Comments on: Same-Sex Marriage

By: Noli Irritare Leones » Blog Archive » Is marriage innate, and marriage fairy tales

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 16:23:43 +0000

[...] And Kieran Healey at Crooked Timber disputes Maggie Gallagher’s whole approach to understanding marriage cross-culturally: Gallagher seems to equivocate: sometimes “marriage” means, “some institution which functions to produce and raise children more or less reliably”; other times it means “the legal institution of marriage as it now exists in the United States.” And then when it suits, the universality of the former usage is elided into the specificity of the latter. [...]

By: Feministe » Weekend Roundup

Feministe » Weekend Roundup — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 22:33:40 +0000

[...] Family Half-Changed World: Do Only Rich Families Have At-Home Parents? and How much of the work has already been done? Crooked Timber: Same-Sex Marriage Pharyngula: The proper reverence due those who have gone before [...]

By: joemono

joemono — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 18:48:42 +0000

It's only a matter of time before same-sex couples can have their own genetic children, anyway.

By: Rev. Manny Gregorius

Rev. Manny Gregorius — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 17:19:58 +0000

The first time I saw Rev. Gallagher preaching on television, I thought she was some kind of lesbian activist/agitator because she looked/looks so much like a diesel dyke. Boy oh boy was I surprised to eventually learn how much she hates the homos! and how she has made it her life’s work to increase the discrimination, hatred, and violence that they face because of the “lifestyle” they’ve “chosen.” I have a suspicion that her hatred of the homosexual agenda people might stem from the fact that she’s been mistaken for a lezzie so many times in her lifetime, poor thing. Rev. Gallagher really needs a “Straight Girl for the Lezzie Reverend” makeover if anyone does. Thank you.

By: WOWblog - The World’s Only Weblog » Blog Archive » Camel snuff films

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 13:07:50 +0000

[...] You should be reading Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly. For example: MAGGIE ON MARRIAGE…. At the risk of butting in on Kieran’s territory, I decided to go read Maggie Gallagher’s complete week of guest blogging over at the Volokh Conspiracy to see if I could figure out why she’s so violently opposed to same-sex marriage. Clearly she thinks that SSM will have disastrous effects on the institution of marriage, but it turns out that she managed to write several thousand words over the course of five days without ever explaining why she thinks that. “Bad time management,” she explains. Here’s the closest she comes: If the principle behind SSM is institutionalized in law…then people like me who think marriage is the union of husband and wife importantly related to the idea that children need moms and dads will be treated in society and at law like bigots. [...]

By: Mill

Mill — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 01:32:34 +0000

I don’t think I’ve ever read a comment thread where the phrase “elderly spinster” was used so earnestly or so much. So this is what blogging would have been like in the 1800s.

By: RP

RP — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 19:06:52 +0000

I have no doubt that the Maggie Gallaghers of the world would be pleased as punch to deny marriage to childfree atheists like my husband and I. What sort of heathen prefers an engagement vasectomy to an engagement ring, after all!

But would they really be happy telling my aunt that she couldn’t remarry at age 80? Ah, now there’s a popular position: marriage only allowed if half the couple still menstruates. Perhaps there can be tests.

By: The Invisible Library » Blog Archive » Support the DACMA, Before Britney Strikes Again!

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 18:02:44 +0000

[...] John Rogers, The illustrious Kung Fu Monkey, has a fantastic idea to save the holy fucking sanctity of all our marriages: …I have no problem with arguing that children are better off with one parent than two — although I am reminded of my friend Jeff Rothpan’s joke: “My parents stayed together for the sake of the children. Thank God, because there’s nothing better for children than fifteen years of screaming, spite and death threats.” No, to take a detour for a moment, my bone to pick with the above concept is that as a married couple with no children, my wife and I are are in this argument’s throes a de facto gay couple. Indeed, by that logic there’s no real reason for us to be married at all — and if your argument is meant to encourage marriage, you’ve rather shot yourself in the foot, eh? I will, however, accept my role as some sort of cultural fringe benefit in the main battle of breeding, and try not to unravel society too much as I dump enormous amounts of tax money into a system for other peoples’ children’s benefits, and take no parallel benefits of my own. Oh, and by the way, you’re goddam welcome. [...]

By: Crooked Timber » » Ye Ladies of Easy Leisure

Crooked Timber » » Ye Ladies of Easy Leisure — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 04:08:27 +0000

[...] So by now everyone and his same-sex partner knows that Maggie Gallagher’s stint at Volokh is one long struggle between her strong argument that marriage has many benefits and her handwaving gay people bringing down the Roman Empire. As I said originally, if you think the world is going to hell in a handbasket, you probably believe that same-sex marriage is the least of the threats to civilization-as-we-know-and-like-it. Well, via Lawyers, Guns and Money here is Leon Kass—Addie Clark Harding Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and The College at the University of Chicago, and Chairman of the President’s Commission on Bioethics—in the first of a three-part series on what’s really wrong with America: [...]

