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:
Nov '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Fred Cole . . . . . . Animals can't enter in to contracts.
. . I don't give a damn if you approve or not approve. Do you care if I approve of your marriage? Why should you?
Why are you still arguing with me?
I've conceded everything you want. And more.
You want gay marriage, and I say, yes, take it, and goat marriage, too, if you want it.
What more could you possibly want?
You can marry, or not marry, your goat and your brother if it pleases you.
Either way, I will pretend to care if you want me to.
Or I will pretend not to care if that's what you want.
How can I be rational, when your graph rebukes all rational argument?
So please just show me the right graph, and I will march whichever direction the trend line orders me to go.
BTW: Who appointed you to be the authority to say goats can't enter contracts? That's just your opinion. Lots of people, and lots of goats, have a different opinion. Goats can express assent and dissent, can they not? Shouldn't goat marriage be a matter of majority rule, like everything else?
May '10
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
In terms of cultural fights, gay marriage is a red herring. Far more important would be for conservatives to focus on the disintegration of the family and in particular the way that liberal elites preach what they do not practice. In a separate post I have lauded the TV sitcom Modern Family. This show celebrates conservative values and is widely embraced. Let's agree collectively to address the REAL problem. When we've fixed the obliteration of the family among America's underclass, then we can fight about who gets a marriage license. Until then, the subject is divisive and colossally irrelevant.
Oct '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Astonishing
BTW: Who appointedyouto bethe authorityto say goats can't enter contracts? That's justyouropinion. Lots of people, and lots of goats, have a different opinion. Goats can express assent and dissent, can they not? Shouldn't goat marriage be a matter of majority rule, like everything else?
Take if from a farmer, they only ever say "Nah." They're so disagreeable.
Aug '10
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
I sometimes like to say that I'm not afraid of gay marriage as much as I'm afraid of straight divorce.
But I tend to believe that gay marriage will tend to have a harmful influence on family law UNLESS divorce laws are reformed first.
As evidence, I cite the situation in Ontario: American gay couples who came to Ontario to get married, and then returned not long afterwards to get divorced, were surprised to discover that Ontario law states that you have to be separated for a year, while living in Ontario, before a divorce will be granted.
This long-standing law, designed to give couples a second-chance at reconciliation, applies to all married couples.
The gay activists complained that, somehow, this was discrimination. The government caved, and now gay married couples don't need to wait for a year for a divorce.
So, thanks to gay marriage, Ontario divorce law was weakened for all couples.
Aug '10
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Richard
Keith Bruzelius
You say you don't need approval and it's irrational to seek someone elses approval, you are correct. BUT, that is exactly what the LGBT communityabsolutely insistson. Approval, and nothing less.
Is the LGBT community really that monolithic?
The political side of it is.
May '10
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Misthio -- Yes divorce is a problem too. And that is an interesting and concrete example of a negative effect of gay marriage. But even more important than divorce is the phenomenon of having children completely out of wedlock. I just think that is a more meaningful place to draw a line and make a stand. It also has the advantage of having strong data to support it. Gay marriage is about fear and disapproval. But it is irresistible to many as evidenced by the number of comments posted over the history of Ricochet.
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 6:26pmJun '10
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Tom Meyer
KC Mulville:
Should the state get involved in everyone's love life? No. But when some entity has to (for example) disentangle a property dispute where the legal liabilities include spouses, there are practical reasons for the state to be involved.
Okay, that makes total sense. I'd also imagine it'd do hell to the court system, as everybody starts suddenly declaring themselves to be married to the defendant.
Fred, it seems that government accreditation/certification of marriages provides an easy means to enforce reciprocity. What kind of emergent structure would be created to fill this function and how would it be better than the (rather benign) state power to do so?
I could be mistaken, but I think what Fred is proposing here is a system where any 2 or more people who want to marry each other would hire a lawer to draw up a marriage contract for them, negociate the terms, and then the courts would enforce it like any other contract.
Basically, everyone needs a pre-nup to get married.
Is that correct, Fred?
Jun '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Richard
Keith Bruzelius
You say you don't need approval and it's irrational to seek someone elses approval, you are correct. BUT, that is exactly what the LGBT communityabsolutely insistson. Approval, and nothing less.
Is the LGBT community really that monolithic? · 52 minutes ago
Is there a movement in the LGBT community that wants civil unions and not marriage?
I know 19 year old "Glee gays" (Not sure if that's been used before) that posted on FB to the effect that if you vote Yes (MN Marriage amendment) you should unfriend me, basically because they will only accept approval, not just tolerance.
What's more disturbing to me is that one of them knows better, is a TEC graduate (kind of a Lutheran thing "Teens Encounter Christ") and Rector and is teaching other kids that the gay lifestyle is OK with Christ.
I could be overstating it, but I kind of doubt it.
Peace.
