Martin Gill is fighting to adopt the kids he has cared for for six years as a foster parent in Florida, a state that allows gays and lesbians to be foster parents, but stops short of allowing them to adopt.
But if Bill McCollum -- Florida's Jeb Bush-backed gubernatorial candidate for 2010 -- gets his way, Gill would lose his children altogether. McCollum, Florida's Attorney General and former Congressman, believes strongly that homosexuals should not even be allowed to be foster parents.
"I really do not think that we should have homosexuals guiding our children," he declared to reporters this week at a campaign rally in Tampa, with Jeb at his side. "It's inconsistent that the foster care law reads one way, and the adoption law reads another way."
McCollum -- who once hired the anti-gay psychologist and Baptist minister George Rekers to testify as an expert witness in a gay adoption case shortly before Rekers was caught vacationing in Europe with a male escort -- is unequivocally opposed to same-sex marriage, and cites his upbringing and religious beliefs as perfectly legitimate reasons for his position.
Why do so many conservatives, outraged at government meddling in everything from health care to the country's banking and financial systems, find it acceptable for the government to establish a definition for something as personal as marriage? The resounding argument is that same-sex marriage is a "threat" to the conventional family unit, and as McCollum believes, dangerous for children.
Unfortunately for him, increasingly more homosexual couples are having and raising children. Extending the same benefits of recognition to all family units, conventional and unconventional, would not only ensure that all children are afforded the same legal, social, and economic support systems enjoyed by the children of married heterosexual couples, but also effectively combat the stigmatization of children born out of wedlock to same-sex couples by their peers, classmates, and religious authority figures across the country.
It's preventing the legal recognition of these marriage-less (but equally legitimate) unions that is damaging to children and the family unit, not the unions themselves.
In a literature review of the growing body of research on children of same-sex couples, published in Princeton University's journal The Future of Children in 2005, Meezan and Rauch determined that children raised by same-sex couples do just as well as those born to heterosexual couples. The authors (from the College of Social Work at Ohio State University and the Brookings Institution respectively) went on to outline the advantages that state-recognized marriage would confer on these children:"First, marriage may increase children's material well-being through such benefits as family leave from work and spousal health insurance eligibility. It may also help ensure financial continuity, should a spouse die or be disabled. Second, same-sex marriage may benefit children by increasing the durability and stability of their parents' relationship. Finally, marriage may bring increased social acceptance of and support for same-sex families."
The evidence seems to indicate that giving the same legitimacy to same-sex unions as there exists for heterosexual marriage would actually be beneficial and healthy for children.
There are two ways to deliver that legitimacy. The first is to legalize same-sex marriage. The second -- not as widely discussed as the first -- is to revisit the idea of all-out, across-the-board abolition of marriage (gay or straight) as a legally recognized institution. This would mean that the government would recognize civil unions only, leaving both same-sex and heterosexual marriage to churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious authorities or their secular equivalents. Heterosexual marriage would be one kind of civil union, same-sex marriage another kind, and unmarried common-law relationships (gay or straight) another.
This arrangement would retain all of the aspects of marriage as a religious institution, and also its legal aspects as a state-sanctioned civil union. If the goal is equal legitimacy in the eyes of the state, what do labels and semantics matter? A "civil union" would comprise only those aspects of a relationship that are subject to regulation by the state. Because marriage is widely held to be a religious institution, a strong case can be made against it altogether based on the fundamental principle of separation of religion and state.
For religious conservatives, this proposition may not address the argument that legally equating homosexual relationships with heterosexual marriage is somehow a "threat" to the family unit, children, and the traditional institution of marriage. (This is why, currently, the government holds what Britney Spears and Jason Alexander had for 55 hours in Las Vegas on a drunken Saturday morning as more sacred and legitimate than the relationships of millions of loving, committed partners and parents like Martin Gill.)
Increasingly, though, the evidence shows that it's clearly the other way around. And again, if being a "threat" to traditional marriage constitutes sound basis for legal disqualification, a more appropriate target would be divorce, which directly threatens and destroys marriages in a way that legitimizing gay and unmarried heterosexual unions cannot even indirectly hope to.
Freedom of religion is a fundamental American value, and so is the separation of religion and state. So marriage, widely held to be a religious institution, is the right of every person, gay or straight, to avail -- or not. But the government should separate itself from this rite as it does from most other religious rites, and recognize all committed relationships -- gay or straight, married or unmarried -- as equally legitimate civil unions, with the same rights and benefits available to all.
