For many of us, the hope has been that as same-sex marriage gains a foothold, it will seem less threatening and scary – more normal – to many people and opposition will temper. A data point from Canada:
Yesterday, the Canadian House of Commons voted to uphold same-sex marriage. According to the Global and Mail, “Prime Minister Stephen Harper has declared the contentious issue of same-sex marriage to be permanently closed…. The vote yesterday, which fulfilled a Conservative election promise, marked the sixth time since 2003 that the House of Commons has decided in favour of same-sex marriage.”
But what was striking to me was that opponents of same-sex marriage seemed simply to be going through the motions. According to the Washington Post: “The prime minister expended little visible effort to try to win the vote, and political commentators suggested that he simply wanted to put the issue behind him before another national election was called.”
{ 34 comments }
Steve LaBonne 12.08.06 at 1:10 pm
The US will catch up eventually. We’re rather like the Switzerland to which Heine said he would want to move if the world were coming to an end- since everything there is 50 years behind the times.
Jimmy 12.08.06 at 1:20 pm
As well, at least two front bench members (five in all) of Harper’s own cabinet voted against the motion, i.e. in favour of same-sex marriage.
spartikus 12.08.06 at 1:25 pm
The Conservative Party wanted to put it behind them. Social conservative groups will never give up and have already threated retribution against those Tories who voted to uphold same-sex marriage.
Jacob T. Levy 12.08.06 at 1:31 pm
it will seem less threatening and scary – more normal
Ah, yes, but now to Americans it will seem positively foreign— one of those Canadian ideas threatening from across the border!
Kevin 12.08.06 at 3:02 pm
Ah, yes, but now to Americans it will seem positively foreign—one of those Canadian ideas threatening from across the border!
So true, Jacob! Just like nationalized healthcare. God forbid!!!
Praedor Atrebates 12.08.06 at 3:05 pm
Worse still if you are gay, married, foreign, and come from Quebec! French speaking or French accent.
Craigers 12.08.06 at 4:21 pm
“Social conservative groups will never give up and have already threated retribution against those Tories who voted to uphold same-sex marriage.”
This is why liberals (and Liberals) should never abandon SSM. It’s the perfect liberal wedge issue to divide conservatives against themselves.
PROUDyke 12.08.06 at 4:22 pm
Mon Dieu! That would be me!!
PROUDyke 12.08.06 at 4:23 pm
in RE: # 6
lightly 12.08.06 at 4:30 pm
Well I’m an English-speaking heterosexual woman, but I’m also human. Would any of you Canadians care to adopt an American?
Jacob T. Levy 12.08.06 at 4:44 pm
Worse still if you are gay, married, foreign, and come from Quebec! French speaking or French accent.
Well, leaving aside the question of whether a Quebec accent counts as French, it wouldn’t happen as nobody gets married in Quebec anymore anyways. The Stanley Kurtz nightmare of the death of marriage as a custom is well underway here. Since gay marriage is now legal, he’ll undoubtedly argue that gay marriage reached its cootied hands back through time and killed heterosexual marriage in Quebec twenty years ago.
MNPundit 12.08.06 at 5:31 pm
Jacob, in the minds of most Americans it will indeed count as French.
Pangloss 12.08.06 at 10:48 pm
Harper, in effect, was a disgrace bring forward his motion. Chantal Hébert, a Toronto Star columnist, said it best I think about the nonsense motion and Harper in particular:”This week, Harper became the first post-war Prime Minister to ask the Commons to consider taking away the rights of a Canadian minority.”
Fitz 12.09.06 at 10:34 am
I’m afraid Jacob is right…
“The Stanley Kurtz nightmare of the death of marriage as a custom is well underway here. Since gay marriage is now legal, he’ll undoubtedly argue that gay marriage reached its cootied hands back through time and killed heterosexual marriage in Quebec twenty years ago.”
It almost makes me think your NOT intentionally obfuscating around the analysis that same-sex marriage will continue exacerbate this trend….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/20/AR2006112001272.html
Making it impossible to seriously address this….
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/misc/wedlock.pdf
Ultimately cumulating in world-view that cant even offer a principled reason to avoid this.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/301
Are you ALL that steeped in Logical Positivism that you cant figure out whats going on. Or is it that you just dont care?
Nicholas Weininger 12.09.06 at 12:53 pm
fitz: put in one vote here for “don’t care”.
Don’t care about the “French decline in marriage” thing, that is; what the French choose to do is their own business. About the “triad getting a civil union in Holland” thing: I do care about that; I think it’s great; I hope it will lead to more legal recognition of polyamorous relationships.
Next question?
Anthony 12.09.06 at 1:26 pm
as a canadian, and an albertan, i am pretty sure that we are not really concerned about being nice to fags, as much as we believe basically
a) its no ones business
b) the issue is kind of boring.
Matt Weiner 12.09.06 at 3:42 pm
Fitz is cross-posting comments here and at Lawyers Guns and Money again. Anyone want to take bets as to what he thinks he means by “Logical Positivism”?
aaron 12.09.06 at 4:01 pm
Eventually people will realize that the only thing sillier than arguing for same sex marriage is arguing against it.
engels 12.09.06 at 4:07 pm
Are yes Fitz, it’s all the fault of legal positivism. H.L.A. Hart – the Osama bin Laden of legal theory…
engels 12.09.06 at 5:54 pm
Oh, you said “logical positivism”. Now I’m confused.
