Dafydd's take on the DOMA and California Constitutional dilemma

I've had these earmarked for a while, but I apologize for the delay. You simply must read Dafydd's take on the DOMA challenge in Massachusetts and the California Constitutional dilemma of calling a constitutional amendment unconstitutional...

1. California Supreme Court Justices Will Decide Whether They or the People Get to Decide on Same-Sex Marriage
2. Bostonizing America

Gay "traitor" discusses tactics of anti-marriage camp

File this under gay men & women who can argue civilly, understand traditional marriage is not the moral equivalent of the segregated south & are not afraid to say it.

It includes such notables as David Benkof of Gays Defend Marriage, Camille Paglia & Lee Harris in his excellent essay The future of tradition.

It from a New high quality web Magazine called Big Hollywood

It recounts the personal & intellectual journey of gay writer Charles Winecoff

My personal disillusionment with my fellows began in the mid-1990s, after I wrote a nonfiction book about a well-known gay man who married a woman in order to have a family - and stayed married to her for the rest of his life, warts and all. When the book came out, I got it from both sides: the right wingers said I was an activist with a “gay agenda” to ”out” a famous family man; the gays griped that I should have denounced his marriage as a fake and called his wife a “beard.”

It called - Love, War - and Gay Marriage

by Charles Winecoff

“Late last year, when the gay community was working itself into a frenzy over the passage of Proposition 8 - the measure to amend the California State Constitution to define marriage specifically as a union between one man and one woman - I realized I didn’t trust the community anymore. And I’m gay.'

The realization didn’t come overnight; it had been forming for some time. But the Gestapo tactics over Prop 8 - McCarthy-style blacklists, boycotting of otherwise gay-friendly businesses, apologies coerced out of individual supporters who made the “wrong” choice, enforced politically-correct donations to the Human Rights Campaign - clarified it for me.” I hadn’t left the community, it had left me. When did the gays get so mean, anyway?

Its not bad - give it a read

We Can’t Have Children!! So well Just TAKE yours!! {By force of law}

From the post below we know that in New York two women can be named the “parents”(?) of a new born baby of either woman. This presents a bit of a logistical problem for gay male couples who want children of their own; namely elemental biology. Both foreign adoption and surrogacy are quite expensive and time consuming arduous affairs. Local adoption is even more difficult and arduous (do too abortion) young healthy children are an increased rarity…who’s mothers often want the children to go to good homes with a Mother & Father.

According to statistics provided by both the National Survey of Family Growth and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute there are approximately 120,000 children in the United States waiting to be adopted each year. About half of these children are adopted by family members, leaving about 60,000 children who are waiting to be adopted by non-related adoptive parents. By contrast, each year there are anywhere between 70,000 and 162,000 married couples in the United States who have either filed for adoption or in process of filing. That means that in any given year, there are between 1.2 and 2.7 married couples per waiting child. In other words, there is no child-centered need to open up adoption to homosexual couples

So enter the Social Workers Bureaucracy – a notorious left wing guild that has signed on to race sensitive adoptions keeping needy black children from being adopted by white families and is now advocating in legislatures for gay “marriage” and adoption. Well once they get the law on their side: evidence from Britain shows what happens next. They just don’t let gays adopt, but prefer them to adopt while discriminating against Christian couples or anyone who doesn’t share their politics.

The first is the forced adoption & The Daily Mail story is… HERE

The forced adoption of the children by two gay men - and the council's decision to ignore their grandparents' request to care for them - has provoked fierce debate.

“Heather Rush telephoned the youngsters' 26-year-old mother after the family publicized their grievances with her council department…………..Mrs Rush allegedly said the price they will pay for speaking out is complete loss of contact with the five-year-old boy and four-year-old girl. The mother, who cannot be identified, said: 'She asked me if I had seen the paper and said "it does not make very good reading"………'I said I didn't think it was right that she was not letting me meet the fathers because of the story going in the paper and that she should speak to my Mum and Dad. ……..'She said, "No, just pass the message on." She said she didn't want to speak to them but there would be no recommendation for them to see the children twice a year.'……….. Last week Mrs Rush had told the grandparents they would be allowed to see the boy and girl if they gave the gay adoption arrangements their blessing……… "

In another article on the same case shows that the (more than fit & young enough) grandparents wanted to raise the child, but the social workers strong-armed them into agreeing on a adoption that was neither necessary or fair. Typically Grandparents are though to be the next best case scenario when a child’s parents are unfit… But not when gays need babies and there is a shortage.

The Telegraph story is … HERE

The grandfather, 59, and his wife, 46, were told they were too old and unfit to care for the children however……The couple thought the fostering was temporary but the local council went to court four times to have the children permanently removed and adopted……..Each time the court ruled in favor of the grandparents but when the council threatened to hire lawyers the couple reluctantly agreed to let them go….Their grandmother said:

"If we had known how it would turn out, that social workers would choose a home without a mother for them and we'd have to like it or not see them again, we'd never have given up the fight. "The thing is they were so happy here. They knew they were loved and they were safe."

And the pro-gay, anti-Christian bias doesn’t end there. In another story about how these laws are used – We all know that special needs children and foster children are given excellent care by the many, many loving Christians who do such work out of a sense of duty to the underprivileged.

The Daily Mail Story… HERE

But Eunice and Owen Johns have been forced to abandon their good work because they refuse to tell children as young as ten that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. To do so, they say, would go against their Christian beliefs. The devastated couple withdrew an application to their council to continue as foster carers after being told they must condone homosexuality to adhere to gay rights laws. The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation), which came into force last April, makes it illegal for any business or organisation providing a public service to discriminate against anyone because of their sexuality. The council says its fostering panel felt it would not be following the regulations if it placed a child with a couple who could not comply with the Act. The couple's case comes at a time when there is a chronic shortage of foster parents, who work on a voluntary basis. Around 8,000 more are needed nationally”

[UPDATE] Hat-tip IMAPP

Just In case you thought this was limited to Europe. A recent Ohio battle shows how the preference to change adoption procedures is being changed through legal threat.

State legislators encourage Ohio County Commissioners to reinstate adoption policy

These Ohio County Commissioners had suspended the traditional adoption policy in early March after it came under attack by the local chapter of the ACLU and homosexual activist organizations. That policy is common sense and illustrates why the Grandparents in the case above would usually have been next in line for custody.

The county’s preferences in the adoption matching process were, in order of preference:(1)relatives of the child, or someone who the birth mother designates as a potential adoptive parent for her child; (2) married couples; (3) foster parents; (4) other adoptive parents.

If marriage doesn’t change (Ohio has an amendment) then legal threats attempt to make smaller changes. Changes contrary to common sense and the social science on child wellbeing.

Look for more such stories in the future. After they force Christian adoption agencies out of the business, they will have a total monopoly on available children. Given their extreme left wing bent of the social workers, many more such abuses will never even be reported.

The important thing is not to let them get the full force & weight of the law to begin with” Here’s how from BeetleBlog

This is 'Equality'?

Advocates of neutered marriage will insist, repeatedly, that two moms are equal to two dads are equal to "mom & dad".

However the progressive new Birth Certificate Policy in New York City disagrees:

Married lesbian couples in New York City can now be listed as parents on birth certificates as soon as their children are born.

Before, the women would have to go through an adoption process to be listed as the official parents.

The city Board of Health voted Tuesday to make the change.

The state made a similar move in December, after a court ruling and a directive from Gov. David Paterson ordered state agencies to respect out-of-state gay marriages.

The city says married male couples still will need to adopt their children in order to be officially declared their parents.

When it comes to reproductive rights, women have rights -- men only have responsibility.

Something to consider the next time your average neutered marriage advocate argues until he's blue in the face that separate actually IS equal.

Achieving the core meaning of marriage is hard; privatizing and stigmatizing it is harmful

At The Corner, Maggie Gallagher has continued her series on The Amazing Power of Culture.

She reflects on the the great cultural achievement of making marriage "the normal, usual, and generally reliable way to raise children." And she notes that imposition of "gay marriage" would lead to privatizing and stigmatizing the social institution's core meaning. She says that this would entail rendering the social institution "nameless in the public square - also, unmentionable in polite society."

