Yes, There Is a Slippery Slope on Gay Marriage
Not long ago, the very idea of legal marriage between two men seemed just as unlikely as legal polygamy does to us today.
The battle to protect marriage in California continues to rage. In 2000, 61.4 percent of voters chose to add “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” to the Family Code. Last May, the California Supreme Court struck down the law 4-3. The court contended that calling a heterosexual relationship marriage while referring to a homosexual relationship as a domestic partnership “poses at least a serious risk of denying the family relationship of same-sex couples such equal dignity and respect.”
After the decision, over a million Californians signed a petition to put the language on the ballot as a constitutional amendment. On November 4, 2008, Proposition 8 passed with 52 percent of the vote. The new amendment was challenged, and the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8 in a 6-1 ruling on May 26, 2009. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. Existing homosexual marriages performed before the passage of Proposition 8 will stand.
Denying homosexuals use of the term “marriage” does not violate their constitutional rights, said the court (emphases in original):
Contrary to petitioners’ assertion, Proposition 8 does not entirely repeal or abrogate the aspect of a same-sex couple’s state constitutional right of privacy and due process. … Instead, the measure carves out a narrow and limited exception to these state constitutional rights, reserving the official designation of the term “marriage” for the union of opposite-sex couples as a matter of state constitutional law, but leaving undisturbed all of the other extremely significant substantive aspects of a same-sex couple’s state constitutional right to establish an officially recognized and protected family relationship and the guarantee of equal protection of the laws.
Practically speaking, there is homosexual “marriage” in California. Gays may form legally recognized domestic partnerships with “largely equivalent substantive rights.” They enjoy similar protections and benefits as heterosexual married couples. Despite access to the same constitutional protections as everyone else, as well as the rights and benefits of marriage, homosexuals who oppose Proposition 8 are not satisfied. Until Christ returns, they’ll continue waging court battles and drafting ballot initiatives.
The California Supreme Court has left us with a grand mess, and the slope just got more slippery. It was the court’s earlier decision, however, that signaled the eventual end of marriage as we know it and the subversive adoption of the term by people in incestuous and polygamous relationships.
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La Shawn Barber is a freelance writer who blogs at http://lashawnbarber.com.
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72 Comments
1. Bernard Chapin:There is no way to prevent the slippery slope and straight men instinctively run from any activities that are deemed gay. This will doom marriage…period. Great article, La Shawn.
Jun 5, 2009 - 12:18 am 2. Blackwater:It’s true. You can make the same exact arguments for polygemy that you can make for gay marriage. Who are we to decide how many people you can marry? It really does open up pandora’s box. And I say that as someone who reluctantly supports gay marriage. Once gay marriage becomes legal the muslimes who want to marry 4 wives will be knocking on the door next. And what basis will we have to deny them that right? This whole gay movement thing is getting out of control and threatens to seriously tear our social fabric in ways we never intended. Part of me wants to say “Enough! You leftists have been destroying our traditions and our values for too long. A marriage should be between one man and one woman and that’s that. Let us hold on to just a few of the foundational blocks of Western civilization for God sakes!” But at the same time I feel bad for gay people who were born with whatever mental/genetic disorder made them gay or whatever abuse or propaganda they’ve been exposed to which turned them gay. And before people brush off that last staement as ridiculous perhaps you should watch MTV for an hour, or visit one of the insanely popular websites younger people visit these days, or watch more Hollywood movies. Homosexuality is in people. It’s the newest trend. It’s being shoved in our kids faces as the new cool and sexy thing to do. If you wanna be cool ladies you gotta make out with your friend Beth as all the frat guys go crazy and take pictures with their camera phones. Or if you wanna be an “emo boy” you gotta make our with your friend Brandon. Just go take a look at myspace or other popular social online networks and see for yourself how many random people between the age of 12-35 list their sexuality as bisexual or gay. And they’ll usually add something like “I like boyz and girlz teehee.” It’s insane. And it all started just a few years ago like in the early 2000s around 2003-2004-ish. It’s become an epidemic. And when you’re a young kid or even an adult and you’re bombarded with that much pro-homosexuality BS you’re far more likley to become gay even if you weren’t born that way. I know because I’ve seen it myself with two friends I know. So yeah it’s a real problem and it’s something conservatives need to do something about. We need more conservtaives in the entertainment industry so our kids aren’t being brainwashed by this morally bankrupt worldview. And I’m not even a religious person but I can see moral degredation but I can see moral degredation when it happens. When I was growing up in the late 90s early 2000s it would have been unheard of to see 2 people of the same gender flirting with each other or messing around. Now it’s a regular occurance and the center of the party. It only contributes to our cynicism, our athiesm, our declining birth rates and our generally immature attitudes that makes people believe they can do whatever they want without caring about the consequences. I mean how the hell are we going to raise proper adults and defend our country and values when our entire nation has turned into a bunch of fruit cakes? I’m no puritan but this crap has just gotten too far out of control. We need a better balance of morality in the West. Because what the islamists say about us is partly true. We have let our familie, our socities and our morals decline. Crime has skyrocketed, divorce has skyrocketed, drug abuse has skyrocketed, we’re becoming too dependent on the government and are all too eager to jump on board the latest destuctive left wing movements like extremist environmentalism and socialism. We’ve been resting for too long on the accomplishments of far more conservative previous generations who did all the hard work which was necessary in order to provide the infrastucture for our current prosperity. We’ve become lazy, spoiled, self-loathing and it’s only getting more obvious with each younger generation. We have to bring some dignity and sanity back to our culture before we commit slow-motion suicide. And where it seems we’ve decided to make a stand is on marriage. And I say that’s a hell of a justified place to make that stand. If we don’t then my kids will probably grow up in a society where the latest trend is trying to get 3 wives for insane orgies every night. Even for my female kids…
Jun 5, 2009 - 1:22 am 3. DavidN:This is one of those arguments that essentially sets up a straw man, and then happily destroys him. When the Civil Rights movement was gearing up in the ’50s and ’60s, opponents often pointed out that if Blacks were treated equally with whites, then they can “marry your daughter”. While many whites could in theory support equal rights for Blacks, letting one of them do *that* would of course be beyond the pale. Now, of course, no one sees anything wrong with it, most of the time anyway.
Thing is, no one has shown me, intelligently anyway, how polygamy is bad. I’m not sure why outlawing it is good, and I’m definitely confused by opposition to gay marriage on a logical level. I understand the visceral reaction: homosexuality is BAD, so allowing any extension of rights to *them* is bad also. But no one has ever explained to me, in a way that makes any sense, what detrimental effect it’s going to have.
I do understand the reaction that people have to the pro-gay marriage campaign here in California. Frankly, it couldn’t be more clumsy and counter-productive if they were actually trying to lose the issue and get gay marriage banned everywhere. But this brings up an interesting point: should their boorish behavior change the law against them? Odd, because I’ll grant you that gay marriage isn’t a right: all marriage is a privilege, so the gay ones can’t be rights-oriented any more than the straight ones can.
Back when the army was racially desegregated in the 1950s, there were all sorts of predictions of *bad things* that were going to happen as a result. Unit cohesion would falter, morale would collapse, and black soldiers would influence white ones to fall into their bad habits (assumed to be inherent to blacks). None of this happened, and it should have been obvious that it wouldn’t. Whenever blacks had, in the past, served in the armed services, they were as good and bad as whites were, and it was obvious that things were going to happen that way when desegregation occurred.
The straw man arguments aren’t easy to refute, because of course no one wants the bad things to occur. Bringing child molesters into the equation is, of course, very clever. Never mind that most statistical studies of these things show that more child molesters are heterosexual, as opposed to gay: it’s by implication another sort of gayness, molesting children. If you made polygamy legal, your big difficulty would probably be the fundamentalist Mormons, and some Muslims, who want to marry 13 or 14 year old girls, not gay men wanting little boys. But the one’s more shocking than the other, and it’s partially a gay issue, so bring it up as an example of what could happen, and what (presumably) the gay community wants.
