Alternate title: Gay Marriage Protects American Families.
Science Blogs’ Dispatches from the Culture Wars brings us a story originally found at 365Gay:
Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond had planned to take their three children on a family cruise. The Olympia, Washington couple had been together 18 years and with their children were looking forward to the holiday.
But just as they were about to depart on the cruise from Miami, Florida. Pond, a healthy 39-year-old, suddenly collapsed. She was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami with Langbehn and the children following close behind.
But once Langbehn and the children arrived at the hospital the hospital refused to accept information from her about Ponds’s medical history.
Langbehn says she was informed that she was in an antigay city and state, and she could expect to receive no information or acknowledgment as family.
A doctor finally spoke with Janice telling her that there was no chance of recovery.
Other than one five minute visit, which was orchestrated by a Catholic priest at Langbehn’s request to perform last rites, and despite the doctor’s acknowledgement that no medical reason existed to prevent visitation, neither she nor her children were allowed to see Pond until nearly eight hours after their arrival.
Soon after Pond”s death, Langbehn tried to get her death certificate in order to get life insurance and Social Security benefits for their children. She was denied both by the State of Florida and the Dade County Medical Examiner.
Awesome. Tell me again how blocking same-sex marriage builds stronger families?
Allowing partners who are raising children together to marry is simply the moral, loving, socially responsible choice.
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p>Fighting discrimination in marriage is the right thing to do.
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p>And, in the event, a same sex couple raising children separates, why should the children be denied contact and support from the psychological parent they do not live with? But it happends all the time without same sex marriage for same sex parents.
Lots of marriages don’t have children, so why should they have to be raising children? Oh, right, they shouldn’t have to be raising children, so that’s a sort of straw man to bring up, isn’t it? And lots of couples raising children aren’t married, maybe they aren’t even a “couple” and don’t want to be, perhaps they are even married to other people and share custody. And straight couples raising children break up too, and whether or not they were married has nothing to do with how the lawyers and judges decide custody and visitation or support obligations. Whether they are a bio parent also has nothing to do with custody and visitation either (though it usually means support obligations, of course, even if the father has never seen the children, which is often bargained down by demanding some visitation time, even if no one really wants it).
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p>The problem with this case was with the hospital not accepting the partner’s medical authority. Why should a spouse automatically have medical authority? The spouse might barely know their partner, let alone their medical history or their wishes. It would seem to be pretty unrelated to marriage, or to any of the other aspects of marriage, like having children, inheritance issues and shared debts, maybe these all should be entirely separate documents and contracts. If we were to make every aspect of marriage a separate contract with potentially different people, which thing would still be the thing we called marriage? Are any of the aspects inseparable?
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… be a problem for spouses having ‘default’ medical authority, if it is reasonable to the consensus of the society at large. Special circumstances can warrant exceptions of course. After all, ‘default’ custody is with married cohabitating biological parents. Of course in different or special circumstances this ‘default’ is deviated from.
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p>”Whether they are a bio parent also has nothing to do with custody and visitation either.” Is that really the case? I mean, if someone sues for visitation and the judge says “OK… who are you then?” and you say “The biological parent.” am I to understand that carries no weight? If so I guess there is even more about family law I don’t understand.
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p>I see what you are getting at about aspects of marriage and it is an interesting point. I guess though, in principal, I’m not opposed to a set of ‘default’ positions that come with married status. Such ‘default’ positions can always be excepted if necessary.
Yeah, there’s not a problem with default status coming from marriage, but it shouldn’t be the only way to set up some statuses.
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p>The judge would give all facts their due weight, but bio-relatedness doesn’t compel a decision one way or another, except in the case of support obligations. I guess “nothing to do with” is overstating the point, what I meant was, it isn’t a trump card.
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p>I wish AmberPaw would respond to those points, hopefully with honesty.
Frightening, isn’t it. Thanks for the post.
and unconscionable, to boot.
This is so upsetting, and just unconscionable that this can happen. Please tell me that the partner is now suing? There is no excuse for this…but I have to tell you that when my father fell ill in Florida, he wasn’t treated much better. There aren’t “services” in Florida like we in Massachusetts can expect. People with mental health issues are sent to county lock up. I had to bring my father back to good old Massachusetts in order to make sure he received the treatment he needed.
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p>I’d also like to state that this “anti-gay” city and state has nothing to do with Christianity…at least not Christianity practiced by people who actually understand it. The city and state, after all, are secular institutions practicing bigotry.
for example, last year in seattle a woman was prevented, for a time, from being with her wife (a drowning victim) and make critical health care decisions for her because hospital personnel would not recognize their relationship.
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p>some hospitals are fine with gay couples. but the uncertainty over what kind of treatment we will receive at critical times takes a large emotional toll. especially while traveling.
Marriage is a Sacrament, ordained of God. Should you not choose, for whatever reason, to believe in God, that is, of course, your decision, which does not make the Sacrament any less valid.
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p>What that DOES do is provide you with ZERO reason to elaborate about the Sacrament of marriage.
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p>I have discussed on this board before, and will continue to do the same, alternative answers to the idea that non-qualified couples should engage in desecrating our sacrament. David and Laurel both can, if they would, testify to that, and I have not changed that position. The merit of marriage beyond that discussed in the Scriptures is non-existent. The potential for desecration, whether in Washington State (where I live) or in Blue/Red Mass, is mighty.
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p>My heart goes out to these two ladies, and to their children. What an absolute insult to sensibility! But, unfortunately, what an absolute failure on their part to ensure, through legal means available to them without restriction, the means to consumate their wishes. Why they did not avail themselves of this privilege is beyond the scope of these comments, but it is clear that they chose not to do so in vain hope of an alternative resolution to their perceived predicament.
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p>Recognition of one state’s behavioral choices by another state is part of the fabric of our governmental behavior. It does not always become manifest, but in this case,I think it could have. Florida may be a bit red-neck-ish, but Florida will comply with the intent of that fabric, given the option to do so. If you absolutely feel the need to campaign in another direction than my (and the general public’s) beliefs, please do not deprive yourself of the means available to you in the interim!
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p>Best,
Chuck
on a reality-based blog.
. . . is an oxymoron. Your state was founded by people looking to escape the kinds of lunacy that today’s MassLeadership seems to espouse. Marriage, to all of them was between a man and a woman. That hasn’t changed, in the minds of the types of people who founded your state.
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p>If you elect an alternative lifestyle, elect also the alternatives, and embrace them. Please do not try to change the reality the rest of us understand, unless it should be changed — and this one should NOT!
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p>On a personal note, sorry I have not been around lately to harass you and David, and others (tblade!) I have, unfortunately, been hospitalized for lengthy periods for problems affecting ambulatory capabilities. I am once again capable of getting to my computer and writing Republican invectives, etc. Know any good barristers in WA state who can unravel a mess created by doctors who should have known better?
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p>It is seriously good to be back and giving you crap, Laurel! ;).
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p>Best,
Chuck
…was originally conceived as a civil union well in advance of the birth of Christ. Do a little research.
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p>Massachusetts was founded by people who understood that relying on religion for government if very tricky. Masschusetts has had purely civil marriage since colonial times.
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p>With the least amount of respect I can manage to muster, you are wrong in every measure.
Good to be back, Anthony. RE: marriage, outside the Judeo-Christian sphere, there were myriad kinds of marriages. None of them met the qualifying standard for marriage between a man and a woman, under the auspices of the Judeo-Christian church.
