Asymmetrical Information

It did wander off into another world really, didn't it?
I realise a lot of people don't like Limbaugh but I don't think I'd really compare him to being b***ered by a horse.

Gays already have equality. What in the world are you talking about?

Oh, you're campaigning for "gay marriage" and pretending that this is an equality issue. Bullshit.

For intellectuals, the most obvious things must be noted. Men have penises. Women have vaginas. You can take a hint from this. The purpose of genitalia is reproduction. Got it?

Men fucking each other in the ass is not marriage, honey. Do you need a refresher course?

This is such a bogus controversey. Gays are deprived of nothing. The problems of their lives are caused by the negatives of being homosexual, which are considerable. Men fucking men seldom produces a stable relationship... unless you consider a stable relationship to be something less than 2 months. Gays problems are not caused by the failure of society to believe that men fucking each other in the ass is marriage.

You know, Miss, you can be almost intelligent at tims, but when you move into this area you turn into a completely fucking idiot. Well, you been off with Andrew (Cartman) Sullivan. What can you expect. This poor little rich boy has somehow transform himself into the very symbol of oppression... worse than blacks hanging from a tree in the Jim Crow south.

What stupidity!

Shouting Thomas,

Shut up.

Zoophiles bring new meaning to the phrase: "I did Christmas dinners. One year we did a turkey.."

I don't see what the Slate editor should have said. "Don't review this movie"?

And, as far as the slippery slope argument, legally, it's pretty much ironclad. If courts declare that, as a matter of constitutional law, marriage is a matter of private choice, and denying gay people the spouse of their choice is unconstitutional, then future courts are bound as night follows day to declare that three people who wish to form a marital union can do so.

If courts declare that sexual conduct is a private matter beyond the judgment of legislatures, then bestiality becomes akin to flag-burning--nobody approves, but it's nobody's business, either. If Johnny Preevert humps his own horse in his own stable, that's his business. (Public health authorities may or may not become involved due to risks of contagion.

The situation is very, very different if legislatures decide, for whatever reasons they choose, to establish/recognize gay marriage/civil unions. Then, saying no to polygamy or bestiality or incest is a matter of legislative discretion.

The thing about legal precedents of the constitutional law variety is that they ultimately do not allow for discretion.

Shouting Thomas - I would guess you're a troll since most people aren't that dense, but who knows. I have an idea you'd like, lets make all couples that don't have kids or can't have kids get anullments. One infertile couple I knew adopted kids. Why should that be legal? Also, anyone who performs oral sex should lose their marriage license. Because genitals are for reproduction only, right? Have fun enforcing that law.

I think the possibility of polygamy is the only real 'alternative relationship' that would spring from 'gay marriage.' But with a rising number of muslims in this country, it seems like a real possibility.

While I'm fine with gay marriage, I tend to find the arguments for it dishonest and dangerous if applied to any other situation. They assume that homosexual behavior is a way of being 'honest' about homosexual orientation and that "this is how God made some people" (meaning that anything we want to do is the will of God). People with same sex tendencies who pursue hetersexual lifestyles are actually "in denial." This is just another glorification of 'if it feels good, do it.'

Umm, why shouldn't bestiality be legal? Whose rights are being deprived by allowing it? The animal? If you are going to make that argument I hope at least you are a vegetarian!

Incest and bestiality raise issues of consent, rendering the slippery slope argument ineffective. Polygamy, however, is a different matter. If there is right to gay marriage, then there must also be a right to polygamous marriage.

Shouting Thomas,

Shut up.

Word. That was one of the most irritating drunken spewings I've ever encountered, and I went to engineering school.

Bestiality is so last year. Necrophilia is today's trendy perversion:

Coitus upon a cadaver,
The ultimate way one can have her.
The inanimate state
Means a man needn't wait,
And eliminates idle palaver.

Ok I give up, consent has something to do with bestialty being wrong?

It really is fun to watch the secular deal with issues like that...hold up while I get the popcorn and soda.

And while you are twisting your heads into knots please explain why having sex with a 5 year old is wrong.

Men fucking each other in the ass is not marriage, honey.

Gee, an awful lot of gay male sex is about fucking each other in the mouth (or as some notable straight people used to call it in the nineties, "not having sex"). So when a man's wife gives him a hummer, is their marriage temporarily annulled, due to the idleness of her vagina?

