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I thee can’t wed
: Howard Sherman defines the difference:
Here’s one important difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals don’t give a damn who you marry. Conservatives think it is a crime against humanity if your conception of marriage isn’t exactly the same as theirs.
Sherman is, as Lileks would put it, a Lumper. I know a whole bunch of conservatives who would disagree with him on that point and don’t give a damn about whom one marries. So screw Sherman for lumping all conservatives into one category over marriage.
I agree with Rhesa. And I know many liberals who would care very much of someone they loved married a goat, or a 12-year old, or some horrible vivisectioned combination of the two.
For me, it’s a question of tolerance.
What got me going on the subject was reading this Washington Post article on the efforts of religious conservatives to use the defeat of the Texas law against sodomy as a rallying cry for opposition to gay marriage.
Of course generalizations are flawed but there seems to me to be a strong strain of intolerance in this anti gay marriage argument, the abortion argument and other arguments put forward by the right that attempt to impose an ideology or sense of morality on others.
Maybe my position is more Libertarian than Liberal but for crying out loud, why should any tolerant, reasonable person care if a man marries a man or a woman a woman?
I agree with Rhesa.
I am a conservative politically, but frankly I disagree with the “religious” conservatives. If two people, regardless of sex, want to legally dedicate their lives to each other, I think that’s great. It’s a civil arrangement. There is a separation of church and state. How many divorced Catholics remarry “illegally,” for instance in civil ceremonies and in the church’s eyes are committing adultery? Is anyone causing an uproar over that?
As long as you are a consenting adult and cause no harm to another person, I don’t care what you do.
And I know plenty of liberals who are against same sex marriage, just as I know a few Roman Catholic nuns who have marched for Pro-Choice causes. Conservatives and liberals come in all shapes.
So there!
Hey, watch me lump! Liberals think it’s a crime against humanity for gay marriage to be gradually universalized through the democratic process rather than be imposed immediately by the courts.
Astonishing, isn’t it Howard, how only conservatives want to “impose” their views on others?
Liberals never do that, do they? Nah. . .
That’s right Donald. When Liberals impose their views, it’s for our own good. : )
Well, back in the 50s it took some of that good old “court imposing” to give the Civil Rights movement the backing it needed and deserved. For that reason I don’t think advocates for gay marriage are out of line to look to the courts. Particularly when many in this country are still homophobic, and can’t approach the issue objectively.
Except, CMonks, gay marriage does have many legal implications. Estates, parental rights (when gay couples adopt or one is the doner, the other a care giver, but no bio ties) and responsibilities. The courts favor moms in divorce, for instance. What if there are two moms? These kinds of issues are already being heard just as all of the complications over who gets the fertilized eggs in divorce, for example, that were an impossibility 20 years ago. Marriage for gays will bring more issues like this to the table.
Catherine, all these issues have been brought up with het couples using artificial insemination.
Don’t bring up relevant facts to Catherine, it’ll just give her a splitting headache.
Catherine’s quite right. The legal implications of reproductive technology combined with gay parenting are impossible to predict.
For example, take two cases in Scotland whose legal decisions have totally collided.
In one, two lesbians went to court to deprive a gay father/sperm donor his parental rights. He sued and won. The judge (a “sheriff”) based her decision on the fact that legally two lesbians are not a family, and the natural father had rights, regardless of how the child was conceived. Based on…nature.
This decision was applauded by an unlikely coalition of Scottish gay rights activists and father’s rights activists. (Maybe not so unlikely.)
Then later, another lesbian couple brought a case to court, and they were judged a family by the sheriff. The lesbian couple in the earlier case is now using that judgement in their appeal.
Indeed, Catherine, it’s a brave new world.
(No URL’s i’ll supply nexis stuff on my blog if I get around to it….)
Yehudit – If you read my post more carefully, it does say these kind of legal issues are already being heard. It doesn’t mean that the problems haven’t been solved as Diana mentions.
Dark Avenger, you seem to be one of those people who form strong emotions for people on the internet you have never met. You sound angry with me. That’s sad. Don’t be so negative. I’m pretty sure a stranger like myself isn’t worth getting so angry about. Peace and happiness to you.
Catherine, the can of worms being opened here is that the problems *cannot* be solved w/o creating utterly radical conditions. We are in terra incognita and the proponents of gay marriage don’t want to admit that, without recourse to invective, as we have seen. In the case of heterosexual couples dealing with surrogacy (anyone admits that this is extremely messy), etc., the legal issues will be hashed out eventually but the two-parent model is preserved.
In the case of these Scottish lesbians, the ultimate effect will be to create three parents: in effect, a three-person marriage. What is the relationship between the partner of the biological mother, and the bio father? If she is a co-parent, then aren’t they all three conjoined in some sort of legal relationship? What if the bio mother skips out and leaves the lesbian co-parent with the gay bio-father? Don’t say this can’t happen, it can. And it goes well beyond the issues of surrogate mothers suing for parental rights.