Another poll with easy questions made difficult


At least to me, this poll in the Baltimore Sun looks like a no-brainer. Which would imply that 59% of the people in Maryland have no brains. Think of the zombies, and do something to correct this problem!

Recognizing same-sex marriage

The D.C. City Council voted Tuesday to allow same-sex marriage, which means many gay couples from Maryland and elsewhere may soon travel to the District to get married. Should Maryland recognize the marriages of same-sex couple who get married out of state?

Yes
39%
No
59%
Not sure
2%

Comments

  1. Joe Geronimo says

    Regardless of what they think Maryland should do, the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution states Maryland has to.

  2. history punk says

    “59% of the people in Maryland have no brains.”

    As a MD resident, that sounds about right.The big issue facing our state is what the word “conviction” means now that the mayor of Baltimore has been “convicted” by a jury of her peers for the crime of stealing gift cards to the poor.

  3. llewelly says

    I voted “Yes”, because I’m hoping gay marriage will bring on the rapture, and the hard-core Christians will be lifted up and taken away.

  4. UXO says

    * Yes (326 responses)
    61%
    * No (202 responses)
    38%
    * Not sure (5 responses)
    1%

    533 total responses
    (Results not scientific)

    Looks like it’s getting Pharyngulated…

  5. tsg says

    Regardless of what they think Maryland should do, the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution states Maryland has to.

    Well, until DOMA is challenged successfully, that is up in the air.

  6. Biology Blogger says

    I refuse to believe this. Maryland is an EXTREMELY liberal state. But then again, so is CA.

  7. JerryM says

    82% at last count.

    It’s nice to help show online polling to be completely irrelevant, hopefully making these papers stop using them.

  8. Samantha says

    You know, it’s interesting. Gays at least having the option to have equal civil rights, if not socially defined marriages is one of the few things outside of religion that I have never met an atheist on the same side as the religious right. There’s plenty of variation on things such as climate change, politics… even anti-vaccination groups have a few. But never seen an atheist who was anti-gay rights, even if I’ve met a couple who think that maybe the name “marriage” should be reserved for religious unions.

    I wonder why.

  9. plumberbob says

    Recognizing same-sex marriage

    The D.C. City Council voted Tuesday to allow same-sex marriage, which means many gay couples from Maryland and elsewhere may soon travel to the District to get married. Should Maryland recognize the marriages of same-sex couple who get married out of state?

    *

    Yes (989 responses)

    81.7%
    *

    No (216 responses)

    17.9%
    *

    Not sure (5 responses)

    0.4%

    1210 total responses

    (Re

  10. ckitching says

    When gay marriage was legalised here, the rivers didn’t run red with blood, so I guess DC will be fine. No plague of locusts, raining frogs, or sudden death of all first-borns. We didn’t even get an increased number of ‘mundane’ disasters.

    If churches don’t want to marry same-sex, interracial or inter-religious couples, I’d say, “let ’em”, as long as secular authorities are prohibited from denying them. Let the bigots wallow in their bigotry, and we’ll just point and laugh at them.

  11. JerryM says

    Perhaps it’s a simple civil rights issue.
    And the religionistas are using their clout to prevent even civil unions to have the same rights as marriage.

    If they want to reserve marriage to man/woman, I’d begrudgingly give them that, as long as the civil union or whatever it’d be called would have the same rights as marriage.

    An the basis that a rose is still a rose by any other name, and all that.

  12. Grahame says

    Would it be unfair of me to ask whether African Americans seem more hostile to same sex marriage than whites? Balmore’s a pretty black town.

  13. jojame says

    Why would Maryland recognize out of state marriages if they don’t those marriages to occur in state? All it would do is require people to jump through hoops to be married. I’m not making a judgment on whether gays should marry but if they don’t want gays to marry then I don’t see why they would create a loophole in their law.

  14. redmonster says

    The answer for being on the right side of history was at around 85% when this Maryland native voted.

    Alyson Miers

  15. 'Tis Himself, OM says

    jojame #17

    Why would Maryland recognize out of state marriages if they don’t those marriages to occur in state?

    You’re right. Imagine, blacks thinking they can get married to whites. Just because that sort of filth is allowed in liberal states like Georgia and Mississippi is no reason why mixed racial marriages should be recognized in the great state of Maryland.

    You know, I’ve even heard that Jews and Christians can get married in New York. Next thing is that atheists will be allowed to get married. That’ll be a real blow to marriage and likely bring down our country. The barbarians are at the gates!

  16. Richard H. says

    Yes (1381 responses) 86%
    No (225 responses) 14%
    Not sure (5 responses) 0%

    1611 total responses

  17. Dianne says

    Maryland should either recognize all marriages made in other states, regardless of the gender(s) of the participants or recognize no marriages whatsoever. Either one is fine, as far as I’m concerned, but that wasn’t a choice so I went with yes.

  18. DemetriusOfPharos says

    @Grahame
    I don’t think thats unfair; in my experience, African and Latin culture have an unhealthy obsession with 2 things, religion and machismo. Both of those things have problems with ‘teh gay’, so it follows that the cultures most intrinsically linked with those two things also have problems with ‘teh gay’.

    However, I’m a white boy from Utah, so my experience is pretty thin.

  19. jojame says

    @Tis #19
    I don’t think you read my post. I was saying that Maryland recognizing out of state gay marriages was about the same as legalizing gay marriage in Maryland. If you’re going to pass a law recognizing the marriages then you might as well allowing gay marriages altogether.

    @DaveG #21
    What does that have to do with what I said.

  20. eddie says

    I couldn’t vote as their site redirects my mobile browser. I’m being oppressed cos I can’t be arsed firing up the PC.

  21. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    I was saying that Maryland recognizing out of state gay marriages was about the same as legalizing gay marriage in Maryland. If

    Only in your delusional mind. If it exists at all. And gay marriage should be allowed in all states as a civil rights issue. If you haven’t figure that out, are a homophobe.

  22. Monado says

    That “we’re not going to recognize your marriage” noise is seriously craptastic! It started with the U.S. as a whole stating that it wasn’t going to recognize marriages conducted elsewhere unless they would have been allowed in the U.S. Since when does one country get to piss on the laws of another? “I’m sorry, Mr. Bush, your marriage is not legal here because you didn’t seal the deal with goats.”