Look, I'm not really sure what Megan's point in this post is. I read it, I read Saletan's review, and I read Shouting Thomas' post (by far the most entertaining of the three). But whatever it is, it's not a mindless apologia for gay marriage. I'm sure of that, because she's already made a great case for the possibility that anti-gay marriage sentiment might be motivated by deeper and more legitimage concerns than simple bigotry (don't have the link at hand, sorry).

In any event, Shouting Thomas, I like your blog, and in general I like your 'tude, but you're just blithering here.

To put it bluntly, men are built to hump pretty much anything. Women are built to fall in love with pretty much anything. Both impulses, unrestrained and untrained, are fairly revolting.

In their sheer animal natures, a horny gay man isn't any different from a horny straight man: a hole is a hole is a hole.

If you want to argue that the sacredness of marriage inheres in the formula "Tab A ---> Slot B" (and for God's sake, never Slot A), then you're arguing that every back-alley hookup with a ten-dollar whore is potentially some kind of "marriage," and every instance of married hetero anal sex is "adultery." (Never mind the problem of infertile couples.)

It isn't about "men fucking each other in the ass." That's no different from "men fucking women in the c*nt (or mouth)." Marriage is horniness tempered, and the tenderness of love aroused to physical passion. Love does have something to do with it. I think that's what gay marriage advocates are saying.

...and I still have no earthly idea what this has to do with a movie about bestiality. I love the Internets.

And boy, those vodka martinis were good!

"If there is right to gay marriage, then there must also be a right to polygamous marriage."

Yes, polygamy must be accepted if gay marriage is. The philosophy of gay marriage is exactly the same as the philosophy of polygamy - individual choice should override wider social concerns.

Eg the fact that polygamy would by definition result in large numbers of males having to make do without a woman, and the endless societal problems that would cause, is irrelevant to the autistic, choice-is-everything economists - there is no such thing as society.

So, no one else thought it the least bit of an overstretch for Saletan to assert that Rush Limbaugh -- like all straight men -- wants his sexual partners stupid? And that the horse whisperers are taking that desire to the extreme by choosing literal dumb beasts?

And this all because Limbaugh once made a joke about his cat.

Shouting Thomas:

Okay, I'l bite: What is "wrong" with being homosexual?

I also notice you focus on gay men and seem to ignore lesbians. Please include lesbians in your response.

(Here's a hint, they do exist, and no, they don't want your, or any other penis.)

Yes, polygamy must be accepted if gay marriage is. The philosophy of gay marriage is exactly the same as the philosophy of polygamy - individual choice should override wider social concerns.

It would be possible to argue that "wider social concerns" justify banning polygamy but not gay marriage as the social concerns are different.

I doubt it will happen like this, but it could.

Thorley,

You sir, are a statesman.

Monogamy, the beating, equalizing heart at the center of Western Civilization, will be on its last legs with the advent of gay marriage. It's only a matter of time.

The rebuttal to "slippery slope" arguments: You can stop wherever you decide to.

"We can't let people own guns because the same argument leads to them owning bazookas, howitzers, and atomic bombs."

"No, rifles are OK but machine-guns are just too dangerous."

In short, the state may have an interest in recognizing couples (of whatever gender combination) but also decide that it does not have an interest in recognizing troikas, man-animal partnerships, etc.

The only conceivable legitimate argument against legally-bound unions of polyamory is the burden of insuring more than one spouse of the insurance holder.

If anyone can name another one- that's not based in religion or "that's icky"- I look forward to reading it.

Incorrect. Polygamy is not so far fetched, indeed historically it has been prevalent in most world cultures, western civilization is an anomaly. Partly because of the Catholic Church's centuries long war on both polygamy and cousin marriage, partly because of the Romeo and Juliet revolution of the 16th century, the west has been uniformly opposed to polygamy - Africa, the Muslim world etc are not.

Polygamy does not stand athwart human nature, indeed evolutionary biologists point out that it may even benefit the survival of the species by allowing superior males to spread their genes further than in a monogamous society (the 'Ghengis Khan' effect) So there is no reason why it will not make a comeback sometime in the future.

The comparisons with nuclear weapons etc are nonsense - there is a clear and unambiguous historical precedence for polygamy, only the male-female romantic union at the center of western culture keeps it in check, and that culture will be forever undermined by gay marriage.

It IS a slippery slope - it won't lead to bestiality, for sure, but due to the historical precedent it could easily lead to polygamy. Indeed Megan should really dedicate a post to the question of polygamy.

EH Red - the rather obvious societal concern - alpha males monopolizing females, so large numbers of normal males will be able to find a wife!!! Any idea of the kind of chaos that would ensue with large numbers of sexually frustrated males wandering around!!??

