Oh, the “traditional” marriage people are upset. So upset. And this sentence from Judge Walker’s ruling on Prop 8 has them especially upset:
Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals.
Here are some upset reactions from those upset people:
I believe gender matters, and I believe that gender plays a role in what makes marriage different from relationships. But Judge Walker has decided that his interpretation of the Constitution trumps all that.
If gender is no longer “an essential part of marriage,” then marriage has been essentially redefined right before our eyes.
Can you believe you are reading these words, not merely as the private opinion of a moral reprobate, a cultural revolutionary, but as the conclusions of a “judge” in the United States of America? … This kind of homosexual propaganda has no place in the legal system of a moral culture, but there it is.
Apparently they think Walker is advancing some radical theory and that his opinion introduces a new concept of marriage into our legal system.
They’re talking nonsense.
Walker is merely noting an indisputable truth: traditional gender roles in marriage used to be mandated by law — the man was legally put in charge of his wife, and his wife’s rights were severely limited by the law — but this is no longer the case. Marriage today, in the eyes of the law, is a union of equals.
Who can claim that this change hasn’t happened? Apparently, it’s invisible to those who believe marriage has been constant and unchanging since Adam and Eve. They need a little history lesson, so here goes.
William Blackstone was an 18th Century English judge who shaped British common law and was a tremendous influence in early American law. The Prop 8 lawyers love him. In their emergency request to stay (i.e., delay) enforcement of Walker’s verdict, they write:
This understanding of the central purposes of marriage is well expressed by William Blackstone, who, speaking of the “great relations in private life,” describes the relationship of “husband and wife” as “founded in nature, but modified by civil society: the one directing man to continue and multiply his species, the other prescribing the manner in which that natural impulse must be confined and regulated.”
Yep, Blackstone’s their man. Of course, Blackstone also wrote this:
By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything.
Guess what? That’s not true in 2010 America. Wives won the right to own property in 1848 (in New York, at least). Men can now be prosecuted for beating their wives. Women can refuse to have sex with their husbands, and those husbands can no longer rape them them at their pleasure. So look again at that upsetting Walker quote:
Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals.
It’s simply true. Granted, a married couple can choose to live as if “the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage,” but the law will no longer enforce it. Marriage under law is now a union of equals. That leads to Walker’s point: If we no longer see the need for men to have one legally-defined set of marital rights while women have another, much smaller set, then the law sees no distinction between men and women in marriage, and therefore should see no distinction between opposite- and same-sex couples.
Let’s boil this down to one sentence (one question, actually): If someone’s outraged over Walker’s statement, simply ask, Oh, so you think wives can’t own property, and that men are still allowed to beat and rape their wives? Unless they answer you bet!, they’re admitting the truth in Walker’s verdict.
H/T to Brad Parr for pointing out Blackstone in the pro-Prop 8 brief, and to Ms. Magazine for the history lesson.
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Technically it’s the common law of England & Wales not Britain. Scotland has an entirely separate legal system.
Rob, you’re amazing.
Reading comprehension FAIL for all of them. He’s not talking about personal or cultural or religious definitions, he’s talking about the law, and he’s right in that regard.
I don’t get why this separation doesn’t make sense to some of these conservative christians…I mean drinking, gambling, and premarital sex are ALL pretty much against Christian God’s Laws (and a few other religions, I’m sure) yet they’re all perfectly legal (with some restrictions). Gambling and Drinking are prohibited in certain locales, but premarital sex is 100% legal everywhere.
Which means these folks have to explain, at some point the difference between God’s Laws and Man’s Laws. Why all things LGBT can’t just be lumped in with all the other “it’s legal, but our religion says it’s wrong” subjects is a mystery to me.
Jason D
Exactly. I am also cribbing from that awesome “Dear Dr. Laura please help me clear this up” but when they cite to “God’s law” it really fascinates me that they don’t also advocate for the following:
Putting to death those that work on the sabbath. Exodus 35:2.
Banning the eating of shellfish. Lev. 11:10.
Banning women from entering into contracts while menstruating. Lev.15:19- 24.
Banning men from cutting the hair around their temples. Lev. 19:27
Banning wearing mixed fabrics. Lev. 19:19
Stoning those who blaspheme. Lev.24:10-16
Burning those who sleep with their in-laws. Lev. 20:14
Permit slavery. Exodus 21:7
And I’ve never heard even a slightly coherent argument as to why there’s a difference.
Why not fight this they way like they did in California in other federal districts?? Law suites should be popping up in ALL federal districts.
I am just so sick of this!! My partner and I have been together monogamously now for nearly 20 years. We live in Ohio which has no civil unions or marriage. The holy rollers put it on the ballot when Bush ran his second term. It is just sooo frustrating. We pay SOOO much more than our straight married friends in health insurance..taxes..you name it. I have coworkers who have bounced from marriage to marriage to marriage and every time they do they get all of these rights that we are not “entitled” to. As a US citizen and taxpayer I am completely outraged!
Hey “Equality Ohio” file a law suit and use Jim and Dave as the plaintiffs.
