The Gay Marriage Perplex
Gay marriage supporters are depressed about the results of Tuesday’s election with propositions defining marriage as between a man and a woman passing in several states. Christian Conservatives are simultaneously flexing their muscles.
I don’t see it that way at all.
Consider the vote on California Prop 8, the most closely watched such proposition in the country. Ironically assisted by the large African American turnout for Obama–African Americans oppose gay marriage far more than other ethnic and racial groups–the proposition passed by about 5%. The trend looks bad for gay marriage adherents.
But wait. Only eight years ago, the similar Proposition 22 passed by a whopping 23%. There’s a trend here alright – and it is in favor of gay marriage. In California at least, with young people increasingly accepting of their gay peers, in a very few years same sex marriage should be a done deal. And by popular vote, not court fiat.
Yes, this is a sensible outlook.
I voted for 8 mostly out of anger at the courts imposing _their_ values over the will of the people. But the people have tired of holding on to the “faith of their fathers”. Change is sweeping our lives.
I am struck by all the people who nod their heads at expressions of the dangers of “theocons”. I don’t know about you but I feel my liberty and safety is not endangered by my Christian neighbors. Of the 4 on the ticket, I feel less threatened by Sarah Palin than any of the others (McCain certainly included). She has strong personal beliefs yet to me seems the least likely to impose her values on others through the use of State power.
Let’s see if the Dems use their power to work towards solving the problems the nation faces or if they work to cement their power with an eye to the next election.
what’s wrong with a civil contract? “gay marriage” is deliberately provocative to those with traditional values – its one of those “entitlements” demanded by post boomers. One good thing about the grim economic future is that the post boomers are for the first time going to have something more important than life style to worry about.
It’s not “gay marriage” it’s “same sex marriage”!
Yep, you’re right. And then will come group marriage. And cousin marriage. And sibling marriage. Wow, what a wonderful society we will have when the foundation of civilization has been utterly gutted.
To the gays of California, I say, Welcome to my world. I used to love the left. I supported all its causes. Then came the day that I had my own cause and I appealed to all the other leftists for help. They told me to get lost. After spending some time in shock, I picked myself up and started voting Republican.
You supported blacks, only to find that they are not supporting you. Have fun with that.
I would only vote for gay marriage if we included all other “partnering” options in the mix. We should stick to the 3000 year old concept, or allow people to obtain a marriage to whatever they desire, like polygamy, animals, objects, etc. Why discriminate at all if you strike down the original concept.
The government should recognize civil unions. The churches should recognize marriage. You can find churches happy to solemnize same-sex unions; then they can be called ‘marriages’. Ditto opposite-sex unions. Heck, there are lots of churches that turn up their noses at particular opposite-sex unions. Only their communicants have a right to complain about that.
When gays start producing the next generation as a natural outcome of their union then I will think marriage is appropriate. Why should those who give up little of their life to raise children get society’s approval? Either that or raise the child deduction to a $100,000 a year for each child. That should at the very least pay back parents who give up a lot of income and opportunities over the early life of those children to be parents.
This would fit with Obama’s redistribution of wealth. Gays could take their wealth and redistribute it to people with children. Seems imminently fair to me.
In fact every single person should jump to redistribute some of their wealth to those who take on responsibilities they refuse because, as Obama would say, they are selfish and only think of themselves.
When you talk about young people accepting their gay peers..I think you should at least mention that we have allowed our children to be brainwashed by the public school system..notice how many of our young people now think sharing the wealth is a good thing…the communists said many years ago that they would destroy America from within…hmmm
Both cross-culturally and historically, marriage has been always treated as a breeding contract, with social structures, social norms and laws relating to the husband(s), wife(s) and any children that might result. (Speaking from a male point of view, one of the biggest issues relates to paternity fraud in married heterosexual couples. Given the current laws, any man who marries a woman in the U.S. is suicidal and stupid.)
Even if one accepts the concept of homosexual marriage, there would still be a need for these structures, norms and laws relating to heterosexual marriage. Perhaps, as their next conquest, homosexuals can demand that the heterosexual be dropped.
In the flick “Ghost Busters”, as the devils are taking over New York, the Bill Murray character rambles on about “Cats and dogs” getting married.
Life imitates Art.
After I noted the 70% bulge in black support of Prop 8, I am considering introducing an initiative to amend the California constitution thusly:
“Only marriage between a man and a woman of the same race is valid or recognized in California.”
It only seems fair.
Other circumstances make drawing lessons from the two initiatives difficult. The second vote was to overturn existing law. Jerry Brown, the CA Attorney General also changed the title of the proposition on the second ballot to make it much less appealing (and inaccurate).
Funny, they don’t look depressed, and since when did young people know what is good for them?
I think a lot of the 23% reduction in support for Proposition 8 had to do with the changed circumstances. Proposition 22 was “just” a statute while 8 was an amendment to the constitution. People tend to be less willing to change the constitution than they are willing to change a law. (I think you can see the same thing on abortion. The public seems to be more willing to adopt laws that meddle with abortion than they are willing to adopt a constitutional amendment that outlaws abortion.)
Another difference is that Proposition 22 was adopted before the court had ruled in favor of same sex marriage. The court is a powerful moral teacher and has the ability to move social attitudes. In arguing against Proposition 8, several people argued, in essence, that same sex marriage must be alright because the court said so.
Lastly, a lot of people said Proposition 8 was wrong because it removed a right people already had. Same sex marriage was permitted under California law before the Proposition passed. People are more willing to vote in favor of the status quo (Proposition 22) than they are to support change (Proposition 8).
In the end, I don’t think we have a real idea how the electorate would have voted had the Supreme Court of California ruled against same sex marriage and the Proposition was to amend the constitution to allow same sex marriage.
Right now, the gay rights groups are storming churches in California to show their anger at the voting down of Prop. 8. Do they really think they are helping their cause? I was once for Gay Marriage, until the constant interruption of church services at St. Pats in NY. Any NYer know that a sermon at St. Pat’s is hardly a radical right wing rant — it is usually “help the poor, help the illegals, give to charity”, yet to have the gay marriage proponents protest that sermon just gets people mad. Much like the AIDs situation — it is totally peventable!! Take some responsibility. Don’t make heroes out of AIDs sufferers, use it as a teaching moment. AIDs sucks, you don’t want it, don’t be stupid,etc.
By acting irrational now, the Prop.8 supporters are shooting themselves in the foot. They look radical and scary. They don’t look like the sympathetic black families, non-violently marching for equality. By surrounding a car, threatening people, throwing rocks at Churches just validates the voters who think that the “gay lifestyle” is something that offends their own set of beliefs.
@sammy small
Um, polygamy *was* the original concept, and by that I mean real history, not the stuff from Genesis.
You may or may not be right about trends for the future but you have less basis in the winning percentage than you think. With the handiwork of the the political left in California, the Prop 8 was entitled in a way that worked to the benefit of the “no” campaign. Historic results show that voters tend to have a predisposition for voting down initiatves that purport to take away rights. I say this added several, perhaps as much as 3-5 points to the “no” side. The question you really need to ask is whether the views of younger voters will stay the same when those voters marry and start families. Maybe, but I doubt that any new initiatve will have a different result in a “very few” years as you predict.
Roger, your optimism seems to be based on the faith that religious faith will inevitably “wither away” in coming generations. Perhaps. But America has so far defied all similar predictions.
Many of the kids of the boomer generation are repelled by their parent’s narcissism and penchant for divorce in the name of self-fulfillment, and are turning to family in greater numbers. Tolerant they may be in their personal relationships, but unwilling to publicly proclaim, or acqiesce in, public statements or laws that make marriage equivalent to same-sex unions.
Meanwhile the same-sex marriage movement has to face the fact that many otherwise liberal Obama-voters, some of whom hate Bush and Cyheney and support liberal economic and soaicl policies, oppose their agenda. It’s not clear that calling these people right-wing bigots and hatemongers will aid their cause.
The vote clarifies that the same-sex marriage agenda is not against “right-wing” Christianity, but Christianity, period. Same-sex marriage advocates have always known that their agenda required a direct assault on this country’s constitutionally-protected religious freedoms, but as long as noisy minorities in all churches supported them, they tried to keep that aspect quiet. Now we are hearing open calls to limit and restrict the freedoms of religious people.
You make good points, Gypsy Boots. But having a ten-year old daughter and being around a lot of those kids who roll their eyes at boomer narcissism, I have seem how their attitudes on various issues are rather remarkably sophisticated. Many of them are able to separate the self-involved blather from issues of genuine tolerance. The trend is clear. I don’t think this will ultimately be an anti or pro religious vote from that generation for the most part. They will prove to be more adult than that on gay rights issues.
What’s hilarious is that gay rights groups and their urban professional supporters are blaming this all on the Christian Right, which is white and Republican, when what pushed Prop 8 over the edge was locke-step Democrat-voting minorities. So, now the Republican party, in general, will feel the electoral backlash for voting done by Democrat voters.
Brilliant! No one ever lost a best overestimating the ability of Republicans to hurt their own electoral chances.
You supported blacks, only to find that they are not supporting you. Have fun with that.
This comes from the doublethink prevalent in the world of political correctitude. ‘Downtrodden’ minorities have tribal customs and values which are given total credibility and respect by the urban intellectuals. In this case, surprise! Blacks and Hispanics have little respect for same-sex marriage; they think it’s perverse.
Only the tribal customs and values of the WASPs are considered to be so wrong they should be demonized at every opportunity, and ultimately stamped out.
Given the rapid growth of the Latin American population of California and recognizing that Latin Americans tend to be socially conservative, I’m not sure that the ‘next generation’ of electors would vote much differently than now.
A similar constitutional amendment was voted in Florida, which also has a growing Latin population.
