Mayor Krovoza Signs onto Mayoral Opposition to Prop 8 – It has been more than four years since California passed Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. In August 2010, a federal district court invalidated Proposition 8 on the grounds that it violated the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, by taking away the right of same-sex couples to marry without a sufficient governmental interest.
U.S. Federal Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker, in a 136-page ruling, said “Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.”
“Proposition 8 cannot survive any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause,” wrote Judge Walker. “Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.”
The world has changed greatly since California voters narrowly passed Proposition 8 in November of 2008. The majority of the country now backs same-sex marriage, with most of the leaders of the Democratic Party now favoring its legalization.
While the Supreme Court may well be fighting a rear-guard battle that will be overwhelmed by the tide of changing opinion, the New York Times editorial notes this morning, “Having taken the appeal, they cannot easily decide to avoid the substantive question of whether same-sex couples have a constitutionally protected right to marry in California and elsewhere in the country.”
“If the court decides the case on the merits, it is hard to imagine that a majority could be swayed by the arguments offered by Charles Cooper, the lawyer for the marriage ban’s supporters,” they write. “Even if his presentation had been more fluent, there was no way to overcome the incoherence of his position.”
All eyes are on Justice Anthony Kennedy, widely believed to be the critical swing vote on the subject. That belief appeared to be borne out during the arguments.
He would seem to acknowledge an immediate legal harm to those same-sex couples who cannot marry.
“There are some 40,000 children in California… that live with same-sex parents and they want their parents to have full recognition and legal status,” Justice Kennedy told Mr. Cooper during one exchange. “The voice of those children is considerable in this case, don’t you think?”
He also expressed deep doubts about Prop. 8, to the notion that same-sex marriage presents “no harm of denigration” against gays and lesbians.
“Can you think of any other rational basis, reason, for a state using sexual orientation as a factor in denying homosexuals benefits or imposing burdens on them?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Mr. Cooper. “Is there any other rational decision-making that the government could make? Denying them a job, not granting them benefits of some sort, any other decision?”
As the New York Times notes, “The core of Mr. Cooper’s argument was that a ruling allowing same-sex marriage would be ‘redefining’ marriage in a way that undermines the ‘responsible procreation’ of children.”
They argue, “Yet California allows same-sex couples to adopt children, and many heterosexual couples who can’t have children get married.”
The Huffington Post describes one lively moment when Justice Antonin Scalia asked Ted Olson, President George W. Bush’s solicitor general and now the lawyer for the two same-sex couples challenging Prop. 8, “When did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791 [when the Bill of Rights was ratified]? 1868, when the 14th Amendment was adopted?”
Mr. Olson responded, “When did it become unconstitutional to prohibit interracial marriages?”
“It’s an easy question,” Justice Scalia said. “At the time that the equal protection clause was adopted. That’s absolutely true. But don’t give me a question to my question.”
“There’s no specific date in time,” Mr. Olson. “This is an evolutionary cycle.”
The Huffington Post summarized Justice Kennedy’s position: “By the end of the argument, it was clear that Kennedy believed the Prop. 8 proponents had standing to sue, that same-sex couples had the right to marry and that such a right extended to all states.”
However, the question is whether same-sex marriage should be a federal constitutional right was not one he was ready to take on.
The Post continues, “Kennedy had already sided with his four conservative colleagues (assuming the ever-silent Justice Clarence Thomas agrees with his more vocal colleagues) that Cooper’s clients belonged in court, while also siding with his four liberal colleagues that the Constitution mandates marriage equality.
“Meanwhile, Kennedy rejected the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ California-only reasoning, and both liberals and conservatives have lambasted the Obama administration’s argument for a so-called ‘eight-state solution.’ “
“I do think based on the oral arguments today it is unlikely that Prop. 8 will be upheld by the court,” UC Davis law professor Courtney Joslin said Tuesday. ”Beyond that, it becomes more difficult to predict what’s going to happen.”
As Justice Kennedy, clearly the swing vote on this issue, wrestles with these questions, we will all have to wait and see.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris released a statement about Tuesday’s arguments, “I declined to defend Proposition 8 because it violates the Constitution. The Supreme Court has described marriage as a fundamental right 14 times since 1888. The time has come for this right to be afforded to every citizen.”
“Today’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court over the constitutionality of Proposition 8 once again made a powerful case for marriage equality. I am confident the Supreme Court will make a ruling based on justice and strike down Proposition 8 – and DOMA as well,” California Assembly Speaker John A. Perez said on Tuesday. Speaker Perez is the first openly-gay Speaker of the California Assembly.
“This is an issue that speaks to our understanding of justice. Proposition 8 was a clear violation of the values of equality in the eyes of the law that emanates from the Constitution, and moreover, goes further in subverting the ability of the people’s elected representatives to pass laws reflecting the public’s strong – and growing – support for marriage equality,” he said. “That is why I am confident the court will act in the spirit of decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, Reitman v. Mulkey and Loving v. Virginia and strike a powerful blow for justice.”
