Diversity
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:
From this weekend’s DFL door hanger in support of Gay Marriage:
Love
Commitment
Working together
Bettering the community
Raising children
Growing old together
Marry the person you love
Value and support strong families
Welcoming environment for all families to thrive
When Achmed, Miriam and Fatima want a marriage license based on the above reasons, will those be sufficient to say NO?
Joe Doakes
Como Park
Well, yeah – if three people love each other, who are we to say no?
What are you – a bigot?
No, this is not on the level of “what’s next, marrying goats?”; goats can’t sign contracts. But groups of people (of legal majority)? They sure can.
So who are we to limit polygamy? We don’t vote on peoples’ rights, dammit! Except we did…
October 2nd, 2012 at 7:41 am
A friend of mine in the local ad biz, told me something that I pretty much already suspected. With the exception of the first commercials with the old couple, all of the rest of these “spokes people” are actors. I laughed at the one featuring the supposed Republican, Catholic couple. Although I no longer practice Catholicism, having been raised in the faith, I know that true Catholics would not endorse gay marriage nor would they be voting for DemocRATs.
October 2nd, 2012 at 8:47 am
Florence King wrote of people who claim to be Catholic but want to follow their own concience instead of church teaching: Congratulations, you’re Protestant.
October 2nd, 2012 at 9:09 am
The Chick-Fil-A issue shows exactly why changing the 4,000 year old definition of marriage is a bad idea. A business is banned from existing in several large cities because of the religious views of its owner. If we have gay marriage, will it be illegal to be a Catholic?
October 2nd, 2012 at 9:45 am
My agnostic and libertarian view is that government has no business in peoples homes or bedrooms, and that a union should be a matter of contract law…and as such, defining contract law is the extent of government involvement.
My view is also that the need to have governments legal blessing, and to define the civil union of a gay couple as a “marriage” has little to do with the couples “rights” as much as a tool to force others recognition of their “marriage”, and whatever benefits that may entail.
So, you want a tax break as a married couple? Lower tax rates (for those that pay taxes), cut government spending and eliminate the break for married couples. It really isn’t fair to single taxpayers anyway. Want your employer to recognize your marriage? Find an employer that does. Attempt to force recognition defies the concept of liberty. Same goes with insurance comanies. Want hospital visitation rights? That is solely up to the individual.
October 2nd, 2012 at 10:12 am
Whether you are hetero or homo, we all have the same rights.
October 2nd, 2012 at 11:32 am
Adrian asks the next logical question: does government still have a legitimate interest in regulating marriage?
In the olden days (before John F. Kennedy was elected), society thought the family was the basic organizational unit of society so laws were arranged to put people into, and keep them in, marriages. Prohibition of fornication, adultery and underage sex; restriction of birth control and abortion; waiting periods and blood tests; fault-based divorce and alimony; and tax deduction and fringe benefit eligibility along with social disapproval of bastardy and divorce all contributed to making marriage a serious decision with serious consequences.
Now that half the population believes satisfying-sex-without-consequences is more important than forming a family or keeping it together, the individual has replaced the family as the basic unit of society. So why should government be in the business of issuing marriage licenses at all? Why not abolish marriage licenses along with the other legal obstacles to personal fulfillment?
Excellent question, Adrian. A little more libertarian view than we usually see at SITD, which tends to be socially conservative. But looking at the societal trend in recent history, maybe a question we should seriously consider?
.
October 2nd, 2012 at 12:21 pm
I love my dog. She sleeps with me every night. Most nights she sleeps with my wife and I together. Sounds like – matrimony.
Once the wall is toppled, the possibilities become comic – but possible – thereby disintegrating what God and governments have hung their culture’s hopes on since the dawn of Creation.
October 2nd, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Chuck, you can bet your sweet bippy that there is a large part of the left that would absolutely love to throw the entire Catholic Church and all its followers into prison for their opposing views on all aspects of homosexuality, 1st amendment be damned.
