Escape from Rhode Island
A mother of young children wrote this story about what happened to her during the NOM rally yesterday in Providence.
Did you ever see that scene in one of the Narnia movies, where a battle is about to start and preparations are being made – when off in the distance there is a faint chanting and drumming? It grows louder and louder, till off in the distance the enemy is spotted. It’s terrifying. I’m not joking, the same thing happened to us yesterday in Rhode Island at the State Capitol. You see, Peter and I got this great idea to go a Rhode Island rally and support our counterparts in the defense of traditional marriage and visit our friends the Brown Family who would also be there. How was I to know that simply attending a “permitted” event – i.e., we had a permit, to show our support for traditional marriage would end with my family having to be escorted to our minivan by the police for our own protection.
You see, instead of wild enchanted animals drumming and preparing for battle, it was homosexuals in red shirts (and red-faced) with bullhorns and waving rainbow umbrellas. At least that is all I could see at first . . . just wave after wave of red shirts and rainbow umbrellas. It would have been comical if they were not all chanting and stomping their feet in unison coming around the capitol building toward us. They were actually organized so that they would stand still as a group (about 400 it seemed to me), (estimates range from 100-200 JRM) then march forward in unison toward our group. Pause, chant, march . . pause, chant march….
The red gays, as I will call them, tromped from their “permitted” area – i.e. the area they had a permit to congregate at the front of the Capitol Building – down a side street about 500 feet away from us at the back of the building. I didn’t realize anything was happening until the speaker asked that we focus on our rally and not spectate. The street with the protesters was parallel to where we were standing and we could watch them chant tremendously loud with bullhorns, stomp, and wave their umbrellas (I happen to own one of these umbrellas that I now want to chuck) all the way down to our street level. Having little children I tend to stand near the back of all public gatherings. Suddenly three squad cars pulled onto the grass behind me and the children. The protesters eventually gathered about 100 feet behind us. Between us and them were the 3 police cars, hastily parked. The incoming protesters gathered at the end of this grassy area near the street and, though upset that they were permitted to gather so close and interrupt our rally (Jennifer Roback Morse was giving a talk about adoption), I thought surely they would not come any closer….
I have a stubborn streak when it comes to Democracy and standing up for the right to petition the government, vote, speak, and peacefully assemble. I don’t back down from a fight, but it was at that point that I started to look for a way to exit. I gathered my bewildered and frightened children to the double stroller. Grabbed my giant purse/diaper bag and looked around. To my horror, it was at that point that the police completely failed. Our small group of pro-marriage attendees was surrounded on every side by the protesters. And, I’m not speaking “metaphorically” surrounded. I mean that they formed a tight circle with a perimeter about 3 feet from where I was standing. We could not leave. Rosie, my 3 year old, informed me at that point that she REALLY had to use the potty. I felt the same way, but I think it was too late for me. Nevertheless, it increased my urgency to find an escape.
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This story comes not from a mere mother, but rather from leslie Wolfgang, whose husband Peter is with the Family Institute of Connecticut (i.e. Brian Brown’s former employer). The Wolfgangs are part of the “pro-family” movement. This story, like the others she has told the press and to others, is clearly done with a political purpose.
Also, the only way that one can read this post is if they are friends with Ms. Wolfgang. Ms. Morse: It’s considered bad form to cut and paste non-public Facebook postings to a blog.
Again and again, we get to see the real face of hatred and intolerance. Why does traditional marriage threaten them so? What are they afraid of? That their own children might one day stand up and ask “Mommy, tell me again why I don’t have a daddy???”
Marty: I’m confused as to why you think “traditional marriage” threatens anyone. What about this Providence, RI, protest gives you that impression?
What was being protested was NOM’s effort to stop marriage for same-sex couples. Even if you don’t agree with that concept (which you clearly do not), can’t you still see that those of us who *do* support what we consider to be marriage equality are working *FOR* our rights and not *AGAINST* anyone else’s? And can’t you see that the push back is against *NOM’s SUMMER TOUR*, not anyone’s marriage?
Marty, read the post above yours…. the jig is up. The story was a plant.
BTW, just like every other community, be it African American, Asian, Women or the Disable, the lumping us together, the “you people” meme we hearing is offensive.
No, Marty, it’s more like our kids will ask, “Mommy, why did that man get beat up so badly just because he is gay?” Or “Mommy, why won’t people let you and Mama get married?” Or maybe “Mommy, why do the kids at school call you bad names?” Or even, “Mommy why was that man and that lady so mean to you?” Our children understand that they are loved and wanted. They do not understand why some people hate our family so much, or why rude people stare at us. They do not understand why some people are just so mean, and it can be quite difficult to explain hatred and discrimination sometimes. But traditional marriage doesn’t threaten anyone. In fact, we like it so much, we want in on it!!!
I wonder if you can answer why same-sex marriage scare YOU so much? What are YOU afraid of?
And why in the world anyone would bring a 3 year-old to a politically-charged event is really beyond me. Given the height of emotions on both sides of this issue, that is downright negligent parenting.
