> You're arguing in very bad faith here. That's a huge misrepresentation of what pro-choice advocates want.
It's the same kind of misrepresentation as saying Eich spent $1000 to hurt people like the poster. That's my point. No-one in these debates is actually setting out to hurt other people, yet from the other side that's how it's experienced.
How is it a misrepresentation to say that donating to the cause of opposing gay rights harms gay people? There’s a direct cause and effect, linked by exactly that issue - the Prop 8 supporters weren’t even trying to hide it, either. They very explicitly wanted to take a right away from other people, even though they suffered no plausible harm from those people exercising that right.
There's a thing called ethical beliefs and people tend to feel quite strongly about them, even though they're not consistent or reasonable in many cases. Like most of the people in my country are pro gay marriage, however most of them are also against marriages of more than two partners or between close relatives. None of those type of marriages harms anyone else, and yet people don't support it, just because it feels wrong to them or because they want to draw the line at one point to not make marriage arbitrary.
I'm also pretty sure that you draw the line somewhere and I'd be surprised if you were fine with siblings being allowed to marry each other, even when they're deeply in love, they take care of each other like other couples and them being together doesn't harm you or anyone else the slightest.
Edit: My take on this is: Even though I'm married myself, I don't think marriage should be part of the legal system or the concern of the state. If the state wants to support people who take care of each other, it should state specific requirements and everyone who fulfils them gets the benefits, no matter who they are. And if people want to get married they can do that as part of a private ceremony, provided by the church or whatever, and if they can't live without the consequences of being married today, they can sign a private contract to their liking. No reason to involve the state in this private matter.
> Even though I'm married myself, I don't think marriage should be part of the legal system or the concern of the state.
This is a valid position but the Prop 8 people showed no sign of believing it. They were, reserving marriage for themselves, not working to change the laws first, and this was very directly stated both in the language of the proposition and their advocacy for it.
Remember, gay marriage was legal at the time. They could have de-privileged marriage as a legal construct with no unfair impact but put no effort whatsoever into that. It was entirely focused on removing access to those benefits from gay people.
I lived in a relatively conservative part of California at the time, was canvassed a bit, a fair chunk of my family are Orange County Republicans, etc. The language was uniformly an argument on religious principles, and if you suggested reforming the laws which privilege marriage they were profoundly uninterested in those options.
>No reason to involve the state in this private matter.
You won't be singing the same tune when they take away the tax breaks, your right to visit your partner in hospital, your right to live in the same country as your partner should you be of different nationalities, etc. etc.
I'm so sick of straight people who essentially say "well if gay people can get married then I guess marriage shouldn't be a real thing any more". In 100% of cases these people turn out not to have even minimally thought through the implications of this. But maybe suddenly stripping straight people of their right to get married would be the only effective way to stop the endless stream of heartless and hurtful comments on threads like this.
> You won't be singing the same tune when they take away the tax breaks, your right to visit your partner in hospital, your right to live in the same country as your partner should you be of different nationalities, etc. etc.
I don't see how any of that should depend on people being married? All but one of those things are already possible where I come from without being married, and the last example could be easily fixed.
> I'm so sick of straight people who essentially say "well if gay people can get married then I guess marriage shouldn't be a real thing any more". In 100% of cases these people turn out not to have even minimally thought through the implications of this.
If have thought this through pretty thoroughly. So before we continue, answer the one simple question: where do you draw the lines, that exclude certain types of partnerships from getting married? If you draw it then you're doing the same thing opponents of gay-marriage do, and if you don't draw it marriage becomes a stupid concept within the legal system.
> But maybe suddenly stripping straight people of their right to get married would be the only effective way to stop the endless stream of heartless and hurtful comments on threads like this.
That is exactly what I was saying: Get rid of marriage as a concept within the legal system of a state.
The funny thing is that people who want to get rid of marriage as a legal concept seem to pipe up almost exclusively in discussions about gay marriage.
Why do you think this idea is relevant here? It's only relevant if you want to argue that gay marriages shouldn't be legally recognized because no marriages should be legally recognized.
