McClellan - same sex marriage

[_Sethbag]

So when the two 30-year-partner lesbians looked at each other after gay marriage was legalised and proposed to each other, what they were really saying was "Will you domesticate and normalize homosexual relationships, subverting traditional Western/Judeo Christian social norms with me?"

[_KevinSim]

"Many people have credited Thomas Jefferson for having a major role in drafting the Declaration of Independence." "But why are all men created equal?"

So, Darth J, are you saying that you don't know what's so bad about polygamy that it was getting the condemnation I spoke of?

http://verdict.justia.com/2011/07/20/sister-wives-an-illustration-of-why-polygamy-is-and-should-be-illegal

This article is titled, "Sister Wives: An Illustration of Why Polygamy Is, and Should Be, Illegal", but it spends more time observing that polygamy has been illegal over long stretches of time in Western civilization than why it has been illegal, or why it should now be illegal.

When Marci Hamilton's article does get around to giving reasons for why polygamy is and should be illegal, those reasons are threefold. (1) "Professor Lieber says, polygamy leads to the patriarchal principle, and which, when applied to large communities, fetters the people in stationary despotism." (2) "When practiced in a community, it leads to the necessity of each man looking to younger and younger women, and (3) the abandonment of some of the boys to make the odds work for the men."

In support of (1) Hamilton says, "It is obvious that there is an equation in the family: one man = four women (or five women, or 10 women) and he is the one who will choose how many women are his equal." Well, first off, this is not the form of polygamy that I'm supporting. I've made it quite clear that the law I would support would only allow marriages of two or three adults, not five, six, or 11. We're talking Alice, Brian, and Cathy. In such a case I would guess that Hamilton would say it's "obvious that there is an equation in the" family: Brian = Alice + Cathy. But why divide the marriage on gender boundaries? Why couldn't it be Alice = Brian + Cathy, or Alice + Brian = Cathy, or (gasp) Alice = Brian = Cathy? I have yet to see any logical explanation of how my law would lead to any patriarchal principle at all. In a threesome with only one man, the man would be outnumbered by the two women. How does that of necessity result in the man having any control over the women at all?

My response to (2) is two-pronged. First, with it illegal to marry more than two wives, it's unclear that it'd even be necessary for a man to marry younger and younger women. Second, my law would make it illegal for anyone under 18 years old to enter into any polygamous marriage at all.

(3) Once again, each man limited to only two wives, it's not clear that there would be the need to abandon any of the boys in the community at all.

So when she divorces Husband, she is presumptively entitled to 1/3 of the equity in the home, even though two other people want to stay married and live in it. Wife #2 now either has to help buy out Wife #1's share of the equity, or she has to sell or refinance the house and lose part of the accumulated value in the house, even though she's not the one getting divorced. So Wife #2 gets screwed because Wife #1 and Husband don't get along anymore.

Anyone that gets involved in any kind of marriage runs the risk of financial calamity should that marriage end in divorce. Sometimes it's that person's fault, sometimes it's partially her/his fault, and sometimes that person is relatively (or feasibly completely) innocent. If someone doesn't want to take the risk of financial disaster, that someone shouldn't get married in the first place, whether monogamously or polygamously.

Darth J, in order to make this argument work you need to demonstrate that there is a higher percentage of innocent victims who enter into polygamous marriages and get divorced (or rather, as you put it, experience the divorce of their spouse and the other spouse), than there is a percentage of innocent victims who enter into monogamous marriages and get divorced.

Wherever there's a marriage that results in divorce, the innocent people involved simply have to trust that the deciding judge will make the decision that is in the best interest of the people involved.

Clearly as one gestalt marriage.

You really didn't think this through before you posted it, did you? Okay, all three people are all married to each other. So they have to have three-way sex to consummate the marriage. As hot as that might sound to some people, what if it's two men and one woman, or one man and two women, and they're all heterosexual?

I confess I didn't know the meaning of gestalt before you used it in your question. I looked it up using "http://www.dictionary.com" and it seemed to fit, so I answered yes. I had no idea a gestalt marriage would involve sex between each of the three pairs involved in the triple. That was definitely not what I meant for a polygamous triple. Instead the relationships (sexual or otherwise) between each of the three pairs of adults is precisely what the trio decide those relationships should be.

