In an article by Ross Andersen at The Atlantic, I read:
Evolutionary biologists tell us that we owe the singular bundle of feelings we call “love” to natural selection. As human brains grew larger and larger, the story goes, children needed more and more time to develop into adults that could fend for themselves. A child with two parents around was privy to extra resources and protection, and thus stood a better chance of reaching maturity. The longer parents’ chemical reward systems kept them in love, the more children they could shepherd to reproductive age.
Let me say right away that I have no idea if what ‘evolutionary biologists’ say in this case is solid science or not. (Evolution itself is proven beyond reasonable doubt, but that doesn’t mean that every theory someone has about how a particular behavior developed is well proven). But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that this is true.
It’s interesting to compare this to the arguments made by opponents of marriage equality. On the surface, the evolutionary account of sexual love fits well with the anti-equality account of marriage; just as pair-bonding sexual love evolved to facilitate successful child-rearing, the purpose of marriage, we are told, is to facilitate child-rearing.
But the analogy immediately fails, because when we look at the evolutionary account, what it tells us is that same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples actually have a lot in common. The chemicals that rush through straight couples’ brains when they are in love, which encourage them to stay together and raise children effectively, are the same chemicals that infuse the brains of lesbian and gay couples in love, and can serve the same purpose. In an evolutionary (and chemical) sense, same-sex couples fall in love for the same reasons straight couples do, including the need to facilitate healthy child-rearing.
Categories: Marriage
Barry Deutsch, this makes a lot of sense to me.
For what it’s worth, scientists have shown that we do have these chemical reactions when we fall in love. They can only theorize about why, but the reactions are a fact.
I think this is why I find it easy to support same sex marriage but not having marriages for people who aren’t in a sexual relationship. I look at a gay or lesbian couple and think, oh, they’re in love like me, they have the same feelings I do, why not get married? But I don’t feel the same way about a non-sexual relationship and I have a hard time seeing it working the same way.
Evolutionary biologists might think love has something to do with marriage. But not the opponents of same-sex marriage, at least those who argue before the Supreme Court.
In the brief just filed by Olson and Boies in the Prop 8 case before the Supreme Court, they point out that the proponents of Prop 8 “accuse Plaintiffs (repeatedly) of ‘re-defining marriage.’ But it is Proponents who have imagined (not from any of this Court’s decisions) a cramped definition of marriage as a utilitarian incentive devised by and put into service by the State—society’s way of channeling heterosexual potential parents into ‘responsible pro-creation.’”
“In their 65-page brief about marriage in California, Proponents do not even mention the word ‘love.’ They seem to have no understanding of the privacy, liberty, and associational values that under-lie this Court’s recognition of marriage as a fundamental, personal right. Ignoring over a century of this Court’s declarations regarding the emotional bonding, societal commitment, and cultural status expressed by the institution of marriage, Proponents actually go so far as to argue that, without the potential for procreation, marriage might not ‘even . . . exist[ ] at all’ and ‘there would be no need of any institution concerned with sex.’”
“Thus, under Proponents’ peculiar, litigation-inspired concept of marriage, same-sex couples have no need to be married and no cause to complain that they are excluded from the ‘most important relation in life.’ Indeed, Proponents’ state-centric construct of marriage means that the State could constitutionally deny any infertile couple the right to marry, and could prohibit marriage altogether if it chose to pursue a society less committed to ‘responsible’ procreation.This, of course, reflects a complete ‘failure to ap-preciate the extent of the liberty at stake,’
. . . not to mention matters such as love, commitment, and intimacy that most Americans associate with marriage.”
Olson and Boies conclude:
“Because of their sexual orientation—a characteristic with which they were born and which they cannot change—Plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of gay men and lesbians in California and across the country are being excluded from one of life’s most precious relationships. They may not marry the person they love, the person with whom they wish to partner in building a family and with whom they wish to share their future and their most intimate and private dreams.
Although opening to them participation in the unique and immensely valuable institution of marriage will not diminish the value or status of marriage for heterosexuals, withholding it causes infinite and permanent stigma, pain, and isolation. It denies gay men and lesbians their identity and their dignity; it labels their families as second-rate.
