The Real Agenda of Gay Marriage Activists
February 27th 2009 19:41
Gay marriage proponents will tell you that getting gay marriage is a civil rights issue! Let me tell you why that is false.
There is not one single, solitary civil or human right that is exclusive to marriage. Not one. Every single right conveyed to marriage is conveyed by whom? The government. So every single right conveyed by marriage could be given to civil unions. That's right, every single one.
Want the right to visit your gay partner in the hospital? The legislature can give it you. (fact is, most hospitals are too compassionate to stop this to begin with).
Want to automatically inherit as married people do? The legislature can give it to you.
Want to be protected from discrimination in the workplace? The legislatures have already granted it.
So why does the admittedly extreme gay movement want gay marriage, versus just civil unions? What even activists participating in the protests may not know is it's about watering down the definition of marriage to being just a legal contract, not the sacred establishment created by religion and society to continue the human race and be a building block for a stable society.
Since from a civil rights and law perspective you can get everything from Civil Unions that you get from a marriage if the legislatures would pass those laws (and they will in states like California, Oregon, New York, Washington, etc), then there's no reason to insist on it being called marriage. Zero.
This leaves the ONLY reason to push this: to deny those who consider marriage to be a sacred establishment of God, as I do, the right to keep the meaning of the word as it is, a union between one man and one woman.
You want your gay marriage to be blessed by God? Fine, go find a church that believes that way and get "married". Then go get your civil rights from a civil union and don't force the government that ALL OF US are a part of to tell those who don't agree how we have to define marriage. Don't force us to change how we define a word that has been defined since Adam and Eve for so many Americans.
The intolerance here is on the gay marriage movement side, not mine. I don't condone gay relationships, but I'm not for making them illegal either. I don't believe my religious problems with homosexual acts should become legislation. I'm not in favor of stopping gays from getting any of the legal benefits of marriage, I just insist that they have to do it in a civil union. I'm very tolerant, understanding and compassionate about two people who love each other being able to visit, inherit, get health insurance coverage, etc.
Just don't try to redefine a word that is sacred to the vast majority of Americans. 93% of California's blacks voted for Obama, but while in that booth 70% of them voted to keep the definition of marriage. You don't see us trying to get legislatures to redefine the word transvestite to a category of obscenity.
The movements to get civil and human rights for gays could be 100% successful by now if they just pursued it through civil unions. Yes, there would be resistance as there are intolerant extremist idiots on my side as well, but the vast majority of people, thus the vast majority of legislatures, would pass those laws and we'd be done. The fight would be over. The rights would already be granted.
The movements have only hurt themselves by going after a word, instead of going after the rights.
One note here: my father is gay. He was in a relationship with a man my age for over a decade. While I disapproved of the relationship, I still love my father and would not want to deny him the right to visit, inherit, etc. He's not with that man any more, but even if he was, I would deny him the right to call his relationship marriage, as I would deny somebody the right to define women as being male. If somebody calls you a bad word, it has no effect unless you choose to let it. If you're relationship is not called marriage, but you have all the same rights, it's only by your own choice that you feel lesser. When somebody calls me a geek, I can CHOOSE to be insulted or complimented that they recognize my passion for whatever I'm geeky about.
What word would be next for redefinition? Liberals might not like what came next.
You can support my blogging even more by buying my book at Author House. Unlike liberals, this is the only fantasy world I live in
There is not one single, solitary civil or human right that is exclusive to marriage. Not one. Every single right conveyed to marriage is conveyed by whom? The government. So every single right conveyed by marriage could be given to civil unions. That's right, every single one.
Want the right to visit your gay partner in the hospital? The legislature can give it you. (fact is, most hospitals are too compassionate to stop this to begin with).
Want to automatically inherit as married people do? The legislature can give it to you.
Want to be protected from discrimination in the workplace? The legislatures have already granted it.