Not every jurisdiction has no-fault divorce. Utah, for example, does not have no-fault divorce.

I still think any member of a polygamous triple should get a divorce whenever s/he chooses to, without a need for any justification of any kind.

Monogamy is itself a complicated arrangement.

See: continuum fallacy

I read this bit about the continuum fallacy; what it said was my argument would be a fallacy if I were trying to argue that monogamy and polygamy were equivalent. That is not what I was trying to say. What I was trying to say was that if the argument is that we should reject polygamy because it is more complicated than monogamy, then it would seem just as logical to reject monogamous households because they are more complicated than single adult households. Being more complex does not in itself make an institution a bad thing.

[_Bazooka]

Are you saying that you really cannot see the offence in this statement that you posted earlier in the thread?

In retrospect I can see why some people might take offense at this statement. But I reiterate that I didn't mean to offend when I made it. I was trying to make a statement that wasn't very complicated, but that was in fact true. I probably should have taken more time to say what I meant.

So when you stated....

It takes an exceptional woman to realize that her marraige shouldn't be based on selfishness....

....what did you mean?

[_Darth J]

I strongly suggest you at least skim the link I posted above. It's a 69-page court brief submitted by a chair of evolution at a university in Canada arguing against the legalization of polygamy. Whether you agree or disagree with his arguments against polygamy, I don't believe a single argument contained therein could be applied to gay marriage.

It needn't, because homosexual marriage is not now and never has been about homosexuals marrying per se; its about the overarching cultural and moral domestication and normalization of homosexuality, which is a substantial deviation from Judeo-Christian/Western social norms and as the history of the sexual revolution quite clearly shows, once one barrier is pulled down, others soon follow, and there is no specific, clearly defined limit - save human imagination and the remaining cultural thresholds still in place at a given time - to the continuing development and redefinitions of sexual "liberation."

Droopy, perhaps you would like to explain why Theodore Olson is lead counsel for the respondents in Hollingsworth v. Perry.

If you could limit you explanation to facts that can be objectively ascertained, as opposed to speculation you are making up out of thin air, that would be great.

[_Darth J]

"Many people have credited Thomas Jefferson for having a major role in drafting the Declaration of Independence." "But why are all men created equal?"

So, Darth J, are you saying that you don't know what's so bad about polygamy that it was getting the condemnation I spoke of?

No, that's a comment on your habit of asking people why they don't explain things when they are in the course of explaining things.

http://verdict.justia.com/2011/07/20/sister-wives-an-illustration-of-why-polygamy-is-and-should-be-illegal

This article is titled, "Sister Wives: An Illustration of Why Polygamy Is, and Should Be, Illegal", but it spends more time observing that polygamy has been illegal over long stretches of time in Western civilization than why it has been illegal, or why it should now be illegal.

When Marci Hamilton's article does get around to giving reasons for why polygamy is and should be illegal, those reasons are threefold. (1) "Professor Lieber says, polygamy leads to the patriarchal principle, and which, when applied to large communities, fetters the people in stationary despotism." (2) "When practiced in a community, it leads to the necessity of each man looking to younger and younger women, and (3) the abandonment of some of the boys to make the odds work for the men."

Your question was this: "I'm not sure what "the patriarchal principle" is that Lieber is referring to. Darth J, feel free to explain it to me if it would help, but largely I just want to know why polygamy would inherently lead to "stationary despotism" any more than monogamy would. What is it about polygamy that leads to any kind of despotism at all, in such a way that monogamy does not?" In this article, Marci Hamilton is specifically explaining what was meant by "the patriarchal principle" in Reynolds.

In support of (1) Hamilton says, "It is obvious that there is an equation in the family: one man = four women (or five women, or 10 women) and he is the one who will choose how many women are his equal." Well, first off, this is not the form of polygamy that I'm supporting.

Well, second off, that was the form of polygamy the Mormons in Utah were supporting in Reynolds.

