Reorganize the worries
Kim Davis is (or soon will be) out of jail, and her deputies are issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis freed on Tuesday, five days after he held Davis in contempt and sent her to a Kentucky jail amid an escalating standoff over marriage licenses.
Davis was jailed at the Carter County Detention Center on Thursday after she refused to issue licenses to same-sex couples. The following day, her deputies began issuing licenses in her absence.
Five of the six clerks who work under Davis swore under oath that they could comply with the court’s order to issue marriage licenses. In a status report filed to Bunning’s court Tuesday, the couples who had filed suit against Davis after she first denied them marriage licenses said they were able to obtain them.
So there you go. All Davis has to do is stand back and let the deputies do the job. If she doesn’t, the court will consider appropriate sanctions.
I hope she won’t worry too much about Jesus crying heartbrokenly about the same-sex couples in Rowan County, Kentucky getting married.
What would be even better than that, though, would be if she did start worrying more about Jesus’s terrible priorities, and by extension, hers. It would be a good thing if she started to wonder why she objects so much to same-sex couples getting married when she could be worrying about things that actually are bad instead. If you’re going to worry, why not worry about refugees drowning in the Mediterranean? Why not worry about the women enslaved by Boko Haram and IS? Why not worry about climate change? Why not worry about human and/or animal suffering instead of something that causes no suffering or harm to anyone?
I wondered why she wasn’t fired for refusing to do her job but I see know that she’s elected. Apparently when a single person or a hiring board makes a mistake, we can rectify it. When a bunch of voters make a mistake, we have to wait for the term to end…
By the way, Ophelia, thanks for not just laying into to Davis about her multiple marriages and suspected (admitted?) adultery. I get the need to point out hypocrisy but what she’s doing is made worse by the fact that she doesn’t conform to Christian “virtue”. She’s just as wrong with the past she has as she would be if she was a virgin who only went out to church on Sunday.
Yes, talking about her marriages for me would have been way too close to talking about her looks, which I gather a lot of people were doing, as always happens with women who fail to be movie-star gorgeous. I hate that crap; I hated it long before people started doing it to me.
Tiny little side issue–as her offense was committed in Rowan County, I wonder why she did her time in Carter County?
I’m in agreement with what you write here, up until the very last phrase:
“something that causes no suffering or harm to anyone”
I’ll concede the “no suffering” in a literal sense. But i dispute the “no harm to anyone” idea.
As a homosexual who has (fruitlessly) demanded equality for decades, i want to point out that “marriage equality” is an oxymoron and is a step backwards for human rights. Cementing marriage even more solidly into our society as a legal, civil, political, privileged institution is detrimental to equality. It’s bad for feminism. It’s bad for egalitarianism concerning gays and lesbians and transgender people. It’s good only for Patriarchy.
The whole purpose of marriage is to create inequality, to design privileged versus unprivileged classes of people, to train people to conform to the Patriarch Hegemony. If the problem is one where people are unfairly given special legal privileges, the solution is NOT to extend the privileges to a few more people. The solution is to ABOLISH the legal institution and all of its unfair civil benefits.
There is nothing progressive achieved in the realm of egailitarianism and human rights if people are just pushing for more Marriage to be the norm, because Marriage is a literal embodiment of civil inequality. It makes unmarried people Less Than the married privileged people: socially, economically, politically, OFFICIALLY. It creates a lesser class versus a more privileged class.
It’s bogus, and i am very disappointed for the past couple decades to see almost all my queer friends completely Drink The Kool-Aid on this topic. I’m disappointed for the past couple years to see so many commentators in liberal spheres who are describing the oxymoronic “marriage equality” as a form of progress when it is, in fact, exactly the opposite. But you can’t expect most people to bother thinking things through all the way, people would rather parrot whatever sounds cozy, no matter how WRONG.
I dream idealistically that some day Marriage will be relegated to history and people will look back on it in disgust, as we do with Slavery. If any legislator or judge ever applied simple logic to the situation, Marriage should have been abolished as a legal institution, but this never happens, so i spend my life in frustration at the illogical unfairness. If people want marriages, that should be their personal business, and the State shouldn’t give them special incentives and rewards and privileges. The State doesn’t give special incentives and rewards and privileges for OTHER kinds of Personal Relationships, so picking one particular kind of personal relationship (marriage) and favoring it above all of the others is blatantly discriminatory and wrong.
