As of late Tuesday night, CNN is projecting that the North Carolina’s Amendment banning same-sex marriage has passed.
Many are concerned that isn’t just same-sex couples who are affected. CNN.com explains:
The amendment would alter North Carolina’s constitution to say that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.” Supporters argued that the amendment was needed to stop those trying to redefine marriage and ward off possible future actions of “activist judges.”
Opponents called the measure redundant and warned it could result in jeopardizing domestic violence protections for women and affect couples’ health benefits.
What do you think?
Is a ban on same-sex marriage constitutional?
How do you feel this amendment affects everyone, not just same-sex couples hoping to marry?
AP Photo
About The Good Feed Blog Editors
I do not see how defining marriage adversely affects DV protections. It seems like an unrelated concern.
As for same sex marriage, I believe the outdated model of hetero marriage is not something the gay and lesbian community should want to emulate. I think a fresh definition of the joining of two people would afford them the chance to create a superior version and not get mired in the current, faded model.
Ok, but for the gay couples who do want to live their life together and raise kids, presumably they should have the right.
I realise that some people want to be “Married”, that other terms are unacceptable. I am proposing that, if the joining of two adults is called anything other than marriage, then new laws, new social obligations and privileges can be established that are far superior to the pit of despair that I see marriage between a man and a woman is in the western world. I concede I may have issues where hetero marriage is concerned; I see it as something to be surpassed, not emulated.
To me, the relationship is the key, not what I call it. Whether I am “joined”, “married”, “unioned” or any other term, all that matters is that I have a socially recognised statement of commitment to my partner that includes equal responsibilities and privileges for both partners before the law.
I fully support the access for all people to the act of joining, I think marriage as it stands now can be so much improved by designing a completely new premise. This is an opportunity.
I do not see how defining marriage adversely affects DV protections. It seems like an unrelated concern.
From what I recall this line comes from the fact there have been a few cases (in Ohio I think) in which domestic violence convictions have been overturned with reasons having to do with the fact that the abuser/victim were not married.
Bearing in mind that linking something to harming women is a an appeal to chivalry and poof you have “if you support Amendment One you don’t care about women” angle.
What bothers me is that this is not going to be used in such a heavily gendered manner as what people are talking about.
You may as well say that voting a law that says people who commit suicide automatically forfeit all their property to the state would jepordize the estates of men without even mentioning women (but we don’t have to worry about that becaus seriously when is the last time someone pushed for or against something based on how it would affect men?).
At best its an exaggeration and at worst its an appeal to old style chivalry.
It’s a bit of a stretch, but then pretty much all of the “it could affect hetero people too” arguments are a bit of a stretch. I think it’s an attempt to use whatever methods possible to make people actually sit up and care about it. If on-the-fence straight people suddenly think that they’re own rights might be in jeopardy, then they might actually get up and do something about it.
I’m not saying that’s a good tactic…I just think that’s the logic behind it.
It’s a bit of a stretch, but then pretty much all of the “it could affect hetero people too” arguments are a bit of a stretch.
I don’t even think this was a case of “it could affect hetero people too”. It was straight up “what about teh wimminz”.
As in “if you don’t care about gays then at least think about women” (yes I see how this basically ignores gay women).
If on-the-fence straight people suddenly think that they’re own rights might be in jeopardy, then they might actually get up and do something about it.
I agree that this was probably the logic. Just that it wasn’t concern for straight people they were raising concern about, it was straight women they were raising concern about.
It was a concern for straight women, directly, yes…but see, everyone knows a straight woman. It was an attempt to make this bill hit close to home even if you don’t know any out same-sex couples. It could affect hetero women directly, and hetero men indirectly. It was saying – see your own family might be affected by this, if your own mother/sister/daughter/etc ends up in a relationships with an abusive man. That’s what I meant when I said it could affect “hetero people” as opposed to just saying “hetero women.”
Yeah it’s playing on the old DV stereotypes and that’s bollocks.
Eh, you end up finding a whole lot ‘lying for Jesus’ in any cause. It’s self-defeating in the long run, but it’s fairly typical of the short-term thinking that’s come to dominate in America.
It’s my uinderstanding that they also ban same sex unions which I thought would be a reasonable compromise.
Yes – this went a step further to make a same-sex marriage ban, already in state law, part of state charter. In addition, it bans ALL civil unions and domestic partnerships. Granted, for couples of *any* orientation, but I’d say the majority were not hetero. Moreover, and more importantly, that was the *only* option for non-straight couples.
There is no compromise. We’ve already established in the U.S. that separate does not mean equal…and the same thing is true of marriages. Even if you give civil unions all the same legal rights (like they did in California), marriage is still normative…and civil unions are still socially stigmatized and marginalized.
I’m not going to accept a compromise when it comes to my civil rights.
