Just so we're clear, the ongoing gay rage after California's vote isn't about benefits. California's civil unions were materially indistinguishable from marriage. That state's supreme court said so when it ruled that this wasn't enough.
Nor is it about having a family. Gay couples have those. Billboards around our town point this out. As one woman among the 200 protesters in downtown Milwaukee last weekend put it, "We want our family recognized."
Which is to say it's not about gay people at all. It's about you. Their love isn't at issue. Your love for their love is.
Employer benefits were the marquee scare two years ago when Wisconsin voters kept marriage as the one-woman-one-man affair it's been for millenniums. The amendment would have a chilling effect on employers, which would stop offering benefits to gay partners, we were told.
[...]The benefits argument was always bogus, as are claims of any other legal disability. In Wisconsin, laws against gay sex are two decades gone. Anyone may adopt; anyone may sign an advance directive and let a lover be at a hospital bedside. No rights were impaired by our amendment. None will be by California's.
The thing the California amendment will stop is not a right at all. It is a demand that everyone else grant to two people's relationship the same public esteem that society has reserved for marriages. That's why the California justices ruled that whatever same-sex unions were called, ordinary marriages must use the same word. The court wanted any distinction erased.
PaddyMac then goes on to point out that many religions denounce homosexuality. That is true. In our country, one of the predominate arguments from those opposed to allowing equal rights to homosexuals use their religious beliefs as the reason. Dad29 and my friend Billiam are fine examples of this.
I respect he religious beliefs of all three men, and anyone else who also feels that way. However, even though I do respect their beliefs, and their reasons for feeling the urge to oppose gay marriage, they are still wrong. I am not saying they are wrong for believing the way they do, but that their beliefs are not necessarily germane to the situation at hand.
Their argument is invalid for a couple, three reasons.
One, as I've already argued, their is growing evidence that homosexuality is not a choice, or a behavior, but really is a result of having a differently-sized hypothalamus. That means that to discriminate against homosexuality would be to discriminate against someone with a specific physical quality, which is what bigotry is all about - opposing that which is different from us.
Secondly, while many of the founding fathers were religious, either Christian or deist, the country isn't a theocracy. It is a country of laws, the main law being the United States Constitution and all the subsequent amendments. Many of the amendments have to do with the protection of people's rights. They include giving equal rights to people regardless of the genetic/biological make up. It doesn't matter if a person is white or black, male or female, normally-abled or physically challenged, they all deserve, and are supposed to receive, equal rights. So why doesn't this apply to people with a differently-sized gland in their brain?
I also have some concern about the whole religious-based argument that Paddy and the others opposed to giving equal rights to homosexuals. It smacks to much like the old Jim Crow laws, and the lines of argument supporting them. Ferris State University, in Big Rapids, Michigan, has a website for their Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. From that site, I found this page, and this explanation of the Jim Crow laws (emphasis mine):
Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-Black laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-Black racism. Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that Whites were the Chosen people, Blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation. Craniologists, eugenicists, phrenologists, and Social Darwinists, at every educational level, buttressed the belief that Blacks were innately intellectually and culturally inferior to Whites. Pro-segregation politicians gave eloquent speeches on the great danger of integration: the mongrelization of the White race. Newspaper and magazine writers routinely referred to Blacks as niggers, coons, and darkies; and worse, their articles reinforced anti-Black stereotypes. Even children's games portrayed Blacks as inferior beings (see "From Hostility to Reverence: 100 Years of African-American Imagery in Games"). All major societal institutions reflected and supported the oppression of Blacks.
That mirrors the arguments of the anti-gay marriage people. The Bible teaches us it's wrong. It's against Natural Law. Other people with other belief systems also think it's wrong. It is a threat to heterosexual marriages.
The third thing wrong with Paddy's argument is that homosexuals do NOT enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals. He even points out a fine example, himself, with the advanced directive. While I would recommend that everyone have an advance directive, regardless of sexual orientation or marital status, not everyone needs it.
If I were in an accident, was seriously injured, and was unable to make any decisions regarding my health care, my wife would have the legal right to make those decisions, with or without a directive. Gay couples don't have that right, they need the piece of paper to exercise that right, and even then, the injured person's family can, and often has, interfered with treatment in spite of the paperwork.
