Today Is My Anniversary
I live in London, UK, with my partner. I am a solicitor (attorney), now retired. She is a specialist clinician, a systemic psychotherapist working as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a service for children and young people with mental health problems, and their families. She is also a painter.
Today is the sixth anniversary of our civil partnership (civil union). If it had been possible, Liz and I would have registered our partnership in 1987, which is when we decided to buy a house and spend the rest of our lives together.
We are not freaks. We are just an ordinary couple who love each other and have been entirely faithful to each other for more than 25 years.
I don't want to undermine religion. I have no problem with religion, although I am not myself a believer. And I certainly don’t want to destroy the fabric of our society. I feel too much part of it to want to harm it.
What I do need, and feel entitled to expect, is the same opportunity as other people to live a normal family life. I should also like people to respect my relationship with Liz, which I am very proud of.
Does this make sense to Ricochet readers?
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Comments:
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Fred Cole: Again, I'll refer to the Wikipedia definition:
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents. Unlike guardianship or other systems designed for the care of the young, adoption is intended to effect a permanent change in status and as such requires societal recognition, either through legal or religious sanction. · Dec 22 at 5:12am
Right. All I'm saying is that it's a legal arrangement that creates kinship. So do you still think your Wikipedia definition is sufficient to define marriage? If it must, according to that definition, include adoption?
Would you say a mother who adopted her daughter is married to her? If not, then what's the definition we should use for marriage? I just think it helps to define terms when having huge debates such as this.
Feb '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Fred Cole: .....
.....
This really stuck withme. Because it made me ask the question
Does the state exist for the public or do the public exist for the state?
The difference is that in this example everyone agrees on the basic purpose of sidewalks and disagrees only on the proper placement. Where marriage is concerned, there is much disagreement, confusion, and ignorance about the purpose of marriage, whether there is a societal/state interest, why it should exist formally at all if there are no distinctions to be made, etc.
Feb '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Instead, I'd say that if marriage no longer means what it once meant, if there is no enforceable bond, if marriage is only another form of relationship (like sibling, friend, girlfriend, colleague, etc.) with little impact on anyone outside of the relationship, then it's no longer a matter of the law catching up as it is a matter of the law vanishing. After all, we don't have formal legal status for friendship, why should we have such status for sexual relationships with varying degrees of permanence and exclusivity?
Nov '10
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Claire: I agree with these examples of tolerance only if they're understood as exercises of private discretion.
The whole question here: what is public?
The Left and many libertarians demand your examples translate into full public acknowledgment -- domestication -- of homosexuality. But society can accommodate an exceptional behavior only if it understands where that exceptional behavior fits in within a greater whole or hierarchy. The argument about “the whole” (as the philosophers call it) is an argument about where everything has its place. But the liberal and libertarian argument for the domestication of homosexuality is not made on natural grounds. (Cf. John Grant’s excellent arguments in this thread). It is not based on an argument about a larger whole.
It’s therefore necessarily based on an appeal to individuality.
On the grounds of individuality, homosexuality can be domesticated only if one domesticates all things, which of course is impossible.
Edited on December 26, 2011 at 10:17amThe liberal/libertarian affirmation of homosexuality presupposes that there are no fundamental distinctions. Nature ceases to be a term of distinction. Everything is equivalent to everything else. This is precisely the “effectual truth” of teaching homosexuality to children in public schools. Nihilism pure and simple.
Nov '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
Right. All I'm saying is that it's a legal arrangement that creates kinship. So do you still think your Wikipedia definition is sufficient to define marriage? If it must, according to that definition, include adoption?
Would you say a mother who adopted her daughter is married to her? If not, then what's the definition we should use for marriage? I just think it helps to define terms when having huge debates such as this. · Dec 22 at 6:15am
I should ponder this further. Interesting question because any definition needs to include various variations.
Feb '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
It's so fascinating to me how every society, through all places and times and religions and cultures, viewed marriage as a heterosexual union based around the conception and nurture of children.