So, yes, we can organize our worries more productively. I worry that all of the assimilationism is succeeding in defeating all of the Equal Rights activism. I worry that the patriarchal hegemony and all of its evil institutions, such as marriage, are being made stronger than ever, instead of being eliminated. I worry that rather than making a progressive step forward, this Marriage bullshit is actually a backwards somersault into more oppressive patriarchy.
I hear a sort of Borg collective in the back of my mind. “Resistance is futile. Assimilation is mandatory. Why don’t you dirty fags stop acting so queer and just get married already.”
I’ve been with my partner for twenty-four years, first as boyfriends who were neighbors for a number of years in Vermont, then living together with him for thirteen years here in Washington. And during the entire time we have both been hoping to make progress towards equality, and during the entire time we have both been firmly against the legal and political sanctifying of Inequality (Marriage, Slavery, etc.). Sadly, we are the only two queers i know personally who stand out and say, “Marriage is literally Inequality”, while the rest of our (former) friends hopped on the Assimilation Bandwagon. I thought it might bother me a bit less over the years as i’ve outlived nearly all my friends now, but somehow i’m now just as wickedly angry at the bullshit of Marriage as i ever was. Maybe even more so, now that i’ve lost some gay friends to the institution.
Kim Davis is ridiculous. As Betty Bowers wittily observed, a muslim government employee at the Department of Motor Vehicles is not able to refuse to give a driver’s license to a women on account of wahhabi religious beliefs, so Kim Davis can’t refuse a legal license to anybody under the same logic. But this is all a distraction from the more important issue of Equality. If the problem is one where a group is legally given special privileges, the solution is to abolish that legal privilege, NOT to merely extend the circle of privilege to a slightly larger group of beneficiaries.
Frankly, as i’ve seen so many commentators on the B&W blog posts who describe themselves as feminists with interests in humanism and egalitarianism, i am just heartbroken at the utter lack of resistance being expressed towards the political legal institution of Marriage. All of the cheering and applause being aimed at the New and Improved and Gaily Expanded *Special Circle of Marriage Privilege* is enough to make me sick. I spit in disgust.
I don’t oppose gay marriage because (1) marriage is a fundamental, if flawed, institution in human society – one that I’m not interested in necessarily throwing out with the bathwater – and (2) gay people fought for it.
Also, by eliminating the heterosexual stipulation on marriage, you do eliminate the privilege. Who are we still excluding from marriage?
It’s a bit like arguing that because I support pacifist goals and am, in general, not supportive of the military, I should therefore denounce any attempts by women to engage equally in the military. I don’t like military actions but I think the world is made better by the equal access of women to every career field. I can denounce the shortcomings of one while supporting the goals of other.
If you don’t like marriage, don’t get married. Equal access to marriage is not a legal requirement to engage.
SamBarge, you so totally missed my point, i don’t think you even tried to consider it. Please, step back from the dogma for a second, and think about it. Why should Married people be privileged over other people?
It’s like privileging Christian people over other people. We say that’s unfair, we aren’t supposed to allow that in our system with a supposed separation of church and state. So why is it fair to privilege Married people over other people? It ISN’T, but you’ve been raised in a society which dogmatically trains you to accept it. If you hadn’t been brainwashed by a lifetime in a society which promotes Marriage, you wouldn’t automatically say something as ridiculous as “don’t like marriage, don’t get married.”
Of course i don’t fucking get married!
If you had said, “Don’t like Slavery, then don’t buy and sell slaves,” would you be able to see how ridiculous such “logic” is?
And reminding me that “gay people fought for it” is like reminding me that there were sometimes Black people running some of the Slave auctions. So angry, can barely type this without using hateful words.
mef — The contempt proceeding is in federal court, so there’s no particular reason why she would be jailed in the same county. There are only two federal court districts in Kentucky — the Eastern District (which includes Rowan and Carter counties as well as a couple dozen more), and the Western.
Thanks, Screechy, that clears that up.
May as well go on about the oppression of left-handed people and the child-less.
I’ll keep my married person privileges and seek to extend them to others, thank you very much.
Come on Theoderic, that’s not even funny. Where on your tax return do you check your box to get your special incentive bonus for being left-handed?
