Ruth Institute Blog

Before I leave any comments, I want to make sure you’ll actually approve them. Considering that you parent organization, NOM, denies any comment that challenges their views, you will surely understand my reluctance.

Come out in support of constitutional amendments banning civil divorce.

Technically, marriage is unconstitutional. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, thus keeping marriage defined as a wholly religious institution would mean that the federal government should not recognize it.
I personally think you just don’t have enough faith in humanity. There used to be substance to segregation. Society is fluid. It changes and flows over time. Thank God for that.

Of course, the Biblical value for pi actually is 3. So…your comparison falls apart there. “And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it about. (I Kings 7, 23)”

Also, you make claims for major religions which are nowhere near universal. I was married to my partner in a synagogue, before a rabbi legally and religiously accredited to perform marriages, with witnesses, a ketubah, the exchange of rings, the whole megilla. Not just my synagogue, but the entire Jewish movement to which I belong (Reconstructionist) recognizes and celebrates same gender marriages; and a much larger one (Reform) does as well.

Many Christian churches do the same, and some entire Christian movements. Where is their religious liberty? Do religions only “count” when they agree with your views?

The other point which is frequently completely ignored by the “marriage is a religious thing” crowd is that marriage *already” belongs to the state. You can stand in front of the religious figure of your choice all day and conduct ceremony after ceremony, but unless they are legally recognized by the state, they cannot make a couple “married.” That’s the whole “by the power vested in me by the STATE of…” part of the wedding finale. And the state should have NO interest in what religion a couple is, or how they practice it – in fact, they don’t ask. Any heterosexual couple can walk up to a clerk in any city and ask to be married and they will never be asked if they are fertile, if they intend to have children, if they practice a particular faith, and how, or even if they intend to be monogamous, stay together for a lifetime, or even ever have sex. They are not asked if they love each other. They are asked to sign some forms, write a check and maybe, in some areas, get their blood tested.

As for possible – not only is it possible, it is happening. It has happened. And it will continue to happen. I am legally (Canada) & religiously married. Thousands of gay and lesbian couples are legally or religiously married or both – here in the US and in nations all over the world. And the numbers are going to grow. Kids today are growing up assuming gay people can and will get married; one day the hostility to our marriages will seem as antiquated and distasteful as not allowing people of different colors, faiths or social classes to marry. It *is* about our worthiness – as human beings, as citizens of a non-religious nation, wanting our civil rights, wanting to be able to have the same freedom as our heterosexual neighbors and relatives.

In a world where 50% of heterosexual marriages end in divorce, celebrities get hitched for two days and then sober up; where we see people matched in TV reality shows based on their looks and how much money they make – it’s not gay people who have or are changing the “meaning” of marriage. Drive through wedding chapels with $29 rings on sale didn’t come out of the gay community. Where is all this religious outrage when people marry and don’t procreate? Or when they marry outside their faith? Why are you not outraged when atheists marry? Where is all the money raised to stop divorce? (After all, Jesus was pretty clear on his thoughts on divorce – he was against it – and said nothing about gay folks.) Divorce does more to harm children – talk about destroying the “attachment between child and parent!” Divorce, especially multiple divorces, does more to destroy the image and meaning of marriage than any loving gay couple ever could.

But somehow, it’s gay people who are the threat. At the most, they will someday be 2, maybe 4% of married couples, anywhere. And we have the power to change this institution?

Sorry; the heterosexual community has done that already. They have changed marriage from the sale of a virgin woman from her father to another man to, well, what it is today. Two people walking up to a clerk and writing a check.

Now, if you in your religious communities want to make it more challenging, more traditional, more whatever, that’s why we have freedom of religion. (Our rabbi had us go through a year of pre-marital counseling, we had to make wills, power of attorney contracts, and get domestically registered, for example.) But ultimately, it comes down to CIVIL marriage. That’s all we want. You can keep us out of your churches, you can tell us your priests, ministers, pastors and rabbis and gurus will not marry us. And that’s fine. We have plenty of places to go and people who will be delighted to dance the hora with us. But that civil document – and all of the rights, privileges, and responsibilities and liabilities that come with it – that is civil law, not religious. It has to do with a contract between two adults, and nothing to do with child bearing or raising.

I’m as good as you, yet my family is not allowed to share in the same institution as you. That makes about as much sense as the rest of your logic.

I’ve left one as well, and screen capped it.

We shall see. It’s on the other post though.

I still don’t see how allowing two gay people or lesbians to marry affects my heterosexual marriage. Its kinda insulting to think I would let something like other people’s relationship to affect the sanctity of my own. I certainly didn’t allow Gov. Sanford or Sen Vitters “marriages” get in the way of mine.

@Mr. Korn
Also I am Jewish, so no singular Church recognizes my marriage. I don’t see why that is a problem either.

As a straight ally, I just cannot understand any position that takes the right of a legal marriage away from gay people. I don’t really care if your church recognizes the marriages or not, and neither does the law. All we want is for the legal rights to be equal for everyone. How will it hurt any straight couple or individual if other people (straight or gay) get married? Religions can continue to grant or deny marriage to those who have been divorced, those of different religions, those who are gay, whatever. But being able to get a marriage license should not depend on that subset of religions that choose to limit marriage between consenting adults.

Ruth wrote: “If you look at my writings, you will be hard pressed to find me saying negative things about gays and lesbians. This debate isn’t about your worthiness. It isn’t about you at all. The debate is about marriage.”

My response: Ruth, I am pretty confused by your statement as I see this much differently than you on this. I think this is clearly about us and if our relationships are “worthy” of the title of marriage. I think saying this is simply a debate about the definition of marriage sounds good until you realize that this debate is about people who get or don’t get to call their unions marriage in the eyes of the law. It is not about the word, it is about the people and in this case those people are gays and lesbians. So yes, Ruth, this is about US, is all about US and being seen, valued and having our relationships recognized by the government who takes my money and yet won’t allow me to be a full citizen with full access to the laws you have access to. Trust me as I scream this at you. THIS IS ABOUT PEOPLE NOT DEFINITIONS.

Next, I remind you that no one is asking you personally to accept or believe my relationship is a marriage. To be perfectly honest, I don’t care what you think about my marriage anymore than I should care about yours. I care what the government sees when I file my taxes, what the employer sees when I move to a new state and don’t have a job yet but need health insurance through my partner’s employer. I care about what the emergency room nurses think when I need to see my partner should their ever be a reason. So basically you can think whatever you want about marriage, just don’t let it interfere with my civil rights to full protections under the constitution of the USA.

Sincerely and with all respect,
Joe Brummer

No one is asking for you to redefine your marriage, nor asking your church to redefine it’s veiw of marriage. There is a component of marriage, a set of rights and responsibilities, that is regulated by the government that we wish to open to all adults. Then ALL churches (some of them mainstream Christian churches) who wish to marry their gay and lesbian members AND those that don’t will finally have the rights guaranteed them under the first ammendment.

You claim not to say anything negative about gays and that this is about marriage, but all I saw was a list of barely cohesive reasoning that gays should not be allowed to marry. You contraditcted yourself in this diatribe and near the end, I saw something very telling. This isn’t about maintaining biology and there is nothing moral about your argument. I put it to you that this is simply about maintaining control over marriage and its definitions. You base marriage solely off of procreation when I, in my naivety, thought it to be about joiing together two people who loved each other. God forbid it should ever be allowed to be that simple.

“I suspect the issue that bothers you the most is why won’t the Church recognize a same sex union as a valid marriage?”

I suspect that you are very wrong. I frankly don’t care what the Church recognizes as valid and what it does not. The Church is not the one who is granting the rights and privileges that come with marriage in this country. It’s the state.

What bothers me the most…is the Church thinks that it has the right to tell me and others that I must abide by some archaic set of rules and laws that I don’t believe in. That I shouldn’t have to believe in. And that I will never believe in.

It’s very much like me telling you, a Catholic, that you must embrace the tenets of Islam in order for your marriage to be valid. How do you think that would go over? I’m guessing not very well.

The Church doesn’t and shouldn’t have the right to control another person’s personal life. Period. ESPECIALLY, if that person is NOT a member of that Church. So…my suggestion to all the Catholics out there is simply this. If the Church tells you that you can not get married to your same sex partner, then don’t. But don’t have the audacity to tell me, a non-Catholic that I must abide by your rules. How arrogant, can you get?

Thank-you so much for this Ruth; well said! God bless you abundantly for speaking out and standing up for Truth. “Truth doesn’t change, just our perception of it.” (Bishope Fulton Sheen)

I left this comment on the other post, but it seems like this is where the game is, so I’ll post it here too:

I think what bothers you is that the Church is not willing to accept a union of two men and two women…”

Uh, actually, no ma’am. First of all, the Catholic Church is not “the church.” There are thousands of churches of all denominations that bless same sex marriages, whether or not they’re recognized officially. So if I want a church wedding, I get one, and you can’t do anything about it, because if you tried, you’d be discriminating against the religious beliefs of other, more loving religious institutions, and that’s Not American, Darling.

Secondly, I personally don’t want to get married in a church AT ALL, because I’m not a Christian, much less a Catholic, and you have no right to dictate anything about CIVIL marriage rights, because you are no more of an American than I am (and no less, I might add). You are entitled to help your church prop up discrimination, but for you to suggest that what really gets under the LGBT community’s skin is that your church won’t bless our unions is grandiose and accords far more respect to your church than non-Catholic American society (the great majority, I would add) actually holds for it.

Not sure what the church has to do with any of this…

Separate simply isn’t equal.

Unless and until men and women are truly equal to each other, then there’s simply no possibility of a union of two men equaling a union of two women, much less a union of man and wife.

If you want an equal marriage, it’s going to take two to tango — one from each sex. Otherwise you’ll have to settle for something decidedly second-class.

Which is your choice, of course — it’s not against the law. But it’s not equal either. Separate never is.

@G-A-Y
I’m sorry, but what you said about NOM’s message boards simply isn’t true. I have seen VERY mean-spirited, stupidly angry posts allowed to remain. Under normal circumstances, those posts are fille with incomprehensible ramblings and hate-filled rants about religion, as though one’s faith is the only reason one may not think same-sex marriage is unacceptable. I would urge anyone to go view any of the NOM posts to see if you really think they censor anything at all. My take on the situation is that they will censor foul language, true hate speech, slander, etc., but the do not censor stupidity. Sometimes I wish they would.

Let’s not forget that in many cultures–some not unlike our own!–civil and legally recognized marriages between two males was not uncommon, such as among the Gay tribal members of the native Chuckchi people in Russia or the Native American plains Indians who were thought to be natural-born Shamans as a consequence of their innate sexual orientation. Their societies viewed them as deeply sacred and revered them with great spiritual power and authority! This fact is true in many non-monotheistic religions across the globe and across time. Even in Rome the Emperors Nero and Elagabalus each married a man to the great cheers of jubilation from the on-looking citizens. I dare anyone to argue that these marriages somehow do not qualify as “marriages”! I wonder on what grounds they would base their arguments; after all, they are clearly marriages in the secular sense! Even the ancient historians recording events in Rome used the word “spouse” to describe the Emperors’ husbands.

Oh, and let us not forget that our system of government was based off of that from pre-Christian Rome!

But, if anyone tries to use the whole, “marriage is for children” BS (despite that fact that elderly and infertile couples are allowed to marriage) try to remind them that in the pre-Industrial Revolutionary era children were not produced out of a desire to raise a family; in fact, children were commonly viewed as a labor force to be exploited!

