With which of your rights would you willingly part, if the majority willed it?
Which of your rights would you not fight for, if the state legislated them away?
Democracy, for all its precious redeeming virtues, has a major flaw in its potential to become a tyranny of the majority.
It happened in Germany in the 1930s.
It happened in Australia with the Pacific Solution.
And on Tuesday 4 November 2008, it happened in California.
With 52% of the vote (the same proportion with which Obama won the Presidency), California passed Proposition 8 to amend the state constitution and to ban same-sex marriages. Gay Californians had briefly enjoyed the right to marry following a California Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.
So last night, a legally constituted right was removed from a segment of the population, by popular will.
As a married person of Jewish descent, I have a particularly acute understanding of the significance of this.
Can you imagine today passing a Proposition to ban blacks or women their right to vote, or equal pay? Well, 52% of Californians have just told their gay brothers and sisters to sit up the back of the bus — to get off the sidewalk.
This cannot stand. You’re either for equality before the law, or you’re against it. This is not a defense of marriage, it’s an attack on liberty.
And beyond the rhetoric of civil rights, beyond the rhetoric of what we believe marriage to be, there is a fundamental human right at stake.
For much medical evidence shows that, on average, married people can expect to lead longer, happier lives. Now I’m well aware that marriage as an institution is far from perfect (like democracy). I’m well aware that there are many short-lived, miserable married people. And many single gay octogenarians who are very, well, gay.
But overall, you can’t beat the averages. And now gay Californians don’t even have the option to try.
What democracy worthy of the name can pass laws which condemn a minority of the population to the statistical likelihood of shorter, less happy lives?
And how does our Australian democracy fare by the same measure?
Can we do away with second-class “civil unions”? Can we secure for our gay brothers and sisters equality before the law?
Yes. We. Can.
Local coverage of the issue here:
http://www.mercurynews.com/elections
Mercurius,
Your right of course, this proposition was designed solely to impose a conservative agenda on a small number of people. And as much as seeing something so obviously partisan and prejudice being applied, I worry about the rhetoric your using here.
As a general grouping of people, Homosexuals have had to endure indignities that I could only imagine, had common rights stripped from them for following their alternative lifestyles in their pursuit of self and happiness, but they persevere, they put up with just so much and continue on. Somehow I doubt this setback (while probably very upsetting in their community) will be concerning their everyday lives that much.
Call me an old romantic if you will (although, I doubt anyone would
) but marriage is just a piece of paper, a ceremony and a public declaration. What matters is what you feel inside, towards another human being, no intolerant hack can take away from you. With that in mind, I doubt the longevity and happiness that you talk of is really derived from marriage itself because the bond between two people transcends the wrapper that we put around it (could be wrong though, It’s been a while since I read the details on that study).
My own opinion is that marriage is a religious institution, and it will be up to the various churches to make that decision for themselves. As much as we don’t like the way they run the shop, we can’t force them to change we can only argue until they either see the point or become irrelevant. Civil unions should be used as a government mechanism, where all unions as described above are recognised outside the setting of religion. It’s just my opinion of course, and it may not be suitable to everyone, but that’s were I would start, given the chance.
PinkyOz
While I’m a firm supporter of gay marriage personally, technically no-one took away the rights of gays to marry, just the right of anyone to marry someone of the same sex.
In other words, all adult Californians have the same marriage rights – they can all marry a single human adult of the opposite sex.
I’m curious about the demographic break-down on this vote though – where did most of the opposition come from?
“I’m curious about the demographic break-down on this vote though – where did most of the opposition come from?”
wizofaus, most of them are listed here.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gaymarriage5-2008nov05,0,1545381.story?page=2
wizofaus,
This is a link to CNN on the Prop 8 vote, there is some breakdown here
CNN – Calif. Prop 8
PinkyOz
Looking at the region-based results here, it’s interesting to note that San Diego was firmly for the ban, LA proper was mildly against it (much of the greater LA area supported it), but most of the area around SF was strongly against it. That suggests to me that Hispanics were generally in favour of the ban, given that there tend to be more in more southerly urban regions (for fairly obvious reasons!) – and there are almost certainly more recently nationalised immigrants from the south of the border in the more southern cities. Which is pretty much what I would expect, given the predominance of traditional/Catholic views of sex-roles and marriage among Hispanics (my wife grew up as an Hispanic in LA – her aunt was basically shunned by the rest of the extended family for moving in with another woman).
Actually, wizofaus, it took away the right of half the population to marry a woman, and half the population to marry a man. A right that the other half of the population, in each case, does have.
As for California – that many of Obama’s supporters voted for the measure, and his opposition was only lukewarm (he refused to support equality for gays), is a real taint on the notion of his presidency being a victory for civil rights.
Thanks for that link Steve – good to see the “Farm Animal” proposition:
“Beginning in 2015, farmers would be required to provide room for egg-laying hens, veal calves and pregnant sows to fully extend their limbs or wings, stand up, turn around and lie down. It would outlaw cages and crates that prevent those movements.”
got 63% support.
But kinda sad that farm animals seem to get more respect than homosexual humans.
In the US marriage isn’t just a piece of paper. The marriage ban makes non-biological parents non-legal parents, and it potentially removes some people’s right to health insurance under their partner’s workplace cover. There are thousands of legal rights conferred on married people in the US that non-married couples are denied, which is why the fight for marriage equality is so much more fervent there than here (where same sex couples are more likely to focus on the politically simpler fight of equality with hetero de facto couples).
Jeremy @ 7
I’m prepared to give him time. Obama’s first responsibility was to keep the repugs out of the white house. No small feat when he’s both black and the most liberal senator in an extremely conservative country. Even now that he’s there I’d sooner a slow and steady approach. I don’t think politicians can afford to be too far in front of their electorate. And long term, the push for gay marriage is an unstopppable force. My parents hate the idea of gay marriage, it toook me some getting used to and my kids can’t see why anybody would have a problem with it. So it goes.
Are “second class civil unions” also “second class” for large numbers of straight couples who employ this mode, for its informalism?
As for California, don’t forget it has received a big influx of Latinos, who are Catholic.
I sympathise with Mercurious’ post. The point about heterogenity/homogeneity and “legitimacy” is telling.
Because teh Right has temporarily put itself up the creek; skewed on the contradictions of its own emotive nonsenses and reactive prejudices, doesnt mean these won’t come back under diffferent conditions, with their exploitative demagogues. Don’t forget gaybashing was a fundamental plank of the dysfunctional German state of the Depression Thirties.
Modern society seems equally about reification. For me, Kim’s recent rebuke of my attitude for my own ambivalence towards certain types of gay people, actually had me wondering as to the basis of some of my own attitudes, as to this.
The trouble is, we just don’t know enough about ourselves as a species, from anthropology, sociology, psychology etc, at their current embryonic level, as to what is “normal”.
I think gays fail to realise that straight society also feels also “threatened”for surprisingly similar reasons one suspects, to some gays. Gays could consider leaving straight society with its little rituals ( hetero could be quite normal for many people, after all!), having acheived the main goal of ending the persecution of teh gay so common ’till recently. Anthropologically, could we see inversionary versions of statements of “difference”/”identity”/”legitimacy” that are so at the core of hetero and gay society, as part of another more immanent mechanism(s)?
Mercurious’ point on legitimacy did strike a chord, tho. Pinky’s response gave me the sense of a constructive dialectic up and running. The insecurity on both sides is striking…
I hope society could work to “zero sum”, but somehow I don’t think it will happen. Both positions seem to have a mutually exclusive element for some of their membership, are definitionary, almost reifiying mechanisms, but hetero is in the majority and has more power,so gays wonder fairly about being sexual equivalents of Reich Juden.
Is it my imagination, or is identity politics divisive; emotional?
Give me good ol’ situational politics any time. I don’t like fighting with my friends through “crossed wires”, while the bloody-handed likes of Dick Cheney skulk off with their ill-gotten gains, to the tangible detriment of hundreds of millons of defenceless people.
