Breaking the Spell: Rethinking queer community

[SecretAgentMa'am]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

Let me throw another iron in the fire here: Marriage rights are important and I support them, but are we allowing that particular issue to over-shadow other (and in my estimation more important) issues? Issues such as equality in housing, the workplace, hiring, healthcare, etc., and the worst one: violence against LGBTs. I think these are at least as pressing, however the whole marriage thing seems to be such a focus that I don't really hear people talking about these other things.

I think the reason marriage equality gets so much attention right now is that we're *so close* to winning that fight. There's a sense that we're in the home stretch, so a lot of people want to throw in their lot for a fight that actually has an end in sight. Kind of like how a lot of competitive runners will tell you they get a burst of energy they never would have thought possible when they round that last turn and they can see the finish line. I predict that once we've achieved marriage equality, one of those other issues will take the forefront, and we'll be having the same conversation again, only it will be some other issue that some people think shouldn't be getting all the attention when there's all these other others to work on. As a community, we seem to focus on one thing at a time, and I actually think that's a good thing. I think we can get a lot more done with a lot of people focusing on one thing at a time rather than trying to focus on a few dozen issues at once.

[Hack]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

Let me throw another iron in the fire here: Marriage rights are important and I support them, but are we allowing that particular issue to over-shadow other (and in my estimation more important) issues? Issues such as equality in housing, the workplace, hiring, healthcare, etc., and the worst one: violence against LGBTs. I think these are at least as pressing, however the whole marriage thing seems to be such a focus that I don't really hear people talking about these other things. Gays and lesbians and trans people are getting beaten and killed all the time. We need more law enforcement crackdowns on bashers, current laws to be enforced more, more hate-crime legislation, campaigns to raise awareness and educate people, etc. I think the "It gets better" campaign has been a great step, but we need something like that to address these other issues too. Think about all the AIDS activism in the 80s and 90s and how much things changed for the better because of it. In the press, marriage rights seems to be the only thing reported on, as if all we need is that right, then we will have equality. But we won't.

I know we can't have a utopian society where all these issues are permanently and completely fixed, but that doesn't mean we have nothing more to gain.

I get what you are saying, Atomic. I live in a state where queers have pretty much no rights. A constitutional amendment was passed here to ensure that and everything.

There are little pockets in Michigan where we have some rights, say in Ann Arbor or the more progressive 'burbs of Detroit. But, by and large, I am a second-class citizen here.

I have often started heated debates in LGBT political circles here by saying, "Why don't we start with employment rights? Why do we have to go for the big one right away?" It's akin to saying, why can't we make out first, why do we have to jump right to crazy monkey sex?

When I bring this up, I am practically shouted out of the room as being a radical or something. I've spent my entire life in mainstream politics, and I know the way to get the majority to accept a concept is start small. I've built more campaigns around this simple notion than I care to admit.

I understand, however, many more places in the US are far more progressive than where I live (a shame, really, because Michigan was a progressive bastion back in the day, with the labor movement and then the student movement and whatnot). I understand other places are light years ahead of where we are in Michigan in terms of queer rights. And maybe that is part of what drives a perceived impatience in the community...this patchwork of progress here, lack of progress there.

Jake

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

Let me throw another iron in the fire here: Marriage rights are important and I support them, but are we allowing that particular issue to over-shadow other (and in my estimation more important) issues? Issues such as equality in housing, the workplace, hiring, healthcare, etc., and the worst one: violence against LGBTs. I think these are at least as pressing, however the whole marriage thing seems to be such a focus that I don't really hear people talking about these other things.

I think that marriage was an issue that was kind of forced on us. By that I mean that through the mid-to-late nineties the queer movement was, more or less, happy about domestic partner benefits. Marriage was seen as something to be tackled down the line. However, the religious right started lying saying that domestic partnership was just a way to destroy marriage by stealth. At that point, I think what happened is that folks started to think that if we were going to be *accused* of trying to sneak into marriage through the backdoor we might as actually *do* that since it was going to be said about us anyway.

That said, I think that these other issues are equally as important but I also think that they can be solved in other ways. For example--and before anyone jumps down my throat for throwing around privilege, I *recognize* how lucky I am--I am a knowledge worker. I have spent most of my adult life being paid to transfer knowledge in my brain into the brains of other people or to recombine that knowledge in very interesting ways. Of the jobs I've had since 1994, almost *all* of them have offered domestic partner benefits. I was the first gay employee at one start-up I worked at and after I started, they had me wait a few days until they could contact Aetna and change the health insurance plan so that it DID cover domestic partners. They hadn't thought about it until they needed to.

