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France legalizes gay marriage and adoption
- Thread starter Raist
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QuicheFontaine
Member
I thought we did this already? Like, in February or something?
archnemesis
Member
They are surprisingly backwards when it comes to some things, like gender equality and capital punishment for instance.
I thought Japan was the complete opposite to be honest. Not familiar with their recent politics but I do recall a documentary about their complete lack of social safety net.
Except for age of consent I think it's just the opposite in sex terms. F.e. porn.
Strong drug laws too I think.
EdibleExplosives
Member
I'm not entirely sure how it works, so correct me if I'm wrong. I think it passed the first vote in February but it still has to pass at least another vote before it'll be passed as law.
Edit: grammar.
That people who argue and protest and blah blah about the gay marriage will forget about it in a few months, as
1- They painfully realise it didn't affect them
2- They learn that the "oh so sacred" marriage is not the holy grail of a gay couple and only a few will use that legal figure.
3- Sky is still blue and the sun rises every morning.
What does the red mean?
Oh, that's too bad, for what I otherwise think of as a pretty forwardthinking country. I met some gay people in Japan, never brought it up, but I always assumed that they had a pretty vocal gay community in Japan also.
CyclopsRock
Member
I'd be interested to see any studies into it you might know, and how they go about ascertaining that it was marriage (rather than the sort of seriousness that a couple who are inclined to get married) which has that effect. But, beyond that, I can't say I'm too thrilled with the idea of the government attempting to arrive at certain social conclusions via legal ends. It's that sort of mentality that has helped keep homophobia alive for so long. (Not just regarding gay marriage, but the fact that it was - and still is, sadly, in some countries - illegal to even be a homosexual, let alone get married). I'm not sure it's a power that is best left to the government, even democratic ones.
But you have to ask why those that have suffered at the hands of that very legislation - in this case, Homosexuals, but they aren't the first group and they won't be the last - had to do so. Ok, so gays can get married now, and social change may come about rapidly as a result. But how much of that need for change came from the fact it was illegal for so long? You point out that legality (or illegality, rather) give things a certain social stigma. Surely we aren't confident that, having enacted this legislation, marriage is now perfect and therefore not harming anyone, in the way it did with homosexuals? "Legal" and "illegal" only make sense in the context of things that are legislated about in the first place.
As another flip around question, how about this; If marriage was a purely social ceremony (even if it had great importance to people and their communities, and had all the same effects on society that you suggested it does above) with no legal grounding whatsoever - akin to a birthday celebration - would you propose regulating it? Defining in law who can and cannot both get married, and perform the marriage ceremony - knowing what you know about the negative effects of getting it wrong?
so, it's all good then
Escape Goat
Member
America stop embarrassing me.
Lowlander2
Banned
JDawgMadden is seemingly in no rush to visit France, then.
Great news! Hopefully the rest of Europe will join soon.
Edit: The new map should look like this.
Didn't realise Corsica got their independence!
Finally. Come on Germany, you can't let France beat you.
We need more dark blue in this picture. (Dark blue = same sex marriage allowed)
Legend:
Deep blue: Same-sex marriage
Blue: Other type of partnership
Light blue: Unregistered cohabitation
Gray: Unrecognized
Red: Constitution limits marriage to opposite-sex couples
As I understand it the blue and deep blue can pretty much be the same thing (legally) in some countries. I think that was the case for Sweden which went from blue to deep blue in 2009. Reading about it I can't see what changed other than it being called "marriage" instead of "partnership".
Napoleon rises again.Didn't realise Corsica got their independence!
Napalm_Frank
Member
I'd rather not touch this subject with a 10 feet pole but in my opinion gay adoption is not all good. They are just as capable for raising a child but the society of today is way too anti-gay imo for this to work well yet. I can imagine kids with gay parents being bullied like crazy.
Marriage is a good step for France.
