From the comment section under my blogpost, "SSM and Religious Liberty -- NOM vs. HRC", the following was said of the "Gathering Storm" audition reels that SSMers had obtained and published on Youtube.
The complaint about actors couldn't have been too uneffective. NOM removed the clips from Youtube.
Youtube, not NOM, removed the audition video. Meanwhile, the NOM ad, "Gathering Storm", remains available.
* * *
The audition material had been placed on Youtube by someone else -- presumably a political enemy of NOM.
At the time, the HRC piled on almost immediately. Maybe there's a connection between the unauthorized use of NOM's property (and the acquisition of it in the first place) and the HRC's rapid reaction to "Gathering Storm" on its media website. [See footnote]
Or maybe the mutual interest was entirely ... urgently coincidental.
No matter, NOM's ad says (in text in the video) that these are actors. There's nothing being hidden nor denied on that point. The message is based on real events and real controversies.
So the anti-NOM complaint about actors was trivial and effectively misleading. And it may have been assisted with a politically motivated infringement of copyright. The question of dishonesty reflects back onto the HRC and the SSM campaign's operatives.
More importantly, NOM's message in "Gathering Storm" stands or falls on its merits.
Maggie Gallagher, president of NOM, responded with the following blogpost on NOM's blogsite:
The response from the Human Rights Campaign (and others) to the release of the Gathering Storm ad this week is nothing new. It’s the exact same tactic we saw last year in California: Call us liars with no substantiation on particular facts.
To HRC: People are smarter than this. Check out our background facts here.
And for those who keep asking about the actors — It’s a professionally produced ad. Of course we used actors. We say so right in the ad. Is that the best talking point HRC could come up with? If so, we struck more of a nerve than I originally thought.
I challenge the Human Rights Campaign to try to refute any of the incidents described in the ad. Please.
The fact is you can’t (the WashPost just verified them again today) — so you simply cry “liar” and hope that it sticks. Sorry, we’re smarter than that.
If there are legitimate disputes of fact, then, SSMers might substantiate their contentions.
* * *
Footnote:
The HRC grabbed the opportunity to make hay of the audition video when it published on its website links to the item on Youtube. That link was made inactive and the video was replaced with the Youtube message, "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by National Organization for Marriage."
In quick order, the HRC replaced that first link with another to snippets of the audition video posted by the Rachel Maddow Show. That link now also displays the copyright message.
Acting on a lawful copyright claim seems to make good business sense (especially for a nonprofit organization on a tight budget) to protect transactions with the actors and others involved in the production.
Maggie: "Of course we used actors. We say so right in the ad."
ReplyDeleteThe type is barely legible when viewed on YouTube, which is how most people will be viewing it.
Real people ads are going to be an effective counter, and I suspect that the testimony will begin with, "I'm not a paid actor. I'm a real person whose life has been affected . . . ."
Most people don't watch the credits.
ReplyDeleteIf they used real victims on the video it would not have looks so professional. Using actors to represent real events is fine.
I dunno, the ad will run on CNN, the Fox News Channel, and MSNBC so I'd expect it will get far more views on television than on youtube.
ReplyDeleteExpect millions of viewers for the tv spots and maybe thousands for the internet.
Besides, if the HRC want to talk about how ads are made rather than the message, when they appear in news interviews about the conflict between gay identity politics and religious liberty / freedom of conscience, that's fine. Their choice does not appear to be tactical nor strategic, but merely reactive and shakily defensive.
Maggie Gallagher: Serious religious liberty scholars from Eugene Volokh to Doug Laycock to Robin Wilson acknowledge the central driving idea behind gay marriage--there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and supporters of marriage are engaging in discrimination if they think differently--will have consequences for the freedoms of traditional faith communities. To pretend otherwise is to be profoundly unserious--if not deceptive--about what gay marriage means.
The message still stands. If the HRC wants to set a new rule for their own tv ads -- no actors, no scripts, no spokespeople, just people directly involved -- then we all can help hold them to that rule.
But it is not about such a rule. SSMers do not stick to their own pro-SSM rules when discussing marriage. That would just, again, emphasize how the question of dishonesty reflects back onto the HRC and the SSM campaign's operatives
FWIW, I agree that HRC's access to the audition tapes raises ethical questions.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that if same-sex marriage is recognized across the land, it will impact the freedom to discriminate against same-sex couples in the public sphere.
