More On SSM From *Reason*
[UPDATE #2: Someone in the comments thought I was being too harsh on Dalmia, that she wasn’t necessarily contradicting her own past views on the subject. Yes, she was. See my update at the bottom of the post.]
[UPDATE: The Tenth Amendment Center was similarly nonplussed by Dalmia’s article.]
I was minding my own business, reading Ed Stringham’s article on SF private police, when I saw a “Featured Article” from Shikha Dalmia titled, “Privatizing Marriage Is a Terrible Idea.” Naturally I clicked on it, because I had been reading scoldings from some of the cool kids on Facebook that those of us who had been skeptical of the Supreme Court ruling didn’t realize that this would finally get everybody to see the wisdom of separating marriage and State.
Anyway, Dalmia not only says privatizing marriage is a terrible idea, she says it’s “incoherent.” Then there’s this:
At the most basic level, even if we can get government out of the business of issuing marriage licenses, it still has to register these partnerships (and/or authorize the entities that perform them) before these unions can have any legal validity, just as it registers property and issues titles and deeds. Therefore, government would need to set rules and regulations as to what counts as a legitimate marriage “deed.” It won’t—and can’t—simply accept any marriage performed in any church—or any domestic partnership written by anyone. Suppose that Osho, the Rolls Royce guru who encouraged free sex before getting chased out of Oregon, performed a group wedding uniting 19 people. Would that be acceptable? How about a church wedding—or a civil union—between a consenting mother and her adult son? And so on—there are innumerable outlandish examples that make it plain that government would have to at least set the outside parameters of marriage, even if it wasn’t directly sanctioning them. [Bold added.]
It would be difficult to come up with better ammunition for Gene Callahan’s running critique of libertarianism. At least in Dalmia’s case, we see that her support for gay marriage has nothing whatsoever to do with freedom, individual expression, and tolerance. No, she thinks it’s fine for a man to marry a man or a woman to marry a woman, and that’s why she wants the State to issue marriage licenses in those cases. But if three people consent to marriage? Nope, #LoveLoses because that’s just icky.
Here is what you need to do if right now you find yourself holding an outlier view, according to Dalmia:
Privatizing marriage can’t sidestep the broader questions about who should get married to whom and under what circumstances. In a liberal democracy, those who want to expand the scope of marriage have no choice but to fight—and win—the culture wars by slowly changing hearts and minds, just as they did with gay marriage. There are no cleaner shortcuts.
And there you have it. You want the right to do something? Reason‘s featured correspondent on this issue tells you: Convince 51% of us that it’s not weird.
In closing, let me acknowledge that of course there are different perspectives on this topic, and many other self-described libertarians are doing a better job of living up to their official value system. To showcase the irony, I grabbed this screenshot:
In case it’s not clear, Chapman doesn’t think the arguments against polygamy hold up.
UPDATE #2: To better understand why I’m making such a big deal out of this, and why Dalmia is contradicting her own stance on the issue, remember her opening sentence from a previous article on the Supreme Court ruling: “By advocating for limited government that stays out of the bedroom, we libertarians have played a crucial role in the American victory for same-sex marriage.”
So now we see that she was bluffing here, cloaking her personal tastes in a broad cloak of high-sounding principles that she doesn’t endorse. She very much wants the government in your bedroom, to limit occupants to two people at a time. Furthermore, they must be adults and unrelated biologically.
To be clear, I am not endorsing polygamy, incest, etc. What I’m saying is that some of the self-described libertarians running victory laps after the Supreme Court ruling are enunciating explanations that don’t make any sense.
“… those who want to expand the scope of marriage have no choice but to fight—and win—the culture wars by slowly changing hearts and minds, just as they did with gay marriage.”
Fun Fact: This DID NOT happen.
The government violated the [albeit unconstitutional] will of the people in some states by ignoring laws prohibiting gay marriage; And then they violated the constitution by requiring gay marriage to be recognized – it’s nowhere in the Constitution.
People throwing up their hands as a result of a rogue government is NOT a change of heart and mind.