Now, this was all in the Bay Area and so locale contributed but it has been my experience that fields that didn't exist one hundred years ago (computer science, genetics, etc.) are far *more* likely to provide domestic partner benefits and to have explicit non-discrimination language that protects queer people. Housing is probably going to have to be dealt with through a combination of legislative and legal processes.

Gays and lesbians and trans people are getting beaten and killed all the time. We need more law enforcement crackdowns on bashers, current laws to be enforced more, more hate-crime legislation, campaigns to raise awareness and educate people, etc.

This is a tough one. I actually support hate crimes laws because I understand the need for them. Every bashing isn't just an immediate attack on the queer person in question but is a message sent to all queers in the area 'next time, it could be you'. The problem is convincing OTHER people of that. If you do not or cannot imagine being attacked because of *what* you are then it looks as if people other than you are being given 'special protection'. We aren't but it *looks* that way to people of a certain mindset. This is an area where I think we may have to give some ground--NOT in the sense that we'll just have to accept a certain level of violence but we may have to accept that the law does not make it *legal* to assault someone for being queer, law enforcement, depending upon locale, may insufficiently investigate the crime because it is a queer bashing. That means we may have to use social pressure or some other way of pressuring local law enforcement to act right. Again, I'm not saying that I oppose hate crimes laws, I do not. It's just not a battle I think is winnable and I think we can use the existing laws to our benefit.

I am also in favor of queer people getting concealed carry permits in locations where that is possible. I think the stakes for any potential bigot need to be raised. It is one thing to attack someone you think is weaker but won't be armed. It is quite another thing to attack someone who *might* be carrying a gun. After a couple of gay bashers are shot while trying to hurt one of us, I think they will have to use a very different calculus. Let them sit in a bar or their home and wish to do violence to us all they wish. I don't care. Let them step up to one of us with violence in mind and I hope that queer person shoots them dead, quite honestly.

Originally Posted by Hack

When I bring this up, I am practically shouted out of the room as being a radical or something. I've spent my entire life in mainstream politics, and I know the way to get the majority to accept a concept is start small. I've built more campaigns around this simple notion than I care to admit.

PLEASE continue doing this and going into queer communities and passing on your experience. We need more people with your knowledge who understand that we have to win enough people to on our side so that we have the majority.

Cheers
Aj

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMa'am

I think the reason marriage equality gets so much attention right now is that we're *so close* to winning that fight. There's a sense that we're in the home stretch, so a lot of people want to throw in their lot for a fight that actually has an end in sight. Kind of like how a lot of competitive runners will tell you they get a burst of energy they never would have thought possible when they round that last turn and they can see the finish line. I predict that once we've achieved marriage equality, one of those other issues will take the forefront, and we'll be having the same conversation again, only it will be some other issue that some people think shouldn't be getting all the attention when there's all these other others to work on. As a community, we seem to focus on one thing at a time, and I actually think that's a good thing. I think we can get a lot more done with a lot of people focusing on one thing at a time rather than trying to focus on a few dozen issues at once.

True enough- there are also some things with marriage equality that just fit in with many of the other struggles we have. These have to do with taxation and do feed into housing rights along with employment. There are also some very important variables concerning child custody that are part of marriage equality. It really isn't just about "marriage."

That said, we continue to be second class citizens on many fronts and violence against us- all over the US is something that needs our full attention. There is so damn much work to be done! Our being able to work together from every aspect of queer identity is paramount.

Oh.. throwing in self-defense measures (Aj brought this up)- a good alternative to a hand gun are the various personal stun guns available. These are legal in most states, easy to carry, not expensive and effective. Also good for dog attacks. I had a situation in which all I had to do was activate mine in the air over my head to stop a man that was coming at me physically. he ran like hell when he saw and heard the charge. I would have landed the next charge on his body if he had not stopped, but, I didn't have to.

[CherylNYC]

I can't think of an issue besides marriage that directly affects more people, no matter what their orientation. We humans tend to partner. Those partnerships need to be legally recognised if we're to expect to keep our property or rights to our children when the doo-doo hits the fan. Perhaps my perspective has been skewed because of my personal losses, but I'm convinced that creating legally recognised family is an imperative.

Making new laws that make it illegal to discriminate against us in employment/housing/public accommodations would be great. Those laws might be enforced after people drag themselves along with a bunch of miscreants through the legal system. It won't mean quite as much as I wish it would in the current conservative court system.

Marriage equality, however, will effect an enormous proportion of our community, and it will effect us in one fell swoop. I can be driven to apoplexy by lgbt people who dismiss marriage equality as not very meaningful to their own lives. Each of those people likely has parents. If they're Americans, all those parents receive social security. Some of their elderly mothers are, no doubt, living on their husband's social security income. Those mothers weren't rousted out of the homes they lived in for most of their lives by their husband's families after their husbands died. Many of those doubting homosexuals and their mothers were likely carried on their father's health insurance. Because they were recognised as a legal family. I could go on and on, but we all know this drill.

