It's the Sex, Stupid!
Here's a question that always makes me cringe, because it drives home the point that cultural nihilists basically exist in a different factual and intellectual universe than the rest of us.
"how would two guys marrying hurt your marriage?"
Oy.
First of all, the problem isn't that two guys marrying would damage the quality of other people's relationships. The problem isn't actually ssm, but rather Neutered marriage, the idea that "marriage is a union between two people," displacing the idea that "marriage is the union of man and woman for life."
Neutering marriage would break the essential legal and cultural connection between marriage and reproduction. Generally, those who do best in our society are those that manage to put off parenthood until marriage. Do you know guys that got a woman or two pregnant, didn't marry them, and are paying child support? Like single moms, this situation tends to hold the single fathers back, and to hurt the children too. If we change the meaning of marriage so it's no longer the joining of two individuals to have children, then we've thrown out one of the greatest things about marriage -- the motivation for men and women to put off having children until they make a covenant for life.
Tn order to justify ssm, the Goodridge court changed the definition of marriage so that it's not about joining two individuals to make a family. Goodridge-redefined "marriage" is about the court throwing a mantle of approval over a family that has somehow already come into being. That sends the message to unmarried people -- "go make your family, and then come get married."
WRONG MESSAGE! Here's the message that we should be sending: "If you start making a family, without that permenant commitment of marriage, you are more likely to have a lot of false starts. Mistakes that hurt your life and the lives of young children. Marriage is a dramatic commitment that makes these false-starts less likely to occur."
It obviously benefits adults, children, and society when most children are raised by the same parents from the time they were babies. I'm not knocking adoption here; adopted kids do particularly well when they are adopted at infancy by a loving father and mother. Here's what all of us have seen causing problems, pain, and difficulty: family full of kids with the same mom and different dads.
Since the most critical roles of marriage in society involve unifying families, and making sure that a child has a mother and a father, I think it's important that marriage remain between husband and wife. Marriage law has to continue to change and evolve to help husbands wives and children stay together as technology and our economy change the way that society works.
Consider the 1950s, when companies started moving people across the country. Extended families were torn apart. Marriage laws had to adapt. You can adapt the laws better when you know what the purpose of the law is. If marriage exists to prevent illegitimacy, unify families, and give kids a mom and a dad, that's a mission it's easier to adapt to what the future might throw at us, than if we change the purpose, add new imperatives. Goodridge redefines the purpose of marriage as state-sanctification of love, and argues that marriage really isn't about the children.
MM couples are inherently different than FF couples because of the way that they obtain children. FF couples only require a little outside assistance in order to have children. (Face it: it's not exactly rocket science for a woman in our society to get a sperm donation.) On the other hand, MM couples, need a LOT of help. It's easier for an FF couple to talk a guy into giving them a cupful, than it is for an MM couple to get a woman to take in a cupful, carry and bear a child, and then give it up to them. Why is this relevant? Because marriage laws are tailored to the typical F/M reproductive style of reproduction, to both the biology and the underlying culture.
For example, marriage has something called the Presumption of Paternity (PoP). PoP means that if the wife gets pregnant with another man's child, the law “presumes” that it's her husband's child, unless the husband or wife speak up during a limited time period and demand a test. The outsider has no right to demand a test. Legally he has no rights to the child at all. Some states don't even allow the husband to say -- wait, that's not my kid! If his wife gets pregnant, the husband is the legal father. Period.
Now it makes sense to say that an FF couple should be able to say to a guy that's given them sperm, sorry, dude, you can't come claim "your" baby. But what if one of the Fs cheats on the other, gets pregnant with a guy. When it's an MF couple, the law smoothes over it, since what the guy doesn't know, can't hurt him, and the wife might not cheat again. But when it's an FF couple, the other woman KNOWS she's not the father! She knows she's been cheated on. Is it fair to bind her to a presumption of "paternity"? Or does it make sense to cut the man out of paternity in this case? may be so or maybe not, but I think courts should be free to change the rules to fit the FF situation, because it is very different than the MF situation!
PoP is just one of 1050 or so different special laws and regulations regarding marriage. Some states have more. No one's gone through them and checked which ones would be equitable to enforce on MM and FF.
The state wants to make all gender laws neutral, so they change the presumption of paternity into a presumption of PARENTHOOD, like Massachussets did in Goodridge. See the problem? Imagine that there's an MM couple that want a kid, but can't find any woman willing go conceive and deliver a baby for the MM couple to raise. SO what do they do? Backed by the "presumption of parenthood," the better looking M finds himself an unwitting girlfriend, without telling her he's "married" to another man. Gets her pregnant. Guess what! Court's got to figure out whether making all the laws gender neutral, means that two married guys get to take a baby from a woman who was the "homewrecker."
Can you hear the argument? EQUAL PROTECTION! If FM marriages and FF marriages can deprive a single man of his parenthood rights, shouldn't that mean that two married men should be able to take a baby from the poor sucker lady that just spent 9 months carrying it?
We need three different sets of laws. Other situations like this will come up, where the same law just does not apply. Men and women are mostly the same creature, but in reproductive matters, we are just exactly the same. That's not exactly rocket science.
