Dear Friends of Marriage,
The New York Senate is back in special session today, with Governor Paterson calling again for a vote on the same-sex marriage bill.
Click here to send your state senator an email right now!
Click here to look up your senator’s phone number!
Right now, gay marriage advocates don’t have the votes to pass the bill, but it will be close. As I write, they’re pulling out all the stops to swing the last few votes needed to pass the bill.
Governor Paterson and the Democratic leadership in the Senate have promised to call a vote on the same-sex marriage bill before the end of 2009. The vote could come at any time the Senate is in session–even before a budget deal is reached, if the leadership thinks they have the votes.
For the first time, legislators are waking up to realize that a vote for same-sex marriage could cost them their seat in next year’s election. It’s time to keep the pressure on wavering legislators.
1) Contact your state senator again today! Click here to send an email, or use this link to look up your senator’s phone number.
2) Pass this message on to your friends and neighbors. Our senators need to hear from all of us!
The middle of a budget crisis is no time to be redefining marriage. Together, we’ll tell every senator: Don’t Mess with Marriage! Please contact your senator today!
Faithfully,
Brian S. Brown
Executive Director
National Organization for Marriage
20 Nassau Street, Suite 242
Princeton, NJ 08542
bbrown@nationformarriage.org
55 Comments
Please let those of us who don’t live in New York know how we can help. I live in California, so I’m not sure if my calling would only take up time from callers from New York or if it would be in the least bit helpful. All I know I could say is that, from out of state or not, I would contribute to any candidate running against Governor Patterson. Although I may not have a vote, I do have a voice.
Don’t you bigots have anything better to do than lie to the public, line your pockets with the hard-earned dollars of the idiots you dupe, and scream more and more loudly that people should be discriminated against? Have you ever read Micah 6:8 or Matthew 25? Spreading vitriol and hate in the name of Jesus is blasphemy. Repent now or suffer the consequences.
That is quite possibly the most condensed bit of vitriol I’ve heard in a long time. Congrats Brian X on your complete lack of tolerance for others’ views.
I’m with Karen. What can we do to help?
Brian X is right. That NOM knows the benefits of marriage to gay families and their children, but advocates denying those families access to marriage defies any possible interpretation of Jesus Christ’s expectations of us. Surely it is sinful!
Ross, I’m surprised to see you weigh in on the same side as Mr. Vitriol here. We are all sinners, does that give us an excuse to drag down a neighbor? Love each other, bless them that curse you, and hate you and use you…. Jesus was the ultimate in tolerance and kindness for others, even those who he disagreed with.
if you truly are concerned with what is sinful, and Christ’s expectations of you, perhaps you ought to read a few more of his words to better apprehend the context of those wise words.
I bet we will see this special session come up often. Its interesting that only the Governor seems to be wanting to press the issue with a special session. I think some special interest groups are trying to conjure up some up for Mr. Patterson. Why not let the Senators choose their own time line on the gay marriage vote? Whats the Rush. Me thinks the Governor is desperate to find any kind of support he can. he has nothing to lose at this point.
I think you are right Adam.
I think he’s just doing what is right and fair for New Yorkers.
He is not doing what he thinks is right for New York, he is doing what he thinks is right for his ratings. With a concentration of gays, he boots his low ratings 5 percentage points. Contrast this to NJ. is Corzine out pushing the issue? He says he would pass the bill if it lands on his desk period. I don’t see him calling special sessions to vote on gay marriage.
Whatever, this will be decided in the courts beginning January 11th 2010 with Olson and Boies case before a federal court in California. It will make it to the Supreme Court and marriage equality will be the law of the land.
Then all y’all will have to find something else to be against.
Don’t get cocky, Clark. Even the ACLU and LGBT organizations oppose the Olson and Boies federal court action. And for good reason.
