This week in California the issue of same-sex marriage has re-surfaced, due to the ruling that Judge Vaughn Walker was not conflicted out due to his own sexual orientation.
Regardless, in 2008, the state voters narrowly passed a ban on same-sex marriage. However, that ban is now in question as a federal court has already ruled it unconstitutional. Emerging in the last couples of years, also, is opinion polling that shows an increasing number of California voters more and more inclined to support same-sex marriage.
“I am a proponent of marriage equality, and I’m working very hard to make that a reality in New York,” Mr. Cuomo told reporters on Friday as lawmakers prepared to go home for the weekend. “I am also a proponent of religious freedom, and separation of church and state, so these are both very important principles. I don’t see one in competition with the other.”
The New York Times reports, “With signs pointing to a vote on the marriage issue in the State Senate next week, there are widespread expectations that it will pass.”
At least two Republicans have agreed to go along with the measure and more have indicated that they would lend their support, so long as Governor Cuomo agreed to amend the proposal to give more protection to religious organizations.
“There is a concern right now as to the unintended consequences of some of the religious clauses, carve-outs, protections,” said the Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican as reported by the New York Times.
“Governor Cuomo has been most gracious in terms of listening to some of these concerns,” Mr. Skelos added. “I think he’s doing the right thing by doing that, and those concerns will continue to be addressed.”
In a new story on Saturday, some of the unintended consequences apparently are due to lawsuits in other states against religious institutions who refuse to perform same-sex ceremonies. I do not think it unreasonable for religious institutions to be allowed to decide on their own how to handle the matter.
I have long argued that same-sex marriage is simply a matter of time. The younger generations do not feel the same apprehension to same-sex marriage, or to gays in general, that older generations do.
People my age and younger have been raised with openly-gay people as a commonplace in society. They have gay friends, gay relatives, gay associates.
For those who argue that gay marriage devalues the institution, I would argue that gays could hardly do as much damage to marriage as an institution than has already been done through divorce and infidelity by straight partners.
The New York Daily news this morning has an article that reports that same-sex marriage in New York “could bring legions of gay couples to the state – and pump millions into its economy.”
It is similar to what happened in California briefly in 2008 when the courts legalized same-sex marriage prior to the passage of Prop 8.
Writes the Daily News, “Owners of flower shops, wedding venues and hotels are licking their chops over the $184 million expected to flood New York if gay marriage is recognized.”
“Roughly 56,000 out-of-town couples would flock to New York to wed if a same-sex marriage bill were passed, according to a 2007 report by former city Controller Bill Thompson,” the Daily News reports. “In all, the weddings would generate $184 million for the state and $142 million for the city, the report says.”
“Thousands of gay couples from the tri-state area and beyond have trekked to Massachusetts to wed since it legalized same-sex marriage in 2004 – pumping more than $110 million into the state, says a 2008 report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law,” they continue.
While obviously these are localized phenomena that will be shor- lived, what should be becoming ever more clear is that same-sex marriage, as Gavin Newsom put it, will happen and it is inevitable.
The question is really when that will occur.
Demographics and cultural trends are not on the side of opponents of same-sex marriage. The best thing they can do is take the kinds of reasonable steps that have occurred in New York.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
[quote]Writes the Daily News, “Owners of flower shops, wedding venues and hotels are licking their chops over the $184 million expected to flood New York if gay marriage is recognized.”[/quote]
Yes, the generation of tax revenue is a good reason to be “ahead of the curve” when it comes to the gay marriage issue…
“Thousands of gay couples from the tri-state area and beyond have trekked to Massachusetts to wed since it legalized same-sex marriage in 2004 – pumping more than $110 million into the state, says a 2008 report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law,” they continue.
While obviously these are localized phenomena that will be shor- lived, what should be becoming ever more clear is that same-sex marriage, as Gavin Newsom put it, will happen and it is inevitable.”
in other words, its all about the almighty dollar.