The part that gets disconnected is where we forget that WE also will need the same legal protections our parents assumed. It's all very nice to have our relationships officially validated and all, but the real value to marriage comes in a crisis. If you've never faced the hostility of your partner's family after their sudden death, you're a lucky soul.

Many of us have lived so long as outsiders that we don't know how to think about our lives and relationships with the long view. The trajectory that straight people grow up thinking about, (school, marriage, family, old age), was never a model for us. Until now. It's scary for people who have always valued themselves by how non-mainstream they are by dint of their queerness, to contemplate that their ID might become a little less edgy once they can have a legal husband or wife just like everyone else. It's coming. Some of us are going to be just like everyone else. Some of us will continue to be very edgy because we happen to be edgy people. But not simply because we're queer. It's time to get used to it.

[atomiczombie]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

This is a tough one. I actually support hate crimes laws because I understand the need for them. Every bashing isn't just an immediate attack on the queer person in question but is a message sent to all queers in the area 'next time, it could be you'. The problem is convincing OTHER people of that. If you do not or cannot imagine being attacked because of *what* you are then it looks as if people other than you are being given 'special protection'. We aren't but it *looks* that way to people of a certain mindset. This is an area where I think we may have to give some ground--NOT in the sense that we'll just have to accept a certain level of violence but we may have to accept that the law does not make it *legal* to assault someone for being queer, law enforcement, depending upon locale, may insufficiently investigate the crime because it is a queer bashing. That means we may have to use social pressure or some other way of pressuring local law enforcement to act right. Again, I'm not saying that I oppose hate crimes laws, I do not. It's just not a battle I think is winnable and I think we can use the existing laws to our benefit.

Ok, so what would that social pressure look like? And, the problem isn't just with law enforcement. It's with the whole system. Like judges allowing the "gay panic" defense to be used in a murder trial. Like juries buying into such a defense. Here is a perfect example of what I am talking about:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...ying-jury.html

I am also in favor of queer people getting concealed carry permits in locations where that is possible. I think the stakes for any potential bigot need to be raised. It is one thing to attack someone you think is weaker but won't be armed. It is quite another thing to attack someone who *might* be carrying a gun. After a couple of gay bashers are shot while trying to hurt one of us, I think they will have to use a very different calculus. Let them sit in a bar or their home and wish to do violence to us all they wish. I don't care. Let them step up to one of us with violence in mind and I hope that queer person shoots them dead, quite honestly.

Here is where you and I part ways on perspectives. I think answering violence with violence is not the way violence against LGBT folks will be ended. Defending yourself, yes, but shooting someone dead? I don't believe that will make anyone think twice, just like I don't believe the death penalty is any sort of deterrent either. I think shooting someone dead just perpetuates the cycle of violence. It also could give bigots an additional false sense of moral high ground, in that they would have the "gays and trans people are dangerous murderers" argument to augment their absurd justifications for their violence. I believe Dr. King had it right about the necessity for a civil rights movement to be absolutely non-violent.

Plus, I just hate guns. The more people who run around with concealed guns, the more likely death from gun violence will occur. We need more gun control, imho.


Drew

[Toughy]

Aj........... have not forgotten you...I will come back to you as I am still digesting..........

I think marriage as an issue is the epitome of assimilation. The revolutionary thought is marriage is a sacred spiritual bond and as such has no place in government recognition. All of the benefits of civil marriage are actually legal benefits that include right of survivorship and transfer of property. All of those things can be accomplished by way of legal contracts. Civil marriage does not guarantee the contract will be honored, so what is the frigging point? Legal contracts in the form of marriage and death benefits are contested on a daily basis everywhere in this country. Pre-nups are common to protect the interests of each party..........again legal contracts.

I want a radical shift in social organizing. Marriage is NOT the business of the State. Benefits of any individual should go where the person wants...period. The US has some fucked up ideas about Social Security and health care. Women are treated as second class citizens because of marriage. A woman stays at home and the husband works, and she only gets benefits because of her husband. She is not a whole human being and the value of her work in the home is void. Women who are married part of their life and hold no outside job get nothing because they did not pay into Social Security. They worked their entire lives and if hubby decides after 20 years of marriage he is done...........she gets nothing if she cannot afford a good lawyer.