October 2nd, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Legal obligations are a small part of marriage. If you strip the non-legal obligations away, you have a joint stock corporation, not a marriage.
October 2nd, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Joe, Thanks. I honestly was simply spouting off my thoughts about the initial question that popped into my head, and has nagged me since, regarding the same sex marriage issue: Why the need for same sex couples to get “married”?
At the same time I also am a bit annoyed with the concept that an institution that for thousands of years has it’s roots in a religious rite has now come to be defined by government…to me, goverment has usurped this from the church.
Yes, and if I had my way, we would return to a time that the family would mean the parents and the children they had. When single parenthood was not celebrated, nor was divorce.
My agnosticism should not be taken as diminishment of the need for responsible parents, male and female, to raise children. And my libertarianism should dictate the need for personal responsibility, ESPECIALLY with regard to family and children.
And as your writing indicates (and I believe I heard Dennis Prager say essentially the same thing a couple weeks ago) the argument that marriage is a right and should be available regardless of gender simply because of love, also negates ANY argument against polygamy, or even incest.
October 2nd, 2012 at 1:32 pm
I think the Stink is on to something. One of the sand-is-food crowd’s favorite justifications for teh gay is that “hey, animals do it too, so there!”.
I usually remind them that animals also eat their own merde, but maybe the polyspecies crew can make something useful out if it anyway.
October 2nd, 2012 at 1:35 pm
Duck, Bill (heh..cracked myself up); incoming….
“California governor OKs ban on gay conversion therapy, calling it ‘quackery'”
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/01/us/california-gay-therapy-ban/index.html
Can preaching from the pulpit be far behind?
October 2nd, 2012 at 3:22 pm
This is a simple question of equal protection under the law. The government has NO business defining marriage AT ALL. But as long as it is, it better not do so in a discriminatory fashion, as it currently does.
Wrong is wrong, and anyone who claims to be small-government and anti-gay-marriage is a hypocrite.
October 2nd, 2012 at 3:28 pm
This is a simple question of equal protection under the law.
No, it is not, though I am sure you would like it to be.
It is a question of elites in government and society redefining an institution that has existed for millenia, across all cultures, in order to impose its narrow moral vision on other people.
Any sane person would oppose it.
October 2nd, 2012 at 3:47 pm
Government is CURRENTLY imposing a narrow moral vision, by picking and choosing.
You DO understand that allowing equal rights won’t FORCE you to marry a dude, right?
October 2nd, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Don’t be an idiot, Rothman.
Government either recognizes marriage as an institution that exists outside of its pervue or it does not. You believe it does not. Hence the narrowness of your vision.
October 2nd, 2012 at 4:38 pm
“This is a simple question of equal protection under the law. The government has NO business defining marriage AT ALL. But as long as it is, it better not do so in a discriminatory fashion, as it currently does.”
^^^THIS. It is an equal rights issue.
October 2nd, 2012 at 4:46 pm
“Sanity” said:
“^^^THIS. It is an equal rights issue.”
Only if “rights” are defined as “things I want”. And they are not.
October 2nd, 2012 at 6:27 pm
“Only if “rights” are defined as “things I want”. And they are not.”
Apparently not in your world. Rights (or “things I want”) given by government to one group are not for another. In my world that’s discrimination.
October 2nd, 2012 at 6:48 pm
“You do understand that allowing equal rights won’t force you….” You do understand that there’s no “right to marry”, so your argument is meaningless.
October 2nd, 2012 at 6:55 pm
“Rights given by government to one group and not another…is discrimination”. So by taking your “logic” to it’s end, that would mean that, say, the “group” of people under 18 years of age are being discriminated against because they can’t vote? Or under 16 drive a car, or…. Sure.
October 2nd, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Once again, “Sanity” speaks from the deeps of the caverns of Mount Ignorance.
