US Supreme Court Does the Right Thing

Liberty and Justice, HT Chris Clarke

 

 

Same sex marriage is a constitutional right for all USAians, regardless of the homophobic, religiously-motivated bigotry in 14 state legislatures.

Chief Justice Kennedy writing the 5-4 decision:

“The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of a person,

… under the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, couples of the same sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty.

..  The Court now holds that same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry,

… [They] ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. </blockquote>

And Antonin Scalia displays his usual regressive Catholic assholishness: <blockquote>The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic,

Suck it, Popey-boy.

 

HT: Chris Clarke, image, and Ophelia Benson

 

Edit: Should have been Justice Kennedy, not Chief justice Kennedy.  Thanks for the reminder, Kantian Naturalist :).

853 thoughts on “US Supreme Court Does the Right Thing

  1. Erik,

    Do a widower and his children not constitute an ErikFamily(tm) then?

    If I were to determine what conceptual background you have (as I must, in order to figure out what you are after here), I would say none. To correct my impression, please provide your conceptual background.

    As for mine, look up the words “essential” and “accidental”. Or “primary” and “secondary”. Or “complete” and “incomplete”. Or “relevant” and “irrelevant”.

    It’s a simple question. You asserted that “wife” and “mother” are essential components of an ErikFamily(tm). I’m just trying to understand your definition. Do a widower and his children constitute a family by your definition or do they not?

  2. hotshoe_: But why should we agree that’s “legitimate”?It’s completely illegitimate for the religious assholes to try to hijack the secular, legal, term.

    To the contrary. It was the secular legal assholes who determined it this way in countries like France as soon as the revolutionary Enlightenment hit.

    Now that you know this, you also know that rest of what you say has nothing to do with anything you thought it did.

    Patrick:
    Erik,

    It’s a simple question.You asserted that “wife” and “mother” are essential components of an ErikFamily(tm).I’m just trying to understand your definition.Do a widower and his children constitute a family by your definition or do they not?

    So, let’s say a three-legged dog is a dog. However, when we are making it our business to form a true picture of what a dog is in complete sense, is a three-legged dog a proper sample?

    Similarly, let’s say a widower and his children constitute a family. However, when we are making a law concerning families, will it be a meaningful law if we fail to consider the spouse that the widower used to have, the other parent that was there when the children were bred? Whatever your answer to this may be, it’s irrelevant, because you have no conceptual background as far as can be determined.

  3. Erik,

    It’s a simple question.You asserted that “wife” and “mother” are essential components of an ErikFamily(tm).I’m just trying to understand your definition.Do a widower and his children constitute a family by your definition or do they not?

    Similarly, let’s say a widower and his children constitute a family. However, when we are making a law concerning families, will it be a meaningful law if we fail to consider the spouse that the widower used to have, the other parent that was there when the children were bred?

    Legally the widower remains the guardian of the children.

    Now let’s return, yet again, to my friends’ son’s family. This man and his husband are married and are raising two children. Legally, why should these four people not constitute a family, with all the responsibilities and rights that entails?

    I’d go much further and say that they are a family because they are a loving, committed couple raising children they cherish together. It would be mean-spirited in the extreme to assert otherwise.

  4. . Jews and Quakers were exempted from its provisions, although the Act did not go so far as to declare such marriages valid and it was many years before their legal standing was assured. Nor did the Act apply to members of the British Royal Family.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_Act_1753

    Way to go England!

    In the state of Pennsylvania, self-uniting marriage licenses are available which require only the signatures of the bride and groom and witnesses. Although this is an accommodation for a Quaker wedding, any heterosexual couple is able to apply for it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_license#Controversy_in_the_US

    God Bless the Quakers.

  5. Patrick says,

    So long as the government is involved, do you agree that the legal benefits of marriage should not be denied to homosexual couples?

    I say,

    I have no idea what the legal benefits of marriage are. I don’t think I have ever taken advantage of any special benefits. It was never my intent to do so.

    I can guarantee that if there are government bestowed benefits they are more than outweighed by the costs it inflicts on the institution it regulates.