FWIW, exit polls indicate that self-identified Latinos weren’t as strongly in support of the ban as I would have suspected – only 53%. It was the African-Americans that were really solidly for it, at 70%. Even allowing that there’s about twice as many Latinos as African-Americans in CA, there were still more African-Americans in favor of banning same-sex marriage than Latinos, which surprises me somewhat.
Sorry, that’s wrong – Latinos for the ban made up 9.5% of voters, African-Americans for the ban made up 7% of the population. However whites for the ban made up 30% of the population, so it’s only reasonable to conclude that the result was largely decided by white voters.
Yeah, while we’re at it lets ban all religions other than Christianity. Everyone will still have the same rights, Christians, Jews, Muslims, all will be able to practice Christianity and no one will be able to practice other religions. Fair, no?
With this ban, straight people will be able to marry someone they love, while gay people will not. That is not the same.
(oops, I meant to replace all instances of “the population” with “voters” above)
Desipis – sure, I wasn’t really seriously attempting to defend the ban, but I would say that arguing everyone should be free to practice “religion” relies on some sort of cultural acceptance of what “religion” is, just like arguing everyone should be free to practice “marriage” relies on some sort of cultural accept of what “marriage” is.
That marriage should be with someone of the opposite sex is still fundamental to many people, just like the idea that marriage should be between two people, or that it should be a commitment to remain together for the rest of those two individuals’ lives is fundamental to most of those who don’t see the “opposite sex” requirement as fundamental.
There’s plenty of reasons to object to idea that same-sex couples should not have the same fundamental rights as opposite-sex couples, but to a degree what matters as far as actually meaningfully naming their relationship a “marriage” is its acceptance by the majority of the population. In that sense, I don’t have a big problem with determining whether civil unions should be called “marriages” via popular vote.
Folks, thanks for your contributions – can I ask especially that we keep this thread focused on the issues I raised in the post, namely:
1. The power of democratic states to rescind individuals’ rights.
2. The potential for a majority to oppress a minority, even in a democratic state.
3. Equality of all before the law.
I explicitly DON’T want this thread to get into a debate what marriage “is”. Remember polygamous mormons are among the most vociferous opponents of same-sex marriage. So please let’s just not go there.
I think we’ll have a more constructive discussion if we keep it in the realm of civil rights and human rights, not a philosophical debate about marriage per se.
Godwin’s
Mercurius I’m not sure you can completely separate the two. I certainly agree that “equality before the law” should not be up for popular vote. But being able to call your relationship a “marriage” needn’t have any legal ramifications, and I would strongly suggest, nor should it.
As I understand it, those in gay civil unions have all the same rights under Californian law as those in heterosexual marriages. Presumably however they don’t have all the same rights under federal US law, and so in effect, this proposition was a chance to strip a minority of their rights under federal US law. In that sense it was an example of ‘tyranny of the majority’ that shouldn’t happen in an ideal democratic society. But surely for most voters, the issue was the cultural institution of marriage, not what legal rights a state-recognised marriage confers (though it’s pretty clear that many who object to same-sex marriages object to the idea of such couples being legally allowed to raise children). There are parts of the world where close to 100% of voters would object to the idea of marriage being between two people of the same sex – and I would suggest that for a government in such a part of the world to decree that same-sex couples were legally entitled to have their relationship recognised by the state as a “marriage” would be not only pointless but probably counter-productive: such a move effectively requires popular support for it have any real purpose.
Mercurius, re 2 — surely the single biggest weakness of democracy is that its fundamental principle actively confers on the majority the power to oppress minorities?
Every western generation since WW2 has been raised to think automatically of democracy as an absolute good, on a par with if not surpassing motherhood. Which makes it very easy to commit injustices, and worse, in its name.
Speaking as someone who feels they have not had a good day unless I annoy at least one person I was shocked to see the attempt by the NSW govt during the catholik yoof fingo to make it illegal to annoy catholik yoofs. The fact is our grasp on rights is very tenuous. Would the population of Aus rise up if what we might see as basic rights were to be taken away from, say, a minority cultural sector of our society? Would they really?
Issues like this are why immigration exists. You vote with your ballot, and if that doesn’t work you vote with your feet. People will have to decide if it’s permanently ingrained in the state’s character – in which case it’s not likely to change, or a fleeting hangup.
Kate @ 9 – I probably got the words wrong again. Yes, of course there is the legality of all of this to take in, and without taking anything away from the obvious and largely unfair barriers put to same sex couples; I hope that the individual homosexual can find their own way through without being bound to an old-world concept like marriage.
Paul @ 11 – Thanks for giving my argument a fair shake. This is a tough issue and I really wish we could just get over it, but society is never easy. I come from a conservative background and I’m not homosexual so at the end of the day my view will always be coloured, so I just do my best. If I achieve anything in my life it will be to build compromises that will lead to better outcomes over time.
Mercurius @ 17 – Democracy is supposed to be about compromise, building a shared solution that everyone can agree to. But really all democracies fall down the same hole on this, either pleasing just over half of the people or allowing empowered minorities, noting no one specifically, the ability to control the agenda. The problem will always lay with the state and who it chooses to listen to ensure it continuance. It highlights just how fleeting our ‘rights’ really are, and how important it is to ensure that your view is heard, so really Jefferson was right “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance”.
PinkyOz.
Worked perfectly for the folks aboard the SEIV X.
Is there a lesson here about the pursuit of social change through the courts? Has the hard homophobic right has been able to use community unease about ‘gay marriage’ to undercut domestic partnership laws, laws that would probably survive a referendum if they were distinguished from ‘marriage’. You should also note the good news about the defeat of ‘right to work’ elsewhere.
Quite, Katz. Want to know about minority rights and immigration difficulties? Ask a Kurd.
CraigMc, the other eventual option available to aggreived and disenfranchise minority groups, as any student of American history knows, is revolution.
Pavlov’s Cat: Mmmm, majoritarianism. My favourite democratic vice, especially when the minorities of my choice are being oppressed. Don’t forget that sometimes the oppression of minorities isn’t just a side-effect, but a positive public good. First up: the extremely rich.
Liam: are you proposing that the middling rich should oppress the extremely rich? Or that the extremely rich should oppress everyone else? By what right?
Every now and again I think Plato might have got it right when he said only philosophers should be rulers – maybe only philosophers should get the vote
If we had a similar situation and the Catch-the-Fire/SaltShakers lobby group were able to put on the ballet a proposition to expel Muslims out of Australia, I’d be feeling pretty worried.
Imagine if there were propositions on our ballot papers that dealt with stem-cell research, climate change measures, Indigenous rights etc. I’m afraid our society would not be better off for such direct democracy, because the vast majority of us just don’t have deep and thorough grasps of these issues that includes the relevant science behind them.
In the context of marriage laws, I wonder how many of Prop. 8 voters had an in-depth appreciation of the sociology, psychology (and other -ologies) behind the issue? Very few I’d suggest.
Worked perfectly for the indians.
Don’t worry, they can’t dance for shit.
I’m proposing that the State ought to tax the extremely rich extremely progressively, Ambigulous, and by right of force majeure. I’m almost certain that my proposal would attract majority support.
My general opposition to majoritarian illiberalism (ie. that of Mercurius’ examples) is not in conflict with my wish that the rights of a small group of people to concentrate wealth be curtailed; I’m a collectivist, not an individualist, and I hold that the latter is a greater public evil than the former.
What I argue is that democracies “worthy of the name”, as Mercurius puts it, sometimes should behave in a majoritarian fashion. That I personally disagree very strongly with the Californians (and Arizonians and Floridians) doesn’t affect the thoroughly democratic and legitimate nature of the decision. As PC implicitly argues, democracy isn’t an endpoint for those looking for a Good society. It might not even be a waypoint.