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p>Arguably, there are those jurisdictions within These United States which go in a different direction than my argument. Arguably, they are outside the norm.
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p>It is hard to “be fruitful and multiply” if you are not capable of reproduction as a couple. And those of us who are are both mainstream, and in the vast majority, do not wish to dictate to the minority in these instances, except to defend our sacrament, and THERE ARE AVENUES AVAILABLE TO THOSE WHO DO NOT CHOOSE THE MAINSTREAM THAT DO NOT TAKE THEM THERE. I intimated earlier in a response to this thread that I truly felt horribly bad for the two ladies with children in Florida. I still do. I think their situation was a nightmare. But if handled within the confines of existing law, this need not have happened.
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p>Don’t get me wrong, please. I do not wish to state that I compromise in any way my beliefs, or our sacrament. I simply acknowledge the existence of those who are of a different bent than I am, and try to help them steer clear of attacking our sacraments in their quest for normalization of their chosen lifestyle,to the detriment of the other ninety-plus percent of the rest of us.
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p>Best,
Chuck
In ten years you’ll be fully outside the norm, if you aren’t already. New York will probably legalize same sex marriage in 2009, New Jersey almost assuredly in 2009, and California probably in 2011 or 2012. How long Middle America and Mormonia aka “the Mainstream” hold out after that, as states adopt it one after another, is more or less an academic question. My guess is we’ll have more than 40 states by 2025.
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p>Only Christian Right propagandists use the term “Judeo-Christian”, btw, because most Jews and liberal Christians don’t agree with just about anything claimed under that label.
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p>Christianity proper isn’t a fertility cult or a child breeding cult, despite lots of pagan syncretism and contemporary propaganda to make it so. Abstinence and celibacy are preferable to marriage, if you read actually read Paul’s letters.
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p>Oh, we don’t get you wrong. We’re watching the 1% per year de-churching rate and continued downmarket shifting of dogmatic syncretized ‘Christianity’ along with theoretical and dogmatic notions like your sacramentalism.
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p>I mean, you will hardly have knowledge by experience whether SSM is sacramental or not, or the eyes and heart to see it if you did. I’ll gladly testify that in my experience it is spiritually what it is claimed to be.
By definition, a Christian is a person who accepts the teachings and precepts of Jesus Christ. Please, liberal Left, point out to me where Christ said hmosexuality was acceptable for His followers. Please point out to me where He stated that it was acceptable for a man to marry a man, and remain within His fold. Please point out to me where He said the rules of marriage, as He thought of it, should be changed by either governments, or by individuals.
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p>On second thought, don’t waste your time — or mine. Your arguments would be secularly specious at best, and lamely false at worst. Accept that you, if you follow those precepts, are decidedly outside the Christian norm — and I am not referring to a sect, or a cult, I am referring to Christians as those who elect to follow His teachings and the Scriptures as He and His followers wrote them.
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p>Decidedly, you can all point to liberals who are not follOWIng His teachings, and yet who claim to be Christians. The Episcopal Diocese of Olympia is now headed by a “bishop” who is a declared and pracricing homosexual, and who has a live-in male lover. That the liberals accept this and allow it to continue does not re-define Christianity, only the Bible can do that — SOLA SCRIPTURA! DO NOT INSULT YOUR OWN INTELLIGENCE BY TRYING TO JUSTIFY THIS AS THE NORM FOR CHRISTIANS; IT IS DECIDEDLY NOT! (Uh, shout intended!)
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p>So-called “liberalization” of the Church is nothing more than a distinct and evident falling away from Christ and His teachings. This is not to say that my heart, and the hearts of all true Christians, do(es) not go out to the two ladies, and their children, involved in the Florida issue. It IS to say, that, if they were led so far astray by the liberal left as to think their arrangement could be accepted everywhere, they were wrong.
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p>Those who did not allow them to behave as dedicated mates under such difficult circumstances were not only just as wrong, but were decidedly not following the true meaning of the Hippocratic Oath. “First, do no harm!” They grasped at technical straws to make a point of rejecting miserable and suffering humans; this has NOTHING to do with the true Christian!
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p>Launch your tomatoes now!
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p>Best,
Chuck
…where he condemns it?
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p>A great deal of canonic law has nothing to do with the scripture, so SOLA SCRIPTURA is BS.
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p>And please allow me to point out yet again that Christianity and civil marriage have nothing to do with one another. You can thump that Bible till your fingers bleed and it won’t change that one little bit.
… leftward from the Bible is Liberalizing Christianity then you are all Liberalized Christians, unless you stone adulterers, slay pagans and condone slavery. You all put your own spin on the particulars in the book and with all that spinning going on I don’t really thin any of you can claim the kind of authority necessary to determine that one particular spin is objectively ‘too’ liberal. You’re all liberal in your spin.
…Judeo-Christian bias marbles and go play somewhere else. This is not a church and neither is 99.99999% of the entire world.
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p>Before the ratification of the constitution every jurisdiction in the US, save Virginia, had purely civil marriage and most had, for some time, at that point. Virginia enacted purely civil marriage shortly thereafter. There is no argument here, you are just straight up wrong and are presuming knowledge based on your own prejudice and ignoring historic fact. I again implore you to do some research because you are embarrasing yourself.
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p>Civil law requires not fruitful multiplication, and, duh, those women had children, together.
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p>Your sacrament as you call it is not affected by my marriage. I have no interest in your church and the Contitution protects your church from being told how to aminister said sacraments.
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p>Frankly, you are full of BS. You have misrepresented history, made no colorable argument that any sacrament is compromised and feign to care while you method of caring guarantees this sort of thing will continue unabated. In short, all of teh “Chistiness” and none of the Christianity.
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p>Transparent clap trap.
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p>
You said, “This is not a church and neither is 99.99999% of the entire world.”
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p>Uh, Anthony, in Africa ALONE there are THREE HUNDRED FIFTY MILLION practicing Christians.
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p>(http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1078)
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p>Worldwide, Christianity is second only to Mohammedanism (Islam) as a practiced religion. The only reason it is second, is that Islamic people are forced, upon pain of death for noncompliance, to follow it. So when you hit your knees tonight, thank God you live in a country where you are not at gunpoint regarding your beliefs!
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p>Best,
Chuck
You’ll find that to be more than the 20% of the population that practices Islam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M…
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p>But I don’t think that is what anthony was referring to.
…and Christians have never forced people upon pain of death to follow the “teachings”.
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p>You don’t really have the moral high ground here.
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p>And I was referring to churches, brick and mortar, not people. For it is in those buildings and in those buildings alone where the new testament has any power. In the rest of the free world there is this little thing called free will.
How do you think Christianity became so wide spread in the first place?
Since when does any mainstream church refuse to marry people who are not capable of having children?
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p>Also there is no such thing as “The Judeo-Christian Church”. What have you been smoking?
My error. Should have written “Judeo-Christian ethic.”
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p>And to correct what has been misinterpreted, I do not look at Christians as breeders. I used the phrase as an example, not as a fundamental building block. So did God, when He originally used it in Genesis!
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p>Best,
Chuck
That is a made up word that Christians use to seem more inclusive. You won’t find too many Jews using that term. Besides even Christians don’t all believe the same things. There are plenty of Christian churches that are quite happy to perform marriages for same-sex couples and welcome them into their congegrations.
