Gay Marriage: An Issue Whose Time Has Gone
Tags: gay marriage, Morality.
Click here to get Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority by Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan.
Proponents did have high hopes that Maine would prove their signal victory:
Cecelia Burnett and Ann Swanson had already set their wedding date. When they joined about 1,000 other gay marriage supporters for an election night party in a Holiday Inn ballroom, they hoped to celebrate the vote that would make it possible.
Instead, they went home at midnight, dejected and near tears after a failed bid to make Maine the first state to approve same-sex marriage at the ballot box.
“I’m ready to start crying,” said Burnett, a 58-year-old massage therapist, walking out of the ballroom early Wednesday with Swanson at her side. “I don’t understand what the fear is, why people are so afraid of this change.
“It hurts. It hurts personally,” she said. “It’s a personal rejection of us and our relationship, and I don’t understand what the fear is.”
I could say that its ok for gay marriage advocates to think that fear doomed them in Maine but it is not wise to be party to a lie; even a comforting lie. Its also a rather absurd lie – Maine not being noted as a hotbed of anti-gay sentiment. Each time one of the liberal States votes on gay marriage I’m always prepared for a loss – and each time my side, the pro-marriage side, comes out ahead. Demographics, time of year, type of election, money spent…doesn’t matter. Gay marriage is an electoral loser – and I’ll bet that if the States where it is legal were to actually put it to a vote, gay marriage would fall in those States, too. It isn’t fear. It isn’t hate. Its just that gay marriage isn’t wanted.
Why not? Bottom line, marriage is for one man and one woman. You say you are attracted to members of the same sex? Ok. You say you’ve always been attracted to members of the same sex? Fine. You say that you love your same sex partner? No problem. You say that you can’t be happy in life unless you have gay sex and marry your same sex partner? Nonsense.
To hold that only a particular type of sex will do for happiness is to reduce the human being – endowed by God with reason – to a mere animal appetite. It can be the most pleasurable feeling you’ve ever had, but it not only cannot be but must not be what makes you happy. What makes a person happy – in a rational society – is doing the right thing even when inconvenient. Actually, especially when its inconvenient. It is when we set aside self and seek to serve others that we become both fully rational and fully human – one of the things some people may have to set aside to do this is sex. And don’t get all shocked about it – priests and nuns have been doing it for quite a long while now; no, not all of them are gay, but it shows that setting aside sex is neither impossible nor rare.
If a person wishes to be happily married – to do the right thing, that is, by marriage, spouse and children – then that person will have to set aside, at the least, homosexual sex. The two can’t go together, not and be a marriage as understood in our usage (which is another article – I’ve discussed what marriage is for in the past: boiled down – it isn’t about mere sex, tax breaks, inheritance or medical decision making). A gay person can marry – any member of the opposite sex who proves willing. In return for giving up gay sex, such a gay person would be gaining a whole lot – and need not give up loving other gay people; just can’t have sex with them. Or a gay person can refuse to give up gay sex – and stay with a gay partner and execute whatever legal documents are necessary to meld two lives together. And that is fine – but it isn’t marriage, and it isn’t a denial of anyone’s human rights to refuse to call it marriage.
And so the votes keep coming out – no, no and no, again. Its not wanted; it isn’t marriage. Its to be tolerated, but toleration doesn’t require approval – even merely implied approval. The only thing proponents can do is keep pressing the issue until a constitutional amendment is provoked – and that might even impinge upon domestic partnership.
We have many battles to fight – basic liberty is under threat from government gone wild with liberalism. Anyone who loves freedom must pick his or her battles carefully – there is nothing the liberals would love better than to have conservatism and libertarianism arguing over issues like gay marriage while they ram through universal health care, “cap and trade” and other freedom destroying programs. Better for those who advocate from gay marriage from a non-left perspective to rest content on domestic partnership and leave off attempts to do what the clear majority does not want done.
UPDATE: Turnout was an astounding 60% in Maine. That is the kind of turnout you get in Presidential years, not off-off-year elections. I’m telling you, the people have spoken once and for all on this issue.
