From: Robert Coyote (coyyote@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Jan 13 2002 - 20:58:36 MST
Marriage is not a right, its a privilege
"Marriage is a privilege belonging to persons as members of society"
Ex. Parte Kinney (May 14, 1879)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Spike Jones" <spike66@attglobal.net>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 7:19 PM
Subject: Re: transgender marriage
: Samantha Atkins wrote:
:
: > Spike Jones wrote:
: >
: > > This morning's SJ Merc has an article about a widow from
: > > Kansas who is being disinherited by her stepson. The
: > > stepson is challanging his father's marriage because the
: > > stepmother was born a man....
: > >
: >
: > The wonderful state of Texas had a similar case a while back. A
: > transsexual woman who had had surgery decades before and gotten
: > married wished to contest her husband's wrongful death due to
: > medical malpractice. It was a pretty strong case and would have
: > been open and shut against the hospital normally. But defense
: > found out her history and said the case was invalid because the
: > marriage was invalid because she "is a man".... After all, Texas can't
: > expect
: > to have it both ways. :)
: >
: > - samantha
:
: I was delighted to see the Texas legislature having to face this
: down. One imagine the cowboy lawyers sitting around
: saying "Boys, we either hafta recognize the legitimacy of
: transgender surgery or the legitimacy of homosexual marriage.
: If we recognize neither, then we are saying the transgender
: has not the human right to marry, implying that the transgender
: is not human. The brain makes the human, so we would be
: saying that the brain resides in that organ that was removed in
: transgender surgery."
:
: I am further delighted to see these issues dealt with at the
: state level, for not every state legislature will decide the
: same way. Some would then decide to acknowledge
: homosexual marriage. Some states would decide to
: recognize both the legitimacy of transgender surgery
: and homosexual marriage.
:
: Of those states that decided acknowledge transgender
: marriage only and not homosexual marriage, some will get
: hopelessly bogged down in the details. For instance, at
: what stage of gender transformation does the person become
: the target gender? Whenever they say? Does a doctor need
: to declare the transformation more than halfway done? Can
: it be *any* doctor, including one who is him/herself
: transgender? Or what about a case like my cousin, born
: ambiguously gender raised male, who married an ambiguous
: gender raised female? And what if a transgender male to
: female wishes to marry a transgender female to male? Would
: they not be a legitimate hetero marriage either way?
:
: It will bring me much joy and laughter to read the body of law
: thus derived by some of those stodgy conservative southern
: states trying to grapple with these issues. Perhaps most
: states simply say eventually: marry whomever you want,
: with our unconditional blessing.
:
: spike
:
:
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