Defining Marriage is Problematic

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Defining Marriage is Problematic
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Sat, 02-07-2004 - 10:49am
Laws Can't Define 'Man' or 'Woman,' So How Can They Ban Gay Marriage?

Commentary, William O. Beeman,

Pacific News Service, Feb 05, 2004

Editor's Note: Legislators' attempts to codify marriage as "between a man and a woman" won't work, writes PNS contributor William O. Beeman. Like it or not, there is no single, clear biological, psychological or cultural definition of "male" and "female." Already, courts are faltering on the ambiguity of gender.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court advisory, stating that nothing short of marriage for same-sex couples would satisfy the state constitution, has sent legislators throughout the nation as well as President Bush scrambling to define marriage as between "one man and one woman."

These legislative attempts are doomed, because there is no clear, scientific and strict definition of "man" and "woman." There are millions of people with ambiguous gender -- many of them already married -- who render these absolute categories invalid.

There are at least three ways one might try to codify gender under law -- biologically, psychologically and culturally. On close inspection, all of them fail.

Biologically, one must choose either secondary sexual characteristics -- things like facial hair for men or breast development for women -- or genetic testing as defining markers of gender. Neither method is clear-cut. Some women show male secondary characteristics, and vice versa. Before puberty, things are not necessarily any clearer. A significant proportion of all babies have ambiguous gender development. It has been longstanding -- and now, increasingly, controversial -- medical practice to surgically "reassign" such babies shortly after birth so that they will have only one set of sexual organs.

Sometimes doctors guess wrong, and children are "reassigned" and raised as males, when they are genetically female, and vice versa.

In one condition, androgen insensitivity syndrome, genetic males are born with a genetic immunity to androgens, the hormones that produce male sexual characteristics. Though they are genetic males, these children typically grow up looking like females, although they have no internal female organs.

Although figures are imprecise, experts in intersexuality, such as Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling of Brown University, estimate that persons born with some degree of ambiguous gender constitute approximately 1 percent of the population. This means that there are 2 million Americans who may be biologically ambiguous.

Psychologically, another dilemma for those who seek to codify gender is the condition known as gender dysphoria, in which a person feels that their true gender is the opposite of that in which they were born. These individuals are often referred to as "transgendered." Some experts estimate as many as 1.2 million Americans are transgendered. Gender dysphoria is a matter of personal identity and has nothing to do with sexual orientation. A male-to-female transgendered person may be attracted to women or to men.

Finally, human societies around the world recognize individuals who are culturally female or culturally male no matter what their physical gender. The "berdache" is an umbrella term used by Europeans to designate a man who is culturally classified as a woman, and who may be a "wife" to another man. The practice is perhaps best known among the Zuñi Indians of Arizona, but is widely seen in other tribal groups as well. Outside of North America, the hijra of India, a cultural "third gender," is important in ceremonial life. Hijra are classified as "neither man nor woman," but they may marry males. These examples of cultural gender ambiguity are only two among dozens throughout the world.

If the United States tries to enact a national law defining gender conditions for marriage, it is only a matter of time before the law falters on one of these rocks of ambiguity. There are undoubtedly existing marriages where the wife is a genetic male or the husband is a genetic female. In a medical examination, if it is determined that this genetic fact is discovered, is the marriage then voided? When post-operative transgendered persons wed, whom will they be allowed to marry -- persons with the opposite set of chromosomes, or people with the opposite set of genitalia?

There has already been one Texas decision where two "women" were allowed to marry, because one of them had originally been a male. We can expect far more stories like this should this legislative circus proceed.

PNS contributor William O. Beeman (William_beeman@brown.edu) teaches anthropology at Brown University.

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=d3362852002e314524ffb9ac8eac3c91

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iVillage Member
Registered: 02-15-2004
Sat, 03-27-2004 - 8:55am
LOVE YOUR POST! That is exactly the way I feel about this. How can people not see that this whole issue is discrimination! And civil unions are just a way to make gays "separate but equal"?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sat, 03-27-2004 - 8:58am
Hi Callalily! Welcome

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003
Mon, 03-29-2004 - 6:09am

My problem with calling a gay union a marriage is that marriage is one of the sacriments and the Catholic church has always claimed homosexuality to be contrary to the bible. Personally, I have no problem with a man loving a man or a woman loving a woman. I have no problem with civil ceremony or legal unions. I'm not comfortable with the state (or nation) trying to force the church to accept something that it has always rejected. Whatever happened to separation of church and state?


