Yesterday here in Wisconsin, a (Jimmy Carter appointed) federal judge here in Dane County struck down the constitutional amendment that did not allow gay marriage. Immediately the clerks offices here in Madison opened up for extended office hours and began the ceremonies. Other counties did not follow suit, waiting for clarification.
The clarification is for the legal beagles to figure out. Some say you can start the gay weddings now, some say not. Of course the Dane County clerk doesn’t really care and off we go.
Glad they had extended office hours when conceal carry was decriminalized. Oh.
Me? Well, gay marriage is something that I never really cared that much about. Personally, I have no clue why the state is even involved in marriage, but that doesn’t seem to be the point. The gay marriage issue seems to me to be about the money. Of course, outside of being married, you can leave your assets to anyone you choose, assign powers of attorney and health care to anyone you choose, etc. etc. So to me, it is just about getting on someone’s insurance? Outside of that, I don’t see why so much time and energy was wasted on the gay marriage deal. In general, gays weren’t persecuted, like most Muslim countries where they are beheaded or stoned or whatever. So it is about insurance = money. Is that really it? Is it all about money?
That might be a bit cynical. But that’s me.
The constitutional amendment banning gay marriage passed 60% to 40%. That is pretty overwhelming. Now a judge overturns it. So much for the power of the people. But people need to be careful here. Don’t think that in the future, something else may be overturned. Anyone that can afford a good attorney can play this game.
It seems that the end game is in sight for gay marriage and honestly, I am somewhat happy. I am very tired of seeing gay pride marches, parades, and all the rest. All of this should now end, no?
I don’t care if anyone is gay. Just do your deal and live your life like the rest of the non gay people. I don’t go around parading my sexuality for everyone to see. It all seems so childish.
Cross posted at LITGM.
All of this should now end, no?
Oh yeah.
Ann Althouse had a celebratory post about this yesterday, in fact two of them. She says she is a libertarian but voted for Obama the first time and thinks it is “freedom” to celebrate gay marriage. I think it is a fad that grew out of the AIDS epidemic when gay men tried to change the promiscuous nature of their culture. I live and practiced near Laguna Beach and lost friends to AIDS in the early days. I have had to tell gay men, like a nuclear engineer I still remember, that they had the disease when it was a death sentence. I remember him so well because he said, “That can’t be. I’ve been in a committed relationship for ten years !” What could I say to that ?
What I think it really is is a crusade (Sorry Mohammed) to force the rest of society to accept every aspect of this life style. Including, I might add, the Catholic Church which will eventually be forced to perform these “marriages” or lose its tax exempt status. The true nature of all this is illustrated best by the lawsuits forcing small businesses to cater to these “weddings.” Who would want the involuntary service of bakers and florists ? Guess.
I don’t have a dog in that fight as I pretty much gave up on the Church years ago when it turned sharply left. When I was a kid in Chicago, our parish, St Phillip Neri, was the richest Catholic parish in the city. The pastor was a monsignor who had been an accountant and his car, a Cadillac limousine, had Illinois license plate #1, given to him by the cardinal. That parish is, of course, all black now, in South Shore that is one of the most violent parts of the city. The church should be financially secure but it held mortgages on a lot of other churches that, I’m sure, went under. I still send them money from time to time as I think Catholic schools are the hope of many black parents who want an education for their kids. I wish them well.
Gay marriage is here and the young lefties are obsessed with it. When the economy collapses or a nuke goes off in New York Harbor, they will be astonished that something bad could happen. They are focused on the Kardashians and other cultural icons.
Ann has a gay kid so that doesn’t surprise me. I have a feeling that you may be right about churches with their nonprofit status if they don’t do gay marriages. Will be interesting when they try to do that to a mosque.
“Will be interesting when they try to do that to a mosque.”
They know better.
Being raised as a stiff-necked Lutheran, and having a great many relatively devout and observantly conscientious friends, I speculate that many churches would forgo tax-exempt status rather than submit to violating long-standing doctrine. As Luther himself said, “Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason – I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other – my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.”
