The Virginia Amendment came about one month too soon.
In the last couple of weeks, even conservative Republicans started to realize that the Amendment was bad.
when she realized that the amendment was written so vaguely that it might unintentionally affect the rights of straight people
???
Serious question: what exactly did she think would happen? Which politician did she think was going to start oppressing the straights? Only insular minorities can be oppressed in our blessed democratic system.
What a tough problem. The group that *really* has a pressing, personal reason to care is aware of all the legislation. The groups that really hate gays have a reason to care; their ministers want everyone in the closet where they can find them. For everyone else, it only gets attention at big-election time, when the rightwing ramps up the rhetoric so their ministers can get their congregations out.
On the news last night they interviewed an older black woman who was angry at the newest round of SSM activism because they were using the Civil Rights rhetoric. She seemed to see it as hijacking her cause. I don't really have anything intelligent to say about it, but it certainly struck me.
Brock:
The concern was that the language would impact heterosexual couple's ability to have things like advanced medical directives, powers of attorney, and other similar documents.
It was a horribly written Amendment.
Heterosexual couples who do not intend to get married grew concerned. Even conservatives found the vague, weird language troubling.
5: Okay, I haven't read the amendment, it's just that I can't imagine the DA or AG that's going to start a campaign against heterosexual couples' rights, anywhere in the country. And if some loose cannon did so, the legislature would likely amend and reword the law more or less immediately. Being worried that a law meant to oppress the gays is, OMG, poorly worded and arguably THEY"RE GOING TO OPPRESS US ALL!!!1!!1! seems politically naive, even silly. But again I haven't read the amendment so maybe it's somehow worse than I'm imagining.
6: Brock, it's not only DAs or AGs that would enforce the amendment, it could be, for example, the father or mother or other family member of a straight person's long-term companion in a coma, or suchlike.
How is this politically naive? That's exactly what happened when Ohio passed a similar amendment. I don't have time to find the link but there was a case of an unmarried heterosexual couple living together and she was unable to get some kind of legal protection against him after he abused her because their DOMA amendment was written so broadly.
I can't imagine the DA or AG that's going to start a campaign against heterosexual couples' rights
It's not the DA that people are worried about, it's the family members of someone who, say falls into a coma. A dispute over who can make medical decisions becomes more complicated, even for straight couples.
Okay, I take it all back. I misremebered the nature of the anti-gay measure that was on your ballot, apparantly. Yes, if it's something that private actors can enforce, that could be a real problem.
Here in NC a couple of years ago a local sheriff used an old law against cohabitation (regardless of genders) to tell a 911 operator that she either had to marry her boyfriend, move out of their shared home or quit her job. She sued and won, eventually, and everyone thought the sheriff was a complete idiot, but she doesn't have her job anymore.
Thanks for the link, Becks!
Also, their ministers want everyone in the closet where they can find them is awesome.
If it's poorly worded, then it could have the effect of saying 'co-habitation doesn't give you power of attorney in end-of-life situations' On preview, what everyone else said.
I do kind of wish that we were better about coalitions.
I care about gay rights and a whole host of issues, but what I care most about is health care and the quality of mental health provided in this country. I always vote, but I might be more inclined to work actively on some of these issues, if I felt that the folks at HRC would come out and work for my issue too.
I confess I'm puzzled by Brock's and Tim's general insistence that "nobody would mess with a straight white man."
14: ? I think this is my first comment on the thread.
Note the word "general." You are, generally, Sunny Jim. Or Sunny Tim.
I like to think that's above average clueless but a lot of people are pro-gay-rights but extremely vague about it.
I went to the demonstrations at the State House during one of the Mass. constitutional conventions where they considered overturning Goodridge--it was down the block from where I was doing a clinical placement--& it was kind of distressing what an odd curiousity I was as a straight married woman & how people went out of their way to thank me.
The push for a constitutional amendment in Mass., by the way, looks pretty much dead. Couldn't even muster 1/4 of the legislature this time...I really hope Spitzer can do straight up gay marriage through the legislature in New York sometime while he's governor.
How could I not like Tim? (a) I love you all, man; (b) we are, try as I might to disavow it, evidently of a species.
It strikes me as sad that someone with gay friends would care about the issue only when it might affect them personally. Not to judge Becks' friend -- just sort of a wistful longing for a world where we cared enough about one another to be active on issues that do not affect us directly.
8 -- "DOMA amendment" is the new "ATM machine".