Like I said, straw man arguments are easy to win, and hard to refute.
Jun 5, 2009 - 1:51 am 4. njcommuter:And in the end, destruction of the family means that children are either the happy wards of the state (and the state-run schools, to whom we have already delegated too much of their formation) or the unhappy wards of its prison system.
Jun 5, 2009 - 3:00 am 5. syn:“When the Civil Rights movement was gearing up in the ’50s and ’60s, opponents often pointed out that if Blacks were treated equally with whites, then they can “marry your daughter”. While many whites could in theory support equal rights for Blacks, letting one of them do *that* would of course be beyond the pale.”
Since marriage is between a man and a woman then in this case it was a violation of civil rights if couple who were of different racial backgrounds were denied the right to enter marriage.
The difference between then and today is that a homosexual is not banned from marriage. For example, if former Gov McGreevy, who engages in homosexuality, was denied the right to marry his first wife whom he later divorced then was also denied the right to marry his second wife whom he later divorced then it can be said that homosexuals are denied the right to marry thus a violation of civil rights.
Thus far no civil rights have been violated since there has not been a single case in which a person who engages in homosexuality was denied the right to marry. Not one case.
Now, I would no more advocate altering or changing the definition of homosexual to fit the meaning marriage than I would advocate altering or changing the definition of marriage to fit the meaning of homosexual.
Unfortunately this is what gay activist are doing, they are altering and changing the definition of marriage in order to fit the meaning of homosexuality and this is where I must object, there is no such thing as ’same-sex union between yin(sperm) and yang(egg)’ and no matter how much emotional blackmailed is incorporated into the gay activist narrative I will defend the union between yin and yang because this is how and where life begins.
Without Yang there is no Yin
Without Egg there is no Sperm
Without Egg-Sperm there is no Life.
This is the Nature of Life and no amount of altering meaning and language will change this biologically scientific fact.
Altering meaning was done to the word ‘fetus’ and look at the mess that created; females now have greater rights than males plus it isn’t even her body she is aborting but a distinctly unique Human Being with it’s own unique set of Human DNA which in a reasoned, sane world would be defined as ‘homocide’ and if it is her body she is aborting then that is defined as ’suicide’.
Regrettably we do not live in a reasoned, logical world but one driven by emotions, unfortunately emotions are irrational and entirely subjective and laws based on emotional cannot sustain Justice.
Jun 5, 2009 - 3:54 am 6. jelloman5000:See Roe v Wade for example.
The concept of marriage is religious in nature and it’s construct was for the purpose of procreation and for the rearing and nurturing of the offspring. The family, as represented by a mother, father and children is part of the natural order. Marriage enshrines a commitment from both the mother and the father, to stay together for the purpose of raising their offspring and to procreate only with each other (otherwise the ability to properly oversee the offspring’s nurturing would be spread thin and unevenly). It is designed as a self contained family unit.
That stated, it is obvious that all marriages do not stay true to the concept. Divorce and infidelity have risen to such levels as to mock the term commitment. As to procreation, some, regrettably are unable to procreate, and some simply choose to refrain from it. But that does not mean we should redefine marriage to accomodate other arrangements. The term marriage has a purpose and a design to meet that purpose. Because some have failed to be true to it’s purpose, does not mean that we should abandon or change the design.
It is true that there are some contractual rights that may offer certain benefits to married couples, but I believe that this can be worked out through the use of civil unions.
As to the idea of discrimination, we have many institutions that are designed for the differences between men and women. Is it discrimination to have separate restrooms, lockerrooms, sports teams/leagues or procreative rights? The fact that we allot one spot for a woman and one spot for a man in marriage should not be claimed as discrimination. Excepting certain disqualifiers for incest, age and married status, any man – gay, straight, black or white – may fill that one spot and the same would apply to any women to fill the other spot. Anyone who can use the public restrooms at their local courthouse without seeking legal recourse should be able to understand this.
Jun 5, 2009 - 5:28 am 7. 1MPTomb:There are many components to this issue that would take a dissertation to describe. I think it all stated when they hijacked the word “gay” to make it seem happy and carefree. The first component is that homosex is not natural and is prone to many more diseases than heterosex. Second, although several states and other countries have granted “marriage” to homosexuals, statistics are showing that homosexuals are not staying “married” as long as heterosexual couples (although this statistic has also declined). Third, many homosexual advocates have stated it is the number one goal of their agenda to move into the schools of our nation and indoctrinate our children into believing that homosex is just as natural as heterosex. These chidren are now graduating and are able to vote and without parents counter-acting these beliefs that homosex is just as “good” as heterosex, these young adults are voting for more “same-sex” benefits. Fourth, although homosex does not produce children, agencies are open to let homosexual couples adopt children or face a lawsuit. Fifth, television programs and movies are including more and more homosexual characters who seem funny and innocuous and gosh darn-it, so loving.
Jun 5, 2009 - 5:53 am 8. Meryl:The homosexual agenda is a many-headed Hydra and is not going to be stopped very easily.
Well argued. It’s kind of like the arsonist on trial for starting the 45,000 acre wildfire that his intention (which he can prove by reading from his personal diary) was to burn precisely 10.4 acres.
And since the arsonist is only 10 years old, the whole thing could have been avoided by refusing to let him play with matches.
Genuinely educated people need to stop treating our cultural deconstructionists with so much respect and awe. They are prepubescent arsonists and that’s about all they are.
Jun 5, 2009 - 5:57 am 9. Meryl:second line, previous post….”wildfire CLAIMING that his intention….”
Jun 5, 2009 - 5:58 am 10. rocketeer:To me, this internet joke sums up the entire debate:
A scene at City Hall in San Francisco
“Next.”
“Good morning. We want to apply for a marriage license.”
“Names?”
“Tim and Jim Jones.”
“Jones? Are you related? I see a resemblance.”
“Yes, we’re brothers.”
“Brothers? You can’t get married.”
“Why not? Aren’t you giving marriage licenses to same gender couples?”
“Yes, thousands. But we haven’t had any siblings. That’s incest!”
“Incest?” No, we are not gay.”
“Not gay? Then why do you want to get married?”
“For the financial benefits, of course. And we do love each other. Besides, we don’t have any other prospects.”
“But we’re issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples who’ve been denied equal protection under the law. If you are not gay, you can get married to a woman.”
“Wait a minute. A gay man has the same right to marry a woman as I have. But just because I’m straight doesn’t mean I want to marry a woman. I want to marry Jim.”
“And I want to marry Tim, Are you going to discriminate against us just because we are not gay?”
“All right, all right. I’ll give you your license. Next.”
“Hi. We are here to get married.”
“Names?”
“John Smith, Jane James, Robert Green, and June Johnson.”
“Who wants to marry whom?”
“We all want to marry each other.”
“But there are four of you!”
“That’s right. You see, I love Jane and Robert, Jane loves me and June, June loves Robert and Jane, and Robert loves June and me. All of us getting married together is the only way that we can express our preferences in a marital relationship.”
“But we’ve only been granting licenses to gay and lesbian couples.”
“So you’re discriminating against bisexuals!”
“No, it’s just that, well, the traditional idea of marriage is that it’s just for couples.”
“Since when are you standing on tradition?”
“Well, I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere.”
“Who says? There’s no logical reason to limit marriage to couples. The more the better. Besides, we demand our rights! The mayor says the constitution guarantees equal protection under the law. Give us a marriage license!”
“All right, all right. Next.”
“Hello, I’d like a marriage license.”
“In what names?”
“David Deets.”
“And the other man?”
“That’s all. I want to marry myself.”
“Marry yourself? What do you mean?”
“Well, my psychiatrist says I have a dual personality, so I want to marry the two together. Maybe I can file a joint income-tax return.”
“That does it! I quit!! You people are making a mockery of marriage!!”
Jun 5, 2009 - 6:05 am 11. JFM:In fact you can make exactly the same arguments for incest than for gay marriage. that is if you swallow the B.S about marriage being a “right” or a matter of “individual freedom”.
