No to Gay Marriage in Maine, Yes to Domestic Partners in Washington State
Largely lost amidst the hullabaloo of Republican gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia and a Conservative Party defeat in New York’s 23rd congressional district was a successful citizens’ veto in Maine of a state statute recognizing gay marriage. At the same time, citizens in Washington State approved a statute making “the rights, responsibilities, and obligations of same-sex and senior domestic partners” the equivalent to those of married spouses, without calling the relationships marriage. The margins were nearly identical. In the Pine Tree State, 52.8% of voters approved Question 1, rejecting state recognition of same-sex marriage. In the Evergreen State, 52.56% voted to approve domestic partnerships.
This split decision, if you will, could have tremendous reverberations in the current debate on gay marriage, particularly as it relates to the strategies gay activists employ to secure state recognition of and legal benefits to same-sex couples. With Maine voters’ approval of Question 1, the Pine Tree State becomes the 31st state to either reject same-sex marriage or accept the traditional definition of marriage by popular initiative. No state has recognized same-sex marriage at the ballot box.
By contrast, Washington State became the first state to approve state recognition of same-sex domestic partnerships at the ballot box.* It’s only been ten years since California became the first state to recognize same-sex relationships when the state legislature enacted the Domestic Partnership Act of 1999. While some state courts (e.g., Vermont that year and New Jersey in 2003) mandated the state legislature enact legislation recognizing civil unions, until last Tuesday voters, via a statewide initiative process, had never previously approved such legislation.
If we were living in a normal world, this would be heralded as a landmark election and a sign of how quickly attitudes toward gay people have changed in the United States. But so beholden have gay activists become to their notion of “marriage equality” that they have lost sight of how far we have come in such a short time. They lash out at Maine voters without thinking that ten years ago it would have been all but inconceivable that 47% of the people in any state would vote in favor of state recognition of same-sex marriage.
And while a solid majority of Americans still disapprove of gay marriage, our views on civil unions have changed markedly, particularly in the past decade. According to an October Pew Research Center poll, 57% of Americans favor civil unions, the same percentage which, Gallup found, opposes same-sex marriage. The number becomes even more striking in historical context. Just six years ago, a slight plurality (47%) opposed same-sex civil unions, while 45% supported them.
Interestingly, while the Pew poll shows an increase in support of civil unions in six years, Gallup shows that opposition to same-sex marriage has pretty much remained constant over the same timeframe.
One could almost say that the “split decision” rendered last week by voters in Maine and Washington State reflects the emerging consensus in the nation as a whole, a readiness to recognize the reality of same-sex couples, but a reluctance to call such unions marriages.
i live in WA. I voted for the everything-but-marriage initiative. I’m a Conservative. I vehemently oppose calling it marriage, but I believe the legal rights of a contract apply to all.
If gays are smart, they’ll leave it alone. They should not risk getting people like me to decide to change our minds. If they keep coming for more, trying to force the issue, I shall push back. I am certainly not solidly in this particular camp. Leave it alone. If society changes to acccept this down the line, then you’ll have your victory, but if you try to force it, you shall alienate such as me.
I think that most straight people have trouble with the word marriage being used to cover a behavior that is outside the norm. By that do I mean to imply that being gay isn’t normal, like it is weird, but that it isn’t the norm.
I think that for gays. the issue is just that by being excluded from the norm, they think that they can force themselves to be the norm, and thus be normal. The backlash is reacting to that idea. While most people have no problem accepting the differences, and accept the right that gays have to live their life the way they chose, the straight population wants to avoid making this behavior the norm. (norm does not equal normal, read the definition) anyway it’s just my thoughts, and insulting me as wrong or whatever else will not change my mind. However real proof against what I put forward will influence my thoughts, but I haven’t seen anything that will fit the bill.
By the way,I am not a homphobe, I could careless how someone else lives their sexual life, straight or gay, both should stay in the closet so to speak, meaning stay at home thank you. Straights living sexual lives on their sleeves annoys me as much as a gay relations exposed, either behavior is in my opinion deviant.
I think a better question to ask gay advocates is — Why do you insist on redefining a sacred institution between a man and a woman when you know you can get what you want if you just change the name?” I think gay marriage has been politicized by Democrats who want to keep gay people from finding a solution. God forbid gay people negotiate and then start voting Republican.
