Did You Vote Against Gay Marriage?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
141

In my opinion the reason that we are even having this discussion now is because of Alfred Kinsey. He wrote two books: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953). These two books changed everything. They are what most American sexual education courses are based on. It amazes me that we based our “Sex Ed” on the studies of a man who was an expert at the study of bugs. There will be a movie coming out based on him. Do some research and find out about him. I have a feeling that the movie is going to show him in a more positive light than it should. After you find out the truth about Kinsey, go to gayhistory.com and find out how they use his studies. This is an interesting read: http://www.drjudithreisman.org/
kinseypedos.htm.

After reading this and some of the other information you may understand why this is intertwined into our society and why I voted against it.

Me Solomon Grundy

142

[quote]ZEB wrote:
If that were the case then it would be: “Homomarriageaphobic” as it is not the Homosexual which one is afraid of, but the marriage of said Homosexuals.

What do you think? No?[/quote]

Okay, let’s forget the phobia label thingy, because we’re getting nowhere with this. I mean, can you at least agree that we’re dancing around the issue here? Your point was that it’s not a gay thing, but a marriage thing, and for you that may be true. But I would hesitate to confer that status on the majority of the conservatives in this country. Going back to my analogy with interracial marriage, can you agree that there was a major hissy fit in the conservative sectors of society, and that, in the end, it didn’t destroy or tear down anything “traditional”? I believe that the major argument against interracial marriage back then was the fact that it was “unnatural”, right? Well, what could be more “unnatural” than a couple of leather pants-wearing fruitcakes wanting to get married? What I’m saying is that this is just like the 50’s, only instead of black and white, it’s guy and guy or girl and girl. Do you see what I’m getting at here? To most conservatives, I suspect that it’s not “Oh, our marriage institution is going to fall apart”, but really “Oh, those disgusting queers”, and that, my friend, is homophobia.

143

[quote]vroom wrote:
The problem with this whole issue is that it was born of judicial activism.

Boston,

If you have the time or inclination, maybe you could expand upon this point. Is the problem that the judicial branch misinterpreted legislation, made a decision in the absence of legislation or interpreted the legislation based on the way things are considered now as opposed to the time the law was written?

I mean, isn’t this natural? Does not the legislature now have the power to address this issue and change the nature of the law? Isn’t this what is supposed to happen when the judicial system interprets laws in a way that the legislature (the people) do not support?

Isn’t this the way the checks and balances between the three branches are supposed to work – a back and forth process between them while staying within the confines of the constitution?

Why the big stink about the judicial system? Simply get the legislations to write the laws with unequivocal language that won’t be prone to improper interpretation. It’s not like there isn’t room for the judicial system to try to figure out just what the heck the laws actually mean sometimes. As a lawyer, I’m sure you are familiar with the principle.

Anyway, I’d appreciate it if you could let me know what I’m missing.[/quote]

vroom:

The problem is that the courts AREN’T interpreting legislation. If they were basing their decisions on legislation defining marriage, that would be easily subject to legislative balance.

No, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court instead did an end-run around the legislature, and declared that the legislative definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman was in violation of the Massachusetts state Constitution. Amazingly enough, no one else had found that right in the over-200-year period preceding the decision.

Reading new rights into the Constitution is essentially the same as passing a Constitutional amendment – except that only the august members of the Supreme Judicial Court voted on it.

The only way voters have to contain this sort of activism by the courts is to amend their state constitutions to specifically preclude such judicial activism – namely, by passing amendments to their state constitutions specifically denying that marriage can be anything but marriage between a man and a woman.

Given what happened in Massachusetts and given the “living document” interpretation of constitutions that prevails among activist types (generally, but not exclusively, liberals or self-styled “progressives”), it was completely predictable that unhappy voters would attempt to “head them off at the pass” as it were, with the amendments to the state constitutions. Judges should confine themselves to interpreting laws and constitutions as they were written.