    I don’t think government should be in the business of deciding any groups have special benefits be they couples triples or quartets.

    I can’t see why the government should care if my chosen sexual partner is another man or my sister. That sort of thing is above their pay-grade.

    The government likes to pick winners and losers because it gives them the illusion that they are in charge. This week the LGBT are popular next week it will be somebody else perhaps the economically disadvantaged. Government doesn’t care as long as they get to regulate something

    Instead of decreeing supposed legal benefits will now go to some now popular group while denying it to many others it would be much more equal to do away with special benefits altogether.

    But then equality was never the objective with gay marriage now was it. It’s all about silencing those who would disagree with a particular sexual choice.

    peace

  6. Mung says,

    God Bless the Quakers.

    I say,

    And the Amish

    Leave it to the Anabaptists to show the way yet again. The older I get the more I come to believe that the “left wing” of the reformation had it all figured out long ago when it comes to Church and State.

    The rest of us are just trying to catch up and finally clear out the entanglements that got the Church into trouble in Constantine’s time.

    Marriage is just the latest dead wood.

    peace

  7. fifthmonarchyman: The rest of us are just trying to catch up and finally clear out the entanglements that got the Church into trouble in Constantine’s time.

    Absolutely wish you the best with that.

    As long as you leave the word marriage to us when you take your marbles and go home, please do make it your sole priority to “clear out the entanglements”.

    The less you folks have to do with government – or society in general – the better. Better for all of us; better for the religionists who don’t have to be contaminated by worldly things, and better for everyone else who won’t have to put up with the regressives who just want to tell us what kind of meat we can eat or tell us which direction to pray in or tell us what kind of second-class citizens we are if we happen to be born gay.

    You go, guys!

  8. As long as you leave the word marriage to us

    There you go. Despite all the bluster it’s not about equality or legal benefits it’s about a word.

    We have it you want it.

    Sorry to inform you but language does not work like that.

    Marriage was defined long before government got it’s hands on it and it will still be marriage when the government goes after the next thing that is shiny.

    quote:

    He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
    (Mat 19:4-6)

    end quote:

    Not a lot you can do to change that fact that is what bothers you so.

    If we called it “fred” your side would be talking about bestowing “fred” on whatever particular group was popular at the time.

    As if government ever had the authority to do what only God can do.

    Bless your heart

    peace

  9. fifthmonarchyman,

    I have no idea what the legal benefits of marriage are.

    “There are 1,138 benefits, rights and protections provided on the basis of marital status in Federal law.”.

    But then equality was never the objective with gay marriage now was it. It’s all about silencing those who would disagree with a particular sexual choice.

    No, it’s all about ensuring that all married couples are equal under the law without regard to sexual orientation.

  10. fifthmonarchyman: I have no idea what the legal benefits of marriage are. I don’t think I have ever taken advantage of any special benefits. It was never my intent to do so.

    It might help to actually know what you are talking about before talking about it:

    There are 1,138 benefits, rights and protections provided on the basis of marital status in Federal law.

    From Overview of Federal Benefits Granted to Married Couples

  11. fifthmonarchyman,

    He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
    (Mat 19:4-6)

    end quote:

    Not a lot you can do to change that

    We can ignore it as a bronze age myth.

  12. Erik: hotshoe_: But why should we agree that’s “legitimate”?It’s completely illegitimate for the religious assholes to try to hijack the secular, legal, term.

    To the contrary. It was the secular legal assholes who determined it this way in countries like France as soon as the revolutionary Enlightenment hit.

    Tough, Erik. The secularists won, hundreds of years ago in a wave that swept through all of European civilization because it was manifestly right, obvious to everyone not blinded by religious dogma. Secular nations are objectively better by any measure for human beings than theocracies.

    Governments for hundreds of years have reserved the word “marriage” for the legal contract between a citizen couple, regardless of religious status (and regardless of procreative status, too) and we’re not handing the word back to the religious assholes who want to control that state.