By: Arne Langsetmo

Arne Langsetmo — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 20:35:17 +0000

IF MG wants to argue for the social utility of OSM, she has to show (but fails) that SSM would in any way interfere with that societal good. No one is proposing outlawing OSM.

Cheers,

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 19:20:32 +0000

I would like to say thank you to the author of this piece for twofold reasonings. Number one, for denying me a chance for marriage. I am one of the lucky ones who have been graced with the dishonorable disorder of inability to reproduce. I can’t have kids, and I can’t stand it. But I still have the ability to love. Does this disorder make me less of a citizen of this country, let alone a person? Hell, while were at it, why don’t you take away my right to vote, or even my right to own land. Bigotry is what gets this country, as well as individuals in trouble. For whatever you reasons you have to discriminate against someone else for there belief system, traditions, race, etc. is so arrogant it makes me sick. We have all been born under the same sky, therefore we should all have the same respect for human descency and for each other. It puts us back over 150 years, when we should be ahead 150 years with everything we have to offer today. Why do we still insist on begruding others on things that they can not control? Even if they can control it, our diversity in this world is what makes us who we are. If we were all alike, same walk, same talk etc. then we would be extremely narrowminded. Without the ideas of those who think differently then us, is what creates what we have today. For example, our forefathers created a government unlike any other government that was known to man back then. They did not think like anyone else did. They thought progressively and due to that fact, we are granted the rights and privilages that we have today.

The second reason is the fact that you compare our marriage system to that of the inate sexual actions of the animal world. “Marriage is only for reproduction.” Well what happens if we reverse that statement and see where it takes us. “Reproduction is only for marriage.” Hmm… if thats the case, then I have an idea. Why don’t we get a couple of rabbits together, dress them up in a tux and gown and have a ceremony for them. Wrong answer. Humans are unlike the animalistic world in many ways. And if you believe that this is false, then you should go sleep in a tree or have a doghouse be your shelter (although my girlfriend thinks that would work for me just fine, she puts me there enough). We are much more advanced then that of your pooch who lies in the middle of the living room and licks his boys all day long. We have the gifts of love, compassion, lust and getting ladies intoxicated so we can take em home. Hehe just kidding. So why would we believe that the primative belief that we are only supposed to love to reproduce? First off, it takes away from the joy of marriage. There would be no need for a large ceremony, or engagement or anything for that matter. You mine as well, be like cavemen, beat the women over the head and bring em back to your cave, of course after saying your vows. Now granted somepeoples ideas of marriage are a little ignorant and strange. We have Anna Nicole Smith and Jennifer Lopez to blame for that.
But I believe that it is the love that makes our marriages special, and for people to say that love can not occur between two people of the same gender is completly inaccurate.

By: Crooked Timber » » Decline of Nordic Character

Crooked Timber » » Decline of Nordic Character — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 16:31:55 +0000

[...] Adding my little bit to the Maggie Gallagher pile up ; isn’t her claim-in-passing that the Roman Empire collapsed because of “death by sexual disorganization” rather entertaining? Sounds like a great way to go out to me; even more fun than Death by Chocolate (which clobbered the Aztecs, as any fule kno). Gallagher isn’t the first to advance this thesis – I linked a while back to a list which included childlessness and homosexuality among 210 extant explanations for the decline of the Roman Empire. But her claim seems no less ridiculous on its face than some of the other putative causes, which include bolshevisation, culinary excess, decline of Nordic character, female emancipation, Jewish influence, hyperthermia, tristesse and vulgarization. posted on Thursday, October 20th, 2005 at 11:29 am Post a comment [...]

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 14:35:35 +0000

Oh, and of course (from my French perspective), mariage in France can only be performed by a “Townhall officer”. Anything with the word God in it has no official value.

And France will always have a special place in my heart for that reason, among many others. 8^)

By: Z

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 13:42:19 +0000

Jyst a clarification on 88. Two brothers or sisters can’t PACS, but contrary to what Chris wrote, it was the right which suggested the idea, in part of an amendment battle (our own variety of filibuster). So they suggested both that PACS could and could not be between brothers and sisters.

The PACS is more common between heterosexual couple, as it should be from trivial demographic reason. Same-sex mariage is not legal yet, but should be within 10 years at most, if I do not misunderstand my country too much. Anyway, gay couples are already getting married in neighboring Belgium. Also, two women were granted full parental authority over the children of one of them (they used a very tricky legal disposition to achieve that).

Oh, and of course (from my French perspective), mariage in France can only be performed by a “Townhall officer”. Anything with the word God in it has no official value.

By: nick s

nick s — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 02:35:21 +0000

Then we would be literally trying to destroy marriage as an institution, just as SSM opponents say we are.

Or, alternatively, saving it from its ungodly incarnations. I’m pretty certain that all ‘drive-through & Elvis’ weddings in Las Vegas are conducted by ordained ministers. Hence the response: “Why should Christian ministers be marrying drunken pop singers on New Year binges?”