Yes, the logical corollary of “gay people love each other and so should be allowed to marry each other” is “poly people love each other and so should be allowed to marry each other.”
…So?
“Don’t extend civil rights to some people because then other people will want civil rights” is a terrible argument.
>>The bundle of rights that is legal marriage are the obligations which the parties owe to
>>each other, not something which the state/society/the majority owe to married persons. Tax
>>breaks and other benefits accruing to married folk are gifts from the legislature which can
>>be repealed any time a majority of legislators so decide, not rights.
If only those damn legislators had to answer to someone else. Until then we’re just their helpless pawns.
Most advocates of same-sex marriage really don’t bother to answer that question, they mainly attack anyone who opposes same-sex marriage as “bigots” without much in the way of substantive argument for their own position. The closest same-sex marriage advocates get to asserting the social benefits of same-sex marriage is to claim some vague benefit in social/legal validation of homosexual relationships equivalent to the social/legal validation of heterosexual relationships. I’ve heard much better answers than that from many people over the years. Marriage for heterosexual couples has numerous stabilizing effects on society, from creating an environment suitable for children to preventing… Read more »
I have to agree with Hugh that polygynous and polyandrous marriages might not cancel each other out. In societies where polygynous marriages are legit there tends to be an elite class of men who can afford to have multiple wives and a have-not class of men who have no wives. My gut feeling is that that situation is not good for society as a whole. The institution of monogamous marriage tends to allow the greatest number of people who desire to marry the opportunity to do so. Therefore, I think that a colorable argument can be made for the social… Read more »
@Ozy,
This could be true, but how much do you really want to bet on it? Even if poly relationships have symmetrical gender dynamics among high-IQ educated androgynous nerdy people, it doesn’t mean that things would play out the same way in the wider population, where individuals are more gender-differentiated.
This reminds me of a situation where I had to explain that I didn’t have two girlfriends, one of my girlfriends had a boyfriend and a girlfriend.
My biological father was married to two women and that particular bit of law breaking is why it was so easy for my mother to get her divorce despite his lack of cooperation. I would have thought an annulment would be more appropriate, but things like time and the existence of me made that more complicated. Hopefully any scenario regarding multiple marriages includes full disclosure clauses to keep them valid. 🙂
“And the view that some sexism (past the completely biologically based ones, such as that demanding that women stand up to pee is unfair) is appropriate is a fairly archaic one — which might mean it’s still held in Supreme Court, them being old farts, but it’s still wrong.” As far as dresscodes and the likes, the Supreme Court has held than different but similar requirements are cool. I think that’s completely backwards. Requiring x in one but forbidding it in another is just stupid. Have a unique standard related to the job at hand, not to the body parts… Read more »
Schala, acting also has a long and hallowed tradition of being able to discriminate based on exterior traits. After all, it doesn’t make much sense to have a black woman playing Chief Seattle, for example, and having a white man playing Rosa Parks would be downright offensive. But yeah. You’re right.
I think that ought to be clear from my initial post. 😉
Yes, I do come down solidly on the side of love. I regard marriage as a contract, and only require capacity for informed consent (as with any contract). I see no compelling reasons to restrict by gender, by number of participants, or any other arbitrary factor.
Gert: “And really, denying someone’s right to marry a person they love is, I think, a non-trivial piece of discrimination. As such, limiting it based on gender seems to ill fit with the Bill of Rights.”
So, to bring it full circle, is it safe to say, then, that, as regards polyamory or incest, you come down on the side of “love”? Because THAT seems to be the point of the post.
-Jut
Innocuous to anyone not transgendered, anyway, but that’s a whole different discussion. And the view that some sexism (past the completely biologically based ones, such as that demanding that women stand up to pee is unfair) is appropriate is a fairly archaic one — which might mean it’s still held in Supreme Court, them being old farts, but it’s still wrong.
And really, denying someone’s right to marry a person they love is, I think, a non-trivial piece of discrimination. As such, limiting it based on gender seems to ill fit with the Bill of Rights.
Daisy: Ack! Sorry! 🙁 I had absolutely no intentions of hurting anyone and shall not use the term again.
Yes, Gert, there is an issue of sexism. However, without getting all “inside baseball” on Supreme Court Jurisprudence, issues of sexism are viewed less strictly than issues of racism, because the SC acknowledges that some sexism is appropriate (a rather innocuous example of this is separate bathrooms for men and women, something that would not be tolerated with respect to race after the Jim Crow era).