Sadly, folks like Morse and Maggie Gallagher keep harping about how we mustn’t “re-define” marriage (as if it’s never been so throughout the historical record!); but no commentators (especially not the media, such as CNN) ask the important question, “Why should we allow Christians and Christianity to define what does and does not constitute a marriage?” After all, Mags is quick to declare, “When you re-define marriage you change the definition for everybody!” Do we really want Christians sticking their noses into our private lives? Just think about that for a minute. If it’s allowed then we might get a country of subjugation under Biblical Law as being described by the Southern Poverty Laws Center’s 2005 Intelligence Report: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2005/spring/holy-war

Moreover, if we allow Christianity to undermine civil law in this country they might very well attempt to invalidate all non-Christian civil marriages as well! Someone once told me a statement that their grandfather (a holocaust survivor) said to him many years ago, which didn’t make any sense to him until very recently; his grandfather told him, “When they start coming for the Gays, you know it’s starting again!”

I just want to make it clear that, like it or not, the voters of this country have rejected gay marriage. Whenever they have been allowed to vote on this question, they have said no. In most cases, people just naturally figure out that gay marriage isn’t good for kids, for communities, for our society, or for our country, and they just say no at the ballot box. Most people just get this! Clearly, they do, because the only states where gay marriage is allowed are those were a few very wealthy organizations have managed to buy themselves court rulings or legislative votes. So, don’t think for two seconds anyone believes that this is solely a religious argument, and don’t think for the same two seconds that those who use faith as a convenient target will get away with it with illogical, flat-out wrong accusations of hatred or bigotry in the name of political correctness.

Like it or not, this is a Democratic society, and voters get to have their voices heard. I’m sorry if you don’t like that, but that’s just the way it is. Well, except for the moment in Washington DC where the DC Council and Board of Elections are trying to silence the voters, but are unlikely to succeed ultimately.

And I’m sorry again, but there is absolutely no law against people letting their religion or faith – or even their lack of it – inform their decisions or their votes. So, lobby for gay marriage if you want or traditional marriage if you think that’s best, but do not blame religion for the people of this country voting to preserve traditional marriage. People vote for their own reasons. Frankly, one of the main reasons I voted Yes on Prop 8 was becasue I was upset that the State of California Supreme Court thought it could cram gay marriage down our throats against our wishes as clearly expressed by our vote – actually TWO votes – that encoded traditional marriage in the law. I didn’t like them disrespecting the voters like that. And yes, as unlikely as it is, if the voters ever DID decide they wanted to allow gay marraige, one would have to respect their vote. That’s just not going to happen.

@Wade MacMorrighan

By the way, it is a well known historic fact that the Church did not finally come to solemnize marriages until the middle of the 13th. century!

Wow! I always find it so amazing that how the left attacks the Catholic Church. It’s great when they speak out for helping the poor, the left cheers, but when they say that society need to reflect a certain morality, they are told to shut up and keep out of these issues.

At least those of us in the Catholic Church know we’re hypocrites. We know that we fall short of our ideals. Those criticizing the church need to understand the philsophical principles that underpin their ideas.

The Catholic Church’s moral philosophy is based a long history of studying human nature. It is not based in the latest pop psychology or pressures from the loudest opposition group. That’s why it has lasted so long. That is also why the younger generations are coming back to the Church. They have seen the emptiness of the modern ethos. They have seen the damage caused by parents who are more concerened with their self fulfillment than their children’s well being.

Unfortunately, they have not heard enough about that homosexuality is a disordered sexuality. The Church calls for compassion, but acceptance of a disordered sexuality is not compassion. It borders on the criminal. Compassion calls for an honest appraisal of the circumstances and offers of help. Younger

The current scientific theory says that since homosexuality is nature, we should accept it. Current scientific theory also says that predisposition to alcoholism. Should we just allow alcoholics to keep drinking because that’s how they were born?

Public policy ought to reflect a larger good, and not merely the wishes of one group, expecially when the wishes of that group can cause such harm to those around them. Same sex marriage does just that.

1) Same sex marriage hurts the children who are involved in these relationships.

Any standard that does not take human nature into account is doomed to failure. We saw the destruction that communism wreaked on those who had to live under it. Communism tried to pretend that humans would never be acquisitive. It failed.

The gay marriage movement tries to pretend that biological preferences of parents for their own children don’t exist. They do. Every child has exactly one biological father and one biological mother. Everyone else is peripherally connected to this relationship. That is why blended families have so much trouble. Try as the father might, these step children are not his. Although he can’t admit it, he prefers his natural children. He can’t help it; it’s natural. The Romans would say that each beast crowns his own children with praise. I’m sure my mother is the best mother who ever walked the earth. Each person believes that.

Same sex marriage places an extraordinary burden on the partner who is not biologically attached to the child. This person is asked to create the same feelings of love that the biological parent has. It isn’t fair to the child that one of the parents is essentially an otusider to this child’s creation and yet agrees to take on the role of the a progenitor. The child deserves 2 parents who have a biological connection to him. That helps to guarantee that the child has a stable home life.

2) Same Sex Marriage turns the dual purpose of marriage on its head.

Like it or not, marriage is not only for the couple. It’s also for the children. Marriage exists to make sure that we have the next generation, and that it grows up in a stable enviroment. Marriage is not all about me. It’s about something larger than me. It’s about my responsiblity to a larger society. It’s about my role in making sure that we have a future. It’s only the self-absorbed baby boomer generation that turned marriage into a vehicle for my own self fulfillment.

Same sex couples cannot produce the next generation. They require outside help. Obviously, a “marriage” that cannot fulfill one of the most fundamental aspects of marriage is not a marriage. To call it a marriage is the grossest form of nominalism. We call it a marriage. so it’s a marriage.

This idea has been brought to us by the same people who say that if we don’t call the fetus a human being, it’s not a human being. If it’s not a human being. it’s not murder. I can call my breakfast cereal a car; I still can’t drive it to work.

Learn a little philosophy. Learn something about epistimology. Learn that you can’t just go redefining something to fit your needs.

Once you have learned a little about philosophy, then we’ll talk.

3) Same sex marriage opens the door to amorphous marriages.

Rick Santorum was maligned, but he was right. If marriage is now defined as a “relationship between any 2 people who love each other,” why must it only be 2. Why not 3? 5? 27? Why not two men, a woman, and a goat? If it’s all about the love, then none of these arragnements are wrong.

Of course, the gay lobby says that they just want to redefine marriage as any 2 people. But the tradiditonal marriage proponents have a boatload of facts on their side; the gay lobby doesn’t. We want to keep marriage the way it is for psychological, sociological, and cultural reasons. Once the gay lobby redefines marriage, it will be awfully tough to explain why this new abritrary definition should become the gold standard.

All in all, society has a prior committment to preserve marriage. This commitment takes precedence over the desires of the few to seek their own fulfimment.

In the posts above, some very poor argumetns have been made:

1) Why don’t we just leave it to human nature? Why do we need to legislate anything like this?

Would you be OK in removing discrimination laws and trusting that human nature will do the right thing? If not, then drop this weak and hypocritcal arguement. You want to trust human nature only for some things. The rest, you’re quite ready to legisate.

2) 50% of marriages end in divorce. It’s poor heterosexual marriages that hurt marriage.

You are exactly right about that. But who advocated for easier divorce laws? LIBERALS! Yes. the same liberals who pushed for no fault divorce are now using the results of no fault divorce to prove that we can continue to relax marriage standards.

Here’s a better idea: Let’s toughen marriage laws. Lessen the number of divorces. That will strengthen marraige.

3) You say that what other people do has no effect on straight people who wish to get married. WRONG

No fault divorce has had a profound effect on all marriages. It has made them all shakier, because we all know how easily they can be dissolved. Couples are less inclined to work togehter to resolve a problem, because ending the marriage can seem the easier solution. Couples are more likely to keep things from each other and to keep moeny for themselves because they know how fragile marriages are in the sight of the courts.

Feminists, who argued that no fault divorce would be good for women overlooked the fact that women are often the needier partner in the marriage, and are most hurt by divorce. Making divorce easier for couples hurt womenmuch more than men. Way to go Ms. Steinem!

4) You say that this is a Church issue. The Catholic Church has made this up in their desrie to control.

Traditional marriage is called that because it is traditional The union of one man and one woman has been pretty universal. (Yes, I know that there have been exceptions, but they are few.)

Liberals, once again, see themselves as a new generation. One that does not need to look at hsitory. That believes that the universe began with their first words.

Don’t try to reinvent society. It’s been going along quite well for centuries.

5) You use non-traditional families and marriages to prove that everything is OK.

Households without 2 parents have been grouped together as single-parent families. This has been done to reduce the stigma that is attached to these familial gorupings.

In fact, in the past, the only form of single-parent family that was not looked upon with disapproval was a widow. Divorced and unmarried were looked on with some suspicion, and with good reason. Unlike widows, these single parent families did nothave to happen.

Statistics show that single parent families have many more problems than two parent families. When you take out the death of one spouse (can’t be helped), you have to ask whether you want to use these non-traditional families as the basis for your case that there are no differences.

As for childless couples, or couples marrying later in life, they are truly the exception, not the rule. It’s a bad idea to make policies based on the exceptions. There are speed limits, but in a medical emergency, I can speed. That deosn’t mean that the new speed limit should be 110.

The arguements presented here are based on a major premise: we can remake society, regardless of human nature.

Human nature brings together the complementary male/female. It brings them together for a dual purpose: to express love and to create.

Only a fool (or a liberal, pretty much the same) would see himself as standing above human nature, as breaking so totally with eons of human action, and believeing that there would be no consequences.

Framing the discussion to be about a definition which excludes gay and lesbian couples is simply meant to . . . exclude gay and lesbian couples. This debate is not about the definition of a word. It is about society’s world view regarding human sexuality. Now that gays and lesbians are no longer willing to live closeted existences, and both social and medical science informs us that physical sex, sexual orientation and gender do not conform to a strict, simple binary, the conversation for society (and churches) involves the question of how society should treat LGBT people. How can society integrate gays and lesbians into its institutions and social fabric?

@Karen Grube

Karen, do you realize that, given the chance, if “America” had been allowed to vote on other civilly divisive issues, they would have also been “rejected” with as much frequency, and perhaps even more! Personally, I don’t give two farts about what anyone else thinks about my relationships, or the family that I am forming within the privacy of my own life and religion (I am a Pagan High Priest called to serve the Old Gods)–the exegesis really ought to be centered upon the animus, and on the reality that if you examine precisely WHY Gay people ought to be excluded from a civil and secular institution, those “excuses” don’t make one bit of logical, RATIONAL sense what-so-ever! Even womens’ right is germane, if I may augment… You see, women (such as yourself) would not now have the right to vote on the president of amendments if such a right were put to the voting public (which is clearly what you are proposing should always happen!), because only males were allowed to vote and, at that time, women were not believed to know enough about politics and so, by that loigic, could not cast an informed vote. So, imagine that you are living in that era, and womens’ rights to vote were actually put up to a vote, would you accept it if allowing women to vote was rejected by the population of each state?

Karen, you also whip out the nearest copy of the Constitution which actually puts strict limits on what exactly the citizens of this country can vote on so that we do not have what occured in California or Maine–majoritarrian rule (ie. a tyranny of a majority onto a minority, which our Founding Fathers expressly wrote articles repudiating!). Democracy is NOT, and has NEVER been, “majority rules”! Indeed, your personal view of democracy is actually described on Wikipedia, thusly, “The phrase tyranny of the majority, used in discussing systems of democracy and majority rule, is a criticism of the scenario in which decisions made by a majority under that system would place that majority’s interests so far above a dissenting individual’s interest that the individual would be actively oppressed. The phrase also refers to tyrants and despots whose behavior causes similar oppression.” Can you imagine what this country would be like if majority rule were the Law of the Land?! It’s terrifying! We might still have slavery, segregation, interracial marriage bans, etc. And, don’t think for a MOMENT that religious conservatives such as yourself were not digging elected officials so that THEY could vote on these important political issues, too. But, they were not allowed to.

