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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Homosexual relations and "otherness"
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I'm happy to find out that St John Chrysostom agrees with me. I always did like John...
I find he's sound on most things, as long as you keep him off the subject of Judaism.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Starlight
Shipmate
# 12651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Starlight was referring to the antiquated law in NZ and, as far as I can tell, implying that the law I quoted must be similarly outdated.
I was more trying to question your apparent assumptions that if French law does something a certain way:
1) that must be the right way of doing it
2) there must be no good alternatives
3) that the reasons the law has for doing the things it does must directly reflect the true realities of the world, and not at all be some sort of convoluted compromise that results from trying to balance many different competing concerns and interests.
I say this because you seemed to go in an overly credulous way from the observation that "French law says X" to a conclusion that X therefore directly reflected a valid truth about the world, as if French law were gospel.
By giving the examples of NZ laws on the subject, I was trying to illustrate to you that laws aren't gospel, that they can and do get it wrong, and that they don't necessarily reflect any sort of underlying reality.
I think your line of argument comes across particularly unconvincing to the rest of us non-French people because it ends up going essentially as follows:
You: "French law rules paternity in a particular way."
Us: "Okay, that's not how our countries' laws do it. But each to his own."
You: "France's way is the only right way to do it."
Us: "Why would you even think that? That's just silly."
You: "France's way of doing it must reflect some fundamental truth about the world and some truth about gay couples."
Us: "Why would France's particular way of doing things be any more a fundamental reflection of truths about the world than any other Western country's differing way of doing things? It seems more likely that the way any particular country does things is reflective of that own country's history and culture and the other laws it happens to have on its books."
Since France is internationally renowned for high rates of infidelity in marriage (I have no idea whether that reputation is justified) and as the saying goes "A French marriage is where a man marries one woman, the woman's sister, and the maid"... I would tend to suspect that any rules about paternity that France has which differ from the rest of the Western world, are rules that have been to a large degree shaped by its culture of infidelity.
I also wonder if, given the amount of controversy in France that surrounded the legalization of gay marriage, if perhaps while not caving to the religious conservatives on the basic issue of allowing gay marriage, that perhaps some sort of subtle compromise was done on issues relating to paternity that were aimed at making the State need to give explicit approval every time a gay couple wanted children (and perhaps to thus give religious conservatives a chance to butt in with objections during the 'adoption' process?) since gay people raising children seems to be something that religious conservatives often get flustered about.
[ 25. August 2014, 20:25: Message edited by: Starlight ]
Posts: 745 | From: NZ | Registered: May 2007
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
You caricature both my assumptions and my conclusions.
My main takeaway from looking at that piece of legislation was as follows:
a) once you get into the niceties of all the scenarios, the various configurations for same-sex parenthood are a veritable thicket
b) by contrast, the procedures for acknowledgement of paternity for a child born to a hetero married couple are a simple administrative formality; they require no legal procedure of any sort whatsoever.
Unless I've missed something, you haven't explained to me how NZ law differs here (specifically on point b above). You've described my recent law as "needing updating", but you haven't suggested how.
I suspect, despite your slight at French infidelity, that the main reason the law is as it stands is simply because the vast majority of children born to married hetero couples are the biological children of the couple, and that this is as true in NZ as in France.
All the other provisions are designed, with varying degrees of legal hurdles to cross, largely to regulate filiation of other children; they are instruments to achieve what you were happy to describe on page 1 as a "best approximation" to natural reproduction, within the context of marriage.
As an aside to this observation, I for my part perceive a persistent effort on the part of SSM proponents here to put all the emphasis on the marriage, and systematically minimise or discount the differences that arise when it comes to children and more particularly the issue of filiation.
This downplaying is all the more striking in that for most (not all!) marriages across the board, the issue (ha ha) of children is a major consideration (anecdotally, it seems many people living together get married when they want to "settle down and start a family") and in many if not most cases, those children will be produced by the married couple procreating.
The proportions might shift a bit, but I don't see that overall picture changing all that much any time soon. So it feels as if you are minimising something that is actually a major difference, both technically (the difference between a) and b) above) and in terms of sheer numbers (there is a lot more recourse to b) above than a)).
That doesn't mean all marrieds should have children or be disqualified from marrying if they can't, but it does signal a need for honest engagement on the topic, if necessary by sweating the details. I think we all agree that marriage is about more than children. But they are not a minor consideration, and neither is the route by which they arrive in the family.
==
As a postscript, my workload looks like it will be ramping up over the next few days, so I may not have time to interact quite so much or quite so extensively. I'm also reaching the limits of how far I have got in my thinking (or at least what I'm able to formulate here). I realise we are probably still going to have some areas of disagreement. I will however try and post a summary of where I've got to and why before too much time passes.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Just because many heterosexual couples CAN have children, do you think they MUST for their marriage to be valid?