So why does the admittedly extreme gay movement want gay marriage, versus just civil unions? What even activists participating in the protests may not know is it's about watering down the definition of marriage to being just a legal contract, not the sacred establishment created by religion and society to continue the human race and be a building block for a stable society.
Since from a civil rights and law perspective you can get everything from Civil Unions that you get from a marriage if the legislatures would pass those laws (and they will in states like California, Oregon, New York, Washington, etc), then there's no reason to insist on it being called marriage. Zero.
This leaves the ONLY reason to push this: to deny those who consider marriage to be a sacred establishment of God, as I do, the right to keep the meaning of the word as it is, a union between one man and one woman.
You want your gay marriage to be blessed by God? Fine, go find a church that believes that way and get "married". Then go get your civil rights from a civil union and don't force the government that ALL OF US are a part of to tell those who don't agree how we have to define marriage. Don't force us to change how we define a word that has been defined since Adam and Eve for so many Americans.
The intolerance here is on the gay marriage movement side, not mine. I don't condone gay relationships, but I'm not for making them illegal either. I don't believe my religious problems with homosexual acts should become legislation. I'm not in favor of stopping gays from getting any of the legal benefits of marriage, I just insist that they have to do it in a civil union. I'm very tolerant, understanding and compassionate about two people who love each other being able to visit, inherit, get health insurance coverage, etc.
Just don't try to redefine a word that is sacred to the vast majority of Americans. 93% of California's blacks voted for Obama, but while in that booth 70% of them voted to keep the definition of marriage. You don't see us trying to get legislatures to redefine the word transvestite to a category of obscenity.
The movements to get civil and human rights for gays could be 100% successful by now if they just pursued it through civil unions. Yes, there would be resistance as there are intolerant extremist idiots on my side as well, but the vast majority of people, thus the vast majority of legislatures, would pass those laws and we'd be done. The fight would be over. The rights would already be granted.
The movements have only hurt themselves by going after a word, instead of going after the rights.
One note here: my father is gay. He was in a relationship with a man my age for over a decade. While I disapproved of the relationship, I still love my father and would not want to deny him the right to visit, inherit, etc. He's not with that man any more, but even if he was, I would deny him the right to call his relationship marriage, as I would deny somebody the right to define women as being male. If somebody calls you a bad word, it has no effect unless you choose to let it. If you're relationship is not called marriage, but you have all the same rights, it's only by your own choice that you feel lesser. When somebody calls me a geek, I can CHOOSE to be insulted or complimented that they recognize my passion for whatever I'm geeky about.
What word would be next for redefinition? Liberals might not like what came next.
You can support my blogging even more by buying my book at Author House. Unlike liberals, this is the only fantasy world I live in
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by alt_ed
Alted Opinion
ArtCombat
The Inner Saintdom
Now, are gays really the biggest threat to the sanctity of marriage... or is it divorce? Although, I'm sure you'll write an article explaining that heterosexual couples getting divorced is a direct consequence of the stress we gays have caused them in their own personal lives.
Oh, the inconsiderate gays are at it a gain!
Comment by Jonathan Biviano
Marriage Bits
There are a lot of contributors to the rise in divorce, but I don't blame gay activists. As a matter of fact, most gays don't want gay marriage.
There are some levels where changing the definition will effect marriage, but I believe if we can reduce the divorce rate from all the other causes, including many myths about marriage, that the effort to change the definition of the word will be crushed.
I have a ministry to try to do that. No, the destruction of marriage began in the "sexual revolution." I won't give gay activists that much credit.
Comment by Andrew Biviano
The most striking thing is that at times you refer to marriage as just "a word" that shouldn't make a difference to gay people, since civil unions are basically the same thing. Other times you refer to marriage as something sacred and special, far better than civil unions. Which is it?