That outcome cannot be squared with the principle of equality and the unalienable right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness that is the bedrock promise of America from the Declaration of Independence to the Fourteenth Amendment, and the dream of all Americans. This badge of inferiority, separateness, and inequality must be extinguished. When it is, America will be closer to fulfilling the as-pirations of all its citizens.
The judgment of the court of appeals should beaffirmed.”
The basis of an emotion and its affect or theorized purpose is certainly interesting and relevant. Articulating that the biological process of an emotion is identical in hetero/homo pairings does eschew the societal perception of those pairings (e.g. agreeing that ‘love’ is a concrete biochemical process in any human, and not just specific humans does modify the argument [human = human]).
That said, I do not consider love as implicit to ‘marriage’ in a legal context (it is not currently measureable, verifiable, or even questioned). Further, it is not required for procreation or successful child rearing.
The mental evolution of the species is outpacing the biological evolution of the species. Can the want of two individuals to share in the experience of child rearing be sufficient to yield a positive outcome for all involved parties, and society in general (compared to a ‘traditional marriage’)? I would argue, ‘yes’. The bond that the individuals share with their ‘child’ is more important than the relationship they have with each other (or perhaps their commitment/agreement to reach a certain goal).
I don’t see marriage as an instrument to codify a biochemical process over which humans have little or no direct control (e.g. I cannot decide to ‘fall in love’, ‘stay in love’, or ‘fall out of love’ – the reaction continues or it doesn’t). Marriage incentivises civility (societal normalcy), unduly.
@Diane M.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) our exchange on Mr. Deutsch’s post re:Sherif G v. Alex W ended abruptly. I would like to offer that I did not intend to incite or deride you in any way (though perhaps my comments illicited an emotional response from other readers or yourself). As a new comer to this forum and an abstract unorthodox thinker, perhaps I offended with some suggestions therein. Again, not my intent (I am of the opinion that an undo amount of emotion is associated with some discourse on this site, and contributors are subjectively ‘over sensitive’). Rather, the intent was to question the metaphysical concept, not the concrete societal concept (which seemed to be the thrust of the other respondents).
How are heterosexual married couples who elect not to have children (e.g. capable, but have made a cogent decision against procreation) different than a heterosexual couple who doesn’t engage in sexual activity at all (either from an emotional basis, or a basis of your chosing)? Can both couples be in love?
FD – ‘for gay marriage’ – ‘against concept of marriage’ (noted that this view is unpopular).
“I do not consider love as implicit to ‘marriage’ in a legal context (it is not currently measureable, verifiable, or even questioned). Further, it is not required for procreation or successful child rearing.”
But it is measurable, as a motivation for seeking marriage, as shown by the recent posting here of marriage motivators. In a legal sense, it goes far towards establishing the crucial legal notion of being “similarly situated.” More people say they marry for love than for any other single reason.
Basically, the heart of the equal protection matter is how “similarly situated” straight and gay couples are. The more similarly situated, in motivations, circumstances, behaviors, and the like, the stronger the equal protection claim is.
That’s why the anti-gays are desperately trying to distinguish straight couples from gay couples using the matter of “natural” procreation: find something that makes these two kinds of couples different, and then define marriage using that difference. Then they aren’t “similarly situated.”
It’s a rational strategy but probably not very effective in this situation.
First of all, couples can be in love without being married, and not all married couples are in love. That’s never been a crime. But, as with sex and procreation, certainly all marriages are ALLOWED to love each other, we should never prohibit a married couple from loving each other. But indeed, we should never prohibit any one from loving anyone, even their parents and siblings and neighbor’s wife. But perhaps that’s not the kind of love you are talking about, in which case, you aren’t talking about love at all but only sexual desire and lust.
Do not tell me I am similarly situated with a woman as I am with a man. With the woman (assuming she is eligible to marry me) we have a right to reproduce offspring together and if we are healthy and not using contraception, we probably will, but with a man, we never will, we know this for an absolute fact. I will say we are similarly situated in that people don’t have a right to use ART with either a man or a woman, but there are lots of things neither couple has a right to do, like plot a murder, conspire to defraud people, etc. Everyone being equally prohibited from murder doesn’t make everyone similarly situated. The key difference is in the things that we have a right to do, and are allowed to do and might actually do, which is reproduce offspring. That’s a major basic civil right that we only have with someone of the other sex.