No, of course that never crossed your mind, there's no such thing as society, all that matters is bloody choice.

adrian:

You clearly missed my point.

You also seem to be very nervous about your ability to find a woman.

Lastly, did it not occur to you that under the idea of polyamory, just as a man may have many women, a woman may have many men?

Or would she just be a slut?

If the people as a mass "vote" for polyamorous relations, such that people in polyamorous relations are a substantial portion of society, then the government should look into recognizing such unions.

In other words, the government should, where appropriate, reflect the society which has formed that government. Especially where official recognition of those social facts would assist in long-term social goals such as stability.

I also fail to see how gay marriage undermines romantic unions.

1) Gay marriages might be very romantic-love based.

2) Does my decision to buy a Toyota undermine your decision to buy a Ford?

Think about it for a second. You're a man, you turn to your wife, and declare, "You know, after this gay marriage thing, you might as well be a man! Let's get divorced."

Ok, so what you're really saying is that gay marriage would undermine your mythology of medieval courtly love, which (as it turns out) is the only thing keeping men and women in devoted relationships.

Mmm. I'm sorry, maybe the government isn't (or shouldn't be) in the business of endorsing mythology?

I would rather have a government that made its society stronger ... and bringing gay people into the domain of Officially Recognized Unions will certainly do this.

Christ

Read some evo-bio. What possible reason would a woman have to marry many men? One woman = one baby, no matter how many men she sleeps with. One man = as many babies as women he can sleep with. Hmmmm...

Men dislike sluts for cuckoldry reasons - the possibility that they may marry a woman who carries children not of his own genes, which imposes a huge fitness cost on him. Cuckoldry factors would expand exponentially in a Woman-man-man-man relationship. In such a relationship men would not know if the children they were raising were their own, in a man-woman-woman relationship each woman would know that their own child IS THEIR OWN. So which is more likely?

You said: 'The only conceivable legitimate argument against legally-bound unions of polyamory is the burden of insuring more than one spouse of the insurance holder. If anyone can name another one- that's not based in religion or "that's icky"- I look forward to reading it."

Nowhere at all do you deal with the social argument, so I don't see how I missed your point. You're clearly clueless about human nature.

adrian:

"The social argument"? "Human nature"?

Are you referring to the unspoken acceptance of male infidelity, and the shaming of female infidelity?

Or worse, the vocal acceptance of "studs" and the shaming and ostracism of "sluts"?

Why wouldn't a woman want multiple partners? Maybe one partner fulfills a need another can't provide?

Why does it have to be about procreation? Why can't it be about fuckin' like it is with men, according to your "social argument about human nature"?

Clueless Red

'Why wouldn't a woman want multiple partners?' That isn't my point, read what I bloody said you moron.

My point was - why would a man want a woman who has multiple partners? Ie. why would a man voluntarily participate in the raising of a child not of his own genes?

Men and women look on sex very differently, everybody without a post-modern education knows this. I don't really want to debate you any more, you ask such stupid, clueless questions.

Jane Galt, circa 1830:

"I can't say that I've ever been impressed with the argument that equality for fornicators is just one short step on the slippery slope away from homosexuality and sodomy. If nothing else, the demand for the latter two is low enough that I don't see how an interest group could ever form, plus neither seems a good way to form the kind of social networks that supported the free love movement."

why would a man voluntarily participate in the raising of a child not of his own genes?

How about sterile men, or men in relationships with sterile women? How about people who just don't want children? How about people who adopt (and wikipedia tells me there were 127,000 adoptions in 2001, so this is not an insignificant number of people)? Those are people raising children of neither of their genetic heritages, and one assumes they do it for some reason other than passing on their genes...

Red

Consider how your views might change if you put the needs of the child first, rather than the parents?

Whether people consider it consciously or not, whether they're actually fertile or not, procreation related motivations influence a lot of their decisions. Men are playing a different game than women. Marriage is an arangement that helps persuade both partners to invest in the raising of their offspring.

The point is to shame both 'studs' and 'sluts' because if a kid has to be raised by one parent, he's more likely to be a burden on society.

Ryan:

I agree with what you said. If the discussion at hand was about the raising of children. But it's not.

I presented a situation that was automatically assumed by others to include children.

I presented a situation which is very real, while admittedly in the minority, and rather than discuss it and acknowledge it, it was shoe-horned into a heteronormative, offspring-assumed situation.

