In Oregon, Measure 36 – the same-sex marriage ban – was, we were told, not about denying rights to lesbians and gays. It was about “protecting marriage.”
“Same-sex couples should seek marriage-like rights through another avenue, such as civil unions.”
“Oregon’s measure was written specifically not to address civil unions.”–Tim Nashif, Oregon Family Council Director and an organizer of the Measure 36 campaign
By claiming not to be against civil unions, the organizers of the same-sex marriage ban demonstrated (or tried to demonstrate, anyway) that they weren’t actually opposed to legal rights for same-sex couples.
Now that same-sex marriage is banned in the Constitution and the legislature is considering Civil Unions, however, suddenly their claims have changed:
“We would be against any measure that takes all the benefits of marriage and then calls it something else. We don’t think Oregonians had that in mind when they passed Measure 36.”
“SB 1000 takes everything that marriage is and calls it civil unions.”
–Tim Nashif, Oregon Family Council Director“Please understand there is no greater threat to marriage right now than civil unions.”
–Oregon Family Council Communications Director Nick Graham
Typical sleazy hate tactics – but you can bet that Oregon’s “liberal” press will let them get away with it. Track the Lies has more examples.
By claiming not to be against civil unions, the organizers of the same-sex marriage ban demonstrated (or tried to demonstrate, anyway) that they weren’t actually opposed to legal rights for same-sex couples.
But they were never claiming that they were “not against civil unions”. They were merely claiming that Measure 36 did not ban civil unions. That is a completely different claim.
How is this any different than, for example, arguing that, say, a Gay Marriage law would not result in the legalization of bigamy, and then after it passes pushing for a (separate) law legalizing bigamy?
“Sleazy” is what happened in Michigan (I think?) where they passed an amendment with the argument that it wouldn’t effect civil union-type issues, and then subsequently argued that civil unions were prohibited by that very same amendment. (The “It doesn’t mean now what I said it meant then” argument).
What you are here claiming as “sleazy” is really just incrementalism. You can argue that X won’t necessarily lead down the slippery slope to Y, but once you have X, it is not necessarily sleazy to them push for Y.
Okay, fair point. However, they did argue that measure 36 was not an anti-Civil-Unions measure, and now are turning around and arguing that measure 36 means that we shouldn’t have civil unions.
I also think that saying “you should seek rights through another avenue, such as civil unions” implies non-opposition to civil unions, but it doesn’t explicitly say it, I have to admit.
Dunno, but that sure seems indicative of the stance of not being against…
This is very much a case of moving goal posts.
re:1 Maybe the better thing to say is that what has happened here in Michigan is MORE sleazy.
Apparently Minnis blocked the house from voting as she promised she would. I guess at this point one bigot can decide which laws we should be allowed to see get a vote or not. Hey wait a minute, wasn’t this the same sort of thing that the conservatives got all up in arms with to begin with? Government officials interpreting legislature rather than allowing due process?
I’ll pass on the email I am supposedly going to get from Shaufler’s assistant when it comes. They were pretty bummed out at their offices, from what she said.
Because, of course, one could EASILY see bigamy coming as a result of allowing same-sex marriage, whereas one couldn’t possibly suggest that anti-gay bigots might be two-faced enough to push for further dehumanisation and roll-backs of the rights of gays and lesbians.
Of course.
Jesus-fucking-christ, I am so sick of this kind of stupid, ignorant shit being passed off as a reasonable suggestion. At least the frothing-at-the-mouth fundies are open about it.
Don’t mind me though, I’m just pissed off over the two gay teenagers executed in Iran for being … well, gay … so I must not be thinking straight.
This is the kind of statement – apparently made by a grownup – which makes one wonder if there’s anyone home in there. Is this person for real??? Easy divorce, a cultural inability to understand commitment, total disregard for the welfare of children, an economic system which forces both parents to work and to leave infants in childcare whether they want to or not, the difficulty of finding adequate health insurance… as dangers to marriage, all these pale as opposed to civil unions for homosexuals???
What’s even worse IRT to the Michigan law is that those cities which offer municipal domestic partnership benefits–Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Detroit, etc.–voted overwhelmingly *against* Proposal 2 (which banned already illegal same-sex marriages and civil unions). Proposal 2 effectively overturns the will of the people in these cities, despite the fact that proponents of the amendment maintained throughout the election that the it only concerned marriage/civil unions.
I agree, Sarah. The human race does not deserve to survive.
Anyone who hasn’t seen should go see the story about the Iranian boys.
>This is very much a case of moving goal posts.
But you can be fine with “legal protections” and fine with limited civil unions that give certain legal protections, and still very much against a “measure that takes all the benefits of marriage and then calls it something else. ”
Is that hard to understand? They are against giving same-sex couples all the benefits of marriage, but not against giving some legal protections.
You know what, John Howard. You’re a fucked up lunatic with an agenda of enforcing discrimination on others and I have no desire to swap comments with your crazy ass in this thread about a situation that directly affects my friends and family in my voting district.
Sorry Amp, but on this thread I’m not going to play nice, this asshole can get bent with his rhetoric and agenda that is nothing more than discriminatory bullshit being dressed up pretty as some concern for some yet to happen victims in society, over the very real victimization of people currently part of society.
John Howard, that is a very reasonable comment.
Oregon ratified a marriage amendment that protected the privileged status of marriage in that state. The up or down vote was not for the *merger* of marital status with some yet-to-be-established status called civil union, ashas bees recently proposed. The amendment did not prohibit lobbiests and representatives from making such a proposal, nor does it block the legislature’s enactment of such a merger, however, the currently proposed “marriage in all but name” civil union status does seem to contradict the well-debated intent of the amendment which affects all residents of that state, not just those who lost the ratification campaign.
It is all very disingenuous on Tim Nasifs part. I can intellectually understand the Church’s reluctance to GLB “Marriages,” as there has historically never been a time where that term is applied to same sex couples. (But things change, at one time slavery was accepted in the Church.) The Churches should work this out among their doctrines and in the Spirit. (I recently read several arguments both for and against and wrote a paper regarding this topic for a Theology class.) However, in as many civil unions occur outside of the church by JP’s and judges with no sanctioning by any religious authority it makes no sense why the State should not afford this right to same sex couples. The current state of civil unions among hetero couples has not caused bigamy to be an issue; it is lame to pull that out in association with GLB civil unions. We ought to be for people wanting to dedicate themselves to long-term, loving, monogamous, commitments, and remove any biased sanctions against those seeking to share their lives with others in love regardless of preference. Blessings.
One of the rights of marriage that same-sex marriages should not have is the right to procreate. No civil union bill should give two people of the same sex the right to combine their gametes together. Other benefits and protections are surely appropriate for some couples whose procreation would be unethical, but I don’t see why you want to create so much anger and dissonance by insisting on procreation rights.
John,
“Procreation rights” are not one of the rights or privileges attendant upon civil marriage in the USA. If that is your big concern, you need not worry about marriage vs. civil union in the USA.
Jake – Yeap. All John’s really worried about is whether or not we give those rights to them thar Jews… uh, er, “fegits.” Sorry, forgot what decade it was for a sec. I get so confused with high-ideal, traditionalist bigots.
John Howard misses the point 100% when he talks about “procreation rights.”
There is no requirement or expectation that anyone be willing or able to procreate for marriage. People who are infertile, impotent, past menopause, or not wishing to procreate are still allowed to marry, so long as they are of age, of opposite sexes, and not related.
F. Rottles also misrepresents Measure 36. Measure 36 prohibits marriage as defined by the Oregon Statutes from being applied to same-sex couples. It says absolutely nothing about civil unions or any other provision for giving equal rights to same-sex couples.
If there is anyone disingenuous in this debate it has been Speaker of the House Karen Minnis, who has deceived the voters by doing a bait-and-switch on SB 1000, which proposed civil unions, by doing a “gut-and-stuff” on SB 1000, excising language guaranteeing equal rights for queers and putting in a substandard “reciprical benefits” union that gives inferior rights to civil unions.
Let’s hope Kate Brown, Ben Westlund, and other Senators take this to the people with an initiative to keep it out of the hands of Christofascists like Nashif and Minnis.
There is no requirement or expectation that anyone be willing or able to procreate for marriage. People who are infertile, impotent, past menopause, or not wishing to procreate are still allowed to marry, so long as they are of age, of opposite sexes, and not related.
Not only that, but there is no need to get married to exercise the “right” to procreate under US law.
But when you’re obsessed with Santa Claus, you’re obsessed with Santa Claus and reality has no bearing on the issue.
“One of the rights of marriage that same-sex marriages should not have is the right to procreate.”
