Five Reasons why Margaret Somerville is Wrong about Same-Sex Marriage and the Rights of Children

Dialogue ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 867-887
Author(s):  
Scott Woodcock
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Insufficient Evidence ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Biological Parents ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences

ABSTRACT: In written work and a lecture at the 2008 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences that was co-sponsored by the Canadian Philosophical Association, Margaret Somerville has claimed that allowing same-sex marriage is unethical because doing so violates the inherently procreative function of marriage and thereby undermines the rights and duties that exist between children and their biological parents. In my paper, I offer five reasons for thinking that Somerville’s argument for this conclusion is unpersuasive. In each case her argument either begs important questions about same-sex marriage or else relies on insufficient evidence to justify excluding a vulnerable minority group from participating in a state-sponsored social institution.

scholarly journals SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AND THE SAME OLD CONSTITUTION*

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (2 & 3) ◽  
pp. 2005
Author(s):  
Ronalda Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Same Sex Couples ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Do So

The Reference re Same-Sex Marriage1 is not a major opinion on the rights of same-sex couples in Canada, but it is nonetheless an important and fascinating case. There are only a few lines that are about the “rights” of same-sex couples. Did the Supreme Court of Canada “duck” the issue? Was the Court carefully gauging how much or little political capital it had and making a political decision to say as little as possible on this topic? The Court certainly displayed strategic brilliance, but it did not do so in the name of avoiding the “political” hot topic of same-sex marriage. It is factually difficult to maintain the view that the Supreme Court of Canada is loath to enter into this political debate. It has been the lead social institution in Canada in terms of responding to the claims of gays and lesbians to equality in law,2 and it has never been shy of dealing with topics simply because they involve controversial political issues.3 Rather, the Court’s brilliance lies in its minimalist and almost weary tone. This approach had the effect of taking the wind out of the sails of those opposed to same-sex marriage: the same-sex advocates definitely win the constitutional race, but they do so because according to the Supreme Court, there is no provincial constitutional headwind that can stop them. In short, provinces can complain all they want about the federal position in favour of same-sex marriage, but the wedding will go on despite and over their objections to the ceremony.

Happily Ever After

Just Married ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Macedo
Keyword(s):  
Family Relations ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Sexual Intimacy ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Public Philosophy ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Neutral State ◽  
Marital Commitment ◽  
The Ideal

This concluding chapter summarizes some of the main points of the book's argument regarding same-sex marriage, marriage, and monogamy. It first considers how same-sex marriage might change marriage for all before reflecting on what marriage tells us about the ideal of an ethically neutral state and liberalism as a public philosophy. It argues that same-sex marriage makes monogamous marriage stronger as a liberal and democratic social institution. From the standpoint of justice, the chapter explains how monogamous marriage helps imprint the DNA of equal liberty onto the very fiber of family and sexual intimacy. It contends that the distinctiveness of marriage as a plan of life goes beyond its role in securing justice, that lifelong monogamous marital commitment is a distinctive plan of life. It concludes by suggesting that, with respect to other complex aspects of law pertaining to marriage and family relations, the law should change incrementally.

Marriage, Law, and Society: A Tangled Web

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna L. Grossman ◽  
Lawrence M. Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Married Couples ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Law And Society ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
Legal Context ◽  
The Social

This chapter explores marriage in the social and legal context. It looks at who marries, and what marriage seems to mean to them. Marriage is a crucial social institution, and many people bemoan the state of American marriage: opponents of same-sex marriage, supporters of the patriarchal family, anti-divorce moralists, advocates for children, and so on. Marriage may be weaker than before, it may have changed greatly; but it is still fundamental to society and to the lives of people in America. And its consequences reverberate throughout society and the law. Thus the chapter discusses what marriage means in law: the rights and obligations of married couples, including economic rights. It also looks at the darker side of marriage—domestic violence and marital rape.