No. But I perceive that the majority of marriages to be heterosexual and include procreation, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
Perhaps you will see it changing quite soon, if the figures for Generation X in this article are accurate.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Eutychus, just a small thing as I just got back from Greenbelt today - we really need to clarify the difference between sex and gender, and that they are different and not interchangeable terms. 'Biological gender' is not a thing! Sex is biological, gender is a social construct. Also this difference means that actually fertility is not exclusive to different-gender couples, since a same-gender couple where one partner is transgender is potentially fertile.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
Actually it will forever be a subset of coupling.
That's true too, but it is also true that the set "couples that can reproduce" is a subset of the set "heterosexual couples" and that the set "homosexual couples" does not intersect with either.
As Jade has noted, actually it isn't.
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
So it doesn't look any different to similar situations in heterosexual relationships to me.
There is a difference with children born to a mother in a heterosexual relationship. The child has filiation with the mother and her husband, who is presumed to be the father, with no legal procedure required apart from registration of the birth.
But again that's a legal situation, not a natural one. This doesn't prove any natural (i.e. not created by human society) "otherness" (or indeed even imply it) in any way shape or form.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Just because many heterosexual couples CAN have children, do you think they MUST for their marriage to be valid?
No. But I perceive that the majority of marriages to be heterosexual and include procreation, and I don't see that changing any time soon. That doesn't mean no other configurations are invalid, but I do think it tends to perpetuate the archetype.
The vast, vast, vast majority of marriages in this world are between people of the same nation; a similar percentage are between people of the same race; so too the same religion (or lack thereof). So what?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Orfeo: a link to a DINKs site? The article does not specify marriage, and is country-specific.
LQ: I don't see anything in that article about natural childbirth.
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
'Biological gender' is not a thing! Sex is biological, gender is a social construct. Also this difference means that actually fertility is not exclusive to different-gender couples, since a same-gender couple where one partner is transgender is potentially fertile.
Well of course, because you have just defined gender in such a way as for it not to relate to sex at all. Mail Online articles notwithsanding, I have to say that I can't manage that leap.
mousethief: are you really trying to argue that the legal situation doesn't reflect a natural fact of life?
Similarly, one difference with, say, inter-racial marriages (well, the fertile hetero ones) is that they have the potential to result in natural childbirth in a way SSM does not.
All this still looks to me like an attempt to brush over the obvious and inconvenient truth of natural childbirth.
Perhaps I am a natural law nut™ after all.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
mousethief: are you really trying to argue that the legal situation doesn't reflect a natural fact of life?
In order to support the argument that the law reflects a natural fact of life, you'd have to prove that it's a natural fact of life. Once you can do that, then why bring the law into it at all? If it's a natural fact of life then the law is irrelevant, and the argument should be supportable from the fact of life. Leave law out of it entirely.
Not everything that people claim is a natural fact of life really is. For instance it used to be a natural fact of life that black people were inherently inferior to white people. The law even supported it, as did the Bible. Until it didn't.
But this is all just playing. The ONLY real issue on the table right now is how to go from "a woman can't impregnate another woman" or "a man can't impregnate another man" to anything having to do with marriage. Everything else is just window dressing.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Eutychus, just a small thing as I just got back from Greenbelt today - we really need to clarify the difference between sex and gender, and that they are different and not interchangeable terms. 'Biological gender' is not a thing! Sex is biological, gender is a social construct. Also this difference means that actually fertility is not exclusive to different-gender couples, since a same-gender couple where one partner is transgender is potentially fertile.
Well said. Judith Butler used to say that gender is a performance, well, a social performance.
I used to be in a gender study group, and the gradual loss of meaning of 'gender' made us despair. A lot of people just use it to mean sex identity today, and that's it. But it produces a lot of confusion.
[ 26. August 2014, 07:15: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Starlight
Shipmate
# 12651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
As an aside to this observation, I for my part perceive a persistent effort on the part of SSM proponents here to put all the emphasis on the marriage, and systematically minimise or discount the differences that arise when it comes to children and more particularly the issue of filiation.
I don't quite know what to make of your repeated comments about us making a "persistent effort"... do you mean you would be more convinced if we said less? The fact that we express disagreement with ideas your expressing must mean there's something to them?? I can stop responding to you if you want...?