Precisely. As soon as you start differentiating between two things in the law those two things will eventually (if no immediately) become unequal.
I’m not sure making life harder on even more people counts as ‘compromise’.
This is wrong. Compromising with wrong still tends to make you wrong.
Why not just give the LGMT community what they want? Why stigmatize the LGBT community further than they are already stigmatized and marginalized? These types of decisions hurt so many people on levels that run very deeply.
“LGBT..”.
Why stigmatize them? Because it was easier to stigmatize all marriages that aren’t one man/on woman than to actually fix the stuff that’s wrong in this state and just as much of a rallying point for a large portion of the masses.
Its like this which do you think is easier?
Do something about education funding that is so lacking that a school disctict here in NC were having fundraisers to pay teacher salaries, the unemployment rate that just recently fell below the national average (there are almost 1/2mil unemployed in NC right now), and the process of fracking (short for hydraulic fracturing)?
OR
Convince people that marriage is under attack and that it must be defended?
Off topic but I need some humour: I totally read ‘fracking’ like a Battlestar Galactica nerd.
Its okay. I thought the same when I first heard about it.
These laws send a message about where non-hetero couples stand in current society – they are second-class citizens unworthy of equal rights. In addition, it invalidates all but hetero couples. It’s simply codifying the idea that people can love who they love – love can only be between a man and women.
It’s fundamentally upsetting to me, both as a bi person and as an American citizen. Moreover, it concerns me greatly for the direction we’re headed this November.
I think that when you tell a person he or she does not have the same rights as another it is unconstitutional. That’s pretty basic. The constitution is a legal document, so any discussion of this in that terms will be a legal argument. And you can not make any viable legal argument to deny any person the right to get married.
The argument against gay marriage is entirely a moral one. Some people believe homsexuality is immoral. And that is almost always based on their religious beliefs. It’s clear that in states that identify as very religious statistically amongst the broader population you will never get any more than 40% support for equal rights on this. It just won’t happen. The only way same sex marriage ever gets approved across the country is by Federal mandate, like women’s suffrage and civil rights for blacks.
Although there are probably precedents limiting this, the U.S. Constitution still says that a contract that is valid in one state is valid in all the other states. You could make a very good case that NC has to recognize same-sex unions granted in other states. I’m in a heterosexual marriage. I wasn’t married in North Carolina, but if I moved there the state would consider me married. I wouldn’t have to get married in NC to be considered married there.
Disappointing for same-sex couples living there who want to get married, but not the end of the world either.
I’ve four letters for you: DOMA. It’s not just precedents…it’s a flipping law. DOMA is basically two parts: 1) The federal government isn’t required to recognize same-sex marriage even if a state makes it legal and 2) No state is required to recognize the same-sex marriage laws of another state.
What, you say, isn’t that unconstitutional? Well yes, now that you mention it, that does seem to be really obviously unconstitutional. But it passed anyway, and it’s taken this long for it to be a big enough issue that the Supreme Court will be hearing suits against it.
The federal courts have ruled that there is a ‘public policy exception’ to the recognition by states of ‘foreign’ marriages(those entered into in other states). That essentially means a state does not have to recognize a marriage which is abhorrent to it’s own public policy on marriages. This ‘public policy exception’ was formulated so states did not have to recognize polygamous marriages contracted in other states. (Meaning Utah)
And then they went and passed DOMA on top of it. Tell you just how paranoid they were that same-sex marriage might become legal.
I spoke before I knew all the facts. (First time for everything, I suppose….) Thanks for clarifying that.
Good point. SSM proponents run away from the parallel issue of the re-legalization of polygamy but it is the same argument in principle, defining and limiting marriage based on a that definition.
Banning SSM is no more unconstitutional than the banning of polygamy. I would hope that they support the repeal/overturning of that ban as well.
It makes a lot of sense to me to say that being separate will lead to being unequal. In practice, though, our society already makes occasional exceptions to that in other areas. There are parts of the public realm in which the assumption is that separate can be equal. For example, separate college sports teams for men and women, separate restrooms, separate accommodations for people in wheelchairs, separate Olympic events for male and female athletes, etc.
I’m not saying these are bad things. Just that there are plenty of loopholes to the “separate can’t be equal” idea, and there seems to be a very broad consensus that these are perfectly acceptable, even necessary. Sometimes there seems to be valid reasons for separate institutions.
I think denying marriage equality on the basis of the sex of the betrothed is a violation of civil rights. (I think that denying same-sex marriage rights is essentially discrimination on the basis of sex, not just on the basis of sexual orientation. Two single hetero men ought to have the right to marry each other if they want to, as far as I’m concerned.) I agree that separation in that case would create a second-class status.
