support for Bush and the marriage measure than if the poll had included all registered voters. ...

On Measure 36, which would prohibit same-sex marriage, 61 percent said they supported the initiative, and 34 percent said they were opposed. The remaining 5 percent were undecided.

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posted by Eve at 7:36 PM | link 0 comments

ACLU TELLS OKLA. COURT MARRIAGE AMENDMENT WOULD BE "SOCIAL ENGINEERING": From 365Gay.com

A proposed amendment to the Oklahoma constitution to prevent gay marriage is an attempt at "far-reaching social engineering," an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union charged Wednesday.

Lawyer Mark Henricksen told a state Supreme Court referee the court should remove the referendum on same-sex marriage from the Nov. 2 ballot because the language is "vague, ambiguous and flawed" and would discriminate against gays and lesbians. In addition, it could also be used to ban civil unions and other kinds of domestic partnerships.

The Oklahoma House voted 92-to-4 in April to ask voters to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman. The referendum also seeks to prohibit the state from recognizing unions performed in other states. The ACLU challenged the initiative in a lawsuit it filed on Aug. 27 on behalf of 10 gay Oklahomans.

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posted by Eve at 7:31 PM | link 0 comments

OHIO AMENDMENT LACKS SIGNATURES: From 365Gay.com

A group trying to force a November vote on a proposed amendment to the Ohio constitution to ban same-sex marriage is running out of names.

The Ohio Campaign to Protect Marriage collected 391,000 signatures, more than enough to place the amendment on the ballot, but many of the names have been struck off by officials in 82 counties.

The initiative appears to be at least 16,000 signatures short of the 323,000 needed.

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posted by Eve at 7:28 PM | link 0 comments

CALIF. JUDGE RULES DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP LAW DOES NOT VIOLATE SSM BAN: From the San Francisco Chronicle

California's new domestic partners law, which will give registered partners most of the rights that the state can grant to married couples, survived its first court test Wednesday, when a judge found it does not violate a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage.

The law, regardless of the rights it confers, does not convert domestic partnership into marriage, said Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster. Marriage is not just a "bundle of rights and responsibilities'' but a unique relationship recognized by the state and society, he said. ...

The suit was filed by sponsors of Proposition 22, the 2000 ballot measure that prohibited the state from recognizing same-sex marriages. They argued that the domestic partner law, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, is same-sex marriage by another name and cannot become law without voter approval.

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posted by Eve at 7:24 PM | link 0 comments

GAYS ARE A PROTECTED CLASS, WA JUDGE RULES IN SSM CASE: From the Seattle Times

In what legal experts say is a bold finding that gays and lesbians are part of a protected, minority class, a Superior Court judge yesterday declared the laws that bar them from marriage unconstitutional.

Thurston County Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks was the second trial judge in four weeks to strike down Washington's Defense of Marriage Act, overwhelmingly approved by the Legislature six years ago.

Hicks, in a 38-page ruling, wrote, "The clear intent of the Legislature to limit government approved contracts of marriage to opposite-sex couples is in direct conflict with the constitutional intent to not allow a privilege to one class of a community that is not allowed to the entire community."

But Hicks went further, finding that under Washington's Constitution, homosexuals are a so-called suspect class, groups with such immutable characteristics as race or sex that entitle them to equal protection of the law. ...

"The court is taking a significant step in deciding the issue this way," said Peter Nicolas, a University of Washington law professor who teaches a course in sexual-orientation law. "A lot of decisions, including some from the U.S. Supreme Court, have said just the opposite." ...

Hicks, a former family-court judge, spent significant time in his ruling on family and children. "Same-sex couples can have children through artificial insemination and same-sex couples can adopt children all with government approval. Where is the protection for these children?"

Like Downing's ruling, Hicks' decision has no immediate practical effect; counties cannot begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Ultimately, both cases will be merged and likely heard before the state Supreme Court, possibly by mid-December.

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posted by Eve at 1:14 PM | link 0 comments

"DOONESBURY" GAY MARRIAGE CARTOON...

...here

posted by Eve at 1:49 AM | link 0 comments

WASH. JUDGE RULES SSM CONSTITUTIONALLY REQUIRED: From the Associated Press

Echoing the ruling of another local court, a Thurston County judge ruled Tuesday that Washington state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

A King County judge had ruled in favor of gay marriage rights in a separate case last month. Both cases will now go to the state Supreme Court, where they will likely be consolidated.

"For the government this is not a moral issue. It is a legal issue," wrote Thurston County Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks in his ruling, posted Tuesday on the court's Web site. ...

"What fails strict scrutiny here is a government-approved civil contract for one class of the community not given to another class of the community," Hicks wrote. "Democracy means people with different values living together as one people. What can reconcile our differences is the feeling that with these differences we are still one people. This is the democracy of conscience."

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The ruling is here (PDF), though I haven't had time to read it.

posted by Eve at 5:58 PM | link 0 comments

NEW QUESTION: O TELL ME THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE.

"Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage..."

Any contemporary discussion of marriage is quickly going to become also a debate about love. Is love the core of marriage?

If so, what kind of love are we talking about here? Historically eros, for example, was considered more a threat and a rival to marriage than a justification for it or an intrinsic part of it. Has that changed? How should we view the connection between eros, marriage, and responsibility? (In college, a romantically-minded friend argued that marriage was inherently anti-romantic because it sought to bind the beloved to oneself, fettering the beloved's autonomy and bringing the ugly machinery of society and state into affairs of the heart. Was he on to something?)

Here are some posts where you'll find discussions of the complex and sometimes troubled relationship of love and marriage:

Eric Rofes on love as a key feature of gay-rights strategy.

Me (Eve) on problems with Jonathan Rauch's discussion of love-as-care.

Rauch on "the urge to find and marry one's other half."

Daniel Moloney on whether a coherent understanding of marriage can encompass both same-sex marriage and arranged marriage.

Jack Balkin on David Brooks and love without marriage.

As always, feel free to suggest more links, and don't hesitate to jump in and join the debate!

posted by Eve at 5:22 PM | link 0 comments

HEY, LOOK! IT'S NEW QUESTIONS!

Hi, all. I know things have been quiet here. But that's about to change. I plan to return to the "question of the week" format. I have a bunch of ideas for possible questions--though obviously events may determine which questions get posted and when--and would be interested to know if there are questions you all would like us to take up. If you have any suggestions, please send them to me.

A few of the questions I have in mind (obviously meant more to spur discussion than to provoke quick yes-or-no answers): What shouldn't you do outside of wedlock?

Who are a child's parents?

"Marriage will help tame gay men." True, false, insulting, irrelevant?

Plus a question I'm about to post.

Again, if you have other ideas, feel free to suggest them.

posted by Eve at 5:11 PM | link 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND DISCRIMINATION: Marty McKeever

[Active comments section as well. --Eve]

...Each person on this planet, whether gay or straight or bisexual or transsexual or whatever have one very significant thing in common. We were all conceived and born the same way: through the union of exactly one male sperm with exactly one female egg. There is no other way to become a person. This is not a law based on morality, religion, or some arbitrary cultural standard. It is the law of nature.

For some reason, a few people have decided that this is wholly irrelevant to marriage. But for some of us, it is the only thing that's relevant. Gays may change the laws of men to create a "right of marriage" for themselves, but they cannot ever repeal the laws of nature upon which the institution is modeled. Like it or not, such man-made marriages will always be "second class."

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posted by Eve at 4:57 PM | link 0 comments

SSM AND BULLYING: RK Becker replies to Mark Barton

What both Mark Barton and Bruce Steele are probably arguing is this: "Neither marriage in and of itself nor government approval will directly normalize gay relationships. However, after a period of time, perhaps years, the fact of SSM will have sunk in and thus there will no longer be an obvious distinction between homosexual and heterosexual couples. Hence, for the most part intolerant people will stop bullying them, and intolerant kids will stop bullying their children, because there is nothing abnormal about them to pick on anymore."

But is it true? Will SSM really lead, eventually, to a great reduction in the bullying of gays, or the children of gays?

I quote Steele: "Kids have an instinct for finding out what makes other kids different, and they use that knowledge as a weapon when they spar with their peers, whether playfully or angrily."

Will SSM cause gay couples to no longer be seen as even being different? I doubt it.I don't doubt that SSM will lead to further legitimization of gay relationships and homosexual conduct--among the majority of the population that is tolerant (at least in the way that that term is commonly used, that is, leaving out the question of ideological tolerance) and not prone to engage in hostile behavior toward minorities and those who are different. But precisely because this is NOT the segment of society that engages in the most egregious gay-bashing, it will have little effect on that problem. It is among the minority that tends to engage in intolerant acts toward people who are different that any reduction in anti-gay sentiment would have to come. And I am not at all persuaded that this group will become any less intolerant toward gays because SSM is legalized. Unless heterosexuality ceases to be seen as the majority situation--which I think both supporters and opponents of SSM would agree is unlikely even in the long run--gays will always be regarded by that segment of society as being different and abnormal, and unless society gets at the real basic problem among the bullying group--a general psychological need to feel superior by attacking any group seen as different--I do not foresee the most severe forms of gay bashing diminishing.

So, yes, I think that the idea that SSM will eliminate or drastically reduce bullying toward gays or the children of gays is wishful thinking, even in the long run. But this does not mean that I do not also think that among the rest of society, there will be an increasing legitimization of homosexuality and bisexuality, and with it a blurring of some important distinctions which any culture has to maintain.

posted by Eve at 4:48 PM | link 0 comments

UTAH MARRIAGE AMENDMENT DESERVES SUPPORT: Monte Stewart

On Nov. 2, Utah's citizens will vote on a proposed state constitutional amendment that defines what marriage is and what it is not. This proposal, Amendment 3, is carefully worded to accomplish three purposes: (1) protect Utah's definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, (2) prevent courts or other government officials from subverting that definition by authorizing counterfeit marriage, and (3) leave the Legislature free to provide specific benefits to unmarried persons. ...