Musser
It may be about the “almighty dollar” for those who are not homosexual couples seeking to marry. It is about equality for those who are seeking marriage.
The Lessons of History[1]
Intellect is a vital force of history, but it can also be a dissolvent and destructive power. Out of every hundred new ideas, ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace. No one man or woman, however brilliant or well informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his or her society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.
Therefore, the conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it-perhaps as much more valuable as roots are more vital than grafts. It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection and opposition. This is the trial heat that innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race. It is good that the old should resist the young, and that the young should prod the old. Out of this tension, as out of the strife of the sexes and the classes, comes a creative tensile strength, a stimulated development, a secret and basic unity and movement of the whole.
——————————————————————————–
[1]Durant, W. and A. Durant. 1968. The Lessons of History, Simon and Schuster, New York, N.Y. 117p. (citation (pp.35-36) edited for continuity and inclusiveness without altering content).
Would someone who is opposed to same sex marriage please explain to me why it’s so important to you to keep other people from doing something you don’t approve of? For me, it’s a no brainer. If I don’t approve of something I say I don’t approve and I don’t do it. If it’s not harming anyone, why the heck do you care so much?
It’s interesting to note that one of the laws of biology is that:
Within any given species of mammals, when the population reaches a point where further breeding among the herd begins to create overpopulation, to the point where resources become scarce and mass die off within the herd is inevitable,a certain portion of the herd ceases to breed and displays what we refer to as “homosexual” characteristics.
While a shrinking portion of the human population seems determined to put a stop to this deviation in behavior, coming up with many derogatory names for those who choose intimacy with members of their own gender, the homosexual community simply refers to those of us who choose to procreate as “the breeders”. They seem to recognize that overpopulation is the most pressing problem threatening the continued existence of the human herd.
It would seem that more people finding happiness, without contributing to planetary overpopulation, means a greater chance to address environmental issues before wars, famines, and plagues reduce the human herd to a sustainable level.
For this reason I am grateful for the impending cultural acceptance of same sex marriage. Better late than never!
Steve Hayes: [i]The Lessons of History[/i]
Well done.
JayTee: Read what Steve Hayes posted.
roger bockrath: Interesting point, and one made by a gay friend of mine (re: macro biological changes). However, the cultures that are multiplying like rabbits persecute homosexuals. It is the West that increasingly embraces the gay lifestyle, and it is the West that is experiencing a birth rate that is almost half of what it needs to be sustainable. That rate is 2.0%. In the US we are barely over 2.0% mostly because of immigration from our southern border. By comparison, Yemen has a birthrate of near 7% and Spain is about .09%.
I find it almost laughable that we sophisticated industrial countries are wringing our hands about over-population and trying to solve by reducing our own population growth, while the third world countries pump out 5-7 poor, malnourished and future illiterate babies per mother. A more rational solution to stop to over-population would be to stop sending food and aid to Africa… or to stop slowing the march of aids. I find both of those approaches reprehensible and do not support them. However, neither do I allowing gay marriage to help reduce the number of children produced in Western countries.
To Steve Hayes: Nice response! Us old folks are often dismissed as irrelevant by the young…
“It is about equality for those who are seeking marriage.”
or is it about mainstreaming homosexuality? I find that claim debatable.
Somehow I think the increased significance of the two income families and the related added stress has more to do with the low birth rate than the recognition that Gays are people also and deserve the same rights I have. There is something to tradition but I took many history courses and I do not recall any honor/recognition of those “great” conservatives who contributed toward trying to block radical ideas like the Civil Rights or the Womens Suffrage movements. In fact it is safe to say we find no value (from a historic perspective) in the people who opposed those movments.
[i]or is it about mainstreaming homosexuality? [/i]
Mainstreaming homosexuality would be an admirable goal, but it is not the specific goal of those seeking marriage equality.
