At least to me, this poll in the Baltimore Sun looks like a no-brainer. Which would imply that 59% of the people in Maryland have no brains. Think of the zombies, and do something to correct this problem!
Recognizing same-sex marriage
Yes
39%
No
59%
Not sure
2%
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Regardless of what they think Maryland should do, the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution states Maryland has to.
49% Yes
50% No
Keep at it!
Proud to be a DC resident in light of that council vote.
"59% of the people in Maryland have no brains."
As a MD resident, that sounds about right.The big issue facing our state is what the word "conviction" means now that the mayor of Baltimore has been "convicted" by a jury of her peers for the crime of stealing gift cards to the poor.
I voted "Yes", because I'm hoping gay marriage will bring on the rapture, and the hard-core Christians will be lifted up and taken away.
Moving
Looks like it's getting Pharyngulated...
Well, until DOMA is challenged successfully, that is up in the air.
@llewelly
Are you kidding??? We'll end up with the apolcalypse as depicted in The American Dad! (sorry, hulu only available in the US and this episode only for a limited time)
I refuse to believe this. Maryland is an EXTREMELY liberal state. But then again, so is CA.
82% at last count.
It's nice to help show online polling to be completely irrelevant, hopefully making these papers stop using them.
You know, it's interesting. Gays at least having the option to have equal civil rights, if not socially defined marriages is one of the few things outside of religion that I have never met an atheist on the same side as the religious right. There's plenty of variation on things such as climate change, politics... even anti-vaccination groups have a few. But never seen an atheist who was anti-gay rights, even if I've met a couple who think that maybe the name "marriage" should be reserved for religious unions.
I wonder why.
Recognizing same-sex marriage
The D.C. City Council voted Tuesday to allow same-sex marriage, which means many gay couples from Maryland and elsewhere may soon travel to the District to get married. Should Maryland recognize the marriages of same-sex couple who get married out of state?
*
Yes (989 responses)
81.7%
*
No (216 responses)
17.9%
*
Not sure (5 responses)
0.4%
1210 total responses
(Re
When gay marriage was legalised here, the rivers didn't run red with blood, so I guess DC will be fine. No plague of locusts, raining frogs, or sudden death of all first-borns. We didn't even get an increased number of 'mundane' disasters.
If churches don't want to marry same-sex, interracial or inter-religious couples, I'd say, "let 'em", as long as secular authorities are prohibited from denying them. Let the bigots wallow in their bigotry, and we'll just point and laugh at them.
Perhaps it's a simple civil rights issue.
And the religionistas are using their clout to prevent even civil unions to have the same rights as marriage.
If they want to reserve marriage to man/woman, I'd begrudgingly give them that, as long as the civil union or whatever it'd be called would have the same rights as marriage.
An the basis that a rose is still a rose by any other name, and all that.
Would it be unfair of me to ask whether African Americans seem more hostile to same sex marriage than whites? Balmore's a pretty black town.
Why would Maryland recognize out of state marriages if they don't those marriages to occur in state? All it would do is require people to jump through hoops to be married. I'm not making a judgment on whether gays should marry but if they don't want gays to marry then I don't see why they would create a loophole in their law.
The answer for being on the right side of history was at around 85% when this Maryland native voted.
Alyson Miers
jojame #17
You're right. Imagine, blacks thinking they can get married to whites. Just because that sort of filth is allowed in liberal states like Georgia and Mississippi is no reason why mixed racial marriages should be recognized in the great state of Maryland.
You know, I've even heard that Jews and Christians can get married in New York. Next thing is that atheists will be allowed to get married. That'll be a real blow to marriage and likely bring down our country. The barbarians are at the gates!
Yes (1381 responses) 86%
No (225 responses) 14%
Not sure (5 responses) 0%
1611 total responses
jojame,
Every homophobe I can recall seeing on TV or reading about was white.
Maryland should either recognize all marriages made in other states, regardless of the gender(s) of the participants or recognize no marriages whatsoever. Either one is fine, as far as I'm concerned, but that wasn't a choice so I went with yes.
@Grahame
I don't think thats unfair; in my experience, African and Latin culture have an unhealthy obsession with 2 things, religion and machismo. Both of those things have problems with 'teh gay', so it follows that the cultures most intrinsically linked with those two things also have problems with 'teh gay'.
However, I'm a white boy from Utah, so my experience is pretty thin.
@Tis #19
I don't think you read my post. I was saying that Maryland recognizing out of state gay marriages was about the same as legalizing gay marriage in Maryland. If you're going to pass a law recognizing the marriages then you might as well allowing gay marriages altogether.
@DaveG #21
What does that have to do with what I said.
I couldn't vote as their site redirects my mobile browser. I'm being oppressed cos I can't be arsed firing up the PC.
To clarify, I was responding to Grahame. I wonder if homophobes are skewed by skin color...
Only in your delusional mind. If it exists at all. And gay marriage should be allowed in all states as a civil rights issue. If you haven't figure that out, are a homophobe.
That "we're not going to recognize your marriage" noise is seriously craptastic! It started with the U.S. as a whole stating that it wasn't going to recognize marriages conducted elsewhere unless they would have been allowed in the U.S. Since when does one country get to piss on the laws of another? "I'm sorry, Mr. Bush, your marriage is not legal here because you didn't seal the deal with goats."
Yes (1529 responses) 87%
No (231 responses) 13%
Not sure (5 responses) 0%
1765 total responses
jojame
I did read your post. You were complaining about how Maryland might have to recognize queers' and faggots' marriages from places like Massachusetts and Iowa.