@Jeremy H/ Good As You
“This story comes not from a mere mother, but rather from leslie Wolfgang, whose husband Peter is with the Family Institute of Connecticut (i.e. Brian Brown’s former employer).”
Oh, well if she’s married to one of those “pro-family” fanatics then I guess we’re supposed to dismiss her testimony out of hand! And apparently you also think that means she and her kids deserve to treated with whatever contempt you or anyone else feels like heaping on them too…
So Jeremy, can you spell ad hominem? How about dehumanization?
@Heidi
Because nobody ever takes their kids to any so-called “Pride” marches, huh?
Heidi,
May I ask you a few questions about your first comment above?
I think it is safe to say that violence toward gays is condemned by virtually every pro-traditional marriage demonstrator at these rallies, so is this really germane to the issue being discussed? And would government recognition of same-sex “marriage” magically stop such violence?
What is stopping you from getting married currently, as you understand marriage? I understand that depending on where you live, the government may not officially recognize your relationship as marriage. But what is stopping you from having a wedding ceremony, and getting married, according to your understanding of marriage? If you, your friends, and your family consider the marriage to be real, isn’t that vastly more important to you than how your relationship is labeled by some government bureaucracy?
(I understand that there are issues of health insurance coverage, inheritance, etc. — but aren’t those issues secondary?)
Not a question, but I just want to say that I don’t understand what motivates some people to hate either, and I’m sorry that you have experienced that.
But I guess that does lead me to my last question: If a person has a hatred toward gays and lesbians, would that hatred stop just because the government began recognizing same-sex unions as marriages?
It’s not just negligent parenting, it’s using one’s own children to achieve a political end. Like a less lethal version of Medea.
Kids are the political footballs of the gay marriage movement! Are there serious complaints about a family bringing their kids to an event where the unexpectedly confrontational and hostile behavior of the protesters was what put them in danger?
It seems like the pro-SSM side thinks that they’re the only ones who should be allowed to expose their kids to their views.
nerdy, Heidi,
Since when (in America, anyway) are people who are exercising their right to free speech, or those who go to hear what the speakers have to say, supposed to have to anticipate that a bunch of thugs will show up and proceed to engage in behavior that would be upsetting for young children to see and in fact threatening to everyone in the area?
And how is bringing the kids to watch their Daddy speak (especially at a pointedly pro-family event) “…using one’s own children to achieve a political end…“, nerdy? Would you say the same thing about parents who took their kids to watch a so-called ‘Pride’ parade or rally?
Everyone should respect the right to peaceful assembly. Those who do not respect that right should not be considered serious proponents of civil rights. It is a weak case that requires shouting down one’s opposition.
@Marty
No one hates traditional marriage. But if you want a polygamous bible based marriage go right ahead and have one, but you will have to move to a theocracy to get it. Your idea of “traditional” is bullshit. Traditional as in one white man one white woman, or traditional as in one man twenty women (Mormon and other Abrahamic religions), or as in 18th century marriage where the man is paid by the woman’s father to take her off his hands as chattel?
Yup, Leland, and I can spell both terms. And I can also define them. My post fits into neither box.
I never called her a fanatic — your word. I merely said that she is part of the “pro-family” establishment — again, “pro-family” (minus the quotes) is your side’s term. I am so tired of the anti-LGBT side working overtime to make anything we say sound like an “attack.” It’s called discourse, dude. You all are lobbing stuff left and right — we’re responding!
People can make up their own minds about how they interpret Leslie Wolfgang’s story or which parts of it they believe to be factual. But it is completely disingenuous for Ms. Roback Morse to post it as being from just another mother on the block. I noted that reality.
There are six basic problems that far right arguments tend to have concerning marriage equality. These problems tend to be one of the six listed here:
INCORRECT The argument is incorrect, inaccurate, or otherwise not wholly true.
SUBJECTIVE The argument erroneously projects personal morals and opinions on other people.
DISCRIMINATORY The argument discriminates against a minority and is openly bigotted.
FALLACIOUS The argument is logically flawed and/or falls into well known fallacy.
NONARGUMENT For any number of reasons, the argument is rendered irrelevant and may even be a better argument for gay marriage than against.
DOUBLE STANDARD The argument presents a position that the arguer would refuse to accept if the situation were reversed.
#1. Homosexuality is a mental disorder.
INCORRECT No. The American Psychological Association clearly states that it is not a mental disorder.
SUBJECTIVE It may well be your opinion that it is a mental disorder, but that doesn’t make it one.
#2. Homosexuality is unnatural.
INCORRECT No. Same-sex pair bonding has been observed throughout nature in many different species. Refer to Bruce Bagemihl’s book Biological Exuberance.
SUBJECTIVE It may well be your opinion that it is unnatural, but that doesn’t make it so.
#3. Homosexuality against laws of God.
SUBJECTIVE There are many different religions in the world, and even people who’s moral code includes no religion whatsoever. Your personal religious beliefs with regard to homosexuality only apply to you, and people who feel as you do.
NONARGUMENT Gay couples are seeking civil marriage, marriage in the eyes of the State, not marriage in your church. So your religious beliefs do not apply either way.
