LA Times Still Favors Marriage Neutering

The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times expresses unease about the nature and effects of homosexual behavior being discussed during a challenge of the California Marriage Amendment, taking the opportunity once again to let us know that they are homosexuality and marriage neutering advocates. Just in case we forgot.

The issue before a federal judge in January will be same-sex marriage in California and whether the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with its guarantees of equal protection and due process of law, prohibits Proposition 8 and other bans on the right to marry.

The editorial board, as we know, confuses the freedom of people to participate in a ceremony involving consenting participants with a right to a state-issued license against the consent of the governed.

But if we take their language in this opening sentence at face value, we must wonder if there is a right to a marriage license for, say, one man and three women, or a brother and a sister. After all, historically, both of those situations have been recognized as marriage while the pairing of two people of the same sex was not. The marriage neutering advocates howl in protest at such comparison, but they invite them with the very language they use.

[Much more after the jump.]

As a constitutional case, it will involve its share of arguments about meeting legal tests for various levels of judicial scrutiny and whether homosexuals constitute a "discrete" group.

Why not whether not people who enjoy sticking bananas in their ears constitue a discrete group? What if it really turns them on, while they have no desire whatsoever to eat bananas? Shall we create a legally protected designation for that, and say that cotton swabs are also fruit?

Is sexual orientation inborn or a choice?

I don't see how that is relevant to marriage licensing. Not everyone is going to want to get every license offered by a state. Marriage is optional in this country. It is not as if a homosexual person is being forced to marry, doomed to be legally and socially bound to someone of the opposite sex.

Can it be changed?

Yes. There have been people who have done just that. I've met some. Is it easy? Apparently not. Regardless, the California Marriage Amendment does not compel someone to change their sexual orientation. Also, unless we're talking rape, someone can choose whether or not to engage in sexual activity, whether or not to live with someone else, so on and so forth.

If so, should it be changed?

I personally think one ought not engage in homosexual behavior. I don't support recriminalizing private, consensual homosexual behavior, however, nor coercing someone into some sort of treatment program. The CMA does neither, so this is a red herring.

Do gay and lesbian partners make good parents?

What makes someone a good parent? A lesbian can't be a father, and a gay man can't be a mother. It takes both a mother and a father to naturally create a child. Maybe there's a reason?

Do homosexuals contribute as much to society as heterosexuals?

Homosexual behavior, while enjoyable for the participants and some of the people watching (if we take them at their word), contributes nothing positive to society. In contrast, heterosexual behavior is how all of us got here. Homosexual individuals, alone or with a partner, have made positive contributions to society, but independently of homosexual behavior. Have smokers contributed as much to society as nonsmokers?

Would their marriages harm the unions of heterosexual couples and the institution of marriage?

Yes. Counterfeits devalue the authentic.

In legal filings this month, attorneys seeking to overturn Proposition 8 indicated that they would bring in expert witnesses to testify that sexual orientation is inborn and immutable, that homosexuality is not considered a disorder by the psychological or medical establishments (the American Psychiatric Assn. took it off the diagnostic list 36 years ago) and so forth.

Yes, but why did the APA do that? Either the APA was wrong before, or it is wrong now. So the APA can be wrong. Regardless, one need not have any objection to the morality or healthfulness of homosexual behavior to support the bride+groom requirement in state marriage licensing.

The testimony is intended to show that homosexuality deserves the same high-level constitutional protections as, for example, race.

Homosexual individuals have that in California.

But homosexuality need not be innate or unchangeable for gays and lesbians to deserve equal treatment under the Constitution.

Bride+groom marriage licensing does not violate equal treatment. Everyone, regardless of sexual orientation, can participate - or not. Actually, dropping sex integration promotes a separation – would two women really be treated the same as two men? The sex integration core of marriage promotes equality of the sexes.

Religious minorities, for instance, enjoy full constitutional protections, even though they are free to convert to other faiths.

Many people claim an irresistible, perhaps inborn draw to their religion.

As Californians well remember, the political and legal debates over gay marriage already have exposed raw emotions and featured willful, hateful distortions.

There was nothing on the ballot about "gay marriage". There was something on the ballot about man+woman marriage.

During last year's campaign, there were assertions that only married heterosexual couples could raise truly well-adjusted children -- a claim that ignored nontraditional families, including same-sex parents and single parents, who were successfully raising fine offspring.

I can't be responsible for everything said by everyone who happened to agree with my vote. However, my argument is that only a bride+groom pairing gives children a mother and a father – a role model from each of the two sexes – to bond with in a legal, social, and spiritual framework. Plenty of people of all political and religious backgrounds also note that children raised by single parents are more likely (notice, this is a generalization) to engage in various behaviors destructive to themselves and society.

The editorial goes to deny claims of the Proposition 8 ads – which we've already dealt with extensively here.

The campaign against the initiative never responded effectively to these deceptive claims;

Because they weren't deceptive. Of course homosexuality advocates will use an official state policy that a brideless or groomless paring is the same thing as a tool to further their social engineering in places like public schools. We know this based on past behavior by the activist groups. You don't consider that to be a problem, but most people do.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled that the Constitution protects the right of same-sex couples to marry, and given the present composition of the bench, it may well decline to do so if it ever has occasion to review the constitutionality of Proposition 8.

Read that over and over again, if you have to. SCOTUS hasn't ordered that marriage be neutered. The Constitution doesn't say it should be. The people haven’t voted for it. It is an imaginary right.

