Why marriage?

[Recursion]

I ask this as a straight guy who thinks of marriage as a kind of outdated misogynistic property ritual. What's so important about "marriage" as a name if the rights attending it could be secured through a union? (I understand all those rights have not been secured, then again I have no reason to believe the anti-gay people out there couldn't find some way to take away those rights from gay marriages, either.)

This question applies to the "other side" too; why are people fairly willing to have gay civil unions that mimic marriage in everything but name? Not that anybody here can really answer for them.

[ulysses]

1. you're not going to overturn marriage.

Therefore, equality demands that it be extended to all.

[Heidi]

2. If I can call _my_ marital contract a marriage, I see NO reason why my GLBT friends

shouldn't be able to call _their_ marital contracts marriages. We heterosexuals don't own the word "marriage," nor does clergy own that word.

[TexasObserver]

3. Co-sign. It's simple equality of right.

And it's really mean spirited to deny those who wish to marry the right to do so.

[Recursion]

4. *shrug*

I still think of "marriage" as a term that was used to transfer "ownership" of a woman from her father to her husband. Not exactly a concept I'm eager to see spread. I mean, I'll vote for marriage equality if it ever comes up. It just always seemed like a kind of sullied concept to me.

[ulysses]

5. but then, wouldn't extending it to two men or two women

"unsully" the concept?

[Recursion]

8. I suppose

I'm not a big friend of marriage, which may be the disconnect here.

[ulysses]

10. fair enough.

Think of it, then, as giving them the right to be divorced and miserable like half the heteros. :D

[Recursion]

11. I've actually heard that one...

..."Marriage equality: why should gay people be spared the misery?"

[Heidi]

7. If my GLBT brothers and sisters want to be "married," I'll defer to them

on their opinion of the history of marriage.

[Randypiper]

6. To call it a union and not marriage

is saying I can ride the bus, but must sit in the back.

Yes I went there.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

9. Separate but equal can never be equal

And, straight people are rightfully not going to want their marriage demoted to a civil union.

[MikeE]

36. I agree, but I have to say this

I would love to see the government not use the term marriage at all, and let that be for religious ceremonies. There are churches that will marry us, but it is still not recognized by the government, so the line that separates church from state is blurred. I would like to see the separation of church and state be so clear that the only thing the government would be able to recognize would be a civil contract. In other words stop using the term marriage completely for straight couples as well.

[HockeyMom]

12. Since marriage has apparently come to mean

a RELIGIOUS institution, even the civil contract, I think the states should just abolish marriage entirely and issue civil union contracts to all couples. Marriages should just be performed by churches for those who consider marriage to be a "sacred, holy, sacrament".

I think that will be the only way we will be able to have separation of church and state for this. I would love to see a state stop issuing "marriage licenses" and start issuing civil union contracts stating Partner A and Partner B for everybody. I wonder what states such as Florida, which now have amendments which discrimate against ANYONE invloved in a relationship without a "valid marriage", will do with that? Not recognize civil unions of even straight couples from other states? Only recognize marriages in CHURCHES? Make their heads spin.

[ulysses]

14. if I go the the justice of the peace for a fully secular ceremony,

I don't call myself "unioned" - I call myself "married".

Let the churches deny or allow services to whomever they choose, but even a civil ceremony is a marriage.

[Bluenorthwest]

13. First off

they are not willing to have civil unions. They fight that as well. You would know that if you cared about this issue enought to be asking a question like this. They want all of my rights. They also want yours, but for the time you can pretend that they only want mine if you want to. Do so at your own risk.

What you willfully ignore is that law itself is composed of words. We have long established that seperate is not equal, merely by being seperate. The argument that this is just about 'a word' is the exact same as Bush calling the Constitution 'just a piece of paper'.

Posts like yours are usually written by single straight males. Can you figure out why?

[Recursion]

15. As I said, because I think marriage is a crock

That's exactly why single straight males write posts like this: because those of us who care about marriage tend to be married.

If "they" (who are "they"?) are against civil unions, why do civil unions find much, much higher support in most states than marriage equality?

[Heidi]

19. This debate isn't about YOUR right to marry, or MY right to marry.

OUR right to marry, whether we choose to exercise that right or not, is secure. Prior to African-Americans' voting rights being secured, would you have said, "I'm not a voter and I'm not big on the whole concept of voting" and imply that African-Americans weren't entitled to the right to vote? I bet not, and the right to marry is the EXACT SAME SITUATION. Marriage may not be a big deal to you, but that's easy to say when your right to marry is 100 percent secure.

And here's my opinion about civil unions: they're the heterosexual community's cowardly way of throwing a bone to gay community in lieu of cowboying up and respecting and protecting their partnerships as legal marriages.