#4. Marriage is religious. It’s not for the State to say who can marry.
INCORRECT No. With respect to civil marriage, the State can and does decide who may marry. There are already legal forms of marriage (common-law marriage for example) which are completely civil in nature.
NONARGUMENT Gay couples are seeking civil marriage, marriage in the eyes of the State, not marriage in your church. So your religious beliefs do not apply either way.
#5. I have a right to vote to ban gay marriage.
DISCRIMINATORY Of course this is true, but historically the majority votes for the majority. If slave owners had been allowed to “vote to keep slaves”, they would have done so, despite the fact that it was categorically immoral to do so. Not all things in our society can be decided by vote, which leaves only a few options: legislative intervention, judicial intervention, and civil unrest. Historically the courts have intervened on the behalf of repressed minorities.
#6. Judges are not supposed to legislate from the bench.
INCORRECT Wrong. Historically the courts have intervened on the behalf of repressed minorities because given a vote, the majority always votes for the majority. There is precedent for this. Labelling it “judicial activism” is simply political rhetoric.
DISCRIMINATORY Seeking to prevent the judiciary from defending minorities is inherently bigotted.
#7. Adoptive kids of gay couples will grow up in an unhealthy environment.
INCORRECT No. The American Psychological Association clearly states that children that grow up in households with homosexual parents do not suffer psychological damage.
NONARGUMENT We don’t deny people the right to marry based on their worthiness as parents. We allow convicted felons to marry, we allow the mentally ill to marry. Therefore even if it were true that gay parenting were harmful to children, it would be irrelevant to the question of whether or not gays should be allowed to marry. This is further rendered irrelevant by the fact that many gay couples already have children.
DOUBLE STANDARD Would you allow someone to annull or prevent your marriage based on their opinion of your worthiness as a parent?
#8. Children need role models of both genders in the home.
DISCRIMINATORY This argument discriminates against gay and lesbian parents, single parents (including divorcees, widows, and widowers), and parents where one spouse is out of the home for an extended period (such as military spouses.) To deny all of these people their marriage would be an act of unparalelled bigotry.
NONARGUMENT We don’t deny people the right to marry based on whether or not their home will include both a male and female role model for future children. We allow people to marry who may have children and then become divorced. One spouse could die and leave the other widowed. We even allow single people to adopt children. There are any number of legally and socially accepted venues in which a child may grow up with only one gender represented by the adults in the household, whether or not the adults in the household are gay. This is irrelevant.
DOUBLE STANDARD Would you allow someone to annull or prevent your marriage based on what genders of role models would be present in your house?
#9. Gay marriage can’t produce kids, so it is meaningless.
NONARGUMENT We don’t deny people the right to marry based on whether or not they will have children. Many ordinary heterosexual marriages produce no children by choice or by physical impediment.
DOUBLE STANDARD Would you allow someone to annull or prevent your marriage based on whether or not you intended to, or were phsyically able to have children?
#10. Kids will grow up thinking being gay and gay marriage are okay.
SUBJECTIVE It may well be your opinion that it would be bad for kids to think homosexuality and gay marriage are acceptable, but that doesn’t make it true. Believing that it is acceptable does not mean that someone is or will become gay.
NONARGUMENT That people will be more tolerant in the future of people who are different is a good thing, not a bad thing. If anything this is a good argument for gay marriage, not against.
#11. Marriage unchanged for centuries. Shouldn’t change it now.
INCORRECT No. There was a time when a spouse was considered property. There was a time when marriage between people of different races was illegal. There was a time when there was no such thing as a common law marriage. In societies throughout the world and throughout history the concept of marriage has changed one way or another countless times. Arranged marriages, polygamous/polyandrous marriages, and so forth.
#12. Homosexuality has harmful effects on society.
NONARGUMENT Without debating whether that is true or not, assume for a moment that it is true. If gay people are not allowed to wed, will they stop being gay? No. Will they stop having homosexual sex? No. So what difference does it make? Cigarette smoking has a harmful effect on society as well but we don’t deny smokers the right to marry. This is irrelevant.
#13. Gay isn’t a race, so banning gay marriage isn’t the same as banning interracial marriage. This is not an equal rights issue.
INCORRECT Wrong. While you are correct that “homosexual” is not a race, our government recognizes several protected classes against which discrimination is illegal. Some of these protected classes are race, gender, marital status, parental status, religion. Sexual preference is a legally protected class, and thus discrimination against that class is considered every bit as inappropriate as discriminating based on race or gender. That makes it an equal rights issue under US law.
DISCRIMINATORY It is openly discriminatory to single out one protected class as somehow less important than the others.
#14. Homosexuality is a choice, unlike race or gender. I shouldn’t have to support with my tax dollars a choice I disagree with.
INCORRECT Whether or not homosexuality is the result of nature (not a choice) or nurture (choice) is still unknown. There is much evidence to suggest that there is a biological component to homosexuality. Given the evidence goes both ways, it is inaccurate to flatly state that homosexuality is a choice. We still don’t know if it is a choice at all, or even if it is an unconscious choice.
