Marriage expert George Clooney - who has something like four or five years of marriage experience from the early 1990s and has said he'd never marry again (but of course women will still throw themselves at him) – if he was quoted accurately, said of neutering marriage:
Does this mean you are stating for the record that there is no right to polygamy or to a lower age of consent?
Does this mean you are stating for the record that any push for any other new "civil right" will be erroneous?
Does he think crossdressers and people who undergo surgical mutilation to appear to be the opposite sex already have all of the rights they should?
I just want to be clear on this.
We hear over and over again that this is it. Neutering marriage is the last unrealized civil rights issue. However, I have a hard time believing that for some of those who advocate neutering marriage, this statement is sincere or will prove true. Some – not all – marriage neutering advocates appear to be motivated at least part by such things as:
1) Trying to get everyone to believe that there's no difference between marriage and brideless or groomless pairings
2) Esteeming homosexual behavior in public opinion
3) Devaluing masculinity and reducing a child's right to a father
4) Devaluing femininity and reducing a child's right to a mother
3) Devaluing marriage
4) Breaking down the natural family
5) Breaking down moral standards
6) Encouraging dependence on government
7) Changing or reducing the strength of certain religions and religious organizations
8) Giving some organizations a reason for continuing to exist and thus keep their leadership employed
Yes, neutering marriage would help with most of those goals, but they won't be fully reached. There would have to be another line of attack formed, through some other issue. Also, by claiming 1) this is a matter of civil rights, and 2) it's all about equality, the matter would continue for many decades after nationwide neutering of marriage laws. Just look what has happened with legitimate civil rights. Federal laws were passed well over forty years ago in regards to certain actual civil rights, and we still "need" federal programs and offices and activist organizations and lawsuits and on and on it goes. Affirmative action programs are still "needed" and when proponents are asked when it will be enough, they can never provide a clear answer. (Why provide their own retirement date before they want to?)
Then there are strange things that seem to go against what the movement fought for so many years ago. There used to be law-imposed segregation by skin color, and that was done away with (thankfully), but what we do have now? We have things like college dorms set aside for people of certain skin colors or ethnicities. It is segregation, but since is being done by the "minority," it is somehow okay. It would not surprise me if the same thing were to happen with state-labeled marriage, whereby special privileges and programs are created specifically for brideless or groomless "marriages," especially if data were to note the inevitability of an inequality of outcomes between the three kinds of relationships.
It's a great racket for the activists and lawyers, because things will never be equal in outcome. Just one example: with the neutering of marriage, data would reveal how much more expensive it is for the average "married" same-sex couple wanting to have children to become parents than the average sex-inclusive couples wanting to have children. Does that seem silly? Well so is creating a whole new set of "civil rights" based on private psuedosexual behavior.
Someone who has homosexual feelings already has the same rights as anyone else (as they should). Calling the neutering of marriage the last civil rights issue may turn out to be an effective political tactic, but it is a dishonest one, because either it isn't really a matter of civil rights or there will inevitably be more "rights" discovered that are somehow being denied. Nationwide neutering of marriage would only make the advocates more bizarre and annoying as they would wield a powerful new tool to smash down what they see as "heterosexism" and "gender stereotypes", which means just about anything they don't like.
“This really is the final leg of the civil rights movement.”Really? Do you promise, George?
Does this mean you are stating for the record that there is no right to polygamy or to a lower age of consent?
Does this mean you are stating for the record that any push for any other new "civil right" will be erroneous?
Does he think crossdressers and people who undergo surgical mutilation to appear to be the opposite sex already have all of the rights they should?
I just want to be clear on this.
We hear over and over again that this is it. Neutering marriage is the last unrealized civil rights issue. However, I have a hard time believing that for some of those who advocate neutering marriage, this statement is sincere or will prove true. Some – not all – marriage neutering advocates appear to be motivated at least part by such things as:
1) Trying to get everyone to believe that there's no difference between marriage and brideless or groomless pairings
2) Esteeming homosexual behavior in public opinion
3) Devaluing masculinity and reducing a child's right to a father
4) Devaluing femininity and reducing a child's right to a mother
3) Devaluing marriage
4) Breaking down the natural family
5) Breaking down moral standards
6) Encouraging dependence on government
7) Changing or reducing the strength of certain religions and religious organizations
8) Giving some organizations a reason for continuing to exist and thus keep their leadership employed
Yes, neutering marriage would help with most of those goals, but they won't be fully reached. There would have to be another line of attack formed, through some other issue. Also, by claiming 1) this is a matter of civil rights, and 2) it's all about equality, the matter would continue for many decades after nationwide neutering of marriage laws. Just look what has happened with legitimate civil rights. Federal laws were passed well over forty years ago in regards to certain actual civil rights, and we still "need" federal programs and offices and activist organizations and lawsuits and on and on it goes. Affirmative action programs are still "needed" and when proponents are asked when it will be enough, they can never provide a clear answer. (Why provide their own retirement date before they want to?)