I think what this illustrates is an argument against having an entrenched bill of rights. A bill of rights leaves important policy decisions to the courts. The policy decision is made essentially in private, with the arguments framed by the disputants and the decision made by an unelected, unaccountable judicial officer. The arguments are often framed narrowly, with the parties free to exclude the claims of balancing or competing considerattions. Because the voting population has been excluded from the process, the decision will be seen (rightly or wrongly) as a policy created by the fiat of an elite.
It has been suggested that one of the reasons abortion is such a touchstone in the US, and has provoked such reaction amongst blue collar voters, is that Roe v Wade was seen as a decision of the elite in which the opinion of the people counted nothing and against which dissenting voices had been effectively disenfranchised by the court. That may or may not be true, and it may be that some rights should be placed beyond the will of the people to decide. But what rights are they, and how far do they reach against competing claims?
Umm Yasmin, certainly there is a big danger in excessive direct democracy, but there are arguably bigger dangers in not allowing the public to have more say over more than just which party forms the majority in parliament for the next 3 years.
The U.S. system of including direct propositions on the ballot seems generally commendable, even if it could be improved by more careful restrictions on the degree to which legal rights can be voted upon.
“Every now and again I think Plato might have got it right when he said only philosophers should be rulers – maybe only philosophers should get the vote
”
or only Imams, or only Priests, or only IT workers, or only Landowners, or only Graduates of Prestigious Universities, or only Men, or only Self-Funded Retirees, or only Women, or only People I Really Like; or …. stuff it!! – why give anyone the vote? – I know best, I’ll just run the whole show Myself.
The example you’re looking for is the 19th century Klan: a popular resistance movement against Federal majoritarian interference with a minority’s right to a way of life.
Heh.
Progressive income taxation, Liam?
No argument from me, but it’s out of fashion partly due to heavy campaigning by “The Australian” newspaper – under early Hawke Govt I think (or earlier). Progressive income tax scales have been steadily watered down by Keating, Costello, Swan, et al for decades now.
What’s your proposal? Care to put figures on it?
“…may be that some rights should be placed beyond the will of the people to decide. But what rights are they?”
That’s relatively easy to determine – nobody should be allowed to vote to restrict the rights of others without the same restriction applying to themselves. My initial post effectively was signalling my concern that such a rule would still allow people to vote on whether marriage should be between couples of different sexes – and providing that “marriage” was a just a name given to a relationship that conferred no special rights that couldn’t be gained through a relationship with a different name, I would stand by that: there’s nothing wrong with voting on whether gay civil unions could be officially recognised as “marriages”. But given the current legal standing of state-recognised civil unions at the federal level, there almost certainly is a problem with voters determining whether others should have the same legal rights as themselves.
I suggest we’re arguing at cross purposes, Ambigulous. Or rather, there is an argument, but you’re not in it.
Between good policy, social equality, democratic decision making and individual liberty, there lie irreconcilable conflicts. The process of working out those conflicts is the arena of political activity. With us so far?
Yes, Dr. Cat. I’m with Churchill. Democracy is definitely the worst system of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.
Wizard:
And therein lies the problem, Wizard. Ever since Brown vs. Board of Education ruled that “separate but equal” school systems violated the constitution, it’s been established precedent that “separate but equal” is an invalid artifice under US law.
So, following Brown, if you have two separate contracts — civil unions and marriage — and each in fact confers identical rights, then you shouldn’t insist on maintaining different appellations for them; to do so is to perpetuate the “separate but equal” doctrine. No can do. Maintaining separate labels for coequal contracts sets up a first class/second class distinction where none should exist.
Yes, wizofaus, but that’s rarely at issue. The Californians who voted YES probably aren’t fussed by losing the right to enter a same-sex marriage, just as I wouldn’t be fussed voting (for example) in favour of further curtailing other Australians’ rights to own firearms.
BTW, a question – are heterosexual couples permitted to have their relationship recognised as a “civil union” in any part of the world that allows for such unions?
Personally I would happily change the legal status of my relationship with my wife from “marriage” to “civil union”. Does anybody here know a “united” couple? Do they call it that – getting united? Being united for 2 years? Being in a happy union? We’ve thinking of union counselling? I hope my son will unite with a nice Buddhist boy one day?
Yes.
The concept of “civil union” arose because of its use in European countries who interpret secularism in such a way as to deny legal recognition to any religious ceremony. In France, for instance, if you want to get married in a church, you need to have your relationship solemnised by a civil registrar in order to have it legally recognised.
Just to throw the stupidity of marriage laws into relief – my wife and I were married in Las Vegas (a place where the marriage license office stays open way into the evening and you can get married within an hour). This quickie, dodgy ceremony outside the reach of Australian marriage law is nonetheless recognised here, thanks to a certificate that looks like it was concocted by a five year old.
The French civil union stuff is far more sensible – at least it aligns the legalities with the practice and leaves the religious stuff out altogether.
Well, indeed: least worst. And I should have made it clearer that I regard that as a given. You’re with Churchill, I’m with E.M. Forster — ‘Two Cheers for Democracy’.
I think what this illustrates is an argument against having an entrenched bill of rights.
Actually, I think this illustrates having one’s constitution amendable only by a simple majority in a referendum. But that’s what the California constitution allows.
At the risk of sounding like Jack Strocchi, I picked this. ‘Twas the African Americans, voting in large numbers for Obama, wot done it.
And the Mormons in California (apparently there are quite a lot of them there – who knew?) ran an effective campaign.
Oh ta very much Liam. When I get patronised, I always prefer it to be done by the very highest.
cheers, mate
CraigMc, the other eventual option available to aggreived and disenfranchise minority groups, as any student of American history knows, is revolution.
That has already been taken care of by the ‘War on Terror’, and legislation such as the Anti-Terror laws.
Anybody who dissents from the Govt line is a terrorist and can be taken and held with no evidence necessary.
Hopefully Rudd & Co are libertarian enough to review this insidious legislation. But then isn’t Rudd from the right of the ALP, so may therefore be part of the problem.
Hey, I was raised in a religion (Baha’i) that believed current Western forms of democracy are deeply flawed, and that the Baha’is had a superior form of electoral process (although now that I’ve left, it looks remarkably similar to how we elect clubs and local governments) but that turned out to be much worse than the systems in the US and Australia, because incumbents are pretty much entrenched for life, and can then stack the decks for succeeding nominations to fill the gaps with the (few and far between) deaths and retirements.
So, I’m pretty cynical with the ‘forms’ of democracy I’ve experienced (it was our democracy that left John Howard in for over a decade, blagh ?!?!?!) I actually think I’d make a great benign dictator Ambigulous
I still think the type of multi-party coalition style democracy that Ireland has isn’t too bad (better than the two-party system, where Labor and Liberal become clones of themselves).
Umm Yasmin,
yes of course you’d be a bloody lovely benign dictator, I’d be not bad too. Then someone would disagree with you, then their friends might too. Still benign? Then the economy might stall. Well, kick-start it by putting Umm Yasmin staues everywhere, publishing your “pensees” or your calligraphy.
Political prisoners whingeing again? Get ‘em out on road gangs like in Burma or China. Democracy’s terrible but the alternatives are terribler.
LOL – disagree with me? Never!
Democracy’s terrible but the alternatives are terribler.
Alternatives are worse (from our point of view), but we can still make ours better.
YES WE CAN , Kat!
but it looks like many folk here at LP have doubts about binding referenda being put to citizens. How would you like to see it improved? I think the actual election-day procedures are good.
Abolish “above-the-line-voting” for the Senate? Or force the parties to register their “above-the-line” preference distributions 10 days before the election (with plenty of publicity) to expose any low deals?
Limits on electoral advertising? More town meetings? Better electoral education? A different way of electing the Reps (e.g. multi-member electorates)? A different Senate? Referenda for local govt.? Referenda for State govt.?
