Gay Marriage - a Conservative Idea

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Defense Of Marriage Act

 

In discussing gay marriage, many people fixate on the full faith and credit clause of the constitution and how DOMA merely codified a state's ability to preclude the acceptance of a gay marriage approved in another jurisdiction. This is a position which is presently supported by a majority of U.S. citizens in polling and statewide referendums which have taken place since 1996.

 

However, DOMA also codified a definition of "marriage" which precluded the acceptance of Civil Unions for any of the numerous benefits presently available under federal law to married couples.

 

A very good discussion and explanation of DOMA is available here:

 

http://archive.aclu.org/news/n021497a.html

[theDCeBOY]

well, then you've changed your mind, since you earlier said that you didn't want to adapt the old system but rather evolve your own.

[AdamSmith]

RE: Defense Of Marriage Act

 

>A very good discussion and explanation of DOMA is available

>here:

>

>http://archive.aclu.org/news/n021497a.html

 

Thanks for this pointer.

 

It is disheartening how the courts have thus far shrunk from overturning DOMA on constitutional grounds. As with Jim Crow, the legal battering will have to continue until the edifice cracks.

 

The current Supremes have been jealous guardians of states' rights. Is it a fantasy to think that even the Scalia wing could be convinced that DOMA encroaches too radically on what has always been the right of individual states to regulate marriage?

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>well, then you've changed your mind,

>since you earlier said that you didn't want to adapt the old

>system but rather evolve your own.

 

Okay -- my choice of words may have been misleading. In the earlier post instead of "system" I should have said "institution." I think the system (as I used the word later when I said the system should stop privileging the married over the unmarried) shouldn't preclude other types of institutions from developing, or continue to stack the deck against them. Conservatives talk about the virtue of opening all kinds of things up to competition, right? For example, giving private schools vouchers to force the public schools to compete, or privatizing a wide range of public services in order to subject them to the rigors of the marketplace. Why not apply a similar logic to marriage? If marriage is so superior to all other forms of coupling, what is there to fear from allowing other types of relationships to receive the same types of benefits (or, alternatively, to strip marriage of those benefits)? Maybe the rigors of competition would have the effect of strengthening marriage, who knows? If it's a bad idea for the government to prop up failing industries with lavish subsidies and protect them against competition, why do the same with a failing institution like marriage? Why, in this one arena, would they not want to allow people other options on a level playing field?

[phage]

> Why, in this one arena, would they not want to allow people other

>options on a level playing field?

 

That’s a rhetorical question…right? Isn’t that just a basic general difference between conservatives and liberals? Liberals are comfortable regulating business but believe government should stay out of people’s personal lives. On the other hand, conservatives want the government to keep their hands off of business but are very comfortable regulating people’s private behavior. I thought it was the basic yin and yang of politics.

[AdamSmith]

Devon, could it be that the state’s position on marriage has less power than your arguments imply for it? Societal pressures on heterosexuals to enter into the institution of marriage have been weakening for nearly half a century, if not longer. But the drivers were not changes in law: they were instead material developments such as birth control and the increasing economic independence of women. The law has followed, not led, these changes. Of course other laws such as those governing birth control and abortion changed to make these more widely available (although again material developments that aided availability enabled changes in attitudes and practice which law, whether courts or legislatures, then followed). But changes in marriage law followed rather than led those developments.

 

You say: “now is the time for us to ask ourselves what might happen if/when we are brought into the institutional fold. Either, as pro-gay-marriage-conservatives hope, gay culture will gradually be transformed into a cultural that stigmatizes alternatives to monogamy, or surprisingly few gays will opt to assume the rights and "responsibilities" of marriage.”

 

Why the either/or? Is it not likely that gay male partnerships (to grant your [albeit essentialist!] positing of differences between male/male and female/female partnering dynamics) will instead turn out much like the contemporary heterosexual situation – a happy muddle of individual choices, with the vector being toward greater freedom rather than greater conformity? Indeed, is it not conceivable that precisely by removing conventional marriage from the realm of forbidden fruit for gay couples, more energy, not less, will be freed up to conceive and enact alternative structures? That, after all, appears to be happening in the heterosexual world today.

