I'd like to expand on some of the comments to Jon's post.
The authors of this proposal do not accept the premise of gay marriage because it is inconceivable that the category of "marriage" could include same-sex couples. Anyone who even thinks such a thing is a "revisionist" rather than a "traditionalist." Marriage simply is "a community of husband and wife founded on a bodily union whose natural fulfillment is the conception of a child."
The compromise, then, is to create a new legal category entirely for same-sex couples, but one that includes any other couples who are not a community of husband and wife founded on a bodily union whose natural fulfillment is the conception of a child. Revisionists would leave the category of marriage alone, and obtain their rights as a couple under the law through inclusion in this new grouping.
In commenting on Jon's post, esurience says this lumps gay relationships with incest and platonic relationships. Rob chimes in that this "seriously debases same-sex relationships to the level of friendships and blood relations."
I couldn't agree more. The question is whether committed, adult same-sex relationships are more like aging sisters who share a home or an opposite-sex married couple.
The authors of this proposal are quite honest that they find it impossible to view same-sex couples in the category of marriage. But if these are the two categories offered: aging sisters or married couples, I'm betting more Americans who don't already have an opinion, would view same-sex couples as more like the married couples than the sisters. With apologies to the traditionalists, the days when a majority of Americans simply closed their eyes to the loving - and sexual - relationships of same-sex couples are coming to an end.
There is no need to go so far out of our way to invent an entirely new category of relationship whose only point seems to be to grant same-sex couples some kind of rights while not acknowledging them in law as same-sex couples. The attempt - with its obvious administrative knots and hurdles, not to mention its unnecessary costs to both government and business - is a relic of a time gone by, with an appeal only to those who continue to think Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a good idea. The nation is talking about same-sex marriage not only because gays have asked, but because Americans are willing and ready.
The problem with this proposal is not that it is not a compromise - it clearly is - but that it misses the point of the conversation everybody else is having.
10 Comments for “Sisters?”
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Amen.
posted by everett on
I completely agree wiht Mr. Link. I have never understood the “debasing” of homosexual relationships by equating them with just any other non-romantic, but dependent relationship (like the aging siblings example). If anything, I think that to create such an institution (a registry, perhaps) to include both romantic same-sex couples alongside pairs of aging siblings, etc. actually makes the conservative, Christianists’ “slippery slope” argument valid because then government is indeed recognizing a form of incestuous relations like that of mother and child, two brothers, etc. because the government would not know whether those relationships were indeed romantic and sexual or platonic.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
I can’t believe how this issue gets so LOST, when the basic rules of marriage are few and simple.
Blood relatives, with NO SPOUSE, assume responsibility of each other.
They are the first to inherit, the first to take custody of each other’s children and property.
The state RECOGNIZES those relationships!
The state doesn’t refuse crucial information, decisions or property FROM established close kin.
Marriage, is the status that brings NON related people together AS first of kin.
It is the spouse who has ALL the duty and recognized status from NO relation at all.
Marriage began as a means of qualifying that blood kin, combining assets and families who otherwise WOULDN’T be.
Marriage was a means of DEFINING different families and who belonged to who.
That’s what made virginal marriage so important, as well as enduring marriages.
Bloodlines could get confusing, otherwise.
Bachelor brothers or sisters, have all the benefits of inheritance and state recognition of their RELATIONSHIP without conflating it with gay romantic couples.
Who, NOBODY wants to recognize as having a relationship with each other AT ALL.
No matter how long, how well, how loving.
So gay couples ARE equivalent to hetero couples if you’re looking at their relationship.
posted by TS on
I will work under the assumption 2-person unions ought to somehow be considered better by the government (see my comment on the previous post for a full elaboration on that.)
Interestingly enough, there’s not too much of a difference between the legal rights people might want from the government for being in a sexual versus non-sexual close relationship. First inheritance, first child custody, power of attorney, next of kin contact, perhaps even redress of economic issues if things go bad. I know I’m forgetting some. If there are any problematic ones please reply.
