Up Front: Are We There Yet?
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who a window cannot marry?
I'm all for full transparency in relationships
especially if you could take a louvre as well : )yrs
Tasman Glazier -
Indeed. And one could, genuinely and on religious grounds (Noah, Ham, etc) object to being forced not to discriminate on racial grounds.
Yeah, but even that would be opening up a nice big can of worms. The Dutch Reformed Church in apartheid South Africa were once forced to admit that no less a figure than Moses had married a descendant of Ham, and that there was thus biblical precedent for mixed marriages.
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advancing it in the face of cultural prejudices
And here you say this like it's a bad thing?
Seriously do you expect the argument that "because other nations allow prejudices to define their laws then so should we" to be compelling?
The key to changing the law is to allow all groups of society the same feedom. In crude terms where someone wants to put the sexual organs should not grant or deny them any rights and that's what the current situation does.
Changing it does not reduce your rights.
BTW NZ was progressive enough to allow wimin to vote when many societies/culture argued vehemently that they simply had neither the capacity nor god given right. They were wrong in that.
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Great Post. It's an insane world out there , especially when that embarrasing subject comes up in parliament....you know the one, sex stuff and that and the gay chaps. It makes Peter Dunne go all bright red.
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I'm still going to insist that we force all Catholic priests, from the Pope on down, to gay marry.
Oh geez, I dunno if I could handle a spouse who was that high-maintenance.
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One doesn't "own" a concept.
Precisely. And its nice of you to admit it.
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Tess - "until very recently marriage in the West was understood universally*."
O no it wasnt! Tell that to the Shakers. Tell that to people with commonlaw partners (who sometimes had several partners and no offspring - or no offspring in common.) Tell that to the Mormons. Tell that to very many Maori partnerships over the last 2 centuries -o! But of course, you may possibly mean* only to white people of established religions and a certain class level?
There has never been, in ANZ, such a thing as an homogenous society - nor, 'in the West' has *anything* ever been understood universally.
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Peace, Jane Austen...
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It's only been since artificial contraception, which could physically separate sex and reproduction, that our understanding of marriage as a society has begun to change.
It used to be that you could father a child and refuse to recognise it, and that child would be illegitimate, and the mother would have no choice but to raise him or her on her own, and never be allowed herself to marry. That was a contraception of sorts too, from a male perspective. Plus let's not get into the countless situation in which the woman would be traded as property, and gain or lose value in relation to whatever dowry her family could rustle up. That also had nothing to do with reproduction.
Lawrence Stone's Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 is still an instructive read.
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But Tess, can I say I admire the skillful and sincere way you're pursuing an argument at odds with the majority view of the thread. Nicely done.
:) Thank you.
Blame it on the bloody fields of mortal combat from the Realm of Insanity.
That and I know some of the people here from university, and it's awesome to have a place to stay when I'm in Palmerston North. These folk will forgive an argument they disagree with, but never with one argued badly.
Also... I'm a geek. In fact so are my kids and husband, just now the oldest boy (10) who is in the bath wanted his brother (8) to come and play with him. What he actually said was "Please come and interact with me."
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There has never been, in ANZ, such a thing as an homogenous society - nor, 'in the West' has *anything* ever been understood universally.
That's a fair comment.
In that case let me say it this way:
For those with political agency who were regarded as citizens in good standing and had the power to build the dominant narrative in Western European culture, marriage had an understanding consistent with the Catholic Church, where reproduction and marriage were intertwined.
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I'd agree with you Tess - except for various (normally Protestant-based or derived) sects, which did not necessarily couple 'marriage' & reproduction, but had adherents who were citizens in good standing, and had the power to build the dominant narrative = e.g quakers
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Western European culture, marriage had an understanding consistent with the Catholic Church, where reproduction and marriage were intertwined.
Firstly, is it worth pointing out that we don't live in Western Europe? Secondly, again, reproduction and marriage were not intertwined for the Catholic Church, sorry. The Church always retained the power to annull marriages, even when children were present. And the stygma of childbearing outside of wedlock would only befall the female. And so long as you were a person of wealth you could really father as many children as you wanted with as many women of lesser station as you wanted, the Church would have absolutely no problem with that. I'm talking about stuff that in my country stopped happening perhaps three generations ago (apart from the annullments, those can be granted today at the church's whim. An acquaintance of my parents managed to get his wedding annulled by the sacra rota by arguing that he thought his wife's family was wealthier than it turned out to be.)
And let's not even get to the children of priests, shall we?
Not that I'm bitter about any of this, mind.
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"Please comr and interact with me"!
Well done your geek family! -
Giovanni, until I stand corrected, I think Tess was assuming that here - ANZ- *is* part of Western European culture.
I'd certainly agree that bits are. Important bits. But, we aint a western european culture - western european culture is an outlier, here.
(Goddy god, I had this conversation 30 years ago to this day, with A Famous ANZ print artist, born and bred here, who was complaining *our* seasons were *wrong*! Stumbles off to that distant glow that is...ahhh! Yes! An Oz merlot...
