Sully Your Eyes

Well, it's nice to be able to agree with Andrew Sullivan about something again: He's got a strong response to Bush's proposed constitutional amendment, as well as a roundup of reader replies.

Comments

[thoreau]

How about an amendment that mandates harsh punishments for adulter? Or bans divorce? What better way to truly defend the sanctity of marriage?

But then again, such measures would harm heterosexuals, including heterosexual politicians and preachers, so we can't have that. Better an amendment saying that two guys in San Francisco can't share property, power of attorney, etc. The fate of civilization is depending on it! Or something...

[Ron Hardin]

Bush is saying that you can't change ``marriage'' without a vote. Judges are doing so. The amendment stops those judges.

An amendment to stop civil unions will have zero support. But it only says a civil union is not a marriage; and thus does not qualify for all sorts of marriage law things _without a vote to make it_.

So what will right-thinking libertarians do then? Well, make their best arguments for this or that marriage benefit for civil unions as well. That's what you're supposed to do. Persuade the majority somehow, not judges.

[drdrake]

Gay marriage. Well that's just gay.

[vini_vidi_vici]

Were the judges who overturned miscegenation laws activists? If it is a judge's duty to interpret the law, and the law states we are all equal before it, then why is it activism to enforce equality?
People who are hot about what happened in Mass. are cut from the same cloth of those who were hot about Brown.
I don't think it's hate fueled, but I've seen a lot of comments that seem to express a sentiment that says "why can't gays just be happy with the tolerance we've shown them and stay in their place."
The answer is that their place is your place and that - before the government - they have exactly the same rights as anyone else. Not special treatment, not appeasement, not separate but equal but the same.
How many southern states (and northern, for that matter) would have changed their ways in the 1950s and 1960s if it weren't for "activist" judges? Laws banning inter-racial marriages enjoyed broad support back then.

[Shannon Love]

I support gay marriage. It directly affects people I care about. Philosophically, I do not believe it the place of the government to mandate relationships between individual adults.

BUT

How a law comes into force is ultimately more important than what the law actually does. The deference between a democracy and a dictatorship is in how it creates it's laws, not the actual specifics of the laws.

Yes, current laws discriminate against same-sex couples but it also discriminate against polygamist, consanguinist, people that have never had sexual relationship and many other criteria. Can a single court in a single state decide that all these other discriminations are equally invalid everywhere in the country?

We might like the results in this particular case but do we want to institutionalize this kind of decision making process?

[joe]

This is a republic, not a democracy, Shannon. While our system pays democracy a great deal of respect, there are boundaries, equal protection under the law being one of them. Laws violating the precepts of the Constitution should be struck down by the judicial branch.

[alkali]

How a law comes into force is ultimately more important than what the law actually does.

No.

[just wondering]

The Constitution was created to protect the people form Government, not the other way around.

[Mark Anderson]

Shannon,
The state hands out marriage licenses so, until it stops, it is mandating relationships whether you like it or not.

As far as polygamists and consanguists, As far as I understand these, they are lifestyles that are chosen, much different from being gay.

Under current law, can't two members of the opposite sex marry now whether they have a sexual relationship or not?

[Ken]

Can anyone marry anyone else?

Getting married to obtain "married type" benefits (like employer paid health care) would be a good deal for many situations where only one person is employed - two sisters, two brothers, a bother and a sister, a son and his widowed mother, etc.

What about polygamy and polyandry?

Where does it end?

[James Joyner]

This is hardly a new stance for Sully.

I agree with his arguments and think most of the arguments against gay marriage are wrongheaded. But it's also rather clear to me that the 14th Amendment wasn't intended to create a right to gay marriage; the very idea would have been anathema in the 1870s. Or the 1970s, for that matter.

[Shannon Love]

Vini

"Were the judges who overturned miscegenation laws activists?

No, they were not. In fact, it is the advocates of gay marriage who fulfill the legal (but not moral) role of the anti-miscegenationist.

The central question here is how is marriage legally defined? The full faith and credit provision of the constitution presumed a shared definition of marriage as a legal concept firmly grounded in Anglo-spheric common law.