I don't think you understood my post. Just a few years ago places like Maryland didn't allow blacks and whites to get married and didn't recognize interracial marriages from places where they were legal.
As a Marylander, I think "extremely" is overstating it a bit. The western part of the state (where I grew up), as well as the southern part, is hardly a bastion of liberalism.
Will someone please relieve my ignorance? Why is it necessary for a state to make it legal for homosexuals to marry? Is there some legal precedent that says only XXs and XYs can marry each other, or is it just the crushing weight of tradition - license clerks refusing to issue papers to "those people"?
My larger question is why do we need laws to say something is OK if it was never legally not OK? I can see that harmful acts are legally banned to give the State unambiguous authority to punish transgressors, but that doesn't apply here.
I don't really know much about jojame's commenting history, but it seems to me that he was making a remark about the mindset of Maryland Lawmakers. He was saying that if they don't allow gay marriage, why would they recognize out of state gay marriages... When he clarified his post he said the following: "I don't think you read my post. I was saying that Maryland recognizing out of state gay marriages was about the same as legalizing gay marriage in Maryland. If you're going to pass a law recognizing the marriages then you might as well allowing gay marriages altogether." I'm not sure how you can assume he was either pro or anti gay marriage from either of those posts. Then Nerd of Redhead and Tis'Himself piled on him with sarcasm and bile. I really enjoy reading posts by NoR and T'H so I'm hesitant to criticize them. Has jojame been a homophobe in past posts? Maybe I'm missing something.
Text usually sucks, because it's so hard to get the proper level of sarcasm and emotional content into it. Anyway, my two cents.
PS I lived in PG County in Maryland the last three years, and moved to Alaska in August. If anything, I'd say Alaska is friendlier to gays than Maryland is...
Ultimate Delivery Option: There's a lot of past history. I wish we had a commenting system that allowed for calling up all of a single person's comments, rather than having to use the search engine for every time their name comes up.
@DaveG #32
Marriage is a legal definition defined by the state. There are certain benefits to being married. There's nothing preventing gays from going to a church or whatever and saying they're married. Marriage is more of a privilege that's given than a right that can be taken away. It's up to the state to allow that privilege to gays.
Yep. He is a confirmed homophobe, bigot, godbot, and general troll. He has no redeeming qualities.
Case in point. Marriage is a civil right, and should be available to those unmarried without concern for "race", religion, or sexual orientation, not a privilege.
Thanks Carlie!
I remember talking to my communications professor about the dynamics that emerge in these threads, and we started discussing the possibility of writing a Pharyngula equation that we could use to describe the distribution of opinions on any given thread. We talked for about an hour about how the data would be collected and possible ways to analyze it. He then asked me if I'd be interested in changing my major and moving over to his department. I said no thanks, I'll take chemistry over communication any day of the week!
FWIW, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes marriage, although it doesn't stipulate the orientation of the conjugants.
[sniff] Mmm. Brains.
The poll was something like 85/15 in favor after I voted.
Jojame:
You don't actually get a choice in the matter.
Yes: 89
No: 11
It's a dead heat.
Get it up to 90 !!!
Successfully Pharyngulated. And in record time!
Also, why are we all jumping on jojame? From what I can tell, he doesn't seem to be saying anything unreasonable. He's right. This is basically just a loophole in Maryland law that gay couples would have to jump through. They'd be much better off by simply legalizing gay marriage. Did I miss something?
Marriage is more of a privilege that's given than a right that can be taken away.
That would be completely wrong.
Voting appears to be a privilege, too. When can I expect the Christian "Moral Majority" to revoke my rights to vote because I don't believe as they do? Should I lose my privilege to drive because I don't observe the correct sacraments?
Jojame isn't talking about legalizing gay marriage; He's staying out. he's saying "Why should they make a loophole that allows the ones who married out of state to get through?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Faith_and_Credit
Because the constitution says "Fuck you, homophobes"?
Sorry to disagree with you, but I actually think the correct answer is no. Of course I also think that no governing body anywhere should recognize any marriage between anyone.
Marriage is a religious and cultural institution, government should stay away from both of those areas. Besides, the only way for EVERYONE to be equal is for NO ONE to receive special treatment or recognition.
Jojame is an idjit troll who is a wingnut, godbot, and bigot. He should have stopped posting here weeks ago. He just posts to be annoying, and rarely says anything cogent. He and his idjit troll mate Wiley are on the top of my Pharyngula Survivor list for plonking. Feel free to use him as a chew toy. He deserves no better fate.
"Marriage is a religious and cultural institution, government should stay away from both of those areas. Besides, the only way for EVERYONE to be equal is for NO ONE to receive special treatment or recognition."
This is ridiculous. The government has a vested interest in supporting and defining long term relationships.
Think differently? Think back to the reasons for Common-law marriage.
And precisely what special treatment would you be referring to?
They'd be much better off by simply legalizing gay marriage. Did I miss something?
All of it, actually. Let's use age as an example. Different states have different minimum ages for legal marriage. The law does not allow one state to void someone's marriage simply because each state's minimum ages are different. A legally couple married in Mass. (which allows gays to marry) who are in Maryland on vacation, could technically, not even be allowed in the hospital room with the other if one was critically injured (since only "family" is allowed, say), or to make decisions about their spouse's care. Simply because in Maryland, their marriage is not legally recognized. It's a huge problem.
So tell me, jojame, is it up to the state whether that privilege is recognized for hetersexuals? Why should the state have the power to make that decision for homosexuals but not heterosexuals?