Don: I agree that it is not mainstreaming… I think it is much more insidious. It is a step in a never-ending path toward some level of social and political dominance.
I challenge that gay marriage is a civil rights issue because first we would have to agree that we should be grouping people based on sexual preference. I don’t. Regardless, all we have to do is look at other civil rights movements to understand the “never-ending dominance” tendency. Do me a favor and describe to me the vision you might have for a future when we would no longer have to suffer the din from activists claiming racism and gender bias. Personally, I think we arrived there some time ago, yet even in the Davis Enterprise we have regular columns about the continuing travesties of bias occurring on a day-to-day basis. We have a full integrated society, we have a black president, and women already dominate men in most education and economic categories and the trends are continued dominance over men. Yet, we still get shovel fed the template of race and woman gender bias.
The fact is that once started, the activists can never stop. Today gay marriage, tomorrow… who knows? I am guessing things like gay sex education in the classroom… gay bathrooms in the schools and public spaces… or maybe gays able to chose their preferred bathroom… private churches harassed and sued for not accepting gays in their rites and rituals… Christmas Nativity scenes with two Josephs or two Marys… outlawing the word “gay” from use under hate crimes… replaced by a new word considered more sensitive… until that new word is considered insensitive and a another word is invented. You think I am joking about these things… they sound way out there don’t they? I think about as far out there as gay marriage sounded 15 years ago.
Yes, the insidious nature of the women’s movement should worry us (well half of us) – sooner or later they are going to start telling us what to do. Oh well at least we have day’s like Father’s Day when we can tell them what we would like to do.
Alphonso: LOL! Don’t many husbands already accept being told what to do?
Question: will we be forced to change “Mothers Day” and “Fathers Day” to “Nongender Parenting Day”?
[i]”…first we would have to agree that we should be grouping people based on sexual preference. I don’t.”[/i]
I agree. People should be able to marry, join the military, and work and live anywhere they choose regardless of their sexual orientation.
[i]”Do me a favor and describe to me the vision you might have for a future when we would no longer have to suffer the din from activists…”[/i]
Activists become irrelevant as their goals are achieved. Jesse Jackson and Gloria Steinem don’t get much media attention these days. I don’t know which columns in the Enterprise offend you so much, but I think David can verify that the notion that citizens of various ethnicities no longer experience differential treatment is incorrect. Driving While Black is still apparently enough to get you pulled over in Davis. And the rate at which they interact with law enforcement is much higher per capita than that of whites.
Gay youth should know gay grownups. Gay men and women should be able to work anywhere, marry, and basically do everything that straight people do. I have no concern about bathroom usage. Gay sex education could be perfectly appropriate. Frankly, this all sounds like the arguments that were used successfully in the 1970’s to derail the ERA.
Seriously, what are you so afraid of? Gay people are normal and deserve full rights.
[i]Question: will we be forced to change “Mothers Day” and “Fathers Day” to “Nongender Parenting Day”?[/i]
Gay male parents call themselves fathers. Gay female parents call themselves mothers.
[i]Jeff Boone: (Stray comments – admittedly taken out of context to make a point)
“a gay friend of mine”
“a black President”
“Women already dominate men”
“continued dominance over men”[/i]
I don’t have a ‘black President,’ I have a President who just happens to have more melanin in his skin then I do.
I choose not to have ‘gay friends.’ I do however have a number of friends, family members and customers who self describe as being gay, minority, or physically challenged (among others). To me they are simply friends, family members and customers.
When I left the University of California in 1982, the Chair of my department was a woman and that fact was completely unremarkable. However, when I left the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1991, never in the history of the School had there been a Department Chair who was a woman, and only 2 of 60 tenured Professors in the basic science departments were women. No need to mention non-white professors because there weren’t any. That was considered perfectly normal in Baltimore.
When I went to work in the California wine industry in 1995, there were a number of wineries where woman were not allowed to work in the cellar simply because they lacked a ‘Y’ chromosome. There still are.