The gay lifestyle is a disgusting practice, and I don’t want to hear these people speak to me in their manufactured lisped voices, if I can help it (and it IS manufactured). But no one has the right to prevent them from doing what they want on their own property.
“The gay lifestyle is a disgusting practice, and I don’t want to hear these people speak to me in their manufactured lisped voices, if I can help it (and it IS manufactured).” guest, are you a Christian? I ask because I haven’t heard many people voice this opinion who aren’t religious, and yet I don’t remember you identifying as religious.
I have knowledge and views that I think that are important.
I would say that I’m hypocritical, if that helps you decide whether my attempts at logical consistency are sufficient for my opinion to matter.
I do think I do a good job at respecting Bob’s property rights to his blog.
I’m not trying to assess whether you’re a hypocrite or whether you opinion matters, I’m just curious what you’re religious beliefs are.
Also, I think you’re stereotyping here. There are plenty of people that don’t have that sort of voice. Have you heard Andrew Sullivan talk?
I’m aware that I’m stereotyping; But I don’t see that as always negative.
For example, stereotyping can keep you alive if it causes you to avoid certain neighborhoods.
When stereotyping is not being applied to people, it’s called “rule of thumb”.
Besides, it’s not like my position rests on the type of voice they use.
OK, so what does your position rest on then?
It’s the consistent position of the heterosexual identity.
See, to *be* heterosexual is, in fact, to hold a worldview in which there are gender roles.
It’s one thing to tolerate people who irritate you – and, in fact, tolleration implies that there is something actually irritating about someone that is being tolerated.
It’s another thing to be a heterosexual, but then claim that gays don’t bother you.
It’s not like you could take or leave that lifestyle for yourself: You’re straight, not bi.
In fact, the only non-stereotypical position is bisexuality. Gays stereotype in the same way as straights.
But again, there’s nothing wrong with that, per se.
guest, what you’re saying seems nonsensical to me. Just because I can’t choose to be of a different orientation doesn’t mean that I must feel irritated that other people are of a different orientation.
I like pizza but I don’t like peanut butter and jelly. I would be repulsed if I was handed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and asked to eat it. But I find it perfectly fine when I see other people eating them. It’s not something irritating that I’ve decided to tolerate – it’s something that I genuinely don’t find irritating, even though it’s not for me and I’d be irritated if someone wanted me to eat it.
I see pizza as something that tastes good and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as something that (probably) tastes bad. (Confession: I’ve never eaten one.) But it’s not like I see this as an important objective distinction between the very nature of these foods – it’s just the set of personal preferences that I happen to possess.
If you wrapped a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a pizza, and you knew it was in there, would you be less repulsed at the thought of eating it?
guest, I’m not really sure what you’re point is, but no, I wouldn’t eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich regardless of whether it was inside a pizza or by itself.
“… I wouldn’t eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich regardless of whether it was inside a pizza or by itself.”
Then it’s not just about a preference, for you. There’s something about the nature of the PB&J, itself, that masking the presentation will not make it less repulsive.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Or maybe food just isn’t a good analogy, since preferences are not the issue with sexual orientation, but, rather, gender roles.
One can’t prefer being straight on the basis of gender roles and then think there’s nothing abnormal about the expression of different roles for genders.
“Then it’s not just about a preference, for you. There’s something about the nature of the PB&J, itself, that masking the presentation will not make it less repulsive.” It’s not something inherent in the sandwich itself, it’s something about how I feel about me eating it.
“Or maybe food just isn’t a good analogy, since preferences are not the issue with sexual orientation, but, rather, gender roles.” I don’t see how orientation has more to do with gender roles than food has to do with “food roles”. In choosing what I eat, I judge what sort of foods I find desirable and what sort of foods I find undesirable. In the same way, orientation involves what sort of humans you find desirable and what sortI find undesirable.
“One can’t prefer being straight on the basis of gender roles and then think there’s nothing abnormal about the expression of different roles for genders.” Well, I don’t think most people are straight on the basis of thinking “the proper object of all mens’ attraction is women and the proper object of all womens’ attraction is men.” I think the basis is more like “the object of my attraction is women and I hope there are women whose object of attraction is me.” The basis of a man’s straightness doesn’t involve assigning a gender role to other men.