In practice the majority of male-male same sex couples choose not to raise children, whereas a significant number of female-female same sex couples do choose to have or adopt children. Since people on this board tend, as far as I can tell, to be predominantly male or past child-bearing age, there's probably very very few people here who are currently in same sex relationships and currently raising children in them. So that topic of conversation's probably just not very relevant to most people here, whereas the legalization of same-sex marriage is a lot more relevant to a lot of us.
And it seems to me that the issue you point to basically boils down to "same sex couples need to fill in more paperwork when having children". I might be a weird person for saying this, but I don't particularly object to filling out the occasional form and kind of enjoying working through my tax return (although I hear NZ tax returns are trivially simple compared to US ones, so enjoyment of that may vary by country, and probably enjoyment varies by whether you get a rebate or have to pay more tax!). What I hear you saying is that if I lived in France and wanted children I'd have to fill out some forms once the child were born, whereas if I was straight I'd have to fill out less forms (or possibly no forms? Though you must have birth certificates or something right?). I just can't see that having to do a little bit of paperwork is a serious thing. While you can repeat the statement that "Ah, but the very existence of that paperwork must illustrate some fundamental difference between gay and straight couples" all you like, I would point out that if in fact the only result of that 'fundamental' difference is a small amount of paperwork, then it's hardly a very fundamental difference is it?
Posts: 745 | From: NZ | Registered: May 2007
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
The main reason it's increasingly difficult to link marriage with having children is because an increasing number of heterosexuals are doing one without the other (and that observation applies in both directions). It's hardly a specifically homosexual strategy to treat the two issues as rather separate.
If a recent Australian fictional television show is any guide, it was still a great source of shame and trouble to have a child outside of marraige as late as the 1960s, and so the desire to have children was one driver of the desire to get married. But in recent decades that mindset has altered radically.
[ 26. August 2014, 08:39: Message edited by: orfeo ]
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
I'm going to have to limit my participation here for a while at least. I realise I have left some questions unaddressed and there are more angles I want to look at. Let me try and draw a line for now (for me) by picking up one comment quote:
Originally posted by Starlight:
I don't quite know what to make of your repeated comments about us making a "persistent effort"... do you mean you would be more convinced if we said less? The fact that we express disagreement with ideas your expressing must mean there's something to them?? I can stop responding to you if you want...?
I just can't make natural heterosexual procreation the same as any alternatives.
There is a fundamental difference in that it can occur naturally, without any medical intervention at all. It is in that respect unique, and has been a constant irrespective of social constructs of gender or advances in technology.
I cannot escape the sense that this uniqueness is significant.
All the more so in that, from my perspective at least, this constant reflects a state of affairs found "in the beginning" as related in the early chapters of Genesis.
"Significant" does not equate with "morally superior". But (at least for me) it means that it is something I have to bear in mind, and make sense (or the right "significance", if you like) of.
It may be that I have the significance wrong, or ill-defined. But if the constituency I find myself in is to accommodate same-sex marriage* with integrity, I have to consider this significance seriously. I can't just brush it aside even if others find themselves able to.
=
I have to pause this here for now. Thanks to those who have been patient and persistent enough to engage with me and to do so with courtesy. I very much hope to take this up again in due course and I really appreciate the opportunity to do so in this forum.
==
*As a postscript to orfeo's last comment, I think marriage as a social and legal institution inevitably makes provision for children because a large component of marriage law is to do with filiation and inheritance. The difference between marriage and cohabitation from my specific perspective is that marriage is a public event which could well entail a couple coming to my church and asking us to bless that marriage.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Are some Christians still seeking some kind of essentialist description, that will distinguish straight and gay people?
Hence in the OP the pseudo-Freudian allusion to Vicky Beeching's feminine deficit or something. Is this saying that lesbians fail somehow to leap the hurdle of otherness?
Therefore what? That otherness is a key divine gift, and lesbians and gays don't accept it?
One of the interesting things about sex and gender relations today is that it's via the latter that many people construct difference. But maybe this doesn't count as a genuine otherness.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Rats, couldn't resist answering this quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Are some Christians still seeking some kind of essentialist description, that will distinguish straight and gay people?
I think that is probably where Gagnon is coming from, yes. quote:
Therefore what? That otherness is a key divine gift, and lesbians and gays don't accept it?
I said ages ago on this thread that I don't think otherness is confined to "biological gender" (or "sex" to use Jade Constable's terminology), but for now, I do think otherness is an important and divinely ordained part of what relationships are all about. Others have said something similar to that.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I suppose part of the revolution in gender studies was the insight, that while sex identity is biologically determined in various ways, gender identity is a social construction.
In other words, humans can play with gender, and do all the time; in the terms of the famous gender theorist, Judith Butler, it's a performance, or a kind of social theatre.
