Posts Tagged ‘Gay Marriage’

This video is pretty awesome. Zach Wahls is a 19-year-old engineering student at Iowa. He was raised by a lesbian couple, and he feels as though they did a pretty good job. He spoke in front of Iowa’s legislature on Tuesday in an attempt to sway them not to move on a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage in Iowa and not recognize civil unions from other states.

Some of my favorite parts:

If I was your son, Mr. Chairman, I believe I would make you very proud.

I’m not really so different from any of your children. My family really isn’t so different from yours. After all, your family doesn’t derive its sense of worth from being told by the state, ‘You’re married, congratulations!’

In my 19 years, not once have I ever been confronted by an individual who realized independently that I was raised by a gay couple. And you know why? Because the sexual orientation of my parents has had zero affect on the content of my character.

The sense of family comes from the commitment we make to each other. To work through the hard times, so we can enjoy the good ones. It comes from the love that binds us. That’s what makes a family. So what you’re voting here isn’t to change us. It’s not to change our families. It’s to change how the law views us. How the law treats us.

Sadly, the legislators prefer to think they can judge others’ relationships as inferior. They voted in favor of the amendment, which would have to be approved by voters and legislators in 2013. I guess they feel better about their marriages knowing that horrible gay people can’t get married.

This video has gone viral, and a lot of people are reporting on it for that reason. But that shouldn’t be the story. This young man stood up with pride and defended his family as equals. And they are, regardless of what some legislators think.

Enjoy knowing they told Zach his parents don’t deserve the rights of straight people.

Adam Feser

I have not read Laura Bush’s book, but I think I will have to.  I guess I have never spent a lot of time contemplating the policy preferences of Laura Bush, but perhaps I should. She apparently disagrees with her husband about both gay marriage and reproductive rights. I have to imagine this makes for some interesting segments in the book.

(Another fact I had not paid much attention to: Laura is apparently more of an intellectual than George, interested in things like literature.)

Laura Bush recently went on Larry King to discuss the book, and she point-blank said she was for equal rights for gay couples and thought abortion should be legal. The video is here.

Most of the time I don’t much care for books from those leaving office (whether they be Clinton or Bush), but this could be worth a read.

Enjoy pondering how that relationship worked when he backed the gay marriage ban amendment.

Adam Feser

In a movement to protect traditional marriage, John Marcotte is attempting to ban divorce in California.

He has received the okay from the Secretary of State and needs to collect 694,354 signatures by March 22, 2010. If he accomplishes this feat, the issue would be on the ballot next year.

Marcotte is doing this because if the true goal of those that banned gay marriage is to protect traditional marriage, this is a logical step. In fact, it would have made more sense to do this before wasting the time and energy to ban gay marriage. With divorce rates at about 50% in this country, it seems to me the biggest enemy of traditional marriage is married people. Legislate what they can and can’t do with their lives.

Enjoy puzzling out why banning gay marriages protects other marriages that already fail half the time.

Adam Feser

Maine’s Senate voted 20-15 to legalize gay marriage. It sounds like the House and governor are likely to support the legislation. New Hampshire’s Senate also passed a bill to allow same-sex marriage. New Hampshire’s Senate looked unlikely to vote for the bill that their House had previously passed, but an amendment that allows clergy to refuse to marry same-sex couples persuaded some senators. The House and Senate must make a uniform bill to give the governor, and his position is unclear.

The momentum for equal rights picks up yet again.

Enjoy a Christopher Moore book.

Adam Feser

The Washington D.C. Council, in yet another promising development for equal rights, has voted to recognize gay marriages. The legislation means that D.C. citizens can get married in a state that allows gay marriage and have it recognized upon their return to the nation’s capital. It is also viewed as a step towards legalizing gay marriage in the District. The Council overwhelmingly supported the bill, which still must be signed into law.

I think this could be a good example for states to follow. While it doesn’t allow for full equal rights, which would be allowing homosexuals to marry, it is a step in the right direction.

The momentum keeps growing.

Enjoy the true opening day, the Red Sox opener.

Adam Feser

In yet another victory for equality, Vermont’s legislature voted to legalize gay marriage and overcame a veto from the governor. Vermont is the first state to legalize gay marriage with a legislature’s vote.

Recent developments have been promising for supporters of equal rights for homosexuals. Iowa’s Supreme Court struck down the state’s ban on gay marriage last week, and the actions of Vermont’s legislator are also promising.

Here is a link: Vermont legalizes gay marriage.

Hopefully this momentum holds.

Enjoy the victory.

Adam Feser

Iowa’s Supreme Court, in a unanimous 7-0 decision, has struck down Iowa’s ban on same-sex marriage. This is truly awesome news. I’ll just reprint a large part of the opinion:

We begin with the County’s argument that the goal of the same-sex marriage ban is to ensure children will be raised only in the optimal milieu. In pursuit of this objective, the statutory exclusion of gay and lesbian people is both under-inclusive and over-inclusive. The civil marriage statute is under-inclusive because it does not exclude from marriage other groups of parents–such as child abusers, sexual predators, parents neglecting to provide child support, and violent felons–that are undeniably less than optimal parents. Such under-inclusion tends to demonstrate that the sexual-orientation-based classification is grounded in prejudice or “overbroad generalizations about the different talents, capacities, or preferences” of gay and lesbian people, rather than having a substantial relationship to some important objective. See Virginia, 518 U.S. at 533, 116 S. Ct. at 2275, 135 L. Ed. 2d at 751 (rejecting use of overbroad generalizations to classify). If the marriage statute was truly focused on optimal parenting, many classifications of people would be excluded, not merely gay and lesbian people.