You mention that you're married yourself. If you really wanted the state not to be involved, you could just have conducted a non-legally-recognized marriage ceremony. So why didn't you? My guess is that you (a) didn't actually feel strongly about this issue at all and (b) wanted the many benefits conferred by a legally-recognized marriage. As to (b), gay people want these benefits too.
> The funny thing is that people who want to get rid of marriage as a legal concept seem to pipe up almost exclusively in discussions about gay marriage.
If Eich had donated money towards an organization that opposes marriages of more than two people, so this discussion had been about those types of relationships instead, I would have brought forward the same arguments. But I have the feeling that Eich wouldn't had lost its job in that case in the first place.
> Why do you think this idea is relevant here? It's only relevant if you want to argue that gay marriages shouldn't be legally recognized because no marriages should be legally recognized
No my take is: Either make all relationships legal (of course as long as none of the participants are exploited), if you insist on keeping marriages as a legal concept. Or, preferably, get rid of marriages altogether from the states point of view, since this is much more efficient and practical.
It seems to me you are just introducing lots of distractions and hypotheticals to avoid saying anything specific about gay marriage. I'm married to another man. Do you think my marriage should be legally recognized or not?
Like I said, I'm fine with any partnership being able to enter a legally recognized marriage, if its 7 men, two siblings, man and woman, three man and three women, ... if the state provides marriage within its legal system. So yes, if a man and woman can get a legally recognized marriage in your country then your marriage should be legalized as well. But I'd much rather prefer it for the state not to have such a stupid system in the first place, so marriage becomes a purely private matter.
I think you're saying that you're ok with gay marriage if gay marriage is legal, which kind of doges the main question of whether or not it should be legal.
I'd find your opposition to the legal recognition of any marriages more credible if you divorced your wife in solidarity :)
> I think you're saying that you're ok with gay marriage if gay marriage is legal, which kind of doges the main question of whether or not it should be legal.
No, again: If opposite-sex marriage is legal, then I think any other type of partnership should be allowed to become married as well, whether its same-sex with two men, 20 women, a whole family, ...
> I'd find your opposition to the legal recognition of any marriages more credible if you divorced your wife in solidarity :)
Why do you assume I'm married to a woman? I'm married because we get the most benefits out of it and my partner is kind of sentimental and has a different opinion about that topic, so I'm doing them a favor as well.
Like with every other human being, my views and actions aren't always consistent. For example I also don't like child labour, but here I am typing this on a machine that likely made quite a few children suffer.
> I assume you're married to a woman (or a man, if you're a woman) because you responded negatively to a comment that said voting for prop 8 wasn't an action that was harmful to gay people.
I didn't respond negatively to that comment. I provided an explanation, that those people who object to the idea of gay marriage do the same thing as almost everyone else, even many who are in favor of gay marriage: They have a certain image or ideal in their head, of how a marriage has to look like, and everything that doesn't fit that image feels wrong to them and shouldn't be legal. Hence almost everyone wants to exclude certain types of relationships from getting married.
I explicitly focused on that argument:
> They very explicitly wanted to take a right away from other people, even though they suffered no plausible harm from those people exercising that right.
from the comment, which IMHO is a misleading argument, since I don't believe that many gay marriage supporters take it seriously. So you should finally answer my question, so I know where you stand: Do you believe that that argument is valid, i.e. are you also fine with a mother (50) marrying her son (30) or 12 people getting married? According to that argument it should be legal as well, since they don't harm anyone, but I have a strong feeling that even most gay marriage proponents wouldn't support such a type of marriage. So they're line would just be somewhere else.
Oh man, it's 2020, a gay marriage thread...do we still have to talk about incest, polygamous marriage, owners marrying their dogs, and what ever other red herrings your imagination can supply? We can, if you really want to, but that line of argument has been debunked so many times that I'd have to question the sincerity of anyone who brings it up nowadays.
The paper already starts of with multiple premises that don't apply to any of my arguments.
1. I never put forward an argument against gay marriage, yet the paper is all about debunking arguments against gay marriage.