Comeniology as a process and result of scientific cognition. Social context of education in the thought of John Amos Comenius

2019 ◽  
Vol VI ◽  
pp. 129-143
Author(s):  
Barbara Dobrowolska
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Scientific Discovery ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Scientific Quality ◽  
Scientific Cognition ◽  
Discovery Research ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences ◽  
Pedagogical Research

The research paper is an attempt to justify the importance of comeniology in the humanities and social sciences. Furthermore, it includes some interpretation of the social con-texts of education appearing in the writings by Comenius. The justification of the meaning and nature of comeniology is based on the science term senses by T. Pilch and T. Bauman. Their academic coursebook, Zasady badań pedagogicznych (Principles of Pedagogical Research), is a classic methodological title in pedagogical literature. They give didactic, institutional, content, historic-sociological and functional substance to the idea of science. Each of these substances has been analyzed with respect to comeniology. The scientific category of comeniology covers the whole system of contents involving various stages of human developments and his existence. Social and political conditions become the objects of analyses and interpretation, which conse-quently generate more and more new ideas, statements, interpretations and reinterpretations referring to the works and thoughts of Comenius. Considering the methodology of research of the said works, comeniology is dominated by phenomenology and hermeneutics and their phil-osophical approach. Scientific discovery, research and methodological solutions along with the emerging system of knowledge about Comenius allow one to award comeniology the character of humanistic reflection. Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of the subject matters investigated, this reflection concerns the humanities and social sciences. Giving comeniology the status of scientific quality is considering its development in the categories of the process and result of scientific cognition. Reflections on comeniology’s scientific quality and discourse correspond to social issues. Due to the author’s personal interest in social pedagogy, an attempt has been made to indicate social contexts of education. They constitute a largely unexplored area of the works of Comenius and require further analyses. They encompass, inter alia, the issues of school as a social institution, equal access to education, poverty, social inequality and exclusion.

Comparing Same-Sex Marriage in Australia and Canada: Institutions and Political Will

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Johnson ◽  
Manon Tremblay
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Electoral Strategies ◽  
The Us

This article explores why there have been such different trajectories in regard to same-sex marriage in Australia and Canada. Canada was one of the first countries to introduce same-sex marriage (in 2005) and, at time of writing, Australia still had not done so.1 The comparison is particularly interesting given that Australia and Canada have relatively similar political institutions except that Australia has no Charter of Rights. Miriam Smith has suggested that institutional factors explain the different trajectories of policies on same-sex marriage in Canada and the US. However, the shift in comparative lens to Canada and Australia provides new insights into the key role of factors influencing ‘political will’ in regard to same-sex marriage in both countries. Those multiple influences do include institutions but also the role played by party electoral strategies. Consequently, the article provides insights into the factors that can influence minority group rights in different national democratic settings.

Getting to the Pink Picket Fence: How LGB Migrants Negotiate Same-Sex Marriage

2021 ◽  
pp. 0192513X2110300
Author(s):  
Tanja Vuckovic Juros
Keyword(s):  
Social Institution ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Sex Partners ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Constitutional Protection ◽  
Picket Fence ◽  
Transnational Migrants ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Eastern European Countries

Despite the increasing legalization trend, same-sex marriage remains inaccessible to couples in most countries. Such exclusions, however, can be circumvented by migrants who, in the process, also negotiate diverse and even divergent meanings of marriage embedded in different socio-institutional contexts. This study examines such diverse meanings of marriage among LGB transnational migrants based on biographic narrative interviews with nine individuals married to same-sex partners in Belgium and the Netherlands and coming from Central and Eastern European countries with constitutional protection of heterosexual marriage. The study highlights the negotiations of intimate relationships in the context of the new institutional opportunity of marriage and stresses how the similarities between migrants and non-migrants testify to the strengthening of same-sex marriage as a social institution. Focusing further on migrants' unique experiences of marriage in divergent socio-institutional contexts, this study also shows how same-sex marriage empowers LGB migrants even where it is (still) not available.

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