Mark Noonan is co-author (with Matt Margolis) of Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority. He also blogs at Nevada News and Views. Follow Mark on Twitter.
38 Responses to “Gay Marriage: An Issue Whose Time Has Gone”
Caucus of Corruption
gay marrage may well be “a loser”.
civil unions are not.
some open issues include benefits & probate.
I think marriage should not be regulated or recognized by the government at any level. Marriage is a religious construct and should be left to each religion to define as they see fit. If a state government believes there is a need to recognize unions, the couple can fill out a contract for a civil union that provides the same rights and benefits to all regardless of their sex.
kmg1, I second the motion. The notion of “marriage” is a subterfuge that obfuscates the underlying legal issues at stake.
What I find offensive is the kind of rhetoric Mark engages in, which openly pushes to deny people equal protection under the law. Why the blatant lack of respect for your fellow human beings? Why is a cilvil union that provides people with the legal protections of marriage so offensive?
Wow–I actually agree with both orrin and kmg.
Everyone should have equal rights and protections under the law, and conservatives tend to agree that homosexual couples should be able to construct a legal partnership which would convey the same rights—-and responsibilities—-as marriage.
I wonder why gay couples don’t take advantage of this to create a word which defines their unique situation, instead of stridently demanding that a historical and culturally important and clearly understood definition be retoooled just for them.It is awkward for a man to refer to his partner as a husband, or a lesbian to refer to her wife, and I am always surprised that this demographic doesn’t step up and create new words which would accurately define their status.
I am also sick and tired of the whining that those who simply value the historical, cultural, and religious meaning of the word ‘marriage’ are really somehow “scared”. It may make them feel better to demonize and marginalize those who don’t agree with them, but it simply makes them look silly and petty, and creates more divisiveness.
I saw nothing in Mark’s post which advocated denying any people equal rights under the law.
He did, however, defend the historical, cultural, and religious meaning of a specific word.
This issue is all about the financial side of being “married” – nothing more nothing less.
It is not about “love”. I know several couples that are perfectly happy without the little piece of paper saying they are “married”.
Tiredoflibbs
It is about social engineering, the ousting of Christianity from all discussion and the breakdown of our society as a whole to usher in marxism.
Sodomy does not imply “marriage” it is lust and perversion.
If they want to do that in the confines of their own homes fine, give them a “couple” status and the same financial restraints as real married people have OK.
However homosexuality has become an agenda, a political and personal club they freely wield…thus the resistance.
neocon
You are just a bitter, self-promoting and preachy individual.
You keep talking about sodomy and marriage, but that can’t be the basis of marriage.
If that where the case and everytime that some man cheats on his wife it takes a brick out of your theory. Yes, there is lust and pervesion, but it has nothing to do with who you are screwing. People should all have the same rights leagally and leave the religion out of the debate.
The two lesbians can live together, but if they want to be married, then they need to think about their own perverse, warped thinking, because God never created them to be attracted in the reverse manner … that being to the same-sex, in other words…He created them to be attracted to the opposite sex, to a man – The problem being that they would have been attracted to the opposite sex if they had been raised by caring parents, but most likely they didn’t, so they were taken in by the State run public school system, and thus, were taught to be attracted to the same-sex or that it’s “ok”, which is a lie…a lie from Satan, all lies flowing from Satan’s mouth.
Children are created with the uniting of a man to a woman, and were never intended to have a woman “father” for their upbringing…that’s why He, God, created a man for fathering, and a woman for being mothers to their children…not the other way around.
Many children grow up and after years of indulgence in perversion finally come to realize how wrong their teachers were, and after they have contracted a deadly disease…and the tragedy being that they become violent and murder somebody, or get on drugs and commit suicide…and this happens on a daily basis. A young girl, 23 years old, just took her life by overdose last evening due to this.
The school system teaches children that perversion is “normal”, when it is not. Abortion also teaches children that “life is cheap”, and creates a hopeless picture in the minds of young teens as to their future…and thus, violence runs rampant in our schools and streets.