If you’re going to say you love your special privileges and inequality, fine. But don’t act like you’re doing anybody a favor by “extending them to others” thank you very much. Shall we extend slave-ownership privileges to everybody, also? Hooray, you’re all equal now!
Extending the “eligibility” for Marriage Privilege to everybody DOES NOT make it better, it makes it even more cemented in our society of inequality. Extending the “eligibility” for Slave Ownership doesn’t make our society better, it just encourages more Slavery. Extending the “eligibility” for Marriage just encourages more Marriage, thus more inequality.
Where are the feminists? While i’m having to make this argument from the point of view of a gay man, i thought some feminists would have been sharing my opinion.
And the oppression of the child-less is a hand-in-hand accompaniment to the privileging of Marriage. So as an anti-natalist as well as an anti-marriage-privilege and anti-assimilationist and anti-heterosexist conformity sort of guy, i’ll just continue to live my life in all of these categories which you seem to feel are just fine when they are Officially, Legally, Politically and socio-economically cemented further into place. Your Married Person Privileges are as offensive to me as if they were Christian Person Privileges or Rich White Person Privileges or any other such crap.
Hooray! You’re assimilated! Now, go teach everybody else to do this assimilation, too!
You don’t get an incentive bonus for being left-handed, but you do have the pleasure of figuring out how to use a mouse and keyboard setup not designed for you.
I don’t really care if we’re doing anyone any favors, but a heck of a lot of people *do* want to be married and want those privileges (and liabilities, don’t forget those) that go with it. You can think it’s slavery or whatever all you want and no one can/will/should stop you, but by and large the rest of us are pleased as punch to expand an institution rather than eradicate it.
Yours is a vastly unpopular position, and I say that as one who has a great number of vastly unpopular positions.
“a heck of a lot of people *do* want to be married and want those privileges (and liabilities, don’t forget those) that go with it.”
So let’s do something because it’s popular, ignoring all the reasons why it’s totally wrong and unfair. I got mine, who cares about those other bastards.
Slavery was really popular for a while, too. Popularity didn’t make it right.
Kevin, I am going to guess that marriage saves society money. The more people are in structures that require them to take are of one another the fewer people in need for the state to support them. If true, it is beneficial for society to support institutions such as marriage. The state should also support other small groupings of people who make a legal commitment to take care of one another. Maybe even not-so-small groups, but I’m afraid stability becomes impossible (as opposed to merely hard with just 2 people), and we are also likely to run into a tragedy of the commons situation where everyone in the group shifts the responsibility to the neediest ones onto other group members.
If at all, this works as long as likelihood of obtaining good-enough jobs is high. When employment and earnings are low we get the low marriage rates that we see among low income people.
SamBarge, i don’t want gays in the military because i want to abolish all militaries, and i don’t want Marriage to be a legal institution for gays because i want to abolish the legal institution.
It doesn’t help to pretend that allowing a few gays to get married or allowing a few females to be in the military will help with either of the goals. If we want to rid the world of militaries and patriarchal marriage, i doubt the solution is to sign up more people for either.
Come on! Not even a shred of logic so far, all i’ve heard is: “we are accustomed to being brainwashed into accepting the orthodoxy, wouldn’t you like another slice of this delicious Assimilation Pie?”
Anat, the solution is to have a society where everybody is equal, regardless of personal relationship lifestyles, and where we make sure enough is provided for everyone in need, because nobody needs to be deprived, there is enough for everyone.
The state shouldn’t give special rewards or punishments for any personal relationships, it should encourage us all to be equals.
This seems like a simple concept to me, but i meet tremendous resistance when i state it in public. Everybody just loves them some Traditional Patriarchy.
Also Kevin I don’t see why feminists should oppose marriage as it currently is. Now that both partners in a marriage can own property individually, in addition to shared property, both partners can keep their names, children born or adopted into the marriage can have the names of either partner or both – what about marriage creates or contributes to inequality between men and women? There are still social assumptions about distribution of duties – but then I doubt having everyone cohabit will solve this matter.
Kevin, why don’t you stop comparing marriage to slavery. You sound ridiculous.
Why aren’t you complaining about the privilege of less wealthy people, who don’t have to pay as much taxes as wealthier people? Those who have health problems and don’t have to pay taxes on their health expenses? Those who give money to charity? Those who go to college? Homeowners? People with children? You can’t just point at a tax break or incentive and act like that proves privilege. How about you provide more examples.