I'm just trying to match this with some idea of 'divinely ordained', and the biological sex angle is the obvious match (I was born male); whereas gender is human art really (I learned to be masculine and feminine in various ways). But isn't human art divinely ordained?
Oh, rats, as you said, I can see why I could never hack it as a Christian! The categories always start to slide around for me, and I like that.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I forgot to say that the most radical gender theorists, whose names escape me, began to argue that sex identity itself was partly a social construction. Thus the category of 'woman' was 'deconstructed', and said to be artificial, a performance, and so on. Maybe some other posters know more about this, as I az forgit it. Obviously, this had purchase for some feminists, but not for others, who wanted to celebrate 'womanhood'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Note on marriage laws:
Marriage laws began as a way of controlling weath and property. This is why it did not become a thing for commoners for quite a bit after it was for wealthy. And why, as mentioned up thread, a woman's rights vanished upon marriage.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Note on marriage laws:
Marriage laws began as a way of controlling weath and property. This is why it did not become a thing for commoners for quite a bit after it was for wealthy. And why, as mentioned up thread, a woman's rights vanished upon marriage.
Yes, I just thinking about that last bit, since 'coverture' (the law which destroyed a married woman's legal autonomy), in a sense destroyed otherness. Marriage was one person - the man.
This has been useful in arguments with homophobes, who tended to go on about 'traditional marriage', since traditionally the woman was an unperson. But then maybe they miss those days.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
"By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert."
Blackstone, 'Commentaries on the laws of England'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I just can't make natural heterosexual procreation the same as any alternatives.
There is a fundamental difference in that it can occur naturally, without any medical intervention at all. It is in that respect unique, and has been a constant irrespective of social constructs of gender or advances in technology.
I cannot escape the sense that this uniqueness is significant.
But significant for what? For determining who can and cannot get married? Why? No such link has been argued for without special pleading, circularity, or dragging God into it, making it religiously sectarian and thus contrary to the first amendment protection clause.
Your inescapable sense is irrelevant to the question of who should or should not be able to marry.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Indeed, the only reason it has significant 'uniqueness' is through defining the class of people via the very quality that is 'unique'.
But marriage law doesn't define the class of people that can marry by virtue of this 'unique' characteristic. Over the years it's defined them through all sorts of methods: age, race, and yes by sex as well, but it hasn't gone, for a long time at least, that further step of saying 'not only must you be the right pairing of male and female, but you must be a procreative male-female pair'.
There are all sorts of reasons why it's been a male-female pairing. For one thing, that's what the vast majority of people want. For another, homosexual behaviour was illegal for a long time, so of course one wasn't going to provide a mechanism for officially sanctioning homosexual sex. In those circumstances, only having heterosexual marriage was perfectly logical.
It is no longer logical. There is now nothing 'wrong' with homosexual sex that would make it something that the State shouldn't be seen to sanction.
It's not as if the rationale for marriage is a constant, non-evolving thing. Was it maybe once entirely about ensuring legal paternity and regularising property transfer down the generations? Sure. Has it stayed about that? No.
We certainly don't rely on it just for the sake of children. It is also frequently used to ensure flow of benefits between the 2 partners - now that women don't disappear into legal nothingness on their wedding day. It establishes the existence of a relationship without any further inquiry being needed. This is in fact one of the key reasons why same-sex couples regard it as better than being de facto partners. I don't know about elsewhere, but most (if not all) of the Australian jurisdictions have a whole series of criteria that have to be weighed up to decide that 2 people are de facto partners rather than just 'dating'. If you're married it's definitive.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Very good stuff coming up here about the dynamic nature of marriage, not a static phenomenon at all. I was reminded of this today, while reading about that vestige in the marriage service - 'who gives this woman to be married to this man?'
I suppose many people leave that out, but it reminds us of a time when the woman was literally given as property from one man to another. I think Levi-Strauss defined this as 'the exchange of women', one of the binding factors in patriarchal society.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
*As a postscript to orfeo's last comment, I think marriage as a social and legal institution inevitably makes provision for children because a large component of marriage law is to do with filiation and inheritance.
The question that's never answered by those positing this position is why children being raised by same-sex couples don't need/deserve similar provision? I've never seen this "marriage is important for kid, except for these kids, so let's have less of it" position explained in a coherent way.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Because we all need a mummy and daddy, that's why! God in his wisdom arranged that, so it is wrong to only have two mummies or two daddies.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
*As a postscript to orfeo's last comment, I think marriage as a social and legal institution inevitably makes provision for children because a large component of marriage law is to do with filiation and inheritance.
The question that's never answered by those positing this position is why children being raised by same-sex couples don't need/deserve similar provision? I've never seen this "marriage is important for kid, except for these kids, so let's have less of it" position explained in a coherent way.