The reason federal suits have never been brought before is that attorneys familiar with the federal courts find them filled with conservative Republican judges that they doubt that such efforts would be productive – and fear they could actually be damaging, by setting an anti-gay marriage precedent. In short, given the current federal appellate bench, such efforts are not merely futile, but potentially counterproductive to gay marriage
Also, the U.S. Supreme Court typically does not get too far ahead of either public opinion or the law in the majority of states. For example, few states still had laws requiring racial segregation or outlawing interracial marriage by the time the Court struck those laws down. Most states had already struck down or repealed their own laws against same-sex intimacy when the Supreme Court finally invalidated Texas’s law in Lawrence.
Olson and Boies will be a disaster for LGBT community if it fails, which, it seems, is most likely when examining the circumstances.
Under a blogpost about a Gov’s attempt to force a decision on “gay marriage” in the legislature, Clark comments that the decision won’t be left in the hands of the elected legislators nor in the hands of those who elected those representatives.
Apparently, the Government has a people, not the other way around, at least when it comes to pushing gay identity politics as the new trump card.
Bill, your examples (integration, interracial marriage, legal same-sex intercourse) all came to pass. You’re proving the inevitability of marriage for gays and lesbians!
Good Point, if indeed the Olsen and Bois team will win the day, then Gov. Paterson and NJ can pack up shop and go home eh Clark?
Pretty much.
The fact that you wish to impose your views on another human being is terrible to me. No one is forcing you to have a gay marriage, become gay, or (God forbid) raise gay children. What needs to be done is to let people live as they wish.
Being gay is not a choice - it is a part of life. To try to take away the fundamental right of marriage from those who love others the same way as everyone else is wrong on so many levels. It’s shameful that educated people are perpetrating so much intolerance and hate toward fellow humans.
No one is forcing your church to marry homosexuals. Let’s stop with this “ruining the definition of marriage forever” story, because no one’s buying it. Marriage is currently a universal term that doesn’t apply exclusively to any religion, so religious bigots should not be able to decide who gets to use it and who doesn’t.
Stop the hate. Please. It’s destructive and is an abomination.
“Bill, your examples (integration, interracial marriage, legal same-sex intercourse) all came to pass. You’re proving the inevitability of marriage for gays and lesbians!”
Hardly. These things all came to pass because that was the will of the people. Not because a panel of judges enforced a new type of morality on the populace. It doesn’t work that way. For instance, Roe vs. Wade forced abortion into the laws of every state in the union. Is everyone now pro-choice and abortion no longer a controversial topic? Not at all!
Besides, there is a HUGE difference between racism and family values. Placing family values in the same league as segregation is a tough pill to swallow for most Americans.
And the decriminalization of homosexual sex will no more pave the way for SSM any more than the decriminalization of adultery paved they way for the legalization of bigamy or polygamy.
Whatever changes there are in the law concerning civil rights, the consistency of defined terms still apply. Blacks are still called blacks. Women are still called women. And homosexual couples will still be called homosexual couples.
Inter-racial marriage, Clark? Please stgate the objective criteria by which you would identify such a marriage.
Perhaps you rely on the racialist identity politics of white supremicists. If you do, then, the close analogy is that of the SSM campaign’s assertion of supremacy via gay identity politics.
On the other hand, SSM is sex-segregative while marriage integrates the sexes.
There is no gayness criterion for ineligibility in marriage law; and no straightness criterion for eligibility. Two men of the same sex who are straight may not marry each other: by your reasoning this must be anti-straight discrimination!
Sexual intercourse, Clark? What is the connection with SSM in your view? SSMers do not propose a legal requirement for same-sex sexual behavior — nor even same-sex sexual attraction — for those who’d show-up for a license to SSM.
You rely on identity politics rather than the rule of law. You rely on precedents that are not precedents for marriage law. You also would rely on a DC Council which is virtually a one-party vehicle that has been comandeered by gay identity politics.
That undermines all you have said on the matter. But it does reveal the totalitarian impulses in your remarks.
Chairm,
You sure do love that whole “identity politics” thing. We all get it. Loud and clear. But it doesn’t speak to the reality of loving, committed gay couples seeking the federal and state benefits that come with marriage. Currently, those aren’t available us. And they will be one day. This isn’t the logic and reasoning class you took in grad school. If you could be bothered to read my previous exchange with Bill, you would see the relevance of my quote.