18: I know this is desperately annoying for gay rights activists, but I think this sort of benign indifference is a way to win. Once most of the country thinks, e.g., that it's legal for gays to marry nationwide (which is almost the case now -- I don't think Pants' coworker is that unusual), won't it be easy to get laws passed as cleanup? The idea will be to sell them as "You mean gays can't get married in Connecticut still? That's archaic. Let's get that fixed while we're thinking about it."
I found this about one of the first tests of the Virginia amendment, which would seem to back up Brock's original point.
A divorced couple had a prenup which stated, in part, that the husband would pay his ex-wife $4,000 per month until
the remarriage of Wife and/or her cohabitation with any person to whom she is not related by blood or marriage in a situation analogous to marriage for a period of thirty (30) or more continuous days.
After the divorce Wife got in touch with her Sapphic side and started shacking up with a woman, in a situation analogous to marriage on its face. But Wife also argued that the same-sex marriage amendment meant that her situation could not be legally interpreted as "analogous to marriage" and was thus still entitled to her alimony.
The county judge sided with the wife, but the Appeals Court, apparently using Brock's doctrine that this law was meant to discriminate only against gay people, overturned it. So, the long and short of it is, the rule will be torturously interpreted so that straight men come out on top.
22: You think? Maybe this isn't really comparable, but it seems like legislators consider it hazardous even to, for example, remove the bit of the state laws that criminalize homosexual sex after they've been soundly overturned.
"It strikes me as sad that someone with gay friends would care about the issue only when it might affect them personally."
Di, in Virginia, what started working was when people started telling their friends how much this was going to impact their son, daughter, friends, etc.
Of course, you are also fighting apathy. Too many people cannot be bothered to take the time to go to their voting place.
24: that's the thing: there seems to be a very long time lag between where voters are & what politicians are willing to risk, which suggests that politicians either can't read polls or that they think that the intensity is on the anti-gay side.
the intensity is on the anti-gay side
Certainly within the GOP, this is true among party activists and broadly, it's true among the pseudo-populist press.
Neil:
That case turned on the interpretation of the Agreement of the parties, not on the anti-gay amendment or on any issues related to homosexuality.
Did the term "cohabitate with any person in a situation analogous to marriage" include a lesbian cohabitation situation?
The idea being that you do not get spousal support when you are cohabitating in situation analogous to marriage.
Stroud v. Stroud, 49 Va. App. 359
That's because the Appeals Court ruled that the amendment didn't apply. It seems to me that they were wrong, and that they are expressly prohibited from acknowledging that her cohabitation (or, indeed, anything at all) is analogous to marriage. But I'm not a lawyer so maybe you can explain to me why they are indeed able to rule this way.
(Especially since you're in the correct state and area of law.)
It does, of course, seem that their ruling is just, but legally wrong.
Some folks here might be interested in the Alternatives to Marriage Project, which approaches these issues from an anti-marital-status-discrimination angle and advocates for a whole range of people, including single people, straight couples who don't wish to marry, gay couples who can't or don't want to marry, poly families and unmarried parents.
31: Just in the narrow sense. But unjust in the sense that it short-circuits the legal ripple effects of an unjust law--ripple effects that would cumulatively cause people to reject such a law.
29: Yes, nobody from Virginia is allowed to comment here any more. Or maybe that should just be Virginians who voted for that particular amendment. Or just the author/legislative sponsor of the amendment?
34: New state motto: "Virginia is for analogies."
22 -- but it's not that simple. What if the majority of the country which thinks it is legal for men to shack up with dogs has considerable overlap with the minority of the country that is outraged at such behavior? Then the "while we're thinking about it" line does not have the desired effect.
This is slightly off point but the original post reminds of an exchange a friend had with a co-worker regarding civil unions versus marriage, where he basically asked her what the big deal was and why couldn't gays just live with civil unions. Why does it have to be 'marriage'? He didn't get the whole 'why do we have to be second class citizens thing' until...
22: I actually agree. I see that as the resolution period after a cycle of push-and-pull, win-and-lose as has been the cycle in every equality fight in America (none of which have been won, but some of which have at least reached the stage of litigious and legislative action in their favor). I don't think my co-worker ran right out and started calling state legislators but it's necessary for me to advocate vocally to lay the groundwork for the day when her kids might. That is, I've always thought, what various activists meant when I was a doe-eyed undergrad and was hearing the rhetoric that coming out was important because change happens on a personal level, not because of a march. We come out to people we know so that they think of us when they see the march on TV or hear a candidate talk about protecting traditional marriage. The goal of activism isn't, in my opinion, to effect large-scale change, it's to create ripple effects starting with the people who already know us.
