Gay marriage

[AllThingsKC]

Not trying to hijack this thread, but I would some liberal views on this.

One thing that I cannot stand about my fellow conservatives is how they believe in limited government (that is, the idea of gov't staying out of our personal lives), but think the government should decide who we can and cannot marry. That seems hypocritical to me. How can I believe in limited gov't but expect the gov't to legislate morality? (I can't.)

On the other hand, most liberals I know believe it's ok for the gov't to force people to purchase health care, but think gov't shouldn't tell people who to marry. That also seems hypocritical to me. Why is it ok for government to control health care, but not ok to tell people who can or cannot be married? In other words, how can you be a good liberal/leftist/socialist/whatever and believe that gov't shouldn't control marriage too?

Again, not looking to hijack this thread. I don't even have any points to make. Just looking for some perspective and deferring opinions.

[AllThingsKC]

Not trying to hijack this thread, but I would some liberal views on this.

One thing that I cannot stand about my fellow conservatives is how they believe in limited government (that is, the idea of gov't staying out of our personal lives), but think the government should decide who we can and cannot marry. That seems hypocritical to me. How can I believe in limited gov't but expect the gov't to legislate morality? (I can't.)

On the other hand, most liberals I know believe it's ok for the gov't to force people to purchase health care, but think gov't shouldn't tell people who to marry. That also seems hypocritical to me. Why is it ok for government to control health care, but not ok to tell people who can or cannot be married? In other words, how can you be a good liberal/leftist/socialist/whatever and believe that gov't shouldn't control marriage too?

Again, not looking to hijack this thread. I don't even have any points to make. Just looking for some perspective and deferring opinions.

[pash]

.

[Highlander]

You seem to be suggesting that political opinions must be founded on coherent principles. ...

I would hope that some people have come to the conclusion that common sense should trump coherent principles like "big government vs small government". Those need not be the only overriding philosophies that we abide by and not every issue in America needs to be coined in terms of government control. I'm all for liberalizing marijuana laws and gay marriage - not so sure about more henious things like mid to later term abortion. I'd like to cut a hell a lot of government spending but I'd like to increase it where it makes sense like public transportation.

[earthling]

Yeah, it's the principled purists who are causing the polarity. Every issue needs to be reasoned through on a case by case basis, not apply some general ideal to everything.

[earthling]

Yeah, I think most of the arguments against polygamy stem from the idea of unfair distribution.

Child marriage isn't considered consensual or acceptable in modern society but the curious thing is that Nature still allows child bearing to start around 12 or so and in early humanity when you had to grow the tribe or go extinct 12-14 was not only the norm, was necessary. So we now arbitrarily (?) set the age of consent at 18 in US - from an anthropological/biological perspective that age could be challenged as too high but from the direction modern society is heading, adult responsibility doesn't seem to broadly occur until around 21 to 25 these days it seems.

Well I think much of it is more on a psychological level, which wasn't factored back in the days.
Remember for the good chunk of history, marriage was political. i didn't matter that the wife was 12 and didn't consent; she was there to be a token and heir-maker. Thus the idea of adult responsibility didn't even register. If she actually loved her spouse, great but it wasn't required.
You see the same in cultures that still practice child marriage as they are almost always arranged.

I was thinking pre-civilization, before social politics but yeah, child marriage/mates were typically arranged (except with the Xingu River tribes example I posted). No matter how you slice it though, in early humanity early teens reproducing was not only normal and natural, it was necessary, especially since in many early cultures only 2 out 3 (or less) made it to 12 years old.

It's pretty astounding when realizing that major civilizations have only been around the last 5K years or so out of about 200K years of humanity - that's <3% of the human era. Just wait until human cloning, genetic manipulation starts to take hold and other human manipulation we haven't thought of yet. In another 5K years what we find completely inappropriate today with be the norm to them.

[phuqueue]

Not trying to hijack this thread, but I would some liberal views on this.

One thing that I cannot stand about my fellow conservatives is how they believe in limited government (that is, the idea of gov't staying out of our personal lives), but think the government should decide who we can and cannot marry. That seems hypocritical to me. How can I believe in limited gov't but expect the gov't to legislate morality? (I can't.)