Same goes for children. If a gay person has or adopts a child, and then passes away for whatever reason, history shows that the partner often doesn't have a legal right to have a say in court about what happens to the child, much less to take care of him or her for the rest of their childhood.
While the Bible is much more explicit in its language against homosexuality than it is against blacks, there are many Biblical aspects regarding homosexuality that society has already moved beyond. For example, the Bible calls for homosexuals to be put to death. Except for the stories of some thugs beating a gay person to death just because of their orientation, even the most conservative and faithful American doesn't advocate for that. And those thugs weren't using their beliefs as motivators for the heinous crimes, just their bigotry and hatred of those who are different.
The Bible also endorses slavery and not giving equal rights to women. And we moved past those as well.
Isn't it time that we move past this level of bigotry already?
Posts
Great Post...
ReplyDelete...though I am not sure how much we have moved past hate and slavery or toward equal rights for women.
My take on equal pay for women is that male workers are just being squeezed downward to match lower pay to women. Every church I have been a member of preached gay hate and conception to birth, pro life, while neglecting the effects of war, poverty, inadequate education in schools, crime and protection of our physical environment.
To the point, let's remove tax exempt status for churches, base their taxes on real accounting of charity actually returned to the community. Let them lobby their religious positions openly and legally require them to show the money trail.
My Republican, WI 1st Assembly District Rep Gary Bies, voted against equal pay for women, against compassionate care for rape victims and against legislation he introduced himself to reduce phosphates in our water. Unfortunately he retained his seat this month by 850 votes out of approximately 33K.
Beginning his fifth term next year there is still hope. He claims his highest goal is to, "aspire to represent his district." Maybe he will get around to actually doing it instead of merely dreaming about it this time.
Of course, the bigger issue which isn't talked about very much whenever one of these state laws comes up, is the Federal Defense of Marriage Act.
ReplyDeleteThat actually does deny benefits to gay couples, whether married or in a civil union. For instance, if one spouse in a a legally married gay couple dies, the other will not receive social security benefits of the other, as they would have if it were a heterosexual couple. And there is no magical paperwork to fill out to get around it.
You are wrong when you state that I have a "religious objection."
ReplyDeleteUnlike some others, I object based on the laws of nature--which happen to coincide with the religious beliefs of ALL the world's major religions--but are not the same as "religious beliefs."
Further, you continue to cite a non-peer-reviewed "discovery" which has been justifiably discredited.
You may assert that the laws of nature are erroneous. But that assertion, like asserting that "bailouts" will fix the economy, is like pissing upwind.
Hasn't worked yet...
Dad29,
ReplyDeleteI guess Bonobo chimps failed to read the part about the, "laws of nature."
Apparently they have been doing more than pissing in the wind for the last 1.5 to 2 million years. Both the males and the females.
So, while you are dismissing one apparent law of nature and it is not being a religious thing, what exactly is your objection, again?
Go right ahead and make yourself into a bonobo chimp.
ReplyDeleteChimps of a proclivity rub together, right?
Aside from all the crap mixed in here about conservatives and the Jim Crow laws -- you are right.
ReplyDeleteDad-
ReplyDeleteYou're the only one that dismisses the findings. And your complaint is that it has been through an exponential number of peer reviews, even though the same conclusions have been reached independently by many different researchers.
And until the relatively recent past, people argued that giving equal rights to blacks was against Natural Law. That point was already refuted in the body of the post.
Your claim that those TWO studies, based on less than 10 examinations, are conclusive, is absolutely inane, statistically, and you know it.
ReplyDeleteAnd citing erroneous arguments made by racists does not invalidate the argument from Natural Law.
come on dad29,
ReplyDeletePost a link to this, "natural law." Is it the law derived from the 6,000 year creationist evolutionary view or the proven scientific view? Apparently I'm missing something here in trying to understand you and this thread.
From one dad to another, you did not answer n_q's question above by asking another question and dissing the point made.
The possibly gay priests and lesbian nuns who indoctrinated me decades years ago said all creation was made in HIS image and likeness. The arguments never appeared any more natural than that for me. We are all His creatures, like it or not.
Dad29,
ReplyDeleteGoogle it yourself. There is more evidence than that, whether or not you care to admit it.
The erroneous racist arguments only are predecessors to modern day erroneous homophobic arguments.