But there's nothing in my proposal stopping (most?) persons from getting married. All they need is a religious institution willing to say "You are."
As for the "extra" step of having to get a civil document as well, it's not actually extra, it's a current requirement. A marriage license is a civil document that gives an officially designated person the permission to marry you. If you're having a religious wedding, that person is the minister.
In my experience, any discussion that begins with expanding the definition of marriage rapidly proceeds to destroying that legal institution, possibly replacing it with a legal institution that's indifferent to the essential characteristics of marriage....So it's not irrational to see same-sex marriage as the first step on a slippery slope that ends in the deinstitutionalization of marriage.
Can you expand, please. That's not the usual conclusion of my discussions of marriage. (Plus I hate slippery slope arguments, they're disingenuous.) What are the essential characteristics of marriage?
This is not an empty question. I'm not sure what the essential characteristics are, despite my married state. I got married[1] largely because my partner wanted to and partly because the permanence of a legal arrangement appealed to me. My proposed secular union is just as permanent as marriage is constituted today.
[1] As opposed to a functional-equivalent-thereto.
But there's nothing in my proposal stopping (most?) persons from getting married. All they need is a religious institution willing to say "You are."
Right now, marriage is a legal status as well as a religious one. You can tell people that shouldn't matter to them as long as they get the rights, but the fact is that it does. Your proposal abolishes that unique legal status, and instead assures people that they can call themselves "married" just like they can call themselves "Duke of Gloucester" or "King Under the Mountain". Meanwhile, they can also enter into a generic union not unique to marital relationships.
It's a perfectly coherent proposal. But abolition of marriage as a legal institution isn't something that most voters want. Linking the expansion of that legal institution to its elimination pretty much frames same-sex marriage as a Trojan Horse.
In my experience, any discussion that begins with expanding the definition of marriage rapidly proceeds to destroying that legal institution, possibly replacing it with a legal institution that's indifferent to the essential characteristics of marriage....So it's not irrational to see same-sex marriage as the first step on a slippery slope that ends in the deinstitutionalization of marriage.
Can you expand, please. That's not the usual conclusion of my discussions of marriage. (Plus I hate slippery slope arguments, they're disingenuous.)
Not when the slippery-slope is being advocated outright. If a common reaction to the prospect of expanding marriage to same-sex couples is "Yay! Hopefully one day "[p]ersons of any number, gender, or sex who want the secular benefits of being permanently and legally associated with each other [will be able to] register for a secular union", it's not unreasonable for voters who don't want that to wonder if they're letting the camel's nose in the door by granting the first.
(In any case, slippery slopes are hardly unheard of in this context. In the 70s, ERA advocates dismissed fears that it would require allowing SSM. Massachusetts' equivalent was used for just that purpose.)
What are the essential characteristics of marriage?
It doesn't matter what I think they are. As I tried to indicate in my previous post, there are different, sometimes overlapping and sometimes conflicting ideas. One couple may believe that marriage only makes sense in the context of children, another may consider it primarily in terms of sexual exclusivity, another as a religious duty. They can have a rollicking argument over which marriages should be legitimate ideally, what circumstances should permit its dissolution (if any), which marriage laws are central and which compromises. But they'll still form a united voting bloc on the question of whether marriage is/should be a unique status enshrined in law.
Most of those actually think that it should be heterosexual-only, as witness the poll results. But even among those who are persuadable otherwise, few of them are going to be interested in having their marriages (current or prospective) replaced at law with a generic contract that might be entered into by a brother and sister or a mother and daughter in order to simplify their tax filing. Call it an irrational attachment to an archaic, arbitrary, inconsistent standard. That's still the electorate you have to reach.
Insofar as that vision is linked to "marriage-as-is, but for gay couples", it costs the latter support. There's no inherent connection between the two; it's also possible to believe that marriage has a particular social value that calls for legal recognition, while believing that same-sex couples and the community would benefit from their having access to it. (E.g., stipulating the conservative positions that marriage is beneficial to community stability, helps prevent poverty, ensures the welfare of children, etc., it makes sense to want those benefits extended to same-sex couples, their families, and the communities they live in.) But in practice, proposals to get the state out of the business of recognizing marriage tend to come hard on any discussion of modifying the qualifications for marriage. Which suggests that people who don't want the state out of that business are, perhaps, correct to be suspicious.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-05-16 02:47 pm (UTC)As for the "extra" step of having to get a civil document as well, it's not actually extra, it's a current requirement. A marriage license is a civil document that gives an officially designated person the permission to marry you. If you're having a religious wedding, that person is the minister.
