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Monthly Archives: April 2011

Dan Savage Educates Your Children?

April 5, 2011 – 3:33 pm

Renowned sex columnist Dan Savage, who is an openly gay man, will be taking his popular sex and relationship advice column to MTV in a show appropriately called "Savage U" where he intends to educate your college student about the importance of honesty over just about anything else, including fidelity.

He is of course the author of the "It Gets Better" campaign, which I liked as being (unlike most responses) apparently clearly targeted to the problem of gay teen suicides, and not using them for some other purposes.

There was a thoughtful analysis of his sexual ethics in the Washington Monthly recently, for folks who want to get a taste of what he writes.

The essay, by a Lutheran Minister, ends by pointing out where Savage ethics lead. A young man, in love with his girlfriend, with whom he has had a rather open and satisfying sexual relationship, but is tempted by more "sexual variety" asks how he can ask for that without ruining his relationship, which he values.

Savage, who for all his experience, does not know what women are like, advises him to tell her openly and honestly what he wants, because otherwise the young man will just cheat on her.

The Lutheran minister, wiser in the ways of men and women, suggests that this young man is going to get pretty lonely looking for another woman able to give him all this young woman does--and who doesn't mind his playing around on the side.

The possibility of taming one's sexual desire for the sake of another, or of a vow, is not in the Savage moral imagination. Libido will have out, and honesty about that is the best policy.

He brings, in other words, the best of gay sexual ethics and experience to a straight audience, with potentially disastrous results.

By Maggie Gallagher | Posted in Culture, Marriage | Comments (26)

Equality Virginia Blasts Opponents of Adoption Regs, Refuses to Acknowledge or Respond to Religious Liberty Concerns

April 5, 2011 – 1:13 pm

From The Washington Post's VA Politics blog:

Equality Virginia, a leading gay rights group, sent out an email late Monday night blasting Del. Bob Marshall for trying to derail a proposal to ban discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgendered people who want to adopt children.

...Equality Virginia disputes that the proposed regulations would do anything more than allow a person who seeks to adopt to do so without fear of discrimination. They are asking the board and McDonnell to allow the regulations to move forward.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Adoption, Virginia | Comments (4)

Prop 8 Opponents Receive Harassing Phone Calls

April 5, 2011 – 1:05 pm

I'd like to extend my personal sympathies to the litigants seeking to overturn Prop 8 who received harassing and repulsive phone calls from a caller (who apparently has previously harassed Nancy Pelosi, has a record of convictions for petty offenses, and in my non-clinical judgment shows signs of serious mental illness).

Everyone should have the right to exercise core civil rights to organize, to speak, to donate and yes to litigate, without being subjected to threats and harassment such as calls like these.

By Maggie Gallagher | Posted in California, Prop 8 | Comments (3)

Tim Gill Says: Vote My Way Or I'll Dump $2 Million Against Your Party in Colorado

April 5, 2011 – 12:16 pm

Or, at any rate, that's what Tim Gill's top lawyer Ted Trimpa told FOX 31 news:

Ultimately, the vote [against same-sex unions in Colorado] was more evidence that elections indeed have consequences.

The GOP's one-vote majority in the House won last November entitles them to majorities on all House committees and to effectively kill measures they don't like that pass out of the Democrat-controlled Senate.

As such, supporters of civil unions will now refocus on taking back a Democratic majority in the House.

Put another way, Thursday's GOP vote equates to kicking a hornet's nest -- a hornet's nest named Tim Gill.

Gill, the gay millionaire who's riches are largely responsible for the Democratic takeover in Colorado over the past decade, will now be spending millions more to defeat Republicans across the state, starting with GOP members of the statehouse.

"It might be a difference of, before, spending $200,000 [on 2012 House races], and now spending $2 million," said Gill's lawyer, Ted Trimpa.

Inexplicably, that final quote of Trimpa's has disappeared from the current version of the FOX 31 story, but the quote can still be found elsewhere.

In 2006, Colorado voters rejected civil unions by a strong margin: 53-47%. (At the same time, Coloradans voted for an amendment defining marriage as "a union of one man and one woman" by an even wider margin of 55-45%).