    We’re not going back to your religiously-biased ways, no matter how much of a tantrum you throw about having to share the word “marriage” with the “defectives”, no matter how much you sputter and impotently shake your fist about it. (As if that will ever win anyone to your side.)

    Don’t you have a mission to go preach to the majority christians who just approved of the word “marriage” for their gay friends and gay relatives (or for themselves, for that matter)? Don’t you have a calling to remind them they’re “wrong”? Go bother them, they might still listen to your bigoted nonsense. Maybe try Uganda?

  13. fifthmonarchyman: Yes it must be economics. That is the ticket.

    It could not possibly be the enthronement of human selfishness or treating the sexual desires of the individual as if they were the ultimate in life.

    If we just had more money things would be better. The richer a society gets the better marriage shape must be in.

    The answer must be to keep expanding the franchise to other sexual partnerships.

    The additional cash they bring to the table surely will stem the tide and right the ship.

    peace

    In fact — if you had taken the time to ask rather than assume — it is not part of my conception of socio-economic reality that we are dealing with problems that can be handled by throwing more money at them.

    On the contrary, I think that almost all of the difficulties that we face as a global civilization (better, a complex network of economically interdependent civilizations) are completely insoluble as long as the capitalist mode of overproduction and overconsumption is accepted as unquestionable.

    I am not a liberal. I am a socialist. Specifically, a libertarian socialist in the tradition of Kropotkin, Goldman, and Chomsky.

  14. I checked out the link and I don’t think I have used any of the benefits listed on the page.

    It certenly was not my intention to do so if I did.

    I would be in favor of doing away with the benefits listed all together.

    It might save the government some money and get it out of stuff it has no business meddling in with out forcing religious folks to violate their conscience. It would certainly be the fairer and more equal thing to do.

    If that was ever the goal here. But of course we know it was not.

    peace

  15. Erik: So, let’s say a three-legged dog is a dog. However, when we are making it our business to form a true picture of what a dog is in complete sense, is a three-legged dog a proper sample?

    Huh, Mung wondered back in the beginning, why I was so quick to identify Erik as an anti-gay bigot instead of charitably guessing him to be a hopeless pedant.

    This is, what, the fifth? the tenth? time in this thread that Erik has chosen to share this vicious analogy demonstrating that he (seriously!!) thinks a family of two loving gay men and their children is equivalent to a three-legged dog.

    And people wonder why we need to have anti-discrimination laws in the US, where a loud dumb minority are just fine with that kind of garbage.

  16. hotshoe_:… he (seriously!!) thinks a family of two loving gay men and their children is equivalent to a three-legged dog.

    I was sort of wondering which one was the missing leg. I was also wondering what a custody battle might look like in the case of a divorce and whether the two children have an equal demand on both parents.

    I’d be interested in knowing the precise legal relationship of the children to the non-biological parent.

  17. fifthmonarchyman: There you go. Despite all the bluster it’s not about equality or legal benefits it’s about a word.

    We have it you want it.

    Sorry, baby, WE HAVE IT. Thank god, thank god; thank the sane Catholics Kennedy and Sotomayor as well as their sane (theist) colleagues Breyer, Ginsburg, and Kagan; thank the majority chrstians of 36 states of the US whose prior acceptance of the equal dignity of gay marriage paved the way for the Supreme Court decision.

    Your side lost. You’re never going to win it back in the future, either. Get over it.

    Sorry to inform you but language does not work like that.

    Ooh, you wish! Language works exactly like that. The people want to use a word, they use it, and you regressives can’t stop ’em.

    Marriage was defined long before government got it’s [sic] hands on it and it will still be marriage when the government goes after the next thing that is shiny.

    Sure thing, and it will still remain marriage equality for straights and gays, because the government going after the next “shiny thing” doesn’t in any way mean they’re going to regress to your dark ages on this subject.

    quote:

    He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
    (Mat 19:4-6)

    end quote:

    What, you think you can impress me with your ability to copy bible verses?

    I’ve got a quote for you, too:

    Hokey religons and ancient weapons are no match for a blaster by your side.

    Not a lot you can do to change that fact that is what bothers you so.