So did we reach an agreement? We’re all up for storming the Parliament and insisting that Rudd separates religious marriage from the priviledges and protections of civil union? (Because, obviously, being in a relationship should entitle one to priviledge)
When the law changes so that de facto couples breaking up are entitled to use the Family Court, will we all be making sure that same sex couples are also entitled to the Family Court?
Funny thing, kate: that old hip-pocket nerve.
Seems to me, the [lack of] rights of gay couples was never explained to the community more starkly than when cases of “no inheritance” or “no superannuation payout for my surviving partner” were exposed to public view in the last few years.
Stornming Parliament? a bit old hat: get onto talk-back radio, letters to the editor, political parties….
cheers
Great post Mercurius,
I see you posted it at Daily Kos, but just in case you missed it & others are interested, the legal challenges to Prop.8 are already beginning. Including an alliance between the ACLU, Lambda & National Centre for Lesbian Rights.
For those wanting the cliff notes, the essential contention is this:
“Since the court ruling that led to this proposition found that marriage was a “fundamental right” under the state constitution, you cannot take that right away by simply amending the constitution; you would need to revise it.
While an amendment only needs a simple majority vote, a revision requires a constitutional convention, which itself requires a two-thirds legislative vote — something highly unlikely to happen in California.”
Here’s hoping they win. This was a very bitter pill after the success of Obama.
but it looks like many folk here at LP have doubts about binding referenda being put to citizens. How would you like to see it improved? I think the actual election-day procedures are good.
Citizen referenda is not a bad thing IMO, as long as there has been genuine public debate about an issue. Personally I think if there were to be a referendum here on civil unions most would support this. It is use of the word ‘marriage’ that makes some (not myself) nervous.
Fine. Let’s get legal gay civil unions legal, and then worry about the terminology. I think some get hung up on terminology (maybe purposely) to ensure that civil unions stay illegal.
Abolish “above-the-line-voting” for the Senate? Or force the parties to register their “above-the-line” preference distributions 10 days before the election (with plenty of publicity) to expose any low deals?
Personally I would like to see compulsory allocation of preferences banned. Let the voter decide whether they want to preference their vote.
Limits on electoral advertising? More town meetings? Better electoral education? A different way of electing the Reps (e.g. multi-member electorates)? A different Senate? Referenda for local govt.? Referenda for State govt.?
I would like to see more independants and minor parties in our parliament. Party politicians annoy me because they have to put the party line above real advocacy for their electorate. If not they risk pre-selection whether an incumbant member or not.
This ensures that no matter what we call our system it closer resembles a two party dictatorship. Our pollies do not respresent us, they represent their party. The public didn’t want Australia to invade Iraq but we got dragged into anyway by a fawning and sycophantic PM.
Howards own advisors warned him against the AUSFTA, but we got it anyway with much cheering by the ALP.
Most Australians want real action on climate change, but due to entrenched party ideology the ALP is dragging the chain on this, and the Coalition are trying to stall any action at all.
Government by the people, for the people – not in my view.
I would like to see/have seen referenda on all of the above after a reasonable amount of open and genuine public discussion and no gagging of those who do not agree with the Govt.
Let’s not forget that in August 2004, with bi-partisan support, the Federal Parliament re-defined marriage as ‘…the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.’ This denied to all same-sex-attracted people in Australia the right to marry their partner of choice.
Even worse, the government went on to mandate that at every civil ceremony this definition must be read aloud, thereby ensuring that should same-sex-attracted people attend a wedding, they will be pointedly reminded that they are second-class citizens.
To my knowledge, this is the only instance in this country’s history of a minority being excluded from a civil right.
Our current federal government is committed to maintaining this state of affairs.
Not to disagree about same-sex marriage, but you need to rethink this sentence.
Adding dry understatement to your repertoire eh Liam?
Mercurius:
Well I’m all for just labelling civil unions as ‘marriages’. But if we can’t get the necessary popular support for that to happen then I don’t see anything fundamentally wrong with two separate names for a set of identical legal rights.
The people that view “civil unions” as a “second class” marriages are ones that would never accept the idea of gays being married anyway, so at least they’re forced to accept that such relationships are valid in the eyes of the law. And for some people, that’s hopefully enough to trigger eventual acceptance that lifelong bonds between gay partners are actually no different that those between heterosexual couples, and hence really should be called by the same name.
Our current federal government is committed to maintaining this state of affairs.
And this won’t change until we give them the incentive by making them work for our vote.
Vote for a minor party/idependant and give the ALP (or the Coalition) your preference. Then they may actually have to do some of the things we want them to do to obtain the right to govern.
But it is a bit silly to complain about the Govt (or any party) if we unquestioningly give them our vote every time.
Until August 2004, same-sex couples were not excluded from marriage. There was simply no provision made for same-sex marriages. Seeing a potential for same-sex couples to exploit this, our political leaders joined together to exclude same-sex couples from the right to marry.
Yes, there have been many instances of civil rights not being granted to minorities, only one where a minority has been excluded from a civil right. The direction has been towards granting rights to achieve equality, with one exception.
The Immigration Restriction Act, 1901.
And the Pacific Islander Labourers Act 1901.
(Because I can’t post two links in one go)
And for the trifecta:
And those acts did mean excluding people from rights they’d previously enjoyed pre-Federation. Many Aboriginal people lost the right to vote, for example.
Am I missing a note somewhere explaining how non-resident would-be immigrants can be regarded as having an Australian civil right removed from them?
The Immigration Restriction Act also meant removing prohibited immigrants, ie people who under the colonial governments were permitted to stay.
geez … tough audience
To my knowledge, this is the only instance in our country’s history where a group of law-abiding Australian citizens has been excluded from a civil right.
Were any citizens subject to internment during the world wars?
At any rate, I think the point Liam was making was that there may have been and elephant in the elephant’s room.
Also, you don’t need to make hyperbolic claims about the magnitude of discrimination or its unprecedented nature to convince us that what happened in 2004 was very bad and wrong.
There was no such thing as Australian “citizenship” in the era of the two World Wars, only “aliens” and “subjects”, but yes, British subjects were certainly interned without trial.
Elephant, I need not point out that the Constitution’s original s.127 was the classic exclusionary clause. If you want to take rights away from law-abiding citizens, define them as non-citizens.
Indeed.
German-Australians (not all, and mainly from rural districts) were interned without trial in Australia during WW1 and WW2.
The double irony here is that most Germans who emigrated to Australia did so from 1848 onwards because of a lack of political and religious freedom in Prussia and the Kaiserreich and Nazi attempts to proselytise here in the 30s were singularly ineffectual.
Did we ever get around to apologising for that?
Your rights extinguished, by popular demand
.
Yeah they usually are.
No.
On the other hand it doesn’t say what the celebrant says before or after that sentence. You can wrap it with “The current bunch of fascists make us say that [insert sentence] which is offensive and wrong” or words to that effect.
I can’t recall the exact wording at our wedding – possibly not quite that inflammatory in deference to the 95yo grandmother…
I think having to listen to that nonsense ought to make people think twice about whether they really want to buy into the cultural baggage the institution of marriage carries in its train!
Well, I would quite like to buy into the cultural institution of marriage but we won’t be marrying while that current form of words stands as part of the ceremony.
I should clarify that I’m not knocking those who do choose to buy in! But I do think you should think before you purchase… a lot of the problems with marriage as a social institution and the constraints and expectations around it derive from its “taken-for-grantedness”.
Metafilter does its usual good job of examining the issue.
http://www.metafilter.com/76262/Two-Steps-Forward-One-Step-Back
laura @ 78 – if you can afford to get married overseas then you can avoid those words being part of the ceremony
Something like 14,000 people got married in California after the same sex marriages became legal on June 17. What happens to them now? It’s shameful.
A friend told me today that the Mormans spent $40 million on the campaign for Prop 8. Now that’s scary.
