Ok, so I had this issue thrown at me twice in the past week. SO maybe I should blog about it and see if I'm just plain crazy.
Should gay people be allowed to get legally married?
The first time this showed up was when a gay guy asked me what I thought. Interestingly enough, he was against it (yeah, go figure). And, of course, the second time was on this week's episode of Family Guy. Brian's homosexual cousin wanted to get married in Quohag, and Mayor West was trying to ban it.
When I think about Gay marriage, two aspects come to mind. One is tax benefits. The other is religion.
Not being married myself, I don't know what kind of tax (and car insurance) breaks you get when you are married. But I'm sure that there must be some financial reason for doing it. Why else would anyone want to get married? (Oh man, my girlfriend is gonna hit me later for that).
Then, as always, comes the issue of religion. Marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman.
Ok, now here's how I see it. My own personal beliefs aside, I think it should be allowed. Never in my life have I heard a non-religious based reason to ban gay marriage. And don't we have a little thing called "Separation of Church and State" ? You can't make a law based religion.
Ok, yes we can get into the 10 commandments and how there are laws that are the same. But then I'd begin to counter that argument with ethics and philosophy. We could go on all day.
So why is it banned? I don't understand. If the only reasons are religious-based, then aren't we just discriminating against gays? Withholding financial benefits because of their personal preference of who to come home to at night?
I think Peter Griffin summed it up nicely when he said, "If Gay people want to get married and be miserable like the rest of us then we should let em."
Any thoughts?
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Somebody's getting married? Not gay people...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
Just so you know, one of the biggest reasons that gay couples want to get married (well, besides the fact that they don't feel like they should be treated like second class citizens just because they happen to have a lifestyle that disagrees with someone elses) is for insurance. If a gay couple were legally married, insurance companies and plans that cover spouses would HAVE to cover the gay spouse as well. My guess (with no numbers to back me up) is that there is a large push/lobbying from the insurance companies to prevent this from happening.
Actually, I re-read that and it didn't come out the way I meant. I was specifically responding to the financial question about why people in general want to get married for financial reasons. The insurance coverage is one of the biggest benifits. People get married for a thousand different reasons, but if two people are getting married for a financial reason, the insurance is one of the biggest.
Brace yourself, here it comes…
I am very much a liberal. I'm one of those crazy hippies that all of the conservatives blame for the crumbling of society, all the while our country is being run (into the ground) by a Republican, but that's neither here nor there. The topic is gay marriage. Call me crazy, but the last time I checked gay people were still people just like the rest of us, and I think that they absolutely should have the EXACT SAME rights and privileges as everyone else, regardless of financial consequences, blah, blah, blah (keep in mind that the national debt has continued to increase an average of $1.95 billion per day since September 30, 2005, the bulk of which is not because of gay people, black people, Latinos, or any other minority plagued by injustice…it’s because of war). People are people. We're all the same. It’s such a basic scientific principle that I don’t understand how anyone doesn’t get it. And of course it’s a breech of separation of church and state, along with countless other pieces of legislation. In my opinion, our government needs to get its head out of the sand, pun intended, and tackle something important at home like the ever-growing poverty rate.
Everytime I read something dottie writes, I like her more (oh, yeah, I agree 100% with everything she said, if we're soliciting opinions) :)
There's no actual seperation of church and state mandated by law in the way that people seem to indicate. The Constitution prevents the government from establishing or endorsing religion; that being said, if a decision is made that on its face is non-religious (banning gay marriage), courts aren't going to strike it down because its motivated by a religous principle. Lots of decisions are motivated by a person's religious beliefs--several of them (maybe more than we know) motivated entirely by a person's religious beliefs--and not all of them are ones that we self-described liberals would disagree with, and maybe even some we'd be happy about. I don't think that's a problem.
That being said, I have no problem with gay marriage. I also have no problems with civil unions, which would alleviate some of the problems that Chris mentioned, which out having to respond to the usual parade of horribles that opponents claim would happen were gay marraige legalized (slippery slope, bigamy, beastiality type arguments).
In essense, I don't think social legislation should be made that prohibits conduct unless that conduct hurts other people. Absent that, who cares?
Spud: I guess I liked Con Law okay. It was a little boring, and the book was like 2000 pages long, so reading for the class took up most of my life.
I'm fine with civil unions. My question is, would you be fine with a liberal state, California lets say, voting overwhelmingly to approve gay marriage? Suppose some day, years in the future, we've eradicated all other problems, and people decide they just don't care about gay marriage, and it is overwhelmingly approved in all or a majority of the states? Would that be okay too, since it would then reflect the clear will of the people?
Spud: A one and a two -
A one - You made an interesting point there about marriage and procreation being linked, but refuse to follow it through, just like a lot of young conservatives who don't want their lives disrupted.
