Condemned to Joy
I write this post with trembling hands. You see my recent post on a particularly execrable high school play has inspired a histrionic conniption over at Good As You. There’s even a threat to report me to the Southern Poverty Law Center. I quake to think of what they’ll do to me.
You see, Mr. Good as Me (he doesn’t say what he’s as good as me at doing, though) and I have a vastly different worldview. My own worldview is derived from the ancient Jewish sources. It is one that asserts that life has a higher purpose. It looks at human life and human happiness in a vastly different way than modern people do.
I would presume that Mr. Good as Me looks at life in a more typically modern way. Here’s an article that describes the viewpoint.
In the 1960s, two major shifts transformed the right to happiness into the duty of happiness. The first was a shift in the nature of capitalism, which had long revolved around production and the deferral of gratification, but now focused on making us all good consumers. Working no longer sufficed; buying was also necessary for the industrial machine to run at full capacity. To make this shift possible, an ingenious invention had appeared not long before, first in America in the 1930s and then in Europe in the 1950s: credit. In an earlier time, anyone who wanted to buy a car, some furniture, or a house followed a rule that now seems almost unknown: he waited, setting aside his nickels and dimes. But credit changed everything; frustration became intolerable and satisfaction normal; to do without seemed absurd. We would live well in the present and pay back later. Today, we’re all aware of the excesses that resulted from this system, since the financial meltdown in the United States was the direct consequence of too many people living on credit, to the point of borrowing hundreds of times the real value of their possessions.
The second shift was the rise of individualism. Since nothing opposed our fulfillment any longer—neither church nor party nor social class—we became solely responsible for what happened to us. It proved an awesome burden: if I don’t feel happy, I can blame no one but myself. So it was no surprise that a vast number of fulfillment industries arose, ranging from cosmetic surgery to diet pills to innumerable styles of therapy, all promising reconciliation with ourselves and full realization of our potential. “Become your own best friend, learn self-esteem, think positive, dare to live in harmony,” we were told by so many self-help books, though their very number suggested that these were not such easy tasks. The idea of fulfillment, though the successor to a more demanding ethic, became a demand itself. The dominant order no longer condemns us to privation; it offers us paths to self-realization with a kind of maternal solicitude.
Thus happiness becomes not only the biggest industry of the age but also a new moral order. We now find ourselves guilty of not being well, a failing for which we must answer to everyone and to our own consciences. Consider the poll, conducted by a French newspaper, in which 90 percent of people questioned reported being happy. Who would dare admit that he is sometimes miserable and expose himself to social opprobrium? This is the strange contradiction of the happiness doctrine when it becomes militant and takes on the power of ancient taboos—though in the opposite direction. To enjoy was once forbidden; from now on, it’s obligatory. Whatever method is chosen, whether psychic, somatic, chemical, spiritual, or computer-based, we find the same assumption everywhere: beatitude is within your grasp, and you have only to take advantage of “positive conditioning” (in the Dalai Lama’s words) in order to attain it. We have come to believe that the will can readily establish its power over mental states, regulate moods, and make contentment the fruit of a personal decision.
When I read the comments to the post entitled Jews Bad. Sexual Promiscuity Good, I was amazed that anybody could believe that leaving one’s wife and children to have an affair is anything other than deeply immoral. Sure, I’m intellectually aware that people of low character exist, and that lack of character makes some people rationalize such selfishness. But it still amazes me to see those shameful thoughts expressed.
I thought it perfectly reasonable to say that if a person undertakes obligations towards another– such as getting married to them, and then having children, he is duty bound to carry out those obligations until they are completed. The adult’s desire is secondary to the children’s need for a daddy and a mommy. This is not to mention the wife’s heartbreak at losing a husband.
Apparently it is not obvious.
The denial of this obvious proposition needs explanation. If you want real understanding of our differences, you need look no further than this article.
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I find it hard to argue with that, and yet, no doubt, several people on this blog will find a way.
That surprised me too.
When a person worships a god of their own making, we must not be surprised that the results will differ from those of a person who worships Christ, who “wrote the book” on how to achieve true happiness.
Ari, can you please quote the bit where “There’s even a threat to report me to the Southern Poverty Law Center”? I didn’t see that.