“The basis of a man’s straightness doesn’t involve assigning a gender role to other men.”
Other than our respective naughty bits, there’s not much in the way of physical interaction that must necessarily differ between men and women.
So, straightness does have its basis in perceived gender roles. Otherwise, what difference would it make, physically?
guest, to be straight means you’re attracted to one type of body part as opposed to another type of body part, but why does that mean that you have to be irritated that other people are attracted to another type of body part?
I find pizza appealing and I don’t find peanut butter and jelly sandwiches appealing. But I don’t feel any irritation when other people find peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
*find peanut butter and jelly sandwiches appealing
guest, let me see if I can cut to the chase here:
You seem to be claiming that anyone who is not repulsed by homosexuality is gay or at least bi. Is that about the size of it?
If that’s your definition of the hetero-/homo-sexual divide then I guess that makes me gay, which will come as a great surprise to my wife. Luckily, she also appears to be gay.
Now I’ve admitted my alternative lifestyle. Where else do you plan to take this line of reasoning?
“You seem to be claiming that anyone who is not repulsed by homosexuality is gay or at least bi. Is that about the size of it?”
No, my claim is that such people are both repulsed and inconsistent in their claims.
You know they’re repulsed because they don’t consider the other lifestyle an option for themselves.
“Now I’ve admitted my alternative lifestyle. Where else do you plan to take this line of reasoning?”
If you go back up the thread, you’ll see that I’m the one being questioned.
“You know they’re repulsed because they don’t consider the other lifestyle an option for themselves.”
I’m also no repulsed by the thought, or even being a live witness to, copulation between animals – does that mean I am not being a consistent heterosexual human?
I find your reasoning here fairly unsatisfactory.
But, you’re right – you’re the one being questioned. So I’ll leave it at that.
“You know they’re repulsed because they don’t consider the other lifestyle an option for themselves.” guest, why in the world is it inconsistent to consider a lifestyle an option that may be desirable to others but is not desirable to yourself? Am I being inconsistent when I am repulsed by eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches myself but am absolutely fine if other people eat them?
Is it inconsistent if I’m not bothered when I see men with women that I wouldn’t ever consider dating? Or is it only inconsistent for me to not be bothered by gay men? Is it OK if I’m not bothered by lesbians, too?
Can I at least be repulsed by the idea of what my parents had to do in order to create me, but not be bothered, and in fact get a lot of joy, from their relationship?
“… does that mean I am not being a consistent heterosexual human?”
Claiming that you aren’t repulsed when you are is being inconsistent.
You could take or leave having sex with animals, yourself, then?
Why, or why not?
OK I think you guys should probably wrap up this delightful conversation.
“Am I being inconsistent when I am repulsed by eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches myself but am absolutely fine if other people eat them?”
Your decision to refrain from eating PB&J is based on preference.
But, as was argued before, your sexual orientation is based on perceived gender roles.
Otherwise, you wouldn’t base your choice of partner on gender.
Even though Bruce Jenner looks like a woman, now, I wouldn’t pick him as a partner – because he’s a he.
“OK I think you guys should probably wrap up this delightful conversation.”
Yes, sir.
Thank you for allowing Keshav to continue; I realize that I was only permitted to do so for his benefit.
Thank you, also, to Keshav.
Hey guest, I’m not going to bother editing it because Keshav already quoted you etc., but that stuff at the end was over the top.
OK, I got it. I will modify myself, accordingly.
Bob, there’s a question I wanted to ask the last time this topic was raised, but some time had passed, and I wasn’t sure if the timing would have been awkward so long after the fact.
The excerpt of Shikha Dalmi includes: “At the most basic level, even if we can get government out of the business of issuing marriage licenses, it still has to register these partnerships (and/or authorize the entities that perform them) before these unions can have any legal validity, just as it registers property and issues titles and deeds.”
“Register”? Since when do the people have to register ANYTHING with bureaucrats in a free society? Dalmia seems to make the assumption that a ruling State is necessary to “validate” the people’s private matters.
