Was This Another Politically Correct Death?

There was some sad news over the weekend. Veteran Los Angeles Times sportswriter Mike Penner, 52, apparently killed himself. Shelby Grad reported the news in this LATimes.com blog entry.

"He was one of the most talented writers I've ever worked with," said Times Sports Editor Mike James, adding that Penner covered numerous beats including the National Football League and sports media during his more than two-decade-long career at the paper.

"He was a gentle man, a kind man," James said. "It's just a tragedy."

What makes this suicide especially newsworthy was that Penner had a much-publicized, celebrated, and self-chronicled "transition" to "Christine Daniels". What wasn't as well publicized or celebrated was Mike Penner dropping the Christine Daniels identity and reverting back to Mike Penner.

Were those actions by Penner a cry for help?

[Much more after the jump.]

Now, I'd like to ask our LGBTQQUAIP??? readers to put aside their activism, for a moment, to sit back and think about this. Even if we were to all agree that "gender reassignment" was generally a good and legitimate thing, could it ever be possible... possible... that every so often, a person who seeks such a change could be doing so out of some problem that could be addressed in some way other than gender reassignment?

I'll choose a less politicized situation as an analogy. A guy goes to a doctor and says, "I have back pain. I need pain pills." But maybe that specific patient doesn't need pain pills. Maybe the patient just needs a massage, or a chiropractic treatment. Maybe the patient is sleeping in a chair and should be sleeping in a certain kind of bed, instead. Even though the pain pills may dull the pain, would it be good to the doctor to continually write the patient prescriptions for the pain pills and not address the other things?

Okay, so there are supposedly experts in gender reassignment. But experts sometimes make mistakes.

The problem is, this issue has been so politicized that when Penner went to his boss and coworkers with his announcements (first the "switch" to Christine, and then the "switch back" to Mike), they risked lawsuits and firings if they didn't go along with it. They pretty much were forced to encourage these changes. If any of them took Penner aside and implied that perhaps his identity as a male or female wasn't the heart of what was ailing him, and reassignment wasn't the way to go and that he should get some other help, that could have easily been the end of their career.

Clearly, Penner wasn't happy. Happy people do not kill themselves. I didn't know the guy, but perhaps that unhappiness has been there a long time, and Penner thought he'd be happier as "Christine". Apparently, he wasn't happy as Christine, since he reverted back to Mike. The gender confusion activists will want to deny that the "gender reassignment" trial was a symptom of something that was wrong with Penner. Most likely, they'll blame his suicide on any negative responses he got from his "courageous" move. But by Penner’s own account, his employer was supportive. All you have to do is read the comments being left, and you can see a lot of people were supportive. Being "Christine" opened a lot of doors for Penner, and got him a lot of applause. I can't recall the name of another newspaper sports writer.

But is that what he really needed?

I am a follower of Christ. I would love it everyone was a follower of Christ. Yet, I can see, from time to time, people who have come to church or announced their conversion to Christianity or who respond to an altar call because they think it will solve some issue in their lives – depression and other mental health issues, or a bad marriage. To be sure, I'm convinced God can heal people and relationships, and I do think people should place their cares at the feet of Jesus, and that Jesus does take care of the issue of sin. But usually, someone who approaches the situation with the wrong attitude or wrong expectations is in for rude awakening. In my experience, Jesus often asks us to do some things ourselves and face some of the consequences of our actions.

While I do believe in God and the benefits of prayer and following Christ, if someone is uncomfortable, unhappy, or disturbed, neither the Sinner's Prayer nor the surgeon's scalpel removing genitalia is going to guarantee happiness, comfort, and mental health in the here and now.

Is that so hard to see?

My sympathies to Penner's loved ones and coworkers. This is a very sad situation, and it pained me to read that he's dead. From what is being written about him, it sounds like he was talented and well-liked. It is a shame he didn't get whatever help he really needed. This could very well have been a death by political correctness.

Here is the obit by Keith Thursby of the Los Angeles Times.

Here is the obit by Associated Press writer John Rogers, and here is the obit by Dan Whitcomb of Reuters.

False Domestic Violence Accusations Can Lead To Parental Alienation Syndrome

This is about two years old, but recently brought to my attention by Patschef. It struck me, as far as my current understanding of life and the world, as newsworthy still.

Domestic violence (DV) restraining orders are a perfect weapon for an alienating parent. Typically, in addition to removing an accused abuser from the marital home, a DV restraining order also "temporarily" bars the accused abuser from seeing his or her children, and "temporarily" gives the accusing parent exclusive physical custody. And temporary, in the Family Court, has a funny way of becoming permanent.

Obtaining a restraining order based on a false allegation of domestic violence gets the target parent out of the house and out of the picture. A father who can't see his kids, for example, is unable to rebut the lie "Daddy doesn't love you anymore. That's why he left you." Nor can he rebut the alternate lie, "Daddy is dangerous. The wise judge said so. That's why he can't see you."

Ecological Speciation by Sexual Selection on Good Genes

The below is an excerpt, and the additional highlighting is my own...

By means of a mathematical model, former postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute and current postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Bern in Switzerland, Sander van Doorn and fellow colleagues demonstrate that disruptive ecological selection favors the evolution of sexual preferences for ornaments that signal local adaptation. Such preferences induce assortative mating with respect to ecological characters and enhance the strength of disruptive selection.

Sexual preference here means something more clinical then what many may use that phrase to mean. Think of it as advertising, a way to say "I'm a better mate selection if you plan on mating and raising young (if your species expects that) in a slightly warmer environment", and such. Or to make it even more accessible, think of it like dressing rich to attract people who want to marry someone rich. Only this is evolutionary, not a quick change of clothes.

Crossing Party Lines: Marriage in North East

Maggie Gallagher:

In New Jersey, gay-marriage activists (lead by Garden State Equality chief Steven Goldstein) promised their supporters a victory in the lame-duck legislative session. But the defeat of gay marriage in Maine, the rejection of Dede Scozzafava in NY-23, Gov. Jon Corzine's loss after publicly supporting gay marriage, and the rising voter outrage against politicians who push their own agendas over the people's priorities — all are leading to second thoughts among Democrats and Republicans alike.

For more read the rest of her blogpost, "Steven Goldstein Channels His Inner Pat Robertson," at National Review's blog, The Corner.

Also: National Organization for Marriage has released a new radio ad. Audio, here.

FBI has no reliable data on hate-crime trends

See: The Hate-Crimes Spike that Isn't, posted by Kevin D. Williamson at Media Blog.

The Associated Press published the following headline:

More anti-gay, religious-motivated crimes reported.

Salon's headline:

Anti-gay, religious-motivated crimes up.

Williamson explains that these headlines are misleading.

The real headline should be this: "FBI, in spite of its gigantic budget and zombie army of coddled bureaucrats, has no reliable data on hate-crime trends."

He notes that the usual suspects, such as the gay identity organization the 'Human Rights Campaign', have promoted and compounded the misleading headlines.

Williamson concludes:

Those big (fictional) spikes in hate crimes look really dramatic in fund-raising letters. The ho-hum reality — that tracking broad trends in hate crimes is very difficult to do and produces few satisfactory answers — will not open very many checkbooks.

Also note that the raw statistics are gathered not in terms of the characteristics of the victims but in terms of the reported bias of the offender. Obviously, this depends heavily on the notion that the state's police power includes the enforcement of laws against thought crimes.

Expect SSMers to accuse marriage defenders of promoting hate and of being virtual accessories to such thought crimes. Our recent successes in California and Maine, for example, will be blamed for the fictional spikes reported in these headlines. Afterall, the first axiom of SSM argumentation is that to defend against the pro-SSM attack on marriage is itself tantamount to an act of hatred.