Davis Mayor Joe Krovoza Speaks Out
Davis Mayor Joe Krovoza Speaks Out Davis Mayor Joe Krovoza signed the Statement of California Mayors United Against Proposition 8.
“As the Supreme Court of the United States considers the fate of Proposition 8, we call upon the justices to consider carefully our special role in leading the people of California’s cities,” the statement reads.
“As Mayors, we have a responsibility to unite our cities, not divide them. Key to that is building family integrity, including ensuring all loving, committed couples in our cities have the same freedoms and rights. Proposition 8 created separate and unequal status for same-sex couples throughout California, and denies equality to same-sex couples, violating the Constitutional guarantee of due process and equal protection,” the statement continues.
In the words of Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, “(it) has no effect other than to lessen the status and dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”
“As Mayors, we have a special view of the separate class system created by Proposition 8. Individuals who are public servants and work to improve our cities do not receive important benefits for their loved ones as other couples do, because they are denied the recognition of marriage,” the statement says. “Residents of our cities who work in the private sector must hope that their private employer confers such benefits upon same-sex couples, while their heterosexual co-workers do not face such obstacles. Proposition 8 has only served to divide our city into groups, one with more rights and dignity than the other.”
The Mayors conclude: “We encourage the Supreme Court to find Proposition 8 unconstitutional and restore the freedom to marry to all of California’s loving, committed couples.”
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“As the New York Times notes, “The core of Mr. Cooper’s argument was that a ruling allowing same-sex marriage would be “redefining” marriage in a way that undermines the “responsible procreation” of children.”
I would argue that the statistics of procreation and 25 years of experience as an obstetrician indicate that Mr. Cooper has this exactly wrong.
With 49 % of spontaneous conceptionn in this country being unintentional ( accidental) I would say that it is the heterosexual couples who have been procreating irresponsibly. I have yet to see a lesbian couple conceive ( or a gay adoption occur) with out a deliberate judgement regarding whether or not they are ready to and capable of raising a child. This preplanning, sadly lacking in 1/2 of spontaneous conceptions would seem to me the epitome of responsible procreation.
medwoman: you are quite twisted around in your logic here. I don’t know any person having a problem with gay marriage to also support irresponsible procreation. It is really very humorous to read this from you that we should support gay marriage because gay couples would be more responsible at procreation. From my perspective, you appear to be demonstrating significant bias against heterosexual couples only because of their natural biological functions. Is this a new form of reverse discrimination that we will see more of as gay rights perpetually march to an undefined and unachievable end?
Here is where we are headed after gays and those coveting their approval and political power win this round of social engineering…
– Private groups and organization will be forced to accept gays and serve gays. For example, there will be law suits against churches to force them to marry gays in religious ceremony.
– The left will demand that the government start subsidizing the cost for gays to acquire children since it will be deemed unfair that heterosexual couples can do it for free.
– Public schools will forbid the use of the words “father” or “mother” in text and conversations since this can upset the children of gay parents that may lack one or the other.
-We will undoubtedly start lamenting the underrepresentation of gay married couples in everything and new legislation will be passed by the left demanding quotas.
-We will have a new form of marriage develop… that of same-sex partner convenience. This will be one where two heterosexual same-sex men or women marry for the benefits: to get the tax breaks, to qualify for real estate loans, to save on their health insurance, to adopt children, etc.., etc.., etc.. Meanwhile they are free to date and hook-up without that fear-of-commitment problem that a growing number of people seem to be plagued with.
Gay marriage will undoubtedly advance because young people support it. These are same young people that has been largely brainwashed by their dysfunctional baby boomer parents, a complete liberal biased education system and mainstream media, that they are entitled to an easy life and government-provide happiness. Those traditional values are a real downer man. Better to let everyone do their own thing and expect that the nanny state will make it right.
By the way, I support gay marriage for my own reasons.
Frankly: [i]- Private groups and organization will be forced to accept gays and serve gays. For example, there will be law suits against churches to force them to marry gays in religious ceremony.[/i]
Churches will eventually decide that holy scripture and the inspired word of God makes it acceptable to recognize homosexual unions, or else become irrelevant. In 1978, the LDS Church elders decided that it was religiously acceptable to ordain blacks into their priesthood.
[i]- Public schools will forbid the use of the words “father” or “mother” in text and conversations since this can upset the children of gay parents that may lack one or the other.[/i]
I doubt it, because biological procreation requires those words for context and clarity in many kinds of discussion. The English language has a tradition of using whatever words fit the needs of the time.
[i]-We will have a new form of marriage develop… that of same-sex partner convenience. This will be one where two heterosexual same-sex men or women marry for the benefits: to get the tax breaks, to qualify for real estate loans, to save on their health insurance, to adopt children, etc.., etc.., etc.. Meanwhile they are free to date and hook-up without that fear-of-commitment problem that a growing number of people seem to be plagued with.[/i]
No more so than “loveless” marriages of convenience occur in heterosexual couples. Sure, maybe two same-sex heterosexual couples decide on a marriage of convenience, but it sure makes it hell in dealing with divorce and the legal hassles one would encounter if at least one of those individuals found someone of the opposite sex that he/she truly loved and decided they wanted to get married. The “jilted” person might sue for lost benefits.
