Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
This Worldnutdaily article highlights a clear contradiction in religious right rhetoric about same-sex marriage. On the one hand, they talk about marriage as a "sacred bond" between a man and a woman; on the other hand, they talk as if the only reason anyone gets married is to get government benefits. Here they're complaining about a bill in California that would extend domestic partnership benefits to any two adults who live together.
But what do we hear from the ADF, the Thomas More Law Center and all the other religious right legal groups when they're pushing bans on same-sex marriage? "This doesn't ban domestic partnership benefits, it just means you can't give them out based on the couple being gay. You have to give them to everyone." But when legislatures try and do that, they're accused, as this article claims, of trying to pass the "last step in eliminating marriage." With rhetoric like this:
"This bill functionally abolishes marriage," warned Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families. "Why get married, since you can get all the 'goodies' of marriage without the commitment of marriage?"
Goodies? For crying out loud, when they're defending the vast array of protections and privileges that are given to married couples, they talk about how those are protections for the children and the family. Now they're just "goodies", like cupcakes given to anyone who gets married - with the attendant claim that no one will bother to get married if we don't give them cupcakes. Whatever happened to the notion that people married for love?
Gay couples want to get married for the full range of reasons that straight people want to get married. The love they feel is precisely the same, as is the commitment. And for the hundreds of thousands of gay people raising children, it's also largely about cementing themselves as a family. Yes, anti-gay bigots, these are real families. I know you think you own that word, that anyone you disapprove of can't have a family. But you don't. And it's time we took that word back.
Comments
You don't actually expect consistency from these assclowns, do you, Ed?
No need to answer, it's rhetorical...
I think a lot of these inherent contradictions come from them at least being peripherally aware of the freedoms guaranteed in the first amendment. They try to come up with secular reasons to back their religious beliefs, but when someone comes up with a law that addresses their actual secular arguments, they have to fall back on the 'sacred' speesh and religious demogoguery. (sp?)
The same thing happens with creotards and IDiots. =)
Cheers.
Posted by: Fastlane | March 17, 2008 9:47 AM
Gay Marriage = attack on marriage
Civil Unions = attack on marriage
Domestic Partner Benefits = attack on marriage
Existence of homosexuals = attack on marriage?
Posted by: dogmeatib | March 17, 2008 9:47 AM
I've been thinking for a while that maybe the government should stop recognizing "marriage" entirely, and instead should recognize benefits for families and domestic partnerships, whatever shape they might take. "Marriage" is such a loaded word, and it's all wrapped up with religion. Leave marriage to the churches and mosques, and let the government focus on the civil and secular aspects of partnerships and raising children. Whether it's two gays living together or two Christians "bound in holy matrimony" all the government would see is a domestic partnership forming a family, and offer equal benefits to both.
Of course, many on the right will claim that by not giving them special, privileged recognition, the government is "persecuting" them.
Posted by: Wes | March 17, 2008 10:08 AM
"I've been thinking for a while that maybe the government should stop recognizing "marriage" entirely, and instead should recognize benefits for families and domestic partnerships, whatever shape they might take. "Marriage" is such a loaded word, and it's all wrapped up with religion."
I agree. Marriage is necessary because you need to be able to prove in court who is and is not in your family. But all marriages should be civil unions, basically a kind of contract. If you want to have the shaman shake chicken bones at you and "bless" your civil contract, that's your private business.
Posted by: Susan Brassfield Cogan | March 17, 2008 10:43 AM
That is already the case. That's one of the meanings of the word - and for many of us, the primary meaning of the word.
Posted by: benjdm | March 17, 2008 11:27 AM
Yes, yes. And as usual when this comes up, I point out that the licensing/approving/recognition of sexual relationships ought not be on that list of benefits.
Not all people who want and need the legal protections and benefits provided by marriage want to have, or appear to have, or even legally qualify to have, a sexual relationship (such as a mother and an adult disabled son or two non-gay widows with children). There are also romantically involved couples who don't think it's any of the government's business as to whether they have sex or not.
Unfortunately, many people don't want the government to switch away from what we presently think of as marriage to a household-establishment contract with no implications of a romantic involvement. They may want either the warm fuzzies attached to the word "marriage" or else the religious implications of the term. The government ought not be in the business of providing warm fuzzies or sacred ceremonies. However, it seems extremely unlikely that with this opposition it will be possible soon to abolish marriage directly.
What is needed right now is the addition of a federal household-establishment contract with all the benefits and responsibilites of marriage except for the implicit legal approval of a sexual relationship. I think that would be possible if enough people stopped focusing on the marriage argument long enough to support it.
Posted by: JuliaL | March 17, 2008 12:06 PM
Personally, I'm not one for equivocating about the definition of the word marriage. Marriage, as a word, is too strongly linked to our cultural understanding of family relationships.
Would you rather refer to your better half as a civil partner, or as your husband or wife? Would you rather say that you and that person are married, or partners a civil union? Insisting that two people cannot get married, but instead must accept another supposedly equivalent arrangement (that will never be equal) is not only disingenuous, it's discriminatory. It's really as simple as that.
Like Ed in his position on the word 'family', I say it's high time we deny the zealots the right to define the word 'marriage' for the rest of us. It's time to take that word back also.