Here are some more snippets, but the entire series is recommended reading.

[more below the fold]

Part Six.

What will happen to marriage once the government and the law insist that same-sex unions ARE marriage, “whether you like it or not”?

First, this set of ideas about marriage will necessarily be privatized: that male and female point to each other, that marriage has deep roots in the necessity of bringing men and women together, because society needs babies, and babies need their mother and father in one family.

Next, because the prime argument for gay marriage is an equality argument, this traditional view of marriage will also be stigmatized: that is, treated as a discarded and discredited relic of bigotry that we have happily overcome.

[...]

Gay marriage will not leave marriage undisturbed. If gay marriage becomes the law of the land, then this thing called marriage that I care about, and that most human societies have specially protected, will become nameless in the public square - also, unmentionable in polite society.

Part Seven.

Between roughly 1960 and 1980, marriage came under a rather fierce and multi-faced ideological attack. [...] The monologue ran something like this: Moral norms disapproving of illegitimacy must be overturned to make room for expanded financial supports for poor single mothers; concern for married childbearing was implicitly and sometimes explicitly racist; marriage trapped women into unfulfilling domestic roles and interfered with the sexual pleasure that should be available equally to men and women. The fear of the slut within must be conquered. Abortion must be elevated to a constitutional right or women cannot be just like men in bed or in the workplace. And the population explosion reinforced the sexual revolutionaries' idea that the generative capacity of women - our power to create new life - was a problem, not an asset.

Part Eight.

Let me pause to re-iterate this point:

Women are people who, when we have sex, sometimes create new life. This truth deeply colors relations between men and women - even men and women who never have children together, indeed, men and women who never have sex together. Men impregnate, women are not impregnable. A society which tries to deny these facts ends up doing great and lasting damage to its own children, and to both men and women.

I learned the key indicator of contraceptive success was not technological efficacy but motivation of the user. Only women highly motivated to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy stand a chance of avoiding pregnancy by any of the conceivable methods.

[...]

I learned this truth: Connecting sex, babies, love, money, and mothers and fathers is hard.

Hard at the individual level, and hard at the societal level. A society where marriage is the normal, usual, and generally reliable way to raise children is a great cultural achievement, not a law of nature...

I learned: When marriage is privatized, women and children get hurt.

Is it Possible to Truly Achieve "Marriage Equality"?

Much of existing family law is predicated on marriage being something that involves both a husband and a wife, as it has been throughout history. If we are truly to have "marriage equality" so that the voluntary association of two men or two women must be treated, under law, exactly the same as natural marriage, I'm curious as to how this would work in the following areas:

Adoption – Same-sex couples would have just as much standing to adopt as a bride-groom couple, correct? Some people who devalue either masculinity or femininity, fatherhood or motherhood, don't see this is a problem, but I think most people do, even if they support neutering state marriage licensing.

[much more below the fold]

Paternity Assumption – In a bride-groom couple, for the protection of the child (and to keep the state from being on the hook for child support), the groom is considered the legal father by default of any child born to the bride. Would the non-carrying lesbian be considered the default parent of a child her partner carries, whether or not she agreed to the pregnancy, and regardless of how that pregnancy was accomplished? If not, then neither should a groom. Would a lesbian woman be held accountable if it turns out that her partner is secretly bisexual and turns up pregnant?

Child Custody - Women are often given preference over men in child custody matters, even when the man begs for custody. How would this work when it comes to same-sex couples who are being divorced? Would fathers being divorced from mothers gain more from this? Would the biological parent, if any, be favored? If not, what implications would that have when it comes to traditional stepfathers and stepmothers?

Child Support – Would the spouse who is not biologically related to the children still be forced to pay child support? It happens with bride-groom couples, but couldn't someone argue that they've never engaged in reproductive behavior and thus shouldn't be saddled with child support? If so, how could that argument be accepted while treating a groom being divorce from a bride equally (or will courts be forced to admit that homosexual sodomy and heterosexual coitus are not equivalent - and invade our bedrooms)? If there are two men, and one turns out to be bisexual or donates sperm, resulting in a pregnancy, is the other man's income to be included in figuring child support as happens when a bride and groom marry? (Yes, sperm donors have been held liable for child support.)

Abortion Rights - One woman gets pregnant, there is a split, the other woman - who has paid for the reproductive medical treatments, perhaps donated the eggs, and wants the children - sues to block abortion. Currently, a wife can get an abortion even if her husband objects. Will "gay rights" trump abortion rights? Oh, I can see the dilemma now! I suspect abortion rights will win that battle, especially if feminists realize that men could also use any precedent set.

Community Property was based on the idea that a marriage was creating a cooperative microcosm of society with a division of labor, more likely than not to raise children biologically related to both spouses, thereby perpetuating society. In order to treat all couples equally, would the concept of community property be diminished?

Alimony – Largely based on community property and division of labor, the concept has lost some importance with the equal access of women to the workplace. Again, would the concept of alimony be weakend? Surely, a man should not have to pay alimony because he married a woman while another man avoids paying it because he married another man? That wouldn't be equal.

Marriage Statistics - Would government agencies be allowed to collect, compile, and release statistics that distinguish between natural and neutered marriage? If not, marriage statistics could show marriage as being less favorable than they have in the past in terms of longevity (of the participants as well as the marriage), fidelity, domestic violence, poverty, mental health, positive effect on children, etc.

What has changed in Massachusetts, and is the law still catching up? I don't see how we can neuter marriage licensing nationwide without it changing marriage for all, even those bride-groom couples who have been married for decades.

Remember – true equality works both ways. If highly noisy, persistent, and effective activist groups accomplish their goal of neutering marriage nationwide, what happens if they need to direct their energies to something new, especially if they discover things about state-licensed marriage that are not friendly to their subculture? I think we could kiss goodbye any hope of moving away from no-fault divorce. It would not surprise me if the "equality" groups were to subsequently demand taxpayer funding on-demand for all third-party reproduction. After all, many bride-groom couples can conceive for free. Shouldn't we correct this "inequality"?

I do not believe that the voluntary association of a man and a woman is the same kind of voluntary association as two women or two men, and I do not see a moral or legal obligation for the state to treat all three as the same. I see a state interest in licensing and encouraging natural marriage that is not met in either of the other two kinds of unions. It is obvious to me that what keeps same-sex "marriage" and natural marriage from being equal has less to do with state licensing requirement and more to do with the nature of the sexes and the differences between them.

The rights of children must be protected, as they do not consent to the circumstances of their birth, or the relationships their parents have. Whether marriage neutering gains or loses ground, we still have third-party reproduction, and something else should be put in place to protect the right of a child to both her mother and her father. Of course there will be instances in which, for the child's protection, access to one or both of her parents would have to be restricted or terminated, and redirected to an adoptive mother or father. But third-party reproduction has already deprived, by design, children of a mother or a father, and neutering marriage can only reinforce that.

Vermont's manufactured crisis

"Never waste a good crisis" and never waste the opportunity to manufacture a crisis, good or bad, in the shadow of an actual crisis.

That appears to be the motto of Vermont Senators.

Challenge Issued by Vermont General Assembly Leaders.

* * *

Also see:

"Gay marriage" bill in the works.

The Senate voted for gay marriage, 26-4. The House vote will be later this week…it’s going to be closer, but how close is key.

VT SSM Bill - House.

Governor Douglas is opposed to same-sex marriage and is considering the possibility of a veto. [...] it is imperative that our legislators hear from you today!

Vermont Call your State Senators

If you are from Vermont (or let your Vermont friends know):

Briefly and politely ask your senator to approve/request a referendum — whether they are for or against Same-Sex Marriage. It’s only fair that the issue be put before the voters. After all, they do "trust their constituents" to do the right thing.

Let Vermont Vote.

LetVermontVote.org is about opening up Vermont’s political process to the citizens of Vermont. We’re concerned about activist judges and elitist legislators disenfranchising the electorate. We’re concerned that Vermont has no process for addressing the broad-based issues of the day and a Byzantine system of amending our state’s Constitution.

Petitition for Public Referendum on Marriage in Vermont [PDF].