 

Having said that, I strongly endorse what I infer underlay your original point -- the existential privilege of being queer: Otherness. Finding (or choosing) oneself cast out of nature (as normatively societally defined). Life on the social frontier. And the freedom this opens to forge and promote alternative social structures and (as no less than Senator Sam Ervin phrased it) alternative modes of life.

[bluenix]

A little earlier today a fuse blew in my kitchen and study. I tracked down the cause to this sentence:

 

[blockquote]>Indeed, is it not conceivable that precisely by

>removing conventional marriage from the realm of forbidden

>fruit for gay couples, more energy, not less, will be freed up

>to conceive and enact alternative structures?

 

You're teach college, don't you.

[AdamSmith]

>You're teach college, don't you.

 

Sorry. What a giveway. Paid by the word, you know.

[theDCeBOY]

fair enough.

not all conservatives support school vouchers though. i certainly do not! i have a number of reasons for that position, none of which do i imagine any of you cares about.

as for marriage, i'd rather see marriage benefits be removed rather than have them extended to various other classes of people/relationships.

[theDCeBOY]

>conservatives want the government to keep their

>hands off of business but are very comfortable regulating

>people’s private behavior.

you apparently know very few self-identified conservatives.

[phage]

>you apparently know very few self-identified conservatives.

 

It has nothing to do with the conservatives that I know personally. Most of them are gay, so, of course, they eschew that particular part of the mainstream conservative movement. They make lots of noise about what it means to be a ‘real’ conservative and the ‘traditional’ conservative movement. As if that can change the fact that the conservative political movement – in the real world – is obsessed with values and behaviors that they wish to impose on other people. (I would love to know where these ‘pure’ conservatives are, because they sure aren’t running the Republican Party.)

 

Why do gay conservatives stick their heads in the sand about this particular aspect of the movement they hold so dear? It’s like me trying to deny that the liberal political agenda includes regulation of trade and redistribution of wealth. I may not wholeheartedly agree with those things, but it would be silly for me to deny that they are a major element of the liberal movement.

[theDCeBOY]

i have no problem acknowledging that there is a difference between theory and ideology--on the one hand--and political practice and policy--on the other.

at least a few of us have problems with the current leadership of the republican party and their bastardisation of conservatism and corruption of its basic tenets.

[AdamSmith]

I would

>love to know where these ‘pure’ conservatives are, because

>they sure aren’t running the Republican Party.)

 

The ones who held power died with Prescott Bush or, God save us, Richard Nixon.

 

RMN: Established EPA. Proposed universal health care, later lauded by H. Clinton. Rescued party temporarily from Goldwater lunatic fringe. Deplored Pat Robertson gay-bashing at 1992 Rep. convention -- Nixon Off the Record, by his research asst. who was sleeping with him after Pat died. Look on my works ye mighty & despair.

 

Liberals: visit presidential library at Yorba Linda for moving & irresolvably conflicting experience.

 

Paging through my autographed 1st ed. of Six Crises as I write this. Shit you not.

[AdamSmith]

After Pat Nixon died, that is. Regrettably not Pat Robertson.

[Doug69]

RE: Defense Of Marriage Act

 

>It is disheartening how the courts have thus far shrunk from

>overturning DOMA on constitutional grounds. As with Jim Crow,

>the legal battering will have to continue until the edifice

>cracks.

 

Sorry, but I believe you're quite misinformed. The central evil of DOMA is that it prohibits the federal government from recognizing state-sanctioned same-sex marriage, and also allows states to refuse to recognize such marriages when they are recognized by other states.

 

Given that there are no states in this country where gay people are legally able to marry, these provisions of DOMA have not yet been applied, and therefore, no legal challege to them has been possible. To say that "courts have thus far shrunk from overturning DOMA" therefore makes no sense - they have had no such opportunity.

 

Now that gay marriage is most likely about to be legalized in Massachusettes, only now will courts have an oppotunity to strike down these provisions of DOMA as unconstitutional - when citizens go to marry in Boston and then return to their home states and demand recognition for their marriage, and the states refuse, citing DOMA as the basis for their right to refuse.