Indeed, the Courts are the best place for the gay comm. to seek equality and get your unconstitutional amendments overturned, because they can see them for the animus that they clearly, are, and that they don’t serve any rational reason and cannot be sustained. Oh, and incase you were wondering, we are now a protected class here in Iowa so NO ONE is afforded the right to vote on us at the ballot!

@Karen Grube

PS: So-called “Traditional Marriage” is merely a modern construct that is less than 150 years old; in fact, the institution is incredibly Utopian by comparison to what earlier “definitions” of “traditional marriage” were. In FACT the “institution of marriage” has been used punitively to discriminate against minorities in this country, historically, usually to prevent them from either being a citizen, or else from being a FULL citizen! I suggest you read the work of Harvard Prof. of History, Nancy Cott’s book, “Public Vows”, which discloses this. She has been studying marriage in the US. for about 30 years, now, and is an academic expert on the subject. So, it would seem that you are advocating for the historical use of “marriage” as a punitive institution, rather than attempting to hold America to her higher ideals of Equal protections (sadly, historically, the 14th. Amend. has not been invoked and defended by the Judicial nor Legislative branches in this country since it’s adoption immediately after the Civil War).

@Jack

Jack, civil and secular marriages are not predicated on either desire nor the ability to conceive children; many heterosexual people (as with some Gays) don’t even *want* children; yet…surprise, surprise, no one has attempted to prohibited THEM from getting married, right? Why not put your money where your mouth is and try to enact legislation that would, in fact, do precisely that!

“And I’m sorry again, but there is absolutely no law against people letting their religion or faith – or even their lack of it – inform their decisions or their votes.”

Thank goodness we have the courts to protect us.

@Steven Barton

And we have answered time after time that society should not “integrate gays and lesbians into its institutions and social fabric.” Not at least if they want to call their relationships ‘marriage’ or somehow legitimize them. Here’s the reason: This push for gay marriage has nothing to do with marriage. It’s all about deconstructing faith institutions and traditional families that have been the center of civilized society for millennia! And it’s all about forcing the rest of us to accept a lifetyle that we have said NO to, that we will not accept! There should be absolutely no conversation about this! No one – absolutely no one – is saying that people don’t have the right to live how they want. But this country, this society, has absolutely no business legitimizing something the people – the voters – have decided is the antithesis of what we want and what we think is best for our children and our future!

The answer is NO! What part of NO do you not understand? The voters have spoken over and over again! NO to gay marriage. NO to the Mayor of San Francisco telling the cops NOT to arrest naked people having gay sex in public because supposedly that would be ‘discriminatory’. NO to letting men use the women’s bathrooms. because they ‘feel like a woman’ NO to my tax dollars going to pay for sex change surgeries and procedures. NO to suing a wedding photographer for not wanting to take pictures of a gay wedding. NO to suing a doctors practice for not wanting to perform in-vitro fertilization for two lesbians. NO to lying about how children and procreation and families are unimportant any more, and only adult ‘love’ is all that matters. NO to politicians thinking they can force their version of political correctness on the rest of us. I’m sick of the pandering! Seriously!

Jennifer, thanks for welcoming us G.A.Y. (Good-as-You) readers and for allowing comments.

I’ll take up your challenge by not dismissing the reproductive argument that you and other Catholics advance is your efforts to deprive us LGBT people of basic rights.

You state, “the least bad outcome we can expect from redefining marriage: there will be nothing left of marriage but the name.” Further, you attempt to substantiate your claims with a vague pat phrase “destructive and anti-social things.” Nothing will ever prevent or dampen the biological urge in humans to procreate and to bond as couples. As regards the biological urge, none of my five siblings failed to produce children because I was gay and in a committed relationship. Nor has my couple (22 years strong) prevented any of my siblings from marrying and re-marrying and re-marrying. Secondly, advances in medicine permitting assisted procreation benefit couples (hetero and homo) who ardently desire to have a child to raise and cherish! The three-parent combination now obligates legislators and jurists to grapple with a social reality.

The “best good” we can expect from opening marriage to include same-sex couples is that the children they already have and are already raising will have the protections that they are currently denied.

In your Christian heart full of God’s great Love, do you not care for those children? Why do you ignore them in all your arguments? They are real. They exist. They have needs. Deliberately and willfully ignoring their needs and rights, as you do, denying them and their same-sex parents their rights, as you do, is uncivil. You know, the opposite of “civil”, as in “civil government” and “civil rights”.

The cost to the government of not implementing civil rights for same-sex couples exists. The expense of implementation is incredibly low. The Senate of the state of New Mexico is currently examining that particular issue as senators debate implementing a broad domestic partnership law. The draft bill is 800+ pages! It would be far less painless and far simpler to patch up all the inequalities by opening up marriage to same-sex couples. Simple. Painless. Positive. Productive. The California and the Iowa state Supreme Courts eloquently stated the basic, fundamental rights – civil rights – of all couples to enter marriage. I encourage you to re-read those statements.

Jennifer, our common ground is that we all believe marriage is special and good for society. Yours is. Mine is. While my couple (22-years and going strong) has only been granted civil union status, had it even been legally possible, we would have opted for marriage. The love in my couple is just as sacred, holy, stable, and special as yours. NOM’s argument that there is something “special” about marriage is our common ground.

Loving couples. Constructive couples. Couples who build, contribute to and strengthen communities. We actively participate in our society. Denying us our rights pushes us down with claims that we are unworthy members of society. And that, my dear Jennifer, is detrimental to all society. That, my dear Jennifer, is un-Christian, un-Catholic, because it hurts today’s generation and it tells tomorrow’s children (some of whom will be LGBT) that they deserve nothing but (or perhaps not even) the crumbs.

The marriage law, indeed the definition that Dr J described neither has a ‘straight’ criterion for eligiblity nor a ‘gay’ criterion for ineligiblity.

The marriage law justly discriminates between marriage and other stuff – i.e. nonmarriage. The nonmarriage category is quite large. It is not definitively gaycentric.

I see how many who disagree with Dr J here have given lots of words to what marriage is not. Well, what is marriage, in your view?

Before you pin a license on it and accord it a special status, it is necessary to say what are the essentials of this type of relationship you have in mind. Without these features, without this core, it would not be marriage.

If you want to use the word, marriage, in a meaningful way, then, you need to begin with a core meaning that distinguishes it from other stuff — from stuff that is not marriage. You need to do that before you invite the Government to intrude upon personal lives, upon families, and so forth.

From that you might justify the boundaries drawn around marriage. If you do not set limits, you cannot really recognize marriage as different from other stuff. How those boundaries are drawn is more important than where they are precisely drawn.

Does the type of relationship merit a special status? If yes, what is the special reason for special status?

These are some of the basic questions that I have seen SSMers struggle to answer without resort to an utter reliance on arbitrariness. Yet it is central to the pro-SSM complaint that the man-woman criterion of marriage is completely arbitrary. I think much needs to be done, yet, by those who advocate for SSM to justify discrimination between SSM and the rest of nonmarriage. I say that because SSM argumentation provides no basis for justly discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage. And that suggests, very strongly, that SSM is a subset of the nonmarriage category.

You talk of “marriage” so say what marriage actually is — before the government shows up to pine a license and a special status on it.

The possibility that you are defining marriage as “3″ has never occurred to you, has it? Using your own logic, it would make more sense that we as humans, and especially as churches meant to make our fellow human existence better for everyone, would, as we learn more about the world in which we live, include more numbers behind the decimal as we find those numbers out. By allowing the civil authorities to include the unions of gay and lesbian couples, the analogy would be that we are now able to put the .14159265 behind the 3. However, your argument seems to be wanting to keep the number as three, because any more definitive and you would loose the ability to calculate in your head. The world has always changed as has the definition of marriage. But if you and your church wish to still calculate using 3, the government is NOT requiring you to do so. But I will be happy to point out when you miss getting you answer correct on the test.

Karen Grube :I just want to make it clear that, like it or not, the voters of this country have rejected gay marriage. Whenever they have been allowed to vote on this question, they have said no. In most cases, people just naturally figure out that gay marriage isn’t good for kids, for communities, for our society, or for our country, and they just say no at the ballot box. Most people just get this! Clearly, they do, because the only states where gay marriage is allowed are those were a few very wealthy organizations have managed to buy themselves court rulings or legislative votes. So, don’t think for two seconds anyone believes that this is solely a religious argument, and don’t think for the same two seconds that those who use faith as a convenient target will get away with it with illogical, flat-out wrong accusations of hatred or bigotry in the name of political correctness.

So by your argument if people wanted to vote to enslave African-Americans and a majority agreed then it’s OK. How about if we voted to take away a woman’s right to vote? Let’s say 20 years down the road Christianity falls out of favor? Should we allow a vote to ban it? The point being voting on someone’s rights is never OK. This country is not a democracy but a republic. It was established to protect from tyranny of the majority.

First, what is this “the Church” you’re talking about? Since when is there only one? You guys can do whatever you like inside your church. No one is saying that your church should have to marry gays, but many churches want to – they don’t count either, I suppose. You’re actually talking about having your church run the country. (

Once your guys wouldn’t marry divorced people, either…)

But whatever you decide to do, it’s irrelevant to what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the state. And no church has the right to tell the state what to do.

May I also suggest that you take a look at countries where same-sex marriage has been legalized? You may be surprised to discover that in Scandinavia, divorce has gone down, marriage (opposite-sex marriage) has gone up, and out-of-wedlock births have not skyrocketed. Your societal arguments are weak to non-existent.

Jennifer, your logic is excellent, and your arguments well stated. I think you have really touched a nerve to elicit such a response

Men and Women have a singular complementarity, as ordained by the way they have been created. While LGBT folks have feelings, this is not about feelings. There is a physical reality that homosexual unions are not in any way fullfilling thee partners natural design. I suspect that many LGBT folks feel a deep dissatisfaction and guilt about this whole thing, and are desperately trying to rationalize their deep seated feelings by assigning all of the “normal” names to what they do, as if somehow this will make it all better.

I read an interesting piece the other day about a gentleman who said he wanted a handicapped parking space. He’s not handicapped, but he felt excluded that he always had to park in the back, not right up front. He wasn’t born handicapped, but he feels he should be able to get the designation anyway.

Ya can’t fight natural law.

Jack

Let’s deconstruct your arguments 1 by 1. First that children of same sex couples are somehow harmed. I challenge you to show me a study from any reputable researcher that looked at same sex couples and their children and showed that they are somehow harmed. In fact I know the few studies I’ve read have shown no difference.
Second, you make the false argument that marriage is somehow for the children. So by your argument anyone who decides to not have kids or are unable should not be able to marry too? Civil marriage is about allowing legal protection to both members of the couple i.e. inheritance, property rights etc. My father just remarried last year. He is 65 and so is his wife. Should they not be allowed to marry because children are not an option.
Third gay marriage will lead to polygamy. Again an absurd argument. Did allowing women the right to vote lead to children and animals being allowed to vote. By your argument interracial couples shouldn’t have been allowed to marry because now it is leading to same sex marriage. It’s a very weak and frankly insulting argument.

@Karen Grube Yes you should be sorry Karen. The rights of the minority should not be subject to the tyranny of the majority.

@Karen: NOM might have changed their comments policy. But they used to deny most any pro-gay comment:

http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2009/04/your-comment-is-awaiting-a-future-deletion.html

@Ed:

It’s simple, we discriminate against handicapped. We place them in a seperate category, a protected category and allow them seperate yet equal benefits because of a physical trait. This discrimination is not a bad one at all times and is indeed necessary and useful.