Many factors contribute to the carnage that we find ourselves in … Welfare, bad parenting, no or reverse values in school teaching, abortion, worldly/secular preaching in our churches and this is why we don’t see marriages reaching their platinum levels of 75 years, just think if Abraham Lincoln who was married 75 years…much different today…men and women today just use each other for as long as they think they need each other and then move to someone else, and so America has become a dying nation.
It will take a revolution of monumental proportions in order to begin to repair, if at all possible, the damage that has occurred and is occurring.
ufgators
Bitter?
STOP….. with the nonsense.
so you doing your german shapherd is the same as hetero marriage between a man and a woman?
or is an un-natural act? like sodomy.
marraige is a step in the natural process of reproduction…the commitment to each other that is demanded of two people who become parents…mother and father…
to pervert marraige into a tax or social issue is to forget what purpose it serves in society…which is not one of lust…but one of creation…one that nurtures the next generation…teaching them what the natural order of life itself is all about…you cannot progress on perfection…
the liberal progression in socializing sodomy as a natural human behavior does not advance society…it retards humanities social and mental maturation into a society that lives for nothing more than selfish lust…
we really should not celebrate sexual identity dysfunction…we should cure it and right the wrongs in the confusion of its victims
Unless you’re some kind of marriage-hating hypocrite, you’ll want to get on board with:
rescuemarriage.org
Because marriage is forever!
Amazona,
What KMG and winnow miss (and its no surprise, but it is tiresome) is that the problem here is that attempts to enact gay marriage are likely to lead to a backlash where even domestic partnership legislation is imperiled. Gay marriage is a dead letter – from Maine to Hawaii it has been rejected by the American people dozens of times. This is not something which can be ignored or downplayed. Domestic partnership is another thing, though – and in this the gay marriage people, if they’ll wise up, can get a great deal of what they want.
If, after all is said and done, they are motivated by a desire to help people – if they are motivated by rancor, then they’ll keep pressing this to political suicide.
You know the old saying Mark … give your enemy an inch, he’ll take a mile.
jeremiah,
As the ancient Greeks said, “whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”. I think our gay marriage proponents are a bit on the crazy side: I think they’ll press the issue until we’re forced to amend the constitution just to protect the concept of marriage as well as States’ Rights.
Mark,
Why do you want your religious beliefs enshrined in the Constitution? My position is one of religous freedom, your’s is of theocracy. Let each religion define marriage however they want, but the government should not be involved in any way.
I am not deeply invested in this issue, but…
On the issue of allowing “marriage” to be used as a definition, I am indifferent.
On the issue of giving couples of the same sex equal rights to heterosexual couples, I tentatively approve.
This does not mean that I support such things as the blatantly raucous and sexual public behavior of the so-called gay-pride parades. Sexuality has nothing to do with ignoring public decency.
That or the government should completely stay out of the issue of marriage. They didn’t involve themselves until after the Civil War anyway.
Mark,
I hope so. And as you mentioned States right, the Second Amendment is a very important one–http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1u0Byq5Qis&feature=related
At the end is a good to show why we need the Second amendment…it being in response to a Communist’s video – “Constitutionalists are terrorists.”
kmg1,
The government has no right to join anybody together, and if they do, the only people they can join together is a man and a woman. All authority belong to God alone. Authority which exists in the created realm is there by God’s design and permission–and He gives no permission to join two people of the same sex together under any circumstances…in fact, He does not condone their attraction for one another in the first place, as it goes against nature, and His created order. He gives mothers and fathers their authority over their children. Everything must be followed by His dictates for the nation and all nations, there being no legitimate authority outside His authority. Thus, all contracts are binding under His provision that He delegates to mankind, and if we go outside it, and this goes for all governmental as well as civil authorities, it is no longer considered a breaking of the contract and the government therefore becomes a contract-breaker, and would, under normal circumstances receive disapproval and widespread criticism for their contract-breaking, provided that their hearts are in keeping with the contract…the same goes with individuals on a societal basis–if they disobey God’s decree, then the government is to correct this wrong by punishing it with their disapproval.
If authority is self-derived, then there can be no order in society…as parents can’t operate in their delegated spheres…and you can see how that applies to today’s society as we are experiencing it, with the permitting of multiculturalism, and diverse and perverse lifestyles permeating the Nation to bring it to its unfortunate demise.