But, not _all_ segregation is inherently an act of inequality. If so, then we need strictly unisex bathrooms, locker rooms, and all sports leagues, and we ought to boycott the Olympics until they sexually integrate all the events and not just the equestrian events.
Here’s what I’d add to the idea that separate but equal never works: that it is especially true when discussion normative vs non-normative groups. In this case, straight=normative and lgb=non-normative. LGB identities have been cast as a societal “other.” This means that anything that creates a separation between the two will continue to put LGB identities in the category of “other” and thus not equal.
The same could be said of civil rights for African-Americans. The ‘white’ way of life was normative…to be white was to be normal, anything other than white was a societal “other.” Thus, merely having two separate drinking fountains (for example) would necessarily cast the ‘black only’ fountain as the “other,” even if they looked exactly the same. There would be social stigma associated with using the ‘black only’ fountain, and there was privilege in being allowed to use the ‘white only’ fountain. (I am not saying that the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the lgbt rights movements are exactly the same. I am saying there are parallels).
So how does this compare to issues of gender equality? Well I’d say that at the moment neither “man” or “woman” are considered more normative than the other. (Cis-gendered is normative and transgendered is non-normative, but that’s a different conversation). Now in some cases that’s not exactly true. When it comes to medicine and biology, the male body has historically been considered normative and the female body was considered a male body plus….plus breasts, plus hormones, plus a lack of a penis (though that’s really a minus). Somewhere else I was talking about the problems with video games today and how the animators also tend to fall into the same problems of male-normative assumptions. BUT those are two very specific examples, and I’m sure someone could come up with some female-normative assumptions in our society as well. That’s where the difference is…..where as hetero-normative and white-normative assumptions were/are prevalent and consistent throughout society, male-normative and female-normative assumptions are context specific.
Which is why separating based on gender can work. (It can also result in inequalities too, but not always).
Looks like someone took inspiration from my Constitution.
Article 18 :
“Marriage, being a union of a man and a woman, as well as the family, motherhood and parenthood, shall be placed under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland”.
They shouldn’t have banned other unions, though.
I think the issue of same-sex marriage ought to be couched as sex discrimination as well as sexual orientation discrimination, and I think labeling same-sex marriage as “gay marriage” can be misleading sometimes.
I know this is a rare way to look at it, but I see it this way: If I weren’t already married, I should have the right to marry another unmarried adult as long as that person can and does consent to be married to me. That person could be male or female or something else. It’s really none of the government’s business what the gender of my spouse is. (And, I’d rather not put the county clerk in the position of giving us both a physical exam to verify it!) Saying that I, as a male (as defined by the state), can only marry a female is essentially discrimination on the basis of sex, either discrimination against my fiancé for being male or against me for being male. I could get married to a man and not be sexually attracted to men. As a straight male there should be no law preventing me from marrying another man just because we’re both male. Theoretically a same-sex marriage could have no gay sex involved whatsoever. There are plenty of heterosexual marriages where the couple doesn’t have sex together, and under law those still count.
(At some point there will need to be a legal ruling in NC over whether the “man” in the one man-one woman rule has to be born male or just male at the time that he gets married. And, if a married man transitions to being female, does that mean he is no longer married? I guarantee this is going to come up, and whatever way the court rules will be absurd or contradict the amendment.)
I prefer to think in terms of “gender-neutral” marriage. On the marriage license, just list “Party One” and “Party Two” or “Spouse A” and “Spouse B” like any other contract. Otherwise you are forcing the government to investigate or establish what the sex of each person is. Or there will be a legal showdown at some point over how male or female a particular person is. Sounds a lot like the intrusive government with “activist judges” that many conservatives are concerned about….
There has never been any law demanding that two spouses be attracted to each other. There has never been any law saying that a man and woman who get married have to be heterosexual. A gay man and a lesbian can get married to each other under North Carolina law, so the law is clearly not going to prevent homosexuality. There has never been any law saying that a married couple has to be able to conceive a child together. There’s a bit of blindness on the part of those supporting this law, if they’re assuming that marriage only means two people having sex with each other and having children together. Obviously even from a conservative point of view there is much more to marriage than that.
I’d also note that, even if marriage doesn’t seem like a big right to some people, it is obviously an incredibly DURABLE right. Generally, the only way to lose that right is to be already married or to die. You could be on death row for killing your spouse, could have admitted murdering the person you were married to, you have forfeited your liberty and many other rights, but you could STILL get married again if you found someone of the opposite sex to consent. Not even killing a spouse voids your right to get married again. Now _that_ is a pretty powerful right.
Think this controversy is a perfect example of why we have separation of church and state. If the state had decided to respect marriage as a religious ceremony and afford it no special recognition beyond “civil union”, opponents of same sex marriage could have preserved marriage as a religious ceremony defined as whatever-they-want while gay & lesbians receive the due process and equal protection entitled them.