And because a friend linked to this and it made me a little teary:
San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders explains why he was reversing his position and supporting gay marriage:
Hmmm … like I said, tough crowd.
The core point was that taking rights away from gay people is not without precedent in this country either. There is no comfort whatsoever in the news that we’re in good company.
Laura, that form of words is not required in a religious ceremony. The Marriage Act (Section 46) requires only celebrants who are not a minister of a recognised religious denomination to state the official definition of marriage.
Japanese Australians were also interned during WW2, likewise no apology for them.
I still can’t understand why there is such opposition to same-sex marriage and it really makes me angry when they trot out the old “marriage will be rooned” rubbish. If two people want to make that commitment to each other, go for it, I say.
However, as long as the religious lobby regards it as their exclusive province, I don’t think a great deal of progress will be made. It’s going to be like getting kids to eat their vegies; until people realise that not only is same-sex marriage no threat to the institution, but will enrich it, there will be recalcitrance. In the meantime, we’ll just have to invest in lots of carrots and sticks.
Yep, it’s elephants all the way down
I thought the Donkeys were back in the room!
SATP,Mark,
I think there was some sort of an apology for the Dunerra Boys, but they were German-Jewish internees transported here from Britain, and it took many years to happen.(after the TV series, I think.)
Likewise with the Italians (in WWII). My dad who was born in 1930 remembers a completely innocuous (and innocent) family where the boys had to go off to the internment camps.
Yasmin, my darling uncle, an inoffensive and popular dentist, was interned in… aaargh, senior moment, it’ll come to me later. In Aus, anyway.
My cousin recently brought the set of tools he’d made in the internment camp, to show me. He’d fashioned dentistry tools out of beaten railway nails and bits of wood and used them to fix the teeth of his fellow detainees.
My mother was in the army and stationed near an internment camp. She had quite a romance with a young Italian guy.
Helen, Fine and UY: there’s a fairly extensive online exhibit run by the National Archive about internment in Australia. Also worth reading is Wolf Klaphake’s story, by Klaus Neumann with the NAA’s resources.
Mercurius, I think the error in your position is that you begin with an unsupportable premise that people of the same sex have an inalienable right to marry each other. Why do you think this? Where does this right come from? Surely it is the will of the people that determine what rights we have. And if it’s not the will of the people that determines such things who does, a handful of unelected judges?
Does an unborn human at eight months gestation have a right to exist? Recent laws passed by the Victorian Parliament with the approval of the majority of the population think they don’t. What about the children born through the use of donor sperm and ova. Do they have a right to know and have a proper parent/child relationship with both their natural parents? It seems most “Progressives” especially those that are Gay support the right of adults to have children by gamete donation whilst ignoring the actual rights of another human being to know and be loved by their natural parents.
You may like to pretend to take the high philosophical ground with regards to human rights, but like most “Progressives” in the end it’s all about getting what you want, and you’ll get it by any means possible.
There is no such thing as an inherent right to marry.
PaulW – there is for heterosexuals.
Helen: clearly it is just not possible to suppress a good dentist. Viva him!!!
No, I don’t actually. I begin with the entirely supportable premise that people of either sex have an inalienable right to equality before the law.
Why can people of one sexual orientation freely choose a legally-sanctioned life partner, with a host of privileges attached, but not people of a different sexual orientation? That is a violation of equality before the law. It’s a violation of a fundamental right.
Neither. Rights don’t come from the will of the people, and they don’t come from unelected judges. They’re inherent. That’s what makes them inalienable. Now I’m well aware of a problem with rights theory, that it’s an intellectual “castle in the air”. But unless you’re willing to hold at least one truth to be “self-evident”, you might as well scrap the entire Constitution now.
So, moving away from the philosophical discussion, I’m concerned by the practical ramifications that people’s rights can be extinguished, either by popular vote, or by, as you put it “unelected judges”. It is, as has been noted by many posters here, a great weakness of many democracies that rights can be removed by entirely legitimate democratic processes.
Again I ask:
Would you willingly submit to the will of the people if 52% of the population voted for Proposition X, which required that people whose name starts with “C” can’t marry?
I’d oppose such a law, Colin. I’d fight for your equality before the law. And my name starts with M.
So please answer the question with which I commenced this post:
With which of your rights would you willingly part, if the majority willed it?
Which of your rights would you not fight for, if the state legislated them away?
Your questions on fetal rights and children’s rights to be raised by your preferred choice of parents are a furphy, but I’ll respond simply so you can’t say I ignored the question:
Fetuses that are viable outside the womb are very well protected under our laws and they can only be placed at risk if the mother is in harm’s way. Yes, the law privileges living adults at risk of harm over the unborn. In practice of course any doctor tries to save both.
Sorry Colin but laws can’t change the fact that sometimes nature is cruel and fetuses die, or mothers die, or both are grievously injured in some way. You can grant all the rights in the world to sperm and ova and zygotes and fetuses you like, but it won’t prevent mutations, it won’t prevent in-utero complications and it won’t prevent dangerous or fatal pregnancies.
As for children, as far as I know adopted and surrogate children do have a right to know the identity of their biological parents. As far as I know once attaining majority children have a right to find and contact their parents too. Ask Tony Abbott about that one.
Colin, laws cannot account for the random vicissitudes of nature. If a child is born to parents who don’t want them, or to parents who abandon or abuse them, no law will grant them their purported “right” to be raised by two parents who love them. A law that can’t grant what it purports to grant, or be enforced, is a meaningless law. I am left to speculate that those who propose such laws either have a poor understanding of what laws can do, or have agendas other than good law-making.
But a law that enables adults to marry their life partner of choice is entirely deliverable, and upholds equality before the law. Hence it’s a good law.
As for this:
I’m not interested in high ground, philosophical or otherwise. I want equality before the law. That is not a philosophical point. It is a very grave and urgent practical point: During the 20th century, the lives of millions were blighted, even ended, by democratic societies that were prepared to compromise on equality before the law.
So again, tell me why any adult should not have a free and equal choice for a legally privileged relationship with their person of choice? Tell me how you can restrict that freedom without violating equality before the law?
Tell me why equality before the law is something on which you are prepared to compromise?
Jeremy Bentham:
“Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense – nonsense upon stilts.”
This can’t be the Australian Constitution that you are describing. A more positivist document and one less imbued with inherent and inalienable rights is hard to imagine.
And Constitutions are man-made things.
Not when the doctor is performing an abortion under WA and Victorian law. The doctor is killing one at the request of the other. I make no judgement about that. I just observe that that is the fact and what you have said is untrue.
GregM, while that’s right about the Australian constitution, I’m assuming Mercurius was talking about the American one given the context of the post.
Having said that, while I think it’s impossible to ground rights without some sort of fideism, I don’t think viewing rights as constructed diminishes the force of universalism. That is, that there is a logical and philosophical consistency – or should be – to rights doesn’t depend on a ground or foundation outside their emergence. They could better be seen as a form of ordering, and consistency as fairness or justice would place an injunction on them along similar lines as the articulation of a legal process oriented towards justice and the rule of law.
Thanks Kim. The point I was making in referring to the Australian Constitution, and this is, after all, an Australian blog, is that it is the product of the Benthamite tradition and a refutation of Mercurius’s natural rights universalism.
Well, yes, GregM, I see that, but I was just observing that the context for the discussion was the US tradition. But I think he can support his argument without reference to any natural rights tradition. A universal logic of rights doesn’t need and isn’t obviated by a recognition that rights are historically and socially derived.
That probably takes us closer to an argument about whether fighting for such rights politically or socially is more effective than legally, and I don’t want to come down on one side or other, and also want to note that it’s something of a false dichotomy, while also having real implications. But I thought I would link to this post from apophenia:
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2008/11/06/postprop_8_seek.html
I’m pretty close to her position, while being a little ambivalent about not using every tool in the armoury. But perhaps the missing link here is collective decision making within a social space of people who are concerned about this issue, which is not that common *unfortunately imho* in US political and social movement practice.
