The Marriage Equality Thread

[Jan]

Given that we're still fighting for freedom of choice for women and pretty much everything except segregation for people of color, we can expect to be fighting for a long time.

But damn, it feels good to be on the right side of history for a change!

Jan

[phazedout]

GOP seem determined to take a head in the sand approach to this one, warning, rant coming up

Lijke their selective interpretation of the religion they purport to believe in, they apparently think they can pick and choose which bits of teh Us constitution they can pay attention to and which bits they ignore. Of course it seems terribly convenient that they will rely on the very same process (constitutional amendment ten) to *support* their decision to ignore something which doesn't suit them.

I saw (from afar, being in Finland) these sorts of arguments brought out during the recent (passed, thank fate) constitutional referendum on same sex marriage in Ireland. The same groups of people who who fought tooth and nail against divorce, against a woman's right to choose. It disgusts me and engrages me in more or less equal measure.

To qualify, I'm an atheist but I'm not anti theist, as I've said to any of you I've been lucky enough to meet in person, I'll respect your right to believe if you respect my right not to. Legislation should not be made based upon religious viewpoints, it should be made based upon what is fair to all members of a population and should be non exclusionary in nature.

Apologies for rant, this kind of thing gets my goat.

[sarthaz]

Great news! Well done America!

http://www.theonion.com/article/report-only-47000-social-justice-milestones-go-us--50767

[Ubik]

Great news! Well done America!

[Jan]

Oh, thank heavens!! The Supreme Court was wise.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/26/politics/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-ruling/index.html

Supreme Court rules states must allow same-sex marriage
Washington (CNN)—In a landmark 5-4 opinion, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that states cannot ban same-sex marriage, handing gay rights advocates their biggest victory yet.

Jan

[Jan]

You can be threatened with such violence for many other reasons. Ask the citizens of Syria and Iraq.

Which has nothing to do with the present discussion, does it?

Jan

[Dr Maturin]

I'd like to know why Marsden chose to put equality in quotes. Is there some reason you doesn't think that allowing same sex couples to marry exactly like straight couples should be described using a different term, Marsden?

And Dr. Maturin, saying that homosexuals haven't been oppressed is disingenuous. Have gays been enslaved? Neither have any black people alive now so that's not a comparison and nobody's made it. But the pattern of discrimination and a large amount of the senseless violence is very comparable though with varying numbers, of course. The fact that there are fewer (uncloseted) gay people being discriminated against doesn't make that discrimination any less valid.

Even leaving aside more subtle aspects such as housing and job discrimination, in some places bigots going out to find somebody to beat up pretty much always list 'queers' right alongside black people with the occasional Jew and/or homeless person added for spice is common 'entertainment' on a drunken weekend. During one period when I lived in Houston, a gang was going out and setting gay men on fire just for kicks. Can you imagine having to fear for your life - even being burned alive - for no other reason than some asshole thinks you might be gay? That's just one instance that I'm personally aware of.

Jan

You can be threatened with such violence for many other reasons. Ask the citizens of Syria and Iraq.

[Jan]

I don't know what I could have possibly said to indicate that I thought that this was all about rights, not power and/or recognition. When it comes to recognition, that follows naturally. But power? Over what and whom?

Jan

[sarthaz]

On what do you base "It's about recognition"?

The rest of your post? I don't know of any polls done on this issue, but if you conducted a poll among gay individuals and asked them if they'd be OK with all the rights of marriage, but it had to be called "gay marriage" and be a separate legal distinction, I don't think it would go over too well. If I'm wrong on that, I'd be surprised, but I cannot say it's a certainty. I do know it's the opinion of my gay friends.

In any case, it appears my previous ramblings were unclear. Even though I posted that an academic argument can be made that gay marriage is different from heterosexual marriage, I don't actually believe that they should be treated differently in society and certainly not under the law -- for the reasons you've mentioned and countless others. So you don't need to convince me And I completely understand why gays don't just want the rights that come with marriage, but they want the title as well. Like you say, the converse would be the social equivalent of "separate but equal".

