In the New York Times, a Minnesota judge tells the story of an emergency wedding:
The wedding license bureau had told Cheryl that no one there had the power to issue an emergency license by phone, but maybe she could try to reach a judge. There were formalities: the five-day waiting period and an appearance in person at the wedding license bureau. There was no official procedure for an emergency deathbed-wedding license.
When someone goes to the trouble of trying to contact 16 judges, there’s usually an important issue at stake. But I was a sorry excuse for a judge that day, and I was in no shape to do anyone a good deed.
Even if I could figure out a way to do something that no one else wanted to do, something that violated every established process and had to represent some kind of poor planning by the couple, the reward (I thought in the back of my mind) was that I would be sued by some disgruntled heir who had been disinherited by the unorthodox wedding, or criticized by the license bureau for not doing it exactly as specified, or publicly flogged by the court of appeals if my actions turned out to be illegal.
Also, my courthouse in downtown Minneapolis was at least 20 miles from their home, a trip that takes 30 minutes under the best circumstances, and in this case, the evening rush was already under way. Thomas was near death. The only option seemed to be a telephone wedding, yet that would violate the rule requiring the wedding to occur in the presence of the judge.
My brain said no. No!
It’s really worth reading the whole thing.
It’s a beautiful story, politics aside. But, alas, I can’t resist asking the obvious political question: If the only purpose of marriage is to ensure that children are raised by two biological parents, why are deathbed weddings legal?
Categories: Marriage
Because the “only purpose” of marriage is not to “ensure that children are raised by two biological parents.”
Rather, a core purpose of marriage is to channel the reality that heterosexual sex quite often makes babies into a stable (most likely to be found in a marital) union of the baby’s own mother and father, for the sake of the babies and the mothers and father.
Dying people getting married does not require us to redefine that core purpose.
Same sex marriage does.
Elizabeth laid out several purposes of marriage in a recent HuffPo piece. My partner and fit three of four of them. As does this dying couple or almost any couple – straight or gay- not able to or wanting to have biological children. E – you present a neat tautology but you never explain the flaws in it, particularly this one. I think highly of your intentions and intellect which is why I ask you to address it. I’d also have to say that as someone who is gay, partnered for over a decade, and someone who has had stage four Lymphoma (with one lung to prove it) it seems terribly cruel that when this finally gets me (I am a very strong willed man, so it might not) that I would be denied marriage to my partner on my deathbed. But that is in fact what you propose here. Not a “hearts and minds” winner.
Dying people getting married does not require us to redefine that core purpose.
Same sex marriage does.
And yet in the paragraph above, you said “a” core purpose of marriage is providing a stable framework for the raising of biological children…not “the” core purpose. Was this inadvertant? Did you mean to say “the”? Or do you believe that there are perhaps several core purposes of marriage that can coexist, and that not all marriages will fulfill all of them?
Again, why should I, a heterosexual woman probably close to menopause, be permitted to marry while Christopher and his partner should not? Why should my father, an elderly widower, be permitted to remarry if he chooses….while his gay nephew, who has been with his partner for over a decade, should not? Why shouldn’t heterosexual couples whose situation vis-a-vis children is identical to that of same-sex couples be told to satisfy themselves with cohabitation?
To LLs point: in the US, in civil law, we make exceptions for infertile couples, and those who choose not to have children. I fully agree that “a core purpose” of marriage is bonding bio kids/parents. But as is pointed out many times, that is not the only purpose, a legal requirement, nor is it a non-starter for infertile straight couples who want to marry. Or even straight couples who because of incarnation will never have sex (Turner v Safley, SCOTUS (decided 9 – 0, incidentally in the same decision the court upheld a decision disallowing correspondence between certain prisoners, so two straight prisoners in separate facilities with no chance of parole or visitation must be allow to marry, but may be disallowed from corresponding to each other), 1987). There are several, as EM has elegantly laid out of HuffPo, core purposes of marriage, that not every couple satisfies or is even capable of satisfying all “core purposes” (which of course are not all legal requirements whether or not they are social requirements) of marriage has never been in law or in custom a reason to deny a civil marriage to heterosexual couples, or any male/female couple in the US.