O well. We cant have everything eh?)The worst possible fate for humans is to live in a theocracy. The next worst, is to live in a society where religion is the power.
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Firstly, is it worth pointing out that we don't live in Western Europe? Secondly, again, reproduction and marriage were not intertwined for the Catholic Church, sorry.
New Zealand is a society informed by European culture. Our main language is English, our legal system is based on European Law, especially Britian and our understandings of marriage (in the dominant narrative anyway) have been products of European mores.
So for example, Islam has divorce, where as we frowned upon divorce until recently because we are products of a Christian context.
As to reproduction and marriage these are intertwined in the theology of the Church, of course there are always examples where individuals fall short of the mark and Catholics are no better than any other group of people.
As to annulments, both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have requested that the Roman Rota be much more careful of the annulments they grant. There have been obvious abuses and it needs to stop.
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As to reproduction and marriage these are intertwined in the theology of the Church, of course there are always examples where individuals fall short of the mark and Catholics are no better than any other group of people.
They weren't individual cases, it was a systematic patriarchal permissiveness, profoundly unjust and hypocritical.
As to annulments, both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have requested that the Roman Rota be much more careful of the annulments they grant. There have been obvious abuses and it needs to stop.
For crying out loud: the whole reason why the catholic Church has fought tooth and nail against divorce in the countries it controls is because it didn't want the State to cut into its racket. Being the sole authority empowered with ending marriages has been a historical source of money and power (Henry VIII, anyone?) and it still is in the countries unfortunate enough to take the Vatican's coin. The same goes for being empowered to grant marriages, and rule on what constitutes proper marriage. It has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with power and control.
New Zealand is a society informed by European culture.
Well, we're not in Europe, and perhaps we could act like it. But if you want to talk European roots, I'd go with Roman-Greek origins myself, and they too had various forms of marriages and unions, and guess what - they predate Christianity. It's arbitrary to subscribe to the Judeo-Christian version, and even more arbitrary to say that we should stick with it even though so few of us claim to be Christians these days.
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Tess - ANZ is a multitude of societies majorly informed by some parts of Western European (especially British) laws and mores. BUT - for the past 50 years- a very large part of my lifetime - we have been doing things differently - slowly, but surely.
Expect that to continue.
I note no religious person has taken up my 'religious holiday' bait
Why not?Having this kind of stuff enshrined in our Law is religion's last stand-
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...we have been doing things differently... Expect that to continue.
I do, and I have said before I think the best way to go forward is through a democratic process. We aren't going to please everyone, but it's important that everyone's voices are heard and democracy is our best shot at that.
The whole beauty of the democratic system is that it reflects culture in a dynamic way. No one "owns" a concept as Idiot and I agreed. I don't have to agree with Emma's concept of marriage, but I do have to respect the freedom she has to promote it and for citizens to decide themselves what they want.
As for religious holidays. Meh. I'm not fussed either way.
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"By not being bigots, you're being bigots"
Nice troll.
Idiot/Savant
I think to advance this progressive liberal/secular humanist legislation will require you and people like you to extoll the virtues of progressive liberalism to people who are bigots. Emma disagrees and assumes there is an historical inevitability by which same sex marriage will just happen if the progressive liberals in favour of it stridently call for it.
My point is that by introducing this legislation, Labour risks losing votes from people who are bigots. This is New Zealand (not America) intensely spiritual people with strong traditional family values (bigots) are not found on any particular side of the spectrum. Also we are a proportional representation country so every vote matters and alternative parties can easily form. Have you already forgotten s59 reform and more importantly do you think any Labour Party politicians have?
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Tess - a pleasure to argue with you. May the civil arguments continue.
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It's arbitrary to subscribe to the Judeo-Christian version
For the sake of putting the credit/blame where it belongs, I want to point out that in Judaism marriage is strictly speaking a civil contract (contrast for example with the bar mitzvah or circumcision). Divorce is permitted, if not encouraged, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that resembles the notion of a sacrament. All that "better to marry than to burn" stuff etc is Christian.
Judeo-Christian is a term coined by the American Christian right to make themselves sound pluralistic and inclusive as they try to enforce their narrow doctrines (traditionally US Jews have been on the frontlines of ensuring civil society stays secular and it's a term of deception to try and defang them). Avoid where possible.
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But, um, if you start to argue that we are the product of a Christian heritage, etc. etc., couldn't a Protestant bigot turn around and start using the same logic on you, only more tightly focused on NZ's specifically Protestant heritage?
Especially, it just isn't true that Protestant and Catholic conceptions of marriage are the same, so you can't jump from `England's Christian heritage' to `Catholic definitions'.
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I use Judeo-Christian in the European sense, where it means essentially 'rooted in the old and new testament'. Nothing to do with Judaism as such. The claim for instance that the European constitution should recognise the continent's Judeo-Christian roots means that we should be allowed to limit abortion and discriminate against homosexuals. Whereas if we chose the enlightenment roots, or the Greco-Roman roots, well, it'd be different.
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(Keir Leslie - I really didnt want to bring up my Wee Free Kirker history...)
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