Note, if you don't qualify based on the following, my apologies, but know that there are quite a few people on your side of the argument that do qualify.
One of the generally agreed upon ideas is that the reason gay couples want to get legally married is the financial benefits. What isn't generally stated is why married couples get those benefits in the first place.
Simple reason: Children. Married couples get legally mandated financial breaks because the state is making an investment in the future, and knows that raising children, or preparing to do so, is a money intensive exercise.
But for some reason, gay couples who want to have children are denied the legal right to marry for those financial benefits, and hetero couples who have no intention of raising children are allowed those tax breaks because they've filled out the appropriate papers.
As a side note, if you want to go back to the source of the religious rights view for a second, marriage is all about the baby-making. Traditionally, pre-Paul, the act of baby-making was what bound the married couple together, not the words mumbled by a priest.
So that's one - why are we denying the child-rearing-intended benefits from some who want to raise children, and giving them to those who don't.
And the two - so, you're ok with jim crow laws and legalized racism too then?
Just because the majority have voted that the minority are sub-citizens, this doesn't make the majority right, nor does it make the law in any way ethical or moral.
In your argument, replace every instance of the word 'gay' with the word 'black'. Or, if you consider 'gay' to be a 'chosen' aspect of persona, rather than an 'inherited' one, replace every instance of the word 'gay' with the word 'muslim'. Now reread your argument again. Out loud, preferably.
Not so cut and dried when it's race instead of orientation, no? Also not so cut and dried when it's religion.
All that aside, well argued. IMNHO, incorrect, but well argued. Sorry I'm being sloppy, but I'm a bit rushed on something else at the moment.
Wow. I have way too many lawyers reading my blog.
Thanks for the comments. This saves me the trouble of doing real research myself :-)
I really like the way Spud explains things. He usually points something out that I never even thought of. This time it was the basic issue of the "will of the people". Yes, Kenny, just because the majority of people approve of something, doesn't make it right. But that's relative. If the majority of people said that drugs and promiscuous sex were great then that would become accepted acts. It may not be ethically correct (or even healthy) but that doesn't matter. Because if that's what everyone wants to do then that's what is going to happen. I often forget that elected officials are "supposed" to act on the will of their residents.
Definitely something to think about.
[quote]If the majority of people said that drugs and promiscuous sex were great then that would become accepted acts.[/quote]
You mean the majority of people think that drugs and promiscuous sex aren't okay?? Good, I guess we can declare the War on Drugs "Mission Accomplished."
Just funnin with you guys, as the die-hard liberal I am, I'm also pro legalization.
I like the fact that Chris Smith is "funnin with you guys."
Rob: Actually, I was trying to answer your original question, "aren't we just discriminating against gays?". The question had moved away from THAT question and moved to the question of 'is it LEGAL to descriminate against gays'. Which it is, actually.
spud: You seem to use the word 'brief' like I do - "I intended to be brief, but the words kept coming out"
Ok, I'm going to try to keep my volley brief.
First, the reference to Jim Crow laws and the comment about replacing 'gay' with 'black' or 'muslim' were intended to be seperate. I apologize, both for the sloppy execution and the personal implication in the original Jim Crow statement.
My comparison of laws banning gay marriage to Jim Crow laws was noting that in both cases, one group of people is being excluded from an activity from which no other groups are excluded. Whether that activity is a right or not has nothing to do with the comparison, as I was not actually arguing the Constitutionality of such a law. To the best of my knowledge there is no clause in the constitution that says 'Neither Congress nor the States shall make any law discriminating in any way against any group'. I was arguing that such a law is discriminatory by it's nature.
Therein lies the basis of the 'muslim' comment, as well as the 'black' comment. On further reflection, given the proximity of my reference to the Jim Crow laws, it would have been clearer had I chosen a different racial group. In any case, the point I was trying to make with that comment was that your arguments, if applied to any race or religion, were rather blatantly descriminatory. An interesting point is that your arguments are still valid, because you weren't arguing about whether the laws were descrimiating, you were arguing about whether they were Constitutional.
On the 'procreation being the center of marriage' argument being religion based, I again erred in making two similar arguments in close proximity to one another.
One argument was entirely secular in nature - that governments and societies give financial benefits to married couples entirely for child-rearing / investing in the future reasons.
The second was actually one you apparently agree with - that most Judeo-Christian religions believe that procreation is a fundamental portion of marriage.
I hate to break this to you, but some independant churches have indeed decided to marry gay couples, I can only suppose with the idea that at least they won't be fornicating while abominating. In addition, several Wiccan marriage officiants I know of have no problems with gay marriage, and last time I checked at least portions of the Federal Government recognize Wicca as a religion.