I've made it quite clear that the law I would support would only allow marriages of two or three adults, not five, six, or 11. We're talking Alice, Brian, and Cathy. In such a case I would guess that Hamilton would say it's "obvious that there is an equation in the" family: Brian = Alice + Cathy. But why divide the marriage on gender boundaries? Why couldn't it be Alice = Brian + Cathy, or Alice + Brian = Cathy, or (gasp) Alice = Brian = Cathy? I have yet to see any logical explanation of how my law would lead to any patriarchal principle at all. In a threesome with only one man, the man would be outnumbered by the two women. How does that of necessity result in the man having any control over the women at all?

Your math analogy only makes sense if you are talking about babies (Alice is the result of Brian plus Cathy, etc.). Adults are not created by two other adults. Brian and Alice and Cathy all exist independently of each other. The way you should be doing this is "Marriage = Brian + Alice + Cathy." And then you're still illustrating it so that it takes two women to equal one man. However, your question was about the reasoning in Reynolds v. United States, and why the U.S. Supreme Court used the concept of the patriarchal principle as a secular basis to hold that the Free Exercise clause did not give Mormons a right to disregard federal anti-bigamy statutes. So essentially your statement above is questioning why the Supreme Court in Reynolds and a law professor now are talking about real things that have really happened in real life instead of them talking about your hypothetical that has never actually happened.

My response to (2) is two-pronged. First, with it illegal to marry more than two wives, it's unclear that it'd even be necessary for a man to marry younger and younger women. Second, my law would make it illegal for anyone under 18 years old to enter into any polygamous marriage at all.

Third, your hypothetical law was not at issue in Reynolds v. United States.

(3) Once again, each man limited to only two wives, it's not clear that there would be the need to abandon any of the boys in the community at all.

But you said you weren't advocating the tacit conceit that it takes two women to equal one man, remember? Why can't one woman have two husbands under your schema here? Or one woman have two wives, for that matter?

By the way, given your expressed disdain for arbitrariness, you are aware that limiting marriage to three partners is an arbitrary number, right?

So when she divorces Husband, she is presumptively entitled to 1/3 of the equity in the home, even though two other people want to stay married and live in it. Wife #2 now either has to help buy out Wife #1's share of the equity, or she has to sell or refinance the house and lose part of the accumulated value in the house, even though she's not the one getting divorced. So Wife #2 gets screwed because Wife #1 and Husband don't get along anymore.

Anyone that gets involved in any kind of marriage runs the risk of financial calamity should that marriage end in divorce. Sometimes it's that person's fault, sometimes it's partially her/his fault, and sometimes that person is relatively (or feasibly completely) innocent. If someone doesn't want to take the risk of financial disaster, that someone shouldn't get married in the first place, whether monogamously or polygamously.

You do not appear to understand the difference between a risk and a certainty, nor the difference between being "screwed" in the sense of harsh practical consequences and the sense of being "screwed" in the sense that substantive law is inherently unfair. It is true that in a divorce, it is possible that one or both parties are going to have some financial readjusting because there is only so much money between the two of them. But in the idea you are proposing, it is inevitable that at least one party is going to be screwed while at least one party is going to be unjustly enriched.

Darth J, in order to make this argument work you need to demonstrate that there is a higher percentage of innocent victims who enter into polygamous marriages and get divorced (or rather, as you put it, experience the divorce of their spouse and the other spouse), than there is a percentage of innocent victims who enter into monogamous marriages and get divorced.

No, I don't have to show that, because I am not making an empirical claim. I am making a logical conclusion about how equitable distribution of the marital estate in a divorce would work in the three-party marriage you are proposing.

Wherever there's a marriage that results in divorce, the innocent people involved simply have to trust that the deciding judge will make the decision that is in the best interest of the people involved.

In a divorce between two people, a judge cannot award the property of a third party to one of the divorcing spouses. Like if Husband is having an affair with Girlfriend, the judge cannot award Girlfriend's car to Wife. In the framework you are proposing, however, that kind of thing would inevitably happen. If Wife #1 is divorcing Husband and assets and debts are being divided up, it will inevitably affect the property rights of Wife #2 who is still married to Husband, even though Wife #2 isn't a party to the case because she isn't getting divorced. What it comes down to is you think it's fine to deny due process of law to a non-party (the non-divorcing spouse) just because you would like to have an extra wife.

You really didn't think this through before you posted it, did you? Okay, all three people are all married to each other. So they have to have three-way sex to consummate the marriage. As hot as that might sound to some people, what if it's two men and one woman, or one man and two women, and they're all heterosexual?