I must have missed that, then.
To the bat-archives!
MDG @46
Then you would love it here in Texas. A couple of years ago, in a poorly thought out attempt to ban gay marriage, the state legislature proposed, and the voters overwhelmingly approved, a proposition that prevented the state and any governmental subdivision from recognizing any marriage or anything like a marriage (Prop 2 from around 2005 or so).
The plain language of this proposition clearly invalidates all marriages in the state, but this has not been tested in court, yet. I suppose some activist conservative judge probably will look at the impact on society rather than the letter of the law when this eventually comes before them.
We can argue forever on what a right or privilege exactly is and whether marriage fits into that definition. What I meant when I said marriage is more of a privilege than a right makes sense in context. I was answering DaveG's question on why it is necessary for homosexuals to marry. The ability to get married (in terms of receiving benefits from the state... not the religious definition) had to be created by the state.
I can't wait till gay marriage is legal, because then I can marry my goat. Right now we just have a civil union.
Be that as it may, that was not the question being asked by that poll, and frankly, that's an idiotic position. You may think the current law in unjust, but rejecting attempts to make it more just because it doesn't meet your requirements for perfectly just is asinine.
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
Hmm. Littlejohn I don't think you should subject your goat to that cruelty.
So I see jojame is here again to smack around the gays some more with great gusts of hot air. Don't you have anything better to do, jojame?
Poll results so far:
Yes (2298 responses)
90%
*
No (257 responses)
10%
*
Not sure (9 responses)
0%
2564 total responses
It always amuses me the power of the pharyngulation of a poll. Hopefully reality were that easy.
91% YES
9% NO
0% Undecided.
"This poll is not scientific" - Ha!
y rlly nd t dd cmmnt mdrtn t yr blsphmy, pz....
http://thskpthmnst.cm/vwtpc.php?f=2&t=90
hw w dmlshd th ntr thst mvmnt....
http://www.ytb.cm/wtch?v=ssFIhJkLsk
GTS N FR!
91%
I just heard on a Christian tv program asking the viewers to enjoy a proper and appropriate family. I was tempted to say "you mean one involving polygyny, incest, and child sacrifice?", but there was no one to hear me.
th grtst fn f ll s sng thst blgs t cnvrt thsts!
nw tht's chllng....
y rlly nd t dd cmmnt mdrtn t yr blsphmy, pz....
http://thskpthmnst.cm/vwtpc.php?f=2&t=90
hw w dmlshd th ntr thst mvmnt....
http://www.ytb.cm/wtch?v=ssFIhJkLsk
GTS N FR!
There was only one valid answers available.
I clicked it, and hope Maryland will find its way into the 21st century.
@ MDG #46
Whatever YOU think what marriage is or not, there are a bunch of legal consequences resulting out of the two possibilities, a couple is married or not married. Setting marriage rights IS a section of state law and therefore the individual state has the responsibility to grant this status to everybody asking for it.
This is America! You can NOT deny other people rights you want to enjoy yourself!
Gays want the same rights and responsibilities heteros enjoy for several decades now. Like everyone else does who loves.....nothing special about it. Really.
y rlly nd t dd cmmnt mdrtn t yr blsphmy, pz....
http://thskpthmnst.cm/vwtpc.php?f=2&t=90
hw w dmlshd th ntr thst mvmnt....
http://www.ytb.cm/wtch?v=ssFIhJkLsk
GOATS ON FIRE!
Goats on Fire! I see that they weren't kidding about that!
Great, this always ends up screwing up the numbering, and makes following the conversation weird.
I do so love the Goats On Fire! line though. Does anyone know what this is referring to? And does he realize that he was being made fun of about this only recently?
"Yes" is up to 92 percent now. A massive defeat for Christianity!!!!! Go, Americans, straight and gay alike!!!!!
Allll riiiight! Posting is open! I tried a couple of ways to sign up but couldn't get it to work. Life is too short to do endless battle with dumb machines/blog sites, not when there is drinking, wenching, drinking, eating, drinking, computer gaming, drinking ...
Uh, I think I'll put the bottle of wine in the refrigerator and get ready for bed.
y rlly nd t dd cmmnt mdrtn t yr blsphmy, pz....
http://thskpthmnst.cm/vwtpc.php?f=2&t=90
hw w dmlshd th ntr thst mvmnt....
http://www.ytb.cm/wtch?v=ssFIhJkLsk
GTS N FR!
One more comment, after reading some comments.
There is no secular basis of any kind behind bigotry and discrimination against homosexuals. It is purely religious in origin in this country, based on Bible passages. As such, putting discrimination against gays in the law or any government policy is a violation of the First Amendment ban on an establishment of religion. Letting heterosexuals marry (and enjoy all the legal benefits of marriage) while barring homosexuals from marrying is strictly, solely religious in origin. It is religious bigotry and an establishment of religion, so it is a First Amendment violation.
I have not read of this argument being used in any court cases, but that's the real basis of such discriminatory laws and policies, so any judge who acknowledged this (or members of Congress or presidents ... hint, hint) would be dutybound to strike down such laws/policies.
http://www.cnsprcycf.nt/frm/ndx.php?/tpc/25104-thst-pclyps/pg__pd__1178…
GTS N FR!