Also, when my boyfriend and I get married, we will pay more taxes. So much for my married privilege.
I mean seriously, you sound like a libertarian. “Taxes equals slavery!”
When people insist on maintaining the “importance” of Marriage, what does it accomplish? It stigmatizes people who are in other types of relationships, who are queer, who are single, who are unMarried. When Marriage is privileged on a political and legal level, instead of remaining a private personal matter, it continues the tradition of only giving perks to the people who follow the paradigms of the Patriarchal dogma, while denying them to people who won’t conform. (“Stop being such dirty queers and just get married already.”)
By having institutional sanctions for a particular favored type of relationship, this will always be at the expense of all the other relationship types. They will be contrasted as inferior, abnormal, or even shameful. The solution is to stop picking one type as special and better. The solution is to stop institutionally favoring or disfavoring any of the personal relationships people have. If we don’t want to give special Christian Privilege, if we don’t want to give special Rich White People privileges, then we logically don’t want to give special Married People privileges.
Instead of pursuing more normativism and patriarchal hierarchy enforcement, we should be activists for Equality.
But if everybody wants to stick their fingers in their ears and La La La La La don’t listen to the egalitarianism because it’s so much easier to just keep trying to force assimilation into the hegemon of Patriarchy, well i can understand. I can’t respect, but i can understand. Doing what’s right isn’t always the same thing as doing what’s easy and convenient. It would be uneasy and inconvenient to demand that Married People Privileges be discontinued, so i guess i’ll just be hearing La La La La La for all time.
Erica, i’ll stop comparing Marriage to Slavery when both are abolished. it’s all a matter of social conditioning. If you were trained to think Slavery is all right, you would probably object to having your society disturbed by the abolition of Slavery. If you were trained to think Marriage is all right, you would probably object to having your society disturbed by the abolition of the legal institution of Marriage.
Erica, i wrote, “make sure enough is provided for everyone in need, because nobody needs to be deprived, there is enough for everyone”
If you think i’m a libertarian or some such, then you weren’t really reading my words, you were projecting your prejudices.
Hi, unmarried person here, trained to think Marriage is all right, who however never got married, because I don’t like marriage. I’ve been with my partner for almost twice as long as the average marriage ending in divorce lasts in the United States (only eight years, apparently, huh), and with all that said:
Comparing a civil contract with the right to own people is bad thinking & bullshit.
Further:
One does not simply abolish social conditioning.
In short:
Kevin Hutchins, your logic circuits have misfired. Please consult your Brain’s instruction manual to learn how to reboot.
Jesus H. Christ on a motherfuckin’ cracker.
P.S. You know, if we lived in a society where marriage literally was slavery, then sure, fine go ahead with this argument. Outside of certain toxic subcultures, that isn’t the case in the United States.
I said you SOUNDED like one. With this particular idea you have. Perhaps you weren’t really reading my words, you were projecting.
“You think financial responsibility is good because you were socially conditioned to think it’s good. Just like slavery used to be! Financial responsibility is like slavery!”
You’re making bad arguments, Kevin. Improve your arguments, and we will be having a different conversation.
Again, Kevin, you should take some deep breaths and comment more calmly. I’m glad you comment here, I’m just saying dial it down a little.
I agree with you about the tax break for marriage and the fetishization of it, but not so much about the arrangement itself. That’s probably more true than it would otherwise have been because of same-sex marriage. It seems less conformist and confining now because of that. (So the Christians were right all along! Oh no!!) (Just kidding.)
Marriage is a legal system that privileges married people unequally, above unmarried people. Is that really so controversial a statement?
Arg, I hadn’t seen Ophelia’s comment so that’s why mine sounds out of order.
No problem, we can discuss that. I do agree that marriage should bestow no extra privileges. But I don’t agree that it’s a system of slavery in and of itself, any more than couples living together is, or for that matter than a household of roommates is.
Jennifer, to me, it’s not controversial in the sense that I’m offended or stubbornly opposed to the idea, but I don’t think it’s so obvious like you seem to. A simple tax incentive, whether I agree with it or not, isn’t sufficient for me to agree with your statement. Especially when, as I said earlier, a lot of married couples are paying more taxes than when they filed as single ( combined, that is). Plus, a lot of legal implications that come in the marriage package can be replicated through legal means outside of marriage.