To View: I think you are right on the money with your comments. One wonders though, how the public would feel if the negative gay publicity ignored by the MSM would be widely known. Would even the civil union idea have a hard time? The MSM has been the biggest friend to the Gay Rights movement.
Liz I would be okay with civil unions as long as you calls yours that and leave marriage strictly a symbolic religious ceremony.
I think most people consider the professional gays’ demand for marriage to be unreasonable in light of the fact that domestic partnerships are so widely accepted.
Taking into consideration the horrible behavior of professional gay groups after Prop 8, it seems they want to punish and humiliate people who disagree with them on their narrow demands.
It’s just not a wise path to getting what you want.
Just a thought. I have learned that separate is not equal in this country. The reason Brown won over board of ed is because separate but equal could not be guaranteed. I think gays are fighting for the term marriage because domestic partnership will not necessarily give them the right they are seeking.
Perhaps we all should go into domestic partnerships in the governments eyes and let the churches define marrigage, because most of the backlash seems to be religious in nature anyway.
I’m straight and married. I don’t rightly care what the government wants to call the contract I have with my husband. I know I’m married, my gay friends who have had commitment ceremonies know they’re married, etc. If we all need to have “civil unions” according to the gov’t, in order to protect the rights of domestic partners, then I don’t see any problem. My marriage is between my husband and myself anyway, not the gov’t.
Ryukage, if that’s what needs to happen to make this point of contention go away, that’s a-ok by me.
‘Marriage’ is a sacrament of the church. It can’t be redefined without making Christianity illegal. Thus, the resistance. OTOH, most Americans feel it’s fair for gays to have the same legal rights. Gays are fighting for the use of the word, ‘marriage’.
Take a look at “Shattered Tablets” by David Klinghoffer. He lives in a suburb of Seattle, and provides a very good exhibit of the consequences of
the zeitgeist of the “Me” generation taken to its end.
How ironic: mainstream American culture has by default become defined as members of the “straight community” as the agenda is to marginalize us.
One of the key issues for many of us who are straight, really boils down to this: Changing the legal definition means that children can be adopted by homosexuals, thus bringing innocents into a confusing home situation that cannot avoid giving them a warped view of the world- if that is not forced indoctrination, nothing is.
We are also not too thrilled about the hijacking of the language. Back not that many years, “Gay” meant something quite different in the dictionary, & classic American songs of Perry Como & Tony Bennett.
It’s our rainbow too, dammit!
An excellent article Daniel, but I really believe you have a lot of convincing to do in the gay not straight community. Your reasoning is judicious and sound – which is a problem for the gay community. In that regard your views remind me a lot of the dialogue Charles Wycoff has engaged @ Big Hollywood on the subject.
Why do I remain a cynic? For one at the same time the Maine initiative was approaching HBO ran the doc OUTRAGE. I’m middle aged (51) and it was a seminal rite of passage for most of us who went off to college to embrace homosexuality as normal – although most of us wound up qualifying it in one way or another until we were well into our thirties.
But here it is, 2009, and still Gays are mainstreaming tripe like OUTRAGE as evidence that America needs a civil rights upgrade? It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. How preposterous is it that we supposedly still need lectures from the likes of Larry Kramer? WTF?
It’s as if the last thirty years were just a lost weekend at Fire Island for gay activists. Unfortunately they are addicted to confrontational politics where outings are still ‘necessary’ and full frontal fascism remains the knee jerk response when Mormons (or anyone else) take a constitutional stand – both financially and politically.
Marc M. is right but why would activists – most who are PROFESSIONALS making a lucrative living feeding off the political system – discover a conscience and walk away for the good of the country, gay and straight community alike? Because Rev Sharpton so advised given he has so much more experience running the same shake down game?
Gays have made a miscalculation for many years now. Their civil rights struggle bears little resemblance to Blacks, yet they insist on using the courts (and a lesser degree) state legislatures to ‘win full equality.’
I have a pet theory to throw in as to why. It’s because the arena’s where gays have thrived – Academia, Entertainment, and the Media – are venues that are overwhelmingly liberal establishments. It’s much more challenging to be a Christian or at least an agnostic conservative in these fields than it is to be gay. These professions also pay a lot better than being an hourly trucker or running a small grocery (hence the ‘gay affluence’ theory on why there is so much public debate on gayness)
Contrast the experience gays have enjoyed in these upper regions with the legacy of the civil rights struggle of blacks. It was the BLACK CHURCHES that gave birth to that movement – and from there it was joined by WHITE CHRSITIANS – and eventually the politics caught up. As an issue it has been with us since the republics founding.