Gays don’t care about being ‘married’, they only care about being in line for whatever benefits are available. Don’t believe me? OK, time for a thought experiment:
Assume you are in a committed, exclusive, homosexual relationship, here are your two options – your choice proves my point:
1) You may receive an official ‘marriage license’ from the state. However, in return, you must agree that you will be entitled to none of the usual legal rights, benefits, inheritance, etc. of a heterosexual spouse, nor would you be allowed to enter into any kind of legal, non-marriage contract for the same.
or
2) You may enter into a legally binding, state-sanctioned arrangement, called anything but ‘marriage’, giving you the legal and inheritance rights of a heterosexual spouse, along with the right to contract with the state (just as heterosexual couples have done since the 1930′s with Social Security, for example) to begin paying for and becoming entitled to homosexual spouse benefits of various and sundry types in due time.
Yeah, I thought so…
One man and one woman. Not a difficult concept. Under current law the only ones who are discriminated against are certain blood relatives and minors.
There is no discrimination whatsoever against anyone based on sexual preference with regards to marriage. There would be discrimination if a homosexual could NOT marry someone of the opposite sex.
I notice one commenter has the vast reasoning skills to want “Only marriage between a man and a woman of the same race is valid or recognized in California.” It only seems fair.” as some sort of “clever” punishment for blacks voting against gay marriage.
To ban marriage between males and females of different skin color is of course discrimination.
To allow sexaul preference to trump all is asking for a special privilege. If we as a society wish to grant this special (and recently for the first time in the history of all civilization) privilege, then it should be accomplished via the legislatures and not via judicial overlords.
Yes,IS,and Obama would not be the President-Elect without his white votes….what a dirty racist country this is!
I’d believe the anti-gay side wanted to defend marriage if it came out against DIVORCE or quickie drive-thru weddings. Or made child-bearing a requirement before issuing a wedding license.
But really, none of this matters to them. They just don’t want gays to be a full part of society. I respect those who have the cojones to admit that, instead of these silly rhetorical dances that just obscure the truth.
Time is on the side of gays. The sooner you get used to it, the better.
I tend to agree with Sammy Small. Certainly same sex couples should not be denied basic civil rights, but I don’t understand how you can seriously assert that gay marriage is a civil right but polygamy and marrying your sister are not permitted.
Societies do not survive if some of their members do not reproduce. Societies do not maintain and build upon their accomplishments unless someone spends a fair chunk of time raising children and passing on the communities’ knowledge and values. Marriage is the social institution that western civilization has used for several thousand years to protect the interests of those who invest time and effort into raising children. Not all heterosexual couples will have children, but the marriage contract exists to protect the legal and financial interests of both the marriage partners and the children.
If same sex couples are going to have the benefits of tax deductions, social security, inheritance benefits, etc., why shouldn’t people be able to enter into polygamous unions and have those same benefits? Why shouldn’t brothers and sisters be able to marry and share those benefits? There are good reasons why they shouldn’t have children, but why should they not be allowed to marry under this new definition?
I understand that same sex couples are ordinary people with ordinary wishes to share a life with their partner, and I understand that they don’t like being treated differently. Still, I think that redefining marriage is a poor way to go about remedying the problem. There are other ways for same sex couples to protect their civil rights, and I don’t think any of us fully understand the consequences of redefining marriage.
Roger,one thing that black people resent is homosexuals equating the fight for gay marriage with the civil rights movement of the 20th Century…were gays ever denied the right to vote?Were gays ever lynched by the thousands…were gays ever rounded across the Atlantic and auctioned off over here to the highest bidder?
The idea that gay marriage is coming–whether we like it or not–because young people support it is based on a static view of youth opinion that will likely turn out to be wrong.
When this most-pampered, marriage-delaying, video-game-obsessed generation starts to have children to raise and taxes to pay–let alone when a significant number begin to take religious faith seriously–we’ll see how strong their support for the public recognition of alternative life styles really is.
Roger, I have a 10 year old and a 12 year old. I think you are dead on. If the law isn’t changed the next election, it certainly will be in 2016.
Maybe I’m naive, but I think marriage is a good, stabilizing force. I know a lot of same sex partners raising children together. I don’t see that extending marriage to homosexuals as being a destabilizing force to society – in fact I see it as the opposite.
There are a couple of important things to note here before we say that the “trend favors gay marriage.” Prop 8 was unique in a couple of ways.
First, Atty. Gen. Brown inserted himself into the process by re-wording the initiative, turning it into a negation of rights. This was, in fact, a true correction, but had the initiative been drafted after the SC decision, its writers would have used more favorable language than that pushed on it by Brown.
This leads to my second point. There were an unusual number of first time voters on Tuesday. I stood in line at my polling place for 45 minutes, by far the longest I have ever waited (that polling place was in Brentwood and I saw precisely 3 African American voters there, out of close to 100 total). The election volunteers handed out official sample ballots and instructions to those in line who wanted them or didn’t bring theirs with them. I can’t say all of those who took the samples were first time voters, but at least some of them were, and judging by body languaged, a large number of them were reading the initiatives for the first time. Some portion of the electorate based their entire decision on the title of the initiative and the 25 word description accompanying it. I think there was a much larger proportion of uninformed voters this time – who won’t be there next time because there will be no historic candidated to lure them.
Anyway, Election 2008 was an outlier in too many ways for us to make any hasty generalizations about trends and future outcomes.
Wow! An intelligent, civil comment thread between people with opposite views on the internet.
Kudos to everyone!
If conservatives and even true liberals (not Leftists) let the gay marriage camel get its nose into the tent then it is over for America. There will be nothing in our society and culture that will be salvageable.
God have mercy on us.
Reading these comments reminds me of how hard I have to plug my nose before reluctantly punching the ‘R’ button in the name of national defense. The logical pretzels you are forming to get around the fact that it is just pliain unfair to restrict the union of thinking adults is amazing.
Since there is zero fiscal responsibility exhibited by the Republicans in power, you can see what a lacking bill of goods the GOP offers to people like me. The reality is that the Dems really haven’t done anything for gay people. But then I read comments like these and see the reasons for the outflight of voters.
JeanE, marital monogamy is under serious assault from both demographic changes in the population and structural policy changes in the body-politic. Same-sex marriage is just a side-effect of the collapsing heterosexual marriage market. If you really wanted to support robust robust heterosexual marriage then you’d address VAWA, anti-male family law, the cost of marrying before 30, the cost of having children, the corrupt educational system and a host of other anti-monogamy factors.
But the Republicans would rather self-pleasure over the fact that the state won’t endorse the sexual union between two men for just another election cycle, or two. The slow suicide of the traditionally-minded middle-class is a morbidly fascinating event to behold.
d’oh:
your thought experiment betrays a dualism between matters of the heart and matters of the flesh. no such dualism actually exists. all marriages are three party contracts – two beneficiaries and one enforcer – with tangible benefits that provide certain securities and protections for each beneficiary. the tangible benefits are the visible manifestation of the invisible sentiments. they are one and the same. this is how all contracts, and all peer covenants work (including, incidentally, religious covenants).
so, your first example is a non sequitur because no third party (in this case, the state) would provide a public testimony of contract enforcement where non existed. nobody would choose it because it’s not actually a marriage. to insinuate that gays are improperly motivated because they’re concerned for the benefits holds them to a senseless dualistic standard. it’s not just gays that get married for the benefits. everyone does. that’s the whole point.
Still, I think that redefining marriage is a poor way to go about remedying the problem.
Yes indeed. Particularly since most people have real trouble even defining what marriage is. Most will dribble out some nonsense about love, but marriage is not about love, even if almost everyone marries the person they love.
Ultimately, it is about the next generation. As someone else mentioned previously, amongst other things, marriage has traditionally been about the establishment of paternity. While a woman giving birth is 100% certain that she is the mother, the only way a man can have even a minimum of assurances that the baby is his has been through marriage (until the rise of DNA tests, that is). It is why marriages are exclusive, not ‘open’, and vows are given openly in front of your community, and it is why in many ancient (heck, and in some modern) societies the infidelities of women were dealt with rather harshly. After all, it is foolish for a male to spend gigantic amounts of time and resources taking care of another male’s child when some of his own are running around, and it is why there are few things that would infuriate a man as much as discovering he’s been taking care of some other jerk’s child. His concern is figuring out who his children are, and which mother is worth committing to (and that’s to say nothing of the fact that you need to know bloodlines to avoid inbreeding — which is STILL an issue, even in modern societies).
So marriage is ultimately an attempt to establish paternity, to track bloodlines, and to corral the males and settle them into productive lives. There are, of course, other benefits.
The thing is, people don’t THINK about this stuff. It’s largely instinctual, like sexual attraction itself, the inclination to pair-bond — heck, even love — so they have trouble articulating just what it is that is amiss with same-sex marriage.
It isn’t complicated. A couple of dudes giving themselves orgasms and staring lovingly into each other’s eyes is nice and all, but it’s a relationship that amounts to nothing anybody in the broader community gives a poop about. NOBODY cares about such things because it will never affect their own lives in any way. Frankly, people don’t really care much about the romance of other couples, of whatever stripe, and for very good reason.
But when men and women give each other orgasms and stare lovingly into each other’s eyes, inevitably babies are the result, and fundamentally that is the single most important relationship of every living thing on the planet. This is what matters, not Western style romantic love, which is rather puerile.
So if we want to redefine marriage, that’s fine. But first let’s define it — and why it’s a special relationship that warrants special privileges relative to your unmarried neighbors — and we’d better be fairly hard-headed and realistic about it.
Um, polygamy is in Genesis as well. Don’t use the condescending “um” when you don’t know what you’re talking about. But hey, here’s an idea–let’s not use condescending speech at all!
I know–good luck with that.
Well, I suppose it’s fortunate for the “No” folks that they’re rioting and assaulting folks AFTER Prop. 8 passed. If they’d pulled all this stuff before November 4th, Prop.8 likely would have been approved by a far higher percentage of the electorate in a “Not Yes, but Hell Yes” mood.