[i]By the way, I support gay marriage for my own reasons.[/i]
And after giving your lamentations on the unfortunate changes that gay marriage will bring, why do you support it? Because it’s socially acceptable?
First – I find it telling that you left out commenting on the government subsidizing gays acquiring children. Do you support this?
[b]France set to ban the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from official documents[/b]
[url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9563543/France-set-to-ban-the-words-mother-and-father-from-official-documents.html[/url]
[b]Gay Danish couples win right to marry in church[/b]
[url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/9317447/Gay-Danish-couples-win-right-to-marry-in-church.html[/url]
We will have more loveless marriages, because gay marriage provides another significantly less-complicated partnering arrangement. They can execute a prenuptial agreement that would help make divorce easier.
There is another complicating factor… the rise of bisexual rights coopting gay rights?
[quote] An estimated 9 million Americans — or nearly 4 percent of the total population — say they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, according to a new report released this week from the Williams Institute, a think-tank devoted to LGBT research at UCLA.
Bisexuals make up slightly more than half that group, 1.8 percent of the total U.S. population, and they are substantially more likely to be women than men.
The report is the most up-to-date assessment of that population and produced a lower population percentage than the 10 percent number that advocacy groups have used in the past, which was based on Alfred Kinsey studies from 1948.[/quote]
I support gay marriage for the same reason I don’t argue with people unable to control their emotions… and also because I believe that striving for perfection can be the enemy of the good.
Frankly wrote:
> Here is where we are headed after gays and those
> coveting their approval and political power win
> this round of social engineering…
This is just a big show that the people on BOTH the right and left love since it not only brings in money (to BOTH the right and left) but keeps people focused on this issue (I don’t think the media is talking about anything else today) and not how much money the politically connected (again on BOTH the right and left) are stealing from us…
No matter what the SCOTUS decides on these two cases, it seems to me inevitable that within the next 15-20 years gay marriage will be treated by law the same as straight marriage by the federal government and by all 50 states (even those in the Deep South). Court decisions can speed up that endpoint, of course. But the American people are key. More and more believe in equal treatment under the law. As older voters die off and they are replaced by younger folks, the overwhelming percentage of Americans will make sure the laws reflect what is now the liberal view and is becoming the mainstream view on this topic.
The oral arguments/discussion suggest that the Supreme Court upholds the concept that the decision to redefine marriage should play itself out at the individual state level at this time. In this light, the “tortured” legal path to overturn Prop 8 is remarkable. The CA Supreme Court judged that Prop 8 was constitutional as far as CA law was concerned. Prop 8 then entered the Federal Court system where the CA attorney general refused to argue the issue in Fed Court, violating his oath of office to defend the Ca constitution. Now it appears that the U.S. Supreme Court may judge that the proponents of Prop have no standing before the Supreme Court, allowing the ninth court’s decision to stand, not withstanding Judge Kennedy’s uncomfortableness with the ninth court’s “rationale” which appears to be that Prop 8 ,by withdrawing the “right” to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples previously granted by the Ca Supreme Court,which upheld the State constitutionality of Prop 8,violates the US constitution. This “right” as a violation of the US constitution was created by the ninth district court decision and it may very well be that the path to appealing this important decision to the US Supreme has been blocked by the calculated legal travesty of then CA Attorney-General Brown.
@davisite2
What evidence garnered from oral arguments leads you to conclude no standing?
Proposition 8 passes after a democratic majority approves it and the activist courts overrule it and the activist governor ignores it as they both force their worldview on the majority.
Obamacare is rejected by the majority in poll after poll, yet the activist politicians push it through anyway. Then a court of majority activist judges backed by a hostile media causes the conservative Chief Justice to accept it to save SCOTUS from being ravaged by the hostile media.
This is NOT the way American democracy was designed to work.
If it is true that “no good deed goes unpunished”, what will the punishment be for these bad deeds of ignoring, bypassing, overruling voter will?
I agree with Rich Rifkin that we will see growing acceptance of gay marriage just like we see growing acceptance of tattoos, smoking pot, reduced defense spending, and big nanny state government entitlements. Many old folks do not like these things. More young folks do. I think the old folks are more right than wrong, but the changes are inevitable because the old folks will die off and the young will rule.
But then we will have a collapse of the traditional family, lower than population-sustainable birthrates, a larger population of under-employed middle-aged people covered in sagging tattoos lacking job experience and work motivation from pot-powered brain damage and entitlement disease. And North Korean bombs several US interests while they and Iran launch an Internet crippling cyber-attack and China says “tough shit” because your low population of young people, your huge deficit exploded by decades of over-spending, and your puny little military ravaged by years of budget cuts to feed the nanny state… have all left the US without sufficient leverage to do anything about it.
I think this will be the punishment.
Yep. And all because of gay marriage.
