A Matter Of Choice

As I’ve written in the past, single-sex marriage is not my marquee issue, personally.

Oh, I know what I believe; that marriage is about having kids, and kids grow up best with functional parents of both genders.  It’s a belief that should inform a lot of family-law issues (which is why I support gay adoption; two functional same-sex “parents” are not preferable to different-gender parents, but they are much better than a single parent, if that’s the choice.

But I think that as a rule government should stay out of most personal choices; that people should be able to sign a civil contract that ties them into a legal construct that gives them all the legal rights that a “Married” couple has – and that people like me should be able to opt out of the government contract and follow the purely religious contract that we believe in.  And if you belong to a religious demomination that can come up with a theological justification for it, then that’s your first amendment right – just as it’ll be mine to debunk it.

I’m not going to argue about it, either.

But the fact is that while Tom Emmer is not focused on gay marriage – this election is, quite rightly, about jobs to him – he also stands in sharp contrast to Dayton and Horner in that he does not want the issue decided by a DFL-dominated legislature or an “elite” court that jams the issue down the state’s throat.

Which is the subject of this ad:

Let the legislature do its damn job. For that matter, let the courts do their job, and interpret laws, not create them from whole cloth.

Emmer is right on this issue.  I think most Minnesotans agree.

Dayton wants our self-appointed “elites” to decide this issue.  Horner too, although he’s irrelevant.

Pass the word.

35 thoughts on “A Matter Of Choice

  1. Elites? An issue of constitutionality is properly decided by the courts. That is part of the separation of powers. To claim someone is ‘elite’ because you don’t like the direction that a decision – or public opinion finally – is headed doesn’t make courts and judges suddenly ‘elite’.

    No. This is about civil rights for people to marry the adult human being, whoever that may be, as their spouse of choice. The arguments against it are remarkably similar to the laws about ‘nature’, and ‘religion’ and what is proper for society that were advanced to support laws prohibiting marriages between people who were racially diverse. In other words – they were arguments based on bigotry and assumptions.

    I’ve read what you’ve written about civil contracts and religious only marriage, Mitch.

    If and when you are ever ready to marry again, whoever the lady might be, you’ve never been a man to do things half way. I hope that if that day ever comes (again) you will want to be married in every possible sense of the word, legally, and as a sanctified relationship within your religion, in front of god, and family and friends, and as respected by all forms of government.

    The same way gay people do.

  2. I’m waiting for the first pol with the stones to say “The idea of “gay marriage” is asinine, and I’m not going to insult the intelligence of my constituents to even discuss it.”

  3. The arguments against it are remarkably similar to the laws about ‘nature’, and ‘religion’ and what is proper for society that were advanced to support laws prohibiting marriages between people who were racially diverse.

    As are the arguments prohibiting marriages between men and animals or polygamy or whatever, Dog Gone. Same sex marriage is more like these than like inter-racial marriage. The Virginia law was on the books for what, forty years?
    Pro gay marriage forces lose at the ballot box not because they live in a country filled with reactionary homophobes, but because their arguments are so bad.

  4. Smokey, the notion that same sex marriage is anything like bestiality, or necrophilia, or incest are all a smoke screen, if you will allow the pun on your name.

    There is nothing similar in any of them to same sex marriage. Sexual practices previously attributed only or predominantly to same sex relationships are now recognized as just as common and frequent between heterosexual couples. The false assumptions I mentioned.

    Prohibitions against mixed racial relationships were around far longer than forty years. Do your homework.

    There is some slight similarity between same sex relationships and polygamy or polyandry. About as much similarity as there is between the marriages of people who go from one monogamous marital heterosexual relationship to divorce to a new marriage in serial monogomy – one spouse at a time, but multiple married spouses.

    Those poll numbers Mitch is so fond of bringing up suggest that it is a question of when, not if, and that attitudes about same sex relationships has been steadily changing to favoring recognizing them. Ann Coulter who made numerous comments against same sex relationships was just recently the headline speaker at a GOPride fundraiser, homocon.

    Or, that big tent GOP that Mitch talks about could just get smaller, losing those gay Republicans to another party? After Ken Mehlman’s claims about his time in Republican politics,…well, he sure didn’t seem too positive about the choices that were made either.

