It's OK to discriminate against gays and lesbians...

There used to be and objectively real distinction between social perception and acceptability of relationships between whites and non-whites--which was backed by long standing norms of social behavior and legal practice. We have now done away with them.

That you have personally asserted that there is indeed an objectively real distinction between the two unions, does not make it an empirical and objective fact...especially given the fact that you endorse some of the fruits of marriage be granted to homosexuals, without the legal title and paperwork that would come from wholesale rights granted.

....I could be mistaken however.

What you are pleased to refer to as my assertions, and which you consider likely to have been minor and local phenomena are in fact well-documented in the literature of social science. The English began keeping social statistics not quite 300 years ago. Additionally, church registries have recorded marriages for many centuries. Finally, manor court records (which for France, England and Germany, have been exhaustively studied for about 150 years) repeatedly show that when people bound to the manor estate wished to make provision for their children, or with their children for themselves in their old age, the process always began with an attestation of the descent of the children in question from the persons appealing for a recording in the manor court records. Which is to say, that these people were not married in any formal, social sense of having previously joined in a legally binding contract.

As people became more and more interested in their "family trees," the research of such records expanded much more rapidly than most other areas of social research. One of the initial impulses was Catholic Emancipation in Ireland and England. Although Catholic families of great estate had recorded marriages, and entered into the legal contracts, the vast majority of Catholics, especially in Ireland, had no such records. From 1690 until 1838, there were, officially at least, no parish churches in Ireland--priests celebrated the mass in hedgerows, and at risk of their lives. As the 18th century waned, and "de facto" Catholic churches began to appear in Ireland--technically illegal, but tolerated by authorities now eager to cut deals with the Catholic episcopal hierarchy in order to secure an increase in control and authority--some such records began to be kept. As the Irish, like all the Kelts, are avid students of geneology, the English in Ireland were amazed to learn how many records had been faithfully kept since 1690 by families who acted in loco the parish priest.

Historians such as A. J. P. Taylor became fascinated with the subject, the more so as it became apparent, especially in predominantly Protestant areas of the British Isles, that there were far more people either on the tax rolls, or "on the parish," than there were marriages and births recorded in parish records. As recently as the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, English social statisticians recorded the evidence that fewer than 30% of the adult population of the British Isles had marriages recorded either by the parish or the corporation--although it was plain that far more of the adult population than that were in relationships which had produced children. A fascinating "slice of life" account of life in the working class in England at that time is to be found in Robert Roberts The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century (meaning the 20th century). Roberts makes particular note of the fact that most working class families were founded by unmarried men and women, and cites statistics from the dawn of the English statisticians to the period of which he wrote which he claims showed that this was a commonplace.



See the last remark above.



It is alleged in Homer that Helen's face launched a thousand ships. At thirty to forty men at arms to pull the oars of those ships, it becomes apparent that the handful of people named in the Illiad cannot necessarily be considered to have been exemplary of the entire population. By the way, you might find David Trail's Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit of interest--it is by no means certain that Schliemann definitively linked the Meneleaus of the Illiad to Mycenae, although it is not an unwarranted assumption.

In Classical Athens, in the Golden Age of Herakles and Perikles, less than 10% of the population were free and considered to be citizens. I consider it rather unreasonable to assert that any significant portion of bondsmen and women, bound to the land of Attica, were formally married; i consider it absurd to assert that anyone gave a rat's patoot about marriage in the slave population. Given the widespread slavery of the ancient world, and its subsequent institution as serfdom in the Gothic and middle ages, as well as the lack of evidence in French, German and English manor court records of formalized marriages--i doubt that the practice was wide-spread outside of aristocratic and mercantile classes, which were a decided minority before the modern age (i.e., before about 1500).



I am simply saying the as a social institution, marriage is concerned with property or rights in property in the here and now, without regard to the prospect of the marriage successfully producing children who would live to attain their majority. Queen Anne and her husband, a prince of Denmark, produced 14 children. Not a one of them lived to see one year. Nevertheless, the settlement of 1688 had provided for the "descent in the right line" of the Stuart monarchy upon Anne's death through the dowager Electress of Hanover and her son, who became George I.

When Queen Anne's great soldier, John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough lost his last remaining son, then aged seventeen, he settled the estate on Lord Spencer, his son-in-law, and the son of his long-time friend and political ally, Sidney Godolphin, to be held in trust. Therefore, the second Duke of Marlborough was his grandson on the distaff side (i.e., descended through Churchill's daughter). The marriage of John Churchill to Sarah Jennings, therefore, secured their property and rights in property to one another, without regard for their ability to produce a viable heir. Obviously, those who marry in a situation in which property or rights in property are important would hope to produce heirs--but it is not that with which the social contract of marriage is concerned. After a marriage, the property can be transferred subsequently in fee simple or fee entail without regard to descent, so long as no laws of the pertinent society are violated in the legacy.

