Comment by cookiecaper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cookiecaper | Hacker News Reader

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>I don't see why government should define marriage at all. If anything, it seems we could do with a little discouraging of heterosexual relationships.

Sure, this position can exist. It simply doesn't reflect the status quo or have much to do with whether the state should expand marital privileges to cover homosexuals. This is basically an entirely different and opposite campaign: "Stop encouraging permanent coupling all together" instead of "please give more people special encouragement to couple permanently". Also, this argument is what is sometimes meant by "gay marriage will destroy marriage" -- you're extrapolating that based on the contentious attitudes around the gay marriage debate, marriage should stop being a legal thing. This is pretty much as close as you can get to "destroying marriage" in an objective or technical sense.

>But if you want special privileges from the government (like tax breaks) for your religious status, then you need to accept everybody's definition of marriage.

wut. If religions only qualified as religious institutions if they accepted everything the government said, the only religion that would exist would be "nationalism".

Further, from the referenda that keep saying "no" to gay marriage, I think "everybody's definition of marriage" may be better aligned with the predominant religious view anyway...

>Sure, this position can exist. It simply doesn't reflect the status quo or have much to do with whether the state should expand marital privileges to cover homosexuals. This is basically an entirely different and opposite campaign: "Stop encouraging permanent coupling all together" instead of "please give more people special encouragement to couple permanently". Also, this argument is what is sometimes meant by "gay marriage will destroy marriage" -- you're extrapolating that based on the contentious attitudes around the gay marriage debate, marriage should stop being a legal thing. This is pretty much as close as you can get to "destroying marriage" in an objective or technical sense.

You know what, I'm not sure I see the downside there? The concept that certain people should get special privileges from the government is a concept that should be destroyed, IMO.

> wut. If religions only qualified as religious institutions if they accepted everything the government said, the only religion that would exist would be "nationalism".

You've got it backwards. Marriage started out as a religious thing, dating back thousands of years. Only recently has the government stepped in and had anything to do with it. So if the government wants to be involved in the religious matter of marriage, they need to be more accepting of other religions that may define marriage differently.

>You know what, I'm not sure I see the downside there? The concept that certain people should get special privileges from the government is a concept that should be destroyed, IMO.

The downside is that it results in overall diminished social stability and cohesion. Marriage helps families by providing heavy incentives for partners to settle their differences and stay coupled rather than get frustrated and split. It provides a foundation of stability for and an obligation to children. It protects a dependent spouse (say, a mother who chooses to stay home and care for her children instead of producing her own income) from abandonment by supplying the dependent with legal recourse for support even if the breadwinner decides to blow it. It creates a default set of conditions for emergencies, death, etc., that would otherwise have to be defined contractually. It creates a social pressure for young couples to settle down and start having children.

I understand much of this is diminishing in the face of no-fault divorce and concerted efforts to make alternate lifestyles appear glamorous or beneficial (when in reality they are filled with despair, confusion, and turmoil), but that is the promise and benefit of legal marriage.

Simply deleting the term "marriage" and making everything a "civil union" for the sake of the feelings of religious people is ultimately vain. The same net negative effects occur from the equivocation of permanent heterosexual coupling and permanent homosexual coupling. Or did you mean we should do away with any default legal benefit and do all marriage-type relationships individually through contracts, etc.?

>You've got it backwards.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage#History_of_marriage_b..., where the first line contains "the institution of marriage pre-dates reliable recorded history", and then expands on implementations in "ancient Israel", "Europe", and "China". See also "Marriage in Ancient Egypt": http://www.kingtutshop.com/freeinfo/Marrage-in-Ancient-Egypt... , etc.

First, every negative thing you mention there happens all the time, and it's done by straight people in heterosexual marriages. Where's the gay connection?

All of the positive things you mention are generic arguments in favor of marriage that could be applied just as well to gay marriage. You're completely leaving out the part about why one group of people can marry, but another group can't.

Edit: Also, your Wikipedia link actually backs up my argument that marriage has historically been a religious institution, so I'm not sure what you're going for there, or how it explains why the government needed to get involved.

>First, every negative thing you mention there happens all the time, and it's done by straight people in heterosexual marriages. Where's the gay connection?

There isn't one. You asked what the downside was to deleting legal marriage entirely.

>Edit: Also, your Wikipedia link actually backs up my argument that marriage has historically been a religious institution, so I'm not sure what you're going for there, or how it explains why the government needed to get involved.