  23. 'Tis Himself, OM says

    jojame

    I don’t think you read my post.

    I did read your post. You were complaining about how Maryland might have to recognize queers’ and faggots’ marriages from places like Massachusetts and Iowa.

    I don’t think you understood my post. Just a few years ago places like Maryland didn’t allow blacks and whites to get married and didn’t recognize interracial marriages from places where they were legal.

  24. eric says

    I refuse to believe this. Maryland is an EXTREMELY liberal state.

    As a Marylander, I think “extremely” is overstating it a bit. The western part of the state (where I grew up), as well as the southern part, is hardly a bastion of liberalism.

  25. DaveG says

    Will someone please relieve my ignorance? Why is it necessary for a state to make it legal for homosexuals to marry? Is there some legal precedent that says only XXs and XYs can marry each other, or is it just the crushing weight of tradition – license clerks refusing to issue papers to “those people”?

    My larger question is why do we need laws to say something is OK if it was never legally not OK? I can see that harmful acts are legally banned to give the State unambiguous authority to punish transgressors, but that doesn’t apply here.

  26. Ultimate Delivery Option says

    I don’t really know much about jojame’s commenting history, but it seems to me that he was making a remark about the mindset of Maryland Lawmakers. He was saying that if they don’t allow gay marriage, why would they recognize out of state gay marriages… When he clarified his post he said the following: “I don’t think you read my post. I was saying that Maryland recognizing out of state gay marriages was about the same as legalizing gay marriage in Maryland. If you’re going to pass a law recognizing the marriages then you might as well allowing gay marriages altogether.” I’m not sure how you can assume he was either pro or anti gay marriage from either of those posts. Then Nerd of Redhead and Tis’Himself piled on him with sarcasm and bile. I really enjoy reading posts by NoR and T’H so I’m hesitant to criticize them. Has jojame been a homophobe in past posts? Maybe I’m missing something.

    Text usually sucks, because it’s so hard to get the proper level of sarcasm and emotional content into it. Anyway, my two cents.

    PS I lived in PG County in Maryland the last three years, and moved to Alaska in August. If anything, I’d say Alaska is friendlier to gays than Maryland is…

  27. Carlie says

    Ultimate Delivery Option: There’s a lot of past history. I wish we had a commenting system that allowed for calling up all of a single person’s comments, rather than having to use the search engine for every time their name comes up.

  28. jojame says

    @DaveG #32
    Marriage is a legal definition defined by the state. There are certain benefits to being married. There’s nothing preventing gays from going to a church or whatever and saying they’re married. Marriage is more of a privilege that’s given than a right that can be taken away. It’s up to the state to allow that privilege to gays.

  29. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Has jojame been a homophobe in past posts?

    Yep. He is a confirmed homophobe, bigot, godbot, and general troll. He has no redeeming qualities.

    Marriage is more of a privilege that’s given than a right that can be taken away.

    Case in point. Marriage is a civil right, and should be available to those unmarried without concern for “race”, religion, or sexual orientation, not a privilege.

  30. Ultimate Delivery Option says

    Thanks Carlie!

    I remember talking to my communications professor about the dynamics that emerge in these threads, and we started discussing the possibility of writing a Pharyngula equation that we could use to describe the distribution of opinions on any given thread. We talked for about an hour about how the data would be collected and possible ways to analyze it. He then asked me if I’d be interested in changing my major and moving over to his department. I said no thanks, I’ll take chemistry over communication any day of the week!

  31. DaveG says

    FWIW, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes marriage, although it doesn’t stipulate the orientation of the conjugants.

  32. Pyroclasm says

    Successfully Pharyngulated. And in record time!

    Also, why are we all jumping on jojame? From what I can tell, he doesn’t seem to be saying anything unreasonable. He’s right. This is basically just a loophole in Maryland law that gay couples would have to jump through. They’d be much better off by simply legalizing gay marriage. Did I miss something?

  33. Douglas Watts says

    Marriage is more of a privilege that’s given than a right that can be taken away.

    That would be completely wrong.

  34. ckitching says

    Marriage is more of a privilege that’s given than a right that can be taken away. It’s up to the state to allow that privilege to gays.

    Voting appears to be a privilege, too. When can I expect the Christian “Moral Majority” to revoke my rights to vote because I don’t believe as they do? Should I lose my privilege to drive because I don’t observe the correct sacraments?

  35. MDG says

    Sorry to disagree with you, but I actually think the correct answer is no. Of course I also think that no governing body anywhere should recognize any marriage between anyone.

    Marriage is a religious and cultural institution, government should stay away from both of those areas. Besides, the only way for EVERYONE to be equal is for NO ONE to receive special treatment or recognition.

  36. Nerd of Redhead, OM says

    Also, why are we all jumping on jojame?

    Jojame is an idjit troll who is a wingnut, godbot, and bigot. He should have stopped posting here weeks ago. He just posts to be annoying, and rarely says anything cogent. He and his idjit troll mate Wiley are on the top of my Pharyngula Survivor list for plonking. Feel free to use him as a chew toy. He deserves no better fate.

  37. Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom says

    “Marriage is a religious and cultural institution, government should stay away from both of those areas. Besides, the only way for EVERYONE to be equal is for NO ONE to receive special treatment or recognition.”
    This is ridiculous. The government has a vested interest in supporting and defining long term relationships.

    Think differently? Think back to the reasons for Common-law marriage.

  38. tsg says

    Besides, the only way for EVERYONE to be equal is for NO ONE to receive special treatment or recognition.

    And precisely what special treatment would you be referring to?

  39. Douglas Watts says

    They’d be much better off by simply legalizing gay marriage. Did I miss something?

    All of it, actually. Let’s use age as an example. Different states have different minimum ages for legal marriage. The law does not allow one state to void someone’s marriage simply because each state’s minimum ages are different. A legally couple married in Mass. (which allows gays to marry) who are in Maryland on vacation, could technically, not even be allowed in the hospital room with the other if one was critically injured (since only “family” is allowed, say), or to make decisions about their spouse’s care. Simply because in Maryland, their marriage is not legally recognized. It’s a huge problem.