-Jut
AnonymousDog, JutGory: Let’s not forget a rather important class of discrimination: Sexism. If HetM can marry HomW, but HomW2 can’t marry HomW, then between HetM and HomW2 there are diffferent rights — discrimination based on gender. Similarly in the obverse example. That was, IIRC the basis for Justice Walker’s opinion on Proposition 8 when he struck it down.
noahbrand: I think you may be missing AnonymousDog’s point. If I recall, Loving v. Virginia (an interracial marriage case) said that the law was discriminatory because white man (WM) could marry white woman (WW), but black man (BM) could not marry WW. So, between WM and BM, the law did not treat them equally. AnonymousDog says: “I would suggest that only individuals have legal rights, and every individual already has equal rights under current marriage statutes.” So, HetM can marry HetW, and HomM can marry HetW. So, HetM and HomM have the same rights to marry. Similarly, neither HetM nor… Read more »
Is there a “right” to be married, or a “right” to marry? Can the single person demand that society find him/her a spouse because he/she has a “right” to marry? Of course not. Every individual has a right to equal access to the legal institution of marriage, but is that equal access to that legal institution as it was created by the state/society/the majority, or is it a right to redefine that institution as is most convenient to each individual’s situation, and still claim the recognition of the state/society/the majority? The bundle of rights that is legal marriage are the… Read more »
Is there a “right” to be married, or a “right” to marry?
Under United States law, yes. Yes there is. Legal denial of marriage is a violation of a citizen’s right to equality under the law.
Ozy, heads up, with much love… before the PC police get here, would like to head them off at the pass. And I know whereof I speak!
“Birth defect” is not a cool term. People are not defective. Its a hot-button term, used mostly by lawyers trying to sue doctors for “wrongful life”–another uncool (but widely used, legal) term. “Born with genetic issues” or just “born disabled” would be far preferable.
Signed, daughter of mother with “birth defect”–who said she felt like slapping anybody who used the phrase… and that was way back in the 60s!
@Druk: I do not know if you are wrong. There are a few different issues at play. Ages of majority may differ from state to state (i don’t know the laws of all 50 states offhand). An emancipated minor generally can contract, but then they are not generally considered a minor for those purposes.
I think the bottom line is that, whatever the state, there will be some baseline in age that can’t be crossed (whether that is 16, 14, 10, 7, or 5 years of age. Again, I do not know that for sure, though.
-Jut
@JutGory: correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t minors be married in some states, which changes their legal status so that statutory rape laws do not apply to them and their partner? I think they have to get permission from their legal guardians, to get around the “minors can’t contract” thing.
Or Proof of Vasectomy – let’s not forget the menz 🙂
JutGory: Polyamory is not polygyny. All of the men with multiple wives would probably get balanced out by the women with multiple husbands. 🙂 (And the men with multiple husbands and the women with multiple wives…)
As regards incest: the children do have an interest in not being born with birth defects. I suppose one could require that all heterosexual incestuous couples have Proof of Hysterectomy before marriage…
Ozy: “Don’t extend civil rights to some people because then other people will want civil rights” is a terrible argument. I don’t think that is quite the argument. I think the argument is that, “Oh, two people are in love, so they should be entitled to marry, even though it is a same-sex union. Well, if you really think “love” is the crucial component, then you must think 3 people should be entitled to marry, as long as they are in “love.” Essentially, it is an argument to test the logical consistency of those promoting the “love” standard. Obviously, from… Read more »
It’s a slippery slope:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJPm52rmKYI
Ah yes..love and marriage….gays and straights, poly and mono….. Why we have to base marriage on gender is beyond me, it honestly shouldn’t matter. If Bob and Joe wanna marry and be happy together then great! Rock on! Sue and Tammy? You betcha. George and Sally? Sure, why not. It really shouldn’t matter, there are far more important things out there to worry about other than the gays ruining marriage. Poly marriages….ooh, tricky one…. I currently have 4 partners who also all have partners. If we all started to marry one another, it would be a legal nightmare…. Perhaps with… Read more »
@miss elizabeth:
Wouldn’t it be simpler to simply limit an individual to one marriage, but merely extend the number of persons that can comprise such a grouping? IOW, make all six of them be in a single marriage, added to the total union in whatever order and combinations?
Of course, then you have to decide what happens when the marriage splits in any of the ways that it is divisible, but it limits the net complexity quite a bit.
Study the Kerista commune, the polyamory pioneers, and the huge mess when they all “broke up”–of course, there were like 30 of em! 😛
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerista
My comments are vanishing?