Amendment 3's opponents are vocal and well-represented in the media. It is increasingly clear that each of these opponents has one (or more) of four different reasons for their opposition: They favor same-sex marriage; they want a marriage substitute for same-sex couples such as Vermont's "civil union"; they want to stay in step with their political party; and/or they in good faith believe the other opponents' mantra that the amendment "goes too far" because it is "poorly written."

Only the last reason, however, is cited in their public statements. Clearly, there is no combination of words in the English language that will satisfy the vast majority of Amendment 3's detractors because they are ideologically committed to redefining marriage or creating an alternative marital status. ...

Arguments based in the claim that Amendment 3 will interfere with existing rights or cause unintended consequences for unmarried people are without foundation. Amendment 3 merely prevents the creation of a new legal status that approximates marriage in all but name. Thus, private arrangements, employment benefits and legislative efforts to provide benefits based on mutual dependence between individuals will be entirely unaffected.

Amendment 3 is what it appears to be--a straightforward and narrowly worded response to efforts to redefine marriage in the United States. As such, it is deserving of the public's support.

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posted by Eve at 4:03 PM | link 0 comments

NUPTIAL BAN FOR GAYS LEGAL?: From the Deseret Morning News

A new, impartial analysis of a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages seems to raise more questions than it answers regarding the potential impact the ballot initiative would have if voters approve it in November.

The analysis of Amendment 3 raises the possibility of a conflict with the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause because it "creates a classification of persons to whom the right to marry is not available."

It also raises a question about the amendment's second part, which prevents any other union from being given the same or substantially equal legal effect as a marriage. ...

The study will be available Tuesday online at the State Elections Office, www.elections.utah.gov, and in printed form in October. ...

Gubernatorial candidate Jon Huntsman Jr., who supports the amendment, has proposed reciprocal benefit legislation to give legal protections based on a financial relationship, not a sexual one.

Scott McCoy, campaign manager for Don't Amend Alliance, which opposes the amendment, said such reasoning is quantitative, not qualitative.

Instead of looking at a number of legal protections individually, and deciding how many are OK before a relationship approaches a similarity to marriage, McCoy said he looks at the quality of such protections. He said Nebraska's attorney general issued a qualitative opinion that a bill to grant to a surviving domestic partner decision-making in organ donation, burial and funeral arrangements was unconstitutional.

He said Nebraska's attorney general described those legal benefits as "marriage-like."

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posted by Eve at 3:45 PM | link 0 comments

POPE SPEAKS AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE IN CANADA: From the Associated Press

Pope John Paul II kept up his campaign against gay marriage yesterday, telling the ambassador from Canada -- where three provinces allow same-sex couples to wed -- that such unions create a "false understanding" of marriage.

In past months, the Pope has urged authorities to stop approving gay marriages, saying that they degrade the true sense of marriage.

The pontiff spoke yesterday to the new Canadian Ambassador to the Holy See, Donald Smith.

"The institution of marriage necessarily entails the complementarity of husbands and wives who participate in God's creative activity through the raising of children," he said, according to the text of the speech released by the Vatican.

"Spouses thereby ensure the survival of society and culture, and rightly deserve specific and categorical legal recognition by the State.

"Any attempts to change the meaning of the word 'spouse' contradict right reason: legal guarantees, analogous to those granted to marriage, cannot be applied to unions between persons of the same sex without creating a false understanding of the nature of marriage.''

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posted by Eve at 3:42 PM | link 0 comments

BIGAMY CONVICTION UPHELD IN UTAH: From the Salt Lake Tribune

The Utah Supreme Court on Friday upheld the bigamy conviction of outspoken polygamist Tom Green.

The justices ruled Utah's bigamy law does not single out polygamists for religious prosecution, but furthers the state's interest in regulating marriage, preventing fraud and stopping child sex crimes.

Green, 56, is serving up to five years in prison for four counts of bigamy and one count of criminal nonsupport.

Green was convicted of child rape in a separate case for fathering a child with stepdaughter Linda Kunz, who became his so-called "spiritual wife" at the age of 13. ...

Attorney John Bucher, who represented Green in the appeal, said the outcome was disappointing. He said the justices missed an opportunity to consider how a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down laws banning gay sex could have supported Green's appeal. ...

Attorney Brian Barnard filed arguments with the high court supporting Green on behalf of the Utah Civil Rights and Liberties Foundation. He called the decision a step backwards for religious freedom in Utah.

"This kind of stuff means that the polygamist community will continue to be secret, continue to be a closed society," he said. "Child victims of abuse or wives who are victims of violence will be more reluctant to come forward."

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posted by Eve at 3:39 PM | link 0 comments