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Saturday, 17 May 2008
Gay marriage - a compromise?
 I have some sympathy with commenter John who writes in response to Rebecca’s post: I pay my taxes, as you do, and I demand the same right of regulation as you and all your heterosexual companions already expect and have - if you will not grant that then stop taxing us. And it is easy to find examples of gay couples who stay together for years in loving relationships, and, conversely, of marriages that end after an absurdly short time. A gold digger who marries an old codger with a nasty cough inherits his fortune, while a gay man whose partner of fifty years dies intestate gets nothing. Is this fair? On the other hand, I agree with Rebecca’s view, that marriage is “the glue that holds society together” and must be “maintained as a special category”. Perhaps the US could learn from the Great British tradition of muddling through. Thus, rather than accept gay marriage on “equal rights” grounds, or reject it on religious and moral grounds, find a pragmatic compromise. Since 2005, gay couples have been allowed by UK law to enter into Civil Partnerships. This is not the same as gay marriage, which in the EU is legal only in the Netherlands and Belgium. From the rather tackily named Government Equalities Office: Civil Partnership is a completely new legal relationship, exclusively for same-sex couples, distinct from marriage. The Government has sought to give civil partners parity of treatment with spouses, as far as is possible, in the rights and responsibilities that flow from forming a civil partnership. There are a small number of differences between civil partnership and marriage, for example, a civil partnership is registered when the second civil partner signs the relevant document, a civil marriage is registered when the couple exchange spoken words. Opposite-sex couples can opt for a religious or civil marriage ceremony as they choose, whereas formation of a civil partnership will be an exclusively civil procedure. So what rights and responsibilities do Civil Partners have? From the same website: · Tax, including inheritance tax; · Employment benefits; · Most state and occupational pension benefits; · Income related benefits, tax credits and child support; · Duty to provide reasonable maintenance for your civil partner and any children of the family; · Ability to apply for parental responsibility for your civil partner’s child; · Inheritance of a tenancy agreement; · Recognition under intestacy rules; · Access to fatal accidents compensation; · Protection from domestic violence; and · Recognition for immigration and nationality purposes It is reasonable for gay couples to have these rights and duties. However, marriage should be a special category referring only to a man and a woman, particularly as regards the validity of a religious ceremony. Is this compromise merely a matter of words? Have hordes of homosexuals been clogging up the Registry Offices? The short answer is no. In the first year after it was made legal, just over eighteen thousand couples entered into a Civil Partnership in the UK. The figures were at their highest in the first month, falling gradually over the course of the year. Statistics do not seem to be publicly available for 2007, but numbers are likely to have peaked in the first year the opportunity was available. Has the UK opened the floodgates to all kinds of irregular unions, with people demanding to marry their pet parrot, or, worse still, more than one wife? Rebecca fears that gay marriage will lead to demands for polygamy to be recognised. There is a big difference between gay marriage and polygamous marriage. Polygamous marriage greatly increases the number and proportion of Muslims. The proportion of gays, on the contrary, remains constant whatever their legal status. So gay marriage is not the threat that polygamous marriage is. Still, the use of the word “marriage” implies an identity with man-woman unions, and this does set a dangerous precedent. Does a Civil Partnership imply the same thing? There is no evidence that demands for polygamous marriage have increased as a result of Civil Partnership legislation. Such demands, were they made, would come from Muslims. There is a problem with in the UK with unofficial “polygamy”, and there was the ridiculous decision to recognise for the purpose of benefits polygamous “marriages” conducted abroad. But this is not a result of Civil Partnership legislation, and logically it cannot be. Consider the rights and duties of Civil Partners. These rights and duties are fundamentally at odds with the teachings of Sharia on marriage, whether monogamous or polygamous, because Civil Partners are legal equals. Equal inheritance rights, proper maintenance, equal rights on dissolution and, in particular, protection from domestic violence, all go directly against Sharia. A seemingly minor provision of the legislation, making a gay union purely a civil contract, ensures that religion cannot play a role. Since equality before the law is a fundamental principle of civil contracts, the legislation could not logically be extended to allow multiple “wives” without also allowing multiple “husbands”. Muslims, of all people, would be unlikely to support such a change. Civil Partnership legislation has worked well here, without much of a song and dance. Perhaps we’re not a song-and-dance people. Posted on 9:12 AM by Mary Jackson
Comments
17 May 2008
Rebecca Bynum This seems like a sound compromise to me. I don't really know why we haven't adopted something like this, except that it seems gay rights groups want to push for marriage first, then I suppose if that doesn't work, will settle for something like this. At the moment, in the U.S. the battle is over marriage plain and simple and that's where John and I disagree. And I must say I think it's going a bit far to imply that opposition to gay marriage means someone doesn't like or respect people who happen to be homosexual, or that we are using other's hatred of gays to promote a political point. The fact is, if homosexuals win on marriage, they will wittingly, or unwittingly, cut out the Constitutional ground from under opposition to polygamy in America. I believe those are the stakes and they are very high indeed. 18 May 2008
 John M. J.