Last week, the Colorado House Judiciary narrowly defeated a SSU bill on straight party lines, after it was passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate.

This decision comes as a bitter defeat to gay mega-millionaire Tim Gill, who has been pouring millions upon millions of dollars into Colorado for a decade to elect pro-SSM politicians (including $5 million in 2006 alone).

In an op-ed published by Gill in the Denver Post after last week's defeat, he concluded by suggesting that he would work further to "change the legislature" if it did not change course on his issues.

Gill, whose net worth is somewhere in well north of $400 million, is a founding member of the famous "gang of four" - mega-millionaires who put Democrats in office in the CO Legislature (flipping control of the Senate in the process) and the Governor’s office. So his threat has teeth to it.

Ted Trimpa (Gill's top lawyer) has been frank with the press about what the Gill strategy means in practice:

Called “Colorado’s answer to Karl Rove” by The Atlantic magazine, Trimpa believes that to win, you must project strength. “You have to create an environment of fear and respect,” he told the Bay Area Reporter. “The only way to do that is to get aggressive and go out and actually beat them up [politically]. Sitting there crying and whining about being victims isn’t going to get us equality. What is going to get us equality is fighting for it.”

Here's the take away: politicians who voted against this SSU bill knew the risk, because the Gill political machine is so well known in Colorado.

CitizenLink, a Focus on the Family Affiliate, meanwhile notes the difficulty of communicating their pro-family viewpoint in the media.

So, on the one hand, politicians were bearing the force of the Gill political machine, and on the other hand, had reason to suspect that their position might not be accurately reflected to their constituents through the traditional mainstream media.

This means the politicians who eventually voted against the bill did so because of their conscience and because they knew it reflected the will of the people of Colorado:

[Rep]. Delgrosso, who told reporters he couldn't sleep last night, based his vote on the last time Colorado voters weighed in in 2006, when Referendum I, a proposal to recognize gay marriage, was defeated.

"A lot of the folks four-and-a-half years ago said no, they didn't support that, and I just didn't feel it was right for me as a legislator to go against what the will of the people was just four-and-a-half years ago," Delgrosso said. (KWGN)

But what remains to be seen is whether or not politicians who conscientiously reflect the views of Colorado voters on marriage will be able to continue representing those views in office, if Tim Gill and his mega-millionaire friends have anything to say about it.

Top photo: Bob Roehr

By NOM Staff | Posted in Colorado | Comments (15)

*Updated* In RI, a move for Reciprocal Benefits instead?

April 5, 2011 – 11:39 am

More evidence from the April 5th Boston Globe that the Rhode Island legislature isn't willing to redefine marriage.

Instead, the new idea is a version of civil unions that would provide many practical benefits for couples not eligible for marriage:

Rhode Island lawmakers will consider a proposal to allow gay couples and others who can't legally marry to enter into an agreement providing many of the benefits of marriage.The House Committee on Judiciary will review legislation Tuesday that would extend benefits and rights associated with insurance, health care decisions, inheritance and property ownership to so-called "reciprocal beneficiaries."

The legal relationships would be restricted to anyone older than 18 who cannot legally marry their partner. That includes same-sex couples as well as relatives, such as unmarried siblings who want the right to make medical decisions for each other.

Committees in the House and Senate have held hearings on legislation allowing gay marriage, but neither chamber has scheduled a vote on the bill. The reciprocal beneficiary bill is one of several proposed alternatives.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Rhode Island | Comments (2)

In CA, a second Prop 8 instead?

April 5, 2011 – 11:11 am

More evidence that Prop 8 will win-out in court - SSM activists are searching for a fall back option:

Equality California, the major gay rights organization, is looking into whether or not it will push for a pro-gay marriage ballot measure sometime very soon, probably 2012.

"Legal experts advise that the case might not be resolved for several years -- and there is no guarantee how the courts will ultimately rule, despite the amazing work of the lawyers leading this effort," writes EQCA InterimExecutive Director Jim Carroll.

A federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Proposition 8 is working its way through the appeals process.

By NOM Staff | Posted in California, Prop 8, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (4)

Sherif Gergis in National Review on "Real Marriage"

April 5, 2011 – 10:59 am

Sherif Gergis is the co-author of the flagship article "What is Marriage?" (which has become one of the most-read articles of all-time on SSRN).

