Queers As Condoms And Other Illogical Objections To Same-Sex Marriage
| June 21st, 2005I came across this article about Margaret Somerville, a Canadian ethicist who opposes same-sex marriage (SSM), via Family Scholars Blog. Ms. Somerville is worried “that you will be able to make a baby probably in the future from two ovum, or two sperm”; in her view, admitting that same-sex couples have a right to marry would lead to a right to make a baby from two ovum or sperm. And that would be (she says) bad for children.
As usual, I object to the notion that in order to prevent __________ (whether you fill in the blank with group marriage, incest, or Artificial Reproductive Technology), it is justifiable to punish same-sex couples and their children by denying them equality. I call this line of thinking “queers are condoms.” Margaret Somerville’s argument assumes that queers and their kids, like condoms, are disposable things, useful only for preventing some unwanted outcome. I think that view is objectively less accurate than the view that queers and their kids are people, and their fundamental human rights are not disposable.
What struck me about this article, though, was this stunning piece of bad logic:
Somerville said society is ethically bound to a principle of non-malevolence, or of doing no harm when making such sweeping changes.
The burden of proof that same-sex marriage will not harm the rights of children rests with those making the change, not those who oppose it, she said.
Given her academic background, Ms. Somerville must be aware that it’s logically impossible to prove a negative - such as “same-sex marriage will not harm the rights of children.” I can no more logically prove that than I can logically prove that same-sex marriage will not cause the moon to fall out of its orbit.
If Ms. Somerville’s “principle of non-malevolence” had been applied historically, no advances in civil rights would have happened, ever. It would not have been possible, for example, to prove ahead of time that women’s right to vote wouldn’t “harm the rights of children”; presumably Ms. Somerville, had she been alive at the time, would have opposed suffrage.
It’s also striking, to me, that Ms. Somerville doesn’t call for a balance test; she doesn’t say we should consider the harms done to queers and their children by inequality, compare that to the harms she suspects SSM will cause children, and then choose the lesser harm. I might not agree with that approach, but it would at least show an awareness that queers and their children are human beings, and their rights have some value.
Instead, she says it’s up to advocates of SSM to prove that SSM will cause no harm to children, and if that can’t be proved than SSM isn’t justified. Her logic - at least, as it’s stated in this article - implicitly assumes that any amount of harm to “children” - however slight or inconsequential - automatically outweighs any harms done to queers and their children, however huge and important.
June 21st, 2005 at 5:45 am
Hmmmm. I think the gay marriage campaign would probably get a lot further if they called it something other than marriage. Would it generate as much outrage as it does now if it was called a partnership? Probably not. In my mind, it is wrong to exclude a group of people from mating for life but I can’t help but think the gay rights movement isn’t doing itself any favors by clinging so tenaciously to that one word.
Get the rights, then the term. That’s a fight people might actually win.
I also can’t help but think that providing every piece of conservative agenda pushing with a commentary (not you specifically mind) is probably not the best thing to do. By commenting on it, it highlights a lot of what makes some afraid of homosexuality in the first place.
The fact is, it might harm children in the way that socialization could be difficult. There’s no real argument against that. The US is half crazy with very concrete definitions of god law and they will be the ones to make integration difficult. Like all civil rights, there would be a time of conflict.
What damage is the inability to marry doing? Is it benefits? Or just exclusion? I’d like to see these articulated instead of ‘because we should.’ Not to be argumentative mind but because I’d like to see something more concrete than the statement of oppression. (Which is subjective at best.)
This comment was written by criminallyvulgar.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 6:45 am
Why do people opposing SSM and SS parenting always go back to this? Pretending that the majority of children raised by heterosexuals have both the mother and father in the household living peacefully is nonsense. I was raised solely by my mother, most of my friends had both parents, but yet they wanted to have my mother for their ‘parents’ when we were children and still feel that way as adults. Being happy, loved, and safe in any household is far more important to a child than who makes up the parental unit.
This comment was written by ccw.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 6:56 am
“She pointed to the growing evidence that children born as a result of donated sperm or ova, or “donor conceived adults” are “almost unanimously alleging that their needs, their well-being, their psychological development, even, has been ignored.”
Where is she getting this information from? I know there have been multiple studies that have shown otherwise. Sweeping generalizations such as this one show she is hardly sympathetic to members of the LGBT community.
But this is my favorite quote:
“Somerville pointed out that the right to marry is a complex right that includes the right to form a family. “So if it is wrongful discrimination to prevent same-sex couples from marrying, I would argue to you that it’s wrongful discrimination to prevent them from having a child in the only ways that would be possible for them,” she said. ”
So in order to prevent me from being discriminated against, you would deny me the right to marry. Gee thanks- I’m so glad that you’re looking out for my best interest here. What would I do without allies like you? Also, where is she getting this belief that SS couples would have to resort to cloning in order to have children? There are a variety of proven methods available ““adoption, IVF, and surrogate parenting. What she really is uncomfortable with is the development of a family unit outside the accepted norm- and she should just state this instead of hiding her bigotry in science.
This comment was written by Sydney.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 7:36 am
It’s also striking, to me, that Ms. Somerville doesn’t call for a balance test; she doesn’t say we should consider the harms done to queers and their children by inequality
Boomshot.
And all this “it’s for the kids” nonsense is really making me tired. Is she also advocating wresting children away from single parents (like myself)? No? I guess that doesn’t play as well—not that she wouldn’t want to get around to that too, after queer folk are put in their place.
This comment was written by La Lubu.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 7:47 am
What’s striking about Ms. Somerville’s argument is that it can be used to argue against heterosexual marriage since we can document numerous cases in which that type of marriage HAS harmed the rights children (e.g., murder, incest, physical and emotional abuse, divorce and custody disputes).
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 8:10 am
… but queers are raising families now, w/o the benefits of SSM. I don’t see the ready connection between marriage and children. Is she assuming that queers just want to be mini-hets?
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 8:30 am
It also assume that gays and lesbians are just going to quit have kids if they can’t get married. It’s nonsensical.
This comment was written by Res Ipsa.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 9:00 am
The “principle of non-malevolence” sounds pretty much exactly like the “precautionary principle” that’s so popular among environmentalists.
This comment was written by Stentor.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 9:27 am
AndiF: What’s striking about Ms. Somerville’s argument is that it can be used to argue against heterosexual marriage since we can document numerous cases in which that type of marriage HAS harmed the rights children (e.g., murder, incest, physical and emotional abuse, divorce and custody disputes).
But heaven forefend if you point out THAT logical flaw. But what really sucks is that people are going to read what she says and because she somehow managed to get a job as a law professor, they’re going to think she is a credible source of information. Just what we need- more misinformation and logical inconsistent arguments spread.
This comment was written by Sydney.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 9:29 am
>>Hmmmm. I think the gay marriage campaign would probably get a lot further if they called it something other than marriage. Would it generate as much outrage as it does now if it was called a partnership? Probably not. In my mind, it is wrong to exclude a group of people from mating for life but I can’t help but think the gay rights movement isn’t doing itself any favors by clinging so tenaciously to that one word.>>
Yes, well, you’re completely wrong:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/magazine/19ANTIGAY.html?pagewanted=print
(Hopefully, this link will work. If not, go to nytimes.com and search “antigay” or “gay marriage.”)
Here’s my favorite quote, about a woman who won’t let me make medical decisions for my future husband because she thinks it might eventually lead to us being permitted to marry:
“‘We had bills in our State Legislature last year to protect marriage,’ Laura said. ‘I didn’t understand why they didn’t go through, especially when polls show people in this state and in the country overwhelmingly support traditional marriage.’ With Stiegler’s encouragement, Laura got in her car one day and drove to Annapolis, where there was a bill before the Legislature that would give domestic partners in Maryland the right to make medical decisions for each other. She saw it as a back-door attempt to get government authorization of gay unions, and with the help of an aide to a conservative state legislator, she found herself testifying against it. ”
But even if you hadn’t already been proved wrong in fact, think about the reasoning behind what you’re saying. “They don’t really dislike you or feel bigoted towards you; they don’t really want to exclude you or deprive you of rights. All they’re asking is that you not demand inclusion or equality, or insist that you are anything like them.”
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 10:38 am
It’s sort of been touched on already, but one of the things that upsets me most in the ‘children’ argument is that it seems to focus on some children other than those that are directly affected - primarily the children of heterosexual’s, via exposure? Not sure - maybe I’m reading it wrong.
Either way, no studies back up any indication that children of gay parents do any worse or better than those of straight parents. As I’ve stated before, gut instinct tells me that it’s likely that children of gay parents might have a better time of it because planning must occur for a gay couple to have children (outside of children they may have brought into the relationship from previous relationships), so they are more likely to be prepared and ready for the change. That seems to me to be a far more stable environment than two biological parents that end up dealing with an unexpected and often times unwanted pregnancy (especially young parents who haven’t really gotten a chance to be an adult on their own, let alone with children).
How many children of gays and lesbians do they actually talk to? How many can they say are poorly adjusted or feel they were poorly parented because the parent was gay? I can say from personal experience that I talk to 1 person every day, and his siblings pretty frequently and they all are great people.
And yet again (broken record here), it’s still inappropriate to try to define child rearing and marriage as interchangeable when the two relationships do not rely on or require each other to occur.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 10:43 am
The “principle of non-malevolence”? sounds pretty much exactly like the “precautionary principle”? that’s so popular among environmentalists.
Except, as has been pointed out, families consisting of same-sex couples and children already exist in large numbers. It’s not like introducing a new organism into an ecology. The family has already changed, through enormous efforts. We want to stop the repression of families that already exist.
That’s the trouble with the argument that tradition has a wisdom that must be respected, and that new ideas introduced abruptly cause havoc: it ignores how those “new ideas” are themselves centuries old, and people have been trying to make them work in defiance of repression and oppression.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 10:59 am
“The “principle of non-malevolence”? sounds pretty much exactly like the “precautionary principle”? that’s so popular among environmentalists.”
Several people here have already pointed out that many children are already being raised by queer parents. So, can I skip that bit and go straight to the fact that the very idea that someone is pushing a line that queer-parent families might somehow “contaminate” other “normal” families is creeping me right out? I mean, wt-bloody-f?
And this doesn’t even touch on the fact that the concept of “nuclear family” that is being defended here is not only culturally-specific but also a relatively recent development.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 11:08 am
Damn! The Abyss of Nothingness seems to have devoured my last post, in which I explained that when I wrote about the concept of family being defended “here”, the “here” was the article about Somerville, not this blog.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 11:14 am
>>So, can I skip that bit and go straight to the fact that the very idea that someone is pushing a line that queer-parent families might somehow “contaminate”? other “normal”? families is creeping me right out? I mean, wt-bloody-f?>>
Why? Gays, radon, toxic mold–I see nothing potentially offensive or demeaning about the comparison. I kind of like zebra mussels.
Also, shut up about femme covert and polygamy already. Pointing out that marriage as “traditionalists” now define it is neither eternal, universal, or necessarily traditional is destructive to marriage. Marriage-dismantler!
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 11:28 am
The burden of proof that same-sex marriage will not harm the rights of children rests with those making the change, not those who oppose it, she said.
A family scholar she may be, but as a legal scholar she gets a big fat F.
Laws prohibiting same-sex marriage are facially discriminatory. It is therefore incumbent on the government to prove why such discrimination is justifiable.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 11:30 am
The burden of proof is on her.
If you want to deny a group of people equality and happiness, you’d better have a DAMN good reason for it.
I mean, even people suspected of violent crime get better treatment than this woman advocates: the burden of proof is on the prosecution. It’s innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. And that is as it should be.
No one should have to prove they are worthy of equality.
And if she can argue that “gay marriage harms children,” then it could also be argued that overzealous protection of children harms gays. Specifically, the banning of something that might or might not harm children, does harm gays, and there’s this legal concept called “balance of hardships” which basically chooses the option that would cause the least harm to the loser, and as gays would be harmed more by the banning of gay marriage than children would be harmed by the allowance of it, the balance of hardships would protect gay rights unless (guess who) the anti-gay-marriage crowd could prove that children would be harmed more by gay marriage than gays would be harmed by the lack of it.
Which, of course, makes my point all over again. Ms. Somerville? You want to interfere with other people’s lives? You want to limit other people’s options? YOU tell us why.
This comment was written by Kyra.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 11:56 am
In addition to the other good points made here, I wonder aloud how Somerville feels about same-sex couples who can’t –or don’t intend to– have or raise children being permitted to marry ? I mean, two women in their fifties who have passed menopause and/or whose children are already grown could still fall in love with each other and desire marriage. What then ? Perhaps following Somerville’s logic, we could demand signed, stated affadavits from them both, in which they would promise not to adopt or get themselves cloned, or whatever. Perhaps they could promise not to associate with their own grown children or their grandchildren. After that, they could marry.
The mind reels. :/
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 1:09 pm
I think the gay marriage campaign would probably get a lot further if they called it something other than marriage.
It wouldn’t be marriage, then. The law doesn’t work that way.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 1:16 pm
Amp, am I still persona non grata here? I hope you won’t mind if I come here from time to time to join the discussion on subjects that are dear to me.
Sydney write: “So in order to prevent me from being discriminated against, you would deny me the right to marry. ”
This is a terrible hurtful lie, of course no one is denying anyone the right to marry. The right exists for everyone, we all have a duty to marry and you are not exempt.
We are just trying to prevent you from claiming a right to attempt same-sex procreation. The right to procreate - to combine your gametes if you can - exists in every marriage, even same-sex marraiges. There should be no right to same-sex procreation, not just for the safety of the children created (though that is enough) but also because of the effect such a move would have on our attitudes toward designer babies and manufacture of people and on our appreciation of sexuality and the need for marriage to join the sexes and create equality.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 1:35 pm
>>It wouldn’t be marriage, then. The law doesn’t work that way. >>
Christ. THANK YOU.
Euphemisms would make for very bad law. “[Not marriage]” means not-marriage: other than, weaker than, less than. And if “[not marriage]” is written into the law as the just and proper term for what we have, gay people will be treated exactly as though they are not married.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 1:36 pm
I can show you a lot of children hurt by heterosexual relationships, inlcuding heterosexual church ordained marriages. I can’t say the same for children of same sex relationships. If parthenogenic reproduction (two sperm would present a lethal mutation as one X chromosome is necessary) were to become available for human use, it would be something developed at the insistance of straight couples who prefer to have a biological child over adoption. Pity these folks are willing to further penalize children that gay couples would be willing to adopt.
This comment was written by Ol Cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 1:47 pm
Part of the point of advocating gay marriage is that it’s a move to establish that same sex relationships are just as real and valuable as opposite sex relationships. Which is exactly why the right is opposed to gay marriage. Compromising on that point would be a surrender.
You know, as a child, I met lots of adults of both genders who were not my parents. Also, lots of other children of both genders. It’s not like it’s common for people to grow up in isolated farmsteads with no human contact outside their family anymore.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 2:31 pm
We are just trying to prevent you from claiming a right to attempt same-sex procreation.