Manny,
Again, procreation is not a “major basic civil right.” No way. No how. Any argument you base on this false premise is harmed by its very inclusion. The “marriage is for procreation” argument is utter nonsense, as it does not even match up with why opposite-sex couples marry.
You are completely misreading the legal term “similarly situated.”
@Kevin
To put a finer point, ‘love’ (as the expression of a biochemical process) is not measureable via a discreet process which yields an objective quantative value (e.g.I can not measure it as I might the length of a pencil, or the mass of an object). Rather, it is frequently discussed as a binary state described subjectively (e.g either in love or not in love, and in some ‘per observer’ non discreet subjective level – ‘really’ ‘a lot’, ‘very much’ etc…). Point being, that I cannot confirm, as a matter of scientific fact (at least today), that two people are ‘in love’, no more than I could confirm that they are not in love (and it could certainly be possible that two people are ‘in love’ and are not aware of the emotional state biochemically, and inversely so).
Manny, I hope you submitted an amicus brief opposing legal same-sex marriage!
Numerous cases have confirmed that procreation is one of the basic rights of man. Is your argument that people can be prohibited from marrying and/or marriages can be prohibited from reproducing offspring without it violating basic human rights? That is a very dangerous and abhorrent belief, one that was popular among eugenicists in the 1900′s during the eugenics era but was never instituted, people have always been allowed to marry the person of their choice and reproduce with them.
Or are you hung up on thinking I mean that individuals have some kind of right to be provided with offspring? I certainly don’t mean that, I mean people have a right to marry someone eligible who consents to marry them and together they have a right to have sex and not be prohibited from reproducing.
I understood that, Copperfield: you want to be able to measure love, like so much water in a beaker. But love isn’t quantifiable, despite legions of songs and poems comparing it to high mountains and deep oceans. It’s a feeling.
If two people say they’re in love, who are we to question that? Why must it be quantified?
As a motivation for getting married, it ranks highest on the list posted on another article, with a percentage of people who ranked it. Like any opinion poll, it has been quantified. The measurement is the number of respondents or the percentage of respondents, not the response itself.
I have to admit: procreation is a right. I did some checking and it is a basic civil right. However, as a right, it is not tied to marriage. Come to think of it, why would one basic right be tied to another? It’s basic. You wouldn’t say “you can have freedom of speech only if you procreate.”
We’re talking about three separate rights here: a right to procreate, a right to have have sex, and a right to marry.
Now, which of these basic rights are you trying to deny to gay people? And, if they can be denied, then why should we consider them real?
Under current law, Al can provide a sperm sample to Barbara, have sex with Carl, all while being married to Donna (who might want a divorce lawyer, but that’s her concern). Al hasn’t broken any laws.
Marriage is a fundamental human right, not tied to procreation, nor to penis-in-vagina intercourse. Why deny it to people? Who does that help?
@Manny – your argument about the right to reproduce has me confused. In America we don’t have any laws limiting people’s right to reproduce, assuming they are fertile.
I think people from all political groups would not want to change that. Sometimes it’s best to keep the government out of our business.
Marriage gives you certain rights and responsibilities related to your marriage partner. It is an institution that protects children, but mostly by helping the parents stay together or by defining what happens if he parents don’t stay together.
Marriage doesn’t have anything to do with the legal right to reproduce in our society.
@Copperfield – don’t worry about being cut off. That just happens automatically after 50 comments. Sometimes you don’t get to finish a conversation!
As for me, I often post at odd times when other people aren’t around or go off for a while to get work done, etc.
Anyhow, I don’t agree with you about this:
“Can the want of two individuals to share in the experience of child rearing be sufficient to yield a positive outcome for all involved parties, and society in general (compared to a ‘traditional marriage’)? I would argue, ‘yes’. The bond that the individuals share with their ‘child’ is more important than the relationship they have with each other (or perhaps their commitment/agreement to reach a certain goal).”
I am a long-time married person with older children. In my experience, having the bond with my husband has helped me to be a better parent. It also helps us to work together as a team raising our children.