Where once the ‘strangeness’ of gayness if you will was for our generation both cultural and psychological, today as that has become largely normalized, the artificiality is much more divisive and inciting – more about income and privilege and secular values verses religious values.
It’s a tawdry trial for everyone. Like some never ending bitter divorce. And gays keep bleeding people dry on both popular referrendums and legislative battles. But it’s always America’s fault, not the stupid strategy. Duh?
From Stonewall on gays have been determined to fight christens – conflating every one from Anita Bryant to Pat Robertson. And why not? After all, besides condemning all of Christianity as Old Testament un-forgiving and hate speech – their secular deliverance was led through the Academy – an alliance that likewise views the only hope for humanity as residing in a post-Christian America. Hence it’s ‘understandable’ for gays to object to Rick Warren?
Rick has to euqual Billy Graham & Billy has to equal Robertson? That’s grade school political math.
I hate going off on a Cotton Mather like rant – but I wish I saw evidence that Academia wasn’t hell bent on destroying our Christian foundations – but I don’t.
I also wish that I saw more evidence of reasoned debate from those like Wycoff and yourself. But I don’t. What I do see is more of the same from idiots like Andrew Sullivan and so many others. Puerile infantilism and confrontational bunk poisoning the well between gays and straights.
My nephew is 17. Maybe by the time he’s approaching forty these difference will all look laughable. But as far as I see it the damage already done has been too severe.
Gay activists have turned the ‘marriage debate’ into the generational equivalent of our Vietnam. Of course, I’m a Frazier not Ali fan and I never leave my fox hole without my hard hat.
“When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already… What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a
short time they will know nothing else but this new community.”
- Adolph Hitler Quotes
civil rights? so if you put a gay guy in a corner in conservative clothing, would you be able to tell he was gay? if you put a black guy in a corner wearing the same clothes would you be able to tell he was black? trying to piggy back on the civil rights movement is pretty lame and insulting to those who struggled for it. moral equivalence any one. the word marriage is what is being fought over, it is a religious symbol for sure. Marc Malone is right, contracts are for everyone.
I don’t have a problem with whatever they call it. It is true that the government should butt out, and that includes legal language protecting against lawsuits persons, groups, and religions who do not want to support gay marriage due to religious belief. This has already happened at least twice. Until the gay lobby addresses this problem, I am not a supporter of any gay-marriage initiative.
I agree with everything Marc Malone said.
Now that WA has voter approved Domestic Partnerships, the LGBT needs to drop the subject for a long time. Let people get used to it and realize the world has ended. Maybe a decade or a generation from now, bring it up again because the a Supreme Court (state or maybe federal) will see that DP’s are inherently unequal, paving the way for gay marriage.
If the LGBT keeps pushing it, we could risk losing everything.
There has been a steady decline in the role of the family in every way. I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, more like a domino effect. For example “fatherless ness” has changed from being rare to being common. In the change the idea of children growing up fatherless became accepted. I think everyone wanted to protect the children from the stigma; however children still suffered financial psychological and social damage, it just became unacceptable to mention it. The thing itself became acceptable while any discussion of its damage became unacceptable
If we accept or, or worse, legislate that marriage is whatever the fad of the moment says it is it has less and less meaning. That, to me, is the reason we don’t call civil unions marriage. If it means that marriage becomes the religious term and civil unions the non-religious term that’s an acceptable compromise. In that case government doesn’t enter the discussion of marriage and religion doesn’t enter the discussion of civil unions. Each has it’s meaning and everyone is clear about it. The push to call gay unions “marriage” is a calculated effort to undermine marriage itself until it is meaningless and non-discussable.
9. ahem:
‘Marriage’ is a sacrament of the church. It can’t be redefined without making Christianity illegal. Thus, the resistance. OTOH, most Americans feel it’s fair for gays to have the same legal rights. Gays are fighting for the use of the word, ‘marriage’.
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Do you think all the muslims, jews, hindus, budists, athiests and every other religious group know that marriage is for only christians to define?