22 and following - But given that a 17-year-old in Georgia went to jail for getting a blowjob from a 15-year-old (girl), even if these laws eventually seem sloppy and like they should be cleaned up, people are still going to suffer consequences for them being on the books in the first place.
I don't care how sloppy the blowjob was, if it's been cleaned up, no one should have to go to jail.
Hey now Virginia haters: See this case, just recently decided:
Janet Jenkins (formerly Miller-Jenkins) and Lisa Miller (formerly Miller-Jenkins) were joined in a civil union in Vermont and shortly after had a child. After the women ended their relationship, Miller moved to Virginia with the women's daughter, and asked a Vermont court to dissolve the couple's civil union and sort out custody of the child. When the Vermont court ordered visitation for Jenkins, Miller filed a new lawsuit in Virginia court, using that state's antigay marriage law to have herself declared the child's sole legal parent. The conflicting court orders - one from Vermont ordering regular visitation for Jenkins, and the other from a lower court in Virginia naming Miller the sole parent - led to a decision from the Virginia Court of Appeals reversing the lower Virginia court therefore recognizing Janet's parental status. Today's ruling confirms that Virginia courts must respect the ruling from Vermont that Janet is a parent to Isabella.
Throughout the case, Jenkins' legal team argued that the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act and Virginia's Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act make it clear that the Vermont court alone has jurisdiction in the matter and that the state of Virginia cannot interfere with the existing order. Furthermore, the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA) requires that the Vermont order be enforced in Virginia.
38:
The goal of activism isn't, in my opinion, to effect large-scale change, it's to create ripple effects starting with the people who already know us.
This, absolutely. One might cynically render it "out of sight, out of mind," but more charitably, being out (whether as gay or any number of other seemingly transgressive things) humanizes.
I sense myself veering off-topic, however.
OK, after reading the opinion I understand that will already answered my question. The court wasn't making a legal ruling on the status of the relationship, only a ruling on whether the relationship factually fit the contract agreed to. So, they're recognizing that she's in an actual status with the significance of marriage, just not a legal status with the significance of marriage. Is this right?
41: That's very interesting, and the sort of fact pattern that shows that the whole DOMA thing is a lot more complicated than it looks. Supremacy clause, bitches! Full faith and credit clause!
43:
Correct. Two persons of the same sex living together as a couple were "persons [sic] cohabitating in a relationship analoguous to marriage."
Of course, given the state of many marriages, you should only have to show that they live in the same house, do not have sex, and irritate the living hell out of each other.
I didn't dispute that, I just misunderstood the amendment and thought that it barred courts from making any determination that any situation not involving marriage carries the "significance or effects of marriage." Apparently it only prohibits them from determining that any situation carries the legal significance and for purposes of interpreting the contract they don't have to go that far. Right?
neil:
Who knows? The fear is that it would be a wedge to attack non-traditionally married people.
You are, generally, Sunny Jim. Or Sunny Tim.
Fair enough, though I'm not sure why that means that I don't think bad things can happen to straight white guys. And I've had my wheat, so I'm feeling extraordinarily sunny. What's striking to me about Pants's story is how hopeful the facts are. I don't think you have engage in the sort of wild caricature of the South that I usually engage in or conveniently forget that Pants probably lives in a relatively liberal area to be pleased that someone in the South (or, for that matter, the North) takes it as background noise--nothing to worry about, who cares stuff--that gay marriage has or hasn't been legalized.
I am astonished, though I shouldn't be for Pants-ish reasons, at the increasing speed at which successive civil rights movements succeed. As, apparently, Michael Kinsley noted somewhere today, gay rights have moved from "WTF?" to "Of course" with unbelievable speed. Women's rights more slowly, but similarly. African-American concerns moved slower still, but--OMG--we might have a black President. (Until they shoot him. But still.) This is not to say that things are right, or even close, everywhere or anywhere. I don't deny that there is a lot of work left to be done, some of which my own prejudices probably blind me to. And things will move too slowly forward, with some falling back at times. And perfect justice will never obtain.
But we do pretty good in this country sometimes, no?
But we do pretty good in this country sometimes, no?
You're playing up your "I'm a straight white male" role a little too strongly to be very convincing, Tim.
Where's my turkey-pot pie, Mitch?
I'll tell you if you'll tell me what a "turkey-pot" is.
we do pretty good in this country sometimes, no?
