As Shell points out, it would be a sick world if children could be randomly distributed, without proper consent of their biological parents, to individuals who did not create them. A gay man or a lesbian will never create a child that will be assumed, by default, to be the property of his or her partner–custody will always require that a third party forfeit his or her parental rights of his or her own volition. This is a rule that has no exceptions, now or ever, and as a rule that continues to stand the test of time it bears no comparison to the (duly noted) exception of infertile heterosexual relationships to the rule of natural generation. If a society decides that marriages should no longer reflect this “fact of life,” this is not a liberal consequence, but rather a postmodern one.

i think marriage by government should be abolished, personally, and that everyone–gays and straights–should have to get a civil union if they want a legal union. marriage should be left up to religious institutions. that would completely disarm all the conservative yahoos (including this guy) who have a problem with the government “redefining marriage.”

there’s already precedent in some religions and some churches that a civil marriage is not recognized–that for the union to be valid it must be performed in a church. it’s about time the government saw the reverse as true as well. not to mention, some marriage licenses (especially in southern states) make reference to god and/or “our lord” and/or the gospel, a serious breach of the first amendment if you ask me. time to put an end to it.

I can think of one example in which a lesbian wouldn’t want to be the co-mother of her wife’s baby–if the wife were pregnant due to cheating.

Existing marriage law can handle this–it’s not as though heterosexual couples haven’t worried about cheating for millenia.

The law presumes the husband is the father of his wife’s children; it’s difficult, and in some states nigh-impossible, to challenge that. If we can make legal fiction trump biological fact for male-female couples, why not for same-sex couples?

Then there is all that truly strange stuff in the middle of the essay.

Ah, well. Maybe I should write an essay claiming that the conservative position is obviously that marriage is not primarily about procreation and then ask Eve if she agrees with that. Just because someone claims that something is a “liberal” position doesn’t mean that it really is.

I also love the fact that after nattering on about how essential marriage is to the survival of society, she then suggests that, rather than open it up to some more people, we should move towards abolishing it. But then she isn’t alone in the right-wing anti-marriage crowd.

You know, I have always been an opponent of the institution of marriage (and a hypocrite), but my new fellow travellers are really leading me to rethink my position…

This is exactly analogous to a wife on her husband and getting pregnant. He might not want to be the father. (And the biological father might want to claim paternity.)

I’m pretty sure most states have provisions for this. I’ll admit, I haven’t checked state law in general.

As to most or the article. I was trying to isolate things to comment on, but I just kept saying “huh”. Starting from the beginning: Are there only two moral positions regarding same sex marriage? (Well.. and later we get the Locke-Kant one. So clearly there are at least 3.)

Read position 1. Then 2?

The second position, which takes human freedom as its central and highest good, could be classified as “liberationist” or postmodern. Distrustful of traditional rules as intrinsically oppressive, it seeks the individual’s emancipation from all norms that might hamper the quest for spiritual and material autonomy. For the most radical liberationists, all universal norms are suspect, with the sole exception of something like a duty to “accept difference.”

Huh?
I suspect she can find people who takes this position about freedom and norms-. I know some. But, do these people advocate same sex marriage?

Aren’t these in fact the people who oppose marriage altoghether? Haven’t we met advocates of ssm who say they want to embrace social norms? In fact, isn’t that one of the points? I don’t know…. Puzzling.

Anyway, it just sort of continued in that vein!

Yes, they do, and they vary. Some states do not allow the “putative father” (that would be the guy who’s not the husband) to challege paternity at all. Some allow the husband to challenge paternity in divorce proceedings. None require a husband to take a paternity test before he can be considered the father of his wife’s children–even if the couple used a sperm donor, even if he was out of the country for five years, even if he was left sterile in childhood from mumps.

And my impression is that’s the way most people want it. Who wants to have to go to court to establish parental rights after every birth? It makes more sense to do it the other way around. If the putative parent wants to deny paternity, they could go to court! (Or, if the state doesn’t allow it, then you’re stuck!)

You know.. I liked the idea that we have death certificate to recognize death, and marriage certificates to recognize “generation”. (AKA birth.)

Uhmmm… what do we have birth certificates for? If the baby’s parents aren’t married do we just throw up our hands and say “Sorry, you don’t exist!”?

I also liked what appeared to be a line of reasoning that socieity does overrule biology with regard to parenthood under certain circumstances (like presumed paternity when cheatin’ wives have kids) but… that means we can’t do the same for ssm?

Very, very odd!

I’ll take that $20, please. PayPal is fine.

Seriously, you can lie and tell the State that you’re married when you’re not (perjury? what’s that?), but good luck if you try to actually rely on that lie. For, say, child support, or other parental rights. States have specific requirements for when an unmarried father’s paternity is established.

I know you were making a joke, but I thought it worth mentioning the point, because a lot of people don’t understand that paternity automagically goes with marriage in a way it otherwise doesn’t.

One of the odd things about Dr. Shell’s suggestion that we create civil unions which are similar to marriage but without the assumption of paternity (or parenthood) is that such unions are not in the interest of the state or the child.

The states interest in assumed paternity is this: Both parents are then legally responsible for the care and feeding of the kid! The state doesn’t have to “prove” anything– they just are. Hey, if there is a third fall back person, who sues and proves they are responsible, not a problem! The state *still* doesn’t have to collect taxes and pay for that kid!

So.. what’s the benefit to society of civil unions stripped of this assumption? A few people don’t have to deal with cognitive dissonance associated with forcing a non-biological parent to be legally responsible?
That’s an advantage??

It is a very puzzling suggestion.

People like Shell don’t have to have their comfort zones disturbed. (I call this the ‘cake topper’ opposition to same-sex marriage; the idea of two brides or two grooms is disturbing to some people’s order of How Things Ought to Be, and while they don’t much care who gets tax breaks or shares health insurance, they want their pretty picture intact.)

Their actual agenda seems to be to introduce marriage alternatives, normalise cohabitation and eliminate the legal system’s ability to settle divorces; most of them, upon close questioning, are anti-marriage and consider it a ‘patriarchal institution’.