To address children: There are many people, both in the public eye, and whom I know personally, who are raising children not theirs. With the instances of divorce and remarriage, that is the only thing that *can* be happening.

My mother, 23 when she married my father, found herself the sudden weekend caretaker of three children under ten. Because she is a human, and not a meerkat, a she-wolf, or a lionness, she took care of the children of my husband's first wife.

Wil Wheaton has two step-sons. I have never read his writings about them and not seen them brimming with love.

Nicole Richie isn't Lionel Richie's daughter, but he raised her. (We'll debate on the quality of that upbringing elsewhen.)

Our society is rife with examples of this behavior. It is irresponsible, ignorant, and cruel to pass it off as something that "just doesn't happen."

It also assumes the worst of both sexes.

Polygyny (one man, many wives) has been very common throughout history. If you count the numbers of cultures rather than the extent of them, the European/American tradition of monogamy is rather exceptional, but even that isn't 100% monogamous - alpha males have one official wife (at a time), but often keep mistresses.

OTOH, there's only one culture on record where polyandry (one woman, many husbands) was tolerated as a family arrangement (rather than as a "slut" with no permanent relationships except maybe to her pimp) - Tibetan, in areas where survival was so difficult that one man often failed to support a family. There, if brothers married one woman they could be fairly sure that their combined work would see children carrying their family genes survive, and that's better than watching children that are definitely yours starve to death.

So, it's quite likely that male jealously is more deeply biologically rooted than female jealousy. Women lucky enough to catch an alpha male have often learned to tolerate junior wives, concubines, mistresses, and casual sex partners - as long as they're sure that none of this means the guy is going to toss them and their kids out - but men tend to go into murderous rages at finding a woman "cheating" on them. There are alpha males that lend out their women for a price - pimps and old-time Polynesian chiefs - but they also turn violent when deprived of their price. So a polygamous society is going to deprive at least some non-alpha males of raising their own children.

When I was in the Army there was a situation where the food that was being stored for use in case of a nuclear war was reaching it's expiration date. Instead of just throwing the food away, the Army gave it away for free.

Our post had cheese to give away. Lots of cheese. If you were so minded, you could get one or two 10lb blocks of cheese. The cheese was 35 years old.

Thousands of people stood in line for hours to get 20lbs of 35 year old cheese.

Does that sound like something you would do? I wouldn't.

My point: Just because legalizing something (gay marriage, polygamy, men doinking trees) doesn't affect you, that does not mean that it would not adversely affect society. I'm not saying that it would, either, but if you want to win my vote then you will need to do better than to explain how it will or will not impact you personally.

Red:

Historically, polygamy and polyamory have negatively affected women. Is it your position that that would NOT be the case in our society? (I'm not even sure that you are in favor of the practice or if you were just countering the anti-gay marriage aspect of it.)

markm wrote: " ... OTOH, there's only one culture on record where polyandry (one woman, many husbands) was tolerated as a family arrangement (rather than as a "slut" with no permanent relationships except maybe to her pimp) - Tibetan, in areas where survival was so difficult that one man often failed to support a family. There, if brothers married one woman they could be fairly sure that their combined work would see children carrying their family genes survive, and that's better than watching children that are definitely yours starve to death...."

I was under the impression that some Eskimo tribes used to engage in Polyandry also -- for much the same reasons. But I agree with the basic premise that polygyny has been the norm throughout most of human history whereas polyandry was exceedingly rare.

Having said that, I would still echo the comment that a few others have made: Polygynous societies, by their very nature tend to be extremely warlike because of the large excess of rootless, nihilistic young men who then have nothing better to do with their lives than to (for example) fly airplanes into skyscrapers.

Yes John, there is also some literature on how Greek polygamy caused the Trojan War by leaving large numbers of Greek males wifeless, so they wanted to conquer and get women in other territories. A desire to lie with Trojan women colors the Iliad.

"Gay marriage" is exactly analogous to "three-sided quadrilateral" (aka "gay square"). Unless, of course, we are living in a Humpty-Dumpty world where words mean whatever we want them to at the moment. BTW, any of the brighter darwinists out there want to explain the evolutionary origins (and future) of being gay?

'OTOH, there's only one culture on record where polyandry (one woman, many husbands) was tolerated as a family arrangement (rather than as a "slut" with no permanent relationships except maybe to her pimp) - Tibetan'

I can think of another - the North American colonies of Britain. Wife sharing was not the norm, but it was not rare in 17th century North America. There's a fair chance that a few people reading this are descended from shared wives.

Don't be so quick to rule out incest.

