gay marriage roll call

[??????????]

I fully support gay marriage.

It seems like the vast majority of arguments against it involve either religion or tradition.

And, what's wrong with religion or tradition?

[Jake]

nclib's feminist handlers don't like either.

[Alcon]

I fully support gay marriage.

It seems like the vast majority of arguments against it involve either religion or tradition.

And, what's wrong with religion or tradition?

Nothing is wrong with either, although just because something is traditional does not make it right, which is a rather commonly utilised fallacy.

[John Dibble]

I'm in the crowd that would prefer civil unions for all or something similar, however if that is not an option then I would just go for allowing gay marriage.

[J. J.]

If I'm understanding you, your argument is that the relationship could be abused by those of the same gender - they would marry and get the benefits.

But this can already be done with heterosexual couples.  Yes, it would make abuse even easier, but if people intend to abuse that, they will think of a system under current marriage structure to do it.

Is it really worth depriving marriage rights to an entire group just to make marriage abuse (which, as far as I know, isn't all that common) a bit harder? 

I believe it word become increasingly common, if legal.  As you've pointed out, it makes it easier.  Personally, I'd love to have my father's pension for the remainder of my life.  If there would be a legal way to collect it, I might consider it. 

The basic argument against adult voluntary incest is the genetic implications; those simply do not exist with same sex couples.  That's a matter of biology, not morality or legality.  So, okay, we continue the ban on relative marriage, I still feel that this would be a problem.  Are we suppose to get the government involved in determining that each relationship is a physical one.

What if I "marry" some old guy, perhaps pay off his current bills, so that I can get his pension for life?  What if he's 80 and I'm 25?  I can see a gigantic situation for abuse.

The concept is not uncommon; people do "sell" their life insurance rights in return for cash, especially if they have no heirs.

[Alcon]

If I'm understanding you, your argument is that the relationship could be abused by those of the same gender - they would marry and get the benefits.

But this can already be done with heterosexual couples.  Yes, it would make abuse even easier, but if people intend to abuse that, they will think of a system under current marriage structure to do it.

Is it really worth depriving marriage rights to an entire group just to make marriage abuse (which, as far as I know, isn't all that common) a bit harder? 

I believe it word become increasingly common, if legal.  As you've pointed out, it makes it easier.  Personally, I'd love to have my father's pension for the remainder of my life.  If there would be a legal way to collect it, I might consider it. 

The basic argument against adult voluntary incest is the genetic implications; those simply do not exist with same sex couples.  That's a matter of biology, not morality or legality.  So, okay, we continue the ban on relative marriage, I still feel that this would be a problem.  Are we suppose to get the government involved in determining that each relationship is a physical one.

What if I "marry" some old guy, perhaps pay off his current bills, so that I can get his pension for life?  What if he's 80 and I'm 25?  I can see a gigantic situation for abuse.

The concept is not uncommon; people do "sell" their life insurance rights in return for cash, especially if they have no heirs.

OK, but do you believe that is sufficient grounds to deny marriage rights to such a significant portion of the population?  Because it would make abuse slightly easier?

[A18]

Do you people support incestuous marriage, or are you complete hypocrites?

[nclib]

I fully support gay marriage.

It seems like the vast majority of arguments against it involve either religion or tradition.

And, what's wrong with religion or tradition?

nclib's feminist handlers don't like either.

I have nothing against religion or tradition in private life. I just don't believe that should determine public policy.

[The Duke]

Not close enough attention.  The countries of Europe, (Sweden, Denmark, and Norway), that have legalized gay marriage/civil unions have the highest divorce rates and illegitimacy rates in the world (outside Iceland).  Before they legalized these changes, this was not true, and all three have seem a marked shift towards more divorces and more illegitimacy at a time when divorces and illegitimacy in other western countries have remained steady.

There is statistical evidence that gay marriage at the very least correlates with a collaps of traditional marriage.  Its not some religious hysteria.  Perhaps you simply don't value traditional marriage, but for those who do, the arguments against gay marriage have in fact not been universally refuted.

Sorry, but correlation does not imply causation. Your own marriage is not in any way being affected by some same-sex couple getting "married." After all, they would have been living together anyway, whether or not the government calls them "married." Why should the labeling of their partnership affect others in any way whatsoever? How would one same-sex getting married somehow affect another's decision to get a divorce? Unless I can see a coherent explanation of how labeling one partnership as "marriage" somehow affects another totally unrelated couple, I would not accept this argument.

Secondly, the concept of "illegitimacy" is not something that I think is particularly meaningful to talk about. Just because a child is "illegitimate," it does not follow that his parents will be bad at raising children. Similarly, just because a child is "legitimate," it does not follow that his parents will be particularly good at doing so either. There are, for example, several instances in which a legitimate father or mother abuses his or her own child, and several instances in which an illegitimate father or mother takes care of him very well. Thus, the statistic of the number of illegitimate children is not (IMO) an appropriate argument. Rather, it is the unquantifiable variable of how the children are actually brought up by their parents (whether they are legitimate or not) is much more significant. I don't think that there should be an automatic stigma associated with illegitimacy.