And I'm okay with that. So is the Supreme Court, as expressed in Romer v. Evans. We are talking, after all, of the public sphere.
If your faith tradition requires that you discriminate in the public sphere, then you will encounter problems, as Bob Jones University found out.
Hoh: It is true that if same-sex marriage is recognized across the land, it will impact the freedom to discriminate against same-sex couples in the public sphere. ... And I'm okay with that.
ReplyDeleteWhich means teaching in public schools the basic scientific facts of human reproduction, a clear distinction between same-sex and opposite-sex couples, would become illegal in Mr. Hoh's world. Somehow I don't think when Pres. Obama talked of putting science in its rightful place that he meant under the heel of redefinitionists like Mr. Hoh and HRC.
Now you're just being silly.
ReplyDeleteIf you'd rather I leave so as not to interrupt your little confab, fine.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePeter: "HRC's access to the audition tapes raises ethical questions."
ReplyDeleteYeh, I think the HRC's sideshow about how ads are produced is odd in that and other ways. They got caught in rapid reaction mode.
Peter: "It is true that if same-sex marriage is recognized across the land, it will impact the freedom to discriminate against same-sex couples in the public sphere. And I'm okay with that."
Thank you for your honest response.
If such an imposition is intrinsic to the SSM project, then, it is best to be upfront about it and let society know what comes with the proposed legal reform.
The HRC's complaints about the ad are not substantive if this is the openly acknowledge game plan anyway.
But for such an extraordinary imposition you will need to demonstrate an extraordinary need.
This goes to the root of the problem with the SSM project.
Within SSM argumentation, the logic provides no sexual basis, much less a sexual orientation basis, for a truthful claim of discrimination.
And much less for a claim of unjust discrimination.
There is no homosexual orientation test in the marriage law. The man-woman criterion does not classify people based on sexual orientation.
There is no proposed requirement that a person show or demonstrate sexual attraction or same-sex sexual behavior with someone of the same sex in order to qualify for a license to SSM.
That stands in contrast to the marital presumption of paternity and the various provisions for consumation of marriage. Also for the basis for divorce on the grounds of adultery and the like.
So if the pro-SSM argumentation takes the sex out of the conjugal relationship, at least in the eyes of the Law and of the culture, then, the imposition of intrusions on freedom of conscience and and religious liberty would be unjustified discrimination on its face.
It might be justified in the mindn of someone who clings to identity politics of the gaycentric variety, however, ours is a pluralistic society and our form of government is meant to secure our liberties and not to make citizens subjects of a peculair form of sectarianism.
This also helps expose the profound flaw in the pro-SSM reliance on the racist analogy. Racist identity politics was repudiated when the race criterion was discarded. Yet SSMers would impose gay identity politics in the name of a legal reform that has no sexual basis for a claim of discrimination.
The public sphere, or the public square, is not owned by the government.
ReplyDeleteThe People have a government, not the other way around. Right?
Chairm, don't mistake my opinions with some sort of imagined HRC-approved "game plan."
ReplyDeleteIt seems that you believe that the inability to discriminate against same-sex couples in the public sphere is an imposition. Is that a fair statement of your thoughts?
you wrote: There is no proposed requirement that a person show or demonstrate sexual attraction or same-sex sexual behavior with someone of the same sex in order to qualify for a license to SSM.
Is there any such requirement for those who currently apply for a license to marry? I don't think this is a fruitful line of argument for your side.
you wrote: The public sphere, or the public square, is not owned by the government.
I'm not sure where you are going with this. Please fill me in. But to answer your direct question, of course the People have a government and not the other way around. The government is by, of, and for the People. That doesn't mean that there isn't a public sphere in which there are limits on our behavior.
Peter, your opinion aligns very well with the HRC's public stance on this topic. So there is no confusion, just agreement that if that is the view, then, it should be stated openly and forthrightly without complaint about this view being pointed out in an ad.
ReplyDeletePeter, there is the marital presumption of paternity. That is based on opposite-sex sexual relations and on the nature of human procreation. The union of husband and wife is indeed a public relationship that is a sexual relationship with public significance.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there are the various provisions for consumation and lines drawn based on adultery. You might hope to discount these, but these exist as part of the marriage law because the union of husband and wife is, by type, a public sexual relationship. Indeed, these point to the essentials of the social institution.