Frankly
“you are quite twisted around in your logic here. I don’t know any person having a problem with gay marriage to also support irresponsible procreation. It is really very humorous to read this from you that we should support gay marriage because gay couples would be more responsible at procreation. From my perspective, you appear to be demonstrating significant bias against heterosexual couples only because of their natural biological functions. Is this a new form of reverse discrimination that we will see more of as gay rights perpetually march to an undefined and unachievable end? “
You have not failed inn your ongoing efforts to take my words and twist them into something I have not asserted so that you can happily point out the flaws in my reasoning. Do you really consider a 50 % unintended pregnancy rate whether or not one is capable of supporting the child responsible procreation ? That was my sole point as well as to point out that that particular kind of irresponsibility is impossible for homosexuals.
That is all I said. And somehow you managed to use it as a jumping off p,lace for a rich and varied rant full of fanciful imaginings of the terrible injustices about to be inflicted on the faithful. You never disappoint !
Frankly, I think Frankly is off his meds, Medwoman. I hope he’s not as delusional in his real life as he’s expressed in his comments.
As I understand it from watching the responses of people like F’ly, courts are only activist if they rule against their own prejudices. And now we know, even the most conservative courts can be “activist” and wrong.
“And you’re doing so in a case where there is a substantial question on standing. I just wonder if the case was properly granted.”
Adremmer…. just one quote of Kennedy’s among several other statements suggesting that the easiest out for the conundrum that the Supreme finds itself in may lie in rejecting standing of the proponents of Prop 8.
[i]You never disappoint ! [/i]
Sorry medwoman, I didn’t mean to come on so strong. But read again what you wrote. It really came of as you bashing heterosexual procreation in favor of homosexual procreation as an argument in support of gay marriage. You also, by inference, seem to be making a case for why heterosexual procreation is a bad thing since it leads to so much unwanted pregnancy. If I got it wrong, then maybe you can clear it up.
My main point was that this logic did not register for me in the debate since most of the people against gay marriage are also not supporters of sex out of wedlock. Now a subset also has a problem with birth control, but they are just nuts (and thankfully very small in numbers and lacking any political clout). Conversely, a lot of the people demanding gay marriage are also the same that reject the moral arguments for abstinence.
So, the right wants to maintain the man-woman marriage definition and wants to teach more mortality to young people so they chose abstinence. The left rejects the moral arguments and prefers to let people be free of judgment over their sexual choices, but also wants to support same-sex marriage.
Then you make a case that the problems caused by people being VERY free with their sexuality as justification for gay marriage.
This is twisted logic…. In my twisted mind.
[i]Yep. And all because of gay marriage.[/i]
LOL! Yes, those gays wanting to marry are going to destroy Western civilization!
Actually, my comments were directed at activist politicians, judges and the liberal-biased mainstream media… and all the voters that believe we can keep giving out free stuff and legislate happiness at the continued expense of long-term stability and strength.
Gay marriage is just one of the attempts to legislate happiness. I can see it very clearly… many gays and gay rights activists are behind this to fill some gap in their personal happiness. The problem is that it will not be a solution for what ails them. So they will pick the next false tonic, and the next false tonic… continuing to try and engineer society from politics and the judicial system both corrupted by activists and cronyism. But in the end, they still will not be happy because none of this will fix their unresolved childhood issues and personal insecurity. The fact that gays and gay rights activists reject separate-but-equal civil unions is a big clue that they are looking for something beyond what they claim. They are looking for a pound of flesh from those they perceive as causing them the pain of rejection. They will grow unhappy after the euphoria of winning this battle after they realize that most people still consider them different. For example, as married couples they will still be different than man-woman married couples. They will be different parents. Forcing a change in the definition of marriage won’t change the facts.
So, get ready for the next and the next and the next demand for social engineering in the name of gay rights! It will never be enough.
[i]But in the end, they still will not be happy because none of this will fix their unresolved childhood issues and personal insecurity.[/i]
Oh, so that’s why people are gay? You’re, as my grandmother would have said, a caution.
[i]It really came of as you bashing heterosexual procreation in favor of homosexual procreation as an argument in support of gay marriage.[/i]
Not even a teeny little bit. But that’s the way you read it.
[i]”I agree with Rich Rifkin …”[/i]
Now that’s a promising start to a debate!
[i]”… that we will see growing acceptance of gay marriage …”[/i]
What is most salient is how much more accepted gays and gay marriage are today compared with just 5, 10 and 20 years ago. I believe the prejudice against homosexuals is now very low among people under 30, even among conservative Christians under 30; and among people 30-60 the prejudice is declining rapidly.
The key, I think, is that almost all gays in that age bracket live out of the closet. It’s harder to be a hater when the group you are supposed to hate is full of people you know, live near, do business with, etc.
It was easier to hate gays when gays were too afraid to be openly gay.
I am 49 and I was almost unaware that there was such a thing as homosexuality when I was 20 or 25 years old. I had no prejudice against gays. But at the same time, I had no gay-dar and thus never met a person and thought, “He’s gay.”
