Turtle says gays have "precisely the same right to marry as hetero people have", but that's not so.
Actually I never used the word "hetero," I used "anyone else" quite specifically. Heteros fall into that category, but I did not limit it to heterosexuals. Also, I used "have had" as in the past tense, meaning prior to the term marriage" being redefined. I knew gay people in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, even the 90s, who were married. The right to marry was never denied them because they were gay. We have gay people here on EO who were once married.
They cannot marry the person they choose to spend the rest of their life with, who is a nonrelated consenting adult, because that person is the same gender.
Marriage has never been defined as "the union of two nonrelated consenting adults who wish to spend the rest of their life together." For that matter, it isn't even defined that way now. And "because that person is the same gender" is the same restriction that has been placed on heterosexual couples, so, nothing new there, either. Same rights, and restrictions, as everyone else. To be able to marry someone of the same sex required a special right to do so, thus the term itself had to be redefined to make it so.
How is that different than being unable to marry someone because they are a different race?
That's an argument that gets repeated so often that after a while it seems to become incontestable. The argument goes like,
Just as parts of American society once had immoral laws that forbade whites and blacks from marrying, so, today, society continues to have immoral laws forbidding men from marrying men and women from marrying women. And just as decent people overthrew the former, decent people must overthrow the latter.
There are enormous differences between men and women, but there are virtually no differences between people of different races. Men and women are inherently different, but blacks and whites are inherently the same. Any imposed separation by race can never be moral or even rational. On the other hand, separation by sex can be both morally desirable and rational. Separate bathrooms for men and women is moral and rational; separate bathrooms for blacks and whites is not.
Allowing interracial marriage did not call for an
redefinition but rather an
affirmation of marriage. Laws which prohibited interracial marriage were designed to keep races apart, preserve racial purity, and to preserve a certain racist social order. The historic definition of marriage is rooted in bringing the genders together, regardless of their race. Race is not a fundamental quality or aspect of marriage. But gender is.
A rational person can logically and rationally maintain that a relationship between two people
categorically incapable of producing children together can’t be a marriage (the category being heterosexual, regardless of individual capability of procreation). That argument doesn’t justify denying those of other categories the right to love one another openly, nor does it justify denying them the benefits and honors we give couples for making lifetime commitments. But it can justify a person’s refusal to accept a same-sex relationship as a marriage.
The argument against interracial marriage is emotional, flawed, and irrational, as racial distinctions are not categorical and continue to change. People of different races produce kids together all the time. There’s no biological, moral or rational basis for refusing to accept an interracial relationship as a marriage.
Also too, I don't see demanding marriage as demanding 'special rights' - it's about gaining equal rights, which Turtle also mentioned as being reserved for marriage.
Gays didn't demand marriage, the demanded that marriage be redefined specifically so they could marry outside the definition of the term. That's a special right. It's not about equal rights because they already had the right, same as everybody else.
The government grants those rights & benefits to encourage marriage, because it is good for society to have as many stable family units as possible. Gay people can't possibly be any worse at it than some hetero people, like, say, those who have been married 4 times, but they haven't been permitted to have the same [aka equal] benefits & privileges as heterosexuals.
They were offered, many times, Civil Unions which would grant them the same exact benefits and privileges, but each time that option was rejected out of hand. It wasn't rejected because benefits and privileges were any less or any different, which makes their argument of wanting the same benefits and privileges grossly disingenuous.
Many people didn't like having free Negroes 'crammed down their throats', or mixed race marriages, or many 'civil rights', or women voting, either, but in the long run, nondiscrimination benefits us all.
Absolutely, nondiscrimination benefits us all. Not allowing same-sex couples to marry isn't discriminating against same-sex couples any more than is not legally recognizing the marriage between Barbarella Buchner and her two cats.
Marriage has now been redefined by the Supreme Court to mean something that it has never meant. As Justice Kennedy, the lead legislator in this debacle, ironically wrote (and I do love a good irony) in the majority decision where he eloquently extols marriage as foundational to American society and to civilization itself...
From their beginning to their most recent page, the annals of human history reveal the transcendent importance of marriage. The lifelong union of a man and a woman always has promised nobility and dignity to all persons, without regard to their station in life. Marriage is sacred to those who live by their religions and offers unique fulfillment to those who find meaning in the secular realm. Its dynamic allows two people to find a life that could not be found alone, for a marriage becomes greater than just the two persons. Rising from the most basic human needs, marriage is essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations.
The centrality of marriage to the human condition makes it unsurprising that the institution has existed for millennia and across civilizations. Since the dawn of history, marriage has transformed strangers into relatives, binding families and societies together.
Therefore....
emotion.
After making a strong and reasoned argument for preserving the traditional concept of marriage, rather than radically redefining it, the Court (five justices) flushed all that down the toilet and decided to revise this fundamental cultural institution. In the Court’s (five justices) view, marriage is longer to be considered to have an essence or nature essential to out more profound hopes and aspirations, but is reduced to nothing more than social convention, or more appropriately, whatever the Court (five justices) declares it to be. The majority opinion justifies this ridiculously emotional move by pointing out how marriage has evolved. For example, marriage was once viewed as “an arrangement by the couple’s parents” but no longer is so today. Such examples, however, concern only contingent properties of marriage, not its nature or essence (indeed, arranged marriages are still common in parts of the world today). Such contingent changes provide no rational or even legal grounds for the fundamental, essential change wrought by the Court.
By redefining marriage the Court has handed homosexual activists what they have aimed and worked for: the deconstruction of marriage itself. Those who advocated redefining marriage are saying that every religious and secular tradition is immoral. They have no problem doing this because they believe they are wiser and finer people than all the greatest religious and humanist thinkers who ever lived. The Court has given homosexuals the m-word, the prize to which homosexuals believe will legitimize their depraved morality and let it rise as somehow superior. And they will use it to call those with inferior moralities homophobic. Because... you know...
tolerance.
There are many people in this country, religious and non-religious alike, just like there are in countries where same-sex marriage has been legal for a few years, who will not accept (much less celebrate) same-sex marriage as legitimate, and will at the very least roll their eyes same-sex couples refer to each other as husband, wife or spouse. And they will be called intolerant homophobes for doing so.