Jumping back in here just to say that I have not disputed the need or deserving of similar provision for children of same-sex couples. Unless you can show me where I am - the bit you've quoted certainly doesn't say that.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
LQ: I don't see anything in that article about natural childbirth.
Well, it's in there:
quote:
MacDonald, who began transitioning from a woman to a man in 2008 but quit testosterone treatment when he became pregnant in July 2010 ...
The implication is that he had to interrupt HRT in order to carry and deliver his and his husband's child.
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Sorry, you are correct; my mistake.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Orfeo: a link to a DINKs site? The article does not specify marriage, and is country-specific.
LQ: I don't see anything in that article about natural childbirth.
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
'Biological gender' is not a thing! Sex is biological, gender is a social construct. Also this difference means that actually fertility is not exclusive to different-gender couples, since a same-gender couple where one partner is transgender is potentially fertile.
Well of course, because you have just defined gender in such a way as for it not to relate to sex at all. Mail Online articles notwithsanding, I have to say that I can't manage that leap.
mousethief: are you really trying to argue that the legal situation doesn't reflect a natural fact of life?
Similarly, one difference with, say, inter-racial marriages (well, the fertile hetero ones) is that they have the potential to result in natural childbirth in a way SSM does not.
All this still looks to me like an attempt to brush over the obvious and inconvenient truth of natural childbirth.
Perhaps I am a natural law nut™ after all.
It's not my definition, actually, but well-established. Gender and sex are completely different - they intersect for probably most people, but not for a significant minority. Hence some same-gender couples being able to reproduce with no outside help.
Also relatedly - it would help if we used 'different-gender couple' rather than 'heterosexual couple'. Many bisexual people are married to someone of a different gender, it doesn't make them straight.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Figbash
The Doubtful Guest
# 9048
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Also relatedly - it would help if we used 'different-gender couple' rather than 'heterosexual couple'. Many bisexual people are married to someone of a different gender, it doesn't make them straight.
Are you not confusing 'heterosexual' as applied to a relationship, i.e. a relationship within which the individuals are of different sexes, from 'heterosexual' as applied to an orientation, i.e. a preference for individuals of the other sex? There is surely a (fine) distinction between a 'heterosexual couple' and a 'couple of heterosexuals', with the former implying nothing about the preferences of the individuals making up the couple.
'Heterosexual' (literal meaning: other sex) is, after all, an adjective, and so its impact on the meaning of a noun is a result of the combination of it, and of the noun. It does not have a single fixed meaning that it applies to everything, regardless of what that thing is, which is, I think, what you are saying. Like most words, it has little, if any, meaning in isolation.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
If everybody just stayed out of each others bedrooms, we'd not need to worry so much about proper labeling, would we?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Figbash:
Are you not confusing 'heterosexual' as applied to a relationship, i.e. a relationship within which the individuals are of different sexes, from 'heterosexual' as applied to an orientation, i.e. a preference for individuals of the other sex? There is surely a (fine) distinction between a 'heterosexual couple' and a 'couple of heterosexuals', with the former implying nothing about the preferences of the individuals making up the couple.
Or if my (male) cousin and I are walking down the street, we form a couple of heterosexuals, although our only relationship is cousinhood. The distinction is not so fine after all. It shows the silliness of arguments which use labels rather than substance.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Figbash:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Also relatedly - it would help if we used 'different-gender couple' rather than 'heterosexual couple'. Many bisexual people are married to someone of a different gender, it doesn't make them straight.
Are you not confusing 'heterosexual' as applied to a relationship, i.e. a relationship within which the individuals are of different sexes, from 'heterosexual' as applied to an orientation, i.e. a preference for individuals of the other sex? There is surely a (fine) distinction between a 'heterosexual couple' and a 'couple of heterosexuals', with the former implying nothing about the preferences of the individuals making up the couple.
'Heterosexual' (literal meaning: other sex) is, after all, an adjective, and so its impact on the meaning of a noun is a result of the combination of it, and of the noun. It does not have a single fixed meaning that it applies to everything, regardless of what that thing is, which is, I think, what you are saying. Like most words, it has little, if any, meaning in isolation.
Actually as an LGBT person myself and from speaking to others, it's generally preferred that terms like heterosexual aren't applied to couples but only individuals. I'm not confusing anything.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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Starlight
Shipmate
# 12651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The question that's never answered by those positing this position is why children being raised by same-sex couples don't need/deserve similar provision? I've never seen this "marriage is important for kids, except for these kids, so let's have less of it" position explained in a coherent way.
