email re "protection of marriage"

[medeak]

Am trying to calm down before responding.

"Hey!

The issue for the protection of marriage: There is a bill coming before the senate June 6Th proposing that we make a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. In every society, and almost every religion, since the beginning of time marriage has been understood to be a union between a man and a woman.

Recently, the gay community has challenged this and fought to have individual states change their laws to permit gays to marry, under the same marriage laws as heterosexuals. A handful of states have "bent over" and allowed this, but many more states have passed laws that define marriage as one man, one woman contracts.

The problem is that this state by state (where the majority rules i.e. people vote on how they want the law to be) can be over ruled by the supreme court and thereby taking away an individual states rights to choose how they want to govern on this issue. It all breaks down to a minority (small percentage of Americans) getting their way regardless of how the rest of America votes. Senators, congressmen, etc. are elected officials and are here to serve their states constituents. People voice their opinions, vote, etc. and majority rules, hence Democracy. If a senator, congressman, etc. does not vote the way the majority wants he/she will not be re-elected.

The supreme court, on the other hand, are not elected officials. They are appointed and stay on the bench till they die or retire. They have the ultimate authority unless there is a constitutional amendment passed. Then they are required to protect and respect the amendment.

Gay couples, who want to have the benefits of marriage can enter civil contracts, which give them the same rights as married couples i.e. having joint insurance, being able to decide for one another on issues like medical care, who gets what if one or the other dies, etc.

This is a critical time in our country. We need to contact our individual senators and let them know our opinions. If you think marriage should remain as it was ordained by God, as the union of one man and one woman I strongly urge you to contact your senators.

I am not against gay people. Truly, they just need to live their lives like the rest of us. I don't care what you do in your bedroom and it hardly defines who you are as a complete person. I am, however against redefining marriage. They can have the same deal without taking away from a sacred institution. We need to stand up as Americans and say enough. Tolerance is wonderful as long as it goes both ways! Tolerate this....I believe that marriage defined by God, is and should always be between one man and one woman. I'm not going to tell God He's wrong or that He's "old-fashioned". He knew what He was doing and we need to respect it. We as a nation cannot keep expecting blessings if we are not going to obey the very God who blesses. And for those who say they don't believe in God then why would you want a God based union?

Perhaps they forget that there may be designer jeans, handbags, cars, jewelery, etc. but there is no designer God. We cannot pick and choose what aspects we like and don't like. Oh, you can if you want, but remember how many times the Israelites did that and what happened.

OK, enough! I hope that I clarified things for you a little."

[Bouncy Ball]

1. Response: Fuck off.

Keep your nose out of other people's business. Let 'em get married. Oh and fuck off.

[Hamlette]

4. there is no way to top Bouncy Ball's response

but people should be reminded of Loving v Virginia. Blacks were prevented from marrying whites based on religious reasons. And it was a much smaller minority of people who wanted to marry interracially.

They better come up with a better argument than the Bible. Or explain to me why they were wrong about what the Bible said about interracial marriage.

[Bouncy Ball]

7. Good points.

And as for my response: that's just the point I'm at with these assholes. I don't even like wasting too many words on them. Too many words confuses them. They understand fuck off.

[pooja]

10. Are you kidding?

The fact that the gov't gets in anyone's bed is ridiculous. Marriage/ union/ contract paid to the gov't its all the same thing. If a "marriage" is not recognized by the govt, then you don't get the cool freebies like the tax break, health care, property and children. This is so stupid and sensationalized. Change the way it reads... Call all these paid contracts to the govt "unions" and get marriage and God out of the damn way...

[Bouncy Ball]

13. I'm fine with that, too.

It is silly.

Either we ALL have civil unions or we ALL get to have marriages.

But none of this second-class citizens bullshit.

Any sanctity in a marriage is GIVEN TO IT BY THE PEOPLE IN IT. NOT by any government or church or deity.

[Bouncy Ball]

2. ...

"Gay couples, who want to have the benefits of marriage can enter civil contracts, which give them the same rights as married couples i.e. having joint insurance, being able to decide for one another on issues like medical care, who gets what if one or the other dies, etc."