Marriage doesn’t need to be redefined it needs christians to stop being so ignorant and arrogant to think they hold the quintessential definition of marriage.
Phranc, that would be a perfect would wouldn’t it… but neither I nor my progeny have the time, I fear. Great discussion here and nice Wycoff reference. I may have even browsed passed it in a search, but never read a word until now (although couldn’t have been before you know when by the time I don’t think), and of course glad I did, as it was a great read. You know, I don’t have the patience for much reading at all, which makes it easy for me I guess. It would have made it much less of a struggle to come up with from scratch, as I do none of this for a living.
Its funny how sometimes, politics can make for strange bedfellows (no pun intended). My far right and far left friends agree on this one…and that, does not happen often. Both extremes believe that folks that are gay should be left alone. Let them be free. Why is that folks like me have problems with this issue, specially gay marriage…. I struggle with this one…and so do they at times, I think. Nice article, thanks.
That is an interesting question. I often thought that maybe, once one is happy with him\herself, they will want others to be too; it’s built in for non-psychopaths.
Why should anyone care if someone, in their private lives, wants to have sex with another of same sex or with their dog if they so chose is beyond me.
I mean, live and let live .. right?
Mr. Blatt:
Back in 2006 I was part of a panel discussing gay marriage in Spokane, Washington. My take at the time was two-fold:
The gay marriage advocates’ position was hostile to the traditional idea of marriage, because many if not most of them, being good Leftists, Progressives or whatever, are hostile to Western traditions, particularly with marriage as a religious institution. They were openly determined to deny the First Amendment right, “prohibiting the free exercise thereof” regarding religious freedom to those whom they disagreed with about what marriage is.
Secondly, I said that the idea of ‘common law marriage’ (what divorce law calls a meretricious relationship) ought to be resurrected free of the gender of the partners involved. If two people intermingle their affairs, particularly regarding property and the ability to care for each other how and as they choose, the basic common law principles of equity should apply.
As you might imagine, I got considerable grief for my position. There are still several gay activists here who refuse to have anything to do with me. None-the-less, the voters of Washington State have vindicated my position. As I understand the law here now, Washington State will regard the arrangements that a couple who choose to bind themselves together, with or without religious sanctions, fairly.
Brooks
If gays can marry, who’s last name is taken?????
There are days I wish I’d kept my maiden name.
Hmph!
Fantom
I for one don’t care what people want to do with their sex lives. If it were only about sex gay people wouldn’t want to get married any more than people who just live together. It’s a demand by spoiled children to have what they don’t really want just because they’re told they can’t have it. Ask any primary grade school teacher, or mother.
The gay marriage issue is this in a nut shell, “I want it because I want it.” It’s not about sex at all. It’s about making a fuss and getting attention.
Gay marriage what a crock ….gays wanting to be accepted by straights or to act straight…set up house..exchange casseole dishes with the frumpy family next door ….attending PTA….Elks Club…waht a bore. Demanding gay marriage is sticking stinky feet in someones nose and saying if you don’t smell them, I’m gong to throw a discrimination suite on you. Wake up Gay America we are better than this, and we have far better taste. We should aspire to a higher degree of commitment to one another…we have money..style…freedom and hell great lawyers…so quit whinning and get on with it. If you love someone sit down with a lawyer and make some binding contracts…why do we want or need the trappings of the straight world to validate us.
A contract is a contract reconized everywhere. Leave Church and State alone. We have come so far …why slow our progress with insighting hate and harm….
Someone very close to me is gay. He wants to express his sexuality, but believes it is immoral to do so outside of marriage. He also fears ostracism from his family if he pairs up with a gay lover outside of marriage.
I believe his strategy is to get the government to redefine marriage to include his chosen sexual preference, thus forcing his family to accept the legitimacy of a future gay relationship.
What he doesn’t understand is that his family draws their sense of right and wrong from traditional Biblical and Christian beliefs, not what the law says. So even if the government expands the legal definition of marriage to cover gay relationships, his family will still see his homosexuality as morally wrong.
I wonder how much of the “gay marriage” movement is driven by a desire to force friends and family to accept their lifestyle as moral and proper, rather than simply securing equal rights under the law?
Liz, the hidden agenda by the homosexuals is political. Remember, homosexuals don’t breed, they recruit. So all their political agitation is designed to increase their recruiting opportunities.