You said that "only recently" had governments started supplying benefits to married persons. This is false. As Wikipedia shows, there was legal recognition in various jurisdictions from ancient times. If you mean to say that there are few instances of purely secular marital law until recently, then sure, but also note that until the American Revolution there were few states without an officially-sanctioned state religion, so the religious tradition and the enforceable legal body may not be separate. Israel, for instance, enforced law related to marriage; adulterers were prosecuted, etc. etc. Likewise throughout history. Here's a whole page on "Ancient Greek Marriage Law", indicating non-recent legal recognition of marriage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_marriage_law

> > First, every negative thing you mention there happens all the time, and it's done by straight people in heterosexual marriages. Where's the gay connection?

> There isn't one. You asked what the downside was to deleting legal marriage entirely.

So there's a downside to deleting legal marriage entirely. So there must be some smaller downside to disallowing it partially. Why are you for that downside?

Because I don't believe homosexual coupling is good (for reasons listed elsewhere in this thread), so I don't believe that the government should promote it. As I stated originally, it's not a forgone conclusion that the reasons we want to promote heterosexual coupling are not necessarily applicable to homosexual coupling.

I do believe that heterosexual coupling is good, and I believe that it's good for the government to accept that marriage is a near-universal practice and its implementation may be codified officially in law and modified by nuptial contracts where applicable rather than leaving the whole thing blank, waiting until a legally illiterate spouse because widowed and/or abandoned, and leaving that person with no recourse against the abandonment and/or death, mechanism to gain control of shared property, etc. I think it's debatable whether the government should be in the business of providing less crucial incentives, like tax breaks, or whether that operates best as a non-governmental function.

> Marriage helps families by providing heavy incentives for partners to settle their differences and stay coupled rather than get frustrated and split

Yes, except it doesn't seem to be working.

> It protects a dependent spouse (say, a mother who chooses to stay home and care for her children instead of producing her own income) from abandonment by supplying the dependent with legal recourse for support even if the breadwinner decides to blow it

In theory yes...in point of fact, it doesn't always work out that way.

I could pick apart your extremely loose reasoning more, but let's get down to brass tacks. Your entire argument is predicated on the notion that "family" === Mother, Father, and biological children. This is patently absurd.

There are millions of infertile, adoptive, heterosexual couples who by your implicit argument don't deserve the protections and rights of marriage. However, if you expand the definition to include them, you must include homosexual couples too.

You're partially right. Marriage encourages stability. I would disagree that is the only reason for it though. More importantly what you're missing is that it's beneficial to society to have ALL families stable...regardless of whether they have biological children or not. It makes for a healthier and happier population.

>Your entire argument is predicated on the notion that "family" === Mother, Father, and biological children. This is patently absurd.

I disagree. Rather than patently absurd, I think it is a natural and biological imperative that the traditional nuclear family is ideal.

I believe that children who do not have a conventional male/female parental duality (i.e., a permanent "mother" and "father" figure that operate as the dominate force in the child's development) are instantly disadvantaged.

>There are millions of infertile, adoptive, heterosexual couples who by your implicit argument don't deserve the protections and rights of marriage.

This is false; my argument does not exclude heterosexual relationships even amongst infertile people. First, there is the possibility these persons will become fertile; we cannot say for sure that they will not. Secondly, in a home ruled by a permanent heterosexual coupling, there is both a permanent mother figure and a permanent father figure for adopted children. I believe that duality is a majorly important part of the functional development of a child, and therefore intentionally placing a ward in the home of a permanent homosexual coupling is placing them at a serious disadvantage. A home ruled by a permanent homosexual coupling by definition does not have a mother and father figure that fill their respective roles; instead, they have "two dads" or "two moms".

Thirdly, even if a heterosexual coupling can never have or adopt children, it is valuable because it promotes a tradition of stability, garnishes the minds of those who observe its operation with thoughts of elevation, unity, and eternity, and allows individuals who, normally through no personal fault, are infertile to retain dignity and honor among their peers. Fertility is a very personal medical issue and we shouldn't need to broadcast it. I would also like to establish that in this context, polygyny is rather reasonable.

This doesn't mean that mockeries of the true way, like permanent homosexual coupling, are passable; these are counterfeits, minted by confused and misguided individuals. They are no replacement for a permanent heterosexual coupling. As such, we have no interest in the government actively encouraging them and awarding special privileges to practitioners.

Not an argument against your primary point, really just semanitcs, but: "everybody's definition of marriage", is very different than what you may suggest is more in line with "the general/average definition of marriage" If you accept "everybody's definition of marriage" You need to accept what everybody things marriage is, which does include people that think it can be homosexual in nature. While it also includes people that think it cannot be, it stands to reason that accepting most forms of marriage would be less harmful, since that government recognition of marriage doesn't mean that I, or my religion has to recognize the marriage. I will not however comment on the validity of "accepting everybody's definition of marriage" only trying to bring coherency to the discussion so that we aren't just arguing semantics.

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