144

[quote]joe_r wrote:
if the end result is the same, why have two different names for them? i would rather see the government no longer recognize any marriage, and have the legal status a civil union no matter if it is a heterosexual or homosexual couple. if people want to get married, that is between them and their church.[/quote]

Joe:

The end result would not be the same, because the legislature could favor marriage in other areas than economic ones. For instance, in terms of adoption laws, the legislature could right in that couples in marriages are given preference, followed by people in civil unions.

Also, the legislature could restrict civil unions to only encompass same-sex couples.

Finally, I think it’s important that the legislature have discretion on such matters – I don’t want policies set by judges. That’s not their function, and I don’t like the idea of living in a judicial oligarchy in which un-elected judges make policy.

145

vroom:

The Wall Street Journal had a good editorial today that touches on this topic as well:

Gay Lessons
November 15, 2004; Page A22

So John Kerry lost the election not because most of the nation rejected his approach to Iraq or health care or taxes. Rather, he lost because President Bush succeeded in energizing the Bible-thumping homophobic masses averse to redefining marriage.

Or so goes the story line emerging from Blue America media outlets. It’s been extrapolated from exit polling on the primacy of “moral values,” and from the fact that referendums to ban gay marriage passed easily in the 11 states where they were on the ballot. But we think these returns tell a different story, and it’s one that liberals who are so contemptuous of Red America ignore at the risk of more political peril down the road.

True, weekly churchgoers voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Bush. But they comprised the same 42% of the electorate as four years ago. It’s self-described moderates (some 45% of the electorate), who made the difference this year. Nearly half went for the President, and if opposition to gay marriage was one of the issues that stirred these swing voters, don’t blame bigotry or ignorance. It’s more accurate to say that proponents have overreached.

The country is engaged in an honest and open debate about gay marriage. On the one hand, 41 states have bans in place, and polls show that the public opposes same-sex marriage by roughly 2 to 1. On the other hand, most Americans also oppose amending the U.S. Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages and seem amenable to allowing gay couples something short of the “marriage” designation. Fifty-two percent of Bush voters are in favor of civil unions, as is the President himself.

The 11 gay marriage bans that passed on Election Day represent a public backlash against efforts by liberal courts and others to end this national conversation prematurely. Americans aren’t intolerant but they don’t want unelected judges and grandstanding public officials imposing their own moral standards by legal diktat. You needn’t be a bigot to have a problem with four out of seven judges on the Massachusetts Supreme Court taking policy decisions out of the hands of voters and legislatures, or with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom defying state law (and invoking Rosa Parks) to issue more than 4,000 marriage licenses to gay couples.

The lesson here for gay rights activists is to trust the democratic process, rather than use the courts to circumvent it. Public attitudes toward homosexuality are much different than they were even 20 years ago, with (for example) many companies already offering benefits to gay partners. Letting voters reach a democratic consensus on their own schedule is also a good way to avoid a repeat of the endless cultural warfare that has stemmed from that monument to judicial activism known as Roe v. Wade.

In the meantime, if liberals really care about discriminatory legal protections and benefits, they might consider agitating for a repeal of the death tax, which puts gay couples at a disadvantage. Married couples are allowed an unlimited transfer of assets to a spouse before death, a tax benefit denied gay couples. And only heterosexual spouses can inherit each other’s assets without paying estate taxes.

Every poll we’ve seen shows tremendous support among gays for eliminating the tax. And it’s certainly a more productive use of energies than branding the majority of Americans homophobic for taking time to consider whether the 5,000-year old institution of marriage needs to be upended.

146

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:

The end result would not be the same, because the legislature could favor marriage in other areas than economic ones. For instance, in terms of adoption laws, the legislature could right in that couples in marriages are given preference, followed by people in civil unions.

Also, the legislature could restrict civil unions to only encompass same-sex couples.

I don’t want policies set by judges. I don’t like the idea of living in a judicial oligarchy in which un-elected judges make policy.[/quote]

For adoption, it makes no difference to me whether a gay or straight couple raise a child, as long as it has loving parents that can provide for him or her.