They finish off with the wishful thinking we’ve heard so many times before, as if saying it over and over again will make it so:

One day, society will look back with shock at how gay and lesbian couples were forced to justify their sexual identity and defend their family lives in order to gain the right to marriage, just as we now deplore how long and hard interracial couples had to fight for that same right.

Sorry, this isn’t Loving v. Virginia. A decision to impose neutered marriage licensing across the union against the will of the people would have more in common with Roe v. Wade in that 35 years later, people will still be debating the matter and fighting about it. The paper is counting on the constant pandering by the media and the dominance of marriage neutering advocates in public schools to counter the natural understanding that even the smallest children have – that boys and girls are different; and the understanding that most adults have – marriage unites the sexes.

Your answers to 10 tricky children's questions

BBC News recently ran a cute little diddy, answering some of the tougher questions children ask. Like, "Why is water wet" and "why is the moon out in the day".

And, all the way at the end for us hapless parents to indoctrinate our children to the new order of society, "WHY DOES MY BEST FRIEND HAVE TWO DADS?"

SSMers limit the questions asked

When SSMers ask if each marriage is forced to procreate, they mean that the lack of a legal requirement that makes procreation compulsory makes it a slam-dunk that procreation has nothing to do with marriage.

Of course, as we've discussed here at Opine, SSMers do not insist on a legal requirement that would make same-sex sexual attraction and romance compulsory for those who show-up for a license for a same-sex union. So they are misled by asking the wrong question.

They pursue other self-defeating quests such as deconstructing tradition even as they depend on the relatively recent tradition of romance; or decrying the supposed arbitariness of the man-woman criterion while they arbitarily demand government favoritism for a subset of the nonmarriage category; or disparaging the marital presumption of paternity and insisting that DNA testing is the modern solution (i.e. society now presumes that, until proven otherwise, all married mothers have been impregnated by men other than their husbands) even though the marital presumption and DNA testing both depend on the same sexual basis which is extrinsic to same-sex union; and so forth. They miss what is right in front of their noses because they are not paying attention to the actual disagreement.

Keep that in mind as you read the following blogpost from The Corner at the National Review Online website. It serves as an analogy for how SSMers ask questions that baffle themselves blank.

Benny Hill and the Theory of Evolution:

I was just reading Richard Dawkins’s forthcoming book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution and found something quite inspiring. Dawkins describes an experiment conducted by Professor Daniel J. Simons at the University of Illinois:

Half a dozen young people standing in a circle were filmed for 25 seconds tossing a pair of basketballs to each other. . . . Before being shown the film, we are told that we have a task to perform, to test our powers of observation. We have to count the total number of times balls are passed from person to person. . . . After showing the film and collecting the counts, the experimenter drops his bombshell. “And how many of you saw the gorilla?" The majority of the audience looks baffled: blank. The experimenter then replays the film, but this time tells the audience to watch in a relaxed fashion without trying to count anything. Amazingly, nine seconds into the film a man in a gorilla suit strolls nonchalantly to the centre of the circle of players, pauses to face the camera, thumps his chest . . . and then strolls off. . . . He is there in full view for nine whole seconds – more than one third of the film — and yet the majority of the witnesses never see him.

There is an important epistemological point to be made here, to the effect that crude empiricism can, by limiting the questions we ask, dull our overall intellectual perceptiveness. (This is not, of course, the immediate lesson Dawkins draws.) But that’s not what delighted me about this experiment. No: It’s that as someone who is terribly math-shy, I am thrilled to know that one can advance the cause of science even by running around in a gorilla suit and thumping one’s chest. Milton was right: “They also serve who only stand and thump.”

SSMers count basketballs passes and imagine making slamdunks.

Responsible procreation is the 800-pound gorilla whose presence is neglected because the wrong questions are asked by SSMers whose focus is on elevating gay idenity politics and whose means to that end is to smear as bigoted the societal signifiance of the special reason that marital status is a special status at law and in our customs and traditons.

They ought to relax and see marriage for what it actually is. They need to learn more about what they really think same-sex union can be. Then they might distinguish each -- marriage and same-sex union -- from the nonmarriage category. With that done, comparisons could be made and more apt questions asked.

Such as, is there a special reason for special status for same-sex union? Is there a public sexual aspect to same-sex union or is sex irrelevant? What is the societal significance of the core meaning of same-sex union (i.e. the essential and universal features that make same-sex union, same-sex union) or is there none that distinguishes it from nonmarriage? If it is indistinguishable, then, how could it merit special treatment over and above the rest of the nonmarriage category?

These are questions about same-sex union. SSMers ought not to be distracted by asking self-defeating questions about marriage. They really should show some courage and do the work that would make it possible for same-sex union to stand on its own two feet and holding high its independant claim for special status, if such exists.

Meanwhile marriage has a core meaning and its societal significance is readily discernible if one is paying attention. It is not unjust for society to discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage. Quite the opposite.

* * *

Also see:

The 800lb gorilla in the room.

The Target of Gay Union?.

Responsible Procreation in Iowa.

Stating the Obvious.

"Why I can't support same-sex marriage" by J. David Velleman.

The Six Dimensions of Marriage.

And there is more available in our archives. Just take a stroll through the blogposts labelled "800lb gorilla" or "Responsible Procreation".

Pithing on Marriage

A small tweet from Dafydd (which I present in its entirety):

Anent same-sex marriage: Marriage is fundamentally a union of opposites. If gays don't want that, fine; it's a free country -- but don't demand that the rest of us call it "marriage."

That's like having a big slice of tiramisu and a Mai Tai, and calling that "dinner." It's not a liberty issue... it's a punchline.