    Tee hee. As if your dinosaur bible preaching is what bothers me. Honey, god has spoken to me personally and god told me I’m doing great, doing exactly what he wants me to.

    Your god, though, is suspiciously silent. Maybe not just silent, but non-existent altogether. Such a shame.

    If we called it “fred” your side would be talking about bestowing “fred” on whatever particular group was popular at the time.

    Yeah, sure. If you think calling it “marriage” is exactly the same as calling it “fred” then why in hell are you fighting so hard about it? If it’s just an unimportant, easily-replaceable word, then you can easily let go of it, right?

    Tell ya’ what. WE will call it marriage and YOU call if fred, you and your co-religionists. Then everybody will be satisfied!

    As if government ever had the authority to do what only God can do.

    Well, since god has never once been witnessed officiating at a marriage ceremony or signing a marriage license, I don’t see that we’ve got anything to lose when we stick with the government authority in the case of marriage. If or when god chooses to show up at the registry office, I might change my mind.

    Of course you christians are free to call your mumbo-jumbo something special if you like. Try “holy matrimony”, I hear that’s not reserved for secular use. You’re free to believe that a non-existent or at least non-visible non-audible god has something to do with your wedding. You’re free to believe no man can divorce what god has joined. Suit yourself, I don’t mind if you’re miserable when you find out that god let you marry a person who is wrong for you.

    Bless your heart

    Yes indeedy Petey. I’ll be sure to take that in the spirit in which it was meant. Thanks!

  18. Patrick says,

    We can ignore it as a bronze age myth.

    I say,

    You would think you could but the gay marriage dust up proves you are just not ready to leave that sort of stuff behind. like it or not It has some sort of hold on you

    You could focus your attention on equality by eliminating all special legal benefits bestowed on groups. You could focus on liberty by asking for no government limits on association whatsoever

    But instead your side is all hung up on appropriating the bronze age concept of “marriage” on the sexual flavor of the month.

    The reason the word marriage is so important to your side is because of it’s association with that “bronze age myth” you want to be able to do what only God has the authority to do.

    There is truly nothing new under the sun that is exactly what Adam got into trouble for.

    peace

  19. Kantian Naturalist: On the contrary, I think that almost all of the difficulties that we face as a global civilization (better, a complex network of economically interdependent civilizations) are completely insoluble as long as the capitalist mode of overproduction and overconsumption is accepted as unquestionable.

    I am not a liberal. I am a socialist. Specifically, a libertarian socialist in the tradition of Kropotkin, Goldman, and Chomsky.

    I love you, KN. 🙂

  20. walto:
    Here’s some Hobbes:

    The office of the sovereign, be it a monarch or an assembly, consisteth in the end for which he was trusted with the sovereign power, namely the procuration of the safety of the people, to which he is obliged by the law of nature, and to render an account thereof to God, the Author of that law, and to none but Him.

    And here’s an article about Hobbes:

    THOMAS HOBBES: FROM CLASSICAL NATURAL LAW to MODERN NATURAL RIGHTS

    This negative view of natural law can be traced to Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), whose writings are largely devoted to showing the anarchy and civil wars caused by appeals to natural and divine laws above the will of the sovereign. Hobbes rejected traditional higher law doctrines and encouraged people to accept the established laws and customs of their nations, even if they seemed oppressive, for the sake of civil peace and security. His critique has been a leading cause of the demise of natural law and the acceptance of positive law as the only reliable guide for political authority.

    One may be equally surprised to learn, however, that many people today embrace a different (and seemingly contradictory) view of natural law, and this too is traceable to Thomas Hobbes. For example, when conscientious people are confronted with violations of human rights—as in religious theocracies that violate women’s rights or in countries that allow sweatshops to trample on worker’s rights—they feel compelled to protest the injustice of those practices and to change them for the better. The protesters usually deny that they are following natural law, but they obviously are asserting a belief in universal moral truths that are grounded in human nature—in this case, the natural equality of human beings that underlies human rights. This understanding of higher law originates with Hobbes because he was largely responsible for transforming classical natural law into modern natural rights, thereby beginning the “human rights revolution” in thinking on natural law. How is it possible for Hobbes and his followers to embrace seemingly contradictory views of natural law, rejecting one form as intolerant, self-righteous, and anarchical, while embracing another form as the universal ideal of social justice?