If I was told someone was a homosexual, I knew what that meant. But honestly, it was not a topic which I ever gave any thought to until I was much older, and sort of figured out more things, and realized, “Oh, so that’s what the story was …”
What still puzzles me to this day is the notion, usually expressed by religious people who hate gays, is the bizarre idea (at least for a male) that someone chooses to be gay. Not only is there no choice in that, but if you are straight (as at least 95% of men are), the idea of sex or intimacy with another man is physically repulsive. It’s not something you could ever learn to enjoy.
[i]”… just like we see growing acceptance of tattoos, smoking pot …”[/i]
Forget for a moment that these are actual choices:
My guess is that the love of tattoos is going to dry up before too long, and the trend itself will go into a long decline. If that happens, there will be a single generation (about a 20-year stretch) full of old people, some 30-50 years from now, whose tattoos will look even more haggardly than they look, today.
As to pot, I think you are confusing an acceptance of people smoking it and a growing recognition that prohibition policies have failed, just like they did with alcohol. I, for one, favor regulated, legal sales of that drug. I don’t favor using it for myself.
[i]”… reduced defense spending, and big nanny state government entitlements.”[/i]
Hopefully, we will waste less money on defense. We now spend something like 8 times as much as any other country.
As to entitlements … The money generally goes to the hands of those who fund the campaigns of politicians in an organized fashion. So nationally, organized farmer groups get billions of dollars in welfare, as a reward for their donations to pols. The real beneficiaries of housing programs tend to be the government employees who run the programs and the middle-men contractors who build and manage the housing. The poor who are intended to benefit tend to be an afterthought with most welfare programs. They are never empowered, and the programs are never designed to incentivize the poor recipients to improve themselves to the point they don’t need the welfare.
My guess is they throw out DOMA and uphold Walker based on a lack of standing for the prop 8 proponents. This will allow it to be a state issue until the country grows more comfortable with same sex couples.
[i]Oh, so that’s why people are gay?[/i]
No Don Shor, that is why some people demand marriage be redefined to include same sex couples while rejecting equal-rights civil unions as an alternative.
People are gay because of biological, mental or psychological differences cause them to be attracted to people of the same sex. Except if they are also bisexual, then they are attracted to people of both sexs at the same time, or at different times.
[i]This will allow it to be a state issue until the country grows more comfortable with same sex couples.[/i]
It seems to me that would hold right up until the first married couple moves from a gay-marriage to a non-gay-marriage state, has tangible rights withheld, and sues. The Supreme Court can’t duck this issue forever.
“[i]…many gays and gay rights activists are behind this to fill [b]some gap in their personal happiness[/b]. The problem is that it will not be a solution for[b] what ails them[/b]. So they will pick the next [b]false tonic[/b], and the next false tonic… continuing to try and engineer society from politics and the judicial system both corrupted by activists and cronyism. But in the end, [b]they still will not be happy[/b] because none of this will fix their [b]unresolved childhood issues and personal insecurity[/b]. The fact that gays and gay rights activists reject separate-but-equal civil unions is a big clue that they are looking for something beyond what they claim.”[/i]
To the blogger-now-known-as-Frankly:
You always make unprovable, sweeping generalizations that diminish the validity of whole groups, and you always lace those unprovable generalizations with adjectives that are pejorative.
How do you have the slightest idea whether the plaintiffs and those who support them are happy, unhappy, ‘ailing’ in any way, or (psychobabble alert!) have any kind of childhood issues or insecurities? You don’t. So why do you say crap like that? Over and over? All the time? Why?
How about keeping it simple: they want equal rights. Not separate-but-equal rights.
[i]”The poor who are intended to benefit tend to be an afterthought with most welfare programs. They are never empowered, and the programs are never designed to incentivize the poor recipients to improve themselves to the point they don’t need the welfare.[/i]
Some well-respected politician once said “government is not a loving organization”. Then why do we keep pumping more money into it based on the demand that it can and should take good care of people?
NPR just did a big report on the problem with disability payments. It got a lot of press because NPR is supposed to be a friend to the left that supports and defends entitlement programs.
Defense spending is a fraction of the historical per GDP number, while non-defense spending has exploded on a per GDP basis. You can make the case that the US spends more than other counties, but the US has more to lose and is a bigger target than other countries. Cut the defense budget and it emboldens those despot leaders to prop up their weak leadership with malice toward the US. Cut the defense budget and you increase the risk for each remaining soldier. Cut the defense budget and you cannot just quickly turn it back up if you are wrong and there is a need for stronger defense. Cut the defense budget, and use all the savings to reduce the debt and deficit and it makes sense because our debt and deficits contribute to a reduction in our national security. Cut the defense budget to increase entitlements, and you seal our doom.
[i]”As to entitlements … The money generally goes to the hands of those who fund the campaigns of politicians in an organized fashion. “
[/i]
That’s false. There are many effective anti-poverty programs that have little to do with political donations. Food stamps, housing subsidies, school lunch programs, WIC, energy assistance (LIHEAP), Medicaid, even the Earned Income Tax Credit. Social Security has kept millions of Americans out of poverty.
