Civil Rights

[asterroc]

A nice "doctored" video about civil rights. California is facing a ballot question that would make gay marriage illegal, Question 8. The Yes on 8 people put out a video w/ people talking about what's wrong w/ gay marriage, yadda yadda. And then someone took that video and replaced every mention of "same-sex" with "interracial," and "gay" with "black," even re-recording the vocal track.

I am multi-racial, and I approve.

Comments

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Civil marriage is an international institution. I don't want US citizens at a disadvantage abroad.

However, I keep changing my mind about this, so ask me again in ten minutes and I'll say something different.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Wow, I feel dumb. I know, of course, how lack of federally-recognized same-sex marriage affects same-sex couples when one member is not a US citizen, but it never occurred to me to look at it from the perspective of married US citizens traveling/living abroad. That's kind of a shame, because I otherwise find the notion of abolishing federal recognition of marriage appealing (can't they just replace it with "civil unions" for everyone?").

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not sure what's going on with citizens of foreign countries whose countries recognize same-sex marriage when they come to the US. But as long as same-sex marriages are not federally recognized, even other countries that allow them are not obligated to recognize a gay marriage that took place in one of our states that allows it. The other coutries may *choose* to do so of course, but they're not required to.

FWIW I'm not sure what sort of international law actually obligates countries to recognize each others' marriages, so I could be misstating the situation. Also, it's possible that if the US abolished the federal institution of marriage and replaced it with civil unions at the federal level (rather than state level), that it would be legally viewed as the same thing internationally - I mean we don't fail to recognize French marriages just b/c they use the French word for marriage instead of our word "marriage." If civil unions were made identical(accepted federally), then they would BE identical in all legal senses.

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

This is a total bullshit answer. Do you imagine that if marriage were not a federal institution, countries around the world would just decide to screw all American citizens? It's unlikely. An accommodation would be worked out. Anyway, if gay marriage were legal, would the Saudis suddenly recognize American gay marriages? Even more unlikely.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Well, what actual international law requires other countries to recognize our marriages? For example, I believe that Canada recognizes gay marriages that take place in MA, but is Canada *required* to do so? And how does Canada even know that the couple is really married, do they ask for a marriage license? Would they recognize the same-sex marriage of a gay couple from Texas? The whole issue is just too fuzzy to me b/c I don't know enough about the law involved.

This is a total bullshit answer.

I know you like arguing, so I would like to set a ground rule here. I do not appreciate responses that seem to come more from anger than from a reasoned argument, or that are designed to provoke the other individual. Because of the cursing and the brevity of the sentence, this part of your comment appears to be more of a provocation. (The rest of your comment does appear well-reasoned and I felt deserved a response, so I did my best to ignore that first sentence while responding above.) I would appreciate it if you would try to avoid comments that could be triggering to me in this way.

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

You're right. I'm sorry for my first sentence. I regretted it as soon as it came out.

Your point about Canada not being obligated to recognize American marriages by international law is exactly it. Many US states have laws requiring they recognize marriages from other states, and others that don't have legal traditions stemming from English common law that recognize other states' marriages . Other states have laws on the books forbidden them to recognize gay marriages. The situation with foreign countries is similarly murky. Marriage isn't an international institution, it's a patchwork of hyper-regionalized laws.

I mean, think about it... The captain of a ship is allowed to perform weddings that are legally binding by English common law. Have you ever paused to reflect on the absurdity of that tradition?