Here are some of the links about gay marriage on my desktop right now… Many of these links are a few days old, but they’re still cool.
- Everyone’s linked to this Onion article, and with good reason.
BOSTON?Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 5-2 Monday in favor of full, equal, and mandatory gay marriages for all citizens. The order nullifies all pre-existing heterosexual marriages and lays the groundwork for the 2.4 million compulsory same-sex marriages that will take place in the state by May 15. […]
Hundreds of confused but vocal protesters lined the street outside the statehouse Monday night, waving both American and rainbow flags. Their chants, which broke out in pockets up and down the street, included, “Hey hey, ho ho, homophobia’s got to go, but frankly, this is fucked up” and “Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve, but not Adam and Some Random Guy.” Others held signs that read, “On Second Thought, Boston Christians Are Willing To Consider A Compromise.”
According to police reports, demonstrators were vocal but orderly.
“The unholy union of people of the same gender destroys the only type of romantic love sanctioned by Our Lord in Heaven: the love between a man and a woman,” 54-year-old protester Rose Shoults said. “Me and my new partner Helene are going to fry in hell.”
The much-anticipated order sets the stage for Massachusetts’ upcoming constitutional convention, where the state legislature will consider an amendment to legally define marriage as a union between two members of the same gender. Without the order, Rep. Michael Festa said the vote, and his personally dreaded wedding to House Speaker and longtime political opponent Thomas Finneran, would be delayed.
“This is a victory, not only for our state, but for America,” Festa said. “Simply allowing consenting gay adults the same rights as heterosexuals was never the point. By forcing everyone in the state into a gay marriage, we’re setting the stage for our more pressing hidden agendas: mandatory sodomy and, in due time, the legalization of bestiality and pedophilia.”
- Everything at Galois is worth reading, but if you have time for just one post make it this one: Is [Same-Sex Marriage] a Civil Rights Issue?
- I’ve been looking at a lot of online galleries of the weddings in San Francisco. It’s a healthy reminder of what this is really about. The San Francisco Gate has a gallery up, which calls what happened “The Valentine Day’s Revolution,” which strikes me as a cool name (via A Fortiori).
Another wonderful photo gallery of San Francisco is Emphemera.org’s Justly Married.
- In the unlikely event that viewing the above photos leaves you dry-eyed, head on over to My So-Called Lesbian Life and follow the links to various essays by folks who got married in San Francisco.
- Language Log’s post “Defining Marriage” is one of the more original pro-SSM posts I’ve read lately.
I’ve noticed that I twitch a little each time I hear someone talking about how what we’ve got to do is pass a law, or a constitutional amendment, that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, as if something lexicographical was at issue. Yesterday we were treated to the most egregious case of this, when our president told us solemnly that he was “troubled by activist judges who are defining marriage,” because “Marriage ought to be defined by the people, not by the courts.” And I realized why this kind of talk was making me twitch. This issue is being represented as linguistic, relating to a democratic right of the people to stipulate word definitions, when it’s nothing of the kind.
As we bloggers say, read the whole thing.
- Oxblog has been compiling a list of Senators for or against the Anti-Equal Rights for Gays amendment. Currently it’s 44 against, 29 for – which means that it’s not possible for the amendment to pass the Senate.
- Elizabeth at the Family Scholars Blog responds to my comparison of her anti-cloning argument with her anti-SSM argument. I might blog more about this later, although I suspect Elizabeth and I have reached an impasse.
- Also on the Family Scholars blog, Tom Sylvester has a well-argued post regarding same-sex marriages alleged effects on children:
There’s one key question that I, as pro-marriage advocate, struggle with continuously: At what point does promoting the intact, married mother-father ideal hurt the interests of children overall by neglecting those in other family types? An extreme pro-marriage position–e.g., cutting off all welfare payments to single parents to discourage out-of-wedlock childbearing–would hurt children far more than it would help them. The ideal is not to be promoted at any cost. So, would gay marriage weaken the normative ideal of children growing up with both their mother and father? Though the actual negative impact is likely to be small, yes, gay marriage would weaken that ideal. But the fight against discrimination, and the fight for equal human dignity, is worth it.