I try and always be sympathetic to others views, but this tries one… here it goes.
John Howard,
If technology makes it possible that a same sex couple can have a child as a hetro couple with fertility issues why shouldn’t they? Currently couples with one infertile partner are already using in vitro, surrogacy and many other techniques to have children. In fact a Lesbian couple had a child where the egg from one was implanted into the other after being fertilized by a donor. The daughter they bore is just fine. Why should any loving parent be treated any differently by virtue of sexual orientation? (Laws regarding custody and paternity/maternity have to be established though; current laws do not provide equal protection.)
With so many children being raised by folks that care less about them then the material things in their lives, why wouldn’t we want people who desperately want children to raise them in an environment almost assured to be far less judgmental than many of the folks raising families today?
Besides, the main point of this legislation is to just realize the recognition of human rights that have been available to the majority for almost all of time. The resistance to this law shows how far we have to go; our brothers and sisters are treated as second-class or worse and we are exercising control over their most basic rights as free moral agents controlling their own destinies. None of us are free as long as members of our community suffer. Your rational for refusing rights is so far out of reason that is ludicrous. It is like worrying about what the starving in Nigeria might do if they were to get electricity when what they need is food and healthcare, what good is electricity when your dead from starvation?
Think about how you would feel if laws were passed that required you to sacrifice your true love because of some perception of some physical feature. They call that bigotry where I come from. We need to stop seeing folks as things and start seeing them as ourselves, it all gets real easy if we do. Blessings.
Ahh Rock, while we don’t always agree, you give me hope that there is some potential for light at the end of the tunnel with regards to the devout.
Aaron V., what specifically in my comment do you feel is a misrepresentation? Perhaps you misread what I said.
Wow Kim, that’s nice to know, hope is a very good thing, thanks.
The irony is that I am very far to the left in the denomination I am a Pastor, and get a lot of stuff dumped on as a result. (Social Justice is a worthy fight.)
So I come to THIS place to expand my vision and find like-minded folks and get hollered at from time to time as well. (sigh!) No big deal, you and the rest force me to evaluate my belief systems and that is good. We all have value systems built in and they are not always rational and need checking.
I enjoy your Spirit.
Blessings.
This is really a fairly simple issue. Marriage is neither a “sacred” institution or some kind of divinely-ordained state. It’s a legal contract that provides tangible benefits. Since it’s a legal contract, and in America all people are held to be equal under the law, there is no logical reason to exclude an entire class of people. We are not a theocracy- people’s religious beliefs have no place in this discussion. Marriage is a CIVIL institution. If you don’t want your church to sanction gay marriage and the majority of church members agree with you then you have the right to demand that your church not marry gay people. What you do not have the right to do it demand that your personal religious beliefs be allowed to control civil law.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If the fundies really want to live in a theocracy there are already two that they are free to move to, Iran and Saudi Arabia. If they choose to live in this country they’re going to have to accept that it is NOT a theocracy and never will be. The fundies are a minority, and this is a democracy. They don’t get to impose their personal beliefs on everyone else.
Holy crap… please don’t take this the wrong way, Rock, but I never thought I’d see a pastor say that. Ever.
Since it’s a legal contract, and in America all people are held to be equal under the law, there is no logical reason to exclude an entire class of people.
All people are not held to be equal under the law. There is differential treatment, and stronger or weaker rights, for any number of defined groups. Children, for example, are not free to marry, nor should they be.
Robert, stop being deliberately obtuse. You’re a smart guy, I’m fairly sure that you know what I meant.
Um, children are not citizens, they are dependants. Anyone smarter than a chimpanzee should know the difference. That is why children are not entitled to enter into legal contracts except through their guardian(s). But thanks for giving us an excellent example of the Red Herring argument.
I am not being obtuse. These are issues where language and law need to be precise. Generalized, and counterfactual, statements like yours obfuscate the discussion, rather than clarifying it.
As for me knowing what you meant: at a guess, you meant to say that you WANT everyone to be treated equally, except for the people who you don’t want to be treated equally. (Since, for example, I presume you agree that kids ought not to have the same legal rights as adults.) In other words, you want a different set of variations in how members of various groups are to be treated.
So yeah, I can figure out what you mean, or try to, anyway. But since what you mean and what you said are quite radically different, it would be rather presumptuous of me to just start in responding to what you meant. It would also be very confusing to the next person who came along and took your words at face value, and wondered why I appeared to be talking at cross-purposes to them.
Better for me to be “obtuse”, and point out the counterfactuals, so that you will be prompted to clarify your expression, and increase understanding all around.
In any environment where there are people who strongly disagree with one another, it behooves us each to say what we actually mean, rather than relying on social good graces for people to suss out the secret meanings.
Um, children are not citizens, they are dependants. Anyone smarter than a chimpanzee should know the difference.
Children are citizens. They are also dependents. The two groups are not mutually exclusive.
In addition to that particular group cited as an example, there are other groups of adults who do not receive (nor are they entitled to under our legal theories) equal treatment under the law.
The flaw in that logic, Robert, as you well know, is one of competence and adulthood. While it’s true that not all citizens have the same rights, narrowing it down to a legal sexual preference is anything but reasonable, and does in fact infringe upon the rights of consenting, competent adults.
Thanks, Kim, that’s pretty much what I would have said if you hadn’t got to it first.
I’m also not convinced most people include the category “children” in the concept “citizen” in any way other than for INS purposes.
While it’s true that not all citizens have the same rights, narrowing it down to a legal sexual preference is anything but reasonable, and does in fact infringe upon the rights of consenting, competent adults.
I’m not arguing that. I’m asking someone to speak with clarity.
BritGirlsSF,
While I agree with you that there are folks that view “Marriage” as a civil action that does not involve God, god, or the Holy Spirit, there are many that believe such as myself that there is a Spiritual and mystical aspect to the process. In my case I believe that the marital union of a man and a woman is the assumption of the image of God that is the original creation by God, in His image. I do not know if it is the same for same sex couples, it is not for me to say. That is for (IMO) the folks involved to work out in their relationship with God in the Spirit if they are believers; if not, it is simply a civil issue and should be non discriminatory. (My directive is to love, to not judge, and to forgive those that wrong me.)
While you may not agree with the religious interpretation, it is no less valid than anyone assuming that marriage is simply a legal status. I agree that Churches that do not find the Biblical support or for whatever reason find themselves unable to participate should refrain (quietly) from such, and those that do should proceed. I also agree that the state should not impede same sex couples that wish to marry in a civil service. I do find it rather narrow to assume that one has the only line on this incredible relationship, to where all other beliefs are dismissed as wrong. My belief in a Spirit based relationship does not diminish or threaten your legal based view, nor am I threatened in the least by yours. I may be wrong as you may be also, why isn’t that OK? I also agree that this country should never be a theocracy, however it should never be hostile to the individuals that choose to live out a life in the faith they choose as long as it is not impeding others in their freedoms. Many wonderful and beautiful things happen as a result of people responding to their faith.
UnApologetic Atheist,
No offense taken.
We are never “done.” We are to daily live out our faith, and as in any relationship that means growth. By definition, growth implies that we need to change. This life is far too dynamic to assume that any of us have the last word on it. Blessings.
Rock, I think you may be missing my point. You have every right to conceptualise marriage in any way you wish. My point was that religious people do not have the right to impose their view of marriage as a spiritual union upon the legal institution of marriage. What I am arguing for is not that religious people should change how they feel about marriage, or that they should be forced to feel differently, merely that they should, as you yourself alluded to, refrain quitely from performing marriage ceremonies that offend them and not interfere in the right to legal marriage of those who feel differently. If I can respect the right of religious people to feel however they wish about gay marriage, why can they not respect the right of gay people to get married in a non-religious setting? If gay people wish to marry in a civil setting, or in a church that supports gay marriage, I simply don’t see why those who don’t approve cannot simply say “I do not approve” and leave it at that. Why ban gay marriage altogether? That’s where I think we’re crossing the line into theocracy.
We are both wondering the same things.
Fear unfortunately rules where faith should in many believers. That and control issues where a majority does not want to give autonomy to anyone that they perceive as a threat real or imagined. Were it only Fundamentalists, and only this issue it would be aggravating enough, however it seems to be part of our (humanities) programming. Ironically Religion is supposed to temper these negative behaviors… Blessings.
My question is, why are certain groups (gay people, women, people of a different faith etc) perceived as a threat at all? What is it that causes people to ignore the part of their own religion that talks about love and compassion? I was raised Episcopalian and this is something I did not understand as a child and still do not understand now.
