2/24/2004
Only President Bush Can Save My Marriage
I’m not a pro at marriage — I’ve only been married for two months, so clearly I have lots to learn. Luckily, our esteemed president and his right wing cohorts are here to save not only my marriage, but everyone’s marriage. In turn, they’re going to save society. Thank goodness, the cavalry has arrived!
I learned of this noble effort today when I was out for a morning walk, listening to the news. The report was interrupted by a news director screaming into a live mike “Quick! Go to CNN!!!” and suddenly, there was Bush.
“If we are to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed
forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect
marriage in America,'’ he said. “Decisive and democratic action is
needed, because attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city
could have serious consequences throughout the country.'’
Though he didn’t specifically refer to it, the issue that’s vexing the president is that of gay marriage. Shock upon shock, dozens of homosexual couples are lining up in San Francisco to get hitched. Municipalities and even whole states across the country are suddenly looking at allowing men to marry men, women to marry women.
So I guess I agree with Bush on a few points: yes, marriage is being changed forever and attempts to redefine it do have serious consequences throughout the country. Heck, I’ll even go one step further and say this has international ramifications, where gays all over the world are looking at what the United States does here, figuring it could set a precedent elsewhere.
Now here’s where Bush and I begin to disagree: why are these serious consequences a bad thing? So my old art teacher has a legal document allowing him to marry the man he already called his husband now– this is a bad thing? So two people who are in love can join in what’s supposed to be a permanent, legal bond? I don’t hear the foundations of society crumbling beneath us just yet.
Marriage ought to be changed forever, and if guys want to marry guys, hey, let ‘em. It’s not going to change my marriage, somehow cheapen it because the guys with the rainbow flag out front have a marriage certificate to go along with it. It’s not going to change anything for the millions of people who are already married, nor is it going to suddenly scar children, legalize incest or cause violence in the streets, as suggested by some Republican politicians.
It seems a little ironic that Bush and the Republicans, who normally talk about how the government needs to be cut down and leave matters to individuals or state governments, all of a sudden think the feds need to legislate marriage. I don’t have a problem with the federal government protecting marriage, but it’s going the wrong way on this: it should be making it available to everyone, regardless of their sexuality.
Jeff, you made a very good point on this a number of months ago, comparing the current trouble to old laws banning interracial marriage, and I think that’s a very apt analogy. Bush points to polls (something he conveniently ignores when he does something unpopular, then suddenly jumps on once he can find some data that supports him) saying that the majority of Americans are against gay marriage. Sure, but Americans also used to believe in slavery and that races couldn’t intermarry. The prior issue caused a war, but somehow the republic survived and attitudes changed.
President Bush has no problem ignoring popular opinion when it suits him, so now’s a perfect time for him to flex that compassionate side he claims to have. If he’s truly the caring, bold leader that he claims to be, he’d set aside the urgings of his right-wing, over-religious advisers and do something truly courageous for once.
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It’s a good thing that Phet and I are already betrothed, because if I had known that I had the opportunity to not only get legally married, but legally married to another man, well I might just have gone that way. If given the choice between cuddling with Phet and cuddling with a big burly naked hairy guy, I’d have to carefully weigh the pros and cons of each scenario and make my final decision based on that. You know: their relative merits and such.
So while we’re on the subject, boys and girls, here’s the test of your convictions: if interracial marriage is okay (signifying that race doesn’t play a part in raising non-murderous children) and gay marriage is okay (signifying that sex doesn’t matter in raising non-murderous children), what about polygamy? Considering that we’re all feeling all liberal about letting people marry who they want, should the US allow more than two people engage in a legal union?
Comment by Jeff — 2/24/2004 @ 8:34 pm
The US Government should stay The Hell Out of legal unions. If I’ve got three girlfriends who are willing to be made my wives simultaneously, the government should say “man, you’re the mac!” or “boy, are you screwed!” (depending on their perception of women in general and marriage to women in particular) and stamp my bus pass accordingly, goddamnit.
There are much more important things for the government to worry about, like whether I’m sprinking cocaine on my breakfast cereal. Plus, we need to be sure we have adequate resources protecting the secrecy of our capture of bin Laden until right before the election this year.