In the most recent print issue of National Review, Gergis responds to Jason Steort's claims (in his article "Two Views of Marriage"):

[Steort's] counterargument is false in almost every dimension. Steorts builds a faulty theory of marital love on a confused account of the human person. He construes marriage as “maximal experiential union” — a goal that, to the extent that it is intelligible at all, would put undue strain on spouses, obscure the value of norms specific to marriage (like permanence and exclusivity), and bulldoze the topography of non-marital relationships. It would thus tend to undermine the marriage culture, and with it the welfare of spouses and children. But it would also affect the unmarried, by obscuring the special value and social prestige of other forms of intimacy. Steorts’s view, imbued with sentimentalism, is in fact less humane than the view it would displace.

Steorts wrote his argument with enough acuity to flag certain common philosophical errors, but not enough care to avoid them — with the remarkable result that its early sections contain, in plain language, rebuttals to the rest. But it is worth rehearsing its problems here and showing how the conjugal view of marriage avoids them. The reason is simple: For all its problems, Steorts’s argument captures and condenses the nebulous ideas behind today’s movement to redefine civil marriage, yesterday’s push for no-fault divorce, and other corrosive trends. Answering it convincingly will hasten the day when the invitation to join Riddell and Partilla’s jump into emotivism is seen for what it is — a call to cultural suicide. [Continue Reading]

By NOM Staff | Posted in Culture, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (2)

Proponents of polygamy say gay marriage led the way

April 5, 2011 – 7:00 am

From the Canadian Chronicle Herald:

[Opponents of Polygamy] "When that [2004 Constitutional] decision was made, that decision to limit it (marriage) to two is consistent with the charter, that’s the direct quote from the court."

Challengers of the law argue just the opposite, suggesting the same legal rights that paved the way for gay marriage should pave the way for polygamists.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Canada, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (11)

Video: Chris Plante of NOM RI talks about Marriage and the Hispanic Church

April 4, 2011 – 4:37 pm

Chris Plante, director of NOM's Rhode Island Chapter spoke with CBN News (full story here) about the SSM debate heating up - and about the surging support for marriage in the Hispanic Churches:

Chris Plante, director of the Rhode Island Chapter of the National Organization for Marriage, said he's optimistic the bill may stay bottled up in committee and never make it to a General Assembly vote.

Watch the full interview here:

By NOM Staff | Posted in Rhode Island, Same Sex Marriage | Comments Off on Video: Chris Plante of NOM RI talks about Marriage and the Hispanic Church

NOM NEWS ROUND-UP: April 4, 2011

April 4, 2011 – 12:25 pm

For defenders of marriage, these are busy times!

Over 75,000 of you have contacted Congress since we began our defendDOMA campaign (THANK YOU!). After you've joined these tens of thousands of marriage defenders by taking action yourself, keep reading below to catch up on all the other marriage-related news that's happening!

  1. Donate to support our ongoing efforts to defend marriage.
  2. Sign the petition urging your congressman to stand for marriage as a co-sponsor of House Concurrent Resolution 25.
  3. Share this action item with your friends. Help spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, or via your blog or website.

Have you taken action? GREAT! Now, back to the news...

Religious Liberty & Activity:

Culture & Family:

Marriage & Politics:

Marriage Resources & Debate:

International News:

Just for Fun:

By NOM Staff | Posted in News, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (1)

Where Does Virginia Social Services Get the Legal Authority to Requires Mandatory Gay Adoption?

April 4, 2011 – 10:27 am

In this story by LifeSiteNews, a Virginia delegate (Bob Marshall) points out that the legislature has declined to add "orientation" discrimination to its statutes, and asks--where did Virginia Social Services get the authority to add sexual orientation non-discrimination to its licensing requirements for adoption agencies?

BTW, NOM readers ROCK! The opposing comments on the negative religious liberty effects of the proposed regulation soared ten fold in just a few short hours, from around 100, to over 1000.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Adoption, Religious Liberty, Virginia | Comments (5)

Are Moms and Dads Just the Same?