I see your point about judges, and have no problem with it. But I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want gay couples to have the same rights as hetero couples, and why you would want the status to be different.

147

joe_r: See my last post for the answer to your question. BB is a conservative.

148

Something else to mull over, conservatives:

Teens With Same-Sex Parents Well-Adjusted

By Karen Pallarito
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Nov. 15 (HealthDayNews) – Adolescents who have two moms as parents are no different from teens growing up with a mother and a father, a new study finds.

On measures of psychosocial well-being, school functioning, and romantic relationships and behaviors, the teens with same-sex parents were as well adjusted as their peers with opposite-sex parents. The authors found very few differences between the two groups. A more important predictor of teens’ psychological and social adjustment, they found, is the quality of the relationships they have with their parents.

“This is the first study that has looked at adolescents with same-sex parents in a national sample, and it shows clearly across a wide range of variables that they’re doing pretty well,” said study author Charlotte J. Patterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

The research, published in the November issue of Child Development, draws data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a school-based study of the health-related behaviors of kids in grades 7-12.

Dr. Ellen C. Perrin, a professor of pediatrics at Tufts School of Medicine and an expert on the development of children with gay or lesbian parents, said that few studies have focused on adolescents of same-sex parents. What data there is has been subject to attack. Critics complain that the studies reflect researcher bias and non-random participant selection.

“In this case, neither of those critiques are valid,” Perrin said. The new study uses data from a broad population-based survey conducted for entirely different reasons. “That makes it very clean, so to speak; no one could argue that there was any bias involved.”

Estimates of the number of teens living with same-sex parents are hard to come by. As of 1990, 6 million to 14 million children were living with a gay or lesbian parent, says the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, a service of the U.S. Administration for Children and Families.

Perrin believes that a majority of these children were born into heterosexual families. “Only recently have there been increasing numbers of kids born or adopted into already stable same-sex couples,” she explained.

The study sample included 44 children, 12 to 18 years old, parented by same-sex couples and an equivalent number of peers with opposite-sex parents. The two groups had an equal number of girls and boys and other similarities, including ethnic background, family income, and parents’ level of education.

Overall, researchers found no significant differences between the two groups. Teens with two moms, for example, were neither more nor less likely than their peers with two opposite-sex parents to report having been involved in a romantic relationship during the past year or ever having sex. Both groups were generally well-adjusted, with relatively high levels of self-esteem, relatively low levels of anxiety, and good achievement in school.

The study reveals a minor difference: “The kids of same-sex parents said that they feel more connected at school,” Patterson said. In other words, they felt their teachers were more open to them, and that people at school were fair and cared for them. “I think that may be a chance finding, frankly,” she said.

While family type wasn’t a factor in how teens fared, family relationships were. When parents reported more positive relationships with their teenagers, for instance, the teens reported lower levels of depressive symptoms.

“The qualities of teenagers’ relationships with their parents are much better predictors of their overall well-being,” Patterson noted.

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[quote]Mr. Chen wrote:
Bob423 and KnightRt-

I’m not afraid to be honest, your right. I don’t believe there is a T-Man out there, on his first exposure to 2 men French-kissing, wasn’t disgusted by it. That is the natural reaction. If you want to let the media brainwash you, help yourself.

Homosexuality has always been considered outside the scope of normal behavior. Only in recent decades has the media been able to change this.

Do I feel threatened by homos, not at all. Merely disgusted by their unnatural sex habits. Please don’t blab on about hating them etc. I don’t hate gays, just like I don’t hate drug addicts.