More bargain-basement legal scholarship.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 2:36 pm
criminallyvulgar: If marriage were called something else for gays, then all the rights and responsibilities associated with the legal definition and contract of marriage would not apply. That would mean changing each of those laws. And each change would be a battle that would have to be won. The rights reside in the word.
This comment was written by public65.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 3:01 pm
“I wonder aloud how Somerville feels about same-sex couples who can’t ““or don’t intend to”“ have or raise children being permitted to marry ?”
Hell, what about straight couples who don’t intend to have or raise children? Is my marriage still “real” even though we have decided we want to remain childless? Or is it okay for us to make that decision and still be “really” married when it wouldn’t be for a same-sex couple?
None of this makes any damn sense, including, I might add, the notion that same-sex marriage will automatically lead to designer babies. I’m far more worried that the current American middle-class obsession with absolute perfection (including physical) and over-achievement in even the youngest of children will lead to this, or possibly those homophobics who would be delighted to find the “gay gene” so they can breed it out of humanity. Not same-sex parents.
Anyhoo, I already know same-sex parents who have managed to conceive by other means (hello, friendly Sperm Donor). It’s important to remember that not everyone insists on a child’s carrying their genes in order to consider that child worthy of love.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 3:16 pm
Mr. Sperm-and-eggs:
Oh, get real. If that were the intent, you’d be putting out laws blocking that, not blocking same sex marriages. Because if you block same sex marriages, there’s nothing stopping opposite sex marriages from using cloning. Or other odd fettility treatments, including lots of ones we already know have moral issues, like surrogate wombs. It’s heterosexuals who’re causing the harm. Not same sex couples.
If you really were against missuse of reproductive technology of this, you’d be focusing on the areas where damage is already being done, not on some hobgoblin of the future.
You’re just not credible.
PS. Sshh, dear, don’t cause a fuss. I’ll have your sperm. I love it. I’m having sperm sperm sperm sperm sperm sperm sperm beaked beans sperm sperm sperm and sperm!
PPS Sperm! Sperm! Sperm! Sperm! Lovely Sperm! Wonderful spam!
PPPS Bloody Vikings! Shut UP! Baked beans are off.
PPPPS Well could I have her sperm instead of the baked beans then?
Sorry, Amp. I couldn’t resist.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 3:24 pm
Argh. So eugenics is now one of the arguments in banning SSM? Isn’t that incredibly tunnel visioned? Eugenics is an issue regardless of SSM, and nothing that they do or don’t do is going to change that.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 3:42 pm
Kim:
They use the eugenics argument against PP as well because they know it raises red flags (it’s not a legitimate argument). Interestingly, these same people argue the need for heterosexual Americans to reproduce is because our population growth (like some European countries) is based on immigration and reproduction by immigrants, not by “Americans” having babies. Is there really a difference between Eugenics and preferential breeding?
This comment was written by Ol Cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 3:57 pm
>>Argh. So eugenics is now one of the arguments in banning SSM? Isn’t that incredibly tunnel visioned? Eugenics is an issue regardless of SSM, and nothing that they do or don’t do is going to change that. >>
Right. And what did Mary Daly used to call these kinds of arguments? Like when feminists were referred to as Nazis, or when women were described as the violent, rapine invaders?
Oh, right.
Reversals.
You’re trying to restrict our right to have and raise children by reducing us to second-class citizens, and we’re the fucking eugenicists?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 4:04 pm
>>Is there really a difference between Eugenics and preferential breeding?>>
Yes. It’s like the difference between natalism and white flight.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 6:09 pm
My sister had to write a paper for her senior English class wherein she chose one of the UN’s “universal human rights” and argued it was the most commonly violated. This is the one she chose:
My sister argued that not allowing same-sex marriage was a violation of this right. She received a B on the paper because her teacher believed that her argument was sound but her premise was wrong: the wording “men and women” was chosen to designate protection only for cross-sex couples.
That sounds to me like grade-A bullshit. But it got me thinking–legally speaking, who has the right to marry? Does each individual have a right to marry? Or does the right belong to the couple as a unit? This seems like it might be important in the legal battle for same-sex marriage. Any legal scholars out there to help me/us out with this?
This comment was written by Dresden.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2005 at 7:33 pm
In the strictly legal sense, in the US, nobody has an unrestricted right to marry. The long history of statutory restrictions on marriage basically upholds itself under our precedental system.
There’s no specific right to marry enumerated in the US constitution or in any state constitutions that I know of. The generalized right would doubtless be construed as flowing from the “pursuit of happiness” clause, which is an individual right.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 6:35 am
In the strictly legal sense, no rights are “unrestricted.”
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 7:39 am
John Howard: “This is a terrible hurtful lie, of course no one is denying anyone the right to marry. The right exists for everyone, we all have a duty to marry and you are not exempt.
We are just trying to prevent you from claiming a right to attempt same-sex procreation. The right to procreate - to combine your gametes if you can - exists in every marriage, even same-sex marraiges. There should be no right to same-sex procreation, not just for the safety of the children created (though that is enough) but also because of the effect such a move would have on our attitudes toward designer babies and manufacture of people and on our appreciation of sexuality and the need for marriage to join the sexes and create equality.”?
I’m sorry, I didn’t see this response earlier. Although most of the others have already brought up the points I would have, there is one question I would like to pose to you John Howard. Do you really believe that a law should be passed, a law that restricts on an individual’s personal freedoms, because of what you’re worried could happen? Especially when it’s been shown by credible science that what you believe may happen is not only unlikely, but is more apt to happen within what’s already permitted in our current society? I honestly would like to hear your answer to this because it seems like every time the discussion on SSM comes up, the first reason I hear against it is “well, think about the potential of cloning children”? and I just don’t understand this mentality and how it’s based in our actual reality. If you come back to this post, please post a response- one that you would give to someone you were trying to convince, not someone whom you’re trying to annoy. I am genuinely intrigued to see how your though process is working here.
This comment was written by Sydney.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 9:26 am
>>I honestly would like to hear your answer to this because it seems like every time the discussion on SSM comes up, the first reason I hear against it is “well, think about the potential of cloning children”? and I just don’t understand this mentality and how it’s based in our actual reality.>>
Yes, exactly. This argument is insane. It’s based on potential problems with a technology still in its infancy, not exclusive to same-sex partnerships, and only peripherally connected to the right to same-sex marriage. Preventing same-sex marriage won’t prevent same-sex couples from same-sex reproduction, and allowing same-sex marriage won’t prevent further laws against same-sex reproduction. It’s like arguing that full individual citizenship complete with bodily sovereignty is bad and dangerous because it’ll eventually result in people cloning _themselves_. Do you have some other real, sensible, non-loonball problem with same-sex marriage?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 10:54 am
Thank you, Robert; the “pursuit of happiness” clause seems like a fruitful constitutional basis for the right to marry. And it’s true,mythago, that no right is really “unrestricted.” Those comments lead me to ask another question:
Does anyone know of any specific laws currently on the books that restrict marriage (other than those banning SSM, that is), on the state or federal level?
I mean restrictions either on getting married or on what rights/priveleges people have within a marriage. I have no doubt such laws exist, I just have no idea what they are. I’m looking for such laws in PA (my home state) right now.
This comment was written by Dresden.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:11 am
Banning non egg and sprem procreation would of course apply to everyone regardless of their marital status and regardless of their sexual preferences. It certainly needs to be done, because there are indeed people who would try to do it. There is no harm in banning something in advance, no principle that says we have to wait for a problem to exist before we can address it. Global warming is a case in point.
Do you support a ban on non egg and sperm, none male-female reproduction or do you believe there is a right to try to combine the genes of two people of the same sex so they can have children together?
Somerville understands that there are people who want this right. Undoubtably some people here will say, like Galois did, that same-sex couples should have the equal right to procreate. They will apply the same logic used in the SSM debate to the SSP debate. Thus, we should address SSP now, and apply the same arguments against SSM that we apply to SSP, because procreation rights and marriage rights are synonymous at the very core. There is no couple allowed one but denied the other.
Piny, body sovereignity woudln’t be violated by a law against cloning. A ban on non egg and sperm procreation would ban cloning, and it wouldn’t infringe on anyone’s rights. Thre is no inherent right to clone in citizenship, but there is an inherent right to procreate in marriage.
Allowing SSM but banning same-sex couples from procreating would change the fundamental rights of marriage, because there can’t be some marriages more equal than others. It will have to mean that marriage doesn’t grant procreation rights any more. That will be another essential victory for Margeret Sanger eugenicists, who cringe at the thought of unfit people breeding.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:12 am
You can’t marry a minor, so there’s that.
This comment was written by Amanda.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:22 am
All states have consanguinity laws; no marrying your brother. In some states there are restrictions on cousin marriages.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:26 am
Let me be the first to say, sure, why not. I think eugenics is an intimidating thing, but it isn’t necessarily all bad. My husband and I both agree that if we could ensure that we would have children that wouldn’t inherit some of our potential genes, we’d do it in a heartbeat (IE: Avoid diabetes, avoid scoliosis, avoid allergies etc.). If science can help people have children that want them but can’t have them without the assistance of science, yep, lets do it. My concern lies more in people becoming parents that aren’t fit parents. Not sure how to regulate that, however, since I think that more unfit parents come from the hetero camp since it’s easier in general for people actively having child producing types of sex to get pregnant, either intentionally or not.
Either way, eugenics has zero and zilch to do with SSM. Bad argument.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:28 am
Umm, there is a right to procreate period. If your beef is with good parenting (which I would support!) then why not focus it in the correct direction, rather than trying to blame gays for what is primarily a straight person problem? Ehhhhh?
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:37 am
John Howard, do you want to ban marriage for everyone who can’t have biological children?
If yes, then you’re clearly advocating “chang[ing] the fundamental rights of marriage.” Suddenly current marriages would be null and void as soon as the woman reaches menopause. Suddenly current marriages in which one person is infertile would have to be broken apart. They literally don’t include “an inherent right to procreate.”
If no, well, your entire argument goes right out the window. You’d be saying, “We should ban marriage for people who can’t have a biological child–unless one of them is male and one is female.” Which is completely illogical and goes against your claim so far.
It will have to mean that marriage doesn’t grant procreation rights any more.
Just to be clear, marriage already doesn’t grant procreation rights. You can get married and not procreate; you can procreate and not marry; the two function independently.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:39 am
>>There is no harm in banning something in advance, no principle that says we have to wait for a problem to exist before we can address it. Global warming is a case in point.>>
Actually, we do have to wait for some logical connection between two things. There is a sensible logical association between greenhouse gasses and global warming: pumping a bunch of chemicals into the atmosphere _probably_ alters the chemical composition of the atmosphere. You have not proven or successfully argued any connection between SSP and SSM.
>>Do you support a ban on non egg and sperm, none male-female reproduction or do you believe there is a right to try to combine the genes of two people of the same sex so they can have children together?>>
They are separate questions, like whether my partner and I have the right to a marriage and whether any married couple has the right to conceive a child via IVF. They don’t have to be addressed at the same time; the legal right to one does not equal the legal right to the other.
>>Thus, we should address SSP now, and apply the same arguments against SSM that we apply to SSP, because procreation rights and marriage rights are synonymous at the very core. There is no couple allowed one but denied the other.>>
Actually, yes, there are couples allowed one but denied the other. Gay people are not currently forbidden the right to procreate via same-sex reproduction. They are completely forbidden the right to marry. It is entirely possible that they will be allowed to procreate via same-sex reproduction once it’s, you know, possible–since they currently have the right to bear and raise children under available technologies like IVF and surrogacy–but still not be allowed to call their partnerships marriages.
There are also lots of couples who have marriages but have no children or have children that aren’t biologically related to both of them, so marriage cannot be said to be synonymous with procreation or with a necessarily procreative arrangement.
>>Allowing SSM but banning same-sex couples from procreating would change the fundamental rights of marriage, because there can’t be some marriages more equal than others. It will have to mean that marriage doesn’t grant procreation rights any more. That will be another essential victory for Margeret Sanger eugenicists, who cringe at the thought of unfit people breeding.>>
So you’re actually doing me a favor! By preventing me from gaining _any kind_ of marriage, however partial or compromised, you’re…saving me from a slightly-less-equal kind of marriage.
Sigh.
Okay. First of all, eugenicists cringe at the idea of unfit people _passing on their genes_. Gay people can already do that, or were you unaware that there are plenty of ways for gay people to reproduce already, albeit not with each other? I can breed all I want; I just can’t have children that happen to also be my partner’s.
Second, preventing x technology from general use on the general grounds that any children created would be at greater risk of congenital health problems is not a homophobic rationale. Trust me. I’m actually queer, and I’m not offended. I appreciate your attempt at sensitivity, but you’re wrong. A general prohibition would happen to have a disparate impact on gay people who want to combine their genes, but that could be said of any regulation of any reproductive technology gay people happen to use in large numbers.
Preventing same-sex marriage per se, however, or insisting that same-sex marriages aren’t valid because Lance’s children will never have Bruce’s eyes, _is_ heterosexist. And it does have a real, terrible impact on same-sex marriages and the children that result from them.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:40 am
To add to the list:
If you’re in prison, you have the right to marry or be married, but not to conceive a child with your spouse.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 12:06 pm
Dammit, I need to check this site more often! I missed all the fun.
John Howard, first off I want to say thank you for posting an explanation of your beliefs. I may not agree with you, but i’m glad you gave us an explanation.
This being said, I don’t believe that you’ve created a convincing link between SSM and SSP. Much of what you said was disputed neatly by Piny, Kim, and Hestia so I will spare everyone here the repetition. However, without that link proving that SSM and SSP but NOT heterosexual marriage/parenting will have a negative effect on society, I do not believe that you are able to provide a good reason why I should not be able to be marry a woman. Do have any other information to provide?
This comment was written by Sydney.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 12:37 pm
Undoubtably some people here will say, like Galois did, that same-sex couples should have the equal right to procreate.
Kim, Hestia, and Piny have fairly well covered things, but since my name was brought up here I thought I’d throw in my two cents. As they noted procreation rights are not tied up with marriage rights. Under federal jurisprudence, the right to procreate is part of a larger umbrella known as the right to privacy. As Justice Brennan wrote for the majority in Eisenstadt
Still, let us suppose for the sake of argument, that marriage did bestow some new right to procreation that inheres in the couple. What are the details of this right and should it apply to same-sex couples as well? In previous conversations with John Howard it seems he believes the right consisted of a right to have sex, pray, and take vitamins. Well same-sex couples already have a right to have sex. Their right to pray should be protected by the first amendment. And I would support their right to take vitamins subject to the same FDA regulation process that would be involved for straights taking vitamins.
What if one believes that this marital right to procreate also includes a right for others to conduct scientific experiments that, although unlikely, could some day result in the ability to take another cell and modify into an egg cell or sperm cell for the purpose of reproduction? Frankly I don’t see any reason to believe that a right to procreate includes a right to develop or use such hypothetical technology, but suppose it did. Is there any reason to permit opposite-sex couples to use this technology, but not same-sex couples? I certainly see ethical concerns here, but those concerns are not unique to same-sex couples. If someone has a problem with any existing or hypothetical technology, they should speak out against it. But if that technology is more apt to be used by heterosexuals and yet the speaker singles out gays and lesbians one has to wonder what the speaker’s actual priorities are.