It's like a troll has been succussed to the point where it has been concentrated into an ogre.
said the fuckwit who's never bothered to research the topic. Marriage is legally recognized as a basic, fundamental civil right, not a privilege. Your reading assignments:
Skinner v Oklahoma
Loving v Virginia
Zablocki v Redhail
I take comfort in the compassion of rational people (fellow atheists) who speak out against the forces of true evil (the godbots and idjits of the world) in defense of the right of all consenting adults to marry whomever they choose. It's good to feel a bit less of an outsider.
Marriage is a civil institution, whether it's a religious one as well is irrelevant. One of the many useful things marriage does is to defend the right of couples of different nationality to live in the same country, in the face of immigration laws that are far less friendly than people sometimes think. That's one right that gay couples are currently deprived of.
Oh no! Those poor goats!
Butch Pansy, nice 'nym!
Well, that poll had been well and truly Pharyngulated by the time I voted.
I'm loving the whole Goats on Fire meme. In an effort to reduce my swearing, I am trying to use that instead of my usual run of four-letter words.
I get some really strange looks from work colleagues when I suddenly bellow "GOATS ON FIRE!" when I'm annoyed.
The anti-gay rights bigots like to make the slippery-slope argument on gay marriage. They say, "If you allow Teh Gays to get married, then what's next, fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters, dogs and cats?"
We've never understood why they don't follow their twisted logic through to its final conclusion, which is that any kind of marriage, including traditional hetero marriage, lies on that same slippery slope.
If they were honest, then, they'd be fighting to outlaw all forms of marriage.
MDG,
Who says so ?
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship.
I should know better than to get into this. This is one of those topics about which Pharyngula readers can be as dogmatic as a priest on Sunday.
I should know better, but I don't.
The word marriage as it is usually used does not include so-called "gay marriage." Neither the laws that now exist nor the legal precedents in question so much as considered the question of if marriage would be considered a fundamental civil right if the definition of the word were to change.
And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about changing the definition of a word, forcing the state through a simple feat of linguistic tomfoolery to extend its sanction to a new institution without either existing tradition or known practical merit and to a life-style which the state has no legitimate interest in supporting.
Civil Marriage is a right as held (more or less incidentally) by Loving v. Virgina only as long as it is defined in the sense the court was using. That very narrow sense of the word provides for nearly all the current restrictions on "marriage": Marriage may not be multiple. It must be between parties of legal age to consent. It must be between persons of complimentary sex.
The remaining restriction, that it cannot be between persons of too close relation, is objectively an intolerable injustice if you consider marriage as a fundamental civil right. There's not even a reasonable argument against it, just an old taboo, and yet I see no movement for striking down the laws which prevent sibling and cousin marriage. Maybe cousin-lovers just aren't a significant-enough group to draw attention.
I have nothing against homosexuals as people, and I view the establishment of homosexual marriage as both inevitable and tolerable, but the argument that it is a fundamental human right has no foundation whatsoever, and reasonable people may disagree on whether such an institution has any merit worthy of the sanction of the state.
Meanwhile, arguing that a state should recognize so-called marriages that exist outside the definitions both they and the Federal Government hold to is simply insane.
Maryland should recognize gay marriages from other states if and only if it recognizes gay marriages of any sort.
Legion @82, a very good point!
Slippery slope arguments usually = changing the subject or moving the goalposts. But I wanted to express agreement with Jedibear. It seems unfair to deny same-sex partners such benefits as family plan insurance coverage, rights of inheritance, hospital visitations, etc. & it also seems unneccessarily confrontational to insist on the word marriage. Is there such a thing as a 'common-law civil union'?
Very disappointing to see you defending bigotry, JediBear.
I happen to know cousins who are legally married in the USA. Of course, they are a hetero couple so nobody gives two shits about it.
The short version on Marriage is thus: If you codify a difference into law, you are asking for that difference to be exploited.
You /could/ change the entire legal institution to Civil Union and make the term "Married" be culturally, but not legally relevant. You just can't codify a difference in standing within the law.
Marriage gives certain legal rights, privileges and responsibilities everywhere in the world. Maryland has no problem recognizing a married heterosexual couple's marriage from a Third World country. However they don't recognize a gay couple's marriage from Massachusetts and would deny this couple the benefits of marriage even while recognizing a heterosexual Bumfukistani couple's marriage benefits.
Some time ago Maryland would not recognize a mixed racial couple's marriage. That lack of recognition got shot down in the courts. Probably something similar will have to happen before Maryland, and most other states, recognize a GLBT marriage.
GOATS ON FIRE!
How about the word "human"? How far are you going to take your bigotry, Clay Casserole?
Marriage is an international concept; it is not something defined within the US only. The US can call it what it wants, but it cannot control what the world calls it.
Maryland is obligated through internal treaties that the US has ratified to reciprocate the recognition of marriages.
That includes foreign marriages that are atheist, or gay.
Also, marriage requires mutual consent. Goats can't do that.
s/internal treaties/international treaties/
Quick questions:
Do you really think the bigots will be satisfied by giving equal rights to homosexual couples, just with the name changed?
If we regard marriage as a package of rights (and obligations), and the gay version of it is exactly identical, what's the point in naming it differently?
And Heaven forbid that we be confrontational! Why, next thing you know, we may become strident , and after that it's a slippery slope to mean !
Crap, I knew I forgot something. Does uppity come before or after strident ?
it also seems unneccessarily confrontational to insist on the word marriage.
Oh, noes! When the queer said, "equal" we actually meant equal!
If we regard marriage as a package of rights (and obligations), and the gay version of it is exactly identical, what's the point in naming it differently?