Escape Goat
Member
Kids with straight parents aren't bullied like crazy? Kids are cruel. This is terrible reasoning.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
I readily cede that de jure equality doesn't lead to de facto equality, as we continue to see with integration and gender issues--I merely note that de jure equality does to some measure prod society along towards de facto equality, and that struggles for equality have in my opinion come a long way thanks to the legal process worldwide.
You can already get a purely social marriage. Nothing is stopping me from marrying you against your will to Lenin's ghost. Nothing is stopping any sort of social ceremony. Same-sex marriages have occurred for years, decades even without legal sanction. Bigamy laws don't prohibit people from having multiple weddings, they prohibit people from having multiple legally recognized marriages. Anti-same sex marriage laws didn't prohibit people from performing same-sex marriages, but rather the legal recognition of them. The fact that these things are rarely mentioned suggests that the legal sanction of marriage and the benefits associated with it differentiate legal marriage from a purely social marriage, so where's the beef?
Call me a liberal, but I'm ok with the rule of law / rights-based system we have today. We make our best guess, establish it as policy tentatively, research, refine, we are open to skepticism, we listen to the views of those groups that organize themselves to seek rights in a legal-judicial framework, we do our best to make our institutions responsive to those claims, we place certain rights above the reach of angry populism by enshrining them, we have vanguards like social movements and academics who produce the kind of bomb-throwing, edge-pushing works that eventually filter to the mainstream. Regardless of legal recognition or lack thereof for any rights claim, people should be empathetic and kind to one another and everyone should feel safe to live their own peaceful existence--we should avoid judging.
It's not a perfect system, and people suffer a great deal in the mean time. But I'm not convinced that the oppression caused by rule of law exceeds the liberty and prosperity enabled by it and I am deeply skeptical of efforts to dismantle the state and establish radically local politics. Even admirable efforts from the left to dismantle the state in order to ensure the better treatment of others (let's say indigenous politics movements or the Zapatistas or whatever) can still lead to remarkable cruelty. I am confident that nationalizing, globalizing forces can play an emancipatory role. Hell, even within the system today we allow for venue shopping where interest groups act locally when local rules allow breakthroughs, but nationally when national rules allow breakthroughs.
You can already get a purely social marriage. Nothing is stopping me from marrying you against your will to Lenin's ghost. Nothing is stopping any sort of social ceremony. Same-sex marriages have occurred for years, decades even without legal sanction. Bigamy laws don't prohibit people from having multiple weddings, they prohibit people from having multiple legally recognized marriages. Anti-same sex marriage laws didn't prohibit people from performing same-sex marriages, but rather the legal recognition of them. The fact that these things are rarely mentioned suggests that the legal sanction of marriage and the benefits associated with it differentiate legal marriage from a purely social marriage, so where's the beef?
Call me a liberal, but I'm ok with the rule of law / rights-based system we have today. We make our best guess, establish it as policy tentatively, research, refine, we are open to skepticism, we listen to the views of those groups that organize themselves to seek rights in a legal-judicial framework, we do our best to make our institutions responsive to those claims, we place certain rights above the reach of angry populism by enshrining them, we have vanguards like social movements and academics who produce the kind of bomb-throwing, edge-pushing works that eventually filter to the mainstream. Regardless of legal recognition or lack thereof for any rights claim, people should be empathetic and kind to one another and everyone should feel safe to live their own peaceful existence--we should avoid judging.
It's not a perfect system, and people suffer a great deal in the mean time. But I'm not convinced that the oppression caused by rule of law exceeds the liberty and prosperity enabled by it and I am deeply skeptical of efforts to dismantle the state and establish radically local politics. Even admirable efforts from the left to dismantle the state in order to ensure the better treatment of others (let's say indigenous politics movements or the Zapatistas or whatever) can still lead to remarkable cruelty. I am confident that nationalizing, globalizing forces can play an emancipatory role. Hell, even within the system today we allow for venue shopping where interest groups act locally when local rules allow breakthroughs, but nationally when national rules allow breakthroughs.
EdibleExplosives
Member
Then bullies should be punished, not the victim.
Restricting gay people from having kids because of certain members of society being complete dumbfucks is ridiculous.