On the second matter, our society defends the right of its citizenry to freedom of choice and self determination, and you don’t get to decide who will and won’t get your tax dollars based on your personal beliefs of how everybody else should behave.
NONARGUMENT Assume for a moment that homosexuality is 100% conscious choice. So what? Many of the protected classes recognized by our government are choices (such as creed, marital stats, pregnancy, parental status, etc.) Singling out homosexuality because it might be a choice ignores the fact that your tax dollars support all sorts of things which are choices you don’t agree with.
You may be a Christian, but your tax dollars support marriages and organizations of every religious stripe. You may be an environmentalist, but your tax dollars end up benefitting people who drive hummers and clearcut forests. Both matters, choice and choices you disagree with, are irrelevant to whether or not gays should be allowed to marry.
#15. Homosexuals already have equal right under the law to marry, just not someone of the same gender.
DISCRIMINATORY This argument is openly discriminatory. A homosexual would likely only want to marry a person of the same gender, granting them the right to marry only people they do not love is hardly equal. This argument ignores the issue and goes for semantics instead.
DOUBLE STANDARD If the law were changed tomorrow so that people could only marry people of the same gender, would you as a heterosexual still feel that you had equal rights under the law?
#16. Gay marriage will lead to bestial marriage.
FALLACIOUS Slippery slope arguments are inherently fallacious. Other choices that might be made in the future are not valid arguments against choices being made now. In this case there is no analog. An animal does not have the same legal rights as a human, and could not read, understand, or sign a marriage license. Rendering this argument silly as well as fallacious.
#17. Gay marriage will lead to incestuous marriage.
FALLACIOUS Slippery slope arguments are inherently fallacious. Other choices that might be made in the future are not valid arguments against choices being made now. Even if it were true, incest can be either homosexual or heterosexual in nature, and heterosexual marriage hasn’t led to incestuous marriage has it?
#18. Gay marriage will lead to polygamous/polyandrous marriage.
FALLACIOUS Slippery slope arguments are inherently fallacious. Other choices that might be made in the future are not valid arguments against choices being made now. Polygamous and polyandrous marriage has been legal in the past and is still legal in many countries. Homosexual marriage wasn’t required to make it happen there, so why should it make it happen here? In this case there is no analog, homosexual marriage, in that it involves two consenting adults, has more in common with heterosexual marriage than it does with polygamous/polyandrous marriage.
#19. Gay marriage will split the community and my church.
FALLACIOUS Slippery slope arguments are inherently fallacious. It’s quite possible that once passed, the public (and your church) will forget about it and move on to more important issues, such as abortion.
NONARGUMENT There are homosexuals in your church, and this issue isn’t going to go away even if it is banned countrywide. There will always be a group of people fighting for their rights. Chances are it is already an issue in your church or community. Given that such splits, if they are going to happen, are already happening, it is hardly an argument against gay marriage.
#20. What if homosexual love is not real?
NONARGUMENT We don’t deny people the right to marry based on whether or not they are in love. Why should we concern ourselves with whether or not homosexual love is real?
DOUBLE STANDARD Would you allow someone to annull or prevent your marriage based on their opinion of whether or not you really love your spouse?
#21. Homosexuals very small percentage of population. Not worth all this trouble.
DISCRIMINATORY The size of a minority doesn’t make discrimination against them okay. If a justice of the peace refused to marry a man named Melvin Dinklemeyer to a woman named Rosamina Ingersoll because he thinks their names are stupid, it doesn’t make it okay just because they are the only two people in the country with those particular names. Discrimination is discrimination.
NONARGUMENT The lower estimate for the percentage of the population that is gay is 3%, the upper estimate is 10%. The percentage of people in the USA that are Jewish is 5%. Does this mean it is okay to discriminate against Jews because the percentages are comparable? Of course not, this is irrelevant.
Further, if it really is “not worth all this trouble” and homosexuals are a vanishingly small percentage of the population, why all the fuss? Just let them marry and don’t worry about it… they’re such a small group after all. If anything this is an argument for gay marriage, not against.
#22. Why do they need to marry anyway? A marriage license is just a piece of paper.
NONARGUMENT If it really is “just a piece of paper” why all the fuss? Just let them marry and don’t worry about it. If anything this is an argument for gay marriage, not against.
#23. Why not “civil unions”?
DISCRIMINATORY We don’t create special legal categories for other sorts of marriages. There is no legal category “interracial marriage”, and while a common law marriage is recognized, it is still legally referred to as a “marriage” in all respects. Singling out homosexuals for a special kind of “separate but equal” marriage is openly discriminatory. Historically our society has demonstrated that “separate but equal” doesn’t work, and just serves as a vehicle for discrimination.
DOUBLE STANDARD Would you be prepared to accept that your marriage is not “marriage” in the eyes of the State, and instead is only identified as a “civil union”?
#24. There’s something “sacred” about marriage. If we allow gay marriage that will be lost. Allowing gay marriage will lessen the value of my own marriage.