Fitz 12.09.06 at 7:19 pm
Nicholas Weininger
“Next question?”
The link in the middle Nick….
“don’t careâ€
I do.
Matt 12.09.06 at 7:49 pm
Matt W- I think there’s an awfully good chance that even Fritz doesn’t know what he means by “logical positivism”. (He heard it was bad once, though.)
Nicholas Weininger 12.09.06 at 8:58 pm
fitz: FWIW, from the executive summary of that study:
“The answer provided by research to date is that pre-existing factors account for much but not all of the difficulties experienced by children and adults in single-parent families. Despite consistent evidence of greater risk, the research also shows that the majority of children in single parent families develop normally. The exact magnitude of the effects that are caused by nonmarital childbearing has not been isolated, but effects have been characterized as small to moderate, depending on the study.”
The next para goes on to say that that evidence of greater risk comes mostly from studies of single-parent families: not gay couples, not unmarried straight couples in France, not Dutch triads. It seems likely that children raised by such couples would do at least as well, and probably better, than those raised by a single parent.
So the report basically doesn’t support your contentions at all: it provides no reason to believe that the phenomena described in the other two links are harmful. Moreover, even the claims of harm in the single-parent case are minimized and hedged.
Besides which, accepting superstition, prudery, and homophobia in return for slightly better child-development outcomes would be a rotten trade even if it were a feasible one. The point of bringing up children well is so that they can enjoy the freedom of the adult world.
nick s 12.09.06 at 9:07 pm
Twitz can prove he cares in two ways: by not getting gay-married, and shutting up.
engels 12.09.06 at 11:37 pm
The number one threat America faces today is — gay-married verificationists.
Tracy W 12.10.06 at 1:02 am
About the “triad getting a civil union in Holland†thing: I do care about that; I think it’s great; I hope it will lead to more legal recognition of polyamorous relationships.
While I have never been able to see a reason as to why single-sex marriage would change existing marriages, I think polyamorous marriage would change existing marriages and not in a way that benefits existing marriages.
Marriage comes with various legal benefits that are not achievable by contract. Two key ones are:
– the right not to be compelled to testify against your spouse in court.
– the right to migrate to your spouse’s country of citizenship.
If polyamarous groups are afforded the same rights of marriage, I predict it won’t take long at all before these rights are abused – eg every member of a criminal gang “marries” each other so as to avoid not testifying. And this would thereby lead to a reduction in the legal benefits of marriage.
Polyamarous marriage – or some sort of legal recognition that mimics monogamous marriage – would change marriage in a way that same-sex marriage does not. If you’re talking about some sort of legal recognition that’s just a shortcut to what can be done by contract (eg inheritance rights), I don’t object to such legal recongition. If you’re in favour of polyamarous marriage, that’s going to be a very big change, and since I am married to a man with citizenship of a different country, one I oppose.
Uncle Kvetch 12.10.06 at 8:08 am
The point of bringing up children well is so that they can enjoy the freedom of the adult world.
That’s a very nice way of putting it, NW. Thanks.
dave 12.10.06 at 11:33 am
When I saw “triad marriage” above, I thought that was exactly what was meant: a marriage of convenience for Organised Crime.
But I think you mean “avoid testifying”, not “avoid not testifying”.
As for fitz, I think his only reference for Logical Positivism is the Monty Python Philosophers Sketch, where, at the University of Woollomoolloo: “I’m in charge of Logical Positivism, and Bruce is in charge of the sheep dip!”.
engels 12.10.06 at 10:36 pm
Tracy – FWIW there are quite a lot of countries where polygamy is already permitted. Your theory would suggest that in those jurisdictions, criminals would be getting married en masse. If that’s been happening, I never heard of it, so I have to say that your prediction does not sound particularly plausible.
John Quiggin 12.11.06 at 4:51 am
Is this like one of those Volokh scenarios where an entire foreign army surrenders, then brings the US to its knees with habeas corpus actions, tying up the lawyers and judges who are the vital engine of any military campaign?
Tracy W 12.11.06 at 4:20 pm
Those countries are not based on Anglo-Saxon law – do they have a similar right not to be compelled to testify against your spouse?
And in most cases those are not countries that lots of people want to migrate to, unlike the West.
Tracy W 12.11.06 at 4:23 pm
Thanks Dave for correcting my language (this is serious thanks, not sarcasm).
I didn’t think you were aiming for marriages of convenience to help in the pursuit of crime. I think that extending marriage to cover multiple parties will have effects unintended by proponents of polygamous marriages, which will impact on monogamous marriages in a way that same-sex marriage does not.
If we’re talking about some sort of legal recognition that isn’t the same as marriage then that’s different.
Mr. Anderson 12.12.06 at 5:11 pm
Why not make a new term for gay-marriage – like garriage! The thing that bugs some people is the fact that marriage began as a religious institution – I think the debate over rights is over.
Some people love to hump animals, should we call that marriage also ? (I am sure that the dog would consent right ?) I am not joking either…
Randy McDonald 12.13.06 at 6:45 pm
“Some people love to hump animals, should we call that marriage also ? (I am sure that the dog would consent right ?) I am not joking either…”
This is supposed to be funny, right?
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