Gay Marriage to Alfred: Your Thoughts

on the other side of the coin

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3sj5yPIiJ1qace89o1_1280.png

Gay marriage doesn't "infuriate" most ppl who raise questions about current 'progressive' attitudes toward it. They are mostly saying it's not the end of the rainbow.

"Raise questions" is an awfully rainbow-tinted way of putting it.

dunno, rainbows don't mean shit to me

motherfuck them and john wayne

"Don't Worry Be Happy"

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/05/31/boston_court_us_gay_marriage_law_unconstitutional/

Namely:

An appeals court has ruled that a law that denies a host of federal benefits to same-sex married couples is unconstitutional.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled Thursday that the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, discriminates against gay couples.

The law was passed in 1996 at a time when it appeared Hawaii would legalize gay marriage. Since then, many states have instituted their own bans on gay marriage, while eight states have approved it, led by Massachusetts in 2004.

In 2010, a federal judge in Massachusetts declared the heart of the law unconstitutional in two separate lawsuits. The judge found that the law interferes with the right of a state to define marriage.

awesome

Two of the judges are Reagan and Poppy Bush appointees, respectively.

*tut tut* such activist judges

So, I'm really rusty on law, et al, but angling on state-by-state arguments means tough titty for the 30-odd states that have written gay marriage bans into their constitutions, right?

not if it goes to the Honorable Anthony Kennedy

discriminatory state laws will be struck down as well if the SC rules that discriminating against same-sex couples is unconstitutional. it's the same basic legal principle used to strike down Jim Crow laws.

so it depends how broad the SC ruling is. If SC strikes down DOMA just on grounds of it being an infringement on states' rights, then yeah those state laws will still stand.

But that ruling reads as a federalist argument against the Feds not against the States defining marriage.

well yeah

Part of me is all "well, it's the state's faults for voting the way they did in the first place," but my state's (belatedly) in the same boat this cycle.

It should take, like, 80 percent of the eligible voting body to write stuff into the constitution anyway. ¯\(º o)/¯

A traditional federalist conservative would view marriage as something best left to the States (or the ppl) to play around with. It's a viewpoint that lost a lot of lustre when used to defend racism and segregation but which retains a certain appeal when I think about a host of other issues like whether a county wants to be dry or allow marijuana use or, as our DA is suggesting, reducing all drug personal possession crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.

That reminds me: Lawsuits filed in Cook County claiming state's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional

The lawsuits by the gay rights group Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois create a new front in the battle for same-sex marriage rights in Illinois, leading activists to say they will continue pushing lawmakers to legalize same-sex marriage while also supporting the new judicial action.

("unconstitutional" referring to the Illinois Constitution)

All of the different angles taken by the different lawsuits really are reminiscent of the multiple angles of attack on segregation. Everybody just talks about Brown vs. Board of Ed, but there were decades of lawsuits before and after that one that went after different aspects of discrimination. So, yeah, this ruling is based on the idea that the feds can't trump state definitions of marriage in a discriminatory way. But it doesn't necessarily mean that any particular state's definition of marriage will itself be found constitutional, under either the state's own constitution or the U.S. constitution. Hence the Illinois lawsuit, e.g.

*blink*

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/06/01/3097041/conservative-rabbis-approves-same-sex-marriage-ceremonies

Not complaining, obv.

Always fun to hear the softly spoken and oh-so-sensible sounding Church of England bishops coming up with hysterical Fox News style talking points.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/12/gay-marriage-anglican-church-warning

"Marriage benefits society in many ways, not only by promoting mutuality and fidelity, but also by acknowledging an underlying biological complementarity which, for many, includes the possibility of procreation."

btw nice work threatening to cease performing all marriages if they're 'forced' to stop being bigots

infuriating nonsense being spouted by the "Bishop of Sheffield" on breakfast news re. this subject this morning. The BBC should deny them the oxygen of publicity by giving them squeaky voices, like the IRA in the 80s.

lol sorry that was a Brass Eye sketch wasn't it. Anyway the principle holds.

Listen to a softly-spoken C of E homophobic asshole, at 8:10: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/listen_again/default.stm . The guy from stonewall is pretty good in response.

In Australia we have this mob called the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) that in the past couple of weeks has gone absolutely bonkers in its desperation to stop marriage equality. Last week the bloke who runs the group compared the ex-president of the Australian Medical Association (who also happens to be a gay parent) to Joseph Goebbels. To her face.

The worst thing about the ACL is obvious, but the second-worst thing is that it claims to represent all Christians. Those Christians are massively pissed off atm.

Look, I'm so angry I'm using caps and punctuation again

"Marriage benefits society in many ways, not only by promoting mutuality and fidelity, but also by acknowledging an underlying biological complementarity which, for many, includes the possibility of procreation."