Chairm, go back and read my exchange with Bill. I pulled “interracial marriage”, etc. from his posting. As for all this “identity politics”, blah blah blah, I don’t have to prove anything to you. Who are you, my philosophy teacher?
Chairm,
There is no logical reason, or legal one, for straight identity politics to dominate society. That’s why courts and the people are rejecting marriage only for straight people. Straight people pay taxes, gay people pay taxes. Straight people form couples, gay people form couples. Straight people raise children, gay people raise children. I think you can see where this is going. So, to take marriage and say, only straight people can marry, of course, makes no sense. And that’s why the days are numbered for marriage discrimination.
Ross,
If it is discrimination to call two different things by different names, then why isn’t it just as bigoted to call black people black people instead of white people - or to call women women instead of men?
Allowing the government the authority to define and redefine words grants them too much power and produces a bigger government and a more intrusive and coersive state. That is why most courts have rejected redefining marriage for homosexuals and has been shot down in every single state that has held a referendum on the issue.
Also, saying only straight people can marry is bunk. Every individual can marry the member of the opposite sex, regardless of sexual preference.
Homosexulity is a lifestyle choice. Ex-homosexuals constitue the best proof that it is just a choice. By choosing to be homosexual, you forfeit many wonderful things in life, including a chance of a real marriage (let’s pretend for a moment this discussion is really about marriage and not about radical homosexual agenda to force our society to endorse homosexuality).
You have a will (and brain in most instances), but you chose an unnatural, unhealthy, and often criminal (rampant pedophilia) lifestyle. I also suggest you check the most recent statistics regarding HIV/AIDS, syphillis, anal warts, and anal cancer. You only have yourself to blame.
I gotta say, there are a lot of good points being thrown around on here from both sides.
But I digress. I am in college, and I thoroughly believe that the members of my generation will be progressive enough to legalize gay marriage when we get into power (if it doesn’t happen before then). So I’m sorry to those who oppose it, but it’s just a matter of time really. You can pass all the laws you want to protect what you call “marriage”, but they’ll be repealed when people come to their senses and realize that they blatantly violate the constitution.
jess, I was like you once. In college, and VERY progressive.
But someday you’ll have kids of your own, and suddenly realize how important it is for them to have both a mother AND a father.
Thats the funny thing about young people. They grow up.
Let me ask you, is “because mommy doesn’t like boys” a good enough reason to deprive a kid of his own father?
I’m not saying we need to make that arrangement illegal — but we SURE as hell don’t need to reward it.
“jess”, if you are indeed a college student spending Friday afternoon blogging on the NOM website (a bit unusual, isn’t it?), your views are very naive at best. First of all, if you are heterosexual (which is questionable), when you grow up and have your own family you will realize that homosexual “marriage” has very real and very undesirable consequences, for you and your family too. For example, if one day you are a parent, you will likely not want your child’s school to promote homosexuality, a deviant and unhealthy lifestyle.
Clark, there is “loving’ requirement anyplace where SSM has been enacted or imposed.
As for commitment, there are millions more nonmarital arrangements in which mutual commitment is obvious and yet these arrangements are ineligible for marriage whether they be one-sexed or two-sexed. Some are ineligible because they are two-sexed!
Is that unjust, do you think?
What makes the “gay couple” superior to those arrangements which are, like SSM, in the nonmarriage category?
Gayness? Really.
If you demand government benefits based on gayness, and gayness alone, then, your remarks — much more than mine — have made it loud and clear that your view is that identity politics trumps the core meaning of marriage — and everything else — without justification.
* * *
Clark, you made a remark about interracial marriage. That remark belongs to you, not to someone else.
While you don’t have to prove anything to me or to anyone else, you did offer that remark to prove something to someone, somewhere.
Maybe your latest comment is your way of withdrawing that remark as proof of anything that would support your opinon.