You can find examples of entitlements, subsidies, and anti-poverty spending that rewards political contributors, but I doubt they’re the majority with respect to spending.
But the topic of this thread is gay marriage.
[i]To the blogger-now-known-as-Frankly:
You always make unprovable, sweeping generalizations that diminish the validity of whole groups, and you always lace those unprovable generalizations with adjectives that are pejorative. [/i]
Don Shor, I don’t think anyone does anything always. I just try to call them like I see them when I see them.
[i]How about keeping it simple: they want equal rights. Not separate-but-equal rights.[/i]
Or another simple view, how about just admitting that gay couples are different than straight couples when it comes to procreating and raising children. Why not go for equal but separate? If I was gay, thinking deeply about it, that is exactly what I would want. Give me equal rights and recognize my uniqueness. I don’t want to have to try and fit myself and my family into a box of expectation I cannot and will not meet or match.
There is an example for a similar mistake made… that of the women’s movement failing to demand accommodation for difference. The result has been less than desirable acceptance of mothers in the corporate career climb. This problem is only now coming to a head as some women CEOs having babies are taking a stand.
What has driven both groups and these movement is a large bit of envy, resentment and fear. It has been envy over those perceived of having something something better, resentment over feeling left out, and fear of feeling being left behind. It is now clear that most women do not value the same things in their professional life that men do. Might it also be true that gay couples will discover that they too do not value the same things as straight couples? I think so. I think gay couples… mostly those with children, are going to need special consideration and a unique approach to many things. I think many gays and gay-rights activists know this to be the case, yet they are still driven to force a social engineering change that isn’t materially beneficial. This logic disconnect is a clear sign that the motivation is somewhat irrational. Hence my “sweeping generalizations” and “pejoratives” as you so labeled them.
[i]how about just admitting that gay couples are different than straight couples when it comes to procreating and raising children. Why not go for equal but separate?[/i]
Sure. So long as you also set up a special separate-but-equal marriage category for people who get married even knowing they can’t procreate. Because your logic here is that procreation is the sole foundation of marriage. We’ll have special tiers of marriage. Those who can have babies, and those who can’t. Will the marriage licenses have special color coding?
What exactly are you trying to preserve by maintaining two completely identical but separate marriage categories? Lots of people get married who can’t have babies. Gay couples can adopt. So…what’s the point of the ‘separate’?
[i]” they are still driven to force a social engineering change that isn’t materially beneficial.”
[/i]
Of course it is materially beneficial. That is a key point. What they want is the rights of marriage. What confers those rights is getting married. They want to get married and have the rights of all other married couples.
Materially more beneficial than civil unions with equal rights? As Desi Arnaz said “you’ve got some splainin’ to do.”
Don, straight couples that cannot procreate because of health issues? Are you saying that homosexuality is a health issue? I would not put these two groups in the same category of consideration.
[i]Don, straight couples that cannot procreate because of health issues? Are you saying that homosexuality is a health issue?[/i]
Did I say that? Of course not. Once again, you twist my words as you do with medwoman. So you believe that procreation os the foundation of marriage. You believe that marriages that are based on procreation are superior to those that are primarily emotional. You don’t believe that heterosexual marriages are often primarily contractual, including when they are arranged marriages. You believe that there is a hierarchy of marriage, and that gays don’t really even belong on the hierarchy at all. That they should be satisfied with something else.
[i]Materially more beneficial than civil unions with equal rights?[/i]
If they’re identical, what’s the difference? Why do you want to keep it separate? What is it that bothers you so much about gay people getting married that you don’t want to call it marriage in their case, if it is completely identical?
Frankly: [i]Why not go for equal but separate?[/i]
[quote]But Olson dismisses that argument, asserting that it is analogous to telling African-Americans they should use separate drinking fountains or go to separate schools. Marriage, he says, “occupies a special place in American society.” Couples don’t “invite their friends and throw rice and flowers and scream with joy” when they are joined in domestic partnership.
source ([url]https://will.illinois.edu/news/story//in-first-of-2-same-sex-marriage-cases-court-turns-to-proposition-8[/url])[/quote]
Frankly
The issue with our conversation,as I see it, is that you have taken the words that I wrote, spun them into some fantasy of what someone on the left must believe. You then, basing your argument on a lot of things that I did not say,tell me that my logic is twisted. So if you will indulge me for a minute, let’s look at what I actually wrote.
[quote]I would argue that the statistics of procreation and 25 years of experience as an obstetrician indicate that Mr. Cooper has this exactly wrong.
With 49 % of spontaneous conceptionn in this country being unintentional ( accidental) I would say that it is the heterosexual couples who have been procreating irresponsibly. I have yet to see a lesbian couple conceive ( or a gay adoption occur) with out a deliberate judgement regarding whether or not they are ready to and capable of raising a child. This preplanning, sadly lacking in 1/2 of spontaneous conceptions would seem to me the epitome of responsible procreation.[/quote]
I stated a statistic which is readily verifiable that 49-50 % of pregnancies in this country are unintended.