So, let’s see where that leaves in the law. (and the law is what is being discussed here as we all have the freedom to disagree on social custom, though of course what is acceptable to say about race, gender, or disability now is every different than it was when any of us were born). Let’s see: you can marry, you have a fundamental right in fact (SCOTUS’ own language in multiple decisions), even if you cannot physically or don’t intend to have children, can’t or don’t want to have sex with each other and even if you will never see each other again (death, incarceration) but the one thing you MUST be (in 44 states and federally) is heterosexual. Unless of course as was the quaint custom back in the day, you enter a “sham” marriage with another gay person of the opposite gender in order to keep your job/social standing. Still nothing illegal about that.
US equal protection doctrine is premised on treating “likes alike” and “unalikes unalike.”
Opponents of SSM argue that discrimination against same-sex couples is justifiable because same-sex couples are not “like” heterosexual couples in that same-sex couples do not possess the capacity to procreate with one another.
But, as La Lubu and Christopher allude, opponents of SSM are overbroad in their blanket allowance of all heterosexual couples to marry. It would be more accurate, that is, to say that same-sex couples are not like* heterosexual couples who can procreate, but same-sex couples are like (or similarly-situated as) heterosexuals who cannot procreate (and yet who can still legally marry).
Allowing heterosexuals who are incapable of procreation to marry but not same-sex couples is a violation of the priniciple of treating likes alike, and unalikes unalike. And that’s why, I think, many people rightly bristle at and point out the double-standard. Many heterosexual couples do not and cannot fulfill a/the “core purpose” of marriage and yet are allowed to marry anyway.
*When I say “like,” I am speaking solely of the capacity to procreate with one’s partner. This isn’t a statement about the moral worth or equivalence of same-sex couples versus heterosexual couples.
Like Christopher, I’m curious about the move from “only purpose” to “a core purpose” — does that mean you acknowledge that marriage serves several purposes for our society, not just one?
If it’s the case that allowing a single marriage in which the couple’s sex can’t be said to lead to “a stable (most likely to be found in a marital) union of the baby’s own mother and father, for the sake of the babies and the mothers and father” means that we are required “to redefine that core purpose,” then logically allowing a deathbed wedding must redefine that core purpose. If you’re saying that all marriages must match the stable-union-baby-mother-father model, or else BOOM!, then you don’t get to make exceptions.
If, on the other hand, we are able to maintain that core purpose even if not every single legally recognized marriage fits the model, then you don’t have any logical reason to exclude same-sex couples. If allowing deathbed couples to marry doesn’t blow up the core purpose of marriage, than neither will allowing same-sex couples.
What your current argument seems to boil down to is that exceptions are fine and dandy and not problematic at all as long as the exception is heterosexual, but are so problematic that an entire purpose of marriage can’t survive at all if a couple is gay. That’s inconsistent.
Furthermore, I used to live in Massachusetts for years, and still have many friends there. I also have friends in Canada. I promise you, there are still young, hetero couples who get married because they want to raise children and be a family together. It happens all the time. Implying that the “stable-union-baby-mother-father” purpose of marriage has ceased existing in Massachusetts, or anyplace else with SSM, is to ignore reality.
That’s inconsistent.
Inconsistent for a secular argument, but quite consistent for a religious one. (the religious argument being: allowing heterosexual couples with no possibility of having children to marry is ok, because sex within marriage is permissible even if it doesn’t produce children—while sex, even heterosexual sex—outside of marriage is sinful. Allowing hetero couples who will remain childless to marry allows them to have sex with one another sin-free. Meanwhile, all sex with a same-sex partner is sinful no matter the circumstances, and is the primary reason SSM shouldn’t be permitted—-it gives legal protection to sinful activity.)
Which brings us back to the deep divide between intellectual and nonintellectual SSM opponents—the folks I know who are opposed to SSM are opposed to it for exactly the religious reason I described above.
Beautiful.
Christopher said:
False. Infertile couples are not exceptions. Infertility is a disability; it is not definitive of the type of relationship into which they enter when they marry. So they are apparent but not actual exceptions. You are misrepresenting the marriage idea.
Homosexuality is not a disability, according to the homosexual emphasis of SSM argumentation. So you offer a false equivalence. Yet homosexuality is definitive of the type of relationship SSMers have in mind when they complain against the man-woman criterion of marriage.
But let’s put this big contradictions aside for a moment and go with your intended rule.
The SSM idea that Barry has presented, and his fellow SSMers in comments have cited repeatedly, is that two unrelated people are eligible to SSM. (Yes, sure, he would use the same notion to replace the marriage idea.)
Related people can and do SSM where SSM is in the law. So relatedness is not a legitimate basis for banning some people from SSM.