Mar '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
If liberals send the nation to hell in a handcart, maybe I can't stop them, but I'm not going to help them push, either. Fiscal issues aren't our only problems. We have fiscals issues BECAUSE of other problems, directly attributable to the breakdown of the moral order. If the end result is inevitable, I'm not going to join the vandals in pillaging just to buy myself a little more time. If it's going to burn anyway, let it burn.
Sep '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
The SSM issue, more than any other, is absolutely MURDERING us in the Under-35 demographic.
I used to oppose SSM, I switched when I figured out that 1) there is no coherent argument against it that is not based in religion or its doppelgänger, "tradition", and 2) The many good and kind gay couples I know are causing no societal harm that I can see by simply being together in committed, loving relationships.
Most people under 35, even those who would be receptive to most of our message, completely shut down when it is presented because they consider opposition to SSM to be essentially the same as support for Jim Crow.
Being in favor of loving, committed relationships is a conservative value.
Oct '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Keith Bruzelius
I know 19 year old "Glee gays" (Not sure if that's been used before) that posted on FB to the effect that if you vote Yes (MN Marriage amendment) you should unfriend me, basically because they will only accept approval, not just tolerance.
This is a big point, and I think it's the reason that conservatives either need to become partners in forming new laws allowing same-sex marriage or they need to work to dismantle state involvement in marriage contractual rights. Otherwise, it won't just be same-sex marriage that is advanced, but an entire morality imposed top-down that stifles churches and communities from even trying to question the "rights" orthodoxy.
Great Goldwater's Ghost!:
Being in favor of loving, committed relationships is a conservative value.
Amen.
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 7:14pmJan '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Hear, hear. If illegitimacy and falling marriage rates are the real social ills in this -- and I think they are -- it seems that it'd be more effective to take those on directly.
Gay marriage and lax social norms may have some share in that outcome, but the focus should ultimately be on the outputs, not the inputs. Fertilizer and pH levels are important inputs into farming, but I'd tell a farmer that getting the "right" levels of those is meaningless if it doesn't produce a better crop.
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 7:37pmNov '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
William McClain
Astonishing
BTW: Who appointedyouto bethe authorityto say goats can't enter contracts? That's justyouropinion. Lots of people, and lots of goats, have a different opinion. Goats can express assent and dissent, can they not? Shouldn't goat marriage be a matter of majority rule, like everything else?
Take if from a farmer, they only ever say "Nah." They're so disagreeable.
They also say, "bah!."
And so do I.
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."
Aug '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
I'm still convinced that the government's involvement in marriage has been detrimental to the institution of marriage. It's turned it into a legal contract, a contract that can be broken through another set of legal documents.
Is that what marriage is supposed to be?
When we say the government needs to "defend" marriage, well... how is that working out so far?
Am I missing the marriages that were saved because the government defined marriage in a certain way?
As long as marriage is partly a government institution, all of our churches are in danger of intrusion. We need to decouple it now before it's too late.
Then maybe we can spend time convincing people to tackle the things that really do destroy families, like welfare.
Aug '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Armageddon is nigh. I agree with Fred.
I'd prefer that government were not in the marriage business.
But this is a fantasy. The government is involved and it will continue to be involved. Also I seriously doubt the gay lobby would go for it - marriage licenses are their next weapon to use the power of government to try to force their "enemies" into accepting and not just tolerating them.
Aug '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Fred Cole
But as usual, private entities are always ahead of the curve in the way a state cannot be. Many companies offer health benefits, for example, to domestic partners. That's people co-habbitating, regardless of sex. Gay people do it, straight people do it. It depends on the organization, and varies between private entities (as it should), and the proof standards of a domestic partnership are typically low.
And its not like your insurance would suddenly kick your spouse off your insurance if marriage stopped being a statist thing. · 4 hours ago
This is one reason why the gay lobby would oppose getting government out of marriage: they'd have a harder time suing employers or insurance companies that "discriminated" against gay couples.
Mar '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
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 it can also declare that up really means sideways, and it doesn't make it so. There is a God, and He says differently.
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 8:04pmNov '11
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
Joseph Stanko: . . . I could be mistaken, but I think what Fred is proposing here is a system where any 2 or more people who want to marry each other would hire a lawer to draw up a marriage contract for them, negociate the terms, and then the courts would enforce it like any other contract.
Basically, everyone needs a pre-nup to get married.
Is that correct, Fred?
How would a "marriage" contract necessarily differ 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?
Edited on November 9, 2012 at 8:09pmOct '12
Re: Social Conservatives, Gay Marriage, and The Future
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.
Sep '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
Conservative thought states that the family is the core unit of civilization. Better a family of two loving, caring individuals than the broken heterosexual homes that have come to dot the fruited plain these past decades.
Also, can't help but notice that once again the argument against SSM is stated on a religious basis. If you want to win on this basis, you have to start by changing hearts and minds on the individual level; simply ramming Judeo-Christian values down the throat of a culture that no longer holds these values won't work. Change the culture, then change the law.