Well, New Hampshire's got gay marriage now, and look who's celebrating:
The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, elected in New Hampshire in 2003 as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, was among those celebrating the new law."It's about being recognized as whole people and whole citizens," Robinson said.
"There are a lot of people standing here who when we grew up could not have imagined this," he said. "You can't imagine something that is simply impossible. It's happened, in our lifetimes."
The law includes the religions protections Governor Lynch insisted on--and I've got questions, after the quote:
The revised bill added a sentence specifying that all religious organizations, associations or societies have exclusive control over their religious doctrines, policies, teachings and beliefs on marriage.
It also clarified that church-related organizations that serve charitable or educational purposes are exempt from having to provide insurance and other benefits to same-sex spouses of employees. [...]Churches will be able to decide (Emphasis added--E.M.) whether to conduct religious marriages for same-sex couples. Civil marriages would be available to both heterosexual and same-sex couples.
Over and over we hear that gay marriage laws won't affect churches, anyway. So what's up with the idea that churches need this law to be able to decide not to "marry" gay couples, or indeed, to have their control over religious doctrines protected? Is there something the supporters of gay marriage haven't been telling us?
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"So what's up with the idea that churches need this law to be able to decide not to "marry" gay couples, or indeed, to have their control over religious doctrines protected? Is there something the supporters of gay marriage haven't been telling us?"
Who said the churches needed that law? The governor needed it to cover his butt. That's the only reason it's there.
I guess this post exemplifies what passes for a case against same-sex marriage among conservatives these days.
I wish all those speaking on behalf of "traditional marriage" and its "long history" and the role of "traditional marriage" in "caring for the women and the children" or "maintaining long term economic benefits for the accidents of sex" or whatever else could pause for a second in their hysterical ranting and get a clue about the history of marriage, and children, and property in the world--and specifically in the various christian sects who have permitted marriage since the inception of the christian cults.
Marriage has existed, plural and singular, for a very long time. It does not always involve a living partner (posthumous marriage in China), ritual "tree" marriage in Nepal ( enables the woman to have several human husbands without ever technically falling into the terrible category of a "widow." Marriages that aren't fully formed until the woman has had children, or fully vested until the children are old enough to perform certain rituals to bring the woman fully into her new family. There have always been legal marriages between women (with one woman taking on the social role of the husband), and between men (with one or more men taking on the social role of the woman), between brothers and one wife, and between many women and one man. There are marriages in which the wives are inherited from the deceased father.
There is literally nothing new under the sun. Now if you want to carve out an exclusion for your particular brand of Christianity that's fine. But even among Christian churches the question of whether marriage is a civil right or a sacrament varies tremendously. Remember there are sects in which baptism itself is immiediate (Catholic) and delayed (Baptist) and really delayed, in the form of confession, almost until the deathbed(Albigensian). That means there are always people living in even the most religious of communities who are on a path towards the right relationship to the Christian God but who have not yet achieved it.
The funniest part about the additional phrase in the law is that it, plainly, leaves Religious Communities/Churches free to reinterpret their own scripture and their own practices and, if they so choose, fully recognize gay marriage and celebrate it without interference from other sects also claiming the name of Christianity. That is really what is freaking the Erin's and the Rods of the world out. Their complaint and worry about being called a "bigot" goes to this--they are aware that history and mere human courtesy is not on their side. Pretty soon the "pecksnifferwoods" of the world, the Mrs. Grundys and the complaining, angry, whining, busybodies will lose their moral high horse and be forced to walk in the street with the rest of us. I hasten to add that I'm straight, white, married with two kids. I see nothing wrong with extending *common courtesy* to my gay neighbors and even love and affection to them. Its more a judgement on Erin and Rod that mere politeness seems so painful to them. No one is asking you to join in a gay marriage, or even to celebrate one. We're just asking if you could stop crossing yourselves, spitting, and shrieking in hysteria every time you imagine that you see a happy gay couple walk by.
aimai
Oh, I get it. Erin isn't opposed to gay marriage--she's opposed to *modern marriage*
Here's the quote:
***We are already teaching our children these things about marriage:
--marriage is optional. There's nothing particularly good, in terms of society's needs, about it.
