Papist Plate, Pundity, Foil Fags for Maine Marriage
HANKS, PINE Tree State, for once again proving that civil right should never – ever – be left up to a simple majority vote. The simple majority always wins.
One wonders why Americans (and the rest of the world) are still so fascinated by democracy. Freedom, I can understand, liberty, equality, etc. But tyranny of the majority over the minority still fails to be self-evidently good. The lesson learned here – like in California – is that depending on others to grant you a freedom is always stupid. Group-think is, by its nature, conservative, slow, plodding. It is not challenged, but rather comforted by messages of “keep things the same as they were…” The primate mind (and humans are simply domesticated primates, remember) is threatened by change and difference. What we see in Maine is simple evidence for human evolution: we are no further along than the apes.
Again, stop depending on others to give you rights. No group in USonia has ever won any right at all by simple majority voting of others. Every right granted to non-male, non-white, non-heterosexual, non-free, non-adult persons in this country has been granted by court order or legislature.
Huw,
I generally accept the fact that you and I disagree on many issues, but I cannot keep silent right now. I tend to be quite liberal on a lot of issues, but this is one on which I tend to be a little “right leaning.” The tyranny of the majority? I understand that we do not actually live in a democracy. I learned that lesson in high school civics class, but I tend to hope that the legislatures vote according to the will of their constituents. The courts should interpret the law in an unbiased manner. A pipe dream I’m sure, but it’s still the way it should be.
My religious beliefs are of course going to influence my political ideology, and my religious beliefs are that marriage is between one man and one woman. I know gay folks and think they’re grand people, but I don’t want the state to say they can get married. I don’t understand why that makes me an evil, hate-filled bigot.
I don’t think you’re a bigot or hate-filled (you may be… but that’s your issue). I think you may be missing the point: the state has an institution called “marriage” and with it come a host of rights and responsibilities that are not questioned when a man and a woman stand up in a hotel or grocery store and say “well, we’re married”.
Power of attorney, Inheritance rights, rights of custody, hospital visitation rights, tax benefits, insurance rights, pension rights, habitation rights (in a hotel or house), banking rights, travel rights (crossing borders or sitting together on an aeroplane). This is only the beginning and there are a host of others.
ALl of these rights are conferred by the state at the moment I now pronounce you man and wife. You do not have to travel with your marriage license, in most cases you just say “she’s my wife” (if anyone asks at all).
Same sex couples who try to raise children are told “you’re not the child’s parent”. Travel agencies say “you’re not a family to qualify for this discount”. Banks say, “You’re not a spouse to co-sign on this account without power of attorney.” Landlords say, “Your not married, I have a higher rate for ‘roommates’”. Hospitals say, “You’re not family, get out of this room.” Mortuaries say, “You’re not a spouse to make decisions about the remains of this person.”
The list goes on.
None of these items, you’ll note, have anything to do with the sacrament of matrimony and everything to do with the rights reserved by the state to one class of persons and refused to another.
If you say, “I don’t want gay couples getting married” mean “Marriage is a religious rite, not a state right” I’ll agree with you. I don’t think churches should be involved in marriage licenses, or state-sanctioning. If, however, you mean that families should be denied the basic rights of families simply because you reject their definition of family….
That makes you a bigot.
It’s what makes the Roman & Mormon institutions to be bigots. And it is what makes me refer to the tyranny of the majority over the minority.
huw, i often wonder about “Same sex couples who try to raise children are told “you’re not the child’s parent”. Travel agencies say “you’re not a family to qualify for this discount”. Banks say, “You’re not a spouse to co-sign on this account without power of attorney.” Landlords say, “Your not married, I have a higher rate for ‘roommates’”. Hospitals say, “You’re not family, get out of this room.” Mortuaries say, “You’re not a spouse to make decisions about the remains of this person.”
can’t most of this be accomplished by legal means? i can get anyone to be my power of attorney, i can get anyone to be my healthcare power of attorney, i can make anyone the executor of my estate. so it seems that the hospital, bank and mortuary issues could be fixed in a day. second parent or co-parent adoptions are available in half of the states.
and all of this can happen now – today. so it doesn’t seem that you need to have marriage to fix these problems. regardless of what society thinks about gay marriage, many of the above stated issues really aren’t issues that can’t be resolved.
David three replies:
1) Yes. All of that can be accomplished by legal means: provided you carry your stack of legal documents with you and keep a lawyer on retainer to make your points when some nurse at 2AM decides she doesn’t like gays and all the legal documents in the world will not make her let you sit beside your dying partner.
2) Sure. But all of those little steps come wrapped up in a package called marriage which is a benefit from the state – not any religious organisation. Why should the state deny a benefit to some that it gives to others? NOt to mention the cost to take out all those contracts, powers of attorney, adoption forms, etc. For a married couple it all comes for $30 at city hall.
3) Why? Tell me, directly and in simple terms why you think I should be relegated to second class citizenship and my relationship should be “separate but equal” (meaning not-equal at all) from that of a priest we both know who shares my birthday. I’m asking in concrete, solid and personal terms because I want to keep this out of the abstract. Anytime one of my friends speaks against gay marriage (which y’all have the right to do!!!) you are speaking *against me* and I want to know why.