Not sure I have a point in all of this, just trying to foster discussion around what Marsden said. Discussion is good.

[Jan]

I think Marsden does raise an interesting point, and I'd like to hear more thoughts on it. This issue isn't actually about the things I posted earlier: having the same rights as others. It's about recognition. Say the words "civil union" at a same-sex marriage rally, and you won't escape alive. The gay marriage movement is not interested in a separate legal distinction from marriage that provides all the same rights and privileges. I understand why they feel that way. However, as evidenced by previous posts, I could make an academic argument that same-sex marriage is a different entity and could be reasonably classified as something different, but from an emotional perspective I'm cool with everyone having the same labels and rights. But for the movement, it's not about the rights themselves; it's all about the label.

On what do you base "It's about recognition"? Yes, I'm sure that's part of it. Why shouldn't a couple be proud to be able to proclaim that they're happily married just like everybody on the other side of the sexual orientation street? What's really being discussed is 'they want to rub my face into their gayness and make me pretend it's okay.', isn't it? Well, I've only got one response to that - tough. Approve, disapprove, whatever - just don't think you have the right to have rights that you deny others.

'Civil union' is (or rather, would be) the social equivalent of 'separate but equal' and the problem is that society already has one institution that is recognized fairly universally and with certain rights/responsibilities that are assumed with no question.

And that 'no question' thing is key. All somebody of an opposite sex couple has to do is state that the other is their husband/wife and it's simply accepted. Nobody asks for a marriage certificate or any other proof at all ( I know - my ex and I did it a number of times when we weren't married legally - even at a hospital. But if the other half of a same-sex couple would say that they had a civil union they had to prove it and even then, there were a number of cases I heard of where hospitals refused to accept that, even when there was a Power of Attorney for making healthcare decisions if there was opposition from other family members.

And never once did a Civil Union contract bestow inheritance and next of kin and death benefits and pensions and all the rest.

Jan

[sarthaz]

So you don't think it has anything to do with inheritance and visitation or any of the other rights that are automatically bestowed on straight couples? Can you say why? Because to me that's what it's all about.

I agree. I don't really care what people do in private or how the government recognizes it (our laws are rife with such massive hypocrisy, what's one more thing); but it's wrong and just flat-out mean to deny a loving couple the ability to enter into a life contract that includes death benefits, hospital visitation, etc.

True. And I'm sure there'll be a certain amount of 'turnabout is fair play' at work for a little while. Thankfully in a couple of decades it'll all seem pretty silly.

I hope so. Racial tension hasn't gotten that much better in the last 50 years. I'm on the HOA board in my neighborhood, and many of the Black residents are convinced that the White people in the neighborhood are holding secret meetings and are out to get them. The level of paranoia is hilarious, considering the President of our board is Black ... so they call him Uncle Tom and House Ni**er behind his back. There's no rational or sane reason for this behavior -- it's just something borne out of generations of mistreatment and backlash. I wouldn't mention it if I thought it was an isolated group of crazy people, but I encounter nonsense like this a lot. A local schoolteacher is being sued for racist treatment of a Blacks student ... because she applied the same rules to him as every other child in her class, and the parents are convinced that the only way their perfect child could get in trouble is if the teacher is a racist. The suit will never go anywhere, because it has no merit and everyone knows it, but the fact that people feel this way in the first place shows how very far we have to go. I hope, as you say, this is just silly in a few decades.

I think Marsden does raise an interesting point, and I'd like to hear more thoughts on it. This issue isn't actually about the things I posted earlier: having the same rights as others. It's about recognition. Say the words "civil union" at a same-sex marriage rally, and you won't escape alive. The gay marriage movement is not interested in a separate legal distinction from marriage that provides all the same rights and privileges. I understand why they feel that way. However, as evidenced by previous posts, I could make an academic argument that same-sex marriage is a different entity and could be reasonably classified as something different, but from an emotional perspective I'm cool with everyone having the same labels and rights. But for the movement, it's not about the rights themselves; it's all about the label.