When this most-pampered, marriage-delaying, video-game-obsessed generation starts to have children to raise
But they won’t have children, and this is precisely why they won’t care about gay marriage. The marriage market is collapsing, “gay marriage” is simply a manifestation of that collapse, and all people like you can do is launch into “moral” tirades about the pampered youth. Do you really think those “pampered” you want to live in a dangerous world where the cost of raising families is nearly cost-prohibitive? Instead of actually looking at sober, realistic policies that would fortify and reintroduce strong heterosexual marriage you sniffle your moral contempt of those you consider unworthy, the video-game obsessed youth.
Well, guess what, those shallow youth will continue to delay marriage until it actually becomes possible to do so without having to work 60 hours a week just to provide the bare necessities. You have two options:
A) Provide public policies that foster affordable family creation
B) Smugly contemn those youth for the sole purpose of a self-satifying emotional experience.
You have obviously chosen the second, and your civilization will burn for it.
If conservatives and even true liberals (not Leftists) let the gay marriage camel get its nose into the tent then it is over for America. There will be nothing in our society and culture that will be salvageable.
Do you have kids, or live in a community with lots of kids? If so, your course is creating a world where those sons are killed and those daughers are raped, but, hey, at least you prevented the state from endorsing the sexual union of two men for a couple of more years.
Congratulations, your world may go down in flames, but at least you can stand in front of Jesus on judgement day and tell him how you prevented “gay marriage” for just a couple more years.
Are you saying that “gay marriage”, by itself, is the collapse of civilization? I suggest taking a sober look at the rest of the world, because things can get far, far worse than gay marriage.
I saw the pro- and anti-Prop 8 ads, and they made me less surprised by the results. In the pro-, those who supported the measure (and opposed same sex marriage) were portrayed as bigot nerds, ala the PC in the famous Apple ads. Forgive me if I suggest that is no way to persuade. The anti- ads had documented instances of what could reasonably be be construed as gay indoctination in elementary schools (field trips by first graders to lesbian weddings as a teaching exercise, instruction concerning the unquestioned value of same sex marriages with no opt-out for parents, etc.). Forgive me if I suggest non-nerd bigots might find this objectionable.
Pardon, “indoctrination.”
@rrr
Um, there are many things in this world for which condescension is appropriate. The first de facto marriage in the Bible, Adam and Eve, was one man and one woman, which is where you get the nihilistic little ditty “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”.
Um.
A close friend in West LA was supporting the rioters when I spoke to him last night. “Their rights were taken away”, etc.
After we talked for a while, he agreed with me that had a mandate for “civil unions” been on the ballot, it would probably have passed overwhelmingly.
He said that he told leaders in the community that going for “marriage” was going to be a problem, but they insist. They want “marriage” as an equal right. They don’t care what it does to society, it is the word that the activists want. Most mainstream gays want equal rights to those married, inheritance, insurance, hospital visitation, etc. Sure they also want to call it marriage, but you don’t need a “marriage certificate” to call it marriage, a “union” would be enough.
I told him that I would personally help collect some signatures for a “civil union” initiative, even though I supported Prop 8. He is going to ask around, but I think that the leaders of this movement do not really want equality, they want to subvert the institution of marriage just as much.
The insiders are also convinced that they will find a judge to overturn prop 8.
And the gay community in LA is really pissed at the Mormon church. They are blaming Mormons for this amendment. And I fear there will be acts of violence in the next 12 months as a result.
1. I believe that “marriage” is a sacred rite practiced by any number of faith sects.
2. I believe the government co-opted the term “marriage” when trying to regulate other issues important to government.
3. I believe that the government should grant “civil unions” and churches should perform “marriages”. (I think France is set up this way.) Everybody must have the civil union for the government to recognize the partnership. Religious have the extra ceremony of the “marriage”.
4. I have no problem with homosexuals forming unions, and believe that a mechanism, such as a civil union, needs to be in place to protect the partners rights in that union.
5. I believe that the government trying to tell a religion that it MUST perform a “marriage” contrary to its beliefs is a serious violation of the First Amendment: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=144
Here is the paradox: a majority support gay civil unions while a majority oppose gay marriage.
Am I the only one who thinks that the solution to this problem is to change the word for heterosexual marriage – to civil unions (or something similar)?
Marriage at the courthouse is not a sacrament, but rather a civil contract. “Dissolution proceedings” are instituted when that contract is terminated. The result is a divorce decree.
Marriage at the church or synagogue of your choice is a completely different matter, and should be treated as such.
To me calling straight civil unions “marriage” is worse than calling gay civil unions “marriage.”
And yes, thanks to all for a civil debate.
While watching TV news showing the protesters attacking a Mormon temple in Los Angeles last night, and hearing reports of violence against people who had “Yes on 8″ stickers on their cars, I keep wondering where are all those ACLU lawyers and other activists to complain about “hate crimes” and come to the defense of the religious freedom of Mormons, Catholics, and others who supported the “Yes on 8″ campaign. And the silence is deafening at this point. But it’s not just the activists, the police are also standing by and doing little more than watching. For those of you who claim to be in favor of tolerance, this is creating the conditions for a huge backlash by the “theocrats.” And there are many more people who sympathize with religious believers than you may want to admit, this is a country where over 80% of people still call themselves Christians. Are you really wanting to start a religious war?
Well, actually, I guess that JP is on board!
Sorry for the posts crossing in the mail.
I would have have an easier time respecting those who want to destroy traditional marriage if they weren’t trying to destroy the Constitution along with it. If we’re going to have gay marriage, let it come about through the political process.
I disagree with those who argue that gay marriage opponents can’t be true defenders of marriage or else they would be fighting for the repeal of divorce laws. I don’t know that prohibiting divorce would strengthen the institution of marriage. Presumably, there would be fewer people getting married and a higher percentage of unhappy marriages.
I also don’t buy the argument that opponents of SSM just want to keep the gay man (or lesbian) down. If that were the case, then wouldn’t there be a further program of persecution in the works beyond merely banning SSM? Clearly, the legal environment for gay people is friendlier today than at any other time in history. It’s not like the voters of California want to send gay people off to concentration camps.
Finally, it’s fairly clear that gays as a group have a different concept of marriage from that of non-gays. For committed hetero couples, marriage is the default arrangement. For gays, even where SSM is permitted, only a fraction of gay couples choose marriage. Many that do marry openly reject the concept of monogamy. If marriage tends means something different from one group to the other, why the insistence on sharing the same label? Call it a “gayrriage” or something, throw in all the same legal rights, and the controversy likely goes away.
Gypsy boots is correct. The same-sex marriage agenda is not against “right-wing” Christianity, but Christianity, period.
For the homosexual agenda, it simply isn’t good enough to be allowed to live their own lifestlyle and/or to create institutions that fit their “needs”, while leaving socially conservative institutions alone. The homosexual agenda will not been satisfied (and has not be satisfied) until the traditional nuclear family institutions are torn down, destroyed, and dilluted to the point where they become meaningless to the social conservatives that support them. Again, it is not enough to have their own instutions, they want to destroy and replace the institutions of social conservatives as well.
As part of this agenda of destroying conservative social institutions (which are, like it or not, the bedrock of our society), the homosexual agenda is attempting to capture the public bully pulpit so that they can force their abberrant values down the throat of social conservatives. Same sex marriage is simply a wedge that is being used to achieve greater legal and social leverage to support involuntary re-education and other elements of social control.
The attempt is nothing less than social rape, with activist courts and same sex marriage being used as a wedge to force social conservatives (and especially their children) to accept official indoctrination and education about the morality, legitimacy and normalcy of the homosexual lifestyle. This is misguided social policy, and social conservatives should be free to reject the tenets of this abberrant sexual “religion” in the same way that athiests are protected from public religious indoctrination. Social conservatives and their children should not be forced to suffer this type of forced indoctrination via judicial or legislative fiat. They should be free to reject the morality, legitimacy and normalcy of homosexuality, while at the same time respecting the basic human rights of all individuals (not some list of arbitrarily expanded rights), including homosexuals.
Social conservatives see this agenda with clarity. It is not a neutral issue, and they know that the end goal of homosexual activism is to destroy institutions that they hold sacred.
Consider this. For the short period of time in California when same sex marriage was lawful, were homosexuals content to enjoy their newly minted “rights” in private, or did they continue to push their agenda on social conservatives? Why were school children taken to homosexual marriage ceremonies in California? Why did a father in Massachussetts go to jail for trying to opt his child out of mandatory same sex education in public schools? Is this forced re-education really a legitimate use of public funds?
Social conservatives see these abuses and understand that the issue for gay activism lies not in securing rights for themselves, but in destroying and replacing the institutions that social conservatives hold dear. They further understand that homosexual activists are particularly intent on preaching their homosexual “religion” in public institutions as a means of obtaining greater political power and acceptance. That is why millions of Californians have now voted twice in favor of protecting marriage. The alternative was to lose a number of freedoms that we hold dear.
The comments section of the San Francisco Chronicle online has been on fire over this issue; the gay commenters are heaping invective upon Blacks, Mormons, and people of faith in general.
Roger,
This was the worst worded Traditional Marriage Amendment every, courtesy of Jerry Brown. Also, it was an assault, not an affirmation of the status quo. Now that traditional marriage is against status quo a lot of “stand patters’ will vote for it. You mix apples and oranges when you compare the last vote in California on marriage and this one.
I don’t agree, jjv. You would have to have been living under a rock not to know what Prop 8 was about, no matter how Jerry Brown worded it. It was by far the most publicized and advertised proposition on the California ballot with millions being spent by both sides. It was all over talk radio and local television until your eyes rolled out. At best… at best.. I would give Jerry Brown’s wording a two percent differential from the actual vote. Factoring that in that trend is still vastly in favor of same sex marriage from eight years ago.
aureliano,
i agree with you that people don’t tend to think through what marriage actually is, and that if more did so we would have a better baseline for a solution to these issues. however, marriage is not primarily about paternity, it’s about making alliances for self-preservation. paternity is simply one of the benefit (albeit, perhaps the greatest benefit) that helps insure self-preservation.
i think jp and vox are right on the money. the key is legally separating the secular from the religious and acknowledging that legal marriage in the united states is actually nothing more than a civil contract with no religious dependency whatsoever (proof of this is that anybody can legally marry without religious ceremony). let’s have “civil marriage” with all the legal benefits and “religious marriage” with all the religious benefits and allow people to enter whatever unions they freely choose, including both.
it would be interesting to see which arrangements produced more virtuous unions.