But there is a yet more bizarre example to provide. Daniel Parke was born in Virginia about 1670 (i can't find the exact reference on-line, as almost all searches lead to Daniel Parke Custis, and i've loaned out my Flexner biography of Washington, likely never to be seen again). He married one of the daughters of "King" Carter. They produced two daughters. One of them, Lucy, married one of the Byrds, and became the ancestress of that illustrious Virginia family. The other (whose name escapes me) married a gentleman named John Custis, who lived on Cape May, and whose estate was named Arlington, after his ancestor's estate in England.

About 1700, Parke abaondoned his wife and daughters (neither of whom was yet of a "marrying" age), and went to England. He bought a commission, and eventually became an aide to the Duke of Marlborough. As the sun was setting over the field of Blenheim in 1704, Churchill called for a piece of paper. Parke, never behind hand in sensing an important opportunity, pushed forward and gave the Duke his tavern bill from the night before. Churchill wrote his dispatch to Queen Anne and gave it to Park to deliver to the Queen. This meant he rode post, changing horses along the way and remaining in the saddle for three days, until he had crossed over and arrived in London. There, he went down on one knee, and presented the dispatch to the Queen. The ordinary formula was for the Queen to ask if there were any reward she might offer the bearer of such glad tidings, and the ordinary response would be to leave that up to the monarch's judgment, at which time the the bearer of the note would likely be given 500 hundred pounds, an enourmous sum in those days. But Parke was no ordinary messenger, he was a charmer. He told the aging, gouty Queen that a simple portrait the Queen would be the greatest reward he could receive, and proceeded to charm the old woman shamelessly. She gave him a hand-painted miniature of herself, set in pearls, and a thousand guineas (which is more than twice the normal reward). Parke then managed to get a position in the Prince Consort's retinue, and showing his uncanny nose for the main chance, allied himself to John Harley, who would one day destroy Godolphin's government, but fail to destroy the Duke of Marlborough. Parke soon was appointed governor of the Leeward Islands, with an estate on Antigua. In 1710, after repeated complaints to the Lords of Trade of his mismanagement, and with Parke refusing to open the Queen's correspondence or comply with her orders to return to England, there was a rebellion fomented by the planters, many of whom privately suspected that Parke was fooling around with their wives.

However, the crowd they incited went wild. Parke was shot in the leg, and soon died of his wounds. The mob tore through his manor house, and the papers found there pretty well proved that Parke had been fooling around with nearly all the planter's wives, and a good many of the daughters, as well. His will was among those papers. Beside settling his meager inheritance and the vast and wealthy estates in Virginia which he had gotten through his marriage to "King" Carter's daughter on his daughters and their issue, he also acknowledged a bastard son in London, and a bastard daughter in Antigua, and left monies to them (monies he did not have). Furthermore, he settled his estate in fee entail, which is to say that the legacy was conditional--the condition was that all of his daughters' issue take the name Parke.

So John Custis named his son Daniel Parke Custis. He married Martha Dandridge, circa 1749. They produced four children, and two of them, John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis (known as "Patsy") survived infancy. Daniel Parke Custis died seven years later, and Martha Dandridge Custis then married George Washington. Old George was apparently shooting blanks, and they never produced any children. But George was a man who took his responsibilities seriously, and placed his personal honor above all other considerations. His two step-children were now heir to considerable estates in Virginia (estimated at 15,000 acres and 30,000 pounds sterling in liquid assets at the time of Daniel Parke Custis' death in 1757), and George's personal papers and correspondence are full of his unfailing efforts to make the most of those properties for the sake of his step-children. John Parke Custis served as an aide to the General in the Revolution, and while riding back from the seige of Yorktown, contracted a fever and died at about age 27, in November 1781. Patsy seems to have been epileptic and died before marrying. But George Washington Parke Custis, John Parke Custis' son, was born in April, 1781, seven months before his father died. He was raised by George and Martha, and was given land which actually belonged to Washington, rather than either the Parke or Custis estates, where he built an estate which he named Arlington, in honor of his great grandfather (and where our national cemetary is now located). He had a daughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, born in 1808. When she was in her early 20's, and in danger of becoming an "old maid," she met a scion of another old Viriginia family, which had fallen on hard times due to the profligacy of the pater familias. He had graduating second in the class of 1829 at the United States Military Academy--Robert Edward Lee. On the eve of the civil war, Lee was still attempting to manage the Parke/Custis estates, 150 years after Daniel Parke was murdered in Antigua. George Washington Parke Custis attained his majority in the same year that his namesake died, 1799. The marriage of Daniel Parke created a great estate, but he never managed that estate, and only enjoyed some of its income before he absconded to England. John Custis managed the property thereafter, because of his marriage to Parke's daughter, but he did not take a penny of the income. Daniel Parke, fearing a review of the fee entail by the House of Burgesses also managed the estates without taking any of the income. George Washington managed the estates, and took no income from them, as he held them in trust for his step-children. G. W. P. Custis managed those estates, but lived on the property, and the income from the property given him by Washington, rather than endure a court settlement for failing to meet the terms of the entail (none of his children bore the name Parke). The marriages involved here were all about property. Parke married Carter's daughter for the property. John Custis married Parke's daughter for the property. Washington married D. P. Custis' widow, Martha, after promising to administer the property without profit to himself on behalf of her children. John Parke Custis married with the prospect of enjoying the property (Patsy was dead by then), but never lived on the estates, and does not seem to have used the income therefrom. G. W. P. Custis simply managed the property, and Lee's marriage to his daughter was with the certain understanding that the penurious young second lieutenant would not come into possession of the property. Remove religion, and marriage is all about property, and only about proptery.