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p>Glad you are willing to admit that reproduction is not the reason for marriage. I am getting tired of that argument.
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p>You “simply” acknowledge, as some sort of passing gesture, I imagine,
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p>those of a “different bent,” say, something like those who like chicken v. those who like fish,
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p>and are trying “to help them steer clear,” in much the same way an uncle passes on friendly advice about avoiding cooties,
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p>of “attacking our sacraments,” which would be heresy, you see,
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p>”in their quest for normalization,” which we all know is Quixotic in its futility,
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p>”of their chosen lifestyle,” which we “simply” all know, again, is a choice to sin,
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p>so that the “other ninety-plus percent of the rest of us” can grind these perverts into the ground, thus alleviating us of the burden of having to share oxygen with them.
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p>——————————–
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p>Yeah, we get it.
Christ supped with sinners because He understood that those who were not in need of His ministry could gain nothing else from His precious time.
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p>And, with respect, what you seem to “get” is the wrong message. Perhaps I am not framing it correctly? I preach tolerance, acceptance and love for my fellow man, and you read arrogance, condemnation and impatient intolerance?
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p>My, oh my!
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p>Gay marriage is an unrealistic agenda. It has no, repeat NO, place in reality. BlueMass advertises itself as reality-based. Where is the reality of a marriage between Don and Jim, or Lisa and Sally?
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p>This is not to say that I have some hate-filled agenda against gays and lesbians. Far from it, as my past correspondence on the subject (should you care to look it up, if still available) will show. I have offered alternatives to sacramental destruction, but the agenda seems to be just that! So, I oppose the agenda. Try to internalize that I do NOT despair of loving my fellow humans of whatever persuasion as a result.
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p>Will some of the Northeastern states and perhaps CALIFOORRNNNIIIAA decide to embrace the concept? Probably, as the last cogent thought in Massachusetts occurred on the Boston Commons at “the shot heard ’round the world.” No one will ever accuse Mass as being within the American mainstream, for all of its history. One need only to point to your Senators to verify that fact.
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p>The message, contrary to all shallow-mindedness, is NEVER the medium!
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p>Best,
Chuck
… tell all those homosexual couples that got married in Massachusetts that they aren’t married in “reality”?
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p>Why exactly should they believe your assertion of what ‘reality’ is over the reality they live and love every day?
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p>Which ‘reality’ would a Christian (or any other) god of love really find worthy of blessing?
but it’s just denial at bottom. And that dies out.
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p>The young don’t care what you think, they know what they see and experience. Support for gay marriage increases 1% per year nationally as the old die away and the young find rationales like yours not worth believing.
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p>You shortchange us here…we’re the reason neo-Puritans like yourself are forever opposed. In your scorn you slightly overlook other actions since 1776- the abolition of slavery that Massachusetts was early to pass, the instituting of mandatory schooling (to prevent child labor), the argument with South Carolina that ended in their destruction.
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p>Nor do you seem to know the late 1650s story of Mary Dyer, ending in her hanging, that (along with other persecutions) led to the First Amendment and historical discrediting of theocracy.
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p>Theocracy invariably morally fails and kills its hardcore critics. That is its fatal internal paradox. This tragic cruise ship story is a lesser illustration of this ineradicable and eternal fault.
I am well aware of what you describe in your response. And “the times they are a’changin'” seems to rear its head about every generation, just about long enough for the upstarts to screw things up for themselves, and have to spend their next forty years trying to unravel the damage.
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p>I am not into Theocracy. My studies in that realm are from rather concrete sources, and Theocracy is limited for me to the Trinity.
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p>And if an additional one percent per year seem to be embracing the gay lifestyle, I suspect strongly that will end as soon as those few percentage embracing it have escaped the closet. Indeed, if I may so suggest, the flappers, the jitterbuggers, the rock’n’rollers, the druggies, the hippies, the disco-ites and the Clintonites all seem to have come and gone. Try to appreciate that gays are simply people with a different sexual desire, which hardly forms the basis for a radical change to our society any more than the above.
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p>I am quite sure you can point to myriad details of law, marches, and much else which drive the straight world to distraction, just as the aforementioned fads did. I am also quite sure that none of this makes much in the way of difference in the overall scheme of things. Once the gay community gets over itself, they too will be marginalized and will not be a reckoning force within the overall fabric of America any mopre than Elvis or Al Jolson were.
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p>Just crying in the wilderness, snow, ol’ buddy.
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p>Best,
Chuck
Gay identifying people are about 3% of the adult population. Solid support for SSM legalization has increased from 38% to 40% of voters from 2005 to 2007.
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p>The number of people who oppose any legal recognition is around the 40% mark and has been shrinking since late 2004.
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p>Support for other hardcore social conservative policies- say, the death penalty, forbidding interracial marriage- is also declining at 1% per year. No events seem to really affect the trend in a permanent way in either direction. Or rather, it’s the death of the old and the young coming into adulthood in a world in which those rules no longer serve any social good.
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p>I think if you talk to average young people in their twenties, they don’t see SSM as “a radical change to our society”. Rather, they see it more as a completion of what we are and should be as a society. Indeed, they don’t get why people like you get so hung up on appearances, pornographic ideations, and bizarre inconsistent theories that amount to “the Pope doesn’t like it, my dad hated gays for reasons never explained, and contrary to actual evidence I vehemently assert that gay people don’t have spiritual love or souls.” They’re also sharp enough to recognize that the only serious motivation for such a position is that you have to assert yourself better than somebody.
And your SOURCES for all these numbers?
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p>Best,
Chuck
…marched on Washington. Wow, I missed that.
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p>I also missed the decision where the supreme court held that disco admirers had a fourteenth amendment right to be free from prosecution for being who they were.
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p>And apparently there were hippies in every society since there has been society.
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p>Cause there’s no difference between gay people and all of the above right?
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p>I suppose as an avid student of history you fell asleep in class a lot.
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p>
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p>No you don’t. It is not tolerant to lobby or advocate marginalizing a population whose lifestyle differs from your own.
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p>There is no acceptance, in any real sense of the word, in anything you write, only an acknowledgement that gays and lesbians seem to exist, in some measure, on the same planet.
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p>Your arrogance is fully on display as your writing displays an inability to view other belief systems as worthy of respect as well as a cavalier disregard for historical fact.
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p>And, lastly, here, your impatient intolerance is what is fueling your desire to pursue an agenda that is hurtful and selfish.
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p>
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p>It is all around you, only you refuse to acknowledge it. Open your eyes.
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p>
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p>These types of statements suggest an underlying pathology, so I will simply state that the content of your actual writing belies you.
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p>You are a religious fascist, and no amount of contrived courtliness or faux compassion will mitigate that fact.
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p>
I am a woman married to a man, but we are “not capable of reproduction as a couple” (that is, without some pretty advanced medical technology we chose not to pursue). We are also humanists who had a beautiful marriage ceremony that was devoid of any god-talk.
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p>You have a pretty stupid definition of marriage. That is your right, but the state should in no way be in the business of attending to your “sacraments.”
They only exist if you believe in them. They have no legal weight. Furthermore, one religion’s sacrament of marriage has no relationship to any others. If you are married by a Rabbi, you are not considered married by the Catholic Church, and getting married in any church does not make you married in the eyes of the state.