April 4, 2011 – 10:19 am

A San Francisco Power Mommy Group, says, No:

"In a Clubby World of San Francisco Mothers, Men Needn't Apply." - New York Times

By NOM Staff | Posted in California, Parenting | Comments (5)

Bishop Tobin of Providence talks about marriage and "rediscovering courage and conviction"

April 4, 2011 – 8:00 am

The Catholic World Report has published an inspiring interview with Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence.

Bishop Tobin, among his many endeavors (such as providing local needy with heating assistance in winter), is a staunch and creative defender of marriage in Rhode Island:

CWR: How has the Catholic community in Rhode Island responded to efforts to legalize same-sex marriage?

Bishop Tobin: Historically there has been some apathy about it among the citizenry of Rhode Island, including among the Catholic population. But recently, because our political landscape has changed, we’ve done a better job in getting our pastors involved, rallying the Catholic faithful against it. I’m proud of what our pastors and people have done, both in reaching out to our legislators and making their voices heard in the media, saying this is not something that is acceptable to us.

We need our people to understand that this is a serious issue. Our greatest danger as a Catholic community is apathy. If we’re not aware of the situation, don’t care about it or make it a priority, gay marriage will pass in Rhode Island. But if we’re galvanized and make our voices heard, we’ll keep it out of our state.

It is important to emphasize that this is not just an exercise in partisan politics. This is an expression of our faith. We have to be involved in this issue as disciples of Christ and members of his Church.

Recently, the Providence Phoenix, a liberal-leaning, gay-friendly newspaper here in Providence, ran a lead story by David Scharfenberg, “Will the Catholic Church kill gay marriage?” They gave us a left-handed compliment by saying that we’ve been rather effective in our opposition. We have a long road ahead of us, and a tough fight. I don’t know what the outcome will be. But we’re doing our best.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Same Sex Marriage | Comments (4)

Canadian civil liberties group: Polygamy ban should be 'relegated to scrap heap of history'

April 3, 2011 – 11:01 pm

From the Vancouver Sun:

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is calling for Canada's polygamy law that bans multiple marriages to be found unconstitutional and "relegated to the scrap heap of history."

In written submissions filed Thursday, the association urged B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman to find that the law offends fundamental freedoms.

The parties in favour of upholding the law have argued that there are numerous social harms associated with polygamy.

The association says that while harms can occur in plural relationships, there is no evidence that there are harms specific to polygamy.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Canada | Comments (34)

After SSM, What Next? Half-Marriage and Ending the "Privileges" of Marriage

April 2, 2011 – 8:00 am

Two reminders that the effort to redefine marriage to include same-sex  unions represents just one way that revisionists are attempting to empty marriage of its meaning and purpose.

John Culhane, a professor of Law at Widener University proposes leveling marriage to make it little different from other types of unions:

Why should we continue to privilege marriage at all?

... what about those who will continue to be fenced out [if gay marriage were to become the law of the land], both from the benefits and from the dignity that we demand from marriage? By looking only at the narrow issue of our right to marry, we risk missing greater, more systemic injustices. We need to continue to project of reducing the differences between marriage and other forms of human relations. (www.365gay.com)

Susan Pease Gadoua, author of Contemplating Divorce, asks why "traditional marriage should be our only option" and suggests "what if we could be half-married?":

In 2002, Pamela Paul wrote a groundbreaking book that presented the novel idea of having what she called, a "Starter Marriage." This legal union would be a first marriage for couples in their 20's or young 30's who knew they would not have children and who did not necessarily expect the nuptials to last a lifetime. Much like a learner's permit for driving, a Starter Marriage would be a way for young people to "play house" without risking their entire lives.

The book did not make much of an impact in our social norms. Nearly a decade later, most people have never heard of a Starter Marriage. More mainstream terms include domestic partnership, common law marriage and civil unions and mean something a bit different.

Proponents of same-sex marriage say that redefining marriage will lead to a stronger, not a weaker, marriage culture. But those who argue for alternatives to the conjugal view of marriage find themselves on the side of those who also argue to make one man, one woman marriage less protected instead of more cherished.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Culture, Marriage, Same Sex Marriage | Comments (31)
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