nancylebov: (green leaves)
[personal profile] nancylebov
David Frum concludes that same sex marriage doesn't damage heterosexual marriage.

Is there anything else in American politics which is dependent on as weak an argument as opposition to same sex marriage? The war on drugs is based on a wild over-estimation of government power, but it doesn't quite have that weird "I'll make up a definition and insist that it's realer than what can be observed" quality.

Link thanks to [livejournal.com profile] nwhyte.

Date: 2011-06-30 01:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schemingreader.livejournal.com
It was an anti argument, but it fell apart when it became obvious that one of the main reasons people in same-sex couples wanted to marry was because they were raising children together.

There is a good reason why defense of marriage is the argument. If marriage is a voluntary contract between equals who choose each other, then same-sex marriage makes sense. If marriage is a holy mandate in which the female wife is subordinate to the male head of household to whom she is beholden for financial support, then same-sex marriage does not make sense. Allowing same-sex marriage puts a civil stamp on companionate marriage as a concept. Women in traditional marriages have a lot to gain from the legalization of same-sex marriage. People who think of this as defense of marriage may or may not realize what kind of marriage they're defending.

Date: 2011-06-30 01:44 pm (UTC)
madfilkentist: Carl in Window (CarlWindow)
From: [personal profile] madfilkentist
Hmmm ... That would be consistent with the widespread argument against polygamy. It's assumed that in a polygamous marriage the wives (it's stereotypically assumed that polygamy means one husband, many wives) would be just chattels, so they have to be protected. The underlying assumption is that marriage isn't really a voluntary agreement between (or among!) equals.

I go further than most people in thinking that polygamy should also be legal; or rather, that the government's role in marriage should be only to make sure that the contract is recognized, the rights of all concerned upheld, and the children not abused or neglected.

Date: 2011-06-30 02:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] theweaselking.livejournal.com
Marriage is traditionally a method of transferring property and managing inheritance, of ensuring that the right person gets your shit when you die.

Adding a third person breaks a TON of assumptions built in to marriage laws. I've got nothing against it - in fact, I think multiple marriage seems a perfectly reasonable thing to let people who want to do it do. The catch is, it *will* require a complete rewrite from the ground up of a metric ton of law, to eliminate all of the situations where the inherent assumption of two-and-only-two breaks something.

As such, polygamy and polyandry are MUCH harder to work than jsut letting any two adults be the two adults in question.

Date: 2011-06-30 04:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schemingreader.livejournal.com
Also, traditional polygyny hasn't been all that egalitarian--current poly models are hindered by that history. Or I should say, by that backstory, since we still have more traditional polygynous marriages in many countries. I think I'm like David Frum on this one--I could see being swayed in favor of poly marriage if I saw a whole lot of them that were awesome. (Well, my standard might be higher than his! He changed his mind on same-sex marriage after it turned out not to hurt marriage as an institution.)

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