On the other hand, most liberals I know believe it's ok for the gov't to force people to purchase health care, but think gov't shouldn't tell people who to marry. That also seems hypocritical to me. Why is it ok for government to control health care, but not ok to tell people who can or cannot be married? In other words, how can you be a good liberal/leftist/socialist/whatever and believe that gov't shouldn't control marriage too?

Again, not looking to hijack this thread. I don't even have any points to make. Just looking for some perspective and deferring opinions.

Gay marriage and health care are not even close to analogous. I also wouldn't say that supporting gay marriage necessarily means opposing any government "control" of marriage -- there are many ways in which government controls marriage that I'm perfectly comfortable with, but if the government is going to grant or recognize a right in some people, it shouldn't arbitrarily deny that right to others.

[pash]

.

[AllThingsKC]

Gay marriage and health care are not even close to analogous. I also wouldn't say that supporting gay marriage necessarily means opposing any government "control" of marriage -- there are many ways in which government controls marriage that I'm perfectly comfortable with, but if the government is going to grant or recognize a right in some people, it shouldn't arbitrarily deny that right to others.

I guess what I'm asking is where is that fine line between the gov't involvement with marriage and the gov't involvement with health care, gun control, and other issues.

[earthling]

All right, now we've got a political thread!

Or the angry traditionalist thread. The 'country is going to hell' speech was also common from those who opposed interracial marriage and slavery (though granted the grounds for opposing/supporting each are not at all related to each other). They'll try to bring up other bigger issues that do need to be dealt with and suppress the social ones because there is no need for social change afterall, the rules have already been set in their heads long ago. What is common is that Traditionalists live in fear of social change, especially that they think (er, 'believe') is an unwavering established ideal by a force higher than themselves.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Not trying to hijack this thread, but I would some liberal views on this.

One thing that I cannot stand about my fellow conservatives is how they believe in limited government (that is, the idea of gov't staying out of our personal lives), but think the government should decide who we can and cannot marry. That seems hypocritical to me. How can I believe in limited gov't but expect the gov't to legislate morality? (I can't.)

On the other hand, most liberals I know believe it's ok for the gov't to force people to purchase health care, but think gov't shouldn't tell people who to marry. That also seems hypocritical to me. Why is it ok for government to control health care, but not ok to tell people who can or cannot be married? In other words, how can you be a good liberal/leftist/socialist/whatever and believe that gov't shouldn't control marriage too?

Again, not looking to hijack this thread. I don't even have any points to make. Just looking for some perspective and deferring opinions.

IMO you are dealing with very vague terms. Afterall what is a conservative? Talk to 10 different ones and you probably get ten different definitions. Limited government is also very vague. And what is a liberal? Libertarian? Those words and others are just labels we put on ourselves and others to somehow identify us. Like saying one is Irish or a Muslim.

Even those who support the idea of limited government (whatever that is) believe that there should be some sort of laws prohibiting sexual behavior such as bestiality, sex with minors, and incest and in the past may have supported laws prohibiting interracial marriage (in 1968 only 20% supported interracial marriage so it is a safe bet that even some liberals also supported those laws).

[phuqueue]

Gay marriage and health care are not even close to analogous. I also wouldn't say that supporting gay marriage necessarily means opposing any government "control" of marriage -- there are many ways in which government controls marriage that I'm perfectly comfortable with, but if the government is going to grant or recognize a right in some people, it shouldn't arbitrarily deny that right to others.

I guess what I'm asking is where is that fine line between the gov't involvement with marriage and the gov't involvement with health care, gun control, and other issues.