By the way, isn’t the homo group still the highest risk group for AIDS?[/quote]

Wow… where to start…
okay: There IS scientific evidence that homosexuality is biologically determined. First is the “cross-species” evidence - the fact that homosexuality occurs in all mammalian species and many many of the “cold-blooded” species at approximately the same ratio (5-10%). Now since I do not believe that many tree-shrews or skinks make a conscious decision to be gay I would suspect that it a biological phenomenon rather than a choice - (and as more than a few of my gay friends would tell you anyone who thinks they made a choice to be descriminated against, regarded with suspicion when around children, abused and be subjected to hate-crimes are out of their minds.) Secondly there is evidence that the hippocampus of gay men more closely resembles that of women than that of straight men. There is also genetic evidence through family lines, but it is not so clear cut…

Next is the issue of the “natural reaction.” I was not disgusted when I saw to gay men kissing for the first time - just a little confused…“ummmm, I thought one of you should have breasts.”
Homosexuality has NOT “always been considered outside the scope of normal behavior.” In Sparta it was normal for a young man entering the army to have an older male lover to guide him in his army career - and those guys were DAMN tough. In many other cultures gays were seen as perfectly natural -it was only with the advent of the big three - Christianity, Judaism and the Islamic faiths that it was seen as a “perversion.”

And no, gays are not the highest risk group for aids - the group with the highest climb in case numbers are staright males- gays now take safety in sex very seriously while straight males are still lax.

You say you don’t hate gays but you compare them to drug addicts and make a snide comment about them and aids - totally off-topic.

Me personally - I believe in giving people the highest degree of personal freedom possible - no matter what my opinion might be. I am against abortion, but for the right to choose - because other people have the right to make that choice for themselves. I am a straight guy, happily engaged, but I am for gay marriage because if that what makes them happy - as long as it doesn’t hurt me - they should have the freedom.

In the end it is a matter of freedom versus the application by force of one groups “moral values” on another group.

It used to be that by law a wife was a man’s chattel, it used to be law that mixed-marriage was illegal… ahhh, how far we’ve come.

150

[quote]joe_r wrote:

For adoption, it makes no difference to me whether a gay or straight couple raise a child, as long as it has loving parents that can provide for him or her.

I see your point about judges, and have no problem with it. But I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want gay couples to have the same rights as hetero couples, and why you would want the status to be different.[/quote]

joe:

Basically, it’s a “best interests of the child” standard. That’s more important than whether the adoptive parents are happy with it.

While lothario cites a study that maintains that kids raised by same-sex couples are not maladjusted, I think it’s fair to say that it’s a very open question as to the effects on kids of being raised by a same-sex couple versus a traditional couple, and until it is more definitively established I think the law should favor traditional couples.

But note how I set it up – I don’t think same-sex couples should be disallowed from adopting kids, just that traditional couples should be preferenced if there is a queue.

BTW, lothario, I’m a libertarian with conservative leanings – or a conservative with libertarian leanings – either way, I’m some sort of a mix… But I’m also a strict constructionist w/r/t the Constitution, and an anti-judicial-activism person. The process is very important, and if it means that we wait longer for change due to following the correct process, I am not bothered by that because the process is so important.

151

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
BTW, lothario, I’m a libertarian with conservative leanings – or a conservative with libertarian leanings – either way, I’m some sort of a mix… But I’m also a strict constructionist w/r/t the Constitution, and an anti-judicial-activism person. The process is very important, and if it means that we wait longer for change due to following the correct process, I am not bothered by that because the process is so important.[/quote]

Okay, BB, fair enough. No need to entrust social change to the hands of a few judges, I guess. If it’s gonna happen, it’ll happen sooner or later. I just hate to see guys with good heads on their shoulders get all uppity about gayness, because homos really are harmless, and I think it’s a shame that they are persecuted so much because of our lack of understanding and irrational fear. I’m glad that you aren’t one of those guys, BB.

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lothario:

We need to defend our vestiges of representative government whenever we can. I’ve listed these before, but, in no particular order, here are the biggest problems currently existing in our system that rob it of its representative/democratic characteristics:

  1. Judicial Activism;
  2. Gerrymandered electoral districts in the House of Representatives and on the State level;
  3. Lawmaking by bureaucratic agencies to which Congress has delegated “rulemaking” power; and (this is really related to 3)
  4. Prosecution by bureaucratic agencies to enforce those rules (and adjudication by bureaucratic judges).

The problem of voter ignorance pales in comparison to these problems.