This is my experience, in my life time. We don’t have a fully integrated society and in my opinion we won’t have one as long as a significant proportion of the voting public are heterosexual, Caucasian, male, voters who believe they are being [i]”shovel fed the template of race and woman gender bias.”[/i]
This is not an ‘us vs. them’ proposition. If we are to be inclusive, then there is no reason for differentiation. All should have the same rights and responsibilities, including marriage, regardless of skin color, sex, sexual orientation, or other discriminatory criteria.
M.W.: [i]This is not an ‘us vs. them’ proposition. If we are to be inclusive, then there is no reason for differentiation. All should have the same rights and responsibilities, including marriage, regardless of skin color, sex, sexual orientation, or other discriminatory criteria.[/i]
Well said!
Don: “Mainstreaming homosexuality would be an admirable goal, but it is not the specific goal of those seeking marriage equality.”
like I said, I find that claim debatable. especially considering the first part of your statement.
Why?
Mark: How can we calculate continued bias against blacks if we cannot even admit our President it black? I think even Obama himself admits he is black. You and I are actually on the same page in terms of not caring about different skin tones. But you can’t have it both ways. Either it matters, or it doesn’t.
Again, on your point about gays, I think it is an enviable proposition to envision a world where everyone is treated exactly the same. I think I read some science fiction books with this theme. Those tall, lanky, red-haired, freckled kids, and the fat kids, and the short kids, the academically gifted and non-academically gifted kids, the socially awkward kids… all of them would sure like to stop being teased and marginalized for being the way they are. I guess they too need a recognized group. Do they get to keep up their protections after they become adults too? Seem like this could hamper their becoming well-functioning adults if we provide social constructs to prop them up. I mean, when is a person’s struggle just a life struggle and not an opportunity for activists to form a new group demanding special protection?
Frankly, I think the continuing female discrimination story is a load of horse crap. I have been in the private-sector working world for 33 years and know exactly why women are not in more higher positions… it is because a large percentage of them valued other things rather than getting into a competitive slugfest with their male counterparts more eager and ambitions to climb the ladder. Despite the dreams of NOW, women tend to seek different work-life balance than men. You can’t just look at the statistics and draw conclusion that bias is still occurring. Look a little deeper. Certainly old paradigms die hard… if woman have not worked in a certain field previously the notion of them doing so can take some time to develop. However, just ask male nurses how that looks and feels. Life is a struggle. Didn’t everyone’s parents tell them that life isn’t always fair? And guess what… scientists have proven what most objective people have known all along… that men and women are wired differently. So today maybe there are good reasons why men and women don’t have exact parity in all career fields. There are no women playing major league baseball that I have been able to find.
However, never fear… women are poised to get what they asked for. They used the courts to take grade school and collegiate sports away from boys. They are displacing men in all upper level college degrees. They dominate employment in 14 of the 15 industries expected to lead in the next decade. It is increasingly a woman’s world. Let’s hope we all like what it becomes. I read that scientists are creating replacement organs from stem cells. Maybe one day they can create female reproductive organs and implant them in the male body. Maybe then NOW can claim it has reached its goal. I don’t think they ever will be able to hit a 90 MPH fast ball in numbers high enough to dominate professional baseball, but eventually they might be able to force a professional sports Title-IX.
[i]”We don’t have a fully integrated society and in my opinion we won’t have one as long as a significant proportion of the voting public are heterosexual, Caucasian, males…”[/i]
This sounds like bias against a specific group of people. If I could re-invent myself as a gay, black female I might be okay with that kind of statement. However, I was born this way… so why are others trying to make me feel bad about it? Also note, that we are the minority in California.
Don: [i]”Gay male parents call themselves fathers. Gay female parents call themselves mothers.”[/i]
Thanks for the clarification.
Do we get both gay parents the same card and gift?
Get them whatever you want. Why are you so concerned about this sort of minutiae?