Non-pedophilia incest is already becoming far more common in Europe (which was a few years ahead of the US in so-called "gay rights" legislation) and many forms of incest are already legal in several countries.

Do a Google search for "sweden legal incest" or "europe legal incest" to find a lot of stories from the BBC and other European news sources covering the discussion of making ever more forms of incest legal in ever more countries.

Is this a sign of where the US may be headed, as anti-gay-marriage advocates have said for years? Well, maybe, maybe not. There are other factors at work both over there and here. But it is a concern that needs to be addressed, even if it is later deemed not to be significant.

Having become enthralled with HBO's Big Love last season, I had to reckon for myself the reasons why polygynous marriages are illegal while gay marriage is quickly gaining acceptibility.

What it comes down to is the fact that polygyny only benefits certain high-value men. The women aren't helped out by it, constantly jockying for position among their sister wives. The children might be more plentiful, but they aren't higher quality children, considering they have to share fewer resources among more kids. And young, low-status men are generally completely alienated since the young women are all taken by the older men. This isn't just among splinter-sect Mormons, but among animist Africans and Muslims too.

And Red Stapler, I understand where you are coming from on the polyandry tip, but you and I both know such a situation is hardly the subject of every woman's daydream, because, quite simply, who wants more than one husband to nag?

Speaking as a middle-aged mother of three who may or may not be hormonally challenged (I have exactly one data point the accuracy of which I'm completely confident in), for the most part I'd say, who wants more than one man to have to sleep with? I'd much rather be on one man's calendar than even two men's.

Do a Google search for "sweden legal incest" or "europe legal incest" to find a lot of stories from the BBC and other European news sources covering the discussion of making ever more forms of incest legal in ever more countries.

Doing any Google search containing the word "incest" is undoubtedly going to produce a lot of extremely NSFW links :)

It would be possible to argue that "wider social concerns" justify banning polygamy but not gay marriage as the social concerns are different.

I doubt it will happen like this, but it could.

It does. I've been arguing this for years.

Marriage, rightly or wrongly, comes in this society with certain legal rights that are not obtainable through contract. These rights include the right to not be compelled to testify against your spouse, and the right, if you fall in love with a foreigner, to bring them into the country where you live.

Now imagine a country where polygamy is allowed. What happens to the right not to testify the first time it turns out that all the members of a criminal gang have "married" each other? What happens to the right to live in the same country as your spouse if one person can "marry" thousands and bring them in the same way?

Now, perhaps these rights of marriage should be removed. I have never seen a decent argument from an advocate of polygamy as to why they should be removed, but perhaps there is one there that has not been mentioned. However, regardless of what you think about the merits of these marriage rights, polygamy looks likely to change these marriage rights and therefore would affect existing marriages in a way that homosexual, two-person, marriages do not.

So the argument that polygamy will "destroy marriage as we know it" has much more validity than the argument that gay marriage will destroy marriage as we know it.

This argument is not based in religion or ickiness.

I've always wondered what happens when A, B and C get married, and then A decides to divorce B, but B and C want to stay married.

The thing about polygamy is that it only really works as a legal arrangement if there is one dominant partner--historically usually a man who married many women. Otherwise the mess is nearly impossible to sort out.

Jane,

I think the main reason why so many people tend to associate homosexuality with incest, polygamy, beastiality, and (for lack of a better term) necrophilia, is because of how the brain operates. If (in childhood), you experience a dramatic and traumatic event (say, you were molested or incested by a family member) then the "wiring" in your brain chemistry as to normal, healthy, sexual behavior, is compromised. If that child doesn't get into reparitive therapy ASAP, he or she is more likely to grow up with homosexual, incestuous, pederast, beastial, or necrophilaic tendencies.

They all tie together, and Polygamy is also a big part of it. For people who really want to be spooked out, go to wikipedia and look up "plethysmograph" for genitalia. This device is not considered reliable but it is pretty much commonly used in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona by State Social Serivces to indicate if one is sexually attracted to one's own sex, the opposite sex, or children. Reason for that is because so many polygamist relationships in that part of the country involve "young girls" (some not even as old as 10) being married into the family by the polygamist, as he is only able to be sexually aroused by young children. What they are finding is that in many cases, the polygamist was infact, molested as a child. That (more than anything) had an impact on the polygamist's sexual orientation.