Young people will get older…
this not a civil rights issue. Gays already have the same civil rights as heterosexuals. This is an issue of forced acceptance of a relationship category that is unacceptable to society’s long term self preservation interests.
Marriage has always been considered one of the cornerstones of a functional society and a key to civil stability. The drive to call gay civil unions marriages is a tool for the promotion of a gay agenda as as equal alternative in society’s eyes to that of heterosexual unions. Based upon science and statistics alone, this is inimical to the interests of a healthy, dynamic society.
There’s a solution to this. Get states out of the business of recording marriages. Have them record civil unions, and civil unions, only.
Religious people typically have TWO SEPARATE ceremonies. There’s the ceremony with the religious vows and all that, and the filing of the papers in the courthouse. So, if we refer to the filing of papers at the courthouse as establishment of a civil union, we are using language is technically more correct than the current language. If we stop confusing the two, then we can let the various religious congregations work it out for themselves.
Aureliano: “But when men and women give each other orgasms and stare lovingly into each other’s eyes, inevitably babies are the result, and fundamentally that is the single most important relationship of every living thing on the planet.”
I know I know. And those that can’t have children should be stripped of their marraige certificate. Or is it ‘the intent’ that matters? Many gay couples I know have artificially inseminated. They are having children in spite of your theory! Is it a theory or an attempt at superiority? You cna rail on and on about ’5000 years of tradition’, but please include the 5000 years of tradition that polygamy, incest, slavery and slaughter represent. Spare us all.
Get over it, people. Roger is right. You’ve already lost this one. Gay people will be married by 2015.
Many of you who claim that all the Gays want is equal treatment are either forgetting or were never informed that through domestic partnerships, they already enjoy essentially the same rights and entitlements in California as married couples.
I agree with several earlier commenters who suggest that the support for traditional marriage in California is almost certainly higher than 52%, considering the differing circumstances from Prop 22 in 2000. It should be easier to maintain the status quo from this point forward than it was to “eliminate a right” which was conveniently discovered in the constitution earlier this year.
Aureliano 38, you sound like a Lionel Tiger afficionado. (Tiger, for those of you who don’t know, is an incredibly gifted and astute anthropologist.) For me, the anthropolgical reasons and explanations for marriage are the only ones that make sense (I say this as a married woman with no children). Of course, if I remember my anthropology correctly, homosexuality is not only natural in the animal kingdom as well but, while it serves certain purposes, it does nothing to improve or perpetuate species, which is what anthropologists are concerned with. Human cultural interests and motives are key but without the animal urges, instincts and need for self-survival and perpetuation, all else is moot. The anthropological explanations for marriage also explain why modern men to a great extent shun it. The benefits to men have greatly decreased while the disadvantages are on the rise as women and women’s interests (academic, legal, cultural) take over. (Dr. Helen has covered this extensively.) The issue of heterosexual marriage is critical to our species. The issue of gay marriage could not be more trivial, to most heteros and many homos. It’s a lefty hammer with which to hit conservatives (religious and otherwise), generally nothing more than that. It’s fine to support it if you understand and can articulate why. I don’t for many reasons and I know why.
I’ve been married for 13 years no, and I’m not sure what ‘rights’ that it involves.
The central right gauranteed by marraige is the right to engage in sexual acts. Thus, the term ‘illicit sex’, meaning ‘sex without a license’. Is that really an issue in this day and age?
I can’t act on behalf of my spouse without documents proving power of attorney – the marriage licence doesn’t cut it. So we always cosign everything, and no one has ever asked to see a marriage licence when we open a joint banking account. About all a marriage licence would do is make gaining power of attorney easier, but really that’s only going to be an issue if she loses mental function for some reason.
I suppose the other thing it does is establishes who my heirs probably are, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a good idea to set up a will anyway – if I had anything to give away.
About the only time I can think of it ever doing anything for me is when my spouse was pregnent it gave the hospital presumption that I – the presumed father – had a right to be there. But that’s not a legal right of any sort. That’s a private decision of the hospital that they are free to rescind (father’s haven’t always been present in the operating room), and it would be a priviledge granted to me with or without the license provided she said I was the father. Again, it’s not like we care that much about the legitimacy of births anymore.
I would like to say that I don’t get it. Any ‘rights’ I have don’t seem to ever impact my life. There may be some that exist out there somewhere, but they are wholly abstract and never impact my life. I can’t imagine ever living my life as your average homosexual couple and saying, “Gee, I really feel that I’m losing a bunch of rights because I don’t have a marriage certificate.” It just wouldn’t happen. What I can imagine happening is saying, “Gee, it really sucks that society doesn’t recognize and approve of our relationship.” That I can see. And that, not theoretical legal rights, is what I think all the fuss is about.
It’s not so much that homosexuals are upset that they’ve lost some basic liberty, it’s that they are upset that society doesn’t offer its blessings on their relationship. So they are attempting to win the approval of the larger society using marriage as a proxy.
Alot is made by the ‘gay rights’ groups about the ‘separation of church and state’ and ‘fundamental rights’. I don’t see it. Marriage is a legal institution that has to do with inheritance rights. Marriage is a social institution that has to do with joining two families through loyalty to the common descendents resulting from a dependable paternity. If marriage is going to be about something other than kids and its going to start picking up alot of riders on the instution, I’d just as soon we did away with it completely. I don’t see any necessity whatsoever in extending it to everyone. As far as the ‘separation of church and state goes’, marriage has a very long history of being a religious ordinance and it seems to me to be just as logical for the state to get out of blessing ‘civil unions’ with their origins in religious completely as extend them to everyone. There aren’t any legal priviledges coming from a marriage that can’t be created by other legal processes. I can go out and get wills and powers of attorney and those documents will be more powerful and more effective than the marriage licence has ever been. I don’t need a marriage licence from the state to have any legal rights. So let’s solve this problem by not recognizing any civil unions legally. Then anyone that wants to can practice whatever religious sacrement regarding the union of two people that they want, and the state simply won’t be involved in the matter because it won’t recognize any of them. If you want to clarify any particular legal relationship between you and any one else, you can go do that through the channels you could use now to stipulate those particular legal relationships.
And if you want approval of your friends and neighbors, you can invite them to a party to give their blessings and the state won’t care one way or the other.
That seems perfectly fair to me.
My take. If the proponents of same sex marriage use the same tools that to opponents do, i.e. the Initiative process, and not have their views pushed out via judicial fiat I would vote for it next election. I don’t want an activist judge making a decision that should be decided by the voters or their elected representatives.
Incidentally, if you view marriage from the anthropological perspective, you understand not only why lions first kill females’ cubs by the previous male head of the pride, but also why stepfathers and boyfriends so often kill or abuse the children by other men of their wives and girlfriends. It would actually be shocking if this were not so. The children by another man are an instinctive threat for many reasons. It’s a good thing our humanity generally overcomes this urge.
Both sides of the issue oppose the existence of an artifict within the law that implies a claim about basic human nature that isn’t true. One side says homosexuality is not a disorder. The other side disagrees – and within this group there is a wide difference of opinion as to how messed-up-in-the-head homosexuality is. Almost nobody addresses this central issue, so naturally the SSM debate goes nowhere.
Asher,
I would agree with you that gay marriage is not the only challenge to traditional monogamy. Divorce and child custody laws often do little to protect the children, and instead are often used for little more than male bashing. I am also aware that the current educational system has serious problems- that’s one of the reasons I have spent the last 14 years homeschooling my kids.
I am not arguing that gay marriage is the only, or even the most serious challenge to traditional monogamy, but it seems like it will provide a small, short term benefit to a small percentage of the gay community at a significant, long term cost to society as a whole. If we redefine marriage, will “being married” continue to have the same significance? Perhaps same sex couples today will feel that they have been vindicated, but in a generation or two will same sex couples long for recognition through an institution that is seen as meaningless by most of their heterosexual peers?
Society has been in a time of transition for at least 50 years, and it is natural for the social order to be challenged during such times. We can choose to tear down the existing social order and let the chips fall where they may, or to look to our traditions and carefully and deliberately choose which ones to preserve and which ones to modify or discard. It seems the people of California have chosen to keep traditional marriage while discarding persecution and discrimination against gays.
America,America. I am in Florida where we just put an amendment into the state constitution limiting marriage to a man and a woman. As a gay man, I was saddened but not surprised. What did shock me was Obama taking Fla.
As for the gay issue, it is an ever growing one. Every year more and more people are coming out. Your friends, relatives, children, and parents. What a shocker it can be, but they’re still the same people. Eventually, the shock will wear off both for old and young. That’s what will really bring civil unions about. (You can keep the marriage term, by the way.) And I don’t foresee fire and brimstone falling when this occurs. Just another advance of civilization. Emphasis on the civil- part.
Sean, don’t hold your breath waiting for the ACLU to defend the Mormons. When the LDS Church bought a piece of city street that ran between their buildings and turned it into a beautiful plaza with fountains, they agreed to let pedestrians walk through and only asked that there be no protests or other rowdy behavior on the property. The ACLU jumped in against the LDS Church.
The ACLU hates Mormons, and so do a lot of other “right-wing Christian zealots”– if you don’t believe me, you obviously haven’t seen the anti-Romney stuff that Evangelicals were posting. If there’s a religious war in the offing, expect the Mormons to get hit from both sides.
In my opinion, much of the marriage debate comes around at the end of the day to the declining marriage rates among heterosexuals. People in my age group 20-40 years old, speaking from myself and my friends and acquaintances, are delaying marriage further due to the prohibitive costs associated with such a union.
