I was surfing the net today and looking at all the blog posts about California’s Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. The following post from a guest columnist really ticked me off:
(Edited for content length....some paragraphs deleted)
This decision does next to nothing for California gays and lesbians and causes real harm to people who believe in the "old" definition of marriage. It's nothing to be proud of.
The June weddings that can now be expected for same-sex couples all over California actually will provide little tangible advantage to anyone. California already has a domestic partnership law providing all the state benefits of marriage to same-sex couples, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act prevents all the federal benefits. Sure, gays and lesbians may get a lift in self-esteem from having their relationships declared "equal" by four jurists, but does an ego boost really outweigh the real harm caused by last week's decision?
Because there certainly are harms -- to religious liberty, to give just one example. For the past two weeks, I have been contacting "marriage equality" leaders all over California to ask about the impact of redefining marriage on religious freedom. All, including several prominent lesbian and gay legislators and other leaders, have refused to disclose their opinions, some repeatedly.So if a traditionally religious business owner wants to extend his "marriage discount" only to couples married in his eyes, the Triangle Foundation's Sean Kososky says, "If you are a public accommodation and you are open to anyone on Main Street that means you must be open to everyone on Main Street. If they don't do it, that's contempt and they will go to jail."
No lesbian ever died a painful death because the government called her relationship a domestic partnership instead of a marriage.
Gays and lesbians should put away the champagne, work to overturn this ruling and start focusing on LGBT issues that actually matter.
The person who wrote this is a bisexual blogger, and a contributor to http://www.gaysdefendmarriage.com/. This person doesn't have a clue!
"Marriage Discount?" I've never heard of anything like that!
QUESTION: What if the person only wanted to provide a "marriage discount" to white married couples because they are the only ones married in his eyes?
ANSWER: That would be illegal, and unacceptable because we are evolving as a society and old hatred and bigotry isn't accepted by the new generation; that's what we call progress! A little over 50 years ago, interracial couples couldn't get married.....again, that's social progress.
Our nation was founded on diversity, social acceptance, and tolerance.
I certainly would never support forcing religious leaders and institutions to marry same-sex couples; this would be a clear violation of their constitutional rights. Legally, the power to marry however isn’t granted by God (or Church), but rather the state. It's a contract!
12 comments:
Great article. This is again, the plight of the persecuted Christian. How sad.
Good lord. Next thing we know, they'll be claiming they're forced to host a honeymoon for a queer couple.
Thank you for plugging my piece and my Web site. You may not have heard of a marriage discount, but they exist. Google "marriage discount," "married discount" and "marital discount" and you'll get nearly 3,000 hits.
I appreciate and respect your opinion that a business owner must use the gay definition of marriage instead of the one that reflects his deepest moral beliefs. Given that I disagree, the only thing I can do to prevent the government labeling people like me a "bigot" and making me lose my assets and maybe my freedom for behaving consistently with my values is to work as hard as I can to pass the California Marriage Protection Act. Right?
I have blogged about your silly argument about forcing religious leaders to marry gays here: http://www.gaysdefendmarriage.com/?p=5
bisexual, are you sure this person isn't really a straight idiot>?
that guy david needs to move to iran or some place religion rules the land.
well the 3rd person on here is a fuck-tard! be sure to remember how you feel the next time you are getting some tube steak
Gays and lesbians are not proposing anything that would in any way, violate, injure, profane, harm, or do away with the government's secular, legal contract called marriage. What is being demanded is the rights ( to receive the benefits of a legal contract) that heterosexuals now have. Millions of heterosexual couples have already signed up for these state-sanctioned, legal contracts. Gays and lesbians are simply demanding equal rights. In this conflict, there are three additional goals: 1) to stop the fighting -- to get this conflict behind us, 2) to create something that is positive and constructive, and 3) to generate support for and implement equal rights for both the gay and lesbian community and for the community at large.
Man this really pisses me off because it is immoral and unjust to deny homosexual couples their civil rights when even the most dysfunctional of heterosexual couples are entitled and granted these liberties.
One can easily do individual research and see that the utter dislike for gay marriage is clearly an anti-gay issue and not a pro-marriage issue. What are the arguments concerning society and gay marriage? Why is it such a big issue? The separation of church and state was instated to allow for the state to handle secular events and the church, sacred events.
If gays are allowed to marry, it will send a message to straight people not only that having children isn't important, but that it doesn't really matter whether kids are raised by their biological parents. The court's response: "Although we appreciate the genuine concern for the well-being of children underlying that position, we conclude this claim lacks merit... Our recognition that the core substantive rights encompassed by the constitutional right to marry apply to same-sex as well as opposite-sex couples does not imply in any way that it is unimportant or immaterial to the state whether a child is raised by his or her biological mother and father. ! We do not alter or diminish either the legal responsibilities that biological parents owe to their children or the substantial incentives that the state provides to a child's biological parents to enter into and raise their child in a stable, long-term committed relationship."
I shudder to think what would have happened had we waited for the electorate to come around to ending slavery. I also shudder to think what would have happened had we waited for the electorate to come around to abolishing "separate but equal," Jim Crow laws, and segregation generally. Sometimes, some things are wrong, plain and simple. We can ill afford waiting for the electorate to become enlightened to this oppression.
Many thanx to all of you for your opinion. I do agree that this ruling does trample on one's religous freedoms. I have spoken plenty on the acceptance of gay-marriage eventually working it's way through our public educational systems, forcing others to except this idea. Belonging to the Catholic church, which totals one sixth of the world's population, we are suppose to allow our children to be forcefed this belief in our public educational systems, both through literature and/or lecture? This tramples on my families religous freedom as you said. I am all for the homosexual community to be treated with fairness, dignity and respect. However, do not highjack the definition of marriage twist it around and try to force one sixth of the worlds population to believe as you do. The word "Christmas" has been removed from all things government. So should the term "marriage", leaving it's original meaning remain intact. We should get the state out of the "marriage" business and give us all civil unions.
JWP
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