Is your “higher purpose” in life to cause harm to other people’s lives by denying them protection under the law? Is your “higher purpose” judging them and their families and depriving them of civil rights? I think Mr. Good As You is probably actually better than you. At least he isn’t spending his entire life trying to damage the lives of their neighbors out of hate.
“The adult’s desire is secondary to the children’s need for a daddy and a mommy.”
Did Maggie Gallagher write that? Because it sounds like the childish gibberish she spouts. If children need a daddy and a mommy so badly, why don’t we outlaw divorce, which divides the parents and puts them at odds (not so good for parenting) and outlaw single parenting, as well as outlaw same-sex parenting?
Outlawing same-sex marriage, however, has no effect on whether children have a “daddy and a mommy.”
If the needs of children are so important, why not lobby for access to health care for children, in addition to the previously mentioned outlawing divorce, single parenting and gay couple parenting?
Rob,
I was mistaken. It was Bob Barnes who thought I would end up in the cross-hairs of the SPLC.
I apologize unreservedly.
Thanks, Ari. We all make mistakes now and then.
Sean: “If children need a daddy and a mommy so badly, why don’t we outlaw death, which divides the parents and creates widows and orphans and all sorts of bad things??”
Because Mother Nature is a bigot. So sue her.
What’s even more interesting is a recent occurrence where a woman simply decided she didn’t want to be a wife and mother any more, divorced her husband and left her young children, simply to work at her job.
@Sean
If children need a daddy and a mommy so badly, why don’t we outlaw divorce, which divides the parents and puts them at odds
That is precisely why divorce was so hard to obtain, until the “no-fault divorce” revolution in the early 20th century.
Outlawing same-sex marriage, however, has no effect on whether children have a “daddy and a mommy.”
non-sequiter. Where is the father in a lesbian couple? Where is the mother in a homosexual couple?
If the needs of children are so important, why not lobby for access to health care for children,
What access to health care do children not have? (or are you confusing access to health care with having somebody else pay for it?)
“What access to health care do children not have? (or are you confusing access to health care with having somebody else pay for it?)”
Alex, for the vast majority of children, access to health care means having someone else pay for it. Unless there are a lot of independently wealthy toddlers out there.
“The adult’s desire is secondary to the children’s need”
Unless the adults are a UK Christian couple that admit to the court that they would be unable to care for a child and then the court finds that they shouldn’t become foster parents. In that case, trotted out by NOM and Ruth Institute, the desires of the Christian couple to become foster parents are primary and the child’s needs for stable and reliable parents is secondary. Seems like NOM and Ruth Institute don’t really care about children at all.
Oh, come on. You know what he meant.
The article was interesting and made some good points.
“In the 1960s, two major shifts transformed the right to happiness into the duty of happiness.”
The other great shift was in the definition of happiness.
In the Declaration of Independence, it is obvious that the “pursuit of happiness” did not mean that anyone has a right to do anything they feel will make them “happy” as we understand that term today.
Happiness was understood to be as you said, Ari, “derived from the ancient Jewish sources. It … asserts that life has a higher purpose. ”
License and vice were understood as not leading to happiness.
Betsy, are you talking to me? Because my joking comment conveyed a serious point. Paul asked, “are you confusing access to health care with having somebody else pay for it?” But when it comes to kids, they’re one and the same. If a child’s parents can’t pay for health care and the government won’t help, then except for ER care, the child’s access to healthcare is seriously compromised, and not because of bad choices or planning on the toddler’s part.
So, truly, it was a reasonable response to Paul’s question.
“Outlawing same-sex marriage, however, has no effect on whether children have a “daddy and a mommy.”
non-sequiter. Where is the father in a lesbian couple? Where is the mother in a homosexual couple?”
Non sequitar? Hardly. It’s a fact that outlawing same-sex marriage does nothing to give children a mommy and a daddy. It just makes the children of same-sex couples raised outside of wedlock, in a cruel and harsh move.