 

Even many conservatives think that DOMA will be declared unconstitutional (on the basis of the Full Faith and Credit Clause), which is why many of them have begun lobbying for a Constitutional amendment to codify marriage between a man and a woman.

 

>

>The current Supremes have been jealous guardians of states'

>rights. Is it a fantasy to think that even the Scalia wing

>could be convinced that DOMA encroaches too radically on what

>has always been the right of individual states to regulate

>marriage?

[Doug69]

>Why do gay conservatives stick their heads in the sand about

>this particular aspect of the movement they hold so dear?

>It’s like me trying to deny that the liberal political agenda

>includes regulation of trade and redistribution of wealth. I

>may not wholeheartedly agree with those things, but it would

>be silly for me to deny that they are a major element of the

>liberal movement.

 

Two points about this:

 

(1) You are conflating the term "conservatives" with "social conservatives," but I'm sure you know that they are not the same. Many conservatives -- such as those of the strain of David Brooks, or Andrew Sullivan, or even William Buckley -- take an across-the-board small-government view on economic policy and social issues, and believe that the only area where a strong, active federal government is warranted is in the national security arena.

 

The conservatives who identify themselves as "social conservatives" constitute a small but vocal and active minority-subset of conservatives. But to pretend that all conservatives want to restrict what people do in their bedrooms, or have government express preferences with regard to sexuality, is just intellectually dishonest.

 

(2) Conservatism is, first and foremost, a political philosophy. That philosophy calls for minimal governmental intrusion into people's liberty on every level - social, economic, etc. Those who call themselves "social conservatives" and, in doing so, advocate extensive governmental intrusion into such realms are not advocating a conservative view, their self-labelling notwithstanding.

 

That's why so many conservatives do not support laws restricting people's private choices. You claim that it's dishoest for gay conservatives to pretend that there's not a strong anti-gay strain among SOME types of conservatives, but I don't hear anyone ever denying that. What is dishonest is for you to pretend that all conservatives espouse the views of the "Christian Right." They do not, and I believe you know this.

[Doug69]

>Or it implies that male-male relationships have a different

>dynamic from male-female ones (and, I would add, from

>female-female ones). Straights have been developing an

>institution to support THEIR relationships for thousands of

>years. Rather than adopt their system just as its collapsing

>under its own weight, why not work on evolving our own?

 

Obviously, many gay people ARE happy with what you call the "straight" institution "to suport THEIR relationships" - because so many gay people have adopted that model for themselves and are urgently seeking full legal recognition for it.

 

Many gay people believe that there are no differences between gay people and straight people other than their sexual orientation, so that there would be no reason why straight people would have one model for their relationships and gay people would have to create an entirely different model for theirs.

 

Ironically, the Christian Right has long been arguing that gay people ARE different than straight people, and that their relationships are different as well. That's an idea you seem to have embraced as well, but I think that the majority of gay people believe that other than their sexual orientation, there is nothing which makes them "different" than straight people, and there is therefore no reason to go off and create a whole different institution to support their relationship.

[Doug69]

>>society has an interest in encouraging those who want to

>live

>>in a more committed and meaningful relationship

>

>Why is a monogamous relationship more "meaningful" than one

>that is open? How can anybody judge the value of other

>people's relationships? My relationship with Derek is no less

>"meaningful" than it was when we were monogamous.

 

The vast majority of psychologists and social scientists, using reams of empirical data, have concluded that children thrive much better in homes where they have 2 parents who live with them in a monogomous relationship.

 

For reasons that I believe are too obvious to require explanation, society has a strong interest in encouraging those relationships which are most conducive to raising children well. That means encouraging relationships which are monogomous and comitted.

 

As for childless couples, I agree that the mere absence of monogomy, by itself, doesn't render a relationship less meaningful. But a significant part of marriage - the primary reason the state has an interest in regulating marriage - is because it, more often than not, is the setting in which children are raised, and the society has the right, even the obligation, to determine which model is best for raising children and to encourage that model.

 

That, too, is a conservative rationale for gay marriage - since gay couples are having and raising children together, it's much better to encourage them to be married than not to be married.