And a pendant reply: to be clear again, none of this has anything to do with churches, conservative or liberal, heretical or Orthodox.
i’m not really commenting for or against gay marriage – i was just stating that i thought alot of the issues could simply be settled legally whether or not the state grants the right to marry.
at my hospital, only 1 sheet of paper – the healthcare POA – is all that is needed. i think most of us don’t even care to ask who the POA is in relation to the patient. could be a cousin, friend, parent, spouse or neighbor. all i care to know is that this person is the legal decision maker and as such has the rights of the decision maker.
and many of the legal documents can be obtained on line these days and only a notory is required to make them legal. this certainly is the case for the POA.
and just because someone is married, doesn’t always mean that they will be a decision maker for the patient. often, the children have to make the decisions (competancy, inability of the spouse to make difficult decisions, marital problems, etc). a marriage contract doesn’t fix even those problems in the real world.
and again, i’m not speaking against you. i’m not exactly clear what i think about gay marriage in a pluralistic society. i happen to have an orthodox christian world view and i have certain ideas about marriage. but i live in a secular society that allows for many things that i don’t agree with – there may be many laws that you don’t agree with either.
i also don’t know how i feel about the idea of equality being the absolute test for much of anything. i have to teach doctors that should know better every day and get them out of jams they get themselves into every day – yet i will never be equal to a phsician. this doesn’t mean that i am less than – but i will never be equal. i do the exact job as they do every day and more on occasion, yet i’m never going to be equal. but i hope that doesn’t detract for any sense of accomplishment i have or happiness that i have in my life.
But, David, the question is exactly marriage. And the topic is exactly personal to me. I keep reading what you’re saying and you seem to miss the point…
You are telling me that I will need to file legal documents for just about every service and right I want whilst there is a class of people that can claim the same benefit for the cost of $30 at city hall. In fact, some people walk around saying they are married when they are not and no one asks a question because they “look” right.
That is a level of discrimination you have no doctor/nurse parallel for.
Now… I know I live in one of the wealthiest societies in the world. I know that we are surrounded by horrible injustices everywhere and that I am culpable in some cases for them. There are issues of food, water, society, employment, peace… tons of things I can cite that are infinitely more important than my right to marry someone in another country and bring him here as my legal spouse.
But that last one is exactly personal. I’ve just decided to ask my friends who oppose this option (or seem to) why they do so… and to point out to them that it is a personal thing: something they are denying *me*.
I don’t think most people think that way. “I have gay friends” or what not. But there is a very extensive list of things they are asking me to pay for that they don’t have to pay for, of benefits they get that they are asking me to forego. I’m wondering why.
first, many times when i disagree with your point – you always say that i’m seeming to miss the point. ok, you always make me laugh wtih that.
and what i posted above is true for me – i don’t know how i feel about gay marriage in a pluralistic society. and what is also true is that i see the world from a orthodox viewpoint, therefore i understand marriage as a sacrament given by the church for the salvation of the man and woman.
believe me, i rarely vote so i’m not helping to make any laws against *you*. and i don’t really think that any law is intended to make a guy from buffalo miserable. my assessment is that those on the other side of the fence are very concerned that gay marriage will usher in societal changes that may take our country to a place they would rather not go.
again, in the personal sense – i think that if folks went to the polls to vote to make huw miserable, that most folks wouldn’t vote that way. so i don’t find that folks on the right of the issue are attempting to proactively make your life hell – i do think that they are trying to hold on to traditions that they understand and value – whether you understand their rationale for it or not.
not that you don’t take those decisions personally – but i don’t really think that folks are trying to make you *personally* unhappy.
Now you’ve got the point! Or… if you had it before you’re replying to it in a way I understand more clearly. You still disagree – but now I think we’re talking about the same thing!
I agree with you that those folks are not voting to make huw miserable.
But they are doing that… and not just Huw… but their own neighbours, and sons and daughters and the banker and school teacher. That’s the point. They *are* making people’s lives miserable. Why? No one is taking their traditions away from them. No one is saying that All Saints in Raleigh has to change its understanding of the Holy Mysteries. They just seem to want a society that – on the surfance only – thinks the same way they do.
Laws are not abstractions – they are real things that effect and affect real people.
This is the same conversation I have with a small businessman who says that he has to vote Republican as a businessman. So I challenged him to say what he means: his wallet is more important than my civil rights. And, after a while, he agreed.
That’s kinda scummy, if you ask me. He’s not a bigot, but his money is more important than people. I learned something: the right way to talk to people about politics is in the personal, first person. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes them realise the implications of their choices. And, in some cases, it makes them terribly angry. “I’m not doing this to imapct you”. No, I think you’re not. But you are impacting me none-the-less. Admit it. Say – honestly – what you are doing rather than some poetic words about democracy that absolve you before the fact.
When you vote (and I don’t at all.. and you rarely do…. so you is the hypothetical “other”) you are making choices; choices that can change other lives for the better or worse. Why?
This is what I mean by “tyranny of the majority”. This is, in fact, why I don’t vote, why I don’t think I have the right to make decisions for you. Why you don’t have the right to make decisions for me…
Most people – consciously or not – are saying their level of comfort is more important than the rights of their neighbours. I want to call them on it.