If we are going to rethink queer, then we must rethink not queer. If we are ever to defeat the patriarchy then we must not use patriarchal value systems. A woman who stays at home and raises children deserves decent pay for her work for society and deserves more than cat food when she is to old to have and raise the children and grandchildren.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

Ok, so what would that social pressure look like? And, the problem isn't just with law enforcement. It's with the whole system. Like judges allowing the "gay panic" defense to be used in a murder trial. Like juries buying into such a defense. Here is a perfect example of what I am talking about:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...ying-jury.html

The social pressure looks like using existing civil rights laws. The courts are *obliged* to treat all citizens equally. If the court allows something like the gay panic defense, then we turn to the next higher level of government and sue the lower court for violation of our civil rights. We keep doing that. This is not new territory. Until the 1970s you would be hard pressed to find a white man doing more than spending some time hanging out in the station for the murder of a black person in parts of Dixie. Police departments were sued for civil rights violations. I think the same thing can work here. If not, then it begs the question 'are we citizens' and if we are not, why aren't we?

Here is where you and I part ways on perspectives. I think answering violence with violence is not the way violence against LGBT folks will be ended. Defending yourself, yes, but shooting someone dead? I don't believe that will make anyone think twice, just like I don't believe the death penalty is any sort of deterrent either. I think shooting someone dead just perpetuates the cycle of violence. It also could give bigots an additional false sense of moral high ground, in that they would have the "gays and trans people are dangerous murderers" argument to augment their absurd justifications for their violence. I believe Dr. King had it right about the necessity for a civil rights movement to be absolutely non-violent.

Plus, I just hate guns. The more people who run around with concealed guns, the more likely death from gun violence will occur. We need more gun control, imho.


Drew

I believed that for a very long time. Here's the thing, I've been watching the America Right for a very long time. These right-wingers are a whole different breed in larger numbers. They are talking about 'second amendment remedies' if elections don't go their way. They are marching down the street with weapons slung or prominently displayed. Those weapons are meant to send a message. I presume that they mean it and if they do--and we would be very foolish to think they don't--I don't want queer people to be the only ones unarmed when they decide to 'take their country back' through more direct means. I'm not saying it should be mandatory, I just think that those queer people who decide to own firearms should not be considered pariahs in our community.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Toughy

Aj........... have not forgotten you...I will come back to you as I am still digesting..........

I think marriage as an issue is the epitome of assimilation. The revolutionary thought is marriage is a sacred spiritual bond and as such has no place in government recognition. All of the benefits of civil marriage are actually legal benefits that include right of survivorship and transfer of property. All of those things can be accomplished by way of legal contracts. Civil marriage does not guarantee the contract will be honored, so what is the frigging point? Legal contracts in the form of marriage and death benefits are contested on a daily basis everywhere in this country. Pre-nups are common to protect the interests of each party..........again legal contracts.

Toughy;

You do understand that this is nearly a word-for-word recapitulation of the conservative argument *against* marriage equality? I have heard innumerable conservatives argue that there is nothing that marriage grants that can't be recapitulated through contracts and so why push for marriage? Well, here's an example. One of the queer people at work and I were talking about how much more we pay to cover our spouses than our straight colleagues do. Much more. In the $400 a month more range. That's a lot of money. If we were in a state-recognized marriage, that would be illegal.

I want a radical shift in social organizing.

Okay. How do you plan to sell it to society? What if they don't *want* that? Toughy, there have been other plans to try to remake society wholesale based upon some grand vision of what a truly better society would be and as far as I can tell every single one of them either tore itself apart or created a nightmare. I'm inherently suspicious of grand schemes to reorganize society whether they come from the right or the left. That movie has yet to have a happy ending.

You have to start with the society we have and the species we have. We don't get to rerun the tape and get a species with a different evolutionary history. That means that if we are going to do grand redesign we should probably be VERY careful about it. That is why I'm a reformer and the civil rights movement was a reform movement. The civil rights movement was not a movement to completely remake society. It was a movement to make society apply the rules it claims to hold dear to black people. I believe that is an achievable goal for queer people. I have yet to hear an explanation for how we get to where you are talking about and I would really like to understand that. I think it's important.

Marriage is NOT the business of the State. Benefits of any individual should go where the person wants...period. The US has some fucked up ideas about Social Security and health care. Women are treated as second class citizens because of marriage. A woman stays at home and the husband works, and she only gets benefits because of her husband. She is not a whole human being and the value of her work in the home is void. Women who are married part of their life and hold no outside job get nothing because they did not pay into Social Security. They worked their entire lives and if hubby decides after 20 years of marriage he is done...........she gets nothing if she cannot afford a good lawyer.

Yes, that IS an injustice. I don't see how eliminating marriage eliminates the injustice. I think that there are ways to deal with those situations that *don't* require dissolving marriage.

If we are going to rethink queer, then we must rethink not queer. If we are ever to defeat the patriarchy then we must not use patriarchal value systems. A woman who stays at home and raises children deserves decent pay for her work for society and deserves more than cat food when she is to old to have and raise the children and grandchildren.