Salon reported that,

Half of all hate crimes [as categorized in the raw statistics] are motivated by race, according to the FBI. One out of every five is driven by religious bias, and one out of every six is based on sexual orientation bias.

* * *

Also see:

US Department of Justice, Hate Crime Statistics.

The Price of Prop 8.

Homosexual blog forecasts violence.

* * *

UPDATE [25 November 2009]: SSMers have already fulfilled my expectation. See "Shocking Hate Crimes Crisis!" posted by Playful Walrus.

Also see: "Hate crimes against religious people" posted by Dr. B. at Good Sense Politics.

Adoption: Every Child Deserves a Home, Researchers Urge

I'm going to pass on the last paragraph from this article, which is already a brief but good read. There is a lot I agree with, and some I don't agree with. But one thing is for sure, its something we need to take a break from our adult pursuits to work on a bit more.

Agreement on maximum length of time in care, supports to make it easier for adoptive parents to learn about adoptive children and breaking down provincial barriers to make domestic adoptions easier than international adoptions are key steps. As well, we need to dismantle legal barriers to facilitate open adoption for children who still have contact with birth families.

.

Now as a commenter in a recent article asked, should birth parents always take care of their children? There are some situations where those parents are unavailable, either physically by death or emotionally by neglect. In death adoption is our only option. The rest need personal and individual attention. But one thing I can say for sure, if the birth parents have issues which present problems for them raising their children the most ideal situation would be helping them solve those issues -- every time. It won't happen every time, but we can celebrate when it happens as the most happily ever after.

Barash on Biology and Monogamy

Evolutionary biologist David P. Barash, professor of psychology at the University of Washington, has a commentary in the Los Angeles Times in which he claims nobody is cut out for monogamy, but we can be monogamous anyway.

He points to our biology as the threat to our monogamy.

Researchers in animal behavior have long known that monogamy is uncommon in the natural world, but only with the advent of DNA "fingerprinting" have we come to appreciate how truly rare it is.

There's an assumption here. The assumption is that we are nothing more than animals that are nothing more than "meat machines", consisting of nothing more than a collection of molecules. I don't buy it; nor do I give blanket support to pointing to wild animals for moral standards in human beings - whether it seems to help or hurt "my" side. There is component to human nature that spiritual, and a strong distinction between human beings and wild animals. The biology is also different. In some cases, including some cited on this blog, we can learn some things from nature. But we must be careful when applying examples by wild animals to human behavior.

Greg Koukl covers these topics very well here, here, here, here, and here.

[Much more after the jump.]

Genetic testing has recently shown that even among many bird species -- long touted as the epitome of monogamous fidelity -- it is not uncommon for 6% to 60% of the young to be fathered by someone other than the mother's social partner.

Actually, this kind of thing is seen in human beings. Anywhere from 5% to 20% of children are not the biological offspring of the man presumed to be the father, depending on which studies you believe.

First, there can be no serious debate about whether monogamy is natural for human beings. It isn't.

Perhaps not for men.

But natural isn't necessarily good. Think about earthquakes, tsunamis, gangrene or pneumonia. Nor is unnatural bad, or beyond human potential.

Good points.

Our species benefits greatly from bi-parental care. We can profit from shared, reciprocated effort, especially when we're confident both partners will be around for the long term. In addition, human beings are endowed with an array of hard-wired traits that can be used to strengthen monogamy, among them a penchant (perhaps even a need) to attach and connect so-called mirror neurons that underlie empathy; hormonal systems, such as those involving oxytocin and vasopressin, that relate sexual satisfaction to pair-bonding; and neural plasticity that promotes the strengthening of brain circuits associated with repeated reward mechanisms -- including, in all likelihood, those activated via interactions with the same individual.

Barash seems to have taken great care to word the paragraph in a way that avoids promoting the uniting of the sexes, which is strange, since that is the only way for human biological evolution to naturally occur. The paragraph is a fancy way of saying that sex is better with someone you love, within commitment. While I agree, some people, especially some men, apparently get more enjoyment out of variety and experiencing something or someone new. I don't advocate placing personal enjoyment, especially in the short term, ahead of maintaining morality.

The more people reserve sex, especially intercourse, as something they only do with their spouse, the better off we are as a society, as such a behavior pattern:

1. increases the likelihood that a greater percentage of children will be raised within marriage

2. decreases the spread of STDs

3. reduces various forms of personal and social dysfunction and conflict.

Studies Suggest Males Have More Personality

If you read it, you might find a very dry definition of personality. But this point was very interesting to me...

The authors believe sexual selection may hold the key to this variation. A concept originally developed by Charles Darwin, sexual selection is the theory that evolutionary traits can be explained by competition between one sex -- usually males -- for mates and by (female) mate choice. While the physical attributes resulting from sexual selection -- from dazzling peacocks tails to over-sized antler horns -- are well known, there has been much less of a focus on the impact on personality.

Phyllis Schlafly: Children's rights should include life with both parents

Via Masculinisme, this is about the same question posed earlier but with a truly sympathetic eye towards the injustice of divorce. Its sincere, and the result shown in how enlightening it is.

Debates about same-sex marriage and gay adoptions always include the argument that a child has the right to both a father and a mother. If that is true, why is a child usually deprived of that right when heterosexual couples divorce?

Of course the difference is that in one way it is marriage which deprives children of a father or mother, the other way is the opposite of marriage -- divorce -- which drives the government recognized wedge. I think it is much more consistent to say divorce means a child is without a mother or father then marriage, don't you.

However the sentiment still remains. While marriage seeks to grant the equality of the father and the mother with the child they had together -- how can we do so with divorce? Consider that question as we read the rest of the article...

Just a few snippets:

Americans have always assumed that parents share decision-making authority because only parents can determine what is in the best interest of their own children. As recently as 2000, the Supreme Court in Troxel v. Granville reaffirmed this principle and rejected the argument that a judge could supersede a fit parent's judgment about his child's "best interest."

Nevertheless, in what Stephen Baskerville calls a "silent revolution," millions of divorced parents have had their fundamental right to decide what is in the best interest of their own children taken away and given instead to a vast array of government officials and so-called "experts" such as judges, lawyers, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, child protective services, child support enforcement agents, mediators, counselors, parenting classes, and feminist groups.

This shift began in the 1970s after the spread of unilateral divorce was followed by the creation of a giant federal child support-enforcement bureaucracy.

The cost of that bureaucracy is the cost of the government doing what wasn't done in a marriage. And if marriage is neutered to have the same effect on splitting up the procreational unit, it will be the cost of marrying too.

An example of the bias against fathers can be seen in the Responsible Fatherhood Act of 2007 recently introduced by Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Evan Bayh, D-Ind. The bill mentions "child support" 65 times, but not once does it mention parenting time, custody, visitation, or access denial.

Baskerville's new book, "Taken into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family" (Cumberland House, $24.95), provides a copiously documented description of society's injustices to children who have been deprived of their fathers and of fathers who have been deprived of their children. This book is a tremendous and much-needed report on how family courts and government policies are harming children.

Fitz, that looks like a good book. What do you think about adding it to the resources page? Anyway, the article is a great read. I'd encourage all of the readership to start from the top and work their way down.

Dafydd: Maritalphobic Democrats Strike Again!

Generally we use the "Matrimonial Madness" category for discussions of same-sex marriage; but not this time. Today, in a bolt from the blue (staters), the Senate Democrats have snuck a ringer into Majority Leader Harry "Pinky" Reid's (D-NV, 70%) version of ObamaCare... they created a new tax with a nasty "marriage penalty" to punish dopes who actually tie the knot, instead of simply living together (evidently the Democrat preferred option):

It turns out to be a married with both spouses working penalty, a single income family actually has a higher ceiling. But let me see where this primrose path leads.

