Stroke Survivors Report Loss Of Sexual Desire, Blurred Gender Roles, Anger And Fatigue

• Sexual relationships changed. A 35 year-old female stroke survivor summed up the general feeling well. “It’s not a husband and wife role anymore” she said. “It’s a carer and a patient and it’s not very pleasant and it’s not fair.”
• All but one of the respondents reported a reduction or total loss of sexual desire after their stroke. Some felt that this was down to medication and fear of another stroke. As one 61 year-old male told the researchers “I want her there now as a friend but not really as my wife.”

These are very serious issues which couples may be ill prepared to deal with. I know some people who are dealing with these issues, especially as they get older. So it is with some distaste in my stomach for myself that I sum up the relevance of this as a pithy rejoinder to bad arguments I've seen in this debate.... "does this mean they are living a lie to be married?"

Inactive Period

Due to some persistent technical problems and other matters that have made blogging difficult for me, I'll be entering an inactive period in the blogosphere.

Expect me back in a few months.

Cheerio,

Chairm Ohn.

Mate Selection: Honesty In Advertising Pays Off

The idea that males showcase their best qualities to attract females for mating isn't a new one, nor is the idea that they might be deceptive in what they are promoting. Instead, the new findings better predict the requirement for honesty in advertising as a function of the male's suitability for parenting, according to Natasha Kelly, a graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale and lead author of the study.

Interesting

An Immodest Disposal

Following up from the last post from Daffyd, I have another that recently crossed my desk from his site. It speculates that Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has nearly bankrupted California with a very Obama like style of government bailouts, is yet another victim of Prop 8 boycotts...

2. I suspect the second main reason for no Obamic bailout of California is lingering anger and resentment over the citizen's constitutional amendment that overturned California's State Supreme Court on the issue of same-sex marriage (SSM).

Proposition 8 was passed by a strong majority; it amended the state constitution to declare marriage to be only between one man and one woman; no other form of union would be legal or recognized in the state as a "marriage." (The 18,000 same-sex couples who married during the brief interval in which it was legal are "grandfathered" in.) I suspect that a great many Democrats in Congress -- and the One Himself -- still seethe that the people of the state took back their own government from the elites... and still fear that such resistance might set an example to citizens in many other states, on many other issues. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people has never been very popular in "people's republics."

Yes, I know; President Obama says that he agrees with the voters of California that marriage should be restricted to mixed-sex couples. Color me skeptical; I find it much more likely that, like many other Democrats, he sincerely wants to revolutionize marriage, along with every other bedrock principle upon which Western Civilization is built. I believe he would not only be fine with same-sex marriage but polygamy as well -- that strokes two special-interest groups at once!

Muslims would be counted as a polygamous special interest group, as we've seen in politics in Britain and Canada. I should note that the "2" above notes that it is a secondary proposition to explain the events, and not his primary.

Leftist to the right, Right Wingers to the left...

Its normally news that could be presented anywhere else just for entertainment purposes. It shows, to me, a very strange undercurrent of authority in abstract...

So then something extraordinary -- and rather embarrassing -- happened.

The two sides, like feuding junior high schoolers refusing to acknowledge each other, began holding separate legislative sessions at the same time. Side by side, the parties, each asserting that it rightfully controls the Senate, talked and sometimes shouted over one another, gaveling through votes that are certain to be disputed. There were two Senate presidents, two gavels, two sets of bills being voted on.

The place is New York. The time is very current. In fact, the reason this gets a spot on Opine is...

The normal session expired in the middle of this month; depending on the outcome of the stalemate (I'm tempted to call it "Fool's Mate" instead), there may be insufficient time to bring up the same-sex marriage (SSM) bill before the expiration of the current "extraordinary session," called by N.Y. Gov. David Paterson. If it expires, and if Paterson does not call another, then I think the Senate is in recess until January... at least so the New York State Senate's own website seems to say.

For the links on how they got in such a predicament, and more, follow Daffyd's coverage at Big Lizards...

Perhaps unrelated but fun trivia, can anyone name the last US Congress bill that was voted on before in the great day of Republican power ended? It was right before they started bickering amongst themselves over immigration. A bill that was considered an unserious attempt at political grandstanding...

The Argument for Incestuous Marriage

In response to the mention of incest in this post a commenter lays out the case for incestuous marriage:

1. Loving v. Virginia requires all marriages be legal.
2. Government should not get in the way of love.
3. Allowing it will lead to more happiness.
4. Friends and family think it's a good idea.

[Quote below the fold.]

...marriage is a civil right as defined first by Loving v. Virginia 1967, and in several court decisions since then. The principle of it being a civil right survives the fact that the 1967 case was about interracial marriage, but I am sure others will disagree and try to dismiss this point with race.

The difference between your Aunt and I is the fact that she is not banned from marrying who she loves when she does find them. Many in the [incest] world have found their love but are banned by their government from having the same recognition and benefits only because who they love is the same [family]. Aren't our laws made to afford the due process of our actions and merits? Why then should we put that aside in this instance?

Given all things careful consideration the benefit of [relatives] being married is that they will be happier. If they are happier they are more productive and their happiness spreads in our society as it does in all other people and circumstances. Those who accuse that [incest] equality will cause our society harm have an obligation to prove what they accuse beyond a reasonable doubt before society should act to restrict such inalienable civil rights.

I have lived with my spouse for almost 15 years now, and we were married in 2007. Our neighbors love us, our family accepts us, and we have not found one person who can honestly point out anything that we have done to harm society. Why then would we give up that joy for the sake of someone's unfounded fears?

DOJ, DOMA, and Bigotry

In the U.S. Department of Justice's recent defense of DOMA, they noted that there have been marriages performed elsewhere, including between close relatives and someone underage, that American courts have not recognized.

This has elicited apoplectic responses from marriage neutering advocates, who regularly express outrage that homosexual behavior would be compared to consensual incest. They do this even when the comments do not equate homosexuality and incest, but rather, as Department's paper did, the comments simply note that states are allowed, as established in precendents, to have certain restrictions on marriage licensing and recognizing marriages created in other jurisdictions.

It is no more equating homosexuality with incest than we equate a person's dislike of broccoli with the same person's allergy to peanuts. The point is that neither will be eaten, even if it is for different reasons.

[Much more below the fold; make the jump if you want to read it.]

But in their condemnations of citing the inability of an uncle and niece to have their marriage recognized by a state, most marriage neutering activists assume or outright declare that incest is wrong or harmful and should not be allowed or sanctioned.

My question is – why?

Keep in mind, I'm talking about consenting adults, not molestation or rape. As an example, take this case, where this man's adult daughter evidently not only had intercourse with him, but posed nude for him for pictures featured on his business website, and got a tattoo celebrating her status as his girl. Arguing that incest is sickening takes the same approach that many have taken towards homosexual behavior – they find it personally repugnant. The same goes for the argument "it is illegal". And don't bother to cite religious doctrines or traditions, or what is best for society. We can't stand in the way of love or attraction, after all, and we must treat all couples equally. Yes, the Smiths were, according to police, involved in other crimes, but I'm sure that is mere coincidence, or that they wouldn't have been doing those other crimes if society would have been more affirming of their love.

Some may try to argue that homosexuality is their genetic mandate – that they were born with that orientation and the same isn't true when it comes to incest. However, there are those who experience what is being called Genetic Sexual Attraction, some featured in major newspapers and in major network television news magazines, who would disagree. And taking into account not only those cases with adult children finding lost parents, and full-blood siblings who grew up together, but cousins, stepsiblings and half siblings – whether playing doctor or other childhood games or something less innocent - a higher percentage of the population has no doubt at least experimented with incest than has experimented with homosexuality.

In condemning incest, marriage neutering advocates are usually taking the same approaches that marriage defenders have taken in opposing the neutering of marriage.

Ah, but consenting adults engaging in homosexuality are not hurting anyone else, whether or not they are hurting each other and themselves, but (heterosexual) incest can increase the likelihood that resulting children will have genetic problems.

Well, that argument might be acceptable – if it is coming from someone who does not also recognize "reproductive rights" and "privacy rights" and is also willing to outlaw reproduction between others with an increased likelihood of passing along health or developmental problems to their children.

In other words, would it be okay if the siblings were sterilized? If they pledged to use abortion should contraception fail? Besides, isn't having a child - or not - a private, personal matter? (That is cited when a same-sex couple uses third party reproduction, or when anyone chooses abortion.) And we do not prevent people with inherited genetic diseases from reproducing.

Haven't we separated sex from reproduction, sex from marriage, and marriage from reproduction, anyway? Haven't we established that marriage is about love and attraction, not children?

