the sky is not, and will not be, falling.
“[It] is repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. It is abhorrent and repugnant. It is subversive to social peace. It is destructive of moral supremacy, and ultimately [it] will bring this nation to a fatal conflict.”
That’s Georgia State Representative Seaborn Roddenberry in 1911, arguing for a Constitutional Amendment against…miscegenation. The “it” in the above paragraph refers to interracial marriage. Does the rhetoric sound familiar?
Someone else pointed out to me that the entire reason for the introduction of marriage licenses was to make sure blacks don’t marry whites, much like the reason for the existence of carry permits was to make sure only the properly-colored people walk around armed and able to shoot back at attackers.
I firmly believe that laws against gay marriage, and people who advocate for constitutional amendments limiting the definition of marriage, will be viewed in the same light in eighty or a hundred years as we view miscegenation supporters today. The change in social attitudes is irreversible. In another eighty years or so, people will shake their heads at those who propose that same-sex marriage should be legally prohibited, and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it. Fighting against legalization and acceptance of gay marriage is tilting against windmills, so put the lance away and give poor old Rocinante a rest.
May 20, 2008 at 5:32 am
Nice! Snarky and nice!
Now that’s an argument!
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go hook up the buggy and get a new batch of slaves at the auction.
May 20, 2008 at 8:20 am
My own research lead me to believe that marriage licenses came in to existence in this country after the War between the States because the goverment gave a handout to the widows of soldiers in the conflict. While they had enlistment records, there really wasn’t a way to prove that someone was married to a vet at the time.
This is opposed to the Church of England, where the church is practically an arm of the goverment. I do recall us breaking with England over a number of things, including religious freedom and not paying taxes to the state church.
May 20, 2008 at 9:03 am
“Someone else pointed out to me that the entire reason for the introduction of marriage licenses was to make sure blacks don’t marry whites”
“someone” was wrong. The license/certificate/registration was thought up by a brilliant unsung bureaucrat of the Republic of Rome, pre-Empire.
As few people bothered to make out wills (same as today) when a person of any substance (like a season ticket to the Games?) died relatives and acquaintances crawled out from under rocks to sue, taking away the estate from unimportant people like the widow. Worse, it was so commonplace that the courts were badly clogged with these cases.
The afore-mentioned genius proposed that the State, for a minimal fee, would record marriages and, if a spouse died intestate, distribute the estate according to a formula. Suits against the estate then became suits against the government - forbiddingly expensive and unlikely to succeed.
It was a resounding success.
The benefits the State guaranteed, even today for a far smaller fee than having a lawyer draw up and register a Will, have expanded somewhat since then, both in financial matters and social ones - my favorite (or least favorite?) being whether to allow a visit to a seriously ill person in the Intensive Care Unit at many hospitals, which are limited to “family”.
——
May 20, 2008 at 9:33 am
I grew up in better times. Gays were considered perverts and deviants and many actually got treatment for it. Yes, some gays are regular folk that just happen to be gay; but most are bitter, sullen people with serious mental issues and to point that out in today’s politically correct climate can literally get you sued. I remember a prominent study by a woman’s group that revealed that lesbians are twice as likely to commit spousal abuse than heterosexual men are. The report caused a chit storm amongst the liberals, with half claiming that studies like these are actually hate crimes, and others claiming they were objective science and free speech. I am not a scientist but for my two cents, most queers aren’t right in the head and stuff like this should be intuitively obvious.
For me, I could care less. I wouldn’t piss on a homo or a supreme court judge if he were on fire, and if they keep their distance and their stupid alternative lifestyle to themselves, nobody will get hurt. Our courts regularly protect the abusers much more than the abused which is why I am armed and can fend for myself.
May 20, 2008 at 11:15 am
“most are bitter, sullen people with serious mental issues”
Maybe, just MAYBE, this might have something to do with the way that we, as a society treat them. Just a thought.
May 20, 2008 at 11:21 am
Oh boy. Here comes the self-loathing, angst, and guilt.
May 20, 2008 at 11:30 am
Rusty,
no offense, but in your “better times”, they also considered whites who marry blacks “perverts and deviants”. I’m going to say they were only better times for some.
May 20, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Shit, my life ain’t grand, but at least I don’t have to live in Rusty’s head. New happy thought for the day.
May 20, 2008 at 12:51 pm
When gays in America have no voice nor vote, are barred from public school, are being strung up, and sold as slaves to the man, then come to us with comparisons of rights violations akin to those endured by the Negro people. These comparisons as is are insulting.
The other thing I take issue with is the constant demonization of anyone that happens to oppose state sanctioning of gay marriage. We don’t hate gays, wish them ill, or refuse to shake their hand for fear of cooties. They have a soul and bleed red just like any other person.