Half the people I know who married in their early twenties are now divorced. Of these people, when I asked them the reason for their divorce, the common answer is: money troubles.
The highest liberal sacrement is tolerance. The fact that society is radically weakened when gay “marriage” is legitimized and marriage is devalued is as nothing compared to the gain for tolerance.
One can describe the destructiveness of gay “marriage” without religious references. Simply look at certain biological and psychological facts: boys and girls are different; men and women offer different guidance and love to children.
A baby cannot be born without a male and female parent. A child is best raised with the guidance of both a male and female parent.
No law can guarantee that a child will be raised by loving, mature parents of opposite sex. However, no law SHOULD EVER guarantee that any child will be deprived of his or her basic needs: i.e., love from a father and a mother. That is precisely what happens under “gay marriage.” Homosexuals are equated with heterosexuals in the job of raising children. They are not the same and they DO NOT offer children the best possibilities for a healthy life.
This is not religious. It is common sense; it is what every honest sociologist and psychologist would assert. Children do best when raised in a home where their two parents are raising them. And a society is healthiest when it protects its children.
JeanE,
Stopping gay marriage to protect heterosexual marriage is like putting a band-aid on a compound fracture. If that’s all you do then you’re finished, and I don’t see even one prominent GOP politician making any effort to advance aggressively pro-family policies. Meanwhile, people like yourself are withdrawing from the world and pretending that if you stay really, really quiet all the of the political activity will pass you by. I suggest you think again.
Your house is burning and you’re fixated on trying to change the lightbulbs. Time to get your priorities straight.
Honestly, watching the traditionally-minded, American middle-class slowly commit suicide is morbidly fascinating, thanks for the spectacle.
Simon’s argument makes no sense.
The idea that despite millions of dollars being spent by the homosexual lobby, and having huge coattails from a large liberal turnout for Obama, traditional marriage was nevertheless protected by the ultra liberal state of California– the loss of some percentage points means, of course, that homosexual marriage is inevitable.
If Republicans cannot win without the black or Latino vote, what makes anyone think that homosexual marriage can?
It’s time for homosexuals to stop trying to make everyone accept their lifestyle. What they do isn’t marriage. Sorry.
“Simon’s argument makes no sense.”
Few of mine do, Tom. But I think you misconstrued this one. Those millions of dollars that were spent were spent by BOTH sides. The point of my comment was that the electorate was well aware of what they were voting about.
Whether I am correct in surmising that same sex marriage is in our future is of course only my opinion and will not be known in the near term. We all have to wait to find out.
Watching the homosexual community continually attempt to emulate the heterosexual community is morbidly fascinating, thanks for the spectacle.
I guess, Roger, what I most object to is the idea that homosexual marriage is inevitable. Nothing is inevitable except those things that we accept as inevitable.
As for millions of dollars being spent by both sides– sure, that happened. But if the default position was against homosexual marriage, it would seem that those millions went toward swaying those who *could* be swayed. There will be diminishing returns from here on out since more people now know and understand the arguments for each side. So therefore that 5 per cent of difference is a lot more entrenched than the 23 per cent were. And therefore the hill for them to climb is much greater than it may seem.
See what I’m saying?
@Lynn
Watching the homosexual community continually attempt to emulate the heterosexual community is morbidly fascinating, thanks for the spectacle.
Actually, you have it backwards, the heterosexual community has been migrating over to emulate the homosexual ocmmunity: childlessness, hedonism and multiple sexual partners.
Homosexual “marriage” is just a consequence of the debasing of heterosexuality.
Laura H, I don’t know what rock you are living under, but gay couples have been raising children for quite a number of years. They don’t need a marriage license to do so. They adopt, or they use artificial insemination or surrogate mothers. So your argument that gay marriage is unfair or bad for children is worse than misguided. It’s one hundred percent incorrect. In fact, since gay couples are raising children now, it is only harmful to these children to not allow their parents to be married. If you want to argue that gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to have children, well, that train left the stationa long time ago.
I would agree with Roger that the next ballot will probably pass if you look at the trend. This outcome is exactly what Asher is talking about.
Directly voting for a proposition is the most easy, direct, and unambiguous way to stop one aspect of the slide. If the traditionally-minded, American middle-class won’t rally on the gimme’s, there’s no hope anywhere else, as we slide over the precipice.
No one should be surprised to discover that blacks oppose same-sex marriage. Based on the incredible percentage of black children born out of wedlock, it appears they oppose different-sex marriage as well.
But seriously, government is in the business of enforcing contracts. So what justifies the the notion that government should declare that one particular type of contract — marriage — is valid if and only if it is between a man and a woman? That notion is a clear violation of the principle of equality of all before the law.
@sammy small
It’s really fascinating how people, such as yourself, have a suicidal black/white view of the world, if you can’t end abortion and prevent Adam from boning Steve, then you want to punish your society by wishing its destruction.
Thank you for wishing my destruction and the destruction of my society, I really appreciate it.
“That notion is a clear violation of the principle of equality of all before the law.”
Why? Some people get driver’s licenses, some people are blind. Some people can vote, some people are too young. Some people are doctors, some can’t get into med-school. And some people can marry, and some are too young, closely related, or homosexual.
Equality under the law also means that people get to decide the morality of their society. There really is nothing except morality that stops a man from marrying a nine year old. For much of human history in many cultures, this was an accepted practice. But it is not in ours. And neither is two men or two women marrying.
All our laws can be challenged on the basis that it isn’t fair. Is it fair that pedophiles were born with an urge to have sex with children? Certainly not. But that doesn’t mean society has to approve and support those urges.
And no free society would demand that the people do so.
Homosexuals are not child molestors (you know someone was cracking his knuckles to claim I said that.) But the same argument that is being used by homosexuals will certainly be used by all other forms of depravity.
Civil rights for every lifestyle is civilization for no one.
Actually what gays are demanding isn’t the ‘right’ to ‘marry’ someone of the same gender….what they really want is a special privilege to be able to marry someone of EITHER gender which violates the equal protection clause as any honest legal scholar will tell you….without Proposition 8 they would all be congratulating themselves on how they fooled the public into granting a tiny minority special legal status in the name of ‘fairness’ and to yell ‘homophobe’ at anyone who isn’t stupid enough to buy into their scam….sorry,Bruce…you’re just not smart enough pull that off
Of course younger people are more accepting of gays. That’s exactly the type of propaganda that is drilled into their heads in public schools. Instead of learning math and science and just being kids, children in public schools are being brainwashed.
As California becomes more and more Mexican-dominated, well the culture will reflect Mexican values.
Gay marriage is not one of them, in fact Mexicans have a very low opinion of gays and we could well see Mexican national-origin pols pushing for anti-Gay agendas, curtailing any education about them, ditching partnerships/civil unions, etc. because those are POPULAR with Mexicans.
Same goes for PETA. Mexicans love bullfighting, cockfighting, dog fighting, so don’t think PETA’s stuff will last long. Heck Michael Vick showed that Blacks also love Dog Fighting, so there’s that.
Lots more Mexicans in California means a definitive END to the White Boomer 60′s stuff, and lots and lots of Mexican cultural attitudes towards animals, gays, women, and Blacks forming the culture and the law.
I mean, wow Big Surprise, import millions of Mexicans and get Mexican attitudes and culture.
We are steadily marching towards nationwide recognition of same-sex marriage. It is an inevitability. As the older generation dies off, more youthful generations who rightly realize that it is a simple civil rights issue, not a religious one will prevail.
Let me restate this clearly: Same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue. Young people aren’t being brainwashed by “propaganda that is drilled into their heads in public schools”. They’re realizing the inherent cruelty and hatred of the religious right towards gays & lesbians. Their empathy is to be admired, not scorned.
What is the use of a society that does not protect traditional institutions such as marriage from being subverted, and to protect the common cultural norms of its citizens? I’m sick of this “change is inevitable” and “the more diverse the better” crap modern society spews out. A nation and culture whose traditions are constantly rewritten is not a nation and culture worth preserving, and should be actively opposed.
Let’s just cut this Gordian knot and replace “marriage” as a legal concept with the term civil union. Marriage would therefore have no legal standing and would be merely a religious ceremony. Any religion would therefore be free to define “marriage” in whatever way they wanted.
People with strong religious beliefs about the matter would be happy that their definition of marriage would be preserved. Couples (of all flavors and stripes) would have their legal rights to property, divorce, child custody, visitation rights, insurance coverage, etc. defined by a statute legally authorizing civil unions.
End of problem.
I’m always a little bemused (and I do know what that word means) to hear people arguing against same-sex marriage because ‘marriage should be about raising children!’
My husband and I have two sons (currently eleven and seven), and either of them could see through that argument without any trouble. I also have three siblings who are legally married (no, not to each other, to opposite-gender spouses), none of whom have chosen to reproduce.
Regarding the ‘religious freedom’ argument, we were first married in a religious ceremony back in ’95 by a Baptist minister; he was free to ‘marry’ us, but the state refused to recognize the event. This time, we had a choice of civil or religious. If a given clergyperson had declined to marry us, that would have been his/her legal right. Now, the minister who did, in fact, marry us back in September is legally prohibited from doing so – how exactly does this further ‘religious freedom’?
In 2007, after a study of the countries where same-sex marriage is now legal, France rejected same-sex marriage “to affirm and protect children’s rights and the primacy of those rights over adults’ aspirations.” That’s pretty much where I come from on this issue, too.
Numerous studies show that children do best when raised by their own biological fathers and mothers. Not that I would prohibit adoption or artificial procreation for gays and lesbians, as they do in France. But same-sex marriage means forcing adopted children in larger numbers to live their lives with no psychological connection to a father or to a mother, on the basis of the aspirations of adults rather than the needs of the child. Because same-sex married couples become a “protected class” under civil rights laws. Interestingly, even Catholic Charities sometimes placed children with same-sex couples before the same-sex marriage issue heated up. Polarization has really increased since then, with Catholic Charities of Boston ending adoption services rather than agreeing to forced adoptions to same-sex couples.