Because then straight folks couldn't maintain their superiority. After all, what's the point of establishing a parallel legal institution that is nearly identical other than to segregate the new group into a new "separate and equal" institution. Civil Unions are, at their core, actions of heterosexual supremacy, complete with the self-serving paternalism that says, "Look how tolerant we are of our gays. Why can't they be satisfied with our largesse?"
neon-elf wrote:
Happy monkey, what a great idea! And it would be a way for atheists to identify each other, kinda like a secret handshake.
Forbidden Snowflake, I always start at uppity, and work my way up (or down??) from there. =)
I'm trying to convince my wife to go along with referring to each other as 'civil partners'. Then when people ask why we aren't married, we can say it's the exact same thing.
I doubt they'd get the clue....
I'm extremely proud of the District (I work there, and practically live there) for getting past this ancient, bronze-age discrimination.
There is NO reason, aside from religion, to deny equal rights to homosexual persons in America. I'm a straight guy myself, but I'm what you could call an inclusionist. I cannot understand why anyone should be discriminated against, for any reason - religion, race, gender, sexual preference, sexual identity.
I'm kind of disappointed more hasn't been made of this in the higher-ups, Congress and Presidential levels.
Oh, and @littlejohn - Your fallacy is showing. Slippery slope is slippery.
JediBear wrote:
If changing the definition of a word is simply too too impossibly difficult for states to accomplish, then let's abolish the roadblock of "marriage" as a state-sanctioned institution and have the states only legally regulate civil unions of both heterosexuals and homosexuals.
As far as changing "existing tradition," well, gee, the states managed, albeit with a bit of kicking and screaming, to change the tradition of who could vote, own property or even practice law. Seems to me that the states are perfectly capable of changing "existing tradition," either because the lawmakers lead the way, or because the lawmakers are forced to do so by public opinion or court decision.
The "practical merit" of the state sanctioning same-sex marriages are exactly the same as the state has with different-sex marriages.
Legally, with the US Constitution's full faith and credit clause, Maryland's recognition of same-sex marriages from out-of-state shouldn't even be an issue. The Defense of Marriage Act which the states use as a excuse, is an ugly, bigoted, and unconstitutional stain in the federal law.
I'm a long-time Maryland resident and believe we have nothing to fear and much to gain by not only recognizing same-sex marriages from other states and countries, but by legalizing it outright.
The 'Yes' vote is dropping!
79% YES
20% NO
O jeez, now I'm a bigot. At the risk of getting into even hotter water, let me try again. I am in favor of granting all the civil rights pertaining to the married state to same-sex unions. I personally don't care if that extends to the use of the word 'marriage'. But for many opponents of equal rights, that word has a dog-whistle effect. Why not drop the insistence on the term 'marriage' if the more concrete civil rights are granted?
FastLane:
Good for you! You are definitely at the confrontational-going-on-strident range already.
As far as bizarre marriage restrictions go, I would have to say my country takes the cake, as here, marriage really is a religious institution (not in a pretend way, like in USA), and woo-free or interfaith couples have to get their marriages done abroad and officially recognized upon return.
@JediBear: you know, part of the definition of many social constructs used to involve gender: policeman, fireman, voter. We normally treat it as an advance when this bias is removed from the equation.
Why are so many people getting their knickers in a twist over something as harmless as using a word in a gender-neutral way? I mean, it can't be bigotry, because you have nothing against homosexuals as people. That's nice.
jojame @54:
I think you misunderstood his question. He wasn't asking why homosexuals needed the right to marry. He was asking why we needed to explicitly legally grant such a right to homosexuals as a group: don't they have the right just as much as heterosexuals, and the issue is that they're being illegitimately barred from exercising it?
Loving v Virginia didn't legally grant new rights to interracial couples; it determined and declared that laws explicitly denying them certain rights weren't valid. (Well, I may be wrong on the details there, but this is the angle I think DaveG is coming from.)
This is what "equal protection under the law" is about. You don't extend a right to a new group, you recognize that its restriction from them was wrong to begin with.
@Clay Casserole:
Changing the terminology won't do anything. "Pro-family" proponents will still attempt to keep homosexual couples from receiving equal benefits. If marriage is a fully religious term and civil union forms the basis of laws, benefits, and such, then you won't see people protesting gay marriage, you'll see them protesting gay civil unions.
Pro-family protesters don't care about marriage, really, what they want is for it to be impossible for a gay couple to receive equal treatment under the law that they do. It's bigoted, it's insensitive, and they parade it under a flag of "keeping marriage sacred" but really it's just "keepin' them queers out of mah country"
The godbots are up and running - "Yes" is down to 68% with votes coming in at ca. 20/min
The empire is striking back at the Baltimore Sun poll. Yes is down to 68%.
I saw a David Sedaris show earlier this year that included his observation that voting on whether gays should be allowed to marry makes as much sense as voting on whether Mexicans should be allowed to celebrate xmas. The western Maryland crowd roared.
69% (*immature snicker*) yes!
@94, 95:
Are we shrill yet?
Someone is massively counter-pharyngulating the poll. No is back up to 31.2%.
Oops - looks like the poll is getting godbotted. The numbers are starting to shift rapidly.
Yes (5144 responses) 68.6%
No (2341 responses) 31.2%
Not sure (16 responses) 0.2%
7501 total responses
Yeah, we're so dogmatic in insisting that teh gheyz be allowed all the same civil rights as straights under the law. After all, it's not like these are real people trying to live their lives or anything.
And that is a condition which puts some couples at a needless disadvantage and which therefore must change.
The dictionary does not need your protection.