I believe that you have proven a point for the opposite side there. People with physical handicaps often invite these particular discriminations because they are helpful to them. There are many other area that physical handicapped folks are discriminated against badly, such as hotels that claim to be wheelchair friendly and are not, amongst other things.

I’ve been with the same woman since high school, we are both involved in our church and community. My church wants us to be married but since we are in Florida they do not have the religious freedom to do so. Please fight for my freedom to serve God also!!!

Ahh nothing like a “civilized” discourse that compares the consensual love of two adults who want to make a commitment to each other – to bestiality. So typical, and so sad and so insulting. I love a woman – an adult woman who loves me; we share a life together based on that love and respect and fun and humor and joy and the desire to make the other happy. She is my WIFE. How dare anyone compare us to someone abusing animals? Think for one moment how you would feel if someone compared your soul-mate, your spouse, your love, to an ANIMAL.

So much for not having animus toward gay people or thinking of them as not worthy of the intrinsic respect every human being should have.

And although the point about “democracy does not equal majority rules” has already been made – and made well – I will add that at the time of Loving vs. the State of Virginia – the ruling which did away with laws forbidding people of different races to marry – over 70% of the country did NOT want to see those marriages made legal.

And there are still people today who believe they should not be.

Laura, please cite your source, or provide a link if possible, for your assertion about “70%” against the legality of interracial marriages. Thanks.

Chairm – Here you go. Check out the Gallop Poll results over the years. (You will need to scroll down to see the chart.
http://www.marriageequality.org/index.php?page=polls-and-studies

1958 – 94% of the country disapproved of interracial marriages
1967 – Living vs. Virginia
1968 – 72% disapproved of interracial marriage

in fact had it been put to the vote, like so many people would like to do with MY marriage, people of different races would not have had the Federally assured right to marry each other until *1991*

People were *outraged* by the Supreme Court ruling in Loving vs. Virginia. And then, too, God and religion were used to justify the outrage. The initial trial judge in their case stated, “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

it took South Carolina until 1998 and Alabama until 2000 to officially amend their states’ constitutions to remove language prohibiting miscegenation.

Of course, these days, when we hear someone say that people of different races should not be allowed to marry, because it would be unnatural, against God’s law, harmful to children, and just plain icky – that it would, in fact, make a mockery of marriage, we call them racists. But at one time, the vast majority of people, had they been given the right to vote on someone else’s marriage – would have gone out and happily voted “no.”

Which is why civil rights – and I repeat, these are CIVIL rights, not religious ones – do not belong on a ballot.

The phrase “The tyranny of the majority” is often bandied about within discussions of allowing the voters of a state to make the decision on gay marriage, as though the majority of voters should automatically be prohibitted from making this decision for themselves and for the future of their state.

But how many here know that this argument was originally posed because the wealthy minority, even back in the time of Aristotle, feared having their property confiscated by the poor majority if they were allowed to make important social/economic decision for the ‘state’. If the majority got their way, they feared, the wealthy minority would be stripped of their wealth. That was the fear. So launched the beginnings of protecting minorities. It didn’t start out as a way of protecting civil rights or protecting certain suspect classes of minorities. It started out as a way for the wealthy minority to protect themselves from having their wealth redistributed by and to the poor majority!

So, when you use that phrase, please understand its origins. It really had nothing to do with a majority of voters in our Democratic Republic voting one way or another on political issues, because our system of government already has built in checks and balances with the courts, with both elected federal and state legislatures and executive branches, the aggregate effect of which was designed by our founders to prevent or at least lessen the chance of such excesses. In other words, the phrase has absolutely no meaning in arguing whether or not the majority of voters of a state should be allowed to put into law or their state constitution a definition of marriage.

This is along the same lines as calling gay marriage a ‘civil right.’ The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had much more to do with protecting the voting rights of African Americans than anything else, and NOW you want to stiffle those rights because you don’t like how people vote? I have never in my entire life heard of a gay person being denied the right to vote. When that happens, you get to call this a civil rights struggle. Until then, it is no more than a push for the acceptance of a sexual lifestyle that most people reject.

Convince us if you can that it would be right for this country, or at least your state, to redefine marriage and get the majority of voters to vote for that idea, and you’ve got yourself a deal. Good luck with that. It just isn’t going to happen, and for all the right reasons.

@Karen Grube
Thank you, Karen. I think you emphasized my point.

@Karen: You asked that we convince you that it would be right to allow us to marry. So I will bite, what do you need to hear?

I also have to say as a gay man who has had many conversations with those who don’t agree with gay marriage. I, as a general rule, don’t try to have dialogs with them because I don’t think they are willing to hear anything I say. I believe (and I mean this about you personally) that your mind is made up. So tell me what you need to hear? I pledge to do my best to fulfill they need.

Karen…just because a phrase was first coined about one thing…doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t apply to something else.

The phrase “One size fits all” could have once applied only to say a Snuggie…but, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t apply to another article of clothing as well.

You can’t simply say the “tyranny of the majority” doesn’t apply in the case of same sex marriages because when the phrase was first used people were speaking of something entirely different. The tyranny of the majority, is the tyranny of the majority…no matter to who or what it is applied.

Your attempt at splitting hairs…fails.

Okay, I’ll bite: No teaching kids that gay behavior is ‘normal’. No suing doctors that don’t want to provide fertility services to lesbian couples. No suing wedding photographers for not wanting to photograph a gay marriage – and asking them to do that just so you can sue. No trying to force Christian clubs to accept gays in positions of leadership just to destroy the club. No teaching teenagers that gay sex is okay – or giving them instructions on how to do it! No lying to people about what your REAL agenda is when running for political office. And if you do get in a position of power, no forcing your own personal agenda on others, like blustering a City or County or State government to pass a petition to repeal a law the voters approved that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman. No forcing kids to read gay literature against the wishes of their parents, or forcing them to celebrate something as disgusting as Harvey Milk Day in public schools. The guy would be in jail as a sexual predator if he were still alive. No playing the “hate crimes” card when you are the victim of a real crime that has nothing to do with being targeted for being gay. No forcing companies to let their employees cross dress. No using the women’s bathroom just because you’re male and gay and ‘feel like a woman’ today. No lying that gay marriage is the ultimate end, when you know full well the intent is to destroy the very concept of monogamy within marriage and redefine marriage as whatever you want it to be. Stop trying to use my tax dollars to pay for sex-change procedures. Stop trying to promote the idea that being gay is ‘normal’ in the media, and quit trying to desensitize people to the real lifestyle. Quit retaliating against those who have left the gay lifestyle and are trying to let others know that it’s possible to do that. Stop letting Tim Gill and the HRC buy elections like they did in Iowa and New Hampshire to elect ‘gay friendly’ legislatures that they know will force gay marriage on the electorate whether they like it or not. Oh, and the voters of Iowa WILL repeal their gay marriage law as soon as they are legally allowed, as will those in New Hampshire. No trying to get people fired for expressing their religious views, like the employee who was prompted over and over again about his opinion on gay marriage by a supervisor, I think it was, and then was fired for saying what he thought, clearly and simply with no rancor or anger, but his simple disagreeing response was called hate speech. Stop the reprehensible retaliation against people who disagree with you like one of the hotel owners here in San Diego who has continually been targeted for protests and boycotts because he PERSONALLY donated to support Prop 8. No one should EVER face retribution for expressing their own political beliefs, contributions, or votes. And stop trying to lie about the real reason you insist on having the names of donors or signers of petitions to promote traditional marriage revealed, which is ALWAYS so they can be the targets of retaliation and retribution, Oh, and no vandalizing and destroying church property because you didn’t get the vote you wanted. No stopping arrests for public sex under the guise that such arrests between gays or lesbians would be ‘discriminatory.’ Stop lying that children do equally well in gay-’parent’ homes. There may be exceptions, but kids deserve both a mom and a dad! Oh, and mainly just quit promoting the biggest lie of all: that the Bible is either silent on the question of homosexuality or approves it. Sorry – one more: Quit lying that there is no gay agenda. If you REALLY think that, go read the book “After The Ball” that outlines it all, step by step.

WHEW! How’s that for a start?

Now I realize most gays and lesbians don’t support the behavior I described above. I honestly, really do know this. But as long as that behavior is condoned and approved by the GLBT community, I doubt gay marriage will ever be approved by the voters in any state.

Wow, Karen, I appreciate your taking the time to write all that and I feel I need to assure you, I did read it and more than once. I tried to find our common ground and couldn’t get past the few points that just were based on misinformation. I want to dialog with you and yet this is going like most conversations I have had. In my eyes, from where I stand, what is the point? It is appears you made up your mind even if the information you have about GLBT is not quite on target. What could I say, you would hear? I fear, really I do fear that nothing I say would be heard. I could take the time to rebut all of your comments and why would I do that if your mind is made up? Where will that get us?

So again, I give up. There is nothing I can say, you will hear. I can assure you many of my gay and lesbian friends feel the same. I have nothing I feel I can say you will even consider, so I fall to silence and hope the courts will hear us.

Thanks!
-joe

I add, as an afterthought to you Karen, I am willing to spend some time with you. Come meet me and my partner. Learn about us and out struggles and joys in life. Find out first hand what gay couples are fighting for. We are that scary! We are actually boring as all sh*** but you are welcome to come spend time with us. See us for who we are and what we want. Ask us anything you need to ask to understand us. I am game…..

“Okay, I’ll bite: No teaching kids that gay behavior is ‘normal’. ”

So instead we should tell the young gay boy or girl that their abnormal and need to be “fixed”??

“No suing doctors that don’t want to provide fertility services to lesbian couples. ”

Only if straight couples don’t get to sue either.

“No suing wedding photographers for not wanting to photograph a gay marriage – and asking them to do that just so you can sue.”

No argument there..I’m sure the photographer will win the case.

“No trying to force Christian clubs to accept gays in positions of leadership just to destroy the club.

As long as the Christian club doesn’t take any public funding, or meet in a public building. I don’t have a problem with it. But I do…if my tax dollars go toward support clubs that discriminate.

“No teaching teenagers that gay sex is okay – or giving them instructions on how to do it!

Teenagers are going to have sex…gay or straight. Wouldn’t you rather they get information on how to do it safely? Or are you okay with the spread of HIV and teen pregnancy?

“No lying to people about what your REAL agenda is when running for political office.”

LOL..Okay when straight politicians do that too.

“No playing the “hate crimes” card when you are the victim of a real crime that has nothing to do with being targeted for being gay.”

Well at least you admit that there are sometimes crimes that are committed against gay people for no other reason than that they are gay. That’s a small step.

“No lying that gay marriage is the ultimate end, when you know full well the intent is to destroy the very concept of monogamy within marriage and redefine marriage as whatever you want it to be.”

Which is exactly what you’re doing. You’re defining marriage as they way you want it to be…even though marriage has changed over time.

“Stop trying to use my tax dollars to pay for sex-change procedures. Stop trying to promote the idea that being gay is ‘normal’ in the media, and quit trying to desensitize people to the real lifestyle.”

Okay…when you stop using my tax dollars to allow discrimination. Stop telling me that I’m not NORMAL when I know that I am. Stop trying to rally people against gay men and women, by spreading lies.

“Quit retaliating against those who have left the gay lifestyle and are trying to let others know that it’s possible to do that.”

Fine…just as long as they don’t lie about it. Being celibate and being straight are two different things. Also, being bisexual…is a whole other kettle of fish that…is ignored…these former gays who have gone straight…are simply former bisexuals who have gone straight. I can assure you as a 59 year old man, I’ve never EVER been attracted to the opposite sex.