"how would two guys marrying hurt your marriage?"
Oy.
First of all, the problem isn't that two guys marrying would damage the quality of other people's relationships. The problem isn't actually ssm, but rather Neutered marriage, the idea that "marriage is a union between two people," displacing the idea that "marriage is the union of man and woman for life."
Neutering marriage would break the essential legal and cultural connection between marriage and reproduction. Generally, those who do best in our society are those that manage to put off parenthood until marriage. Do you know guys that got a woman or two pregnant, didn't marry them, and are paying child support? Like single moms, this situation tends to hold the single fathers back, and to hurt the children too. If we change the meaning of marriage so it's no longer the joining of two individuals to have children, then we've thrown out one of the greatest things about marriage -- the motivation for men and women to put off having children until they make a covenant for life.
Tn order to justify ssm, the Goodridge court changed the definition of marriage so that it's not about joining two individuals to make a family. Goodridge-redefined "marriage" is about the court throwing a mantle of approval over a family that has somehow already come into being. That sends the message to unmarried people -- "go make your family, and then come get married."
WRONG MESSAGE! Here's the message that we should be sending: "If you start making a family, without that permenant commitment of marriage, you are more likely to have a lot of false starts. Mistakes that hurt your life and the lives of young children. Marriage is a dramatic commitment that makes these false-starts less likely to occur."
It obviously benefits adults, children, and society when most children are raised by the same parents from the time they were babies. I'm not knocking adoption here; adopted kids do particularly well when they are adopted at infancy by a loving father and mother. Here's what all of us have seen causing problems, pain, and difficulty: family full of kids with the same mom and different dads.
Since the most critical roles of marriage in society involve unifying families, and making sure that a child has a mother and a father, I think it's important that marriage remain between husband and wife. Marriage law has to continue to change and evolve to help husbands wives and children stay together as technology and our economy change the way that society works.
Consider the 1950s, when companies started moving people across the country. Extended families were torn apart. Marriage laws had to adapt. You can adapt the laws better when you know what the purpose of the law is. If marriage exists to prevent illegitimacy, unify families, and give kids a mom and a dad, that's a mission it's easier to adapt to what the future might throw at us, than if we change the purpose, add new imperatives. Goodridge redefines the purpose of marriage as state-sanctification of love, and argues that marriage really isn't about the children.
MM couples are inherently different than FF couples because of the way that they obtain children. FF couples only require a little outside assistance in order to have children. (Face it: it's not exactly rocket science for a woman in our society to get a sperm donation.) On the other hand, MM couples, need a LOT of help. It's easier for an FF couple to talk a guy into giving them a cupful, than it is for an MM couple to get a woman to take in a cupful, carry and bear a child, and then give it up to them. Why is this relevant? Because marriage laws are tailored to the typical F/M reproductive style of reproduction, to both the biology and the underlying culture.
For example, marriage has something called the Presumption of Paternity (PoP). PoP means that if the wife gets pregnant with another man's child, the law “presumes” that it's her husband's child, unless the husband or wife speak up during a limited time period and demand a test. The outsider has no right to demand a test. Legally he has no rights to the child at all. Some states don't even allow the husband to say -- wait, that's not my kid! If his wife gets pregnant, the husband is the legal father. Period.
Now it makes sense to say that an FF couple should be able to say to a guy that's given them sperm, sorry, dude, you can't come claim "your" baby. But what if one of the Fs cheats on the other, gets pregnant with a guy. When it's an MF couple, the law smoothes over it, since what the guy doesn't know, can't hurt him, and the wife might not cheat again. But when it's an FF couple, the other woman KNOWS she's not the father! She knows she's been cheated on. Is it fair to bind her to a presumption of "paternity"? Or does it make sense to cut the man out of paternity in this case? may be so or maybe not, but I think courts should be free to change the rules to fit the FF situation, because it is very different than the MF situation!
PoP is just one of 1050 or so different special laws and regulations regarding marriage. Some states have more. No one's gone through them and checked which ones would be equitable to enforce on MM and FF.
The state wants to make all gender laws neutral, so they change the presumption of paternity into a presumption of PARENTHOOD, like Massachussets did in Goodridge. See the problem? Imagine that there's an MM couple that want a kid, but can't find any woman willing go conceive and deliver a baby for the MM couple to raise. SO what do they do? Backed by the "presumption of parenthood," the better looking M finds himself an unwitting girlfriend, without telling her he's "married" to another man. Gets her pregnant. Guess what! Court's got to figure out whether making all the laws gender neutral, means that two married guys get to take a baby from a woman who was the "homewrecker."
Can you hear the argument? EQUAL PROTECTION! If FM marriages and FF marriages can deprive a single man of his parenthood rights, shouldn't that mean that two married men should be able to take a baby from the poor sucker lady that just spent 9 months carrying it?
We need three different sets of laws. Other situations like this will come up, where the same law just does not apply. Men and women are mostly the same creature, but in reproductive matters, we are just exactly the same. That's not exactly rocket science.
posted by Christian at 11:09 PM
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