I don't see anywhere creating marriage for gays. It's just marriage equality, across the board. There's room for all adult couples of any orientation under this tent (or chuppah) without crowding anyone else.
It is not a completely new right. This is a favorite "illogic" talking point of social conservatives; it's doublespeak. Marriage equality is the correction of a deep flaw in the application of a right.
The only way to view marriage equality as an entirely new right is to claim that the new right is to marry someone of the same gender. Marrying someone of the opposite gender has not ever been a sensible or fair option for people who are not heterosexual. In other words, what exists is a special right favoring heterosexuals, which is completely unconstitutional. Nowhere in our founding documents does it say that the government can exclude an entire class of citizens based on a characteristic that they did not choose and cannot change. There has been no rational basis up to this point for not granting marriage recognition to all adult couples, when the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the right to choose a life partner is among the most fundamental of all rights.
The point of marriage, from the government's standpoint, is to form a legal partnership. That's it. It's not to encourage procreation, it's not to encourage a certain type of "framework" for raising offspring, it's not to reduce the spread of disease. It's really no different than granting and recognizing an incorporation or a business partnership. In our system of government most business charters are granted at the state level, including marriage, but recognized with benefits and responsibilities at both the state and federal levels.
One analogy would be the government allowing freedom of religion, but only the construction of Christian churches. You could argue that changing the definition of church to allow the construction of synagogues and mosques is the granting of a "new" right, insofar as Christians are now free to build all the mosques they want -- even though they are useless to their religion. Bullshit. The original application of the law was deeply flawed, and no new right was granted with the acknowledgment that synagogues and mosques should have been included in the first place if the constituted dictated both freedom of of belief and the exercise thereof (e.g., building your appropriate house of worship).
There is no way marriage apartheid is going to be upheld.
You are under this assumption that the government is taking something away from people. When in reality they are just not extending a benefit, a benefit which they are under no obligation to give.
As I've said, the government could completely remove all marriage laws and say marriages are no longer a legal contract and they no longer exist within the American legal system. They can do that.
Yes, the government can take away marriage recognition from everyone. But it cannot offer it to just some.
You're quite correct that the federal government doesn't register marriages, so it has no obligation to recognize them. States may be under an obligation to offer marriage, depending on their own constitutions. However, when either a state or the federal government chooses to recognize and reward a relationship, it cannot do so in a discriminatory manner unless there is a compelling reason. None exists for why our federal government recognizes partnerships, in this case marriage, of opposite gender individuals and not same gender individuals. There is no equitable reason the federal government does not recognize all marriages from MA, CT, NY, VT, NH, CA and DC. It either has to recognize all marriages from those states or none. Arguably, it also has to treat legally registered CUs and DPs the same as marriage.
As I mentioned before, the federal government is not in the business of encouraging procreation; churches may be. But in the interest of recognizing the very real nature of human beings to seek security and love in the bonds of matrimony, the the courts have instructed government to treat couples as one person for certain constitutional rights, such as the right against self-incrimination. The intimacy of the bond justifies such protection -- but it cannot be selectively applied.
Maybe this is an over-simplification, but for me it boils down to what marriage really is: a legal contract between two consenting adults. Period. Many, I would actually say most, marriages have some religious tie-ins, but that is not a requirement for heterosexual marriage. Two complete strangers could meet and decide to get married, whether or not they love each other (or even KNOW each other), whether or not they give a damn about each other or anyone else, so long as one is male and one is female. A marriage performed at city hall counts just as much as any other marriage, even William and Kate. And the government denying gay people the right to marry the person he or she chooses is not equal protection under the law. That basic argument, along with an increasingly tolerant and diverse society, is what did in interracial marriage bans a few decades back, and I think we are witnessing a similar journey for marriage equality as we speak.
You didn't read the rest of the thread. Marriage has never been a right.
So am I, but it's unfathomable that a "fairly new" country like the US still hasn't caught up to the needs of it's people.I am glad that I live in a country where this is not an issue. ;þ
:arms: Progress!The governor of Washington has just announced her support of a same sex marriage bill going before the state legislature. If enacted, it will make Washington the 7th state to legalize marriage equality.
