Defining Marriage is Problematic
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| Sat, 02-07-2004 - 10:49am |
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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So then what you're saying is that this country should enact laws based solely on religious beliefs then, right?
Whose religion?
The Taliban?
Or should we all conform to Jewish law?
How about Muslim?
Catholicism - that way nobody ever practices birth control again, and we can go back to butchers in back rooms with dirty knives.....
Yeah, a theocracy would work here.
Pffffffffffffttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhh!
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"If you don't stand up for something, you'll lie down for anything." -- Bob Day, Marriage Equality Rally, Rochester NY
Help in the fight against a constitutional amendment!
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"If you don't stand up for something, you'll lie down for anything." -- B
But all of my gay friends have different "homosexual lifestyles". Some of them live to garden, some enjoy traveling, and others hang around the house at night and watch TV just like 'regular' people. They argue, they love, they live their lives just like everyone else. Which "lifestyle" should we ban first??
The one where they have S-E-X.
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"If you don't stand up for something, you'll lie down for anything." -- B
Something I hear occasionally, and I'm used to answering it. Thanks for your support!
For the record, many of us *were* upset by it, because it demeans and devalues how we feel and our relationships.
Nothing wrong with it being two same sex partners making a family unit. We are interested in starting families and giving children loving homes.
>>We are in the last stages of another Sodam and Gomorrah because we are very selfish and me oriented. We want everything now and expect it to be given to us. We should not have to work so hard to get what we want. Everything is expected to be a gift because we are just here. The old ideas of working for what we want is old fashioned thinking.<<
I'm no biblical scholar, but those who have studied it tell me the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is condemning promiscuity, not being gay.
>>If we are poor, the government should give us housing, food, insurance for health needs. If we don't make enough money on the job we are doing, some agency should make up the slack instead of each person living on what they can make. They may be poor, but they have two or three TV's, a VCR & DVD player, cars, etc. Sorry for the preaching but this is a sore spot for me. If you want something, work for it. The old fashioned way.<<
This country has rules that limit welfare... if you really want to after big dollars, end corporate welfare.
I too am a Roman Cathoic and was brought up to believe that homosexuality is sinful, but with regards to rights, I dont know what to think as it is a tough issue between ones beliefs and legal rights.
I have read that some have proposed a compromise where gays would receive the same rights under the law (including Rights of survivorship, healthcare benefits, tax benefits {if any}) but it would not be called "marriage" so as to keep the religious aspect out of it, but still protect them equally under the law (which is of paramount importance)
Workers today do a day and a halfs work. The wages are going down while the work load is going up.
There is so much stress in the work place that we are a nation of pile poppers.
You are right, morals have gone down. The young, because both parents have to work, come home to an empty house. Parents today are usurped by the experts who tell them how to bring their children up. Movies, videos, and other sexual and violent things are there to see and the kids are influenced badly by them.
We have to have some structure to our lives and what we had, has been taken away by the sexual revoluntion and the violence in the things that entertain us.
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