Marriage

[snousle]

[Snarfed and edited from my own comment on a G+ post, recorded here for posterity]

I have long been bothered by the repeated assertion that gay marriage is "illegal", which completely defers to the state the power to decide what a marriage is, and arguably encourages a kind of helplessness. Ideally, I'd much rather see gay couples take the attitude that they ARE married, and are patiently waiting for the state to recognize that obvious fact. Along with that would be greater community-level support for pursuing the trappings of marriage - wills, joint property, POA, et cetra - which would be framed as an inadequate and annoying work-around to the government's failure to deal with reality. With that attitude, maybe there would be fewer tragic endings and government recognition would happen at a faster pace.

On a personal note, while John and I would certainly get married once it's recognized on a federal level (for various reasons state-level is not suitable for us), we still have a third member of our family that could be treated just as cruelly as any "unmarried" partner had we not secured his rights through other means. Marriage is just one kind of family relationship, and our family happens to be larger than that; state recognition of marriage would be a big improvement but not a complete solution. So it kind of burns me to hear "polygamy" raised as an argument against gay marriage and simultaneously dismissed by gay people themselves. What we REALLY need is a more general form of adoption that covers whatever kind of kinship you want to have.

Comments

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

"So it kind of burns me to hear "polygamy" raised as an argument against gay marriage and simultaneously dismissed by gay people themselves. What we REALLY need is a more general form of adoption that covers whatever kind of kinship you want to have."

THIS. Just needed to say that. I hate that my (well not at the moment *sigh*) relationships get thrown under the bus for those who want some picket fence heteronorm assimilation fantasy.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't get why you can't have a full fledged intentional family with people in the legally-equivalent role of brothers, uncles, grandparents, whatever. It's not like a family is always exactly two people. Not even NUCLEAR families are like that. At least the French have "affrereage" or however it's spelled - two men can become brothers, equivalent under the law to blood relatives. Wouldn't that be nice?

And this isn't even remotely a sexual thing, just a living life thing.

[equinas.livejournal.com]

My opinion is that the federal government needs to get out of the marriage business, completely. They certainly shouldn't "define" marriage in any way shape or form. DOMA defined marriage, and the feds should not do that, unless the entire country wants to vote in a Constitutional amendment, which would never happen.

As for the state governments - I'm a big believer in state sovereignty and the ability for people to move to another state that suits their ideals if needed (with federal laws, Americans have nowhere else to go and still be Americans). However even with state government, setting a definition (or even perpetuating one based on Abrahamic religions) is not really Constitutional, seeing that the equal protection clause of the 14th was directed to the states specifically.

What needs to happen is to leave the whole marriage language to communities and religious institutions to define what they accept as a "marriage." When it comes to things that matter for peace, prosperity, and the pursuit of happiness, the EPC would clearly demand that any civil union or family contract consenting adults wish to bind must be recognized everywhere in the country, just like any piece of contract law.

While I'm loathe to quote Rush (whose rhetoric overshadows some of his more salient points), even he believes that this is inevitable, and points to the misuse of language as the reason.