I've found that two men have a complementarity. The prostate is pretty ideally placed for stimulation during hot sodomy.

scissoring is super-complementary

how does 'acknowledging biological complimentarity' provide any benefit to society?

by positing rhetorical tautologicality, perhaps

At some point these arguments all boil down to social control and the extent to which we want religion implicated in our policies. The reason we are even talking about this is because most ppl now find it mostly socially tolerable to cohabitate, have open marriages, divorce, and have children out of wedlock so why not same-sex marriages? If they suggested criminalizing divorce and cohabitation and enforcing the traditional stigma of bastardy, I could see why same-sex marriage would be a threat because they'd be saying that they want traditional Judeo-Christian mores to be expressed democratically as laws and codes and ordinances. They'd still not be stoning adulterers or pig farmers or lobstermen, so I'd still say they were stupid shits...

The bilogical complementarity route is pure horsefeathers

Then there's this study, which NRO is making much.

Pretty sure he just means big spoon-little spoon.

The quote I read earlier was "I think this is the church trying to uphold our traditional teachings and understanding about marriage and trying to avoid a sudden and rapid redefinition of marriage for everybody at a time when many marriages are in difficulties and where it is very unlikely that, within just a few weeks, a universally acceptable new definition of a fundamental social institution can emerge."

Which appears to be going "Hey look, traditional gender roles are breaking down with catastrophic results for marriages and you want to expand it to people who don't even have different gender roles? You're juggling with dynamite!"

It's far easier to study outcomes than it is to study the effect of pervasive and indisidious prejudice against homosexuality. All the gay parents I've known in SF have pretty predictably normal types of children. That might not be so much the case in Mississippi or wherever.

xpost

So very sick of the whole false argument that mixed-sex marriage = mixed-sex parenting

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-16/christian-leaders-unite-against-gay-marriage/4074612

The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, has written a letter to all his parishioners saying that for the good of society, the definition of marriage should not be changed.

Archbishop Jensen told Saturday AM he decided to act after the Catholic church told him it would be circulating anti-gay marriage material on Sunday.

"We ought not to feel that the whole matter is being inevitably going in one direction but that we ought to make our voices known so that we make it clear that the Christian faith opposes this for the good of all," he said.

In his letter, Archbishop Jensen says it is beyond the power of parliament to change the definition of marriage.

He says legalising gay marriage would have a "bad impact" on society.

"If for example the Federal Parliament were to change the definition of marriage in the Marriage Act, it would be a symbolic victory for those who think that it is possible for two men or two women to be actually married," he said.

"That symbolic victory would play itself out in the classrooms of the nation; as from then on it would be impossible to teach in the classroom that marriage is exclusively for male and female.

"It would have a bad impact, even though it's attempting the impossible.

"I would say, following the teaching of the bible, that although friendship and fellowship is a great thing, the sexual relationship between two males or two females is something that's not for our good.

"For those who take that line; which I think is the truth, this will make it very difficult, if not impossible to keep saying that."

He says it is not an issue which can simply disregarded by the Anglican church as it affects all of society.

"You may notice that we're not talking about Anglicans. I'm talking about all of us. This affects you; it affects me. It affects our society," he said.

"My children and your children go to school and - this is just one illustration, let me say - and we will be taught that the sexual relationship, as symbolised in marriage itself, between two men, is just as authentic and just as true and just as good for us as a relationship between a man and a woman.

"Now, all down through human history and in the majority of places in the world today, people don't think that's for the good."

Trying to draw any straight line from "gays marrying" to "societal breakdown" is crazy.

If society is breaking down (uh, is it?), it is not because gays can marry, because, not to put too fine a point on it, all the 'alarming trends' anyone can point to began back when gays could not marry and they seem to be continuing on their merry way, regardless of gays marrying in a few states and foreign countries. So, any connection is simply via the observer's prejudice, and not any discoverable connection in real life.

hence all his vague 'not for our good' crap

the house of reps releases its same-sex marriage report tomorrow, so all the bigots are in overdrive atm

Somewhere Maggie Gallagher weeps:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/23/opinion/how-my-view-on-gay-marriage-changed.html

if by "weeps" you mean "purses her lips and narrows her eyes"

Don't you dare discuss her mating rituals in public, sir.

Roffle at this part:

And to my deep regret, much of the opposition to gay marriage seems to stem, at least in part, from an underlying anti-gay animus. To me, a Southerner by birth whose formative moral experience was the civil rights movement, this fact is profoundly disturbing.

Took ya long enough there, buddy.

guys we're only like 18 mos away from destroying western civilization. it's gonna be so awesome!