There is nothing intrinsic to the one-sexed scenario (i.e. the universe of same-sexed relationship types) that dictates the limit of two. Indeed, such a scenario could be a lone individual, a twosome, a moresome, or a parade of persons of the same sex. The SSM idea’s homosexual emphasis does not provide the basis for the two participant limit. Nor does civil law where SSM has been imposed or enacted.
* * *
Fannie said:
Not quite right.
The lack of the other sex is not a disablity. And infertility is not the equivalent of the nonfertility. There is a qualifiable difference that is highly significant to marriage that makes the two categories unalike.
Most infertile married couples already have children; most, by far, resolve their problems by changing behavior and without resort to novel practices such as ARTs/IVF. Most will have children. Of the relatively tiny few who use ARTs/IVF, more than 91% do not use “donor” gamets.
Third party procreation is extramarital even when married people partake of it. For instance, legislation that enables this practice, via clinics as intermediaries, the agreement of husband and wife is necessary both ethically, morally, and legally. This is due to the sexual basis of the marital presumption of paternity; their agreement means that each of them, husband and wife, waives the future challenges to the marital presumption.
Big differences exist for reasons that have zilch to do with the homosexual emphasis of SSMers and their rhetoric and argumentation.
So if you want to point outside of the marriage idea to something else, fine, but please recalibrate so as not to rerpeat false equivalencies.
* * *
Fannie said:
The law does not include a heterosexual criterion for eligibility to marry nor dodes it include a homosexual criterion for ineligibility.
If you want to rely on something that does not exist in the law, okay, but please remind the readership that you would read into the law what is not expressly in the law.
In any case, the law does not allow people to marry just because they are “incapable of procreation” but because they are eligible through societal regard for the core meaning of marriage. That core is a coherent combination of 1) integration of the sexes and 2) provision for responsible procreation. This is two-sexed not one-sexed. And, yes, a man is eligible to marry a woman if either he or she or both of them identify as homosexual. They can yell it from the hilltops and they would still be eligible to marry.
The distinguishing characteristic you are trying to use to make a false equivalence is something that is a nonstarter for the entire one-sexed scenario. Your complaint, such as it is, would be that the marriage law might draw the line tighter. Well, the eligibility lines are drawn with societal regard for the core meaning of marriage and these are justified by that core meaning. Indeed, the special status of marriage in our culture and in our laws arises from that core meaning.
SSMers need to get this right. Marriage defenders do not insist that each and every marriage be procreative. We do not insist on a rule that the Government, through some crystal ball or some other mechanism, enforce compulsory procreation. Such compulsion would run against the principle of consent, of course, but it would also be a ridiculous standard for lawmaking.
But if SSMers want to attack the marriage idea and marriage law with such a blunt instrument — i.e. a rule that essential(s) of the type of relationship must be enforced with 100% certainty — then they must put their own SSM idea through the same test. What would survive Barry’s proposed SSM/marriage idea?
Not relatedness for some related people are eligible to SSM. Not the two-person limit since that is an arbitrary imitation of the two-sexed sexual basis of marriage and does not fit the SSM idea; that SSM idea bans the relationships of related persons of the same sex who are incapable of engaging in same-sex sexual behavior or are not sexually orientated that way. The ban is overbroad.
Barry said:
Instead of splintering the marriage idea into bits and pieces, try to see the coherent whole. There are multiple purposes and Elizabeth has not made a switch in her stated viewpoint, as far as I can tell. (She can clarify for herself, of course). The marital type of relationship is unlike other types of relationships. But when it is pulled apart for the purpose of deconstruction, it loses its coherency.
Social institutions are like that.
The marriage law is merely a shadow, a reflection, of the real thing — the foundational social institution of civil society. The law does not create nor own it. Government does not create nor own it. Marriage, as social institution, is a buffer between the naked individual and the power of governing authorities. It has ever been so.
Now, the law is not an all-powerful and all-seeing dictator that hovers over civil society. It is a servant of civil society. And, given the societal significance of the core meaning of marriage, the governing authorities, on behalf of society, recognizes and shows preference for something that is not man-made. The core of marriage arises from the two-sexed nature of humankind, the opposite-sex nature of human generativity, and the complementarily-sexed nature of human community. By nature I am not making a naturalistic fallacy but I am speaking of the essence of these things.
The SSM idea, as defended by SSMers, is reasonable as long as the government is not an all-seeing and all-powerful dictator. But SSMers present tests for marriage law that presuppose that the only way to justify the two-sexed criterion is to depend on such a dictator. That is not so. Reasonable lawmaking can identify essentials, draw boundaries around that core, and treat different types of relationships differently.
