You hear a lot from the religious right about how marriage is under attack and how Christians need to band together to defend marriage. And yet, nobody is really attacking people’s right to get married—except people like Jayman.
I don’t view marriage as a civil right (i.e., it is not like the right to life, the right to free speech, and the like).
Pardon me whilst I attach my own Defense of Marriage Amendment to that particular argument.
Jayman’s argument is one you sometimes hear from smug homophobes who know that their own right to marriage is not in any credible danger. All that alarmism and demagoguery about marriage being “at risk” is merely a useful fiction (aka “a lie”) designed to mask the homophobe’s true motives and agenda. Marriage as an institution is currently so secure that it costs them nothing at all to propose a philosophical attack on the fundamental right to marriage itself. They risk nothing by this attack, and gain the opportunity to express their contempt for the marriage rights of others. To a bigot, that’s a win-win strategy.
Jayman doesn’t specify whether he denies the existence of any right to marriage at all, or whether he’s merely stipulating that marriage is some other kind of right, like, say, a human right. The latter possibility is also reasonable, but I doubt that’s Jayman’s position. It’s a moot point, though, because whether you call marriage a civil right, a human right, a divine right, or no right at all, our society is still guilty of an inequitable and unjust apportionment of access to marriage. That’s prejudice. That’s discrimination. Pretty-sounding philosophy is just a smoke screen to hide the oppression of homosexuals by mealy-mouthed homophobes.
And, in fact, marriage is a civil right, in that it’s a specific instance of the more general civil right to free association. Denying gays the right to associate as spouses is every bit as much of a civil rights violation as it would be to deny Christians the right to associate as a church. There are countries that do deny Christians the freedom to associate together as a church, and Christians complain that this is a violation of the right to free association. The right to associate as spouses is no different.
Nor is that the only grounds on which marriage is a civil right. Society has the power to impose sanctions on its members, but it has the right to do so only as a response to individuals who are causing harm to others, or to prevent such harm, and then only in proportion to the harm that is being caused. All other rights are reserved to the individuals themselves. When you impose sanctions on certain people just because you don’t approve of what they are, then you’re guilty of violating their civil rights. You yourself become the one who is causing harm to others, and thus you make yourself deserving of sanctions.
Homosexuals are people who happen to fall in love differently than heterosexuals do. This is not an action that causes harm to others, it is merely a difference in their biological/psychological makeup. And even if it weren’t, even if it were a choice like religious or political affiliation, it’s still not an action that harms others. It is unjust and oppressive to impose sanctions like “you will never be allowed to marry the one you love” on someone just because they happen to be different in some harmless way. It is a violation of their civil rights.
So yes, marriage is a civil right (and also a human right, since our sexuality is part of our identity as human beings), and we need to defend it against the attacks of the religious right. It’s been a losing battle thus far, but there are indications that the tide may be turning at last, and we might be about to take one step closer to being a truly free and just society.
Let’s hope.
Of course it is a human and thus also civil right.
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
”
….
Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
….
Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
“
I think a quick way to test the sincerity of people who oppose gender-neutral marriage on the basis that “marriage is for raising children” is to ask if they are in favour of forbidding untreatably infertile couples from marrying. If the answer is no, then you know they are lying about why they oppose gender-neutral marriage.
We already knew their motives before civil rights progressed to this point. It’s the same way we know their motives when they demand Obama’s birth certificate. We are talking about the exact same group of people. Bigots are that portion of the privileged who are resistant to losing their privilege.
The loss of privilege is a slippery slope that is difficult to ignore. It is something that they would certainly reverse all the way back to denying women the right to vote even though few alive remembers a time when women could not vote.
Having privilege isn’t even about using it, it’s ultimately derived from a psychological disposition of fear, in this case of the “others” (women, blacks, gays) and it manifests as pride, the need to feel better than those “others”.
Religion is an ideal means for this sort of people to reinforce their own identities against the “others” not only because the Bible literally reinforces hatred of these specific groups, it makes it morally defensible to brutally punishing these groups for seeking civil rights. Biblical morality is a dog in make-up.
I don’t care if marriage is just seen as a privilege. It’s nevertheless a privilege that’s apportioned with unjustifiable discrimination in most parts of this country right now.
The “marriage is for raising children” argument has nothing to do with the genders of the parents. My children were recycled i.e. adopted. I happened to have a wife for a partner but girls would have had parents had I been gay. I also have friends who stayed together and raised a daughter but never bothered to get married. Marriage is a special kind of legal contract and the church wants to control it even though they do not have legal standing to do so.
UDHR Article 16 defines a specific right to marry. The wording’s a bit iffy (“Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.”) but the right is definitely there and clearly defined.
we might be about to take one step closer to being a truly free and just society.
We can start by not deciding if minorities get equal protection under the law by a state-by-state popular vote.
I don’t view marriage as a civil right
The Supreme Court disagrees.
Jayman will trot out the HIV canard in 3…2…1.
And how, precisely, will promoting a mutually monogamous relationship (ie, marriage) cause two people without HIV to be infected?
Back in the bad old days at the height of the epidemic, I had a gay friend whose sister and brother-in-law died of AIDS, which they acquired from IV drug use. My friend got custody of their 3 kids. We had some long discussions at the time; and I’ll never forget him saying once, “thank God I’m a prude.”
He was also in a stable, mutually monogamous relationship. Not married at the time, of course.
Homosexuality does not mean “libertine”. Never did.