Since our President found it necessary to address this topic during his state of the union address while not touching upon the subject of all those missing WMD's in Iraq he was so sure about during his last state of the union address, I thought it might be appropriate to discuss here. Any thoughts?

Between speech, assembly, and religion (and the extent to which "speech" has been taken to mean by court rulings), I think the argument could be made that the first amendment prohibits Congress from making any law prohibiting individuals from entering in a marriage.

Irony of our society that I can't help but notice: Marriage is so sacred that we can't possibly let two people who love and care for one another and happen to be of the same gender participate. We can however make it the punchline for a shallow, greed based reality tv show.

Will

Whether you're for or against gay marriage, what does marriage even mean in our society any more? The institution of marriage has unfortunately become a complete joke. I mean, we all know that almost HALF of all marriages end in divorce. And now the New York Times, ABC News, and Time magazine, among others, have done stories on what they SERIOUSLY refer to as "starter marriages." Will already mentioned the reality shows. And then you've got Britney Spears - drunk on the Vegas strip, entering into a marriage that lasts about 36 hours, and the media just laughs about it. And I suppose it is funny. But it's also sad, and even more sad to think about what marriage will mean 20 or 30 years down the road.

I suppose that, like so many other things in life, marriage is what you make of it.

(Edited by jamiecarroll at 3:12 am on Jan. 22, 2004)

Here's a great article on the subject that Chris Slack brought to my attention:

January 09, 2004, 8:54 a.m.

A Mockery of Marriage

The things heterosexuals do.


Social conservatives are working overtime to argue that gay marriage would imperil straight matrimony. They say that if Jack and Joe were united, till death do them part, they would jeopardize husbands and wives, from sea to shining sea.


"We will lose marriage in this nation," without constitutionally limiting it to heterosexuals, warns Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. The Traditional Values Coalition, meanwhile, sees "same-sex marriage as a way of destroying the concept of marriage altogether."


It would be far easier to take these claims seriously if gay-marriage critics spent as much energy denouncing irresponsible heterosexuals whose behavior undermines traditional marriage. Among prominent Americans, such misdeeds are increasingly ubiquitous.


Exhibit A is musical product Britney Spears's micromarriage to hometown pal Jason Allen Alexander. The 22-year-olds were wed on January 3 in Las Vegas. Clad in sneakers, a baseball cap, ripped jeans, and a navel-revealing T-shirt, the vocalist was escorted down the Little White Wedding Chapel's aisle by a hotel chauffeur. Spears and Alexander, who wore baggy pants and a zippered sweater, soon were wife and husband.


Almost as soon, their marriage was annulled. Clark County Judge Lisa Brown accepted Spears's request and ruled that "There was no meeting of the minds in entering into this marriage contract, and in a court of equity there is cause for declaring the contract void."


The revolving-door couple's 55 hours of marital bliss were based neither on love nor shared commitment, but because "they took a joke too far," explained Spears's label, Jive Records.


Whatever objections they otherwise may generate, gay couples who desire marriage at least hope to stay hitched. Britney's latest misadventure, in contrast, reduced marriage from something sacred to just another Vegas activity, like watching the Bellagio Hotel's fountains between trips to the blackjack tables.


Consider David Letterman. His hilarious broadcasts keep Insomniac-Americans cackling every weeknight. Last November 3, he got a national standing ovation when his son, Harry Joseph, was born. Those who rail against gay marriage stayed mum about the fact that Harry's dad and mom, Regina Lasko, shack up. What message is sent by this widely hailed out-of-wedlock birth?


And then there's Jerry Seinfeld. This national treasure's eponymous TV show will generate belly laughs in syndication throughout this century, and deservedly so. The mere sound of those odd bass notes on Seinfeld's soundtrack can generate chuckles before any dialogue has been uttered.


But while Seinfeld boasts millions of fans, Eric Nederlander is not among them. Shortly after the Broadway theater heir and his then-wife, Jessica Sklar, returned from their June 1998 honeymoon, she met Seinfeld at Manhattan's Reebok Club gym. He asked Sklar out, she accepted and, before long, she ditched her new husband and ran off with the comedian.


Where was the social-conservative outrage at Seinfeld's dreadful actions? Can anyone on the religious Right seriously argue that the real risk to holy matrimony is not men like Seinfeld and women like Sklar but devoted male couples who aim neither to discard one another nor divide others?


