February 5, 2004
IS MARRIAGE A HUMAN RIGHT OR A HETEROSEXUAL PRIVILEGE?
Saying that "separate is seldom, if ever, equal," the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled yesterday afternoon that its state Legislature could not substitute 'civil unions' for full marriage rights to satisfy a previous Court decision. What this essentially means is that starting in late-May, same-sex couples can get hitched in Massachusetts, making it the only state to permit gay marriages. From the Supreme Court's decision:
"The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal... The dissimilitude between the terms 'civil marriage' and 'civil union' is not innocuous; it is a considered choice of language that reflects a demonstrable assigning of same sex, largely homosexual, couples to second class status."
President Bush immediately denounced the decision and vowed to pursue legislation to protect a traditional definition of marriage:
"Today's ruling of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is deeply troubling. Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. If activist judges insist on re-defining marriage by court order, the only alternative will be the constitutional process. We must do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage."
As a result of yesterday's ruling, it would seem that a constitutional crisis may soon be at hand. By order of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, starting in late-May, marriage in the USA is no longer the exclusive right of heterosexuals, and no longer exclusively the union of a man and woman. Once the State of Massachusetts begins issuing marriage licenses to all partnered human beings, homosexual couples will likely flock to the state in droves to get married. And when they return to their home states, or move from Massachusetts to another state, challenges are sure to be filed against the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. To top all of this off... the current front-runner in the race to oppose George W. Bush for the presidency of these United States -- John Kerry -- hails from the State of Massachusetts, and he oppose gay marriages!
If you're comfortable commenting on any of this, please share your thoughts on this interesting question... is marriage a human right or a privledge? If you have an opinion but are not comfortable sharing your thoughts, primarily because your name will be associated with your comments, consider this... the 'comment' feature on this site allows you to post thoughts without leaving your name or e-mail address.
Posted by Mikal at February 5, 2004 5:22 AM
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Within my heart of hearts I believe that kind of union is against every principle I hold dear. THAT is my choice. It is the right of human beings to make choices(here in the USA). What is immoral to one is NOT immoral to another. It is a judgment call. Will we soon find humans trying to tie the knot with beloved dogs, cats, birds... fish? Read: ScrappleFace @ http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/001557.html#001557 A thoughtful "tongue-in-cheek take is there.
Marriage under the law is a contract. The LAW does NOT consider "love" when you bring issue into the court. There are long reaching arms under it's bounds. It is easy to get into and very hard to get out of. Having been divorced and still stinging I get it and wish I had thought more.
This issue WILL be controversial because it brings "church and state" together... where our founding Fathers drafted otherwise.
As Sally says, under the law, marriage is actually a contract. To the state, all marriages are really just civil unions. What I think Bush is referring to as marriage is a religious institution. A legal union confers certain rights that should be available to all Americans. It's not the state's responsibility to defend the sanctity of marriage.
I'm a lesbian. I'll probably want to marry my girlfriend someday. I'd like my church's blessing, and, in my church, I'm likely to receive it, but frankly I don't need that as much as I need to be able to call my children my own if my partner bears them without having to go through the rigamarole of legally adopting them. I'd like my partner covered under my insurance benefits (possible at my company but not at most and never pre-tax as it is for heterosexual married couples). I'd like her to be able to receive my social security benefits someday. I'd like to be recognized by institutions like hospitals as a legal spouse with automatic visitation rights and the right to make the call should she need to be put on life support.
Gay people have been getting married for years-- in churches and temples and in backyards, on beaches and in Vegas and on cruises and on airplanes and at football games and sometimes on Jerry Springer, just like heterosexual couples. I don't want to speak for all homosexuals, but I don't need George Bush to acknowledge or accept my loving union with a person of my gender. I need the rights that have been extended to most other Americans but denied to me on the basis of my sexual orientation.
Marriage is a civil institution in this country, but can be a religious one, too. All heterosexual religious weddings are recorded by the state in order to become "official." However, for years, same-sex religious ceremonies have not been recorded by the state and therefore have not become "official."
Religious marriage can be whatever folks want it to be. The primary function of civil (legal) marriage is to establish "next of kin" legal status. That allows for family health insurance, family car insurance, automatic hospital & funeral visitation rights, automatic inheritance and social security spousal rights, and adoption rights.
Civil unions, while conferring many of the same rights & benefits, does not include them all, mostly because some of the benefits are federal in nature - like federal tax returns. In fact, there are over 1000 rights & benefits associated with marriage.
In addition to the rights & benefits, there is the issue of the word "marriage." Everyone knows what marriage means. When you say, "I'm married" it denotes an immediate status or relationship. When gay people say "He's my boyfriend, partner, or lover" or that "We're civil partners," it denotes many questions - the meaning is not immediately clear or universal. Are you "permanent" partners? Do you mean you've had some sort of ceremony? Is your relationship exclusive? is it intended to be for life? Providing civil unions does not remedy this situation. In fact, civil unions would create a "separate but equal" status that will only prove to be UNEQUAL. It makes for a second-class (read inferior) status. The court made the right decision.