Contrary to what you might think, I love America. It's just that there's a peculiarly, unusually bad bunch in charge of government and press at the moment, and they've had a profound effect on the judiciary and the general culture.
To be honest, I'm not 100% sure; I was playing with the "Fix me a turkey pot pie, bitch" line. (I'm not 100% sure where that comes from.) I assume it's a meat pie.
Ah. You were making fun of me.
52: I definitely think Red rot, in the military and the judiciary in particular, is likely to be the biggest problem Dems face.
Tim, the idea is that it's a "turkey pot pie", not a "turkey-pot pie". And is it really possible you don't know what a pot pie is? America-hater.
SCMT, I'll spot you that we could do worse. The unfortunate flip-side of that is my co-worker: we've made some strides as a nation so it's all taken care of or going to take care of itself, right? I know you're not saying that and I'm not trying to paint you as saying that, but that's why I alternately wanted to hug my co-worker and go engage in primal scream therapy in the parking lot. We will always have to push and push and push to expand our victories in order to protect our victories.
Chicken Pot. Chicken Pot. Chicken Pot Piieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Just shoot me.
Tim, I believe you were, however unwittingly, referencing a Judd Nelson line from The Breakfast Club.
Confession: on our honeymoon, Mr. B. and I had a conversation--I remember vividly, in the breakfast room of some German hotel--about gay marriage. I don't remember why it came up. Anyway, like a dumbass, I said I wasn't particularly in favor of it, and that it wasn't like not getting married was so bad.
In my defense, I married younger than I had expected, and was fairly ambivalent about having done the deed myself. But yeah, I was an idiot.
To his credit, Mr. B. was suitably appalled.
I don't remember why it came up
Yeah, sure you don't...
60: I thought you got married in your thirties. Anyway, I'm sympathetic, because I'm pretty ambivalent on "marriage" because of the weird intertwining of state and religion around that word--I sometimes think that's where the heat on this issue must come from. I'd rather everyone, straight and gay, moved to civil unions, and then you could have a Catholic marriage or Baptist marriage or a Jewish marriage, etc. If we don't all move to civil unions, then we ought to all be allowed to marry, though.
I got married at 24. We're coming up on our 15th anniversary.
Yeow! Congrats. Is that the sack clock anniversary. (Seriously, congrats.)
62: I'd like that. Civil unions for all, and if you want a religious rite or a party, go crazy. And no tax consequences of marriage.
Works for me. No reason one couldn't celebrate the two at the same time, after all; that's more or less what happens with a religious ceremony anyway. Everyone gets civil unions and if you're having a religious ceremony, bonus.
Of course, that won't fly, because everyone knows the only way your religious sacrament is important and meaningful is if it has the state's seal of approval. From back in the day where St. Valentine married lovers in the courthouse in defiance of Roman authorities.
Civil unions for all, and if you want a religious rite or a party, go crazy.
That's kind of how it is already, except when you push the issue by wanting, say, gay people to get married. You're not required to have a religious ceremony at all, and if you do, you *are* required to have legal paperwork.
Which is why the whole thing drives me crazy. I'm really ambivalent, still, about what I think of marriage as an institution: the fact is that because it's a legal contract, it *does* create a commitment. I guess I think, though, that in my utopia, the state wouldn't have anything to do with marriage at all; there'd be universal health insurance, so that part wouldn't matter. The only thing I think society oughta give a shit about, and I don't quite know what to do with this one, is the rights of kids to their parents.
I want to raise the question of why 62 endorses pair-bonding specifically. I'm willing to entertain the possibility that pair-bonds are "natural," but I wonder why the state ought, specifically, to endorse coupledom at all.
68 One big benefit of marriage as an institution, paradoxically, is in the break-up. No marriage, long term commitment dissolves, the weaker party has no protection (i.e. no alimony if one stayed home, no right to part of the house if it was all in one person's name...)
I agree that the state shouldn't be marrying anyone at all. They should just be passing out free condoms by the bucketload. Let the churches do the marrying.
70, I think, gets it right. It's all about protecting people from cases where someone's an asshole. Or should be. There's gotta be better ways of doing that.
I don't know whether it's natural or not, but serial monogamy seems to be pretty common if hardly universal.
And it seems arguable, at least, if people are going to be splitting into pairs and having children and doing things like giving up their jobs to stay home and raise the children, that the most efficient way of ensuring that the children are taken care of and the stay-at-home spouse not screwed in the event of a separation is to have a legally enforceable contract between those two people.
I'm with Cala.