I mean, nonmarital arrangements have no provision in the law for consumation nor for adultery. Due to the increase in nonmarital tends, some places have enacted unwed presumption of paternity -- but that is again based on the sexual relations of man and woman and on the nature of human procreation. Those statutes, such as they are, are modeled directly on the marital presumption -- they mimic marriage -- but also provide for much more government scrutiny and intervention. That's because disputes are far more common and far more likely to show the putative father is not the father of the mother's children.
Anyway, I've a new blogpost up on this very subject if you would like to ask me questions about it.
Consent to marriage entails this marital presumption of paternity. But this cannot apply to the one-sexed arrangement.
Marriage law does not force married people to procreate. I don't think any reasonable marriage defender would claim otherwise.
Yet SSMers remind us of this all the time. They claim that the lack of such compulsion must mean that procreation is not central to marriage. If that line of thinking applies to procreation, then, it applies to same-sex sexual behavior in SSM. Right?
When a rule is relied upon so insistently by SSMers, it is more than fair to challenge the SSM idea with the same rule.
No same-sex sexual behavior in an all-male or an all-female relationship or arrangement can invoke the marital presumption of paternity.
Maybe some nonsexual rule could apply, but that would not speak the supposed centrality of same-sex sexual behavior.
Obviously, the sexual aspect is not relevant to procreation where one or the other sex is excluded. Hence, there is no sexualized principle in SSM that matches the marital presumption of paternity.
Pursue that line of pro-SSM thinking, Peter, and show me, if you can, that it is mistaken.
Pter, marriage is a foundational social institution of civil society.
ReplyDeleteGovernment does not own civil society nor its foundational social institutions.
Freedom of conscience and religious liberty, these are rooted in civil society and the role delegated to government is to secure these.
Given the lack of a sexual requirement in SSM, there can be no authentic claim of discrimination based on sexual orientation. If you want to partake of SSM, then, enact legislation that clearly distinguishes it as a particular type of public relationship. In this case, it is nonsexual at law. But there is a wide range of nonsexual relationship types and arrangements. Is SSM of such importance to society that it must come with the imposition of Government restraints on fundamental liberties?
If so, that importance must be extraordinary to justify such an imposition.
You are assuming that same-sex is the equivalent of homosexual, yes?
But how can that be without the sexual requirement? It cannot. So the justification is not based on sexual orientation, not if SSMers are consistent with their own line of thinking about legal requirements.
But maybe those rules only apply when attacking the man-woman criterion of marriage and are inapplicable to the same-sex basis of SSM? That would be extraordianry -- and arbitrary -- but not justifiable, again based on the call for equality in SSM argumentation.
Hoh: ...discriminate against same-sex couples in the public sphere...
ReplyDeleteGive us an example of what you think qualifies as such "discrimination" that you would use government to prevent.
Peter, sorry about misspelling your name in that previous comment.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that by SSM argumentation, the lack of a sexual requirement means that "the inability to discriminate against same-sex couples in the public sphere" is not about marriage nor is it about unjust discrimiantion on the basis of a sexualized type of relationship.
It is SSM argumentation that suggests the imposition (that you said you have no problem with) is itself unjustly discriminatory.
I think a good example of this is the New Jersey case where a Methodist organization has been made a target by gay activists in the name of forcing the property owners to do something for which there is no sex-based legal requirement. In New Jersey the Supreme Court ruled that marriage is distinct; civil union in that state is not marriage. Yet look at the case and how it was exploited by those who equate civil union with marriage to restrict religious liberty and freedom of conscience. No extraordinary justification was provided because there is none.
An example of discrimination in the public sphere: should I die, my wife gets my property without incurring any inheritance taxes. Without federal recognition of same-sex marriage or civil unions, a same-sex couple is not able to avail themselves of the same benefit.
ReplyDeleteGranted, the state gets to discriminate between those couples who are married and those who are not -- except for those states which recognize common-law marriage. But same-sex couples have no access to marriage, and no legal arrangement can compensate for that.
