Why I support SSM, for my conservative friends.
On my last post, a lot of people made the completely valid point that SSM is a serious erosion of the institution of marriage. Specifically, it moves the focus of the institution from procreation and continuity of inheritance and makes the institution of marriage about "love". Romantic "Love" being a notably fickle beast, one can reliably predict that SS couples will probably have a divorce rate even higher than the already high rate for het couples (higher because they will lack the incentive to stay together offered by biological children). Whether that's true or not, the modification of marriage from being centrally a procreative and inheritance based institution to being a "Whoever you choose to share your life with" institution is a major change.
Here's my thing. The institution of het marriage is pretty much dead as the central societal institution at the broad societal level. SSM didn't do it, No fault divorce did, "labor saving devices" did, women in the workforce did, welfare did. A thousand paper cuts, some of them malicious, some technological, some accidental, have already killed the central role of the institution of marriage as previously practiced.
One of the things I ponder is that the structure of the familial unit is not a constant. It depends on the conditions that the society exists in. Desert cultures consistently practice polygamy. Cold climate cultures practice polyandry. Island cultures generally practice "free love". Monogamous pairs is a feature of temperate agrarian civilizations. However, we are not a temperate agrarian society. So the question of what societal structure is optimized to a post-industrial information age society is an open question, because there has never been one before. That's why the "tradition" argument fails for me, because the conditions that created those traditions have changed.
A lot of people asked, essentially "But what about civil unions". That would have been my preference as well. However, back during the Clinton administration, we tried that... Or, more specifically, Vermont did. It was (correctly) ruled unconstitutional for 2 reasons. 1) it didn't work. The partners were still denied access in hospitals, and a number of other injustices happened. 2) The court ruled that "Separate is never equal". That having a separate system by which one group of people combine their affairs than others would inevitably result in injustice.
Which brings us to the system that I would actually favor. "Civil unions for all". Basically, I would have found it best to essentially replace "husband", "Wife", etcetera in federal law with "Life partner", and move on with our day. Unfortunately, this is the option that basically no one was interested in. Traditionalists weren't interested in pursuing it for obvious reasons, and SSM lobby weren't interested in pursuing it, because they specifically wanted the symbolism of "marriage" to rub in the faces of the traditionalists and for the purposes of abusing bakers and florists. That upsets me to some degree. However, it doesn't make it okay to inflict the injustices of limited visitation, uncertain partner support, uncertain pension passover, and all the other issues that have been enumerated ad nauseum on other than heterosexual people. So, as a remedy, civil unions are out.
Which leaves.... Nothing. The "good" plan, civil unions is unworkable, the opposite plan, one man one woman, creates notable injustice, and there is no 4th option. So there it is. No good options, so pick the least bad one. That's SSM.
Here's my thing. The institution of het marriage is pretty much dead as the central societal institution at the broad societal level. SSM didn't do it, No fault divorce did, "labor saving devices" did, women in the workforce did, welfare did. A thousand paper cuts, some of them malicious, some technological, some accidental, have already killed the central role of the institution of marriage as previously practiced.
One of the things I ponder is that the structure of the familial unit is not a constant. It depends on the conditions that the society exists in. Desert cultures consistently practice polygamy. Cold climate cultures practice polyandry. Island cultures generally practice "free love". Monogamous pairs is a feature of temperate agrarian civilizations. However, we are not a temperate agrarian society. So the question of what societal structure is optimized to a post-industrial information age society is an open question, because there has never been one before. That's why the "tradition" argument fails for me, because the conditions that created those traditions have changed.
A lot of people asked, essentially "But what about civil unions". That would have been my preference as well. However, back during the Clinton administration, we tried that... Or, more specifically, Vermont did. It was (correctly) ruled unconstitutional for 2 reasons. 1) it didn't work. The partners were still denied access in hospitals, and a number of other injustices happened. 2) The court ruled that "Separate is never equal". That having a separate system by which one group of people combine their affairs than others would inevitably result in injustice.
Which brings us to the system that I would actually favor. "Civil unions for all". Basically, I would have found it best to essentially replace "husband", "Wife", etcetera in federal law with "Life partner", and move on with our day. Unfortunately, this is the option that basically no one was interested in. Traditionalists weren't interested in pursuing it for obvious reasons, and SSM lobby weren't interested in pursuing it, because they specifically wanted the symbolism of "marriage" to rub in the faces of the traditionalists and for the purposes of abusing bakers and florists. That upsets me to some degree. However, it doesn't make it okay to inflict the injustices of limited visitation, uncertain partner support, uncertain pension passover, and all the other issues that have been enumerated ad nauseum on other than heterosexual people. So, as a remedy, civil unions are out.
Which leaves.... Nothing. The "good" plan, civil unions is unworkable, the opposite plan, one man one woman, creates notable injustice, and there is no 4th option. So there it is. No good options, so pick the least bad one. That's SSM.