  40. Insightful Ape says

    So tell me, jojame, is it up to the state whether that privilege is recognized for hetersexuals? Why should the state have the power to make that decision for homosexuals but not heterosexuals?

  41. Pyroclasm says

    Jojame is an idjit troll who is a wingnut, godbot, and bigot.

    I must have missed that, then.

    To the bat-archives!

  42. Tex says

    MDG @46

    also think that no governing body anywhere should recognize any marriage between anyone.

    Then you would love it here in Texas. A couple of years ago, in a poorly thought out attempt to ban gay marriage, the state legislature proposed, and the voters overwhelmingly approved, a proposition that prevented the state and any governmental subdivision from recognizing any marriage or anything like a marriage (Prop 2 from around 2005 or so).

    The plain language of this proposition clearly invalidates all marriages in the state, but this has not been tested in court, yet. I suppose some activist conservative judge probably will look at the impact on society rather than the letter of the law when this eventually comes before them.

  43. jojame says

    We can argue forever on what a right or privilege exactly is and whether marriage fits into that definition. What I meant when I said marriage is more of a privilege than a right makes sense in context. I was answering DaveG’s question on why it is necessary for homosexuals to marry. The ability to get married (in terms of receiving benefits from the state… not the religious definition) had to be created by the state.

  44. littlejohn says

    I can’t wait till gay marriage is legal, because then I can marry my goat. Right now we just have a civil union.

  45. ckitching says

    Marriage is a religious and cultural institution, government should stay away from both of those areas.

    Be that as it may, that was not the question being asked by that poll, and frankly, that’s an idiotic position. You may think the current law in unjust, but rejecting attempts to make it more just because it doesn’t meet your requirements for perfectly just is asinine.

    “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

  46. aratina cage says

    So I see jojame is here again to smack around the gays some more with great gusts of hot air. Don’t you have anything better to do, jojame?

    Poll results so far:
    Yes (2298 responses)

    90%
    *

    No (257 responses)

    10%
    *

    Not sure (9 responses)

    0%

    2564 total responses

  47. mapache9999 says

    It always amuses me the power of the pharyngulation of a poll. Hopefully reality were that easy.

  48. says

    91%

    I just heard on a Christian tv program asking the viewers to enjoy a proper and appropriate family. I was tempted to say “you mean one involving polygyny, incest, and child sacrifice?”, but there was no one to hear me.

  49. Yubal says

    There was only one valid answers available.

    I clicked it, and hope Maryland will find its way into the 21st century.

    @ MDG #46

    Whatever YOU think what marriage is or not, there are a bunch of legal consequences resulting out of the two possibilities, a couple is married or not married. Setting marriage rights IS a section of state law and therefore the individual state has the responsibility to grant this status to everybody asking for it.

    This is America! You can NOT deny other people rights you want to enjoy yourself!

    Gays want the same rights and responsibilities heteros enjoy for several decades now. Like everyone else does who loves…..nothing special about it. Really.

  50. Travis says

    Great, this always ends up screwing up the numbering, and makes following the conversation weird.

    I do so love the Goats On Fire! line though. Does anyone know what this is referring to? And does he realize that he was being made fun of about this only recently?

  51. TheVirginian says

    “Yes” is up to 92 percent now. A massive defeat for Christianity!!!!! Go, Americans, straight and gay alike!!!!!

  52. TheVirginian says

    Allll riiiight! Posting is open! I tried a couple of ways to sign up but couldn’t get it to work. Life is too short to do endless battle with dumb machines/blog sites, not when there is drinking, wenching, drinking, eating, drinking, computer gaming, drinking …
    Uh, I think I’ll put the bottle of wine in the refrigerator and get ready for bed.

  53. TheVirginian says

    One more comment, after reading some comments.
    There is no secular basis of any kind behind bigotry and discrimination against homosexuals. It is purely religious in origin in this country, based on Bible passages. As such, putting discrimination against gays in the law or any government policy is a violation of the First Amendment ban on an establishment of religion. Letting heterosexuals marry (and enjoy all the legal benefits of marriage) while barring homosexuals from marrying is strictly, solely religious in origin. It is religious bigotry and an establishment of religion, so it is a First Amendment violation.
    I have not read of this argument being used in any court cases, but that’s the real basis of such discriminatory laws and policies, so any judge who acknowledged this (or members of Congress or presidents … hint, hint) would be dutybound to strike down such laws/policies.

  54. boygenius says

    It’s like a troll has been succussed to the point where it has been concentrated into an ogre.

  55. strange gods before me, OM says

    Marriage is more of a privilege that’s given than a right that can be taken away

    said the fuckwit who’s never bothered to research the topic. Marriage is legally recognized as a basic, fundamental civil right, not a privilege. Your reading assignments:

    Skinner v Oklahoma

    Loving v Virginia

    Zablocki v Redhail

  56. Butch Pansy says

    I take comfort in the compassion of rational people (fellow atheists) who speak out against the forces of true evil (the godbots and idjits of the world) in defense of the right of all consenting adults to marry whomever they choose. It’s good to feel a bit less of an outsider.

  57. Pen says

    Marriage is a civil institution, whether it’s a religious one as well is irrelevant. One of the many useful things marriage does is to defend the right of couples of different nationality to live in the same country, in the face of immigration laws that are far less friendly than people sometimes think. That’s one right that gay couples are currently deprived of.

  58. neon-elf.myopenid.com says

    Well, that poll had been well and truly Pharyngulated by the time I voted.

    I’m loving the whole Goats on Fire meme. In an effort to reduce my swearing, I am trying to use that instead of my usual run of four-letter words.
    I get some really strange looks from work colleagues when I suddenly bellow “GOATS ON FIRE!” when I’m annoyed.

  59. Legion says

    The anti-gay rights bigots like to make the slippery-slope argument on gay marriage. They say, “If you allow Teh Gays to get married, then what’s next, fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters, dogs and cats?”

    We’ve never understood why they don’t follow their twisted logic through to its final conclusion, which is that any kind of marriage, including traditional hetero marriage, lies on that same slippery slope.

    If they were honest, then, they’d be fighting to outlaw all forms of marriage.

  60. negentropyeater says

    MDG,

    Marriage is a religious and cultural institution, government should stay away from both of those areas.

    Who says so ?

    Marriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship.

  61. says

    I should know better than to get into this. This is one of those topics about which Pharyngula readers can be as dogmatic as a priest on Sunday.

    I should know better, but I don’t.

    The word marriage as it is usually used does not include so-called “gay marriage.” Neither the laws that now exist nor the legal precedents in question so much as considered the question of if marriage would be considered a fundamental civil right if the definition of the word were to change.

    And that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about changing the definition of a word, forcing the state through a simple feat of linguistic tomfoolery to extend its sanction to a new institution without either existing tradition or known practical merit and to a life-style which the state has no legitimate interest in supporting.

    Civil Marriage is a right as held (more or less incidentally) by Loving v. Virgina only as long as it is defined in the sense the court was using. That very narrow sense of the word provides for nearly all the current restrictions on “marriage”: Marriage may not be multiple. It must be between parties of legal age to consent. It must be between persons of complimentary sex.

    The remaining restriction, that it cannot be between persons of too close relation, is objectively an intolerable injustice if you consider marriage as a fundamental civil right. There’s not even a reasonable argument against it, just an old taboo, and yet I see no movement for striking down the laws which prevent sibling and cousin marriage. Maybe cousin-lovers just aren’t a significant-enough group to draw attention.

    I have nothing against homosexuals as people, and I view the establishment of homosexual marriage as both inevitable and tolerable, but the argument that it is a fundamental human right has no foundation whatsoever, and reasonable people may disagree on whether such an institution has any merit worthy of the sanction of the state.

    Meanwhile, arguing that a state should recognize so-called marriages that exist outside the definitions both they and the Federal Government hold to is simply insane.

    Maryland should recognize gay marriages from other states if and only if it recognizes gay marriages of any sort.

  62. Clay Casserole says

    Slippery slope arguments usually = changing the subject or moving the goalposts. But I wanted to express agreement with Jedibear. It seems unfair to deny same-sex partners such benefits as family plan insurance coverage, rights of inheritance, hospital visitations, etc. & it also seems unneccessarily confrontational to insist on the word marriage. Is there such a thing as a ‘common-law civil union’?

  63. aratina cage says

    Very disappointing to see you defending bigotry, JediBear.

    Maybe cousin-lovers just aren’t a significant-enough group to draw attention.

    I happen to know cousins who are legally married in the USA. Of course, they are a hetero couple so nobody gives two shits about it.

  64. Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom says

    The short version on Marriage is thus: If you codify a difference into law, you are asking for that difference to be exploited.

    You /could/ change the entire legal institution to Civil Union and make the term “Married” be culturally, but not legally relevant. You just can’t codify a difference in standing within the law.

  65. 'Tis Himself, OM says

    Marriage gives certain legal rights, privileges and responsibilities everywhere in the world. Maryland has no problem recognizing a married heterosexual couple’s marriage from a Third World country. However they don’t recognize a gay couple’s marriage from Massachusetts and would deny this couple the benefits of marriage even while recognizing a heterosexual Bumfukistani couple’s marriage benefits.

    Some time ago Maryland would not recognize a mixed racial couple’s marriage. That lack of recognition got shot down in the courts. Probably something similar will have to happen before Maryland, and most other states, recognize a GLBT marriage.

    GOATS ON FIRE!

  66. aratina cage says

    it also seems unneccessarily confrontational to insist on the word marriage.

    How about the word “human”? How far are you going to take your bigotry, Clay Casserole?

  67. Insufficient Cringe says

    Marriage is an international concept; it is not something defined within the US only. The US can call it what it wants, but it cannot control what the world calls it.

    Maryland is obligated through internal treaties that the US has ratified to reciprocate the recognition of marriages.

    That includes foreign marriages that are atheist, or gay.

    Also, marriage requires mutual consent. Goats can’t do that.

  68. James Haight says

    it also seems unneccessarily confrontational to insist on the word marriage.

    Quick questions:

    Do you really think the bigots will be satisfied by giving equal rights to homosexual couples, just with the name changed?

    If we regard marriage as a package of rights (and obligations), and the gay version of it is exactly identical, what’s the point in naming it differently?

  69. Forbidden Snowflake says

    it also seems unneccessarily confrontational to insist on the word marriage.

    And Heaven forbid that we be confrontational! Why, next thing you know, we may become strident , and after that it’s a slippery slope to mean !

  70. MAJeff, OM says

    it also seems unneccessarily confrontational to insist on the word marriage.

    Oh, noes! When the queer said, “equal” we actually meant equal!

    If we regard marriage as a package of rights (and obligations), and the gay version of it is exactly identical, what’s the point in naming it differently?

    Because then straight folks couldn’t maintain their superiority. After all, what’s the point of establishing a parallel legal institution that is nearly identical other than to segregate the new group into a new “separate and equal” institution. Civil Unions are, at their core, actions of heterosexual supremacy, complete with the self-serving paternalism that says, “Look how tolerant we are of our gays. Why can’t they be satisfied with our largesse?”

  71. bastion of sass says

    neon-elf wrote:

    I’m loving the whole Goats on Fire meme. In an effort to reduce my swearing, I am trying to use that instead of my usual run of four-letter words.

    Happy monkey, what a great idea! And it would be a way for atheists to identify each other, kinda like a secret handshake.

  72. says

    Forbidden Snowflake, I always start at uppity, and work my way up (or down??) from there. =)

    I’m trying to convince my wife to go along with referring to each other as ‘civil partners’. Then when people ask why we aren’t married, we can say it’s the exact same thing.

    I doubt they’d get the clue….

  73. Kevin says

    I’m extremely proud of the District (I work there, and practically live there) for getting past this ancient, bronze-age discrimination.

    There is NO reason, aside from religion, to deny equal rights to homosexual persons in America. I’m a straight guy myself, but I’m what you could call an inclusionist. I cannot understand why anyone should be discriminated against, for any reason – religion, race, gender, sexual preference, sexual identity.

    I’m kind of disappointed more hasn’t been made of this in the higher-ups, Congress and Presidential levels.

    Oh, and @littlejohn – Your fallacy is showing. Slippery slope is slippery.

  74. bastion of sass says

    JediBear wrote:

    We’re talking about changing the definition of a word, forcing the state through a simple feat of linguistic tomfoolery to extend its sanction to a new institution without either existing tradition or known practical merit and to a life-style which the state has no legitimate interest in supporting.

