From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man
and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the Constitution of any State,
nor state or Federal Law, shall be construed to require that marital status
or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups"
Despite the rhetoric of some opponents, I find it very difficult to read the above amendment is making civil unions unconstitutional. Rather, it says to me that no Constitution can be interpreted by the Courts as *requiring* civil unions, but that legislatures are free to instutiute civil unions through the appropriate democratic processes. At any rate, this is certainly the outcome I am advocating - and the outcome that is advocated by the Amendment's primary sponsors.
To me, "marital status or the legal incidents thereof" seems to leave plenty of wiggle
room to invalidate civil unions, or gut them so they provide none of the benefits of
marriage (ie: survivorship, visitation rights, tax benefits, etc).
It also strikes me as odd for the US Constitution to be delegrating how state constitutions
and laws are to be interpreted. Isn't there supposed to be some firm separation between
state and government powers? This seems to be trying to cross a line that I think
traditionally conservatives would be trying to defend.
I support this amendment for the following reasons:
As Dan Minette has noted earlier, any move to permit homosexual marriages would constitute "a radical redefinition of marriage." Meanwhile, as I noted in a previous message, I think that the current judicial activism on this subject benefits noone - not even those who favor the eventual legalization of homosexual marriage. Thus, I support the above amendment because it takes this issue out of the Courts and into the Legislatures - where this issue very firmly belongs.
I'm thinking that amendment (and most supporters of it) would like to take the issue
out of play altogether.
1) I believe that human sexuality is non-linear. While there are certainly a great many people who are very firmly homosexual or heterosexual, there just as surely exists some subset of people who exist on the in-between. Thus, it stands to reason that greater acceptance of homosexual relationships will increase the number of these "in-between" people who choose the identify more closely with their homosexual tendencies than their heterosexual tendencies. Now, maybe this will be an insignificant percentage - but I don't think that either side can convincingly demonstrate the ultimate eventual size of that trend.
If I understand your argument, you're saying that social pressure to act heterosexual
will decrease so there will be marginally more people who act in their preferred
homosexual orientation? So? If anything, this is a benefit in that there will be less
heterosexual people with spouses who are "living a lie".
2) Marriages are recognized by governments and given special benefits by governments, because marriages promote the siring and raising of the next generation. I think that we are starting to see across Europe that there is perhaps a natural human tendency to not maintain the 2.2 births per women needed to sustain the next generation. As such, it strikes me as more important than ever for governments to produce incentives for parenthood and the raising of responsible adults.
Marriages are about far more than birthing children. Infertile couples can be
married, as can elderly ones or even just couples with the stated intention not
to have children. Marriage doesn't even require sex at all.
It seems disingenuous to argue that marriage is an exclusive benefit to promote
child-rearing when there is no such requirement currently. I don't think you are
suggesting that infertile couples, etc should not be allowed to get married, are
you? How is that any different?
3) Homosexual unions are ill-suited for the siring and raising of the next generation. By definition, homosexual unions are infertile. For pro-life reasons, I am opposed to in vitro fertilization (say what you will, but I am at least consistent in the consequences of my belief that human life begins at conception.) As such, it is unreasonable to believe that homosexual unions will be producing children - and thus, don't meet the first standard for why governments should provide incentives to promote them.
It is easily possible for homosexual couples to produce children without requiring IVF.
From my wife's experience in a fertility center, I know that homosexual
couples can and do produce children (without IVF).
Again, though, I disagree with trying to make children a requirement of marriage when
it currently is not.
Furthermore, each child, being the product of a man and a woman, has a reasonable expectation of having a mother and a father. It is a basic truism that women and men, and hence mothers and fathers, are different in some ways (Otherwise, homosexuals would not find it repulsive to marry someone of the opposite sex if there were truly no difference between the sexes.) As such, *ceteris paribis* we should try and meet a child's expectation of having a mother and a father. Now, of course, there are numerous situations where governments should very wisely choose not to meet these expectations. Nevertheless, I do not consider it wise for governments to provide *incentives* for the siring of children into situations where we know *a priori* that this very reasonable expectation of the child to have a mother and a father will not be met. Note, that I am not saying that we should make it illegal - merely that the government should not provide incentives for this situation. (Nota Bene: The above paragraphs are addressed in the minds of the rights of the *child*, not necessarily any rights of the couple.)
I think that while, ideally, a child with be raised by a mother and a father, expanding
that to be a requirement for/right of the child is overplaying the benefit. Many
locales allow single people to adopt, and certainly there is no law against single
parents. Having two loving parents of the same sex can only be better for a child
than having only one parent.
4) Despite all of this I am willing to recommend that governments provide certain steps of recognition to homosexual unions in the interests of social/societal stability and furthering the desires of homosexuals in our society to pursue happiness. Nevertheless, I believe that marriage should retain a privileged status in our civilization as the fundamental building block of our society concomitant with its role in siring and raising the next generation.
If the government wants to promote population growth, I can think of plenty of
other ways to do it besides trying to keep marriage exclusive to heterosexuals.
In my original email on this topic, I wondered if civil unions would resolve people's
issues, and suggested that there is a deeper underlying fear driving opposition
that would remain even if they were called civil unions. That fear is that by
providing gays with government-sanctioned rights, it would be tantamount to
government endorsement of homosexuality. Isn't that really what's driving much
of the opposition?
-bryon
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