"Keeping the government out" of marriage

Ignatius21 · Aug 17, 2012

MKJ said:
What kind of other arrangements that have always existed are you thinking of? The only ones I can think of are contracts, and that is really all a civil partnership is. A civil partnership is really nothing other than a contract specifying the things you have mentioned, so how is putting it into one legal form different than putting it into a half-dozen?

And if such civil partnerships really are just a set of contractual arrangements, that are already available to whomever would like to enter into them, then what is all the flap about, and why are people demanding equal rights when they already have them?

Unless they aren't demanding rights, but legally enforced acceptance of their particular lifestyle?

Ignatius21 · Aug 17, 2012

Rus, I think you raise some tough and solid points here...

rusmeister said:
I've already kind of said it, but I'll put it a different way here.

If WE are the government, as we imagine we are by the mere act of voting, then obviously we DON'T want to exclude ourselves from saying what marriage and the family are.

Seems valid. If secular voters can vote to enforce secular values in law, why can't Christian voters vote to enforce Christian values in law? Secularism is a philosophical (dare I say religious?) system of ideals, as much as any other system.

The only answer is to insist that the family is one thing and not another, either way.

And here is where I wrestle with myself. I sort of like the idea of government just staying out of marriage, and staying out of family. But until those terms are defined, there's nothing for the government to stay out of! You can't even say that the government (or even your neighbor) is encroaching upon your marriage or family unless you can define what those things are.

Seems that however libertarian we wish to be about this, the matter is so basic and fundamental that until terms are established and defined, there can't be any progress or any legal enforcement of anything. And in that case, what we have is a collision course between (at least) two radically different understandings of reality, and only one can win out. They cannot coexeist.

Encouraging the idea of marriage as a contract as opposed to a vow is destructive for everyone. All the other ideas are just attempts to accommodate people who don't want to accept what marriage and the family are. There can be no compromise. Either we suppress those ideas, or they will suppress ours.

I would have to agree, I think. I don't want to agree, but I can't see any way out of what you've said here. Only one can exist, and it necessarily implies that the other must be false, and therefore suppressed.

Ignatius21 · Aug 17, 2012

rusmeister said:
If WE are the government, as we imagine we are by the mere act of voting, then obviously we DON'T want to exclude ourselves from saying what marriage and the family are.

Another good point from the 'meister! Please don't let it go to your head!

If the government of a state (within the US, or the US as a whole, or any other democratic-republican entity) by definition is "the people," who can speak out through voting, then my question to the advocates of a Libertarian view here is this:

What do you make of the constitutional amendments passed by (34?) states over the last several years? Does that count as "government" intruding into private matters? Here we are not only considering the definition of "marriage" but also of "government."

For even a Libertarian approach to be taken to marriage, mustn't somebody (who?) still define (on behalf of everyone) what is meant by the term?

---------------------- More rambling commentary ---------------

And, in each of those cases, the majority who voted in favor of amendments didn't say "Here's who is, and is not, allowed to enter into legally recognized marriage," but rather "Here is what marriage is by definition." They didn't say "Gays can't get married" but rather "Marriage is by definition heterosexual and monogamous." Thus, same-sex couples (or opposite-sex groups) aren't disallowed from marriage, because marriage for them is simply impossible by definition.

That's a subtle but key point that (I think) is either ignored or overlooked by people who railed against the passage of such amendments. They say such things are acts of discrimination and bigotry. But discrimination would be to disallow a particular group from having something that is at least possible for them to have. As I said on another thread (and was evidently wildly misunderstood?), given how those states voted to DEFINE "marriage," we can no more disallow gays from being married, than we can disallow triangles from having four sides. To even ask the question is absurd.

Protoevangel · Aug 17, 2012

rusmeister said:
If WE are the government, as we imagine we are by the mere act of voting, then obviously we DON'T want to exclude ourselves from saying what marriage and the family are.