SUBJECTIVE It may well be your opinion that marriage is sacred, but that doesn’t make it so. Not everyone is of the same religion as you and our society guarantees freedom of religion.
DISCRIMINATORY Taking away the right of other people to marry the person they love based on your personal religious beliefs is openly discriminatory. You are pitting your desire to feel comfortable against their basic human right to marry the person they love.
NONARGUMENT There are already gay people who are married. Has something happened to your marriage? Did your spouse suddenly stop loving you? Did God disappear from your life? Further, on the matter of “sacredness”, gay couples are seeking civil marriage, marriage in the eyes of the State, not marriage in your church. So your religious beliefs do not apply either way. This argument is both illogical and irrelevant.
DOUBLE STANDARD Would you permit a stranger to disallow you anything based on subjective arguments? Say you love to hike in a grove of trees on your property. Then one day a group of Native Americans in Nevada announce that in their religion, your particular forest is sacred, and if you are allowed to hike there that will be lost. Allowing you to hike there or own the land it stands on will lessen the value of all forests in their religion. Therefore you should not be allowed to hike there and further must move off that land. Would you be packing your bags the next day?
#25. We have freedom of religion in this country. Forcing me to accept gay marriage is a violation of my right to my beliefs.
FALLACIOUS This argument is completely illogical. Nobody is forcing you to accept gay marriage. You can’t say that allowing someone else across town to marry the person they love prevents you from believing whatever you want to believe. This sort of illogic tends to arise from an inability to differentiate between applying your moral standards to yourself and applying them to other people. Nobody is requiring you to marry a person of the same gender, therefore you aren’t being forced to accept anything. If gay marriage is allowed you will be perfectly within your rights to believe that it is wrong, that gay people aren’t really married in the eyes of God, and to speak out in that regard.
NONARGUMENT Gay couples are seeking civil marriage, marriage in the eyes of the State, not marriage in your church. So your religious beliefs do not apply either way. This argument is irrelevant.
DOUBLE STANDARD Would you allow someone to annul or prevent your marriage based on their right to hold personal religious beliefs that you do not share? What if a pagan said your marriage wasn’t real because you didn’t sacrifice an animal or perform the ceremony in the nude, and therefore because they have a right to religious freedom, you can’t be married?
This sort of cut-and-paste-my-poorly-written-screed-onto-a-blog-I-don’t-like argumentation style is both cliche and a rather amusing waste of time.
Everyone has the right to peacefully assemble. And what I’m reading on LGBT blogs are not matching up here, obviously. So until I can find a neutral source, it’s best to assume that
1.) the numbers weren’t as high as either side is saying
2.) some of the SSM supporters were too belligerent, and shame on those individuals for it
3.) Brian Brown probably did do this and shame on him for it
Heather Curly from Queer Action Rhode Island shared the following anecdote about Brian Brown:
“After NOM’s rally was over, the state trooper came over to tell us that we should begin clearing our people out. Brian Brown was right behind him to confront us, egging the state trooper on, and saying very condescending things like ‘he’s right, you don’t belong here.’ And then a great thing happened. The state trooper turned around and told him that ‘if he approached our side again he would have to leave or be arrested’ – that he needed to clear his side out too. He got very irritated by that, I could tell.”
4.) Speaking in tongues strengthens no one’s platform.
I personally wouldn’t have taken children, regardless of which side I was supporting (first off, this topic probably bores children to death, and crying children aren’t effective for any protest) So I’m willing to say it was just bad planning on Mrs. Wolfgangs part. But, passing off a friend and wife of a speaker at this protest as a random mother with young children is disingenuous on this
blogs part.
@nerdygirl
@Jeremy
Why don’t you two either show us where in the original post Leslie Wolfgang is being described as a “mere mother or random mother or stop making false imputations. Exactly who she is married to is an irrelevant issue that only you are focusing on in order to stigmatize her. (That’s the ad hominem part of your first post, Jeremy…)
But most of all you still need to explain why she should be given any less credibility or shown any less regard as a person because of who she is or who she is married to.
We’re supposed to try to be gracious toward our adversaries around here, but at a certain point that’s like trying to be gentile while you fight off muggers. The hypocrisy of your comments is nauseating…
Paul H,
To answer your questions, I don’t think that recognizing marriage equality will immediately put an end to the hatred and discrimination faced by LGBT persons. However, if you look back at the historical record of government-sanctioned discrimination in this country, you will notice a pattern–fundamental change of people’s hearts and minds did not occur until after the laws changed. People’s attitudes about slavery didn’t fundamentally change until it became illegal. People’s attitudes about women’s suffrage didn’t change until after the 19th Amendment was passed. People’s attitudes about segregation didn’t change until after Brown v. Board of Ed. and the passage of the Civil Rights Act. People’s attitudes about women’s participation in sports didn’t change until Title 9 was passed.