Also, B, you should be grateful for the existence of community property in California.
71: sure, as long as the legal contract part stays with the state and you get the churces out of that (and make it available to everyone)
I want to raise the question of why 62 endorses pair-bonding specifically.
Slut.
(I'm feeling weirdly friendly towards you, today, B. Did FF get some sort of pheromones extension?)
The best answer I can think of is that it's pairs because that's how we traditionally do it, and part of what we mean to do is allow gay people access to the sort of meaning associated with "married life" that has been built by tradition. There isn't anything that says you can't come to your own private arrangement.
75: right, I think. Although I'm not sure whether the legal contract approach is the right way to go. But insofar as it is, then sure.
I also have mixed emotions regarding marriage at a societal level, and all the same questions and doubts about this one way in which state and religion become so inextricable to so many people. However, if I step in front of a bus tomorrow Rah is not necessarily going to get to visit me in the hospital or in the morgue. Yes, there are ways to get around the absence of a marriage license - medical power of attorney, explicit wills, living wills - but they're expensive pains in neck. My sister and her wonderful, awesome husband solved those problems by having a five-minute conversation with someone at the courthouse and I'd kind of like to be lazy in the same way.
B has it exactly right in 68a, though; we already effectively have civil unions with an optional religious component. 95% (ex recto estimation) don't realize the distinction, consciously or otherwise, and it is that private, personal choice to intertwine the two which they use to deny me a basic civil right.
Also, I want to get to call it marriage. (Today, anyway; some days I'm a lot more relaxed about this.) I want to take that word from all the fundies and make it mine. I've been on a pretty serious breeder-hating kick lately, though. I think it's probably the funky weather getting to my brain.
73: Except that there are a ton of other ways that people have and raise kids. Step parenting, for instance. I know a woman who's child's father is gay, and married to another man, and the girl therefore has a mom and two dads. Plenty of people have children with more than one partner.
The not-working-in-order-to-raise-kids thing is obviously something that shouldn't make one dependent on another adult; we know what the problems with that situation are. If we want people to be able to do this, we ought to make the state support it. Otherwise it's inevitably classist and inevitably makes having children a huge economic risk.
76 is obviously correct: yes, that's why things are the way they are. My question is why do we here in this thread, proposing alternate solutions for how things "should" be, stick with the pair bonding?
And as 79 indicates, I'm not *just* saying this b/c I'm a slut. The "you can come to your own private solutions" thing isn't really a good answer, for the same reason that it's not a good answer to teh gays.
You sure as hell realize the distinction when you have to get a visa, that's fer damn sure. Or if you're Catholic. Don't be Catholic. Bureaucratic nightmare.
To follow up on my 73, I don't mean to say that a two-person partnership is the only legitimate one. Just that even if we legalized polygamy tomorrow, most people would probably still end up marrying just one person at a time, and many would be interested in having various legal statuses and protections. So many, in fact, that we could either have them all draw up their own contracts at great personal expense, or we could have a nice pre-existing way of getting all those contracts done at once.
I want to raise the question of why 62 endorses pair-bonding specifically.
We can only kinda, sorta, barely, now and then make pairs work. Why push our luck?
Huh. Normally I resist the argument that something is biologically determined, but isn't there a fair cross-cultural argument that committed (with committed meaning years, not necessarily for life) pair-bonding is something people naturally tend to do? I'm not an anthropologist, so if someone knows different they should correct me, but I have the impression that cross-culturally, pairing off is overwhelmingly the commonest way people organize their lives. Even in cultures that permit polygamy, it's generally unusual within that culture (e.g., most men throughout the history of the Muslim world have had no more than one wife, despite the fact that more are allowed.) And I'm not aware of any cultures where people don't enter into committed personal relationships at all. So I'd guess that whatever the law, more people than not are going to end up in marriage-like relationships.
If that's right -- that most people are going to have a 'partner' who is the person they rely on generally, commingle property with, etc., it makes a certain amount of sense to set forth default legal rules for the situation, rather than relying on individuals to legally protect themselves from their intimates.
I think 62 is kind of backwards. We have that iea already--it's called civil marriage. Yes, it's a little confusing that a priest or rabbi or what have you is authorized to conduct the ceremony, but it does no great harm. "Civil unions", while a useful stopgap, promote the idea that marriage is a religious institution, & may give people the idea that their church can be compelled to marry gay people.
I think non-pairs should be able to contract however they please, but it's hard to imagine how a one-size-fits-all default contract would work when you add in extra people.