The "lack of a sexual requirement" seems to be a new tack in your argument, though I'm not sure it's going to convince anyone who isn't already against extending marriage to same-sex couples.
"Same-sex" is not classification by sexual orientation.
ReplyDeleteThat's been a constant in my view but also in the pro-marriage view as expressed in courts, legislatures, and other venues. It is not new. Indeed, even the pro-SSM court opinions have acknowledged there is no sexual orientation classification in the marriage laws.
SSMers keep using the rule that if (fill-in the blank) is not a legal requirement, then, it is not essential to marriage. So they should drop that rule which they think is a slamdunk attack on responsible procreation -- a rule which is self-defeating for SSM -- or accept the logical conclusion: no sexual basis for SSM.
That poses problems for line-drawing when it comes to eligibility to SSM. Those big particular problems do not exist for marriage. Hence, a merger is not a good idea.
Of course, SSMers ought to recognize that there are legal requirements now that are vigorously enforced -- the man-woman criterion and the legal presumption of paternity (and others) -- which express the core meaning of marriage in our laws. Somehow such requirements are skipped past even as SSMers demand we show them legal requirements.
Like you, Peter, they hate the rule when it is used to test SSM; they love the rule when it attacks the strawman argument they make about procreation.
Of course, society would have to assume that the core of marriage is gender-neutral to accept the claim that the man-woman criterion is an exclusion based on sexual orientation. But that's circular thinking.
Once again, SSMers love to accuse others of circular thinking but they hate to realize that heir approach is to plant one foot and pivot in circles.
* * *
Peter, are you proposing that a showing of sexual attraction and/or sexual behavior become a legal requirement for the inheritance tax provisions?
Or is the sexual aspect not the key to your actual concern? In which case, why discriminate against the non-gay types of relationships and nonsexualized nonmarital arrangements?
It might be that the particular advantage in tax provisions, if it is indeed an outright and consistent advantage for all marriages, is partly ameniable to an extension based on need rather than sexual orientation mean tests. Right?
I'm still open to the civil union compromise, but I think the moment for such a compromise has passed. Instead, those years were spent tacking amendments to state constitutions that made it nearly impossible to move forward on the civil union front.
ReplyDeletePeter, one of the earliest pro-SSM decisions was in Vermont. There, the court imposed on the legislature. It ordered the elected representatives to enact "civil union" as a merger with marriage.
ReplyDeleteMost of the rest of the country saw the merger, not the distinctive option of a civil union compromise. And that's been proven a non-option because it was never an option in the long-game of the pro-SSM side.
Hoh: Granted, the state gets to discriminate between those couples who are married and those who are not...Why? There is certainly much more in common between an unwed man/woman couple and a married couple than there is between a same-sex couple and a married couple. Why is the state allowed to see the minute differences and required to overlook the big ones. Earlier you claimed ignoring the basic facts of reproduction was "silly."
ReplyDeleteHoh: Without federal recognition of same-sex marriage or civil unions, a same-sex couple is not able to avail themselves of the same benefit.Clearly false. Same-sex couples have the same opportunity to press for the same tax consequence in their relationship as married couples did to obtain it in the first place. This does not require nor justify redefining marriage. Marriage was not instituted for the granting of legal benefits. Rather, legal benefits are granted marriage based on how they uphold its purpose.
ReplyDeleteI'm still open to the civil union compromise...The "civil union compromise" never was a compromise. In fact the California Supreme Court used the existence of a "civil union" type arrangement there to impose neutered marriage. The vociferous objections by neutered marriage proponents to the passage of Prop 8 shows both that "civil union" never was a compromise in their eyes, and that this never was about "discrimination in the public sphere" since Prop 8 changed nothing about how same-sex couples are treated in the "public sphere."
I'm still open to the civil union compromise, but I think the moment for such a compromise has passed. Instead, those years were spent tacking amendments to state constitutions that made it nearly impossible to move forward on the civil union front.Peter, those amendments usually only prohibited Civil Unions that were "substantially identical to marriage" or some such wording, I think only one state had wording that ruled out CU's that were substantially different, as the Civil Unions in my proposed Egg and Sperm Civil Union Compromise are: they would be defined as "marraige minus conception rights", meaning the essential sine qua non right of marriage used by anthropologists to denote marriage would not be included. So those states could quickly adopt CU's without violating their amended constitutions, if they wanted to (and I think they'd want to, now that they'd be sure that marriage was protected - otherwise, they'd become "refuge states" attracting gays that wanted to abandon their spouses in other states.