Surely it is not contested here, at least by those who want SSM to be shown the same special status that is accord marriage, that society may justly discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage. That there are different types of relationships outside the type that is in mind when referring to ‘SSM-as-marriage’. If there is no contest on that point, then, the special status needs to be justified and not merely arbitrarily imposed by a dicator. The status first, then, boundaries, then questions about the reasonableness of lawmaking.
Barry said:
Your reading (or rather misreading) of Elizabeth’s viewpoint may be drawn from what you anticipate rather than what is actually at issue here.
The man-woman criterion was abolished where SSM has been imposed or enacted. Abolished from the marriage law and the SSM campaign is working hard to abolish it from the culture as well.
Marriage is definitively two-sexed and its special reason for its special status is its core meaning — a coherent combination of integration of the sexes and provision for responsible procreation; there are other secondary and tertiary features that help comprise the coherent whole but the SSM idea excludes both the coherency and the core meaning of marriage as social institution.
Rubbing that out of existence is at issue.
Menopause is not recognized as a disability anywhere in the US; neither is voluntary surgical sterilization (vasectomy, tubal ligation, uterine ablation). That such people cam marry even though they have *zero* ability to have children points to the fact that procreation is unnecessary to marriage.
I don’t understand this “rubbed out of existence”; there is *no* movement to abolish marriage for heterosexual couples who wish to have children. None. Legalized SSM just gives equal protection under the law. *Everyone* get to “go home happy.”
Even inmates with no possibility of meeting again, who will never have sex, even though they are both fertile, have the “fundamental right” to marry. (Turner v Safley, SCOTUS, 9-0, 1987). Your goal is clearly to devalue and delegitimize and stigmatize gay people and gay couples and it’s pretty tiresome. I’d venture people on all sides here roll their eyes when they see your posts here Chairm. But please, acquaint yourself with marriage case law before you filibuster on it. Further, to LL’s point, a vestectomy or a tubal ligation is not a disability. Not is the active choice through birth control or not medically related sexual disinterest for matter, to not procreate a disability. But male/female couples in these also do not fulfill that core purpose of marriage. It does not change the fact that it is a core purpose, it illustrates what EM herself has pointed out namely that couples marry for various reasons and purposes and not every couple, even before gay couples could we’d, fulfilled every purpose of marriage.
As for your overall attitude toward gay and lesbian people, my advice is come out of closet about it. Say what you mean. Own it! You’ll feel so much better.
La Lubu, everywhere in the world when reproductive ability is disabled, by whatever means, including the normal maturation of the wife or a surgical procedure, the married couple experiences lossed fertility.
On the other hand, each same-sex scenario (one person on her own, a twosome, a moresome, a room full of persons of the same sex) is short the other sex — in terms of fertility, infertility, and fecundity. No ability has been lost or disabled. It just never was.
The homosexual type of relationship is merely a subset of (and is not definitive of) the same-sex category of relationship types. Regardless of sexual orientation, the lack of the other sex is not infertility but is the nature of the same-sex scenario. A room full of persons of the same sex, all of whom are hetersexual, is nonfertile — without the other sex.
You are making the error of confusing categories.
The entire same-sex category, regardless of sexual orienation, is supposedly the equivalent of old married people? The equivalent of married couples whose infertility is due to misfortune (say, cancer) or ill-health (say, malformation of reproductive organs)? These are false equivalencies for you insist on defining the same-sex “couple” as homosexual — at least in your homosexual emphasis — and then in effect recasting the husband-wife couple as nonfertile when they have become infertile.
The entire same-sex category of relationship types does not become infertile but is nonfertile beginning to end.
La Lubu said:
Who said there was such a movement? Not I.
Christopher if that remark was aimed at me, then, you will need to show more courage in making a direct accusation rather than playing (not-so-subtle) games at name-calling against me. Aimed at me or someone else, it seems far more productive and civil for you to deal with the substance of comments, rather than casting aspersions.
If you homosexual emphasis is relevant to fertility, please explain.
In Turner v Safley the possibility, however remote one might feel it to be, of sexual consummation was acknoweldged.
The fact remains that the sexual basis for consummation is two-sexed and not one-sexed. You are searching for the rarest of exceptions even though the eligiblity of the convict is not based on his being a convict (heterosexual or otherwise); that is in marked contrast to your seeking to make the homosexual-type of relationship eligible based on it being definitively homosexual.