I agree that this is something that seems to be coded into humans as a species. I have even heard of a group of militant and rather violent Buddhists in Sri Lanka, and I cannot think of anything in Buddhism that could possibly be interpreted as supporting murdering one’s enemies. Where does this hatred of the “other” come from, and how do we overcome it? If any of us could solve that question we would have found the seeds of something truly great.
Britgrl wrote:
Possibly they ignore it because it’s presented in a way that invariably sends mixed signals. Love and compassion is praised, but those who practice it tend to come to a bad end in the Bible. It’s the warriors that tend to win victories and to escape with their lives. The practicioners of love and compassion are carried off to Heaven, but the warriors stay on Earth another day.
It’s mixed signals like that which long ago helped sour me on religion.
James Baldwin (who preached as a young man) once wrote something along the lines of this: “People cling so vociferously to their hatreds because in their hearts, they know that if they let go of their hatreds they would have to deal with their pain.”
Gays in this issue function as basically a cartoon scapegoat. With them as one’s eternal enemy, one is too busy to take a hard look at all the day-to-day strife, outmoded gender roles/expectations and societal demands that might be a greater “threat to marriage” than any man or woman who just wants to collect a marriage certificate with a lover of the same sex. One is too busy to take a hard look at one’s own personal flaws or to re-examine whether the societal guardians who cast themselves as “defenders” are really defending citizens, or if they are just defending a word: “Marriage.” Needless to say, one is also too busy to go even further than that and to wonder whether “marriage” is even worth defending– to wonder whether it has outlived its usefulness and if it should simply be let go.
alsis –
Hon, I think you are quite right, but with one caveat.
Namely, I don’t think we as gays and lesbians are just a convienent scapegoat, picked up because we happen to be there (although I don’t doubt this is a part of things). To a large extent we symbolise, in a particularly substantive way; previous and future changes in gender norms, continuing international (at least in the western world) secularisation of the public sphere (rightly so), and challenges to ‘traditional’ discrete social categorical heirachies (including race, as I seem to remember we are more likely to date interracially, as well as patriarchy of course), etc.
We embody the fears that people have for their own flaws in our soceity, particularly when it comes to social change. They are able to project those fears/flaws onto us because of our apparent embodiment of those changes. Homophobia doesn’t have to be a specific fear/hatred of gays and lesbians (ie we are icky), but can be produced through a personal fear of the one’s own issues with those social changes, including one’s feelings of inadequacy in regard to those changes (and no, this isn’t pop-pysch *smile*) … a classic example of this is how there really aren’t any rational arguments against same-sex civil marriage when faced with logical, grounded, and coherent arguments and examples.
My personal feeling is that religion gives a vehicle to these fears and allows them expression. Again, personally, I happen to think certain religions lend themselves more readily to being vehicles than others … though I won’t say which, though I think you know :)
oh, and not to forget, of course; large decreases in historical community homogenities …
“My personal feeling is that religion gives a vehicle to these fears and allows them expression. Again, personally, I happen to think certain religions lend themselves more readily to being vehicles than others … though I won’t say which, though I think you know :) ”
This was the source of my confusion about the Sri Lanka example. How does anyone extract the idea that it’s acceptable to smite your opponents from Buddhism?
Yeah. I would concur that while homophobia is particularly trendy right now (ie–Karen Minnis) it’s not particularly new to American society. Certainly Oregon’s coterie of Righties has ground out one anti-gay ballot measure after another every election cycle since I’ve lived here (at least).
I don’t think it’s any accident that No. 36 passed here during a period in which the state economy (and the nation’s) was at a particularly low ebb, either. I’m not excusing people for their bigotry, but I do think that historically, lousy economies make particularly fertile growing mediums for hate movements. Lousy economies also contribute to the “scarcity myth” involving benefits on the job and what not that same-sex couples can then be acused of usurping from their rightful owners– the straights. Lost in the sound and fury is the fact that these perks don’t have to be scarce. In fact they shouldn’t be perks for anyone, but rights for all. Couples passing laws to legally pull apart other couples, or berating them as a threat to marriage isn’t going to do anything to fix that, however. All it can do is give the acuser that gratifying feeling that can only come from getting to stamp one’s foot and say, “See ? I AM better than you !” A hollow victory, all told. Not one that brings your job back or puts food on the table, either.
Blecch.
Well-said. And I concur entirely, we have a lot to fight for, together. I hope it doesn’t surprise or concern you too much to hear that a rabid, activist atheist agrees with every word of that, by the way! It just so happens that you described exactly my view on religious freedom. Quite simply, when your (or anyone’s) church’s policy turns into a law that is against the will and/or beliefs of those not in your church, that law and all others like it are theocratic.
The fact that we live in a nation now where Rick Santorum can go on the Daily Show and talk about “our American values” that in fact DEFY every value, every ethic, every sense of the honor I hold dear; without being called on it, because Santorum is a Christian, then I have an issue. When he can say things are “decaying” since the 1950s with a straight and serious face, then we have a problem.
As comedianne Marina Franklin said last night on TV, “We had a 50’s day at my white suburban school in Chicago, and all the girls were excitedly getting out the poodle-skirts. I remembered thinking, ‘What am I supposed to go as? The 50s were not exactly a good time for my people…’, so I wore a ‘we shall overcome’ sign.”
In the 1950s we had the Red Scare, Stepford-wife ideals for women, rape laws that heavily HEAVILY favored the rapist, Klan lynchings, the changing of the national motto from “out of many, one” to “under God”, and many other horrors against various groups in this country who were not wealthy white males. We have corrected at least some of these things. I consider the USA today an infinitely better place to live, though I also think we have a long way to go.
But rather than try to really look at what remaining social ills we should be addressing, this new rise of the ‘endebted-capitalist, middle-class, religious-entitlement’ group has begun to try to push us BACKWARD in the name of American pride, and “the family” (read: the 1950s ideal of a family, not the hundreds of types of families we actually have had all along in this nation). I find it utterly disgusting that religious people are trying to take a step backward by using the laws of the land… that they are defending their ideals without caring about everyone else’s ideal.
Santorum said to Jon Stewart at one point in the interview, after Jon had asked him whether or not he felt homosexual parents could be good parents, and whether or not the gov’t should be trying to regulate an ideal: “Yes, but all things being equal, the one-man, one-woman family will be superior. And the government has the right to prevent harm to children.” (quote not exact, I can’t find a transcript, but it’s pretty close).
As long as that kind of drivel (gay families harm children?!?) continues to be what emerges from our public leaders, I’m going to continue to denounce and revile any religious person who has not taken an active and vocal role in shutting this down. Maybe it’s because I have no religious beliefs, but I’ve developed this crazy idea that all Americans are equal, and have equal value, and deserve equal respect. I hear a lot of Christians in the “real world” who pay lip service to this idea, but I sure as hell don’t see much of it happening.
alsis –
Oh definitely, if you look historically, you can see periods rises in intolerance and hate-practises coincide with periods of social unease, such as economic downturns. People look to ‘reasons’ why they have less security and see those that they perceive to have ‘more’ than they did previously, and then target them.
The interesting thing is that this perception of ‘less’ and ‘more’ are exceedingly relative. Objectively, a minority group would still be in a socially/economically inferior position to the majority group, but because the preexisting inequalities are seen as “the state of things” in terms of actually being in reality a “level playing field” it blinds the majority group to their own privileges.
Hence, when it ‘appears’ that a minority group have ‘gained’ when the majority group have ‘lost’, the minority group is perceived by the majority group as getting more than their ‘fair share’ because the previous level of inequality was seen as a level playing field (this plays into the ‘special rights’ rhetorical vomit that comes out of the religous right in regards to gay rights) . But more than that, the majority group sees the gains of the minority group as somehow at the expense of the majority group; ie they’ve taken something from ‘us’.
Hence, one looks for a scapegoat that one can ‘see’ as ‘taking’ something from one, and again, gays and lesbians are an easy target in this regard, despite the fact that we are hit even more by economic downturns that the majority group.
This is very good dialog.
BritGirlSF,
I do not understand either. I do know that Buddhist in Sri Lanka, Korea, Japan have all had power struggles. As have the Moslem’s, the Jew’s, The Christian’s, Hindu’s, the State Religions like Russian Socialism, and Communism in Asia and Africa. The Races and nationalism all find justification to harm in some way.
I do not think that it is a mixed message that those who love, suffer for it in the Bible. The fact is that those who love will suffer for it. Anyone who has put out his or her hearts and hands in love knows this is true. Those that put them out repeatedly will get crucified. That is part of what Christ tells us in so many profound ways. He came to set the captives free and stand for Justice, Freedom and Love and called others to share, help, love, give and forget the nonsense about all the fundamentalism and then called it a cross for each one of His followers to carry, as you do you will be placed on it. Loving people demands a hefty price, there is no cheap Grace. It is far easier and demands much less if we use anger and hate instead, it does come at a higher cost though.
