Tuesday 15 January 2013

Marriage regulates parenthood without mandating parenthood

A valid marriage contract is a bit like a valid home insurance contract, by which the insurer agrees to protect you against potential household disasters.
1. You can say that the policy is perfectly valid before you ever exercise your right to claim on it. Equally, you can have a valid marriage before consummation or reproduction.
2. You can even intend to *never* invoke a claim on it (as adamantly as some never intend to have children).
3. However, you cannot say on the basis of 1 and 2, that the purpose of insurance is not intended for potential household losses. It is. It is also designed to regulate the insurer’s responsibilities, rather than mandate household losses. Marriage is, along with mutual fidelity, designed to regulate (rather than mandate) parenthood.

Something may be tolerated by law without the law making it legally intended by design. It is clear that coercion and non-consummation are legally tolerated (being voidable causes), but not legally intended.

A voidable marriage remains valid until one party is aggrieved enough to seek redress (and cannot be shown to have agreed to it). You can have a valid marriage, even though one or both partners consents to marriage under duress, or is deprived of conjugal rights. The law simply permits the aggrieved partner to cancel the marriage obligation with an annulment.

A valid marriage is invalidated though the petition of the aggrieved spouse. This is an accommodation of their personal privacy. The spouse must decide what they can tolerate, It does not mean that marriage is not geared towards this purpose. This does not mean that the institution of marriage can ever legally *intend* coercion or non-consummation.

Same-sex marriage legally intends non-consummation. It contradicts the purpose of marriage.

What is clear is that marriage allows society to channel the potential impact of heterosexual passion (including children) into stable committed responsibilities. Paul alludes to this in 1 Cor. 7:6 – 9, i.e. it is better to exercise that passion within a stable committed partnership (marry) than to burn.

Marriage law, by design and intent, accommodates the potential for children. The vows of marriage exchange mutual assurances that any potential children born of the wife will also be the husband’s parental responsibility: the automatic presumption of paternity.

Therefore, we must consider what the law, through marriage, intends to *regulate* (mutual fidelity and shared reproductive rights and responsibilities). Marriage is open to those couples who, the law considers, *at first sight*, have the constitutive (rather than tested) capacity for immediate lifelong fidelity requirement *and* potential reproductive responsibilities of marriage. This is why being already married, being of the same sex, being close family relations and being a minor completely invalidate a marriage.

Friday 11 January 2013

How MPs in the most marginal seats (Election 2010) voted on gay marriage

Glenda

Jackson

Labour

Hampstead and Kilburn

For

Dan

Byles

Conservative

North Warwickshire

For

Jackie

Doyle-Price

Conservative

Thurrock

Abstain

Julie

Hilling

Labour

Bolton West

For

Debbie

Abrahams

Labour

Oldham East and Saddleworth

For

Paul

Blomfield

Labour

Sheffield Central

For

Gloria

De Piero

Labour

Ashfield

For

John

Denham

Labour

Southampton

For

Mark

Spencer

Conservative

Sherwood

Abstain

Annette

Brooke

Liberal Democrat

Mid Dorset and North Poole

For

Ian

Murray

Labour

Edinburgh South

For

Eric

Ollerenshaw

Conservative

Lancaster and Fleetwood

For

Anna

Soubry

Conservative

Broxtowe

For

Sarah

Newton

Conservative

Truro and Falmouth

For

Geraint

Davies

Labour

Swansea West

For

Alison

McGovern

Labour

Wirral South

For

Nigel

Mills

Conservative

Amber Valley

 

Toby

Perkins

Labour

Chesterfield

For

Chris

Williamson

Labour

Derby North

For

Diana

Johnson

Labour

Kingston upon Hull North

For

Ian

Austin

Labour

Dudley North

For

Russell

Brown

Labour

Dumfries and Galloway

For

Tessa

Munt

Liberal Democrat

Wells

For

David

Morris

Conservative

Morecambe and Lunesdale

Against

Simon

Danczuk

Labour

Rochdale

For

David

Wright

Labour

Telford

For

David

Winnick

Labour

Walsall North

For

Graham

Evans

Conservative

Weaver Vale

Abstain

Andrew

Jones

Conservative

Harrogate and Knaresborough

For

Edward

Balls

Labour

Morley and Outwood

For

Oliver

Colville

Conservative

Plymouth

For

Gisela

Stuart

Labour

Birmingham

For

Neil

Carmichael

Conservative

Stroud

For

Simon

Kirby

Conservative

Brighton, Kemptown and Peacehaven

For

Richard

Harrington

Conservative

Watford

For

Hywel

Williams

Plaid Cymru

Arfon

For

Linda

Riordan

Labour

Halifax

For

Naomi

Long

Alliance

Belfast East

For

Catherine

McKinnell

Labour

Newcastle upon Tyne North

For

David

Mowat

Conservative

Warrington South

For

Alison

Seabeck

Labour

Plymouth

For

Mary

Creagh

Labour

Wakefield

For

Jessica

Morden

Labour

Newport East

For

Stuart

Andrew

Conservative

Pudsey

For

Clive

Efford

Labour

Eltham

For

Tom

Blenkinsop

Labour

Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland

For

Mark

Lazarowicz

Labour

Edinburgh North and Leith

For

Valerie

Vaz

Labour

Walsall South

For

Lilian

Greenwood

Labour

Nottingham South

For

Gordon

Marsden

Labour

Blackpool South

For

Vernon

Coaker

Labour

Gedling

For

Mike

Weatherley

Conservative

Hove

For