I'm with you on defeating the patriarchy but I'm not sure what you mean by patriarchal value systems? And by whose measure?

But on the rethinking not queer, how do you convince not queer people to go along with your grand vision? We may get there, Toughy, but if we do I'd be surprised if I were alive long enough to see it. I say that because human beings appear to be wired for knitting together in social structures and one of those social structures is a pair-bond. We are not an *entirely* monogamous species but, as a species, we lean toward monogamy. Nature gets a vote, Toughy and I don't see society going in the direction you are talking about, specifically regarding marriage, of its own volition. We've been forming pair-bonds for a very, very, very, long time. That is going to be a hard habit to break because our brains are wired-up in such a way that they really *like* bonding. I don't know how you convince the rest of the species to give up marriage. How do you do that, Toughy?

Just to give you something to chew on, consider that I am not religious. I am not a political conservative. I'm a secularist and a humanist. I'm a social democrat. And I am expressing profound reservations about your vision even though I see how I would benefit from it. So if I'm a hard sell, how do you sell it to people who are ideologically far from you?

Cheers
Aj

[citybutch]

Hey Toughy...

*hugs* and hope all is well.... Your hugs and support remain with me.

I just want to say that marriage IS a function of the State... In fact, it always has been...

And unfortunately the benefits of marriage are not accomplished through contract law.

Even with appropriate legal planning we miss out on so many things including but not limited to:

Social Security benefits
Pension Benefits
Tax advantaged group health care benefits
Tax free transfer of property benefits (whether alive or dead)
Unlimited Marital Deduction
Gifting Issues on Real Property and other forms of property
Family Leave Benefits
Joint Tax filings (or not)
Immigration benefits
Medicaid (Medical) benefits and spend down limits

And on and on...

Basically the property laws of our country are based on British (common) and Spanish (community property) law (and there is Louisiana which is based in Roman or Civil law). To disrupt the law would mean undoing centuries of Western European civil discourse... literally.... and something that because of colonialism has literally spread across the planet. Sadly, it is not based in US history... nor is it symptomatic of our current society... rather it is endemic to the understanding of how we interact with each other. For example, common law is based on how we understand how we SHOULD interact with each other. Civil law, on the other hand, is based on how we interact with each other being mandated by law. They are different world views as far as HOW the social contract is established.

Originally Posted by Toughy

I think marriage as an issue is the epitome of assimilation. The revolutionary thought is marriage is a sacred spiritual bond and as such has no place in government recognition. All of the benefits of civil marriage are actually legal benefits that include right of survivorship and transfer of property. All of those things can be accomplished by way of legal contracts. Civil marriage does not guarantee the contract will be honored, so what is the frigging point? Legal contracts in the form of marriage and death benefits are contested on a daily basis everywhere in this country. Pre-nups are common to protect the interests of each party..........again legal contracts.

I want a radical shift in social organizing. Marriage is NOT the business of the State. Benefits of any individual should go where the person wants...period. The US has some fucked up ideas about Social Security and health care. Women are treated as second class citizens because of marriage. A woman stays at home and the husband works, and she only gets benefits because of her husband. She is not a whole human being and the value of her work in the home is void. Women who are married part of their life and hold no outside job get nothing because they did not pay into Social Security. They worked their entire lives and if hubby decides after 20 years of marriage he is done...........she gets nothing if she cannot afford a good lawyer.

If we are going to rethink queer, then we must rethink not queer. If we are ever to defeat the patriarchy then we must not use patriarchal value systems. A woman who stays at home and raises children deserves decent pay for her work for society and deserves more than cat food when she is to old to have and raise the children and grandchildren.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by citybutch

Hey Toughy...

*hugs* and hope all is well.... Your hugs and support remain with me.

I just want to say that marriage IS a function of the State... In fact, it always has been...

And unfortunately the benefits of marriage are not accomplished through contract law.

Even with appropriate legal planning we miss out on so many things including but not limited to:

Social Security benefits
Pension Benefits
Tax advantaged group health care benefits
Tax free transfer of property benefits (whether alive or dead)
Unlimited Marital Deduction
Gifting Issues on Real Property and other forms of property
Family Leave Benefits
Joint Tax filings (or not)
Immigration benefits
Medicaid (Medical) benefits and spend down limits

And on and on...

Basically the property laws of our country are based on British (common) and Spanish (community property) law (and there is Louisiana which is based in Roman or Civil law). To disrupt the law would mean undoing centuries of Western European civil discourse... literally.... and something that because of colonialism has literally spread across the planet. Sadly, it is not based in US history... nor is it symptomatic of our current society... rather it is endemic to the understanding of how we interact with each other. For example, common law is based on how we understand how we SHOULD interact with each other. Civil law, on the other hand, is based on how we interact with each other being mandated by law. They are different world views as far as HOW the social contract is established.