There are many people of the Christian faith who are not seeking the lower path, I think a large body of support for Social Justice causes can be found within the body of believers. I highly recommend a visit to this website or their magazine, it will give folks assurance that the Church is not one sided and show how the God that we serve calls us into a different relationship with the world than many give Christians credit.
http://www.christiancentury.org
I highly recommend going to the site, if you can get a copy of the magazine read “Living by the Word” in this issue as it tells the story of how some of the Church views GLB relationships. It will give you, “Strength for the journey.” We are also strongly anti war, anti death penalty and anti nationalism. Blessings.
Rock: I hope you don’t mind my asking, but what religious faith are you? I am just blown away by how much compassion you’re displaying as a preacher. Much of what you’re saying about Christ is what I say and I’ve been told a number of times that I’m going against doctrine. As a extremely liberal catholic, it’s been my experience that those who are in the ministry will exercise a cautious attitude toward queers (meaning they say don’t kill or hurt them but still condemn their existence). The short of it is, I’m just curious to know what your faith and if others feel the same way.
Aaron V., the marriage amendment safeguards the special status of marriage. If civil union did not merge with marital status in Oregon, then, there would be no contradiction with that state’s public policy. A Vermont-style merger, as has been proposed, would be a contradiction.
Sarah in Chicago and alsis39, we disagree on whether or not the campaign to propose and ratify the marriage amendment was a “medium for a hate movement”.
But of more interest, I think, are the assertions made here about the economic and social climate during the 2004 campaign and vote.
1. Was the Oregon economy at a low ebb during the 2004 campaign? By what measure was the state’s economic performance “lousy” or in an “economic downturn”?
2. What indicates that Oregon was in a period of heightened “social unease”?
3. What demonstrates that gays and lesbians are “hit even more by economic downturns [than] the majority group”? I’ve seen surveys and studies that claim greater prosperity among gays and lesbians, and others that claim no significant difference, I’ve not yet seen support for your assertion. I’d be interested in your source or sources because I’d like to learn more about the topic.
I’ve seen exit polls that show that more voters on the No side tended to be more concerned about the economy, jobs, and household financial stress.
For example, CNN’s 2004 voter survey showed that Oregon voters who thought the state of the economy was good were much more likely to favor the amendment. While 73% of those who said their family’s financial situation was now better also voted for the amendment, 65% of those who said their situation was worse voted against Measure 36. And those who said their family’s financial situation was the same were just as likely to vote Yes and they were to vote No. Level of income did not correlate consistently with voting patterns on the amendment. Voters who stated that the economy/jobs was the most important issue in the election were much more likely to have voted against the marriage amendment. This survey indicates that voters who may have felt economic pressure, job loss, and so forth, were more likely, not less likely, to vote against Measure 36 in Oregon, 2004.
Unmarried people are not the rightful claimants of marital benefits. This does not depend on a ‘scarcity myth’. It is the straightforward result of public policy which recognizes that society benefits from the social institution of marriage and, thus, society chooses to provide preferential treatment for married people, above others.
Unmarried persons who choose to form an alternative to marriage, whether single-sexed or not, are siimply not the rightful owners of the preferential treatment of the social institution of marriage. That’s the purpose of safeguarding the special status of marriage in statutes and, recently, in constitutional amendments.
I am so glad you have not caved in to the conservatives. You are very much not alone. There are bunches of people living The Way, quietly and not so quietly, that follow Liberation theology to some degree or another.
I am an Officer in the Salvation Army. We are theologically Wesleyan Evangelicals, and overall conservative. (My favorite authors are Catholic and Open Theologians though.) There is a solid corps of liberals in the Army trying to broaden the vision here, but also in Canada, and England as well.
Thanks for the encouragement, you have no idea how much I need it.
I am moving to CA today, I wish I could speak more to this now. I will try and get connected in the days to come. Blessings.
For some reason my second comment, No. 46, has been positioned before one of the comments I responded to — No. 58.
Aaron V., the primary reason to elevate marriage is to encourage men and women to mate responsibly within the social institution, rather than in the less stable and more vulnerable scenarios of singlehood or unmarried cohabitation. That some people conceive and bear children outside of marriage is a social problem, not a justification to deconstruct marriage any further.
The societal interest in the social institution of marriage is not based on the expectation that marriage is fundamentally non-procreative. It is not based on the expectation that, to conceive and bear children, relatively few married couples and all single women or single-sexed couples would rely on donations of sperm and eggs. It is not based on the expectation that children will be adopted rather than born of the conjugal union of their mothers and fathers.
Society is not disinterested, and should not disinvest itself, of responsible procreation and childraising within the conjugal union.
Marriage is supported by the essential societal expectation that couples will marry, mate, conceive, bear, and raise their children in that order. That some vary from this expectation does not remove it.
Clearly, adoption is not procreation. Adoption is an effort to fix a problem in the rearing of orphaned children. This does not replace mating, conception, and childbearing within the social institution of marriage.
Ahhh good to know you’ll be out of town. Been working for the past few days (since I followed Bellatrys link!) on a piece about religious liberals and progressives and how they fit into the progressive jigsaw.
Knowing that you’ll be out of town for a few days, I’ll hold off on posting it so we can benefit from your opinion as well, Rock.
jake and Aaron V miss the point I was making again. Rock addressed the point. I am talking about prohibiting same-sex procreation. All marriages have a right to procreate. Couples that don’t have a right to procreate don’t have a right to marry. All that stuff about infertile coupels and couples having children without marriage is not relevant to this issue, we are talking about prohibiting a form of procreation. I am saying we need to make sure that there will be a right that Adam would have with Eve that he wouldn’t have with Steve, because procreating with Steve, combining gametes of the same type, would be unethical no matter what technique was used.
Rock, it would be unethical to combine gametes of the same type for a number of reasons. The main one is the risk factor, there will be no way to verify that a person can be created without DNA from a sperm or without DNA from an egg without causing terrible problems later on in that person’s life. Other more general objections are how it will change the nature of procreation and open the door to other forms of genetic engineering, and how it will upset the connection between men and women in society. Obviously, if you are currently of the belief that we should be doing genetic engineering and becomeine “trans-human” then yo uwon’t care about those objections. But you should still be honest when you say what rights you think Adam and Steve should have, and include the right to procreate in your demands.
Am I the only one who now equates the phrase “Adam and Steve” with “fucking faggots?” Because that’s the tone I now hear whenever I see it.
Jake Squid: “Am I the only one who now equates the phrase “Adam and Steve” with “fucking faggots?Because that’s the tone I now hear whenever I see it.”
Jake, its practically a chorus line in my head at this point. I’m just choosing not to engage.
I think we have someone who is very confused about how sexual reproduction (in the purely biological sense) works. In fact, researchers in Japan have made a mouse only from female gametes (eggs), with no sperm involved. The mouse’s name is Kaguya, and she’s a mother, herself, now. And straight, it would appear. *cackle*
Jake, I completely agree, and him using that language is hardly a coincidence, but heed Sydney, as she is right, JH’s bigotries are not worth it to engage, and still wouldn’t be even if they were presented with a veneer of intelligence.
Rotty:
I personally tend to take surveys with a grain of salt, but if this one is correct, it actually makes my point for me. BTW, I actually meant that a bad economy, not the measure itself, was the “growing medium” for hate, Rotty. But you knew that.
Thanks for reminding me why my impending marriage makes me feel queasy and slimed rather than joyous, Rotty. I’ve been in love with my partner for six years. We’ve been living together for four. I never wanted to get married, both because of my fears of the baggage that comes with being “the wife” and because I didn’t want to join a country club that excludes so many of my fellow citizens. The only reason I feel compelled to do it is so that I can cut my insurance payments in half. My partner’s (Aaron’s V) insurance won’t cover me unless we’re married. I left my old job, and took a huge financial bath as a result.
I never wanted to get sucked into looking like I was angling for the approval of shitheads like you and “Sperm and Eggs.” You’re both despicable people. I bitterly resent being associated by default with any institution you can spew out this kind of shit about– and all to save $250 a month !
As for my legions of fans, don’t send me any gifts, and please don’t congratulate me. I’m quite serious about feeling hideously embarassed about this. Besides, I own enough useless crap. Just take the money you were gonna’ spend on my gift and give it to some same-sex couple where one half the couple can’t go to the fucking doctor because of stupid fucking bigots. Grrrr…
I actually think that JH’s bigotries are worthwhile to engage. He presents the main argument against SSM in all of it’s insane, nonsensical, bigoted, unashamed nakedness. The more he speaks and writes, the more evidence that any undecided has that the position against SSM is put forth by the bigoted and/or the insane.
