Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
There is an important chart everyone needs to see:
There are two trend lines, one is going down and one is going up. There may be a couple of bumps, but the direction of each line is clear. That is the future.
Tuesday night, Maine, Washington, and Maryland passed laws legalizing gay marriage and the one banning it in Minnesota lost.
That's the future. Look at those trend lines again.
You can object. You can talk about "redefining" marriage. I've heard it all before. But look at that trend line. That is the way the United States of America is trending. That's where the public is at. You need to adapt or conservatives will keep losing elections.
I know most of you reading this have very strong feelings about gay marriage. I'm not going to argue about your feelings, your belief structure, or what you think. All of us here at Ricochet have done that plenty of times.
What I am going to do is suggest a change for conservatives, one that I first encountered out of the mouth of a man who I know to be, frankly, a bigot.
Here is the solution: The separation of marriage and state.
Marriage is a lot of things, among them a legal contract. As it stands now, one needs a license to get married. A license is legal permission to do a thing. We license marriages now, but we did not always. It doesn't need to be licensed. Many of you will think of practical objections. "What about X?" There's always a solution for X.
Separating marriage from the state doesn't mean the end of marriage. It means the end of getting permission from mommy government to do a thing that is a natural right of free people to do.
Separating marriage and government means that how I feel about gays and gay marriage and how you feel about gays and gay marriage don't matter politically. We can both be on the same side without either of us compromising our belief systems.
It's also not an electoral loser.
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Comments:
Aug '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Douglas
Great Goldwater's Ghost!
Being in favor of loving, committed relationships is a conservative value. · 31 minutes ago
Hogwash. That's hippy-ish sentiment, with no basis in conservative thought whatsoever. Great marriages have love, but marriage isn't about love. Destroying the very definition of what marriage IS isn't a conservative value at all. It's utopian fairy dust. The law can call two men shacking up a marriage, but there is a God, and He says differently. · 3 minutes ago
So why are we letting the government have the power to define marriage in the first place?
Nov '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
William McClain
Astonishing
I believe I am beginning to develop an affinity for goats! They're so cute. And they have such great fashion sense. We shoud have one as a judge on "Project Runway."
Sensible idea, it would at the very least raise the level of conversation on the show.
Aha! You admit you've watched it. My wife is addicted to it. I guess it's like sports for women.
Really, I'm having a terrible time tyring to be serious today. In such unserious times, why should I be the fool trying to be serious?
Must we endure the gay marriage argument again?
If we are going to go hades in handcarts, we might as well have a laugh along the way.
Goat marriage! Goat marriage! Goat marriage!
Bah!
Nah!
B ah!
Nah!
Oct '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Astonishing
Aha! You admit you've watched it. My wife is addicted to it. I guess it's like sports for women.
Regrettably, I have seen it. It's been a while though, the girlfriends I have these days aren't as interested in bad TV as the ones I did a few years back.
And, I think it's not so bad to be the fool sometimes - the most serious times often need it the most, to keep us from getting too carried away.
Sep '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
what a fascinating conversation. Many are talking past each other, however, and failing to see that there are several strands that need untangling. Strand one: what IS marriage? Is it a unique, natural institution which forms families, preceding any government or state that exists? Is it an exclusively private arrangement that any couple (or trio, etc) enters into? Is it the cellular building block of every society, the state of which profoundly determines the health and longevity of every society? Strand two: answers to strand one determine whether the state has a legitimate interest to preserve, protect, regulate. Strand three: where does the delineation between private and public interest lie in this? Can we clearly demarcate these interests without violating individual rights, while also preserving what has proven to be the most stable and healthy vehicle of begetting, raising and civilizing children? Strand four: is this something that lends itself to pragmatic, utilitarian political calculation? Many other strands besides, all of which deserve much discernment and robust, honest debate. And, yeah, the fiscal cliff won't discriminate between straight and gay couples . . .
Nov '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Yes, let's not worry about X.
And X can be anything.
So let's not worry about anything, not right now.
If problems crop up, we can worry about them later.
Right now, in this moment of universal love and caring and respect for everything without distinction, let's experiment with what seems nice, and exciting, and might make us feel good.
I am not obliged to respond seriously to such immature thinking.
Goat marriage! Goat marriage! Let's not worry about X. Let's not worry about anything. Bah. Nah. Let's do what seems nice and exciting and openminded.
No, Fred, there is not "always a solution for X." Some mistakes are fatal, for individuals and societies.
Jun '10
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
mask: Armageddon is nigh. I agree with Fred.
I'd prefer that government were not in the marriage business.
I'm still struggling to understand what that means, in practical terms. I can't support or oppose the proposal to "get government out of marriage" until someone explains in concrete terms what that would actually look like.
Do you agree with my summary in #107, is that what you're proposing as well?
Jun '10
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Steven M.
Douglas
Great Goldwater's Ghost!