Thanks so much for this articulation, City! There is so much more involved with the issues of civil rights and marriage. To my mind, it could be the single most important means to our being able to fight all of our fights. It is about legitimizing in terms of law and legislation. It is not simply about "marriage" at all.

Let us not forget the impact of passage of legislation for interacial marriage did as a vehicle of human rights.

[Toughy]

By sacred spiritual bond I am talking about pair bonding and a religious or legal aspect is not required to have that bond. I'm so not a believer in a personal god.

Holding tightly to the tools of the patriarchy will never change the patriarchy. Civil and religious marriage are tools of the patriarchy used to control girls and women. Slavery was (and still is) a tool of the patriarchy and was so ingrained in all societies and cultures and endorsed by the law and religion. One probably heard the same arguments when the idea that slavery was wrong started permeating society and cultures around the world. Slavery was centuries old and appeared to be critical to the social structure of the entire world. Guess what...........it wasn't and isn't.

All those legal benefits civil marriage gets don't have to be connected to civil marriage.

There is no reason to believe that social structure is stagnant. Obviously it's not and there is no reason to keep defending the structure of marriage. It's no one's business how I order my life and what kind of family I create and live in.

As long as we keep arguing for our limitations and hold fast to how the patriarchy runs the world, we will keep having those limitations and the patriarchy. Paradigm shifts do happen and it always starts with one person.

[SecretAgentMa'am]

Toughy,

I've been reading your responses here with absolutely no clue how to respond. At first, I thought you had to be joking, then I realized you were in fact very serious. I'm really having some trouble wrapping my brain around your ideas here.

It looks to me very much like your idea of how you think society should be structured involves the end of religious freedom for anyone who disagrees with you. It also appears that you're in favor of only the rich being able to gain the benefits that currently come with marriage (since poor people generally can't afford lawyers to draw up contracts for them). Now you're comparing marriage with slavery, which I honestly find offensive. If this is your vision of life without the patriarchy, I want no part of it. It doesn't sound even remotely revolutionary or utopian to me. Or have I misunderstood you?

[dreadgeek]

Toughy:

Firstly, just because a similar argument was made for slavery does not mean that the argument necessarily works. The logic you are using is this:

People said slavery was natural, critical to society, etc. Slavery was a moral evil. People said a moral evil was critical to society. They were wrong. THEREFORE, any argument on the basis of it being critical to society is also suspect.

The problem is that it does not follow. Just because society was wrong about slavery and used a very bad and inconsistent logic to reach their wrong conclusion *does not mean* that any argument reaching a similar conclusion is therefore wrong. To see why let's take this. Just so it's clear that this is NOT a Godwin violation I am NOT comparing any position that anyone has taken with anything the Nazi's ever did or espoused.

The Nazi's were wrong about any number of things. Nazi scientists were the first to link smoking with cancer. But the Nazi's were wrong. THEREFORE, they must have been wrong about smoking causing cancer. Except that smoking DOES cause cancer. Does that mean we now have to reverse position and claim that since they were right about this one thing, they must have (or might have been or we endorse) anything else they might have stated? No.

Works both ways, Toughy. Perhaps you are right but this *still* avoids the central question. Again, for the purposes of this discussion I am willing to stipulate that you are right. I grant you that IF society were arranged in a way more congenial to your idea of what society *should* be like (and whether you are willing to acknowledge that you are talking about remaking society as you would like it to be, that IS what you are talking about) THEN society would be a better place. My question is how do you get society to go along with you?

That's the question you keep avoiding, Toughy. What if the rest of us, or a majority of us, find your idea suspect? What then? How do you convince a society to *completely* change how things are done if they do not want to?

Since you invoked slavery, I'm going to remind you of how slavery ended. The South did NOT want to end slavery. Blacks did but white Southerners, for the most part, saw nothing particularly abhorrent about the system and would have been happy to let it continue indefinitely. Slavery ended because the North invaded the South, beat them into abject submission, and then imposed emancipation at the point of a bayonet. Are you prepared to go to that length, Toughy?

Now, the South was manifestly wrong. There are no arguments that one can make in favor of slavery that do not start out with having to deny the humanity of the enslaved group. But the point here is not whether the South was wrong (that is not in dispute) it is HOW the South ended up having to accept that slavery would no longer be allowed in this nation. It is now illegal to have slaves. Is THAT what you are after, Toughy? Making it *illegal* to marry?