  5. Dg- “This is about civil rights for people to marry the adult human being, whoever that may be, as their spouse of choice.” What “civil right” are you talking about, DG? I, as a straight man, can marry any adult woman that will have me. So can the gay guy down the block. I, as a straight man, can’t marry another man (most states). The gay guy down the block can’t marry another man, either. The discrimination is … where?

  6. Those poll numbers Mitch is so fond of bringing up suggest that it is a question of when, not if, and that attitudes about same sex relationships has been steadily changing to favoring recognizing them.

    Yep, and therein lies the problem — if gays have the better argument, ultimately they’ll prevail. But if the decision is made by judicial fiat, it will lock the opposition in place, much as has happened with Roe v. Wade.

    Gays are likely to win this argument in the next 10 years if they let the discussion take place. If instead they manage to get the decision made in the manner that Roe was made, there’s zero chance it will ever be a settled matter.

  7. DG
    said: Prohibitions against mixed racial relationships were around far longer than forty years. Do your homework.

    Yes they most certainly were; they were in fact first implicitly instituted/incorporated by the Democratic Party in the so called “blood laws” they passed between the years 1800 and the late 1850’s then later they were more explicitly proscribed by the “Jim Crow laws” that the Democrat legislatures passed between the civil war and the early 1960’s. In fact there were a couple of attempts to pass anti-miscegenation amendments to the constitution sponsored by, yes you guessed it, Democratic congressmen!

    Now DG I know that despite your wailing’s to the contrary you don’t actually do much original research (from your posting contents and their close adherence to postings on other sites you obviously do more cut and paste than any thing else) so I’ll generously give you the following names to research: Seaborn Anderson Roddenbery,
    Andrew King, and Coleman Livingston Blease.

    And DG if I follow your logic correctly not only is it bigotry to condemn the following but we should recognize it as a valid civil right in this country:

    Although having two other wives, Malik Obama, 52, wed 19-year-old Sheila Anyango despite protests from the girl’s family.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1320990/Teenage-girl-quits-school-marry-Obamas-half-brother-Kenya.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

  8. Dog Gone wrote:
    Prohibitions against mixed racial relationships were around far longer than forty years. Do your homework.

    DG, I wasn’t speaking on the subject of mixed racial relationships, I mentioned specifically the Virginia anti-miscegination law (the SC case that overturned it was called “Loving”, I believe). This is usually the case that pro same sex marriage people cite. Were you thinking of others? Inter racial marriage between whites and native americans was quite common in the American West until the late 19th century.
    My point, as I’m sure you know, is that anti-miscegination laws were products of narrowly defined historical and cultural circumstances. Same sex marriage has nowhere been accepted as marriage until . . . what? A decade ago? It really should be put in the column of “things white people like”. It has become a cultural mandate initiated and required by predominantly white, bourgeois progressives in the Western hemisphere.

  9. Dog Gone:

    I can’t follow your reasoning. Can you explain it for me? I’ve provided two examples to help frame the debate.

    Jimmy, an adult human man, is sexually attracted to Billy, an adult human man, who is sexually attracted to Jimmy. Jimmy and Billy can’t help it, they were born that way. Although past generations classified their predeliction as perversion, our enlightened generation calls it normal and healthy and desireable for Jimmy to marry Billy.

    Tommy, an adult human man, is sexually attracted to Toni, an adult human female, who is sexually attracted to Tommy. They can’t help it, they were born that way any more than they can help being brother and sister. Just as past generations classified their predeliction as perversion, even our enlightened generation continues to deny them their rights as consenting adults to celebrate their sexuality with the person of their choice.

    You’ve said that the legal prohibition on incest is a smokescreen; therefore, I assume you mean it should continue, even after gay marriage is legalized.

    Question for you, Dog Gone: By what Constitutional principle could society prohibit Tommy from marrying his sister, Toni, that would not equally prohibit Jimmy from marrying his boyfriend Billy? How are the two cases Constitutionally different?