    And this last is what I perceive to be going on in this thread and why I think a look at Hobbes just might be relevant.

  21. Here, then, is the issue in the natural law–natural right dichotomy: if individual right is primary, can individuals have any duty to respect the rights of others? If the fundamental moral fact is the individual’s right to “look out for number one,” where would a duty to respect others come from? Hobbes finds no such duty, for it would restrict the individual’s liberty and his right.

    John Locke Natural Law, Natural Rights, and American Constitutionalism

  22. Neil Rickert: So here I was, hoping for an appropriate “Calvin and Hobbes” cartoon.But all you gave us was an old dead philosopher.

    Who happened to be nasty, British, and short.

  23. hotshoe_: Governments for hundreds of years have reserved the word “marriage” for the legal contract between a citizen couple, regardless of religious status (and regardless of procreative status, too) and we’re not handing the word back to the religious assholes who want to control that state.

    Secular governments in most Catholic countries (France, Italy, Spain) decided the other way round hundreds of years ago, they separated civil and church ceremonies and call them different names. If you tried to tell them they should reverse this, they’d think you are a religious loon wanting to reverse the separation of church and state. This particular arrangement is how the separation of church and state works there.

    (Why do Americans insist on absolute cluelessness of the world around them, yet proceed policing every corner of it?)

    In translation, this is what French Wikipedia says about marriage, “In many legal systems , civil marriage takes place simultaneously with the religious marriage ceremony, although both are theoretically distinct. Thus, in most US states, but also in the UK, in Ireland and in Poland, the marriage is solemnized by a priest, a pastor, a rabbi or other religious leader who also officiates as a public official. ” <– This is news for most people in Catholic countries, because,

    "In some countries, such as Germany , the Argentine , the Belgium , the France , Russia , Switzerland or Turkey, it is necessary that the civil marriage took place prior to the religious ceremony takes place." <– this is ordinary for them. This is how church is separated from the state in their view. Also Prince of Monaco had to go through two ceremonies.

  24. Patrick: You and Erik, for two here, are unwilling to allow homosexual couples to use the word “marriage” to refer to their legal status. That view is equivalent to claiming that homosexuals are not deserving of the same civil rights as heterosexuals.

    Exactly. That is ALL it boils down to – the word.

    Nobody is asking any religious organisation to conduct or even recognise a same-sex marriage (just as the catholic church refuses to recognise marriage between divorced catholics).

    And of the objectors here, nobody has said that civil unions shouldn’t happen, or that the rights of married people should not be applied (even if legally far more onerous an undertaking) to those in civil union, thus making the two statuses legally equivalent.

    It’s the word they don’t want to be applied. Despite accepting its application to marriage between divorcees (opposed by some churches) and rejecting its application to polygamous marriage (approved by some churches) and uttering not one word about its application to contracts involving non-consenting or child partners, nor to the “traditional” marriage contract that involved the wife and her property becoming the property of her husband.

    It’s inconsistent and unjust. And amounts to no more than a quibble about the definition of word that has already been “traditionally” defined in many ways, many of them in ways that denote a contract unacceptable to most of us.

    “Holy matrimony” is the answer, if religious people need a separate word – there’s one already. But they don’t even need one – there’s nothing to stop members of religious groups refusing to accept as religiously valid “marriage” one that is not in accord with their principles. As I said, the catholic church already does this.

    The argument against calling the legal contract “marriage” doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

  25. Elizabeth: Nobody is asking any religious organisation to conduct or even recognise a same-sex marriage (just as the catholic church refuses to recognise marriage between divorced catholics).

    Even this is false. In Protestant countries of Northern Europe, church and state are intertwined precisely on the marriage issue so deeply that the traditional state church (even though there is no de jure state church, there’s de facto state church) has politically no other option but to “bless same-sex marriages” (again, de facto, not de jure). That which you deny has taken effect in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, etc.