An eloquent opinion, to be sure. Hopefully this opinion becomes precedent for courts in the other states that have these un-American bans.

Enjoy the victory.

Adam Feser

Sorry this took sooooo long

I am going to be very unpopular with the gay rights activists, but I am going to use scripture.  God’s law is above any man made law. 

“Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. (Lev 18:22)

This scripture is rather clear. No deep interpretation needed here. In fact, this statement describes homosexuality as detestable sometimes translated as abomination. It means “disgusting.” Gay people should not think God is singling out their sins, however. This sin is simply part of a list of twenty other sexual unions forbidden. Other sins include adultery, incest and bestiality.

Jesus himself does not talk about same sex marriages (ssm) in the new testament.  He says that marriage should be between a man and a women.

Now my opponent will say as his has said in the past, there is a seperation between church and state.  Well I argue that the foundings of this great country are based on religion. 

“In God we trust” 

Enough said about that.

If ssm were right, two men or two women would be able to have children together.  We all know that can’t happen

Now it can also be said that ss couples can have children though adoption.  I laugh at that.  I am sorry, but no!

In slavery times, it was left up to the states to decided if they wanted slavery, and when the federal government stepped in, Cival War brokeout.  Its time again to take this out of the states hands and let congress decide or better yet, put it to public vote.

Homosexuals should be allowed to marry. To me, this is obvious. They are Americans protected by the Constitution, which gives each American equal rights. Our society has built up finding a partner to spend the rest of your life with as one of the main means of finding happiness, and denying homosexuals this right denies them their pursuit of happiness. In addition to this, denying them the ability to marry and all the rights and benefits that come with marriage implies that they are second-class citizens, that they are somehow lower than the rest of Americans because of who they are. They are fine to watch on television, just as long as they don’t have equal rights. What an absolute joke.

I am so sick of the argument that homosexuality is a choice. I just spent a couple minutes searching through LexisNexis Academic and JSTORE and studies showing that homosexuality is not a choice are seemingly infinite. With humans and animals, sexual preference is often fixed at birth. Over 450 species of animals exhibit homosexual behavior (The Monitor). Man is an animal. Whether it is a gene, the hypothalamus, or any other number of things, homosexuals are who they are. If you want more proof that homosexuality is not a choice, think of it this way: Does it make someone’s life easier to “choose” homosexuality? If it’s a choice, why do so many repressed fundamentalists who a oppose gay marriage get busted engaging in homosexual activity?

The main opposition to gay marriage is religious. This really upsets me. This is America, but we are letting religious views deny a minority equal rights. What happened to separation of church and state? That is one of America’s biggest contributions to the world, and it should matter. We don’t have a state religion, we don’t force people to go to church on Sunday, and we shouldn’t deny rights based on interpretations of religious dogma. I would even argue it from a religious perspective. Did Jesus ever say anything about homosexuality? No. If you want to use the Old Testament as your guide, then all Christians should be keeping Kosher and stoning people for a huge number of offenses.

What is left? Any slippery slope argument cannot work in a debate, because it is a fallacy. Even if one were to take up the fallacy and argue that gay marriage would lead to polygamy and marrying animals or whatever, they would be wrong. The logic just is not there. It is an attempt to change the subject, and it is not the point.

I’m not sure what other arguments against gay marriage there are. Gay marriage is not an attack on traditional marriage. How is it an attack? I never understood this logic, either. How does allowing gays to marry affect traditional marriage? As Jon Stewart said, “Divorce isn’t caused because 50% of marriages end in gayness.” For me, it is as simple as this: If you don’t want a gay marriage, don’t get one. How simple is that?

In America, history does not look kindly on those that opposed civil rights. Interracial marriage was once illegal, and the people who wanted to keep it that way look absolutely ridiculous. The fight for gay rights will be remembered in the same way. People will look back and wonder how anyone could have wanted to make gay marriage illegal, how Americans could have denied fellow Americans equal rights.

Again, if you don’t want a gay marriage, don’t get one. But don’t force your beliefs on others.

Adam Feser

I always considered the gay marriage ban nothing but a distraction used to rally fundamentalist voters to the polls, but states have been passing them independent of the federal government. There are many states that have considered and passed same-sex marriage bans, but California was surprising. It showed just how far away homosexuals are from receiving equal rights in this country. It’s okay to watch them on TV, but it’s not okay for them to enjoy the same rights other Americans do.

I never understood why so many fundamentalists made denying homosexuals rights their main goal. Did Jesus ever mention homosexuality? No. If you want to revert to the Old Testament, didn’t Jesus overturn many of those rules? If Leviticus is good enough reason to spew hatred at homosexuals, you should probably keep kosher. No more pork, I’m afraid.

Now that I’ve put that argument forward, I’ll move on to the American one. Two of the best and most innovative principles devised by our founding fathers are freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. The only reason I have ever found for people being against gay marriage is religion. This is not nearly justification enough to deny Americans equal rights. One person cannot force his or her belief on another. If your personal belief is that gay marriage is immoral or a choice, it’s okay because you are free to choose not to marry someone of the same sex. There is no reason for you to force your will that no homosexuals marry on others. We don’t have a state religion, we don’t force people to go to church on Sundays, and we shouldn’t deny Americans rights.

That’s why I mourn the passing of Proposition 8, as well as all the other bans. The history of America has been one of progress. Oppressed groups fight for years and years in order to get the basic rights everyone else in the country enjoys. History is not kind to those who try to block progress (unless you’re Strom Thurmond). I am amazed that we, as a country, have not learned from our past.

Gays and lesbians are just people who deserve to be treated that way.

Adam Feser