Federal Judge Dismisses DOMA Suit on Technicality

Marriage neutering advocates Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer of Mission Viejo have had their latest attempt to advance the neutering of marriage temporarily deferred. This is a case that has involved federal courts and the DOJ legally defending DOMA, if not enthusiastically. Here's the story from Carol J. Williams of the Los Angeles Times.

Assistant Atty. Gen. Tony West, in his brief filed before U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, agreed with Smelt and Hammer that the Defense of Marriage Act is discriminatory and should be repealed. But West noted that he was obliged to defend the law until Congress moves to repeal or amend it. He urged the court to dismiss the men's suit on grounds that their allegations "fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted."

Carter agreed, explaining in his seven-page decision that the absence of "an injury in fact" meant the court lacked jurisdiction to consider the broader constitutional questions.

In other words, the court was not saying whether or not DOMA is constitutional.

[More after the jump.]

Smelt and Hammer had also filed suit in California superior court. That action was dismissed earlier this year on similar grounds, as their marriage is legal in California.

Here's Lisa Leff's Associated Press take on the story:

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ruled the case — the first of several pending challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act — must be refiled in federal court.

Carter said the suit had been improperly filed in state court before it was transferred to his jurisdiction. As a result, the judge said, he would not entertain arguments on its merits, at least not yet.

These guys are very persistant. I guess a "married" guy has more free time when he doesn't have a wife around to give him "honey dos".

Monday's action was the latest episode in a five-year legal losing streak for the couple. With Gilbert representing then, they first went to federal court to challenge both the federal law and California's refusal to grant them a marriage license in 2004.

A federal judge ruled against them, and in 2006 the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did as well, saying marriage laws were a state matter and that Smelt and Hammer were ineligible to challenge the federal law because they were unmarried and hadn't tried to secure any federal spousal benefits.

The case will be back.

How LATimes.com Blog Covers NOM

An LATimes.com blog reports on NOM's latest work. Jessica Garrison words it this way:

Opponents of same-sex marriage launched a campaign today to re-ban gay marriage in Iowa.

I could just as easily give the same information by wording it this way: "Those who believe the traditionally universal notion that marriage unites the sexes have launched a campaign today to restore that requirement to marriage licensing in Iowa."

The National Organization for Marriage, which was active in getting Proposition 8 approved by voters in California, sent out an appeal for donations to run advertisements on behalf of political candidates who oppose same-sex marriage.

I no more oppose "same-sex marriage" than I oppose the sound of red.

It said the first ad would support Republican Stephen Burgmeier, who supports putting the issue of same-sex marriage to a vote in the Hawkeye State.

Wow, imagine that - a vote of the citizens! What a radical idea.

In April, Iowa became the third state in the nation to allow same-sex marriage after the state Supreme Court ruled that a law defining marriage as only between men and women was unconstitutional.

Again, the phraseology is flawed. Nobody was preventing these pseudomatrimonial arrangements before. How about: "In April, Iowa became the third state in a nation of fifty to neuter marriage licensing by order of the state Supreme Court; only six states currently have neutered marriage licensing. No state has neutered marriage licensing by popular vote."

[I analyze some of the reader comments after the jump.]

In the reader comments, you can find a lot of the usual bad arguments.

"mike" wrote August 24, 2009 at 05:07 PM:

gays pay the same taxes, and deserve the same access to public services and civil protections as anyone else.

Whether state marriage licensing is neutered or not, gays have that.

once every supporter of this ban lives his/her life according to every single obscure rule in the old testament, in the name of morality, then that group may be able to speak without looking absurd.

One need not even be a theist to support the bride+groom requirement. But marriage was affirmed in the New Testament. He goes on to bash the Old Testament in a way that demonstrates he has probably read "new atheist" writers (or material based on them), but hasn't bothered to seriously understand how various religions interpret and apply the Bible, and why. He strikes me as a hit and run Bible mocker.

"DPA" wrote August 24, 2009 at 05:59 PM:

All the time and energy wasted to keep a few percent of the population from the joys of marriage all while 50%-plus of all 'regular' marriages, 10s of MILLIONS, end long before "death do us part".

Wouldn't your efforts be better suited to end divorce if you are, indeed, the national organization FOR marriage?

Ah, a Shameful Ploy.

If you think so DPA, do you plead with the marriage neutering activists to stop their efforts, so that NOM can devote more resources to dealing with divorce? Our side didn't pick this fight – it was brought to us, and shoved in our faces.

Would you really support legislation and media campaigns intended to reduce the number of divorces?

Regardless, divorce does not justify marriage neutering.

"Jeffery P. Segall, RN" wrote August 24, 2009 at 07:11 PM:

More hatred from those who shouldn't judge.

Where is the hatred? And why shouldn't we have our own opinions on public matters?

Going to church no more makes you a christian than standing in a garage makes you a car.

Agreed!

Maybe if most of these people tended to their own gardens, we'd all be a bit happier.

State marriage licensing applies to all of us.

"Tim Kelly" wrote August 24, 2009 at 08:37 PM:

If you don't like same-sex marriage, don't marry someone of the same sex!!!!

If you don't want to use a state license the way it is, don’t use it! Or, convince enough of your fellow voters to support changing the requirements of that licensing so that it is something you want to use. But that's not what happened in Iowa, is it?

"Tom" wrote August 24, 2009 at 09:01 PM:

What is their infatuation with homosexuality? Could it be they are seeing something in themselves they do not wish to see. Sounds like a case of the lady protest to much me thinks.

Ah, another Shameful Ploy.