See my remarks above. I'm not denying the importance of producing progeny, i'm simply stating that there is no good reason to assert that this is the purpose of that institution of the social contract known as marriage.



It would certainly be false to say that property is all about marriage. It would just as false, however, to deny that the societal institution of marriage is not all about property. Once again, refer to the examples which i provided above.



One could make that substitution, but only on a whim. I doubt that you will be able to find evidence outside of religious contentions which will support a claim that the purpose of the social institution of marriage is procreation.



No, we are not. That is the point at which you wish to arrive, but i know of no compelling historical reason to make that assertion. Had you not used the terms "social behavior" and "legal practice," but had been sufficiently honest to acknowledge that your entire argument is predicated upon religious principles, i might agree to meet you a that station. The distinction which you are trying to make is only to be found in theology, not in either law or in social history.



I haven't the foggiest notion what this sentence intends to convey.

Whew...thought I was the only one.

Here above is the paragraph in its entirety. The "it" reference in the last sentence is clearly to the last words in the preceeding sentence, "to take certain actions based on that distinction". Thus I am asserting that none of you has presented an argument that would constitute a reasonable case for denying government the right to take certain actions based on the objective distinction that can be made between marriages of homosexuals and marriages of men and women. I believe the prose was clear enough and that the assertion stands.

Thanks Setanta for the tutorial on 18th and early 19th century social mores in the British Isles. I believe he will concede that observations about the documentation of religious (or even civil) ceremonies and commitments in Ireland prior to the repeal of the penal laws, by the Irish-speaking, Catholic majority of the population, do not constitute an accurate representation of the "normal" condition of the population of even that then unhappy island.

There is no doubt that the levels of adherance to what one might term middle-class Western Judaeo-Christian social standards have varied considerably from place to lace over the last several centuries. However, despite that, the poor and the unlettered tended to produce and rear the majority of their offspring on what contemporary sociologists might call nucleus families headed by a man and a woman who (in most cases) produced the children - and have done so with or without documents. It is that institution to which I refer, and the contemporary norms that surround it. It is not and was not the same thing as more or less stable unions of homosexuals (which also have existed for likely as long a time). They are distinct things and it is not necessary for government and society to treat them identically in every respect.

My motives are not at all religious in this matter, though Setanta assumes they are. I do note, however, that the contemporary parsons of political correctitude do enforce their dogmas with as much unthinking intolerance as they often accuse those of religious persuasion. A good deal of irony there, I think.

C'mon, George. I think it was pretty good!


For those who do not understand what George is talking about here...

...earlier, George wrote the following two snippets in the same post:






I simply noted:



Fact is, I agree with George that there is no shortage of narrow-minded, ignorant people of every persuasion on most social and political issues.

And on this particular issue, I see the arguments George offers as ignorant and narrow-minded.

I prefer to think of that as being truthful...but I guess my take could be interpreted by George as being offensive.

If that is so...my remark was, in my opinion, both funny and offensive.

In any case, Candidone and Setanta have pretty much combined to blow the doors off the arguments that George has been using to rationalize his (what I consider bigotted) take on this issue...so I am free to indulge myself.

Frank, who offers nothing of substance to the discussion, reduces himself to childish insults and the degrading role of being but a claque for others.

Interesting that you would give a lesson in what not to do in a thread...in a posting that does so much of what you counsel against.

Sort of like the observation I made that started this little dispute.

Further evidence that I was correct in what I said about your original statement:



And once again, I agree with you, George.