The special reason for the special status of marriage is not straightness.
When it comes to the special status for marriage, there is no “straight identity politics” that corresponds with the current assertion of supremacy via gay identity politics. Not in all the history of marriage. Not today either.
Marriage has a core meaing. While it is not sex neutral, it remains neutral regarding gayness. This has remained unchanged throughout the historic and anthropological record.
The SSM-merger is pressed in the name of gayness. Gayness is socio-political identity that has a very brief history. The push for SSM is an anomalous. An error of today’s gaycentric activism.
Some SSMers mistakenly try to claim that “straight identity politics” is a bookend for the centrality gay identity politics in SSM argumentation. Their claim is an empty imitation, like much of SSM argumentation.
However, in trying to make the false claim, these SSMers openly concede that gay identity politics is what drives their argumentation. They imagine themselves to be counter-balancing for something but that something — “straight identity politics” — is not the core meaning of marriage.
Net result: the core of marriage is being attacked by SSMers in an effort to assert the supremacy of gay identity politics. This is done for the purpose of innoculating that type of politics from opposition and open dissent.
Believe them because they mean it.
Gay couples aren’t asking for special status, just equal status with straight couples. If the government is going to give straight couples special rights, it must also give those special rights to gay couples. It can’t discriminate based on sexuality, any more than it can discriminate based on religion or race. In addition, the government is discriminating against the children of same-sex couples, rendering them less secure than the children of opposite-sex couples. Besides being highly immoral, this too is illegal. That is why we’re see such change across the country.
Kevin, your logic requires that the the following couples/groups should be allowed to get married:
homosexuals (any number and combination)
polygamists (any and all arrangements)
incestuous (consenting) couples or groups
Homosexuals lack any special standing compared to the other above mentioned couples/groups. Indeed, because homosexual “marriage” constitutes an endorsement of homosexuality, a particularly unhealthy lifestyle (e.g., over 70% of new HIV/AIDS cases are still, 25 years after the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the result of male to male transmission), there are compelling reasons why it should NOT be legal.
Your “immorality” argument also fails. First, homosexuality itself is immoral. Second, homosexual “parenting”, in addition to being immoral (highly detrimental to children since it deprives a child of a mom or dad), is simply criminal. Homosexual “marriage” would only encourage more homosexual “parenting”, which would cause more children to suffer. That, of course, would be immoral.
Laura,
There’s nothing about homosexuality that refers to “numbers.” It’s illogical to suggest that homosexuality leads to polygamy. Ironically, polygamy existed under opposite-sex marriage, not same-sex marriage. Maybe it’s time to let that “argument” die its well deserved death.
Homosexuals don’t want special standing, just equal standing. It’s really not that hard to understand: they form loving, committed couples just like straight people, and often are raising children, just like straight people. Equal roles? Equal rights.
The US Supreme Court has already “endorsed” homosexuality, by saying that it should be legal. So much for your “endorsement” concerns. Homosexuality is legal. You don’t have to do it, but you can’t criminalize it. Sorry.
Homosexuality is not immoral. Human sexuality has no moral component to it. It just is. Lesbians have the lowest rate of sexually transmitted disease of any demographic. They are the only demographic to use sperm solely as God intended: for procreation. They may very well be God’s favorites LOL.
What’s immoral is to suggest that homosexuals may not bear or raise children. I can’t imagine you believe that any human being doesn’t have the right to reproduce. Very strange notion!
Kevin, you are illogical again. You should look up the definition of “endorse”. Making something legal is not the same as endorsing it.
To simplify it for you, alcoholism is legal in this country. Would you suggest that our society or our courts have endorsed it? I don’t think so.
Homosexuality, a deviant and unhealthy lifestyle (HIV/AIDS, syphillis, anal warts, anal cancer, etc.) has clearly not been endorsed by anybody other than homosexuals themselves or people who are on homosexuals’ payroll. Homosexuality, although highly immoral, is legal because enforcing anti-sodomy laws would be tricky, as I am sure you can understand.