[Jan]

Got it in one, Mr. sarthaz.

I don't like discrimination against anyone. But I've found the groups that say they want equality really want more. Not the people, the individuals, but the group. The group leadership is only concerned about the group, not even the individuals that allegedly compose it, forget about anyone outside that group.

So who else should be granted equal rights to marry in your view? Or to put it a different way, what other groups have been denied the right to marry that the same-sex marriage folks are ignoring?

And I perceive this to not to have the right to marry, but the power to force everyone else to acknowlege it as a "marriage", even those, like me, who would not. Two or any multiple of homosexual people can marry themselves off to one another as much as they want, I would not interfere, I didn't call the local chapter of gay people to ask if I could get married, they don't need my approval either. But I don't acknowlege homosexuals living together as a marriage. I don't care if they introduce themselves as partners or spouses or whatever term they would prefer use. The most common one I hear is partners, actually, but I treat everyone with respect as a person. I don't wait to see what kind of person this is before I treat them as I feel I should. So I'm not against the rights of homosexuals but I am not for them either, I don't think they need their own special or specific rights. And I don't feel like it's equality for them to get special or specific rights. That's the other reason I put equality in quotes. Those equal rights should apply to everyone or they are not equal.

So you don't think it has anything to do with inheritance and visitation or any of the other rights that are automatically bestowed on straight couples? Can you say why? Because to me that's what it's all about.

BTW, as a matter of etiquette, one would address them as they indicate. Where I live, the term partner is falling into use for couples living together but not married. Married couples seem to be preferring spouse, wife or husband. But I'm happy to address them as they prefer.

This is very complicated, there's much more to this than what I've said, but I don't think this is about equality at all. It boils down to what it's always been about, power. The power to force opinions on everyone else because they can. I hope I wasn't offensive, I do not want to offend. I merely have my own opinions and beliefs and I feel as though my rights to them are being infringed or possible eliminated. People that have refused to acknowlege homosexual couples as married have already been ostricised and protested against. No one should be made to feel that way.

True. And I'm sure there'll be a certain amount of 'turnabout is fair play' at work for a little while. Thankfully in a couple of decades it'll all seem pretty silly.

Jan

[Marsden]

I cannot speak to the specifics of that post, but when I read it, I assumed "equality" was put in quotes because he believes the gay marriage movement is fighting for their specific rights to same-sex marriage, not marriage equality for all people. He'll have to clarify what he means by that and just who he thinks is being excluded, but I think he's equating it to Blacks marching for racial "equality" and then not including Hispanics.

Got it in one, Mr. sarthaz.

I don't like discrimination against anyone. But I've found the groups that say they want equality really want more. Not the people, the individuals, but the group. The group leadership is only concerned about the group, not even the individuals that allegedly compose it, forget about anyone outside that group.

And I perceive this to not to have the right to marry, but the power to force everyone else to acknowlege it as a "marriage", even those, like me, who would not. Two or any multiple of homosexual people can marry themselves off to one another as much as they want, I would not interfere, I didn't call the local chapter of gay people to ask if I could get married, they don't need my approval either. But I don't acknowlege homosexuals living together as a marriage. I don't care if they introduce themselves as partners or spouses or whatever term they would prefer use. The most common one I hear is partners, actually, but I treat everyone with respect as a person. I don't wait to see what kind of person this is before I treat them as I feel I should. So I'm not against the rights of homosexuals but I am not for them either, I don't think they need their own special or specific rights. And I don't feel like it's equality for them to get special or specific rights. That's the other reason I put equality in quotes. Those equal rights should apply to everyone or they are not equal.
This is very complicated, there's much more to this than what I've said, but I don't think this is about equality at all. It boils down to what it's always been about, power. The power to force opinions on everyone else because they can. I hope I wasn't offensive, I do not want to offend. I merely have my own opinions and beliefs and I feel as though my rights to them are being infringed or possible eliminated. People that have refused to acknowlege homosexual couples as married have already been ostricised and protested against. No one should be made to feel that way.