It does raise the fact that one marital right is extremely problematic. What if two mob bosses are both being targeted by investigations, and being threatened that whichever makes a breakthrough will be used to drag the other one down. They could just “get married” to keep from having to testify against each other. Therefore, I think the no testimony thing should either be abolished or granted on a case by case basis for having a very close, longlasting emotional relationship with someone (and the court would cut you off at three or something.
Perhaps it’s best for us all the state NOT know which unions are sexual and which aren’t. There’s no legit reason for them to care. Not to mention, I sometimes tend to be an apocalyptic thinker. Suppose here in the US there is a Hitler who rises because his/her line of rhetoric on the economy/international situation impresses most Americans, yet, like Hitler of jews, this autocrat has an irrational hatred of gays. What does he/she have if the lists of united people are separated into neat “sexual” and “not sexual” categories, by marriage or some other name? A handy Black Book.
posted by Jorge on
The nation is talking about same-sex marriage not only because gays have asked, but because Americans are willing and ready.
Which would beg the question of why should we compromise in the first place. Hmm, but we’re not doing too well.
But hey wait a minute. What is with this fixation on the social status of marriages? A marriage is a marriage. I would think purpose of fighting for those 1300 (and increasing every month) rights of marriage is to actually get those rights. If we want self-esteem it’d be more productive to fight for free mental health care.
posted by BobN on
Kin relationships, in the absence of a marriage (or DP) do convey more rights but they don’t carry many responsibilities. Debt? Nope. Presumed child custody? Nope.
posted by grendel on
“Marriage simply is ‘a community of husband and wife founded on a bodily union whose natural fulfillment [sic] is the conception of a child.’?
And yet quadriplegics with no hope of ever achieving said bodily union can marry. Oh, wait, there could be a miracle cure, so it’s OK. (of course, why couldn’t they just wait to get marriage until after the miracle occurs?)
posted by John Howard on
The reason siblings can’t get married is because they are prohibited from conceiving children together, and marriage is a license to have children together. Civil Unions that are defined as “marriage minus conception rights”, which are one third of the Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise, would therefore not be in conflict with incest laws as they would not give the couple the right to do things that might conceive a child together (ie, have sexual intercourse), so presumably they would be available to siblings who were willing to give up the right to marry someone else in exchange for committing to each other.
Same-sex couples should also not be allowed to do things that might result in them conceiving a child together, as this would be unethical genetic engineering and is completely unnecessary and unwise and would open the door for all forms of anything-goes genetic engineering of people.
The Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise trades the right to attempt same-sex conception for all the other rights of marriage in the form of state CU’s that are defined by the states as “marriage minus conception rights”. It preserves marriage as protecting the right of the couple to conceive children together with their own genes, to prohibit states from enacting eugenic laws that deny marriages the right to use their unmodified gametes to conceive children together. And it prohibits all the states from allowing people to create people any way other than joining a man and a woman’s unmodified gametes, to protect the right of all people to use their unmodified gametes and fend off the coercive and expensive and oppressive Brave New World that would develop if genetic engineering were allowed.
Would you take that trade?
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
And yet quadriplegics with no hope of ever achieving said bodily union can marry.
Of course, the difference is that a quadriplegic is by no means the heterosexual norm.
To put it bluntly, gay and lesbian couples have the same capability to reproduce as deformed, physically damaged, aged, or otherwise biologically-misfunctioning heterosexuals. Those folks are permitted to marry because we recognize that their condition is abnormal and thus do not want to discriminate against them based on their disability.
posted by John Howard on
Close, NDT: We allow everyone to marry regardless of their private ability to conceive, if we would approve of the couple conceiving children together, which is basically every relationship except those few that are prohibited. Thus we don’t let siblings marry, even though they could certainly produce children together (even adopted ‘siblings’ are prohibited from marrying, so it isn’t just a question of genetic risk, but of the whole concept (see that? “concept” as in “conception”) of children from such a couple that is considered unethical.