    If changing the definition of a word is simply too too impossibly difficult for states to accomplish, then let’s abolish the roadblock of “marriage” as a state-sanctioned institution and have the states only legally regulate civil unions of both heterosexuals and homosexuals.

    As far as changing “existing tradition,” well, gee, the states managed, albeit with a bit of kicking and screaming, to change the tradition of who could vote, own property or even practice law. Seems to me that the states are perfectly capable of changing “existing tradition,” either because the lawmakers lead the way, or because the lawmakers are forced to do so by public opinion or court decision.

    The “practical merit” of the state sanctioning same-sex marriages are exactly the same as the state has with different-sex marriages.

    Legally, with the US Constitution’s full faith and credit clause, Maryland’s recognition of same-sex marriages from out-of-state shouldn’t even be an issue. The Defense of Marriage Act which the states use as a excuse, is an ugly, bigoted, and unconstitutional stain in the federal law.

    I’m a long-time Maryland resident and believe we have nothing to fear and much to gain by not only recognizing same-sex marriages from other states and countries, but by legalizing it outright.

  75. Clay Casserole says

    O jeez, now I’m a bigot. At the risk of getting into even hotter water, let me try again. I am in favor of granting all the civil rights pertaining to the married state to same-sex unions. I personally don’t care if that extends to the use of the word ‘marriage’. But for many opponents of equal rights, that word has a dog-whistle effect. Why not drop the insistence on the term ‘marriage’ if the more concrete civil rights are granted?

  76. Forbidden Snowflake says

    FastLane:

    I’m trying to convince my wife to go along with referring to each other as ‘civil partners’. Then when people ask why we aren’t married, we can say it’s the exact same thing.

    Good for you! You are definitely at the confrontational-going-on-strident range already.

    As far as bizarre marriage restrictions go, I would have to say my country takes the cake, as here, marriage really is a religious institution (not in a pretend way, like in USA), and woo-free or interfaith couples have to get their marriages done abroad and officially recognized upon return.

  77. blancolioni says

    @JediBear: you know, part of the definition of many social constructs used to involve gender: policeman, fireman, voter. We normally treat it as an advance when this bias is removed from the equation.

    Why are so many people getting their knickers in a twist over something as harmless as using a word in a gender-neutral way? I mean, it can’t be bigotry, because you have nothing against homosexuals as people. That’s nice.

  78. Morgan says

    jojame @54:

    I was answering DaveG’s question on why it is necessary for homosexuals to marry.

    I think you misunderstood his question. He wasn’t asking why homosexuals needed the right to marry. He was asking why we needed to explicitly legally grant such a right to homosexuals as a group: don’t they have the right just as much as heterosexuals, and the issue is that they’re being illegitimately barred from exercising it?

    Loving v Virginia didn’t legally grant new rights to interracial couples; it determined and declared that laws explicitly denying them certain rights weren’t valid. (Well, I may be wrong on the details there, but this is the angle I think DaveG is coming from.)

    This is what “equal protection under the law” is about. You don’t extend a right to a new group, you recognize that its restriction from them was wrong to begin with.

  79. Kevin says

    @Clay Casserole:

    Changing the terminology won’t do anything. “Pro-family” proponents will still attempt to keep homosexual couples from receiving equal benefits. If marriage is a fully religious term and civil union forms the basis of laws, benefits, and such, then you won’t see people protesting gay marriage, you’ll see them protesting gay civil unions.

    Pro-family protesters don’t care about marriage, really, what they want is for it to be impossible for a gay couple to receive equal treatment under the law that they do. It’s bigoted, it’s insensitive, and they parade it under a flag of “keeping marriage sacred” but really it’s just “keepin’ them queers out of mah country”

  80. jmorgan1234533 says

    The godbots are up and running – “Yes” is down to 68% with votes coming in at ca. 20/min

  81. Disturbingly Openminded says

    The empire is striking back at the Baltimore Sun poll. Yes is down to 68%.

    I saw a David Sedaris show earlier this year that included his observation that voting on whether gays should be allowed to marry makes as much sense as voting on whether Mexicans should be allowed to celebrate xmas. The western Maryland crowd roared.

  82. PattyPagan says

    Oops – looks like the poll is getting godbotted. The numbers are starting to shift rapidly.

    Yes (5144 responses) 68.6%

    No (2341 responses) 31.2%

    Not sure (16 responses) 0.2%

    7501 total responses

  83. redmonster says

    Pharyngula readers can be as dogmatic as a priest on Sunday.

    Yeah, we’re so dogmatic in insisting that teh gheyz be allowed all the same civil rights as straights under the law. After all, it’s not like these are real people trying to live their lives or anything.

    The word marriage as it is usually used does not include so-called “gay marriage.”

    And that is a condition which puts some couples at a needless disadvantage and which therefore must change.

    We’re talking about changing the definition of a word,

    The dictionary does not need your protection.

    forcing the state through a simple feat of linguistic tomfoolery to extend its sanction to a new institution without either existing tradition

    Fuck tradition.

    or known practical merit

    Right. All those same-sex couples don’t need to have the legal protection of civil marriage extended to them! There’s no practical merit in legally recognizing their relationships!

    and to a life-style which the state has no legitimate interest in supporting.

    So what you’re saying is, as far as the state’s concerned, all those same-sex couples can just as well not exist, as their “life-style” is inferior.

    I have nothing against homosexuals as people,

    Except for their “lifestyle” which the state has “no legitimate interest in supporting.”

    and I view the establishment of homosexual marriage as both inevitable and tolerable,

    We’re so grateful for your tolerance.

    (Alyson Miers)

  84. dannystevens.myopenid.com says

    Yes votes are down:


    Yes (5112 responses) 68%

    No (2337 responses) 31%

    Not sure (16 responses) 0%

    7465 total responses

    (Results not scientific)

    I like that last bit in brackets.

  85. Forbidden Snowflake says

    @110:
    Hmmm… Hard to say. We’re already kind of rude, so we’ll definitely be shrill soon, and by then, we’ll be halfway to militant! Yay!