THEN WHY NOT JUST CALL IT MARRIAGE, FUCKER?

[Ms. Toad]

35. Partly because it isn't true...

There are at least 1138 federal rights granted to married couples that CANNOT be obtained by couples entering into a civil contract. (First, no state is a party to a contract between these two individuals - and second even if the email is talking about state recognized Civil Unions the Federal Goverment does not recognize these unions and the parties are not entitled to these federal rights:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04353r.pdf

(Not to mention a whole slew of similar state rights.)

[Occulus]

42. No part of that paragraph is true for me

This idiot son of an asshole can fuck off.

Sorry, I had to embellish a bit.

[Bouncy Ball]

3. One other thing:

"I believe that marriage defined by God, is and should always be between one man and one woman. I'm not going to tell God He's wrong or that He's "old-fashioned". He knew what He was doing and we need to respect it. We as a nation cannot keep expecting blessings if we are not going to obey the very God who blesses. And for those who say they don't believe in God then why would you want a God based union?"

YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR GOVERNMENT.

How fucking HARD is that to understand?

[kiahzero]

6. Well...

How fucking HARD is that to understand?

Apparently it's pretty hard, because they've been struggling with that concept for the past 60 years.

[Bouncy Ball]

9. I don't think it's hard for them to understand.

I think they just don't give a shit.

And they better START. Their attitude is un-American.

[kiahzero]

12. No disagreement that it's un-American

But why had "they better start?" Sadly, it seems like there's no real repercussions in many parts of the country for signing on to this type of bigotry.

[Bouncy Ball]

16. Because I think it's just a matter of time.

Eventually, a majority of people will see how silly it is to exclude a group of people from marriage. The world moves towards progressivism. It's just a matter of time.

[kiahzero]

18. Here's to making that day come sooner (n/t)

:toast:

[Bouncy Ball]

19. Here's to it, my friend.

Cheers!

[tenshi816]

41. You know what's funny about this issue?

As I'm sure you know, the UK introduced civil unions for gays a short while back (I've already forgotten the date). There was a little flurry of publicity, as you'd expect, and then...nothing, it was such a non-issue that it was quickly gone from the news. You know the rest: there's been no breakdown of UK society. Gay marriage (because that's what it is, whatever the government chooses to call it) is just another part of the fabric of our lives. It is what it is.

I wish I understood exactly what it is the RW fundies think would happen if gays were allowed to marry in the States. Any heterosexual marriage that is "threatened" by the prospect of gays marrying isn't a strong marriage anyway.

[medeak]

5. her baby was fathered by someone else while married

... sanctity of marriage indeed...

am still trying to cool down....

[Bouncy Ball]

11. Bring that up in your response.

Ask her about the sanctity of her baby's father's marriage.

And what God had to do with THAT.

[Stephanie]

31. We need to introduce a constitutional amendment banning adultery

Seriously, we should do it.

[baldguy]

8. New Democratic talking point:

"No Second-Class Citizens!"

[PA Democrat]

14. My response: I am truly sorry to hear of the fragile state of your

marriage. I had no idea how threatened your marriage was by the very idea of two gay people who love each other sharing the same legal rights that you enjoy. Have you considered marriage counseling?

[Bouncy Ball]

17. Best response ever.

Use this one.

[tsuki]

15. OMG, it's GAY MARRIAGE, the most important issue facing

21st Century America!! Im series!!11!! Its Hugh!!11!!

Never mind, the economy, the price of gas, the dead in foreign lands, the maimed and dying at home, the depleted uranium being spread world wide, the lack of health care, the government listening to your phone conversations, the sneak and peaks, the stolen elections.

Brother Love and his traveling salvation band say all these things will be corrected if we focus the entire energy of the country on GAY MARRIAGE. (And BTW, Brother Love needs a donation, send in your milk money.)

What a bunch of morans!!11!!

[tech3149]

20. Isn't a marriage license just a civil contract?

Issued by the court dissolved by the court? At least mine was.