Miscegenation laws post dated the Constitution i.e. they were an "innovation" carried out in a handful of states. There was no precedent in Anglo-American law for forbidding people to marry based on race. For purposes of full faith and credit, the courts ruled that states with miscegenation laws could not refuse to recognize interracial marriages, not because it was discriminatory, but because they had substantially changed the definition of marriage.

All restriction on whom one can marry are discriminatory. as they prevent somebody, somewhere from marrying somebody that want to marry. If you say, all marriage restriction that discriminate must be struck down, then all restriction must be struck down.

[Vigilance Matters]

As a social conservative, I agree with thoreau 100%!

Adultery -- No!
Divorce -- Hell No!
Gay Marriage -- Don't be Absurd!

There, i'm 100% pro-family. Are you happy now?

[Mo]

Vigilance Matters,
Like those who support the drug war and want a return of Prohibition, I salute your consistency and lack of hypocrisy, but respectfully disagree. 🙂

[Vigilance Matters]

And shannon love, that last bit was wonderful. can i quote you on that?

[thoreau]

Joe-

I love it when a liberal manages to co-opt "republic not a democracy." It's always nice to hear that mantra turned against conservatives.

[Jean Bart]

Shannon Love,

Once again you are wrong; laws forbidding miscegination were "on the books" in 17th century; indeed, the very first anti-miscegination law was passed in 1662 in Virginia. Some day you will have to take a course in U.S. history and constitutional law.

[scott]

No, Vigilance Matters, you're 100% pro-your-own-damn-family.

[Vigilance Matters]

Scott, are you prepared to argue that Adultery, Divorce, and Gay Marriage is EVER good for kids and families?

Knock yourself out then...

From my perspective, people should not be allowed to swear "til death do us part" before God and the Court without being required to actually MEAN IT!

[scott]

No, Vigilance Matters, I'd rather leave the burden on you to explain to me why I won't make every bit as good a parent as any straight man. Please tell me--why will I make a bad parent?

[joe]

VM, a girl died of a burst appendix while in the loving care of the Florida Department of Family Services last month. Do you suspect that a pair of married lesbians would have been so negligent with their charge if Florida allowed gay adoptions?

Pro family my ass.

[SM]

Scott,
"Please tell me--why will I make a bad parent?"

I wish you hadn't asked that question, Scott. Now we are going to be treated to the kind of BS that protestors outside San Francisco City Hall spewed fluently. It was quite a scene.

[burning strawman]

I agree with his arguments and think most of the arguments against [black voting rights] are wrongheaded. But it's also rather clear to me that the 14th Amendment wasn't intended to create a right to [vote for the negro]; the very idea would have been anathema in the 1870s. Or the [1940's], for that matter.

[dhex]

>>

a better question is what business of the state is it?

and i'm sure you can find loving gay households, or people who divorced to escape abusive or useless spouses who were detrimental to the health of their children. and i know of one person in particular whose parents made no secret of their extramarital affairs, and did so very aboveground and open. outside of her insane record collecting habits, she's otherwise relatively normal, happily married and all that. now, i think that's weird, but i wasn't her parents, who were otherwise average and very loving and supportive.

but these exceptions and examples are secondary to the first question above.

[joe]

People in the 1780s did not consider public execution for stealing a horse to be cruel or unusual. Today, we know better. There is nothing in the Constitution that requires us to be bound by barbarities we've grown beyond.

Anti-gay discrimination has always violated the Constitution. For most of our history, most people were too bigoted and ignorant to notice their error. Thankfully, many of the prejudices blinding them to the truth have fallen away. And we're supposed to pretend they haven't?

[Citizen]

Please. Don't be silly. We are not all equal
under the law. That's why we have laws. Because
some people do things that they should not do (or
do not do those things they should). Those people
should have certain rights revoked. That's the
punishment part of the law.

Ask anyone who's been denied a license to do
anything: buy a gun, buy pot, drive a car etc etc.

[c]

Citizen -

Are you trying to somehow say that gays have "done something" to have their right to be treated equally before the law revoked?

