tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post6867678197179759259..comments2024-03-18T22:21:33.261-07:00Comments on The Debate Link: Make It ComplicatedDavid Schraubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04946653376744012423noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-4413136431353355752010-12-30T23:18:45.381-08:002010-12-30T23:18:45.381-08:00The Koran specifically states the exigency that ma...The Koran specifically states the exigency that makes polygyny permissible: the problem of unmarried women, widows and orphans during times of war and other high mortality for males.<br /><br />If one reads the links I provided, one will see the polyandry in parts of India was due to particular circumstances that no longer exist to the same extent, and thus the polyandry is dying out as well.<br /><br />What exigencies exist in 21st century America that support limiting government recognition of relationships only to those between two people of the opposite sex? I certainly can think of many exigencies that support extending recognition to same-sex relationships, the most obvious being that those relationships *exist* and often include child-rearing.PGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09381347581328622706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-83055690197096493222010-12-27T22:59:38.685-08:002010-12-27T22:59:38.685-08:00So, I would love to know the facts comprising the ...<i>So, I would love to know the facts comprising the exigencies for your views.</i><br /><br />One with which I would have thought you'd be familiar: the permission for polygyny in Islam due to a shortage of men, because of combat deaths and other high mortality for men of marriageable age that left many widows and fatherless children.<br /><br />"If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four..." (Quran 4:3).<br /><br />The article I linked explained the original reasons for polyandry in some Indian communities, as well as why it is now dying out. You might try reading the provided links when replying to a comment. Certainly it's a lot less to expect in a discussion than when you tell people to read entire books that aren't available as online texts.<br /><br /><i>As for traditional marriage, there are certainly exigencies that support it</i><br /><br />What are the exigencies in 21st century America that support limiting marriage to opposite sex couples, though the members of those couples may be of any condition with regard to fertility, age past adulthood, race, income, criminal background, etc.?PGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09381347581328622706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-1575709290072307942010-12-27T11:52:06.176-08:002010-12-27T11:52:06.176-08:00PG writes: "All these societies have been res...PG writes: "All these societies have been responding to the exigencies of their times and sometimes continuing to privilege these forms of marriage past their real usefulness."<br /><br />The evidence for the exigencies theory is what, exactly? It is, so far as I can discern, akin to the theory that Kosher laws (e.g. not to eat shell fish) arose in order to protect against food born illness. So, I would love to know the facts comprising the exigencies for your views.<br /><br />As for traditional marriage, there are certainly exigencies that support it.N. Friedmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-85570613955761302792010-12-27T03:55:21.158-08:002010-12-27T03:55:21.158-08:00PG, thanks for your response.
I am skeptical abo...PG, thanks for your response. <br /><br />I am skeptical about the value of living by analogy; even if it is somehow true that one cannot be truly free when others are enslaved (Passover, anyone?), it is hard to see a connection between one person's marriage and that of another person. I wonder whether anyone has done research on the extent to which SSM opponents believe in (and favor a return to the practice of) traditional gender norms. <br /><br />Massachusetts has had SSM for some time now. Are there yet studies about its effects on traditional marriage?troll_dc2https://www.blogger.com/profile/08433530917811035745noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-47487954267287768992010-12-27T01:14:11.897-08:002010-12-27T01:14:11.897-08:00troll_dc2,
In the eyes of SSM opponents, there is...troll_dc2,<br /><br />In the eyes of SSM opponents, there is no way to maintain "traditional marriage" if same-sex marriage exists, just as abortion prohibitionists believe there is no way to maintain "sacredness of life" if abortion is legal. Obviously people can continue having opposite-sex marriages when SSM is legal, just as people can still have babies when abortion is legal, but what the opponents of each liberty find crucial will have been lost. Or to use the standard analogy: the principle of all people being free and equal cannot coexist with enslavement, even if most people don't own slaves.<br /><br />It will be fascinating to see if fewer people do get opposite-sex married once SSM is universally accepted. To the extent that marriage, for many people, is still about playing out essentialist gender roles, they're actually right that SSM poses a fundamental threat to their conception of marriage. Of course, for those of us who are appreciating how marriage has historically (and not just over the last 50 years) been moving away from that, SSM is a welcome part of the larger shift.<br /><br />As for what societies have traditionally privileged, *many* of them -- including pre-revolution China and Muslim India -- have privileged polygamy, specifically in the form of men having multiple wives. A much smaller subset of societies -- again, including India, which is why I find making a generalist statement about "Indian civilization" a bit silly (some parts of India have had a social role for a "<a href="http://www.india-today.com/itoday/01121997/living.html" rel="nofollow">third gender</a>" long before the Western trans movement got going) -- have privileged polygamy in which <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/world/asia/17polyandry.html" rel="nofollow">women have multiple husbands</a>. All these societies have been responding to the exigencies of their times and sometimes continuing to privilege these forms of marriage past their real usefulness. In 21st century America, marriage has a legal and social significance far beyond the production of