Taking all of this into account, some marriage neutering activists give up opposing incest, and in a bid for consistency in supporting their own cause, sacrifice some of their morals qualms to claim that no, there shouldn't be a restriction against incestuous marriages, either. Most of these people secretly disbelieve this assertion, but they are at a loss to explain why, if equality for couples and "freedom to marry" is the goal and is a right, incestuous couples should not also be able to get marriage licenses. Some would argue that a same-sex incestuous couple should be allowed to legally marry because they can't reproduce, but that is still a violation of equality if that "right to marry" is not extended to a brother and sister, or a grown daughter and father – thereby defeating the supposed purpose of their current campaign.

I'm fully aware that the incest lobby isn't nearly as large, organized, and powerful as the homosexuality advocacy lobby. That still doesn’t justify the hostility – some would call it bigotry - that marriage neutering advocates show towards incestuous lovers.

I could write an entire essay on why incest is wrong and bad for society, but I've been repeatedly told not to force my morality on others – by people who turn around and try to force their morality on others.

Adventure Captain Pants wrote about this subject, too.

More Poll Dancing

The Los Angeles Times has an article by Cathleen Decker on their poll that found support for neutering marriage "varies widely among racial and ethnic groups" in Los Angeles. Since marriage licensing is a statewide issue and not restricted to Los Angeles, this is probably just a way for the advocates to see how and where to direct their pleas to go along with marriage neutering.

The article invokes the "inevitability card", relying on those who do not think enough of the younger generations will get more conservative in marriage and family issues as they age to sustain a defense of marriage. We, as marriage defenders, should not rely on the tendency towards conservativism with age and parenthood, however. We should be reaching out to those in our sphere of influence to encourage the defense of marriage.

You can find the paper's corresponding blog entry and comments here.

By the way, I have a new installment on my namesake blog, analyzing the paper's editorial discussing a California school district's sexualizing of grade school children to advance the promotion of homosexuality. I mostly agree with the editorial, if you can believe that.

A Letter on the False Compromise

The Los Angeles Times printed some letters responding to the recent commentary by Douglas Kmiec (which I analyzed here) calling for the False Compromise. Sandra Wolber of Granada Hills wrote:

I agree with Douglas Kmiec that the civil and religious aspects of the union of two individuals should be separated.

This is already possible, at least from a human perspective. A bride and a groom can get legally married in at a non-religious location by someone who isn't clergy. Likewise, any couple (or trio, or any other grouping) can undergo a religious ceremony without a civil involvement. So, we don't need the false compromise to do this. People who want that split can already have it. Let the rest of us keep marriage intact.

The state could fulfill its regulatory function by issuing civil union licenses to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation; then those couples who so desire could have a marriage within their own religious tradition.

Why just couples? If the state is going to be obligated to license any personal relationship, why limit it to couples?

[The rest is below the fold; make the jump if you want to read it.]

There are several others letter printed, too.

One of the mistakes being made is a tacit assertion that it is religion, and only religion, that restricts marriage to being a bride + groom union. This may be fed, in part, by marriage defenders who invoke religion or religious texts in their defense of marriage. While I do believe that marriage has divine origins, I often note that one need not be religious to understand that marriage unites the sexes, nor to see the value in having state licensing reflect that.

Even governments that officially rejected religion and promoted atheism, such as the Soviet Union, have recognized that marriage unites the sexes.

Baboon Families, both biological and platonic

They studied the behaviour of more than 500 male and females in the four groups, and used genetic tests to determine the paternity of 183 of the baboons, including 23 young infants being cared for by a mother and her chaperone.

Half of all the male chaperones did turn out to be the father of the infant whose mother they befriended.

That is highly surprising in one respect, because each of the females mated with multiple males around the time they conceived. "But of these potential dads, only the genetic dads became friends," says Nguyen.

"To my knowledge, human males cannot tell their own offspring from unrelated offspring, but somehow baboon dads can tell."

But the study revealed an even bigger surprise.

"Half of the friends were not genetic fathers. But these guys weren't even potential fathers, that is, they didn't even mate with the female when she conceived the infant, and these guys didn't receive mating benefits."

Interesting in so many dimensions.

Census study of gay married couples finds similarities to husband-and-wife couples

Chino has tried to divert a perfectly good question from Op-Ed with more of his usual off-topic spam, "Census study of gay married couples finds similarities to husband-and-wife couples". Well, here is my analysis in a seperate thread as to not divert the discussion there. To me is it interesting enough that these simularities are simply...

Married men and women average about 50 years old, and about four in 10 have kids living at home. The average couple pulls down a little over $90,000 a year and four in five own their home.

That demographic portrait doesn't just fit the nation's 56 million husband-and-wife couples. It also closely fits the roughly 340,000 households where two men call themselves husbands, or two women consider themselves wives.

Which may not very interesting at all if it is close to median for all heads of households in the census. But perhaps it isn't. And perhaps the burried headline here is the differences not the simularities.

[Read on for the details...]

There other non-married (this report only shows non-married couples of the same gender) groups provided in the article to compare. For instance, their median age is about 10% or more less than the married groups, which is probably statistically significant.

The non-married are younger, in fact, from the ones who do not consider themselves married. This may even be more of an indication of how this uprising generation that we keep hearing will herald in the age of neutered marriage, simply don't care about marriage at all. Queue the old "Marriage is dying in Scandinavia" statistics, and a parallel between an adult oriented marriage ideal, and lack of interest in it, seems to go hand in hand.

It also seems to go hand in hand with not taking care of children. The heterosexual couples had significantly more children in the households than any other group. But did anyone notice the wage gap in that? Talk about the glass ceiling, the heterosexuals in that are getting lower wages then even the all female couples.

Ninth Circuit Court: Sperm Donation Does Not Enable Survivor Benefits

Well, sort of – if you can call this an instance of sperm donation. Nicole Santa Cruz reports on the LATimes.com blog about the case of 10-year-old Brandalynn Vernoff, whose mother, Gabriela Vernoff, had sperm extracted from her freshly-deceased husband, Bruce Vernoff, who died accidentally in July 1995. Bandalynn is the result of the use of that sperm, which spent some time in the freezer. Gabriela was trying to get child survivor benefits for her daughter from the Social Security Administration – the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Gabriela.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday the child, Brandalynn Vernoff, was not dependent on her father at the time of his death.

Correct. She did not exist as a human being yet, as she had not been conceived. If this court has ruled otherwise (or if the SCOTUS does), what would that mean for eggs harvested from babies aborted by choice or spontaneously? That the benefits someone who was never born, and thus never contributed to Society Security, can be claimed by a "survivor"? This wouldn't even be possible, would it – as that person never has a Social Security Number and was never vested? Or would that be different because the womb matters more than the egg? Or could a child with a "womb mother" but a different "egg mother" claim survivor benefits from three parents?

[The rest is below the fold; make the jump if you want to read it.]

Human beings in the fetal stage of growth do have some rights, including inheritance – even though there is a legal "right" to kill them. Sperm and eggs are not human beings and do not have inheritance rights, from what I understand. I am unclear about the situation when it comes to human beings currently frozen as embryos, who can also be legally killed.

In California, dependency is determined by the parent-child relationship rather than the marital status of the parents, according to the decision.

That is interesting. If that is really true, how can biological fathers who never had more than a one night stand with the mother and never meet the offspring be ordered to pay child support?

James Raetz, one of Gabriela Vernoff’s attorneys, said California has a system set up to protect sperm bank donors, and this case is an unintended consequence of the law.

Still, in some states, sperm donors are not "protected" very well and can be held somewhat financially responsible.

Bruce Vernoff's sperm was removed after his death, and there was no evidence of plans for a birth after the father’s death, according to court documents.

"That’s the big distinction," Raetz said. "The court really hung on that."

Another interesting aspect – the subjectivity of intentions coming into play. This is why a person can be charged with murder if he kills a baby in the womb – unless that is what the mother wanted and he is a doctor. Heck, he can be convicted of murder anyway if it happens in a road accident instead of a clinic. So if I donate my sperm and declare that I do want children to be conceived after I die, those children can get my survivor benefits from the government, even though we wouldn't have a "parent-child relationship"?

However, Raetz said, the couple did have plans for a baby.

They HAD a plans for a baby. That was before he died. He wasn't expecting to die.

"No matter what, she’s a single mom trying to raise her daughter," he said.

Now come on. This is like when a defense attorney asks for lenience on his client convicted of murdering his parents, "because he is an orphan." It wasn’t like, after a session of marital lovemaking, her husband went out to get a pack of smokes at the local store, and ended up getting killed, and then she turned out to be pregnant as a result of their session. She deliberately had his sperm extracted, then frozen for – what – a few years? And then had it thawed and used to conceive the child - through IVF? It doesn't say. With or without IVF, it was a deliberate effort to conceive a child using the genetic material of a person who could not consent and had been deceased for years, and it was irresponsible of her to do this.