“Stop letting Tim Gill and the HRC buy elections like they did in Iowa and New Hampshire to elect ‘gay friendly’ legislatures that they know will force gay marriage on the electorate whether they like it or not.”

Again, you are asking Gay organizations not to do …what straight organizations do all the time. Double Standard. You don’t get to have it both ways.

“Stop the reprehensible retaliation against people who disagree with you like one of the hotel owners here in San Diego who has continually been targeted for protests and boycotts because he PERSONALLY donated to support Prop 8.”

Okay…when all the religious organizations and anti-gay groups stop their hateful boycotts against companies and people that support gay rights.

“And stop trying to lie about the real reason you insist on having the names of donors or signers of petitions to promote traditional marriage revealed, which is ALWAYS so they can be the targets of retaliation and retribution, Oh, and no vandalizing and destroying church property because you didn’t get the vote you wanted.”

There called “sunshine laws” for a reason. When the sun shines on things you can see them for what they truly are. I think the people who are afraid to have their names revealed are afraid to be called bigots…retribution has nothing to do with it.

“Oh, and no vandalizing and destroying church property because you didn’t get the vote you wanted. ”

How many times has this happened? And are you sure it wasn’t straights doing it to make gays look bad?

“No stopping arrests for public sex under the guise that such arrests between gays or lesbians would be ‘discriminatory.’ ”

Where has this happened?

“Stop lying that children do equally well in gay-’parent’ homes. There may be exceptions, but kids deserve both a mom and a dad!”

So…we should remove children from the homes of divorced or widowed parents…and put them into homes with a Mom and a Dad. Because that’s what’s best?

“Oh, and mainly just quit promoting the biggest lie of all: that the Bible is either silent on the question of homosexuality or approves it.”

Why should the Bible enter into it at all? The Bible is full of fornication, adultery, plural marriages and a whole hosts of things that are disapproved of today. If anyone wants to use the bible in a discussion of marriage…they had damn well better be prepared to cite the passages on divorce…and being a virgin before marrying.

“Quit lying that there is no gay agenda.”

LOL…one persons writings…constitute a “gay agenda”. Does that mean if I quote the writings of that nutcase from “God Hates Fags” that I can call it the “straight agenda”? Give me a break…the only agenda that I have…is to be treated equally.

@Taylor

How is it tyranny for the standard democratic process to be exercised to define marriage within a state, especially when there are processes and institutions in place to prevent and cruel or unjust treatment of individuals? You can call Iran’s so-called government a tyranny, and you can call Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a tyrant. I don’t like the way the Democrats in Congress are trying to force their version of healthcare on us, but I’m not calling them tyrannical or President Obama a tryant. That would be stretching the definition, and that’s precisely what I’m saying shouldn’t be done. The result of a majority vote isn’t tyrannical when it isn’t unjust or oppressive, and defining marriage cannot possibly be considered either, any more than it can be considered oppressive and unjust to make laws preventing polygamy or child marriage. If we can legislate what isn’t a valid marriage, why can’t we define what is marriage within our laws and constitutions? Why isn’t it tyranny when a small body of people (a state legislature or City Council) who have clearly, in some cases, stopped representing the people who elected them, get to force their own (our your) version of marriage on the rest of us against our will and against our vote. The answer is that it isn’t tyranny by any definition of the word for them to do so, and it is perfectly legal, but we can change those legislatures and governing bodies, and we will especially in Iowa and New Hampshire in the next election. It’s not so much that this country shouldn’t be governed by the rule of the majority, but it should be ruled by the consent of the governed, and that still means by the consent of the majority of voters.

But to answer the original question of this post about why we cannot redefine marriage, the best answer is, because the collective wisdom of the majority of us, based on everything from our faith to our life experience to, in some cases, our historical and social research, have led us to decide to define marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman. We have simply decided what is best in that regard for our country and our society and have said NO to efforts at deconstructing this very basic social institution. And in those states where the legislatures or courts have forced the redefinition of marriage on the voters without their consent, it won’t take long before the people get to have their voices heard by exercising their right to vote those who made this decision against their will out of office. Sometimes Democracy is slow to respond, but the people will be heard.

Laura, you linked to a pro-SSM page and not to the polls.

The surveys on how people felt about mixed-race marriages were not surveys on changing the law. So that page over-stretched to compare with how people think about changing the marriage law today.

How do you feel about ‘mixed-orientation’ marriages?

Whether you approve or disapprove, there is no heterosexual criterion for eligibility and no homosexual criterion for ineligiblity. And none that bars combinations.

As you might understand, a question about how you felt about ‘mixed-orientation’ marriages (or how you would feel about someone you know forming such a marriage) would be significantly different from a question about how you thought about the law.

Marriage integrates the sexes and is open to integrating regardless of sexual orientation. Marriage provides for responsible procreation; the sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity is vigorously enforced in our legal system. Together, these features of marriage combine to form the coherent whole — the core meaning of the social institution. And that core meaning has great societal significance such that society accords a special status.

That special reason for special status is not racial, nor sexual orientation, nor group identity.

So the Loving case actually stands against SSM rather than in its favor.

The Ridger, please provide links or cite the sources that back-up your assertions about Scandinavia.

Thanks.

Steve Barton,

The issue is marriage. You would like to change it to be all about gayness. Hence you miss the actual disagreement.

Joe Brummer said:

“So tell me what you need to hear? I pledge to do my best to fulfill they need.”

I’ve a standard list of questions you might answer. If you are willing to walk through them, I am ready to walk at your side we might arrive at a mutual understanding of your view.

1.

In your view, is marriage a social institution? Please explain.

Taylor,

You said: “The tyranny of the majority, is the tyranny of the majority…no matter to who or what it is applied.”

For the sake of discussion, let’s limit ourselves to the form of government that exists in the United States of America.

We use majorities to make decisions. We do so with elections; and in legislatures; and even where panels of judges make decisions. Checks and balances exist throughout our system but first we rely on self-restraint. We don’t bank on it, of course, but we expect people to want to make their best case and then to let the majority decide, one way or the other. And then we live with the result of that process.

So, I guess, my first point, Taylor, is that I doubt you are against all majorities and that you don’t truly believe that the only alternative to majority rule is tyranny of the majority.

You would not favor minority rule in almost all instances of decision making. You would not favor a system in which Supreme Court decisions, for example, were always decided by the minority of justices — or the smaller the minority the better.

Even where we have instituted a requirement for the super-majority, it is as a check on the majority but also an affirmation of majority rule.

Taylor said:

“You’re defining marriage as they way you want it to be…even though marriage has changed over time.”

And are you not for changing marriage to what you want it to be? Sure.

The is a core that has remained even as other aspects have changed. Our laws directly express that core but the SSM arguments attack it. SSM supporters spend a great deal of time and effort making very weak assertions about what marriage is not, rather than just saying what SSM is.

And by, SSM, I just mean, the type of relationship you have in mind. What are its essentials such that without that it would not be that type of relationship? These essentials must exist before you pin a license and accord a special status to it. And these essentials must distinguish SSM from other types of relationships that are not SSM and are not the union of husband and wife.

The SSM campaign fails to do any of that. It looks like there is nothing essential to SSM that does not also apply to the rest of the broad non-marriage category. There appears to be no special reason for the special status that advocates demand for SSM.

That leads me to believe that the purpose of those arguments is not to change marriage, but to abolish its core meaning from the law, social policy, and even the culture.

But perhaps advocates of SSM here will fill in the gaps and explain the type of relationship they have in mind when they refer to SSM — or to “marriage”.

Taylor,

Did you just equate Gill and the HRC with Phelps? Karen did not do that, and I would not, but you gave the impression in your reply that you thought the comparison was apt.

If you want to deny that there is a gay agenda, okay, but there are plenty of groups out there who wrap themselves in the rainbow flag and push the items on that agenda every day.

@Karen Grube
So…it’s simply about the “collective wisdom” of the majority? Hmmm….the collective wisdom of this country at one time, allowed slavery, prohibited women from voting, didn’t allow for inter-racial marriage, and permitted child-labor, among other things. Are you saying that “collective wisdom” of this country is always right? Is always just? Is always they way it should be, simply because the majority believe it to be so?

If that’s the case…don’t be surprised in the not too distant future. The official language of America, just might be Spanish. Because in a few short years, Hispanics will be the majority population and I bet there collective wisdom will tell them, that since the country is now a Hispanic nation, Spanish should be it’s official language.

I wonder if all of those who only speak English…will simply say OK. Or if they might try to take on the “collective wisdom”, and fight for their rights to speak English?

“Collective Wisdom” is certainly a subjective term. Especially the “wisdom” part.

I see that you don’t allow contrary comments to be posted.

Wister, have you read any of these comments? You must not have. We don’t allow comments that are just down-right rude, crass, crude, or off topic, if that’s what you mean.

Chairm :
Joe Brummer said:
“So tell me what you need to hear? I pledge to do my best to fulfill they need.”
I’ve a standard list of questions you might answer. If you are willing to walk through them, I am ready to walk at your side we might arrive at a mutual understanding of your view.
1.
In your view, is marriage a social institution? Please explain.

Yes, I do believe marriage is a social institution. I also believe it goes beyond that. Marriage throughout its history has had social implications and status. It also has legal protections for couples that help them face challenges in life, such as illness, job loss, financial stability, etc….So, yes it is a social institution and that is only one part of the whole.

@Taylor

I’ll reply to a few of your comments. There are so many, but I’ll try.

In San Francisco, Mayor Newsom specifically told the cops to NOT arrest gay couples having sex in public because to do so would be discriminatory.

Wedding photographers and caterers have been targeted by gay couples for lawsuits in several states, and in several instances, the photographers and caterers lost their companies, as have medical practices who declined to perform fertilization procedures for lesbian couples. That was a direct, specific attack on these companies and the faith of their owners, and it was totally unnecessary and retaliatory, since there were more than enough services available that would accomodate those couples.

There is a huge difference between boycotting a company that used their profits to support a particular cause you don’t support and boycotting an individual for his or her personal support of an issue in order to destroy their employer’s business or get them fired, and that’s what has happened in California in particular. On the other hand a company that uses the money I spend with them or a large corporation like an electricity provider that I have little choice but to purchase service from, that uses MY money to support repealing a law I voted for, is a valid target for a boycott. An individual is not.

The book I mentioned, After the Ball, is cited time after time by gay activist groups as the main textbook, if you will, of this current so-called ‘gay rights’ movement. I’m not the one who called it that, they are, and it clearly outlines legal strategies, legislative strategies, and media strategies to try to promote the acceptance of the gay lifestyle and the normalization and legitimaztion of gay marriage.

I call it retribution when my name along with the name of every contributor to Protect Marriage is listed on SEVERAL gay activist websites and we are all labelled haters and bigots and those reading the site are urged to call our employers to complain. The intent of this is so that prospective employers will see that label and refuse to hire us, or our current employer would refuse to give us a promotion or raises we’re up for. On the other hand, there were absolutely NO sites where there were lists of individuals who contributed to Equality California. And no one was fired or forced to leave their job for contributing to Equality California. Still, this is the specific reason these lists of signers and donors are being demanded. Again, no one is doing this on the opposite side. It’s only part of the gay activist strategy book, and this intimidation is absolutely reprehensible!

In California, several churches were vandalized after the Prop 8 vote. It’s public record.

It was very clear that the HRC bought the decision of Governor Lynch of New Hampshire to change his mind on gay marriage. Officials from the HRC from out of state were the only ones surrounding him as he signed their gay marriage bill into law. My only hope is the that the voters of New Hampshire don’t forget how they were lied to in the next election, despite the flood of money that will come to his campaign from gay activist groups in payback.