Does it make sense to say the preferred option for government officials wanting more "internal" revenue would be to have as many married people in the workforce together as they can? As a well-off person of income trying to dodge taxes, you would want to co-habit with another well off income winner. But if there was some reason you wanted to marry in any case, it can give the government quite the premium. If there was only some group out there that was relatively well off, ready to marry but remain in the workforce, that could mean real money for government. But it also means less people would want to be married in order to keep their money.

DOMA Subverted? Part II

Today, the Los Angeles Times ran Carol J. Williams' article on 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt's decision.

In a legal end-run around the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, a federal judge Wednesday ordered compensation for a Los Angeles man denied federal employee benefits for his spouse because they are both men.

Better wording than her blog entry, but it would have been accurate to say "because the federal government does not recognize a brideless coupling as marriage, even though the state of California did for five months" or "because the federal government does not recognize same-sex relationships are marriage, even though some states license them as such."

U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt had previously ruled the denial of benefits for Sears to be discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, a violation of state law and an unconstitutional denial of due process.

The discrimination was not on the basis of sexual orientation. It was on the basis of the definition of marriage, which does not mention sexual orientation. A straight man who got a marriage license with another man would have been treated the same by the federal government as it treated Mr. Sears. Would Judge Reinhardt have treated the straight man the same as he has treated Mr. Sears? If not, he would be discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

How to Win Fiends and Infuriate Voters

Get the full read, but here is a snippet:

Let's put this in context: The Board has ruled that it cannot allow the citizens of D.C. to decide whether to ban SSM, because if they vote to do so -- which they likely would -- that would "violate" the very law it just replaced!

Now in most jurisdictions, if citizens enact a new law that supercedes an old one, then the superceded law is no longer operative. It is defunct. It has ceased to exist. It is an ex-law. If it wasn't nailed to its perch, it would be pushing up daisies.

Nothing says fascism and inequality like, their equality means no vote for you.

DOMA Subverted?

Brad Levenson, federal public defender, got a neutered marriage license in California with Tony Sears during the five month window between the court-ordered neutering of marriage licenses and the passing of the California Marriage Amendment. They sued because Levenson’s employer, the federal government, would not extend benefits to Sears. Carol J. Williams reports in this LATimes.com blog entry that there has been a decision in the favor of the plaintiffs.

Here's the first line:

A federal judge today ordered compensation for a Los Angeles couple denied spousal benefits by the federal government because they are gay men.

Really? Because they are gay men? You mean if two straight men were similarly situated, the federal government would have given them the spousal benefits?

Or is the reality that the federal government does not recognize this as marriage because there is no bride?

[Much more after the jump.]

U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt deemed the denial of healthcare and other benefits to the spouse of federal public defender Brad Levenson to be a violation of the Constitution's guarantee of due process and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, which is prohibited by California state law.

So, California law trumps federal law?

The judge's order is expected to resolve the injustice Reinhardt has cited in previous orders in Levenson's case. But it also recognizes the status quo of federal government rejection of gay marriage under the Defense of Marriage Act.

See the blog entry to see why Williams writes that – how it all works out. The claim is that DOMA still applies.

Several other challenges by those denied federal benefits, like filing joint tax returns, are making their way slowly through the federal courts.

I'm interested in the particulars of this case. Is the decision based on the fact that they had a state marriage license that the state Supreme Court declared valid? Or is it that they are "partners"? Because if it is the former, then doesn't that mean state law trumps federal law? If it is the latter, then how is that determined, and what legally and morally denies platonic roommates, siblings, etc. similar compensation?

I believe government employers (or those accepting taxpayer funding) should be able to set objective criteria for inclusion in their benefit packages as long as that objective criteria does not illegally discriminate against individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc. As such, I do believe the federal government should be able to draw the line at federally-recognized marriage. However, I'm open to the argument that taxpayers are better off having criteria that is more inclusive than that.

Will this case go on to SCOTUS?

D.C. Stands Up For Chuck and Larry Over Little Johnny

The Los Angeles Times editorial board correctly notes, looking at the situation in Washington, D.C., that neutering marriage law does have impacts beyond simply allowing Chuck and Larry to get a marriage license without a bride. The Catholic Archdiocese says it will not be able to continue providing social services on behalf of the local government if marriage neutering happens as planned.

The church hopes to change wording in the marriage legislation that could require its charitable arm, Catholic Charities, to facilitate adoptions to gay and lesbian couples and extend employee benefits to spouses in same-sex marriages. That, the church says, would require it to go against its religious teachings on homosexuality.

In addition, placing a child with a same-sex couple should only happen if there are no bride+groom couples qualified and willing, because doing so would deprive the child of either a mother or a father. Adoption is about the needs of a child, not the feelings of adults.

There are times when the aims of government and religious organizations are in sync: bringing food to the hungry, beds to the homeless and medical care to the sick.

Actually, limited government, a principle to which I subscribe, contends that the government shouldn't be involved in those things in general. It should house prisoners, and it should provide medical care to military personnel and veterans, but no, the government should let the private sector handle the rest.

[Much more after the jump.]

At other times, their aims veer apart. That's fine, but at such times, government must not be diverted from its own course.

So.. appeasing homosexuality advocates is more important than having the most aid possible for children?

The District of Columbia Council is expected to approve same-sex marriage next month. If it does, those marriages must receive the same recognition as all other marriages, at least in matters under the city's jurisdiction.

This is true. This is exactly one of the biggest problems with neutered marriage laws, and why it is laughable when education officials and marriage neutering advocates try to get voters to believe that a state with neutered marriage licensing won't teach that neutered concept of marriage in state schools.

The council cannot dictate how a religious organization spends its private money, but it has an obligation to set rules for the use of public funds.

I agree. Public funds should be put to limited use. However, note that public funds are coming from taxpayers, including members of the Roman Catholic Church.

The editorial board goes on to explain the situation in Massachusetts with Catholic Charities.

But Catholic Charities could have continued doing private adoptions with church money, as the Mormon Church does.

True again - but what about the employment issue?

No one was telling the nonprofit how to practice religion -- just how it could and could not use state funds.

And we, the voters, vote on marriage licensing, as licenses are issued on our behalf. See how this works?

In contrast [to President Obama’s current position], D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray said the city would find another contractor if the Catholic Church severed its ties. That was the right response, and we hope it rang loud enough for Obama to hear.

Nothing is wrong with paying a religious organization the same way you'd pay another organization for the same work – as long the government is going to use taxpayer money that way. But yes, government-spread wealth comes with strings attached. The Roman Catholic Church should not go against what it believes to be the will of God, and as such, will not be used by the government for this task. Children may suffer as a result. So should the church's position change? Of course I say no – I say the council should not neuter marriage. But if they do, then they should not expect the rest of us to abandon our principles, and not pretend they care about children as much as they care about the agenda of marriage neutering advocates.

The editorial board is essentially noting in this commentary that common government should not be held hostage to the feelings or convictions of a minority segment of the represented. It is too bad that they can't recognize this principle when it comes to the demands of marriage neutering advocates.

To me, this dispute clearly goes into the larger issues of what the government's role in our lives should be in addition to marriage licensing. It goes into charity, social care, and employer-employee relationships. The move involved in our lives the government becomes, the more we have an interest in laws and court decisions that don't appear to have a direct connection to us.