@Sean
Sean’s right, denying a lesbian couple the right to marry doesn’t mean they’ll give up being a lesbian couple. It doesn’t stop them from doing anything to create children who won’t know their father. But, allowing a lesbian couple to procreate offspring together does create a child without a father, and rules out the whole possibility that the father might move in someday. And prohibiting non egg-and-sperm procreation does stop couples from creating children who won’t have a father.
John, if a lesbian (part of a lesbian couple) has a straight man impregnate her through traditional intercourse, how would enforcement of your law work? Would she be imprisoned? Fined? Would she be allowed to keep her child?
What is “wedlock?” Is it an institution pre-dating the modern state and known in virtually every culture and civilization, uniting a man and a wife to each other and to their children, oriented to and ordered for permanence, fecundity, and sexual exclusivity or is it a creation of the modern state designed to confer and deliver government benefits based on a piece of paper and grounded in a governmental fiat? If it is the latter, then the state can confer the benefits of “wedlock” on everyone by issuing to every individual on their reaching the age of maturity a certificate of marriage saying that they are married to everyone and anyone and that the government benefits thereby conferred are given to all adults equally. That way no child would or could ever be born “outside of wedlock,” neatly solving the problem of out of wedlock births and conferring all the documented historical and sociological advantages of wedlock on everyone equally.
From Ari’s closing paragraph: “The denial of this obvious proposition needs explanation.”
The core meaning of the social institution of marriage is an aspirational ideal that is expressed in pragmatic terms in our laws — and in our traditions and customs as a culture. The influence of that core meaning is to make normative stuff that the SSM idea rejects as bigotry. The SSM idea arose from the radical individualism that Pascal Bruckner described in his article. It did not arise from the meaning of the phrase, “the pursuit of happiness”, that appeared in the Declaration of Independence, but rather from a distortion of it.
There is irony, however, in that the argumentation against the core meaning of marriage is premised on the assertion that a group identity, gay, trumps everything else. Hence it trumps a marriage and the obligations and responsibilities to which people consent when they say, I do.
““Become your own best friend, learn self-esteem, think positive, dare to live in harmony,” we were told by so many self-help books, though their very number suggested that these were not such easy tasks. “(emphasis added)
Yes amen.
“Did Maggie Gallagher write that? Because it sounds like the childish gibberish she spouts. If children need a daddy and a mommy so badly, why don’t we outlaw divorce, which divides the parents and puts them at odds (not so good for parenting) and outlaw single parenting, as well as outlaw same-sex parenting?
Outlawing same-sex marriage, however, has no effect on whether children have a “daddy and a mommy.””
Very clever Sean. You introduced a red herring and people took the bait! Well done.
It wouldn’t affect them at all. It only prohibits them from creating offspring together, joining their own genes. Since that couple would be combining the egg of a woman with the sperm of a man, it would not be prohibited. However, my Compromise would give that couple federal recognition and recognition in many more states, hopefully all 50 states, through Civil Unions that are defined as “marriage minus conception rights.” Looks like a good deal, now, huh? They can do everything they can do now, plus they get the benefits and protections of marriage except for a right to do something they can’t do anyhow.
@John Howard
Would you not want to limit a license to have sex to married couples?
Why should the list of those eligible for marriage not continue to be:
Living
Humans
of Opposite Sex
Unmarried
Adults
Two in number
Who are not closely related
Anything else is not only child abuse, it is abasement of all of society.
@Ruth
Ruth, that would be the ideal solution: to limit conception to married couples using their own sperm, and prohibit same-sex marriage. That would not only prohibit genetic modification and cloning but also prohibit sperm and egg donation and intentional out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Sure, that’d be the purest and ulitmate law, but it would be really hard to pass. It would complicate enacting Civil Unions for same-sex couples and preserving marriage and stopping genetic modification if we also tried to prohibit sperm donation at the same time. Or, maybe it would make it seem more like a fair trade, I don’t know. One of the selling points (I think) of my Compromise is that it doesn’t effect anything that anyone currently does. It doesn’t mean that lesbians or infertile couples can’t get pregnant and have children with donor sperm, which I think would be a deal-breaker.
Ruth, are you serious? If so, what’s your enforcement plan if two unmarried adults have sex? Is there a penalty? A fine? A jail sentence?
How would you implement this?
