Thomas Sowell - 'Gay Marriage' Confusions

Jewish World Review ^ | 3/9/04 | Thomas Sowell

[Right_Mom]

Few issues have produced as much confused thinking as the "gay marriage" issue.

There is, for example, the argument that the government has no business getting involved with marriage in the first place. That is a personal relation, the argument goes.

Love affairs are personal relations. Marriage is a legal relation. To say that government should not get involved in legal relations is to say that government has no business governing.

Homosexuals were on their strongest ground when they said that what happens between "consenting adults" in private is none of the government's business. But now gay activists are taking the opposite view, that it is government's business -- and that government has an obligation to give its approval.

[Right_Mom]

Brilliant article. He makes some valid points that I haven't heard brought up.

[writer33]

Yep. Rush just read it on his show. And it is a good article. Excellent points.

[mvpel]

That begs the question - why should marriage be a "legal relation" in the first place?

[King Black Robe]

BTTT

[Spacemonkey1023]

Because marriage is a sacrament conveyed by legal authorities or the church; they give the title. Without them, you're just living together as a couple. You can call it marriage, but it won't be. It also offers some legal protections in case the 'husband' or 'wife' runs out on the family, which I don't think is present for people just living together.

[King Black Robe]

Michael Jackson can call himself Peter Pan, but that doesn't obligate the public to recognize him as such.

[WhiteyAppleseed]

Why wouldn't it also be a First Amendment issue? When an elected official marries same-sex couples, government is, in effect, endorsing same-sex marriages. Yet there are religious groups on both sides of the issue. That gov't will not be hostile to religion is inherent in the First. By coming down on one side of the issue, by marrying same-sex couples, gov't is, in effect, telling the religious groups who believe it is wrong that they are wrong. It's no different than saying a war memorial can't take the shape of a cross.

[onedoug]

Because society either endorses the continuance of civilization, or it doesn't.

Judeo-Christian America is worth preserving.

[MEGoody]

"why should marriage be a "legal relation" in the first place?"

Because the family is the foundation on which society is built.

[HitmanLV]

It doesn't beg the question at all. Since the husband-wife relationship raises mutual legal rights and obligations between the parties, it is a legal relation and not simply a personal one.

My relationship with my current galpal raises no similar legal rights or obligations for either of us, simply by the nature of us mutually entering the boyfriend-girlfriend arrangement.

In another example, my friendly relationship with my pal Carl raises no legal rights or obligations emenating from the friendship between us. That's not to say we can't enter into a relationship that raised mutual legal rights and obligations, like a business venture. But those rights and obligations don't emenate from us being friends.

The government has a role in 'policing' and 'enforcing' the legal rights and obligations between married couples and business partners, and much less a role in 'policing' relationships like friends or lovers.

Why the distinction? Because it serves a useful state purpose to maintain and guard the mutual legal rights, obligations, and relationship between married couples and business partners (as well as other relationships). A choice was made not to extend those types of aspects to more casual relationships.

[expatguy]

bump

[NutCrackerBoy]

Centuries of experience in trying to cope with the asymmetries of marriage have built up a large body of laws and practices geared to that particular legal relationship. To then transfer all of that to another relationship that was not contemplated when these laws were passed is to make rhetoric more important than reality. -Thomas Sowell

What better phrase to sum up fantastical progressivism from the French Revolution to today.

[katana]

why should marriage be a "legal relation" in the first place?

For the reasons stated (or implied) in the article. Marriage law governs the balance of rights, privileges, and responsibilities between two people who, through marriage, become a single unit known as a "family". As Dr. Sowell pointed out, marriage is a balancing act between individuals whose differing biology makes the arrangement inherently "unbalanced". Society has a genuine interest in "governing" that balance for the good of all and the avoidance of anarchy, for example in the possession and inheritance of property. None of this applies to a "union" between individuals of the same sex.

[EdReform]

Ping

What We Can Do To Help Defeat the "Gay" Agenda

Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Version 1.1)

The Stamp of Normality

[xzins]

Even at the individual level, men and women have different circumstances, if only from the fact that women have babies and men do not. These and other asymmetries in the positions of women and men justify long-term legal arrangements to enable society to keep this asymmetrical relationship viable — for society's sake.

Neither of these considerations applies to unions where the people are of the same sex.

Centuries of experience in trying to cope with the asymmetries of marriage have built up a large body of laws and practices geared to that particular legal relationship. To then transfer all of that to another relationship that was not contemplated when these laws were passed is to make rhetoric more important than reality

Excellent points. It would be like declaring tomorrow that all laws on corporations, carefully refined over the years, should also apply tomorrow to the ownership of a car.

They don't overlap.

[MainFrame65]

He doesn't mention it, but in many places and circumstances, civil and religious marriage ceremonies are separate and distinct. I seem to remember that long ago, Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, in two ceremonies that were a day apart.

Denying the interest of the state in marriage is just silly. Marriage is a shortcut to an entire set of rules about individual and common rights, inheritance, and responsibilities. With the new commonality of mixed and blended families, combined with multiple jurisdictions, a casual approach is really not possible.

[mvpel]

There other ways in which to weave the web of contractual obligations between a husband and a wife than having the government grant its permission to engage in a marriage, and the main thing that they get out of mediating the way in which they dole out that privelege is the ability to dangle the carrot and weild the stick through the unjust tax code.

[goldstategop]

Good point. Liberalism today is about doing what feels good not doing what's right. So who cares if centuries of settled law must be overturned to accomodate gays and lesbians? After all, the feelings of a minority count for a lot more to the Left than the needs of society as a whole. That is what is behind the drive to impose same sex marriage upon America.

[mvpel]

It would puzzle me about the same-sex marriage activists as to why they are so interested in getting the government more involved in their lives, if it weren't for the various carrots that the government dangles, using other people's money.

I was accquainted to an old gay guy who'd been essentially legally "married" for many years to his partner through the judicious use of reciprocal powers of attorney, trusts, and joint tenancy with rights of survivorship. The main catch was that they got a lower overall tax rate than they would have if they'd had a "marriage license" instead of all that other paperwork, thanks to the marriage penalty.

I guess the problem is that most gays, and most people for that matter, is that they're not smart enough to set that all up, or can't afford to hire an attorney to do it for them.

[genghis]

I have read about 25 books and at least 1000 articles by Dr. Sowell, I have yet come across 1 stupid thing he has said, or one point that I disagreed with.
Just an amazing man.