Think about it for a moment. This guy’s big (stated) concern is that if SSM is allowed, technology will come about that will allow a form of reproduction that is against his moral code. He sees civil marriage & procreation as inextricably linked in the face of all evidence to the contrary. He talks about civil marriages as if they were individuals or corporations and not, as they are in fact, as legally recognized relationships. There is a reason that many folks refer to him as “John ‘Sperm ‘n Eggs’ Howard.” And, most importantly, he is in the top tier of eloquence and, more importantly, honesty when it comes to opponents of SSM.
So let him rant and rave & obsess about a Futurological Convention sort of future brought about by technology to enable same-sex reproduction in humans. Let him express his hatred. He presents the same arguments that others cloak in their anti-SSM writings in all its horrifying and appalling glory. He is, after all, no different in his motivations than all those more palatable notables of the anti-SSM crowd.
I use Adam and Eve and Steve because they are well established short hand for man and woman (and some other man). And I am trying to remind you all that there is truth to what you have come to take as a mindless insult. It’s not a mindless insult. It says that a man and a woman have a right and an ability that they would not have if either one of them was a different sex. If it is really offensive and you can’t focus on the point I’m making, then it’s not worth it. (But then, you guys hardly ever focus on the pont I’m making, so why not just offend you a little). My point is that the same guy (Adam) has a choice: he can choose someone he has a right to procreate with (Eve), or he can choose someone he doesn’t have a right to procreate with (Steve). You should note than intrinsic to that argument is the fact that no one is called a “FF”, not even Steve, who we hope is left to meet and fall in love with “Ellen”.
UnapologeticAtheist, thanks for posting a link to that article on Kaguya. Doing that in humans would be completely unethical. (Even in mice it is completely unethical: thousands of mice were killed in that little experiment. nothing to cackle about. Those researchers could have been doing something useful with their resources.)
Jake, my concern isn’t that if SSM is allowed, it will bring in SSP, as SSP might come anyway. So, regardless of marriage, we must ban non natural egg and sperm procreation. We should also ensure that marriage continues to mean that the couple has the right to procreate. Therefore, we can’t allow same-sex couples to marry, or to have the “same rights” as marriage. It is just a fact that same-sex couples won’t have the same rights, after this egg and sperm law. (www.eggandsperm.org)
It is the same concern as Bill McKibben expressed in Enough: we should stop now, before we take a step into a post-human future by creating impossible in nature people, and say that our genes are good enough. All people should be created equally, through the union of a man and a woman.
I’d like to think this had very little to do with gay rights, but the fact is, it does, because there are lgbt groups that are insisting on a right to use technolgy to procreate together, and that pushes us past the enough point.
Why can’t same-sex couples stop demanding the right to do something that they will probably never be able to do anyway?
Err shorthand would imply that man and woman, or man and man take some extra time to type over ‘Adam and Steve’. Somehow, considering more letters, as well as having to make that exhausting pinky-leap to the shift key, I find the notion that it’s just a time-saving measure is – well as batshit loonball crazy as you are, Mr. Sperm and Eggs. Oh, by the way, Mr. Sperm and Eggs is just well established shorthand for crazy asshole, in case you were wondering.
Alsis;
Perhaps you could make an anti-marriage wedding vow. Have Aaron dress up in drag, you in tux, and make a party of it, rewriting vows that express your feelings on the subject. We could throw ashes and all moan and wail for the recessional. ;)
Jake, I see what you mean, and will endeavour to see the benefits of his drivel :)
Perhaps you could make an anti-marriage wedding vow. Have Aaron dress up in drag, you in tux, and make a party of it, rewriting vows that express your feelings on the subject. We could throw ashes and all moan and wail for the recessional. ;)
Oooh, I like that. The recessional idea is great. I would just like to add the idea of rending our garments & gnashing our teeth.
Jake, thanks for explaining what John Howard is driving at.
Currently, it IS possible to procreate without marriage – single women can become mothers or adopt; single men can adopt; same-sex men can adopt; same-sex women can adopt or one of them can bear a child with donor sperm; and unmarried opposite-sex couples can produce children or adopt.
Likewise, married couples, whether same- or opposite-sex, are not expected to procreate.
John Howard is imagining human genetic combination outside of sexual intercourse or artificial fertilization – a situation which does not exist now. Whether it’s “ethical” for humans to reproduce like the experiments on mice in UA’s Comment 50 is irrelevant to the same-sex marriage debate, as marriage is not necessary for procreation, and vice-versa.
F. Rottles is being deliberately obtuse. I said before, and will say again: [Measure 36] says absolutely nothing about civil unions or any other provision for giving equal rights to same-sex couples. Measure 36 merely bans same-sex couples from marrying under Oregon law. Oregon’s legislature and/or initiative process can create legal arrangements for couples other than marriage, much like there are business arrangements other than C corporations.
alsis honey –
I name you ally, in a big fucking way.
Your words just about brought tears to my eyes. I wish more of the people that could have access to the institution felt the way you did. I am luckily enough though to count a number of such as friends.
So, instead of congratulations on accessing the institution, let me offer you congratulations on the expression of love you and Aaron are sharing with your friends and family.
You know the realities of marriage for same-sex couples and couple likes you and Aaron, Aaron knows the realities, your friends know the realities. No matter what these bigots say, no matter the language they couch it in, they are a dying breed, and we will win … it’s people like you that make me realise the truth in that.
I was pointing out that his fears about this “coming about” because of SSM is stupid, because it’s already “about.” The thousands of mice who were destroyed were destroyed in the process of research– it’s why we use mice and not people for such research. However, this mouse research wasn’t done in some kind of reaction to the SSM push– they had already been undergoing the research for years.
As has been repeatedly pointed out, marriages can and do happen without procreation, and procreation can and does happen without marriage. The two are clearly un-linked, except in that in our social setup, marriage helps build an environment conducive to child-rearing. Right this very second, hundreds of thousands of children exist who live in homes of gay parents who had the child from before, when they tried to live the straight life they were brought up thinking they had no choice but to accept. There are children adopted by gay parents, there are gay godparents, siblings, and uncles who have to take children in after the death of their biological parents. All of these children would be better-served if their gay parent’s partner had access to the services, permissions, and medical care associated with being the child’s legal guardian through marriage. A more “real” parent.
But that’s what bigots want to stop– because if you let gay people have the legal protections for what they’re already doing (being parents), then people might start seeing them as everyday people instead of aberrations… and what they’re desperately trying to protect when they say “sanctity of marriage” is “the sanctity of the white ra… er, the sanctity of the image of Christian sacrament as the sole socially acceptable American way.”
The truth is, there are many kinds of American, and you need to respect that. We do– we respect all Americans equally, even rabid religious lunatics trying to disguise their religious bigotries as sound social policy. It’s un-sound, un-American, and unkind. We want no part of your hateful ways, no matter how desperately you work to hide the hatred, we *still see right through you.*
Oh, Alsis, I have been with my partner for almost four years, living together for almost three, and everyone we knows simply uses our names as a single phrase… we refer to each other half-jokingly as husband and wife.
Yet we refuse to be married so long as our friends no less in love and no less committed can be, too. We make this pledge publicly (we’re asked preeeetty much every weekend why we’re not married, since we have a house together, etc). You’d be surprised by the number of people who agree with the idea that it’s unfair to take advantage of legal protections not available to all couples… almost every unmarried couple I know has changed their “to be married” status to “will wait until SSM is legal here” now, not wanting to screw over their gay friends and relatives.
Ironically, the “protectors” of marriage are destroying it, slowly, as they show their contempt for the construction of American families by trying to narrowly define what gets to be called a family, according to their (and only their) religious views. Those Americans who are secular, or who come from religious traditions not based on homophobia, are being increasingly turned off by these traditionalists, so although it may get worse before it gets better, these morons will go the way of the dodo bird in the long run. Hopefully Puritanism will go along with them.
Aaron and UA, you’re missing the set of couples that are not allowed to procreate together because their procreation would be unethical: these couples are not allowed to marry. (eg. siblings, children, people already married, and, 50 years ago, people whose procreation would be said to “miscegenate”). It doesn’t matter if they might be infertile, or that they are also not allowed to procreate outside of marriage. Do you see that they aren’t allowed to marry because marriage STILL IS a green light to procreate. So, in spite of the fact that people procreate without it, and not all marriages procreate, ALL MARRIAGES HAVE THE RIGHT TO PROCREATE. A green light, an a-ok, to try to combine gametes.