In other words, changes in the laws affect people. Take Massachusetts as an example. Prior to the Goodridge decision, a majority was opposed to same-sex marriage. Now, a majority favors it. And that is only in a mere 6 years. Why do you suppose that is? I would suggest that people realized that, for the most part, it didn’t affect them one bit! They saw and shared in the happiness of their neighbors, friends, co-workers, family members, and they realized that the sky did not fall. So, in my opinion, until the law changes and LGBT persons are entitled under the law to the same status, protections, and benefits as heterosexuals and the law does not sanction discrimination against us, then and only then, will the hearts and minds of people change to see that we are equal human beings and deserve to be treated as such.
As for a wedding ceremony between my partner and I, yes, we have thought and talked about it, and at one point we were planning for it. But in spite of the fact that our spiritual commitment is there, and in spite of the fact that our family and friends would support us, there is something that does not feel authentic because it is not legal and enforceable where we live. It would be like dress rehearsal for the real thing, I think. I am married to her in my heart, and I will remain faithful and committed to her until I draw my last breath. However, the lack of legal benefits and protections are very real to us, and we face them regularly. We have already spent thousands of dollars in legal fees trying to cobble together protective documents that would be unnecessary if we were married. I am taxed on the portion of my salary that goes toward her health insurance costs. We will be significantly taxed if one of us predeceases the other. We will never be able to collect the other’s Social Security benefits even though each of us pays into the system just like heterosexuals do. We cannot file our taxes jointly, although we own a home together and other joint property. And on, and on, and on…1138 legal benefits to which we are denied access to be exact. And it is patently unfair.
And our children are denied the protective factor of the marriage of their parents.
Random is not discriminatory or insulting. The exact wordage used to describe her in the post is “A mother of young children”, random fits, perhaps anonymous would have been better. But the story is selected highlights pulled from a Facebook note, as such, there’s no reason why her name couldn’t have been posted (unless she didn’t want her name on the blog, which is negated by the fact that it’s linked). I also commented that I’m willing to accept bad planning and I’ll throw in naiveté on Ms. Wolfgangs part, but she is given who her husband is, in a position where a story like this could be used for political means. Taking it from a “private” media like facebook onto a more public space like this could be seen as that. I’m not saying it is, if anything Ms. Wolfgang is innocent, and Dr. J is just baiting for hits, or something more innocent. I don’t know. I retract the “political ends” statement. I have no proof, and I’m not going to go trolling the internet looking for proof. I still maintain that it’s disingenuous to present her as an anonymous mother on this post.
@Heidi
“And our children are denied the protective factor of the marriage of their parents.”
By “their parents” do you mean their mother and father?
Mykelb’s long post attempts to change the subject from “should defenders of the traditional definition of marriage be allowed the right to peaceful assembly and be accorded civil treatment” to “do the advocates of the traditional definition of marriage have valid arguments?” It is telling that given the behavior of the GLBT protestors that Mykelb wants to change the subject. Perhaps, however, Mykelb feels that if he has good arguments against his opponents, then they are not entitled to civil treatment. My observation is that some in the GLBT community simply want to shout down and hurl insults at anyone who disagrees with them. We saw a lot of that in California of late. Of course, Mykelb believes his brief is unanswerable. I note that the San Francisco-based California Supreme Court, which narrowly favored the redefinition of marriage, heard similar arguments and nevertheless upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 8 with only one dissenting vote, and I fully expect the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Proposition 8 as well. I also expect Mykelb to be unconvinced by the rulings of these high courts and to declare that any jurist or voter who disagrees with him is a bigot. This, at least with most voters, has consistently proven to be a poor electoral strategy. As for the arguments, I would argue that the burden of proof is on the other side, that given the nearly universal consensus gentium across space and time until very recently on the definition of marriage, the GBLT community needs to explain why marriage must be redefined precisely to their liking, but not to the liking of, say, Moslems or to the liking of those who believe that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.
@Heidi
YES! Because one of those parents is “just a donor” whose parental rights are stripped after making use of his genetic material! We are absolutely advocating that children be raised by their married parents. SSMers are the ones that do not want this.
In what specific way(s) would government recognition of same-sex “marriage” provide protections to children of same-sex couples, that those children do not already have?
Let’s take a lesbian couple for example. Suppose that these two women go to a church or other institution and have a wedding ceremony, and after that, they have no doubt that they are truly married. They expect their friends and family to consider them to be married as well. Then at some point one of them bears a child via artificial insemination. The couple then takes legal steps to have the other woman legally adopt the child, so that both women are legal parents to the child. (Note that I’m not recommending any of this, but just laying out a hypothetical scenario.)
In this scenario, what specific protections is the child lacking, that would be granted if the government officially recognized the womens’ relationship as a marriage?
This is an honest question. There may be a good answer to this question that I haven’t considered.
Leland and Norrie, by “parents” I mean the ones who do the job of parenting! The adults who love, nurture, protect, teach and care for the children. A sperm donor is NOT a “father” and an egg donor is not a “mother.” A person who parents a child is a parent. My partner and I are raising my biological niece. Her biological father is a drug dealer who has impregnated three other women within the last year. He is willing to voluntarily surrender his rights to this beautiful child to avoid having to pay child support. He does not want any relationship whatsoever with this little girl, and he even refused to take a photograph of her that we tried to give him at a court proceeding to establish paternity and to enforce child support that was brought by the state while my drug addict sister still had custody of her before we petitioned for guardianship. My sister is incapable of parenting a child, and is more concerned about where her next fix will come from or what guy she can convince to support her than she is about the needs of her own offspring.