This comment was written by Galois.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 12:55 pm
>John Howard, do you want to ban marriage for everyone who can’t have biological children?
Marriage is already banned for couples who are prohibited from procreating together. I would add same-sex couples to the list that includes siblings, children, etc. Note that there is a difference between being prohibited from procreating together, by any method, and not procreating together but still having the right to. No marriage is prohibited from procreating together.
>Just to be clear, marriage already doesn’t grant procreation rights. You can get married and not procreate; you can procreate and not marry; the two function independently.
Yes, but a couple can’t get married and be prohibited from procreating. A couple can be prohibited from procreating, like siblings, children, etc, and these couples - exactly these couples and only these couples - are prohibted from marrying.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:04 pm
No marriage is prohibited from procreating together.
In some states you can marry your cousin if you can prove you are infertile.
http://www.cousincouples.com/info/states.shtml
This comment was written by VK.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:08 pm
Galois, prayer and vitamins won’t change a sperm to an egg. If a man and another man procreate, it would not combine an egg and a sperm, and would therefore be banned by the PCBE’s proposed law. Only couples whose procreation would be ethical are allowed to marry.
And Eisenstadt did NOT make unmarried procreation legal. A few years after Eisenstadt, the court decided Zablocki, which rested on procreaton being legal only in marriage. Loving also rested on this fact. The right to take a contraceptive is precisely the opposite of the right to procreate. Yes, the decision of whether to beget a child is a private decision of an individual, married or single, but that doesn’t mean the person can choose to ignore the laws if they do decide to have a child. They have this choice: take the contraceptive to avoid getting pregnant, or get married and have children. There’s no way you can read a right to unmarried sexual intercourse into it. And there is no way to read that in Lawrence either, which had nothing to do with sex whatseover.
This comment was written by John Howard.And even if there were a case that threw out fornication and adultery laws and said marriage had nothing to do with procreation, we would still have the issue of same-sex procreation being completely unethical. Shouldn’t that be something to consider? Adam can procreate with Eve, but not with Steve. In fact, he might procreate with Eve unintentionally, just by having casual sex. Those relationships are quite different.
Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:09 pm
>>Yes, but a couple can’t get married and be prohibited from procreating. >>
Not true. For example, if you are in prison, you have the right to marry continue to be married, but you do not have the right to conceive a child with your spouse by any means.
And if you and your partner cannot procreate at all, by any means, you are still allowed to marry.
And!
Transsexuals in many states cannot marry anyone of the sex opposite their post-transition sex until they legally change sex. In many of those same states, they cannot legally change sex until they become sterile. In other words, they are prohibited from marriage _until_ they become unable to procreate at all.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:13 pm
VK, yes, cousin marriages are interesting. Those laws were written as a compromise (some states allow cousin marriages, others don’t), and before IVF came along. I wonder how they handle IVF today. Do they forbid them from procreating, or do they grant them the right, but with the expectation that they will not be able to? Also, most of them only allow it if the cousins are already quite old, and presumably they have lost their chance at procreative marriages anyhow.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:21 pm
John Howard, you seem to be confusing procreation and having sex. In some states it is prohibited to have sex with someone who is married to another person. It is not prohibited, however, to donate egg or sperm to a married couple. Nor do marriage laws always align with laws regarding forbidden sexual relations. There are plenty of cases where a couple may legally have sexual relations, but not get married. So your comment “exactly these couples and only these couples are prohibited from marrying” is false. At best it is a statement about what you wish the system to be, not what it is.
As for the other direction, I know of no situation where a couple may marry, but for which sexual relations would be illegal. That might have been a reason to prohibit same-sex marriage in states for which homosexual relations were illegal, but that is no longer a problem in any state.
It is also clear that some states can object to a couple procreating, but not to the couple marrying. For example in some states first cousins may marry only if they are unable to procreate.
This comment was written by Galois.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:31 pm
Prisoners only are allowed to marry because there is a chance they will get out and be able to consummate the marriage. That was one of the conditions necessary in the Supreme Court case that decided that issue.
A couple (or actually, a person) that is infertile is publicly considered potentially fertile, and they have an equal right to attempt to procreate. We do not tell anyone that they may not try to procreate, as long as they choose a person with whom procreation, were it to occur, would be ethical.
And transexuals. Surely, we cannot allow a genetic male to use radical technology to attempt to procreate with another genetic male just because his genitals were mutilated. The question is how public is their real sex, and how public would the prohibition on their procreation be? If they legally and publicly become female, then they could marry a male and they would not be publicly prohibited from procreating. The methods they would have to use to actually procreate would be banned, of course, but they would not publiclly have to use them in order to procreate. Publicly, they’d be like any male-female couple.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:37 pm
>>The methods they would have to use to actually procreate would be banned, of course, but they would not publiclly have to use them in order to procreate.>>
Do you not know what sterile means? It means that you can’t procreate _at all_. No testicles, no ovaries, or no marriage license.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:39 pm
Thanks, everybody, for answering my question about restrictions on marriage. I asked because I think examining existing restrictions will help us figure out the legal prededent(s) for what is and is not an appropriate basis for new restrictions.
It seems like all the current restrictions are justified by the perceived need to protect a group which under out legal system has fewer rights than everyone else—minors. This includes already existing minors (what Amanda mentioned) as well as yet-to-be born minors (what piny and Robert mentioned). In this light, it makes sense that the anti-SSM crowd would focus so much on “protecting children” in their (pseudo-)arguments–that’s the only basis that’s currently legally acceptable.
I’m focusing so much on the legal angle because it’s clear that we’re not going to win the hearts and minds of the anti-SSM crowd anytime soon–that’s a noble and very important goal, but it’s a long-term goal. What we can do in the short term is prove that there is no legal justification for legislation targeting same-sex marriage, and further that such legislation would be unconstitutional. (Analogies to the civil rights battle come to mind here.) Amp’s counter-arguments on the ideological/theoretical plane seem to translate very easily into legal/juridical terms. You can argue ideas til you’re blue in the face, but there is much less wiggle room in the law.
[I think that's why the marriage amendment is so important. It seems obvious that without it, any laws banning same-sex marriage would eventually be found unconstitutional.]
This comment was written by Dresden.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:48 pm
Galois, in the last thirty years, it has been possible to procreate without having sex, but our laws all treat sexual intercourse as the way to possible procreation. Fornication and adultery rule out sex, rather than procreation, because how do you stop procreation once the sex has started the pregnancy? THe only way to prohibit procreation is to prohibit sex. And allowing sex (”you may kiss the bride” - kiss is a euphenism, right?) obviously allows procreation.
It is not prohibited, however, to donate egg or sperm to a married couple.
This was a loophole, because there was no intercourse, as commonly defined, going on. I don’t recall when laws were changed to allow this, in my mind it is still adultery. It has never been legal for a woman to go outside the marriage to have a man “donate” sperm. It wasn’t just the intercourse that was being prohibited, it was the sperm donation. There wasn’t anything all that special about the act of intercourse, or the intimacy (for example, it is not legally adultery to have an intimate and pleasurable lesbian affair, only intercourse is adultery (The New Hampshire Court recently ruled so).
Nor do marriage laws always align with laws regarding forbidden sexual relations. There are plenty of cases where a couple may legally have sexual relations, but not get married.
Hmm, perhaps in Nevada? I think that is a terrible law, but I also bet it has some provisions (misguided) that try to make sure no pregnancy occurs.
Also, please don’t confuse same-sex sodomy with sexual relations, it’s offensive and misleading.
It is also clear that some states can object to a couple procreating, but not to the couple marrying. For example in some states first cousins may marry only if they are unable to procreate.
No state allows cousins to marry but forbids them from procreating. When a state makes the infertility exception to allow cousins to marry, it is still granting them the right to procreate, but just assuming that they won’t be able to. That assumption is no longer valid or useful.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:55 pm
>No testicles, no ovaries, or no marriage license.
What state is this? I think my sperm count is private. My doctor might have some knowledge of my fertility, but the city clerk certainly doesn’t. Even if I know that I have had both testicles removed, I can still pretend to all the world that I have them. Interestingly, I cannot lie to my bethrothed, for that would be grounds for anullment.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:57 pm
one of these days I’ll learn how to spell “euphemism”.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 2:03 pm
Also, please don’t confuse same-sex sodomy with sexual relations, it’s offensive and misleading.
How, exactly?
And as to…
>No testicles, no ovaries, or no marriage license.
What state is this?
Given that the discussion centred on transsexuals, well, every state, more or less, except Massachusetts. Most states won’t let a transsexual change their legal gender unless they are fully transitioned, including gential surgery (an in the case of FTMs, full hysterecomy). Which leads to sterility, if the hormone therapy hadn’t already done that. In other words, as an FTM transsexual, I can only marry a woman in Massachusetts, at the moment.
This comment was written by El Juno.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 2:11 pm
Siblings are prohibited from procreating? I didn’t know that. What are the penalties for that? Can you point me to the law that prohibits that? I was also unaware that children are prohibited from procreating. What penalties exist for procreating children and can you provide a link to the law?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 2:50 pm
Actually John, that is more about passing on ownership of chattel/object from one man to another. It’s about having the right to ‘rape your wife’ back in the old days. It’s been debarbed by becoming you ‘you may now kiss’, but is hardly a mandatory part of a ceremony and serves as a celebratory example of the union.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 3:08 pm
>>Given that the discussion centred on transsexuals, well, every state, more or less, except Massachusetts. Most states won’t let a transsexual change their legal gender unless they are fully transitioned, including gential surgery (an in the case of FTMs, full hysterecomy). Which leads to sterility, if the hormone therapy hadn’t already done that. In other words, as an FTM transsexual, I can only marry a woman in Massachusetts, at the moment. >>
Also not California, thank God. New York is an example of a state that demands genital surgery–which makes you sterile–prior to legal gender change.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 3:44 pm
“Also, please don’t confuse same-sex sodomy with sexual relations, it’s offensive and misleading.”
What about opposite-sex sodomy ? Can we confuse that ?
[rolleyes]
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 3:57 pm
Jake, here is the incest law in Massachusetts. Note that it is specifically persons that are prohibited from marrying who are affected by the incest law, and they are prohibited from procreating by being (among other things) prohibited from having sex.
Sodomy is very different from sex. It’s offensive to speak as if they are the same because it disrespects the responsibilties that a couple having sex faces. Their act is of public significance because it might be a lifelong responsibility.
Opposite sex sodomy shouldn’t be confused either.
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 4:06 pm
How is it offensive? Plenty of people like oral and anal sex, straight and gay. You think married people do it only in the procreative way?
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 5:00 pm
>>Their act is of public significance because it might be a lifelong responsibility.>>
…Unless, of course, one of them is sterile.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 5:03 pm
And how is making love to someone not assuming responsibility? How is partnering with someone for life not assuming a lifelong responsibility?
For a social conservative, you have a pretty flighty view of sex.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 5:33 pm
Re the New Hampshire ruling:
Wow. I thought the homophobic/mysoginistic notion that only P-V intercourse was “real” sex had all but disappeared. I guess I was wrong.
This comment was written by Dresden.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 6:11 pm
“Opposite sex sodomy shouldn’t be confused either.”
So, would you want to see married hets subject to state-sponsored annulment if they were having too much oral and anal sex ? Would that make them unworthy to parent, as well ?
[beats head on keyboard]
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 6:21 pm
How do you know? Prayer can be pretty powerful.
Not necessarily. I know you don’t think much of the power of prayer, but your whole argumetn is based on the omnipotence of science. Suppose technology was created that would allow an egg cell to be created from a man’s skin cell. That seems unlikely, but still far more likely than being able to procreate from two sperm cells.
That’s just not true. As for trying to distinguish Eisenstadt as a right to take contraceptives, I don’t think that will go very far. Would you suggest that a single woman could be forced to have an abortion because she doesn’t have the right to prorcreate? The right to privacy includes not just the right to use contraceptives, but the right of “whether to bear or beget a child” which would include the right to bear the child already conceived.
Still suppose marriage did grant a right to the couple to procreate. Do you believe this gives the couple the right to use any imagined technology including genetically transforming a skin cell into an egg cell?
Well what is it about same-sex procreation that you find unethical? The things I would find unethical involve the use of technology that I would find unethical if used by opposite-sex couples as well.
Why not wait until they get out to allow them to marry, though. The court noted there were many other reasons the marriage was important as well. In New Jersey a recent case ruled that a woman in prison for life still had the right to marry.
But what if the only way they could procreate were through unethical means?
Well as I noted, your whole argument about the right to procreate being the same as the right to have sex being the same as the right to marry is based not on what the law is, but rather what you think it should be. That’s fine, but you should be clear about that. For example, it’s not just Nevada, but many states that don’t have marriage laws and incest laws the same as you claimed. Take, for example, Nebraska. They prohibit first cousins from marrying, but do not consider sexual relations between first cousins to be criminal. There are other states where the criminal incest laws and prohibited marriage laws do not align. There are also states without criminal adultery statutes.
Actually it doesn’t specify persons that are prohibited from marrying. Only persons within degrees of consanguinity who are prohibited from marrying. Massachusetts also prohibits marriages within certain degrees of affinity. Thus yet again we have a state where the two laws don’t match up contrary to your theory.
How are you defining sodomy? Is it sodomy for someone to have sex with a sterile woman. Is it offensive to even call such a situation sex because the act has no possibility of producing children?
This comment was written by Galois.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 7:20 pm
I thought the homophobic/mysoginistic notion that only P-V intercourse was “real”? sex had all but disappeared. I guess I was wrong.
I haven’t been following this discussion closely, so I don’t know who’s saying what or why, but its conceptually legitimate to put an asterisk by PV sex as being somehow “special”. It has potential consequences and outcomes not generated by other forms of sexual contact.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 7:36 pm
(Let me preface this by saying that I do, in fact, know how to spell “misogynistic.” [/intellectual insecurity])
You have a point, Robert; PV intercourse (or approximation thereof) is the only sexual act that can result in pregnancy. That’s what makes any law regarding it and it alone as “adultery” particularly suspect to me.
I was under the impression that adultery was wrong because it violated the special intimacy and exclusivity of a marriage. Surely, a same-sex affair could be just as destructive as a cross-sex affair in this regard. But if the issue is not intimacy-exclusivity but rather the possibility of pregnancy (reproductive exclusivity), then extramarital sex only “matters” because of a parent-child relationship (either potential or actual) and not the husband-wife relationship. That comes too close to defining “real sex” as a purely procreative activity for my comfort.
That is not to say that, within a (cross-sex) relationship, P-V intercourse isn’t at all special. Just that it isn’t the only thing that should count as “real” in a sexual relationship.
This comment was written by Dresden.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 8:48 pm
Adultery is morally wrong because it violates intimacy and exclusivity. It’s legally wrong, in the places where its wrong, basically because it introduces the possibility of cuckolding, which can be viewed as theft. (As in, theft of twenty-odd years of time and resources parenting a child not one’s own.)
But most places are moving away from the women-and-children-as-property underpinnings of the common law, which is probably a good thing.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 9:10 pm
Adultery in some states was asymmetrical, as well; a married woman’s (male) lover could be convicted of adultery, but not a married man’s (female) lover.