Do it for the children.
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Please try secession again. This time we'll let you go. We promise not to point and laugh.
The alternatives are dreadful.
With this change, spouses would be less likely to initiate divorce when children are involved. Initiating a divorce would mean they could lose custody. Spouses would have more pressure to work out their differences. There would be much less power in the hands of the spouse who wants the easy way out. The freedom to divorce would still be there, but there would be less of a reward for doing so. This change wouldn't impact situations where divorces were truly mutually agreed upon and approached collaboratively, but those situations are the minority.
With all due respect, I will have to disagree with this opinion. The government gives special benefits to marriages, and not to any other non-marital relationships, for a good reason. It is not because those relationships do not involve long-term, committed, loving relationships. Many qualify here. It is because marriages do involve children.
Marriage and family construct culture. And as the building blocks of culture, families are logically prior to society as the parts are prior to the whole. So why has civilization always characterized families as a union of men and women? Because men and women are the natural source of the children that allow civilized culture to continue and also provide the optimal environment for the raising of those children.
Marriage should not be a shortcut to group insurance rates or tax relief or other benefits. There is an appreciable difference between children raised in two biological parent married families and children raised in other unions. As members of society, we should support the latter in their needs but not at the cost of eviscerating marriage of its normative content.
There are many forms of marriage that are denies and prohibited by society-polygamous marriages, bigamous marriages, etc.-even those these relationships include children because this is in the best interest of society at large.
No, I am not suggesting that childless marriages be dissolved automatically by the state, and I would like to offer a few reasons. One, such a marriage still has the potential of being used in the way it was purposed, even if its purpose is never realized or not realized at the moment. Two, such a marriage can be a stabling factor in society for other families with children where a parent is missing, and these couples do benefit communities in other ways, such as elderly couples who volunteer for "Grandparents Day" and so on. Three, to dissolve such marriages would be the automatic dissolving of the basic structure of society, the family.
Probably people who do not support marriage would not find these reasons compelling but I feel they are legitimate nevertheless.
Let me ask you, is it possible that in God's infinite wisdom and compassion for children, he created homosexuals to give orphans a home. That sounds far more likely than your specious argument...
I'm as pleased as anyone that Prop 8 has been exposed and discarded by Judge Walker as discrimination lacking logic or legitimate social benefit. But his decision rests on the principle that any discriminatory law must have a legitimate SECULAR purpose. That makes sense to me, but as Justice Scalia pointed out in his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas, there is substantial US Supreme Court precedent holding otherwise. "Legitimate purpose" for purposes of the rational basis test for a discriminatory law has historically included in its definition prevailing community standards for morality without requiring a practical or tangible benefit to the State or its people.
Gay members are not now considered members of a suspect class under federal law. If the US Supreme court decline to treat homosexuality as a suspect class which would require them to find homosexuality an immutable characteristic like race, and if the majority of the justices consider prevailing moral standards a legitimate purpose for the law, they'll find that Judge Walker's conclusion that Prop 8 is irrational to be error as a matter of law. Hopefully the two newest justices agree with the Lawrence.court and require a secular government purpose.
Various cultures have had their own theories on the origin of marriage. Some proposed that "the institution of marriage has probably developed out of a primeval habit". One explanation may lie in a man's need for assurance as to paternity of his children. He might therefore be willing to pay a bride price or provide for a woman in exchange for exclusive sexual access. Women in most cultures, recognizing the burden of rearing a child, may have insisted on an agreement of commitment. In the US today, many people decide to get married for legal reasons (citizenship, taxes, etc). However, in most modern cultures, marriage is a commitment between two or more adults; and the government should not care about the nature or parties of that relationship any more than any other contractual agreement. As long as the parties are legally willing and able to make the agreement, then nothing should hinder that.
Likewise, each religious institution should be afforded the opportunity to practice religion as it's congregation sees fit.
No more delegation of government function to religious entities or officials.
If you want to have both a legal and religious marriage, get married twice.
My "fake husband's" step father was even more violent than I can imagine anyone being. My fake husband ran away from home at 14 and became a child dependent upon the state for his remaining teenage years.