We, the undersigned, as citizens of Vermont petition the 2009-2010 General Assembly of the State of Vermont to authorize an advisory referendum on the question, “Shall the voters advise the General Assembly to adopt legislation confirming marriage as being solely between one man and one woman.”

Multitasking and Magical Redefinitions

Los Angeles Times blogger Karin Klein checked in on the birth rate story.

Though teen births were up slightly, most of the births outside marriage were to mothers 20 and older, and demographers say most of the bulge, so to speak, was among women in their 30s and 40s.

It makes you wonder what all the fuss was, from the supporters of Proposition 8, who said that marriage had to be reserved for male-female couples rearing their joint children--which they consider the only really healthy model.

Clearly, a strong minority of new mothers disagree with that.

Many, but not all, of the people who support the California Marriage Amendment and similar legislation, also disapprove of having and raising children out-of-wedlock. That children are being born and raised out of wedlock in no way means that we shouldn't take the time and energy to support marriage in another way, such as with Prop 8.

[more below the fold]

It isn't like we can, without massive opposition, put it into law that children can only be conceived, born, and raised within wedlock. It isn't possible to enforce that anyway.

Looks like if the conservative religious movement wants more kids raised by married couples, one of the more effective ways to go about it would be to let ame-sex couples wed.

You know, there are kids in the world who don't get enough milk. But it won't help a bit if we call water "milk" when we give water to them (especially if it carries harmful agents). Marriage is good for children, in large part, precisely because it provides both a mother and a father. As I've said before, if children end up in a home headed by two people of the same sex, then I can see the point of having the state recognize that relationship (or both adults' relationships to the child) for the sake of those children - though it isn't marriage. But I'm morally against divorce (and subsequent dating, after death or divorce) in most cases when minor children are involved, and against third-party reproduction to intentionally conceive children to be raised without a mother or a father. The only way a same-sex couple ever ends up with children through no mistake or intentionality on their part is if the parents of that child die and it is in the best interest of the children to be placed with them, or one or both were named as guardians in a will.

The public meaning of marriage does matter

Maggie Gallagher, in a series of blogposts at The Corner, has undertaken to describe "how and why the public meaning of marriage matters."

Here are a few short snippets, but please go to each blogpost and read it all.

[more below the fold]

* * *

The Amazing Power of Culture

Part One

Many belittle the very notion - it's the anti-intellectualism of the intellectuals - by reducing it to an argument in which "correlation is not causation" (a point of which I am well aware and even mentioned myself) is taken to be an apt, witty, zinging, and complete rebuttal.

How do ideas have consequences? I want to share over a couple of posts, what I think I have actually seen - a report from the front, as it were.

* * *

Part Two

What is culture? Sometimes we use that word as the opposite of economics or law. Here I mean something very specific. Culture, as James Davison Hunter put it, is the power to name reality.

In this sense, law is not the opposite of culture, but a particularly powerful player. What the law names as reality, is (in America at least) probably the single most powerful player in our shared reality.

If you doubt that, think about divorce for a minute.

* * *

Part Three

When people say the "law is an educator," that's true, but it doesn't go far enough. In this case, the law is an arbiter of reality: Who is really married? Who is really divorced? Who is having an out-of-wedlock child? Who, for that matter, is committing adultery?

The law's power to name reality matters.

By the way, I do understand that is why the "name" matters to gay-marriage advocates. That's what makes this battle difficult to compromise. But all I ask, of the intellectual class at least, is they stop saying therefore that the defintion of marriage in law (which matters so much to Adam and Steve) won't matter at all to anyone else.

Particularly since gay marriage, as I mentioned above, is not like divorce in some key ways.

* * *

Part Four

To recap: Changing divorce law did not only affect the "exit requirements" from marriage, it affected the shared vision of what marriage consists of, what the marriage vow means. The law names the reality of who is married and who is divorced in a way with which merely private definitions have a hard time surviving, much less competing.

[...]

Another similarity between unilateral divorce and gay marriage: Both legal changes were driven by elite opinion, not a mass hunger for change. Only a minority of Americans in the late sixties thought divorce laws needed to be loosened. Elites are called elites for a reason: They are very powerful, relative to mere majorities.

* * *

Part Five

Here's another way that gay marriage and no-fault divorce are similar: Elites coalesced in favor of this legal change - and firmly downplayed the very idea it could have any cultural effects at all. Unilateral-divorce laws were passed by insider experts, "the best and brightest," who firmly swore that the objections and reservations of religious people and of the masses were uninformed, ignorant, and unlikely.

Because, after all, how could letting Anna and Evan disrupt their horrible, violent marriage more easily possibly affect your marriage?

[...]

The heart of the same-sex marriage argument, by contrast, is this: There is no rational, relevant difference between same-sex and opposite-sex couples - and anyone who disagrees is engaging in illegitimate discrimination, similar to people who opposed interracial marriage.

I know gay-marriage advocates honestly believe this to be true. That's not in question. My question is: How can an intellectual both say this and also say that same-sex marriage is not going to affect anyone besides gay couples? (e.g.: How exactly do we treat people and institutions that oppose interracial marriage these days? In law? In culture?)

* * *

To be continued with updates as Gallagher adds to her series of blogposts.

UPDATE (23 March 2009):

See parts 6-8, "Achieving the core meaning of marriage is hard; privatizing and stigmatizing it is harmful."

True equality vs the Equality Paradox

Mr John H-G of that notorious Know Your Neighbor. You might remember them, they are the ones that started the trend we see today of "outing" people in favor of marriage equality for harassment. Well in true style he wrote in our very own comment thread recently:

Ending civil marriage will not silence the GLBT community. Marriage equality is only one of the many issues we, the broader issue is intolerance and the [emotional] and physical violence being waged against GLBT people on a daily basis."

Unfortunately we are all left hanging on the paradox of how an all-male and all-female marriage segregation is equality. But he says it is, and anyone for the government expectation real marriage equality (equal gender representation and support) gets his special dialog of harassment.

You may note that his paradox is no different than Mississippi, Georgia and other states used to have for keeping a similar policy of segregation in schools. Argument such as the need for the state to acknowledge people's born markers of identity and keeping people safe from violence. And more).

But probably even more disappointing is how though I join him in protecting people from violence (though my focus is much more broad than his own), I don't see Mr H-G addressing the much larger questions of violence between gays or lesbians.

Even a celebrated culture of violence as recreation in the GLBT street fairs (a GLBT family event) and parades. Even Mr H-G's own divulged fantasies of violence towards others strike an odd contradiction to his stated purpose.

[More in the fold]

Truly, when one starts to recognizing marriage equality (equal gender representation) and start to preach non-violence to your GLBT shock troopers, a statement such as his becomes a truth instead of a lie.

He continues:

As I have said all along equality is for everybody; looks like that idea is catching on!

Unfortunately it doesn't seem that equality, love honor and support of the co-creator of your children, is catching on at all. Mr H-G does his own discredit to celebrate this period of growing grown-up selfishness and segregation. As Marty appropriately pointed out:

Equality for everybody, except the kids right John? Instead of a real Mom & Dad, they get a Mom and a "Nana".

I'd add equality except for the real parents of these children also. The ones that the children will naturally identify with and even seek out after a long time of having other adults try to keep them anonymous from their children. The ones that were paid or forced by law to fully or partially abandon a personal relationship with their offspring.

U.S. Birth Rate, Illegitimacy Both Up

Associated Press Medical Writer Mike Stobbe reported, prompted by a CDC report found here.

While it shows the U.S. population is more than replacing itself, a healthy trend, the teen birth rate was up for a second year in a row.

While it sounds bad that the teen birth rate was up, the article goes on to say point out that the birth rate was up in general.

The birth rate rose slightly for women of all ages, and births to unwed mothers reached an all-time high of about 40 percent, continuing a trend that started years ago. More than three-quarters of these women were 20 or older.

Which means that almost 25% were 19 or younger.

[more to read below the fold]

For a variety of reasons, it's become more acceptable for women to have babies without a husband, said Duke University's S. Philip Morgan, a leading fertility researcher.

It helps keep sperm banks in business and is one reason I plead with men to never, ever donate sperm.

Even happy couples may be living together without getting married, experts say. And more women — especially those in their 30s and 40s — are choosing to have children despite their single status.