Erica, while it is true in principle that ‘a lot of legal implications that come in the marriage package can be replicated through legal means outside of marriage’, in practice it is hard to cover everything. This is why many same sex couples want to have an actual legal marriage rather than replicate the various privileges of marriage individually.
Sure it can be hard. And when you want to get married but NOT keep all of the package, that can be hard, too. So I think my point still stands.
Actually, for a long time, I suffered a higher tax burden because I was married. So, the tax benefit argument may not be as universal as the idea of equality.
Other than that, I have nothing more to say on this topic. The discussion has been hyperbolic and outlandish.
What a bunch of conservative apologists for Patriarchy. Feminism is dead, long live Marriage.
Mr. Face and Ms. Palm just got married. And now Face owns Palm. OWNS HER I SAY.
Oh, of course, Marriage should never be considered an evil comparable to the evils slavery. Silly me.
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2015/huddled-on-the-ground-before-a-man-in-a-turban/
Pack it up everyone, Kevin knows the one true feminism. Nothing left to do but vote for Bush the third.
Is Kevin a troll and I somehow missed it?
Erica, if i’m a “troll”, then you’re a “feminist”.
You can’t be for real. How is abolishing marriage in the U.S. or any other country that doesn’t lash women for having sex outside of marriage, going to do anything to prevent the kind of story you linked to?
If people want to get married, or have any other personal kind of relationship, then it should be their personal business, NOT the business of the government, and NOT an official reason to discriminate.
Abolishing the legal institution of marriage could still leave it available as a private instiution, just like religion. If we don’t want to give you special privileges for being Christian or Male or White or Rich or Able-bodied, then why should we give you special privileges for your personal relationships?
It amazes me how there are so many people here who complain when they feel that religion is encroaching inappropriately, but so many of those same people are cheerleading one of the most obvious manifestations of the religious conservative patriarchy, i.e., special privileges for Married People. The stunning lack of cognitive dissonance is really just a demonstration of how much social conditioning has been imposed, conditioning to the point where freethought in opposition to the oppression is openly greeted with hostility. It’s a measure of the success of the Patriarchy.
You’re a record on repeat.
And please stop with the “you can’t be for real” type of insult. Just because an idea is shockingly foreign to you and your social conditioning, that doesn’t make me any less real, it just shows how conservative your ideology is.
This must be how abolitionists felt in the early nineteenth century.
Apparently you can’t think of anything besides tax incentives for some married couples, an irrelevant news story that your proposal would do nothing to help, and a vague sense of “I don’t like that some people think that being married is better than not being married!”
I think I will wait and see if anyone else wants to weigh in.
Erica, you just summarily ignored my points, and ended with a made-up quote that has no relationship to what i actually think and said. I guess there’s no point bothering to say anything if you’re just going to claim that i said something else entirely.
Books have been written on this subject, by people who write better than i ever do. Maybe if somebody were genuinely interested, and not just trying to reinforce conformity, they could read something like The Trouble With Normal. That’s probably the best thing i can recommend to be helpful.
The expression of a wish which runs contrary to the dominant paradigm is getting met with dismissiveness, abuse, and ridicule. Freethought, indeed.
Kevin what special privileges are you talking about?
Are there ones about next of kin things, hospital visits and medical decisions and the like? If so I agree that those should simply be assignable as needed…but in emergencies that doesn’t always work.
I can’t see where the slavery comes in. Egalitarian marriages are perfectly possible, and they exist. The laws have changed to make that the case.
Kevin @ 46 – no it isn’t. The expression of a wish which runs contrary to the dominant paradigm is not getting met with dismissiveness – you’re doing a lot more than expressing a wish, you’re comparing marriage to slavery.
Also what do you mean by “Freethought, indeed”? This isn’t on that network any more, you know.
Personally I’m not a fan of marriage. But my personal tastes are beside the point, and I don’t know of any principled reason it should be abolished.
Here’s a summary of sorts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_and_responsibilities_of_marriages_in_the_United_States
These are examples of how people in a Legal Marriage are privileged over people who do not wish to conform to that type of personal relationship. There is no legitimate reason to penalize people who do not wish to conform to that type of personal setup, just as there is no reason to penalize people who do not wish to conform to a Judeo-Christian Patriarchy in other aspects of their lives besides marriages. If people want all of those special perks, i’m not saying they can’t have them, i’m saying it’s not the government’s business to bestow perks based upon personal relationships. It’s blatantly unfair.