There's no mention about whether or not she is or was remarried, so my guess is she wasn't or isn't. If she wasn't, it was irresponsible for her to deliberately conceive a child knowing she would not have her father raising her. If she is married, why can’t her new husband support her daughter?

More from legal newspaper Metropolitan News-Enterprise, as reporter Sherri M. Okamota explains:

While her appeal was pending, the Ninth Circuit decided Gillett-Netting v. Barnhart, 371 F.3d 593 (9th Cir. 2004), which held that a set of posthumously-conceived twins were the deemed dependents of their biological father and entitled to survivor benefits.

The administration subsequently issued an “acquiescence ruling” to the decision, noting that in the Ninth Circuit a child must be biologically related to the insured and the insured's child under applicable state law to be a deemed dependent.

Writing for the appellate court yesterday, Senior Judge Cynthia Holcomb Hall explained that Gillett-Netting was based on Arizona state law, which recognizes "[e]very child [as] the legitimate child of its natural parents," but that California law does not equate natural parent status with biological parenthood.

Gabriela tried to invoke "equal protection". After all, Bandalynn would have "rights" in Arizona she doesn't have in California, and other children in California get survivor benefits, but the court didn't go for it. So, I guess this is more proof that it is okay for some states not to grant the same "rights" that other states grant, and it is okay to treat people in different circumstances differently, even when that means someone will not get federal government benefits as a result? Can you think of other areas where this concept applies?

(I should note that I'm generally against government programs that extract money from payrolls for the purpose of simply redistributing the cash or supposedly giving it back to us or our survivors later. I can save and hire insurance companies on my own, thank you.)

The Procreation Question

A simple question for proponents of neutering marriage:

For the sake of argument, let's assume that procreation is not entirely predictable and even though it can't be entirely predicted, when it does occur it invokes significant obligations on the procreating couple. Further, let's assume that the fulfillment of these obligations is of vital importance to society, that when the procreating couple does not meet its obligations to the children it produces not only do the children suffer, but the community at large can be affected.

Now let's say that these obligations are so significant and the impact on the community is so great that society sets aside an institution specifically to look after these concerns. Would it be wrong to exclude from such an institution arrangements such as same-sex relationships without any potential to procreate?

Dad's Overworked And Tired While Mom's Potentially Fired

If dad looks exhausted this Father's Day it could be due to his job, suggests new research that found many male employees are now pressured to work up to 40 hours of overtime—often unpaid— per week to stay competitive.

Again, there's a gender difference. Not in the capability or capacity to work, but obligation...

Women face the same pressures, but family obligations may force them to work fewer hours on the job, putting them at risk for demotions or even firings.

And on that note, I recommend one of Opine's best works, "This isn't about Gays. It's about Marriage, Sex, and Responsible Fatherhood".

Three Points Regarding Obama on DOMA

In Associated Press writer Philip Elliott's story, President Obama said of DOMA:

"I believe it's discriminatory, I think it interferes with states' rights, and we will work with Congress to overturn it."

1. All laws discriminate, so yes, DOMA is discriminatory. It is perfectly Constitutional for the government to treat different kinds of voluntary associations differently. No problem here.

2. DOMA doesn't stop states from neutering marriage licensing, or otherwise interfere in what a state does, so I don't know how it interferes in states' rights. Perhaps someone can explain this, or should we just chalk this up to a political platitude from someone who never talks about states' rights otherwise?

3. I don't doubt that he will ask Congress to overturn it. That is why every voter should get their Senators and Representative to pledge to support DOMA. But how do his statements about DOMA square with his statement during the campaign that marriage is between a man and woman?

Today's Marriage Neutering Material in the Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is chock full of marriage neutering stuff again. Mark Z. Barabak and Jessica Garrison report on what I mentioned earlier – President Obama's move to extend benefits to "partners" of federal employees.

It was not immediately clear whether Obama's latest decision would mollify his critics.

No, it won't. Marriage neutering advocates would not stop complaining even if neutered marriage became the law of the land written experessly in the Constitution, because someone is always going to realize, despite any changes to law, policy, school curriculum, etc. that there is a difference between the pairing of a man and a woman and the pairing of two men and the pairing of two women. As long as someone notes the difference, the advocates will be complaining about it.

[The rest is below the fold; make the jump if you want to read it.]

Marriage provides a clear delineation. Employers, especially the government, have some incentive to extend benefits to spouses - in no small part because normal marital behavior naturally creates children. When non-marriage is incentivised as though it is marriage, the results can discourage marriage. On what basis are these benefits to be extended to non-spouses? Will a sexual orientation test be included? I am open to an argument for the value to society for extending (some) benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, but I am reluctant to officially encourage and sanction what I am convinced is harmful behavior. However, there must be some way of distinguishing between a committed couple and a casual one.

A "fact sheet" is offered here.

In an Oval Office event later today, President Barack Obama will sign a Presidential Memorandum on Federal Benefits and Non-Discrimination.

Interesting title, yet there will be plenty of discrimination. Trios and other group arrangements will be discriminated against. Roommates, related or not, will be discriminated against. Why shouldn't a "single" person not be able to designate a partner – such as friend who could use the benefits?

For civil service employees, domestic partners of federal employees can be added to the long-term care insurance program; supervisors can also be required to allow employees to use their sick leave to take care of domestic partners and non-biological, non-adopted children. For foreign service employees, a number of benefits were identified, including the use of medical facilities at posts abroad, medical evacuation from posts abroad, and inclusion in family size for housing allocations.

The editorial board complains that Obama hasn't done enough to "advance gay rights" – which they don't define. After all, getting a marriage license without a bride or a groom isn't some right that heterosexual people have that homosexual people don't. The piece calls the DOMA "odious". Imagine - a law that states the obvious, that marriage is between a man and a woman - is "odious". Perhaps the editorial board believes that if they say that enough, people will believe it?

On the paper's blog, Maura Dolan reports that California Governor Scwharzenegger told a federal court that "the state" does not dispute that the California Marriage Amendment (which the voters of the state approved) "may" violate the federal Constitution. This, of course, means that Schwarzenegger wasn't saying that the CMA does violate the Constitution, nor did he implore the court to toss it or suspend it pending the outcome of the case.

Finally, the paper runs a fluff piece by Gary Friedman marking the anniversary of the temporary period of neutered marriage licensing in California, brought about by the California Supreme Court's refusal to stay their marriage-neutering decision to wait for the CMA to be voted up or down later in 2008.

The article struggles to convince the reader that Paul Waters and Kevin Voecks have the "normality of marriage", despite the fact that there is no bride involved in their court-imposed voter-denied neutered license "marriage". I don't know them - they may have a great relationship and be really great people. But what they are experiencing is not marriage in any sense except for certain legal aspects.

As you can see, the paper continues to focus on this issue disproportionate to the rest of the news, and it does so with a bias towards neutering marriage.

Why Do We Choose Our Mates? Ask Charles Darwin, Prof Says

Bottom line: It's no accident that certain peahens submit to gloriously-colored male peacocks, that lions get the females of their choice or that humans spend hours primping to catch the perfect spouses – it's a condition that is ingrained into all creatures and a conscious "choice" is made between the two so the romantic fireworks can begin.

Jones says Darwin set the standard for original thinking about animal reproduction and was first scientist to propose plausible mechanisms of evolution, and from there he took it one step further – he confirmed that animals' mating choices can drive evolutionary change.

Biological, social, inter-personal... this works on so many levels it seems so simply obvious from our textbooks and culture today. Did it really take Darwin to explain the biological component?

Obama to Extend Benefits to Partners of Federal Employees

No word on if he will continue to allow "bigotry" and discrimination against bisexuals with two partners, or against platonic roommates, siblings, parents, etc., nor is there an explanation for why such discrimination is okay, but the previous level of discrimination is not. He will do this via Executive Order instead of legislation, as bone to the marriage neutering advocates. I also have to wonder what qualifies as a "partner" - do they just take the word of anyone who says so? If so, they should do the same for both-sexes couples and not require a marriage license. Let's extend this to anyone who is shacking up or simply staying together in an extended stay hotel.

C U Again

Douglas W. Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University, promotes the False Compromise (see a much-discussed previous entry here) in a commentary run by the Los Angeles Times, calling for abolishing state marriage licensing and replacing it with "civil unions". I maintain that this is removing one thing (marriage) entirely and attempting to expand something else (civil unions) to accommodate the displaced couples.