If a woman doesn't have the time or personality or patience to find, attract, and keep a man she is willing to marry (or a man who will at least have sex with her), should she really be a child's only parent?

Meanwhile, U.S. abortions dropped to their lowest levels in decades, according to other reports.

Good.

Some have attributed the abortion decline to better use of contraceptives, but other experts have wondered if the rise in births might indicate a failure in proper use of contraceptives. Some earlier studies have shown declining availability of abortions.

I don't think I've ever heard in recent decades, from an anonymous source or otherwise, "I wanted to get an abortion, but I couldn't find a place where I could get one." Please. There are people out there willing to fly you somewhere and pay for it.

The pre-term birth rate, for infants delivered at less than 37 weeks of pregnancy, declined slightly. It had been generally increasing since the early 1980s.

The March of Dimes likes to use this as a call to fundraising. However, I wonder just how much of it is due to 1) an increase in multiple-baby pregnancies due to the use of “reproductive technologies” (remember – twins born prematurely are two births, while a singleton born at full term is just one, easily skewing the statistics about “births”), and 2) an increase in obesity, adding complications to a pregnancy that prompt doctors to remove the baby before full term.

Among the states, Utah continued to have the highest birth rate and Vermont the lowest.

Which could mean that more people who will grow up in larger families and want larger families themselves – and value marriage – are being raised than people who will be accustomed to, and will be more likely to create, a smaller family, perhaps without marriage.

Paedophobia

Wrote Wretchard: ‘We see children as pestilent’ — A psychologist, writing in the Guardian, warns that some people in Britain already hate the young.

More on the Diploma Analogy

The comparisons to the counterfeiting of state-issued university degrees or a public high school diploma vs. a GED are valid in comparing state-issued marriage licenses to domestic partnerships or no state recognition at all.

There are certain requirements that must be met to obtain a state-issued marriage license. Those include:

-one bride

-one groom

-who are not closely related

Neither of whom is...

-underage and without parental consent or emancipation

-currently married.

[continued below the fold]

These requirements do not exclude anyone based on sex or sexual orientation (nor did the court order in California when it temporarily removed "bride" and "groom" from the requirements), but there are requirements.

Likewise, a degree from UCLA or a high school diploma has certain requirements that must be met – again, ones that do not exclude anyone based on sex or sexual orientation. Like a marriage license, these things are issued by state institutions and bring certain benefits and a certain social weight.

Not everyone is cut out for marriage. Not everyone is cut out for schoolwork. In neither case are we obligated to change requirements so that additional people can obtain marriage licenses or degrees or diplomas without doing something they don't want to do. If it makes them feel bad that we decide not to change the requirements, so be it. Their feelings are not our responsibility.

Some argue that obtaining a degree takes effort, while getting married doesn't, but are these people ignorant of how difficult it is for some people to find a spouse? For some people, getting a four-year degree us much easier. And why should it matter, anyway? The state is concerned with whether or not someone has met the requirements needed to obtain the paper the state is issuing, not how much effort was put in to meet those requirements. Some have a much easier time doing schoolwork than others, after all.

Bait and Switch and More on the False Compromise

The Stand to Reason blog had a couple of recent entries of note to us.

Melinda checked in on the False Compromise with a blog entry entitled "It's Not Just a Word".

[a lot more is after the fold]

The debate over same-sex marriage is about whether marriage is some thing. Whether there's an objective fact of what marriage is, whatever the term is. Whether we recognize a natural institution that is a feature of the world or whether we define reality by consensus because it's all relative anyway. This is a debate about the nature of the world and whether or not we can derive conclusions about proper functioning, not terminology. This is about philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics, not religion.

We have definitely seen that the discussion often comes down to a difference in philosophy regarding government, law, and rights. But is it also about what people believe about gender.

This is another way of relegating the defense of marriage as merely religious and therefore out of bounds in government because, supposedly, religious views have no place in the public square.

She argues that marriage is a natural institution, not a religious one.

Amy described an argument tactic used often today in public discourse, including by some of those opposed to marriage protection amendments.

1. Use a principle to rule out the legitimacy of your opponent's position because of the very nature of that position.

2. Excuse yourself from that principle completely.

3. Suddenly change the rules for determining appropriate legislation from whether or not it violates the principle you cited against your opponent to whether or not the legislation has valid reasons supporting it.

4. Make arguments for the limits you propose, even though you did not allow arguments from your opponent for his limits.

All limits are declared unacceptable, so the opponent [of marriage neutering] automatically loses the debate before it even begins. He can simply be dismissed before his reasons are offered. Then, once he is righteously vanquished, you can simply assert your own limits and win by default. And the needed debate that should have taken place about which limits are actually correct never takes place.

Let's see her explanation of how this is applied by some marriage neutering activists.

1. A constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman is wrong because it violates civil rights (i.e., it's wrong in principle). No reasons explaining why homosexual marriage is bad for society matter because it's constitutionally wrong not to allow anyone to marry who wishes to.

2. I think Polygamy and incestuous marriages are wrong and should not be included in the definition of marriage (i.e., the disqualifying principle does not apply to me and the limits I prefer).

3. It's completely different for me to disallow polygamy and incestuous marriage because there are good reasons to disallow these things (i.e., rules for legitimacy are changed).

4. Here are the reasons it is appropriate to disallow polygamy and incestuous marriage (i.e., reasons for the personally favored limit are given unopposed).

See how this works? We're never allowed to even get to the point of making an argument for the limits we think are correct. We're stymied at the very beginning, arguing for the legitimacy of any limits (not to mention dealing with attacks on our character) while they saunter easily past the barrier they put up against us in order to openly make their own arguments for the limits they prefer.

There are bads arguments made by various camps. The more we can recognize them to counter them (and not make the same mistakes with our own arguments) the better.

The False Compromise

What if you were a California voter who had an earned degree from the University of California Los Angeles – a state institution – and someone else who did not attend the university nor did the coursework insisted that spending his time sunning himself on the beach was just as valid use of his time, and demanded he also be awarded the same degree from UCLA?

What if you, as a voter, said "no" to this idea twice? Would you consider it a good compromise if your degree was rescinded so that you and the beach bum would be treated "equally"? My guess is no.

The False Compromise is getting government out of marriage licensing entirely (or so they say), either by dropping the word "marriage" or not recognizing personal unions at all. Michael A. Lindenberger of Time Magazine takes a look at this. First he mentions Jewish and Catholic rituals that do not get licensing from the state. But these rituals do not involve the sharing or transfer of property, nor do these rituals naturally tend to result in bringing children into the world, or subjecting them to an unrelated adult as head of their home. Those and other reasons are why marriage is different.

[much more below the fold]

And for non-believers or those for whom the word marriage is less important, the civil union license issued by the state would be all they needed to unlock the benefits reserved in most states, and in federal law, for "married" couples.

This is coming from the assumption that any two people who claim to be a couple should have those benefits. Why are those benefits issued in the first place? There is a reasoning behind it. Domestic partnerships in California were not created for the benefit of the state – more to satisfy the demands of same-sex couples, many of whom ended not satisfied by something that treated them as married. And thus, the people of the state thought they were helping people who turned around and used that help against them.

Both sets of lawyers agreed that the idea would resolve the equal protection issue.

Sure – if you stop government issuing of any sort of licensing, than everyone has equal non-access.

Why try to pretend marriage is nothing more than a domestic partnership or civil union? Let's really go for "equality" and only have the state issue a Roommate License, and nothing more. After all, some platonic roommates depend very much on each other. And why should platonic roommates not be treated equally to lovers?

Take the state out of the marriage business, and then both kinds of couples - straight and gay - would be treated the same.

Why should three different kinds of voluntary associations be treated the same? Simply because someone wants them to be? If that someone is the people of the state, then that would be legal. But why should we do that?

And as Justice Chin considers whether he can craft a compromise with his fellow justices that would both uphold Prop 8 - and therefore the right of the people to amend the state constitution - and assert the right of gay people to be treated equally, he may find that the folks who cling hardest to the word "marriage" are the gay couples themselves. After all, what was the most sweeping part of the May 2008 decision Ming and his colleagues issued granting [brideless or groomless couples neutered state marriage licenses]? It was the idea that the word "marriage" itself is so strong that denying it to [same-sex] couples violates the most sacred rights enshrined in the state constitution, the right for all people to be treated with dignity and fairness.