It isn’t. The matter of individual freedom is the right to live with your partner. Period. Marriage isn’t that. Marriage is a contarct between three parts: two individuals and the society. It was created because in our species pregnancy is so burdensome that in “natural state” a pregnant woman would starve and in case she didn’t ,given that the offspring will be unable to walk for two years and requires constant attention for years she or the child would die from starvation. That is why at one point in our evolution, a contract was created about men caring for the mothers and the offspring they had sired. And because what was at stake was crucial for tribe/society/state’s survival the tribe acted as the guardian of that contract guranteeing that it would punish those who didn’t respect the clauses. By the same occasion the tribe set conditions for giving that guarantee. Like not accepting to protect unions who, like incest, were considered harmful
And gay marriage? The fact is that the state has no reason either to interfere or to protect a gay relationship: nothing is at stake for the state and there is no virtual third party (that is children or future children) who needs to be represented because there will be for decades before that third party is able to defend her own rights. And that is why even in Sparta where homosexuality was not merely tolerated but virtually mandatory, there was never such thing that a gay marriage: Spartans saw no need to have the state meddling in their gay unions and the Spartan state saw no reaon to protect them.
Now given that a gay reelationship is sopmething purely private there is no reeason the state spends money in all the legal (judges, legislators, keeping of records) and fiscal (lesser income due to reduceed taxes) apparatus for a form of marriage who does not carry any benefit for it. I have an interest in that the society where I live not having turned into a huge elders asylum where in case there is a fire in my house I would burn to death because there are no firemen, just as there ano shopkeepers, doctors, policemen. And so because it doesn’t benefit anyone except the partners, state has no more right to create gay marriage than it has a right to legalize incestuous marriage.
However while I deny to the state the right to steal my money in order to create gay marriage about the right of gay people to live either as de facto couples or under private contract I am ready, if needed,to take arms in its defence.
Jun 5, 2009 - 6:20 am 12. sheesh:Hey, Bill O’Reilly told me that if gay marriage gets through that I can marry a turtle. Is that true? I hope so, cuz I got my eye on a little snapper down by the river.
Jun 5, 2009 - 6:28 am 13. RV:The State has no right to tell anyone, anywhere what the definition of marriage is. It needs to get out of the marriage certificate business ASAP, and only provide for civil contracts between consenting adults. The State has no business discriminating and creating a lesser class of people through legislation. Either all people get marriage licenses, which seems unlikely, or all people get civil contracts, which is a much better option. Separate but equal has never and will never exist in any country.
Jun 5, 2009 - 6:33 am 14. fred:The Communist Antonio Gramsci and his program have triumphed over our crumbling civilization. Now all that is left is mopping up.
Jun 5, 2009 - 6:33 am 15. geokstr:“sheesh:
Hey, Bill O’Reilly told me that if gay marriage gets through that I can marry a turtle. Is that true? I hope so, cuz I got my eye on a little snapper down by the river.”
Go for it. That would be one welcome reduction of the human gene pool. Probably a step down for ol’ snapper’s species, though.
Jun 5, 2009 - 6:54 am 16. A Dave:the sky is falling, the sky is falling, help, help. You’re being totally ridiculous, the problem is you believe every word, you’re fanatic and when backed into a corner you will react with violence. Just read some of these comments – setting up the idea that LGBT folks are 1)evil 2)out to destroy 3) monsters 4) to blame for all the ills of life in the USA today. And it’s early in the day yet, I’m sure more will come. Heterosexuals can’t maintain their marriages, the worlds in a mess and you need someone to blame.
Jun 5, 2009 - 7:05 am 17. 1MPTomb:It’s simple, define the enemy and then you are free to do WHATEVER you want to stop them. Try to be creative though, gas chambers have already been tried, it didn’t work. When it comes, remember, the blood is on YOUR hands. All because people want legal protection for their partners and children. God help us all.
A Dave- wow, drama king- get over yourself!
Jun 5, 2009 - 7:19 am 18. JFM:RV
In case you haven’t noticed marriage is a decision takjen freely by the couple. They decide to go to the state instead of just living together or making a private contract. It is to them not to you to decide if they want to have the state to act as the guarantor of their union.
The question is now why the state should accept to spend tax payer’s money in that institution called marriage an d the reasons are: because its survival, the survival of the society it incarantes, your own survival in case in a few decades your house burns, depends on people having children and those children growing healthy and become good men and women (one of them being the fireman who will reescue you from your burning house) instead of street urchins or afflicted with chronical diseases derived of deficient care in their childhood.
Now in case you still think that the State has no business about marriage, children and survival of the society then know that case in a few decades there are not enough doctors (because they haven’t been born or because they went the wrong way) then I deny you the right to call one. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Jun 5, 2009 - 7:44 am 19. rocketeer:@16 A Dave – “you’re fanatic and when backed into a corner you will react with violence”
Let’s review some of the activities that occurred here in California after the passage of proposition 8. Gay activists violently protested in front of the Mormon church, hurling insults and expletives at those within. Gay activists beat up a missionary in the Castro district. Gay activists threaten businesses and individuals that were found to have donated to the Yes on 8 campaign. Gay activists riot in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Ms California, when giving an answer to a question from a gay activist that does not match the gay agenda is called a b@tch and is harassed endlessly by other activists.
What did the pro 8 people do? I’m still waiting for the conservatives to riot.
Once again, you are nothing more then a liberal telling lies to forward your own agenda. Please try for once to deal with reality.
Jun 5, 2009 - 8:14 am 20. k a 0 s:Arguing over the apparent slippery slope of “inimic” relationships that may or may not be discriminated against detracts from the true issue.
Homosexual marriage is not an issue of equality, privilege and acceptance.
Homosexual marriage is a proxy war between freedom of religion and total state authority.
The homosexuals and their self-adulating heterosexual sympathizers are useful idiots of parties that desire to inflate the power of the state while preempting the church and its relationship with its congregation.
Let us set up a hypothetical. Let “gay” marriage be “legal” in the eyes of the state. Let a “gay” couple try to get married in the Church of Mormon, Catholic Church, Baptist Church or local Madrassah for that matter.
Assuming national security is not at risk, the United States Constitution offers every one of these churches the right to refuse to wed said gay couple via the First Amendment which makes it pretty clear that religious autonomy of churches will be enjoyed despite the wishes of the state.
The churches therefore refuse to wed the couple. The couple proceeds to sue the church.
Now what? Are we now not faced with a situation in which the state will instruct, or at least attempt to instruct the church to proceed and marry the gay couple.
The church would still refuse.
Now the state must force the church to obey the law.
Jun 5, 2009 - 8:15 am 21. Bill Perron:I’m a Pagan and I love that beautiful pine tree in my front yard, can we get married ?
Jun 5, 2009 - 8:23 am 22. Bill Perron:It is an interesting observation how some folks want the state to have more power and control over our lives until the state rules in a way contrary to their beliefs and desires, then they cry foul. Liberals are such disgustingly transparent hypocrites. … Allah Akbar
Jun 5, 2009 - 8:50 am 23. DavidN:#19 Rocketeer: Gay activists didn’t *riot* in LA and SF. They did protest, perhaps disrupt traffic a bit and yell things at passersby, or at the Mormon church. But one one, as far as I remember, was seriously injured or killed, and there was no property damage. Try to keep your rhetoric within the bounds of reality: it’ll help you make your point believably.
As to the whole point, now that there are all of these comments together, I still haven’t had a serious answer as to what negative effect would come from legalizing gay marriage. One is reminded of the movie Ghostbusters, when Bill Murray is trying to convince the mayor that the ghosts can wreak havoc if left unchallenged, and he intones “Cats and dogs, liviiiiiing togetheeeeer!!!!” as if that was the end of the world or something.