Since you've just said you don't think there's anything wrong with illegitimacy, I have to question whether being reasonable with you is a valid use of my time.

Its true that correlation and causation are not the same, and you'll notice that I said "evidence" not "proof".  What is the explaination that would suggest that there is causation here?  Its very simple and straightforward.  When you change the definition of an institution, you change how people behave towards an institution.  There's a whole school of sociology called functionalism built around these precepts.  Its not that hard to figure that there's a relationship between the two.

[Alcon]

John, I would appreciate it if you sourced your data and responded to my points when you get the time.

Thanks.

[Bugs]

Opposed.

[The Duke]

I don't mean to pile on you John, but in addition to what Emsworth stated, I must point out that the list of countries that allow gay marriage or civil unions is much, much longer than Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.  In fact, it is as follows:  Canada, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Netherlands, France, South Afirca, Germany, Portugal, Finland, Croatia, Israel, Luxembourg, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Andorra, Slovenia, and soon in Switzerland.  This plus some regions of Argentina, Australia, Italy, Brazil, and the United States.

The most recent data I can find is 1996, three years after Norway legalised civil unions and seven years after Denmark did, with Norway's divorce rate moderately below the United States's (43% versus 49%) and Denmark's far, far below (35%).  That doesn't exactly seem like a "collapse of marriage" to me.

Sources:

1996 divorce statistics
Civil union legalisation

The source of the data is Eurostat, which is a government statistics reporting agency in the EU.  I used the data in a paper for a class a year and a half ago, but I can't find the page with the data.

Most of the additional countries you've mentioned have not had civil unions for long enough to have meaningful data.  I hadn't realized Iceland had civil unions, though it lends support to my point as they have the highest illegitimacy rate on Earth.

Here's the problem with you collaps of marriage argument.  If Country A has a divorce rate of 50% in 1995, and Country B has a divorce rate of 0% in 1995, and then ten in 2005 Country A has a divorce rate of 45% and County B had a divorce rate of 40%, would you say that Country B was doing better than Country A?  I wouldn't, but that's what your logic would seem to lead to.  America has had an unacceptably high divorce rate for thirty years, but the Scandavian countries had, until recently, pretty good numbers in this area.  The change is very recent, and its the trend not the present condition that I label a collapse of marriage.  During the period where these three countries saw their dramatic rise in divorce and illegitimacy the US saw its divorce rate level off.  In this sense, we're doing much, much better than these other countries.

[Alcon]

All right.  Well, when you find the statistics, post them and I'll consider them.

In any case, though, considering that the countries in question are similar enough to track economically and culturally to an extent, evidence is all there is.  And I don't find "evidence" enough reason to deny these people equality.

Also, did this take into account that the rash of new gay marriages probably also resulted in a rash of new divorces from those marriages?

Has Massachusetts seen a significant rise in divorces?  How about all of the states that have legalised civil unions?

[The Duke]

All right.  Well, when you find the statistics, post them and I'll consider them.

In any case, though, considering that the countries in question are similar enough to track economically and culturally to an extent, evidence is all there is.  And I don't find "evidence" enough reason to deny these people equality.

Also, did this take into account that the rash of new gay marriages probably also resulted in a rash of new divorces from those marriages?

Has Massachusetts seen a significant rise in divorces?  How about all of the states that have legalised civil unions?

Gays do have eqyality in terms of marriage.  They have the same rights as I do, the right to marry someone of the opposite gender.  What they don't have is the specially tailored right that they are now asking for.

The rash of new gay marriages would not affect the divorce rate, because the divorce rate is not a measure of total divorces, but dovorces as a percentage of marriages.  So unless the gay marriages themselves are extraordinarily less stable than straight marriages, which would seem to badly undercut your position if it were true, this cannot be the explaination.

I do not think there is subtantive data yet for Massachussetts, since the legalization gay marriage is so recent.  As for Vermont, take all of this with a grain of salt, because most couples who got a Civil Union were not from Vermont.  It also can't be said that people in Vermont have really accepted the legitimacy of Civil Unions, because they threw out a bunch of the legislators who were for the bill (Republicans gained 17 seats in the Assembly).

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/mar%26div.pdf

CDC shows divorce rates by state here, but data only goes to 2002.

District of Columbia (!) has the lowest divorce rate, followed by Georgia and Massachussetts.  Nevada (Duh) is the highest.  Regionally, New England is the runaway winner in terms of having the lowest divorce rates.  Vermont looks to be near the middle of the pack, I haven't done any serious breakdown, just looked it over briefly.  Across the board, divorce rates in the US are declining, it seems, which tends to suggest the position of marriage over here is strengthening, not weakening as it seems to be in Europe.

Didn't find divorce rates for actual Civil Unions themselves, but here is some stuff I found on Google from the Family Research Council (so again, grain of salt) that seems to indicate little interest among gays in entering Civil Unions, and substantiates the prevailing belief that gays have different ideas about committment that straight people, and that their relationships lack the duration of straight relationships.