The only reason the state is involved in marriage is because it took over what were once the social welfare responsibilities of the old church parish system.
The reason the state took over these responsibilities, rather than ignore them’ was because someone has to deal with them. Someone has to ensure, for example, that a parent cares for the dependent children of a marriage, and see to it that problems within a marriage that affect society are managed in such a way that the obligations of care are enforced upon the people who have voluntarily taken on these responsibilities.
Believe it or not, there was a time when a person felt shame for requiring that other people — many or most as poor as himself or herself — work to support his or her own family in addition to their own
The state did not invent marriage. It can not decide what a marriage is and is not, it must follow the customs and traditions of the People.
October 2nd, 2012 at 7:55 pm
I would find it easier to believe that principled adherence to the idea of equal protection of the law was behind the same-sex marriage scam if its proponents opposed affirmative action and a progressive income tax.
As it is, it’s just moral vanity.
October 2nd, 2012 at 8:10 pm
“The concept of equal protection under the law, enshrined in the Constitution, requires that fundamental rights like the right to marry be made available equally to same-sex and opposite-sex couples. While religious faiths are free to discriminate between same-sex and opposite-sex marriages, according to their beliefs, the government may not.”
October 2nd, 2012 at 8:16 pm
“The state did not invent marriage. It can not decide what a marriage is and is not, it must follow the customs and traditions of the People.”
Which people? Christians, Jews, Mormons, Navajos?
As a people we are all these, and religious marriage isn’t the same for a Christian vs. a Mormon, etc., but their civil marriage (what is recognized by the state) IS the same for couples of these various religions. My civil marriage and rights under the state as a married person are the same as yours, even though my religion’s definition of my marriage is likely different from yours. Which “custom” or “tradition” trumps the others under the law? NONE. The legal rights I have as a “married” have nothing to do with religious customs or traditions.
October 2nd, 2012 at 8:36 pm
“Which people? Christians, Jews, Mormons, Navajos?”
All of them, you idiot.
“The People” certainly do not consist solely of gay marriage advocates and judges.
This is a republic. The People are sovereign, not the progressives. Get used to it.
October 2nd, 2012 at 8:47 pm
“Sanity” said:
“Rights (or “things I want”) given by government”
Terry is absolutely right: you are ignorant. If you understood what rights are and from whence they come, you would not have written the above. Please do read up on the subject.
October 2nd, 2012 at 9:18 pm
“All of them, you idiot.”
Great. Glad you embrace gender diversity and the four genders of the Navajo.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/two-spirits/film.html
“The People are sovereign, not the progressives.”
So progressives are not people? They don’t count? Kind of like the 47%?
October 2nd, 2012 at 9:30 pm
Most liberals — including liberal lawyers — have little appreciation for the constitution because they see it as a series of obstacles to the way that they would like other people be made to live, or a set of rules that needs to be gamed so they can force other people to behave as they would like them to behave.
Liberals hate the amendment process and the constitutional convention process because it requires broad consensus. When you are a progressive, by definition your ideas are revolutionary (in the U.S.) and unpopular.
There were 33 states in 1860. If two thirds of that number, 22, were secessionist they could have called a constitutional convention and proposed anything they liked, even adopting a new constitution. If 3/4 of the 32 states (24) agreed, they could move beyond proposals to reforming the federal government in whichever way they chose or they could have eliminated it altogether.. It would have been 100% legal, any armed opposition could rightly be called rebellion against the states.
The federal government cannot amend the constitution. Only the people and the states can do that, through 2/3 majorities in the house and senate.
I’ve said it before: the federal government has no natural constituency. Only harm will come by the federal government’s attempt to create client peoples whose primary loyalty is to DC.
October 2nd, 2012 at 9:53 pm
And just to demonstrate that my appreciation for the constitution is principled —
I think the Iran-Contra affair should have resulted in more prosecutions than it did. Maybe all the way to the top.