As for #7 1MPTomb, the idea that gay marriage will decrease the marriage statistics is actually sort of funny. Among heterosexual couples, the stereotype has long been that men tend to stray from their wives, and women tend to build nests and stay with their husbands. While I’m not a big stereotype promoter, in this instance it works well, because the stereotypes hold true, basically, in the gay community too. Men tend to stray, so gay men often fool around a lot. Women tend to build nests, so if you have two lesbians living together, you have two nest-builders who don’t stray. I have friends who are gay. Most are constant with one partner. The one couple (men) have had their 25th anniversary (together). Another pair, women, have been together (dating at least) since junior high school, and they’re well into their middle years. If you want to talk about protecting the institution of marriage from divorce statistics, you might want to start out by working on the straights: lots of them get divorced every year.
Lastly, #20 kaOs: For many years, and still to an extent, the Catholic church won’t perform marriage ceremonies with some *straight* couples, because of the circumstances of their backgrounds. My father-in-law got quickly married and divorced when he returned from World War II. The woman forgot to mention a few things, like her real age and a teenage daughter. When he met his future wife (my mother-in-law) a few years later, he wasn’t allowed to marry her in the Catholic church. They got married somewhere else, because he couldn’t get an annulment in the Catholic church. When he did finally manage to get one, my future wife was the maid of honor. She was in her 20s. Point is, the church doesn’t (and shouldn’t) have to marry anyone, under any circumstances. If gay marriage became legal, the gays would find clergymen to marry them, in churches which were liberal enough to allow it. The constitution protects the churches, and a constitutional amendment, and the Federal level, would be required to change that. Scare tactics don’t do anyone any good.
Jun 5, 2009 - 9:00 am 24. roy:Awwww. La Shawn, that cute little West Coast bigot, has another piece. She has not, to my knowledge, “gone forth and multiplied” and is thus a bad Christian.
Jun 5, 2009 - 9:19 am 25. a:And what about marrying protected species?
Jun 5, 2009 - 9:22 am 26. Free Hat:Let’s start with gorillas and orangutans.
And can we move on to horses and German shepherds?
Bill Perron: “I’m a Pagan and I love that beautiful pine tree in my front yard, can we get married?”
Can your pine tree consent to marriage? It can’t? Then no, you can’t get married. That was simple, wasn’t it?
The only non-hate-focused arguments that the right wing seems to have against gay marriage are that:
1. Gays being married will violate the freedom of churches.
This is a truly pathetic and baseless argument that has been proposed by religious groups solely because they are terrified of losing their domineering authority to decide who can get married and who cannot.
The Church has enjoyed unparalleled power for last couple thousand years by being the sole authority to decide who is qualified to be married, and has been happy throughout history to use that authority to essentially extort its members. I mean, what a great weapon to be able to use against congregants who disagree: “You don’t like the way we run things? Well, that’s a pity, because it looks like you’re going to have a tough time marrying your fiancé since we’re not going to marry you until you shape up.”
Obviously, the government’s intervention into the realm of marriage is pissing off the Church, because it’s losing yet another weapon in its toolkit to keep their congregants on their knees. Without the ability to threaten to withhold marriage form a couple, the Church now has to look for other ways to keep congregants on tight leashes.
2. Traditional marriage will be so destroyed by gays being married that courts will have no choice but to allow people to marry turtles/siblings/trees/multiple partners.
The fact that this argument is even considered as a rational argument is both disturbing and hysterical. Firstly, the comparison between homosexuality and bestiality is very telling of how the right wing views gays – as a deplorable, disgusting perversions of nature.
But on to the argument. Firstly, an animal or an inanimate object cannot even consent to marriage, so this shouldn’t even be an issue. If, by some miracle, a dolphin or chimp could consent to marriage, there are still bestiality laws to prevent this.
Nor can a minor legally consent to marriage, so the idea of an adult marrying a child is also ludicrous.
The only halfway non-retarded argument that the right wing has deals with polygamy; the argument being that “well, if a man can marry a man, why can’t a man marry two women or two men?”
Well, in your holy bible, that happened all the time, and God thought it was just fine. The only reason it is illegal today is because our government decided to outlaw it. That’s basically it. If you could provide an argument that persuaded our courts and elected leaders that allowing polygamy would not be detrimental to anyone, then there is no reason that polygamy could not become legal. If someone could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that polygamy results in specific harm to individuals or society, then there is clear cause to outlaw it. If someone could provide that evidence, that it truly does cause harm, I’d love to see it.
Though we may all disagree with the idea of polygamy based upon our personal code of moral, to claim that polygamy as an institution is inherently evil is simply incorrect; its legality is a completely arbitrary decision made by our officials and courts based on general moral consensus. Today, the general consensus is that polygamy is morally incorrect, and that moral belief has dictated the law.
But in the highly unlikely, but kind of conceptually awesome scenario in which by the year 2456, ¾ of all men are dead due to a pandemic that only affects dudes, and there is now only 1 man per 4-5 women, it’s likely that at that point we’ll all become polygamists out of the necessity to repopulate our species.
Finally, in a country where the top rated tv shows include “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire/Celebrity/Stripper/Midget”, to claim that we hold marriage as a sacred institution is frankly laughable.
Jun 5, 2009 - 9:40 am 27. steveg:We must all work together to nip ‘progressive fascism’ in the bud.
Jun 5, 2009 - 9:57 am 28. Free Hat:steveg: “We must all work together to nip ‘progressive fascism’ in the bud.”
This only fascism I’ve seen lately is the fascism of reactionary, extemist right-wing terrorists who murder cops, political party leaders and church-goers because of ideological differences.
Jun 5, 2009 - 10:13 am 29. Avitar:“a:” Marrying polygamous or outside of the species is already an annoyance in Connecticut. What do you think that Trevor the chimp/s living arrangements were?
Jun 5, 2009 - 10:16 am 30. suzy:The childbearing sex needs protection during the last stages of pregnancy, delivery, and the first few years of the infant’s dependence. A system was developed among humans to protect the childbearing sex.
As society developed, the childbearing sex became valuable symbols of the non-childbearing sex’s prestige. Kinships developed. Great clans developed. Having a childbearer belonging to a high prestige clan was better than a low prestige clan. Clans protected their valuables and gave them only to high prestige males.
The word, marriage, describes this protection of the childbearing sex.
In today’s world the word marriage is virtually meaningless. 40% of infants have no male to protect them (the government now does that). The family still exists among people over 50 years of age. Males no longer must marry for regular sex. Bastard children are the same as legitimate. We have a bastard POTUS. So, gay “marriage” means the same as any “marriage.” In other words true marriage is marginalized and non-existant among the underclass.
Jun 5, 2009 - 10:37 am 31. Chuck Pelto:TO: All
RE: Yup….
….California is turning into a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah.
The sad part is that they probably think that’s a ‘compliment’.
The even sadder part will be when they discover the truth of the matter.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Jun 5, 2009 - 11:13 am 32. Juanbanda:[Woe to them that call good 'evil' and evil 'good'.]
My girlfriend is a real bitch. She also happens to be German so if you get in her face she might take a bite out of you, and believe me her bite is much worse then her bark. Now we really care for each other and we’ve been together for 9 years. So I think it’s time we were married. We have so much in common. We both love to take long walks, we enjoy sitting in the shade of our tree and having a beer, and we engage in sports activities such as swimming in the river and playing catch. I think it’s a match made in heaven. And doggie heaven.
Jun 5, 2009 - 11:43 am 33. BattleofthePyramids:Rest assured, Islamic 4 wife marriage (and the cool welfare benefits from having 4 wives and who knows how many children) will soon follow. And after that you can look forward to child marriage (age of consent,isn’t that discriminatory? After all, according to all good liberals, 12 year olds are mature enough to decid if they want an abortion, so why not marriage). Cousin marriage, incest, and many other things will follow.
Its not a slippery slope, its te inevitable consequence of what homosexuals are doing now.
Jun 5, 2009 - 11:57 am 34. yuzs:my grandchild is 66 years younger than I. I have great pensions combined over $13,000/month. When I die, pensions die. I want to marry my grandchild so he can get that pension. Will you gays support me in my endeavor to have my grandson marry me to get my public pension?