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p>The kind of marriage we are talking about here is Civil Marriage.
but much of what you wrote wanders between incorrect and offensive. Try to take a little care.
Is it not true? I am not at all suggesting we should not respect people’s religious beliefs, but that is not the same as pretending that we agree with them when we do not.
A sacrament is a rite. It’s a religious act. Now, you may not believe, as Roman Catholics do, that the Eucharist transubstantiates from bread and wine to body and blood… but to suggest that the religious rite doesn’t exist simply because you don’t believe in transubstantiation is extremely offensive.
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p>As for inaccuracies, you imply that the (Roman) Catholic Church doesn’t understand the difference between civil and holy marriage. I find this strange, since in most predominantly Catholic countries the religious and civil marriages are performed on different dates by different “masters of ceremony” at different locations. The Catholic Church certainly does consider two people married by a Rabbi as “married.” They haven’t received the RCC sacrament of marriage, but the Church is respectful of other religions, and hence respects that two people who are married in other religious services — or without a religious service at all — are, in fact, married.
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p>In an effort to combat Chump’s ridiculous claim that the church has a monopoly on the word marriage, you’ve implied that the Catholic Church shares Chump’s misunderstanding.
But it is only significant within its own religious sphere.
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p>But you are right, I don’t think that any reasonable member of the Catholic Church would claim that a married heterosexual couple is not married. Now if they could only extend the same courtesy to same-sex couples.
although I suspect that you’d find most RCC members in Massachusetts would willingly agree that Adam and Steve are married if they do, in fact, have a marriage certificate from the state. Some (like myself), might even quip that even if they shouldn’t be eligible for the RCC’s sacrament, they should certainly be entitled to all of the rights and responsibilities that civil marriage affords.
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p>As an aside, there are loads of politically moderate and progressive Roman Catholics who don’t eat everything their bishop is serving. We live a life meandering between what the Church teaches and what we believe is fair for our Catholic and non-Catholic neighbors. Painting all parishioners with the same brush is only going to encourage resentment and discourage Roman Catholics from joining you in the fight for fairness and equality on this issue.
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p>The RCC gets beaten up on BMG from time to time, and oftentimes it’s deservedly so. But, there’s a fine line between going after church leadership and going after the entire church — and crossing that line is sure to generate loads of ugly from all sides.
Blunt, but not offensive.
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p>I agree that the rest of what he wrote is simply wrong. I cannot get married by a rabbi, and then married again in the Catholic Church, on the groundsw that the Church will not recognize the webbing via Rabbi. Hogwash. I can tell you that the Catholic Church consdiders me married if the state considers me married– at least in 2000.
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p>An interesting question would be if I was in a SSM, and then tried to marry again in the Church. Would the Church recognize the SSM in order to bar the new DSM? That might make the canon lawyer’s head asplode.
However, the Catholic Church does not consider you to be unmarried if you were married in the church and divorced without getting an annulment from the Church and will refuse to marry you again. This is not the stigma that it once was, and most Catholics I know don’t get too worked up about church members who have divorced and remarried outside the church.
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p>
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p>And is how SSM is easily reconciled with religious practice. If it can be done by the hyper-legalistic Catholic Church, it isn’t that much of a leap.
Chuck,
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p>I have read the majority of your posts on this topic, and I came away with the sense that you are a learned man, wise in the ways of his church, and respected. What I also came away with was an absolutely breathtaking lack of real compassion for these people. Our God, He who cares about the smallest sparrow that falls from the sky…would care what happened to these His children. That at the hour of death, the people, including the children who loved this woman were kept from her, and she from them, is absolutely monsterous. Monsterous.
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p>I will disclose that I am a Catholic Christian, although a convert in my early twenties from Protestantism. This does give me the benefit of a tremendous amount of Scripture, in addition to a number of classes taken at the Divinity School on Francis Street in pursuit of my undergraduate degree.
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p>But we’re not discussing sacramental marriage. We could engage in an all night argument about the need for civil marriage, which is exactly what the state conveys. It does not convey a sacrament and I’m stunned that an educated man such as yourself would attempt to blur these lines. Civil marriage has a very long history, and it wasn’t until the 10th century that Rome decided to “take back” marriage. It was the 13th century before a priest actually presided over marriage. I would also put forth that marriage evolved over the centuries; Leviticus calls for a man to marry his brother’s widow under certain circumstances, even if he already had a wife. Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Sacramental marriage? I think not. Martin Luther called marriage a “worldly thing that belongs to the realm of government;” Luther actually only believed there were two sacraments – baptism and communion. Puritans in the 17th century passed an Act of Parliament asserting that marriage was no sacrament.
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p>Today’s example is more than enough reason for me to support civil marriage for all people; it’s patently obvious that gay people need to be protected from the well-meaning and the not so well-meaning. Look no further than the 13th and the 19th amendments to the Constitution to see protections for circumstances that used to be biblical “facts.”
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p>My faith also informs my thinking, Chuck. To “love thy neighbor as thyself” is said to be the greatest commandment. If it’s love that informs our faith, if Christ calls us to “love one another as I have love you,” then how do we leave our sisters and brothers without the civil benefits and protections provided by our government? Even if you disapprove of how their lives are lived…what’s the least Samaritan thing you can do to ease their burdens? If we are called to “judge not, lest ye too be judged…how do we dare – and I really do mean dare, treat our gay brothers and sisters as second class citizens and not fear our own judgement day? And to paraphrase Mother Theresa, How do we look in the eyes of our people and not see Him?
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p>Pax, Chuck.
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p>
For an incisive and thoughtful response. First, let me hasten to correct a possible misimpression; I am in no way NOT in sympathy with those whose lifestyle is outside the perceived norm, and the Christian Church. I have previously stated in this dairy that Christ supped with sinners, because those who were not did not have need of Him, while the sinners did!
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p>That last includes me, for all my learning and leadership. What I strive to get across in these diaries in which I write is NOT invective, or hatred, or even disapproval. What I strive to get across is instead that there are alternatives to desecrating our sacraments any more than they already HAVE been.
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p>So, what do you suppose Christ was talking about while dining with all those sinners? Was He somehow approving of their lifestyle? Did He grant His benevolent blessing on what He, and we, MUST consider perversion?
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p>The alternatives do not make me love my fellow man any less, any more than did the Son of Man; they rather call me to provide an alternative for those who will not, in any event, turn to the Gospel as their guiding light. You of all people should understand that.
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p>Put less kindly, the gay community, if there is such a thing, needs to get out of our faces, and start living the norm they claim for themselves. Trying to justify their pursuasion to us is like trying to teach a pig to sing; one wastes one’s time, and annoys the pig. Less harshly, once a thing is said, it has been said, and vain repetition is not in the best interests of the repeater. If I respond to that repetition, it is at least to attempt to quell the uproar.
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p>Best,
Chuck
Just like the Black community needed to get out of White people’s faces in the 60s, right Chuck? And those pesky women who wanted to vote. They should have gotten out of men’s faces.
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p>”I’m full of compassion…but gay people need to get out of my face!”
Blacks have a Constitutional right to equality. That they demonstrated to have it recognized is accepted everywhere but Mississippi and Texas. No article or amendment to the Constitution embodies such rights for sexual preference. Or, um, did I miss something in COnstitutional Law 423?