Rob, in my state the fornication law reads: “Whoever commits fornication shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than three months or by a fine of not more than thirty dollars.”
Note that it’s a maximum punishment, and the punishment could be nothing, or personal pangs of guilt, or maybe an STD or child support or a lessening of enjoyment and appreciation of marriage.
Rob, I think Ruth referred to the John Howard’s notion of licensing a type of sexual relationship.
Ruth can speak for herself, but that is how I think her remark plainly reads: “Would you not want to limit a license to have sex to married couples?”
Just because something goes unlicensed or unregistered with Government overseers does not mean it must be made punishable by fines or imprisonment. Nor that enforcement of eligilbity for such a license entail police squads patrolling for unlicensed sexual behavior.
What prompted you to jump to such extremes? You seem to have a penchant for that when reacting to what is said by those with whom you reflexively disagree.
@Chairm, if the government licenses something, that does indeed often mean one can be punished if doing that activity without a license — that’s the purpose of licensing. Driving, hunting, practicing medicine — these are all examples. Given these obvious examples, my question was certainly no jump to an extreme.
No, that would not be the purpose of licensing as per John Howard’s stated view.
Same-sex sexual behavior occurs without a license with the government, for an example you might relate to directly.
Jumping to the extreme is not excused in this context, Rob, so you can now safely take a step back and recalibrate your reading of what Ruth actually said.
No, Chairm, I’m afraid you’re wrong.
You write: “Same-sex sexual behavior occurs without a license with the government, for an example you might relate to directly.”
But the same is true of opposite-sex sexual behavior!
The fact is, the government does not currently issue licenses for sexual activity at all. Should it start to do so, as per Ruth’s suggestion, then presumably there will be a penalty for doing so — or else in what way is it a license?
By the way, at the very least, my examples of various licenses do show that you were wrong to accuse me of jumping to unwarranted extremes when I asked about penalties.
@Rob Tisinai
Certainly one can be punished for intercourse/conceiving without a marriage license. Creating a person is no small matter, and calls for social controls to ensure it is only done in ethical circumstances. Creating people from non-committed, non-consenting parents is unethical
Rob, you did jump to extremes.
The licensing scheme for marriage is a good example. The union of husband and wife is a sexual type of relationship. Its core meaning justifies preferential treatment in our laws and culture. The licensing scheme is merely a gatekeeper; the special status for this type of sexual relationship does not depend on penalizing other types of relationships, sexual or otherwise.
The other licensing schemes you mentioned are specific to that to which they are designed to serve. You over-reached for extremes when discussing sexual behavior.
Is it possible for a marriage license to be used to punish those not married? Well, I guess it is in the realm of possibility; some anti-marriage people make such assertions because they object to the preferential treatment of the union of husband and wife and so anything that is accorded marriage but not nonmarriage is interpreted as a penalty.
But you meant something different. You said: “If so, what’s your enforcement plan if two unmarried adults have sex? Is there a penalty? A fine? A jail sentence?”
Nonmaritlal sexual behavior is not licensed. Do you see police wagons loading people up and taking them away to be fined or imprisoned? No.
Chairm, I assume you saw John Howard write, “Certainly one can be punished for intercourse/conceiving without a marriage license.”
So apparently my “jump to an extreme” was exactly accurate.
Rob, here’s the analogy with driver’s licenses again:
Imagine if the government stopped punishing people for driving without a license. They realized that lots of people drove without a license already, so they should enforce the rules the same whether they have a license or not. So more and more people stopped bothering to go get licenses, and the ones that did seemed to get them for the identification or because their Church said they should get a license before they drive. But still, there would be tests and restrictions to get a license, and blind people would not be able to get a license, they’d have to get a state ID that didn’t give approval to drive. Would the license still mean what it used to mean? Yes, it would still license driving. A person with a license would still have official approval and license to drive. Blind people still wouldn’t be able to get licenses. That is the point we are at with marriage licenses. They do still give official approval of sex and creating offspring together.
Yeah, John, I get it — you’re recommending the government punish those who have sex without a license. That’s what I’ve been saying you mean. You need to direct your comment to Chairm, who accused me jumping to an extreme when I accurately interpreted your comment to mean exactly what you just said.