This is a brain chemistry issue. NARTH inidcates that over 50% of all homosexual men have been molested as children. It is that trauma (in and of itself) that causes If someone's own sexuality to be altered dramatically. And because of these traumatic events, we had to invent terms like "sexuality" in order to define what has happened to these poor people who are no longer capable of determining right from wrong.

Tracy W:

Thank You. Those are very well-made points, and I hadn't recalled, and therefore didn't consider, the testifying in court "benefit" of marriage.

From a practical standpoint, I think polyamorous marriage is very difficult, legally.

Gay marriage, however, I see no discernable negatives, in terms of legality.

Tracy,

I don't really see where either point would be considered a central tenet of marriage. Both rights could be adjusted without affecting marriage much, if at all.

In fact if I wanted polygamy to be legal, I would probably frame my case using the same points. Eliminate courtroom immunity, limit the number of foreign spouses, designate the first spouse with medical/legal POA, and limit or eliminate medical insurance for spouses.

I have to admit, I don't have a dog in this fight, or the gay marriage, or the horse-on-man love question, so I haven't spent a lot of time thinking it through.

Tracy W. [no relation] wrote: " ...Marriage, rightly or wrongly, comes in this society with certain legal rights that are not obtainable through contract. These rights include the right to not be compelled to testify against your spouse, and the right, if you fall in love with a foreigner, to bring them into the country where you live. ..."

I don't see where either of those is a really fundamental objection.

It would be the easist thing in the world to amend the immigration law so that any citizen could bring one "friend" into the country every X number of years, and the nature of the friendship doesn't have to be any of the government's [bleeping] business. The 'friend' could be a conventional spouse, a homosexual spouse, a polygamous spouse, or just a golfing buddy.

And regarding the courtroom immunity thing: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't that turned into a pretty meaningless, make-believe 'right' anyhow??? If a prosecutor wants a wife (for example) to testify against her husband, don't they just invent some mickey-mouse 'crime' to charge her with, and then offer to drop the charges if she 'voluntarily' testifies against her husband?

John W,

Immigration law is Federal; marriage law is state. What you suggest requires a level of coordination not easily mustered. But in any case, why should we start nearly all our laws to please something like .0001% of the population?

On courtroom immunity: in Federal court, the witness owns the right not to testify, so what you suggest might be possible (although it might fail; real spouses/gangs may love/fear each other enough not to give in). But in many states, the right belongs to the defendant, so he can prevent his wife from testifying even if she really, really wants to.

The law is thoroughly saturated with marriage-based rules and rights, almost none of which transfer easily to polygamous unions, unless those unions are treated as one dominant patriarch/matriarch with subordinate spouses.

If polygyny is a problem, isn't accepting male homosexuality the solution?

China has a big gap between male and female births. Where are those men going to find wives?

I suggest PROMOTING homosexual marriage as way to solve that problem...If you can get 10% of men to go gay that is...what's the "natural" rate?

Men fucking each other in the ass is not marriage, honey.

No, it's not. Mostly it's about home repairs, cats, paying bills, and TiVo, in my personal experience.

I wonder about one's agenda when the question is phrased, "the argument that equality for homosexuals is just one short step on the slippery slope away from incest and bestiality." It is typical when one wants to blur distinctions however.

Equality is, in my estimation, the most wrongly used word these days. The word used should be equivocate. Non-bigots have no problem with
securing 'equal under the law' for gay relationships. But it is not marriage as presently, and more importantly, conventionally defined. If you insist that marriage be re-defined to include homosexual relationships, then you can not, under the same logic, exclude incestual relationships. It is not a slippery slope argument, it is fait accompli. The same argument for expanding the definition of marriage to encompass homosexuality (both legal and societal) necessarily has to include incest. And not far behind comes the beastiality defense.

It is not equality Megan, it is the definitinon of marriage.

I fail to see how and why society should change the definition of one of the social bedrock institutions that makes up a society in order to placate a minority (or anyone for that matter).

If I want to call my roommate my brother and my doctor my sister, and have the full force of the law in doing so, why not? I certainly like my room mate and my doctor more than my brother or sister. So who the hell are you to tell me I can't do this?

A marriage is made up of a man and a wife. Not a man and a man or a woman and a woman.

I understand there are intense emotional feelings going on here, but just because you want your relationship to be accepted by society does not mean that you have the right to demand that society consider your relationship a marriage.

Why not just eliminate ALL marital rights and privileges for everybody - gay, straight or whatever. Many of these rights, especially the economic ones, discriminate against the unmarried.

For example, why should a married person who pays the same Social Security taxes as a single person get extra pension benefits for his spouse while the single person gets nothing of comparable value. The unmarried person is in effect paying for the married person's spouse. That's not fair.