"I am not against gay people. Truly, they just need to live their lives like the rest of us"

So if you can get married, so can they!

[celestia671]

21. So very stupid!

It just kills me the way they trumpet that gays who want to marry will destroy the sanctity of marriage! What threatens that sancity are the millions who cheat on their spouses or the celebrities who get married and divorced as often as they change their underwear!

[jmowreader]

22. There's a big problem with this line of thought...

In a lot of places, gay people can't enter into those kinds of contracts.

Marriage is just one of the THOUSANDS of things the church stole. Marriage never started out as some God-ordained thing. It was all about two things: inheritance of property, and the proper breeding of children. Children were the reason marriage brokers were invented, and property transferrence was the reason dowries were invented.

[PublicWrath]

23. Quote: A handful of states have "bent over" and allowed this.......

The writer claims he/she is not against gay people, but says that the states recognizing gay marriage are "bending over" for it?

I'm so disgusted and angry I can't even think straight. The email is despicable. And so is the person who wrote it.

[Berry Cool]

33. Yeah, that line about states "bending over" for it was so clever, eh?

The real sentiments of the writer were expressed right there, in that little passive-aggressive snarky attempt at humor.

"Some states 'bent over' for gay rights. Get it?? 'Bent over'? HAHAHAHAHAHA! :rofl:

"So what we're telling you is that, right now, this constitutional amendment is, well, sort of like a bar of soap, that we can use to scrub the institution of marriage clean, and make sure it stays that way.

"So, what I'm really trying to say is: When it comes to marriage, LET'S NOT DROP THE SOAP!! Ha ha! Get it? 'Drop the soap'? HAHAHAHAHAHA! :rofl:"

People can try to pretend to be neutral, unbiased, tolerant and accepting...but true bigots will always reveal themselves one way or another.

[nemo137]

38. My response to that was "buh!"

There are no words, that's just awful.

[rickrok66]

24. Arguments against the Federal Marriage Amendment:

From the Human Rights Campaign (http://www.hrc.org)
Federal Marriage Amendment

"The Federal Marriage Amendment is discriminatory.
It is wrong to single out a group of Americans for second-class status.

The Federal Marriage Amendment undermines the Constitution.
The Constitution should expand freedoms for Americans, not limit them.

The Federal Marriage Amendment is not what Congress should be focusing on.
Between the war in Iraq, rising health care costs and the continuing threat of terrorism, Congress has much more important things that it should be dealing with other than a constitutional amendment banning marriage between same-sex couples."

My arguments:

1. Due Process. Yes, individual states can pass law on marriage. It is a state issue. If one state passes a law allowing same sex marriage and that couple wants to be recognized in another state, then the court system is the mechanism in place to mitigate this process.

2. God and Marriage. The institution of marriage changes every fifty years or so.
God didn’t ordain marriage as an institution 6,000 years ago when the world was created. Romantic love wasn’t a factor in marriage until the renaissance and that was only with the nobility. It spread as a factor in the decision to marry until later on with the lower classes. One hundred years ago, marriages were still arranged. A forty year old man could marry a teenager and no one cared – I think Edgar Allen Poe is a good example. Husbands were allowed to rape their wives – this was in some states in the 1970s. The “rule of thumb” term comes from the old British law that said that a man could beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb.

3. Hypocrisy. It is okay to quote a so-called 6,000 year old institution, but the FISA
Law of 1978 is ancient and out of date.

4. Cynical Statistics. If every gay person in the United States (5-10%) of 270 million –
say 27 million and every one of them was in the consenting age to marry – say 18-50 – say half – 14 million. Now, how many of them would want to get married? Let’s be generous and say half – 7 million. So, if 7 million people got married and created 3.5 million couples – who would really notice or care?

5. God and Marriage 2: If the state wants to legislate that any two consenting adults
can be married than it should be able to without coercion of any religion. In the same argument, the state should not coerce a religion to allow same sex marriages. There is a difference between a marriage license and a sacrament.

