Posted by
Playful Walrus on Tuesday, September 30, 2008 4:58:23 PM
Let’s see what has been going on in the Los Angeles Times.
The paper tried to guilt Hollywood into giving more money to fight Proposition 8 in this piece by staff writer Tina Daunt.
So far, however, the anti-Prop. 8 campaign has received only a trickle of high-profile entertainment industry money.
Maybe a lot of them secretly think that marriage licensing should not be neutered.
In the coming weeks, pressure to donate to anti-Prop. 8 efforts will be intense. Billionaire Ron Burkle is expected to host a large celeb-supported fundraiser at his Green Acres estate next month.
It’s nice to know where people stand.
James Overturf, an employee of the behemoth Los Angeles Unified School District, lives in Glendora with a guy he apparently got a “marriage” license with, and “their” two children. Anyway, he felt compelled, for obvious reasons, to counter liberal Democrat David Blankenhorn’s recent piece supporting Prop 8.
David Blankenhorn, who heads up a think tank in New York, writes in his Sept. 19 Times Op-Ed article that because marriage is historically a means to provide children with legitimacy, it must so always remain. I do not agree that this is the sole reason for the modern institution of marriage.
Of course it isn’t the sole reason. However, it is why the state is involved. Think about it – why should the state issue licenses for any personal relationships? No such license is needed when the personal relationship is through birth, where the child did not voluntarily enter into the relationship – and the relationship is only regulated by the state in that the state will intervene to protect the rights of the child – but only until the child becomes and adult. The state (county) is involved in adoption, too. But when it comes to a personal relationship between adults, the state has an interest if it is the kind of relationship that can produce children.
Nonetheless, applying Blankenhorn's argument further, should we not -- in addition to eliminating the right to marry for gays and lesbians -- also deny heterosexual couples who choose not to have children the right to wed?
No. Someone’s sex is public information. Their reproductive abilities or intentions are not.
However, it is an established fact that gays and lesbians are raising children, biological or adopted.
No same-sex couple is raising children that they created alone. That fornication or divorce or third-party reproduction or adoption has led to a situation where children are in the household should not be the impetus for the rest of us to have to reorder our entire society. That something does not meet the ideal does not mean we tear down the ideal. California already treats domestic partners as spouses.
Do these children not deserve the protections that marriage would afford their families?
Most of the benefits that marriage provides to children are precisely because marriage unites a mother and a father. It isn’t the license. You are getting things backwards.
Is it not better for these children to be living with married parents instead of two co-habitating adults?
It’s better for newborns to drink milk or formula instead of water, but that doesn’t mean we should call water milk so that the babies drinking it will feel better.
Isn't society's interest served by seeing more stable gay and lesbian families?
Society’s interest is in promoting the model in which microcosms of society (via one man and one woman) perpetuate society by producing children and giving them both a mother and a father role model. While homosexual individuals have and continue to make valuable contributions to society, same-sex couplings have not produced anything for society, except for the spread of disease. Both-sex couplings is how all of us got here in the first place.
Eliminating the right to marry for gays and lesbians would not solve the problems surrounding the state of heterosexual marriage and children in the United States today.
First of all, there is no “right to marry” for anyone – gay or straight. And no, passing Prop 8 will not solve marriage problems. However, it would rebuff judicial overreaching and reaffirm the obvious – that same-sex couplings are not the same thing as both-sex couplings, and sodomy and coitus are not equivalent. Prop 8 won’t solve pollution problems, either, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good thing.
The decline in marriage has been accompanied by an increase in children being born outside marriage.
Yes – and saying that marriage can’t possibly be about children, which is what neutering marriage does, will result in even more illegitimacy. We should be strengthening marriage, not watering it down.
If Blankenhorn were truly concerned about the state of marriage and children in this country, he would support social policies that would really help protect children.
When people like us do, we’re told to “focus on your own family.”
The biggest threat to our society is not my marriage or any other marriage between two loving, consenting adults.
Why just two? Are you some sort of bigot, or something? Why does consent matter? There are a lot of Uglo-Americans who are discriminated against… shouldn’t they have a right to be married, too? What if they can’t find someone else to consent?
Staff writer Dan Morain has a piece on the “Yes on Prop 8” ad that has started to run. Again, the paper talks about “banning” same-sex marriage, which is not what Prop 8 would do. It simply refuses to let state marriage licenses be neutered.
The 30-second commercial notes that four judges in a recent 4-3 California Supreme Court decision opened the way for same-sex marriage and warns that if Proposition 8 fails, people could be sued over their personal beliefs, churches could lose tax-exempt status and "gay marriage" would be "taught in public schools."
The other side keeps denying this. We should collect as many of these denials as possible, preferably in writing. It may help if Prop 8 is defeated. Then again, judges may pay no heed to them at all.
Yes-on-8 campaign manager Frank Schubert said he didn't care whether the spot helps or hurts Newsom's candidacy. But he also said the spot underscores the "arrogance" of same-sex marriage proponents.
"Californians are tolerant," Schubert said. "Tolerance is no longer the construct. Now it is mandatory acceptance."
Very true.
Steve Smith, managing the campaign to defeat Proposition 8, denounced the proponents' ad as misleading, saying parents could "pull their kid out" of classes where same-sex marriage is discussed.
Oh really… and how would they know when they’ll need to? And how much trouble is the school going to give them? At this point, there is so much objectionable junk the in the public schools that conservatives and Christians should pull their kids out anyway. Too bad we still have to pay for them.
From a societal perspective, what is marriage about? It is about perpetuating society. Same-sex relationships do not do that. Who issues marriage licenses? The people of a state. Therefore, in states where there is direct democracy, the voters should be the ones to neuter marriage licensing if they so choose. Otherwise, it should be their elected legislators. Are men and women different? Yes. A man can’t be a wife or a mother, and a woman can’t be a husband and father. It is ideal for children to have both. Same-sex relationships should not be treated in public policy, including adoption, as identical to marriage.