@Rob Tisinai
No, I don’t recommend that the government punish those who have sex without a license. I am merely saying that our government certainly could, as many governments still do and ours used to. We don’t need to punish people who have sex without a license in order for marriage to still license sex. I believe society has come up with better ways to deal with unmarried sex than punishing people, and don’t advocate that we go back to punishing people. Do you understand the analogy to drivers licenses? Society could stop punishing people for driving without a license without it meaning that licenses didn’t license driving.
“Society could stop punishing people for driving without a license without it meaning that licenses didn’t license driving.”
In which case — what exactly would be the point of licensing drivers?
Rob, your jump to extremes was in response to something Ruth said (and you quoted) and about which you queried Ruth.
And, it turns out, your jump to extremes is not what John Howard had in mind, anyway.
The purpose of a licensing scheme depends on that for which the license is issued. It is not a generic “to penalize, fine, imprison” purpose that you fantasize about.
For instance, a license to hunt moose is not a license to fish. You might acquire a license to fish and then try trolling for moose in our canoe, but your self-inflicted failure would probably be punishment enough without government chasing you down.
The marriage license signifies societal consent (as well as the consent of the bride and groom) to form the sexual type of relationship that society accords special status. It officializes eligilbity to enter the social institution of marriage as husband and wife.
Those who marry consent to the sexual basis of this type of relationship; they consent to the marital presumption of paternity; they consent to the sexual basis for adultery-divorce; and so forth. They do not merely discover, at some later period, that these legal aspects of marriage were imposed on them. The consent upon forming their consummated conjugal relationship.
People are married or unmarried. Marital status is a special status that society supports. So the licensing scheme merely makes the line brighter that already exists between marriage and nonmarriage. The eligibility criteria entailed in the licensing scheme do the same thing. As do the legal requirements of marriage law that include the man-woman criterion, the sexual basis (see paternity, consummation, annulment, adultery-divorce), and the unconditional nature of marital status in our legal system.
And, sometimes, the licensing scheme also expresses public policy of the jurisdiction. This is clear when it comes to polygamy, for example, and, given the SSM campaign’s attack on marriage, also when it comes to the SSM idea, for another example.
The SSM idea lacks justification not only for special status but also for a licensing scheme. It lacks justification for limitations on eligilbity, as well. It lacks a lot that the marriage idea easily provides and justifies.
Well, in many ways, there’d be no point, just as we see people asking the same question about marriage. But some people (like me) would still want the social approval and official permission to drive, or to marry. We’d want to experience that social ritual just like all of our ancestors have, and bask in the official approval, even if we didn’t need it. That social significance is where most of the meaning and expectation comes from.
And another reason is that some people would still be prohibited from driving, like blind people are. Here is where the analogy takes flight: people prohibited from doing something should not be licensed to do the thing they are prohibited from doing, even though we let unlicensed people do it. That, and not getting lax on punishment, is what would make licensing meaningless. That would mean that licensed drivers could be prohibited from driving. Currently when we prohibit someone from driving, we suspend or revoke their license. We don’t simultaneously prohibit and license anything.
And oh yeah, the point is that we shouldn’t license same-sex couples to conceive children together. Rather, we should prohibit same-sex couples from conceiving children together.
@Chairm
“The marriage license signifies societal consent (as well as the consent of the bride and groom) to form the sexual type of relationship that society accords special status.”
What is a “sexual type of relationship?” What is the significance of it?
“The marriage license signifies societal consent (as well as the consent of the bride and groom) to form the sexual type of relationship that society accords special status.”
Not at all. Licensing just means you’ve met some standard in order to participate in some activity. Driver’s licenses, medical licenses, fishing licenses, marriage licenses, they all have some standard of eligibility. When it comes to marriage licenses, there is no particular reason to permit straight couples but not gay couples. We don’t discriminate against gay people (hopefully!) in giving medical licenses, driver’s licenses or fishing licenses. So why discriminate against them in marriage licenses? It doesn’t make any sense, even before you consider the best interest of children.
The very same man meets the standards of eligibility with a woman but not with a man, and not with a sister or his mother or daughter or a child or someone married to someone else. The standard is whether they are an ethical pairing to procreate offspring together.