I would not like to say that one bond is more important than another anymore than I want to figure out which of my siblings I like best. I would say that the bonds are very different. The bond to my children is much more protective and nurturing. My husband and I, on the other hand, are equals and expect to get companionship and nurturing from each other.
The bonds are also different in how they work. I expect my children to grow up and move away. I’m not looking forward to it, but I would be upset if it didn’t happen.
I expect to stay connected to them, but not to always be together. I expect my husband to be here with me.
Back to the first part of your paragraph – I don’t think the intent to raise a child together is enough to produce a good outcome. Children are wonderful and also a royal pain. Caring for them is huge, especially at first. It’s hard to get across what it’s like to realize that you have work to do all the time now and that the commitment is not going to disappear and your life is not going back to “normal.”
This is where it helps to have a strong commitment to the other person. Also, I think to have been married for a while and lived together before you have a child so you know how to handle conflict and work together.
It’s also why I think it helps to have an institution like marriage. First just because marriage involves two people making a formal promise to each other. Second because marriage gets your two families involved and lets them know that this other person is now part of the extended family. Third because society gives you various tangible benefits that can make it easier to stay together.
@Copperfield and Kevin – Scientists try to measure love by looking at patterns of brain activity. Apparently when people are in love, if you show them a photo of their partner, certain areas of the brain light up.
This may not be fully accurate. We don’t really have a way to know if someone feels love and it doesn’t show up the same way as other people.
What I liked about this work is that they found that some long-time couples who say they are still in love have the same areas of their brain light up as couples in newer romances. Of course, we could have just believed people who said they were still in love.
“How are heterosexual married couples who elect not to have children (e.g. capable, but have made a cogent decision against procreation) different than a heterosexual couple who doesn’t engage in sexual activity at all (either from an emotional basis, or a basis of your chosing)? Can both couples be in love?”
Both couples could be in love. Being in love is an emotional state that may have evolved to get us to have children, but we can feel it whether or not we have children or even sex.
I would say that if you are in love you have at least a desire to have sex with the other person, though.
@Diane
The import that I am trying to communicate is that two humans agree to hold a third human (that they ‘create’ or otherwise parent) in higher regard than themselves (either in union or individually). The commitment is to the child; a commitment to each other is not required for success as long as the comimitment to the child is maintained. This is admittedly abstract and is not founded in ‘reality’ where separated spouses rarely maintain this commitment, if it ever existed, and instead return to selfish consumerism, if I could color it broadly.
And if could borrow from our other discourse, I am still insisting that marriage is not the only vehicle for the relationship you recount above (nor is it a requisite component). All of those premises could (and do) exist without marriage, and are available through other legal instruments (save tax treatment). Marriage is a carrot and a crowbar (in the case of SSM).
I would not challenge your personal accounts and am sure that many ‘married with childrens’ share your position. As I was once a child, I have at least some understanding of parental challenges and responsibility. Again with the selfless responsibility.
@Kevin
I have no such want.
Emotion should be a measureable concept in so much as it is a stateful biochemical process (we understand the constituents, but not the ‘machine’, as a review of current neuroscience would elucidate); we do not currently possess the requisite technology. Surely you would agree that what we currently know, and what is knowable is not an identity.
I am instead suggesting that the use of such a quality to demonstrate ‘similar situation’ is no more telling than any other subjective quality (e.g. “we both like blue”).
Manny’s position goes something like this:
1) Only married people have a right to have sex and conceive children with one another
2) If the state grants gay couples the right to get married, it also grants them the right to have sex and conceive children together
3) If the state can grant the right to have sex and have children, it can also take it away
4) If the state can allow gay couples to marry, have sex and have children, they can take away the rights of straight couples to marry, have sex and have children.
If this argument sounds like nonsense that does not in any way logically follow, that’s because it is.
I don’t agree with this article about love being a reason for marriage ‘equality.’
The state does not regulate love. There’s no ‘love law.’ Otherwise, arranged marriages would be forbidden. How can a couple love each other when they haven’t even met?
Love is one’s PERSONAL reason for marriage not the STATE’S reasons for marriage.
@Diane – Love is not a compelling reason to recognize any marriage including same-sex marriage. The state does not legislate love.
“I don’t agree with this article about love being a reason for marriage ‘equality.’
