(no subject)

[prog]

One reason I support those fighting for legalized gay marriages is that all the arguments made by the other side are dumb. Consistently dumb, and too easy to beat down. The only reason I can see that you'd go with any of them is if you find gay people, or the concept of them getting married, repugnant. And that's fine, free to be, but that doesn't mean you should go codify that into law, man...

Here's a choice quote from a state rep that's been in a few boston.com articles:

"Mother Nature left her blueprint behind and she left it in DNA, a man and a woman," said Rep. Marie Parente, D-Milford. "I didn't create that combination, Mother Nature did."

I will leave the non-sequitur within that statement alone, and instead take what I think she's trying to say: "Nature intends that men and women combine their genetic information to produce children." OK, fair enough; I can accept this statement as true. But the whole statement becomes a non-sequitur in context of a debate on gay marriage. I mean: last night I watched some cartoons. While performing this action, I failed to exchange my DNA with any fertile female members of my species. It wasn't even on my mind! Therefore this act was unnatural and perverse!! Bleah.

I can see some counterpoints one could make to this, and I think they're also paper-thin. I have too much work to do to amuse myself tearing through them. (I will do so on request, but.) I guess I just wanted to vent a little.

Interesting point: One of my orkers is gay and single and has been jokey about "I can get married now, @whee," but I have since learned that another person I know, through a gaming group, really is hoping to marry her parter come May, to put a solidly legal roof over their family, as they are having a baby soon. This made me suddenly see the debate in an entirely new light.

Comments

[dougo.livejournal.com]

The one that alllmost makes sense is "marriage is a religious institution, and the government shouldn't be interfering with a religion's definition of marriage". The problem is that marriage is also a legal construct, and therefore is subject to the state constitution, which forbids laws that discriminate based on sexual preference. It all seems to boil down to a semantic distinction that people are just stubbornly not getting.

Here's my solution: create a new legal construct, "civil union", that applies to any two (or more?) adults who want it to, declare that all (current) marriages are also civil unions, and then replace all other references to marriage in the law with references to civil union. Okay, maybe it's simple-minded to try to refactor the law like this, but dammit, Jim, I'm a programmer not a lawyer!

Re:

[prog.livejournal.com]

There's a good chance that I would have supported the civil union route instead of full-on marriage, because I tend to think that -- in any controversy -- compromise is a better first step than radical change, even if that change is one's true goal.

But when the MA high court ruled that civil unions don't cut it, and that it was full marriage or nothing, I said: Well, OK, if that's how it is. So that's what I support now.

Re:

[jadelennox]

Man, thank you thank you for being one of the few people who sees that would be sensible.

Civil union: some social construct supported by the state for tax benefits and responsibilities, financial rsponsibilities, perhaps property ownership or child rearing. Could it include roomates who buy a house together? Spinster sisters who live together for decades? Whatever, it's a contract.

Marriage: whatever a couple, their community, and their religious insitution think it is. Irrelevant whether it's a man and a woman or Senator Santorum and a dog, because it has no effect on state law.

Re:

[prog.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting. I hadn't seen the concept of civil unions defined like that before. I think that would take a lot of legal work to implement, though, versus just taking an existing legal status and extending its coverage... is there any precedent for this?

Also, "uh, thanks" for getting Santorum in my LJ. I think you're the first.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Naha and I were once talking (well, he was talking and I was nodding) about how the legal protections (and responsibilities) of marriage really ought to be unbundled into many separate contracts, and couples (or groups) should be able to pick and choose which ones they wanted to bind themselves to. All those things you mention, plus insurance benefits, hospital visiting rights, and probably a bunch of other things that exist in the law but not as separate entities. Of course there should probably be some pre-made bundles available to save on paperwork for the more popular combinations of contracts.

Re:

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

This is pretty much the stance I have -- because if you're going to allow homosexual couples to get legally married, what kind of reason is there to limit this to just 2 people? You can arbitrarily say that a 'civil union' only involves two people, but why?

The biggest problem is that this would create a legal mess -- how do you handle things like taxes, divorce, property, and child-custody in three-or-more person civil unions?