Re:The High Price of Being a Gay Couple
by timr on Sunday October 04, 2009 @07:31AM
(#859953)
"This isn't about the actual ability to marry; it's about the symbolic message it sends."
You're conceding too much. Of course this is about the actual ability for gay people to marry.
This is not only about the ability for gay people to get married -- it's about the ability of gay people to marry, to adopt children, to file taxes jointly, to visit each other in the hospital when sick, take medical power of attorney, and all of the hundreds of other benefits that straight couples take for granted. The US Constitution doesn't guarantee any of those benefits to straight people, either. The "it's not in the US Constitution" argument against equal marriage rights is so transparently specious that no self-respecting high school debater would bother making it. Same goes for the argument that "any people can hold any ceremony they want". The name of the institution isn't what's important; the societal benefits of the institution are what's important.
The parent can wax poetic on his theories for why the state makes marriage a legal institution, and whether they should do so, but it doesn't matter a bit. At the end of the day, marriage is a legal structure, that fact isn't changing, and the argument remains that there's no compelling reason that homosexuals shouldn't expect the same legal protections offered to straight couples.
You're conceding too much. Of course this is about the actual ability for gay people to marry.
This is not only about the ability for gay people to get married -- it's about the ability of gay people to marry, to adopt children, to file taxes jointly, to visit each other in the hospital when sick, take medical power of attorney, and all of the hundreds of other benefits that straight couples take for granted. The US Constitution doesn't guarantee any of those benefits to straight people, either. The "it's not in the US Constitution" argument against equal marriage rights is so transparently specious that no self-respecting high school debater would bother making it. Same goes for the argument that "any people can hold any ceremony they want". The name of the institution isn't what's important; the societal benefits of the institution are what's important.
The parent can wax poetic on his theories for why the state makes marriage a legal institution, and whether they should do so, but it doesn't matter a bit. At the end of the day, marriage is a legal structure, that fact isn't changing, and the argument remains that there's no compelling reason that homosexuals shouldn't expect the same legal protections offered to straight couples.