6. Cynicism. Heterosexuals ruined the institution of marriage a long time ago.
Homosexuals are at least trying to preserve it.

7. Time and Money. If the FMA passes then every state legislature will to vote on it,
like the ERA in the 1970s. So, instead of funding for schools and repairing your roads, you state legislature will spend all of it’s time in session debating over whether gays can be married.

8. Lat minute pandering. Religious conservatives should recognize at this point that
the GOP is pulling out the tried and true nonsense which gets its base mobilized: gay bashing, flag burning, and English as the official language legislation.

9. Not knowing the consequences of their actions. This kind of legislation failed in
some states because of wording that would have hurt families and other types of partnerships in the areas of hospital visitation, insurance beneficiaries. Etc.

[Ian David]

25. A calm, rational, measured and mature response is necessary...

Sign them up on dozens of email lists to receive gay porn.

Let me know if you need help doing that.

[jaxx]

26. I emailed my senators this morning when I read about this,

and told them I expect them to not vote for discrimination in any way, shape, or form. And that's exactly what it is........discrimination. NO WAY!

[kevinbgoode]

27. What kind of crock is this?

And where do you get off demanding that I, a citizen of this country, and a taxpaying resident of MY state, be forced to subsidize your religious interpretation of marriage? Just where do you get off trying to pull this crap that you "have nothing against gays" but that you deserve special goddamned legal protections for health decisions and funeral decisions for a cool $15 and the rest of us are supposed to be "single" and spend a couple of grand for the same stuff, only to have some religious nutcase relative challenge our documents in a court? Are you trying to tell me that you, by virtue of your heterosexual superiority, have an ordained-by-God right to ride in an ambulance with a member of your family, but I'm not unless I carry around a portfolio full of legal papers?

Don't tell me that I don't have the right to make a contract with MY state. I am just as much a citizen as you are, and you don't deserve any special privileges just because you get all hot and bothered over someone of the opposite sex.

And if you think there are plenty of legal documents that "single" people, or gay couples can come up with to offer the same protections that YOU get for that $15, then why don't you just get rid of 1000 statutes governing your special status and live like the rest of us. After all, you can get all those protections the same way you claim WE can. So you go to your little church and tie the knot, and understand that it's ALL you get - no special contract with the state. You just go draw up the same damned paper the rest of us have to deal with, and we'll all be perfectly happy.

hahaha...so how's that for a nice email response?

[rep the dems]

28. I read a similar article

in some crazy right wing christian magazine that was sent to my house for some reason. What amazes me most is the way they talk like gay couples are trying to push heterosexuals around, and get more benefits out of marriage. They just want to be EQUAL! Stop with all the bullshit, there's no hidden agenda, they're not out to ruin the institution of marriage, as republicans so fondly say. While we're at it let's go back to segregation too! After all God obviously didn't mean for us all to be equal. That would be stupid!

[Ilsa]

29. "Truly, they just need to live their lives like the rest of us."

Wouldn't that mean they'd be allowed to marry and have children! Isn't that the deal? They want to live their lives like the rest of us! Interesting how this author is accidentally making the argument for gay marriage.

[Stephanie]

30. It's jsut like when we let black people sit at the lunch counters.

Look how that turned out! Now they think they can go everywhere and do everything we do! If only we had passed a "protection of white people's privilege" back then, before it was too late.

[area51]

32. "We cannot pick and choose what (relig.) aspects we like and don't like."

Oh, but they do. It's people like this who get so upset by that passage in Leviticus (using it as an excuse to deny gays equal rights), yet ignore other parts of the Old Testament that talk about how they're not supposed to eat pork or shellfish or wear clothing w/different fabrics mixed together. Hypocrites.

[medeak]

34. Excellent material here!

thanks everyone... you kept me from stroking out or having an aneurysm

[Nobody]

36. Oh how fun. historical inaccuracies!

First of all, let me just wave aside the religious nonsense. With separation of church and state, the religious argument is worthless. You can't write religious beliefs into law. A gay couple should be able to hop on down to a JP and it won't affect your emailer's god one whit.