It is not often in life, or law practice for that matter, that you can say to two opposing parties: You both win.

The False Compromise is only a win for those who have wanted to abolish state marriage licensing and further weaken marriage all along. It isn't a win for marriage defenders. It isn't a win for any homosexuals who truly seek to apply the term "marriage" to their own brideless or groomless union because they think it will make them happy and force others to affirm their behavior. "Moderates" think it is a win because they think it will solve all of the disputes and stop the whining and lawsuits. But it won't.

[The rest is below the fold; make the jump if you want to read it.]

The gay couples could well win this legal battle because the U.S. Constitution, as construed in Romer vs. Evans and Lawrence vs. Texas, denies the validity of laws that have no purpose other than allowing a majority to express animus for homosexuals.

And what if some homosexuals wanted to abolish traffic laws on the interstate highways? Would we all have to allow that just because it was homosexual people asking for it? It is absurd to maintain that marriage licensing law is nothing more than animus for homosexual people, although that is what is often claimed. Marriage law is about perpetuating society in an orderly and beneficial way. When I got married, it wasn't so that I could wave around the paper and taunt my gay friends, and when I voted for the California Marriage Amendment, it wasn't to spite anyone.

But does holding that gay and traditional couples must be treated the same by the state -- even as gays can be denied the nomenclature of marriage -- make any sense?

Perhaps not. But a personal union of a man+woman is different than two men or two women, and thus can Constitutionally be treated differently. Business partnerships are treated differently than marriage - even though they both involve two people.

The attorney general, in defending the state's interest, could ask for a court order enjoining the state from using the terminology of marriage altogether.

Kmiec apparently thinks it is a good idea for a court to start telling us what words we can and can't use. Sorry, Kmiec, "marriage" is not a registered trademark of the California Supreme Court. If we, the people, want to use the word in our law, we will.

Why can't we have a word for it - the same word that has been used throughout history? What is wrong with the state recognizing, licensing, and even encouraging the only kind of union that unites both basic elements of society – males and females – and the only kind of union that can naturally create new citizens as a result of interaction that is normal in the course of such a union, providing those children with both a mother and a father? There is nothing wrong with it, except that some highly organized political activists don't want to participate, but want to be treated, legally and socially, as though they are participating.

Everyone is welcome to play the game. Yes, some people don't care to play. They don't have to. But here they are, demanding that the rest of us either change the name of the game so it appears to be no different from whatever activity they do enjoy, or stop playing entirely. They are trying to "take the ball and go home", but the ball belongs to all of us and there are more of us who want to keep playing.

Marriage neutering advocates and false compromise endorsers don't want anything that implies a difference. Well there is a difference. As much as they hate to hear it, it is still true: same-sex sodomy has not contributed anything positive to society that the participants couldn't have otherwise contributed, while coitus is how all of us got here. Same-sex couplings do not unite both basic kinds of citizens into a unit. They simply aren't the same, morality and religion aside. Calling them equal won't actually make it true. When people do different things, "equality" doesn't apply. Civil unions and domestic patnerships are the compromise. Many of us would rather not encourage, though law, actions we believe to be harmful or destructive, but enough of us put that aside in an attempt to address some issues that same-sex couples face.

Finally, if state licensed marriage is a fundamental right, then the state should not cease to issue such licenses. You can't have it both ways – jokes about bisexuality aside.

Has the mystery of sex been explained at last?

All this made sex the "queen of evolutionary problems" in the 20th century, taxing some of the finest minds in biology. The issue isn't just explaining why almost all plants and animals engage in sex. It is also explaining why the life forms that ruled the planet for billions of years and remain by far the most abundant - the bacteria - manage fine without it.

That suggests that the ubiquity of sex among complex organisms has something to do with their ancient evolutionary history, not just the more recent past. Could there be some deep connection between the evolution of sex and the evolution of complex cells more than a billion years ago?

Oh, that mystery.

What Does Brown Do For You?

The Los Angeles Times had a lot of marriage neutering coverage over the last few days. Our dear friend Jerry Brown is making headlines again.

While again refusing to defend the California Marriage Amendment, Jerry Brown does argue that it should be kept in force until federal courts rule on it. Maura Dolan has this blog entry.

[Much to read below the fold - check it out!]

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown asked a federal court Thursday not to block Proposition 8, arguing that a resumption of same-sex marriages in the state before the federal challenge was resolved would put those unions in "legal limbo."

Did he do the same thing after the California Supreme Court overturned Prop 22, when the California Marriage Amendment was heading for the ballot? That court should have taken this approach back then.

Brown's decision to oppose an order blocking Prop. 8, which his office contended violated the state constitution, reflects widespread concern among supporters of same-sex marriage that the federal challenge may ultimately fail.

I certainly hope so.

In fact, many gay rights activists openly condemned the federal suit as fraught with risk. They had urged supporters and gay couples not to sue in federal court out of fear that a loss before the U.S. Supreme Court could set back the cause for decades.

Oh, but if is such a fundamental right that marriage licenses be granted to brideless or groomless couples, even when the people of a state have said no, surely any court would see that right now, right? For goodness sakes, I can see the fundraising appeals on TV in other countries: "Won't you help? For less than a dollar day, you can help ensure that two guys can get a marriage license together in California."

Maura Dolan and Carol J. Williams had this article on the challenge to the CMA as well as the federal DOMA.

Brown's willingness to fight a state law that has been upheld by the state's highest court contrasted sharply with President Obama's decision this week to oppose a federal challenge to the U.S. Defense of Marriage Act brought in Orange County.

In that case, a married gay couple, Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer, has challenged the constitutionality of both Proposition 8 and the 1996 federal law that prohibits extension of federal benefits to same-sex couples.

It sounds like Obama is straddling the fence, until we get to this:

In a statement, Obama's lawyers noted that the president considers the gay marriage ban discriminatory and wants it rescinded, but that his government is legally obliged to defend the law on the books.

Take a note, Jerry Brown.

Then there was this long editorial, in which the marriage neutering cheerleaders at the paper decry that Californians can recall judges from the state Supreme Court. In the process, they again advocate for marriage neutering, yet again playing the race card and spewing the inevitability mantra, before calling the amendment "hateful".

Michael Finnegan, reporting from the "L.A. Pride" parade in West Hollywood, has this blog entry that restates that marriage neutering advocates aren't happy with Obama thus far.

With the Obama administration facing growing discontent among gay supporters, the mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco joined in voicing concern today about a new U.S. Justice Department brief supporting the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

And if there are two people who are authoritative on how we should be dealing with marriage, it is two mayors publicly known for their violation of marital vows.

Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, called the administration's defense of the law unacceptable.

"Unfortunately, the malicious and outrageous arguments and language used in the Justice Department's brief [are] only serving to inflame and malign the humanity of same-sex couples and our families," Carey said.

I see. So unmarried people aren't human? It is so interesting to see some of the same people who have, in the past, denied that getting marriage licenses was an important thing to do ("it's just a piece of paper") now saying that it is vital to human existence.

Here is the subsequent article from Michael Finnegan.

Sadly, it looks like the media coverage has gotten to the point where we're just going to get the same regurgitation of appeals to emotion, without any new compelling arguments. Most newsrooms are going to continue to quote same-sex couples with children that they did not make together (but the news will not ask the obvious), talking about how "it's not fair - after all, we love each other" - and if they quote a marriage defender, it will either be one of the official campaign people, or someone who, it will be noted, is been divorced and who will not be quoted with anything other than an appeal to the Bible. At best, it is going to be cast imprecisely as "equality vs. tradition" or "rights vs. tradition". They have their boilerplate script.

When Young Men Are Scarce, They're More Likely To Play The Field Than To Propose

And that isn't all...

What About The Boys? Boys Face Serious Issues Which Are Being Ignored, Experts Argue

Professor Kleinfeld’s paper reviews the different viewpoints surrounding the debated existence of a so-called ‘boy crisis’. She then looks at gender differences in measures of educational achievement including literacy levels, college entrance tests, school grades, engagement in schools, dropout rates, as well as psychological issues affecting young people including mental health, suicide, depression and conduct disorders. Lastly, she shows how boys and girls compare in terms of premature death and injuries and rates of delinquency and arrests.

According to Judith Kleinfeld, boys get the raw deal. Compared with girls, American boys have lower rates of literacy, lower grades and engagement in school, higher drop-out from school, and dramatically higher rates of suicide, premature death, injuries, and arrests. Boys are also placed more often in special education. Girls on the other hand are more likely to have different problems including depression, suicidal thoughts and eating disorders.

The article invites one question in particular, what keeps boys and men interested in socially constructive behavior? What helps women know their own worth and feel empowered to take on their goals in life?