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p>Best,
Chuck
…say anything about “Sacramental desecration”, which is the premise of your argument. I find it Ironic that people who use the bully tactic that “X group needs to get out of my face” are the ones that are most up in peoples’ faces.
…that constitutional right always existed and so too for women….
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p>…..oh, wait…..
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p>….civil rights that were denied by the Constitution for over a century had to be fought for (and in some cases literally fought over).
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p>Yes, you missed quite a bit in Constitutional Law 423. You sure do sleep in class a lot.
Chuck,
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p>If civil marriage didn’t coexist for centuries with sacramental marriage and if civil marriage didn’t exist long before sacramental marriage – I could almost see your point. The difference between civil marriage and sacramental marriage is akin to the difference between getting your drivers license at 16 and getting comfirmed in the Church at 16. Both are “coming of age” with significant distinctions. One is purely a civil regulation and the other, a sacrament. The point that I am trying to get across to you…is that a civil marriage doesn’t desecrate a sacrament unless the state is forcing gay marriage into the Church.
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p>As to what Christ would say or do as he supped with the sinners, I turn to John 8 3-11
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p>
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p>Chuck – who am I to judge anyone? Whom am I to say that my gay brothers and sisters are “perverted?” How does the “sin yardstick” some how find my any one of my sins less than anyone else’s by the mere fact that I was born hetero? It doesn’t. And that’s how this Catholic Democrat has raised her two now adult children in the Faith, while living in this world. (disclosure – I am in my 40’s)
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p>And just one more thing, Chuck; you could generate so much more light by choosing better words. If you are a true believer, then you understand that these are your brothers and sisters. Your last paragraph wasn’t kind, it wasn’t necessary and it just spreads discord. From Galatians:
“If I speak with the [languages] of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding bronze, or a tinkling cymbal. And [if] I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and [if] I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And [if] I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and [if] I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.”
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p>You don’t have to agree with me, or anyone else, Chuck. But just don’t refer to anyone here as a “pig.” It’s offensive, and it isn’t the language of the loving Christian that you profess to be.
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p>I would also point out that there was a time when slavery was a biblical “fact” that people in this country used to justify an abominable practice. Women were similiarly prevented from full participation in civil life by biblical “facts.” There was a time when left-handed people were considered “satan’s spawn” and were treated terribly. My father can certainly attest to being forced to use his right hand rather “strenuously” in the public schools of Cambridge, MA….simply because because people made assumptions about the left hand based on Scripture. It is through this lens that I view the civil marriage of gay people.
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p>And yes – Catholic Democrat appears to be a contradition in terms until you view social justice the way Dorothy Day did.
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p><
I believe, in this simile, you’re the pig.
I believe I DID refer to myself as the pig. Or did you just miss that?!? 🙂
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p>Best,
Chuck
…as to what is a “non-qualified couple”? And wnder what authority?
A marriageable couple consists of a male and a female. If you wish to chop semantics about that last, I am quite sure you can cite numerous laws, findings, etc, that could dispute it. And I am quite sure that there are those in These United States who want desperately for that to change. In fact, it has been changed, in a few jurisdictions.
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p>Isolated behavioral manifestations to the contrary, it hasn’t happened for very much of TUS to become national law. Probably won’t, in our lifetime . . . Mariage was NOT defined by anyone within jurisprudence, but rather by Someone we cannot visit with on the playground, just yet.
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p>Best,
Chuck
which is a religious term. The state can’t recognize sacraments, given the establishment clause, right. Or is there someone in the government who gets to decide whose marriage would desecrate the sacrament?
Means paying one’s taxes. It does NOT mean allowng Caesar to determine how you live. Or why. Or within what bounds.
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p>The government has no, repeat, NO, right to intervene in the administration of the bread and wine. It also has no right to intervene in the sacrament of marriage. The fact that the government has usurped that right in terms of licensing the sacrament does not give it the freedom to define the sacrament.
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p>Best,
Chuck
…to force same sex marriage to conform to your sacrament.
don’t expect any reality-based discussion from an old troll that used to lurk on gay-related bmg posts.
I am quite affronted, and I herewith take umbrage. I may be old, but am not a troll, nor do I lurk, whateverthehell THAT is. In case it escaped your single-minded foray, I have commented on a rather large ton of other issues, mah frien’. Check out my file . . .
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p>Best, if somewhat re(luctor)ant
Chuck
…you marbles and your moral indignation along with that umbrage and press them in your Bible.
It’s a bad habit formed elsewhere.
coming from a conservative Catholic than the other people here, but you’re going to have to realize the sacrament of marriage has been moving away from religion and into pointlessness for years. Although many still do get married at churches and have their ceremony ordained by God, it is quickly becoming a quick trip to city hall followed by a long divorce 3 years later.
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p>It would be ultimate hypocrisy to deny gays the ability to get married on the grounds that it desecrates the sacrament when heterosexuals have been shitting on the same institution for the better part of 40 years.
It’s also a secular legal contract.
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p>Your church does not have the monopoly on determining who shall marry and what a marriage is. The state also has a version.
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p>You aren’t doing your so-called mainstream Christianity rhetoric any good with ill-conceived comments like this one. You sound more like, um, the other “type.”
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p>And why are you even raising this bullshit now anyway? In the context of what the diarist has written here–the horrific treatment of a family by bigots–your tin ear is telling, indeed.
…in, say, the Catholic Church, the sacrament of marriage is between two Catholics. Meaning that a marriage between a Buddhist and a Zoroastrian would mean the couple was “unqualified”. It’s funny that one might think takes the position that same-sex marriage desecrates a sacrament but a marriage that would be equally invalid does not “desecrate the sacrament”.
It was the Church that usurped marriage as a sacrament. It was the last and newest of the sacraments.
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p>And if we’ve rendered unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s – our tax dollars, which provides for the benefits of civil marriage, then our gay brothers and sisters have the same rights to those benefits. It is, after all, “Caesar’s” to give.
…you are wrong. Marriage was invented by civil societies long before anyone even contemplated the existence of the God that you think did everything in the last 2000 years.
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p>And to the contrary, I predict SSM will be absolute in the US withing 20 years. That may not be your lifetime but it is mine, and I, for one, can’t wait.
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p>
but I hope I’m wrong.
I’ll share this article with y’all. This is how christianity gets a bad name (well, one of the many ways…).
And they wonder why we call them “haters”.
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p>Of course, not all christians see things the way hutcherson does. but few speak up, especially among evangelicals. that’s why it was nice to learn about evangelical christian Tony Campolo
…that Hutcherson is such a bigot.
all you have to do is buy 3 microsoft shares, and give one to hutch.
and the dividends go to…? gay curmudgeon has done some revealing math:
Laurel, I think you have raised tremendously valid points against some of the fringe of what I will call mainstream Christianity. But I would hasten to add that these are both isolated examples, and, I believe, outside the realm of the mainstream.
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p>I live not more than a few miles away from this church. I am familiar with its practices, and disagree with their interpretation of the scriptures, wherein they interpret what Christ would have done in similar situations, and wherein they deign to set themselves up as judges of their fellow man. Neither of these is an option for the true Christian. Both of these are, in my humble estimation, sinful behavior. One need not go further than Matthew 7:1-2, to find the answer to their judgemental nature. One need not go further than Christ’s commandment that we love one another to find the answer to how we should comport ourselves in our relationships with each other.