Also, please don’t confuse same-sex sodomy with sexual relations, it’s offensive and misleading
Bill Clinton is posting here?!
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 9:19 pm
Robert:
This assumes an agrement to intimacy and exclusivity.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 10:40 pm
This assumes an agrement to intimacy and exclusivity.
Yes, it does. “Adultery” is an offense that can only occur in the context of a marriage.
Anyone who wishes to call their non-intimate, non-exclusive relationship “marriage” may do so. I, however, am under no obligation to validate that.
(Sorry, Hillary.)
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 10:48 pm
That’s a terribly simplistic and shallow way to view 20 years of time investment. Those 20 years are years of experience, learning, probably some good and bad times that cannot be ‘taken away’, as they already have cemented their placement in the past. Now if you were to present it as theft of future time together, that might make more sense, but it still makes a relationship one of debt, versus choice.
Also, as Josh points out, morality of exclusivity depends on the couple. While my husband and I have chosen an exclusive relationship, we did in fact consider it a choice that needed to be talked through. On the other hand, we have friends whom have made the choice to be polyamorous and successfully so.
Oh gee Robert, ya think? Crickey, I hope you were jerking chains on that statement.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 10:53 pm
Actually Robert, that’s the crux of the whole debate. You’re under no obligation to validate any marriage. The problem isn’t in whether you or I disagree with each others marriage, or others marriages, but instead whether we attempt to interfere with their right to pursue the benefits that are part and parcel of marriage.
The theory as I understand it behind marriage benefits is that stable relationships benefit society. As long as the couple has made a mutual contract that is consentual, stabilizing and right for them, then they are fulfilling their obligation in terms of contributing to stability in society, hence deserving of the benefits that this contribution (and responsibility) yeilds.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 10:58 pm
Now if you were to present it as theft of future time together, that might make more sense, but it still makes a relationship one of debt, versus choice.
Parenting is a relationship of debt, albeit a debt that many choose to willingly shoulder. However, a debt it remains.
There is no point in debating these points; they are cultural. I understand that your values are different.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:21 pm
I hardly think it’s appropriate to compare the relationships of two committed, consenting adults that choose to be together to that of the relationship of a parent/child relationship. Unless of course you weren’t kidding about wife/child property views of society as ‘maybe’ being a good idea.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:31 pm
Robert said:
Probably? Not regarding women and children as property is probably a good thing? As in there might be cases when regarding women and children as property might be a good thing?
Please tell me that was just a careless phrasing. I don’t agree with a great deal of what you say, but I have always felt you do respect women. And that one sentence says that women have no more status than that of children and that there are times when both could possibly be owned and it might be a good thing.
This comment was written by mousehounde.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:51 pm
I hardly think it’s appropriate to compare the relationships of two committed, consenting adults that choose to be together to that of the relationship of a parent/child relationship.
Eh?
The act of comparison is a basic cognitive function. If we cannot compare any n arbitrary elements or concepts, we cannot think.
Or do you mean it’s not appropriate to equate them? Well, generally speaking I would say they’re not equal relationships, but surely there are some conceptual situations where they would be. (They’re both ideally framed by love, for example - just different flavors thereof.)
Or perhaps I’m missing your point entirely.
Please tell me that was just a careless phrasing.
Yes, it was careless phrasing. Anytime you change a social arrangement, there are people who are going to be hurt, at least in the short term; sometimes this is a supremely minor inconvenience (”the front of the bus sure has gotten more crowded”) to a relatively small group of people, other times it’s life and death for entire peoples. Broadly speaking, the emancipation of women and the partial emancipation of children are very good things indeed; but of course there may be some relative handful of women and/or children who lost status or comfort thereby. Obviously the net benefit to all of us is tremendously positive.
I was thinking in terms of individual people (besetting sin of conservatives) and so said “probably”, thinking along the lines “probably a random given person is better off by this particular social change”. I should have said “generally” to be more clear.
Thank you for asking for clarification/an explanation rather than printing a tedious denunciation.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:54 pm
I, however, am under no obligation to validate that.!
The issue isn’t whether one or another person ‘validates’ a marriage, really. There are plenty of people who think “it can’t be a real marriage” unless the couple has children, unless they are of the same faith, unless the man is the breadwinner, unless the marriage took place in a church, whatever. Private opinions about what a marriage should be are not the same as legal recognition of marriage.
Though, actually, you are obligated to ‘validate’ that. If your business grants certain benefits to married couples (such as health insurance) and you start running a bed check to see whose legal marriage is ‘valid’, you may run into some problems.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:58 pm
there might be cases when regarding women and children as property might be a good thing
Actually wanted to hit this one just briefly, too.
My original statement was about here-and-now. However, this statement of yours is more broad in scope.
There is one scenario when regarding children as property has some advantages: when the alternative is for children to be regarded as garbage.
I can fairly readily conceive of a material, technological, spiritual etc. environment wherein children are regarded, at least by males, as valueless. I can further envision that the position of women in such a social breakdown as ranging from powerless to quite strong. In the situation where women are powerless as well, then I would offer the opinion that it would be better for there to be a change in the status quo, where men started to think of children as valuable property rather than as useless eaters.
Because that way, th children would have a chance to survive.
Very fortunately, we are rarely in situations where we have to consider such caveman-level ethical dilemmas. However, that’s not true everywhere and everywhen. I don’t know of anyplace on Earth right now where things are that bad, but I can think of several places offhand where things could get that bad.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 12:23 am
So, children would be valuable rather than worthless property. In either case they’re still property.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 12:37 am
Yes, equate works better than compare. I’m fairly tired so my word selection is probably pretty poor at the moment.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 12:58 am
In either case they’re still property.
Yes. Your point?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:56 am
Robert wrote: “There is one scenario when regarding children as property has some advantages: when the alternative is for children to be regarded as garbage.”
And why should any of us see this as a realistic scenario? Yeah, there may be some people who are so stupid that they only see these two alternatives when considering children, but, well, that’s because they’re pretty fucked up. I wouldn’t say that the ideal way to deal with a person who considers children “garbage” is to convince them that children are actually “property”, but to convince them that children are human beings.
Saying that children-as-property is “the” alternative to children-as-garbage is your own attempt to put a highly artificial limitation on this discussion and in no way reflects reality. In Real Life, there are any number of other alternatives, some desirable and some not.
Gaolois wrote: “How are you defining sodomy? Is it sodomy for someone to have sex with a sterile woman. Is it offensive to even call such a situation sex because the act has no possibility of producing children?”
Wow, evidently. And of course, let’s not forget those rising numbers of men out there with sperm counts insufficient for successful conception. I’m sure they’ll also be glad to know that they are not only incapable of procreating, they’re also incapable of actually having sex. No, all that fucking, no matter how passionate or driven by love it may be, is simply empty “sodomy”.
Yeeuuugghhh. After reading some of these anti-SSM posts, I really need a shower.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 6:57 am
“Yeeuuugghhh. After reading some of these anti-SSM posts, I really need a shower.”
I reccommend the Dave Zirin regimen. Wanna’ borrow my steel wool ?
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 7:14 am
Robert:
Gosh, Robert, without your validation, HOW WILL I SURVIVE?!?!
Oh. I can feel myself just wasting and withering away without your validation. ohh… ah…
i die.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 9:22 am
Yes. Your point?
That it’s not a good thing to regard human beings as property. The only thing differentiating garbage from treasure is the ‘owner’s’ subjective assessment of the person’s value.
This was, you may recall, an argument supporters of slavery made when that was legal in the U.S.: that slave owners would not mistreat their slaves because those slaves were valuable property; unlike in the North, where workers were disposable because an employer could simply hire another free man to replace one injured or killed.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 10:00 am
criminally vulgar:
I’m half of a same-sex couple with an 11-month old baby girl. We work, pay taxes, and are not second class citizens. We have the same rights as everyone else and that includes the right to marry. We do not want to “sit at the back of the bus” and get a civil union or some other second-rate option.
Want to know what damage this discrimination does to us? For starters, we both have to work. My girlfriend cannot quit her job and be a stay-at-home mom, because I cannot put the baby or her on my insurance. My company offers benefits to hetero couples living together, but not us. So :
1) My daughter is in day care full time because of discrimination
Also, we went to a lawyer and had wills, power of attorneys, etc done up to give us some of the legal protections that married couples automatically have. We have to carry these with us at all times and there is no guarantee that a hospital will honor them.
2) No guaranteed access to make decisions for each other, even with durable powers of attorney, due to discrimination. Sure we could win this in court but in an emergency it might be too late.
The lawyer also told us that should anything happen to my partner (the biological parent), there is no guarantee that I could keep our daughter. The courts could decide to take her away FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER. We have filled out forms saying that I should have custody, but they are not binding. In my state I cannot adopt (Florida).
3) The state can take my children away for no reason.
There are approximately 100 more that I can think of. But those are the big ones that affect our lives on a day-to-day basis and cause us to live in fear.
This comment was written by Vicky.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 10:18 am
That it’s not a good thing to regard human beings as property.
Yes, that’s true. So?
If you are held as property in a situation where the only available options are “mythago is worthless property” and “mythago is valuable property”, which belief would you prefer your owner hold?
Neither one is good. One is better than the other.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 10:52 am
>Galois wrote: Suppose technology was created that would allow an egg cell to be created from a man’s skin cell. That seems unlikely, but still far more likely than being able to procreate from two sperm cells.
That should also be banned, for safety and ethical reasons. The law should require natural eggs and sperm, derived naturally from adults. And by definition, a gamete that carries the genes of a male is a sperm, even if it could be fertilized by a sperm to create an embryo. The egg and sperm law is, both in principle and in practical terms, a man and woman law. Not because of animus, but because of safety and ethical issues.
>>Me: A few years after Eisenstadt, the court decided Zablocki, which rested on procreation being legal only in marriage.
>G: That’s just not true.
Come on, what does “And, if appellee’s right to procreate means anything at all, it must imply some right to enter the only relationship in which the State of Wisconsin allows sexual relations legally to take place ” mean? It can’t get any clearer than that. They have to be allowed to marry, because how else can they procreate? Just like in Loving, if they could have legally procreated without having to marry, the court would have found differently. So, clearly, Eisenstadt did NOT make procreation legal outside of marriage, or it would have been legal in Wisconsin, too, right?
>G: As for trying to distinguish Eisenstadt as a right to take contraceptives, I don’t think that will go very far.
That is all it is. A right of unmarried people to take contraceptives. Making it illegal inferred too much - just as you are doing - and that can’t be done because of privacy rights.
>G: Would you suggest that a single woman could be forced to have an abortion because she doesn’t have the right to procreate?
Of course not, silly. It’s not the kid’s fault they weren’t married.
>G: The right to privacy includes not just the right to use contraceptives, but the right of “whether to bear or beget a child”? which would include the right to bear the child already conceived.
Yeah, but not a right to conceive one. Sex without marriage is a crime in my state and in Wisconsin back when this was decided. I have a right to free speech, but that doesn’t mean I can commit crimes in order to get my message out.
>G: Still suppose marriage did grant a right to the couple to procreate. Do you believe this gives the couple the right to use any imagined technology including genetically transforming a skin cell into an egg cell?
No, and I would support a ban on all methods other than sexual intercourse.
>G: Well what is it about same-sex procreation that you find unethical? The things I would find unethical involve the use of technology that I would find unethical if used by opposite-sex couples as well.
Yes, that’s the main thing. The risks to the baby are incredibly high doing anything besides combining a natural egg and natural sperm. Even if it were safe, though, there’d be things to think about, like whether it would transform our society into a Brave New World that manufactured designer babies, and whether it would mean that some people lost their right to pass on their own genes. (Yes, they would likely still have the right to pass on their own genes, and I would loudly insist on remembering that. But just as someone said that the right of everyone to be straight is “meaningless” if a person didn’t want to be straight, people would not want to use their own genes, they would feel it was just not an option for them, they would feel it was a meaningless right)
>>Me: Prisoners only are allowed to marry because there is a chance they will get out and be able to consummate the marriage.
>G: Why not wait until they get out to allow them to marry, though.
People don’t have to consummate a marriage right away, it merely says that they promise it to each other when they do eventually have sex. What counts (and all the state sees) is the promise to consummate it someday. That’s enough of a commitment to trigger all the bells and whistles, though they can still back out of it if it hasn’t been consummated.
>G: The court noted there were many other reasons the marriage was important as well.
Yes, but they said “taken as a whole”, all the reasons counted. The hope that it will be consummated someday is essential.
>G: In New Jersey a recent case ruled that a woman in prison for life still had the right to marry.
And there’s still a hope that it could be consummated, he might escape or something.
>>Me: We do not tell anyone that they may not try to procreate, as long as they choose a person with whom procreation, were it to occur, would be ethical.
>G: But what if the only way they could procreate were through unethical means?
We’ve gone through this, G. If they have an affliction that prevents them from procreating naturally, it is private, first of all, and it is treatable, secondly, and it is not predictable for certain that they can’t procreate through ethical means. Thus, there are no such couples.
>Well as I noted, your whole argument about the right to procreate being the same as the right to have sex being the same as the right to marry is based not on what the law is, but rather what you think it should be.
OK, some states mugh have murky laws, but the “whole argument” is that all marriages have the right to procreate, and same-sex couples shouldn’t have that right.
>G: Take, for example, Nebraska. They prohibit first cousins from marrying, but do not consider sexual relations between first cousins to be criminal.
That’s wacky. I think that’s an oversight. They certainly don’t allow first cousins to procreate if they don’t allow them to marry, that would mean they would have to have illegitimate children, and why would the state insist on that?
>G: There are other states where the criminal incest laws and prohibited marriage laws do not align. There are also states without criminal adultery statutes.
OK, but in what state is a marriage not allowed to procreate?
>G: Only persons within degrees of consanguinity who are prohibited from marrying. Massachusetts also prohibits marriages within certain degrees of affinity. Thus yet again we have a state where the two laws don’t match up contrary to your theory.
No, I think they mean by “consanguinity” all the relations including “affinity” relations. As in Nebraska, there are no couples that are allowed to procreate but are not allowed to marry. Just doesn’t make any sense. Unless they wanted extra harsh laws for incest, and expected the fornication laws to catch all the other relations. Maybe it is just as much a crime to fornicate with a person you could marry as a person you may not marry but not closely related, and an even worse crime to fornicate with someone very closely related.
G:> How are you defining sodomy?
Like everyone else does.
G:> Is it sodomy for someone to have sex with a sterile woman.
No, that’s sex. As I said, sex is not sodomy, sodomy is not sex.
G:> Is it offensive to even call such a situation sex because the act has no possibility of producing children?
But it does. Sex ALWAYS has a possibility of producing children, it is an axiom.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 10:58 am
“If you are held as property in a situation where the only available options are “mythago is worthless property”? and “mythago is valuable property”?, which belief would you prefer your owner hold?”
But this is just a silly hypothetical, and has zero to do with Real Life. We could sit here all day formulating equally pointless, unrealistic scenarios and debating them, but that’d be a waste of time. I’m under the impression that once again you are simply pushing people’s buttons to watch them jump and also to derail the real topic at hand.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 11:22 am
This is an aside, about a meta-discussion I think is going on here.