[dio the band]

last week's sullivan piece "the 'm-word': why it matters to me," is a good example of what's wrong with the gay marriage debate. he writes:

When people talk about "gay marriage," they miss the point. This isn't about gay marriage. It's about marriage. It's about family. It's about love. It isn't about religion. It's about civil marriage licenses - available to atheists as well as believers. These family values are not options for a happy and stable life. They are necessities.

now, since when is a "civil marriage license" a necessity, as necessary as love, family, and marriage? it makes about as much sense as saying a dog license is too a necessity, as necessary as letting rover out to take his daily shit.

[Shannon Love]

Jean Bart,

Wow, I am ever so glad to see French arrogance and condension are a alive and well. It just wouldn't be planet Earth without it.

In this case you tripped up over the my overly technical use of the term miscegenation. Miscegenation laws did not exist in 1662 since the term itself was coined only 1863. Indeed our modern conception of "race" as meaning some type of subspecies did not begin to form until the late 1700's.

Technically, Miscegenation laws are those intended to prevent the "blending of races" for reasons of eugenics. The laws casually mislabeled miscegenation laws from the 17th and 18th century are in fact laws based on condition of enslavement. They were intended to regulate the complex economic and legal interactions between the free, the indentured and the enslaved. True Miscegenation laws did not begin to appear until the 1830's. As such, they represented a new concept in Anglo-American law.

My basic point is that the legal burden falls on the entity that wishes to change existing law. States that changed their marriage laws based on miscegenation or later consanguinity still had to recognize marriages performed in other states that violated the new laws. Attempts to dissolve existing marriages where routinely shot down.

During most of American history, governments increasingly restricted who could marry whom but when those restriction increased they did not automatically spill over into other states. Now we are reversing the process, states (or elements within states) are seeking to loosen the restrictions. The question is: do we let these changes spill over to other states or do we limit the spread like we did with anti-miscegenation restrictions?

[Citizen]

c,
Nope. I'm imply that there is a difference between homosexual couples and heterosexual couples that is *relevant* to the issue of marriage laws. That difference is what makes the two entities justly unequal. If the differences were irrelevant, then the inequality would be unjust.

[scott]

Citizen, what exactly are the relevant differences? Tell me--why should my family not receive the same treatment by the law that yours receives?

[Andrew Lynch]

Jean Bart,

Your suggestion to Shannon Love that she "take a course" is antique. She could have learned the same thing, plus a whole lot more, by buying a book, going to the library, or using the internet for more than Hit & Run posts.

[Heather]

"I'm imply that there is a difference between homosexual couples and heterosexual couples that is *relevant* to the issue of marriage laws. That difference is what makes the two entities justly unequal. If the differences were irrelevant, then the inequality would be unjust."

I'm with you, Scott, what is the difference that is relevant, other than the fact that two members of the same gender, instead of different genders, are involved? (And if that's the whole relevant difference, well, not much an argument really.)

Also, I get the idea that the State has a vested interest in encouraging/discouraging certain behaviors. Hence, encouraging marriage between hetereosexuals to facilitate the production of the next generation of taxpayers. But discouraging homosexuals isn't going to turn them straight. So what vested interest does the State have in discriminating?

[Stephen Fetchet]

A constitutional amendment, restricting the definition of marriage to the states would be an atrocity against individual rights. Forcing individuals to make their case to the voters and the legislature... why it's an inhuman denial of rights.

Far better that a crank left wing mayor of San Francisco and a usurping state court form a tiny rust belt state de facto impose gay marriage on us nationally, I say.

[joe]

How would it have affected you nationally? Is the idea of gay people living unmolested in my, ahem, tiny rust belt state really going to eat at you?

The amendment also contains language forbidding civil unions. That isn't about defining marriage, that is purposeful attempt to deny rights to a class of people. Which, if you were actually a lover of liberty, would bother you more than knowing some gay people got a marriage license.

[grylliade]

Scott, are you prepared to argue that Adultery, Divorce, and Gay Marriage is EVER good for kids and families?

Knock yourself out then...

