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February 25, 2004
All You Need Is Love (and Commitment)
So Bush has given up being above the fray and jumped in on the side of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Most people are interpreting it as an attempt to shore up his conservative base. Whether he believes in it or not, there's definitely political gain to be had. Allow me to make my stance clear: If gays want to get married, let them get married. To prevent gay marriage is discrimination, plain and simple. I don't know of a single secular, logical argument against gay marriage which makes sense (if you have one, please let me know, I'd be happy to hear from you). Every argument against gay marriage that I've heard has been basically religious- and since when has it been okay to enforce your religion upon other people? People argue for the sanctity of marriage, which to me seems quite ridiculous. Divorce, spousal abuse and adultery- those threaten the sanctity of marriage. Allowing two people who love one another and are committed to each other to enjoy the rights and protection that the law extends to married people- that hardly threatens the sanctity of marriage. What matters in a marriage is commitment. I'm not surprised that this furor has broken out in the United States. When they decriminalised interracial marriage (the so-called "miscegenation laws") courts were criticised for being arbitrary and interventionist too. Whenever liberties have been extended, whenever more people have come under the protection of law and whenever segregationist and discriminatory barriers have been torn down, there have been those who cried foul and screamed about the end of civilisation. Yet history has always shown these laws to be correct. So it's not surprising people should scream about how marriage needs to be protected. Of course, the great thing about the USA is that this furor has actually broken out. Gay marriage is illegal in Singapore, as it probably is in most places in the world. Under the Women's Charter (Chapter 353), Provision 12 states:
Singapore, not surprisingly, has no open dialogue about such issues (nor are we allowed to). I frequently wonder how conservative Singapore society is, or whether they would be liberal enough to approve of gay marriage. Posted by pj at 11:34 AM
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That was by far one one of the most well-put, straightforward statements for gay marriage. Other threats to the sanctity of marriage also include long-term cohabitation, serial monogamy and so-called "open" marriages. I believe in the US, the marriage argument largely underlies taxation, social security and (so-called?) child protection. And you are right that these are all neither moral nor religious issues and they're all policy and political in nature. In Korea, there are no laws prohibiting homosexual behavior, but it is largely a tolerance of omission. A low-brow estimated 500,000 couples (heterosexual or otherwise) cohabitate largely because no one believes in the traditional instution of marriage anymore. They have kids, they co-sign loans and are named as beneficiaries, but they are not "married". Is it sad that the debate about marriage isn't anymore about "straight" or "gay", but has deteriorated to "why bother?"
shindig spoke on February 25, 2004 08:20 PMExactly! So if gays want to get married, if anything, they are *preserving* the sanctity of marriage!
Anonymous spoke on February 26, 2004 04:38 PMhm i muz admit that i still stare at gays/lesbians when i see them, not so much becoz i don't approve of them, but becoz i don't see ppl like that very often haha. but aniweas, hm the govt claims they want to hire more gay ppl. so well, perhaps sometime in the future, we can hope that they wld legalise marriage betwn ppl of the same sex. i mean, whose business issit if these 2 ppl in love want to get married?
cArYn spoke on February 26, 2004 05:11 PMhttp://www.popagandhi.com/archives/2004/000117-say_hello_hello.php
Interesting thread, this spoke on February 27, 2004 04:17 PM"I believe in the US, the marriage argument largely underlies taxation, social security and (so-called?) child protection."
I think this is an important distinction: the marriage ARGUMENT rests on (largely) economic issues. The counter-argument ignores these and relies on moral/religious issues. Of course, neither enters overmuch into the decision to get married by most real American couples.
Modern marriage as practiced in the US is little concerned with either of these arguments.
When I proposed to my wife, the word 'Love' was bandied about quite a bit. I don't recall mentioning social security benefits or inheritance rights, nor did she preface her agreement to the proposal by saying, "since this will make our taxes easier...".
Andrew spoke on March 3, 2004 04:04 AMI'm all for domestic and legal unions - likened to common law marriages. But "marriage", semantically speaking, connotates religious meanings and traditions - most religious people don't see marriage as just a piece of paper. I don't think the various religious entities are ready to open their doors to gay marriage. So on a purely judicial and constitutional level, gay unions should definitely we recognized.
Bacon Wings spoke on March 4, 2004 04:09 PMBacon Wings, I don't deny what you say. But religions also don't force their beliefs on other people. Jewish and Muslim people don't force non-Jewish and non-Muslims to abhor pork, for instance. More relevantly, they don't force other religions or non-religious people to follow their marriage rites, or to get married in their churches or temples. So why should they be able to dictate who gets married to whom? Gays are not insisting they should be able to get married in Christian Churches, just that they can have civil weddings like other people. What's wrong with that?
PJ spoke on March 4, 2004 11:20 PM