Ho hum

[gyges_ring]

So, new entry. Trying to post semi-regularly again. What is new? Mum came, mum saw, mum got punched in the face, mum left. (Not by us, incidentally, by my aunt, who may be a bit borderline). Went for breakfast with Corrin and Amber last Saturday. It was really nice. I'm so out of the loop on things. Then again, people probably don't know that much

Comments

[gyges_ring]

Perhaps I have not been as explicit in my outline as I could have been. If I were to rephrase it, I would say that 'marriage rights' actually have nothing to do with getting married; rather, getting married is an obligatory step required by marriage rights (namely, in the case of Kant, the ability to have non-evil sex). So a neo-Kantian objection would be something along the lines of: proponents of marriage rights better be prepared to give up pre-marital sex, or else they are supporting evil.

The problem, though, is that if you reject that, but accept the general form above, then the conclusion seems to be: we'll have our sex, and so much the worse for marriage. But if that's the conclusion, then why does marriage become important? Which would be the line I would take (and the kind of thinking that I would say underlies most gay and lesbian rejections of gay marriage (also, in general terms, probably a lot to do with feminist issues with marriage)).

I would further argue that, epistemic and meta-ethical context aside, the next argumentative support would be economic reasons, but I'm not particularly convinced that unmarried gay and lesbian couples suffer any great economic hardship from their being in a couple (excepting inasmuch as they may have different socio-economic statuses from heterosexual populations (but I'd further argue that, if that's the case, it's not something linked to marriage, but rather stems from different issues in adolescence, for which marriage isn't really a great solution)). Children change things. But the gay marriage debate doesn't seem to have much to do with adoption, IVF or parenting rights.

Moreover, economic justifications aren't necessarily about marriage at all, and if that's the strongest argument available then proponents should probably be satisfied with rewording other legislation to account for gay and lesbian relationships.

In dealing with specific ethical views, my counterpoints would be: there is no clear account of good in marriage (unless you view marriage as a necessary instrument for living a good life, which the above account of Kant would support, but I'm not sure what else would), and it's also not entirely clear that a bit of persecution isn't good for the soul, thus consequentialist accounts have a bit of a problem; deontologically, as noted, marriage rights are funny things, and it's not quite clear whether they're 'rights' at all in the usual sense, are or how 'good' they are, so to say that a group doesn't have them is really an, "and so?" question rather than a "that's terrible" situation.

[pseudophonist]

Fair enough; I suspect promoting abstinance in the queer comunity isn't going to be very successful, at least not in the near future. And this won't change until there's some sort of marriage thing to save one's virginity for- so we've got a chicken/egg scenario. I guess I'm proposing marriage as a means of reducing premarital sex. Then again, I wonder how many more people will be getting overnight marriages in Vegas and divorces for breakfast.

I've never much paid attention to the economic arguments - I don't actually know any good ones (tax exemptions?). In contrast, part of the reason I'm interested in the debate is the adoption, IVF and parenting rights; mostly cause someday I'd like to raise a family. I would actually be perfectly ok with a marriage-equivalent 'civil union' type legislation. Evidently I'm in a minority.

By good, I meant personal happiness. You'd probably make a lot of people happy. Yes you make other people unhappy, but it doesn't actually impact those people directly and as you said, its not entirely clear that a bit of persecution isn't good for the soul. I suspect a lot of the people who would be unhappiest about the change are secretly pleased that they have a new crusade to embark on. :P

I suspect marriage isn't strictly necessary and nobody is physically dying from the lack of it; but campaigning for it could be justified in aiming high and compromising at the negotiation table.