Marriage is not just a sacriment of the Catholic church (or any other church for that matter), it is a legally defined term. NO ONE would be telling the church that they have to Marry homosexual couples, they would certainly be allowed to if they wanted to (like the Jewish temple that decided to marry homosexual couples), but they would NOT be forced to.


The religious sense of Marriage would not be changed in anyway by this (except by giving them the LEGAL ability to do whatever they want with homosexual marriage right now they can ONLY deny not allow), this is about the legality of the STATE to provide Marriage LICENSES.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-25-2003
Mon, 03-29-2004 - 12:48pm
Just so everyone is aware...I was raised that there is no confusion between what a man "is" and what a woman "is". A man has a penis and a woman has a vagina. That pretty much sums it up. If you both have the same sex organs...then you are not a man and woman. Pretty simple really when you think about it.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003
Mon, 03-29-2004 - 1:20pm
Too bad you were not also raised to respect other peoples choices, who they are and who they love.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Mon, 03-29-2004 - 1:52pm

Genitalia are not always the indication of a person neatly fitting into the category of woman or man despite the way you were "raised".


How would you classify people born with both sets of organs or parts of M/F organs?


See article at link below.........


http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=d3362852002e314524ffb9ac8eac3c91

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-25-2003
Wed, 03-31-2004 - 2:34pm
I didn't think the issue had anything to do w/ whether or not I agreed or disagreed w/ same sex marriage but, how the law defines a man and woman. I personally don't care who anyone loves or wants to be w/ but, when you try and change a fact....a man is a man and a woman is a woman that I have a problem w/. I don't think there is a simple answer to this or anything relating to a person who has both sex organs...but the fact of the matter is that we are not just talking about that. We are talking about people who clearly know what sexual organs they possess and want to be w/ someone w/ the same sex organs. For those that have both sets I fear that the decision to live as male or female is their choice not anyone elses. But marriage is a union between a man and woman and that is pretty clear.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2004
Fri, 04-02-2004 - 10:14am
Marriage definition problematic? Well, you might want to go to the source of marriage and see what is defined there? You might want to look at the structure/results of society in the US since we have had just a man married to just a woman. You might want to look at the results of same sex marriages/unions/affairs on the children? Why does there need to be a mother and a father for children? Or is there? How many black children have both parents at home now? What are the implications of such? What is the cost to government funding of welfare, workfare, aid programs when there are single parent homes? Why are 60% of current marriages headed for divorce? Is there a lack of understanding of the word commitment? Do we really know the individual and his or her needs?

For thousands of years millions upon millions of people in societies all around the world have married men and women not same sex unions. As some would say: "if it aint' broke, don't fix it." Look into the Bible and see what the Creator of this earth and universe and every hair on your head has said about and prewarned of the consequences of same sex unions.

happy55face

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 04-02-2004 - 10:33am

>"Why are 60% of current marriages headed for divorce? "<


>" As some would say: "if it aint' broke, don't fix it." "<


Isn't this a contradiction?


If, as you state, 60% of marriages end in divorce.... looks as though something is broken.


>" Is there a lack of understanding of the word commitment? "<

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2004
Fri, 04-02-2004 - 11:06am
Well, no not really as it is 60% only recently. Forty years ago it was a disgrace to have a divorce. Now we make it so easy that and there are fewer society negative responses that it is more rapidly taken. True some couples never should have been married in the first place. I was part of that too. My spouse jumped out after the first real test hit us. Remarried 2-3 years later.

Divorce breeds divorcing children. Single parent homes breed insecure incomplete adults generally. Same sex couples are not going to have well balanced children. Can two people of the same sex really "have" children?

If single adults were taught how to be introspective we could actually get to know our true needs and wants in a spouse and that alone would reduce the divorce rate dramatically.

Why does God say it is an abomination to him and everything He stands for when two people of the same gender have sex? What happened to Soddom and Gomorrah? Could that happen again?

Is that short sighted or should we just let everyone do anything they want?

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