The more homosexuals, the more political power. That is why homosexuals are so focused on numbers. They think they are discriminated against because of their numbers and if those numbers increase, the discrimination will stop.
Just as delusional as other catageories of deviants.
Arsonists don’t understand why normal people view them with horror, not do child molesters, S&M types or other Social/Sexual Deviants.
Homosexuality is a personal disorder that needs to be studied and researched until a cure can be found. That is the reality the homosexual community won’t face up to.
Selling homosexuality as a civil rights issue won’t affect that reality. It might harm legitimate civil rights.
The debate has come down to rhetoric. Those gay activists who insist on arrogating the term “marriage” are increasingly seen as not content with achieving equality, but wanting something that no one can give them—identity. Reality, not society, is the final arbiter.
Women have won equality in our society, but they have not sought nor won identity with men. Gay marriage activists should take a lesson from that fight.
Parallel @ 28: I agree with you. I’ve got a cousin who is gay, very adamently so. To the point where he claims he can never vacation in Maine because of the results of their referendum. (Not that he thinks he won’t be allowed in Maine, but as a personal boycott of their attitudes.)
His fight seems to me, on the existential level, to be really about getting his father and the Catholic Church to consider his relationship to be the equivalent of his parents’ marriage. He fights for governmental recognition because he thinks that is the battle he can actually win, but what he doesn’t seem to realize is that even if he wins, he loses.
His father is never going to be happy that his son is gay. He accepts that it is so, he loves his son, but he is not going to like that he is gay, and no legal framework is going to change that. His father has profound fears for his son’s life (my uncle is a retired cop, in Baltimore, and my cousin lives in a fairly unsafe area there), and not the least fear is the fear of Aids. He sees my cousin’s gayness as being one additional thing that puts him at risk, and as a parent he is afraid that that one other thing might be the thing that causes him to lose his son.
My cousin though, is blithely unconcerned with his father’s fear. He treats those fears as illegitimate and instead uses them as a justification for his own feelings of victimization.
The blinders that he wears with respect to his own father, combined with the blinders that he wears to his own unconscious realization that the Catholic Church is not going to change its mind about marrying gays, lead my cousin to think that his world would be fine if he could just get the government to sanction, and better yet, *force others* to sanction his relationship as a marriage.
He doesn’t realize that we all really do want him to be happy. We want him to be able to have a contract with his partner to enable them to enjoy the same governmental rights that we do. We just also are realistic enough to realize that demanding a religion change to suit one’s preferences isn’t going to work. Demanding a father not fear for his son’s life isn’t going to work.
At some point, he needs to grow up and realize that he has choices to make too. He could become Unitarian or Episcopalian. He could acknowledge his father’s fears and address them in a mature and loving way… treat the threat seriously and let his father see that he is doing so, rather than setting himself up for another mugging and severe beating, complete with a 3 a.m. phone call from the hospital to call his parents to his bedside. (As happened before due, in small part, to his own naivte and assumption that it *shouldn’t* happen. Opportunistic criminals are clearly the ones to blame, but my cousin wasn’t exactly using any common sense.)
Anyway. I know anecdote does not equal data, but from my own observations of some in the activist gay community, I do tend to believe that some are trying to avoid addressing much deeper issues through taking the most visible and vocal route. It’s much easier to be loud and victimized than to deal with the messy feelings of difficult relationships and rejection from the church you think you should love.
I do think having all governmentally sanctioned relationships legally referred to as “civil unions” and subject to that sort of contract, while returning the word “marriage” to the churches to sanction relationships within their congregations as convental commitments, would be the most humane thing to do for all parties.
