 CALIFORNIA TAKES THE PLUNGE, BIBLE BEATERS BREATHLESS
With a divorce rate that has been over 50% for over thirty years, I have a very difficult time seeing what the imperative to "protect marriage" is. If marriage needs to be "defended" from anybody, people like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani - who are each on their third one - seem like the people it needs defending from.
Truth be told, I don't think that married people should have any inherent rights or benefits granted by the goddamned government. Anyone who thinks that marriage and the family need to be encouraged is a fucking idiot. I would argue that anyone who gets married and starts shitting out kids because of a tax break is the last person who should do either.
Get married or don't. I don't give a shit, and I can't think of a reason why anyone else, particularly the huge bureaucratic machine of government, would either. People are way too involved with other people's families. Worse still, is this conservative penchant for being busybodies in the name of small government. Jesus, how can any rational adult advocate the government defining the family when that same government was not long ago headed by a guy who couldn't define what the meaning of the word "is" is.
There's only one reason that I'm for gay marriage: I can't think of a reason to be against it without feeling like an idiot. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be against it. The anti-gay marriage jokes practically write themselves and it's very difficult to be funny supporting it. Unfortunately, I'm allergic to stupidity.
In a perfect world, the government wouldn't have a goddamned thing to do with marriage and people would mind their own business. In that world, conservatives would understand that arguing that the government can't deliver the mail, yet has a duty to sanctify and protect the family unit only serves to make them look foolish.
Conservatives, especially those of the silly social variety, base their opposition to homosexuality on biblical principles. Jesus, they tell us, wouldn't like all of this faggotry bounding about. Why, if Jesus saw, say, David Guest, He'd kick him square in the nuts. As we all know, He ain't down with that.
There's a small problem with that reasoning. The New Testament doesn't actually address homosexery. It does advocate the subjugation of women and the submission of slaves though.
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. 22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. 25 Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism. (4.1)Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
- Colossians 3 Wow, it turns out that modern society isn't based on biblical principles after all. Either that or Ike Turner is at God's right hand and Abraham Lincoln is burning in Hades as I write this. Amazingly, some folks are awfully selective about which biblical principles they advocate.
Having said that, same-sexery is mentioned quite a bit in the Old Testament, which is notable for its extremely pissy God. Not only is gay sex punishable by death, so is eating shell fish. Christ, the Book of Deuteronomy actually lays out the case for taking your wife to the gates of the city and stoning her to death should she backtalk you. Want to live by biblical principles? Let's start by banning Red Lobster and making spousal abuse fashionable again.
Furthermore, Christian conservatives believe that issues like gay marriage, or pretty much anything else should be decided by their elected representatives and not the courts. That ignores the fact that the concept of democracy is completely foreign to the Bible and the courts aren't. As I remember it, Jesus himself had an unfortunate encounter with the judiciary.
I find it incredibly odd that those most staunchly against same sex marriage are the same people who advocate monogamy the loudest. But the denial of marriage rights serves only to encourage homosexual promiscuity, which is the thing they seem to fear the most. As much as the Onward Christian Soldiers crowd wishes to the contrary, gay people aren't going anywhere. Wouldn't you prefer them behind a white picket fence as opposed to in a leather bar?
I've long maintained that adult life isn't all that different than its second grade counterpart in that we've never really grown out of pointing at one another and yelling "homo!" really loud. And nowhere is that more apparent than in American presidential politics.
I've had this argument before and I'm sure that I'll have it again. I'll always maintain that the 2004 election was won by the GOP on the backs of gay people. 11 states had gay marriage initiatives on their ballots that year and all of them carried.
The only state that passed a gay marriage amendment that went for John Kerry was Michigan, and that was much closer than it otherwise would have been. President Bush carried Ohio, which also had a ballot initiative, by about 100,000 votes. People vote against their economic interests all the time, but they rarely vote against their silly cultural interests. Does anyone really believe that 100,000 people voted to ban gay marriage and to elect Kerry at the same time?