Christopher said:
.
Readers will note your gay emphasis. There are same-sex relationships other than those you’d define as gay; and they, too, are ineligible to marry — not due to identity politics but due to the lack of the other sex.
The absurdity here is that you would attempt to destroy the general rule by invoking the unreasonable requirement that each and every husband-wife be reviewed by an all-seeing and all-knowing Government. It would be anti-marriage for Government to own each marital relationship in the manner you would insist — if only the law was just. Well, the law is reasonable and is not the dictator you might imagine.
I’ll accept that a core purpose of marriage is to provide a stable family unit for the children born into that union. (And maybe it’s the core purpose of marriage.)
But what happens when a significant portion of children are born to unmarried parents, and both government and society cease to make a distinction between children born to married parents and children born to unmarried parents?
I propose that this is what is eroding our understanding about this purpose of marriage. That is, the threat to this understanding of marriage comes not from infertile couples getting married, but from so many children being born outside of marriage.
I caught a little bit of celebrity “news” several weeks ago. Jessica Simpson and her fiance announced that they were putting their wedding plans on hold because Jessica is pregnant. A little google search turns up a quote that’s different from what I recall hearing, but it will suffice.
Link
From such an announcement, a cynic might conclude that a core purpose of modern marriage is to look awesome in one’s wedding gown.
Chairm, please do not post more than three comments on any of my threads. Please do not post any further comments on this thread. Thank you.
Since Chairm is no longer present on this thread, I will clarify to anyone who agrees with him: the category “cannot have children by biological means” includes both opposite-sex and same-sex couples. I have yet to hear a *secular argument* why opposite-sex couples, including those who will not be having children *by design* should be permitted to legally marry, while same-sex couples who are in the same situation when it comes to conceiving biological children should not. Many marriages, and in particular second or third marriages, *expressly* do not involve childen—the purpose of the marriage is companionship that includes the legal benefits that come only with *marriage* (not cohabitation). I haven’t heard any SSM opponents here speak out against companionate marriage of the opposite sex variety. Why not? What makes it *different*?
In other words, how does the *significant* number of opposite-sex companionate marriage, especially second or third marriages, *not* erode the child-bearing purpose of marriage…….but same-sex marriage does? This doesn’t make sense to me. How does the *active, deliberate* choice of heterosexual couples to not have or raise children within marriage cause less (or no) harm to marriage (as an institution) whereas the *passive, circumstantial* lack of (mutual) biological children in SSM presents the greater threat? A threat so large that their marriage must be prohibited?
La Lubu, I think one could argue that companionate marriages (along with the prevalence of second and third marriages) have already redefined marriage. In his essay, The Great Disruption, Francis Fukuyama puts it this way:
To revisit what Elizabeth wrote in her first comment, allowing deathbed marriages does not require us to acknowledge that we have already redefined marriage. Same-sex marriage does.
Peter Hoh: So what you’re saying is that for some reason, people want to claim that marriage has not been redefined throughout history, and has already undergone a great deal of redefinition in our lifetimes…..but that spirit of “let’s pretend” could fall apart if same-sex marriage was allowed?
I guess my questions are, why is it necessary to pretend that marriage has not been redefined throughout history? And what about same-sex marriage is beyond the pale? Because from my perspective, the abolition of legalized marital rape was a hell of a lot more of a redefinition of marriage; the same with the abolition of legal wife beating (and I’m old enough to remember how vigorously those redefinitions were fought—the most common objection being “the right to privacy”).
I’m really, really curious how from a secular perspective, the “drawing of the line” on further changes to marriage is drawn across the bodies of LGBT people in light of the fact that the most sweeping changes to our current perception of marriage were all created by heterosexual people. That phrase has been used on this blog quite a bit—”drawing the line”. Why here? Why not…back there, across the bodies of heterosexual people?
A reminder to all readers and commenters: Please limit your comments to 3 per post – unless, of course, the author gives you permission to add more. Thank you.
I know Chairm isn’t allowed to comment in this thread any longer, but I want to point out the way he misrepresented my argument.
I noted that same-sex couples were like heterosexuals who could not procreate. From this statement, Chairm assumed that I was solely talking about infertility. He wrote:
“The lack of the other sex is not a disablity. And infertility is not the equivalent of the nonfertility. There is a qualifiable difference that is highly significant to marriage that makes the two categories unalike.”