"Deborah" wrote August 24, 2009 at 10:29 PM:

Anyone over the age of 18 should have the freedom to choose their life-partners

Nobody is stopping anyone.

and every married couple should have the same legal rights.

Every similarly situated married couple should have the same legal rights. A married couple comprised of two pedophile sex offenders, for example, should not have the same parenting/adoption rights as a married couple without that sexual orientation.

The questions at hand are: What should be the legal definition of marriage, and who decides?

The blog may still be taking comments, so if you want to go and add yours, go ahead. They could always use some solid thinking on these things.

ELCA Following Episcopalians

A Lutheran denomination in the USA has just made moves similar to recent moves by Episcopalians (Anglicans) in terms of marriage neutering and same-sex pairings. Since my coverage is mainly religious in nature, I have been posting my analysis at my namesake blog.

On Wisconsin

There is a fight in Wisconsin over a domestic partnership law. Associated Press writer Ryan J. Foley reports.

Wisconsin's attorney general said Friday he will not defend a new law that grants same-sex couples spousal benefits such as hospital visitation and inheritance, saying lawmakers went against voters' decision not to extend such privileges.

"When the people have spoken by amending our Constitution, I will abide by their command," said Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, who believes the law is unconstitutional. "When policy makers have ignored their words, I will not."

While both have been accused of shirking their professional obligations, what makes this different from what California's Attorney General Jerry Brown has done is that Brown went against the California constitution as amended by the votes, while this guy appears to be favoring the Wisconsin constitution as amended by the voters.

What prevents hospitals from forming their own policies to recognize same-sex relationships? What prevents someone from making arrangements to leave their estate to their same-sex partner? What is preventing someone for asking their employer to extend benefits coverage to their partners? Not everything has to be done through force of law.

As I have maintained before, bride+groom pairings are marriage, and the kind of voluntary social associations in which the state has the most interest. Other associations, whether involving one sex or both sexes, are different. While it can be argued that the state has an interest in some kind of recognition or regulation of some domestic partnerships, they aren't marriage and should not be treated as such.

DOMA Derangements: Obama Wants MA to Dictate SSM to USA

From Dafydd:

Incidentally, if Brietbart is to be believed (and why not?), it's not strictly true, as they reported above, that the Justice Department is "defending [DOMA] in court." In fact, towards the end of the story, we discover that they're doing so in such a half-hearted manner one might almost conclude they're intentionally sabotaging their own case, hoping to lose:

The administration also disavowed past arguments made by conservatives that DOMA protects children by defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

"The United States does not believe that DOMA is rationally related to any legitimate government interests in procreation and child-rearing and is therefore not relying upon any such interests to defend DOMA's constitutionality," lawyers argued in the filing.

They begin by throwing into the dustbin of politics a very powerful argument for DOMA that could easily sway the federal courts, and the absence of which could destroy the case.

[Update: NOM has more on this.]

Hasn't Marriage Always Been Changing?

This question or the idea behind it has been used by some to say that calling brideless or groomless pairing “marriage” would just be another change in something that has changed throughout history.

While there have been various restrictions on marriage (and the dissolution of marriages) through the centuries and around the world, and various ways people found a spouse, one of the only constants has been that marriage unites the two sexes. This has been true even in societies that did not consider homosexuality to be immoral or rare. Uniting the sexes is what makes marriage marriage. Mutual physical attraction or romantic love does not distinguish marriage from nonmarital relationships. Those things are not even required to obtain a marriage license, and if they had been what makes marriage marriage, than most marriages throughout history would not have been marriages from the start, such as many arranged marriages.

That something has undergone some changes over time does not require us to support any change that someone proposes.

A brideless or groomless pairing is simply not marriage. It is something else – something lacking the essence of marriage. It is no more marriage than a man is "gay" if he is, and has always been, attracted to women and not men, and never engages in homosexual behavior.

Getting Government Out of the Bedroom?

J. Kelly Strader, a professor of law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, has a commentary in today's Los Angeles Times discussing the impact – or the alleged lack thereof – of the Lawrence vs. Texas decision on laws and court rulings about sexual behavior. The piece starts out mentioning the effort to repeal the California Marriage Amendment, then quickly moves on to Lawrence, maintaining that that there is a "constant threat to our privacy rights."

The police in that case -- acting on a false tip of a weapons disturbance -- burst unannounced into John Lawrence's home and found him having sex with another man.

I'm not sure about this, but wasn't that "false tip" provided by the defendants as a deliberate set-up to challenge the law? How are these kinds of laws even applied if everything is consensual and done in private? How does law enforcement know the law is being broken? But there is a larger goal at work – removing any law against the behavior helps pave the way for a "right" to government sanction of the behavior, and to forcefully eliminate any public moral encouragement or pronouncement that promotes some sexual behaviors (such as chastity outside of marriage, fidelity within marriage) as better than others.

[Much, much more after the jump.]

The Lawrence decision overturned Bowers and explicitly repudiated Bowers' morality-based rationale. The high court in Lawrence -- citing Justice John Paul Stevens' dissent in Bowers -- stated that "the fact that the governing majority in a state has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice."

Strangely, all of our laws – including the Constitution, are about what we think is moral or immoral. We believe it is immoral for the federal government to interfere with freedom of religion, unless that religious expression involves assault, negligence, murder, etc. Whether utilitarian or libertarian or whatever in motivation, all law is about right and wrong.

So, based on the reasoning in the Lawrence decision, you might conclude that lower courts would strike down laws that are solely based on majoritarian morality. You would be wrong.

Or, perhaps Strader is wrong in portraying the laws discussed as "solely based on majoritarian morality", even if that's all the decisions cite?