  26. fifthmonarchyman: There you go. Despite all the bluster it’s not about equality or legal benefits it’s about a word.

    It is indeed about a word. So it’s time those religious groups who are blustering about it took a hard look at their grounds. It’s a word.

    And it is most certainly about the legal benefits the contract that bears that word as its name entitles its contractors to. Don’t kid yourself that there are none.

    And it is also about equality – the rights of gay people to access the same benefits when they make the same contract with each other as do their straight peers, including the right to give it the same name.

    If you want to call it something different – fine. As you say, it’s just a name.

  27. Erik: And, as I have pointed out, there are good reasons why the word was withheld. Namely, it has a meaning that is inappropriate for same-sex couples.

    Well, that is pure assertion. There’s no reason why it can’t be applied to same-sex couples with the same contract. None at all.

    Erik: Good to see that we agree that it’s just about the word. To withhold the word “marriage” from same-sex couples is discrimination only if there’s some substance to it that was unobtainable to same-sex couples otherwise

    Well, as has been pointed out, there were a great many. But because that word, “marriage” legally covered them all, and “civil union” didn’t, it was clearly much more sensible to extend the word “marriage” rather than extend the legal scope of “civil union”. And, in the same stroke, grant gay couples the same right as straight couples to use the same perfectly good word to describe their contract.

    Erik: Infertility is typically found out when people get married. When infertility is found out, it counts as a defect in marriage, because marriage cannot fulfil its function.

    No. It. Does. Not.

    You keep saying this, Erik, and you never even attempt to tackle the rebuttals. A childless marriage is not a “defective” marriage. My marriage was just as valid a marriage during the 20 years of our infertility as it remains now. And my grandmother’s marriage to her teenage sweetheart at aged 65 was just as valid as her first marriage to my grandfather.

    Nothing in the traditional marriage vows refers to fertility or children. It is a promise between two adults to each other, for life.

    It is a promise that has advantages for children of course. Which is why gay couples who intend to raise children are keen to marry.

    Erik: According to you of course three-legged dogs have all the rights of four-legged dogs, including the rights that they cannot have in principle due to the missing leg.

    Of course. Because even your idiotic analog demonstrates the point: rights are not curtailed because of the absence of limbs, or ovaries, or gametes, or fallopian tubes, or vaginas or penises. Human rights are human rights, and I expect canine ones are the same, dogs being reasonable beings on the whole.

  28. Erik: the traditional state church (even though there is no de jure state church, there’s de facto state church) has politically no other option but to “bless same-sex marriages” (again, de facto, not de jure). That which you deny has taken effect in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, etc.

    Last time I checked, the OP was about the recent SCOTUS ruling. In the UK there had to be a special provision for state churches (because there are state churches in the UK) to exempt them from the law.

    But in the US there is no state church. So it shouldn’t be a problem.

  29. Not that some churches haven’t shown themselves very willing to perform marriages for gay couples. Quakers, for instance (who, as fifthmonarchyman pointed out, marry each other, they are not married by a third party celebrant):

    “Friends, I take this my friend NAME to be my husband/wife, promising, with God’s help, to be unto him/her a loving and faithful wife/husband, so long as we both on earth shall live.”

  30. Elizabeth: A childless marriage is not a “defective” marriage.

    Indeed. And infertility is not a health issue. And a missing leg is not a disability. Objective differences are unreal.

    We will never agree on this. It’s a principled matter of conceptual and scientific clarity for me.

    And you have nothing to say on how the concept works in the legal framework of other countries. Noted.

  31. Erik: Indeed. And infertility is not a health issue.

    It isn’t. It can be – some causes of infertility are health issues. Some are not.

  32. Erik: We will never agree on this. It’s a principled matter of conceptual and scientific clarity for me.

    And yet it is based on a muddle. You want to call “marriage” only a union between fertile men and women. You ignore the fact that many things called “marriage” are no such thing, and that the traditional definition of marriage makes no such requirement.