Again, you don't have to convince me--at least not for the moment. I am stipulating that your idea of how to order society is *self-evidently* better, for the purposes of this discussion. My concern is how you get from where we are now, to where you believe we should be. Again, how do you deal with the innumerable people who are either unconvinced that this actually *will* be a better world or who are convinced that it will *not* be a better world? That's the question, Toughy.

Cheers
Aj

Originally Posted by Toughy

By sacred spiritual bond I am talking about pair bonding and a religious or legal aspect is not required to have that bond. I'm so not a believer in a personal god.

Holding tightly to the tools of the patriarchy will never change the patriarchy. Civil and religious marriage are tools of the patriarchy used to control girls and women. Slavery was (and still is) a tool of the patriarchy and was so ingrained in all societies and cultures and endorsed by the law and religion. One probably heard the same arguments when the idea that slavery was wrong started permeating society and cultures around the world. Slavery was centuries old and appeared to be critical to the social structure of the entire world. Guess what...........it wasn't and isn't.

All those legal benefits civil marriage gets don't have to be connected to civil marriage.

There is no reason to believe that social structure is stagnant. Obviously it's not and there is no reason to keep defending the structure of marriage. It's no one's business how I order my life and what kind of family I create and live in.

As long as we keep arguing for our limitations and hold fast to how the patriarchy runs the world, we will keep having those limitations and the patriarchy. Paradigm shifts do happen and it always starts with one person.

[AtLast]

Re- "marriage." The literature (based upon new studies) now being published by various social and behavioral scientists post the 2010 census, brings out some very radical changes in how the US views it. It ain't our fathers & mothers institution any longer. And something that I have been quite happy about is that it is not what the US far-right would want us all to believe.

So many of the property-based and child custody kinds of things we tend to associate with marriage are just no longer at the heart of why people (any kind of people) would marry.

Society does change and so do our institutions. Sometimes, a lot slower than many of us would like- but they do change.

Maybe as more and more of this new body of work is viewed and understood, we will address our "utopias" very differently?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by weatherboi

Marriage presently enslaves women all over the world.

Yes, it does, depending upon the couple in question and local conditions on the ground. However, are you saying that NONE of the women who are married--whether that is a m/f pairing or a f/f pairing (for sake of simplicity I am considering m/f to encompass any male person)--are there willingly? If you are, how do you explain so many women who have some choice making an inauthentic choice? Unless you are saying that ANY woman, chosen at random, regardless of cultural background, is enslaved if she is married then you need to explain the presence of women who, we will for the moment presume are self-interested, rational agents, see themselves as happily married and believe that they entered their marriage of their own free will. So, is that they are not happy but they don't realize it? If that is not the case then is it the case that they are happy but for the wrong reasons? If so, what are the right reasons for women to be happy?

I am not making an argument denying that for vast numbers of women around the world, marriage IS slavery. The more patriarchal the society, the *less* the society has embraced the idea of inalienable rights of humans, the more likely it is to be the case that marriage will resemble slavery. I am, rather, arguing that if what you say is true then we need not explain women in areas where they have little or no choice. Rather, we have to explain women who DO have a choice. Why would women, economically empowered, educated women *voluntarily* enter into slavery *particularly* when some number of these women took women's studies courses in college and are well aware of the patriarchy. Are they *also* expressing inauthentic preferences or false consciousness?

Unless I have reason to believe otherwise, whether or not I agree with her choices, I have to presume that a woman who is empowered to make choices is going to make good choices in the lack of coercion. Therefore, if a woman who is not under coercion or mental duress, I presume that her choices are authentic and that her preferences are as well.

Cheers
Aj

[weatherboi]

Hey AJ-

Sorry that was just one sentence from
A post I made that got erased when I posted from my iPhone. I shouldn't try and post from here cause it never works out. That why I deleted it but Toughy hit something inside me and there I went! I will come back and answer when I get home. My apologies.

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMa'am

Toughy,

I've been reading your responses here with absolutely no clue how to respond. At first, I thought you had to be joking, then I realized you were in fact very serious. I'm really having some trouble wrapping my brain around your ideas here.

It looks to me very much like your idea of how you think society should be structured involves the end of religious freedom for anyone who disagrees with you. It also appears that you're in favor of only the rich being able to gain the benefits that currently come with marriage (since poor people generally can't afford lawyers to draw up contracts for them). Now you're comparing marriage with slavery, which I honestly find offensive. If this is your vision of life without the patriarchy, I want no part of it. It doesn't sound even remotely revolutionary or utopian to me. Or have I misunderstood you?

I'm not sure why you think my comments about civil marriage have anything to do with religious freedom or religious marriage. However, I am always wary of the religious freedom meme. Religious freedom is used as a reason to perform genital mutilation on girls all over the world. One could even make the case of male circumcision being mutilation and it's roots are in religion. Religion is what is driving much of the sexism and homophobia is this country (and other countries). Religions can do good for society and they can do harm for society. When religion is harmful, it should held accountable. Religion is not particularly sacrosanct for me.