I should choose my marriage partner - not the state. The state has restricted marriage for too long. In this country, women used to be considered property - morally & legally. Interfaith marriages were once outlawed. Interracial marriages were once outlawed. One day, (today, perhaps) we can look back with mild amusement and say that same-sex marriages were once outlawed and see how silly that was. Same-sex marriage does not, in any sense (morally, legally, socially, or culturally) lead to inter-species marriage (as suggested by an earlier comment) between humans and animals. Such a notion is intellectually, academically, and culturally lazy.
On other note, Mikal, I understand your need to be sensitive to folks on sensitive issues. But to pre-apologize and point out an "anonymous" means of weighing in on this issue is disturbing to me. I think it quite childish and cowardly. You don't have to be gay to discuss gay issues. Not that this is a "gay" issue, anyway. This is a matter of civil discourse and its our (American) privilege (duty?) to discuss it in open forums. If some of your readers are uncomfortable about posting on this, I'd ask them to consider or imagine what it is like for gay people to live open lives - what courage it must take. If you are uncomfortable with people THINKING you are gay, imagine what it must be like to actually BE gay.
I remain single & looking!
May I add that John Kerry's stance on this issue thoroughly pisses me off. What a careful coward!
http://www.politicsus.com/presidential%20press%20releases/Kerry/111803.htm
Um, hello, regular readers--I'm a co-worker of Mikal's and an infrequent visitor to the site.
A couple points: First, I don't think the Massachusetts court can rule that "marriage in the USA is no longer the exclusive right of heterosexuals"--I think it's just Massachusetts. But I think this does raise the potential of a Supreme Court challenge to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which, as I understand it, gave states the right to not recognize marriages that are legal in other states. Hence the national hubbub.
Second, I think it might be more accurate to say that what the Massachusetts court has ruled is that, constitutionally, marriage *should never have been* "the exclusive right of heterosexuals," and this court is seeking to clarify that.
Semantics. Anyway, for what I think about the issue as a whole, please click the 'pk' below. (It's angry, but I think it's PG-13.)
I believe that it is a Human Rights issue. The government has denied a basic right to one group of society. Because marriage is a legal contract as well a religious ceremony, I feel that the two should be split.
As the 1967 US Supreme Court ruling overturned all state bans on interracial marriage, and declared that the "freedom to marry" belongs to all Americans, so to should it also be for same-sex marriage. Let the churches marry only those that they want, but let all that want to marry in a civil ceremony be able to marry.
Once again the change comes out of the northern states. In 1858 Massachusetts allowed blacks to vote and hold property, and that resulted in the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. The Baptist church split because of the slavery issue -- the northern Baptist believed slavery was a sin and that resulted in the Southern Baptist to split off. The Supreme Court decision on interracial marriage came about because Massachusetts (if my memory servers me) allowed the marriages and the couple moved to Virginia where it was banned. And now this is coming out of the northern states.
As a M to F transsexual, if I ever have SRS (Sex Reasignment Surgery) I will have a choice -- I could marry another women in Texas or I could marry a man just by going north of the Mason-Dixon line to here in Connecticut. Texas does not allow the birth certificate to be changed while Connecticut does.
Gay marriage is totally different than interracial marriage. Different races of people are found in nature equally. Race is a physical thing. Heterosexuality is also a physical and an emotional thing.
However, homosexuality is an emotional thing, it is a feeling of attraction (i.e. orientation). It's just a different feeling of attraction than most people feel. Of course people should not be made fun of because of it or hated because of it. Gay people should be loved and dignified just like anybody else. And, it looks like society has almost achieved that!
However, a feeling of attraction does not define a person's entire identitiy. It's just a tiny fraction of what any person is.
For example, an alcoholic apparently has a genetic orientation to alcohol. However, even though we dignify the alcoholic person, we don't dignify the result of his/her orientation. We also don't dignify everything about an obese person, there is an issue there that they need help with, even though we love and affirm the obese person as a whole. So, why is there such a big need for the orientation part of homosexuality to be equated with heterosexuality in EVERY way?
Nature obviously did not give homosexuals the ability to reproduce. That proves conclusively that the emotion of homosexuality is NOT equal to heterosexuality. So, not only is homosexuality not a physical characteristic, there IS a physical characteristic put there by nature that makes SURE that it will NOT be reproduced. Homosexuals cannot reproduce. No matter how much this may hurt someone's feelings or get someone mad. It IS reality. Homosexuality will never be equal to heterosexuality and nothing is going to change it.
This is mother nature talking. We need to listen.
Homosexuality is as old as civilazation, but it is not something that nature is in the business of equating with heterosexuality. Just because it exists in nature does not mean it should be promoted artificially beyond what nature intended. There will be consequences... aren't we already seeing them?
