How about some actual news with the news?

[trinityvixen]

More about the California decision.

Most important part, right here:

The California Supreme Court was the first state high court to strike down a law barring interracial marriage, in a 1948 decision called Perez v. Sharp. The United States Supreme Court did not follow suit until 1967.

Thursday’s decision was rooted in two rationales, and both drew on the Perez decision.

The first was that marriage is a fundamental constitutional right. “The right to marry,” Chief Justice George wrote, “represents the right of an individual to establish a legally recognized family with a person of one’s choice and, as such, is of fundamental significance both to society and to the individual.”

Chief Justice George conceded that “as an historical matter in this state marriage has always been restricted to a union between a man and a woman.” But “tradition alone,” the chief justice continued, does not justify the denial of a fundamental constitutional right. Bans on interracial marriage were, he wrote, sanctioned by the state for many years.

Tradition. You've got to be fucking kidding me. TRADITION is a good enough reason to deny people basic human rights? Find me the people who think so right now. I'd like to initiate them into the tradition of me stabbing them in the groin with rusty knives.

Comments

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Denying marriage based on sex is the same as denying it based on race, i.e. amounting to a denial of an individual's fundamental right to marry.

But does the fundamental right to marry mean that marriage can include whatever group of consenting N people agree to it? Is there a fundamental right to polygamous marriage? A fundamental right to incestuous marriage? Not likely.

It should be obvious to anyone that the sex of the participants is a lot more significant to the marital relationship than the race of the participants. At least as far as state-sanctioned marriage is concerned, there's a lot more to it than just "any two people willing to enter into the relationship can get married." You can't just say it's an "individual's right to marry", because first you have to define what the "right to marry" means, and in world history, it's never extended to the right to marry someone of the same gender.

I have to reiterate that I still think gay marriage is a good thing and should be made legal--but that doesn't make it a basic human right.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

But does the fundamental right to marry mean that marriage can include whatever group of consenting N people agree to it? Is there a fundamental right to polygamous marriage? A fundamental right to incestuous marriage? Not likely.

Is there a legitimate reason to reject polygamous marriage based on fundamental rights? I don't think so. Incest is so taboo I really don't feel it's an issue, and to some extent that's true for polygamous marriage. These things haven't really surfaced the way same-sex marriage has.

It should be obvious to anyone that the sex of the participants is a lot more significant to the marital relationship than the race of the participants. At least as far as state-sanctioned marriage is concerned, there's a lot more to it than just "any two people willing to enter into the relationship can get married." You can't just say it's an "individual's right to marry", because first you have to define what the "right to marry" means, and in world history, it's never extended to the right to marry someone of the same gender.

You say there's "a lot more to it"--like what?

And going back to the Judge's opinion, just because it hasn't been recognized in history does not mean that it cannot today be considered a basic human right. Just because a right has been denied in history does not justify continued oppression today.

I'm not sure I agree with the basic human rights angle either, but I see his argument.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

This is the fundamental problem of generalizing systems, including the law, but also all of Kantian ethics. What do we generalize from the specific case? I think of it as the "scoping" problem of casuistry (though there's probably a technical name for it out there). But few people on either side recognize it as such.

As for the specifics of this case, the problem is that there isn't a solid base for the state to establish a right to marriage for anybody that is held up well by practice. Theoretically it's because marriage is the core of the family and families are the basis of the state, but that can't be right, because we let people marry without having children, and have children without being married. And there's nothing to say that letting gay couples marry and then adopt wouldn't be in the interests of the state (aside from prejudice regarding gender roles and the proper home environment, but that's not something that can properly be legislated, imo).

Given that marriage is permitted to non-breeders and not compulsory for breeders, it must be derived from something other than procreation (which is pretty much the only natural grounds under which same-sex marriages differ from het ones); there must be a right to create a family structure -- i.e. it must be a legal recognition of our (natural) right to form bonds with each other. Essentially, if the judge doesn't make the (correct) decision that the state has no compelling interest in creating a right to marriage at all, then he must find that right to be founded in something other than procreation, and that something is the right to found a family just between the partners being married.

(Incidentally, in your scoping question, I would argue that (from a philosophical perspective) if we have any legally recognized marriage, then any marriage contract among consenting non-incestuous adults ought to be recognized as valid, unless it's transparently tax fraud.)

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

Incest is covered by the impossible consent issue.

As far as polyperson marriage, I would say that the right to marry multiple people is a universal human right, yes. I would, however, say that there is a compelling government interest in restricting the rights granted by the government to go along with marriage to one person per person at any given time.

Let's do remember that there are two issues here: The right of individual people to cohabit and present themselves as married, and the right to have their relationship recognized in the eyes of the law. To be fair to your side, Loving removed laws that infringed BOTH, and at this late date there is little obstacle to members of the same sex (or a group) living as a married couple (unit) and calling themselves married, as there was to the Lovings, who were committing a crime in Virginia by doing so. Whether equality demands that we offer the governmental rights to such people is, I would say, an obvious decision based on the human right to equality and non-discrimination, with the caveat that in such equality interest, the government has a interest in limiting the number of benefits tied to any given person (so, say, a bigamist could only designate ONE wife as his wife under law. Given a poly-person situation, I waffle on whether the government could require that all such designations be reciprocal, and whether to permit pre-determined survivorship charts).

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Incest is covered by the impossible consent issue.

What about between adult siblings? Come on, man. You know your brother's hot.

I would, however, say that there is a compelling government interest in restricting the rights granted by the government to go along with marriage to one person per person at any given time.

Seriously. Not that I'd have anything against a harem per se (though someone might), but think of the tax code! Gah.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

The tax code nothing -- it would be a huge set of tax breaks for them, but not terribly confusing, just inequitably beneficial.

Think about the estate system.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Think about the estate system.
Oh, that's never lost on the wives! (At least if Ming-Qing concubinage is any model).