Jun 5, 2009 - 12:01 pm 35. Dr. Bukk:DavidN, FreeHat and other polygamy defenders, I will explain why polygamy is the foulest concept for a culture ever conceived. It is a system that perpetuates itself wherever allowed, not a one generation oddity. Mathematically, each generation produces males that will never be able to marry since genders are distributed equally. If two wives are allowed, then half the males are out of luck, a far greater proportion than the supposedly 10% exaggerated population of gay males. An oversupply of males is fraught with violence. They must be be eliminated somehow. In the El Dorado polygamist group, by the age of 14 there were three girls for every boy, but the younger children were about equal in gender number. Where did they go? They were dumped in big cities by their own parents, totally ignorant of life outside the compound. They are called “Lost Boys” and their lives are ruined. They end up drug addicts and male prostitutes.
In the history of the Middle East, their insatiable urge to conquer other lands was not only religious, it was motivated by the desire of the extra men to capture wives. Now that they are too weak to conquer, they turn upon themselves and murder each other in shocking numbers, or are lured into homicidal suicide. So, violence is endemic to polygamy. China and India’s oversupply of males by selective abortion is going to be a huge problem.
Furthermore, inbreeding is the result of culture of polygamy. There are 44,000 descendants of Ibn Saud who founded Saudi Arabia. Imagine a small community of polygamists where each man can have 4 wives. By the second generation, every member would be a cousin. The incidence of genetic birth defects among Muslims is extremely high, now requiring marital coaches in some countries to try and discourage all the first cousins marrying (consanguineous marriage).
The third danger of polygamy is it always results in abuse of women and children. They must vie for attention and the man must be the arbitrator. Wives betray each other and conspire to have the husband punish the other. Invariably the women must cover themselves from head to toe to hide bruises. Islam even allows for the men to have sex with boys until they reach puberty, perhaps to let off some pent up sexual needs for those shut off from wives.
The final flaw of polygamy is it entrenches poverty and nurtures population explosion. It is virtually impossible to pass on land or a business to so many children. So, women are the first cut out, but then what will you leave to eight sons or more? Each generation launches a whole new set of unemployed young men, unable to afford a wife and with nothing to live for. In fact unemployment is massive and half the population is under 25 in Iran.
Islam was designed to sustain polygamy with its murderous teachings. Thousands of years of Jewish and Christian wisdom was flushed down the toilet because Mohammed lusted after his own niece.
Now the gays want to usurp a practice that has sustained productive civilizations for thousands of years. It is not just a passé Christian concept, but a vital component of humanity to one other.
Jun 5, 2009 - 12:23 pm 36. rocketeer:@23 DavidN – Never did i say that anyone was injured, but there was property damage (although i didn’t say that either). My points are not rhetoric, they are observations of events.
Let’s see, here are a few quick links to illustrate the compassion of the gay lobby.
Anti proposition 8 protesters harass little old lady. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VS3Us-TRU0
Christian Woman Beaten With a Bible in the Castro District http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ5K31XOa5w&NR=1
Chased out of the Castro District – 11-14-08 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrRxFoBSPng&feature=related
Castro District Gays Attack A Christian Missionary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4Xb-au-wpU&feature=related
Jun 5, 2009 - 1:00 pm 37. Chris B:Dr. Bukk, you sound like a fun guy. Do you party? I am straight, but we could go cruising for chicks together. I like Jagermeister and long drives, usually together.
Jun 5, 2009 - 1:17 pm 38. CMartel2:This argument ignores the abomination that is gay marriage to begin with. Inherent in every society time immemorium is the idea that marriage exists to:
1) serve as a permanent bond between two people in companionship for all of life
2) serve as the proper and best means by which to propagate and raise the next generation through a bond of love between two people and their offspring.
Gay “marriage” attempts to completely obliterate #2, something that would be absolutely disastrous to any country that goes about exerting this abomination on itself. With Western birth rates already at all-time lows, what happens when the societal expectation to have children is all but obliterated from the compact of marriage? Society’s continued erosion into what was a sound system of marriage is no excuse to just dump the whole system. The whole reason that our society has begun to fail is that it has absndoned traditional marriage. Speeding that process up only worsens matters.
So again, what happens? “Well, Bobby, if you choose to marry a girl, perhaps you’ll have kids” from “Bobby, when you marry some sweet girl, you’ll have kids just like your parents.” The damage done to heterosexual is just as profound, if not far, far moreso.
It’s not only best for society and for children, it’s the natural order of life, which is why you see it unerringly throughout the world and all of history save the past 15 years in socities so inherently broken as to fail to do something so basic as to produce the next generation. These societies were already sick, of course. Gay “marriage” is but the latest bug to strike a weakened immune system.
Talk of slippery slopes all you want, but gay “marriage” is the end of a slope. Whether another pitfall awaits at end of that slope is up for speculation, but when a society has already reached that point, the underpinnings of a society have already collapsed.
I’m not a fan of the above argument. Yes, marriage is made meaningless by gay marriage, but it’s an inherently wrong argument–not because it leads to one but because it already is.
It’s like those who argue that certain states have banned gay “marriage.” To the contrary, not a single state has. What has been done is that traditional marriage has been codified as the de facto only marriage recognized by the state. One could argue that all other types of marriage have been denied official state recognition, but they certainly haven’t been banned. If two or a dozen people want to come together and declare their eternal bond in marriage to one another, they can; they’re just not getting state recognition for it.
Jun 5, 2009 - 1:19 pm 39. Chris B:Yuzs writes:
“my grandchild is 66 years younger than I. I have great pensions combined over $13,000/month. When I die, pensions die. I want to marry my grandchild so he can get that pension. Will you gays support me in my endeavor to have my grandson marry me to get my public pension?”
I am not gay, but I will support you.
Where is the honeymoon?
Will your grandson be wearing white, I hope?
Jun 5, 2009 - 1:19 pm 40. rocketeer:@23 DavidN – “I still haven’t had a serious answer as to what negative effect would come from legalizing gay marriage”
Let’s turn the question around and ask what positive effects there would be to legalize it. I still haven’t had a serious answer as to what positive effect would come from legalizing gay marriage.
Jun 5, 2009 - 1:27 pm 41. straightman:Please see this page for more info on gay harassment.
http://tinyurl.com/1eau
Jun 5, 2009 - 1:34 pm 42. MarkOH:Marriage may be considered by some to be a religious, sanctified relationship but we have allowed it to be included in secular laws. Health care, survival benefits, even something as a family plan at a museum relate to marriage. To deny it to two consenting adults is wrong.
1). Turtles, toasters, etc cannot give consent so that’s a wasted argument.
2). Polygamy? Was good enough in the Old Testament, why not now? If you talk of protecting a pregnant woman, she’d do much better with more people around her.
3). gays can marry, just someone of the opposite sex. Are you kidding? Do you REALLY think its a good idea if a gay individual marries a straight one? Is that REALLY the sanctified relationship you respect?
4). In the joke above, a brother-brother relationship is mentioned. If marriage is between one man and one woman, why not a brother and sister?
It comes down to a basic fact: there is ABSOLUTELY no reason not to let two consenting adults form a legally recognized relationship other than a Christian fascist objection.
Oh, and rocketeer?
Jun 5, 2009 - 2:10 pm 43. MarkOH:That old lady is a professional antagonist, not some poor old woman. And all she had done to her was have a Styrofoam cross taken out of her hands. That’s SO much worse than killing someone. (eyes rolling)
rocketeer:
Jun 5, 2009 - 2:14 pm 44. steveg:“what positive effect would come from legalizing gay marriage.”
The same ones that come from allowing straight marriage.
Whatever the looney left wants, the looney left gets. Eventually.
Jun 5, 2009 - 2:15 pm 45. MarkOH:CMartel2:
Jun 5, 2009 - 2:40 pm 46. adnerb:In regards to your 2nd point – thanks for making my sister and brother-in-law’s marriage an “abomination” since they were unable to have children. I guess couples unable to bear children should be prevented from getting married and if no progeny after 5 years, must divorce.