My partner and I have been taking care of this child since she was 3 days old. Don’t you dare tell me that this child is better off with her biological parents. And don’t you dare tell me that we are not the parents of this little girl. WE have done the job from the very beginning and WE have formed the primary attachment. In fact, she has taken to calling us both “Mommy” or “Mama” without any prompting whatsoever from us. She is not yet two years old, and she has seen children’s television with mommies in it and assumes that we must be her mommies because we are the ones who are there acting as mommies. She is the happiest, brightest, most beautiful child that I have ever known other than my own biological daughter and I know for a fact that she never would have had the opportunity to be this happy little girl if she was being raised by her biological parents. Your ideology may sound good in theory to you, but my partner and I are on the ground floor cleaning up the messes left by the failures of heterosexual biological parents, as are hundreds of thousands of other LGBT PARENTS with children.
Paul H, I appreciate your respectful tone very much. I think that off the top of my head, my first response is that there is a protective factor for a child when his or her parents are married that is intangible. The fact of the marriage itself helps to secure the bond between the parents and therefore, while it does not ensure that the parents will remain together, it does strengthen the likelihood. A ton of studies have come out that show that cohabitation is not equivalent to marriage when it comes to stable long-term relationships. Additionally, should the couple find themselves at the sad point of divorce, there is also a ready-made legal system in place for dealing with issues related to the split of the family and to the provisions for the child. That is just off the top of my head, but I will give it some more thought. Oh, one more is that the child is not further stigmatized at school by peers who do have married parents, because the child knows that his or her parents are married too.
Leslie Wolfgang may be well known in the pro-family movement (although I had never heard of her before this). But to the chanting, marching protesters who had surrounded her at the back of the rally, she probably was just a random, anonymous “mom with kids”. That could have been me (if I lived in Rhode Island)–the only difference is that I don’t have a pro-family FaceBook page where I could tell the world about it.
As far as taking my kids to a “politically-charged” event: if I was going to go and counter-protest at somebody else’s rally, then yes, I would leave my kids at home. But if I had an opportunity to go to a rally and listen to speakers on family-based topics, then I would take my family with me, so my children could hear about my values and see that other people share them.
The following is a falsehood written by Heidi @ July 20th, 2010 at 19:57: “Prior to the Goodridge decision, a majority was opposed to same-sex marriage. Now, a majority favors it. And that is only in a mere 6 years. ”
There has not been a vote by the People. In fact, SSMers made it their highest strategy to prevent such a vote from ever occuring.
Six years after the ridiculous Goodridge opinion was written, and lawmakers have not written SSM into the law. The judges are not empowered to write statutory law; nor is the executive branch. And the Legislators have not voted and passed an law to merge SSM with marriage in Massachusetts.
Yes, we can learn from the six years in which the SSM campaign has attacked marriage, attacked marriage defenders, attacked our form of self-government, attacked the constitution, attacked liberty, attacked and attacked and attacked.
You want to claim a majority? Then you clearly give credence to the significance of majority support for such a change in marriage law. Yet in recent surveys support for the man-woman basis of marriage has increased in the state; and, given that such surveys have usually underestimated actual support on actual votes on marriage, even a result closer to 50-50 strongly suggests that the pro-marriage side is underestimated by about 10%.
Among SSMers hypocrisy abounds.
Mykelb @ July 20th, 2010 at 13:30 offered yet another example of how SSM argumentation is superficial, profoundly flawed, and full of invective. Keep copy-pasting your parody of your own side of the issue, Mykelb. With friends like you, SSMers may not need opponents.
Another falsehood from Heidi: “And our children are denied the protective factor of the marriage of their parents.”
SSMers like Heidi have repeatedly said that marriage and raising children are seperate issues. Now she’d try to insist on a decisive link.
Leo made a remark that is well worth highlighting:
“My observation is that some in the GLBT community simply want to shout down and hurl insults at anyone who disagrees with them. [...] As for the arguments, I would argue that the burden of proof is on the other side, that given the nearly universal consensus gentium across space and time until very recently on the definition of marriage, the GBLT community needs to explain why marriage must be redefined precisely to their liking, but not to the liking of, say, Moslems or to the liking of those who believe that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Right on, Leo.
Heidi, your anecdote does not demonstrate supply a solid ground for a substantive argument against the man-woman basis of marriage. You can claim your double-halo while condemning a sexual criminal, all you want, but that’s irrelevant to the marriage issue and irrelevant to the parenting issue.
If you do not have a grasp on the actual disagreement, then, you won’t formulate an actual argument that tackles that disagreement. Instead you want to make this about the hetero-homo dichotomy which is about all you hang you hat on. Not constitutional analysis. Not marriage. Not parenting. Not even justice for children. You hang your hat on identity politics and have an immature view of society, as per your many comments here — including all of your unverifiable anecdotes and your penchant for hyper-personalization at every opportunity.
