Laws do not persuade merely because they threaten.
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca, c. 4BC - 65AD.
That the California Supreme Court annulled all of the gay marriages performed in San Francisco this year isn’t surprising; like it or not, the law is clear on the subject. Reasonable equal-protection arguments can be raised, just like Lawrence v. Texas, and this is going to end up in the Supreme Court’s lap sooner or later. (My guess is that the current court, at least, will pass on reviewing this particular case, though.)
As previously noted, though, the legalistic argument is not an argument at all; it may be a statement of fact that gay marriage is not legal under California law, but that is not a reason for or against it.
The next argument being considered is that allowing gays to marry “weakens marriage.” Now, in order to “weaken marriage,” unless we are talking about structural damage to some Platonic Ideal of Marriage somewhere in the astral plane, we are talking about weakening marriages.
So, what marriages are we talking about? Precisely which real, non-thought-experiment marriages are going to be harmed by this?
Anyone?
I didn’t think so. I’ve never heard anyone stand up and say, “My marriage will be harmed if gay people are allowed to marry, too, and here is why.” If challenged, it is always something along the lines of, “Well, of course, my marriage is immune to Gay Cooties floating through the aether, but some other marriage might possibly be harmed.”
Bullshit, of course. A thought-experiment relationship can be constructed that will be harmed by gay marriage, or by no-fault divorce, or by Cool-Whip™. So what? I can imagine a person whose life will be destroyed by the existence of Purple.
If we are now going to make things illegal because we can come up with a story about how some unreal person will be harmed if we don’t, we have completely lost it.
posted 20:08> If we are now going to make things illegal because we can come up with a story about how some unreal person will be harmed if we don’t
Isn't that called 'religion' ?
Posted by: Simon at August 13, 2004 04:03 AMI like Simon's comment. Very astute. But whether or not you agree with gay marriage being legal, those who want it to be legal irresponsibly bulled ahead and stepped outside their authority. The current anguish is the fault of the people who didn't check that what they were doing was legal. They should have seen this coming.
Posted by: JonasParker at August 13, 2004 07:33 AMI have a sneaking suspicion that Newsom might have known that state law prohibited same-sex marriage, based just on my subtle and intricate reading of his actions. Like, for example, him saying so.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure the incrementalist approach is good for anything here. Same-sex couples can marry or they can't. End of story. The reality is that the only way that same-sex marriage is going to become widely legal is for it to become legal in a very small number of places, and then have a few years go by in which society does not, in fact, collapse. In 20 years, everyone then wonders what all the fuss is about and why these stupid laws against it are still on the books.
But for that to happen, it has to be legal somewhere. Good for Newsom for trying to kick-start the process.
Posted by: Christophe at August 26, 2004 11:12 PMI think that where he says that it won't hurt the sacred bonds of marriage he is wrong. Also they are fighting for the rights to be married within the church however every time someone tries to bring religion into the picture they say it is unfair to look at it from this stand point. If they don't want religion mentioned they shouldn't want to married in a church!
Posted by: Danielle at December 11, 2004 01:48 PM