November 28, 2003
APPLES AND ORANGES (NOT THE ONLY FRUIT) (via Michael Herdegen):
Untying the Knot: For Better or Worse: Marriage's Stormy Future (TAMAR LEWIN, November 23, 2003, NY Times)
Political and religious conservatives maintain that the word "marriage" must be reserved for the union of men and women. Since 1996, 37 states have passed laws declaring that marriage must join male and female, and a push is under way for a constitutional amendment along those lines.
But some conservatives recognize a need for new social forms like civil unions. "I'm not opposed to civil unions," said James Q. Wilson, the social scientist and author of "The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened
Families." "I understand that people who wish to live together may want to manage their affairs."The most radical structural change being discussed these days is taking the state out of the marriage business.
"People who wanted religious ceremonies could still have them," Ms. Sanger said. "People could also write their own contracts formalizing individual agreements. To some extent, it's already happening, with prenuptial agreements, and homosexual couples' ceremonies that have nothing to do
with the state. We're not used to thinking of commitment outside marriage, so the social status of other arrangements is unclear: Do you have to give presents if someone has a civil union, or registers a domestic partnership?"Most conservatives say that the state must keep its central role in marital arrangements - both because marriage is such a central institution and, as a practical matter, because when a private union dissolves, the state may have to decide what becomes of the children and the property.
"The state has to be involved in marriage," Mr. Wilson said. "Marriage is the foundation of organized society, our way of coping with intractable problems like getting men to take responsibility for children, managing the allocation
of property, settling questions of custody. The argument that we could do it all by contract comes mainly from law professors, who have a much stronger belief in the power of contracts than other people."Undoubtedly, marriage maintains unique symbolic value. For many homosexuals as well as heterosexuals, a civil union, a commitment ceremony or a registered partnership simply lacks the emotional, psychological and spiritual weight that centuries of tradition added to marriage.
"Marriage is more than a bundle of rights and privileges," said Nancy Cott, a history professor at Harvard and author of "Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation." "It's a word that's sacred to many people, and because of its symbolic value, its customs and history, it has superior status."
Separation of State and Marriage seems the ideal solution. Let only religious institutions perform marriages. Let states grant civil union status to anyone they choose. Let couples who are Married receive automatic recognition as being entered into a civil union. The only folks who would be unhappy at that point are those who insist on "marriage" as a way of forcing society to not merely allow but to accept homosexuality.
MORE:
One Man, One Woman: The case for preserving the definition of marriage. (ROBERT P. GEORGE, November 28, 2003, Wall Street Journal)
I must be missing something. Why is that "ideal"? Why is it even better than the status quo? It's something my libertarian friends talk about a lot, but it's at the very least newfangled and untested.
Seems to me that whatever the malign effects of gay marriage might be, civil unions would be 95% as bad. We want to make it more likely that kids grow up in homes with a mother and a father? Civil unions probably make that less likely. We want to encourage young men to settle down, get married and raise families? Less likely. And on down the list.
The only reason we're even thinking about something like this is because the gay-rights crowd (different from homosexuals generally) is yelling for gay marriage. This isn't about economic efficiency for the working poor, maiden aunts, or anything else. Allowing something rather than nothing is giving public approval to homosexuality.
So count me "unhappy" at the prospect of civil unions in lieu of gay marriage.
Posted by: Random Lawyer at November 28, 2003 4:53 PMWell, I think you are right. In a secular society, with a religiously fragmented polity, what other way is there?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 28, 2003 4:57 PMRandom:
You'd still marry your wife. You'd get a union certificate much like you'd get a dog license.
Posted by: oj at November 28, 2003 6:38 PMAside from the novelty -- which is itself a good enough reason to oppose it -- it seems like a gilt-edged invitation to shoddy treatment of one's "little tax writeoff." Predictably, that will be mostly men treating women like garbage. Why get married when you can get a dog license instead?
Marriage is a risky proposition. A civil union sounds like it's much less risky -- no divorce courts, no commitment, all the health-insurance benefits. Pretty soon it will be rude (at least in New York or San Francisco) to ask whether A and B are married or just unionized -- after all their union might be deeply meaningful to them and who is society to judge, blah, blah, blah. I just don't see how we can *avoid* unscrupulous straight men (and we're mostly unscrupulous while we're young and there's a chance of getting laid) using civil unions to get the benefits of marriage without the burdens, to the detriment of women and children.
The laws are largely about marginal cases. Civil unions will let men behave horribly at the margins; marriage-or-nothing deters men from doing so at the margins.
Posted by: Random Lawyer at November 28, 2003 8:42 PMWhen ever people start talking about how the advantages of marriage have to be extended, they always bring up ways in which government has turned marriage into yet another entitlement and source of subsized goodies or to remedy legal problems which can also be handled by a forethought and effort and quick trip to a lawyer (like drawing up a valid will or trust or forming a limited partnership).
So-called civil unions will just confirm and reinforce this, and considering the income levels of most gay marriage advocates, it's hard to not see it as just a way to extend middle-class entitlements to a higher income group.
Yes, but we can restore the institution of marriage most effectively by making it less accessible.
Posted by: oj at November 29, 2003 9:03 AMOJ, now I'm thoroughly confused. You've pointed out the demographic problems -- Europe and Japan are dying because they're not having babies, and but for immigration we'd be right behind them because we keep aborting over a million babies a year. You've pointed out that children ordinarily fare better when raised in a family headed by a father and a mother that are married to each other. Surely that implies at least that the 90-98% of us that aren't gay (ignoring the debate about whether we're immutably born that way or choose it or something in between) should be encouraged to get married, stay married, and beget and rear children within marriage, right?
I just can't see how a "marriage lite" alternative for straight folks or "making marriage less accessible" will help.
Posted by: Random Lawyer at November 29, 2003 1:02 PMThey should be encouraged to get married, not to get civil union cards instead. But the alternative would exist. Marriage would be more prestigious and socially desirable in our culture.
Posted by: oj at November 29, 2003 4:15 PM"More prestigious and socially desirable"? I hate to be thick about this, but why? How? Our moral sewer of a culture doesn't seem to have much of a problem with rampant fornication, divorce and bastardy, and it's already mostly indifferent between marriage and shacking up. Why should it differentiate between marriage, civil union and shacking up? Where does the encouragement to marry rather than unionize come from?
Posted by: Random Lawyer at November 29, 2003 4:37 PMYour peers. That's why gays are insisting on marriage instead of civil union. Had marriage been available only in a religious institution, I've no doubt my wife and I would have chosen a rabbi or minister instead of a JP.
Posted by: oj at November 29, 2003 4:48 PMRandom:
Well argued. As attractive (and simplistic) as having the state withdraw from marriage may appear philosophically, there will be too many victims born of the confusion. The hard truth is that faiths can no longer enforce the obligations they once could, and most don't even bother to try anymore.
We'll just have to swallow what we must, live with confused state enforcement and await the triumph of the theocracy we are all secretly hoping for. :-)
Posted by: Peter B at December 1, 2003 5:23 AM