No, no, no, no, no, Rebecca. I don't disagree with you about the status of heterosexual marriage - not at all, not in one degree. It is the foundational familial institution in our societies - flawed though it is, sometimes, unbalanced though it is, sometimes abusive though it is, sometimes, it's all we've got at the moment and mostly it works well. My point, no doubt badly expressed and verbosely made, was about charging gay people taxes for providing a service - regulation of long-term sexual relationships - which we don't actually get and you do. This is manifestly unfair. Our gay relationships need regulation in exactly the same way, and mostly in the same style, as your heterosexual relationships already enjoy. We're taxpayers too, so why can't government regulate, as we wish it to? That was the point I was trying to make when I responded to Andy MacCarthy's one paragraph original post the other day ( http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/14845 ). However, you are right to say that Civil Partnerships in the UK seem to work well and are reasonably sensible - that is precisely what I am arguing for. Marriage, as a word, a term, an idea, is heterosexual and valid before the law and rightly so. Civil Partnerships apply to gay people and grant the same civil rights to them as marriage does (mostly, and where relevant). In the UK, Civil Partnerships are indistinguishible from marriage - there isn't a right or obligation in the one which does not exist in the other, but it seems that not calling Civil Partnerships 'marriages' (even though they are) actually helps. So be it. Equality before the law exists. You have said, however, "if homosexuals win on marriage, they will wittingly, or unwittingly, cut out the Constitutional ground from under opposition to polygamy in America" But surely this is illogical, Rebecca, since gay people are still speaking in terms of one-to-one relationships. Call it marriage or call it civil partnership it is still a union of only two, only two, people. In no sense do the vast majority of gay people accept polygamous relationships - gay or straight - so why should any form of legal regulation of gay relationships undermine our societal stance against polygamy, or, for that matter, polyandry. I don't think it would because that would require a sea-change in the way in which gay people think about long-term sexual relationships - they would have to embrace polygamy and polyandry and argue for them both and |I don't think that the vast majority of gay people in our societies would do so. So, I think that you are probably wrong. Allowing gay marriage or, which is much to be preferred, gay civil partnerships, would not, I believe, undermine the cases against polygamy and polyandry. Gay people do not, no more than you do, seek to argue for either of those positions. But, and but, you are probably afraid that permitting the regulation of, and by extension the legalisation of, gay partnerships would be tantamount to opening the sexual flood-gates and that we would be powerless to resist any demand placed upon us. If that is your stance, and I'm guessing here, then I must disagree (you wouldn't, surely, expect me to do anything different!). Opening the law, the processes of legislation and legalisation, to gay one-to-one relationships - a position much sought after and agreed to by gay people - surely simply reinforces monogamy. In no sense can anyone use such ideas to demand polygamy, or polyandry. One must not confuse some secular legal justification of gay one-to-one relationships (and please note the words 'secular' and 'legal') with calls for some type of plural relationship to be added onto the statute book. Gay civil partnership rights, or marriage rights, need not be, should not be, the start of some slippery slope into the allowing of all sorts of things which Western civilised societies have always found to be abhorrent. Why, in this context, should we gay people be viewed any differently from the suffragettes? Apparently, emancipating women would have, should have, caused the world to end. It did and it didn't and that's exactly where we gay people are now. Give us our rights as tax-payers - if that makes the world to change then so be it! But, and but, I doubt that the world would change muchly. John. 18 May 2008
Rebecca Bynum Dear John, I don't believe you understand the problem in America. If homosexual marriage is allowed on Consittutional grounds (and that is what is being pushed here) then there are no grounds by which to disallow polygamy. It will be argued the very same way. Polygamy groups are arguing that theirs is the next big civil rights push - plus they have a "freedom of religion" argument on their side as well. This is from pro-polygamy.com: "June 26, 2003. The U.S. Supreme Court, in the Lawrence v. Texas case, has established that individuals have...
"...the full right to Obviously, this brings enormous ramifications for the civil rights of adult, freely-consenting, non-abusive, marriage-committed polygamists. So, this is Big News! Polygamy truly is the next civil rights battle!" As to taxes, I think that's a spurious argument. I've paid property taxes for twenty years to support our public schools and have no children. If everyone started making arguments like yours the tax base would dry up in an instant and government would cease to exist. And as I stated in the posting above, it's not as if gay couples have no legal leg to stand on. They can arrange their affairs any way they like. I really don't see how they're being terribly oppressed by being denied marriage, which as I said, I think should remain a separate category. Civil partnerships specifically designed for gays would not bring the problem of polygamy with it - gay marriage on constitutional grounds does. 18 May 2008
John M. J.
Dear Rebecca, Civil partnerships specifically designed for gays would not bring the problem of polygamy with it - gay marriage on constitutional grounds does. Yes, I agree and I must say that that is what I was arguing for - very badly, obviously; sometimes I don't make my direction clear in these short comments but I'll get the hang of it. As you know, I am more at home writing much wordier pieces. I didn't understand what your point about the constitutional implications was and consequently went off at a fairly irrelevent tangent. Thank-you for clearing up my confusion on that point. I now understand your points and appreciate your concerns about this issue - it's bigger than I realised and it is worrying. John. |