Plus, if you hang around immigration boards long enough, you'll run across some people who make you very happy that they're not the sole arbiter of what rights their mail-order spouse has.
87: I agree with Katherine, I think. Marriage is what the State does. Churches should be free to bless unions in whatever way they want, but that's not what makes it a marriage.
It is still unclear to me why priests and the like are granted licenses to perform a ceremony which is legally binding.
It's odd & wrong that you should have to be either a state official or a religious official (or a sea captain & whatever else the archaic rules are) but not a secual private citizen, I agree. But that's not true in all states. In Massachusetts you can have a friend marry you w/o some dumb online ordination process.
I kinda agree with the "it's natural" argument, and I didn't mean to imply that every individual should have to come up with a ton of paperwork to protect themselves from a partner/s. I do think, though, that most of the reasons I can come up with to limit partnerships to two people--the expense of adding beneficiaries to one's health care, or the potential problem of issuing immigration papers to more than one person--are pretty solvable. Health care oughta be universal, and inasmuch as you have to "prove" a commitment to get an immigration visa, it should be fine to require people to establish that level of commitment to more than one person, if relevant. Plus I think that the only real solid reason to make commitments of that nature legally binding is b/c of kids, honestly.
Which may well be an expression of the same conservative residual Catholic impulse that made me once upon a time think that gay marriage was a non-issue, and I'm open to being convinced that I'm wrong to think that the kids thing is the real issue; I just haven't yet been able to figure out the counterarguments myself.
It is still unclear to me why priests and the like are granted licenses to perform a ceremony which is legally binding.
For example, I was somewhat appalled when the wierdo ceremony that my older sister performed in the Temple---which I was not allowed to attend, like the rest of her family, basically---resulted in an official state-authorised marriage certificate. Keep the State offa my religious ceremonies!
But man, oh man, I would love to be married by a sea captain.
91: I pretty much agree that the main reason the state has an interest in marriage, rather than just a legal convenience, is that it's the easiest way to keep the kids sorted out. On the other hand, I imagining the complications that multiple spouses would cause for immigration and cringing. (Right now, if someone is married to more than one spouse, even legally, the U.S. only counts the first for immigration purposes.)
90 should say "secular private citizen"...As I said, it seems to me you should either require everyone to have a justice of the peace, or you should simply give adult residents of the state the power to solemnize marriages (just like anyone can witness a will), but giving the power only to religious officials & public officials is a bit off.
You bring the first spouse into the US, put the second in Canada, and the third in Mexico. Then you get an import-export job. Easy!
Actually the strongest reason I can think of not to endorse marriages between more than two people is the potential for polygamist abuse, which there's plenty of historical precedent for.
Seriously, Cala, what complications?
Although, then again, in a situation where women had civil rights, arguably legalizing polygamy would actually protect them better than making it illegal, and therefore sekrit.
We have enough trouble with abusive assholes bringing in women as fiancées for trial runs without giving them legal cover to do so.
90 - I did that last summer in Mass. In PA, where I got married, you can get a "Quaker license" that requires no minister at all, although we had a friend of ours who was in divinity school officiate.
97: Why not just legalize polyandrous marraiges?
99: But don't they *already* have legal cover for doing so? Otherwise how would they do it? And in any case, isn't the issue there more about informing women of their rights, and enforcing those rights *regardless* of their immigration status, rather than about marriage per se?
Although I take your point that whatever the situation may be in this country, the world as a whole doesn't give women the kind of strong legal rights that they'd need to make polygamy a safe option. That's a pretty convincing argument, actually. One that could be addressed, but it would require more than just a presumption that marital contracts are purely voluntary.
But man, oh man, I would love to be married by a sea captain.
Friend of mine just got her captain's license. I can hook you up.
You have to be in international waters, right?
I think 62 is kind of backwards. We have that iea already--it's called civil marriage.
I think there are two separate issues here: (a) the set of legal rights associated with marriage that are created and protected by the state, and (b) the set of social practices that have grown up around the institution of marriage. If all we cared about was (a), we could solve that by simply granting "civil unions" to gay people.
