"The Will of the People"
Bush has now seized the bully pulpit to seek political advantage in the "marriage debate". Claiming that "activist judges" are subverting "the will of the people", he claims to support heterosexual marriage only amendment. I am eminently grateful for amendments that have enhanced and guaranteed our civil rights and am adamantly opposed to proposed amendments that would restrict rights to only a certain class of people. This proposed amendment is certainly one of those.
This is, of course, not the first time the supposed "will of the people" has been used to tread upon the rights of minorities, nor, unfortunately, will it be the last. Populism has had many ugly moments in our history. Others have pointed out that Senator Roddenberry proposed a similar amendment in 1911, prohibiting marriage between people of different races, later influencing the passage of anti-miscegenation laws in a number of states. Anti-miscegenation laws were finally declared unconstitional by the Supreme Court in 1967. In the intervening years, how many families were destroyed by these inhumane laws?
While it is thought that the proposed amendment is simply a nod to the right wing and that it probably will not pass, nothing should be taken for granted. It seems that too often in this new century we see an erosion of basic rights. We, like the frog thrown in a pot of slowly heating water, will not realize the danger until it is too late.
posted by KJERRINGA MOT STRØMMEN @ 7:10 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
There is a subtle, yet very fundamental, difference between 'civil-rights' and the 'rights of minorities' as traditionally understood, and how it is applied to gay marriage. I explained it in greater detail here, but in short, it comes down to a difference between action and a benign quality.
In other words, 'gay', and gay marriage itself, all revolve around a behavioral attribute, whereas true civil rights issues do not. When you see it from that angle, you realize that gays don't want 'equal' rights in the gay marriage debate they want 'special rights'. They want rights that are forbidden to everybody else. Gay marriage is alot like the polygamy debate, a certain group of citizens want the definition of marriage to be extended to grant their special circumstances, and just like polygamy is not a civil rights issue, so too is gay marriage not a civil rights issue.
For the record, I too am against a constitutional ban against gay marriage but it is for very different reasons - and in fact, is because I respect 'the will of the people' - than the ones you give above.
Then you view homosexuality as a choice and nothing more. Falling in love with and having a relationship with a person of another race was also a "choice" some made when "the will of the people" had rendered that choice illegal. We have since realized that the will of the people in passing miscegenation laws was also ill-advised, mean-spirited, and in general, wrong. The "will of the people" has resulted in horrendous laws on occasion.
Go Mom! You said what I wanted to. (but better)
HP:
Someone else who said it well is John Stewart. Watch this clip with Bennett http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/06/07.html#a8614
I do believe that the homosexual inclination is something that is not freely chosen, but instead comes from birth or upbringing, or the combination of the two. This is why in the blog post I linked to I used the example of left handed people - left handed people, like homosexuals, are people born with the inclination, not something freely decided.
But this still doesn't change the fact that homosexuality, like writing with your left hand, is a behavioral attribute. It is something that is based on a behavior - freely chosen or not - and so is fundamentally different than traditional civil rights issues. In addition, in the gay marriage debate, nobody is denying homosexuals the right to be homosexuals, they are merely denying them the right to be classified under marriage. This is the same thing we do with other behavioral groups as well, polygamists, sibling marriage, and so forth. To say that marriage should be restricted to the nuclear family, a man and a woman, who are the roots of where children come from, is to restrict marriage based on behavior not on inherent characteristics like was the case during the civil rights era, so the two are fundamentally different.
If, on the other hand, you don't think behavioral restrictions are valid, then do you also support polygamists marriages? If not, why not? After all, they can love each other just like two homosexuals can. Why should they be denied their 'civil rights'? ....as you can see, once the door is open to one behavioral group, all behavioral groups have an equal say, and therefore marriage becomes more and more vague, and has lost the traditional meaning of only being applied to the nuclear family.
Teragram: How right you are.
H.P.: De facto and de jure segregation also addressed behavior, in as much as both restricted the rights of people of color to engage in certain behaviors - whether that was to live in a certain neighborhood, drink at a certain water fountain, attend a particular school, vote, or choose whom they would marry.
Are you saying that a gay person is gay only if he/she engages in sexual behavior? And then a hetersexual person is heterosexual only if he/she is sexually active?
While human reproduction requires sperm and ova, the carriers of those cells are not always the people who raise the child, or in some cases, the best people to do so. Unfortunately, men and women are still procreating even when they do not intend to raise the child, or to raise him/her lovingly and responsibly. If we consider that marriage can only be between a man and a woman because "they are the roots of where children come from", do we not allow heterosexual couples to marry who do not intend to or cannot procreate?
For me, the bottom line is that amending the constitution to limit civil and human rights is wrong.
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