    You then object to same-sex marriage on the grounds that it changes the traditional use of the term. You then compound the muddle by equating gay couples and childless married heterosexual couples as “three legged dogs”.

    Not exactly “conceptual and scientific clarity” to me.

  33. Elizabeth: And yet it is based on a muddle.You want to call “marriage” only a union between fertile men and women.You ignore the fact that many things called “marriage” are no such thing, and that the traditional definition of marriage makes no such requirement.

    The same applies even more so to the things *you* attribute to marriage, such as “benefits” while ignoring responsibilities, and “love” or “affection” which have never been written into law anywhere.

    There’s no law that requires dogs to be four-legged, so they can be three-legged or completely without legs – whichever way the dog wants it, right? This is the kind of muddle where you are stuck. And since you are stuck on a simple entity like dog, we will never properly get to a complicated multi-faceted concept like marriage that has a pervasive social meaning. For the way you handle a simple thing like a dog, incapable of noting obvious objective differences, not a word from you can be trusted on marriage.

  34. Elizabeth,

    There’s more left to reply to, but the following is the most important for now.

    You should know, Lizzie, that why I throw what you call ‘insinuations’ at you is because I believe they have merit and provide legitimate criticisms of your apostate and confused ‘skepticism’. That you are typically evasive to the key points in what I write is shown easily by the facts of communication. Again, just because you don’t ‘like’ someone focussing on this doesn’t make it disappear (and it doesn’t make pointing it out ad hominem in any way).

    Here’s one example from this thread.

    I wrote: It is significant that you made those vows on that day in a Catholic church, not just to each other, and not just to society (witnesses), but also to your Creator.
    You responded: The vows were made TO each other, Gregory. They were made BEFORE witnesses.

    But that’s only a 2/3 response to what I said, isn’t it? You left out the most important 1/3, while merely trying to establish a trite diversion that this was just about ‘to’ or ‘before’, and only about people. I asked if when you were married you made vows to your Creator, i.e. to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. [If you have a transcript of your wedding vows, the evidence will easily answer this query about Catholic liturgy made during the sacrament of holy matrimony; not hard to find online.] It sounds, Elizabeth, like you’re trying to whip up a ‘Jefferson Bible’ image of your church wedding, without miracles.

    Later, you wrote this:

    “traditional marriage … is a promise between two adults to each other, for life.”

    Again, you seem to be mistaken about the meaning of ‘holy matrimony’. It is not *just* “a promise between two adults to each other”, but rather more than that. Until you recognise this, what you have said appears empty.

    When you got married, Elizabeth, did you believe in God? If so, did you believe you were making your wedding vows before or to God or ‘with God as your witness’? And likewise did your husband? If not, then why did you intentionally get married in a Catholic church, witnessed by a God so easy for you to eventually disbelieve in, since as you’ve already said in this thread, you were not yet a Catholic Christian at that time? And are you saying you were married in a Catholic church before being baptised?

    Do you now believe that your Catholic wedding was not actually celebrating ‘holy matrimony’? http://www.sanctamissa.org/en/resources/books-1962/rituale-romanum/66-matrimony-instruction.html

    p.s. also, just curious:

    “I did not ‘evolve’ into ‘apostasy’. I simply concluded that my previous beliefs were not justified. It was also a rapid process, not slow – it occurred as a result of reading a specific book.”

    Which specific book was that?

  35. Just for some perspective, here’s a map of Europe to demonstrate how divisive the issue is https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Same_sex_marriage_map_Europe_detailed.svg

    While westernmost and northernmost countries in Europe have managed to stretch the concept of state marriage towards gender-neutrality, Germany notably hasn’t. The reason is, as I said, that “marriage” is one of the focal concepts of family law there (that’s family law, i.e. everything to do with parents and children – all of them together, not just one or the other in separation) and it’s pretty much a procedural impossibility to change the definition of state marriage under these circumstances, which is why the concept of “civil union” (in Germany’s case, “life partnership”) was created for same-sex couples. More or less the same reason applies to other countries tinted the same as Germany. Now, tell me again why they must not have done that. Sheer bigotry?