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p>A specific would be that the teachings of the New Testament (specifically, the writings of Paul to Timothy) disallow a woman to teach. This is in accord with most of both Judeo- and Christeo- practice; it is in line with the belief that Eve (the first woman) was not only created as a helpmate, but was the original sinner. But the emphasis is never on the latter; for the true Christian, it is always on the former, thus, Paul was not teaching Timothy anything averse to what God wishes. As a Ruling Elder for my congregation, I internalize this, and have the utmost respect for the women within both my congregation and my family. That they teach their children is within the bounds of Christian propriety, and within the bounds of scripture. Should they elect to attempt to teach generally, that would be contrary to scripture, and that I would oppose on scriptural grounds.
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p>Those who claim to be Christian, and go beyond these limits are not following scripture, and need to do a little homework, as I think you would agree.
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p>Best,
Chuck
Your comments on other parts of this thread reveal you to be every bit the “other” type of Christian you claim are the fringe.
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p>And your exploitation of the tragedy of this family in order to get on your bigoted soapbox is deplorable.
….a church. Your new testament has no powers here.
…speaking of homework, if you look at early Christianities, you’ll see that women played a huge role in forming and leading early congregations. In fact, Paul wrote greetings to women in Romans chapter 16: Pheobe, a minister, Prisca, Mary. He calls Tryphaena, Tryphosa, and Persis basically “co-workers” in the gospel. Paul calls Junia “foremost” or “prominent” among the apostles.
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p>Scholars for the most part now agree that Timothy was not written by Paul, but was written after his death but in his name. Evidence suggests the Timothy passage you suggest (1 Tim 2:11-15) was written by a male church leader whose agenda it was to marginalize women who threatened the male power structure.
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p>One argument against Timothy and for the total equality of women posited by Paul himself would be Galatians 3:27-28:
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p>
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p>See! God wants women to be equal in Church leadership after all. You don’t have to believe my interpretation (actually it’s Bible scholar Dr. Bart Ehrman’s view), just know that’s how some people, some Christians view the Bible. The problem with Christianity is that it is in the eye of the beholder. And everyone thinks they have the right version. Everyone thinks they are the “real Christians”. And given that about 1/3 of the country are Evangelical, the-Bible-is-internet-Christians, I don’t buy that Hutch is that far into the fringe, if he is in the fringe of Christianity at all.
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p>Source:
Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman
Let me take your points one at a time and address them. First, Paul sent greetings to a number of women at Rome, when he wrote Chapter 16. Second, he did not call Phoebe a teacher, but a servant, which semantic intends to greet a fellow servant in the Lord, not a teacher. Historical accounts do not exist to my knowledge, but in the context of Paul’s Greek writing, Phoebe was probably a deaconess within the church, that is, one to whom the physical needs of the church and its people are entrusted. I commend to you the Zondervan Studies for further elaboration. along with the Grudem and Berkhof Systematic Theologies.
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p>And while such “scholars” as you cite may or may not believe Paul wrote the book, Paul identifies himself as the author in I Tim.1:1, as well as in II Tim.1:1. Paul wrote the first book ca. 63-65 AD, after his release from imprisonment, which occurred in about 61/62 AD. He wrote the second after Nero again imprisoned him in c. 66-67 AD. No one ghost-wrote for Paul; where he identifies himself as the author of scripture, it was indeed written by Paul.
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p>You cite Galations. Very well. Galations was written to a church being pursuaded by zealot Jews that the practices of the Law under Judiasm was still required of Christians, notwithstanding their Christianity. Even Peter was notorious for this until God revealed otherwise to him in a dream. (Acts 10:9-29) Paul’s example made them all equal as CHRISTIANS, not as teachers. As a further and more evident argument regarding this, see ITim.2:11-15.
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p>Dr. Ehrman is a Princeton scholar, having studied under Bruce Metzger. Metzgers views are profound, but not in keeping with the Westminster Confession, thus his beliefs are outside Calvinism, as are his pupils’. Both take profound revisionist positions vis-avis new Testamant scripture. Citing either as bearing Christ’s blessing as scriptural interpreter is often done, in churches which have rejected the WCF, or altered it so that it no longer resembles the 1647 text in very many ways. This is a driving reason for the existence of the Presbyterian Church in America, in which I am a Ruling Elder. We broke away from PC (US) during the seventies, after the later wrote a complete liberalization of the WCF.
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p>As to whether God wants women to be equal in church leadership, you really need to consult the scriptures, and stop jumping to conclusions. Start with Gen.1:18-24. God’s intentions for women are made quite clear in that passage; those who suggest that women should teach are in opposition to this and much else in the scriptures. This is not a chauvenistic viewpoint, but an absolute truth, both fundamental and faithful to the scriptures
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p>Best,
Chuck
“Second, he did not call Phoebe a teacher, but a servant, which semantic intends to greet a fellow servant in the Lord, not a teacher.”
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p>Depends on who does the translating, doesn’t it? And then it depends on how one interprets the translation.
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p>Again, my point isn’t to persuade you. My point is not to say that one interpretation is invalid and one is valid. It’s that there is no consensus. You can tell me that the Bible prevents women from holding positions of authority. I reject that and many Christians reject that. Many people, Christian and otherwise, reject Timothy 1 and 2 as being authored by Paul – and being self referential proves nothing; I could sign my BMG posts Kareem Abdul Jabar – and scholarship backs it up.
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p>The larger point is that every group claims to be correct when it comes to their version of scripture and exegesis. It’s almost impossible to judge which group is on the fringe and which group is mainstream. If we go on sheer numbers, Hutch is not so outside of the mainstream, whether his understanding of scripture is correct or incorrect.
you might find this another good illustration of how “christians” twist and pluck their texts, looking for excuses for their bias and bigotry.
I agree tblade, Jesus and Paul did try to bring equal status to women, and this had a major impact on marriage law, and that new Christian idea of marriage is what led to the civil marriages of the early American colonies. This wikipedia entry on Adultery shows the progression of marriage law quite concisely. Pre-Christian marriages did not stop husbands from having sex outside the marriage, but wives could be put to death for that. Jesus said the marriage vows apply to men also, and proclaimed that the unmarried woman at the well had truly been married five times, to all of the men who had had sex with her, and therefore had committed adultery also.
Apparently the reverend labors under the impression that his god intensely dislikes gay men and also common courtesy.
…”National rip off the arm of door holding men for Christ day”.
this guy was able to rally 20,000 people in seattle to oppose marriage equality a few years ago. he is a leader of “watchmen on the walls”, an international anti-gay hate “church” that condones violence against gays. btw, they have an outpost in springfield, ma. this guy may sound dismissively nuts to you, but he is deadly serious.
by the way they let doors slam in your face.
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p>Laurel, I’m not trying to minimize the guy’s influence. I’m well aware that these guys are creepy.
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p>I am wondering, however, what (in the mid of this guy) links “being a gay man” to “holding the door open for someone.” Even if you grant his anti-gay premise, this makes not a lick of sense.
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p>This bothers me in the same way that a sci-fi movie that fails to adhere to its own self-imposed rules bothers me.
if you want my armchair opinion…i think the lady doth protest too much, to be honest. i’d guess that hutcherson is either some shade of gay and he can’t accept that in himself, and/or is insecure in his masculinity. his words and actions make perfect sense if you look at them from those points of view.
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p>or, could be that he’s straight as an arrow, but has realized there’s money to be made and power to be wielded by flogging gays from the pulpit.
