Gay marriage

Overview
Gay marriage (where "gay" refers to same-sex relationships of any gender; also called "same-sex marriage") is an issue because some people want to do it and some others find it distasteful and/or believe it to be immoral.

As with homosexuality, there do not appear to be any arguments against gay marriage which hold up under scrutiny. Those who seek to prevent gay marriage are waging a war on the family – and, with typical religious-right hypocrisy, use that same term to defend their actions.

For arguments for/against, see and.

Related Pages

 * war on gay marriage
 * arguments against gay marriage
 * Gay marriage is a reproductive issue, albeit in a backhanded sort of way
 * Homosexuality

Reference

 * : "Although the gay rights movement promotes the arrangement as a civil rights issue, conservatives believe the actual intention is to destroy the institution of marriage altogether." Ok, fine, whatever. Let's destroy marriage and get it over with so they can stop whining.
 * Campaigns Wikia
 * Campaigns Wikia
 * Campaigns Wikia
 * Campaigns Wikia

News

 * 2006-11-29 Sir Elton berates Australian PM: Elton John says "Up yours!" to John Howard for overturning a law allowing gay marriage
 * 2006-10-25 N.J. high court opens door to gay marriage: ruled "that lawmakers must offer homosexuals either marriage or something like it, such as civil unions."
 * 2006-05-18 Gay marriage ban advances to Senate floor by Bob Geiger at 9:56 AM
 * 2006-04-26 A Real Live Brokeback Cowboy by Annie Anderson, In These Times: real-life example of how existing laws are harmful to gay people
 * 2006-02-13 Civil partnerships likely to boost health of gay and lesbian people
 * 2006-01-21 Maryland Judge throws out law banning gay marriages
 * 2005-07-21 Canada becomes 4th nation to allow same-sex marriage
 * 2005-06-28 Same-Sex Marriage Legislation Passed in Canada
 * 2005-07-05 Church of Christ endorses same-sex marriage
 * 2005-07-01 Spain legalizes same-sex marriage

Opinion

 * 2007-07-28 Why Civil Unions Aren't Enough by Greta Christina
 * 2006 Same-Sex Marriage and Slippery Slopes by Eugene Volokh HTML PDF
 * 2004-05-19 Slippery Slop: 'The maddening "slippery slope" argument against gay marriage'

Positions

 * The Family: A Proclamation to the World: the official opinion of the LDS
 * Homosexual "Marriage" and Civilization: A cogent but factually-challenged anti-gay-marriage opinion by Orson Scott Card, author and LDS member

Against
Arguments against gay marriage include:
 * all the arguments used by the anti-gay viewpoint
 * the "it will destroy civilization" argument, which is easily refuted in a number of ways, including the fact that it was accepted in a number of earlier civilizations which were destroyed by completely unrelated causes. Not to mention the fact that it's also widely accepted in a number of contemporary civilisations that it has hitherto failed to destroy.

Additional arguments against:
 * One compromise position is to separate the two – tie the legal rights to a word other than "marriage", and apply that universally; the catch is that it must be universally recognized, the same as "marriage" is now; see.
 * Some states (Vermont, California, and Connecticut) have tried this with "Civil Unions" and many proponents of gay marriage say that it is not enough, they want to redefine marriage. (See Why Civil Unions Aren't Enough for one explanation of this.)
 * Personally, I believe that the governments should remove the term "marriage" from all government regulations and stipulate those rights for all persons as a "Civil Union," leaving marriages to the religious institutions. Midian 16:33, 28 July 2006 (EDT) Again, this is essentially equivalent to the first proposal under, below.
 * Some states (Vermont, California, and Connecticut) have tried this with "Civil Unions" and many proponents of gay marriage say that it is not enough, they want to redefine marriage. (See Why Civil Unions Aren't Enough for one explanation of this.)
 * Personally, I believe that the governments should remove the term "marriage" from all government regulations and stipulate those rights for all persons as a "Civil Union," leaving marriages to the religious institutions. Midian 16:33, 28 July 2006 (EDT) Again, this is essentially equivalent to the first proposal under, below.


 * If we allow gay marriage, we allow anything and everything. : a bogus argument on at least 2 levels
 * being gay is a choice : factually wrong and completely irrelevant even if it were true

In Favor
The essential argument in favor of gay marriage is "why the hell not?". It's kind of hard to write a cogent paragraph summarizing why it should be allowed, for much the same reason that it's difficult to write an argument for why people should be allowed to hold hands in the living room as well as in the dining room, or why we should allow houses to be painted green instead of blue.

In lieu of a definitive argument, then, here is a relevant quote:

This morning, the Washington States Supreme Court handed down their decision that homosexuals didn't deserve the right to marry. Their basic reasoning, like most every opponent's, is that being gay is a choice, so it's not something you need special consideration for.

I'm not going to break off into a tirade about whether or not gay is in-born or learned, and whether its a choice or something you're just given without your consultation, but if it were up to these same sorts of people, being black would probably be considered a lifestyle choice, too.

The line that really stuck it to me was in mentioning that gays weren't being discriminated against, because they're free to marry people of the opposite sex any time they want. Dear lord, if ANYTHING would cause damage to straight marriage, it would be forcing gays to do it.

The primary justification for the judicial discrimination was that gay couples couldn't procreate (well... gay male couples, anyway; as near as I can tell, there's no such thing as lesbians), so in years to come, expect to see a lot of court decisions from Washington state outlawing marriage between the elderly, sterile couples, and heterosexuals who don't want children.

Luckily, thanks to extremely close-minded birth-certificate modification laws that prevent a transsexual from being re-assigned as her new gender, I can still legally marry the woman I love. I guess two wrongs can make a right.

Inquiries

 * What arguments can be leveled against gay marriage that cannot be leveled against interracial marriage? (see Loving v. Virginia; apparently, at the time of that decision, more people were against interracial marriage than are now against gay marriage – not that this proves anything, but it shows how opinion can change given a few decades)

Solutions

 * Remove "marriage" from goverment governance.
 * Remove references to "marriage" from all govermental documents, and replace it with "civil union" or "civil partnership", allowing any two or more persons to enter into such an arrangement for legal implications.
 * Remove benefits and detriments from "civil unions" other than those pertaining to legal entities (e.g. health decisions, death benefits, etc.)
 * Prevent any legal enforcement of benefits for "marriages", if this isn't already taken care of by removing any legal meaning for the term
 * Allow individuals in a "civil union" to sue for benefits given to those in a "marriage" (thus discouraging gay-hostile companies from trying to weasel out of proving CU benefits while providing those same benefits to heterosexual couples)
 * Leave "marriage" and the rules regarding such up to the religions of those who engage in such ceremonies.
 * A similar solution is suggested by Rob Howard in this posting (6:33 PM).
 * TruthMapping: The USA government should not be involved in marriage (discussion)


 * Educate the populace on the distinction between civil marriage and religious marriage so that they stop thinking of "marriage" as a term that is synonymous with their religious ceremony.
 * This may not help as the most vocally against "redefining marriage" tend to not understand that people of all religions and atheists also get married, not just people of their religion or religious people in general.

Pro

 * "If you don't like gay marriage, don't get one!" – popular bumper sticker

Con

 * "MARRIAGE = [male restroom icon] + [female restroom icon]"