The state does not regulate love. There’s no ‘love law.’ Otherwise, arranged marriages would be forbidden. How can a couple love each other when they haven’t even met?”
What is it that you think the government is regulating? The only impediments to getting married are age (can’t be too young), relatedness (can’t be too related) and marital status (can’t be too married). That’s it. Not really high standards.
Love is the motivation, not what’s being regulated. Both straight people and gay people are motivated are love. Similarly situated, as they say.
Chris, that logical confusion is from the SSM side, that simultaneously wants to demand a right to have sex and procreate with someone of the same sex that is equal to marriage, and also deny that hetero marriages have a right to procreate, to make them equal to a same-sex couple. The contrary position is very consistent: Married couples have a right to procreate, and same-sex couples do not have a right to procreate. It’s consistent only if same-sex couples aren’t allowed to marry and aren’t allowed to procreate. Otherwise, we are in the logical confusion that is the status quo, where both are vaguely legal, that is necessary to push the envelope to both SSM goals.
@John says “Marriage is a fundamental human right, not tied to procreation”
Are you sure? See Loving v Virginia(“Marriage is…fundamental to our existence and survival”) Marriage wouldn’t be ‘fundamental’ to our ‘existence’ and ‘survival’ if it had nothing to do with the procreative potential.
And the Loving Court’s subsequent action CONFIRMS what that quote means when they rejected gay marriage in Baker v Nelson only 5 years later.
Manny, you are saying things that simply are not true. The SSM side is not denying anyone the right to procreate with a consenting partner of their choice. That’s just not happening in reality.
In addition, the number of people on the SSM side attempting to establish a right for two people of the same sex to procreate with one another is close to zero.
Technology may one day make that posssible, but that would happen with or without same-sex marriage. Straight people are already making babies together, naturally and artificially, without getting married. Given the right technology, gay couples could do this as well.
You have argued before that only married couples have the right to have sex and procreate together. This is clearly not true.
Your arguments are based on premises which are blatantly untrue, and are not even consistent within the false reality you’ve constructed.
Manny you go a little far afield with that – they know they are not procreating together or at least one would hope they don’t really think that the child they are raising together is “theirs”. Maybe one of theirs but not both of course. People snow themselves into living a lie but they know its a lie unless they are totally insane they know its all just a ruse.
Getting offended when people don’t pretend along with them is not unique to just partners of gay parents plenty of partners of straight parents do it too – way more actually.
They are saying that a married man and woman have the same right to procreate together as a same-sex couple, and as siblings do. That is denying everyone the right to procreate with a consenting partner of their choice, because those kinds of couples do not have a right to procreate.
On the contrary, there are zero people on the SSM side who agree that same-sex couples do not have a right to procreate. Every single one says they have the same right as a man and a woman do.
Manny, I am reading this as double-speak on your part. My understanding is that you, also, believe that same-sex couples have the same right to procreate as a man and a woman do. That is, my understanding is that you do not believe couples who are incapable of conceiving a child together have a right to procreate, and that you apply this logic to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples.
Is my understanding correct?
If so, can you see how your comment here comes across as dishonest?
Huh? Absolutely not, people only have a right to procreate with someone of the other sex, only a man and woman have the right to procreate, aka, the right to marry.
I believe that every one has a right to procreate, regardless of their ability to. The right is independent of the ability, for example siblings have the ability but not the right, while infertile people have the right but not the ability. Marriage is about the right to procreate. I’m not being dishonest about anything, there is only a right to procreate with out natural gametes, sexually, with someone of the other sex.
@Phil – To the contrary, equal protection applies “where individuals in the group affected by a law have distinguishing characteristics relevant to [State] interests…” See Cleburne v Cleburne Living Center or Substantive Due Process.
So, what is the state interest in marriage? After all, the state is subsidizing marriage for a reason, no?
@Chris wrote “Straight people are already making babies together, naturally and artificially, without getting married.”
Yes, but that’s the very thing the state is trying to avoid because childhood poverty and unmarried parenthood are closely linked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanf
A quote: “legislation included reducing out-of-wedlock births and increasing rates and stability of marriages.”
And as for artificial procreation, there’s abundant data that proves it’s harmful. Sadly, the law hasn’t caught up to the science yet.