Signature Gathering Underway in California

Jessica Garrison let us know in this LATimes.com blog entry that a group calling itself Love Honor Cherish has formally kicked off their effort to collect signatures to place a repeal of the California Marriage Amendment on the ballot, pointing to where readers can join the effort.

There's not much to comment on when it comes to the blog entry itself, but of course there are comments from readers, some of which I examine below.

So why didn't the activists put a marriage neutering amendment on the ballot in the first place? I think we have 31 answers to that question, don't we? It will be interesting to see if the vote goes differently in 2010, without Obama voters and increased conservative activity. How soon will SCOTUS issue a definitive ruling on this?

[Analysis of comments after the jump.]

"Joe Mustich, Justice of the Peace" wrote November 16, 2009 at 02:01 PM:

Can I vote on your marriage too? (LOL)

Why yes, yes you can. All marriage laws and court rulings involve someone voting on marriage.

And to the marriage police and sexually phobic, please find something else to do with your time, because life's just to short. Find love.

I've found love, thank you – but then I'm not the marriage police nor sexually phobic. I'm a voter who gets to vote on certain matters of public policy – including state marriage licensing. I'm married and enjoy a wonderful, fearless sex life with my bride. Our activities, among other things, create children and do not spread disease or injure either one of us. She doesn't worry about whether or not I will call her then next day. I don't worry that she will kill my child, nor do I worry that I'm going to anal/rectal problems as a result of our activities. Neither of us worry about STIs. So there's no phobia involved.

"Zach" wrote November 16, 2009 at 05:17 PM:

Some liken this to their children asking for something over and over again until they "put their foot down." Well, did your children used to go running to Dad when Mom said "no?" Well, that's what the marriage equality foes did when Momma Supreme Court said every should be allowed to marry, running over to Poppa Populace with Prop 8. Hypocrisy!

Everyone has the same access to marriage licensing. It is not the court's place to neuter marriage licensing. The people voted before; the California Marriage Amendment was us voting again.

Here's an usually interesting comment. "lbjack: wrote November 16, 2009 at 05:55 PM wrote:

I'm gay, and I know what this is about -- it's not about rights but about a loud, screeching subset of gays, who always fancied a wedding, with bride and groom, domestic role playing, feathering the nest and showers and all the trappings. For this they want to invade and redefine an institution that has been heterosexual since the beginning of history. They want if because they want it, and because they have no valid reason for getting it, they declare it a civil right, so consigning anyone who opposes it to the rubric of bigot.

There are, in my estimation, some same-sex couples who want this for affirmation of their relationship or because they think it will make their relationship better - no political agenda on their part. They can have the celebrations and ceremonies with or without the license, though. But I do think the leadership of the marriage neutering movement is more about using neutered marriage as a political and legal tool to advance their self-aggrandizement and increase their disproportionate amount of power - than it is about two women who met on the golf course and want someone to give them signs of affirmation. If someone thinks that simply neutering marriage will make their unwanted or negative feelings or sense of marginalization go away, or make hostile or in-denial family members change... they're probably kidding themselves. Either way, win or lose at the ballot, the bitterness will be there.

No, I'm not self-hating, no I'm not a homophobic gay. I just know overreaching when I see it. I know what a scam the whole movement is. It's not the stupidity or the travesty of gay marriage that's so repugnant -- it's the rank dishonesty, illustrated beautifully by the hysterics who, after Prop 8 passed, held...die-ins!

Yes, perspective is needed. California's domestic partnerships treat same-sex couples as spouses. Sexual orientation is a protected class in California law. Marriage defenders such as myself want to ensure that any homosexual person has exactly the same rights I do; that law enforcement protect all individuals and that government not intrude more than necessary into our lives. But we do value what is left of marriage.

"RJ" wrote November 17, 2009 at 08:27 AM:

So, I say to you, please, please, please do not vote on the value and worth of my life or my relationship.

One need not disapprove of homosexual behavior to oppose the neutering of marriage. I value your life, and I don't know anything about your relationship – except that it is apparently missing either a bride or a groom.

"SenSen" wrote November 17, 2009 at 10:31 AM:

LIFE

LIBERTY

& THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Republicans clearly don't believe in it, and are collectivists who think that third persons can interfiere in other people's willing, in mutual consent, transactions.

Not all Republicans are marriage defenders. Not all marriage defenders are Republicans. Marriage defenders in California were not interfering in mutual consent transactions. The issuing of marriage licenses is suppose to take our consent, and we did not consent to neutering marriage licenses. In fact, we did the opposite. So it was the court that was interfering in our consent. We corrected that.

Most of the other comments were standard fare, the kind of thing I addressed in my Handy Dandy Marriage Neutering Plea Repellant.

"Tolerance" lasts a second and a half.

Pluralism lasts even less time

Just one more victim - Julea Ward, a graduate student at Eastern Michigan University’s (EMU) School of Counseling who was expelled from the program because she said that as a counselor she could not affirm a client’s homosexual relationship due to her belief in Jesus Christ and biblical morality. Ward is being helped by Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian legal defense group.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez Winning with Marriage, Another year, another electoral victory.

"In Maine, Donald Mendell, a counselor at Nokomis Regional High School, faces an ethics complaint that threatens his license for his public support of the marriage referendum. The complaint against him included the accusation that he has a “long history of being unsupportive of GLBTQ issues.” (“Questioning,” by the way, is the answer to the question of what “Q” stands for.) And what, pray tell, is wrong with that? Jordan Lorence, of the Alliance Defense Fund, says: “The complaint points to nothing that Mr. Mendell has done or not done on the job as the alleged violation of the professional ethical standards. The complaint in essence argues that a social worker who exercises his First Amendment rights to participate in a political campaign should lose his professional license. This is absurd and chilling and intimidating. This is a political gang-tackle against an ideological opponent.”

Multiple proffesions, liceanses, jobs, counselers, charities and so forth will be forced to submit to the gay agenda - so much for tolerance"

Tom Messner of the Heritage Foundation has a report out on “The Price of Prop 8,” chronicling the acts of vandalism and harassment that opponents of gay marriage in California have been subjected to.

The million dollar question

In our comment section, Seda asked the million dollar question. The question I've been hoping someone would ask since the day I came to Opine. To me, it strikes at the heart of the matter.

Is defending traditional marriage more important than assuring that gay people and their families are not fully accepted into society?

Before I answer, I want to point out that I fully recognize that question as the same as the satirists, "Are you ready to compromise and give us everything we are asking for?"

A compromise means both don't get everything we want, but we work together to find some ground in the middle where they both get what they need. Where there are direct incompatibilities, there each need their own space to afford their own values and ideals.

My answer reflects that definition of compromise...

The battle over marriage licenses is really a battle for government recognition of some issue which has value to society and governance at large. As the American Revolution (and the maturity it guided our society to have) taught us that our individuality is only protected as much as the government recognizes what individuality means, both sides fear that without government recognition that their relationship won't be protected.

So it is without any fanfare that I can say in the most clear language, I'm not defending traditions -- I'm defending equality. I'm defending marriage equality. And I want government to promote our individual rights by recognizing marriage for what it is. (see Op-Ed's 800lb gorilla which kicked off this site many years ago).

For me it is this simple, ask anybody before 1980 what marriage equality means and you would likely get an answer along the lines of: equal recognition of rights and responsibilities of the man, woman, and child they potentially create together. It recognizes a procreational unit which is the formation of individual capacity of a man and the individual capacity of a woman, but a capacity which requires the integration with the other. And it our individual liberty is best served by recognizing the rights and responsibilities of each participant.