Don: [i]”Seriously, what are you so afraid of? Gay people are normal and deserve full rights.”[/i]
I do not fear gay people any more than I fear any other individual; however, I fear liberal-progressive activist types changing my country’s culture to be something other than what many Americans value and think is good for our nation going forward. From the liberal-progressive activist types’ perspective, we are supposed to celebrate differences and diversity, and then make sure fairness is legislated to the nth degree. Frankly, it seems a bit bipolar.
[i]”Get them whatever you want. Why are you so concerned about this sort of minutiae?”[/i]
Don, it is the minutiae that matters when we are talking about our rituals and culture. Don’t you get that gay marriage throws a significant monkey into the wrench of cultural etiquette and customs related to marriage and parenting?
Getting back to the parenting thing… I know several people getting long-term regular counseling over unresolved childhood issues from not having a mother or a father (one parent died when they were young). This gets me to a question about gay parents. If a child has two fathers, wouldn’t she also be at risk of some deficit lacking a mother? Similarily, wouldn’t a son of lesbian parents be at greater risk of some deficit lacking a father?
[i]”M.W.: This is not an ‘us vs. them’ proposition. If we are to be inclusive, then there is no reason for differentiation.”[/i]
Other than the Gay Pride Parade, Black Family Day, NOW… and hundreds of other imported rituals and practices allowed people originating from other cultures. I get it… celebrate all races, religions and cultures except traditional white, Christian, American culture.
JB: [i]This sounds like bias against a specific group of people. If I could re-invent myself as a gay, black female I might be okay with that kind of statement. However, I was born this way… so why are others trying to make me feel bad about it?[/i]
I am a heterosexual middle-age male of WASP heritage, and I don’t think I have an inferiority complex over who I am or what I hope to do with my life and career. If my homosexual co-workers or neighbors receive the right to same-sex marriage, I don’t think my heterosexual marriage would feel cheapened. I fail to understand why I should share your concern over this issue.
JB: [i]Getting back to the parenting thing… I know several people getting long-term regular counseling over unresolved childhood issues from not having a mother or a father (one parent died when they were young). This gets me to a question about gay parents. If a child has two fathers, wouldn’t she also be at risk of some deficit lacking a mother? Similarily, wouldn’t a son of lesbian parents be at greater risk of some deficit lacking a father?[/i]
I don’t know. I’m not sure I could identify anyone who really had a perfect upbringing. I think we live in a society that tends to make you think something is wrong with you. It keeps the diest/weight-loss industry, the self-help industry, pharmaceutical industry, therapy industry going; in fact, the whole free market relies on you thinking that something is missing in your life. If everyone felt perfectly well-adjusted, can you imagine the economic tailspin we’d be in right now?
Rich: I know the use of “Democrat” instead of “Democratic” gets the goat of some people, but frankly I think it is a better word. You are a Republican and a member of the Republican Party. You are a Democrat and a member of a democratic party? “Democratic” in this case could be either an adjective or part of the proper noun but miss-punctuated. However, using the proper noun “Democrat Party” there is no confusion. Also, I am not keen on continuing to associate Democrats with being democratic when their trend is more toward socialism.
I am being asked to accept gay marriage, but the Dems cannot even handle a slight change to the way their Party’s name is labeled. Who is the progressive here?
whoops… wrong blog. I will repost. Don, can you delete?
If etiquette is all you’re worried about, then I’d say we’ve made progress. If the wedding is after Labor Day, don’t wear white.
[i]I know several people getting long-term regular counseling over unresolved childhood issues from not having a mother or a father (one parent died when they were young)
[/i]
Surely you are acquainted with a few people who are in long-term regular counseling because of poor parenting by heterosexual parents, too. Bad parents do cause psychological problems in their children.
The problem, Jeff, is that you are stating indirectly that having gay parents leads to harmful outcomes.