  10. Absolutley, nate.

    There is a very clear understanding that the nature of a familial relationship is different from relationships with other people. It is unhealthy to have that familial relationship parent child, or between siblings, become a sexual one. Whether same sex or heterosexually it is damaging. No one is arguing for same sex OR heterosexual incestuous relationships to be legitimized.

    There is scientific recognition that sexual orientation / attraction has a hard wire component in our human brains, and that there tends to be a difference, a normal variation, in that hard wiring in people who have same sex attraction. (We don’t know why- yet – for example, something like 90% of Lesbians are also left handed – another hard wired part of the brain.) Same sex couples feel all of the emotions that heterosexual couples feel, not just sexual urges – this seems to get lost in the arguments against same sex marriage or the legitimacy of homosexuality. These relationships are about far more than just sex.

    You are conflating an attraction to same gender with attraction to a specific family member. That is a false argument. If Tommy is attracted to Toni, Tommy is attracted to other women as well. Sexual attraction or orientation is not individual specific.

    That would be how the two are Constitutionally different. More to the point, in the other industrialized nations where same sex marriage is permitted, no harm has come to traditional same sex marriages or families.

  11. What “civil right” are you talking about, DG? I, as a straight man, can marry any adult woman that will have me. So can the gay guy down the block. I, as a straight man, can’t marry another man (most states). The gay guy down the block can’t marry another man, either. The discrimination is … where?

    jimf – the discrimination is that you can marry the person to whom you have a loving committment, the consenting competent adult you choose, and the gay guy down the street cannot. You are advocating for a government approval and judgement of human sexuality that the government should not have.

    nate – let me add that I would refer you to the knowledge that has changed the attitudes about same sex attraction being innate in human beings as a spectrum. We have come to know more about in utero factors for example than we used to know when homosexuality was less understood. Birth order and the number of same sex siblings affecting immune response in mothers to subsequent pregnancies, the so-called feminizing effects in utero in identical (not fraternal) twins that appear to have parallels in other species in utero development that is teaching us how that biology operates (see free martins for example).

    There is no harm in granting same sex marriage civil rights. There is real harm in homophobic denial of that equal right, just as there is actual harm in the current Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law.

  12. t is unhealthy to have that familial relationship parent child, or between siblings, become a sexual one.
    Whereas tearing rectal linings is both healthy and “natural”. Anyone smell brimstone?

  13. The world’s foremost psychologists have declared homosexuality a norm of human behavior — just as forty years ago the world’s foremost psychologists declared homosexuality a form of mental illness.
    Homosexuality is a behavior, Dog Gone. You, and no one else, know why certain people exhibit homosexual behavior — or heterosexual behavior, for that matter. It’s a social and cultural behavior, science can’t tell you whether either is good or bad, it can only tell you that it is.
    There is no remark you can make about gay marriage that wouldn’t equally apply to any number of “loving relationships” that you do not believe are qualified to be called marriage. It is the same sex marriage proponents who are being irrational, not the “homophobes”.

  14. For 4000 years, world society as a whole has had one definition of marriage. I don’t mind so much that now a group wants to change that definition, but they have pledged to destroy anyone who doesn’t submit to this change.

    Hey liberals, any thoughts on Obama’s half brother being a polygamist?

  15. DG- “You are advocating for government approval and judgment of human sexuality that the government should not have.” But it’s ok for healthcare, right? The hypocricy slaps you in the face. So NAMBLA, me marrying my sister, or having 3 wives, or marrying a 15year old is ok because “government approval of human sexuality….is something they shouln’t have.”? Wow.

  16. DG you are a hypocrite if you do not believe that Barak Obamas brother should have the right to come to this country and marry one or two 16 year old brides while not divorcing his current wives. Malik Obama by your definition has the right to join in matrimony no less than the guy who is marrying his first wife.

    to quote you: the discrimination is that you can marry the person to whom you have a loving committment, the consenting competent adult you choose, and the gay guy down the street cannot. You are advocating for a government approval and judgement of human sexuality that the government should not have.

    so DG justify Malik Obama or admit your failed thesis

  17. I don’t see why a guy shouldn’t be able to marry the man and the girl of his choice, if he swings that way. Who says that people are designed by nature to have just one person they can make a “loving commitment” to?
    It smacks of hetero-monogamous repression, forced on free individuals by a political state in the grip of a population mired in irrational religious belief and hidebound tradition.
    All I need is one 9th circuit judge to agree with me & it is party time in the USA.