So, first of all, are you in favor of Adam and Steve having a right to combine gametes or not? If you are, then you should make a point of listing that as one of the rights you seek for same-sex couples. If you are against it, and think that Adam should only have a right to procreate with Eve, then, first of all, you can’t say the relationships have equal rights any more, and secondly, if you go ahead and demand that they be allowed to marry anyway, you have for the first time allowed people into marriage who are not permitted to attempt to procreate, and, because you insist on saying they should have equal rights to other marriages, you strip the protection of procreation rights offered by marriage. Now, no marriage has a guaranteed right to attempt to procreate, and that puts all of our individual procreation rights at risk. It is the eugenicists dream, some couples will be prohibited from procreating based on their genes.
Kim, it’s not that the words are shorter, but that it conveys the message quicker. Saying “if a man marries a woman, they have a right that he wouldn’t have if he married another man” is just kind of blah, you know? It has no panache, it doesn’t get your attention.
I’m being incredibly simple-minded, but.
Supposing a man marries a 50-year-old woman who has already gone through the menopause. (A perfectly legal marriage last time I looked.) Being married means they have a green light to procreate, so if we allow post-menopausal women to marry this forces us to bring in reproductive techniques that allow them to bear children.
Good question Nick. Yes, they have a green light to combine their gametes. No, it doesn’t force us to provide or allow any reproductive techniques so they can bear children. It just means that they are not prohibited from bearing children, they are allowed to if they can.
To take the analogy leterally, a green light means you are allowed to proceed, but it doesn’t mean you have a car, or that your car does not need to pass the inspection and be registered.
And Nick – there are people who do think the government has to make procreation safe and affordable to EVERYONE, even same-sex couples. Check out this LGBT group. They are “for the full attainment of the right to choose to reproduce” and “the right of all people to safe and affordable reproductive technologies and assistance.”
“No, it doesn’t force us to provide or allow any reproductive techniques so they can bear children. It just means that they are not prohibited from bearing children, they are allowed to if they can.”
I don’t understand how the first sentence doesn’t completely invalidate your argument. The infertile couple is allowed to marry, yet we don’t have to allow all reproductive technologies. And once again–gay people are not prohibited from bearing children, so to me this whole marriage=procreation thing doesn’t fly. People use the technology available to them be they gay, straight, married, single, fertile or infertile.
The best thing I’ve heard so far on this thread is (and I can’t find it at the moment) the comment about how we shouldn’t be worrying about what people would do with electricity when the they are starving. Maybe somewhere down the road people will want SSP, but that is a long time coming and is absolutely not a justification to not give people equal marriage rights. I know this will in no way affect opinions that are very deeply rooted, but at least I’ve had my say.
Same-sex couples would be prohibited from creating children together. No green light. Red light. Infertile couple has green light, but no car, and we don’t need to provide a car, we can even prohibit certain types of cars. Same-sex couple has RED LIGHT, and we need to PROHIBIT them from getting a car, any car, of any type. No one would have a right to combine gametes with someone of their same sex.
>Maybe somewhere down the road people will want SSP, but…
No, currently, right now, we need to prohibit attempts at creating a child from anything other than a man’s sperm and a woman’s egg. There’s no need to wait until later to prohibit something that we know will be unethical. It certainly is justification for prohibiting SSM (and all people do and will still have equal marriage rights). It wouldl create different rights depending on the sexes present in a relationship. Why call them the same thing, if they have different rights?
Thanks, Sarah. I really and truly appreciate the props. Though my “confessional” itself seems to have disappeared from this thread– at least from this end. A lot of lurkers are probably scratching their heads in confusion right now. Oh, well. Wouldn’t be the first time. :/
Jake and Kim, perhaps we can talk about this anti-nuptial business after Aaron and I return from Vegas. Yes, we’re having the ceremony there. It’s cheap, after all, plus with any luck at all there’ll be a plaster bust of Elvis somewhere within the vicinity. :/
Rock, I second the “keep up the good work” nod. The world needs more religious people like you who focus on the “love and compasion” part of the message.
Welcome to CA, by the way!
“Am I the only one who now equates the phrase “Adam and Steve” with “fucking faggots?” Because that’s the tone I now hear whenever I see it. ”
Nope. The phrase is dripping with both homophobia and contempt.
But has the point been lost? Have the Alas posters moved into obfuscation mode? There is a consistency to “marriage oponents on civil unions, then and now” – they have always supported some form of recognition, benefits and legal protections for same-sex partners. But they have never supported, consistently been oppoesed to, granting the sine qua non right of marriage , the right to create children together.
There is a question to be answered by us: should people have the same right to try to have children with a person regardless of what sex that person is? It really matters to people, we all like the idea of having biological children, and those children have the right to be raised by their bio parents whenever possible. There are people who insist that we develop technology so that Sue and Kathleen can have children together, without having to use a sperm donor. We answer that either yay or nay, and we already have a legal way to express that: marriage. If we let them procreate, then we insist they marry. If we don’t let them procreate, then we don’t let them marry, we insist they be free to marry someone else.
Procreation and marriage don’t necessarily go together, John. It is possible to do one without the other regardless of one’s sexual orientation.
If we don’t let them procreate, then we don’t let them marry, we insist they be free to marry someone else.
Someone of the opposite sex I presume? Someone we supposedly can then procreate with?
Well, if isn’t that the largest crock of crap I have heard in quite a while.
The mere fact that you would state something that inane, on top of all the other insanities you have been vomiting onto this thread, even though they have been answered and addressed repeatedly and in multiple ways, just proves how your veneer (and how thin that veneer is) of supposed rational phrasing is just a pathetic and decrepid disintergrating mask over the actuality of your bigotry.
Freedom to make a choice one cannot make is not freedom and to claim as a goal otherwise just just mindboggling (but then, given the current administration, hardly original either unfortunately).
As has been stated over and over and over and over again; there is no connection between civil marriage and procreation. Either can, and have (repeatedly) occurred entirely independent of the other, frequently and in large numbers.
Personally, if a gay and lesbian couple are good parents (and as the overwhelming numbers of research have shown they are just as good at as straight parents) then who gives a flying fuck if the child is produced through sperm donation or through splicing? If the child is healthy and happy and loved, then no reasonable person should honestly have issue with it. Only people that are terrified of loosing their heterosexual privileges and position on top of the heap hierachically need cover their root prejudices through flimsy arguments like you have been making.
But this is INCREDIBLY hypothetical. We simply don’t have the technology to do this in humans, and it’s even questionable if we ever will, and it will be a LONG time coming if it ever happens. It’s not only stupid and mad to argue for a position of banning something based on an a hypothetical as remote as this, but it’s a guaranteed failure.
I know you are going to attempt to pick apart everything I have said here, but honestly, I don’t give a shit. Your inability to acknowledge or address the rational, logical and backed up arguments made my virtually everyone else here tells me you aren’t going to be rearch, regardless of the sense-making qualities of any post.
Careful JH, your bigotries are showing.
There is no such right, let alone as the sine qua non right of marriage. Everyone, married or single, has the right to try for a baby (I did, and I’m unmarried), but no-one has any automatic right to procreate.
Nice red herring. “Reproductive technologies” includes things like surrogacy and donor insemination, and there is nothing to suggest that they’re talking about anything more far-fetched than these.
It really matters to some people. Others couldn’t care less, and still others fall somewhere in between. I gave a lot of consideration to the possibility of adopting rather than using my own genes, but eventually I decided that in my situation it would be simpler to get pregnant the old-fashioned way. If that had been biologically ruled out for whatever reason, I would probably have gone for adoption.
Just as an example of how ethics are subjective and not objective…
I will never have a biological child. I think that, at this point in time, it is unethical. I may adopt in the future, but I would never be involved in creating a child.
This is my view, part of my moral & ethical code. Obviously, it is not shared by everybody. The same thing goes wrt reproductive technology that doesn’t require sperm+egg. I don’t find that any less ethical than creating a child via the sperm/egg route. Unless our morals & ethics are shared by a resounding majority, our morals & ethics don’t become law.
You may have also noticed that, unlike others, I am not attempting to force my ethics wrt children on others. Hmmm, I think I see a parallel between anti-SSM folks & anti-choice folks.
But Jake, it isn’t YOU that is being created by your decision. I think a resounding majority feels that siblings should not procreate together, people should not combine human and animal genes, clone people, or, when asked, combine two eggs or two sperm somehow to make a person.
