Collegiate Times

The issue of same-sx marriage really seems like a ridiculous one. It's strictly a human-rights issue and it boggles my mind that it's not seen as such. A few years from now we'll look back on this argument and be ashamed at how antiquated it feels because we couldn't see how clear-cut it is.

Actually, Peter, it's a definitional issue. There is, of course, a segment of society opposed to any sort of same-s3x union - but what most of the country seems to believe is that marriage has a 'standard definition' which is outside of the realm of a rights-based argument. A more succinct way of putting this is, marriage isn't an institution which bestows rights upon its participants. Governments place an emphasis on certain types of arrangements, and bestow benefits as they see fit. That's why civil union laws tends to be better supported by the populace than marriage laws - if all we're talking about is granting a certain set of privileges (in terms of taxation, visitation, etc.), there really isn't too much to discussion. But a redefinition of a societal concept which has existed for so long would be ridiculous. Even more directly: marriage is a purely religious concept, whereas unions are purely legal. All married people are considered to be in legal unions, and that's where the benefits come from. Why rewrite the dictionary to infer that a certain thing is something it isn't?

Good points, but I'm not sure I completely agree with the semantics Kyle. I got married in an otherwise traditional outdoor wedding presided over by the mayor of my small town, but there was no religion involved and no mention of religion. We wrote our own vows, had non-religious readings, etc. However, I'm "married" and in a "marriage." (With a man, for what it's worth...) I think a wedding can be either a civil ceremony or a religious ceremony, but in the end, getting a marriage license is having a contract between 2 people (depending on how a state defines that...) regarding property ownership, etc. Many people also choose to have a religious component.

Maybe I should have been a little more clear. Marriage, in the traditional notion, has nothing to do with government whatsoever. It isn't even a contractual relationship - because marriages only tend to work well when each party always acts in the best interests of the other. It's a communal kind of thing, not a quid pro quo type of thing. Marriages don't NEED to be religious, necessarily - they can and often are secular - but the point I wanted to make was that marriage isn't a governmental construct. The governmental construct comes in to play in terms of tax policy, adoption benefits, and other administrative things of that nature. Those things, though, are all outside of the realm of what marriage really IS. Maybe that's a little more clear? I'm opposed to redefining terms, not to legal unions.

"But a redefinition of a societal concept which has existed for so long would be ridiculous." That's what defenders of slavery said, and then defenders of "separate but equal", and then defenders of anti-miscegenation laws. It existed for centuries, so why change it? "Traditions" that discriminate are just as wrong at inception, as they are after entrenchment. Someone needs to spend a little more time outside of the cave.

Slavery means the same thing now it did then. In redefining the social mores, society did not need to redefine the concept. What you're saying is that the definition of the word is the root of the discrimination, and that's patently false. The root of the discrimination comes from the insistence of government to extend benefits to people based upon a certain social construct. Some people are recognized in that construct and others aren't - and that's why we have this discussion in the first place. Marriage is what it is because of how the term is defined, not because of what benefits the government gives you on account of it. Definitions are inherently discriminatory because they parse things into groups of 'stuff with this characteristic' and 'stuff without this characteristic.' Your argument is with the implementation of policy, not with the definition of the word. . .

"Marriage is what it is because of how the term is defined, not because of what benefits the government gives you on account of it." Wrong. Why do state statues define marriage? To make it what it is.

Nice Logic, Kyle's point is that marriage has been secularized in such a way that it exists in the eyes of the government as a collection of legal benefits and accommodations. The government really doesn't "care" if you're in love with your spouse, except that it's healthy for society as a whole if you raise a functional family. It's my contention that the government should not subsidize marriage (which is effectively what they do by providing tax breaks, health care sharing, etc.). If I had my way, we'd be talking about rescinding these benefits entirely rather than extending them equally to all united couples. In a practical setting, I do agree that all couples should have access to the same set of benefits from the government, so as long as we have them for straight couples, they should exist for gay couples as well. The point is that the government has again stuck its nose where it doesn't belong.

Speaking of the 3/5's compromise, how could I go about creating a 1/10's compromise for homos? People who spend their days scissoring and sword fighting clearly don't have the intellectual power to elect an official if they can't even understand anatomy. And kids raised by fruit loops turning out the same? I don't think so. They will surely encounter years of critisism in middle and high school.

That's not really true, Nice Logic. Take, for example, theft. Would theft exist without a government-created law to establish it? Of course it would, if we approach the issue from a natural rights perspective (life, liberty, and property). Similarly for murder. The fact that we have laws which establish certain legal definitions of things doesn't necessarily mean that the legal definition is, per se, the correct definition. Marriage, as defined legally, provides a means of extending a set of benefits to people living under a particular set of circumstances - it's a law-centric, impersonal definition. Marriage as defined commonly is quite different - it is a human-centric, intimately personal definition. I'm with Jason on this one - get the government out of the realm of marriage entirely.

Wrong again Kyle. Theft would not exist without a government created "ownership", then "deprivation of ownership." Similarly for "murder" which was defined as "homicide". It wasn't wrong until someone made it wrong through a law. It was just aggression, cannabalism, or accident...no big morality-defined-whup. When government established and encouraged "marriage", it defined it, and therefore excluded others from it. And I thought you were a strict constructionist?!?! Think of it this way. We had inalienable rights before someone listed and defined them, and in doing so, restricted them...or made them "alienable".

I'm not sure I follow you here - laws establish a codified set of rules for society, but that doesn't mean that laws provide an exhaustive list of those rules. Murder and homicide, for instance, are legally two very different things - Murder requires malice and some other facets, whereas homicide is simply causing the death of another human. The wrongness of the act stems from the principles of ethics which dictate that it is simply wrong to cause another person's death. So what we have here is that you don't believe that ethical absolutes exist - which I suppose is fine. But if that's the case, then we also have to accept that genocide is acceptable (because, for instance, the government of Rwanda didn't make it illegal for citizens to kill each other), that female genital mutilation is acceptable (because some governments legislate this), and so on.

The fact that certain rights are qualified as inalienable doesn't actually limit them in any way. You'll note, of course, that those inalienable rights we hold dear are not actually codified into law - they are written in the Declaration of Independence, which is a fantastic work of intellectual interest but has no legal merit whatsoever. Laws by definition limit rights, which is why the founding fathers created a Constitution which so specifically enumerated the powers of the Federal Government and then provided us with a Bill of Rights which explicitly lists the constraints placed on the powers granted to that Federal Government. As a strict constructionist, I hold that the government is incapable of 'granting' rights to people (because rights don't have any inherent benefits, except for the right itself) - it is capable only of limiting those rights, and providing benefits. When people say they have a 'right to marry,' what they really mean is that they want access to the benefits government offers to married people. Marriage is a purely social construct outside of the legal realm (may be secular or religious) - I only have to be "legally married" if I want the benefits the government hands out to people with that status.

Which brings me back to the overarching point, which is - why does the government extend benefits to anyone anyway? The government is a mediator between parties, with a few other explicitly defined responsibilities. Why do people keep insisting on having the government do more for them?