There are many ways to deal with how contracts are drawn up without using a lawyer. You don't need a lawyer to have a medical or legal power of attorney done. You can do a will and testament without a lawyer. There are standard forms available for just about any legal agreement. There are also free legal clinics across the country.

The real issue has to do with how the US democracy is ordered. Ours is not the best model out there. There are plenty of other ways to do democracy and have it work for everyone. Our social safety net needs a ton of work because it's not a safety net, particularly if we continue to punish those less fortunate. Giving corporations welfare is far more important than taking care of people.

I did not compare marriage and slavery, although marriage certainly was a form of slavery in the past and still is in some places today. I used slavery as an example of what was considered the normal paradigm and that paradigm shifted.

Dismantling systems takes time and will generate problems that can be dealt with. Digging in and saying it can't work just stifles growth and the opportunity to create a better society.

[SecretAgentMa'am]

Originally Posted by Toughy

I'm not sure why you think my comments about civil marriage have anything to do with religious freedom or religious marriage.

You mentioned in an earlier post that in your vision, Benny Hinn would not be on TV. How would that work, exactly? It seems to me that the only way to stop the Benny Hinns of the world from doing what they do is to make their religion illegal.

However, I am always wary of the religious freedom meme. Religious freedom is used as a reason to perform genital mutilation on girls all over the world. One could even make the case of male circumcision being mutilation and it's roots are in religion. Religion is what is driving much of the sexism and homophobia is this country (and other countries). Religions can do good for society and they can do harm for society. When religion is harmful, it should held accountable. Religion is not particularly sacrosanct for me.

Abuses do happen within the context of some religions, but that doesn't mean that ending the religion would end the abuse. Those abuses would happen whether a religion were involved or not, the people doing the abusing would just come up with a different excuse if they didn't have religion to fall back on. Abuse is wrong regardless of context. Blaming the context does nothing to stop the abuse.

There are many ways to deal with how contracts are drawn up without using a lawyer. You don't need a lawyer to have a medical or legal power of attorney done. You can do a will and testament without a lawyer. There are standard forms available for just about any legal agreement. There are also free legal clinics across the country.

Have you ever been to one of those free legal clinics? I have. Hours and hours of waiting to spend five minutes talking to a lawyer who doesn't really have the time or the inclination to tell you anything beyond "you need to hire a lawyer" or "you have no legal standing, hiring a lawyer won't help you." And I was just looking for help with a simple name change. That system isn't capable of picking up all the slack that would result from the end of marriage while people still want or need to blend their lives with their partner's. Yes, legal forms are available. They're also difficult to understand, especially for those who don't have a lot of education. Filing fees can run into the hundreds of dollars. Just because it's possible to do it without a lawyer doesn't make it feasible for a large percentage of the population.

The real issue has to do with how the US democracy is ordered. Ours is not the best model out there. There are plenty of other ways to do democracy and have it work for everyone. Our social safety net needs a ton of work because it's not a safety net, particularly if we continue to punish those less fortunate. Giving corporations welfare is far more important than taking care of people.

On this we agree.

I did not compare marriage and slavery, although marriage certainly was a form of slavery in the past and still is in some places today. I used slavery as an example of what was considered the normal paradigm and that paradigm shifted.

Dismantling systems takes time and will generate problems that can be dealt with. Digging in and saying it can't work just stifles growth and the opportunity to create a better society.

Similarly, demanding equal consideration for every rainbows-and-unicorns, pie-in-the-sky fantasy that someone can dream up does the same thing. The fact is, some things really, truly can't work. Maybe they could if we were working with some species other than humans, but we're not. Religious freedom may not mean much to you, but it does mean a whole lot to the vast majority of the population. Do you have any kind of plan for how to make religion stop mattering to humans who've been practicing religion in some form for millions of years? Are you advocating outlawing religion? If so, how do you think that should be enforced. If Benny Hinn did get on TV in your world, should there be a punishment of some kind for him?

[Toughy]

I'm gonna make this short.

Don't twist what I said. I never have said anything about eliminating religious marriage. It's not the same thing as civil marriage. I never said religion should be gone. I said I wanted the hate mongers gone. I said when religion does harm it should be held accountable. It never has been held accountable for mass murder and war. I am done talking about religion.

I am not alone in my view that civil marriage needs to be re-thought. Lots of folks feel the same way. It's just not a popular position here on the Planet.

and by the way........I was in a spiritually bonded relationship for 16 yrs. I generally say I was married. Dissolving that bond was not near as easy as getting a divorce in a civil marriage (no children were involved).