Organizations that simply try to let others know that it is possible to successfully leave the gay lifestyle have been targeted over and over again and been refused the chance to speak at conferences on these issues. Gay activist organizations have pulled out all the stops to prevent them from being invited, threatening protests and to pull financial support if their point of view wasn’t silenced.

Well, that’s a few . . . Again, I know these actions aren’t the work of the majority of the GLBT community, but only people like Fred Karger, Tim Gill, and organizations like the HRC and the Gill Foundation. That’s a shame, because actions like theirs only serve to create animosity and resentment.

Joe,

You said that marriage is a social institution.

What social implication (or set of social implications) give marriage its coherence as a social institution?

Chairm,
Like I said in the other post. This isn’t feeling like a dialog to me. This feels like a debate where you ask loaded questions hoping to elicit some particular answer that proves what you want to prove. I am not interested nor do I find such debates helpful to anyone. In short, I am not playing! If this was a conversation about your feelings and beliefs about marriage and you had a genuine interest in my attitudes and feelings and most important my experiences as a human, I might be interested but I personally don’t feel that is your intention.

Sorry, not playing.
-Joe

Chairm :
Steve Barton,
The issue is marriage. You would like to change it to be all about gayness. Hence you miss the actual disagreement.

And I say you are claiming that the issue is marriage, even framing it as an issue of a “definition,” whereas it really is all about gayness. Pretending that the “definition” is uber-critical to society simply avoids the big elephant in the room, that opponents of SSM simply believe that gay people are inferior to straight people. Otherwise society would encourage gay people to settle down and integrate into such long-valued and important institutions as marriage and family.

Joe,

So far you have been pretty poor at mindreading and so you probably should just learn to read what is actually said and when replying just focus on that instead phantoms.

Steven,

I don’t think that a gay person is inferior. You on the other hand immediately assume that I am inferior because you disagree with me about marriage.

Indeed, you even disparage the very notion of starting with what makes marriage, marriage. That’s too bad. You have burned bridges by doing that.

My dear Chairm, disagreement does not render either party inferior. However, if I were to advocate against your civil rights then you might conclude that I think you are inferior or undeserving. Yet I would steadfastly maintain that I have no animus toward you and that the whole matter is merely one of how said civil right is defined, and that, sadly, by definition you don’t quality. Somehow, it would all ring rather hollow.

Well said, Jennifer. Marriage is marriage is marriage. I believe personally it was institution to protect both the dignity of womankind as well as to protect children. Have a child out of wedlock and you are on your own.

But if you marry into a family you have grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins to help you raise your children and to fill in the parents are ill or deceased. There was very little chance our children would be orphans even if my wife or I were to die. We had a number of responsible and loving adults “in reserve”. That is the great part about godparents, aunts and uncles as well as cousins. They are people you love and trust and most of all they are people OUR CHILDREN LOVE AND TRUST.

It means a lot to me to know my children would not be alone in this world but would always have someone to help them and somewhere where they could go.

That’s what marriage gives kids at its best. It’s not about me. It’s not just about two people. It’s about family and the most important part of marriage will always be the children. I have relatives who are married but childless. But the very fact that they are childless makes them very different from us; it is almost as if their marriage were never consumated. In any case since their marriage produced no nephews, nieces, grandchildren or cousins it became less important to our family. It’s not that we don’t love them but let’s face it they are not part of our families’ future and their lifestyle makes them less likely to visit or to be close to our children. I could go on ad infinitum. They never coach AYSO soccer or Little League. They never join the PTA. They aren’t interested in Selective Service. And so on. And since they have no children they have drifted away from all of us to some extent.

Only marriage and children make for a vibrant family. The happiest families have children and grandchildren in abundance.

Dear Richard Munro. Woah. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Marriage was used as ownership of women for the majority of history. It wasn’t for womens dignity, they were property (this is especially true of the upper classes) The idea of marrying for love is very recent. Lets not have personal beliefs get in the way of facts.
But, by your definition is adoption inferior to biologically having children, or is just having children what counts? If children are what makes a marriage a marriage, then a loving gay couple and their parents and relatives would still make for a happy loving family for an adopted child, wouldn’t it?

Steve,

You confirmed that you do deem those who disagree with you to be inferior. No dancing around that, sir.

If the right is not defined, then, you cannot possibly claim it. That is obvious and you are dancing around that, sir.

nerdygirl, your asserted *belief* about marriage as “ownership of women for the majority of history” is a bold dogma but it runs counter to the historical and anthropological record.

However, sure, the modern tradition of romantic love is relatively recent. It is the tradition upon which the SSM campaign depends, utterly, even as it argues that tradition is insufficient reason for marriage law.

But you did not accurately represent what was actually said by Richard Munro.

Chairm: Ah, because political marriages were entirely about the dignity of women and the combined happiness of the couple. “Lie back and think of England” is very dignified after all. And the fact that women couldn’t inherit or own property for the majority of civilization means there were no ulterior motives on the suitors part. And lets not forget, the father was the deciding factor in all marriages, his approval was key. I think you should back up your historical and anthropological record you say I’m breaking. (Actual evidence would say I’m a little right and you’re a little right).

Your second paragraph makes little sense. SSM argues that marriage is a bond between two people, and is an inherent right as a human being. Romantic love is a part of it, but only because society has evolved to the point where it’s unthinkable to marry for a reason other then love.

Richard Munro’s comment doesn’t sit well with me. I’m sure he has a happy family, but the idea that a marriage is less of a marriage because they don’t have kids is, well, insulting. His definition of family is only as thick as blood. It’s insulting to suggest that his relatives who do not have kids are representative of all childless marriages. Plenty of childless couples donate and give their time to communities and children of the community, and plenty of parents don’t lift a finger outside their house. It takes a village to raise a child.

nerdygirl, good of you to you walk back your original dogmatic assertion.

* * *

My second paragraph makes sense and your “unthinkable” serves as an example of what I had observed.

In any case, there are plenty of bonds between two people — or more people — which are not marriage. Your own remark indicates that in your view romance is insufficient — it is merely “a part of it”.

Marriage is a social institution. Societal significance runs much deeper and goes much farther than the personal motivations of this or that particular person who forms a conjugal union of husband and wife. So instead of your focus on the private concerns of romance, you might look at the bigger picture of the social institution’s core meaning for all of society. It ain’t romance and nothing but romance.

Each society draws boundaries around the core of marriage. These are the lines for eligiblity and ineligiblity. If it was a human right, then, society would not be permitted to bar some related people (but not all related people), some previously married people (but not all previously married people), some underaged people (but not all underaged people), or simply — some consenting people (but not all consenting people). Also, it is hard to reconcile the notion of the government license being the trigger for a human right. The right to marry begins with what marriage actually is — with its core meaning — and governing authorities are empowered to regulate eligiblity based on that core meaning. The lines are drawn around something and are not arbitrary.

* * *

You again mischaracterized Richard Munro’s comment.

Free speech is a human right, and yet some societies restrict it more then others. The right to worship as a person chooses is also a human right, and yet some societies ban or kill practitioners of certain religions. The right to vote is a human right, and yet some societies ban women or people of a different race from voting. American society is guilty of restricting most of these rights, and later expanding them as society changed. Is it right to restrict voting or free speech to one gender? Of course not. As society continues to grow it’s attitude towards same sex marriage will change, and lessen.
I attended a wedding today that stated marriage is the forming of one person by two. I just don’t understand why gender falls into that. I don’t see why two men can’t join as one the same a man and a woman can. I’d think it’s more about the individuals then the gender.

Chairm: I just wanted to add to your thought that governments are empowered BY THE PEOPLE – at least this government is – to regulate eligibility for the legal contract of marriage (including its benefits and protections) based on our core definition of marriage. And the majority of the people of this country, whenever they have been asked, have chosen to define marriage as being between one man and one woman and to create reasonable restrictions based on age, ability to consent, family relationship, etc. That is, it isn’t just governments that do this. They do so at the behest of the voters.

WE, every single one of us who votes or who supports candidates who share our values, are the ones who create this core definition for our society, and we as a society are not likely to change that, no matter how much pressure there is from minority activist groups or even how, in a few cases, they’ve successfully blustered their way through our courts or legislatures, it will not remain. The voters will not be silenced on this issue, as well they shouldn’t be. WE are the government. This is OUR choice, and we make it for as many varied reasons as there are individuals; religious, social, personal, logical, legal. . . . all of that. I hope that makes sense. We make this decision every time we mark a ballot or send in a political donation. We may not feel particularly empowered at this moment, but we really are by our Constitution. It’s just that most people don’t realize how much power they really have – how much power their vote gives them – what a responsibility it is.

nerdygirl, the eligibility boundaries are based on what marriage actually is. Society justly discriminates between marriage and other stuff. Drawing the boundaries is not an arbitrary act of government, as your remarks suggested it is in your viewpoint.

As Karen noted in your latest comment, society “create reasonable restrictions”; and what makes them reasonable is the societal concern for the core meaning of this social institution.

Tell you what. If you believe that marriage is SSM, then, tell us the core meaning of SSM such that can be recognized as different from other types of relationships and arrangements that you would exclude as ineligible. I mean, this is not just about pinning the label, marriage, to a gaycentric version of the one-sexed arrangement. You really need to state the essentials of what makes it special such that it merits a special status in our society.

* * *

Karen, I think that no society can create the wisdom that has accumulated throughout human history and across the anthropological record; this is something we inherit — just as we’ve inherited the social institution of marriage.

What each society can do — with or without government by the People — is protect and foster the core meaning of marriage and bequeath it to future generations. Or, we can go the way of regressive societies that abandon sex integration and responsible procreation in favor of alternative ideas that fail and harm society’s future generations.

SSMers tend to think that our society, here today, is superior in every way to all previous civilizations. They don’t value the accumulated wisdom in our foundational social institutions, such as marriage, at least not to the extent that they value their own relatively recent “discoveries” in terms of incoherent dogma and ideologies.

So, we can stand, as a society, for marriage — or, tragically, against it. SSMers may have good intentions, and I think most soft supporters of SSM (who are most SSMers) really do believe they are intending the best of consequences for society, but they have a very lousy idea that theyh think is superior to the marriage idea.

Societies can make huge mistakes and ours is subject to the frailities of our unchanging human nature. The struggle is for the meaning of marriage and for the principled basis for society’s form of governance. The two things intersect big time on the SSM controversy.

All this is to say, yes I agree with your comment, and I am also concerned about the corruptive influence of the SSM campaign and its anemic yet harmful idea. One of the central strategies implemented by that campaign is to induce issue fatigue. Hence, as you alluded, even majorities in the right can begin to feel disempowered. To me it is a sign of further corruption of our system of government that the People feel that way — with good reason, sadly. We need to stand for marriage AND stand for good self-government.

Apologies for that typo:

“As Karen noted in her latest comment …”

@Chairm. I believe marriage is the joining of two people, two lives into one, into a partnership meant to last for the rest of one’s life. I don’t see the love between two men being any less pure or deserving of public support then the love between a man and a woman. Society has evolved, and with the increase in life expectancy, marriage has evolved from a socially acceptable way to pass along property, encourage procreation and determine paternity of children. It has taken on so many different aspects than it’s original definition. SSM isn’t different from hetero-marriage. It’s the same thing.

@nerdygirl
When two men or two women can create a child without a third-party donor, you get to call it a marriage. Until then, it isn’t! It just isn’t. Society hasn’t evolved THAT far yet, young lady! Face it!