Still More on Pseudogamy

Anthony Esolen at Mere Comments brings us more on pseudogamy.

[Quotes and links are below the fold.]

From Pseudogamy 104:

Masculinity and femininity are like languages, each with a certain noticeable character, with delimiting features that are ineradicable from that character. As with a language, you never know what a culture will "say" with its men or women, or what any particular man or woman will "say" with the physical and mental makeup, not to mention the cultural expectations based upon those, which he or she is provided with. There is, literally, an infinite number of possible things to say; but there is also an infinite number of things that will not be said or that cannot conceivably be said.

From Pseudogamy 105:

You cannot, in a vow, reserve the right to change your mind, because a vow is precisely the sort of tossing of choice away that makes changing your mind irrelevant. When I spoke the words to my wife, that I would remain faithful to her, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both should live, I made a sacred vow. Did I know what that would entail? Of course not; hence the vow. We don't know whether we will be deliriously happy with the person we marry, or whether our lot will be trouble and suffering, or some all-too-human tragicomedy.

From Pseudogamy 106:

A culture of divorce, I'm suggesting, produces a lot of divorces, true, but mainly by producing a lot of people whom only a fool would trust. It makes everyone worse, because it attacks at the root the principal means by which the common person can do something godlike in its freedom and nobility: to cast one's lot forever with another human being, loving not by seeking one's own pleasure, but instead seeing that the greatest delight is only to be found in that freedom-tossing and therefore liberating love. It produces a culture of people who cannot be trusted with money, or with paper profits from supposed future investors, because they cannot even be trusted with rings; they are as good as their word when keeping their word profits them, or when breaking their word would cause them too much trouble. But make the price right, in money or in pleasure or in those vanities called "my dreams," and they can be bought out.

From Pseudogamy 107:

It is that we have come to consider permanence of any sort to be an affront to our beings, to our sovereign "choice". Which means that "culture," such as it is, is demoted to a smorgasbord to meet Mike's taste in Bach and Marty's taste in jazz, with nothing really to unite everyone in acts of general love or worship or celebration. Divorce, as I've written in an old article for Crisis magazine, is the sacrament for this new anti-state of affairs.

Marriage is more than "just a piece of paper", and there are very real differences between men and women. That many people have forgotten those truths or haven't learned them to begin with creates many problems for today's society.

"Marriage Equality": The Big Lie

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” Adolf Hitler

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” Joseph Goebbels

"A lie told often enough becomes truth." Vladimir Lenin

The claim that non-marriage equals marriage is such a lie. In the minds of too many it is now becoming the "truth" and a great many homosexuals are living this lie in mock marriages.

The fundamental raison d'être for marriage throughout history and in all cultures has had two fundamental criteria: Complementarity of the sexes and the possibility for responsible procreation.

Homosexual relationships fail on both counts and therefore cannot possibly form a marriage.

"Marriage equality" is a propaganda slogan for the masses to consume so that in time, repeated often enough, non-marriage may be called "marriage." The non-equal is claimed to be equal. The claim is a total lie.

It is a total lie also because in the real sense homosexuals already have marriage equality, but it is not mock marriage, it is real marriage through the fulfillment of the marriage criteria. This is not denied to any homosexual. If for whatever reason homosexuals don't wish to marry someone of the opposite sex that is not society's concern. In our democracy they can do as they please except the impossible. The impossible can only be done as the big lie.

In the relentless work to spread the big lie, Cleve Jones, at the Utah homosexual pride festival on June 7th, told the crowd soaking in the rain that he plans to march on Washington on Oct. 11th to coincide with National Coming Out Day so as to "establish equal rights" for homosexuals and transgender people. What he means is "special rights" because they already have equal rights. He took the opportunity to also lampoon the Mormons and stated that he has had thousands of e-mails from Latter-day Saints who offered apologies for the Mormon Church supporting Proposition 9. Can you imagine thousands of Mormons emailing Cleve Jones to apologize for anything? http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12541176

The propaganda slogan of the march will be "marriage equality."

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”

Gendertopia in Vermont

In Burlington, Vermont, they could be singing along to Lola at this after school program that takes place one day a week. Associated Press writer Wilson Ring has the story.

The nine-week program, partially funded by the Burlington School District, was held at Vermont's Queer Youth Center and called "Gendertopia."

Gay, lesbian and straight students discussed a wide range of topics, from the characters in the book and movie "Twilight," to taking photos around the city that show the different ways gender is portrayed in popular culture.

Kids used to look at their two parents to see representations of the two sexes.

[Much more is below the fold if you care to read it.]

"Most people come into it thinking, 'Oh, there's two genders and two sexualities' ... ," said David Kingsbury, a 16-year-old junior at Burlington High School who signed up for the program. "People assume it's boy and girl, but it's so much more than that. There's a whole world out there full of different genders."

Perhaps, depending on how you define "gender". There are two sexes – male and female.

The program is among the first of its kind to be funded, in part, with tax dollars, said Christopher Neff, the executive director of Outright Vermont, the social service organization running Gendertopia.

Do you know where your tax dollars are?

Neither the program nor the school district's participation triggered any objection.

There could be any number of reasons for that – including that it is voluntary. Perhaps those with old fashioned ideas such as, oh, women have XX chromosomes, and men have XY chromosomes – maybe they already found a way to prevent their child from being subject to this. Or maybe someone with reservations was afraid of being publicly (and unfairly) labeled a bigot?

It's so important that people be able to see beyond any concerns or misconceptions that they have," said Eliza Byard, the executive director of the New York-based Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, which has 35 chapters across the country.

Which misconceptions would those be, I wonder? They don't say in this piece.

The program was designed to help young people identify the subtle signals used to express gender and how not being aware of those signals can lower self esteem and possibly lead to an increase in at-risk activities like substance abuse or dropping out of school, Neff said.

Look, if one guy is counting on another classmate to notice and compliment his eyeliner or he's going to smoke crack, well, he's got problems that have nothing to do with other students not picking up on his passes.

"We often see a lot of homophobia or transphobia that happens on the basis of how someone looks," Neff said. "If you are making fun of me because I am wearing a pink shirt and that's sort of expressing my femininity, my feminine side, that translates into homophobia, but it has nothing to do with whether I'm straight or whether I'm dating boys or whether I'm dating girls. It has to do with the fact that I'm wearing a pink shirt."

You know, like just about every other kid, I got kidded around or taunted by other kids. Let's say they taunted me about my eyeglasses. Does that mean they were myopophobic, and needed sensitivity training?

Burlington School Superintendent Jeanne Collins said no one has objected to the program.

"The district has been in the forefront on this topic for at least a decade, if not longer," Collins said. "We are very sensitive to celebrating the differences in people and accepting people for who they are and what they bring to the table."

I like sticking bananas in my ear. Are you going to celebrate that, and what I bring to the table? You're a bigot if you think bananas don't belong in the human ear.

The funny thing about schools claiming they for "accepting people for who they are" is that the whole point of school is to change someone. The purpose of schools used to be to educate kids, which definitely changes them. If we accepted that they were ignorant and wanted to honor that, we wouldn't teach them. Adults don't go to college so that they'll be the same person when they are done.

Steve Cable, of Rutland the founder of Vermont Renewal, an organization that promotes what he calls traditional family values, said he wasn't familiar with "Gendertopia," but he knew Outright Vermont.

Notice it is what "he calls" traditional family values. No bias here.

About 40 students signed up for the program, Neff said, and about 12 attended the weekly program. Sometimes the group watched a movie or had food. Much of the discussion was led by the students themselves, and it wasn't just for gay and lesbian students.

Led by the students? Couldn't they do that at the mall on their own time? 12 attended. Well, I'd say that deserves a friendly national Associated Press story.

"I'm straight, but I don't like using that word because then it feels like if you're gay then you're crooked, you're not meant to grow up in a certain way," Sophia Manzi, 15, a Burlington high school freshman, said during this year's final "Gendertopia" meeting.

But it is okay to use the word "queer"?

Neff said "Gendertopia" wasn't about sexuality or who people are attracted to.

Actually, that's exactly what it is about. I like how there is a demand for creating protected classes based on behaviors, and all of these programs that grow out of that, and then on the other hand it isn't supposed to be about that behavior. Really? Then what is the difference? These "different genders" are all about how someone behaves.

"We're really clear that gender and gender identify is separate from sexual orientation," Neff said.

You mean, like how I am a male lesbian?

"Hugh Grant and Russell Crowe have the same sex, they're both male and they're both heterosexual. But they have very different gender presentations. One is sort of seen as much more masculine than the other."

We need to teach high school kids this stuff? My hunch is that these are the two tamest examples they use.