It’s illogical to suggest that the number 2 is entirely arbitrary once the male+female requirement is rendered moot? Well, if it’s not entirely arbitrary, then it must be based on religious bias, right? The court must surely strike it down!
Trust me, Kevin will support legalized Polygamy soon enough. he just can’t admit that now.
The prohibitions on incest are primarily based on the well known reproductive consequences. But what will that have to do with two gay brothers? Surely they too will have their day in court!
And Kevin will be marching right behind them. Wait & see.
You can keep trying to connect same-sex marriage to polygamy and incest but they’re in no way connected. Polygamy existed BEFORE same-sex marriage, and incest has been around forever, since Adam and Eve’s kids did it to produce the next generation of people!
Kevin, to make it easire for you, I will also simplify the different categories of couples, which, if homosexual “marriage” is legalized, should also be eligible to marry. I will remove the poly- or multi- element. I will also remove heterosexual element (so that you cannot make an argument based on health consequnces for children born out of incest).
Please assume everybody is an adult and able to consent, and that they are all in LOVE.
Two sisters want to get married.
Two brothers want to get married.
Mother and daughter want to get married.
Father and son want to get married.
If homosexuals can get married, these people should also be able to get married. Do you agree? And if not, why?
Laura,
Please assume everybody is an adult and able to consent, and that they are all in LOVE.
Two sisters want to get married.
Two brothers want to get married.
Mother and daughter want to get married.
Father and son want to get married.
If heterosexuals can get married, these people should also be able to get married. Do you agree? And if not, why?
Told you he’d support incest.
Kevin,
Wait a minute. I didn’t think “love” had anything to do with marriage? At least that is what I have heard so many times from SSM supporters.
So, if the proposed aforementioned “loving, consentual adult” relationships were to play out, what would be the need for them to get married? What resultant benefit would there be? At that, these “relationships” are part and parcel of the pushback to SSM. In other words, the floodgate would open wide to any and all “relationships” looking for gov’t approval via a “license” of some sort. And if this happens. it is just a matter of time before society implodes (if it hasn’t already).
Lastly, do you want/need to marry one of your own kids? If not, why? If good enough for someone else, why not you?
SSMers try to dodge the fatal flaw in their argumentation.
Based on the stuff that SSMers exalt as defining SSM, how can they justify drawing boundaries around the SSM-merger?
They disparage the defense of marriage but when it comes to incest and poly-scenarios, and more, SSMers imagine that the defense of marriage will transform into the defense of the SSM-merger.
No such luck. SSMers stand on their own. If they insist that the boundaries are unjust, in the name of SSM, then, they’ve put the boundaries up for negotiation.
They are emphatic that the core meaning of marriage is incompatable with being pro-gay. So they can’t reclaim that core when it comes to boundaries in a post-merger scenario.
Forget all you know about marriage. SSM would be the new thing around which boundaries would be drawn.
In this comment section we’ve seen a few big declarations: sexuality is irrelevant; love and commitment justify the merger; minority rights trump majority-rule.
What differentiates a sibling arrangement from SSM? Or a threesome, or a moresome, from SSM? Or an underaged scenario from SSM? Consenting adults cannot be arbitrarily denied a license under an SSM-merger.
They could not even claim gayness (much less straightness) as a legal requirement in a post-merger situation.
They could not rely on tradition — such as the tradition of romance — since they’ve knocked that off the table, too. Forget public morality. Forget religion. Forget all you know about marriage.
SSM is a different thing. It stands or falls on its own.
SSMers usually flee from the defense of the SSM-merger when it comes to the boundaries post-merger. The best they can do is whine about there not being enough people pressing for sibling marriage or for polygamy or whatever. And that’s pretty lame considering that SSMers insist that minorities have rights that cannot be dismissed due to small numbers.
SSMers get it wrong if they think that, for example, polygamy came before SSM and so it is not an SSM related issue. The issue is justifying boundaries that would have been redrawn for the sake of the SSM-merger; and post-merger there would be little, if any, justification in SSM argumentation to keep the boundaries.