Karen Grube: Okay, what about an infertile heterosexual couple? Can they be married? Are you suggesting that an infertile male or female is LESS of a person because they can’t naturally have children? Are they less deserving of a legally recognized relationship? Does a woman who can’t naturally carry a child to term still have to right to marriage? Does a man with low sperm count or “blanks” still have the right to marry the woman he loves?
If you can honestly say that infertile couples like homosexual couples cannot marry because they cannot biologically have children, then you win that point, but are excessively cruel. If heterosexual infertile couples still have the right to marry but homosexual couples don’t, then your point invalid. Really either way that definition loses.

I don’t mean to be mean. Really I don’t. But we as humans – indeed as mammals – are simply not capable of asexual reproduction. We are genetically wired that way. And because of that simple biological fact, despite the few genetic anomalies and the situations where adults are not capable of reproducing, we have created over millennia social institutions that protect and preserve our offspring and our families. Not only that, but we have learned of the centuries that the best, most successful environment for that is NOT the ‘communal’ family like multiple marriages, but a home with a mom and a dad. Again, absolutely no one is saying people can love anyone they wish or live with whomever they wish, but globally, over millennia, societies that have been the most successful and thrived are those that honored by their protective laws and ritual, the union of one man and one woman because it is the only physical union capable of producing offspring. Whether that union does that isn’t the point, but that is is the only one capable of doing that IS the point, which is why we honor it an protect it and give it legitimacy with our laws and our traditions. This is simply not going to change.

Karen, you can’t have it both ways. By your definition of marriage children must be born. Either it’s required or its not.
Besides, if all heterosexual marriage has going for its defense is laws and traditions, well, refer back to my comment on restricted access to free speech, freedom of worship, and voting rights that societies (including our own) justified based on laws and traditions. Thats not an answer, it’s an excuse.

What I said was that the union of one man and one woman is the only union capable of producing offspring without a third-party donor, and that whether or not that union DOES produce offspring – or even CAN do so – is less important than protecting the only union that CAN produce offspring naturally. This isn’t a complex concept. It’s a biological fact no one can ignore. We protect natural marriage because it is the only union capable of producing offspring without interference. But my point is equally that successful societies over millennia have protected that union, and that we do so naturally. We are instinctively nurturing of the social structures that preserve our species, and we do so through protective laws and regulations and traditions. This country didn’t invent that. We do this and CHOOSE to do it because centuries of experience show it to be successful. I don’t mean to say that we always make a logical choice like that, but I am saying that our instincts and human nature (that we are overwhelmingly born two distinct separate genders) inform our social choices. And right now, we choose traditional marriage over anything else, except where we are prevented from doing so by those trying to force us to redefine marriage. What I’m saying is that the justification for our choices and our laws and traditions recognizing and preserving traditional, natural marriage is in our genetic makeup, our human nature. THAT is the source of the instincts that lead us to these laws and traditions. We should always recognize the strength of any loving and caring relationship. No question. But in terms of the protections provided by society in legitimizing and benefitting relationships, we have chosen to protect and benefit most the one relationship that can naturally preserve our species.

Sorry, I wanted to clarify one sentence

What I said was that the union of one man and one woman is the only union capable of producing offspring without a third-party donor, and that whether or not THE UNION OF A SPECIFIC MAN AND WOMAN DOES produce offspring – or even CAN do so – is less important than protecting the only union generally that CAN produce offspring naturally.

Karen, many successful societies protected things like slavery, as it was “tradition” and the “natural order”. It was built upon hundreds of years of tradition, experience and “success” even. Laws were passed to protect slavery.
I personally believe more in nurture than nature. I think the differences between men and women are not really that significant, but we are socialized to exaggerate them. Of course, thats really another debate.
Also, homosexuality is genetic. It does occur within nature. Approximately 10% of all species are homosexual. (God’s form of population control maybe?)
I don’t think society chose straight marriage, until now there wasn’t an option. Look at Oscar Wilde, gay man, married a woman, had two kids, had a boyfriend or two on the side. Not marrying wasn’t an option for the majority of people. It’s only within the last century that being gay is in any way acceptable to other people. And like many people said much earlier in the debate, this isn’t about being accepted by a church or other religious dogma, this is about civil marriage. This life partners not being able to provide health insurance to their partner, not being able to visit them in the E.R. etc. How is that bad for society?

nerdygirl :“I think the differences between men and women are not really that significant, but we are socialized to exaggerate them. ”

Gee, I don’t know, but I think we could start with our basic physiological differences, move on to hormomal, then psychological, then how we learn and how we communicate.

Just to be clear here, I’m talking simple biological and physiologocal differences. And just to be even more clear, here’s why racism and slavery were so wrong. Women, despite their racial background, have the same biology and physiology – the same basid genetic make-up, and so do men. In other words, gender makes men and women more dissimilar than race. Differences between men of different races are nothing compared to their differences to women of their same or another racial background. Racism and slavery got it wrong because it was based on an assumption of significant differences that do not exist scientifically. Despite the tiny number of situations where men and women are born with a genetic make-up where they cannot easily be categorized as men or women – where they have a mixed genetic make-up – it is STILL only the union of a man and a woman that can naturally produce children. And THAT is why we honor that union and protect it with our laws and even our traditions. In other words, there is a definite, unquestionably logical biological basis for this. It’s called the preservation of the species. Again, no one is saying people can’t live with and love whomever they wish, and no one is saying that that shouldn’t count for something in terms of property rights, insurance rights, etc. But we ARE saying that laws and traditions that define marriage are meant to protect natural marriage and natural procreation. And that should not and will not change the definition of marriage or the protections it guarantees.

But let me make this even clearer. This push for so-called gay ‘marriage’ has very little to do with marriage and everything to do with forcing the entire gay agenda on the rest of us. It’s all about using law books instead of baseball bats to push all the other kids off the playing field in order to change the rules so that only your side can win or even play. It’s all about shutting down opposition to the gay agenda whether it’s based on religion or social history or even logic. The theory is that if you can legitimize gay ‘marriage’ then all the rest falls into place. No Biblical teaching against the homosexual lifestyle, no saying that allowing so-called ‘married’ gays in the military to live in tax-payer subsidized married housing would be disruptive to our national defense, no saying little boys who identify themselves as little ‘girls’ on any given day should still have to use the boys bathroom in public school, no saying that using taxpayer dollars to pay for sex-change surgery is outrageous, no saying that gay men having sex in public should still be arrested even though some city mayors are calling that ‘discriminatory.’ I’m sorry, but the things that many gay activist groups are pushing for, including each and every one of these, are simply unacceptable, and we as voters have chosen to draw the line at the definition of marriage. We’ll deal with the rest of this later, but strongly and definitively saying what marriage IS is a terrific first step.

Yes, there are physiological differences between men and women, but there are physiological differences within both genders. I prefer to treat people as individuals, not as a caricature of their gender. And yes, biology is the reason why marriage WAS encouraged and protected, but these are modern times, the human race isn’t dying out anytime soon, and as children are necessary for marriage (your definition) there is no reason that tradition of biology needs to enter into the debate for civil marriage. As marriage is necessary for most of those rights mentioned already, then yes, you are passing judgement and you are keeping people from living with those they love.

As far as the “gay agenda” goes, there are crazy fringe elements to every movement, and they get the most attention. “Crazy Christians” and “Bra-burning Feminists” come to mind. Very few of those people exist, but they get all the media attention. The majority of christians are reasonable and kind, the majority of feminists are reasonable and not the man hating stereotype the media makes them out to be. The majority of gays are reasonable as well. There is little to no Biblical teaching against homosexuality as there are translation errors and all besides the 10 commandments were cast aside with the new covenant. The idea a life partner shouldn’t be allowed to take part of military housing is bigoted. Transgender kids is a sticky issue that can’t be easily explained away in a sentence. There should be at least one handicap/single person bathroom that a kid could use as an easy fix. I’m not going to argue with you about the sex-change operation. public sex is public sex regardless of gender, cops should treat all cases the same, possibly crazy mayors aside.

I am not satisfied with your definition of marriage. You seem to be sure about what it excludes (homosexuality) but I feel that your actual definition of what it includes would cancel out a lot of current heterosexual marriages as well. Would that be right or just? I just don’t buy that in this day and age, tradition is justification alone, especially when that defense has failed in response to other discriminating practices.

Well, in this case these “Crazies” on the gay-marriage side are being funded by Tim Gill and few other ultra-wealthy activists and organizations like the HRC. They’ve been able to buy state elections and fund very expensive litigations in order to force gay marriage through a few courts and legislatures. In other words, these ‘crazies’ aren’t a few innocuous big mouths. They are well-funded and don’t really care what the rest of the gay community wants. They can hardly be classified as ‘a few crazies.’

I have never said people can’t live with whom they love. I HAVE said same-sex couples should not have the same protections and benefits as opposite-sex couples, and for all the reasons I pointed out. I do think that certain protections and benefits are sensible and appropriate, but not marriage and not ‘parental’ rights to a child that isn’t theirs biologically when a gay couple splits! There’s just something wrong with that.

I did NOT speak simply about tradition. I cited very solid biological and very real gender-related reasons why we need to continue supporting traditional, natural marriage. My ony definition of marriage is one man and one woman who can legally consent and are of legal age. How does that leave out any heterosexual couple? You’re assertion that this is somehow “this day and age” and “modern times” is absolutely no excuse for disregarding centuries of social history and, more importantly, the inbred human need to procreate! That is our most basic instinct! Political correctness will never trump human biology and physiology. Our bodies just weren’t made that way. And I’m not even going into the area of the Biblical stand on homosexuality, except to agree that many people do support traditional marriage for that reason.

I was getting a bit confused, but a lot of heterosexual marriages don’t conform to the stereotypical example held up here. There are childless (even by choice) couples, there are atheist and agnostic couples, there are straight people with open marriages, and who can resist pointing out the get-trashed-in-Vegas-then-marry-and-divorce-48-hours-later ones.

You throw away my assertions that tradition and social history used as justification for restriction free speech, voting rights, and allowing slavery as irrelevant, yet stand by the tradition of marriage.
The inbred need to procreate is an inbred need for sex. And there is a difference. After all, a gay person is governed by the same instincts as a straight person, but being gay, chooses a partner of the same sex, which as you have stated before, can not lead to procreation. As gay people are not asexual, the need to procreate isn’t as inherit as the need for sex. Marriage came about to protect bloodlines and property. Should we encourage going back only allowing property to be inherited by male heirs? Should dowries become required again? Should we go back to arranged marriages, let the parents decide whats best for the family standing and finances, and not their child’s happiness? These are tradition after all.

The Chinese supported same-sex unions before the spread of christian missionaries.
http://books.google.com/books?id=1ha9GgWNmy0C&pg=PT267#v=onepage&q=&f=false
So, while not common, (although greek and roman societies had them as well) especially not in western cultures, they did exist and were protected.

Many people who support traditional marriage because of the bible would be shocked by what else the Bible supports if they were to read it.

I wouldn’t use China as a model for same-sex marriage. This is a country that routinely aborts baby girls in favor of boy children and limits the number of children being born to families. Very bad example of how a society should treat marriage and the family.

I’m not sure where you come up with dowries and arranged marriages when it comes to this discussion at all. The question here is why we cannot redefine marriage. The current basic, generally agreed-upon definition is the union of one man and one woman. Whether there have been other random types of relationships legitimized in older socieities isn’t the point. I’ve given you several basic reasons why marriage cannot be redefined; biological, the need for society to protect and nurture children, the fact that no child can be naturally conceived outside of that realtionship. Why should this not be overwhelmingly sufficient to say that this is something we should protect? People are free to live with and love whom they wish, but society has an obligation to protect the one union critical to our preservation and our success; marriage as the union of one man and one woman. And we do this with our laws in particular. And we as a people have agreed by our vote and our laws that this is what we want. We have also sought to preserve the dignity and rights of other kinds of relationships through domestic partnership laws in nearly every state. But we will ultimately simply not allow this very basic relationship to be redefined, despite the pressure to do so from very well-financed gay activist groups. I’m sorry, this simply isn’t going to happen generally, and in the few places where it has, the voters will take whatever steps are needed to see that traditional marriage is voted back into law.