No, government doesn’t HAVE to “register” property and issue titles and deeds for “legal validity,” as private contracts and transactions in and of themselves are valid as long as they are entered into voluntarily and do not involve force or fraud. The terms of the contracts are the business of the parties to the contract. What moral authority do bureaucrats have to “issue titles and deeds”? None. Just as bureaucrats have no moral authority to involve themselves in private people’s relationships or marital contracts.
I don’t know that you can accuse Dalmia of inconsistency per se. There’s a difference between “issues” “libertarianism” ie the so call “Social liberal/Fiscal conservative” and the philosophical libertarianism of beliefs grounded in high moral theory.
Okay, yeah, she’s definitely contradicting herself.
For the record, I’m 100% with you on the substance I was only saying that not everyone who identifies as libertarian does so because they agree with the high minded philosophy. Some of them are just “Socially liberal, Fiscally conservative.”
When I read the article, I thought it was meant to be ironic. She makes a bunch of fallacious arguments that every libertarian has heard repeatedly from people on the other side. It’s hard to even contemplate how this article exists if it meant to be serious.
I was for marriage, then my wife died and I was against marriage, but now that I have remarried I am again for marriage. (There are tax and sociological benefits to marriage) The point is that in the late 60’s marriage came under attack because it was thought to be a government institution for enslaving women, much like the “Jim Crow” laws enslaved blacks. This attack was led by Andrea (marriage is rape, sex is oppression) Dworkin and other feminists. As I point out in an editorial for the local paper in 2005,
http://lp-thoughts-philosophy.blogspot.com/2005/09/same-sex-marriages.html , George Glider wrote a rebuttal showing that marriage has benefits for society and should be rewarded. That being said I could go back to being against marriage (two tax filing status, single and head of household) and everything else can be handled through wills, trusts, and pre-nuptial agreements. Social Security benefits can be handled the same way pensions are handled, you name a beneficiary or beneficiaries. What I find truly disingenuous are the people who argue that “marriage” was made by God and is between a man and woman in the light of the First Amendment’s prohibition of “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” Marriage, as we know it, must either be a secular institution or it must be gone, at least in the USA.
You seem to be presuming that the only things that exist in the USA are the laws that Congress passes.
If they are living and working on a family farm, government will hit them with hefty inheritence tax so each generation gets poorer until they lose the farm. It makes perfect sense for the son to marry his mother and avoid this tax penalty. What’s so bad about it?
“Marriage, as we know it, must either be a secular institution or it must be gone, at least in the USA.”
Yes, government-sanctioned marriage should be unconstitutional in the US, due to the establishment clause alone. Legal marriage existed in Europe, of course, and so was carried over, but Europe had no rules against church and state involvement. Laws against polygamy were clearly aimed against the free exercise of Mormonism in the 19th century. But even if marriage were extended to all variations, so as not to limit religious practice, it would still involve an unconstitutional entanglement between government and religion, given that marriage is an essential religious practice.
Then there’s the issue of the right to privacy and the finding that it extends to sexual matters. If sexuality is a matter of constitutionally protected privacy, how can the government be involved in it at all? Marriage is, after all, a formal sexual union between consenting adults, by definition. It’s hard to see how any government involvement passes constitutional muster.
So what’s the solution? Well, all of Dalmia’s objections, as well as the constitutional ones, are easily answered if the government establishes a legally recognized domestic partnership that is independent of sexual matters (that is, neither assumes it nor forbids it). There are good reasons for offering legal protections for any groups who wish to claim them. Indeed, a mother and adult son could claim such legal protections without the stigma of sexuality, which is assumed in “marriage.” In all, such an institution would be far less restrictive than marriage is today and involve less government intrusion.
I agree, marriage rightfully belongs to the churches, because they developed the institution. Due to there being a plurality of church groups, it is inevitable that they will differ over the details. Some (not many) accept gay marriage now… although the majority of churches stick with tradition.
IMO, marriage rightfully belongs to society, not to religions. Even tribal societies that you wouldn’t classify under any religion have the practice of marriage. This, however, only increases the distance between marriage and the State and strengthens your point.
It is only people who mix up society and government/the State who will not be able to see this point.