[i]wouldn’t a son of lesbian parents be at greater risk of some deficit lacking a father?[/i]
Not the ones I know. Beyond that, I can’t answer your question. Neither can you. I think you are contriving a problem. The fact that there are fatherless or motherless children is not an argument against any particular kind of marriage.
[i]we are supposed to celebrate differences and diversity, and then make sure fairness is legislated to the nth degree[/i]
Providing equal rights is not an extreme position, yet somehow you make it sound extreme.
Jeff:
My point is that I don’t care how someone self identifies. We don’t get to ‘choose’ whether we are male/female, heterosexual/homosexual, white/non-white. Those are genetic traits that are passed on to us by our biological parents without our consent. There are choices that we may make as individuals that may influence society’s interpretation of those genetic traits, but the underlying trait is set by others and outside of our control.
I choose not to differentiate between people based on those innate genetic traits and I don’t choose to judge their friendship or their worth to society based on their self-identified classifications.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t notice the difference between men and women, the color of their skin, or the color of their hair or eyes for that matter. I notice, I just don’t choose to use those physical manifestations as a reason to put them in a category.
President Obama self identifies as ‘Black’ but that doesn’t make him a “Black President” as to my knowledge there is no place in the U.S. Constitution that describes the position of “Black President.”
I view a homosexual couple’s desire to marry as being entirely equal to my own desire for the same union. Since our Civil Society has chosen to bestow certain rights on me as a married citizen, then I believe that a homosexual couple should have those same rights bestowed on them as well to an equal degree.
Finally, I have no interest in making you ‘feel bad’ about how you choose to self identify, nor about your predetermined genetic traits, especially since I likely share many if not most of those traits. I simply am saying that your ‘us vs. them’ approach needs to change if we are ever going to be the “full integrated” society you proclaim already exists.
Mark
Mark,
You are skirting my point. How can we celebrate specific diversity of race, sexual orientation and culture and say we are all equal? You and I are probably 100% on the same page for a desire for equality, but apparently you don’t see a problem with the demands for exclusive social rights while at the same time demanding equal rights? Why the hell do we celebrate Day Pride day and Black Family Day if we are all equal? Why do we still need afirmative action… and laws and regulations that give preference to minority and women owned businesses. Why do we have hate crime laws if we are all equal? These groups that want to be treated equal… lose the trappings of exclusivity and just practive being American. Then I will support their grab for equality with gusto. The exception to this is my continued opinion that, all things being equal, two gender parents are surperior to same-sex parents.
[i]”Surely you are acquainted with a few people who are in long-term regular counseling because of poor parenting by heterosexual parents, too. Bad parents do cause psychological problems in their children.
The problem, Jeff, is that you are stating indirectly that having gay parents leads to harmful outcomes.”[/i]
Don: why do gay marriage supporters always fall back to using a comparison of some broken or dysfunctional straight family? Of course there are alternative parenting configurations that improve any situation where the traditional-married couple are sucky parents. Are you making a case that gays are better skilled parents than the average straight couple? That would be a hoot for you to defend!
I am making a point (a very strong point I think), that there is a greater risk of psychological or emotional damage to a child lacking a mother or father.
[i]”The fact that there are fatherless or motherless children is not an argument against any particular kind of marriage”[/i]
Hmm… well I think we will have to agree to disagree on this. I’m not saying that good parenting can’t happen from non-traditional situations… what I do believe is that there are greater risks for impacted psychological or emotional development lacking a male father or female mother. It would be such a hot potato; I doubt any researchers would even feel safe launching a study. However, eventually I expect that we will learn of some higher level of struggle for children of gay parents when the comparison does not include broken, abusive families and single parent households.
Have your hoot.
[url]http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2010/06/07/peds.2009-3153.full.pdf[/url]
Don, your reference site appears to require a membership. Note that I am eager to see any article indicating that gay parents are better parents. In that case I guess we should stop referring to them as equal, since they would be superior.