why bigots fear marriage
It's very late at night and I got caught up in an editorial dpolicar linked to about gay marriage. As Dave said, it leaves you gobsmacked. I just wrote what is pretty much a line-by-line rebuttal because that is how intensely wrong it is. Please be advised that there will be much cursing.( Read more... )
5. There are already incest laws on the books. These vary from state to state and are not as stringent as the author assumes (he needs to fact check this shit). Also, the example you provided reminded me of "Dear Prudence" from May 14, in which a man discovered that his wife's family had a hand me down husband. This may weird out some people, but it isn't illegal.
6. Ditto for age restrictions. In West Virginia a girl of any age can be married to a boy or man of any age as long as the couple can prove that she is pregnant. So basically, if you can prove statutory rape then you can get away with it.
7. Any clergy can refuse to marry any couple for any reason (he brought up the rabbi). In fact, even if the clergy man or woman had agreed to marry the couple, they can later change their mind at any time before the marriage license is signed. This would usually be reserved for cases in which the clergy person learns that the relationship is abusive or that one partner is being unfaithful. The minister from my wedding said that she would not marry any couple if she did not expect the marriage to last.
I think that the problem here (relating to societal acceptance of gay marriage) is two-fold. The first issue is that all arguments against it are religiously based. In the US, a law cannot be made based on some people's religion. So those arguments don't really hold water. I think what the people making these arguments are worried about is that their churches will be forced to marry particular couples.
This is a legal impossibility because clergy have the right to refuse to marry any couple. One of the things we are guaranteed is freedom of religion, no religious organization has to participate in anything they disagree with. And really, what couple would want to be married by a person who disagrees with the marriage?
The second problem is also religious. If you take the time and really talk with people who fear gay marriage, what they are calling marriage is not the legal institution with all the rights it provides. They are, generally, talking about a sacred institution from their religion. The issue is that there are two different things being discussed here and they are both called marriage. Most of these people couldn't care less who is allowed to visit whom in the hospital or how people file their taxes or the myriad other legal differences between legal marriage and cohabitation.
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