The email said

"In every society, and almost every religion, since the beginning of time marriage has been understood to be a union between a man and a woman."

WRONG! In many societies, there has been polygyny, the marriage of one man and several women. Has there ever been evidence that the women weren't married to each other as well as to the man?

At least in India, there has been mythological tales of five brothers all marrying the same woman. Polyandry! Were these brothers also married to each other?

NYAH! There is historical evidence of more than two people in a marriage and some of them were of the same sex. Oh the horror!

Even today in Utah, illegal though it may be and grounds for excommunication from the LDS these days, there are Mormon men who are married to more than one wife. There are two or more women in the marriage! Hey! That's same sex, isn't it?

And who's to say that of King Solomon's 1000 wives and concubines, 100 of them weren't lesbians? Ten percent of the human population is homosexual. Add to this number the bisexuals. King Solomon couldn't have sex with all 1000 women all in one night, so the bisexuals and lesbians could have fun together any time they wanted when hubby dearest was off boinking one (or more)of the ohers. Thus, the wives were married to each other as well as to King Solomon. He is only 1 tenth of one percent of the total marriage population, so statistically, this was a group marriage with almost all women.

Of the people who revere the bible, almost all of them consider King Solomon a wise and good man.

[ContraBass Black]

37. Where does this all come from?

Sheesh.

[opiate69]

39. The entire thing hinges on a false assertion..

"In every society, and almost every religion, since the beginning of time marriage has been understood to be a union between a man and a woman."

Wrong...



From the May 2004 Anthropology News

Gay Marriage and Anthropology

Linda S Stone
Washington State U

Politicians and the public in the US today are raising a question once pursued by anthropologists in the 1950s, namely, what should we mean by marriage? The politically charged issue concerns whether or not a constitutional definition of marriage can exclude same-sex couples. With over a century of experience in the study of kinship and marriage worldwide, anthropology can offer perspectives on this debate that may be of interest to our students or the general public.

Can Marriage Be Defined?
Many politicians claim that those advocating gay and lesbian marriage are trying to redefine marriage. But what anthropologists have learned is that from a global, cross-cultural perspective, “marriage” is in the first place extremely difficult, some would say impossible, to define. One anthropologist, Edmund Leach tried to define marriage in his 1955 article “Polyandry, Inheritance and the Definition of Marriage” published in MAN. Leach quickly gave up this task, concluding that no definition could cover all the varied institutions that anthropologists regularly consider as marriage. Rejecting Leach’s conclusion, Kathleen Gough attempted to define marriage cross-culturally in 1959 as an institution conferring full “birth status rights” to children (The Nayars and the Definition of Marriage. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 89:23-34). Gough’s definition of marriage was convoluted—notable, in her own words, for its “inevitably clumsy phraseology”—since it covered monogamy, polygyny, polyandry and same-sex marriage. But most important, its core feature—conferring of birth status rights on children—does not hold up cross-culturally.

It is true that virtually every society in the world has an institution that is very tempting to label as “marriage,” but these institutions simply do not share common characteristics. Marriage in most societies establishes the legitimacy or status rights of children, but this is not the case, for example, among the Navajo where children born to a woman, married or not, become full legitimate members of her matriclan and suffer no disadvantages. “Marriage” around the world most often involves heterosexual unions, but there are important exceptions to this. There are cases of legitimate same-sex marriages as, for example, woman-woman marriage among the Nuer and some other African groups. Here, a barren woman divorces her husband, takes another woman as her wife, and arranges for a surrogate to impregnate this woman. Any children from this arrangement become members of the barren woman’s natal patrilineage and refer to the barren woman as their father. Among some Native American groups, males who preferred to live as women (berdache) adopted the names and clothing of women and often became wives of other men.
(snip)http://www.aaanet.org/press/an/0405if-comm4.htm

[OnionPatch]

40. I wish some of these types would review

their high-school American Government books. They whine about how the judges make rulings in favor of this "small minority" even though majorities feel differently. Duh! Our system of government was designed to protect minorities against the rule of the majority should the majority try to deny their rights.