I am aware of the American professional organizations which state that gays and lesbians are just as good at parenting as heterosexual parents. But I am also aware that long-term studies are lacking and that most existing studies are small and non-specific about family forms. Typically, families headed by same-sex couples are not compared to families headed by biological parents in these studies. And our professional organizations tend to be headed up by activists, for entirely understandable reasons.
It is reported that after the American Academy of Pediatrics issued its statement concerning the lack of difference between homosexual and heterosexual parents (not family forms) in a “growing body” of studies, ” The larger AAP membership responded very strongly and negatively to their organization’s support for same-sex parenting. The primary author of the AAP study sent an email to various AAP leaders shortly after their statement was published and circulated. It warned:
The AAP has received more messages — almost all of them CRITICAL — from members about the recent policy statement on [same-sex adoption] than it has EVER received on any other topic. This is a serious problem, as it means that it will become harder to continue the work that we have been doing to use the AAP as a vehicle for positive change. (emphasis in original) ”
If the leaders want to use the AAP as a “vehicle for positive change”, they are activists, perhaps “post-modern scientists” who promote causes for which they believe the data will later catch up. Why were they more interested in promoting “positive change” than the experiences and views of pediatricians in their organization?
Not many people would say that gays and lesbians can’t be good parents. But most people who spend time around children, especially in low-income areas, are familiar with “daddy-hunger” in the children of single mothers and lesbians. And there are reports of the children of gay men inventing imaginary mommies. We still don’t have long-term studies on the effects of hunger for the parent of the missing sex in the children of gays and lesbians. But we do have a lot of data on the terrible effects of absent heterosexual fathers on society.
It is true that most the decline in marriage in recent decades, especially in low-income areas, has not been related to same-sex marriage. But giving the title “husband” to gay men when 50% of married gay men do not think that sexual fidelity is important changes the meaning of marriage for heterosexuals. It does not encourage young heterosexual men outside the intellectual classes to take on the role of faithful husband and father. Especially when our professional organizations tell him that kids don’t necessarily do better with a father. Why not take on the more respected role of gang-banger, Lothario or street tough instead?
Obama has been trying to encourage fathers to remain in their children’s lives while the same-sex marriage movement says to them that their children don’t really need them as long as they have more than one loving adult in their lives and child support. Should we really be reinforcing the idea that there’s nothing special or important about being a father (or a mother)? This flies in the face of the much longer, larger studies showing the importance of dedicated fathers to families and to societies.
“Let me restate this clearly: Same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue.”
Homosexual marriage in not a civil right issue. What makes a person a homosexual? Is it that his skin is a certain color? Is it that he was born a man or a woman? No. The only thing that makes him a homosexual is that he chooses to engage in homosexuality. Just like the heterosexual, though he may have been born with the urge to have sex with women, refuses to engage in sex at all. Just like a rapist, though he may have been born with the urge to rape, chooses to engage in rape.
A black person can not pretend to be a white person. There is no don’t-ask-don’t-tell possibility for women.
This hiding behind the civil rights movement is disgusting. You are being judged not on who you are but by what you do. And if you deny this, and codify it in law, then nobody, no matter what they desire sexually, can be held responsible for their sexual choices or denied the ultimate approval of marriage.
If you want to have homosexual marriage, then go out an convince people that sodomy is just as good as coitus, that homosexual relationships are just important to maintaining a healthy society as heterosexual couples, that a handful of gay adoptive couples need societies entire moral and legal history turn on its head. This would be a hard sell, but at least it would be an honest argument. But please quit with the lame horsedung that you are not in control over who you put your penis into.
@Chris
Same sex marriage is not a civil rights issue. Marriage is a heterosexual institution, and heterosexuals have already defined its meaning and purpose in society. If homosexuals envy marriage and want their own special institution, then they should attempt to create one. Then they can make it whatever they want it to be.
Forcing heterosexuals to accept a homosexual interpretation of marriage is at least as oppressive and dogmatic as forcing conservative christian religious morality on homosexuals. Wouldn’t it just be better to agree to disagree and to go our separate ways instead of being at each others throats? Strangely, homosexuals just aren’t willing to let this issue go regardless of the concessions made. They insist on forcing their homosexual “religion” on a heterosexual institution even though heterosexuals, for the most part, are just fine with letting homosexuals have their own institution in the form of civil unions, or garriage, or whatever you want to call it. So really, which group is the intolerant one? I’ll give you a hint… it’s not the Mormons.
The entire thread has devolved into something resembling the debates over proofs for the existence of God. Obviously, the final call over whether or not there is “gay marriage” comes down to who can command the most quanta of political force.
After all, politics is the art of forcing others to your will.
Hi Roger,
Prop 22 was titled “Limit on Marriages. Initiative Statute.” Prop 8 was titled “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry”. Prop 8 was a Constitutional Amendment rather than just an “Initiative Statute”. All these pushed votes away from it.
Was there real movement in the electorate? Probably. But the real movement wasn’t 18%.
Melvis & Tom:
You’re both embarrassing yourselves here. You assume homosexuality is a “choice” when it is quite clear that it is genetic in nature. You must not know many gays or lesbians, because nearly all will tell you of a deep-seated “feeling” of being different from an early age onward.
Be that as it may, you’re still both wrong even if it is a choice. Many women who chose to become pregnant experienced discrimination in the workplace because the employers didn’t want the inconvenience. That “choice” is a basic right – the right to procreate. Why is sexuality any different? Religious intolerance is once again the answer. That makes it a civil rights issue.
“This hiding behind the civil rights movement is disgusting.”
As disgusting as irrational hatred of gays & lesbians swathed in religious piety and righteousness? I think not.
“Marriage is a heterosexual institution, and heterosexuals have already defined its meaning and purpose in society.”
Slavery was also once considered to have a well-defined meaning and purpose in society. In fact, it was even tolerated by God (See Exodus 21). So why have we rejected God’s word on slavery, yet we cling to God’s word on homosexuality?
Asher –
what nihilist streambed do you drink from?
the superiority you exude is astounding.
Asher,
I see gay marriage as just another brick in the wall so to speak. It didn’t start the slide and it won’t cause society to collapse. But it merely adds to the total effect of a declining society, not unlike many societies which have gone before us. If you see that as black/white issue, that’s your choice. I have no suicidal prediction for society, just the slow slide that I mentioned above. When it comes, I have no idea, but it will come.
@Chris
I’m not embarrassed, and I never invoked the Bible as the authority on anything. Maybe you should re-read my posts. The point was that homosexuals have become more dogmatic and insistent on forcing people to do and believe what they want them to do and believe than the so called “Christian Conservatives” – and they do it all by invoking the tyranny of “discrimination” and “civil rights” violations. The point is that this strategy is a ruse because the homosexual agenda is not to create their own rights, but to destroy the long held rights and institutions of others.
Another poster said that “politics is the art of forcing others to your will.” I guess that definition is likely correct; and it certainly applies to the homosexual agenda. I find it interesting, however, that so many otherwise rational people are fooled into thinking that homosexuals are trying to obtain equal rights when they are really just playing politics and trying to force social conservatives to the collective homosexual will. For myself, I would prefer laws that infringed as little as possible on all rights rather than laws that favor one person’s rights over another’s.
On another note, what would you say if I told you that discrimination was a good thing and that discrimination is necessary and vital to human existance? Discrimination is not always a bad thing, and there are plenty of forms of discrimination that are perfectly legal and proper.
“As disgusting as irrational hatred of gays & lesbians swathed in religious piety and righteousness? I think not.”
I know lots of lots of religious folks, heavy religious and not so heavy religious and guess what, they don’t hate gays & lesbians. You might be doing a bit of projection. Is it Anabelle, has even indicated on another thread that I might be a bit homophobe. Hey, some of my good friends and business clients are gay….see I said it. As someone else said, call it something else. Have all the partnership contracts you feel you may want. But leave what almost all religions have defined as marriage alone. Wouldn’t that be okay?
But hey what do I know. The gay community activists have done their best to destroy the boy scouts so why not another wonderful institution called marriage, defined as being between one man and one women.
Oh, and by the way you activists. Keep storming the gates of the Mormon temples, it might help other more conservative Christians start reevaluating their view of the Mormon church.
So have fun.
“I know lots of lots of religious folks, heavy religious and not so heavy religious and guess what, they don’t hate gays & lesbians.”
They don’t? Oh that’s right – love the sinner, hate the sin. In this case, the “sin” is being born different. Having a different sexuality. A sexuality that harms no one. Don’t be fooled. Hating the sin *is* hating the person in the case of homosexuality.
“Partnership Contracts” don’t hold the same legal weight as marriage. Hell, in Wisconsin civil unions aren’t even recognized. It was added to our constitution by some very “religious” minded folks who hate the sin.
Prop 8 will be challenged in the court, overturned, and the next vote will be shot down. That’s what activists do. And destroy the Boy Scouts. That too.
“The point was that homosexuals have become more dogmatic and insistent on forcing people to do and believe what they want them to do”
Actually that’s a page right out of the Church’s playbook. Especially in Catholicism where “tradition” (with a small t) becomes equal in weight to the Word itself. That in itself is dogma. See the tradition of tithing, and indulgences for proof. But I digress.
“On another note, what would you say if I told you that discrimination was a good thing and that discrimination is necessary and vital to human existance? Discrimination is not always a bad thing, and there are plenty of forms of discrimination that are perfectly legal and proper.”
Discrimination is a tool. Much like a gun it can be used for good or for ill. When it is used to deny people their life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as in the case of sexual intolerance, it becomes unconstitutional.
“For myself, I would prefer laws that infringed as little as possible on all rights rather than laws that favor one person’s rights over another’s.”
So why legislate sexuality? Why suppress the rights of gays and lesbians? Religious bias? Simple intolerance? Irrational fear? What then? Why would you deny two people the chance to live and love together over semantics?