Look, people are born male and female, the species perpetuates itself through the two sexes interacting. Sure, some people of each of those two sexes have no interest in sex, or are attracted to people of the same sex exclusively or in addition to people of the opposite sex. Yeah, there are instances when baby is born with some abnormal genitalia. But there are two basic genders – period. I saw picture of a baby born with a third arm. Instead of starting an activist movement to "honor" this new category of identity, they amputated the arm.

Applying Some Bad Arguments Further

Illustrating that many of the same arguments used to promote marriage neutering can also be used to promote other changes to marriage licensing, filmmaker Doug Tennapel must feel very secure in his career to write this tongue-in-cheek piece, "11 Great Arguments for Incestuous Marriage".

First he disclaims that he's making a slippery slope argument, and also writes:

Nor does this equate or associate incestuous marriage with other forms of marriage being proposed today.

Rather, these arguments are called up to see if they're adequate to shake you from your old-fashioned, bigoted traditions, blindly handed down from one generation to the next.

There's a word in the piece that some might find objectionable, referring to James Dobson as a male organ.

Despite the disclaimers, I'm sure there will be people who will charge that Tennapel equates incest and homosexuality, completely missing the point that arguments for changing law like the ones used to promote marriage neutering can't be restricted just to the activist groups using them for their own particular cause. No activist group owns or controlls all truth.

Defining Marriage

(The debate initiated by Chairm's post, "Core meaning of SSM," may be carried out here as that post by its length, twists and turns, may be somewhat difficult to follow at this time. You may of course refer to anything in the former post. In the present post I open with a challenge.)

Carlo is an eloquent and sensitive writer. He is an outstanding apologist for his cause. But, like most homosexualists, his view of marriage in toto amounts to a complete deconstruction of marriage. Of course, as a sincere person he is not aware of this.

Right from the get-go, in that long blogpost, "Core Meaning of SSM," he renders marriage meaningless as he says,

"I believe that the meaning of marriage is ultimately owned and defined by its participants in myriad ways for different reasons . . . . "

This merely says that its meaning is whatever its participants say it is. The meaning is "owned and defined by its participants." No matter how absurd or ignorant the participants might be they get to define marriage. You define it and government must give you all the benefits, privileges and status of marriage. And this is said with a straight face and the appearance of deep thought. "Myriad ways." This bombast sounds almost poetic.

Now we know that government has played a major role in this degradation of marriage. Through its easy "no fault" divorce system it has cheapened and debased marriage so that Britney Spears marriage mockeries are legal and acceptable. Where once government protected marriage and family they have now been abandoned, left to the irrational and whimsical passions of confused individuals. Marriage, as we have seen, without either the government's protections or society's disapprobation of divorce falls into meaninglessness and chaos.

This societal descent into marriage meaninglessness does provide Carlo some justification in saying that marriage is essentially "anything goes," that is, whatever its participants say it is. And it provides him some justification for assuming that if, as it turns out, marriage is whatever its participants define it as, it is unjust to not allow non-marriageable relationships, same-sex relationships, to be called "marriage" because that's what they want it to be called. After all its whatever its participants define it as. In fact, you really don't need to even "participate" in it to call it marriage. Just call whatever you're doing marriage and government should hand you a license. Just claim you are participants in a relationship. There are a "myriad ways" of marriage. This is sometimes referred to as the "evolution" of marriage. "The institution has evolved for millennia, and will continue to evolve." (Carlo) Looks a lot more like the devolution of marriage.

This is nothing more than the corruption, the deconstruction of marriage consciously and/or unconsciously. If we stop to think, this is not why any society has ever privileged and sanctified marriage. We may conclude from all that follows in Carlo's understanding of marriage that it has no "core" meaning and hence he cannot identify any "core" meaning for same-sex "marriage." It's all meaningless, lost in the vagueness and contradictions of each "participant's" opinions and fancies. If anything can be called "marriage" then there is no marriage. What allows us to distinguish something is the specificity of its meaning which differentiates it from something else. It is the reason why we work to define something, so that we can say it is this and not that.

Though Carlo is unable, or prefers not to define marriage, societies since time immemorial have been able to identify the core definition of marriage and there has been universal consistency in this definition, until lately when there is a powerful political movement to blend non-marriage with marriage so as to confer "status and recognition" to a specific form of non-marriage, namely homosexual couples. Eventually, by the total inclusivity of Carlo's non-definition of marriage any relationship can join the "marriage equality" campaign.

(For a more thorough definition of marriage see my post, "The Meaning and Function of Marriage." http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2005/09/meaning-and-function-of-marriage_15.html There are of course many other marriage defining resources in our archives.)

Taiwan Rolls Out Plans To Boost Fertility Rates

"Taiwan's Family Planning program of the 1960's was celebrated as a success story around the world. However, demographers did not expect Taiwan to reach its current state of zero growth rates within 26 years. The rapidly aging population and its accompanying negative socio-economic impacts has driven the Taiwanese government to engage in proactive plans to increase its population," said author Dr. Wan-I Lin from the Department of Social Work, National Taiwan University.

Link.

Propaganda as Language Manipulation

Propaganda functions both at conscious and unconscious levels. And this in two senses. People seek to promote, to propagate their interests either deliberately or unwittingly. What they promote also either affects individuals, influences individuals at a conscious or at an unconscious level, that is, subliminally, and often at both levels simultaneously.

In politics a common method of propaganda is through neuro-linguistic programming. Swiss psychologist Judith Barben states NLP's working succinctly: "Two important basic assumptions of neuro-linguistic programming are firstly: reality is not important since every person has his or her own reality and secondly language is used as a means of influencing, not as a means of understanding." Any absolute or objective truth that is universally applicable is categorically rejected. Meaning and truth are relative and therefore the means used to obtain one's ends may accommodate deception and outright lies.

The meaning of language, of words is malleable in this relativistic mindset and definitions can be manipulated and altered to achieve one's ends. This is precisely what has been happening in our enormous world problem of marriage confusions to the point in which we now find millions of people claiming that non-marriage is marriage. Many rational people have wondered, "How have we come to this?"

Two things may be noted by this rather astounding development, a development that is not unique to the confusions related to marriage: 1. There has been a conscious, carefully planned strategy of neuro-linguistic programming and 2. Masses of people are highly susceptible to this form programming.

At the conscious level of programming to have masses of people imagine that the unmarriageable may marry, has been the highly successful campaign to capture the media, the primary means of propaganda. Through repetitive word distortions in simplistic slogans, the masses have almost been hypnotized into thinking, "Ah, yes, black is white, up is down, yes is no, bad is good" or "Who cares?" ["Neuro-linguistic programming was developed from hypnosis and aims at starting unconscious human reactions and processes by means of 'hypnotic empty clichés.'" (Barben)]

We find that in this language manipulation propaganda the first words to fall victim to complete distortion were "discrimination," and "equality." This was done because of the obvious success achieved by the proper use of these words in combating racial and gender discrimination.

Clearly the way to achieving acceptance of any behavior was to usurp these well-known and highly respected words. The only problem that needed to be concealed is that whereas with race and gender we were addressing clearly innate and immutable characteristics, sexual behaviors simply do not fit this condition. The way to conceal this was to fabricate the "gay gene" myth. Homosexual geneticist Dean Hamer went to work on this as did homosexual neurologist Simon LeVay among others. As time went by and their claims failed peer review the "gay gene" theory receded in importance. No matter, the propaganda succeeded, the public never heard the refutations. Homosexuals could continue to claim, "That's what I am." "That's who I am." Which implies an innate and immutable condition.

And so, on to the grand prize, the crown jewel of societal affirmation, Marriage! When discrimination, which refers to the ability to make distinctions and objective judgments, is defined simplistically as mere prejudice, then all attempts to differentiate between the sexual relationship of two men and the relationship of a man and a woman in marriage are denigrated as merely discriminatory prejudices. When the inherently unequal is classified as equal then those who recognize the difference are insulted as homophobes and bigots.

After all, the objective of mere propaganda is to achieve one's end. What does truth have to do with it? Why make fine and academic distinctions? Just continue repeating the slogans. Tell the lie often enough and the masses will be swayed.

"The function of propaganda is . . . not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly." (Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler)

Yet, as if by some great miracle, truth has a way of resurfacing no matter how long it is oppressed through the propaganda of language manipulation.

[In this post I am not referring to the possible value of particular NLP self-development techniques but rather to the methodology as a means to influence masses to accept the otherwise unlikely, unacceptable or even the absurd.]