“Civil unions” and “domestic partnerships” are a Trojan Horse. The fact that most Americans support the scheme is a PR victory for the same people who seem to be losing the marriage redefinition battle badly. These schemes are a product of calculated political incrementalism, not a middle ground that everyone (or anyone) should support. The fact is, if you treat any other relationship as if it is a marriage, which is what CU/DP schemes do, you are very directly undermining the reason marriage was recognized in the first place. The fact is, homosexual relationship can never produce for society the benefit that the union of one man and one woman (typically) does. The fact that one relationship and one relationship only produces this benefit (the perpetuation of the species, in case anyone needed it spelled out) is the reason why that union, one man/one woman is treated differently. Marriage was never meant as a mere government stamp of approval on any couple, or any group’s, loving relationship. Marriage was recognized not for the self-esteem of adults, but for the protection of children through a legal and binding relationship between the parents who produced them. In other words, marriage was created for children’s needs, not adults’ political and social acceptance demands. Yes, yes, yes, I know, not every couple has or wants children. True, but those are the exceptions. Throughout history (and marriage predates the church, so the argument that marriage is purely a religious idea is completely false), very few married couples went through their married lives without producing children. We make laws based on the general, not the exceptional. And we certainly don’t completely blow up institutions like marriage because a small, but high-power political movement demands it, not for society’s good, but for their own political advancement. CU/DP are an arbitrary marriage-like recognition of a particular type of relationship for, really, no other reason than big money activism and effective PR. Why not allow best friends to have a DP? Why not spinster sisters? Why not a group of five or six loving people a CU? The same reason you don’t call two dudes “married.” None of those examples is any more arbitrary than redefining marriage, or creating a special CU/DP status, to appease a powerful special interest group. Consistency and clear critical thought requires that one either support marriage redefinition — including CU/DP — or not. CU/DP doesn’t solve any problems. You can’t argue FOR CU/DP and AGAINST same-sex “marriage” with any real coherence. It’s no secret that NO ONE really wants CU/DP — both sides of the marriage divide understand that it is a mile marker, not a middle ground. If you enact CU/DP, creating state recognition for a certain sexual relationship, it is only a matter of time before the lawsuits and the op-eds come claiming “separate and unequal.” It happened in CA and it will everywhere else CU/DP exist. And if you redefine marriage to mean that two women may be called “married,” what then stops the group marriage activists from demanding that their “triads” or “quads” be called marriage using the very same arguments in court and in public communication that the wealthy homosexual activists are right now? Nothing. If the gender composition of marriage is meaningless, what makes the number of participants sacrosanct? So we are not talking about a two-track slipperly slope here, we’re talking about a single cliff off of which we’ll all be pushed unless we recognize once and for all what marriage is, why it is and why ALL counterfeits should be rejected.
Vincent: “Marriage was recognized not for the self-esteem of adults, but for the protection of children through a legal and binding relationship between the parents who produced them. In other words, marriage was created for children’s needs, not adults’ political and social acceptance demands.”
Yes, that was once the case, but sadly government (and society in general) long ago gave up the notion that protection of the children was worth anything when it inconvienced adults. I am a Gen-Xer… a member of the first generation whose home life, security, and needs were considered entirely secondary to the adults’ desire for instant gratification and freedom. I understand from watching the destruction around me, the impact of the state’s abdication of the principles behind marriage.
But, realistically speaking, that horse has left the barn, and it wasn’t the gay community that opened the gate. I don’t see how it can be brought back in, except through individuals (particularly women these days) choosing to personally define marriage as a thing they can’t easily just dump. In other words, except through individuals defining their own marriages as a Covenant… as something beyond their own personal whims. And individuals also noting the pain and destruction that a casual definition of marriage brings to their own children.
For me, recognizing reality, especially when it sucks, keeps me from tilting at windmills too often. And observing reality tells me that the state is no longer in the “marriage” business anyway (in terms of encouraging a state of affairs that most benefits chilren), and has no interest (or mandate from a perpetually selfish electorate) to get back into it. Family courts are clearly not about benefitting children.
So, since the state has already decided that it will just act as if all things are allowed and treat every marriage as a Civil Union (a non-binding contract) anyway, why not just make it official. Let marriage go back to what it was meant to be… a Covenant supported and nurtured by a family and/or a church. People who view marriage as a greater commitment than the one implied by governmental rules will continue to do so. Those who don’t… will end up getting a Civil Divorce, as they already do.
And yeah, if we allow Civil Unions, then any grouping of people could claim one, I suppose, but how really would that be different from the wrangling that goes on in family courts when Kid A has Birth Mother A and Birth Father A as well as Step-parents (or Shack-ups) B,C,D & E, all looking for someone else to take financial responsibility for the kid while they themselves get the control or fun stuff, or avoid responsibility altogether? The way things are going right now, no one in government really gives a flip how it all impacts the kids.
Addressing the special hell that is the Family Court system would be a whole other discussion though.