DavidN, Free Hat – Marriage is in bad shape today because feminists and the left in general have been attacking traditional families for around 45 years through their promotion of sex outside of marriage, easy divorce, easy access to abortion and now the gay rights movement. Cultural conservatives opposed it all.
Now that the left has succeeded and marriage is in bad shape, leftists attack it because it’s in bad shape. Some on the left basically wish to destroy marriage. They consider it to be “oppressive,” and because they can’t fit into it, they want it to disappear for everyone else. They do not realize how traditional marriage stabilizes society and how they themselves benefit from that.
I take a biological approach to gay marriage. Gay marriage would separate marriage from biology and consequently the link between past, present and future.
Gay marriage denies that a mother and father are both necessary for children. Tell that to residents of the inner city. Perhaps you think that a boy in the inner city would be better off with two lesbian mothers. If the lesbians divorce and remarry, then the boy could have four mothers and no father. It wouldn’t exactly help him to adjust to inner city life, however.
Feminists believe that the sexes are not different except for obvious physical differences. I’m amazed that this theory has gained any traction because it contradicts experience. Very small boys and girls are different. Parents and teachers know this. Mothers in general do not teach little boys how to skip rocks, fix a car or swing a bat. They can, but men are far more likely to. There’s nothing wrong with these differences.
Gay marriage also severs marriage from the notion that genetic relatives exist on both sides of the family. A child being raised in a homosexual or lesbian household does not have genetic relatives on at least one side of the family. All gay families are stepfamilies. It used to be assumed that stepfamilies were the occasional unhappy necessity, but not the ideal environment for a child. Look at children’s stories – the evil stepmother is cruel to her children and so on.
Like it or not, we’re hard-wired to reproduce ourselves. We have a greater biological incentive to preserve our own relatives than those unrelated to us. Child abuse is more common in families in which the child is not related to both parents.
If we success in throwing biology out of marriage with relatives from the past, present and future deemed irrelevant to families, we are free to focus on what is most important – me. It’s my relationship, my self-esteem, my pride, my family (with no connection to past, present or future). This kind of self-centered disconnection cannot sustain our communities in the long run, however.
Jun 5, 2009 - 2:54 pm 47. adnerb:On an entirely different note, we have not yet discussed the legal ramifications of gay marriage. If gay marriage is legalized, who would pay for the health care of HIV-positive “spouses”? Would small businesses be forced to do so? Health care is a whole different topic, but I am certain that gay rights activists have more in mind than just wedded bliss.
What about the wedding photographer in Arizona who was sued because he refused to photograph a gay wedding? What about churches being forced to perform same-sex weddings? Would those who disagree be automatically be guilty of a “hate” crime?
The whole concept of a “hate” crime comes from totalitarian thinking, political correctness, cultural Marxism – there are a variety of names for it. If I don’t agree with you, I am guilty of a “hate” crime. It’s a way of enforcing one point of view, your point of view, the only right point of view. You can label me as “hateful” or evil, and you are spared the inconvenience of actually considering what I have to say.
Jun 5, 2009 - 3:10 pm 48. D'oh!:So, let me get this straight (hah!), gays in California may be married in every legal sense of the word except they may not call their relationship ‘marriage’, yet, this is not good enough? What would it add to their relationship, legally, if they could call it marriage? What does it detract from it (legally!) since they can’t? No one has ever been able to explain that to me – and I have a good working understanding of things like string theory, calculus, the correct use of the words ‘who’ and ‘whom’ – you know, hard stuff.
Speaking of smart people not understanding something that apparently is quite plain to everyone else, someone above noted, in passing while defending gay marriage, that “most statistical studies of these things show that more child molesters are heterosexual, as opposed to gay”. No doubt, no doubt, but I expect it is also true that more redheads or left-handers or men who can form their tongue in the shape of a ‘u’ are child molesters, as well, simply because there are far more such men than gay men, even if you don’t count the overlap.
More interesting would be to note the *relative proportion* of child molesters to ‘non child molesters’ in the gay or straight community, respectively. And, since gays have an organization committed to promoting this type of relationship and straights do not (i.e., NAMBLA), I think I can predict what the statistics will show.
No, no, my friends, I fear that the real motive behind the gay marriage flap (sorry!) is filthy lucre. And I am offended, sickened, and saddened by anyone who prostitutes his or her ideals for mere financial gain.
Take heart, though, straights everywhere. If gays are ever given extra rights (such as gay marriage), keep in mind that ‘gay’ is the only minority that is one purely because they claim to be. (I mean, you’re not Hispanic, for instance, just because you say you are, right?) If you want any of the extra perks the gays manage to mau-mau out of the government, just claim to be gay and get in line (only your hairdresser will know for sure – I keed, I keed)! Oh, wait, that might be prostituting your ideals, too…nevermind…
Jun 5, 2009 - 3:16 pm 49. tom:AHh yes more fear mongering. Next article will be about marrying sheep and goats. Oh wait, they already do that in the south.
JFM: I hope you’re on some sort of watch list. You sound like a time bomb waiting to go off.
Jun 5, 2009 - 3:22 pm 50. sheesh:By the way, Operation Rescue and Randall Terry and his fiends are going down hard on this Tiller thing . . .I’m calling it right now.
Jun 5, 2009 - 3:56 pm 51. Delia:4. njcommuter:
“And in the end, destruction of the family means that children are either the happy wards of the state (and the state-run schools, to whom we have already delegated too much of their formation) or the unhappy wards of its prison system.”
~
Yikes. THAT is some scary profound shiznit.
Jun 5, 2009 - 4:22 pm 52. Banned by Huffpo:I’d like to add that 30-year old divorced hottie that lives next door to the marriage license, but my wife gives me the ice eye when I talk about it.
When will I be free to express my love? Come on California, hurry up and legalize polygamy!
Jun 5, 2009 - 5:25 pm 53. DavidN:40. rocketeer:
@23 DavidN – “I still haven’t had a serious answer as to what negative effect would come from legalizing gay marriage”
Let’s turn the question around and ask what positive effects there would be to legalize it. I still haven’t had a serious answer as to what positive effect would come from legalizing gay marriage.
Since when did we outlaw things because no one can see any benefit from them being legal? The only reason to outlaw something is public safety, or the well-being of the citizenry. Outlawing something because you don’t like it is rather silly, and very arbitrary.
As for the argument that the gay community makes themselves less palatable by their rhetoric and extremes, I agree that they do. Frankly I’ve been accused of being a homophobe on gay sites, because I don’t believe marriage to be the right of anyone, gay or straight. You don’t get a license from the government to exercise your rights. Anyway, both sides need to tone down the rhetoric, and the accusations of what supposedly will ensue if gay marriage becomes legal, or doesn’t. It’s not the end of religion, your church, or anything else. As I pointed out above, Catholics have operated with a marriage standard very different from that of the government. It used to be you couldn’t get an annulment if your last name wasn’t Kennedy. For many years, there were people who were married to one person as far as the Catholic church was concerned, and to another person (or no one at all) in legal terms. Why does gay marriage have to be any different.
As to all of the supposed bad consequences of polygamy: I’ll agree that the fundamentalist Mormons, and their ilk, are very annoying. I’ll also agree that child marriage is a bad thing. However, many states in the Union allow it, or have in the recent past. This is beside polygamy, a man in his fifties can marry a 15-year-old. Does anyone think that healthy? But somehow, that’s healthier than a menage-a-trois being legalized, even if that involves people in their thirties. *That* makes sense.
I would suggest that the solution is to require marriage to be between consenting adults, with no exceptions. Minors shouldn’t be allowed to get married, or failing that the age of consent of 16 or 17 ought to be inviolable, and men caught fooling around with younger women ought to get in some trouble. The problem, of course, is that everyone can justify their violation of rules like this (”She told me she was 18″) and the system is typically reluctant to enforce rules on people harshly, under these circumstances.