Did you realize that not too far into the past, interracial marriage was looked upon much the same way by “society”? Many believed, and legally enforced the idea of marriage as between man and woman of the same *race*. Was that right? What changed? Marriage as an institution changed with changing times.
This time is no different. Change is coming. Change will happen.
“You assume homosexuality is a “choice” when it is quite clear that it is genetic in nature.”
Genetics is not an excuse for any behavior. Lots of people are genetically inclined to be smokers, but we do not allow smoking in public places. Some people are born with a proclivity to like young children, but we do not therefore extend the marriage right to 9 year olds. A genetic predisposition or proclivity means nothing about whether an act is moral or acceptable. I’m sure some people are born with a gene that makes them much more likely to commit adultry, but we don’t therefore say adultry is okay. And we don’t give the adulterer the right to bigomy because he has a hard time being faithful.
Homosexuals need to fight this fight on the grounds that homosexuality as a choice is every bit as good as a heterosexual choice. If they win that argument, so be it. But they cannot make the argument that they are born to sodomize each other any more than I can make the argument that I was born to have sex with my wife.
I could have chosen something else and so could they have. And you cannot force someone to approve of a choice.
Well, not in a free nation anyway.
By the way, my best friend is gay… and agrees with me. Because A) he knows the whole marriage nonsense is really about envy, not wanting straights to have anything gays don’t, and B) because he refuses to make his homosexuality and his relationships a genetic defect, rather than a choice he made.
I respect him so much more than all the angry gays and all you pathetic “tolerant” liberals who probably have never met a homosexual outside WIll & Grace.
“Prop 8 will be challenged in the court, overturned, and the next vote will be shot down. That’s what activists do. And destroy the Boy Scouts. That too.”
Thanks Chris. You’ve just proven my point, exactly as I stated it. If the homosexual agenda was only as candid as you have been, then more people would see your agenda for what it really is, and the vote in California would likely have been even heavier in favor of Proposition 8.
“Thanks Chris. You’ve just proven my point, exactly as I stated it. If the homosexual agenda was only as candid as you have been, then more people would see your agenda for what it really is, and the vote in California would likely have been even heavier in favor of Proposition 8.”
I don’t think gays could be any *more* candid. They want equal treatment – basic rights. You want to discriminate and deny them based on their difference. It *is* civil rights. Ignore it if you will – but I guarantee the courts won’t.
“But they cannot make the argument that they are born to sodomize each other any more than I can make the argument that I was born to have sex with my wife.”
Well, you were certainly born with a proclivity to choose a female mate. Unless you are suggesting that the urge to procreate is entirely societal.
“Lots of people are genetically inclined to be smokers, but we do not allow smoking in public places. Some people are born with a proclivity to like young children, but we do not therefore extend the marriage right to 9 year olds. A genetic predisposition or proclivity means nothing about whether an act is moral or acceptable.”
Tom, the litmus test is harm. Does what we do cause undue harm to another, or rob another of life, liberty, and happiness? That’s morality at its basic level. What harm does homosexuality cause? Pedophiles harm children. Smoking harms the lungs of others. Homosexuality harms Christian sensibilities. Not the same morality at all.
“I could have chosen something else and so could they have. And you cannot force someone to approve of a choice.”
Disapproval is one thing. Legally enforced discrimination is another matter entirely. You seem so eager to claim the high road of liberty for all, yet you’re the one dictating restrictions. You are the one advocating suppression of freedom of gays to marry. You are the one denying basic rights.
“Well, not in a free nation anyway.”
Indeed not.
“By the way, my best friend is gay… and agrees with me. Because A) he knows the whole marriage nonsense is really about envy, not wanting straights to have anything gays don’t, and B) because he refuses to make his homosexuality and his relationships a genetic defect, rather than a choice he made.”
Your friend is entitled to his opinion. Prior to the women’s suffrage movement, some women thought they weren’t deserving of the vote. They thought other women were simply trying to infringe upon what was a *man’s* sacred institution – the vote out of jealousy and hubris.
They were wrong, and so is your friend.
Well said, Chris.
Truly, this whole argument is insane. Government shouldn’t even be in the marriage business. It’s NONE of their business. They should recognize civil unions between consenting adults with the various legal agreements that such unions entail. Whether the adults entering the union sleep together is not the business of the government. Religious groups can decide for themselves what they consider marriage, perform whatever ceremonies they deem appropriate, and call the unions what they wish. Freedom of religion, separation of church and state. It’s so simple and allows people equal rights without violating anyone’s religious beliefs.
“Tom, the litmus test is harm. Does what we do cause undue harm to another, or rob another of life, liberty, and happiness? That’s morality at its basic level. What harm does homosexuality cause? Pedophiles harm children. Smoking harms the lungs of others. Homosexuality harms Christian sensibilities. Not the same morality at all.”
There are laws that refuse to let people smoke in bars. Or even cigar shops. Now, no non-smoker in his right mind will go into a cigar shop, so why the ban? Why the restriction. Well, because it offends non-smokers and that’s all. And they have enough votes to make it stick.
Oh well. Society is always give and take.
And it’s perfectly acceptable. It doesn’t harm anyone for women to walk around topless, but we as a society has decided that it isn’t acceptable. We’ve decided certain words and acts are not to be shown on television. We’ve decided all kinds of things that could be argued are no harm to anyone, (although many would argue that they and homosexuality are harmful) but nevertheless enough people are troubled by it to keep it private.
And homosexuality is one of those things.
I’m not restricting anything. The good people of this country, countless times now, have decided each and every time to define marriage between a man and a woman. Period. Your refusal to accept the will of the people is a spit in the eye of democracy. I don’t like the legalized suicide that passed here in Washington state, but the people have spoken and so be it.
If you were more confident that what you’re doing isn’t wrong, you wouldn’t have to hide behind this civil rights nonsense. You would just say I chose to be gay and what of it? It’s as good as anything else.
But you know people won’t buy that.
And we won’t.
@sammy small
The monogamous, married family structure has been under assault for half a century and I gave at least five specific examples of how you can fight it, and those examples relate to factors far more destructive of the family than is gay marriage.
Nietzsche wrote something to the effect that “the greatest stupidity is forgetting what one sets out to do” and the opponents of gay marriage seem to have forgotten that they set out to protect straight marriage. But heterosexual marraige has been under assault since long prior to the homosexual rights movement, and it’s difficult to take you seriously when you say nothing about factors far more destructive than gay marriage.
It’s just that gay marriage is the easiest and most salient feature to grasp, so you reach for it like a person set adrift on the ocean eventually drinks the seawater. We can strengthen heterosexual marriage, but your way is suicide.
“As disgusting as irrational hatred of gays & lesbians swathed in religious piety and righteousness? I think not.”
So-called “homophobia” is probably as innate as homosexuality, and it probably has a specific evolutionary history in the same way as does homosexuality.
I assure you that no one decided to wake up and become homophobic, just as no one work up one day and decided to be homosexual.
“Your friend is entitled to his opinion. Prior to the women’s suffrage movement, some women thought they weren’t deserving of the vote. They thought other women were simply trying to infringe upon what was a *man’s* sacred institution – the vote out of jealousy and hubris.
They were wrong, and so is your friend.”
Actually, from a very rationalist-analytical assessment the female vote has been an unmitigated disaster. Women score far lower than men on general tests of political knowledge and reasoning, and giving women the same explicit social power as men has created serious power inequities in the mating market between the sexes. Women hold all the cards in the realm of implicit power, and they now are at equity with men in the realm of explicit power.
This is causing our society to inexorably revert to the sexual state of affairs natural to our species, polygyny, and the problem with polygyny is that males need to expend large amounts of time and resources to compete for sexual access. Under pure polygyny males exist mainly to fight each other for the privilege of being sperm donors, and the women raise and provide economic goods for the children.
We already see a lot of this in the black ghettos and hispanic barrios.
The female vote is far more destructive to straight marriage than is gay marriage. Not that I’m advocating the abrogation of the female vote, but it is imperative to find some sort of social technology to ameliorate the baleful effects of the female vote on marital monogamy.
I’m Intersexed – born with a body neither wholly male nor wholly female. Worse, I’m one of the tiny minority where appearance changes over the course of one’s lifetime. I looked male at birth. That changed later. That makes me part of a really miniscule minority, perhaps 99% of such natural changes go the other way, due to 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency (5alpha-RD-2) or 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency (17beta-HSD-3).
The thing is – there are quite a few people whose legal sex is questionable, no matter what sex they identify as. Different jurisdictions have different criteria, and even different areas in the same jurisdiction can come to opposite conclusions. My (UK) Birth Certificate says “boy”, my (UK) passport says “F” for Female.
In some jurisdictions, someone can even have a birth certificate (and passport) with X, for sex indeterminate on them. ICAO regulations and international agreements cater for such biological anomalies.
So it is emphatically *not* true that anyone can marry in California now. Some people are legally neither unambiguously men nor women, and so due to a congenital medical condition, have had a basic human right removed.
FWIW I identify as a woman with an unusual medical condition, and in Australia, where I live and where same-sex marriage is forbidden, I could only marry a man. In the UK, where I was born, I could only marry another woman, as same-sex marriage is forbidden there too. My own opinions don’t matter – only the letter of the law.
I’m strongly tempted to move to California, just to show just how reality-challenged proposition 8 is. One of the fundamental reasons why the similar laws against miscegenation were struck down was because it was impossible to say unambiguously what some people’s “race” was. A minority to be sure, but so are we.
I have a friend in LA with the same anomalous situation – but she’s moving out of California, it’s not safe there any more for her with emotions running so high.
“The female vote is far more destructive to straight marriage than is gay marriage. Not that I’m advocating the abrogation of the female vote, but it is imperative to find some sort of social technology to ameliorate the baleful effects of the female vote on marital monogamy.”
Asher, your tongue appears to have become permanently lodged in your cheek.