So, if we are to be free, and we can only be free and make progress for happiness nationally… we must operate within the parameters set forth in God’s law.
Call it a theocracy, call it what you will … but God and his law are very real, and it must be exercised to the fullest extent.
the constitution achieves its validity based on the declaration of independence…which states in no uncertain terms…that the laws of nature and natures God are the guiding lights to entitlements that the government is obligated to recognize and protect…those rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…
when we use our constitution however to uphold the perversion of nature, homosexuality, sodomy, deviant sexual behaviors that are neither natural or decent…then we ourselves violate the very spirit that created the freedom which we enjoy…can a tree stand for long when it cuts off the roots that it sprouted from?
not even…
kmg,
I think your problem is that you don’t know what a theocracy is. It would help if you’d bestir yourself to actually find things out and not mindlessly repeat things you’ve learned by rote.
That is clearly what you want, Mark. You want this country’s laws to follow biblical law. Your church says abortion is evil, so abortion must be outlawed. Your church says marriage is only between a man and a woman, so it must be legislated that way. If you had your way, birth control would be illegal. We can argue over to what degree you prefer theocracy, but it is what you want.
you gotta be joking kmg1…your description perfectly fits iran…and you accuse mark of what?
you confuse and omit 90% of the truth so you can use a cheap, 10% lie…
you should also attack the founding fathers as well, no? after all…they used christian principals to create the constitution…get that…and they told us we had a republic!!
(the truth is, christian principals were what created america, and when we stray from our roots we will destroy it)
Active humanists and the liberal media have for years undertaken a concentrated effort to misinform the American public by attacking the “Religious Right” and rewriting America’s Judeo-Christian history in a humanistic tone. The motto at the heart of the American experiment “in God we trust” has been exchanged for “in Man we trust.”
America’s Godly HeritageRewriting History
The last three generations of Americans simply have not been told the truth about American history as its Christian heritage has been disparaged.
For example, ask most Americans if the “separation of church and state” is in our Constitution, and they will answer yes. You can scour the Constitution of the United States, and you will NOT find the phrase, “separation of church and state” or anything close to it.
In the Constitution of the Soviet Union, however, the doctrine of the separation of Church and State is found: “In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the U.S.S.R. is separated from the State, and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens” (Article 124). Article Twelve of the 1918 Soviet Constitution decrees that no church or religious organization “shall enjoy the rights of judicial person.” Instruction of children under age 18 in religious matters, whether in public or private, is against the law.
The concept of separation of church and state might be implied by the First Amendment which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” It says nothing about the “separation of church and state.” And, even if you accept the principle of the separation of church and state being implied by the First Amendment, it’s implication is not there to protect Americans from religion, it is there to protect religious Americans from the government.
In their desire to promote their secular humanist philosophy using the power of government, many liberals today want to alter America’s Christian heritage, remove religion from its history, and replace it with the Soviet doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Their desire is not to safeguard denominational neutrality by the state as the Founders intended, it is to eradicate every vestige of religion from our public institutions.
“Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag of our country and nail it below the Cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden times, and let us gather around it an inscribed for our motto: “Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever,” and exclaim, Christ first, our country next!” — Andrew Johnson
js,
Iran is at one extreme end of theocracy. Jeremiah is the one who wants the US to be run in the manner of Iran. Mark doesn’t want to go quite that far.
kmg
only in your imagination, which is vast.
kmg1,
There are two types of theocracy – One which brings freedom, and the other which brings zero freedom.
China is one which brings zero freedom – people are taken out in the field and shot through the head for believing in Jesus Christ. China is a theocracy, man being the peoples and government’s god. There is a Christian underground movement in China, but they can’t express publicly their belief in Jesus Christ, or they will be arrested and shot.
Now, if I’m not mistaken, that’s what you want, is it not? You want your opinions (man’s opinions) to rule.
Because that’s exactly what will happen if Obama’s czars have their way…there will be many lose their lives to your mentality…in fact, many already have, who never had a say in their fate, those being the helpless unborn.