Indeed, and judges have not been shy about pointing this out in court: quote:
US Supreme Court Chief justice Roberts, during oral arguments March 2013:
"there is an immediate legal injury or legal -- what could be a legal injury, and that's the voice of these children. There are some 40,000 children in California, according to the Red Brief, that live with same-sex parents, and they want their parents to have full recognition and full status. The voice of those children is important in this case, don't you think?"
[Defence lawyer reply:] "Your Honor, I certainly would not dispute the importance of that consideration."
quote:
The eventual majority decision of the US Supreme Court in the DOMA case, 2014, said that:
[Denying marriage to gay couples] "humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples" and "also brings financial harm to children of same-sex couples."
Or consider this summary of a appeals court trial from this week:
quote:
US Federal Appeals court judge, Richard Posner, Aug 2014, from summary of oral arguments here:
At one point, Posner ran through a list of psychological strains the children of unmarried same-sex couples suffered, including having to struggle to grasp why their schoolmates' parents were married and theirs weren't.
"What horrible stuff," Posner said. What benefit to society in barring gay marriage, he asked, outweighs that kind of harm to children?
Posts: 745 | From: NZ | Registered: May 2007
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
And I would like to say, again, that I personally have not disputed the need or deserving of similar provision for children of same-sex couples. Unless you can show me where I am - the post Croesos quoted certainly doesn't say that.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Starlight
Shipmate
# 12651
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Posted
Eutychus,
The idea of being able to have children being a "difference" between gay and straight couples came up this week in one of the US court cases about marriage. In particular, the State made the argument that the important difference is that straight couples can have children by mistake. Whereas gay couples, though they can raise children like straight couples can, can't do so by mistake. And we can probably all agree with that for the most part (with the exception of where a gay member of a same-sex couple is transgender and thus capable of reproduction by mistake in the usual way)
The particular case this week was amusing because the judge was all-out mocking the sheer ridiculousness of the arguments being made by the State's lawyers. With regard to the above "difference" between gay and straight couples of being able to have children by mistake, the State's lawyers tried to turn that into an argument against same-sex marriage in the following way:
1) When a couple has a child by mistake, the father may perceive the child as a financial and emotional burden, and decide he isn't interested in participating in the cost of raising the child, and so simply leave the relationship. This is undesirable for society as the child may not be sufficiently cared for and the mother may suffer.
2) The State and society has an interest in preventing this happening, so that's why we have marriage. The primary purpose of marriage and the laws surrounding it is to stop the man abandoning his unwanted child. This works by the State providing financial benefits to married couples which results in a financial incentive for the man to stay with his family rather than leaving; and marriage also works by getting him to commit to the woman prior to sex in order that once they start having sex (with the associated possibility of having children by mistake) that the man won't easily be able to abandon his commitments. (It's carrot and a stick in a sense, the marriage provides incentives to stay and difficulty to leave)
3) Gay people are different. Their relationships don't have the possibility of having children by mistake. In that sense their relationships are 'better' from a social perspective with regard to this difference, as they don't present the potential danger to society of unwanted children. Because gay relationships are superior in this sense and lack the capacity for having their relationship threatened by unwanted children, gay couples don't need the State to be providing them with incentives to stay together. So they don't need the benefits and responsibilities of marriage, because the carrot-and-stick of marriage is designed to keep straight men from leaving their partners when unwanted pregnancies occur.
I've seen this argument used in a number of US courts over the past year or so. It doesn't seem to get taken very seriously by judges. I don't think very many people in the world are prepared to take seriously the claim that the primary purpose for marriage is to guard against the possibility of unwanted children. It's also hilarious to hear lawyers who are defending bans of same-sex marriage describing gay relationships as "better" or "superior" to straight ones, and sounding keen to convince the judges how awesome same-sex relationships are and thus how gay couples don't need the benefits of marriage because their relationships are already awesome enough without them... it's very much self-parody.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Duly noted. But it doesn't affect where my thinking's got to in this debate in the slightest (and no, I don't have time to develop it much more right now).
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
And I would like to say, again, that I personally have not disputed the need or deserving of similar provision for children of same-sex couples. Unless you can show me where I am - the post Croesos quoted certainly doesn't say that.
I question the need to re-invent the wheel. If marriage is about making sure children are provided for and same-sex couples are raising children, why not give them the "same provision" rather than a "similar provision"?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
And I would like to say, again, that I personally have not disputed the need or deserving of similar provision for children of same-sex couples. Unless you can show me where I am - the post Croesos quoted certainly doesn't say that.
I question the need to re-invent the wheel. If marriage is about making sure children are provided for and same-sex couples are raising children, why not give them the "same provision" rather than a "similar provision"?