I happen to agree with the founders of the USA that individuality will be fully protected and served by government only as well as it accurately and explicitly recognizes it. Similarly, I don't trust that if government doesn't explicitly recognize marriage equality between each member of the procreational unit that it will at all be served in our governance. The incompatibility between neutering marriage and marriage is the expectation of participation of both genders. Or rather, the very meaning and conduit of marriage equality.

The marriage neuterists also have a need and their need is just as dire to them. As stated by Seda, it is that "gay people and their families are [...] accepted into society" (I removed the equivocation). RK pointed out in reply that Reciprocal Beneficiaries provides that as far as he can tell. I think so also. It recognizes their relationships for their mutual trust and love they share with another. It recognizes our individual freedom to join into these relationships of mutual dependency and support beyond the procreational unit.

And as far as I can tell Reciprocal Beneficiaries have the added benefit of being flexible enough to provide all the recognition (etc...) that they themselves see their relationship to be while allowing others to see marriage equality as something to be recognized for what it is. It allows the GLBT to be recognized for the mutual trust and commitment they have for each other, and allows married people to be recognized for the issues and needs they have in participating in a procreational unit.

And RB's are extensible enough to include any family arrangement beyond the GLBT. That means it could be a solution to satisfy the beyond marriage groups (who think that marriage is anything you want it to be) and their close intellectual siblings that mistakenly believes marriage should just a contract.

And expectation that I budge on that compromise should be dealt with reasonably and practically. So if that doesn't suffice, let me know how and where. I've yet to see a practical need that cannot be addressed by RB's.

---

DVD extras:

Seda, in full disclosure, listed more demands. They are a step down from the establishment of principles to a petty list that seems suffer from being so uni-dimensional in a single principle -- GLBT have needs that everyone should handle before anything else.

1. Would you trade supporting age-appropriate educational tools (such as the book “Heather Has Two Mommies” and movies like “Southern Comfort”) for teaching your children

   I actually have no problem with that media being in existence, though I personally don't find it useful in teaching my own children. I have many books which deal with a very broad set of standards of loving everyone. I think "everyone" is a term that is best left as "everyone", because when we get specific about one group or another it fails to reach "everyone". Don't you think?

   As far as my own thoughts on elementary education I have to rule them out because they clearly aren't educational tools, they are inculcation tools. And I have reason to be suspicious of how the GLBT to handles age-appropriate venues.

2. and prominent, visible support for the passage of ENDA

   For myself, there is at least one real problem with that legislation. Sexual orientation is something which does play a major role in determining the propriety of many fields of work. Think "gym coach" for showers, etc... And that is as much for fear of gays and lesbians as policies against opposite gender staff manning those positions that would no longer be allowed for discrimination. Sex abuse by people in the teachers chair is on the rise, and pretending there is no reason to safe guard is a great way to encourage that to grow even more. Nope, not on my watch.

   Besides, the GLBT have plenty sufficient laws to go after work places who fire them. They are successful in my estimation, every time it is important.

   While I don't speak for Opine I will give my opinion at that level also. Opine is a very focused blog which deals with a very specific cause. Many of us have other blogs where we discuss other matters. And except for tags for propositions defending marriage I've never seen such advertising at Opine.

   If I were to advertise for anything it would be for causes against human trafficking and sexual abuse which is something affecting far more people across the globe. Something that the GLBT needs to work on internally in the worst way. A study I read (and am pulling from memory) that 1 out of every three lesbians have encountered abuse from another lesbian. Another notes that a large majority of international travel for sexual recreation is for pedophilia -- and far more than their share of that belongs to the GLBT members.

3. fully equal civil unions(including federal tax benefits and interstate recognition) on your blogs

   Replace that with fully relevant civil unions to how the GLBT see their own relationships. Even then why for the GLBT and not any other group? You keep replacing RK and my own explicit terminology of Reciprocal Beneficiaries which extend beyond the GLBT, for Civil Unions which are exclusive to GLBT relationships. Why so self-centered and exclusive?

And this is what she proposes we might get in exchange...

for visible support from LGBT people in opposing the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex marriage?

We already have that, actually. Many GLBT members oppose re-defining marriage.

More Poll Dancing

The Los Angeles Times took another poll on marriage neutering. Cathleen Decker reports about it in this article. They also ran an editorial on marriage neutering, which I analyzed here, and I look at some of the responses they've posted here.

Their polling – according to them, anyway - shows that a small majority of California voters are in favor of neutering marriage. Say, didn't the polls that right before the voters adopted the California Marriage Amendment? The poll also shows a stronger sentiment, though, against having the issue back on the ballot in 2010 – in other words, strongly against an attempt to repeal the Amendment.

Decker also had the story as a blog entry, which took comments.

[Analysis of comments after the jump.]

"Don R." wrote November 06, 2009 at 03:09 PM:

It's official. CHRISTIANITY = HATE

Even if defending marriage = hate, which is doesn't, Christianity provides just a small portion of the support to defending marriage.

"Santi" wrote November 06, 2009 at 03:53 PM:

I don't understand this country, honestly.

That is evident by the rest of the comment.

Everyday US spends so much money in a non sense war, in instead of using that money to a Universal Health Care or, for example, give rights to its own citizens, like gays couples.

You are born with your rights. Judges and legislatures don't give rights. They recognize them. The only thing government can do is limit rights, or, as our government has done with the help of others, remove from power those limiting rights of their own people too much – like in Afghanistan and Iraq. Which brings up the other point. The military is a Constitutional assignment of the federal government. Health care and marriage neutering are not. But enough of that kind of talk, which is more suited to my namesake blog.

We are a binational gay couple and when I am leaving the U.S, we will have to be separeted... because government doesn't believe in our love.

It has nothing to do with whether or not the government believes in your love. It is a matter of immigration, customs, and security.

"Linguist" wrote November 06, 2009 at 04:40 PM:

It's really quite a strawman to bring up whether it's "normal" or not to be gay, and even more of a distraction to argue that gay people shouldn't be able to protect their relationships because one views what they may or may not be doing in private as "normal".

One need not believe homosexuality to be abnormal to believe in the bride+groom requirement to licensing marriage. To be sure, if one does believe homosexuality to be abnormal, it only gives one further reason to oppose the neutering of marriage.

Is it "normal" to be deaf? "Normal" to be a paraplegic? Is it "normal" to be obese, a rock star, dyslexic, a Wagnerian opera singer, a computer geek?

Here's the difference, though. Homosexuality is a behavior that has advocacy groups trying to use government force to remake a basic building block of society for the sake of personal feelings and political advantage. When deaf people start telling us we can't refer to "hearing and deaf" like they are two different conditions, or that we should not encourage a healthy hearing system because it makes deaf people feel lesser, then they will get the same rebuff.

Every deaf person in America is guaranteed a right to an education.

Actually, none of us are guaranteed such a thing by the Constitution, but that's another area for my blog.

Gay people fall in love and form committed, meaningful relationships. I don't see how you justify preventing gay couples from signing legally binding contracts that protect those relationships.

We don't. We even have domestic partnerships here in California.

Rights simply aren't something that we should determine based on how popular --or un- -- some people or traits are.

There is no right to a state-issued license. State licenses are subject to a popular vote. I want know from these people, who would pretend that not allowing the tyranny of the minority is somehow applying the tyranny of the majority, just how they determine what should be up for a direct vote? How do they determine what is a right? Because currently, it appears to me that simply wishing it to be a right is what makes it so in their minds.

"AMG" wrote November 06, 2009 at 05:12 PM:

Opposition to gay marriage is based in religious doctrine.

Not all of it.

Our constitution clearly separates church and state.

So what? We're all allowed to vote according to what we want. It doesn't matter if we want it because of our religious convictions or not. You get your vote, and I get mine.

