From the AP: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday that he would fight an initiative to amend the California Constitution to ban gay marriage if it qualifies for the November ballot.
That’s easy for me since, unlike the current three presidential candidates, I favor gay marriage. But the following may be the more interesting part of the AP article: “I will always be there to fight against that,” Schwarzenegger said, prompting loud cheers and a standing ovation from about 200 people at the annual convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s largest gay Republican group.
The Austrian-born governor immediately cracked that he wished activists would instead focus on passing an amendment to allow naturalized citizens to run for president.
Now there’s an interesting question.
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20 Comments
1. Anthony (Los Angeles):Arnold for president? No thanks. I voted for him twice, but the way he’s bollixed up the state budget makes me wish I’d voted for McClintock, instead.
Regarding gay marriage, I thought California passed a “marriage is het-only” initiative several years ago. Was that voided?
(My own view: marriage isn’t a right, but, given that love is in such short supply in the world, why shouldn’t two committed people be allowed to marry?)
Apr 12, 2008 - 5:28 pm 2. Dr. T:California’s experience with Arnold (or shall I say Mr. Shriver) may reinforce the importance of the Constitution as it stands.
He has been an abysmal governor.
Apr 12, 2008 - 5:57 pm 3. docweasel:I have had a standing challenge for years now, on the blog and elsewhere, for anyone to give me a coherent argument exactly why gays should not be allowed to marry and why its not in the government’s interested to encourage stable relationships between adults forming families, no matter what their sexual orientation. No one has ever come up with that coherent argument. I had that debate in your comments thread, and the most a ‘traditionalist” could come up with was that “a lot of gays only want it for the financial benefits”, to which I answered, so what? And secondly, they said that a large number of gays only wanted it to stick a finger in the eye of religious voters and straights, to which again, I answered, so what? If some blacks only wanted the freedom from slavery and the vote to stick it to former slave owners, did that make their claim to basic human rights any less valid? I believe gays are being denied a basic human right, and their motivation for coveting it is irrelevant. No one can come up with an argument that they don’t have a claim to the right, only that they don’t want it for the pure reasons their opponents demand.
Apr 12, 2008 - 11:26 pm 4. Deagle:Docweasel,
Maybe because there is no societal benefit to providing such a union (and actually, many of our laws are based on that premise). There are many laws that have been enacted for societies benefit, but enacting this one makes no sense except to please the minority. Ah, but it will make many feel good about themselves…
Apr 13, 2008 - 12:37 am 5. Michael J. Totten:enacting this one makes no sense except to please the minority
Unless it harms the majority, so what?
The “marriage must be defended” argument doesn’t make sense. You aren’t more likely to get divorced if gay people marry, nor are your umarried heterosexual children less likely to marry if gay people marry.
And don’t tell me marriage is for the purpose of raising children. I’m married, I don’t have children, and no one thinks the state should force my wife and I to divorce if we don’t procreate.
Apr 13, 2008 - 12:56 am 6. Deagle:Michael,
I surely hope that our system of government goes about making laws as long as they don’t harm the majority. Laws should have a definite purpose and as long as they don’t harm the majority is not one of them. Common sense at least should prevail with society’s good held with regard.
Many laws today are instituted without regard to either harm or future society’s harmful effects.
Please tell me just what good to society will come with laws that allow government approval of gay marriages? I can assume that those affected will be pleased, but just how will that benefit society?
Apr 13, 2008 - 1:04 am 7. Deagle:Oh, and I certainly hope that you have children, especially since you are intelligent and hopeful (even if you have been brainwashed by college – your children will have a better change – heh). Don’t let the world go without the benefit of your offspring. After all, they may be the next President someday…
This is said with all respect (read your writings) and hope you comply for you and for my offspring (future PHD Microbiologist – now I wish I had many sons and daughters).
Apr 13, 2008 - 1:30 am 8. Pat Patterson:Is it a coincidence that probably the two greatest failures currently as governors are both naturalized citizens? Maybe the writers and signers of the Constitution knew what they were doing in regards to the 2nd Article.