In my experience, any discussion that begins with expanding the definition of marriage rapidly proceeds to destroying that legal institution, possibly replacing it with a legal institution that's indifferent to the essential characteristics of marriage....So it's not irrational to see same-sex marriage as the first step on a slippery slope that ends in the deinstitutionalization of marriage.
Can you expand, please. That's not the usual conclusion of my discussions of marriage. (Plus I hate slippery slope arguments, they're disingenuous.) What are the essential characteristics of marriage?
This is not an empty question. I'm not sure what the essential characteristics are, despite my married state. I got married[1] largely because my partner wanted to and partly because the permanence of a legal arrangement appealed to me. My proposed secular union is just as permanent as marriage is constituted today.
[1] As opposed to a functional-equivalent-thereto.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-16 04:01 pm (UTC)Right now, marriage is a legal status as well as a religious one. You can tell people that shouldn't matter to them as long as they get the rights, but the fact is that it does. Your proposal abolishes that unique legal status, and instead assures people that they can call themselves "married" just like they can call themselves "Duke of Gloucester" or "King Under the Mountain". Meanwhile, they can also enter into a generic union not unique to marital relationships.
It's a perfectly coherent proposal. But abolition of marriage as a legal institution isn't something that most voters want. Linking the expansion of that legal institution to its elimination pretty much frames same-sex marriage as a Trojan Horse.
In my experience, any discussion that begins with expanding the definition of marriage rapidly proceeds to destroying that legal institution, possibly replacing it with a legal institution that's indifferent to the essential characteristics of marriage....So it's not irrational to see same-sex marriage as the first step on a slippery slope that ends in the deinstitutionalization of marriage.
Can you expand, please. That's not the usual conclusion of my discussions of marriage. (Plus I hate slippery slope arguments, they're disingenuous.)
Not when the slippery-slope is being advocated outright. If a common reaction to the prospect of expanding marriage to same-sex couples is "Yay! Hopefully one day "[p]ersons of any number, gender, or sex who want the secular benefits of being permanently and legally associated with each other [will be able to] register for a secular union", it's not unreasonable for voters who don't want that to wonder if they're letting the camel's nose in the door by granting the first.
(In any case, slippery slopes are hardly unheard of in this context. In the 70s, ERA advocates dismissed fears that it would require allowing SSM. Massachusetts' equivalent was used for just that purpose.)
What are the essential characteristics of marriage?
It doesn't matter what I think they are. As I tried to indicate in my previous post, there are different, sometimes overlapping and sometimes conflicting ideas. One couple may believe that marriage only makes sense in the context of children, another may consider it primarily in terms of sexual exclusivity, another as a religious duty. They can have a rollicking argument over which marriages should be legitimate ideally, what circumstances should permit its dissolution (if any), which marriage laws are central and which compromises. But they'll still form a united voting bloc on the question of whether marriage is/should be a unique status enshrined in law.
Most of those actually think that it should be heterosexual-only, as witness the poll results. But even among those who are persuadable otherwise, few of them are going to be interested in having their marriages (current or prospective) replaced at law with a generic contract that might be entered into by a brother and sister or a mother and daughter in order to simplify their tax filing. Call it an irrational attachment to an archaic, arbitrary, inconsistent standard. That's still the electorate you have to reach.
Insofar as that vision is linked to "marriage-as-is, but for gay couples", it costs the latter support. There's no inherent connection between the two; it's also possible to believe that marriage has a particular social value that calls for legal recognition, while believing that same-sex couples and the community would benefit from their having access to it. (E.g., stipulating the conservative positions that marriage is beneficial to community stability, helps prevent poverty, ensures the welfare of children, etc., it makes sense to want those benefits extended to same-sex couples, their families, and the communities they live in.) But in practice, proposals to get the state out of the business of recognizing marriage tend to come hard on any discussion of modifying the qualifications for marriage. Which suggests that people who don't want the state out of that business are, perhaps, correct to be suspicious.