Being in favor of loving, committed relationships is a conservative value. · 31 minutes ago
Hogwash. That's hippy-ish sentiment, with no basis in conservative thought whatsoever. Great marriages have love, but marriage isn't about love. Destroying the very definition of what marriage IS isn't a conservative value at all. It's utopian fairy dust. The law can call two men shacking up a marriage, but there is a God, and He says differently. · 3 minutes ago
So why are we letting the government have the power to define marriage in the first place? · 36 minutes ago
Does that mean marriage would have no legal definition, and therefore no legal implications? What about divorce, alimony, child custody, inheritance, etc. How will the courts handle all these things if there is no legal definition of marriage?
Jun '10
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Astonishing
How would a "marriage" contractnecessarilydiffer from any other contract through which two or more people codify certain rights and duties?
How would a marriage contract differ from a contract between two people who merely want to have a piece of paper setting out their rights and duties as roomates and mutual caregivers?
Does such a "marriage contract" necessarily involve a provision covering sexual relations?
And if it a "marraige" contract is essentially no different from any other "contract," why call it marriage?
If marriage is a contract for anything you want to contract for, then the word marriage loses all meaning, and marriage is nothing.
And isn't that what Fred Cole really wants? That marriage should be meaningless? That marriage should cease to exist as a thing with meaning?
The proposal, in line with most libertarian though, seems to be radically individualistic. Marriage would have no socially agreed meaning, but rather would mean whatever the contracting parties agree that it means for them.
You negociate the terms of marriage with the person, or persons, you intend to marry. Each marriage is unique, a species of one.
Aug '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Joseph Stanko
Steven M.
Douglas
Great Goldwater's Ghost!
Being in favor of loving, committed relationships is a conservative value. · 31 minutes ago
Hogwash. That's hippy-ish sentiment, with no basis in conservative thought whatsoever. Great marriages have love, but marriage isn't about love. Destroying the very definition of what marriage IS isn't a conservative value at all. It's utopian fairy dust. The law can call two men shacking up a marriage, but there is a God, and He says differently. · 3 minutes ago
So why are we letting the government have the power to define marriage in the first place? · 36 minutes ago
Does that mean marriage would have no legal definition, and therefore no legal implications? What about divorce, alimony, child custody, inheritance, etc. How will the courts handle all these things if there is no legal definition of marriage? · 16 minutes ago
How do they handle them now in cases where there was no marriage in the the first place?
Nov '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Joseph Stanko
Does that mean marriage would have no legal definition, and therefore no legal implications? What about divorce, alimony, child custody, inheritance, etc. How will the courts handle all these things if there is no legal definition of marriage?
In fact, with the demise of traditional marriage, and its replacement with contract marriages that can be "customized" however the parties wish, government will have to become more intrusive in order to deal with the results of the uncertainty created by these mutifarious customized "marriages."
"Customized" marriage contracts (along with the related problems of surrogacy and polygamy) will throw into confusion everything you mention, and more. The boundaries of what is family and of family rights and obligations, vis a vis government and vis a vis each other, will be obliterated.
Total confusion.
But worry not: Fred Cole has helpfully explained that we must not worry about practical problesm that might crop up, because "there is always a solution for X."
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
You didn't read the link I posted earlier, but that's ok. You seem pretty sure about this need to have government redefine marriage to include same-sex couples.
I do have a question: How do you define marriage? What is it? Just curious.
Aug '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Joseph Stanko
mask: Armageddon is nigh. I agree with Fred.
I'd prefer that government were not in the marriage business.
I'm still struggling to understand what that means, in practical terms. I can't support or oppose the proposal to "get government out of marriage" until someone explains in concrete terms what that would actually look like.
Do you agree with my summary in #107, is that what you're proposing as well? · 41 minutes ago
Basically. Couples would be free to create contracts with each other. Perhaps the only state involvement would be to "require" parental responsibility for children - but I'm not sure exactly how this would work either.
Feb '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Misthiocracy: I'd like to see that chart juxtaposed next to a chart for a question like: "Do you think the law confers too many privileges on married couples that are not available to non-married couples?"
My point being, maybe people wouldn't support gay marriage as much if they thought it represented a grab for entitlements. · 3 hours ago
Or maybe, this chart combined with the declining marriage rates, increasing divorce rates, and increasing out of wedlock childbirth rates are an indicator that our culture is finding little value in marriage at all. That's even more frightening a prospect than the full acceptance of SSM.
Sep '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
You didn't read the link I posted earlier, but that's ok. You seem pretty sure about this need to have government redefine marriage to include same-sex couples.
I do have a question: How do you define marriage? What is it? Just curious. · 8 minutes ago
Thank you Mollie! That is where it has to start. Strand one (#124).
Oct '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Joseph Stanko
The proposal, in line with most libertarian though, seems to be radically individualistic. Marriage would have no socially agreed meaning, but rather would mean whatever the contracting parties agree that it means for them.