- The American Anthropological Association weighs in:
The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, the world’s largest organization of anthropologists, the people who study culture, releases the following statement in response to President Bush’s call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as a threat to civilization.
“The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.”
The New York Times has an interesting article describing how folks on both sides of the SSM debate are trying to get endorsements from black ministers.
…the prize often generically referred to as “the black church” is actually a diverse collection of historically black denominations and congregations that covers a wide range of theological and social beliefs.Advocates of gay marriage are appealing to those on the left end of that spectrum to show that the issue is really about civil rights. Those opposed are courting more conservative blacks as evidence that they are not bigots for suggesting the issue has nothing to do with civil rights. The resulting alliances are often used publicly to imply backing of “the church” as a whole.
A quote that I bet not many SSM-opponents will be using: “If the K.K.K. opposes gay marriage, I would ride with them,” said Rev. Gregory Daniels of Chicago.
- An article in the San Francisco Chronicle compares and contrasts interracial and same-sex marriage laws.
- A quote found on Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish:
“The right to marry whoever one wishes is an elementary human right compared to which ‘the right to attend an integrated school, the right to sit where one pleases on a bus, the right to go into any hotel or recreation area or place of amusement, regardless of one’s skin or color or race’ are minor indeed. Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs.” – Hannah Arendt, Dissent, Winter 1959.
Hey, Amp, close your unordered list tag.
Good collection of links, though. I had a few of those bookmarked to post later. Scratch that. :P
From the New York Times article:
“Advocates of gay marriage are appealing to those on the left end of that spectrum to show that the issue is really about civil rights.”
—Ok, pretty straightforward, factual sentence.
“Those opposed are courting more conservative blacks as evidence that they are not bigots for suggesting the issue has nothing to do with civil rights. ”
—Those opposed are not saying it merely has nothing to do with civil rights, oh no. They are using the issue to prove they are not bigots. I am so tired of people assuming that conservative and bigot are synonymous.
Would anyone agree that generalizations are 99.9% ignorance? If so, why is it acceptable to say what these 2 sentences are saying? “This IS a civil rights issue, and there can be NO logical counterpoints to be made about that. Anyone who says it’s not a civil rights issue is only trying to win “I’m no cracka-ass-cracka” points.
The sentence did not call conservatives bigots. The sentence did reflect the reality that conservatives on this issue spend a lot of effort denying that they are bigots – and that’s true. Just because someone denies being a bigot doesn’t prove that they are a bigot.
True, the Times could have just said “Those opposed are courting more conservative blacks as evidence that the issue has nothing to do with civil rights.” But that would have been less accurate, because it would have failed to report something that’s true.
And the fact is, I think you’re being WAY oversensitive – you’re reading the story as if it said conservatives are bigots, when it said nothing of the sort.
Also, I think it’s worth pointing out that opposition to SSM has limited connection to “conservative” philosophy.
I absolutely DO NOT believe that a belief in limited government, lower taxes, opposition to federalism, and maximized individual liberties makes anyone a bigot. I may disagree with many of the points, but I don’t think they’re bigoted, just wrong.
Opposition to SSM, however, like opposition to interracial marriage, integration, or universal sufferage has a more than casual relationship to bigotry. I’d like to believe that there are good, non-bigoted reasons to oppose SSM, but I don’t think I’ve heard any, and I suspect, in the end, it’s like looking for a non-bigoted reason to oppose interracial marriage.
—JRC
I don’t feel I’m being sensitive about this at all. It doesn’t affect me on a personal level, and I don’t judge people based on sexual orientation, race, etc.
I just wanted to make the point that what passes for credible journalism today is slipshod and irresponsible.
” But that would have been less accurate, because it would have failed to report something that’s true.”
There are many who would say the “truth” of which you speak is subjective, at best.
Just not this blog…lol
Well, if you’re going to go there, you must admit that the perception of “slipshod journalism” is subjective, too.
Do you really think it’s “subjective” to say that opponants of SSM have been explaining that they’re not motivated by anti-gay bigotry? Frankly, I think that’s pretty obvious. If that’s subjective, then you might as well claim that the idea that people are passionate about the SSM issue is subjective, too.
Sounds like semantics to me Amp.