Note this does not mean that the pregnancy will be unwanted, or that the child will not have a good home with loving parents, just that it is unintended. Unfortunately, that will not be the case for many of these children who
will be born to parents who for many different reasons, medical, social, economic….are unable to care for them.
Would you agree that a child is more likely to do well if their parents have made an assessment of their readiness to parent prior to conceiving ? Because that was all, repeat, all I was saying with regard to heterosexual parenting.
It is a biologic fact, not a leftist opinion, that homosexual couples cannot conceive accidentally. It requires planning on their part to conceive and or adopt. Therefore they must have planned ahead. Note I did not say that this will necessarily make them better parents in the long run. Only that they have to have at least considered whether or not they want to be parents.
I believe that all children should have parents that are willing and able to care for them regardless of the gender of those parents. I believe that having a child is a major life changing event, regardless of gender, and that it is irresponsible not to plan ahead for such a life changing event. Note, I also have no problem with the couple,
who having established themselves as financially and socially stable, decide to leave it to chance or to God,
having already provided the means for the child’s care. My statement was only with regard to those heterosexual couples who chose to procreate without having given any thought to how they will care for the child or those who, knowing that they do not want to be parents, do not take preventative steps. To me, this is the height of irresponsibility.
Note the things I did not say:
I did not use this as an argument for gay marriage.
I did not “bash” heterosexual couples. I simply pointed out a well known statistic about reproductive behavior.
I did not say that I felt gay couples make better parents than do heterosexual couples.
I said nothing whatsoever about the religious or moral beliefs of either opponents or proponents of gay marriage.
I said nothing whatsoever about whether any other rights should be accorded to either straight or gay couples.
My comments were limited strictly to the one argument implying that defending straight marriage is a legitimate interest of the state since it protects “responsible procreation” and why I believed that to be incorrect.
I stand by my statistic and my experience with thousands of planned and unplanned pregnancies through the years.
medwoman: Thanks for the response and explanations. I need to remember that you are sometimes approaching these topics from the perspective of a medical professional. I might suggest a bit of sensitivity toward traditional marriages and families. Citing statistics to make the points you have is similar to citing crime statistics to make a point that blacks as a group are responsible for producing more crime. There are a lot of social issues that are the source of so much unwanted pregnancy. Personally, I put a lot of blame on the entitlement nanny state. This is something you support and advocate. Since government will take care of you, why worry about accidental babies?
Wdf1 and Don Shor: I think the both of you are either tone deaf to my points, or you are just ignoring them to keep up a robust debate. My point is simple. First keep in mind that I have no problem with gay couples getting ALL legal rights that straight couples get. What I object to is this push to force a slightly oblong peg into a round hole. I am coming at this from a place where I try to put myself in the shoes of a gay man wanting to marry another gay man and then adopt children. I know I will have special challenges in this circumstance. And, many of these special challenges will be because I am gay, I don’t have a wife, and my children do not have a mother. Sure some of these situations apply to straight parenting (e.g., no father or mother), but there are not the intended norm. They are exceptions to the intended norm. So, out of the starting gate gay marriage and gay parenting include many exceptions to the intended norm. Exceptions = differences.
The push for gay marriage is completely emotional and not rational. However, I get it. What I worry about is a social expectation that gay families should be the same. You will create that backlash as gay marriage sweeps across the country (and I agree with Rich Rifkin and others that it is just a matter of time) and these differences develop needs for unique accommodations, services, rules, exceptions, etc…
Basically, my main problem is that we are glossing over sex-based and gender-based differences. Some of these are biological, but what I care about are those that, either by their nature, or by the fact that they manifest as, are significant social issues. There is not enough data on outcomes of gay parenting to accept the claim that there are no differences. We should be training society out of the starting gate to expect differences and work to make sure that ALL children are provided what they need… instead of spending all this time and effort making adults that act like children FEEL like they are getting what THEY need.
That all may be fine, although I would probably argue with most of it. None of it is a reason for denying the rights of marriage, in the form of actual marriage.
You haven’t made the case for separate-but-equal.
It is a good reason to identify gay marriage as being different from traditional marriage, IMO. I think we have to leave it at that.
RR: [i]”As to entitlements … The money generally goes to the hands of those who fund the campaigns of politicians in an organized fashion.”[/i]
DS: [i]”That’s false. … But the topic of this thread is gay marriage.”[/i]
Because it is off-topic, I won’t explain myself, here. I just want to slightly amend what I said. I should have written, “The [s]money[/s] [b]long-term benefit[/b] generally goes to the hands of those who …” I will have to explicate what I mean by “long-term benefit” at some point when you agree that it is on-thread, and why and how most welfare programs fail to empower the recipients.
[i]”What I worry about is a social expectation that gay families should be the same.”[/i]
One thing to keep in mind: there are not all that many gays, and I suspect that most gay couples (because they can never accidentally pop out a kid) will never have or raise children. It’s not as if in 30 or 40 years half or 20% or 10% of kids will grow up with gay parents. It’s probably going to always be in the 1% to 2% range.
