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Marriage Middle Grounds
Beginning an interesting series of posts on the marriage debate, Austin Bramwell asks: "Do marriage traditionalists really want to deny same sex couples the right to enter into enforceable agreements for the sharing of property and income? Do advocates of marriage equality really want the government telling people what marriage norms they should adopt? My answer to both questions is no."
That's true of most normal people, but I don't think it applies to the activists involved. The movement for same-sex marriage is designed to reshape marriage norms so that the broader society will be compelled to recognize same-sex couples as married. And while I think marriage traditionalists have been less interested in restricting the contract rights of same-sex couples, some defense-of-marriage amendments arguably would have that effect. Moreover, most social conservative activism on gay rights issues has been aimed at returning homosexuality to the marginal status it had as recently as the 1970s and '80s -- allowing supporters of same-sex marriage to frame the issue in a way that makes their success more likely.
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Pingback| 5.13.09 @ 12:00PM
Marriage Middle Grounds | But As For Me links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
NavyBrat| 5.13.09 @ 1:08PM
"That's true of most normal people, but I don't think it applies to the activists involved."
Mr Antle, that sentence right there captures how I feel this debate is going. I don't really care if gays get married. I have my reservations on how that would affect the kids that these couples would adopt, though. Having said that I don't care if gays get married, I will temper that by also agreeing that to change the traditional definition of marriage is PC lunacy run amok. If these activist pukes are successful in doing that, then we will have truly arrived at a sorry point in our country's history.
Roy| 5.13.09 @ 2:10PM
Granted I think it would be absolute paradise to live in a world where homosexuality had a "marginal status" - or, more generally, whateverthehellsexuality did - I don't really believe it's possible any more, and I can't say as how I've seen a lot of "activism" along those lines.
The answer to the second question about what "marriage equality advocates" want, is an unqualified yes. We all saw the rabid hatred of "Perez Hilton". Do you think that guy was concerned with contract rights? He wants you to shut up, and he lusts for the day when, through "anti-discrimination" law, he will be able to force you to do so. Did you know Disney movies were unacceptably "heteronormative"? You're about to find out.
mike| 5.13.09 @ 3:56PM
If you compromise with those who seek
the normalization of ssm, those advocates then
will use your compromise against you to say well we have all of the benefits of marriage w/o the status.
see the Conn. case.
Pingback| 5.13.09 @ 4:01PM
Twitted by don_dureau links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
BJC| 5.13.09 @ 4:49PM
A "middle" ground on the push to redefine marriage is impossible now. I can tell you what would do the trick, although probably nobody will like this -- simultaneous creation (presumably by state government) of a "civil union" partnership of any two adults unable to legally marry each other paired up with a reaffirmation of state anti-sodomy laws. My legal preference in these circumstances would be active prosecution of any government investigator who violated 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable search for evidence of homosexual conduct for bringing criminal charges. Because the Supreme Court has struck down states' rights to have in place anti-sodomy laws, any civil peace on this matter is highly unlikely. The objective would be that society at large would view every same-sex civil union couple as being in the "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" condition; anything else would be kept behind closed doors, with sexual contact details shared only with family and close friends.
But it seems to me that we have a couple of larger trouble areas that play out badly in the particular arena of the pro-homosexuality move to redefine marriage. We have forgotten the real meaning of liberty and the real meaning of privacy. If we had restored respect for both these core principles, we wouldn't be in the pitched political power struggle over preserving versus redefining marriage. The central liberty issue in the "gay marriage" debate is whether, once government declares a same-sex couple "married," any individual citizen will still retain the religious liberty to refuse to believe and act in support of that government-issued license. Isn't that what "gay marriage" is really about, after all -- removing the freedom of conscience of those who believe homosexuality is sin to refuse to participate in any way in treating that sin as marriage?
And we could probably refer to ours as an anti-privacy age. But for privacy to have any real force and meaning, it must be supported not only from the outside in -- which is what most people think of it as and sum up as "don't pry"-- but also, perhaps even more so, from the inside out. Why should a same-sex couple be empowered by government to force me to become aware of what they prefer as sexual conduct in their private realm and then force me to approve of it when my religious faith commands that I may do no such thing?
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