Here’s an article on the loss to local business. With 240 000 more unemployed in the US in October, I’d have thought that any business was good business in these times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/07marriage.html?hp
I can’t imagine what Arnie would have been arguing given this:
[The approval of Proposition 8 comes even as the state is suffering through another bout of bad economic news. On Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who opposed Proposition 8, in part on economic grounds, announced that the state’s budget deficit had already swelled to $11.2 billion for the coming year, and called the Legislature back into session and proposed higher taxes to address the budget problems.]
Can’t work out what Arnie’s game on Prop 8 was to be honest. Unless he’s thinking of a run for the Senate, and therefore has to face a GOP primary. He’s term limited as governor and has to leave office in ’10. So he could have stuck to his principles.
Greg, M @ 99 and below.
Quite so, and I’m not arguing the “rights” point in the Australian context.
But the American Constitution has this pesky invocation of inalienable rights — and my “castles in the air” and Bentham’s “nonsense on stilts” are not so very far apart — but, within the terms of their own logic, US lawmakers can’t invoke inalienable rights in one document, and then refuse to recognize those same rights in another, later document.
They’re treating gay people in a manner inconsistent with equality before the law. I’m willing to bet that Proposition 8 won’t stand up to constitutional legal challenge.
Colin’s quarrel isn’t really with me. It’s with the Founding Fathers. He doesn’t like the fact that, having invented inalienable rights, lawmakers (whether elected or unelected) who believe in the rule of law are constitutionally bound either to observe those inalienable rights, or else repeal the Bill of Rights.
But in Australia, since as you say our constitution doesn’t really rest itself on many or perhaps any “self-evident truths”, we have to assert our rights, and the rights of others. I see no great intellectual or practical difficulty in asserting equality before the law in Australia, even though it’s not constitutionally guaranteed to us here.
You do have the advantage of Chapter 3 of the Australian Constitution and the zeal with which the High Court upholds it and with it the common law principle of equality before the law.
Of course there has to be a law to be equal before in the first place and not an abstract philosophical principle which is better the province of Plato’s Guardians.
OK, I’ll have a go at asserting a universal argument:
All human beings are at liberty to express their love for one another. Therefore a secular authority that seeks to make laws in this domain consistent with reason, justice and equality must apply those laws to all people, or to none.
Under this formulation, it follows that the following laws currently on the statute books are consistent with reason, justice and equality, since they apply to all people:
1. Laws that forbid sexual intimacy with people below a certain age.
2. Laws that restrict the number of legal spouses to one.
It also follows that the following laws are inconsistent with reason, justice and equality, since by definition they cannot apply to all people:
1. Laws which permit a man to marry a woman, but not a man.
2. Laws which permit a woman to marry a man, but not a woman.
3. Laws which permit a man, but not a woman, to have more than one spouse.
And, one last thing:
Again, all I want to see is equality before the law. If you’re willing to cede that equality before the law is something that only “Progressives” want, then I’m willing to submit to your caricature of Progressives.
Mercurius re comment 98 you say:
“Yes, the law privileges living adults at risk of harm over the unborn. In practice of course any doctor tries to save both.”
The killing of fetus Jessica
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_a_vote_to_kill
shows that what you say is simply not true. The demand for a “right” to abortion is in reality simply a demand to be free from having to take responsibility for one’s sexual activity. Fetus Jessica wasn’t killed because she threatened the life of the mother. She was killed because her mother wanted her to be killed, and the Pro-Choice movement was more than willing to support her in her choice.
You also say:
“…as far as I know adopted and surrogate children do have a right to know the identity of their biological parents. As far as I know once attaining majority children have a right to find and contact their parents too. Ask Tony Abbott about that one.”
But Mercurius why place adopted children in the same category as those conceived through the use of donor gametes? Certainly children who have been abandoned by their parents or whose parents refuse to or are incapable of looking after them need responsible adoptive parents to try and produce as best as possible a safe and loving environment to grow. I’ve never heard anybody oppose adoption when it is clearly in the welfare of the child to do so.
But adopting a child in need has nothing in common with deliberately conceiving a child using donor sperm or egg. It’s sad that feminists and gays, who are the primary promoters of this method of conception, are so self absorbed that they are willing to argue for the right to deliberately prevent children from having a natural parent/child relationship with at least one of their real parents.
And as far as your claim that donor conceived children have a right to contact their real parents when they turn 18, how can that be when most of these people have been conceived using anonymous gametes?
sad little man
Colin, what has abortion and adoption got to do with gay people’s right to equality before the law?
You won’t receive any further response from me until you make an honest effort to answer the questions with which I opened this post and which you have repeatedly refused to address:
and
Unless and until you can provide a coherent and on-topic response to these questions, this discussion is over.
Mercurius, you know I basically agree with your position, but I don’t think it can be defended entirely on such simplistic grounds.
For a start, from your examples of laws that are consistent with reason, equality & justice:
1. Laws that forbid sexual intimacy with people below a certain age.
- in most Western countries the laws aren’t that simple: for instance, for an 18-yo to have sexual intimacy with a 17-yo is often permitted when it wouldn’t be for a 30-yo to do so.
And there’s even a case to be made that it may well make sense for laws regarding sexual intimacy to apply differently to men and women. If it could be shown, for instance, that for an older male to instigate sexual intimacy with a 17-yo boy was highly psychologically damaging, but that it wasn’t the case when the combination involved an older female or a 17-yo girl, then does the law really need to rule out forms of sexual-intimacy that aren’t psychologically damaging simply in the name of “equality”?
2. Laws that restrict the number of legal spouses to one.
Again, why not describe current marriage laws “as restricting the sex of your legal spouse to be the opposite of your own”?
That applies equally to everybody?
And surely your position on gay marriage would be different if there was overwhelming evidence that to have homosexuals commit to government-sanctioned legally-recognised life-long bonds was in fact resulting in the fabric of society falling apart with all sorts of damaging consequences? Certainly mine would be.
What about your position on allowing gay couples to raise children, if there was overwhelming evidence that nearly all children raised by gay couples demonstrated severe trauma from the experience? Of course, there isn’t such evidence (indeed, quite the opposite – children raised by gay couples are generally in better psychological/physical health than those raised by straight couples, most likely because gay couples tend to enjoy higher socio-economic status), but if there were, surely you would accept that there was a case for forbidding gay couples to raise children, even at the cost of the principles of equality?
Seeing as a Colin brought them up, abortion laws are much harder to justify on grounds of equality – but they are quite easy to defend on the grounds that the consequences of banning abortion are generally awful, and the fact that the countries with the lowest abortion rates in the world (the Netherlands and Belgium) are ones where abortion is easily available and even state-subsidised.
As the proverb goes, be careful what you wish for.
Without the excellent “african-american” voter turnout, proposition 8 may not have passed. The pro-Obama voters got out & voted, turns out they are also anti-homosexuality voters.
This should lead to some interesting political dynamics in California. It isn’t just african americans, the more mexican american voters they get, the more anti-gay voters there will be.
WizofAus @ 113
Sure thing. I didn’t spell it out in the post you referred to, because I was already wading in a lot deeper to this than I think the basic point warranted. But, just to spell it out, I guess I should add that it’s a necessary but not sufficient condition that a law should be consistent with reason, justice and equality. Obviously many other humanistic criteria must be met for a law to be sufficiently “good” enough, and you have raised to some of them.
An example I can offer, which I omitted from the post because I knew the more obtuse readers here would make a meal of it: A law that permitted adult-child sex for everybody might be consistent with reason, justice and equality, but since every psychologically healthy person feels impelled to condemn, prevent and punish such behaviour, such a law could not be valid. So it’s a necessary but not sufficient condition of laws that they are consistent with reason, justice and equality.
