Marriage Watch / Maggie Gallagher
San Francisco Attorney Theresa Stewart examined gay historian and Yale Prof. George Chauncey on religious groups's vviews on marriage. The unseemly suggestion is that it is perfectly valid for voters to base their views on reading Prof. Chauncey's books, but that the great historic faith traditions views on sex and marriage somehow represent illegitimate hatred and bigotry. Is this really where gay marriage advocates wnat to go? Validating every religious persons fears about what gay marriage means for religious freedom?
(This is a pro-gay marriage liveblog of the testimony, here: http://prop8trialtracker.com/)
Maybe this is a good argument in court. San Francisco by the way is a government that passed an extraordinary resolution condeming the Catholic Church and urging church people to defy their leaders. (http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=32433) I cannot think of a more direct attempt by the state to impose on the church than to have a government body tell religious people to defy their faith. This is what tolerance looks like, these days.
16 Comments
Fix the link to http://prop8trialtracker.com/ please.
Marriage is between a man and a woman, period.
It's fascinating to see the theologically illiterate (especially on literary, cultural, and textual critique of of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures) fulminating about theological and religious issues they don't understand. Most Christians today in our nation are as biblically ignorant as those who have no use for faith at all -- AND, are doing a great job of recruiting our general culture toward god-lessness.
M. J. Sobran wrote recently:
The Framers of the Constitution . . . forbade the Congress to make any law "respecting" the establishment of religion, thus leaving the states free to do so (as several of them did); and they explicitly forbade the Congress to abridge "the free exercise" of religion, thus giving actual religious observance a rhetorical emphasis that fully accords with the special concern we know they had for religion. It takes a special ingenuity to wring out of this a governmental indifference to religion, let alone an aggressive secularism. Yet there are those who insist that the First Amendment actually proscribes governmental partiality not only to any single religion, but to religion as such; so that tax exemption for churches is now thought to be unconstitutional. It is startling [she continues] to consider that a clause clearly protecting religion can be construed as requiring that it be denied a status routinely granted to educational and charitable enterprises, which have no overt constitutional protection. Far from equalizing unbelief, secularism has succeeded in virtually establishing it.
[She continues:] What the secularists are increasingly demanding, in their disingenuous way, is that religious people, when they act politically, act only on secularist grounds. They are trying to equate acting on religion with establishing religion. And--I repeat--the consequence of such logic is really to establish secularism. It is in fact, to force the religious to internalize the major premise of secularism: that religion has no proper bearing on public affairs. [Human Life Review, Summer 1978, pp. 51–52, 60–61]
Updates from the pro traditional marriage law firm.
http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/3618
summary of yesterday.
I try to read each sides summaries, and try to find balance in the "spin." Not an easy task.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/24079
Marriage is between one man, and whoever he wants to love and committ to the rest of his life. And I don't care if that's a man or a woman. I also don't care if gays have never been allowed to marry until recently because of thousands of years of persecution, hatred, and falsehoods. It's time to end discrimination against them. They're good people, and we straight people have made a complete mockery of marriage. We're the last people who should be voting on gay rights.
We're not voting on "gay rights" rob, but on the meaning of marriage. Just because you "don't care" doesn't mean the rest of us can't either.
Who gets to decide the meaning of legal marriage, if not We The People? You? Me? 7 judges?
@Marty: The only people who should decide the meaning of marriage are the two people getting married. Two men or two women getting married has absolutely no effect on any other marriage between a man and a woman, and any argument to the contrary has yet to be convincingly made.
That is a straw man argument made by SSMers, Michael, and convinces no one, not even most SSMers.
Do you oppose the special status of marriage?
If yes, okay, that is a logical conclusion of SSM arugmentation, as Olson recently indicated in his opening argument and answers to Judge Walker.
If no, then, plainly state the special reason for the special status of marriage. And show how your answser does not also apply to the rest of the nonmarriage category of relationships and arrangements.
I ask these questions of you Michael Adrian, who is in search of arguments that convince, because Marty is right on target when he said:
We’re not voting on “gay rights” rob, but on the meaning of marriage.
I strongly support marriage and believe it is too important to restrict to any group, especially children. Children do better with married parents, and that includes the children of same-sex couples.
What you've supported in your various comments, Kevin, is not marriage but the SSM idea.
Even at that your comments have not shown how the one-sexed type of relationship you have in mind is different from the rest of nonmarriage. Sure, you pointed at gayness, but that's just you showing favoritism for a particular group. SSM is not about licensing gayness, is it? If not, then, why attach to SSM a special status that is not available to the millions of non-gay arrangements and relationships -- especially families with children -- outside of marriage? Protection equality is based on the vulnerabilities those families experience due to the lack of (or diminishment of) sex integration and responsible procreation in their circumstances. That includes one-sexed arrangements which are not gaycentric.
Why the special treatment among nonmarriage arrangements and relatiionship types?
Chairm:
I think you’ve misread my comments. I’m not advocating special treatment for gay couples, but rather, equal treatment, compared to straight couples. Both legally and morally, it is impermissible to deny the benefits of marriage to one group but not others. And it is bizarre to try to link marriage to “good parenting,” since gay couples are always permitted to raise children together and society permits convicted murderers and rapists to marry, so long as they’re straight.
Aren’t you uncomfortable advocating that only the children of opposite-sex couples deserve the security of having married parents, knowing that children are better off being raised by married parents? I guess I just don’t have the heart to tell the children of same-sex couples that they’re worth less than the children of opposite-sex couples!
You think wrongly, Jonathan, read my comment again. I did not say that this or that class of children are "worth less" based on "same-sex couples".
You clearly inject into the word, couples, some sexual meaning, right? Or, more accurately, gay identity, right?
Why do you emphasize gayness as the basis for special treatment among nonmarriage arrangements and relationship types where children are being raised?
You haven't said what makes the gay arrangements more worthy.
Chairm, marriage equality is about due process and equal protection under the law for all Americans. One legal question is if you or anyone else should have to change their sexual orientation or sex in order to marry the opposite sex person in a civil marriage.
Because this is the usual reason same sex couples apply for a marriage license. Not many "friends" of the same sex have been know to apply for a marriage license, heterosexual or homosexual. Civil marriage law does not test for this condition.
Exactly, no test for sexual orientation. That fits what I've said and stands against your emphasis on sexual orientation and gay identity politics. Thanks.
Meanwhile:
Why do you emphasize gayness as the basis for special treatment among nonmarriage arrangements and relationship types where children are being raised?
You haven’t said what makes the gay arrangements more worthy to you.