Comment by Dave — 2/24/2004 @ 11:03 pm
Tough call, tough call on that one. Logically, if you support gays’ right to marry, you ought to support polygamy, as well. Personally, I don’t support the latter, but I can’t really logically justify that. We’ve been kicking that one around at the office for awhile, but there’s no solid argument about why gay marriage is ok, but having six wives isn’t.
That said, there are certainly a lot more compelling reasons why gay marriage ought to be legal, and not too many for polygamy. I guess I’ll have to get back to you on that one…
Comment by Brent — 2/25/2004 @ 6:07 pm
Jeff,
You bring up a very good point. We all have our preconceived ideas about how the world should be and what ideals people should find important. I’ve always believed that marriage was an oath to forsake all others, a commitment to your spouse, and a union of two people. I’m in favor of gay marriage because homosexuals can love and be as committed to their partners as heterosexuals can. But polygamy is completely incompatible with my idea of marriage. The vow one implicitly makes in marriage is not something that can exist simultaneously between multiple partners. Maybe I have too narrow of a view of marriage. I’m also not comfortable with my concept of marriage interfering with someone else’s beliefs. I generally bring up both points when arguing against the conservative right agenda.
I also have a question regarding marriage. Intuitively, I believe that marriage was originally a religious construct that was later cooped by government. But is marriage today mostly a religious or governmental institution? I believe that how you answer dictates how you can resolve the issue of gay marriage. Personally, I don’t really know how to answer. I have a problem with the government forcing a change in religious belief but I also have an even bigger problem with religious belief dictating one’s ability to enter into a legally binding contract. Civil unions were an easy way around this issue but, as this issue becomes more polarized, I don’t think that there’s much chance of finding the middle ground.
Thoughts?
Woody
Comment by woody — 2/25/2004 @ 6:33 pm
“That said, there are certainly a lot more compelling reasons why gay marriage ought to be legal, and not too many for polygamy.”
Why? Because the concept of polygamy makes you uncomfortable? Who’s to say it’s any worse (or better) than gay marriage, or straight marriage?
Polygamy has serious negative connotations, partially because pedophile jackasses in Utah want to marry a bunch of nubile (or as nubile as Utes can get) 14-year-olds, but I don’t know why it isn’t just as valid a family structure as anything else. Some people might have enough love, honor, and respect for multiple partners–as long as their partners are entering into the arrangement freely, ’sokay by me.
Comment by Dave — 2/25/2004 @ 8:05 pm
The question of marriage that we’re grappling with at the moment has nothing to do religion, methinks, and everything to do with a fairly straightforward civil rights issue. When gays are able to marry legally, they will all of a sudden get to enjoy a whole host legal benefits that they previously could not. There would be all sorts of coolio tax breaks and spousal rights and latte discounts and shiatt they they would have access to just like straight couples. Gay marriage would balance the scales of marriage rights in this country so that all couples would be treated equally.
The problem with polygamy is that the system is not equipped to handle marriages when there are more than two people. The government has a certain obligation to deal with the business of marriages, in terms of giving married couples special rights. How would this transfer to a legal polygamous marriages? Could I all of suddenly claim my 9 wives as dependants on my taxes? What if two of my wives decide to divorce me (hypothetically speaking, that is: who would want to divorce me?) and expect the courts to sort through the sordid details of their wretched lives on the taxpayer’s dime? To me, it doesn’t seem like a particularly ordered way to run a civilization if all of a sudden the government has to cater to the random whims of all of its horny citizens.
That said, I don’t think that polygamy should necessarily be banned or prosecuted or anything. Let people bed down with whoever they like so long as all parties are above the age of consent. I just don’t think that it’s reasonable to expect the government and the people to shoulder the burden of supporting such marriages. If you want to enter into a multiple partner union, then I’d think that you’d better have a damn good paper contract independently guaranteeing your rights, because otherwise, you’re on your own as far the courts are concerned.
Anyway, that’s my thought…
Comment by Jeff — 2/25/2004 @ 10:52 pm
“The problem with granting freedom to the darker races is that the system is not equipped to handle the sudden loss of essentially free labor, not to mention a bunch of free blacks running around.”
–Jefferson Pease, plantation owner, Macon GA, 1857.
Comment by Dave — 2/26/2004 @ 11:44 am
“The US Government should stay The Hell Out of legal unions.”