Well, lumping divorce and gay marriage in with adultery is rather disingenuous. Although there might just barely be circumstances where adultery is good for children or a family (which is better, daddy having an affair or daddy leaving the family?), divorce can certainly be good for a family; if a spouse is abusive is just one example I can think of, and I'm sure there are others.

As for gay marriage . . . if you define "family" as "husband, wife, and children," then yes, it is damaging. But that's just a recursive definition, and has no real supporting arguments. If you have some good reason why gay marriage is bad for the family (other than "some people two thousand years ago said God said so") I'd be fascinated to hear them. I'd rather have gay parents who love me and raise me well then straight parents who are abusive and only use me for their own purposes. I can see no reason other than the mere fact of their orientation to say that gays will make worse parents than straights, and that's just absurd.

From my perspective, people should not be allowed to swear "til death do us part" before God and the Court without being required to actually MEAN IT!

Well, what if one party meant it, but the other didn't? I've been in that situation myself, and being married to a woman who isn't even living in the same state would be rather miserable. Being trapped in such a marriage would seem to me to be rather silly.

[scott]

Vigilance Matters wrote "Duh, because your kids deserve a mommy AND a daddy. double-duh..."

My kids, like all kids, will deserve loving, competent parents. That's what I had, and that's what my kids will have.

By the way, VM, a large number of you folks that support this kind of institutionalized bigotry have gay kids yourselves, whether you realize this or not. A loving, competent parent wouldn't be out there supporting laws and attitudes that place roadblocks in the way of their pursuit of happiness. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you have no idea how hard it is on gay kids to grow up in narrow-minded "100% pro-family" homes. But then it's all for the children, isn't it...

[Vigilance Matters]

Grylliade (and Scott): Why do children deserve both a mommy and a daddy?

Because Mother Nature hath made it so. To say otherwise is an insult to your own Dignity, not to mention that of yours and my children alike.

You cannot argue that nature intended any other way. Humans mate for life, and nurture their young longer than any other creature. The requirement of a male and a female is a given, for crying out loud.

Why on earth i'm sitting here explaining 6th grade biology to someone who confuses procreation with defecation...

You're hopelessly self absorbed and obsessed with your own genitalia. Meanwhile you completely ignore the Higher Purpose that Life has intended for each of us...

[dhex]

heh. that's very funny. a bit too scatalogical for my tastes.

obviously, you're confusing biology with socialization. i.e. it was entirely common in societies to have groups of women raise children with little or no involvement from men until it was time for puberty rites and separation of the sexes.

biology is the process that results in fertilization and birthing and all that ill shit. the organization that happens afterwards is the product of human hands, or else people would all be raised the same way in every single climate, culture, religion, etc.

purity for the puritans. sodom for the sodomites.

[dhex]

and i certainly wouldn't have taken you for some sort of pagan there VM. guess i was wrong...

[Jean Bart]

dhex,

Confusing biology with culture has been the standard thinking of bigots, racists, etc. throughout history; your opponent is no exception to that rule.

[joe]

I do like VM's idea that our sexual and mating behavior should be based on natural drives, and not determined by politics and culture, though.

You're fifth on this caveman's list, hottie.

[scott]

I can only argue that nature made me the way I am, VM. To say otherwise damn-well is an insult to my own dignity--at least you're right on that point. And my dignity is well intact--I'm not the one who just lowered this discussion into the gutter. Thank you for being honest and upfront with your disgusting bigotry.

[dhex]

i actually have a question for everyone:

why should divorce be harder to get than it is already?

[Vigilance Matters]

Scott: explain to me why I won't make every bit as good a parent as any straight man.

Duh, because your kids deserve a mommy AND a daddy. double-duh...

Grylliade, I'm sorry you made such a rotten and irresponsible choice in your spouse. But it was YOUR choice, not mine. You made that bed, and swore before God and the Court to sleep in it.

Being trapped in such a marriage would seem to me to be rather silly.

Not half as silly as having entered into such a marriage in the first place.

Maybe we could use you as a poster child for making better marital choices, rather than as a defender of adultery and divorce...