ReplyDeleteOp-ed, would you support the efforts of unmarried couples to receive the inheritance tax benefits that are currently given only to married couples?
ReplyDeleteThe legal equivalence of married and unmarried couples is the primary objective of the Alternatives to Marriage Project.
I will continue to maintain that it is reasonable for the state to distinguish between those couples who marry and those who don't. Married couples enter into a contract -- rights and responsibilities and all that.
If you want to take the AMP's line on this, well, go ahead.
Hoh: Op-ed, would you support the efforts of unmarried couples to receive the inheritance tax benefits that are currently given only to married couples?
ReplyDeleteImmaterial. The fact is your premise is false. Neutering marriage is not the only way to provide a federal tax break to an institution such as same-sex couples. Advocacy groups like AtMP are examples of this.
I will continue to maintain that it is reasonable for the state to distinguish between those couples who marry and those who don't.
That you can maintain a position does not make it rational. You "grant" the state the ability to notice a minute, legalistic difference with only abstract consequences but do not grant the state the ability to notice an obvious difference with significant real world consequences. Your position is rationally untenable.
If you want to take the AMP's line on this, well, go ahead.
A little arrogant to think others need your permission to "take ...[a] line on this," don't you think?
But, there you go again trying to limit the choices in this debate. You want to pretend there are only two alternatives in this world, neuter marriage or take the AtMP's position, just like you wanted to pretend the only way to give tax breaks was to neuter marriage. I don't know whether you just don't think these things through enough to realize other options exist or whether you are just trying to employ a cheap rhetorical trick. Either way, your positions are not reasonable.
In op-ed's world, marriage is "a minute, legalistic difference with only abstract consequences."
ReplyDeleteWow.
But I suppose you will claim that by quoting you, I am somehow trying to limit your free speech.
Oh, and the "neutered marriage" thing is getting tiresome. Ronald Reagan neutered marriage when, as governor of California, he signed the nation's first no-fault divorce law in 1970.
correction, it took effect in 1970. RRR signed it into law in 1969.
ReplyDeleteHoh: In op-ed's world, marriage is "a minute, legalistic difference with only abstract consequences."
ReplyDeleteNo, in Peter Hoh's world where it is unrelated to procreation it is. Remember, we are discussing what Pete Hoh, not Op Ed, claims is legitimate or not for government to notice. Read back if you're having trouble keeping up, Pete.
But I suppose you will claim that by quoting you, I am somehow trying to limit your free speech.
Wrong again. Nor will I claim the price of tea in China limits free speech.
Oh, and the "neutered marriage" thing is getting tiresome.
Accuracy certainly can be.
Ronald Reagan neutered marriage when, as governor of California, he signed the nation's first no-fault divorce law in 1970.
No-fault divorce made marriage genderless? There's that "tiresome" accuracy thing again.
No-fault divorce, however, is a good example of the damage that can be done to marriage by ill considered changes to it. It disproves the claim of some marriage neuterists that marriage is such an ancient institution we can't possibly muck it up now. If defining down the permanence aspect of marriage had such consequence, imagine what defining away the one thing that gives it it's social purpose would do.
Neutered can also mean weakened.
ReplyDeleteIf you merely wanted to highlight the lack of gender significance in ssm, you might have chosen to refer to it as genderless marriage. You chose to use the term neutered marriage -- most likely because of the more vivid language which, among other things, indicates a weakened status.
I'll quote JRM: In one sense, the government has already removed itself from the marriage business by ceasing to enforce the most basic features of the current “default” marriage contract: stability and sexual fidelity. The no-fault divorce revolution makes marriage less than an ordinary contract. In most contracts, the person who breaches must make some kind of compensation to those who relied on his performance of the contract. Only in marriage does the law permit people to dissolve the contract for any reason or no reason and never even offer an account of themselves.
No-fault fundamentally weakened marriage.
In an age when prominent members of the putative conservative party can divorce their wives and marry their affair partners, marriage has ceased to have a social purpose beyond extending legal recognition to partnered adults who wish to have that status.