The important thing is that we should be asking this question. We shouldn’t let a few people make the decision for everyone else – and that is exactly what will happen if *we* don’t prohibit those things. If we let a few people go ahead and do the experiments and announce in a few years that they have created the world’s first person from two eggs, then they will have not only made the decision that really doesn’t effect them as much as it effects everyone else. They’ve got a baby – big deal, they could have had a baby any number of other ways, so there’s nothing so special from their point of view. But in doing it the way they did, it changes the way we all think about procreation and genetic engineering and creating people in spite of the risks to them.
Why not just tell same-sex couples that if they want children, they will have to adopt or find a third party? Is it really such a terrible way to have children? I hadn’t heard any lesbians saying it was.
Some people are in favor of “trans-humanism”, a future where people are designed and created from scratch, without much connection to “parents”. Some people are in favor of everyone being infertile, so that all children are created “on demand” and “wanted”. Those people should admit that they aren’t talking about their own freedom to do what they want, they are talking about changing OTHER people – literally! They aren’t saying “I want to be created with six arms”, because they are already created. So the idea of personal ethics for this sort of question is silly, on both sides.
Nice red herring. “Reproductive technologies” includes things like surrogacy and donor insemination, and there is nothing to suggest that they’re talking about anything more far-fetched than these.
They are pretty explicit that they want no limits whatsoever, they want no government regulation, and they also want it to be safe and affordable and available to everyone.
Is there a chance that Causes In Common could release a statement clarifying their position on same-sex procreation? Perhaps we can ask them directly?
So the idea of personal ethics for this sort of question is silly, on both sides.
Can there be anything other than personal ethics for anything? Ethics are subjective and, therefore, I think that the term “personal ethics” is redundant.
I think, if method of human reproduction is so important to you, that you’d be far better off advocating for the banning of what you find so immoral rather than speaking against SSM. If you can get those reproductive technologies/research banned you should have no problem w/ SSM. As it is, you come off sounding like you are bigoted against gays & lesbians and are using bizarre futuristic technologies to justify your bigotry.
The problem with allowing SSM but banning SSP is that it changes the rights of marriage. Would it have been acceptable after Loving v Virginia, if Virginia allowed them to marry, but prohibited them from procreating? Of course not. The question whether or not to allow their marriage WAS THE SAME as the question of whether or not to allow them to mix their genes.
Regarding subjectivity, everything is subjective, even physical laws like gravity and thermodynamics, so I don’t see what that has to do with anything. I’m not claiming some sort of “objective” ethical system. You didnt address my point about how your ethical decisions are played out solely on other people. You also didn’t address my point about same-sex couples being able to have children in other ways, so why insist on SSP rights?
And regarding the best way to go about saying “Enough” to genetic manipulation and artificial baby making, I think hitching up to the momentum of the marriage movement is the best way. Remember the 11 for 11 sweep? Those voters were saying “Enough” and would be thrilled to reiterate that they were not being bigoted, but the media and legislators refuse to cast the debate that way. Wouldn’t it be a great way to heal the ill-will by reframing the marriage debate to be PURELY about riening in reproductive technologies, limiting marriage and procreation to a man and a woman, preserving marriage’s right to procreate, and then being free to address protections for same-sex couples without having to worry about the slippery slope any more?
John Howard:
Just had to speak up as a member of the science community: gravity and thermodynamics are NOT subjective. They are subject to relativity, which is a decidedly VERY different concept.
Hmm, it’s been a while since I read my physics and philosophy books, but I think i remember that you need an observer for there to be anything, including things like gravity and thermodynamics, and the only reason one observer would observe the same thing as another is because of similar beliefs, not because there is an ‘objective reality’ out there they are observing. So, if Jake was saying that we can’t make ethics-based laws because we all have different ethics, I was saying we all have different everything, so that’s a moot point. We still have many of the same beliefs and therefore co-exist, and so we need to make laws, and choosing to not make a law is no less a decision that effects everyone as choosing to make one.
Can I second -AM? I don’t like to talk about my physics degree, but I have one, and I get irritated when I see the role of the observer in quantum physics being misrepresented as meaning that there is no objective reality.
I will echo Jake’s comments that John Howard’s fears would be better addressed by regulation and/or banning of the genetic combinations specified. In legal terms, it’s called a “less restrictive alternative.”
But it does not address the point of same-sex marriage, and that reproduction is legal (and common) without marriage, and that marriage is legal (and fairly common) without reproduction or even the possibility of reproduction.
And regarding John Howard’s Comment 87 – that’s *exactly* what the anti-marriage-equality proponents were showing – bigotry. Ask any of the people who voted for the proposals and you’d hear the mealy-mouthed bigotry of people wanting to “preserve tradition”, or the unmasked bigotry of people saying “faggits shouldn’t marry”. *No one* is using the tortured arguments you’re using, John Howard.
I know lesbian couples who have had children through artificial insemination. What’s the purpose of banning them from marrying, John Howard? They’ve already procreated without marriage, and they obviously were “allowed” to do so. Why not grant them the mutual benefits of marriage ?
The only other theory that you seem to be espousing is eugenics – that homosexuality is caused by genes that you want to purge from the human race’s gene pool, and that “not allowing” queers to reproduce will eliminate those genes. (As if homosexuality is caused by a simple autosomal recessive gene!)
Thank you for clarifying, alsis39.
alsis39:
Me:
alsis39:
As alsis39 and Sarah in Chicago appeared to be in agreement, my comment here is directed toward their responses but it is open, of course, to responses from others.
Please correct me if I have misread you: you did NOT mean that lousy economies create mediums for hate movements. You did mean that a bad economy grows hate.
Could you please explain the significance of that distinction in light of your earlier and more recent comments about the economy and social climate in Oregon around the time of the 2004 campaign for ratification of Measure 36?
It appears that you are certain that Measure 36 and the Yes campaign were outgrowths of the bad economy in Oregon in 2004, and you feel certain that the Yes vote was hateful. Please correct me if that is not what you meant to say.
Could you please respond to the three questions I’ve asked about your previous assertions about the connection between the economy and social climate and the Oregon vote in 2004?
You said that the CCN exit poll makes your point. First, could you please clarify your point and, second, could you please describe how the survey results make that point for you?
Here is the online survey results.
As an exit poll it is a source that, as you said, ought to be taken with a grain of salt. Perhaps you have other sources that better illustrate your meaning.
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alsis39, please do me the courtesy of referring to my chosen moniker, F. Rottles, rather than a designation of your own making. My name is my name, afterall. Thanks.
BTW, the invective can do me no harm and it fails to shock, but it will get in the way of an open discussion.
Rottles wrote:
If you are implying in your rewrite that homophobia can spring up out of nowhere because of joblessness and attendant problems, you are distorting what I originally wrote, which was this:
I don’t know what kind of game you’re on about here, Rottles, but it doesn’t interest me all that much. Be so kind as to go play it with somebody else. I don’t sense that what you’re after is an open discussion at all. I sense that you’re just in it to rattle people’s cages, which seems particularly cold to me. People like Sarah are relegated to second-class citizenship in this country while you play little word-games and while Howard burbles inanely about the sci-fi channel approach to conception.
To me, it’s a no-brainer. Adult gays and lesbians are tax paying citizens. They contribute to society and are entitled to partake of its institutions as fully or in as limited a fashion as are other tax paying citizens. This is a choice each adult makes, and if you are not offered the full range of available choices your neighbor is, you are not as free as your neighbor. You have the same responsibilites that neighbor does, but you are barred from reaping the same rewards that he/she does. How can that be fair ?
Partaking of society’s benefits should not be contingent upon honoring the religious aspects of marriage set up by people whose religion precludes them from seeing gays and lesbians as full-fledged citizens.
Others here have explained why marriage and its attendant benefits are primarily a civil, rather than religious issue. You might want to consider reading those points again, as they are well-argued.
I quite bluntly stated above that I’m marrying for health benefits. I doubt it would seem to the average Right-wing busybody to be much of a reason for marrying, but I am free to do it. They can’t stop me, and I doubt they would consider stopping me. The patriarchal-religious-mystical approach to marriage would probably lead them to believe that a piece of paper would magically “cure” me of my supposedly anti-social impulses, anyway. Let’s hope it doesn’t. :p
If my partner were female, too, I’d be shit out of luck unless we could each find a sympathetic single gay man who wanted to get married. Again, if this were to happen, I doubt that the average Right-wing busybody would even raise an eyebrow. Their view of marriage shows that they’re all about appearances over substance anyway. To me, it’s a sham to make a human right such as affordable, dependable healthcare contingent upon marriage in the first place. That’s a truly disgusting, if sadly typicalf attitude, with its attendant view that a basic human right is actually a scarce resource that should only be doled out according to whose setting up house with whom. I find that POV a lot more repugnant and destructive to society than I find a couple of men or women saying “I do” to one another.