Fuck tradition.
Right. All those same-sex couples don't need to have the legal protection of civil marriage extended to them! There's no practical merit in legally recognizing their relationships!
So what you're saying is, as far as the state's concerned, all those same-sex couples can just as well not exist, as their "life-style" is inferior.
Except for their "lifestyle" which the state has "no legitimate interest in supporting."
We're so grateful for your tolerance.
(Alyson Miers)
Yes votes are down:
I like that last bit in brackets.
@110:
Hmmm... Hard to say. We're already kind of rude, so we'll definitely be shrill soon, and by then, we'll be halfway to militant! Yay!
I don't know where I heard this but:
"The problem with tradition is that it assumes somebody got it right the first time."
The Virginian and Kevin....word.
Well, this story has managed to make me a bit sad and disappointed in both my current state, Maryland, and Utah, where I grew up. Why disappointed in Utah you ask? Rep.Jason Chaffetz R-UT will be leading up the effort in the house to overturn the council vote. In other news, the Senate Homeland Security Committee approved a measure extending employee partner benefits to same-sex partners on an 8-1 vote. The sole dissenting vote, Sen. Robert Bennett, wait for it, R-UT. Go Utah congress critters, remind me why I'm glad I don't live there anymore.
redmonster/Alyson Miers: Word also.
I'm not a person with strong moral sensibilities, nor a deeply felt sense of social justice*. However, whenever I hear a person making the argument that homosexual marriage is not a right, or should be illegal, ALL I can think is "Asshole". Ok...sometimes I think, "what a dick/douchebag/sackoshit/fuckwad/fascist"...the gist is the same.
[it's a privilege, not a right]....What are you, a driver's ed. instructor? This is the most retarded argument I have heard yet. A right is anything that we demand and have codified in a constitution. Currently the right to marry is not protected in the US Constitution. If we demand it, and fight hard enough for legislation, it will be a right, and "states' rights" proponents can stick it in sideways.
*Just a few of my flaws.
Because it's a monumentally bad idea for a couple of reasons.
First, all the laws, insurance contracts and hospital policies, among others, are written with the terminology of marriage, husband, wife, spouse, etc. Granting gays the ability to marry automatically opens up all these things that heterosexual couples have enjoyed for a very long time, and any institution that wants to discriminate against them will have to go out of their way to do it. I can't imagine too many hospital or insurance company administrators who would be willing to deliberately rewrite all their policies for the sole purpose of excluding gays. At the very least it would be a PR nightmare.
Second, the entire point of the movement is to send a clear message that discrimination based on sexual orientation is not to be tolerated. The clearest, best way to do that is to take the existing institution, unmodified, and open it up to gays. Change the terminology and I guarantee you the bigots will still be calling themselves "married" and insist that gays aren't "really married". It creates a "separate but equal" system even if it isn't codified in law.
Third, the opposition has couched themselves in a blatantly false position of "protecting marriage" and you want to hand them a bill that abolishes it? Yes, I know it doesn't really abolish marriage, but that's not what the sound bites will say. It's bad enough they're making shit up to hide their bigotry in an effort to convince other more reasonable people to oppose it. We don't want to make it easier on them.
Lastly, changing the words used didn't stop racism, what makes you think it will work for gays? One of the most effective things the gay community did to start the movement was to take back the epithets and make them positive: "We're here, we're queer. Get used to it." Changing the terminology doesn't change the attitude.
No, you keep the word "marriage" and make it open to everyone.
The definition defense is the last stand of bigots feigning pragmatism. If you're not one then why join them?
As for why just a label makes a difference, you really don't have to look much farther back than the 1960s where "miscegenation"—just a word—was illegal for hetero couples. How did one determine if a couple were of different races at that time? Any such metric would be ludicrous no doubt. It was all about the pair having visibly different skin color or being publicly known to have differently pigmented family lines at some arbitrary point.
The way that humans irrationally form hate groups based on visible characteristics like skin color is well known. Frontline has a great feature called A class divided (link) that shows how easy it is to foster these kinds of hate groups. Creating a separate label for gays would do nothing to neutralize the existing hate groups and might even breed more while giving the existing ones a greater feeling that their hate is justified. We saw this happen for couples with different levels of pigmentation already. Why would gays want to repeat that piece of sordid history? If they are going to hate, they can do it on their own terms, not on legal terms.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg that creating a separate label for same-sex marriage would be. There are other things I can think of. How about this: which kind of marriage should a bisexual or transexual or homosexual person get who switches from a same-sex marriage to an opposite-sex marriage or vice versa? You would have to write up a whole new set of laws for crossing that legal divide.
How about the fact that you would have to rewrite every law in every government in the USA that deals with "marriage" to include the new same-sex marriage label, otherwise it would be a lie that same-sex marriage under the new term is equal to "marriage". If you are going to have to go through that, then you might as well reform marriage completely top to bottom or maybe drop it altogether, but that is not realistic in the short term.
Lively conversation! I appreciate those people who are posting updated results to the poll. I can't seem to find the poll online at The Sun, but I live in Maryland so this may explain my mental deficiencies. But seriously, Maryland is generally a more liberal state near the urban areas, but not at all in the rural or western counties. So if the poll ends up showing a final 60/40 split I would say that about sums up sentiments in this state about this sort of issue. Try this poll in Kansas. Then you can jump to conclusions and say that an entire state of people have no brains.
EEK! votes are falling!
