Fun With Utahns!
We here at the Bubblehead household were amused by the story of the polygamist judge in Utah who is trying to keep his job. (Short story: He married one woman in a civil ceremony, then "married" her two sisters -- ewww! -- in "church" ceremonies with a splinter Mormon offshoot. Please note that the real LDS church immediately excommunicates anyone who attempts to enter into a polygamous marriage.)
Anyway, I was wondering what the "progressives" over at Democratic Underground might say about this. I personally don't see how you can logically support gay marriage while being opposed to consensual polygamy (or, even worse, consensual incest.) Here's a sampling of what they had to say. Some of them are opposed because he's a probably a Reich-wing Re-thug-li-KKKan, but the others are at least being somewhat consistent.
I can just imagine national political figures going on record as being consistent by supporting legalized polygamy along with gay marriage. (OK, I really can't.)
posted by Bubblehead at 1:43 PM
3 Comments:
I'm in a legal, same-sex marriage. Quite a few women are.
Not that it started out that way.
According to my birth certificate, I'm male. Blood (as opposed to other organ) tests show I have 46xy chromosomes. I'm a father.
But... my health care card says Female. So do my bank accounts (last one changed today), my tax records, my electoral registration. My blood test results are calibrated to female norms, for most medical intents and purposes, I'm female.
Transsexuality is a variety of Intersex. The body develops one way, but there's a hormonal glitch in the womb, and the brain gets misgendered. Easy to see during an autopsy. People with male bodies who have Gender Identity Disorder (GID) have the same brain structures as normal women. People with female bodies and GID are actually men, male brains, male minds.
Back in the 70's, little was known about GID. It was thought to be purely psychological, not biological. Very many people with it tried to "tough it out", to conceal it. Given a male body, you have to be a Man, get over it.
A *lot* of women crack under the strain about 33 years after puberty. Some sooner, some later, but eventually they have to do something or die. Usually by their own hand, but quite often they just give up, stop eating, and eventually stop breathing. It's that bad. They have no choice.
Now this can be a little bit of a problem if one has been happily married for 25 years (to another woman, natch), and maybe have kids too. 80% of such marriages immediately destruct.
But 20% don't. Some such become celebate, but not all.
Worse, lest you think that "there's always a choice", in a miniscule fraction of cases, the body starts changing without external intervention. The only choice there is Life as a Circus Freak, a "Bearded Lady", or one approximating a normal female life.
You can imagine the effect of the former on any children. The latter is bad enough.
Remember my birth certificate? Because of the laws at present, in order to become a fully documented female, regardless of my anatomy or even chromosomes, I'd have to get a divorce.
Even before this happened to me, I was always in favour of same sex marriage, while wishing homosexuality to be discouraged, but not persecuted. I even blogged to that effect.
To have my own biology turn me into a Lesbian was not a predicted outcome. Serves me right in some ways, some would say. Poetic Justice.
The really scary part is that sexuality is at least partly affected by hormonal levels as well as genetics. About 50% of formerly lesbian women (in male bodies) become "straight" after their body is corrected and their hormone levels change.
I try very hard not to think about that.
My point? Same-sex (though not neccessarily gay) marriages already exist in practice. In fact, it's the strongest marriages, those between responsible parents whose first concern is for their children, that are most likely to survive.
Gays who wish to marry - as opposed to merely living together in a formally recognised way - are people who are far more likely to treat the state of marriage as a sacrament, something far more significant than a merely legal contract, than most heterosexual couples who get hitched at an early age, and are divorced by the time they're 25. It means something special to them. It actually strengthens the concept of marriage as a lifetime commitment, not lightly entered into.
Being able to "pass" (yes, that term is used, like "passing for white" used to be) as a natal female is rarely a matter of life-and-death. Murders of transsexuals are now monthly rather than daily occurences. Assaults and rapes are rather more common, but at least these are usually investigated by the police now, and not with the view to preferring charges against the victim. This was not true as recently as 10 years ago.
Yes, I was surprised too. I knew absolutely nothing about this until May this year. I certainly didn't know that 1 in 2500 women in the USA weren't born that way. There's far more of us than you think - but for us to reveal our status is to risk physical harm.
A few of us have no choice. We have too high a profile to "go stealth" or "woodwork" (oh, there's a whole vocabulary you know nothing about, survival tricks and tips we all have to learn).
So we try to publicise, in a quiet way, without drawing too much attention to ourselves, what the situation is. It's a birth defect.
My point? The ban on same-sex marriages could conceivably kill me due to documentary irregularities, unless I divorce my partner, my other half, my best friend of 25 years and the mother of my child.
All it takes is one case of mistaken identity, a simple arrest on a warrant meant for someone else, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being picked up "on suspicion", and I'd be put in with Bubba and his gang.
That's the law in many states. International travel? Look at my picture. Without a Birth Certificate marked 'F', I have to have 'M' in my Australian passport. Think this might cause some problems, possibly? You;d be right.
The de-facto international agreement to ban same-sex marriages is already affecting thousands of people. It's even killing some. Be aware of that, and take it into consideration in any judgment you come to.
11/04/2005 8:32 AM
Now clearing the flaming datum, group up, both ahead flank, and heading below the layer, rigging for depth charge.
11/04/2005 8:43 AM
Zoe -- you won't take any incoming fire from me. I've been quite impressed by the strength you've shown during this change (now there's an understatement) in your life. I can't even begin to imagine everything you and your family are going through; just know that you have my support.
That being said, please note that I never said in my post that I opposed same-sex marriage; my point was that it would be difficult for me to see how someone could logically support same-sex marriage without supporting polygamy. And, despite my snarkiness, I do think there is a consistent argument to ban incestuous marriages even if other types of marriage are legalized, but that goes away if one or both is permanently infertile.
Society, in its wisdom, has decided that encouraging "nuclear" families capable of producing and rearing children is a positive thing, and provides economic incentives to facilitate this. There are clearly heterosexual marriages that don't meet this norm, and society doesn't take away the benefits of marriage from these people.
My personal opinion, for what it's worth, is that it really won't affect me if the State allows "non-traditional" marriages; the one thing I don't want is some sort of "affirmative action" for those who seek to enter into them.
11/06/2005 12:54 AM
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