Regan: In fact if I wanted polygamy to be legal, I would probably frame my case using the same points. Eliminate courtroom immunity, limit the number of foreign spouses, designate the first spouse with medical/legal POA, and limit or eliminate medical insurance for spouses.

Quite possibly you could make an argument on that basis. Some notes:
- Eliminating courtroom immunity means a change to non-polygamous marriages which gives people who have an interest in that right a non-religious, non-icky reason to oppose polygamous marriage.
- Limiting the number of foreign spouses means creating a legal difference based on the number of spouses, which rather conflicts with the original equality arguments for polygamy. As does limiting medical insurance.
- Eliminating medical insurance for spouses would change existing marriages in a way that extending marriage to cover homosexual relationships does not, and gives people with an interest in the existing arrangements a non-religious, non-icky reason to oppose polygamous marriages.

Out of curiousity, and I am sure this issue could be resolved, but hey curiousity killed the cat. Say A and B are married, and then C marries them. Under your scheme who is C's first spouse with the medical/legal POA?

John WIt would be the easist thing in the world to amend the immigration law so that any citizen could bring one "friend" into the country every X number of years, and the nature of the friendship doesn't have to be any of the government's [bleeping] business. The 'friend' could be a conventional spouse, a homosexual spouse, a polygamous spouse, or just a golfing buddy.

The law could be amended in the way you describe. Personally I am inclined to think it would be difficult to achieve politically (I am not sure in what sense you mean the "easiest thing in the world" so perhaps you agree with me in this context). However, it would mean changing the status of marriage in a way that extending marriage to homosexual couples doesn't.

Your argument implies that polygamy comes as a package with immigration reform, and therefore anyone who disagrees with your proposed immigration reform (presumably there are some people who do, as otherwise we'd have the immigration reform already), has a non-religious, non-icky reason to oppose polygamous marriage.

For example, why should a married person who pays the same Social Security taxes as a single person get extra pension benefits for his spouse while the single person gets nothing of comparable value.

Because his spouse is a homemaker who doesn't earn money for the family or pay into SS and has a limited ability to support herself but, by her domestic labor, makes it possible for him to have a better-paying job and avoid the cost of housekeepers, nannies, dry cleaners, etc.

Well, that's the idea, at least, even if it's somewhat obsolete.

The reason marriage can't just be written out of the law is that it reflects the way people actually live much better than some pure contract theory. If someone dies without a will (and most people do), should the spouse get any of the inheritance, or should it all go to blood relatives who live far away? Who should have the right to sue the idiot responsible for the death? Who should decide when to terminate life support? Etc. Just saying "marriage should be irrelevant to the State" only works if you're unaware just how involved the State is in ordinary, everyday decisions.

Of course, the fact that the law is so mixed up with marriage is an argument that gay couples should get marriage or its equivalent, since their needs and wants are probably similar to straight couples in similar long-term relationships.

Y'know, this discussion really shows how normal, in a sense, gay marriage actually is - it's a far, far smaller change and challenge to our society&culture than polyamory (to say nothing of incest and bestiality).

To echo a comment above though, I only recently realized that there are some (presumably small) number of immigrants already here who arrived already in polygamous marriages. While there's no international full faith and credit clause, this certainly presents an odd legal and social situation.

Reagan Fan wrote: "I have to admit, I don't have a dog in this fight . . ."

Interesting wording, that!

______
Pierre: "Ok I give up, consent has something to do with bestialty being wrong?

It really is fun to watch the secular deal with issues like that...hold up while I get the popcorn and soda.

If I was interested in arguing that 'the religious' were authoritarian followers who, due to upbringing, lacked an internal moral compass - and hence atheists were actually morally better - I would be gleefully thanking Pierre. I'm not, and hence am instead mildly repulsed.

"And while you are twisting your heads into knots please explain why having sex with a 5 year old is wrong."

You really can't think of any reason not to have sex with a) animals and b) five-year-olds besides (presumably, given the ref. to 'the secular' above) "God said not to"? You don't understand what consent has to do with it? I hope people keep pets and children far away from you, especially if you ever have a crisis of faith. Just for review, the modern Western view of sex held by decent non-creepy people leans heavily upon two related ideas: a) consenting partners (which neither animals nor children can be in any meaningful way) and not causing harm (beyond, at least, the limits of that consent; additionally, nonconsensual sex is generally inherently harmful). Animals can't consent, not being rational (and might be harmed, depending - there's also the issue of exchanging diseases across species: we don't need another AIDS (although that almost certainly jumped the species barrier through bites or butchery), nor do animals need some icky human disease. A five-year-old likewise can't meaningfully consent (below the age of reason, along with power issues), and would be harmed by being molested.