Gay couples should have all the same legal rights -- including the right to marry -- that straight couples have.

"Should"? Sounds like you are trying to legislate your morality.

"Hilary" wrote November 06, 2009 at 06:05 PM:

What makes you think YOU should have any authority over whether two free, consenting adults can get married?

They can do whatever they want with themselves or with anyone who consents to be involved. But state-issued licenses are issued on behalf of the people. As such, we, the people have a say.

"BobYerUncle" wrote November 06, 2009 at 10:56 PM:

Recognition of marriage in society is not a fundamental right. Our society extends recognition of marriage between one man and one woman by consensus of the society because society has determined over ages that it has a practical beneficial stake in it, NOT because when a man and a woman get together society immediately owes them something.

Bingo.

Finally, "lycanr1" wrote November 07, 2009 at 04:05 AM:

natural laws? what is a natural law?

Oh, how our education system has failed you.

The Marriage Defense Education Network

Associated Press writers Lisa Leff and David Sharp wrote about the issue of public education and marriage neutering, and how successful marriage defenders have been when focusing on that aspect of the debate.

"It's drawing on the fears of the unknown," said Sandy Maisel, director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Maine's Colby College. "There's no evidence that it's going to happen, but there's very clear evidence that it's an effective campaign tactic."

Maisel's statement is ridiculous. Education unions support marriage neutering. The same groups pushing for marriage neutering have long pushed the rest of their agendas in public schools, often deciding to go ahead without parental approval and leaving it up to parents to find out, object, and pull their individual students out of the situation - and even then the parents face hurdles. Do they think we don't know that GSAs exist? We don't base our stance on the unknown but what we do know.

After signing up to lead the campaign, political consultants Frank Schubert and Jeff Flint noticed that polls were showing voters tended to not have much of a problem with gay relationships.

Right. We're a very tolerant people. Even people who find the very idea of homosexual behavior repulsive generally think homosexual people should not have their freedom of association restricted more than anyone else, and should be able to live their lives the same as anyone else. However, most of us also have the notion that marriage unites the sexes.

[More after the jump.]

In California and Maine, gay marriage supporters countered the claims with spots featuring prominent elected officials such as California's chief of public instruction and Maine's attorney general, who both insisted that same-sex marriage had nothing to do with schools.

And the voters don't believe it, because we've been lied to too many times. Parental authority has been undermined too many times. Just read further down:

But the issue persisted, according to advocates on both sides, in part because gay marriage supporters failed to discuss a key fact: Many public schools already have lessons that refer to gay families in the younger grades and confront anti-gay discrimination for older students.

It's not just that. Students are being taught that they must not only affirm, but celebrate homosexual behavior, and not express any disapproval. Plus, public schools are going to teach official state policies, and if the official state policy is that there is no difference between marriage and pseudomarriage, that is what will be taught.

Previously on my namesake blog: "Schools Aren’t Required to Teach Marriage"

Obama knocking men upside the head and Marriage Equality

I think we have a clear statement from Obama on Marriage Equality!

Barack Obama has announced that men 'need to be knocked across the head' to see the imbalance between how much work fathers and mothers put into raising children.

The U.S. president said he knew it was not fair for his wife Michelle to have to 'make sacrifices' all the time.

But he admitted that, even so, he has not managed to achieve equality in his own home.

Hat Tip goes to Feckblog where Feckless has his own commentary, encapsulated below...

Besides the obvious double standard (no one would suggest one should ever knock anything on mothers heads), President Obama seems to have a very simple view of things when it comes to parenthood. Overworked mothers, feckless fathers and a need to push men in the right direction.

A simple view indeed. What about trusting Joe and Jane Normal they both are able to figure out how to arrange their family life, due to their best interests and abilities (as President Obama and his wife obviously have done). And looking at time tables we find out that men actually work as much as women. So the average person already balances this out. Also keep in mind that men are doing more housework and child care than ever and a lot of working dads would consider to be a SAHD and the deadbeat dads we learn about are often "dead broke" dads. In addition, we do not have to forget injustices fathers compared to mother face when it comes to divorce courts or seeing their children after all (PAS).

I can't claim to know the answer to these questions of equality, I can only speak to how important it is to continue making gains in it. Both men and women need to recognize that their equality is a product of their integration, their ability to work together and value each others input and needs. We have far too much work to do in this area to let marriage equality be diverted and subservient to marital interests which at their heart are gender intolerant.

Culture (Not Just Genes) Drives Evolution

"We demonstrate that evolution is operating at least two levels," said Joan Chiao, a professor at Northwestern University in Chicago and lead author of the study.

"One is biological, which is well understood. But there is also a level where cultural traits may have been selected for themselves, emerging in congruence with the selection of different types of genes," she explained by phone.

The genes in question depend on community. Its a good read.

Serious Thinking is Better Than Emotional Sound Bites

Anthony Esolen over at Mere Comments writes this piece, inspired by the vote for marriage in Maine.

First, it is about whether we shall all become, as the Canadian political philosopher Douglas Farrow puts it, "chattels of the state." That is because as long as the natural family is recognized as prior to the creation of the state, then we may still argue that it possesses its own legitimate sphere of authority, and indeed that the state is in some sense beholden to, and subordinate to, and the artificial construct of families, and not the other way around. Simply put, once the state assumes the authority to rule that relationships outside the boundaries of the natural constitute married relationships, then the family becomes a mere ward of the state; for the power to define implies, a fortiori, the power to control.

I strongly recommend clicking through and reading the entire piece.

Mere Comments also pointed me to this PDF file with an excellent, extensive piece by Alan F.H. Wisdom entitled "Is Marriage Worth Defending?"

I especially challenge people who identify as Christians or libertarians who do not see the value of defending marriage to read these.

More AP Coverage of Maine

AP writer David Crary has more coverage of Maine fallout, in an article that basically takes the tone of "what went wrong?" Two things I noticed:

"Today's heartbreaking defeat unfortunately shows that lies and fear can still win at the ballot box," said Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

I hope that is what she sincerely thinks happened, because as long as she doesn't get it, her campaigns will be ineffective.

Richard Socarides, who was an adviser on gay-rights issues in the Clinton administration, said the loss in Maine should prompt gay-rights leaders to reconsider their state-by-state strategy on marriage and shift instead to lobbying for changes on the federal level that expand recognition of same-sex couples.

What would that mean, exactly? It certainly isn't the federal government's role to redefine marriage. If we want to talk about federal employees being able to have reciprocal beneficiaries (in states where that isn't illegal, if there are any), I'm open to discussing that. Come to think of it, didn't President Obama issue an Executive Order to that effect? If we want to talk about federal tax recognition of state licensed brideless or groomless "marriages", I'm open to discussing that, too. But as a princple of general law, government has less interest in same-sex relationships than in bride+groom relationships.

I recognize that states are real governments, not districts of the federal government. I recognize that the people and the states retain what isn't Constitutionally assigned to the federal government. As such, neither Congress nor SCOTUS or any other federal court should tell a state it must neuter marriage licensing.

Marriage Maine-tained

The marriage neutering advocates had a lot more money, the legislature, and confusing ballot language in their favor. But they still lost in Maine. Associated Press writers Glenn Adams and David Crary report that marriage neutering...

has now lost in every single state - 31 in all - in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine - known for its moderate, independent-minded electorate - and mounted an energetic, well-financed campaign.

I disagree with calling these people "gay-rights" advocates. They very well may be that too, but homosexual behavior is not illegal - people already have "gay rights". Marriage laws have an impact on all of us. These are marriage neutering proponents.