As I said before at Family Scholars, it really doesn't matter what I think. What's going on in the culture is what matters. Railing against sweeping cultural and demographic changes isn't going to prevent them from happening.
"As I said before at Family Scholars, it really doesn't matter what I think. What's going on in the culture is what matters. Railing against sweeping cultural and demographic changes isn't going to prevent them from happening." Peter: One of the ways (the only "way" really in a civil, liberal democracy) to counter changes that we see as negative and indeed inhuman are to argue against them. Many people seem to not want defenders of marriage to bring up the subject.
ReplyDeleteOne way they do this is by saying- you can’t stop the inevitable...and so forth.
But their very plea's seem to reinforce the idea that our “railing” is indeed effective.
Otherwise why bother.
Of coarse defenders of marriage are going to use their first amendment rights and democratic levers to their advantage… It is the only legitimate means we have in resisting those very harmful “sweeping cultural and demographic changes” you reference.
In this way we are positioning ourselves for the longer battle. When those changes arrive and like illegitimacy or the divorce rate become publicly visible we are on record as accurately predicting these trends as well as having publicly stood against them at real cost.
Such integrity of vision gives credibility to marriage defenders among future generations who must inhabit that future.
Its not just times that change but also public perception about those times…as well as elite opinion about the worthiness of the changes that occur.
Hoh: ...most likely because of the more vivid language which, among other things, indicates a weakened status.
ReplyDeleteMost likely? There is no "likely" about it, only correct and incorrect explanations. If you don't know which yours is, simply ask.
"Genderless" describes something like a door where gender is meaningless, not where it has been removed, as in marriage.
No-fault fundamentally weakened marriage.
Which has nothing to do with "discrimina[tion] against same-sex couples in the public sphere." I'll take your change of subject as a concession that this original point was unsupportable.
Whatever damage "no-fault" divorce did to marriage, neutering it will only serve to damage it further.
In an age when prominent members of the putative conservative party can divorce...
Marriage, despite your attempt to impress politics onto it, is neither a "conservative" nor a "liberal" issue. Marriage predates either political philosophy - all political philosophies, in fact.
...it really doesn't matter what I think.
For something you claim "doesn't matter," you certainly spend a lot of time in forwarding it.
Yeah, and I do it under my own name. Not some pseudonym. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteNow you've abandoned even the pretense of reason. An arguer's name has no rational bearing on the correctness of the argument advanced.
ReplyDeleteYou want to shut up those with whom you disagree by creating some story of inevitability. History is littered with the carcasses of changes someone like yourself tried to pass of as "inevitable" at the time. What doomed these "inevitable" changes to the ash heap of history was precisely the enhanced scrutiny of reasoned debate you reject.
No, please. I want you to keep making your arguments.
ReplyDeleteI am pretty sure that I am not powerful enough to create any inevitability.
You are absolutely correct that your powerful arguments are an effective bulwark against the dark forces that would unleash the scourge of neutered marriage upon the nation.
No doubt Nardo, Blankenhorn, and Marquardt left blogging to you because you were doing such an awesome job at it. It escapes me why Maggie Gallagher doesn't link here more often.
Hoh: No doubt Nardo, Blankenhorn, and Marquardt left blogging to you because...
ReplyDeleteWhen one is left trying to invoke the names of others to try and carry on one's argument for him, it's a pretty good sign one should have stopped commenting long ago.
op-ed, I think Peter's point is that mere arguments, no matter how powerful, are NOT effective bulwarks against neutered marriage. They're like Monty Python skits, arguments with no point, no end.
ReplyDeletePlease point us to one post or comment from anyone here that is even an attempt to be an effective bulwark against SSM. Show us just one post that makes a suggestion on how to proceed, or indicates there is some semblance of a plan or strategy to stop same-sex marriage going on here.
Or, better yet, take this opportunity (all of you) to tell us what the plan is for stopping same-sex marriage in my state and stopping marriage-in-all-but-name Civil Unions in the states that have those. (For bonus points, you can tell me the plan to stop human manufacture too.)
Seriously, John, you'll have plenty of better opportunities for a recruiting drive for your egg and sperm law. Don't turn Pete Hoh's grope for the exits into one.
ReplyDeleteWe all know my suggestion, what's yours?