[Emsworth]

Since you've just said you don't think there's anything wrong with illegitimacy, I have to question whether being reasonable with you is a valid use of my time.

Adultery is repugnant to my own personal moral standards. However, my personal standards are not universal; I have no right to impose my view of morality on the whole of a society. Hence, I would question whether the number of "illegitimate" children should be a relevant statistic.

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There was a time when marriage was defined in some states as the union of a man and a woman of the same race. Should this definition never have been changed, because of the potential threat to how people would have behaved towards the institution?

[The Duke]

Since you've just said you don't think there's anything wrong with illegitimacy, I have to question whether being reasonable with you is a valid use of my time.

Adultery is repugnant to my own personal moral standards. However, my personal standards are not universal; I have no right to impose my view of morality on the whole of a society. Hence, I would question whether the number of "illegitimate" children should be a relevant statistic.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

There was a time when marriage was defined in some states as the union of a man and a woman of the same race. Should this definition never have been changed, because of the potential threat to how people would have behaved towards the institution?

By illegitimate, I mean all children born out of wedlock.  The changing of the definition of marriage to include interracial marriage is not, in my view, relevant here.  The prohibition of interracial marriage was a statement not on the social purpose of marriage, but a statement on the social status of blacks.  In the gay marriage case, it would be a change from marriage being designed as an institution that tames men and rears children to one that is based on love between two individuals, and I can't think of anything more dangerous to marriage than the idea that it should be based on love alone.

[Alcon]

So far, there is no legal obligation that married couples have to raise children.  In fact, childless couples seem to be perfectly normal now.

What threat to childless couples constitute marriage?  To me, the idea that marriage becoming about love is a bad thing is a...strange concept.

[minionofmidas]

To me, the idea that marriage becoming about love is a bad thing

Sounds very 17th century to me.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Nay.

[WMS]

Undecided personally. I'm far more concerned with the processes involved...

-civil unions
-at the state level
-decided by popular referendum
-is OK with me

I am very opposed to the breathtakingly arrogant attempt by the left wing to force their POV on everyone else via the court system. It smacks of the 'we know what's best for everyone so we're just going to MAKE you live by our rules'* attitude that is highly elitist and anti-democratic, leading to, well, damn near the entirety of the Warren and Burger Courts' decisions.

The thing is, in a voting booth I might vote for gay marriage, and would likely vote for civil unions, but I want the right to make a decision, not have it made for me by 'a black-robed tyrant'.

*yeah, yeah, the right wing does this at times too, but that's irrelevant to my argument since nothing I said is countered by 'but the conservatives do it too'.

[Defarge]

No.  I'm not overturning thousands and thousands of years of tradition to satisfy a few morons.

I used to only be in favor of civil unions, and then statements like this came along, and I asked myself "why not?"

[Emsworth]

I am very opposed to the breathtakingly arrogant attempt by the left wing to force their POV on everyone else via the court system. It smacks of the 'we know what's best for everyone so we're just going to MAKE you live by our rules'* attitude that is highly elitist and anti-democratic, leading to, well, damn near the entirety of the Warren and Burger Courts' decisions.

Well, if the plain text of a state Constitution actually does happen to require recognition of same-sex unions, then the courts are indeed the appropriate venue. (Whether the state Constitution actually does so or not is a different matter.)

[WMS]

I am very opposed to the breathtakingly arrogant attempt by the left wing to force their POV on everyone else via the court system. It smacks of the 'we know what's best for everyone so we're just going to MAKE you live by our rules'* attitude that is highly elitist and anti-democratic, leading to, well, damn near the entirety of the Warren and Burger Courts' decisions.

Well, if the plain text of a state Constitution actually does happen to require recognition of same-sex unions, then the courts are indeed the appropriate venue. (Whether the state Constitution actually does so or not is a different matter.)

Fair enough, but we both know that the underlying goal of the groups in Massachusetts was to then use the Full Faith and Credit Clause to force gay marriage upon the entire country...correct?

[CheeseWhiz]

I agree with Gabu here.  I'm opposed to gay marriage because I think that there should be civil unions for all, with the churches deciding whom they want to marry.

Then again, I don't agree with DanielX that not having gay marriage "advances" this cause.  I don't think that, without gay marriage being a possibility, the United States will ever use this system.  In fact, I don't think the United States will ever, period.

I believe that, no matter what, gay and heterosexual couples should get the same status from the government, and if that means gay marriage because we'll never get civil unions for all, then I suppose I support gay marriage.

In any case, it scares me that this is an issue.

^I agree with that...  I really don't understand why it's such a big deal when there's a deficit and a war going on.

[Emsworth]

Fair enough, but we both know that the underlying goal of the groups in Massachusetts was to then use the Full Faith and Credit Clause to force gay marriage upon the entire country...correct?

Yes, that is probably true, and in that sense I agree with you. The FFCC does nothing more than require each state to respect another state's public acts, etc., as evidence in courts without questioning them. It does not require a state to actually grant any benefits to a couple merely because some other state says that they are married.