In one case, a federal appeals court in Alabama upheld that state's law criminalizing the sale of sex toys.

Various states criminalize the sale of various items. In California, I can't legally buy a ferret. Soon, if not already, restaurants will not be able to sell me foods with certain fats. I happen to not agree with that law in Alabama. That's one reason not to live there.

The court found that "public morality" alone was a sufficient basis for the law, despite Lawrence's admonition to the contrary.

You don't see a difference between consensual, private behavior and commercial business transactions?

In North Carolina, the state Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a minor under the state's quaintly named "crime against nature" statute -- a boy who had intercourse and oral sex with his girlfriend. Because the boy and girl were within three years of each other's ages, the boy was not liable under North Carolina's statutory rape law for having had vaginal intercourse with the girl.

The statutory rape law should be different. None of the behavior should have been legal because it involved minors.

In these cases and many others, courts have failed to apply Lawrence. The language in many of these decisions shows that the real reason the courts have refused to do so is that judges simply do not agree with its premise.

There are other SCOTUS decisions that courts have subsequently not applied or gone against. Lawrence would not be unique in that regard. After all, Lawrence itself went against a recent previous decision – Bowers – as already noted.

Many judges continue to think that majoritarian morality rules.

What's the alternative? Minority morality? Why should the minority set the moral boundaries? The Constitution itself represent majoritarian morality of those who adopted it.

Fortunately, some courts are becoming more enlightened.

I see. When a court agrees with you, it is "enlightened" - or what?

Enlightened: "to give intellectual or spiritual light to; instruct; impart knowledge to"

I'm assuming Strader doesn’t want "spiritual light" applied by the court. So let's go with "intellectual", "instruct", "impart knowledge to".

Some courts certainly are instructing these days, such as instructing state personnel to ignore the will of the people and neuter marriage licenses.

Is it possible that courts who have ruled in ways Strader doesn't like have applied knowledge to the situation and have come to a different conclusion? That would not make them unenlightened. This is a common mistake among some people – if you disagree with their conclusions or say no to their requests, it "has to be" because you are ignorant. I wrote about this here.

Perhaps the courts that Strader calls "enlightened" have another principle at work, whether indifference, hostility to traditional morality, personal lusts, or a simple preference for limiting the reach of legislation?

Certainly, the Supreme Court should more firmly assert the right to sexual privacy it announced in Lawrence.

I'm all for sexual privacy, with certain understandings such as the requirement of consent, that state-issued marriage licenses are public matters, and that children have certain rights that government should protect – even though children are usually the result of private sexual behavior.

I also recognize the difference between a right to private behavior in your own home and a "right" to have government assistance in dealing with the consequences of that behavior, or to have public endorsement and sanction of that behavior. I agree that two (or more) adults, generally, should not have to fear law enforcement barging through a locked bedroom door and interrupt their consensual behavior, but that is different from those adults being able to use the force of government to stop someone else from criticizing that behavior.

I generally back the principle of limiting government, so in this specific area I probably have a lot in common with Strader.

Here is something I wrote as part of a series about the “religious right” (RR) on my namesake blog:

I don't know of any RR leader that advocates that police be able to execute warrants to forcibly enter bedrooms and hotel rooms to arrest people who aren’t married to each other strictly for having sex on a voluntary basis. In addition to privacy concerns, it’s not practical. However, people in the RR are likely to oppose any attempt to codify into law a "right" to sex outside of marriage.

In other words, doing this even in privacy would be discouraged and frowned upon by a member of the RR, but they wouldn't go so far as to advocate that you be hauled off to jail. So, why do you care if someone from the RR believes and proclaims this moral? How does it harm you? It only harms you in the sense that the RR does not agree that certain things commonly related to sex outside of wedlock should be "rights" that you should be allowed to codify into law – things I'll get to later.

There ARE exceptions - instances where the law does (or has in some places in some times) restrict or regulate sexual activity - activity involving at least one person’s sexual organs - outside of marriage, including:

-Knowingly exposing another person to an STD without their consent.

-"Alienation of affection" (adultery).

-"Breach of promise" (not marrying after having sex).

-Homosexual activity.

-Incest.

-Uh, "with animals".

-Restrictions on "adult" businesses.

-Restrictions on "obscenity"/pornography/erotica.

-Prostitution.

-Sexual harassment.

-Indecent exposure.

-Rape (which, as we all know, is an act of violence, but it does usually involve sexual organs/gratification of the rapist).

-Sex with someone under the age of consent (statutory rape).

-Molestation.

-Child support – where the law forces a man to pay for his children, whether or not he wanted to be a father, because he used his genitals. (Women who do not want to be mothers can legally abort their children or even surrender them to within 72 hours of birth.)

In some of these cases, it does become a matter of government force being used to regulate or restrict things you are doing with your own organs, and I know for some of that list, the majority or a significant minority of the U.S. would say that some or all levels of government should not be involved in those matters. I also concede that for most of these, there are more principles involved than simply "sex is for marriage," such as consent, public health, etc. However, we do see that the law can, has, and continues to regulate sexual activity to some extent, though it would be impossible to legally enforce a law that restricted sex to marriage. I as I wrote earlier, I don't know of anybody in the RR that advocates this. What the RR does advocate is that people should live by this moral, and should not expect to be protected by law from the consequences of not adhering to this moral.

DOMA, Obama, and DOJ

President Obama, says he wants DOMA scrapped, but has said repeatedly that marriage is between a man and a woman and is holding his staff to the legal obligation of defending DOMA from a challenge in the courts. Associated Press writer Devlin Barrett has the story.