Unless you’re saying it’s a State issue, I’m not sure we are on the same page about the definition of “legal.” As Jeff alludes to, marriage from a government point of view is a way of linking two people contractually to create financial and administrative efficiencies. Excluding gays is, to me, a clear violation of the 14th amendment in that sense. The problem with polygamy is that it’s kind of like a bunch of people trying to share one meal at the all you can eat buffet. You could get entire communities of people trying to share legal marriage status for various financial reasons.
So maybe the solution is to get the government out of it altogether. Everyone pays taxes as a single, the health insurance companies decide for themselves how to designate additional plan dependents, and it becomes a complete free enterprise system. I suppose that’s a logical extension of eliminating the “discrimination” inherent in the legal institution of marriage (it does tend to discriminate against single people). But the implications of that are very messy, and I don’t think I could support that unless there were a better system ready to take its place.
Comment by Andres — 2/27/2004 @ 8:46 am
That’s an argument that can be made for traditional marriage too–we all know of instances where people who have no intention of acting like married people in any meaningful sense get hitched for other reasons.
My solution would be to remove all financial advantages of marriage, give the useful behavior modifiers of shame and public outrage a chance to do their jobs, and let people do whatever they wanted. Perhaps I have too much faith in the restraint and decorum of the common person.
Comment by Dave — 2/27/2004 @ 10:53 am
To: Dave
RE: The clever Jefferson Pease quote
You are a dick. In times of slavery there was a fine system in place to deal with a) free people and b) free laborers. Sure there were economic implications to freeing the slaves, but the infrastructure for doing so was already in place.
“My solution would be to remove all financial advantages of marriage, give the useful behavior modifiers of shame and public outrage a chance to do their jobs, and let people do whatever they wanted. Perhaps I have too much faith in the restraint and decorum of the common person.”
Oh good, anarchy. Tremendous. If people were allowed to do whatever they wanted, even with the useful behavior modifiers of shame and public outrage, I can assure you that my first course of action would be to keep several midget-wrestler love slaves held captive in my basement for “special occassions”. It seems unlikely that the US government would ever condone the kidnapping of midget-wrestler love slaves (even if you think it’s a really good idea, Dave), and so it seems unlikely that they will back your “No More Governance Please” platform.
The US government has this antiquated idea that it should protect its citizens (even if they would not protect themselves), and part of the reason we have marriage laws is to protect both parties from abuse or financial ruin. Polygamist marriage makes the government’s ability to protect people far more tenuous, which I doubt any legislators would sign up for. It’d be like if you went to congress and said “I’ve always kind of wanted to be a slave and, you know, this being a democracy and all, I’d like you to seriously consider allowing those who want to be slaves to be slaves, and, you know, limit their rights thusly. If they want.”
Comment by Jeff — 2/28/2004 @ 8:06 am
“I’ve always kind of wanted to be a slave and, you know, this being a democracy and all, I’d like you to seriously consider allowing those who want to be slaves to be slaves, and, you know,
limit their rights thusly. If they want.”
I got great news for you, Jeff. You can do this yourself–you don’t even need your Senator to give you a permission slip! Otherwise, you know those cop shows where in the final five minutes the unlikely perp is finally revealed and he snarls “yeah yeah, I waive my rights, let’s get this over with”? They’d have a lot more shapely young paralegals in them. And no, I didn’t do anything that could be compared to advocating kidnapping as a government-protected pasttime. Don’t be an idiot.
I guess at this point we should return to Woody’s initial question: what is it that marriage should do for people? Important points I can think of are financial (different tax filing, customary benefits sharing, ability to acquire massive ducats from spouse in divorce) and legal (protection against forced testimony, default inheritance). I could care less about the social aspects that I can think of–the stuff that Andrew Sullivan is pining about or the Bushite nonsense about marriage between a man and a woman somehow holding the moral fabric of the country together. The religious aspects of marriage are about as interesting to me as an in-depth discussion of the merits of Solaris.
All this stuff is cake to implement in multi-party marriages in the scheme of things. For benefits, either allow the covered person to select one of their spouses to cover, and cover all biological children of the covered party, or remove those benefits–whichever you want. Do the same thing for taxes. Children and non-working spouses can be declared as dependents once per multi-line marriage. So far, I’m just not seeing the far-reaching implications that have been taken for granted in this thread.
Comment by Dave — 2/28/2004 @ 12:46 pm
Uggh, I really hated Solaris.
Comment by Barbara — 3/3/2004 @ 1:00 pm