The Crybaby Vote

It is very important to remember that we are a nation of laws, not "of men" – meaning everyone is subject to the laws, including law enforcement and elected officials. If we have separate traffic lanes for motor vehicles and bicycles, we don't make exceptions based on who is driving the car and who is peddling the bicycle.

With that in mind, here’s David Crary’s Association Press article, "Gay Legislators Having Impact in Marriage Debates".

The gay lawmakers have impact in two important ways. Their speeches, often evoking personal themes, can sometimes sway wavering colleagues, and they can forge collegial relationships even with ideological foes through day-to-day professional and social interaction.

Emotion and selfish personal biases make for bad legislation. Some states do not issue marriage licenses to first cousins. Should lawmakers change that because one of their colleagues professes deep and abiding love for her first cousin? And no, I'm not comparing same-sex pairings to incestuous pairings; that would be silly, because unlike same-sex pairings, first-cousin marriages have a long, worldwide history of being recognized as valid marriages, and are normative in many places in the world today.

If another legislator had their own farm, on which they used synthetic pesticides, and that legislator really enjoyed their own crop but wanted the prestige of an "organic" designation for her crop, should her colleagues change the definition of organic so she'll feel better?

If voters aren't supposed to vote based on their feelings or religious convictions, how is it any more appropriate for legislators to vote based on their own sexual desires or emotions or those of their colleagues?

In 2009, New Hampshire's legislature became the first to [neuter] marriage without ever facing pressure from marriage-rights lawsuits.

One of the emotional high points of that debate was a speech by Rep. David Pierce, a gay Democrat from Hanover who is raising two daughters with his partner.

Unless he or his partner's relatives/friends died and left these two girls in their care, it was entirely his choice to condemn these girls to a motherless life. What kind of message about women are those girls getting from being raised in such a home? How in the world are either of those men going to counsel those girls about dealing with heterosexual boys (or, as the case may be, girls) when socializing and dating? We know he didn't make these children with his partner. Why isn't the obvious question asked and answered?

He described telling his oldest child, 5 at the time, that "some people don't believe we should be a family."

That's not what I believe. I recognize the fact that it isn't a marriage without a bride.

Pierce serves on an election law committee chaired by David Bates, prime sponsor of one of the repeal bills.

"We acknowledge we fundamentally disagree on that question," Pierce said. "But it doesn't have to dissolve into being uncivil. ... We treat each other with as much respect as anybody."

He said he had only one conversation with Bates on the marriage issue last year, recalling that the Republican had told Pierce not to take the repeal effort personally.

"I said, `Of course it's personal. You want to delegitimize my relationship with my partner of 18 years, and my two kids,'" Pierce recalled.

Yes, everything is all about who you love or lust after. Right. Any disagreement with your agenda is a personal attack. (Which, of course, means that Pierce must in turn have it in for Bates personally.) When marriage licenses were first being created in your state, the people who did it were sitting around saying, "Let's stick it to the gays!" Your relationship in only legitimate if the state calls it by a certain name. No other relationships that aren’t licensed by the state are legitimate. Sure.

Homosexual legislators have their own votes. Their colleagues are under no obligation to abdicate their reponsibility to the Constitution, the people they represent, and their own convictions.

Legislators should not be swayed by appeals to empotion made by grandmothers or lovers or anyone else. Those things play well as viral videos, but we should not base law on who can come up with the biggest sob story or most pithy bumper sticker at any given session.

It is Constitutional, practical, and moral to treat different kinds of voluntary personal associations differently. A brideless or groomless pairing is inherently different from true marriage.