Likely MikeK is right on this – the whole point of the gay marriage ruckus is to force the rest of us to accept, or make a show of rapturously approving gay marriage. Tolerance isn’t enough; we must approve enthusiastically, and be seen to approve.
Now that we have gay marriage perhaps we can legalize 2 or more men married to 1 woman, or 2 or more women married to one man, or 3 or more men married, or 3 or more women married and eliminate divorce. Being married to just one person is unnatural and ungodly. And it unjustly punishes the children.
Grey Eagle – the proponents of gay marriage assured everyone that your thoughts were insane but I believe now that this is exactly where we are headed. Equal protection and all that.
(Deleted by Dan. As usual.)
I have several objections to gay marriage. the money angle is the basic one. As a married father of 5, what little government and employment financial breaks I’ve gotten has been welcomed as they stretch the budget – kids are expensive! Expanding those breaks to non-hetero-marrieds makes them more expensive for employers and so reduces their willingness to provide them, Gays are tapping into a support system for which they make no contribution (as in raising future citizens and taxpayers.)
I don’t much care for gay school teachers either. Gays are more highly sexual than most heteros and I definitely do not want them recruiting or justifying themselves in front of my kids.
The public health angle is another piece. Gays harbor and spread more diseases that monogamous married people.
Lastly, ask yourself, haven’t most societies over history shown a general disdain for homosexuality? Only a few in a decadent stage haven’t.
Personally, I don’t care what you do, just keep it behind closed doors.
Whitehall, your points are well taken but I just don’t care what they do if they leave others alone. I do worry about the kids being raised by same sex “parents,” but maybe it is better than foster care.
My problem with it is just that they don’t seem to be able to leave others alone.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/158066/special-report-adults-identify-lgbt.aspx
Latest polls and studies prove that gays are actually a very small percentage of the population. Far more attention is paid to them by a biased media and left wing then their numbers would merit.
We have to ask ourselves now, why is so much legislative and government control put in place for a small sliver of the citizenry that will probably not utilize it? Are they protecting one group’s rights or suppressing another’s.
This will further diminish hetero sexual marriage which is fundamental to our civilization. This isn’t conjecture, you can see its results in other countries. Why would a young hetero man want to join an institution that doesn’t honor him? Marriage is hard work when society supports it, when society discounts it fewer people will have the fortitude to make it work. More fatherless children, fewer warm homes where children are sheltered by two people.
“This will further diminish hetero sexual marriage which is fundamental to our civilization.”
I think gay marriage and all the LGBT hullabaloo is a symptom of social dissolution that began in the 1960s in western society. There is an element of self hatred and resentment of parents and authority involved. Thomas Sowell points out that something similar has happened in the black community and it has nothing to do with slavery or poverty.
The basic mechanism is still a but mysterious to me but it is pervasive in western society. I don’t know if Asian and other non-western societies are as affected.
I would hope that we could ask for a bit better vocabulary from the newspapers.
First, what is being asked for is not gay marriage. Gays have always gotten married, just not to their same sex lovers. I know of several marriages between gays and opposite sex persons among my own neighbors. What the homosexual rights campaigners have asked for is same sex marriage.
Second, state statutes and constitutional provisions have not been bans on same sex marriage. They generally do not authorize any form of marriage other than opposite sex marriage, and they often go on to state that only marriage between one male and one female (not too closely related, and both of age) is a marriage. But, they don’t ban anything. Incest is criminal and so is bigamy, but there is no ban on same sex marriage, it is simply that the law does not recognize it.
What the courts are doing is not “striking a ban”, but they are rewriting existing law to please their own fancy. E.g. replacing the words man and woman in the marriage law with the words human being. Democracy, of course, is a thing of the past.
Lex and James Bennett, in America 3.0. made family structure a central part of their thesis. I would be interested to hear from them how the rewrite of marriage laws will affect the evolution of America 3.0.