2. I don't consider it a bad effect if other types relationships were allowed to get married, it's the opposite, I'd consider it a huge improvement to what we have right now. Yet the paper assumes someone said: "If we allow gay marriage, we will also have to allow [policy X], which would unquestionably be bad."
Hence I must assume, that you either didn't read or understand anything I wrote, or you didn't read the paper.
Your argument was that everyone believes that marriage should be restricted in some ways, so that believing it should be restricted to opposite sex couples is no worse than believing it should be restricted in any other way. If you read it, the paper addresses that kind of slippery slope argument. It explains that it is not at all difficult to find good reasons for expanding marriage to include same sex couples without expanding it in every other conceivable way. Hence, there is no prima facie case to be made that every other still-existing restriction is a violation of anyone's rights.
> Your argument was that everyone believes that marriage should be restricted in some ways, so that believing it should be restricted to opposite sex couples is no worse than believing it should be restricted in any other way.
No, my point is that if someone brings forward the argument that same-sex marriage is fine because it doesn't harm anyone, but they then oppose other types of marriages that don't harm anyone, they obviously don't take their own argument seriously. Hence they shouldn't be surprised if others don't take it seriously as well, but they actually criticize them for doing so.
> It explains that it is not at all difficult to find good reasons for expanding marriage to include same sex couples without expanding it in every other conceivable way.
Which is completely irrelevant to this discussion, because the reason that was brought forward for expanding marriage was "it's fine if it does no harm to anyone", not some other reasons which prevent a slippery slope.
You're basically saying, that if the other user had brought up a better argument, my critique wouldn't apply.
Edit: But just out of curiosity, what argument would logically allow a same-sex marriage of men or women, who aren't closely related to each other, but exclude two brothers or sisters from marrying each other?
What the OP actually said is the following: "They [prop 8 supporters] very explicitly wanted to take a right away from other people, even though they suffered no plausible harm from those people exercising that right."
This isn't presented as an argument for the legality of gay marriage; rather, it already presupposes that gay couples have the legal right to get married (as indeed they did in California before proposition 8 passed). It's uncharitable and implausible to assume that the OP would be able to present no argument for the legalisation of gay marriage other than "it wouldn't harm anyone". It certainly doesn't advance the discussion to attribute to them a weak argument that they didn't even make.
>But just out of curiosity, what argument would logically allow a same-sex marriage of men or women, who aren't closely related to each other, but exclude two brothers or sisters from marrying each other?
What argument would logically allow an opposite sex marriage of a man and a woman who aren't clearly related to each other but exclude brothers or sisters from marrying each other? Unless you think that there's some kind of analogy between same sex relationships and incest, then same sex marriage is totally irrelevant here. Can't think of a reason to ban incestuous marriages? Then the slippery slope starts from opposite sex marriage, not from same sex marriage.
> What argument would logically allow an opposite sex marriage of a man and a woman who aren't clearly related to each other but exclude brothers or sisters from marrying each other?
I can't think of one, which is why I never claimed there are good reasons to not allow such type of marriages, unlike you. I said multiple times that I'm completely fine with all types of marriages and relationships that don't exploit or harm people.
> Can't think of a reason to ban incestuous marriages? Then the slippery slope starts from opposite sex marriage, not from same sex marriage.
Yes, which is why I'd allow such type marriages. You however claimed there are good reasons that the slippery slope either stops after same-sex marriage or doesn't even start in the first place. So would you just answer my question and give me one of those good reasons, why for example sibling marriages are bad and normal same sex marriages are fine?
As far as I can tell, you want to make some kind of false equivalence between gay people who are opposed to incestuous marriages and straight people who are opposed to gay marriage.
I hesitate to engage because anyone who does this is unlikely to be interested in having a serious discussion. But here's a point you might have missed. Over the past hundred years or so, there has been a huge shift in the perception of the rigidity of gender roles. The expansion of the legal definition of marriage to include same gender couples is a logical continuation of this trend. If men and women are fundamentally equal, it's hard to justify gender restrictions on marriage. In contrast, attitudes to incest have not shifted much at all. Indeed, if anything, cousin marriages are less socially acceptable than they were previously. Why is this? I think the answer is obvious. People have seen many examples of normal, successful, non-abusive long term gay relationships. But they have not seen similar evidence in the case of incestuous relationships.