If you feel that gays shouldn't make such a big deal out of the label that is placed on their unions, why not do the same? I am certain that you consider your marriage qualitatively different from many others that are given the same label -- for instance, atheist marriages, arranged marriages, drunken Vegas marriages, loveless marriages for financial reasons, immigration reasons, unplanned pregnancy, etc. (Remember Anna Nicole Smith?) We people of faith all instinctively recognize that we are married twice -- once in a sacred union with God, and once in a civil sense that has nothing to do with God, because anyone can get civilly married as long as you're not related or already married. The existence of these non-sacred marriages, and their failure to lessen the sacredness of your marriage to Leslie, proves that others cannot redefine for you or lessen what you hold sacred spiritually. So this "real agenda" is not even possible.
If you take the other position and consider the word "marriage" sacred and important enough to fight over, isn't it easy to understand why others would want that same recognition? The simple fact that you are fighting so hard to "protect" the term proves how important it is to people who are excluded from it. They want to join this special club, not put it out of business. And if, as you say, marriage "is a building block for a stable society," there is an obvious huge social benefit to allowing more people to contribute these building blocks.
Further, if there is a big enough qualitatiive difference between these two terms for you to fight so hard for it, than this necessarily raises the question of whether the government has the right to impose or maintain this qualitative difference. As a lawyer, I know that at times there are legitimate constitutional grounds to treat different groups differently. I also know however, that differing biblical interpretation has never been and never will be one of these legitimate grounds. It wasn't legitimate when interracial marriage was considered a cultural and biblical taboo, something that would lessen marriage's purity. And it is worth pointing out that the separation of church and state was created and is most often used to to protect religious groups from being dictated to by secular society. It's only fair to have it flow both ways.
On this topic, when describing the possible outcomes of this debate, please don't forget about the First Amendment. Look at all of the things people are allowed to say and preach that is considered culturally unpopular. Even if a huge cultural shift does come to pass, do you really think that a government that cannot stop neo-nazis from holding parades will be able to silence you from preaching that homosexuality is a sin? I think that this is a reality check for some of your fears.
You also claim that activist in the movement aren't even aware of what it's about, as if this is a centralized plan by one or two people, as opposed to diverse individuals taking a stand for different reasons. This would be akin to me saying that because you are a conservative, everything you do or believe is to serve the master plans of Rush Limbaugh, although you might not know it. This is basically what some Democrats have been saying about Michael Steele lately -- it's pretty insulting, condescending and obnoxious, isn't it? You even went way beyond this to the greatest possible extreme, comparing gay rights supporters to unwitting Hitler supporters. It's pretty inflammatory stuff, you have to admit. It's not exactly how one usually starts a respectful dialogue.
So, I won't call you an idiot if you will give me the same courtesy and not tell me that you know better than I do what my "real agenda" is. I, and everyone else I know in this movement, do not want to limit your right to belong to a church that only blesses man-woman marriages and preach any way you want. Perhaps some people do want to do this, but they do not represent my real agenda, nor will I let them do what you fear and silence your opinion. It is because I share your belief in the sanctity of marriage that I feel so strongly that it should not be denied to the wonderful people we know and love who were made by God slightly different.
Lastly, and on a larger level, please take a moment to consider the possibility that the gay rights movement isn't even about you. I cringe when I see this issue framed with religious conservatives being the "victims" of the gay rights movement. It is a self-centered approach, seeing the world as revolving around oneself. It's like seeing the women's rights movement as nothing more than hatred of men. When you got engaged and then married, did you ever think that by doing so you were striking a blow against gay people? Did they even cross your mind? I doubt it. What makes you think that you are so much more special that when gays get married you are their foremost concern?
So, other than that, I guess we agree! Thanks for the chance to debate.
Comment by Jonathan Biviano
Marriage Bits
What word definition is next? We've already seen it being pushed that male and female is a state of mind, not a description of which genitalia a person has. People try to define tolerance as meaning only people who will tolerate EVERYTHING are tolerant.
