On redefining marriage
Stanley Kurtz has an excellent piece over at the Weekly Standard, which notes, inter alia:
More important, by training us to see marriage as a civil rights issue, gay marriage advocates have largely defanged all of these structural arguments. Redefining the family is increasingly seen as a fundamental right. And the courts are beginning to agree. In his prize-winning law review essay “Polygamist Eye for the Monogamist Guy,” Michael Myers argues that if the Supreme Court interprets Lawrence v. Texas the way the Massachusetts Supreme Court did in its decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the right to polygamy will logically follow.
The solution is to treat marriage as a social institution whose fundamental purpose is to encourage mothers and fathers to build stable families for the children they create. Same-sex marriage breaks this understanding, thus encouraging the sort of unstable parental cohabitation we see in Europe, where cohabiting parents break up at two to three times the rate of married parents
May 30th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
“Same-sex marriage breaks this understanding, thus encouraging the sort of unstable parental cohabitation we see in Europe, where cohabiting parents break up at two to three times the rate of married parents…”
But if they’re married, they’re not cohabiting, right? So I guess the statistics wouldn’t apply…
May 31st, 2006 at 10:00 am
Redefining the family is increasingly seen as a fundamental right…
The “family” has been redefined over the millennia so many times that it’s difficult to take this analysis seriously. The specter of polygamy is being brought up as a red herring to sucker the gullible into a debate about irrelevances. There is only one relevant issue and that is … what is the states interest in sanctioning marriage at all? The idea of a states interest in the lawful marriage of common people is an idea of fairly recent vintage. Throughout most of history marriages have been common law, with no oversight by the state. It has only been since the rise of propertied lower classes that the state has any interest in it at all and that, for the most part, is to establish inheritance. Nothing else is particularly relevant from the states perspective. It’s a property right issue, I should be able to choose whoever I want to be my spouse for the purpose of establishing rights to my property, the state has no other vested interest.
If raising children is a concern, fine then I choose a woman, if some other concern is paramount then I might choose a man, but the state has no right to tell me who I can and cannot establish a relationship with. The church is another story, if they don’t want to sanction a union they are within their rights. The Catholic Church doesn’t allow unions between men and woman for all kinds of reasons like one of them not being Catholic or one of them (or both) being divorced. It would be absurd to suggest that the state should uphold these standards.
The solution is to treat marriage as a social institution whose fundamental purpose is to encourage mothers and fathers to build stable families for the children they create.
No the solution is to abolish all “marriages” and create only civil unions to cover those areas where the state has a legitimate interest and turn the business of marriage over to individual religious institutions to impose whatever moral and religious standards they feel appropriate. After all does the Catholic Church recognize civil service marriages? Should the Catholic Church be required to recognize all marriages that the state recognizes? Would anyone on this board be willing to accept a law that stated that any marriage that is recognized by the state must be recognized by the Catholic Church? I mean if not then why do you all give a flip about what the state will or will not recognize? Your religious institution already rejects the vast number of “marriages” in the US as being valid (from the standpoint of the church), because they were not performed to Catholic Church specs (and if I’m am wrong about this please enlighten me on current theology of the sacrament of marriage in the Catholic Church).
May 31st, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Should you be able to marry your sister, if so explain? If not explain and whom and what rules you would apply to marriage or civil unions.
May 31st, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Mr. Dement’s post is straight from http://www.libertarians-are-us.org. It is certainly one perspective. Thank goodness most folks see the organic relationship of society to it’s laws and understand the importance of culture, family, etc….
May 31st, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Should you be able to marry your sister, if so explain?
What would be the point your already related, marriage only makes two people who would otherwise not be related, related.
Thank goodness most folks see the organic relationship of society to it’s laws and understand the importance of culture, family, etc….
Sure but these things are constantly in flux and have been since the first tribal clans started to develop culture. You seem to be under the mistaken idea that there is only one way to do things and if the study of history, culture and society has taught us is that there is no such thing as an objective “best”. And even if there was there has been no case made how the redefinition of marriage, even broadly stated to include the straw men of incest and polygamy would alter the cultural landscape in ways that the heterosexual proclivity for divorce hasn’t in ways more objectively profound. Yet none of you seem to be making the case that divorce should be outlawed.
May 31st, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Now that’s a relativist!
June 2nd, 2006 at 10:50 am
“Same-sex marriage breaks this understanding, thus encouraging the sort of unstable parental cohabitation we see in Europe, where cohabiting parents break up at two to three times the rate of married parents”
If straight people are having different relationships than the monogamous marriage, its not because of the gays. Its because of the straights.
June 4th, 2006 at 12:44 am
Luckily, that’s not the meaning of the quote you provide, but rather some straw man you’ve built.