What I'm saying is that the line isn't fine at all. These are all very different issues with more dimensions than just "GOVT CONTROL? _X_YES __NO"

With gay marriage, the issue is denial of rights. Marriage was recognized as a fundamental civil right in Loving v. Virginia and equal protection (which is explicitly provided for vis-a-vis states in the Fourteenth Amendment) has been read into the Fifth Amendment's due process protection. This means that you can't withhold such a fundamental right from some people arbitrarily. The question then is whether prohibiting gay marriage is arbitrary. It's fine if you personally don't believe that gay people should be allowed to marry each other, but the Bible is not legitimate as the sole basis for legislation, per the First Amendment. If you're going to say gay marriage should be illegal and heterosexual marriage should retain its privileged status, you're going to have to support that argument with some concrete reasons founded on something other than religious belief, because the Constitution explicitly provides that religious belief will not be the basis for our laws. I wouldn't say that the government shouldn't "control" marriage -- the government has legitimate interests in promoting marriage, and so should be free to privilege (and, conversely, regulate) marriage in certain ways -- but government control can't be exercised capriciously. This isn't just with respect to marriage, but in general. The government must tread lightly when it restricts fundamental rights.

You've got a little better argument with gun control, which I'll get to in a minute. I'll do health care first because it's quick and easy and you've hit on it twice now. There is no "fine line" between health care and gay marriage, there's more like a yawning abyss. These things are not similar at all. The government is not privileged to arbitrarily withhold fundamental rights, but you have no fundamental right to not be taxed, which is the power under which ACA was passed. On the contrary, governments have collected taxes since time immemorial and the Constitution empowers the government to tax and spend pretty much to its heart's content, with only the restrictions that taxes be "uniform" and that "direct taxes" be apportioned (a restriction that was lifted from income taxes by the Sixteenth Amendment). Going back decades, taxes have been upheld for all kinds of reasons. The government's ability to tax isn't unlimited, but the Constitution is extremely permissive. Moreover, there are legitimate societal harms here that must be addressed. Most importantly, health care costs are spiraling out of control, and one important reason for this is that hospitals are legally obliged to provide emergency care regardless of ability to pay. Insurance schemes operate on the basis that everybody pays into the system, and the system only pays out to a few people. This is how insurance companies make money and stay in business. Non-compulsory health care works in reverse: only some people (those who choose to get insured) pay into the system, but the system will pay out to potentially anybody who needs it. When an uninsured person goes to the emergency room, they still receive treatment, and they're kept in the hospital until their condition is no longer emergent. Then they get booted back out onto the street, whether they're necessarily fully recovered or not (this strikes me as extraordinarily barbaric, but I'm merely noting that as an aside; the health care argument is quite strong without even resorting to morality). After that, they get a bill. They can't pay. Their bill gets sent to collections. They still can't pay. But somebody has to pay, and that somebody is everybody else, through two main avenues. The first is direct payouts to hospitals by the government. The government (ie taxpayers) pays subsidies to hospitals to partially (only partially) compensate them for treating uninsured patients. The other avenue is through higher prices charged to everybody who can pay (that is, the insured). Your hospital bill is artificially inflated to help cover the guy next to you who doesn't have insurance. This will be paid by your insurance company, but because your insurance company is still a for-profit enterprise, they have to cover these higher bills somehow -- through higher premiums. But here's the particularly fun part. Bills rise across the board. Hospitals don't just charge you more because you're insured; they charge everybody more (to be fair, hospital billing practices are generally much more byzantine than this, so for instance the insured and the uninsured typically won't be stuck with exactly the same bill for exactly the same procedure, but this is still basically how it works). This means that they take a larger "loss" on the inflated bill of the guy who couldn't pay, which in turn has to be covered by everybody else again. This causes health care costs to spiral upward, which is why we've seen it far outpacing inflation. Conservatives should actually be all about compulsory health care coverage, because when somebody who isn't covered goes to the hospital, he's essentially "stealing" from everybody else. This is precisely a form of wealth redistribution -- it's just a really fucking haphazard one that ultimately leaves everybody involved worse off than a planned, coherent system would (because even the uninsured "thief" doesn't actually get all the treatment he may need, just enough not to die in a gutter of his illness). When it comes to tax policy, conservatives seem to love this "every man for himself" approach, cut taxes -- and services -- to the bone and just let people fend for themselves; yet when it comes to health care, conservatives are keen to prop up our current free-rider-friendly model because freedom. Gay marriage is in no way analogous to this issue, most fundamentally because gay marriage doesn't present any sort of harm to society (except in the minds of those whose religious values it offends). There are further points to make here with regard to the societal harms addressed by health care reform, for instance the close ties between rising health care cost and rising government budget deficits, but I'm going to cap this tangent here since this isn't the thread for that.