Ignatius21 said:
Seems valid. If secular voters can vote to enforce secular values in law, why can't Christian voters vote to enforce Christian values in law? Secularism is a philosophical (dare I say religious?) system of ideals, as much as any other system.

Exactly.

Is your god pluralism? Some notion of "freedom" or "capitalism", "free trade"? Then your vote will reflect that.

If your God, God? Then if your vote does not reflect traditional morality, you have denied your own faith. Perhaps not intentionally, but effectively.

Crawdad · Aug 17, 2012

gurneyhalleck1 said:
Well think it through. If being gay is not only natural, but GOD-GIVEN as most of them claim, then wouldn't it be a biggoted, hate-driven, unenlightened church that forbids their unions IN THEIR EYES? Follow the logic. They view themselves as a minority group as if they're born with black skin and anyone who treats them differently on a moral basis must be a type of racist hick biggot. Well, nobody would refuse to marry a black and white woman. That's absurd. It would be racist indeed. But through the lens these people see the world, being gay is exactly like being black. To deny a gay person marriage in any church would be tantamount to going back to the KKK and noose-hanging, church-burning, Jim Crow, pre-Brown v. Board, etc. Do you really think gays will be content with just stopping with a civil marriage if churches deny them their "rights?" I think your imagination for absurdity is limited, Craw, you need to strengthen the absurdity imagination muscle harder. Look back 40 years ago. If you told people that in 2012 everyone would be covered from head to toe with sickening, revolting tattoos, more people would be cohabitating or divorced than married, and that gay people would be "marrying" while the platform of a major political party would endorse such silliness? Once you've departed completely from Judeo-Christian morality and scoff at it with abandon, trust me, Craw, the possiblities are just endless, brother.

Thats quite the slippery slope. They dont claim that marriage is God given, they typically claim (correctly) that marriage is a state institution that grant couples certain rights. Then they (again, correctly) claim that the state is not giving them equal treatment.

Ignatius21 · Aug 17, 2012

Crawdad said:
Thats quite the slippery slope. They dont claim that marriage is God given, they typically claim (correctly) that marriage is a state institution that grant couples certain rights. Then they (again, correctly) claim that the state is not giving them equal treatment.

Couples of what? Couples of men/women. Even in saying it grants "couples" certain rights, we are defining polygamy out of the valid definition of "marriage," which excludes certain people who could then claim they're being denied equal treatment. So I would say that you're right in what you've said, only that they INCORRECTLY claim the state is not giving them equal rights. IF marriage means man-woman by definition, then they are NOT being denied equal rights. If they mean merely "certain rights" that pertain to property, powers of attorney, inheritance and the like, then again they are NOT being denied equal rights because they can contractually set up such arrangements now, unless I'm sorely mistaken (which is entirely possible).

So their claim is only correct, if "marriage" means "two human beings at the age of consent." And that's precisely what the fight is about, isn't it? The definition? In Ohio and a host of other states, per their amended constitutions, marriage is defined as man-woman. No other kind of couple (or triple, or whatever) can lay claim to that institution.

I think I'm seeing the point made by Proto and Rus and others. We're at an impasse regarding a basic definition, which definition can only derive from somebody's value system and philosophical/religious worldview. Generalizing the definition of marriage from "man-woman" (as understood for thousands of years across cultures and religions) to "human-human" seemed, to me for a while anyway, to be a neutral way to approach the problem, but I"m beginning to see that it is not neutral, but rather it supplants one value system with another. In the end, SOMEBODY's religion is being endorsed and enforced by the state.

Do you think I'm misunderstanding? I'm genuinely trying to get my head around this issue. I could be in left field. Or right field, I guess.

Lady Bug · Aug 17, 2012

this may be the most simplistic, uninformed opinion here but I will say it anyway.