But we do care about (b); the problem, I think, is that different people care about it differently. I think that there are religious people for whom marriage runs first through the religion and then through the state, and that those people are the people most likely to be upset by gay marriage. I think that they feel that gay marriage allows the state to intrude upon something prior to, and more important than, the state. Addressing the issue by giving everyone civil unions and allowing religious institutions (or other institutions) to "marry" people is just a way of finessing the issue. The broad secular world--movies, jokes among friends, etc.--would still have the same practices around marriage, but they would be more obviously available to gay people. Everyone would probably still use the words "marriage," "husband," and "wife." But religious people would have the space to sniff at the rest of us: "Those people aren't really married. The have a civil union." And maybe that would be enough for them to feel less violently opposed to what would be, for every practical purpose that I can think of, gay marriage. The only difference that I can think of is that there wouldn't be any new official paper that said "marriage," for straights or gay people. But who cares?
Right now "marriage" as meant by (say) religious people and "civil marriage" are too intertwined.
Do you really need to have anybody officiate the ceremony? Obviously you need a civil official to file the civil forms in the civil ceremony.
I agree with you about the problem. I think your solution makes it worse, because: (1) there is likely to be widespread opposition to elminating state-sponsored marriage (I would be strongly opposed, I would guess more traditional folks would be much more so); (2) in the absence of every single state in the country deciding to do that, the existence of something calle 'civil unions' obscures the existence of civil marriage, and heightens the confusion.
107: You need to deal w/ city hall to apply for the license, verify your identities, file to license, etc. an that obviously needs to remain for record keeping purposes. As for solemnizing & filling the thing out--sure, why not? Some states do it that way already; every state let I know of ministers do it & they do not hold special qualifications (it's not hard to get ordained on-line...)
I would be strongly opposed, I would guess more traditional folks would be much more so
This befuddles me. Why? You'd still get the same rights. You could even where a white dress, if you wanted to. And my recollection is that there is/was a pretty strong strand of "just keep your hands off" among the religiously serious. If people are "traditional" but in some way not associated with some other authorizing institution--well, I just can't imagine that there are very many such people, so fuck'em. We can set the super-religious on their heathen asses--if they want something special, they can join a church, synagogue, or Rotary Club.
The reason I am violently opposed to eliminating civil marriage, by the way: my marriage is not recognized as legally valid by any organized religion. I found a nice Irish reform Jewish cantor to marry me & my husband, but even among most reform Jews it is not recognized as a Jewish marriage, and the Conservative and Orthodox are that much more convinced of that. One thing I'll say about the Orthodox Jews, though: they are not lobbying the state of New York for constitutional amendments stating that what I and my husband have is something less than a 'marriage'. The commitment--both as a matter of legal obligation & as a matter of our personal commitment--is identical to the level of commitment signified by a religious marriage ceremony; it has been recognized as such for hundreds of years; we've been perfectly capable of recognizing the distinction between civil and religion marriage for hundreds of years even though it's quite common for people to have civil marriages whose authority no religion recognizes. Catholic divorcees can get civilly married, as can atheists, as can Jews and shiksas.
I don't particularly feel like giving that up to placate a bunch of homophobes. Especially since they will NOT actually be placated; they will say: "see, we told you they were trying to destroy marriage".
Wait, I want to be sure. The priest/minister/sea captain/internet-authorized-friend, what power does this person actually have? You can apply for a marriage license without having a minister or friend with a minister card obtained from the Internet, can't you?
Isn't 110 pretty similar the argument for why gay people shouldn't care that everyone else can be "married" but they only get a "civil union" if the actual legal rights are identical? The word signifies something to people.
The word signifies something to people.
The word signifies different things to different people, but, for broad purposes, it's value gets determined because of all of the little practices that have grown up around it. I don't think people will be willing to give up those practices, and so they'll adapt them over time to civil unions. But there will be no formal distinction between civil unions for gay people and straight people, so those practices will end up more available or relevant to gay people.
I don't think there's any particular magic to the word "marriage," and I think those against gay marriage are those who are most likely to believe differently. So you trade, knowing that they have to die sooner or later. The only thing I want to really avoid is two classes of civil unions: one for gay people and one for straights.
You can apply for a marriage license without having a minister or friend with a minister card obtained from the Internet, can't you?
Yes, if you have a public official (JP, etc.) do it instead. Except in Pennsylvania.
I understand Tim, and in principle agree, but your last point--the 'two classes of civil unions' is precisely why at least some of us in the excluded class are deeply suspicious when we hear 'why aren't civil unions enough'? business. None of the actually existing civil unions in fact afford the same rights and responsibilities under the law as does "marriage" as a legal instititution (I've said it before, & say it here again-- I am married, I just have a marriage that isn't recognized by the laws under which my spouse & I live. To that extent, one can perfectly well separate out 'marriage' as nexus of social practices and 'marriage' as legal institution)
None of the actually existing civil unions in fact afford the same rights and responsibilities under the law as does "marriage" as a legal instititution
That would necessarily go away if there was only one legal institution.