You negociate the terms of marriage with the person, or persons, you intend to marry. Each marriage is unique, a species of one.
Wait, I think that's a false syllogism. The principle here is that the purely legal rights associated with marriage are severed from the cultural institution of marriage, so that one need not rely on the covenant of marriage to obtain shared legal rights.
The whole point of this argument is that marriage should not be defined by legal rights, but by moral principles. Then, your church or your community can define marriage as a covenant between man and a woman only without interfering with anyones rights to legally share their life.
There are a lot of legitimate questions about how this works when dealing with children, inheritance legacy, etc. but again I don't think any defense of marriage actions against same-sex marriage are really tackling issues of family.
Feb '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
William McClain
Misthiocracy
It's not the same, because the state imposes the terms of the contract (in the absence of a pre-nuptual agreement), and judges have enormous freedom to making arbitrary rulings in the event that the "contract" is broken.
This is really the biggest point: that the issue needs to be shifted as strong as possible out of marriage qua marriage, and into marriage as a set of legal rights.
The libertarian argument is simply that contractual rights are embodied in the right of free association, and that there should be no discrimination on the ability of members of a free society to form contractual relationships. In that sense, all of the so-called "what we gain" from marriage for same-sex couples is relegated to the purely legal rights for two people to determine their assets and insurance rights are pooled, visitations in prison and hospitals, etc.
.....
But the opposition to SSM has no effect on the ability of individuals to form contracts with one another. Opposition to SSM - the legal marriage structure, really - is entirely to do with how society will interact (or not) with individuals.
Oct '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Ed G.
But the opposition to SSM has no effect on the ability of individuals to form contracts with one another. Opposition to SSM - the legal marriage structure, really - is entirely to do with how society will interact (or not) with individuals. · 0 minutes ago
I think that how society interacts with individuals has two components in this debate, a political one and a cultural one. The former deals with the legal rights afforded a licensed marriage, which are undeniable in this country. The latter deals with the moral definition of marriage, which is quickly being usurped by the political realm.
In full disclosure, I do not believe that gay marriage is a threat to marriage as an institution anymore than, say, some inter-tribal marriages were not a threat in early Judaism, or interdenominational were in post-Reformation Europe, or interracial marriages were a threat in 1950s America. This is at odds with a certain reading of biblical tradition, but I do not think it is completely unreasonable for even a Christian morality - and certainly open to discussion.
I do, however, think that the politicization of moral and cultural institutions, like marriage, are a threat to culture and family.
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 9:45pmAug '10
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Joseph Stanko
mask: Armageddon is nigh. I agree with Fred.
I'd prefer that government were not in the marriage business.
I'm still struggling to understand what that means, in practical terms. I can't support or oppose the proposal to "get government out of marriage" until someone explains in concrete terms what that would actually look like.
"Get government out of marriage," is a poor choice of slogan.
It's the executive and legislative levels we'd like to get out of marriage. The judicial level of government would still be involved, to adjudicate disputes.
So, essentially, in our hypothetical libertarian scenario:
Nov '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Steven M.
Joseph Stanko
Steven M.
So why are we letting the government have the power to define marriage in the first place?
Does that mean marriage would have no legal definition, and therefore no legal implications? What about divorce, alimony, child custody, inheritance, etc. How will the courts handle all these things if there is no legal definition of marriage?
How do they handle them now in cases where there was no marriage in the the first place?
Of course, there are laws for the situation of no marriage.
But "no marriage" does not create the lgeal confusion of the multifarious variety of customized "contract" marriage, each with customized provisions that would not necessarily sync up with existing family law.
Customized "contract" marriage would necessarily entail more, not less, government involvement to cure and to regulate the confusion and uncertainty the infinite variety of customized contract marriages would create about the rights and duties of (what has heretofore been known as) family.
But worry not. Fred Cole makes all such "practical objections" disappear with a wave of his wishing wand, saying "there's always a solution for X."
Aug '10
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Steven M.
Joseph Stanko
Steven M.
Douglas
Great Goldwater's Ghost!
Being in favor of loving, committed relationships is a conservative value.
Hogwash. That's hippy-ish sentiment, with no basis in conservative thought whatsoever. Great marriages have love, but marriage isn't about love. Destroying the very definition of what marriage IS isn't a conservative value at all. It's utopian fairy dust. The law can call two men shacking up a marriage, but there is a God, and He says differently.
So why are we letting the government have the power to define marriage in the first place?
Does that mean marriage would have no legal definition, and therefore no legal implications? What about divorce, alimony, child custody, inheritance, etc. How will the courts handle all these things if there is no legal definition of marriage?
How do they handle them now in cases where there was no marriage in the the first place?
Also, how did they handle them in the days, not so long ago, before the state assumed the power to legally define marriage?