The rub is this. You can’t neuter this marriage issue of the moral pivot on which this turns. The gay agenda and its system of morals and beliefs is opposed to mine. You don’t agree with my beliefs. Fine. But I have every right to speak my mind and vote in accorrance with my faith in the areas where govenment and my beliefs touch. To act otherwise is to violate my own conscience, and no power has the authority change that.
May 20, 2008 at 1:18 pm
The rub is this. You can’t neuter this marriage issue of the moral pivot on which this turns. The gay agenda and its system of morals and beliefs is opposed to mine. You don’t agree with my beliefs. Fine. But I have every right to speak my mind and vote in accorrance with my faith in the areas where govenment and my beliefs touch. To act otherwise is to violate my own conscience, and no power has the authority change that.
All they are asking for is the opportunity to live their lives according to their own morals and beliefs, without interference from others. Why can’t you let them do so? Why must people attempt to control the beliefs and lifestyle of others? To deny a person the right to live as they choose is to give others the power to do the same to you.
May 20, 2008 at 2:07 pm
There is no comparison between two people of different colour wanting to marry and a couple of mentally unbalanced queers wanting to do it. I’m sorry, there is no polite way to say it.
I see an 800 lb. gorilla in this room and a bunch of people that don’t want to see it and would rather pretend it isn’t there. How many bath houses, parades, and attacks on children or HIV cases do you have to see before you admit the obvious?
No, gays will not be happy when they get their relationships recognized by the state. They will do as the ones in Canada have done - they will start attacking the churches with lawsuits that refuse to accomodate them, they will be pounding on the doors of the schools trying to get elementary children to learn about homosexuality in elementary school, and they will be pounding on the doors of the courtrooms trying to get those that disagree with them charged with hate crimes. Now would be a good time for you lot to google search ‘NAMBLA’ and swine like Svend Robinson.
If you think these cretins will support democrcy and individual rights, you will soon learn otherwise.
May 20, 2008 at 3:12 pm
If you think these cretins will support democrcy and individual rights, you will soon learn otherwise.
Pot, meet kettle.
Kettle, pot.
May 20, 2008 at 3:42 pm
So, you will be in our corner when the gay lobby is suing my church for a sermon in which Romans 1:27 was read?
May 20, 2008 at 3:50 pm
PMB,
have you been reading this blog at all in the last few years?
May 20, 2008 at 3:59 pm
So, I take it that’s a no?
May 20, 2008 at 4:07 pm
*sigh*
I will be in your corner when the gay lobby is suing your church for a sermon in which Romans 1:27 was read.
Religious freedom is a cornerstone of the Bill of Rights. You have the right to worship as you please. The only time I ever have an issue with religion is when someone tries to write their theology into law for everyone, or use my tax dollars for religious purposes.
May 20, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Thanks…genuinely glad to hear that.
I’ve only been reading your blog for a few months.
About the only thing we have in common is a love for the 2nd Amendment, but I enjoy your writing.
May 20, 2008 at 4:47 pm
A note to the person trolling as “Rusty P. Bucket.” If you’re going to try to pass yourself off as a reactionary right-wing troglodyte you’ve zoomed right past “realistically likely” to “lowbrow parody.”
May 20, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Look, I’m willing to tolerate people who fundamentally disagree with homosexuality. You have every right to express your opinion. Personally, as a straight female, I feel lucky to know more than a handful of gay people who happen to be amazing human beings. I’m sorry some of you out there haven’t had similar experiences.
What I’m NOT willing to tolerate is the use of deliberately offensive language. Rusty, Labeling homosexuals as mentally imbalanced cretins or perverts accomplishes absolutely nothing. I would expect better manners from somebody who grew up in “better times.”
I’m trying to respect your opinion, I really am. But it’s difficult to listen to certain arguments with an open mind when they seem to be based purely on sweeping generalizations and excess emotion.
May 20, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I know some homosexuals who tempt me to write the kind off as mentally broken. But they’re people who are afflicted with other ills, and frankly those other ills are ones which beseige us all. The vast majority of gay people I know are mainly like myself. That is, wierd, driven and geeky. That’s because I’m wierd, driven and geeky. As a rule, sexuality doesn’t enter into it, because we’re all doing stuff.
Because Starship Earth doesn’t have room for any passengers. It’s a small boat, with limited resources, and if we want H, Sapiens to survive we have far more important things to worry about than who puts what, where.
So man (woman, or whatever your personal cant is) the hell up and put your shoulder to the wheel on keeping us alive. Otherwise, you may find your prejudiced ass scrobbling for 1,500 kilocals a day as the lights go out.