This is a leap. What about single people or trios, or like I said, roommates? Are they not being treated with dignity and fairness because the state doesn't issue them marriage licenses? What about friends who aren't even roommates?

How can anyone who argues that state-licensed marriage is an unalienable right ever say it would be okay not to let anyone have access to that "right"? The False Compromise smacks of what some marriage defenders have said all along – this whole thing is more about tearing down the traditional family, including the esteeming of marriage – than it is about the rights of homosexual people.

There are reasons we, as a state, license marriage. Doing so is of benefit to the state. The kind of relationships that form marriage perpetuate society. We are under no obligation to treat different kinds of voluntary associations the same, no matter how much an activist group wants it that way. We should not forget that our soft-hearted acceptance of domestic partnerships has been met with scorn and a trouncing of our will.

Barring Religious People From Voting on Marriage?

Does the Constitution Disqualify Voting According to Religion? That is what I ask over at my blog, as I look at some letters to the Orange County Register, responding to an earlier letter in which someone asked "If church and state are separate, why then do religious people have the right to weigh in on the issue of Proposition 8?"

It is a perversion of the American system to suggest that citizens should not be able to vote according to their conscience. If that includes notions that are also found in tradtional, organized religion, so be it.

The entry ended up being more about politics in general rather than family and marriage issues, hance the posting to my blog instead of here.

Glenn Beck: "Stand Up and Lead"

There has been a rapid and fervent response to a new project that has been launched by TV host and talk radio pundit, Glenn Beck. Opine readers may find this interesting.

See: "The 9-12 Project".

Glenn Beck writes:

Mission Statement.

This website is a place for you and other like-minded Americans looking for direction in taking back the control of our country. It is also a place to find information that will assist you in navigating the rough waters we face in the days, weeks and months ahead.

We suggest that you start in your own homes. Talk to your family about the Values and Principles. Discuss the importance of what the Founders designed for America.

When it comes to the Constitution and our country, you are the first line of defense.

Beck: The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

Ben Franklin believed that both sides of an issue should be presented to the people. He said, “When men differ in opinion, both sides ought equally to have the advantage of being heard by the public, and that when truth and error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter.”

Nine Principles:

On your right to disagree. “In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude; every man will speak as he thinks, or more properly without thinking.” George Washington.

Twelve Values:

Beck: "I see this space used by people who have questions, solutions and ideas. This should be used as a think tank."

Same-sex marriage is history in California

Mike McKee of The National Law Journal writes that the California Supreme Court is likely to uphold the validity of the marriage amendment.

Arguments in the three separate cases heard Thursday were presented by five attorneys opposed to Prop 8 and one favoring it. A 5-2 vote upholding the measure, which was passed by voters on Nov. 4, seemed imminent.

McKee quoted from remarks made during oral argument by Jusice Kennard and Chief Justice George, two jurists who had favored the pro-SSM side in last May's Marriage Cases.

Kennard:

"Our task is quite limited," Kennard told anti-Prop 8 lawyers during oral arguments in San Francisco. "The people are those who have created the Constitution and what you are overlooking is the people's broad power to amend the Constitution."

George:

"Isn't that the system we have to live with?" he asked, suggesting that any change in the initiative process would have to come from the political realm, not the courts.

Meanwhile, The San Francisco Chronicle reported the following:

"We don't expect the court will rule to overturn Prop. 8 so there will likely be another initiative," said Rick Jacobs, chair and found of the Courage Campaign, an organizing network for progressive causes in California. "The movement understands that we will have to win at the ballot box as soon as it is politically feasible."

It Depends on the Meaning of Is

Martin Wisckol, politics reporter for the Orange County Register, has this blog entry saying a law professor, M. Katherine B. Darmer, argues that neutered marriage licenses issued (or neutered marriages recognized by law) anywhere in the world before the California Marriage Amendment was adopted by voters in November - whether last year or five years ago – could be legally recognized by California.

By the line of reasoning described, any firearm that was legal for private ownership anywhere in the world at one time should be still be legal for the owner to have and license in California if there was ever a time when California didn't have a constitutional amendment prohibiting it. Or, perhaps, if Sudan issued me a diploma from the University of California Davis, then California could recognize it as legit.

The title of the entry says that, even with amendment intact, we could see an increase in the number of recognized same-sex marriages, presumably through immigration. However, it is more likely that, barring a change at the federal level or a new amendment at the state level, we'll see an ongoing reduction, through divorce, death, and emigration.

Human Interest Piece on Surrogate Mothers

Military wives carrying surrogate pregnancies are given Column One in today's Los Angeles Times, and I analyze the story over on my blog. Here's a sampling:

Two months later, she was matched with a gay couple in France. The couple would buy eggs from a donor, pay a doctor to fertilize them with their sperm and transfer the embryos to Howard's uterus.

Don't participate in intentionally setting kids up for a motherless childhood. Do you think so little of your own role in the lives of your children?

And also...

Esteban, 46, the taller of the two with a short gray-black beard, was a child psychiatrist. His partner, Jean Michel, 50, tan and lean with gray hair, worked for the French government.

Oh, great. Two "grampas" are going to raise the kids, and one of them works as a child psychiatrist. I would NEVER subject my child to a psychiatrist who would deprive his own child, by design, of a mother.

"You are the moral equivalent of a Jewish Nazi."

In February, Pearl Diver blogged about an artist who had become the target for reprisals and vengeance-seeking in the wake of the victory of the California marriage amendment.

Maureen Mullarkey, Chappaqua Artist of Gay Themes, Defends Prop 8 Donation.

[UPDATE: Pearl Diver blogged about this again, today.]

This week, the artist wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal and gave her account of this experience [Hat-tip to Fitz.]:

The New Blacklist.

Within 24 hours, the "story" spread from one gay website to another, even to Vancouver ("Typical greedy American bigot"), France, and Belgium. My home address and email were repeated in comment sections in which readers egged each other on to "make the bitch pay." Militants trawled for editors and gallerists I had worked with to warn them that "the Gay Community is looking at our adversaries and those who may support them." (One former editor blind-copied me his exchange with an aspiring storm trooper who threatened a boycott for those "having an association" with me.)

[...]

But any semblance of moral reasoning is lost on a mob. The character and sensibility of the same-sex marriage brigades is told in their litany of sexual hostility:

Eat ---- and die, c--.

Eat c-- and die, b----.

You right-wing, heterosupremacist t--.

You are the moral equivalent of a Jewish Nazi. Roast in hell, you filthy c--.

It is one thing to read hate-filled mail on a computer screen. It is something else to have it in hand. At the end of the week, when it started coming to my house, I filed a police report.

[click here to read more below the fold]

Until now, donating to a cause did not open private citizens to a battery of invective and jackboot tactics. While celebrities sport their moral vanity with white ribbons, thousands of ordinary Americans who donated to Prop 8 are being targeted in a vile campaign of intimidation for having supported a measure that, in essence, ratified the crucial relation between marriage and childbearing. Some in California have lost their jobs over it; others worry about an unhinged stranger showing up at the door.

She provides other examples. Go read her entire article.

* * *

For a more gentile version of this anti-8 attitude, checkout what Brian Sherwin, Senior Editor of myartspace.com and The New York Art Exchange had to say.

The Daily News claims that their review of campaign records shows that Mullarkey made her “sizable contribution”-- many only donated between $100 and $400-- of $1,000 to the National Organization for Marriage’s “Yes on 8” fund sometime in June of 2008. In all over $40 million was raised to support Proposition 8 groups.

According to the Daily News said groups helped convince California voters to overturn an earlier court decision that granted same sex couples the right to marry. Thus, it is alarming that Mullarkey-- a visual artist who has long been considered an advocate for the gay community-- would donate money to a cause that contradicts her visual message.

[...]

Which begs the question-- if that is how she feels why on earth did she create works of art that-- up until this time -- empowered the gay community?

[...]

