Same Sex Marriage and Polygamy: Revisited
January 5, 2006 · By Tom Cerber
In response to a comment on my previous post on same sex marriage and polygamy, I write this (which is too lengthy to include in the comments page there):
Lyndon: Thanks for reading my previous postings on this subject. However, you may have missed my previous point that the legalization of same-sex marriage is based on the principle that society will not discriminate against unions on the basis of their ability or nonability to procreate. In other words, society has commited itself to the general rule that marriage is an institution where two people commit themselves to one another. If they want to call their commitment romantic or however else, then the state won’t ask any questions and, for civil purposes, will recognize their union as marriage.
You see, laws in a constitutional regime are written as general rules. They’re not supposed to name specific names or groups, except insofar as they prohibit discrimination against identifiable groups.
As a result, one must consider the general rule and general princple that the state lists when prohibiting types of discrimination. The state doesn’t say, “don’t prohibit same sex marriage on the basis that we like gays.” No, the state says in effect, “don’t prohibit same sex marriage because it is unjust to use inability of the union to procreate as the basis for discrimination.”
Once you see the general rule, you can then ask, why limit your case to homosexual unions of 2? This is why the bisexuality (or polygamy, call the union of bisexuals what you will) considered in the Kurtz article is so interesting. It challenges supporters of same-sex marriage to consider where the general principle of their position leads.
As for Mormons and polygamy, you may be right that it is acceptable under the current marriage regime. The BC Attorney-General agrees with you, which is why you don’t see the RCMP busting the polygamists near Creston, BC. However, if I had to bet, I’d wager that the Supreme Court wouldn’t buy a freedom of religion defense for their practice because they’d see a conflict with s. 15 equality provisions (i.e., they’d consider the girls in these marriages as having been coerced or pressured into those arrangements). In short, Mormon polygamy doesn’t harmonize with the liberal myth of the autonomous individual.
http://www.thepolitic.com/arch.....ge-regime/ http://www.thepolitic.com/arch.....revisited/
Lyndon: You commented:
What does hurt, and the courts agree, is telling two concenting citizens of Canada that they cannot legally marry.
But why restrict to two? Your argument that bisexual people can marry is vacuuous unless you allow them to marry more than one person (i.e., polygamy, polyamory, or whatever it’s called).
Also, you missed my point about the general rule. Let me put it another way: what’s the NEW principle of discrimination? If it’s “no harm,” as you state, then that’s even more wide open than I think it is. Hell, I’m not harming anyone if I marry my dog. I know you’ll complain I’m using a homophobic trope by saying that. But unless you provide me with a newly articulated rule of exclusion that the new marriage law creates, then that’s what you have under your “no harm” principle.
Lyndon: You’re dodging the issue. Let’s get back to bisexuals. Why do you dislike them so much so not to allow them to marry multiple partners (simultaneously)? To use your self-righteous rhetoric, why don’t you do what “any intelligent and compassionate person can see what the correct answer to the question of civil marriage actually is” ?
–name removed–: Fair enough. “Society decides” is a short-hand way of expressing what principle of jurisprudence the marriage regime expresses. As you know, this principle has not even been accepted by any kind of aggregate of individual opinions either.
Becker may be right to argue that marriage is a contract. But I would ask, a contract to do what? As you know, liberalism regards “society” as a contract. In the writings of one of its founders, John Locke, social contract’s purpose is for the pursuit of peace, liberty, and material well-being of those who participate. The marriage contract is for procreation and cohabitation. Since people in our society have decided procreation is not the purpose of the marriage contract, one might ask whether the purpose of marriage carries any meaningful difference from the purpose of a social contract. Is there any meaningful difference between the political sphere and the sphere of private liberty?
If not, then what grounds does a liberal (or libertarian) have for opposing state intervention in the private lives of individuals if it can be shown, as the Liberals often argue (though rarely demonstrate), that the state can do things better than individuals can (e.g., their arguments for national daycare)?