Responses welcomed to this post.
I’ve thought about this a lot and to the point made by a previous post, is justice served when one political, social, or interest group sets out to redefine the core meaning of a social institution that has stood for time, couldn’t another group with equal legitimacy claim the right to the same option? Thus opens marriage to competing subjective definitions.
I have often spoiled dinner conversations by asking “if two women are fully committed to one another, in love, and choose to spend the rest of their lives together and demand that society recognize their union as a marriage, what possible objection do you have to that?” The answer, invariably, is there is no objection, nor should there be. My follow up question is “why not three women?”. The answers range from befuddled stumbling to sputtering rage, most of the time characterized as me being a bigot who has lured my victim into a rhetorical box canyon. I insist, however, it is a canyon of their own making, and any sexual combination must therefore be recognized by society as a marriage if the participants desire, and further codified into law. This includes polygamy, incestuous relationships, group marriage, and even yes, the avuncular Lambda-ite living in a beach house in P-town with three 13 year old boys. As long as it is consensual.
As best as I can tell from my limited study of the field of anthropology, no society has ever elevated homosexuality to that of equal status to that of heterosexuality. Am I wrong? Isn’t that what the blue and yellow “equal” bumper sticker demands?
So is it bigoted to at least question how this grand social experiment is going to work out? Should we not for a moment consider what the long term social outcomes might entail? Do you really think that children raised by gay parents will have no observable behavioral traits that may differ from the control group? “Sperm donor” doesn’t seem to evoke the same psychological sentiment as “Dad”, nor does “surrogate” provoke feelings of “Mom”. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I think it’s worth thinking about.
One thing I know that is not up for debate: if adopted by the species, the species would be wiped out in one generation. Refute that.
And so it will never be equal, despite shrill demands and hurled epithets.
“no society has ever elevated homosexuality to that of equal status to that of heterosexuality. ”
The classical Greek society, which is often held up as an example by gays, was one in which women were confined in harem-like isolation and men had relationships called Ephebophilia. a concept currently considered child abuse in this society.
Men were expected to have these relationships, not all were sexual probably, when they were in military training. They also had wives for reproduction and these wives were closely held and restricted. It was said, “The honor of an Athenian wife is to never have her name mentioned in public.”
It is interesting that Muslim society, in which women are also isolated and kept in harems, is well known as as a center of homosexual behavior, especially with boys. Similar behavior is common in prisons where females are not available.
[Deleted by Jonathan.]
The science on homosexuality is still unsettled, possibly for political reasons.
The most plausible data and theories I’ve read are in “Sperm Wars” : http://www.amazon.com/Sperm-Wars-Infidelity-Conflict-Bedroom/dp/1560258489/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402377231&sr=8-1&keywords=sperm+wars
Basically, one theory goes that at least for bisexuals, their hyper-sexuality and early experience offers them an edge in seduction early and often. Another theory is that non-reproducing homosexual relatives can aid the balance of the family’s offspring, their nieces and nephews, in their survival.
I agree that homosexuals should be allowed to do what they gotta do. However, I don’t want them horning in on what few benefits society offers to parents, I don’t want them spreading disease, I don’t want them recruit my kids, and I don’t want them scaring the horses in the street.
And I don’t want them destroying institutions that are the foundation of Western human society.
Here’s an example in today’s news:
http://moonbattery.com/?p=46808
A parent’s biggest investment is in his/her children. One wants them to produce grandchildren. In fact, biologists calculate an individual animal’s fitness by how many grandchildren result.
To Mike K – thanks for the response, but I should have been more specific. No society has ever elevated the status of homosexuality to that of heterosexuality and had that condition persist and survive.
That there have been warnings against its adoption for thousands of years suggests it is a limited characteristic of man and thus part of the human condition. Ours will be the first to normalize it, given present trends and their continuity. I submit it will not be without consequence.
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