offspring.PGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09381347581328622706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-49082316392333630962010-12-25T17:13:07.467-08:002010-12-25T17:13:07.467-08:00I have never understood the either/or nature of th...I have never understood the either/or nature of the debate. What is wrong with having both traditional marriage for those who want it and same-sex marriage for those who want it? I am not sure whether there really is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage (even though I myself am gay), but I see no good reason why a legislature should not be able to authorize it.troll_dc2https://www.blogger.com/profile/08433530917811035745noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-60145692317840567332010-12-25T16:00:01.783-08:002010-12-25T16:00:01.783-08:00Sexual Fukuyamaism, that's is a good one. And ...Sexual Fukuyamaism, that's is a good one. And I must ask what the deal is with the fixation on the fifty year mark as a barometer for our culture war moral judgments. (Not that I accept that there exists such a harshly definitive Judgment of History in any case. Fifty years after <i>Brown</i>, William Rehnquist was still a respected man. Justice Scalia has even gotten away with suggesting he still thinks it was dead wrong on the law.) Why not a hundred? Why not five hundred? How might the majority of us fare in the eyes of our hypothetically vegan descendants.<br /><br />Some might say not very well, but then again you'd think Thomas Jefferson would have a little harder time of it holding the mantle of a Great Man, what with the slavery and all. (And rape, for that matter, since I'm pretty sure any modern feminist construction of consent depends on neither party literally owning the other.)joenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-43185325663008516332010-12-25T13:15:01.284-08:002010-12-25T13:15:01.284-08:00The overweening sexual Fukuyamaism is a bit hard t...The overweening sexual Fukuyamaism is a bit hard to stomach. It's wise to regard civilizational developments as fragile and reversible.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-87221222763949499182010-12-25T10:18:28.162-08:002010-12-25T10:18:28.162-08:00I have real problems with your argument, David.
O...I have real problems with your argument, David.<br /><br />Objection to non-heterosexual marriage is long standing. We have no way, since we are dealing with something fairly unprecedented, the impact on our society. I tend to think it will be for the better of all involved, gays and straights. But, that, at this point, is just a guess.<br /><br />And, the direction of history is something that interested Hegelians and Marxists and their followers. But, anyone who has read Nietzsche or followed 20th Century analytical philosophy knows that there is no such thing as history having a direction. That is, in essence, a religious argument.<br /><br />As for the caliber of George, Girgis and Anderson's argument, they are playing the same game as you. A bad end can be predicted, on their thesis. The skies will fall, etc., etc. Again, we cannot know such things with any assurance.<br /><br />What we can know is that, traditionally, societies privileged marriage as being between man and woman, not man and man and not woman and woman. There have, however, been experiments at least in ancient times but, even there, marriage was between man and woman - while the "important" relationship was between man and man, as we find, for example, in Plato's writings, among others. <br /><br />We also know that the marriage thing, in its traditional form, is not limited to the parts of the world influenced by Judaism. Which is to say, Indian and Chinese civilization also privileged marriage between man and woman. So, presumably, marriage in the traditional sense has fulfilled a felt need.<br /><br />My best guess - and that is what is really possible here - is that liberal society is in serious decline but that probably has nothing to do with whether marriage is between man and woman. It has everything to do with the moral collapse that accompanied WWI and which culminated in the complete break down of civilization in WWII, with people despairing of Western civilization.N. Friedmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-4074488966452877582010-12-25T03:10:38.618-08:002010-12-25T03:10:38.618-08:00Joe is probably right, though I'd add the demu...Joe is <a href="http://www.blogdenovo.org/archives/1960.html" rel="nofollow">probably right</a>, though I'd add the demurral that just as it's entirely respectable on the intellectual right to attack the *reasoning* of Brown, it will remain entirely respectable to attack the notion of a Constitutional right to SSM (or to sodomy, for that matter), without saying that one opposes SSM as a matter that can be legislated, preferably by referendum. (Why SSM should only be achievable by referendum, but the continuation of, say, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy oughtn't follow mere popular opinion, is an enduring mystery.)<br /><br /><i>virtually nobody, not even virulent gay rights opponents, is willing to admit they want to recriminalize sodomy in the United States.</i><br /><br />Indeed, for the component of the argument that says we can't compare same-sex marriage litigation to Loving v. Virginia, it's absolutely necessary that sodomy remain legal, because one of the dissimilarities is that Loving was prosecuted for fornication and miscegenation by the Commonwealth. Because his marriage wasn't recognized, he was in the same position as two people living out of wedlock.PGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09381347581328622706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-45876541000929505462010-12-24T17:24:04.633-08:002010-12-24T17:24:04.633-08:00Quite the speech, but future-conservatives (just l...Quite the speech, but future-conservatives (just like future-everybody else) will have a much easier out than some sort of strategic six-dimensional SSRN chess theoretically prepared in anticipation of losing.<br /><br />Let's call it pulling a Buckley.<br /><br />The strategy is simply one of owning up to having been wrong, but (eventually, that is - perhaps in year 45 out of the next) dismissing the notion that fact may be indicative of any deeper flaws in one's ideology or worldview. "Aw nuts, we got it right eventually, didn't we? Why are you living in the past holding it against us? The pane has been reinforced, so now our glass house is unassailable!"joenoreply@blogger.com