But beyond all of this, I return to what I said originally. No one has shown me anything (anything credible, anyway) bad that would result from gay marriage being legalized. Everyone has all sorts of predictions of “what comes next” but that’s in one way irrelevant. Do we make the consumption of alcohol illegal, because we know some of the people who get drunk are going to drive their cars, afterward? No, and there the one thing stems directly from the other. In the case of gay marriage, you’re assuming that *other people* will come out of the woodwork, insisting these other practices become legal, too. Does that, in and of itself, justify keeping gay marriage illegal? Laws aren’t for prohibiting things of which you disapprove; they’re for protecting the many from the few, and the few from the many. I repeat: no one has shown me any credible proof anything bad would happen as a result of gay marriage being legalized.
Jun 5, 2009 - 5:57 pm 54. Self-hating Boomer:One more time…
The only way out of this box is separation of marriage and state.
Jun 5, 2009 - 7:11 pm 55. Michael A.:“What’s wrong with gay marriage?”
“Well, it goes against tradition.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Without tradition to stand on, people will do crazy stuff, like polygamy.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It, um, goes against tradition.”
“Huh, that sounds like a circular argument.”
“Actually, I just remembered, polygamy is wrong because of X, Y, and Z.”
“Is that so? Well, if we have such good reasons for banning polygamy, then I guess we would be justified in banning it even WITHOUT standing on tradition. So changing the traditional definition of marriage to accommodate gays doesn’t really hurt us so bad, does it?”
“I guess not. I never realized how ridiculous the slippery slope argument was. Wow, I feel silly.”
Jun 5, 2009 - 7:23 pm 56. syn:“What’s wrong with gay marriage?”
This is a silly question since homosexuals can and do marry.
Why not change the traditional definition of homosexual to accommodate marriage and this way we can all be happy and gay again.
Jun 6, 2009 - 4:32 am 57. SteveB/Colorado:#2 Blackwater: “you leftists have been destroying our traditions and our values for too long.” What leftists? The late & great sci-fi author, Robert A. Heinlein, wrote about line marriages in his ’60s classic, “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.” He also wrote the military glorifying novel, “Starship Troopers.”
#7 1 MPTomb “The first component is that homosex is not natural and is prone to many more diseases than heterosex.” Not natural? Then why does it occur naturally in other species. In humans, it’s genetic, not acquired. As to the prevalence of disease, of course you are a doctor and you have detailed studies to support your conclusion? Right??
#22 Bill Perron: “….how some folks want the state to have more power & control over our lives….” Sounds like the anti-abortion movement with its positions opposing abortion and birth control. It’s not about unborn babies; it’s about gaining power over citizens’ reproductive decisions. How is that “conservative?”
“Liberals are such disgustingly transparent hypocrites.” Liberals don’t have the market cornered on hypocrisy. Recall the Terry Schiavo situation several years ago? Self-proclaimed conservatives ranging from then Florida Governor Bush to religious right icon James Dobson fell all over themselves trying to find an activist judge to overrule the family decision to pull the plug on poor, brain-dead, Terry. I always thought Bush, Dobson and their cronies despised activist judges. Guess I was wrong.
Jun 6, 2009 - 7:15 am 58. Joe Bison:I questioned some Muslims about their preference
in voting for liberal parties in light of their
opposition to abortion and gay marriage.
Their answer basically was that they do not
see these as threats to Islam as these are
practiced by non-religious westerners. In
voting they were more concerned by which
party was more pro-Islam among other things.
And yes they did recognize the gay issue as
a wedge that they could utilize in the future
when they had more power to institutionalize
polygamy. In fact in most of the West
governments turn a blind eye to it.
The West was perceived as being an ethically
Jun 6, 2009 - 8:19 am 59. adnerb:bankrupt non-religious entity that was going
to be replaced in time by Islam. At that
time they would set things right including
abortion and gay marriage.
Michael A and DavidN: Based on your posts, I don’t believe that there is any way of communicating with you. I spoke about the
1. INCREASE OF CHILD ABUSE in families in which one or both parents are not related to the children. This has to include gay families, because at least one parent is not related to the child in the family.
Apparently the harm that comes from
2. DISCONNECTING FAMILIES FROM BIOLOGY is too abstract for you to consider. Consider the fact that children who are adopted sometimes look for their natural birth parents because we all have a natural connection with our genetic relatives. Gay marriage disconnects families from this very natural phenomena.
You’re not thinking about the
3. LEGAL RAMIFICATIONS of gay marriage, the fact that the whole concept of a “hate” crime is a totalitarian sham designed to pressure people into adopting one point of view. It enables left wing people to
4. OPPRESS ANYONE NOT IN AGREEMENT with them.
I think you’re just on this site to vent. You probably just skim over what other people have to say and then return to the same internal dialog.
Jun 6, 2009 - 10:09 am 60. David S:@58. Joe Bison:
The religious right would do well to learn from their example of tolerance. Gay marriage and abortion are choices – not requirements. Freedom is wonderful.
Peace.
DS
Jun 6, 2009 - 12:45 pm 61. Michael A.:@adnerb
Ah, I apologize for the confusion. You see I chose to address the topic of this thread (the slippery slope argument) rather than the two comments you appended in response. But don’t worry, the next time I take leave of my internal dialog to post here, I’ll be sure to answer every unsubstantiated assertion put forth in all comments previous (as long as they are not too abstract for my tiny mind). ^_^
Jun 6, 2009 - 5:05 pm 62. Joe Bison:To #60 I think you missed the point. Try reading
the whole comment, especially the last two
paragraphs. They tolerate it because they
see these practices , but not for them,
and liberalism in general as hastening the
end of the West and furthering their goals.
These were “moderate” Shiites and Sunnis
by the way. Your role David S. Peace is
that of a useful idiot. You play it well.
Enjoy.
Jun 6, 2009 - 6:42 pm 63. GClarke:Q. What could possibly be bad with polygamy?
A. Historically, it has only (or mostly) been practiced by one man with many women. It is bad for the women, compared to what they instincively want — one man to pay attention to them exclusively. It is bad for the weaker men who cannot now have their own marriage and their own female relationship. One Man/One Woman is historical progress over harems, many of which were peopled by kidnapped slaves, and even now by brainwashed Stepford wives. But, historically speaking, why go backward?
Q. What’s bad about Marriage between gays without any chance of procreation, the real core reason two people commit themselves to each other and the biological purpose the emotion of love plays, to keep the Race going and to provide family support for the children as they grow.
A. Well apart from losing a word which refers to the procreative joinder of two people to include joinders intended only the mechanical simulation of procreative love, the sexual objectives of male and female are completely different. The male drive is to sow oats, wild or not, as broadly and as often as possible, hence the male homosexual battle cry of the ’70’s to celebrate the male sexual experience to the max: i.e., have sex with as many like-minded men as possible unhampered by the female prejudice toward exclusivity.
The female sex drive is to find the best, stongest, most productive and highest quality mate to give her the best-quality children, and to give her protection while she is gestating and nesting. Put these two together and there is a reason for lifelong committment.
Put two gays together, particularly males, and where is the reason for lifelong committment? This is a reason we can find little evidence in history, inside or outside of law, of such a type of commitment. (The only one examples I can think of are Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, and maybe Eleanor Roosevelt and her secretary but, note, these are all females. How about you fellas out there?)
Sure there are governmental perks to marriage, and alot of drawbacks, and I have no problem with Gays finding their life-long soul mate and celebrating it and committing to it. There is freedom of contract in the Constitution and that contract should be civilly recognized, and given the same civil rights as marriage of the traditional sort. But as the French say: Vive L’Difference! and I want to celebrate the difference between marriage as we have always understood it and two gay people celebrating their new and modern liberation from the back alleys. We lost the word “Gay.” I don’t want to lose the word marriage, too. Can’t there be a word to distinguish the two very different human approaches to sex?
And, lastly, I agree with the fear, well experienced in Scandinavia, that where marriage is just two (or more) people living together to get governmental perks, and the children are taken out of the rationale, heterosexual men lose the urge to marry, and the incidence of traditional marriage and traditional families takes a nose dive. No more talk then of “What’s the harm of radically changing this institution into something we have no idea about?” How did that idea work out for the French in 1789?