It’s been a while since I’ve read up on philosophy of language, but one of the ideas I remember picking up from that was that natural language is often ambiguous, but the ambiguity is usually resolved by assuming that what is said is relevant to the context in which it’s said. That’s not always a correct assumption.
I’ve been reading through this thread, wondering what point Robert’s been trying to make by insisting on being perfectly logically consistent in a tangent on “women as property,” which really doesn’t seem relevant to the overall discussion. From the way most people argue, I’d assume that he wouldn’t go on about that point unless it was critical to some larger point about same sex marriage he was trying to make.
But from this, and past arguments, I’m thinking that Robert is just trying, very doggedly, to be logically consistent about a narrow point — regardless of the context.
Wittgenstein regarded philosophy (particularly analytic philosophy) as a sort of disease. “You don’t need a theory of language to talk sensibly.” I’ve seen other arguments, elsewhere, that were hopelessly disrupted because someone insisted on perfectly logical statements, based on some quasi-lawyerly notion that it would make the conversation clearer, but it actually made the conversation much less clear.
People use context to assess arguments, they tend to allow for and expect hyperbole and other rhetorical devices in which sentences don’t mean exactly what a literal reading appears to make them mean, and in general, speak in ways that can be ambiguous and confusing. But insisting on perfectly rigorous logic isn’t the best solution — it often ends up disrupting a discussion so severely that the conversation becomes even more confusing than it was to begin with.
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 11:49 am
John Howard, here’s what you’ve said so far, including the conclusions that can be drawn:
1. Couples in which one or both individuals are infertile are considered handicapped and should be allowed to marry. — Some same-sex couples consist of infertile individuals, therefore we must allow same-sex marriage.
2. Infertile individuals are publically considered (i.e., believed without investigation into their medical histories) to be fertile and should be allowed to marry. — Every individual is publically considered to be fertile, therefore we must allow same-sex marriage. — Corollary: Elderly women are publically considered to be infertile, therefore they should not be allowed to marry.
3. Couples in which one individual is publically considered to be male and the other is publically considered to be female should be allowed to mary. — In some same-sex couples, one individual passes (even temporarily) as male or female, therefore we must allow same-sex marriage.
4. Couples for whom procreation is prohibited by law shouldn’t be allowed to marry. — As there is no law prohibiting procreation between two men or two women, we must allow same-sex marriage.
5. Couples for whom procreation is physically impossible shouldn’t be allowed to marry. — Couples in which one or both individuals are infertile are couples for whom procreation is physically impossible, therefore they shouldn’t be allowed to marry.
It seems to me that you’re trying to say, “Couples that consist of either two men or two women should not be allowed to marry, because at first glance everybody knows that at no time could they possibly procreate.” But that’s…well, pretty insane. It’s the exact same thing as, “Only couples in which one individual appears to be male and the other appears to be female should be allowed to marry.” Which still leaves conclusion #3.
I’m looking forward to your further explanation of your position, which, it’s becoming increasingly clear, actually supports same-sex marriage.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 12:02 pm
actually Kim, I’m going to have to disagree with you here. There is no right to procreate; we are under no obligation to ensure that everyone who wants to procreate can do so(this is, of course, regardless of their marital state), nor should we be.
This comment was written by Ol Cranky.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 12:46 pm
>>actually Kim, I’m going to have to disagree with you here. There is no right to procreate; we are under no obligation to ensure that everyone who wants to procreate can do so(this is, of course, regardless of their marital state), nor should we be.>>
I can agree with that, although I’m not dealing with sterility as an immediate terrible thing in my life, so I might not have the right to comment.
How about a right not to be prevented from procreating, then? Not being allowed to marry–that is, to give your partnership and its parenting component the protection of the law–amounts to a pretty significant barrier to having and raising kids.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:04 pm
Hestia, are you aware that technologies might allow two men or two women to create genetic offspring soon? My goal is to prevent this brave new world, to keep procreation natural, so we are all created equal, as the union of one man and one woman. There’s nothing correct in your characterizations of what I have said. I won’t bother to refute each error, but will just suggest you read what I actually did say again.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:11 pm
>How about a right not to be prevented from procreating, then?
Yes, I think this is the right that was established in Skinner v Oklahoma. And this is why the current push in public schools to create as many queer kids as possible is blatantly unconstitutional. Turning them queer prevents them from procreating, and even if DC is not banned, then it prevents them from procreating with the person of their choice, because they have to procreate with a sperm donor or surrogate mom. The only constitutional education would be to educate people to choose someone they can ethically procreate with.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:25 pm
And if John Howard is elected mayor of Crazytown, he’ll be able to stop the evil Dr. Polymorphous from using his homophilizer ray on the entire city!
This comment was written by Brian Vaughan.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:26 pm
“…this is why the current push in public schools to create as many queer kids as possible is…”
Ahhhhhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hooooooeeeey! That is a knee slapper.
I am honestly more worried about the Gnomes of Zurich than our Secret Queer Overlords.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:28 pm
>>Yes, I think this is the right that was established in Skinner v Oklahoma. And this is why the current push in public schools to create as many queer kids as possible is blatantly unconstitutional. Turning them queer prevents them from procreating, and even if DC is not banned, then it prevents them from procreating with the person of their choice, because they have to procreate with a sperm donor or surrogate mom. The only constitutional education would be to educate people to choose someone they can ethically procreate with. >>
Excuse me a moment while I wipe the spittle of scornful mirth off the screen.
Okay. Breathe. Straight face.
I’m not going to engage the turning-queer thing, because bwah!
Being queer is not being prevented from procreating. It leaves you perfectly capable of conceiving a child. It means that you cannot have children who have genetic material from both you and your partner, but somehow, most of the queers who have children or plan to have children don’t care enough about that to refrain from procreating.
Let me reiterate: we don’t give a damn. Fostering? Fine with us. Adoption? Fine with us. Adopting a child who could never in a million years be mistaken for your God-bag-approved genetic sprog? Fine with us. Surrogacy? Fine with us. Donor sperm? Fine with us.
We do not lie awake nights sobbing because we cannot conceive children with our partners. Sad for some, undoubtedly, but it’s not preventing us from making or raising families. It is enough–more than enough, a blessing–to be able to raise a family with the person we love more than life itself.
So don’t act like it’s some terrible problem from which the gays must be protected. We are coping. If single-sex reproduction ever becomes a safe, legal, cost-effective option, I’m sure that some gay couples will go for it. That probably won’t be true if it’s dangerous, difficult, or burdened with serious environmental/human consequences. Queers tend to be pretty ethical people, on the whole.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:55 pm
>So don’t act like it’s some terrible problem from which the gays must be protected.
The court notably did NOT tell that to Mr. Skinner. They didn’t say “you can adopt, you can use donor sperm, what’s the problem?” The Court found that sterilizing him was unconstitutional, and it would have been unconstitutional even if he didn’t care (though he wouldn’t have brought the case to the supreme court, I suppose).
There is no lack of consensus on how hard it is to become an ex-gay. Once the state convinces a kid to try it, it is like a knife snipped his balls off. He will probably not successfully have children with the person he loves. He might be able to have genetic offspring with someone else, but that, as Loving noted, is also unconstitutional because you should be able to exercise the right with the person of your choice. The only choices are not only allowing but rapidly perfecting SSP, or educating people to be straight. And since SSP is unethical and rationally must be banned because of the danger to the kids being created, that leaves only educating kids to be straight.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:06 pm
>>He might be able to have genetic offspring with someone else, but that, as Loving noted, is also unconstitutional because you should be able to exercise the right with the person of your choice.>>
So it’s unconstitutional to admit that there are certain biological barriers to conceiving a child with someone of the same sex, but not unconstitutional to prevent gay people from marrying the people they’ve chosen, the people they love dearly and want to spend the rest of their lives with?
And it’s not “might.” It’s, “will.” Gay people who want to (a) have kids and (b) marry the partner of their choice are not prevented from having both.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:08 pm
>>There is no lack of consensus on how hard it is to become an ex-gay. Once the state convinces a kid to try it, it is like a knife snipped his balls off.>>
There’s also some consensus on the idea that being gay is something you’re convinced into: it’s pretty unanimously considered a load of crap. That’s why ex-gay “therapy” doesn’t work–not because you can only cross over once, but because you never had any potential to be straight in the first place.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:32 pm
There is no lack of consensus on how hard it is to become an ex-gay. Once the state convinces a kid to try it, it is like a knife snipped his balls off.
Really, gays are eunuchs? How hard is it to become gay in the first place? Does it take years and incredible mental discipline?
Seriously, I pity John Howard. The world he inhabits (or that inhabits his mind) must be terrifying. Secret Queer Overlords, homosexuality equated to impotence, technological advance, powerlessness in the face of hidden enemies - in short, a Phillip K. Dick novel - must create a lot of stress and anxiety for the guy and that, most likely, leads to physical and mental problems. I’m glad that the world that I live in isn’t nearly as frightening as that of John Howard.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:45 pm
as a college student in 1994, i was informed by my ‘cellular and molecular biology’ prof that it was possible to ‘trick’ human eggs into ‘thinking’ they were being fertilized by sperm, when they were in fact being joined with other eggs. additionally, the transfer of dna from one cell to another (say, from sperm to an egg) has been possible for a long time. those crazy liberals in universities have been working on these things for quite a while. just because it’s not widely available or economically feasible doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
also, back to the original argument, there ARE studies on kids of same-sex unions, and as far as i know, they show that these kids are as normally functioning as kids of straight parents. so SSM advocates already have shown that the unions aren’t harmful.
the main point to all this is that there are people out there who feel the need to keep other people down for no good reason. (or perhaps the reason is to allow the first person to feel superior.) when john howard says something is unethical, what is his basis? that he doesn’t like it? ‘i don’t like this’ or ‘my religion doesn’t like this’ does NOT make something unethical. there is proof that SSM is good for the couples, good for their (potential) kids, and absolutely no proof otherwise. so all the denial of SSM does is hurt people. it’s mean, it’s hurtful, it’s evil.
as a sterile woman, how does my marriage to another woman hurt anyone? on what other grounds could it be considered unethical? actually, now that i’m sterile, it’s probably unethical for me to marry anyone, or have sex at all… i guess i wasted all my hetero, possibly-procreational (and therefore valid) sex on pre-marital relations. i can’t ever get married or have sex in good conscience, right?
This comment was written by marie.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:54 pm
If I believed I were powerlessness, do you think I would be working so hard to prevent SSP? Yes, it is frustrating, especially when you answer someone’s question and they just ignore it and just start insulting you, but I am pretty hopeful that I will be successful.
(And becoming gay takes a whole bunch of influences, different for different people, as well as a lack of corrective influences. There are lots more gays coming out of high school than there used to be. It used to be that almost everyone married and had children, now that rate is very very low, even the so-called straight kids do not feel any imperitive to be particularly straight.)
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:05 pm
Mr. Howard,
You appear to misunderstand Skinner v. Oklahoma. If you will google the decision, among the things you will find out:
1. Skinner v. Oklahoma is often erroneously attributed for ending all compulsory sterilization in the United States. In reality however the only types of sterilization which the ruling immediately ended were punitive sterilizations.
2. The sterilization was ruled unconstitutional as a violation of the due process clause of the 14th amendment because there was “disparate treatment of criminals based on minor distinctions.” It was, for example, applied to larceny but not embezzlement.
So I’m sure you will want to stop using it as part of your argument.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:07 pm
Hestia, are you aware that technologies might allow two men or two women to create genetic offspring soon? My goal is to prevent this brave new world, to keep procreation natural, so we are all created equal, as the union of one man and one woman.
But this has absolutely nothing to do with marriage. It would be easy to ban the technology itself while simultaneously legalizing same-sex marriage. Laws banning a particular behavior trump laws regarding an environment in which the behavior may occur. (For example, married couples have a “right” to sex. However, rape is illegal, both inside and outside of marriage.)
There is no reason to discuss marriage in these terms. It’s like saying, “I oppose x-rated material on the Internet, so we should ban libraries.”
I suggest that you read what you actually did say again. You seem to be getting confused.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:09 pm
And I object to your characterization of my conclusions as incorrect. Please explain why they are incorrect instead of dismissing them wholesale.
This comment was written by Hestia.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:13 pm
Interestingly enough, the current poll on the OutInAtlanta.com home page is this:
If stem cells could give gay couples genetically-related kids, would you prefer such a method over adoption?
Yes - 57% - 744 votes
No - 25% - 326 votes
Maybe - 18% - 235 votes
(1305 responses)
(Coincidence? Or subtley orchestrated by the Great Queer Conspiracy?)
I suppose that this shows something for most sides involved here - both that a slight majority of queers (from Atlanta, anyway) would, given the option, choose to have genetic kids over adopted kids; but also that a full quarter wouldn’t.
As for myself, I don’t even like kids that much, and don’t really see myself having children. I’d still like to get (same-sex) married though, because there are many benefits to marriage that are denied to queers that are not even related to children or reproduction.
This comment was written by audio-visual.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:16 pm
Damn. Where did my line-breaks go? Ah, well. It’s still readable.
This comment was written by audio-visual.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:31 pm
Bear in mind, too, that the question said nothing whatsoever about potential dangers. Were there any, it would probably affect the answers to the question.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:41 pm
piny wrote:Bear in mind, too, that the question said nothing whatsoever about potential dangers. Were there any, it would probably affect the answers to the question.
Certainly. I though that the really striking thing about the poll was how slim the majority of queers who are sure they want genetic kids is, while Mr. Howard seems to think that the only reason people ever fuck someone with the same naughty bits as them is in some sad, futile effort to reproduce againt the will of God.
This comment was written by audio-visual.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:43 pm
… And WordPress ate my line-breaks again … Wonder why that is? It shows up fine in the little preview area …
This comment was written by audio-visual.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 3:47 pm
Yeah, I bought my little guy all those books and videos, but he just doesn’t understand that he’ll never make a baby with Ray’s little guy. And ever since he heard about that boy near Kolkata with endometrial tissue, he’s been begging me for a uterine lining of his own.
Breaks my heart.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 4:20 pm
But setting aside mockery for a second, yes, it was interesting. I’ve never been interested in a biological child, but I understood my lack of interest to be a rarity.
Perhaps the “stem cell” thing was also a factor? I’m sure at least some queers have reservations about that technology.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 7:36 pm
John Howard writes:
So he agrees that the right to procreate can be limited even for married couples without dire consequences. Thus it must also be perfectly acceptable to limit this right for married homosexual couples without dire consequences. As Hestia correctly noted:
I’m also having trouble reconciling the following two answers from John Howard:
If it is axiomatic that “sex ALWAYS has a possibility of producing children” then intercourse with NO possibility of producing children–for example when the woman has had a hysterectomy–CANNOT by his axiom be considered to be having sex. That’s why when he wrote,
I thought he was using “sodomy” in the traditional sense of any nonprocreative sexual act. Since intercourse with a sterile person cannot lead to a child, it would seem to be “very different from sex” and offensive to speak as if it were the same.