The libertarian is thrown back to argue that individuals can act more effectively in their sphere than the state, but that is not a principled argument. Without principle, you’re on a a rather thin reed, indeed.
Liberalism, including its libertarian variation, carries the seeds of collapsing the public and private divide in on itself.
–name removed–: State interference is only considered such when it’s deemed malevolent. If deemed benevolent – or should we say, “effective,” – then what argument have you to defend individual rights?
[...] Further to our rousing debate on whether same-sex marriage in principle opens up the door to polygamy, the Wall Street Journal carries an article detailing how polygamy’s being pushed by various progressives. A snippet: The idea, floated with ever greater frequency, is that polygamy is nothing objectionable; it is simply another option on our diverse menu of family types. A new HBO series called “Big Love,” debuting in March, will center on a man married to three women. “It’s everything that every family faces, just times three,” co-creator Mark Olsen told Newsweek. “The yuck factor disappears and you just see human faces.” [...]
–name removed–: True, but irrelevant.
–name removed–: Try reading the post. When someone writes, that something is “deemed” benevolent, don’t you think the one writes “deemed” understands that benevolence is subjective? What do you think “deemed” means, after all?
And subjective for whom? Well, governmental agents as well as the recipients of alleged benevolence, who have consented that whatever government does to/for them is benevolent.
Hi. I’m a tv Producer from Canada and we’re currently shooting a gay wedding series called, I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU
It’s not OUT TV in Canada http://www.outtv.ca
I recently heard the Netherlands held a three person, plural wedding, and the two ladies were bisexual.
I am looking to shoot another plural wedding for our show. I was wondering if you knew of any that are happening in the next little while?
All the best,
Myles Shane
Producer
http://www.hiltz2.com
–name removed–: My comment was in response to your, um, circular argument here:
“It is the argument for State interference and “publicâ€? policy that is unprincipled, for the line at which individual and collective action are separated is arbitrary and undefinable, and certainly cleaves to absolutely no matter of principle.”
If the line between individual and collective action is “arbitrary and undefinable,” then why worry? Individuals can just be told not to worry about something called “collective action” because their worries are equally “arbitrary and undefinable” as is the state interference that they’re concerned about.
Unless you come up with a better *principled* argument, yours simply washes away in relativism. You might as well join the feminists chanting “the public is private” and all that.
–name removed–: Then how do you understand governmental action? The rule of the strong over the weak?
Myles Shane: I’m sure Jerry Springer has a Rolodex full of people you can contact for your show.
For ideas on how to frame your show, see here, here, here, here, and here.
–name removed–: I guess then I’m even more confused about your position that I thought because I’m still unsure how you understand the essential difference between governmental action, understood as collective action, and actions conducted by factions or smaller groups. For instance, if governmental action is based essentially on the use of force, then do the thugs who run government base themselves essentially on the use of force – essentially and all the time? Moreover, do other groups – acting collectively – do the same thing? If not, how do you account for government collective action based on coercion versus nongovernment collective action (e.g., factions, tribes, clubs, families) that are not based essentially on coercion?
I guess I’m still wondering how you distinguish government from nongovernment, or public from private as I expressed it above.
–name removed–: I didn’t write my correction clearly. I should’ve written, how do we know those other forms of collective action to be essentially noncoercive?
–name removed–: Then you’ll have learned from your Oxford Latin Dictionary that “coercion” has roots in “correction,” that is, it’s done when teaching as when the argument “compels” us to draw a particular conclusion.
I fail to see how this works in your argument.
–name removed–: You wrote: “But all governments use or threaten violence, without exception. Indeed, it is not possible to have a government that does not coerce, after all, if one could get people to follow government policy willingly there would be no need for that government in the first place.”
Arguably all families use or threaten violence. Does that mean the family is an essentially coercive institution, just like the state? The difference only one of size?
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