I confess I didn't know the meaning of gestalt before you used it in your question. I looked it up using "http://www.dictionary.com" and it seemed to fit, so I answered yes. I had no idea a gestalt marriage would involve sex between each of the three pairs involved in the triple. That was definitely not what I meant for a polygamous triple. Instead the relationships (sexual or otherwise) between each of the three pairs of adults is precisely what the trio decide those relationships should be.

Then you are talking about polyandry. If you have this great idea of how a legally sanctioned menage-a-trois would work, then you need to decide if each spouse is married to both of the other spouses (the wives are just as married to each other as they are to the husband), or if really all you've got is one guy with two separate marriages.

ETA: Kevin, what happens if the wives want to divorce each other but they both want to stay married to the husband?

Not every jurisdiction has no-fault divorce. Utah, for example, does not have no-fault divorce.

I still think any member of a polygamous triple should get a divorce whenever s/he chooses to, without a need for any justification of any kind.

Then you're talking about re-writing numerous marriage laws, not just the number of people. And what happens when one of these spouses deliberately acts in bad faith and breaks the marriage contract? They're not treated any differently than a spouse who tries his or her best but just can't make it work? Do you also feel that the law should treat a person who accidentally runs into someone's car the same as someone who runs into another person's car on purpose?

See: continuum fallacy

I read this bit about the continuum fallacy; what it said was my argument would be a fallacy if I were trying to argue that monogamy and polygamy were equivalent. That is not what I was trying to say. What I was trying to say was that if the argument is that we should reject polygamy because it is more complicated than monogamy, then it would seem just as logical to reject monogamous households because they are more complicated than single adult households. Being more complex does not in itself make an institution a bad thing.

The reason you are committing the continuum fallacy is you are saying because there are unspecified problems in monogamy, a monogamous relationship is not meaningfully different from a polygamous relationship.

[_KevinSim]

So when you stated....

It takes an exceptional woman to realize that her marraige shouldn't be based on selfishness....

....what did you mean?

I meant precisely what I said; I just didn't say it with any tact whatsoever, and I should have used some tact.

Look, if a man marries a woman and makes a verbal commitment with her that he is going to stay faithful to her exclusively, then by all means he should keep that commitment.

But let's say for a moment that a woman is happily married to a man. In the course of events she comes across a woman who isn't married to anybody. Jane Austen's novel Emma has the protagonist of the same name moving Heaven and Earth in an attempt to find a husband for her single friend, and I suppose our hypothetical married woman might work just as hard to help her single acquaintance also find a suitable match. But for some reason that desire for the well-being of the acquaintance stops short of sexually sharing her own husband. Why is that?

Women use the word cheating, and rightly so. But to cheat you need a set of rules, and then the cheating flies in violation of those rules. But if the rules being kept force some women to choose between marrying men completely unsuitable for them, or alternately staying single the rest of their lives, then we need to ask ourselves, why are we keeping these rules?

For some women a single life is okay, and they may very possibly have no desire to be married. But I think it would be extremely naïve to assert that all single women want to be single.

I will say once again, my own wife is the kind who would consider me cheating on her to be the utmost betrayal; she would never dream of sharing me with any other woman, and that's just as well, since I'm not the type of man that would ever seriously contemplate trying a marriage as complex as a polygamous one. My wife is, in fact, in many ways very similar to Jane Austen's Emma; she definitely doesn't look at single women and gloat over the fact that she was lucky and they were not.

I just wonder sometimes if her optimism that there must be a match, a soulmate, for every single woman who exists in the world, isn't a little bit unrealistic, a bit naïve. There are roughly the same number of men in the world as there are women, but I see no reason to believe they are completely matchable with each other, one-to-one in perfect relationships.

[_Bazooka]

So when you stated....

It takes an exceptional woman to realize that her marraige shouldn't be based on selfishness....

....what did you mean?

I meant precisely what I said; I just didn't say it with any tact whatsoever, and I should have used some tact.

[_Bazooka]

Look, if a man marries a woman and makes a verbal commitment with her that he is going to stay faithful to her exclusively, then by all means he should keep that commitment.