With all due respect, I think the original topic I raised has been well-discussed, and taken about as far as it’s constructive to do so in a forum like this. Thank you for helping to make it such a worthwhile discussion.
SATP – that was a cheap shot, even for you.
You know perfectly well that age, not race, was the biggest predictive factor for Prop 8 votes, that people under 30 aren’t so scared of teh gay, and that it couldn’t have passed anyway without the support of a heckuva lot of white folks.
And yet, knowing this, you still choose to single out blacks and Hispanics to make some insidious point. Am I surprised? Not really.
I don’t make cheap shots. No need. You seem very sensitive, has one of your core beliefs been proven wrong or something?
My point is accurate.
If you think there is support for gay rights stuff among hispanics and blacks, then you are wrong.
Though one must note, in areas with less black voteres, the more resounding the defeat of a pro-gay proposition.
In one sense Steve is right, going by the stats I worked out earlier:
Latinos for the ban made up 9.5% of voters, African-Americans for the ban made up 7% of voters. Whites for the ban made up 30% of voters. “Other races” for the ban made up the rest (about 4%)
If the turn-out for African-American and Latino voters had been about 20 or 30% lower, the result probably would have been different. It’s even conceivable that had Hillary Clinton been the candidate and not Obama, this would have occurred.
But I would hardly consider it a good thing that the proposition would only pass if certain minority ethnic groups had voted in much fewer numbers.
OTOH, if the LDS and Catholic churches hadn’t run their hateful campaigns, then the result would probably have also been different, even if everyone voted. And that would have been a good thing.
OT: If the overall voter participation this time was HIGHER than in other comparable elections, then that, in itself, must be good for US democratic institutions.
BTW, does anyone know what the turn-out stats for African-American voters this election was compared to 2004?
116 Mercurius Nov 9th, 2008 at 8:43 am
THere arent a heckuva lot of white folks left in CA. ANd even less are in the pipeline going by the collapse in white fertility and the growth in white flight.
No doubt young single people are more supportive of “non-traditional lifestyles” including gay marriage. But the thing about young single people is that they get older and get married. Reactionary social views follow with the birth of kids.
SATP is on the psephological money. THere are many more colored folks in CA and its getting more colorful, going by birth and immigration rates.
And this type of rainbow diversity does not always entail equity. Minority groups are, not surprisingly, showing greater political support for traditional marriage. This is because they realise that blind faith in traditional marriage is something their communities need to arrest the massive social pathologies arising out of illegitimacy.
If you have a greater minority ratio multiplied by a stronger conservative propensity then that will give you a secular trend. The Washington Times reports on the trends political expression:
To be sure minority social conservatism (and “corporalism”) does not have much to do with the legal status of gays. But ideological thinking is not logical thinking.
SATP: “If you think there is support for gay rights stuff among hispanics and blacks, then you are wrong”
47% of Latinos voted to allow gay marriages – which is surely the only really controversial gay “right” left today (apart from perhaps ability to adopt/raise children). There’s no reason to suppose the majority of Latinos don’t support the existing “civil union” status that grants nearly all the rights that married couples have to gay couples.
47% of Latinos voted to allow gay marraiges. ok.
48% of Americans voted to make John McCain president…..
“48% of Americans voted to make John McCain president”
46.2% actually.
If you think there is support for gay rights stuff among hispanics and blacks, then you are wrong.
.
Who cares?
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It’s not ‘gay rights’ actually it’s simply human rights being denied to people who are same-sex attracted. It’s not an attempt to assert a special right for a certain group it’s an attempt to roll back a long standing situation where ordinary rights are denied to a group.
As far as I can see, those who have been most vocal in bemoaning the “decline of marriage” of recent decades, are the quickest off the mark, when confronted with someone who actually wishes to marry (ie, gays).
Strocchiverse:
Real world:
Without the excellent “african-american” voter turnout, proposition 8 may not have passed. The pro-Obama voters got out & voted, turns out they are also anti-homosexuality voters.
An interesting take on playing the AA blame game.
Thanks that Clara – that linked-to DailyKos article does a pretty convincing job of demonstrating that the CNN exit polls could not have been accurate, and in fact even if not a single African-American had turned out to vote then the proposition would still have passed. So I’ve have to say that all up, it really made no difference that the presidental candidate was black – and indeed the proposition would almost certainly have passed if Clinton was the Democrat candidate (contrary to my previous assessment, which foolishly assumed the CNN exit polls were reasonably accurate).
Reply to Mercurius @112:
Mercurius says:
“With which of your rights would you willingly part, if the majority willed it? Which of your rights would you not fight for, if the state legislated them away?”
Supply me with a list of what you think my rights are and I’ll tell you which ones I’m prepared to part with.
Mercurius says:
“So again, tell me why any adult should not have a free and equal choice for a legally privileged relationship with their person of choice?”
I think it was the late Pope John Paul II who stated that the only authentic human way to act towards another human being is to act for the good of that person. From concern for the good of the individual one can speak of the common good of human society. Many including myself think marriage is certainly something that is a good for human society. But what good does marriage do for society? I think primarily it is to provide a safe environment where children’s needs are fulfilled and their rights protected. For this reason a relationship that unites male with female which naturally leads to the creation of children deserves special privileges over other sexual relationships.
Gay marriage is intrinsically flawed because the children conceived within such a relationship are deliberately denied a proper parent/child relationship with a least one of their parents simply to fulfill the desires of adults in the relationship to possess a child. The act of deliberately denying another human being the right to a normal relationship with their natural parents is in opposition to the love that parents should show towards their offspring. As such the use of donor gametes to produce children is immoral and should be outlawed. That being the case Gay relationships are inherently sterile and as such do not require any special privileges for the protection of children’s rights. As such Gay relationships should not be accorded the title of marriage.
Mercurius says:
“Tell me how you can restrict that freedom without violating equality before the law?”
Who said “equality before the law” is set in concrete? As others have pointed out there are many situations where equality before the law is not applied, including the area of incestuous relationships.
Mercurius says:
“Tell me why equality before the law is something on which you are prepared to compromise?”
It’s already compromised. Once again, who said “equality before the law” is set in concrete? In reality “equality before the law” is a concept that most people generally accept whilst understanding there are exceptions to the rule. The right of two people of the same sex to marry would be one of those exceptions, as would incestuous marriage.
This to me is an example of majorities being able to legislate in relation to the individuals, in this case individuals comprising a segment of the population.
This referendum and others like it to me are a demonstration of the danger of allowing referendums on effectively any topic – they can allow tyranny of the majority.
The pro-Obama voters got out & voted, turns out they are also anti-homosexuality voters.
.
Indeed hardly s’prisin’ wot. The lower classes have always had poor taste and bad manners. I s’port gay rights, the ordained privilege to beat ones’ servants’ black and blue for pleasure, velveteen breeches and very silly sexual fantasies involving nappy-wearing.
.
This is why I have always voted Tory.
Weginald old chum!
At last you’ve laid it bare, your special personaility twait! And here I was thinking that my recurrent dream of being forced into nappies before the Upper Sixth Dorm Feast was sheer self-invention. You and Lady Daphne weally must come over soon. The Bollie will be on us.
Colin @ 130: Society’s main benefit from marriage is to have kids brought up by a married couple.
I’m not convinced that other long term partnerships can’t do just as good a job, but for argument’s sake, I’ll accept the proposition and move on.
Colin: Therefore male-female is better because it naturally leads to children.
Rejected – your proposition was about kids being properly nurtured, not that society needs more of them. And as far as nurturing goes you’ve presented no argument that a gay couple can’t do just as good a job as a male and a female.
And even if I accepted that a male and female is better for most children (and I don’t) that doesn’t mean that some gay couples can’t provide some children with better nurturing than society might otherwise have provided.
And even if I accept that a fertile male-female marriage is a society ideal (and I don’t) I can’t see any reason in that to disallow or discourage gay marriage or any other non-fertile marriage.