[Recursion]

22. But I don't care about anyone's "right" to marry

Maybe I'm a desperately small minority, I don't know. I think marriage is a silly, outdated, superstitious, misogynistic idea that has been used to oppress women, children, and homosexuals for millenia. I don't understand gay people's desire to participate in a ritual that was nearly specifically designed to exclude them from society.

If there had been a gay marriage ban in my state, I would have voted against it because it's not my place to decide who can and can't get married. I just don't get why we're trying to spread the chattel status rather than eliminate it.

[Heidi]

23. Then don't get married. (nt)

[Bluenorthwest]

38. You are getting to be a bore.

You ask 'who are 'they'. Here is the qoute from your OP "why are people fairly willing to have gay civil unions" . My 'they' is your 'people'. You made the claim that 'people' are willing to support civil unions. Yeah they get higher support, but that does not mean that the activist bigots who organized this crap support civil unions. They don't.

Your basic argument is also weak. I know folks who are 'against' jet travel. But they could not nor would not argue that because they think no one should fly, that it is ok to discriminate and allow some to fly but not others. Your stance against marriage for you or in general is of no meaning in this discussion. You are already free to not marry. Or to marry. By your own choice. No one makes anyone get married. So your argument is weak. Some are prevented from pursuing happiness, and some are not. You are not. You are so free that you can come here and treat your freedom as if it were a burden, in front of people who have no such freedom, without a thought about what you are actually doing. You are part of the straight privilige that is the whole problem.

[Glorfindel]

16. I honestly don't know...but I'm basically a hermit

The idea of having to share my home - let alone my bed - with ANYONE fills me with revulsion. If other people, gay, straight, or otherwise, wish to do so, it's fine with me, and naturally I support equality of "marriage" or "union" for all, but I'll never understand the concept.

[bluedawg12]

17. Having talked to straights just before P8 on Tues.

It's weird logic.

Civil union with the same rights is OK....but...the word marriage in a civil setting, such as city hall or Justice of the Peace is somehow "sacred" and the "word" marriage should only be applied to hets.

Why is that? Because it refelects their bigotry, that yes, we'll give gays some tolerance but they are still second class citizens.

[Recursion]

18. But, "marriage" is about second class citizenship of women to begin with

I don't know, maybe I care too much about how the institution developed and just would like to see it done away with completely.

[ulysses]

20. I'll quit harping on you in a second.

Think, though - you understand that the gay folks who want to get married have no interest in doing so so that they can be made second class citizens, right? For that matter, neither do most straights (although I do wonder about a few).

I understand the history of the institution, and if it's not for you, ok. History isn't destiny, though, and the people trying to gain their full rights are trying to *escape* second class citizenship, not enter it.

[Heidi]

21. You would REALLY eliminate marriage just because YOU have a dim view of it?

Really?

[Bluenorthwest]

24. You are being willfully pretentious

The question is do you favor discrimination? The answer seems to be yes, although you take the long way around.
I'd like to see some proof of your committment to doing away with marriage. Show that knocking GLBT equality fights is not the whole of your quest to end all marriage. Do you boycott wedding in your family, refuse to call people by married names or reffer to a 'wife' or 'husband'? Have you been protesting the second class citizenship of women in any way at all, or is this just a pose to play a position, pretend you don't understad?
Tell me all the ways you stand against the second class citizenship of women, while expalining why you feel two women without a man should not be allowed equal treatment under the law.
Examples from your life, please.

[readmoreoften]

29. Awesome response.

[Recursion]

33. Well, I gave money to defeat 8

I'm not sure what else I should have done?

[Bluenorthwest]

41. You should attempt to be an honest broker

Part of that would be done by speaking for yourself, not attempting to be the voice of folks who are not you, such as GLBT people and women.
You are free to not marry or to marry. Others are not. The whole discussion is about equal treatment under the law, about discrimination. Sincerly, you are trying to make this a discussion about your views on marriage, which are already fully supported by law. You don't have to marry.
They are as sick that surfeit with too much as them that starve with nothing.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

27. What an idiotic comment.

Marriage is whatever you make of it.

[Recursion]

37. Marriage is hard for people to discuss without getting upset

I've held a lot of controversial views in my life but nothing seems to piss people off more than the fact that I think marriage is so much hokum. There are a lot of sacred cows but none more than this. I don't know.

Look back at marriage over the past few millenia, as it migrated from outright polygynous chattel slavery to simple economic exploitation to the rather more equitable form we know it in today. Has it been a source of harm or good, in your opinion?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

47. I don't think marriage itself is a source of good or harm.

It is inevitably an expression of the culture in which it occurs. It carries with it the characteristics of that culture. Marriage has never been, and it will never be, a transformative institution.