Tom,
“I’m not restricting anything. The good people of this country, countless times now, have decided each and every time to define marriage between a man and a woman. Period. Your refusal to accept the will of the people is a spit in the eye of democracy.”
The good people of this country decided many things that are unjust and unfair – Jim Crow laws, women’s rights to vote, laws restricting sexual practices. Just because a majority of people hold an opinion does not make it right. That’s why we are *not* a democracy. We are a representative republic with redress in the form of a Judicial Branch to ensure minority opinions carry equal weight. That’s reality. You don’t have to like it – that’s your First Amendment rights in action.
“If you were more confident that what you’re doing isn’t wrong, you wouldn’t have to hide behind this civil rights nonsense.”
I am perfectly confident that homosexuality isn’t wrong. Your best friend would agree with me on that, I presume.
In response to my claim: “That notion is a clear violation of the principle of equality of all before the law.”
Tom wrote in 82:
Why? Some people get driver’s licenses, some people are blind. Some people can vote, some people are too young. Some people are doctors, some can’t get into med-school. And some people can marry, and some are too young, closely related, or homosexual.
Your argument is a blatant non sequitur. It does not follow that just because society has decided to handle a certain issue in a certain way up to a certain point in time, it necessarily follows that that must be the proper and just way to handle it.
For centuries, various societies decided it was okay for whites to own blacks. Did that make it right?
And yes, it is a “spit in the face of democracy” to uphold individual rights even as the majority wants to violate them. The Germans had no right in 1939 to invade and loot Poland, no matter how wildly popular that action was with the people of Germany.
You’ve said nothing that justifies government’s refusal to recognize gay marriage. Said refusal is wrong no matter how big a lynch mob you can assemble to hang those who are for it.
“Said refusal is wrong no matter how big a lynch mob you can assemble to hang those who are for it.”
Wow, this does seem more serious than I thought. So now it’s lynching.
Here’s a thought. Instead of protesting out in front of the Mormon temples in L.A. and SLC why not take the your message and protest to a few of the larger African American in Los Angeles, maybe like Angelus Temple down there on Crenshaw and Adams if you need directions.
I’ll bet there were more voters pro 8 in that area of town then at the WLA Mormon temple.
/when pigs fly.
Thanks for injecting some facts into this discussion, Zoe Brain. Inevitably, when it comes to gender and sexuality and religion, everyone gets so emotional. But as your history indicates, there is great complexity surrounding gender identity. For all the people who insist that homosexuality is a choice, and an unnatural one in their opinion, I’d like them to consider the possibility that they are instead asking homosexuals to make an unnatural choice. To ignore and rebel against their very genetic code. How does one do this? Can anyone, just through the force of will, change their very nature?
Just to put a fine point on it, could I as a heterosexual woman, just decide to become male? Not to dress and act like one, but to actually think, react and feel masculine. To instinctively react to my children as a father, to make my consciousness male? No, I could not. How can we expect anyone to do the impossible?
Has it ever occurred to anyone that so-called homophobia is as natural and immutable as homosexuality? Calling people “intolerant” is the flip-side of calling other people “perverts”.
“Said refusal is wrong no matter how big a lynch mob you can assemble to hang those who are for it.”
Wow, this does seem more serious than I thought. So now it’s lynching.
Promoguy, I’m not saying that government’s refusal to acknowledge gay marriage is the equivalent of a lynching. I’m saying that Tom’s argument — which is the claim that if the majority of society wants to do something or prohibit something, it has the right to do so, regardless of the consequences to various individuals — I’m saying that that argument amounts to the claim that if the mob (society) wants to lynch some particular individual, it has the right to do so. If your rights can be violated any time the majority feels like it, then what you have are not rights but permissions that society can revoke at will.
Nor is anything fundamental changed if the mob first organizes a vote on the question and allows the intended victim to cast a ballot.
Asher,
Maybe, just maybe, I was merely limiting my comments to the Prop 8 situation directly. Given the items you mentioned earlier affecting the decline of the core family, of course many things have affected it much more than just homosexual marriage. I don’t have a problem with rights, I have a problem with changing a 3000 year old definition. I agree with your statements, but not being a great leader of men, I tend to look on from the outside and get rather pessimistic. Sorry if that bothers you.
Annabel,
Psychiatric researchers have never claimed that people consciously choose sexual orientation. Psychological disorders not rooted in biological causes (e.g. brain chemistry imbalance) are rooted in *subconscious* causes. People experience negative events, the subconscious self-defense mechanisms manifest themselves in the form of irrational attitudes that insulate the individual from dealing with those events. I think that most people instinctively know this but have difficulty putting it in the right words.
Of course, the instinctive response is, “But homosexuality isn’t a disorder.” People tell us that and don’t explain why. Thus, as I said in my earlier comment, the debate is stalled.
On another note…I find it interesting that SSM proponents reject compromises that create contracts with all benefits of marriage except for the name. People sense something Orwellian in a crusade to use the force of law to change the English language – and they’re not too far off the mark. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the government created Newspeak as an attempt to micromanage culture; Wikipedia sums the goal nicely: “[I]f something can’t be said, then it can’t be thought” (1). The goal is to remove from the word “marriage” its implicit connotation that heterosexuality is somehow better than homosexuality.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
Alan, what exactly is your point? You are picking and choosing facts and making all kinds of assertions based on dubious semantics. First of all, sexuality and gender identification are both determined by biology. This isn’t like talking about global warming, where no one really know anything. There are chromosomes and there is brain chemistry. The brain chemistry affects the way the chromosomes “behave” and vice versa. Neuroscience is becoming very advanced and increasingly clear on this. When people say homosexuality isn’t a disorder, they do in fact give explanations. They say it is because homosexuals are born that way. So you can call it a disorder if you want, but that’s a value judgement that you are making about the way some people are born. I could just as easily ask you why it IS a disorder. Most homosexuals will tell you that they felt in some way different from a very early age, long before the onset of puberty. If one is paying attention, these differences are usually apparent to observers of even very young children. Homosexuality has existed throughout human history, pretty much in the same percentage of the population. It’s a biological variant, just like any other.
As to your point about contracts, I wrote in an earlier post that the state shouldn’t be in the marriage business at all. It should only provide legal civil unions to consenting adults. Marriage with all its connotations and differing meanings should be the province of the church (or synagogue or mosque or…). Let them define them as they will. That would ensure freedom of religion along with separation of church and state.
I’d like to see a state proposition that offered the option of civil unions for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. I suspect many people of both groups, given a choice, would choose the civil union option in lieu of the marriage license, and then (as they already do) have a private religious marriage ceremony.
My point in comment #65 and the middle of comment #124 is that the core issue isn’t being debated: whether or not homosexuality is a psychological disorder.
I have not engaged in that debate here because I have not spent weeks and months researching a near-century of research that support the disorder hypothesis. The researchers on both sides of the argument need to gather and bullet-point their data so that average folks can understand what they are claiming and why.
Most average folks don’t know either side’s evidence. Those many decades of research aren’t everyday knowledge. Nobody ever explains why 13 members of the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of sexual disorders in its Diagnostics and Statistics Manual in 1973 (1), and the fact that it happened under intense lobbying from gay activists leads many to doubt that the decision was really a scientific one. Ironically, the architect of this decision disputes the immutability claim. (2)
People talk a lot about alleged physiological causes without presenting the evidence – but that is an issue separate from the *psychology* of homosexuality. Paranoid schizophrenia evidently has biological causes. (3) We assess its quality on psychology – what it does to emotions, attitudes and behaviors. Are gays more prone than the general population to detrimental psychological phenomena? One side says yes, another says no, both say they’ve got studies to back them up. Refer to my previous remark about bullet-pointing.
My first paragraph was a response to the myth you alluded to in comment #120, that treats “innate” and “consciously chosen” as the sole alternative explanations for the origins of homosexuality. I explained the third alternative, subconscious direction. Many on the side of the argument opposite yours often muddy the conversation by confusing behavior and orientation – people consciously choose to have sex with someone, but they don’t consciously choose attractions.
The third raises an entirely new topic, the motivation behind the gay marriage crusade. It speaks for itself.
(1) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904053,00.html
(2) http://www.narth.com/docs/evidencefound.html
(3) http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/paranoid-schizophrenia/DS00862
Sunday Nov 9 No on 8 protest update. Saddleback Church demonstraiton, Mormon Temple protest in La Jolla.
Still no protesting at the large black conservative churches in South Los Angeles.
/better to be safe than sorry.
Alan H, a near century of research by whom? Not by neuroscientists, which is where the most current and accurate studies of human behavior are now being done. The research you are referring to is mostly observational/behavioral. It’s primitive. Now we are able to image the brain down to the level of firing neurons. What we are learning each and every day is revolutionizing our understanding of human behavior and psychology. It’s like sending smoke signals versus wireless internet. Actually, that’s probably minimizing the leap in understanding.
We make giant leaps in medicine and science all the time. Imagine treating cancer the way it’s been done over the past century. People are now living with multiple myeloma as a chronic managed condition. We are beginning to have survivors of pancreatic cancer 8 years out, when still the conventional life expectancy with standard treatment is less than a year. What we are learning about the brain and gender is every bit as transformative to even our recent conceptions.
“Biological psychology is the scientific study of the biological bases of behavior and mental states.” (1) It does not assess the *quality* of those behaviors and mental states, whether they are beneficial, neutral, or detrimental to the subject’s psyche and to relationships. From observational/behavioral study we attack that question, and we also learn of non-physiological causes of psychological phenomena.
You adamantly assume that homosexuality has no non-physiological causes without having any familiarity whatsoever with claims to the contrary. Dismissal of unseen evidence isn’t very Sherlock Holmes.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#Biological_psychology
I know this is an old topic. Poor guy Scott Eckern in Sacramento and LDS contributes $1000.00 to the Yes on 8 campaign is pretty much forced to resign. Appears he was artistic director for a local performing art company for 25 years, but because he believes as he does in one man/one woman marriage, that he can be blasted.
I certainly hope this all backfires.