It seems clear that John Howard’s true rationale for denying same-sex marriage is the fear that allowing any acceptance of homosexuality would turn kids queer and make it difficult to educate them to be straight.
This comment was written by Galois.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 9:35 pm
johnny “sperm and Eggs” Howard:
Stop right there. I mean it. You have no clue whatsoever what becoming gay takes, you’re not an expert, and you’re not gay.
You’re making shit up at this point, and it’s not acceptable, respectful, or even contributing to the debate. It’s certainly not ethical.
I don’t appreciate quack scientists. Moral issues asside, making up fake science to support a moral viewpoint went out with Gallileo’s tiff with the Catholic Church.
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2005 at 11:07 pm
Old Cranky:
You’re right, I stated it wrong. Piny layed it down in better terms - the right to not be prevented from procreation.
John Howard:
Err, what the….? John, you need a customized tinfoil hat there, buddy. This particular notion/statement is straight off the deep-end.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 3:06 am
Brian wrote: “he’ll be able to stop the evil Dr. Polymorphous from using his homophilizer ray on the entire city!”
Okay, that made me laugh.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 6:49 am
Amanda wrote; “You can’t marry a minor, so there’s that.”
Not true. You can marry with parental consent before the age of 18 in all states, though the minimum ages vary. For very young teens, sometimes a court order has to be granted.
http://usmarriagelaws.com/search/united_states/teen_marriage_laws/index.shtml
Where you can marry at 15: Hawaii, Indiana, Minnesota, Missourri, Montana, Utah, Wyoming
At 14: New York, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina (Females only), New Hampshire (Males Only)
At 13: New Hampshire (Females Only)
This comment was written by Dana.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 7:36 am
“(And becoming gay takes a whole bunch of influences, different for different people, as well as a lack of corrective influences. There are lots more gays coming out of high school than there used to be. It used to be that almost everyone married and had children, now that rate is very very low, even the so-called straight kids do not feel any imperitive to be particularly straight.) ”
John, you act as if you’ve never heard the words “compulsive heterosexuality” before. Or “sexism”. Or “heteronormative”.
You do realize that marriage is not a biological given, doncha?
You also do realize that gays can and will (given the technology) reproduce as they wish without the benefit of marriage, just as they are currently doing. Marriage is *not* what gets a woman pregnant, nor what sustains that pregnancy.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 8:34 am
>It would be easy to ban the technology itself while simultaneously legalizing same-sex marriage.
Yes, but it would change marriage to do that. Marriage would no longer mean that these two people may have children together. And there would still be rights a man had only with a woman, so why bother with the charade. The rights of a same-sex marriage would be different, so you may as well give it a different name. In fact, the difference between a same-sex marriage and a marriage would be THE EXACT SAME DIFFERENCE as between people who are married and people who are not married - whether you are allowed to have children together or not.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 8:45 am
AndiF, good job researching Skinner, it always makes me happy when people do that. I think the fact that the Court itself cited Skinner in Loving for declaring that there is a “basic civil right” to procreate indicates that my interpretation is correct. There is a right not to be sterilized, or, I put forth based on both of these decisions, a right not to be diverted frombeing able to have children with the person of your choice. They said they weren’t implying there were no unregulatable matters involving who a person is allowed to choose, though, I think thinking of incestuous relationships. Now we must add people of the same sex to that list of off-limit choices.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 8:49 am
Marriage would no longer mean that these two people may have children together.
Marriage doesn’t mean that now. Two people may have children together whether they are married or not today.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 8:59 am
>And I object to your characterization of my conclusions as incorrect.
Hester, looks like I did misread the first one in your post as being the opposite, I probably inserted a “not” in my head because I’m so used to the “you are saying infertile couples couldn’t get married” argument and frankly sick of it. Rereading them, I do think your summaries are correct, but the conclusions you draw from them are not the ones that should be drawn.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 9:30 am
>>Yes, but it would change marriage to do that. Marriage would no longer mean that these two people may have children together. >>
But it already says that, since couples who are infertile either apart or together may still get married. Fertile men and women may marry infertile men and women. Even though they could have children with someone else, they are not ordered or encouraged to marry another fertile person. Couples who are publically, obviously, way too old to ever have children may still get married. So the possibility of having children together _is not a prerequisite for marriage_.
>>I’m so used to the “you are saying infertile couples couldn’t get married”? argument and frankly sick of it. >>
That isn’t what you are saying, but only because you’re inconsistent. Your _arguments_ say that–if we accept your ideas about how marriage relates to procreation, it follows that infertile couples cannot really be married. You don’t admit that conclusion because you aren’t arguing logically; it isn’t lack of procreation you’re worried about, but queers. It is perfectly reasonable to point that out.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 9:44 am
G:> So he agrees that the right to procreate can be limited even for married couples without dire consequences.
I wouldn’t characterize that as “limiting their right to procreate”, it is only limiting the number of ways which they can pursue that right, and because of privacy and uncertainty and medical care, it is not so limited that any male-female couple that is allowed to marry would be publicly prohibited from having children together. Such couples exist, and we do not grant them marriage rights.
G:>Thus it must also be perfectly acceptable to limit this right for married homosexual couples without dire consequences.
But it would be more than limited, it would be prohibited. The rights that the same person would have in a straight marriage would be different than he would have if he married a man. You can try to distract with talk of infertility and limiting technologies, but this will be the obvious reality for people. Marry a woman, and you can have a baby together, but marry a man, and you can’t. But, since, by law we’d say they were the same, then straight marriages must not have the right to procreate anymore, and it would have to be treated equally, subjecting all marriages to risk assessment and prohibiting them, publicly from procreating. Then it would have to be blind to the genders - it would have to be “Jan can marry Dan, but they can’t procreate, because Dan has gene X and a 22% likelihood of birth defects, but marry Stan and you can procreate.”
We have to preserve the right of Jan and Dan to have children together, even if we might make it privately impossible for them by banning IVF and allowing Dan to smoke. And we have to prohibit SSP flat out, not piecemeal, technology by technology, because that would implicitly allow it by demanding research and studies.
G:> I’m also having trouble reconciling the following two answers from John Howard:
I feel like an actual political figure being discussed like that…
G:>If it is axiomatic that “sex ALWAYS has a possibility of producing children”? then intercourse with NO possibility of producing children”“for example when the woman has had a hysterectomy”“CANNOT by his axiom be considered to be having sex.
There is no such thing, axiomatically, as intercourse with no possibility of producing children. That’s just the way it is legally, it doesn’t matter what degree of certainty anyone might give it. It’s still rape if the woman has had a hysterectomy, and you still have to get married if the man has a low sperm count, or is 80 years old. There is cut-off age limit to fornication and adultery laws, or marriage, because the law goes by the axiom that sex always might create children, in order to treat everyone equally.
G:> I thought he was using “sodomy”? in the traditional sense of any nonprocreative sexual act. Since intercourse with a sterile person cannot lead to a child, it would seem to be “very different from sex”? and offensive to speak as if it were the same.
But you know that no one has ever called sex with a sterile person sodomy. It is pretty offensive to blithley equate sex with a sterile person and with a non-sterile person, as neither people who might become parents nor people who cannot become parents feel that fact is insignificant, they find it pretty damn significant, in fact. Respect fertility, there is lots of responsibility we demand from it, and if we don’t respect it, we won’t get the responsibility.
G:>It seems clear that John Howard’s true rationale for denying same-sex marriage is the fear that allowing any acceptance of homosexuality would turn kids queer and make it difficult to educate them to be straight.
It’s all to preserve natural rights to marry and have our own children and prevent people from being manufactured.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 9:56 am
>>There is no such thing, axiomatically, as intercourse with no possibility of producing children. That’s just the way it is legally, it doesn’t matter what degree of certainty anyone might give it. It’s still rape if the woman has had a hysterectomy, and you still have to get married if the man has a low sperm count, or is 80 years old. There is cut-off age limit to fornication and adultery laws, or marriage, because the law goes by the axiom that sex always might create children, in order to treat everyone equally.>>
No, the law goes by the axiom that the possibility of creating children _is not the defining characteristic of sex_.
It’s also still rape if it happens between two women or two men, or if it involves implements, hands, forced oral sex, or forced anal intercourse.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 10:00 am
>>But you know that no one has ever called sex with a sterile person sodomy. It is pretty offensive to blithley equate sex with a sterile person and with a non-sterile person, as neither people who might become parents nor people who cannot become parents feel that fact is insignificant, they find it pretty damn significant, in fact. Respect fertility, there is lots of responsibility we demand from it, and if we don’t respect it, we won’t get the responsibility.>>
Yup, and that’s why your arguments are both incredibly offensive to a large number of people and totally divorced from the reality of sex, love, partnership, and marriage in our culture. Again–of course–Galois is not making these assertions himself, merely following your arguments to their logical conclusions.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 10:56 am
>It’s also still rape if it happens between two women or two men, or if it involves implements, hands, forced oral sex, or forced anal intercourse.
That is actually a recent change to rape laws, and not respectful of fertililty. I don’t want to get sidetracked on this discussion again though. The point is that all people should be created equal, from the union of one woman and one man, and all marriages should have the right to procreate.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 11:07 am
Huh? Piny, I am not the one classifying people as sterile, I am treating us all the same way, giving us all the same rights, and not snooping into anyone’s private health. These “infertile people” simply do not exist as a public, legal class of people, and everyone can get married. There are no restrictions on technology now, and there probably won’t be any in the future, but even if there were, a man and a woman still have a right to marry because they have the public right to create children together in principle, if not in practice. Marriages are not required to procreate, it is still a valid marriage if it doesn’t. I thought you understsood that. The point is, the marriage has the RIGHT to try, and it will be perfectly fine if it does. But it won’t be fine if a same-sex couple does, because it would be unethical. It wouldn’t be private how they did it, it would publicly, as a matter of record, require illegal technologies in all cases of two people of the same sex having children.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 11:31 am
>>The point is, the marriage has the RIGHT to try, and it will be perfectly fine if it does. But it won’t be fine if a same-sex couple does, because it would be unethical. It wouldn’t be private how they did it, it would publicly, as a matter of record, require illegal technologies in all cases of two people of the same sex having children. >>
The right to try is superceded by the obligation to not use dangerous technologies irresponsibly. I have the right to life, but if I get MS and the only experimental treatment posed a significant danger to others, I would not have the right to demand that treatment. If same-sex reproduction is as dangerous as you say it is, society is under no obligation to permit it. Same-sex couples will just have to cope. Happily enough, they already do. They don’t seem to care that they currently don’t have the option and may never have the option.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 11:56 am
>>That is actually a recent change to rape laws, and not respectful of fertililty. I don’t want to get sidetracked on this discussion again though. The point is that all people should be created equal, from the union of one woman and one man, and all marriages should have the right to procreate.>>
So what if it is recent? The abolition of marital-rape laws is pretty recent, too, but most married people don’t take their vows on the understanding that she loses all bodily autonomy. No, it’s not terribly “respectful of fertility.” It’s respectful of people who get raped. And if you don’t want to get sidetracked into something, maybe you shouldn’t bring it up. All marriages _do_ have the right to procreate. Some marriages _cannot_ procreate, either for reasons beyond the control of the legislature or because potential options are not allowable for other good reasons. You’ve already admitted that that doesn’t make them not-marriages. Ergo, gay marriages are marriages even if gay married couples cannot procreate with each other.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 12:31 pm
>Ergo, gay marriages are marriages even if gay married couples cannot procreate with each other.
It’s not that they cannot, it’s that they may not. They might be able to very soon. They should be prohibited from trying. It is not just the safety, but other issues including a need to bring the genders together to create equality, that requires us to reserve procreatin, in principle, to the union of a man and a woman.
If gay couples are fine with not being able to procreate, and don’t want to try SSP technologies, then why get hung up on whether or not they get the right to? Why not concede that gay couple should not have a right to procreate, and accept civil uniond which were just like marriage but did not grant the right to procreate? It is such a good solution, but you folks are being unreasonable, you are not being prudent. Your position will call for risky experiments on human SSP and will also gut marriage of procreation rights, just because you want to use the same name, even though you admit that it won’t have the same rights or potential as both-sex marriage.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
>The right to try is superceded by the obligation to not use dangerous technologies irresponsibly.
Well, the right to try that technology is superceded, but not the right to try other methods. No one has to know if a marriage is even trying at all, they might never have sex during fertile days or always pull out, and no one knows if they are trying but just can’t do it. No one knows if a particular banned technology might be a couple’s only hope, and it never IS a couple’s only hope anyway. Whether or not procedure X is legal has no bearing on that couple’s right to marriage or their procreation rights in general, only on their access to that particular technology. IF they can’t get access to it, they are just like a couple that can’t get access to technologies that haven’t even been invented yet. In other words, they just won’t have kids. There is no requirement for kids, marriage only says it is fine if you do, and it isn’t for same-sex couples.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Why not concede that gay couple should not have a right to procreate, and accept civil uniond which were just like marriage but did not grant the right to procreate?
Because marriage (as legally defined in the USA) does not grant the right to procreate, what would the difference be between marriage and civil union? I think you need to change federal law to have marriage actually grant the right to procreate before any of your arguments have the remotest chance of making sense.
What are the penalties for procreating outside of marriage? Is it a prison term or a fine? Is it a misdemeanor or a felony? Who currently enforces this alleged breach of non-existing law? Because I’d better warn my neighbor about the danger that he is in.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
Jake, the important point is that marriages has a right to procreate. That is still vital even though people can procreate without getting the license, and get away with it without being fined. You can see that marriage grants the right to procreate by examining the logic of Skinner and Loving. If the Lovings could have procreated without getting married, they would not have found that they had a right to marry. The rights were one and the same then, and they are one and the same now.
And I do think we should start prosecuting adulterers and fornicators again, like the woman who wrote an article about her little pregnancy scare in my local arts weekly, and other people who publicly admit, make it open and notorious, that they fornicate.
Also, a federal law saying that all marraiges have a right in principle to combine their gametes, that they cannot be prohibited from procreating altogether, would be a very good idea. It used to go without saying, but I am very worried about it now.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
Well same-sex couples can try other methods, like sex, prayer, and vitamins. Now it is safe to assume those methods won’t work, but it is safe to assume that those methods won’t work for some opposite-sex couples as well. I hope you’re not suggesting that we stop same-sex couples from praying.
Exactly so we can make certain procedures illegal (like genetically modifying cells) and yet keep their theoretical rights in place including, of course, their right to pray.
No it wouldn’t. Either way they would be allowed to have sex and pray. Neither way would they be allowed to genetically modify cells for procreative purposes.
I don’t believe this is the principle behind fornication laws, marriage laws, and certainly not rape laws. I’ve never liked the idea some have been putting forth lately that marriage only matters because heterosexual sex might lead to conception. However, that is nothing compared with the idea that rape is only a crime for that reason. That concept is revolting. Still if your theory were true, and treating everyone equally was so important that we say sex might create children no matter the reality, then we should say homosexual sex might create children as well. That would also solve your problem with procreation rights in marriage. Those couples are allowed to “try” to create children by having sex. That they never will succeed is no problem. Conception is not a requirement of marriage.