Then there are strange things that seem to go against what the movement fought for so many years ago. There used to be law-imposed segregation by skin color, and that was done away with (thankfully), but what we do have now? We have things like college dorms set aside for people of certain skin colors or ethnicities. It is segregation, but since is being done by the "minority," it is somehow okay. It would not surprise me if the same thing were to happen with state-labeled marriage, whereby special privileges and programs are created specifically for brideless or groomless "marriages," especially if data were to note the inevitability of an inequality of outcomes between the three kinds of relationships.
It's a great racket for the activists and lawyers, because things will never be equal in outcome. Just one example: with the neutering of marriage, data would reveal how much more expensive it is for the average "married" same-sex couple wanting to have children to become parents than the average sex-inclusive couples wanting to have children. Does that seem silly? Well so is creating a whole new set of "civil rights" based on private psuedosexual behavior.
Someone who has homosexual feelings already has the same rights as anyone else (as they should). Calling the neutering of marriage the last civil rights issue may turn out to be an effective political tactic, but it is a dishonest one, because either it isn't really a matter of civil rights or there will inevitably be more "rights" discovered that are somehow being denied. Nationwide neutering of marriage would only make the advocates more bizarre and annoying as they would wield a powerful new tool to smash down what they see as "heterosexism" and "gender stereotypes", which means just about anything they don't like.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000123/bio
ReplyDeleteGeorge, though might never marry himself sure does enjoy the extended kinship of family (on his father's side with his Aunt Rosemary) in show business. His mother and father have been married since 1959, too bad George can not value how he benefited and appreciate he came from a home with both biological parents.
He gets all the female companionship he wants (my guess is that he doesn't consider fornication to be immoral) and is not at risk for paying alimony.
ReplyDeleteThe SSM campaign is not about equality bt about equivalence - one false equivalence after another. It is not about protection of civil rights but assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics. It is not a freedom revolution but a moral revulsion -on many levels before even consideration of the moral standing of same sex sexual conduct.
ReplyDeleteClooney has tossed a soft ball that you have hit out of the ballpark, Playful Walrus. But his views as a politicized entertainer are as superficial as that of most SSMers who have led the cause in courtrooms, publications, and in appeals to voters and legislators. If they all showed up to pitch their opinions you would be kept busy swinging for the bleachers at every turn.
This is only another example of the cultural Left's utter myopia. They can't, and frequently do not even try to, really look beyond just the "now" or the next few years, and really ask questions about how the next generation and the generations after are going to be affected.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that "this is the final leg of civil rights" is ludicrous, not only because of the reasons PW notes, but also because the idea that progress is synonymous with expansion of equality to new groups has been so successfully ingrained, such that every generation growing up needs to feel that there is some group, or some particular relating to said group, previously unthought of in such regard, that needs to have it's equality recognized where it supposedly was not before.
And this new cause for an extension of the equality principle beyond what their parents had even considered becomes a way in which every new generation can feel that they have discovered a moral truth which demonstrates their moral superiority to their parents, and those who came before them. Makes the kids feel good about themselves, and, after all, this is what we've been told that it's all about, making the kids feel good about themselves.
The only way anything is going to be the "last leg" of egalitarianism is if kids start to respect tradition again, and I don't think Clooney or anyone else in the cultural Left want to see that.
Let alone the idea that Hollywood will be able to feel good about itself if it does not have a new egalitarian cause by which it can feel superior to the rest of the public.
Deletemaybe supporting marriage the current blacklist in Hollywood? So to ensure you're in good standing with the entertainment gods you offer what they want to hear.
DeleteUndoubtedly, supporting marriage IS the current thing which gets you blacklisted in Hollywood. Let's just see what happens to any member of the Hollywood community who dares to say that they even have doubts about neutering the concept of marriage. See if they get any roles after the inevitable attacks they get.
ReplyDeleteHollywood is hypocritical about blacklists anyway; if it is due to pressure from those outside the entertainment community, it's worse than Stalinism (who's regarded as the worse monster by them, Stalin or Joe McCarthy?). If it is due to pressure from within the entertainment community, it's perfectly OK.