In case you haven't noticed, some of my views have changed since I last discussed this here a couple of years ago.
I am now not opposed to SSM as it is practiced in France, not least because I have come to realise that no other solution here affords the same provision for children, neither does it for the spouses (for example for survivor benefits).
I am indebted, mostly to you and Justinian, for making me realise this, although I repeat I did not enjoy the experience.
I have nevertheless made a distinction here - in terms of practicalities and not importance or superiority - which appears to be tangential to many but which seems important to me, in how filiation may come about.
In those terms, one "same provision" that I cannot see happening for the forseeable future is that of a same-sex couple having a child in the same way as a different-sex couple may, without medical intervention of some kind.
To be absolutely clear, by that I mean that at least some opposite-sex couples can produce children naturally in a way that same-sex couples that have retained their original sex cannot*, and that this has practical and legal implications even if it does not have ethical or moral ones (NB I'm not committing myself either way on the latter at this point).
Others may dance around that issue all they like, or argue that it's irrelevant, but I am doggedly inisting that it is a fact to be acknowledged (and wondering off and on why there is so much reluctance to acknowledge it).
==
*Memorably defined by orfeo here on my previous thread as "a quick bit of heavy breathing round the back of the village"
[ 29. August 2014, 15:56: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
In those terms, one "same provision" that I cannot see happening for the forseeable future is that of a same-sex couple having a child in the same way as a different-sex couple may, without medical intervention of some kind.
To be absolutely clear, by that I mean that at least some opposite-sex couples can produce children naturally in a way that same-sex couples that have retained their original sex cannot*, and that this has practical and legal implications even if it does not have ethical or moral ones (NB I'm not committing myself either way on the latter at this point).
Others may dance around that issue all they like, or argue that it's irrelevant, but I am doggedly inisting that it is a fact to be acknowledged (and wondering off and on why there is so much reluctance to acknowledge it).
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*Memorably defined by orfeo here on my previous thread as "a quick bit of heavy breathing round the back of the village"
Sorry, but you seem to be "danc[ing] around that issue". In most of the jurisdictions I'm familiar with, the law doesn't make a distinction between children that are adopted or conceived in vitro and children being raised by their non-medically-assisted biological parent. Nor does the law distinguish between couples raising their own biological offspring, offspring conceived with the aid of medical technology, or adopted children. Given that some families contain children belonging to different categories that could get quite sticky.
quote:
Well, your oldest was conceived an gestated 'naturally', so you've got a Class I marriage regarding her. Your next oldest was conceived in vitro, though, so we'll need the additional documentation for your Class II parenthood. And I see your youngest was adopted, so that falls into Class III. Let's see, I'm pretty sure I've got the right forms for that somewhere . . .
What exactly do you consider to be the "legal implications" of parenting a child conceived in vitro (for example), and why should these implications be different for opposite-sex couples than for same-sex ones?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
In most of the jurisdictions I'm familiar with, the law doesn't make a distinction between children that are adopted or conceived in vitro and children being raised by their non-medically-assisted biological parent. Nor does the law distinguish between couples raising their own biological offspring, offspring conceived with the aid of medical technology, or adopted children.
It doesn't distinguish between them once they are recognised as the children of the couple. Where it does distinguish is in the available routes to becoming recognised as the children of the couple: see here.
quote:
What exactly do you consider to be the "legal implications" of parenting a child conceived in vitro (for example), and why should these implications be different for opposite-sex couples than for same-sex ones?
See above. The legal difference is that as things stand, there is one circumstance for filiation, presumption of paternity, which will never apply to a same-sex marriage, for reasons of biology (re-reading LQ's link again carefully, I don't think it contradicts this).
Looked at another way, filiation is more complicated, legally, to varying degrees, in any scenario not involving presumption of paternity (I recognise this includes some circumstances invovling different-sex couples).
Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether this is significant or not, am I not right that there is a difference?
[ 29. August 2014, 20:01: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
See above. The legal difference is that as things stand, there is one circumstance for filiation, presumption of paternity, which will never apply to a same-sex marriage, for reasons of biology (re-reading LQ's link again carefully, I don't think it contradicts this).
Looked at another way, filiation is more complicated, legally, to varying degrees, in any scenario not involving presumption of paternity (I recognise this includes some circumstances invovling different-sex couples).
Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether this is significant or not, am I not right that there is a difference?
I'm not sure that there is. Paternity may be a biological standard, but presumption of paternity is a legal one and can be defined however. It's been noted by some previous posters that many jurisdictions assume the paternity for married couples as a matter of law, even in cases where this is known not to be so biologically (e.g. a married couple has a child using anonymous donor sperm). Why would this be notably more problematic for a same-sex couple than an opposite-sex one?
