What do rights mean to you?

Cheese!

1. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (or property).
2. US
3. Many of them.
4. Rights are innate according to Enlightenment ideals (personally, I leave out the “being endowed by a Creator part,” but whatever)
5. A right.

I believe that all humans should be guaranteed the rights I mentioned in answer #1 and that other cultures, societies, or whatever can add to that as they wish (but not remove).

Generally, I believe that there are two fundamental human rights associated with the law: (1) the equal treatment under it, and (2) equal opportunity under it.

I live in the U.S.

I feel that we violate both, at different times, in many ways. Too many to enumerate. But we do a better job than many.

As to marriage – marriage in the civil context is a civil right. Therefore, it needs to stand up to the equality concerns of both of the above underlying human rights. Since couples are treated differently in the U.S., there must be significant justification for it. Since most of the justification relies on “that’s just the way it is,” I think that the right to marriage equality is a human one, and one that is being violated.

In my opinion, no person can hold another prisoner and no person can prevent another from basic human rights which, to me, are: access to clean food and water, access to shelter and healthcare, and access to free speech and literacy. I live in the US and I was born in the USSR. In my country, there are great disparities (not only between what’s written as law and what’s practiced) between groups of people in terms of their rights which can extend beyound basic human rights (because why shouldn’t they?). I believe queer people and especially trans people are treated as less than heterosexuals in multiple ways. I believe if one group has a right to marriage (which this society regards as important, apparently, even if it isn’t or shouldn’t be) then all groups should have that right, no questions asked. Marriage, in my opinion, is a right because with it come certain benefits (again, I disagree that benefits should be attached to marriage) that when not given to people represent violation of rights. It is irrelevant, finally, whether marriage is a privilege or a right because that, to me, is a false dichotomy – saying it’s a privilege doesn’t make it it any less problematic that certain people don’t get it.

I was first, I win! All you base are belong to me!
1. life
2. UK
3. None
4. Being alive
5. Neither

Everything is contingent.

I think of rights in a functional way, not a prescriptive way. I believe rights are that which we, as a society, are willing to do everything we can to guarantee them for all of us. I think rights can only belong to those who work for them. I.e., there are no animal rights, only rights for animal caretakers to take care of their animals—insofar as the rest of society supports the animal owners.

The US Bill of Rights was a wish, not a statement of fact, nor was it a guarantee. Only we who live in this nation can attempt to guarantee all of us the rights we agree on. We can want any right we can think of, but until everyone works to maintain that right, it isn’t a right. It’s mere persiflage.

1) Basic human rights:

-Clean, healthy food and water, without having to practically enslave yourself. (So Wholefoods wouldn’t count even IF their food really was clean)
-Somewhere to live, with the same non-enslavement qualifier.
-Self-determination on both individual and community levels.
-Freedom from oppression, violence, and coercion, and the right to use whatever means deemed necessary to keep it that way.

Aren’t these rights also repeated in some of the U.N.‘s declarations on human rights, including the recent one concerning the rights of indigenous peoples?

2) I live in occupied North America (United States, for those who ignore indigenous sovereignty).

3) Of those rights I mention, our political/economic system restricts all of them highly.

4) A right is something that we need in order to live as we evolved, which is as free, wild humans living in small autonomous groups.

5.) Marriage is a social contract. I suppose it’s a right, or more accurately the right exists for people to decide what marriages are and what they entail.

@iamthemob Couldn’t have said it better myself. Great Answer.

1 Freedom, freedom, freedom
2 Scotland
3 They had better not try!
4 You are born with rights
5 Neither

A right is a moral perogative to live your life according to your nature and your values. It presumes the following
1. A living thing.
2. A living thing that chooses it’s actions as an act of free will and as result of using reasoning to distuinguish between alternative actions.
3. A living thing for which the action actually makes a mortal difference.
Only human beings possess the criteria.
Rights are moral principles when more than one human being exists at the same time. Rights are a meaningless concept if you are stranded on a desert island. (Morality does exist on the desert island-rights are a sub set of morality)
There is no right that requires the active cooperation of somebody else. Rights require only that others do not interfere with your exercise of your right. The same principle applies to you as well.
Political favors, granted to patrons by the government, are not rights. They are merely favors.
If you have to ask the government for permission to do something, you have lost the right.

I live in the US

A right occurs in nature. It is never a privilege. If someone says it is a privilege, it means that it was a right that was taken away, or it was never a right in the first place.

Marriage is no longer a right, because you have to ask permission to do it. That means the political State stole the right, and turned into a privilege, for which they charge a fee.

Marriage has always required permission. That’s what a proposal is asking for. ;-)

@iamthemob Yeah, though I think most of the time it has been implied or forced upon.

@iamthemob You got me there…

@Simone_De_Beauvoir – and you got me there. ;-)

Of course, it’s actually totally valid if it was viewed as a request to the family (i.e., father) and not woman.

@josie

“Only human beings possess the criteria.”