I don’t say that marriage is the same as slavery, i say that marriage is just as bad as slavery. Both are wrong, both are great tools for perpetuating the dominant patriarchy. If we can eliminate the special legal, economic, and tribalistic way in which our governments endorsed slavery, then i believe we can eliminate our governments’ endorsement of marriage. If people want marriage, i’m not trying to stop anybody, i’m saying that the marriage should grant no special political, legal, or other official privileges.
If the government isn’t supposed to treat you more favorably for professing adherance to Christian Faith, why should it treat you more favorably for professing adherance to the institution of marriage? Both are made-up tools of oppressive patriarchy, we should reject them both. It’s wrong for the government to penalize or reward people for personal choices such as religion, so it’s wrong for the government to penalize or reward people for a personal choice such as a relationship lifestyle, e.g. marriage.
The “freethought” muttering was because i (naively, crazily) expected to get some kind of viewpoints other than totally overwhelming conservative support for the Status Quo. Sorry if that was pushing a sore button.
A principled reason for abolishing marriage is because: we want equality. We don’t want to give special favoritism or penalties for what people are doing in their personal lives, we want official legal government business to be kept separate from what people do with their private lifestyles.
Ok. I admit I don’t know much about this. Some of it seems to have to do with pooling resources – the right to spousal benefits and so on. There is of course the health insurance issue, and since I think a national health (aka single payer) is the only way to go, I completely agree that marriage shouldn’t be a ticket to health insurance when nothing else is.
I’m not getting the comparison at all. If MARRIAGE = SLAVERY, who are the people enslaved? One of the people in the marriage, or unmarried people? I don’t think that the pushback you’re receiving is because fuddy-duddy, brainwashed, conforming, Patriarchy-supporting anti-abolitionist types who cannot fathom your revolutionary, paradigm-smashing proposal to do away with marriage. I’m guessing that I’m not alone in not getting your analogy. If you want to say STATE RECOGNITION OF MARRIAGE = UNFAIR TAX ADVANTAGE, then fine. But to put into the form UNFAIR TAX ADVANTAGE = SLAVERY makes no sense.
Kevin, I stopped taking you seriously not because of your positions on marriage (which, to be fair, I don’t take seriously either), but because your stated positions are laughable.
For example, these statements?
We can all agree that the world should be just, fair, equal, and have ride-shared unicorns. Your one specific solution is to abolish government-sanctioned marriage (somehow), because clearly this is the gravest ill known to humankind. And anyone who opposes it is a Tool of the Patriarchy, more conservative and reactionary than Focus on the Family. In the meantime, no marriage or military service for gays, because that’s equality!. Look how pro-equality you are! Big round of applause!
Seriously, you follow up that with asinine shit like:
Newsflash: if you take away the special political, legal, or other official privileges marriage confers, then yes, you are actually trying to stop people from getting married. As has been detailed (note: by you!), marriage is the amalgamation of rights, privileges, and obligations you so vehemently consider as morally culpable as violent and involuntary servitude of human beings. Instead of riding so high on this hobby horse that the manure is turning to blue ice, perhaps you could direct your attention to actually working to get people these rights without being forced to get married.
Of course, this would take some time away from your repeated, continued hyperbolic assertions that MARRIAGE = SLAVERY (except not really, but it’s just as bad, and it’s like slavery, but wait, I never said it was the same, it’s just they’re two evil things and Y U SO CONSERVATIVEZOR).
You’re about one post away from calling everyone here Uncle Toms, two posts away from comparing yourself to Abraham Lincoln, and three posts away from calling someone Marriage Hitler, aren’t you?
Yeesh, what a trainwreck.
Again, i repeat: i do not say that marriage is the same as slavery. I say that government endorsement and perpetuation of either institution is wrong. Marriage is just as bad as slavery because both are part of the system in which society conditions everybody to unquestioningly accept inequality when it’s obvious. The government shouldn’t encourage people to own slaves. The government shouldn’t encourage people to go to church. The government shouldn’t encourage people to get married.