Yet, I was very specific about not using the word “infertility” in comparing same-sex couples to heterosexual couples. Indeed, there ways in which a heterosexual couple could be incapable of procreation without either one of them having a “disability,” as Chairm says.
A woman, for instance, could be post-menopausal. As far as I know, being post-menopausal is not a disability. In other cases, either a man or a woman could have chosen sterilization.
In any event, I don’t find the disability/non-disability distinction that Chairm makes convincing. For one who repeatedly opposes “identity politics,” I find it curious that he makes such an identity-based distinction (in this case, calling infertility a disability) in order to argue against SSM.
He then said that my statement that same-sex couples were like heterosexual who are incapable of procreation was a “false equivalency,” because there are “big differences” between the two sets.
First, I would note that my statement never was that same-sex couples and heterosexual couples incapable of procreation were “equivalent.” My argument is that, legally, they are alike. Legally, there is no relevant difference to treat them differently under marriage law.
Secondly, for all the alleged “big differences” that exist between the two sets of couples, Chairm failed to adequately articulate them. He certainly claimed:
“Most infertile married couples already have children; most, by far, resolve their problems by changing behavior and without resort to novel practices such as ARTs/IVF. Most will have children. Of the relatively tiny few who use ARTs/IVF, more than 91% do not use ‘donor’ gamets.”
But this statement isn’t convincing because (a) he failed to even provide citations or attributions for these claims, (b) he failed to provide comparison statistics regarding same-sex couples, and (c) these statistics aren’t even germane to the conversation.
If a/the “core” purpose of marriage is to ensure that children know and are known by both of their biological parents, heterosexual couples incapable of procreation are just like same-sex couples. That heterosexual couples might have children from previous marriages does not fulfill this “core” purpose any more than does a same-sex couple that adopts.
And yet, heterosexual couples incapable of marriage are still able to legally marry even though they do not fulfill the core purpose of marriage.
As for Chairm’s claim, here:
“And, yes, a man is eligible to marry a woman if either he or she or both of them identify as homosexual. They can yell it from the hilltops and they would still be eligible to marry.”
Shorter Chairm: Gays can too marry…. people of the other sex, of course.
Sorry, but that argument is, for many of us, a “non-starter.” That’s just not an option that will, in many cases, produce positive outcomes for couples or children involved.
Elizabeth, La Lubu, Christopher, Fannie, and Peter Hoh all have my permission to continue beyond 3 comments in this thread.
Wow, really? Chairm is not allowed but all others are? Something doesn’t seem quite right about that. Chairm is free to make comments on my posts with no discriminations.
IMO it’s not possible for me to have a productive conversation with Chairm.
That all depends on how one defines “productive”.
Karen, I’ve never publicly criticized your moderation decisions on FSB, nor will I.
I don’t think that it’s a good idea for the FSB bloggers (or guest-bloggers, in my case) to have this sort of discussion in the comments; it doesn’t feel very professional, plus it’s off-topic.
If you have any concerns you’d like to discuss with me, why not email me directly?
Moderation decisions are difficult I understand and respect that. I only posted this in response to your comments because I feel this blog discussion (and comments), as a whole, is/are out of balance.
I kind of agree that the discussion as a whole is out of balance. I’d welcome more anti-SSM posters, if they were civil, comprehensible, and able to argue on-topic.
Please feel free to go past the three-comment limit if you want to, Karen.
Love Barry!!! oxox Thank you so much for that little acknowledgment – that really means alot…but I’m afraid to participate any further.
If it means anything, I too would appreciate more anti-SSM participation in these conversations if they were civil, comprehensible, and on topic.
Given people’s differing backgrounds and oftentimes really different viewpoints, these types of conversation can be difficult to have well.
I wonder if the definition of “mean” in the civility statement should be defined. I think a big part of being civil and nice, especially on Internet, is in assuming that everyone in the conversation is participating in good faith.
For instance, I’m not thrilled at the prospect of conversing with some people who comment here because it’s been my experience that some have a history of questioning people’s motives and attributing bad faith to nearly every comment we make. And, I’d also like to hear more from (and interact more with) Karen, who says that she doesn’t feel safe participating.
I’d also be happy to discuss further in email.
Thank you Fannie!
Fannie, Barry please feel free to email me privately – I’m concerned about this and thankful to have both of you open to that.
I feel unsafe on this site as a gay person. I have been attacked very personally, including being told that my support for marriage equality is “an insult to my parents”. It is often very hurtful to me to read what is written here. It goes far beyond the frustration of disagreement, sometimes it cuts me deeply.