Lastly, it is quite evident that our Nation and Culture are under mortal attack. We were too economically strong. Well, the attacks on our economy are all too evident. Our use of energy was too strong. Well, the myth of global warming has gotten alot of useful idiots to place our domestic sources of energy beyond the reach of our dying industries. But only here. No talk of global warming in China or Iran.
We were too religiously strong. Well, the attacks on religion were vicious and so far successful and unstoppable.
If I were the evil, foreign genius pulling the strings on all this, I could make a very good argument that the fight over Gay Marriage (being pushed awfully hard where it affects only 6-7% of the population who have no need for lifetime committment) is just as good a wedge issue as any to destroy and weaken the American Culture so they can stroll in and take over with alot less fighting and bloodshed. God, it sure scares the crap out of me.
But apart from that, I can’t think of anything wrong with it.
Jun 7, 2009 - 6:18 am 64. Jamie in Las Vegas:‘Couple of points:
- “Slippery Slope” arguments are by definition illogical. How did a logical fallacy become a conventional wisdom arguing tool?
- Is there a any kind of clamor in the US by any other group excluded from marriage to get legal recognition? Are there large groups of polygamists fighting for their right to get married? Brother-brother/sister-sister groups? Man-toaster groups? Does anybody REALLY see this as an honest threat?
- When attitudes and laws changed that allowed inter-faith, and interracial marriages, THAT didn’t lead to brother-sister marriage. And unlike polygamy you could argue that they are of the same “opposite marriage” construction. Since this didn’t happen, what makes you all think that same-sex marriage would automatically open the flood gates for anything?
Jun 7, 2009 - 8:42 am 65. adnerb:Jamie – If you’ve lived long enough, you can see that we’re definitely on a slippery slope.
Jun 7, 2009 - 10:02 am 66. Jamie in Las Vegas:In the late 1950s, my mother said that the man down the street stayed up late at night in order to see the bra commercials on TV.
When I was in high school in the mid 1960s in a nice suburban school, there was a rumor floating around that one of the leaders of the class had been caught making out with a girl. There were no pregnancies in my school, needless to say.
The argument was made in the early ’70s that sex outside of marriage would strengthen marriage. I am just old enough to remember the taboo against sex outside of marriage, especially with women. I also remember the campaigns to get people to publicly talk about sex. The topic was too embarrassing for many.
In the mid-’70s, it was argued that no-fault divorce would be good for children because they wouldn’t have to hear their parents fight and they would have more brothers and sisters to play with and more toys and wouldn’t that be fun.
Civil unions were considered radical in the 1990s. It came as a shock to many when gay marriage was legalized in Mass. in 2004. Now there is growing talk about transgendered people and polygamists.
We’re a long way from the 1950s. The most wild-eyed demented right-wing extremist would not have predicted all the things that are happening today. School children are being taught that homosexuality is good and anyone who criticizes it is bad. Parents cannot object.
To sum this up, yes, we’re on a slippery slope
Adnerb:
There were no pregnancies in your school, really? No girls suddenly “left town” several months before graduation? That’s kind of surprising. My mom was one of those girls who quietly left her small town for the big city with her new husband and expanding waistline. This was 1966, and she was far from the only one. I’m proof of that!
The argument about kids learning about gay sex in school is overblown. They’re not given the “Joy of Gay Sex” and a bottle of lube, and told to go experiment. They’re simply taught that some boys don’t like girls, some girls don’t like boys, etc. Sex education is far less titillating, and lurid as many on the right seem to fear.
Also, regardless of what the kids are told, even if you show them a Chi Chi LaRue film, the ones who are straight are NOT going to magically become gay. It just doesn’t freakin’ work that way.
“Slippery Slope,” as I said before, is a logical fallacy. One of the big ones. People ought to be aware that using such arguments–especially when using the actual name of the fallacy–does not strengthen their argument.
Jun 7, 2009 - 11:50 am 67. momof3:What gay marriage proponents never acknowledge is that in countries where unions other than man/woman marriage are legalized, such as scandanavia, traditional marriage DOES all but disappear. They have no leg to stand on with their “it won’t change straight marriage” argument-it obviously does and has and will.
Jun 7, 2009 - 5:20 pm 68. Michael A.:Well I usually don’t acknowledge stuff that isn’t true.
See: http://www.slate.com/id/2100884/
But let’s pretend it is true. If you find such a correlation compelling, this one is downright terrifying: http://www.seanbonner.com/blog/archives/001857.php
There’s no difference between correlation and causation, right?
Jun 7, 2009 - 9:18 pm 69. David S:@62. Joe Bison:
When it comes to abortion and gay marriage, the desires of the jihadis are the same as the desires of fundies here at home. Both parties want their religious tradition to be codified into law and applied across the board, rather than respecting the basic concepts of human rights. Both would prefer to subjugate women to the power of the state, with particular emphasis on reproductive rights and sexual taboos, and both would prefer to deny the right of marriage to gays based on religious objections. Both occasionally spawn homicidal and/or suicidal believers who take violent action to express their point of view.
I am much more concerned about the fundamentalists in the USA than those overseas. The impact on my life is greater when the fundies are on the march here – and most of the fundies in the USA are not Islamic…
Peace.
DS
PS – My belief in the ultimate superiority of freedom and human rights as a model for human society prevents me from being overly concerned about the fringe movements represented by religious fundamentalism – in the great arc of history, the movement toward rational mutual self-interest has been slow but steady.
Jun 8, 2009 - 3:15 pm 70. Fred2:David S. wrote:
“I am much more concerned about the fundamentalists in the USA than those overseas. The impact on my life is greater when the fundies are on the march here – and most of the fundies in the USA are not Islamic…
Peace.
DS”
You do remember that 9/11 was committed by “Islamic fundamentalists” (IFs) from overseas? And I don’t recall the these fundies saying “We will destroy the World Trade Center after all homosexuals leave the buildings.”
To an Islamic fundamentalists, the only good American is a DEAD American.
In related news, there four Islamic fundamentalists tried to launch terrorist attacks in New York City. They learned their evil trade in our prison system:
http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=11835
Then there was the military recruiter in Arkansas was shot dead by (you guessed it) an Islamic fundamentalist:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1190351/Soldier-killed-Muslim-convert-opens-U-S-army-recruiting-centre.html
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/06/a_conspiracy_of_euphemism.php
So, don’t be shocked if the Islamic fundamentalists affect you or someone you know sooner rather than later.
Jun 15, 2009 - 7:52 am 71. Fred2:David S.
“My belief in the ultimate superiority of freedom and human rights as a model for human society prevents me from being overly concerned about the fringe movements represented by religious fundamentalism – in the great arc of history, the movement toward rational mutual self-interest has been slow but steady.”
Tell that to the Netherlands, whose people once believed that their “tolerant,” secular, socialist, and hedonistic society would eliminate religious fundamentalism. The Dutch got a rude awakening when popular porn filmmaker/satirist Theo van Gogh was murdered by Muslim immigrant Mohammed Bouyeri.
http://www.globaljihad.net/view_page.asp?id=453
Bouyeri killed van Gogh because the latter made a film “Submission” that was critical of Islam.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article543212.ece
Furthermore, Bouyeri found the Netherlands’ tolerant, hedonistic culture promoted by van Gogh to be intolerable. Hence, he prays for the Netherland’s destruction.
Here’s another disturbing reality: the Muslim immigrants are converting the Netherlands instead of the other way around. Hence, as shown by the short film Fitna, the native Dutch could soon be living in a Muslim theocracy like Iran:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=31240495
If this occurs, expect the legalized murder of homosexuals in the Netherlands to be a regular event as it is in Iran.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/269565
Hence, it’s naive to believe that Islamic fundamentalists will leave the West alone if we are more “tolerant.”
Jun 15, 2009 - 8:33 am 72. ReformingJournalism:Great article, LaShawn. It really does come down to a definition of terms. If my dog sits down next to his food dish, can I call that a “marriage” as well?
Jun 16, 2009 - 12:20 am