Sexual Partner Status Affects A Woman's, But Not A Man's, Interest In The Opposite Sex

A study by Indiana University neuroscientist Heather Rupp found that a woman's partner status influenced her interest in the opposite sex. In the study, women both with and without sexual partners showed little difference in their subjective ratings of photos of men when considering such measures as masculinity and attractiveness. However, the women who did not have sexual partners spent more time evaluating photos of men, demonstrating a greater interest in the photos.

Well, take it for what it is.

High Hormone Levels In Women May Lead To Infidelity, Study Shows

More evidence that promiscuals exist...

The researchers found that a woman's oestradiol level was positively associated with self-perceived physical attractiveness. Women with a higher oestradiol level also reported a greater likelihood of flirting, kissing and having a serious affair (but not a one-night stand) with a new partner.

Oestradiol levels were negatively associated with a woman's satisfaction with her primary partner.

Does marriage require them to live a lie about who they are? Or does marriage ask everyone equally to focus and consider everyone's rights and needs in the human mating practice in expecting monogamy?

New Hampshire Governor Caves In

New Hampshire has become the latest state to sell out future generations. Associated Press Writer Norma Love has an article here.

New Hampshire became the sixth state to [neuter] marriage after the Senate and House passed key language on religious rights and Gov. John Lynch — who personally opposes [neutering] marriage — signed the legislation Wednesday afternoon.

This seems like a cop-out to me. I get there are some things elected representatives do something because it is what the people want even if it isn't what the representative wants to do, but we're not talking what to name a highway. Has he detailed why he "personally opposes" it?

The revised bill added a sentence specifying that all religious organizations, associations or societies have exclusive control over their religious doctrines, policies, teachings and beliefs on marriage.

It also clarified that church-related organizations that serve charitable or educational purposes are exempt from having to provide insurance and other benefits to same-sex spouses of employees.

It will be interesting to see if those parts of the law withstand court assault.

Same-sex couples already in civil unions will automatically be assumed to have a "civil marriage."

What if they'd rather not have a "marriage" but rather a civil union? Now that choice has been taken away from them? And yes, I do know of a same-sex couple that does not want marriage.

So what's the score now? 6 to 30?

Letters in the OC

The Orange County Register has been running letters about the California Marriage Amendment. There are plenty in this batch. A couple of them caught my eye.

[It's all below the fold if you care to read it.]

Daniel Bartkowski of La Mirada wrote:

The issue has to do with a crass demand that the definition of what constitutes a marriage be changed to satisfy a purely political agenda – an agenda to force all of society to sanction a particular arrangement that's based solely upon sexual proclivities. Marriage has been recognized by any number of societies since time immemorial because it is the most fundamental of all social units. All other social units are patterned after that model.

He goes on to point out that divorce is not a justification for neutering marriage:

Failures are not a reflection of there being a problem with the model, but with there being a problem with the participants. Same-sex unions are not, and can never be, a fundamental social unit and no society is under any obligation to accord such unions a status or recognition that's been granted to the fundamental unit.

He also examines the race card (See I.C.):

Finally, the issue is not a civil rights issue either. To attempt to equate it as such is dissembling at its worst. Correctly overturning restrictions based on ethnic origins weren't trying to change the definition of marriage. They were still unions between a man and a woman.

He is unsually good for a printed letter on this subject.

Elise Power of Garden Grove wrote:

How about just accept it, stop being so threatened by it, and just get out of their way when they wish to formalize their commitment to someone they love?

Get on with your life, and let them get on with theirs.

In other words, she is calling us to sit down and shut up while a minority makes a major change to licenses that are issued on our behalf. Same-sex couples can do everything anyone else does, especially in California, including be legally treated like spouses. But they can't force us to neuter our marriage licensing against our will, or at least they haven't been able to. And we should not be passive as they try.

California Campaigns and the Constitution

How will the marriage issue impact the 2010 race for Governor? Should the threshold for amending the state constitution be changed? And what's going on with the marriage defenders and the marriage neutering groups?

All of that was covered in the news over the last few days.

[My analysis is below the fold.]

Over the weekend, both marriage neutering proponents and marriage defenders had rallies in California. First up is an article by Alejandra Molina of the Orange County Register.

"If we're going to succeed, we're going to need to explain who we are to the heartland," said Linda May, 59, with the Orange County Equality Coalition. "We need to be in the middle and explain we're their sisters and their neighbors. We're in their lives already, but we need to come out."

Well, guess what? We're your siblings and neighbors, too. So what?

"Fresno represents middle America values, and we can start changing our neighbors' feelings about gay marriage beginning right here in the Central Valley," said lead organizer Robin McGehee, a 36-year-old college professor who married her longtime partner last year.

What if it isn't about our feelings, but about logic, reason, values? But as far as feelings, what if our feelings are just as strong as your feelings of homosexuality? Why do your feelings matter more than ours?

The event attracted the movement's well-known activists and such celebrities as Academy Award-winning actress Charlize Theron.

One less reason for me to go see a movie.

Jessica Garrison has the Los Angeles Times story.

Labor, religious and civil rights activists planned to follow the march with a meeting today in Fresno to plot the next steps in their campaign for marriage [neutering].

Do you know where your union dues are?

Some African American gay activists were troubled by Saturday's march from Selma to Fresno. They suggested that organizers appeared to be trying to borrow symbolism of the civil rights movement -- the 1965 marches from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery were indelible events -- while ignoring the fact that gay activists do not suffer the same kind of oppression that blacks did in 1960s Alabama.

It's more different than apples and oranges, it is apples and orange rubber balls.

The speakers included Cleve Jones, who worked with the assassinated San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and brought his famous megaphone to the rally, and Eric McCormack, who is straight but played a gay lawyer in the TV sitcom "Will & Grace."

McCormack said he came in part because his character was the first gay person that many Americans accepted into their homes. "I'm here to talk to those people who voted yes on 8. How does it hurt you to see them at the altar?" he said.

Nobody is stopping them from going to the altar, Mr. McCormack. Conversely, the California Marriage Amendment doesn't hurt anybody who care enough to register as domestic partners.

Tony Perry and Spencer Weiner of the Los Angeles Times report on the rallies held by marriage defenders.

As the rally broke up, about 25 gay rights activists surrounded a group of Christian Harley-Davidson motorcyclists who called themselves the Fresno Motorcycle Ministry.

The police intervened and the motorcyclists left peacefully.

Um, why wouldn't they? They weren't the ones being aggressive, according to how this was written.

Martin Wisckol of the Orange County Register writes about how the marriage neutering advocates are going to try to do things differently in their campaign leading up to the vote on their ballot proposition.

Speaking of campaigns, the Los Angeles Times has an article by Michael Finnegan on how the issue impacts the race to be elected California Governor in 2010.

Associated Press writer Juliet Williams has a similar article.

Finally, Maura Dolan of the Los Angeles Times has an article on the amendment process for the California Constitution.

The California Supreme Court decision upholding [the California Marriage Amendment] illuminated the history and oddities of the state Constitution, provoking renewed discussion about whether voters can too easily amend it.

Whereas the U.S. Constitution has been amended only 27 times, California's top legal document has been altered more than 500 times, often by voter initiative. The state's Constitution is the third longest in the world, exceeded only by those of India and Alabama.

California is a single state. The federal government is supposed to be a union of fifty states. There's a big difference.

Californians can amend their Constitution by obtaining a simple majority vote on an initiative. Chief Justice Ronald M. George observed in Tuesday's ruling that many other state constitutions are more difficult to amend. Although the court did not call for limiting the amendment process, the majority said such a move would be possible and maybe even proper.

It is the place of the people, or the people and the legislature, to amend the state constitution – not the place of the court, and it isn't the court's place to tell us we should change it. Each of those justices can go to the ballot like every other citizen and make a single vote.

Notice how everything revolves around this quest for forced affirmation of a particular form of pseudogamy as marriage? Now they really do want to revise the state constitution, because everything must be reordered or changed or eliminated for the sake of that affirmation. This is what could finally result in revising the constitution. Notice that a couple of years ago, nobody was running articles or commentaries about how it was so easy to amend the constitution. I wonder how long before LGBTQQ activists get "male" and "female" removed from birth certificates? After all, those designations involve discrimination and "separate but equal".

If they want to make it harder to amend the state constitution, how about we do so before their marriage neutering amendment makes the ballot?

Clergy Against California Marriage Amendment

Perhaps dozens of them! Ignoring the insistence of some that churches stay out of the marriage licensing question, a handful of clergy types are getting a lot of news media attention by advocating the neutering of marriage.

Janette Williams of the Pasadena Star News reports on a reverend who got way too much attention.

The pastor of 60-member San Marino Congregational United Church of Christ announced Friday he no longer will perform wedding ceremonies in California until the state's ban on same-sex marriage is "repealed, overturned or corrected." The Rev. Art Cribbs, speaking to a small crowd of church members and supporters near the Pasadena Court building, said the wedding he performed May 23 would be his last until gay couples are given an equal right to marry.