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. The history of states was about discrimination and power

Does that mean we should be anarchists, and want all states dissolved? Or is it possible to have a democratic state? Or an equal marriage?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

49. Well, yeah.

States are inevitably inequal, as are marriages, as are almost all human relationships. Only a fool would claim that these constructs are not useful because of this inequality.

[End Of The Road]

25. I've encountered the same thing

The problem seems to be with the word marriage, and not necessarily with the meaning of the word.

Some words carry alot of cultural baggage (the "N" word being a negative example). In the case of the word marriage, it carries both cultural AND religious baggage, and like it or not, it's going to be tough to overcome. I don't think it's necessarily bigotry in the case of otherwise liberal and accepting people.

There are plenty of ministers out there who are ready and willing to perform gay marriages and to use the word marriage in the ceremony. But some states won't recognize the legality of the ceremony because of public objection to calling it marriage. So why can't we call it something else outside the ceremony to get the laws passed and the rights in place? That's some of what I've heard from my liberal straight friends.

[Bluenorthwest]

43. Ask your straight 'liberal' friends if

they would be fine with GLBT people calling our Unions 'Real Marriage' then. They can call theirs marriage. Would they go for that?

And I reccomend a review of how marriage works. The church ritual is not now controlled by the gov- church is free to marry or not marry anyone, always was and always will be. The State is the ONLY entity that makes contract, the church has zero to do with that. The ceremony is not necessary to any couple, it is just a choice. The ceremony carries no weight of law at all, without the state there is NO marriage. Period.

When you ask people to preform religious ceremonies with language dictated by law or by others, what you are talking about is limiting religious freedom.

Think about it. All of these 'simple' solutions that straights come up with are based on a lack of understanding of the very institution they claim is so important to them. You can not control what is said in a religious ceremony. You can not make a contract by having a religious ceremoney. You can make a contract with no ceremony at all. Right now the ceremony portion of a 'gay wedding' is fully legal, as religon is free in this land. It is the state that witholds equality, for it is only the state that can make a marriage contract of any kind, for any couple.
The straights are married by the State alone. The church thing is just for show. Ritual. Not law.

[End Of The Road]

50. Agree with the "lack of understanding" bit --

Straights have never had a NEED to understand it. It's just what you had to do in polite society to shack up and start a family. But for those straights who are thinking about it, trying to get their mind around it is complicated by emotional feelings attached to the WORD, not the meaning. At least that's how I interpret what I'm hearing.

[Bluenorthwest]

54. Then how about we call ours 'Lovebond'

and also call theirs 'not lovebond' and so they don't have to sully the divine word 'marriage' with their own tendency toward divorce, adultery, wife beating and the like.
The argument that it is about the terminology is bogus as hell. And by offering other terms, my point is that they want to pick the word that defines my family. They do not ask that we just pick another term, they want to pick it. And they want the term that applies to them to sound superior. Those who claim to love the word should be trying to end divorce laws, right? To bring back civil punishments for adultery, correrct? Does it not strike you as odd that the ONLY way they want to 'preserve' marriage is by witholding rights from others, and never by upholding the prinicple of their own marriages with force of law?
Yeah, it is all about a word alright, and the word is discrimination.

[End Of The Road]

56. It gets you nowhere to dump everybody in the same boat.

There are those against gay marriage because of religion (they don't "think" -- they just obey)
There are those against gay marriage because of ignorance (this could certainly be included in the above)
And then there are those people who are FOR equal rights for gays who nevertheless supported prop 8.

We NEED this last group, and accusing them of being things they're not does not further the cause.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

26. My mom is weird like this.

Generally speaking she's *very* liberal, and she certainly supports civil unions, but with respect to marriage, her response is "couldn't they just... you know... call it something else?"

I don't get it. As far as I'm concerned as long as two people want to get married they should be able to get married, provided the relationship isn't abusive (like marrying an eight year old or something like that.) Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe it's just that I'm used to being around openly gay people and she isn't, because she lives in the sticks. I simply do not get what makes some people, especially otherwise socially liberal people who *do* support civil unions, so uncomfortable about same-sex marriage.

[Recursion]

30. That's the other half of my confusion

Why are so many straight people so willing to acknowledge that gay people make lifelong commitments to each other, but then refuse to call it "marriage"?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

48. I really don't know.

I'm not married. Perhaps a different perspective is present amongst married people because of their personal relationship to the concept of marriage. That's about the only thing I can figure.

Edit to add: On the other hand I know plenty of married people who support gay marriage. I'm leaning more towards the cultural/generational gap aspect of things at this point.

[readmoreoften]

31. Easy: they want to be special and superior. They're supremacists.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

44. Well that's certainly not true in the case of my mom.

She's about the least "supremacist" person imaginable.