Gay-marriage supporters held out hope that the tide would shift before conceding defeat at 2:40 a.m. in a statement that insisted they weren't going away.

Of course they're not going away. They are on a fanatical mission to make everyone else celebrate their behavior and suppress any statement that reflects the reality that coitus and homosexual sodomy are qualitatively different behaviors.

[Much more after the jump.]

Five other states have [neutered marriage licensing] - starting with Massachusetts in 2004, and followed by Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Iowa - but all did so through legislation or court rulings, not by popular vote. In contrast, constitutional amendments [affirming] marriage have been approved in all 30 states where they have been on the ballot.

The defeat left some gay-marriage supporters bitter.

A lot of them were already bitter.

"Our relationship is between us," said Carla Hopkins, 38, of Mount Vernon, with partner Victoria Eleftherio, 38, sitting on her lap outside a hotel ballroom where gay marriage supporters had been hoping for a victory party.

Precisely. It is between you.

"How does that affect anybody else? It's a personal thing."

No, once you demand a state-issued marriage license, it is a public thing. It is between you when you keep it between you. As anyone who goes through a divorce finds out, it is most definitely not just between you.

Earlier Tuesday, before vote-counting began, gay-marriage foe Chuck Schott of Portland warned that Maine "will have its place in infamy" if the gay-rights side won.

See how this is worded - "gay-marriage foe"? How about defender of traditional marriage?

Another Portland resident, Sarah Holman said she was "very torn" but decided - despite her conservative upbringing - to vote in favor of letting gays marry.

"They love and they have the right to love. And we can't tell somebody how to love," said Holman, 26.

This confuses the issue, in the same way it confuses the issue when someone says they don't like drag queens, so they vote to maintain marriage. These couples can express their love. Nobody is stopping them. But they can't force the rest of us to call a brideless or groomless association marriage in our laws.

The other side based many of its campaign ads on claims - disputed by state officials - that the new law would mean "homosexual marriage" would be taught in public schools.

Well, sure, it is going to be taught in public schools no matter what. It is just that parents will still have some leverage to object, or to counter.

Maine voters defeated a measure that would have limited state and local government spending by holding it to the rate of inflation plus population growth...Another measure in Maine, which easily won approval, will allow dispensaries to supply marijuana to patients for medicinal purposes. It is a follow-up to a 1999 measure that legalized medical marijuana but did not set up a distribution system.

So again, we see that it isn't just conservative idealogues or "religious extremists" who are concerned with defending marriage. While marriage neutering advocates may have friends, family, coworkers, etc. that want to avoid the drama and so they nod and seem to affirm their political pleas, some of those people, in the privacy of their ballot box, are sticking up for what's left of marriage. They don't hate anyone; they know in their gut that marriage means something. Hopefully, we can stop the weakening of marriage and restore some strength to it, so that all of us - regardless of lifestyle or sexual orientation - are better off.

More Maine Coverage

Hey, in case you didn’t know, the folks in Maine have been voting today on whether or not to allow the legislature's marriage-neutering law to go in effect. The Los Angeles Times has this story by Bob Drogin.

But gay-rights supporters were hopeful when state officials reported this afternoon that voter turnout appeared unusually heavy for an off-year election, with no statewide or national candidates on the ballot.

"That's great for us," said Mark Sullivan, spokesman for No on 1/Protect Maine Equality, the coalition that is seeking to allow same-sex partners to marry.

We'll see. I'm sure a lot of people thought California Obama voters would favor the neutering of marriage, too, but they instead voted to protect marriage.

[More after the jump.]

The referendum has attracted national attention because Maine may be the first state to have its voters support same-sex marriage.

A "no" vote could be a sign of confusion over the ballot language. A more accurate statement would be that Maine would become the first state where voters didn't defend traditional marriage.

Voters in about 30 states have rejected gay marriage.

They supported traditional marriage, defending it from being neutered.

Same-sex unions are recognized in five states -- Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont -- as a result of judicial rulings or legislative action.

(I think he meant "marriage" as more states, such as California, recognize "unions".) The rest of the states de facto support traditional marriage, whether they've had a recent vote on it or not – because if they really supported neutering marriage, they would have done it. Despite this and his claim that he understands marriage to be something between a man and a woman, President Obama has shown support for the push to neuter marriage, trying to tell everyone we have to adjust our society to the feelings of the few.

Voters in Washington will decide whether to extend the same legal rights to registered domestic partners that married couples enjoy.

Trojan horse. It sounds compassionate, but then it is used to neuter marriage - like they tried in California. I care more about marriage than being nice. What exactly is the state's interest in same-sex couples? Since the activists have demonstrated, in places like California, that neutering marriage is the only end they will accept, it is best not to give them any more tools to do that. I wonder how many of the very same people supporting the domestic partnership in Washington will turn around and then claim that they are an insult?

California Marriage Amendment: One Year Later

The one year anniversary of the California Marriage Amendment is upon us, and that means lots of mourning, whining, hand-wringing, and finger-pointing by marriage neutering proponents in the media, and we're going to have sore loser demonstrations again. Remember the attempted scolding by certain celebrities?

But for all of the emotional outbursts, the fact is, nobody was harmed by the adoption of the California Marriage Amendment. False assumptions or expectations may have been dampened, to be sure, but aside from the possible political aspirations of certain judges, homosexuality advocates, and Gavin Newsom, who recently dropped out of the race for California Governor, no damage was done.

Well, that's not quite true. In the aftermath, some of the sore losers attacked marriage defenders by pressuring their employers, boycotting their businesses, publicly ridiculing their religious and personal convictions, protesting outside and inside churches, and even getting violent. Some marriage neutering proponents have taken a better approach, and I welcome reasonable discussions with them about the nature of marriage, and the roles of various government entities.

[More after the jump.]

Homosexual individuals and couples have not been, as some of the anti-Amendment media implied was possible, rounded up and sent to internment camps. They have not been told to drink out of different drinking fountains or move to the back of the bus. They have not had missionaries breaking into their homes and destroying their property.

Life has gone on. If two people of the same-sex have sought to have their relationship registered with the state as a domestic partnership, they have been treated, by state law, as though they are spouses. They've been able to have their ceremonies and their lives together and live as they please. Sure, two women can't get a marriage license together in California, because there isn't a groom and thus it isn't marriage. How is that any more of an injustice than someone else not being able to get any other state-issued license because the requirement is not met?

So what is it exactly that people will be protesting?

That we, the people of California, took back what a court improperly took away from us. Remember, when you see the protests and the opinion pieces, and all of the fuss, that these are people who want to deny you your vote. These are people who tried to use a court to force you to do something you didn’t want to do, against your religion, against nature, against history, against your intuition, and when you said "no", a lot of them acted like spoiled brats. Spoiled brats are pitiable, but when they get power, they are dangerous. We were better off not giving them the power over marriage. Contrary to their assertions of being subjected to the tyranny of the majority, what we did was protect ourselves from tyranny by a minority.

Californians did the right thing, despite having the deck stacked against them by the ballot language and by "representatives" who chose to ignore the majority. That is cause for celebration.

They All Have Indoor Bedrooms, Too

Our buddy at the Associated Press, Lisa Leff, is out with a story that carried the following headline: "Report: Gay Couples Similar to Straight Spouses"

Well, we already know one obvious and significant difference: the lack of one of the sexes.

So what is this report talking about, exactly?

Same-sex couples who identify as married are similar to straight spouses in terms of age and income, and nearly one-third of them are raising children, according to Census data released Monday that provides a demographic snapshot of gay families in America.