[sarthaz]

I'd like to know why Marsden chose to put equality in quotes. Is there some reason you doesn't think that allowing same sex couples to marry exactly like straight couples should be described using a different term, Marsden?

I cannot speak to the specifics of that post, but when I read it, I assumed "equality" was put in quotes because he believes the gay marriage movement is fighting for their specific rights to same-sex marriage, not marriage equality for all people. He'll have to clarify what he means by that and just who he thinks is being excluded, but I think he's equating it to Blacks marching for racial "equality" and then not including Hispanics.

And Dr. Maturin, saying that homosexuals haven't been oppressed is disingenuous. Have gays been enslaved? Neither have any black people alive now so that's not a comparison and nobody's made it. But the pattern of discrimination and a large amount of the senseless violence is very comparable though with varying numbers, of course. The fact that there are fewer (uncloseted) gay people being discriminated against doesn't make that discrimination any less valid.

I guess I see both sides of this. Dr. Maturin has a point in that pretty much every level of oppression that gays have faced in this country was not only perpetrated against Blacks, but it was completely legal. While hate crimes against gays like you've described are horrible, it's never been legal, and most people would find it abhorrent. But there was a long period in American history where Blacks weren't even considered human, and researching the "laws" on when it was legal to murder them (y'know, looking their master in the eye, learning to read, singing) will make you laugh while you cry. And while there aren't any former slaves living today, there are countless Blacks who lived through Jim Crow America. I think it's valid to suggest that not getting to marry is slightly less oppressive than "Colored" signs everywhere legally telling Blacks which water fountains they could use, which back entrance to the building they had to take, and where they were allowed to sit on the bus.

With all that said, though, you cannot ignore the unique psychological discrimination that gays face. You don't hear stories of Black people in the 60s killing themselves because they are Black. While treated as second-class citizens, Blacks didn't grow up being told that not only are they second class, but also it is their fault. That's something gays face that cannot be compared to our embarrassing racial history. In a much more subversive way than open slavery or "separate but equal", gays are taught that there's something deeply wrong with them, something they need to change to be right with God and to be welcomed in society. What a horrible thing to face. And if you somehow make it through that phase without a massive amount of guilt and self-hatred, then all you have to do to succeed in life is hide who you really are from the world, don't let anyone see your true feelings of love, and live your life as one massive lie.

The point here isn't that marriage is closer to the "perk" scale of social equality than, say, not being legally beaten in public for learning to read. It's that denying that perk is further enforcement of a mentality that tells human beings that they're not really human, and if they could only change the fundamental core of who they are, then maybe we wouldn't treat them with disgust. I originally got into this discussion to criticize JMS for equating interracial marriage with gay marriage, and for those same reasons, I don't think it's fair to try to equate Black oppression with that of gays. They're just so fundamentally different, and uniquely terrible.

Posting in this thread is making me deeply sad about humanity. I may need to go "ostrich" for a while and pretend the world and its people aren't as terrible as they continually show themselves to be.

[Jan]

I'd like to know why Marsden chose to put equality in quotes. Is there some reason you doesn't think that allowing same sex couples to marry exactly like straight couples should be described using a different term, Marsden?

And Dr. Maturin, saying that homosexuals haven't been oppressed is disingenuous. Have gays been enslaved? Neither have any black people alive now so that's not a comparison and nobody's made it. But the pattern of discrimination and a large amount of the senseless violence is very comparable though with varying numbers, of course. The fact that there are fewer (uncloseted) gay people being discriminated against doesn't make that discrimination any less valid.

Even leaving aside more subtle aspects such as housing and job discrimination, in some places bigots going out to find somebody to beat up pretty much always list 'queers' right alongside black people with the occasional Jew and/or homeless person added for spice is common 'entertainment' on a drunken weekend. During one period when I lived in Houston, a gang was going out and setting gay men on fire just for kicks. Can you imagine having to fear for your life - even being burned alive - for no other reason than some asshole thinks you might be gay? That's just one instance that I'm personally aware of.

Jan