A guy I work with is very young and is currently planning his wedding. I am happy for him. But at the same time I am saddened. We never have had the opportunity to marry legally in Ohio. Yes..we will go to his wedding..have drinks and dance and put money in a gift card..but to be honest with you..it hurts..it is not fair.
Regardless of what happens legally with marriage..we will still be together..but let me repeat myself..it HURTS…
Jim
Jim– I understand.
Does your fried support marriage equality? Perhaps you could give a gift in his name to your marriage equality organuization. Perhaps he could use his wedding as a way for people to make donations.
Talk aobut it. If we don’t talk about it, nothing changes, even in ohio.
Sigh… I know it’s not enough, but I’m really sorry, Jim. It really is rotten.
I don’t know that I ever saw any guidance about incorporating marriage-equality elements into a straight wedding (at least when I got married some years ago), but I did see in one of the less dreadful wedding guide books an example of a couple that, instead of giving favors, gave a donation to a marriage-equality group that worked out to cost of a favor x number of guests. The back of the seating cards noted this and gave the information for guests so they could donate more, if they so chose.
I also remember that this question came up in Dan Savage’s column in the last year or two, and he noted that he’d been to a wedding at which a segment of the Mass. court case that described the importance of (civil) marriage had been read as a supplementary reading.
Finally, for what it’s worth, you will be a living, breathing, visible reminder of the importance (or at least the justness) of marriage equality when you attend that wedding. Your presence may drive the point home to lots of folks who may have given little, if any, thought to the matter and who probably don’t see much marriage-equality outreach.
Jim (et al),
After posting the last message before I went to sleep, I felt bad that the last part seemed a little pat. But I got up this morning, and for some reason some aspects of my own wedding came to mind that made it actually seem far less pat.
Although there weren’t any explicit pro-marriage equality elements in our wedding, there were several gay couples at our wedding, and two gay men who were in our wedding party. Candidly, seating for our wedding was a challenge. My husband’s parents and much of his family are from rural Greece. Very, very old school. Worse, many of them don’t talk to each other, and, oh yes, they like to fire off guns at weddings. We had to make a point that this is very, very frowned upon in the urban American setting and keep the disagreeing ones far from each other, just in case they came armed anyway. So we had to think about language proficiency and family feuds in seating his family. My family gets along pretty well, and it’s enormous. Fortunately, they could be buffer zones between the Greeks who didn’t like each other and also, candidly, we used my family to separate our elderly, traditional Greek guests from our gay guests.
One thing we hadn’t thought about: Many of our elderly Greeks and one of our gay men were smokers. I have asthma and banned smoking in the banquet room. We didn’t realize that the restaurant bar (which allowed smoking back then) would bring our two factions together. But we stepped out of the banquet room to say goodbye to someone, only to look over and see one of our gay friends (half of one of those 18,000 couples in California who in a kind of marriage limbo) getting good and drunk and smoking away at the bar–flanked by two of my husband’s MOST conservative old Greek uncles, also pretty tipsy and smoking like chimneys.
Our friend later told us that one of the uncles asked him if he was married. He paused for a second, and said, “You see that groomsman over there? I’m married to him.” Apparently, the uncles paused for a minute. Then one ordered another round of shots and said, “Ah, we drink to him.” And that was that. By the way, one of those uncles lives in Ohio, Jim, so you might have won a vote/support that night.
At the very end of the night, when we were shooing out the last guests and paying the final tab, the other half of this couple, the groomsman, came around looking for his seriously inebriated husband, who seemed to have wandered off. The groomsman couldn’t find me or my husband to ask, so he approached my mother-in-law and asked, “Have you seen my husband? I can’t find him anywhere.” My mother-in-law didn’t know where he was, but she told me later it was a little bit of a shock–and then she figured, well, OK. Keep in mind that my mother-in-law was married off to an older man she didn’t know in an arranged marriage and sent to a foreign country at 18. She will tell you that it worked out pretty well for her, but that because of that experience, she has always been much more supportive of people making their OWN choices about marriage. And as of a few years ago, I think she’s had a slightly broader view on that.
So, Jim, this is a very long way of saying that maybe you’ll be more of an unofficial ambassador for marriage equality than you’d think at that wedding.
SNC,
Thanks for writing what you did about your own wedding. I’m attending a wedding of a straight friend who has been less than accepting, but still wants to be friends. He is one who doesn’t understand the difference between religious and civil marriage. After an argument with him, I really did not want to go, but decided to in the end out of obligation of our long friendship. Reading what you wrote about the slight impact one can have at such a ceremony gives me hope that by even being there, and being myself, can make a positive difference. Thanks!
-Brant
A few family weddings ago, my wife and I were given the inclusive “be yourself, enjoy!”, so we did, more so than most. This time we even danced at the traditional marriage dance where a ding goes off and a number is called and the couples married less than the number sit down. At 6 years ding my sister-in-law gave me the “sit down, you’ve just had the 6th anniversary (gay married in Canada) and I responded as we stayed dancing to the 20 year mark, “I wonder if the slaves celebrated their wedding anniversary according to when they married or when the white people said they could marry?” She got it there in a way that conversation could not hold a light to. Our presence broadens the conversation without even speaking.