That is why SSMers usually flee from this profound flaw in their argumentation.
Nicholas,
I’d love to respond to your questions but I don’t really know what you’re asking. I reject the notion that letting same-sex couples marry will lead to other, less desirable kinds of marriages. As I’ve noted, polygamy existed well before same-sex marriage was even on the radar; I doubt that anyone in biblical times complained about polygamy leading to same-sex marriage! And incest is so uncommon, despite its biblical origins, that to use it as part of the “slippery slope” argument is about as reasonable as saying we should eliminate age restrictions for marriage because some teenager might lie about her age anyway and say she’s older than she is, in order to marry.
Remember the fundamentals of marriage: mutual consent, commitment, shared resources, and, often, raising children together. Incest is illegal, unlike homosexuality and homosexual behavior. That’s one serious impediment to sibling marriage. Also, because of the “mutual consent” aspect of marriage, it is highly unlikely that both a brother and a sister would agree to marry. I know if I pitched the idea to one of my sisters, I would probably have an ex-sister, not a new lover and partner in life.
I find arguments based on fear of theoretical catastrophe or hatred of some group rather unconvincing. But that’s just me. I’m not willing to demean others or stand in the way of their happiness, of the happiness and security of their children, in order to stroke my hates or fears.
Laura, your comment was honestly one of the more ignorant I’ve ever read.
“Homosexulity is a lifestyle choice. Ex-homosexuals constitue the best proof that it is just a choice. By choosing to be homosexual, you forfeit many wonderful things in life, including a chance of a real marriage (let’s pretend for a moment this discussion is really about marriage and not about radical homosexual agenda to force our society to endorse homosexuality).
You have a will (and brain in most instances), but you chose an unnatural, unhealthy, and often criminal (rampant pedophilia) lifestyle. I also suggest you check the most recent statistics regarding HIV/AIDS, syphillis, anal warts, and anal cancer. You only have yourself to blame.”
Homosexuality is absolutely not a choice. There is no such thing as an “ex-homosexual”. And surprisingly enough, the legalization of same-sex marriage is not part of the nonexistent “radical homosexual agenda”. It’s simply a movement in which people want equal rights. Your unwillingness to give them this is horrifying.
Also, your claims of “rampant pedophilia” are completely unfounded. Aside from the fact that same sex marriage has nothing to do with a homosexual pedophile, research shows that even pedophiles who molest boys are most of the time straight, and it is the availability of children rather than the gender that matters.
The connection that proponents of same sex marriage would in turn support polygamy and/or incest is utterly comical. That is textbook logical fallacy and makes as much sense as stating that someone who supports the war in Iraq must also support the US nuking France tomorrow.
The issue at hand is love and marriage - a voluntary union between two people recognized by law. The fact that one would attempt to restrict another couple’s happiness because of bigotry is shameful.
Kevin, you asked me why heterosexual couples should be allowed to marry, while incestuous couples cannot. Thanks for finally admitting that if homosexual “marriage” is allowed nothing should stop marriages of incestuous couples or groups of related or unrelated people, regardless of gender. I have reached the same conclusion — homosexual “marriage” would set a very dangerous and socially undesirable legal precedent. That is yet another reason why homosexual “marriage” is a very bad idea.
Your praise of responsible use of sperm by lesbians would be “amusing” if such use did not result in harming children. Yes Kevin, lesbians deserve gold medals for depriving thousands of children of fathers and for rendering those children emotionally handicapped. As I said before, this is not only immoral, it is criminal, and, sadly, a very bad reflection on our society.
Finally, your attempt to trivialize the cost of homosexuality by touting the very “healthy” lesbian lifestyle is pathetic at best. You may need some education here. In 2008, male to male transmission was responsible for over 70% of new HIV/AIDS cases. Considering that male homosexuals constitute little over 1% of the U.S. population, the statistics are shocking and very telling. You have to be a complete idiot not to see that.