These are so basic to modern sexual morality - why rape is bad, for example, or why we shouldn't molest kids - that it's really kinda creepy that you don't understand this, even if you're coming from some other system.

_________________
"BTW, any of the brighter darwinists out there want to explain the evolutionary origins (and future) of being gay?

And after that, m, you can ask some newtonists to explain inertia, or some galileoists to explain about orbits, or some wegenerists to explain continental drift . . . Oh, but wait, we don't use those terms - after all, we're talking about universally accepted scientific findings, not ideologies or personality-cults. In addition (and as a result) work in these areas doesn't involve dogmatic repetition, but expansion, revision, incorporation or even partial discarding of the original insights. Unless, of course, we're living in a Humpty-Dumpty world where words mean whatever we want them to at the moment.

But while I'm not an evolutionary biologist, I read enough that I can supply a basic and partial answer to your question. One possibility - and I should stress that, afaik, all this is still speculative - is related to the issues brought up by Nepalese brothers marrying the same woman. See kin selection, or why it might make evolutionary sense to lay down your life for two siblings or eight cousins. Homosexuality may be related to greater reproductive success by relatives, either through social means - group bonding, being more likely to help raising kids, etc. - or biological ones - for example, apparently, the female relatives of gay guys' moms have more kids. (Interestingly , male homosexuality seems to be related to the number of biological older brothers, even if raised separately.)

Another possibility is that it's a byproduct of the way we're 'built' - there's some important aspect of, say, the development of human sexuality, that occasionally leads to homosexuality, which gets basically pulled along for the ride. Yet another is that homosexuality may be in most circumstances a neutral trait: in many societies, getting married to a member of the opposite sex and having kids is what one does, regardless (indeed, often any alternatives might be unthinkable or forbidden). (And if for some reason gay people tend to have some advantage in raising children to adulthood, even if they make fewer babies, we also end up with net-neutral to positive effects).

This is of course assuming that homosexuality has, even indirectly, some genetic basis. It seems almost certain that it at least has a biological one, and may well turn out to be some complicated mix of genetic tendency, uterine conditions, and social environment (the last at least in how it's expressed).
_______________

In my comment above, the bit:
"It really is fun to watch the secular deal with issues like that...hold up while I get the popcorn and soda.
should be in quotes and italics, being part of Pierre's comment.

Gay marriage and immigration reform - it's like the perfect political storm for . . .well, someone.

HL: "For example, why should a married person who pays the same Social Security taxes as a single person get extra pension benefits for his spouse while the single person gets nothing of comparable value."

Rob Lyman: "Because his spouse is a homemaker who doesn't earn money for the family or pay into SS and has a limited ability to support herself but, by her domestic labor, makes it possible for him to have a better-paying job and avoid the cost of housekeepers, nannies, dry cleaners, etc."

Then why shouldn't the married worker pay for the unmarried worker's housekeeper and nanny and dry cleaner?

Why in the world should an unmarried person subsidize all those benefits of his married coworker? If the married worker wants those benefits from a wife and wants to leave her a pension, let him pay higher Social Security taxes.

I hope you realize what a weak justification you've offered for why single people should subsidize married people.

HL,

You asked why a spouse gets "free" benefits. I explained why: it's essentially welfare for spouses who are presumed to have a limited ability to fend for themselves. I didn't say it was a good or desirable system. I even said it was obsolete. Personally, I'd abolish it altogether: if anyone, married or single, wants a pension, let him save money for himself and not be forced to give it to the government.

Still, I can't say that I think this is one of the world's most serious injustices.

Dan S: Good reply about evolution and homosexuality. One more possibility is that it is, in the evolutionary sense, simply a defect. Evolution tolerates lots of defects. It is not necessary that every individual survive and be reproductively successful, even in the sense of helping relatives be reproductively successful, but merely that overall sufficient members of the group are reproductively successful. In most species, much less than half of newborns survive to adulthood. Humans are far better than most at protecting their children (and need to be), but until the late 1800's half or more of us died young, and we still lose at least 25% of fertilized eggs even before birth. Against those evolutionary losses, it hardly matters if a few percent more somehow get the wrong combination of genes and environment so breeding is not to their taste.

Comments are Closed.