  86. KOPD42 says

    I don’t know where I heard this but:
    “The problem with tradition is that it assumes somebody got it right the first time.”

  87. o-p-e says

    Well, this story has managed to make me a bit sad and disappointed in both my current state, Maryland, and Utah, where I grew up. Why disappointed in Utah you ask? Rep.Jason Chaffetz R-UT will be leading up the effort in the house to overturn the council vote. In other news, the Senate Homeland Security Committee approved a measure extending employee partner benefits to same-sex partners on an 8-1 vote. The sole dissenting vote, Sen. Robert Bennett, wait for it, R-UT. Go Utah congress critters, remind me why I’m glad I don’t live there anymore.

  88. Antiochus Epiphanes says

    redmonster/Alyson Miers: Word also.

    I’m not a person with strong moral sensibilities, nor a deeply felt sense of social justice*. However, whenever I hear a person making the argument that homosexual marriage is not a right, or should be illegal, ALL I can think is “Asshole”. Ok…sometimes I think, “what a dick/douchebag/sackoshit/fuckwad/fascist”…the gist is the same.

    [it’s a privilege, not a right]….What are you, a driver’s ed. instructor? This is the most retarded argument I have heard yet. A right is anything that we demand and have codified in a constitution. Currently the right to marry is not protected in the US Constitution. If we demand it, and fight hard enough for legislation, it will be a right, and “states’ rights” proponents can stick it in sideways.

    *Just a few of my flaws.

  89. tsg says

    Why not drop the insistence on the term ‘marriage’ if the more concrete civil rights are granted?

    Because it’s a monumentally bad idea for a couple of reasons.

    First, all the laws, insurance contracts and hospital policies, among others, are written with the terminology of marriage, husband, wife, spouse, etc. Granting gays the ability to marry automatically opens up all these things that heterosexual couples have enjoyed for a very long time, and any institution that wants to discriminate against them will have to go out of their way to do it. I can’t imagine too many hospital or insurance company administrators who would be willing to deliberately rewrite all their policies for the sole purpose of excluding gays. At the very least it would be a PR nightmare.

    Second, the entire point of the movement is to send a clear message that discrimination based on sexual orientation is not to be tolerated. The clearest, best way to do that is to take the existing institution, unmodified, and open it up to gays. Change the terminology and I guarantee you the bigots will still be calling themselves “married” and insist that gays aren’t “really married”. It creates a “separate but equal” system even if it isn’t codified in law.

    Third, the opposition has couched themselves in a blatantly false position of “protecting marriage” and you want to hand them a bill that abolishes it? Yes, I know it doesn’t really abolish marriage, but that’s not what the sound bites will say. It’s bad enough they’re making shit up to hide their bigotry in an effort to convince other more reasonable people to oppose it. We don’t want to make it easier on them.

    Lastly, changing the words used didn’t stop racism, what makes you think it will work for gays? One of the most effective things the gay community did to start the movement was to take back the epithets and make them positive: “We’re here, we’re queer. Get used to it.” Changing the terminology doesn’t change the attitude.

    No, you keep the word “marriage” and make it open to everyone.

  90. aratina cage says

    O jeez, now I’m a bigot…Why not drop the insistence on the term ‘marriage’ if the more concrete civil rights are granted? –Clay Casserole

    The definition defense is the last stand of bigots feigning pragmatism. If you’re not one then why join them?

    As for why just a label makes a difference, you really don’t have to look much farther back than the 1960s where “miscegenation”—just a word—was illegal for hetero couples. How did one determine if a couple were of different races at that time? Any such metric would be ludicrous no doubt. It was all about the pair having visibly different skin color or being publicly known to have differently pigmented family lines at some arbitrary point.

    The way that humans irrationally form hate groups based on visible characteristics like skin color is well known. Frontline has a great feature called A class divided (link) that shows how easy it is to foster these kinds of hate groups. Creating a separate label for gays would do nothing to neutralize the existing hate groups and might even breed more while giving the existing ones a greater feeling that their hate is justified. We saw this happen for couples with different levels of pigmentation already. Why would gays want to repeat that piece of sordid history? If they are going to hate, they can do it on their own terms, not on legal terms.

    And that is just the tip of the iceberg that creating a separate label for same-sex marriage would be. There are other things I can think of. How about this: which kind of marriage should a bisexual or transexual or homosexual person get who switches from a same-sex marriage to an opposite-sex marriage or vice versa? You would have to write up a whole new set of laws for crossing that legal divide.

    How about the fact that you would have to rewrite every law in every government in the USA that deals with “marriage” to include the new same-sex marriage label, otherwise it would be a lie that same-sex marriage under the new term is equal to “marriage”. If you are going to have to go through that, then you might as well reform marriage completely top to bottom or maybe drop it altogether, but that is not realistic in the short term.

  91. says

    Lively conversation! I appreciate those people who are posting updated results to the poll. I can’t seem to find the poll online at The Sun, but I live in Maryland so this may explain my mental deficiencies. But seriously, Maryland is generally a more liberal state near the urban areas, but not at all in the rural or western counties. So if the poll ends up showing a final 60/40 split I would say that about sums up sentiments in this state about this sort of issue. Try this poll in Kansas. Then you can jump to conclusions and say that an entire state of people have no brains.

  92. Vicki says

    People who want to reserve marriage for mixed-sex couples like to talk about “the word as it is usually used.” Maybe in their part of the world: in mine, when a friend of mine says “my wife” everyone knows what she means, as as we do when a man says the same thing.

  93. Insufficient Cringe says

    Concerns over changing the law to allow gay marriage, or creating separate-but-equal classifications, are misdirection, obfuscation, and distraction
    The law wasn’t changed to allow interracial marriage. It was clarified that denying them was unconstitutional.
    Prohibitions on allowing gay marriage are unconstitutional under the at least the first and fourth amendments.
    Creating rules that specifically allow them support the false assumption that states have the authority to make them illegal in the first place.
    An ideal test case would be a foreign-married US Citizen gay couple in the US, incurring some incident in which denial of spousal rights causes harm. But maybe a more balanced supreme court is needed first.

  94. Vicki says

    I thought “full faith and credit” was pretty obvious too.

    Here in New York, we’re mostly honoring it (not for state tax filings, and there might be other exceptions). A side effect of that is a lot of people getting married in Greenwich, Conn.: the closest bit of that state to New York City.