If people want to get married, go to church, and practise enslavement in their personal lives, it’s none of my business. But when it’s the government getting involved in those businesses, it is detrimental to all of us in that society. The government shouldn’t give you a different tax rate (or any other legal formality) for being married, just as it shouldn’t give you any formal legal benefits for going to a Christian Church, just as it shouldn’t give you any special benefits for having a private sado-masochistic relationship with a sex partner. The marriages, the churches, the personal lifestyle choices: these are not appropriate places for government intervention, endorsement, nor favoritism.
Somehow i feel that my argument is being resisted not because of its merits, but rather because everybody is just so accustomed to accepting without argument the institutionalization of inequality. Savvy people around here are usually so quick to notice when something is institutionalizing inequality which harms feminists, atheists, humanists, and other non-conformists; but where is the savvy when the government is institutionalizing inequality which harms anybody who doesn’t want a marriage?
Thought experiment: pick a different religious institution other than marriage, and try to imagine how unfair it would be if the government favored that institution. Let’s see, should the government give special perks to people who don’t eat shellfish? Should the government give special perks to women who cover themselves in a burqa? Should the government give special perks to people who eat a wafer in Church each weekend? If you answer “no” to any of those, then please consider answering why the government should give any special favoritism to the people who join in the religious institution of marriage, instead of leaving it alone for people in their personal lives?
The modern marriage contract of allowing people hospital visitation rights, commingled property, and yes, even unfair tax breaks is just as bad as owning other human beings.
Seriously, fuck off.
I will not take back what i said. Marriage is just as bad as slavery, both are part of the social conditioning which has trained YOU to accept institutional inequality and to defend its status quo. Good job, being a cheerleader for conformity. That’s really daring. So brave.
Marriage isn’t a ticket to health insurance (I’m assuming you’re talking about employer paid health benefits). It may be that neither spouse has health insurance through work, or nothing any better or cheaper than what they can get on the health exchange, or that one’s employer doesn’t cover health benefits for one’s spouse.
I also support single payer, but I don’t support abolishing marriage in the absence of a single payer system so that less people get good, affordable health care. Even if it’s not fair!
And still, no health insurance for one’s significant other and lack of a tax benefit ( again, in some circumstances, and a tax penalty in others), because you for whatever reason decided not to marry your partner, still, STILL is not as bad as slavery.
Is that really where you want to make your stand? All other things being equal, in a choice between a world where you’re a slave, but no marriage privilege exists, and a world where you aren’t a slave, marriage privilege does exist, and, idk, maybe no puppies exist, you’d go “mehhhh I’ll take the slavery.”???
The government shouldn’t encourage murder. The government shouldn’t encourage rape. The government shouldn’t encourage vaccinations.
You do understand that substituting a word for a bad thing in a sentence, with a word for something you want to claim is also bad, isn’t actually an argument?
Dude, you’re the one arguing that marriage should be left to the free market with no government interference. You must be able to see the analogy with slavery and labor rights here.
To spell it out, getting Big Government out of the business of Legal Slavery did not, presto change-o, eliminate slavery. Instead, we got a rigid system of economic exploitation designed to reproduce every aspect of slavery that could be maintained. It took further government intervention to make even weak gains against the New, Improved Non-Slavery, with what amounts to a constant rearguard action persisting today. We got government out of the business of slavery and turned it over to ever-more-intrusive private sector labor exploitation. Example: for-profit correctional institutions. Hey! At least the government isn’t handing out those slavery privileges any more, am I right?
Now, look at what’s been happening with marriage: an ever-expanding ability to get the fuck out of the restrictive situations you analogize to slavery. Expanded access to reproductive health services without spousal consent. No-fault divorces. States eliminating marital rape exemptions. Expansion to non-traditional couples. Are we there yet? Is it perfect? Fuck no. But what’s your solution? Deregulate and let the chips of “personal decisions” fall where they may, because Patriarchy and Freedom.
f you want to argue against covenant marriage, be my guest. If you want to argue against no-consent marriages, be my guest. If you want to argue against child brides, chattel marriage, caste marriages, etc., I’ll be right there cheering you along. If you want to argue for legal protections and guaranteed rights (NOTE: BY GOVERNMENT) so that marriage doesn’t revert to the actual patriarchal institution you’re railing against, GO FOR IT. You’re not doing any of that
You are so, so, so not doing that, because apparently it’s more important to you to revel in your ideological purity and condemn people here as equivalent to freakin’ Tony Perkins or the Quiverfull movement. While continuing to call marriage “as bad as slavery”.