This being said, I think you'll find that most people don't actually care very much whether incestuous marriages are legal. And indeed, around the world, the extent to which incest is legally prohibited varies greatly. Do you even have any evidence that most supporters of gay marriage are opposed to the legalisation of incestuous marriages (in jurisdictions where they are not already legal)? Or indeed, can you point to any concrete evidence of gay rights advocates campaigning to impose additional restrictions on incestuous relationships?
> You won't be singing the same tune when they take away the tax breaks, your right to visit your partner in hospital, your right to live in the same country as your partner should you be of different nationalities, etc. etc.
Here in Australia, the government has decided that unmarried couples in long-term marriage-like relationships (with characteristics like intentions of permanence, sharing of finances and mutual financial support, living together, raising children together, etc) should be treated equivalently to married couples, and receive the same rights and entitlements as married couples do – those long-term marriage-like unmarried relationships are called de facto relationships. This has been enshrined in law, and is now mostly true (modulo some obscure legal technicalities, and the fact that some government agencies at times fail to adhere to the spirit or even letter of the law – although to my knowledge immigration is the main and maybe even only offender). So, in Australia, there are no special tax breaks for being married – unmarried people in de facto relationships can claim the same tax breaks. Family law courts, etc, treat long-term de facto couples as if they were married for issues like property settlements and child custody. This gave a somewhat different character to the same-sex marriage debate in Australia – unmarried couples, both opposite-sex and same-sex, already had pretty much the same rights as opposite-sex married couples, and extending the right of marriage was primarily a symbolic statement of equality rather than a change in people's real world rights and entitlements.
I think other countries, including the US, should do the same thing as Australia has – extend long-term/serious unmarried couples the same legal rights and entitlements as married couples.
And once you've done that, there really is no obstacle to abolishing marriage as a secular legal institution. People who want to participate in it, either as a cultural institution or as a religious institution (or both) are free to do so, but there really is no compelling reason for the government to get involved.
Yeah, if you actually do your research, you will find that not everything works this way. So e.g. it is almost always much easier to get visas for married partners than for unmarried partners. And in general, marriage is strong objective evidence of a real relationship. Without the certificate, you're at the mercy of a homophobic government official's judgment call about whether your relationship counts.
This impractical pie in the sky stuff about abolishing marriage as a legal institution is almost always just a lame excuse for opposing same sex marriage. I'm not sure why you're bringing it up or why you think it's relevant to Brendan Eich.
> Yeah, if you actually do your research, you will find that not everything works this way. So e.g. it is almost always much easier to get visas for married partners than for unmarried partners.
I already said that, for the case of immigration/visas, it wasn't working that way in Australia; but, that is the only case in Australia in which I know about. But, that's a problem with the Australian immigration system that could be fixed with sufficient political will; it isn't a problem with the principle that serious/long-term unmarried couples should have the exact same rights as married couples, it is just a correctable failure to fully and correctly implement that principle in practice.
For many years I was in an opposite-sex living-together relationship, including having a child together, without being married. (We did eventually get married.) I know people in my extended family who have lived together (in opposite-sex relationships) for 30 years, had kids, never got married, never experienced themselves as being disadvantaged in any way compared to legally married couples. So my lived experience in Australia tells me that unmarried couples rarely or never experience any discrimination on the basis of their marital status, outside of the immigration system. (And maybe some religious institutions, but that has nothing to do with the government or legal system.)
> People usually used this impractical pie in the sky stuff about abolishing marriage as a legal institution as a lame excuse for opposing same sex marriage
When did I say I oppose same-sex marriage? I support same-sex marriage, but I also support abolishing marriage. The two positions are not mutually exclusive – so long as the state is in the business of recognising marriage, it should treat same-sex and opposite-sex couples equally – but, it should get out of that business altogether.