The "separation of church and state" is an entirely made up concept built by the ACLU. Let's quote, exactly, the 1st Amendment:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
The ACLU website actually uses elipses to remove the parts of this amendment that might point to how it varies from the idea of separation (or at least it did last time I looked).
So, do those words mean separation? Only if you REDEFINE THE WORDS. The Supreme Court took the Bible and prayer out of schools because it implied the ESTABLISHMENT of Christianity, not because the church and state had to be separate. Since then people have tried and failed to get rid of the ten commandments in pluralistic displays, and get rid of mangers in town squares. They have only attacked Christianity. I've had to protest to principals that they studied Islamic texts in class but wouldn't touch on the Bible.
Defending the original founders', or our Creator's, definition of words is important. The SC best confirmed this in their ruling on the DC gun law which said that "keep" cannot be redefined to anything but "own" and "bear" the right to carry.
Rush Limbaugh promotes: freedom to achieve without government interference.That's it. He wants this country to succeed economically because THEN HE SUCCEEDS. He knows, and I know, that socialism has destroyed many countries. There is no secret agenda. Nothing he promotes forces me to listen to him or support his position.
I don't want to get too far off topic, so let me just say - read my other postings.
What amendment is next? What word is next? Obama says words matter, and the word marriage matters.
The fact that gays CAN have their church call what they have marriage, fine. Making it law means that I in the public realm, have to call it marriage. Gays can get married, in their own eyes and their own clergy right now. There's nothing stopping that. Then it's between them and God or whatever. But government works for all of us, and when they define a word that is the definition we all have to live under, not in our hearts and soul and beliefs, obviously, but in so many other ways in public.
The other half of this is the trend toward further trashing the 1st Amendment by expanding hate speech. There's already a non-binding resolution in S.F. banning preaching against homosexuality. In Canada and the Netherlands it can put you in jail to preach against it. Once the government redefines the words on a legal level, the churches full of people that don't agree will come under attack for "hate speech." As a pastor following these things I've already seen it.
So it is about me. I don't want to go to jail for "hate speech" if I refuse to publicly accept it. You may not be aware of it, but religious speech is being squashed all over this country. While other agendas get air time in everything from news to sitcoms, much of Christianity is under attack. The gay marriage movement at its fundamental level is about stopping Christians from being free to disagree.
Dozens of politicians and political figures said they wanted Bush to fail, that Bush is and was a failure before he really even got a chance to act. They called the Iraq war and the surge lost and a failure. No mainstream media called them on it. A radio host says he wants Obama to fail to implement a radical agenda and CNN spends an ENTIRE DAY tearing at him and tries to set up every conservative they can to oppose him. It's all to help pass a version of the Fairness Doctrine to silence talk radio.
Yes, conservatism is being silenced, and making government change the definition of marriage is just one step in that plan. The book I referenced in my blog posting above makes that clear. There is a larger goal that this is just one part of to remove Christianity from our government, laws and culture. There are numerous stores that can longer call their Christmas trees by what they are. They have to call them Holiday Trees. I can understand a little having to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, as there are other religious holidays around that time, but to have to stop calling them Christmas trees?
It's all getting Orwellian.
Comment by Andrew Biviano
It seems that you argue that "defining words" is a de facto bad thing, that it will necessarily lead to further moral decline. Was it a bad thing when "all men created equal" was redefined to include black people? When "voter" was redefined to include women? When "wife" was redefined to mean partner and not property? When marriage was redefined to mean a union of a man and woman of any race? I often get the feeling from conservatives that yes, the cultural progession of the past was good, but we've now got it just right and can stop. I understand and respect your concerns about going too far, but not your idea that word redefinition is inherently bad, and that we are going down and slippery slope and won't be able to stop ourselves from going to every extreme.