 

>>If you like your promiscuous, oh-so-boehemian San

>>Fransisco escort life of fucking lots and lots of guys

>without

>>any monogomous commitment

>

>It's nice to see you're not being judgmental, Doug.

 

I don't think anything I said about Devon's lifestyle was derogatory or judgmental. I merely described it factually based upon what I know about it, which is quite a lot, given that he discusses it rather openly on the Internet on a daily basis. I think it's interesting that you viewed my value-neutral factual description of Devon's promiscuous escort lifestyle as being something negative and bad. You may want to find out why that is.

[AdamSmith]

RE: Defense Of Marriage Act

 

these provisions of DOMA

>have not yet been applied, and therefore, no legal challege to

>them has been possible.

 

As you must know, there has been a legal challenge. But the case was not resolved on full-faith-and-credit constitutional grounds, so the question still stands.

 

In September 1999, a federal district judge upheld DOMA, ruling that the Court had not ruled that laws classifying on the basis of sexual orientation violated the Equal Protection and Due Process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court also ruled that Congress had not exceeded its power under the Full Faith and Credit Clause when it prohibited states from recognizing a same sex marriage legal in another state. GLFP argued that the Full Faith and Credit Clause barred Congress from enacting a law that discriminated against a disfavored group, something the Full Faith and Credit Clause was designed to prohibit. DOMA, argued GLFP, was not a law having general application, which is what the Full Faith and Credit Clause required.

 

In October 2001, the New Circuit Court of Appeals, 2-1, reversed. The appeals court ruled that DOMA violated the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee to due process and equal protection under law. Writing for the court, Judge Scott Alan Gilmore held that, "It is plain from the language of DOMA that the only purpose of the law was to ban same-sex marriage. Such an overt act of discrimination violates the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of equality and personal privacy (citations omitted)." Commenting on Congress’s entrance into the realm of marital law, Judge Gilmore commented, "Until the passage of DOMA, the states had always been responsible for marital law. Until DOMA, no federal law barred the right of states to recognize marriages (and divorces) obtained in other states. Although the constitutional question is not before us, and since the law fails on Fifth Amendment grounds, we do not reach the issues raised by several amici that DOMA is an unconstitutional intrusion on power reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment."

[phage]

>What is dishonest is

>for you to pretend that all conservatives espouse the views of

>the "Christian Right." They do not, and I believe you know

>this.

 

And you would be correct. Based on past conversations, I know that you are aware that I don’t believe that. Other than the jab at the GOP leadership that I couldn’t resist, I was trying to focus my point on the political movement without making it yet another Democrat versus Republican squabble. I suppose that is impossible since my objections to conservatism are not with the philosophy as much as the way it is implemented politically. I may say “conservative” but what I really mean is “Republican.”

 

I suppose in a two-party system, you pure conservatives have no better place to go and the GOP may be the lesser of two evils for you, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a Party that wasn’t controlled by people you have to apologize for? I am hardly the only person that considers ‘conservative’ and ‘Republican’ to be almost synonymous.

 

All of my Republican friends (I’m not trying to pretend I’m ‘Mr. Diversity’ here. I only have three friends who are living, breathing Republicans.) use the term interchangeably. I actually went to a Log Cabin fund raiser with my closest friend where he delighted in introducing me as his token liberal friend. ALL the speeches were about conservatism. I can understand why the gay element of the GOP would focus on conservatism, but don’t you think there is an element of head-in-the-sand about the Party not being true to those conservative priciples?

[AdamSmith]

I

>can understand why the gay element of the GOP would focus on

>conservatism, but don’t you think there is an element of

>head-in-the-sand about the Party not being true to those

>conservative priciples?

 

YES. In the mid-1990s Barney Frank made that point eloquently. His position was that, however much you may like an individual and want to vote for him, it will inescapably be a vote for the majority

position of his party.

 

E.g., he said at the time, in MA if you like Bill Weld, and you help advance him to national party power, you will advance the party's power itself. All the planks in its platform, including the most repugnant to you. For any politician will more often than not vote with his party when push comes to shove.