Tom Sylvester: “An extreme pro-marriage position–e.g., cutting off all welfare payments to single parents to discourage out-of-wedlock childbearing–would hurt children far more than it would help them. The ideal is not to be promoted at any cost.”
Hmmm… remember when Wade Horn advocated exactly that? He had proposed that married couples receive benefits first, and single mothers could have whatever was left over. Horn later reversed his position based on pressure from social services and women’s groups.
(A) Great set of links. I think I may quote heavily from these in my own journal if you don’t mind (with credit, of course)
(B) Festa is my state rep. I sent him a copy of the Onion article and it apparently cracked him and his staff up. I just wonder how Speaker Finneran felt about it…
Sounds like semantics to me Amp.
I hate it when people use the word ‘semantics’ in this dismissive way–it disparages a worthy and legitimate field of linguistic inquiry. What the hell is wrong with semantics? Yes, we are talking about meaning–sometimes we have to do that in order to to understand one another.
I especially like the points made by Language Log and by the Anthropological Association; it’s really useful to see the considered opinions of people who have actually devoted serious study to things like how words are defined or how families are structures.
Er, structured.
Sorry DCH, but when I make a perfectly valid point that a truth is actually an opinion, by saying it’s subjective, and then I’m told that Everything under the sun is technically subjective, that is resorting to semantics to avoid making a simple concession.
Seems to me that you’re resorting to a meaningless retort (“Sounds like semantics to me”) to avoid actually backing up your assertion that “what passes for credible journalism today is slipshod and irresponsible.”
And nobody told you that “Everything under the sun is technically subjective.” What Amp said was:
“Do you really think it’s “subjective” to say that opponants of SSM have been explaining that they’re not motivated by anti-gay bigotry? Frankly, I think that’s pretty obvious. If that’s subjective, then you might as well claim that the idea that people are passionate about the SSM issue is subjective, too.”
In other words, you’re the one who seems to be overextending the notion of subjectivity. Now, are you actually going to explain to us what’s so subjective about the statement “Those opposed are courting more conservative blacks as evidence that they are not bigots for suggesting the issue has nothing to do with civil rights,” or are you just going to keep talking trash about semantics?
That Onion story is priceless.
A couple of well-regarded columnists for the Boston Globe, Adrien Walker and Derrick Jackson, have been quite critical of Black SSM opponents–these columnists have said repeatedly that it is a civil rights issue.
And you know, if the good Rev. Daniels would ride with the KKK in solidarity against SSM, I wish him luck. He’ll need it.
Where do you find the time for the reading and research? I’m glad you do.
As a Canadian, I am baffled by the fact that SSM is a huge issue for you. We Canucks fret about it from time to time but it is mostly a non-issue. And so it should be. Toronto, where I live has the second largest gay community in North America. We have a Gay Pride Parade that draws several-hundred thousand and is a great, joyful apolitical hoot. On the Monday afterward the SS’s are lined up at City Hall for nuptuals.
Damn, why is it an issue? I am as straight as Jesus’ General, a former Airborne Commando and have a lesbian daughter and a gay son. I love them dearly and brag about their great accomplishments. They are both better citizens, better humanists than their old man. Once, I wished that they were straight because their road would be easier. I don’t retract that loving wish but now delight in their wisdom, decency and contributions to community and country. Neither have chosen to marry. Should they do so, I will be there to give away the Bride or Groom, be Best Man, Ugliest Maid of Honor ever or just a wet-faced parent in the chapel feeling deeply happy about his wonderful kids.
So,(I yell loudly) why in the flaming goddam hell is love and commitment a political, divisive issue? Were I an American and living among you in this difficult time, my very public mantra would be, “Don’t Fuck With My Kids!”
Quad, here’s how I see your arguments coming down.
Part I: Debate the semantics. Dammit.
Part II: You’re arguments are just semantics
Yeesh.
Khaki Snat – Right on!
just nice site full of good materials. Good Luck <a href="http://www.inthevip.info">INTHEVIP</a> and <a>InthrVip</a> http://www.inthevip.info
Pingback: Uppity-Negro.com: A Film Quotes Fansite
Pingback: Trish Wilson's Blog
Pingback: Trish Wilson's Blog
Pingback: Trish Wilson's Blog
Pingback: Daddy, Papa & Me
Pingback: Medley