Defining Marriage is Problematic

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Defining Marriage is Problematic
266
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: 05-27-2003
Sun, 02-22-2004 - 11:47am
While this is only my opinion but maybe if everyone had the same rights no matter what their orientation is we wouldn't need these kinds of discussions and possibly ending the feeling that it was being crammed down your throat. I can't imagine there was any debate when(if) you decided to marry. I know there wasn't when I got married. So why should there be an issue for any consenting adult?
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Sun, 02-22-2004 - 11:49am
What is the basis for that conclusion about the ulterior motives?
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Sun, 02-22-2004 - 11:53am
Great post. I completely agree.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-27-2003
Sun, 02-22-2004 - 12:07pm
And exactly how do you that for a fact that homosexuals have emotional problems? Are you privy to information that no one else has. What a very irresponsible statement. So if my husband and I agreed we didn't want children we should not have been allowed to marry? My friend recently married and she is in her 40's no children there so she shouldn't have been allowed to marry? Yes George has done wonders. We are truely a country divided and hated by the world. Great job George.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2003
Mon, 02-23-2004 - 6:28am
What is the source of your information? I have been practicing law for 20 years and typically a judge will allow you to correct a technical defect in a pleading, but punctuation errors don't rise to that level. What is the phrase in the brief that the plaintiffs are supposed to correct?

The news reports I read in the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun and on-line AP reports said the injuction did not issue because the plaintiffs had not met the test for an emergency order to issue, which sounds correct to me--as I said before, the test is whether there is an immiediate and irreparable harm. That must be one hell of a semicolon.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-12-2003
Mon, 02-23-2004 - 6:55am
You must not be an anthropologist. Cultures all over the world have marriage rituals, customs, and rules that are not based on Judeo-Christian beliefs. Some people don't "feel" married unless there is a religious ceremony, but the bottom line is a religious ceremony doesn't make your marriage legal--the state-issued license does.

My DH and I were married by a priest, but for legal purposes, we'd be just as married if we had the county clerk who issued us the license do it.

You must not be a psychologist either. You do not "know" that each and every homosexual has emotional problems. You *believe* that because you want to. Opinions are not facts.

The procreation argument cuts no ice either. Gay marriage won't make the whole world gay--it's won't make anyone who isn't already gay "turn." Trust me, there will plenty of heterosexuals around to populate the earth, both inside and outside of marriage.

Are you proposing that we should we become a reverse Red China and force people to have children as a condition of marriage? No marriage for the infertile or for women past childbearing age?

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 02-23-2004 - 10:36am
Well from what I heard on the radio and on the news on TV, apparently the way that the sentence was changed due to this semi-colon changed the entire meaning of the brief.

Unfortunately I dont have the exact text. I am just stating what I had heard. You may be correct, but then again, since you are a lawyer, you will also know that what the Mayor of SF is doing is illegal, and he could (but should not) go to jail for it as in CA it is a felony.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 02-23-2004 - 10:37am
Well when over 67% of the american people feel a certain way about something, those in office usually seem to take notice.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Mon, 02-23-2004 - 11:37am

Sorry to take so long to respond...I had typed out a really good response yesterday...hit 'post' and the darn thing disappeared!


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 02-23-2004 - 1:13pm
>> However, I also believe we have a right to protest discriminatory laws in a peaceful manner...which is what Mayor Newsom (sp?) and the city of SF are doing. I brought up Rosa Parks earlier in this different thread on this post - how different would it have been had she given up her seat instead of standing up for her rights?

Rosa Parks was not commiting a felony by her protest. There is a big difference here.

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