President Barack Obama insisted Monday he still wants to scrap what he calls a discriminatory federal marriage law, even as his administration angered gay rights activists by defending it in court.

As I've pointed out before, all laws are discriminatory. Even those bigots in Massachusetts don’t allow trios, singles, or brothers to get marriage licenses. Yet.

[Much more after the jump.]

Justice Department lawyers filed new papers Monday seeking to throw out a lawsuit brought by a gay couple challenging the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. Gay rights groups say that by doing so, the administration is failing to follow through on campaign promises made by Obama last year to work to repeal the law.

Either these "rights groups" don't understand our legal and governmental system, or they are deliberately being untruthful in order to publicly pressure Obama. Obama can work to have DOMA repealed through legislation while at the same time his administration is enforcing and defending in court existing law.

Obama said he plans to work with Congress to repeal the law, and said his administration "will continue to examine and implement measures that will help extend rights and benefits" to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender couples under existing law.

Bisexual couples? Can I claim that my wife and I are a "bisexual couple"? You can’t prove we're not, simply because she married me, a man, and I married her, a woman. Or what if just one of us is bisexual – are we not a "bisexual couple" then? I think I’d make a really ugly woman, but if I dressed like one while my wife continued to act normally, would that make us a "transgender couple"? What about people who have their perfectly healthy arms chopped off? Do they deserve any less protection, recognition, attention, and celebration than a "transgendered" person?

The mixed message got a mixed review from Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group.

"It is not enough to disavow this discriminatory law, and then wait for Congress or the courts to act," Solmonese said in a statement.

Uh, that’s called law and order, Solmonese. You don't want to play by the rules in some areas of life – fine. But most of us still respect law and order.

"While they contend that it is the DOJ's duty to defend an act of Congress, we contend that it is the administration's duty to defend every citizen from discrimination."

So, you are saying there shouldn't be any discrimination against those who have financially backed things like the California Marriage Amendment – the government should work to defend CMA supporters from discrimination?

Assistant Attorney General Tony West provided this noteworthy argument:

"DOMA reflects a cautiously limited response to society's still-evolving understanding of the institution of marriage," according to the filing by Assistant Attorney General Tony West.

Still evolving? This is an example of why some of us say marriage neutering takes us down a slippery slope. Does the "evolving" suddenly stop with neutering marriage licensing? Why should it?

"The United States does not believe that DOMA is rationally related to any legitimate government interests in procreation and child-rearing and is therefore not relying upon any such interests to defend DOMA's constitutionality," lawyers argued in the filing.

In other words, marriage is not about children. And that's exactly what every guy, henceforth, should say when someone tells him he should marry the woman carrying his child.

It's sad that someone could delude themselves into thinking that the institution of marriage isn't, at its core, about children. Yes, there are other things involved, but it is, and always has been, about children. When it is official government policy that marriage is not about children, there will be detrimental consequences that follow.

Monday's court filing was in response to a lawsuit by Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer, who are challenging the federal law, which prevents couples in states that recognize same-sex unions from securing Social Security spousal benefits, filing joint taxes and benefiting from other federal rights connected to marriage.

See, it is all about taxes and Social Security. Go figure. There's no other way of dealing with this issues than by essentially abolishing marriage as a legal concept? Where's the creativity? It is things like this that indicate it really isn't about benefits... it is about forced social engineering.

Here is Carol J. Williams' article in today's Los Angeles Times.

CMA, DOMA, and Maine Update

An editorial in today's Los Angeles Times shills for the assumption that there is a "right" to neutered marriage licenses (though, curiously, they ignore trios). They side with Equality California in the tactics to fight the California Marriage Amendment.

The most important objective should be a decisive victory, sending a clear message that this state no longer will tolerate separate but not-quite-equal status for families based on sexual orientation.

There is always going to be inequality between families. A family headed by a bride+groom, if nothing else, unites both basic elements of society into a social, legal, and spiritual association. More importantly, it is generally going to provide a better environment for children than a man and woman who are simply cohabitating, or a single parent of either sex, or a same-sex pairing, whether or not that pairing has official sanction from the state government. Some families will have loving, helpful grandparents in-home or nearby, and others won't. So let's not pretend that neutering marriage licensing will make all family structures equal, and we shouldn't pretend they are. One bride+one groom is an equal pairing, uniting both sexes.

[Much more after the jump.]

Gay-rights activists must recognize that their lackluster campaign did little to sway the public, especially considering the misleading ads by gay-marriage opponents.

Misleading? If you want to talk about misleading, why were no same-sex ceremonies or couples shown in the "No on 8" ads? I'd say ads showing Mormon missionaries barging into homes and destroying property to be misleading, too, along with ads showing relocation camps. Citing likely consequences is not misleading.

In the newspaper's blog today, Carol J. Williams reports that Obama administration lawyers are "reluctantly defending" the federal DOMA in the case of a California same-sex couple.

West urged the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer of Mission Viejo without addressing the merit of their claims that the federal law is unconstitutional.

Could this be because they are afraid the court would find DOMA to be Constitutional?

Smelt and Hammer haven't shown that they have been adversely affected by the federal law, West argued, because their marriage is legal in California and they haven't applied for any federal benefits that would be denied under the Defense of Marriage Act.

What, hurt feelings don't count?

In an earlier entry on that blog, Jessica Garrison connected some of the dots between California and Maine.

[Maine’s] Legislature voted last spring to allow gay marriage -- but only if the measure survives a so-called "people's veto" in which voters will have a chance to review the Legislature’s decision.