Even though the president has absolutely nothing to do with marriage or constitutional amendments, Bush called for one banning gay marriage at about the time that Kerry became the Democratic nominee. This is what political professionals call "framing the issue." By making Kerry oppose the amendment, the GOP made him the candidate of homo nuptials. That Kerry's position on gay marriage was even more patently fucking ridiculous than Bush's was left unsaid.
And wouldn't you know it, just as another election is coming up, gay marriage becomes an issue again, this time in California. On Thursday the California Supreme Court ruled that the same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 22, violated the state's constitution.
With California, where 1 in 10 Americans live, recognizing gay marriage, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act - which was always unconstitutional - is essentially useless. Furthermore, just as the California ban violated the equal protection clause of the state constitution, it won't be long before the remaining state laws violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
If you look at marriage as a civil service provided by the government, the argument becomes clearer. If you see a civil marriage as being no different than education, you can't escape the conclusion that outright bans or "civil unions" are in violation of constitutional guarantees.
In 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that "separate yet equal" schools for African American children were in breach of the equal protection clause. How then can the states plausibly maintain a separate yet equal civil union regime for homosexuals. That was struck down on a racial basis in the 1967 Loving v. Virgina decision.
While it is true that the word "marriage" is not to be found in the Constitution, neither is "education." What Brown corrected was the application of a government service to a specific minority. And very few people would today assert that Brown was wrongly decided. Not even a strict constructionist would argue that because education is not a specifically designated right, Brown is an example of an activist judiciary.
Conservative commentators and bloggers have charged that this is another example of the judiciary "creating law." It is not. The Fourteenth Amendment never refers to race, gender or sexual orientation, merely "the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." This is not the creation of new law at all.
Furthermore, the California ruling, like the one before it in Massachusetts, does not compel religious institutions to perform marriage ceremonies for homosexuals, as that would violate their free exercise rights under the First Amendment. The rulings are exclusive to government recognition of civil marriages. The Catholic Church, for example, refuses to recognize divorce and no one suggests that that is unconstitutional. This is not an example of the courts controlling religion. It is the courts forcing the state government to comply with its own constitution.
Of course, California is a peculiar place in that they allow for the incredibly dumb and counter-productive practice of direct democracy. Proposition 22, we will be reminded, was passed with 61.4% of the vote less than eight years ago. That means less than nothing in so far as if the will of the majority were paramount, there would be no need for constitutional protects at all. Those individual protections are a specific check on the power of the majority. If, for example, the people of California voted for the internment of Muslims after 9/11, it would still be unconstitutional even if 100% of the voters approved it.
But this will be a major factor in this year's elections, just as the Massachusetts decision was in 2004. Republicans, losing as they are seats in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi, will argue that this is another case of an activist judiciary, despite the fact that the case was decided solely on the merits of California constitution, not the federal one.
It also puts John McCain in a peculiar position. In 2006, he opposed the incredibly wrongheaded Federal Marriage Amendment, but supported and campaigned for a similiar measure in Arizona. McCain rightly believed that marriage is an issue for the individual states to decide.
The problem for McCain is that the state of California has decided and Governor Schwarzenegger has declared that he will not support a constitutional amendment to moot In re Marriage Cases. McCain cannot very well be supportive of the decision lest he antagonize the retarded right wing of his party, but he can't condemn it without undermining his support for state's rights.
Of course, the GOP will return to it's cudgel of "activist judges." It's worked for them before and it is one of the very few selling points it has left. That that argument undermines the third branch of government and the rule of law itself doesn't matter, nor does the fact that the current child president of the United States arguably owes his tenures of office to an "activist judiciary."
Not that any of that matters. Gay marriage is too far along to realistically stop now. Between California, Massachusetts, the "full faith and credit clause," and a distinct lack of support for a marriage amendment in the country and the states, the cause of same-sex marriage is unstoppable.
Gay marriage is now legal in California, Massachusetts, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa and Spain. Foreign marriages are legally recognized in Aruba, Israel, New Mexico, New York and Rhode Island.
And you know what? Life hasn't ended in any of those places. It won't end anywhere else either.
Easy Listening Recommendation of the Day: Honeymoon Blues By: Robert Johnson From: The Complete Recordings
PermalinkLabels: Fun With Politics, I Fought The Law, The Department of Professional Outrage
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