As far as your views on the First Amendment and fears of going to jail, you are simply inaccurate. Are you able to give me one example in this country of somone going to jail because of hate speech? I read case after case in law school clearly establishing that it is simply not possible. Speech threatening to kill the president, or yelling fire in a theater, yes, can lead to jail, but not a viewpoint. The most the government can do is perhaps take away a church's federal tax-exempt status for political speech. (Tax-exempt status not being a fundamental liberty.) And yes, churches and pastors can make themselves unpopular when they challenge popular notions, which many view it as their mission. Perhaps they may even get boycotted or ripped apart on the cable news shows. But have you ever heard of criminal charges being brought against Jeremiah Wright or Pat Robertson?
Again, look at the example of the white supremacists. Not only are they overwhelmingly the minority view reviled by almost all of us, as opposed to the fairly close divide on homosexuality, it is already illegal to act on any of their views as far as discriminating in employment, housing, etc. Much of what they spew actually leads to violence. If there were ever a group that we would want to silence, this is it. And yet, white supremacists often move here from Europe because they know they are protected. There is a parade every year in Hayden Lake. They are allowed to put up burning crosses as long as it is not used to threaten violence on specific people. They have given the 1st Amendment the ultimate test, and it has held up.
So if you actually believe that the gay rights movement, unlike all the movements before it, will succeed in putting you in jail for your speech, you are simply 100% wrong. So stop frightening people with examples of non-binding resolutions and laws in other countries. Unless you honestly think that Congress and 3/4 of the states are going to amend the First Amendment of the Constitution to make it a crime to speak ill of homosexuality, even in a private forum like a church, your public scare tactics are disingenous. You're too smart for this.
And if you have the time, read the Federalist papers and works of Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams and Madison. You will find that you give the ACLU a whole lot of extra credit (which I'm sure it appreciates). You'll find the concepts of keeping the church and state separate for the protection of both, as well as freedom of speech, expressed very elequently by our founding fathers. These minds are what the Supreme Court has relied in interpreting the Constitution, not the ACLU.
Also consider that the justices of the Supreme Court who have come to this conclusion are not raging San Fran liberals out to turn us into Venezuela. Many were appointed by conservatives and lived in eras that would be deemed very conservative by today's standards. Most lived before the gay rights movement even existed. If extremely well-educated people who likely agree with many of your conservative views can reach a different conclusion on another, maybe their conclsuion is not as obviously wrong as you suggest.
We have gone through much greater social upheavals before, one that lead to a civil war, many others to extreme partisan violence. This debate is not even close. The sky didn't fall then. White people have still managed okay since the slavery ended and the civil rights bills passed. Men have contiuned to fare pretty well since women began to be treated as equal. Christianity still dominates our culture like no other religion; it would still be impossible for a non-Christian to become president. There are countless cable channels devoted only to religious programming and partisan political views, and you are absolutely free to write any kind of blog you want. So take some deep cleansing breaths and get some historical perspective. The extremism you fear cannot succeed. This is a big diverse country in which others can rise up without pushing you down.
Comment by Jonathan Biviano
Marriage Bits
Slavery is and was wrong. But even the founding fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson said that all men are created equal should apply to slaves. Jefferson said he didn't want to own slaves, but economic and social conditions drove him to it. He treated his quite well, if that's possible.
The problem is there's a new constitutional right that's been constructed out of thin air: the right to not be offended.
No, nobody's gone to jail but people's livelihoods have been destroyed by intimidation, boycotts and unequal treatment. They can be nixed out of government grants, lose SBA loans, have their license revoked or not renewed. People have had this done for speech that offended a specific group.
They also said in the Federalist Papers that the country couldn't survive if people stopped following the Christian God's laws to guide their own lives. Their reference for separation was that there should be no state religion, as the pilgrims were fleeing exactly that in England. They did not want a state religion, not that religion shouldn't be part of government life, just that the state couldn't specify which one.
A lady who owns a small cafe in the San Fernando valley had a gang of anti-Prop 8 activists come into her shop because they found out she gave $500 to Yes on 8. They intimidated her into sitting down and being berated and verbally assulted until she agreed to begin giving even more money to gay causes. Where was her speech protected?