Vincent: “You can’t argue FOR CU/DP and AGAINST same-sex “marriage” with any real coherence.”
If you’re talking about governmentally defined “same-sex marriage” then I disagree. You can argue for one but against the other. If you view that marriage is a three party agreement with God being the third party, then of course marriage shouldn’t be redefined to leave out God. Which is why I advocate returning Marriage, as a spiritual commitment, to the jurisdiction of the churches, or to privately spiritual recognition in families (for those of no particular faith, but with spiritual commitment).
In other words… the state of Marriage has to do with the spirit of those entering it. And each person’s definition is not going to be a universally accepted thing. Hopefully, it will be a mutually accepted thing within their own Marriage though.
So… Marriage is privately (and/or religiously) defined, in my pov, while a Civil Union is publicly (meaning “legally”) defined.
Cathy, what you said
Dear Cathy–
Excellent, excellent comment. However, I don’t think the horse has disappeared over the horizon, though, you are correct, it has left the barn. Anyway, to argue that since marriage is already broken (through divorce and the calamity in family courts) we should just deep-six it is like arguing that the way to fix a flat is to slash the other tires. Just because the state (and society) has (hopefully temporarily) forgotten the reason for marriage doesn’t mean we shouldn’t argue for a restoration. I agree that for individual marriage it “has to do with the spirit of those entering it.” However, when the state decides to start recognizing any and every conceivable relationship and treating them as if they are equivalent (morally and functionally) as marriages or marriage-like, fewer people will enter these unions and more who do will enter them not in the “spirit” by which society generally and children particularly benefit. I say with great sincerity that you are obviously a brilliant woman, but may I suggest that your last line demonstrates a flaw that spoils your analysis and solution? Marriage has NEVER, EVER, in the history of this country or any other successful civilization “privately defined.” Yes, marriage is ALSO relgiously defined (in the same exact way by all for most of the history of Western Civilization), but that doesn’t mean that it cannot be defined publicly as well. Marriage has always been and must always be a public institution, so your suggestion that marriage be “returned…to the juridiction of the churches” is to suggest that we return to something that has never been. Yes, churches have historically performed marriage ceremonies, but the marriage contract has ALWAYS been recognized by the state. Illegal marriage entered into in religious settings (think Mormons and polygamy)have never been recognized by the state. (As a matter of fact, Utah’s statehood was conditioned upon that state aligning its marriage laws with the rest of America — one man, one woman) Legal marriages entered into in a non-church setting were always treated exactly the same as those entered into in relgious settings. I think you see what I’m getting at here.
i live in the carribbean & to you the truth the majority of us are opposed to gay marriage. even more with don’t the entire act. don’t get me wrong i don’t hate gays but i don’t like the act. most of the population in the caribbean especially jamaica & trinidad don’t want this idea too come in our country. i personally am disappointed in america’s lack of morality & belief in god. for that will get them punished.
Dear Vincent,
Yes, I see where you’re coming from, and historically, I do see that my last line can be seen as flawed. I’m not sure how that flaw can be remedied as of yet, with today’s cultural reality being what it is.
How does one get that horse back in the barn except incrementally, through individual hearts and minds deciding that they themselves will tame, through love and a firm conviction, the image of the horse in their own homes and families?
Government will never be able to work again as a moral instructor or curator. This is just part of reaping what generations before now have sown. And so, I guess what the flaw really amounts to, in my mind, is a strategic retreat. And acknowledgement that current reality is what it is. Sun Tzu – like, I guess you could say. The attempt to convince a completely unreceptive half of the public from a pulpit frought with corruption and rent-seeking (ie: from the governmental or political or party perspective) is doomed to failure.
Success, I believe, lies in the conviction within individual hearts and minds, and changing the culture bit by bit. The governmental role needs to be minimized on all fronts, to hold back the oncoming disaster, but the cultural understanding and deep change needs to happen on a person-to-person level.
I guess, for me, the process of change comes down to the difference between termites and tsunamis. Both can take down an edifice. One is subtle and easily missed. The other is pretty obvious.
Our culture, in my view, isn’t going to be returned to health by a tsunami of governmental effort, unless that effort is specifically geared toward removing power from the governmental realm.