    But New York shouldn’t be the only place in the United States that can figure this one out.

  95. Paddy-O says

    Normally, I’m a reader of the comments, and hardly ever comment myself. However, it’s things like blatant stupidity and homophobia that really make my blood boil. It truly is a SIMPLE question – should rights be equally applied?

    The answer is obviously yes. No matter what trappings you wrap around the question, from clever to inane, the question remains the same.

    However, I disagree that this is a poor reflection on Maryland – it’s more of a poor reflection on how people can feel free to be as bigoted as they want on the anonymous internet.

    I love my home state, and love Baltimore, even though it’s one of only a few places where you can be anywhere in the city, walk five blocks in any direction, and still be at the scene of the crime…

  96. GregB says

    Joejame spewed:

    Marriage is more of a privilege that’s given than a right that can be taken away. It’s up to the state to allow that privilege to gays.

    Actually, the thing in question is whether or not the state can provide legal protections and benefits like community propery, child support rights, alimony rights, and health care decision rights to gay people. Whether or not you view marriage as a privlidge makes no difference.

    According to the 14th amendment “No state shall deny to any of it’s citizens equal protection of the law”. So once the state provides legal protections and rights to one segment of society they cannot deny those same protections from another segment of society.

    So banning gay marraige is both bigoted and unconstitutional. The anti-same sex marraige people are scared to death to bring this to the supreme court because the 14th amendment is so clear. They would rather keep it at the state level and use religious dogma and bigotry to their advantage.

  97. Kenbo says

    @JediBear and the rest of the posters that are hung up on their definitions of “marriage”:

    Curious what you call the institution Solomon was involved in…he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. In your (personal) narrow definition of “marriage” he would only have 1 wife, 699 non-recognized-live-ins, and 300 concubines? I believe it was called “marriage” and not “polygamist marriage”, or even “polygamist heterosexual marriage”. So why do you insist on placing caveats or separate labels on homosexuals when they get married?

    Methinks you are the one involved in “linguistic tomfoolery” and are trying to disguise your homophobic attitude with these “linguistic gymnastics” (I like this better than “tomfoolery”) to make you seem more tolerant.

  98. Toidel Mahoney says

    The Sodomite apostles of Darwin think that by making the acts of buggery and cunnilingus sanctified by judges makes them equal to Christian marriage. It does not. The act of buggery does not produce new human life, but only viral and bacterial life. Christians create new life while evolutionists only spread the AIDS virus. Savor your small victories Darwiniacs, but it is the Christian hand that rocks America’s cradle and will eventually take her back!

    The Darwinian domination of the schools, the media, and the judiciary is a brittle shell breaking down against the tide of the Christian’s overwhelmingly superior numbers!

  99. Insufficient Cringe says

    Fellow Human Toidel Mahoney.

    It is difficult I know. Find a friend. Sit them down. And say clearly. “I need help”. It is worth it.

  100. daveau says

    I’m trying to convince my wife to go along with referring to each other as ‘civil partners’.

    I have nearly always (20+ years) referred to mrs daveau as the Spousal Equivalency Unit, SEU, the Spousal Unit, or just The Unit. Which I may have gotten from a book on political correctness by PJ O’Rourke. And, aside from the humor value, for me it has always been an expression of solidarity with those who are not allowed to be married. Of which the spousal unit and I know quite a few.

    WTF is with the backsliding on the poll?

  101. Janine, She Wolf Of Pharyngula, OM says

    Dontcha just love it when a godbot abandons it’s “morally superior” argument and goes with the “WE SHALL BURY YOU” argument?

    Sorry, godbot, but those of us who advocate for our human rights hardly need to appeal to Darwin. Argue on the topic, not your fevered dreams.

  102. tsg says

    The Darwinian domination of the schools, the media, and the judiciary is a brittle shell breaking down against the tide of the Christian’s overwhelmingly superior numbers!

    Is that what this is about? Fine. Drop your pants, I’ll get a ruler and we’ll settle it once and for all.

  103. aratina cage says

    The act of buggery does not produce new human life, but only viral and bacterial life.

    When the santorum from saddlebacking seeps into the right orifice, it certainly can spawn new human life.

  104. AJ Milne says

    What? Raving fundy Christians are opposed to cunnilingus, too?

    (/Man. I just naturally assumed that nasty stereotype of them being just incredibly boring and just incredibly bad in bed was just some nasty rumour spread by eeeevil secularist evolutionary biologists… I never expected to hear it from the horse’s–apparently sadly unimaginative, unpracticed and unskilled–mouth.)

  105. Paddy-O says

    I agree with redmonster – has to be a poe. For one, it’s probably too well written to be a hate-spewing christian.

  106. aratina cage says

    I never expected to hear it from the horse’s–apparently sadly unimaginative, unpracticed and unskilled, and untainted–mouth.

    Fixed. :P

  107. sqlrob says

    It seems unfair to deny same-sex partners such benefits as family plan insurance coverage, rights of inheritance, hospital visitations, etc. & it also seems unneccessarily confrontational to insist on the word marriage.

    “Separate but equal” worked so well for education, let’s extend it to marriage!

    </sarcasm>

  108. UXO says

    *Yes (6353 responses)
    63%
    *No (3764 responses)
    37%
    *Not sure (18 responses)
    0%

    10135 total responses
    (Results not scientific)

    How dare those godbots attempt to defy a good Pharyngulation?

    (And I never understood the logic behind having an option like “Not sure” – if you’re unsure, why vote?)

  109. Samantha says

    Kevin @ 106:

    Changing the terminology won’t do anything. “Pro-family” proponents will still attempt to keep homosexual couples from receiving equal benefits. If marriage is a fully religious term and civil union forms the basis of laws, benefits, and such, then you won’t see people protesting gay marriage, you’ll see them protesting gay civil unions.