Colin: Gay marriage is intrinsically flawed because the children conceived within such a relationship are deliberately denied a proper parent/child relationship with a least one of their parents.
This is a very limited argument that doesn’t apply to gay couples that choose not to have a child or choose to adopt children who would not in any case have had a relationship with their biological parents. But in any event you haven’t made the argument that society or the child suffers from a child having no relationship with at least one of its parents.
Nothing to add here, chaps, it’s just that I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone else do that particular joke before, so, thought I’d give it a go, eh wot.
Carry on.
Dammit, Banville old cholmondley!
I see you’ve given in to the “demands” of “modern” “spelling”, and changed your penultimate ‘Hyffpheen’ to the excessively vulgar and very undistinguished ‘Hyphen’. So, sad to say, old Hughie Faaartingtons was right, when he predicted that you would abandon your ancestral name before he did.
I cannot condemn you, old chummeries, but I have shed a silent tear and dear Lady Agatha has been informed.
Carry on we must and therefore shall, but it will be Sysiphean.
Carry On Up The Mountain?
Colin: Gay marriage is intrinsically flawed because the children conceived within such a relationship are deliberately denied a proper parent/child relationship with a least one of their parents.
Couldn’t agree more! but why stop there? Here’s just a couple of suggestions:
-With recent advances in DNA profiling, people with genetic predispositions to various cancers, or god forbid an existing condition that’s likely to kill them before a hypothetical kid grows to maturity, can be forcibly sterilised. But you can let them marry.
-Divorce for heterosexual couples will be banned until their youngest child is, say, 26.
You won’t be able to escape the occasional rotter who is selfish enough to die in a road accident or otherwise become incapacitated, but that’ll go a long way to the outcome Colin is looking for.
Or why not test the DNA of all newborns to determine the real parents, and force them to marry? What was the (admittedly dubious) stat again? One in ten?
Reply to Jenny at 134.
If you’re going to answer my “quotes” at least copy and paste the quote, so that one can see that you’re actually answering what I said and not something you’ve badly paraphrased.
With regard to what “good” marriage provides to society I said:
“I think primarily it [marriage] is to provide a safe environment where children’s needs are fulfilled and their rights protected.”
I went on to say that Gay so called marriage is intrinsically flawed because the gay couple, if they choose to conceive any children within such a relationship (ie. using donor gametes), do so with the deliberate intention to deny such children their right to a proper relationship with at least one of their natural parents. Importantly, this deliberate action to deny such children a proper relationship with at least one of their natural parents is done not for the welfare of the children involved, as might legitimately happen when abused children are removed from abusive parents, but is done only to fulfill the desires the married couple have to possess a child. Such an action is not done out of love for the child, and infringes on a basic right of every child not to be deliberately denied a proper relationship with their natural parents. The key word here is DELIBERATE. Gay so called marriage fails the most basic test of goodness because it inherently works against the rights of those children conceived within such a marriage. As such Gay marriage is not inherently good and should be rejected.
Jenny says:
“…you haven’t made the argument that society or child suffers from a child having no relationship with at least one of its parents.”
People can be unfairly deprived of many things and still live happy and productive lives. But that doesn’t mean it is proper to deliberately deprive such people of things to which they otherwise have a right. Either way, I thought the discussion was about inalienable rights. So Jenny, you think a child has no inalienable right to be protected from those practices and persons who for their own selfish desires would deliberately deny such a child a normal relationship with both their natural parents? Come on Jenny this isn’t rocket science. You need to step out of your feminist mindset, at least for a while, and learn that all that is good is not determined by a “woman’s right to choose”.
You raise a valid point about gay couples who may want to marry but choose to remain childless. But if marriage is primarily about providing an environment where children’s needs and rights can be protected why bother getting married if you have no intention of having children? It’s interesting to note that the Catholic Church would refuse (I think?) to marry a man and woman if they expressed a desire not to have children.
As far as gay couples marrying and adopting children who cannot be raised by their natural parents, I don’t think gay couples have a right to this either. Generally I think the role of adopting parents is to reproduce, as much as possible, a natural family environment (ie. mum and dad) for the children in their care. I would have thought that adoption should be primarily about the rights of children not the rights of adults (gay or straight) to form a family on their terms.
In the end marriage laws should be primarily concerned about children and their rights, not about the perceived rights of adults (gay or straight) to form and structure a family around their own egos.
And to Helen at comment 138. If you meditate on the meaning of the word DELIBERATE for a while you might come to appreciate just how silly and unwitty your comment is. Although, re your suggestion that heterosexuals couples be banned from divorce. I wouldn’t go that far, you know with all that domestic violence stuff that goes on. But maybe divorced parents should be stopped from shacking up with another person at least until their youngest child reaches 18 years.
You see it’s simple really. It’s all about the kids!
The problem with marriage is that it means different things to different people with the most polarised response to the debate founded in religious &/or moral objection.
I can understand & except arguments on both sides of the gay-marriage debate but I don’t see it as a rights issue in the sense being discussed here. The problem lies with the fact the government shouldn’t be a licensor. How consenting adult wish to define or their union should be up to them. The state should get out of the marriage game period save and except the registration of domestic partnerships for the purposes of establishing beneficial ownership rights for example isn’t a bad idea.
Are you being rude, FDB? Sadly, my antennae for oblique smut are somewhat damaged [unfortunate accident in La Maison de l'Entendre Double, nothing more to be said]
Hmmm… I can understand & accept arguments
There has been a bit of movement on the legal front with a major announcement to be made next week.
“The California Supreme Court has asked state Attorney General Jerry Brown to reply by Monday to lawsuits challenging the voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage – a sign that the justices are taking the cases seriously and will not dispose of them quickly.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/14/BAMU1449RR.DTL&type=politics
# 36 David Rubie Nov 21st, 2008 at 9:00 am
I concede nothing, although I cherish my disgruntlement. Lord spare me from gruntlement, like a pig in a poke.
David Rubie’s riposte came accross as a semi-literate spoof of an undergraduate newspaper c 1979. Just another litany of “point and splutter” political corrections that seem to have been programmed on macro into the computers of the post-Whitlam professional indignatariat.
The one factual area that David Rubie inadvertently strayed onto was the matter of Aboriginal child abuse.
In fact the Australian Medical Journal found that child abuse was rampant in Top End indigenous communities:
Perhaps the MJA is just a bunch of charlatans and Left-liberal die-hards are right that everything is just hunky-dory in remote indigenous families. That line would go down well in the script of the Farrago spoof.
MOre likely David Rubie is just indulging in the usual Left-liberal stonewalling in order to divert or deflect attention from criticism of the bankruptcy of his odious ideology. The Decline of the Wets is now an established fact. Georgiou has just resigned from Parliament. A good personality, but a bad policy maker.
Whether this ideological shift is the result of “racist sentiment whipped up to win elections” is of little interest to me. The term “racism” has long since lost any cognitive utility, let alone moral validity, and now simply refers to people who have the acuity to notice differences and the temerity publicly remark on them.
I suggest that the Right-”corporal” political shift is the consequence of Howard’s success, which has been embraced in substantive areas by his successor. David Rubie’s assertion that Howard’s cultural identity and national security policies have “failed” is as fantastic as the rest of his ideology:
– The Indons are now happy to let the ADF run ETIMOR.
– The Intervention continues for the duration of the Culture War.
– Multiculturalism is finished as an operational civics policy. Migrants are selected on economic not ethnic basis;
– Mandatory detention is still in place and will be used if people smuggling gets out of control again.
Voters place greater value on good cultural policy because people are worth more now, both intellectually and residentially. And the greatest beneficiaries of the accumulation or rennovation of social capital are those in dilapidated conditions: the minorities themselves. Just ask the Black in Harlem who have benefitted from Buchanan-Guliani “zero tolerance” policies.
In short, with “enemies” like John Howard colored people have no need for “friends” like David Rubie.