It won’t be through counter-tsunamis from each side trying to get control of the whole. A tsunami is great for clearing the beach, but you can’t have a culture survive with one coming from one direction, followed immediately by another coming from the opposite direction. We need our next wave to be one that eats itself rather than everyone else. Turn it back on itself to keep the rest of us out of the disaster zone.
Real change in our culture though, in my opinion, will be through the individual termites who, each doing their own thing, together serve to take down the whole structure of governmental control of any of the definitions of our lives (not just the marriage definition, but also educational definitions, definitions of correct thinking, definitions of correct environmental behavior, etc.). That will take individual spiritual and/or philosophical conviction.
It doesn’t have to be through churches, but churches make good repositories for the wisdom of the ages. Think of the monestaries in the dark ages. Those monks weren’t giving up the fight, just because their realm of influence was reduced to the space immediately around them. They were preserving wisdom until individual hearts and minds were again looking for it.
For what it’s worth, I think the Democrats and Obama are being particularly tsunami-like in their efforts to change this country, which is not too smart of them, in my opinion, since it makes them extremely visible. When they were being the cultural termites they were pretty much getting everything they wanted. Now it’s pretty clear that we can point to the oncoming tsunami and say to folks “look… is *that* what you really want?”
Meanwhile, the counter to their tsunami isn’t a return one of rent-seeking and control from another group of crooks. (Not that you were advocating such… I’m just trying to anticipate counter-points from several possible directions, and not doing a great job of it. But, to try to clarify: I do see we need a tsunami to clear out the DC crooks there now, but when the new batch is in place, their job needs to be to basically put most of Washington DC out of work. Crooks won’t want to do that.)
Anyway… back to the culture… the true lasting cultural change, in my view, is going to be subtle, working outside government’s corrupt channels… like the termites the left once were.
So the focus, in today’s reality, should be on building a high levee, at first, to guard us from the government’s current tsunami… then when the waters from that over-reach have been contained, to find real and effective ways to drain the swamp. To get this beast back into its cage and free up the society that it is killing.
It’ll take some trust in individual Americans to run their own lives and come to their own moral conclusions, including the one about what a marriage is, but I think we can all agree that most individual Americans are a lot smarter and more moral than the insane lot in Washington.
To expand just a bit, on this from my earlier post:
“Think of the monestaries in the dark ages. Those monks weren’t giving up the fight, just because their realm of influence was reduced to the space immediately around them. They were preserving wisdom until individual hearts and minds were again looking for it.”
I think of the “Marriage to the churches (spirit)/Civil Unions through the government” equation as a way of drawing a conceptual protective barrier around the word “Marriage” to preserve it as the monks did other large concepts in the Dark Ages. We could then preserve the idea that a Marriage truly is a spiritual rather than a casual commitment. That idea is what is really being diluted by the constant push and pull of competing tsunamis, and what the voters in Maine chose to try to retain.
But as long as there isn’t strong clarity in the electorate (in Maine it was a close thing), then preservation of the larger idea of Marriage would be better served, in my mind, by acknowleging the already separated legal (governmental) definition from the spiritual reality.
Through humbly and genuinely conceding the ground of legal rights through Civil Unions, and giving Marriage jurisdiction to churches, then we’ve actually defanged the argument over the word itself, and ultimately the concept of spiritual Marriage survives. The way it’s going, the entire idea may end up getting lost in the war.
Anyway… I’ve hijacked the thread enough. Laundry wants doing.
Whoops, sorry…. that Anonymous at 3:00 pm was me. Just forgot to enter my info again.
Mmmmmm I Can Imagine Brian Cummings That I Used To Know In Some Washington State Group Care Home Called The Resource Center, Humping Some Other Man, Because A Few Months Ago, This So Called Brian Cummings That I Used To Know Out There In That Washington State Group Care Home From A Long Time Ago, Messaged Me A Few Months Ago And Told Me He Was Gay! YUMMY BRIAN CUMMINGS! I Want To Watch You Humping Another Man, BRIAN CUMMINGS Yummmmmmmyyyy! from Elise Renee Gingerich Age 40 in Greenville Texas USA
I pay my taxes, served in the U.S. Army and have been award a number of honors by schools, businesses, civil organizations, government leaders and political groups.
A contract is a contract recognized everywhere expect by state and federal governments when it comes to my partnership with my spouse.
What is wrong with me wanting equal rights that other Americans share..