Gun control works a little better because many people view it as a fundamental right. Of course, it's not -- the right to bear arms is most definitely not unlimited (seems like the most popular illustration of this lately has been that you don't have a right to maintain your own nuclear arsenal -- once we agree that some absurd extreme is out of play, it just becomes a matter of where you decide to draw the line). Whether the Second Amendment even protects a personal right at all is highly contentious, and the NRA's position that it does is a very recent development from just the past few decades (even the NRA itself didn't used to hold this position until around the 70s). Guns also present a very real and tangible social harm, and it's not just in relative aberrations like Newtown or Aurora or Columbine, but in the 11,000 or so murders committed with guns every year. The Huffington Post just had a great visual for this a few days ago that I already can't find anymore, a time lapse map of the US showing gun deaths since Newtown. It basically looked like Outbreak, these red circles appearing mostly around major population centers and just getting bigger and bigger. In three months since the massacre, thousands of people have been murdered. These deaths are mostly not noteworthy or eyecatching, so they don't get much attention. Perhaps that's the most damning statement you can make about gun proliferation in the US: murder has become so mundane that nobody even really cares unless you manage to make a particular spectacle of doing it. Gun lovers like to counter with the old "guns don't kill people" line, but even they must admit that the gun helps quite a bit. We can only really idly speculate about how many fewer people would be murdered if guns weren't so freely available -- either because it's more difficult to inflict life-threatening wounds on them with other weapons, so they ultimately survive the attack, or even because it just requires a great deal more commitment to kill somebody through most other means, whereas you can grab a gun and pull the trigger in the blink of an eye, which permits you far less time to reflect on what you're doing -- but it doesn't require a great leap to guess that a significant percentage of those victims didn't have to die.

One fun little side note that even links the gun and health care arguments together: each year more than 30,000 people are killed or injured by guns -- they all see the inside of a hospital in some capacity and a very large proportion of them receive treatment, many of whom are not insured. The CDC estimates that gun violence costs us about $40 billion per year. "Arms" are, in some capacity, a Constitutional right, but the extent of that right is far from clear, and the costs imposed on society by an overly permissive interpretation of that right are enormous. The same can't be said of gay marriage. This is why the line between gay marriage and health care or gun control isn't fine at all. These are extremely different issues, which helps illustrate the point Highlander made a few posts above about big vs. small government. It's not just "oh, I think gay marriage should be legal, so the government shouldn't act at all in this field, but I think guns are bad and health insurance is good so the government should bring the hammer down there." These things only seem inconsistent if you view the world through the lens of "big" vs. "small" government, where every issue is just a matter of adjusting the "size" of government to achieve whatever goal you want. But the government shouldn't be "big" or "small" just for the sake of it. I don't believe in big government, I believe in effective government. An effective government safeguards my rights -- my right to marry whomever I choose (who legally consents, etc), my right to be free of bullets in my body, my right not to get overcharged for routine health care services to pay for somebody else*, etc.

*side note: As a bleeding heart lefty I actually have no qualms with chipping in to pay for health care coverage for people who need it, although that doesn't change the fact that the way in which I do that now is as part of a hopelessly broken system; for me personally the moral argument against our current system is a very strong one, but I have also recognized that "compassionate conservatism" has gone nearly extinct, if it ever really existed in the first place, so pragmatic arguments are also necessary. Whatever your feelings about ACA in particular, it's pretty difficult to mount a coherent defense of our system as it currently exists -- it's a grossly inefficient, ultimately unsustainable model. Reform of some kind is sorely needed. Where the Republicans really went wrong wasn't in opposing ACA per se but in failing to put together a viable counterproposal.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Just a few notes on the above.

The morning news shows did some talk on the slowdown on recent gun control legislation. Don't remember the numbers but in the 70's by a wide margin gun ownership for hunting had a higher percentage than gun ownership for protection. Now the numbers are almost completely reversed. So if owning a gun makes one feel safe then trying to limit or eliminate that sense of protection is a hard thing to do.