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p>he also has made odd remarks about “having powerful white people backing him up”. so i wonder if part of his problem is a response to racism he has experienced.
the way i see it is that if a man is insecure in his masculinity, he will be paranoid that others will see him for the unmasculine person he thinks he is. since masculinity is often seen as the antithesis of femininity, he will avoid doing anything that could be conceived as feminine. this would include having the door opened for you. men desperate to assert their masculinity often do it by accusing other men of being gay, or by attacking gay men. they do this because the stereotype is that gay men are effeminent. thus if they attack a “fag”, they prove that they are not one, and are a manly man.
Sure worked out that way in high school.
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p>So, if I hold the door for this guy, he will beat me with my own severed arm not because, by holding the door, I demonstarted my own gayness, but rather because by holding the door for him I suggested that he is gay.
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p>OK, at least that is not nonsensical crap, even if still crap.
The sacrament question is really simple. We have freedom of religion in this country. No church can be told how to administer the sacraments. This debate, however, is about civil marriage only. Nobody is suggesting that we force a church to practice contrary to its faith. That being said, if you make a religious argument for preventing marriage equality you are inherently arguing for theocracy contrary to American principles. Not everyone is Christian of course, but at least one Christian denomination, the United Church of Christ, supports equal marriage.
Civil unions are performed by JP’s all over the country. Marriages are performed within the auspices of the church, between a man and a woman.
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p>Why is the liberal left os focussed on an agenda to violate the Christian sacrament of marriage, when perfectly valid civil unions are offered as alternative?
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p>Could it perhaps be that the liberal left is intent on destroying the CHURCH?
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p>Best,
Chuck
And to all the people who were not married in a church. I guess Buddhists should not be allowed to get married since they don’t believe in God and they don’t get married by your church.
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p>Sorry, but your church does not make the laws of this country. Selling pork violates Muslim law, I guess we should outlaw that, too. And Jewish law makes circumcision compulsory, so we might as well fore all males to get circumcised.
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p>If marrying some one of the same sex violates your churches sacraments, you are free to follow your churches wishes and not marry someone of the same sex.
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p>I am married to my wonderful “Japanese-American Princess,” who was raised a Buddhist, and converted to Christianity at an early age. When I shared your comment, she absolutely HOWLED!
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p>Buddhists certainly DO believe in God, and I have heard their Temple sermons often enough to verify that!
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p>As ti the rest of it, plese see a previous post of mine, in which I discuss the futility of gays staying in the faces of the straight community. They waste their time, and annoy the pig(s). Uh, that would be us.
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p>Best,
Chuck
… unless performed by a religious officiant? Does this officiant need to be Christian? Catholic? Are non-Christians not married? Are non-Catholics? What about misogynistic Catholic couples? There are homosexual marriages officiated by religious officiants, even Christian ones. Are their marriages ‘real’? On who’s say so? Who gets to say who’s marriage is ‘real’?
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p>Get over it… you and your ilk don’t define the universe.
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p>And they call atheists arrogant. Hmph.
For those who insist that “marriage” is the prerogative of the religious community only, I propose the following:
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p>All such unions conducted by a clergyperson of any faith will be called “marriage”. This would include same-sex unions performed by the United Church of Christ or the Unitarian Universalist Association. All those unions concluded by a Justice of the Peace or other legal officer will be called Civil Unions, whether same-sex or opposite-sex.
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p>That being said, my own preference is to just call them all marriages. That way we can apply the same legal definition across the board without question.
… that there are legal questions of definition to be dealt with it seems pragmatic to just call them all marriages. Religious desire to dictate and claim ownership the definitions of terms with meanings clearly going back past antiquity notwithstanding.
You are free to make up your own meaning for words if you want, but you have no reasonable expectation that others will follow. My wife and I were not married in any church, but we are most definitely married. To suggest otherwise is insulting and un-Christian.
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p>
I found a story on this in the Miami Herald’s lgbt blog. This happened almost exactly a year ago. A snippet of controversy that is left out of the current story making the rounds:
Sad story and all that, but the lesson for others couples, whether gay or straight is to execute a Health Care Proxy, give it to your doctor, and keep one with you when traveling.
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p>The same thing, as is described above, would have happened, if the couple were boyfriend/girlfriend with one of the couple having adopted kids, or kids from another relationship.
outside one’s own state. there is a fiction cast about by anti-marriage equality people that same-sex couples can “do it all” with proxies and powers of attorney (i’m not including you in this group, gary. just sayin). i agree with you that every couple should have these things in place, because they can only help. however, they are frequently ignored by 1st responders, even in a couple’s own state. out of state they are nigh on useless. especially if you don’t remember to have a copy on you when you happen to drown, get creamed in a car accident, mugged, etc. marriage is the only universally recognized “proxy”, and no hetero couple i know has ever had to produce the marriage paperwork at the hospital or workplace to prove their relationship.
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p>The ABA has tried to 1) eliminate that myth and 2) make the health care proxy portable. It’s succeeded in the a latter, but apparently not in the former.
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p>I think, in practice you’ll find that health care professionals bend over backwards to rely on proxies and directives, and the failure, as you pointed out is the fact that people forget the document when they travel.
some kind of legal agreement between states (i presume). but it is also a function of the willingness of medical personnel to recognize and accept documents as valid. despite the ABA’s best efforts, medical personnel are not lawyers, and sometimes don’t/won’t recognize legal documents. from the stories i’ve heard, this problem is usually cleared up within a day or two. but as we see in the story that started this diary, that can be too late.
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p>i suggest that the ABA not assume that item 1 is now a myth. i suggest that they can come up with a system whereby actual papers don’t need to be in hand. for example, a nationally-recognized wallet card, or a national registry of health care proxies is in order. it is crazy to think that people can have these documents on them all the time.
I’ve drafted and wittnessed hundreds if not over a thousand. Everyone, particularly unmarried couples should have one.
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p>Of those documents I’ve never heard of one that another state didn’t recognize.
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p>I once drafted and wittnessed estate planning documents including health care proxies for one gay couple in CT. They vacationed in Mexico where one became deathly ill.
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p>Mexico doctors repected the document. He was air lifted to Alabama where the doctor in flight respected the document. The physicians in Alabama recognized the document and then he was ultimately transported to Georgia, where the physicians respected the documents.
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p>No legal document is bullet proof. It’s just incorrect to say that the health care proxy is frequently ignored or, when out of state, useless.
i am happy to hear positive stories like you related. but it unfortunately doesn’t invalidate their negative counterparts that i’ve heard. it was our own lawyer who prepared and witnessed our docs being signed, warned us that they may or may not be honored in neighboring states, depending on the luck of the draw and differences in state laws. that said, i don’t have any stats to back up how frequently that occurs.
go to page 24 of the SJC’s Goodridge decision (pdf). Emphasis mine.
Did you realize that this was a documented problem faced by the lead couple in the marriage case? Hard to discount such an anecdote. If it happened to them in their own home state of MA, image what gay couples face out of state, even when they have the papers. Just one more reason why we need marriage equality: greater certainty that our family relationships will be respected, no matter where.
It was neonatal, where visitors, sometimes even the mother is often not allowed. Nothing to do with the document.
because i really doubt, given the importance of the case, that they would falsely attribute her problems getting access to her daughter to the health care proxy not being honored when in fact it was because the daughter was somehow medically quarantined. you are, in essence, saying that the goodridges and their lawyers were lying. do you mean to say that?