    Unfortunately, you are mostly right. Up here in Canada we have “gay marriage” but for us, a civil union is performed by a legal clerk and a marriage is performed by an ordained minister (of any religion). Both clerk and minister have to pass the same training, sign the same forms, etc etc. Everything is equal except that the title of marriage is left up to the religions (even then, their forms are the same). A minister can refuse to perform a religious marriage, however in his duty as a legal clerk, he cannot refuse to perform a civil union. Most that disagree with gay marriage “have other plans for that day” when they’re asked to perform a civil union ceremony, but there’s clerks on duty at the city offices and so that couple can then just go there and book one of the clerks on duty for the day of their marriage. It’s not the best system, because the ministers still get to ignore their legal obligation, but there’s no way to determine if they’ve actually got other obligations so *shrugs*

    We’ve still got protests over “gay marriage”. We’ve still got people who don’t want homosexual couples to get civil unions. The main difference is that their prejudice and intolerance is much more obvious because we’ve had gay unions for a few years now and they can’t say that children are being co-opted in schools or that the sacredness of marriage is being corrupted. They just have to protest that they think gays shouldn’t have the same civil rights because giving them their due rights is “supporting sinful behaviour”.

    MAJeff @96:

    Because then straight folks couldn’t maintain their superiority. After all, what’s the point of establishing a parallel legal institution that is nearly identical other than to segregate the new group into a new “separate and equal” institution. Civil Unions are, at their core, actions of heterosexual supremacy, complete with the self-serving paternalism that says, “Look how tolerant we are of our gays. Why can’t they be satisfied with our largesse?”

    See my response to Kevin above. It is possible to have civil unions that aren’t so much a separation of homosexuals/heterosexuals as it is leaving “marriage” to religions. People can even get religiously married without the civil rights, if they don’t get an accredited minister. I agree that just making up civil unions and having them be a separate but legally equal entity could be harmful, but replacing marriage with civil unions and then letting the religious have marriage and dictate who they want to “marry” while knowing that it isn’t legally any different seems to be working. There are actually plenty of homosexual couples being religiously married at the more tolerant of churches. The only difference between the two is that a priest can refuse to perform a religious ceremony but not the legal one. He can do this based on any tenets, so although it is discrimination, it doesn’t change the legal options for couples of any gender, race or creed.

  110. gr8hands says

    JediBear, and others, read Boswell’s excellent book, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe:
    http://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Unions-Premodern-Europe-Boswell/dp/0679751645

    It is extremely well researched and enlightening. It demonstrates that the practice of having the State recognize legal unions originated with gays.

    You can also check out: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04353r.pdf

    Consequently, as of December 31, 2003, our research identified a
    total of 1,138 federal statutory provisions classified to the United States Code in which
    marital status is a factor in determining or receiving benefits, rights, and privileges.

    I hope this has been instructive.

  111. eandh99 says

    Samantha, you’re wrong about Canada. As a gay woman who got married here, I got MARRIED – you go down to the government access centre and buy a marriage license just like everyone else. Civil marriage is still marriage, for straights and gays, the churches don’t own the word and folks who have the ceremony performed by a marriage commissioner are just as married as those who get married by a minister, it’s the same paperwork too. The marriage vs civil partnership split is in the UK, and there’s a straight couple over there now going to court for the right to get a civil partnership.

  112. MAJeff, OM says

    There seems to be this weird thing happening in Samantha’s post that happens in all sorts of posts. Here’s an example:

    I agree that just making up civil unions and having them be a separate but legally equal entity could be harmful, but replacing marriage with civil unions and then letting the religious have marriage and dictate who they want to “marry” while knowing that it isn’t legally any different seems to be working

    What is working? Canada has civil marriage. A civil union is NOT a secular marriage, it is an entirely different legal institution. Those same-sex couples who go to the appropriate civil authority for the license and fill out the appropriate paperwork, etc. are MARRIED–whether a clergy member or civil clerk performs the ceremony. My aunts got a marriage license in Vancouver, BC. They got a civil union in Vermont. A legal marriage without a clergy member is still a marriage. The absence of a clergy member does not demote the relationship to civil union status. Those are two different legal structures and it would be helpful if people stop confusing what they are.

  113. Samantha says

    Well then maybe the city here is getting things wrong because they keep calling it a civil union in all their online literature. I apologize for being confused, but everything I’ve read (and yes, only in the city I’m in) says that if you do it civilly, it’s a civil union and if you do it religiously, it’s a marriage. I’m aware it’s the same paperwork and there’s no legal difference… they just refer to the civil ceremony as “civil union” and the religious as “marriage” (I.E. “If you would like a civil union, you may apply for a licence and book a time to meet with a clerk and perform the legal ceremony. If you would like a marriage, you must apply for a licence and contract with a minister of your choosing to perform both the legal and religious ceremonies”)

    Apparently my city is either very stupid or have very poor copy-editors.

  114. eandh99 says

    Samantha, where do you live, which province? My example and MAJeff’s are both from BC. Sounds like you’re somewhere that’s trying to pretend there’s some special legal status to church weddings.

  115. Alyson Miers says

    It sounds like there are some very ignorant people in Samantha’s city, but ignorant is a very not-unusual way.

  116. Nemo says

    They say, “If you allow Teh Gays to get married, then what’s next, fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters, dogs and cats?”

    Ducks.

  117. shatfat says

    These people who keep appealing to tradition: did you pay a bride price? No? WTH, sounds like you’re COHABITATING.

    These people who keep appealing to the bible: polygyny, sex with slave girls, raping a woman then buying off her father–all okay? And if your brother dies without leaving an heir, you realize it’s your duty to knock up your sister-in-law? Btw, it’s not all fun and games b/c this will disinherit you. HAND.

  118. nixscripter says

    Am I correct in noticing this issue boils down to two things?

    DEATH and TAXES

    (And BTW, I realized long before this thread that abolishing all marriage was too hard, so I am in favor of same-sex marriage.)

  119. nixscripter says

    And to avoid getting yelled at, the parts of marriage about larger society (e.g. heritability complexities), not the emotional recognition between individuals (e.g. visitation rights) are what I would like to see removed.

  120. jhiend says

    Kevin @ 106:

    Changing the terminology won’t do anything. “Pro-family” proponents will still attempt to keep homosexual couples from receiving equal benefits. If marriage is a fully religious term and civil union forms the basis of laws, benefits, and such, then you won’t see people protesting gay marriage, you’ll see them protesting gay civil unions.

    Case in point: Seattle’s Referendum 71, which is basically “everything but marriage”, won but it still had 48% against it.