And then among gays who raise children, there is a much larger percentage (compared with straights) who raise biologically unrelated adopted children. In many of these adoption cases, the children are much, much better off living with their gay parents than they would have been in foster care or some other unstable home situation.
Aside from the question of fairness–that is, equal treatment under the law–a primary benefit of gay marriage goes to their children, whose home lives will be somewhat more stable.
Rich: While I don’t disagree with your reasoning that gay couples with children will be a small percentage of society, I have to say that I don’t agree with the statement you were responding to. I know a number of same-sex partners with children and I don’t see much difference in terms of those children, their upbringing versus any other children. I do think you have to be a little careful though because a number of children in those relationships are with one of the biological parents either through a previous relationship or through artificial means.
Just as is the case in same-sex marriage, marriage is best up and defamed by the actions of two-sex couples, why is there such fear of ruining the institution that has been marred by infidelity, abuse and divorce, so too are children mistreated in those relationships.
[i]” It’s not as if in 30 or 40 years half or 20% or 10% of kids …”[/i]
What we need to be much more worried about in our society is the high percentage of children, whose parents are straight, but never marry and where the fathers of these children abandon their families.
In most of these cases, the problem in need of a solution is that the biological parents fail to use birth control, come from dysfunctional families, don’t have stable relationships with their sex partners, have little or no education, have little or no ability to earn a living and have children long before they are able to support themselves, let alone support off-spring.
We would relieve ALL of our most serious societal problems–crime, crowded prisons, bad schools, drop-outs, lack of work skills, welfare dependency, childhood poverty, gangs, etc.–if we would incentivize poor, young women* to make better choices: pay them $50,000 dollars each** to finish high school, to stay off of drugs, to not have any kids before they are married and at least 25 and to not have kids before they have a stable family income and have shown that they can support themselves. If we did that, those “unsolvable” social problems would largely be solved.
———-
*Why not young men, too? Because they don’t get pregnant, and they normally abandon their children.
**It costs us $50,000 for one year for one inmate in state prison, and a lot more than that when police and court costs are added in. About 68 percent ([url]http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2010/10/toxic_persons.html[/url]) of black males who drop out of high school end up in prison at some point. A much wiser investment would be to give that $50,000 instead to a poor, young lady who does not make the bad choices which result in having a child who ends up in prison.
@davisite2
So you do not believe that a blatant violation of our fundamental democratic principles were committed by Jerry Brown’s and Barack Obama’s failures to defend our states’ and nation’s laws and then have the gall to say that nobody is allowed to defend those laws in court?
Is that it?
RE: Kennedy – Let me see…I must weigh what davisite2 says or that which Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at UC Irvine and a constitutional law professor said…Hmmmm
“I don’t think you can tell from the transcript which way Kennedy was leaning, and I think he did that intentionally,” Chemerinsky said. “He knows he is the pivotal vote, and he asked hard questions of both sides.”
decisions, decisions, decisions…
Frankly: [i]The push for gay marriage is completely emotional and not rational.[/i]
Funny. I was thinking the opposite. The resistance to gay marriage is completely emotional and not rational. Too much habituated status quo thinking ingrained in the older generation.
[i]What I object to is this push to force a slightly oblong peg into a round hole.[/i]
Given all the strange variations of legal heterosexual marriage that I have seen, I see consistently a lot more stability on the relationship spectrum in gay couples that I know personally. I don’t buy the fear of the extreme as a reason to deny rights to what I see of the norm. What I see of my stably coupled gay social acquaintances has every appearance of a marriage except the standard legal designation.
Rifs
“We would relieve ALL of our most serious societal problems–crime, crowded prisons, bad schools, drop-outs, lack of work skills, welfare dependency, childhood poverty, gangs, etc.–if we would incentivize poor, young women* to make better choices: pay them $50,000 dollars each** to finish high school, to stay off of drugs, to not have any kids before they are married and at least 25 and to not have kids before they have a stable family income and have shown that they can support themselves. If we did that, those “unsolvable” social problems would largely be solved. “
I agree with you whole heatedly with this strategy. However, I would include young men. Although they frequently do not stay around to help raise the children as you have stated, they are necessarily 50% responsible for the conception. Since DNA testing is now possible to confirm paternity, I think we should allow the same incentives for men as we do for women. Don’t impregnate should have the same rewards as don’t conceive. This would place the responsibility and or rewards for irresponsibly procreating or appropriately contracepting where it belongs……
On both partners.
Frankly
[quote]Or another simple view, how about just admitting that gay couples are different than straight couples when it comes to procreating and raising children. Why not go for equal but separate[/quote]
Using this rational, why not just admit that blacks couples are different from white couples in terms of their skin pigmentation and therefore should have separate but equal facilities for them and their children ?
Every one “admits” that gay couples are different from straight couples when it comes to procreating, but then so are couples who cannot or will not have children. What I object to is not allowing them all the same rights and privileges based on this difference. We don’t limit marriage rights for heterosexual couples who cannot
procreate, why should we do so for gay couples who have the same biologic challenge ?