March 2, 2009
What the Marriage Debate Means to Each Side
With my schedule, I wasn't able to attend this year's hearing at the Statehouse on same-sex marriage. The arguments that I've been making for years still stand, though, and to some extent, I'm not convinced that the battle has much to do with reason, anymore (if it ever did).
The dueling radio ads tell the story behind the debate. The traditionalist side, presented by the National Organization for Marriage, expresses concerns about the significance of cultural confusion when important definitions lose their meaning by putting some questions in the mouths of children. The radical side, voiced by Marriage Equality RI, features a marmish school teacher's voice explaining to her class how utterly obvious a civil rights issue marriage is.
The pro-same-sex-marriage ad is indicative of the mindset of the advocates behind its cause: There are no questions; nothing about the issue is so complicated or sensitive that teachers couldn't set about educating their public-school charges. It's amazing that they apparently don't realize how directly they are contributing to a central concern of their target audience: It isn't that Mike and Steve's wedding will affect any heterosexuals' marriages; it's that an entire worldview — one that has persisted throughout history and across boundaries — will be dismissed and attacked as deprecated bigotry as a matter of law and within our public institutions
It IS rather amusing to see the pathetic, freakish fecalphilliacs stuffing WPRO's right-wing "hate radio" with thousands upon thousands of dollars.
What's next-ads for the IWW?
LOL.
Another lovely sentiment from Mike.
Justin, what were you saying about the right being "attacked"?
Posted by: Pragmatist at March 2, 2009 8:45 PMI don't understand how anybody who bemoans the lack of a business-friendly climate in Rhode Island can oppose gay marriage. We need to bring business into this state to help balance our budget and keep everyone's taxes down...Mike's too.
Posted by: rhody at March 2, 2009 10:36 PM1. So which argument do you wish to employ, Rhody, you can't have both:
A) Same-sex marriage is inevitable nationwide, and Rhode Island is surrounded by states that already have it.
B) Same-sex marriage would create a profitable niche industry for our state.
2. You (and your sympathizers) should at least make a partial attempt to address the concerns that your opposition is actually expressing. The point is that the dilution of marriage would entail pervasive --- and costly --- social harm.
Posted by: Justin Katz at March 3, 2009 5:19 AM I think we can all agree we want to encourage the establishment of the family unit, which is definitely a conservative goal. Whether it's opoosite- or same-sex, it's still a family.
The beauty of this issue is that there are just as many conservative arguments in favor of same-sex marriage as there are liberal ones.
>>I think we can all agree we want to encourage the establishment of the family unit ...
Homosexuals can establish family units now.
The issue is marriage, and the "gay rights" movement's political agenda attempting to create a societal pretense that their condition is perfectly normal - one element of this political agenda being to impose homosexual marriage. This is a political agenda masquerading as a civil rights issue.
Society should not diminish / erode the foundational unit of human civilization merely to accommodate the political agenda those afflicted with a disordered sexual orientation.
Posted by: Tom W at March 3, 2009 8:48 PM What's disordered about being gay?
'Nuff said.
>>What's disordered about being gay?
Definitions of “disorder”
From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
“to disturb the regular or normal functions of”
From the Google online dictionary:
“a physical condition in which there is a disturbance of normal functioning”
A condition in which one’s sexual orientation is not oriented toward the opposite sex, and thus not in accord with the NORMAL biological imperative of reproduction, is inherently a disorder of one’s sexual orientation.
Race does not affect normal functioning, but is a normal variation along the same lines as hair and eye color, and so is not a disorder.
Therefore the invocation by homosexual marriage advocates of comparisons to the civil rights movement, while politically clever, is totally fallacious.
there are just as many conservative arguments in favor of same-sex marriage as there are liberal ones
And you probably have a bridge in San Fran to sell while you are at it.
There is only one argument for SSM. That identity politics of the gaycentric kind is a higher priority than the core meaning of marriage.
And that's what people argue whethher they do so with the liberal or conservative button on their collar. That's what it comes down both in principle and in practice.
But it was wrong to press identity politics into marriage law under racist identity politics and it would be wrong to do so under gay identity politics.
Posted by: Chairm at March 15, 2009 9:33 PM