Christopher wrote:
I’m sorry you feel that way. (Edited to add: But I understand why you do.)
It’s a deep challenge. Obviously (to me, at least), a civil dialogue about same-sex marriage that lesbian and gay people don’t feel safe and welcome contributing to loses a lot of legitimacy.
At the same time, lesbian and gay people — at least, those who care about marriage equality — obviously have a lot more directly and personally at stake in the issue than other people do. It’s one thing to say that gay couples are inherently inferior as parents as a general theory; it’s another thing to say it directly to a gay person who may want to become a father someday.
At the same time, it’s necessary, if we’re really going to have a two-way dialog, for all issues to be brought up — including issues that lesbian and gay people may correctly find insulting or hurtful, even when the person speaking had the best intentions.
I don’t really have a solution, other than to accept that these things will happen. Opponents of SSM will say things that lesbian and gay people experience as dehumanizing; lesbian and gay people will say “I found that hurtful to hear.” Good-hearted opponents of SSM will be hurt to know that they’ve said something that injured another person.
It’s an unavoidable part of the debate, in my view. I think we should try to simultaneously accept that everyone might hear things they find hurtful, but at the same time we all have to try to avoid demonizing each other. The right of SSM opponents to say why they oppose marriage equality shouldn’t be doubted; but neither should the right of lesbian and gay people to say when they feel they’ve been hurt.
Wow, THAT’s new and very needed to move forward. I know that’s hard to say. I’m impressed.
Barry, that’s just it. It sometimes here and certainly on other “pro-marriage” sites goes far beyond opinions on marriage. A lot of anti-ssm people question a gay person’s morals, biology (as in “homosexuals are defective or some sort of aberration), commitment to our own families, etc. They are direct attacks based on being gay or lesbian and they happen here. I don’t take offense at people’s stance on marriage but when it is a direct attack on gay people as a class/gay individuals, yes I take offense. Don’t you? I agree that anti-ssm people should be heard, and I believe that EM and DB do a nice job of advocating without attacking. And I very much agree that an org that allows attacks on a group that they advocate barring from a civil institution does lose legitamacy. I think the people on this site are moving in a kinder more decent direction by and large but sometimes what I read about gay people here feels like a punch in the gut for me. It seems like ones individual experience matters here if you are a donor kid, as it should – those are important stories, but I find it fairly amazing that I mentioned my own prospect of a deathbed wedding above and only La Lubu alluded to it. Gay people/couples seem like pure abstraction in a lot of posts here – I’m reminded of DB’s moment of epiphany on “the equal dignity of homosexual love” in his book (yes, I’ve read it, a couple times)when he saw Evan Wolfson tearing up and without asking Evan himself, seemingly, decided that’s the formulation Evan was after – and that must be what all gay people want. (Equal dignity as a phrase reminds he of something nice people said to defend people with AIDS in 1985, it’s nice, I appreciate it, but it feels very dated) Part of that is about whose stories can be told, whose concerns addressed. And who must stay in the closet about it, or rather, civil marriage aside, if the good of helping gay families, reducing homophobia, etc, is a good enough that is good enough to actually do anything about.
This doesn’t foster debate. It only encourages the silent majority to remain silent. No one wants to hurt someone else’s feelings. Hence the imbalance.
So the inference is we must allow discussion of whether gay people are “defective” or “aberrant” or whether we can possess a sense of morality in order to foster debate about the purpose of marriage and who can obtain a civil marriage license? What is out of bounds to say about gay people, beyond actual slurs of course, which I can’t believe anyone would use here.
That’s just it. It’s much more than “hurt feelings”. It’s an attack on a lesbian or gay man’s dignity. Suggesting that a gay person cannot be a moral person by his nature, is “deviant”, etc, is beyond what is acceptable discourse in 2011. It can be said, but the consequence os the speaker will be tuned out by a large majority of Americans. There are many things, very rightly, that cannot be said about women (for instance) in 2011, and thank goodness.
Barry, what content, if any, in my comments in this thread have limited your ability to hold a productive conversation?
While La Lubu and Fannie responded to my remarks, ‘productively’ one must presume since you granted them permission to continue to comment, your claiming to feel unable to hold a productive conversation with me here seems, well, erring on the side of imbalance.
You brought it up so could you please clarify your intervention’s purpose? Thanks.
There’s a lot here to respond to, but I’m busy at work, and expect to be busy until tomorrow. My apologies to Christopher and to Karen.