Homosexual “marriage” legitimizes and promotes homosexuality, which, in addition to suffering, has already cost taxpayers billions of dollars because of HIV/AIDS treatment and research. Add to that costs associated with other STDs rampant in homosexual community, as well as anal warts, anal cancer, hepatitis (A,B,C), and other blood and feces-borne diseases.
Why bar related people if the arrangement, say of siblings, includes mutual consent, commitment, shared resources and raising children together?
Indeed, there are millions of relationshps and living arrangements that are ineligible to marry but which include all of those features.
Note: these millions may or may not be sexualized. Yet they’d be incestuous with or without sexual behavior involved.
There is an observed phenomena known as genetic sexual attraction. Should acting on such an attraction be outlawed even when the people involved are consenting adults?
According to SSM argumentation, nope.
If this attraction is rare does that mean that those who experience it must be denied “marriage equality”?
According to SSM argumentation, nope.
If so-called normal siblings would find it “icky”, does that mean that this sexual minority must be outlawed and their mutually consenting and loving commitments be denied equality?
According to SSM argumentation, nope. Even if they pay taxes. Even if the majority rules.
Unfortunately for SSM argumentation, SSMers have declared that sexuality is irrelevant to the SSM-merger. So post merger sexuality cannot be revived as justification to bar incestuous arrangements — sexually incestuous or otherwise. The SSMers need something else to justify denying the “right to marry”.
Hedonistic societies, athiestic societies, and societies with no particular connection to the Bible — all of these secnarios have included prohibitions on incestuous marriages. That cannot be dismissed based on some SSMer’s desire to take swipes at religion at every turn.
On the other hand, the core meaning of marriage provides the legitimate basis for discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage.
Indeed, the lines drawn regarding related people are variable lines that each civilization figures out based on the societal concerns about sex integration and responsible procreation. This is about family formation via the conjugal union of husband and wife.
Declarations of love do not over-ride these societal concerns. Private and personal sexual behavior do not provide sufficient reason for society to issue licenses and to accord special status to incestuous relationships or arrangements.
But most nonmarriage arrangements that include related people do NOT entail sexual incest. And these are not outlawed. In fact, like the rest of the nonmarraige category, they can avail themselves of provisions for designated beneficiaries. Some of these arrangements are same-sexed and others are two-sexed. There is no gayness factor in play regarding these provisions and the eligiblity rules.
Yet SSMers would pick gayness, based on sexuality, out of the nonmarriage category and give it special status — for no good reason, much less for special reason.
This assertion of supremacy in the name of pro-gay bigotry would be unjust if the Government, on behalf of all of society, imposed it in any form — and it would be far no less unjust if done in the form of a merger of SSM (a subset of nonmarriage) with marriage.
SSMers want society to favor gayness even as they declare that sexuality is irrelevant to the proposed SSM-merger with marriage. Even as they note that some sexual relationshps are outlawed; even as they blatantly contradict their own argumentation when it comes to “sexual minorities”; even as they boorishly dismiss love and commitment of some groups due to some unstated fear of these sexual relationships.
Do these SSMers mean what they say? Apparently not. Do they say what they mean? Apparently not so much.
But they do say stuff and they expect us to take that stuff at face value and to base law on it. And they expect that favoring a particular identity group must “logically” negate their own argumentation.
Those two expectations are not in alignment with justice, nor with the Constitution, nor with the societal significance of marriage itself.
SSMers should just admit that their argumentation entails opening the boundaries regarding incestuous marriage. Then, if they can, they should justify prohibitions. They cannot invoke societal concerns that they have disparaged when attacking the core of marriage.
If they can make SSM stand on its own two feet, then, their line-drawing should withstand the same rules they’ve used to attack, for example, the centrality of procreation and sex integration. Their anemic definition of SSM is virtually meaningless anyway, but it is particularly useless when drawing lines between what SSM is and is not.
Typo correction:
“This assertion of supremacy in the name of pro-gay bigotry would be unjust if the Government, on behalf of all of society, imposed it in any form — and it would be no less unjust if done in the form of a merger of SSM (a subset of nonmarriage) with marriage.”