Here, check out this new article by Margaret Somerville. She gives a nice concise explanation why it would be unethical and should be banned.
John Howard, marriage law recognizes the sexual basis for the union of husband and wife. The sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity is the same for consummation, annulment, and adultery-divorce. The law does not make marriage a sexual type of relationship but the law recognizes the sexual basis of a type of relationship that unites the sexes and provides for responsible procreation. Its coherency entails the liberty to attempt to procreate together, as man and woman. In addition to the legal requirements I just mentioned, marriage law includes the man-woman criterion; it includes the lines of eligilbity that are drawn around the sexual basis of marriage. Societal consent, in the form of these aspects of marriage law, reflect societal response to the core meaning of this social institution. That consent manifests in a special status due to that core meaning.
SSMers would move society away from that core meaning and toward the vague SSM idea.
The SSM idea is bereft of these socieal concerns, as Sean and other SSMers concede when they shrug at incestuous SSM, polygamous-like SSM, and group SSM; and when they openly say that SSM, at law, is not a sexual type of relationship. They overstrain to stretch that concession to cover marriage as well.
Chairm, I think I asked in another thread, what are the lines of eligibility and how do they relate to sex and procreation? Why do we not allow siblings to marry? Wouldn’t that be a more responsible way for them to procreate?
What I was getting at, when I asked what is a sexual relationship, was that, if I have to answer my rhetorical question myself, a sexual relationship is one that might procreate offspring, right? Sex is not a game of checkers, right? Society has an interest in sexual relationships because they might produce new people, and society cares about how we are created and tries to make sure we are created by couples that are in love and committed and consent to creating children together, and aren’t an unethical-to-procreate type of relationship.
Society responds to the core meaning of marriage. It is a sexual type of relationship at law. Society draws a line against condoning incestuous sexual behavior via the special status of marriage. At the same time it does not condone incestuous procreation under the umbrella of marriage.
This is partly a moral line; it is partly a pragmatic line regarding the well-being of children; it is also a line drawn on socio-politicla lines since incestuous marriage and polygamous marriage tend to combine to form clannish or tribalistic factions within a society; and that stands against the democratic principles our society has held high. In terms of the unity of the sexes, both clannish and multi-marriage tends strongly toward an inferior form of integration of man and woman. This also is a line drawn with multiple justifications all reflecting on the core meaning of the social institution and its significance to our society.
Human procreation is sexual; it is not sex-neutral nor one-sexed; and society responds to this fact of humankind. As a type of sexual relationship, marriage, by default, the preferred home for what you described in the 2nd paragraph — especially the last sentence — in your latest comment, John Howard.
A sexual relationship is one that might produce offspring, right? Do you consider same-sex intimacies to be a sexual relationship? I don’t, not technically, and this is why I think it is more relevant to discuss producing offspring explicitly, rather than the murky term “sexual relationship.” Marriage is a license to produce offspring, but the only way to prohibit or allow that is to prohibit or allow sexual intercourse. The intent in prohibiting unmarried sexual intercourse through adultery and fornication and statutory rape laws is to prohibit pregnancy and procreation.
The “lines of eligibility” are drawn to restrict procreation, to prevent people from being created in socially unethical circumstances.
Now, there are people claiming a right to create people with someone of the other sex. Clearly, if we allow this, we should allow them to marry, right? Should someone of the same sex be eligible to create offspring with, or should they be like siblings and other ineligible relationships?
“The standard is whether they are an ethical pairing to procreate offspring together.”
That has NEVER been a standard for marriage. Straight people with defective DNA who would produce defective babies are free to marry and reproduce. Older women, who are at increased risk of defective babies are free to marry, and reproduce.
I can’t say I’ve enjoyed your obsession with same-sex reproduction (which, like different-sex reproduction, is unhindered by the marital status of the couple). I don’t like inventing fears although I realize some people’s lives seem to revolve around fear of the sky falling. I don’t understand what the pleasure is though.
“Society responds to the core meaning of marriage.”