So let me get this straight-- Maureen Mullarkey, who has made a decent living selling paintings depicting her perception of the gay community, a woman who has called the gay community “marvelous”, is now suggesting that same sex couples should not marry because it is for the “common good”? Where is her integrity!

[...]

The most sickening aspect of this story is that the money that Maureen Mullarkey earned from selling her art may have ended up as part of her donation in support of Proposition 8. Mullarkey’s choice to donate money to a cause banning gay marriage places the validity of her work in question. After all, she has long praised the solidarity of the gay community which she describes as “marvelous”.

* * *

Don't forget to checkout the comment sections at Pearl Diver, MyArtSpace, and the other links you'll lfind at those blogs.

And here's a link to Maureen Mullarkey's own website.

Related: El Coyote Says Goodbye to a Sweet Lady.

And: Marjorie is forced to leave El Coyote.

And for more examples of the anti-8 attitude: Revolting at the diner.

Anti-marriage activists seek retribution, again

National Review editor, Kathryn Lopez, interviewed Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage:

LOPEZ: What is most outrageous about the [Connecticut] bill [1098]?

BROWN: It’s hard to choose: Is it the open anti-Catholicism or the rank politics of retribution? A couple of powerful state politicians are sending a warning message to a religious group: If you take positions we dislike, we will hurt you. It’s a shot across the bow, a way for politicians to try to manage the political process so that selected religious groups and people are frightened into silence.

I really think this warning shot is intended for a national audience, not just Connecticut.

LOPEZ: Critics point out that it is allegedly being pushed by same-sex-marriage opponents. Is this really about the gay-marriage debate?

BROWN: It certainly doesn’t pass the smell test. Gay-marriage activists have been very open about going after the LDS church because Mormons donated money and time to Prop 8. This certainly appears to be part of that same strategy, although Michael Lawlor, for one, has been pretty openly contemptuous of the Catholic church for some time — something insiders at Hartford know, but his East Haven constituents may not.

[...]

LOPEZ: Why should anyone who’s not Catholic in Connecticut or Mormon in California care?

BROWN: All Americans, whatever their political leanings, should care when politicians propose to take out a specific religious group because partisans in one party don’t like its moral stands on important public issues.

Read the whole thing.

* * *

[Update: When I first posted this I mistakenly called the executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, Dan Brown, but his name is Brian Brown. My apologies.]

Poll Dancing

It's all over the news that a poll shows slight support for an amendment repealing the California Marriage Amendment. LATimes.com mentioned the poll in this blog entry by Shelby Grad.

Californians are evenly divided about repealing Proposition 8, the [California Marriage Amendment], according to a new Field Poll.

I seem to recall polls showing Prop 8 losing before the election, too. But it passed.

The Field Poll found that 48% of participants would support such a repeal, while 47% would reject killing Proposition 8 (the poll surveyed 781 registered voters).

781 is an awfully small sample. And registered voters aren't the same as likely voters.

This poll means nothing. What will change things is getting a new amendment on the ballot and getting it passed. That's it.

[reader comments and more after the jump]

And of course, there are the reader comments.

"Daniel" wrote March 10, 2009 at 11:35 AM:

Field polling a human rights issue is probably not a valid exercise.

State-issued licenses are not a matter of human rights.

"mike420" wrote March 10, 2009 at 10:26 AM:

The US Supreme court ruled that marriage was " a basic human right" back in 1967.

And yet notice that they didn't order the issuing of marriage licenses to brideless or groomless couples. What does that say? That they didn't consider such associations to be marriage. As I've pointed out before, that was not a comparable situation as the laws were preventing freedom of association.

That a significant percentage of our population thinks that marriage is anything other than something that unites the sexes shows just how much we have allowed marriage to be picked apart in our society. Too many guys have treated it as a way to replace their mother, or as a way of placating a sexual partner who considers marriage some sort of validation that she hasn't been fornicating with the wrong man. Too many women have treated it as some sort of birthright exercise in narcissism in which there is jewelry and there are a series of parties that are all about "me me me!" Too many people have used it as a means to some end other than truly committing to someone of the opposite sex and forming an inclusive family unit. This has made it easier for some people to assert that it is possible for two men or two women to truly be married, and for a sizable amount of the population not to see the oxymoron.

Previously:

Marriage is Dead – Part 1

Marriage is Dead – Part 2

What does gay sex create?

David Corvino proposes to explain, "Why gay couples are like straight couples."

He said:

[more below the fold]

the state neither knows nor cares (nor checks) whether people are having sex once they’re married or “civilly united.”

That may be so for civil union but not for marriage. There is a public interest in marriage that goes to the definitive, if private, aspect of the conjugal relationship.

The legal marital presumption of paternity makes of the conjugal relationship a sexualized type of relationship, at law. This is inapplicable to the one-sexed arrangement, gay or otherwise.

If the presumption is challenged, it is on the basis of the husband having opportunity to impregnate his wife. Only the husband or the wife could bring this before the court. If divorce is not imminent, judges are very reluctant to intrude. That's to protect the children, the spouses, and the social institution of marriage.

* * *

Also, note that Corvino continues the identity politics of SSM argumentation when he frames the sexual component of marriage in terms of a false gay/straight dichotomy. Marriage is about the unity of man and woman and the contingency for responsible procreation. Sexual orientation is not definitive of marriage.

There are no gay marriages. There are not straight marriages. There are only marriages. And marriage is two-sexed, not one-sexed.

* * *

Corvino wrote:

[P]eople generally assume (with good reason) that marriages and civil unions are sexual, or more broadly romantic. Romantic pair-bonding seems to be a fundamental human desire-for straights and gays-and part of what marriage does is to acknowledge pair-bonds. It does so not because the government is sentimental about such things, but because it recognizes the important role such bonds have in the lives of individuals and the community.

Marital status is a special status. It is not a reward for romance, neither broadly nor narrowly.

He claimed that marriage defenders believe -

that sex has social value only when open to procreation. But that’s just false, and most Americans know it.

The social value of marriage is at stake, not the social value of sex. That is where gay identity politics has got things turned inside-out.

What Corvino boldly claims that Americans know is only what he has been trying to convince Americans (especially very young Americans) to accept about sex. Or more particularly, about same-sex sexual behavior.

* * *

When SSMers attack the centrality of responsible procreation in lmarriage, they insist on us providing some legal requirements that would make procreation compulsory. They don't settle for some vague assumption or some vague assertion of what Americans might know.

No. They insist that without government enforcement of some absolute requirement, then, procreation is not essential to marriage. Corvino is no exception on that score.

* * *

So let's take that pro-SSM line of argument and set it against gay union.

Well, we do know, by looking at the law itself, that there is no love requirement, no same-sex sexual behavior requirement, no romance requirement for gay union anyplace that it has been imposed or enacted. That much we do know very well.

While the marital presumption of paternity makes marriage a sexual type of relationship, there is nothing comparable that would make gay union a sexual type of relationship.

But the legislators and the gay lobbiests do say a great deal about protections for vulnerable families. And yet they don't explain why those protections should depend on gayness.

Corvino wrote:

We acknowledge sexual/romantic relationships not merely because they might result in children, but also because of their special depth. Sex doesn’t merely make babies; it creates intimacy-for gays and straights alike.

Once again, Corvino has turned this inside-out. In effect he uses sex and intimacy as words for the same thing.

While he may speak for SSMers, he does not speak for most Americans.

The marriage idea is that the bond between husband and wife and their children is intimate.

Raw sex alone does not create this intimacy.

* * *

The marital bond unites husband and wife, for their own sakes, as mutual supporters and as sexual lovers, yes, and it also unites them as a community of both sexes with a hugely important public significance. On multiple levels, a strong marriage culture integrates the sexes and forms the basis for a flourishing both-sexed society. This is foundational to civilization.

Sex for the sake of sex is not foundational. Nor is it pair-bonding.

The marital bond is the solidarity of fatherhood and motherhood in the most pro-child social institution that we have. This is not secondary. This is combined with sex integration as a coherent whole. Sexual intimacy, like social intimacy, serves the family. When a married couple's relationship is strained by the vagaries of domestic life, including the ups and downs of sexual relations during the course of lifelong marriage, it is the social institution that keeps them together. Sexual faithfulness features in grounds for divorce and, as noted earlier, in the marital presumption of paternity.