Well religion is better defined than “society” which could mean whatever you want it to mean (and often in a modern context people just presume that “government” and “society” are equivalent).
As to whether primitive tribes did have religion, that’s not exactly an open and shut case there. I’d say they probably did have some type of religion, different to modern organised religion of course, but then that’s exactly what you would expect.
The secular thing that Brian is describing has been called “civil union” almost everywhere, but many people think that’s just a drop-in for marriage. It isn’t, they are different things entirely. Government should stop at civil unions and not dabble in marriage. Getting a civil union should be really just a rubber stamp and sign a form. More of a notary function than anything else.
That said, the recent issue with gay marriage is not about civil unions, nor about religious marriage. It’s worse… partly it’s intended to stick it to the Christians (and yes, I mean Christians because the activists are carefully tip-toeing around Islam, Buddhism, etc), and partly it’s a misguided belief that government can be used to dictate social acceptance, and that declaring themselves “married’ will magically create social acceptance. That’s a very sad belief when you think about it.
Finally, I should point out that some of the conservative Christians had this coming because they also attempted to use government to enforce their own social norms on others… but that’s been and done with, we can’t fix the past.
In the UK civil unions were not allowed between mixed sex couples. Obviously this was to prevent the churches from crying too loudly. Had civil unions been allowed for all partnerships, then there would have been a stronger case for leaving it there and the Govt getting out of marriage per se. The arrangements between church and state in the UK are obviously very different from the USA.
In the UK they had that court case where a gay couple who had a civil union went out of their way to find the most Christian culturally conservative bed and breakfast, then they insisted on having the double bed in the special “married couples only” suite. Then when the B&B owners said they didn’t consider the couple married, they went off and sued for a ridiculous amount of emotional damage.
It was an activist case, blatant trouble making, but the judge took the side of the gay couple and thus effectively decided that any civil union must be considered marriage (which never was the original intent). That whole judgment was ridiculous and socially damaging IMHO but I don’t live there.
That was one of the early activist cases, and back when the original gay marriage issue came up in the USA people were pretending like no such case would ever happen in the US… and of course exactly the same activist cases have happened.
“That said, the recent issue with gay marriage is not about civil unions, nor about religious marriage. It’s worse… partly it’s intended to stick it to the Christians ”
Tel,
I suppose there are some SSM advocates who want to punish Christian denominations, but the bigger issue is simply that the homosexual lobby wants to receive official government approbation for their lifestyles. They want the government to state that what they’re doing is OK. In some sense this is understandable, especially since, as you say, Christians have been doing the same thing for forever. But we really need to get away from government as cheerleader and definer of all things good and simply let it enact good policy when necessary.
They want to use the power of government to force everyone else to support their lifestyle. That’s why you have huge litigation payouts when some gay couple decide they want to be married on that particular farm or be served by that particular photographer, baker, bed and breakfast, etc.
It’s not about “winning the culture wars” it’s about ensuring there are no survivors. Hunting down every pocket of resistance and turning the power of government against anyone who disagrees with the current politically correct paradigm.A minority group of about 10% of the population simply cannot maintain such a stance… the power of government will be turned against each minority group in turn, as has happened many times in the past.
Anyone wanting to live a non-mainstream lifestyle would never want to hitch their wagon to socialism, because fundamentally socialists don’t (and cannot) tolerate diverse attitudes and cultural pluralism.
I went after Dalmia’s piece last week on Libertarian Gaming, if anyone’s interested: http://libertariangaming.org/2015/07/23/through-the-looking-glass/
Short version: I didn’t like it either.
The article makes no sense. If the Govt has got out of marriage why on Earth should it have to registyer the validity of partnerships? Dalmia seems to have missed the point completely.
Maybe Dalmia just wanted to do the immature thing and find an excuse to actually vilify Libertarianism. Mole? Poison pill?
Mr Abbott is simply complying with his pre-election undertakings as he should. And if you are correct that the majority of Austr 00002A17 alians want SSM then you should support any measure which removes the decision making away from a few elite politicians and places it in the hands of the people which would give it much more legitimacy, yes?