Of course, I think the whole idea is ridiculous. There is no axiom that sex might always create children. The reason rape laws or marriage laws apply to infertile couples or the elderly is not based on some abstract notion of equality. Rape is wrong regardless of whether a child may be conceived, and marriage is good regardless of whether a child may be conceived.
This comment was written by Galois.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 4:05 pm
Jake, the important point is that marriages has a right to procreate.
“Marriages” don’t procreate; people do, and that right has nothing to do with their being married or not.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2005 at 8:11 pm
CARTMAN: You must respect mah fertilitah!
He still looks pretty gay to me
This comment was written by Josh Jasper.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2005 at 5:56 am
Jake, marriages reproduce, not individuals. The kid is a reproduction of the marriage, not either individual.
And Galois, if a same-sex couple could pray and have children, their children would come from two people of the same gamete type. That would be illegal. Your not dealing with reality at all.
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2005 at 6:17 am
if a same-sex couple could pray and have children, their children would come from two people of the same gamete type. That would be illegal.
No, actually. That’s an insane thing to say. I mean, really, literally crazy. It’s simply not factually true, and what’s more, you’ve got to know it’s not true. There is no law prohibiting two people of the same gamete type from reproduction via prayer. Period.
I mean, Jesus, give me a break.
The kid is a reproduction of the marriage, not either individual.
No, actually, the kid is not a ‘reproduction’ of either the marriage or either individual parent. The closest we can get in talking about the kid as ‘a reproduction’ is to say that he’s a reproduction of both parents, but that’s inaccurate too. He’s not a ‘reproduction of the marriage,’ because it’s possible (and easy) to create a child without involving a marriage in the first place. You can’t be a reproduction of something that’s never been there.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
For their child fo come form an egg and a sperm, the same-sex couple’s prayers would have to be: please make one of us the other sex and turn us into a both-sex couple. So, I say let them focus their prayers on that, and if it comes true, then they, after a visit to the doctor proves that their birth certificate is in error, they can go down to city hall. But if a baby comes to them while they are still a same-sex couple, then it has not come from a man’s natural sperm and a woman’s natural egg, which is the only ethical way to create new people. So as a same-sex couple, we should not give them permission to have children together.
Not all marriages are recognized by the state, or by their members. Like the woman at the well who had been “married” five times, but had never legally married. What Jesus meant was she had had sex with five different men.
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2005 at 2:16 pm
Jake, marriages reproduce, not individuals.
Dude. You need to re-take that biology class.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2005 at 3:59 pm
See, an egg is by definiton a female gamate, and a sperm is by definiton a male gamete. Look sperm up. That doesn’t mean it will create a male, it means it comes from a male. A female can’t make sperm. If they make something that functions like a sperm that is the gamete of a female, it is an egg. The egg and sperm law is a man and woman law, both in practical terms and in intentionality and spirit.
And mythago, the only way an individual could reproduce is by cloning.
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 25th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
So you mean having (heterosexual) sex is marriage? Well, if you like dictionaries so much, here goes (via MSN encarta)
mar·riage (plural mar·riages)
noun
1. legal relationship between spouses: a legally recognized relationship, established by a civil or religious ceremony, between two people who intend to live together as sexual and domestic partners
2. specific marriage relationship: a married relationship between two people, or a somebody’s relationship with his or her spouse
They have a happy marriage.
3. joining in wedlock: the joining together in wedlock of two people
4. marriage ceremony: the ceremony in which two people are joined together formally in wedlock
5. union of two things: a close union, blend, or mixture of two things
Civilization is based on the marriage of tradition and innovation.
6. card games king and queen of same suit: in card games such as pinochle and bezique, a combination of the king and queen of the same suit
This comment was written by Tuomas.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 3:02 am
John Howard: For their child fo come form an egg and a sperm, the same-sex couple’s prayers would have to be: please make one of us the other sex and turn us into a both-sex couple.
Guh. Adoption, John. (Sperm donation, too.) You got a problem with adoption? What do you think ought to happen to children who need parents and don’t have them? Warehoused in institutions like in the good old days?
This comment was written by Jesurgislac.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 8:49 am
Jusurgislac, perhaps you came to this conversation late, but we’re not talking about adoption or sperm donation. Those aren’t the rights that Skinner or the Lovings were asking for, they have nothing to do with marriage. I am talking about the right to conceive a child together, with the person of your choice. People should only be allowed to do that with a person of the other sex, because doing it with a person of the same sex as you would be incredibly unethical and unsafe, by any method.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 9:08 am
>>People should only be allowed to do that with a person of the other sex, because doing it with a person of the same sex as you would be incredibly unethical and unsafe, by any method.>>
You’re talking about (a) a technology still in its infancy–actually, not yet in its infancy–and (b) technologies as yet undiscovered. You can’t make this kind of pronouncement; you don’t have enough information. If there were a way for two men or two women to combine their genes into a baby, with no risks either to them or to the health of the resulting child, what would be the problem? If that technology existed, would it make gay marriages marriages to you?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 11:41 am
Gay marriages are marriages to me, because they are marriages legally. They give the couple a right to have children together, and they therefore allow, if not demand, that technology be developed to allow them to have children together. The experiments to develop this in humans (it has been done in mice) will by their very nature be unethical. The technology should not be developed, resources should be spent in other areas of medicine that are actually medicine. The fact taht two women can’t have a baby together is not a medical problem, and there is no need to fix that.
If - if - it ever came to be considered a fine way to create children, it would indeed be terrible, for it would cement the idea that babies are ordered on demand, which destroys human dignity, and it would open the door to other impossible designs to make babies that in nature could not be born.
All people should be created equal - as the union of one man and one woman.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
…for it would cement the idea that babies are ordered on demand, which destroys human dignity…
I don’t follow your logic. How are the two in any way related?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
John Howard: They give the couple a right to have children together, and they therefore allow, if not demand, that technology be developed to allow them to have children together.
Of course, you have already provided the means to avoid this problem in your discussion of infertile heterosexual couples:
A couple (or actually, a person) that is infertile is publicly considered potentially fertile, and they have an equal right to attempt to procreate.
So to satisfy you all we need to do is:
1. Ban non “egg and sperm” procreation until such time as it is determined to be safe and acceptable. The law applies to everyone of any gender, sexual orientation, and marital status.
2. Apply globally your logic that an infertile heterosexual couple may still exercise the right to procreate by having sex, even though the sexual act cannot result in a pregnancy. We simply accept that all couples of any sexual orientation who marry exercise their right to procreate when they have sex, even if the sexual act will not produce progeny.
This comment was written by AndiF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 1:59 pm
Jake, what do you care? You want a right to same-sex procreation, you believe that people can be created to order, you are not about to let someone’s arguments to human dignity confuse you. I don’t expect you to understand dignity. I just want you to be honest about your demands for same-sex equality, and admit they they include a demand for same-sex procreation rights.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:07 pm
*Snort* “Soylent green is gay babies! Gay babies!”
His demands don’t include anything of the kind. The two issues weren’t linked until you spuriously linked them. You’re the one insisting that marriage isn’t marriage unless the couple involved has the right–and, apparently, the _ability_–to procreate together. So the response to that is, “Okay, then. Well, if I have to take the basket with the wine and cheese, that’s just gravy. Why is same-sex reproduction a problem, again, assuming that the technology poses no health risk to someone?….I see, and would you mind actually making arguments, instead of vague appeals to [dignity]?”
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
AndiF, a same-sex couple is publicly prevented from procreating. They are not at all like an infertile couple, which is allowed to procreate. Not to mention that the infertile couple may not be infertile, but the same-sex couple is definitely same-sex.
See, infertile people are individuals, and all indivuals are treated equally and have privacy rights. **All people can marry.** The only thing is, we sometimes object to the choice of who they want to marry, not based on the people involved individually, but based on their relationship to each other, and to other people. Being someone’s sibling, being married to someone, and being the same sex as someone, are not individual characteristiscs, they are relationship characteristics. (Age is an individual characteristic that prevents individuals from marrying and procreating, but they just have to wait a few years til they are adults).
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:16 pm
Jake, what do you care? You want a right to same-sex procreation, you believe that people can be created to order, you are not about to let someone’s arguments to human dignity confuse you. I don’t expect you to understand dignity. I just want you to be honest about your demands for same-sex equality, and admit they they include a demand for same-sex procreation rights.
Actually, dude, you are way, way ,way off. If I had my way, nobody would be allowed to procreate at will. First, you’d have to take some parenting courses. Second, you would have to pass a test proving you to be a fit parent. Third, each person would have a coupon that entitled them to have 3/4 of a child. Once the human population of Earth was back in the 2 to 3 billion range, the coupons would be upped to 1 child. But that’s as much of a fantasy world as the one in which you live. The difference is that I can tell fantasy from reality.
So, can you answer my question now?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
>>If - if - it ever came to be considered a fine way to create children, it would indeed be terrible, for it would cement the idea that babies are ordered on demand>>
Because the system where two fourteen-year-olds can make babies together with the aid of a Third Eye Blind album and two bucks’ worth of Two Buck Chuck is sooooooo much better for dignifying procreation! There wasn’t any commodifying of children or reproduction before IVF came along.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
>>Not to mention that the infertile couple may not be infertile, but the same-sex couple is definitely same-sex.>>
So, no woman over sixty may marry?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:26 pm
Piny, same-sex procreation would be unsafe and unethical. It must be banned, before people start trying, before they even think it might be possible someday. It probably never will be. It took 451 tries to create a single mouse from two eggs. Ten were born alive but died before adulthood. It is bad enough, I shudder to think, that thousands of mice are cut open and killed and created with fatal defects in the course of these experiments. Now they have moved on to try it with pigs, cutting them open, harvesting eggs, creating frankenstein embryos, and cutting open some more pigs to implant these monstrosities to see what happens. And they do this while millions of people can’t get simple medical care.
Babies should not created this way, or any way besides combining the egg and sperm of a man and a woman who are married to each other.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
Women over sixty are considered as publicly fertile as anyone. They may marry, because we don’t have fertility tests, it doesn’t matter if they are infertile or not. They are still subject to fornication laws, adultery laws, and marriage laws. There are no age limits. If that couple did have a child, it would combine an egg and a sperm and not, in principle, be unethical.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:32 pm
Piny, it is illegal, I am sure, in every state for two fourteen year olds to procreate or marry.
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
So, Jake, you want to ban non-egg and sperm procreation then?
This comment was written by John Howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
You’re describing standard R&D–pretty much the same experimental techniques that are used to refine and vet any new medical technology, essential or otherwise. This is how you make a technology safer, and get rid of all those unpleasant side effects like death and sepsis: you experiment on animals like mice.
I look forward to your formation of lobbying groups to prevent research on seasonal-allergy medication, anti-depressants, antacids, erectile dysfunction, reconstructive cosmetic surgery, scar maintenance, osteoporosis, and arthritis pain, since none of those are as essential as preventing fistula deaths.
And talk about dead mice.
You have _no idea_, finally, whether this particular technology will eventually be safe, easy, or even possible. None. You cannot speak to that likelihood, because it is simply far too early to tell. Your insistence that it will always be not-possible merely because it is not possible now is like saying that a hysterectomy performed at the turn of the century is a good indication of what my LAVH will be like.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
>>Women over sixty are considered as publicly fertile as anyone. They may marry, because we don’t have fertility tests, it doesn’t matter if they are infertile or not. They are still subject to fornication laws, adultery laws, and marriage laws. There are no age limits. If that couple did have a child, it would combine an egg and a sperm and not, in principle, be unethical.>>
No, they’re considered as publically _marriageable_, _adult_, and _sexually autonomous_ as anyone; they’re a good example of why your marriage=procreation assertions have nothing to do with the reality of the law. Why wouldn’t it be unethical to discourage any man from marrying a sixty-year-old woman he cannot have a child with?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
>>Piny, it is illegal, I am sure, in every state for two fourteen year olds to procreate or marry. >>
Well, you’re wrong. In some states, it is in fact legal for fourteen-year-olds to marry and to have kids.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
Jake;
Just as a kind of shot-gun advance, can Matt and I call dibs on your 3/4, since we’d be 1/2 a child short? Thanks!
John H.;
You seem intent on disregarding the real goal with cloning techniques, which in most cases seems to be pushed for the highly questionable ‘donor’ purpose, which has zilch and zero to do with SScoupling.
You also seem to be under the impression that all gays would be in favor of it, and all straights against. That isn’t nearly the case.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2005 at 3:44 pm
John Howard: I am talking about the right to conceive a child together, with the person of your choice.
I wasn’t aware that was a right.
Where in the legislation of the US do you find this “right” outlined?
People should only be allowed to do that with a person of the other sex, because doing it with a person of the same sex as you would be incredibly unethical and unsafe, by any method.
I have no idea if you’re right that it would be unsafe. It’s probably not yet possible by the current technological limits. I cannot see how it could be unethical, if it were possible.
Babies should not created this way, or any way besides combining the egg and sperm of a man and a woman who are married to each other.
Now you’re moving into the realm of the definitely unethical. How on earth can you enforce this? Force abortion on every woman who conceives outside marriage? Enforced contraception (or find a means of reversible sterility) on all unmarried couples? The very thought of such totalitarian-style control makes me twitchy. It’s a disgusting and repellent idea.
This comment was written by Jesurgislac.Report this comment to the moderators
June 28th, 2005 at 8:44 am
John Howard,
I’ll answer your question after you answer mine.
Kim(bv),
What are you offering for it?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 28th, 2005 at 10:12 am
Hmmm, 4th of July cheesy party potato’s fit for a vegetarian?
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 28th, 2005 at 10:16 am
Mmmmmm, cheesy potato goodness. That must be worth 3/4 of a kid.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 28th, 2005 at 9:17 pm
piny> You have _no idea_, finally, whether this particular technology will eventually be safe, easy, or even possible. None. You cannot speak to that likelihood, because it is simply far too early to tell. Your insistence that it will always be not-possible merely because it is not possible now is like saying that a hysterectomy performed at the turn of the century is a good indication of what my LAVH will be like.
It might be possible, that’s the whole reason I think it should it should be banned now. There is no need to take the risk, or rather, to impose the risk on the innocent people who would be created. There is no health problem that needs to be solved. Animal experiments won’t take that risk away. Even if we plowed ahead and worked out the kinks, it would be bad to start making children that way, in fact it would be worse if they are succesful at it than if they fail a few times and stop doing it. But there is no way we should ever face that future, because we should not allow the first baby to be born that way, we should keep procreation the same for everyone - we all have to find a person of the opposite sex and marry.