It's the same as telling women they have to wear certain clothes because men can't control themselves.
This is a very dangerous road to go down. Allowing the government to form, instead of being formed by public policy. The latter is the very essence of democracy whereas the former is a tenant of authoritarianism. You're right in saying it's a two way street but I think that's a simplistic view, there are plenty of things that are legal and yet considered despicable or attract a great deal of shame. Some notable examples is that there exists no positive duty to act and alcohol. It's perfectly legal to sit down and watch in glee as a child drowns, as it's equally legal to get drunk in the morning. Both are frowned upon. There's also the curious case of California where it (gay marriage) was legalised but the backlash was so great that it promoted a citizens referendum where it was overturned.
Yep. I think adoption is a touchy subject, not because of the act itself, but because I'm afraid of how the heterosexual world would treat a child raised by a homosexual copule.
Homophobic protests about gay adoption are basically protests against themselves.
Napalm_Frank
Member
Of course they are but what I have seen it goes tenfold for LGB.
Of course the bullies/bigoted society is at blame but in this case I can see the points for both sides of the argument and honestly I don't really know what to think myself. It becomes an issue of the rights of the gay parents vs the kid having better chances of more peaceful childhood (and honestly at this point I might be leaning towards the latter until LGB becomes more accepted in the society and marriage is a good step towards that).
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
That's a deliberate edge case -- had the prop 8 vote been a year later, it would have swung the other way. The backers of the measure exploited a deliberate lag between the judicial fiat on same-sex marriage and the manifestation of support at a social level. They also exploited a deliberate ambiguity between public opinion and the other issues on the ballot--in other words, projections have shown that a marginally different turnout model for the up-ticket issues might have led to a narrow prop 8 defeat than a narrow victory.
The point remains true provided you view it over a longer temporal scale, as a gradual process, and as a continuum. Canada is an excellent example. SSM legalized province by province by judicial ruling -> After most provinces allowed it, federal government legalizes it -> Election results in (Social-)Conservative government who vow to revisit the issue and rescind same-sex marriage -> By the time they revisit it less than a year after the initial vote, the appetite to rescind same-sex marriage had vanished -> Conservatives half-ass it, don't rescind same-sex marriage -> Dead letter issue -> Public support for SSM soars to supermajority levels.
Were California to revisit SSM today it'd be around 58-42 for.
CyclopsRock
Member
Well, "the beef" comes from exactly the trend you've stated - that legal sanction (or a lack of) gives those sanctioned things legitimacy or stigma, depending on what is and isn't legal. As such, a certain definition gets institutionalised to the harm of those that do not fit within that definition. Indeed, that's the major problem that's attempting to be rectified with this change in legislation now, but it's a "problem" that only exists because of the legal nature of marriage in the first place. If there were no legal definition and it was all exclusively social, you'd never need to pedal back and hope that the quick change in social attitudes that arise from changes like this happens.
I'm not arguing against rule of law generally, I'm simply saying that if you want something enshrined in law that effectively benefits one person over another (as marriage has and still does), you better be ready to justify its existence to a significant degree. The idea that it may contribute to families having kids isn't good enough, in my opinion, and nor is the fact it makes legal paperwork easier. There are plenty of people that never get married throughout their lives, so it's certainly not the case that we simply aren't equipped to deal with a system lacking marriage as a legal entity. There are certain rights that we keep out the hands of angry populism via constitutions, you're correct, and one quick look at that map suggests that marriage being exclusively between a man and a woman is one of those "rights" in many places.
When looking at the legitimacy of any law, the first thing that one has to ask themselves is, simply put, "do we need it?" Of course, all laws are going to have some (perceived, at least) benefit to society, otherwise they wouldn't exist at all. But, given the tremendous vein of harm that, unintended though it may be, runs through the history of social law, I think it comes down to a case of how much do we need it, and I've never been given a convincing argument that the existence of marriage is preferable to the state of constant lack of fairness that has always existed in state-sanctioned marriage.