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p>Here, I’ll reword it for you. “Even though wearing floppy clown shoes, Hillary had difficulty gaining access to her newborn daughter at the hospital.”
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p>Now, what does ‘floppy clown shoes’ have to do with gaining access? Nothing. Get it?
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p>That’s how briefs are written. Advocates do that for their clients. True words are written to best advance their client’s cause.
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p>Now, you can rely on myth and legend (or even your Lawyer who was probably referring not the HC Proxy but rather to the Living Will) to believe that Health care proxies are routinely rejected, but until you provide examples (heck, a single case), based on my relatively high volumn of experience, you are talking out your ass.
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p>Next, have you ever had any experiences around neonatal settings. Start here. Surprisingly, neonatal units are more concerned with child mortality than legal documents and political correctness when considering admission.
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p>And last, it appears from the sentence above, that Hillary did gain access.
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p>In short, you have no proof or even a single example of a health care proxy failing to do serve its purpose. You only have a baseless warning, which appears to be an urban legend.
… facts not in evidence. Namely that infant mortality was the reason for access denial and not the legal document. Your evidence is that neonatal setting have a concern for infant mortality. While no doubt true, the premise doesn’t serve as evidence to the claim. The best you could say is that Laurel doesn’t have evidence the other way, except in the language of the decision itself. Under the circumstances I’d have to give her evidence more weight, pending review of the transcript itself. It is certainly plausible that, even in neonatal settings, there exist circumstances where parents are, have been, and will be allowed visitation. As such, it follows that it is plausible that one might be treated differently under such circumstances for irrelevant reasons owing to the ‘default’ state of legal confusion created when it isn’t legally and societally obvious what it means to defined as a parent or spouse because extra legal documents are necessary to make the point that might not even be validated in practice anyway.
Since we’re both presuming, because neither of us know the precise facts, I’m presuming that if the document itself caused her to not be admitted then the legal brief would have said precisely that as opposed to the weasel words it used.
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p>I’m presuming that if I’ve heard of no case where a health care proxy was rejected — no case, not one in over ten years — because it was from another state, then there are damn few that are rejected. Because I study this stuff, and know this area of law. I’m certain, that somewhere in some state, at some time, some health care proxy was rejected for some reason, but based on experience in the field, it’s the strange and unusual exception and not the rule.
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p>I’m presuming that if someone says a legal document is ‘nigh useless’ then they can back that up with facts, or cases or even a single anecdote. Laurel has said it’s common yet has not recounted one, single instance.
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p>And that would be, because of your own selection bias.
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p>I’m presuming that the following statement is dead wrong, and is merely proliferation of a myth that ought to be dispelled, because anyone with the foresight to enter into a healthcare proxy ought to walk away with some comfort that the Proxy’s purpose is regularly respected by the healthcare community:
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p>If it is so routine, tell me the basis for your belief. And, if you have no basis, why do you believe it yourself?
granted, i should not have used that word. i cannot claim “frequently”. but i will not dismiss my lawyer’s years of experience specializing in gay-related family law that these documents are sometimes ignored, and the risk increases when one is out of state.
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p>i’m curious, what proportion of your clients have been gay couples? perhaps you don’t hear negative reports because a) few of your clients are gay couples, or b) you’re in a much more gay-friendly region than i am (i’m in the pacific northwest.) or c) they don’t think to report problems back to you.
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p>do you know of any agency or organization that keeps the statistics we’re both looking for? i am unaware of such a thing.
… isn’t based on irrelevancies such as my happening to agree with Laurel, as I think you presume. It based on the supposition that the people who wrote the opinion reviewed the case in greater detail than you did. That they have a better shot at remembering the specifics that lead them to make the statement. Granted, this assumes you aren’t a greater authority on the details of the trial because you weren’t involved in the case to a greater degree than the opinion writers, but that seems like a safe assumption and I submit thusly that my selection bias uses salient criteria and is thus a reasonable bias. To be safe I even qualified it though.
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p>”I’m presuming that if the document itself caused her to not be admitted then the legal brief would have said precisely that as opposed to the weasel words it used.”
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p>This is intellectually suspect. Clearly the quote Laurel gave (“Even with a health care proxy, Hillary had difficulty gaining access to her newborn daughter at the hospital.”) in the context of the decision implies that the document should have produced the desired outcome and that the fact that it didn’t is supportive of the notion that such documents are a poor substitute for out and out marriage, which the writer presumes would have produced the desired effect. Dismissing these implications because they are not stated directly doesn’t make them go away. The author isn’t required to bring up all the evidence in detail in the opinion. Opinions would be overly cumbersome if they were required to. As such, it is a given that in bringing the anecdotal point up in the opinion we should in our attempt to read the intended meaning accurately not dismiss any such implications clearly brought in by the author’s choice of text.
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p>It is of course reasonable to bring in your general experience regarding the rarity of rejection, but I didn’t assert anything about generalities. I was talking specifically about the what was brought up in Laurel’s text quoted from the decision. If you want to bring up generalities, then of course YMMV.
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p>I can’t speak to your last statement, of course.
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p>In a Brief, or in an Opinion, count on this, the facts presented, in said brief or opinion, will be those most favorable to the desired outcome or to the opinion rendered.
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p>An author saying “Despite having a Health Care Proxy so-and-so had difficulties getting access to the Patient” isn’t saying “So-and-so had a Health Care Proxy but because so-and-so wasn’t a spouse, had less access.”
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p>The former is weasel language; the latter is the factual statement the author would have liked to have had.
… for the writers of the opinion, having considered conflicting desired outcomes presented, to quote the evidence that they considered the stronger. It is there job to decide and it should be unsurprising that their language supports their decision. Thats the whole point of having an outcome to the questions.
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p>You can call the words that draw inference ‘weasel language’ if you want. I don’t consider it such because for language to be ‘weasel’ requires deliberate vagueness. If there is vagueness here, as I have stated before, it is derived from the fact that the opinion isn’t (and needn’t be) a complete re-submittal of everything in every particular detail that came up in trial. You are free to confirm that the statement conforms with the trial information, but that isn’t necessary in the opinion itself. To require it would be ridiculous. If I require a summation of what what came up in trial, the opinion summary is probably a reasonable authority. If you want to refute it, you can’t just cry that the details aren’t there to your satisfaction – the opinion isn’t required to be detailed. You have to confirm the contradiction yourself by reviewing the trial details themselves. I have already said, that if such contradictions came up they would be sufficient to call into question the statement. Absent such an examination it is reasonable to
the term “lifestyle” is being thrown around a lot in the comments above. i would like for it’s users to define for me what they think it means. because in my experience, it is shorthand for “heterosexuality is innate and normal, but bi- or homosexuality is all just an act by defiant/deviant/perverted heterosexuals-in-hiding.”
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p>so let me just state this clearly here for the record. bi- and homosexuality are just as normal and innate as is heterosexuality. people of all sexualities can don a “lifestyle”. driving little red cars really fast is a lifestyle. reading 50 pages before going to bed every night is a lifestyle. lolling by the pool while sipping martinis is a lifestyle.
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p>who you fall in love with and create a family with is not a lifestyle, it is a basic component of life.
Only one poster used that particular phrase on this thread.