Yes 67%
No 33%
8,543 total votes
People who want to reserve marriage for mixed-sex couples like to talk about "the word as it is usually used." Maybe in their part of the world: in mine, when a friend of mine says "my wife" everyone knows what she means, as as we do when a man says the same thing.
Concerns over changing the law to allow gay marriage, or creating separate-but-equal classifications, are misdirection, obfuscation, and distraction
The law wasn't changed to allow interracial marriage. It was clarified that denying them was unconstitutional.
Prohibitions on allowing gay marriage are unconstitutional under the at least the first and fourth amendments.
Creating rules that specifically allow them support the false assumption that states have the authority to make them illegal in the first place.
An ideal test case would be a foreign-married US Citizen gay couple in the US, incurring some incident in which denial of spousal rights causes harm. But maybe a more balanced supreme court is needed first.
I am going to veer a bit off topic here. The Rwandan Parliament is going to vote on a bill to criminalize homosexuality. Funny thing, Rwanda is an other African nation that Rick Warren has declared to be "purpose driven". I am expecting Rick Warren to pull out his Pontius Pilate impersonation yet again and wash his hands of the situation.
Is there some sort of Anti-Pharyngula somewhere on the interwebs? The votes are falling!
I thought "full faith and credit" was pretty obvious too.
Here in New York, we're mostly honoring it (not for state tax filings, and there might be other exceptions). A side effect of that is a lot of people getting married in Greenwich, Conn.: the closest bit of that state to New York City.
But New York shouldn't be the only place in the United States that can figure this one out.
Normally, I'm a reader of the comments, and hardly ever comment myself. However, it's things like blatant stupidity and homophobia that really make my blood boil. It truly is a SIMPLE question - should rights be equally applied?
The answer is obviously yes. No matter what trappings you wrap around the question, from clever to inane, the question remains the same.
However, I disagree that this is a poor reflection on Maryland - it's more of a poor reflection on how people can feel free to be as bigoted as they want on the anonymous internet.
I love my home state, and love Baltimore, even though it's one of only a few places where you can be anywhere in the city, walk five blocks in any direction, and still be at the scene of the crime...
Joejame spewed:
Actually, the thing in question is whether or not the state can provide legal protections and benefits like community propery, child support rights, alimony rights, and health care decision rights to gay people. Whether or not you view marriage as a privlidge makes no difference.
According to the 14th amendment "No state shall deny to any of it's citizens equal protection of the law". So once the state provides legal protections and rights to one segment of society they cannot deny those same protections from another segment of society.
So banning gay marraige is both bigoted and unconstitutional. The anti-same sex marraige people are scared to death to bring this to the supreme court because the 14th amendment is so clear. They would rather keep it at the state level and use religious dogma and bigotry to their advantage.
@JediBear and the rest of the posters that are hung up on their definitions of "marriage":
Curious what you call the institution Solomon was involved in...he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. In your (personal) narrow definition of "marriage" he would only have 1 wife, 699 non-recognized-live-ins, and 300 concubines? I believe it was called "marriage" and not "polygamist marriage", or even "polygamist heterosexual marriage". So why do you insist on placing caveats or separate labels on homosexuals when they get married?
Methinks you are the one involved in "linguistic tomfoolery" and are trying to disguise your homophobic attitude with these "linguistic gymnastics" (I like this better than "tomfoolery") to make you seem more tolerant.
Got an error message when I tried to vote. There may be trouble at mill server.
The Sodomite apostles of Darwin think that by making the acts of buggery and cunnilingus sanctified by judges makes them equal to Christian marriage. It does not. The act of buggery does not produce new human life, but only viral and bacterial life. Christians create new life while evolutionists only spread the AIDS virus. Savor your small victories Darwiniacs, but it is the Christian hand that rocks America's cradle and will eventually take her back!
The Darwinian domination of the schools, the media, and the judiciary is a brittle shell breaking down against the tide of the Christian's overwhelmingly superior numbers!
Awww, Toidel brings the Poe! Hee hee!
Fellow Human Toidel Mahoney.
It is difficult I know. Find a friend. Sit them down. And say clearly. "I need help". It is worth it.
I have nearly always (20+ years) referred to mrs daveau as the Spousal Equivalency Unit, SEU, the Spousal Unit, or just The Unit. Which I may have gotten from a book on political correctness by PJ O'Rourke. And, aside from the humor value, for me it has always been an expression of solidarity with those who are not allowed to be married. Of which the spousal unit and I know quite a few.
WTF is with the backsliding on the poll?
Dontcha just love it when a godbot abandons it's "morally superior" argument and goes with the "WE SHALL BURY YOU" argument?
Sorry, godbot, but those of us who advocate for our human rights hardly need to appeal to Darwin. Argue on the topic, not your fevered dreams.
Is that what this is about? Fine. Drop your pants, I'll get a ruler and we'll settle it once and for all.
When the santorum from saddlebacking seeps into the right orifice, it certainly can spawn new human life.
What? Raving fundy Christians are opposed to cunnilingus, too?
(/Man. I just naturally assumed that nasty stereotype of them being just incredibly boring and just incredibly bad in bed was just some nasty rumour spread by eeeevil secularist evolutionary biologists... I never expected to hear it from the horse's--apparently sadly unimaginative, unpracticed and unskilled--mouth.)
I agree with redmonster - has to be a poe. For one, it's probably too well written to be a hate-spewing christian.
Fixed. :P
"Separate but equal" worked so well for education, let's extend it to marriage!
</sarcasm>
Thank you so much, Toidel Mahoney. Over-the-top humor is exactly what this thread needed.