    The red countries (roughly “central” Europe) on the map have “marriage” defined in their constitutions and constitutions are markedly difficult to change. For example the constitution of Latvia says, “The State shall protect and support marriage – a union between a man and a woman, the family, the rights of parents and rights of the child.” See how naturally integrated the concepts of marriage and family are?

    An interesting detail I noticed on the map: Guernsey, a UK dependency, seems to not recognise “marriage equality”. They are bigots and homophobes, right?

  36. Gregory: If not, then why did you intentionally get married in a Catholic church, witnessed by a God so easy for you to eventually disbelieve in, since as you’ve already said in this thread, you were not yet a Catholic Christian at that time?

    I thought God was supposed to be everywhere. I got married in an Anglican church, even though I have never found the idea of gods at all convincing. I discussed the issue with my fiancée, who said her family would be really upset by the idea of a registry office wedding and I agreed to go along with the charade as it seemed harmless enough. We’re still married after forty-one years so I guess it turned out well enough.

  37. Alan Fox,

    Yes, that’s the most common answer. It’s not like an atheist has never been married (or had a funeral) in a church, mosque or synagogue before.

    Now will you come back to us with her answer, Alan: does your wife (still) consider your marriage to her as ‘holy matrimony’?

  38. Alan Fox: That appears to be about to change.

    My question was if they are bigots. From behind the link,

    “Since then the world has seen a variety of legal recognitions of a couple’s commitment and union ranging from what might be termed as forms of traditional heterosexual marriage, religious marriage, non-religious marriage, same-sex marriage, civil partnerships open only to same sex couples; and civil partnerships open to all couples.”

    According to the majority opinion in this thread, most of these concepts indicate bigotry. So, evidently Guernsey is going to give some thought to various options of bigotry or even outright homophobia (such as heterosexual marriage).

  39. Gregory: Alan: does your wife (still) consider your marriage to her as ‘holy matrimony’?

    Can’t tell you that without asking her, Gregory. As far as I know, she has no religious beliefs and she is certainly not a practising Christian, so I’d guess not (ever).

  40. Erik: So, evidently Guernsey is going to give some thought to various options of bigotry or even outright homophobia (such as heterosexual marriage).

    Well, if ordinary Guernsey people are as forward-looking as the people of Ireland, then the consultation procedure will indicate a strong consensus for change to an equitable legal status for couples of whatever sex who wish to be legally married and enjoy the same benefits under the law as are already extended to heterosexual couples.

  41. hotshoe_: And people wonder why we need to have anti-discrimination laws in the US, where a loud dumb minority are just fine with that kind of garbage.

    hotshoe, Based on a re-read of this thread, I think you might have forgotten to put the words “and quite possibly insane” between “dumb” and “minority.”

  42. As I said earlier, I’m much more concerned about marriages involving corporations than I am about those requiring llamas (or 5-year-olds or seven women). The US Supreme Court is very concerned about the treatment of corporate “persons.”

    But, as I write this, a couple of llamas are reportedly working on a lawsuit, so….who knows?

  43. Seriously, though, Erik, what eventually happens to “marriage” over time, will be what happens to “ownership” “residence” “licensee” etc. Viz., what the demos wants. You’d obviously prefer some sort of theocracy to a democracy.

    Different strokes.

  44. Erik:
    Polygamous Montana Trio Applies For Wedding License

    Seems reasonable that, if people freely consent to live in a polygamous relationship, there should be a legal framework that deals with children, shared property and assets in the event of separation et cetera. I see it is effectively decriminalised in Montana. I guess it depends on the demand, of which I see none in Europe. (Though I don’t get out much, especially in this heat!) Is this some slippery slope argument?

    PS is the duplicate comment to be trashed?

  45. Even though it came many years after more advanced countries already legalised civil unions of same-sex partners, the recent SCOTUS sense of justice has emboldened the ‘skeptics’ here:

    “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to [accept or endorse same-sex marriage], that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”

    Quite the intolerant, triumphalist ‘brights’, these atheist TSZers 😉

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