I'm against amending the Constitution in order to redefine marriage.
Here are a few things I've read, you should read them too and compile it with whatever else you've read, then make a decision (at least, I think you should).
Fisking a defense on the constitutional amendmentAnd finally, I sent my brother an email today to see what he thought about all of this because he hasn't had time to put anything up on his blog, so he sent me a quick response and gave me the ok to post it here. Feel free to join the debate, share your thoughts and opinions, disagree, agree, say you don't care, whatever you like.
It’s not about marriage, it’s about politics
A passionate response to Bush’s statements preceding the debate of the constitutional amendment in the Senate
A letter from Mit Romney sent to the Senate just before the debate
I think the reasoning behind this thing is off-base historically and sociologically. The only reason they can say that marriage has historically been just between a man and a woman is because, as gay scholars (by which I mean both scholars who are gay and scholars who study homosexuality) have rightly pointed out, history has consistently been written in such a way as to downgrade or ignore homosexual relationships. As saying that marriage is the fundamental unit of society, or that it's the basis for society, or whatever, that's just nuts. Individuals are the fundamental units of society, and society is, by definition, groupings of individuals for various purposes. It's a multi-tiered thing. If some individuals want to be in homosexual relationships, or polygamist relationships, or tribes, or cities, or nations, or whatever the hell they can think of, that's humans doing what they do best and hooking up with each other to achieve various purposes. There are relationships for companionship, for sex, for business, for conversation, and even just for straight dependance.
One of the bedrock principles of life in the United States is the freedom to contract, to make social arrangements and agreements with others, without heavy-handed intervention from the government. Amending the Constitution to say that marriage between one man and one woman is the only thing that can be called "marriage" will just mean that only certain relationships will be legally called "marriages." Combine that with the ability of the government to dole out benefits according to legal definitions and you've got people with certain privileges. That's fundamentally inimical to the idea of freedom and will do more damage, I think, than the doomsaying we're getting from the Right on this issue.
On the other hand, socially, it won't mean a good-goddamn because people will still get together, they'll find other ways to define their relationships, and the idea of "marriage" will mean less and less once it's been defined. Words and categories can only keep their meaning if they're allowed to change with the culture that uses them. Once you nail something down and say "Legally, This Is What It Is," then you've destroyed the potential for flexibility. When that happens, society just say, "Okay, then we won't use that word or category anymore, but we'll keep doing what we want to do."
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Nobody? I know blogger was down earlier today. Ah well.
"Individuals are the fundamental units of society, and society is, by definition, groupings of individuals for various purposes."
ok, this is a slow start on posting, but you've already mentioned the slow blogger post.
but, to respond to just this one small point, i'd disagree. in most ancient societies, there is no individual. it's all about group think. we all keep our heads down, hope the gods don't smite us, and that the crops grow. now, i'm not an expert in all ancient cultures (or really any for that point) but in the ancient Israeli context it's first family, then tribe then nation. individual doesn't really factor in.
so, as to homosexuality, there isn't a decision of who i love. tonight, i saw a brief piece on india, and the current state with homosexualities, who are known as hsm (hsh?) for a reason i missed in the piece. but, to have an encounter with another man, these guys are travelling way out to weird spots (like an abandoned train car in the middle of nowhere) to "encounter" another. i think india may be a relevant modern example of a culture that doesn't regard the individual, instead going with the class or societal trend.
any thoughts?
"Okay, then we won't use that word or category anymore, but we'll keep doing what we want to do."
but i totally agree that this is what happens.
so, even if such a law or amendment were to pass, then i'm sure that any state that wanted to would just pass a "civil union" type law that would allow all the benefits of being a married coupling without being called "marriage".
furthermore, i'd agree with the idea that language only expresses what we want it to. (see someone like chomsky). so, if you want to define marriage as "this" we'll define what we're doing as "that". and, when the definition of "this" doesn't work well, it will change.
I don't think Peter was trying to argue that individuals are the fundamental focus of all society, merely that they are the building blocks for all the other groups that people like to fight for.
So, if someone is going to argue that men and women, married together, are the fundamental units of society, then they are implying that anyone who is not a participant of that particular unit is basically a worthless member of said society. You can't have a group without individuals first.
It's the same idea as the Senaters who are saying the marriage amendment will eventually pass because the voice of the American people wills it to be so. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that all of those against the marriage amendment were neither American nor people. They are excluding people from the debate and saying their opinion has no value here.
Which reminds me of another thing. What are these groups calling themselves "values voters"? What's that? I think I can safely say that every member of the human population has values. They're implying that people who are not members of their group, namely liberals, have no values. It's rhetorically underhanded.
Sorry, a bit of a rant off point. But to respond to your disagreement Ed, sure, there may be other societies where individuals are not counted, but where this debate is taking place, I think it's safe to say that individuals are the fundamental units of U.S. society.
Adam wrote:
I don't think Peter was trying to argue that individuals are the fundamental focus of all society, merely that they are the building blocks for all the other groups that people like to fight for. . . . You can't have a group without individuals first.
That's pretty close to how I was going to respond. But I would say it in a slightly different way:
Regardless of how the society organizes itself, whether it conceptualizes individuals as having a power of agency apart from groups, there can be no groups without individuals.
Homo sapiens are in fact discrete individuals who are capable of thinking and acting apart from or in opposition to social structures, even in those cultures that traditionally neither recognize nor cultivate "individualism" as a social ideology.
While many people would argue that "individualism" is a socially constructed ideology that deviates from the norm of group-consciousness, I would argue the exact opposite. Biologically, humans-as-individuals are the norm and group-consciousness is a socially constructed ideology, albeit an ancient one. Thus, the emergence of individualist "ideology" in the modern West has not been a construction of a new mode of being so much as a deconstruction of long-established cultural norms.
That, I think, would satisfy both those who like to believe that modern Western culture is essentially destructive and those who like to believe that modern Western culture is more essentially human than others. As well, it should offend those who like to believe that traditional ways are more humane (because it treats individualism as more fundamentally human than group-consciousness) and it should offend those who like to believe that modern Western culture is superior (because it treats group-consciousness as an ancient human tradition, likely dating to the emergence of the species itself, and therefore gives it the authority of age).
I.e., once again I am plowing my own path in such a way that people who toe the party lines on either side will likely disagree with me in some way, and may the party lines be damned.
i understand what you're both getting at w/the explanations for individuals vs couples or other groupings. i think you've got some good points there peter. pieces do make up the whole.
now, adam, if you're going to rant about words, i hope you get just as worked up by senators that say an amedment will never pass because it isn't the will of the american people. are they saying that those supporters of such an amendment (assinine in my pov) are neither american or people?
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