Posted by: BruceH | March 17, 2008 4:43 PM
Ah, but brothers and sisters (for example) cannot get the legal benefits of marriage and would still not be able to even if every state in the union accepted gay marriage. So there would still be discrimination against many, many people.
If marriage continues to exist as a government option for those who want government sanction of their romantic feelings, would you, I hope, support household establishment contracts with all the benefits and responsibilies of marriage (except for the implicit government approval of sexual activity) available for any two competent adults, without regard for whether they do/wish to/could/should have a romantic relationship?
I find it hard to understand why anybody would want the government's stamp of approval on their sex lives, but my real problem is not with those wanting to preserve "marriage" as a legal term, but with an attitude that some people's having the warm fuzzy feeling of being awarded the title "married" is more important than other people's being able to get covered by their domestic partner's health insurance.
Posted by: JuliaL | March 17, 2008 5:39 PM
JuliaL -
I can't tell you how much I would enjoy posting a piece by you on this topic at my blog.
Bruce L -
Personally, I would by far prefer to have a civil union, than partake in the institution of marriage. But no one is saying that people can't get married, just that it shouldn't be the legal standard.
Posted by: DuWayne | March 17, 2008 6:00 PM
But all marriages should be civil unions, basically a kind of contract.
Something I've been wondering a lot lately is if there is value in promoting the use of the phrase "civil marriage".
Something that really seems to trip people up is this assumption that there's two things, a religious concept of "marriage", and this thing the government does where they recognize a relationship. The people promoting the civil-unions-for-gays thing are basically trying to do an end-run around this assumption, going, well, what anti-gay-marriage people are really objecting to is homosexuality being let into their religious concept of marriage, whereas they may be comfortable with that thing the government does being more inclusive. So they set up "civil unions" as something they can focus on which encapsulates the government recognizing a marriage, but is linguistically/memetically distinct from that religious concept of "marriage".
The problem with this approach though is that the thing the government does where it recognizes relationships isn't civil unions. When the government recognizes relationships, they call it "marriage". Practically nobody selects civil unions as an option if it is given to them, even if their marriage is wholly secular, performed by a justice of the peace, etc. Unfortunately the marriage/civil union dichotomy seems to distract from this-- indeed the language seems to reinforce the idea that marriage is not "civil", not secular, civil unions are that thing the government does whereas marriages are those things religions do. I wonder, if it were framed as civil marriage versus civil unions rather than marriage vs civil unions, would that make it any more difficult for people to argue that same sex couples should only be offered one of the two options?
Posted by: Coin | March 17, 2008 7:05 PM
Uh ... as long as divorce is legal, you *can* get all the goodies of marriage without the commitment to marriage.
Posted by: itchy | March 17, 2008 9:42 PM
As I pointed out a week ago, due to their insistence on preventing gays from getting married, conservatives have done more to "weaken the institution of marriage" (at least by any reasonable criteria) than gays have, by opening up alternatives. If these people want everyone to get married, then let them all get married--including the gay ones!
Posted by: Skemono | March 17, 2008 10:50 PM
DuWayne,
I don't know that there's anything I haven't already said in one comment thread or another (or in several!), but I'll try to send you something in a few days on the household-establishment contracts.
It's hard to get attention for such a simple and inclusive idea, because, I think, people are just so used to seeing the issue as a gay/straight struggle over a word that acknowledges their special romantic connections.
Posted by: JuliaL | March 17, 2008 11:05 PM
Coin -
I think your missing the point of abolishing marriage as a legal standard by which the state recognizes relationships.
There are many people out there now, who are in platonic domestic partnerships and the number is growing. One segment is single moms who decide to set up house with other single moms. A good many of them want to provide the stability that and continuity that marriage currently affords some people.
What this abolition would do for the gay rights movement is just a side benefit. It has nothing to do with why I support it. And it most certainly is not about giving the word marriage to the fundies. Though it would give the word to people who actually care about the institution of marriage.
Practically nobody selects civil unions as an option if it is given to them, even if their marriage is wholly secular, performed by a justice of the peace, etc.
How do you know this? I am in a very marriage like, domestic partnership with the mother of my children. Neither of us has any interest in the institution of marriage, but we would like to eventually enjoy the legal rights marriage currently affords. I know of several non-traditional partnerships, some romantic, many which aren't, who would much prefer to avoid the institution of marriage.
While the majority would probably prefer to call their relationship marriage, the folks who would not, are growing in numbers. Whether they just don't think it's the states business what their relationship is based on or don't want the implication their relationship is something it's not. Others, myself included, are just incredibly jaded about the whole notion of marriage.
I am not trying to restrict anyone from getting married, I could care less. I just don't like the idea that it is the legal standard by which relationships are judged worthy of special rights and considerations. What makes my upstairs neighbor's relationship any more righteous than my own? Why is their relationship more deserving than the that of a couple of single moms who set up a household, accrue property together, raise their children together, but don't have romantic involvement? Why is their relationship inherently more deserving of these special rights, than that of a close friend who has chosen to live with and support that friend through a terminal illness and make sure that the doctors follow the patients desires, regardless of what that patients family might want?
And why should people who want those exact same rights, be required to fill out hundreds of pages of legal documentation, as apposed to a single, easy contract - like that of a marriage contract?
Posted by: DuWayne | March 18, 2008 2:34 PM