There are vastly more important issues at hand today. Get the hell out of other people’s bedrooms.
May 21, 2008 at 3:56 am
I think what will really happen (and what BOTH SIDES don’t want) is that all marriages will become civil unions. The church will not be involved in any way and if you want to be joined legally, it will be called a civil union. You can call it marriage if you want to but the official government term will be Civil Union.
Remember this guys, this is where it will go because that is really the only answer.
May 21, 2008 at 4:48 am
If it affords the same rights, privileges, protections, obligations and what-not as marriage, you can call it “kevin” for all I care. The important bit should be “’til death do us part” (or, perhaps as we grow up a bit, even shorter term “marriage” contracts).
I guess this is why I sometimes feel like I’m headbutting a brick wall over the whole marriage thing - “normal, beloved in the eyes of God” marriage as well as any other variety. Let’s take a look at the bit that’s important: Two people promising to stay together, through thick and thin. That’s the important part, right? God and State are at best observers to this vow. The imporant part is that two people are declaring that they want to be with, care for, et cetera another person.
Everything else is garnish. It’s the parsley. Don’t eat that, it’s just for decoration.
I know there are people out there who get married to receive the blessing of their God, and to feel the squishy mantle of the State’s Approval over their union. Personally, I don’t need anyone’s permission to love, honour, and the other thing. Damned if I know why anyone would feel like they did. Seems too much like crawling up to the altar, cap in hand, and asking “daddy, may I?” Either way, it doesn’t look like government business to me.
May 21, 2008 at 6:53 am
In modern marriage, there are two components: the legal marriage, and the religious marriage.
The legal one is the one that the court ruled on. This is the facet that allows rights like inheritance, and allowing a partner to be included in family health plans, etc. IMO, any consenting, competent (I mean legally competent ere) adult should be free to legally marry anyone they choose. That includes homosexual, polygamy, even Catholics marrying Protestants.
The other facet is the religious. That is the one the church recognizes. The church’s opinion on this is protected by the Constitution. Here, the church has a constitutionally protected right to declare that certain marriages violate the teachings of the church, as long as that church does not otherwise violate a person’s rights, such as physical assault, or members of the church discriminating in other protected areas such as employment, providing healthcare, etc.
May 21, 2008 at 8:18 am
Let me qualify my statement then Connie. I have no problem with gays that are otherwise regular people. But like it or not, that gorilla I was speaking about is what it is and all the politically correct sanctimonious bull chit won’t change that.
I have watched this gay revolution now for 25 years, and the deliberate, selective blindness that is being embedded in our culture toward it. Look at Canada where gays have done quite well: Svend Robinson, a popular canadian homo activist and MLA - was actively trying to have the age of homosexual consent lowered to age 12. Do you have a problem with that? I certainly do - but nobody from the homosexual community rose up to oppose him. Likewise, aided by socialists and liberals, the gays are pressuring and lobbying gov’t for stronger regulations about hate crime that will make any disagreement with their agenda illegal under the law. Now, assaulting a queer is worse than assaulting anyone else! Forget the details of their sex lives; their politics, tactics and strategies are insidious and offensive to thinking men everywhere. Now Canadian gays are actively involved in illiberal efforts to regulate and censor free speech in Canada. Don’t think the same thing can’t happen here because it can.
I originally started out wanting to see the gays get a fair shake like everyone else. But over the years I have watched their moral high ground slide out from underneath them and none but a politically incorrect handful seem to be able to see it. If you are truly libertarian…you might want to take a long, hard look at these people before calling them friends. As a community, I predict they will use your libertarian values as long as they are convenient, and then toss them aside the minute they have the clout to do so.
And yes, I know there are exceptions to these broad, sweeping generalizations - but they are the exceptions.
May 21, 2008 at 9:57 am
Why not just stop legal recognitions of marriage and leave the matter entirely up to spiritual institutions?
May 21, 2008 at 10:24 am
VoteNader, marriage is much more than a religious institution. I’m agnostic and I’m married, it’s a social tradition which is not tied to any one religion. If we extracted all references to marriage from tax law, immigration law, inheritance law, et al, then that idea might work, but I would be perfectly happy with the legal recognition of marriage as it is if we took out the denial of marriage to certain groups. If I may plug, http://shortcircuitnewswire.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/same-sex-marriage-now-legal-in-california-how-equal-marriage-rights-affect-me-and-you/ is a long and boring article which contains my opinions on the matter.
I saw this post on the dashboard. You make an excellent point. I’ll probably be reading in the future.