But in our system lip service is paid to the rights of the minority but it is primarily to protect the majority from the tyranny of the minority. Enumerated and unenumerated rights simply throw the issue of same sex marriage back to the states and its citiznes. Harm may indeed be an argument for or against but in even a limited democracy, a republic, there is absolutely no guarantee that a law passed is not harmful to someone. But that does not lessen the right or the power for the citizens through their representatives to exercise that limit.
Apr 13, 2008 - 2:40 am 9. scott:Was Elliot Spitzer a naturalized citizen? (Heh!).I see no reason at all why a naturalized citizen should be disbarred from the presidency.
Apr 13, 2008 - 6:27 am 10. Insufficiently Sensitive:And don’t tell me marriage is for the purpose of raising children.
Yeah, and don’t tell him that children raised with an actual mother and father on the premises come to maturity with less complexes and resentments and psychopathic adventures than the waifs who lack one or the other.
And don’t even suggest to him that the ‘love’ marriage for mere one-generation gratification might not be as overall effective in nurturing long-term community stability as trad marriage – which in most societies has multiple generations under its customs and shield.
Some folks are wired to transmit and not receive. So while we do learn good things from Mr. Totten’s admirable reporting about the real world of the middle east, just please don’t try to tell him anything.
Apr 13, 2008 - 8:11 am 11. 1Banjo:Gay marriage is a long further step toward mainstreaming gay values and moral relativism, not to mention political correctness. If you have no problem with gay values, including lefty views on just about anything, check out any gay publication to discover what they are. Whenever gay marriage has been put to a vote, it has been defeated by upwards of 70 percent. In a democratic Republic, doesn’t that count for something?
Apr 13, 2008 - 8:19 am 12. Lightnin' Hopkins:Gov. Schwarzenegger believes the issue should be decided by the voters or the courts. That’s half right. The people should decide – and as 1Banjo states above, every time it’s put to a vote the majority oppose gay marriage. Maybe in time the electorate will shift in the other direction. However slow the pace may seem to advocates of gay marriage, it beats more judicial activism.
Personally, I see civil unions with tax and financial considerations as a reasonable compromise. A less strident and absolutist approach by proponents might bring forth a proposal that has a chance of gaining approval. Framing people with different views as heartless bigots surely hasn’t worked. It never does.
Apr 13, 2008 - 9:54 am 13. docweasel:Banjo: I don’t know what “gay values” are, but I suspect they are much like “straight values”. You have an objection to and repulsion toward gay sex, I take it. That’s your right and your problem, but it doesn’t mean that because you think it is immoral and evil that it actually is.
Miscegenation, sex between people of different races, was looked upon with disgust, moral revulsion and in fact was a crime in most states for over a hundred years and more. Now those laws are looked at as a relic of a bigoted and racist past. People became more enlightened and tolerant of the rights of others as time went by and that changed. The vast majority of voters backed Jim Crow laws and segregation in the states where they existed as well: did that make it right? Are we not a Republic? What right did President Kennedy have to force a governor out of the way to allow blacks to attend an all white school? Are we voters not to be respected in their bigotry?
I think the next generation will have no problem with legitimizing “gay values” as you say, which are not at all alien to human values. The margins voting against gay “rights” grows smaller and smaller over time, and some states have, in fact, voted FOR gay initiatives. I don’t consider it a left or right issue, I consider it a human rights issue, and as a libertarian Republican I support equal rights for all people, regardless of sexual orientation. I think that rights are being denied gay couples who are willing to enter monogamous, committed relationships, and that is immoral, to me.
Generally, to those prejudiced against gay rights, I say you are on the wrong side of history and the tide is against you. “Normalizing” being gay is already here. Do people have any problem with Ellen DeGeneres, arguably the most popular entertainer on TV today, because she’s gay? Or the myriad of gay politicians, actors, musicians, public figures of all walks of life?