You are not a fit parent solely because you're straight. There are a LOT of awful one man+one woman marriages out there that do nothing but screw up children.
Which is a) Not going to happen, and b) Not going to make things equal.
Civil marriage *is* apart from religious belief. Religious ceremonies optional.
What's so hard about people getting this?
Really? It's not going to happen? When abolitionists said, "We're going to make slavery a thing of the past!" Was it really not going to happen? The Constitution and subsequent government structure is organic and changes with time. It is a reflection of social values and society's mindset. Marriage is a religious concept, it comes from a religious history (Judeo-Christian, to be more specific).
How is not going to make things equal? You can't just make proclamations and expect your readers to accept them face-value. State your sources, back-up your ideas, list verifiable publications. Equality entails abolishing the state imposition of social practices stemmed from a particular ideology. Marriage, in this case, is a religious practice that stems from a religious history. Yet all are expected to accept it as some sort of federal status. How is that secular?
What's hard is that you are making conclusions without legitimate premises to draw your conclusions from.
Having the government not recognize civil contracts means there are no legal or equality protections for *anyone,* particularly not minority groups.
So moving to civil unions would not really be a big sociological step for a western nation to take. It has a track record.
Thank God they are all adults now. I would hate to have them visit me in prison, which is where I would be after doing violence against anyone who would try to take away my parental rights because I'm a gay dad.
Are you kidding? Marriage is a legal, civil relationship, created by the government. Of course the government determines what qualifications are necessary to be married, and what the legal ramifications of the relationship are. Without government involvement, there would be no marriage, in the legal sense of the word. Evey minister, rabbi or other religious figure who performs legal marriages, does so as an officer of the State, and has to follow the requirements set out by the State.
This idea of the government staying out of marriage is loony.
And then what would happen? How about no state-sponsored imposition of social practices?
Argument fail.
You have got to be kidding. You cannot avoid State involvement. You have to have rules (law) on who gets what, what happens to kids, who is responsible for whose obligations, etc.
I am as conservative as almost anybody who posts on here, and am no fan of big government, but society has a hugely important interest in family relationships.
In the medieval time of English common law formation, there was no state institution of marriage at all. There developed a recognition of common law marriage after some period of cohabitation. Churches, Christian or otherwise, did not perform marriage ceremonies for commoners. Couples would "jump the broom" and register their troth in parish records because there were no other records.
Your statement is quite insulting, I imagine, to non-Christians, who by your logic have no right to marry in their own manner at all. I think you are quite wrong.
1) straight bigotry
2) belief in the superiority of heterosexuals and their families and relationships over homosexuals and their families and relationships, to the point the the latter should be legally disadvantaged with no benefit accruing to heterosexuals at all
3) homophobia: a) fear and/or hatred of homosexuals, often coupled with b) fear that oneself is homsexual, and therefore must be self-hated...
Also to the point that gay people should be legally disadvanted so that one can cover for oneself and engage in self-hatred
4) Discrimination on the basis of religious belief, which is not tolerated EXCEPT for this particular manifestation, for some reason I cannot fathom
5) Ignorance, always a big player.
Protecting marriage isn't even on the list.
"With few local exceptions, until 1545, Christian marriages in Europe were by mutual consent, declaration of intention to marry and upon the subsequent physical union of the parties. The couple would promise verbally to each other that they would be married to each other; the presence of a priest or witnesses was not required. This promise was known as the "verbum." If freely given and made in the present tense (e.g., "I marry you"), it was unquestionably binding; if made in the future tense ("I will marry you"), it would constitute a betrothal. One of the functions of churches from the Middle Ages was to register marriages, which was not obligatory. There was no state involvement in marriage and personal status, with these issues being adjudicated in ecclesiastical courts. During the Middle Ages marriages were arranged, sometimes as early as birth, and these early pledges to marry were often used to ensure treaties between different royal families, nobles, and heirs of fiefdoms."
The other problem: if marriage is such a foundational institution, it should be the "gold standard" of legally recognized relationships. when you create lesser institutions with lesser expectations-- well this is what is happening in France. They have pact civiles, which are basically domestic partnerships. more and more people are getting them-- it may have exceeded marriage already-- becuase they have almost all of the benefits, far fewer of the obligations, and are much easier to dissovle.
If you want to undermine the family-- if such a thing is possible-- then offer lesser institutions than marriage.