Going back to the idea that legal / financial support of married couples is justified by the costs of child rearing: You appear to be unaware of something - gay couples are not banned by Federal Law from adopting children in the US, nor are they universally banned by all 50 states, unless one or the other has happened recently. The laws governing adoption are actually fairly loose, to allow for the variety of situations that might occur where one person might want to adopt another, but child welfare officers have repeately tried to enforce their own morals via allowing or denying adoptions, which has led to the perception that certain adoptive practices are illegal.
There are two cases I am personally familiar with regarding child welfare officers doing so, one regarding race (which has less bearing on our argument, I suppose) and one regarding orientation (which has, obviously, more).
In the first case, a family of one (non-minority*) race fostered a developmentally** challenged child of another (minority*) race. He grew up with them, and considers them his family. Several times the foster care system has tried to place him with 'a more suitable family', i.e. one of the same racial stock as the child**. They have never actually been able to find another family willing to foster him. Kids with medical problems requiring a lot of work aren't that in demand, you see. However, the family he considers his family has not been allowed to adopt him, because the social workers can't get past the race issue. The family has considered legal action, but after the financial costs associated with raising the child, they really don't have the wherewithal.
*Amusingly, the 'minority' is actually the largest single group in my home state, and the 'non-minority' is either second or third.
**I don't actually recall at this point if the developmental problems were physical and psychological in nature or just physical, but either way the child was too much work for any other foster family to take him in.
***Who is now almost old enough to be considered legally an adult, although due to the developmental handicaps, he is likely to require some level of care indefinitely.
The second case is a case of a gay couple who wished to adopt. The children they chose to attempt to adopt were a pair of boys, young enough to really need parenting, but old enough to be considered outside the 'prime adoption age'. Again, the social workers decided to intervene and 'save' the children.
The reason the social worker gave for denying the adoption was that the gay couple were 'obviously unqualified to raise children'.
One of the couple had twenty years experience as a child psychologist. The other had trained as a pediatrician before spending two decades working in a trauma center. As neither profession pays poorly, and neither of the men was particularly bad at investing, their financial / legal resources were not slim. When the professions of the couple (which were on the application, the social worker either never checked or couldn't get past the 'two men' issue) were pointed out to the adoption agency, the adoption was approved. Rapidly. With apologies.
My point here is that we've got data from our own country, and it probably applies better than data from another society.
As to 'something special between biological parents and children', I don't disagree, but I must point out that in some cases, the biological parents are not available. In those cases, someone has to step in to do the parenting, and the costs for those persons are not significantly different than the costs for biological parents.
Now, I've skipped about a bit there, but let's sum up that last bit -
Given 1 - there is data from the US about the fitness of gays as adoptive parents.
Given 2 - that data is more appropriate for deciding the course of action in our society than data from another society.
Given 3 - That data can statistically indicate the fitness of gay couples as adoptive parents.
Given 4 - Adoptive parents deserve the same financial / legal support as biological parents.
Given 5 - Fitness to be adoptive parents is the only criterion which should be used in determining whether a couple can adopt.
Conclusion 1 - If gays are shown to be, statistically, as fit to be adoptive parents as hetero couples, there is no reason to deny them the right to adopt.
Conclusion 2 - If gays have the right to adopt, they deserve the same financial / legal support as biological parents.
Do you actually have a problem with any of the Givens listed above? If not, it does seem that that particular aspect of the debate supports allowing gays to, in a legally binding sense, marry.
In conclusion:
Where we agree:
I think we're both in agreement that laws prohibiting gays from marrying are Constitutional.
I think we're both in agreement about why marriage is important from a purely secular / economic standpoint.
Where I think we disagree:
It appears that, on some level, you believe that homosexuality is immoral. I do not.
It appears that, you believe that gays, as a class of people, have a detrimental influence on society. Again, I disagree. Note that I do not think they have a beneficial influence on society either. I do not believe that, as one humorist recently put it 'chasing the pole or the hole' has any bearing on whether you are a moral person. Note that this does appear to stem rather directly from the point above.
You apparently believe that organized religion is a beneficient entity in society, and should therefore be protected. I disagree.
You apparently believe in local government. I tend to disagree. Going a bit far afield here, will try to move back into the core playing field.
Where I think the fuzzy gray area is:
Your argument sounds, to me, as if you believe your beliefs on gay marriage are based on completely sound logical reasoning, and they just happen to concide with the moral code espoused your chosen religion. Based on certain aspects of your argument, I believe you are looking for a logical basis for the code espoused by your chosen religion.
Note, this final comment is not logical argumentation, it's rhetoric, a pointed stick, a jab, perhaps a jest, perhaps an invitation to a joust. If I wound, I apologize, if I offend, well, life is offensive:
Do you also think the ID people were right?
And, to poke fun at myself, made even more telling by leaving that last 'final' in knowing that the comment wasn't final: So, brief?
Post a Comment