The more grey an area gets the more I want it left to be worked out case by case.
I understand, and this makes sense to me as far as it goes.
That said... well, for my own part, I value the ability to make plans. I prefer that systems that significantly affect my life to be predictable.
So being told that the law won't stop me from getting married, but whether my family gets the same legal protections other families do in various downstream situations is still up in the air, is problematic... it leaves me with very little ability to predict the consequences of getting married.
And, I mean, it was never illegal for me to say "we're married", as long as I didn't try to claim any of the downstream benefits that conventionally come along with that status. If we don't care about the downstream stuff, then there was never a legal question to be resolved in the first place.
But I do care about the downstream stuff. So I prefer that the government precommit to handling the downstream situations in particular ways, so I can make reliable plans. And I can understand why the government is reluctant to make that precommitment in the absence of precertification (licensing), so I'm willing to pay the price of being required to get precertification.
All of that said... sure, in cases where the government doesn't have to be (significantly) involved downstream, there's no (significant) precommitment for the government to make, and in those cases precertification makes less sense.
I think it's important to have government available to protect people from coercion and fraud [..&minors..] But since these are (I expect) minority cases, I want the rest resolved downstream
Fair enough. As above, if the government's involvement is solely for edge cases, then it makes sense for the typical case to be resolved downstream... that is, to not require licensing.
For my own part, though: I would (for example) add protection of marginalized adults from social and institutional discrimination to the list of cases I want government involved in.
And I don't consider this a minority/edge case... it comes up often enough when it comes to (among other things) marriage that I'd prefer it to be resolved upstream.
For example, one of the things I'd want to include in a discussion of legal protection for poly families is a discussion of whether employers and hospitals and service providers and government offices are legally required to extend poly families the same benefits and services they extend to other families.
Saying "the law doesn't prevent the three of you from getting married, if you wish, and we'll worry about whether you get anti-discrimination protection case-by-case as it comes up" doesn't get me what I want there.
"In the extreme case (and I know you hate slippery slope arguments but here goes) you'd have to go to the government to get permission for EVERY action because whatever you do might violate some law. Clearly that's silly, so we draw a line somewhere else."
So, to articulate the very general case here: my inclination in most slippery-slope cases is to draw a line on that slope based on how likely the negative consequence is and how much I care about it.
In the case of families being denied equal treatment, I think that consequence is likely and I care about it a lot, so the idea of getting permission from the government to get married in exchange for getting a statement from the government that my family deserves equal treatment before the law is OK with me.
In other cases, I might draw the line somewhere else, and accept the downstream consequences as acceptable.
And I accept that other people can legitimately draw their lines elsewhere, and thereby be OK with different consequences, and there's nothing incoherent or immoral about that... though in some contexts that might make them my political opponents, just the same.
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timeasmymeasure
Part 2 of 2: Upstream vs downstream
Date: 2015-09-20 08:43 pm (UTC)I understand, and this makes sense to me as far as it goes.
That said... well, for my own part, I value the ability to make plans. I prefer that systems that significantly affect my life to be predictable.
So being told that the law won't stop me from getting married, but whether my family gets the same legal protections other families do in various downstream situations is still up in the air, is problematic... it leaves me with very little ability to predict the consequences of getting married.
And, I mean, it was never illegal for me to say "we're married", as long as I didn't try to claim any of the downstream benefits that conventionally come along with that status. If we don't care about the downstream stuff, then there was never a legal question to be resolved in the first place.
But I do care about the downstream stuff. So I prefer that the government precommit to handling the downstream situations in particular ways, so I can make reliable plans. And I can understand why the government is reluctant to make that precommitment in the absence of precertification (licensing), so I'm willing to pay the price of being required to get precertification.
All of that said... sure, in cases where the government doesn't have to be (significantly) involved downstream, there's no (significant) precommitment for the government to make, and in those cases precertification makes less sense.
I think it's important to have government available to protect people from coercion and fraud [..&minors..] But since these are (I expect) minority cases, I want the rest resolved downstream
Fair enough. As above, if the government's involvement is solely for edge cases, then it makes sense for the typical case to be resolved downstream... that is, to not require licensing.
For my own part, though: I would (for example) add protection of marginalized adults from social and institutional discrimination to the list of cases I want government involved in.
And I don't consider this a minority/edge case... it comes up often enough when it comes to (among other things) marriage that I'd prefer it to be resolved upstream.
For example, one of the things I'd want to include in a discussion of legal protection for poly families is a discussion of whether employers and hospitals and service providers and government offices are legally required to extend poly families the same benefits and services they extend to other families.
Saying "the law doesn't prevent the three of you from getting married, if you wish, and we'll worry about whether you get anti-discrimination protection case-by-case as it comes up" doesn't get me what I want there.
"In the extreme case (and I know you hate slippery slope arguments but here goes) you'd have to go to the government to get permission for EVERY action because whatever you do might violate some law. Clearly that's silly, so we draw a line somewhere else."
So, to articulate the very general case here: my inclination in most slippery-slope cases is to draw a line on that slope based on how likely the negative consequence is and how much I care about it.
In the case of families being denied equal treatment, I think that consequence is likely and I care about it a lot, so the idea of getting permission from the government to get married in exchange for getting a statement from the government that my family deserves equal treatment before the law is OK with me.
In other cases, I might draw the line somewhere else, and accept the downstream consequences as acceptable.
And I accept that other people can legitimately draw their lines elsewhere, and thereby be OK with different consequences, and there's nothing incoherent or immoral about that... though in some contexts that might make them my political opponents, just the same.