Exactly. Everyone recognizes that marriage isn’t about sex or children, but rather, the legal joining of two people committed for life. If the couple wants to have sex, great. Many don’t. If the couple wants to have children, great. Many don’t. What a couple DOES have is each other, and hopefully the healthy sharing of resources, commitment and dreams for their future together!
@Sean
“I don’t understand what the pleasure is though.”
What you fail to understand is that John Howard is thinking of issues beyond pleasure.
@Sean
Yes it has always been the standard for marriage. There is no age limit, because that would be arbitrary and tends to take care of itself. Besides, old people have the same right to procreate as everyone else, they never lose the right to procreate. Also, people with “defective DNA” have the same right to procreate as everyone else. Equal rights, remember? It is very important that all people be allowed to marry and all marriages be allowed to procreate, or else we will indeed start to see calls for prohibiting people from procreating if they have “defective DNA” (I don’t like those words, I think it is degrading and insulting, and besides, everyone has defects in their DNA, no one has perfect DNA, because there is no perfect human being).
Hey, you are the one insisting that the most important thing a gay couple needs is the right to procreate offspring together. You sacrifice everything else for that. Just admit that marriages have a right that same-sex couples don’t have, and we’ll be able to help same-sex couples and their families faster than you can say “Civil Unions defined as marriage minus procreation rights.”
@Ruth
I think he’s living in a fantasy world where, for some reason, marriage is tied to procreation (false) and same-sex couples reproducing is unethical (also false).
John Howard: “Besides, old people have the same right to procreate as everyone else”
I guess what you meant to say was, straight old people have the same right to procreate as other straight people, right? Because you seem to think that gay people don’t have the right to reproduce.
“It is very important that all people be allowed to marry and all marriages be allowed to procreate”
How important can it be, if the law and society make no distinction between married and unmarried parents?
“Hey, you are the one insisting that the most important thing a gay couple needs is the right to procreate offspring together.”
Not at all. Hey, you are the one who thinks outlawing same-sex marriage outlaws same-sex procreation. It doesn’t. Are you really sure you’ve thought this whole “same-sex reproduction” issue through?
The SSM idea does not justify the limit of two. Where SSM has been imposed, the dissolutation rate indicates that it is not a lifetime commitment. More importantly, that to which commitment is made is the key, not commitment alone. The SSM idea is far too vague and merits no special commitment for society via a special status in our laws and culture.
The SSM idea is a response to the core meaning of marriage: it is an outright rejection of that core meaning.
Gay people have a right to procreate using their untampered with gamete with an identified living person of the opposite sex. Neither Somerville’s nor the PCBE nor my proposal makes it illegal to do anything people do now to have children (Somerville’s proposes making anonymous donors illegal but mine doesn’t)
In terms of the children, there is no distinction. We got rid of Legitimacy laws about 40 years ago, because they violated equal protection rights by making some people second class citizens who could not inherit from their father and other indignities. It used to be totally legal to thumb your nose at your illegitimate children and their scarlet letter mother, and even feel morally superior while doing it, but that violated the 14th Amendment and took about 100 years to stop. But stopping that legal injustice in no way stripped marriage of the legitimacy to procreate, it didn’t mean marriages did not have a legitimate right to have children, and it did not create a right to procreate outside of marriage, any more than the Disability Rights movement made it a right to disable people.
What do you mean “not at all.” Do you insist on a right to create offspring with someone of the same sex, or do you accept that there is no such right, and people only have a right to procreate with someone of the other sex?
And I think I said this already in a concurrent thread, but in case this is the only thread someone else happens to read, I will explain it again for the new guys: Same-sex procreation, or rather, manufacturing biological offspring for two people of the same sex, needs to be prohibited by a federal law that prohibits creating people by any means other than combining the untampered-with natural sperm of an identified living man with an untampered-with natural egg of an identified living woman. That is what would stop same-sex conception of children, not withholding marriage. The reason we need to deny marriage to same-sex couples is so that marriage can continue to express society’s official approval and consent to conception of offspring. If any couples are allowed to be married that are also prohibited from creating offspring, then marriage would be changed for everyone, and any couple could be forced to use donor or modified gametes. Plus, it simply would recognize the difference in rights of a both-sex couple to a same-sex couple, and give each type of legal union a different legal name, because they had different rights.