Now it's -- as Fred/Wikipedia said -- a social contract or legal arrangement between people to create kinship?
I'll ask what Gaby asked, "Does this make sense to Ricochet readers?" Do the consequences of the change make sense? I wonder. · Dec 21 at 8:10pm
No, it doesn't make sense. We don't need a formal status or even a new name for an arrangement that creates kinship: call it friendship, call it family, call it whatever you like. We're still left with society having an interest in procreation, seeing that biological parents are responsible for their creation, all the while trying to maintain a free society.
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Ed G.
Instead, I'd say that if marriage no longer means what it once meant, if there is no enforceable bond, if marriage is only another form of relationship (like sibling, friend, girlfriend, colleague, etc.) with little impact on anyone outside of the relationship, then it's no longer a matter of the law catching up as it is a matter of the law vanishing. After all, we don't have formal legal status for friendship, why should we have such status for sexual relationships with varying degrees of permanence and exclusivity? · Dec 22 at 6:24am
One of the interesting things I've learned since I began covering this debate is that the redefinition of marriage doesn't mention sex. Whereas the traditional definition is built almost completely around the conjugal act -- the joining together of the complementary sexes in union -- the new definition doesn't even suppose sex. So how is it different than friendship to begin with? And aren't we discriminating against those people who are in lifelong friendship and want that relationship recognized by the state?
Feb '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
Klaatu
Michael Labeit
Mostly because the state is nosy. · Dec 21 at 7:57pm
If civil marriage is in essence merely a invasion of privacy, why would you wish to expand the scope of whose privacy is invaded? · Dec 21 at 8:11pm
I always wonder that, too. Or if the state should be out of marriage (my own argument), how in the world does expanding the state domain over marriage help? You see how quickly we go from redefining marriage to include same-sex couples into redefining marriage to include group sexual arrangements. Some libertarian advance! · Dec 21 at 8:16pm
I've wondered that too, so much so that I started a discussion on that very topic right here on Ricochet (among other SSM discussions).
Edited on December 22, 2011 at 5:03pmNov '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
It's so fascinating to me how every society, through all places and times and religions and cultures, viewed marriage as a heterosexual union based around the conception and nurture of children.
Now it's -- as Fred/Wikipedia said -- a social contract or legal arrangement between people to create kinship?
Things change over time. Words change. Meanings change. Technology changes. Concepts change.
Marriage really has two functions: the protection of children and the preservation of capital. The reason it was historically heterosexual in nature is that, until the 20th century, we did not have reliable means for homosexual couples to reproduce. Now we do, so the concept adjusts.
I stumbled across an introduction once to a Robert Heinlein book where the editor explains what Heinlein understood that made him a master of science fiction writing:
1. Technology and/or condition change
2. Society adapts institutions and forms new ones around those changes
3. Human nature is constant
Conditions have changed, so society adapts to the new conditions. We have the technology (artificial insemination, most mothering) for homosexual couples to reproduce, and so institutions will adjust to that.
Nov '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
One of the interesting things I've learned since I began covering this debate is that the redefinition of marriage doesn't mention sex. Whereas the traditional definition is built almost completely around the conjugal act -- the joining together of the complementary sexes in union -- the new definition doesn't even suppose sex. So how is it different than friendship to begin with? And aren't we discriminating against those people who are in lifelong friendship and want that relationship recognized by the state? ·
That goes to my above point. Half a century ago we learned to reliably control reproduction, so sex matters less.
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Fred Cole
Things change over time. Words change. Meanings change. Technology changes. Concepts change.
Marriage really has two functions: the protection of children and the preservation of capital. The reason it was historically heterosexual in nature is that, until the 20th century, we did not have reliable means for homosexual couples to reproduce. Now we do, so the concept adjusts.
Perhaps change was a constant even before this decade, when marriage -- across all times and places and cultures and religions -- always referred to the heterosexual institution around the conjugal act which brings forth children.
But apart from this, you have broken huge news (to me, at least). Homosexual couples may reproduce? I am apparently under the mistaken impression that it still takes a mother and a father to reproduce! How does this work?