"I have the support of most of the congregation," Cribbs said.

It's good to know which churches aren't following the teachings of the person named in their church name.

[More is below the fold if you care to read it.]

"Our church is involved in justice issues, we are against discrimination," he said. "I personally have known the pain of rejection."

I guarantee you this guy discriminates and rejects all of the time.

Three years ago, the San Marino church became an "open and affirming" congregation, welcoming same-sex unions, said church trustee Holy Burns.

Holy Burns? Okay.

On what Scriptural or traditional or revelational basis was this change made? Or do the doctrines of the church change with the whims of the clergy?

Supporters attending the news conference included the Rev. Susan Russell from All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, where the first gay wedding ceremonies in the city were performed last year.

"I stand in solidarity (with) this profound stand for justice," said Russell, president of Integrity USA, the 30-year-old advocacy organization for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities.

No one, she said, has the right to insert religious beliefs into the state Constitution.

Wait. I'm confused. I thought the fight for justice was a religious belief of those churches – so that shouldn't be inserted into the state constitution? Then what are they saying, exactly?

Elsa Seifert, a member of the Altadena Community United Church of Christ, said she and her pastor, Joe McGowan, came to support Cribbs' position.

Jaimee Lynn Fletcher of the Orange County Register reports from the OC.

Although the 10 speakers outnumbered spectators at a press conference at Fairview Community Church in Costa Mesa, Christians, Pagans, Jews and atheists alike still pushed to get their message heard: overturn Proposition 8.

So, again, we're to put the opinions of some clergy over our constitution?

"We saw it coming, but it still hurt," said the Rev. Sarah Halverson of Fairview Community Church. "Every step we take is a step closer to equality."

I want to include as many of the church names as I can.

The paper then promoted a rally by the marriage neutering crowd.

I have to ask – where were these people before May 2008? Art Cribbs had been performing marriages for close to 20 years before the state supreme court ordered the neutering of state marriage licenses. Was it not a right before May 2008 for same-sex pairings to get a state marriage license? Or did it only become a right when the court said it was? If it only became a right when the court said it was, why is it any less valid that it is no longer a right when the people vote and say it isn't?

Unless Cribbs has some sort of "epiphany", I can't take him seriously, since he was performing marriages for all of those years while same-sex pairings couldn't get a state license.

Chatting on Chait

Jonathan Chait, senior editor of The New Republic, writes as though all opposition to marriage neutering boils down to a dislike of homosexual behavior, the way someone might dislike a flavor of ice cream, likely because that person hasn't tried it enough times or been around someone enjoying it enough times.

You believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman? Okay! But why?

This is like asking why we believe the sun rises in the east.

In a liberal society, consenting adults are presumed to be able to do as they like, and it is incumbent upon opponents of any such freedom to demonstrate some wider harm.

If they want to impose some new restriction, yes. Defending bride-groom marriage licensing is not imposing a new restriction. Rather, it is the people who are pushing to neuter marriage licensing that have the burden of convincing us that the change would be more beneficial than harmful. I'm pretty sure it is illegal for me to build and operate a nuclear reactor in my backyard, even though I've never harmed anyone by doing so. There is zero evidence that I would hurt anyone. So I guess all I have to do is ask, and I should be allowed?

[More is below the fold if you care to read it.]

Expanding a right to a new group deprives the rest of us of our right to deny that right to others.

There is no right to a state-issued license, and state-issued marriage licenses are already available to both men and women, regardless of their sexual orientation. So, no group is being deprived of right.

If making a right less exclusive devalues it, then any extension of rights is an imposition upon those who were not previously excluded--i.e., women's suffrage makes voting less special for men.

Well, yes, it did. A any man's vote had less importance because more potential voters were added. However, this is not the same thing. Women were not allowed to vote because of their sex. Voting has a purpose. It does something. If a group of people said, "We want to vote on the same ballot, but we don't want to actually have to mark or punch anything," then voting would cease to have meaning. Someone saying "I am a voter" wouldn't mean nearly as much as it did. Marrige is more serious, though.

Another objection holds that gay marriage would weaken the link between marriage and child-rearing, therefore encouraging out-of-wedlock births. If true, this would at least provide some weight on the scale against gay marriage. But it suffers from two massive flaws. First, it's hard to imagine how the tiny gay minority's behavior can materially influence the way the vast majority of heterosexuals view marriage.

They have already influenced a significant percentage's view of marriage. Marriage would be neutered for all - not just a small portion of society. The official state position would be that marriage is not about children. If marriage is not about children, then why should anyone feel obligated to raise children within marriage?

Second, if you think about it, the causality gay-marriage opponents imagine is running the wrong way. Suppose we had a social epidemic of young adults who moved back into their parents' houses and watched television all day rather than finding a job. You might want to strengthen the link between adulthood and work. You'd be concerned about anything that weakened this link by letting adults not work--say, early retirement. But you wouldn't be concerned about the social signals sent by teenagers finding summer jobs. That would be weakening the link between adulthood and work, but not in the harmful way.

So homosexual people are like teenagers and heterosexuals are like adults? The analogy is mixed up. It only works of same-sex pairings can naturally produce children (work) just like male-female pairings.

The link between childrearing and marriage has already been weakened to be sure, but the state officially removing the link between the two would bring even more harm.

Likewise, marriage proponents might worry about anything that expands childbearing to the non-married, but they have no reason to fear expanding marriage to the non-childbearing. This is why approximately zero people in the history of the human race have ever expressed concern about allowing old or otherwise infertile heterosexuals to marry, even though they account for a far larger percentage of marriages than gays ever could.

Sorry, you're not getting away with this one. No same-sex pairing alone has ever produced children. Both-sex pairings are the only kind that can produce children alone, even if not all such pairings can or do.

The most striking thing about anti-gay-marriage arguments is that they dwell exclusively on how heterosexuals would be affected.

Wrong. We often refer to how children would be affected, and some children grow up to be adults who... identify as homosexual. Also, weakened marriage would be bad for society in general, and homosexual people are part of society, aren't they?

If you place zero weight upon the preferences of gays, then all you have to do is suggest a possible harm, however remote, associated with gay marriage.

If we're placing weight upon "preferences", then how about the preferences of voters?

The same sensibility was on stark display in a recent National Review editorial. Dismissing the argument that marriage might foster more stable gay relationships, the magazine's editors replied curtly, "[T]hese do not strike us as important governmental goals." There's a word for social policy that disregards the welfare of one class of citizens: discrimination.

There are other things that might help homosexual people, or other "classes" of citizens, that we don't enshrine in law – because we have freedom. The homosexual person is free to participate in marriage or not.

As people face up to the fact that opposing gay marriage means disregarding the happiness of the people most directly (or even solely) affected by it, most of us come around.

It would make me happy to have certain degrees from UCLA, but I'm not attracted to taking more tests or doing the course work. Does that obligate the people of California to give me those degrees – so that I can be "happy"?

I remember when domestic partnerships were going to make these very same people happy. Now, they are talked about like an insult.

Unfortunately for Chait, it is those arguing for what would amount to the largest social policy change ever to convince the people that such a change will be more beneficial than harmful. Those of us defending marriage are not obligated to demonstrate that the change would be harmful. Even if we assume that we have no way of knowing what the long-term societal benefits or harms would be, the default is to maintain the bride-groom licensing requirement. Does anyone really believe, if 25 years down the line, illegitimacy was up and stats on marriage (lasting until death, being happy, improving the life of the participants - including children - in some demonstrable or measurable way) were down, and fewer people per capita were bothering to get married – that marriage neutering proponents would say, "Hey! You were right! Let’s revert back to bride-groom marriage licensing." ? Heck no. Likely they would argue tooth and nail that the rise in the negatives and decrease in the positives were purely coincidental to marriage neutering.

Doesn't anyone remember when a man was under pressure - by his own conscience, by his peers, by society, and even by law - to marry a woman he impregnated? If we take the premise of the marriage neutering proponents that we ought to consider (and license) as marriage same-sex pairings because their love for each other is just as valid, then we make it about how they feel about each other and their relationship. If marriage is primarily about how two adults feels about each other and their relationship, then a man's response to any pressure about marrying a woman he impregnated can rightly be, "I don’t want to marry her. I’d rather not have those legal or social obligations." He can say that now, and could always have said it. But we would not longer be justified in telling him to do it for the sake of the child, as we will have agreed that marriage is not about children.

Sadly, this is already happening all of the time today when it comes to divorce. An adult's feelings are more important than a child's needs.