Gay marriage will be a right in all 50 states in our lifetime, and gay “norming” will be as established and accepted as mixed race and mixed religion marriages (which were both forbidden and morally censured in less enlightened times).
I find that people who actually know and interact with gay people in their lives are much less likely to harbor these feelings.
Apr 13, 2008 - 4:16 pm 14. Boojum:If you legalize same sex marriage, then in the interests of equality and non-discrimation, you’ll have to legalize polygamy, polyandry, and group marriages.
A big can of worms.
How about we get government out of the marriage business altogether? You don’t need a license to have children, why is one required for marriage? Marriage licenses came out after the civil war to prevent miscegenation. Prior to that, folks went down to their church, the reverend made a note in his records, and that was the end of it.
Apr 14, 2008 - 6:23 am 15. dclydew:How about we get government out of the marriage business altogether?
This is the correct motorcycle.
At one time, (most of the history of the West) there were two types of marriages, Common Marriage and Cannon Marriage. Common Marriage was dealt with by the local community traditions and involved anything from a community ceremony of some sort to just moving in together (see Joseph and Mary). Cannon Law existed for the wealthy and upper class individuals and involved a big church wedding (See Henry VIII and Wives I-VI).
Currently any Common Law marriage standard is the choice of the state, I see no reason why this concept wouldn’t work for gays and straights alike. Churches don’t need to move into the 21st century with their thinking (nor do the people that want to stick with it) and the rest of the planet can move on. Not a bad deal all around, I think.
Apr 15, 2008 - 7:42 am 16. 1Banjo:“If you legalize same sex marriage, then in the interests of equality and non-discrimation, you’ll have to legalize polygamy, polyandry, and group marriages.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself, though I might have thrown in bestiality as well. It’s a slippery slope, docweasel. The Canadians are a good example. It’s impermissible in that society to criticize homosexual behavior even if you’re a clergyman and do so from a biblical perspective. Speech of this nature is called a “hate crime” up north. The same with criticism of Islam, but that’s another story. You must be very young indeed if you think the gay agenda, which includes giving their unions a legal impimatur and calling them “marriage,” will be enacted in your lifetime. Even California has turned thumbs down when it was put to a vote, and the influx of Latinos who will be voting one day guarantees your point of view will remain a noisy minority there as well. Polls are one thing, votes another. That’s why gay advocates try to work through activist judges. You seem to think there are not any gay values. Promiscuity is one which is why AIDS won’t go away. Irony is another. (Wink).
Apr 15, 2008 - 7:50 pm 17. docweasel:Baloney. By your logic, a man will be able to marry a fencepost in the near future.
The law of marriage is a civil bond between TWO HUMANS. That’s why miscegenation laws AND anti-homosexual marriage laws keep getting struck down and marriage between any TWO humans is allowed.
Not 3.
Not 4.
Not animals.
Humans.
Two.
Homosexuals are Humans. A couple of them make 2. Therefore, they are qualified to be married, under the Constitution and under the law.
The “slippery slope” argument is specious and the last resort of those who specifically are against gay marriage, and having no valid argument to deny that right, resort to arguing extreme and ludicrous examples as straw men.
The challenge is to tell me why GAYS are unfit for marriage, not farm animals, not polygamists, not incestuous couples… gays.
Either argue the merits of that issue or admit you have no case.
Apr 17, 2008 - 7:31 pm 18. syn:No wonder words have no meaning and poets are meaningless; this is the death of reason and writers are no worthless.
But, hey at least you feel good.
Apr 18, 2008 - 4:29 am 19. syn:No wonder words have no meaning and poets are meaningless; this is the death of reason and writers are now worthless.
But, hey at least you feel good.
Apr 18, 2008 - 4:29 am 20. docweasel:Is that supposed to mean something or add to the debate? Or is it just self important snark, letting me know how above it all you are? It doesn’t even make sense. Use a quote that at least has relevance to the subject at hand.
Apr 18, 2008 - 10:49 pm