Almost all discussion of gay marriage has been on moral grounds--the rightness or wrongness of a union between two members of the same sex, whether considered in religious or secular terms. Unfortunately, I'm not a very good moralist, and so I'd like to present a somewhat more practical view: in my opinion, forcing gay unions into the same legal status as heterosexual ones is probably going to complicate matters such as entitlement, divorce, alimony and custody fantastically. To share a few of the possibilities:
1) Adultery is a grounds for divorce in both civil and canon law, but many gay couples do seek another member to their relationship to reproduce. Therefore, either courts will have to change the accepted definition of adultery to accommodate this practice, or gay couples will have to forgo the possibility of parenthood during any marriage. The first possibility may very well leave philanderers of either orientation able to exploit this new definition for their own purposes, but the second will certainly come under fire from gay-rights groups.
2) Alimony decisions may be arbitrary, but they are predictable. As a rule, without clinching evidence to the contrary the court will define any wife as a homemaker and grants her restitution. Defining one party of a same-sex marriage as the homemaker and the other as the breadwinner, however, will, almost undoubtedly, require a more random and arbitrary ruling. Expect a certain amount of injustice and confusion to result.
3) The very need to introduce another person into a gay marriage in order to have children will force courts to judge the parental rights of three people, one with only a step-relationship to the child and another without a marital relationship to anyone. Asserting the rights of either of these parties will set precedent affecting persons with similar relationships to the children of heterosexual marriages, and, obviously, at least some marital partners, sperm-donors or womb-renters are going to address the court over perceived and even real injustices.
In all, the legalization of gay marriage seems likely to put both heterosexuals and gays into a deeper legal mire, and in light of this, those in homosexual relationships may simply want to define themselves as the legal equivalent of a purchasing co-operative. In a sense, they are indeed that, and the sheer simplicity of that idea would present American law with a more copable set of questions.
Just a few thoughts.....
2 comments:
I had similar thoughts. I wondered if a rulings made in a gay divorce case will have repercussions for heterosexual marriage and vice a versa, eg.alimony, child support.
Unless the court says otherwise, I assume it would have to, and that assumes that no future court simply has trouble deciding what the previous judge considered applicable to his/her rulings. Such problems do occur.
Post a Comment