[ 29. August 2014, 21:13: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
French law, my translation, from the link above, in answer to your question as to whether there is a legal difference:
quote:
Thus, the filiation of a child with respect to a couple in which both persons are of the same sex is possible only by means of an adoption ruling.
This is not the case for different-sex couples: the relevant provisions have been introduced solely as a result of the legalisation of SSM.
Is there a difference?
[ 29. August 2014, 21:27: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
Or, to put it another way in parallel to a similar comment on a different thread, every parent-child relationship that can happen with a same-sex couple and a child already has a legal analog under family law for married opposite-sex parents. It seems perverse to argue that because one particular legal relationship won't apply (child conceived in vivo by married couple intending to raise it) all the rest is inapplicable as well, especially since that legal relationship is also inapplicable to a certain percentage of opposite-sex couples and is not seen as any barrier or detriment to the legal standing of their marriages.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Starlight
Shipmate
# 12651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
It doesn't distinguish between them once they are recognised as the children of the couple. Where it does distinguish is in the available routes to becoming recognised as the children of the couple
...
Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether this is significant or not, am I not right that there is a difference?
So in your conception this difference is purely temporary and transient? You say that it "doesn't distinguish between them once they are recognised as the children of the couple" so has the difference stopped existing by that point in time? So this is a difference that lasts for say a month, or however long it takes to fill in the relevant paperwork and go through the legal adoption process, and then the difference stops existing?
FYI, I just checked the NZ birth certificate paperwork process and it's clear we do the opposite to France: If a same-sex married woman has a child then her wife gets written onto the birth certificate in the "Father" section (and a box gets ticked to show she's an "other parent" not a "father"). Similarly in cases where the straight husband is infertile and the couple have resorted to a sperm donor, the man who will be raising the child is written as the Father, not the sperm donor. The government seems to have no interest whatsoever in biological paternity, as the partners who will be raising the child are what gets entered on the birth certificate (and immediately have the associated legal rights as parents and guardians of the child).
I guess to me that reflects how I (and I think society) thinks about children, and why I'm finding it so difficult to take seriously your alleged 'difference': For all practical intents and purposes in day to day life what matters is who is raising a child. Where that child originally came from is completely irrelevant to anything much - some children are adopted, some are raised by step-parents, some were born by mistake, others were the result of infidelity, others were born out of wedlock, others were conceived in the 'natural' way by married opposite sex parents - and none of that makes one iota of difference in our societies and the only things that is relevant is who is raising the children in the present and are they doing a good job of it. The child could have been delivered by a stalk for all the difference it makes...
Posts: 745 | From: NZ | Registered: May 2007
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Starlight
Shipmate
# 12651
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Posted
P.S. I see the UK implements filiation the same way as NZ:
"Female couples can include both their names on their child’s birth certificate when registering the birth"
Posts: 745 | From: NZ | Registered: May 2007
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Starlight, I thought that children were delivered by storks 9 months or so after the stalk had been busy.
[ 29. August 2014, 23:34: Message edited by: Gee D ]
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
The only thing that has been achieved by this discussion as to whether same-sex couples can have children is the proof of the idea that almost any argument against SSM is based on weaselling, dodgy arguments from Scripture which are irrelevant, and wishful thinking.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
All of the above debate about what different countries do in relation to the parentage of a child just shows that some countries insist on legally having a father and mother to start with, and some don't.
Legal parentage, as others have pointed out, isn't about biological parentage. Sure, for many people the two coincide, but there are also plenty of people for whom it doesn't.
Legal parentage is about duties and responsibilities. Whether it's adoption or surrogacy or same-sex couples, I don't really see why we should insist that the only possible combination of people that can take legal care of a child when it's born is a man and a woman.
EDIT: Scrolling down that page from nearly 2 years ago, I see I said almost the same thing. Stop focusing on 'procreation' and start focusing on who is going to raise and take care of the child!!
[ 30. August 2014, 04:55: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Starlight:
For all practical intents and purposes in day to day life what matters is who is raising a child. Where that child originally came from is completely irrelevant to anything much - some children are adopted, some are raised by step-parents, some were born by mistake, others were the result of infidelity, others were born out of wedlock, others were conceived in the 'natural' way by married opposite sex parents - and none of that makes one iota of difference in our societies
So a Matrix style scenario in which babies were grown in vitro to birth in a farm somewhere (before, presumably, being delivered by stork to their parents) would be just as acceptable?
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I don't really see why we should insist that the only possible combination of people that can take legal care of a child when it's born is a man and a woman.
Do you see me saying that anywhere?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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