Karen, I will ask you a question: What does the word “this” refer to specifically when you say “this does not foster debate?” I honestly don’t know what you mean, and being specific might be helpful.
Hi Christopher,
Regarding your comment earlier about how nobody really responded to your statement about having had stage four Lymphoma. I read it and noted it, but wasn’t sure what to say.
But, I am glad you’re here (as in, alive and also participating in this thread). I don’t know the specifics of your circumstances, but many people in my family have had cancer, so your experiences must have been difficult. For many of us with same-sex partners, this debate isn’t just an abstract exercise or game of “gotcha.” It seems like that might especially be so if a person is dealing with major health issues.
Hi Karen,
Maybe I’m still half asleep this morning, but I don’t see your email address on this site. You can email me at fanniesroom@gmail.com if you’d like.
I appreciate what Barry said in this comment, though. A two-way dialogue between people on opposing sides of an issue often will result in one or both of them feeling hurt, often for legitimate reasons. To me, I go into conversations willing to accept that risk.
What I’m less willing to accept is interacting with people who don’t abide by shared “ground rules” of communication- like people who regularly accuse others of acting in bad faith. For instance, there is an important difference between saying “what you said hurt me” and “you meant to hurt me.” I also don’t think it’s productive to interact with people who only “take” from a conversation (eg- people who demand answer after answer, but never answer questions themselves) or who refuse to clarify their terms and arguments when it is clear that others do not understand them.
@Phil. I have deleted your comment addressing Chairm. It was extremely uncivil.
Thank you Fannie. I should note that I worry about this more for my partner than myself. (I’m 48 and statisically I have another 10 or 12 years. Thankfully we are not merely statistics. But it is a truth to face for me.) When I had my lung removed in 2004 (it was in NY, it was very bad at that point) my partner and I had no legal relationship to each other, nor could we. I had to call my dad, he was very gruff and old school but a wonderful man and tell him what I wanted done with my body, to please not challenge my will, etc. (He wouldn’t have but since he was my closest legal relation it had to be said) My parents are both gone now. Everytime I travel to one of the 43 states that don’t recognize my legal relationship with my partner I wonder and worry what would happen if I died there. (Four solid years of chemotherapy takes it’s toll on the body, I am telling these very personal things not solicit sympathy but hopefully inspire empathy). Who would claim my body? Who is my family? Literally. If the man I love, am married (or whatever it’s allowed to be called that particular month) to, is debarred from it. Funny, I strongly believe that donor conceived persons, like Karen and Alana who advocate for it well, are fighting for exactly the same thing my partner and I and gay couples all over the country and the world are – the right to be claimed and be named. (all rights reserved.)
Christopher:
“Who would claim my body? Who is my family?”
I hear you and I worry about that too. My partner and I are in a legal civil union, but our status to one another is unclear when and if we travel to states that do not recognize same-sex relationships.
Back in August, at least two same-sex couples were involved in the stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair. One of the surviving partners of a couple who was in a legal civil union in Illinois is now having difficulty suing Indiana for wrongful death because Indiana doesn’t recognize their relationship. If they were a male-female married couple from Illinois, they would have this right. (I wrote about this back in October).
It seems like many civil and reasonable people would don’t necessarily support marriage equality would support at least the rights, benefits, and privileges of marriage/civil unions/domestic partnerships crossing state lines (even if they wouldn’t support it being called marriage). So, I’m interested in how the LGBT community can work with such people and groups to make that happen.
Er, that should read:
*It seems like many civil and reasonable people who don’t necessarily support marriage equality
@Chairm, please respect the post author’s wishes:
That Indiana case was terrible, similiar caes come to
mind from FL, RI, and Minnesota. Many people do support the rights, the current polling averages are about 52% of US adults in favor of marriage equality and 70% in favor of either civil unions or marriage equality. I’d like to work together on the rights too, just as I’d like to help get a legal effort going to regulate the donor conception industry. But I have to say bills to allow gay couples “funeral rights”, the right to claim your partners body essentially, were fought by people connected with IAV, fellow bloggers in both RI and Minnesota. They lost in RI, but won in Minnesota. Then Gov Pawlenty vetoed the bill and his veto still stands today.
[...] a comment on this issue, Fannie wrote: A two-way dialogue between people on opposing sides of an issue often [...]
Rather than continue the conversation here, I’ve started a new post.
Christopher, I’m afraid I missed you’re mentioning of your lymphoma. I’m sorry you had to go through that, and you’re right, it’s extremely relevant to the original post.