Does that mean, then, that in your ethical system, humans who do not possess one of your criteria do not have rights?

What, in your opinion, are basic human rights?
The most basic right is to not be harmed by other sentient beings unless that harm is necessary to avert an even greater harm. As a corollary, any acts that harm no sentient beings are permitted.

What country do you reside in?
The USA.

What rights do you feel are being violated in your country?
Many. However, there is a big difference between violation of a legal right and violation of a moral right.

What makes something a right, not a privilege?
Rights are what are necessary to protect the interests and well-being of a sentient being, and denial or violation of these rights will lead to suffering of that being. Privileges are extras and “nice to haves” that are not necessary to survival and well-being.

Is marriage a right or a privilege?
Marriage is a religious ceremony, so it’s a privilege. I firmly believe that civil unions, however, are a right, and that all couples who want one should be able to get one. I think that marriage should be stripped of all legal significance, and only the civil union should “count” under law.

@crisw, upon reading your answer… I kind of agree with you and think your answer is a little more tidy than mine.

@crisw What are you talking about?

@crisw It’s actually an extremely recent thing that marriage has any religious context when you look at our history as a species, and even then only in a handful of cultures. More common is that marriages are social contracts. “Civil” ceremonies, if you will.

1. There are no such things as basic human rights insofar as that term refers to anything extralegal. Rights exist only under legal systems, and even then under only certain kinds of legal systems.

2. I currently reside in the United States of America.

3. As above, I’m sure many rights are being violated—and not always on purpose. Which ones we notice depends on our interests (broadly construed).

4. It depends on how strict you want to be about your terminology. The word “right” is sometimes used in a loose sense to mean something like “legal advantage.” In this sense, a privilege (or liberty) is a kind of right. But the word “right” can also be used in a strict sense to mean something like a claim-right. In this sense, having a right imposes an obligation or duty on others to not violate your claim, whereas having a privilege entails not having any such obligation or duty regarding some act.

5. The status of marriage depends on what sense of “right” or “privilege” you are using. But sticking to legal theory, I think it is too complex to be cashed out solely in terms of either. No one can force me to marry. In that sense, I have a liberty-right (that is, a privilege) to marriage. Yet so long as I have a willing partner who meets all the legal requirements for marriage to me, nor can anyone legally prevent me from marrying. Thus I also have a claim-right to marriage insofar as the state has a duty to recognize my marriage. I do not, however, have a claim-right to be married wherever and by whomever I want. A judge cannot refuse me so long as I meet all legal requirements and am in the proper jurisdiction, but I have no claim-right to being married by a Catholic priest who opposes my marriage.

@crisw As already noted, marriage is not a religious ceremony. Indeed, it wasn’t even a civil ceremony for a long time. It began as an interpersonal arrangement, with the state and the church only getting involved later.

1. I think we have the right to lead a fulfilling life, fulfillment being up to each person to define for themself.
So long as we don’t intentionally, or knowingly, harm others in the process, anything we can do, must do, and want to do is our right to do.
When it comes to food (the needed, not the excess) and personal survival, all the above except the harming part, because it may be unavoidable in this world.
I think other animals, rather all living creatures, are given these rights. That nature doesn’t differentiate.

2. United States

3. Many. I won’t go into details because I’ll be here all day, and then you the next day if you bother reading.
General summary: rights get stripped from us when there’s a lack of trust and/or a desire for power.

4. Anything that fits in my definition in #1 is a right. Basically, everything we’re capable of doing/feeling/thinking we have a right to do/feel/think so long as we’re not harming others.

Privileges are anything we’re given by others, that we haven’t “earned” ourselves. We have no inherent right to others’ fruits.
This is where society comes in—we all agree to work together; I have apples, you have oranges. And while I disagree with ways this concept is brought into being, I agree with the basic concept.

5. Neither. It’s a social construct, somewhere in between.

@josie

“What are you talking about?”

In your explanation of rights, you give several criteria and state that only human beings possess all of them. However, many human beings, such as infants and the severely retarded, do not possess all of them. Are all of your criteria necessary for rights possession? If so, how do you account for the rights of the handicapped? If not, then why wouldn’t animals possess the same basic rights?

@SavoirFaire

“As already noted, marriage is not a religious ceremony.”

Let me try to make myself clearer.

Marriage serves two functions that I believe should be separate. One is the ceremonial (which I referred to as “marriage” above), the other is the legal (what I would call a civil union.) I believe that these two functions should be divorced (no pun intended!) Civil unions, which convey all the benefits of a partnership but have absolutely no religious significance, should be available to all and recognized as the only act that conveys the benefits of a partnership. Marriage should be purely ceremonial and celebratory, and should be available from whatever social institutions wish to participate, with whatever restrictions they want. So if a gay couple wants the benefits of a partnership, they get a civil union. So does a straight couple. If they want a big party and a ceremony, they go to whatever church or organization they wish. And, if a church wants to marry only straights, or only gays, or only people named Robert born on the Fourth of July, they can, because their actions have absolutely no legal significance.