Google “Side Effects to Artificial Insemination” or see Elizabeth Marquardt’s study “My Daddy’s Name is Donor”
In that case, Manny, your statement that “Every single [SSM supporter] says they have the same right as a man and a woman do,” is meaningless, because I can promise you that there are large numbers of SSM supporters who do not parse this issue the specific and surreal way that you do.
If same-sex couples, in your view, lack the right to procreate, isn’t that intrinsically tied to their inability to procreate?
If a same-sex couple included one person who had a functioning penis and testicles, and another person who had a functioning vagina and a womb with ovaries, would you still say that they do not have the “right” to procreate? (And if so…why?)
HuH? that’s not a same sex couple.
Do you mean one of them is legally one sex, but has the functioning organs of the other sex? I agree with ki sarita, that’s not a same-sex couple, even if they are legally a same-sex couple. I don’t think that situation is right, but it can happen and isn’t a showstopper. When people change their legal sex it obviously throws the discussion into confusion. The legal sex is what we have to go by for public legal purposes, but merely changing it obviously doesn’t change reproduction, it just makes it a pain to deal with. It shouldn’t make any ART legal that wasn’t legal before though, because ART is medicine that deals with private bodies, not public information. So a couple might publicly be married and have a right to procreate, but privately be the same sex and not be allowed to procreate, so they’d just be infertile. Or, the situation you describe. When reproduction doesn’t match the public legal sex, it’s just awkward, but people can change their legal sex so it happens.
ki sarita, if this comment:
refers to Phil’s question here:
I’d offer that some same-sex couples do, in fact, have reproductive organs that allow for unaided procreation. Not all trans* folks elect to have sex confirmation surgery, so there are instances in which a same-sex couple could conceive. That would be my reading of Phil’s scenario above.
@zztstenglish: What is your analysis of the reasoning in Baehr v Lewin and Perry v Brown? You are good at selectively quoting from state cases you believe support your position, but not so good at addressing perceived problems in state cases that do not.
@Manny, your view of what the right to marry and procreate should be does not match up with what the law actually says, I’m afraid.
ki sarita,
As I read Phil’s comment, he is likely speaking about same-sex relationships where one person is transgender. If a trans* person chooses not to have surgery, they may still be able to procreate with their same-sex partner without technological intervention.
Don’t we usually require people to have surgery that would render them sterile before letting them legally be the other sex? But it doesn’t even matter. If there are fertile men who are legally publicly female, then they would not be allowed to marry another woman, and they’d just be infertile with another man, though legally allowed to marry.
They lack the right to procreate because there simply isn’t a right to procreate with someone of the same sex, it is something they only have with someone of the other sex. For single people and same-sex couples to make a child, they have to do it unethically, and there is no right to. Only married couples have a right to procreate.
@Mythago – Both were seriously flawed especially Perry v Brown. Not to mention there was a conflict of interest with Judge Walker but that’s another topic for another day.
@mythago – They were seriously flawed especially Perry v Brown. Not to mention there a conflict of interest with Judge Walker but that’s another topic for another day.
zztstenglish:
“They were seriously flawed especially Perry v Brown.”
That’s a conclusion, not an analysis. I believe mythago asked you for the latter.
I’d welcome a little more analysis on your part, as well. Court cases in the US are extremely context-driven, so throwing out rules that a court has articulated in one particular case doesn’t shed self-evident light on how that rule can or should be applied to a different set of factual circumstances.
IRAC is our friend.
@Fannie – Ok, without getting into a long discussion over legal issues (and I have something to attend to very soon), I’ll tell you why I think it’s flawed. Judge Walker simply ignored the Supreme Court precedent in Baker v Nelson in his decision.
A precedent he was NOT suppose to ignore.
“Binding authority must be followed unless and until overruled by a body competent to do so.” Hart v. Massanari
Manny, would any amount of evidence be enough to persuade you that the above statement is untrue?
zztstenglish:
Several people have answered this question in several of the threads you have posted in. We’ve explained that marriage has other benefits to society beyond procreation. Married people are less likely to need public assistance and be a drain on society, less likely to commit a crime, less likely to turn to drugs and alcohol, and more likely to contribute to the economy in a positive way. You’ve ignored all of these obvious benefits of marriage in order to argue that marriage is only useful to society because of children.