  18. Smokey and others,

    It seems to me that when someone is arguing AGAINST a particular position argues FOR what would seem to be an even more extreme position, it weakens the original argument.

    There are/can be extreme positions on both sides of an argument. The existance of those extremes does not invalidate or strengthen the positions being discussed.

    NOTE: I have done ZERO research on the following, but I toss it out there anyway:
    It seems to me that in regard to “rights” there are two types of laws; those that EXTEND rights to individuals or classes of people and those that LIMIT rights for certain individuals or classes of people. If the original marriage statutes had anticipated the current move to legalize gay marriage when they were originally written, we would not be having this conversation. The words ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN would already be codified in the law. The current discussion, therefore, is whether to limit that right to one man and one woman or to extend that right to two men or two women.

    No one is arguing for extending that right to three men and one woman or two women and one man, or one man and one cow, or two sheep and one man (except maybe Smokey). What’s more, there is absolutely no evidence to indicate those extreme positions would precipitate out of the change in law that is being discussed. Such statements are all being used to argue against the one discussion that is actually taking place – namely gay marriage – and those arguments are false.

    If “hetero-monogamous repression, forced on free individuals by a political state in the grip of a population mired in irrational religious belief and hidebound tradition” ever gets feet in the political arena in this country, it well may have its own discussion and its own time in court.

    In the meantime, it seems more appropriate to stick to the topic at hand.

  19. Leslie, if I understand you correctly, what you are saying about isolating the discussion to only same sex marriage between non-related, same sex couples would make sense if we were talking about a vote.
    We are not. Dog Gone, and most of the same-sex marriage proponents don’t want to vote on the matter, because they would lose.
    They want same-sex marriage to be considered a civil right under the 14th amendment, and civil rights cases are decided by the courts, where you are not allowed to say “ignore every aspect of my argument that extends beyond the case at hand”.

  20. See how much fun it is when religion locks horns with constitutional law?
    Here’s a thought experiment:
    Imagine that gay marriage has been upheld by the SCOTUS. A gay couple, both members of the Bokononist faith, ask a pastor to perform the union. The pastor refuses, citing scriptural precedent. The couple sues the pastor and the church. See where this is going?
    Far fetched? Of course. Trouble is, religious groups are voluntary organizations that have some sort of mechanism for regulating the behavior of members. Where does the interest of the state in guaranteeing equal protection end? Would it not be enough, as Mitch suggests, to permit same sex civil marriages that do not compel a voluntary organization to sanction behavior that they find objectionalable?
    I believe the issue is different from public accomodation issues involving race or other discrimination. I can’t keep a person out of my restaurant because I don’t like his race. On the other hand, if I want to enforce a dress code, say ties are required, does the state have the right to overturn the dress code?
    Dress codes aren’t the same, you say, because gay behavior is hard wired. Can you show that monogamy is hard wired? Why have there been so many cultures where polygamy is tolerated? I’m uneasy about the courts re-defining cultural norms of long standing because scientists say it’s OK. The science here is contaminated by political beliefs. Today’s scientific truth is tomorrow’s “what were they thinking?” moment. It’s one thing to re-write textbooks but it’s another to re-write the Consitution.
    Let there be civil unions with licenses issued by the state. Don’t force members of religious groups to sanction behavior they don’t condone. They have rights too.

  21. Why have there been so many cultures where polygamy is tolerated?…

    …while, as yet, none of them same-sex?

  22. If we are discussing the principles behind equal protection, then, if gay marriage were allowed under the 14th amendment, what compelling state interest could the courts possibly find in forbidding gay brothers or sisters from marrying one another?

  23. Dog Gone, thanks for your reply to my question. I apologize for being thick, but if you wouldn’t mind indulging me a bit more . . .

    Gay marriage should be a Constitutionally protected right but incestuous marriage should not. Where in the Constitution is the power given to Government to make that determination?

    Or look at it from the other end: gays have a Constitutionally protected right to marry. Where in the Consititution is it so stated, that would NOT also apply to incestuous marriages?