[grylliade]

Duh, because your kids deserve a mommy AND a daddy. double-duh...

That's just begging the question. Why do children deserve both a mommy and a daddy? Maybe it is necessary, but I rather doubt it; good parents are good parents are good parents. Good gay parents would presumably make sure that their child had good role models of the opposite gender from themselves -- the role model doesn't have to be a parent.

Grylliade, I'm sorry you made such a rotten and irresponsible choice in your spouse. But it was YOUR choice, not mine. You made that bed, and swore before God and the Court to sleep in it.

Well . . . even according to strict interpretation of the Bible, I had two outs. Christ Himself allowed divorce because of adultery, and Paul allowed divorce if a believer is married to an unbeliever who wants out. So there are two valid reasons that the New Testament alone gives for divorce. You've been arguing that "til death do us part" means exactly that. There's no "unless you cheat on me" out in any vows that I know of.

Maybe we could use you as a poster child for making better marital choices, rather than as a defender of adultery and divorce...

Duh. You'd never find me defending adultery (though as I noted, it might be better than the alternative sometimes). Nice way of trying to tie together two separate issues, BTW; my defense of divorce had nothing to do with my comments on adultery. Yes, it was a bad choice. Should people who make bad choices not only be made to pay for them (I did, to the tune of $15k on minimum wage -- but then, I was lucky), but paid for them forever? Young people make stupid decisions; welcome to the real world. Divorce probably shouldn't be as easy as it is today (of course, privatizing marriage would take care of that . . . just sign a tougher contract than the government now requires), but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be allowed.

[Jean Bart]

Shannon Love,

"Wow, I am ever so glad to see French arrogance and condension are a alive and well. It just wouldn't be planet Earth without it."

Why does my nationality have anything to do with anything? 🙂

"In this case you tripped up over the my overly technical use of the term miscegenation. Miscegenation laws did not exist in 1662 since the term itself was coined only 1863. Indeed our modern conception of 'race' as meaning some type of subspecies did not begin to form until the late 1700's."

Virginia had an anti-miscegination law; whether they called it that or not is not really important. They outlawed marraiges between whites and blacks.

"True Miscegenation laws did not begin to appear until the 1830's. As such, they represented a new concept in Anglo-American law."

The first anti-miscegination law in the U.S. was brought into being in 1662. Everything else you've written is an attempt to cover your obvious error.

[joe]

"So what vested interest does the State have in discriminating?"

The people behind this law believe that the appropriate use of government is to promote the Truth as they see it. They believe secular and religious authority are, and should be, all mixed up. To religious conservatives, and many others, legalizing something is tantamount to approving of it, and that which is not moral must be criminalized.

The incredibly weak ass "for the children" and "defend marriage" arguments are so transparently false as to raise doubt about whether those making them even believe them.

[Jean Bart]

Shannon Love,

BTW, its hard to see how there was anything "new" about laws forbidding inter-racial marraiges when their antecedents are as old as 1662; or how these were not "true" or "real" anti-miscegenation laws. If your argument is that they did not call them this, well fine; but that does not mean that these were not what we would call anti-miscegenation laws today, and what you are reduced to, to be blunt, is howling in the wind about the nature of the terminology, and not the nature and function of the laws themselves.

[Jean Bart]

Shannon,

The first known Virginia statute punishing interracial sexual relations was enacted in 1662 - specifically Act XII, 2 Laws of Va. 170, 170 (enacted 1662).

As early as 1691, Virginia had enacted a statute punishing interracial marriage. Act XVI, Laws of Va. 86, 86-87 (enacted 1691).

1664 - Maryland prohibits marriage between white women and black men.

[scott]

If VM's motivations are common among the anti-marriage folks out there, then this issue is ours to lose. His attitudes don't make a strong foundation for the existing laws, much less for a constitutional amendment. If only everyone would be as honest as he has been. 🙂

[Vigilance Matters]

If only.

[Vigilance Matters]

Life hasn't intended us for any Higher Purpose; Life intends us to pass on our genes, and that's it.