With regards to the health care issue IMO the objection by many was the overreachingness of it. To me there were two major issues that should have been handled separately. One was the issue of health insurance. The other was how health care is delivered. For insurance limit the policies like it is done with Medicare tie-in policies, require insurance, and if coverage is that important to have provide a full income tax credit or deduction for its cost instead of how health insurance is treated now income tax wise. Medicare and Medicaid reforms, health panels, etc are another issue and I think this is what most objected to. Yes there was objection to mandatory insurance but that could have melted away if people saw the tax reforms tied to it.

[shinatoo]

Why is harbinger911 in the quite chair, exactly?

[earthling]

Is this the source of Harbinger 911 position...

http://www.amazon.com/Harbinger-ancient ... 161638610X

The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future

That there exists an ancient mystery that holds the secret of America s future?
That this mystery lies behind everything from 9/11 to the collapse of the global economy?
That ancient harbingers of judgment are now manifesting in America?
That God is sending America a prophetic message of what is yet to come?

Before its destruction as a nation, ancient Israel received nine harbingers, prophetic omens of warning. The same nine harbingers are now manifesting in America with immediate ramifications for end-time prophecy.

Hidden in an ancient biblical prophecy from Isaiah, the mysteries revealed in The Harbinger are so precise that they foretold recent American events down to the exact days. The revelations are so specific that even the most hardened skeptics will find it hard to dismiss or put down. It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood thriller with one exception... IT S REAL.

The prophetic mysteries are revealed through an intriguing and engaging narrative the reader will find hard to put down. The Harbinger opens with the appearance of a man burdened with a message he has received from a mysterious figure called The Prophet. The Prophet has given him nine seals, each containing a message about America s future. As he tells of his encounters with The Prophet, from a skyscraper in New York City, to a rural mountaintop, to Capitol Hill, to Ground Zero, the mystery behind each seal is revealed. As the story unfolds, each revelation becomes a piece in a greater puzzle the ramifications of which will even alter the course of world history.

[aknowledgeableperson]

The fact is that neither you, nor I, nor anyone else can foresee the impact gay marriage will have on society.

That was the argument for some who felt the issue of gay marriage should be left to the states for now. Outside of the religious stance evidently there are studies that show children do better in homes with both a mother and father as opposed to just a mother or just a father. What has not been studied enough at this time are children in homes with two mothers or two fathers. Personally I don't know what that has to do with gay marriage or not, unless children are worse off with two mothers or fathers as compared to single parent homes. If society allows divorce to harm children then why allow divorce?

Interracial marriage bans were barely a bump in the road of American civil discourse compared to the sickening divisive attack on marriage by the left we see today. Yes certain states, counties and cities in the south made some noise, but the laws were immoral. Interracial dating laws were passed when whites considered Africans less than human.

Not quite accurate. From Wiki:

Anti-miscegenation laws discouraging marriages between Whites and non-Whites were affecting Asian immigrants and their spouses from the late 17th to early 20th century. By 1910, 28 states prohibited certain forms of interracial marriage. Seven states including Arizona, California, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah extended their prohibitions to include people of Asian descent. The laws of Arizona, California, Mississippi, and Utah referred to "Mongolians". Asians in California were barred by anti-miscegenation laws from marrying White Americans (a group including Hispanic Americans). Nevada and Oregon referred to "Chinese," while Montana listed both "Chinese" and "Japanese" persons.[16] For example, a Eurasian daughter born to an Indian father and Irish mother in Maryland in 1680 was classified as a "mulato" and sold into slavery,[17] and the Bengali revolutionary Tarak Nath Das's white American wife, Mary K. Das, was stripped of her American citizenship for her marriage to an "alien ineligible for citizenship."[17] In 1918, there was controversy in Arizona when an Indian farmer married the sixteen year-old daughter of one of his White tenants.[18] California law did not explicitly bar Filipinos and whites from marrying, a fact brought to wide public attention by the 1933 California Supreme Court case Roldan v. Los Angeles County; however the legislature quickly moved to amend the laws to prohibit such marriages as well in the aftermath of the case

While anti-miscegenation laws are often regarded as a Southern phenomenon, most western and plains states also had anti-miscegenation laws.