Abiogenesis!
_____________<;,><_____________
How dare those godbots attempt to defy a good Pharyngulation?
(And I never understood the logic behind having an option like "Not sure" - if you're unsure, why vote?)
Kevin @ 106:
Unfortunately, you are mostly right. Up here in Canada we have "gay marriage" but for us, a civil union is performed by a legal clerk and a marriage is performed by an ordained minister (of any religion). Both clerk and minister have to pass the same training, sign the same forms, etc etc. Everything is equal except that the title of marriage is left up to the religions (even then, their forms are the same). A minister can refuse to perform a religious marriage, however in his duty as a legal clerk, he cannot refuse to perform a civil union. Most that disagree with gay marriage "have other plans for that day" when they're asked to perform a civil union ceremony, but there's clerks on duty at the city offices and so that couple can then just go there and book one of the clerks on duty for the day of their marriage. It's not the best system, because the ministers still get to ignore their legal obligation, but there's no way to determine if they've actually got other obligations so *shrugs*
We've still got protests over "gay marriage". We've still got people who don't want homosexual couples to get civil unions. The main difference is that their prejudice and intolerance is much more obvious because we've had gay unions for a few years now and they can't say that children are being co-opted in schools or that the sacredness of marriage is being corrupted. They just have to protest that they think gays shouldn't have the same civil rights because giving them their due rights is "supporting sinful behaviour".
MAJeff @96:
See my response to Kevin above. It is possible to have civil unions that aren't so much a separation of homosexuals/heterosexuals as it is leaving "marriage" to religions. People can even get religiously married without the civil rights, if they don't get an accredited minister. I agree that just making up civil unions and having them be a separate but legally equal entity could be harmful, but replacing marriage with civil unions and then letting the religious have marriage and dictate who they want to "marry" while knowing that it isn't legally any different seems to be working. There are actually plenty of homosexual couples being religiously married at the more tolerant of churches. The only difference between the two is that a priest can refuse to perform a religious ceremony but not the legal one. He can do this based on any tenets, so although it is discrimination, it doesn't change the legal options for couples of any gender, race or creed.
JediBear, and others, read Boswell's excellent book, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe:
http://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Unions-Premodern-Europe-Boswell/dp/06797…
It is extremely well researched and enlightening. It demonstrates that the practice of having the State recognize legal unions originated with gays.
You can also check out: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04353r.pdf
I hope this has been instructive.
Samantha, you're wrong about Canada. As a gay woman who got married here, I got MARRIED - you go down to the government access centre and buy a marriage license just like everyone else. Civil marriage is still marriage, for straights and gays, the churches don't own the word and folks who have the ceremony performed by a marriage commissioner are just as married as those who get married by a minister, it's the same paperwork too. The marriage vs civil partnership split is in the UK, and there's a straight couple over there now going to court for the right to get a civil partnership.
There seems to be this weird thing happening in Samantha's post that happens in all sorts of posts. Here's an example:
I agree that just making up civil unions and having them be a separate but legally equal entity could be harmful, but replacing marriage with civil unions and then letting the religious have marriage and dictate who they want to "marry" while knowing that it isn't legally any different seems to be working
What is working? Canada has civil marriage. A civil union is NOT a secular marriage, it is an entirely different legal institution. Those same-sex couples who go to the appropriate civil authority for the license and fill out the appropriate paperwork, etc. are MARRIED--whether a clergy member or civil clerk performs the ceremony. My aunts got a marriage license in Vancouver, BC. They got a civil union in Vermont. A legal marriage without a clergy member is still a marriage. The absence of a clergy member does not demote the relationship to civil union status. Those are two different legal structures and it would be helpful if people stop confusing what they are.
Well then maybe the city here is getting things wrong because they keep calling it a civil union in all their online literature. I apologize for being confused, but everything I've read (and yes, only in the city I'm in) says that if you do it civilly, it's a civil union and if you do it religiously, it's a marriage. I'm aware it's the same paperwork and there's no legal difference... they just refer to the civil ceremony as "civil union" and the religious as "marriage" (I.E. "If you would like a civil union, you may apply for a licence and book a time to meet with a clerk and perform the legal ceremony. If you would like a marriage, you must apply for a licence and contract with a minister of your choosing to perform both the legal and religious ceremonies")
Apparently my city is either very stupid or have very poor copy-editors.
Samantha, where do you live, which province? My example and MAJeff's are both from BC. Sounds like you're somewhere that's trying to pretend there's some special legal status to church weddings.
Someone needs to be fired wherever the city is Samantha is talking about.
It sounds like there are some very ignorant people in Samantha's city, but ignorant is a very not-unusual way.
Ducks.
These people who keep appealing to tradition: did you pay a bride price? No? WTH, sounds like you're COHABITATING.
These people who keep appealing to the bible: polygyny, sex with slave girls, raping a woman then buying off her father--all okay? And if your brother dies without leaving an heir, you realize it's your duty to knock up your sister-in-law? Btw, it's not all fun and games b/c this will disinherit you. HAND.
Am I correct in noticing this issue boils down to two things?
DEATH and TAXES
(And BTW, I realized long before this thread that abolishing all marriage was too hard, so I am in favor of same-sex marriage.)
And to avoid getting yelled at, the parts of marriage about larger society (e.g. heritability complexities), not the emotional recognition between individuals (e.g. visitation rights) are what I would like to see removed.
Kevin @ 106:
Case in point: Seattle's Referendum 71, which is basically "everything but marriage", won but it still had 48% against it.