 

Likewise, said Frank, if you're a Democrat who reviles Clinton for settling for don't-ask-don't-tell, hold your nose and vote for him anyway. Any alternative is far worse for your interests.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>Obviously, many gay people ARE happy with what you call the

>"straight" institution "to suport THEIR relationships" -

>because so many gay people have adopted that model for

>themselves and are urgently seeking full legal recognition for

>it.

 

"So many?" How many would that be? In the few parts of the world where gay marriage or something close to it is available, what percentage of gays have actually taken advantage of it? I was under the impression that it was quite small. When you say they've "adopted that model" do you mean to say that these are couples that have been rigidly monogamous for the entirety of their relationship? How many long-term gay male relationships do you know of that actually work that way? The ones I'm familiar with have been opened up (to varying degrees and under varying rules and conditions). But pro-gay-marriage conservatives like Andrew Sullivan are pretty adament in their belief that gays shouldn't marry unless they're willing to commit to be completely monogamous. Otherwise (gasp) the sacred institution would be weakened!

 

>Many gay people believe that there are no differences between

>gay people and straight people other than their sexual

>orientation, so that there would be no reason why straight

>people would have one model for their relationships and gay

>people would have to create an entirely different model for

>theirs.

 

If they believe that there are no meaningful differences between the sexes and that gender is purely a construct, then of course they would be right. That's just not a point of view I've ever attributed to conservatives, but it's one they seem willing to adopt for the sake of convenience when it comes to discussing relationships.

 

>Ironically, the Christian Right has long been arguing that gay

>people ARE different than straight people, and that their

>relationships are different as well. That's an idea you seem

>to have embraced as well, but I think that the majority of gay

>people believe that other than their sexual orientation, there

>is nothing which makes them "different" than straight people,

>and there is therefore no reason to go off and create a whole

>different institution to support their relationship.

 

I haven't embraced the idea that gay people as individuals are different from straight people, but I do believe that men relate to each other differently than they do to women, and that women relate to each other different than they do to men. In other words, I'm not assigning different inherent characteristics to gay males and straight males, or to lesbians and straight women, but I do believe there is a difference in how the sexes interact in the various available combinations. Sullivan et al seem to think that yes, men and women are different from one another, but somehow that doesn't affect their relationships. That doesn't make much sense to me.

[theDCeBOY]

barney hath never thaid anything eloquently.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>Societal pressures on heterosexuals to enter into the institution of

>marriage have been weakening for nearly half a century, if not

>longer. But the drivers were not changes in law: they were

>instead material developments such as birth control and the

>increasing economic independence of women. The law has

>followed, not led, these changes.

 

This is a very good point. But it seems to me that the gay marriage movement wants the law to lead, not follow, changes in how gay relationships actually work. As I've noted elsewhere in this thread, Brooks's case for gay marriage is that gays need marriage in order to domesticate them. In other words, his position is not that gay people are human beings who therefore deserve the right to marry if they so choose; it's that they must marry if they are to become full (or at least moral) human beings.

[Doug69]

>E.g., he said at the time, in MA if you like Bill Weld, and

>you help advance him to national party power, you will advance

>the party's power itself. All the planks in its platform,

>including the most repugnant to you. For any politician will

>more often than not vote with his party when push comes to

>shove.

>

>Likewise, said Frank, if you're a Democrat who reviles Clinton

>for settling for don't-ask-don't-tell, hold your nose and vote

>for him anyway. Any alternative is far worse for your

>interests.

 

Why would a gay person who believes in the conservative viewpoint on economic policy, foreign policy, tax policy, and many social issues(such as, say, abortion and gun control) - and who disagrees with the liberal viewpoint on those positions - vote for Democrats simply due to the fact that more people in the Democratic Party (but by no means all) than in the Republican Party have the right view on gay issues?

 

Are you a gay person first, foremost and ueber alle - that trumps everything else that you are and every other interest that you have?

 

If you have 2 candidates:

 

Candidate A - advocates gay marriage but disagrees with you on EVERY other issue;

 

Candidate B - opposes gay marriage but agrees with you on every other issue .. . .

 

You would vote for Candidate A? That certainly brings "identity politics" to a whole new (lower) level.