Of course, not every American is an overexposed pop diva, network talk-show host, or sitcom multimillionaire. For rank-and-file heterosexuals, marriage can involve decades of love and joy. In 51 percent of cases, people stay married for life. Such unions are inspiring, impressive, and deserve every American's applause.


On the other hand, 49 percent of couples break up, according to Divorce magazine. The Federal Administration for Children and Families calculated in 2002 that deadbeat parents nationwide owed their kids $92.3 billion in unpaid child support. In 2000, 33.2 percent of children were born outside marriage. Among blacks, that figure was 68.5 percent. A 1998 National Institute of Justice survey found that 1.5 million women suffer domestic violence annually, as do 835,000 men. So-called "reality" TV shows like Fox's Married by America and its forthcoming My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé turn wedding vows into punch lines. In nearly every instance, heterosexuals — not homosexuals — perpetrated these social ills.


Gay marriage is a big idea that deserves national debate. Nonetheless, social conservatives who blow their stacks over homosexual matrimony's supposed threat to traditional marriage tomorrow should focus on the far greater damage that heterosexuals are wreaking on that venerable institution today.


— Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service.

And if you care about the opinion of a few more people, it was discussed
here. Somehow the obligatory dis on my mom didn't make it's way into this thread...

Carl presented to us Exhibit A.



AHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm hilarious.

Yeah, I thought that, too. Man, why do Features fans have to be a bunch of dorks?

Whether or not it's made into a joke on TV, marriage is still treated in public policy as a legitimating institution. All religious and personal beliefs on what happens during that moment at the altar aside, you are declaring your vows before the state, and the state privileges married couples as the bedrock of American society. Marriage is obviously considered by policymakers to represent some sort of democratic ideal otherwise we wouldn't have legislation like the Defense of Marriage Act. Many people consider marriage a very private act, and like JC said, it is what you make of it. In my opinion, however, it is extremely public and from that moment on, you and your significant other are taken more seriously.

What I think is interesting about gay marriage is that within the gay liberation movement, marriage became a top priority fairly late in the game. Improved HIV prevention, education, and treatment, better health care, hate crime protection, anti-violence and harassment policies in the military, repeal of sodomy laws, job discrimination...and a lot of other issues were considered more important. From what I've read, many gay people viewed marriage as an institution that selectively legitimates some people over others. I think that many still see marriage as an entry point into social norms that they want to resist. A lot of the discourse surrounding gay marriage among mainstream activists centers on the notion of just wanting to be "normal." I think people of all sexual orientations should question why marriage is "normal."

I'm not at all saying gay marriage should be banned. I just think the wrong questions are asked surrounding what marriage in general means. It just doesn't make sense to say marriage is a "venerable institution" because the meaning of marriage has changed so much over time and its venerability does not hold up in all cases (i.e Britney Spears, reality TV). But what is true about marriage is that it confers a number of economic benefits on the couples that choose to participate...better health care, tax advantages, more control over property, inheritance rights, etc. Marriage is about love, promises, etc, but it's also about economics. And I just have a problem that my quality of health care, etc. depends on whether or not I choose to get married. I know it's easier to politically polarize the gay marriage issue if you chalk it up to being only about private love and transhistorical sacredness, but the economic and public aspects have to be addressed to get at the question of why marriage is so important and desirable.

Sorry to ramble. I just think and read about this a lot.

I absolutely agree. I think there are 2 issues here: why marriage confers societal status and/ or benefits and whether gay people deserve equal rights under the law. The first issue is pretty complex & gets at a deeper systematic problem of enforcing dominant social norms through all the rights that you mentioned. It's why I chafe a little bit at the idea of marriage & constantly tell my unmarried friends to fight the pressure to get married (disclosure: I already AM married, so I've already become closer to The Man). I understand that for some religious beliefs, marriage is a sacred act, and that is a wonderful thing. But to me, that should be completely separate from how you are treated by the government.

Which brings me to the 2nd issue- I can't even believe it's an issue. The right to love whomever you want and share a life with whomever you want is a basic civil & human right. I really think in 20 years this will seem like the Civil Rights movement does now- an obvious step towards humanizing our society. Since the union of 2 people in the eyes of the state DOES currently confer them benefits, gay people have just as much right to those benefits as anyone else. Saying that they don't is like saying that black & white people don't have the right to marry. The threat of a Constitutional amendment blocking these rights makes me ill & makes me wonder if the threateners have any respect at all for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

I don't really see how an out of wedlock birth is supposedly fodder for gay marriage advocates. There isn't anything wrong with having children. It might be considered immoral in religious circles, but who said you had to be married to have a child?