I won't support a governmental redefinition of marriage and I'd vote against it in a heartbeat. No, I don't need all this high-falutent (?) substantiation of my opinion and everything, that's just my opinion.

gurneyhalleck1 · Aug 17, 2012

So you think gays and lesbians and these "transgenders" will be content to just have secular "weddings" and won't sue churches or religious bodies for refusing them marriage? Do you think these folks, who shout "bigot! bigot!" at priests and nuns in their protests, will be content to stop with just secular affirmations? Not a slippery slope, it's the next phase, bro.....

Crawdad said:
Thats quite the slippery slope. They dont claim that marriage is God given, they typically claim (correctly) that marriage is a state institution that grant couples certain rights. Then they (again, correctly) claim that the state is not giving them equal treatment.

gracefullamb · Aug 17, 2012

gurneyhalleck1 said:
So you think gays and lesbians and these "transgenders" will be content to just have secular "weddings" and won't sue churches or religious bodies for refusing them marriage? Do you think these folks, who shout "bigot! bigot!" at priests and nuns in their protests, will be content to stop with just secular affirmations? Not a slippery slope, it's the next phase, bro.....

I know my relative won't. This is where I have to hang my head in shame because he was one of the biggest donors to prevent prop 8 and to overturn it. He and several of his friends have also told me more than once that the activists do intend to go after churches once the states give them just "civil marriages." But hey, maybe crawdad knows some more respectful homosexuals than I do.

ArmyMatt · Aug 17, 2012

Crawdad said:
Thats quite the slippery slope. They dont claim that marriage is God given, they typically claim (correctly) that marriage is a state institution that grant couples certain rights. Then they (again, correctly) claim that the state is not giving them equal treatment.

that's the ironic thing. there are no rights involved. marriage is not a right, because right's don't come from the state. this is why the Delcaration of Independence starts off with We the People, and the Bill of Rights starts off with Congress shall make no law.

gurneyhalleck1 · Aug 17, 2012

Gays won't stop till they get it ALL, including religion, even if they have turned their backs on Christ. They just want it because we have it.

gracefullamb said:
I know my relative won't. This is where I have to hang my head in shame because he was one of the biggest donors to prevent prop 8 and to overturn it. He and several of his friends have also told me more than once that the activists do intend to go after churches once the states give them just "civil marriages." But hey, maybe crawdad knows some more respectful homosexuals than I do.

rusmeister · Aug 17, 2012

In case anyone thinks that persecution of normality is only in an imaginary future...

(The link is from an article several years back. It isn't even news now. Just historical fact. Be sure to scroll down to the second article.)

Gay Rights, Religious Liberties: A Three-Act Story : NPR

Stars of the Pharaohs · Aug 18, 2012

The glory of marriage - YouTube

Dorothea · Aug 18, 2012

gurneyhalleck1 said:
Gays won't stop till they get it ALL, including religion, even if they have turned their backs on Christ. They just want it because we have it.

Yeah, I tend to agree. It seems it's an ALL or NOTHING thing with most causes such as these.

rusmeister · Aug 18, 2012

Dorothea said:
Yeah, I tend to agree. It seems it's an ALL or NOTHING thing with most causes such as these.

It IS all or nothing. You can't allow a baby to be half aborted, or have people be half married, or be just partially dead, or even have a nation half slave and half free.

We must realize this in order to stand up with one voice and say that we will not accept these abominations.

It's not even a slippery slope. It's a precipice. We go over it, as they urge us to, or we don't.

buzuxi02 · Aug 19, 2012

Civil marriage is and always has been an insurance policy for women. The last 2 marriages that I know about was simply done because the women got knocked up.

My cousin was living with his girlfriend for years. They were shacking up for years in their penthouse apartment. She finally decided she wanted to get pregnant and once she did it was off to the altar. My other cousin was dating a guy for the longest time. She realized her biological clock was ticking away so she got pregnant, then soon after they married in a civil union.

All this is ridiculous, government is in the marriage business so they can keep tabs on population growth. With DNA testing we no longer need it.