But let's say for a moment that a woman is happily married to a man. In the course of events she comes across a woman who isn't married to anybody. Jane Austen's novel Emma has the protagonist of the same name moving Heaven and Earth in an attempt to find a husband for her single friend, and I suppose our hypothetical married woman might work just as hard to help her single acquaintance also find a suitable match. But for some reason that desire for the well-being of the acquaintance stops short of sexually sharing her own husband. Why is that?

Women use the word cheating, and rightly so. But to cheat you need a set of rules, and then the cheating flies in violation of those rules. But if the rules being kept force some women to choose between marrying men completely unsuitable for them, or alternately staying single the rest of their lives, then we need to ask ourselves, why are we keeping these rules?

For some women a single life is okay, and they may very possibly have no desire to be married. But I think it would be extremely naïve to assert that all single women want to be single.

I will say once again, my own wife is the kind who would consider me cheating on her to be the utmost betrayal; she would never dream of sharing me with any other woman, and that's just as well, since I'm not the type of man that would ever seriously contemplate trying a marriage as complex as a polygamous one. My wife is, in fact, in many ways very similar to Jane Austen's Emma; she definitely doesn't look at single women and gloat over the fact that she was lucky and they were not.

I just wonder sometimes if her optimism that there must be a match, a soulmate, for every single woman who exists in the world, isn't a little bit unrealistic, a bit naïve. There are roughly the same number of men in the world as there are women, but I see no reason to believe they are completely matchable with each other, one-to-one in perfect relationships.

Kevin, I mean no offence, but I cannot identify what point(s) you are making.
Please can you clarify? (preferably in a few short bullet points as I understand things better that way)

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I would like definitive answers from Mopologists for the following "Traditional Marriage" scenarios to help me understand what constitutes a "right" marriage or not:

1) Childless marriages.

2) 2nd, 3rd, or 4th marriages.

3) Geriatric marriages.

4) Bigamy/Polygamy.

5) Arranged marriage.

6) Age-disparate marriages (think a young 20-something marrying a 70-year old).

Now, I would like a Mopologist to simply illustrate why two people of the same gender can't be lawfully married.

- Doc

[_KevinSim]

Your question was this: "I'm not sure what "the patriarchal principle" is that Lieber is referring to. Darth J, feel free to explain it to me if it would help, but largely I just want to know why polygamy would inherently lead to "stationary despotism" any more than monogamy would. What is it about polygamy that leads to any kind of despotism at all, in such a way that monogamy does not?" In this article, Marci Hamilton is specifically explaining what was meant by "the patriarchal principle" in Reynolds.

Yes, but neither she nor you explained what it is "about polygamy that leads to any kind of despotism at all, in such a way that monogamy does not."

Well, second off, that was the form of polygamy the Mormons in Utah were supporting in Reynolds.

Why are we even talking about Reynolds v. United States? I'll stop short of calling the marriage mentioned in Reynolds v. United States polygamy done the wrong way and the polygamy sanctioned by my hypothetical law polygamy done the right way, but the simple fact is that in the realities of today's political environment the latter stands a much better chance of survival than the former.

The way you should be doing this is "Marriage = Brian + Alice + Cathy." And then you're still illustrating it so that it takes two women to equal one man.

Why do you say that? Why do you say that the way I'm illustrating it "it takes two women to equal one man"? Once again I ask you, why are you dividing the threesome on gender boundaries?

But you said you weren't advocating the tacit conceit that it takes two women to equal one man, remember? Why can't one woman have two husbands under your schema here? Or one woman have two wives, for that matter?

I've already answered this question, both in this thread and in other threads. I said that if someone were to introduce a bill that would make it legal for two or three adults of any gender combination to marry, and were to try to make that bill law, I would support that bill. Obvioiusly "any gender combination" includes one woman and her two husbands, just as it includes one woman and her two wives.

By the way, given your expressed disdain for arbitrariness, you are aware that limiting marriage to three partners is an arbitrary number, right?

I, too, thought it was an arbitrary number when I first brought it up, but the more I think about it the more I've convinced myself that it isn't arbitrary at all. Four partners would be too many; limiting marriage to two partners is not enough.

