SAUNDERS: A giant step backward for women

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 1/19/6 | Debra J. Saunders

[SmithL]

WHEN social conservatives argue that legalizing same-sex marriage could lead to legalized polygamy, same-sex marriage advocates either laugh or sneer. It's a scare tactic, they say. It'll never happen. Last year, however, as Canada legalized same-sex marriage, Prime Minister Paul Martin commissioned a $150,000 study to debunk the polygamy argument. Big mistake: The study confirmed the scare tactic by recommending that Canada repeal its anti-polygamy law.

It also suggested that a legal challenge to Canada's anti-polygamy laws would succeed. "Why criminalize behavior?" asked Martha Bailey, one of the study's three law-professor authors. "We don't criminalize adultery."

Confession time: I am one of those who, for years, has argued that legalizing same-sex marriage would not open the door for polygamy. The limit for marriages would remain two, I argued. Two doesn't mean three or four.

Wrong. In these politically correct times, do-gooders expand definitions until words -- or institutions -- lose all meaning. Marriage can mean whatever you want.

And: If you don't prosecute all crimes in a category, you can't prosecute one. That's essentially what Bailey argued.

[SmithL]

Where are we going? And why are we in this handbasket?

[martin_fierro]

It's a scare tactic, they say. It'll never happen.

MLK would be spinning in his grave were he to see what's being advanced in his name. Even by his closest relatives.

[Westbrook]

"Why criminalize behavior?" asked Martha Bailey, one of the study's three law-professor authors.

What an idiot.

The professor apparently is not aware that stealing and murder and fraud and perjury are behaviors.

"We don't criminalize adultery."

The professor must be less than 40 years old, or perhaps it has a short memory, because it wasn't long ago that adultery WAS criminal.

In God's economy, it STILL is.

Besides, adultery is still penalized in divorce procedings, whereby the adulterous party typically loses standing.

[xzins]

In God's economy, it STILL is.

In the US military, it STILL is.

[cloud8]

"Wrong. In these politically correct times, do-gooders expand definitions until words -- or institutions -- lose all meaning. Marriage can mean whatever you want."

As Chief Justice Margaret Marshall of the Massachusetts SJC put it, "Marriage is an evolving paradigm."

And why, you ask, are we in this handbasket? Because too many people no longer place a value on behavior.

[sr4402]

Slippery Slope Alert!

[Old Seadog]

Could be kinda fun but how could you afford it?

[samtheman]

Up to 4 wives are ok. As long as you can materially support them all. Isn't that the law now?

[MNJohnnie]

So telling the truth is NOW a "Scare tactic"? What scum the Modern Political Left are. They display an absolute contempt for intellectual honesty and fact in their desperate need to advance their emotion based political agenda.

[MamaTexan]

Where are we going? And why are we in this handbasket?

Because government has convinced the general populace that there is only one type of *law* in our country, instead of the TWO distinct types originally created by the Founders.

One for the government (Positive law) and one for the People (Natural law).

Now, the government defines EVERTHING...marriage, discrimination, even assault.

(Personally, I think the Founders would have had a major fit upon hearing the phrase 'verbal assault')

I fear the People are now so ignorant of this documented FACT, our country will never recover.

[theBuckwheat]

My comment to the author:

===
Ms. Saunders-

One aspect to the issue of legalizing same-sex marriage is that no
commentator on the left or right has ever asked why it is an issue of
"legalizing" at all. Or, upon what basis does government attempt to
regulate marriage? To ask the question from another direction, upon
what basis do two people of the same sex insist upon the government
allowing them to marry?

The answer today is clearly is that government intrudes in this most
personal and private area of relationships for purposes of taxation. We
get this because we have allowed governments to tax incomes at different
rates depending upon exemptions, exclusions and preferences. Had the US
stayed with the taxation plan originally proposed by the Founding
Fathers, a scheme that was basically a sales tax, we would not have set
up the basis where gays had to seek permission to marry or not.

My impression of gay marriage is it is primarily driven by the tax
treatment of employment fringe benefits like health insurance.

The second basis for government to intrude on marriage comes from
taxation at the time of death and the exemptions, deductions and
exclusions that government give for various heirs, and primarily the
spouse.

The third is in who is allowed to make healthcare decisions for another
person who is unable or incompetent to decide for themselves.

Who is a "dependent", who is a "spouse", who is a "heir" all necessitate
that government define the very meaning of dependent, spouse and heir.
In every case this trouble is brought on to us because we tax incomes
and the incomes of different people in different circumstances
differently. If we taxed sales, this could not happen. Aside from tax
matters, every one of these issues can be settled by contract or public
statement. But government imposes taxation-based definitions.

Prior to the income tax, aside from laws that attempted to regulate
private behavior, like the recent Texas anti-sodomy law struck down by
the Supreme Court, states left the issue of who was married and who was
not to religious institutions. That is where it belongs today, if we
can only bring ourselves to removing the basis for government's
intrusion into private relationships: the income tax system.

[maryz]

It is ironic that an argument against same-sex "marriage" is that it will lead to polygamy, when polygamy has actually been practiced (and still is) by some societies, and so has some historical standing.

I would have said that same-sex marriage had no such standing, but in a mystery novel I read this week, the main character mentioned a passage in Tacitus that seems to indicate that Nero once went through a "marriage" ceremony with another man -- though apparently even in the worst of the decline of Rome, it didin't catch on.

[Beagle8U]

Having to be bitched at in stereo, sounds like a plan...NOT!

[VOA]

Reminds me of the one (and probably only) time that lawyer Gloria Alred was speechless.
She simply couldn't come up with any reason to prevent the marrriage of
brothers...not even a social-policy argument about incest leading to
genetically-wrecked offspring.
Hence, her position that "gay marriage" would absolutely be restricted to
a couplet (of two partners) was blown up.

[one more state]

I could stay home and have my wives support me?

[andyk]

In the US military, it STILL is.

Unless you're only the Commander in Chief.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

"Where are we going? And why are we in this handbasket?"

LOL! And it's getting hotter.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

It all boils down to the fact that liberals are self-righteously Eurocentric. They assume that anything that their own approval or disapproval is a universal, when in fact it is actually a cultural artifact of their own time and place.

Those who argue that Christian attitudes should not have the force of law must reckon with the fact that the delegitimating of Christian cultural norms threatens to legitimate far, far more than homosexuality - or even sexual practice generally.

In Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Thomas Sowell points out that far from being unique to the American South, slavery was a global institution thoroughout history, until Christians suddenly (in historical terms) rejected the legitimacy of slavery as an institution. Not only Americans - and obviously not all Americans - but Europeans generally and British in particular became antislavery. Christians didn't take that attitude until our founding era. But no other powerful cultural force not Hindu, not Confuscian, not pagan, and certainly not Muslim - took that attitude as soon as the Christians did.

Where might the disestablishment of Christian perspective in American law not lead??

[N2Gems]

ping

[taxcontrol]

Doubt it, more likely that you would have to provide two (or more) pay checks.