If the marital bond was defined by sex alone, then, it would be a very fickle thing and would not be worthy of the word, bond, in the first place.

* * *

Corvino has not distinguished gay union from the rest of the nonmarital category. But he has a point about something else.

When civil union is offered as a compromise -- as providing "most or all marital benefits" -- it is unacceptable.

Unacceptable to the promoters of gay idenity politics, like Corvino, because they insist on equating gay with straight and would use marriage for that political and nonmarriage purpose.

Unacceptable to marriage defenders because they oppose merging nonmarriage with marriage -- call it civil union or SSM.

Marriage is distinguishable from nonmarriage and easily distinguishable from gay union.

Gay union is nonmarital and should not piggyback on marital status. It should stand on its own two feet -- merits and demerits.

If Corvino can plainly state the core meaning of gay union and justify a special status for it, then, the rest might flow. He might even draw lawful lines around the core of gay union so that society might distinguish it from the rest of the nonmarital category.

But he has not.

And, apparently, he is incapable of doing so, even after many years writing about and advocating and being a pioneer for gay union.

Notable CA Marriage Amendment Coverage From the Weekend

There was a lot of coverage over the last several days of marriage neutering issues, surrounding the hearing held last Thursday on the California Marriage Amendment. I have zeroed in on a few of the pieces in the MSM that caught my attention. Join me after the jump if you are interested.

[continued below the fold]

The Orange County Register had this article by Chris Caesar, Vik Jolly, and Elysse James.

"I want my kids to grow up in a world where everyone can grow up in a world with a stabilizing institution like marriage," said Kelly vonHemert of North Tustin.

Then why not simply ban the use to "third-party" reproduction for anything other than a bride-groom couple? Neutering marriage licensing based on this concern is like saying you want everyone to have access to milk, so where there are milk shortages, you will label water as milk.

Children should be raised by two loving parents, with all the same benefits bestowed by the state, she said, holding a sign that read, "Straight Christian mom for gay rights."

Why just two?

The bigger question, Prosser said, was whether the court would permit "well-funded" public initiatives to strip rights from protected minority groups in the future.

Proposition 2 took property rights away from farmers. Where are the complaints about that? By this definition of "rights", every proposition takes away someone's rights. A new tax on cigarettes takes away the rights of smokers.

"This ongoing effort by, basically, the Mormon Church to take our rights away...the amount of money being spent is something everyone should be afraid of," she said.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the LDS church or any church or group that traces its origin/restoration to Joseph Smith (and no, I don't mind if anyone gets baptized in my place). Most of the people who voted for the California Marriage Amendment can say the same thing. I can assure you, I’d still be against judicial activism, against marriage neutering, and for the California Marriage Amendment even if there was no such thing as Mormons.

"It's a faith issue first, then a civil rights issue," said Rev. Michael L. Holland of Church of the Foothills. He was joined at Thursday's rally by Rev. Stanley Smith, of the First Christian Church of Orange and Harbor Christian Church Rev. Dennis Short.

So much for keeping the church out of this.

"We believe they should have full civil rights," Holland said, adding that he hopes the rally will let the community know that the church is in support of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.

So do I, and so am I. But the difference is that neither I (nor the Bible these churches supposedly claim as Scripture) overlooks or approves of sinful behavior, removing functioning genitals or dressing inappropriately to pretend to be the other sex, nor the mocking of marriage.

Maria L. LaGanga had this piece in the Los Angeles Times on the spectators/demonstrators.

Couples on both sides of the debate pushed strollers, each trying to show with toddler-size flesh what a real family looks like.

Yes, except that we know none of the same-sex couples became parents together without third, fourth, or fifth parties, and none of them provide those children with both a mother and a father in a marital home.

The paper also ran a couple of opinion pieces, including this editorial, which goes "abolish marriage licensing" route.

Notice that people, like this editorial board, who are so concerned about securing state-licensed marriage for brideless or groomless couples and claim it is so vital, important, and necessary, turn around and say the state should get out of marriage licensing entirely. This reveals the truth that most of us have known all along – this whole thing is more about tearing down marriage than improving the lives of homosexual people.

What if California got out of the marriage business altogether? What if the state merely licensed or just recognized private, contractual civil unions with all the benefits of marriage, and couples went to the religious or private institution of their choice to sanctify their vows?

Some people only believe in the state – and aren't judges representatives of the state? Aside from that, there are a host of legal issues tied in to state-licensed marriage. The state does have an interest in licensing marriage, primarily because of children, who, unlike the adults, do not choose to be a party to their familial associations.

The argument frequently raised against same-sex marriage is that marriage represents a special bond, traditionally and biblically reserved for a man and woman.

It isn’t reserved so much as that is just how it is. Most religions see marriage as something created by God or some "equivalent". If you believe in naturalistic evolution as how all of us got here in the first place, then this is how society has evolved. Same-sex "marriage" is not some organic thing that has been suppressed over the centuries by churches or laws. It simply has only existed where it has been modeled off of an institution that stretched the span of human history - marriage. Marriage is a self-perpetuating thing. Marriage naturally leads to children, who grow up within marriage, and most of them will seek to be married themselves. Pairing two people of the same sex does not naturally produce children, and the "family" naturally remains just the two aging founders who eventually die off.

The court's role is to interpret laws, not make new ones, which is the job of the Legislature or, through the initiative process, the voters.

Yes - EXACTLY! And so tell me what law it was again that neutered marriage licensing in California? Oh, that’s right. It wasn’t a law signed by the Governor or voted in by the people. It was a court order.

Robin Rauzi, a former articles editor for the Op-Ed page, writes in this piece that she'll be a "marriage outlaw".

California still has what is likely the largest population of married same-sex couples -- an estimated 18,000 -- anywhere in the world. That's 18,000 raspberry seeds stuck in their teeth for years to come.

How many of those were for out-of-state couples and will never be recognized? Also, between "divorce" and death, they will continue to shrink and not be replaced.

The court caused a problem when they refused to wait for the vote of the people on the California Marriage Amendment – which they knew was coming. Thankfully, the people of California voted to restore marriage licensing to reflect actual marriage.

Stand to Reason Blog on CA Marriage Amendment

Melinda over at Stand to Reason has checked in on this past Thursday's hearing on the California Marriage Amendment.

As we've argued long and often at STR (a search on this blog will produce a number of posts on the topic), marriage isn't an issue of fairness. It's not a civil right. It's necessarily discriminatory because it favors the kinds of relationships that the state has in interest in. Marriage is unique in that it produces the next generation of society, an interest all cultures must favor.

A culture commits suicide quickly when it discourages reproduction. It commits suicide a little more slowly when it fails to encourage the ideal that the reproduction take place withing a bride-groom marriage.

The state obviously has an interest in traditional marriage.

Marriage isn't a civil right because the government is only obligated to treat equals equally. Same-sex marriage, by definition, is not equal to heterosexual marriage. It's not that the individuals aren't equal, they certainly are. But two men and a men and a woman are obviously not equal pairings. The objection is always offered that the people love each other. Frankly, the government doesn't care about feelings, it cares about commitments and oaths that keep the family intact for the children marriage produces. Citizens have the freedom to enter into all kinds of relationships they choose to based on their feelings, but government has no stake in those. That's why traditional marriage is different and should be treated differently than other relationships.

"A lot of gay guys voted against gay marriage"

Comedian Jimmy Dore, at the Funny Farm Comedy Club, explained the real problem with Proposition 8.

* * *

Please by advised that the use of coarse language occurs during the last 5 seconds of the video clip.

Feminist: Freezing a foolish and selfish choice.

About CORETHICS.org:

Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE) was founded in 1994 by Josephine Quintavalle and Margaret Nolan. It is a public interest group focusing on ethical dilemmas surrounding human reproduction, particularly the new technologies of assisted conception.

It aims to facilitate informed and balanced debate, to involve lay people in discussion of the issues involved, to encourage the broader participation of philosophers, theologians and social scientists in dialogue, and where necessary to bring about democratic reform to the legislation controlling these practices.

Absolute respect for the human embryo is a principal tenet. Of particular concern to CORE are matters relating to the physical and psychological welfare of children born from these various practices.