Speaking of mother nature, how many times have you seen a male dog hop on top of another male dog and have at it? Being a dog owner, I can safely say that it is not an uncommon occurance. One could argue this is dominance rather than sex - but who really knows for sure at that given moment.
That being said - Mother Nature/God designed us to reproduce with the opposite sex. Mother Nature/God also designed our brains to fall in love; however, Mother Nature/God did not specify the sex of who one should fall in love with.
It doesn't take love to have sex and reproduce.
Judicial Activism at its Best
Gays are screaming "It is discrimination -- let's not write discrimination into the Constitution." How can gays be discriminated against over something - a law that never applied to them to begin with?
Marriage is for a man and a woman -- period and steeped in that “man and woman” traditional marriage is the hope and beauty of natural procreation; not artificial insemination between lesbian couples, and not surrogacy by women for gay men.
I live in Boston, and Beacon Hill has become the land of political confusion. What I have seen so far on this whole gay marriage fiasco is that it is felt to be a civil rights issue. Here we have 4 wayward judges that decided to take it upon themselves to write law for the legislature, for which they can and should be impeached. Gays are relying on Massachusetts lawmakers to pass this law because they do not, by their own admittances, want it to go to the people for voting. People are more against this than for it; not only in Massachusetts, but in the majority of the world, and the reason is not only tradition and law, but morality -- religion aside!
Tolerance of the gay lifestyle, however deviant and unnatural most feel it to be, has been thrust forcefully upon people by liberals and special interest groups. People are so fed up! People are sick and tired of everything they feel and think being practically under martial law in this country! People have bitten their tongues for far too long over everything they are not allowed to do, say, think, feel or celebrate for fear of seeming un-politically correct by not doing the popular thing/feeling the popular, politically correct way, thus being considered a racist, bigot, homophobe or mean spirited.
People have had enough already! If this law should happen to pass and gay marriage is allowed, it is quite possible that people who were once tolerant and accepting of this lifestyle, be it on their own accord, or because they had no choice, could turn on gays and display outright acts of hatred. Passing of this gay marriage law could be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back.
Marriage is a very, very venerated bond for heterosexuals. To have this union 'between man and woman', as it has been since the beginning of time, be granted to gays because they whined and bitched and got their way; thus having marriage lose the meaning people held most dear -- this could have dire consequences.
If gays think that circumstances are bad for them at this point in time; that they have been victimized and discriminated against, wait and see what the future might possibly hold. Gays may be biting off more than they can chew. People can become as un-politically correct as we are currently forced to be politically correct. However far gays think they’ve come in the world in terms of equal rights and acceptance could be offset by a fierce backlash – a revolt, an upheaval of hatred from the straight community - even those who are supposed to act politically correct under “crybaby” left wing laws – people such as landlords, employers, etc.
People may regress to the days when nasty things were said and feelings were shared outright -- and no amount of legislature or law suits (another thing people are fed up with) will stop people from expressing themselves --no more putting up and shutting up! Attitudes could rival the days of Archie Bunker!
Be careful what you wish for -- it may not be what you wanted, and it may not go the way you thought it would.
Gay Marriage
Gays have successfully dominated the older culture and religious tradition that transmitted marriage to this century, making it almost fashionable to come out with openly gay lifestyles. Marriage, once the target for rule breaking, is called in for re-making. Mainstream gays demand changes to the established order. They want the blessing of society and a bigger piece of the American pie. Gay couples feel cheated assuming the obligations of a spouse without the financial advantages given to male and female partners. They say they pay taxes too and besides, many heterosexual marriages end in divorce.
The Catholic Church, one of the oldest and largest moral authorities in human experience, insists that homosexual acts are disordered. The word moral has a stigma now but it means what is "good" not what is "wrong." So moral is good for mankind. Gay demands represent a shift in emphasis away from procreative interests toward sensual and emotional priorities. New attention is focused on sexual action as the core value in relationships. It represents a change in the order of priorities away from the life-giving in favor of the prurient. This is a proposal for new morality.
There are many kinds of friendly and emotional bonds between people, from family ones like cousins, uncles, and brothers, to ones outside the family like teachers, teammates, and caregivers. There are many expressions of love by taxpayers. The sexual behavior of homosexuals is the only thing that distinguishes them from other groups of cohabitating people who love each other. Rewarding only couples doing adult things together would be unfair to groups who donít participate in these activities. The community is asked to make private gay behaviors a group priority.
Marriage was granted special legal status for the one main reason, because men and women have children. The privileges for couples were never intended as a reward for having marital relations. Tax benefits, life and health insurance, were not perks you got for sleeping together.
It is remarkable to me as the father of five children that others fail to acknowledge the different value of having children versus the value of having relations. Parenting is a contribution that is better and different than someone who lives with someone else and wants insurance.
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