Tim- sure. That's why I said that in principle, I agree. I meant only to be speaking to the question of why some of us raise our eyebrows (at the very least) when an interlocutor wants to know why 'civil unions aren't enough'? In the current political climate, one cannot tell from that question alone what exactly is being proposed, for often what people mean is 'yours is a lesser union, so let's make sure you have less rights & responsibilities than do I and my spouse'. Your meaning is clear enough. But irl one often cannot tell what exacly another means without a lot of prying, and sometimes not even that (when pressed people often dissemble, too embarrassed I'd guess to admit to a real life lesbian their real motives & views-- even though the interlocutor will surely vote on them)
But don't they *already* have legal cover for doing so? Otherwise how would they do it? And in any case, isn't the issue there more about informing women of their rights, and enforcing those rights *regardless* of their immigration status, rather than about marriage per se?
Nope, no legal cover. If someone wants to bring in more than one fiancée at once, or more than one wife, they have to commit fraud to do so. That doesn't mean that they can't, of course, but there's no legal cover for someone doing that. If they're honest about being married to more than one woman, their petition will be denied.
The issue is sort of informing women of their rights, but immigration does throw a twist into it because a green card (successful adjustment of status, iow) is dependent on the marriage. It's better than it used to be due to the Violence Against Women Act, but it's still a horrendous process for anyone to self-petition on grounds of abuse. Immigrant women are in a more precarious situation than an American woman would be; to take one, their ability to work to support themselves to get away from an abuser isn't conditional on the government approving a form.
What's really a crime is that there's no way for a gay person to immigrate his or her partner. None at all.
The most-logical argument to deploy when conversing the anti-gay-marriage crowd is really quite simple:
Some people say that, back in Eden, Adam and Eve would totally get down with the dinosaurs. The gay dinosaurs. In a very gay, gay way.
You can apply for a marriage license without having a minister or friend with a minister card obtained from the Internet, can't you?
You can apply for a marriage license with just your photo ID, your social security number or valid passport, and $45 in cash to Allegheny County. Getting *married* is a different story, but all you have to do is not be close blood relations and remember your wallet.
118: Fair enough.
What's really a crime is that there's no way for a gay person to immigrate his or her partner. None at all.
We shouldn't be accepting gay immigrants, anyway, unless they can show that there are people who Gay Americans won't do.
122: well, I have some ex's I could nominate for that title...
122: You know, I have been trying to think of a good rejoinder that combines a gay-sounding acronym with a number to make a Skilled Gay Specialist visa class along the lines of the H1-B, and I'm coming up with zilch. I therefore send out the Standpipe signal in the hopes that Standpipeself can complete my joke.
If you wanted to combine it with lunatic paranoia about gay recruitment - a topic from which, for my money, one can never derive too much humor - you could call it the B1-2. Close but no cigar, I know.
70 and 73 make good points.
A breakup of unmarried partners is a NIGHTMARE!!! Unless they have a partnership agreement. Unmarried couple who live together shoudl absolutely have a partnership agreement. Otherwise, a breakup causes much screwing of the not-so-fun variety.
Spell out your expectations people!! Just do it.
You can apply for a marriage license with just your photo ID, your social security number or valid passport, and $45 in cash to Allegheny County. Getting *married* is a different story
But not one regulated by the state, right? So what's the point of having your friend apply for a license on the Internet?
look, an actual (if anonymous) lesbian unfogged commenter! weren't we doubting her very existence not long ago? huzzah, I say.
But not one regulated by the state, right? So what's the point of having your friend apply for a license on the Internet?
Your friend gets the license in order to qualify by a given state's rules to marry you. To get married, you need a marriage license, witnesses, an officiant, and a ceremony officiated by that officiant (except in Pennsylvania, actually, where you can get a Quaker wedding license that requires only the ceremony and witnesses). Different states have different rules about what you need to qualify as a legal officiant.
re: 126
?!!!
I've broken up with two partners to whom I wasn't married. In each case, it was pretty straightforward. Loads of emotional stress, but the actual legal mechanics of breaking-up were no problem at all.
doubting my very existence? that's a bit harsh, don't ya' think?
Nattar:
Count yourself lucky then.
All it takes is for one of the people to be disagreeable and it is a mess to divide jointly titled real estate or determine who owns what.
That can still be dealt with relatively easy. There is a process for resolving kid issues.