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 28th, 2005 at 9:37 pm
we should keep procreation the same for everyone - we all have to find a person of the opposite sex and marry
Any sufficiently advanced wingnut becomes indistinguishable from a troll. And vice versa.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
June 28th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
jake - our dignity comes from the way we are responsible for our own being coming into existence. To be created on demand takes away the surprise of our forcing ourselves into the lives of our parents, it makes us forever grateful, there’s no way we can feel responsible for our own existence. People may have sex with the purpose of getting pregnant, but it is still up to the child whether or not to come into existence. This is perhaps too poetic, but you could see the egg and sperm as choosing each other, and that mutual choice is the choice of the child to come into existence. At any rate, it is seen as a miracle, and from that miracle comes our dignity. Being forced into existence by pushing an egg and a sperm together with a pipet, though it still requires a miracle and still creates a person with as much dignity as everyone else, erodes everyone’s dignity because it makes us think of each other as crude products and expendable and replacable. By coming into the world though sex, wanted or not, we come into the world like glorious bandits. It also creates the notion of true responsibility, because you can’t just be responsible for things that you want to be responsible for, you have to be responsible for things that you don’t want to be responsible for.
now answer mine, are you for or against banning non egg and sperm procreation?
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 28th, 2005 at 9:49 pm
>Why wouldn’t it be unethical to discourage any man from marrying a sixty-year-old woman he cannot have a child with?
People can marry now matter how old they are. There are no (upper) age limits . Once they marry, they have a right to procreate, like all marriages.
I do think it would be wrong for a young person who has never married to marry a 60 year old, but if that is their choice, the law allows them, and i can’t see how it would be better if there were age limits.
i can see how it would be better not to allow someone to marry someone of their same sex, though.
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 28th, 2005 at 10:10 pm
>I wasn’t aware that was a right. Where in the legislation of the US do you find this “right”? outlined?
The right to procreate was found in Skinner, and the right to do it with the person of your choice (that was their words, what they meant was no matter what race they were) was found in Loving. They said there are valid reasons to prohibit marraige, but mainaining white supremacy was not one of them.
>I have no idea if you’re right that it would be unsafe. It’s probably not yet possible by the current technological limits. I cannot see how it could be unethical, if it were possible.
Of course it would be unsafe, there is no way to predict how human egg and sperm inprint each other’s genes, and how their absence or their doubled presence would affect the person’s development. It is unethical to purposefully create a person in the first place, let alone in a risky, untested and likely tragic manner.
>>Babies should not created this way, or any way besides combining the egg and sperm of a man and a woman who are married to each other.
>Now you’re moving into the realm of the definitely unethical. How on earth can you enforce this?
We enforce fornication laws when we say “no, we should wait until we are married.” We can enforce the egg and sperm law by telling labs and scientists not to try SSP experiments, and they can be re-pointed to work on more pressing problems. I am sure they will respct that ban. They certainly wouldn’t be able to get any grants or advertise their SSP service, anyway. There’d be serious jail time for people sho do it anyway.
>Force abortion on every woman who conceives outside marriage?
no, of course not. banning SSP does not require forcing anyone to get an abortion.
>Enforced contraception (or find a means of reversible sterility) on all unmarried couples? The very thought of such totalitarian-style control makes me twitchy. It’s a disgusting and repellent idea.
Yes it is, and not at all what i am talking about. I am talking about banning SSP. Saying that something should happen in such and such a way doesn’t mean that it always does, or that people have to be punished when it doesn’t. And the fact that bad things happen doesn’t mean that you can’t say they shouldn’t, or that things should be done a certain way.
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 29th, 2005 at 7:10 am
>I wasn’t aware that was a right. Where in the legislation of the US do you
>find this “right”? outlined?
>The right to procreate was found in Skinner
Would have been helpful if you’d supplied a link, but I googled. Okay. So, “the right to procreate” has been established in law in the US - it is illegal to enforce sterility on someone who wishes to reproduce. I wasn’t aware of that.
and the right to do it with the person of your choice (that was their words, what they meant was no matter what race they were) was found in Loving. They said there are valid reasons to prohibit marraige, but mainaining white supremacy was not one of them.
Okay.
>I have no idea if you’re right that it would be unsafe. It’s probably not yet
>possible by the current technological limits. I cannot see how it could be
>unethical, if it were possible.
Of course it would be unsafe, there is no way to predict how human egg and sperm inprint each other’s genes, and how their absence or their doubled presence would affect the person’s development. It is unethical to purposefully create a person in the first place, let alone in a risky, untested and likely tragic manner.
Um. Well, this is actually a reasonable argument for current bio-technological limits. It is not a reasonable argument to make on principle or as a sweeping claim that it would never be safe to do. I don’t know that, and nor do you. But, as a general principle that one shouldn’t experiment on conscious human beings, I will agree that it would be unwise and unethical to do it right now.
>>Babies should not created this way, or any way besides combining the >>egg and sperm of a man and a woman who are married to each other.
>Now you’re moving into the realm of the definitely unethical. How on
>earth can you enforce this?
We enforce fornication laws when we say “no, we should wait until we are married.”?
No. You’re talking about an ethical principle that some people hold by and others don’t. Some people feel they should not have sex until they’re married. Others feel that it’s better to have sex only inside a committed relationship, whether or not it’s civil marriage. Yet others feel that what matters is being honest and kind and considerate - behaving well towards all or any sexual partners. All of these are possible ethical positions to take. None of them are enforced by law, and none of them have anything to do with your initial and unethical proposal: “Babies should not [be] created [in] any way besides combining the egg and sperm of a man and a woman who are married to each other.”
The natural way to create a baby is for a fertile egg in a woman’s body to combine by a fertile sperm from a man’s body. That I will grant you. It would still be a perfectly natural way to create a baby if one took sperm from a willing sperm donor and implanted it by a syringe: and, requiring more technological assistance, but still proven to create perfectly normal babies, if the egg is fertilised outside the woman’s body and then implanted, either in that woman’s body or in another woman’s body. None of these methods of creating babies can be considered inethical in the same sense as experimenting with combining the gametes from two eggs, as all simply involve fertilisation of egg with sperm and incubation of foetus for the usual nine months, product, one normal baby. (Combining the gametes from two sperm would be trickier, as the combination would have to avoid two Y chromosomes.)
We can enforce the egg and sperm law by telling labs and scientists not to try SSP experiments
Well, you could. And in the US, where conservatives don’t like science much, I’m fairly sure that would work. But I doubt it will work outside the US, and yes, I think scientists will probably experiment with this, though I would strongly object were they to experiment with human eggs or human sperm until they had gone through several generations of large mammal experimentation. (Dolly the sheep proved that cloning was possible, but also showed long term that it would be unwise and unethical to attempt cloning a human being until the wrinkles had been ironed out.)
>>Force abortion on every woman who conceives outside marriage?
no, of course not. banning SSP does not require forcing anyone to get an abortion.
That wasn’t what you said. You said: “Babies should not [be] created [in] any way besides combining the egg and sperm of a man and a woman who are married to each other.”
If you wish to retract and apologize for this assertion, I am very willing to accept it. But you have to see that this statement, taken literally, requires forcing every woman who gets pregnant who isn’t married to have an abortion.
>Enforced contraception (or find a means of reversible sterility) on all
>unmarried couples? The very thought of such totalitarian-style control >makes me twitchy. It’s a disgusting and repellent idea.
Yes it is, and not at all what i am talking about.
Then please, retract your statement : “Babies should not [be] created [in] any way besides combining the egg and sperm of a man and a woman who are married to each other.”
Have it simply as: “Babies should not be created in any way besides combining egg and sperm.” That’s a reasonable ethical statement for our current level of bio-science, and does not impose enforced abortion or enforced sterility or enforced contraception or enforced childlessness on anyone. Lesbian couples can easily have children via sperm donation, just as het couples who aren’t interfertile can: gay male couples can either adopt or partner with a lesbian couple. And of course, any couple - whether or not they choose to have children or are able to have children with each other- should be able to get married.
I am talking about banning SSP.
You may think that’s what you’re talking about, but it’s not what you said. Your statement”: “Babies should not [be] created [in] any way besides combining the egg and sperm of a man and a woman who are married to each other.” strongly suggests that you are not trying to ban only an experimental and risky procedure, but trying to prevent any woman from having children outside heterosexual marriage - and since the only way to do that would be forced contraception, forced sterility, or forced abortion, all of which would be (as you have pointed out) illegal by the Skinner decision, you reallly shouldn’t even try.
This comment was written by Jesurgislac.Report this comment to the moderators
June 29th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
We have always had fornication laws and never felt a need to force abortions on unmarried women. And saying that babies should only be created by married couples is not only perfectly acceptable, but I think absolutely necessary to say. Saying that, even legislating it, doesn’t require any of the things you think it does. Consider that only allowing licensed drivers to drive doesn’t require killing unlicensed people, or putting unlicensed drivers in jail for their whole life.
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 29th, 2005 at 12:20 pm
john,
I disagree with you about the connection between how a fetus is created and human dignity. I see no connection at all. I don’t feel people have any more or less dignity now than they did before the first test-tube baby was born. But I cannot deny that you have the feelings that you express. I think that it’s silly that you expect all others to agree with your belief.
Banning non egg and sperm procreation? Yeah, I could live with that. But I could also live without all the various egg and sperm methods (particularly in terms of fertility clinics) that we have now. But that has to do with my belief that we are suffering from overpopulation that is going to severely and adversely affect future generations.
But will I loudly advocate it? Hell, no. It is just not a realistic goal - just as my goal of education & 3/4 child coupons is not realistic. I don’t understand why people would want to go through the pain and expense any non egg&sperm reproduction would involve (or why they would want to go to a fertility doctor). I also don’t understand why anybody would want to skydive. I’m not going to work to outlaw either activity, though. I will speak out to make people aware of the dangers of overpopulation, but I’m not going to rant about the “immorality” (which is subjective, by the way) of having multiple children.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 29th, 2005 at 12:25 pm
But driving without a license is a crime, which can lead to fines or even to jail time. There is a punishment for driving without a license; without that punishment, the requirement that only licensed drivers are allowed to drive would be meaningless.
So if only married cross-sex pairs are allowed to procreate, as I think you’ve proposed, then what punishment are you proposing for unmarried procreation?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 29th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
john howard: We have always had fornication laws and never felt a need to force abortions on unmarried women. And saying that babies should only be created by married couples is not only perfectly acceptable, but I think absolutely necessary to say. Saying that, even legislating it, doesn’t require any of the things you think it does.
Actually, it does. If you’re arguing - and you are - that only married couples shall be allowed to procreate, and that this shall be enforced by law, the only way to enforce that is forced contraception on unmarried people, and forced abortions on women who get pregnant anyway. If you don’t like that, stop advocating it.
This comment was written by Jesurgislac.Report this comment to the moderators
June 30th, 2005 at 9:16 am
>So if only married cross-sex pairs are allowed to procreate, as I think you’ve proposed, then what punishment are you proposing for unmarried procreation?
The current punishment for unmarried intercourse is “not more than three months or by a fine of not more than thirty dollars,” but I don’t think we even do that anymore. I think it pretty much goes unpunished, and that is appropriate. The reason we don’t punish women is because we have faith that the law will continue to be respected even without a deterent of punishment, and punishing the woman would punish the child. But I would be in favor of more deterrence, perhaps by eliminating the obligations of paternity on unmarried fathers.
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 30th, 2005 at 9:24 am
You are forgetting that laws don’t have to reduce the activity down to zero. For example, murder laws don’t reduce murder down to zero. The only way to do that would be to put us all in shackles from the moment we are born. We’d never violate the law, but it’s not worth it. So we choose to be free, even though it will allow people to violate the law and murder someone, and sometimes even get away with it.
See? You can have a law without enforcing it or punishing it to such a degree that the enforcement itself is odious. Obviously, abortion is odious. The child is innocent. The law can on ly be enforced by people respecting it and agreeing with it. Single people should not be allowed to have children, they should be considered criminals if they do that.
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
June 30th, 2005 at 9:50 am
Single people should not be allowed to have children, they should be considered criminals if they do that.
Ah. So rather than force a woman to have an abortion, you intend to prosecute her and lock her up? Likewise, presumably, the man who had unprotected sex with her? And who is going to take care of the child? Will you have children in jail with their mothers? Or forced adoption? Or what? You don’t seem to have thought this through at all.
The law can only be enforced by people respecting it and agreeing with it.
Actually, a “law” that is only enforced by people respecting it isn’t a “law”. It’s a custom or a tradition or a statement of belief.
I see no reason whatsoever to respect such a law, and you have not given me any.
This comment was written by Jesurgislac.Report this comment to the moderators
June 30th, 2005 at 9:59 am
Jesurgislac,
You’ve got john howard all wrong. He’s not going to punish the man who had unprotected sex with the unmarried woman.
john howard says:
But I would be in favor of more deterrence, perhaps by eliminating the obligations of paternity on unmarried fathers.
See, guy gets off scott-free while the woman and child are punished.
And he considers non-egg&sperm procreation unethical? Sheesh.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
June 30th, 2005 at 10:35 am
Oh gosh, I missed that one. Roofle. Good catch, Jake.
This comment was written by Kim (basement variety!).Report this comment to the moderators
June 30th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
Jake Squid: You’ve got john howard all wrong. He’s not going to punish the man who had unprotected sex with the unmarried woman.
Good catch! So what John Howard is really after is a return to the “good old days” - when “loose women” were punished, men could be as promiscuous as they like without any penalty, and illegitimate children were warehoused in institutions.
I wonder why that doesn’t surprise me?
This comment was written by Jesurgislac.Report this comment to the moderators
July 1st, 2005 at 9:12 am
Jesurgislac, the law specified a maximum punishment, there is no minimum punishment. Since it does unfairly punish the women and the child, we don’t tend to apply any punishment whatsoever, we feel she’s got enough problems already. This isn’t something I haven’t thought out, this already exists and works fine. The law is there because it helps, even without being enforced.
I am sure about eliminating child support payments, but i was asked to come up with possible punishments. On the one hand, a man should be responsible, but by creating child support for unmarried dads, the state sort of subsumed marriage and made it seem unnecessary for the woman. I think we could disincentivize fornication by eliminating child support, and make women push for marriage first again.
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
July 1st, 2005 at 9:35 am
oops, i meant to say “I am not sure”… I do think they are necessary
This comment was written by john howard.Report this comment to the moderators
July 1st, 2005 at 9:40 am
john,
Do you see how your plan puts all of the responsibility on women and none on men? Why should women be the ones forced to “push for marriage again?” Why couldn’t your plan involve all men who father bastards being forced to give their entire salary as child-support and having to live in the equivalent of a half-way house until the child comes of age? That way all of the responsibility would be on men. Or better yet, for the purpose of putting the responsibility equally on men and women, why don’t we put people have have children out of wedlock into prison work programs until the child comes of age, take the child away & put it up for adoption and have all income earned by the parents go into a trust fund for the child? We could just make death the punishment for having children out of wedlock! That should also be a disincentive that cuts across gender lines.
Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? But so does your suggestion of putting the all of the responsibility on women.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
July 1st, 2005 at 10:49 am
Jake: Do you see how your plan puts all of the responsibility on women and none on men?
Of course John sees that, Jake; why do you think he’s proposing it? It is men like John Howard, with their shameless dual standards for women and for men, allowing “respectable men” to have sex with “loose women” and then walk away from any subsequent consequences, that could easily turn me into a man-hater.
I remind myself, however, that not all men are as selfish and irresponsible as John Howard, only some.
This comment was written by Jesurgislac.Report this comment to the moderators
June 21st, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Margaret Somerville
This comment was written by What She Deserves.Report this comment to the moderators