Kevin,
I assure you I stand for marriage as the union of male and female, husband and wife, not as you suggest, “to stroke my hates and fears,” but because, as a Christian, it is my honor to stand for marriage as God intended. No hate or fear involved, contrary to what you presume of me and others who support NOM and their efforts.
My point about the sibling relationships you mentioned was to say, at what point does marriage become a mockery of itself.? There is no slippery slope, as marriage as anything other than the union of male and female, husband and wife, is a counterfeit, and will not stand regardless of how hard SSMers try to put SSM on a pedastal as if doing so puts SSM above the “fray” convincing passers-by of its supposed “merits.” The thing is, if SSM can stand on its own, then why does it need propped up? No doubt, there is an endgame in mind lest society wise up to what is really going on.
Jordan,
I will ask you as I have asked others: wherein is the proof that homosexuality is not a choice? What evidence is there that it is innate? Please respond as I have never really had these questions answered satisfactorily.
Also, as has been bantered about ad nauseum, how is standing for marriage as the union of male and female, husband and wife, “bigoted?” Explain why it is a “bigoted” position to define marriage this way.
Pointless arguments. Marriage is adapting to changes in society. It has ALWAYS been adapting. It always WILL be adapting. DOMA is nothing less than a religiously-backed hate law discriminating against same-sex couples. Marriage, as an institution, didn’t collapse when miscegenation laws were eliminated. Marriage, as an institution, didn’t collapse when no-fault divorce was introduced. It MIGHT collapse in the U.S. if we don’t get some form of nationalized day care such as other countries have. With the economy being what it is, both parents have to work to support a family now, yet most companies are not yet structured to allow parents time off, or flexible enough schedules to handle work and children. One can foresee the day when economic forces might even engender group marriages to insure the adequate care and support of the children. Meanwhile, except for promoting unwanted babies via anti-abortion ads and hate messages for anyone who’s ‘different’ from them, religions seem to be deliberately phasing themselves out of favor with intelligent people by issuing all these messages of hate. Even the pro-lifers seem to ignore the fact that the planet cannot support unlimited growth, that in most of the world starvation and homelessness are still common problems. I grant those small-minded people the rights to have their own opinions. Just please keep them to yourselves. Who someone wants to marry should be up to the couple involved. Go read Robert Heinlein’s “To Sail Beyond The Sunset” or “For Us The Living” and realize that in the long view of years to come, you WILL lose this argument. Slave holders lost, Nazis lost, white supremacists lost, and religious bigots and homophobes will also eventually lose. Change is inevitable. Resistance is futile. I need not argue. I only need to wait and watch and vote my own conscience (which will counter at least one vote from this site.) Change is inevitable. Resistance is futile. Learn this from history’s lessons: Just because 51% of the people want something, doesn’t make it right and percentages WILL shift when people come to realize it.
And for those who think ‘marriage between a man and a woman’ is a clear, unambiguous statement - they should visit this site: http://www.crossdresserheaven.com/can-a-sex-change-end-your-marriage-legally/
and read about the transgender issue amongst today’s mix of laws: “Urging the United States Supreme Court to tackle the issue in 2000, lawyers for Christie Lee Littleton, a Texas male-to-female transsexual suing her husband’s doctors for wrongful death, noted the confused landscape: “Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Texas, is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Texas, and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.” ”
Now what do you do?
Not to mention the Texas attorney who feels obligated to keep two gays married because he refuses divorce them because he won’t recognize their same-sex marriage that was made in another state. Ironic, no? A Texas lawyer keeping two married gays together.
As for what makes a man or woman, don’t forget that one in 2,000 aren’t born exactly either sex. Visit http://dsdguidelines.org/ (which really needs a new name, since ‘disorder’ has negative connotations) or http://www.apa.org/topics/transgender.html
Good luck on unraveling it.
Oh, by the way, there’s probably no God, so get on with enjoying your life (and stop trying to tell others how to live theirs.)
The previous commenter contradicts himself about six times in the space of just two comments.