That is how I think it should be. Churches should be entirely out of any legal aspects involving a partnership between two human beings.

@crisw Marriage is a term referring to an institution much older than religious involvement in it, so why should I surrender my marriage to the church when the church had nothing to do with it? There was not a single member of the clergy at my wedding—which was certainly a celebration, despite not occurring in a church—but I definitely ended up married at the end of the day and not civilly united.

Also, civil unions and marriages do not confer the same benefits. Civil unions were invented by the State of Vermont so as to recognize same-sex relationships without allowing them to result in marriage. Unlike actual marriages, civil unions are not recognized by the federal government and are not covered by the Full Faith and Credit Clause (meaning other states do not have to recognize them).

I do not disagree that churches should not be required to marry anyone against their will, but nobody is arguing otherwise. Some people would like their churches to come around, but that’s another thing entirely. The fact is, however, that marriage is not a religious institution. I am married, I am not religious, and I see no reason to give up my marriage—or even just the word marriage—to accommodate a handful of bigots who would rather trash the entire institution than let “the gays” get their hands on it.

Rights guaranteed by law {US perspective], such as the following:

Constitutional rights
Property rights [including intellectual property]
Copy rights
Marital rights
Miranda rights

and new or continuing legal battles over such issues as
Privacy rights
Right to bear arms [the only constitutional right that is curtailed by states]
limits of the right to free speech
right to choose when to die
right to terminate pregnancy

@crisw Human Being is an abstract term that includes all concrete and single examples of the concept. The occasional special case or circumstance does not exclude a member from the concept, nor does it invalidate the concept. Baby robins and injured sparrows can not fly, but they are still conceptually “flying birds”.

@SavoirFaire

I think you are misunderstanding me. I think that, in reality, we both want the same thing. What I want is religion entirely out of anything having to do with the legal aspects of human partnerships. I don’t see any way to do this other than what I’ve proposed. And I would be fine calling the legal partnership “marriage” and whatever happens at a church a “celebration.” It’s all semantics. But I think the legal aspect and the celebratory aspect should be entirely separate. How do you propose solving the issue?

@crisw No, I don’t want to see religion entirely out of anything having to do with the legal aspects of human partnership. As it stands now, a religious leader is little more than a glorified notary public as far as the legal aspects of marriage go. Why ban them from such a simple task? Why not allow those who want their marriage to have both legal and religious significance to consolidate their ceremonies?

Where I disagree with you, then, is that the legal and celebratory aspects should be separate. My marriage was a celebration even though it was both legally binding and didn’t involve any religious elements or people. (Some of the guests were religious, but I take it you know what I mean.) I see no reason to separate these aspects at all in practice, even if they are separable in theory. Indeed, I fail to see what issue there is that needs solving.

@SavoirFaire

“Indeed, I fail to see what issue there is that needs solving.”

The anti-gay marriage movement is entirely religious. Their religious viewpoints are reflected in current law in most states. This is possible because of the conmingling of ceremonial and legal aspects in the current definition of marriage. I don’t see any way out of this impasse other than what I have suggested. What do you suggest?

@crisw Opposition to same-sex marriage is not entirely religious, though it is primarily religious. I am sad to say that I have a colleague who is both an atheist and against same-sex marriage. His devotion to a particular brand of American conservatism has led him to what he considers to be adequate secular reasons for his opposition.

And with all due respect, I think it woefully naive to think that your proposal will solve anything. The most fervent opposition to same-sex marriage is not the result of religious views, but rather the result of hatred that has been disguised by wrapping it up in religious language. The target is homosexuals, and homosexuals remain homosexuals regardless of what we call their unions and how we let them obtain said unions.

Note the fact that there is still opposition to homosexuals being allowed to have civil unions, despite the fact that these are purely legal arrangements. This hatred is not going to disappear just because we stop letting religious leaders conduct legally binding ceremonies. In fact, it may be increased due to anger at this loss of power.

Nor are you ever going to be able to get people to stop celebrating their marriages, even if they can’t do it in a church. The ceremonial and legal aspects are intertwined because marriages are something to celebrate, and they tend to have a bit of pomp and circumstance about them regardless of the religiosity of those involved.

The way out of the impasse, then, is to break directly through it. Religious reasons are irrelevant to legal reasoning under the First Amendment and marriage has been a civil right in the US since at least Loving v. Virginia. As such, the popular opposition to same-sex marriage is largely groundless, and laws preventing same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. Fight the bastards head on. Fight it out in public. I see no reason to be slippery about it.

Religious reasons are irrelevant to legal reasoning under the First Amendment and marriage has been a civil right in the US since at least Loving v. Virginia. As such, the popular opposition to same-sex marriage is largely groundless, and laws preventing same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.

Why is it that we have to leave it to a philosopher to make a well-reasoned legal argument? ... Oh, because they’re wicked smaht…