Nov '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
But apart from this, you have broken huge news (to me, at least). Homosexual couples may reproduce? I am apparently under the mistaken impression that it still takes a mother and a father to reproduce! How does this work? · Dec 22 at 7:07am
Please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_insemination#In_humans
Jan '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Fred Cole
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
But apart from this, you have broken huge news (to me, at least). Homosexual couples may reproduce? I am apparently under the mistaken impression that it still takes a mother and a father to reproduce! How does this work? · Dec 22 at 7:07am
Please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_insemination#In_humans · Dec 22 at 7:12am
Thank you Mollie!
Fred, even with artificial insemination a female (a mother) and a male (a father) is required for reproduction. Two human beings of the same sex cannot reproduce. That is a simple fact of human biology.
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Fred Cole
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
But apart from this, you have broken huge news (to me, at least). Homosexual couples may reproduce? I am apparently under the mistaken impression that it still takes a mother and a father to reproduce! How does this work? · Dec 22 at 7:07am
Please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_insemination#In_humans · Dec 22 at 7:12am
Well, except that article talks about artificial insemination, meaning a male and a female reproducing. With great effort!
Nov '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Klaatu
Fred, even with artificial insemination a female (a mother) and a male (a father) is required for reproduction. Two human beings of the same sex cannot reproduce. That is a simple fact of human biology. · Dec 22 at 7:22am
Yet.
But that being said, perhaps we should clarify our terms. My turn to put it to Mollie.
Mollie, whats your definition of "mother" and "father"?
Edited on December 22, 2011 at 5:08pmRe: Today Is My Anniversary
Fred Cole
Klaatu
Fred, even with artificial insemination a female (a mother) and a male (a father) is required for reproduction. Two human beings of the same sex cannot reproduce. That is a simple fact of human biology. · Dec 22 at 7:22am
Yet.
But that being said, to clarify. Perhaps we should clarify our terms. My turn to put it to Mollie.
Mollie, whats your definition of "mother" and "father"? · Dec 22 at 7:39am
Edited on Dec 22 at 07:40 am
I imagine they're the same as yours, no? Mother -- woman whose egg unites with sperm to create a child. Father, a man whose sperm unites with egg to create a child.
And every child in the world, every single child in the world, has both a mother and a father.
Feb '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
HVTs
I'd suggest you are more likely an agnostic than an atheist.
Wrong. I could say the same as to your contention that atheists, other than a small coterie of cranks, are evangelical, however I suspect that our differences on these points, as well as the others, are unbridgeable. Consequently, I would suggest that a truce, and an agreement to disagree, is in order, and the digression be terminated in the interest of the original topic of the thread.
Nov '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
I imagine they're the same as yours, no? Mother -- woman whose egg unites with sperm to create a child. Father, a man whose sperm unites with egg to create a child.
And every child in the world, every single child in the world, has both a mother and a father. ·
So you define the terms "mother" and "father" as simply DNA donors?
Feb '11
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Fred Cole
So you define the terms "mother" and "father" as simply DNA donors? · Dec 22 at 8:07am
Most of the twenty something women my wife treats have four, five, or more children, all with different last names. None of the men remain in the household longer than necessary to implant their undesirable genes. For a significant part of society, what we quaintly refer to as 'fathers' are, in fact, nothing more than itinerant DNA donors.
Re: Today Is My Anniversary
Fred Cole
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
I imagine they're the same as yours, no? Mother -- woman whose egg unites with sperm to create a child. Father, a man whose sperm unites with egg to create a child.
And every child in the world, every single child in the world, has both a mother and a father. ·
So you define the terms "mother" and "father" as simply DNA donors? · Dec 22 at 8:07am
No, but you asked in the context of a discussion about whether homosexuals can reproduce (yet). So I assumed you were asking about that. But also, I don't diminish the importance of a child being raised, ideally, by his own mother and father. And I say that as someone who is part of a couple trying to adopt more children into our family.