ArmyMatt · Aug 19, 2012

gurneyhalleck1 said:
Gays won't stop till they get it ALL, including religion, even if they have turned their backs on Christ. They just want it because we have it.

yep, it has nothing to do with getting stuff from the government. it's that tolerance is not enough, they want acceptance.

Ignatius21 · Aug 19, 2012

buzuxi02 said:
Civil marriage is and always has been an insurance policy for women. The last 2 marriages that I know about was simply done because the women got knocked up.

My cousin was living with his girlfriend for years. They were shacking up for years in their penthouse apartment. She finally decided she wanted to get pregnant and once she did it was off to the altar. My other cousin was dating a guy for the longest time. She realized her biological clock was ticking away so she got pregnant, then soon after they married in a civil union.

All this is ridiculous, government is in the marriage business so they can keep tabs on population growth. With DNA testing we no longer need it.

Interesting point.

So if we want to keep government out of marriage, again going with the libertarian approach, should special tax arrangements be done away with? I've been told that many of the tax status changes that go with marriage were supposed to encourage people to get married and have children, because both were in the best interest of the country as a whole. Although, often my wife and I have found it less expensive to file taxes individually than jointly (???) and I think tax credits are given to whomever has custody of a child, single or otherwise.

I know some who think all tax credits should be eliminated, including those for families. "If you have kids, you should pay for them...why should I pay more taxes so you can have kids?" But that strikes me as overly individualistic.

As to "all or nothing" and people not stopping at civil unions, but wanting the whole shebang...one option is to open up "marriage" to gay couples (and then any number of people, I'm sure). The other is to basically demote all of marriage to being only a civil union, regardless of gender, number, or even the assumption of sexual activity. I think someone said that Canada has this basic arrangement, though even there it's not often used, but even a brother and sister can enter into such a legal arrangement...basically just entailing some set of benefits.

I still don't know what to think. Opening "marriage" to everyone seems like a total surrender, "Welcome to our city, please take everything and lead us off to the salt mines." Enacting laws to explicitly stop and prevent such "marriages" is definitely a long, drawn-out war with questionable outcomes. Just ditching it and going the all-civil-union path is maybe something like burning your own city to the ground, then saying "Welcome home!" to everyone else. If we can't have it, nobody can.

buzuxi02 · Aug 19, 2012

The tax benefits and any other perk is put in place precisely because of procreation. Its in the states best interests to keep families together in a stable community which creates a stable tax base. Who cares what other living arrangements take place, they wont effect school size, they wont place a burden on social services and married folks are less likely to b transients precisely because of children.

My cousins did not get married for tax perks but to make sure the male spouse doesnt run off. Hence why civil marriage is a nuisance for the man but an insurance policy for the woman.
The married man's name is on the birth certificate regardless of whse baby it is. Marriage presupposes that its the husbands children and his responsibility to take care of them. Thats the only reason for civil unions, its not to create an additional government bureacracy.

gracefullamb · Aug 19, 2012

buzuxi02 said:
The tax benefits and any other perk is put in place precisely because of procreation. Its in the states best interests to keep families together in a stable community which creates a stable tax base. Who cares what other living arrangements take place, they wont effect school size, they wont place a burden on social services and married folks are less likely to b transients precisely because of children.

My cousins did not get married for tax perks but to make sure the male spouse doesnt run off. Hence why civil marriage is a nuisance for the man but an insurance policy for the woman.
The married man's name is on the birth certificate regardless of whse baby it is. Marriage presupposes that its the husbands children and his responsibility to take care of them. Thats the only reason for civil unions, its not to create an additional government bureacracy.

Does NY law dictate the man on the birth certificate is financially responsible even if a paternity test proves he isn't the father? I know one of the states in the northwest has that law. I also know at least 2 states passed laws requiring a paternity test at time of birth even for married couples because of such a law.

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