You do not appear to understand the difference between a risk and a certainty, nor the difference between being "screwed" in the sense of harsh practical consequences and the sense of being "screwed" in the sense that substantive law is inherently unfair. It is true that in a divorce, it is possible that one or both parties are going to have some financial readjusting because there is only so much money between the two of them. But in the idea you are proposing, it is inevitable that at least one party is going to be screwed while at least one party is going to be unjustly enriched.

Is that what happens with no-fault divorce, that one party gets screwed while the other party gets "unjustly enriched"? Granted if neither party is to blame, if there are just good reasons for them to split up, then splitting their assets in half and giving half to one party and half to the other, is not going to unjustly screw or enrich either party. But are you saying that if one party is entirely to blame and the other party is completely innocent, then in that case giving half the assets to one and half to the other will unjustly enrich and screw them respectively?

If Wife #1 is divorcing Husband and assets and debts are being divided up, it will inevitably affect the property rights of Wife #2 who is still married to Husband, even though Wife #2 isn't a party to the case because she isn't getting divorced. What it comes down to is you think it's fine to deny due process of law to a non-party (the non-divorcing spouse) just because you would like to have an extra wife.

Ah, but Wife #2 is getting divorced. My law would make the marriage a marriage between three adults, not some combination of two marriages that happen to include the same husband. If Husband has been grossly unfair to Wife #1, and therefore Wife #1 wants a divorce, then it's possible that Wife #2 might in fact be completely innocent, but that does not mean that Wife #1 is not divorcing her every bit as much as she is divorcing Husband. And because Wife #2 is getting divorced, she is entitled to "due process of law."

Then you are talking about polyandry. If you have this great idea of how a legally sanctioned menage-a-trois would work, then you need to decide if each spouse is married to both of the other spouses (the wives are just as married to each other as they are to the husband), or if really all you've got is one guy with two separate marriages.

What do you mean by married? If you're talking about having a domestic partnership, a group of people who cooperate to run a household, then yes, each spouse is married to both of the other spouses. Or by married are you referring to a sexual relationship? If so, then why do I "need to decide if each spouse is married to both of the other spouses"? Why can't it be precisely as I said, that "the relationships (sexual or otherwise) between each of the three pairs of adults is precisely what the trio decide those relationships should be"?

ETA: Kevin, what happens if the wives want to divorce each other but they both want to stay married to the husband?

To be perfectly honest, I never thought of such a situation. As I've said in past posts, I feel strongly that a spouse who wants out of a polygamous marriage has the right to leave, without having to justify herself. But in this case the wives are not leaving the marriage; by wanting to stay married to the husband they are expressing their desire to stay in the marriage. Are you asking whether Husband and Wife #2 have the right to together divorce Wife #1, or are you talking about Wife #2 wanting to severe her relationship with Wife #1 while Wife #1 is still married to Husband?

Then you're talking about re-writing numerous marriage laws, not just the number of people.

Why would the marriage laws needed for this kind of polygamy have to be any different from the no-fault laws currently in force in some states? I don't see how we'd need to do an extensive creation of new laws. Why couldn't states without no-fault divorce just use existing no-fault divorce laws from other states?

And what happens when one of these spouses deliberately acts in bad faith and breaks the marriage contract? They're not treated any differently than a spouse who tries his or her best but just can't make it work? Do you also feel that the law should treat a person who accidentally runs into someone's car the same as someone who runs into another person's car on purpose?

An inability to live with someone is not a crime. Or do you think it is a crime? Do you also oppose no-fault divorce in general?

The reason you are committing the continuum fallacy is you are saying because there are unspecified problems in monogamy, a monogamous relationship is not meaningfully different from a polygamous relationship.

I am not in the slightest saying that "a monogamous relationship is not meaningfully different from a polygamous relationship." I fully recognize that there are great, complicating differences between the relationships involved in a polygamous triple and the relationship involved in a monogamous couple. A household governed by a polygamous triple is going to be inherently more complicated than a household governed by a monogomous couple; all I'm saying is that the latter household is also inherently more complicated than a household governed by a single adult. So if we're going to prefer monogamy to polygamy due to the increased complication of the latter, why should we not prefer the household governed by a single adult to the monogamous household, also due to the increased complication of the latter? This argument doesn't in the slightest necessitate a meaningful equivalence of a monogamous relationship and a polygamous relationship.