ReplyDeleteJohn, as I know I have mentioned before, I support banning same-sex reproduction. I also support banning combining gametes from more than two persons, or creating human embryos that can only be of one gender, and I'd go further than that. Any combination that is not found in nature is playing with fire and should be stopped.
ReplyDeleteI've contacted elected representatives on this matter, including those who oppose SSM, and I've gotten nowhere with them. They all seem to feel that I'm getting ahead of myself with this, or that it's simply too much of a hot potato for them to touch at this point. Pro-SSM reps (as I expected) give me the retort that I just want to ban same-sex reproduction because if it succeeds I won't have that argument to use anymore. (By that line of thought, of course, now that we can combine gametes from more than two persons, have we now lost the argument against polygamy?). Opponents of SSM feel that that's just the argument they will be met with if they try to introduce such a ban. So I'm all for it, but right now the political climate is just not conducive to it, sadly.
But besides that, I have to disagree with you that banning same-sex reproduction is the way to stop SSM. You have followed this debate long enough to know how it goes. When we argue that SSM is not marriage because two of the same sex cannot reproduce, the retort is not "but they will be able to soon". No. The retort is that marriage is not even related to reproduction. So banning same-sex gamete combination will not make SSM advocates suddenly stop their crusade. Unless we also make the argument clear why marriage is in fact related to reproduction, and why it must continue to be so, as good a thing as stopping one-gender reproduction will be it will not settle the SSM debate.
I do make that argument clear, it is explicit in the E&GCUC that Congress also pass a law guaranteeing the right of every marriage to conceive with their own genes, which seems to me makes it clear that marriage is related to reproduction. Again, fellas, what is your plan to make that clear? I've seen arguments from here that serve to further separate marriage from procreation, by saying that even if SSP were possible, it still wouldn't mean we should allow SSM, because in their view marriage is about raising kids with a man and a woman present, not about conceiving children. And, what is your plan to stop SSM in my state and others that have SSM, and what is your plan to stop CU's in other states?
ReplyDelete"I do make that argument clear, it is explicit in the E&GCUC that Congress also pass a law guaranteeing the right of every marriage to conceive with their own genes, which seems to me makes it clear that marriage is related to reproduction. Again, fellas, what is your plan to make that clear?" Ok - John, I respect your cause, but you are really getting to be a jerk...so
ReplyDeleteWe have 30 State Constitutional Amendments across the country (many including no civil union’s language) along with 10 other state laws & a Federal DOMA...
We just came off three Successful Constitutional Amendments... including a bruising 70 million dollar California victory....
You have your blog to show for your efforts.
Who is the we of whom you speak, Fitz?
ReplyDeleteI'm not being antagonistic here, I'm just wondering because it's not clear that this blog is connected to a larger advocacy organization.
Are there any state amendments in the pipeline and likely to be voted on this year or next? Im not aware of any. Iowa may eventually, but it wouldn't be voted on this year or next, and Wisconsin's amendment is derailed, if I recall correctly.
From this point out, I think we are more likely to see voter initiatives in support of ssm than we are to see initiatives meant to ban or limit ssm.
Each of us had independent affiliations with organizations
ReplyDelete60-40 - Wisconsin already has an amendment..
The eighth ninth and eleventh circuits all have litigation pending..
You'll never see a "voter initiatives in support of ssm" (except maybe California) in means the people would have to vote for an amendment worded - We want to change marriage to mean a between 2 people... rather than man women
What about SSM in my state? I think that as long as it exists anywhere, it makes no difference that some don't have it. Is the FMA the plan to stop SSM in Massachusetts, or are you content with it remaining here? Also, is the FMA going to stop CU's that are marriage-in-all-but-name?
ReplyDeleteWisconsin's is not derailed. It has been challenged by a couple on the grounds that it covers two issues rather than just one (that is, because it bans both SSM and any kind of "marriage-lite", even though these are related issues). However, it is not known whether or not the state Supreme Court is going to hear the challenge or send it back to the lower court judge (who had passed it on to the Supreme Court).
ReplyDeletehttp://wcco.com/local/gay.marriage.wisconsin.2.980962.html
You are correct. I must have had Wisconsin confused with another state.
ReplyDeleteAre there any state amendments scheduled for a vote in 2009 or 2010?