May 21, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I’m all for gay marriage as long as private individuals, churches, clubs, landlords and employers are free to exercise their own right of conscience and religion and choose whether or not to recognize and endorse it. You want to get married, fine, find a speaker and some witnesses and declare yourselves married. But if the local baptist church or your neighbor Joe-Bob OR an employer writing a benefits plan refuses to call you married, that’s their business.
But that’s not what the gay marriage movement is asking for. They’re asking for the power of the state to be used to trump freedom of conscience and free association and compel acceptance. I really believe that there’s a strategic error being committed by left libertarians here, that ‘equal protection’ gay marriage will require a costly and intrusive government bureaucracy that will be with us just as long as affirmative action and the ADA mandates.
May 21, 2008 at 3:07 pm
But before this decision by the California Supreme court gay men had exactly the same rights as straight men with regard to marriage, and gay women had exactly the same rights as straight women, too. This decision has created a new social construct that has never been seen before in 5 thousand years of recorded history.
Marriage (until now) was part contract and part status. Any man– ANY man was free to marry any woman who would agree to the marriage. To eliminate the historical status limitation is to open the definition of marriage to things that were heretofore closed, like polygamy. There is no principled argument against it now, all that is left is “It’s icky and I don’t like it.” Besides, as was said above,
“All they are asking for is the opportunity to live their lives according to their own morals and beliefs, without interference from others. Why can’t you let them do so? Why must people attempt to control the beliefs and lifestyle of others? To deny a person the right to live as they choose is to give others the power to do the same to you.”
Sheesh, that quote could defend Suttee, as well.
May 21, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Saladman, there was a woman photographer in New Mexico or Arizona who refused to photograph a gay wedding ceremony and was fined by some government agency for discrimination. That’s indentured servitude.
May 21, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Again, Suttee is none of my (or your) business, assuming:
1- it is voluntary
2- the woman who desires to kill herself does so with full knowledge and faculties (in other words, is not crazy, intoxicated, or otherwise unable to make a sound decision)
The photographer- would you support her if she refused to photograph an interracial wedding? A Catholic one? Would you support a restaurant that refused to serve blacks? Or is your indignation just an anti-gay thing?
May 22, 2008 at 2:15 am
“…a photographer … who refused to photograph a gay wedding ceremony and was fined by some government agency for discrimination. That’s indentured servitude.”
That’s what I’m getting at. My concern, and I’m still trying to figure out how to express it well, is that this isn’t happening in a vacuum, where the only issue is that gay marriage was prohibited and now its allowed. There is already a massive government framework for penalising discrimination. If you think affirmative action quotas in employment and education have been a good thing, if you think ADA lawsuits imposed only a nominal cost on business and society, then gay marriage is right up your alley. If you think civil society works best with minimal government interference, then there is a serious order of operations problem with legalizing gay marriage now or anytime in the near future, especially legalizing it under an ‘equal protection’ umbrella.
May 22, 2008 at 9:04 am
Windy Wilson saith: But before this decision by the California Supreme court gay men had exactly the same rights as straight men with regard to marriage, and gay women had exactly the same rights as straight women, too. This decision has created a new social construct that has never been seen before in 5 thousand years of recorded history.
Except by the Navajo. Google “nadleeh”. Oh, look! Men living with men who acted like women, in marriage-like relationships, in recorded history!
I’ve got better things to do with my day than be your research assistant, so I’ll leave further debunking of your own paragraph to you, should you care to enlighten yourself about history.
May 22, 2008 at 10:18 am
So, Suttee is OK so long as it’s her choice and she was not coerced.
But, the photographer was wrong for her choice to not photograph a gay wedding.
That’s sick.
May 22, 2008 at 4:16 pm
I did not say that. In fact, I think it is her right to refuse anyone. I was merely saying that I get the feeling that you would not be as upset if the woman had been punished for refusing to photograph an interracial wedding.
May 22, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Your point? Then why say it?
Your inter-racial analogy is bogus. Refusing to be a participant in the celebration of a union that violates my beliefs is protected by the 1st Amendment, last I checked.
May 22, 2008 at 11:31 pm
as I understand it, CA gave them “civil unions” some time ago, which took care of all the “legal” arguments in re: inheritance, etc.
What it did NOT give them was the word “marriage.” Make no mistake — this is a movement to force churches to perform ceremonies, and others such as the photographer to serve them whether they like it or not.
I for one am damn tired of hearing about it. I don’t care what any 2 or more consenting adults and/or their farm-animals do in their bedroom, I just don’t want to be forced to pretend that I think it’s OK.
Mark my words — the next thing will be suing a church for refusing to perform the ceremony. I give it ~6 months.
DD
May 23, 2008 at 12:51 am
I give it till after Nov 4. No sense in getting those Christians all riled up and motivated by causing a campaign problem for B.H. Obama.