Is that really an accurate way of describing the situation? "Allow"? They voted to neuter marriage licensing. Same-sex couples were already "allowed" to hold ceremonies and commit to each other.

Courage and Equality

Ari B. Bloomekatz and Jessica Garrison have today's update in the Los Angeles Times on the attacks against the California Marriage Amendment. Courage Campaign wants to go to the ballot sooner, but Equality California wants to wait, saying...

Most of the group's top 100 donors to last year's No-on-8 campaign said they would be reluctant or unwilling to participate in a campaign in 2010.

Equality California knows that the voters are against it, and their only hope at the ballot is to bully and indoctrinate enough people, which will take longer. Since the marriage neutering advocates pretty much control most mainstream media and public education in California, they should be able to do this easily.

[More after the jump.]

"We're not going to let the calendar decide for us when we can win," said Courage Campaign Chairman Rick Jacobs.

Why would we expect that someone who hasn't let statistics, voters, law, reason, nature, all of human history, tradition, religion, worldwide culture, or any aspect of reality "decide" for him to let "the calendar" decide?

Also Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker ordered all parties in a federal lawsuit challenging Proposition 8 to resubmit their case management statements because the originals failed "to get down to the specifics of how we are going to proceed," according to a copy of the legal order.

The fight goes on. Meanwhile, domestic partners are already treated as spouses by the state. The truly courageous in California are those who stand up for marriage, and refuse to roll over and let a counterfeit take its place in the law. No court can steal our language. Bride+groom marriage licensing is as equal as marriage licensing can get.

Target of Homofascism Getting Divorced

California Marriage Amendment supporter - and target of homofascists - Doug Manchester and his wife are divorcing (see Eric Wolff's story in San Diego City Beat). Some marriage neutering activists are taking glee in this. However, I'd like to point out again that divorce, while a bad thing, does not justify marriage neutering, nor does attacking an individual's actions disprove the truth of his public policy positions.

If someone does poorly at a University of California campus, or even cheats and gets kicked out, or later proves to be bad at the subject in which they earned their degree, ...or a donor to the campus later does something wrong... it still doesn't mean I should be awarded a UC degree out of "fairness" because I'm good at surfing but have no desire to study.

But go ahead and enjoy your moment of mean-spirited gloating, if you feel you must.

CMA Ballot Challenge Delayed to 2012?

Jessica Garrison reports on an LATimes.com blog that some marriage neutering advocates in California, led by the Orwellian-named "Equality California", have decided to wait until 2012 to try to repeal the California Marriage Amendment via the ballot - in other words, barring some other mitigating development (federal court decision to impose neutered marriage licensing on California), there will be another vote on marriage. This is instead of trying for an earlier ballot measure, which some other advocacy groups might still do. Some of the same people backing either effort asked us how we can even vote on marriage in the first place, and yet here they are planning to ask us to... vote on marriage.

[More after the jump.]

Cited as reasons to wait for 2012 were that some advocates of marriage neutering want more time to sway voters and raise funds (union dues, movie and theatre profits). Perhaps they also want to see if the federal lawsuit will be resolved before 2012? Those cases can take a while, though.

Californians can expect plenty of non-sequitors, appeals to emotion, efforts to desensitize youth reaching voting age to the uniqueness of bride+groom coupling, mocking of marriage, and various forms of intimidation over the next few years.

To counter, I recommend using my Handy Dandy Marriage Neutering Plea Repellant, and also convincing youth and the ambivalent in our spheres of influence about the importance of uniting the sexes in marriage.

Chad's Bad? Some Mad. Lawsuit For Lad Plus Lad Sad. Had Brad Fund Ad.

Maura Dolan of the Los Angeles Times has an update on what is going on with the attack against the California Marriage Amendment in federal court. Activist groups seeking to neuter marriage are upset that they haven't been invited to join in the lawsuit, which they had previously stated may be ill-timed.

The lawsuit against the anti-gay-marriage initiative, launched by Los Angeles political consultant Chad H. Griffin and backed by entertainment industry activists, drew scorn and anger from gay rights lawyers when it was filed in May.

Why not call it the California Marriage Amendment?

The clash comes at a pivotal moment for the case, seen as the most likely vehicle for winning marriage rights for gays across the nation, and raises questions about who will control the legal agenda.

Winning marriage rights for gays? Gay people and straight people have the same marriage rights, and always have. As for who controls the legal agenda, I find the notion of anyone controlling the agenda curious when we're supposedly talking about fundamental rights. It isn't so curious if you look at this an inventing a new "right", rather than changing laws so as to not infringe upon actual rights.

[More after the jump.]

Griffin, 36, the force behind the federal challenge, was not at the forefront of the marriage movement until now. He is a successful political strategist who began his career in the Clinton White House and made his entertainment contacts there.

The connection that keeps giving.

His firm was not brought into the anti-Proposition 8 campaign until its very end. Griffin quickly raised money, tapping such Hollywood luminaries as Brad Pitt, and his TV spots are believed to have helped change poll numbers. But it was not enough.

Proposition 8 passed last November with 51% of the vote, and many in the gay community faulted the marriage-rights campaign for failing to quickly challenge their foes' claims.

It does take time to successfully challenge truth. Brad should be careful. Some of the same arguments that would force states to license a bridless or groomless pairing as marriage could also be used to force them to give his wife and her brother a marriage license together.

Hoping to put together the strongest possible case, Griffin hired conservative legal giant Theodore Olson and acclaimed liberal lawyer David Boies to represent two same-sex couples who want to marry.

