The problem with marriage
A visiting US law professor is proposing a different solution to problems facing same-sex families that doesn’t try to blame all their problems on the lack of marriage equality.
Nancy Polikoff will give a public lecture at UTS called Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families Under the Law, based on her book of the same name.
She argues that the marriage movement in the GLBT community has missed the point because all families, including single-parent households and extended family units, need recognition and protection as they build and sustain economic and emotional interdependence.
The marriage-equality movement wants the benefits of marriage granted to a larger group: same-sex partners. With few exceptions, advocates for gay and lesbian access to marriage do not say that -˜special rights’ should be reserved for those who marry. But the marriage-equality movement is a movement for gay civil rights, not for valuing all families, her book states.
info: Nancy Polikoff’s public lecture is on Thursday 26 February, 6.30pm at the Moot Court of UTS on Quay St, Ultimo. RSVP to [email protected] by 20 February for directions.
Gary – I’m unhappy to hear about the treatment that your mother received from your father, however I’m not sure that the fact that they were married was the cause of it. Plenty of people suffer similar treatment simply because they live under the same roof as the tormentor.
The Rudd Labor Government has finally legislated to give the homosexuality community equality in de-facto relationship law from July 1.It hasn’t legislated to give homosexuals a right to copy a flaw marriage of heterosexuality.
Heterosexual marriage as a symbolism is flawed and homosexuals shouldn’t want to copy it !
Now the usual letter writers are crying foul that they will lose part of their Centrelink pension because of it.
Well equality means exactly that, being treated equally.
If you want to be treated as a “husband & wife” you will have to cop it sweet,sadly.
There is no more respectability in copying something that isn’t necessarily sound,
My parents were both heterosexual.
Every night my daddy came home from work and punched my dear mummy to the ground with his clench fist.
Mummy’s blood copiously dripped like a runny custard down a XMAS pudding.
Seeing this as a young boy made me realise marriage isn’t such a sound sanctity as people seem to think it was,and why should anyone want to follow it or copy it ?
It’s not a respectable institution.
So all you dip-sticks out there crying crocodile tears on the issue of equality can’t then suddenly complain when being treated equally means your Centrelink payment is lessen.
My view is those championing gay marriage are causing more harm than good.
I say that because my experience is the homosexuality community don’t even have broad public respect.
If you don’t have any respect in society it makes it bloody hard to achieve any real legislative change.
I personally find the thought of marriage a disgust as a gay man.
I would much rather live my life without copying mummy and daddy’s unhappy and violent holy union.
Nancy, meanwhile in Tasmania… check it out.
Thanks for all these comments. I do indeed discuss the Australian system in my book. There is so much that Australia gets right that America gets wrong! But de facto recognition is only one part of valuing all families. I hope you will check out my blog and the book website and maybe even come to the lecture!
Here we go again!!! If “civil unions” are the same thing as “marriage” then why have a different name for it? Do you think women would be happy to have been given the vote, but have it called “civil casting”, and for them to have to go to a different polling station than men? That wouldn’t be considered equal at all.
And as for “all families” being treated as equals, I have no intention of having children, so why should I also be excluded from those rights as well?
I don’t get what the big deal is when it come to civil unions and marriage; I read that in California a civil unoin is treated equally under all laws to a marriage. So yeah, I guess they are separate but equal, but so what? A marriage conducted by a civil celebrant as opposed to a religous marriage is thought differently by a lot of people. Big deal.
Civil unions are shit because they are a “seperate but equal” – I only support both de facto status and FULL SSM! Americans are silly with there different laws in 50 states mantality! 20 states sodomy is still illegal in the books, 2 states having SSM, 3 states having civil unions, 7 having domestic partnerships – confusing being in the US in the differing states. the US is like a “drunken sailor” with silly and zay laws on the books dating back as far as 1790. Only in America.
You’re dead right on de facto, D. Nancy would do well to brush up on the Australian system or there may be some rather confused faces in the audience at her lecture.
I’d also note that -œunmarried couples of any sexual orientation, single-parent households, extended family units, and myriad other familial configurations” aren’t calling out for recognition or marching in the streets. Where’s the demand?
I think she’s missed the point- that Australia & America are different. She’s saying that instead of relationship rights for same sex & straight couples, that there should also be a focus on “recognition” and “protection” of single parents, and thier extended families. We’ll in Australia single parents have all the “recognition” they need (and Aussie baby bonus payment to boot). As for extended families of single parents, in Australia we call these next of kin.. again they have recognition. With the focus on single parents not being “valued” enough????, I think her 256 page book (that you can buy from her website for $24.95 U.S.) is basically more about reducing relationship rights for straights. Gays are not some football to be kicked around for whatever wider cause she wants publicity for on straights.
Quote from the book- “marriage is a bright dividing line between those relationships that legally matter and those that don’t.” , “Unmarried couples of any sexual orientation, single-parent households, extended family units, and myriad other familial configurations need recognition and protection to meet the concerns they all share”. What she is referrig to is the complete lack of defacto recognition….. in America!
This is just an American problem, where they don’t have defacto recognition for straights… whereas in Australia we do have defacto recognition (for straights & gays equally). Mmmm, Yawn.