Do you really think that all these activists that are assulting Mormons on their way in and out of church and causing this mayhem will stop doing it when marriage is legal and a church still speaks against it?
The Supreme Court of California is actually considering undoing a the will of the people in passing a constitutional amendment. Hardly comforting that after four years of opportunity to appoint new SC judges that, as Obama said himself, "will see their role as implementing social justice," I'm not so sure that the constitution is as safe as you think it is. Would the current Supreme Court. Nope. But we have a president that wants activist judges that believe in the power of the court to put through a social justice agenda. Look it up on YouTube where he said this on a radio program in 2004.
Many of the things the Congress and president have done over the past ten years are unconstitutional but not rising to the level that anybody has wanted to take the time to test them. George Bush did some of it.
By the way, the most active, vocal opponents of slavery were Christians. The man who wrote Amazing Grace was one of the largest slave traders in the world before he became a Christian, at which point he returned to England to lead a fight against slavery.
The libs want to extend the fairness doctrine to the internet. "The Fairness Doctrine" is going to be implemented as "localism" with "community review boards" set up by liberal bureaucrats making sure the stations are serving the "public interest." All radio stations that are all conservative do serve the public interest as there are plenty of liberal sources of information: ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, CNN. Yet, there is an attempt to silence.
Rick Santelli says Obama's housing plan is immoral - just an opinion. What does Gibbs say? "What kind of house does he live in?" So now you have to live in a certain kind of house to have a valid opinion? You have to be "poor" to understand houding policy?
No, there are laws coming. Yes, they will be challenged, but there will be damage done to the radio stations that have to fight it. Economic damage can and will be done to those who speak against what is politically correct. While I think this particular attack will backfire and only make Rush more popular ordinary citizens can have their livelihoods destoryed if the government is going to attack ordinary citizens.
Oh, just thought of a perfect example. An ordinary citizen has Obama come onto his street and asks him a question. Obama, no teleprompter handy to help, reveals his goals. The Ohio Secretary of State, a government official, begins feeding private information, admittedly illegally to the press. We learn everything about this private citizen that just asked a question. Why speak if that's what's going to happen to you?
And yes, she got in big trouble, but only because she got caught because she didn't think it was illegal. But why take the risk and talk?
Did George Bush or the media or any public official release personal information on Cindy Sheehan other than what she told us herself? She made herself famous yet he never said a bad word about her. No spokesman for George Bush ever questioned whether any private citizen or reporter had the right to say what they said. They may have questioned the accuracy but they never said anything of the levle of "what house do they live in"?
Just watch what's going on and maybe spend some time on hotair.com or the Wall Street Journal opinion pages. I watch Huffington Post and AP and Reuters. Two more appointees have tax/ethical issues and the NYT is covering Obama's graying hair.
Comment by Jonathan Biviano
Marriage Bits
Comment by alt_ed
Alted Opinion
ArtCombat
The Inner Saintdom
Examples?
Comment by Anonymous
It is so nice to know that there are rags and websites that support such egocentric, irrational word-hounds to muck up the idea of sense, logic and philosophy and state their own opinions, not as fact, but with pedantic ravings which substitute word volume for sense, follow the make-believe idea that the weight of conservatism rationalizes stilted logic, and blatantly places opinion as the basis of philosophy over and above anything like a suitable fact.
From the standpoint of constitutional and legal issues, the idea that marriage is a federally recognized status is merely a means of recognizing the union as a substantial ethical right, not a legal one, and upon reading your zealous condemnation based on it being a "right" merely indicates you have a semantic point, and not a valid idea in that thick skull of yours.
Perhaps one day your editors will realize, if we are all lucky, that you should be paid for ideas and conclusions, and not word count, because by a word count this article bears weight, but by logical ideas, you are fencing with a tissue-paper sword. Perhaps it should again be emphasized that the pen is mightier than the sword only if you have weight of reason, and not just personal conviction.