They want to neuter state marriage licensing via federal court intrusion. If they want to "marry" they already can. They can also go to a state that will give them a marriage license. If the state didn't recognize my marriage, I would still consider myself married. Do these couples only considered themselves married if a court tells a state to given them a license?

Constitutional scholars, from liberal to conservative, predict a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on marriage that could go either way.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee who is the author of two major rulings backing gay rights, is considered the swing vote. He usually sides with the conservative wing.

It's rather sad, for many reasons, that anyone thinks you could get four or possibly five SCOTUS justices to impose neutered marriage licensing on the states.

The Gender Equality in all of us...

So I was piqued with interest when I read...

This striking new variety of intra-family conflict, described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the latest wrinkle in the two-decades-old theory known as genomic imprinting, which holds that each parent contributes genes that seek to nudge his or her children's development in a direction most favorable, and least costly, to that parent.

Men Who Do The Housework Are More Likely To Get The Girl

According to the study, men in those countries are more likely than their Australian counterparts to do the household chores and thereby make marriage a more attractive option to their nation's women.

The study constructs an 'egalitarian index' of 12 developed countries, based on responses to questionnaires about gender, housework and childcare responsibilities.

Good to see another study on marriage equality, the quality of each gender's participation in each marriage....

I Will Gladly Stay Out of Your Bedroom

I'm convinced that sex is for marriage and that sex or sex-like activity with someone other than one's spouse is harmful and wrong. However, I would not use the force of law to prevent consenting adults from doing whatever they want in private. Conversely, I do not think anyone should use the force of law to get me to pay for care necessitated by those activities. STDs? Injuries? Unplanned pregnancies? You consented, you can deal with it.

Many people who disapprove of homosexual behavior also defend marriage, and some marriage neutering advocates apparently have this is mind when they demand that we stay out of their bedrooms. In doing so, they are confusing the issues.

[Make the jump if you want to read the rest.]

One need not disapprove of homosexual behavior to see the importance of resisting the neutering of state marriage licensing.

Maintaining marriage does not interfere in anyone's bedroom. Adults of any sexual orientation are legally free to engage in cohabitation, casual sex, and other sexual and general social interactions and voluntary arrangements.

A more relevant challenge is posed with something like this:

Who cares if a couple of guys want to marry each other?

Nothing is stopping consenting adults from sharing a home, bed, and life together; having showers and parties; entering into contracts (in some places, domestic partnerships); having a ceremony with consenting clergy, wearing dresses or tuxes, holding flowers, making vows, exchanging rings, stomping a glass; having a reception with gifts, a cake, bouquet-tossing, garter-tossing, and dancing through the night; taking a honeymoon vacation; changing names; calling themselves married; requesting that others consider them married; and celebrating anniversaries.

This has been going on for several years now, it is all legally permitted, and there is no serious movement to pass legislation to change this.

It is when someone requests a marriage license (or a domestic partnership or civil union) from the government, which operates on behalf of the governed, that it becomes my business and the business of any citizen. State licensing is a public issue.

This isn't about what two people get to call their relationship - it is about forcing the rest of us to affirm brideless or groomless pairings as marriage, and prevent us from distinguishing between marriage and the pairing of two men or two women. The state is YOU and ME. It isn't as though, when the state issues a marriage license, it is "someone else".

We have seen the shift in activism go from "stay out of our lives" to "you must participate in our lives in the manner in which we demand." Well, I will gladly stay out of your bedroom. Please keep your hands off of my ballot.

Yes, Defending Marriage is Discrimination

Those of us who oppose marriage neutering are often accused of supporting discrimination.

I'd like to confess.

I'm guilty as charged.

[Make the jump if you want to read the details of my confession.]

Yes, defending marriage involves discrimination.

But those pushing to neuter marriage, or as they would put it, pushing for "marriage equality" – they discriminate as well in everything, including their position on marriage licensing.

The truth is, we all discriminate. We couldn't function if we didn't. We discriminate against staying in bed longer or getting up earlier. We discriminate between eating this or eating that. We discriminate in whether or not to ask any given person for a date or whether or not to accept a request for a date. In decisions large and small, we discriminate - and we should. In addition, all of our laws discriminate - separating what is legal from what is illegal.

So, yes, defending marriage is discrimination, but not illegal, unfair, immoral, or arbitrary discrimination.

What our laws can't Constitutionally - and shouldn't - do is discriminate against individuals on the basis of their ethnicity, sex (with some exceptions), or, in many places, sexual orientation. Bride+groom marriage licensing doesn't. Nor does neutered marriage licensing. But the burden of proof in most states and at the federal level, rests on those who are pushing to neuter marriage to show that bride+groom marriage licensing unconstitutionally discriminates, necessitating a change.

They have failed to do so. That an individual does not want to participate in something to which he or she has access does not mean the access isn't there.

Note that even neutered marriage licensing still discriminates – against groups of three or more, individuals who are already married to other people, couples consisting of close relatives, and so forth.

Setting some criteria for state licensing of anything is appropriate and constitutional. Marriage defenders usually have just one more criterion than the marriage neutering advocates – that both sexes are represented in this voluntary association that is seeking public sanction as marriage.

Episcopalians and Marriage Neutering

The Episcopalians recently had a convention during which there was a move made towards, among other things, celebrating same-sex pairings. Also as a result of the convention, people who openly engage in homosexual behavior are being nominated for positions of leadership within the denomination. The Los Angeles Times had an article on the latest moves, and an editorial that expresses support and includes a swipe that those of us who supported the California Marriage Amendment. My analysis is over at my namesake blog.