……..Yes, and China also denies it’s past support (like centuries ago past, did you bother to read?) of same sex unions. The examples you bring up are a part of modern China, and are pretty irrelevant to the debate and point I was making.

But marriage has been redefined over the years. It was a business transaction. It is now, in our society, a partnership based on love and respect. Love and respect know no gender. The human race was procreating before marriage came into practice. Domestic partnerships are a step in the right direction, towards marriage. Separate but equal, isn’t equal. It’s not right to deny a basic right to someone because of gender or race, why should orientation be any different? It’s not like they have a choice. And our constitution protects the rights of the oppressed from popular vote, which is why the Jim Crow laws were overturned, and why woman’s suffrage passed. Same sex marriage will be no different.

No one said people can’t love whom they wish or live with whom they wish. Like it or not, I’ve already taken the time to explain VERY CLEARLY why same-sex marriage will not become the law of the land. Mainly, because we have chosen as a society to vote for laws to protect and nurture the only union that can produce children and the one union that can most successfully nurture them. I’ve also explained why laws against interracial marriage were wrong. Aside from individual cases, men and women of different races can produce children but two women and two men absolutely cannot do so without the interference of a third party. Oh, and if separate but equal is so wrong, then why did someone in New Jersey sue eHarmony and bluster them, out of fear of more lawsuits, into creating an alternate gay dating site? I guess separate but equal is okay when it’s what you want and when it comes to hooking up, but not when it comes to one of our most significant institutions, marriage.

Nerdygirl, as much as I appreciate your passion for honoring love and commitment in all kinds of relationships, you’re still not getting it. This push for gay marriage is only marginally about marriage, but more about forcing the entire gay agenda on all of us, whether we want it or not. And we have chosen to stop this for now at gay marriage wherever we have been given the chance for our voices to be heard.

Separate but equal is wrong. I don’t know the specifics, but it sounds like that person in NJ had a stick up their butt. It happens on both sides. I don’t see this gay agenda being pushed on society, I more see a how-about-we-stop-hurting-people-for-being-different agenda. More of a, don’t fire someone because they’re gay, don’t beat someone to a bloody pulp because they crossdress, don’t kill or abuse someone because they’re transgendered.
I know actual people who have purchased engagement rings, have purchased houses together, who are talking about adoption (Children are important. As someone with a crappy biological dad and a fantastic step-father, I despise when people who talk about parenting as if biology is everything. It’s not. At. All. Being married doesn’t make someone a good parent, being genetically linked doesn’t make someone a good parent, being female doesn’t mean you’ll be a good mother and being male doesn’t mean you’ll be a good father. As far as I’m concerned, my bio-father may as well be dead, he was never there for me and when he was around the lasting memories are of pain. There is no reason why children shouldn’t know, or be able to know who their biological parents are. But a parent is more then who provided half of a fertilized egg, and acting as if thats the best way to start parenthood is demeaning to the millions of wonderful people out there who raise children who are not related to them as if they were their own.) I guess in short, I just want to be able to dance at my friends weddings, regardless of their orientation. I just want them to be able to make that public commitment that so many take for granted.

nerdygirl,

You said what you feel marriage is.

A. the joining of two people

B. meant to last for the rest of one’s life

But why the limit of two? And why a lifetime?

The one-sexed scenario lacks the other sex; it is defined by the number one, not the number two. But the opposite-sexed basis of marriage is binary and not sex-neutral. The provison for responsible procreation explains the expectation of a lifetime relationship between husband and wife. Indeed, the sexual basis for marriage is not sex-neutral and as such makes the unity of the sexes — of husband and wife — normative throughout the culture. It has an overflow effect on courtship and evenn on nonmarital sexual relationships. The flow does not go the other direction.

* * *

And love? You just got through attacking Karen’s remarks regarding the centrality of procreation. You said it is either legally required or it is not.

Does SSM come with a legal requirement for love? Nope. So drop the love talk.

Merging SSM with marriage is actually not evolution but a regression to a pre-marriage situtation. The merger destroys the core meaning of the social institution.

Whatever “different aspects” you might count on, the core remains the same. The fact that there are variable features of marriage does not negate the universal features of the social institution across time, geography, religions (and no religions), cultures, and history.

SSM is “same-sex” not homosexual. You are making an assumption that SSM is definitively homosexual. But, again to use your attack on what Karen has said above, there is no legal requirement for homosexuality anyplace where people might show up for a license to SSM.

So drop the homosexual talk.

And in marriage law there is no straight criterion for eligibility nor gay criterion for ineligiblity. Marriage integrates the sexes and does this combined with provision for responsible procreation.

So drop the gay identity politics talk.

The law requires the participation of both sexes. It requires consent to the marital presumption of paternity. Its sexual basis is embedded in consummation, annulment provisions, adultery-divorce, and of course the criteria for the vigorously enforced presumption that the husband (will be) is the father of his wife’s children. None of that applies to any one-sexed arrangement. Sexualized or not.

So drop the sexualization talk on SSM, too.

But, hey, if you want to make mandatory all of the stuff you said SSM is, then, point to the proposal that promises to do so with the impostion of SSM. If not, then, just recalibrate and use better arguments when you complain about the marriage law.

Afterall, the central theme of the pro-SSM complaint is that the marriage law is arbitrary. If you can’t justify special treatment (marital status is special status) with special reason, then, you have no place to stand in demanding that society take the extraordinary step of abolishing the core meaning of marriage. That core is the special reason for special status of the social institution.

But, if you think that gay identity or same-sex sexual behavior is of great societal significance, then, make it mandatory for those who’d show up to SSM. Make the sexual behavior the exact same for the all-male and the all-female versions. Don’t do a seperate is equal thing within SSM.

Gee, NerdyGirl, it most sounds as though a better solution would be encouraging good parenting skills and instilling in those who marry real family values. I know that phrase gets trashed a lot, but here I mean it in the best sense. Dads and Moms need to value themselves and their roles as parents. And married couples could learn a lot about supporting and being there for each other and valuing each other. Honestly, I think we’ve lost that in this selfish generation. That’s partly my fault, in a way. I think I was part of the generation that pushed for what amounted to license in the name of real freedom. REAL freedom means that you are free from the things that drag you down or the things inside that make you act in ways you don’t like about yourself. And no one said people can’t have their own commitment ceremonies. But laws that recognize natural marriage and protects it from being ‘dumbed down,’ are ones that need to stay in place. Just because some people are selfish and only act in their own self interest doesn’t mean we need to re-write the laws that protect and help nurture our next generations.

Charim, are you just afraid that heterosexuals are going to marry their other heterosexual best friends of the same gender if same-sex marriage is legalized? I mean, really, nothings stopping heterosexuals from marrying anyone of the opposite gender regardless of their stance on love, In fact there are no laws requiring anything beyond being of opposite genders. If we are not requiring love, desire or ability to procreate, or anything really beyond getting a blood test, is marriage actually special then, according to the law?

Karen. Actually, encouraging better parenting skills would be awesome. The main problem your movement in general faces, is that you get a nice politician, pretty wife and kids, goes on about how gay marriage is ruining family values and sinful, and then BAM. 6 months later he’s out of the closet or caught in an affair. No one wants to listen to a hypocrite. Also, people are born gay, so it IS NATURAL FOR THEM.
One can have freedom and still be responsible. And no one is free of blame for the selfishness of my generation.
Look, I just want my gay friends to get the same tax breaks and respect my straight friends will get. It doesn’t have to get religious, and pending the actual apocalypse, the human race isn’t dying of anytime soon, and god knows there are plenty of children in adoption and state who need good loving homes. I don’t think the laws protect and nurture future generations, I think parents and society do, and there’s no reason they can’t do that and be a little more open-minded and accepting of differences.

Born ‘gay’ or not, it’s all about one’s behavior – one’s choice of lifestyle. And, the reason we shouldn’t give the same tax breaks and other protections to same-sex couples is precisely because they don’t have the same capability or responsibility for bearing and raising their own natural-born children. And studies continue to show, that is when they are objective and aren’t biased, that children raised in a natural family with their real biological mother and father do better generally than kids raised in same-sex or even single-parent families. Adoption is a wonderful plan. Did you know that it is within the first two years of life that a child learns most of what it will ever lear about bonding with other people and creating close relationships? That’s incredible to me, and it’s another reason why we simply cannot and shouldn’t even try to redefine marriage. A lot of this has to do with the connectedness within traditional families that other family styles lose or just can’t include. I know our society isn’t giving real families the support they need, and that’s a shame. I am of the opinion that THAT’S where we need to start working on building a better society adn culture, NOT redefining marriage.

I wonder how much stigma a child of a single parent or of gay parents faces from their peers. I recall being teased for my parents divorce. I recall crying more then a few times about it. I can’t imagine the ridicule a child could face from their peers being raised by gay parents. In these objective studies how much was bullying factored in?
When I have time I’ll look into the studies more, but I don’t see how parental love is determined by gender.

I find it interesting you believe being gay and out of the closet is a choice. It sounds like in your world view it is better to live a lie then be honest with oneself.

“Gay Agenda” = The Desire for Equality under the Law. And I am so sick and tired of hearing about how marriage inequality is “good for the children” because “every child deserves a mother and a father.” PUKE. Tell that to my two-year old niece who is being raised by myself and my female partner because her mother is a drug addict and her father is a loser who doesn’t want anything to do with her. Tell that to my teenage daughter who has a mother, a father, a step-mother, and a second step-mother who ALL love and support her! Instead of talking about high-minded ideals based on gender stereotypes about men and women, why don’t we talk about the REAL kids of same-sex parents who are loved, nurtured and protected, but denied the equal protection of the benefits of marriage laws to which the children of straight parents are automatically entitled? Most importantly, WHY DO YOU PEOPLE CARE SO MUCH ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE’S LIVES AND OTHER PEOPLE’S HAPPINESS?!? You are hurting my life, you are hurting my children…FOR WHAT?

Heidi, I realize you must be focused on your family, but please realize that this push for gay marriage is very little about marriage and all about forcing the entire gay agenda on all of us. I’ll refer you to a book called “After the Ball” that was written a number of years ago but lays out the entire strategy for what’s happening now. It includes precise descriptions of getting the media to paint sympathetic gay characters rather than showing what the real gay community is like. It talks about basically telling people running for office to lie and say they haven’t made up their minds on gay marriage even though they really are in the pockets of the gay organizations that are supporting them, because they know that making it clear they support gay marriage will make their election difficult if not impossible. Oh, I almost forgot about the boycotts against those who support traditional marriage and co-opting nice-sounding terms like “Civil Rights” and “Equality” that once had real meaning as code for gay rights and the gay agenda, but using words like ‘hater’ and ‘bigot’ to describe anyone who disagrees with them

I won’t even go into the biography of Harvey Milk who was as much a child predator as anyone in jail for being one today, who lied through his teeth about his military record (that he was kicked out for being gay when he was not) to get elected, who lauded the idea that gays could – and should – have multipe partners and that young boys were part of the culture.

And need I go into the disgusting exibition called the “Folsom Street Fair” in San Francisco where Mayor Newsom ordered the cops not to arrest any gays for having public sex because to do would be discriminiatory!

How much more of this garbage are we supposed to take, Heidi? What part of ENOUGH IS ENOUGH do you not understand?