> I'm not sure why you're bringing it up
I didn't bring it up; someone else did. But since it has become part of the conversation, why shouldn't I share my view on it?
Marriage also isn't technically required to get a visa for your partner in the UK, but it makes it vastly easier in practice, and is a barrier to capricious discrimination against gay couples by immigration officials.
The idea of removing marriage as a legal institution and "fixing" 101 other rules that used to depend on marriage is, as I said, pie in the sky stuff. This silly idea is great cover for homophobes. It's harmless to discuss it in the abstract, but not so much in the context of the question of whether gay people should have fundamental rights.
If the law says that married and unmarried couples are to be treated equally (including in immigration/visa matters), and if that law is enforced, then immigration officials will treat married and unmarried couples equally.
If immigration officials are not treating married and unmarried couples equally, that's a problem with either the law or its enforcement in practice – both of which are fixable with sufficient political will – not a problem with the principle that married and unmarried couples ought to receive identical treatment.
If the principle of equal treatment were legislated, and if that legislation were consistently enforced, what then would be the problem with abolishing state recognition of marriage (for both opposite-sex and same-sex couples equally)? I can't see how there could be any.
> You "support" gay marriage in rather a quiet and ineffective way, I'd say.
In 2017, Australia had a national postal plebiscite on the question "Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?". (Technically called the "Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey", since by calling it a "survey" the government was able to carry it out without the permission of Parliament.) I voted "Yes". I told my friends and family I was voting "Yes". I even posted a photo of my "Yes" ballot paper on Facebook (I covered up the barcode so that I didn't spoil my vote by doing so). Over 60% of my fellow Australians voted the same way. Within a month of the result being announced, Australia's Marriage Act was changed to reflect the result of that vote. So how exactly was my support ineffective?
>If the law says that married and unmarried couples are to be treated equally...then immigration officials will treat married and unmarried couples equally.
In your pie in the sky world, I'm sure they will. In reality, not so much.
I deleted my point about your support being "quiet and ineffective", as I didn't have a justification for that - sorry. But I do think you are very naive in thinking that undermining the importance of marriage as a legal institution is a good way to advance rights for gay couples.
>>If the law says that married and unmarried couples are to be treated equally (including in immigration/visa matters), and if that law is enforced, then immigration officials will treat married and unmarried couples equally.
Right. Because government agents and agencies never systematically violate equal treatment mandates.
In the long-run, they never do when (1) those equal treatment mandates are firmly enshrined in law, and (2) there is an effective judicial remedy for violations of that law. Cases where they do it in an ongoing manner are cases where either (1) or (2) are missing.
In the case of immigration/visas, a big problem is that (in many legal systems) most immigration/visa decisions are not judicially reviewable. (There are often exceptions for certain areas of immigration law, such as refugee status determinations and deportation proceedings, but if you are refused a visa from outside the country you usually have no legal recourse.) This means that, even if you believe you have been discriminated against on a legally prohibited ground, no court will even hear your claim.
I think that's wrong, and that should be changed. And it impacts all kinds of people; I'm sure some people get discriminated against on the basis of their sexuality when seeking visas and have no legal recourse, but plenty of people get discriminated against on other grounds – or even just get visas denied for completely inscrutable reasons (e.g. Daniel Stenberg's continual denial of a US visa) – and have no recourse either. But this is a problem which could be fixed with sufficient political will; the law could be amended to grant rights of judicial review in all visa/immigration matters.
Another point: you can say "even if the law says that married and unmarried couples should be treated equally, immigration officials will ignore/violate that law", but you can equally say "even if the law says that same-sex and opposite-sex married couples should be treated equally, immigration officials will ignore/violate that law". I don't understand how, the risk that some immigration official might discriminate against a same-sex couple is a good argument for retaining the legal recognition of marriage, since immigration officials can discriminate against same-sex couples whether marriage is a legally recognised institution or not.
It's the same kind of misrepresentation as saying Eich spent $1000 to hurt people like the poster. That's my point. No-one in these debates is actually setting out to hurt other people, yet from the other side that's how it's experienced.