Although anti-miscegenation amendments were proposed in United States Congress in 1871, 1912–1913 and 1928,[5][6] a nationwide law against racially mixed marriages was never enacted. Prior to Perez v. Sharp (1948), most U.S. states had and variously enforced anti-miscegenation laws. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Loving v. Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws are unconstitutional. With this ruling, these laws were no longer in effect in the remaining 16 states that at the time still enforced them.

Between 1913 and 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced anti-miscegenation laws.[19] Only Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alaska, Hawaii, and the federal District of Columbia never enacted them

Most white Americans in the 1950s were opposed to interracial marriage and did not see laws banning interracial marriage as an affront to the principles of American democracy. A 1958 Gallup poll showed that 96 percent of white Americans disapproved of interracial marriage. However, attitudes towards bans on interracial marriage quickly changed in the 1960s.

As a side note. For those who do not think Missouri was a southern state and doesn't belong in the SEC Missouri was one of those states that still had a law that prohibited marriage between Whites and Blacks and Whites and Asians in 1967.

[KCMax]

You have a point there. Just the scientist in me is screaming at all the things that could go wrong (especially since allowing marriage would confer to them benefits), even if that what royalty did.
Keeping it in the family...

There is going to be a point in the near future where when a couple conceives, we're going to know all the potential genetic defects (we already know some) that are going to arise.

Should those couples be barred from having kids? Marrying?

Not trying to hijack this thread, but I would some liberal views on this.

One thing that I cannot stand about my fellow conservatives is how they believe in limited government (that is, the idea of gov't staying out of our personal lives), but think the government should decide who we can and cannot marry. That seems hypocritical to me. How can I believe in limited gov't but expect the gov't to legislate morality? (I can't.)

On the other hand, most liberals I know believe it's ok for the gov't to force people to purchase health care, but think gov't shouldn't tell people who to marry. That also seems hypocritical to me. Why is it ok for government to control health care, but not ok to tell people who can or cannot be married? In other words, how can you be a good liberal/leftist/socialist/whatever and believe that gov't shouldn't control marriage too?

Again, not looking to hijack this thread. I don't even have any points to make. Just looking for some perspective and deferring opinions.

Conservatives (at least at the extremes) tend to believe government is not the answer. For anything.

Liberals tend to believe that government can be an answer when the market or society is not fixing the perceived ill. And they don't perceive gay marriage as a social ill, as opposed to some conservatives.

Ultimately though, both sides really want government to reflect their values. Its not big govt vs. small govt, its "what do I think is important"?

[chaglang]

Outside of the religious stance evidently there are studies that show children do better in homes with both a mother and father as opposed to just a mother or just a father. What has not been studied enough at this time are children in homes with two mothers or two fathers. Personally I don't know what that has to do with gay marriage or not, unless children are worse off with two mothers or fathers as compared to single parent homes. If society allows divorce to harm children then why allow divorce?

IIRC, those studies are fairly controversial and there are (of course) other studies that refute them. There's a guy out at K-State who cranks out "gay parents ruin kids" studies with some regularity.

I agree with you that this is all of dubious relevance anyway. Many, many states already allow gay couples to adopt children, so that ship has sailed. Also, using child welfare as an argument against gay marriage places a burden on that which is not placed on straight marriage.

[KCMax]

FWIW Mayor Sly James and the City Council are expected to pass a resolution supporting gay marriage this week.

[IraGlacialis]

You have a point there. Just the scientist in me is screaming at all the things that could go wrong (especially since allowing marriage would confer to them benefits), even if that what royalty did.
Keeping it in the family...

There is going to be a point in the near future where when a couple conceives, we're going to know all the potential genetic defects (we already know some) that are going to arise.

Should those couples be barred from having kids? Marrying?

In my personal opinion? Yes, at least for the having kid's part.
For example, a person who is dominant for Huntington's pretty much issues a horrific death sentence towards their possible kids, and then their kids down the line, made all the easier due to its late blooming nature.

Hopefully, for me, there will be a time that disorders are not only capable of being detected but fixed before development.
If that case, let the sibling marriage occur I guess, even if it will make the family line more easily wiped-out by the next epidemic.

And yes, I'm quite aware of the negative connotations and possibilities of all that. Never claimed that it was a morally just position.