And somehow, you still wonder why nobody here is taking you at all seriously. :)
P.S. Erika, the “no puppies” example made me laugh. A lot. :)
Kevin Hutchins, you’re excercised over formal State recognition of a committed life partnership?
Meh.
Only reason I married was our parents’ desire (both Catholic, FWIW), but over the years it’s proven legally and functionally convenient for us. I’m perfectly happy for its scope to be widened (eg. same-sex marriages), no skin off my nose; that said, I think you have a point when it’s societally required rather than optional, or when its benefits/responsibilities are asymmetric, such as in Sharia.
Is marriage (today!) a religious institution? Why, because it started that way? I’m an atheist, and I’m married. My marriage wasn’t, isn’t, and won’t become a religious thing. Why do you get to define my marriage that way?
I would tend to agree with Kevin in principle. Back in the days when divorce made you a pariah, the state gained an advantage from the “stability” that appeared to result from the institution.
Now, it is hard to see what the state gains from (and thus rewards) marriage. It is an archaic tradition that we keep around for traditions sake. Buying a house with your partner is a more rigorously enforced social bond for couples nowadays…
However, I have to say: Mate, of course you can tie your flag to whatever pole you like, but to me, this is a two comment job (three at most) and married/unmarried features pretty low down the list of axes of oppression.
Its like slavery, but also, in a great many ways, not like slavery (except in countries where it’s exactly like slavery)
Given that Kevin has stated an “anti-natalist” position, i.e. he wants nobody to reproduce and the human race to die out entirely, I’m kind of uninterested in his ideas of how society should be in the short term since in the long term he wants it nonexistent.
I know I said wasn’t engaging in this topic anymore but there is no evidence that marriage started as a religious institution. Right? I mean, as a thing, it certainly pre-dates the Abrahamic faiths in western Europe and the Middle East and it exists outside the realm of the Abrahamic faiths in the rest of the world.
There is no evidence that marriage existed in its recent state (ie. heterosexual life partners with “tax” benefits, apparently) through out history and in all cultures. Aboriginal American nations had same-sex marriages as well as heterosexual marriages through out their history. Some cultures practiced polygamy. Some cultures practiced serial monogamy.
That what makes Kevin’s rant so easy to dismiss. It’s ahistoric and not founded in evidence. Just because things are a certain way in certain countries at a certain period of time, that does not mean that an institution can only be defined that way. Marriage, as an institution, works for some people and our society is built on the premise of families tied by blood and marriage. Can we re-work society without these bonds? Sure but I’m not actually all that interested in such an individualistic model of human existence.
On the other hand, as SAWells indicates that Kevin thinks the human race should just die out, I suppose he doesn’t have a long game in mind.
Late again, sorry, but just have to say Kevin H, YES, I hear you.
Theoderic @10 (which is as far as I’ve read so far – apologies for redundencies)
When will you fight to have them extended to unmarried persons like myself?
Well way too late still, but commenting anyway, if only to throw a little solidarity in Kevin’s direction.
Kevin H, the best argument against your position that I saw was early on, about how marriage is probably a cost benefit to government. Not a good a reason to maintain institutionalized inequality imo. Saw some “Dear Muslima,” that was just embarrassing. Seriously, if all you can do is DM someone, consider just keeping quiet. I don’t see how it’s appropriate no matter how outlandish one might consider the topic. FFS, do you deny Kevin H’s sincerity and passion about this issue?
Erica @45, I’ve been single my whole life, raised a family, have had and ended a relationship that lasted twice as long as the average marriage. Aside from however many of those 1000+ legal benefits of marriage I missed out on, I feel like I may have been able to avoid some social sanctions as well, if this particular relationship wasn’t held above all others. I won’t do a laundry list, just tell you the worst one to me, that felt as painful, infuriating and inconsolable as any discrimination I’ve experienced as a woman made me feel. That was the absolute dismissal by everybody of my and my partner’s pain and upheaval at the end of our relationship…you know, because we weren’t married and we didn’t have to divorce and it wasn’t the actual end of a family unit.
Kevin H…give it another 20 or 30 years, and keep talking. More voices will join yours along the way. I swear I’ve lived long enough to see those wheels of justice actually do turn. Just so slowly you can’t see them moving.