Posted on 10/09/2007 8:14:47 AM PDT by vietvet67
One would expect that an article about homosexuality and discrimination would discuss discrimination against gay or lesbian people. This article is about discrimination in favor of gay and lesbian couples.
In the past few years, a few legislatures and courts have been persuaded to cull from the entire universe of human relationships one form of relationship, that of two gay men or two lesbian women, and grant the parties the right to marry (or enter into domestic partnerships or civil unions) and grant them the benefits of marriage. Furthermore, many private and public employers have been persuaded to extend employee benefits to domestic partners. These legislatures, courts and employers have been persuaded to discriminate in favor of gay and lesbian couples to the exclusion of all other possible parties who would benefit from marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships. There is, however, no principled basis for them to favor gay and lesbian couples to the exclusion of others.
Upon what basis do gay and lesbian couples seek to marry and to obtain the benefits of marriage? Their legal argument refers to "equal protection" and "due process." At bottom, they claim they are like heterosexual married couples in all important respects except for the refusal of the private sector or the government to recognize their relationship as a marriage. How are they married except in name only? They respond: They love each other and are intimate with each other.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Let ‘em get all the benefits ... like gay-alimony and gay-child support and ...
Will the term “discrimination” ever quit being abused in this country??? No — not if the lawyers, and the liberal courts, have anything to say about it.
MY FINAL OBSERVATION IS THIS: Lawyers, legislators, judges and policy analysts cope continuously with complexity. If they take a step back and look at the requirements to marry and to remain married, they see that the law and structure of marriage is so minimal, so simple. It is an example of what mathematicians call elegance — like Einstein’s equation E = mc2:
One man — one woman — indivisible.
As the poet Keats wrote in his “Ode on a Grecian Urn”: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”
Very interesting article.
A "marriage" in what sense? To what degree does the state have ANY interest in marriage? Its authority is strictly secular, so any recognition of the relationship between two people would be limited to purely practical, legal matters. No discrimination exists between two people -- of whatever combination of genders -- who want to form a legal relationship -- the concern of the state. So the state has reached it boundary in the matter.
Marriage also has (and is arguably defined by) its religious/spiritual dimension. That is beyond the scope of state power. If two queers can find some worthless "church" that will "marry" them, fine. But just as the state has no power to regulate religion on homos, so homos have no right to regulate religion. The state cannot enforce recognition of homosexual "bonds" as marriage, except in the secular, purely practical sense.
It's also worth noting that marriage as an institution was far more stable before the state was ever involved in it. In fact, today a marriage is the one legal contract that is broken with such boring regularity that there is are entire branches of the legal profession dedicated to moving the contract eradication process along.
If real estate law worked the same idiotic way the legal system deals with marriages, you'd never see another piece of property bought/sold in this country again.
I’ve always said the quickest way to stop gay marriage is to legalize and encourage it. ;)
LOL!
***I’ve always said the quickest way to stop gay marriage is to legalize and encourage it. ;)***
Add this:
The quickest way to get rid of the marriage penalty in the tax code is to legalize marriage for gays.
We certainly know they carry more political weight than the rest of us.
:^(
This article pretty thoughtfully articulates what I’ve always professed: talk of gay marriage comes with statements of fairness and equality, but it’s not fair and it’s not equal to everyone. If two men live together and share resources and in fact care for each other, but are only friends, why is a romantic/sexual context the differentiating factor here? Because I don’t really believe that the motivation is or ever was fairness.
(1)Sexual relations between a man and and a woman are the ONLY kind of sexual relations which can spontaneously give rise to the existence of another human being. Securing that child's rights to the support and nurture of both his natural parents --- father and mother --- which is the essential public purpose of legal marriage.
(2) Although there are man/woman couples who are either unable or unwilling to have children, it goes beyond the scope of government of surveill their marital relations and/or their medical records to determine whether they do or don't intend to remain childless.
(3) Therefore the state, to secure a child's natural rights without invading the marital privacy of the couple, simply assumes that every man/woman sexual alliance is potentially procreative, and thus is eligible for such measures as the state may take to augment its stability.
(4) Why wouldn't this be convincing? It's been convincing for 3-4,000 years. It's not perfect--- not by a long shot --- but man/woman marriage does involve a public interest that flows from its one unique characteristic: fertility.
Why would the state want to license love and affection? ~We're~ interested in love and affection, but the state's interest isn't romance: it's in the protection of the procreative unit, and securing the rights --- very much including the property/economic rights ---of the progeny.
I’ve read that romantic love is a recent focus (but see the Song of Solomon). That prior to the romantic era marriage was much more of a familial, social, and financial/material bond. So we’ve sort of gone from a poetic overreach regarding male/female relationships to using that overreach to justify homosexual marriage.
Good insight.
The gay rights movement does not focus on rational arguments. Emotional persuasion serves their purpose much better. Large numbers of young people are convinced by the “love” argument, for example. Gay rights proponents are interested in winning by any means necessary and will shift tactics and arguments in order to advance their agenda.
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