Regardless, the "sanctity of marriage" argument is complete and utter bullshit. How would someone else's marriage affect your own? I challenge anyone to come up with a valid argument that a gay man in North Dakota's marriage somehow makes your own marriage any less relevant. The fact is, a marriage should only be of importance and/or relevance to the two people that participate in it.

I'd say that all of those other issues were/are more important, or at least should come first. How can we expect homosexuals to sign a public document that basically proves that they are gay when they are afraid to come out of the closet due to violence, harrassment and legal implications against them?

Herein lies a slippery slope. I'm totally for gay union and rights and what have you, but how do you discern "legit" gay couples from shysters, thieves, and conmen?

What? You ask?

Say I'm a recently unemployed male who is having a tough time finding a job. I come down with cancer or or blow out my knee in some sort of manly man hetero activity like playing football (that's a joke folks). What prevents me from "marrying" my hetero roomate to glom onto his insurance? I get my treatments, then we divorce.

Granted, I would imagine you could in any circumstance find someone to marry you, but I could see this working with guys very well, no attachment, no do you really love me? A nice gentleman's handshake to get "no fault" divorce when its done and off we go. And don't think someone won't try this.

I'm just throwing this out, I have no answer for it, but insurance rates would skyrocket under that scenario.

Seriously! Why wasn't there some sort of background check on Britney Spears to ensure she was getting married in the name of everlasting monogamy, white picket fences, reproduction, and PTA meetings, not some illegitimate reason like a publicity stunt or "joke gone too far?" Ministers and judges should definitely include prohibitions of non-legit reasons for marriage after the "to love and to cherish" clause.

Who's going to stop me from getting married solely for the Williams-Sonoma gift registry? No one! As soon as I have that 2100 dollar espresso machine that I've had my eyes on for so long, I'm boldly reclaiming my single status.

There's something in every health insurance contract about pre-existing conditions. If you were to add yourself to another's insurance, they'd have you get a physical.

A gentleman's handshake? I'm sorry, I don't care what's in it for me, I'm just not going to do that for another man.

Oh I know that... but there is ways around that... believe me.

I'm not saying I'd do that either, but dire circumstances can make strange bedfellows... run with that one...

Much better stated than my attempt at the same point.

Will

regardless, a male and female would be able to pull off your scenario just as easily as a male/male or female/female.

I believe I stated that in my original post... all I'm saying is, is that it's gonna get really weird if they start trying to legislate "married". It's no different then someone marrying a foreigner to get them citizenship.

I'm just saying a "marriage of convenience" is more likely to happen between same sex vs intersex.

That said I'm all for true gay couples to enjoy the same benefits of married people. I just don't know how its going to be worked out. Right now there is such a thing as common law marriage between two hetero people. Is that going to be instituted for gays and lesbians? I bet some of you guys on here have lived with a roommate long enough to be considered for common law marriage. That could get very sticky. If a roommate dies then does the other roommate have a right to sue the estate of his dead roomie claiming common law? Like I said, just throwing out questions, but there's a difference between ideal theory and real world application.

Why would gay people want to get married in the first place? It's increasingly becoming a social artifact. What business does the government have in even recognizing a religious institution? Civil unions should be recognized but not marriage (meaning ANYONE could get a civil union). I support the idea for many reasons though, and since I hope to be starting a video production business soon (including wedding videos), I can't complain about opening this up to a large segment of society!

JM

As a former human resources employee, I can tell you that this is not necessarily true.

If we're talking about a private individual purchasing health insurance from an insurance company, then yes, a physical to determine pre-existing conditions would be very likely. In this situation, an insurance company would not cover pre-existing conditions.

But if we're talking about a group health insurance plan (ie, a person getting health insurance through his or her employer), a pre-coverage physical is an extreme rarity. Most group plans unconditionally cover pre-existing conditions.

my workplace is pretty progressive in the sense that "domestic partners" can be covered on the health insurance plan. this works out well for my boyfriend; i just had to prove that we live together and share expenses (i.e. bills in both of our names, i made him the beneficiary of my miniscule work-offered life insurance plan, etc) and voila! he gets health and dental insurance too.