Put plainly, even your stories about the little girl do not add-up to a good reason to abolish the man-woman basis of marriage. Rather your stories point to the need to strengthen the influence of the core meaning of this foundational social institution.
Ginny @ July 22nd, 2010 at 16:08 said pretty much what my wife said. I concur.
SSMers imagine themselves to be altruisitcally fighting for rights but they show no comprehension of balancing rights, goods, and interests. In instances like this, they come off like the middle sister in the Bracy Bunch who would stomp her feet and moan complainingly: “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”
I think the pro-gay bigotry is pretty loud during these anti-rally protests.
@Heidi
@Heidi
Hi Heidi,
I’m not sure if you’re still checking the comments on this week-old post, but I finally am finding time to reply. First let me thank you for sharing your story of your adopted daughter. I certainly agree that she is better off with you than with her biological parents. I still think that in general, in the average case, children are better off with their biological mother and father, than with two same-sex parents — because I believe that children ideally need a mom and a dad, and while two moms can both be great moms, neither of them can be a great dad.
However, I also recognize as an obvious fact that not every both-biological-parents situation is better than every same-sex-parents situation, as your case illustrates extremely well!
Thanks, and I appreciate yours too.
I had previously asked you:
Thank you for your answer, part of which follows:
I agree with all of this. So if you truly believe that two women can get married to each other, then what is stopping you from getting married? My wife and I were married when we took our vows in a church, in the presence of God, our pastor, our friends, and our families. Yes, we registered our marriage with the state, partly because we were legally required to do so. But if one day we found out that there had been some mix-up with the paperwork, and that our marriage had never been recorded with the state, that wouldn’t cause us to doubt that we were truly married all these years. So couldn’t you get married (as you see marriage), either in a church or in some other appropriate setting, even if the state doesn’t recognize it?
I hate to be blunt, but isn’t it likely that a child would be stigmatized much more by having two moms or two dads (even if the state says that they are married to each other), than by having unmarried parents? I’m not saying that it is right for a child to be stigmatized in that way (I don’t think it is), but just pointing out that that is likely to be true.
On that we agree.
There may be some truth to what you say, however I don’t think that what you say is entirely true for most or all of these examples. Based on what I know of some of these examples, a trend was present for some time even before legal changes were made. For example, if attitudes on womens’ suffrage didn’t change until after suffrage was granted by a constitutional amendment, then how did the amendment pass? Were 2/3 of each house of Congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures that out of touch with their (male) constituents? Surely there must have already been some significant sentiment in favor of womens’ suffrage?
Thanks for sharing this, and this actually answers my question earlier in this comment.
I find this viewpoint interesting. Obviously your ideas on what makes a true marriage are very much at odds with mine, and not just on the question of what combination(s) of sexes can make a true marriage.
Take my state for example; I live in Illinois. I assume that maybe you have some idea of how horribly corrupt the state government is here? My feeling is, why on earth do I need a certificate from the corrupt Illinois government to validate the lifetime commitment that my wife and I have made to each other? No certificate (or lack of a certificate) from a fallible, corrupt government can make our marriage any more or less real. And if we give the state all the power to declare that we are married, then are we not at the mercy of the state if it should decide to declare that we are no longer married? Why give the state that power over our relationship, our commitment, our shared life together?
I understand that you may still disagree, but I’m just explaining where I’m coming from.
I hear you, and this goes back to Dr. Morse’s argument as to what are the public reasons for recognizing and promoting marriage, which I’m sure you are familiar with.
Also, it may be worth pointing out that the law penalizes marriage in a number of ways as well — such as the so-called “marriage penalty” in the federal income tax code that returns in 2010, or the fact that some welfare benefits are easier to get as a single parent than as a married couple, even with the same income.
Most of the people living in the non-marriage category are neither gay nor in sexualized scenarios. Yet for some unstated reason, SSMers insist that the gaycentric subset of nonmarriage be treated as superior to the rest. And, to boot, that the special reason for the special status of marriage be discarded. So they argue for protections — protections they’d deny the rest of nonmarriage — while also arguing against the basis for the special status that they claim to seek for their favored gaycentric subset of nonmarriage.
Adoption is the direct way that society creates the sort of protections for the child-parent relationship that Heidi has sought.
Marital status does not automatically confer adoption on a child even where the mother marries a potential step-father, for example. The child’s father must either relinquish or lose his parental status (or dies) and that occurs in dire circumstances or tragedy. Only after that occurs can the child be adopted even in the case of this prospective step-father.
So, if marriage does not do this for the husband-wife union, why would Heidi imagine that SSM would do it for a scenario that lacks either a husband or a wife?
How would SSM extend protections that are not more directly extended via adoption? And why would it depend on a sexualized relationship between the adults? If it does not, then, how would Heidi, with all her anecdotal prowess, distinguish the relationship type she has in mind (apparently comprised of both the all-male and the all-female sexualized scenarios) from parenting and caretaking that is neither sexualized nor marital?
[crickets chirping]