    I’m not saying gays should or should not marry. I’m questioning your legal reasoning for stating that opening the door to gay marriage using a Constitutional key cannot possibly also open the door for other prohibited marriages, using that same key.

    Your thoughts, please?

  24. Churches can and do refuse to marry couples that can be married elsewhere – including civil ceremonies – and there are no lawsuits. Why would this be any different?

  25. Don’t force members of religious groups to sanction behavior they don’t condone.
    Ultimately you cannot. I recently left one Lutheran church and began attending another. The former is a member of the ELCA which voted to ordain homosexuals in direct contradiction to the Bible they are supposed to preach. The latter severed all political and legal ties with the ELCA.

    There is no such thing as “gay marriage”. There never will be such a thing as “gay marriage”. Marriage is the union of ONE man and ONE woman, period. Anything else is corruption.

  26. “…Or look at it from the other end: gays have a Constitutionally protected right to marry. Where in the Consititution is it so stated, that would NOT also apply to incestuous marriages?”

    Is the “one man and one woman” version of marriage currently protected or guaranteed under the Constitution? It seems like it is. Extending that right to gay marriage does not make the likelyhood of the statement: “Where in the Consititution is it so stated, that would NOT also apply to incestuous marriages?” any more relevant or threatening to this discussion.

  27. Dog Gone wrote: “for example, something like 90% of Lesbians are also left handed”

    That’s 91% more likely to be left handed than a heterosexual woman. The incidence of left handedness is associated with a lot of physical traits, many of them quite unpleasant — low birth weight, shorter lifespan, greater incidence of schizophrenia among them. I’m afraid that you are confusing correlation with causation, Dog Gone, a common problem if a person gets their science info from the Sunday supplement.
    “All homosexuals are born that way” is one of those odd things that many people believe is factually true but is not supported by science.

  28. “All homosexuals are born that way” is one of those odd things that many people believe is factually true but is not supported by science.

    That’s one of the big deep dark dirty secrets of the whole issue. There is virtually no evidence that it is genetic, any more than it being a matter of personal choice. There is much more evidence that it is an adaptation, although an adaptation to what, nobody’s sure of yet.

  29. Is the “one man and one woman” version of marriage currently protected or guaranteed under the Constitution? It seems like it is. Extending that right to gay marriage does not make the likelyhood of the statement: “Where in the Consititution is it so stated, that would NOT also apply to incestuous marriages?” any more relevant or threatening to this discussion.

    Leslie, I think you are confused. It is the pro-gay marriage people who think that marriage is a civil right guaranteed by the constitution. The law recognizes the institution of marriage. It did not create it.

  30. “All homosexuals are born that way” is one of those odd things that many people believe is factually true but is not supported by science.

    If they are born this way, show me another species that is capable of reproducing between same sex pairs. When you get down to it, and remove all emotional aspects, on a base genetic level the purpose of procreation is to perpetuate the species. Nature is not in the habit of creating organisms that are born without the ability to procreate. Sure, some members of any species are “sterile”, but those are the unfortunate exception to the rule; defective (to be blunt and non-PC), but not intended that way on a species level.

    I don’t believe anyone is “born” a homosexual. It is completely “nurture”, not “nature”.

  31. Well, Bill, “congenital” does not mean the same thing as “hereditary”. Some external effect while the fetus is in the womb (such as testosterone infusion) may have congenital results that are not inherited. To complicate the matter, a lack of resistance to testosterone infusion while in the womb may be a heritable condition.

  32. If they are born this way, show me another species that is capable of reproducing between same sex pairs.

    There are no known mammalia that can do that in the wild, but quite a few insects and others can do so, e.g. saga pedo. See parthenogensis.

    All that said, I don’t believe in the “born that way” research any more than I did the “learned behavior” research that was the consensus before that. Human sexuality is too complicated a subject to be fit into such simplistic boxes. The reality is no doubt a mixture of the two, just as “intelligence” is a mixture of environment and heredity. And yes, I’ve followed that research — the downside of being related to psychologists is that you hear far more about the dirty truths of studies that the popular press is incapable of accurately presenting. Journalists may cry up nuance, but they sure can’t get it right in their reporting.

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