Age and income. Well, yes, people tend to get married when they are older rather than younger, and their income tends to rise with age. For example, "Joe" is more likely to be married if we check in on him at age 32 than he would be if we checked in on him at 19, and he's likely to be earning more money, too.

[Much more after the jump.]

As for the couples who are raising children (and I wonder how many of them have sole or main custody) – unlike with many married couples, none of those children are the biological offspring of both adults. As I've said before, there are instances where I think foster or adoptive parenting is better than the alternative, even lacking a parent of one of the sexes, but I generally do not support actions by adults that deprive a child of living with a married mother and father.

The study released by a think tank based at UCLA also found that Utah and Wyoming were among the states with the highest percentages of gay spouses in 2008, despite being heavily conservative states with no laws providing legal recognition of gay relationships.

That's likely due to the conservative nature of the states – and sparse population -facilitating stability and an appearance of monogamy. If there are few bars with a hook-up feel to them, after all, having a steady makes more sense to more people. Also note that these couples considered themselves married with no state recognition whatsoever. That's freedom.

The data from the annual American Community Survey showed that nearly 150,000 same-sex couples in the U.S., or more than one in four, referred to one another as "husband" or "wife," although UCLA researchers estimate that no more than 32,000 of the couples were legally married.

This is a misappropriation of language. Of course they are free to speak that way, but a husband is a man who is married to a wife, and a wife is a woman who is married to a husband. Without a wife, there is no husband, and vice-versa. This is why, when California temporarily had court-imposed neutered marriage licensing, the forms had "Person A" and "Person B", or something like that.

Gary Gates, the UCLA demographer who conducted the analysis, said

"Most proponents of traditional marriage will say that when you allow these couples to marry, you are going to change the fundamental nature of marriage by decoupling it from procreation. Clearly, in the minds of same-sex couples who are marrying or think of themselves as married, you are not decoupling child-rearing from marriage."

Uh, didn't his own report say that less than a third of these couples are raising children? All of those children were conceived with the help of at least one person outside of that relationship. Most were conceived through a relationship one of the adults had with a prior partner of the opposite sex. So yes, this does further separate child-rearing from marriage (and vice-versa), as these people didn't see fit to marry or to stay married to the mother or father of their children. They were good enough to join body parts with, though.

So the bottom line seems to be that the headline tries to make nonmarriage look like marriage, solely based on participants calling themselves married, and having similar age and income ranges to married couples. It's a stretch, but it is to be expected when there is a deliberate attempt to get people to stop thinking of marriage as something that unites a bride and a groom.

We have seen that some of these couples call themselves married without any state recognition of their relationship as marriage or a domestic partnership. So then marriage doesn't depend on the law - and according to their thinking, it doesn't require both sexes. What, then, is marriage? Not all "married" couples are monogamous - some have even mutually agreed to have an "open marriage", and I'm sure plenty of our marriage neutering friends would say we're not to judge and say those folks aren't married, or are somehow doing something wrong. So "forsaking all others" goes out the window, in practice, along with vows such as "love, honor, cherish" (we all know of spouses who have behaved towards each other like enemies or at least rival siblings), and "til death do us part". Especially with the abandonment of the bride+groom composition, what then, is marriage? If you can't have the objectively verifiable bride+groom foundation at the core, it ceases to have much meaning at all.

Will Maine Run Away With the Spoon?

Philip Spooner is discussed in this entry by Karin Klein in the Los Angeles Times' opinion blog. She calls him an "unlikely folk hero". But first she sets the stage.

On Tuesday, voters will decide whether to go along with the Legislature's legalization of same-sex marriage in the state or whether to kill it via a "people's veto."

Or, in other words – will they go along with the legislature's neutering of state marriage licensing, or will they defend marriage by keeping bride+groom marriage licensing?

If voters defeat Question 1 -- meaning if they affirm the right of gay and lesbian couples to marry -- Maine will become the first state to support same-sex marriage at the ballot box. So far, such marriages have been legalized only through court rulings or legislative action.

Hopefully, the confusing ballot language will not cause anyone to unwittingly go along with neutering of marriage, and they will instead do the right thing and vote "YES".

[More after the jump.]

Spooner, a lifelong Republican, and his late wife raised four sons, one of whom is gay. It's unthinkable to him, he said in the tremulous voice of old age, that three of his sons will enjoy rights denied to the fourth.

While I am thankful for his service in World War II, this statement is a red herring. His homosexual son has the exact same access to state marriage licensing as his other sons. That he doesn't want to exercise that access does not mean it isn't there. He has the same access to getting a driver's license, but if he doesn't want to drive, he's not going to get it. He has the same access to a hunting license, but if he doesn't want to hunt, he's not likely to want it. He has the same access to a medical license, but if he can't stand the sight of a dead body or of blood, he's not likely to want to take the steps to get it. Likewise he has the same access to a marriage license, but if he doesn't want to find a bride, then he doesn't need a marriage license.

"This is what we fought for in World War II," he said, "that idea that we can be different and still be equal."

And there's probably a WWII vet somewhere who is a Democrat who has a homosexual son or daughter and still understands that marriage unites the sexes and the state marriage licenses should reflect that. His experience and service do not change truth, no matter how emotional he may get. In that equality he has fought for, he gets one vote, and so does any other legally registered Maine voter.

Let's hope Maine voters have been a big part of Spooner's Internet audience.

Let's hope, for the sake of future generations, marriage is kept intact by the voters of Maine voting YES on 1.

There are comments posted, including a couple from our regular commenter John Howard. You can imagine how those were received.

Mothering matters, but grandmothering counts too

Why women evolved to live so far beyond their reproductive years is a mystery long debated. Now there is new evidence backing the "grandma hypothesis" – that they stick around to invest in their grandchildren, safeguarding the genes they share.

Leslie Knapp and her team at the University of Cambridge reasoned that if the hypothesis is true, how much grandma invests in her grandchildren should depend on the proportion of genes they share. So they came up with a way to test this.

The full report gives a few links and some breadth to the report.

Brookstone employee fired in Massachusetts for expressing his opinions about gay marriage.

As if Onlawn's story below was not enough we get this from MassResistance.

“If Homosexual “marriage” becomes legal in your State – Then you can be fired from your job as well Just for expressing your belief that you disagree with that lifestyle”

What harm? Question 1 in Maine sees more of the same

I'm sure there is more to the story, but the alignment is indeed suspect. Keep tuned, [update: more details] if any of this is shown to be in error I will correct it.

The latest example of how those in power in Maine schools will push homosexual marriage on students involves Don Mendell, a public school counselor who appeared in a Yes on Question 1 television ad. Mr. Mendell is a two-time recipient of the state Department of Education Commissioner's Recognition Award and was nominated as Maine State Teacher of the Year. Despite a lifetime of service, a formal complaint was filed with the state seeking to have his license revoked. They say because Mr. Mendell spoke out in support of Question 1 he should not be allowed to counsel students anymore.

We learned just Friday that the person who filed the complaint against Mr. Mendell works for a school principal who happens to be the husband of the gay activist teacher who appeared in a No on Question 1 commercial!

If this sort of thing can happen before homosexual marriage is even legalized, can you imagine what will happen once they have the law on their side? The message is unmistakable: It's fine to speak out if you support gay marriage, but if you speak out against it, they will punish you. It's just the latest example that if Question 1 fails and homosexual marriage is legalized, those in power in Maine schools will push it on students just as they are trying to punish one of Maine's best educators for supporting traditional marriage.

It is outrageous what is happening to Don Mendell.

If your sense of freedom and liberty is pricked by this action, do something, please. I saw too many good people harassed just like this over Prop 8 in California, and over the referendum in Massachusetts. I figure the best defense we have at this point is well documented support in reaction.