--sex, with anybody you want whenever you want, is fine; there are no consequences that can't be fixed with a condom, abortion, or STD treatment. Chastity is not a value--it's actually kind of weird for people to choose not to have sex.
--children are optional. Being a parent is a drag, and children add stress to a marriage (really, a news article recently claimed psychological studies in favor of this, but I'd have to dig to find the link) without giving much in return.
--children don't need any sort of biological connection to their parents. This isn't just about accepting the need for adoption for those kids whose biological parents have failed them; it's about mainstreaming the creation of children independent of biological parenthood, through such things as IVF (which might or might not use the couple's own genetic material), surrogacy, and similar things.
--families are defined by individual choice. A family is whatever we say it is, and family members can leave the family any time they want, by their own initiative.
--since marriage and family are both optional and fluid, neither is expected to be permanent. Children will adjust to an endless stream of new "parenting partners." It's not necessary for them to have any sort of security or stability; what is necessary is that the adults in their lives are totally free to define their own happiness without reference to the children's needs.***
This is, of course, a complete misunderstanding of the role of marriage in human and even Christian history. Powerful men have always arrogated to themselves the right to determine when, where, and who they marry and they have always had sex with women outside of marriage. Historically and legally those children were called "bastards" and the church did nothing to protect and defend them. The Catholic church even retroactively created bastards, in a kind of legal limbo, when it allowed married men to annul their marriages even after the production of children. Men have always left marriages that didn't suit them, and often left the church if it told them they couldn't and married again (see Church of England, founding of...) There has been divorce for a very long time.
Modern companionate marriage does one and only one thing--it offers to women the same priviliges and powers that it once limited only to men. The right to choose their own partners, own their own property, receive support and property after a divorce (rather than returning it to the man's family), the right to control fertility, the right to control sexual access (no marital rape). Most people consider these good things. And, going hand in hand with that change in the status of women has come an actual *rise in the status of the child*. Its not the case that those old marriages made children feel "secure" and "loved" and "respected." Children had *zero* rights that weren't granted to them by the state or the father in the old system. Women *and their children* were routinely "put away" by men socially and economically, abandoned, or divorced. The new laws preventing child abuse or preventing parents (for instance) from selling or profiting off their children's work, and child labor laws generally, all arose in the modern context thanks to a new understanding of the rights of the individual over and against the family.
Erin pretends she's worried about "the children" but she is objecting to the very social changes that protected children from the vagaries of their father's feelings about the family--divorce laws that guarantee child support, laws that guarantee children support even from unmarried biological fathers, welfare policies that allow women and children to flee abusive men.
This has nothing to do with gay marriage per se but a lot to do with Erin's fears of modern marriage, choice, independence and her fear that those things go hand in hand with abandonment of women and children. Her assumption that all those teenage girls will pop out more babies out of fear that men are marrying men is just the last word in crazy solipsistic thinking. Doesn't she know that there are, in fact, lots of gay women? Maybe some of those teenage girls will stop thinking that they have to please their boyfriends by getting pregnant and will instead decide to follow their hearts and love other girls and go on to college and a future? Ever think of that?
aimai
Shorter Erin Manning: The superflous amendments tacked onto same-sex marriage legislation to preempt the silly arguments of paranoid cranks prove that the arguments made by paranoid cranks were correct.
"Over and over we hear that gay marriage laws won't affect churches, anyway. So what's up with the idea that churches need this law to be able to decide not to "marry" gay couples, or indeed, to have their control over religious doctrines protected? Is there something the supporters of gay marriage haven't been telling us?"
Wow. So first the theo-cons demand such protections (at least implicitly) by airing concerns that gay marriage will lead to loss of religious freedom.
THEN, when those protections are included in the bill, we get suggestions of a hidden agenda.
You just can't win with some people, can you?
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