CornBurrito
Member
The problem is that you are letting bigots and hypothetical scenarios prevent you from granting equal rights to all citizens
Until relatively recently, societies as whole were against non-traditional marriages. Suggesting that government should have stayed out of is fairly meaningless if the the vast majority of the public wanted them involved. Even if the government happens to be enlightened, the pressure would eventually force legislation.
Nowadays marriage is for the most part a financial contract that is to a degree incentivised (for reasons Stump stated) by the government. The legislation provides the contract its standard form from which the parties are largely free to deviate from. It's not a very regulated relationship at all.
It grants equal rights to the partents, but does it guarantee equal rights to the child?
See, it's a touchy subject, far above me.
Escape Goat
Member
I am so confused. The right not to have people say mean things to you? Thats allowed up to a point. It shouldn't bar people from adopting.
The lower chamber has already approved it. It's going back to it next week for details only. The only way it can be overruled is that is for the council to deem it unconstitutional when the opposition is going to request it. Doubt that's gonna happen.
nailbombxx
Member
Time to follow suit, America.
A counter-example would be Australia, where public support for SSM is already at (super)majority levels. This has not been represented in politics as the LNP (Conservative) and the ALP (Broadly Liberal) both support the definition of Marriage as between a man and a woman. (In fairness the ALP platform was amended to allow a conscience vote, but when the vote came to Parliament only just over 1/2 of the party voted in favour)
Contrast this to Washington State. Where in 2011 it found 49% in favour. You can see it increasing in the period after support but the Australian case is an example where the government has failed to shape public policy through it's laws.
Considering the protests, Liberté to égalité, but with not so much fraternité
AuthenticM
Member
Magnifique !
EdibleExplosives
Member
Adoption is also a huge step towards that. Having more kids with gay parents in society will increase the public view on how 'normal' it is.
I'm pretty sure I'd rather be a kid with gay parents and risk getting picked on by badly raised kids than be raised in a foster home with no real family at all.
It's up to schools to discipline and punish bullies, and for parents to actually raise their kids properly. We shouldn't be restricting people's rights because of that.
Also:
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Australia's politics are a little aberrant in general when used as a comparative example, because its political culture is unusually reactionary and it has a pretty weird federalism. It was founded as a fairly loose, decentralized federalism but has slowly become more centralized.
Point taken, however, that the street between state legislation and public values goes both ways and barriers can be enacted between the two for either progressive or regressive ends. Having conceded that the road is bumpy and it's perhaps not as simple as I characterized it initially, I still think that on the balance state institutions are still a valuable asset for progressive social policy projects and in aggregate that's the way they've been used in the global north over the historical long haul.
Won't somebody think of the children? Really?
And now the leaders of the anti-"mariage pour tous" calls for a "Civil War" and for "Blood". Thankfully, this is over now. The last vote next week will be a pure formality and the Conseil Constitutionnel will probably approve it. I just hope right-wing mayors won't be dickheads by trying to block same sex weddings, but I guess that'll be illegal.
MeBecomingI
Member
So proud of Canada being on that list, but that list should be so much more.
Awesome on France! Good, good, good! Very happy to hear that.
Regardless of the intent of the legislators, legislation always has some sort of expressive and moral building function, in particular in fields where the moral dimensions are more explicit. Furthermore, the function is relevant even if the majority of the informed public happens to support said legislation. It should never be the main function.
Captain Tuttle
Member
Good stuff France
The face of civiliization, people.
childplease
Banned
I thought Japan was pretty racist and pretty conservative ?
Napalm_Frank
Member
I know this is the case too but I think it could have a softer landing in the future. I know it will be allowed anyway at some point in many western countries so my biggest ''issue'' is timing. Things will get better for gays in the future and it will positively affect the adopted kids at the same time. But as you said the exposure for this would be faster if it was allowed.
I believe part of this issue is generational too. I just don't really know what is the best course of action in this case. Anyway my point in this thread was just to say that I understand both sides in this issue and I'm not gonna judge either way.
:/
I am not preventing anything from anyone. I am just saying I see where people are coming from with this mindset.
Commies
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