You can’t have the executive bypassing congress to spend state money on his personal projects. Not only is it illegal, it is unwise.
The example history gives us is Kaiser Wilhelm I and Otto Bismarck.. Together they used the Kaiser’s personal fortune to fund the military adventurism that formed the German Empire, much against the will of the people (as expressed by the Landtag).
October 2nd, 2012 at 10:21 pm
I intelligently wrote:
“The People are sovereign, not the progressives.”
To which “Sanity” responded:
So progressives are not people? They don’t count? Kind of like the 47%?
What are you blathering about, “Sanity”? You do under stand how language works, don’t you? “The People” (note the capital) is not the same as a group called “the progressives”?
If you can only make your point by deliberately misreading and misrepresenting what other people say you are either an idiot, a Democrat, or both.
I suspect that you are both.
October 2nd, 2012 at 10:57 pm
Have you seen this, “Sanity”?
http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/02/obama-speech-jeremiah-wright-new-orleans
I like the way Obama gives a special shout-out to Reverand Jeremiah Wright. Must have been before Obama threw him under the bus.
Also his fake home-boy accent is a riot. Obama didn’t learn to talk like that in Hawaii or Indonesia, or on the toney campuses of Punahou Academy, Occidental, Columbia, or Harvard. He must have watched a lot of Good times when he was a kid.
October 3rd, 2012 at 2:53 am
” He must have watched a lot of Good times when he was a kid.”
Or he spent time hanging out on south side of Chicago doing community work with poor people, and then married a woman from a working class family from that area and got elected to statehouse to represent those folks. You do start to pick up the accent when you work with people in a specific area.
October 3rd, 2012 at 3:06 am
” “The People” (note the capital) is not the same as a group called “the progressives”?”
We are an inclusive society (last I checked).. The People include progressives, conservatives, gays, lesbians, racial minorities (hispanics, african Americans, native americans, asians), Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, rich, poor, etc, etc. We are diverse, and our government is secular. It’s the only way to embrace a wide spectrum of religious beliefs, traditions and customs, economic groups.
Get used to it. The People run the gamut. They aren’t all like you. Some are even (gasp) progressive. This will never change, and if fact the diversity of The People is growing.
October 3rd, 2012 at 3:10 am
Obama graduated from Columbia before he spent a moment in Chicago, “Sanity”. Please do your home work.
The timeline is:
1973-1979 Punahou Academy, a private prep school on Oahu
1979-1981 Occidental in LA
!981-1983 Columbia, NY. Graduated with BA in political science.
1983-1985 worked at BIC and then at NYPIRG.
1985-1988 worked for various Chicago PIG’s. Met Michelle Robinson, daughter of Fraser Robinson, water plant employee and precinct captain.
1988-1991 Harvard Law
October 3rd, 2012 at 3:20 am
“Sanity” wrote:
They aren’t all like you. Some are even (gasp) progressive.
I live in zip 96785. Look it up, asshole.
October 3rd, 2012 at 3:47 am
96785
Hawaii
Home of Barack Obama!
Anyway, what is your point? I also live in a racially mixed area. Intolerant people can live anywhere.
BTW, your name calling is impeccable . . . idiot and asshole. Keeping it classy?
Obama has spent 20 years married to/living with a woman from Chicago. Maybe he’s picked up her accent. And what’s wrong with that? Is that a problem? I lived with a British woman for a year and people told me I sounded British when I returned to the US. I lost a great deal of my midwest accent, and it never returned. I can only imagine how my speech would change if I’d lived with her for 20 years.
Your posts are confusing.
October 3rd, 2012 at 10:03 am
“Sanity” said:
“Your posts are confusing.”
You are easily confused.
October 3rd, 2012 at 2:21 pm
Wow. “Sanity’s” crunchy dimwit shell is so thick, I can’t find a crack of logic wide enough to stick a simple “heh” into. He must have been double-dipped in teh stoopid.