The “Yes on 36” crusade and its aftermath is absolutely, positively all about hate and fear, not to mention short-sightedness and stupidity. Only the hateful and the fearful could peddle such self-deluding, societally-destructive crap. Under the guise of “love,” no less.
I hope that’s clear enough for you, Rottles, because your little word games and willful obtuseness are annoying, and I don’t think I’ll bother addressing them again.
F. Rottles –
I’m with alsis on this one (but then, I generally am) I don’t have a clue where you are getting your interpretation of what we wrote from.
When it comes to what we were discussing about negative economic trends promoting an increase in hate crimes and speech, this was on a more general sense, not specifically discussing Oregon at all. Such a link has been part of studies of violence and hate for a long time. Hell, it’s what I research.
But that aside, there is only one reason to vote for a curtailment of our rights; that we don’t deserve them, that our relationships are somehow less worthy than of those that voted against us, despite all the evidence to the contrary. That’s bigotry, which has at it’s roots in hateful and fearful beliefs, no matter how mild or how dressed up in pathetic narratives over ‘tradition’ or religion.
And if you honestly think otherwise, well then, like JH and his insanities, I’ve honestly got better things to do.
I will echo Jake’s comments that John Howard’s fears would be better addressed by regulation and/or banning of the genetic combinations specified. In legal terms, it’s called a “less restrictive alternative.”
It is a very simple ban we propose, and though it is a blanket ban as opposed to a this-and-that ban, it’s the least restrictive I can imagine. No one will be able to do anything that isnt done today, or anything that anyone claims to want to do tomorrow. It prohibits attempting to create a person by any means other than combining a sperm and an egg, and they have to be the natural sperm and egg produced by living identified consenting adults. As opposed to banning combining two eggs, or three eggs, or this and that form of combination with a sheep, which would require constant revisions and addendums to keep up. A blanket ban settles it quickly, right now, for all time. Congress should act immediately to act on the PCBE’s recommendation.
But it does not address the point of same-sex marriage, and that reproduction is legal (and common) without marriage, and that marriage is legal (and fairly common) without reproduction or even the possibility of reproduction.
Anyone? Anyone? Couples whose procreation would be unethical are not allowed to marry. Same-sex couples are like siblings, they are not allowed to procreate and they are not allowed to marry.
And regarding John Howard’s Comment 87 – that’s *exactly* what the anti-marriage-equality proponents were showing – bigotry. Ask any of the people who voted for the proposals and you’d hear the mealy-mouthed bigotry of people wanting to “preserve tradition”, or the unmasked bigotry of people saying “faggits shouldn’t marry”. *No one* is using the tortured arguments you’re using, John Howard.
I think they don’t know the source of their unease with SSM, because the true aim of the SSM movement has been hidden from them. But they can tell there’s something repulsive about science taking over for natural reproduction, and the know that there is something wrong with SSP, but they just don’t realize that anyone has identified what it is. Wouldn’t it be good to stop the polarizing that comes from not having a clear point of agreement, from not understanding exactly what the argument is about?
I know lesbian couples who have had children through artificial insemination. What’s the purpose of banning them from marrying, John Howard? They’ve already procreated without marriage, and they obviously were “allowed” to do so. Why not grant them the mutual benefits of marriage ?
I’d be fine with granting them the benifits and protections that we decide they need as a Civil Union, but we should not grant them the right to procreate together, to combine their gametes together. Artificial insemination would not be banned by this legislation. (Though it should be banned, for married couples as well as single women)
The only other theory that you seem to be espousing is eugenics – that homosexuality is caused by genes that you want to purge from the human race’s gene pool, and that “not allowing” queers to reproduce will eliminate those genes. (As if homosexuality is caused by a simple autosomal recessive gene!)
No, I would be encouraging people who might carry that gene or any other gene to marry and procreate. I am proposing this to WARD OFF eugenics, I am insisting that everyone maintain their rights to marry and procrate. If we allow SSM and prohibit SSP, then marriage won’t be a green light to procreate anymore, and that would open the door for eugenics. That is the biggest fear.
alsis39, please do me the courtesy of referring to my chosen moniker, F. Rottles, not some variations such as “Rottles”. Thanks.
Sarah in Chicago, it seems fair to read your previous comments about the economy and social climate as having some sort of direct connection with the topic of this discussion. In your comments you did refer to Oregon as an example of your view. As you have done research on the general topic, it might be expect that you would support the assertions made in light of Measure 36.
You claimed that same-sex couples have the right to marry. That is contended on other than religious grounds.
Still, on one hand you might dismiss religious objections and, on the other hand, you might embrace sentiments expressed in religious tones that support your opinion. Just because our laws are expressed in secular terms does not mean that our laws arise from purely irreligious sources and that religious teachings are marginalized and scorned.
Your claim of a right to marry as a same-sex couple depends on replacement of the conjugal union and society’s interest in responsible mating and procreation, with some other adult relationship model. Your model may be a good substitute, but it is not marriage.
Society might be better served by a nonmarital alternative that swallows marriage, but this is the point of contention. You are of course free to disparage and namecall those with whom you disagree on the surface, or even on substance, but since I have offered open discussion here I don’t think such a reaction is proportionate. And it forecloses an opportunity to discuss the disagreement rather than hurl insults. Expressions of bigotry and hatred is not absent from the SSM side.
But you may see it otherwise and have other priorities. Although I may return to read whatever else might be added, I’ll bow out of this thread with these last comments and not comment further.
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alsis39, I read your clarification to mean that a bad economy in Oregon was fertile ground for the growth of hatred and that Measure 36 and the Yes vote was such an outgrowth.
In any case, I think it is pretty clear that you mean to say that you feel the economy and social climate contributed significantly to the proposal and ratification of Measure 36 and to the loss of the No side. I continue to disagree.
Marital status is not a reward for paying taxes in Oregon. There are legal incidents, and some may be benefitial, but relatively few marriages enjoy a net benefit of government largesse.
While I have not touched on religious topics, alsis39 has raised objections to discussion of religion in this context. The topic of alsis39’s personal behavior has not entered my comments here. My comments have included questions about alsis39′ and Sarah in Chicago’s volunteered assertions, but these have gone unanswered.
Addressing shortcomings or perceived problems with healthcare, or other social policy areas, does not require the enactment of SSM in Oregon — whether in the form of replacing marriage or in the form of merging civil union with marital status.
While I have not played a “word game”, it looks to me that SSM proponents are now claiming that all that was at stake in 2004 in Oregon was the label “marriage” and not all that marital status entails in public policy. That is hard to believe given that the SSM proponents made their biggest 2004 effort in fighting for the No side.
Oh stop it Rotty, Rottles, Rotten. You’re using a really thin veneer of civility to cloak your lack of it in all other matters. You’re lucky it’s her addressing you and not me, as I’d be calling you far, far worse. You and everyone here knows that you aren’t here to have open mind altering conversations. You have a very pure agenda, and you feel you have the backing of God. That says it all, and you know that you’re a closed book on the subject. I personally could give a flying fuck what you want to be called, because to me, all you really need to be called it bigoted, and discriminatory and that sums it all up for you and your participation in this thread. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – as long as you expect gays to be happy with your meager hand-outs, don’t come searching for charitable feasts from the opposition. Nobody is going to change their mind and see the light from your posts, and nobody is falling for the notion that you’re doing anything but attempting to increase your ammunition when you go to less learned forums. Just because you think we’re fooled by your use of this blog as a sparring ring with which you brush up your arguments of bigotry and control makes no difference to the very real truth of it.
As for Oregon 2004, the word games and semantics are all about folks like you. The meat of the subject lays in the discrimination against families, and you sir have ZERO right to leave your burning crosses on our lawns and expect ANY charity or ounce of consideration period. Be grateful for the Alsis’s on this board, because there is always someone like me that is longing to subject you to the same sort of persecution and anger that you’ve so rightfully earned.
Have the Alas posters moved into obfuscation mode?
This is too rich, coming from a man who described the rape of a thirteen-year-old girl by a red-blooded hetero man as being “only following his libido, after all.“
That’s a different thread, and my post was addressed there. In this thread, it would be cool if you addressed the point – civil unions that granted all the rights of marriage are unacceptable, because they grant the right to procreate together. Only a man and a woman should have a right to procreate together. Therefore, SSM opponents would likely accept civil unions, so long as they dind’t grant procreation rights.
No, John, the point is that you have one standard for yourself and another for other people. Stick to one for all or fuck off.