Let me just offer some advice … your friend Obama is not very bright as it pertains to the good, and is being used as an instrument for evil. He is resurrecting Mao Tse Sung and every other rabid, blood-thirsty dictator in the world through his administrations efforts to implement their policies, and which is the “CHANGE” that he started his administration on. And you know, the way you go about giving support to him and his administration puts me the mind of a snake, giving “credence” to, and subsidizing (through words) the death of innocent unborn children, and the lifestyles of the perverted, and the freedom-destroying philosophies of Karl Marx, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, etc, etc. I don’t know, there is just something very ill-intended about you.
Do you worship at a Ouija board? Do you drink animals blood or anything like that? Did you jump up and down with cheer or smile when that Muslim man shot and killed 13 people and wounded 30 others?
What make you so ill-intended toward those who want to see life have a chance?
People,
Gay issues are dynamic, ever changing and the position by the right is close to extinction. In my generation telling gay jokes was an easy laugh. But tell one now and some of the younger crowd may just look at you funny. The bias against those that are different is moving towards passe. Whether it is 5, 10 or 15 years before it happens, the majority of states will soon give gay people the same rights as the rest of us and the number one threat to straight marriage will be straight people who do not follow the vows they made on their wedding day. That will not change.
cam1,
The younger generation don’t keep their marriage vows now the way it is, and the homosexual relationships don’t last because they’re not really happy, and they can’t be…thus, they have a high tendency to promiscuity in search of happiness in which they will not find, and ultimately become doomed to eternity in hell without Jesus Christ, their only source of hope. What a tragedy!
jeremiah,
You are a worthless inbred piece of s$@t.
I am a retired Army veteran and you have the nerve to suggest that I jumped up and down, cheered, and smiled when 13 of my fellow soldiers were murdered? That is about as offensive a statement as you could possibly make.
So, I am done with your ignorant bigoted, racist religious beliefs and I am done with your sorry ass. F@*k Off And Die.
kmg1,
I asked you some specific questions…now are you going to answer them or not?
I don’t need any of your temper tantrums and trash talk. Leave that with your buddies as the Daily Kos.
And I can’t help it because your an unhappy camper … of course, it is normal for those who are atheists and don’t know inner peace. So, only you can do something about that.
So quit sipping on the dog poop slurpy you have there, and just answer the questions or leave. It’s simple as that.
FOAD, jeremiah. You are a disgusting little pussy who couldn’t hold a candle to the least of those who wear the uniform. If you faced half of what they face on a daily basis, you would piss your pants and go screaming for your mommy. You are not worthy of the slightest bit of respect. This is the last time I will even acknowledge your pathetic little existence.
FOAD.
kmg1,
Well I don’t owe you any respect either, nor do any of your fellow soldiers, because they fought and continue to fight for the rights of Christians everywhere, not for your idiocy, you can bank on that. All I am doing is giving you a chance to redeem your pathetic self.
But since you want to crawl on your belly and spit venom all over the place, you don’t deserve a place at the table here. So please leave…l.e.a.v.e.
Whats the use of being an army veteran if you have nothing but hate and stupidity to share? Certainly you missed the most important lesson the Army teaches, and that is to have common sense and good tactic’s. If you dont respect the life of an unborn child, or the natural use of the human body enough to reject perverse sexual behavior, all you “deserve” is spit on, KMG.
js,
Quit talking and do something. If abortion and homosexuality are such evils, you are nothing but a blowhard if you aren’t out there following in the footsteps of your hero who murdered Tiller.
lip service…is that all ya got…i did do something stooge…
i shut you down and all ya got left is to attack me…
your false nobility is nothing more than a sham…no matter how hard ya try…ya cant bear good fruit…cause your on a stooge tree…nothing good can come from that tree…its rotten…
Shut me down? Did I just hear a pussy fart? You haven’t done squat because you are a coward.
you gotta crystal ball or is that your ego talkin?
besides, obscene stuff like that only goes to show how far you have your head stuffed up your beeehind….nothing that you have can be taken serious…nothing good can come from you…you really are a rotten fruit from a rotten tree…