[readmoreoften]

28. Here are some specific reasons:

1) Equality is axiomatic
2) Equality leads to less physical violence and less acceptance of physical violence by the State
3) Marriage inequality makes poor LGBT people even poorer. My partner--lucky enough to have a job that considers me a DP--will still have to pay my medical insurance (and bills?) as INCOME which will eat the whole of her tax return. Why should a poor gay couple earning under 15K a year lose close to $2K because they're a same-sex couple?
4) Because I can't take a position in a foreign country and foreign workers can't take positions here without leaving their spouses behind.
5) Gay people who happen to fall in love with people across national borders often can't even SEE their loved ones let alone live with them.
6) Because my Republican brother-in-law could take 1/2 my house if my partner dies and force me to sell our home and even leave me homeless.
7) Because I can't ever KNOW whether or not I'll be able to visit my partner in the hospital. If we travel and there is an accident, we'd likely be separated.
8) Because I AM MARRIED. The state just refuses to recognize it.

[Heidi]

34. Best answer yet.

:kick:

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. 4) and 5) are good points on why the name matters, even if other rights are equalised

Recognition in another state, or another country, is more likely if the word 'marriage' is used.

[Recursion]

39. The big problem is we have a society averse to homosexuals

I hate that fact. I wish it were different. I do what I can to make it so.

To the extent that marriage inequality bolsters that aversion, I definitely support marriage equality (notice, I donated to No On 8). To the extent that this aversion intersects an unhealthy veneration for a particular ritual, a veneration seemingly held by most people, the argument gets very very heated.

[Bluenorthwest]

52. To balance my harsh ways

let me offer to you that DADT is like, not my issue at all, as I think serving in the military is not to be desired. I think those who want to be equal as canon fodder are crazy. But as long as others can be canon fodder, those GLBT people who want to do so should be just as free as the rest to do what I think is crazy. I'd never do it. I think it is part of the problem. But they should always be free to make up their own minds just as the straights, or those who say they are straight, can do so.
Because questions of equality are about discrimination. Being able to sit at the lunchcounter is not about the quality of the food at the lunchcounter, it is about the ability to sit there and order it or not according to one's free will. Perhaps all that sort of lunchcounter food is bad for the body, and no one should eat it. That does not in any way make discrimination into a good thing.

[InvisibleTouch]

40. I'm not a fan of marriage either...

...speaking just for myself, I can't imagine why I would ever want to do that to myself. But it's absolutely none of my business what others wish to do in their lives - and if they want to be married, they should have the right to make the choice, just as I do.

[SmileyRose]

42. Why not?

The only reason I have ever heard for refusing to allow homosexuals to marry is bigotry.

An unacceptable reason.

[Recursion]

53. That was the second half of my quesetion

Why do people care enough to amend the frigging Constitution one way or the other?

This was more of a "what do people see in the idea of marriage that I don't?" thread, at least in its intention.

[Mari333]

45. I was thinking about this yesterday and I applied the concept of what marriage means

to myself , by using my own life experiences as a touchstone.
when I was a little girl, raised in a strict Catholic household, and going to a strict Catholic church and school, I remember being somewhat outraged, even at a young young age, that I could never be a priest, which I wanted to be at the time.
I was firmly told by the nuns and by others , that girls were not quite as equal as boys in 'God's eyes', but that if i chose to be a NUN that was okay. I was awarded a secondary status concerning my right to be loved by God, and my 'soul' was not quite as important as a boys soul.
So, I was still allowed to be Catholic, still allowed some rights and priveleges in the Catholic church, but relegated to a secondary, and less divine status.
That was a hell of a message to send to a little kid, I think.
Now, when it comes to marriage..the word marriage projects the idea of a union of 2 people being recognized by society as special, divine, beloved, and sacred. Civil Union merely sounds like a legal document. The word marriage is full recognition of a couple as beloved by all and relegates it to primary status in ones community. It defines a couple in a way that civil union does not.
I have met many gay folks of many different religions and the idea of being divinely recognized is just as important to them as it was to me to be recognized as being a Catholic girl whose soul was just as divine as the boys souls in my school.
Okay, thats my 2 cents on it.
Hopefully the Calif SC will overturn mob rule.

[crispini]

46. Only marriage provides full legal equality.

There are thousands of legal precedents which civil unions won't have.

"Seperate but equal" -- remember how well that worked out?

[Corkey Mineola]

51. Good Question... As a Gay Man...

I think the institution is outdated and sexist.
It's a property rights contract that has taken on a lot more meaning in the last 50 years with the progress of Women's Rights.

I think it is a symbol of equal rights. Equal protection particularly.
At this point, my legally wed husband and I (here in CA) are not entitled to federal benefits if one pre-deceases the other (god forbid) particularly social security benefits.

That's not equal protection under the law.

[Unvanguard]

55. Because separate is not equal

and when some people are given a different legal status to others, even if the rights are materially equivalent it still inherently designates them as inferior.