Walker didn’t rule on Baker v Nelson in his decision because he had already ruled on it in his response to Prop 8 proponent’s request for summary judgement. See this link, and scroll down to pages 94-98 (there are three (!) different page numbering systems on that document; I am using the blue page numbers found at the top of each page).
We could also make some transgendered people get Civil Unions that didn’t approve of making children, the same as same-sex couples would get, if they were publicly notoriously not privately their legal sex. Like if they are already a mother, and then transition to male appearance, and all their co-workers know, and they are blogging and writing a book about it, we can’t really say that their infertility is private, and it would be offensive to compare their right to be a father to an actual man’s by approving officially of legal marriage with a woman. They should have to get a Civil Union like the same-sex couple everyone knows they really are.
But I think we shouldn’t be doing genetic tests on people to verify their legal sex before they marry, so if some intersexed people or accident victims are living legally as the other sex, their transgenderism unknown to their co-workers and kept private by their family, we shouldn’t embarrass them by making them get Civil Unions, because the reason for their infertility is truly private and there is no offensive public legal comparison being made.
Manny,
If technology is some day created that allows same-sex couples to use their gametes to produce children, those same-sex couples who want to do so will probably do it regardless of whether or not same-sex marriage is legalized.
Today, we allow single people to use 3PR technologies. There is currently no link between marriage and who we allow to make babies, whether naturally or artificially.
If you are truly against 3PR regardless of sex, orientation, or marital status, then you should spend more time fighting against 3PR for everyone, and less time arguing against same-sex marriage, which is a completely separate issue.
If 3PR is outlawed for everyone, your concern about same-sex marriage equating to same-sex couples procreating together becomes moot.
I find it bizarre that you seem more concerned with preventing a hypothetical practice that does not exist yet, may never exist, and the existence of which in no way depends on same-sex marriage, than with the actual problems in people’s lives that exist because they are not allowed to get married.
Manny,
I’m very uncomfortable with the language you are using to frame your discussion of trans* people. Saying that openly transgender people are “notoriously” public about their identity and that it would be “offensive” to treat their parenting rights as equal to those of cis-gendered parents, and that “they should have to get a Civil Union like the same-sex couple everyone knows they really are,” collectively presents a very dehumanizing picture of trans folks, denying them the agency to self-identify, and acknowledging the biological and social relationships they have with their family members and significant others.
And I would also point out that as woman in a same-sex relationship, I am married not civil unioned, so not all same-sex couples decide civil union is the right option for them. So implying that same sex couples are “required” to get civil unioned rather than married is misleading in the extreme.
With what’s left of this conversation, I’d really appreciate folks thinking deliberately about the language you use to discuss transgendered people, particularly since we are a largely (wholly?) cis-gendered group here and we are talking about rather than with this particular population.
zztstenglish,
“I’ll tell you why I think it’s flawed. Judge Walker simply ignored the Supreme Court precedent in Baker v Nelson in his decision.
A precedent he was NOT suppose to ignore.”
It’s….. more complicated than that.
I can appreciate that we all have lives outside of these discussions. But I’ll repeat, IRAC is our friend.
I hope you find time to use it in debate, because your current approach of stating conclusions and repeating rules devoid of any larger analysis and application isn’t very persuasive to me and, I’d guess, anyone else who disagrees with your conclusions.
@Chris
1. The inquiry was directed at Phil. I’m simply inquiring to understand his position rather than assume. I heard some of those things you mentioned but evidence was not supplied. In addition, some of those things you mentioned are already addressed in other things like welfare.
2. Here’s some counter evidence that YOU ignored. See page 333 Same-sex marriages & Taxes by Stephen Black. “[Marriage benefits] is, rather, the recognition of the extra costs in MAINTAINING CHILDREN…” See footnote 12 taken from the US Treasury.
3. Here’s a website from the US Department of Health and Human Services (State Policies to Promote Marriage).
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/marriage02f/
Show me where it’s written on their website for some of those you mentioned. To the contrary, here’s some quotes from the website
“Marriage is approached as the best environment in which to raise children”
“Prevent and reduce incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies”
Hmm…..