Fine, if that's what you want to beleive, i'll accept that your life has no Higher Purpose than procreation.

But what does buggery have to do with that?

And where is the Dignity in Fisting? or in having anal sex with complete strangers in a public restroom? Or tasting your own feces on another man's willy?

[joe]

Keep up the dirty talk, VM, I'll bump you up to third.

grylliade didn't say his life has no meaning beyond nookie. He said that higher meaning comes from a place more elevated than the Nature you point to as the reason why being gay is wrong. And so far, the only arguments you've made in favor of discriminating against gay people are Nature (which abhors male fidelity and sanctions all kinds of behaviors you consider reprehensible), aesthetics, and an unsupportable charge that gay people can't raise children well.

[dhex]

one's life is separate from what natural avenues may or may not be opened for us from birth (depending on all the factors involved). lacking some sort of divine roadsign - unless one is unfortunate enough to regard secular or religious authorities on earth as proof of divine or supernatural direction - everyone kinda has to make up their own minds as they go and figure out for themselves what the values of their life will be. which is pretty obvious.

the dignity of sex acts is in doing with your body as you will. i don't think there is anything more dignified than sovereignty over one's own body, for whatever purposes one chooses. the dignity of a relative amount of liberty is in having an environment where person A can handball to his heart's content and person B can cluck his tongue and engage in his voyeuristic scat fixation without getting his hands dirty (so to speak).

it's a perfect solution so long as everyone mind's their own beeswax.

you do realize, perhaps, that it's entirely possible to have anal sex without making a mess? perhaps you need to bone up on the subject (har har har)

oh man i kill me.

[grylliade]

Because Mother Nature hath made it so. To say otherwise is an insult to your own Dignity, not to mention that of yours and my children alike.

Who gives a shit what Mother Nature wants? Mother Nature wants men to spread their seed far and wide, so far as they can get away with it. Doesn't matter to nature if some woman gets hurt in the process ? the genes are spread. Learn something about evolutionary psychology; all nature cares about is our passing on our genes. Our happiness is only incidental.

If you want to go with what's "natural," we're going to have a great deal of immorality. Adultery is "natural," in that it is to genes' advantage if you can get away with it. If you're a guy, you can pass on your genes and get some other guy to spend his resources raising your kid; if you're a woman, you get some better genes (maybe) and still have a man who will support you. So don't tell me about what nature intended. Nature doesn't give a shit about morality.

You cannot argue that nature intended any other way. Humans mate for life, and nurture their young longer than any other creature. The requirement of a male and a female is a given, for crying out loud.

Humans don't mate for life. Sorry to burst your bubble. Gibbons mate for life; they're pretty much incapable of infidelity. Humans are more than capable of infidelity, as witnessed by thousands of years of history. If we mated for life, we would instinctively only be attracted to our mate after we mated. That's not the case; our evolution has not designed us for absolute fidelity. We're opportunistic adulterers. That's our nature. Morality is human; we can be more than nature built us for.

Why on earth i'm sitting here explaining 6th grade biology to someone who confuses procreation with defecation...

Might explain why you don't know much about evolutionary psychology, if you only got to sixth grade in biology. Biology is much, much more complex than you're making it out to be.

Besides, you must be confusing me with someone else. I'm not gay (not that there's anything wrong with that). I'm happily hetero, thank you very much. I support gay marriage out of principle. Not only that, but sex isn't only about procreation. If you want to think that it is, go ahead. Sex is what we make of it, like about 95 % of our biology; who gives a shit what nature intended it for?

You're hopelessly self absorbed and obsessed with your own genitalia. Meanwhile you completely ignore the Higher Purpose that Life has intended for each of us...

Life hasn't intended us for any Higher Purpose; Life intends us to pass on our genes, and that's it. If you want to believe otherwise, go ahead; but that's the simple facts of Nature. If you want purpose, you have to have something that at least approximates reason, and as far as we know, only humans have that. Nature only has blind chance and lots and lots of time. So if there is any higher purpose, it's something that we have come up with ourselves. Humans give purpose to their lives, not Life or Nature or whatever.