So getting married is not a right that one can decide to undertake, but rather a benefit? (alert: the issue is getting lost in the language).Right, this is why I tell people it isn't an equal rights issue. The rights are equal. It is a completely new right that people, regardless of sexual preference, will be able to utilize.
And with that being said. That opens up the system to abuse. If it meant getting paid more and getting a tax break from the government, I'd have no problem marrying a male friend of mine, even though I am straight.
That is why marriage shouldn't be the qualifier. It should be children. Because that is the intended purpose behind those marriage benefits to begin with.
Were you dropped on your head?! laws against incest will not just fall away.So I wonder--could an unmarried woman enter into a civil union/civil marriage with her unmarried brother so that he could be a beneficiary of her employer health plan?
<<thisYes, the government can take away marriage recognition from everyone. But it cannot offer it to just some.
You're quite correct that the federal government doesn't register marriages, so it has no obligation to recognize them. States may be under an obligation to offer marriage, depending on their own constitutions. However, when either a state or the federal government chooses to recognize and reward a relationship, it cannot do so in a discriminatory manner unless there is a compelling reason. None exists for why our federal government recognizes partnerships, in this case marriage, of opposite gender individuals and not same gender individuals. There is no equitable reason the federal government does not recognize all marriages from MA, CT, NY, VT, NH, CA and DC. It either has to recognize all marriages from those states or none. Arguably, it also has to treat legally registered CUs and DPs the same as marriage.
You hope...I think it will eventually happen that gay marriage becomes legalized in a large number of states.
Yes. It is a legal fact that if the government is under no obligation to give a benefit so they can define who gets it.
There are several examples.
Medicare/Medicaid - These benefits are denied to people with an income too high or an age too low. well, healthcare costs and insurance are a whole other discussion.
Federal Education grants/loans/scholarships - These are also denied to students whose family income is too high. for valid reason. many people out there were not fortunate enough to be part of the country's early capitalist practices, taking advantage of the land and it's fruit, and thus cannot afford the luxury of the best (or even a great) education. So why take that opportunity away from them for someone who can afford it.
Point taken on all your examples, but there are logical reasons for those. I fail to see the correlation though... or is the intention to just belittle their plight by comparing it to a blind person wanting to drive?Just to tack on a few more examples.
Whatever the reasons were in 1607 Jamestown or 1776 Philadelphia, it's clear today that government's legitimate interests in marriage are not procreation or paternity. Unmarried couples have children routinely, and a marriage certificate is in no way dispositive that you are the biological father of your wife's child. In the past governments have considered race and endogamy as legitimate social considerations for marriage, but by all current judicial yardsticks these do not withstand scrutiny. Nor should an innate characteristic like sexual orientation.
The recognition of marriages is a two-way street, not merely for the benefit of government or society. As the courts have repeatedly emphasized, such recognition is also very much for the private parties involved; they have an inherent right to association and selection of partner. And if a legitimate basis for the federal government recognizing legal relationships is the stability of the family, this applies similarly in the argument for marriage equality. Two gay men or lesbian women in a committed couple relationship are as much a family as a man and a woman in a committed couple relationship.
Now there is convincing emerging evidence that regardless of the sexual orientation of the partners, married life leads to better overall health. Surely this is a valid objective of government when enumerating the reasons for recognizing legal domestic relationships (marriage or otherwise).
The US tangle with marriage can be traced back to Great Britain and its intermingling of church and state. Many other countries that don't have an Anglo tradition do not have the same confounding of ecclesiastic and civil marriage. England and Wales didn't recognize the concept of civil marriage unti 1837, long after the United States came into existence. In France or Germany, for example, a couple is not officially married if all they have is a church wedding. Priests and ministers are not deputized by the state to confer civil marriage status; for this, one has to go down to city hall and follow the proper procedures to be married by the state. Since the US has never had an official state church, it never made sense for governments to recognize religious marriage.
At English common law, marriage has always been recognized as a voluntary contract between two people, traditionally a man and a woman. The state is not technically a party to the contract, and therefore has no justification for stipulating the reasons for marriage. It can place restrictions to protect minors and public health, but beyond that it needs to show increasingly compelling reasons for interfering with the conferral or recognition of marriage.
As others have already noted in this thread, marriage equality without regard to the gender of the partners is already achieving legal recognition. The only question is how nasty and difficult those who disagree with it intend to make the journey to equality. To what end?