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Here's an interesting article from this UK public interest group:

"Freezing eggs to postpone motherhood? A foolish and selfish choice."

[more below the fold]

First of all egg-freezing entails costly and invasive IVF treatment for women who do not need it, and if eggs are harvested there will be considerable storage fees to face as well. Egg harvesting may sound like nothing when promoted by the IVF specialist, but it can produce very nasty side effects including permanent damage to fertility and very sadly, even lead to death. And if the older mother does return to collect her eggs and create embryos artificially, she will be lucky if any eggs survive and equally lucky if she achieves a healthy pregnancy. Older women have more complications in pregnancy, and there are risk factors attached to IVF anyway which should not be underestimated.

Hardly an ideal to aim for.

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What kind of decision would put children last rather than first as a priority? How could a career be more important than the welfare of one's child? It is in the interests of children to have the healthiest possible start to life, with mothers both young enough to provide the energy levels necessary to nurture them, and with a good life expectancy ahead.

And the father, the forgotten man, should be in the centre of the picture too.

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Pragmatically it is risky and chances of success are low. But more importantly it endorses rather than solves issues of discrimination in the work force and is totally unsympathetic to the rights of the child or the role of the male.

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The group is directed by Josephine Quintavalle, with a number of post-graduate students providing research assistance. CORE benefits from an ad hoc advisory team headed by Prof John Haldane (St Andrews University) and includes Dr Agneta Sutton (University of Chichester), Dr Helen Watt (Linacre Centre for Healthcare Ethics), Prof John Keown (Kennedy Institute, Georgetown), Dr David Prentice (Center for Clinical Bioethics, Washington D.C.), Dr Jacqueline Laing (London Guildhall University).

Won't Be Fooled Again

William C. Duncan, the director of the Marriage Law Foundation, wrote about marriage-related developments in Utah: "Utah 's 'Common Ground' Package a Trojan Horse".

A group called Utah Equality has proposed a package of legislation meant to increase the rights of same-sex couples in Utah. The package has been presented against a backdrop of widespread intimidation directed towards supporters of marriage as the union of husband and wife, including churches.

One of the bills this group includes in its package (expanding eligibility for unmarried people to pursue wrongful death actions) is currently pending in the Utah Legislature. The most significant part of the package would repeal a provision of the Utah Constitution that prevents the creation of legal statuses—such as civil unions-- equivalent to marriage that have been understood as a prelude to redefining marriage in California and Connecticut.

Supporters of the package have presented this legislation as the only way for supporters of marriage to show they are acting in good faith.

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Don't be Fooled.

Recent court decisions in other states have similarly made clear that providing benefits to same-sex couples, no matter how minor and even if accompanied by statement of intent meant to protect marriage, will be treated as evidence that the legislature does not object to redefining marriage.

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It is neither necessary nor wise for the legislature to endorse a package of legislation meant to change the State's sound public policy in regard to marriage.

The means to an end and not and end in itself.

See: "The Uneasy Truce of Civil Unions", by Emissary at the blog Support The Traditional Family.

There is legislative action in several states regarding homosexual rights. A list is found here. Some would grant civil unions (approximating marriage). Others, like the Common Initiatives in Utah, are for more basic legal rights. However, all worry traditional family supporters. They feel that this is just the beginning of the slippery slope towards gay marriage.

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I think traditional marriage supports have a right to be worried. If it were just basic legal rights, I don't think they would be as concerned. But civil unions are really just an uneasy truce; the state never knows when a lawsuit is coming. If civil unions were treated as an end instead of a means to an end, I think it would work better. But as long as the push includes a neutering redefinition of marriage, even the push for basic legal rights is in jeopardy.

Capitulation and Around The Bend

Jennifer Roback Morse blogged about Doug Kmiec's recent anti-8 opinion piece:

What Kmiec and his coauthor present as a moderate, compromise position, is in fact, a complete capitulation.

He accepts at face value the claims that redefining marriage is a civil rights imperative. But this is precisely the claim that the voters of CA rejected.

Same sex marriage is much more than a civil rights issue: redefining marriage will have many, many ramifications throughout society. These consequences swayed the voters, but evidently the opponents of Prop 8 do not even consider them worth mentioning.

"Getting the State Out of the Marriage Business" is not a compromise, but a capitulation.

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The fact that same sex marriage supporters have gone to court over this illustrates one thing: they have given up even the pretense of making rational arguments in favor of their position.

During the campaign, their argument was, This is unfair, you are hurting our feelings. We responded with real concerns about the impact of redefining marriage on religious liberty, school curriculum and much more. But as long as ssm proponents can keep the spotlight on civil rights, they excuse themselves from even having to face these issues.

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She also said: "I will have an article about this soon. Newsleter subscribers will be the first to know. Sign up for the Ruth Institute newsletter here."

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Related blogposts here, here, and here.

Kmiec's Gratuitous Assumption

See: "Douglas Kmiec comes out against Proposition 8", by Carl Olson at Insight Scoop.

If I understand Kmiec and Saxer correctly, they are saying that the state should no longer use any language normally connected with marriage, including terms such as "marriage" and "married." The gratuitous assumption is that because marriage is supposedly of religious origin, in a civil order that legally distinguishes between state and church, there is no state interest or purpose in defining marriage as union between one man and one woman. But how does that follow? A good case can be made, historically speaking, for the religious origin of laws against murder, theft, rape, and, yes, slavery. Shall we have a state-neutral stance regarding those activities?

Not even the Catholic Church, [one of] the only major defender[s] and protector[s] of marriage still left in the West, it seems, holds marriage to be of religious origin. Canon 1055 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law describes marriage as a natural institution, to which some important sacramental qualities have been added in certain cases, but not in such a way as to destroy the fundamental natural basis of the relationship. Marriage has been recognized as a natural institution down through thousands of years of history, all around the world, across numerous cultures and religions. How is it that a California Supreme Court opinion that had been in place for only a few months has already established a fundamental right that cannot be trumped by an institution whose nature has been known for thousands of years?

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Related blogposts here, here, here, and here.

Abolish the Nomenclature of Marriage in the Law?

See: "Equality in substance and in name" by Douglas W. Kmiec and Shelley Ross Saxer inthe San Francisco Chronicle.

Their recommendation:

Direct the state to employ non-marriage terminology for all couples - be it civil union or some equivalent. While new terminology for all may at first seem awkward - mostly in greeting card shops - the third step dovetails with the court's important responsibility to reaffirm the unfettered freedom of all faiths to extend the nomenclature of marriage as their traditions allow.

Our comment section is open.

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Related blogposts here, here, here, and here.

SSM - Specious Substitution of Marriage

Civil union is SSM in all but name. It is a nonmarital alternative.

Maggie Gallagher:

Marriage for all or marriage for no one? Doug Kmiec, who signed onto more than one amicus brief urging courts around the country to uphold marriage as the union of one man and one woman, co-authored an op-ed recently with a new, evolved position: Ken Starr is wrong to try to uphold Prop. 8; instead, we should get government out of the marriage business. (Admittedly, it's a little legally incoherent for the same man to say the court should NOT have struck down Prop. 8 in the first place and then say Starr is WRONG to defend the constitutional rights of Californians to amend their own constitution but, hey, let's not get distracted.)

[Read More Below The Fold]

Justice Chin actually pointed to Kmiec's op-ed and raised the issue with lawyers on both sides of Prop. 8 during yesterday's oral arguments: Would civil unions for all satisfy the equal protection clause? If so, could the court order it? Starr said it would satisfy equal protection but would be a tragedy for society because marriage (as we've traditionally understood it) serves important purposes. The anti-Prop. 8 lawyers said, sure yes, marriage for no one would be an acceptable outcome if Prop. 8 were not overrruled.

Note: Conceptually, wouldn't it be a little odd for a court that just redefined marriage in order to comply with a fundamental human right to same-sex marriage to conclude it has the power to take marriage away from the 15 million or so married Californians? Of what does the fundamental human right to marry consist? (This is a harder question to answer than one might imagine, either from the traditional or the liberal side.)

But today the LA Times weighed in with an editorial endorsing the idea as worthy of further discussion. Any takers?

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Related blogposts here, here, here, and here.